Netflog

What I Saw in Theaters in 2011, Part 5

2012-01-03T13:43:00.005-05:00

The ad to the left is one piece of the viral marketing campaign that accompanied the release of "Limitless," which included a fairly convincing dummy website for the designer pharmaceutical NZT that only definitively reveals itself on the side effects page. "Others reported experiencing violent thoughts, brain damage, blackouts, suicidal feelings, homicidal feelings, extreme paranoia, rapid aging, time dysplasia, psychosis and possibly even death." Perfect pitch, pitch perfect.

Like high concepts that seem a bit thin in previews but turn out to be pretty dense, as well as Spike Lee's best movies ("Clockers," "Malcolm X," "25th Hour," and maybe even the rumored "Oldboy" remake), "Limitless" is adapted from original, written material. This phenomenon supports the strongest piece of advice Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon offer in the excellent, hilarious and mildly-depressing-if-you-allow-it "Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!," which is "You simply have to write an outline to write a screenplay." Spend a lot of time and energy on the blueprints and the skyscraper almost builds itself.

Oh, also, if you have any interest in writing movies for a living, click the link, buy and (important step I skip about half the time) read the book, purchase a slick new suit and submit your resume to Initech.

What I Saw in Theaters in 2011, Part 4

2012-01-03T12:16:00.007-05:00

The popcorn wasn't stale.

What I Saw in Theaters in 2011, Part 3

2012-01-03T10:31:00.004-05:00

I'm dropping "and liked" from the title of this series. I plan to write about everything I saw in theaters last year and, turns out, I didn't like every one of them. But let's keep in mind going 4 for 10-career would make you a unanimous first ballot hall of fame lock. And at the very least these folks are doing something, anything. I'm sitting here in my pajamas. So I am going to make an effort to unearth the gold nuggets we might have overlooked in the rocky soil of disappointments. Or at least keep it light.

It turns out "disappointment" is a big part of the movie-going and movie-evaluating experience. We head off to see a picture we've been itching for since the trailers started showing up 9 months earlier. "I love that director," those actors, the book, the screenwriter, the director of photography, popcorn and red vines! Whatever. We're convinced it's going to shake the foundations of experience. Suck it Bill Blake! I want to fall from innocence!

And then we realize the director is punching a ticket (one for me, one for the studio), that actor, as charismatic as a stranger in cream-colors, is miscast, the book is better, the screenwriter's voice is washed out by the 12 mercenaries the studio hired, the DP, well, his work is always beautiful, but the popcorn is stale and, Jesus wept, red vines are $5.75! Whatever. There are, without exaggeration, at least 6,000,000 ways any given picture can die. Choose one. That as many as 10 good movies per year survive death sentence by committee is a bona fide miracle.

My point being we rashly, harshly and somewhat casually dismiss solid movies in that moment of hot disappointment, only to return to them later and concede, "Y'know "Observe & Report" was pretty good. It just wasn't what I was expecting that day. I'm going to go back and add a star in Netflix."

Peace be with you.
And also with your soul.

What I Saw, And Liked, in Theaters in 2011, Part 2

2012-01-02T08:52:00.003-05:00

Ugh. I have no love for "Sucker Punch" other than the affection implied when I say this, what I experienced must be the same five stages of disappointment a teacher suffers when a star student submits a stiff, stale, stolid stinker.

What do the Zack Snyder triumphs "Dawn of the Dead," "300" and "Watchmen" all share that "Sucker Punch" does not? Each was adapted from original material written by other storytellers. "Sucker Punch?" Story and screenplay by Snyder. The visuals are insane, and I'll suffer any excuse to watch Carla Gugino merely draw breath, even if the exhalation produces a hysterically terrible com-bloc accent. I suggest "Californication," Season 4, or "Watchmen" for that matter, to reset your crush.

But even watching the preview a-way back in 2010, with a woman over 40, thank you very much, I felt a mounting anxiety, like watching the soda jerk pile your ice cream too high in the dish. And then she stage-whispered "that looks ridiculous." And it did. And it was.

Sidebar. I also bear a special, everlasting grudge for this particular movie because it was the first one I saw in 2011 at a Harkins theater, which offers free-popcorn loyalty shirts ($20) and $1-refill loyalty cups ($5). And despite seeing a matinee ($7), the privilege of being sucker-punched by one of my favorite filmmakers cost me 30-[redacted]-2 dollars.

Okay, I've drained the abscess. Excelsior!

What I Saw, And Liked, in Theaters in 2011, Part 1

2012-01-01T22:42:00.012-05:00

I'm going to attack this chronologically, and it's just going to be quick and dirty, whatever comes to mind. Nnngo!

"The Fighter," what more can I say that hasn't already been said, now, a year later? It was David O. Russell's first feature since the difficult "I Heart Huckabees," (2004), a movie I feel I should like more than I do, but will have to watch more times than I have.

This one is more accessible, being straightforward uplifting biopic grist. Wahlberg is his usual sturdy lead, "The Happening" notwithstanding. Amy Adams plays a fully formed, gritty, sexy adult ladywoman. A refreshing change of pace. Conan O'Brien's sister is here too, playing one of the knockabout sisters. And Christian Bale, again with the whipsaw weight loss and gain and loss again. From machinist Trevor Reznik to Batman to Dieter Dengler to John Connor to Dicky Eklund, he continues to worry me. These ups and downs are just not good for you. (Which brings to mind the ascendance of the brutal, fantastic Tom Hardy, but I'll get to him on another day.) The performance is spooky, sad, funny and sympathetic. And pretty spot on when compared to the real life footage played through the end credits, and was amply rewarded at the business end of several red carpets.

"Megamind," great script, great cast of voice actors, and an actual scary villain in the Jonah Hill-voiced Titan. Hell hath no fury like a fanboy scorned. But despite making about $140M, it cost about $130M to make and had the misfortune of following close on the heels of another villain turned hero tale: "Despicable Me," ($69M to make, made $250M+). Still, a lot of fun.

Harrison Ford continues to insist on bringing the curmudgeon he seems to have actually become to the screen. Enjoy!

Actually, do. It's the right choice here. But I would like to see him whoop it up with something approaching joy just one more time. I'm looking at you "Cowboys & Aliens." Even though it's the right choice there too. Would someone just cast him in a cupcake shop on the skids movie already?

Well, Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Wilson and Ty Burrell are all charming and funny and winning and the anti-Phil Dunphy as necessary for this paper cone of cotton candy to work as it does. And Rachel McAdams, or her booty double (who cares which, really), provides pretty solid proof that she looks Frosted Flakes in boy shorts: grrreat!

"The Social Network." Yeahyeahyeah, Eisenberg plays sinister like you haven't seen before. Timberlake surprises. He's a remora along for the ride in "Alpha Dog," but here he's the dead-eyed shark, circling. Fincher crushes as usual. Sorkin writes the impossible, the story of facebook, equaled, maybe surpassed, only by the adaptation of the baseball economics treatise "Moneyball." Oh, which Sorkin also wrote. I hear he's got a treatment for Tom Friedman's "The Lexus and The Olive Tree." In theaters July 4th!

But what jumps out at me now, a year later, is the introduction of Rooney Mara to big time features. Briefly appearing as Zuckerberg's girlfriend in the opening, she jilts him and sets his obsessiveness in motion, the engine that drives the whole picture. Now she can be seen reprising Noomi Rapace's role as the girl with the dragon tattoo in the English-language remake. (Noomi, Rooney, that's funny.) Well, having read the book, and seen both movies, as good as Rapace's performance was, Mara's Lisbeth Salander seems the more feral and faithful to the book. But more on that later.

Still Bill

2011-04-17T14:35:00.004-04:00

Released in 2009, this documentary catches up with 1970s/80s R&B singer-songwriter Bill Withers, who wrote, among a lot of songs to which you might be surprised to find you know all the words (“Lean on Me,” “Lovely Day,” “Just the Two of Us”), one of my very favorites: “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

He released his final studio album in 1989 and left the limelight with little explanation in the early 90s. After growing up in a coal mining camp in West Virginia with a stutter, serving 9 years in the Navy and making toilet seats on a Boeing production line, Withers didn’t find fame until, with zero music education or experience, he wrote his first song, “…Sunshine,” in his early 30s. Incredible. I’m a fan and this doc only increased my appreciation of the music and the man. Especially touching are his visit to a theater group for kids with stutters and his daughter, Kori, singing her song “Blue Blues” for him.

Incidentally, I learned about this one listening to the podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience." Turns out the former Taekwando champion, “Talk Radio” player, “Fear Factor” host and current UFC commentator, is a pretty clever monkey and a rock solid comic. His specials “Live” and “Talking Monkeys in Space” are both streamable on Netflix.

As Blake would say now, “ooh-ooh-ooh-ah-ah-ah!"

Apes Will Rise

2011-04-16T11:28:00.004-04:00

Well, that's a shame. Being that exposition is always my favorite part, the prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes is set right where I prefer to vacation. Iconic franchise, great cast, exciting trailer, complete with blatting horns and tick-ticky stopwatch tension. And yet, no deal.

For the same reason True Grit (2010), despite all the knockdown, dragout kickassery it featured, left me disappointed in the end, Rise will fall: cartoon monkeys. True, Grit's failure was snakes, but the dissimulacrumilarity's the same. (Yep! New word, made it up, try it free for 30 days.) Why go digital when you can so easily use practical effects. See: the snake chamber in Raiders, the shapeshift in An American Werewolf in London, Kermit riding a bike. What do these movies have in common? They're all more than 25 years old. Surely suits and prosthetics have improved in the last generation. Weta Digital's behind the animation here, which is funny considering their role in the Rings Trilogy, populated with legions of suited, masked, completely convincing orcs and tigers and bears. Oh my.

Also gorillas can't pull helicopters out of the sky. But who am I this morning, other than a bespectacled, over-caffeinated nerd in his pajamas. Watch the trailer and decide for yourself.

'Friends' Clone Round-Up

2011-04-14T12:33:00.003-04:00

‘Traffic Light’ The slightest of the contenders. Less funny than just amusing. But, Roy from the office, and that dude w/ the big black glasses who was in ‘Scott Pilgrim.’

‘Cougar Town’ Funny, stars an actual Friend and Christa Miller of Scrubs 1.0. Plus drunks.

‘Perfect Couples’ Recently cancelled, but a favorite. Olivia Munn, Waitress from ‘Sunny,’ the Biederman doppelganger David Walton and dammit, when is Kyle Bornheimer of the late, great ‘Worst Week’ going to land a show that sticks?

‘Happy Endings’ The newest of the pack, and not bad. Elisha Cuthbert (bonus points if you know why this line is funny: “Are you trying to get yourself sold into white slavery?”), the grouchy blond from Scrubs 2.0, and the least annoying Wayans: Damon Jr., which is to say not Marlon. Also, most importantly, features my second favorite Casey Wilson.

Youth In Revolt

2010-09-16T00:44:00.006-04:00

A boring trailer. A terrible (movie) title, putting one in the mind of smelly Che Guevara t-shirts, and ratty Castro caps. The only reason I persevered and eventually allowed Netflix to tee this one up was I was less interested in Casino Jack & The United States of Money that day. One can only watch so many documentaries without a snack break.

And plus, hey, Michael Cera. I figured, "Yeah, I know what I'm going to get. Serve it up." But here he plays two characters: the Cera type we all know by now, and which I was looking forward to, and a more sinister, deeper-voiced Francois, who is funny merely because Cera is playing him. He even changes his slouchy physicality; it's an impressive bit of split-screen doppelganger-y. It's not Sam Rockwell(s) in Moon, a master class, but it's fun.

More, it's directed with a real sense of visual fun, incorporating some great stop-motion, slow-mo and animated sequences, which make a timeworn coming-of-age story seem fresh. And Miguel Arteta's got some real indie street cred, having directed Star Maps, Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl, not to mention my favorite Office episode ever: Diwali!

Anyway, catch this however you do what you do. It's worth every penny of the $1.09 you'd pay Redbox. Then watch Election again. And it's right up there with Assassination of a High School President. And if you've never seen The Chocolate War, give that a whirl too.

3-D

2010-07-02T11:52:00.002-04:00

Just want to get this down in writing before it becomes the new call to arms: 3-D, as it applies to movies that is, isn't going to last. The cost-benefit ratio approaches zero. After having seen Clash of the Titans and Toy Story 3, I want my two dollars. Or in these cases six.

It Might Get Loud

2010-01-04T12:51:00.002-05:00

Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page sit down together to talk about whether the guitar found them or they found the guitar, and play for each other and together. The look on Jack White’s face when Jimmy Page starts crunching “Ramble On” is, well, check it out. And when the three of them start pushing “Kashmir” around between them your mouth will drop open with a dumb, slack smile. Intercut with interviews and staged pieces and POV verite clips, it has a loose, free-flowing ease and when it’s over you feel, “can’t we hang out just a little longer?” Well, there are some interesting deleted scenes to get you over the hump. That they were left out was the right choice, but they’re not the usual deleted scene dreck, worth a look.

And an interesting production note for aspiring documentarians: the director, Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”), explains in the bonus press conference segment that he found his way in to this subject in the same way he stumbled on with Gore. He started with one-on-one interviews that a) provide the bulk of the voiceover and b) point him toward the things he’ll want to film with a full crew. Smart and economical.

Assassination of a High School President

2009-11-21T01:10:00.003-05:00

Wow, a completely overlooked and enjoyable adaptation of "Chinatown"-as-high school noir. It shares a lot in common with "Brick," but the formal touch is lighter, so you won't be left talking like James Cagney for the next couple of days, "yeah see!" Which is actually pretty fun, now that I think about it. But the soundtrack's better, so I suppose you'll win either way.

The casting from beginning to end is just right, Reece Thompson of "Rocket Science," Mischa Barton, Bruce Willis and on down the line. Every one. And the script is tight and funny and resolves with a guffaw of recognition. Good stuff.

"Forget it Funke, it's high school."

(Apologies for the layoff this week, but I'm afraid I had to heed the Call of Duty. Also I discovered PlayOn software for the XBox. This app is amazing. Pipe web content like Hulu and YouTube, or your own video files all of which you've grown accustomed to hunching in front of the laptop screen to watch to the big boy tv through the magic of the Microsoft box. Free two week trial, install is 100% idiot-proof. Like it, and you will, and it's yours for $40 or so.)

Paranormal Activity

2009-11-16T15:46:00.002-05:00

This first one is a softball. If you like-a the scary movies, you're going to want to see Paranormal Activity, in a theatre, with other people. And, if possible, you're going to want to have someone to go home with, although it won't matter. It can still get you if it wants.

I happened to see PA while on a trip with friends. We shared an adjoining suite and stayed up a-waaay past our bedtimes, so there wasn't much time between head hitting pillow and falling asleep. But my dreams were troubled. And when, like all good things do, the trip concluded and I returned to my apartment alone there was a reckoning. But, like the Blair Witch Project, the torment eventually subsided. And luckily I don't a) have hollow, thunky wooden floors, b) live in a two-story home, or c) have a long hallway leading to the closet with the crawlspace hatch. Shiver.

Sleep tight.

90 Movies in 90 Days, Beginning Monday, November 16th

2009-11-15T17:50:00.003-05:00

To quote the funniest, well really one of only two funny things Rob Schnieder's ever said: "You can do it!" (In this case "you" is me. I hope that's clear.)

Bonus points if you can tell me the other funny thing. Go!

Eight Days A Week. Well, Six, But Still.

2009-04-18T14:11:00.002-04:00

It appears that Netflix, in the Phoenix metro area at least, is now receiving and shipping on Saturday too. This is a game-changer for me. I'd gotten in the habit of holding a movie over until Monday, rather than pushing to finish it Friday, figuring the weekend was a wash. But now, it's go time.

Traitor

2009-04-11T17:39:00.006-04:00

Remote-piloting my MQ-1 Predator attack drone over my queue the last couple months I’ve had this nagging feeling that I was missing something. Some enemy, both foreign and domestic, hiding in plain sight, taunting me. Then walking the aisles of the BX, my wrist sore from hours of joysticking…, I passed the DVD racks, apparently stocked not just by the blind, but their actual backpack-wearing dogs, and there he was, Don Cheadle staring back at me. “Oh yeah, Traitor.” Gotcha!

It was a little-advertised, little-seen and, it turns out, only mildly well-reviewed picture. Well, the poster kindly offers that “the truth is complicated.” But the truth is really very simple, 41% of those critics are stupid moron crapheads: this movie rocks. It’s so nice I watched it twice. Because, you know, it’s complicated.

I don’t want to give away too much, but Don Cheadle is selling Semtex and detonators to Arab operators (okay, don't worry, not really Don Cheadle, you know what I meant), and may or may not be a deep-cover CIA agent, or an Al Qaeda-esque double-mole. Think Syriana with a half dozen fewer movies stuffed inside, Three Kings without the jokes (or a preposterous Nerf football bomb), but all the double-triple head faking, the legitimate and discomfiting questioning of American Middle East policy, and a lot of the excellent Arab character actors you've seen kicking around in this genre. (Okay so I wrote “Arab,” and thought “hrm.” Turns out the first five billed “Arabs” are French, Asian, English, Asian and French. Ha! Discomfiting, indeed.)

Other good stuff you get. Shot on actual factual locations in Morocco, etc., this thing looks great. Steve Martin, yes that Steve Martin, wrote the story and produced. And the final twist-o-rama, the “how are they gonna solve this problem?” that undoes so many cool movies in the final minutes is a new one and you might just jump up and say “Gotcha!” Not that I did that. I would never do something so childish. Only a stupid moron craphead acts like that. Not me. Nope.

And finally, Guy Pearce appears to be making movies again. Well, what am I trying to say? Cool movies? Movies you want to see? This is great news. Remember L.A. Confidential, or the first, uh, three times, complicated, you saw Memento? Check out The Proposition, an ugly little Australian western. Also based on nothing more than clicking through his imdb.page, I’m now looking forward (whoops! backward) to seeing The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow (director K-19: The Widowmaker, and what! writer Near Dark) and written by Mark Boal (writer In The Valley of Elah).

(Quick. Three more pretty cool movies set in “The War on Terror” you may have missed: The Kingdom, Body of Lies and The English Patient.)

Gotcha!

I’ve Loved You So Long & The Duchess

2009-03-18T18:13:00.002-04:00

I’ve Loved You So Long is set in modern day France and follows the reentry into everyday life of Juliette Fontaine after serving 15 years for murder. The Duchess is set in late-1700s England and follows the entry into high society of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, after her mother oversees a match with the Duke. The settings and circumstances couldn’t be more different, but both movies are essentially about the same thing: the lengths to which a mother will go to care for her children.

Things you should know:
Both movies are excellent.
Each features a starring lead from The English Patient.
I loved The English Patient.
Keira Knightley is more talented when she’s wearing a bustle.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I’ll still love The English Patient.
Ralph Fiennes adds another well and true bastard to his resume.
Do you really think your snickering is going to make me cave after all these years? The English Patient was great. Back off with your newfound backlash courage.
ILYSL is in French w/ English subtitles, “look at the big brain on Kristin, acting in a second language!”
The English Patient.

Elegy

2009-03-18T02:55:00.002-04:00

Love, mortality, selfishness, cynicism, the gilded prison of marriage. What themes of my middle-life aren’t rummaged through here? I can remember reading Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King in high school and thinking these old man anxieties seem a hundred years away. Turns out twenty was enough to get me there.

Ben Kingsley plays a scared man of sixty-something, facing the grave, his back on his life, trying to fuck his fears away. As usual the women, including the young, naïve ones, are more intelligent and realistic about what’s gone before and what’s possible from now on. When will I learn?

Choke

2009-03-06T19:29:00.003-05:00

Sam Rockwell? Chuck Palahniuk? Sign me up. Open humanism disguised as cynical misanthropy? Sheep, get out of those wolfskins.

"You're my best friend in the whole world. But this girl, she's like the only nice thing that's ever happened to me. So do you think you could resist the impulse to piss all over it, just this once?" For you Dignan? Yeah.

Milk

2009-03-03T10:26:00.004-05:00

Wow. The best news is Gus Van Sant might be back from experimental film school. I’d read something similar after he made the little-seen Paranoid Park, but I guess I was still numb from the shell shocked loneliness of Gerry and, to a lesser degree, the softcore slaughter porn of Elephant, which actually kind of hooked me in the same way it’s hard to turn away from roadside car crash aftermath, and finally that Kurt Cobain meditation, Last Days, by which time I’d thrown up my hands.

But those films made it easier to forget Van Sant was the same career-making fever dreamer who blew it up with Drugstore Cowboy, which might be the underappreciated James Legros’ (best) biggest picture (try out Living in Oblivion if you’re interested), which begat My Own Private Idaho and featured the still interesting pre-Speed Keanu Reeves (come on: River’s Edge, Parenthood, I Love You to Death), which begat To Die For and made Nicole Kidman, which begat Good Will Hunting and made a couple of B-listers you probably wouldn’t recognize, and which, coupled with Finding Forrester, might have been the mainstream material that sent our boy into the wild. I could go on, but time’s up.

Though I’ll say this, Sean Penn won this year’s game of pretend for a reason.

The Other Boleyn Girl

2009-03-02T12:49:00.002-05:00

Strikes me as Cliff’s notes on Henry VIII vs. The Boleyn Family: an emotionless by-the-numbers survey of Anne’s rise and fall, the dissolution of Henry and subsequently England’s ties to Rome, and the ruination of the Boleyn family, check, check, check and check. And the usual tease-all, show-nothing, bee stung, deer in the headlights character work of Scarlett Johansson; see also Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, He’s Just Not That Into You, etc. Empty but strangely satisfying, like a Twinkie.

50 Words or More

2009-03-02T12:26:00.002-05:00

In an effort to resurrect this thing, I'm making a New March's resolution to write at least 50 words or more about each movie I see. So pieces are going to be (even) less finished and more like notes from a ratty spiral bound.

The Visitor

2008-11-18T16:19:00.004-05:00

Gathering my thoughts for this post, I thought to myself that "The Visitor" feels a lot like what I'd written about "The Station Agent" back in January. Turns out both were written and directed by the same guy: Thomas McCarthy (often credited just as Tom). Who, by the way, starred as the snakey, Stephen Glass-like character Scott Templeton in one of the top, oh, say three TV shows ever made: "The Wire."

But I'm off topic, and, what the hell, let's go even further afield. I'm moving away from New York after 12 years here, and one of the things I've been up to is making a list of things I'll miss (and trying to decide if any of them are stoppers), i.e., the Staten Island Ferry, the ability to see Swedish vampire movies the weekend they open on, at most, two screens nationwide (this one's almost a stopper, but hey, that's what Netflix is for, right?), the variety of food. And that's about it.

But today I added one tiny thrill I'll miss: spotting celebrities whose work I admire, which often seems to correspond with the kind of actor, etc., who you might read in Entertainment Weekly decide that the "legitimate work" in New York trumps living in LA for them. So today I added Seth Gilliam, who played Sgt. Ellis Carver, to my small, but quality list of "Wire" players. Okay, there are really only two, the other being a really crabby looking, though perfectly in character, John Doman, who played the bush league Machiavelli, Deputy Ops. Rawls.

But these two, Jim Jarmusch, Sigourney Weaver and Peter Greene (Zed, "Pulp Fiction," with whom I got in a now-hilarious shouting match over a stool at a downtown bar) do not a home make. So I'm out. (But if I bump into Omar, Bunk, Bubbles and Stringer Bell at my going away party, I'm cancelling the damn truck.)

Mmm, and right, if you liked "The Station Agent," and what's not to like, add "The Visitor" to your queue.

How the mighty have fallen...

2008-09-06T11:46:00.008-04:00

...for Zooey Deschanel. I will likely lose all critical credibility with this next bit, surprising, and ever so pitiable, on the order of, say, a big tough guy having a soft spot for The Notebook. (Zing!) But I flipped to Failure to Launch on TBS tonight and couldn't flip away. Their "one movie, every night of the weekend" programming never made much sense to me until now. I'm a 21st century hobo, meaning I have no DVR (and ride the rails eating out of tin cans), I missed the first 20 minutes, and I just may tune in to the makeup session.

It's not a bad story idea. McNutty is the wounded but idealized supermanchild of the sort you find on every other page of Men's Health. (Extreme mountain biking! Rock climbing! Perfect abs! He's got it all, except for love.) And he can't let go of the security of living with the folks. SJP is a once-jilted hagshrew who needs to make the past right by controlling the present, and topping every scene partner. (I'm Carrie Bradshaw, dammit.)

Ol' Matthew gives a winning, easy performance, and for once you don't resent him coasting on his now-exhausted "awright-awright" charm. Are his teeth really that white? Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw are funny and touching as his parents. They clearly care for him; they just want some space. Bradshaw's "Naked Room" performance is worth the price of your time. And Bates, reliably, has one, sharp moment that cuts you.

And okay, SJP, who I cannot find the right words to express how much I dislike (witchface), manages to find one or two vulnerable moments (clown makeup), and here and there play someone more than a character from her new series, Sex in the Suburbs (glamour magazine conspiracy).

But the real payoff, is Zooey Deschanel's performance. You know her from Elf, maybe from All the Real Girls; her sister is Fox's Bones. She's gives the most tired dialogue a witty snap, has a fresh take on a been-there scene in a sporting goods store with Rob Corrdry's gun clerk, and flashes her big Suicide Girl eyes under her Vargas pinup haircut. SJP (beauty?mark) just can't hold the screen against her. You know, I think I take back everything I ever said about bangs. Pow!

P.S. Yes, there are inexplicable CGI animals with personalities. They eventually serve a, the?, story point. But there were other, better ways to get there. I guess the producers had money to burn, and decided to graft a kidflick to their adult comedy. I mean what does a kid care about the leaving Mom's cooking blues? I don't know, I guess I did say he was a manchild.

Hancock

2008-07-10T08:39:00.004-04:00

B-. [Spoilers] In the order they occur to me now: 1) Upgrade the villain. Not exactly Eddie Marsan's fault; he really doesn't have any good lines, and the devil always should. But why settle for a poor man's Hans Gruber? 2) Recast Mary (Charlize Theron). She's too hot to begin with, so you can't pull the old glasses on/glasses off! makeover trick. Maybe Jennifer Garner, but she's awful pretty too. And she's already played married to Bateman (Juno) and costarred with him in a (far superior) Peter Berg joint to boot (The Kingdom), so I give myself a C- for originality. 3) While I'm psyched that a first-time scriptwriter with a great idea got a movie made, it shows. There's unfinished business everywhere, e.g., the relationship with the little boy could pay off so much more, the therapy sessions sputter out, and, uh, so Hancock would rather keep his super powers than experience the "joy" of natural love and mortality? Okay, I probably would too. But in service of exploring the concept more fully, I would have gladly sat through 30 more minutes.

Bottom line: great idea, mildly executed, Bateman saves the thing.

Be Kind, Rewind

2008-06-23T22:27:00.008-04:00

"You guys. Listen. You guys. Life without civilization is brutal, nasty and...short! If you're gonna' come around here and spread pizza all over the walls with your gats, you're gonna' miss out on some good movies."

- Jerry (Jack Black)

I was going to write, I can't remember a movie this charming about the restorative magic of movies since "Cinema Paradiso." But, forget the qualification, this is one of the more charming movies I've seen in a while, period. I was duped into skipping it by the cumulative lukewarm reviews on Metacritic.com. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Robert Wilonsky, who crawled up in your soul and blew out the pilot light?). But something about it just got to me.

I'll admit it's a loose-limbed mess at times. You'd love to see more of the "sweded" movies on-screen. And you wish the "let's make a film!"-film were better. And Jack Black only just barely operates within the limits of my patience here, but who cares? Open your heart.

A large part of Be Kind's (nice, right?) appeal is Michel Gondry's abiding, open-hearted creativity. Sure, the movie's set in a fairytale version of Passaic, NJ. And the Benetton-ready cast seems only marginally less idealized since a certain Democrat beat the paste out of Billary. But that's the hook, the idea that creativity and love and assuming the best of your fellow man, not settling for, or even cynically finding pleasure in, the worst of the other guy, can get you through.

[Spoiler-ish] I only have one wish for Santa here. If you've seen it, how great would it have been if the final shot had pulled back to reveal a movie set, the storefronts were only facades on a lot, the crane shot revealed a second smaller crane? Too clever?

Stan Winston, R.I.P.

2008-06-18T15:04:00.004-04:00

Sydney Pollack's recent passing is sad enough, but considering my strong personal connection to The Thing and Aliens and a hundred other genre classics, the death of Stan Winston marks a black day indeed.

The Winston link above connects to a fine article discussing his knack for blending prosthetic and digital effects, a topic that's been on my mind since seeing Favreau's smooth incorporation of both in Iron Man, while bracing myself for The Incredible Hulk.

And here is a collection of eulogies and tributes to Winston posted on AICN.

Watchmen

2008-02-07T19:13:00.001-05:00

[I drafted this a week ago and left it in the cheese cellar to age. If it smells that means it’s good, right?]

While I was home for Christmas I rediscovered my old comic book collection, specifically The Dark Knight graphic novels, written by Frank Miller in 1986. Credited with rescuing Batman from camp and restoring him as a tough guy icon, who even now is enjoying an even meaner, dirtier third coming with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and forthcoming The Dark Knight, Miller's gritty, nuanced story peeled back the mask, revealing the bent psychology that motivates one to dress up in tights and punch crooks in the face. Hard.

Right around the same time, 1986-87, Alan Moore, who also wrote the graphic novels upon which the lame movie adaptations From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* were based, wrote a similar story about an entire world of superheroes entitled Watchmen. I never read it. I bought issue #1 of the mini-series on the advice of Greg The Pusher at my local shop. (Now valued at $12 by comicspriceguide.com. The comic. Not Greg.) But that was one of the last comics I bought before moving on to more adult collectables, like torn concert tickets and old W2 forms.

Now, considering the critical lather it’s whipped up in the last 20 years, I figured it was time to give it a shot. Good stuff. What Miller accomplished in miniature, Moore conjured on an interwoven, global scale with an all-original posse of costumed freaks like Dr. Manhattan, The Comedian, Nite Owl and Rorschach. It starts off slow, but builds to a satisfyingly complex crescendo.

So I was excited to learn recently that Zack Snyder is adapting, and given the home run he hit with Miller’s 300, yeah, I’m a little fired up. And, hey, Gerard Butler’s cool, but check out who he’s got signed on now: Billy Crudup, Carla Gugino (rrrowl), and in a hand-in-glove bit of casting, Jackie Earle Haley is the personification of how deeply odd and imbalanced a masked, self-righteous vigilante would be: Rorschach.

Yes, what’s 1986 is awesome again. This includes me. Tip your waitresses, good night!

*Instead, I recommend you see this goofy pro bowling documentary: A League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

The Station Agent

2008-01-31T19:36:00.000-05:00

The story unspools in that unruffled, languorous way that some of the most enjoyable indie cinema does. Imagine the the idiosyncratic surety of Jim Jarmusch crossed with the mannered aimlessness of David Gordon Green.

The Station Agent is populated by the kind of quirky but caring, wounded but basically decent folks who inhabit the best liberal daydreams. The kind of daydreams you imagine JFK might have had. It's a world in which each is hobbled in their way, living without any visible or realistic means of support, and yet my bitter baker’s chocolate, processed by hand from small batches of locally-grown, pesticide-free cacao beans, and your sugar-free, organic peanut spread, just one color in the rainbow of end-products of a thriving multi-culture farm (not to be confused with a multi-cultural farm, but that would be cool too, man), run by a bon vivant grass farmer named Herman, come together in a whorl of politically correct, eco-friendly decadence. Yes, you can have your conscience and eat it too.

Mmm, conscience.

Filmwise.com's Invisibles Quizzes

2008-01-30T09:47:00.000-05:00

Click to check out Filmwise.com's weekly "Invisibles" quizzes. Each week they digitally remove the actors from eight movie stills, leaving just the sets and costumes standing like a scene out of, well, The Invisible Man. At first glance they seem really tough. But don't give up and submit your answers too quickly. It's the kind of mental exercise that proves the .38 Special Rule.

For Your Consideration

2008-01-29T18:49:00.000-05:00

The decline of The Christopher Guest Project can be graphed on a steep, sad curve. We start with Waiting for Guffman, naturally, on 11.

If you're a stickler, the embarrassing and literally career-ending Chris Farley vehicle, Almost Heroes, follows, but it's not the product of The Guest Players, and he only directed, so let's throw it out as an anomaly.

Best in Show, may actually be the best in class. I usually slot Guffman higher because of its' formal innovation. But I think Best in Show's subject is more broadly appealing, it's funnier throughout, and then Fred Willard kills. Hell, let's call it a 12.

Then, A (so-called) Mighty Wind blows in like a flute solo. A flute solo played, that is, by anyone other than Ron Burgundy. Or Jethro Tull. (Which, I should mention, is not actually that guy's name. It's Ian something. He's a farmer, which explains why his band's named after the inventor of the seed drill. And he's a flautist. Oh, and don't' forget awesome. Yeah!) But really, folk music? Come on, the stuff is already satirizing itself. And if you handfeed the hippies you'll only encourage them. I give it a 5, a haircut and a punitive scrubbing.

Finally, we have For Your Consideration. I waited for the funny, telling myself we had a lot of characters and just had to knock out some exposition. While still waiting for the funny, I actually snagged a good line to jot in my notebook: "It wasn't the apple in the tree, but the pair on the ground that caused all the trouble." But that strikes me as the type of quip that's been around for 100 years. No points for originality. Plus it's a pun. Do as I say, not as I do. Pun comedy is weak. But so, apparently, am I.

And so I waited yet longer for the funny, assuring myself it was working up to some awe-striking, mind-splitting meta-joke that was larger than the movie itself. And then. It was over. I felt like I'd sat through an Andy Kaufman routine. Or worse, Man on The Moon. Graphically speaking, we're approaching zero to infinity. (And beyond!)

[Spoiler]

2008-01-17T10:28:00.001-05:00

Today marks the 1st anniversary of Netflog. I don't have any special remarks prepared, so I thought I'd do a little administrative business. Seriously, if you see [Spoiler] here and you haven't seen the movie and you have any intention of doing so, please bail out of the post. It will spoil as promised. And I can't be responsible for that.

I'm moved to emphasize this point after rereading some of my recent [Spoilers]. I realized just how much they whisk the curtain back, revealing the little projectionist. Also, I'm going to write about a couple of fantastic movies in the next few days and I want us all to be clear before I begin.

One more thing, your McDonald's coffee is really hot. Be careful.

Juno

2008-01-13T17:43:00.000-05:00

This is the story of a precocious 16 year-old who gets pregnant accidentally and threads her way through giving the baby up for adoption and figuring out whether or not she loves her best friend, the baby’s father. It was written by a smart, funny, slightly too-cool-for-school former stripper (who danced so she could blog her way to a book deal, natch), and the script is peppered with quips and comebacks with real zing and sting. And it’s got a great cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are all winning and real. Except maybe sometimes when their mots are a little too bon. But you will laugh. You might cry. You will enjoy.

This is the kind of movie I’d like to write, oh, about a dozen times. That would be a nice career. It’s funny and sweet and the characters actually care about each other (or don't, and that's real too). Most touchingly, the parents are written with the kind of witty compassion and humanism you wish you had gotten, or were capable of giving, whichever might currently apply.

Don't Try This At Home

2008-01-10T10:56:00.000-05:00

After watching Eastern Promises, I tried to emulate this menacing gesture with an upward snap of my neck:

Following two weeks of soreness and a rigorous micro-semester of Google Med School, I'm upgrading my diagnosis from simple whiplash to spondyloptosis. Or rickets.
__________

Unrelated item: don't you think Donald Sutherland could play David Cronenberg in the biopic?

Just not permed, mustachioed Sutherland.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

2008-01-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

Watched this again last night for the first time since seeing it in the theatre, and I predicted "we'll stick with this for about five minutes." But I was surprised to find that it is still really funny. The first time around all I could watch were the rubes. This time I had room to focus on Cohen's reaction, or lack of, to the things he was hearing. Man, what a Rock of Gibraltar improviser he is. Every setup is a master class on staying in the moment and maintaining the scene.

I also realized just how much subtitled gibberish improv there is throughout between Borat and his producer, Azamat Bagatov. That stuff's hard, you know? Ever tried to tell a joke with some made-up Russian in the middle? It usually sounds weak, but they make it look so easy.

Finally, by now you've probably heard that Sacha Baron Cohen announced he's retiring Borat Sagdiyev, explaining that among other things, the success of the movie makes good "gets" that much more difficult. Well played, sir. Well played.

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

2008-01-08T12:08:00.000-05:00

No, not the excellent documentary by Errol Morris. But if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor. You'll get that uncommon feeling that your mind is stretching, and walk away with an excited bounce in your metaphysical step. It will make you feel an enlargement of the possible.

No, what I mean is that I myself aim to be faster, cheaper and, well, a little more out of control here. I've been jammed up by my own perfectionism and a feeling that each piece needs to be a highly polished, multifaceted jewel. Not that I've met that standard with any regularity, but one should aim high. Meanwhile the backlog of movies I want to tell you about is kind of staggering. I'm going to apply this new ethic, as much as the editor who sits on my shoulder will allow, despite my strong reluctance to write off a movie with a shrug and a "meh." I mean, it kills me to dismiss so much hard work with a casual joke or two. My snap review during the credits always, always softens once I so much as start the making-ofs. But I've got to make some headway, and when inspiration (and time) allow, I'll give a movie, even the crap one, the more full consideration it deserves.

So, let's go: I Am Legend. [Spoiler] I liked it. But isn't the problem of the castaway story that we don't really want Robinson Crusoe to get off that island? Not that this Crusoe quite does, but I always hate it when the sails of so-called salvation heave into view. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. The idea of having New York to yourself, nocturnal, rage-infected zombies notwithstanding, is just too appealing, especially after a day of playing sidewalk pinball and subway sardine can. Another issue I have is that Legend repeats a, the?, crucial mistake of I, Robot. Does the "C" in CGI have to stand for cartoon? Why not use actors instead of animated "dark seekers?" Just look at how terrifying the zombies of the 28 Days/Weeks movies are.

No Country for Old Men. [Spoiler] A lot of complaint out there about the ending. After my second viewing, with just a few other people in the audience, I heard "what?," "that blew," and a couple of soft "boos" as we filed out. I think that disappointment stems from a feeling of having been baited and switched. Spending so much time with him, and only briefly dropping in on the sheriff, you feel you're watching the story of Llewelyn Moss. And when his time's up, but the story continues, you're not quite sure what to hang on to. I think this is the Coens taking the audience on an uncertain, disorienting ride similar to Sheriff Ed Tom Bell's, which is a nifty trick if you think about it, but I can understand how it could make you ornery.

Once. [Spoiler] I'll paraphrase, but I think "larryifromla" expresses it best on the Once IMDb board: Here is a warm, humanist, impressionistic movie in which not a whole lot actually happens. It rolled out in limited release, was "discovered" and hyped by vocal, articulate moviegoers, and is now ultimately met by an expectant, overly hopeful viewer, like myself, with a shrug and a "meh." Cue the making-ofs, "aww, now I get it," and, okay, it's stuck with me a for a few days. And my affection for it doubled when I learned that her answer, in Czech, translates as "No, I love you." But I hoped the awe-struck looks on various actors' faces as they reacted to each new song would be how I would actually feel. Oh well.

More later.

Image courtesy of Keith Wiley. Related article here.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

2007-12-30T00:16:00.001-05:00

Shifting between the rough streets of 1986 Astoria, Queens, and present day, we follow the real-life story of Dito Montiel reconciling with the friends and family he left behind when he followed his dreams to California. The 1986 section is exciting. The cast is fantastic. Shia LaBeouf's ease is kind of amazing. And Channing Tatum, who I'd only known from the previews for Step Up, was surprisingly good. And Martin Compston as Mike O'Shea deserves a nod too. Hell, they're all good, except for Chazz Palminteri, whose dramatic line readings lead me to believe he thinks he's in a play instead of a movie. And "Chazz," who allows themself to be called "Chazz?" Maybe a toe-walker, ranked second on the high school tennis team, prone to double faults and tantrums, while Dad screams at the line judge. But a grown man? Sorry, I digress. It's an old grudge.

The present day section, though, is a letdown. It's poorly cast (except for Eric Roberts, in a brief, unnerving appearance). Robert Downey just doesn't feel like the man Shia's Dito would have become. And like this paragraph, it's just not as well developed as the first half. And then there's Chazz again.

"Chazz." Pfft.

Basquiat

2007-12-17T16:52:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend and I decided to greenlight this to the front of the queue because Jeffrey Wright lives around the corner from us and we feel like we know him.

"Where'd you park the car," she'll ask.
"Oh, in front of Jeffrey's," I'll answer.

You know, I'm sure he parks in front of our building too. Or in his climate-controlled Bruce Wayne garagecave. And when she walked past his front door while he was hanging Halloween decorations, and he made a ghostly "oo-oo-oo" noise and a funny face at her, she took it as acknowledgement that they are now very close friends. We should probably get out of the house more.

So you can imagine the personal disappointment we felt and the awkward spot that puts us in, after watching this. It's not that it's a bad movie, but like Gertrude Stein's Oakland, once you're there, there isn't any there there. The performances are hit and miss. Jeffrey Wright's Basquiat is exciting; his physicality is different from any work of his I've seen since. But the shrug and grunt style of acting Benicio Del Toro sometimes resorts to is distracting. Then David Bowie's Warhol is hilarious, "do you have any money, Bruno?" And it's great to see Michael Wincott in something other than B-movie heavy mode. But, at the same time, Claire Forlani just never fits with the rest of the movie, which you could argue is a genius bit of casting, illustrating Basquiat's personal and professional worlds could never click together, or you could simply write off as she must have known somebody on the production. Who knows?

The visuals are interesting throughout, though I suppose they should be when the director's the big deal painter he's supposed to be. The painting progression scene in the basement is cool, and the sound design when he walks into his first big show with his headphones on, and Big Pink reclaiming her scarf, and the "all stop but Basquiat" as he walks out. They're all promises of what's to come, if the advance praise for The Diving Bell and The Butterfly can be trusted.

But the script is empty. If you don't already know the Basquiat story, chapter and verse, you're lost. The Netflix envelope claims the film captures "...his anguish over his family and his hatred of a society that both courted and exploited him." Well, if you say so. In the end, the movie feels more like a very "in" love letter from Julian Schnabel to the painting scene, than a story for the rest of us about someone we don't already know. You know, like Jeffrey Wright.

Coming Soon

2007-11-20T21:52:00.000-05:00

Here's a short list of movies I've seen recently, about which I'll try and peck out a few lines over the holiday weekend.

No Country for Old Men No spoiler here: it's fantastic. In related news, William Monahan, Oscar-winning screenwriter of the The Departed, is adapting Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Ridley Scott is directing. Get excited.

The Hoax
The Host
Girl 27
Seven Up/7 Plus Seven
Reign Over Me
Severance
Curly Sue Just checking. Still awake?
Zodiac
Fracture
Knocked Up
Year of the Dog
Disturbia
Blades of Glory
Days of Glory
Glory of Glory
Of of Of

...er, that is all.

Happy Thanksgiving.
Of Glory.

Away From Her

2007-10-31T15:30:00.000-04:00

Adapted from the short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro, "Away from Her" tells the story of Grant and Fiona, married 40 years, as they deal with Fiona's worsening Alzheimer's. Here's a great example of how much more powerful well-adapted literature can be than something created solely for the screen. Put it on the shelf alongside "Brokeback Mountain," "25th Hour" or the most recent "Pride and Prejudice." Like improvised TV ("Curb Your Enthusiasm") vs. scripted, I'm not saying it's the only way to go, just making a point. It only makes sense that an adapted screenplay enjoys the benefit of all the background the source provides, and is richer by default than material that was developed after jotting down a few character outlines, a list of 25 plot points and a sexy log line: "In a world...!"

I also appreciated what I personally refer to, right or wrong, as a more European view of love. That is, we're not property, and sometimes to love is to let go.

A sad, snowy movie directed by Sarah Polley, who starred in one of my favorite sad, snowy movies, The Sweet Hereafter.

I Like Killing Flies

2007-10-24T15:19:00.001-04:00

The title of this documentary is lifted from the punchline of one of the cracked monologues philosopher-king and Greenwich Village hash slinger Kenny Shopsin delivers to camera. Loosely organized around the drama of moving his diner out of it's decades-old home, the movie introduces us to the eccentric Shopsin family and restaurant regulars, the odd, firmly specific rules of the restaurant, like no seating for parties of five, and, briefly, to the more than 900 menu items Shopsin pushes out of his phone booth-sized kitchen. My favorite is "Postmodern Pancakes:" Shopsin makes an order of pancakes, chops them up and throws them back in the batter, and then makes a new stack of pancakes, pieces and all.

This movie will be a comforting trifle for New Yorkers, whether native or transplanted, who've moved away and want to spend some time with a walking talking "New Yorker" profile.

Black Book

2007-10-17T15:20:00.000-04:00

Wow! I loved this movie. And not just for the nekkid-udity. In the same way David Cronenberg's recent less-is-more approach has made his movies stronger, ("A History of Violence," "Eastern Promises"), Paul Verhoeven manages to make a sprawling story intimate, and the whole thing seems so effortless. Bad guys turn out good, and good guys turn out, well, they turn out too. You don't see the twists and turns coming, you're so engrossed you forget that the thing's called "Black Book" and you're treated to a new WWII angle: high adventures of the mighty Dutch Resistance! Go on and make it a double feature with Verhoeven's 1977 "Soldier of Orange," starring Rutger Hauer.

14...oh, wait.

2007-10-16T15:02:00.000-04:00

If I had a readership, I would apologize for my absence. As it is, I'll just resume whispering into the abyss. Now where was I? Yes. Following ho-hum reviews when it ran in theaters, "1408" enjoyed a wave of critical reconsideration when it arrived on DVD that persuaded me against my better judgement to give it a chance. But let's just acknowledge the 800 lb. gorilla. You can't make a movie, let alone a Stephen King movie, about a haunted hotel without coming up short against "The Shining." There's no unifying logic here that explains what force is at work other than, as Sam Jackson's hotelier exclaims, "...it's an evil fucking room." But more like an evil fucking prop comic, the room throws gag after tired gag at Cusack, hoping something will resonate and send him bounding out the window. But the frights aren't scary, with the single exception of a "gotcha!" at the end, which inexplicably takes place after the action has moved beyond the hotel. And there's a confusing detour late in the movie that climaxes with a wide-eyed, mugging Cusack shot in 360 degree rotation that reminded me of the goofy old Wayne's World segue, "noonil, noonil, noonil, noonil." But I can only blame myself. If I'd done my homework, I would have noticed that "1408" was directed by the same guy who brought us this disappointment.

Wes Anderson Discusses Suicidal Characters

2007-09-26T11:55:00.000-04:00

Movie director Wes Anderson has denied reports Owen Wilson's troubled private life contributed to his latest film character - a man with suicidal tendencies. A depressed Wilson allegedly slashed his wrists in an apparent suicide attempt at his home in Santa Monica, California last month. And, in a bizarre coincidence, his latest movie character is involved in a deliberate motorcycle accident in The Darjeeling Limited. But filmmaker Anderson insists Wilson had no hand in writing the role. He says, "It (suicide theme) comes more from me than Owen. He is just playing a role. There's not much else there. People can't avoid making connections, but they are making them after the fact." And Anderson also plays down speculation Wilson was responsible for the scene in 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums, which the pair co-wrote, where his brother Luke Wilson's character tries to kill himself by cutting his wrists. He adds, "I wrote that character myself. Owen was not in on that one."

www.imdb.com

Thoughts on Owen Wilson

2007-08-28T12:59:00.000-04:00

It occurs to me that Owen Wilson co-wrote "The Royal Tenenbaums," and maybe Richie Tenenbaum's attempted suicide was more significant to Owen Wilson than a simple plot device. I guess now is a good time to go back and watch it again. The only conclusion I can draw at the moment is that it seems sadness can stalk you whatever your station in life.

Hellboy: Sword of Storms

2007-07-01T22:49:00.000-04:00

Have you ever dated an old girlfriend’s sister? Yeah, me neither. But I imagine it’s something like watching this cartoon after loving the live-action movie. She shares the same back story and a familiar wit, she even sounds similar, but while you find her comfortably attractive, she’s just different enough to remind you that she’s not the girl you loved.

Which is just another way of saying this thing isn’t drawn by Mike Mignola. He wrote the script and served as a consulting producer, but farmed out the penwork to a nice enough fellow named Sean “Cheeks” Galloway. (Trivia: “Cheeks” is my Dad's nickname too; so-dubbed because in our family, as with the Clemens', we, how to put it politely? Let's just say we derive our power from our legs.) But I digress. Instead of the wonderfully dirty and detailed look of the Hellboy comics and Screw-On Head...

...we get something more like a Saturday morning episode of Lilo & Stitch.

I know filmmaking's an industry, and I suppose you’ve got to promote the product you’ve got, but there’s a disappointing lowest common denominator moment in one of the mini-docs when an animator concedes that “you don’t want to add too much detail, because a character picks things up and carries them around,” which, presumably, would make animating them that much more tedious and difficult. Okay, so the object is to crank it out and damn the artistry? Got it. But half of Hellboy’s appeal is the look. If I can mix my metaphors, this is is like wrapping a VW Bug around a Panzer chassis. “Beep, beep, kid stuff coming through.”

But there are vestiges of the good old days. All of the lead actors from the movie return to voice their characters. So despite the fact that Ron Perlman conspired with Dan Hedaya to ruin what could have been one of the most beautiful and exciting movies of the 90s, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection, he is the one and only Hellboy. He personifies an unflappable, world weary, garbage man, taking out the paranormal trash. And Selma Blair protests too much in the mini-doc when she claims her voice is her weakest instrument. She nails Liz Sherman’s wounded vulnerability. And Doug Jones, well, he’s just from another planet. Morpheus, er, Lawrence Fishburne is capital-t, capital-m, The Man, but they didn't need him to voice the Silver Surfer. Jones could have brought the whole package there too.

So in the end I guess I’d make out with that old flame's sister, but I’d really be hoping we could give it another shot and go see Hellboy 2: The Golden Army together.

Apocalypto

2007-06-30T07:58:00.001-04:00

Whether Mel Gibson’s a boozy, narcissistic jerk whose entitle-itis got him in over his head during a traffic stop or (and?) an anti-Semite who’ll only say so when he’s drunk is irrelevant to me. Truth be told, the tone of Gibson's commentary left me thinking he's probably a bit of both. But considered strictly on its’ own merit, Apocalypto is beautiful and exciting and masterfully made, and the scale of the production is just jaw-dropping. Just take a look at the size of the Makeup Department. For Christ's sake, more than 60 drivers alone are credited.

The casting and acting are terrific. Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw is winning and runs his sandals off. Raoul Trujillo as the lead heavy, Zero Wolf, is seriously menacing. But Gerardo Taracena as Middle Eye, the fellow from the poster, sprouting the Coolio braid from his forehead, steals the show. The way he juts out his lower jaw and deadens his eyes makes you sick; you just know he’s frozen over inside. From his IMDb page, I gather he hasn’t hit Hollywood yet, but hopefully we’ll be seeing him again soon.

A fun game I found myself playing throughout was “Spot the Movie Reference.” We have the spiked mantrap of Southern Comfort, the throat-slashed loved one of Braveheart, an anachronistic nod to Ratso Rizzo’s “I’m walkin’ here,” Beyond Thuderdome’s orphan cohort and even a brief glimpse of a pre-Columbian Master/Blaster.

But Gibson’s got some new tricks, too. According to the commentary, the coarse, funny, seemingly anachronistic banter of Jaguar Paw and his hunting party is actually borne out by research of the idiom of the late-classic Maya. And while Gibson and cowriter Farhad Safinia's refusal to paint their heroes as noble savages is not what you're used to, you come to appreciate it. It makes the world seem more authentic.

The human sacrifice and eclipse scene atop the pyramid is a skillful demonstration of political manipulation as the king and high priest work the crowd with little more than a nod and a wink. And, while Gibson admits a bit of dramatic license, the perfectly choreographed gauntlet scene seems realistic and maintains the high-tension sadism of the raiding party.

For 139 minutes I was alternately excited, saddened, thrilled, filled with dread and just plain knocked out. Whatever you think of the man, the movie is amazing.

Hooray!

2007-06-29T09:39:00.001-04:00

Ratatouille opens today! The word is good: A.O. Scott of The New York Times writes a glowing review this morning, and the aggregate review sites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score it 93 and 94 out of 100, respectively.

I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m not going to waste your time summarizing the summaries I’ve read this summer. Just trust me, and go see it. Now. Before you learn too much about it and spoil the experience. I don’t think you can set your expectations too high, but maybe go in with a tiny bit of skepticism. “Will’s sending me to see a cartoon?”

Then when you’re done you can go back and Netflick Brad Bird’s other near-perfect movies, The Incredibles and The Iron Giant. Get excited!

Much Ado About...Nothing?

2007-06-14T12:31:00.000-04:00

Posted today on imdb.com:

Netflix Hit by a Blockbuster Punch
"Blockbuster has stepped up what some analysts have described as cutthroat price competition against NetFlix, reducing to $16.99 the monthly subscription price for its unlimited three-DVDs-out-at-a-time plan. The figure is $1.00 less than Netflix's most popular plan. Citigroup analyst Tony Wible told Reuters, "We expect that Netflix will eventually have to match the price cuts or lose significant share to Blockbuster." Shares of each company declined on the news, with Netflix falling 8.8 percent to $20.00, a three-month low."

Oh, I don't think so. For a dollar (okay $12/yr.) I'm going to recreate my 274-movie queue by hand, 12.5% of which Blockbuster doesn't carry? Netflix currently offers 80,000+ titles. Blockbuster: 70,000+. To be honest, I was thinking the difference would be more on the order of 25%. And it was when I trial-subscribed to Blockbuster a year ago. But nevermind that's still 34 movies I'd lose. (No fair pointing out that #15-#260 live in the fallout zone of passed over hopefuls as I leapfrog new releases to the head of the line. No doubt all of which Blockbuster now carries. Aargh! Who's writing this thing here, me or you?)

But maybe you're on to something. Blockbuster does offer their "Total Access" plan with an in-store return option and immediate swapout for even new releases AND an additional in-store rental coupon per month in addition to your 3-at-a-time all-you-can-eat plan.

But Netflix still wins with their nifty "Watch Now" feature. Right? I tried it. Once. It works great. If you like sitting hunchbacked and tyranosaurhanded in front of your computer for two hours. Alone. Kind of like I am now. My back.

You know, blue is my favorite color.

Now Playing: Hot Fuzz

2007-06-06T05:58:00.000-04:00

Now here’s what I was trying to get at in my Grindhouse piece. Rather than bog down precisely replicating the feel of the movies it’s honoring, Hot Fuzz stripmines B grade action movies and converts the tailings into gold. It trades up. For instance, the movie calls out a cheesier moment in Point Break, when Keanu’s man-crush gets the better of him and he can’t bring himself to shoot Swayze, instead unloading his clip into the sky. Then it flips the moment so nicely that when Danny (Nick Frost) can’t bring himself to shoot his father and empties his pistol with an “Aaargh!” it’s heartfelt and hilarious at once.

As in Shaun of The Dead, there are some fun supporting performances turned in here: an over-the-top Timothy Dalton, a deadpan Martin Freeman (of the BBC’s “The Office”), Steve Coogan, perfectly oily as usual, and Bill Nighy defines Crypt Keeper cool.

I’m really looking forward to watching this one on DVD with subtitles. It’s not that the accents are too thick, just that the pacing and colloquialisms are rewardingly unrelenting. Close attention pays off as the jokes come over the wall like rage-infected Mongols.

My one beef with the movie is that the whip-pan smash-cuts that were so fun in Shaun of The Dead become a wee bit tedious here. And the sound effect track is way too loud. This movie doesn’t require a big screen to maximize its’ entertainment potential (more on this later), so I recommend you wait until it comes out on DVD and you can control the volume yourself.

And, oh hey, check out this fun article tracing the references of a few of the Hot Fuzz posters out there. Good stuff, love the Dirty Harry.

Now Playing: 28 Weeks Later

2007-06-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

This is the best sequel I’ve seen in a long time. Or, maybe purest is a better way to say it. This movie cleanly picks up where the first movie left off, delivers a streamlined, terrifying chain of events that really make sense and leads us effortlessly to the undoubted three-quel.

By the same token, I guess, you could make the case that the movie is kind of slight, it doesn’t amplify the world of the first movie in the way, say, Aliens trumped Alien. It’s merely another episode in the continuing rage epidemic. But God in his heaven was never happier he isn’t crawling around in the mud with us than when the frenzied horde comes a-calling in the opening sequence.

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Strangers With Candy

2007-05-14T12:58:00.001-04:00

Unwatchable. Twice.

Catch & Release

2007-05-12T09:36:00.000-04:00

The alphabet is less predictable.

The Road to Guantanamo

2007-05-08T14:57:00.000-04:00

Let’s see here. You and your pals traveled to Pakistan to attend your friend’s wedding. Lacking money for a hotel and electing not to stay with family, you crashed at the local youth hostel, er, mosque, where the faithful held regular anti-American rallies. With a couple of weeks to kill before the wedding (No job to get back to in England? Ah yes, convicted petty criminals with limited education and dim prospects, your time was your own.), you decided to travel to Afghanistan “to help.” Now, by “help” do you mean “provide aid and comfort?” And to whom exactly? Never mind.

So, when you found yourself doing a lot of sitting around and not much “helping,” you asked to be driven back to Pakistan. Did you offer any resistance when your driver took you deeper into Afghanistan to the city of Kunduz? And is this the same Kunduz that was the last major city held by the Taliban before its fall to US-backed Afghan Northern Alliance forces on November 26, 2001? The same Kunduz from which witnesses reported a Pakistani airlift of as many as five thousand Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters? But you were only there to help. And, like an errant Harold or Kumar, to find “really big naan.”

The simple fact is I’d be stunned if you’d been renditioned off to Cuba after, say, taking a leak on a Louisiana State Trooper’s leg during Mardi Gras. But captured retreating with foreign fighters deep in Taliban country? In late 2001? With no passport? Sorry. I’d be outraged if they’d let you go.

In related news, the visa-less travel of Britons of Pakistani descent continues to pose a special security challenge here in the United States.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

2007-05-07T16:00:00.000-04:00

Classic movies rarely hold up as ecstatic entertainments. By the time you mentally correct for the black and white film, the echo on the crummy soundstage sets and the hammy theatrical acting, you’re not left with much in the way of verisimilitude. What you are left with, though, is the pure pleasure of watching a cultural anthropology lesson unspool in front of you. See Bogie ask a young John Huston if he’ll “stake a fellow American to lunch.” Watch him uncork his trademark teeth-baring shoulder shrug. Observe the original “steenking badges” line in its’ natural habitat.

The story is rock solid; all the raw material is here. I’d run to see a remake by John Singleton with this lineup:

Dobbs: Sam Rockwell
Howard: Avery Brooks (Remember him?!)
Curtin: Don Cheadle
Cody: Freddy Rodriguez

Hell, I’d settle for a Treasure-themed Scrubs episode.

Now Playing: Grindhouse

2007-05-04T18:50:00.000-04:00

I suppose if you buy a ticket to a B movie homage made by B movie fanatics you shouldn’t be surprised when you get B grade entertainment. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy myself. I just hoped the whole affair would rise above its’ lineage a bit more. Rodriguez and Tarantino, with movies like Sin City, Reservoir Dogs and (literally) Pulp Fiction, have always managed to make more of whatever genre they’re reworking. Pulp gems like The Faculty and Kill Bill succeed because they take the material completely seriously. And the B movie design elements they feature, e.g., sound, voiceover, titles have been polished to a high shine. Grindhouse is just dirty.

In order for the joke of Planet Terror and Death Proof to work (“Hey, it’s 1979, you’re on the Deuce and you’re in a real live grindhouse!”), Rodriguez and Tarantino are forced stick too closely to the crappy B movie ethos. In order to really feel the sleaze, by definition the characters have to be thinly drawn, survive ridiculous mishaps ridiculously and connect with no one, least of all the audience. Grindhouse is run through with a feeling of “Isn’t it cool how realistically we’ve captured how gloriously crummy this whole experience used to feel?”

And there is a moment in Death Proof when Kurt Russell turns to the camera, flashes a big cat grin and winks. It’s a great moment. I laughed out loud. But the spell is broken and the movie stops working as an engagement. It does, however, continue to work as a vulgar display of formal power. These two guys know what the hell they’re doing and they’re obviously having a ball, but a lot of it’s academic.

Okay, enough of the smarty pants anal-ysis. Let’s just get to the fun stuff. I liked:

The posters. Obviously.

You heard it from me last; this kid Freddy Rodriguez is going to be huge. He’s got a quality that really connects. If only he were a little taller (5’6”).

Rose McGowan proves she’s more than just a pretty face by turning in an impressively different character in each movie. You say Rose McGowan, I think Cherry Darling. I didn’t know she's got Pam in her too.

Michael Biehn’s back! I can’t believe he was 28 when The Terminator came out and he’s 51 this year.

Sydney Tamiia Poitier turns in a great performance as a completely self-absorbed, too-cool-for-school, obscurist disc jockey. As soon as you see her foot hanging out the window you know what’s coming, and I cheered (and threw up in my mouth a little) when she got hers.

The fake trailers, especially Don’t! by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

Tarantino can still get me on the edge of my seat, rocking nervously. He did it first the moment the Gimp spidered out of the box. This time it’s the POV shot behind Zoe Bell, over the front of the hood. You realize just how fast that car is moving. Christ.

R.J. MacReady’s back! I can’t believe I was 12 when The Thing came out and I’m 37 this year.

Bonus Commentary: 1. Tarantino writes great dialogue but, yawn, wake me when the car chase starts. Twenty minutes of yakking before we get to the meatgrinder. 2. Why didn't the girls just, uh, slow the car to a stop so Zoe could get off the hood? I guess you don't have a movie in that case, but that's a logic problem you've got to solve buddy. 3. Grindhouse movies were chock full of sexy time. Here, whenever tube tops go flying or lap dances are set to pop off, poof! "missing reel?!" Hope they find them before they master the DVD.

I could go on and on about the things I loved and the things I didn’t, but the bottom line is I had a great time and my complaints probably flow from that bottomless well of expectations. I’m grateful to Tarantino and Rodriguez for hoodwinking the Weinsteins. I doubt they’ll be able to do it again, Grindhouse’s box office take being what it is. On the other hand, Machete appears to be in preproduction.

The Heart of the Game

2007-04-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

God bless documentary filmmakers who have an eye for an interesting story, the tenacity to hold on for years as it develops and the good fortune to stumble into even better stories along the way. The Heart of the Game begins as a profile of a new and unconventional head coach, Bill Resler, as he takes over a Seattle high school girls’ basketball program. In the ensuing SEVEN YEARS, while Resler finds his feet and the players come of age and the drama builds to a perfect climax, the story widens to include, literally, the trials of one his players as she fights to retain her eligibility to play ball.

You'll be inspired by the wide-eyed, mile-a-minute enthusiasm of these girls as they talk about how savagely they want to destroy their opponents and how much basketball means to them. You'll be warmed by the whole-life approach Resler takes to the game. And make sure to watch the deleted scene entitled “Jade.” You'll be moved when you learn how narrowly Resler reconsidered the hard line he thought he needed to take with her, and the difference it made in her life.

This movie is dynamite. And it blows Jesus Camp out of the gym. Why it wasn’t nominated for an academy award I don’t understand.

300: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

2007-04-23T13:37:00.001-04:00

Anchorman/300 together as one - Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Fast Food Nation

2007-04-20T11:33:00.000-04:00

Strong cast. Wilmer Valderrama proves he’s a lot more than Fez. Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) tears your heart out again. Greg Kinnear continues to eat Tom Hanks’ Happy Meal as the American Everyman. And Bruce Willis and Luis Guzman (a personal favorite) turn in slyly vicious supporting performances.

Cool director, Richard Linklater, who’s mostly hit, but sometimes miss for me. Hit: Slacker, SubUrbia, Before Sunrise/Sunset, School of Rock. Miss: Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly.

And a great book by our Upton Sinclair, Eric Schlosser. If you read it and want more, check out Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. And the author note inside explains he’s currently working on a book about the American prison system. I can’t wait.

So I was disappointed to find that this is not so much a movie as a public service announcement first and a dramatic narrative second. The connections between the storylines are forced. No one story is given enough time to breathe. There’s just too much material to get through. You could easily spin two or three movies out of what’s here: the illegals, Greg Kinnear’s world, maybe the student radicals.

And if you’re going to make a fast food movie, why not go with Super Size Me? You could stick goofy-charming Morgan Spurlock in a cape; give him a frickin’ laser. Or at least a laser pointer. It would be tight. You could make the case that I’m a victim of my great expectations here, and my girlfriend would agree with you. But I suggest you read the book and leave it at that.

Marie Antoinette

2007-04-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

Kirsten Dunst usually feels cast a little out of her depth, but here her lightness matches the material. And god bless Sofia Coppola and what, after Lost in Translation’s opening shot and now this, we can call her emblematic behind (say it with me, “BEE-hind”) shots. Jason Schwartzman, nepotistically blessed or not, is just right as a repressed Louis XVI. And there are lots of solid, supporting performances from Steve Coogan, Rip Torn, Danny Huston; even little Molly Shannon.

But what you’ve come for here are the production values. Coppola was allowed to shoot in the real deal Holyfield Palace of Versailles, and it’s beautiful. And you could just never duplicate the long shots of the grounds. The costume and pastry designers seem to have gotten together to make the first half of the movie look like a delicious pink cupcake. During the second half, which finds Marie spending time at her retreat on the palace grounds, Petit Trianon, the shots and lighting and costumes take on a naturalistic feel. It’s as if Marie, freed from the repression of courtly expectations, wanders into a Terence Malick movie. You get two, two, two movies in one.

The plot is almost unimportant. Marie’s adrift in her new home, with an inept, inattentive husband, she’s burdened by the expectation that she’ll bear an heir to head off war between France and her Austrian homeland, which is difficult to do when your husband takes 6 years to put his first, awkward move on you, blah blah blah. This is a throwaway grrrl power movie that will be scored by Avril Lavigne when it’s remade in 2027. But, oh, you pretty things.

By the way, I've used the CD soundtrack cover art above for obvious reasons. I mean, how fugly is the US poster?!

The Evolution of The Netflix Mailer

2007-04-18T13:34:00.000-04:00

In my wanderings through some other folks' blogs, I found this article and spiffy little slideshow documenting the evolution of the Netflix mailer.

Suicide Girls

2007-04-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

First blush: “Woo-hoo! Softcore on Netflix.” Sad realization: “Yawn. Softcore on Netflix.” Work things out with a Girls Gone Wild infomercial and save yourself the three day turnaround.

I know this whole Suicide Girls movement is supposed to be about empowerment and demonstrating that alternatively decorated modern primitives are objectifiable too. Well guess what? It worked. Consider yourself objects that just aren't doing it for me. And you need a bath. Raaawk!

The Devil's Rejects

2007-04-03T09:20:00.000-04:00

The terror is good and creepy. The characters are thin. Why do they do what they do? Who knows.

Sid Haig and Bill Moseley are well cast. You're drawn to them, which serves the anti-heroism. But why do we care about any of this? I feel dirty.

Late March Round-Up

2007-03-25T13:43:00.000-04:00

The Ringer
I was excited enough about The Ringer I made half-assed plans to see it in the theatre. It got away from me and I forgot about it. Here, more than a year later I stumbled across it on HBO and found it was a little like reading an old journal and wondering “who was I when I thought Joey Lauren Adams was hot?”

The Baxter
Written and directed by Michael Showalter, featuring The State’s alumni and friends, and Elizabeth Banks (damn you Journal, she’ll always be hot), I was pulling for another Wet Hot American Summer. A “Baxter” here is the faceless Joe who’s left at the altar when, say, Julia Roberts runs off with Richard Gere instead. The idea is great, the execution is sweet and occasionally funny, but it just doesn’t sustain. There’s a funny bit at the end with Showalter running off a few last minute interlopers, but it’s too little too late. There's only enough here for a good SNL sketch.

Nacho Libre
Another comedy I was really looking forward to, but it’s just no good. (Great alternate poster, though, right?) The winning quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite is formulaic here and Jack Black’s over the top buffoon needs to take a couple pictures off. Maybe a Holiday or two.

Babel
Beautiful and heartbreaking, but it doesn’t live up to the promise of the title. I follow the bouncing ball and understand how Japanese big game hunter’s gift leads to Mexican nanny’s deportation, but how does God’s punishment of Man inform this chain of events? And while the story of hunter’s emotionally stunted daughter is moving and sad, it’s a narrative cul-de-sac. And confusing, is it just me or is there incest in the air at the end?

The Queen
An Oscar-winning impersonation in a dull movie about a fusty woman at an inconsequential moment in history. See Mrs. Brown instead.

Jesus Camp
The culture wars continue. I was surprised to find the filmmakers didn’t explore the obvious connection between 9/11 and (what they depict as) the ensuing surge in Evangelical fundamentalism.

Everything Is Illuminated
I was going to title a post about this movie “Little Miss Sunflower,” but got hung up on my own cleverness and couldn’t write my way off the hook. Similarities: 1) road trip 2) with crazy Grandpa 3) who dies. Differences: the other 99 minutes. I enjoyed it, particularly Eugene Hutz’ Alex. (Just bear in mind that Hutz is actually Ukrainian and Borat’s up to something completely different.) I’m looking forward to more movies from Liev Schreiber, who makes his directorial debut here. But I wasn’t as moved as I would be if I hadn’t been desensitized recently by Richard Rhodes’ brutal book Masters of Death.

The Holiday
I liked it. A lot. Snicker to yourselves. Jack Black: phew, thanks for taking your boot off my neck buddy. Kate Winslet: like Emma Thompson, I’ve missed you. Jude Law: winning, and very cute with his very cute daughters. Cameron Diaz: as in In Her Shoes (which I also loved, shut it), she can’t quite keep up with the big kids, but she’s a gamer. Eli Wallach: to paraphrase my friend Chris, why wasn’t I told he had such a big role Mr. Trailer-maker, which by the way, is what Cameron Diaz's character does for a living? The Ugly’s in my Saturday evening rom-com? Bring it.

Stranger Than Fiction
Shamefully underrated when it was released. Probably ignored because it's not a bowling movie entitled "Lanes of Thunder, The Jimmyjohnjoe Story," and possibly because there's a whiff of Woody Allen here. I guess we're all still getting over Melinda and Melinda.

Catch it on DVD, though. My favorite movie of the month. Hooray for the return of Tom Hulce. And make sure to watch the featurette about developing the GUI that follows Will Ferrell’s character around.

Finally, an open question for Will, (not Ferrell, or Meekin), or anyone interested: what do you make of my interpretation that the Harold Crick (Ferrell) and Ana Pascal (Gyllenhaal) world of the movie isn’t real, but is the dramatization of a literary correspondence between the blocked Karen Eiffel (Thompson) and the Eiffel-scholar, Professor Hilbert (Hoffman)?

doug benson's i love movies!

2007-03-14T22:35:00.000-04:00

Doug Benson, known associate of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, posts these spit take-worthy anti-reviews on bobanddavid.com. He only writes a few times a year, but he's filling in the gaps these days with weekly podcasts too. If you haven't joined the podcast generation, like me, no problem. His bobanddavid archive dates back to 2001, so you've got a couple text-based hours of loafing ahead of you.

Irony

2007-03-13T09:06:00.000-04:00

Confession: I can't get through a Kurosawa movie. Samurai movies just don't move me, unless they're updated in priapic, toe-worshipping, 70's chroma-chromic Tarantino-vision. Or, lose the kimonos, drop the Hanzo sword, slap on some chaps and six shooters, (keep the questionable facial hair) and "YEE-HA! we got ourselves a picture boys!"

Give those seven samurai Colt Model 1861 Navy revolvers and pit them against The Ugly in some nameless border town, or slot a post-coldwar double-talking ronin in a Frankenheimer-helmed (Mamet-doctored) joint and you can count me in. I know this disinterest weakens my movie-lover cred. But while my favorite story device is a Rashomon, actually watching Rashomon is more effective than Tylenol PM.

So it's with shame and downcast eyes that I find myself ready to return The (unwatched, 3.5 hour-long) Seven Samurai today, but I don't have an envelope. Netflix's advice: "...you may send your DVDs to P.O. Box 49021 SAN JOSE, California 95161."

oink...?

Great Expectations

2007-03-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

This idea has been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks without my finding an elegant way to put it, but I'm not getting any younger, so here goes: how much you enjoy a movie is heavily influenced by your expectations going in. You can ruin your experience of a great movie by expecting too much, and you can find yourself cherishing a middling movie, if you didn't expect anything. Here are some examples from my own experience. Judge for yourself.

I went in way too high:
A Scanner Darkly: I don't know, I guess I figured Philip K. Dick, scramble suits, count me in. But the whammer surprise was more like a whimper. And now that I think about it Big Brother pharmaceutical mind control is a plot device on par with Scorpio and his weather machine. "Mwoo-ha-ha!" Eh.
Brick: Enough with your Bogie impression, see!
Pan's Labyrinth: I still don't get it. Much ado about nothing as far as I'm concerned. But I'll give it another try.
The Constant Gardener: This one might just be weak, high expectations or not. Again with the pharmaceutical conspiracy theories. Sheesh.
The Departed: You may be puzzled to find this movie here, given my comments in Pulp Fact. But I walked out disappointed. Here's a perfect example of expecting more than a movie has to offer. But now that I'm on the other side I can see it's a great movie. I'll see it again, reconcile my expectations, and all will be right with the world.

I went in low, or not knowing too much, and wow!:
Bubba Ho-Tep: This movie defies rational consideration. Set in a retirement home, an aging Elvis impersonator, or is he really Elvis?, and his black sidekick, who claims to be JFK, battle an ancient Egyptian mummy. This has no business being as funny as it is.
Life: I'm a sucker for buddy movies, see Bottle Rocket, Swingers, Big Night. But consider, this is an Eddie Murphy joint released between Holy Man and Nutty Professor II. I was ready for garbage.
Nine Queens: Ended up in my queue because a review of the American remake, Criminal, claimed this was the better of the two. Score one for the Argentines.
Shaun of the Dead: A great example of the virtues of ignorance. I'd heard just enough about it (a rom-zom-com?, please), to expect to hate it.

Sometimes, though, a movie is just too good to be diminished by your preconceptions. I went into these movies expecting a lot, and they delivered:
Children of Men: Gripping. Read my comments in Late February Round-Up.
Inside Man: The answer to "how'd he do it?" doesn't insult your intelligence.
Little Miss Sunshine: What struck me when I watched it the second time is how economical the script is. There isn't one wasted moment.
Shopgirl: Steve Martin's best movie since (wait for it) Parenthood. (Go ahead, unleash your scorn.)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: I like cowboy pictures.

So how to make use of this late-life wisdom, that you can influence your movie-going experience? Going forward I will try (largely without success, I'm sure) to manage my expectations with muttered self-administered brainwashing.

First, there's "I expect little."
300
28 Weeks Later: I know I'm going to be disappointed, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up every time the guitars come in during this clip: http://www.foxatomic.com/#movie:TitleId=7
Black Snake Moan
Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima
Harsh Times: I want Training Day 2, but I don't think I'm going to get it.
Hot Fuzz: From the same crew that brought you Shaun of the Dead!
The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford: Great Casey Affleck buzz.
The Host: This promises an American Werewolf-like mix of the funny and the scary.
The Lives of Others: Because this story is a low-key surveillance deal, it's a prime candidate for expecting the fireworks but being let down by the slow burn.
Zodiac: Reviewers are calling this Fincher's masterpiece, better than Fight Club?! "I expect little, I expect little."

And then there's "I expect nothing," in the hope of squeezing some enjoyment out of the genre junk food at the center of my movie diet:
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Pathfinder
Shooter
Smokin' Aces
The Number 23

What movies are you waiting for?

The Illusionist vs. The Prestige

2007-03-05T14:07:00.000-05:00

Liked one, loved the other. I'll try to tell you why without giving too much away.

I've already written about The Illusionist in a couple of comments. I'll paraphrase here. I enjoyed the movie, but it has three big problems. First, there's a casting problem. Second, the trick is never explained. Third, the twist is too easily guessed. What's interesting to me, is that The Prestige is guilty on the same three counts, but it's a far superior movie.

1. The problem of casting. To put it bluntly Paul Giamatti, as Inspector Uhl, and Hugh Jackman, as Robert Angier, are just too damn likable. Both characters are supposed to undergo transformations, one of redemption and one of corruption. Giamatti, who I like a lot in his crusty misfit mode in American Splendor and Sideways, never projects the menace or moral ambiguity that I thought the role required. You really needed to fear that the inspector wouldn't do the right thing, that he might act merely out of self interest. You didn't feel like he was the kind of man who'd made the selfish, questionable choices throughout his career, the kind that would have pushed him up through the ranks. He is just too nice. And matinee-idol Jackman, who we know is capable of straddling the line from his work as Wolverine, never convinces as the obsessed, jealous Angier. You see him lose the things that are precious to him, but you don't see the change in his eyes, the hatred awakening, the vengeance growing. Edge: Even (but Christopher Nolan's insistence on David Bowie as Nikola Tesla tilts it in The Prestige's favor).

2. The Illusionist's big trick, the one that has the whole town talking, is never satisfactorily explained. We're just supposed to accept that somewhere in his travels, Eisenheim (Norton) picked up some netherworld flim-flammery, poof, voila! Sorry, not buying it. The Prestige's big trick, on the other hand, while never completely disassembled and explained is at least shown to have originated somewhere, in this case, in Tesla's lab. Now this isn't an argument in favor of science over mysticism, just a request that at a minimum a filmmaker show me where Jack got his magic beans. And besides, the grisly price of The Transported Man sufficiently compensates our voluntary misdirection. Edge: The Prestige.

3. Now, I'm not the guy who sat down to watch The Sixth Sense and said "he's dead," before the title credits were over. I'm usually fashionably late to the big reveal. So the fact that I guessed the surprise twists of both of these movies says something about how straightforward they are. In the case of The Prestige, the twist is just been there-done that. We've all seen Sleeping Beauty, right? In the Illusionist it's given away by lots of false beards and double-edged dialogue that doesn't quite cut cleanly on the first stroke. But you've got to work for it. Edge: The Prestige.

The Amazing Screw-On Head

2007-03-03T12:15:00.000-05:00

I added this title to my queue on a recommendation from Harry Knowles' "DVD Picks and Peeks" column on Ain't It Cool News.

It's a 20 minute-long animated TV pilot created by Mike Mignola, the guy who came up with the Hellboy comics. It features the same wacky history-meets-the-occult mashups of Hellboy, introducing the characters of Screw-On Head, secret agent in service of Abraham Lincoln, his love interest Patience the Vampire, his manservant Mr. Groin, (get it, Head, Groin?), and their nemesis Mr. Zombie.

Voiced respectively by Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, Patton Oswalt and David Hyde Pierce, the characters are as wack-a-doodle as their names sound. The writing is clever and light. And the artwork, settings and bizarro world spyware are all really creative.

The pilot introduces a dozen characters, all of whom you want to know more about, but don't hold your breath. Mignola explains in the making-of featurette that he came up with the screw-on head idea as a lark to sell toys, and by the time he finished the pilot he'd told most of the jokes as well as he figured he could and had kind of gotten the whole thing out of his system. Too bad. 4 stars.

Monster House & The Crimson Rivers

2007-02-27T13:36:00.000-05:00

Monster House: I'm torn here. Again, I think my disappointment with Monster House is a result of my high expectations. I'd read such good things about it that I was expecting something on par with The Incredibles. What I got was a lot better than Polar Express (the first animated movie to use "performance capture"), a little better than the middle of the pack (i.e., Over the Hedge, Robots, Shark Tale, Madagascar), but nowhere near as good as The Iron Giant. I guess I should just stick with Brad Bird movies. (Which reminds me Ratatouille is coming out in June.)

Where Monster House succeeds is in capturing the poignancy of early adolescence, when you're leaving childhood behind but not quite a young adult. My big knock against it, though, is that a) the house itself is not scary and b) the explanation behind the house's animation, so to speak, is kind of lame. Also, Bones, voiced by Jason Lee, is supposed to be dating D.J.'s teenage babysitter, but he's drawn like a 40 year old hippie burnout. Weird and distracting.

(But how much scarier is the French poster (above) than the dull American version?)

If Netflix had half stars, I'd tack on a fraction. As it is: 3 stars.

The Crimson Rivers: A serial killer thriller directed by Mathieu Kassovitz; he played Amelie's boyfriend and the toymaker in Munich. Pros: Visually imaginative and a good excuse to watch Jean Reno for an hour and forty six minutes. Lots of helicopter shots of sweeping French alpine scenery. Cons: The first hour is awkwardly structured, you follow two separate investigators around wondering when, if ever, their storylines will intersect. Jean Reno has an unresolved, or at least unimportant, fear of dogs. And in the end, the twist is a cop out.

Also, and this is probably more important than I'm giving it credit for, but the subtitles (it's in French) weren't synced correctly with the dialogue on the copy I watched, and I really struggled to stay in the moment.

In this case I'd take my half a star back if I could. 3 stars.

Late February Round-Up

2007-02-26T15:03:00.000-05:00

From worst to best:

Blade Trinity: I like a vampire movie as much as the next guy. Probably even more, given this is the first of two I've seen in the past couple weeks. But this one stinks. The effects look like they were made on a TV budget. Ryan Reynolds makes the most of the incessant Van Helsing-meets-Van Wilder cracks written for him, but he just wears you down. Alright already, you're the wise guy. Shut up. And I think Wesley Snipes believes he really is Blade. Too silly plus too serious equals one too many Blade movies. 2 stars.

Nanny McPhee: This one's not bad, just slight. And predictable. It would be fun to watch with a kid, but doesn't really stand on it's own. I liked the art direction, though. Each character's color palette is fun, but nothing you haven't seen before. It's nice to see Emma Thompson again, and when the warts and all disappear you remember, wow, she's beautiful. But overall a forgettable diversion. 3 stars.

Near Dark: Vampire picture #2. Now we're getting somewhere. This brood of vampires is imagined as a gritty little band of bloodsucking, daylight-fearing, wise-cracking hobos. There's the craggy, grizzled leader who calls the shots. You've got a little boy vampire, whose age and urges are out of sync with his appearance. And a smart-assed Hudson-like character who... Hey!, wait a minute, that IS Hudson. In fact, this movie's crawling with Aliens alumni. Which makes the dopey love story and the cheesy Tangerine Dream score forgivable. I especially like that the vampires don't "poof," explode when the sun hits them. They roast. 3 stars.

Edmond: Come for the stilted Mamet-isms that chafe and challenge and sound like nothing anyone's ever actually said. Stay for the parade of panty-clad young actresses. For Mamet fans only. 4 stars.

Half Nelson: Ryan Gosling gives a performance so natural that combined with the shakey-cam you sometimes think you're watching a documentary. It's not easy to do what he's doing here. It's not even easy to describe what he's doing here. It just feels real. And, wow, Shareeka Epps is right there with him. Amazing. 4 stars.

Children of Men: I went into this movie with HIGH EXPECTATIONS (stay tuned, I will come back to this) and this movie met them. Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, the rest. All very real performances. The future is fully imagined. And it's grim. The scary parts are truly scary. The refugee camp makes you glad you didn't live in 40's Poland. Or today's Palestine. I haven't rocked in my seat trying to jump start the car in the movie in a while: "go, go, go."

Go. 5 stars.

Also, if you enjoy post-apocalyptic horror, read Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Road. I didn't sleep right for a week. It haunts me.

Pulp Fact!

2007-02-26T10:50:00.000-05:00

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Achievement in Directing
Achievement in Film Editing
Adapted Screenplay

Best Picture? In 10 years Letters from Iwo Jima might stand up as the better movie, certainly the more "important" one. But I'll see your Dances With Wolves and raise you a Goodfellas. And Scorsese (The Aviator) and Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) probably both should have lost to Alexander Payne's Sideways in 2005, but comedies don't win and, hey, we're all caught up now, right?

So long as Babel didn't win the social engineering award, I'm good.

Oscar Grouchy

2007-02-23T13:34:00.000-05:00

This being a movie blog, I suppose I have to submit an Oscar post. But I don't have to like it. I can't put my finger on why I'm so "meh" about them this year. I suppose my apathy is partly due to the feeling that the biggest categories' winners seem preordained:

Best Actress: Helen Mirren
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker
Best Director: Martin Scorcese

Yawn. Thanks for draining out all the suspense Golden Globes. And there seem to be so many factors in play other than the plain question of which actor/picture/whatever was best. Scorcese's owed one. We don't want Eastwood to have too many. Conflict diamonds are bad, mmkay?

Maybe that's it more than anything. Many of these movies feel like "homework movies," the kind of movies that are good for me, that I'm supposed to like. When more and more I'm learning that the movies I love are unmitigated pulpy genre spook-em-ups. Some of my favorite movies last year include The Descent (Yeah, yeah, 2005. Sue me.), Slither, Miami Vice and Casino Royale. That the paint-by-numbers race relations Power Point presentation that is Crash won best picture last year still burns me. I know Brokeback Mountain was the favorite, and I wouldn't have begrudged it (gay or not, they were cowboys), but I would have chosen Munich. But then we wouldn't want Spielberg to have too many Oscars, and so it goes.

I guess what I'm saying is that as long as The Queen (snore) or Babel (doubleclick to advance slide, ding!) don't win I'll be cool with the Academy. But chances are I'll be asleep. Or watching Layer Cake on DVD.

By the way, Best Documentary Feature, where's Awesome: I F**kin' Shot That!?

To San Jose, or not to San Jose?

2007-02-21T10:59:00.000-05:00

A question for you, faithful reader. You live in Long Island City, Queens. Your usual Netflix distribution center, i.e., the return address on most of your mailers, is in Flushing, Queens. You receive a Netflick from a d.c. in San Jose, CA.

Do you a) dutifully return your Netflick to the San Jose address drawing out the return phase of the flick-cycle, taking you out of the game for 2-4 days, or b) piggyback the San Jose disc in a Flushing envelope?

Seems easy enough, so let's increase the level of difficulty. The only reason Netflix mailed from California is that the first TWO times they mailed from Flushing this particular title arrived cracked.

What would you do?

The Puffy Chair

2007-02-14T18:04:00.000-05:00

I'm making this quick because it's Valentine's Day and mine will be home any minute. I'm not sure how this movie ended up on my queue, but that's not strange. I often sit with Premiere or Time Out New York or Highlights open in my lap and just add movies blindly. What's strange is that it ended up at my house at all. I obsessively groom my queue, until the surprises have floated back above position 50 where they will ever bob. So, I popped it in with No Expectations. (I will return to this theme in the future.) I was mesmerized.

This is a small, emotionally true movie. It's small in the sense that its' locus of action and cast is very tight. A quick little road trip, 3 folks in a van. The truth stems from its being "written" and played in the same way that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Christopher Guests' movies are: the creator produces a story outline and then the cast improvises the details to get themselves from points A to B to C. I don't think this method of arriving at the final product is the only way to fly, but it provides a wealth of real, intimate moments between the characters that would be very hard to script and just toss off.

This movie is a great exploration of what's meaningful between people and what keeps couples together. 5 stars.

An American Werewolf in London

2007-02-02T13:24:00.000-05:00

How is it that I had never seen this movie? I guess because in 1981 it was rated R and I wasn't. But Dad took me to see The Thing just a year later. And I remember Werewolf playing on Showtime over at my nemesis, John's house. In this life it's all about timing, I guess.

If you liked Shaun of The Dead, you'll like this funny-scary movie too. A young Griffin Dunne plays the throwaway banter between two college-age buddies just right. Jenny Agutter, as nurse Alex Price, is a natural. Her performance is so strong, David Naughton appears to fumble when he switches gears from screwball to serious. But his screwball has enough movement to get you swinging.

The Academy created the Best Makeup category specifically to acknowledge Rick Baker's work, which still looks dynamite. Well, most of it. The transformation is great, but the closeups look a bit like a drugstore Halloween costume. And the animatronic werewolf at the foot of the escalator might as well have a giant hand behind it, pushing*, "rrraaar." But the effect is kind of like seeing Bruce full-on for the first time. He looks hokey, but he's eating Quint alive, dammit.

And as you're closing in on the ending, you wonder if John Landis is going to stick to the bargain or wiggle out at the last minute. John, Landis not my nemesis, keeps his word. 4 stars.

*One of the making-of featurettes reveals that the quadripedal werewolf effect was created by laying out the (not animatronic) werewolf performer on a board with wheels and pushing him, wheelbarrow style, into the shot. Rrrraaar, indeed.

Clockers

2007-01-26T23:21:00.000-05:00

Have your movie-watching habits changed since joining the cult, er, subscribing to Netflix? I now watch the clock as much as the movie. Sure, back in the day I'd look at my watch and think "well, Hudson hasn't bought the farm, Newt hasn’t gone for a swim and I know there’s an alien queen in here somewhere. Yes! We've got a good 20-30 solid minutes left here." It was a joyful, relieved feeling. “Whee, there's lots of escapist wonderfulmentness left."

But now, there's an accountant in the back of my head, clattering away on his abacus. He’s Chinese. He calculates whether I'm going to finish this movie tonight, how many movies that makes this month, will I keep my average up? I had to throw a 24-movie month in there just to hover around 10 per. (By "had to" I mean women found me repulsive for a brief, free, falling period.)

I’ve tried to break the habit. I taped over the counter on my DVD player. I taped over the counter on my girlfriend’s DVD player. I find myself doing the math anyway. I try not to look at the running time on the envelope or glance at the clock on the wall. But eventually I do, and then I can't put the math out of my head and I’m not watching the movie. About a year ago I purged about 100 movies from my queue that Netflix predicted I’d rate lower than 3 stars. I’ve only re-added about 40 of them.

And it’s never going to stop. My queue thumbs its’ nose at my mortality. In any given month I add more than 10 movies to my queue. If I stopped adding altogether it would still take me almost two years to see the movies I’ve already saved. I’ll never catch up, not that I really want to I guess. I just want to get current. See also: my DVR backlog, the stack of books on my nightstand, the thank you notes I owe for Christmas presents, the calories I consumed yesterday…ad finitum. Agh.

The Singular is Netflick

2007-01-20T22:35:00.000-05:00

My Netflix particulars:
Member since July, 2002
3 at-a-Time (Unlimited) Program
509 movies rented
Average 9.4 movies/month
Average rating of 3.34 stars

A word about my star ratings, I don't like Netflix's definitions:

1: hated
2: didn't like
3: liked
4: really liked
5: loved

Specifically, 3 stars = "liked." That doesn't seem to be the proper middle point between "really liked" and "didn't like." Three stars should mean something like "it'll do," four stars "liked," and five stars "loved." So I think of the stars as letter grades. A three-star movie is a C student. He'll get by, but don't expect much more from him than managing a pizzeria. Nothing wrong with managing a pizzeria. I love a good pie, pizza or otherwise, but it's a workaday accomplishment. Full disclosure: my girlfriend shot down my idea of moving away and opening a pizzeria.

Here’s a small sample of my 5 star movies over the past 4 years:
Match Point, 2005 Who knew Woody Allen had the nuts?
Grizzly Man, 2005 My 1st Herzog. This movie has the metaphysical power of literature. Life and death is right there.
Nine Queens, 2000 A good solid long con. See also House of Games.
Spartan, 2004 Speaking of Mamet, this movie is all tight scripting that requires the audience to keep up. Michael Mann’s done the same thing with his Collateral and Miami Vice screenplays. Try watching them with the subtitles on and you’ll find how much you’d been missing.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring, 2004 What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Tender Mercies, 1983
Pelle the Conqueror, 1987

And here are some of my 1 star movies:
Martin & Orloff, 2003 I know it’s heresy to criticize the UCB, but you can find my comment on IMDb, posted as unreal1945. Don’t bother to write, the address is dead.
Grateful Dawg, 2000 Man I hate hippies.
Chicago (2002) Are you kidding? 13 Oscar nominations, 6 wins? Catherine Zeta-Jones? Kill me.
Serendipity (2001) Disliking this movie doesn’t require that I apply any intellectual rigor, or anti-hippie bias. I only mention it because it was my very first Netflick. I can't blame it on catering to my then-girlfriend. I just wanted to spend some time with Kate Beckinsale. An inauspicious beginning.

Welcome to Netflog

2007-01-17T18:08:00.000-05:00

Coming soon...I have Netflix. I have blog. We have Netflog. We'll begin with the kinds of things you'd discuss around the Netflix watercooler specifically, range afield from there to talk about movies generally and see where that gets us.

Wm.