Channing Tatum Will Fireman-Carry Your Movie

Channing Tatum has appeared in 3 relatively inexpensive movies in the last 6 months: "The Vow," "21 Jump Street," & "Magic Mike". Each picture has grossed >$100M US, most notably "Magic Mike," which cost an estimated $7M to make and has grossed about $102M so far. Wow.

 Another Tatum-Soderbergh team-up (as well as Douglas and Banderas and Paxton and Fassbender and! McGregor) that I really enjoyed is "Haywire." It wasn't nearly as profitable, but is approximately 169% more high speed-low drag. Burnt mercenaries, tradecraft, duplicity and fistfights. What more could you want.

If a more soulful Tatum is your jam, go back and check out "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints." He has a small part, but it's compelling. The movie also features a pre-"Transformers" Shia LaBeouf and a post-rehab/pre-"Iron Man" Robert Downey, Jr.

The Vanishing

Now I understand the anxiety and full-body-rocking I've seen a girlfriend experience when watching a suspense that tickles her particular worry, e.g., marriage, fertility, infertility, post-season candy sales. It is difficult to watch the helplessness Rex suffers for. years. searching for the super-cute Saskia, his missing girlfriend, wife? (He calls her his wife at first, and his friend 3 years later.) It is so difficult I can almost, but not quite, understand his late-3rd act choice.

Incidentally, this movie was released abroad as "The Man Who Had to Know," which I find is a much clearer title than "The Vanishing." The vanishing, so to speak, takes place in the 1st act, and we're left to puzzle out the psychodrama for the remainder of the picture. Knowing going in that we're following "the man who had to know," would make the whole affair seem a bit less anticlimactic. Just a thought, still, a solidly intense, creepy movie. You'll never see a chin beard quite the same way again. Skip the remake.

What I Saw in Theaters in 2011, Part 5

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

The popcorn wasn't stale.

What I Saw in Theaters in 2011, Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

‘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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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?