"Forget the Oscars and set the DVR for the Jimmy Kimmel post-Oscars specials.
Why you ask?
Because that’s when we’ll get our next look at “Iron Man 2.”"
Still Tracking the Sherlock Posts
Here's an unnecessarily scathing review ("Boo-hoo, Downey didn't do a Rathbone impersonation and Watson wasn't a doddering near-buffoon") that left me wondering how boring the critic's own Sherlock's Last Case was. I googled, curious how reviewers responded, and found a NYT review that didn't surprise me at all.
Finally saw "No Country for Old Men" yesterday. I went in with mixed expectations. Love the Coen Bros. movies, don't have much patience for (source novel author) Cormac McBoring's ponderous pondering. I haven't read the novel, and won't, but I have a feeling it's what's wrong with the movie. The performances were outstanding. Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem were all excellent. But the women in the movie weren't given much to do, and some of the dialogue was so painfully corndog I suspect it was straight from the book.
I'm glad I saw it, but if I'm ever faced with the choice of watching this or the other Coen Bros. set in Texas, "Blood Simple", the latter wins.
WALTER Nihilists! I am beshrewn. Say what thou wilt Of fascist tenets, Knave; it seeks to stand Philosophy and politic, not void. And let it noted be that wildlife kept, Amphibious rodent, in domestic walls, Is retrograde to right and civil laws.
Had Conan Doyle been a better writer, the problem might never have come up. Holmes is so memorable because, like later superheroes, he is less a fully developed character than a collection of fascinating traits. Raymond Chandler once complained that Holmes was little more than a few lines of unforgettable dialogue and an attitude: the drug habit, the boredom, the violin playing, the show-offy logical deductions, which Conan Doyle freely admitted were based on one of his medical school professors.
First caveat: there are a lot of movies that I wanted to see this decade and didn't. I suspect, of those well-reviewed unseen movies, too numerous to list, many would be on this list.
Second caveat: I only saw Sherlock Holmes once, yesterday, and loved it. I may be riding high off the buzz.
Third caveat: I'm a fanboy buffoon. Barely, if even, more credible than the AICN commenter.
"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
"Serenity"
"Memento"
"Fellowship of the Ring"/"The Two Towers"/"Return of the King"
"Brick"
"Michael Clayton"
"Traffic"
"Legend of the Drunken Master"
"Erin Brokovich"
"Snatch"
"Star Trek"
"Sherlock Holmes"
"Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"
"Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle"
"Iron Man"
"The Bourne Identity"/"The Bourne Ultimatum"/"The Bourne Supremacy"
I know we here love us some Jackie Chan, but the trailer for the new Karate Kid remake makes me all kinds of dyspeptic. First of all, I don't think the original needs a remake. It holds up really well. Secondly, remaking movies that I saw in the theater makes me feel all kinds of old. Thirdly, Will Smith Jr. seems like he has some of his dad's charisma - never seen him in anything - but also looks about three years too young. Can the sexual tension/love triangle that sets the plot in motion be anything but creepy?
And finally, Jackie. Maybe this will work. He looks admirably run down in the trailer. I assume the movie gives him some Miyagi-esque back story to explain why he would take in the foreign kid. Jackie could use a good role for an older martial artist, but I suspect this will be too cute, too filled with winking at the audience. I fear half-hearted bullying and heart-and-a-half mugging for the camera. End cranky old man rant. (Link via Ghost in the Machine)
Watching the trailer for the Clash of the Titans re-make, it occurs to me that today's ten-year old boys are far luckier than once upon a time. I had Harry Hamlin and a robot owl, and I thought it was the best movie evah.
The Game is Afoot
First Holmes viral marketing message arrived by telegraphic despatch this afternoon: London seethes with crime -- STOP -- find your partner upon whom you will rely -- STOP -- evidence secured for your advance assessment -- STOP -- the game is afoot -- STOP -- make all haste to 221B now STOP CLICK HERE
I know not everybody's thrilled about this project but I'm so eager for it I dvr'd the Hammer films Hound of the Baskervilles to watch some sleepless night.
Random Book, Random Passage #6
The first reference book to come up in this series, Asian Cult Cinema. It's probably not totally random that I flipped and stopped at a picture of Chow Yun-Fat, but I could've stopped on Jackie Chan or Sammo and kept going. Here's a bit about Ringo Lam's Full Contact:
Filmmaker Ringo Lam delivers his masterpiece. While it may be too violent and bleak to woo the mainstream audiences, it emerges as a film that simply can't be ignored. Unquestionably, it's the final word on the ultraviolence craze in HK cinema. Plus the pic benefits from, perhaps, Chow Yun-Fat's finest performance.
It goes on to describe the typically over the top plot and acknowledges the importance of the bullet's-eye view shot. The writing style of the reviews isn't this book's strong point, so I'm not going to quote the whole thing. I haven't seen Full Contact in a long time, I wonder how it's held up? It's certainly not Chow Yun-Fat's finest performance. At least, not any longer.
There Goes Whatever Respect I Had for Some Pretty Talented Directors
Lynch, Mann, Wenders, Gilliam, Scorsese, Allen and tons more just made it impossible for me to separate watching their movies from the fact they apparently don't think it's that bad to drug and rape a 13 year old girl.
One of the prerogatives of being a blockbuster director/producer is that you can shepherd new talent, as Lord of the Rings' Peter Jackson nurtured South African director Neill Blomkamp and his hit sci-fi action drama District 9 this summer.
Spider-Man's Sam Raimi is now taking a similar route by sponsoring a newbie British director named Corin Hardy and producing his proposed supernatural horror movie Refuge, about a remote town terrorized by a Yeti, the mythological creature native to the mountains of the Himalayas. (That's 'abominable snowman' to you.)"
Flickchart is either the best or worst thing to happen to making lists since ... well, since numbers. The premise is simple: you make your list of favorite movies. You do so by picking your favorite in a head to head match up. The thing is, the match ups are sometimes surprisingly difficult. That movie you loved and watched a dozen times in high school and can still quote from at length vs. that cool indie flick you caught a couple years back that got you thinking, deeply, about something you hadn't thought much about before -- which do you choose as your favorite? They're totally different movies, different genres, maybe one's "art" and the other's not; but, the other's the one you and your friends saw together and use as a touchstone for shared memories. One may be clearly better than the other in a critical sense but how do you separate your critical sense from your nostalgic fondness? Should you even try? The great thing is you have to choose one to move on. The bad thing is you immediately get faced with another choice, then another, and before you know it hours have gone by and you're still clicking away.
Flickchart's database has been growing ... it used to pain me to see my list without The Maltese Falcon at the top because it just wasn't available ... and it's getting a little more social: you share match ups that intrigue you on Facebook now, as well as FriendFeed. While there are social elements, the site is nicely designed in that they aren't in your face and you can rank to your heart's content without having to read how a bunch of idiots think The Dark Knight is the greatest movie ever made and anyone who doesn't think so obviously doesn't know anything about movies. Yeah, the chuckleheads are there too but you can easily ignore them. If you score a beta invitation, try it out. Then share your list with me. Update: You don't need an invitation any longer, they went live a couple days ago. So, do it.
(1957, Cy Endfield) Ex-con Stanley Baker joins William Hartnell’s crew of gravel-hauling truckers, unaware that Hartnell and his screw-loose foreman Patrick McGoohan are running a payroll-skimming scam, while encouraging hairraising reckless driving. Jam-packed cast includes Peggy Cummins (Gun Crazy), Herbert Lom, David McCallum (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), and a pre-007 Sean Connery. 1:30, 5:20, 9:10
“An unjustly neglected nail-biter. This is the stuff that B-movie dreams are made of, and Hell Drivers does its damnedest to deliver bottom-of-the-bill bliss. Rough, urgent cynicism is the name of the game; there’s precious little Hawksian camaraderie, only capitalism and cutthroat competition. Like its antiheroes, the film moves at a full-throttle pace and hugs the curves remarkably tightly.” – David Fear, Time Out New York" (thanks email tipster -- must see movie list updated accordingly)
The Social Network (Facebook Movie): I was disinterestedly nonplussed by word that Fincher was lined up to make a Fbook movie. Then, it turns out Aaron Sorkin's working the script. Sorkin has been off the radar way too long. So now I'm curious. But ... it's still Fincher (zzzzz...) and about the Fbook guy.
"'White people still ask me why Mookie threw the can through the window,' Lee said in an interview. 'Twenty years later, they're still asking me that.'
'No black person ever, in 20 years, no person of color has ever asked me why.'"
I guess to get to a post-racial America we'd need folks of all colors to both have the compassion to understand why and not have the life experience that makes it so they don't even have to ask. We are not there yet.
Score: Ran out to see what my neighbor is selling at the garage sale tomorrow and picked up six dvds for $10. Spidey 2, Army of Darkness, Shaun of the Dead, The Abyss, Bourne Supremacy, and Monsoon Wedding. The last may seem like one-of-these-is-not-like-the-others but I recognized the director's name from the upcoming Amelia biopic so I thought it could be advance scouting. Plus, it couldn't hurt to get at least one that the missus'll watch with me. Bonus: got back inside just in time to see Ortiz go yard. That's timing. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Top Ten Gypsy Curses in Film and Television « Cinematropolis: Seeing the trailer for Drag Me to Hell got me thinking, "it's been a while since we've seen the gypsy curse in action." I started wracking my brain trying to think of other examples, but the only other ones I could remember were Angel, the gypsy fortune teller machine in Big, and Lon Chaney's Wolfman. Yet, the gypsy curse seems like such a famous device it must be more common. That's when I went searching and found the Cinematropolis link, which arose from the same prompting. Aside from King's Thinner, which I'd forgotten, I don't think I'd even so much as heard of the other references. (I'm not convinced the X-Files one is accurate and am years removed from having watched and episode of The Simpsons.) There must be other notable gypsy curses, perhaps in comic books, that I'm forgetting? For some reason Abbott & Costello keeps coming to mind, but dang if I can recall why. Maybe there was a gypsy in A&C Meet Frankenstein?
The Reader: I'm catching up, slowly, on some of the films I'd hoped to see last year that there was just no time for ... The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Quantum of Solace in the bag, There Will Be Blood, Burn After Reading, No Country For Old Men pending... and tonight I think I saw what will prove to be the best of the lot, though I'm holding out hope for No Country (only the Coens, I suspect, could fashion something decent out of a novel by that overrated gobshite McCarthy).
You Want the Hurtline? You Can't Handle the Hurtline!: Marcari, Russotto, Spencer & Balaban -- Don Marcari was the JAG lawyer who was the basis of the Tom Cruise character in A Few Good Men. He does personal injury law here in NC. If your denture cream gave you zinc poisoning, he will pound tables and stare down even the most Jack Nicholson-y of Denture Cream Defense Lawyers on your behalf.
My Favorite Movies After the 5K Pole: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon looks like a lock to hold the top spot until The Maltese Falcon is added to flickchart's database.
Tangentially, I finally saw The Dark Knight and have to say I was sorely disappointed. I was going along with it until the end when (I'm assuming everyone has it seen it by now and spoiler alerts are unnecessary) Gordon and Wayne cooked up the lame and patronizing "Batman must become scapegoat so Dent can remain a hero" scheme. The idea that the general public can't handle the truth and needs their cherished heroes to be untarnished is so insulting that for the filmmakers to play it out like the characters were making the heroic choice was nauseating. The ending ruined the whole thing for me. Bah.
Flickchart - Your Rankings And Charts Of The Top Movies Of All Time: Buggy, but fun. I'm sure it'll get better with time. I also wish I hadn't accidentally clicked on "Happy Gilmore" that one time. Word of advice if you try the site, you may want to click 'haven't seen it' for movies you've seen, but really don't want to be ranking all the time. Unless you really want to spend lots of time ranking crap movies you barely remember against each other.
Dollhouse season finale in about 10 minutes. This is the left bookend of "awesome sci-fi weekend". Right bookend is going to be Star Trek at the IMAX on Monday.
Shatner Watches Trek Trailer for First Time: http://tini.us/theshat (Not sure I'll use tini.us again. To allow for commenting on the link, you have to go through their homepage, find the link, then go back to leave comment -- seems like a lot of work.)
Aside from the Land of the Lost promotion, there's also mention of an upcoming six-hour special on Discovery called Out of Egypt. Like fellow cryptonaut HD, I'm a bit of a sucker for the ancient Egypt stuff.
Um ... you probably don't need to see this, but here's a trailer for the porn parody of The Office. Not sure if there's an actual movie behind this or not. Also, don't want to know. I don't think The Office lends itself to this sort of thing as easily as Friends or The XXX Files.
6 Movies I Watched From Beginning to End This Year Because I didn't see enough to make a Best Of List. In no particular order:
Iron Man
Indiana Jones 4
The Incredible Hulk
Doubt
The Forbidden Kingdom
W.
If I get to see 6 more 2008 movies in 2009, they'll be:
Pineapple Express
Burn After Reading
Quantum of Solace
Slumdog Millionaire
Harold & Kumar 2
I think I read enough this year to make a slightly decent Best of the Books I Read 2008 list. "The Chicago Way" will not be on it. "The Secret History" might make it if I finish it tonight.
Turner Classic Movies will air a 24 hour Paul Newman marathon starting Sunday (Oct. 12th) at 5 a.m. (schedule here). Newman has always been one of my favorites, and he makes a roasted garlic salsa that I can pretty much eat with a spoon. The marathon is a pretty nice list, obviously they couldn't get the rights to everything. No Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, no The Hustler, two of my (and everybody's) favorite Newman movies.
On this list, I'd put a plug in for Hud, which is probably one of Newman's "classic" movies that few have actually seen. Torn Curtain is a bit slow for Hitchcock and for Newman, but it's worth seeing. And if you haven't seen Cool Hand Luke, really, isn't this the time?
Enormously cool and enormously generous, willing to be goofy on Letterman, Newman has inspired a bunch of tributes. If you've seen the classic movies, I'd put a plug in for a trio of modern movies that show Newman lost none of his aura and charm in old age. The Hudsucker Proxy is always regarded as a lesser Coen brothers movie, but I loved it. Tim Robbins really should do more comedy. Newman is great as the evil robber baron. In Where the Money Is, Newman embraces his age, playing an old con man lured back in for one more big hit by a younger generation. It's a low budget sort of crime movie and worth seeing. And Nobody's Fool is probably mentioned too often to be considered overlooked, but if you can bear to look at Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith in a drama, this is worth seeing. It's about a guy getting ground down by life, who may not know what kind of legacy he is leaving his town and his friends. Unlike Newman, who left a hell of a legacy behind him.
Baggage in the Bat Belt I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight. It's certainly a very good to great movie, as everyone else has said. Heath Ledger is a mortal lock for an Oscar here if they submit him as a supporting actor. I'd even argue he could possibly score a Best Actor win - considering Anthony Hopkins did it with 15 minutes of screen time as Hannibal Lector. Does Lector/Clarice being man and woman somehow change the equation? They were both considered leads. Why not the Joker? This is really his film.
I'd further argue - because, you know, I like to argue - that it is a fairly iffy film without him. There were two things I'd heard about before going in and unfortunately, they did taint the film a bit for me. Somewhere, I'd read a dig about Christian Bale's Batman voice being one-note. When you listen to the movie with this in mind ... Holy Cow. How did a director/actor combo as good as Nolan/Bale let this monotonous growling take over every line of Batman's? I kept hoping he would talk less. Bale is the anti-Maguire. I like him as Bruce Wayne, not so much in the costume. (I hated the choice of Maguire for Spider-Man, but I do give him credit as the voice of Spidey.) And I apologize if you haven't heard this complaint because I just ruined your next viewing of the movie.
The second bit of baggage going into the movie was the now popular idea that Batman = Bush. Or Cheney. Or some kind of right wing worldview. The vast majority of action movies have a bit of right wing aroma about them. Many of them rely on the idea that someone - Dirty Harry, Bruce Willis, Jack Bauer, whoever - has to break the rules in order to protect us. We can't protect ourselves and rules and regulations make for dull movies, just as villains who give up information without being tortured are kind of sissy villains. Usually I can write this stuff off. If your politics need to be expressed by someone in a costume, you need to re-examine your politics, not me.
Yet, in Dark Knight, the cell phone eavesdropping seemed plunked in solely to parallel Bush's illegal wire-tapping. I found myself muttering, "Well, at least Batman's eavesdropping was effective." Batman accepts the public's (rather sudden) hatred heroically. Bush's low approval rating is not a sign of his nobility, it's a sign of his suckiness. All of this made the sort of leaden speechifying at the end more grating than it needed to be. (There are other, more sensible, ways to interpret the movie if you really think it's worth taking the politics of Batman that seriously. Link via neilalien.)
Ritchie I think is perfect for a Sherlock Holmes reimagining. I can't think of a better Holmes for this purpose than Jason Statham. That would so rock. Heck, the fella what played Turkish's little brother in Snatch could be his Watson. Keep it in the Ritchie stable. Crossposted from my Google Reader Shared page.
Gold-Titanium Alloy Man Does whatever a Gold-Titanium Alloy pig can ... d'oh!
I like Robert Downey Jr. I liked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I think I've liked him in other things, so why is it I can only call to mind his supporting roles in US Marshalls (bleh) and True Believer? I keep wanting to say he was great in The Grifters and Grosse Pointe Blanke -- and then I remember that was John Cusack. Anyways, he was a great Tony Stark here: charming, sharp, and just this side of dissolute. (Keep in mind, I've never read an Iron Man comic in my life, so whether he's Comic Book Guy's Tony Stark is beyond my ken.) Iron Man delivers superhero/comic book fun that left me hoping the planned trilogy comes to pass -- with Favreau at the helm of all three. I liked Batman Begins, it was my last 'favorite comic book movie', but I'm really not looking forward to the sequel. I'm just not that goth, I guess. I like the bold primary colors comics more than the brooding I'm-so-dark-I'm-cool genre calculated to appeal to the NIN set. Those less dark superhero movies have been a mixed bag to this point: Superman Returns, Daredevil, Ang Lee's Hulk, Raimi's Spider-Man movies, the X-Men movies -- there's some wild inconsistency there. Hammy to stilted acting (Maguire the former, any X-(wo)man the latter, Affleck both), distractingly awful CGI, ludicrously overstuffed/semi-coherent stories, there's been something fundamentally wrong with all of them. While each of those movies had elements I liked, none of them have held up particularly well for me. The first two Spideys would be best of that lot. [Update: A day later, I find myself thinking, "How could those Afghan soldiers have been stupid enough to let Stark build the Iron Man 1.0 suit right under their noses when he was supposed to be building them missiles? Instead of watching on grainy video monitors wondering what he was up to ('Maybe he made some modifications?' one asks another) they could've asked him directly and made him show progress.) Of course, I wondered the same thing during the movie, but I stopped wondering as I got caught up in the tension of getting the suit built in time, etc. I think it would be hard to sit through that a second time.]
Downey wasn't the only actor doing fine work in this movie. Jeff "The Dude" Bridges was great as Downey's mentor and (obligatory spoiler alert, if needed) ultimate nemesis. I didn't even recognize him at first with that bald dome-full beard look. Are his meaty, arms dealing paws in this movie the same hands that balanced White Russians so delicately in The Big Lebowski? None of the performances here were so one-dimensionally bad that they distracted me from the flow of the movie. Can't say that about many (any?) other superhero movie.
I like too that Iron Man isn't as powerful as the Hulk and Superman. You don't find yourself wondering things like "Could he really pick up a whole continent like that? Wouldn't it break in half in the middle, or the weight of the whole continent focused where he's standing cause the part of the earth's crust he's standing on to sink?" And the suit has that Gundam/Mech appeal that satisfies the tech/gadget lover in me much more than Batman's token nod.
Crouching Tiger, Spanking Monkey I've been burned too often (I'm looking at you, The Tuxedo) by American-made Jackie Chan movies to have it be an automatic thatI'll be there opening weekend; but, largely because of Armond White's review [New York Press - ARMOND WHITE - Mash of the Titans], I did open the wallet and make the trek to check out The Forbidden Kingdom.
I was a little worried about five minutes in when the gang of toughs reminded me a little too much of the Rumble in the Bronx baddies. Luckily, the magical transport to the Middle Kingdom happened pretty quickly and the movie hit its stride. Jackie and Jet worked well together, the fight scenes were fun, and there were lots of nods to classic movies to give the geeks like me some chances to buff our Shaw Bros. merit badges earned for learning to recognize the animal styles before they're called out.
This Michael Angarano kid they found to be the student to Jackie and Jet though ... I read he had to learn kung fu to get the role, so I hoped that meant he could already act. He learned enough kung fu to convincingly play a novice but maybe they'd have been better served finding someone with a martial arts background who could learn to act. If he had any screen charisma at all, I'd be pulling for a sequel where Jackie's Lu Yan character continued to mentor him through another adventure.
Roy Scheider dies. With Jaws and The French Connection and, I have to add, Blue Thunder there were a good two or three years where this guy stood with Burt Reynolds and Marc Singer in the trifecta of movie masculinity for me. Not saying that was entirely a good thing, but there it is. Other people had John Wayne, I had Hooper and Beast Master.
This [review for There Will be Blood] is the worst movie review I have ever read (“A Guilt-Soaked Epic,” Jan. 2-8). Aspects of it lead me to believe that your reviewer [Armond White] is mentally deficient for failing to grasp painfully obvious plot elements, such as the “estranged brother” character, who is not an estranged brother at all, but a charlatan, which is where the gravitas of the Plainview character is fully manifest. He not only fails to recognize the best dramatic performance of the last 25 years, but his incessant name-dropping of irrelevant RELICS is not only obnoxious, but confuses even the most patient reader. This review, honestly, belongs in the SAT examination, as an object of boredom to be mocked and sworn at, representative of film criticism at its most masturbatory. This is the nadir of film criticism, and your reviewer is a blithering idiot.—Daniel Simon
Since reading White's "The Resistance," I've been on the lookout for his reviews and reactions he provokes. Kevin over at GiTM mentioned him in passing the other day as well. I'm standing by my Second-Best-Film-Critic vote until I borrow "Chuck and Larry" from JD and confirm my suspicion that it's a piece of crap.
Why Armond White is My New Favorite Movie Critic (After Filthy)
'"The Bubble,' featuring the year's best original screenplay, is one of the peaks of the gay cinema breakthroughs that critics pretended to welcome with the big-budget, name-star 'Brokeback Mountain' but then ignored as a matter of habit. Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox's symbolic situations, recognizable characters and nuanced dialog surpasses even the superb (and unfairly maligned) 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry' in realistic details. Fox's script isn't a satire but a political romance that dares give unprejudiced clarity to the inequities of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, global homophobia and middle-class privilege." -- Armond White [indieWIRE]
Is he brilliant or totally wack? I'm not sure, I guess I'd have to netflix ' ... Chuck and Larry' to find out, a step I can't bring myself to take; but, I like that I'm almost always surprised by his reviews.
6) The Saturdays, Elizabeth Enright - This is a reissued, nearly lost gem of a juvenile novel, first published in 1941. The four Melendy kids decide to pool their allowances so once a week one of them can have a forty cent adventure instead of each of them trying to have a ten cent adventure. As history, the book is fascinating. A six year old walking alone around New York City to get to the circus! There's something beautiful about Enright's vision of childhold here that probably makes The Saturdays more appealling to grownups than actual kids. (My seven year old read this but only once and didn't seem to like it as much as me and Mrs. BoneDaddy.) She romanticizes siblings and long afternoons with little to do, out of the way playrooms and "what I want to be" dreams. Adults probably like that stuff more than kids.
5) Gone, Baby, Gone, Dennis Lehane (1998) - I've had this book forever. Fear of spoilers surrounding the movie convinced me to finally pick it up. Lehane doesn't do anything great, but he does a lot of things well. His dialogue is good, but I didn't put this away with my Elmore Leonard or anything. The sense of place is strong, if one note - this is not a Boston novel, it's a south Boston novel. And the plot ... well, if you've seen the movie you know the plot. The resolution is sad, mostly earned and admirably unflinching. I did tear through this in a day, so it also works as a good, but not really great thriller.
4) The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta (2007) - For me it was a better year in non-fiction (with two giant exceptions coming), since I have to start talking about Perrotta's latest by saying it's not as good as either Election or Little Children. Ruth Ramsey accidentally tells the truth while teaching high school sex ed (oral sex - "some people enjoy it") and the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth begins a crusade against the school, sex ed and Ruth. They insert in the classroom a Tracy Flick-ish co-teacher, who is the only part of The Abstinence Teacher to be truly satirical. Perrotta writes with a lot of sympathy for Tim - former addict, Tabernacle member, soccer coach for Ruth's daughter and other half of the novel's focus. I suspect this novel signals Perrotta stepping away from satire towards a contemporary Updike area. He is a master of suburban unhappiness - which is rarer than it sounds - but also great at comedy. A slightly unsatisfying finish keeps this from finishing higher on my list.
3) The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead (2000) - Imagine if the elevator were more important than the car and the computer. If Otis were better known than Ford and Edison. Then imagine the power a corrupt union of elevator inspectors could have over a city, if that city existed in some kind of Brazil-ian (the movie, not the country) non-time, non-place. That's odd enough. But what if a new way of inspecting elevators split the union into the traditionalists and the intuitionists, who can feel what an elevator will do? If one side wanted to discredit the other side, they could frame Lila Mae, the first black female elevator inspector and an Intuitionist to boot, right? (Racism, by the way, is rampant. And it's a sign of the maturity of Whitehead's vision that Lila is the second black elevator inspector and the first one hates her because he feels he paid all the dues for her and she's stirring up the trouble that had settled down.) Odd, dense and certainly not for everyone, but I liked it.
2) Watership Down, Richard Adams (1972) - Now we get to the reccomendations without reservations. There's a long list of movies I won't see because I loved the book. The list of books I wouldn't read because I loved the movie too much was one book long. Watership Down, the movie, probably isn't nearly as good as I remember it. When I was nine, this movie had more of an impact on me than Star Wars, not that I'd have ever admitted it.
So I refused to read the book for a few decades. I'm funny that way. To my surprise - I have read other Richard Adams books - Watership Down is a masterpiece. The heft of the book always made me think it was crammed full of naturalistic garbage and meandering nature writing in British and/or rabbit slang, but the book is terrifically paced. Ultimately it's as much an adventure novel as an allegory with the nature writing complementing the story.
Watership Down is filled with chill scenes, and I don't think it's entirely because certain quotes ("There's a dog loose in the woods...""Can you run, rabbit?") are indelibly marked on my brain. Bigwig in the tunnel was utterly gripping and people, we're talking about rabbits here.
1)Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (2007) - My No Duh choice. The publishing event of the year was also the book of the year. Some of the nitpickers make some good points about the book. I have complaints here and there about other Potter books, but I'm also upping the degree of difficulty here. Rowling had to finish an epic story, tie up a bunch of loose ends, give many characters their due and tell a self-containted story for children and adults, all under a spotlight brighter than has ever been put on an author and Deathly Hallows got it done.
For me, the hype built up the experience. Because I partially experienced it all through the eyes of a seven year old I was reminded that story-telling is often a social activity. Round the campfire, in front of the TV, whatever. Stories and masses aren't enemies. The articles, the book discussions and yes, even the balloons in the Stop-n-Shop added to the fun but only because the book delivered. (Also helped that I managed to finish the book without encountering spoilers - even from my own house.) Harry walking through the woods surrounded by ghosts (you know what I'm talking about if you've read the book) is the quintessential moment of the series and it happens at the end. You don't get that often. And you get a fantasy like this probably once in a generation.
My honorable mention for 2007 goes to Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954), not on the list because I'd read it before. It really holds up. I read it in preperation for the movie, then never saw the movie. Based on the reviews, I think I got a better experience. Dan Harrington's Harrington on Hold 'Embooks also almost made it onto my non-fiction list, but I figured that's kinda niche.
Dropkick Murphys - "The Meanest of Times": I can't imagine any Battle of the Bands format the Murphys wouldn't win ... and I'm not only imagining formats where the band members have to do shots of whiskey chased with Guinness between songs, where success is measured by the vivacity of the mosh pit, where the bands play in front of a soused crowd of laborers in the sweaty basement of a union hall, etc...
Tim Armstrong - "A Poet's Life" : I don't know if Armstrong is more than thirty years old but, even if not, he might want to take Mencken's quip to heart. As much as I like this album, the title makes me cringe. Once you get past his "I'm a poet and a sex-drugs-and-rock-n-rolling party man" posing, there's no denying the wickedly danceable ska-inflected groovealiciousness.
Books (Read for the First Time Regardless of Year Published)
A more macho list of manly-men movies would be hard to imagine. I'm really not trying to exclude female filmmakers (nor authors, nor musicians) ... but, wow, take the Y chromosone out and you're not left with much here. Although, I actually thought China Mieville was a woman until I saw his picture in the back of "Perdido Street Station".
Speaking of kids' TV, we watch the Backyardigans now. My babies love to dance, so it's a whirly, twirly, circly 20 minutes when they're dancing around. Mrs. C-Dog seems to think we watch it because I like it, but just because I often find myself humming the decidedly Morphine-ish "Riding the Range" song doesn't mean it's my show. It's for the kids.
If you're like me, easy quizes make you feel good about yourself. Here's an easy movie quiz about movies from the last 25 years. (Although the first one is about Star Wars?)
Worst Smack Talk Ever Since c-dog and I were they only ones to sign up on the fantasy movie mogul game you might think I wouldn't take much pride in my victory. You'd be wrong.
"Yo, c-dog! Your powers of predicting successful movies based on their posters are clearly inferior to mine!"
Um ...
"The capitalist success of my slate clearly proves my moral superiority to you. And your mother."
Hmmmm...
"You come at me with Waitress? What were you thinkin', bee-yotch?"
Well ...
"Other people made 800 something million off my movies and all I got was ... hey, can I get a T-shirt somewhere?"
Okay, there's no smack-talking possibilities, but a win is a win.
Trailers I really wanted to be optimistic before seeing the trailer for "The Darjeeling Limited," but having seen it, I'm just not feeling it. Much as I loved "Bottle Rocket" and "Rushmore," "Tenenbaums" felt like a bit of a step back and "Life Aquatic," while not full on disappointing, misfired. Not looking forward to the next Wes Anderson flick is a dispiriting experience.
Also looking less appealing than I'd hoped, the Coen's new one, "No Country For Old Men." Tangentially, "American master, Cormac McCarthy" ... really? I've only read "The Road," and if that's representative, I guess I can't imagine why anyone would want to read more? Am I way off base here?
Malkovich, Hopkins, and Jolie in "Beowulf" immediately suggested an alternate title: "Clash of the Hambones."
Oh, Jackie. ~shakes head wearily~ The next time you see Brett Ratner or Chris Tucker's name on your caller ID, chuck the phone in the nearest body of water and get a new number. I could link to the "Rush Hour 3" trailer, but what would be the point? On the other hand, "Dynamite Warrior" might satisfy the martial arts/actioner jones.
Anybody see "The Simpsons" yet? I gave up on the show a few seasons ago, but find myself singing Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does quite a bit.
The Princess Bride 20 Years Later ABC News has then and now photos. Another one of those tedious reminder milestones that I am as old now as when my parents (hopelessly out of touch dinosaurs, yeah?) were when I was teenager. The other movies that leap to mind as my favorites from that year are: The Untouchables, The Living Daylights, Robocop, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles ("Those aren't pillows!"). (I thought Die Hard was 1987, but a quick check of IMDB reminds me that was 1988.)
In 1987, movies turning 20 were Bonnie & Clyde, You Only Live Twice, The Graduate, The Dirty Dozen, and Cool Hand Luke. It's mildly interesting to compare what made the 1967 movies seem dated (aside from the obvious music, hair and clothing styles) in 1987 to what makes the 1987 movies seem dated now and identify what will make 2007 movies look laughable in 2027 ... wildly unconvincing, jarringly incongruent CGI leaps to mind first. The persistence of James Bond is notable as well. Already 5 or so films deep in 1967, one of my favorite movies of last year was Daniel Craig's first outing as Bond. 45 years of a feature film franchise built around a single character is stunning.
Those Silver Surfer quarters bothered me on a few levels. It's not that our money is especially beautiful, but I don't think advertising should overtake it. Also, a Fantastic Four sequel? Really? That's what we're deflowering our currency for? Well, maybe not. Turns out, the Mint was not involved and the quarters may have been produced illegally. Now, of course, I want one.
I've finally gotten around to reading H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, partially because I loved the show and partially because I was kind of sick of reading on the back of every book that follows something for a year "It's the Friday Night Lights of chess/scrabble/day trading/porn." Just like they always say about the show, it's so much more than football. The portrait of the boom and bust town of Odessa, Texas which has no constant except a love of Mojo Panther football is mesmerizing. It's also very much about race. Bissinger does not flinch or cover up for this town that finally integrated its schools in 1982. And when they had to, they grabbed as many blacks as they could (sending the Hispanics elsewhere) because, you know, who do you want as a running back, a black or a Hispanic? The chapter on the use of the word "nigger" in Odessa is pretty much essential reading on race in America. (It's like household cleaner, you can use it anywhere.)
I've never seen the movie and I have to believe it - like the show - kind of whitewashes some of Bissinger's book. I root for the Panthers on the show. The kids and the town in this book is frequently so ugly, conservative, racist and vain I often felt that losing would be good for them. Then you realize that the other team is often just as ugly and maybe nobody should win or maybe nobody should pour too much into this game.
The chapter on the Midland-Odessa rivalry becomes fascinating in light of the failed W administration. W grew up in Midland and wrecked his first businesses there. Friday Night Lights was published in 1990 and doesn't mention W at all - Bush the Greater gets a few pages - but the descriptions of Midland business culture are appalling when you consider this was W's environment.
"Greed, delusional visions of grandeur, the mercenary mercilessness that made every relationship expendable - Midland perfected all these long before they became the standard of the eighties around the rest of the country."
"Over at the country club, or in enormous corner offices with picture windows that seemed to deserve something more than wide-angle views of scrub brush and mesquite, [Midland oil executives] confused luck with business acumen. Instead of understanding that they were the beneficiaries of history, they began to believe they were the creators of it."
This is so much more than football. It's the Friday Night Lights of football.
TC FantasyMoguls.com Summer Movie Box Office League You're invited to join (yet another) fantasy league. Think you know what will be a surprise hit and which projected blockbuster will belly flop? Test your predictive powers using the magic of the interweb! They have it on computers now. So, if you think the Simpsons movie will open huge, or that people are dying to see CGI Autobots vs. Decepticons, put your fantasy dollars where your typing fingers are.
I happened to be flipping channels and caught the graduation dance in Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Forest Whitaker doing a dorky dance to cover of "Life in the Fast Lane" by the skinny-tied new wave band and I realized that Fast Times is now a four Oscar movie (Whitaker, Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, writer Cameron Crowe) and will quite possibly finish as a five Oscar movie in the quite-possible event that Jennifer Jason Leigh wins one. Would this be more or less likely than Predator being a two governor movie?
A brief article on the rise of Philip K. Dick's reputation since his death. I got into written science fiction by way of Blade Runner and its source Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? so the guy has always been a giant to me.
Daniel Radcliffe will star in the final two Harry Potter movies. That's easily a good choice. Better to go forward with the guy who, even though he now looks too old for the part, has done a decent job of it than to introduce someone completely different to end it. Radcliffe is only two or three years older than Harry, which is nothing in crazy Hollywood casting, but he looks much older. (Check out how young the main three look in the article's photo!) In the past couple of books, Rowling has dropped lines about how tall Harry is getting. If Kareem-abdul-Weasley isn't a problem, a studded out Harry really isn't either.
Scorpion and the Frog Has anybody documented the number of times the Scorpion and the Frog parable has been used in movies and TV since The Crying Game? I can't remember hearing it prior to that, but I'm starting to think it gets into every TV series at some point. The Dresden Files made reference to it in the last episode and I heard Chakotay tell it in a Voyager rerun last week, which is what got me thinking about how many times I've thought "not the Scorpion and the Frog again" since Forest Whitaker told it to Stephen Rea.
And, by the way, KSR's Sixty Days and Counting came out today. Finally. It's been a long wait, especially since I've been bogged down in The Historian for weeks now ... I doubt you were tempted, but I can tell you if you were, don't bother. It's crap. Kostova's bloodless prose is uniquely unsuited for telling vampire stories. Bulgarian travel guides, maybe, but not vampires.
Ouch. Personally, I liked Garden State. No one should be touting it as "movie of a generation" or anything, but it wasn't a bad movie. Also, Scrubs? Not a bad show at all. Zach Braff has talent. I wouldn't question that. Still, Ten Easy Steps to Making a Zach Braff Movie is pretty damn funny. Maybe you shouldn't visit if you want to see his upcoming movie.
"I left some Love Stains in the back seat. You'll see." Neil Patrick Harris has a great cameo in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. (SVU's Christopher Meloni is unrecognizable and hilarious in his cameo as well.) It's one of the those stupid, vulgar comedies in the vein of 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers, so I figured it would make sense to watch it at 6am this morning with my mom while we tried to get Blake to sleep. I lmao. It could've just been the exhaustion. Oh, and my mom thought it was funny too.
It occurs to me, suddenly, that it's a surreal life I'm living these days ... I'm eating bagels that were fedexed direct from Manhattan to the woods of rural Rhode Island while I watch dope-smoking, titty movies with my newborn son and my mom at the crack of dawn.
Double Shot of Movies A free night and a lingering virus gave me the chance to catch a couple of movies recently. I probably never would have watched Below if I had been physically able to do anything else, but I was happily surprised by this video sleeper pick. An American sub in WWII plucks some survivors out of the ocean and creepy, weird things start happening. The sub, you won't be surprised to hear, may have a mysterious past, vengeful ghosts, sabatoge, or just a bad case of atmosphere poisoning. Nicely directed by David "Pitch Black" Twohy, Below gives good claustrophobia, as you'd expect from a sub movie. X-Files and Twilight Zone fans might find this refreshingly different from the recent slew of gory, dead child/ Japanese revenge remakes. There's very little gore, but a couple of good creepy scenes. There's one sequence done in front of a mirror that just about exactly matches something I've always wanted to see in a horror movie. Below doesn't really go the extra mile, either with the story or the acting, but it's certainly good enough, and that's not just the medicine talking.
The horribly-titled The Squid and the Whale has been getting enough attention so I'll just toss my two cents in. The dialogue is good - the two kids on Kafka was hysterical - and the acting is great - especially the kids - but this is a hard movie to love, mostly because every single character is kind of unlikeable and the plot is pretty small. After seeing this movie, you won't want to be divorced, married, a parent, a child, sexually active, sexually inactive, squid, whale or any kind of writer. You may want to be a philistine, as the younger kid proudly declares himself in a great scene because then you get to see movies that make you smile at the end. A cautionary tale.
10 Worst Blockbusters of All Time. Hard to argue when there's so much at rock bottom. I think Titanic is a decent movie and doesn't deserve to be on the list, but even deleting it doesn't make room for all the junk left out. Godzilla. Con Air. Jurassic Park II.
Movies Recently Hotel Rwanda -- Tif and I took my mom out to a movie yesterday. Last time we did that, the two of them muscled me into a Showcase to see Sweet Home Alabama -- a supposedly sweet, but in actuality morally repugnant, "comedy" that made me feel dirty. I was pleasantly surprised when both were interested in seeing Hotel Rwanda.
I went in peripherally aware of Oscar-ish buzz clinging to the film like a dung beetle to a pile of ... well, dung. But, I like Don Cheadle. I think he's been unfairly panned for his turns in the Ocean's movies and he's done good work in Traffic and Out of Sight. Initially, I wasn't blown away by his portayal of PaulRusesabagina, there's something about Cheadle and accents that always takes me a minute to get used to, before long though I was totally roped in; he did a great job crafting a believably heroic character without lapsing into pie-eyed humility and faux nobility.
This sort of movie fails if it all does is hero worship and make the baddies so cartoonishly bad that you end up feeling manipulated. Hotel Rwanda is, for a movie set amidst genocide, remarkably understated. The horror is conveyed, but in such a way that you (or, I, at least) never feel like the filmmakers are hammering away at you with the easy, gut-level manipulative stuff to foster an artifically high level of sympathy with the hero. My response to this movie was more thoughtful than emotional, although I doubt many people could sit through it without their hearts in their throats, and I think that sort of complex response (highly emotional, yet even more contemplative) is a credit to how the moral questions of the movie were posed.
Other movies I've seen recently: The Manchurian Candidate (2004) -- Definitely worth a rental. It was better than I expected. I've never seen the original so I had no remake bias going in. Sideways -- Slow starting, but it builds up to a pretty decent comedy. Not deserving of the fawning praise I've read, but there's enough there to make it worth checking out. Around the World in 80 Days (2004) -- Jackie's ageing is getting progressively more difficult to watch. Some intriguing cameos, I was especially happy to see Sammo again, but Schwarzenegger as a Turkish Sultan was just ... words fail. Not as bad as the nadir of Jackie's career (The Tuxedo), but still, pretty freaking bad. Whale Rider -- Glad I netflixed this one. Men With Guns -- Not sure yet how I feel about this one. It certainly did not displace Lone Star atop my Sayles list. Sherlock: Case of Evil -- Uneven and unnecesarily gross, in a decidedly 'made for cable' kind of way. Still, I liked enough of it to wish a better director would be brought in for a sequel. I'm a sucker for the Sherlock stuff though, so I wouldn't recommend this to any but Holmes completists. Garden State -- Some funny. My unconcious short term memory manager is overwriting those files pretty quickly, so I can't say it made much of an impression.
An American Dekalogue? Soderbergh and Clooney are slated to produce a miniseries that sounds quite a bit like Kieslowski's The Dekalogue, ten short films each examining one of the Ten Commandments. If it weren't Soderbergh, I probably wouldn't give it a second thought.
Matinee Pick Had Friday off from work and convinced Mrs. C-Dog to go out to a matinee with me. We saw Friday Night Lights and both enjoyed it enough to recommend. I was worried about seeing a Coach Sling Blade movie; fortunately, Thornton actually did a decent job as the coach, delivering one of (if not) the best Inspiring Half-Time Locker Room Speeches ever. Austin's Explosions in the Sky contributed some outstanding instrumental music to the soundtrack as well. Definitely worth checking out. I'm not sure what the Gold Standard of football movies is? Rudy? The Longest Yard? Remember the Titans? Certainly not Any Given Sunday. In any event, I can't think of one offhand that I'd rank ahead of this one. Here's what The Sports Guy wrote about it (no spoilers).
Highly recommended: Jo and I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Saturday night. Superb story, acting, and cinematography. A low-key yet powerful exposition on the value of love, experience, and memory -- even when these are painful. Particularly insightful is the underlying theme on the role habit and our subconscious play in shaping our feelings.
As summarized so eloquently by the Tucson Weekly's James DiGiovannia: " This film is hard to describe because, unlike the vast majority of movies, it in no way sucks." Jim Carrey appears to be well on his way to making a Tom Hanks-esque transition to becoming a "serious" actor. Well worth the money, and any year-end accolades it is sure to receive.
When I heard that they were remaking The Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken from a screenplay by Paul("In & Out") Rudnick and directed by Yoda, I was interested. But then I saw the preview and you couldn't pay me to go see it. Still, I might as well make the original a video sleeper pick. It was unavailable on video for a long time, so many of you may not have seen it since it was a cable staple of the late seventies. More straightforward than camp, it has aged pretty well. Anyone who doubts that beauty is at least partially a social construction should see Katherine ("The Graduate," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid") Ross in this. To modern eyes, she's a total hottie at the start. Her husband, with his throwback eyes, spends the movie trying to trade her in for a robot that looks like Carol Brady. Even leaving aside the whole murder thing, what was he thinking?
Sleeper Video Pick: This isn't a shout it from the rooftops recommendations, partially because everyone has probably already seen it, but The Cooler is a decent rental. This is an indie that popped, with Alec Baldwin getting award nominations and all, so I won't even bother summarizing it. If you like games, noir, gambling and sex, check this out. The three leads are good. If Alec Baldwin continues to chunk out, he still has a future as a heavy. Mrs. Bonedaddy thought William Macy was almost phoning in some of his scenes as the guy whose bad luck is contagious. Let's just say he does a good job, but he could probably play this role in his sleep. (Is that a fair way to judge a performance? When Dennis Hopper does looney, do you get a little peeved? Maybe it's not fair, but I do.) And Maria Bello, well, I just plain like her. I have some complaints. The two subplots are too brief and the dialogue is not memorable at all. They should have asked David Mamet or Elmore Leonard to just spend a day on the script. It reminded me a little bit of House of Games starring Joe "Fat Tony" Mantegna, another modern noir that was good, but not quite as good as it might have been.
Video Sleeper Pick and Home Decorating Tip! Home projects have kept me away from the video store lately, but in light of all the Friends hoopla, I can recommend a movie I saw a while ago starring Jennifer Anniston, The Good Girl. It's about a small-town girl working at an Ames-y discount store who starts an affair with a stockboy who fancies himself a Holden Caufield, or a J.D. Salinger, possibly a Robert Smith. This isn't a great movie. The tone never really settles for indie realism or black comedy and it only partially succeeds at both. Still, Anniston does a very good job. She manages to un-Rachel herself and un-Mrs. Brad Pitt herself. Also involved are eventual Hollywood "It Boy" and "It Girl," Jake Gyllenhaal and Zooey Deschanel and career That Guys and always superb John C. Reilly and Tim Blake Nelson.
I rented this when it was first released and still recommend it, which is a good sign. I haven't been able to rent a movie because I've been scraping wallpaper out of my living room. Here's a quick guide to this loathsome chore. You can judge the length of the project by the style of wallpaper. If it's a style you like, what the hell are you trying to remove it for? Time: 1 minute. If it's the sort of style your parents might like, it will take you twice as long as you think. If it's the sort of style your grandparents might like, it will take you three times as long as you think and you will damage the wall in the process.
Bonus Home Repair Tip! Beer and paint fumes? That shit fucks you up like nobody's business.
My first choice, off the top of my head, for one of the juvies would've been Tunnel in the Sky. Have Spacesuit I don't remember too well. Even reading some reviews didn't do much to help bring it back.
Finally saw High Fidelity today. Overall I liked it but it wasn't as great as I expected it to be. I think it's mostly a case of all the positive hype notching up my expectations to a point where it would have had to have been the best movie in the last year not be disappointing. Worth seeing- yes. "DVD-worthy"-iffy..
I was always under the impression that all movies made it at least to video. I mean if films like make it then surely a film by the director of Out of Sight would too, right? Not so. After watching The Limey I decided that I wanted to see all of Steven Soderbergh's films. Well all the ones that had decent reviews (which is all of them according to IMDB). King of the Hill, his third film, doesn't seem to be available in any format. Sigh.... well at least I can see the Pat movie anytime I damn please......
Tried to go see High Fidelity tonight- sold out. We didn't plan well. Ended up having bad diner food and then coming home. Sigh. Also must see The Filth and The Fury, the new Sex Pistols documentary.
Just found out that my preordered Three Kings DVD shipped! I wasn't expecting it till about mid-month so it's a pleasant surprise. Now if Fight Club would just stop being pushed back......
Frears is directing that live TV film Fail Safe if anyone cares. Interesting to see that he also directed The Grifters. I still need to get that on DVD........
Speaking of movies the new X-men trailor is up. I have to say that going by the trailer this film is going to be great! Of course a good trailor doesn't always make a good film (cough-Godzilla-cough). Still I have faith in Singer. The LOTR trailer is up too. Looking at stills from the trailer this film looks amazing. Getting Peter Jackson to direct was a stroke of genius. The next Star Wars?
