Punitive Superego

The Devil's Double ('11 Lee Tamahori)

2011-06-23T11:35:00.000-07:00

A sadistic but engaging Muslim leader takes an instantaneous liking to a soft-spoken outsider. They usher them into their inner sanctum, lavish them with gifts, riches and a taste of a better life they could only dream of. They treat their new friend as a toy, becoming intensely possessive towards them and act like a violent, petulant child when their dancing marionette tries to cut free of their strings.

That’s the premise of The Devil’s Double, but it could just as easily refer to the 2006 film, The Last King of Scotland which won Forest Whitaker a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. In some respects, Dominic Cooper’s performance in The Devil’s Double eclipses Whitaker’s; degree of difficulty aside, you’d be hard pressed to find a performer on screen *more* than Cooper is here.

A gimmick in the best sense of the word, British actor Cooper (An Education) plays both Uday Hussein, entitled party boy and eldest child of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Latif, Uday’s reluctant double, employed to make pesky public appearances and draw assassins fire while the real McCoy is off getting laid and doing mountains of coke. Forced into servitude by fear and threats against his family, Latif watches on in ever mounting horror as Uday uses his autonomy to rape, torture and murder all the while grinning like the world is his own private sandbox.

Like Whitaker, Cooper makes a three course meal of the part, masking his sociopathic behavior behind a giggle and a twinkle in his eye. Uday is all id; shrieking about his hatred of Jews and Kuwaitis in one moment and in the next standing in the middle of the street loudly proclaiming his love for a part of the female anatomy using a word that’s best not spoken in polite company. The character is defined by a lack of barriers and absence of self-control. Whether gutting an associate of his father for embarrassing him or forcing his party guests to strip naked for his amusement, Uday remains a remorseless monster yet easily recognizable as the spoiled rich kid who grew up never hearing the word “no.” It’s a fantastically hammy performance by Cooper and every time Uday is on screen The Devil’s Double possesses a live-wire quality, as though we’re watching someone live out their wildest Scarface-inspired dreams.

The problem with The Devil’s Double though, as it was with The Last King of Scotland, is that this isn’t the story of the charismatic despot (or in the case of this film, son of a despot) but rather that of the decent but unmemorable commoner who serves as our window into the madness. And here’s where praise for Cooper gets tricky: as fascinating as his performance as Uday is, that’s how much of an onscreen wet blanket Latif is. Working from an overly literal script by Michael Thomas, director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors) and Cooper depict Latif as a saint, passively judging his hedonistic doppelgänger while (almost) never succumbing to the temptations of unchecked power and wealth. In mistaking Uday and Latif for opposite sides of the same character, the film robs both creations of dimension and subcutaneous desire. It’s as though the filmmakers don’t trust the viewers to differentiate between the behavior of the two men without creating a complete and total contrast.

Which is unfortunate as The Devil’s Double is at its best when it attempts to blur the line between Uday and Latif as the increasingly unreliable former cedes more of his responsibilities to the latter. We see Latif practicing hate rhetoric in the mirror and rallying the Republican Guard more convincingly than Uday ever could (as one perceptive on-onlooker points out, the real Uday would have been drunk and foaming at the mouth). Uday uses Latif as the ultimate form of self-love; a version of himself that he can hug and party with. After Latif’s hand is crippled in an ambush, a panicked Uday rushes to the hospital and berates the surgeon to save his double’s digits… but only so he himself won’t need to lose a finger to continue perpetuating his ruse.

Taking a break from big studio work for hire, Tamahori’s stages Uday’s life like the world’s greatest party that’s in constant danger of being interrupted by a shoot-out. Often set to a gaudy 80’s pop music (one sequence staged to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” calls to mind, appropriately enough, DePalma’s Body Double), The Devil’s Double relishes in carnal excess, whether its Ludivine Sagnier grinding on the dance floor for Latif’s (and our) benefit or the ease in which a carving knife disembowels a man, there’s an unblinking amorality to its depiction of Uday’s lifestyle as sex, drugs and violence all begin to bleed together.

Yet the fluidity of morality only goes so far, hitting a brick wall whenever it deals with Latif’s short-lived internal struggle between right and wrong. Rarely taking action against his captor, the character is instead a modern day Bartleby, the Scrivener, sitting in a chair politely refusing to murder on Uday’s behalf. Eventually the film falls into a predictable rhythm of Latif attempting to break free of Uday’s grasps, only to be thwarted and reluctantly roped back into the fray. Uday rapes and pillages while Latif looks on in the role of the stern taskmaster, remaining above the fray without providing any counteraction. Ultimately, the two Coopers serve as a perfect metaphor for the film itself: half exhilarating, half finger wagging.

The Devil’s Double opens in limited release on July 29th.

Playing Cops and Robbers: Ben Affleck's The Town

2010-12-04T10:33:00.000-08:00

Note: This article addresses specific plot points in the film, The Town.

I first saw The Town back in April as part of an unpaid test screening and, partially out of indifference but mostly because of the vaguely threatening non-disclosure agreement I was forced to sign, didn't have much to say about it. It struck me as a facile but harmless genre film; the latest attempt from film producer/financier Graham King to reposition working class Boston as a modern day equivalent of gangland Chicago or the wild west (The Town is King's third "crime picture" in four years set in Boston following The Departed and Edge of Darkness from earlier this year). Mostly what stood out for me was how ineffective co-writer-director-star Ben Affleck was in the lead role of Doug McRay, a lovable lug of a bank robber who lives a straight and narrow existence where he's insulated (for maximum audience sympathy) from most of the dirty business that's usually associated with being a career criminal. Over the past decade, Affleck has receded from dramatic leading roles, focusing more on attention grabbing supporting performances in films like Hollywoodland and Extract and directing his younger brother Casey to some of the best reviews of his career in Gone Baby Gone. As far as I was concerned, The Town was a reminder of how little Affleck the romantic leading man was missed.

A few months go by and, frankly, I'd forgotten about the film. But when it was selected to play both the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals I became both confused and a little intrigued, especially once this workmanlike procedural became a huge word of mouth hit. Having personally seen films take shape and improve during the test screening process I was curious to see how the filmmakers had worked around and repaired what I saw were some fairly glaring problems with the film.

I skipped the film's theatrical release, but with The Town due out on Blu-ray and DVD later this month (and with unemployment giving me an unwanted abundance of free time) I thought I'd take another look at the film to see whether I'd missed the boat the first time or whether this is simply the latest example of people automatically equating "dropping your r's" and colorful profanity with gritty authenticity.

By the way it's the second one.

Slightly longer than the version I originally saw--with additional scenes between Affleck and Blake Lively as Doug's would-be baby mama as well as a final shot which only further cements comparisons to The Shawshank Redemption--the finished version of The Town still suffers from the same fundamental problem at its center which is that it isn't remotely believable. I don't believe that these characters (any of them, really) exist in this world, which is problematic when the film seems to pride itself on glamorizing the violent, clan-like behavior of Irish criminals in Boston as though it were lifting the lid off of America's best kept secret. The film seems to be caught in a time warp, torn between two worlds, one of which only existed in the imagination of fiction writers forty years ago. The film depicts modern day (as in 2010) Charlestown as the bank robbery capital of the world; a place where no one bats an eye at one four-man crew knocking over a bank, an armored car and a fucking baseball stadium in the span of a few weeks, leaving a trail of burnt-out cars and bullet-punctured guards and police officers. It's merely business as usual, like the Sox bullpen blowing a late lead or Mayor Menino getting tongue-tied.

What motivates these guys to risk decades in prison and a bullet in the head? Money obviously although it's unclear to what end. The Town is built around three armed robbery sequences, which for convenient dramatic purposes take place in the first, second, and third acts. In the first of these robberies Doug and his crew successfully make off with $90,000 a man.
Essentially little boys still in their mid to late thirties, Doug and his cohorts (which includes Jeremy Renner as Gem, a variation on the wild man, "Johnny Boy" role DeNiro personified in Mean Streets) get lit up, eat fast food, go to the strip club and then return to their rundown houses and crappy jobs while dreaming of their next score. Doug, who is in recovery and therefor the only one with an eye towards a future outside "the life," begins romantically pursuing Rebecca Hall's Claire, the bank manager they took hostage who never saw the masked Doug's face during the robbery.

Despite being a violent thug, we're meant to accept that Doug is deep down a good guy because his stalking of Claire is disguised as chivalry and he makes self effacing jokes to defuse the emotional trauma he unwittingly caused her during the robbery ("I like to have a good cry at the nail salon" is just one of and by no means the worst of several groaners worked into the screenplay by Affleck and co-writers Peter Craig and Aaron Stockard). He may throw a fuck into Lively's Krista character from time to time, but his love for Claire is exactly the sort of motivation he needs to move away from a place and its people that do nothing but bring him down.

Yet time and again we see Doug being dragged back for the proverbial one last job, in large part due to a long unpaid debt owed to Gem that's teased out long past the point anyone remembers or cares why these two knuckleheads are friends. Gem, like the other two guys on the crew, is dramatically short-shifted; a simpleton mook who wants nothing more than to prevent Doug from ever abandoning him. We have no idea what he does with his money or when it will ever be enough for a guy living in the same house he grew up in without any aspirations of leaving it or his low-rent neighborhood behind. In other words, this character serves no purpose beyond making sure the Affleck character has to keep participating in violent and reckless shoot-outs and car chases and the audiences gets what it paid its $15 for.

Gem isn't the only character Doug is indebted to though. The story takes a brief detour for Doug to visit his lifer father in prison played by Chris Cooper in a one-scene cameo. Doug's followed in his old man's footsteps and Cooper's character is not only meant to serve as a cautionary tale for Doug, but also to further humanize him by alluding to the tragic circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Doug's mother when he was only six.

As an aside, I should take this opportunity to mention that the accent work in The Town is atrocious, particularly in the scene between Affleck and Cooper. This is all the more surprising as both actors are either former or current longtime Massachusetts residents and are clearly putting on hammy, affected "Southie" accents. The film should serve as a reminder to actors that not everyone who lives in Boston sounds like Diamond Joe Quimby.

But the missing mom story isn't merely to lend gravity to the Doug character, but rather to establish that behind every petty stick up man is a lip smacking, truly *evil* mastermind (in the instance, one played by Pete Postlethwaite who gets to de-thorn rose stems while projecting quiet menace) we can project our collective hatred upon. Postlethwaite's Fergie is not only indirectly responsible for Doug's mom killing herself but he threatens to kill Claire unless Doug agrees to rob Fenway Park in broad daylight. In a set piece which manages to be effective in the moment while still something of a missed opportunity, Doug and his crew get into a machine gun shootout in the bowels of an empty Fenway with Boston police officers that allows Affleck to live out every teenage boy's dream of staring in their own version of Heat.

Tasked with bringing this crew down is the bored-looking John Hamm's Agent Frawley (on paper, the film has a dream cast yet every performances, with the exception of Lively's, comes across as sleepy or apathetic) who gets to deliver "bad ass" speeches about personally hooking Doug up to a lethal injection machine for a Federal murder charge (the federal government's only executed three people in the last forty years, but nevermind). But for all his glowering and tough talk, he's as inept as a keystone kop. Constantly one step behind the meticulous Doug, we get a glimpse of this character's sharpened instincts at a crucial point late in the film: with Claire under FBI surveillance, in the hopes she'll convince Doug to come by her apartment where the Feds are waiting, Frawley literally stands behind her in front of a *giant* bay window, never considering that Doug (or for that matter anyone with working eyes) might see him from a safe distance away.

The screenplay for The Town has a lot on its mind, as it tries to reconcile generations of criminal behavior and the effect it has on young men born into it as well as dramatizing the changing face of Charlestown. The film was adapted from the novel Book of Thieves by Chuck Hogan and there's a rumored four hour cut of the film which may see the light of day eventually; it's likely either of these outlets treats these issues with more insight than the lip service they receive here. Overlong at more than two hours, the film is indifferently plotted, spinning its wheels between its crackerjack bank robberies without ever getting beneath the surface of a group of guys who turned to crime because it's all they knew. Nor does film have anything compelling to say about the emotional toll being the significant other of a bank robber can take on a person. The script is clunky and unsubtle, shoehorning plot devices and psuedo-profound lines of dialogue which grind the story to a halt for no reason other than the implicit promise that they'll be relevant later on in the film. The film especially suffers in comparison to Peter Yates' great Boston bank robber film of the early 70's, The Friends of Eddie Coyle which depicted the life of a criminal as a lonely game of musical chairs, only when the music stops you either end up dead or in jail.

No, Affleck's real agenda here seems to be in making a Michael Mann-style crime epic for the under-40 set (the earlier version of the film featured a scene where Doug zoned out in front of a television where the aforementioned Heat played, an instance of gilding the lilly that was wisely cut). But The Town lacks the breadth, style and attention to detail found within Mann's best films. Affleck the filmmaker can't bring himself to sympathize with the Frawley character to make him a worthy opponent and the relationship between Claire and Doug remains disappointing on the surface, as though being a violent criminal who kidnapped you at gunpoint is a "meet cute" that can be smoothed over by an earnest apology and a diamond necklace. For all its overtures to authenticity (which extends to casting pock-faced locals and the production reportedly embedding itself in the world of real criminals and drug addicts), the film feels like a bunch of kids playing cops and robbers.

Which brings me back to me original point: believability. Between The Town and Gone Baby Gone, Affleck has seemingly anointed himself the preeminent dramatist of white, working class South Boston. Yet there's always been something disingenuous about the routine, particularly if you recognize Affleck as a well-off middle class kid from an affluent suburb, posturing because he supposedly speaks the language. Of the two films, I actually enjoyed Gone Baby Gone as, for whatever its flaws, it captured some of the sadness and quiet desperation of being unable to escape one's situation. But Affleck strikes me as an artist desperately in search of street cred and seemingly unwilling to leave behind the safety net he created when he co-wrote Good Will Hunting back in the mid 90's. Anyone who's ever heard Affleck speak or read an interview with him, particularly about politics or filmmaking, can attest that he's an incredibly intelligent, self deprecating guy a million miles away from the sensitive lunkhead he plays here. I'm interested to see whatever he directs next but more than anything I wish he'd stop performing this Southie minstrel show of his. It's time to take his talents to one of the other 49 states.

Greenberg

2010-03-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

With its half-filled swimming pools, under-attended open mic nights and huddled masses of struggling actors, writers and musicians hovering around the city like day laborers outside of a Home Depot, Los Angeles has come to represent the place where dreams go to die as much as it does glamor and fame. It's where everyone begins their life as a wistful optimist but invariably ends up jaded or bunt-out. There's a lost souls quality to the people who live there, struggling and failing to live up to what they thought they'd be when they're surrounded by success and cruel reminders of the class and social divide. The characters in Greenberg, the new film from writer-director Noah Baumbach, have all, to varying degree, made their peace with the lives they've given up on and dreams they've abandoned in order to survive. It's a film about compromise and grudging acceptance.

The film stars Ben Stiller as Roger Greenberg--an asshole in the strictest, The Royal Tenenbaums, sense of the word--a single 40-year-old man housesitting in Hollywood while his successful and well adjusted brother spends six-weeks in Vietnam on vacation with his family on the sort of third third world jaunt that only the super-affluent consider a lark. At one point an up and coming musician, Roger now works, although seemingly not out of necessity, as a carpenter following a stint in a mental institution (this is the only part of the character which rings false; like Nicholson in As Good as it Gets, the film is trying to provide a medical explanation for a character who is, at his core, a self absorbed piece of shit).

Roger isn't an Angelino specifically. He grew up in LA then moved east and his time back on the west coast feels fleeting. Spiritually though, he fits right in. He's adrift, floating in between his old life and a next chapter he doggedly refuses to begin writing. It's as though Benjamin Braddock has aged twenty years but still can't be bothered to get out of the pool (in an ironic twist, Roger is a horrible swimmer). Returning to Southern California 15 years after blowing up his music career, his relationship with his ex (Jennifer Jason Leigh, also serving as one of the film's producers and story contributors) and his best friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans, a hollowed-out shell of a man, too lethargic to hold a grudge), Roger will tell anyone who will listen how happy he is "doing nothing," oblivious to how counter-intuitive that is to everyone around him. Having created a status quo where no one expects anything of him, Roger's entire life seems dedicated to professing his superiority to everyone else, despite scant evidence to back this assertion up.

Like a younger, furrier Larry David, Roger is a casual misanthrope and cruel observer of the human condition, calling out behavior and conversation that fail to adhere to his lofty standards, even when no one's asking for it. Receiving the brunt of Roger's unsolicited opinions is his brother's personal assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig), a gawky bundle of low self-esteem wrapped in vintage cardigans and worn-thin leggings. Florence inexplicably takes an interest in the open sewer of a man, despite being fifteen years his junior and most of his seduction attempts ending in unwarranted ridicule and passive aggressive criticism.

Florence views Roger as vulnerable and a wounded soul, but there's more to her attraction than pity. Herself an aspiring singer, reduced to running personal errands for someone else's family, Florence at 25, is compromised and confused, and perhaps a little damaged from her time spent alone in an indifferent city. Throwing herself at any man who shows her the slightest bit of attention and lacking the filter to keep inside all the overly sincere feelings she has, Florence recognizes in Roger a sense of confidence in who he is, even if who he is is a snarky, barking monster. In a place where everyone's trying to make it, is there value in someone who's comfortable with having already given up?

Greenberg slowly peels back Roger's unearned sense of entitlement, revealing it for all its laziness and selfishness; it's a cynical form of self-awareness cannibalizing itself until you can hardly remember what you're disaffected against. Roger feels about for reasons to douse his burgeoning relationship with Florence, ranging from lack of sexual attraction (equating her to someone who's pretty at the office but less so outside of it) to merely not wanting to put the effort into it. Yet there's a fumbling, messiness to their awkward trysts (the film contains, perhaps, the least erotic instance of cunnilingus I've ever seen), as though Roger can barely contain himself emotionally and physically when he's with her. As the film progresses, Roger's cruelty towards her seems less emblematic of his worldview than it is in response to allowing himself grow close to someone.

Greenberg follows Baumbach's The Squid & the Whale and Margot at the Wedding as his latest film about the awful things acidic, overly-educated types do to the people they love, and it's arguably darker than both of those films. Roger's anger feels genuinely born of disappointment and self-preservation but the film isn't interested in forcing redemption upon him. Instead Greenberg settles for an impasse between Roger's overworked id and the realization that he's alienated everyone around him. Like Baumbach's earlier films, the writing here is precise in the way language can draw blood. There's nothing cute or tittering about the film's verbal assaults and I'll confess to viewing large portions of the film hiding behind my outstretched fingers, as though I were watching a horror film. There's an integrity to the film, in allowing its lead character to be so unwaveringly unpleasant, but that in no way offsets the feeling of watching a slow motion car wreck.

Stiller has spent the better part of the past decade selling himself as a family friendly leading man, but anyone who's seen his brief stint on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or hasn't forgotten that he directed the much loathed Jim Carrey misfire The Cable Guy, will instantly recognize a lacerating arrogance often barely held at bay. Similar to Adam Sandler in last year's unfortunately overlooked Funny People, this is brave, unsentimental work from a talented comedian rarely called upon to do more than act opposite cgi creatures and frequently mug for the camera. For those of us who have watched Stiller stand outside of material that appears beneath him for years now, it's something of a revelation to see him finally laid bare and fully engaged with his subject.

But the final word on Greenberg belongs to Gerwig, a mainstay of the "mumblecore" genre, here receiving the widest exposure of her career. The actress lacks the polish and photo-shopped veneer of a conventional starlet, instead lending the film an earnest gravity and earthy sexuality. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay the young actress is that there doesn't appear to be an actual performance taking place; Gerwig simply inhabits the role, forgoing all affectation or technique and flattening out the character's big emotional moments. It's an incredibly internalized piece of acting as we witness a woman entirely defined by her role as a submissive. A submissive to her career, a submissive to her surroundings, and ultimately one to her heart. Florence deserves better than Roger although seems unlikely to realize it. Roger recognizes that he doesn't deserve Florence; it's to his credit and the film's that he stops using this as an excuse.

The Runaways

2010-03-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll be the one to ask the question: why The Runaways? Why an entire film dedicated to the short-lived exploits of a band that barely charted in this country thirty five years ago, has had arguable lasting appeal (readers under the age of 30, name a song by the band other than "Cherry Bomb," and no cheating) and minimal influence on our current music landscape when digging out an old episode of Behind the Music would more than suffice. Both Blondie and The Go-Go's were performing during the same period in history, wrote more memorable songs and, if VH1 is to be believed, generated far more R-rated drama and in-fighting, so what exactly is the appeal here of a group of pubescent, unsupervised girls getting high, playing loud music and occasionally have sex with each other and whatever roadie or fan that gets pulled into their gravitational pull of teenage debauchery? Geeze, I just don't see it.

The Runaways the film, like The Runaways the band, is a calculated grasp at the forbidden fruit of teenage female sexuality hiding behind a flimsy fig leaf of feminism. Dramatized here as literally plucked from a crowded club because she had the right look to front an all female band, Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) seemingly ascends to the level of rock goddess before it's established whether she can carry a tune. Such is the appeal of a 15-year-old who looks like Bardot meets Bowie with no hang-ups about writhing on stage in a corset and stockings. After first laying eyes on Currie, Michael Shannon's suitably creepy record producer Kim Fowley screams "jail fucking bait!" and it's not hard to imagine the producers of The Runaways thinking the same thing as they lined up a murderer's row of barely and not-at-all legal starlets to appear in the film.

Fanning, a spookily-self aware performer from an unfathomably young age, made headlines a few years back after appearing in Hounddog, a little-scene independent film where her character was raped on screen. But the real coming out party is The Runaways where the actress, only now old enough to drive as of this writing, gets to strut, growl, grind and have PG-13-safe make-out sessions. Currie, spit up and chewed out before she was old enough to legally buy cigarettes, seems less born of parents than of rock and roll cliches. Never shown as being moved by the music and often annoyed by the attention lavished on her by the media, Currie's just as driven to escape humdrum suburbia as she is to sob for the return of life at home with her supportive older sister and sick father. The character is aimless, lost in her own story, and Fanning is helpless to find purpose behind those wide and sad coked-out eyes.

The Runaways attempts to balance Currie's vacantness with bandmate and beating heart of the band Joan Jett (Kristin Stewart in an ink black mullet and bored expression) who resents the perception that the band is a gimmick act and wants to rock just as hard as the boys do. Visually, Stewart perfectly resembles a young Jett, returning to her pre-Twilight form as sexually androgynous and snarly lipped. Yet the actress remains, as ever, a passive and indifferent performer, suitably aping the guitar licks but little of the rebel spirit. The film is framed as a star-crossed romance between Currie and Jett, even ending with Jett's cover of "Crimson and Clover" as the duo make-up long distance after years of resentment, yet it seems unwilling to fully commit to their sapphist tryst as anything more substantial than teenage puppy love.

The disconnect between Joan's "I Love Rock and Roll" ideals and Cherie's cover girl ennui would make for an interesting take on the material. So, for that matter would be the way female musicians are marginalized by the male-driven media, placing their sexuality before their talent. The film toes the line of exploring the creepy cultural fixation on sexualizing young women before their time, a ticking clock of obsession that seems to expire the second a woman becomes of legal age, yet it curiously depicts most of the band's screaming fans as young women, flying in the face of Fowley's titillation battle plan for rock domination.

Instead writer-director Floria Sigismondi (a first-time filmmaker but a music video mainstay for decades) forgoes a point altogether, trotting out every music biopic chestnut, from drugged-out hazes, to band squabbling, to splashing unattributed headlines and magazine covers across the screen to assure us, the dubious viewers, that this sonically limited act did, at one point, matter. Most egregious of all, the film commits the same sin it's theoretically criticizing, focusing on Currie and Jett at the expense of the rest of the band, denying them characters, secondary personality traits or even perfunctory title cards at the end of the film to explain what happened to them after the band broke up.

Watching The Runaways, I was reminded of another, better musical biopic, 2007's Control about the late singer Ian Curtis of Joy Division. Control never presumes Curtis' or the band's influence or importance, nor reduces them to a series of on the nose sound bites and "oh, so that's how that song was written" moments. It had genuine pride and respect for the process of making music and the tormented artists who made it, and lets that speak for itself. It lacked the cynicism that permeates The Runaways which does as much to promote the talent of the band as a beer commercial featuring their songs would and treats its cast as underage pin-ups. As the film was co-produced by Jett and adapted from Currie's memoir, it has the odd side-effect of an artist proving their naysayers correct. Congratulations ladies: you can be as much of a soulless marketing tool as men!

The Best of 2009

2010-01-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

2009, was in many respects, a year of disappointment, both personally and globally. Right around the time the post-election hangover kicked you realized that your job was probably no longer secure (assuming you were lucky enough to still have one), our country was still mired in two wars and the only one who seemed to be happy were the CEO's of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns who used your tax dollars to buy another gold toilet for their yachts. It's only appropriate then that film in 2009 reflected that anxiety; it was though even a trip to the movies served as a reminder of just how scary it was outside.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air which featured George Clooney as a corporate axe-man, criss-crossing the country, firing people while offering a pithy pat on the back to those going home to families that depend upon them. Only along the way does he comes to realize his insular, lone wolf existence (dedicated to the asinine, yet strangely relatable, goal of attaining 10 million frequent-flyer miles) is merely a shell game put in place to prevent him from establishing any real emotional attachments. It's a testament to Reitman and Clooney (who's never been better) that not only is the film dazzling, old Hollywood-style entertainment filled with beautiful people being charming, but also one of the great existential crisis movie of our time. How, in a world where it's become easier than ever to stay connected, is it we've become more self-contained and shut-off from our fellow man?

Of course the economic crisis had a funny way of rearing its head in the most unexpected of places. Sam Raimi's low-tech, comedy-horror-extravaganza Drag Me to Hell not only satiated the long held demand for a fourth Evil Dead film but gave audiences the perverse pleasure of watching a pretty, young (but cravenly opportunistic) loan officer (Allison Lohman) spit up gobs of black bile, be tossed around by a decrepit old crone and have large chunks of her hair torn from her head after kicking an old gypsy woman out of her home. The film finds Raimi at his most impish, teasing out scares and playing the audience like a harp; you won't know whether to shriek or giggle but that's pretty much the point. Of course, no film was more terrifying than Chris Smith's Collapse a doomsday documentary that makes an Inconvenient Truth look like a bedtime story. Essentially a ninety minute long sit down interview with former police officer turned reporter, Michael Ruppert, the film explains the concept of "peak oil" and that an economy built upon it (like for example, our own) is doomed to topple much sooner than later. It's the sort of film where you find yourself praying that Ruppert is a crackpot simply because the alternative may cause you to lose sleep. Or buy a gun.

The war in Iraq may have lost space on the front page this year to the economy but it finally became the subject of a great film. Two of them actually. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker has already been feted by most major critics groups so I'll simply add that the film remains one of the most intensely visceral films I've ever seen and features a star making performance from Jeremy Renner. Iraq is never explicitly mentioned in Armando Iannucci's In the Loop (an adaptation of the BBC series "The Thick of It") but that's about the only thing that isn't said in an explicit fashion. Showing the maneuvering and scrambling on both sides of the pond in the days leading up to a US invasion of Iraq, the film wields verbal dexterity and creative profanity like a saber, depicting both sides of the war debate as opportunistic fumblers and slimy schemers. The whole film plays like a 1930's screwball farce, only everyone's talking about cunts, scrotums and lubricated horse cocks.

The two best character studies of the year were both films about immature Jewish men confused by love (and no, I'm not talking about A Serious Man, although I was pretty fond of that film as well). James Gray's Two Lovers starred Joaquin Phoenix in the performance of the year as a thirty-something Brighton Beach man torn between the excitement and passion inspired in him by a beautiful fair-haired temptress (Gwenyth Paltrow, reminding people that, before she was a blogger and Chris Martin's wife, she was a hell of an actress) and the security of a plain-looking (by Hollywood standards anyway) Jewish woman from the neighborhood, achingly played by Vinessa Shaw. Bracingly perceptive in depicting arrested development and the behavior of fickle young men, Two Lovers had the misfortune of being known as the film Phoenix was promoting when he had a public meltdown/decided he wanted to pull a Borat-like media stunt. A box office misfire as a result, time should be much kinder to it. However, the most misunderstood film of the year is Judd Apatow's Funny People which seemed to alienate star Adam Sandler's fan base of frat boys and meatheads as well as most critics who failed to recognize what a revelation the film was from both its star and director. Calling to mind both James L. Brooks and Eric Rohmer (only with dick and fart jokes), the film is a turbulent and overlong yet wonderfully human story of a man who, when faced with death, goes through the motions of change but never actually does becomes a better person.

Speaking of death, how we carry on in the wake of losing a loved one (and what we do with what they leave behind) was a surprising reoccurring motif this year. The French film Summer Hours, from prolific by wildly inconsistent filmmaker Oliver Assayas, shows the way three siblings react to the sale of their family estate after the passing of their mother. Attuned to the way we project memories and sentimental value onto the keepsakes and possessions of our childhood, the film finds deep reservoirs of understated sadness as the liquidation of assets and relocation of heirlooms feels as tragic as the death of a parent. Less understated (at least in my experience) in its sadness is the animated film Up from Pixar and director Peter Doctor.
Ostensibly the story of an old man and a little boy who fly off to South America in a house hoisted by thousands of balloons, the film has the capacity to reduce me to a sobbing mess (several times throughout) every time it addresses the death of square-jawed curmudgeon Carl Fredricksen's wife, Ellie, initially dramatized in a much lauded musical interlude depicting their lives together, from courtship to her death. It's a curious jumping off point for a kid's film about high adventure and talking dogs but it's essential to keep the film emotionally (..erm...) grounded and a reminder that we often can't begin our new lives until we let go of our old ones. But lest all this death stuff get too heavy, we'll always have Bobcat Goldthwait (yes the guy with the dumb voice from the Police Academy movies). Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad was marketed as the latest sickly sweet comedy from Robin Williams, but don't believe it. Working a pitch black comedic vein, World's Greatest Dad explored the way the dead are canonized by those left behind, often rewriting history and riding roughshod over who they really were to bolster the living's own sense of self worth. It's the rare comedy that would have us find humor in suicide notes and tragedy in masturbation mishaps.

Ten Best of '09:(*)
1. Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
2. Two Lovers (James Gray)
3. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
4. In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
5. Funny People (Judd Apatow)
6. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
7. Collapse (Chris Smith)
8. Up (Peter Doctor)
9. World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait)
10. Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi)

Honorable Mention:
The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson)
Revanche (Götz Spielmann)
A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Star Trek (J.J. Abrams)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
Sugar (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck)
In the Electric Mist (Bertrand Tavernier)
Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp)

(*) In the two weeks between writing this article and it's eventual posting, I finally saw the documentary The Cove from filmmaker Louie Psihoyos and my mind was suitably blown. If I were less lazy I'd rewrite this whole thing to incorporate the film into my top 10 but in addition to being a pain in the ass that's not in the spirit of reflecting my mindset at the end of 2009. Needless to say, in addition to the films written about at length here, you should definitely check out The Cove as well.

A Belated Defense of Funny People

2009-11-29T17:24:00.000-08:00

I saw Judd Apatow's Funny People for the first time last May at a test screening a few months before its release. Even in an incomplete form (although aside from a few excised lines, I'd be hard pressed to identify any real changes between the version I saw and the final product) I knew right away that the film was something special and an evolutionary leap forward from a filmmaker who I'd felt had been puttering around for the last couple years at a safe reserve. Apatow is of course the mega writer-producer witch a credit on seemingly every major American comedy of the last six years who was coming off the critical and financial success of his last directorial effort, 2007's Knocked Up, a film that has always made me ideologically queasy in spite of the fact that it's undeniably funny.

But Funny People was something different. It represented a bracingly mature departure from the filmmaker, albeit one that still found room to incorporate roughly a hundred to a hundred and fifty dick and balls jokes into the proceedings. Yes, the film was another overlong, shaggy-dog tale of perpetually immature men being forced to grow up while slumming through Southern California. Yet the film stubbornly refused to ignore the consequences of this behavior, following callow self-destructive acts to their natural conclusion no matter how uncomfortable or absent of catharsis they might be. More than anything, the film reminded me of James L. Brooks' seminal, mid 80's workplace comedy Broadcast News which deftly balanced mortifying, awkward social comedy with all too prescient assaults on the changing face of the media and an understated love triangle. If Funny People doesn't quite reach those heights it's at least aimed in that direction.

Yet, for as much as I loved the film, my hands were tied to talk about it. In addition to the standard non disclosure form I had signed before seeing the film, I was also assaulted by an overzealous goon from the research firm that was conducting the test screening who not only recognized my face but indicated that he'd been monitoring me online through various social networking sites that I belong to (you always dream that you'll be cyber-stalked by some overly-invested cute girl but in actuality it's almost always the dude who's currently dating your ex or some creepy, middle-aged, corporate stooge). After being told, in so many words, that I was being watched and would be punished if I talked about the film, I kept my mouth shut. And once the film was released my mouth remained shut, because clearly I was in no mood to do anyone any favors.

Sadly, Funny People probably could have used my voice (it certainly wouldn't have hurt it). The film opened to less than $23 million despite the presence of Adam Sandler and only went on to gross roughly twice that in this country. The standard knock against the film was that, for as funny as the first hour and a half were, the left turn the film takes when Sandler and Seth Rogen's characters depart for a weekend in Marin County to visit Sandler's ex (played by actress Leslie Mann, who also happens to be Apatow's real life wife) took the film in a direction that fans of the genre were unprepared and unwilling to go to. Essentially the film dials down the frat boy backslapping and inside baseball for more low key, situational humor. It's as though the film starts as Superbad and grows into Sideways, laying bare the human toll of Sandler's self-absorbed actions and skewing the audience's loyalties into a series of ever changing permutations. It's an incredibly bold departure by Apatow at a time where audiences have shown they want nothing more from comedies than to serve as extra bawdy, ninety-minute-long episodes of "Two and Half Men."

So is it any wonder the film tanked with the very same crowd that turned Knocked Up into a sensation? Knocked Up you'll remember adhered to the tried and true, young man comes of age formula, with all the hard earned life lessons hastily cut together into a montage to leave more room for Vegas drug freak outs, pop culture digressions and gratuitous crowning shots. No less an authority than ESPN's The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons (who's far from a refined film-goer but is a fair arbiter of taste for men of a certain age and interest), spent the whole summer working disparaging references to the film into podcasts and columns: oh but if only the film could have hewed more closely to the profanity strewn world of night clubs and bullshit sessions without changing midstream into a touchy-feely, midlife ennui, mope-fest of marital disappointment and hurt feelings.

Watching the film again on DVD I was struck by just how funny the first two thirds of the film still are. So much so it's almost understandable how people could find the transition to more sedate material so jarring. Apatow and his cast are too effective at crafting an unforced comedy of hazing and aggressive (passive and otherwise) free form riffing all while carefully observing insular, fickle human behavior (mostly of the young male variety). Apatow may not be a filmmaker with enormous range but he clearly knows his sweet spot. Having spent years as both a comedy writer and an aspiring stand up, Apatow gifts the film an air of casual authenticity, in particular the way Rogen's character, Ira, limps along the poverty line, living in the shadow of his vapid but more successful housemates.

Like Cameron Crow's Almost Famous, Funny People is a comedy about those who exist alongside the rich and famous, exploiting the wealth and access of their glamorous buddies so long as they never overstep their role and judge the demonstrably flawed celebrity they're joined at the hip with. Ira idolizes Sandler's George Simmons, having grown up watching such terrible-looking (yet oddly plausible) films as "Merman" and "Redo." In Ira, George has a walking cheering section who will validate his puerile behavior, weather his emasculating insults, chuckle at his lame jokes and more than anything desperately aspire to be like George. It's only when Ira tries to relate to George as a contemporary and friend, refusing to look the other way at the older man's selfish tendencies, does George bristle.

George (who we are quite consciously meant to interpret as a slightly skewered version of Sandler's persona via the use of archival footage of a younger Adam doing stand-up and goofing around in his dorm room throughout the film) is a manipulative demigod of self loathing not above using his fame to bed women half his age (while always acknowledging that they'll come away disappointed) or turning a Thanksgiving toast into an opportunity to work out new material on a group of fawning twenty-somethings.

The performance reminds me of Mickey Rourke's much lauded and similarly revealing work in last year's The Wrestler. Awards not withstanding though (and unfortunately, Mr. Sandler will be receiving none) I actually think this is the greater achievement. Sandler's work as George is lacerating in its self-assessment, painting the picture of a selfish, short-tempered, lonely man who is conscious of his wealth and fame (perhaps the most off-putting thing about the character is how quickly he resorts to talking about his money on stage as a crutch; at a time when seemingly half the country is unemployed, George bemoans how his possessions mostly make him miserable) and as a comedian knows exactly what to say to cause the most emotional harm to those around him. A scene late in the film where Ira, stuck in a moving vehicle, is personally and professional eviscerated by George in as punishing a verbal assault as I can remember in a recent film not written by Labute or Mamet. This is a deeply unsympathetic performance by Sandler. It exposes Sandler's fans to oceans of insecurity and rage in a performer known predominantly for making shitty family comedies while building on and expanding upon the promise shown in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love and James L. Brooks' Spanglish.

There's a Norma Desmond quality to Sandler's performance in the film. We see him isolated and friendless, puttering around his tomb-like mansion, reliving his glory days by watching his young comedians' special and crummy cgi-heavy movies on a wall of flat screen TV's. George relies upon his domestic staff for day-to-day human contact (Ira ultimately falls into this category, tasked with such menial jobs as calling the cable company because George can't find the Cavaliers game on). When he does venture outside the house he's surrounded by burnt-out cronies to lavish attention on him (Paul Reiser and Norm McDonald cut almost as pathetic a figure as Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner). Funny People doesn't quite paint a disparaging picture of fame but it would seem to argue that there's a an emotional toll to being a construct existing for the amusement of others. Or put another way, it's hard to imagine anyone coming away from the film with a new-found desire to become a stand-up comedian.

If I've neglected to address the actual plot of Funny People it's because, like the film itself, I recognize the importance of laying groundwork. As the trailer regrettably spoiled, George is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that forces him to re-evaluate his life, only to be miraculously cured. The catch is, as Ira points out, George learns nothing from this experience despite claims to the contrary. George uses his sickness as simply the latest excuse to justify his cowardly grasps at self fulfillment, consequences be damned. Weaseling his way back into the life of Laura,Mann's scorned ex-girlfriend, George finds her now married to a philandering businessman (Eric Bana, incredible in a very difficult role) with two young children. Sensing a fissure in their domestic bliss that he can exploit and bust apart, George seduces the unappreciated Laura, inserting himself into the absent husband and father role while a horrified Ira is forced to look on and deal with the emotional fall-out as it splashes back on Laura's children (played, by Apatow and Mann's actual daughters, Maude & Iris Apatow).

And it's here that Funny People loses some people. For ninety minutes, like Ira, we've grown comfortable with George's actions; his needy vying for attention and wild mood swings are placed within a consequence-free context of what is ostensibly a buddy comedy. We like George because Ira likes George and because Sandler possesses an easy charm; he's like the older brother who calls you an idiot, gives you a noogie then throws you the keys to a new sports car. Yet placed within a family dynamic of dinner time and music recitals George's behavior clangs loudly. In one of the film's best scenes, we watch George as he compulsively checks his text messages while the proud Laura weeps at her daughter's performance of "Memories" from Cats, only for him to try and defuse the situation by claiming his stoner buddy would have found the whole thing hilarious.

Because we've been conditioned to believe Sandler is our hero and because Bana has been cast in the role of typically boorish jock--that Bana uses his actual Australian accent for some reason only further paints him as a jerk--standing in the way of George attaining what he believes is true love, there's an uncomfortable disconnect between what we want to happen and what we deep down recognize should not. Sandler lacks the patience and empathy to truly love anyone but himself; he goes through the motions of supporting Laura and pledges to be a father to her children yet its obvious that he'll only betray and disappoint them given enough time. The tension of the last act now arrives from whether Ira will be able to prevent Laura from dissolving her marriage from a flawed but decent man to be with the raging asshole we like to call our protagonist.

That, my friends, is one brave goddamn choice and Apatow had to have recognized that audiences would have difficulty embracing such an unconventional approach. Stand-up as an art form is built upon instant gratification and immediate approval (if you do well, you get laughs) yet Funny People isn't a film about a comedy, it's a film about comedians. That the film is initially so successful at generating laughs early on is a plus, but it's almost beside the point. There are no lessons learned or happy endings here, just a bunch of adults who make a mess of their lives then have to go about the process of putting them back together.

If there's a consistent flaw to the film, it's Apatow's tendency to pander to the audience, over-explaining that which should be plainly obvious. Apatow writes in a female love interest for Ira ("Parks & Recreation's" Aubrey Plaza, hiding behind Tina Fey glasses) who seems to exist for no reason other than to mirror his own starfucking tendencies. Similarly, Laura tells us on two separate occasions how much Bana's Clarke is like George. Apatow is also still something of a clumsy filmmaker, too reliant on montage and allowing his characters to riff at length about their penises and whatever pop culture phenomenon of the moment catches their fancy.

Still, this is uncommonly ambitious filmmaking for a mainstream, summer comedy staring one of the world's biggest stars in a role well outside his comfort zone. Shortly after the film's release I told a friend that I was worried the film was destined to be Apatow's Jackie Brown. To wit, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction follow up was not only perceived to be a failure in the eyes of the public but was also, like Funny People, a mature new direction from a director who could do no wrong provided he did the same thing over and over again. Tarantino has spent the past decade steering his career away from the kind of heartfelt, unadorned stories found at the center of Jackie Brown and I fear that Apatow's first taste of directorial failure will also send him scurrying to safer territory. I hope I'm wrong and that Apatow's internal compass will continue to point him towards more personal, adult material. In the meantime I can only do my small part, however late as it may be. Funny People is a special film, one filled with human weakness and regret and a willingness to depict its characters as emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to temptation. These are not attributes one usually associated with "laugh riots" and that's sort of the point. Funny People deserved better and I can only hope, like Jackie Brown, it becomes re-appreciated by audiences down the road. In the meantime, at least I'm on the record about it. Funny People is one of the best films of the year.

AFI 2009 coverage - Bad Lieutenant, Precious, & Fish Tank

2009-11-07T13:06:00.000-08:00

The AFI Film Festival returned to Hollywood this year, where it has been based for over three decade, albeit in a slightly diminished capacity. Proving that no one is immune to the economic downturn of the past few years, the festival relocated from the palatial Arclight Cinema at Sunset and Vine to the decidedly more econo-class Mann's Chinese 6 at Hollywood and Highland (as well as a couple days in Santa Monica to coincide with the feeding frenzy known as the American Film Market).

It's not simply location that's different about this year's edition though. Showcasing a streamlined selection of titles that leans heavily on films that premiered at Cannes and Toronto, AFI has been re-baptized as a "festival of festivals" which is something of a plus and a minus. For film fans who haven't had their passports stamped in France and Canada this year, the festival serves as a summation of many of the art films sure to litter year end best of lists while giving Oscar contenders a showy gala unveiling at the neighboring Grauman's Chinese theater. The downside however is that AFI becomes the latest festival to turn its back on showcasing unheralded, smaller films that lack prior festival cache.

But the show must go on and there are still films to be seen and appreciated. And free films at that! In one change of policy that everyone can get behind AFI has decided to forgo a traditional box office and has given away tickets to all of their screenings, including their gala events, relying upon sponsorship dollars to off-set the cost of lost ticket sales. It's an admirable acknowledgment of people's shifting priorities even if it has resulted in the strange occurrence of frequently half empty auditoriums and non-existent rush lines.

As for the films themselves? They remain, as with any film festival, a mixed bag.

The festival finally gave me an excuse to see Werner Herzog's lovingly batshit Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Ever since a hastily edited trailer was leaked online this summer, introducing the expression "lucky crack pipe" into the vernacular and promising wall-to-wall Nic Cage scenery chewing, the film has been anticipated with bated breath from a certain segment of the film community. Specifically those who needed to find out whether Herzog had, in fact, turned Abel Ferrara's uncomfortably primal and guilt-ridden tale of a morally bankrupt police officer at crisis into a Tommy Wiseau film.

It comes of something of a relief and with a major honking caveat that the film is all I could have hoped for: a straight up hijacking of a direct-to-DVD vehicle by two singularly insane artists who don't care about your preconceptions or how many European territories the distributor has pre-sold the film to.

First of all, dispense with all attachments to Ferrara's original; the two films have as much in common as National Lampoon's Animal House and National Lampoon's Senior Trip. Cage stars as Lt. Terence McDonagh, a homicide detective with chronic back problems an escalating gambling debt and a high class hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes) who all too happy to help him scam her johns out of drugs and cash. McDonagh gets roped into a multiple murder investigation and all that comes with it including an on edge partner (Val Kilmer, doing God knows what, then thankfully departing for much of the film) reluctant witnesses, meddling bosses and pesky Internal Affairs officers.

On paper there really is not much here. The script by cop show veteran William Finkelstein is so moldy it borders on kitsch; the film actually finds room for variations of both the weary black captain telling our antihero "his cowboy antics won't work this time" as well as McDonagh being ordered to turn over his gun because he's on suspension. Yet Herzog and Cage treat the script as merely an excuse for someone to sign their checks and the set as their own personal playground to explore whatever dimensions of the character fits their fancy that day.

Cage feels like switching to a different accent halfway through the film without provocation or explanation (it sounds somewhere between Jimmy Stewart and Al Pacino from the first Godfather after Michael's had his jaw broken)? Go for it! Herzog is in the mood to go off on a 90 second tangent where we view the action from the point of view of a couple of (imaginary) iguanas? Hey we've already hired the animal trainer, might as well get some bang for our buck! Entire scenes seem to exist exclusively as private jokes, employing bizarre linguistic shorthand or playing out in canted angles as though they were downloaded from an alien mother-ship and loosely re-translated. I'll put it another way: it's the kind of film that you a) fully expect Michael Shannon to show up in an uncredited role and b) when he does he's one of the more lucid characters in the film.

Frequently coked out of his mind and a slave to various nefarious masters pulling him in every direction, Cage gives a swinging from the chandeliers performance of slowly unnerving insanity that's a joy to behold if for no other reason than it's completely impossible to tell what he'll do next. It's the sort of role where simply shaving with an electric razor carries as much comedic menace as cutting off an infirm, elderly woman's oxygen.

Herzog treats the story with what could be charitably called an efficient perfunctoriness (the film's brusque resolution is sure to enrage most people) forcing you to set it aside and dig for a larger meaning. What emerges is the tale of a man driven by his demons to madness; unable to turn back or escape he is forced to plow forward. Bad Lieutenant by all traditional standards isn't "good" per say but it's never boring. A letter grade for this one feel almost beside the point, but let's go with a B.

Lest Bad Lieutenant corner the market on comically over-long titles there's also Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. The darling of the festival circuit (the film has won audience awards at Sundance and Toronto amongst others), the film is being positioned as this year's little film that could; an out of left field indie sensation that announces itself as not only a critical favorite but as a legitimate awards contender. And in hindsight this makes complete sense, because, as are most little indie films that could, it's a complete and total fraud.

Part Dangerous Minds part minstrel show, all manipulative button pusher, Precious tampers down the phony uplift under mountains of suffering and ugliness yet the redemptive, rise up formula is firmly in place. It's a film for people who equate squalor with integrity and can make it through Paul Haggis' Crash without doubling over in laughter.

The film stars newcomer Gabourey Sidibe as Clareece Precious Jones an illiterate, morbidly obese black teenager living in Harlem in the mid 80's. Precious (even the poor girl's name falls into the cruel irony category) lives well below the poverty line with her shrieking harpy of an abusive mother (comedian Mo'Nique who appears to have only been given the direction of "act like a dragon") who in addition to berating her daughter and frequently hurling heavy projectiles at her head is dependent on her daughter for the welfare checks she commands (casual racists are gonna have a field day with this one). Precious, only 16 and already held back several grades in school is pregnant with her second child, both children the result of being raped by her now absentee father. I could go on with the indignities she's forced to endure but clearly the point has been made, that life for this girl could be better.

But into all of this darkness comes a little light (literally) in the form of the beautiful Ms. Rain played by Paula Patton. Mrs. Rain teaches at a remedial school--the kind often filled with colorful cut-ups and flunkies who can serve as the film's version of the Sweathogs--and seems to take an honest to goodness interest in Precious, building up her self confidence and finding a place for her to live after she escapes her mothers clutches. Yet with so many outside factors weighing on Precious, is there any chance she can escape and start a new life?

In the first of *many* groaners found within the film, the opening credits for Precious are in hand-written scrawl of misspellings and child-like scribbling, setting the tone nicely for the pandering and on the nose melodrama that's to come. More importantly though it contains the wholly extraneous subtitle which sums up what makes Precious so odious in the first place. This is not a faithful retelling of a real person's life, honoring every horrible detail as it happened. This is a complete work of fiction now in its second iteration, ladling on human misery and degradation so that the upper middle class white people in the audience can feel alternately superior to and horrified by the living conditions of poor blacks.

The film is a Takashi Miike film for the Oprah Winfrey crowd (who not coincidentally is one of the film's executive producers and biggest champions), twisting human suffering into a game of unblinking one-upsmanship, feeding upon the stunned gasps of audiences: not enough that her mother just berated her and threw a heavy object at Precious' head? What if we make her fall down the stairs... while holding a newborn infant... then drop a television on their heads from above?

No ugly cultural stereotype goes untouched in painting a picture of Precious' hardship. Precious resents her skin color, fantasizing herself as a skinny pretty white girl and daydreaming about a light skinned boyfriend. It must be something of a perverse joke on director Lee Daniels' (Shadowboxer) part that instead of the typically white savior who usually shows up in these films to lift up our black hero, Precious is populated with attractive biracial guardians (including Patton and musicians Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey) who stand up for her instead.

Daniels wallows in the more unsightly details of Precious' life: the dank, decaying walls of her apartment, a crock of bubbling pig's feet cooking on the stove, a hunk of fried chicken hanging from Precious' face (I swear to God, I'm not making this stuff up). This is all the better to contrast them with Daniels' stylized, brightly lit fantasy sequences where Precious envisions herself at movie premieres and photos shoots. The film intends for these sequences to serve as a form of escape (in one instance the results of an STD test are abruptly pushed to the side to make way for a daydream about a modeling session) but they ultimately come across as mocking and disingenuous.

Precious rewards the audience for clucking its collective tongues on cue and feeling empathy for a young girl whose suffering falls somewhere just short of Jesus-on-the-cross level martyrdom but to what end? Is there anything to take away from this experience other than, yes, it's conceivable that one person can endure this much sorrow? Precious is fiercely well acted and will no doubt find its fans far outweighing its detractors. Everyone involved may end up with an Academy Award for their troubles. But make no mistake, the film is misery porn no matter how big a bow you tie around it. My grade: D+

A far less histrionic but much better film about a teenage girl in crisis is Fish Tank from Scottish filmmaker Andrea Arnold. Arnold isn't quite a household name in the world of art cinema despite racking up an Academy Award and two jury prizes from Cannes in the past six years, but she's already building an impressive reputation and comparisons to the likes of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach for her films about working class modern day Britain, albeit from a specifically female point of view.

Fish Tank follows in the footsteps of 2006's Red Road and it serves as an amplification of that film's strengths as well as weaknesses. Like Precious, Fish Tank centers around a poor 15-year-old girl, Mia (first-timer Katie Jarvis), living with a self-involved single mother (Kierston Wareing, tellingly only 12 years older than Jarvis in real life) as well as a disarmingly foul-mouthed younger sister (Rebecca Griffiths) in a cramped apartment. Mia's an angry young woman who fights with her mom and sister constantly. She seems to have isolated herself from all of her friends and has flunked out of school; her only release is to practice hip hop dancing by herself in an abandoned apartment in her complex.

But into all this unchecked estrogen enters mom's new boyfriend, Colin (Michael Fassbender, last seen too briefly in Inglorious Basterds). Colin represents something of an enigma, to both Mia and the audience: free-swinging and juvenile enough to be mom's new boy toy but also sensitive and considerate, encouraging Mia when no one else seems willing. Mia, likewise feels conflicted by the presence of the new man in the house, lashing out at him in one instant, then sweetly asking him for money or help as it becomes apparent he's one of the few people who seems to care. Yet the longer he remains in the house the more the barriers of their relationship are tested, placing the two of them onto a messy collision course that arrives in a predictable place but not in the way we expect.

Much of Fish Tank's strength is derived from the ever shifting interplay between Jarvis and Fassbender, feeding off of the queasy sensuality Arnold cultivates throughout the film. Thematically similar to but far less chaste than An Education, Fish Tank simmers with tension as the anxiety of impropriety looms over nearly every scene. Even the most tender of moments (Colin carries a pretending to be asleep to Mia to her bed, slowly removing her shoes and sweat pants before tucking her under a blanket) pulses with unease as two people, one who clearly should know better, seem destined towards transgression.

In fact Arnold does such an exemplary job of building and maintaining this tension (which technically is "sexual tension" but I feel dirty even referring to it as such) that by the time she finally addresses the issue head on, the film utterly deflates. Unfortunately Fish Tank continues for another half an hour after that, which is where it loses its way. A gifted director but mediocre screenwriter, Arnold relies upon clumsy plot mechanics and too-obvious-by-half symbolism (the last shot in particular is a howler) which equates a lot of strum and drang but not much progression or enriching of the characters. Fish Tank climaxes with a good deal of frenzy and angst but it seems to have been imported from a blunter, far less carefully observed film.

This may dull the overall impact of the film but doesn't quite negate it. Filmed in 4x3 Academy ratio, the film emphasis claustrophobia and tightly composed frames as though Mia can't even escape the small box she's been placed in on screen. It's a household where everyone lives on top of each other. Where everyone shows up to the breakfast table in various stages of undress and thin walls barely disguise the lovemaking in the next room. Arnold's unadorned style consisting of long, peering takes places us in the role of the voyeur, catching stray moments of both sadness and humanity as they unfold.

Jarvis gives a raw, animalistic performance, like a beaten dog backed into a corner. It's a performance built around rage and distrust and the film's at its most touching when we see Mia able to let down her guard enough to merely peacefully coexist with her family. But the story of the film is Fassbender who, I suspect, will not be a secret for much longer. With soft eyes and a boyish grin, Colin lets his thoughts run away from him, relating to the insecure and feral Mia as his contemporary as opposed to the burden her mother views her as. There's a decency to Fassbender's performance in a very difficult and complicated role; Colin is unmistakably acting inappropriately in the film yet it's easy to see how both he and Mia could fall into this trap. Between his work here, in Basterds and this past winter's Hunger, Fassbender has become the break-out actor of 2009, a performer who seemingly can do anything well.

Arnold has enormous upside as a filmmaker and her work with actors is second to none but I do wish however she'd gravitate to someone else's material. This is now the second straight film from her that derails in the last act as she struggles to incorporate unwieldy tonal shifts and dramatic plot turns, when her gift is clearly for understated character drama. Still, Fish Tank is a film to keep your eye out for; it opens early next year. My grade: B

An Education (09 Scherfig C-)

2009-10-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

Films like An Education exist to remind us how spoiled Mad Men has made us.

Here we have a film set in England the early 60's, on the cusp of various youth-driven revolutions; where the old guard barely held back a wall of social, sexual and cultural liberation that we recognize is only a few years away from busting through. Furthermore it's a film swathed in lovingly recreated period detail. Every costume, automobile and strand of hair feels picture perfect, evoking a time where the beautiful people seemed to radiate casual glamour. The film would seem to do for swooning Anglophiles what the gang at Sterling Cooper does for their American cousins every week.

Yet for all it superficially gets right, An Education falters in breathing energy and passion into what is ostensibly a swirling, turbulent affair at its center, or for that matter placing it in a larger social context. It is first and foremost a museum piece, safely tucked away behind glass with all those pesky emotions neatly compartmentalized. Aggressively middlebrow and ultimately cowardly in its revisionism, the film never transcends mere nostalgia for the era, only finding reason for existence in the chaste nuzzling between anointed star in the making Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard as her older, morally compromised lover.

Based on a memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber, Mulligan stars as Jenny a 16-year-old school girl destined for higher learning at Oxford at the gentle yet firm prodding of her middle class parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour). A bright student frustrated that her appreciation of the arts and culture is to be limited to one of cello lessons and stuffy school recitals, Jenny is understandably smitten with David (Sarsgaard), an older, well-travelled man in a sports car who she meets while waiting on a bus in the rain. David says all the right things and has glamorous friends and exotic interests. He quickly seduces not only Jenny but her initially weary parents, who come to see him as a shortcut for their daughter into affluence and high society.

Yet all is not quite what it seems. As David sweeps her off her feet, whisking her away to night clubs and trips to Paris (much to the consternation of the teachers and administrators at her school, here embodied by Olivia Williams and Emma Thompson) he keeps much to himself like where he actually lives and how exactly he makes his money. Could this dashing man, who's shown to be an especially gifted liar, be misleading the naive young girl who has fallen hopeless in love with him? Or for that matter, is there any way the film's title is not meant to be taken in a forehead-slapping ironic way?

An Education was adapted by British novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) whose works are often defined by a knowing specificity of pop culture and the ways in which it defines his characters, a specificity that's distractingly absent here. Jenny frequently extols the exciting films and music she's experiencing, yet the film remains oddly noncommittal in embracing the politics and culture of the era. Instead the film offers up a shrug and offhand dismissal in response to the civil unrest of the time, while discretely name checking classical music as an example of how a teenage girl chooses to cut loose.

The only thing that seems to excite the film and its characters are the post World War II London costumes and art direction, rendering the film as antiseptic and detached as an episode of Masterpiece Theater. Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) beautifully frames Ms. Mulligan in puppy dog sweet tableaus while nestled in the arms of Sarsgaard, dolling her up to resemble Audrey Hepburn in the flesh (a visual echo that has lead some misguided male critics to equate their talent). Yet both Jenny's passion and disappointment are strictly of the stiff upper lip variety. Mulligan feels like a passive voyager on this journey, whisked along by the events of her life, alternating between wide-eyed wonder and stunned sadness. The actress never really sells the giddy excitement of being fawned over by a wealthy older man nor the sense of betrayal at uncovering the truth about the life that he's kept from her.

Yet it's ultimately the audience that suffers the greatest betrayal. The film feels confused as to how much of a feminist statement it's willing to make about what it means to be a self-sufficient woman of the world. In the end, the film rewards Jenny for her fickleness and the abandonment of her dreams with nary a hint of lasting consequence. In essence, An Education ends up embracing the patronizing mentality it seemingly sets out to dispel. Ultimately the film is comfort food for The Reader crowd where all that matters is that everyone feels like they've comes away having learned an important life lesson for their troubles. So why is it I'm the one who feels like I've just had a ruler whacked across my knuckles?

Zombieland (09 Fleischer C-)

2009-10-02T17:20:00.000-07:00

Republished at Gone Cinema Poaching

How much empathy should I have for Jesse Eisenberg at this point? Lanky, mop-topped and stammering his way into girl's pants, the actor has turned into the Michael Cera of the indie world, delivering variations on the same performance for the better part of the past decade. Introduced in 2002's Roger Dodger as the naive foil to Campbell Scott's motormouthed cad, Eisenberg creatively peaked with 2005's The Squid & the Whale which is still on the Mount Rushmore of myopic, self-involved behavior films.

But them returns be diminishing, calcifying with this spring's wet dream of mid-80's apathy and longing Adventureland and having finally spoiled with the similarly titled Zombieland opening this weekend. Now in his mid-20's, Eisenberg is once again coming of age, here chasing after that elusive girl who "gets" him while simultaneously pushing him away. In Adventureland he had to compete against a Lou Reed quoting Ryan Reynolds; I'm not sure whether the zombie apocalypse is considered an improvement.

Brightly lit, cheerfully violent and never afraid to run a joke into the ground, the brisk Zombieland gives us the neurotic and allegedly virginal Eisenberg as an unlikely survivor of an outbreak which has rendered the entire population of the country undead brain-eaters and littered our highways and byways with abandoned vehicles, downed airplanes and gutted corpses. But persevere Eisenberg has, surviving due to the anal retentive rules he's followed and his lack of human attachment. And we know this, because we're told this. Repeatedly.

A few weeks back Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! was tickling a certain segment of film fans who've long loathed the convention of voice over narration as an exposition device. Digressive, meandering and usually disruptive to the story it was ostensibly telling, the narration in The Informant! found Matt Damon's character expounding on any number of deep thoughts ranging from the hunting techniques of polar bears to tie patterns. It was as though it were thumbing its nose at the lazy habit of piping in a character's explanation of what they're feeling in relation to what's going on in the story or even what's happening on screen at that very moment, like the world's worst DVD commentary.

Which is exactly what Zombieland does, wallpapering over all the gaps in logic, story and character development inherent in writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick's screenplay. Eisenberg's droning monotone, often vocalizing things we're seeing on screen in LARGE TEXT, is as omnipresent as all the 80's ironic rock chestnuts on the soundtrack. Watching Zombieland is like having someone sit behind you, reading aloud from the film's official novelization while you watch it.

But here I am talking about voice over and a drippy protagonist when there's zombie killing to discuss. Where is my head?

Picking up the hyper-agressive torch thrown down by Zach Snyder's widely liked (although not by me) Dawn of the Dead remake, Zombieland depicts a world where killing zombies stems less from a need to survive and more out of boredom. A place where our band of heroes--which also includes Woody Harrelson as an ammunition-loving redneck in the ass kicking business (and as the film proudly proclaims, "business is good") Superbad's Emma Stone as our smokey-voiced love interest and Abigail Breslin wearing out that precocious stage of her career--often lobby for coveted "Zombie Kill of the Week" a stat that's still apparently documented and spread throughout the land despite the fact that all other forms of civilization have ceased. No kill is too grotesque or too creative, no witty bon mot delivered after the fact too glib. The entire cast seems to be preening for our amusement, investing little into their own story as better to make wisecracks while mowing down waves of the undead.

Zombieland has drawn comparisons to the other comedic zombie film of the past decade, Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, but the gives the former far too much credit and makes the latter seem criminally slight. Missing here is Shaun's restlessness and waves of empathy that gave dignity to its characters even as they battled zombies by flinging Prince records at them. There's no one likable here; real emotions are footnotes and punctuation to stoner gags and already dated pop culture references (at one point Eisenberg's character says the best thing about the end of the world is no more Facebook updates, making his casting in the upcoming David Fincher film, The Social Network, either inspired or terrible timing).

Everyone here is doing shtick and first time director Ruben Fleischer encourages his cast to play it to the rafters as though that's the only way they'll stand out amongst his more garish filmmaking flourishes (ie: lots of sloooooow mo). Even when the film does stumble into gold, it has no idea what to do with it. At one point our survivors hole up in the "abandoned" home of a Hollywood celebrity only to find that the place isn't quite as empty as they'd thought (ruining this surprise cameo has turned into a sport on the net, but I'll obviously refrain). Yet the film can't be bothered to actually find something interesting to do with the scenario, making lame art deco jokes and mostly standing around as star-struck as its characters.

One doesn't go into these films looking for logic but the absence of consequence in the face of near-certain death is especially grating. This is how we end up with a detour to an abandoned amusement park where the characters are shocked (SHOCKED) that the noise and lights of the park might draw unwanted attention. If our characters can't even be bothered to care about their survival, then why the hell should we?

But what do you expect from a film that makes the threat of being torn limb from limb secondary to whether or not our hero is able to overcome his anxiety and convince the only of-age female in the Western Hemisphere to make out with him? It's been pointed out to me that while I've seen this routine from Eisenberg several times now, Zombieland represents his most public of offerings. This means after Zombieland he has potentially millions of new people who can be irritated three films hence. See you when you get there.

A Serious Man (09 Coens B+)

2009-10-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

Republished at Gone Cinema Poaching.

Set in the mid 60's in a closely-knit, Jewish community in Minnesota, A Serious Man, the new film from Joel and Ethan Coen is being called their most nakedly personal film ("...their smart-alecky nihilism feels authentic rather than arch — you understand, maybe for the first time, where they are coming from" deduces A.O. Scott of the New York Times), a scenario bolstered by the filmmakers claim that the movie was inspired by their own experiences growing up in the Midwest. I'm not sure I'm buying it though. Like the "inspired by true events" title card placed in front of their last Minnesota-set film, the comparatively propulsive Fargo, I wouldn't put it past the puckish directors to be pulling another one over on us.

Here we have a film about the search for larger meaning, or more directly, straight-up answers in the face of the unexplainable. Why are we beset with miseries? Why is life so hard? Are there larger implications to the signs and symbols we see every day?

Yet for all the probing, the film resolutely withholds answers or flat out mocks the idea that anyone, even the most learned or devout, actually is within flailing distance of them. It's as though the Coens know we'll never stop looking for meaning or clues to unlock their own occasionally impenetrable work, with A Serious Man serving as a good natured raspberry to those foolish enough to lead the charge and do anything but "embrace the mystery."

Or is it misery? The actual quote is delivered by a disgruntled Korean student in clipped English to beleaguered physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) after half-heartedly denying his role in a bribe for grades scheme. Larry isn't sure he comprehends the expression and neither did I, but if it is indeed an auditory mistake, it's an understandable one. Over the course of a few weeks leading up to his son's Bar Mitzvah, we find Larry standing in for Job, as misfortune is rained down upon him.

A decent man (which could have served as an alternate title to the film) besieged by temptation in the form of the aforementioned bribe and the lonely housewife next door who sunbathes in the nude (photographed in a long, unblinking shot that somehow saps the image of all eroticism), Larry stays the path, searching out celestial answers to all that ails him. And does he have troubles: His wife is leaving him for the touchy-feely Sy Ableman (the unctuous Fred Melamend in a performance that would be legendary were he given but a bit more screen time) forcing him to stay at the oft-repeated Jolly Roger motel and someone has been trying to put the hex on his tenure application by sending anonymous, character-disparaging letters to the administration. His repulsive brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is an emotional and financial drain (it can't be a coincidence the character spends the entire film literally sucking pus from a cyst on the back of his neck) and his kids have little use for him beyond pilfering money from his wallet or nagging him to fix the TV antenna.

It's a life of a thousand, small indignities and Larry's desperate to find out why must they all happen to him. But getting a straight answer isn't in the cards as he jumps from rabbi to rabbi in search of guidance that's either useless, oblique or dangled just out of reach.

The film more or less follows suit: placing you in the same, always questioning, unable to locate your bearing, position as Larry. A Serious Man feels like a continuation of the famously divisive, final scene of No Country for Old Men, where we're left dangling in the wind as to what it all means. If No Country prided itself on concluding with an anti-climax, here's a film which scene by scene, nay beat by beat, is about deflating expectations often after much flurry and fluster.

In the film's best sequence, we see an extended anecdote about a Jewish dentist who discovers a message in Hebrew on the back of a patient's teeth and the great lengths he goes to to uncover their meaning. Employing every trick and knack in their playbook, the Coens breathlessly assemble the sequence like a comedian delivering a well-polished routine, stretching out its resolution to a near exasperating breaking point. To reveal any more would defeat the purpose of the scene but in a nutshell it serves to not only extrapolate the themes of the film but to serve as a reminder that often when it comes to faith, we really are in it for ourselves.

After I saw the film I knew I liked it but had a hard time pinpointing why and how much. I had trouble shaking my disorientation, as though my head were swimming and I was walking on an icy sidewalk. In the moment, A Serious Man often feels disconnected, like a bunch of assembled pieces operating separate from everything else around them. Characters and plot points are abruptly pushed off screen to make room for new ones which are no more likely to get their propers. It really does at times feel like one thing after another.

Yet appropriately, after some quiet reflection, the films intentions feel more clear to me. The experience not necessarily understood but certainly appreciated. A Serious Man handles largish ideas such as a divine plan, guilt and the idea of the Jews as, if not God's chosen people, than certainly one of his favorite targets ("just because the boss is wrong doesn't mean he's not the boss") and places them within a mundane, suburban context. The characters aren't motivated by greed or delusions of grandeur (which often go hand-in-hand in Coen brothers films). These events are merely brought upon them simply by existing (in a motif which skirts the line of being a Gump-ism, the film uses the Columbia Record Club as a metaphor for life: you do nothing and it keeps coming every month).

The film is both incredibly off-putting and enveloping. It keeps you at arm's length with its reliance on ellipses in lieu of actual resolution, yet ultimately it feels empathetic to the fact that we are all searching. And while A Serious Man might argue we're never going to find what we're looking for, at least it concedes we're all on the same road.

The Best of '08

2009-01-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: as of this writing I have still not seen a handful of titles which could theoretically factor into a 10 Best List. A small sampling of these titles includes Ballast, Doubt, Frozen River and I've Loved You So Long. Should I see any of these in a timely fashion I will incorporate them into this list. That, however, would not take place in a timely fashion.

1. Wall*E (Andrew Stanton)

If 2008 truly was a cinematic wasteland then perhaps it's appropriate that its savior was a hopeless romantic running through mountains of trash, and no, I'm not talking about Slumdog Millionaire. Destined to be marginalized by history as merely a great animated film or simply yet another masterpiece from Pixar (is that a yawn I hear?), Wall*E is not only the most entertaining film I've seen all year (full disclosure I've already watched the film 4 times in the month since I bought the dvd) but the most stubbornly cinematic, creating breathtaking imagery out of ones and zeroes mostly devoid of dialogue, human characters and cookie cutter, Disney-plotting all while crafting a completely original and terrifyingly plausible sci-fi parable for our wasteful times. More than that though, the film is the most swoon-worthy romance of the year; a film keenly aware of the transformative power of intimacy and how the heart (even one made of circuit boards and microchips) can flutter simply by having someone hold your hand.

2. The Class (Laurent Cantent)

It's so simple it's almost deceptive. Present one teacher, instructing a class of combative teenagers over the course of a school year and nothing else. No ostentatious subplots involving the teacher's love life or rousing speeches or montages showing students prepping for the big exam. No Coolio either. Instead we get a war of attrition between one good intentioned but flawed man (François Bégaudeau, essentially playing himself and working from a script based on his own book) and a classroom filled with hormonal, bored Parisian youths who view school as a weigh-station on the road to adulthood. A battle for the minds of the youth of tomorrow writ small and clearly one that's being lost, The Class is both depressing in its perception and yet encouraging just for letting you know there are teachers like Bégaudeau's Mr. Marin who are still trying in the face of crushing institutional constraints and a world that seemingly doesn't care.

3. Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)

Is this the first cinematic ambassador of the Obama administration? Observant, inclusive, slyly funny and at times utterly heartbreaking, Rachel Getting Married is a renascence from director Jonathan Demme. His hand-held cameras omnipresently capture every unmistakably human moment over the course of an emotional weekend while Jenny Lumet's screenplay possesses a rare gift for illustrating equal parts compassion and personal weakness without ever feeling forced. Featuring music and dance, casual multi-culturalism, larger than life guests (performed by the year's best ensemble cast), Rachel Getting Married is the sort of wedding you only wish you attended.

4. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)

How appropriate that a film about confronting pre-conceived notions about a person is the one I dragged my feet on seeing for months because it sounded lousy. Featuring the performance of the year by Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky is often achingly funny in showing us a woman who's a perpetual bundle of nervous energy (think Gervais' David Brent from the BBC "The Office" only less self-agrandizing) whose positive outlook on life serves not only as a security blanket but truly an act of defiance against a caustic and indifferent world. Hilariously pitted against Eddie Marden's perpetually irate driving instructor, these scenes provide not just a foil for Hawkins' Poppy, but also a true test of her conscience. The film only deepens exactly when you expect it to falter.

5. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (Kurt Kuenne)

The feel bad film of the year and hands down the best documentary of same. A first person journey of self-discovery that finds its narrator experiencing each horrifying new development in much the same manner that we the audience do, this is a film that will send waves of rage pulsing through your body. Unfolding like a Dennis Lehane novel, Dear Zachary plumbs the trenches of human evil (if at all possible, avoid reading *anything* which describes the events depicted in this film prior to seeing it) yet somehow finds unlikely heroes to celebrate, shining through from the darkest of places.

6. In Bruges (Martin McDonagh)

What an awesomely vulgar, wonderful little film. Seemingly cobbled together from all the most annoying parts of mid 90's indie films, In Bruges is an inexplicable joy, coasting on the charms of perfectly matched stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell and, with all due respect to the late Heath Ledger, Ralph Fiennes who gives the most mesmerizing sociopathic performance of the year. Never going where you expect it to and overflowing with bracingly funny (and did I mention vulgar?) dialogue, In Bruges may soon replace The Ice Harvest as the film I put on when I stumble home drunk from the bar and want to watch people even worse behaved than myself.

7. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)

The most divisive film of the year, Synecdoche, New York is a film by and for writers: a snake swallowing its own tail for two hours, attuned to the self-destructive habit of obsessive meddling and self-examening at the expense of fruition and life experience (he says while tapping away at 2am on a Friday, half written screenplay sitting a few feet away on his desk). Difficult to sit through at times, the film is however one that lends itself to countless interpretations and will hopefully reward repeat viewings, formally audacious and uncomfortably perceptive, the film announces Kaufman as a natural filmmaker.

8. The Promotion (Steven Conrad)

No one saw this film, but I feel confident it will find an audience and love down the road. A comedy of manners and class warfare where the smaller the stakes are the more vicious the fight is, the film continues on the promise of Conrad's screenplay for The Weatherman (another small gem that was largely overlooked) in writing genuinely funny characters grappling with day to day problems like paying a mortgage, negotiating office politics and keeping a relationship together. Is it any wonder the film made less than half a million dollars in its theatrical run?

9. The Visitor (Thomas McCarthy)

Like The Promotion, this is another small gem of a film. Unlike The Promotion people went to see this one. God Bless McCarthy for giving this part to Richard Jenkins, a longtime character actor best know as playing the dead patriarch on "Six Feet Under." Understated and inward, registering change in a glacier-like crawl (something even the great Clint can't do in the superficially similar Gran Torino) The Visitor is a gentle, proudly liberal film about accepting change and opening your heart to new people and experiences. Every bit as good as Jenkins (and way less likely to be awarded for it) is Hiam Abbas as the mother of an illegal immigrant who also unexpectedly finds change and hopefulness welling up inside of her.

10. Milk (Gus Van Sant)

Is Milk a great film or merely a good one that feels especially relevant and vital during these sad, close-minded times? Ultimately we'll never know but one can't shake the feeling that this is exactly the film we need right now and that it's as entertaining and light on its feet and well constructed makes it almost too good to be true. Formulaic and old fashion in the best sense, The film allows Sean Penn to give the most impressive performance of his career in the role of slain gay leader Harvey Milk; a warm, strong willed, persuasive man of the people who understood the importance (and power) of working within the system. Van Sant's film pulses with real anger and affection for outsiders everywhere but remains, importantly, inclusive of those whose stomachs were turned by Brokeback Mountain (the film cleverly front-loads most of the man on man action instead of teasing it out; force your straight viewers to confront their prejudices then move past them). An awards contender that actually deserves to be one.

The Worst of '08

2009-01-06T22:18:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer:

I'm not a paid critic which means I don't have to go see every film that comes out. Therefore there are dozens of, no doubt, terrible films that come out every year that I will never see. I also tend to be of the mind that the average person probably can tell that What Happens in Vegas and Beverly Hills Chihuahua will most likely be shit without an assist from me whereas some otherwise sane individuals might actually recommend American Teen or Cloverfield so I'm glad to help out where I can in that respect.

1. American Teen (Nanette Burstein)

Shame on this film. Shame on Nanette Burstein, who once upon a time was a real documentary filmmaker, for turning this opportunity to create a Wiseman-like study of middle American youth into a demographic-pandeirng would-be-episode of "The Hills." Shame on its subjects, most of whom played up the worst aspects of their personalities to fit some pre-conceived notion of themselves (are we supposed to be shocked that the cunty rich girl has suffered tragedy in her life? Or that the wacky, artsy girl is likely an undiagnosed manic?) Shame on the kids' parents for allowing their children to exploit themselves in such a manner. Shame on the Sundance Film Festival for programming the film in its coveted documentary category without putting an asterisk next to the title. Shame on those in the critical community for failing to recognize (or is it simply failing to care?) that the film was merely one re-staged, ADRed, rejiggered, or flat-out fabricated sequence after another. The only people who shouldn't be ashamed are the American people who stayed away from this one in droves.

2. The Entire First Person Genre: Colverfield, Diary of the Dead, Memorial Day, Afterschool, etc...

You know what's really *not* that interesting? Films that are enthralled with the idea of the way we obsessively chronicle our lives in this, the era of YouTube. Providing enough meta-ass licking to annoy even Charlie Kaufman, 2008 gave us Cloverfield, a shaky-cam sham that was all sizzle and no steak filled with grating yuppies who wouldn't put down the down camera even whilst scaling the side of a building, fighting off giant spider monsters or watching their loved ones die horrifically. In the same vein is George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead where we find the filmmaker returning to the zombie franchise he created with a painfully shallow (and not to mention butt ugly) yawn about what happens when obnoxious film students are on the run from the undead. Limit these to one a decade, please George? Arguably more irritating are the art films that have turned this particular form of naval gazing into an excuse to beat the audience into submission either with the latest didactic on Iraq (as in the case of the as yet unreleased Memorial Day which unspooled at CineVegas) or to take clumsy swipes at an entire generation, like NY Film Fest favorite Afterschool which plays like Haneke only with intentionally lousy compositions and an unearned cynicism. So toxic is this particular trend in filmmaking that it spawned the two worst "South Park" episodes in history.

3. The Happening (M. Night Shayamalan)

This one began its life as a page-turner of a screenplay, which transcended its dopey premise through tense writing and a genuine appreciation of the idea that the uncertainty of what comes next is often more important then anything occurring in the present. Perhaps this means M. Night Shayamalan should consider a career as a novelist. A monument to ineptitude behind the camera, The Happening is tonally clumsy, dreadfully paced and altogether unscary. More distressingly, it features career-worst performances from Mark Wahlberg and the usually luminous Zoey Deschanel.

4. Hancock (Peter Berg)

You won't believe Will Smith can fly. Featuring the worst special effects this side of a Troma film (and those don't cost tens of millions of dollars), Hancock's wise-cracking, alcoholic superhero was beaten to the punch by several months by Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man and the filmmakers gutted their own premise of having us root for Big Willy style run off with another man's wife by roping her into a dopey super-heroine subplot that seemed to be making itself up as it went along.

5. Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Kevin Smith)

Even casting real actors (and talented ones at that) can't save Smith's latest faux naughty peon to male insecurity and gentle Red State values poking through a haze of gay and scat jokes. Smith is almost 40-years-old and has now directed 8 films without showing any signs of growth either as a filmmaker or a human being.

6. Wanted (Timur Bekmambetov)

Nearly a decade after Fight Club bombed spectacularly, costing dozens of people at Fox their jobs in its wake, this thing comes along presenting a dumbed down version of the same ethos and a variation on the same special effect for two hours, and it becomes the surprise hit of the summer. Simply possessing an attitude is not the same thing has having something to say.

7. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg)

Who knew it was the directorial brilliance of Danny Leiner that made the first film work? Bringing back almost the entire cast and original writers (who served as this films co-directors) of the latter-day, stoner classic Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, the sequel falls on its face both as a political satire and a comedy. More curiously the film ended up playing like an icky right wing apologia (how else to explain our heroes bonding with Dubbya over their shared love of weed?) after beginning with oral rape at Gitmo gags.

8. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Scott Derrickson)

This is the film where Keanu Reeves' alien comes to Earth to destroy all those pesky humans because they're ruining the planet only to change his mind because he watches Jennifer Connelly hug her step-son played by Will Smith's kid, Jayden, and decides "you humans are alright after all." Additional demerits for wasting Jon Hamm's first post-"Mad Men" role on an expendable, exposition-spouting fount.

9. Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin' with the Godmother (Billy Corben)

Another awful documentary of questionable value. A sequel in name only to Bill Corben's sprawling 2006 account of the South American to US drug trade, Cocaine Cowboys II focuses on the anecdotal life of sycophant and former drug trafficker Charles Cosby who rose to fame by having an affair with a Columbian narcotics baroness. Short on analysis but long on Cosby's bragging, the film is like spending two hours with one of the groupies who used to fuck Mick Jagger.

10. Jumper (Doug Liman)

Let's not kid ourselves. This is no worse than Doug Liman's last film, the nauseating Mr. & Mrs. Smith: it just doesn't have two of the biggest movie stars in the world to distract us from the hackery. An incoherent jumble of undigested ideas and wasted exotic locals, the only upside to this film is it probably puts to bed the notion of Hayden Christensen, leading man.

What I've Seen October 2008

2008-10-28T01:06:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time I used to blog about films all the time. But then I got fat and lazy and started having sex again and I pretty much threw my blog out the window so I could follow less noble pursuits. Well I’ve been feeling the itch lately and on top of everything else I’ve got AFI in a few weeks and I’d like to try and document the experience as I used to back in the good old days. So here I am, exercising my writing muscles.

These represent some of the more stream of conscious writing I’ve done but they certainly get the point across whether I fall on the “yay” or “nay” side of a film. This may be a rolling entry where I continue to add new titles or it may be the latest in a long-line of “one-off’s.” Either way, enjoy.

Changeling (2008 Clint Eastwood C) As has become Eastwood’s tradition with recent films, we get the studio logo at the head of the film in old fashion black and white, one would imagine harkening back to an earlier era of filmmaking where 70-something Clint might feel himself more at home. Who knew it would serve as a nifty metaphor for his distressingly limited world view? Essentially a Lars von Trier film without the irony or meta-context, here we get (a woefully miscast) Angelina Jolie in the Bjork-like role of the long-suffering woman crushed by a cruel, indifferent system while a host of TV actors including Jeffrey Donnovan using a distracting brogue, are trotted out as callous oppressors. Eastwood’s painting with a very wide brush here, never calling into question our heroine’s sanity, while simply presenting the LAPD as corrupt and lazy with no motivation beyond self-preservation. I mean was there nothing more to the entire scandal than a desire not to be publicly embarrassed? Actually the word “simple” seems the most apt adjective to employ here. Cheers for the wronged woman! Hisses for the evil institutions! Jolie murmurs and caterwauls her way to awards attention (she’s working from the Sean Penn playbook of parental suffering), Amy Ryan reprises a variation of the foul-mouthed hard-living working class character from Gone Baby Gone, John Malkovich is once again unable to disguise his Walken-like weirdness in a relatively normal character, and on it goes. To be honest, I’m not even sure what Eastwood is trying for here. Guess I’ll just have to look forward to Gran Torino.

Synecdoche, New York (2008 Charlie Kaufman B+) I understand the hatred towards this film but I think it’s misplaced. Complaints that it’s merely Kaufman chasing a rabbit up his own asshole are, frankly, several films too late. A couple days removed and I’ve already doodled out a handful of theories about the film: Is it a celebration of collaboration, with Hoffman’s ever-expanding merry troop following him blindly for decades, going to a place where their performances end up merging, superseding and defining their actual lives? Or is it an indictment of endless self-analysis from Hope Davis’ Lynchian in her omnipresence shrink to characters literally being able to stand back and look at how others would perform their lives (and in the most on the nose allusion, the film’s unending curiosity with human’s examining their own excrement)? Or for that matter is it anything more than a Buñuel -like head trip, creating small worlds within the confines of its own ellipses, never really pausing to explain itself or ground the film in an easy to place logic? I guess the point is that it doesn’t matter what reading you take (although I personally prefer the cautionary tale second one) because the journey is so surprising and lovingly melancholy. There’s elements of Southland Tales-type hubris on display but Kaufman admirably seems to have both hands on the wheel at all times even when the road we’re on is windy and opaque. This isn’t to say every gambit pays off; not by a long shot. Everything relating to Hoffman’s daughter is utterly baffling (and not helped by the curious casting of the nearly 40-year-old Robin Weigert), Kaufman’s patented preciousness (including a house that’s perennially on fire) can be a bit, um, suffocating. There’s also an inherent redundancy to the premise which can be patience trying (by my unofficial count there are four “real” funerals and an equal amount of staged ones). Still, I find myself returning to the film in my mind repeatedly, which I really could never say for Kaufman’s more widely accepted Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Bonus: Emily Watson as Samantha Morton is perhaps the single funniest joke of the year.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008 Danny Boyle B) I’m prefacing this by saying that I’m overrating this, but only as it applies to my own scale. Most people will (and already do) like this a whole lot more than I did, which considering my disproportionate admiration for late-period Boyle (I’m even a pretty big Sunshine apologist) surprises no one more than myself. Which is a long convoluted way of saying that if I wasn’t such a Boyle fanboy I’d really nail this for being the facile and morally sanitized City of God (by way of Dickens) rip-off that it is. The star here is the setting (as it was in City) and Boyle’s joyous direction. When the film is divorced from its own dopey, high-concept premise it’s energetic and vital, casting a light on what still remains an under-documented third world culture. The film’s characters never really transcend their roles as ciphers (which isn’t to say the performances are bad by any means) so they’re often only as transcendent as the story they’re intertwined in. So, in summation, stuff with kids working as urchins for Fagin-like figure (complete with involuntary maiming) is riveting. Stuff with now adult characters working under the thumb of hazily defined mob boss plays like a bad FX show. Plus, as alluded to earlier, I’m not overly impressed with Simon Beaufoy’s gimmicky screenplay which makes the adorable mistake of confusing contrivance with destiny (then again Shyamalan’s been doing the same thing for the past decade and he comes from the same part of the world as this film, so maybe it’s a cultural thing). I’m willing to forgive how every question our hero is asked dovetails into a vignette explaining how he knew the answer but does it always have to come together in such a quaint and tidy bow? Eminently worth seeing though for the naturalistic child performances, Boyle’s zippy direction (there’s a fantastic early chase sequence through the streets of Bombay that puts to shame incoherent gibberish like the Bourne sequels) and Anthony Dod Mantle’s gorgeous photography which explodes in Technicolor hues of yellow, brown, read and green. It’s unfortunate that Pineapple Express co-opted M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” this summer as the film features a heck of a sequence cut to it, the effect of which is mostly lost due to over-familiarity. Also, I hate to be “that guy,” but would it have killed them to just subtitle the whole thing?

Role Models (2008 David Wain B+) This is being compared to Judd Apatow, which really isn’t very fair. As far as I’m concerned Wain has been making me laugh for just as long (and with more regularity than) Apatow has and Rudd and Banks were in Wet Hot American Summer long before 40-Year-Old Virgin. As sell-out projects go, this might be without peer in melding formulaic high concept comedy (Wain and his co-writers came to the project late in development) with more scatological almost dada-inspired digression and grotesque characterizations. Sure, I could point out that once the plot kicks in you can anticipate every single dramatic beat about twenty minutes in advance and it all more or less ends up exactly where you would expect it to (complete with lessons learned and hugs). And yeah, the advertising for the film seems to highlight every dopey comedic set-piece and bit of broad physical comedy, but there’s a very good reason for that: everything else in the film is way too vulgar, angry or inside to ever put in a commercial. You’ve got Paul Rudd putting on a master class of passive annoyance and casual misanthropy. Snark has never been wielded with more laser specific precision which does wonders in cutting through much of the third act hokum that’s par for the course. And really, what more needs to be said about Jane Lynch who as a recovering coke addict turned community leader cheerfully over shares an increasingly horrifying back-story of degradation (there’s also a bit of business involving a hot dog bagel that’s so juvenile I feel like my driver’s license should be revoked for laughing at it). Plus, unlike Apatow, Wain can appreciate the comedic value of female nudity as well as male. I’m truly stunned something this acidic and angry even got greenlit. I suppose the best thing I can say for the film is I found myself annoyed at the density of jokes prevented me from hearing every third joke over my own laughter. Also, is Seann William Scott turning into a strong comedic actor or is he just blessed with exceptional taste in material (see also: The Promotion)? Who knew there was so much intentional comedic value in KISS?

The Minutes of Andrew's Evening

2008-10-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

A cross-section of the evening:

I spent 5 minutes talking to her and she asked to get a drink with me.

I spent 10 minutes talking to her and she started grinding up against me while dancing.

I spent 15 minutes talking to her and she assured me how good she looks naked.

I spent 20 minutes talking to her and she flashed me the strap of her thong.

I spent 25 minutes talking to her before we exchanged phone numbers.

I spent 30 minutes talking to her before she told me I was 4 years younger than her boyfriend.

I spent 30 minutes and 21 seconds before my hard-on fell into my sock.

38 minutes after we started talking some dude with abs and a v-neck t-shirt shows up and starts groping her ass on cue.

I waited 2 minutes after I got home to delete her number from my phone.

FUCKING BITCHES.

AFI Schedule

2008-10-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my good buddy Landon, I’ll be attending the AFI Film Fest this November for the sixth consecutive year, starting (for me anyway) on Halloween. I’m often critical of this particular festival as they seem to routinely squander both their standing as the most prestigious film festival in Los Angeles (FIND’s LA Film Fest has become a joke) as well as the scheduling coup of being the last major film festival of the calendar year. They’ve made a few changes over the years to be more in lock-step with the rest of the festival circuit, namely creating a Midnight Madness forum (this year rechristened “Alt Cinema”), lowered the price of their galas to an acceptable $25 a pop and scaling back on the number of American independent films which, in my experience, are often picked over after having failed to make a splash at Sundance, SxSW and Tribeca.

But this year I really have to take my hat off to the selection committee. In essence, they’ve created a year end Whitman’s Sampler, encapsulating the best titles from Sundance, Cannes, Toronto and NYFF giving those of us on the west coast a chance to catch up with many of the international titles journalists have been going nuts over for months. In fact, I’m so pleased about the job they’ve done cherry picking titles that I’m not going to bitch that they’ve split venues between the Arclight (which has served as the festival’s one-stop-shopping center for better part of the past decade) and the Mann’s Chinese complex at Hollywood and Highland.

I’m going to try and update this on my phone during my festival downtime (wifi signal permitting) so check back for regular updates. Also I’ve included all the leftover pieces that came in the box at the bottom of the page in case anyone sees a title that they think I absolutely should make a point of seeing.

And now in the highly imitable style of Mike D’Angelo, I present.

AFI Fest October 30 – November 9
_______________________________________________________________________________

Friday October 31

Deadgirl (Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel, USA): C- The appeal here is largely built around how gapingly offensive the premise is, when in actuality this is less morally appalling than it is inept at every level. Essentially this is River’s Edge reconceived as a zombie movie, with our loner protagonists inviting all their male friends to come sexually violate a re-animated corpse strapped to a gurney inside an abandoned asylum. But Sarmiento & Harel never land on the right tone, creating a situation that’s toxic to begin with (the two leads seem to have modeled their performances after 1950’s greasers film with a little Dylan & Eric thrown in for flavor) and descending from there, never fully selling its own premise from a situational or character standpoint. As a treatise on sexual politics it lags behind even this past winter’s forgettable Teeth and while it tows the line of Cronenbergian body violation, it ultimately lacks the conviction (or perhaps the special effects budget) to really go where sick young men’s minds will take things.

Saturday Nov 1

Revanche (Götz Spielmann, Austria): B+ Boy is this a hard film to qualify. From a strictly plot standpoint (and this most assuredly is not a film whose strength is derived from its plot) it’s essentially a Coen Brother’ special, with a get-rich scheme that’s destined to go horrifically and the aftermath of which can only lead to more bloodshed (I don’t speak German but even I can deduce what the title means). And the thing is, at no point will you be really surprised where the film arrives as everything is telegraphed by the 50-minute mark. No, the real intangible here is how fully lived in and emotionally sound every choice in the film is and how the consequences of every action taken are explored. In a perverse way it almost reminds me of Crash where we have a bunch of people bumping against one another through sheer contrivance but instead of knee-jerk histrionics and manufactured drama we have desperate people slowly coming to terms with the world they’ve created and their helplessness at escaping it. I’m really failing to convey the film’s loveliness but I take comfort that Mike D’Angelo more or less flailed about as well, although his enthusiasm for the film was enough to get me in the theater. If I can accomplish that as well then mission accomplished.

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, USA): B Another bullocks to the plot film, great. I wasn’t a fan of Reichardt’s Old Joy which was a little too minimalist for me. This at least has the benefit of external conflict even if it moves to the same aimless rhythms of the earlier film. Having familiarized myself with the premise going in, I was relieved to discover it’s not the exercise in miserablism I’d feared would be, in large part due to Michelle Williams defiantly pragmatic performance and an understated gem of a turn by stunt coordinator turned “where the hell did *he* come from?” character actor Wally Dalton as a sympathetic security guard. It’s also worth noting that as a lifelong dog owner there’s probably no way I wasn’t going to tear up at that ending but that shouldn’t take anything away from the long slow build that earns the moment.

Che (Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain): B

Sunday Nov 2

The Class (Laurent Cantet, France): A

Hunger (Steve McQueen, UK): B

Monday Nov 3

Time Crimes (Nacho Vigalondo, Spain): C+

Tuesday Nov 4

I didn't end up seeing anything. Mid-fest break required as the night's would get much longer and booze-fueled from here on out.

Wednesday Nov 5

Before the Fall (F Javier Gutiérrez, Spain): C-

Thursday Nov 6

Idiots and Angels (Bill Plympton, USA): B-

Two Lovers (James Gray, USA): A

The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, USA): B

Friday Nov 7

Sugar (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, USA): B+

Waltz With Bashir (Ari Folman, Israel/France/Germany): C-

Afterschool (Antonio Campos, USA): D+ This once announces itself early and often: a theme spending 2 hours in search of a film. Essentially, in case you didn’t know, a generation raised on internet porn and Al Quaeda beheading videos is likely to grow up disaffected and emotionally disconnected from genuine human experience becoming little glass-eyed monsters who regard the death of a couple classmates with the same level of muted interest as hallways slap fight or a viral video of a kitty playing the piano. Campos, who at 24 is bold enough to create a film around this idea, complete with Youtube-ready off-center compositions while at the same time is just immature enough to not realize he’s shot his load in the first 10 minutes and proceeds to beat the same drum with little variance. The film’s payoff is so poorly telegraphed I simply assumed it was accepted fact only to be confronted with shock-cut flashbacks in the closing moments. The film has its fans (or rather one very vocal one) but frankly I’d be amazed if it ever escapes the festival circuit.

Saturday Nov 8

Playing Columbine (Danny Ledonne, USA): C+ The missing element here is critical distance. The title of the film refers to the low-tech computer game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! that was released onto the net a few years ago, serving to comment upon (or exploit depending upon your politics) the 1999 school shooting and the ensuing controversy that predictably followed it. Ledonne chronicles the firestorm of victims rights advocates and media pundits that attacked the game for turning tragedy into entertainment (we see brief glimpses of the game where, for example, you receive certain point values for shooting “Preppy Girl” or lighting propane tanks on fire) as well as the weak-willed gaming establishment that buckled to pressure to bury the game and yank it from media arts conventions. Of even more interest, the film draws the corollary between the game and other “too soon” works such as United 93 and games about the Catholic Church scandals and Darfur, making the case that experiencing these events in a first-person, user-controlled medium is a perfectly acceptable form of processing grief. So what’s the problem? Ledonne also happens to be the creator of the game itself, meaning the film often undermines its own point in failing to truly hold its subject’s feet to the fire regarding his motives. The ratio of subjects who praise Ledonne versus those who indict him is about 5 to 1, meaning the film essentially serves as a self-generated pat on the back to its filmmaker. We’re constantly aware of the artist’s motives and as such everything about the film is rendered suspect.

Adam Resurrected (Paul Schrader, Germany/Israel/USA): C-

Sunday Nov 9

As predicted I hit a wall on the last day of the festival. Nothing left scheduled that day appealed to me and the tickets to the world premiere of Defiance that had been promised to me were withheld until the last possible moment, making it impossible for me to attend. I also flaked out on a screening of Milk that I'm now regretting. Such is life...

Not Getting to This Time Around

24 City
3 Women
Achilles and the Tortoise
Acne
Agile, Mobile, Hostile: A Year with Andre Williams
Alone in Four Walls
Better Things
Birdsong
Blood Appears
A Boyfriend for My Wife
The Chaser
Chouga
Defiance^
The Desert Within
Dim Sum Funeral
Divizionz
Everlasting Moments
Finally, Lillian and Dan
Food Fight
Gachi Boy Wrestling With a Memory
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
A Good Day to be Black & Sexy
The Good, the Bad & the Weird
The Headless Woman
Hi My Name is Ryan
The Higher Force
I’m Gonna Explode
Imaginadores
Involuntary
The Juche Idea
Kassim the Dream
Kisses
Lake Tahoe
Last Chance Harvey^
The Last Days of Shishmaref
Lion’s Dean
Liverpool
Native Dancer
A Necessary Death
Niloofar
Nirvana
Not Quite Hollywood
Of All the Things
O’Horten
Paradise
Patrik, Age 1.5
Perfect Life
Pindorama – The True Story of the Seven Dwarves
Poundcake
Prodigal Sons
Proper Eyes
A Quiet Little Marriage
La Rabia
The Rest of the Night
Shakespeare and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies
Skin
Slumdog Millionaire^@
Summer Hours
Three Blind Mice
Tokyo Sonata
Truth in 24
Tulpan
Two-Legged Horse
Until the Light Takes Us
Visioneers
Waiting for Sancho
Wellness
Witch Hunt@
The World We Want
World’s Apart

^ Gala
@ Already Seen

Killing Time a Little After Midnight

2008-09-22T00:50:00.000-07:00

It’s early fall in LA, typically my favorite time of the year and I’m restless. I’m waiting on an episode of “Entourage” to finish downloading, not that I have any particular desire to watch it, but I fear, like skipping an issue of Variety I’ll somehow be out of the loop if I don’t watch 25 minutes of Vince fucking toothy starlets while Ari confirms every belief middle America has about Jews while the show loft softballs at easy industry targets. I guess that’s why they equate TV with comfort food. Speaking of which I’m eating Doritos because I skipped dinner. I must remind myself that I’m an adult from time to time.

Feel like my life is in transition at the moment. Just extricated myself from a sticky personal situation (being vague because God knows who reads this thing) which suffered from diminished returns as the months went on. Just another lesson on the road of life. Work continues to disappoint me, both financially and spiritually. I fear I’ve been at the same place for so long and have picked up so many bad habits along the way that I’m ill equipped to go anywhere else. Or perhaps I’m just scared to venture outside of the nest (as precariously perched as it may be). I find that, like in relationships, I tend to stay at jobs way too long out of fear of prematurely ending it. Just not good at cutting the cord.

Speaking of relationships, I found out tonight (albeit unconfirmed) that the woman I was in love with in college, someone I seriously considered proposing to at one point is engaged to the guy she started seeing after me (I’m being charitable in this classification, as there was a little overlap at the end there). And I feel… strangely ambivalent. Not quite happy for her but in years past this might be enough to send me on a full-tilt anxiety spiral of panic attacks and pie-eyed nostalgia. I never really doubted that I’d long ago moved on and I suppose this confirms it. Still, always a bit stunning when she who once were “the one” is officially betrothed to another. All the same, I made myself a drink (killing off the last nip of Jack Daniels I kept tucked away in a drawer for just such an occasion).

Tomorrow is sure to be fraught with worry as it’s the first day of a terrifyingly short window of time where I can plead my case against a bogus tax levy the bankrupt (both morally and financially) city of LA has brought against me. It seems because of an iffy tax filing a few years back they believe I own and operate a business requiring some form of business license (not to mention years worth of interest and penalties). This is truly too absurd for words and an insult considering how little I pull in from work. I have my accountant working on the situation but right now I feel like an anvil is hanging over my head. My accountant and parents have told me to remain calm but why shouldn’t they? That’s like the surgeon who tells you not to panic about the dark spot on your lungs. After all, it’s not their body.

A few months back I alluded to some big announcement in this space. Still nothing to report officially. I can offer a little bit of info without getting into specifics. My company has been in talks to produce a couple of low-budget films this fall with yours truly ear-marked for some form of a producer credit on one or both. Of course I’ve been down this path before and when push comes to shove there’s still no money in the bank for either of them. I continue to do work on both and have been paid by neither. Story of my life. I wish I could tell you I felt passionate about both of them but this is strictly a money grab situation and should that money not be forthcoming there’s really no reason to bother with either project or for that matter the company itself. I need a victory here or I need to move the fuck on.

Those who used to come here for movie reviews are advised to continue reading my Twitter regularly as I just lack the focus to write about films at length anymore (sorry). I like the limitations of Twitter and the instant gratification that comes from knowing I’ve got a readership who will have my ever tweet sent to their home page. I will say this though: Rachel Getting Married is the most unexpectedly wonderful film of the fall. I didn’t have any expectations for the film prior to its strong showing at Toronto but it’s no fluke that nearly everyone who saw the film at the festival has fallen in love with it (even my boss, who has questionable taste, raved about it). It’s not some cookie cutter romantic comedy nor is it a dreary drama in the Dogme vein (although the influences are there and easily identifiable). It’s the sort of film you just want to embrace while at the same time is too painfully observed to bear at times. Everyone knows a person like Anne Hathaway’s Kym. Some of us have them in their families, and the film has the bravery to acknowledge that while we may love these people, that doesn’t make them any less of a burden to carry. No film has made me feel more alive this year and for that I am truly grateful.

Quick TV obsession to report: whilst watching the first four episodes of “Chuck” on DVD this weekend I fell head over heals in lust with co-star Yvonne Strahovski who is easily one of the five sexiest women I’ve ever seen. And I’m not even a fan of blondes. No idea how this show managed to be on the air for a year without me cluing into her. Truly stunning and, in a wicked joke I’m eternally grateful for, the show has placed her in a situation where she spends a large part of *every* episode in pigtails and a Bavarian beer wench outfit. The show itself is sort of shrug-worthy. It has an engaging lead and Animal Mother himself Adam Baldwin. It looks nice and looks like it costs a fortune but it’s surprisingly draggy for a super-spy show. Still, Strahovski is perhaps the greatest incentive in the world to watch and until I get tired of gawking I will be adding the show to my DVR rotation (as if there isn’t enough on Monday nights these days.

And with that, my download of Entourage has completed. This was fun. I missed this. Maybe I’ll get back into this. No promises.

Small signs of life (iPhone edition)

2008-07-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

Don't get excited. This is just a test to see whether updating this blog with an iPhone is even possible let alone worth the effort. Not gonna lie: this is sort of tedious and taking a lot longer than I'd thought. Still, some exciting developments brewing that would definitely keep me from my PC for a spell that I'll probably want to document for posterity's sake.

I guess this test was a success. Check back at this space in the coming months hopefully when I can make a real announcement. Or not.

Distracted… Less so Now

2008-03-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

The return of bullet points (not literally)

Covering lots of ground in a short period of time. In my head the “Montage” song is from Team America is playing.

Been absent in my blogging

I could make some excuse about having nothing interesting to say but we all know that isn’t true. Flaked on the Oscars as well as the half a dozen films I’ve seen in the past couple months (p.s., none of them were good). Was involved in a hellish low-budget production which kicked my ass. Then was involved in a startlingly rare “relationship” (her scare quotes, not mine) that really kicked my ass and am now pulling myself out of the flaming crater that is the aftermath. I hope to figure out what the hell went wrong there but in the meantime I find myself with a lot more free time on the weekends.

Been a Twittering fiend

I found my latest fix however in Twitter right around the time I got my iPhone. If you’re reading this now you absolutely should sign up for an account as there’s rarely any thought going through a person’s head that wouldn’t be improved by being condensed down to 140 characters. Sadly the more adept I become at Twitter the less need I’ll have for long form blogging. Call it selling out or giving up or simply no longer caring, but I think I’ve found my new love.

Feeling creative again

For the first time in months I feel flush with new script idea. This extends both to screenplays I’ve already started and ones in the pipeline. It feels good to be passionate about what it is you aspire to do once again.

Plugolla

Steel City will be out on DVD on May 6th. As I’ve spent the past three months scrambling to assemble elements for this event it’s especially rewarding to see pre-orders being taken at sites like Amazon.com and Best Buy. Hint, hint, hint.

Coachella still sucks

Nope, no less bitter about this. Andrew’s unofficial Christmas is still a floating turd and nothing in the past two months has changed that fact. Meanwhile Lollapalooza rumors are heating up and I may have to build a return engagement to the Windy City into my schedule/budget. I wonder if that girl still lives there.

I’m finished.

Giant Ice Cream Sandwich

2008-02-25T20:28:00.001-08:00

This thing was so impressive I had to take a picture of it. If you're in Burbank I highly recommend you order it at Elephant Bar.

Meanwhile, who's the cute girl...

More Feist

2008-02-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

Alright this is just begging for time in the barrel but I really am helpless against these Feist videos done in collaboration with director Patrick Daughters. Like last summer’s ubiquitous “1-2-3-4” I’m left completely beguiled by how unpretentious the design of the video is, underlining how lovely Feist’s voice is and how playful her songs are. There’s a complete absence of irony and artificial coolness and that’s what actually makes it kind of cool. Someone get this Daughters fellow a mumblecore movie post-haste.

Plus, the song has been my go-to, feel-good dity for the past week or so. I think I actually smiled after the Pats game after listening to this. I defy you to be in a bad mood after giving this a watch/listen. Anyway, if I have to turn in my man card after this admission, then so be it.

Eli Drank Our Milkshake

2008-02-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

"Eli Manning just gave me the Eli Manning Face."
--Bill Simmons, ESPN.com

Well, that certainly did suck. A special thanks to Brostrom, Amy Lee, Aaron Rosenbloom, Chris Beaver, Russ Geltman, Dannie Lin and everyone else who’s made a point of rubbing last night’s debacle in my face. Good friends, good friends. You’d think being surrounded by 2-dozen Boston fans would have provided some form of comfort in the aftermath of being spanked by the *really* retarded-looking Manning brother but instead it seemed to bring out every New Englanders collective “why us” anxiety that most of us have barely been on speaking-terms with since 2004. It’s as though the floodgates had been opened and all of us, who admittedly have been on an insanely prolonged sports-high, were awash in the sort of failure we once assumed would great us every year. This was really, really bad.

Some random thoughts:

Lots of people to blame for this one from our decrepit linebackers who somehow allowed Eli to shake free on "the pass." I've never had my emotions jerk violently in that many directions in such a short period of time. It was something along the lines of "YesssgetttttthimmmOHHHHMYYYYGODDDWHATAREYOUDOINGNOOOOOOO!" I may or may not have dropped to my knees with my head in my hands at some point immediately after this play. Let's also throw some love at the offensive line which was completely overwhelmed by the G-men all night, Elis Hobbs for getting burned badly by Plaxico on the final drive and Bill Belichick for playing it safe most of the night. Where was the swagger? Where was the inventiveness? When did he turn into Marty Schottenheimer?

If nothing else, can this please put to rest the entire Tom Brady man-crush bit. That joke not only ran its course years ago but it's starting to get creepy. Didn't guys used to be embarrassed by these sorts of things?

Guess I'm just naive, but I was legitimately surprised how many people wanted the Pats to lose (or at the very least are happy that it's now happened). Granted I used to be the guy who hated the Bulls during the Jordan era and cheered for whichever team played against the 49'ers growing up but, wow, even people who seem entirely disconnected from professional sports are treating this like the Death Star's just been destroyed. Guess the SpyGate stuff really stayed with people.

Also, thanks a bunch to the Boston Globe for pre-selling 19-0 commemorative books (just when I thought we had thought the demons of "1918" chants had been vanquished, we opened a door and gave New Yorkers and "18-1" chant to run with. Outstanding) that will now be sent to third world countries short on toilet paper supplies and Mayor Menino for boasting about the victory parade to the Herald last week. Okay, I now get why people hate this team.

A little perspective however is in order. This wasn’t the worst loss of my lifetime by a long-shot. Watching Aaron Boone trot around the bases in Game 7 was like watching your mom get violated on a pinball machine. Still, can we get some form of confirmation that Paul Crocetti is still alive?

A surprising silver-lining to last night was I had to report to a film-set in Pasadena almost immediately after the game so I didn’t have time to spend the rest of the night sulking and forcing myself to watch replays on ESPN over and over again. Instead I only had to concern myself with staying awake till 4 in the morning and not catching hypothermia as it was in the low 40’s and we were shooting outdoors.

Another unexpected upside: I spent an hour or so curled up on the couch commiserating with/being consoled by a very cute woman. Not exactly how I expected to spend the time after the game, but man it could have been worse.

For the record I made the comparison to the Rams-Pats Superbowl a few weeks ago and was shouted down. Not sure how proud I should be of this.

This whole experience reminds me of the 2003-2004 NBA season (my first living in LA) when I actually allowed myself to root for the Lakers because they’d signed Karl Malone in one last hope of winning an NBA championship before Kobe and Shaq murdered one another, and before Malone and Gary Payton ended up like Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing as first-ballot hall of famers without a championship ring. Of course it felt dirty to cheer for the gross Lakers but it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement. Of course halfway through the season Malone broke down for the first time in an almost twenty year career, Kobe and Shaq refused to play nice with one another, Kobe accused Malone of making sexual advances towards his wife (this last one got swept under the carpet after Kobe began living out To Kill a Mocking Bird in Colorado the next season) and the Lakers were embarrassed in the NBA Finals by the scrappy Detroit Pistons.

I’d also compare this to the 2001 MLB season which was notable not only for the Seattle Mariners pulling off much the same trick the Pats did (winning a record-breaking number of regular season wins only to choke in the post-season) as well as the Yankees going to the World Series a month after 9/11 when, theoretically, the whole world wanted them to win and they lost to an expansion team (something the Yankees do better than anyone else on Earth).

Pitchers and catchers report in 10 days (first time I’ve looked forward to Valentine’s Day in years). I can only take comfort in the fact that football is a hell of a ride but it’s got nothing on baseball, and last time I checked we’ve got a banner raising ceremony planned for April.

I’m finished.

Why Andrew Doesn't Own a Gun

2008-01-28T21:40:00.001-08:00

Some dick cheese side-swiped my car this morning before utterly destroying the car parked next to it. The theory is this failed abortion with a coat hanger still stuck in his forehead lost control of his car, skimmed alongside my driver's side before turning the second car into abstract art. This walking cum stain on the floor of a porno theater then took off leaving a trail of wreckage and two fucked cars in his wake. I can only hope that shortly after he hit my car he careened into a tanker truck transporting AIDS blood.

This all happened around 6:30 this morning. My house mates noticed police cars dealing with the totaled car next to me but failed to notice any damage on my car, which is a little under two years old and was fucking cherry. I didn't notice any damage myself when I got into the car to drive to work this morning but I certainly began to once I pulled away from the curb and I noticed my car was buckling out from underneath me and emitting a high-pitch squeal that sounded a little bit like Ned Beatty in Deliverance. I tried to drive to work on it assuming that the seemingly weeks of rain it had endured had made the breaks wet. No such luck. I drove it to my mechanic (fortunately a few blocks up the road), swerving out dangerously each time I hit a pimple in the road, where I was informed that my suspension and likely axles were damaged by what had clearly been a car accident (shows you the keen mechanical eye I've got).

So after causing me to bail on my second consecutive work day (the first because of the Ebola Virus or whatever the fuck has been making my joints sore, making me cough up small pieces of my lung, making me shiver uncontrollably and not to mention miss the rare party I actually had interest in attending) I spent the entire day waiting around in the waiting rooms of various mechanics, auto-bodies, and car rental places, on the phone with my insurance provider and hitching a ride in a tow truck. I'm left wondering when I'm going to get my car back while I'm stuck driving a hideous-looking boat from Enterprise. I loved that car and now it's been violated like a prom date.

In a perfect world I'd get twenty minutes alone with this cowardly sack of shit who ruined at least two people's day and cost likely tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage. In the words of Vincent Vega, it'd been worth him doing it just so I could've caught him doing it. People like this don't deserve to die but having their legs permanently immobilized doesn't strike me as at all distasteful or an over-reaction. Some people just need to be hobbled. I don't have much faith in the cracker-jack LA police department so once again, the innocent are fucked over.

Goddamnit, I hate days that make me want to be a Republican.

Retiring... Sort Of

2008-01-27T14:07:00.000-08:00

In case anyone cares, last week I came to the difficult decision that I no longer had time in my life to continue writing weekly recaps of the television show "Lost" for Matt Zoller Seitz's website. I'd been on the fence about the assignment (which typically took anywhere from four to six agonizing hours every Wednesday night) but because of the strike-shortened season reducing the number of episodes to 8 (by contrast I did 22 of them last year) I figured I could make it work.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending how you look at it, the real world intervened. I'm going to be working on an independent film starting in early February in a position that requires a lot of responsibility and a lot of time. Complicating matters further, the entire film is being shot at night. This would force me to miss, at bare minimum 1/4 of the season due to work, making the whole endeavor kind of pointless. I don't feel good about bailing on Matt on such short notice but since I let him know last week I feel like I've moved out from underneath a dark cloud. The "Lost" gig was only made possibly due to a highly dysfunctional and not terribly productive work schedule. That it's finally beginning to resemble that of my contemporaries is a good thing even if it does mean I'll be out till 6am for a couple of week. Furthermore, the show moved to Thursday nights, the one night of the week where am I almost guaranteed to have plans. So hooray for personal freedom.

I have full confidence that Matt will be able to corral someone into taking over the position. God knows when I was holding court enough people came out of the woodworks convinced they knew more than I did. I wish whomever takes the job a ton of luck. It's a fun show to dissect but not an easy one. The fact that the network clearly plays favorites with who they do and do not send screeners to will only complicate the matter further. And for those who absolutely have to read my input, I'll no doubt chime in from time to time in the comments section over at the House. After all, just because I don't want the job anymore doesn't mean I think anyone can do it as well as I did.

Heath

2008-01-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

I’ve got a couple blog pieces that have been percolating for a few days now that were put on a temporary hold. In part because of a nasty bug that’s apparently afflicted half of LA (it seemed to have arrived with our Monsoon Season) that had rendered me a coughing, shivering mess. This is now the third time since Labor day I’ve battled flu like symptoms, something I was especially gifted at staving off when I was in high school and college. I can only attribute this to my work habits and diet because who wants to consider the alternative.

Of course the other reason was me still stumbling towards some form of perspective on the sudden death of Heath Ledger. I’m not the type of person who goes weak in the knees over the death of a celebrity; I think the closest I’ve ever come was when Mark Sandman, lead singer of the rock band Morphine, dropped dead on stage, but that was a case where I’d actually met the guy. But this undeniably feels different. There’s a universal hurt going around as everyone tries to make sense of something that’s truly senseless to its core. This was the sort of “event” (if one could call it that) that you felt the need to share with as many people as you could as quickly as possible. This was a death that text messaging was invented for.

I feel ill-suited to eulogize the man, who at 28, was eerily close to my own age forcing an unwanted reality check upon me. I was never the champion of Brokeback Mountain that most were, and I recognize that that’s were the majority of the anguish people are feeling is coming from (it’s a glib analogy but remove that one title from the resume and the gulf between Ledger and the equally tragic and dead Brad Renfro is a lot smaller). Still, I had enormous respect for the actor whose attachment to a film guaranteed a performance that would jut out into unexpected angles. He turned a perfunctory supporting part in the largely irrelevant Lords of Dogtown into an unexplained Val Kilmer impersonation, investing every line with a flat So Cal divinity. He was like Spicoli without the quotation marks.

The first hints of what was to come were no doubt found in Monster’s Ball, a role that seemed like an aberration at the time but would lay the groundwork for the tormented outsiders the actor was drawn to over the next seven years. Ledger could have been a matinée idol on the basis of his looks, but like Leo DiCaprio, he went out of his way to distance himself from the Teen People crowd. Working with A-list directors like Ang Lee, Chris Nolan, Todd Haynes and Terry Gilliam, the latter with whom he was shooting a film at the time of his death, making it simply the latest in a long line of “cursed” projects for the filmmaker.

His last completed role is ultimately the one that would have garnered him the most attention on a global level, the coveted role of The Joker in Nolan’s sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Night. Upon learning of Ledger’s casting in the film there was a universal sigh of relief, as though it signaled that the franchise hadn’t suddenly lost its way by relying upon stunt casting. The film, which is due in July, was arguably the most anticipated film of the year before Ledger’s death; it will no doubt attain the extra level of infamy. I take it as a sign of personal growth on my part that upon learning of Heath’s passing my first thought was not to wonder about the status of the film, but rather to think of the actor’s young daughter,

In closing, I’m reprinting a tribute written by Sean Burns posted on his Myspace. Ordinarily I’d just hyperlink to it but I know a lot of people don’t have Myspace and it would be a shame if that limited anyone from reading it. Burns is a master at these things; it’s an uncanny gift calling upon a skill that’s not usually rewarded. No one does the poetic and the profane better. This will no doubt come across as more morbid than intended, but I’d be honored to get a send-up like this some day.

Here’s the man’s words:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It’s A Goddamned Shame...

So I've been in a weird, melancholy funk ever since I heard about Heath Ledger yesterday afternoon.

I've always found it strange and borderline inappropriate, having feelings like this when a celebrity dies – I mean, it's not like we were friends or anything. Lord knows I had a grand old time mocking the world's comically hysterical outpouring of grief over The Crocodile Hunter, only to turn around and do pretty much the same thing myself a few weeks later when Robert Altman died. (I know this means I'm hypocrite, but it also means I have good taste.)

The most maddening thing here is that Ledger was just, in the past couple years, really starting to come into his own as an actor, maybe a potential giant -- taking fascinating risks with his performances and choosing chancy projects. He seemed to have his head screwed on straight, at least career-wise, and I was already looking forward to seeing what he'd pull out for those upcoming Malick and Gilliam movies. (We won't even get into the pants-pissing squeals of fanboy delight that blurt out involuntarily every time I watch that fucking awesome DARK KNIGHT trailer.)

But at least we'll always have Ennis Del Mar. Although I've never been naïve enough to think that a movie can change the world, I still do believe that certain characters find their way into our hearts, and because of this special kind of empathy sometimes folks just might leave the theater looking at things a little bit differently.

Working at a cinema that showed BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN for months on end, I amassed tons of anecdotal evidence – guys joking uncomfortably on their way in, coming to see "the faggot cowboy movie," only to find themselves unexpectedly, profoundly, moved.

It's Ledger who made that happen -- communicating the exquisite, agonizing torment of a man who cannot allow himself to be who he really is, inarticulate and clenched, his few, carefully chosen words escaping in almost glottal burps.

It's a towering, anguished performance --one of this decade's finest by any yardstick-- and during the film's lengthy run I must admit I watched that closing scene at least two dozen times. Ennis' reaction to his daughter's engagement is fraught with unspoken sentiments and hidden communications. Upon each and every viewing I was captivated all over again by Ledger's careful use of his body language -- the roughneck, kutzy character's belated, strangely delicate ascension, at long last, into some sort of elusive peace.

It's a goddamned shame we've just been robbed of any more moments like that one. What a fucking waste."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, I got that out of my system. Back to being petty.

Oscar Nominations Response

2008-01-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

**I’ve found myself in the weird spot of not hating the Oscar nominations.

In fact, I think they’re kind of awesome.

Proving that they’re not you’re father’s father’s Oscars, the same Academy that once upon a time gave its highest awards to films like Driving Miss Daisy and Dances with Wolves built upon its relative edginess of last year’s Scorsese coronation and went with a best picture lineup of the following:

Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Opinions will vary, and there are choices here I don’t necessarily agree with, but it looks to me to be a pretty sexy list.

I’ve gone on record often and early as a Juno booster so I’m especially happy that the film has not only survived a snarky blogger backlash (which will no doubt become deafening as the film is compared to everything from Napoleon Dynamite to My Big Fat Greek Wedding to… shudder… Crash), but eeked out a surprise nomination for the highly underrated Jason Reitman (somewhere out there Burns just got a douche chill). Talk about a conciliation prize for not getting to go on Oprah. Meanwhile I’m starting to believe that the similarly gnashing and unpleasant No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood will end up canceling one another out allowing for Juno to sneak in and win best picture pleasing myself, Roger Ebert and millions of text message teenage girls.

I’d started to doubt There Will Be Blood’s chances in the past week but that was obviously wrong. I’ve never been a PT Anderson guy but I’m happy he’s being rewarded for, in the words of Mike D’Angelo, finally “calming the fuck down.” Of all the nominated films, There Will Be Blood is the one that I feel will benefit the most from repeat viewings. It’s such a black-hearted, resentful film; I’m both surprised and really pleased that it exists even if I doubt it will ever be the film its champions claim it to be.

Then you have No Country For Old Men, a film that’s been in the driver’s seat for so long it’s easy to forget how pulpy and fatalistic the film is. I’d once feared that the film was too successful as a suspense film to be taken seriously as a drama, particular with the direction the film takes in its last act, but no one seems to have encountered these issues and the film has to be seen as the favorite at this point. Also could this be the first time in history a filmmaker wins 4 awards in one night (for producing, directing, writing and editing)? It’s always possible the Coens will have one of their buddies pretend to be Roderick Jaynes for the night (does anyone remember how this worked back in ’95?) but still, quite the accomplishment.

I consider a film like Michael Clayton disposable in the very best sense of the word. It’s not really about anything—you can pretty much fit the plot on the back of a match book—but it’s so well done and so supremely confident in itself that it’s the sort of film you can imagine yourself watching over and over on cable. Clooney is one of the true honest to God movie stars; everything he does is done with style and authority without ever crossing the line into preaching. I’m a little bit baffled at anyone who’d put this bit of comfort food at the top of their list, but I can certainly appreciate that it’s probably the most purely entertaining mainstream drama of the year.

And then there’s Atonement, the only one of the five best picture nominees I actively disliked. I found it to be costume porn and bad chick lit (easily my two least favorite genres) and it seemed as though the opinion-makers agreed with me but, in the end, it hung in there. Never underestimate the staying power of a period drama I suppose. Although, to be fair, in its own way the film’s every bit as unpleasant as Blood, as intentionally unsatisfying as Country and as cynical as Michael Clayton. Plus, it tosses around the “C-word” more often than my dad watching a Hillary speech, so props for that one.

The Academy just seemed a little bit more “on” this year than usual. Viggo Mortensen received his first nomination for his exemplary work in Eastern Promises, another violent genre film that in any other year would seem to be too "out there" for voters and yet there he is, all slithery menace and coiled intensity. He doesn’t stand a chance of winning but he’d have my vote.

Or how about the smarts to see through the gooey grandstanding of Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah to recognize Tommy Lee Jones’ devastating performance in the film. It can’t be easy to rise above material this horrid and yet Jones doesn’t have an insincere moment in the film.

I’m pleased Laura Linney somehow found her way into the best actress race. She feels like one of those actresses who will never be recognized for how consistently great she is because she refuses to play to the cheap seats. This won’t be her year either but the more her name and face are out there the better off she’ll be.

Also worth pointing out: how stacked is the Best Supporting Actor category? Not a bum performance in the bunch.

Even though I think Ratatouille is the better film, I can’t help but root for Persepolis in the foreign language category.

Then there are the omissions. Apparently the Academy really didn’t like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. I’m sure someone will spin this as a rejection of Penn’s politics, but I think the more obvious answer is that older voters found Emile Hirsch’s character to be a self-absorbed asshole who treats his parents cruelly. Guess it was hard to relate. American Gangster predictably was a non-issue receiving a lifetime achievement-style supporting actress nomination for Ruby Dee for a part consisting of convincingly slapping Denzel (I guess one could make the same case for 80-something year old Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild although that one feels more earned to me) as well as a nod for art direction (“that’s alpaca! Blot that shit!”) Sweeny Todd was doomed by its lousiness picking up a now automatic Johnny Depp nomination and not much else. Can’t help but giggle over the fact that for all his steadicam hotdogging, Joe Wright is on the outside looking in in the Best Director category. Man that Reitman nomination just keeps getting better and better.

The big question now is whether there will even be an Oscars because of the ongoing writer’s strike. The show’s producers have promised… something although they’re being short with details. I hope they took a long hard look at the Golden Globes fiasco before trying to turn the event into a Billy Bush hosted press conference.

Of course the one year I actually care who wins they would hold the show hostage on me.

**note:

Halfway through writing this, the news about Heath Ledger’s death broke. I was feeling decidedly less funny/boisterous after that and I think it shows in this sort of schizophrenic piece.

Clovershit

2008-01-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

The thought of possibly seeing a worse film in 2008 than Cloverfield has me thoroughly depressed. There are certainly people who will respond to this film and what it’s attempting to do but it is first, last and thoroughly fraudulent; both painfully wedded and conveniently indifferent to its high-concept premise resulting in a film that’s satisfying neither as a post-modern experiment nor a monster movie.

Say what you will about The Blair Witch Project, and for the record I thought it was pretty close to being a masterpiece seven and a half years ago (my God has it been that long?) but the compulsive need to document a waking nightmare in that film was derived from boredom, frustration and loneliness. So much of the horror in that film came from documenting after the fact, as though recording it on camera would somehow make it all more real and easier to comprehend.

Here we have a bunch of asses walking around downtown Manhattan, fending off Godzilla (or whatever the fuck it is), lice monsters, falling bridges, fireballs, and military gunfire and for whatever reason they keep the camera rolling, dutifully pointing the lens at whatever complications come their way. Scaling the face of a building, carrying an injured friend, attacking giant spider monsters: these activities are best accomplished with two hands no matter what the Bad Robot people would have you believe.

So much of the film’s design is built around its perceived verisimilitude from the way the monster remains mostly just outside the frame (all the better, once we actually see it in daylight it’s terrible looking) to the approximation of “real time” to the way exposition is mostly foregone in favor of panic and unexpected revelation. Yet, at its core, the film is utterly false, traipsing on crude 9/11 imagery (Spielberg failed in this regard, don’t know why anyone thought the guy who created “Felicity” and wrote Under Siege 2 would succeed) in the service of an utterly bullshit rescue plot that flies in the face of both common sense and the audience’s presumed desire to see these people survive. How much of a routing interest is there really when every character on-screen lacks self-preservation instinct?

Of course it’s arguable whether we ever would have cared about these people even if they did put the camera down and not continuously walk towards the big scary monster tearing down buildings. Drawn from the J.J. Abrams model of self-absorbed Yuppie c*nts (the man’s legacy as a storyteller will no doubt be his affinity for pretty, affluent, vapid, white people in spacious apartments), Cloverfield finds us hurtling towards eminent danger to save a pretty girl our hero banged once and surprisingly indifferent to all the friends and family picked off along the way. Because really, what are they worth next to the girl you had a one-night-stand with who a few hours ago you’d resigned to never seeing again?

The film’s documentary approach is meant to lend extra insight into an extraordinary event yet its very existence only creates distance. We never feel like actors aren’t performing for the camera’s benefit, riffing about pop culture at inopportune times or babbling incessantly in an encouraged improvisational style (maybe we need the writers back on the job after all). Grief is predominantly ignored or swept under the carpet almost instantaneously. Emotional resonance comes in self-contained doses that don’t carry over to subsequent scenes. We don’t really get a sense of the toll the evening has taken on the characters, the fear and frustration that they should be going through having spent the night scurrying away from a giant lizard creature, let alone the annoyance of a douche bag shoving a camera in their face while they bleed out onto the floor.

In attempting to be realer than real, the film only reinforces the monster movie clichés it’s strenuously trying to avoid. In showing us how “normal, everyday” people would react in this situation it couldn’t be any less insightful or recognizably human.

Gun to my head, I’d rather watch Devlin & Emmerich’s Godzilla again.

Andrew really doesn’t hate everything…

2008-01-15T15:54:00.000-08:00

First weekend back in LA after escaping from a floating prison in the south Atlantic was spent sitting on my ass as we’ve entered the most awesome time of the year for football fans. I live and die baseball, but you really can’t beat the NFL’s one and done playoff system where your fortunes can change in a matter of seconds. I made the “mistake” of watching only the Saturday games (aka the games that went down exactly as planned) and skipped both of Sunday’s stunning, tear-stained upsets. Thanks to those wily Chargers we as a nation will be spared the latest over-hyped Colts vs. Pats game which CBS is kicking itself over but every Patriot fan alive is secretly thrilled about (we all know they only barely squeaked by back in November).

But no one reads this thing for sports talk. I watched a couple of films this weekend that were pretty low on my radar that I loved to varying degrees in spite of mounting evidence that they would fall into the “meh” category. Of most immediate concern is Charlie Wilson’s War which was one of 19 films released on Christmas that I’m only just now getting around to and has already been chewed on and half digested by everyone of note. Going in, I knew how “horribly miscast” Julia Roberts would be and how “de-balled” the film was by not delivering viewers at the doorstep of 9/11 and how slight the film was because of it. And the truth is, all of the above is true to a point, but that doesn’t begin to get at all the great stuff that the film is as well. Namely how smart and funny and proudly R rated and (for the most part) unwilling to pander Charlie Wilson’s War is. This is a film about a bunch of people who like to drink and fuck and say really clever, biting things in-between funnel a billion dollars to a volatile, fundamentalist, Third World Country because they want to kill Russians as much as we did.

If we’re looking just at recent films, this most reminded me of Spielberg’s Catch Me if you Can (which, for the record I liked way more than most people) in that it’s essentially taking a serious issue and viewing it as a frothy good time floating above the surface of something horrible that’s destined to bubble to the top. Wilson and company no doubt viewed their actions as altruistic but the spirit of the film is one of a con-game; maneuvering on the sly and often in amazement at what you can accomplish simply through manipulating humans organs of all shapes and geographies and a healthy amount of bullshit.

I rarely have nice things to say about Mike Nichols as a director but he really is the perfect filmmaker for this material, treating major world events as though it were a sex farce fueled on recreational drug use and slipstream of booze. There’s an arrogance to the characters and a terminal short-sightedness to their dabbling in world events that comes across as an implicit criticism the more aware we are of what’s to come. The more the film presents Wilson as a kid playing with an ant farm, arming angry young Muslim men with RPG’s without pausing to think about what they’ll be doing with that training and weapons once their done shooting down Ruskie helicopters, the more sickening the noose tightening around your neck feels.

In fact, if there’s a critical error made on the film’s part it’s not the exclusion of the original script’s now infamous “9/11 ending,” it’s that it tries to create audience empathy in Wilson late in the film’s third act by forcing the character to address the after-effects of his actions. Embarrassing, bordering on didactic scenes of Wilson pleading with his supervisors for a measly million dollars (versus the half a billion they’d spent on weapons) to rebuild schools in Afghanistan only to be summarily turned down. Scenes of Wilson sitting alone in his apartment with tear stained eyes, quietly pondering what’s come of his life. The film places the brunt of awareness on Wilson’s shoulders, as though only he’s conscious of what he’s truly done and is helpless to fix it while the world showers him with praise. It’s cheap moralizing that arrives far too late that only weakens the film’s argument. By giving us a mirco-realization it undermines the idea that these people were dabbling with governments and ideologies they had no real understanding of only to be left completely blindsided at the blowback that came their way decades later as a result.

Still I really do have to tip my hat at what the film has done, and specifically to Aaron Sorkin, who I’d left for irrelevant after his “Studio 60” car wreck. The film is essentially the cynical, mirrored version of “The West Wing” crossed with a 1930’s screwball comedy that involves spitting out a lot of politico-speak and war machine jargon that never gets bogged down. Roberts is far too frigid and young to play the part of a billionaire, born again cougar (Burns put the idea of Susan Sarandon in my head but for some reason I kept thinking of Marcia Gay Harden during the film) but she’s essentially a footnote to the Hanks and Hoffman show. Hanks seems to be taking this opportunity to play Dean Martin, as he was once supposed to have in the long defunct Rat Pack film Scorsese was planning a decade back and its glorious watching him smirk, grope and spin as he leaves the over-reported but not really accurate image of Saint Tom in his dust. But really, this is the Philip Seymour Hoffman show. Fat, unshaven, foul-mouthed, ill-behaved and with a cigarette hanging from his lip, Hoffman’s CIA agent Gust Avrakotos is such an awesome movie character I spent half the afternoon trying to think of other films that would have been improved if he were in them (how much better would American Gangster had been if it were Gust chasing down Frank Lucas instead of boring old Russell Crowe in a Dorothy Hamill wig?)

Charlie Wilson’s War is such a remarkable film because it’s a bit of a Rorschach test for audiences. As a time-killer for 100 minutes, the film is bracingly funny, understated and really clever; an old-fashion “movie star film” that goes down like Kentucky bourbon. At the same time it’s laying out the groundwork for the most prolonged armed combat since Vietnam (and the clock’s still ticking) as well as the cavalier attitude that lead to it. The film doesn’t have to beat us over the head with present day events for its thesis to come through loud and clear any more than M*A*S*H or Apocalypse Now did. And for the record, I’m really happy that the film is quietly finding an audience after a slow opening. One of the few films currently in theaters that I’d feel comfortable recommending to, really, anyone.

**

If Charlie Wilson’s War was a pleasant surprise than Mathew Vaughn’s Stardust was pretty much a stunner. I had no expectations (read: zero) for this film. It somehow made its way to the top of my Netflix que while I was away from my computer for a week, but aside from the off-hand “it’s not bad” I heard from the handful of people who went to see it last summer, the biggest factor weighing in on the film was that it was Harry Knowles’ favorite movie of the year (and that aint much of an endorsement where I come from). So imagine my shock at how completely wonderful the film is. Pretend The Princess Bride wasn’t directed by a visually inept Rob Reiner on the back of a studio lot in 90-minutes of medium close up or written by William Goldman wearing out his arm from patting himself on the back and you get a sense of how bizarre and special Stardust is.

I was pretty indifferent to Vaughn’s Layer Cake which belonged squarely in the “please let it die” genre of the British criminal underworld flick, but I can no longer deny that there’s a sizable gulf between him and his former cohort Guy Ritchie. To the point, the film’s charming as a motherfucker, existing in the realm of storybook logic without ever becoming overly precious or whimsical. The film keeps jutting off in weird, unexpected directions that I suspect originated in Neil Gaiman’s book that Vaughn rolls with without missing a beat. The narrative is fairly simple yet, like all good fairy tales, it finds room for digression in traveling off the well trodden path.

The film is heavy on cgi but its greatest effect is the radiance given off (literally at times) by Claire Danes as the human personification of a fallen star. Danes is one of those actresses who never lived up to her early promise, often coming across as wooden and too self-aware to ever give herself over to a part. Yet Vaughn has coaxed out of her her most natural and open performance on film yet. We don’t need a digital assist to watch the actress glow. Despite saddling her with distracting bleached-eyebrows, Vaughn makes extraordinary use of Danes face, which has never been quite this expressive before. The actress sells every peculiar moment of the film with a disarming mixture of weariness and naiveté as though she should know better than to let herself fall in love but is helpless to fight it. It’s really difficult not to fall hard for the character.

Meanwhile how great a year is Michelle Pfeiffer having? Between this and Hairspray I’m starting to think she should play aging villainesses for the rest of her career. She seems to be having a grand old time letting herself aging horrifically on-screen (in marked contrast to the plastic surgery she’s supposedly had in real life) that would almost qualify as bravery.

There’s some queasy sexual politics in the film that I suppose are inherent to the type of story that it is, but what struck me the most about the film is its generosity and affection towards its characters. The way Robert DeNiro’s fey (although not explicitly gay), cross-dressing pirate is embraced by his crew after being outed, or the ever-growing assemblage of dead princes who serve as the film’s Greek chorus, cheerfully commenting on the world of the living behind disfigured visages. How every supporting part no matter how small the part, seems to be fully conceived and inhabiting this world. And, without giving anything away, there’s something really heartwarming and hopeful without becoming sappy about the implications of the film’s final shot that takes a really refreshing spin on what’s kind of a romantic mainstay. If I were to actually publish a year end ten best list (which I won’t) I don’t think I could keep this film off of it.

**

God, that was a fucking slog to write. You see why I mostly stick to negativity?

And the Presidency Goes To...

2008-01-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

Right around the time of the Iowa Caucus a theory started floating around on some of the movie websites I visit positing that there was a parallel between the (it would now seem temporary) fall from grace Hillary Clinton was enduring and the turned fortunes of the at one-time, written in stone lock for Best Picture, Atonement, which has been summarily ignored by both the Screen Actor’s Guild and the Director’s Guild. This got me wondering whether the peaks and valleys of a presidential race was really any different from the equally unending “race to the Oscars” and whether there where any other comparisons to be made between the candidates in both the presidential and best picture race.

A couple caveats to start: This should be taken in the spirit of fun. I’m not looking to hear how I’ve grossly simplified such and such candidate. Obviously I had to stretch to make some of these work (my Romney comparison is especially iffy) but these more or less reflect how the media is presenting these people at this point in time. The other thing is I’m limiting this to major candidates since I have no desire to try and find parallels between Bill Richardson and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly or Ron Paul to 3:10 to Yuma. That said…

No Country For Old Men: John McCain
The tentative favorite but no one feels very confident about it. Been in the game forever; viewed by some as “due” but may be too quirky and angry to get a majority vote. A superficial resemblance to previous winners but is pretty much a text book case of marching to the beat of their own drum. More popular with men than women.

Juno: Barack Obama
A ton of media hype at the moment which may not be reflective of actual popularity with voters. The one people are actually emotionally invested in. Skewers younger and outside the usual interests of the competition which will either end up causing a stunning surprise victory or the crumble most cynics have been calling for. All about verbal dexterity which detractors claim disguises a lack of depth. Will piss off *a lot* of people if they somehow win.

Atonement: Hillary Clinton
Was the early front-runner, now it’s kind of shocking to find someone who actually likes them. Gives the outward appearance of a contender but there’s really nothing there beyond the prestige and air of self-importance. Makes a point of calling attention to how smart they are. Technically proficient but completely airless and unsatisfying. More popular with women than men.

Michael Clayton: Mitt Romney
Has the air of a contender to them (wears suits well) but no one seems capable of nailing down what either is actually about. Rides the fence between activism and good old fashion showmanship. Just vaguely out there without any real vocal supporters. Keeps showing up at all the run-offs but seems likely to always come in second.

There Will Be Blood: Mike Huckabee
Passionate support but, at the moment, too localized to make a difference. Rather unpleasant the more you think about what they’re saying. Kinda bloated. Knows a thing or two about drinking milkshakes. Walks an uneasy line between creepy religion and the secular world. Emanates strange music.

Into the Wild: John Edwards
Just good old fashion, bleeding heart liberalism. Seems to belong to a bygone era when the country used to eat this sort of earnestness up but now it’s either falling on deaf ears or siphoning votes from stronger candidates. Surged a bit lately but is likely too little too late.

American Gangster: Rudy Guliani
The rockstar in the race that no one thinks can win. A big name that everyone is familiar with but when you really look under the hood you can’t help but be disappointed that they aren’t more impressive. No one really wants to badmouth them although the consensus is they just didn’t quite live up to their early buzz.

Moment of Slow Realization

2008-01-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

"I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people...

There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking...

I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I want to rule and never, ever explain myself."

I'm starting to think I should have liked this movie a lot more than I did. Second viewing in the coming weeks should be quite eye-opening.

Will Somebody Please Save These People From Themselves*

2007-12-28T23:13:00.000-08:00

A couple pertinent strike-related news items came out today that I felt compelled to comment upon. Anything to put-off working on my Year End piece I suppose. They are as follows:

Letterman Makes Deal With Writers.

Followed later in the evening by the official press release.

In short, David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants (which is not to be confused with CBS Television, the network), has agreed to the Writer’s Guild’s terms and has secured a waiver for both the “Late Show with David Letterman” and “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.” The Writer’s Guild leaderships goes on to commend Letterman for agreeing to the “integrity and affordability” of their proposals stating that this is an important strategic move in brokering an industry-wide resolution.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This is why I feel, the Writer’s Guild will ultimately gain nothing from this alleged work-stoppage, with a special gift basket of nothing delivered at the doors of the “little guys” in the guild whom this strike is supposed to be about. In addition to the lack of clarity over their demands, the lack of solidarity and conviction by the Guild’s leadership has been undermining the work stoppage since day one. Either you’re flinging your wooden shoes into the machinery or you’re not. There are no half-measures with this one.

The issue was never whether the benevolent David Letterman, Writer’s Guild member, edgy cat and all-around burr in the side of corporate America would support the union’s demands. Letterman may be a successful entrepreneur and television mogul with an enterprise worth hundred of millions of dollars, but he’s also an entertainer. Furthermore he knows those Top 10 sketches and Paul Shaffer songs about hot dogs don’t write themselves. Furthermore, he's able to sniff out a competitive advantage when one's presented to him. The move was a no-brainer for him, as it would be for Leno or Conan. Or for that matter Jerry Bruckheimer ("C.S.I.")or Bad Robot ("Lost") or Dick Wolf ("Law & Order"). Because, you see, the WGA isn’t striking to bring about change from individual producers. The enemy here is The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Collectively. Just as Writer's belong to an organization that collectively negotiates and protects their rights, whether it effects them or not, so to do the producers. But in the eyes of an individual producer such as Letterman (or any of the aforementioned production shingles), this waiver represents nothing more than a case by case contract renegotiation. A bump in after-air/alternate media residuals to keep the workforce happy. Since it’s their pie, they’re free to slice it up however they see fit. Essentially, the waivers push the writers' problems onto the show's producers, with the real people causing the harm and getting rich (the networks and the studios) remaining blissfully removed.

But how exactly is that helping the cause? Sure twenty writers (who, it’s been informally reported, make in excess of six figures a year) get to return to their jobs with new WGA-approved contracts. Letterman is viewed as a savior both to the WGA (already showing favor towards the man, paving the way for his show to be the first to hammer out an arrangement such as this in addition to this recently published release) as well as to his network. But here’s where the kick in the balls comes in: CBS gets to reap the benefits of that WGA approval while still continuing to be a part of the very system that’s (allegedly) keeping writers down. A textbook case of having your cake and eating it too.

So what exactly does Letterman get out of this deal? Well for starters he gets to return on January 2nd at full steam, with the writers Dave is comfortable with, able to perform an opening monologue (something union leadership has warned Leno and Conan not to do) as well as employ his usual routine of skits and audience Q&A’s while killing time before this month’s hot starlet and Oscar-grubbing star spend time on his couch. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing: no WGA picket-lines outside the Ed Sullivan. So, the few remaining actors with principles no longer have to fret over angering another union over crossing a line to shamelessly promote their new product. I’ll give you a for instance. Let’s say you’re Tom Hanks. Your new movie is horribly underperforming in a crowded winter marketplace and it’s time to slap a Band-Aid on the situation by hitting the late night, talk show circuit. Do you go on Jay where you’re might run into Aaron Sorkin or Akiva Goldsman carrying picket signs (oh, who am I kidding… the guys Aaron and Akiva paid to carry picket signs) or do you stick to Dave and Craig where you’ll be patted on the back for supporting “the good guys?”

So what’s the big deal you ask? Isn’t some progress better than none? No, not when it comes about like this. Because the WGA is cherry picking who it is they do and do not want to guide through this painful period in our national history which is sure to be remembered for a proliferation of hastily conceived reality shows, game shows, reruns from sister networks and more televised sports (I don’t think CBS has ever looked forward to March Madness more than it does this year). Worldwide Pants has agreed to a waiver. Does anyone doubt for a second, if given the opportunity that Leno or Conan or “The Daily Show” would not jump at the opportunity to sign one as well? Does anyone else find it suspect that the WGA is creating semantics arguements to justify that this is a deal with Worldwide Pants and not CBS, (the alledged reason that Jay and Conan are SOL is they are considered employes of NBC/Universal and not entities unto themselves)? But that’s not how the WGA is playing this one. They’re anticipating the return of those shows to be such abject failures that their desperation (especially in the face of Letterman operating at 100%) creates even more leverage. I’m not quite sure what Letterman did to be placed in such a lofty position of unfair creative advantage though. Or for that matter how it was deemed that it was acceptable for CBS to benefit but not NBC or Comedy Central.

The favoritism as lobbying for position continues elsewhere. It was recently reported that the Golden Globes were denied a waiver from the WGA and as a result may not be televised . Before everyone starts making obvious jokes about one less bloated award show or how “we’ll never know who gets drunk” it should be pointed out that the WGA granted waivers to both the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards (broadcast on TNT a subsidiary of Time Warner) as well as the Film Independent Spirit Awards (broadcast live on the Independent Film Channel and later on AMC, both subsidiaries of Cablevision). So what we’re to take away from this is some award shows are acceptable for movie stars to grace the red carpet unfettered by noisy picketers and heavy consciences but others are not. Namely the Hollywood Foreign Press, who serve (seemingly) no other purpose than to hand out trinkets in the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards. Again, I’m forced to ask, does anyone really believe that if push comes to shove that Daniel Snyder (owner of Dick Clark Productions which produces the show, the Washington Redskins and BFF of Tom Cruise) wouldn’t agree to a similar waiver that would allow the stars to shine at his awards show and for the whole event to broadcast at NBC? But what’s to be gained from that? The cancellation of the Globes is nothing more than a shot across the bow at the Academy Awards: You see what we did to them, well we’re coming for you next.

And since no one seems to be asking it, then I must: what is an industry pocked with a handful of waivers really going to matter when (because no one can honestly believe it’s a case of “if”) the work-stoppage is resolved? What happens if the WGA folds on their demands, or at the very least compromises on some of them? I mean, it’s not like you’re not giving some of the studios an advantage anyway by letting them make money off new original content while your brothers and sisters in arms continue to “starve” on the picket line, right? I eagerly await the announcement that since Reveille Productions sent a plate of muffins to WGA leadership, “The Office” and “Ugly Betty” can resume production. But I digress: back to the earlier issue. Wouldn’t these waivers be as worthless as the Confederate dollar in 1866? What would bind a production company to adhere to a contract out of step with the rest of the industry? And conversely, how would the rest of the rank and file react to some productions having more amenable bylaws than others simply by virtue of being on the waiver pecking list? I thought this strike was supposed to be for all future generations of writers. Strength through unity and all that jazz. How does this move reflect that candy-coated sentiment in the slightest?

And then there are the real losers of this latest development: WGA feature film writers, who don’t stand to benefit as heavily as their TV-brethren from weekly streaming content. Who could probably give fuck-all about Reality TV and animation. Who stand to benefit not at all from Waivergate (if this term catches on, I want to be on record as coining it) who, most importantly, stepped away from their Power Books and potentially lucrative paychecks to support their poor, exploited television writing cousins. Because it was the right thing to do. What could they possibly be thinking right now, as they continue to metaphorically (I can only hope not literally) go hungry while they’re future is sold out from underneath them by short-sighted management. For this they gave up months (and counting) of employment?

I’m over the strike frankly. I’m industry, but in an especially apt irony, I work in a sector of the industry that isn’t successful enough to be negatively affected by the strike so I’m more or less observing from a safe distance. I’ve kept my eye on the trades, regularly read Finke and Poland, have watched the battle lines being drawn, have seen the number of recordings on my Tivo dwindle. I’ve been hopeful for a speedy resolution but not a hasty one. I am not a WGA member (although I suppose on some level I can’t deny that I’d like to be one some day, if only for what is implied by said membership) so I can not pretend to be swayed by the same issues that have emptied the writer’s rooms out in front of the Warner’s Gate on Barham and the Paramount Gate on Melrose. But if it was decided that a strike was required to change the industry then I accepted my small sacrifice of less television and the realization that almost every big budget movie rushed into production for next summer will be even more shitty than usual. But, it could be rationalized, even as just a consumer, that these are small prices to pay for the greater good.

However I now feel betrayed. So I can only imagine how the membership at large is feeling right now, no matter how leadership spins this:

Guess what folks: you’ve jeopardized your livelihood, your careers and the security of yourself and your families so the men and women who feed lines to Rupert at the Hello Deli can get a slight increase in their residuals for online content. Wait a minute, Worldwide Pants doesn’t control that: CBS does, so I suppose it’s their prerogative whether or not they honor the waiver agreement. The important thing is two dozen of you are going back to work and we get to increase Les Moonves’ bottom line. Smells like victory to us.

Smells like something alright.

* Line courtesy of WGA member Peter Morgan

Ramble On

2007-12-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

Was turned away from another big, holiday, awards contender screening tonight, my second in a week. Apparently claiming you write for The House Next Door doesn’t mean much in L.A. So, an opening in my evening means lots of free form blogging. If I’d just get on the twitter bandwagon already something like this would be unnecessary.

**

Turned 27 on Saturday which, as everyone knows, is the dead rockstar age. It’s telling that I received more congratulatory emails from the Pepsi Corporation, radio message boards and (TMI alert) porn sites I subscribed to in college than from actual friends. Still, I actually had a pretty good time playing cards with a big group of people till 1 in the morning. The beer was cold, the conversation was lively, they stuck candles in homemade congo bars and I ended up winning $25 with a 2-7 off-suit. I certainly hope I’m not looking back on the day 40 years from now as “one of the good ones” but all things considered it could have been a lot worse.

**

I fly back to Boston on Wednesday and I’m not looking forward to it. Because of all sorts of logistic hoops I need to jump through for this trip, I was unable to book a direct flight from LAX to Logan, which means I’ll be heading to Atlanta first then flying up the eastern seaboard arriving in Boston sometime in the late evening. All in all, it’s looking to be an almost 10-hour travel day and that’s assuming the ice storms that have been pummeling New England for the best week don’t mess things up any further. It’s times like this I wish I had an iPod, particularly one of those kickass touch-screen ones where you can watch episodes of “The Office” that the writers aren’t getting royalties for. As is, I’ll be listening to something like fifteen hours worth of stockpiled O&A on my XM, although with battery life being what it is I’ll be lucky to hear a 1/3 of that. I haven’t been back for a year and yet I feel like it’s been way too recent for my liking. I really should phase this part of my life out already. After the initial buzz of seeing my family wears off, it really does come down to me watching my ass expand while I channel surf and bitch about how cold it is for ten days. On the upside I can finally watch a Pats game at a decent hour. Something about watching a game at 10:30 in the morning just isn’t right.

**

One upside to going back to Boston: HBO on Demand. It’s like crack it is. And it’s absolutely the future of home entertainment. My impressive wall of dvd’s might make for a fun conversation piece but they’re about to go the way of the dodo. In the future, every movie you could possibly want to watch will be at your fingertips. Who’d ever bother with waiting on Netflix again? First point of business: the first episode of the fifth (and final) season of “The Wire” which is allegedly available early on Demand. I’d hoped to get the entire new season in advance as I’d done in the past in order to give a little closure to my anthology on the film’s credit sequences but my emails to my former editor went unreturned (no surprise there). Guess I’ll just have to be patient and download them as they air.

**

Big winter movies still to see: There Will be Blood, Charlie Wilson’s War, Sweeny Todd and most importantly Alien vs. Predator 2. I kiiid.

**

In anticipation of There Will be Blood I found myself rewatching Boogie Nights for the first time in ten years. Wow has that film aged badly. I’ve never been a big PT Anderson guy but Boogie Nights was the film of his I stomached the best, or at least I did when I was 17. Yet it really does lay out every horrific tendency as a filmmaker he possessed in the late 90’s. A “more is never enough” aesthetic that trickled down to everything from the soundtrack, which never met a cutesy 70’s staple it didn’t love and demand to be piped in over every scene (Anderson really is categorically terrified of letting scenes play out over silence), to the histrionic performances to the nascent adolescent dialogue to the dick-wagging (literally) steadicam shots which seem to exist only for their own amusement. Yeah it’s got style and energy, but so does City of God and who the hell wants to watch that again?

**

Speaking of dick-wagging steadicam shots, how awful is Atonement? In the interest of staying up to date both with cinema trends and the Golden Globes (when will I learn?) I checked out a matinee at the new Arclight Sherman Oaks this weekend. I skipped Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice despite near universal acclaim because, frankly, I don’t do “corset movies” but this was promising to be a bitter little pill of a film not at all like prestige Oscar-bait such as The English Patient. Turns it it’s something far worse: it’s Wright’s attempt to remake Cold Mountain only without the colorful supporting characters or even a loosely defined narrative to hang itself off of. First half of the film (ie: the half everyone seems to love) is laughably over-plotted, relying on the same risible contrivances that sunk the long forgotten Reservation Road earlier in the fall. Allegedly the film is sexually charged but I couldn’t get over the fact that costumes not withstanding McAvoy and Knightly look like the same person. But the film doesn’t become truly insufferable until it enters the last Great War which consists of nary a single scene but rather an hour plus of elliptical moments in time which are comprised mostly of McAvoy walking through fields and leafing through postcards. Gotcha ending is neither cathartic nor subversive; simply one of a hundred literary conceits found within the film that just plain don’t translate to the screen.

**

One upside of awards season? The now standard practice of making the screenplays of awards contenders free and available for download. Paramount Vantage, Focus Features and Fox Searchlight have all taken this approach which is what allowed me to read the script to Juno this afternoon while at work. All I can say is fuck the haters; this thing is too charming for words. Found myself both laughing aloud and tearing up. After today I’m convinced that anyone clinging to the “all the characters in the film speak the same way” modus of criticism are either tone deaf or just lazy and using a convenient party line to explain their inabilities to warm up to the film.

**

Speaking of scripts, I am Legend was a bit of a full circle experience for me this weekend as it was the first screenplay I ever read back in the mid 90’s. This was when the film was supposed to be a vehicle for Ahhhhnuld and hued a lot more closely to Matheson’s original story. Over the years, I’d built the script up in my head as one of the great unproduced projects of the modern blockbuster era but going into the film I knew it’d been given the entire Akiva Goldsman treatment. The final result is a film that’s as devoid of humanity as the streets of New York City portend to be. Most of the original story’s more wicked ideas have been tossed aside (although it’s only recently dawned on me that they made their way into the first two Blade films) in favor of a big budget 28 Days Later knock-off only without the ingenuity, terror or (most importantly) the waking sadness of a world once familiar reduced to a monument to its former vitality. Smith’s widely hailed performance (which has earned comparisons to Hanks in Castaway? Really?) is, to be polite, uneven. Sufficiently screwy and vulnerable in places, far to often the actor falls into “Big Willy Style” mode, riffing as though he were auditioning for the last sitcom on earth. Lawrence has a knack for small-scale action but the big FX sequences feel like outtakes from The Mummy films.

**

On a final note, I just received the new, uber-dorky Blade Runner 5-disk box set complete with origami unicorn and matchbox car in the shape of a spinner. If I were to point to something I own that could personify why I haven’t been laid in ages, I think this thing would have to be it. I doubt I’ll ever get through half of it, but the sheer volume of geektastic stuff thrown into this package zeroes right in on my completist tendencies. I love this thing so much I want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant.

Fun with Steroids

2007-12-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

Breathing a sigh of relief over the recently unveiled Mitchell report. It was ultimately less of a stunner than first expected; almost every name on there is someone whose name had been whispered about in the past ten years. Prior to the official announcement a friend of mine leaked me a list of names he said he’d received from an inside source at a news affiliate that turned out to be about 75% bunk. Needless to say, that got my heart racing. Sorry I ever doubted you Captain.

Of course the big “revelation” which should have surprised no one who’s been paying attention, is that Roger Clemens was a focal point (9 pages worth) of the investigation particularly during his years in Toronto and New York. The man who has to be smiling the widest this morning is former Red Sox G.M. Dan Duquette who famously said Clemens was in the “twilight of his career” when the team parted ways with the pitcher in 1996. Duquette had a valid point: Clemens’ last season of the team he went 10-13 with an E.R.A. of 3.63. He was getting injured with greater frequency, averaging about 25 starts a season. Those Sox teams of the mid 90’s were pretty lousy (the team didn’t begin to turn things around till the Pedro/Nomar years) but Clemens had become a consistent disappointment, unable to win more than 11 games a year from 1993 through 1996.

So imagine the surprise in Boston when Clemens went to Toronto and proceeded to rack up back to back 20-win/Cy Young seasons. Duquette, an already unpopular GM, was vilified and the city watched in horror as Clemens eventually made his way to the hated Yankees where he won another Cy Young, an average of 15 wins a year and two World Series titles (a distinction which obviously alluded him in Boston). For years this improbable turn-around had been rolled into the curse that hung over Boston for 86 years.

But here we are in 2007. The Sox, still basking in the afterglow of their second title in three years. The Yankees, despite spending the GNP of Guam on over-priced, past their prime arms (including, tee hee, Clemens) are the ones chasing the Sox. And this morning the final piece of validation. The last puzzle piece is in clear sight as Red Sox Nation is purged of one of its last demons.

Clemens was past his prime. The Sox were working off the best information they had available to them. They just didn’t anticipate one little thing:

Clemens if a fucking cheater!

Oh the joy, the joy. For years Sox fans joked that Clemens’ bust in the Hall of Fame should be adorned with a ball cap with a dollar sign on it. Now, we can begin the jokes about asterisks and hypodermic needles instead. There had been a softening towards Clemens in recent years; a willingness to let bygones be bygones. When it was rumored that the pitcher might come back to Boston this past spring it was met with almost a uniformly favorable response. There was something poetic and apt about Clemens finishing his career in the same city he started it in. But Clemens went with the Yanks, made an embarrassment of himself, limping off the mound during the playoffs in (presumably) his final game of his storied career, only to watch his one-time team celebrate again without him. Now on top of that, every single accomplishment Clemens had between his time with the Sox in 96 and the Astros in 2004 (when, it’s worth noting he won his record 7th Cy Young) has been tainted.

Oh but wait, it gets better. Clemens wasn’t the only one taking shots in the ass on those Series winning Yankees teams.

Andy Pettite: cheater

David Justice: cheater

Chuck Knoblauch: cheater

Jason Grimsley: cheater

Glenallen Hill: cheater

Denny Neagle: cheater

Mike Stanton: cheater

Dan Naulty: cheater

*

As if there weren’t enough shame in being a Yankees fan, we now have proof that half the team’s bullpen was juicing. If they’re going to attach an asterisk to Barry Bonds’ home run record, then by all means let’s put one on the Yankees’ World Series wins in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

A sad day for baseball, a lousy one in the Bronx, but once again Boston has reason to celebrate.

Now if only we can change the “Year 2000” chants to “nine-teen seventy-eight!”

* Whoops: forgot Jose Canseco won a ring with the Yanks in 2000 as well. How appropriate an omission is that?

Thoughts on the Independent Spirit Nominations

2007-11-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

My God is it that time of year already?

This morning LA-based Film Independent (or FIND) announced its nominees for the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards at an LA-friendly 8 AM PST. You’ll notice either from the weather outside or your nearest calendar that we’re not even free of November yet and they’re already rolling out the award season. Everyone get out your party hats. One does have some time to get used to these particular nominees though: the winners aren’t announced for another two months. In keeping with their status as the Academy Awards’ obnoxious little brother, the Indie Spirit Awards are held on a beach in Santa Monica the day before the Oscars which take place in late February, long after you’ve forgotten most of the films that were even released in 2007.

So why make Zach Braff and Lisa Kudrow get in front of the press and announce these stupid things now? Politics of course.

First a little background: a few years back the Independent Spirit Awards were run by an organization called IFP (or Independent Feature Project) which was created to nurture independent filmmakers by offering up seminars, workshops, occasionally funding, and networking opportunities. Filmmakers are inherently secretive and standoffish but filmmaking is collaborative by necessity. IFP attempted to bridge this gulf of personality and served as a valuable resource to upstart filmmakers looking to get their first films off the ground.

But around 2003 a rift formed between the upper levels of IFP’s management regarding the direction of the non-profit organization. Specifically, ditching the whole non-profit thing. The organization had become schizophrenic in trying to serve as both a fund-raising organization and a de-facto film school and a fissure was created. As though it had lost a turf war and had 72 hours to get out of the state (what was Bush behind this one too?), Much of the IFP staff uprooted itself from California and focused on New York City as its base of operations with satellite offices in the hinterlands of Minnesota, Seattle, and Phoenix (as well as Chicago although that one’s less of a stretch). Left in its place was the Angelino-centric Film Independent (formerly IFP-West) which was created to run the Los Angeles Film Festival (formerly the IFP-LA Film Festival) and the Independent Spirit Awards. These were two high-profile cash cows that brought national exposure to the organization but they also became the be all-end all of Film Independent; each a giant tent pole at opposite ends of the year which FIND could hang itself on.

The festival and the awards brought in enormous attention and dollars but were hardly self-sustaining and they certainly weren’t profitable. So sponsors were brought in. Such “independent-friendly” companies as Target, Acura, Pop Secret and Biloage (it’s an herbal shampoo they’re now handing out at screenings in little tubes). The LA Film Festival, abandoned its aspirations of being a mid-year Sundance and sold out. Big time. I’m talking making Transformers’ world premiere the festival’s center piece gala.

There was also a larger emphasis on expanding membership beyond filmmakers to film fans and patrons at large. FIND still holds seminars and workshops but they’re mostly set dressing. For $95 a year anyone could become a member, regardless of their aspirations behind the camera and the direction of the group steered away from nuts and bolts and collaboration and more towards guest speakers and rubbing elbows with Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. In addition to paving the way for a whole new generation of starfuckers, membership also fulfills the great, film fan fantasy of voting for the Academy Awards. Or at least the next best thing.

That’s right: the Independent Spirit Awards are decided by its membership. Ballots will be sent out in January to all 6000 FIND members, unless of course you choose to “go green” and cast your vote electronically to save paper. At its essence, the Independent Spirit Awards are nothing more than the People’s Choice Awards for people who frequent the Landmark and Laemmle’s theater chains.

As for old IFP, just because they relinquished control of the Independent Spirit Awards doesn’t mean they got the awards bug out of their system. The created their own, costal-specific awards, The Gotham Awards to hand out to deserving “independent” films. Admittedly they’ve endured some growing pains in trying to establish who it is they’re representing (two of last year’s nominees The Departed and Marie Antoinette cost a combined $130 million dollars) but they’ve also differentiated themselves by limiting the number of awards they give out as well as their emphasis on highlighting films without distribution. You might be asking yourself when this organization gives out their awards.

Tonight of course. Oh the pettiness of it all.

As for the nominations themselves, their mostly inoffensive especially once you consider FIND has imposed an arbitrary, 20-million dollar budgetary cap to nominees which precludes the involvement of such films as Atonement, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Gone Baby Gone, all films which are probably considered by the public at large as “indies.” It’s also worth noting that with the exception of I’m Not There, FIND’s awards have mostly ignored the films that were Gotham nominees with Sean Penn’s Into the Wild being completely shut-out and Margot at the Wedding and The Namesake having to contend themselves with a single nomination apiece in the supporting acting categories. I suspect the Dylan film only made the cut because director Todd Haynes is practically the pope of the Indie Spirit Awards (his Far From Heaven swept in 2002 and they even nominated his unwatchable Velvet Goldmine). I’m surprised that Sundance winner Grace is Gone and sex-doll romance/fairy tale Lars and the Real Girl are absent as well even if I did find the latter overly precious. I’m personally pleased that the panel resisted the urge to shower Sidney Lumet’s derivative Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead with nominations but I’m puzzled that Laura Linney wasn’t nominated for The Savages. I’m happy for surprise nominees Fred Parnes & Andrew Wagner, who I got to know while I was in Austin this past fall, for their screenplays for Starting Out in the Evening. Now if only I’d seen their film…

So full disclosure, if you can’t tell from the above graphs, I’m a Film Independent member, mostly for the rare occasions my company attends a FIND event for networking as well as the 3 to 4 free screenings they hold a month. I voted last year and I no doubt will do so this year. Last year I was doubly involved as Steel City was actually nominated so I’m pretty intimately aware with the behind the scenes process. While the membership at large picks the winner, the nominees are decided by small panels who review individual submissions. This is how fringe titles that have never played outside of festivals like Sundance and Toronto can find their way into the running. Having directly benefited from this policy I appreciate the lip service being paid to legitimately independently financed and produced filmmaking if for no other reason than the collective “huh’s” that come from Awards “gurus” like Tom O’Neil and David Poland as they try and wrap their minds around why an organization would “waste” a nomination on the likes of an Anna Kendrick for Rocket Science (who I’ve had a crush on since I saw her in Camp 4 years back) or for that matter Raymond J. Barry for Steel City.

I’m glad smaller films will have a fleeting moment in the sun even if I’m dubious to what real impact it will have on them. I also know you can lead a sycophantic film society to water but you can’t make them vote. For an organization with the word “independent” in their name, there sure is a lot of group thinking to the voting process. As a rule of thumb, films with more nominations usually do better than films with one or two categories under their belts and films that have made more money at the box office always do better than films that haven’t. Last year given the choice between Ryan Gosling’s acclaimed addiction drama Half Nelson and Guillermo del Toro’s visually stunning Pan’s Labyrinth, voters gave it to the Academy friendly Little Miss Sunshine in a 4-award sweep.

Look, voters are lazy. Hell I vote and I’m lazy. Last year FIND struck a deal with Netflix that put dvd screeners on voters’ doorsteps and even I skipped roughly a quarter of the nominated films, and I’m way more vested in independent film than most. This year they have an arrangement with B-Side Entertainment to actually stream the nominated films via the internet which has both minuses (I’m not a huge fan of watching movies on my computer) as well as plusses (I can now fast forward to the “good parts” of Lust, Caution and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead from the privacy of my room). Still I’d be lying if I said I thought I’d watch everything before all the votes are tallied.

In the meantime, I get to watch films. Lots of films. Some I’ve never seen due to lack of opportunity (for my part, I’m glad I’ll be able to watch Lake of Fire at my own leisure, with plenty of breaks built in) or because of poor word of mouth. Or to re-watch films I was underwhelmed by like I’m Not There or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly to see if I can get something out of them with repeat viewings. Or simply watching Juno over and over again until I know every line by heart. It may be a bloated, glad-handling, self-congratulatory group, but I’m a member and I’m glad to have the perks at the moment.

Fuck Myspace

2007-11-25T00:14:00.000-08:00

No, I’m not joining Facebook. I’ve actually started weaning myself off Myspace as only a handful of people seem to bother updating regularly anymore (and it’s not like I’m one of them) but I logged in earlier just to see what everyone’s up to and I saw my ex changed her dating status from “single” to “in a relationship” over the Thanksgiving holiday (and what better time to make it “official,” right?). Truth be told I hadn’t thought of this person in probably a couple months (we barely speak anymore) but still, you never want to see your ex being involved (so much so they feel comfortable announcing it to the Myspace world) while you’re still hopelessly single. It’s really a pride issue more than anything; as with most things I’m fairly competitive when it comes to dating. Still: an important lesson. Myspace is fucking evil.

D’Angelo Stylie

2007-11-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

Southland Tales (Richard Kelly) To crib from Burns: most filmmakers would be content for Domino to be the most retarded entry on their résumé… Tonally a miscarriage. Kelly thinks he’s a lot funnier (more probing, more insightful, more original, etc…) than he really is and this pastiche of stunt casting and fanboy wankery is 2.5 hours (!) of one idea smashing on the rocks after another only for the director to quickly move onto something else equally stupid and ill-conceived. This is why second drafts and strong-willed collaborators are encouraged. If you look in the rear-view mirror, you’ll see Heaven’s Gate. Grade: D

Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy) God Bless Clooney. Aesthetically modern (plot device attached to GPS for cryin’ out loud) but so entrenched in a bygone era of conflicted heroes, sparse visuals and storytelling efficiency it runs laps around pretenders like American Gangster. Not really *about* anything per say (I’ve largely forgotten everything about the film) but it’s a real hummer as it unspools. BTW, in my version of the film he takes the money. Grade: B+

The Savages (Tamara Jenkins) Credit where it’s due: the film doesn’t pull any punches with Philip Bosco’s aging father, never reducing him to a lovable, huggable curmudgeon (Little Miss Sunshine syndrome) and following through on its premise to the bitter end. Fact is this is all perfectly fine (Linney and Seymour Hoffman are so good together it’s a wonder they’ve never shared the screen before) but the whole thing plays so right down the middle, flattering the audience’s intelligence without ever really challenging them (Jenkins, it’s worth noting, is married to Sideways co-writer Jim Taylor and the influence is impossible to miss). Frankly I’d probably cut this one a lot more slack if I didn’t see it the same day as Margot at the Wedding which took hyper-articulate dysfunctional grown siblings into a much more provocative direction. Still… Grade: B

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet) Yuch, we get it: ugly people doing unflattering things to one another. Time capsule of every shitty spec script that was written in 1996, complete with Fargo-esque caper gone horribly wrong and arbitrary Tarantino-inspired chronology hijinks that seems to exist simply so every scene shot can be used in the film to go with stark-black nihilism which has never really gone out of style. The film never quite kicks the direct to video feel; once you get past the leering and plotting there’s no spark of personality or uniqueness to the film (save for a brief exchange with Michael Shannon who seems to have wandered in from a far more interesting film). And did I mention “ugly” and “unflattering?” Tomei waits for *this thing* to spend half the film parading around nude? This thing may set digital photography back twenty years. Grade: C

Beowulf: IMAX 3D (Robert Zemeckis) I was about to discredit the film as an achievement in storytelling and focus purely on the visuals and the experience of IMAX 3D (I couldn’t imagine seeing the film in flat 35), but that’s not fair to what the film accomplishes with what has historically been a difficult, and according to some, impenetrable text. Much credit to writers Avary and Gaiman for creating a narrative through-line that turns a story where simply the protagonist dies at the end (we all knew this going in, yes?) into an honest to goodness tragedy. The film is eons more entertaining than 300, presenting an epic story in all its bawdy, drunken, larger than life glory. Films like this are supposed to be fun and this one is damnit. Zemeckis also takes full advantage of the technology available to him, inching closer and closer to photo-realism, almost seamlessly incorporating recognizable movie stars (especially Jolie, who even without nipples is truly a sight) into impossibly elaborate set pieces. As for the 3D, it’s not so much a must for the gimmicky, Jaws 3D-type projectiles sent hurtling at you (although unavoidably, they’re present as well), but for the depth of field it generates, creating an inclusive sweeping feeling, like you’re inside of a mead hall or a dank cave yourself. I don’t usually go in for bells and whistles but color me impressed. Grade: B+

A Poker Tragedy

2007-11-16T01:18:00.000-08:00

I usually hate when people dedicate blog space to tales of poker woe (even Mike D’Angelo, who can make even the most staid and unwatchable third-world cinema seem exhilarating, tends to resort to navel gazing when reporting on some amazing hand he witnessed) but if I didn’t get this experience out of my system it’s just gonna eat at me for weeks.

Okay to set the scene, we were playing nine-handed, No Limit Hold ‘Em. I was first under the gun, but what’s important to note here is that the guys in front of me were getting messy with both their chips and the dealer button. The guy with the button had flopped it down between himself and the small blind, so from my angle it looked like the small blind was actually the dealer. How could I have made this mistake you ask? Well as often happens when people have been lighting up during the breaks of the game, he was getting a bit lax with getting his blinds out in a timely fashion (not that I’m bitter). And of course, I’m as sober as a priest so I look to my right, see the button followed by what I assume is the small blind so I dutifully toss out my “big blind” and, like a good donkey in training, wait for the action to come around to me (the presumed BB) before I take a peak at my cards (the preferred technique of pros everywhere). Except of course, the action doesn’t come back to me. I’ve just called the blind without even looking at my cards.

After grumbling about the sloppy chip work ahead of me at the table, I announce that I have checked in the dark, although realizing that doesn’t mean much of anything to this call-happy bunch. I finally peak at my cards and I find AQ off-suit, which is actually the best starting hand I’d had all night up to that point. Obviously, under ideal circumstances, I’d have raised (even first to act) just to keep the cheapos from out-flopping me, but whatever. I’m quickly appeased when the flop comes in a rainbow of 5A7. I quietly begin counting all that money in the pot which will be mine in a minute. I raise 100. The girl to my right labors for a few seconds before making the call. I dismiss it as she’s been playing pretty loose all night and I figure she caught middle pair with a decent kicker. A couple people fold followed by a quick call by an accomplished player. I immediately suspect he’s got an Ace but that he doesn’t re-raise tells me he’s not confident about it.

The turn hits and it’s a lowly 4. Another card I don’t have to worry about. I bet 200. The girl next door calls, which definitely scares me as now I think she maybe hit two pair. Mr. Experience labors for an eternity before finally folding. He recognizes the strength of my Ace, going so far as whispering his hand to his girlfriend just so she can appreciate his table discipline. I’m starting to suspect I may be in trouble though. A Jack comes out on the river and at this point I know my only hope is to check then re-raise all-in if she tries to bet it but thankfully (in hindsight) she checks herself.

We flip over her cards. She’d had a 23 and caught an improbable, bordering on impossible, 5-high straight on the turn. I was out roughly 40% of my chips.

So what happened? Putting aside how sloppy the business with the dealer button was, my mistake was pretending I was Phil Hellmuth and deciding not to check my dealt cards until the action came around to me (a practice that is henceforth banished from my repertoire). If I had bothered to look at them as soon as they were put in front of me, my sizable re-raise would have easily scared away the 2-3 which was a shit hand, and possibly encouraged the more experienced player to go over the top with a bet to try and defend his hand (which ended up being a totally dominated A9). But instead, I gave a player the chance to win with one of the worst starting hands in the game and paid dearly for it.

I was pretty much on tilt after that so when I was dealt pocket Q’s in position I went all-in. It was the right move but only because of my low chip stack. I actually got 2-calls (yelp) but was better off than both of them. Problem is, one of the guys behind me pairs his Ace on the flop and I’m off to the rails. Done before 10:30 and I’ve got a long ride back to the valley in front of me.

Stupid fucking dealer button.

Catch up part I

2007-11-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

In the interest of throwing something up on the blog, here's some brief thoughts on what I've been seeing lately. More to come.

American Gangster (Ridley Scott) Doomed from its inception although no one else seems to agree. Grazer/Scott/Zallian are a perfect storm of miscast creative minds, producing a film every bit as down the middle and generic as the film’s title would indicate. Film timidly incorporates a wan procedural element (and middle-America friendly, white protagonist) to parallel the assent and fall of a black icon making the film every bit as daring as an Ed Zwick film (film might as well be called Dances with Heroin). Scott clearly has no point of entry on the material, so he compensates in the only way he knows how: firing up a smoke machine and trying to re-invision Harlem in the early 70’s as another one of his hyper-stylized sandboxes. Spike Lee would have made the Lucas character mythic, Michael Mann would have fetishized both the minutia and urban rot of the era, both would have been preferable to this assembly line product that’s as devoid of a pulse as it is a point of view. C+

Control (Anton Corbijn) Avoided writing about this one for the longest time as I can see through its flaws but finding it impossible to articulate how or why. Certainly the best of the recent rash of dead rockstar biopics of the past few years but I can’t help but wonder how much of that’s due to the relative lack of notoriety in its subject and leading man. Is star Sam Reilly really that much more convincing as Ian Curtis than, say, Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash or is he merely working from a clean slate that’s not tainted by personal fandom? The film plays less as a greatest hits CD than it does a series of fleeting snap shots in the life of a young man doomed by his own demons, placing emphasis on tone as opposed to incident. Less structurally sound than ideal (the film drags in anticipation of Curtis’ death, turning the film into an impatient slog towards the inevitable) but Corbijn’s direction is stirring, lensing in gorgeous black and white scope, injecting the potential rote performance pieces with an exposed nerve level of energy. Plus, at the risk of blasphemy, the cast’s re-recordings of Joy Division’s material arguably sounds better than they ever did on the band’s albums. B+

Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck) I can’t be the only one sick of Boston at this point, right? The Hub has not only monopolized national sports over the past few years but seems to keep drawing the country’s best filmmakers to the working class hovels and corner bars of Southie. Now if only they weren’t continuously drawn to material beneath them. Like Mystic River (also based on a Lehane novel) this one becomes rather daft as it goes along, rolling along plot points straight out of an episode of “Law & Order” in exploring an undercurrent of corruption and urban decay, although I at least give Affleck credit for keeping his performances from flying off the rails in a torrent of Oscar bating histrionics. Shouldn’t be surprised that the guy who co-wrote Good Will Hunting has a gift for breezy, free-wheeling neighborhood speak, but it’s the first-timer director’s work with actors ranging from little brother Casey to veterans Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris to character actors from HBO Amy Ryan and Titus Welliver that give hint to the promising career this former acting punchline may end up having behind the camera. B

The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona) Mucho derivativo. Another old-fashioned Spanish-language ghost story from Guillermo del Toro (playing the part of a Mexican Tarantino in “presenting” the film) although this one plays a lot closer to his lesser viewed The Devil’s Backbone than Pan’s Labyrinth. Lots of story for story’s sake, not much of it goes anywhere beyond creating a general sense of unease and approximately 2.5 legitimately scary scenes (mostly of the “boo!” variety). Captivating for stretches but once the dread dissipates you’re left with a vacuum that the film attempt to fill with mawkish sentiment it hasn’t begun to earn. B-

What Hypocrisy?

2007-11-09T19:28:00.000-08:00

I can’t tell if I’m annoyed that C.S.S. has a song in the new iPhone commercial thus subjecting them to all the mass-consumer losers who are oblivious to under the radar music (btw, I’m loving the new Feist album)…

…Or annoyed that they didn’t even bother to credit the band in the video. Help some Brazilians out, would ya?

My Little Sister

2007-11-06T01:41:00.000-08:00

An actual phone exchange from yesterday between myself and my sister:

Heather: Hi.
Me: Who’s this?
Heather: Your sister.
Me: Oh! Hey! What’s up?
Heather: Not much. I wanted to know if you’ve given any thought to what you want to get Dad for Christmas.
Me: No, hadn’t thought about it. It’s a little early though, isn’t it?
Heather: Yeah, but I wanted to know if you wanted to split a new iPod for him. His last one got stolen and I thought it would be a nice present to replace it.
Me: His iPod got stolen?
Heather: Yeah. He had a Nano, so I figured it was cost us $100 each to replace it.
Me: I don’t know. Nano’s are kind of lame. I’d rather we just got him one of the regular-sized ones if we’re gonna do… Tell you what: you didn’t buy it yet, right?
Heather: No I didn’t buy it.
Me: Alright, let me do some research and see what I can find. See if I can find a good deal on one.
Heather: Okay. So… your mother broke her arm.
Me: Whose mother?
Heather: Your mother.
Me: You mean our mother? Mom?
Heather: Yeah.
Me: Mom broke her arm. That’s what you’re telling me?
Heather: Yeah.
Me: When?
Heather: Today. Just a little while ago.
(pause)
Me: Why did you lead with the iPod?
Heather: What?
Me: Why didn’t you just tell me mom broke her arm? Why did we just have a conversation about dad’s Christmas present?
Heather: I don’t know.
Me: Don’t you think telling me how mom’s doing is more important?
Heather: I don’t know, I… I just didn’t want you to think the only reason I called was when something bad happens.

It’s worth noting that this is the first time my sister called me in at least 10 months. My memory doesn’t extend back far enough to remember what the circumstances for that particular call were but she’s not exactly making a compelling case for herself.

At this point I asked to speak with my infirmed mother who’s practically a quadriplegic at this point and won’t have use of her arm (which for those keeping tracking was formerly her “good” arm) for six weeks. Happy holidays!

But hey, at least I know what to get my dad for Christmas. This is my family.

30 Second Film Review: 30 Days of Night (David Slade)

2007-10-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

I’m way behind so I’m now in all glib soundbytes all the time mode.

Pretty but dead inside: and you wondered why they cast Josh Hartnet. Slade can compose a gorgeous shot, but as with Hard Candy (aka Hostel’s more arty cousin) it’s yet to be seen whether he can place any two of them in successive order to generate legitimate tension or momentum. The film fails to exploit its on clever premise instead stealing style and story tropes from (insert your favorite genre film of the last 10 years here), forgoing a white-knuckle war of attrition in favor of quick cut action and colorful gore. What’s the point of making a film about a siege with a finite team period if there’s no real sense of how your characters are surviving day by day or how much longer they’ve got? Raimi’s just having an awful year, isn’t he? C-

WORLD SERIES BABY!

2007-10-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

More tomorrow after I sober up. A quick note though: you'd think this would be old hat after '04. You'd be dead fucking wrong.

I guess I’ll be going to AFI after all

2007-10-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

So money’s been getting a little bit tight lately (and very well could be for a while as I decide whether to move on from the company I’ve spent the past four years with to little financial gain) which means the annual laboring over whether to drop almost $250 on an AFI badge came a lot easier this year. Having become something of an expert on film festivals in the past few years, I’ve really come to appreciate just how convenient and unique AFI is, specifically its one-stop-shop approach to exhibition, infrastructure and networking. The biggest deterrent to seeing films at a festival is simply the energy exerted in getting from one theater to another in time. By setting up shop at the Arclight in Hollywood and setting up the filmmaker’s lounge on the parking structure’s rooftop, they’ve removed all barriers to sampling as many films as you desire and making the rounds at the after parties.

The problem though is that AFI’s a bastard step-child as far as festivals go. Located at the ass end of the calendar year, the festival is a dead zone between the unveiling of year-end Oscar contenders at Toronto and breaking indie films at Sundance a couple months later. The premieres they do get are those that have either been screened elsewhere (as is the case with Juno) or reek of misfires no one else wanted (hello Lions for Lambs). Most depressing of all is the fest’s slate of American independent films which, in my four years of attendance, have been without exception horrendous. In the interest of keeping up with other festivals, AFI added a “Dark Horizons” category to attract genre fans but they seem surprisingly uncommitted this year (Stuart Gordon’s Stuck and Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears both screened at Toronto to much acclaim yet neither chose to make their US LA premieres at AFI).

The one niche the festival has carved out for itself is as a forum for the world’s best foreign cinema, specializing both in films that premiered at Cannes as well as representing the year’s foreign language Oscar contenders. But over two hundred bucks is an awful lot to shell out just to see Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Southland Tales a week early. Thankfully, and through the graciousness of others, a badge has been dropped into my lap. This of course changes everything, as a dozen borderline titles I might never have given a second’s thought to all of a sudden sound promising (including a lot of stuff I didn’t get to see at Austin due to the aforementioned logistics).

I usually have such a hard time enjoying myself at AFI because I’m always aware of how I’m barely getting my money’s worth. This year, there should be no such issue. Once again I find myself engaged and excited. Stay tuned for updates throughout the first 2 weeks of November.

AFF Double Feature: Juno and Lars & the Real Girl

2007-10-21T00:55:00.000-07:00

Same usual lack of depth as my mini-reviews only longer and less focused. Bonus!

Festival hype is an especially tricky barometer to gage as it’s based in a genuinely decent place; a want to promote something small and as yet unchampioned, usually with little regard for the backlash that’s sure to come once people are paying $11 to see a film at the mall. Being first out of the gate is always tricky and being first isolated from the rest of the world only clouds things further. After playing Toronto and Telluride last month, Juno, emerged as the year’s darling “indie” comedy, trumpeting the arrival of blogger cum stripper cum screenwriter Diablo Cody and a star-making performance from Ellen Page who's mostly known in the geek world for pretending to castrate Patrick Wilson in Hard Candy and running from the Juggernaut (bitch!) in X-Men 3. Even more telling, the film has been called this year’s Little Miss Sunshine, which personally carried as much excitement as something being hailed as this year’s Big Mac.

What a relief then that the hype is wrong. Or wait, does that make it right? Aside from sharing a distributor, Juno has nothing in common with Little Miss Sitcom. It’s a bold, honest, bracingly original film that balances acerbic wit and unfussy emotion better than any film since the heyday of James L. Brooks. The film actually works best as a companion piece (and I would argue, corrective) to this summer’s surprise hit Knocked Up, telling a similar story but from the point of view of the person who can’t walk away from their responsibility. What differentiates Juno, and ultimately makes it the far better film, is its willingness to explore the entire spectrum of anxiety found in being an unwed parent, even embracing the idea that simply creating life isn’t some biological gateway to becoming an inherently better person. The film refuses to engage in squishy sentimentality about the sanctity of life (if there’s an award for most abortion/miscarriage jokes in a film, Juno is the runaway winner), presenting an intelligent, clear-eyed and scathingly funny depiction of its main character’s predicament and the decisions she arrives at.

Of course the film isn’t all Planned Parenthood jokes. If there’s a central goal to Juno it’s to tear down the notion of what exactly constitutes family and how little the functional, nuclear gathering has to do with anything in the 21st Century. Page is beautifully paired opposite the great JK Simmons and Allison Janney as her father and step-mother respectively, in a dynamic is as refreshingly nurturing, yet unencumbered by bullshit as I’ve seen in ages. Simmons is gloriously oblivious yet true of heart even in his off moments while Janney is given an (admittedly by design) “you go girl/go fuck yourself” scene that would not only put Erin Brockovich to shame but could very well become a rally call for mothers and daughters everywhere.

Juno is truly egalitarian in spirit, embracing those it initially targets as disingenuous, slyly shifting our perceptions of its characters, specifically those played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. The film makes early, easy swipes at the class divide and Garner in particular comes across as a pinched yuppie gargoyle at the picture’s onset, yet once the film places these two characters in their respective boxes it proceeds to chip away revealing uncomfortably human places and fears and ultimately redemption. The film is so subtle in shifting the audience’s allegiances, the cumulative emotional impact, once it kicks in, is all the more unexpected and appreciated.

Juno was directed by Jason Reitman whose Thank You For Smoking was liked by many and loved by me. Juno is an even better film, building around the young director’s snickering sense of humor and gift for the visual non sequitur. The film’s direction doesn’t especially call attention to itself, yet it represents an important step in Reitman’s evolution as a filmmaker, striking a balance between sardonic and heart-tugging with the greatest of ease.

But in the end, the film’s success is credited to two women (appropriately): its star Page and its writer, Cody who, as the film progresses, become inseparable. Page cuts through Cody’s Chayefsky by way of the blogosphere dialogue with a buzz saw, never allowing the verbal dexterity of the character come across as overly amused with itself or posturing. Page plays the title character as wise beyond her years yet vulnerable with a sense of where she’s going but no idea how to get there. Cody meanwhile deserves all the credit in the world for not taking the easy path with this story, never wavering from its ideals or losing its spirit or voice. And what a voice. It’s too early to tell whether Ms. Cody will ever follow through on the promise of this film, but after only one feature the young writer (who for those who are interested, is a total sex-kitten knock-out in addition to being insanely talented) announces herself as one of the most unique talents currently working in film. And should she fail to ever match this level of success, we can all take comfort in knowing she’s created at least one gem. A

Lars and the Real Girl may forever be irrevocably linked to Juno as I watched them in immediate succession (a problem most people won’t have) which certainly does this film no service even if it does create an informative case of contrasts. While Juno is hyper-stylized—perhaps bordering on precious—in its telling, its emotions are grounded in an earthy, unmistakably genuine bedrock; its very irony protects it from growing treacly and when it does get genuinely heartfelt (and it does) it has the effect of a baby bird pecking through its hard outer shell. Lars and the Real Girl, by comparison, is firmly grounded in a plain-spoken, aesthetically sparse setting where people keep their emotions close to their vest and seem to be as impenetrable and still as the winter landscape that surrounds them (at times the film feels like a geographical cousin to Steel City). But emotionally the film’s a fraud, predicated on that fabled, affable Midwest temperament which in this instance, to quote Richard Roper (probably the first and last time I’ll ever do so), involves an entire small town “sublimating itself” to the whims of Ryan Gosling’s mumbling introvert. For a film that no doubt sees itself as generous and nurturing, I found it remarkably self-involved.

The film swaths itself in the protective blanket of being a fairy tale, a defense that’s rather en vogue at the moment (see TV’s “Pushing Daisies” which practically induces diabetic comas), yet the genre it most closely adheres to is the “therapy film” where we patiently (no pun) wait on a character to come to the emotional epiphany we’ve quietly been anticipating for about ninety minutes. The film is distressingly more Dr. Phil than Adam Rifkin, leaving aside any of the more provocative or obtuse kinks for what amounts to the story of a boy learning to say goodbye to his imaginary friend. The “character” of Bianca (which for those who can’t tell from the ads is one of those anatomically correct sex dolls that Stern used to have propped up in his studio) is not only accepted by the community in total and without exception, but actually becomes in demand and rather preoccupied with civic duties, inspiring jealousy in Lars (really this is the only interesting idea in the entire film). I’m probably in a real small minority in wanting to see the exploration of love between a man and an inanimate object, but it’s got to be a heck of a lot more engaging than treating the doll as a walking (er, sitting) metaphor for the character’s emotional paralysis to be cured away by the end of act three.

Part of the problem here may be Gosling himself who is suffocated by an impossible part, a predicament he surmounted in Half Nelson that only fueled his legend. It’s a mannered, mumbling Geoffrey Rush-like performance which doesn’t even begin to fill in the rather glaring character holes in the script. The film treats Lars as if he were Rain Man, a cuddly sick person to be protected, when in fact his behavior is flat out creepy and occasionally cruel.

Which is a shame as Gosling’s supporting cast is without exception pretty phenomenal. Collectively keyed into their surroundings and the speed of life where church and Sunday dinners are the most important part of the week, the cast is unshowy and quietly devastating. As the impetus behind the town’s Capra-esque level of self-delusion Emily Mortimer clings to the hope that through sheer and unwavering altruism she can liberate a man who’s too damaged to venture outside his front door. Also desperate to save Lars is Kelli Garner’s Margo, a mousy bundle of nerves and dashed hopes. I’ve never been much of a fan of Garner’s work in the past but her work here is devastating in only a handful of scenes, presenting someone every bit as damaged as Lars without the support system catering to her.

But the performer who walks away from Lars and the Real Girl demanding our attention is Paul Schneider, last seen in some of the more tiresome scenes of The Assassination of Jesse James, as Lars’ older brother and reluctant caretaker to Bianca. Putting on a master class of understatement and quiet desperation, Schneider plays a man who’s only recently come to believe he’s to blame for his brother’s dysfunction, a byproduct of his own youthful rebellion. Mortified by Lars’ behavior yet racked with the guilt that he may have created it, Schneider truly is his brother’s keeper. Only when he dances to the film’s incredulous tune does it ring true. B-

Back from Texas

2007-10-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

Had a great time in Austin but it’s a relief to be back in LA. Met a lot of incredible, generous people and reconnected with some old friends, didn’t embarrass myself in my panels (although I heard some horror stories about my inebriated behavior after hours) and saw some great films. I’m trying to get caught up on my blogging but there’s been more distractions waiting for me at home than I thought. The office is especially populated these days, so less time for on-hours goofing around. I’ve also got about 20 hours of TV clogging up my dvr that I’m supposed to be going through so my housemates will stop giving me the evil eye (the sad part is, over half of it is poker… I really do have a problem). The good news is the Sox are in the process of pissing away a glorious season because the bottom of our lineup is abysmal and none of our starters can make it to the fifth inning (save for Beckett, who’s tomorrow’s last hope), so at least I should have some free time now. Oh and more good news: my X-Box is doing that three blinking red lights which I guess is the new “Blue Screen of Death” so that will be out of commission for the next month or so while the criminals at Microsoft fix the problem they were aware of when they sold the damn thing. I’ve got a screening of 30 Days of Night tonight, so once you factor that in to everything I saw at AFF as well as a couple films I saw immediately beforehand and I’m quickly becoming swamped. Too much good stuff.

And in the interest of staying positive: Go Pats, Go!

The 3 AM Hustle

2007-10-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

My flight for Austin leaves at 7:30 AM, which means I’ll be pulling an all-nighter just so I know I’ll be up in time to be at the airport by 6. I really hate waking at 4 something in the morning and I fucking despise forcing myself to crawl into bed at 10 at night to try and get a semblance of a full night’s sleep (I blame my mom passing along her night owl genetics). So this is the silly dance I perform every time I travel early in the morning. Yes, it’s probably crazy, although not a whole lot more than tossing and turning in bed for a few long hours as I try and trick my body into aping the sleep habits of a two year old.

And it’s not like I’ll be want for activity to keep me awake and alert. I’m planning on putting in my second workout in a span of twelve hours. I’ve been skipping a few lately and it’s not like the binge of booze and BBQ over the course of the next week will help keep me in fighting weight. Plus, I’m quickly trying to get caught up on the first season of “Friday Night Lights” so I can weigh in on the supposedly awful second season premiere and when I’m on the elliptical seems to be the only time I get to watch.

I’m also trying to cram in as much research as possible for my Austin panels which don’t technically start until Saturday but I don’t see myself having access to the net between now and then. I know I found myself watching the film Over the Hedge TWICE today (once with less illuminating than I’d hoped commentary track on) to get ready and even still I feel woefully under prepared. Right now I don’t even want to think about my Sunday panel where I’m sitting with two entertainment lawyers and a venture capitalist to talk about the nuances of contracts (yeesh).

Of course Austin won’t be all drunkenness and trying not to embarrass myself in front of thousands of people (those two things really are at odds though, no?). I have a lot of activities (read: parties) planned for the week but my passion first and foremost is film, something that’s usually forgotten or overlooked when talking about film festivals. In fact I’m already bemoaning the films I *won’t* be able to see either because of conflicts or that they’ll be screening after I leave including Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (thankfully opening in LA shortly), Grace is Gone (ditto), The Savages (will have to wait for AFI) and Paul Schrader’s new film, The Walker.

What will I be seeing? A couple definites on a few strong maybes. I’ll be at the opening night Gala of Chicago 10, the divisive animated documentary which opened Sundance earlier in the year as well as at the Centerpiece Premiere, Juno which is Jason Reitman’s follow-up to Thank You For Smoking (yes!) that was hailed at Toronto as this year’s Little Miss Sunshine (uh oh). I also hope to see Lars and the Real Girl and Control, both of which are opening in LA soon but I care not as well as a few films that played Sundance earlier in the year but aren’t scheduled to open for several months. I’ll try and keep my ear to the ground, but so much of these things are dictated by scheduling, energy, and distance from where you’re standing at any given moment.

Oh as if that weren’t enough, the Sox are also in the ALCS.

Game 1 is on Friday, Game 2 is Sunday. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about I now need to sneak away and find an unguarded tv to watch the Sox play the Indians. The irony is last year I gave Brian, our director, endless shit for blowing off the festivities to go watch the Cardinals in the World Series. I’ve also pretty much given up any hope of catching the Pats/Cowboys game (in Texas no less!) because it runs right into my Sunday panels and the Juno screening.

Because I’m a luddite without iPhone or laptop, this will be my last entry till I get back next week. Hopefully by the time I return the Pats will still be undefeated, the Sox will be in strong position against the Tribe and I won’t have imploded due to my lousy public speaking skills.

90 Second Film Review: We Own the Night (James Gray)

2007-10-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

We Own the Night is essentially three to four stunning sequences floating in a sea of mediocrity and cop clichés that were moldy when Sidney Lumet stopped using them back in the early nineties. Gray returns to filmmaking seven years after making his last gritty, method-infused drama of torn loyalties and families at odds, The Yards, and essentially remakes it here, only this time switching locals from the train yards to Russian-owned night clubs.

As Mike D’Angelo pointed out, this is basically the mirror image of The Godfather, with the younger sibling with criminal affiliations being drawn into the clean-cut world of law enforcement in response to a family tragedy with Joaquin Phoenix in the Michael Corleone role of the black sheep. The problem is it’s a mighty short ascent as the film goes out of its way to paint the character as acting just within the confines of the law (outside of the occasional belt of cocaine) so we see him turning his back on superficial trinkets and hanger-on friends as opposed to a moral code or even a highly evolved criminal lifestyle. The film sets its gears in motion too quickly to place Pheonix into the fold of the police force, negating much of the familial angst of brother versus brother, while setting up perhaps the dumbest plot development of recent memory (I won’t ruin it here but rest assured you’ll know when to scoff). Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall essentially share a character, and not an especially well developed one at that, while Eva Mendes looks really, really good in a corset and fishnet stockings.

There is, however, a good twenty minutes buried at strategic points where it gives hints of the potentially great film entombed underneath the dreck. Gray’s use of music is straight from the Scorsese play book, but there’s a reason such a thing even exists and the film employs it masterfully. The film opens to Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” over a scene that’s indescribably erotic (although mostly implicit) that leads one to believe they’re about to watch a less technically accomplished version of Boogie Nights. There are also two set pieces during the film’s second act where you can feel We Own the Night threatening to become a film that actually calls attention to itself. The cutting becomes more acute, the sound design more attuned, the level of verisimilitude in the performances (which are usually terror) becomes more pronounced. The trailer sadly gives away most of this stuff as there’s really little to sell the film on without them. Two hours after I saw the film I could barely remember it. Ten days removed and it’s even less tangible. That says more than anything else I suppose. C

2 Minute Film Review: Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur)

2007-10-02T15:34:00.001-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

Important caveat: I haven’t seen the original Elizabeth since it played theaters back in the fall of ’98 and I wasn’t a fan. In general I found it overblown, over-directed and under conceived. The shorthand at the time was “The Godfather for women” which, while both an unfair knock against both that film and that gender, also gets at the fundamentally cartoonish nature of the entire franchise. Filmed amidst impenetrable dark shadows where an assassin can spring forth at any time and a duplicitous climate of intrigue where even your closest advisers conspire against you, Kapur’s hyper-indifferent storytelling actually allowed the birth of England’s most prominent monarchy to become overshadowed by the moon-eyed pining of an adolescent who couldn’t love whom she wanted. In that same vein I found Cate Blanchett’s much championed performance to consist of two notes: simpering and Elmer Gantry. Seven Oscar nominations and the outright devotion of almost every woman I’ve ever met tell me I’m squarely in the minority with these opinions.

So now we have Elizabeth: The Golden Age which not only matches the first film fault for fault but seems to be rehashing the same conflicts (internal as well as external) thirty years farther along in QEI’s life. And yet I’d be a complete liar if I didn’t confess that in its own trashy sort of way the film is actually quite fun at times. I think the secret is—and perhaps I was too young to grasp this the first time out—that you have to toss out everything you’ve ever read in a history book as well as any pre-conceived notion of what a period piece should be and just appreciate the film as a live-action comic book. The realities of, as an example, a 50-something Elizabeth donning a full suit of honor and delivering a ra-ra, Braveheart-esque speech to rally the troops (which strikes me as absurd as the idea of honest Abe fighting at the front lines of the Civil War) are secondary to the grandeur of the imagery and the swell in your chest one is no doubt supposed to feel. Likewise, the threat from all-sides approach to conflict has the effect of turning even the most effete of diplomats into snarling threats to kingdom and crown. It's all quite lurid and baroque and laughable, but never dull.

Also on the plus side of the ledger is Kapur’s toned-down visual scheme which employs less drastic contrasts between light and dark as well as less spastic camera movement (although his predilection for extreme camera angels and 360-spins are still disappointingly the norm) which certainly allows for a great appreciation for the film’s production design and the great weathered faces of its cast. And of course, you have the intended upside of Kapur’s post-modern techniques which is the film cooks, never allowing itself to get bogged down in musty expository pieces or staid chamber-room drama (quite the opposite, the film is so propulsive at times it’s difficult to tell that we’ve actually moved from a different country and even a different year than we were just in a few seconds earlier).

So, clearly this one played well above expectations, but I can’t overstate that this might be the most redundant film in history. Blanchett gives the exact same performance here that she did nine years ago, which will no doubt please those who found the first film a “you-go-girrrrrl” empowerment piece in corsets, but doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense when viewing the character’s dramatic arc over the course of a lifetime. Frankly it’s a bit disheartening to watch a middle-aged woman sulk that in spite of being the most powerful woman in the world still can’t get the guy. Speaking of which, Clive Owen has been slotted into the Joseph Fiennes role, which I’ve got to believe is an improvement across the board (right ladies?), but some last act Errol Flynn heroics aside isn’t given much to do beyond serve as eye candy. But that pretty much sums up the film as a whole. B-

The Crystal Method playing AFF

2007-09-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

The cat can finally be let out of the bag.

I’ve had to keep quiet about all the behind the scenes maneuvering over the past couple weeks, but it’s now official: The Crystal Method will be playing the On the Doll party at the Austin Film Festival in a couple weeks. This is, of course, a huge deal for me even if TCM are LA-based and seem to be doing a DJ set every few weeks in the neighborhood. Some of the grandeur is definitely off the band now that I’ve seen them do a set at a Best Buy, but I’ve also seen them play to a packed Hollywood Bowl in the past few years as well. This is definitely a pretty big coup for a film playing a relatively small festival like Austin and I expect the party to be one of the city’s big attractions for the night. Nice to be on the other side of the velvet rope for once.

A quick note about The Kingdom

2007-09-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

It’s really not that bad people.

I’m in slight ass covering mode at the moment after being first out of the gate with a mostly positive review earlier in the year. My bullshit detector’s pretty high and while the film’s flaws weren’t lost on me I came to the conclusion that the film was definitely worth your time, predominantly for the film’s first and third acts and the performance of Ashraf Barhom. Is it probably too jingoistic for its own good? Yeah. Does it use contemporary fears as a pretense for what amounts to a well-constructed popcorn flick? Yep. But my God, it seems like every film that tries to address current world events either ends up as inert crap like Syriana or a condescending brow-beater like In the Valley of Elah. So a film tries to quicken the pulse a bit and it’s treated like John Wayne’s The Green Berets?

And the kicker is Universal screened the film like crazy for the press all throughout the summer so they must have thought it would be well received. Oh well, the public decides starting tomorrow. I think it will play well all through the next month or so, but what do I know?

No mini-review for this one. If you care you can paw through the month-old gargantuan piece.

http://andrewdignan.blogspot.com/2007/04/when-did-peter-berg-become-better.html

Hoo Hoo: Everyone rips me off, Robin

2007-09-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

Mildly amusing footnote to this blog which got a shout-out at Jeff Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere blog a couple days ago (my God, just typing that makes me realize how little any of this shit really matters) after Jeff decided to call “dibs” on the expression “C.S.I.: Riyadh” as the go-to glib critique of Peter Berg’s quite enjoyable in a rousing, sort of disposable kind of way, The Kingdom. He went so far as inferring that any review that uses the expression should attribute the quote to him in their review (Jeff would no doubt say this was written in jest but I suspect that’s only a disguise of true intent).

First of all why anyone would want to take credit for being the brain trust behind something that’s clearly a plain as the nose on your face call is beyond me (the hard part is simply googling what the capital of Saudi Arabia is so one doesn’t look like an ass) but more to the point Jeff wasn’t the first person to use the expression in print. Not by a long shot.

As Daniel Feinberg (a fellow blogger/Angelino/Sox fan) was kind enough to point out, I used the expression in my The Kingdom piece that I wrote way back in April. At the time, I assumed everyone would come to the exact same conclusion and was amused with myself for all of eight seconds for coming up with something so “witty” and then moved on. But shoot, maybe I should be seeking out royalties from the two dozen or so major market film critics who have reappropriated the expression. Can we get it written in stone somewhere that I was the first one to belch out this t-shirt worthy expression?

What made me most happy about the whole thing is that before I even had a chance to meekly chime in to plug my site, Feinberg had beaten me to the punch. This implies that I not only have readers but they’re actually retaining this drivel? The mind boggles. Makes me wish I proofread more carefully.

Anyway, you can read the whole sordid affair at the link below. Or you can correctly assume that this self-aggrandizing retelling is probably the most interesting this particular story could *possibly* be and go do something productive with you time. Your choice.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/09/csi_riyadh.php

Has everyone seen this already?

2007-09-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

I’m way late to the party on this one as I needed an Apple commercial to find out about it, but this music video is better directed, choreographed and conceived than just about every movie musical of the past thirty years. For those in the unenviable position of being more oblivious to pop culture than I am, this is the Canadian singer Leslie Feist who had a song in a Verizon Wireless commercial a few months back (profitable year for her). It’s a catchy song but nothing mind-blowing and from a production value standpoint it’s pretty minimal (reminds me a bit of the single-take “Praise You” video Spike Jonze and Roman Coppola did for Fatboy Slim only less self-consciously dorky) but I’m digging on the rustic charm big time. Specifically the on-set echo of the claps and the way it appears uncoordinated and hectic when it fact it’s intimately designed and elaborately staged. Apparently the whole thing was done without CGI or hidden edits which may or may not be impressive to you depending on how you respond to the video.

I initially guessed that it was directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton who between Little Miss Sunshine and that Gap commercial with Patrick Wilson and Clare Danes have been coming across as a little too cutesy-pooh (how’s that for a lacerating critical assessment?) lately, but apparently it’s directed by a thirty-one year old video-director named Patrick Daughters. This guy should absolutely be directing features (certainly over guys like Adam Shankman and Rob Marshall). I haven’t seen Across the Universe yet (and by yet, I of course mean never will I while sober) but my gut tells me that nothing in that film is quite as charming or wondrous as this video.

90 Second Film Review: Into the Wild (Sean Penn)

2007-09-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

Tough, tough film to externalize my thoughts on. On one hand you have the undeniable pull of the material, oscillating between exhilarating and meditative and tragic. It’s easy to see why so many are responding so strongly to the film as it does tap into the sense of idealism and hope and belief in change and leading by example that most twenty-two year olds possess right out of school. I’ve always found Penn’s directorial-projects to be gnashing, method-fests (shocker!) but there’s a real sense of naturalism and warmth and unfussy grandeur to (most of) the film that permeates everything from Eric Gautier's (The Motorcycle Diaries) photography to Eddie Vedder’s way less obnoxious than anticipated music to the devastatingly empathic performances from the likes of Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook. It’s also worth commending the job Penn does with adapting the film’s screenplay, maintaining the structure of a novel (complete with onscreen chapter headings), externalizing Christopher McCandless’ (a fine Emile Hirsch) isolation, jumping around seamlessly from one time frame to another and doing his darndest to keep the film from becoming episodic (it’s a failed endeavor but the effort is appreciated none the less).

But then on the other hand you have Penn who clearly identifies with, if not outright idolizes, McCandless, leaving the character unaccountable for almost all of his actions. In short, the kid is an asshole. A self-absorbed, condescending, preachy, hurtful asshole particularly in the way the character treats his parents (the film attempts to off-set and compensate for this by depicting them as bourgeoisie gargoyles) who’s deified on repeated occasions (at one point a character jokingly asks if he’s Jesus), dipping in and out of people’s lives, leaving behind pearls of wisdom and enlightening everyone from the half-naked jailbait throwing herself at him to the kindly old man who wishes to adopt him. The film has so much admiration for McCandless’ journey that is brushes right over the emotional damage left in his wake, never quite willing to acknowledge that his ultimate fate may have less to do with martyrdom than with a shithead getting exactly what he deserved.

I’m told Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book of the same name—which of course I haven’t read—placed more culpability at McCandless’ feet in addition to inferring most of the perceived slights at the hands of his parents (I have a hard time imagining it contains anything quite as embarrassing as a scene in the film where William Hurt tackles Marcia Gay Harden in plain sight of their understandably horrified children). At times Into the Wild feels like you’re trapped in a booth at a coffee house, forced to listen to a boorish trust-fund brat tell you how little you know about the world (it’s ultimately the film’s greatest failing the McCandless’ interactions come across no less arrogant at the end of the film than they do at the beginning). I have a hunch Matt & Trey are going to have a field day with this one. Like I said, tough film to get my arms around. I anticipate being on the outside looking in, so take with more granules of flavorful mineral than usual. B-

90 Second Film Review: Reservation Road (Terry George)

2007-09-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

May I propose as an alternate title, Crash. Both in the literal sense (Ruffalo kills Phoenix’s son in a hit and run accident) as well as the implied shortcomings shared by both films. Specifically the contrivances, the histrionic performances, and the cursory-level exploration of human anguish. Way less white, liberal guilt at least.

The film is essentially In the Bedroom, big studio edition (mini-major distributor not withstanding) with every emotion broadly telegraphed (cry when you’re sad, rage when you’re upset, etc…), indifferently plotted, building towards an anti-catharsis that’s less ambiguous than it is letting the film off the hook from having to follow through on its own tired premise. Director George, who showed admirable restraint with material infinitely more tragic in Hotel Rwanda, directs his actors like their auditioning for guest spots on "Law & Order." Never quite finds a unique angle in approaching neither the waking tragedy of losing a child nor the torment of being responsible for said act, so it ends up playing like scenes from a drama class.

At the risk of sounding biased, a film like Steel City at least brought a sense of working-class, under-stated angst to similar material. Reservation Road meanwhile appears to have been engineered from the For Your Consideration clips up. Furthermore, the film engenders zero good will by depicting perhaps the most unengaged Red Sox fans (a father and son in the throws of the 2004 post-season run, no less) in history. Jennifer Connolly is of course cast as “least interesting thing in the film” yet again. Seriously Jen, go back to playing crack whores; your career was a lot more promising. C-

2 Minute Film Review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)

2007-09-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

Easy to see what attracted Pitt to this piece of material as the film isn’t a horse opera (comparisons between this and 3:10 to Yuma are unavoidable but absurd to their core) so much as an indictment of fame and the toll of celebrity worship. Ditto for Dominik, whose return to directing six years after the release of Chopper again finds him chronicling the exploits of a charismatic sociopath. Now the only question is how either of these people convinced Warner Brothers to pay for the film.

Frequently lovely but almost impossible to love, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is an ungainly, digressive, morose, over-long meditation on death (it wouldn’t be incorrect to refer to the film as a dirge, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ mournful, Appalachian-themed score calling the tune) and the impossible demands of living up to a legend. A not entirely successful stylistic amalgamation of Days of Heaven, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Seabiscuit (seriously), the film celebrates the iconography of James as seen both through the eyes of Casey Affleck’s titular sycophant (we witness James as he strides through opaque sheets of steam and wraps himself in serpents) as well as a hero-starved public, with the film often employing a pin-hole camera effect, blurring the edges of Roger Deakins’ glorious widescreen photography, while at the same time presenting James as a paranoid, hollowed-out shell of a man, suspicious of all and never at peace. Gregarious and avuncular up until the moment he slits your throat, Pitt plays James as a man who hasn’t had a moment’s rest from the law and is own unbearable mystique in fifteen years, leaving him suspicious and haunted and incapable of sustained joy.

Arguably even more impressive is Affleck, in an inspired bit of casting, as the less “talented” younger brother hoping to prove his worth and greatness. A fan and scholar of James’ violent exploits, Ford is shown here idolizing the famed bandit like a schoolgirl admiring the star quarterback, building up fantasies and relationships that will never come to fruition inside of his own mind, only to turn cold once his advances are rebuffed (in a strictly platonic sense). Speaking in a high pitched whine and unable to sustain eye contact for more than a few seconds, Affleck’s clingy need for acknowledgment calls to mind everyone from Mark David Chapman to Paris Hilton. In perhaps the most important exchange of the film, James asks Ford if he wants to be like him or actually be him, a question the film, quite justifiably, never answers.

There’s a great film to be found buried underneath nearly three hours of atmosphere and production design but it sadly doesn’t reveal itself until the film’s final act when it is Ford who’s literally been thrust into the spotlight, having eclipsed James in infamy if not in esteem. A slow, self-destructive decline continuing the cycle of hero-worship only to be torn down to size by a fickle public, herein lies the film’s greatest purpose and ultimately its tragic underlining, making it all the more disappointing that it’s been hastily telescoped into what amounts to a disproportionate denouement. Lost and adrift for much of its run-time, with almost an hour of the film dedicated to the misadventures of the buffoonish and forgettable James gang (think of all those subplots in Heat featuring Dennis Haysbert and Val Kilmer’s characters only without energy or purpose), The Assassination of Jesse James seems at a loss for purpose when it doesn’t feature one of the two men of its title. Equal parts poetic and pretentious, flabby and anemic, The Assassination of Jesse James may end up being the most maddening film I recommend all year. B

Because People Are Lazy...

2007-09-21T10:19:00.001-07:00

I'm getting comfortable with my ever-expanding (both in length and volume) mini-movie-reviews both as a (hopefully) useful guide for my readers as well as a way for cataloging my thoughts, so I'll probably keep at it at least through "Oscar Season." One film however that won't be getting this kind of treatment is Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah which I saw early in the summer. If you're interested in my thoughts on this pre-release version of the film, which I've been told is almost identical to what's playing in theaters (save for what I'm hearing is a truly horrendous Annie Lennox ballad over the end credits), then click the link below. I'll probably do the same thing for The Kingdom in a couple weeks so I can renew the latest round of arguments about why the film isn't (according to some people anyway) better than Miami Vice.

http://andrewdignan.blogspot.com/2007/06/valley-gall.html

Congratulations America

2007-09-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

First of all, I still don't watch your show. A) because I'm a guy and B) because it conflicts with about 2 dozen other programs. And no, you're newly christened super-stardom hasn't helped Steel City get sold domestically like we'd all been not so quietly banking on. But you've always been really down to earth and approachable on every occasion we've spoken over the past three-years and you seem to be taking fame in stride which is really cool of you. Furthermore you're still dating the same non-famous, regular-looking dude you were before you became the nation's darling, which gives hope to all of us non-famous, regular-looking dudes who aspire to date a star of stage and screen some day. You're good people and you deserve nothing but the best. Cheers!

2 Minute Film Review: Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)

2007-09-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

As part of the microscopic minority that was under-whelmed by A History of Violence I’m likely to be in an equally small grouping in considering this a return to form for Cronenberg, retreating to familiar territory and some of the ickier, transgressive imagery his career has been built upon, the irony being that Eastern Promises is also the most widely-accessible film he’s made since The Fly. Like all of his best films, this is one of icy tone and alien settings, with most of the film’s emphasis placed on the clash between various immigrant subcultures in contemporary London, particularly the violent, densely-layered Russian underworld. After taking a detour to skewer the perception (and celebration) of homicidal tendencies bubbling beneath the surface of placid Americana with History, the director’s back to deconstructing the seemingly infinite number of ways a human body can be violated, with almost fetishistic appreciation of prison tattoos as a form of self-identification and mob hierarchy.

If Eastern Promises feels greater than the sum of its parts it’s because it is, following the minimalist lead of star Viggo Mortensen (who probably rivals Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum for least dialogue spoken by a leading man in a film this year), the film slithers along on attitude and malevolence always hinting at violence that may never come to pass yet places the viewer in the role of the Naomi Watts character as the outsider bearing witness to everyday, almost disaffected, evil so corpulent it resides in plain sight. We’re getting a peek behind the curtain, catching a glimpse of archaic rituals and old world traditions with the director equally transfixed by the professional detachment of “processing” a body for disposal as he is the arrangements of flower pedals on an ornate pastry. The broad strokes of the film’s criminal activities are largely ignored or inferred (this is a decidedly claustrophobic look at both contemporary England as well as organized crime) yet the details are presented in horrific, and at times quite amusing, detail.

The themes are far from groundbreaking (he types a few hours after “The Sopranos” sweeps The Emmys for its final time) but the milieu is fascinating and if Cronenberg merely intended it as set dressing to gussy up a fairly pedestrian child in peril hand-wringer (second one as many weeks, funny enough) it’s enough slight of hand to convince me for long stretches I was watching the best film of the year.

The problem is, no matter how skillfully it neglects it, the film is ultimately a slave to its own disconnected plot, and if it goes to great distances to push all that dispiriting “why-done-it?” stuff to the film’s final act (like saving your vegetables for the end of dinner) it’s especially unpleasant when it arrives to collect its bill. The film was written by Steve Knight who also wrote Dirty, Pretty Things, which if memory serves was a pretty compelling film about London’s immigrant working class that became weighed down by a dopey plot (something about harvesting organs, right?) and as evidenced by Eastern Promises, he hasn’t really switched up his M.O. any. Without giving anything away, the film begins to resemble the low-rent genre piece its detractors are convinced it is the deeper it gets into Viggo’s motivations, doing a hell of a disservice to the actor’s mesmerizing and evasive performance. The safer the film makes the passage for the viewer as outsider, the less interesting the journey is. B+

60 Second Film Review: Shoot ‘Em Up (Michael Davis)

2007-09-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

We’re a long way from True Lies folks. This one’s getting a pass from a lot of reviewers who are throwing around the “live action cartoon” label, as if that were somehow able to justify the slapdash execution and rampant laziness of the film. The fact is the film isn’t so much a cartoon (although God knows it does everything short of have Clive say “What’s Up Doc?” to try and propagate the idea) as an under-conceived Tsui Hark knock-off dumbed down and shoddied-up for American audiences. The great Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger) shot the film but you’d be hard pressed to identify his work as everything has been edited to ribbons to compensate for the budgetary constraints and the depressing reality that 40-something Clive Owen is not Jet Li.

Crumminess might be more palatable if the film wasn’t essentially a hat on a hat for 90-minutes, frequently commenting on the genre staples and narrative contrivances it wallows in as a validation for how little actual tension and excitement it generates. Something like Rodriguez’s Planet Terror took a lot of these same ideas and came away with something more joyful and observant. Too much sizzle, not enough steak really. Remarkably contains the worst performances of Owen’s, Giamatti’s and Bellucci’s (whose butchery of the English language is especially hard to endure) respective careers, which I suppose speaks to the unique talents of a director responsible for such direct to video gems as Girl Fever, 100 Girls, and Eight Days a Week. You know what I hate? A supposed “down and dirty” R-rated film that casts Monica Bellucci as a prostitute who specializes in lactation that doesn’t even give her a decent boob shot. You know what else I hate… D+

Going Back to Texas

2007-09-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

I’ll be returning to Austin this fall for the Austin Film Festival and I’m super stoked. The first time I’d ever been to Austin was at last October’s festival when I was there representing Steel City so I only had a couple days in town to figure out the lay of the town, jump through promotional hopes, attend half a dozen parties and mixers, baby-sit the break-out star (and soon to be Emmy winner) of that fall’s TV season who was in town to support the film, and even make time to see a couple movies. Like all the festivals we took the film to last year, it was pretty whirlwind without a lot of time to relax and really appreciate the city (in a slight I’m still kicking myself over, I never did get any Texas BBQ) so when I’d proposed to my boss we finance a trip this year for me to head back for “research and development” it was about 10% business and 90% vacation.

Here’s where things get interesting. Right around the time my boss agree to pony up the money for the trip, my good friend Linnea (she being the overworked conference coordinator at AFF) asked me apropos of nothing if I’d be interested in flying down to the festival and moderate a couple panels during the festival’s screenwriter conference. I don’t do much public speaking and I’m fairly certain there’s a reason for that but the gig comes with a complimentary All-Access Pass (retail value around $600) and will force me to interact with filmmakers way more successful than myself so, fully aware of the shit pile I was likely stepping into, I agreed. So now my trip would be closer to 30% business, 70% vacation.

Except…

While all this was happening a film my company was helping to produce called On the Doll had applied and been accepted to play the festival. It’s been argued our friendly relationship with AFF helped tip things in the film’s favor so maybe this was all destined to happen, but all of a sudden now all anyone wants to talk about is flying to Texas for the festival. I’m taking meetings and drawing up schedules and being called upon for my expertise which if you get right down to it is still pretty touristy in nature.

I feel like oil was just discovered under the cabin I’d planned on using for quiet solitude. It’s not a simply a case of more familiar faces joining me on my trip south. Now I’m being rolled into the agenda of shameless self promotion and talent managing which is a full-time job often spent wearing a false smile and living and breathing at the end of a cell phone. It’s the ugly side of producing and I hadn’t anticipated doing much of it on this trip. Basically my trip’s now a coin flip business and pleasure.

There are upsides, of course, to all this. For starters I probably won’t have to pick up a tab the entire time I’m down there between my boss and the director and producer of On the Doll, which considering how much I drink while I’m on the road is a big plus for me. There’s also the “I’m with the film” factor, which I suspect is more impressive sounding than “I’m with the festival.” The thing is, now I’m accountable to people so I’ll have to be a lot more discrete with my goofing off.

The most immediate bit of discretion will be what screenings I attend and when. I’d sold my boss on a plan to seek out distribution-less darlings on the fringes of the festival with the not so modest intentions of acquiring them. Not that we have the money or infrastructure to do so mind you, but he’d worked out some fantasy a while back that we were going to be the next Miramax or something. It was a fool-proof plan, or so I’d thought: I tell my boss I went to see a bunch of no-budget, no-tripod-using DV-shot junkers that just didn’t quit fit the bill, while secretly sneaking off to see, say, the new Coens film at a gala premiere (this by the way is strictly conjecture on my part; I am not privy to any advance info regarding what films are playing AFF this year and if No Country for Old Men is in fact playing this will merely have been an educated guess proving correct)*. Now I’m not sure how I’m gonna swing this. Yeah, I know festivals are supposed to be about discovering unpolished gems and championing little films. So sue me, I know what I like.

Even with company interference, I’m still anticipating a great time in the Lone Star State. Austin sets a fine example for what all film festivals should aspire to live up to, specifically the sense of community it cultivates between filmmakers and festival attendees. There’s a real chummy, pull up a seat vibe to the after-parties. No pretense or velvet rope bullshit. A far cry from snobby, starfucker driven fests like Sundance. It’s the sort of place where all it takes to make friends is to buy someone a drink or offer a cigarette. Writers and talent are frequently roaming around and open to chat. Last year when I was being sexiled from my hotel room (long story) I ended up hanging out with the writers of When a Stranger Called and The Hitcher till 2 in the morning just talking about what a barren wasteland the horror genre had become (give me credit for holding my tongue and not stating the obvious).

The schedule should be announced in the next couple weeks so I’ll have a better idea of what’s in store for me then. I won’t be heading back to Sundance any time soon and obviously I’m not at Toronto so this will be my big, immersive film festival experience of the year and I intend on making the most of it.

*Nope, No Country won't be playing AFF because that would be too perfect. I really am going to have to wait till November to see this fucking movie.

Not Dead, Just Uninspired

2007-09-07T00:12:00.000-07:00

No updates in almost a month. I barely noticed, did you? This blog was created for short, off-the-cuff commentaries (or in the words of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, “commentary: mini”) but I’d pretty much fallen back into the habit of long, dishy tirades well suited to the House Next Door’s Links of the Day. It’s fun to stretch my essay muscles every once in a while but I tend to get bored halfway through them. I’d rather write twelve one-paragraph-long pieces than one twelve-paragraphs-long, so to encourage renewed activity I’m going to try and get into the habit of writing something… anything at least once a day.

Part of the problem has been that I haven’t been to the movies in four weeks (hooray for late August!) when the only thing out are bummer docs about genocide in Darfur, films that should have remained skits on “SNL” and Jason Statham movies. I also haven’t been to a test screening since early summer, and this one can be directly be attributed to the construction being done to turn the Sherman Oaks Galleria into another Arclight. The Galleria is about 10 mins from my front door and hosts 2-3 test screenings a week but during renovations (and recently, a temporary shuttering) they’ve halted or have been scattered up the 101. I really want to see David Gordon Green’s Pineapple Express and Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard but I’m not driving to Thousand Oaks on a work night to do so.

Netflix has definitely come in handy lately. I only saw a couple of movies in theaters during the spring so I’ve finally been able to catch up on the likes of Fracture, The Lookout and Vacancy (PS: I wasn’t missing much) from the comfort of home. I’m also trying to get caught up on “Friday Night Lights” before the new season starts later this month, but my initial response is that of slight disappointment. I’m weary of passing judgment too early (only four-episodes in, with the second disk due in the mail tomorrow) as most great shows get better as they go, but I can’t help but wonder if all the people who went nuts over it, especially the ones who claim it’s not really about football, realize that it’s essentially a better written and directed version of “The O.C.”?

I’m actually going to cut this entry short here as I’ve got a lot to get into but I think if I keep going it’ll all just sort of peter out and die on the page. Short, quick and to the point is the new motto.

DJ Caruso is a Hack Part II

2007-08-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a few weeks now and I’m no less resigned to the fact that New Line is on track to make a god awful adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man. There hasn’t been any casting rumors or script pages leaked to the net. There wasn’t one of those nifty press conferences like the ones at Comic-Con where all the actors get up on stage and talk about how excited they are to be working on the project (because deep down they really consider themselves “nerds”). I’m to assume the project is just quietly progressing behind the scenes and will just as quietly be moved into production with sickening, factory-like efficiency. This is just how things are done.

The last time I addressed this issue, the brunt of my annoyance was leveled at the man hired to direct the film, D.J. Caruso of Salton Sea and Disturbia fame. At the time, I hadn’t seen Disturbia, easily the biggest financial success of his relatively young career, and my comments directed towards the particular film spoke to the public’s response to the film and not my own. The film has since been released on DVD and I made Netflixing the film a top priority of mine (those who know me can attest, I tend to keep my rentals for months at a time so in the event something does come out that I want to see immediately I have to quickly shuffle everything around… Some day I’ll watch Ten Items or Less but that day isn’t going to be anytime soon). This, after all, is the film which got Caruso (and writer Carl Ellsworth) the Y:TLM job, so there must be something to it.

My misgivings about Caruso aside, I had modest hopes for the film which was marketed as a Rear Window knock-off for the Myspace demo. Reviews were kind if not quite glowing and the film was something of an anomaly these days in that it was a legitimate word of mouth hit. Its star, Shia LaBeouf, has earned comparisons to both Hanks and Hoffman (that would be Dustin, not Philip Seymour) both for his low to the ground affability and his unconventional leading man status. He’s non-threatening to women and a believable surrogate for most guys. I wanted to like the film because the premise is pretty much foolproof and after a summer of “toy movies” (which is to say films both inspired by and driven to sell toys), a stripped down, character-driven thriller struck me as an awesome idea in mid August.

But guess what: the film is shit. And worst of all its shit in all the ways that had me worried for the Y:TLM adaptation. Caruso is essentially Brett Ratner with a smaller train set at his disposal. The film is middling and pedestrian and slick-looking without any real sense of style or voice. I feel like the film should be playing in elevators at corporate buildings. This may be the first serial killer film in history that exists as cinematic wallpaper, comfortably conforming and never distracting from the good time the actors are having.

It’s also, to my shock, a toy film as much as the LaBeouf starring Transformers is. That film was of course based on a toy (and, because of Michael Bay’s sensibilities behind the camera, was lit and cut to emphasize all the GM automobiles on display) but this is ultimately something far more insidious; a 90-minute Best Buy circular pitched at teenagers, chock full of goodies just within the grasp of their disposable income, borrowing mom and dad’s credit card, lives. Xbox 360, iPods and iTunes are given repeated shout-outs and the film’s techno chic surveillance gadgets are placed squarely in the “next year’s model” vein. A sequence involving Sarah Roemer’s idealized girl next door character (who is so movie perfect she not only doesn’t mind palling around in Shia’s musky, shithole of a bedroom but is actually turned on by all the astute observations he’s made whilst peeping on her while she’s changing across the way) surveying David Morse’s would-be serial killer in a hardware store seems to be more about the crisp clarity of her camera phone then heightening tension.

Disturbia also finds itself in something of a predicament as short of placing Shia in a leg cast (and no doubt having to pay royalties to the Hitchcock estate) it struggles to find a reason to keep the character confined and the story claustrophobic in nature. Its solution: make apple-cheeked LaBeouf who behaves throughout much of the film as though he’s spent a good deal of time on the receiving end of his share of atomic wedgies and swirlies, a repeat-offender juvenile delinquent placed under house arrest.

Not a bad solution admittedly and one that’s gotten a lot of play in the media lately (Martha Stewart is both name checked as well as incorporated into a typically lousy extended riff) but the casting of Shia works against the plot point. It’s frankly never believable that he’d run afoul of the law enough to warrant such a specialized punishment. The film’s answer to this dilemma is to construct an embarrassingly mawkish back-story explaining the character’s “fall from grace” after he’s involved in a fatal car accident where his father is killed after (I shit you not) a sun-dimpled fly-fishing trip. Like, as in A River Runs Through It. Soon he’s a bundle of nerves who punches out his Spanish teacher in class for invoking his father’s memory and he’s standing in front of a judge for that and “all his previous offenses” which have conveniently been placed way off screen.

The dead-dad internal engine is more or less abandoned once it’s served its purpose but more distressing than how hackneyed it is, is how the film uses it as a cop-out: Shia’s Kale isn’t a bad kid, just a messed up one lashing out at the world. The character is no different than anyone of the millions of over-privileged, latchkey kids spending this summer surfing the net for porn and playing Gears of War, the only difference is now this one can’t go out on Friday nights to annoy me while I’m at the movies.

Disturbia ultimately isn’t smart enough to point the finger at the very people it’s pandering towards. The film stumbles blindly into the irony of our information-now, webcam, streaming audio, techno-junkie culture being a more discreet version of looking in your neighbors’ window with binoculars without ever making a concrete point. It’s as though it were merely dumping a serial killer next door thriller into a YouTube milieu.

And what an awful serial killer film it is. First of all, the plot proper doesn’t kick in for nearly forty-minutes which would be admirable if Shia’s character actually had a personality. Once the film has established the physical parameters of the character’s invisible prison it becomes one long “I’m bored” montage. The character is such a used Kleenex of lazy teenage tropes that we’re supposed to interpret mom cutting off his iTunes account as an unconscionable violation of his identity (dude, it’s the internet… it exists so you can download stuff for free. Be resourceful already). What is poor Shia to do all summer, with nothing but his cable TV, high speed internet, Microsoft gaming system, token non-white friend and cute jailbait next door to occupy his wandering attention?

At this point Kale’s attention is drawn to Morse’s Mr. Turner, living across the street, whom he suspects may be a serial killer because, um, he drives a black car with a dented bumper. No seriously. Oh sure, over time he begins to compile a mountain of incriminating yet allusively coincidental evidence but the film never sells what it is about Turner that’s so darn suspicious. Again, it’s here the films laziness works against its own best interests. In Rear Window Jimmy Stewart’s infirm photographer obsessively gazes at his neighbors because there is no Direct TV or videogames to distract him. Left to nothing but his own devices, small abnormalities and subtle changes in people’s behavior inform his personal soap opera. He has nothing but room for paranoid theories and leaps in logical deduction often against the better judgment of those around him.
Yet Kale lives in such a cluttered, overly fussy world of mind-numbing electronic distractions his seeming obsession with the world outside his window is rendered all the more facile. Who needs the straying husband and the cleaning lady across the way when you’ve got “Cheaters” with host Joey Greco on the television?

Because Morse has spent the better part of twenty years playing smoky-voiced, passive-aggressive heavies (even when he’s not really playing the villain) we expect a certain amount of nuance and misdirection from the performance even if the film’s trailers have gone out of their way to remove all doubt as to the question of his guilt. Whether its hitting on Kale’s over-extended mom (Carrie Anne Moss who seems to have entered this casting director’s black hole of “caustic MILF;” can’t wait for the eventual multi-episode stint on “Desperate Housewives”) like Chris Sarandon in Fright Night or forcing himself into Roemer’s car and then politely (no, really) asking her to please stop stalking him, Morse rides an uncomfortable line between creep and creepy that’s ultimately a lot more interesting than whatever busywork his younger costars are occupying themselves with. Almost in response to how frantic and cluttered the film itself is, Morse seems to be moving at his own laconic pace, showing his cards only when he’s good and ready.

Unfortunately he not only throws his hand down at the end of the second act, his character also dumps out the entire deck of Bicycle onto the table. After narrowly averting yet another one of pesky Kale’s attempts to dig up dirt on him (and in the process, bringing the police down upon his home), Turner goes on a kill-crazy rampage, bludgeoning Kale’s mom and hitting his best friend with a bat before coming for Kale himself. Sooner than you can say “Here’s Johnny,” Turner is busting down doors, monologuing about how Kale almost foiled his evil plan and skulking in the shadows waiting to pounce. At this point the film enters the lightning round where it proceeds to rip-off every single serial killer film of the past twenty years as Kale moves through Turner’s hidden torture chamber replete with dank lighting, slowly decomposing bodies, moats and icky-looking surgical tools. All that’s missing at this point is a small yapping dog and a bottle of lotion.

Disturbia was never in danger of being mistaken as a good film but watching the film descend to generic shocks and Terminator-like action, I was reminded of another under-criticized genre film which, after writing itself into a corner, threw its carefully considered claustrophobia out the window in favor of armed madmen hurtling down the stairs with a manic look in their eyes. That film was called Red Eye and it was written by Disturbia author Carl Ellsworth. Oh dear, we’ve got a pattern.

What ultimately frustrates me about Disturbia and now has me concerned for Y: The Last Man is how unwilling this film is to engage with any issue beneath the surface, clinging with all its might to the film’s high concept premise and its product placement set dressing. Y:TLM is such a thematically messy, dense, self-aware piece of storytelling yet all I can envision is Ryan Reynolds and a his pet monkey cracking wise and trying to get laid. I see nothing in this film, or for that matter any film Caruso has directed, that tells me he’s interested in anything more then kicking slick product down the assembly line and pandering to the Ritalin-immune, post-MTV generation.

Fucking doomed.

Last One I Swear...

2007-08-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

Unless I can find the scene with Jonah Hill and Carla Gallo in which case I'll not only be posting it but emailing it to every person I know.

Your One-Stop Shop for Everything Superbad

2007-08-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

More Superbad Love

2007-08-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

My goal is to put the entire film up here in bite-size, You Tube clips until some lawyer from Columbia Pictures tells me to cease and desist.

Go see Superbad when it comes out.

2007-08-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

August 17th. Don’t wait. Don’t let its lack of stars or the overall, sort of crummy teen comedy vibe deter you. It’s easily the best film of the summer and the funniest film I’ve seen since Borat.

If my critical muscles hadn’t atrophied long ago I’d be going into more detail as to why it’s one of the most perceptive, awesomely lewd looks at adolescence, friendship, getting fucked, growing up, male behavior and accepting change I've ever seen (rare is the film that borrows elements of and improves upon titles as diverse as 25th Hour, Can't Hardly Wait, and Saturday Night Fever) but these days I’m really only good for a soundbyte. Especially if I LOVE a film as I clearly do this one. I’ve been meaning to write something about how great Ratatouille is for months now and you see how that’s gone (incidentally this is why I’ve never actually been able to write one of those all-encompassing, year-end wrap-up pieces either… just too much gushing. It’s tedium to write I tell ya).

Where was I? Oh yeah, Superbad is pretty much the Citizen Kane of dick joke movies. Easily the comedic equal of Knocked Up without any of that disingenuous moralizing or neo-conservative navel gazing/flabby slacker wish-fullfilment. It’s 100 minutes of movie with an average of one well-earned laugh per minute. I will be paying to see it on its release just to pick up all the gags I missed through the laughter.

But don’t take my word for it. I give you, the “Dick Montage:”

Every band (or performer) I’ve ever seen live in concert…

2007-08-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

At least as far as I can remember.

I’m avoiding reading a lousy script right now while trying to digest dinner so I can workout tonight and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to make a list of every musical act I’ve ever seen live in concert. I’ve been meaning to do this one for a while now simply to put into context how many concerts I really do go to. What makes this list especially impressive is I only went to a handful of concerts before I moved to L.A. in 2003 so the vast majority of this list represents the past four years or so.

Also, it NEEDS to be stated that a lot of these more, let’s call them questionable, acts were usually part of an all-day festival show along the lines of the River Rave in the late 90’s (hello Soul Asylum) or Coachella in more recent years. Just because I stood around listening to a band for a few songs doesn’t mean I was Superfan 99 or anything. I tried to limit this to bands I actually made a concerted effort to listen to (minimum 3-songs) so something along the lines of me standing outside the tent while James Blount caterwauls “Beautiful” doesn’t count.

Also, memory’s a bitch and I know I’m skipping a few big ones (to say nothing of dozens of forgettable opening acts) so this will probably be updated a couple three times or so.

Sure, you’ll mock my list. Then you’ll wonder why I wasted my time making it. Then you’ll go make your own list because it’s fucking awesome to lay-out a musical lifetime in front of you like this.

(updated 9/15/09)

Nine Inch Nails x7
The Crystal Method x4 (three times at DJ sets, once performing their own material)
Ladytron x 4
Alice in Chains x3 (all times post Layne’s passing)
Morphine x3 (R.I.P. Sandman)
30 Seconds to Mars x2 (although closer to 1.5)
Aerosmith x2
Arcade Fire x2 (although closer to 1.5)
C.S.S. x2
Daft Punk x2
The Dandy Warhols x2
Explosions in the Sky x2
M.I.A. x2
Paul Oakenfold x2 (although closer to 1.5)
The Red Hot Chili Peppers x2 (significantly less engaged the second time)
Tool x2
Wolfmother x2
!!!
120 Days
Air Supply (don't judge: it was for a woman)
Aphex Twin
Arctic Monkeys
Bjork
Black-Eyed Peas (tellingly, not with Fergie)
David Bowie
The Bravery
The Breeders
Manu Chao
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Common
Creed
Datarock
The Dave Matthews Band (still the most surprising name on this list IMHO)
Death Cab for Cutie (fuck this emo awfulness)
Depeche Mode
The Faint
Fatboy Slim
Franz Ferdinand
The Fray
Garbage
Ghostface and Raekwon
Girl Talk
God Lives Underwater
Gogol Bordello
Goldfrapp
Guns & Roses (although it was after everyone but Axel left the band)
Greenday
Health
Hotchip
Incubus
Interpool
Io Echo
Jackyl
Jane's Addiction
Jem
Linkin Park
Madonna
Marilyn Manson
Massive Attack
Matisyahu
Metallica (arguably the best concert listed, although there’s millions of intangibles involved)
Method Man & Redman
MGMT
Modwheelmood
Mos Def
Muse
My Morning Jacket
Nas
New Order
Peaches
Placebo
The Offspring
Papa Roach
Pendulum
Liz Phair
The Pharcyde
Pharoahe Monch
Jackyl
Jimmy Plant & Robert Page
Portishead
Prick
Prince (the second best live performance I've ever seen and the best in Coachella's history)
Queens of the Stone Age
Rage Against the Machine
The Rentals
Rilo Kiley
The Roots
Satellite Party
Silverchair
Silversun Pickup
Slayer
Sloan
Soul Asylum
Bruce Springsteen
Street Sweeper Social Club
Tegan & Sara
Tenacious D
Tiësto
A Tribe Called Quest
Underworld
The Verve Pipe
Roger Waters
Kanye West
The Who

I give good copy

2007-08-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

Craig D. Lindsey of the News Observer in North Carolina quoted me and gave my blog a shout out (although didn't list the URL... grumble grumble grumble) in an article that went up last week about how shitty summer films are. You can read me picking fights with millionaires here . Unlike some other recent articles that conspicuously (*cough*) disappeared from this blog, I don't completely destroy my reputation in this article, so let's all be grateful for that (Burns will no doubt be bored that I don't splay my train wreck of a social life out for public consumption this time out). Actually to be honest, the article makes me look a lot more diligent than I really am.

Yeah I skipped Shrek 3 and Pirates 3 and Fantastic Four 2 (did that movie even come out?) but I still spent money on Hostel 2, Ocean's 13, Die Hard: de-balled and Michael Bay's giant toy movie so I don't know who I'm kidding. Still it was a noble effort and I'm especially pleased with my jabs at Spidey 3.

Yeah shameless self promotion!

Our bullpen is so sexy it hurts.

2007-07-31T16:26:00.000-07:00

Okajima in the 7th.
Gagne in the 8th
Pabelbon in the 9th.

BOOYA!

Plus for situational use you’ve now got Delcarmen who’s been much improved this season (a couple of recent implosions both expected and not withstanding), Timlin and Tavarez who’s pretty solid for one pass through the lineup.

Of course our bullpen’s been pretty amazing all season; that was never really the issue. The Gagne trade smack of Yankee-blocking: keeping a high profile arm away from New York bullpen as the season moves into the home stretch. And I’m not sure we really need Gagne, who seems mostly recovered from elbow surgery but wasn’t having the season that either Okajima or Pabelbon have been having. If nothing else he can now spell Pabelbon in the closer role for a few games, but is that really worth the cost?

The money isn’t so much the issue as losing Kason Gabbard and David Murphy in the bargain, the latter whose value has dropped somewhat since the emergence of Jacoby Ellsbury. But Gabbard’s 4-0 this season and a lefty, something we’ve gone the whole season without. With Schilling coming back from the DL in a week and Jon Lester inching back to his pre-cancer highs there was, arguably, nowhere to put Gabbard other than back to AAA Pawtucket which really wasn’t going to help anyone, so perhaps his greatest value was as trade bait. But man do I feel weird giving up a promising young leftie when you’re banking on two pitchers coming off of injuries staying healthy through the end of the season.

Plus, with the odds of the Sox spending another 13 million to keep old man Schilling around next season pretty low and Wakefield not getting any younger, would it have been so bad to have a rotation built around Beckett, Dice-K, Lester, Gabbard and Wakefield (with maybe Clay Bucholtz up by mid-year) next season? Now we’re just going to have to go find some over-priced free agent in the off-season to fill a self-created void. That sort of thing just bugs the shit out of me.

But whatever, we’ve essentially lowered an iron curtain from the 6th inning on. Our League best E.R.A. just got even better. Now all we have to worry about is scoring more than 3 runs a game, but when you’re banking on the awesome numbers being put up by JD Drew and Doug Mirabelli how hard should that be?

But hey, the bullpen’s rock solid.

I don’t see the resemblance either

2007-07-30T14:32:00.001-07:00

So after no less than a dozen tries, I was finally able to “Simpsonize” myself after almost everyone else on the net was done the gimmick and quickly moved on. The software stinks and it kept bugging out on me but I guess I hit a lucky streak today. I’m a little bit disappointed in how it came out; not exactly a spitting image of myself. I suspect my features aren’t really “cartoonish” enough for any kind of real resemblance to come out. What did I expect though, it’s just a stupid Burger King marketing tool anyway. Plus it captured my weak chin perfectly I think.

And while I'm on the subject, a quick note on The Simpsons Movie. It's exactly what you expect it to be. No more, no less. Consistently amusing but eminently forgettable. Lots of little laughs but no big, sustained one. The South Park movie remains safe as far as evolutionary leaps between show and film goes. Still, I can't think of too much I'd change... scratch that... it really needed more of the show's supporting cast. Over the years the family's become the least interesting part of the show. But really minor gripes that are almost unavoidable when staging something 18-years in the making. For better or worse, the quintessential disposable summer movie.

Bourne Again

2007-07-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Okay so first thing’s first: can anyone remind me what happened in the last one? All I can remember is Franka Potente driving a jeep off a bridge and the camera twitching uncontrollably like Katherine Hepburn on one of those vibrating benches that Stern is such a fan of. The Bourne Supremacy has been canonized in the past three years (just the other day a friend referred to it as “a masterpiece of the genre”) but I remember despising it, often with me fighting the urge to exit the theater and go vomit in a corner or at the very least track down some Dramamine post haste.

Actually I was about to go into an extended rant on why Supremacy didn’t work for me but I realized I said it best on my (defunct) Geocities page so I’ll just reprint the choice excerpts below. I’ll be back in a minute:

…this is really a failure. An ambitious failure mind you, but ultimately an unmitigated one, with every single scene rife with glaring missteps and fatal miscalculations by all parties involved. Put bluntly, Greengrass is a hack (I was thoroughly unimpressed with his horrifically over-praised Bloody Sunday) relying upon the same stylistic crutch he used in his previous film. While the first film evoked the films of the cold war with its use of wide angles, long takes, artfully choreographed blocking and an overall jazzy tone that set the mood for the perfect summer film, Bourne 2 finds the filmmakers striving for portent and manufactured pathos, and involves a visual scheme just this side of epileptic (there's a word for critics who bag on Michael Bay's editing while applauding Greengrass' slash-and-hack approach here: they're called hypocrites). Plot is largely inconsequential, as I suspected the filmmakers had developed amnesia somewhere between Naples and Berlin, and the action (including the much heralded climactic car chase) is lacking any kind of emotional tangibility or spacial[sp] coherence. Frankly, I cared less and less about the film with each passing minute
--July 23, 2004

And I’m back. If I could just make a couple of less knee-jerk observations with three years removed from my disappointment, I’d say my opinion of director Paul Greengrass has softened somewhat. The hack label was unfair, and while I’ll never respond to it in the way its champions do, I don’t think anyone could have made a better film of United 93. I think Greengrass is a serious filmmaker who’s got a lot more on his mind than frivolous summer fun and he lends a lot of weight to a series which really started out as a Cold War lark.

I tend to over-praise Liman’s first Bourne film, but there was almost a “Gee whiz” sense of discovery to the character; something about the whole amnesia angle and Damon’s apple-cheeked performance. It was the ultimate little boy fantasy: what if you woke up tomorrow and you were a killing machine on the run from the government? The direction was crisp and clean and simple, and really allowed you to appreciate the incredible stunt work. Long, fluid camera movements that really capture the excitement of watching someone do what they’re great at (they being both Bourne and the action coordinators).

Greengrass, as a citizen of the world, seems a lot more interested in fall-out and the effect these back-office black-ops have not only on their victims but the men and women whose job it is to execute them. It was so angsty and unpleasant and annoyed at the world half the time I thought the camera was shaking because Greengrass was kicking it in frustration. But remove the overused “this time it’s personal” angle and there was really nothing holding the film together. Bourne is pissed. Bourne is under attack. Bourne brings the fight to your door. The plotting existed more to move Bourne from one foreign locale to another (again not a bad thing per say, Bond does the same thing) but Greengrass seemed intent on sapping all of the fun out of the entire endeavor.

I can’t quite pinpoint exactly why I liked The Bourne Ultimatum so much more than Supremacy as it contains many of the same issues, especially the same problematic tendencies from Greengrass. Greengrass directs action the way Baz Luhrman directs dancing; lots of quick cuts and artificial energy without any real sense of what’s happening and where. There’s a brutal hand to hand combat scene in the film’s Tangiers sequence that’s sure to get a lot of attention but I was mostly irritated at how close and tight Greengrass places the camera. It’s like watching two Olympic judo champions from three inches away; we know what they’re doing is spectacular but there’s not enough distance to appreciate it.

Greengrass repeats this visual scheme throughout this film but the result is less detrimental I *think* because there’s more to the film than simply Bourne’s white hot rage at his former employers. For starters, Bourne has been given a truly worthy antagonist in David Strathairn’s deputy director. Strathairn’s character is cut from the same entitled, starched, white beaurocrat mode who’s not above getting his hands dirty. Joan Allen who was fine in the last film was ultimately too professional and “decent” to really hammer home the threat so this film wisely places her in the role of Bourne’s uneasy ally. The film finds Bourne looking inward, desperate to find the men who made him what he is (much of this material reminded me of Wolverine’s past in the X-Men series) only to find he’s more complicate in his behavior than he’d like to believe.

The film has genuine appreciation for the skill of tactics and one-upmanship, with each side covertly moving against the other. While the film is shockingly violent at times its most riveting sequences are those where we see Bourne anticipating several moves ahead of everyone else, such as an early sequence involving a series of phone calls and a busy train station. While I think Greengrass tends to distort our perspective too much in the action sequences, you do get the sense you’re watching a chess game being played.

But mostly the film returns some of the fun to the story. It still pushes the characters into some dark waters but the film itself retains the propulsive energy one would expect from a film opening in the first week of August. The thing fucking cooks; even when it’s unclear what direction we’re heading in there’s no downtime to get worked up over it. Plus (and this is a big one) it certainly compares favorable to most of the summer’s big event films. The series ultimately got away from where I wish it would have gone, but it’s more or less as it should be in the end. Plus, factor in everyone on Earth loved Supremacy except for me so whatever my enthusiasm is for this one, figure yours will be up exponentially.

Y God Why?

2007-07-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

I knew this was coming but it hurts and it sucks.

As first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, who are currently camped out at Comic-Con, the production team of BenderSpink is following through on their Quixotic journey to adapt Brian K. Vaughn’s groundbreaking, long-form comic Y the Last Man into a self-contained feature film. And as if this idea weren’t awful enough to begin with, they’ve brought along some of the least talented people in Hollywood to help forever taint the memory of this incredible property.

I don’t know D.J. Caruso personally. He seemed agreeable enough while serving as a guest host on “On the Lot” but in the past five years this is the resume he’s compiled:

2002: The Salton Sea
2004: Taking Lives
2005: Two for the Money
2007: Disturbia

Distrubia may end up being the most profitable film in Dreamworks’ short history and what little memory I have of Two for the Money was mostly pleasant, but Salton and Taking Lives would make a short list of the worst films of the new millennium. He’s for all intents and purposes a voice-less hack who can probably bring a project in on time and on budget but will never be accused of crafting something lasting or memorable.

But it gets worse: from what I’ve been hearing, Vaughn’s (who had been working on a script for the project for over a year) drafts of the script appear to have been tossed aside in favor of a new one from Carl Ellsworth who’s worked previously with Caruso on Disturbia and BenderSpink on Red Eye. So basically, a guy whose only credits of note are cheap, claustrophobic thrillers has been handed the reigns to a story that takes place over seven contents over the course of five years.

Here’s the thing, it’s doubtful there’s a filmmaker alive who could even partially do this story justice in a feature film format. Unlike most comic books, Y the Last Man doesn’t have superheroes and villains or a simple plot to be resolved. With less than a hundred issues in total (the series is scheduled to conclude its run by the end of 2007), the series explored an uncertain future where nearly every male creature on Earth is wiped out instantaneously by a toxin, save for its reluctant hero, lovelorn street magician Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand. With 49% of the world’s population gone (including the vast majority of the world’s politicians, police officers, doctors, soldiers and athletes) and Yorick’s survival seemingly intertwined with the virus, the comic deals with the sobering reality that the human race is likely doomed in four generations (the story taps into a lot of the anxiety cultivated by Children of Men but actually pre-dates the film by years) but still needs to make do in the meantime. It’s a story about evolution and acceptance and starting over. It was funny and topical. It was digressive yet propulsive. It allowed room for both a feminist slant on a typical male-driven genre will still making room for latent male fantasy (lots of girl-on-girl action).

And it can in now way be told in 2 hours.

Or in a couple 2-hour movies (not like we’d get sequels).

The comic so blatantly calls out for the television treatment that Vaughn even preemptively addresses this complaint on his Myspace page’s Frequently Asked Questions. The obvious model for this would be (aside from Stephen King’s The Stand) is the show “Lost” which, ironically enough, Vaughn currently serves as one of its staff writers. Yorick is barely the hero of his own story and streamlining a narrative that follows him exclusively not only would be detrimental to the story, it goes against the very spirit of it. If ever there were a global story, this would be the one, yet a feature-film’s limitations tells me any glance at the larger world outside of our protagonist would be cursory at best.

I get it now. I get every Potter fan who groaned when they hired Chris Columbus, or Fantastic Four fan who get films from the director of Barbershop and Taxi or for that matter my good friend Sean Burns who’s had Mark Steven Johnson destroy not only Daredevil and Ghost Rider for him but also the promise of fucking up the upcoming Preacher TV-Series (which, by the way, is also a BenderSpink production… guys HINT HINT HINT).

This entire concept is so horribly misconceived I can’t lay too much blame on Caruso and Ellsworth no matter how happy it would make me. The fault here lies at the feet of Vertigo the comic’s publisher (which like everything else under the sun is a division of Time Warner) as well as with Vaughn and co-author Pia Guerra for selling off the rights without protecting the integrity of the project. I’m sure they were all well compensated for their efforts but they ultimately bear the responsibility for the entire misbegotten enterprise.