Short Reviews - December 2007

"Remember me, Jen. We may meet in another life, but not again in this one."
-The Dark Crystal

It's come to my attention that cable programmers are having entirely too much fun. Four Sandra Bullock movies in a row? I hate being the straight man here paying through the nose each month for that! And on top of that, they're pointing out all the Action Movie Clichés to boot! Why, just the other day there was this muscular babe on there... well, maybe a little too muscular for my taste. I prefer a girl I could beat up if I had to. Seriously, though, there's what they call The Kamikaze, which is that Cliché Character who sacrifices himself in an oh-so-glorious cinematic way, like Randy Quaid in Independence Day. I thought he survived that! They also cited Mystery Men, but just so they could make barely scatological jokes about giving up your ball for the Greater Good (GrGo). Right, Tom Green? What was the other one? Oh yeah, T2. So-called Movie Kamikazes apparently end up living most of the time.

The cliché that this all puts me in mind of, is the Unwilling Hostage (UnH) I'll dub it for the time being. Take Tim Robbins in Nothing to Lose, or Cate Blanchett in Bandits. They're usually driving a car, and they usually say "Go ahead! Shoot me. I don't care." For some reason, you don't see too much of that anymore. The Tightly Woven Moral Fabric of the Universe (TWMFU) must not've liked that a whole lot. Plus, in the theater, some of the action sequences in Bandits were a little too blurry for my tastes. WTF, Spinotti? Shame on you! Didn't you shoot Heat (1995) ? For shame! That's it, you're out of the AIC.

Anyway, back to the Brevity. The whole Brevity thing. With the unfortunate assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Hollywood is no doubt going to respond in kind. So, who gets to play Bhutto? Jolie or Zeta-Jones? My money's on Jolie. Of course, she's probably busy with Tomb Raider 3, but we can always wish, can't we?

Levity - Billy Bob with long hair. Never saw it.

Goya's Ghosts - Shame on you, Milos! You DID direct something after Man on the Moon after all!

Man on the Moon - Classic. Man, Carrey really nailed it.

Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) - I have a feeling Kubrick would've really loved this. Best homage to The Dawn of Man he never saw.

Speed 2: Cruise Control - Worst Dorf video ever!

Two if by Sea - Denis Leary's A River Runs Through It. Say, Denis, you recall what Dr. Dre's two word review of this was? ;)

Arachnia - Not to be confused with Arachnophobia. Brett Piper not to be confused with Brett Leonard, or Steven Paul.

(http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0666999/#director)

Double Trouble - Not to be confused with the one with Van Damme. Not to be confused with Think Big, either. Right, Turtlehead? Heh heh heh ... ;)

Oh no! They cancelled Kenny vs. Spenny!

Soulja Boy? No, no. After all the years we spent trying to forget Sister Souljah... This will not stand!


Hardy Men - Finally! All those years that Stiller devoted to doing a Tom Cruise impression are finally paying off!

Banger Sisters, The - Now Goldie's Almost Famous!

"Hell date" - it's Da Bomb, so I've heard... Remember, Whitey! 'Def' is dead.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets - Oh great. Now Turteltaub's thinking, See Jerry? I toldja we should've filmed 2 and 3 together! Aw, c'mon, Teach! Please please please...

Short Time - Burt Simpson? Great name ...

The Rock - Goodspeed! Great name ...

Terms of Endearment - Flap Horton? Great name ...

Point Break - Johnny Utah? Great name ...

Point Blank - Man, I'm always confusing those two...

And finally, one last fond farewell to Adrienne Shelly. 'Til we meet again, my sweet. Meantime, everyone A) go to Adrienne Shelly's website and Give Till It Hurts (GTIH) and b) catch up on her back catalog: The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Waitress, Factotum, Tiger: His Fall & Rise, Rock the Boat, Sudden Manhattan, The Road Killers, Teresa's Tattoo... um, not Hexed. You can all just skip Hexed.

Meantime, to all you homicidal maniacs out there, couldja just stop killing people for a while? Ya think? Too much to ask? Thought so.


adrienneshellyfoundation.org

... & a Happy Frickin' New Year, Goombahs!

Ah, the last one of the year. To be filled later, I've got a life to lift!...

Welp, Nat'l. Trez. 2 is #1 again. Mystery to me still, but nevertheless, never underestimate the attraction of taking the President hostage. We can't threaten the President, of course, but hostage taking? Oh, that's okay! And besides! It's being done in the name of National Treasure! I'm sure he'll understand!

Meanwhile... oh, I'm just not happy 'bout this at all. And I'm sure K. Smith ain't either. Alvin & his Chipmunks bumps I Am Legend down to #3. Now who's going to do Clerks 3??

You can do it, Charlie Wilson! You blockhead! CWW at #4. Yeah, Aaron Sorkin's fallen on hard times as of late. Can't keep Studio 60 on longer than one season, The West Wing's finally totally gone, now this! Can't get higher than #4.

And of course, rounding out the Top 5 is America's precious Juno. All I know is, that kid from Superbad's been very, very busy! Well hung for a nerd, that's all I gotta say. Doesn't that make him an Undercover Nerd? (UN) He's not a REAL NERD! Oh well, gotta leave that one alone, it says here...
-----------
Meanwhile, someone's disastrous distribution decision led to AvP2 coming in at #6. It managed to find its way into the Top 10 last week as well, but it's like it didn't exist at all. But it'll be on Sin-a-max soon enough, won't it? Maybe they'll have some sort of Alien and Predator marathon. On Memorial Day! How appropriate would that be?

At #7, it's another Dark Horse of sorts: The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. Best thing since Wild Hearts Can't be Broken. Or that thing from 1985 about loggers... Natty Gann, was it? I swear, that's Lucy Lawless' kid. Look how tall he is!!!!!

At #8 it's P.S. I Love You. Well, it's no Living Out Loud, but given the bleakness of the season, Romantic Comedy-wize it'll just have to do. I don't know why, but after films like Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don't Cry and Karate Kid 4, Hilary Swank just ain't your typical sex symbol. Maybe if Jessica Simpson were in the movie and they have a ... you know, kinduva "kissin' sisters" kinda scene. Even if only just on the DVD deleted scenes section. C'mon, Gravenese! You gotta do a stunt like that to get people talkin'!

Man! You'd think people'd be a little more eager to see the latest Depp / Burton project. Not so, in this case! They prob'ly should've released it about the same time as No Country for Old Men. Similar themes, in a way. People would just rather not see blood right now. Dang! It's like Xmas 1999 all over again, or something.

And finally, Enchanted crossed the 100 million barrier. Well, Disney's cryonically frozen head's happy about that... but not too happy. Why not 200 million? And why do all those Pixar things make all the money these days, incidentally? This world's too strange for me. My corporate underlings aren't preparing for my Resurrection at all! Good help's so hard to find these days...

Two Hundred Cigarettes ... And Posts !!

Oh great, another damn MTV motion picture. Man, you'd think they'd be playin' this one 24/7 on the Showtime networks, but not so!
Anyway, we're about 20 posts or so past it, but my original plan was to review this in celebration of my 200th post to this blog, because a) it's fun to celebrate, and 2) I always kinda remembered this title

in the back of my mind. Or d) maybe it was just Christina Ricci saying "1982 will be, like, the best year ev-ah!" And hey, who doesn't want to go down memory lane every once in a while? For me, more like

once a week. Besides, my life in 1982 probably wouldn't make as cool a movie. Certainly wouldn't of been for adults like The Islander here; I was about ten at the time.

Yes, back when the spectre of AIDS didn't loom large over everyone, or lung cancer, apparently. But that's the genius of the film. Like being cool, to question its need for logic is to not get it. It's just a nice little slice of life, just a couple hours before and after 1981 gave way to 1982. There are no plot pretensions here, but they do attempt to weave a fabric of short films together. ...My parole officer has warned me about blatantly whitewashing the concept of movie plots. (Example: saying outright that a movie has no plot... Plot? What plot? There's no plot! It's not Shakespeare! It's just Pac-Man but with people...) In our instant case, 200 cigs, it's like someone doing a Woody Allen clone, but for MTV. For me, there's something inconveniently ironic about the negativity of all the characters rallying against the pointlessness of New Year's at the beginning, but at the end everyone finds their true love at the New Year's party, like at the end of How to Make an American Quilt, for example.

The soundtrack's okay, but where's The Buggles? Where's Like A Virgin? Or Prince? Or Born in the USA? It's not my MTV, let's put it that way. If I were Elvis Costello, I wouldn't be too proud of this one.** Also, when Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", I was probably supposed to appreciate its placement in terms of the plot, but somehow I didn't care. Was I supposed to? Guess in general I'm just not ready for an 80s Renaissance.

-*=*-

There's a couple good lines here and there, however. Paul Rudd gives us the following gem: "It's inevitable, you know? You let somebody move in with you, you make all these little compromises to smooth things along, and the next thing you know, you're on some macrobiotic diet and you're listening to Joni Mitchell. And then you know what they say? ... They tell you you've changed! You're not the same person that I fell in love with. Well, yeah!..."

Martha Plimpton is the closest thing to a matriarch in the movie. My favorite line of hers would have to be "No one's going to show up to my party... No, the LOSERS will be here."

But the line "It's not what you think" should be banned from movies forever. Seriously. Forever and ever, amen. From real life, too.

----

As for the rest of the cast, well, it's a large cast and everyone fights to make their mark. That's why nobody wins. But there are a handful of standouts left standing, ultimately. Gaby Hoffman, for example, plays the uptight, scared best friend with Tourettes Syndrome. Every line has at least one F-word. Normally, I don't notice things like that, but after a while it became quite noticeable. Maybe David Mamet wrote her lines. Maybe she was an understudy on a stage production of Oleanna, who knows. At one point she inadvertently gives in to the Slamdancing bug. It's just temporary, though, and I kinda liked that.

Christina Ricci ends up French kissing three different guys! She should get three paychecks for that. Another critic complained about her accent, but I would say it's about as good as her accent work in Sleepy Hollow, if not better.

Kinda fun to see Kate Hudson playing the opposite of her character in Almost Famous. She starts off paired with Jay Mohr. They turn out to be perfect for one another, but end up ... well, why spoil it?

Angela Featherstone sure was hot, though. She reminded me of Margaret Colin in Like Father, Like Son. You remember her from that Seinfeld where she's the maid/girlfriend, which leads to Seinfeld's Stooge-esque line "Oh, the ol' dumping me / quitting thing, huh? Well, we're through! ... And you're fired..."

Ben Affleck tries to get a three-way going with Featherstone and her friend. Oh, he's such a nasty, naughty boy! But, can you blame 'im? I kinda liked that line that Ben Affleck gave to the two girls "How do you like your eggs in the morning: scrambled or fertilized?" I bet... nay, I KNOW Kevin Smith ghost-wrote that one. Hell, he's probably used that line in a bar a couple times...

The closest thing to a sympathetic character here is Eric, an Irish artist who draws vagina-esque flowers. And yet, he's a terrible lover; irony there somewhere... He's kinda like Matthew Modine in Short Cuts. But he's a nobody, so who cares.

Dave Chappelle plays a cab driver, but not just any cab driver. Nothing less than the funkiest, most mellow cab driver in NYC. He seems to belong more in a 70s movie, but this is a period piece, remember, taking place on the cusp between 1981 and 1982. Close enough. This is not a total whitewash of history.* Seems to be doing some of his Tyrone Biggums character but without the white lips.

Paul Rudd has the unfortunate task of fighting off the advances of Courtney Love. They end up in a philosophical dilemma similar to what Elaine and Jerry once went through: can two long-time friends stay friends after having sex?

And well, what more is there to be said of Casey Affleck? He's the man of the year here in 2007, even though he has but a small role here. But as always, there are no small parts if you're Casey Affleck. Why he didn't get to play George Harrison in Dewey Cox, I'll never know.

And Elvis Costello, well, if I were him I wouldn't be too proud of this one. Probably more than Meat Loaf in Blacktop, but still, not too proud. But like they always say, a Meat Loaf Aday doesn't keep the cardiologist at bay! ;)


***
-so sayeth the The Movie Hooligan


footnotes
* - note to self: take that line out!!
** - Redundant? Ah, who cares...

The Soderbergh Rat Pack*: Bourne Three...

Bourne Three... as Three as the wind blows
As Three as the grass grows
Bourne 3 to follow your heart ...

... nothin'? All right. Folks, the pernt is...

Yes, as the Video Game-ification of Cinema (VGC, VGiC) marches on, it finally sweeps away the Damon-Bourne Franchise. Oh sure, it's made plenty of money (about 200 million, was it?), and it's high up in the IMDb Top 250 (used to be at around #50!), but I don't know. It left me kinda dizzy. I'm kind of an old-school video games man myself: you know, Pac Man, Bubble Bobble, Time Pilot 84. Yeah, the 80s was my decade. The last of the great decades. Hell! There's even a couple movies that feature Time Pilot 84: Last Starfighter and Max. Overdrive, if I remember correctly. Oh sure, it's only in the background. TP84 was only a featured player, but still!** The point being, movies are trying too hard to keep up with video games, and are suffering as a consequence. Some people said that the success of The Blair Witch Project was in part because of all the vomit-inducing amateur camera work. Sorta the same principle at work in Bourne 3. At least Bourne 2 had a little visual clarity. I took a still frame from one of the quieter moments in the film as you can see. It's from the part where Ed Murrow spills the guts about Blackbriar... well, I won't ruin the surprise. It's still a little nebulous to me, actually. Again, video games: Damon this go-round is a little TOO aware of all that's happening around him.
...But getting back to my whole New Rat Pack Theory. I'll reiterate it here: there are now THREE new rat packs, fronted by three people whose last name begins with S: Sandler, Stiller and Soderbergh. And why the Rat Pack? Because this isn't a Lord of the Rings special effects heavy superhit. As I say up top, Bourne 3 is a Soderbergh Rat Pack production. Tony Gilroy is benefitting from the Soderbergh Rat Pack's good will this year of our lord 2007, with his directorial debut in tow Michael Clayton. Better start working on Bourne 4 as a Safety Net Day Job kinda thing. (SNDJ) Who else? Albert Finney, of E. Brock fame and O12 cameo fame, has an all-too-brief (ATB) part here as the arch bad guy. SPOILER: Brian Cox was the arch bad guy (ABG) in Bourne 2. Incidentally, how come you never see Finney and Cox in the same movie together? Answer? THEY'RE THE SAME GUY!

Final note: my close friend and I were subliminally trying to out-do each other on how much we eventually hated the movie. He wouldn't look for it on DVD at the pawn shop, but might accept it as a gift. He gives it 2 and a half stars; I'll give it three. At least Sandy Bullock wasn't in it; then it gets 2 and a half from me.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

footnotes
* I'll explain later when I have better visual aides.
** To all the fans of the original Time Pilot: PLEASE STOP EMAILING ME!

M. Night Shyamalan Theater 3000: The Motion Picture

(Or, as I like to call it: MNST3K: The Motion Picture.)

I see what M. Night is trying to do*, but it still sucks. ;)

**
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan (TMH? MOOHOO?)

-footnotes
* Okay, here's what M. Night's trying to do. Perhaps it is his indictment of how Hollywood movies are made, or perhaps it's his valiant attempt to do something different, but any way you look at it, the screenplay for Lady in the Water is nothing less than the Proto-Screenplay. That Mighty Acorn that M. Night planted which ends up growing the whole damn Hollywood Screenplay Tree, with William Goldman, Paddy Chayefsky and Matthew Michael Carnahan being but mere branches. Mere branches. Mere pine cones and twigs in Louis B. Mayer's backyard. Mere footnotes unto themselves, along with Dalton Trumbo and Preston Sturges, with a little Joe Eszterhas thrown into the mix. For good measure.

Take for instance, the speech that Bob Balaban gives before he gets mauled by the Colbert bear. Very insightful! Very, very self-aware of his place in the universe in general, and in the screenplay in particular. And all that stuff about "The Council", it is true. Generally, movies show how actions relate from a Seat of Power higher up than the boots on the ground, if you will. A tradition as old as Buster Keaton, and as new as Matrix 2 & 3. But M. Night forgot The Most Cardinal Movie Rule Of All, and it is this: DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO HIDE THE RULES! Do NOT make the audience aware of the rules. Don't make the audience think: aww, I can make a movie as good as this. Do not make Self-Awareness a movie style.
Just a thought, anyhow. Also, comedy names. Cleveland Heep? Story? Well, comedy-drama names. Just give 'im the damn Oscar he should've gotten for Sixth Sense and this will all be over! Trust me...

What I want foR 'Xmas

ell, I would like to get that kick-ass new Bat Bike from the upcoming New Batman part 2 (or as it's known in the biz, Batman 6), but you know how it is. I'm getting on in years, and a thing like the new Bat-Cycle, as kick-ass as it is, it's a Young Man's Game (YMG). No more of them Crotch Rockets (CRs) for me! I'm still using those damn ice packs! Those special Retro-Crotch Fitted (RCF) Ice Packs! (RCFIP?) And besides, there's the insurance, there's the whole getting a new garage thing. Don't kid me! I know Ferris Bueller. You think those goofballs are gonna leave well enough alone? (LWEA) No! Every two-bit garage owner and mechanic's going to be lined up around the block waiting to pay a small fee to ride shotgun on that thing. Shotgun? On bikes?Anyway, that's how out of it I is. Maybe strap a nice oily sidecar to it, charge more; special extra-wide sidecar for fat chicks.

Meantime, can I have Sweeney Todd be #1 at the box office for Xmas? Is that too much to ask? ... Spoke too soon! It was too much to ask. Apparently, Nic Cage is now the nation's Uncle with war stories to tell, and he waters them down just enough for the kids... Nat'l Treasure 2. NOW can Turteltaub be in the DGA? Pleeeeeeze?

Hoh, boy. 18 pages from JWB's diary, huh? Shouldn't that be ... EIGHTEEN AND A HALF PAGES?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

While all that's goin' on, I Am Legend slightly slips to #2. Now, that's all well & good, and Smith's got his street cred back from the whole Happyness debacle, but could you have gone with a more modest title?

A & the C at #3. Jason Lee's the new Brendan Fraser, don't kid yourselfves. (DKY)

Charlie Wilson's War at #4. Let's Face It (LFI), people just don't wanna laugh anymore. I think people are burned out on any kind of comparison with our current White House Administration. Look at Lions for Lambs! Better yet, save yourself heartbreak: don't look at Lions for Lambs!

Hanks & Nichols together for the first time, I think. With Julia Roberts in tow. Are Hanks and Nichols part of The Soderbergh Rat Pack yet?*

And to round out the top 5 this week, it's my beloved Sweeney Todd. Or as I like to think of it, Sleepy Hollow 2. Only with singing, apparently. Yecch!

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

Can you believe it? (CYBI?) They knocked my beloved NCFOM off the top 10. It's assassination, I tells ya! But you know what? (YKW) It's all good because it's gonna win 15 Oscars, and it's at #14 in the IMDb Top 250! All right, let's get to the rest of this garbage...

At #6 it's P.S. I Love You. This has gotta be a remake. Another one of those that sneaks in under my radar. Dayamn! And I thought I was hip! ...okay, I get what this is. Another one of those Kennedy Compound exposés, right? Right, LaGravenese?

At #7 it's Enchanted. So close to the 100 million barrier. Sorry, Barry, ol' Will did it in two weeks! Suck on that!

At #8 it's Dewey Cox. Man, the Kasdan clan sure has fallen on hard times. Even harder than Cox himself! Get it?....

Golden Compass at #9. Bet they didn't see that coming! No matter what nautical instruments they were using. Man, I haven't seen something bomb that hard since Pluto Nash. ...okay, to be fair, G. Comp's not bombing THAT badly...

And finally at #10, it's the critic's beloved Juno. I hate this movie. I don't know why, and I haven't seen it, and it's already on the Top 250, but I still hate this movie. Maybe because I've seen the trailer, like, five times already. Maybe it's perfect. Maybe it's a little too perfect, know whut I mean, Vern? Maybe I'm just jealous of Ivan Reitman's kid. Or maybe I'm just sick of abortions! Or maybe I'm still upset that Bateman got the part instead of Tucker Carlson. Or maybe I'm just sick of these Forces of Nature with names like Diablo Cody... shyeah, that's his real name... who waltz into town, go on Letterman, charm the pants off him, and get a movie deal, so they kinda tweak the autobiography in their head and turn it into one of those movies that tries to tackle a tough subject head on but end up dancing completely around it, throwing as many pre-digested clichés as they can to stick onto it, so by the end you've completely divested your Suspension of Disbelief, and caring for the characters, and just wanna get the hell out of there when the end credits roll and beat the rush of traffic exeunting the theater!

And by the way (BTW), it's The United States of LELAND!

Sorry, must just be the stress talkin'. Happy blogging to you all this holiday season. Remember! The days're getting longer again! Hallelujah! :)

footnotes

* moron that later... I'm biz-ee!

NOW we're talking!

Oh yeah. (Awe yeah?) My man Will Smith doesn't disappoint with the latest variation on... The Omega Man? I don't know. All I know is he's gone from I, Robot to I Am Legend. And with 77 million in the bank, would it kill you to throw a bone to DJ Jazzy Jeff? Why, even Kid 'n Play look out for each other!
Okay, better give a shout out to someone behind the scenes, and this time I choose Mark Protosevich. Looks like he's finally in the fold after the disastrous Poseidon, and, well, I guess The Cell wasn't a disaster, but it was like 7 years ago! WTF!? Anyway, you're the new Steve Tesich. Hope you like non-stop women and caviar! (N-S W&C) Your stomach will grow large and distended and Hollywood'll have a big bowl of Screenwriter Paté.
Meanwhile at #2 it's Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's a family film, 2B sure, and I'm just glad they didn't go for cheap laughs like about chipmunk shit in the oatmeal-raisin cookies. Oh wait....*
At #3 we got... what do we got? G.Comp: The Golden Compass. Slowly but surely making back its catering budget. And in a nod to American Pie co-director Chris Weitz there's this part where a monkey gets its tail caught in an eclair... something like that. It's cute. No, really! Then Finch goes home to use the bathroom... Total homage time.
Oh dear. Enchanted is clearly fallign on hard times, as its glass slipper has slipped to #4. However, it's the odds-on favourite for crossing the 100 million barrier. The only other film that comes close is I Am Legend.
And now, the Maxim Magazine review of our #5 entry, No Country for Old Men
Maxim sez: Normally I hate the films of those effete intellectuals the Coen Brothers. What a phony name. I bet they're not really brothers. But you know what? (YKW?) This has got to be the best date movie I've seen in a long time. And believe me, I tried. I took this black chick to see This Christmas, and she gave me a real shiner! Anyway, more about that later. Here's why NCfOM rocks: it's got the best pick up line ever, uttered by the uber-masculine James Brolin, who tells his girlfriend "You keep running that mouth of yours, and I'm gonna take you in back and screw you!" I just wept copious tears. I hadn't cried so hard or loud since my rich Aunt Mabel died and left me a fraction of her fortune. A+!
... or was it FHM? Or maybe Stuff? I always get those mixed up.
----------------------------------------------
As for 6 to 10, well, guess we just better get through it. FUBU Christmas cinema is the order of the day with #6 and #7, The Perfect Holiday and This Christmas. This gives Tyler Perry an idea! Something like, Tyler Perry's A Merry Damn Madea Kinda Christmas.
At #8, it's Fred Claus, or as I like to think of it, The Santa Crashers. Only 68.9 million in the bank? Hmm! Seems like it shoulda made more than that by now. Oh well. That's how it goes sometimes.
#9 brings us Atonement. But that's okay, because apparently it's going to clean up at the Golden Globes. Eat it, NCFOM! Well, as long as Kiera doesn't have her damn mouth open all the time like in the Pirates movies.
And finally at #10, it's Once, the little movie that could. So many movies to watch, so little time.

Ah, screw it, Grandma's Boy is coming on cable here in a second. Peace out, my peeps.

footnotes
* #2 indeed!

Close enough...

Yeah. Golden Compass, Palantir, same diff. Never enuff time 2 do this kinda stuff anymore! But the main thing is you start. But, once again, NCFoM is the lil' movie that could!.... Basically... more l8r... stick w/me; it's not worth it! ;) ...

G.Comp at #1 with 25.8 mil. Has it only been one week? Dang! Time's going by too slowly now; must be all the church I'm attending. This one features talking animals, and there's one part where this lemur-type creature gets its tail stuck in a freshly baked pie... now, THAT's waht I call a directorial Shout-Out! Oh, snap...
enchanted at #2.Yeah, this one's closest to 100 million of the current crop of the cream. Something kinda sad about that. Yeah, while I was waiting online to see NCFOM one time a bunch of pro-Disney families came out of the theater going, "Well, the movie was okay, but that finale wasn't really necessary. I mean, dragons, explosions, excitement, and I'm sittin' there goin', " Me myself, I'm waiting for that Maxim pictorial with Susan Sarandon with the headline, "Wicked Queen Sex!"
Which reminds me: time for the Maxim Magazine review of 'My Dinner with André': You know, those fags are all right!
This Christmas you might not get a chance to see This Christmas, but you can see it now. Frankly, I'm disappointed myself, but I'm one of those hardcore Preston Whitmore )II?) fans who frankly think he sold out after The Waking Dead, but more power to him. (MPTH) And that goes double for Fred Claus at #4; I'm going to wait for my real Xmas present. Now you're probably asking, why Movie Review Hooligan (MRH), what on Earth could that be? And the answer is: to find the spoof of Glengarry they throw in because of Spacey's involvement.
Beowulf - Nope, can't thikn of anything other than: This B.O. wolf is still tearing at the fresh kill that is the Box Office, to the tune of 76.1 million. Now if it had been more like Enchanted, it could've made 83.9 million by now.
As for the rest: August Rush - more like August Yawn. Besides that was at least 4 months ago!... Hitman: yawn. I've got Smokin' Aces on cable now! Why would I want to trek through the snow to the theater? Awake: Yawn. Specifically, Alba's Oscar Yawn. You've had a busy year, my pet. I think you're only allowed 3 movies a year, especially if one's a superhero movie, a funny comedy, and now an Oscar dramedy... At #10... oh Jordy Verrill! You lunkhead!!!!!
Which brings me to my favourite. #6 gives us NCFOM with $4.12M this week, for a grand total of $28.7M. And the weird part is, this is probably their most profitable movie yet! At least, domestically. We gotta do what we can to keep the Coens here, 'cuz the French are going to steal 'em away from us. Fargo made about $25 mil domestic, Ladykillers made about $40 domestic. Okay, so NCFOM's got a ways to go. They got Burn After Reading in the pipeline, Hail Caesar, and Clooney's going to direct Suburbicon. I suggest they drop Gambit and give it to either Ramsey / Stone or Max D. Adams, or get Aniston's ghost writer to take it over. Focus, guys! We need you. We need your full attention on the tasks at hand, and we need you to patch up the rift between yourselves and Deakins. No more lengthy DVD interviews for a while. Compromise. The fart of the deal. (FotD)
Guess that's all I got. Except to say that always with me, when the Coens put out a new movie, I ask myself how are the Coens going to change the face of American cinema this time? And I think they're trying to tell us to slow down. We've had a lot of fun with the quick cutting, the sped-up Vista-glide tracking shots, the 'whoosh' sound effects, but it's too much. It can all only go so fast, so we gotta slow down. NCFOM is nothing less than their indictment of the barren, infertile wasteland that has become the American pop culture landscape. Okay, THAT's all I got! Back 2 bed... ;)

***1/2: No Country For Old Men: Joel and Ethan Coen's "Pulp Fiction"

Brought to you by Miramax (now 100% Weinstein Free!*) and Paramount Vantage (and NOT Vintage!!! That's what I thought at first... Not that it's not vintage...)

Or as I think of it, the Fargo of our times. Although, as a Coen Loyalist (CL) I demand more flamboyance from their Opening Credit Sequences (OCS); for instance, Fargo just screamed Academy Award noms, didn't it? Something more comical like the complex computer animation involved in Lebowski's opening sequence, or even The Ladykillers; the Gilliam Monty-Python-esque opening for Intolerable Cruelty; the stark simplicity of Raising Arizona's opening lettering ... I think that's all of 'em. (oh yeah, the seriocomic nature of 'Man Who Wasn't There" 's lettering with their own (slightly off-axis) shadowing. To divert from my chain of thought briefly to better include the non-Coenheads out there: you may be asking yourselves, why Joel and Ethan? Because some combinations just sound better in a certain order, like Siskel & Ebert, Complaints & Grievances, and Seals & Croffts. Don't mess with what works. (DM3W?) At least, that's what Ethan says... E8-)> (beatnik Frankenstein)
Anyway, I never thought I'd find myself saying, blogging, or even contemplating this, but you nkow what? Three and a half stars from me! And I come to this decision with a heart that is clearly heavy for those of you who can see it (as long as you can't smell it or touch it, we'll get on just fine.) This is coming from a guy who gives (all the movies in) their collection 4 stars, a guy who OWNS their entire collection (except for certain bullshit re-packaged collections just because the latest and greatest studio, like Universal, recently bought 'em ... anyway, you get the idea [YGTI] ). I'm not really concerned about peer pressure on this decision, unlike my disastrous review of Clerks... Man, I'm still opening fresh hate mail 'bout that one. Passion of the Clerks, indeed!
And I hope Deakins gets the Oscar this year, if only for Robert Ford; nothing new to him, same as in 2001 when he could've gotten two concurrent noms for A Beautiful Mind and MWWT, but as chance or fate would have it, LTR had to have it. Course, it made like a zillion dollars more than either. 2001 was an interesting year for cinematography in general, (and what in particular????)
So, if you have any doubt left about Fargo being a comedy (it's a drama), or The Man Who Wasn't There being a comedy (MORE of a drama), believe it or not NCFOM dials down the humor even further if such a thing is possible; dials it right down to the opposite of 11, if you can imagine that. The biggest laugh is probably when Brolin goes back into the clothing store. But I just love that Chigurh vs. Convenience Store scene: what makes it great is that Chigurh thinks the guy is not worth killing, or even worth his time, but will give him the benefit of the coin-flip doubt nonetheless... Now THAT'S intimidation! Not your Pulp Fiction Hyperactive Time... (PFHT) (favourite single line: "You're kinda deaf, aren't you? I said, what time do you go to bed?")
Incidentally, allow me to use this platform to take a slight detour and advance my Coen-Corbin Casting Theory (CCCT). For instance, the guard that busts Brolin's stones about getting back into the US reminds me pitch perfectly of Barry Corbin at the height of his WarGames days. Also, Trey Wilson in Raising Arizona is apparently Corbin's understudy; they also wanted Kevin Costner in the Nicolas Cage role, a role still consistently cited by people I talk to: "Well, I liked Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona! ... Deadfall, not so much." And finally, FINALLY... at long last, they get to work with Barry (Corbin), and he's a guy in a wheelchair! Whazzup w/'dat? Would WTF be appropriate here? I didn't think so, just checking.
Which brings me to the great dialogue, courtesy of novelist and author and novelist Cormac McCarthy (known simply as C. McC in the Crystal Meth circles... not just MY Crystal Meth circles (MCMC, or MCx2)) I mean, the Coens already got the great dialogue thing down (just try Hudsucker or I. Cruel for lines you really need a knife and fork to get through ... Ladykillers! Everyone picks on Ladykillers! LISTEN TO THAT DIALOGUE! Who else can come UP with that kinda shit?!), and McCarthy's knack for dialogue and character backstory, basically, brings a whole new, refreshing level of intimacy to the proceedings.
Which brings me to Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). And unlike everyone else I tried real hard not to mention the haircut. It's just a racist haircut; it's just the same old Mexploitation we see from the Coens every year, but that's just me: I got some real unusual opinions on things. The best scene in the movie for me is the convenience store scene. Still, I couldn't help but think, what would Tarantino do with that? He'd probably want to be Chigurh if he were directing. OR, what would happen if Billy Bob were Chigurh in just that scene? Do kind of a Palindromes kind of experimental thing, or like I'm Not There: it just seems unfair that only one actor gets to play a great part like Chigurh. (Hint: something like "Whon't yu shut yer god damn trap and just gimme some gas and some god damn peanuts for m'car?" ;)
The reason I deduct a half a star, as opposed to all the other movie critics in the world, is that I'm kinduva real stickler about movie adaptations of novels. And my main gripe is that Chigurh in the novel is a dialogue-heavy character, and he makes it absolutely clear that he is a man of destiny who takes no chances, which makes it all the more satisfying when he gets his arm almost knocked off in that TOTALLY RANDOM car crash! That was at least one thing he didn't see coming!...
I wasn't even going to mention this, for fear of looking like a prude, but I mean think about it! The very first scene where Chigurh kills the cop with his handcuffs... I mean, that's a very violent scene! Meaning it was done well. I just don't know now if the look on Bardem's face balanced out the scene enough. I'm starting to think not. I think the Coens told Bardem: "The character is making a very specific amount of effort to choke the guy to death: no more, no less. Try and look like that." How about it, Eth? Something like that? ;) [My close friend whose opinion I trust, probably because it's dangerously close to my own, still thinks they shouldn't of opened the movie with two extremely violent scenes, and I couldn't help but agree. Thankfully, they build on this later by developing a kind of Chigurh shorthand - SPOILERS, i.e., cutting right to him hosing down the chicken truck.]
But, I'm a loyal Coen Completist, and I've rambled on quite enough for some I'm sure, and I'll watch No Country For Old Men again sometime down the road. I mean, I'm not one to complain (at great length, anywho) and I will get the NCFOM DVD yesterday. Damn those fesky Prench! They got it already, I know it. As for the films the Coens produce; for example, I'm going to wait on The Naked Man, Johnny Skidmarks et alia. I mean, what the hell, I'll probably never get to meet them anyway, and they probably won't be impressed when I ask them to sign J. Skid and ask about W.P. Robertson, am I right? P.S. The first thing I'll ask 'em: Make better trailer moments! In your movies AND your scripts!! These guys work hard enough, now they have to splice AUDIO CLIPS together with a freakin' razor blade? You konw what I'm talkin' about! ;)
That's about all I got on that one. Better stop ball-spittin' while I'm behind. ***1/2
-so decreed the Movie Review Hooligan (MRH), Whereas it brings me some Great Grief (GG, as opposed to Charlie Brown's Good Grief (GG) )... meet me at the next three 'Whereas'es...
footnotes
* - just like the Oscars. Oh, snap! Speaking Oscar noms: NCFOM should probably sweep everything it gets. Best pic (Ethan gets that one), best director (Joel gets that one). Tess Harper might not get nominated, but you've got all the acting awards set up: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress. Best Costume, Best Music Score, but you know what? (YKW?) Best editing for Roderick Jaynes, and here's why...

Short Reviews - November 2007

Is it too late to qualify for November? All right, I'm going anyway...

Headline: Thieves steal 17 tons of Christmas ham, leave thank-you note. The simpsons couldn't have done a better job than that. Well,... (no funeral note on Moe's back was pretty good...)
------All right! On to the movies......-------------------------------------
The Evil that Men Do - Bronson does Day of the Jackal. But the movie poses an ancient Chinese riddle: Bronson brings a quiet dignity to the film, but who would want to sit through this whole movie after seeing the opening credit sequence? I thought I was watching news footage of Gitmo!
Over the Hedge - Nope. Animation's too cheap. Action sequences are too blurry. Interesting to hear Garry Shandling, though.
walk hard: the dewey cox story - so it's not an anchorman clone... is it?
Long Lost Son with Gabrielle Anwar - Good Lord, honey! Change your beautician! You got the turkey neck goin' on and you're exfoliating like crazy. Psoriasis? Or just been in the sun too long?

The Man - Oh f...... cryin' out loud.
Criminal Law - Not to be confused with that Alcatraz movie. (murder in the first) Were these made at the same time? I'm freakin' out, man!!!
Basic Instinct 2 - I get the feeling that this is the kind of thing Mae West would make if she were alive today. Now she'd be about 113 years old if she did, but hey! Sexy at any age, right?
Sextette - I love it! Mae West! Ringo Starr! Alice Cooper! Regis Philbin! And 007 Timothy Dalton. The more I learn about this guy, the more I think he's the one and only James Bond!
Off and Running - Cyndi Lauper as Bebe Neuwirth
Southland Tales - Well, if you liked Donnie Darko...
Cosi - Hey! The Darkman arch bad guy! With his original accent! Sweeeeeeeet.
Robocop - I just thought of something, and I want to append it to my previous review: A friend of mine pointed this out to me, that he was confused by the one line of dialogue where Boddicker calls the guy a "wop", when he was clearly a mick!
Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project - First of all, isn't that a working title? Second, he's got, like, 50 people working for him? Don Rickles is good for the economy! C'mon, Don, try and reach the medicine! And then you gave him a cookie... Put Daddy Dearest out on DVD! Whaddaya fraid of?
How Stella Got Her Groove Back - Angela Bassett is a goddess amongst us mere mortals.
Juwanna Mann? No thanks!
The Big White - Fargo meets A Simple Plan. Meets The Trouble With Harry? Meets Peter's Friends? Meets Once Upon a Crime, Noises Off and Blame it on the Bellboy? And I think they show clips of all those movies playing on TV in this movie! Wicked kewl!
the big lebowski - jeff bridges as sammy hagar?
Be Kind Rewind - Not to be cruel, but "A man (Black) whose brain becomes magnetized unintentionally destroys every tape in his friend's video store. In order to satisfy the store's most loyal renter, an aging woman with signs of dementia, the two men set out to remake the lost films, which include Back to the Future, The Lion King, and Robocop". And I looked at that cast list and saw Mia Farrow's name, and figured oh! Guess who's playing the aging woman with signs of dementia?
"America's Psychic challenge" - To my shame, I admit I couldn't help but think of that Monty Python sketch, "Summarize Proust" which ends with the host saying "Well ladies and gendemen, I don't think any of our contestants this evening have succeeded in encapsuladng the intricacies of Proust's masterwork, so I'm going to award the first prize this evening to the girl with the biggest tits." Furthermore and finally, the light may have won the $100,000 prize, but the darkness just might solve that 7-year old murder case.

[(p.s. : a hasty addendum, as per promised to certain curious parties: I'm not easily moved to tears; maybe it's the stress, maybe it's that I, like most Americans, have been bombarded & inundated with so much melodramtic crap over the eyars... that genuine emotion is so rare to find. And when JTWS assured the three women who were friends of the murder victim, I was moved. The tears started to flow when Jackie asked "But why .. do I see ... a child?" The child was the murder victim's pet dog whom they loved as a child. Look at me! I'm crying again! I'm crying as I type this up...)]

Okay, time to move on. [call me! ;) ]

Peace out. ;)

America's Next Top Kitten

Frazzle Dazzle! I love it. I'm back, folks. Gosh it's been a busy week. Alot of stuff happening. And it's just now starting to snow! But let's forget about all that crap happening in the real world, and focus instead on what's really important: this week's top 10 movies.

And, in a stunning reversal, something I haven't seen since Clerks 2, my favourite movie of the year No Country for Old Men is bumped off the chart to I presume #11! WTF? And on top of it, this week's Entertainment Weekly doesn't include the Coens in their latest bullshit list, what was it, the 25 smartest people in the movies today, something like that. Spielberg was #2, close enough, I guess, as they both work with some of the same cast and crew. Screw off, James Cameron!

But I guess my boys will just have to settle for the love of the French, and the fact that this thing, to me, is the independent movie equivalent of Lord of the Rings, as it is climbing another important chart, the Imdb Top 250. Easily bypassing Fargo and Big Lebowski, their other top 250 mainstays. Man, I just revel in that kind of shit myself, I don't know why. It's just how I'm wired, I guess. Oh dear, the hyperlinks are down but the swears are up.

Bearing that in mind, let's quickly go over the rest on the list to tie it all together in sort of a metaphorical torus of sorts. Sorry, Coens, but Mr. Magorium won the recount at #10. At #9, it's The Mist, and once again Frank Darabont gets Stephen King to write his movie. Is it just me, or are Stephen King movie adaptations getting less and less like the more refined ones of the 90s, and getting back to the more exploitative ones of the 80s? Just a thought.

American Gangster is a get-rich-quick story at #8 with 116 million total in the bank. Somehow ironic that a movie about a gangster does gangbusters at the box office. Maybe they should re-release Mobsters to take advantage of Patrick Dempsey's second coming. (We'll just forget about Outbreak, Pat; they left you on the cutting room floor, didn't they?) At #7 it's August Rush, the mainstream version of ... what's that independent movie, got some buzz a couple months ago, this guy with a guitar... ah, skip it. Deal w/that later.

Xmas is all over the charts, 'specially w/Fred Claus at #6 and This Christmas at #2. Are you sure Tyler Perry didn't have something to do with that one?

And so we segue to Pixar-esque fare from that other Pixar in the sky, PDI DreamWorks... are they trying to split from Disney too? Anyway, we go from Bee Movie, full computer animation, at #5, to the half-computer animation, half-real life of Beowulf at #3, to the full real-life cartoonishness of Hitman at #4. Man, I just blew my own damn mind.

After all that, I think we finally have just #1 left, which is Enchanted, and one of its 50 executive producers is ... ta-da! Barry Sonnenfeld, the Coens' old pal from way back. Small world that turns back in on itself. And I'm spent.