I Love the 70’s, 80’s , and 90’s
This week’s Netflix include nostalgic looks back to the last three decades — the FF7 reunion Advent Children, the first rap movie ever - Krush Groove, and David Bowie and Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children just hit DVD last week, but watching it made me instantly remember Christmas morning 9 years ago when I played FF7 for the very first time. Its hard not to feel nostalgic for a game when you had to play it at least 30 hours to make any significant progress. To clarify though, this is not a movie based on the game, but a movie sequel to the game’s story. (FF8-11 are sequels in name only). It’s also an unofficial sequel to The Spirits Within, which it surpasses in every way. Even Tifa looks hotter than Aki Ross (it helps that she’s voiced by Rachel Leigh Cook too).
The opening title card calls this a “reunion,” and that’s what it feels like. All of the main characters make appearances, even Sephiroth and Aerith (voiced by Mena Suvari). The plot concerns 3 Sephiroth clones who are making trouble for the people of Midgar, and the unknown disease spreading over the city like some sort of Mono/AIDS combination. The animation, direction, and action are all spectacular, and its not hard to care for these characters when you WERE them for so long so many years ago. This is the best movie based on a video game I’ve seen (not that there’s much competition), but I’d only give it a minor recommendation to people who aren’t familiar with the game. Also worth noting is the 25 minute piece featuring cut scenes from the original game. I still tear up when Aerith dies.4 out of 5.
Tribeca Film Festival: Week 1
ALEX: The Tribeca Film Festival started last week, though for the first time Lower Manhattan isn’t the only host to the festivities. Films are screening in such far off destinations as 34th St. and Lincoln Center. It’s an odd vibe for the festival which once occupied only a few blocks near Battery Park. There are an overwhelming number of choices too. In this piece, Michele and I are gonna tear through our first block of films, which seemingly star all of Young Hollywood.
First up is Fifty Pills, starring Lou Pucci, Kristen Bell, and John Hensley (aka Thumbsucker, Veronica Mars, and Matt McNamara of Nip/Tuck). Pucci is in danger of getting kicked out of NYU if he doesn’t come up with the last $1000 of owed tuition, and all he has to raise the money are the titular fifty hits of ecstasy.
MICHELE: I had been really excited to see this movie, since it had such a great cast. Lou Pucci was great in Thumbsucker, and John Hensley is my younger crush in Nip/Tuck. After Pucci’s roommate, played by Hensley, throws yet another party & gets busted, Pucci loses his scholarship & must pay back around a $1,000. This first off seemed impractical to me. You lose your scholarship half way through the semester & you only have to pay the remaining money? Last I checked, you had to pay it ALL back. But I digress. Hensley sets him up with the 50 pills (of ecstasy) as a way of making the situation better. For me this just doesn’t work- what dealer would just give 50 pills to sell, along with a beeper & tell him good luck? Only one who had a death wish from his supplier.
Inconceivable!
Cynthia McKinney, a congresswoman from Georgia, fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war is Asia, but only slightly less well known is this one. Never walk away from an interview, without removing or turning off your microphone! As Frank Drebin was caught once, so now is the congresswoman, who was heard making a disparaging remark about an aide. The remark was not as bad as some might have you believe. The real best part is that after that, she tried to go back and tell the interviewer that the slip up was off the record. Of course the newspeople essentially said “T.S.”, and now we all get to hear the gaffe. You can enjoy the delightfulness here.
This Week’s Netflix
This week’s stash includes the Outback true-horror Wolf Creek, the live action anime Initial D, and the 1980’s classic Broadcast News.
If you read the reviews, Wolf Creek is either the best or worst foreign horror flick of 2005. For me it’s somewhere in the middle (for the record, the scarriest non-US film of last year is The Descent). Wolf Creek itself is actually a giant metor crater in the middle of the Australian Outback, where our 3 main characters are going to for a hiking trip. After their hike, they find their car has broken down. Is the sweet-natured but weird Crocodile Dundee wannabe that helps them out gonna torture and kill the poor hikers? Uh, yeah probably.
The “Other Stripper” Exposes herself
There was news today in the Duke Lacrosse team rape thing. I guess the other stripper at the party is coming out in support of her coworker, and professing the guilt of the players, despite being in the bathroom at the time. I was pleased to learn that Syracuse University (go Orange!) has refused to accept any lacrosse players wishing to transfer there. The rape accusations aside, this team was in trouble all the time, so I don’t want them at my alma mater. The really perplexing thing about this case is why this second woman is a stripper. Going only off this picture, she wouldn’t get many $1 bills off of me. But being that she imbezzled thousands of dollars in the past, probably a good idea not to give her any of my money anyway.
Cremaster 4 and Cremaster 5
This week, Michele and Alex take on Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 4 and 5, which played at a midnight screening last weekend in Manhattan.
Michele: For years I have heard of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle- The masterpiece that it is, etc. I had viewed some of his art, unrelated to this particular project at the MOMA, and was impressed by it, but always sort of wondered about the conceptualization of his art. The Cremaster series is comprised of 5 levels, all based on the Cremaster muscle (a muscle that covers the testis).
For a while, I even had a copy of “The Order” a 30 minute selection of the Cremaster at my disposal. I am sort of glad that I didn’t watch it, since apparently it is only a portion of Cremaster 3. So I had no idea what to really expect in video form when Alex & I went to see Cremaster 4 & Cremaster 5 this weekend.
Alex: I’ve seen The Order before, which is 30 minutes of the 3 hour long 3rd Cremaster. Part 4 is actually the first of the cycle that Barney created. It runs only about 40 minutes. The piece crosscuts between a motorcycle race in opposite directions on the Isle of Man, while a Satyr (Barney) journeys to meet the race at its midpoint. Naked, painted female bodybuilders, underground caverns, and lots of petroleum jelly ensue.
Brick
Last Friday, my girlfriend Michele and I caught the opening of Rian Johnson’s teen detective film, Brick. Coleman- hook us up with a co-login! Yes, I am flooding this site. Some spoilers below…
MICHELE: When Brick premiered at Sundance in 2005, it was one of the sleeper hits of the festival. Little was known about the plot, aside from it being a murder mystery in a high school setting. And that it starred Joseph Gordon–Levitt, who has just had a brilliant performance in Mysterious Skin and Lukas Haas, who appears in movies occasionally.
At Sundance, Brick was one of the hardest tickets to get. As a result, the Sundance Jury presented a special award to Director Rian Johnson- the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision. After seeing this movie, you understand why.
Brick is not intended to be your average high school teen drama. You get that immediately when the dialogue instantly starts up. Spoken in style coated in slang, the movie forces you to think, and think quickly to keep up with the info that is provided. While not everything is clear, as long as you follow along, you are able to figure out what is going on. But even in times when you can’t figure out what was just said, it doesn’t bother you. The lines are written & spoken in such fluidity that it is easy on the ear, almost reminding you of iambic pentameter.
Apoclyapse, Horror and Revenge
This week’s Netflix haul includes Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf, and a double-dose of Asian horror - Ab-Normal Beauty and The Neighbor No. 13.
Time of the Wolf is French depreso-director Michael Haneke’s post-apolyaptic nightmare starring Isabelle Huppert (officially the oldest woman I’d still hook up with). It’s not a Sci-Fi or Action pic, despite its genre. We never see or learn what exactly caused the apoclyapse. Instead, we follow a mother and her two traumatized children as they search for shelter and safety in the French countryside. The three, along with Huppert’s husband, arrive at their country house at the start of the film. There, Huppert’s husband is immediately killed by a man whose family has taken over the house and doesn’t intend on giving it up.
The Belladonna of Sadness
Hey everyone…here’s another CRAP FILTER movie review column. My girlfriend Michele and I have been checking out a lot of revival screenings and film festivals, and we’ll be co-reviewing some of these films right here in this column…HE SAID, SHE SAID “SHUT UP”
ALEX: I don’t think Michele and I really knew what to expect going into the “Belladonna of Sadness”, other than that Belladonna wasn’t in it. Last weekend we attended the Museum of Sex exhibition Peeping, Probing & Porn: Four Centuries of Graphic Sex in Japan. It had some anime, but it was all big-eye hentai stuff.
Belladonna of Sadness is over 30 years old. Thursday’s screening at KBG Bar was the first time it was screened in the US. You can tell its age because its production style was closer to The Adventures of David the Gnome than Neon Genesis Evangelion.
MICHELE: Anime was still in its infancy stage at this period and it shows. The film is primarily still shots, occasionally panning across, to give the feeling of fluidity. Only during “important” scenes, such as all of the sex scenes, was the anime we know of today used.
Thank You for Not Sucking
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of seeing the feature film THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. You see, my wife had some “girlfriends” over, and I had to vacate the abode. While they were presumably having lingerie clad pillow fights, I headed on down to the local Cineplex. I didn’t know what I was going to see when I got there, so I checked the big board. I discovered that for the most part, I either had seen it, or prejudged its assumed suckitude. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING was the easy choice.
The jist of the story is that we are following Nick, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, as he goes about his job, and takes care of his son. The main thrust of the piece is not really about tobacco or nicotine, but the nature of lobbying, and business in general. Nick makes the point that as long as you can argue well, you are never wrong. He uses sometimes dirty tactics to win over his critics, or at least to make fools of them in front of large television audiences. The fact that his client is big tobacco just puts Nick in the same position as (some might say) a defense attorney trying to get an acquittal for his rapist client. As the audience, it is our job to decide if he is just doing his job, or if he is selling his soul. I really liked the fact that the movie didn’t try to make this decision for me. It didn’t even seem to make the decision for the main character. Our hero has his doubts, but it is not so over the top as to have him become enlightened, and become a shark style lobbyist for the America Lung Association. Continues after the jump »
A Grass Man, a Karate Kid, and some Dolls
This week’s Netflix haul include Johnny Knoxville in Daltry Calhoun, The Karate Kid Part II (no introduction needed), and another Takeshi Kitano film - Dolls.
Daltry Calhoun went straight to video last month, despite star Johnny Knoxville and exec producer Quentin Tarantino. Knoxville plays a small town millionaire whose golf course grass seed business is slowly collapsing. His life turns around when his terminally ill ex (Elizabeth Banks) shows up with his 14 year old daughter he never knew. If you’ve ever asked yourself what would happen if Cameron Crowe wrote and directed an Adam Sandler movie, this is the answer. No one embarrasses themselves here, even Juliette Lewis manages to be sexy for a few minutes. Unfortunately, there’s just not that much here to recommend. Knoxville barely has anything to do, and the humor is so downplayed that it’s nearly non-existant. It’s sweet-natured though, instead of the sap fest it could have been, so I’m giving it 2.5 out of 5.
V for Verisimilitude
V FOR VENDETTA scored a solid win at the weekend box office, despite the presence of March Madness, and St. Patrick’s Day hangover. I saw the film on a quiet Sunday morning, with not more than 25 other people in the theater. Having read the graphic novel V FOR VENDETTA (and enjoyed it) in advance, I wanted the film to live up to that experience. It should be noted that original comic writer Alan Moore did not want to be credited for the film, and has distanced himself from it.
Having let us all down with the Matrix sequels, the Wachowski brothers succeed here in producing a film, along with Joel Silver, that I found solidly entertaining, and will hopefully make people think. After all, the best a piece of art or media can achieve (aside from the entertainment) is to spur the audience to thought, and perhaps even toward positive action. That is not to say that seeing this movie should make you want to blow up government buildings. I sincerely hope it does not. Rather, I hope many people find the ending of the film as hopeful as I did, and the whole experience a first step in political discussion. The specifics of the explosions in the film are not as important to me as the ideas that they represent, because as V puts it, “ideas are bulletproof”. I gotta admit though, the climactic scene is pretty cool.
The obvious criticism is already coming from the political right, who charge that this film is nothing but a left wing call for anarchy. Film critic Michael Medved: “Five years after 9/11, we get our first big studio, big budget extravaganza making the case of suicidal terrorism as the ultimate form of heroism.” I wonder if Michael saw the same film I did, because in the film I saw, no one committed suicide. Continues after the jump »
Catching Up on Last Week
This week’s mailings included Takeshi Kitano’s Brother, Visconti’s The Leopard, and the final discs of Nip/Tuck Season 2.
Brother is Takeshi Kitano’s last, though probably not final, gangster pic. As always he writes, directs, and stars. This time he plays a laconic lone wolf Yakuza (hard to believe, but true). The twist is that it takes place mostly in LA. After his gang in Tokyo is decimated, Kitano relocates to the US to reconnect with his younger brother, now a small time drug pusher. In a matter of weeks, the trigger happy Kitano takes over a good chunk of LA. He also becomes blood brothers with Omar Epps, learns a few words in English, and ventilates dozens of mobsters. Things end typically for a Kitano movie, but he’s definitely upped the entertainment factor with this one. Films like Sonatine and Hana-bi are deeper, but there’s no denying the joy of seeing Epps and Kitano fuck with a old Mafia boss. One warning, the US version has been trimmed to remove some bloody effects. Thanks MPAA for keeping the art house safe for kids. 4 out of 5
Hidden agenda
- Cache
- A beautifully shot French suspense film with many twists and few answers.
The English translation of the French movie “Cache” is “Hidden.” Ironically, this movie is left way too open for even my taste.
I like any kind of art that provokes intellectual stimulation, even if sometimes that stimulation comes with no conclusions or answers. Usually, I abide by the belief that the more abstract the art, the better, or the more surreal the art, the better. Blurring the line between reality and non-reality is always fun too, unless you’re featured in Oprah’s Book Club.
So why did I feel empty leaving “Cache?” Continues after the jump »
Where the Truth Lies
- Where the Truth Lies
- Some highbrow trash to get the bad Crash taste out of your mouth...
I’ve never really meant this column to be about real DVD/film reviewing. Honestly, I don’t think I’d be able to handle that responsibility. I’m just writing about my Netflix queue, trying to inform you lovely readers on whether or not to add a particular DVD to your personal queue. Sometimes I feel like I need to go deep to provide this service (see my Crash piece). Other times, I feel like I can make my point a little easier. For example, my column for Where the Truth Lies could just say this:
“Girl in Alice in Wonderland dress goes down on Alison Lohman, naked.”
or this:
“See the girl from Clueless (the TV show, not the movie) in a threesome”
Not to be presumptuous, but I feel that a good part of this site’s readership would toss this in their queue after reading that. If you care for any more discussion about the movie, make the jump.
Domino
- Domino
- Tony Scott remakes himself again, this time on peyote. Keira gets left in the dust.
Remember how insane it was in True Romance when all of the various plot lines climaxed in a multi-way shoot out in that posh hotel room? Almost everyone got shot, couches and tables exploded with gunfire, and, in a interesting move for an action movie, the main characters just crawled around trying to get the fuck out of the place. Then remember how Tony Scott did that again in Enemy of the State (probably not)? Well guess what, that’s how Domino ends too.
Domino is the epitome of Tony Scott’s current throw-everything-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks style of filmmaking. You have to wonder if Scott even shows up on set…his recent films look like collaborations between music video cinematographers and AVID editors who have downloaded way too many plug-ins.
Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs
- Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs
- Miki Sugimoto out-Chibas Sonny in another Japanese technicolor gore-noir from the 70's.
Japanese exploitation films, especially those of the 1970’s were pretty nasty stuff. Rape, dismemberment, gun shots to the eyes, and bad stage blood mixes abound. However, compared to American crime films from the same period, the Japanese seemingly have art direction and cinematography right up there with West Side Story. Bright reds and greens make the screen look like a Crayola 8-pack and the attention to detail is almost unnecessary. Our lead’s gun, handcuffs, raincoat, and blood are all exactly the same shade of red (not blood red, surprisingly).
Zero Woman is an ongoing Japanese fem-sploitation series, and Red Handcuffs has frequently been listed as one of the best. In this outting Miki Sugimoto plays Zero. Miki has also starred of such classics as Tokugawa Sex Ban: Lustful Lord, Hot Springs Mimizu Geisha, and Hot Springs Kiss Geisha (she plays Prostitute with Strong Vagina Muscles in that last film). She’s gorgeous, but doesn’t necessarily convey a lot of emotion. It works for her character, a cop who killed an American diplomat in the line of duty, and who is now forced to covertly take on kidnappers.
Doom
- Doom
- Five minutes are worth watching, otherwise just keep playing your old game...no walking mechanical spider brains here. IDDQD!
When you check out Doom on IMDb, the site automatically recommends Day of the Dead at the bottom of the page. You might think that its just a programming error, like Wal-Mart’s Planet of the Apes / Black History Month fuck up, but its not. Doom is a zombie movie, one that takes place in an underground bunker, so its completely reasonable that IMDb would suggest Day of the Dead as a similar film.
If you’ve ever actually played one of Doom’s video game incarnations however, you’re sure to be disappointed by this adaptation. There’s about as much original video game storyline in this as in Super Mario Bros. The movie instead steals from Resident Evil, and of course Cameron’s omnipresent Aliens to fill in the cookie cutter script. Gone are the Mars landscapes, open air temples, and 95% of the alien bad guys. All we get is the BFG and 5 minutes of first person action (which, admittedly, bumped my review up a star).
Continues after the jump »
Effects
- Effects
- This unearthed horror indie from Pittsburgh's horror boom period unfortunately fails to live up to its peers.
I really wanted to come out and give this one the big thumbs up…at least 3 stars, maybe 4. I’m feeling especially close to Pittsburgh this week, after all. I was excited to check out Effects, a Pittsburgh indie horror flick from the early 80’s, recently released for the first time commercially by Synapse films. Problems with the distribution company kept this film off screens, save a few festival runs, until this year.
Unfortunately, Effects, has more in common with George A. Romero’s Season of the Witch than any of his classic Burgh-based horror films. The story revolves around a sinister low-budget horror director who secretly turns his shoot into a hidden camera snuff film, with his cinematographer in the lead role.
Continues after the jump »
CRASH (2004)
- Crash (2004)
- Five years later, Hollywood finally manages to rip off Magnolia with the help of the creator of Walker, Texas Ranger.
Ok, ok settle down… finally, here is the first post of my ongoing column reviewing my Netflix queue. I promise you things will get very weird as the envelopes fly back and forth from the shipping center in Flushing. However, we start with the most populist of the recently nominated films for Best Picture, Paul Haggis’ paint-by-numbers pseudo-epic, Crash.
Haggis, former writer of 80’s sitcoms and 90’s geriatric Kung-Fu westerns, took all the heavy-handedness he crammed into the last half hour of Million Dollar Baby and spreads it out over two hours. What he creates is an abundantly “important,” yet emotionally laughable rip off of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.
Continues after the jump »
Jesus vs. the vampires
- Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter
- Jesus, Mary Magnum, and El Santo kick some vampire ass in order to save the lesbians. "Jesus saves" takes on a whole new meaning in this 2001 indy cult film.
- Buy it on Amazon
- Available on Netflix
The lesbians are dying off and vampires are to blame. The vampires are harvesting skin for some wacked out scientist and they are choosing lesbians because no one will miss them. The local priests know they need to stop the vampires and in order to do so they need to enlist vampire enemy #1, JC himself. Two priests go to the lake (where Jesus is baptizing believers) in order to go recruit Christ’s help and when explaining the situation, vampires attack. Jesus turns it on and kicks ass, but the two priests die in the process. Jesus goes back to the city, meets Mary Magnum and she helps him gets a modern makeover so that he looks more like he fits in. Jesus proceeds to then kick vampire ass for another hour or so and in the end he brings some folks back to life, turns vamps back into humans, and facilitates lesbian love.
A truly touching story… Continues after the jump »
‘The Producers’ produces boredom
- The Producers
- Two and a half hours of boredom. The writing is far from clever, the songs don't move the plot, and did I mention that it's just not funny? Because it's not. See it on Broadway, or better yet, just rent the original.
I went into “The Producers” only expecting to laugh. I expected too much.
I figured that a show that was sold out for months on Broadway would make a half decent movie, especially considering the fact that it started out as a movie, and one that I actually liked a lot.
It’s hard to say where “The Producers” really goes wrong. The singing is great. The actors are all great, and it’s a spectacular production. But it just wasn’t enough.
All of the actors are great, and it’s really hard to find a problem with any of the performance. Will Ferrell, in particular, stands out as playwright Franz Liebkind. Continues after the jump »
Laughter + crying = good times!
THE FAMILY STONE is a movie about a family coming together for Christmas. There are tears, laughter, drugs, and fist fights. Just like in my family. I found this movie to be a delight. The laughs are big, and the emotions true. I genuinely felt like this was a real family, dealing with issues that were both funny and heartbreaking.
Sarah Jessica Parker plays MEREDITH, who is going home to meet her boyfriend’s family for the first time. They are a tightly knit clan, and none of them take to Meredith right away. I read the script by Tom Bezucha a few years ago, when it was called “F*cking Hate Her”. I liked it, but I remember thinking that it was too bad that this woman was being shunned so fast. But Parker (who I admit I am not a fan of) is very good at being unintentionally a bitch. Well, mostly unintentionally. She is tightly wound, arrogant and stubborn. Lots of laughs come from her being uncomfortable, and stumbling into many Stone family no-nos. Her main nemesis is AMY, played with delightful glee by Rachel McAdams. Every time I see McAdams, I fall more and more in love with her.
By the end of the film, Meredith is accepted by the Stones, although not without considerable soul searching by many of the characters. Luke Wilson is charming as the stoner brother, and Claire Danes is her normal lovable self. But the people that really carry the movie are Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson. Their performances are the reason that you believe in this story; that you believe in this family. They are flawed, yet trying their best. Just like in real life, that is all we can hope for.
And to prevent myself getting too sappy, I will tell you that in THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, there is a great scene of a young boy spreading his ejaculate on some library books. Great stuff! But don’t take me word for it. Go see these films for yourself, and you make up your own mind. As Michael Ironside said in the amazing STARSHIP TROOPERS, figuring things out for yourself is the only real freedom any of us have.
Making mountains out of ‘Mountain’
- Brokeback Mountain
- It's difficult to find any flaws in this epic film about two men who share a forbidden love... unless you're homophobic.
I don’t think there was ever a great time to see “Brokeback Mountain,” but not for the reason you might suspect (the whole gay cowboy thing). Even before it was released in New York City, it had that “Oscar buzz.”
I hate Oscar buzz because it makes it seem like the only reason intelligent movies are made and the only reason we end up seeing them is to decide if they are indeed contenders for the Oscars. As a result, the whole artistic process gets skewed and the movie-going experience gets tainted. The discussion becomes “Will this movie win Best Picture?” instead of “Was this a great movie?”
So I didn’t rush out to see “Brokeback Mountain” even though I wanted to see it. Even before I had thought about planning a trip to the theater, the Ang Lee-directed flick had already received critics awards, four stars, five stars, two thumbs up, the top spot on Top 10 lists, etc. The reason why this sucks is ultimately I’d be forced to go into this movie with huge expectations, even if I willfully tried to temper them a bit. And I hate going into movies like that. I also end up being overly critical, as if to out-pretentious all those movie reviewers claiming this is one fantastic masterpiece.
I remember seeing “The Matrix” with my boys Wooster and Eli up at Syracuse in 1999 and being totally blown away. Why? Because I had no expectations for it. It was a sci-fi flick starring Keanu Reeves, and I’ve never really been a fan of either. Such moments at the theater are so rare now though. Everything gets the hype treatment, whether it’s a blockbuster or an indie pic.
So there I was, seeing “Brokeback Mountain” weeks after it had been released in NYC. My strategy of waiting until some of the hysteria died down had worked a bit. I found myself able to just sit back and relax and prepare for some gay sex scenes. Continues after the jump »
‘Kong’ fulfills king-sized expectations
- King Kong
- Peter Jackson's remake of the film classic is built on huge expectations, and against all odds, he manages to pull off yet another movie that many said couldn't be done.
If ever there was a man with great ambitions, it was Peter Jackson. A lesser director would probably fail to see the limit of his own ability in attempting the movies Jackson has directed. After beating the odds with his last three movies, he’s managed to do it again.
“King Kong” shines in just about every way possible. From the sights and sounds of depression era New York to the steaming jungles of Skull Island, the sets and locations are outstanding. None of the sets ever feel like a set. The streets of Manhattan seem to go on for miles, and the lights of Times Square in winter glow as if you were there. The only problems come at times when Kong interacts with jungle sets, which sometimes appear to be “bigatures” like the ones used for many scenes in the “Lord of the Rings” films. Continues after the jump »
Texas tease
- Syriana
- The dirty business of oil is tackled in this entertaining and informative, yet all too broad "Traffic"-style film.
The right wing has done its best to silence Hollywood, that crowd from over on the West Coast with the troubling habit of speaking its mind. Impromptu political speeches by celebrities at award shows or wherever have been systematically defused and/or categorized as unpatriotic by conservative talking heads like Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. Ultimately, these hypocrites recognize the influence public figures can have over shaping the consciousness of the country.
Not that normal people should be influenced by celebrities; they should make up their own minds (like, for example, as to whether or not Karl Rove is a total douche) through education of the issues, which is just what celebrities attempt to accomplish when they go off script and say something like, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” in protest of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. There’s an awareness out there that government officials (for being corrupt) and those in the media (for being lazy, feeble, and in some cases, corrupt) can’t be relied upon to send out certain messages.
But, if anything, the celebrities that have had the stones to speak up during the post-9/11 era have had their pleas fall on deaf ears, or worse, seen it backfire.
Typically, times like these make for great art, but Hollywood has been on hiatus, perhaps because too many are still afraid that any form of dissent will put an end to their career. Or maybe because Hollywood really is as creatively tapped as we all feared. Continues after the jump »
Cool as Cash
- Walk The Line
- Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon act and sing their way through the early years of rock and country as Johnny Cash and June Carter.
- Buy soundtrack from Amazon
- Hear soundtrack on iTunes
It’s that time of the year again — celebrity biopic time. The actors who star in these movies usually walk a fine line between acting and impersonating the subject, no pun intended in this case. If I had to make the call, I’d say there’s more acting in Walk the Line, but it all depends on what you’re talking about. I’ve come up with my definition of what might determine whether an actor is acting or impersonating when the subject is somebody famous.
If they’re acting (bear with me) like the subject doing something the subject was famous for doing, such as recreating a well-known event, it can very easily become an impersonation. If they’re acting like the subject outside the public eye, it would have to be acting. There’s always the third option — that it’s an impression — which could concievably cover either one, but humor would have to be intended, so we can forget about that one for now. Continues after the jump »
An Obituary Rantview: Serenity
- Serenity
- This is where I'd normally give you a one-line reason to see this movie, but it's already out of theatres. Thanks, slowpoke.
The complaint I heard most often from my fellow nerds was how much of an abomination the newest trilogy of Star Wars movies were; all the Vader-wouldn’t-emote-like-that and the Yoda-isn’t-a-Mortal-Kombat-fighter ra-ra bullshit. Nothing could save the three sterling turds that George Lucas had crapped out in the past six years.
However, when these people were given an alternative to the played-out SW mythos in Serenity, a film based off of Joss Whedon’s aborted sci-fi TV series Firefly, most of them turned a collective blind eye to the release and have let it slip into the ‘box-office failure’ category of this year’s releases. Continues after the jump »
‘Capote’ is another bio drone
- Capote
- Philip Seymour Hoffman stands out in typical biopic about author Truman Capote.
During the latter stages of last year’s Oscar season my mom suddenly came up with the declaration that Jamie Foxx wasn’t really acting in his stunning portrayal of legendary musician Ray Charles in “Ray” — he was merely doing an impersonation. “Yeah, what’s the difference?” I asked. “It’s still a great performance.”
We went back and forth like this for weeks, ultimately agreeing to disagree.
Then, after seeing “Capote,” my mom brought it up again, saying, “Now what Philip Seymour Hoffman did, that was acting, unlike Jamie Foxx in ‘Ray.’”
My mom isn’t the only one who I’ve heard make the argument. From what I’ve read in snooty film magazines, a lot of serious actor types weren’t exactly impressed by Foxx’s work in the movie either.
I’m still not sure I get it. I guess they’re trying to say that there’s a difference between just copying a person and doing an interpretation, which would be the more artistic route. And acting is all about art. Continues after the jump »
Good news for ‘Good Night’
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Director George Clooney delivers a timely and powerful reminder that we're not powerless, and ordinary men can challenge power.
We’re introduced to CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow at the beginning of “Good Night, and Good Luck” as the broadcaster is being honored in 1958 for his work over the years, particularly for his legendary fight against Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Upon taking the stage to accept the recognition which he is being given, Murrow, played authentically by David Strathairn, tells his story.
The state of television in the 1950s of “Good Night, and Good Luck” is eerily similar to that of today. Most programs do little but numb the mind, and keep the people from worrying. The news media is a toothless watchdog, afraid to upset advertisers and go against the corporate managers. The most terrifying prospect of all, however, is to be labeled a communist by Sen. McCarthy or one of his sycophants. Continues after the jump »
