No Gimmick Needed

2011-10-06T20:16:00.001-07:00

In honor of Steve Jobs’ passing, I thought I’d provide a ranked list of what I believe to be the most lasting impact he’s had: Pixar’s films. Long after Wozniak’s PC or Ive’s iPod are forgotten dinosaurs, we’ll still have a growing library of films that range from above average to great. From worst to first.
12. Cars 2.
11. A Bug’s Life.
10. Cars.
9. Monster’s Inc.
8. Toy Story 2.
7. The Incredibles.
6. Wall-E.
5. Toy Story 3.
4. Ratatouille.
3. Toy Story.
2. Finding Nemo.
1. Up! I’m probably the only person who picks this movie, but I have to go with my heart.

2011-02-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

DAY 5: GIMMICKLESS OSCARS PREVIEW CONCLUSION

No preview would be complete without discussing the Aniston for every Jolie. I still think Brad's with the wrong girl by the way.

- BIGGEST SNUBS
* Christopher Nolan – Director – Inception involved zero gravity fighting and four simultaneous plots. The King’s Speech involved a guy stuttering.
* Easy A – Fantastically written, this generation’s Clueless, this movie was everything that the expansion of the Oscar’s was meant to address. Maybe there was no room in a crowded best actress field, but either best film or best screenplay is more than deserved.
* Julianne Moore – The only thing propping up The Kids Are All Right was the acting. Moore is the best thing in the movie, as she frequently is. She’s reached auto-nod status in my book. I have a soft spot for all Lebowski alumni. "Don't be fatuous Jeffrey."
* Tron’s Art – The most visually memorable film since Avatar…got no nominations for technical or artistic achievement.
* Waiting for Superman – If not the biggest snub then certainly the most expected. At this point, almost all “documentaries” are at best termed “advocacy” films. A cynic might call them “propaganda” or worse, “for-profit campaign lit.” Regardless, I believe in a no bullshit world – if this is the award for the best hard left “advocacy” film, then they should just call it that up front.
WINNER: Christopher Nolan

- WORST NOMINATION
* Mark Ruffalo – A friend of mine met Fabio once and described him as having “anti-personality” in the same sense as physicists speculate there must be anti-matter to balance all of their equations. Ruffalo is on my short list of actors who have “anti-screen presence,” a trait skillfully employed in The Kids Are All-Right as a sub-plot of its own: Will Mr. Ruffalo’s lack of talent spontaneously combust on screen. Go watch his role in Shutter Island…I say role because “performance” would be inaccurate. He seems serially unaware of what’s going on in the scene around him…silently reviewing his line in his head until it’s his turn to talk.
* The Illusionist – Sitting on one remaining animated film nomination, and looking at worthwhile entries like Despicable Me, Tangled, and Megamind, the academy instead turns to an unknown European film which may or may not involve Edward Norton being a magician.
* The Kids Are All Right – I have always wondered why people write films with no likeable characters. The kids are abysmal, the “father” is a cad, one mother is a bitter alcoholic and the other is a flake. I was pulling for the gardener...who gets fired for having a goofy look on his face.
* David Russell – The Fighter – This was not a noteworthy directorial performance, and the nomination is made all the stranger by, and I cannot stress this enough, the absolutely indefensible choice not to include the Gatti-Ward boxing matches. It’s like making a Holocaust movie with no death camp: the point is missed and the movie is just a miserable train ride.
* Kick Ass’s Writer – This movie was great fun and had plenty of catchy one liners. Fully deserving of attention.

WINNER: Mark Ruffalo

THE YEAR’S REAL TOP 10 REGARDLESS OF GENRE:
1. Black Swan
2. Easy A
3. Inception
4. Kick Ass
5. Waiting for Superman
6. The Town
7. The Book of Eli
8. The Social Network
9. The A-Team
10. The Last Exorcism
HONORABLE MENTION: Cop Out, Despicable Me, JackAss 3D, The Other Guys, True Grit

2011-02-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

GIMMICKLESS OSCAR PREVIEW 2010-11: DAY 4 - THE BIG AWARDS

Best Picture
• “Black Swan” – This movie is like the ballet version of Raging Bull – claustrophobic to watch, brilliant…One of the best movies I’ve seen. I never want to see it again.
• “The Fighter” – 2 hours better spent re-watching Gatti-Ward I.
• “Inception” – If this had been released as a holiday awards contender rather than a summer blockbuster, it might actually be in the conversation to win. If it has a weakness, it was some of the acting. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page have that ‘permanent teenager’ look that belongs in Scream 4, not high-level action.
• “The Kids Are All Right” – A Lifetime movie dressed up by the presence of real actors and passed through to this round as the token LGBT nomination.
• “The King's Speech” – Something tells me that the royal family is secretly funding all of these sympathetic portrayals of the current royal line to cover up their collusion in controlling the world drug trade. Maybe that something is a Lyndon Larouche pamphlet.
• “127 Hours” – The lesson is…update your facebook status before you go camping.
• “The Social Network” – If this were an award for best preview, this is the movie of the decade. Perfectly enjoyable, I doubt this is a film that has much staying power as anything other than how we see Mark Zuckerberg for the rest of his obscenely wealthy life.
• “Toy Story 3” – I’m that guy that didn’t love this movie. Pixar’s genius comes from its boundless creativity. I’m impressed that they’ve squeezed so much juice out of this orange, but I prefer their more exotic flavors.
• “True Grit” – I am bound to thoroughly enjoy any Coen Brothers movie, so I’ll focus on my criticisms. I found this one jumped around too much in tone between their silly movies and their serious movies. It also seemed to have been trimmed too close – some of the actors deserved more screen time and there aren’t enough of their trademark set-pieces in the back half of the film. Also it ends on an unnecessarily flat note that I can’t be convinced to like - their third consecutive abrupt and unsatisfying ending and the one with the least artistic purpose behind it.
• “Winter's Bone" – I guess we have to keep nominating dramas or no one will ever make any. A good solid film but nothing more.

SHOULD WIN: Black Swan
WILL WIN: The Social Network – I’m going for the dark horse candidate because I just have to hope that somehow Hollywood’s destructive addiction to British period drama cannot long endure.

Directing
• “Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky
• “The Fighter” David O. Russell
• “The King's Speech” Tom Hooper
• “The Social Network” David Fincher
• “True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

SHOULD WIN: Christopher Nolan. Inception was directorial origami. Of these 5, I’d say Aronofsky deserves to win.
WILL WIN: David Fincher – I’m a fan, he’s due.

The Daniel Day Lewis Actor in a Leading Role Award
• Javier Bardem in “Biutiful” is Hispanic and brooding in that foreign language film no one saw. This nomination screams, “token diversity nomination.” Someone get Denzel out of his latest train-related film and into a real role. Mr. Bardem already won for No Country and he’s married to Penelope Cruz so I can’t imagine he’ll be heartbroken when he loses.
• Jeff Bridges in “True Grit” is the John Wayne Dude. No matter where he goes or who he plays, no matter how layered up with scotch and grit, Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude.
• Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network” is the snarky kid from Zombieland…and about to be the richest man in the world. This is a script-derived nomination, you can’t tell if this guy is acting. I have no clue where he will be in 10 years – he’s one of those people you can never picture as a grown man even though he’s probably 30 already. He should be in Scream 4 too.
• LL Col Firth in “The King's Speech” is an unstoppable freight-train of Oscarness – English, royalty, disability. Bonus points for being named Colin. I do not understand why all of my female friends are in love with Colin Firth. To me, he looks a lot like a young Michael Caine and I expect the same career arc.
• James Franco in “127 Hours” is a man trapped under a rock…left on screen, alone for roughly an hour, Franco carries an unsellable concept. I have to be honest, I thought he was career-killing abysmal in the Spider Man movies. I was wrong - he's kind of cool and likable.

SHOULD WIN: James Franco
WILL WIN: Colin Firth

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Christian Bale in “The Fighter” is the lead as a cracked out boxer with a regional accent, but gets called the supporting actor because the movie was technically about Markie Mark’s character.
• John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone” is a much less famous actor also playing a cracked out man with a regional accent.
• Jeremy Renner in “The Town” may or may not be cracked out, has a regional accent, and robs banks.
• Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right” is wandering around in a post-cracked-out daze when he discovers his sperm was used to inseminate two lesbians. Queue emotional diarrhea and confused looks that could be interpreted to be a California accent.
• Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech” is not cracked out, but is Australian, so he kind of acts like it.

SHOULD WIN: Christian Bale
WILL WIN: Geoffrey Rush – I figure Christian Bale is generally disliked.

The Meryl Streep Actress in a Leading Role Award
• Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right” is unnervingly convincing as the…more masculine member of a lesbian couple. I’m not up on what the allowable term is. Bull-lesbian? Blesbian? Anyways, if I’m Warren Beatty, I have to be wondering.
• Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” is someone that old academy voters want to see show up in a dress.
• Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone” is affecting as a tough girl in a rough place.
• Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” is deeply affecting as a soft girl in a rough place.
• Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine” is in this year’s well-regarded love story movie.

SHOULD WIN: Natalie Portman
WILL WIN: Natalie Portman.

Actress in a Supporting Role
• Amy Adams in “The Fighter” is unnervingly convincing as a semi-trashy bartendress. I’m impressed, definitely not Enchanted.
• Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech” imbues an aimless depiction of a dull queen with her limitless screen presence.
• Melissa Leo in “The Fighter” is understandably convincing as a semi-trashy mom.
• Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit” is inexplicably named a supporting actress in a movie that’s about her. Anyways, a sharp performance in a year full of strong female performances.
• Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom” is supposed to be good in the movie that Netflix didn’t deliver in time.

SHOULD WIN: Steinfeld.
WILL WIN: Jacki Weaver. Has that indie buzz, plus she’s English.

2011-02-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

GIMMICKLESS OSCAR PREVIEW 2010-11: DAY 3

The Other Awards (i.e. why the broadcast takes so long). On the subject, has anyone thought that this thing might better be made a 3 day affair. Technical awards day 1, these awards that no one cares about day 2, big names day 3. We'd all get to bed at a more reasonable hour. Except for the writers, who deserve garlands thrown at their feet.

Animated Feature Film
• “How to Train Your Dragon” Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
• “The Illusionist” Sylvain Chomet
• “Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich
SHOULD WIN: Despicable Me
WILL WIN: Toy Story 3
COMMENT: Every year Pixar makes an animated film it gets nominated for best picture. No other animated film gets nominated. The result is that there is little reason not to announce the winner in advance. That said, I never dug the Toy Story films. Despicable Me was more fun and funnier. In fact, I sort of preferred Tangled to all these films as well.

Art Direction
• “Alice in Wonderland”
• “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
• “Inception”
• “The King's Speech”
• “True Grit”
SHOULD WIN: Tron Legacy – I'm not an art expert, but I know what I like. No one can honestly say that any of the nominated films have the same iconic imagery that Tron Legacy will be remembered for. I should also send some love out to Tangled's lantern scene...I'd use the word magical...but I'm a grown man.
WILL WIN: The King’s Speech – An English period piece. They just can’t help themselves.

Cinematography
• “Black Swan” Matthew Libatique
• “Inception” Wally Pfister
• “The King's Speech” Danny Cohen
• “The Social Network” Jeff Cronenweth
• “True Grit” Roger Deakins
SHOULD WIN: The Book of Eli - Terrific use of color and the attention to detail in masking the twist was award-worthy. Also, The American could also use a bit of nomination-love.
WILL WIN: The King’s Speech

Costume Design
• “Alice in Wonderland” Colleen Atwood
• “I Am Love” Antonella Cannarozzi
• “The King's Speech” Jenny Beavan
• “The Tempest” Sandy Powell
• “True Grit” Mary Zophres
SHOULD WIN: I confess I neither know nor care. As anyone who has seen my wardrobe can attest, the answer is, “Not Justin.”
WILL WIN: The King’s Speech

Documentary (Feature)
• “Exit through the Gift Shop” Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
• “Gasland” Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
• “Inside Job” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
• “Restrepo” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
• “Waste Land” Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley
SHOULD WIN: Waiting for Superman. Hollywood is a huge union town, so there was no way the year's obvious winner was going to get nominated for calling out the teacher's union for holding back meaningful educational reform even if it was made by an arts community dynasty (Guggenheims).
WILL WIN: Inside Job. Hollywood is not as big of a Wall Street town

Visual Effects
• “Alice in Wonderland”
• “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1”
• “Hereafter”
• “Inception”
• “Iron Man 2”
SHOULD WIN: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I know that the words would choke in the presenter's mouth, but again, this isn't an award for best script.
WILL WIN: Inception - The only blockbuster to live up to the hype this year has to win at least one token award.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
• “127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
• “The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
• “Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
• “True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• “Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini
SHOULD WIN: Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network
WILL WIN: Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network
COMMENT: Sorkin's a big name and there was plenty of sharp dialog to earn him his trophy.

Writing (Original Screenplay)
• “Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
• “The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson;
Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
• “Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
• “The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
• “The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler
SHOULD WIN: Christopher Nolan - Inception
WILL WIN: Christopher Nolan – Inception – It’s such a clever idea, so well executed. It would be a shame if it got lost in the King’s stuttering Speech.

2011-02-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

DAY 2 OF THE ONLY REAL OSCAR'S REVIEW:

WORST BIG NAME MOVIE:
- Alice in Wonderland – Alice is always a challenge because it has no real plot and is loaded with period references that have no bearing on the modern world. Faced with this challenge, Disney gave it the Hero with a Thousand Faces treatment. The magic of the original book is believed to have been accidentally locked in the supply shed for the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown.
- Edge of Darkness – When you’re as reviled as Mel Gibson has become and you insist on continuing to make movies, every line has to be a shot across the bow of anyone who dares question your talent. Instead, Gibson appears to have extended a withered olive branch on corporate greed. If he wants back in, he should just go ahead and make a reverential Holocaust movie. If not, he should take a page out of Brock Lesnar’s book and double down on being Hollywood’s renegade villain.
- Grown Ups – What if we got several slightly past-peak comedians together and they all decided to not be that funny for 2 hours? Somehow, no one’s flagging career arc was altered.
- Killers – This movie is an interesting experiment in what happens when you have nearly an hour of set-up for a movie that has no plot. Anyways, it was nice to see Tom Selleck’s mustache grimacing on the big screen again.
- Harry Potter Part 7 Part 1 – A gorgeous two hour picture book for vacationing in rural England. A brilliant time to cash in, knowing that it’s too late in the series to kill fan interest in the films with a dud. And oh what a dud. As the one person on earth who has never read a line written by J.K. Rowling, I assure you that as a stand alone movie, this was a disaster of Baron Von Munchausen proportions.

WINNER: Harry Potter Part 7 Part 1. (CAUTION: I was not able to view The Tourist for the purposes of this review. I’m told it’s a strong contestant.)

OUTRIGHT WORST MOVIE:
- I’m Still Here. Joaquin Phoenix memorably grew a beard and went all Fear & Loathing on Letterman, then announcing a move into rapping about 4 years after the shock humor of white guys rapping poorly stopped being funny. This is the sort of career move that makes Andy Kaufman’s 'wrestling women' idea look like Sinatra landing the supporting role in From Here to Eternity. Casey Affleck, circling the drain that his brother Ben recently escaped from, decided to make a semi-planned mockumentary. Put it all together and you have several hours of unwatchable footage of a blathering, coked out hobo bleeding money.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:
- Dinner for Schmucks – If we learned one thing from The Cable Guy, it's that funny people can go too far and just be creepy. Dinner for Schmucks' creative team did not see The Cable Guy.
- The Expendables – I gave the preview a standing ovation. I had this idea plus Jackie Chan a decade ago. However, my version did not involve B movie action and no wit.
- The Fighter – For anyone who loves boxing, the Gatti-Ward fights are the definition of the sport at its best. So in making a movie about Mickey Ward, one might reasonably expect a climax with at least the first Gatti-Ward fight. Instead, I left the theater wondering if there was going to be a sequel.
- Knight & Day – Tom Cruise can do whatever he wants at this point in his career. But given his bizarre, extremely public mania, the creepy stalker spy movie idea is kind of like Michael Jackson writing a song about child abuse.
- Secretariat – The underlying rhythm of any pet movie is the animal. For dogs, it’s family. For cats, it’s mystery. In the case of horses, it’s the majesty of the animal. Instead, the horse of all horses spends very little time on camera while we receive a lesson in small business. The worst moment has to be the muted, lo-fi audio knock off of Chic Anderson’s epic, “Tremendous Machine,” call. Given how badly the endings to the year’s top sports movies were botched, it's no wonder LA still doesn't have a football team.

WINNER: The Expendables. Much like Joe Gibbs’ comeback, sometimes the game is too far past you to get caught up.

MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
- Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore – Couldn’t this have gone straight to video?
- Little Fockers – After you make one bad sequel, you stop.
- Saw VII – Saw came out in 2004. We have not had a Saw-less year since. Saw 3D was actually billed “The Final Chapter”. Can this madness be stopped?
- Step Up 3D – The unintended consequence of the 3D phenomenon was that every bad movie with a worse sequel had an excuse to make number 3.
- Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – This wasn’t a bad idea, or even a bad movie. But the ending, with a redeemed Michael Douglas, kills the whole concept. This movie screams for a, “There Will Be Blood” ending – Gecko back on top, remorseless and enthroned, drinking Shia's milk shake. Instead, money goes to sleep in a tidy, focus-group tested, cliché-Hollywood crib.

WINNER: Little Fockers. I think this movie was made only because someone thought the title was funny.

MOST SURPRISINGLY WATCHABLE:
- Fighting
- Karate Kid
- MacGruber
- Predators
- She’s Out of My League
WINNER: Predators. I was sure this franchise was dead and buried. Who knew that Adrien the Kissing Bandit could resurrect it?

BEST LINE TO QUOTE WITHOUT REMORSE:
“We push ourselves, we work around the clock.” “I ALREADY WORK AROUND THE CLOCK!”
– Extraordinary Measures

RUNNER UP: “What’s your number? I find most guys on Wall Street have a specific number in mind of how much they make before they walk away.” “More.”
– Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

BEST TWIST:
- The Book of Eli
- Inception
- The Other Guys
- Salt
- Shutter Island
WINNER: The Book of Eli. Inception and Salt are nothing but twist, so you can’t pin down that big twist at the end. Shutter Island has you waiting for the twist all movie long. The Other Guys throws the twist at you at the beginning (and it’s damn good). The Book of Eli gets the twist right – you never see it coming.

WILDLY OVERPLAYED CLICHÉ OF THE YEAR:

- Hot girl/old lady as ninja action star. In the 90’s, feminism finally began sniping at the walls of action films, questioning the time-honored damsel-in-distress story line. The result was an early generation of avante guard female actions stars - Sarah Connor, anything with Gina Davis - large or buff women who looked like they could plausibly kick ass, but still lost a fight on occasion. Slowly the plots were rewritten to make the damsel kick ass of her own accord. A few creative cinematographers hit on the now standard sexual image of a little hot girl toting a big gun. Here we are, 2010, uzi-ed with one 80-pound waif after another foisted on us as the second coming of Bruce Lee. Perhaps a rundown of the more implausible action moments from this year to demonstrate the scope of the problem:
o Mia Wasikowska slays the Jabberwocke in Alice in Wonderland
o Thekla Reuten as ace assassin in The American
o Mila Kunis as incorrigible tough girl in The Book of Eli
o Gemma Arterton kicking ridiculous classical ass in Clash of the Titans AND Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
o Every computer animation movie
o Scarlet Johanssen randomly takes on a room full of bad guys in Iron Man 2 because, oh by the way, she's also a super hero.
o Zoe Saldana fires guns that weigh more than she does in The Losers
o Whatever was going on in Resident Evil
o That Scott Pilgrim thing has a lot of ninja girls...and super mario coins.
o Maid Marion is reinvented as Legolas in Robin Hood
o Angelina can beat up anyone anytime anywhere in any movie

It’s not that I disapprove of strong female characters – there can be ninja girls thrown in with damsels in equal measure. My concern is more the believability. We rightfully demand that male action stars look like they can beat people up. The same should be true for girls. I am sure that there are females in this world who can kick my ass. I cannot be convinced that Scarlet Johanssen is one of them.

The nadir of this phenomenon is in the movie Red, in which the lovely Helen Mirren is pawned off on us as the world’s greatest assassin. At the movie’s climax, Mirren is filmed gingerly prancing away from a gunfight…we are told this is sprinting. It’s not Ms. Mirren’s fault that she cannot move much faster than an inch-worm. Perhaps the gunmen were too busy laughing to take aim. My point is, when the script says "sprints away from gunfight," part of the acting is looking like you can sprint.

2011-02-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

The No-Gimmick 2010-11 Oscars Review: Day 1

Kicking off my annual oscars review.

MOST IMPLAUSIBLE CONCEPT OR INADVERTENTLY RIDICULOUS MOMENT:
- Brooklyn’s Finest: Richard Gere is a tough Brooklyn cop. That hamster story chases you in every role.
- Just Wright – An NBA player goes for something other than looks.
- Legion – Paul Bettany is an action super hero.
- Valentine’s Day – Jessica Biel has trouble finding a date on Valentine’s Day. I’m sure America’s unwillingly single women are sympathetic.
- Wolfman – Benecio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, prepping for their final werewolf battle, realize that the audience won’t be able to tell which one is which, so they go shirts and skins.
WINNER: Valentine's Day. Memo to Hollywood casting departments: Jessica Biel is hot.

BEST GRATUITOUS CASH-IN ON 3D PHENOMENON:
- Jack Ass 3D

TROY MCCLURE AWARD FOR ANONYMOUS UBIQUITY: Josh Duhamel.

“Hi kids, you might remember me from such 2010 Romantic Comedies as ‘The Romantics,’ ‘When in Rome,’ and ‘Life As We Know It,’ as well as my supporting romcom side-plot role in ‘Ramona and Beezus.’ As a result, I was paid millions of dollars to make out with Ginnifer Goodwin, Kristen Bell, Katie Holmes, Anna Paquin, and Katherine Heigl, at the mere cost of my soul and an increased risk of mononucleosis.”

This man has no conscience. But he would make a great star on TV’s The Batchelor.

On the topic, the following is the year in concept Romantic Comedy. Since I can’t be bothered to watch any of these movies for target-audience related reasons, I have provided a brief synopsis of what happens based on sitting through previews and/or looking at movie posters:

2010: THE YEAR IN CONCEPT ROMCOM:
The Back-Up Plan – Boy meets girl. Girl is pregnant already without knowing it. Existential crisis. Draw little arrow thingies on movie poster to demonstrate twist on normal love story. Hijinx hijinx hijinx. They fall in love and live happily ever after.

The Bounty Hunter – Boy is bounty-hunter. Ex-girlfriend breaks law and he is assigned to snare her. Hijinx, alternative music ensue. They re-fall in love and live happily ever after.

Charlie St. Cloud – Boy meets girl. Boy killed brother. Somehow this conflicts with the girl, who is in existential crisi. Boy falls in love and saves girl from dying like brother. They live happily ever after with dead brother and alternative music. Tagline: “Life is for Living”. No kidding.

Eat Pray Love – Woman is bitterly unhappy in marriage, cue existential crisis. Divorces boy. Travels the world to find herself. Hijinx ensue. Meets other boys, rinse and repeat.

How Do You Know – Girl is with guy, causing existential crisis for no apparent reason…old flame rolls in…cue alternative music - that's how you know.

Just Wright – Queen Latifa convinces an NBA player that there’s more to woman than what’s on the outside. It’s a healthy dose of sarcasm that counts.

Leap Year – Girl wants to marry commitment-lite boy. Obscure European tradition related to love holds solution. Somehow she ends up chasing her corporate boy in rural Ireland, meets charming local. Existential crisis ensues.

Letters to Juliet – Girl uncovers obscure European tradition involving love letters. Decides to ditch vacation and resolve love story revealed in stolen mail, meeting boy, alternative music in process. Happily Ever After ensues.

Love & Other Drugs – Evil drug salesman boy meets untamed patient girl. They fall in love and learn life lessons. There may or may not be alternative music.

When in Rome – Girl in existential crisis discovers obscure European tradition related to love. Meets boys. They all fall in love with her. Cue alternative music, hijinx.

THE NICHOLAS CAGE AWARD FOR BIGGEST SELLOUT:
- Nicholas Cage – Sorcerer’s Apprentice – The award isn’t named after him because he DOESN’T do at least one of these paycheck films per year.
- Jackie Chan – The Spy Next Door – I appreciate how hard it is to find roles in your non-native language. I do not appreciate Jackie Chan starring in The Spy Next Door.
- Brendan Fraser - Furry Vengeance – Fraser has yet to be type-cast and, with success in several genres, is a darkhorse bet for a late career Tom Hanks run of well-regarded dramas. However, Furry Vengeance ups the odds that he is simply nearing a premature end.
- Dwayne The Rock Johnson – The Tooth Fairy – You were supposed to be the chosen one! Arnold’s successor. Why?
- Owen Wilson – Marmaduke – I find Wilson hard to criticize between the suicide attempt and the general likeability. Instead, I will merely point out that, to my knowledge, this is the only non-Garfield comic strip to make the jump into low-rent family comedy film. Thank God Bill Waterson has kept Calvin & Hobbes pristine.
WINNER: The Rock.

2010’s BEST INADVERTENT PORN TITLES:
- 8: The Mormon Proposition
- Country Strong
- Winter’s Bone
- Despicable Me
- How to Train Your Dragon
- I’m Still Here
- You Again
- Faster
- Alice in Wonderland
- 127 Hours
WINNER: All of us.

MOVIES I AM LEAST LIKELY TO EVER SEE:
- Burlesque – Wasn’t one Showgirls enough?
- For Colored Girls – It’s not called, “For Colored Girls and Justin”
- Greenberg – Do we really need another neurotic Jewish guy existential crisis movie? Didn’t Woody Allen have this covered?
- Gulliver’s Travels – Will Jack Black ever be funny again? I’m starting to wonder whether he was ever funny in the first place.
- Sex & The City 2 – That target audience thing again.

2011-01-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

What's Wrong with Qatar Part 2: What Will They Do?

Assuming one million people can find somewhere to stay in Qatar, we get to the real problem with Qatar: what are 1 million soccer hooligans going to do in a tee-totaling desert fairy-tale town in the middle of the summer.

#1 Qatar is hot. No seriously - the average temperature May to November is over 95 degrees farenheit. During the core normal world cup summer months, the AVERAGE is well over 100. Now, supposedly all of the stadiums are going to be refrigerated. But you cannot air-condition the whole country. Is the entire fan base going to spend their day in their hotel room?

#2 They might have to because Qatar doesn't have enough bars for them to drink at. Soccer fans drink. A lot. Qatar limits drinking to a few hotel bars. Let's not even discuss cultural taboos against non-married couples staying in the same hotel room...FIFA's president has already told gay people to stay away. Are the women all going to have to wear hijabs?

#3 If they can't drink...what will they do? What is there to do or see in Qatar? There are only so many falcons. It's not Qatar's fault that they have no national history. Qatar will have to build a network of ludicrous tourist attractions...or just hope everyone's cool with staying on siesta.

This is really the problem. The World Cup is a big party.

2010-12-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

The Only True Christmas Movie Review:

By popular demand, a Christmas movie review. We'll start with special awards and dubious achievements before we get to the Top 10, using my special Christmas movie scale.

TOP 5 Non-Christmas Movies Set During Christmas:
5. Gremlins
4. The Ref
3. Love, Actually
2. Die Hard
1. The Godfather: Part 1

TOP 5 VERSIONS OF THE CHRISTMAS CAROL:
Scrooge

That is all. No one should make an alternative. Yes, including the Muppets - anything with the rats in it is NOT a real muppet anything. Which brings me to...

JIM CARREY'S WAR ON CHRISTMAS
Does Jim Carrey like Christmas or hate it? He's played two versions of Christmas's most dastardly redeemed curmudgeons, both in miserable remakes of classics. Is this part of a broader campaign? Is he some sort of anti-Christmas 5th Column sent here by Jack Skellington to undermine all we hold sacred and dear? Speaking of which...

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT?
The Nightmare Before Christmas. Bursting with creativity, sure, but what was the assumed audience for a Goth-emo stop motion claymation musical about a depressed monster taking down Christmas?

THE CHRISTMAS MOVIES WE'RE MISSING:
- Anything worth watching that's about the nativity
- A good nutcracker movie
- A Calvin & Hobbes Christmas special.

THE CHRISTMAS CLASSIC THAT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
It's a Wonderful Life.
First of all, it's a Christmas movie with no Christmas cheer, no Santa, and no Christ. "No Mas!" A movie about broken dreams, two hours of misery, this film is a lodestone on every Christmas.

THE 30-POINT SCALE OF CHRISTMAS-MOVIE-NESS
- Nostalgia Factor - 10 Points - Every Christmas movie is, above all, valued for its belovedness. No matter the movie's original quality, what makes a great Christmas movie is how much it has come to be loved, because it reminds us of when Christmas was best - when we were children.
- Christmas-ness Factor - 10 Points - Another vital point is for the Christmas movie to be about Christmas. There are a lot of factors to hit on, and few movies can cover them all, but without a bit of Santa saving the day, a bit of snow-related magic, and a nod to the notion that the holiday is about the whole Jesus thing, it cannot be a complete Christmas movie.
- Quality - 10 Points - Some accounting must be made for whether, unbiased by nostalgia, the movie in question is any good.

FOR EXAMPLE:

THE WORST LEGIT CHRISTMAS MOVIE OF ALL:
Jingle All the Way:
Nostalgia = 0
Christmass-ness = 0
Quality = 0
Christmas Score = 0 - The functional equivalent of a pink bunny suit.
Anytime you make a comedy that's not funny, you're going to have problems. Then there's the fact that every Arnold movie has that weird thing where you think, "Why doesn't anyone in the movie notice or remark on the fact that he's ultra-buff and has a thick Austrian accent? Anyway, lots of Christmas movies are bad. The question is how you get the Christmas part this wrong. A movie built to mock Christmas commercialism ends up celebrating it. The point, as in Christmas Story, is the KID chasing the toy, not the dad. Moreover, the point is NOT that EVERY kid wants SOME toy, it's that ONE kid wants THE toy that just they want. Santa does not save the day...he tries to ruin it. The only person there to save the day is dad, dressed up as Generic Superhero. The kid is obnoxious. Indeed, the target of any good Christmas movie HAS to be the kid, not adults, because that's how you create nostalgia in the first place. The bow on top of this steaming Mr. Hankee of a Christmas movie is a generic title than pollutes a perfectly lovely Christmas carol without actually referencing it in any way.

BEFORE WE BEGIN, THE CHRISTMAS MOVIES I HAVE NOT SEEN ARE:
- Babes in Toyland
- Scrooged
- Bad Santa
- Emmett Otter's Jug-band Christmas
- Polar Express
- Any second tier black and white Christmas movie

The Christmas Movie by Decade:
40's = It's A Wonderful Life - Christmas is rough, just like everything else. Just stick it out.
50's = White Christmas - Christmas is pristine, generic and good in a sweater-wearing, banal sort of way.
60's = Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Christmas is about you being a special little snowflake despite the fact that you're a freak and an embarrassment to your family.
70's = Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas - Christmas is weird because it's the 70's.
80's = A Christmas Story - Christmas is about America, and a disappointing toy.
90's = Home Alone - Christmas is about, "Maybe my family's alright."
00's = Elf - Christmas is about the naive magic of the season in a cynical era.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, the CHRISTMAS MOVIE TOP 10
10. Frosty the Snowman - 17 Christmas points
Nostalgia = 7
Christmas-ness = 7
Quality = 3
This was my favorite as a kid. I watched it again...it's bad. A down-on his luck magician gets his hat stolen by some kids who then drag him to the ends of the earth to avoid giving it back to him. That's a good lesson. And why do they do this? So that they can instead play with an imaginary Christmas invention who looks like the Michelin man and is dumb enough to hide in a green house, when in fact, he could just hide IN THE SNOW! Worse still, the song was only created because Gene Autry was looking for a second Christmas hit. Who cares...Frosty's a fixture now, Santa randomly wanders into the movie in the end and saves the day, and the villain is terrifying to children. I'm giving an extra Christmas-ness half point assuming that the reason Frosty says "Happy Birthday" when he appears is some bizarre attempt to get at the Jesus angle.

9. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York - 18 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 4
Christmasness: 6
Quality: 8
The best Christmas sequel, this movie was surprisingly good. Lots of love for Christmas in New York, bits of Christmas magic here-and-there...and a strange woman with pidgeons. If they made another Home Alone, maybe the pidgeon lady could be Mike Tyson?

8. Miracle on 34th Street - 19 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 6
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 5
Nostalgia for this film is watered down by a series of questionable remakes, points it makes up by putting the Big Guy front and center. Let's discuss some of the more questionable plot points here though: Santa's benevolent benefactor is Macy's, which we're somehow led to believe leads a revolution in Christmas-love-in-ness by sending shoppers to other stores. Even stranger, Santa Claus reaches back, slugs the psychologist, and is later freed of charges of being crazy but never punished for assault. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Still, even the terrorists smile when the postal workers march into the court room.

7. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - 20 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 8
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 4
Everyone loves Rudolph, but again, some questions need to be asked. An elf who wants to become a dentist? Whaaaaaaa? There are lots of other Reindeer who don't make the cut...what happens to them? And some non-Frosty snowman named Sam, who is not abominable, is our narrator. And then we jump the polar version of the shark, to a rogue abominable snowman and meet a collection of bizarre characters, which might better be christened "Christmas Characters Begging for Cynical Millenials to make Youtube shorts about them," such as Yukon Cornelius, and King Moonracer, who has the audacity to throw the freaks off freak island. Anyway, crossing back into core Christmas territory, Rudolph finds his parents' love and helps Santa save Christmas. Queue classic song.

6. A Charlie Brown Christmas - 21 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 10
Christmasness: 9
Quality: 2
So Peanuts was never funny. As a movie, this Christmas special is shockingly dull. But as soon as you hear a few bars from the piano bit at the beginning, it IS Christmas. On top of that, it hits all of the essential moral lessons of Christmas movies, about the importance of friendship and community. That plus it is the only major Christmas special that takes on the Jesus thing. As a child, the undigested Jesus lecture was bizarre and out of place. And it still is. But I like that...maybe Charles Schulz was saying something about Christmas, the way the Jesus thing gets dropped in, as an oh yeah.

5. Elf - 22 Christmas points and climbing
Nostalgia: 3
Christmasness: 10
Quality: 9
This one is only limited by how new it is and how well it ages. At base, it's just a good movie, and nicely gets at a schmaltzy Christmas message that will serve it well in time. Really, though, this movie is just in love with Christmas magic. I'm predicting Elf will climb near the top as the years pass.

4. Home Alone - 23 Christmas points
Nostalgia: 7
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 8
Another movie that goes right for the family/Christmas jugular. The magic of the film is that Christmas is this real thing that makes wishes come true. In a rare touch, he does go to church and all. And just when you're having lots of fun, they throw in a John Candy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles interlude. Plus Santa is sort of in the movie in the form of Boo Radley light.

3. Scrooge - 24 Christmas points
Nostalgia: 9
Christmasness: 7
Quality: 8
Say what you will about the campy musical numbers, the wandering pace, the general 70's-ness of everyone's side burns, it is a hard heart that has never shed a tear for Tiny Tim on that beautiful Christmas morning.

2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - 26 Christmas points
Nostalgia: 10
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 8
The one weird 60's cartoon that is actually ridiculously good. As above, every time I see this, I wish someone would do for Bill Waterson what this did for Dr. Seuss.

1. A Christmas Story - 30 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 10
Christmasness: 10
Quality: 10
This movie is Christmas. It has become more Christmas than advent calendars and eggnog. It's really funny, it has literary aspects, and it pegs Christmas for everyone in the family. As you get older, you come to know everyone in the family in a new way. It's helped by the fact that none of the actors are big names or beauties...this could be any family in America and it is. The race for this award was never close and probably never will be.

BONUS: THE ONLY GREAT NEW YEARS' MOVIE:
The Hudsucker Proxy. Watch it every year. OK, so When Harry Met Sally is also good.

2010-12-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

WORLD CUP 2022 – FIASCO IN THE MAKING

So Qatar got (bought?) the World Cup. May it live to regret it.

The pitch was that they would build 12 air-conditioned stadiums and then give that technology and the materials away to construct 3rd world soccer stadiums. It’s a charming pitch, so much so that I could envision why the FIFA voting board, stocked with internationalists from the 3rd world, would be moved by the Emir’s benevolence.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, (and perhaps a few well-placed bribes serve as bypasses). What is actually going to happen? Qatar has 200,000 citizens and about 1.2 million guest-workers. Qatar’s security forces are staffed almost entirely by Omani conscripts. Qatar receives about 1 million tourist visits per year – by comparison, South Africa took in 1 million visitors for the 2010 World Cup in 1 month. This is a massive administrative challenge and the assumption seems to be that the Qataris are wealthy enough to spend away any problems.

Are there limits to the power of oil money? This is the first in a series of posts on what those limits might be.

Where will they stay?
Let’s assume that Qatar’s international airport can take everyone in – after all, if one thing is good about Qatar, it’s the airline. Where are these people going to stay? One might assume that Qatar can spend its way to enough hotel rooms in 12 years. But let’s not underestimate the challenge. As of 2009, Qatar had about 8500 hotel rooms. By 2012, that number is projected to grow, based on in-construction hotels, to about 10,700 hotel rooms.

One does not have to have mastered calculus to be concerned about the ratio of available units to people. Let’s say that Qatar should expect 1 million visitors over 1 month. Let’s say each visitor stays an average of 1/3 of a month and shares a room with 1 other person, on average. By that estimate, Qatar would need about 167,000 hotel rooms. I restate – in 2012, it will have 10,700. In other words, conservatively, Qatar will have to add 1.5 times as many hotel rooms as it currently has EVERY YEAR FOR 10 YEARS starting in 2012 just to meet World Cup demand. These hotel rooms will be relevant for 30 days, after which they will be completely superfluous. Even for a Gulf State, that is an epic waste of money, assuming they can pull it off.

But if they cannot, what are their options?

- Neighboring countries:
o Saudi Arabia is the only country that shares a border with Qatar. It is difficult to conceive of the Saudis relaxing their strong visa and social interaction restrictions to let World Cup revelers pass back and forth.
o Bahrain – the neighborhood party town, Bahrain will undoubtedly bear a large burden in absorbing the influx of travellers. Even still, this will create visa complications and force travellers to take ferries to games in large volumes. Moreover, Bahrain is simply not large enough by itself to make up the difference in needed hotel rooms to actual rooms.
o It’s possible, indeed highly desirable, that Qatar would reach out to the United Arab Emirates’ massive tourist facilities for help. But the two do not share a border. Perhaps Qatar will be forced to arrange for wide-ranging ferry services for those seeking to attend games.
o Iran is the only other country within reasonable distance, lying across the Persian Gulf. It is difficult to project the political trajectory of Iran 14 years out, but it is difficult to imagine a large contingent of the world’s soccer fans taking up residence in the sparsely populated Iranian coastal region to endure lengthy ferry rides to games.
o The final possibility is that Qatar can try to set up some system of flying people in and out of regional cities to games, which adds prohibitively to the cost and makes the airport the bottleneck.

- Refugee Camps – Ok, this is a bit of hyperbole, but honestly, Qatar’s only option may be to put up temporary shelter and offer it for free. Perhaps large ships will be allowed to dock and act as floating hotels. Given the summer heat and the general lack of things to do in Qatar, one could quickly imagine these camps and boats becoming dens of heat exhaustion or worse.

- Fewer visitors. The final, most likely option, is that the lack of places to stay and the other problems with the choice of host will lead visitors to vote with their feet and simply not attend. For the most part, these are not cheap hotels and hostels that Qatar is offering. These are high-end, luxury hotels designed to operate at low occupancy rates and high prices. These prices are likely to become worse with a glut of World Cup travelers unless artificially kept low by the host government.

In the end, Qatar's best residency option may be to hope that it is so unattractive as a host - pricey, hot, and boring - that no one shows up to create a hotel crisis.

2010-07-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP: DAY 11

Flying home. No hakuna matata. I had too good of a time.

OH AFRICA: We drove to the airport...except it no longer existed. They opened a new airport right before the world cup on the opposite side of town.

WORLD CUP TIP: GO! The world's premiere sporting event. 2014 is in Brazil.

SOUTH AFRICA TIP: GO! It's great fun and not too exotic for those less adventurous.

2010-07-10T14:41:00.001-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP: DAY 10

Today was my other soccer game - the Netherlands vs. Japan. As before, the East Asian team was game, but came with far fewer fans. The Dutch were a fun crew.

HAKUNA MATATA: But the real highlight was the stadium in Durban. It's a work of art. It's airy, it affords views of the city, it's a neat architectural feature, and it's very functionally designed. It's right on the water and it fits in perfectly. Check it out: http://www.durban.gov.za/durban/government/spu/moses/pictures/2.Artists_impression_inside_view_Moses_Mabhida_Stadium.jpg

After the game we wandered around Durban's remaining highlights - grabbed some bunny chow down on the docks, dropped by uShaka Marine World, and witnessed a bit more lively fan fest down on the beach, including a drunken fan yelling, "AYOBA" at everyone he came across. Now that's more like it!

OH...AFRICA: All of the street signs in Durban are crossed out and have new names. The city used to have several streets named after Afrikans figures which the provincial government have since renamed after revolutionary heroes...just in time for the World Cup. However, no one can get around anymore, the Garmand hasn't been updated, so as a concession, the provincial government left up all of the old signs, and just puts big red X's over the old street names.

WORLD CUP TIP: If you don't care for the soccer, then check out the stadiums beforehand and pick one out that seems fetching. The stadium alone was at least worth driving to Durban for.

JUSTINE'S TIPS ON SOUTH AFRICA: Durban has waves. Take advantage of them. (I failed at this task...I know, I know...I've never met a wave I didn't like.)

2010-07-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP DAY 9: To Durban

HAKUNA MATATA: A long, beautiful drive from Johannesburg to Durban. The mountains are beautiful. Our original plan was to drive to Rorke's Drift to see the famous Zulu War battlefield, but unfortunately South Africa is much bigger than it appears on the map. Instead, we did a drive by of some of the Boer War battlefields, took the Midlands Meander route, checked out a big waterfall, and then got ourselves to Durban.

Durban is a lot like Miami - great in the winter, awful in the summer. Art deco abounds. On the other hand, it is also a huge port city with all of the attendant commerce and crime and thus has a bit of a Baltimore feel as well. This is where Ghandi and the indian population makes its home. They also have the best signs, welcoming all of the teams playing in the area with their country's version of hello - such as Australia, which receives a 'G'day'.

We drove over to the famous blue lagoon and picked up some Indian food, then took a walk along the beach. Then we headed off to a fun little aviary with exotic birds from around the world. Unfortunately, Durban was pretty dead on a Friday night, so after a bit more exploring, we turned in early.

OH, AFRICA: South Africa no longer accepts its own 200 Rand note because it was so easily and commonly counterfeited that it was impossible to continue its use.

WORLD CUP TIP: Fan fests are apparently for the POST game. We went tonight, the night before the game, and there was nobody there.

JUSTINE'S SOUTH AFRICA TIPS: When swiping your credit card, they must bring the swiper to you. Don't let anyone wander off with your credit card.

2010-07-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA DAY 8: WORLD CUP GAME #1

HAKUNA MATATA: Today was the first world cup game I actually went to: Argentina vs. South Korea. Parking was fairly well thought out, and the march into the massive Soccer City stadium was fun, with lots of meats being grilled and vuvuzelas. Slowly all the different lines of people converge and the hum of the stadium gets closer. Security is tighter at this stadium than any of the others, and the 82,000 fans plus make it a massive ordeal to get in. Approaching the stadium, more and more the hum of the hornets nest of vuvuzelas begins to shake the ground until finally, you turn a corner and you can look down on the pitch. The stands are massed with flags and colors...some of the closer seats to be filled in by bused-in school children. Argentina fans grossly outnumber two small cadres of South Korean fans, though the Koreans are upbeat and noisy all game, despite the eventual outcome. But Argentina fans come with huge cheering sections for every player, flags adorned with the likenesses of Maradonna and Che on equal footing. We arrived just before introductions, so all of the pleasant pre-game pageantry was our introduction - the singing of the anthems, the half-field sized flags rolled over the fans heads.

The vuvuzelas are loud but not intolerable when in concert. They roll and rock with the proceedings and truly add to the atmosphere.

The game itself was entertaining despite the lopsided final score. Argentina put a few goals in and looked very strong. Despite his failure to score in the game, or the tournament, Messi is noticeably special, always going a direction no one thinks to go with the ball because only he can keep control of it with that move. Argentina seemed comfortable with the lead before an awful mistake on defense gave Korea a goal right before halftime. The game picked up considerably as a result when play resumed and the Koreans put together a few of the best runs of the game only to miss on their scoring opportunity. Finally Argentina settled back in and controlled the ball, inexorably putting a few more goals in the net to finish it. My only complaint: stadium concessions were standard American fare (hotdogs etc). A huge missed opportunity in my opinion.

OH...AFRICA: If you find a lose diamond lying on the ground in South Africa, it belongs to de Beers. Literally. They own the rights to all undiscovered and unclaimed diamonds.

WORLD CUP TIP: Being up from the field a bit can be a blessing, and don't get seats behind the goals. At ground level, it can be difficult to see the cross-pitch strategy. But from a bit removed, it is a very easy game to watch. But it is absolutely vital to sit somewhere on the sideline - behind the goal is a very poor viewing area.

JUSTINE'S TIPS ON SOUTH AFRICA: That restaurant isn't locking you out. The Portuguese place we went to, for example, had the front door locked when we first tried it, even though we could see people inside. For safety and security purposes, restaurants have a remote lock on their front door. Just smile, show your gun-less hands, and try again.

2010-07-08T16:30:00.001-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP: DAY 7

On the way back from the Magaliesberg, we stopped at the Cradle of Mankind, an overwrought, underinteresting globalists' wet dream loosely based on the fact that some of the skeletal remains of human ancestors were found in the area. The monolingual Japanese tourists cutting in line enmasse didn't help. Into a cave where the bones are found...mostly of antelopes. And it's FREEZING COLD - everywhere, not just the cave.

HAKUNA MATATA: Back in johannesburg, Justine's mom made a delicious dinner.

OH...AFRICA: That awful red card in the South Africa - Uruguay game ended up killing off the host country's chance at the next round. Too bad, it would have been a mad house. I think we saw the team bus en route to the game and the whole neighborhood was chasing it, vuvuzelas in tow.

WC TIP: So supposedly the world cup is one massive party with constant global hook-ups. The radio was atwitter with the million condoms story, the naming of twins Bafana and Mexico. But everywhere Justine and I went, Justine was about the only girl there. I don't know if it was the South Africa, the winter, or the soccer, but, as is most often the case for young men headed out to meet random ladies: PREPARE FOR DISAPPOINTMENT. Go for the soccer, not the party.

JUSTINE'S TIPS ON SOUTH AFRICA: Mulva pudding. It's good.

2010-07-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP DAYS 5-6: SEMI-SAFARI!!!

Off we drove to the Magaliesberg for a few days driving through one of the many national game reserves. (I received no end of an earful for calling them 'preserves' in that Indians don't live on Preservations.) This one is closer to Johannesburg and has the advantage of not being in a malaria zone, unlike the larger, more famous, more crowded, and better populated Kruger. This one supposedly had all of the "Big 5" but we didn't see any cats. Disappointed fellow-tourists would stop us and cycle through several languages before hitting on, "Have you seen de lye-on." Anyway, we saw everything else, and up-close to boot - elephants, giraffes, hippos, warthogs, rhinos, zebras, wildebeast, baboons, monkeys, etc. The best moment was when we were driving down a road and it turned out the van headed our way was, in fact, an elephant, which kindly stopped and started eating dinner right next to our car. One night we drove to the nearby Sun City resort casino for dinner, mandatory arcade games, and a pretty lame 'thundering bridge'. The other we settled in for a South African style 'brai' (BBQ) at our surprisingly well appointed chalet.

HAKUNA MATATA: It's always nice to see the stars for once. Truly though, the highlight is when we got stuck in the game park late one night and, rushing to beat the gate closing, Justine turned on the James Bond driving skills, blazing her little manual transmission through hairpin turns on dirt roads with no lights on the street and the possibility of smacking into a rhino at any moment. Justine quote half-way through, "I'm not going to lie to you, I'm enjoying this immensely."

OH....AFRICA: Apparently, Chinese tourists are infamous for getting out of their cars at game parks and getting eaten by lions. Kind of like German tourists getting shot in Miami. Moreover, South African radio and TV advertisements harp on this theme, employing hilariously un-PC stereotyped Chinese voices without remorse.

WORLD CUP ATTENDANCE TIP: There's more to the host country than soccer. Take advantage of it.

JUSTINE'S ADVICE ON SOUTH AFRICA: The best time to visit South African game parks is August, after they've burnt the veld. In addition to removing the long grass from blocking your views, the burning process crowds the animals into smaller areas, which leads to more opportunities to view them all at once. And no you won't be overheated - remember, August is winter down there.

2010-07-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

DAY 4 SOUTH AFRICA TRIP:

Off we went to Tswaing crater for a brisk hike. The ride through the townships continues the pattern - remarkable poverty, equally warm people. South Africa is sitting on an untapped gold mine of cute kids. Following the hike, we drove into Pretoria to breeze through the imposing government buildings and monuments along with an old square modelled on Trafalgar. The government buildings were bustling with world cup tourists, our favorites being the Cameroonian couple that insisted on taking pictures with us...and perhaps got a bit overly familiar in a physical sense with each of us in the process. Oh well - maybe holding hands is customary in their country?

OH...AFRICA: From there, we drove to the Voortrekker memorial, a well-conceived edifice, though poor Justine was terrified by the heights. It tells the story of the Great Trek, and it seems it was a rough go of it for the Boers. One exhibit featured a child's toy designed to look like oxen lashed to a cart, all hewed from an ox's vertebrae.

HAKUNA MATATA: Back to jo-burg, we stopped at a popular mall flooded with World Cup fans having a chant off - Chile and Brazil are out in force. Then we went to an interactive drumming show - this show basically rocked, and I kind of felt sorry for the performers that they didn't have more of an audience. Anyway, it's fun to bang on a drum. Then we walked around Montecasino and grabbed a late dinner before turning in.

WORLD CUP TIP: Go to a Brazil game. Brazil fans are like Steelers fans - they are everywhere. But imagine if instead of being from Pittsburgh, they're from Rio. They travel deep with costumes and hotties. Do not start a chant-off with them - they will win. So I imagine the games are out of control. 2014 is in Brazil - that place is going to be rocking. I can't imagine anyone else winning in that environment.

JUSTINE'S TIPS ON SOUTH AFRICA: It's said that Afrikaners and black South Africans work better than the English descendants with either - regardless of their differences, Afrikaners and blacks both see South Africa as their home, while many of the English still like to think they're part of the Commonwealth. Additional knowledge - many Afrikaners have to be told to wear shoes, and there is a common stereotype of poorer Afrikaners being shoeless and uncouth. Watch out while rooting for the Dutch as well - a drunk Afrikaner is called a Dutchman.

2010-07-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP: DAY 3 - JOZI TOURISM

Justine put together a vigorous schedule. We started off at the old gold mine around which Johannesburg is built. The city has heaping piles of the rock that was taken out of the ground lying all around its environs. It's difficult to fathom how deep into the earth they went - we went down several levels, but there was an order of magnitude further into the rock that the old mine went (it's filled with water now). At the end of the tour, they show you the smelting process. I think the mine tour was definitely arranged before all of the inflation-induced gold speculation began because they let you hold and take pictures with a gold bar which is now worth around $450,000.

HAKUNA MATATA: From there, close-by, is the sobering apartheid museum, which is on the level of the Holocaust museum in its effectiveness. Much of the experience is a deserving hagiography of nelson Mandela. Churchill, speaking on the first half of the 20th century, remarked that Kemal Mustafa, Ataturk, was the century's greatest leader. But Churchill could not have known what the second half of the century would bring...Mandela. I search in vain for some clue as to the life event that fathered this statesmanship. I must conclude that, while some are born great, others become great, and some have greatness thrust upon them, in this case, all three are true. The world would be better off if all of the iconic Che merchandise marketed for teenage rebellion and an archaic populism, instead bore Mandela's image - a symbol of true defiance, but also humility and ultimately mercy. An evolutionary figure rather than a revolutionary, in love with the possibilities of the future, not the jealousies of the past. We followed with trips to SOWETO, Mandela's home, a museum to the student riots, and finally the gorgeously graffitied decomissioned power plant. This was a perfect cap to the day - everyone in SOWETO was in a festive mood, Zulu gumboot dancers dancing with a gaggle of Dutch fans in their creamcicle wigs.

OH AFRICA: the apartheid museum gift shop is sparse, foregoing sales of the posters of moving images from the years of conflict and colorful anti-apartheid signs for a tame book shop. Most bizarrely are prominently featured t-shirts and mugs that read "WHITES ONLY". Who would buy such a thing? Who has the temerity to hand the black cashier this item for purchase? Bizarre.

WORLD CUP TIP: If it's a winter cup, DO NOT GO TO NIGHT GAMES, especially in a dreary plateau city like Rustenburg. The US vs. England game looked unbearable. That's a day of driving to see nothing and to freeze. Stick to day games and warmer climes. I'm convinced the weather is behind the weaker showings by traditional Mediterranean powers like Italy and France - their fans didn't show, and their players are soft and prefer a temperate climate.

JUSTINE'S TIPS ON SOUTH AFRICA: The townships are rough. Ads on the overpasses are all for abortions, HIV testing, and funerary services. Fresh graves are dug daily in the fields abutting them. Shanty fires are rampant in the endless rows of scrap metal stitched homes. And if anyone tells you to show up in hillbrow at midnight in your WHITES ONLY t-shirt, it's either a joke or a death sentence - Hillbrow is a drug and prostitution den run by Nigerian gangsters. District 9 was banned in Nigeria for its insensitive depiction of just such a gangster but South Africans think it was accurate. Unfortunately, it's believed in South Africa thaat the US's own hip hop-led celebration of the inner city gang culture has kindled similarly warped dreams among south african youths. My own experience was that everyone was in a generous mood. Still, KEEP SMALL CHANGE HANDY TO TIP THE UBIQUITOUS PARKING ATTENDANTS...and rent a car no one would think to steal in the first place.

2010-07-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

SOUTH AFRICA TRIP DAY #2

Picked up at the airport by my generous hostess, Justine, we drove to her family home to drop off my bags. the airport was full of Brazilians and vuvuzela noise. The infrastructure in the country is quite good and the country quite clean. The golden hills remind me of LA. The freeway is lined with flags of all of the competitor countries hung on poles that went up days before today's opening match. The streets are also lined with men selling flags and vuvuzelas.

We drove downtown for a tour through a pleasant museum on the history of South African beer, including a lesson on sorghum beer drinking from a traditional drinking bowl off of which the massive Soccer City stadium that would host the game later is modeled. Our tour was led by a pleasant woman who begged out of drinking with us because she was pregnant.

HAKUNA MATATA: Then we went on to the highlight of the day - traditional Afrikaaner South African food and the opening match. The game was exciting, the local Bafana Bafana (Zulu for boys) squad nearly pulling off a huge upset against the Mexicans, who had a large fan contingent. Had some fun playing soccer at halftime with the local kids.

In South Africa, rugby is the white sport and soccer the black sport. Just as the legendary In Victus Sprinbok victory over the New Zealand All Blacks was envisioned as a transformative event in the country's racial history, so has support of Bafana Bafana been seen as a reciprocal effort to engage both the English and Afrikans community in the majority of the country's sporting passion. Though expectations for the team are obviously lower, the effort was a success - support amongst the people I watched the game with was high, and the team's fortune was the talk of the nation. Similarly, the event is meant not only to deliver a message that Africa has earned a respected place in the family of nations, but also within Africa, to hold up South Africa as a place searching for a sturdy multi-racial society amidst a continent whose ethnic disputes have rent apart its many fragile states.

OH....AFRICA: On to all anyone really cares about - the vuvuzelas. Obnoxious on TV, as I'll explain later, they add enormously to the spectator experience live. More to the point, they truly are everywhere - at the airport, as an alarm clock, walking down the road. To me, they are this World Cup's refrain...a running joke. At any quiet moment, suddenly a vuvuzela. In any social situation, vuvuzela. Always gets a laugh out of me. The price has inflated 10 times over. Already banned from Wimbledon. I saw Prince Harry on TV without one. Pity...I hope Biden or Clinton got one.

TIP ON WORLD CUP ATTENDANCE: Attend a host country game. I can't imagine how incredible the atmosphere must have been at the stadium, but it was fun enough just watching it with them on TV.

JUSTINE'S TIPS ON SOUTH AFRICA: The blacks have a series of hand signals for the routeless roving mini-buses that communicate which part of town they wish to go so that the mini-bus driver can figure out whether to pick them up or not. MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO LEARN THEM. You're more likely to inadvertently sign a grave insult. No need to get stabbed for accidentally telling the "SOULJAH" mini-bus driver that his "balls are hanging".

2010-06-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

South Africa Journal: Day 1

I've been remiss in typing up my notes about my spectacular vacation in South Africa.

First of all, I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes, I did sing Hakuna Matata all over the country. I also did my best Homer Simpson to wryly comment, "Oh...Africa," as often as possible. Anyway, I plan to share the Hakuna Matata moments, Oh Africa moments, advice on attending a world cup, and insights from my lovely travel companion Justine on South Africa.

Without further ado...THURSDAY JUNE 10

I flew from DC to JFK...which is a 3rd world airport and a national embarrassment. Who runs this place? The empty duty free shops are open all day but only one food store is open with a line of almost everyone waiting for a flight? Fascinating business model. There's no info on where to pick up connecting flights and to get to the proper international terminal I have to walk through a side door located behind a temporary construction wall with no construction going on.

Then I flew to Johannesburg/Jozi/Joburg. On my flight, everyone was watching an episode of Lie to Me. I love this show's concept: Basically a good actor stares down C Listers and analyzes their bad acting. Magically this is woven into the plot. Each exchange ends with this gem:
Tim Roth: Thank you for your assistance
Bad Actor: But I haven't told you anything.
Tim Roth: BUT YOU'VE TOLD ME EVERYTHING!

HAKUNA MATATA: I had one of those classic only-in-America moments in JFK that makes me love my country more than The Dirty Dozen on Memorial Day. Seated at the gate to fly to South Africa were: 3 Argentinian brothers in soccer jumpsuits like the Royal Tenenbaums, a Hasidic Jew wearing crocs and, I swear to God, humping the air at random occasions as a nervous tic, the WASPiest 20-something to ever wrinkly khakis proudly wearing his Onyewu jersey (for the soccer illiterate, Onyewu is the biggest, blackest guy on the US team), a guy in a NASCAR hat and a t-shirt of Arnold Schwarzennegar smoking marijuana, a guitar-wiedling granola girl doing taichi at the airport window, the only guy in America who owns an MLS shirt happy to be rleevant for a month because he knows why Freddy Adu isn't on the squad, and then a horde of Mexicans. And finally, my aisle neighbor on the plane - a young black kid whose only carry-on for the 14 hour flight was an i-pod and two drumsticks.

This is why I love America most - not the republic, not some vision of what it once was or what it might be. All these are noble, but I love it most for what it is, because these people are home.

OH, AFRICA: Customs involved me walking under a sign that read customs. That is all.

TIP ON WORLD CUP ATTENDANCE: Traveler's checks are an anachronism.

JUSTINE'S ADVICE ON SOUTH AFRICA: Leave your expensive laptop at home. Whether it gets stolen or not, there are internet usage limits.

2010-04-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Me vs. Amtrak...The Saga In Summary

Below is a series of e-mails I have exchanged with Amtrak's customer service. What will happen next? Wait for the next episode.

My original message:
Message:
(Late January - Greater DC Area)
Dear Amtrak I am a long-time but soon to be ex-customer. This past weekend, due to frequent Amtrak delays on my trains from Washington DC to New York, I decided to take a bus. However, to get to the bus-stop, I took the local regional MARC train. My MARC train was delayed 30-minutes because the Amtrak train in front of it broke down. Because your train broke down, when I reached Union Station in DC, I had to buy an Amtrak train ticket to get to New York because my bus had already departed. Being the reasonable fellow that I am, I went to Amtrak customer service and requested that you at least discount the modest price of my bus ticket ($25) from the price of the train to New York ($139) that I was forced to take because your train broke down. YOUR AMTRAK CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENT TOLD ME MY REQUEST WAS FAIR but that I would have to call an authorized customer service supervisor on your phone line. I did this, and the authorized agent RENEGED on my verbal agreement with your station customer service agent, saying BECAUSE THE TRAIN I WAS ON THAT WAS DELAYED WAS NOT AMTRAK'S, EVEN THOUGH AMTRAK CAUSED THE DELAY, THAT I WAS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR SUCH A REFUND. Let me explain to you why this is a bad business decision by you. You take on negligible variable cost in letting me on your train versus not letting me on. However, because of the shabby treatment, I am unlikely to ever use Amtrak again for my frequent DC to NY trips. This represents a considerable net loss to you, Amtrak. Since you refused my more than reasonable request for a small discount at the point of sale for my trouble, the price to retain my business has gone up and is now a full refund of the ticket price - $139. My reservation # is (withheld). I look forward to a timely resolution of this matter.

AMTRAK'S RESPONSE - FEBRUARY 1:
Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Amtrak. We respond to online inquiries 7 days a week between the hours of 8 am and 11 pm (ET). You can expect a response to your inquiry within the next 24 hours.

Please do not reply to this message.

Sincerely,
Amtrak Customer Service

COMMENT: One might think this would lead to a speedy resolution. 24 hour turnaround...well, what did I receive from Amtrak within 24 hours? The following.

Thank you for contacting us.

We have forwarded your e-mail to our Customer Relations Department. They will contact you as soon as possible in the order that the e-mail was received.

Due to a higher than normal volume, it may take up to eight weeks to receive a response to your e-mail. Please be assured your inquiry will be addressed as soon as possible.

If you prefer, you can contact them through our toll free number, 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245). Select the number '0' immediately to avoid the automated information menu, and an agent will transfer your call. The Customer Relations Department is staffed Monday through Friday between 7am -10pm (ET).

Thank you,

Sincerely,

William
Amtrak Customer Service

COMMENT: 8-weeks to reply to an e-mail? Surely they are just setting the bar low so that they can deliver earlier than that. There's no way it takes 8 WEEKS to respond to an e-mail. It's not like their customer relations department is lost in the Brazilian hinterland looking for El Dorado. Many animals have gestation periods shorter than 8 weeks. Nonetheless, here it is, April 3, and Amtrak still hasn't gotten back to me. So here was my response today:

Dear Amtrak "Customer Service"

As you will see, it has now been more than 8 weeks since I contacted you and politely requested just compensation in line with the promises made by your customer service agent. I believe that 8 weeks is more than sufficient for you to make a determination about my request...it it is enough time to decide the national collegiate basketball champion, certainly it is enough time to read an e-mail and submit a refund.

Since making my request, there have already been 3 occasions on which I would have taken Amtrak, but instead took alternate means of transportation because you have not resolved this incident. In other words, you have already lost money thanks to your inability to handle this simple request.

I am willing to wait another 2 weeks. If this matter is not resolved at the end of that time, my asking price will go up, and I will be forced, against my will, to start a facebook group dedicated to Amtrak's poor service that I will only take down when I am justly compensated for my trouble.

I already got their automated, "We'll respond in 24 hours" email again. What will they really say? We'll find out soon.

2010-03-07T16:55:00.001-08:00

MOVIES I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THIS YEAR:
1. Inglorious Basterds
2. A Serious Man
3. Up!
4. Avatar
5. Taken
6. Sherlock Holmes
7. Up In The Air
8. The Damned United
9. The Blind Side
10. Crank! High Voltage
11. The Hangover
12. Star Trek
13. Drag Me to Hell
14. The Taking of Pelham 123
15. The Informant!

2010-03-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

Best Picture:
- Avatar - Blue Pocahontas Dances With Trees in Jaw-Dropping 3-D
- The Blind Side – Hollywood expanded to 10 nominees so that everyone’s heart-warming, not-so-limousine-liberal movie would get nominated…just so it hurts more, Middle America, when it loses! HAHA! You boosted our ratings, citizens of Des Moines, just so we could party while we crushed your humble dreams. Muahahahahah.
- District 9 – Nice enough race drama sci-fi thing. I always like it when they leave a cliff-hanger when they’re not really planning a sequel. (Note to Peter Jackson - don't make a sequel.)
- An Education – I’m curious if this makes the cut in the old format. Then we’d have a serious problem. If you had to pick an indie-rom-com, why not something more accessible and entertaining like 500 Days of Summer?
- The Hurt Locker – Finally a decent Iraq-war movie
- Inglorious Basterds – Jew-porn. OK, everybody porn. Tarantino’s best.
- Precious – The soulful™ Oprah, in movie semi-documentary format. Tyra Banks’ Semi-Precious to hit theaters Fall 2014.
- A Serious Man – Intellectual Jewish-guilt porn plus my favorite Jefferson Airplane Song (Today)
- Up – Pixar made a movie…actually, it made its best movie.
- Up in the Air – George Clooney made a movie, and it was timely and addresses the situation. Not THE Situation. But that other situation, the one with the 10-20% unemployment.
WILL WIN: Up in the Air. Clooney’s been circling it but I think this is his year
SHOULD WIN: A Serious Man. This one’s really tough for me. It’s not my favorite movie of the year, but it is the most intellectually stimulating, and it’s close to my favorite movie of the year. There are a lot of movies with an earnest claim on this one. I’d really only look askance on District 9, An Education, Hurt Locker, or Precious. And I liked two of those movies.

2010-02-27T13:31:00.000-08:00

09-10 Oscars Preview:

Best Director
- Kathryn Bigelow – The only director smart enough to take politics out of her Iraq War movie
- James Cameron – Wow. Welcome back. I wish you didn’t write the script, but it doesn’t matter. Did I say wow already? While I’ve got you’re here…True Lies 2? Arnold will be free soon.
- Lee Daniels – Made Oprah’s movie. Check out photos of this guy…excuse me sir, but Dolemite 2 try-outs were two decades ago.
- Jason Reitman – This movie was all script and acting…but you were there so, yeah. Welcome. That’s Jim…he’s the king of the world.
- Quentin Tarantino – Finally stepped out of his milieu and made something worthwhile
WILL WIN: Jason Reitman. I don’t think they can bring themselves to go Tarantino so I default to ‘Clooney Year’.
SHOULD WIN: James Cameron. Avatar isn’t a great movie if it’s not in 3D. In fact, it could be Golden Compass-esque. But as a directorial achievement, this is everything Titanic was and more. It’s on a level that no one can match now or will match anytime soon.

2010-02-24T19:49:00.000-08:00

2010 OSCARS PREVIEW CONTINUED:

The Daniel Day-Lewis Best Actor Award
- Jeff Bridges – The Dude plus guitar, minus White Russians and Walter Sobcheck.
- George Clooney – was in a movie this year (and it was pretty good).
- Colin Firth –Token LGBT-related nomination.
- Morgan Freeman – Morgan Freeman does a good Nelson Mandela impression.
- Jeremy Renner – So, they blew away Guy Pierce before the opening credits?
WILL WIN: George Clooney. Like I said, his year. Bridges is the other strong candidate.
SHOULD WIN: Jeff Bridges. I think Bridges is doing more acting in his movie than Clooney is. I think Clooney always just plays Clooney.

2010-02-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

09-10 OSCARS PREVIEW CONTINUED: MERYL STREEP BEST ACTRESS AWARD

The Meryl Streep Best Actress Award
- Sandra Bullock – You’re the sweetest lady in Hollywood and you made your best movie…but was the movie too conservative to win in Hollywood? We’ll see.
- Helen Mirren – The Queen – that was a good movie. How old are you again? Were you this hot when you were 30? We just wanted you to show up at the Oscars because older English women are so classy.
- Carey Mulligan – No one saw this movie but it’s not a bad nomination. It’s another ‘teen comes of age’ tale set in the early 60’s, so you know all the issues we’re going to re-tread. I imagine this movie grabs the heart of boomer girls looking back on their faded glory. Anyway, as a movie it’s not got much new to say that Al Bundy didn’t handle well enough by slamming Kelly’s dates’ heads into the wall. As for the actress, she has that Juno feel - she’s written stronger than any 16 year old girl has any right to be, probably by a 40-50 year old woman who likes to think she was that witty when she was 16. This has the positive effect of making the dialogue better but makes the character less believable. Anyway, the actress pulls it off well. Try not to win though…you’ve got some talent and we’d hate to lock you in Marissa Tomei’s purgatory.
- Gabourey Sidibe – Good luck with all that.
- Meryl Streep – made a movie this year. The award is named after her after-all. It’s not like she did something silly like taking a role as an Italian romantic in a musical when it’s way outside her range. No great actor or actress is that dumb, right? What do you mean 9? Mamma what now?
WILL WIN: Gabourey Sidibe. Everyone will say they voted for Sandra, but they’ll vote their heart when they get in the booth.
SHOULD WIN: Sandra Bullock. Her year. Weak field.

2010-02-14T14:09:00.000-08:00

Best Supporting Actor
- Matt Damon – tried his best at a South African accent and playing a man-mountain rugby player despite being relatively small
- Woody Harrelson – Was good in Zombieland, but we couldn’t possibly nominate him for that, so we’ll vote for him in that other Iraq movie that no one even knew to see.
- Christopher Plummer – Career nod.
- Stanley Tucci – I’m really upset at the blasphemy that Stanley Tucci will now be known as ‘Oscar Nominee Stanley Tucci’. Because he SUCKS! How does this guy keep getting jobs?
- Christopher Waltz – Came out of nowhere to own a movie so completely that it’s difficult to imagine why anyone else was even nominated.

WILL WIN: Christopher Waltz. It’s by far the stand-out performance of the year. I don’t care if he’s nobody. Un-ignorable.
SHOULD WIN: Waltz. It’s an insult that he’ll be shown on screen for any period of time with the likes of Tucci.

2010-02-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

09-10 Oscars Preview Continued: Best Supporting Actress

Best Supporting Actress
- Penelope Cruz (Nine) – At this point, she’s reached the hotness category where it’s impossible to tell if she’s any good because you’re so enchanted by how gorgeous she is that there’s no divining any acting talent. In an age when there were fewer stars, she’d be our Marilyn Monroe. I thought she was the only saving grace in an otherwise awful movie.
- Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) – Didn’t just hold her own, beat Clooney at his own game. I have to admit, I love Vera Fermiga. I loved her in The Departed. I’m worried she’s getting started too late because she’s really good. She plays a real woman well. There are so few of those parts that get written that I’m worried she’s got no future. Here’s hoping.
- Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart) – David Shula coached the Bengals for a while. Having a famous last name doesn't mean you're any good.
- Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) – Nice job kid. I don’t know if you have a future but I like you.
- Mo’nique (Precious) – Oprah made us do it.
WILL WIN: Farmiga. See “Clooney Year, et al.”
SHOULD WIN: Farmiga. I think this is the year the Oscars gets some things right.

2010-02-11T06:56:00.000-08:00

Oscars 09-10 Preview Continued: All of the "Other" Awards

Best Animated Feature Film
- Coraline – We’re mandated to like this because of the artistry involved…but it wasn’t that good.
- Fantastic Mr. Fox – So, what we said about Coraline…yeah, you too.
- The Princess and the Frog – We’ve got 5 slots here…kind of a throw-back. I mean, thanks for trying.
- The Secret of Kells – Wow, we’re really having trouble coming up with 5 here. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs didn’t hit the spot?
- Up – So, this got nominated for best picture as well. And none of these other movies did. Awkward…
WILL/SHOULD WIN: Up.

Best Original Screenplay (Most names removed since, for the most part, no one cares about the writer)
- The Hurt Locker – Thanks for figuring out that no one wants their Iraq War politics in their Iraq War movie. Now work on your dialogue.
- Quentin Tarantino – Inglorious Basterds – You put a lot of work in. But the Samuel L voice-over? Really?
- The Messenger – Also a movie about Iraq vets. Thank you for playing.
- The Coens – A Serious Man – You guys…you’re good at this. Maybe we can just nominate you for the writing award and pretend we understood your movie? In fact, I’m officially re-naming this award after you. And that’s despite Burn After Reading.
- Up In the Air – Well written, true, but kind of meandering.
WILL WIN: Up In The Air – Has that “Hollywood Cares About the Headlines” feel.
SHOULD WIN: Tarantino. It’s close. The Coens rocked it and there’s something to be said for Up in the Air’s script. But I like that this script took its time. Also, I have to say...I really thought, all along, that some modicum of historical accuracy would be preserved. Much to everyone's delight, it was not.

Best Documentary
A bunch of movies you didn’t see.

Best Foreign Language Film
(See Best Documentary)

Best Original Score
Nothing comes to mind.

Best Song
No one makes good songs for movies any more

Best Visual Effects/Cinematography
Avatar. It’s kind of hard to ignore that ‘revolutionize the industry’ thing.

I'm told there are other categories. Can’t we just move them to that ceremony they hold on the previous day?

2010-02-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

2009-10 Oscars Preview Continued:BIGGEST SNUBS, WORST NOMINATIONS

BIGGEST SNUB:
- Brad Pitt – Best Supporting Actor – Inglorious Basterds. Look, it was fun. And it’s Brad Pitt. And we need another awkward brangelina/aniston moment. Big miss. (Still pulling for Jennifer).
- Michael Stulbarg – Best Actor – A Serious Man. This guy carried a difficult role. Credit is due.
- Fred Melamed – Best Supporting Actor – A Serious Man. If you’ve seen this movie, you will remember Sy Ableman for the rest of your life.
- Robert Downey Jr. – Best Actor – Sherlock Holmes. I just like having him around. Come on. If we don’t nominate him for things, he’ll do something silly…like cocaine…or The Soloist.
- Matt Damon – Best Actor – The Informant! Unlike his unremarkable turn in Invictus, this was a difficult role, less foreign accent, that I thought he carried well.
- Woody Harrelson – Best Supporting Actor – Zombieland. This movie is worthless without him; a cute script with low-wattage acting (except for the Bill Murray cameo, which was priceless).
- The Hangover – Best Original Screenplay. Come on; it’s a genius idea, and half the people I know now call each other reTARDS.
THE WINNER IS: Michael Stulbarg. Pitt and Melamed don’t have enough screen time. Harrelson and Damon were nominated for other, lesser performances. A low brow comedy script is never getting nominated for anything. Which leaves us with Stulbarg, who is the nobody who deserved a nod instead of the annual LGBT-token nod.

WORST NOMINATION:
- Stanley Tucci. I didn’t see The Lovely Bones. But COME ON! Stanley Tucci? He has to be either the president of the LGBT mafia or the grand wizard of Scientology because he’s got nothing to offer.
- Colin Firth. The voting isn’t done by professionals. It’s done by members of the academy. Now, perhaps you haven’t noticed, but there’s a lot of gay folks in LA. But honestly, by voting for everything gay for awards, they’re hurting themselves. It just adds to the stereotype that gay people are nothing beyond their sexual identity. And it wastes our time at the academy awards, because Colin (Insert Last Name Here) gets nominated instead of someone deserving. It’s as trite and offensive as terming everything insipid or distasteful ‘gay’. This nomination is gay.
- Maggie Gyllenhaal. I know your brother’s famous…but you’re just not very good at this. How much longer are you going to go on playing the girl in other people’s movies? Someone with talent might actually do something with one of these roles.
- An Education. The actress was good. The movie was not.
- Christopher Plummer. You are an old guy who is good at acting. You just played Leo Tolstoy…he’s famous too, you know. Normally, we would have given you an award by now. But we got mixed up by that whole Dumbledore actor dying thing. Anyway…look, we’re sorry we gave you mostly B-roles up till now. We do that to character actors. So, does this even things up?
WINNER IS: Stanley Tucci. Tucci is like Jamal Lewis, without the heyday. Why is he still getting reps?

2010-02-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

2009-10 Oscars Preview Continued: Underrated Movies, Most Outlandish Movie Review, and Most Practical Lesson Learned from a Movie Gunfight

UNDERRATED MOVIES:
The Taking of Pelham 123, The Informant!

MOST OUTLANDISH MOVIE REVIEW OF THE YEAR:
Wa-Po Drops the Nazi Bomb on Transformers 2.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303462.html
Don’t believe me? It begins as follows: “With its fascist sensibility, assortment of smutty asides, illiterate gold-tooth-wearing homie robots and the hero's brainless mother, much of "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is simply despicable. So complaining about one's physical discomfort seems petty. But given the relentless din, the Leni Riefenstahl-inspired music and the headache-inducing visuals, OSHA should probably be investigating the conditions under which human beings made this thing. Or the conditions under which they watch it.”
A simple 'no stars' would suffice. It’s Transformers 2, not Triumph of the Will.

MOST PRACTICAL LESSON LEARNED FROM A MOVIE GUNFIGHT:
From The International - Bring an assault rifle with you to any art show you might attend. Apparently cops don’t like art. Hence, there are apparently no available police in New York City to respond to a raging 20-30 minute tactical assault on the Guggenheim. So come armed. Otherwise, you will have brought a knife-like aesthetic sensibility to a gunfight.

2010-02-08T15:05:00.000-08:00

TOP 10 DISAPPOINTING FILMS OF 2009:
10. The Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson has jumped the jaguar shark and there’s no turning back.
9. Taking Woodstock – This movie is not about Woodstock. It’s Brokeback Mountain: the Woodstock Years. Here’s a clue…if you’re going to make a movie about Woodstock, maybe some music would be appropriate? I get it Mr. Lee. You’re gay. Can we move on?
8. Away We Go – I know we all love Jim from The Office. But without Dwight and Michael around to make fun of, he's just some guy.
7. G.I. Joe – Failed to meet even my modest expectations (I was a He-Man kid). It’s just astounding that this movie came out AFTER Team America World Police…my friend Greg pointed this out mid-movie…how do you make a parody’s source material after the parody has already come out?
6. Watchmen – 15 months of previews for a lot of naked blue dude. I guess it's nice that reactionary politics finally have an outlet...What's a radio?
5. Terminator: Salvation – For the record, McG and I are also done professionally.
4. Nine – If DDL is going to stop cobbling shoes for a movie, it better not be a tedious musical tearing down Fellini.
3. Where the Wild Things Are – This actually is a pretty decent movie. Still, I can’t help but be disappointed. I loved this book. Spike Jonze has unrealized potential. James Gandolfini is Tony Soprano. There was a lot this movie could have been. Instead, it was above average.
2. Pirate Radio – This movie is almost an accomplishment in being so much less than the sum of its parts. You take pretty much every hilarious English actor, you put them on a boat with PSH, and you try to make a hymn to how good music was in the 60’s. Then you have Kenneth Brannaugh to tear it up as the bad guy and a cameo of January Jones in all her radiant glory. How is it possible that this movie was so painfully bad?
1. Public Enemies – It’s hard to go from “This will be the best movie of the year,” to “I fell asleep." Ultimately, Depp's just not the man to play Dillinger and Bale didn't have a character.

2010-02-06T19:16:00.001-08:00

THE BEST INADVERTANT PORN TITLES OF THE YEAR:
10. (TIE) Watchmen / The Soloist
9. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself
8. The Lovely Bones
7. Taking Woodstock
6. Whatever Works
5. My Bloody Valentine 3-D
4. The Limits of Control
3. Not Easily Broken
2. It Might Get Loud
1. He’s Just Not That Into You

2009-11-22T20:54:00.000-08:00

BEST FILMS OF THE 90'S:
1. Last of the Mohicans – THEY SAID: 98th. I SAY: A wildly underrated movie, all but ignored by the academy due to a mid-year release. I don’t know anyone who has seen this movie who doesn’t love it. Everything about it is perfect. The soundtrack and the villain, as we've established the keys to a good film becoming great, are amongst the best of the decade. The director’s cut currently available on DVD Speilberg-izes the film, bringing the themes into words instead of leaving them as deeds. It is to be ignored. But the film is not. Flawless. I still root for Duncan. I still want Magua to lose the first knife fight.

2009-11-22T20:50:00.000-08:00

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day – CRITICS SAID: 14th. I SAY: So i do have more to say here. An important film in many ways – the CGI still stands up against today’s standards for the most part, But the big story was troducing the strong female lead to film in a way that is still more real than the anime version routinely foisted upon us today. Compare Linda Hamilton's woman...stripped of her femininity, transformed by the first movie, occasionally outmatched physically, but tough, with Angelina Jolie is Wanted or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill - skinny girls inexplicably able to destroy all competition. Also, in a rarity, the kid isn't unbearable. Then there's the staples - the soundtrack is good and the villain is so memorable that the actor can never play himself clean-shaven again.

2009-11-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

3. Miller’s Crossing – CRITICS SAID: 76th. I SAY: Possibly the best written film ever. The best Coen brothers’ movie, a very adult, very intellectual gangster movie that’s secretly a love story. Again, acting great, cinematography great, soundtrack great. I’m tempted to have it first, but I have to factor in that it made no impact. All that said, I love how the movie essentially revolves around a guy who talks...so each scene is almost entirely dialogue. He brings nothing to the table but his head, he's routinely beaten up and he takes it without complaint. All of this only serves to highlight the brief spurts of action. My one complaint is that I've never thought the actress who played Verna was up to the role. OK, one other complaint - Gabriel Byrne occasionally drops the accent.

2009-11-22T20:43:00.000-08:00

4. Fight Club – CRITICS SAID: 40th. I SAY: Yes I like this movie. Yes I'm comfortable with that. I am enlightened.

2009-11-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

5. The Hudsucker Proxy – CRITICS SAID: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY: The best movie overlooked in the critics' top 100. One of the true Coen Brothers' classics that strikes the balance between comedy, romance, and drama without getting too Coen-y so as to be inaccessible. Tightly woven, fun to watch, brainy without being too much. The best and fairest movie about business ever made. Oh and, yes, the soundtrack is good and so is the villain.

2009-11-22T08:30:00.000-08:00

6. Jerry Maguire – CRITICS SAID: 96th. I SAY: Jerry Maguire starts where most movies end – a fake person becomes real. And it goes from there. Again, like most great movies, it has no real genre. It’s a comedy, it’s a buddy pick, it’s a sports movie, it’s a love story. It has a great villain (Bob Sugar), it has a good soundtrack, it’s well written. It’s just good. Before Cameron Crowe did Vanilla Sky, I really thought he was a genius. Who’s coming with me?

2009-11-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

7. Rudy – CRITICS SAID: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY:, While everyone else lauds dull epics like American Beauty…I challenge you. Which movie can you remember more lines from? Which movie more scenes? Rudy’s just a great inspirational movie, it looks good, and it’s as unpretentious as its lead. Heck if I don’t point it out again – great soundtrack.

2009-11-22T08:28:00.000-08:00

8. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels – CRITICS SAID: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY: It created the lad movie genre, it was witty, stylish, and just fun. Stylistically, it was a pioneer in film techniques. Might I add that the villains are all great and the soundtrack is good? A movie many times copied, but only rarely quite as good (it's pretty much Snatch and that's it).

2009-11-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

9. Rushmore – CRITICS SAID: 57th. I SAY: Wes Anderson when he still had an editor was something else. So was Bill Murray when he first began taking stock. At first, the movie is just different. You’ve never seen anything like it, you’ve never heard writing like it…it’s just new. But the more you watch it, the more substance reveals itself. It’s a work of literature. And it’s fun to watch. And buying the soundtrack isn’t the worst investment you could make.

2009-11-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

10. Beauty & The Beast – CRITICS SAID: 51st. I SAY: Disney brought back the animation film with The Little Mermaid and won a new generation of fans only to lose them in the late 90’s to the computer animation revolution. I can’t fault the strong if forgettable formula Pixar honed in Toy Story et al – watchable for adults, a flight of fancy for kids. But buried in the revolution was the decade’s best animation film, and it’s only true classic – Beauty & the Beast. Sure the other Disney pics are good, Aladdin overwhelmed by Robin Williams for example, and the Pixar movies are perfectly watchable, but Beauty & the Beast is the only one that warms your heart to remember the way Bambi does. Plus it has 2 key great movie elements: a good villain and a good soundtrack.

2009-11-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

11. The Big Lebowski – CRITICS SAID: 39th. I SAY: The cult classic of the 90’s and the only great Coen farce. I can’t tell why I like this movie so much. It’s not THAT funny. It just makes me smile. I know half the movie by heart and I imagine there’s a lot of Achievers out there who know the other half too. It brought back the White Russian. I wrote a paper about this movie's applications to the 90's political sphere and the Gulf War. I have no idea if I was right, but I'm just throwing it out there. I also went bowling at that alley before it was destroyed and pretended to be Liam with my friend playing Jesus.

2009-11-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

12. Liar, Liar – CRITICS SAID: NOT IN TOP 100. I say: The funniest movie of the 90’s. Most comedies are uneven. Most great comedies are only kind of funny the first time, and get funnier the more you watch them. Not this one. It was funny the first time, it’ll be funny the last time. Bonus - another appearance by Cary Elwes in a good movie. The guy has been in tons of good movies and he has zero star power. I'm not sure he's been introduced to the paparazzi.

2009-11-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

13. LA Confidential – CRITICS SAID: 45th. I say: Yes, this movie is better than Silence of the Lambs. The secret is better, the dialogue is tighter, the acting is better. It’s a tough, tough call though.

2009-11-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

14. The Silence of the Lambs – CRITICS SAID: 3rd. I say: This movie is good. No doubt. But #3? The movie is a compelling thriller with a great villain and a few layers of literature. That’s strong. But #3 in ten years strong? It’s just the best of the 90’s serial thrillers. That'll do Clarice, that'll do.

2009-11-22T08:18:00.000-08:00

15. Fargo – CRITICS SAID: 6th. I SAY: This movie bears the collective love of the Coen’s less well-lauded but better films from earlier in the 90’s, plus the weight of an everyman/everywoman theme. Yes, it’s very good. But in the end, it’s not as full of creativity as the Coen movies I put above it. But it does have Jerry Lundegard.

2009-11-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

16. Bottle Rocket – CRITICS SAID: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY: I know most people don’t like this movie. I think it’s brilliant. Wes Anderson’s first movie. Owen and Luke Wilson’s first movie. I think it’s funny, it has that Hitchcock element of taking you somewhere completely different every 20 minutes. Sorry.

2009-11-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

17. Heat – CRITICS SAID: 70th. I SAY: Pacino and DeNiro together in an all-out acting war, with Val Kilmer blazing away at the both of them. Adult, strong, secretly hiding Natalie Portman in there. I can’t say much about this movie except that it’s just good.

2009-11-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

18. Get Shorty – CRITICS SAID: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY: Jump-started the Hollywood cool caper genre. Travolta’s best movie. This led to Lock, Stock and other such classics.

2009-11-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

19. The Usual Suspects CRITICS SAID: 16th. I SAY: For those of us who managed to catch this movie without having the gotcha-twist revealed in advance, all I can say is that if I were coffee drinker in the 90’s, I would have dropped my cup too. Never saw it coming. Besides, this led to several droll paraphrases of this film by yours truly such as, "The greatest trick the Soviet Union ever pulled was convincing 90's social science academics the Cold War didn't happen."

2009-11-22T08:06:00.000-08:00

20. Office Space - CRITICS SAID: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY: I celebrate this film's entire catalogue. You may be wondering, "How could Office Space be a better movie than Schindler's List." Ask yourself - which would you rather own? Which would you rather watch? Office Space dabbles in Holocaust awareness, "You know, the Jews had pieces of flare that the Nazis made them wear." But does Schindler's List speak to our office lives? Not at all. Case closed.

2009-11-19T17:13:00.000-08:00

21. Hoop Dreams – CRITICS' RANKING: Not in the top 100. I SAY: The best documentary ever. Ever.

2009-11-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

22. Tombstone – CRITICS' RANKING: NOT IN THE TOP 100. I SAY: Let's start out with the negatives - the love story is Dana DeLAME-y. It's so bad that I just used that pun. Also, the bad guy is so thoroughly humiliated by Val Kilmer that he's hard to take seriously. It just always seems clear that these are drunken buffoons. Finally, Jason Priestly? Really? That out of the way, Kurt Russell makes a good cowboy, Sam Elliott was born in the wrong era and should have been in all the great westerns, and Bill Paxton is present. Which leaves us with Kilmer's Doc Holliday, which is what puts this movie on this list. This movie dances circles around Unforgiven's 2+-hours of growling.

2009-11-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

23. Forrest Gump – CRITICS' RANKING: 9th. I SAY: Of the 90’s most-famous movies, this is one I feel obligated to include, even if it’s a kitchy nostalgia film, essentially a road trip through history, hiding a surprisingly reactionary message behind a politically correct outlay. When you take the movie apart, at first you think, in typical 90's fashion, all the white guys in the movie are evil except the physically handicapped guy and the mentally handicapped guy. But dig deeper and you see a movie harshly critical of the 60's, one that emphasizes simple faith, fidelity, and hard-work. So in the end, ideologues are left to wonder what they should think, whereas I think most normal people can just accept it as a sweet little collage of Americana, well-timed in coming out at the end of an era.

2009-11-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

24. Jurassic Park – CRITICS' RANKING: 31st. I SAY: I was a serious dinosaur kid (Brontosaurus and Stegosaurus were my 1 and 2). I’ll never forget the wonder the first time you saw CGI dinosaurs. A revolutionary moment in film.

2009-11-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

25. Scream – CRITICS' RANK: 48th. I SAY: It was clever and funny, a parody that was better than its source material. I don't generally care for horror movies. I watched this movie for the first time at home, alone, on VCR. I'm man enough to admit that I was terrified of answering the phone.

2009-11-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

90's In Film...Best Director/Writer, Plus Teaser for my Top 25 Countdown

Best Director/Writer of the Decade - A word of note...I've combined this into a question of end-to-end authorship.:
NOMINEES:
* Tim Burton – (Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow). Tim Burton is the sort of guy who never wins an academy award because he's always just making Tim Burton movies, which is really creative and interesting, but kind of a genre unto itself. Creepy but not scary...he has that nailed.
* James Cameron – (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Titanic) - Three massive directorial undertakings followed by nearly 13 years of silence. Cameron scores high on degree of difficulty. Quality-wise, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
* Joel & Ethan Coen – (Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski). Re-read that list of movies. 4 of 5 are instant classics and the one that isn't (Barton Fink) is a think piece about writer's block.
* Michael Mann – (The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider). The no-name of this bunch. I have to admit that I've never seen The Insider. But those other two are taught, strong entries and I've heard the same about The Insider. He barely beat out Wes Anderson and Cameron Crowe, but ultimately, I think his catalogue is deeper.
* Stephen Spielberg – (Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan). I know, I whine about how overrated Spielberg is. And it's true. He picks big topics and then gets credit for not screwing the up. He's not a great artist, and he always works the same theme (reunite the family, Christian redemption). Even with those complaints, he has to be on this list, and he deserves to be. I'll just say it now - the most watchable and most important of his 90's movies was Jurassic Park. Schindler's List, the presumed champ, was just the first movie about The Holocaust. Now that we have several of those, its artistic value can be fairly weighed (and dismissed).
WINNER: The Coens. Was there ever a doubt?

TEASER FOR MY TOP 25 COUNTDOWN:
THE CRITICS' GENERAL CONSENSUS TOP 25 (i.e. HORRIBLY WRONG ACCEPTED WISDOM).
I'll tell you now, no more than 5 of these 'top 25' make the cut.
1. Schindlers List (1)
2. Goodfellas (3)
3. Silence of the Lambs (3.5)
4. Pulp Fiction (3.5)
5. Saving Private Ryan (4.5)
6. Fargo (5.5)
7. Unforgiven (7.5)
8. Shawshank Redemption (8.5)
9. Forrest Gump (9.5)
10. Malcolm X (10)
11. American Beauty (10)
12. Dances With Wolves (11.5)
13. Titanic (13.5)
14. Terminator 2: Judgment day (14)
15. Braveheart (15)
16. The Usual Suspects (16)
17. Barton Fink (18)
18. Reservoir Dogs (18)
19. The Sixth Sense (18.5)
20. Boyz’Nthe Hood (19.5)
21. JFK (20.5)
22. Se7en (21.5)
23. Toy Story (23)
24. Dead Man Walking (23)
25. The Nightmare Before Christmas / The Piano (25)

2009-11-17T16:28:00.000-08:00

The 90's in Film Review Rolls On: Best Acting Awards

Before we get started, you'll notice the dirth of females. I decided against doing a category for the ladies as I began researching the matter to discover that almost no actress has sustained success. Don't blame me, blame Hollywood. Don't believe me? I looked up a poll of the top actresses of the 90's on the-movie-times.com. The results:
1. Julia Roberts (Notable 90's Films: Pretty Woman, a few middling romcoms, Hook, Notting Hill)
2. Meryl Streep (Notable 90's Films: Postcards from the Edge, The River Wild, Death Becomes Her, The Bridges of Madison County)
3. Jodie Foster (Notable 90's Films: The Silence of the Lambs, Maverick, Nell, Contact, Anna & the King)
4. Sharon Stone (Notable 90's Films: Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Sliver, Last Action Hero, The Specialist, The Quick and the Dead, Casino, Sphere, The Muse)
5. Meg Ryan (Notable 90's Films: Joe Versus the Volcano, The Doors, Sleepless in Seattle, IQ, French Kiss, Courage Under Fire, City of Angels)

Now, that's a fair top 5. But the disparity between those filmographies and those of the best actors is cavernous. If I had to pick, I like Sharon Stone for talent and Meg Ryan for movie quality. And I might substitute Michelle Pfeiffer for Julia Roberts. Anyhow, I just wanted it clear...one of America's most liberal institutions is also one of its most sexist.

On with the show...

Best Supporting Actor of the Decade (CRITERIA: In Everything, Good, Never Used as Much as He Should Be As A Leading Man):
NOMINEES:
- Morgan Freeman (The Bonfire of the Vanities, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, Shawshank Redemption, Outbreak, Se7en, Amistad, Deep Impact)
- Gary Oldman (State of Grace, JFK, Dracula, True Romance, Immortal Beloved, The Fifth Element, Air Force One, Lost in Space)
- Bill Paxton (Predator 2, Tombstone, True Lies, Apollo 13, Twister, Titanic)
- Kevin Spacey (Glengarry Glenn Ross, The Ref, Swimming with Sharks, The Usual Suspects, Outbreak, Se7en, A Time To Kill, LA Confidential, A Bug’s Life, American Beauty)
- Christopher Walken (King of New York, Batman Returns, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Suicide Kings, Sleepy Hollow)
WINNER: A narrow victory for Kevin Spacey over Morgan Freeman. Please note that I wanted to nominate Samuel L., but he's not acting. He’s in everything, and he’s always the same character - bad-ass brotha'.

Best Comedic Actor of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
- Steve Martin – Highs (L.A. Story, Father of the Bride, Leap of Faith, Prince of Egypt, Bowfinger) Lows (Grand Canyon, Sgt Bilko, Father of the Bride 2)
- Bill Murray – Highs (What About Bob, Groundhog Day, Ed Wood, Kingpin, Wild Things, Rushmore) Lows (The Man Who Knew Too Little)
- Jim Carrey – Highs (Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb & Dumber, Ace Ventura 2, Liar, Liar, Truman Show, Man on the Moon) Lows: (Batman Forever, Cable Guy)
- Adam Sandler - Highs (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Dirty Work, Water Boy, Big Daddy), Lows (Coneheads, Airheads, Bulletproof)
- Mike Myers – Highs (Wayne’s World, Austin Powers 1 & 2, Mystery, Alaska) Lows (So I Married an Axe Murderer, Wayne’s World 2, 4-year hiatus between films, messy fight with Dana Carvey)
WINNER: Jim Carrey. I don't think it's close, even with his late decade quest for meaning - he only really got unbearable in the next decade, though he beat Bill Murray there. Oh how we could have used a Fire Marshall Bill movie while the iron was still hot, if only to remind us of the irony that the only successful actors from In Living Color were the white guy (Carey) and the fly girl (Jennifer Lopez)...until Jamie Fox came along and ruined that useful parable on race. (I still heart you Damon Wayans. Homey D. Clown 4-Life). Interestingly, Adam Sandler (a strong candidate) would use the otts to feel out a quest for meaning much like Carey and Murray, only to settle instead for a much more successful quest for mediocrity. Mike Myers' resume is too thin. In the end, I guess we could only really count on Steve Martin to just be funny for the next 10 years as well.

Best Actor of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
- Nicholas Cage – HIGHS (Leaving Las Vegas, The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off), LOWS (Guarding Tess, Innumerable small movies, City of Angels, Snake Eyes, 8MM). Another guy who dilutes his case with tons of bad films. A nice run in the mid-90’s lands him here.
- Tom Cruise – HIGHS (A Few Good Men, Interview with the Vampire, Jerry Maguire, Mission Impossible, Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia) LOWS (Days of Thunder, The Firm). I think what stands out about Cruise is that he does very few movies comparatively. That list there...that's pretty much it. He does not work for a paycheck.
- Robert DeNiro – HIGHS (Backdraft, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, Casino, Heat, Wag the Dog, Jackie Brown, Ronin, Analyze This) LOWS (Frankenstein, Lots of bad small movies, The Fan, Great Expectations). A great decade, marred by what must be some debilitating addiction that needs feeding through constant roles in bad movies.
- Tom Hanks – HIGHS (The Bonfire of the Vanities, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan, Toy Story 2, The Green Mile), LOWS (Joe Versus the Volcano, Radio Flyer, That Thing You Do). A strong resume…a lot of breadth there.
- Anthony Hopkins – HIGHS (The Silence of the Lambs, Howards End, Dracula, Chaplin, Remains of the Dday, Legends of the Fall, Nixon, Amistad, The Mask of Zorro, Meet Joe Black) LOWS (Numerous small movie tripe) Too much tripe, not enough movies I actually like.
- Brad Pitt – HIGHS (Thelma & Louise, A River Runs Through It, Kalifornia, True Romance, Interview with the Vampire, Legends of the Fall, Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, The Devil’s Own, Seven Years in Tibet, Meet Joe Black, Fight Club) LOWS (Cool World). A strong resume. People pretend he’s not a great actor, but that’s pretty impressive.
- Keanu Reeves – HIGHS (Point Break, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, Dracula, Much Ado About Nothing, Speed, The Devil’s Advocate, The Matrix) LOWS (Johnny Mnemonic, A Walk in the Clouds) A surprisingly strong run. But those lows were low…and it’s Keanu after all, not Laurence Olivier.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger – HIGHS (Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Last Action Hero, True Lies) LOWS (Junior, Eraser, Jingle All the Way, Batman & Robin, End of Days). Great early decade, but awful last half does him in.
- John Travolta – HIGHS (Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Broken Arrow, Face/Off, The Thin Red Line, A Civil Action), LOWS (Look Who’s Talking movies, White Man’s Burden, Phenomenon, Michael, Primary Colors). Nice to have you back…but tone down the social activism.
- Denzel Washington – HIGHS (Mississippi Masala, Malcolm X, Much Ado About Nothing, The Pelican Brief, Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, Courage Under Fire, He Got Game, The Hurricane) LOWS (Devil in a Blue Dress, Virtuosity, The Siege, The Bone Collector)
WINNER: Tom Hanks.
COMMENT: First of all, I included 10 actors just to show you how much deeper their resumes go than the actresses. Secondly, I can't earnestly say that in terms of sheer talent, it's Tom Hanks. Frankly, if Daniel Day-Lewis hadn't spent the decade cobbling shoes somewhere in rural New England, who knows what movies we'd have had? But Hanks carried all of those films, he's a different person in many of them, he's my boy from Sacramento, and ultimately, that is an astoundingly productive decade of Beatles'-esque dimensions. What interests me is that supposed pretty boy Brad Pitt is my number 2. If he's dumb, he sure has a good agent. That said, Keanu really is dumb, and he still put up a strong decade. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that a lot of the real talent, the bright guys like Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr., forfeited this decade to a drug-related problems or, at least in Depp's case, playing somebody with drug-related problems in most of his films. I suppose all's well that ends well...if only the same were true of music, we'd still have Biggie and Kurt Kobain to make us music. Instead, they died, we got Creed, Britney, and Sean John, and now a generation is left adrift without knowing what it's like to have music worth loving.

2009-11-16T13:34:00.000-08:00

90's In Film Continued: Worst High-Grossing Films and Ten Most Wasted Talents

Worst Movie Over 500 Million World-Wide Gross: Ghost
Worst Movie of the Top 50 Grossing Movies: The Flinstones

10 MOST WASTED TALENTS OF THE 90’S (Alphabetical):
• Dana Carvey – He was funnier than Mike Myers, who tried to write him out of Wayne’s World until the producers decided the same thing (Carvey > Myers) and wrote him back in (hence all of the scenes with Garth by himself). Cancer, Wayne’s World 2, and dissing your sponsors in the first episode of your TV show though…that’s a lot to overcome.
• Robert Downey Jr. – “Quitting drugs is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.” A lost decade in his prime. Good to have him back.
• Angelica Houston – Between Addam’s Family and being rediscovered by Wes Anderson in the otts, nothing. It’s not a kind business to an aging woman.
• Jennifer Jason Leigh – After being the energy of The Hudsucker Proxy, essentially nothing. It’s not a kind business for a younger woman either.
• Dennis Leary – I admit it. I liked The Ref. Every time you see a hack like Dane Cook get another part, you have to wonder why a real comedian like Leary didn’t get more parts.
• Norm MacDonald – Another guy I think is hysterical who had no movie career of note.
• Tim Roth – After Reservoir Dogs and a dominant performance in Rob Roy, he sat the bench. I have no clue why. Maybe he has a bad agent.
• Marisa Tomei – One has to wonder if the story that she was blackballed after a semi-senile Jack Palance read the wrong name and gave her the Best Supporting Actress award is true. There’s really no other way to explain how a beautiful, funny actress with an academy award in a popular movie falls of the face of the earth.
• Denzel Washington – I know. It’s hard to say Washington ‘wasted’ his talent. But, to me, Denzel is the best actor of his generation. He should be making classics. Instead, this was his 90’s post-his epic 1989 performance in Glory: Heart Condition, Mo’ Better Blues, Mississippi Masala, Ricochet, Malcolm X, Much Ado About Nothing, The Pelican Brief, Philadelphia, Crimson Tide, Virtuosity, Devil in a Blue Dress, Courage Under Fire, The Preacher’s Wife, Fallen, He Got Game, The Seige, The Bone Collector, The Hurricane. Some of those are good movies. But that’s not the line-up of the best actor of his generation. He wanders between African-American social issues roles and bizarrely tame scripts. Is/was America not ready for a black leading man in a race-less role or is/was it just Hollywood that wasn’t ready? Was no one willing to cast him, or were the great writers and directors unwilling to write for him? Or does he limit himself…is this the career he wanted? An unanswered shame.
• James Woods – Few people know this, but in Sylvester Stallone’s long decline, The Specialist was the movie that could have put him back on top. It had Sharon Stone, it had Antonio Banderas, and it had James Woods playing a terrific bad guy. Instead, Woods’ film-stealing bad-guy was left on the cutting room floor due to Stallone’s ego. As a result, Woods’ rounded out the 90’s playing bit parts in should-have-been movies like Casino, Nixon, Ghosts of the Mississippi, and Any Given Sunday plus starring in one of the great 90s HBO features – Indictment: The McMartin Trial. James Woods is a truly talented actor. But this is Hollywood.

2009-11-15T21:40:00.001-08:00

90's in Film Review Cont. - Rounding Out the Genres - Best Action/Sci-Fi, Best Comedy, Best and Worst of the Best Picture Winners.

And now, the moneymakers:

Best Action/Sci-Fi Movie of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
Jurassic Park
The Matrix
Speed
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Total Recall
WINNER: Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Argue if you can.

Best Comedy of the Decade (CRITERIA - Can't have any real art, message, or focus on a love story.):
NOMINEES:
Happy Gilmore
Liar, Liar
Office Space
Tommy Boy
Wayne’s World
WINNER: Liar, Liar. All of the movies are really funny. I just chose Liar, Liar because it's that rare comedy that's funny the first time and funny on repeated watching.

Best of the ‘Best Picture’ Winners (Nominees, winner in BOLD):
1. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
2. Forrest Gump (1994)
3. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
4. Unforgiven (1992)
5. Braveheart (1995)
Worst of the ‘Best Picture’ Winners (Nominees, winner in Bold):
6. Schindler’s List (1993)
7. American Beauty (1999)
8. Titanic (1997)
9. Dances With Wolves (1990)
10. The English Patient (1996)
Personally, I think the top 3 are truly good, the next 4 are OK movies that got over-hyped based on the names connected to them and the serious subject matter, #8 is a major directorial achievement but a tedious film, and the last 2 have no business winning any awards for anything other than their uses as a substitute for valerian root.

2009-11-14T14:09:00.000-08:00

Day 7 of the 90's Review: Most Tolerable Rom-Com/Love Story, Best Horror Pic, Best Western. 2 Genres I don't like that exploded in the 90's into cash cows, 1 that's almost dead that I do like.

Most Tolerable Romance/Romantic Comedy of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
French Kiss
Jerry Maguire
Shakespeare In Love
There’s Something About Mary
The Wedding Singer
WINNER: Jerry Maguire. Gosh, these movies are downright watchable. Maybe I shouldn't bag on this genre so much.

Best Horror Pic of the Decade:
The Blair Witch Project
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Scream
Sleepy Hollow
Tremors
WINNER: Scream. Sleepy Hollow isn't scary, just Tim Burton weird.

Best Western of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
City Slickers
Maverick
The Quick and the Dead
Tombstone
Unforgiven
WINNER: Tombstone. No contest. I love westerns, it's a shame there's so few good ones these days. Of these films, 2-3 are comedies. I know we're supposed to sacrifice our first born before Clint Eastwood making a western, but really, Tombstone is a much better movie, even factoring in the lame love story. Kurt Russell had a pretty solid 90's for a guy who doesn't really seem like a star.

2009-11-13T16:22:00.000-08:00

Day 6 of the 90's Movie Review: Best Sports Movie, Best Gangster Movie, Best Social Issues Movie.

Best Sports Movie of the Decade (CRITERIA - best sports scenes, makes you love/hate/appreciate the sport):
NOMINEES:
Diggstown
Hoop Dreams
Jerry Maguire
Rudy
White Men Can’t Jump
WINNER: Rudy. Jerry Maguire is a better movie. But Rudy has those Rocky inspirational scenes and achieves the rare feat of making you like Notre Dame football for 2 hours. Jerry Maguire and Hoop Dreams are great movies for something more than the sports. White Men Can't Jump knows its role. Diggstown is one of my 90's guilty pleasures. Three underused actors (James Woods, Louis Gosset Jr., Bruce Dern) team up to make a movie about an underused sport (boxing).

Best Gangster Movie of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
Goodfellas
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Miller’s Crossing
Reservoir Dogs
The Usual Suspects
WINNER: Miller's Crossing. Lock, Stock, Reservoir Dogs, and The Usual Suspects aren't gangster movies proper - more caper pics. That leaves Goodfellas and Miller's Crossing, which came out the same year. Miller's Crossing is better acted, better written, and better directed. If you switched the names of who did it, Miller's Crossing would be Scorcese's crowning achievement and Goodfellas would be one of those 'eh' Coen brothers movies from the otts.

Best Social Issues Movie of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
Courage Under Fire
Dangerous Minds
Falling Down
Forrest Gump
Philadelphia
WINNER: Philadelphia. Forrest Gump kind of wanders across issues, even if it's more enjoyable than Philadelphia. Philadelphia I like because it really went after 1-2 social issues, it did it at a time when it was relevant rather than chasing the issue down, it made the bad guys believable, but mostly because Denzel's character doesn't learn some lesson about embracing gay. Instead, he learns a more basic and bracing lesson about tolerance and humanity in living with a prejudice and respecting someone's humanity rather than changing his normative views.

2009-11-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

90's Movie Review Day 4/5

I skipped a day so I'm doubling up. 6 categories: Best Movie About Lawyers, Best Documentary, Best War Movie, Best Animated Film, Best Parody of the Decade, Best Cult Hit of the Decade.

Best Movie About Lawyers (CRITERIA: Movie about lawyers, features court room drama, rampantly ignores due process):
NOMINEES:
A Civil Action
A Few Good Men
Liar, Liar
My Cousin Vinnie
Philadelphia
WINNER: Liar, Liar. First of all, I haven't seen A Time to Kill so I still don't know what might have become of Matthew McConaughey's shirt-wearing career. I think all of these movies are to a varying degree good. I go with Liar, Liar, despite its weakness as a court room drama, because it spends a healthy amount of time in court room nonetheless. A Few Good Men, the worst of the movies, should be credited for this being a genre. In fact, one of Liar, Liar's great services was to destroy the disturbing Clarence Darrow notion that lawyers are nothing but crusading do-gooders. Which is what ultimately puts the 'huh?' choice (A Civil Action) on this list - our hero is actually something of scumbag, but he's a scumbag in behaving like a crusading do-gooder,

Best Documentary:
NOMINEES:
Hoop Dreams
WINNER: Hoop Dreams. Sorry, I'm not taking any other applicants. Best documentary ever. Back before Michael Moore created the drive-by crusader self-promotion vehicle, people actually made gritty documentaries about things like urban dreamers. The documentary was about the subject matter, not the film maker. It was painstaking work, it was desperately honest, and it made no money. In perhaps the most ridiculous outcome of Academy Award history, this film was not nominated in the Best Documentary category because it was considered 'too good' for a documentary, but didn't make the final cut for best picture. Which it could rightfully have won.

Best War Movie:
NOMINEES:
Braveheart
Courage Under Fire
Last of the Mohicans
Saving Private Ryan
Starship Troopers
WINNER: Last of the Mohicans. Having safely covered the Vietnam topic backwards and forwards, Hollywood had a strange decade of war films. Most of them are historical in nature, so that we can attribute heroism in war to some lost era, like a costume ball or travel by sail. So we have William Wallace and the unnecessarily ahistorical rendering of blue faced scots. I must say that with most of Mel Gibson's post-lethal weapon films, I find myself wondering, "Why was this made?" even if they're pretty good. Saving Private Ryan began the 'we weren't so much heroes as just scared witless' trend which builds on a lot of social history but is sort of like making a western where people just herd cows. Courage Under Fire decided at least women could be combat heroes. Starship Troopers decided to mock the whole business with a quasi-facist, stylized send-up that featured the much under-used Dina Meyer and brought Doogie back from the dead. But all this was child's play to the classic Last of the Mohicans, a movie about one of the most obscure wars in American history which somehow eschews modern politics entirely to get the historical era right without seeming to lecture. Make sure to avoid the director's cut, which adds some preachy sections, and stick to the original theatrical version.

Best Animated Film of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
Aladdin
Beauty & The Beast
The Lion King
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Toy Story
WINNER: Beauty & the Beast. Look, all of these are good movies. I'm routinely shocked at how good kids' movies are given that they're so excited to be at the theater that you could show them anything a step up from a baby giggling in the sun and they'd watch it. What's that? Tele-who-now? Huh. Anyway, special points for the inexplicable Nightmare Before Christmas for having the smallest target audience of a decent movie in cinema history - the 13 year old experimenting-with-Goth. With respect to the best, these and several more were all worthwhile animation films, but Beauty & the Beast is the only one that touches a nerve of nostalgia, even in this hard heart. Also, it has the best bad guy. So, yes, welcome Pixar, you'll have your millenium yet, but Beauty & the Beast wins this one for Disney...before they bought Pixar.

Best Parody of the Decade:
NOMINEES
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
The Freshman
Hotshots!
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Scream
WINNER: Scream. You probably looked at this category and thought 'those movies stink.' Yes, Adventure Movie stinks. But look at that list...those are a lot of good movies. Ultimately, The Freshman isn't enough of a parody, and Austin Powers just misses out for stealing the idea from Dana Carvey. Robin Hood is probably my favorite of the traditional-style parody films. But Scream, to me, distances itself by taking the parody idea and turning it into an homage to its genre, and a classic of its genre, all at the same time. Neat trick that.

Best Cult Hit of the Decade (Criteria: Came Out of Nowhere, Bizarre Loyalty and Re-Enactment Ritual, Not Popular on Initial Release, More Enjoyable with Each Re-Watching, Not Originally Marketed as a Cult Movie):
NOMINEES:
The Big Lebowski
The Blair Witch Project
Bottle Rocket
The Full Monty
Office Space
WINNER: The Big Lebowski. The Blair Witch Project was marketed as a cult movie, and it's extremely tedious on repeated watching. The Full Monty isn't so much a cult movie as much as it was just independent and British. And it's disappeared with-a-quickness. I have to acknowledge that, although i hear tell of other people liking Bottle Rocket, I notice more-and-more that almost no one else seems to like it besides me. Which leaves us with Office Space. It hits all the categories out of the park, but hasn't really drawn that Rocky Horror type following to it. It needs more printer smashing parties and Oh face contests before it can compete withe The Big Lebowski. I will always regret how few scenes we got with the oh-face guy. As for the champ, there's just no avoiding it. It resurrected the White Russian, it has an annual fest with arcane rituals, if you're in the know, you'll see plenty of achiever paraphernalia out-and-about. The last time I went, the movie started, and people on both sides of me just started talking, line-by-line, with the movie. I looked to my left and my right, and everyone just had a big smile on their face. This movie's just got it.

2009-11-10T17:58:00.000-08:00

Day 3 of the 90's Review: Most Over-Rated Movie of the Decade, Most Important/Influential Movie of the Decade, and the 10 Best Inadvertent Porn Titles

Most Over-Rated Movie of the Decade (Criteria - Won awards it didn't deserve, doesn't stand up to repeated viewings, generally liked, considered artistic but is actually a lame mainstream Hollywood idea of what artistic should be, purports to be revolutionary but is actually quite derivative):
NOMINEES:
American Beauty
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler’s List
Titanic
The Truman Show
WINNER: American Beauty. Spielberg is involved with 3 of these movies. That comes from his capacity to lend his name to something and have it taken more seriously than it deserves. All 3 of those first 3 films are above average movies which have come to be regarded as classics because of a) subject matter and b) attachment to Spielberg. American Beauty I have written on at length but suffice to say that it is Spielberg's (or Spielberg produced) movie on materialism and gayness. Two well-covered topics, getting the mainstream Hollywood treatment. Saving Private Ryan was 15 minutes of revolutionary war footage followed by 2 hours of tripe based on undergraduate social history classes and borrowed scenes from better war movies. Schindler's List was about the Holocaust. Apparently, it's impossible to make a bad Holocaust movie. By comparison, Titanic was panned by many reviewers, but the sheer weight of the directorial effort plus the huge popularity of the film mean it qualifies for this category. The Truman Show...all I can say is that we should have just given Jim Carrey the Oscar so that he could feel 'taken seriously' and go back to making us laugh. I blame his sub-par otts on this ultimately somewhat tedious 'high concept' movie being fawned over.

Most Important/Influential Movie of the Decade (Criteria - truly insightful, changed the way people think/behave, introduced new film techniques, created new genres):
NOMINEES:
Fight Club
Jurassic Park
Pulp Fiction
Scream
Toy Story
WINNER: Fight Club. Let's get the ones that weren't close out of the way first. Toy Story and Jurassic Park had a huge impact on film technique and the business of film. But they didn't have much to say, so they can't compete across the board. Scream created/revolutionized the horror genre but again, it was not socially important in any way. That leaves Pulp Fiction, which is a strong contender. Half of Hollywood wanted to be Tarantino almost overnight. He had a Nirvana-esque impact on the way scripts were written. He also has a true appreciation for the craft of film technique and many have mimicked his camera angles, etc as well. And in a sense, the elevation of style over substance, of homage over meaning, is itself socially important and relevant to a decade of irony and cynical detachment in love with self-reference. But ultimately, I think Fight Club is more important. Fight Club has had fewer copy cats...it's too unique to re-do. And it has also influenced film technique in the way it was shot and spliced. But the real key is that it hits a nerve with a broad segment. The funny thing is that reviewers don't have that nerve; they're not the audience. But to 18-to-25 year-old men of the 90's, this movie was on the tip of our tongues, this movie just gave it a name. It's American Beauty sans gay and plus balls. The fact that fight clubs sprung up all over the country is just icing on the cake. Also, this movie is just a better movie than Pulp Fiction.

Best Inadvertant Porn Title of the 90's:
I CANNOT PICK A CHAMP. YOU DECIDE:
The Bone Collector
Double Impact
Get Shorty
Free Willy
Mad Dog & Glory
Much Ado About Nothing
The Nutty Professor
Quigley Down Under
Sister Act
While You Were Sleeping
COMMENT: I have to say, I'm partial to Mad Dog & Glory, Much Ado About Nothing, and While You Were Sleeping.

2009-11-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of the Round-Up: Worst Sequel of the 90's, Best Sequel of the 90's, Most 90's Movie.

Worst Sequel of the 90’s (CRITERIA - crushing lack of originality, high expectations from source movie, series/career killing):
NOMINEES:
* City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold. The legend was that more Jack Palance would make this movie better than the first...even though he died in the last movie. The reality - I crap bigger than this movie dreams.
* Honey, I Blew Up The Kids. Of course, at least there was no other direction to go. "Honey, I made the kids 2D"? Of, perhaps the more appropriate, "Honey, I made the kids morbidly obese."
* The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. Take the first film, remove any sense of wonder, have one suspenseful scene (the car window cracking while they're over the cliff), farm the rest out to the interns. This world was best left virgin territory.
* Speed 2: Cruise Control. It's never a good sign when one of the stars won't sign on for round 2. Even Keanu was smart enough to see this coming. But then, to give it a subtitle that a) points out a gaping plot hole (why not just set it to cruise control) and b) suggests your action movie is proceeding at a leisurely pace...well, let's just hope Sandra Bullock needed the money.
* Wayne’s World 2. This was one of those 'grown up' moment movies where I realized that sometimes, it wasn't enough to just be at the theater. Maybe it's because I watched this on VCR. I literally was astounded at how un-funny this movie was. I was a pretty serious kid.
WINNER: Wayne's World 2. If I told you that Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Christopher Walken, and Chris Farley had top billing in a comedy with a cameo by Aerosmith and Charleton Heston, plus Tia Carrere, Heather Locklear, Kim Basinger, Drew Barrymore, and the funniest guy from Scurbs, you'd have high expectations. Wayne's World was funny. This movie was not. It's as though they forgot to film the funny scenes and just left the set-up in. This movie destroyed Dana Carvey's career and nearly ended Mike Myers' as well. Wow.

BEST SEQUEL OF THE 90's (CRITERIA - Good stand alone movie, better than the original):
NOMINEES:
Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Die Hard With A Vengeance (The Samuel L/Jeremy Irons one)
Scream 2
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Toy Story 2
WINNER: Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Not a contest. I will say that I think you can argue that Toy Story 2 is better than the first, and that it's very easy to argue that Austin Powers 2 was better than the first (Mini-me). And Die Hard gets 'best series of the 90's' status by default. But Terminator 2 is the quintessential sequel. It takes everything from the first movie, turns it on its head, and makes it better. The first movie was a B-movie Iliad. This movie was an epic Cyber-Odyssey.

MOST 90'S MOVIE (CRITERIA - Reflects attitudes prevalent only in the 90's, audience would only be 90's audience, plot devices only relevant to 90's, has that 90's feel):
NOMINEES:
American Beauty - The standard 'non-standard' thought of the 90's.
Clueless - If historians called the 90's the 'Clueless Decade'...would you argue?
Dangerous Minds - Ah, the heroic teacher in the inner city epic. A generation inspired to spend 2 years in Teach for America before beating a hasty retreat to suburbia.
Space Jam - You might not know this, but Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny used to be big. Like i-phone big.
You’ve Got Mail - Perhaps never has a rom-com been so prisoner to a company and technology so swiftly irrelevant. A sad comment on the demise of AOL that the "You've Got Mail" notification's era was about as lengthy as the relatability of a film about e-mail being unfamiliar. The Coen Brothers should redo this movie as a send-up of the 90's. Then you're have something.
WINNER: Clueless. Smack dab in the middle of the decade, the film hits right at the notion that the 90's became the decade in which adolescence led the culture. Technically, we learn 'that there's more to life than clothes and popularity,'...but not much. In the end, it's better err on the side of pretty and blonde. This movie is less of an anachronism than its competitors, but it just seems more right. And, by teeny-bopper standards of our time, it's hopelessly innocent.

2009-11-08T18:25:00.001-08:00

Rolling Out the FULL 90's REVIEW:

I've been hard at work on the full 90's review. I'll roll out a few categories every day, leading up to our actual top 25 movies of the decade.

Today: The Top 10 Bad Guys of the 90's, The Top 25 Scenes, and the award for best soundtrack of the 90's.

Top 10 Bad Guys of the 90's:
1. Hannibal Lecter – The Silence of the Lambs
2. Magua – Last of the Mohicans
3. Dr. Evil – Austin Powers/Austin Powers 2
4. The Scream Guy – Scream
5. Bob Sugar – Jerry Maguire
6. Evil T-1000 – Terminator 2
7. Lumberg – Office Space
8. The Dane – Miller’s Crossing
9. Shooter McGavin – Happy Gilmore
10. Castor Troy – Face/Off

The Top 25 Scenes of the 90's:
1. Christopher Walken vs Dennis Hopper – True Romance
2. The Hoola-Hoop – The Hudsucker Proxy
3. Look In Your Heart - Miller’s Crossing
4. Normandy – Saving Private Ryan
5. Verbal Kent = Kaiser Soze – The Usual Suspects
6. Happy Gilmore vs. Bob Barker – Happy Gilmore
7. You Can’t Handle The Truth! – A Few Good Men
8. You Had Me At Hello – Jerry Maguire
9. Pacino v. DeNiro – Heat
10. T-Rex Comes - Jurassic Park
11. Do You Like Scary Movies? – Scream
12. Are You Sure? I’m Positive – My Cousin Vinny
13. The Lobby Fight – The Matrix
14. Rudy’s Sack – Rudy
15. Doc Holliday Mocks Gun Acrobatics – Tombstone
16. Who’s Coming With Me – Jerry Maguire
17. Mercutio’s Death – Romeo + Juliet
18. Specks Kisses Wendy Peffercorn – Sandlot
19. Magua Cuts Out Greyhair’s Heart – Last of the Mohicans
20. The Final Heist – Bottle Rocket
21. JFK Assassination Explanation – JFK
22. Woody Harrelson Throws It Down – White Men Can’t Jump
23. Motorcycle Chase – Terminator 2: Judgment Day
24. I Killed My Sale – Tommy Boy
25. The Aliens Blow Up the White House – Independence Day / The Aliens Attack – Mars Attacks

The Award for Best Soundtrack (music had to be created for movie)
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Good Will Hunting
The Hudsucker Proxy
Last of the Mohicans
Rudy
THE WINNER: Last of the Mohicans

2009-10-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

1999 In Film: A Listless Decade Waddles to a Close

Just a note, I'm taking a break, then I'll come up with my decade in review practice.

1999
TOP GROSSING
1. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
2. The Sixth Sense
3. Toy Story 2
4. The Matrix
5. Tarzan
6. The Mummy
7. Notting Hill
8. The World Is Not Enough
9. American Beauty
10. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

COMMENT: The 90’s end with George Lucas’ vigorous destruction of everyone from the 70’s childhood and a few quite good tech films like The Matrix and the Mummy. You can see where the Otts are headed.
WHAT WERE WE THINKING: The World Is Not Enough. This is the other bad Brosnan Bond movie before the last one.

ACADEMY AWARDS:
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: American Beauty, The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense
Best Picture: American Beauty
Best Director: Sam Mendes - American Beauty
Best Actor: Kevin Spacey - American Beauty
Best Actress: Hilary Swank - Boys Don't Cry
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine - The Cider House Rules
Best Supporting Actress: Angelina Jolie - Girl, Interrupted
COMMENT: Hollywood puts its foot down – political movies are the only kind of art. And Angelina gets a pre-emptive academy award.

THE REAL TOP 10:
1. Fight Club
2. Office Space
3. The Matrix
4. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
5. The Thomas Crowne Affair
6. Eyes Wide Shut
7. The Sixth Sense
8. South Park
9. The Blair Witch Project
10. Payback

MOST OVERRATED: American Beauty, Being John Malkovich, The Boondock Saints, Magnolia
Let me explain. I liked American Beauty the first time I saw it. I thought it was brilliant. I was 18. The girl I went with said her dad did the same thing with her friends. Anyway, I grew up. It’s not brilliant. It’s an artifact of late teenage despair. What I don’t get is why grown adults think it’s brilliant. Are they still 18 inside? Anyway, let’s not pretend this was a great film. It wears its ideas on its sleeve. The floating bag is trite, the notion that all the gay people are normal, the conservative is gay, and the straight couple is jacked up is the distilled essence of all the standard ‘non-standard’ thought of the time. It is a relic of the counter-culture-as-culture mindset. As for the others, Being John Malkovich is better on paper than in execution, like most Spike Jonze movies, overthought. Boondock Saints is one of the growing fad of ‘because its cool’ movies. I like Irish accents, but this just didn’t do it for me. Magnolia I remember being regarded as a big deal, but in retrospect, it is tedious and unwatchable.
MOST INFLUENTIAL: Fight Club
MOST 90’s: American Beauty
SHOULD HAVE SEEN: The Insider
SLEEPER/CULT HIT: Office Space
TOLERABLE ROM-COM OF THE YEAR: Notting Hill
BEST LINE (IN A BAD MOVIE): Tie.
- The Muse, “Are you a lesbian?” “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.” “Oh, come on, dignify it with a no.”
- The World Is Not Enough, “I thought Christmas only comes once a year.”
BEST SCENE: Samuel L. gets eaten by a shark in the middle of his Deep Blue Sea inspirational speech.
SHAMELESS PROFITEERING: You might wonder why Analyze This and Mickey Blue Eyes both came out this year. Both of these movies are fairly funny movies about regular Joes getting mixed up with gangsters. The Sopranos started this year. For shame sirs. This makes me wonder – is Hollywood secretly sitting on all the good scripts, waiting for some reason to cheapen them by making them seem like quick profiteering schemes?
BEST SEQUEL: Austin Powers 2, Toy Story 2.
IMPLAUSIBLE PLOT TWIST IN HIGH SCHOOL MOVIE: So football players go to a strip club the night before a game, and we’re supposed to hate the coach because of their rampant irresponsibility?
TOTALLY IMPLAUSIBLE PLOT IN HIGH SCHOOL MOVIE: She’s All That. Let’s get this straight, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is well-liked…because he’s a soccer star and honors student. Because that sounds a) like America and b) likely for Freddie Prinze Jr. So then his high school girlfriend leaves him for a reality TV star she met at spring break…because a) high school girls go to spring break and b) that’s legal. So he makes some bizarre bet that anyone can be his girl friend and his best friend has to pick the least hot girl to turn into a decent girl friend. And his best friend picks the girl who, if she were to take her glasses off, is a model. Not even Paul Walker is that stupid. Everyone knows, in that situation, you pick the fatty. There’s not even a debate. The fatty. This was a Saved By the Bell episode. They picked the fatty. How else do you learn a lesson? The lesson in this movie is, "If a cute girl takes her glasses off, she's cute." The point is supposed to be to pick a physically unattractive person and teach us all about not being so shallow. Instead, Freddie Prinz Jr. teaches us, "You may not think you're hot, but you are."
HEADED THE WRONG DIRECTION: Comedy. Big Daddy begins Adam Sandler’s listless quest for mediocrity. The Man on the Moon hammers home Jim Carey’s already overlong quest for self…or an Oscar. Neither showed up.
HEADED IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS: Renee Zellweger chases Chris O’Donnell in ‘The Bachelor’. Unlikely that'll happen again.
GOING TOGETHER IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS: Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon hook up in Cruel Intentions. I could have told her then this was a bad career decision.
WE SHOULD BE DONE HERE: The Runaway Bride. Apparently people will pay 150 million dollars to relive Pretty Woman. Richard Gere should have gone away by now.
WE REALLY ARE DONE HERE: Kevin Costner - For Love of the Game, Message in a Bottle. Not even a desperate attempt to recapture Field of Dreams pays off…I guess Kevin can sympathize with being washed up and alone. The message in the bottle says, “it’s over.”
YEP, THAT WAS A BAD HALF DECADE: Arnold’s “End of Days”. A little too close to home with that title.
SHOULDN’T WE HAVE STARTED HERE: South Park creators finally make a South Park movie.
IT WAS A BAD YEAR: Matthew Broderick. The alarmingly tedious Election vies with Inspector Gadget for a career quickly slipping into ‘standing next to Sarah Jessica Parker’ status.
WHY DIDN’T THAT WORK: Wild, Wild West.
CAN WE TRADE THIS BROSNAN MOVIE FOR THAT ONE: Is there some reason The Thomas Crowne Affair wasn’t just declared The James Bond Affair, and then we could be spared 1-2 further bad Bond films. It’s light years better than The World Is Not Enough.
KILLING ALL GOOD WILL FROM THAT ONE SONG: An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster. Fivel sells out.
I HAVE TO SAY: Everytime I see the title ‘Love Stinks’ I think of the deodorant commercial. “Love Stinks, Arid Works.”
I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO SAY: Sleepy Hollow. Tim Burton does these sorts of things.
BEST INAD…WAIT, CHECK THAT, ALARMINGLY EXPLICIT TITLES: Just A Little Harmless Sex, The Loss of Sexual Innocence, The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human,
BEST INADVERTANT PORN TITLES: Anywhere But Here, Better Than Chocolate, The Bone Collector, In Too Deep, Dick, Sweet and Low Down, Why Not Me?

2009-09-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

1998 in Film: Another Year of a Nation Without Direction

This is about to get ugly. Those with a sense of artistic decency should avert their eyes.
TOP GROSSING
1. Armageddon – Passably fun disaster movie – in the end, things don’t go boom.
2. Saving Private Ryan – Spielberg rocks the first 20, then steals the rest from better war movies
3. Godzilla – A childhood icon gutted and turned into an overlarge iguana.
4. There’s Something About Mary – Funny movie.
5. A Bug’s Life – Ho-hum computer animation. Family attendance compulsory.
6. Deep Impact – Not so fun disaster movie – things go boom. Climax: climb a hill.
7. Mulan – Less than ho-hum old school animation. Family attendance still compulsory
8. Dr. Doolittle – Eddie Murphy’s selling out begins
9. Shakespeare in Love – No complaints
10. Lethal Weapon 4 – Jet Li was a better addition than Joe Pesci. My favorite thing about the Lethal Weapon movies, as Chris points out, is that apparently there are no black or hispanic drug dealers in Los Angeles.

Academy Awards:
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, Life is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line
Best Picture: Shakespeare in Love
Best Director: Steven Spielberg - Saving Private Ryan
Best Actor: Roberto Benigni - Life Is Beautiful
Best Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow - Shakespeare in Love
Best Supporting Actor: James Coburn - Affliction
Best Supporting Actress: Judi Dench - Shakespeare in Love
Best Foreign Language Film: Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella), directed by Roberto Benigni, Italy
HOW BANAL CAN WE BE: Three movies about WW2, two movies about late renaissance England.

THE REAL TOP 10:
1. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
2. The Big Lebowski
3. The Wedding Singer
4. Rushmore
5. Shakespeare In Love
6. There’s Something About Mary
7. A Civil Action
8. Life Is Beautiful
9. Rounders
10. Saving Private Ryan
OVERRATED MOVIES:
- American History X. Social issues movies always age poorly.
- The Truman Show. High concept usually ages poorly as well.
- Saving Private Ryan. 20-minutes of epic footage does not a movie make.
- Out of Sight. We’re all supposed to like this movie because it’s about George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez being cool. So they are; it's still not a good movie.
UNDERRATED MOVIES:
- A Civil Action. I’m not much for crusading lawyer movies, but absent the Grisham hype, this movie quietly was much better than the bizarrely popular early-90’s adaptations that tore up the box office.
- Dead Man on Campus. After Jessica Spano pounded the stake into the heart of Saved by the Bell that had been placed there by The College Years, Zach quietly made a pretty funny movie.
- Dirty Work. I will always wish Norm McDonald had a career. Guy kills me.
CHARACTER OF THE YEAR: Jesus – The Big Lebowski. Close runner-up: Cliff – Dead Man On Campus.
TOP 10 REASONS THIS WAS A BAD YEAR FOR MOVIES:
1. Lingering 90’s detritus that refuse to go away – 1 too many sequels (at least): 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, Air Bud: Golden Receiver, An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan, Major League: Back to the Minors, Dennis the Menace Strikes Again, Halloween: H20, Species II. Bride of Chucky almost seems reasonable.
2. Bad remakes and conversions: Blue Brothers 2000, The Avengers, The Mask of Zorro
3. Waste of Talent: BASEketball, Vince Vaughn in the Psycho remake
4. Bad, Purely Political Movies: Bulworth, Primary Colors.
5. Lazy Animation Cash Cows: Antz, A Bug’s Life, Mulan, The Prince of Egypt
6. Forced to Pretend Movies About Writers are Interesting: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I like Johnny Depp as much as the next guy, but come on. Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘style’ was to get drunk and high and send in his notes because he couldn’t finish. A pox on what he did to writing.
7. Ethan Hawke continues to make movies in a misguided attempt to be taken seriously as a literary figure: Great Expectations.
8. Godzilla is a rancid disappointment
9. Pretending a foreign movie is good: Run, Lola, Run.
10. Attempted RomCom Sequel : You’ve Got Mail.
MOVIES I SHOULD HAVE SEEN: A Night at the Roxbury, Apt Pupil, Enemy of the State, Half Baked, Ronin
MOVIES I WANT TO LIKE: He Got Game, Meet Joe Black
I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WORKED: After Chris Tucker ruined the Fifth Element, they give him a whole film to be annoying in (Rush Hour) and it’s actually pretty good.
PASSABLE ROMANTIC COMEDIES: Shakespeare in Love AND The Wedding Singer AND There’s Something About Mary.
GOOD BAD GUY: Jet Li made Lethal Weapon 4.
WORST MOVIE REVIEW: The guy who wrote the I Still Know What You Did Last Summer review I read didn’t sit through the whole movie and called out a supposed plot hole, that they get the capital of Brazil wrong, which is in fact explained at the end. If your job is to review movies, don’t you think you should at least sit through the whole thing?
BEST MOVIE REVIEW: As I walked out of the dollar theater where I watched The Thin Red Line, some Sacramentan said to no one in particular, “Three hours of fruit bats. Some war flick.”
BEST TITLE: What could beat How Stella Got Her Groove Back? Simple: Ultraman Tiga and Ultraman Dyna: Warriors of the Light.
90’S-EST MOVIE: You’ve Got Mail. What’s this new fangled internet business? Woof. How’s AOL’s stock doing these days anyway? Can’t Hardly Wait – good effort, but still a little too relevant.
MOVIES THAT SEEMED IMPORTANT AT THE TIME AND INVOLVED ‘THINGS’: Wild Things, Very Bad Things
MOVIES THAT SEEMED IMPORTANT AT THE TIME NOT INVOLVING THINGS: Waterboy, X-Files
BEST INADVERTENT PORN TITLES: Deep Impact, Dirty Work, Great Expectations, He Got Game, I Got the Hook-Up, No Looking Back, Slappy and the Stinkers, The Thin Red Line, The X Files.

2009-09-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

TOP GROSSING
1. Titanic
2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
3. Men in Black
4. Tomorrow Never Dies
5. Air Force One
6. As Good as It Gets
7. Liar Liar
8. My Best Friend’s Wedding
9. The Fifth Element
10. The Full Monty

Oscars Winners
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Titanic, As Good as It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential
Best Picture: Titanic - 20th Century Fox, Lightstorm Entertainment, Paramount Pictures
Best Director: James Cameron - Titanic
Best Actor: Jack Nicholson - As Good as It Gets
Best Actress: Helen Hunt - As Good as It Gets
Best Supporting Actor: Robin Williams - Good Will Hunting
Best Supporting Actress: Kim Basinger - L.A. Confidential

TOP 10:
1. LA Confidential
2. Liar Liar
3. Donnie Brasco
4. Austin Powers
5. Good Will Hunting
6. Starship Troopers
7. Men In Black
8. The Full Monty
9. Face/Off
10. Con Air
(Honorable Mention) As Good As It Gets
COMMENT: I was tempted to put in the re-release of The Empire Strikes Back because that is not a strong top 10. True story: the guy sitting in front of me hummed the entire soundtrack and cried when Han Solo was frozen.

MOST INFLUENTIAL: None. Titanic sank everything else.
MOST OVERRATED: Titanic. Honestly, did anyone see this movie a second time? Does anyone watch the DVD version? Yes, it’s a technical achievement to rebuild the thing. No, it’s not an entertaining movie. I think this was the movie where I realized what a “Larry” was…as we were walking out, some dad said to his son, “The important thing is…he never let go.” I wonder how long it took that kid to figure out his dad was a weiner.
MOST OVERRATED (INDY VERSION): Chasing Amy. I did see this Kevin Smith movie. It’s not that good. Deal with it.
MOVIE THAT BEST TYPIFIES THE 90’S: Chasing Amy.
MOVIE THAT I WISH COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN THE 90’S: Spice World
STEVE…STEVE…PLEASE GET OVER YOURSELF: Amistad
YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO AMISTAD AND FARM YOUR MONEY MOVIE OUT TO THE INTERNS: The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
MOVIES THAT SEEMED LIKE A BIG DEAL AT THE TIME: The Saint, Rocketman, Face/Off. I loved Face/Off as a teen. I tried rewatching it recently and realized it was a B movie. Who knew?
MOVIES THAT HAVE AGED WELL: I knew Starship Troopers was a B movie at the time. If you watch it again, you find a surprisingly entertaining movie. Plus it opened the door for Neil Patrick Harris’s turn in How I Met Your Mother.
MOVIE I VAGUELY RECALL LIKING BUT CAN’T BE SURE OF: Suicide Kings
PASSABLE ROMANTIC COMEDY OF THE YEAR: As Good As It Gets
IT SEEMS LIKE WE’RE DONE HERE: Batman & Robin. Both Arnold and Batman get put on time out. Chris O’Donnell had a career by the way. You might have missed that otherwise.
YES, WE ARE DONE HERE: Kevin Costner in The Postman.
DEVASTATING CASTING: Chris Tucker in the Fifth Element. Everything up to that point was shaping up to be a great film. Then the director asked the Dumb and Dumber question, “Want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?” and answered with Chris Tucker’s character.
I’M JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: Grosse Pointe Blank, Gattaca
WHY DON’T YOU BE MORE FUNNY?: Beverly Hills Ninja.
WORST DECISION: Capitalizing on the popularity of South Park, Orgazmo gets made?
MOVIE YOU FORGOT HAPPENED: Tomorrow Never Dies. Between the reintroduction of Bond and the awful invisible car, they made that one with Michelle Yeow. It certainly slipped my mind.
MOVIES I SHOULD HAVE SEEN: Boogie Nights, Seven Years in Tibet, Spawn
BEST SEQUEL: Scream 2
WORST SEQUELS: Jurassic Park 2, Speed 2: Cruise Control. If Keanu Reeves won’t sign-on post A Walk in the Clouds and Johnny Mnemonic, chances are that there are script problems.
FAVORITE MOMENT: The pandas at the Fierce Creatures zoo are out of order.
FAVORITE LINE: “This is nothing,” Wag the Dog.
BEST INADVERTENT PORN TITLES: All Over Me, Double Team (Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme AND Dennis Rodman no less), Excess Baggage, In & Out, Love Jones

2009-09-24T20:57:00.000-07:00

1996 - A New Dawn

Top Grossing
1. Independence Day
2. Twister
3. Mission: Impossible
4. Jerry Maguire
5. Ransom
6. 101 Dalmatians
7. The Rock
8. The Nutty Professor
9. The Birdcage
10. A Time to Kill

WHAT WERE WE THINKING AWARD: The Birdcage. Inexplicable.

ACADEMY AWARDS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: The English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine
Best Picture: The English Patient
Best Director: Anthony Minghella - The English Patient
Best Actor: Geoffrey Rush - Shine
Best Actress: Frances McDormand - Fargo
Best Supporting Actor: Cuba Gooding Jr. - Jerry Maguire
Best Supporting Actress: Juliette Binoche - The English Patient
WE KNOW WHAT THEY WERE THINKING BUT STILL, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING: I liken The English Patient’s victory to the Raiders’ drafting of Jamarcus Russell #1 overall. It has the tools, it just can’t play ball. Everyone knows it is going to happen, everyone knows it is a mistake, all are powerless to stop it, none can explain it afterwards. Hollywood just can’t help itself, despite the presence of two vastly superior films (Fargo, Jerry Maguire).

DISTURBING TREND: The marketing of academy awards slots comes into full view with the despicable inclusion of Secrets & Lies AND Shine. If you’re unfamiliar, academy members get copies and get told ‘this is a piece of art’.

REAL TOP 10:
1. Jerry Maguire
2. Bottle Rocket
3. Fargo
4. Happy Gilmore
5. Scream
6. Romeo + Juliet
7. Courage Under Fire
8. Independence Day
9. The Rock
10. Evita

This wasn’t a deep year, but those are some good films. A lot of new talent fills the gap – Wes Anderson, Cameron Crowe, the Coens hit the big time, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ewan MacGregor break through.

MOST INFLUENTIAL: Scream. Tough call, Bottle Rocket’s really come on for indy-films and introducing Wes Anderson. And Independence Day and Twister created a whole new $$ game. But Scream recreated the horror genre for the next decade.
BETTER THAN YOU THINK: The Great White Hype, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Multiplicity, Space Jam. With the 90’s falling apart, these were all good movies that deserve a second look now that we can all breathe and look at things objectively. Michael Keaton should have had a better post-Batman career. That’s right, Space Jam. What of it?
MOVIE TOTALLY OUT OF PLACE OUTSIDE THE 90’S: Space Jam. Remember Jordan pre-Wizards? He was big. Like Pepsi big.
I’M JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: Kingpin
MOVIES I THOUGHT WERE GREAT AT THE TIME: Broken Arrow
CULT HITS THAT HAVE AGED POORLY: Swingers, Trainspotting.
TITLE THAT MAKES ME WANT TO COCKPUNCH THE WRITER: Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day
WAIT, ARE WE DONE HERE?: Arnold makes Eraser…and Jingle All The Way.
PRETTY SURE WE’RE DONE HERE: Tin Cup. In Costner’s defense, this movie’s pretty good as far as Costner movies go.
MUST HAVE NEEDED THE MONEY: Marlon Brando comes out of retirement to make…The Island of Dr. Moreau?
WHY EUROPEAN DIRECTORS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE MOVIES ABOUT BASEBALL: The Fan’s climactic scene takes place in a baseball game played during a driving rain storm.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT: Mars Attacks!
HOW DARE YOU SIR!: Muppet Treasure Island destroys two icons at once.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN: Cable Guy was originally slated for Chris Farley and David Spade until Jim Carey expressed interest. That would have been a different (READ: Better) movie. Instead, they make the bland Black Sheep, Farley goes off the deep end, and Jim Carey begins experimenting with drama. Things fall apart.
WORST POST-COMEBACK DECISIONS: John Travolta, cool again, makes Michael AND Phenomenon. Dude.
WORST DECISION: Demi Moore, apparently jazzed by Jessica Spano’s career crippling turn in Showgirls, decides to make Striptease. Let’s face it…she was never good.
PASSABLE ROMANTIC COMEDY: Romeo + Juliet. Good Mercutio.
WORST REMAKE OF A GOOD 80’S MOVIE: Escape From L.A.
PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE WATCHED BEFORE MAKING THIS LIST: A Time to Kill, Ransom, Waiting for Guffman
PROBABLY OK THAT I MISSED: Barbed Wire, Kazaam
BEST LINE IN A MOVIE NOT DISCUSSED ELSEWHERE: “We all thought that kid had tourette’s until Mr. (Jon Lovitz) figured out that he was a foreign exchange student.” – Tia Carrere, High School High
BEST BAD GUY: Bob Sugar (Jerry Maguire), whoever Ed Harris played in The Rock, Shooter McGavin (Happy Gilmore), John Travolta (Broken Arrow – come on, Christian Slater can beat him up?), the Martians (Mars Attacks)
BEST INADVERTENT PORN TITLES: The Nutty Professor, Larger Than Life

2009-09-22T19:14:00.000-07:00

1995: Second Half of the 90's Begins...Nation Badly Adrift

Top Grossing:
1. Toy Story
2. Batman Forever
3. Apollo 13
4. Pocahontas
5. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
6. GoldenEye
7. Jumanji
8. Casper
9. Seven
10. Die Hard: With a Vengeance
COMMENT: Wow is that a bad list. Batman Forever was an honest mistake. Pocahontas…the need to take kids to the movies is completely understandable. But Jumanji? Casper? Scarier still – Waterworld was #12. Americans didn’t know how bad Kevin Costner could be. I mean, I’m not Braveheart fan, but how does Waterworld make 13 million more? Based on 1995 ticket prices, that’s what, a difference of 2 million people? An unsettling look at a nation without purpose.

Award Winners:
Best Picture Nominees: Apollo 13, Braveheart, Babe, Il Postiino, Sense and Sensibility
Best Picture: Braveheart
Best Director: Mel Gibson - Braveheart
Best Actor: Nicolas Cage - Leaving Las Vegas
Best Actress: Susan Sarandon - Dead Man Walking
Best Supporting Actor: Kevin Spacey - The Usual Suspects
Best Supporting Actress: Mira Sorvino - Mighty Aphrodite

You know things are bad when Hollywood's doing better on taste than the American public. Just as an aside...when I say 'Goddess of Love'...does Mira Sorvino come to mind?

The REAL Top 10 of 1995:
1. Heat
2. Get Shorty
3. Seven
4. The Usual Suspects
5. Tommy Boy
6. Twelve Monkeys
7. Clueless
8. Apollo 13
9. Billy Madison
10. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. “The mother rhino is giving birth!”

MOST INFLUENTIAL: Toy Story. Like Athena, Computer Animation leaps from the head of Pixar in full battle armor, replete with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

Disturbing Trend 1: Propaganda Films for Sitting President. The American President was truly novel…it’s amazing that people will pay to see a campaign commercial
Disturbing Trend 2: Gina Davis’ career essentially ruined by Cutthroat Island
Disturbing Trend 3: This Happened – 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up
Disturbing Trend 4: Major Payne. The death of the best Wayans’ brother’s career.
Ambivalent Trend: Saved By the Bell crossover transition strangled in the cradle by Showgirls
Glimmer of Hope 1: Welcome back Saturday Night Live. Tommy Boy and Billy Madison mark a welcome departure from desperate retreads like Coneheads.
Glimmer of Hope 2: GoldenEye brings back Bond. Even though I never cared for Brosnan, at least his Bond started out passable.
FILM THAT EVERYONE THINKS IS INFLUENTIAL AND IMPORTANT BUT, IN TRUTH, IS EMBARRASSINGLY UNWATCHABLE: Basketball Diaries
MOVIES I WILL NOT WATCH: The Bridges of Madison County
MOVIES I DON’T CARE ABOUT: Dead Man Walking, Casino, Leaving Las Vegas, Nixon
WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE: The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. In case you are curious, this is the story of a two cartographers who decide that a mountain is a mole hill.
ANOTHER WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE: How to Make An American Quilt. Even as an instructional video, it would seem tedious.
PASSABLE ROMANTIC COMEDY: French Kiss
BAD SEQUELS: Grumpier Old Men, Demolition Man 2: Judge Dredd.
IT WAS A BAD YEAR FOR: Keanu Reeves. Johnny Mnemonic AND A Walk in the Clouds. That hits both kidneys. Whoa…down but not out.
MOVIES THAT SEEMED IMPORTANT AT THE TIME: Outbreak, Species
MOVIES I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE WATHCED: Mallrats, The Quick and the Dead
EVILEST BAD GUY OF THE YEAR: Tim Roth in Rob Roy. Him and James Woods should have had better careers.
MOVIE THAT BEST TYPIFIES THE 90’s: Clueless. Dangerous Minds was close.
BEST INADVERTENT PORN TITLES: Bad Boys, Get Shorty, Now and Then, While You Were Sleeping

2009-09-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

1994
Top Grossing
1. Forrest Gump
2. The Lion King
3. True Lies
4. The Santa Clause
5. The Flinstones
6. Dumb and Dumber
7. Clear and Present Danger
8. Speed
9. The Mask
10. Pulp Fiction
Overall, not bad 1994. Except the Flinstones outdrew Dumb & Dumber AND The Mask...AND Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. A lodestone on all our souls.

ACADEMY AWARDS:
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption
Best Picture: Forrest Gump - Paramount Pictures
Best Director: Robert Zemeckis - Forrest Gump
Best Actor: Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump
Best Actress: Jessica Lange - Blue Sky
Best Supporting Actor: Martin Landau - Ed Wood
Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest - Bullets Over Broadway
Dianne Wiest has to be a MOST OBSCURE AWARD WINNER nominee. I’ve never seen her name or the movie title in my life. I can name most of Jason Statham’s catalogue though, so I've got that going for me. Also…Quiz Show? Really? Over Hoop Dreams? Quiz Show...It’s one of those easily forgotten things of the 90's…like the show Northern Exposure. Or Dianne Wiest.

This year belongs to: Jim Carey – That’s 3 comedies (Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb & Dumber) in one year than most people can’t top in a career. Perhaps the single greatest year for an actor in movie comedy history. Runner-up – Tim Robbins (Hudsucker Proxy AND Shawshank Redemption)

THE REAL TOP 10:
1. Hoop Dreams
2. The Hudsucker Proxy
3. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
4. Dumb and Dumber
5. Forrest Gump
6. True Lies
7. Clear and Present Danger
8. Maverick
9. Shawshank Redemption
10. Speed

* Movies I thought were great at the time: Stargate, Blue Chips, Little Big League, Little Giants, The Shadow
* Most Influential: Pulp Fiction
* Most Overrated: The Lion King. This was the Disney movie I didn’t like. I think it’s because our football coach in high school forced us to sing Hakuna Matata while doing sit-ups and plyometrics.
* Bizarre Trend: Movies that didn’t need sequels: Ahem – 3 Ninjas Kick Back, Death Wish V: The Face of Death, Highlander 3: The Final Dimension, Leprechaun 2, My Girl 2, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf, The Next Karate Kid.
COMMENT: My Girl 2? 3 Ninjas Kick Back? These things are as culturally important as trying to revitalize MTV’s The Grind. I would put Mighty Ducks 2 on there but something tells me that’s where the Knuckle Puck came from. The Knuckle Puck was good.
* Bad Sequels: City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold, Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar,
* Movies I Probably Should Have Seen Before Making This List But Didn’t Because I Was On a Damn Good Little League Team: Blue Sky, Clerks, The Crow, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Interview with the Vampire, Natural Born Killers, Reality Bites
* Movies I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Seen: Godzilla Vs. Space Godzilla
* Inexplicable Failure to Launch: Helen Mirren played a British queen in Madness of King George. And we let her sit there for another 15 years, not playing the queen.
* The Year in Jean Claude Van Damme: Timecop was maybe his best film.
* Best Inadvertent Porn Titles: Above the Rim, I’ll Do Anything, A Low Down Dirty Shame, Lightning Jack, Threesome (I can’t believe this was a serious title)
* Favorite Line: North, “I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to live without the ever-present nuisance of electricity. Allow me to retrieve my butter-churn from the overhead compartment.”
* The Kings of the early 90’s Announce They Are Done: Junior, Wyatt Earp
* So That’s What They Were Up To: Apparently Marissa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. made a movie called “Only You”. And you thought they wasted the 90’s on someone’s blacklist/drugged out.
* Movie Totally Out of Place Outside the 90's: Streetfighter. We didn't yet know that somehow it's easier to make a compelling movie out of an old Disney ride than a video game. Streetfighter (and Raul Julia inexplicably being chosen to play the world's fighting champion M. Bison) blazed this trail.

2009-09-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

1993 – A Truly Bad Year in Cinematic Tastes
Top Grossing:
1. Jurassic Park
2. Mrs. Doubtfire
3. The Fugitive
4. The Firm
5. Sleepless in Seattle
6. Indecent Proposal
7. In the Line of Fire
8. The Pelican Brief
9. Schindler’s List
10. Cliffhanger
A truly awful list of movies. The Firm AND The Pelican Brief? Thank goodness we tied up those customers with Law & Order: CSI Chattanooga. And Cliffhanger? Indecent Proposal? Cliffhanger failed to embrace the pun while Indecent Proposal should have been the rejection response to the script. Maybe this is just the result of ‘what everyone who didn’t go see Jurassic Park?’ No, actually there were good movies this year.

ACADEMY AWARDS:
Best Picture Nominees: Schindler’s List, The Piano, The Age of Innocence, In the Name of the Father, The Remains of the Day
Best Picture: Schindler's List -
Best Director: Steven Spielberg - Schindler's List
Best Actor: Tom Hanks - Philadelphia
Best Actress: Holly Hunter - The Piano
Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones - The Fugitive
Best Supporting Actress: Anna Paquin - The Piano

Not to be outdone by American consumers, the Screen Actors Guild said, “NO NO NO, AMERICA, WE’LL SHOW YOU BAD TASTE.” And by that we mean dry period dramas. Let’s ignore Schindler’s List for now. Allow me to give you the one sentence summary of The Piano from Wikipedia:
The Piano is a 1993 film about a mute female pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier New Zealand backwater.
Who is the producer who said, “OOOOOO. Tell me more!”

TOP 10:
1. Rudy “You’re 5-foot nothin’, a hundred and nothing’…” I miss the rock v. 1
2. Tombstone “I’m your huckleberry.”
3. Jurassic Park
4. Philadelphia
5. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
6. Groundhog Day
7. Schindler’s List
8. Grumpy Old Men
9. Searching for Bobby Fischer (Secret not revealed in the movie – he was in the Philippines doing a radio show as a conspiracy whacko.
10. The Sandlot

- The Year in Kevin Costner – Tombstone had the added bonus of setting up Costner for the knockout blow – Wyatt Earp. 1993 was spent prepping his doom…while making something called A Perfect World, which had Costner AND Clint Eastwood and yet I secretly doubt its existence. If you don't know, when Costner found out about Tombstone, he rented all the western costumes in hollywood out of spite - karma's a mofo. Kurt Russell, a tip of the hat.

Which leads to:
• SPECIAL AWARD FOR BEST PARODY: Robin Hood: Men in Tights – Mel Brooks piles on the rapidly vacating Costner-train! One of the better parody films ever.
• SPECIAL AWARD FOR I CAN’T REMEMBER IF IT WAS GOOD OR NOT: The Fugitive
• HONORABLE MENTION FOR BEING #11: Dave
• SPECIAL AWARD FOR MOVIE THAT’S ACTUALLY NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK: Last Action Hero
• SPECIAL AWARD FOR MOVIE THAT IS ACTUALLY THAT BAD: Demolition Man
• SPECIAL AWARD FOR ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT WORKED’ – Keanu Reeves does Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing
• THE ‘TARGET AUDIENCE?’ AWARD FOR BEST UNBRIDLED CREATIVITY: Nightmare Before Christmas
• THE PASSABLY WATCHABLE ROMCOM AWARD: Sleepless In Seattle
• ‘IT WAS GOING TO INCLUDE CHUCK NORRIS IN A CAPE BUT THE SCREEN CAN’T HOLD ANYMORE AWESOME’ AWARD FOR BEST SCENE: Dennis Hopper vs. Christopher Walken – True Romance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm_LbJTvTWA
• MOVIES THAT I THINK ARE SUPREMES’ LYRICS: Nowhere to Run, No Place to Hide

MOST INFLUENTIAL: Jurassic Park. Ushered in the era of CGI. And looking at that 10 Top Grossing Films…just in the nick of time.
MOST OVERRATED: Schindler's List. Am I a bad person? Is that a hate crime? Sorry folks. Not only did it mark Spielberg's wantonly wasteful move into drama, it's also rather dull now that we've had a few more Holocaust movies come down the pike. Oooo, he used black and white, what a genius.
MOVIES I THOUGHT WERE A BIG DEAL AT THE TIME: Alive, Falling Down, The Firm, M Butterfly, The Program, Rising Sun
MOVIES I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE WATCHED: Army of Darkness, The Age of Innocence, Dazed & Confused, Menace II Society, In the Name of the Father, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
MOVIES I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE WATCHED: Another Stakeout, Matinee
WORST SEQUELS, AND WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THEM: Beethoven’s Second, Look Who’s Talking Now, Robo-Cop 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3; Wayne’s World 2, Weekend At Bernie’s 2.

Let’s face it, those are some bad sequels. So first off, don’t make sequels to dog movies. Same goes for babies. And implausible plots like pretending a dead guy is alive…guys, he’s starting to smell. Robocop kind of sucked from the start, so the lesson there is, don’t make a sequel to a bad movie. TMNT 3 was a pure money grab. Which leaves us with Wayne’s World 2. This movie is so epically unfunny that it makes Molly Shannon look like Richard Pryor. I mean, there’s nothing holding you down, guys, no plot gimmick or anything stopping the funny…how could this movie be this bad? It'd be funnier if it was just 2 hours of hangin' w/ Garth.

SEQUEL I SHOULD HAVE SEEN JUST FOR THE MYSTIFYING TITLE: Best of the Best 2…um, didn’t we settle this in the first movie?

MOVIE TOTALLY OUT OF PLACE OUTSIDE THE 90’s: Weekend @ Bernie’s 2

BEST INADVERTANT PORN TITLES (At least 93 came up big in this category):
- Best of the Best 2,
- Dazed & Confused,
- Demolition Man,
- Free Willy,
- Hard Target,
- Flesh & Bone,
- Mad Dog & Glory, (you have to admit, that’s good)
- Married to It
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
- Sleepless in Seattle
- Striking Distance
- Speak Up! It’s So Dark (I can’t believe that’s a movie title)

PS: Did anyone else hate the early 90’s Batman cartoon? I mean, it was so dull. How do you make Batman suck? Oh right, the rest of the 90’s answered that question.

2009-09-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Continuing 90’s Movie Reviews:
1992
Top Grossing Films:
1. Aladdin
2. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
3. Batman Returns
4. A Few Good Men
5. Lethal Weapon 3
6. The Bodyguard
7. Sister Act
8. A League of Their Own
9. Basic Instinct
10. Wayne’s World

What were we thinking: The Bodyguard? Kevin Costner’s drawing power strikes again. This is how we got Waterworld and Postman. He thought he could make anything and we’d go to it. Apparently we did.

Academy Award Nominees and Winners:
• Unforgiven (WINNER)
• The Crying Game
• A Few Good Men
• Howards End
• Scent of a Woman
• Best Picture: Unforgiven - Malpaso Productions, Warner Bros.
• Best Director: Clint Eastwood - Unforgiven
• Best Actor: Al Pacino - Scent of a Woman
• Best Actress: Emma Thompson - Howards End
• Best Supporting Actor: Gene Hackman - Unforgiven
• Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei - My Cousin Vinny

COMMENT: This was where the Academy Awards started to ruin itself. Three terrible artsy movies nominated for reasons unclear to America. Several great movies all but ignored (Last of the Mohicans? Did this movie get disqualified for NCAA rules violations of something?) And the Marisa Tomei controversy…which turns out to be one of the more justifiable picks on this list.

The Definitive 1992 Best 10 Films:
1. The Last of the Mohicans
2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
3. Batman Returns
4. Wayne’s World
5. Reservoir Dogs
6. Diggstown
7. My Cousin Vinny
8. Noises Off
9. Aladdin
10. White Men Can’t Jump

Most Influential Film: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So it wasn’t a landmark of cinema. Still, it created a new genre
Most Overrated Films: A Few Good Men (More like ‘One Good Scene’), The Bodyguard
Hidden Trend: Movies with good soundtracks. Last of the Mohicans, Leap of Faith, The Bodyguard and Sister Act.
Worst Sequel: Honey, I Blew Up the Kids
Movies I Should Have Watched Before Making This List: Malcom X, El Mariachi, Glengarry Glen Ross
Movies I Thought Were A Big Deal At The Time: Newsies, Thunderheart
Movie Totally Out of Place Outside the 90s: Cool World
Best Inadvertent Porn Title: Unlawful Entry, The Babe, Sister Act.

2009-09-09T20:20:00.000-07:00

Continuing 90's movie reviews - 1991

1991 comes on a lot stronger than 90 in terms of viewers knowing what the hell they were doing. In fact, 1991 was a good year for movies, especially comedies.

Top Grossing Films

1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

2. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

3. Beauty and the Beast

4. The Silence of the Lambs

5. City Slickers

6. Hook

7. The Addams Family

8. Sleeping with the Enemy

9. Father of the Bride

10. The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear

COMMENT: Seven out of ten ain't bad.

WHAT WERE WE THINKING AMERICA: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Kevin Costner's drawing power may be the biggest mystery of the early 90's.

Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees:

- Silence of the Lambs (Winner)

- Beauty and the Beast

- Bugsy

- JFK

- The Prince of Tides

COMMENT: An interesting mix. I had no idea Beauty and the Beast was nominated...ahead of its time. Bugsy and JFK were a scoche overrated epics featuring big names that really aren't that compelling. At least the best of the 5 won.

The Definitive 1991 Top 10 Best Films:
1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
2. Silence of the Lambs
3. Point Break
4. LA Story
5. Beauty & the Beast
6. City Slickers
7. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - "They melvined me."
8. What About Bob?
9. Backdraft
10. Earnest Scared Stupid - Jim Varney's best work. I stand by this one.
HONORABLE MENTION: Addams Family, Father of the Bride, Naked Gun 2 1/2 , Hot Shots!.
SEMI-HONORABLE MENTION: Dutch - it wasn't that good, but there's a few classic lines and I loved Al Bundy.

Most Influential Film: Boyz n the Hood - people forget no one was doing movies like this before this film. Even if it doesn't stack up these days, it was influential.
Most Overrated Films: JFK, Bugsy, Prince of Tides, Barton Fink
Worst Sequel Nominees:
- Highlander 2: The Quickening
- An American Tale: Fievel Goes West
- Problem Child 2
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze
There are 5 lessons to be learned here.
#1 - Fievel did not need to go west. Fievel needed to go straight to video.
#2 - Even as a kid, I knew Problem Child 2 was bad. I had a birthday party that included it and I was thinking, "Wow, I hope they come to my party next year. Have to go back to that Major League / UHF marathon sleep-over."
#3 - When Star Trek: Next Generation is already a clearly better show, another bad movie isn't gong to save anything
#4 - Consider your subtitle and think, "Does Secret of the Ooze just sound lame?" If only Spielberg had paid attention we'd never have gotten 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.'
#5 - There can be only one.
Movie I steadfastly refuse to consider: JFK, The Doors, Thelma & Louise. Sorry Oliver Stone, you are ineligible for history-related reasons.
Movies I probably should have seen all the way through before making this list but didn't in the interests of good taste: Boyz n the Hood, Bugsy, Cape Fear, Fried Green Tomatoes, Thelma & Louise, JFK, Prince of Tides, Regarding Henry, Jungle Fever
Movies I totally thought were a big deal at the time and can't quite remember why: The Rocketeer, White Fang.
Movie Totally Out-of-Place Outside the 90's - Jungle Fever
Best Inadvertant Porn Title Nominees: Double Impact, The Hard Way, New Jack City, Necessary Roughness,
Special Award for Big Star Dud Double Whammy: Bruce Willis for Hudson Hawk AND The Last Boyscout.
Special Award for Weird Simpsons Tie-In: I don't know how to explain that the movie McBain got made...after the Simpsons invented the character...and Christopher Walken was in it...and the movie sued the Simpsons. What next...OJ Simpson got arrested while trying to steal back all of the merchandise he sold to pay his legal debts for killing his wife and whistled 'if i only had a brain' as he was lead away? Oh wait...both of those things happened.

2009-09-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

The Best Movies of the 90's part zero

In preparation for a decade review of film coming up at the end of the year, I thought I'd practice some by going through the 90's.

I thought I'd go through the 90's year-by-year and cull the highlights and low lights.

Starting with 1990:
Top Grossing Films
1. Ghost
2. Home Alone
3. Pretty Woman
4. Dances With Wolves
5. Total Recall
6. Back to the Future Part III
7. Die Hard 2: Die Harder
8. Presumed Innocent
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
10. Kindegarten Cop
COMMENT: Wow...Ghost? I guess adults used to take dates to the movies more often. Honestly though, that's 2 nigh on unwatchable films in the top 5 (I'm looking at you Muddles Through Tedium).
WHAT WERE WE THINKING AMERICA: Even still, the real shock is Presumed Innocent. That's a movie?

Academy Awards Best Picture Nominees:
Dances With Wolves, Awakenings, Godfather: Part 3, Ghost, Goodfellas
COMMENT: OUCH! One out of five is actually of any lasting quality. And Awakenings? Yeah, that, uh, made quite an impact...by forcing us to endure Patch Adams later in life.

Let's try the 1990 all over with a real top 10. I dare you to argue:
1. Miller's Crossing - The best script ever
2. Total Recall
3. The Freshman - The real Godfather 3.
4. Die Hard 2: Die Harder
5. Home Alone
6. The Hunt for Red October
7. Kindegarten Cop
8. Edward Scissorhands
9. Gremlins 2
10. Goodfellas - This movie has aged very poorly in my opinion. Maybe it was revolutionary at the time to portray gangsters as scumbags but I find this film tedious. Still it's top 10 material but way outdrew the much better gangster movie Miller's Crossing because Scorcese was Scorcese then and the Coens were nobody.

Most Influential Film: Goodfellas - I may not enjoy it, but it had the biggest impact
Most Overrated Films: Dances With Wolves, Ghost, Goodfellas, Pretty Woman
Worst Sequel Nominees:
- Godfather Part III
- The Neverending Story 2
- Rocky V
Those are some epically bad nominees. Rocky V was so bad they ignored its existence when making Rocky Balboa. The Neverending Story 2 was so bad that the Neverending Story ended. Either that or died somewhere on straight-to-VHS. But those pale, in the end, to the cinematic travesty that is Godfather Part III. A strong year for bad sequels.
Movie I steadfastly refuse to consider: Pretty Woman
Movies I probably should have seen all the way through before making this list but didn't in the interests of good taste: Pretty Woman, Ghost, The Grifters, State of Grace, Presumed Innocent, Awakenings
Movies I totally thought were a big deal at the time and can't quite remember why: Dick Tracy, Lionheart, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I swear McDonald's had this huge Dick Tracy promo and I memorized every single character. They got Beatty and Pacino...and I don't think anyone's ever seen it since. Honestly, have you ever seen them throw Dick Tracy up on cable? You'd be like...'Why is Warren Beatty dressed like the guy from Curious George?'
Movie Totally Out-of-Place Outside the 90's - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Best Inadvertant Porn Title Nominees: Quigley Down Under, Tremors

2009-09-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

My 2009-10 NFL Picks. Going w/ my heart, hoping LT gets a ring before the wheels come off...despite Norv Turner's presence.

My overall prediction - a more stable year for the league; no real Cinderellas.

NFC EAST:
**Philly 10-6
*Giants 10-6
Cowboys 7-9
Skins 7-9

NFC WEST
**Seahawks 9-7
Cardinals 7-9
Rams 6-10
49ers 5-11

NFC NORTH
**Bears 11-5
* Vikings 9-7
Packers 8-8
Lions 4-12

NFC SOUTH
**New Orleans 9-7
Carolina 8-8
Atlanta 7-9
Tampa Bay 5-11

AFC EAST
**New England 12-4
Miami 9-7
Bills 7-9
Jets 5-11

AFC WEST
Chargers 13-3
Broncos 6-10
Raiders 5-11
Chiefs 5-11

AFC NORTH
**Baltimore 10-6
*Pittsburgh 10-6
Browns 6-10
Bengals 6-10

AFC SOUTH
**Indianapolis 11-5
*Jacksonville 9-7
Houston 8-8
Tennessee 7-9

PLAYOFF TEAMS:
NFC DIV WINNERS: Philly, Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans
NFC WILD CARDS: Giants, Vikings
AFC DIV WINNERS: New England, San Diego, Baltimore, Indianapolis
AFC WILD CARDS: Pittsburgh, Jacksonville

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES:
NFC: Philadelphia vs. Chicago
AFC: New England vs. San Diego

SUPER BOWL:
San Diego vs. Chicago

WINNERS:
San Diego Chargers

2009-08-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Why TV Dramas Fall Apart

I just finished The Wire...the epic rise and tragic collapse of the show's artistry matches that of the crime bosses it features.

We can summarize the 5 seasons as follows:
1. Cops and Robbers - Set the scene - this show is going to get good
2. Dock Workers - At home with a contract - this show is good
3. City Hall and Stringer Bell - Narrative perfection; oppressive tone - this show is damn good
4. Educational Excursion - Job-dropping collapse - this show is too good for you and must lecture you
5. Newspaper Farce - this show has nowhere else to go but from the tragic to the absurd

Personally, I prefer season 2 - season 3 is almost unending dread. Anyway, this pattern is played out in various other shows. Most peak early...if anything it's a shock that The Wire lasted 3 good seasons. Meanwhile, comedies usually have long runs where they get better. Why?

Comedy develops with familiarity. This is why your idiot friends seem funny to you and no one else. This is why Anchorman keeps getting funnier the more you watch it. The first time Al Bundy comes home and complains about a fat woman waddling into a shoe store, it's new. The tenth time, you know it's going to be funning as soon as he walks in. A good comedy never really has to go anywhere. The narrative is minimal and has no carry-over (except Arrested Development - more on that later) so you can jump in wherever knowing the characters and more and more ready to laugh.

Drama doesn't work this way. Let's enumerate a few key reasons dramas fall apart, starting with the problems and then moving on to the problems created by the solutions to the original problems.

The Original Problems:
1. Familiarity breeds boredom. Think about it - the more you're around your friends, the funnier they seem to you, but the more tired you get of their b.s. Give me one season of Tony Soprano bitching about his mother and I'm there with the guy...seven seasons though, well after she's dead? Get over it...to quote the Godfather, "YOU CAN ACT LIKE A MAN!"
2. The first season is an enclosed circle. No one can expect a show to run more than a season given how competitive the world of tv air time is. So the first season is designed as a complete narrative...compelling, tight, and packaged. Further seasons are more open-ended - will the show sustain its popularity? Will the network re-up? Cancel? How many more seasons do we have to work with?
3. Success breeds editorial freedom. The first season of a show has to get noticed and renewed. It has to generate an audience. Therefore, the show has to be easier to access; it has to be interesting to a general audience. It also has to be good enough to leap out amongst a pile of scripts. The first season is often the sum total of a writer's brilliance. Once the show succeeds, the writer's off the hook. It's the same reason the Genius Grant program has been a flop - success breeds complacency. Writer's get lazy and grow unconcerned with their audience. They indulge their own petty jealousies and interests. Thus, the Sopranos bores us with dream episodes and The Wire leads us into lectures on education policy and the ex-journalist writer's pent up rage at his former employer. The network indulges these flights of fancy because they want to keep the writer doing the show and because ultimately, the viewership is locked-in and less demanding.
4) Critical Acclaim mounts expectations for intellectual content. The Sopranos becomes the focus of psychology papers, creating a feedback loop of Sopranos episodes reflecting psychological research. The Wire falls in love with its headlines as a gritty look at urban decay instead of a good cops and robbers show. The acclaim becomes the purpose of the show and drives the narrative off-track, at least in terms of actual artistic content and viewer interest.

As a result, several new problems arise:
1) The writer runs out of ideas. This happens to all of us, especially writers on a deadline. Sometimes, the best of what a writer has comes together in one work. Once, the door is opened to more, there may be a few moments of the old magic, but the rest is a grind for a paycheck.
2) Too many characters and storylines to track. At a certain point, when a show keeps adding new things to keep it fresh, if it doesn't give up on the old, you just end up with too much. Each episode becomes a scattershot, advancing several plotlines incrementally. With so much ground to cover, the opportunity for artistic focus gets stretched thing and snaps.
3) Too many cooks in the kitchen. One common solution is to start having guest writers and guest directors to make up for a disinterested creator. This works great in comedy, where you're just playing with the same formula in new ways. But in drama, the narrative is totally lost. The guest sections get interspliced with the portions that HAVE to be there to advance the season long plot, and again, the episode by episode tone and theme becomes a hodgepodge of styles, mostly bland punctuated by a few bright moments.
4) Lecture not story...this was The Wire's biggest failing, but it's a common problem - having addressed the interesting emotional and interpersonal content, the show seeks to remain intellectually respected by defaulting to social relevance. Thus, more and more, the viewer gets lectured instead of getting entertained. What made The Wire great were real people - the cops didn't always win, all of the characters had flaws and strengths, no one was always right and no one always won. All of that was wiped away in favor of a ludicrous docudrama series on education policy in which all of the teachers were dedicated and noble, held down by the system.

It's kind of strange to reflect that this was ultimately what did Arrested Development in. The show got progressively funnier as it went along, but as a drama with a narrative, it got progressively harder to follow. In retrospect, watching on DVD, it's fantastic. As an episodic drama, it's a bit much to try to keep it all together.

So is there a solution? Sure - know when to quit.

2009-07-23T18:47:00.001-07:00

World Leaders Check Out Booty

So this is my new favorite picture. I've developed a theory, which is that the moment in which a man checks out a woman's rear end provides a window into his soul. Not only that, but it shows us a nation's soul.

Consider our President versus that of the French President. Both are clearly checking out the booty. You'll notice, though, a difference. Our president is sitting there thinking to himself, "Damn...that is a booty." It's a democratic moment when the leader of the free world can pause and just be another American, being made aware of a derriere. The moment is there, and it's gone, time for more business.

The French president is clearly more of a connoisseur. He is pleased, no doubt, but he appears to be studying the booty as if he were attending an art gallery and would be forced to comment on the matter later to impress his friends. He seems to be thinking, "Hmmm...there is something about this booty that reminds me of spring in Lyon."

2009-02-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

Annual 2009 Oscars Preview

Best Picture
NOMINEES:
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I.E. Forrest Gump Meets Joe Black. Incidentally, if you find yourself in a fairly serious Brad Pitt movie, watch out while crossing the street. Someone is getting hit by a car.
- Frost/Nixon. I.E. We're supposed to hate Richard Nixon but he's kind of fascinating. He's like the A-Rod of US presidents.
- Milk. I.E. Obligatory LGBT nomination.
- The Reader. I.E. Obligatory Nazi/Holocaust nomination
- Slumdog Millionaire. I.E. Indian Rudy Rom-Com
WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire
SHOULD WIN: The Dark Knight.
BIGGEST SNUBS: The Dark Knight, Doubt, Mongol, Wall-E, Gran Torino
COMMENT: This may be the first year where you could have 5 other movies and probably have a stronger bunch. This borders on making the Oscars irrelevant. At least The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about something (death and aging). Honestly - The Reader? Woof.

BEST ACTOR:
- Richard Jenkins is not Leonardo DiCaprio and the Academy really wants it clear they don't like him so they nominated this whodat from a movie no one saw.
- Frank Langella is a likeable Richard Nixon.
- Sean Penn is gay.
- Brad Pitt is a guy who ages backwards. Hard to tell - best actor or best makeup?
- Mickey Rourke is the Ultimate Warrior version of himself.
WILL WIN: Mickey Rourke. Sean Penn already has one.
SHOULD WIN: Frank Langella - Is there some reason this guy had no work between being the bad guy in Dave and a more sympathetic version of the same thing in Frost / Nixon?
BIGGEST SNUBS: Clint Eastwood, the dude who played Genghis Khan, Leonardo

BEST ACTRESS:
- Anne Hathway is the obligatory ‘hottie plays damaged drug addict’ nomination
- Angelina Jolie is an angry mom with adoption issues (this is acting) but more literally - lecherous voters hope she shows in a hot dress” nomination
- Melissa Leo is in a movie no one saw but that was effectively marketed for nominations.
- Meryl Streep demands that all mortals cower before her (and forget Mamma Mia!) She's headed for Daniel Day Lewis "We should name this award after her" territory.
- Kate Winslet is nominated so that it is absolutely clear the we don't like Leo.
WILL WIN: Kate Winslet
SHOULD WIN: Meryl Streep
BIGGEST SNUB: Megan Fox for whatever she was in this year. If all you're going to do is nominate hotties, the only reason I see not nominating Ms. Fox is this unfortunate Brian Austin Green episode. Honestly, I'd respect her more if it was Ian Zehring. Or the guy who played Bill S. Preston, Esq.
COMMENT: Given this plus the nominees for best supporting actress, the lecherous old man factor really weighed heavily on this year's voting.

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
- Josh Brolin plays W. killing a gay guy
- Robert Downey Jr. plays Philip Seymour Hoffman playing a black guy for laughs.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman appeared in a film of his own this year.
- Heath Ledger plays a terrifying, unforgettable Joker in what was by far the best film this year.
- Michael Shannon plays a guy in a Leonardo DiCaprio Oscar-vehicle movie, just so it's clear that no one likes Leo.
WILL WIN: Heath Ledger.
SHOULD WIN: Heath Ledger. When I first found out he was going to play Joker, I balked. He hadn't impressed me thus far. I was wrong. RIP. Here's hoping whoever gets tabbed for the third film can match - these movies are only as good as their bad guy.
SNUBS: Russell Brand for owning Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading
COMMENT: What did Leo do? Deny the Holocaust? Vote Republican? Somebody sign him up for a UN ambassadorship, stat!

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
- Amy Adams plays Amy Adams in a nun's outfit. You may not have noticed but she actually leaves for about half the film.
- Penelope Cruz made out with Scarlett Johanssen and lecherous voters hope she shows in a hot dress...and makes out with Scarlett Johanssen
- Viola Davis is a troubled black woman in an impossible situation.
- Taraji Henson is a sassy black woman in a pleasant, passably intellectual film
- Marissa Tomei plays herself if she hadn't resuscitated her career after it inexplicably didn't happen...in her birthday suit
WILL WIN: Viola Davis
SHOULD WIN: Marissa Tomei, just for laughs. Too bad Jack Palance is dead.
SNUBS: The girl from Transporter 3. Hahahaha!
COMMENT: Funny story about me going to see The Wrestler - the first time Marissa Tomei gets naked (I assume it happens many times) someone pulled the fire alarm and I couldn't see the rest of the movie. I can't decide whether I like the 'someone overheated' theory or the 'someone was religious' theory. Or maybe it was a rogue Lex Luger fan outraged at the thought of him at a strip club.

WORST NOMINATION NOMINEES:
1. The Reader
2. Milk
3. Richard Jenkins
4. Melissa Leo
5. Amy Adams
WINNER IS: The Reader. Inexcusable waste of our time.

TOP 10 INADVERTANT PORN TITLES OF THE YEAR:
1. The Foot Fist Way
2. The Wackness
3. What Just Happened
4. Seven Pounds
5. Over Her Dead Body
6. Tropic Thunder
7. The Express / Pineapple Express
8. Nights in Rodanthe
9. Drillbit Taylor
10. Iron Man

Movies I Wish I'd Seen:
1. Pineapple Express / Zack and Miri Make a Porno / Role Models - Guys...slow down. This is like 5 of these things in one year.
2. Kung Fu Panda
3. Revolutionary Road
4. Yes Man
5. Man on Wire

Biggest Disappointments:
1. Quantum of Solace (see archives for lengthy disappointment)
2. The Forbidden Kingdom - I had the idea for a Jet Li / Jackie Chan 2-hour kung fu spectacular a long time ago. It would be the Heat of martial arts movies. Unfortunately, after the monkey king issue, the kung fu being boiled down to one stale 10 minute fight, and the rampant cribbing from better kung fu movies, this was instead the The Righteous Kill of martial arts movies.
3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - I'm on to Spielberg. This we know. Don't think you can dodge me! That's the only reason this isn't #2. I knew it would be bad.
4. Burn After Reading - I think the Coen Bros. titled this movie appropriately. You're slacking. Don't make me put you on my Spielberg list!
5. Appaloosa - Western w/ Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen...this could be good. It's just not.
6. Tropic Thunder - Besides a few good moments and Robert Downey Jr., this movie is actually not funny.
7. You Don't Mess W/ The Zohan - This is a funny movie but more just ridiculous. I'm beginning to worry that Sandler's too lazy to ever deliver again.

SURPRISINGLY WATCHABLE FILMS
1. Anything with Jason Statham in it. The guy brings his A-game every time. The Bank Job is fun. Transporter 3 is almost self-consciously silly. The actress is so bad you'd think she was trying and characters audibly point out plot holes. So what? So they get killed by the bad guy for doing so. Touche.
2. The Incredible Hulk 2. It didn't totally suck. Also, good to see Tim Roth working.
3. Wanted. The hole 'weaver' thing was so lame that they had to kill everyone at the end so that it could never happen again. So the plot was sequel-bad but the stunts were awesome.
4. Leatherheads - Sue me, this was what I thought it would be. Rene Zellwegger seems to be trying to hit every decade. Am I wrong to think Jennifer Anniston should be getting more of her roles?

TOP 10 MOVIES REGARDLESS OF GENRE:
1. The Dark Knight
2. Mongol
3. Frost / Nixon
4. Iron Man
5. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
6. Doubt
7. Gran Torino
8. Slumdog Millionaire
9. Wall-E
10. In Bruges
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Hancock, Rock-n-Rolla, Wanted, Leatherheads, Semi-Pro, The Bank Job

2009-01-27T17:08:00.000-08:00

TOP TEN STATE FLAGS:

10. Arizona - A stately and appropriate flag which is docked somewhat for it’s vague similarity to the Japanese rising sun flag. Thankfully, Arizona is where the sun sets.

9. Pennsylvania - An old school flag done right and well-drawn

8. Oklahoma - A hat-tip to history plus a peace pipe. Well done.

7. Alaska - For all the awful flags from the Midwest that look like the gubner’s daughter doodled them for arts & crafts, Alaska actually did let the school kids come up with the design and it turned out pretty well - subdued and appropriate.

6. Nevada - Nevada shied away from the butt-ugly drawing and decided to rock the awesome slogan “Battle Born”. The lack of an iconic graphic and the way in which history has taken Nevada in another direction docks it a few points. In retrospect, perhaps the original design was better.

5. New Mexico - Again, it just hits the spot. What better could you do with New Mexico to start with?

4. Virginia - This flag just rocks. It’s liberty stomping on a de-crowned king declaring, “Ever thus to tyrants”. My complaint is that this phrase isn’t prominent enough. But take note lame Vermont flag - you’re sitting on “Live Free or Die”. Think about it.

3. Texas - The lone star is an undeniable icon. But taken in general, it’s kind of plain.

2. California - I’m a homer. I love this flag. I’d like to get it as a sheet set.

1. Ohio - A surprising winner for sure, but the sleek shape, great aesthetic, subtle O, and vague resemblance to an Ohio State Buckeye helmet make this the best in show.

2009-01-20T20:07:00.001-08:00

Ranking the State Flags

Much like all states aren't worthy of comment, all state flags aren't either. Without further ado, we start from the worst, note some highlights in the middle, and then get to the best.

Bottom Ten:
50.
Mississippi - Purely aesthetically, it's actually quite pleasing. However, Confederate flag PLUS sideways French flag equals instant fail. For shame sirs.

49. Michigan - There's a lot not to like here. First of all, there's the cartoon non-matching deer. (See Pennsylvania's black stallions for the right way.) Then, there's a weird guy waving hello in the middle. To top it all off, there's WAY too much latin lettering. This is probably to distract you from the extreme lameness of what's written on the bottom, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." Just in case you didn't know where to find a pleasant peninsula.

48. Colorado - I'm confused as to whether this is a state flag or a failed Cubs marketing gig. I can just see the Wrigley company dumping 4,000 of these on Colorado in exchange for what's left of Pedro Astacio.

47. Alabama - Alabama's state flag says, "No you can't." I like that Florida's flag is the same thing plus the state seal with Seminoles and the beach. It's like "Yeah, we'd be Alabama if not for all the cool stuff."

46. New York - Marketing capital of the world...cartoonish drawings? Pastels? The only thing that redeems this totally incongruous wreck is the phrase 'excelsior' - ever upward. Nothing else fits. Back to the drawingboard.

45/44. Delaware/Maine It's a tie for worst Brokeback factor. Delaware guys are checking each other out. Maine guys appear to be two versions of Captain Feathersword from the Wiggles. West Virginia and Wisconsin are just two dudes. New York and New Jersey sport two ladies...hmmmm. In fact, only Idaho has a guy and a girl.

43. Louisiana - Hey Mississippi, if you're ever inspired to drop the stars and bars, allow me to refer you to Louisiana for what not to do, which was to phase it out in favor of a pelican tearing flesh from its breast to feed its young. It also kind of suggests that Louisiana is the welfare state. Also amusing is union (from a slave state), justice (from America's most corrupt state), and...confidence? Here's a clue - a music note. Does that work for everyone?

42. South Dakota - I tried blowing this flag up but it's just as incomprehensible. The state seal appears to be a hand drawing of a grainy photo of a mountain. either that or someone used an etch-a-sketch to draw it.

41. Minnesota - Something about the heartland tells your local state legislature (I'm thinking of you too Illinois and Kansas), "Hey, let's have the governor's daughter draw the state flag in felt pen." I feel like these flags should be on that website where the guy makes fun of children'sdrawings. Minnesota wins out for the yellow fringe border...on three sides of the flag. It's like the kid forgot to color the other part.

SPECIAL AWARDS SECTION:

Idaho - “Best Dig at Another State’s Flag” Remember that goofy Michigan deer? The one on the left? Haha! He’s back.

North Dakota - “Strangest Prop” 1007...1008...1009. Oh, I'm sorry, I was just flexing and sculpting my talons. It's boring but it's part of my life.

Utah - “Most Incongruous Single Word Addition” - Industry? Industry! What is this? Borat's Kazakhstan. I vote that the state flag be changed to this girl’s shirt.

South Carolina - “Poorest Foresight” - Post-Confederacy, SC adopted their local uniform symbol, the crescent moon. Whoops - that symbol of Islam thing must have been a blind-side. That palmetto isn't lessening the imagery.

Wyoming - “Best representation of species depopulation” - You might wonder what went on in Wyoming. There used to be a lot of buffalo. Then they got killed and branded with the state seal!

Maryland - “Miss Congeniality” - Maryland wins hands down at your local state flag jousting contest.

2008-11-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

What's Wrong With Bond

Casino Royale was the best Bond movie ever. The idea was "Bond Begins", but in an updated world - no more goophy gadgets, no more ACME villains, no Ms. Moneypenny, and most importantly, replacing an English gentleman Bond for the other side of English society - the new Bond, the blonde Bond, a rugged English street urchin, the sort of brute who starts bar fights, but adopted by the state and adapted for its ends. His womanizing is cruel, and rather than a slinky spy, he is a Bourne-esque action hero. It did what every good Bond movie does - Bond actually cared about the girl and then she betrayed him...and then she died. Best of all, the first movie was alive with possibility - theater-goers sat thinking, "Is this the last Bond ever?" as Bond put in his retirement. Perhaps we should have left it at that.

It always takes 24-hours to figure out why a film with good action still wasn't that good. The action is definitely good...too much so. The first 45 minutes of the film are 3 almost uninterrupted chase sequences. The movie then settles in for the exposition, but is so intent on weaving the political backdrop and tossing in opulent settings that, ultimately, there's no time for what made Casino Royale so good - Bond. Creating a character. Giving him lines. Bond has almost nothing to say in this film - there's nothing that matches the scene where Bond first meets Vesper or where he picks up Caterina Murino. In fact, that's just my problem - it's 24-hours later and I struggle to remember a single line. I still can't figure out why it's called Quantum of Solace either. Daniel Craig says the word, 'quantum' at some point...I just can't remember why. I knew I should have been suspicious when the title was so bad...call it the "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" rule.

This gaffe, the absence of non-action scenes of worth, shove problems upon the film's pace - there's none of the tension of the card game and few moments of levity. Artistically, even the non-action scenes are cut as action scenes, ruining the iconic images that make a Bond film - the director has dreamed up a few such images, such as a woman killed and covered in oil, but barely leaves this image on the screen long enough for it to register before it's wisked away by the mandatory 6-seconds-or-less cuts of modern film making. The settings are so gorgeous, truly the film's strong point, that this is a great disservice - I'd love to have far more moments with the stills drawn out...it would help slowdown the frenetic pace of the action if nothing else.

The music-video action overload would be fine if the political backdrop spliced in were enough...but it's not. The politics are the standard Hollywood world evinced in the gamut of good to bad movies (Iron Man to The Shooter) - the bad guys are corporations backed by America, this time with a cute environmental twist. The 'blunt instrument' Bond of the first film is now a snide commentator on US policy in Latin America. Salt in a crude parable of the recent election, and voila, you've wasted 30 minutes of what should have been a better film.

This effort undermines the film in a variety of ways. First of all, it takes Bond completely out of character - Bond has always been a patriot and an imperialist, so this turn is unexplained and off-key. When did Bond get this way and why? The reason there isn't an answer is probably simple enough - it's the writer/director talking through his character; the mark of an amateur.

Worse, as is always the case when a film mistakes politics for depth, no matter how subtlely-laid out the political web is, it's still only a few minutes here and there of throwing in the standard 'non-standard' thought of our time. It merely confuses the audience that came for the action whereas those who know something about foreign policy sit in the audience rolling their eyes at yet another trite, flesh-toned if not pinko rant.

The political turn might have worked better if it had done what Dark Knight did - which is to address the headlines rather than the international news on page A6. Blonde Bond is certainly current but remains irrelevant. This Bond was trotted all over the globe working Europe, Central and South America, Russia, Africa...yet the Middle East and Islamic extremism remains a bridge too far. Ian Fleming's Bond worked on the Cold War because that's what was going on. Apparently the modern Bond hasn't graduated to working the important issues yet.

In this, the writer has made the classic Lethal Weapon PC cop-out. For those who forget, four Lethal Weapons got made about the drug business in Los Angeles in the 80's and 90's and yet not a single one involved a Latino or African-American gang as the ultimate villain. White guys in suits were running everything. This involves a certain racist animus - is it not a little insulting to suggest that inevitably white people run everything? At a certain point, this strains credulity. So how long is Bond going to remain on the B Team? Is Bond and his coterie of Bond girls too sexy for the modern Middle East or the filmmakers too craven?

The real problem, though, with all the political narrative is that it gets us away from what this Bond should have been about - Bond. The Bond at the end of the last film was deeply wounded. All of the build-up to this film suggested it was about that damaged Bond. Perhaps it is - I wouldn't know because he has about as many lines as Bill Paxton in Twister. There's almost nothing to Bond's relationship with the curiously half-Russian Bolivian girl, who ends up sitting in as little more than accented eye candy. Compared to the previous film, which had two far richer and more interesting females, the whole range of possiblities involving Bond and trust issues and the rumored 'dark, vengeance seeking' Bond are absent. Characters carried over from the previous film, like Felix Lighter, become wildly different characters with almost nothing to act as the bridge. A revenge scene drops upon us at the end and we're quits.

So what we get is a series of action sequences of varying quality plus a couple of babes and a few good lines. It's just like the old, mediocre Bond...plus better action but minus all the stuff that used to make it Bond. So, in the end, it's just another action movie. Viewed from that lens, it's nice enough, but the first movie raised so many possibilities. Would this film reintroduce darker versions of Bond staples? No. Would this film delve deeper into who Bond is, how he got that way, or how he becomes a more recognizable Bond? Not really. Plot-wise, it builds seemlessly on the previous film - in tone, artistry, and character development is adds a squirt of cheese-in-a-can.

For all the talk that the narrative of Quantum of Solace suggests a trilogy, this film feels more like the recent underwhelming 3rd films of other notable trilogies (Star Wars, Pirates of the Carribean, Spider Man) - overloaded with expensive action and drawn out exposition, empty of the charm that made the previous film(s) better.

Here's hoping that any 'trilogy' film takes the series in some other direction than backwards.

2008-10-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

CNN Conclusively Demonstrates That Uncommitted Ohio Women Voters Are Ignorant and/or Passive-Aggressive

I just finished watching the debate meter. There was a debate of course but having some form of electronic distraction is just too tempting. Frankly, I don't care what 20 CNN-picked self-identified Uncommitted Ohio voters do with their happy-sad buzzer. While we're at it, instead of men vs. women, I'm more interested in categories like, "Upstanding Americans vs. Cowboys Fans" or "Douche-Bags vs. Hot Chicks" (don't you want to know what the Joey Porsche experience is thinking about the bail-out? http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/2007/12/hcwdb-of-year-joey-porsche-experience.html). Or how about "Christopher Walken" vs. "Dennis Hopper". (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqccyUpnZwA)

So what I've really learned from this debate is that Uncommitted Ohio voter women are ignorant. It's astonishing. Everytime a candidate makes a strong point, responds to criticism, criticizes his opponent's record or dumb ideas, or does anything that normal people do to win arguments, the women in this poll say, "Oh dear, I'm not so high on your attempt to win this debate."

Whenever a candidate blathers on about their wildly unrealistic 'if i were dictator and had monopoly money, I'd save the world...especially the puppies and babies,' women suddenly shoot up like Daryl Strawberry. 'Give us more false hope and unrealistic promises,' they seem to be saying. 'Exploit my ignorance of the issues, by all means!'

These undecided Ohio women must be the same women dating their 'undecided' high school sweetheart 15 years after graduation. "I love you girl, I'm just waiting on that PhD and/or promotion," seems to score higher than the more honest, "Look babe, I'm planning on banging a few other girls on the side, and I'm still looking to trade-up, but maybe in a few years I'll be fatter and balding...then I'll actually appreciate your years of devotion."

(The exception to this was John McCain talking about supporting autism education. You could physically see Ohio's undecided voters thinking, "Uh...Which one of the short bus kids was autistic again?")

Of course there's an alternative theory - maybe women just don't like conflict. They're thinking, "That's not how you win a debate. The way to handle these sort of things is to tell John/Obama that his health care plan looks great and then tell all your friends what a slut he is behind his back."

There is another factor potentially at play: women hate when men win arguments. They're sitting there thinking, "Doesn't he know that I'm just going to keep arguing until he admits I'm right? Otherwise, he's sleeping on the couch." So that's what their happy-sad buzzer is showing - "Just tell me I'm right and that you're sorry."

This is what happens when you give them the right to vote...It's science.

2008-02-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

2008 Oscars Preview

Best Picture
Nominees:
1. Tedious English War/Romance Book Adaptation Mangled Into Unrecognizable Slop (Atonement)
2. Quirky, Socially Relevant Indy Comedy (Juno)
3. Hollywood Royalty Vehicle/Corporate Greed-Crusading Lawyer (Michael Clayton)
4. Daniel Day Lewis Decides to Act Instead of Cobbling Shoes, All Mortals Tremble At His Talents (There Will Be Blood)
5. Coen Brothers Stay Inside the Lines (No Country For Old Men)
-Will Win: No Country For Old Men
-Should Win: Juno
-Essentially what the competition is: Keira Knightly Does the English Patient vs. Better Little Miss Sunshine vs. George Clooney Obligatory Nomination does A Civil Action vs. Gangs of New York Minus Pointless Non-DDL Scenes vs. a dark Fargo set in the desert.
Commentary: This year is pretty open - Atonement has no business being here as it is a complete muddle; Michael Clayton has little business being here except that apparently Hollywood grovels at George Clooney's feet. Michael Clayton is a solid, unspectacular film. That leaves us with three viable candidates - Daniel Day Lewis in an ok drama to me just isn't enough to win 'best picture' when he should win his own prize, if not have it re-named after him. Old Country is impressive, but truth be told, I think the Coens have made better films. Ultimately, Juno was great, if flawed by the at-times overly cavalier lines of the lead. It was positive, well-paced, well-written, created memorable images, had a great soundtrack, never preached, and never took sides.
- Biggest Snubs: (Again realistic snubs only) American Gangster, Charlie Wilson's War, Sweeney Todd. Though none of these should win, they're all better than Michael Clayton and Atonement.

Best Director:
- Nominees
1. Julian Schneibel directs something about human suffering that no one saw
2. Jason Reitman rocks it out with Juno
3. George Clooney rolled out of bed
4. The Coen Brothers played nice
5. Paul Thomas Anderson was graced by DDL's presence
Will Win: Coens
Should Win: Coens
I mark this as a lifetime achievement award.

Best Actor:
- Nominees - Quick comment - is anyone here other than Viggo Mortensen really playing someone that far off from their real personality?
1. George Clooney as a conflicted crusading lawyer, including a great ending gotcha scene in which Clooney drinks Tilda Swinton's milk shake, followed by an inexplicable portrayal of a cab ride. Since you haven't seen this movie, I'll just tell you - after the climactic scene, George Clooney takes a cab, and you watch him smile smugly for 5 minutes while the credits role. It's like...hey, I'm f-ing George Clooney. I made this f-ing movie. I ride in a cab and you watch it. (Michael Clayton)
2. Daniel Day Lewis as a sociopath oil wildcatter. DDL outdoes Clooney's gotcha scene with the incredible 'bastard in a box' and 'I drank your milkshake' combo. Game-set-match. (TWBB)
3. Johnny Depp as a singing demon barber/murderer. Really, is he acting? (Sweeney Todd)
4. Tommie Lee Jones is chagrined by the Iraq war (In the Valley of Elah)
5. Viggo Mortensen is a Russian mobster/spy who spends a surprising amount of this movie naked. (sorry for the spoiler. Kevin Spacey is Kaiser Soze. Get over it.) (Eastern Promises)
Will Win: DDL
Should Win: DDL. Landslide. Honorable mention to Viggo Mortensen for actually creating a character.
Biggest Snub: Tom Hanks - Charlie Wilson's War, Tommie Lee Jones in a vastly superior movie to In the Valley of Elah

Best Actress:
COMMENT: Notice that all of the men were in somewhat relevant movies whereas almost none of the women are. What is with women's roles and female stars that every year this category is essentially meaningless? Is it the writers? The producers? Or us?
Nominees:
1. Cate Blanchett plays Queen Elizabeth AGAIN!!! Can we get Helen Mirren back and they can just play the Queen of England every year for the rest of their lives and have a permanent nomination?
2. Julie Christie is old and hasn't got an Oscar yet.
3. Whodat in a movie no one saw (WORST NOMINATION NOMINEE)
4. Laura Linney in The Savages
5. Ellen Page in Juno
I haven't seen The Savages so I can't really fairly appraise Laura Linney. My guess, however, is that as always she plays Laura Linney, which, if you haven't seen her, is like an American version of Julianne Moore playing Julianne Moore.
Will Win: Julie Christie (for being old)
Should Win: Ellen Page (carries a teenage part)
Biggest Snubs: Helena Bonham Carter outshines Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd, Angelina Jolie does an accent in A Mighty Heart. Honestly, why on earth would you diss two good performances by your biggest stars in favor of Marion Cotillard (Aforementioned Whodat playing a French singer raised in a brothel)? You risk Angelina skipping the walk-in when half of America is only waiting to see who she'll make out with this year. It can't possible be Brad...I'm betting on the Cambodian kid.

Best Supporting Actor:
1. Casey Affleck as a pezzonovante who shoots Brad Pitt. (Impossible to judge this performance as there is an unbelievably poor voiceover. Think of Jerrod the Subway guy reading you a cowboy outlaw script-on-tape and giving away you every character motivation, stage direction and the latest on Brangelina. Ruined the movie.)
2. Javier Bardem is the scariest movie serial killer ever.
3. Philip Seymour Hoffman hams it up in a role that acts itself in Charlie Wilson's War
4. Whodat in a film no one watched
5. Tom Wilkinson is an off-meds lawyer in George Clooney's annual nomination filler. (WORST NOMINATION NOMINEE)
Will Win: Javier Bardem
Should Win: Javier Bardem
Biggest Snub: Russell Crowe outacting Denzel in American Gangster. (Surprise of the year)

Best Supporting Actress:
1. Cate Blanchett plays Bob Dylan in the same movie as like 10 dudes...and is better than all of them because she looks JUST LIKE HIM.
2. Ruby Dee is the year's token black nominee, and perhaps has 10 lines concentrated in 3 scenes in the course of the whole film (WORST NOMINATION NOMINEE)
3. Soarise Ronan in Atonement - a kid can't be a Whodat. Besides, her name is like a lost commandment.
4. Whodat in a movie no one saw
5. Tilda Swinton does a great job in Michael Clayton
Will Win: Cate Blanchett (Law of averages)
Should Win: Torn, but I'll go with Swinton, just to be ornery.
Biggest Snub: Jennifer Garner, who should have won for a terrific turn in Juno.

Best Animated Film:
Ratatouille is going to win even though it wasn't THAT good. My question is this - there are 3 nominated films, whereas several animated films were NOT nominated. Is there a maximum of 3 possible nominees? If not, why is Surf's Up here and not Bee Movie? They're not going to win, but honestly, if I'm Seinfeld, I'm asking myself, 'What's the deal with that?'

Art/Visuals:
I didn't see Golden Compass, but the polar bears looked cool so they get my vote. Incidentally, no one who saw Pirates 3 (WORST NOMINATION NOMINEE) can take this one seriously...the part with the giant Calypso was laughably bad. It looked like something from the 80's. I think I saw a giant ant scrambling around the tiny-town models. Anyway, the big question is WHERE IS THE 300? This movie revolutionized film art/visuals. I don't care if it's a comic book and a transparently pro-war one at that. Incredible work.

Cinematography:
I'll go with The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. Obviously the voice over obliterated the movie by treating its audience like it was 7 years-old, but if you turn off the sound, it is a gorgeously filmed movie, really a clinic in image creation.

Adapted Screenplay:
I think the Coens should bag this one, but they really didn't change much. TWBB conversely totally changed the book, for the better, since Upton Sinclair is a tedious socialist blowhard. Something tells me, thought, that without DDL, that's kind of what TWBB would be. Atonement was a complete mess, an abysmal adaptation (WORST NOMINATION NOMINEE). I'd be OK with one of the 2 no one watched winning.

Original Screenplay:
Have to go with Juno - bursting with originality and love of language. Michael Clayton is tightly written and Ratatouille is apparently richly researched and steeped in culinary culture. But if Juno doesn't win here, it would be the biggest travesty possible at these Oscars.

THIS YEAR'S NOT SO SNUB-ISH SNUBS:
We're very short on snubs that you would usually expect of the academy...American Gangster should have been better, so I can't even tell if it's a snub. There is one glaring exception:
ALL ANTI-WAR FILMS!!! Wow, they got hosed at the box office, panned by the critics, and ignored by the academy. I don't even know what to make of this. Maybe Hollywood got the point - it's irrelevant. They can lighten up a little.

WORST NOMINATION OF THE YEAR:
Nominees:
1. Female actress who is not Angelina Jolie or Helena Bonham Carter, thereby risking that they don't show up
2. Tom Wilkinson in a role that simply isn't believable; he always comes across as acting and kind of pulls the movie apart.
3. Ruby Dee, as an afterthought token nomination with almost no actual part.
4. Pirates 3 visuals, for the ludicrous giant Calypso gaffe
5. Atonement's adapted script, which butchers what I'm told is a decent book. (I don't do fiction).
WINNER: Tom Wilkson. Ruby Dee was merely barely present and Pirates 3 had one CGI error, perhaps lost amidst it's copious scripting errors. Tom Wilkinson pulled down an otherwise tight, if forgettable film so he gets the nod.

THIS YEAR'S UNINTENTIONAL BEST PORN MOVIE TITLE:
NOMINEES (Black Snake Moan was disqualified for already being borderline porn, Daddy's Little Girls was disqualified because it's just wrong. Seriously, what's wrong with you?):
1. Hot Fuzz
2. There Will Be Blood
3. No Country For Old Men
4. Breach
5. Amazing Grace
6. Once
7. Because I Said So
8. Hannibal Rising
9. The Ultimate Gift
10. Reign Over Me
11. Are We Done Yet?
12. I Am Legend
13. Perfect Stranger
14. Live Free Or Die Hard
15. No End In Sight

An impressive list. Even here No Country and Blood are competing. Hard not to go with There Will Be Blood.

10 BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR REGARDLESS OF GENRE AND/OR RELEVANCE:
This was a strong year for stupid comedies. Honorable Mentions go to Ocean's 13 and Michael Clayton.
10 Superbad
9. Charlie Wilson's War
8. The Bourne Ultimatum
7. Live Free or Die Hard
6. There Will Be Blood
5. No Country For Old Men
4. Once
3. Knocked Up
2. Juno
1. Hot Fuzz

2007-08-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

Bourne III: Return of the Clones Report

1) Return of the Kings Factor for extreme length - a solid 2 hour movie but it rarely drags. 3.
2) World' End Factor For Excess Exposition - Well, there are hints to excess exposition, but they merely rely on knowledge of current events and an implicit political outlook. Those who disapprove can easily ignore a line here and there and enjoy the action. 3.
3) Nice Neat Package Rating: A little too much trying to catch up with the headlines to be 'relevant' but the film successfully attacks its foes (white men), giving them stern media justice. 5.
4) X-Men X Factor for Clear Openings for Future Films: Nobody of consequence dies, the movie outright cheats to pretend they're actually going to wrap things up for about 6 seconds. I almost got mad sitting there for those 6 seconds thinking, "They want me to think he's dead. Come on, no way they have the balls to kill him. Money matters too..." but apparently I'm too verbose and it was clear he was alive before I could finish my rant. 9.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - Not so much. Some legit action sequences and plenty of globe trotting. Not wildly original, and clearly straining to give Julia Stiles something to do, but the other female character was interesting and "we'd be having this conversation face-to-face" was a legit all-time level line. 3.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - ripping from the headlines is a clear sign of either unoriginality or boredom. I decided to spread the writing points out. Deal. Anyways, "Look at what they make you give?" I hate when a well-placed speech moves people who don't care what gets said. Hollywood once again trades potential depth for a chintzy moral. 4.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome for Bad Original Casting - Damon and the nameless senior CIA female are good casting. The Julia Stiles problem is elegantly avoided by giving her as few lines as possible. Well-played sirs. 2.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome (Bored Original Casting) - I don't think Matt Damon is deep enough to get bored with a role and I don't think anyone else who is a recurring figure in these films has enough going for them to worry about their only meal ticket. 0.
9) Ewok Syndrome for Shameless Marketing - I don't think there are any Bourne action figures or bourne video games. But this movie was laden with conspicuous product placement. For an adult movie, it was pretty blunt. 4.
10) George Lucas Disease - The Bourne films are all good but they don't get pretentious. They're always better than you think they'll be and you remember them being. Low expectations plus strong films equals a clean bill of sale here. Except for the 'relevant' turn. 2.

Return of the Clones factor:
35 - Displaying elements of sequel fatigue, but not burdened by anything more than its own triteness. If anything, in the hands of a great writer, this series could be everything that DeNiro albatross wasn't.

Incidentally, watch the American Gangster preview. Finally the movie Denzell was meant to be in. Haven't had expectations for a movie like this ever. Honestly. I'm expecting the Godfather.

Return of the Clones Standings w/ 1 movie left to go:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - 66
2. Shrek 3 - 59
3. Spiderman 3 - 53
4. Generic Pasty-Guy Almighty -52
5. Fantastic 42 - 42.5
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 42
7. Bourne 3 - 35
8. Ocean's 13 - 28
9. Die Hard 4 - 19

The world waits with breathless anticipation: where will Rush Hour 3 end up?

2007-07-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter V: Return of the Clones Report

Having not read the books, I have to say that I just don't have any emotional attachment to this series. Every movie is the same...fairly interesting, nice artistic flourishes, watchable, occasionally funny, but critically flawed (more later).

1) Return of the Kings Factor for extreme length: Well, it's clear that there's WAAAYYY more in the book that just gets sprinkled in to the movie purely for fan interests. But it's for kids and it can't be too long. 4.
2) World's End Factor for Excess Exposition: See above. They do their best, but they have to race for the sake of the kids' bladders. 8.
3) Nice Neat Package Rating: Since this is truly a series, and based on a book, the school year format is largely eschewed in favor of what has clearly become a series building to a finale. 3.
4) X-Men X Factor for Clear Openings for Future Sequels: There's already a book. I can't give it a hard time. 6.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - This is probably more of a book review, but I don't much care for making the book/film socially relevant. But maybe it helps frame the world the kids are coming into. 5.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - I don't think this is at all the case. I think the writer very much likes the characters and enjoys writing these books. 1.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome for bad original casting - My ambivalence couldn't be deeper here. The professional adults are all perfectly cast. Honestly, brilliant performances abound in this and the other films. But the kids...so uneven. Most of the second-tier kids are pretty good, although Harry Potter's girlfriend ought to be a lot hotter to be commanding all that attention. The basic problem is that Harry Potter and Hermione are just not that good. They're not terrible, but they're just not commanding attention, respect, or sympathy. 5.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome (Bored Original Casting) - I think everyone likes the film series well enough. Harry Potter decided to get naked with a horse before jumping back into the breech. Apparently that commands respect in England? It worked for Elizabeth Berkeley. 1.
9) Ewok syndrome for shameless marketing - They're already selling Hermione Granger diamond wands...on my freaking credit card insert. I can only imagine how many Luna Lovegood neck charms are being snapped up. At least the owl purchasing is probably at an end. Still, I don't think it's shameless. I think it's a response to real demand, not wholly ewok-esque. 6.
10) George Lucas Disease - I don't bring huge expectations to the series and the movie was exactly what I thought it should be. I just can't rate this film the way a fan would. 3.

Return of the Clones Factor: 42. A solidly average sequel to a non-fan such as myself. I'm left with a dilemma - how to break the tie between Harry Potter and Fantastic Four? I think that the film with the longer title should be the bigger disappointment. Unfortunately, both have verbose titles of nearly equal length, depending largely on how one adds articles and spells out numbers. I'm going to give the nod to FF4:RotSS over HPatOotP, mostly because Potter is just a better movie.

The standings:
1. Pirates of the Caribean 3 - 66
2. Shrek 3 - 59
3. Spiderman 3 - 53
4. Generic Pasty-Guy Almighty - 52
5. The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - 42.5
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 42
7. Ocean's 13 - 28
8. Die Hard 4 - 19

2007-07-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fantastic 42: Return of the Clones Report

This is a doubleheader, as I caught this and Harry Potter V for Vendetta. Let's start with the extremely non-anticipated Fantastic 4: 2 - Rise of the Silver Surfer.

What's most notable about this film is the fantasy world that's created, pitching bluntly to comic fans: apparently the Fantastic Four live in a world where chicks dig smart guys. In fact, how do you impress a girl at a party? Explain the big bang! Try that one out this coming Friday guys, watch the hotties blush and say, "Wow, you're really smart." Except the blushing is from sarcasm. Other than that, it's just like the movie.

1) Return of the Kings Factor for extreme length: At a lean 90 minutes, finally a comic book movie series that realizes it's just a comic book. Well done. 0.
2) World's End Factor for Excess Exposition: Again, well-done. Sure there's some ridiculous addition of somehow figuring out that there are a) alien planets and b) they've been eaten by a giant space monster. But all the exposition is safely jogged through for the sake of the 90 minutes. Well done. 3.
3) Nice Neat Package Rating: a giant space monster wraps it's mouth halfway around the planet, yet strangely earth's orbit is unaffected by the massive gravitational displacement that a larger-than earth body would create. Everyone gets hooked up w/ a lady, everyone gets their just desserts. Comic book fare: 9.
4) X-Men X Factor - Well, the bad guy survives and the Silver Surfer is clearly OK. All that's missing is a preview for the next movie. 9.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - I'll charitably suggest that the giant plot holes (the Fantastic 4 can randomly acquire and swap each other's powers based largely on plot requirements) and silly nerd world were explained in the missing 30 minutes of this movie. 5.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - Not at all. A very deliberate and professional attempt to make a movie series in true comic book format, minus all the weightiness that makes Spiderman 2 a success and Spiderman 3 a failure. Still, I wouldn't say the movie was imaginative. 3.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome for bad original casting - Mr. Fantastic is supposed to impress with his dance moves as part of his 'nerd-becomes-cool' schtick. Unfortunately, the non-descript actor headlining this film can't dance to save his life, and just waits for the CGI to take over. His acting is not much better. Jessica Alba is fine and everyone is wise enough to realize that if you employ Jessica Alba to play a character who can turn invisible, she shouldn't do it too often, and the comic relief half of the 4 are both good. Even the perpetual bad guy is pretty good. But Mr. Fantastic is as bland and featureless as possible, perhaps as another pitch to the nerdy comic fan, letting him imagine himself as the nerd with cool friends and a hot fiance. 4.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome for bored original casting - It's hard to say any of them are bored...I'm not sure anyone but Alba has an ongoing career outside this film. Besides, given the shortness of the film, I can't imagine the movie being any more work than a glorified animated pic. Nevertheless, I can't see Michael Chiclis drooling over stomping around in the Syracuse Orangemen's mascot outfit and saying, "Oops. My bad."3.
9) Ewok syndrome for shameless marketing - A nice gimmick to feature the product placement ans product placement on the uni. The problem here is that most of the guys have super powers that don't translate well into toy format. It would be amusing to imagine a kid stuffing Mr. Fantastic into a silly puddy tray, burning themself w/ the human torch, and losing Susan Storm. Still, this was a rampant Silver Surfer feature. 4.
10) George Lucas Disease - I can't say anyone could expect much from this movie. I certainly didn't and I got exactly what I expected. 2.

Return of the Clones Factor: 42. This is the sort of movie series that is a shameless money maker from the start. In that it succeeds. Hopefully the people making money off of films like this are using it for something worthwhile, like a Wes Anderson pic or wage increases for set crews.

The standings, pre-Potter:
1. Pirates of the Caribean 3 - 66
2. Shrek 3 - 59
3. Spiderman 3 - 53
4. Generic Pasty-Guy Almighty 2 - 52
5. Fantastic Four 2 - 42
6. Ocean's 13 - 28
7. Die Hard 4 - 19

2007-07-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

Evan Almighty: Return of the Clones Report

You might have heard this is a bad movie. It is. Who is the producer who is deciding, "Hey, let's take Jim Carey movies, make a sequel, but not have Jim Carey." At least this time they tried harder to find someone funny to replace Carey's character. Unfortunately, Steve Carell's long televised emotional breakdown seems to be reaching it's peak and he refuses to tell us any jokes in this film.

The formula here seems to have been even more eggregiously flawed in the sense that they replaced Jennifer Aniston with Generic Actress Blank and Molly Shannon. I knew the rumors were true when Molly Shannon popped her head in. She's a poison pill. I don't know how Talladega Nights survived.

Without further ado:
1) Return of the Kings Factor for extreme length: Ok, so it's not overlong. 4.
2) World's End Factor for Excess Exposition: Again, not a problem. This is a comedy, there doesn't need to be a plot. 2.
3) Nice Neat Package Rating: Well, the flood carries the ark to the capital at the very moment the evil congressman is about to pound the gavel on his corrupt deal. Tied up in a bow. 10.
4) X-Men X Factor for Setting up the Next Sequel: Unless John Goodman is being tapped for Congressman Almighty, I think that this financial dud is safely the last of this forgettable series. That or Wanda Almighty or That Other Daily Show Guy Almighty. 3.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - Honestly, you've got all the animals at the zoo and most of the jokes are about being unable to shave, get a haircut, or wear normal clothes? Don't you trivialize the Bible by making 'Biblical' equal to gray hair, a beard, and robes? I want 2 hours of animal jokes. You've even got Morgan Freeman there to narrate it. 7.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - I can't say they were bored. I'm just curious as to whether they were Christian or not. I mean, there was a lot of potential to work with here and it's totally untapped, humor-wise and bible-wise. 5.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome for bad original casting - Well, even taking Carey and Aniston out, they lucked out to have a previously hot ticket like Carell around. But I have to take points off for dropping the stars. 5.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome for bored actors - Pretty sure Carell mailed this one in. Either that or he's not really funny. Word to Wanda Sykes, the guy who played Letterman in the Lateshift, and the Daily Show Guy for working hard w/ nowhere to go. 5.
9) Ewok syndrome - I guess they can't sell bibles given how churches give them away and all, but the animals were a desparate plea for kids. 6.
10) George Lucas Disease for Letdown Factor - My expectation were aroused but not high, and after the review, they were very low. And still unmet. Am I wrong that Steve Carell and animals should have been funnier? 5.

Return of the Clones Factor: 52 - saved only by low expectations and non-sequelyness.
Most Disappointing:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - 66
2. Shrek 3 - 59
3. Spiderman 3 - 53
4. Bruce Almighty 2 - 52
5. Ocean's 13 - 28
6. Die Hard 4 - 19

2007-06-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

So I've been re-miss. I didn't see Fantastic 42 yet because I have minimal interest and I haven't seen Evan A)lmighty yet because of the crushing reviews. And I've been busy.

But my roommates are in love with Die Hard, and I've been nursing a suspicion that the stars might align for Die Hard to earn the coveted least-disappointing sequel award. So I went on opening night. I can sum up this movie for you based on my roommate's description, "There was no part of that that didn't rock." To me, Die Hard movies were always entertaining, then you forget about them. But then you think about them later and you think, 'wait a minute, that sort of rocked.' And rock Live Free or Die Hard did.

1) Return of the King Factor for extreme length: I didn't notice the movie dragging too much. It's a solid 2 hours, but it never drags. 3.
2) Worlds' End Factor for Excess Exposition: Sure, there's some random characters who pop in, but they're charmingly empty on backstory. Exposition is at the right pitch, we only really need 1 scene for McClane's daughter, only 1 scene of the non FBI dudes, etc. Die Hard's good about that - the bad guys always have some backstory, but really, Bruce Willis doesn't care. So the bad guys have their exposition scenes, and then Bruce Willis takes his licks and keeps on ticking. In fact, I think Die Hard 5 will probably be Die Hard: Still Ticking, with the S in Still turned around to make a 5. 2.
3) Nice Neat Package Rating: Again, Die Hard only relies on one recurring character, so it never matters what gets left open or tied up. The bad guys are going down, the family members will sruvive, and other people mill about and collect pay checks. 3.
4) X-Men X Factor for Setting Up the Next Sequel - Honestly, there's nothing to set up. McClane will magically drift into obscurity after blowing up Baltimore and saving the day for a 4th time. His wounds will heal, his family will be in a bit of a tiff, but still essentially family once the bad guys show up. Nothing needs setting up. 2.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - No symptoms. A) Baltimore gets blown up, B) The Mac Guy is a PC hacker, C) Random freerunning and kung fu bad guys/gals w/ no back story(!) C) A helicopter taken out by a fire hydrant and a car(!!) D) Baltimore gets blown up (To quote a Baltimore city cop who used to be an MP in Sadr City, "I'd rather be in Sadr City.") E) Harrier-esque jet blows up mixing bowl, commuters rejoice because IT'S NEVER GOING TO GET FINISHED ANYWAY. No need to continue, 1.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - I have to give a little bit of this just because A) There was never that Die Hard bad guy twist and B) We've seen a lot of the cool stuff above before in other movies (Casino Royale and True Lies come to mind). 4.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome for bad original casting - Not a problem. With one returning character perfectly cast, there are no problems. 0.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome for bored original casting - Willis isn't really that bored since he already spent a long time between sequels. Anyhow, to both signal his boredness and still give tghe audience a smile, he just starts laughing after killing just about everyone. It's a good response. 3.
9) Ewok syndrome for shameless marketing - Not much market, unless someone's coming out w/ a destructible Baltimore set akin to my old Castle Grayskull, in which case thousdands of Baltimore expatriates (also known as 'escapees') will be lining up. 1.
10) George Lucase Disease - Die Hard sneaks up on you - your expectations aren't that high, so it can't disappoint that much. Then it rocks for 2 hours of action, and you feel you got your money's worth. 1.

Return of the Clones Factor: 19. Live Free or Die Hard makes a strong case for least disappointing sequel of the summer. Let's look at the rankings:

Most Disappointing:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - 66
2. Shrek 3 - 59
3. Spiderman 3 - 53
4. Ocean's 13 - 28
5. Die Hard 4 - 19

I promise to get caught up with the mediocre contenders in time for Harry Potter.

2007-06-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Summer Sequel Square-Off:Ocean's 13

I gave Ocean's 13 a spin on the Return of the Clones Ratings. Before we get started, given the Soprano's ending leaving frayed ends in every direction, we're going to have to change the 'too much tying-up of loose ends' category to the blander Nice Neat Package category.

1) Return of the King Factor for extreme length: If anything, it was too short. Rating: Solid 1.
2) Worlds' End Factor for excess exposition: There's definitely a few too many characters with strange things going on. What's the idea w/ the Basher notes? Why was Ellen Barkin in this movie other than to be taken advantage of and to look hot? Ocean might consider a prequel next time, say Ocean's 5. Drop the excess baggage and leave yourself room to build up to 11. Rating: 4.
3) Nice Neat Package rating: Very low. These guys are just going to keep pulling jobs and acquiring enemies. Rating: 1.
4) X-Men X Factor for Setting Up the Next Sequel: This is where things get hairy. We've got abandoned wives to think about, an angry Al Pacino itching for that Godfather 2 sentiment; Ellen Barkin's just kind of turning in the air, there's the one European dude, there are at least 5 more Vegas locations that need to have a little classical music victory stand. Even Saul seems healthier than ever. The only thing is, Clooney and Pitt don't seem to care much. The ending is more like, "Sure, we'll do another sequel if we feel like it." Rating: 7.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome: No fun. This movie has a little fun, especially in Mexico, but the main characters are missing their oomph and Eddie Izzard seems woefully misused. Rating: 4.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome: I'll say this, they definitely went outside the box. Really nothing too much to complain about here. Rating: 2.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome for bad original casting: This is the series' strength. These dudes rock, plus they got Don Cheadle before he was anything. Rating: 0.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome for bored w/ role leads: This is a little bit of a problem. It's too easy, and with all the extra characters, we're not getting enough Clooney and Pitt, plus we're minus the ladies. Rating: 6.
9) Ewok Syndrome for shameless marketing: Unless someone's building the impossible "Bank" Casino, nothing to get upset about here. Unless it's marketing the stars themselves. So: 2.
10) George Lucas Disease for complete let-down vis-a-vis expectations: Some symptoms, but not a full-blown case. This movie was pretty good, but just doesn't come together. Too many characters make it feel rushed, and I could have used more fleshing out of the scheme. I don't even know what Pacino and Clooney agreed to at the sumo match. Rating: 5.

Return of the Clones Factor: 28...a pretty strong effort making Ocean's 13 the least disappointing sequel so far this summer by quite a ways. It'll be interesting to see how a #2 of a bad original movie (Fantastic Four Two) ends up playing out.

2007-06-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

Next Price Is Right Host: Bill Clinton

Bob Barker just retired and endorsed Rosie O'Donnell as his successor. This is a wildly bad idea given that 3 critical elements of the show are:
1) A likable old man for old women to kiss
2) Bob's beauties for him to creepily hit on
3) Bob's joking w/ the crowd during commercial breaks to keep their spirits up.
Rosie O'Donnell is not going to make old women want to come to the show and her politics might cause a riot at the local convalescence home, or as close as the old folks could come to it. I don't think America's primed either for Rosie to creepily hit on Bob's beauties. And if you haven't seen the Youtube video, Rosie likes to entertain the crowd during breaks, but not with good natured ribbing - she entertains it with hackneyed 9/11 conspiracy theories.

In short, I couldn't think of someone worse for the job and the endorsement has tainted Bob in my mind, if only briefly. Maybe it's one of those endorsements where he wants his successor to fail, just to prove Bob's greatness.

In picking a successor, a lot of names have been bandied about, Mario Lopez being a good laughable candidate. Jean Claude Van Damme crossed my mind. But then it hit me -

BILL CLINTON!!!!

Old women would love to come kiss Bubba. Bill would be perfect for the oggling and fondling the beauties bit. And Bill is just the affable sort to keep the crowd going in between breaks. I bet Bill would pull off, shamelessly, ripping off Bob's, "Have your pets spaid or neutered."

The question, I guess, is how good is Bill's short game. If you can't sink that putt, you can't have that job.

2007-06-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

Amongst Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson, I'm taking odds:

In 15 years, who is most likely to still be successful?
In 15 years, who is most likely to still be attractive?
In 15 years, who is most likely to be dead/done/Courtney Love?

Successful:
Simpson 3-2
Lohan 4-1
Spears 6-1
Hilton (Never has been successful)
Lohan is determined to be Courtney Love at best, Spears is, much like Christ Eliot, surviving on pity at this point, and Hilton isn't even very good at being a felon. Simpson by default. Plus she's soulless, she seems like she'd take up ska if it made her money. I can picture being like SNL - it makes too much money to cancel.

Attractive:
Lohan 3-1
Simpson 3-1
Hilton 4-1
Spears 30-1
I'm torn, Jessica's prettiest now, but Lohan should age better if she's not torn up by the steady booze/drugs diet. Hilton is not currently attractive, but she's legit skinny and should age well. Britney's waging war w/ her Elvis pounds; it's a matter of time.

Done/Dead/Courtney Love:
Lohan 5-4
Spears 3-2
Hilton 2-1
Simpson 4-1
Lohan behaves as though she already made this bet on herself. That and she doesn't understand the bet and thinks she's in the hole if she doesn't get there fast enough. I can't see how Spears could hold it together another decade with the pounds on their way. I don't know how Hilton could keep herself in the news without actually doing anything. Simpson has two ways to get here: 1) she just gets enough money that she doesn't need to stay in the game, or 2) she randomly has a complete breakdown.

Incidentally, Tara Reid tried to get in on this bet but didn't make the cut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3bRrKqo2jQ

2007-05-28T19:43:00.001-07:00

Summer Sequel Square-Off

This summer is shaping up to be the summer of disappointing sequels. We've got 3 already in the hopper and more on the way, and all of them pale in comparison to Hot Fuzz. There are a few factors that go into a bad sequel:
1) Over-long - Call this the Return of the King Factor
2) Too much new exposition - This will heretofore be known as the Worlds' End Factor
3) Too much tying-up loose ends - The Sopranos Factor
4) Too much leaving the door open for another sequel - The X-Men X Factor
5) No fun - Harried Writer Syndrome
6) Unoriginality - Bored Writer Syndrome
7) Burdened by original casting - Kirsten Dunst Syndrome
8) Actor clearly bored by role - Johnny Depp Syndrome
9) Shameless marketing ploy - Ewok Syndrome
10) Complete Let-Down From High Expectations - George Lucas Disease

We'll rate these 1-10 and then come up with a tally called the Attack of the Clones Rating and then keep tabs throughout the summer. In the event of a tie, the longer title wins the worst rating.

Let's look at what we've seen so far:

Spider-Man 3
1) Return of the King Factor - 6 - a solid 2+, this movie is definitely too long, but not too too long
2) Worlds' End Factor - 9 - WAYYY TOO MUCH. We've got 3 bad guys to deal with, Venom has no real screen time, a new girl drifts into the movie, James Franco wanders back and forth aimlessly. There's just too much 'shit goes down' factor, and this isn't X-Men where people miraculously turn up alive in the next go-round.
3) Sopranos Factor - 7 - Well, one bad guy drifts away aimlessly, a few others are dead, Kirsten Dunst, who is the one who doesn't want to keep doing the movies, is still standing there with nothing to add but screaming while being suspended in the air over things. So really, there's no point in making a Spiderman 4. There's a delicate balance to getting high scores on the Sopranos Factor and still scoring high on the X-Men X Factor. Spiderman swings in favor of the Sopranos.
4) X-Men X Factor - 3 - Well, there's still Spiderman and his editor, plus a new girl. But too much shit had to go down; the next Spiderman will be it's own beast.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - 2 - No symptoms. I have to give them credit - the Tobey Maguire, Man About Town routine was pretty funny. Fun factor was still strong.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - 8 - Doctor says to seek a second opinion. While we did have some nice plot twists, we still end up with nothing to top the train scene from 2, plus a third straight contrived ending involving things hanging in the air and Kirsten Dunst screaming to be saved.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome - 8 - Oh yeah. Dunst+Franco+Maguire - oof, triple gut punch in the acting department. At least Franco was solid this time, unlike his Hayden Christensen-esque performance in Spiderman 2. Maguire also did alright out of the suit. That leaves Kirsten Dunst. If it's called Lou Gerig's disease, and you're the Gerig family and you name your kid Lou, chances are, the prognosis is not good.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome - 2 - Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, even growing in the roles.
9) Ewok Syndrome - 1 - Tough to sell a toy that turns into sand or one that crawls around and changes Spiderman's color.
10) George Lucas Disease - 7 - Spiderman 2's train sequence actually moved me. This was a pretty solid letdown. But there was no Jar Jar.

Attack of the Clones Rating: 53 out of 100 - A solid disappointment, nothing too spectacular. Just enough to make you wonder if you'll see 4.

Shrek 3

1) Return of the King Factor - 3 - At 92 minutes, it's long for a cartoon. Still, that's not much.
2) World's End Factor - 9 - Another desperate search for fairy tales has the writer's blowing just about every commonly known fairy tale ever on this movie. We might have to delve into the Jungle Book and Ricky Ticky Tambo soon. As it is, almost no one gets serious screentime given the ramshackle hodgepodge of every fairytale ever. I think this is a common fallacy for good writers trying to do a sequel - in lieu of entertainment and dialogue, I'll make up for it with extra exposition.
3) Soprano's Factor - 5 - The door is open to further movies, but I have to give a high score just for cutting off so many fairytale avenues in one movie.
4) X-Men Factor - 10 - This is becoming an episodic series, not a film series. 2 more movies are already in development. Shrek's running down Jason and Freddy Kruger. Speaking of which, remember Bambi vs. Godzilla? How about Donkey vs. Jason?
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - 5 - Solidly lacking in fun, but a few bright spots here and there.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - 8 - "Hey, what do you want to do with this one?" "Let's have babies, King Arthur, and every fairy tale ever." "Sure...what was that? I wasn't listening, I was playing an orbitz pop-up game."
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome - 2 - The movie was well-cast and cartoon shooting must take an hour. Not enough time to get bored, a nice easy paycheck, and the cartoonists do all the work.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome - 4 - Even a sell-out like Eddie Murphy can only mail it in so much.
9) Ewok Syndrome - 10 - This is a cash cow. Shrek could campaign against women's suffrage and there'd still be Shrek XVI: Ogre Mary Poppins.
10) George Lucas Disease - 3 - It's a cartoon movie. You know what you're getting, it's thin gruel to begin with. We already read the PC fairy tales.

Attack of the Clones Rating - 59 out of 100. Again, a bad sequel. Shrek has a certain advantage as a cartoon with so many categories mitigated by the shortness of the film and the non-presence of the actors. Worse than the sum of its parts.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End
1) Return of the King Factor - 9 - This is one long damn movie. And there's no freaking fighting for 2 hours, and then about 30 minutes of non-stop fighting, followed by a classic Return of the King, 'let's end the movie 4 times' disaster involving something approaching soft core porn and a ridiculously transparent attempt to close off all the trilogy storylines and open the door to new adventures.
2) Worlds' End Factor - 10 - See Dunst Syndrome, Kirsten RE: Spiderman 3. A short synopsis of every scene in this film: 2 characters with some backstory developed in parts 1 and 2 develop that backstory to a far greater degree, adding several new motivations and layers of new lore to the universe. Of course it's impossible to follow and worse, none of the dialogue that gets you there is very snappy. Plus it seems like the writers keep changing their minds throughout the movie - first the coins mean something, then they mean nothing; first there's an informant, then there isn't; Jonathon Price seems to die but who knows, he could just be learning to scull (harder than it looks by the way.)
3) Soprano's Factor - 9 - All bad guys safely removed, including an ignominious and totally unexplained demise for the Kracken. "Hey, we did all the cool stuff w/ the giant squid. Why bother carrying on with that?" All heroes delivered safely to the end with more pirating to do.
4) X-Men X Factor - 9 - This is really an accomplishment - loose ends tied up plus clear route to Pirates IV? A tip of the cap to those writers, especially given how many loose ends they created for themselves. Of course it took 2 hours of non-stop exposition, but oh well.
5) Harried Writer Syndrome - 7 - Where are the jokes? The dialogue. That's what made the first film. And what undid the third, for me. I can sit through a lot of silliness if I'm entertained. This movie needed an Owen Wilson cameo about 5 times more than it needed the purposeless addition of Chow Yun Fat and his merry band of Hollywood's Oriental extras.
6) Bored Writer Syndrome - 1 - For all of that, there are a lot of interesting ideas floating around in this film. Too many. Shipwreck cove was great, well-played on the Keith Richards cameo. Hard to fault them for the effort.
7) Kirsten Dunst Syndrome - 2 - This cast is pretty darn strong. I added a point for Orlando Bloom's father, who may or may not have been in Abba, but you know, that weasely academic from Good Will Hunting. I needed 20 more minutes of that guy the way I need a tuberculosis scare.
8) Johnny Depp Syndrome - 5 - Though I call it Johnny Depp syndrome, everyone else seems to come off pretty well. Bill Nighy, Keira Knightly, ubiquitous other-guy action cad Orlando Bloom, and Captain Barbosa all earn their paycheck. But Depp seems to have tried to bring in a touch of Edward Scissorhands weirdness, or perhaps merely a real cocaine addiction, and the result is a lifeless effort from the mainstay of the series. (P.S. - if the reason people come to the movie is for Captain Jack Sparrow, you might want to rescue him in the first 10 minutes of the movie).
9) Ewok Syndrome - 5 - On the one hand, this series doesn't lend itself to toys. On the other, Disney's transparent attempt to round out the trilogy and open a new chapter deserves further recognition.
10) George Lucas Disease - 8 - The results are in, and they don't look good. I have to say, I was really looking forward to this movie - 1 was a great movie, 2 was a solid sequel, but this was The League of Extraordinary Pirates, minus the novelty.

Attack of the Clones Rating: 66. A pretty bad effort, seeping towards series killing. Series have come back from worse, look at Rocky Balboa after Rocky V. Just don't actually watch Rocky V.

So far, here's what we've got:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - 66
2. Shrek 3 - 59
3. Spiderman 3 - 53

A pretty close race so far. Hopefully we've got some good sequels coming; and hopefully not some sequels that will break ahead of the pack. A look at upcoming sequels:

June 8 Ocean's 13 - Anticipation Level DROOLING
Hostel 2 - Anticipation Level NONEXISTENT (Didn't see Part I)
June 15 Fantastic Four Two: Rise of the Silver Surfer - Anticipation Level LOW
June 22 Evan Almighty - Anticipation Level CURIOUS
June 27 Live Free or Die Hard - Anticipation Level RISING (BLOW UP BALTIMORE!)
July 13 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Anticipation Level - SOMEBODY BETTER DIE!!!
August 3 The Bourne Ultimatum - Anticipation Level - WHERE'S A TRAILER?
August 10 Rush Hour 3 - Anticipation Level - THAT TRAILER ROCKED...FILM WILL STILL SUCK
August 31 Halloween - Anticipation Level - THEY'RE RELEASING A HALLOWEEN MOVIE IN AUGUST?

(Not listed in fairness: 40-Year-Old Virgin 2 (AKA Knocked-UP), Animated Movie XV (Surf's Up, Ratatouille), Monument to Michael Moore's Disingenuousness, Greed, and Ego V (Sicko), Hairspray II (AKA Hairspray), Cuba Gooding Spikes His Career IV (Daddy Day Camp), Invasion of the Bodysnatchers III (The Invasion), Dodgeball II (Balls of Fury)

Plus TRANSFORMERS, MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE!!!, the Simpsons, Mr Bean's Holiday.

2007-05-22T14:19:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't cry if the Kings happened to land in the top two in the draft lottery.

I would look for pigs the next time I flew though.

2007-04-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

From listening to people who've been relentlessly self-promoting their political views for years, I've discovered that events in Virginia Tech are really about too many guns, or not enough guns, or Iraq, or an uncaring society, or an incompetent Va Tech administration, or really whatever happens to be on someone's mind.

Inevitably, questions should be asked about policy changes. Certainly, the people who bear responsibility for making policies should immediately think about how to prevent something in their area of responsibility. But these people who babble on and on are not policymakers, they are heartless bastards who cheapen these people's death to a bullet point in their policy rant before the people have even been buried.

I'd rather hear about the victims who were lost. But what I get is more policy lectures. If I wanted a policy lecture, I'd go watch a movie.

Some rules for the conscience-less:
1. No policy rants before the funerals are over.
2. Think about what you can do in your own life to prevent these things. That is, since you don't have any responsibilities that would put you in a position to make policies to prevent these sort of things, and you don't do anything worthwhile, just contemplate what you would do if a murderer burst unexpectedly upon you and your colleagues to riot in your blood. It is human nature to run from the first gun shot. It is only those who flinch but then turn toward danger who can surely prevent and minimize these tragedies.

I give you as an example the Holocaust survivor who blocked his classroom door so that his students could flee. Why did this man do what he did? Because he had heard enough of such things in his life.

2007-03-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

2007 Oscars Recap

And the loser is: Ellen. I fell asleep well before all the big awards, though perhaps something subliminal woke me up in time for the classy Helen Mirren.

The winners: Jack Black and Will Ferrel.

And the awards:
Best Picture - I guess Marty carries the day.
Best Actor - Correct.
Best Actress - See above.
Supporting Actor - Lesson learned. When an older actor mysteriously appears here despite having 6 lines that could have been done better by anyone who was still willing to act, suspect the worst.
Best Actress - Right again.
Best Director - I'm so tired of being right.

Nothing else matters.

On to the all important "Wish I Would Have Seen" List. It's longer this year.

The Science of Sleep
Notes On A Scandal
Sherrybaby
Little Children

OK, so that was good for a laugh. But seriously:
We Are Marshall
The Good Shepherd
Volver
Stranger Than Fiction
Blood Diamond
Letters From Iwo

2007-02-24T20:01:00.000-08:00

2007 Annual Oscars Preview

So here we go with my annual completely false predictions and dead-on should-have-beens. First a recap of my reviews of the movies I wished I'd seen last year:

The Whale & The Squid - Overly overtly intellectual, tedious
Wallace&Gromit - What's with the stark sexual innuendos littered all over the last 15 minutes?
Grizzly Man - Cool bear footage. Solid film.
Corpse Bride - Eh.
Three Burials of Melky Estrada - Abominable preachy social issues film.

On to the predictions:

We'll be using my technique of totally disregarding the talent involved. Since I've not seen all the movies, I will nonetheless be issuing weighty pronouncements on which movies and performances are the best.

I'll then follow with my top 10 for the year and other awards including biggest snubs and most ridiculous nomination of the year. Stay tuned for my review of my embarrassingly bad predictions.

* Means Will Win
! Means Should Win (Of those nominated)
& Means Did Not See

BEST PICTURE
*& The Social Issues Ensemble Movie, aptly described by a friend as a globo-faux intellectual's wet dream. (Babel)
Semi-Annual Scorcese entry (The Departed)
&Annual Eastwood entry (Letters from Iwo)
Indy Social Issues Pic (Little Miss Sunshine)
! The Queen

The Departed winning wouldn't be a bad thing, but I figure Scorcese's going to get the award for director and the movie itself isn't that meaty, just entertaining. Eastwood wins too often; if he wins this time, they may rename the award after him and just start giving it to him every year, even if he doesn't make a movie. Given the rate at which he's churning movies out, he could be competing just against himself: "And now, the winner of best Clint Eastwood film..." That leaves the indy pic, which really isn't that good except for the last scene, and which suffers from being a comedy, even if it tries to play depression and failure for laughs. And finally The Queen, which happens to be a fantastic, taught, well-acted, well-written movie as lacking in political snobbery as it is chock full of depth. In short, it has no chance.
BIGGEST SNUBS: Since I realize my top 10 below has a lot of action and comedy, I will just include films that might actually fall under potential Oscar winning genres - United 93, The Prestige, Thank You For Smoking.

BEST ACTOR:
&!-Leonardo DiCaprio plays a funny accent social issues vagabond.
&-Ryan Gosling plays a crusading teacher and a drug addict
&-Peter O'Toole plays a retiring legend trotting out for a victory lap.
-Will Smith plays a man who wants to make a lot of money and who never plays the race card.
&-Forrest Whitaker plays the lovable last King of Scotland (A black king? Why not, it worked in Blazing Saddles.)

Leo apparently pissed on Speilberg while he was visiting Aushwitz or something and will never win anything ever. He also comes across as a weiner but hey, he's supposed to be good in this. I simply can't take Forrest Whitaker seriously. One of those hospital shows breathlessly introduced him as "one of the most respected actors of his generation," and I thought, "By whom? His mother? When did this take place." Was there some subtext to Panic Room I wasn't picking up on? Ryan Gosling is a nobody but really comes up big mixing 2 Oscar favorites - inspiring teacher AND drug addict. If Johnny Depp had taken this role he'd already have a speech ready. Peter O'Toole shouldn't win because I don't want him to die navigating the stairs. And Will Smith has no shot in hell. As he's sitting dejected in his little picture-in-picture screen, he'll be thinking, "I should have played the race card."
SNUBS: Aaron Eckhardt (TYFS), Christian Bale (Prestige), Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat), Several Individuals from The Departed who were apparently forgotten because no one could tell who was a lead and who was supporting except for Mark Wahlberg, and Daniel Craig (Casino Royale). In fact I would replace the entire nomination list. Eckhardt was brilliant, Bale is always brilliant and additionally really showed up Hugh Jackman, who is pretty darn good, Cohen freaking lived this ridiculous character but is hurt by the fact that he'd already created it, The Departed speaks for itself, Nicholson, Damon, Leo all deserved a nod, and Craig stepped to the Bond plate and knocked the role out of the park. Oh, and Keanu for A Scanner Darkly. Just kidding. He goes through the whole movie with that "Whoa" look on his face, just begging to drop it in.

Actress:
&Penelope Cruz is pretty (Volver)
&Dame Judi Dench annual nomination (Notes on a Scandal)
*!Helen Mirren plays The Queen
Meryl Streep annual nomination (Devil Wears Prada)
&Kate Winslet semi-annual indy pic nomination (Little Children)

I rarely care about this award because usually the roles are so weak. For purely aesthetic reasons, Penelope can win all the awards she wants, but she does do shampoo commercials. That's a real sticking point because so do Andie MacDowell and Lark Voories. Streep was very good in an otherwise dull movie. She and Dench deserve their annual re-up more than Eastwood does. Interestingly, the only non-star nominated is the one who should absolutely win. Here's hoping Ms. Mirren starts taking some of Dame Dench's roles so she can pace herself a bit. I can't get enough classy English ladies in my movies. I wonder if Ms. Mirren will be "damed" by the queen she played.

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Alan Arkin has about 6 lines of dialogue (Little Miss Sunshine)
& Jackie Earl Haley is a complete unknown and may not have been informed yet of his nomination (Little Children)
&Djimon Hounsou is an aggrieved African (Blood Diamond - ever notice that this guy plays every African regardless of nationality. Africa has more genetic diversity than the rest of the world, from 7-foot Masais to pygmies but apparently everyone from Cote D'Voire to Lesotho looks exactly the same)
&!* Eddie Murphy is in a musical
Mark Wahlberg is here because he's the only actor in The Departed who couldn't possibly be considered a lead.

I'm sorry but Oscars just don't go to Mark Wahlberg. See Dillon, Matt 2006. Alan Arkin's character was well written, had little screen time, and honestly could have been better played by any number of old-timers, including several of my old neighbors. He's the most forgettable part of that cast. Eddie Murphy is the big name, has the race card in his pocket, and jumped out of comedy to do a musical. He even sang. He gets the spirit award.
SNUBS: Bill Nighy for Davey Jones in Pirates 2. That's an impressive creation. John C. Reilly for The Magic Man in The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - extra points for the ad libbing. Al Gore's political ambitions in An Inconvenient Truth - it was like a recurring cameo that made no sense with the rest of the movie. And boy was it a stretch.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
&Adriana Barraza is an aggrieved Mexican babysitter
&Cate Blanchett is a star playing a smaller role in an indy pic
!Abigail Breslin is the ubiquitous Jerry Maguire Kid, extra points for hysterical strip tease
*&Jennifer Hudson plays herself
&Rinko Kikuchi has no lines of dialogue (I think) but is likely an aggrieved Japanese mute.

I wonder what Simon Cowell thinks of Hudson's performance.
SNUBS: Eva Green as a great Bond dame, Vera Farmiga pulling off a poorly written character in The Departed, Mia Kirschner as Elizabeth Short in the atrocious The Black Dahlia.

Director
Basically Scorcese is going to win so there's no point in even looking at this category. His peers Speilberg, Coppola, and George Lucas (zuh?) have been selected as the presenters, which probably means that they're not giving the award to Paul Greengrass. I'd guess Eastwood would replace Lucas if he weren't bound by contractual obligations to be nominated for this category. Speilberg was nice enough not to force any schlock on us this year, perhaps in deference to Marty's chances. Coppola's an obvious choice since he's responsible for the 2 best movies ever. George Lucas was also chosen for his venerable career dedicated to the art of cinema. I couldn't write that line without a chuckle. Anyways, 3 makes it more important than 2, but who else is there? James Cameron was unavailable because he just stumbled on Jesus's tomb. I can picture him climbing a top it and yelling, "I'm the king of the world." And Kenneth Turan has already panned his discovery in several articles I'm sure.

Foreign Language Film
Pan's Labyrinth was way overhyped. The saddest thing is that it's so obvious while watching how the movie could have been made into something with depth (make the father/officer sympathetic) but oh well. And what's w/ Canada having a nomination? They don't talk that funny. Leo's Blood Diamond accent is more foreign than aboot.

Adapted Screenplay
What is Borat doing here? The movie was not an adaptation, nor did it have a screenplay.

Original Screenplay
This is probably where Sunshine gets its award but the Queen writer deserves it more.

Animated Feature
I'm so passionate about this category, I can't even comment.

Art Direction - Pirates 2 was such an aesthetic marvel that it'd be a crime if it didn't win. That said, I love the look that was cultivated in the Prestige. Naturally neither will win.

Cinematography - I actually say Children of Men on this one. The continuous shot sequences were astounding pieces of work. If only they'd told me why they weren't having babies.

Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Film Editing - Why are these categories not handled during the technical awards show the previous day? Anyways, I hope Apocalypto wins, opening the door for the breathless pause before the acceptance speeches, hoping for some reference to Mel. The anti-semitism is the easy route...I'm hoping for an "angel tits" reference.

Original Score - Pirates had a great one. A general plea - musical scores are some of the best music being created. That's how bad pop music is. I'd blame Cold Play, but they just took the whinier Radiohead and made it less avante guard.

Original Song - Ugh.

Costume - How can Devil Wears Prada not win? Wouldn't that be a total indictment of the film, if a movie about defining high fashion can't even have the best costumes?

Documentary Feature - I think the category title is unfair. Documentaries are now propaganda films. That's not necessarily a bad thing, propaganda is a form of art. But why keep pretending?

Makeup - Obviously a real shot for Apocalypto here. My question is that there are 3 nominations here, and one of them is Click. Click? The Adam Sandler remote control movie? I didn't see this movie. Does anyone know how this happened? Was it a prank write-in campaign?

Visual Effects - Again, Pirates 2 is a lock. Nothing else should have been nominated.

THIS YEAR'S SNUBS:
OVERHYPED BLOCKBUSTER DIVISION: In a tight race with Dreamgirls' Best Pic snub, I give it to Flags of Our Fathers. Oh it stank and Letters to Iwo gave them an out, but nonetheless, any loss for Eastwood is an upset.
SPIELBERG DIVISION: The New World. Terrence Malick's rambling nature films with some sort of plot going on in the foreground, occasionally spliced with empty voice over usually are golden for a nod. What happened? Colin Farrel?
SEQUEL DIVISION: Sly Stallone for anything in Rocky Balboa. The guy was trying to say good bye. Not even an Oscar nod for lifetime soundtrack achievement. Now he's going to make the nightmare real and do Shakespeare. I can sense it. Hey, if Keanu can not only do Shakespeare but also Philip K. Dick, Stallone can do anything. I personally am rooting for boxing announcer.
SOCIAL ISSUES DIVISION: Children of Men - you have to make the commentary more explicit if you're hoping to illicit a nomination. And tell us why they're not having babies.
ANTI-ANTI SEMITISM DIVISION: Mel Gibson. If a guy can't curse out the Jews and then call the arresting officer "angel tits" and still get his bizarre dead language film nominated then the terrorists have won.
MOST RIDICULOUS NOMINATION: Click for anything.

TOP TEN FILMS:
Honorable Mention: Dave Chappelle's Block Party - Even though the movie's not good, the concert got rained on, and Eric Badou's afro-wig came off, totally erasing her street cred, the man got the Fugees back together. Damn Lauryn Hill is good.
10. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - this film basically pisses excellence.
9. Inside Man
8. Pirates 2 - A very underrated film. I think it's because no one else knows how to play Liar's Dice.
7. Casino Royale - This was the best Bond movie I've seen.
6. United 93 - Get over the $ thing. Nobody called Michael Moore a war profiteer but he's far more guilty and doesn't have the decency to give 10% of the gate to the folks whose tragedy he's making $ off of.
5. The Prestige - Dark, original, complex. It reminds me of good Hitchcock with all of the tone shifts, the way it forces you to change your mind about characters.
4. The Departed - I know, I know. It's good. But there are several sections that drag and the Farmiga/DiCapprio relationship seems to lack something other than being a contrived plot device. Plus it was a relatively good year for movies.
3. The Queen
2. Thank You For Smoking
1. Borat

2007-02-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

The All-Star game is in Las Vegas this year. For those of you who don't follow the Kings closely, this is part of a multi-year effort by the NBA to shop the team with the most loyal fan base in the league to a mob town of alcoholics, compulsive gamblers, frat boys, prostitutes, and tourists. Hey, it's good business practice to tell your best customers that you'd rather throw away the last shreds of integrity that a sport has by maxing out the credit cards of America's least responsible spenders.

I'm just wondering, where's Sacramento's All-Star game? You know, like maybe the towns that actually have a team should get a crack at a game. Why not have them all in Las Vegas...better than deciding that every NBA town gets one except us. Charlotte got an all-star game...a year after they got their second financially failing team. You're telling me Charlotte has more hotel space, more claim to host an All-Star game than the state capital of California? You'd rather host a game in the murder capital, Detroit?

I'd be OK if it were in Vegas every year. Barkley could hold an annual trundle. Jordan would probably come play just to gamble. But instead, every other city in the league gets one except us...so now cities without teams start to get one. This is just part of an organized campaign to dump on Kings' fans.

I'm what you might call a Kings dead ender. I remember the 4 first round draft picks we had in one year...all of them busts. Joe Klein instead of Karl Malone. "Never Present" Pervis Ellison 1st overall. I called Grant Napear's show. I thought Gary St. Jean would be the answer. Wayman Tisdale was my favorite player. I witnessed Walt Williams airball a fast break dunk. I had a Bobby Hurley shirt...I wore it to games even after the car accident where Mike "The Other Guy in the Poster" Peplowski saved him...you know, the Bobby Hurley who couldn't break a full court press put on by Crazy George and Slamson, the human bakery Bobby Hurley that served up turnovers at a rate that would have made White Chocolate air-machine gun a line of fans in envy.

For a decade plus, the Kings sold out games without a single winning season. Then they got good and we were the loudest crowd in league history, an environment so intimidating, opposing coaches complained to the referees. We brought cow bells. Bobby Jackson got kisses on the head during games.

One would have thought, "Hey, that's a town that loves basketball. Heck, their minor league baseball team occasionally outdraws the major league team 2 hours away. That's a customer you want to keep." But you'd be of the mindset that wants people to watch basketball games and believe in the outcome...the sort of person that would take a few less dollars to have playoff games on network television rather than, say, the Outdoor Life Network.

You see, Commissioner Sternleone and his hatchet man Big City Knick Bavetta should have tipped us off when they decided to fix Game 6 of the Western Conference championships and thereby rob the city of its only legitimate championship. We're left to point despairingly at WNBA titles, World League football titles for the Sacramento Surge and washed-up QB David Archer.

Now the league is saying we can't have an all-star game, or even our team, if we don't pony up the dough for a 3rd arena in 25 years. I guess the image the league is going for is an aging chubby Mike Bibby squandering his fortune in the Maloof's hotel-casino.

In summary, if the team is stolen from us, Sternleone's contribution to Sacramento will have been 2 husky arenas out in the flood plain near the airport, a stolen championship, some ugly uniforms, and a legacy of hatred that could spawn kamikaze units. The Maloofs have been good to Sacramento, they might be able to sneak out of town under assumed identities until they got back to their mafioso liquor-running friends. But Stern...the man would need a Pope-mobile to drive past the capital.