A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Mars doesn't need women

So NASA is apparently taking public suggestions for where to point the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. No doubt the agency is anticipating a slew of requests for Victoria Crater or Olympus Mons, and I salute such educational endeavors. Then again, let us not ignore the other applications of this technology; specifically, scoping out potential Martian babes.

5. Genevieve Selsor (Bernadette Peters) -- The Martian Chronicles (1980)

1970s/80s vintage Bernadette Peters was smoking hot, to be sure. But as this clip of the spectacularly annoying Selsor -- one of the last remaining humans on Mars -- demonstrates why she's best viewed from afar.

4. Vampire Girl (Vampira, AKA Maila Nurmi) -- Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

Admittedly, I don't even know if -- cough -- Eros and Tanna and the gang were actually from Mars. And the Vampire Girl is actually, as far as I can remember, a human woman resurrected as a result of Plan 9. Sue me, I have a thing for goth chicks.

3. Martian Girl (Lisa Marie) -- Mars Attacks (1996)

A star-studded cast, alien invasion, yodeling...it's hard to explain why this never really caught on. If nothing else, it remains note worthy for introducing the concept of the "Kennedy Room."

2. Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) -- John Carter of Mars (2012)

Thoris is a Red Martian princess rescued by the Earthling John Carter from the clutches of the Green Martians in Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom series. The movie is still two years away, which means anything can happen, casting wise, but right now this is who they have slated to play her. She appears to have the requisite...assets.

1, Mary (Lycia Naff) -- Total Recall (1990)

Frankly, after seeing this I'm not so sure "getting your ass to Mars" is all that great an idea. I mean, three breasts is a viable fetish. Three cheeks? Not so much.

The following is NSFW, if you couldn't tell.

To Avatar and Avatar not

This is the third or fourth Hair Balls entry I've had posted on Fark, and I'm actually amused that their commenters now rank above those on YouTube, IMDb, or the Chron in terms of reading comprehension and grammatical ability.

That isn't saying much, of course, and there's still plenty of deliberate or otherwise obtuseness on display. My favorite for this was the person who assumed I was excluding myself from the "doofus with a keyboard and a lingering affection for Aliens" category, which was supposed to make it apparent that my box office predictions for Avatar are about as scientifically reasoned out as 90% of the other internet dipshits out there.

Which is to say, not at all.

Look, I don't want Cameron to fail. The guy may be an egomaniac and an asshole (unlike every other director in Hollywood, apparently), but the man responsible for The Terminator and Aliens gets a lot of slack from me. And while Titanic wasn't my cup of tea, it did what it was supposed to do: transport the audience to that particular White Star liner for three hours. And make a metric fuckton of money.

But I stand by my assertion that - while visually arresting - Avatar just doesn't look all that interesting to me. I have nothing more than a gut feeling telling me it will open decently, and have some legs early on because of people's desire to see it in IMAX. It will probably perform well, but "well" versus almost $2 billion for your previous movie, when this one cost maybe twice as much to make, isn't what Fox is hoping for. And whatever the spin when the smoke clears, not topping Titanic is going to be viewed as a disappointment.

And if it tanks - which I really don't see happening - well, that's going to make December a lot more fun than I was anticipating.

Seriously, the Sword of Omens is a big cock

Geez, it's dead around here lately. Maybe I should start Twittering.

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Reposted from the Houston Press blog:

If you're a child of the '80s, you should probably come to terms with the fact that every beloved televison memory of yours is eventually going to be dragged screaming into the present day and bastardized for younger audiences. We've already seen two Transformers movies and a G.I. Joe adaptation, and a slew of other 1980s properties are reportedly in the works, proving that not only is Hollywood creatively bankrupt, they're dumber than ever. Or maybe I'm the only one who shudders at the idea of a Snorks feature film.

Undaunted, Hair Balls is using the occasion of this week's release of the Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen DVD to look at some likely candidates for big screen revision. And if you find yourself getting bent out of shape, try to remember that most of these were originally created as vehicles for existing toy lines, so it isn't like creative integrity was ever an issue.

Name: Jem and the Holograms

How it Was Pitched to Executives: [Barbie + Marvel Comics' Dazzler] / Rio album cover "artist" Patrick Nagel

The Plot -- In 30 Words or Less: The alter-ego of Starlight Music owner Jerrica Benton, Jem gets into various G-rated hijinx each week while contending with their bitter rivals, the Misfits. No, not those Misfits.

How Could They Possibly Update it For Sophisticated Modern Audiences? Hannah Montana pretty much exhausted the whole "secret singer identity" thing -- without giving Jem credit, I might add. Let Hillary Duff play Jem and just follow her around as she constantly surprises Miley Cyrus and tries to kick her ass.

Name: Thundercats

How it Was Pitched to Executives: Take Superman's origin story, throw in some He-Man style mythology, and -- just because it's the 80s and we're coked out of our eyeballs -- let's make 'em all cats.

The Plot -- In 30 Words or Less: Youthful leader Lion-O leads a feline phalanx in battle against the mutated armies of the dread Mumm-Ra for the mystic Eye of Thundera. Also, his sword is basically a penis.

How Could They Possibly Update it For Sophisticated Modern Audiences? I know it's been "in development" as a CGI feature for the last five years or so, but there's no escaping the furry fetish aspect of this show, so just run with it. Make the world's first big budget action/porno and lure all the fur freaks into their local theaters, where they'll be sitting ducks for the subsequent napalm strikes.

Name: My Little Pony

How it Was Pitched to Executives: Chicks dig horses, so it would follow that little chicks would dig little horses.

The Plot -- In 30 Words or Less: Multicolored ponies frolic and cavort in a magical land where no one is ever rendered into glue or turned into McRibs.

How Could They Possibly Update it For Sophisticated Modern Audiences? Maybe a darker take on the franchise, where the Ponies go to Washington and get revenge on those guys who ran the horse sex farm. Although honestly I doubt you're ever going to beat Robot Chicken's "Apocalypse Ponies."

Name: Voltron

How it Was Pitched to Executives: Big robots combine to make...an even bigger robot.

The Plot -- In 30 Words or Less: Five robots -- or is it twenty -- in the form of lions -- or are they cars? -- what the hell is going on?

How Could They Possibly Update it For Sophisticated Modern Audiences? I think in the post-Michael Bay Transformers era you're only option is to have a crossover where all the robots fight each other until Megan Fox's clothes fall off.

Name: M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand)

How it Was Pitched to Executives: G.I. Joe meets The Transformers and has sex with Silver Spoons.

The Plot -- In 30 Words or Less: Single dad Matt Trakker leads secret task force against the evil V.E.N.O.M., and -- because son Scott is constantly in harm's way -- probably the P.T.A. and C.P.S. as well.

How Could They Possibly Update it For Sophisticated Modern Audiences? Make it a sequel to that other Mask; in the final battle, Rocky Dennis could shock Miles Mayhem by revealing that his "mask" is actually his hideously deformed face.

This is why the 21st century sucks

Proof positive that Halle Berry is a succubus who leeched away all of Adrien Brody's good sense with that kiss:

In a surprise development, Adrien Brody has been set by 20th Century Fox to play the heroic mercenary who battles alien hunters in "Predators," a reboot of the "Predator" franchise that is being creatively spearheaded by Robert Rodriguez.

Brody will star with Alice Braga, Danny Trejo, Walt Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, and Louiz Ozawa.

Nimrod Antal is directing a film that is about to get underway on location in Hawaii and at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas.

Fox has set the film for release July 9, 2010.

Best known for his Oscar-winning turn in the Roman Polanski-directed "The Pianist," Brody has an opportunity to reinvent himself as a flat out action hero, playing a character close to the one that Arnold Schwarzenegger portrayed in the 1987 original.

Brody and his Paradigm reps lobbied hard for the role. Fox has high hopes to spring a new franchise, and Brody has signed options to return for future installments, sources said.

Predator is as close to 80s movie perfection as you can get. I have little faith in Rodriguez ever wrenching himself away from making Spy Kids and Sin City sequels long enough to do this, but if he does, I'm going to drive to Austin and bleed him, real quiet, and leave him there.

I mean, come on:

Brody, your Best Actor statuette is dwarfed by the titanic awesomeness of Blain. Fuck off back to Skull Island.

Feel Like (Re-)Making Love

There was (understandably) little fanfare, but I'm now the Houston Press "pop culture blogger" following the retirement of Jennifer "Miss Pop Rocks" Mathieu. The Powers That Be were apparently attached enough to the "Pop Rocks" part to just keep calling it that. Whatever, here's the latest column.
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If you're into recycling, you're going to love the next few years. Starting this week (Fame) and going into 2012 and beyond, moviegoers will be "treated" to remakes of such movies as The Birds, Fahrenheit 451, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Wolfman, The Karate Kid (rechristened Kung Fu Kid), The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Footloose, to name but a few. Many more are rumored to be in the works (I can't be the only one looking forward to a new Silent Night, Deadly Night). And that's ignoring the dozens of do-overs that have been already released in the last decade.

Whatever your feelings on the matter, remakes serve an important purpose. They allow studios to rake in money without requiring them to put any effort into plot or script, for starters. Remakes also spare us -- the viewing audience -- the inconvenience of having to discover movies that were released more than fifteen years ago or try to comprehend anything more complicated than the half dozen plots we're already comfortable with. Finally, without our love of making the same films over and over again, Eddie Murphy's career would have ended shortly after Coming to America.

Aside from old movies, Hollywood often looks overseas for their "inspiration." This is often the case with horror remakes, and specifically for Asian and European titles (though the passage of 20 years has made 80s flicks like Nightmare on Elm Street and My Bloody Valentine fair game as well). This was understandable when foreign titles were difficult to obtain domestically, but now the only justification appears to be a mutually agreed upon laziness pact between filmmakers and audiences.

I say, enough pussyfooting around. Buying the rights to an obscure Japanese horror movie and signing some jerkweed music video director to helm it is easy. What we need are movie producers like J.L. Warner and Louis B. Mayer: men with the balls to say, "If we're going to do this, let's go all in by God." Here are a few ideas to get started:

Casablanca 2012
Set in Rick's, the hottest dance club in Miami, we follow the eponymous club owner (played by Jay-Z) as he attempts to reconcile with his old flame (Beyonce) as the world around them descends into chaos following the Heat winning the NBA championship. He receives advice from "Sam," a spectral presence only he can see/hear, played by a CGI Humphrey Bogart.

The Vertigo Limit
It's "Verti-whoa" when skydiving cop Keanu Reeves develops acrophobia after a botched hijacking. He becomes a private detective, and his first assignment is tailing "X Games" star Maddy Elster (Kim Kardashian), who leads him on a thrill-packed, extreme sports-laden jaunt across the country, culminating in -- what else? -- the North American Skydiving Championship in San Juan Bautista.

Burn Atlanta Burn
There's only one man who can update Gone With the Wind, but without all the romance and chit-chat, and that's Michael Bay. The burning of Atlanta would take up the entire second and most of the third act (what with all the slo-mo) and end with Tara exploding into atoms after Prissy (Cuba Gooding Jr. in drag) accidentally ignites a cache of hidden Confederate gunpowder. With Megan Fox as Scarlett.

Citizen Kane - The Smackdown
The epic story of a man (played by WWE star Glenn "Kane" Jacobs, of course) who enters the world of professional wrestling in order to serve the public good, then slowly turns into one of the ring's leading villains. His only companion on this journey is his trusty folding chair, "Rosebud."

Da Bike Thieves
A bold "reimagining" of Vittoria Di Sica's 1948 classic showcases Vin Diesel, Channing Tatum, and Jessica Alba as a gang who specialize in ripping off high end motorcycles. When their own custom Ducatis are stolen (in an ironic twist), they must hunt the perpetrators down...with extreme prejudice.

Larry of Arabia
Look out, Prince Feisal: T.A. "Larry" Lawrence (Larry the Cable Guy) is here to show you crazy Ay-rabs how they settle their disputes in the South: with lots of sort-of dirty jokes and scantily clad ladies. Join Larry and his flatulent camel "Cooter" as they git-r-done and unite those pesky tribes.

"Sometimes a Madea is forced to defend her honor."

Seriously though, what the fuck?

I guess this means there are going to be a lot more rapes than your average Tyler Perry flick.

Labor Day, Shmabor Day

Another Hair Balls entry, because all the white space at the bottom of the page makes me sad.

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It's Labor Day, and if you're inside reading blogs instead of grilling meat and ripping bong hits by a pool somewhere, or if you're -- shudder -- actually working, you have our sympathies. And even those unfortunate enough not to have today off are hopefully in a better bargaining position than the Pullman workers whose 1894 strike led to the holiday's creation (we also trust everyone loudly opposing our government's policies aren't observing this holiday, in protest of its socialist origins).

And for all of you who aren't able to enjoy the fruits of this day, which has gone from an occasion to celebrate the American worker to the demarcation of the the start of football season, hopefully your jobs are better than these:

Piss Boy (Mel Brooks) -- History of the World: Part I (1981)

The Early Modern French equivalent of the executive assistant. Both are wholly degrading and thankless positions, and yet you still have to get dressed up to do them. Buckets have been replaced with Blackberries in contemporary office settings.

Spider (Michael Imperioli) -- Goodfellas (1990)

I feel for Spider, I really do. The kid had what they used to call "moxie," but not a lot in the way of brains, unless I'm missing something and jawing off to the guy who previously shot you in the foot is considered a Wise Move.

Milton Waddams (Stephen Root) -- Office Space (1999)

Of all the jobs on the list, this is the one that will likely hit home for most. Milton's also the guy whose actions we'd most like to emulate, for while Peter felt remorse for unleashing the "Superman 3" virus on Initech and actually made amends, Milton burned the goddamned building down and headed south of the border with the loot. Peter may have been the handsome protagonist, but Milton personified the impotent rage all cubicle jockeys feel.

Oola (Femi Taylor) -- The Return of the Jedi (1983)

Given the choice between playing tonsil hockey with Jabba or getting messily devoured by the rancor, I'm honestly not sure what I'd choose. But aside from her ignominious death, the character of Oola also serves to perpetuate the geek community's longstanding love for green-skinned women.

Benson (Jerold Wells) -- Time Bandits (1981)

The ultimate representation of corporate sycophancy, the Smithers to Evil's Mr. Burns, Benson gets the shaft repeatedly throughout the movie, yet always comes back happily for more, like the fine lickspittle he is. Evil's penultimate insult -- turning him into a sheepdog -- is merely the final manifestation of capitalist subjugation, as he becomes the literal "running dog" of Communist propaganda.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Snow job

Normally I'd be happy about Hollywood tackling a comic book property not associated with Marvel or DC or containing the suffix "-Man" in the title, especially when the work in question is by one of my favorite writers: Greg Rucka.

However, having seen the trailers for the upcoming Whiteout, it's obvious Warner Bros. is trying to market the movie as something it ain't. First, watch the teaser. It's not the official trailer, but it'll do:

We'll leave aside the not at all gratuitous shower scene and go straight to lines like "Nature is not the only thing to fear" and "We hit something big," which would seem to indicate something...inhuman lurking in the frigid shadows and waiting for the right moment to lunge forth and snatch our unsuspecting Marshal.

Of course, if you've actually read the book, you know Whiteout isn't a monster movie at all (or a remake of The Thing, which The Wife suggested the producers were trying to suggest here), but simply a murder mystery set in the world's most inhospitable climate. And even though - judging by the preview and some of the IMDb credits - they may be incorporating elements of Rucka's sequel, Melt, there still aren't any nonhuman bad guys. It's a very good story, but I can't help thinking people are going to be disappointed when the comparatively mundane plot is revealed.

A few other things. To start with, I like Kate Beckinsdale just fine, but she's hardly how Steve Lieber and Rucka originally envisioned the character of Carrie Stetko:

Beckinsdale is a little softer around the ages:

Of course, they were originally considering Reese Witherspoon for the role. But if they stay faithful to the plot it should be a decent flick. A trailer fixated on crashing planes and blizzard-y destruction doesn't fill me with optimism, however.

But probably my biggest complaint has nothing to do with casting the main character, and everything to do with eliminating the one that - to me - proved most interesting. In the movie, Gabriel Macht plays a "U.N. operative" named Robert Pryce. Arguably the most interesting character in the book was a British agent named Lily Sharpe. It was never officially confirmed (and Rucka has actually backpedaled on the subject), but speculation was pretty heavy that Sharpe was actually another Rucka character named Tara Chace, who has her own series of comics and novels (going by the title Queen & Country).

I realize it changes almost nothing about the plot to make the character male, except to inject some elements of previously nonexistent romantic tension and to bow to focus group bullshit that says "America won't watch a movie with two female leads." It's just annoying, and I get annoyed pretty easily these days.

"Do you have that one with that guy who was in that movie that was out last year? "

My visit to the video store was about to prove fruitless, I feared. There were no Blu-Ray copies, not that I'd expected there to be any, and searches in both the horror and sci-fi sections led nowhere.

Nearing despondency, I approached the clerk.

Clerk: are you ready to check out?
Me: Actually, I needed to check on the availability of a title.
Clerk: Which one?
Me: Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus.
Clerk: Hey, we have that. [he starts walking out to the shelves]
Me: Where is it, in 'Drama?'
Clerk: *snickers*
Me: Don't believe me? Keep your eyes on next year's Oscar nominations.
Clerk: [finds the DVD] Here we go. There were three copies.
Me: Sweet.
Clerk: [snickers...again]
Me: You know, it's not generally considered sound business practice to mock your customers' tastes.
Clerk: At least it wasn't Navy SEALS.

Finally, someone who appreciates the classics.

"Oh, you're so cool Brewster!"

As an up-until-recently with it Movie Guy, I feel I should offer some [belated] correction to the two young men loudly discussing the movie Fright Night in the YMCA weight room this afternoon.

1. For starters, the movie was released in 1985, not "a long fucking time ago," as one of you - the wannabe alpha male with the lousy form on your preacher curls - described it. Why, I remember '85 like it was yesterday, and just because neither of you were actually born at the time is no excuse not to familiarize yourselves with the era that brought us Back the Future and Commando.

2. And what are you talking about; "Nobody was in it?" What about Roddy McDowall, Chris (first husband of Susan) Sarandon, Amanda "Marcy D'Arcy" Bearse, or...the guy who went on to make gay porn? And are you seriously telling me you've never heard of writer-director Tom "Child's Play" Holland? What kind of heathens are you?

3. Finally, Fright Night is hardly accurately described as an "old ass horror movie," as you both so blithely dismissed it. Did you know they were making scary movies all the way back at the turn of the (20th) century? Were you aware that most films of the genre released by the 80s were - necessarily - derivations and remakes of true classics like the Universal horror movies of the 1930s and the Cold War analogs of the 1950s? Of course you don't, because you're a couple of high school meatheads whose historical perspective, on film or anything, begins with the first season of American Idol.

And not being able to bench as much as a 40-year old man is pretty sad, frankly. Don't think the lifeguards stuck inside because of the rain didn't notice.

"Why do they call you 'Meat'?"

A youth almost entirely (mis)spent watching bad movies does strange things to a person, as The Wife and I discovered last night. We were dozing through the local news, specifically the story about how a grand jury declined to indict a Metro cop in a fatal shooting outside the Medical Center. Metro chief Thomas Lambert spoke in support of the officer in question, one R.L. Harrington. That, in and of itself, isn't surprising. No, the interesting part of the story - to me anyway - was Lambert's resemblance to a certain 80s teen comedy villain.

This is Chief Lambert:

This is Wallacetown, FL entrepeneur "Porky" Wallace:

Not pictured: Ms. Beulah Balbricker

I guess the destruction of his riverboat casino at the hands of Pee Wee and Tommy and the gang finally convinced him to turn over a new leaf.

There is no later. This is later.

The trailer for The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, hit last night. It's, uh, interesting:

That beginning is some Day After Tomorrow bullshit, there.

The Road is an incredibly powerful book, and while I won't go into too much detail (for the benefit of those of who haven't read it) I will say a big part of that came from how McCarthy never explicitly described the cataclysm that led to the death of the planet and the collapse of civilization. I've heard rumors that the Weinstein Company, at a loss for how to market a movie based on a book as desolate as this, are trying to fool audiences into thinking it's some kind of post-apocalyptic action movie. Apparently Harvey is hoping people will make the titular association with The Road Warrior and not notice that the bad guys here, while lacking mohawks and motorcycles, are a thousand times more terrifying than Wez or the Humungus. If you look closely you'll notice the same sequence (Viggo and son hiding behind the leaves) is used four times. Then again, they obviously...enhanced Theron's role, so I'm not sure what to think.

Some reviews have already come out, and I hear they're pretty glowing (I don't read a movie's reviews before I've seen it), so hopefully this is just a clumsy marketing scheme. I thought Hillcoat's earlier film, The Proposition, was pretty damn good, so I'll maintain soeme cautious optimism.

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU...

We can finally, at long last, say with authority that nothing is sacred:

Joining the legions of remakes of '80s action movies is a new take on "Missing in Action," the Chuck Norris vehicle in which he blazes his guns throughout Southeast Asia, liberating prisoners of war.

This version, for MGM, will be updated, like most of the new action reboots including "Rambo," to reflect contemporary realities. The movie will be set in the current Iraq war and involve an action hero on a mission in the Middle East.

The original "Missing in Action" centered on Col. James Braddock (Norris), a POW of the Viet Cong who escapes Southeast Asia and then heads back to liberate other U.S. captives. Two related features -- a prequel and a sequel -- were released after MGM's 1984 hit. (The third film was directed by Aaron Norris, brother of the Texas Ranger.)

First of all, last year's Rambo wasn't a reboot, it was a straight-up sequel. A reboot implies redoing or replaying a character's origin. Rambo gave us the character 20 years after the last movie (where he single-handedly empowered the Taliban to attack the United States). Second, who's Braddock 2.0 supposed to be liberating? Turkish Kurds?

Then again, it's not like anybody's really going to see it:

The studio's plan is to release the new film directly to home video rather than to theaters. In an interesting twist, though, the co-producer/co-financier of the project is World Wrestling Entertainment, which has been expanding its action-movie slate under its WWE Studios banner. Movies like "12 Rounds," a kidnapping tale starring John Cena, are set for theatrical release.

Which means you can count on either Cena, Chris Jericho, or possibly The Big Show to star. WWE Studios really dropped the ball. Had they pushed this even five years ago they could've smelled what the Rock was cooking.

And then it got...unpleasant:

The screenplay for "Missing in Action" is being written by Jeremy Passmore and Andre Fabrizio. Passmore also is writing "Red Dawn," another updated reboot of an MGM title about an '80s military threat.

Look, I'm not going to lie and say Missing in Action or Red Dawn (or Rambo and Invasion U.S.A.) are great - or even good - cinema. But they're ours, goddamnit: released during a unique era in our history, and still discussed and written about 25 years later because of that. The inherently lazy nature of remakes encounters a singular flaw when it comes to Cold War action flicks, because while the concept of Cubans parachuting into Colorado was...sketchy in 1984, the idea of al Qaeda doing it in 2009 approaches science fiction.

Seriously, are Eastern European gangsters really the greatest threat to national security? Say what you want about John Milius and George P. Cosmatos, at least they knew that casting Soviets as the bad guys in 1984 would hit home with audiences. Islamic fundamentalism may not be the same sort of monolithic entity personified by the USSR, but I think most of us can agree they don't wish us well.

So quit stealing my generation's shitty xeonophobic flicks, you assholes. With "actors" like Channing Tatum and Paul Walker and "directors" like McG and Paul W.S. Anderson, you're more than equipped.

For your geeky perusal

Here's my **** Star Trek review as well as my latest entry for Hair Balls, which highlights the five Regrettable Star Trek Moments (Original Cast Only).

Because I didn't have three months to put together a list of comparable TNG moments.

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In case you've spent the last six months in the Vault of Tomorrow with a crate of Romulan ale, there's a new Star Trek movie coming out. And after 20-odd years of dealing with the Enterprise-D and dry Next Generation style shenanigans, it's nice to see the old crew, even if it is in name only.

This isn't to say the original cast has nothing to be embarrassed about. If anything, it was almost impossible to whittle the list down to just five.

5. "Way to Eden" -- TOS Season 3 (1969)

The only things worse than hippies are space hippies. And there's not much funnier than watching perpetual movie tough guy Charles Napier wearing a miniskirt and strumming a space lute. He would later make up for it by portraying "General Denning" on Deep Space Nine.

4. "KHAAAAN!" -- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Widely, and correctly, regarded as the best Trek film, Wrath nonetheless suffers from this widely parodied scene, which is perhaps the purest exemplar of Shatner's particular talents.

3. "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" -- TOS Season 3 (1969)

You doubt the prejudice-ending advice dispensed by a man who kissed a black woman? No wonder your world destroyed itself.

2. The Flying Vulcan -- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

The last few original cast Trek movies started feeling a lot like latter era Roger Moore Bond movies, what with a couple of almost-60 year olds bouncing around the universe with an almost gleeful disregard for their own ridiculousness. This scene captures all of that in a scant 20 seconds.

1. The Death of Kirk -- Star Trek Generations (1994)

Producer Rick Berman never exhibited any particular love for the original series, so giving Kirk such an ignominious demise (falling off a cliff) instead of having him at the helm of the Enterprise, flying it kamikaze-style into the Klingon homeworld while simultaneously banging an Orion slave girl and Yeoman Rand, is hardly surprising. It's still inexcusable, however.

Wolverines

Hundreds of thousands of Wolverines:

The FBI are investigating the online leak of an almost finished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a month before the film's cinema release.

The Hugh Jackman film was downloaded an estimated several 100,000 times from file sharing websites on Tuesday.

20th Century Fox confirmed the copy had now been removed and the FBI informed.

The studio behind Wolverine stated: "The source of the initial leak and any subsequent postings will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Not to get all Fezzik on Fox here, but I don't think the phrase "the copy has now been removed" means what they think it means. That sucker's on more computers than Conficker by now, and the only thing left to do is speculate about how badly this is going to hurt the movie's box office when it opens May 1.

Fox called the leaked movie a "stolen, incomplete and early version".

Viewers reported that green screens and wires attached to actors were still visible.

One user wrote on film website aintitcool.com: "The CGI is missing and the movie looks horrible without it.

"Even if you see the workprint you're still going to have to go see it in the theatre to fully experience the full movie with CGI effects fully intact."

Far be it from me to disagree with the erudite and well-spoken denizens of an AICN talkback, but the negative word-of-mouth I've been hearing about the movie has little to do with crude explosion animations or temporary music. After all, Iron Man made $319 million domestically after a finished, DVD-quality version was leaked online a week before release.

That's an important distinction. Just about any major Hollywood film (and plenty of smaller ones) are available to download a week or so before they actually hit theaters. The main differences between these and the Wolverine fiasco are that they're 1) usually 2nd or 3rd generation copies someone videotaped in a theater in Hangzhou, and 2) not reported by the freaking BBC and New York Times.

I haven't seen the workprint (no, really), aside from the opening credits and I can definitely understand why people would want to experience a full, finished movie in a theater, if only to see things going "kaboom" and to hear what awesome accompaniment composer Harry Gregson-Williams puts together for Hugh Jackman's numerous shirtless rage scenes. It's not like you could, I don't know, hook your PC up to your 50" Pioneer and watch it free of crying babies and cell phones.

I don't condone piracy (no, really), and I think I've mentioned before that as an aspiring writer I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of not reimbursing someone if you enjoy their words/music/movies. That said, the critic in me is laughing my ass off. What's that, Fox? You mean in spite of making me check my cell phone at the door, spying on me during screenings with night-vision scopes, and outright refusing to screen a growing number of movies in advance for the press, someone on your end leaked one of the most anticipated movies of the year on the internet? You mean the hugely lax security procedures in your own houses that allow interns and PAs to walk home with burned DVDs actually caused more harm than my review that came out Thursday instead of Friday? You mean instead of a handful of studio friendly hacks like Peter Travers and Ben Lyons you have to now deal with the sputtering outrage of thousands of fanboys who don't like what you've done with their beloved Deadpool? Boo fucking hoo.

Although several reviews of the incomplete film have appeared online, Fox was quick to praise the reaction of web users to the leak.

"We are encouraged by the support of fansites condemning piracy and this illegal posting and pointing out that such theft undermines the enormous efforts of the filmmakers and actors and, above all, hurts fans of the film" the studio said.

In 2007 director Eli Roth blamed an online leak of his horror film Hostel: Part II for reducing box office returns.

And this is a valid comparison because a shit sequel to a shit torture movie that 99% of downloaders had no intention of buying tickets for anyway and one of the biggest potential blockbusters of 2009 starring one of the biggest stars on the planet are totally the same.

In an interview with MTV [Roth] claimed: "You could buy Hostel: Part II for a quarter in Mexico City. As a result, in a lot of countries where the piracy was bad, they just didn't even release it."

Even in a country where civilians and tourists are routinely robbed and murdered, some things - like allowing the general public to see Hostel: Part II - simply aren't done. Who says Mexico is uncivilized?

Of wild rumpuses

In a dramatic 180 from my previous entry, let me just say that I'm actually - against my better judgment - looking forward to this:

Where the Wild Things Are is one of my favorite childhood books, which numbers me among countless millions. I assumed Jonze would muck it up, even if I had no real reason to think that - Being John Malkovich and Adaptation are both very good films, after all, and the guy knows his way around a Beastie Boys video. For me, the trailer strikes just the right balance between real world and whimsical. There's obviously been some fleshing out, but unlike other recent efforts to beef up children's book narratives (The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat spring to mind), everything here seems to fit.

And if nothing else, they got Max's outfit exactly right. We'll see on October 16.

Why I oughta...

I don't care that various movie blogs are reporting it.

I don't care that Entertainment Weekly is reporting it.

I don't care that the goddamned New York Times is reporting it.

Yahweh himself could assume the form of Shemp Howard, descend from on high and whack me in the face with a pipe wrench while permamently giving me a bowl haircut and I'd still refuse to believe all these reports about a Three Stooges movie (directed by the fucking Farrelly Brothers) are anything more than a cruel and elaborate April Fool's Day hoax:

According to Variety, Sean Penn -- coming off his best actor Oscar win -- is set to play Larry; Jim Carrey is in negotiations to play Curly; and Benicio Del Toro is being considered to play Moe. In development, first at Columbia, then at Warner Bros., the project is now at MGM, which says that production will begin in early fall for a 2010 release.

The immediate reaction in Hollywood was, well, a big yawn. MGM keeps making big splashy announcements about upcoming projects, but it's hard to find anyone in town who believes that the studio has the money to make a credible number of movies. Most insiders suspect that this was yet another carefully crafted announcement story aimed at persuading Wall Street that MGM could somehow put together a slate of films with real movie stars.
[...]
As for the casting, Penn has said for years that he'd like to star in what Variety would call a "laugher," having been in comedy jail ever since he costarred with Robert De Niro in the monumentally un-funny 1989 comedy "We're No Angels." If Carrey is actually in negotiations to play Curly (Variety says the actor has already made plans to gain 40 pounds to belly-up to Curly's ample girth), it would be a coup for the actor, who is currently off most studios' comedy A-lists, having fallen out of favor because of shaky box-office performances in recent years, which has led studio execs to believe that comedy audiences are more interested in Judd Apatow-style relationship comedies than Carrey-style high jinks. But in his defense, his recent movie "Yes Man" posted strong numbers both here and overseas.

Some ideas are so catastrophically awful that it is the responsibility of saner minds to step in and put an stop to them before serious damage is done. When they don't, you get things like Goober Grape and Operation Barbarossa. If this story is real, someone at MGM needs to intervene before it becomes necessary to land Marines in Los Angeles.

"Drugs?"

The other night I was watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the first time in, oh, fifteen years and it holds up reasonably well. Though I must say, the passage of time and my own parenthood has made me sympathize less with the rich, suburban twerp and more with embattled principal Ed Rooney, who wants nothing more than to wrest control of his school from the little shit with the Cabaret Voltaire posters and shower mohawk.

And Cameron is a creepy bastard.

But I digress. The important thing about the movie, and indeed all things, is how it relates to me. To make a long story short, I was hit on by a young lady at the UT Honors Colloquium in 1986 solely because I reminded her of Charlie Sheen's character from the movie. Which is to say, this guy:

Ah, the hair, the leather jacket, the creepy sexual predator gaze...yes, this is what got me the 80s ladies. Though in all fairness, the woman in question proved to be a person of otherwise impeccable tastes who ended up being a friend who reads this blog on occasion and I should probably just shut the hell up.

Anyway...Ferris Bueller...decent flick. Maybe I'll rewatch it in 2024 when I've completely morphed into Ferris' dad.

Truth is stranger than Extras

Once more, with Überzeugung:

"Schindler's bloody List, The Pianist... Oscars coming out of their arses."

The Academy is...

So our friend Tanya is in an Oscar contest where the tiebreaker is the question of who's hotter: Anne Hathaway or Kate Winslet. And I think we can all agree the answer is: Viola Davis.

On with the show (newest entries listed first)...

10:57 - As for the previews:
Sherlock Holmes - meh
The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 - How fucking dare you?
Public Enemies - Could be cool
The Soloist - Looks like a Kirk Lazarus movie from Tropic Thunder
Up - 2010 Best Animated Film
Fame - Whatever...
Terminator: Salvation - Crap
Amelia - Swank's next Best Actress nom
Inglourious Basterds - QT has been writing this for 14 years. Can it really be any good?
Monsters vs. Aliens - 2010 Best Animated Film...no, wait.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - They made movies out of these?
Angels and Demons - Ewan McGregor enters the Cathedral of Suck.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - Didn't the first Ice Age have a human kid in it? Kirk Cameron must be producing.
State of Play - Russell Crowe is: the unkempt journalist; Ben Affleck is: the philandering Congressman; together they try to invalidate the opposition's legitimate claim that a guy who lies to his wife might not be the honest statesman he presents himself to be.

10:43 - Didn't see the Penn win coming. You Commie, homo-loving sons-of-guns have no respect for dead chihuahuas.

10:42 - Kingsley talking about Randy "The Ram" Robinson sounds like a guy describing his own post-Uwe Boll career.

10:39 - DeNiro gets the line of the night. That almost makes up for Righteous Kill.

Except it doesn't, really.

10:33 - 6th time's a charm.

10:27 - Shirley MacLaine paraphrased: "Anne Hathaway, because you're not afraid to get naked." Kate Winslet gets naked more though, so she's going to win.

But Melissa Leo ought to.

10:20 - Danny, have you heard about the Smoker's Toothpaste?

10:13 - Damn, Paul Newman...

10:02 - I finally figured it out: giving award to all these non-English speakers means the speeches will be that much shorter. Well played, Sid Ganis

9:56 - What was Peter Gabriel's complaint again? That they were going to cut his WALL^E song down to a 65-second snippet? That's verboten but giving it to Party of Five and AT&T somehow bolsters your artistic integrity? Fuck off.

9:41 - Damn, Eddie Murphy looks good. That said, they're going to screw up their land speed record with all these tributes.

And while I've never liked Jerry Lewis' movies, he absolutely deserve the kudos for the MD Telethon.

9:34 - I take back my comments at...earlier; they're blowing through the ceremony tonight. This is the best work Will Smith has had since Ali.

9:27 - I don't normally care about Visual Effects, but fuck a Benjamin Button. Iron Man had a "visual effect" in practically every goddamn scene.

9:25 - The action montage is the only place you'll seen Rambo in the Oscars. More's the pity.

9:22 - When did Tom Cruise get funny? That's annoying.

9:18 - First Martin, now Bill Maher mocking our religious institutions. I blame Obama.

9:14 - Man on Wire, bet on it.

9:07 - Look at the audience being extra careful not to look unserious during the Heath Ledger award.

9:03 - I heartily endorse this Beyonce-in-a-skimpy-outfit musical number and/or product.

8:56 - And I'm as sick of Apatow as anyone, but the Pineapple Kaminski thing was pretty damn funny.

8:55 - Okay, back. Did they really do the Joaquin Phoenix gag the night after they did the same thing on the Independent Spirit Awards? Really?

8:27 - I think the "Romance" montage is as good a time as any to take a break...

8:18 - I guess Benjamin Button has to win something.

8:10 - I'm pretty sure it's not racist if a Japanese guy says "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto."

8:04 - And they did. How...unsatisfying.

8:03 - Jennifer Aniston? Cut to Brad and Angelina! Cut to Brad and Angelina!

8:02 - Annnnnd 3 for 3. Thrill as I pick Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor.

7:57 - Since I acknowledged the odds favored Cruz, I'm maintaining that I'm 2 for 2.

7:54 - The fact that Steve Martin can make fun of Scientology at the Oscars and still make crap like Pink Panther 2 is, in a word, annoying.

7:50 - 20 minutes in and we're through one frigging award. Opening another bottle.

7:45 - If we're going to spend five minutes on each nominaton this is going to last until 2 AM. Just give it to Penelope Cruz.

7:43 - Nice sack, Tilda.

7:38 - Just kidding. I can't stay mad at you, Hugh.

7:37 - I never thought I'd be looking back fondly on the Rob Lowe-Snow White opening number.

7:31 - Look at the lustful gleam in every woman's eyes. I think I could try gay for Hugh Jackman.
Because it's a choice, you know.

7:27 - Robin Roberts has her tickets...to the GUN SHOW

7:24 - I agree with Tim Gunn and Mickey Rourke: I like Marisa Tomei in either state of dressedness.

"I got some unfinished business in Missouri."

If I have to be up at midnight on Sunday for an unspecified work-related issue, at least I can flip back and forth between Unforgiven and The Outlaw Josey Wales and remind myself how lame I am to be living in the 21st century and not have a job that involves riding a horse and shooting people in the face for decorating their saloon with my friend.

I love Clint. Enough to forgive him for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Absolute Power, anyway.

"Try having that conversation on 'shrooms! I deserve an Oscar for that performance."

Re-watching Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, I realize the truth of that statement. For if Robert Downey, Jr. can get nominated for playing an erstwhile black man, surely NPH deserves some kudos for playing a hallucinogen-abusing poon hound.

Whatever, here's who's going to win the Academy Award on Sunday.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire - Weinstein's 11th hour Reader push won't pan out, especially for a Holocaust movie that makes the Germans sympathetic.
Best Director: Danny Boyle - See above.
Best Actor: Mickey Rourke - Don't get me wrong; Sean Penn was fantastic in Milk, but Rourke's story speaks to anybody in Hollywood who fears the icy immersion of obsolescence. Which is to say: everybody in Hollywood. Also wins the dead dog sympathy vote.
Best Actress: Kate Winslet - The Academy slips into "We've Nominated Her A Bunch of Time And She Hasn't Won Yet" mode, Melissa Leo should win this, by rights. And Frozen River should be nominated for BP.
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon...ha ha, not really. In case anyone cares, Josh Brolin was really fucking good, too.
Best Supporting Actress: I know the odds are on Penelope Cruz, but I still maintain she's not really all that great, so I'm going with Viola Davis. Somebody from the Doubt ensemble needs to win.
Best Animated Feature: Wall*E - There are many who think this should've been nominated for Best Picture. I'm not one of them.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Screenplay: Milk It is a really good movie, it oughta win something...

"If you've ever seen a bald Corey Feldman, you've seen me."

Another Friday the 13th has come and gone. Thanks to various coincidences and an ancient Aztec curse, I always end up writing something about the movies of the same name around this time. I never would have categorized myself as a huge fan, but I have seen all of them and can name my favorites in the series (Part VI: Jason Lives, the original, and Jason X) as well as other esoterica (Best death? Either the sleeping bag from Part VII or face in the nitrogen from X) which I guess is all you need in order to qualify as an "expert" at something in the entertainment world.

Anyway, here's your Ft13 wrap-up:

Capsule reviews of the movies (excepting Freddy vs. Jason, which I have now seen and would give a "C")
Friday the 13th: The Best Kills - Hair Balls entry with relevant YouTube clips
My review of the Friday the 13th remake ** - In which I express my admiration for Michael Bay

Finally, The Thing that Walks Like a Man sent me a link to this, which is a nice little mash-up of the 13th movies and The Wrestler. Significant amounts of gore are included, so be warned.

Now we have to wait until November March (duh) to do it all over again.

Hello Balls - 2/10/2009

It's great when Friday the 13th comes the same week as Valentine's Day, because not only do I get to do the expected V-Day blog entries for Hair Balls, I also have to whip up something about Mr. Voorhees. APCB traffic will therefore be a little light this week.

In the meantime, here's some of what I've been writing elsewhere.

Film Threat Reviews:

He's Just Not That Into You **1/2 - Ben Affleck looks like he got one of those tooth jobs a la Matt Dillon in There's Something About Mary.
Notorious *1/2 - I eagerly await Suge Knight's competing Tupac biopic.
Marley & Me *1/2 - Am I the only one horrified by a completely untrained dog repeatedly knocking over little kids?
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button **1/2 - Eric Roth takes another Gump on audiences.

Hair Balls:

For February: The Five Best Blaxploitation Epics (2/9/2009)
For Groundhog Day -- The Five Best Movie Rodents (2/2/2009)
The Five Best Super Bowl Movies (1/30/2009)
A New Werewolf Movie Is Out: Can It Stack Up With The Five Best? (1/26/2009)
"I Do Solemnly Swear": Five Best Swearing-In Scenes (1/20/2009)
The Five Worst Best (Recent) Pictures (1/19/2009)
As All Eyes Turn To Austin, We Present The Five Best Austin Movies (1/13/2009)
In Honor Of The Defunct Penthouse Club, The Five Best Strip Club Scenes (1/8/2009)
Top Five Movie New Year's Eve Parties (12/30/2008)
Five Worst Hangovers In The Movies (12/26/2008)
The Five Worst Christmas Parties In The Movies (12/17/2008)
Five Christmas Movies Guaranteed To Get Rid Of Unwanted Guests (12/16/2008)
In Memory Of Mr. Buck: Five Deer Who Fought Back (12/11/2009)

Jesus, I need to post updates a little more frequently. Older entries after the jump.

What History Tells Us: Five Black Presidents (11/6/2008)
Five Types of Horror Movies That Suck (10/31/2008)
Five Scariest Movie Moments You Probably Haven't Seen (10/31/2008)
The Five Worst Basketball Movies of All Time (10/29/2008)
Five Movie Presidents Worse Than W. (10/21/2008)
Ten Possible Reasons for the Cowboys Missing the Playoffs (10/15/2008)
Top Five Beatdowns in Houston Sports (10/9/2008)
The Disappearing Local Film Critic (10/9/2008)
NASA at 50: Five Bad Astronaut Movies (10/2/2008)
When Trees Attack: In Movies & Real Life (10/1/2008)
Houston on the TV: The Top Five (9/11/2008)
Slo-Mo Football Movie Finales: The Top Five (9/9/2008)
Top Five Houstonians as Hurricanes (8/29/2008)
The Top Five Ballsiest Actors from Texas (8/27/2008)
Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

He may not be that into you, but his farm implement soon will be

Saw He's Just Not That Into You tonight. It's produced by New Line Cinema. This isn't really important until you remember that trailers attached to new releases are generally for movies being released by the same company. As it happens, the only thing New Line has coming down the pike is Michael Bay's Friday the 13th remake, so the young ladies assembled to swoon over Ben Affleck were also treated to a few judicious machete murders.

I'm seeing F13 next week, but the trailer served a greater purpose tonight in that it allowed me to endure the ensuing 120 minutes by imagining Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long messily beheaded by a thyroid case in a hockey mask.

"SnakePlissken6969 gave it five stars!"

Basshole brought up a good point in the comments for my 2008 top 10 movie entry, though probably not intentionally:

I just have to say I was rather underwhelmed by Dark Knight (but loved Batman Returns). You can be frenetic and still tell a story; this wasn't it. Ledger WAS good, though I wonder how much attention that would've gotten if he didn't have the good fortune to drop dead.

This was followed up by a similar comment from Emily. And while I'm as big a fan of Michelle Pfeiffer in a catsuit as anyone, I assume both of you were referring to Batman Begins.

Anyway, part of the disconnect that comes from critics praising a movie highly and, say, somebody seeing it a few weeks or months after that fact certainly has a lot to do with the tyranny of elevated expectations. I saw The Dark Knight a good two weeks before release. There had been rumors about Ledger's performance and how well-crafted it was to that point, but nothing like the orgy of critical acclaim that was to come shortly thereafter.

Fast forward a month or so, words like "masterpiece" and "epic" have been bandied about in reviews, and you might be heading in assuming the film in question is as fan-fucking-tastic as everyone is saying. Trouble is, that's almost never the case: partly because almost no movie is ever that good (and certainly not if your benchmark for criticism is Peter Travers or Jeffrey Lyons), but mostly because you can't help yourself from at least unconsciously believing something receiving so much praise must be pretty damned good. I know that happens to me all the time, the most recent example being The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

I still think Ledger's performance would be getting a lot of attention, however.

You're the Top (Ten) - 2008

This year's list (released before February, so it's not entirely irrelevant) may be the last semi-comprehensive one I'm able to do for a while. I've scaled back my reviewing duties recently, all in preparation for what will likely be - at the least - and extended shutdown when the twins arrive. Even in '08, I missed a lot. Here's the best of what I saw.

10. Doubt - John Patrick Shanley rises above the legacy of Congo and Joe vs. the Volcano. And I say this as someone who really likes Joe vs. the Volcano.

9. Rambo - There is no god but the M2 .50 caliber, and Rambo is its prophet. Stallone's most famous character not named after a flying squirrel and a Spanish explorer finally embraces his destiny.

8. Gomorra - Hey, here's a thought: lets let the Italians make a Mafia movie. I bet they don't sugarcoat it like the Americans. Remorseless.

7. In Bruges - Colin Farrell accepts the challenge of co-starring with Brendan Gleeson and gives his best performance in recent memory as a distraught hitman cooling his heels in Belgium. By turns violent and touching, this one was a pleasant surprise.

6. The Dark Knight - Yeah, it went on too damn long, and the Two-Face storyline was probably better left for another movie, and Batman had a funny voice (a complaint nobody made about the first movie, for some reason), but it was still a hell of a spectacle. And keep an eye on that Ledger kid. I have a feeling he's going places.

5. Year At Danger - A year in the life of a US soldier, told by that same US soldier, in such uncensored fashion I half expected to be picked up by Homeland Security just for being in the audience.

4. Slumdog Millionaire - Belated cries of racism and accusations of unfavorable portrayals of India aside, if any movie popularizes Bollywood's style in the States, it'll be this. Danny Boyle does it again.

3. The Wrestler - A surprisingly organic offering from Darren Aronofsky, that just happens to be elevated by Mickey Rourke in one of the best performances of the year (neck and neck with Sean Penn). Plus, Marisa Tomei keeps up her recent habit of getting frequently naked.

2. Let the Right One In - Leave it to the Swedes to give the vampire genre a much-needed kick in the ass.

1. Frozen River - "Powerful" was the word most used by critics in describing this northern latitude look at smuggling illegals into the US. Hands-down one of the best movies of 2008, and almost nobody saw it.

Honorable Mentions: Man On Wire, Milk, The Order of Myths, Hellboy II, Trouble the Water, WALL*E, Encounters at the End of the World

"It's a major award!" - 2009 Edition

The nominations are in, and this year's crop of hopefuls seem to represent a further disconnect not just between popular opinion (big surprise) but critical viewpoints as well (the horror).

For starters, 13 nominations for Benjamin Button? I can't see this winning anything bigger than art direction, much less running the table a la Silence of the Lambs or Chicago, but it's taking up some valuable Best Picture space.

I'm a little surprised Clint didn't get lobbed a nom for his farewell acting performance, but maybe everyone figured he'd gotten enough love in recent years. I'm...mildly surprised The Dark Knight didn't get a Best Picture nomination, but not really. AMPAS is steadfast in its general disregard for box performance, even when the ratings for the awards ceremony telecast have been in the tank for a decade. No, the big shockers for me were as follows:

- No "The Wrestler" for Best Song. I thought I'd be talking about it being a lock to win, not how it got shut out entirely. And two from Slumdog Millionaire?

- No The Wrestler for Best Picture. The first casualty of the Academy's inexplicable love affair with Button. Or maybe they were afraid of a repeat of the dread Aronofsky middle finger maneuver.

- Nada for Revolutionary Road. I guess a little American Beauty goes a long way.

- Frozen River frozen out. Okay, this wasn't really a shocker. Nobody saw it, which is a shame. I'm glad Melissa Leo's great performance was recognized, though.

Hollywood's autofellatio festival commences in a month. Here's who'll win:

Best Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog's the sentimental favorite, but the Academy isn't the Hollywood Foreign Press. All the same, it has to be considered one of the top contenders. The Reader is Holocaust Oscar bait, and Frost/Nixon is too narrowly focused. Milk, however, is the kind of movie the Academy loves.
The Winnah: Who wants to be a Millionaire? Then again, Forrest Gump won in '94, and Button is the same damn movie.

Best Actor

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

It's great to see a character actor like Jenkins getting some love, but he's the longest shot here. Penn might have had a chance had he not won a few years ago. Besides, there's only one great story in this category, and it ain't Pitt's snub of Ryan Seacrest at the Golden Globes.
The Winnah: Mickey will be the second Rourke honored that night, assuming the In Memoriam segment with Ricardo Montalban airs beforehand.

And yes, I know it's spelled "Roarke."

Best Actress

Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

If these awards actually meant something, I'd be a lot more annoyed that Leo hasn't got a hope in hell. Streep and Jolie were solid, the latter surprisingly so, and Hathaway finally showed some decent dramatic chops.
The Winnah: In spite of all that, it'll be seven times a charm for Winslet, mostly because Sally Hawkins didn't get nominated following her Golden Globes win.

Best Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Any other year, this would be a great category. Brolin continued to impress, Downey Jr. pulled off what I thought would be the Mother of All Bad Ideas, and Shannon - another great character actor - stood out (and that's without Colin Farrell getting a sniff). And none of it will matter.
The Winnah: Rumor is that gambling sites won't even be letting people take bets on Ledger, and the odds could open at 1-10.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, Doubt
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Finally, a challenging category. Early buzz is for Cruz and Davis, with the latter likely to be the only person honored from the Doubt cast, or will Adams split the vote?
The Winnah: Cruz, which will have the deleterious effect of encouraging Woody Allen to keep making movies.

Best Director

Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant, Milk

It doesn't always happen, but this year each of the Best Pictures is represented 1:1 here. Meaning Boyle should come away with it, though Fincher or Van Sant could make some noise later.
The Winnah: Boyle, and we can all pretend it was for 28 Days Later.

Best Original Screenplay

Courtney Hunt Frozen River
Mike Leigh Happy-Go-Lucky
Martin McDonagh In Bruges
Dustin Lance Black Milk
Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter Wall E

The screenplay categories are traditionally where the Academy feels like it can loosen up (and I like how there's maybe 30 minutes of dialogue in Wall*E and it still got nominated). I'd be happy with either Hunt or McDonagh.
The Winnah: Which means Leigh's going to win it.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

Please not Benjamin Button. Please not Benjamin Button. Please not Benjamin Button.
The Winnah: Beaufoy, because I don't want Ricky Gervais to be 100% right about Holocaust movies and transcribing interviews is just lazy. Step it up, Morgan!

"It's exactly like Gump...except no AIDS."

from the number of people who've sent me this, it appears I wasn't alone in noticing the similarities. And not having seen Forrest Gump since 1994, I missed a lot of these.

The best part is it's probably going to be nominated for Best Picture.

Golden Bozos

I considered liveblogging last night's Golden Globes ceremony, but we had company over and besides, my hands are woefully incapable of keeping pace with the nigh unending stream of assholery thought up during the annual drunken wank-a-rama. This year the whole thing seemed designed solely to allow the Hollywood Foreign Press to cruelly dangle the possibility of a Best Picture Oscar in front of the well-meaning but otherwise SOL folks behind Slumdog Millionaire.

And I say this as someone who liked Slumdog Millionaire.

In any event, it was apparent early on that everyone involved - from the camera folk to the celebrities themselves - were taking the "Globes" part of the ceremony especially seriously. Stars ranging from Eva Longoria to Eva Mendes were impressively crammed into their bodices, and I haven't seen that much Salma Hayek on display since Desperado.

Some other thoughts...

+ As a Bruce fan, I was happy to see "The Wrestler" win best song. And I'm sure NBC was pleased to get some free publicity for the upcoming E Street Band performance at the Super Bowl.

+ The Jonas Brothers were apparently there to snag the 30-something white female demographic, going by comments made by The Wife and our other female guest.

+ Keifer Sutherland's resigned expression best represented the futility felt by anybody nominated in any category that John Adams was up for.

+ Ricky Gervais wins the internet ceremony. I like how everyone laughed at his Holocaust movie joke yet the same crowd was tres offended by Sacha Baron Cohen's Madonna-Guy Ritchie zinger. I guess "personal assistant" barbs hit a little close to home.

+ If I ever get to interview Tom Hanks, my first two questions will be: "Tom, will there be a sequel to Mazes and Monsters?" and "How do you respond to critics - specifically me - who feel the quality of your performances significantly deteriorated following Bachelor Party and Joe vs. the Volcano?"

+ I know William L. Petersen. William L. Petersen was great in To Live and Die in L.A. and Manhunter and even C.S.I. Laurence Fishburne, you are no William L. Petersen. And get a tailor.

+ As someone baffled by the pre-release praise lavished on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I am perversely satisfied that it failed to win a goddamned thing. Don't believe the hype.

+ Anne Hathaway is losing too much weight, which is probably endangering that Devil Wears Prada sequel.

+ People that should have been played off the stage: Sally Hawkins (though I thought her performance in Happy Go-Lucky was good, even if the movie wasn't my cup of tean), Steven Spielberg (as if that would ever happen), and Colin Farrell (you were a lot more entertaining as a drunk, and Gleeson should've won)

+ People that shouldn't have: Mickey Rourke. Sean Penn can probably sit out the Oscars as well.

+ While I appreciate the...talents of Megan Fox and Isla Fisher, my old ass would be happy with Laura Linney, Marisa Tomei, or Emma Thompson any day.

+ And then there's Mad Men's Christina Hendricks. Ay chihuahua:

The...Blurst of Times - 2008

So I was contacted about a week ago by one of Hef's people, and he asked me if I ever did any modeling. Now I could point out a couple dozen things I'd change about my body, and so would you if you saw me naked, but they were insistent, so look for me in February's Playboy.

Okay, so it was really a guy from New York Magazine, and he actually just wanted my year-end "10 Worst" list. So here's the entry.

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, here's my list, minus the blatantly-poached-from-the-actual-reviews comments (it's alphabetical, so look for me between Sara Vilkomerson of the New York Observer and Armond White of the New York Press, who's apparently going for Edgy Asshole of the Year by naming Slumdog Millionaire, The Dark Knight, and Wall-E as his three worst). I'll point out that I don't see as many movies as I used to, so some worthy contenders (Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Seven Pounds) are missing.

1. Fool's Gold
2. Vantage Point
3. Drillbit Taylor
4. Street Kings
5. 88 Minutes
6. What Happens in Vegas...
7. You Don't Mess With the Zohan
8. Twilight
9. Marley & Me
10. Sex and the City

I may have been bolstering my own asshole quotient by including SatC, but there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Help me, Cinema Blend

You're my only hope:

Here's yet another Batman 3 casting rumor for you to chew on, along with the Rachel Weisz as Catwoman gossip from yesterday. The Sun claims that Eddie Murphy has been signed to play the Riddler and Shia LaBeouf is set to play Robin. This is entirely untrue.

We spoke to a proven industry source of ours earlier tonight who confirmed to us not only that the rumor is a fake, but where and how The Sun got their information. Unfortunately, in order to protect our source's anonymity we can't tell you. Ain't that fun? But we're certain, there's no truth to this at all.

Besides, you don't need us to tell you that British newspapers have pretty much the worst track record ever when it comes to breaking movie news. They're nearly always wrong. Well they're wrong again.

I first saw this rumor on IMDB, which - let's be honest - is up there with Matt Drudge on the reliability scale. And I have to admit, the bad movie lover in me salivated at the thought of watching the current Batman franchise go all Bad Santayana and repeat WB's 1990s mistakes, pissing away their TDK cred by casting the one actor who might make Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal seem subdued.

But even I'm not credulous enough to buy the LaBeouf thing. Nolan's said repeatedly that Robin wouldn't be making an appearance in any of his movies.

That same proven source however says that Rachel Weisz is a real possibility to play Catwoman. That's not wrong. Also correct are the rumors that Nolan is actually ready to start making it. Our insider insists that the movie is further along than we've all been lead to believe. Nolan is back, Bale is back, and so is Michael Caine. The rest is still up in the air.

WB is definitely antsy to get the third installment out in the next couple of years, but word is Nolan's not feeling the same pressure. As for the rest being "up in the air." I'd be surprised if the suits behind the second highest grossing movie in U.S. history balked at reuniting the winning team.

Though Terrence Howard might disagree.

"In on ear, out the rubber."

So Mom mentioned Lethal Weapon as a Christmas classic in that Polar Express entry and I have to agree, if only for two scenes: the coke dealer shootout in the tree lot, and Mr. Joshua shooting up the TV ("It's goddamn Christmas!").

Unfortunately, the best I could do tonight was Lethal Weapon 2 on cable, which is decidedly not a Christmas movie. And being who I am, I noticed a few things that never really struck me as ridiculous until just now, and not just the fact that you can't pull a stilt house off its foundation with a truck, and "diplomatic immunity" probably doesn't cover shooting a police officer with a Mauser.

In my defense, I haven't watched the movie in its entirety since 1992.

1. Why does Vorstedt fall prey to that bane of 80s action villains: the Ill-Advised Closing Maneuver (see also Karl from Die Hard)? He's already hamstrung Riggs with a knife throw and is dealing with him just fine through the use of roundhouse and front kicks. Why sacrifice your tactical advantage by jumping on him, especially after you've taunted him with the deaths of his wife and Rika and know he might be a little...miffed?

2. Did Murtaugh ever get annoyed that the bad guys sent two helicopters and a squadron of guys with machine guns to take out Riggs, but only sent two dudes - armed with one knife between them - to kill him? I guess Phoenix Project trumps 25-year police veteran.

3. A South African girl I went to college with informed me the accents of Arjen Rudd and company were pretty lousy from an Afrikaaner perspective. Can anyone confirm this, or was she just trying to piss me off so I wouldn't try to sleep with her?

Still no book deal

To prove I'm still generating content - just not on APCB - here are some links to stuff I've written in the last few weeks.

Reviews

I haven't seen a lot of movies lately, thanks to the general insanity of the holiday season and a distinct lack of enthusiasm about most recent releases. To wit:

Twilight *1/2 - I'm no longer convinced "at least they're reading" is adequate when the books in question are as shitty as these.

Hair Balls - I've been a little more productive on this front (amazing what the promise of financial remuneration does for one's output). That said, I went a little apeshit on the whole "James Bond Week" theme:

The Top Five Bond Girl Names (11/10/2008)
The Top Five Henchmen (11/11/2008)
Best Five Non-Villain Deaths (11/12/2008)
Best Bond Villain Deaths (11/13/2008)
Five Best Bond Songs (11/14/2008)
Best Bond Villains (11/15/2008)
Best Bond Movies (11/16/2008)
How Quantum of Solace Stacks Up (11/17/2008)

I also did a couple of lists in "honor" of Twilight and Turkey Day:

The Five Worst Movie Vampires (11/21/2008)
Memorable Movie Thanksgivings (11/27/2008)

Finally, in response to those lousy Sam Houston Comcast commercials:

Top Five Commercials Featuring Political Figures (12/01/2008)

I do have some cool pics of She Who Shall Not Be Named on a zipline that I may have to post here.

Bi-Polar disorder

Knock it off, Disney.

Thanks to Winnie the Pooh sheets, Ariel underpants, and a near-constant media/retail assault that would've made Joseph Goebbels shake his head in admiration, you mercenary pricks already have your hooks set into most of our kids since birth (and maybe earlier, if the Princess Jasmine speculum is successfully patented). You've insinuated yourselves into our lives to such an extent I no longer offer even token resistance when She Who Shall Not Be Named brings me the Little Mermaid DVD case and the remote control.

Though I must say, her rendition of "Part of Your World" would make even the surliest among you crack a smile.

I'm willing to accept a certain amount of cultural omnipresence, as you can see, but what I'm not going to stand for is the annual push to make The Polar Express the next holiday movie classic.

[EDIT: I (think I) knew Warner Bros. actually made Polar Express, but the push I'm referring to is by ABC and the ABC Family channel, both of which are cramming PE down our throats, and both are owned by Uncle Walt.]

The 2004 adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's book is, hands-down, one of the creepiest fucking things I've ever seen. Much hay was made about the groundbreaking technology used to capture the live actors' movements ("actors" meaning Tom Hanks and, like, three other guys), and the result is admittedly pretty eye-popping. Trouble is, the overall impression is that of a bunch of Real Dolls suddenly brought to herky-jerky life. There were also reportedly some screw-ups during the final stages of production, resulting in scenes where elves go sliding across the screen with apparently frozen extremities. Advanced technology or not, everything still looks desperately fake, and not in a good traditional animation way,

What's really funny is that the book takes about 15 minutes to read, but because filming a true adaptation wouldn't justify the outlay required for all this "revolutionary" motion capture technology Robert Zemeckis and company went on to bloat the film with instantly forgettable musical numbers and nonsensical action sequences. And what kid wants to endure an hour and forty minutes of this garbage just to see Hero Boy and Token Black Character Hero Girl finally reach the North Pole, a true Industrial Age wonderland where all the workers look the same and Aerosmith is the musical act of choice.

We already have enough Christmas-themed movies to play 24/7 the entire month of December, and that's not counting the holiday cluster bombs released every year (Fred Claus, Deck the Halls). There's always room for a worthy addition every five years or so, like Bad Santa, but I'm not prepared to push aside true classics like A Christmas Story and Die Hard just yet. Disney, you grossed $160 million with Polar Express during its release, I suggest you quit while you're ahead.

Cold play

Thanksgiving brings with it family togetherness, boring football, and the return of Film Threat's Frigid 50.

Our answer to the ubiquitous power lists put forth by other movie sites has been running since 2000, and details "the least-powerful, least-inspiring, least-intriguing people in all of Tinseltown." It's also an opportunity for cheap shots galore, as should be apparent from the get-go.

I think it's funny the amount of shit we get for dumping on millionaires. I contributed a...significant amount to this year's edition, and it never ceases to amaze me how fiercely protective some are of a bunch of overpaid game show hosts, but those are our priorities as a nation, I guess.

Giving Solace

I didn't review Quantum of Solace for Film Threat, so I'll post some [non-spoilery] thoughts here.

QoS is the 22nd official movie in the James Bond series ("official" meaning "not including Never Say Never Again, the 1967 Casino Royale parody, or either of those TV movies from the 60s), and is a slightly above average entry. Despite having a more "Bond-ian" feel than its predecessor, the entire film is little more than an epilogue to Casino Royale, picking up right where CR left off, and the memory of Vesper Lynd hangs over everything that takes place like a ghost with poorly applied eye shadow.

As I mentioned earlier, Quantum of Solace reinstates some of the classic 007 trademarks; the maybe naked dancing girls in the opening titles are back (the Jack White/Alicia Keys song is a complete misfire, however), there's a new evil organization with a new evil plot that's almost - but not quite - as ludicrous as anything Hugo Drax came up with and director Marc Forster and his quartet of screenwriters also throw in a nice shout-out to Goldfinger. Hell, there's even a boat chase.

I suppose Haggis and Forster deserve some credit for giving Bond some emotional depth, and not just having him hit the reset button romantically after each movie (never mind if that's exactly what Fleming's Bond was like), but it doesn't entirely work. I don't know the big picture, however, and maybe the plan is to have all of Daniel Craig's movies immediately follow the other, gradually exposing the reach and power of the bad guys. We'll see, though it's already apparent from almost the first scene that Mr. White isn't lying when he says they "have people everywhere."

As for what's bad, the main villain in QoS may be the worst of all time. Mr. Greene is a powerful man, but the only villainous thing about him is that Mathieu Amalric looks a lot like Roman Polanski. Both Bond girls are also less than compelling. Olga Kurylenko (Camille Montes) is, surprisingly, a better actor than Gemma Arterton (Strawberry Fields, though her first name is never mentioned), though the latter more capably evokes the "classic" BG. And even with classic elements like a dumb Bond girl name, Forster and company still haven't totally shaken the "Bourne rip-off" accusations. Still, a solid entry. *** out of *****.

For Your Review - Oct 24 - Nove 7, 2008

I return once again to inform your movie choices several days/weeks after they've already come out:

High School Musical 3: Senior Year **1/2 - Presenting your remale lead as a chaste scholar loses some of its punch when most of the free world has already seen her naked.

Changeling **** - Melodramatic, yes, and it lapses into Law and Order: 1928 at the end, but Jolie gives a powerful performance.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno *** - Kevin Smith moves to Pittsburgh, brings Jeff "Randal" Anderson, Jason "Jay" Mewes, and his severe scatalogy with him. Still can't write female characters, though.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa *** - The interspecies love that dare not speak its name.

These things I believe

Roger Ebert got a lot of shit for his review of Tru Loved, which he stopped watching - initially - after eight minutes (he has since viewed the entire movie and appended that review to the original). He's now vowed never again to write a review of a film he hasn't watched in its entirety (I can't remember how often I've reviewed a movie I've walked out of, but I always try to disclose the fact when I do, which...sort of counts for something).

Anyway, the comments on that entry prompted him to lay out his rules for movie critics.

Advise the readers well.

I don't know how adequately I fulfill this requirement, but thanks to my liberal use of profanity, I'm pretty sure readers are never confused about how I feel about a particular movie.

Provide a sense of the experience.

I don't go all AICN and describe my day up to the point of the screening in minute detail, but I could probably do better in this department. Every review from here on out will include a detailed recap of my drive to the theater and the demeanor of the ticket taker.

Keep track of your praise.

This isn't usually a problem. I can count on two hands the number of times I've used the phrase "one of the best films of the year" since 2004. And anyway, everybody knows 'best of' lists are harder to write than the other kind.

Do the math. If one week you state, "'Mr. Untouchable' makes 'American Gangster' look like a fairy tale," and the next week we say, "American Gangster" was "Goodfellas" for "the next generation," then you must conclude that "Mr. Untouchable" is better than "Goodfellas."

I included the whole rule because it's hilarious.

Respect the reader's time.

This is a dicier proposition. I try and make it a point to keep my reviews to 500-750 words, but I can't promise each word will be equally worth reading.

Do not make challenges you are cannot to back up.

The only "challenge" I've ever issued to people is to avoid shitty movies. And they've disappointed me every time.

Respect the reader's money.

Again, I've tried. That fans of Date Movie don't respect their own income stream isn't my problem.

Beware of verbal parallelism.

...I like stories.

Trailers. Have nothing to do with them. Gene Siskel hated them so much he would stand outside a theater until they were over.

Jesus, I wish. They're the scandalous addiction I can't seem to shake. Speaking of, have you seen the latest one for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince?

Be wary of freebies.

I get flown to/put up at deadCENTER and I get passes to SXSW to cover the festival. I've accepted a couple of "after-party" invites for certain movies, one of which I liked, one I didn't. The one I didn't, I deigned to review. That was shortly before I vowed never to accept such an invite again.

Junkets, however, are the domain of critics occupying a different strata than us bargain basement Film Threat guys.

Accept no favors.

Yeeaaahh...this isn't really a problem. Oh, do free half-sheet posters count?

No commercial endorsements.

This is really the only place Ebert sounds a bit out of touch, as he's just about the only remaining movie critic any company would even consider paying to shill their product.

I, however, would happily endorse Stone Brewing Co. or New West Records.

Be prudent with free DVDs.

As a member of both the OFCS and the HFCS, I receive end-of-year "for your consideration" screeners. I don't sell them - not just because they're coded to me, but because eBay is a huge pain in the ass - but yeah...I let friends borrow them. I still buy DVDs with rapacious abandon, much to The Wife's chagrin.

No advertisements.

Again, this isn't an issue for the 99.9% of us who would donate a kidney just to get a sniff of a network TV gig.

Be prepared to give a negative review.

AKA, the Pete Hammond Factor. As one of the Los Angeles Times' "crankiest critics" of 2007, I feel pretty safe in checking this one off.

No posing for photos!

Oops.

Sundance '04. In all fairness, I think Danny Glover was fucking thrilled to be corralled for a pic by the guy who told him Lethal Weapon's Roger Murtaugh was "totally better than Jesus."

For Your Review - October 17-19, 2008

After about a six-week Ike hiatus, I'm back writing reviews for Film Threat. Huzzah.

Body of Lies ** - Maybe Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should stop collaborating.

The Secret Life of Bees ** - Who knew single black women in 1964 South Carolina had it so good?

Where no personal trainer has gone before

Engrage. I mean, engage:

Kirk's hair should never be that thick.

And heeeeere's Spock:

The nerd cred is pretty well-established: Shaun of the Dead is Scotty, Sylar from Heroes is Spock, Harold (minus Kumar) is Sulu, the (first) Hulk is the bad guy, and...the romantic interest from Princess Diaries 2 is the captain. Guess you can't win 'em all.

I wasn't really looking forward to this, and then I checked the cast and noticed one of the roles is "Orion Slave Girl." That's good for two stars in my review right there.

"Nobody can eat fifty eggs."

DSL isn't hooked up at our apartment yet, so I'm only three days late in commenting - via cell phone - on Paul Newman's death:

Newman attained stardom in the 1950s and never lost the movie-star aura, appearing in such classic films as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Exodus," "The Hustler," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting" and "The Verdict."

He finally won an Oscar in 1986 -- on his eighth try -- for "The Color of Money," a sequel to "The Hustler." He later received two more Oscar nominations. Among his other awards was the Motion Picture Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

"Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humor, and humanness," said Robert Forrester, vice chairman of the actor's Newman's Own Foundation. "His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much."
[...]
A portrayal as a race-car driver in 1969's "Winning" led to his actual competition in races; at 70, he participated in the 24 Hours of Daytona and he was still racing at age 80.

He stumped for liberal causes, including Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential candidacy, and earned a spot on Richard Nixon's enemies list -- "the highest single honor I've ever received," he said.

In 1982, Newman and his friend A.E. Hotchner founded Newman's Own, a food company that produced food ranging from pasta sauces to salad dressing to chocolate chip cookies.

"The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films," Newman once wryly noted.

To date, the company -- which donates all profits to charities such as Newman's Hole in the Wall camps -- has given away more than $200 million. Newman established the camp to benefit gravely ill children.

Newman's body of work looks like you cherry-picked my top 50 movies list: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Hustler, Slap Shot, The Verdict...even in lousy flicks (When Time Ran Out or HWRNMNBSOL's favorite, The Towering Inferno) he was an exceptional talent, a fact unobscured by his belated "lifetime acheivement" Academy Award.

As the greats of music and moviedom continue to pass on, I keep wondering who's going to step in and fill their shoes. Is there any actor working today who's even close to the full package - artist, activist, philanthropist - that Newman was? In 40 years, is anyone going to look back on the life of Brad Pitt or George Clooney with the same mixture of sorrow and admiration?

Anyone besides US Magazine, I mean.

RIP Reggie.

Another childhood mystery solved

The Wife is out of town, and She Who Shall Not Be Named has fallen victim to that plague of the Vonder Haar family called strep throat. She goes to bed pretty easily thanks to Mr. Motrin, so I've been enjoying rare unfettered access to the TV which, for some reason, I utilized by watching the laughable 1976 sci-fi "classic," At the Earth's Core.

For those mercifully unfamiliar, ATEC stars Doug McClure (you may know him from such films as Warlords of Atlantis and Satan's Triangle) and Peter Cushing as adventurers who discover the subterranean world of Pellucidar, inhabited by telepathic flying reptiles called Mahar, giant bipedal rhino-beasts, fire-breathing lizards, and cave folk. I saw it in the theater during its initial release with my dad, who vetoed the other genre offering, Godzilla vs. Megalon, because we were boycotting Japanese goods thanks to their whaling practices (seriously). I only had hazy memories of the movie, but luckily I'd off-handedly recorded it many months ago. Falling victim to the lack of higher brain function caused by tending a sick child for several days, I decided to watch it.

It's pretty bad, even by pre-Star Wars special effects standards. Guys in Suits play the Mahar and rhino dudes, McClure is as tumescent as ever, and the whole thing looks like it was shot on one of the Tom Baker era Doctor Who sets. Surely Dad must have regretted his choice of films?

Yeah. Did I mention the cave folk? And the fact that "Princess Dia" was played by none other than English pin-up queen Caroline Munro?

Your motives are clear to me now, old man. Though I...can't say I disapprove.

Fun fact: Munro played the buttoned-up reporter Adam Ant successfully "liberates" in the "Goody Two Shoes" video.

For Your Review - August 15-17, 2008

Oh, it was a banner fuckin' week at the old Bender family:

Tropic Thunder ***1/2 - Hollywood wants to remind us how adept it is at poking fun at itself, with decidedly mixed results. Robert Downey, Jr. is hilarious, however.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars *1/2 - I remain convinced that the only form of entertainment available to George Lucas is turning Star Wars fans into apoplectic heaps of bitter nerd. He's gotten pretty good at it.

For Your Review - August 6, 2008

Been pretty spartan with the reviews lately. All I've got this week is Pineapple Express (***). Like all pot humor, half of the jokes aren't as funny as Rogen and company seem to think.

More Balls for your consumption

My second Hair Balls entry, titled Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five, is up for your perusal. As always, we welcome your comments.

"You crossed the line first, sir."

So...The Dark Knight...I can't lie, I thought it was outstanding. I won't go so far as to say it was a "masterpiece," but it's easily at the top of my list of favorite superhero flicks.

The review won't be up until tomorrow morning, but I can go ahead an give you the link anyway. Here it is. ****1/2 stars.

On an unrelated note, I'd like to point out that AOL now owns indieWIRE as well as Cinematical and the Moviefone sites, leaving Film Threat as one of the last non-corporate movie web spots around.

Just sayin'.

For Your Review - July 11-13, 2008

Hellboy II: The Golden Army **** - I enjoyed the first one more, but this was still a lot of fun and Del Toro still brings the weird. I was hoping for something a bit more...apocalyptic, but what the hell, it was better than Meet Dave.

My Cup Runneth Over, v. 18

From the Mixed Blessings Department:

Like the undead themselves, modern zombie movies keep coming and coming. Get ready for at least one more, Paul W.S. Anderson told MTV News.

Well, maybe.

"Resident Evil: Extinction," the third video-game to big screen adaptation in the popular series will likely not be the last, Anderson said, although talks for a fourth film are still in the very earliest stages of development.

"I'm just starting to talk to Sony about it," Anderson confessed. "I don't even know if anything will come of it, but there's a possibility it might happen."

It would seem like a sure thing given the ending of "Extinction," which saw Alice (Milla Jovovich) beside herself with rage -- literally, thanks to hundreds of perfect clones - promising to travel to the Umbrella Corporation's headquarters in Japan. But Anderson, who scripted the first three films, says a concrete story hasn't yet been decided upon. In fact, it's coming up with a plausible, kick-ass story that's momentarily holding him up.

"I love the 'Resident Evil' franchise and we always try to make the best possible movie we can. If we could find a good 'Resident Evil 4' to make, then we would do it," he said. "But I wouldn't just do it for the sake of it, that's for sure."

My one-word rankings for the RE franchise would go thusly:

Resident Evil - Bleah
Apocalypse - Heh
Extinction - Meh

In my review of the second movie I mentioned that is was apparent Anderson seemed to have some vague plot design in mind for Alice, and the end of Extinction certainly makes it look like they're going to try and wrap things up with a bang over in Japan. Now it sounds more like he's making it up as he goes along. What a surprise.

I can't get away from this series, it seems, and I'm still at a loss to explain why I'm that interested in it. Sure, there's the Jovovich factor and all, but let's face it: zombie movies don't get much more incoherent than the RE flicks. And directors don't come much more craptastic than Paul W.S. Anderson.

Who I just remembered is engaged to Milla Jovovich. Figures.

For Your Review - July 4-7, 2008

What's more patriotic than hot dog eating contests, lite beer, and traffic fatalities on the 4th of July? Why, movie reviews of course:

Hancock **1/2 - As odd a choice for a July 4 blockbuster as I can remember. It isn't horrible, but the twist that comes around midway through the movie derails most of what came before. Smith is likable as always, which doesn't always work for this particular role, and Charlize Theron is hotter than donut grease. To coin a phrase.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson ****1/2 - My only problem with this doc - from Alex Gibney, director of Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - is the short shrift given to HST's later work. All told however, this is a great movie, and loaded with interesting interviews and footage. It's playing at the Landmark River Oaks here in Houston, so check it out.

"When you can't tell your friends from your enemies it's time to go."

Now that 2008 is half over, the number of movies I'm actively looking forward to is dwindling rapidly. The Dark Knight is a given, though - in all honesty and for reasons I can't adequately explain - my expectations have lowered significantly. Then there's Hellboy 2 (really dug the first one), the return of the Coens in Burn After Reading, the adaptations of Greg Rucka's Whiteout and McCarthy's The Road, Milk, and that 6th movie about that Harry Potter fellow the kids are so into these days.

And let's not forget Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

But the movie I'm probably looking forward to the most is the next James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Here's the teaser:

QoS picks up an hour after the end of Casino Royale, as Bond goes after those responsible for Vesper's death. Jeffrey Wright is back as Felix Leiter, and new Bond girl Olga Kurylenko as a habit of getting agreeably naked, which - when combined with Craig's apparent disdain for shirts -means there's something for everyone.

Looks groovy, and I love the closing shot:

It opens November 7. See it with someone you're pretty sure won't betray you for money.

"Why should the race always be to the swift, or the Jumble to the quick-witted?"

The car chase is fast becoming an antiquated concept in movies, since it's a lot easier (and cheaper) just to use computers, resulting in the obviously fake (The Fast and the Furious), the ridiculous (Wanted), or a combination of the two (Speed Racer).

I'm not sure why I've never done a chase entry on APCB. It's probably because my list would look like every other top 10 out there. Without even thinking too hard (and in no particular order), I can come up with:

To Live and Die in L.A.
Ronin
Rendezvous
The Italian Job (original)
The French Connection
The Blues Brothers
The Bourne Supremacy (couldn't find the vid)

And of course, there's the one that prompted this entry in the first place: Bullitt:

I still love how the first three minutes are pure foreplay, with Steve McQueen and Bill Hickman playing cat and mouse before finally going balls out. It ain't pretty. There are sideswiped cars (and trucks) and scraped walls aplenty, but it's still the grandaddy of them all.

I've brought the movie up before, but the reason I'm revisiting it is this site, which tracks the chase in real-time on a map of San Francisco. It's interesting, for those of us not from the Bay Area, to see how the chase jumps around. And also to see how this, the first car chase shot on location (not in a studio backlot) and "at speed" may still never be topped.

For Your Review - June 27-29, 2008

A banner weekednd, in that I can enthusiastically recommend both wide releases (and mostly recommend one limited):

WALL-E ****1/2 - With Cars, Pixar proved it could make mistakes. With Ratatouille, they redeemed themselves admirably, though without reaching the heights set by Toy Story and The Incredibles. With WALL-E, they're back on top. I don't like using the word "delightful," because I never do, but this really is a treat.

>Wanted **** - I know, right? The trailer had my eyes rolling so loudly my daughter woke up. Three miles away. Two things work, though: director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) knows how to embrace the ridiculous, and James McAvoy sells his 'Peter Gibbons goes postal' persona. Angelina Jolie needs a pork chop, however. Or to stay pregnant.

Sex Galaxy ***1/2 - A couple years back, I reviewed Pervert!, the first release from Stag Films. This is their follow-up, the world's first "green" movie (made from 100% stock and newsreel footage). It's more uneven than their first, but still amusing. Not sure why I'm telling any of you, since it's only playing in L.A. and probably not for long. But there you go.

Ahem

The Incredible Hulk is better than Iron Man.

Two caveats:

1) Your enjoyment of the movie will be greatly enhanced if you have a decent grasp of the supporting cast, as well as a lot of affection for the old TV show.

2) I'm not writing the FT review, so I don't need to justify my statement any further.

For Your Review - May 23-25, 2008

There are a few other movies opening in limited release today, but Memorial Day weekend this year is all about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. My review is up, and I finally settled on 3.5 stars

I understand the criticisms that have been made, but they honestly don't bother me that much. To wit; the endless bitching about the used of green screen and CGI. which people are shocked to discover in a movie produced by George Lucas. Speaking for myself, I was able to ignore most of it.

Except for the monkeys.

Anyway, I was happy to see Indy and Marion back in action. And Shia LaBeouf didn't annoy me...much, which has to count for a plus.

I'll have a write-up for last night's Maiden show once after I take a nap and get some IV saline.

For Your Review - May 16-18, 2008

My review of Prince Caspian (**1/2) is up. It's pretty enough, but at 147 minutes it's about one battle sequence too long. I also tend to think If they'd excised 75% of the scenes where the Pevensie kids look meaningfully at each other while contemplating the passage of time upon their return to Narnia, it would've come in under two hours.

Also, I have seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and deem it my favorite of the IJ sequels, though it falls well short of Raiders. And I knew I shouldn't watch those goddamn trailers. They don't give everything away, but a few things that would've been nice surprises end up somewhat diminished.

Finally, I'm glad I wasn't actually aware of comments George Lucas made about continuing the Indiana Jones franchise without the Indiana Jones character before I saw the movie:

Speaking to Fox News ahead of the film's Cannes Film Festival debut, Lucas said he wanted to shift the emphasis away from the Indiana Jones character for the next film.

"I haven't even told Steven or Harrison this," Lucas told Fox News. "But I have an idea to make Shia [LaBeouf] the lead character next time and have Harrison [Ford] come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie. I can see it working out."

Yeah, I can imagine what "Steven or Harrison" had to say about that.

I'm pretty sure Lucas is simply talking shit just to rile up the fanboys, because it's made rather clear in Crystal Skull that they have no intention of passing the whip to LaBeouf.

"What about JONES?"

I'm really quite disappointed I didn't make it to the Aurora earlier this month to see Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (lousy family vacations). In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's some more info:

The legend of the film is well-known in Indy circles. In 1982, three friends -- Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb -- got together to begin a shot-for-shot re-creation of "Raiders," a film that had been released just a year before. Their ambitions were huge -- they committed to re-creating every single effects shot, including the giant rolling boulder at the film's beginning.

Hampered by the budget constraints of a 12-year-old's allowance and unhappy parents who learned they were setting each other on fire, the film was shut down and restarted several times over the course of seven years. In August 1989, the now 19-year-old friends finally had their premiere screening.

The guys are in their mid-30s now, and improbably, they've fashioned a bit of a second career touring the world with what "Hostel" director Eli Roth described as "the Ark of the Covenant of underground tapes." It's been much discussed, but outside of their occasional charity screenings, it's completely unavailable.

And it played in my town! As the meatiest of mea culpas, all I can offer is the following:

- This list of upcoming screenings

- My review, made possible only after I relentlessly hounded Chris Strompolos for a screener

- A collection of video links for the movie, the better to assure you that all the cool kids like it too

I can't sing enough praises for "The Adaptation." True, it looks and sounds like crap in many places (I think even the high school Shakespeare project peenman and I shot was on better quality tape), but there's enough love (and unhealthy obsession) at its heart that you really won't care. Had I any talent for directing, cinematography or set building, I might have attempted something similar.

For Your Review - May 9-11, 2008

Sometimes great movies don't always strike you that way at first. Repeat viewings may be necessary, or perhaps a little time needs to pass before you can really appreciate the film's understated magnificence.

And sometimes they're just pieces of crap. Case in point:

What Happens in Vegas * - I've been to Vegas quite a bit, and I somehow always miss out on the magical experiences all these movie people seem to have. Of course, I'm neither as cute as Ashton Kutcher nor as leathery as Cameron Diaz. Fun fact: I didn't realize she has six years on Kutcher. Time sure has flown since The Mask.

Speed Racer **1/2 - I really didn't understand all the negative press for this. Apparently everyone else was expecting Pixar. And as obnoxious as it was, it was still better than the cartoon.

Spiritus sancti

A few things rub me the wrong way about The Spirit teaser that showed up recently:

Look familiar? I can't decide what chaps my ass more: that the whole thing is billed as "based on the comic book series created by Will Eisner" - who actually wrote the damn thing for close to 40 years - or that Lionsgate and Frank Miller seem to be presenting this as more or less a sequel to Sin City.

Or that Scarlett "Are My Boobs Distracting You From My Inability to Perform Even the Most Rudimentary Acting Techniques?" Johansson is in it.

And is it "chaps" or "chaffs" "chafes" my ass? I can never get that straight.

For Your Review - 4/11 - 4/13

My review of Street Kings went up yesterday. 1.5 stars out of five. Keanu Reeves does a poor Martin Riggs, and corruption runs rampant in the LAPD. Who knew?

Also, in response to the rising number of movies opening with no advance press screening, We've started a new feature called "Sight Unseen," where I offer a speculative account unblemished by actual, y'know, facts. The first installment is for Prom Night, which I bet you didn't know was Ingmar Bergman's final film:

The climax is a special effects spectacular that - in spite of the profusion of exploding heads - still retains that je ne sais quois of Bergman's.

You get the idea. The tricky thing will be keeping online review aggregators from picking it up. Speaking of which, I better go check Metacritic.

For your review

I saw two of this week's openers, and the reviews are up for your scorn and derision.

Leatherheads *** - In my eyes, Clooney really hasn't done wrong since Ocean's Twelve. This is, as Douglas Adams might say, "mostly harmless." And as an added plus, Zellweger isn't all that annoying.

The Ruins ** - I can't tell if reading the book made me harsher on the film than I normally would've been, but then I remember author Scott Smith also wrote the screenplay, so likely had some measure of control over the uninspiring finished product. I'm not mad; I'm disappointed

I've also been dicking around with a new feature at Film Threat that should be debuting in the next couple weeks. I'll be sure to nag you with news of its arrival when the time comes.

"Who's the U-boat commander?"

I realize 'stina's entry about manual transmissions had more to do with the hazards of driving in the Bay Area than my formative years, but indulge me:

My father, you see, was a Porsche driver in our formative driving years, and at some point before I got my license, we made the huge, huge mistake of showing him Risky Business. As a result, he made sure that none of us, while we were teenagers at least, had a clue as to how to drive a standard transmission, lest his beloved 928 end up at the bottom of a pond.

The only car I've ever driven that didn't have a manual transmission was my first one (the previously mentioned Brown Battleship). I find they offer superior mileage in these expensive times, and encourage drivers to actually - you know - pay attention to what they're doing.

But what I really want to talk about is Risky Business.

For starters, it's clearly Tom Cruise's best movie (The Wife would argue for A Few Good Men, but she - like so many of our generation - are afflicted by a blind spot for Aaron Sorkin). Directed by the enigmatic Paul Brickman, who went on to helm a grand total of one other movie, it's a flick with something for everybody: a naked Rebecca De Mornay, Guido the Killer Pimp, dreams of failing your finals, that Tangerine Dream score, Curtis Armstrong's movie debut, the rampant symbolism (Basshole - wasn't it your brother who wrote the term paper about the use of red, white, and blue?), "Looks like University of Illinois!" Great stuff.

And my fondness for it has a lot to do with when I first saw it. Risky Business was released in 1983, which was my 8th grade year. Normally, such R-rated fare would've flown under my radar until it showed up on HBO and I had the chance to sneak out of bed at 3 AM to watch it. Dad did take me to a number of "restricted" films during that time, but he favored less down-to-earth genres (e.g. The Road Warrior and Pink Floyd: The Wall).

My friend "Putnam's" dad wasn't quite so discriminating. He was a dean at Texas A&M and a known eccentric (his collection of neckties was famed across the South), so I don't know whether his decision to take four of us to the movies as part of Putnam's 13th birthday festivities was informed by honest concern for his son's impending manhood or simple cluelessness. Whatever the case, there we sat, four boys on the verge of high school and one allegedly responsible adult, as the lights dimmed for what most of us believed to be a fairly harmless comedy.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when Putnam Sr. probably started coming up with excuses to tell his wife. Hell, the opening scene ("The dream is always the same") is pretty risque. But for me, I like to think it was when the Goodsens' French doors blew open and Lana's dress came off. At the very least, it would've coincided with all of our awkwardly exchanged glances, as we wondered how many microseconds it would be before we were yanked out of there and made to promise we'd tell out parents we went to see The Fox and the Hound. To Putman's dad's credit, he stuck it out. And to this day I believe that all of our relatively successful adulthoods are due in some small part to the lessons imparted by young Joel.

Mark, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

C'est incroyable

The trailer for The Incredible Hulk, directed by Louis The Transporter Leterrier and starring Edward Norton, Tim Roth, William Hurt, and a strangely mute Liv Tyler, is up over at MTV.

I admit, I wasn't too jazzed by Ang Lee's take on the Great Green One, but subsequent viewings have softened my opinions somewhat (though not of "hulk dogs," or spending 2/3 of the movie waiting to see some mayhem). And since rebooting the franchise after less than five years is apparently the new hotness (see also The Punisher), I guess we can look forward to the Brett Ratner version - starring Chris Tucker as Bruce Banner - in 2013.

Now, far be it from me to pile on a movie sight unseen, but...uh, this really didn't look very good. I assume the Hulk vs. Abomination fight is the big climax after Banner more or less suppresses his rage for 75 minutes? The villain is - once again - another product of gamma experimentation? At least throw Zzzax in there to mix shit up.

And why does the Hulk look more like Wes Bentley than Norton?

Frankly, I'm more excited about the other trailer on that page. Yes, that one:

I've never been happier to see Corey Feldman, who promises more gore and plenty of naked C-list startlets in Lost Boys: The Tribe. and I like how the plot apparently mirrors that of Rambo, only with vampires instead of SE Asian military..

Of course, it's a pretty safe bet there won't be any Dianne Wiest or Jason Patric, who I'm sure is really busy gearing up for his Downloading Nancy publicity tour. And I'd say the odds are pretty steep against this ever seeing the inside of a theater, but as long as oily saxophone player Timmy Cappello makes a return appearance, I'll buy a copy.

Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

Pray for Ben Gazzara

With Jeff Healey passing away last week and Patrick Swayze getting diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, might Road House be the new Conqueror?

Nah, probably not.

Still, my thoughts go out to the The Swayze. I've had my issues with the guy's work, but Red Dawn is one of my favorite movies (seriously), and I have nothing but respect for a guy who managed a 30-year career after debuting in something called Skatetown, U.S.A.

Go easy, Bodhi.

And the winner is...

"Lenny," about whom I know...absolutely nothing, but who picked 18 out of 24 categories correct, eliminating the need for going to the tiebreaker (the next closest contestant had 14).

Lenny will have his pick of the Battle of the Planets - The Legacy Collection or the Alien Quadrilogy. "Congratulations," if that's what you want to call it.

Tonight the part of Hello Nurse will be played by Kristin Chenoweth

I mean, seriously people.

6:06 - But Kelly Preston ain't too shabby.

More Oscar-related bullshit ruminations after the jump.

6:11 - Wow, you can tell Daniel Day-Lewis loves the spotlight.

6:18 - BUSEY! Sitting through Seacrest's bullshit is suddenly worthwhile.

6:23 - I'd have paid...a hundred dollars for Miley Cyrus to answer "What are you wearing?" With "GrrrAnimals." And no Billy Ray in sight. I guess a state fair comeback tour takes a lot of planning.

6:32 - Few things are as indicative of how skewed our priorities are as a nation when coverage cuts away from Helen Mirren so we can see what fucking Cameron Diaz is wearing.

Then again, here I am live blogging the goddamn Oscars, so there it is.

Okay, cutting away to watch Harrison Ford on Barbara Walters now...

6:59 - That was quick. Now we go from Seacrest to Philbin, who is sporting a shade of orange I've not seen before.

7:07 - Laura Linney is on The List. You know which one I mean.

7:15 - Jesus, Diaz again. Is nobody else there? Hasn't Bjork shown up yet?

7:27 - I love Jack: "How's the Reege tonight?" Especially after the latter introduced the Best Supporting Actor nominee from No Country for Old Men as "Xavier" Bardem.

7:32 - Wow. Worst intro ever. That was like an Regal Cinemas mural brought to life.

7:38 - Stewart's line about Norbit wins the Oscars. Good night.

7:41 - Sorry, the "black/woman president" line was pretty good too.

7:43 - Had I submitted an entry. I'd have picked Elizabeth for Best Costume too. Honest.

7:56 - Please not Norbit, please not Norbit...

7:57 - Whew.

8:04 - For those keeping score, eight people have the first three picks right.

8:07 - "Can you spell what Dwayne Johnson is cooking?" just doesn't sound the same.

8:18 - Least surprising win of the night #1 goers to Bardem. He's a good choice, but it's too bad Affleck didn't get more notice. Though Barden's mom wins the bling contest.

8:28 - Owen Wilson? Is Least Successful Suicide Attempt a category now?

8:31 - Seinfeld doesn't deign to show up after an embarrassing promo tour for Bee Movie, but does his "hilarious" bee montage. Great.

8:39 - Wow. Swinton has to win Most Surprising of the Night right now. And, as The Wife noted, "she's wearing a Hefty bag."

8:47 - Brolin and McAvoy present Best Adapted (No Country wins). The Wife tells me McAvoy is on her List, which makes no sense. I understand he reflects her love of pale, blue-eyed, dark-haired men, but if the two of them were to breed, the kids would be translucent.

9:06 - Now they can call it the "Academy Award winning Bourne Ultimatum." Happily, as Eric put it, they can't say the same for Norbit.

9:14 - True story, if I'd been picking the Oughta Wins vs. the Probably Will Wins, Cotillard would've been on the former list. I'm very surprised she beat Christie.
Also on that list would be Tommy Lee Jones over Daniel Day-Lewis, and Julian Schnabel over the Coens.

9:23 - "Falling Slowly" better win. It's better than any of that Enchanted crap, or that August Rush song that could've come from U2's "Rattle and Hum."

9:51 - As happy as I am that "Falling Slowly" won Best Song, I'm equally ecstatic that Marketa Irglova changed dresses. Still, it was shitty not to let her make her speech.

9:57 - Well damn, class move on Stewart...or whoever made the call to let Irglova speak.

9:58 - No, Cameron Diaz still looks like crap. And she's too drunk to pronounce "Cinematography."

10:01 - Does Hillary Swank's career merit a mention in this year's In Memoriam segment?

10:14 - Well shit, if I'd actually known what Freeheld was about, I probably would've voted for it.

10:26 - Diablo Cody's sincere and heartfelt acceptance speech was almost enough to make me forget what an overrated piece of crap Juno was.

10:35 - I'm sorry, but as deserving as Daniel Day-Lewis is, I can't stop ogling Helen Mirren.

10:55 - As I suspected some time ago, No Country pretty much ran the table,

"The winner will be showered with praise; the loser will be taunted and booed until my throat is sore!"

I've got about 20 submissions so far for the Oscar Picks contest, and anticipate plenty more in the next couple days.

Having perused the current entries, let me just say I like my chances. Keep 'em coming, suckas.

Although I hope some of you are wrong about the length of the telecast. 4 1/2 hours? Ye gods.

In unrelated news, my spoiler-laden review of Vantage Point is up. Enjoy.

I'll give you something to cry about

We covered this a while ago on APCB, where I (and many others) dredged up those poignant and - occasionally - confounding choices for the movies that made them cry. I stand by my original choices (yes, even Wrath of Khan).

The slowcoaches at eHarmony are finally joining in the fun. However, they take a different, daring tack, offering instead a list of movies that make men - and only men - cry. Whatever. I predict lots of sports:

1. Brian's Song (1971) - And I was right. Any movie with athletes or soldiers dying is automatically exempt from the usual male embargo on movie-related weeping, because the only time one man is allowed to express honest affection for another is when he's bleeding out from belly full of shrapnel or dying of brain cancer.

2. Rudy (1993) - What was the slugline for this? "Diminutive pain-in-the-ass annoys coaches and alienates family until his empty life is given meaning by the throwaway act of letting him line up in a uncontested football game?" I think the only reason anyone would cry at this is if an otherwise sympathetic character was forced to play for the Irish.

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998) - Yes, it was pretty sad when heartless invading Americans brutally shot those noble German soldiers down like dogs. Oh, you were talking about the scene when Tom Hanks' character dies? Sins of the past, Tom. Sins of the past.

4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) - Nurse Ratched: "Son, we live in an asylum that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by nurses with starched, pointy brassieres. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Billy Bibbit? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for McMurphy, and you curse my nurses. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That McMurphy's death, while tragic, probably saved Martini. And my existence, while grotesque and oddly arousing to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at screenwriter conventions, you want me in that ward, you need me in that ward."

5. The Natural (1984) - This comes in at #5 and Field of Dreams doesn't even crack the top 20? Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those weepy middle-aged types who *sob* never got to "have a catch" with his old man (and I was always a better fielder than hitter), but The Natural is almost too whimsical to take seriously, much less get all teary-eyed over.

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - I know of only one man who cries during this movie, and they're the tears of rage that only an engineer watching a guy break a steel pipe with a rock could produce.

7. Schindler's List (1993) - Uh, next.

8. Old Yeller (1957) - If you scheduled a double-feature of this with Where the Red Fern Grows in a medium-sized hydroelectric plant, you could power the city of Spokane for a month.

9. The Pride of the Yankees (1942) - I feel comfortable speaking for my white, American male brethren when I say that baseball movies are our Achilles heel (or Tommy John elbow, if you prefer). In fact, rather than populating a list with questionable choices like Terms of Endearment(?) and The Pianist(??), why not just flesh out a top 10 with Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, The Rookie, The Sandlot, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Bang the Drum Slowly, Fear Strikes Out, and the "gotta see about a girl" scene from Good Will Hunting and be done with it?

10. Terms of Endearment (1983) - Those weren't tears on your date's shoulder, ladies, it was drool from the impromptu nap that resulted when you forced them to sit through this.

11. The Iron Giant (1999) - "Suuuperman!" Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye...

12. Philadelphia (1993) - While I agree that Philadelphia is a decent movie, if about as subtle as a Trent Cole sack, I respectfully submit that you're going to have a hard time finding a lot of dudes who will admit to crying while watching it. I suspect it's the whole opera thing.

13. Big Fish (2003) - For a movie to make a Top 20 list, I think it should be a prerequisite that more than 20 people have actually seen it.

14. Million Dollar Baby (2004) - Tragic? Sure, I guess, but that's what you get when your female protagonist doesn't stick to girls' sports such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such.

15. Life is Beautiful (1997) - If you're the type of person who cries at seeing Benigni mug his way through this shallow and laughable (but not in a good way) exercise in cheap sentimentality, then I agree with its inclusion. Otherwise the only "Top 20" list this belongs on is "Movies that Made Me Want to Blow My Head Off."

16. Love Actually (2003) - What, no Steel Magnolias? Who the hell wrote this list?

17. Rocky (1976) - No, the correct answer is Rocky IV and the tragic, senseless death of the great Apollo Creed. Why didn't you throw in the towel, Rock? Because he wouldn't let you!

18. The Pianist (2002) - The makers of this list give us too much credit. It doesn't take tales of human triumph in a time of genocide to make guys tear up; just shoot a dog. Me, I got more choked up when Max's pooch got plugged in The Road Warrior than I did at any point in The Pianist. There, I said it.

19. Mystic River (2003) - Great movie, but I don't remember crying at any point, Rather, it prepared me for further Lehane mind-fuckery a la Gone Baby Gone.

20. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - How is this sad? Scout and Jem are saved from Bob Ewell by Boo Radley, and Atticus successfully defended Tom Robins...oh, right.

"You're a...teacher?"

You've probably heard and/or seen it by now, but just in case you haven't, here's the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:

The music! The door-slam haymakers! The whip! Karen Allen! "Part time!" The warehouse (Roswell?)! Shia LaBoeuf!

Okay, forget that last one.

Fine, so I lied. I may not be reading any behind-the-scenes crap, but I've watched this five times already, and you couldn't jackhammer the smile off my face. Given the generally less impressive nature of the sequels (Last Crusade is a merely adequate remake of Raiders, and Temple of Doom can jam it crossways), I know I shouldn't have my hopes up for this, but...I'm an idiot. For all my posturing as a cinema crank, I can't deny the goosebumps I got when the theme kicked in. I may well be setting myself up for disappointment - again - but I'll take that risk. Raiders of the Lost Ark is probably my favorite movie of all time, meaning I'm affording it a little, okay, a lot more leeway.

And from the look of those jungle scenes, I sure hope Indy learned to speak Hovitos.

"I can do anything...I'm the chief of police."

I'm rather bummed by the news of Roy Scheider's demise (and I'd like to note that - as I wrote that - I pronounced the word "demise" like Quint talking about his third wife):

Roy Scheider, the jagged-nosed actor who brought complexity to tough-guy roles in such films as "The French Connection," "Jaws" and "All That Jazz," and was also known for political activism off the set, died Sunday afternoon at a hospital in Little Rock, Ark. He was believed to be 75, and had been battling a form of blood cancer for three years.

Scheider, who lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y., died at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital, which specializes in the treatment of multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that affects blood cells. He died of complications from the disease, said Leslie Taylor, a university spokeswoman.
[...]
In a career spanning four decades, Scheider appeared in more than 60 films, as well as in numerous roles on stage and television. But his most acclaimed roles came in a span of eight years in the 1970s, beginning with "The French Connection" in 1971.

He probably will be best remembered for his role as Martin Brody, the water-shy police chief in "Jaws" (1975) who uttered the immortal line: "You're gonna need a bigger boat," after seeing the size of the shark. He once lamented that the role "will be on my tombstone."

His favorite role, he said, was playing choreographer Joe Gideon, a thinly disguised stand-in for Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse, in "All That Jazz" (1979) -- a role for which the former boxer had to learn to dance. "That will always be my favorite film," he told the San Jose Mercury News in 1999. "But I never worked harder in my life. I felt I had to prove myself to the dance company. I didn't want to misrepresent them. . . . I was in relatively good shape. But at the end of the day, I'd return to the Holiday Inn with my Tiger Balm."

I admit, my first exposure to Scheider - and a big reason why I loved the guy - was Jaws. Like Harrison Ford in Raiders, it's impossible to picture anyone else as Chief Brody, even when you realize that everyone from Charlton Heston to Robert Duvall was considered for the role.

But he had plenty of memorable parts, in addition to the aforementioned French Connection and All That Jazz, especially:

The Seven-Ups - Solid performance by Scheider is almost lost in '70s New York atmosphere. Sweet car chase, though.
Marathon Man - Scheider played Dustin Hoffman's secret agent brother, and I was always sort of disappointed nothing ever came of Goldman's 1986 sequel, Brothers.
Sorcerer - Freidkin was apparenly not too happy he had to settle for Scheider as the lead, who's second banana to the rain forest cinematography anyway. It's neither of their best work, and was a box office flop, but I'd still give it a look.
Jaws 2 - Give the man credit, he turns in a perfectly acceptable performance in what was perhaps the most inevitable sequel of all time. Scheider's "tombstone" comments are pretty hollow in the context of his coming back to the trough a second time, however.
Blue Thunder - Please spare me your aviation nitpicks, for it's clear the filmmakers never anticipated the heightened scrutiny that would come with the VHS and DVD era. "Catch you later," indeed.
2010 - I remember almost nothing about this movie. Was Helen Mirren naked in it? Because that would've been something.
52 Pick-Up - Rita Kempley of the Washington Post called this "Death Wish for yuppies," I prefer to think of it as a white blaxploitation movie, with Clarence Williams III thrown in for authenticity's sake.

They go downhill from there, really. Only true masochists should subject themselves to Listen to Me (Kirk Cameron's last movie that didn't have "left behind" in the title) or The Peacekeeper (Dolph Lundgren and Montel Williams: together at last). I even tried to get into SeaQuest: DSV, but often found myself falling asleep four hours earlier than intended on Sunday as a result.

RIP, Roy.

That'll make your Mola Ram

I know I vowed on these very pages some time ago that I was going to ignore (to the best of my ability) advance publicity for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was doing pretty well, too, until I saw that Vanity Fair sitting in Mason's house. Specifically, this picture of Cate Blanchett as "Agent Spalko:"

I'm not sure why, but it...speaks to me. What the hell, here's one more:

Anyway, I'm also going to start posting links to reviews here again, since a disquieting number of you like to confess to me how you don't read them. Here's Fool's Gold.

"Be careful, Speed."

The one bright spot about sitting through tonight's screening of Fool's Gold (think Sahara crossed with The Deep, only not as funny as the latter) was seeing the trailer for Speed Racer:

The animation's better than the cartoon, but that's not saying much, and I was never a big fan of the original.

It's written and directed by the Wachowski Bros., who atoned for the second two Matrix movies somewhat with V for Vendetta, though the jury's still out as far as I'm concerned. And I have to admit, this looks pretty hilarious. It'll be lots of "live action cartoon," which is more or less the Wachowski's whole modus operandi.

And without the 20-minute fight scenes.

Into the valley of comedy death rode the 300

I didn't review Meet the Spartans (seniority has a few perks, even at Film Threat), and I'm glad. Not just because I was spared that particular indelible stain upon my immortal soul, but because I doubt I could have put it any better than Slate's
Josh Levin did:

Meet the Spartans (20th Century Fox), the latest spoof from Scary Movie/Date Movie/Epic Movie auteurs Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, begins with King Leonidas from 300 getting crapped on by a dancing penguin who exclaims, "I'm about to make you my bitch!" It ends with-spoiler alert!-a Stallone impersonator gyrating in the outfit Britney Spears wore to the MTV awards.
[...]
Those who stick around for the closing credits are treated to the sight of George W. Bush getting kicked in the nuts. Judging by the respective approval ratings of Bush (31 percent) and the Friedberg-Seltzer comedy team (between 2 percent and 3 percent, according to Rotten Tomatoes), audiences would have preferred to see Bush, or perhaps even Stalin, kick Friedberg and Seltzer in the balls.
[...]
This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Oh behave! I mean...uh, well said.

Levin goes on to wonder what compels audiences to keep returning to these movies for further abuse. I admire his indignation, but he's about five years behind the curve. Sure, Friedberg and Seltzer have set their sights squarely on the groin of the common man, but Meet the Spartans and it's two predecessors don't each gross $18 million on their opening weekends without several million accomplices. Fucking Norbit doesn't gross $95 million domestically without large portions of our population willingly plunking down $9 or $10 for the privilege.

Face it: we just aren't that bright. I'd love to blame sneaky advertising campaigns and clever viral marketing for our national bad taste, but everything there was to be had in Meet the Spartans was right there in the trailer for all to see. Studios may churn this crap out, but they're merely maximizing profit extracted from human beings I've heard say the following actual phrases:

[regarding subtitles]: "Why should I have to read a movie?"
[regarding Steve Martin's Pink Panther remake]: "Who's Peter Sellers?"
[regarding "difficult" films:] "I don't go to the movies to think."
[regarding Spinal Tap]: "These guys are stupid. Why did they make a movie about them?"
[regarding Tinseltown's sinister gay agenda:] "Brokeback Mountain proves Hollywood wants us all to be gay."

And if that wasn't enough,In Meet the Spartans beat my choice for Best Movie of 2008 (So Far) at the box office last weekend.

But what I really want to do is direct...

Doc Nebula, who appears to be the sole contributor over at The Miserable Annals of the Earth, brings up an intriguing question:

It's odd. Something has changed in how films are made these days. Back in the 80s, when I was in college, I had many favorite directors, and I based my moviegoing choices around them. None of them were completely reliable (in fact, looking back on it, pretty much every director I ever would have listed as a favorite at that time -- Hill, Spielberg, Scorcese, Romero, Myers, Gilliam, Kasdan, Cameron, Howard, Levinson, McTiernan -- ended up producing more movies I disliked than liked; Hill, in fact, has only directed five films I really enjoy out of 25... and most of the others have similar track records).

And yet, nowadays it seems like I have no favorite directors, and while I will weigh directors when deciding what movies to see, it's no longer anything like the decisive factor it once was. Curtis Hansen directed one good movie right in the middle of an ocean of crap, but it was SUCH a good movie... I like Chris Nolan's work, but what the fuck was that INSOMNIA nonsense? Bryan Singer did USUAL SUSPECTS, sure, and the first two X-MEN movies were swell, but I still can't pry SUPERMAN RETURNS off my nutsack. Peter Jackson? Jesus Christ, even if I didn't keep a cheap videotape copy of THE FRIGHTENERS around as a reliable insomnia cure, I need only remember how mind bogglingly awful the last two LOTR installments were to get me past that. Barry Sonnenfeld? Lick me, WILD WILD WEST boy.

Interesting conundrum. I can't really get behind any of the directors Doc listed in the first paragraph, and some - like Kasdan (The Big Chill) and Howard (The Da Vinci Code, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) - never did it for me to begin with. But I see his point. Scorsese used to be nails, and McTiernan from 1987-1990 couldn't be topped, but everyone else is so damned uneven these days.

I'm not as down on Hanson, but then I liked Wonder Boys as well as L.A. Confidential. And the juvenile me used to love all things John Carpenter. Sadly, I'm pretty sure the scales fell from my eyes some time around Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Same with pre-Spider-Man 3 Sam Raimi.

There are others that the jury's still out on. Among these are Stephen Syriana Gaghan, Ben Affleck (don't laugh; Gone Baby Gone was really good), and Sarah Polley.

Of the current directors that spring immediately to mind, I'd have to say Neil Marshall - as I'm a huge fan of both Dog Soldiers and The Descent (I'll reserve judgment on Doomsday) - Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy), Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions), Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille), David Fincher (minus Panic Room), and Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth).

So go ahead and tell me who I forgot.

The publicist's friend

"JK" is a PR person for one of Houston's publicity firms and one of the folks we critical types interact with at the various screenings about town. Tonight was Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams' rampaging giant monster opus.

As is often the case, JK was waiting at the exit for reactions to pass on to the studio about the movie:

JK: So Pete, got a quote?
Me: "Too soon."
JK: Hmm?
Me: I mean, what is it, like...three years since 9-11? I just don't think America can handle seeing New York destroyed again by terrorist monsters.
JK: [taps pen impatiently]
Me: Okay, uh, "It'll be at least as successful as Snakes on a Plane."
JK: Good one.

I actually liked Cloverfield quite a bit, even if I'm really envious of that guy's camera battery. Mine barely runs 90 minutes, much less seven hours.

And the winners are...(HFCS)

After much agonizing debate (and plenty of Doug Harris' 18-year old scotch), the Houston Film Critics Society has selected their 2007 awards winners:

Best Picture - "No Country For Old Men"
Best Director of a Motion Picture - Tim Burton, "Sweeney Todd"
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Daniel Day Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Javier Bardem, "No Country For Old Men"
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast - "Hairspray"
Best Screenplay - Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Best Animated Film - "Ratatouille"
Best Cinematography - Roger Deakins, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Best Documentary Feature - "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters"
Best Foreign Language Film - "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Best Original Score - "Atonement" by Dario Marianelli
Best Original Song- "Falling Slowly" from "Once"
Honorary Texan Award - Joel and Ethan Coen
Outstanding Achievement in Cinema - Philip Seymour Hoffman (for appearing in "The Savages," "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," and "Charlie Wilson's War")
Outstanding Achievement in Cinema - The Greenway Three Theatre, for over thirty years of service to Houston's art-house film community

I'm mostly in agreement with these selections, with the exception of Burton and Cody. I'd have placed Sidney Lumet, Sean Penn, and the Coens higher on the director listing, and Cody's screenplay had me wishing I lived in the Amazon so I could grab some army ants and let them devour my eardrums.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, I'm just having a really hard time understanding all the accolades for Juno.

Also glad to see King of Kong on there. I lobbied hard for it.

The Houston Film Critics Society's Top Ten Films for 2007

1. No Country For Old Men
2. Juno
3. Atonement
4. Michael Clayton
5. Into the Wild
6. Sweeney Todd
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
9. Charlie Wilson's War
10. I'm Not There

I can't tell you how happy I am Juno didn't end up being our Best Picture, or how annoyed I am that it ranked as high as #2.

And if anyone's wondering why There Will Be Blood didn't make it, it's because the only screening was scheduled for us three days before Christmas. I know I wasn't the only one who couldn't make it.

"Excellent work, Frothingslosh."

The title of this entry makes no sense, except as an in-joke to parents subjected to repeated viewings of The Backyardigans and as a means to make light of the reaction I had to the news of yet another of my favorite movies getting remade (via Cinematical):

Sam Bayer is in negotiations to direct "Near Dark," the remake of the cult vampire movie Platinum Dunes is producing for Rogue Pictures.

Like the 1987 original by Kathryn Bigelow, the remake centers on a young man who reluctantly joins a traveling "family" of evil vampires after the girl he tried to seduce bites him and turns him into one.

Christopher Landon ("Disturbia") is rewriting the script.

Platinum Dunes' Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller are producing.

Bayer, one of the big names in music videos and commercials -- he directed Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" clip -- recently won a MTV Video Music Award for helming Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around" video that starred Scarlett Johansson.

This is almost too perfect a storm of crapitude: Grand Offalmeister Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes, a company created for the sole purpose of strip-mining existing horror properties (coming in 2009: The Birds!), has gotten the guy who wrote a note-perfect ripoff of Rear Window and a director who - dare I dream - may even bring the vacuous Johansson on board to complete this fiasco.

One of the commenters on the original entry was right: can't these fuckers go and remake a shitty movie for once? Take a stab at Food of the Gods or Howling II. At least then they could argue they were improving it.

I hope everyone involved with this gets hoof and mouth disease.

Happy Friday. Go see Into the Wild.

EDIT: Sweet jesus, it never ends:

A few months ago, we reported that Len Wiseman was in negotiations to direct the Escape from New York remake and also Gears of War.

The big news today, that started over at AICN, is that Len Wiseman will no longer be directing Escape and that Brett Ratner has replaced him.

The IESB contacted a source over at New Line, the studio behind the film, and was able to confirm the story which is no longer a rumor but instead 100% fact. Brett Ratner will take over directorial duties on the remake.

Awesome. Maybe Chris Tucker can play the Duke of New York.

"Ever seen a grown man naked?"

Cross-posted from Blog 9, so sue me...

Sure you have. We're all pretty much adults here, well-versed in human anatomy and all 17 volumes of "Truly Tasteless Jokes," right? In that case, I wish y'all had been in last night's screening of Eastern Promises, the new movie from David Cronenberg.

My review will be up at Film Threat tomorrow, but in a nutshell, Viggo Mortensen plays an up and coming Russian mobster who becomes acquainted with midwife Naomi Watts, who is trying to decipher the diary of a Russian girl who died in childbirth.

None of that is important for purposes of this entry. I'm more concerned with the climactic fight scene, in which Viggo takes on two hitmen in a bathhouse...while naked. It's a daring performance for our beloved Aragorn, especially when you consider the amount of full frontal we get. Given the number of chuckles in the audience during that sequence, however, you'd think these people had never seen male genitalia.

Male frontal nudity is still pretty rare in the movies, but not so isolated we should feel the need to titter behind our palms like 3rd graders revery time it shows up on screen. So while you're avoiding work by reading this, I thought I'd take a look at some of the more memorable instances of movie meat:

The Deer Hunter - My parents can be credited for allowing me to watch more than my fair share of R-rated movies as a youngster (or at least not noticing me hiding under the couch). The down side being, I only really recall those scenes most likely to scar me for life. To wit, I remember Christopher Walken's big send-off ("Di di mao!"), and Robert De Niro nakedly running down the streets of his hometown, the first scene of its kind I can recall seeing in a movie. In a blow to the Jack Thompsons of the world, I managed to avoid committing either act during my tempestuous youth.

Life of Brian - I was either in 8th or 9th grade when some friends and I went to see this. Sure, the scene where Brian (Graham Chapman) throws open his window and exposes himself to the assembled masses of Judea was played for laughs, but it also had the unintentional side effect of making all us junior high guys in the audience at Texas A&M's Memorial Student Center stare uncomfortably at our shoes for the next ten minutes.

Bad Lieutenant/The Piano - Harvey Keitel, bless his heart, never shied away from treating audiences to uncomfortably protracted shots of his junk. He gets bonus points for baring all in critically acclaimed films, making the instances "meaningful" instead of merely "gratuitous."

Trainspotting/Velvet Goldmine/Young Adam - And then came Ewan McGregor, the one mainstream actor who makes Keitel look positively bashful. McGregor's scenes tended to be naturalistic and/or sensitive, compared to Keitel, who usually stuck with menacing and/or menacing. Thankfully, he restrained himself in the Star Wars prequels.

Though it would've given "Look at the size of that thing" new and exciting context.

The Crying Game - I freely admit, I didn't see it coming. I saw this on a date, and she found it endlessly hilarious that I remained oblivious to Jaye Davidson's pronounced Adam's apple and man-hands until the famous "Boy howdy" scene. Director Neil Jordan took a pretty decent political story and threw us a groovy curveball to boot, and I still haven't forgiven him for ruining my chances of scoring that night.

The Silence of the Lambs - "The tuck," as performed by Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb, provoked equal measures of horror and fascination in male audience members (hur hur) across the nation. Until they got the chance to go home and try it themselves, that is. Come on, show of hands, which of you guys went home and gave it a go in front of the mirror? That's what I thought.

Freaks.

I blame society

Nick Nicholson and Danny Minton finally went and gave form to something I've been idly bitching about for a while now: a Houston Film Critics Society:

The Houston Film Critics Society is a not-for-profit, unincorporated voluntary organization of print, broadcast, and internet film critics based in the Greater Houston metropolitan area that meet its membership criteria. Its purposes include:

+ Encouraging the publication and broadcasting of substantive critical commentary on film, and cooperation among those regularly engaged in film criticism in the region
+ Increasing public awareness and appreciation of cinematic excellence
+ Recognizing extraordinary accomplishment in film through the selection of annual recipients of Houston Film Critics Awards and the publicizing of those awards
+ Honoring both current and former distinguished members of the Association and their contributions to the Association's mission

Nick and Danny were kind enough to ask me to be one of the founding members. We'll see how long it is before they rethink the wisdom of that decision.

Meanwhile, here's my Bourne Ultimatum review. I seem to be one of the few people who felt it was inferior to Supremacy.

"...whenever the show becomes unprofitable."

Yet another entry in the no shit file, though it's one of the more well-thought out and cogent ones:

You can almost hear the panic in the voice of The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening. The film will be "deliberately imperfect". It contains "everything we couldn't show on television". His co-producer Al Jean has even boasted that "if you've never heard of The Simpsons, you can enjoy the film". They know expectation is sky-high, even for something that's been 15 years (yes, 15!) in the pipeline. So why the need to qualify the film with so many caveats and premature apologies? Could it be that they know, deep down, The Simpsons is but a shade of what it used to be?

Once, it was the greatest show on TV. Every episode was brimming with imagination, excitement and some of the sharpest one-liners to come out of America for decades. But above all it was smart: The Simpsons knew how to parry crudity with intelligence blow for blow. Bart's big-haired nemesis Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake nine times would be followed up with a surreal two-minute performance of HMS Pinafore. Homer lobbing a lookalike of himself over a waterfall would be followed by a reference to Walt Whitman's collection of poems, Leaves and Grass. This was dizzyingly intelligent, daring, exhilarating stuff. For every burp gag came an arch pop-culture reference. For every time Homer fell down the stairs or Bart got strangled, we had a nifty TV parody or sly political dig.

And it kept on coming, week after week. An entire generation didn't understand it. George Bush senior, then US president, even wished aloud that American families could be more like the Waltons than the Simpsons. A massive rift opened up between those who "got" The Simpsons and those who hated it. You chose your side carefully. To be a Simpsons fan was truly one of the most privileged things in the world.

Then it all changed. A new guard took over and ripped up the rules. Veterans of the show with pedigrees on venerated US comedy institutions like Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show - Jon Vitti, George Meyer, John Schwartzwelder - either departed or went part-time. In came writers who had cut their teeth on sappy teen comedies like Blossom and unsophisticated knockabouts like Beavis and Butt-Head. A looser, lazier sensibility took hold, given free rein by new executive producer Mike Scully. And the show became stupid.

Sad but true. Had this movie come out in 1995 I would've been first in line for the opening night midnight screening, but - the name of this blog aside and my inertial habit of using series quotes for entry titles - I really couldn't care less about The Simpsons Movie. I've missed over half the episodes from each of the last four seasons, and my Sunday night TV viewing now focuses more on what HBO is airing that what Fox is trotting out.

Look at the movie's credits, Scully is one of the screenwriters, as is Ian Maxtone-Graham, another architect of the show's decline. All the celebrity cameos in the world (and there will be a crapload, mark my words), won't make up for that.

You can even put a date on it: 1997, in the early episodes of the ninth series, where the head of Bart's school, Principal Skinner, was suddenly, arbitrarily revealed to be an impostor, and his entire life to date had been a lie. Come again? A major character in a long-running series gets unmasked as a fraud? It was cheap, idle storytelling.

This was just the start. The show went on to jettison all interest in pretending to have earthy, avuncular roots: the warm, good-natured centre that, when you scraped away the multi-layered jokes and cerebral grandstanding, had been there from day one was obliterated. No longer did we see the family bonding, caring for each other, showing emotion. Instead, it was anything goes.
[...]
True, a long-running series has to evolve. Nobody would expect Simpsons episodes to still be solely about Lisa getting a pony or Bart failing a school exam. But, in the second decade of its life, The Simpsons evolved into a dreadfully predictable monster. With each new series came the same questions. Which foreign country will the family just happen to end up visiting this time? Which pop star will the family just happen to encounter while there? And what unsubtle bit of physical violence will Homer be subjected to en route? Contract leprosy, perhaps; get raped by a panda; or maybe get his head trapped between two halves of a lowering drawbridge?

This was change all right, but change as an excuse for idiocy. It was desperately disheartening for those who cherished and loved the show's early years. Watching Homer hold forth on the topless women he'd seen on holiday in Florida, or Marge accidentally getting breast implants, you wanted everything to be revealed as a huge wind-up, or a cunning satire on trashy TV. But there was no hidden agenda. What you saw was what you got: a base, repetitive, unfunny cartoon.

Not much more I can add to that. I'll see The Simpsons Movie, but only because it's not going to cost me anything.

[Insert Depends joke here]

So I turned over a new leaf recently: I don't watch trailers for upcoming movies and I don't read any pre-release "on-set reports" or press about same. Call me a crazy insane crazy person, but I'd like to not know how the movie is going to end (or every major plot twist, or the big action sequences, or the climactic one-liner) before I actually go see it.

Naturally, this isn't a foolproof scheme. Trailers air on TV quite a bit, and video game commercials are notorious for sneaking up on you and showing some pretty relevant plot points (I'm looking at you, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the PSP), and sometimes a movie event is big enough to bleed over into so-called "mainstream" media. To wit, this picture - snapped by Steven Spielberg himself - of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones:

Kind of anticlimactic, huh? Really the only surprising thing for me is how much he looks like my dad.

The problem with a movie like Indy IV (or you can go by its cumbersome in production title, Fourth Installment of the Indiana Jones Adventures) is how every simple bit of information about it is going to be topline news on the movie sites. Without any effort on my part beyond scanning headlines, I know that Jim Broadbent and Cate Blanchett are co-starring, Sean Connery will not be appearing, and that producer George Lucas rejected Frank Darabont's script draft. That says something when George "I don't like sand" Lucas drops the hammer on your screenplay.

At any rate, this will be the last bit of advance Indy news I post on APCB. The fourth movie is slated for release in May, 2008, which gives me plenty of time to screw that up.

"It turns me upside down"

"Summer, summer, summer
It's like a merry-go-round."

I use these classic Cars lyrics to mark the Ocasekion (heh) of Film Threat's Summer 2007 Movie Preview. It's got trailers of the YouTube variety, tiresome sarcastic commentary, and...more trailers.

I'm not the only one on the byline, but if you're confused about which of us wrote what, I'll invoke my standard personal rule of thumb regarding multiple authors: if it's funny, I wrote it.

Two thumbs up

The Warrior of Cinematic Wordsmithery, the Ayatollah of Aggravating Rob Schneider, Roger Ebert is on the mend:

My Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance.

This year I won't be speaking, however, as I await another surgery.

I have received a lot of advice that I should not attend the festival. I'm told that paparazzi will take unflattering pictures, people will be unkind, etc.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. As a journalist I can take it as well as dish it out.

So let's talk turkey. What will I look like? To paraphrase a line from "Raging Bull," I ain't a pretty boy no more. (Not that I ever was. The original appeal of "Siskel & Ebert" was that we didn't look like we belonged on TV.)

What happened was, cancer of the salivary gland spread to my right lower jaw. A segment of the mandible was removed. Two operations to replace the missing segment were unsuccessful, both leading to unanticipated bleeding.

A tracheostomy was necessary so, for the time being, I cannot speak. I make do with written notes and a lot of hand waving and eye-rolling. The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding. If all goes well, my speech will be restored.

So when I turn up in Urbana, I will be wearing a gauze bandage around my neck, and my mouth will be seen to droop. So it goes.

I don't think anyone grows up wanting to be a movie critic. I know I didn't...hell, I still don't, but Sneak Previews was probably my first exposure to that as a particular career path. As the years passed, and the show became At the Movies and then Siskel and Ebert at the Movies, I enjoyed the often acerbic commentary and the fact that someone could apparently make a living at talking shit about shitty movies.

I've read I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie several times, and have Your Movie Sucks on my Amazon wishlist. I also had the privilege of meeting the man himself at Sundance in 2006. Whatever your opinion of critics - and I'm not one to say it's wholly unjustified - Ebert is a class act.

Get well, Rog.

"Harpoon to the groin wins every time."

No reviews this week. And since today's Friday the 13th, here's a blast from the past: my brief runthrough of the ten Friday the 13th movies I've seen, just in case you're in the mood for some timely entertainment.

The fun begins after the bump.

Friday the 13th - Dismissed as schlock when first released (in 1980 - I still remember the commercials), the original...is still schlock, though it has gained recognition in some circles as the film that spawned a new genre. Grisly cinematic murders were nothing new in 1980, but Ft13 introduced the horny teenager element that would be imitated/pardodied for the next twenty years. The twist? Of course, it isn't Jason offing all the pot-smoking degenerates, it's his mom, herself killed by spunky counselor Alice.
Rating: B
Best Death: Is there even a question? Kevin Bacon. In the throat. With an arrow.

Friday the 13th, Part 2 - Alice, the plucky heroine from the first film, inexplicably returns to Camp Crystal Lake and is promptly icepicked (bet you didn't see that coming). By Jason, this time, who obivously holds a grudge against the chick who did his mother in. No hockey mask yet, and the pillowcase over the head is an obvious homage to the killer in The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Tom Savini didn't return for Part 2, and the film sacrifices gore for increased suspense, with mixed results.
Rating: B-
Best Death: The double-impalement of Jeff and Sandra is the ultimate example of coitus interruptus.

Friday the 13th, Part 3: 3-D - I confess, I saw Jaws 3-D, Amityville 3-D, and the 3rd Ft13 movie in the theater, goofy ineffective glasses and all. I wasn't around in the 1950's, so I can't speak for it's appeal at inception, but why the resurgence in popularity 30 years later? No matter, this second sequel is unremarkable not because of week F/X or the sheer goofiness of 3-D (how many times can Jason point a knife at us?), but thanks to uninspired death scenes and rehashing an already formulaic plot. Could the series possibly recover?
That would be telling.
Rating: C-
Best Death: Tie - Rick getting his head squeezed like an overripe melon (with similar results) or Andy sliced in half with a machete, while walking on his hands.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter - The good news: Tom Savini returns (reportedly only because he wanted to kill Jason), and the deaths in his chapter are much more brutal than the two previous films; plus Kimberly Beck goes against convention and puts up a hell of a fight at the end. The bad news: Corey Feldman, though he's not that bad as Tommy Jarvis. Ft13:TFC is also where Jason's immortal revenant qualities really kick into high gear, to the point where you begin to suspect he can't be killed by anything less than a thermonuclear device. And even then...
There's also an arid 30 minute stretch right after the warm-up murders where no one dies. Faux pas for a slasher film.
Rating: C+
Best Death: Paul - harpoon to the groin wins every time.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning - So much for "The Final Chapter," you dirty Hollywood bastards. ANB is widely regarded as the nadir of the Ft13 series. Worse, it isn't even Jason killing the teens, but some dude named Roy who's using Jason's MO to get revenge on the punk kids who caused the death of his son. Little Tommy Jarvis, confined to an asylum thanks to the traumatic events of TFC, is forced to kill Roy, which can't be good for his convalescence.
Rating: D
Best Death: Tina's post-coital garden shears cataract surgery.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives - Wisely ignoring the reference to Jason's cremation in ANB, Jason Lives sees Tommy seek revenge on Jason the only way he can: by digging up his corpse and setting it on fire. Unfortunately, he inadvertantly reanimates Jason (never exhume a body during a thunderstorm), spurring him on to yet another quest to rid the world of sexed-up adolescents. Jason returns to Camp Forest Green (renamed for PR reasons) and sets about tallying up the highest body count of the Ft13 series to date (18). Jason Lives is also one of the funniest entries in the franchise, which offers a welcome change for audiences desensitized by five movies' worth of disembowements.
Rating: A-
Best Death: I'll have to go with the triple decapitation of Stan, Katie, and Larry, though ripping the sheriff in half is a close second.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Uneven entry pitting Jason against a teenage psychic who accidentally raised Jason from Crystal Lake (no, I don't know when they changed the name back), where he'd been drowned by Tommy Jarvis in Jason Lives. She was trying to resurrect another corpse (that of her father), if that helps explain things...though why the body was left at the bottom of the lake for four years is anyone's guess. Deaths ensue (though most are almost blood-free, thanks MPAA), and Tina eventually sends Jason back into the depths, which I'm willing to bet he's getting pretty tired of.
ANB marks Kane Hodder's first appearance as Jason. Hodder is a fan favorite, and the only Jason to don the hockey mask in more than one film, but I'm not sure why everyone reveres him so much. He's a big bastard, but that's about it, and Ted White TFC did just as well, and actually took a beating. Hodder plays a great hulking monster, but how hard is that for a guy who's 6' 3" and probably pushing 3 bills?
Rating: C+
Best Death: In what might be the best death of the entire series, Jason picks up camper Judy, sleeping bag and all, and bashes her brains out against a tree. Now that's acting.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan - Blah blah blah - kills chick with electric guitar - blah blah blah - gets on a boat, kills crew - blah blah blah - finally get to Vancouver Manhattan for final ten minutes of the movie. I know when I first saw previews for JTM I had high hopes that the movie would be a dizzying cavalcade of carnage in the streets of New York. Little did I know they could've just as easily called this Jason Takes a Cruise. Weak even by the slasher standards of the late '80s, JTM has bad F/X, bad acting, and almost no redeeming qualities.
Rating: D-
Best Death: Aspiring boxer Julius gets his block knocked off with one punch. Damn.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday - Promises, promises.
JGTH pissed off a number of hardcore fans because, for almost the entire movie, we don't see Jason killinng his victims. Oh, it's still Jason, only now he can take over other peoples' bodies and use them to do his licentious bidding.
The beginning is interesting enough: SWAT troops have staked out Camp Crystal Lake after Jason's disappearance from Manhattan, and they lure Jason into a murderous crossfire. At this point, you'd be better just popping the DVD out of its player, otherwise you'll be forced to hear how Jason is some sort of parasite who hops from body to body (a la The Hidden) in an attempt to kill the last of the Voorhees women, Voorhees women being the only people who can kill Jason.
Kudos to New Line for trying something different, but combining an almost complete lack of Jason with the utter obliteration of existing continuity alientated more people than it intrigued.
Rating: D
Best Death: The rude interruption of Deborah's tryst with Luke via tent spike in the back, and the subsequent (and familiar) tearing in half.

Jason X - Sue me, I liked it. Freeing Jason from the present day and the its continuous reliance on farm implements helps amp up the body count in new and occasionally interesting ways. Yeah, it's an Alien rip-off. True, the effects could use some work, but come on..."Uber-Jason" is pretty fricking cool.
And don't fool yourself, Ft13 stopped being horror around the 7th installment. Jason was no longer a villain by then, but had become the familiar anti-hero we root for to kill the stupefyingly idiotic teens (there's even a VR flashback to the original movie here). I won't lie and say the comedy is great, or that the myriad of cinema references (Blade Runner, Solaris) can forgive the obvious flaws (horny counselors, horny astronauts...who cares, right?), you'll either like this one or absolutely loathe it. Watch at your own risk.
Rating: B
Best Death: Jason dipping Adrienne's hot blonde face in liquid nitrogen, then shattering it on a countertop.

Freddy vs. Jason: not seen at press time

If you'd like to learn more about Jason Voorhees or the Friday the 13 films, please go to your local library and check out these sites:

Friday the 13th: The Website
Camp Blood
Camp Crystal Lake Online

I call it the Reign of Fire rationale

Saw Disturbia last night. All told, a pretty entertaining - if wholly predictable - suspense flick. The script isn't bad, while Shia LaBoeuf and David Morse are mostly watchable. I also like seeing Carrie-Anne "Trinity" Moss playing the mom.

But make no mistake, it may not be an "official" remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window (only because neither Salton Sea and The Shield director DJ Caruso nor youthful writers Chris Landon and Carl Ellsworth have bothered to admit it), but...it is. Just substitute "ankle bracelet" for "wheelchair" and replace Raymond Burr with David Morse.

What the hell, if you're going to rip someone off, might as well rip off the best.

"Yippee-ki-yay, motherf..."

Nice,

I love Die Hard, and Die Hard 2. Not as big a fan of the third one, but that wasn't originally a John McClane story.

Truly, this is a magical era in which we live, when our favorite elderly actors like Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone are returning to the roles that made them famous. And I note with some amusement that Willis finally bit the bullet and gave us a totally shorn McLane. I wonder if he was consciously affecting the Vic Mackey look.

     

"And what did the doctor say?"

"He said...I was...lazy."

Copied here from Blog 9, because damned if I can think of anything to write about just now.
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Just to get it out of the way: yes, the Academy Awards are largely meaningless, rewarding cheap sentimentality and technical expertise at the expense of honesty and talent. The voters themselves are generally egomaniacal dirtbags who can't be bothered to sit through half the screeners they hoard every year, and the whole thing should be scrapped in favor of a four-hour hemorrhoid cream infomercial.

Now then, the nominations:

Best Picture - Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen

I'll preface all this by saying I haven't seen Letters yet. It snuck into about half a dozen theaters two weeks before the end of the year, and the only Houston promo screening took place the night of the Big Freeze. That said, I don't think Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen belong on this list. The former was cute and amusing in it's own way, but nowhere close to the best movie released last year, and while Helen Mirren was incredible in The Queen, everything else about that movie was by-the-book.

No United 93, no Little Children, no Pan's Labyrinth?

Blog 9 Prediction: I didn't think it was all that great, but don't be surprised if Babel takes this one. The Academy loves to think they really, like, feel your pain, man.

Best Actor - Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond; Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson; Peter O'Toole, Venus; Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness; Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

I'm surprised DiCaprio was nominated for Diamond, when it really seemed like he did better work in The Departed. Voters must've looked at that as more of an ensemble piece. Gosling's a great pick, but if more than 15% of voters actually saw Half Nelson I'll put a Ryan Seacrest wallpaper on my computer. Smith has no business on this list for the ham-handed TPoH (and everyone knows Jazzy Jeff was the brains in that outfit anyway), so it comes down to O'Toole and Whitaker.

Blog 9 Prediction: Whitaker's Idi Amin was just too fantastic a performance. Any other year I might say they'd give it O'Toole as a lifetime achievement award a la Paul Newman in The Color of Money, but not this time.

Best Actress - Penelope Cruz, Volver; Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal; Helen Mirren, The Queen; Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada; Kate Winslet, Little Children

The Academy, irredeemable perverts that they are, sure do like young actresses in this category (you have to go back to Susan Sarandon in 1996 to find a winner over the age of 40), which would seem to make Cruz or the future Mrs. Vonder Haar (Kate Winslet) a safe bet.

Blog 9 Prediction: Mirren's on a roll, and is the only one playing a real person, which makes her a slam dunk.

Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine; Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children; Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond; Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls; Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

Let's see...Hounsou plays himself (proud, deeply attached to his family, prone to fits of screaming rage), Wahlberg plays himself (Southie wiseass), Arkin plays a sleazier version of himself, Murphy resurrects his James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub shtick from 1983, and Haley wins the "That's The Kid From The Bad News Bears?" award.

Blog 9 Prediction - I'd like to see Haley take it, because it'd be well-deserved, but this category is traditionally where the Academy awards older actors their consolation statuettes, and even though his post-1986 resume is beyond atrocious, I'd bet on Murphy.

Best Supporting Actress - Adriana Barraza, Babel; Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal; Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine; Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls; Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

As I said in my Golden Globes blog, this award was given out three months ago, but since we're here...Blanchett's role isn't really supporting, so she's out, Kikuchi and Barraza will split the multicultural vote, and - in spite of the Anna Paquin precedent set in The Piano - Breslin doesn't have a chance.

Blog 9 Prediction - Hudson in a landslide, which will have the unfortunate consequence of further legitimizing the ongoing train wreck that is American Idol.

Best Director - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel; Martin Scorsese, The Departed; Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima; Stephen Frears, The Queen; Paul Greengrass, United 93

Did Martin Scorsese have carnal knowledge of Clint Eastwood's wife? Why else would he rush Letters out just before year's end to throw a wrench into Marty's latest stab at an award? Sure, Flags of Our Fathers was a bore, but throw the guy a bone.

Frears is just here to flesh things out, and while I'd love to see Greengrass get his due for what was, truly, one of the best movies of the year, I'm not holding my breath.

Blog 9 Prediction - Scorsese finally gets his Oscar, which should be going to Guilermo Del Toro anyway.

Best Foreign Language Film - After the Wedding, Denmark; Days of Glory (Indigenes), Algeria; The Lives of Others, Germany; Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico; Water, Canada

I will continue to assert until the ceremony itself that Pan's Labyrinth was robbed. Relegating it to the relative kiddie table that is Foreign Language Film is a slap in the face to a great movie.

Blog 9 Prediction - So of course it will win this category.

Best Adapted Screenplay - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan; Children of Men; The Departed; Little Children; Notes on a Scandal

I think the Borat nod is cheating, to a certain extent, as it's "adapted" from his TV show. And besides, there's no way the Academy risks a repeat of Cohen's "rancid bubble" speech from the Globes. To my mind, there are two competitors here, and they both have the word "children" in the title.

Blog 9 Prediction: I have no reasoning behind this, but I think Little Children takes it.

Best Original Screenplay - Babel; Letters From Iwo Jima; Little Miss Sunshine; Pan's Labyrinth; The Queen

This is the only category where Academy voters traditionally let their hair down, so...

Bog 9 Prediction - Little Miss Sunshine. It's how they grudgingly acknowledge the existence of so-called "independent" cinema, even though LMS is hardly that.

Best Animated Feature - Cars, Happy Feet, Monster House

It's a shame this will come down to the two cartoons that don't deserve it. My loathing of Cars is well-documented, though it's pretty as hell to look at. Happy Feet as well. Even as an adult not forced by a child to go see it, I really liked Monster House, but I said the same thing about The Iron Giant, and look where that got us.

Blog 9 Prediction - That one Pixar phoned in.

Best Art Direction - Dreamgirls, The Good Shepherd, Pan's Labyrinth, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Prestige

These are always a crap shoot, having to choose between the period flicks and the F/X-laden extravaganzas. I suppose I should be happy this is one of the only places the thoroughly average Dreamgirls was nominated.

Blog 9 Prediction - Hell, they've gotta give Dreamgirls something, I guess.

Best Cinematography - The Black Dahlia, Children of Men, The Illusionist, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige

The Black Dahlia was one of the worst movies of 2006, and now Universal can promote its DVD run by calling it "Oscar nominated."

Blog 9 Prediction - Children of Men - Purely based on the single take scenes, I suspect.

Okay, it's late, and I don't care enough about the rest of the noms to conjure up any real venom. In parting, let me just say that I participate in several Oscar betting pools each year, so every one of these predictions is probably designed to throw my competitors off.

Eli Roth: Super Genius

You don't win friends with salad:

The posters arriving in theaters nationwide are advertisements for Hostel II, a horror movie due in the summer from Lionsgate Entertainment. The film's director, gore merchant Eli Roth, conceded last week that he was "pleasantly surprised" that the extreme image was approved by the Motion Picture Association of America; every inch of the poster is packed with splayed organs and moist tissue.

"My jaw was on the ground when I first saw the poster," Roth said. "It's unbelievably beautiful. It's one of the most beautiful posters I've ever seen."

Beauty, clearly, is in the eye of the beholder on this one.

On the Web site hubs of horror and genre fans, debate is under way about the poster and Hostel II; several postings on the Harry Knowles site Ain't It Cool News dismissed the movie as "torture porn" and railed against the poster as a sick display. Others wondered what exactly their peers were so upset about.

"You guys," one fan wrote, "must hate walking down the meat aisle in the grocery store."

No, what we hate is seeing some self-appointed standard bearer for the so-called New Wave of Horror get all giddy like a schoolboy over a piece of marketing that does nothing to advance the genre except for seeing how much Lucio Fulci it can rip off. Roth's self-righteous defenders miss the point: I don't care that he's trying to gross me out, or that he's "pushing the envelope" of gore, I care that his idea of modern horror consists of little more than exsanguinating attractive teens.

Understand something, I'm not "offended" or "distressed" by a girl peeling her skin off in a bathtub (Cabin Fever) or a guy getting his Achilles tendon sliced (Hostel). I've seen Dead Alive, Cannibal Holocaust, August Underground, and several of the Guinea Pig series. I'm familiar with the output of the so-called "Splat Pack" and, with the exception of Neil Marshall, they're all pretty one note. Splatter is one thing, but horror - real horror - is psychological as well as physical. Simply heaping guts on tops of guts isn't frightening as much as it is...nauseating.

The image gave pause to the advertising reviewers at the MPAA, where the image was given "more consideration and review than most posters," Palen said. (MPAA spokeswoman Kori Bernards said Friday she did not have any direct knowledge of the Hostel II images.) For what it's worth, Roth said he believes the photo is such a close-up (and so bloodless) that the tissue image is abstract enough to stay within MPAA taste guidelines.

"That's the beauty of it," he said. "It tells you everything you need to know about this movie, but it doesn't give away anything about the story. When you add the words Hostel II, it becomes extremely disturbing. You know those poor girls are in for it."

The "poor girls" would be the on-screen victims in Hostel II, which is now in postproduction in Los Angeles. The sequel carries on from the 2005 movie that presented an Eastern European hot spot for the bored rich who pay to torture and snuff tourists; both films are produced by Quentin Tarantino.

Scared yet? Yeah, me neither. It's funny, I re-watched The Exorcist last night and was struck with how much more frightening it was than shit nowadays that seems to equate horror with amount of blood spilled. Certainly, violence is an adjunct of horror, but not horror itself.

Roth claims his meaty movie poster is a public service, in a way. "This makes it very clear what my movie is. Nobody is going to think they are walking into Happy Feet: Part II. Not after they see that poster."

Much as I'd like to mock Roth for his idiocy, it isn't like making the poster more graphic makes that much difference. I've lost count of the number of R-rated movies I've been to that have enjoyed the attentions of parents with their toddlers. If Moms and Dads can't be arsed to pay attention to the ratings of the movies they attend with their kids, I don't know that having some ground chuck on the poster is going to make a lot of difference.

Posted by pete at 1:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Robots in disguise

2006 was, in my estimation, a pretty lousy year for movies. The overall box office may have been up, and you had the usual handful of critically acclaimed flicks, but as far as blockbuster tentpole releases went, we were left with the stalker-iffic Superman Returns, the Ratner-tastic X-Men: The Last Stand, and the just plain bad Cars. There were new entries in the Pirates of the Caribbean and Mission: Impossible franchises, but overall we spent most of the year idling; waiting for next year's slate. And with Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Live Free or Die Hard, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Simpsons Movie, and I Am Legend - to say nothing of the final Pirates movie - waiting in the wings, 2007 looks pretty formidable.

Okay, maybe not I Am Legend.

Anyway, the trailer campaigns have begun with another of next year's Big Honking Movies: The Transformers.

Yes, Michael Bay is responsible for two of the worst movies of the last ten years; and yes, the robots themselves look a little...spiny; and yes, this could be nothing more than a 120-minute commercial for General Motors. But...Optimus Prime, dude.

I must confess, I used to go home from high school every day and watch Transformers. Freaking high school. And I never warmed to the new generation that took over after the 1986 movie ("Rodimus Prime?" Sounds like a porno mathemetician). Plus, with Peter Cullen returning to provide his voice...well, I'm not going to say that Transformers is my most anticipated movie of 2007, except that it is.

Assemble and roll out.

You're as cold as ice

The annual Frigid 50 list is up again over at that place I write for. In fact, it's been up on the front page all week, meaning my Casino Royale review isn't there yet. As I'd hate to do the public a disservice, I'll let y'all know that it's probably the best Bond since Live and Let Die, and Daniel Craig may very well be the best James Bond since Connery.

As for the Frigid 50...I think they kept about half a dozen of my entries verbatim, and I had a hand in another 10 or 15. High five.

EDIT: Here's the review.

Two things

First, reviews for this week are up:

Stranger Than Fiction - ***1/2
Harsh Times - **1/2

Second, I have apparently taken complete leave of my senses and agreed to start a reader blog over at the Houston Chronicle website. It'll be somewhat like APCB, only strictly movie-related - well, bad movie-related - and not as much profanity. If that sounds like something that wouldn't bore you to tears, I'd like to direct your attention to Blog 9 From Outer Space.

"I don't make movies to win awards...especially now that I have two Oscars."

I mentioned earlier that my friend and fellow FT-er Don Lewis got his film Stringers into the Austin Film Festival. Well wouldn't you know it, he and co-director John Beck won the Audience Award for Documentary Short. Congrats to Don and John, and I hope they'll remember me when they need someone to write their big screen Green Lantern adaptation.

Oh, and I have a couple reviews from last week:

Borat - *****
Babel - ***1/2

Tragically, you're on your own for The Santa Clause 3.

Not bad for a Californian

I would be remiss if I did not mention my friend Don Lewis has a short film entered in the Austin Film Festival this weekend.

Actually, I've dropped the ball already by not mentioning it before it actually premiered last night. Sue me.

Don's film is called Stringers. Here's the synopsis from the AFF page:

Using refurbished police cars, scanners, video cameras, and high-tech gadgetry, independent video journalists will stop at nothing to be the first cameramen on the scene of fires, accidents, or violent crimes.

I've seen it, and it's pretty darn good. It's next screening is tomorrow (Sunday), 3 PM, at the Landmark(?) Dobie Theater as part of Shorts Program 9. Don will be attendance, and since I'm heading into Austin tonight to celebrate with him, be sure to yell your questions at him while eating a greasy pork sandwich. He loves that.

In more mundane news, I have some reviews up:

Flags of Our Fathers - **
Marie Antoinette - 1/2*

"Two can be as bad as one."

Or worse, in this case.

Undaunted by the cowardly move by Ghost House and Sony to screen The Grudge 2 at 10 PM on the Thursday before opening, I have sacrificed my sleep and the goodwill of my family to bring you this review.

Yeah, I stayed up until 1 AM for that.

Dane Cook fiddles while Seoul burns

Since we're all destined to perish in Korean-originated nuclear fire, your time is more precious than ever. And to keep all our minds off the ignominy of dying at the hands of something called a Taep'o-dong missile, here are some reviews to inform your moviemaking decisions:

Jackass: Number Two - *****
Feast - ****
All the King's Men - **1/2
The Guardian - **
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning - **1/2
The Departed - ****
Employee of the Month - *

Theyre apocalyptastic.

Yeah, that's what you paid for
With skills much sharper than a Texas chainsaw

Hard copy movie passes are something of a rarity in these days of e-mail and subcutaneous studio tracking chips. Personally, I don't really have much of a preference either way. Printed passes can be of assistance when trying to talk your way past skeptical ticket takers, but an RSVP via e-mail is usually good for a guaranteed reserved seat.

After seeing this one for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning however, I may have swung my vote permanently over to the e-ticket:

I'm trying to remember an honest-to-Gunnar Hansen marketing tie-in with a horror movie (and not a "horror" movie like Snakes on a Plane or Seed of Chucky) but I'm coming up blank. And Spencer's? Any dwindling hopes I might have had for this movie are in danger of guttering out in the face of this blatant pandering to the goth crowd.[1] "Leatherface gear?" Cripes.

[1] Not that there were many remaining after finding out Michael Bay was one of the producers, it was directed by the guy who helmed Darkness Falls, and written by the guy who gave us last year's Longest Yard remake, that is.

"We are a collection of screaming jackasses."

After a slow start, this week turned out pretty well movie-wise.

All the King's Men - **1/2
A not-so-thinly veiled salvo against the current regime. In order to get anyone to care, Penn probably should've thrown in a few anacondas and a taser to the nuts.

Jackass: Number Two - *****
Speaking of...yes, five stars. Unrelentingly hilarious, and unashamedly psychotic. Welcome to 21st century entertainment.

Feast - ****1/2
Clu Gulager's last hurrah? If so, a dandy effort.

"Well, he's always been lacking in moral fiber."
"He knows a lot about Sean Connery."
"That's hardly a substitute."

I've been in the minority regarding Daniel Craig as Bond almost since the news of his casting broke (see here and here). To give you an idea of my stance, here's my ranking of past Bonds:

1. Sean Connery
2. Pierce Brosnan (barely)
3. Timothy Dalton
4. George Lazenby
5. Roger Moore

It's not too hard to figure out what happened in recent years; receipts for the last few Bond films took a nosedive, while those for a certain other secret agent franchise went in the opposite direction. In effect, Bond has now been "Bourne-ified."

I never bought the '70s invention of Bond as something of a dandy, and look forward to finally seeing Craig get his chicken wing on. I'm providing a link to the latest and greatest trailer for Casino Royale, which willl be my last word on the matter until my review in November.

Didn't see any movies this week, in case you couldn't tell.

"It's best to stay away from a man when his blood is up."
"His blood's always up."
"The perhaps you should stay away from him altogether."

The Wife is off at some swanky nightspot toasting her friend's birthday, so while I'm on daughter duty, I'm watching L.A. Confidential. For the third time this year.

I can't really say why I like this movie so much. It's one of my "comfort flicks" - like Goodfellas, The Godfather, and Jaws - that I've latched onto for one reason or another. I'm not sure what it says about me that the majority of these movies are crime-related, except that maybe I'm part Sicilian and don't know it.

Speaking of L.A. Confidential, I've been on something of a James Ellroy kick lately. Ellroy wrote Confidential, the third in his so-called "L.A. Quartet." I've read the first three of those, as well as the first two books in the "American Underworld" trilogy (Police Gazette comes out next year). I read American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand just recently, and am currently finishing up Hollywood Nocturnes. After four Ellroy studies of corruption, conspiracy, and mostly irredeemable humanity in a row, however, I think I'm ready to take a break.

I bring all this up for a couple of reasons. One - I'm feeling garrulous after a few Molson Canadians, and two - Ellroy's The Black Dahlia comes out in a few weeks. In these dog days of studio releases, Dahlia is one of the few movies I'm looking forward to in the coming weeks. No telling whether or not Josh "Wonder Bread" Hartnett and Aaron "The Chin" Eckhart will do as well as Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, and the inclusion of Scarlett Johansson doesn't fill me with glee, but Ellroy himself apparently likes what he saw. We'll see what the public thinks, especially since - unlike L.A. Confidential - The Black Dahlia doesn't exactly have a happy ending.

Speaking of lackluster recent releases: two new reviews are up:

Beerfest (***) - not quite a return to form for the Broken Lizard boys

How to Eat Fried Worms (**1/2) - a film the certainly lives up to its title

We got snakes

As I say in my review (*/*****), Snakes on a Plane is simultaneously one of the worst, and one of the best, movies I have ever seen. If you do see it, do it this weekend, when crowds will be their biggest and audience participation will be at its highest level. Deaths are plentiful and Samuel L. Jackson is...well, he's Samuel L. motherfucking Jackson.

Truly, I did not expect to enjoy this, and while the movie starts off like a bad episode of Magnum, P.I., it hits its stride pretty damn quick. There are also some interesting switcheroos on the traditional horror movie formula that I won't go into here. In short, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and if you see it opening weekend after a few cocktails, chances are you will too.

And Julianna Margulies is still hot, but I've carried a torch for her ever since she tried to tame a raging William Forsythe in Out for Justice.

World in my eyes

World Trade Center is the second 9-11 movie this year, and far inferior to United 93. Where the latter feels almost like a documentary, with little emotional embellishment, WTC is more...what's the word...Hollywood? Oliver Stone makes the mistake of deifying his protagonists, which ends up taking away from the actual heroism of that day.

But don't take my word for it, check out the review at Film Threat.

Actually, that's still taking my word for it. Ah well.

I don't know if my visibility as a critic is increasing, or I've just become a bigger asshole, but I've gotten more review-related hate mail in the last couple of months (especially concerning Lady in the Water and Talladega Nights) than I have in the last 2 1/2 years. It's touching, really.

That's it for this week. Zoom and Pulse didn't screen for the press, and since I've already seen Take the Lead and The Cutting Edge, I figured I'd give Step Up a pass.

ReviewMaster

Timely, as always.

Miami Vice (2.5 stars) - I have friends who refuse to see this solely based on the fact that Crockett's alligator doesn't make an appearance. Not a great movie, but not horrible.

Scoop (1.5 stars) - Scarlett Johansson still can't act, and Woody Allen still (at least since the 1980s) isn't funny.

"What, like the back of a Volkswagen?"

In the interest of full disclosure following the flap between morning TV quote whore Joel Siegel and backpedaling director Kevin Smith, I should mention that I've walked out on two movies I was supposed to review. The first was Destricted, a horrible anthology of sexually-themed shorts I saw at Sundance this year. I left with roughly ten minutes running time to go, mercifully delivered from my ordeal by a call from a fellow Film Threat writer, summoning me to the bar at the Yarrow Hotel. The second time, I lasted through less than 30 minutes of Date Movie, mostly because I had other shit on my mind.

Both times I went ahead and reviewed the films in question. I didn't divulge the fact regarding Destricted, but did with Date Movie. Now it's all out in the open, and I can continue guilt free.

For those unaware of the situation, here are the relevant details:

So last night, at a press screening of �Clerks II� in New York City, �Good Morning America� movie critic Joel Siegel decided he�d had enough of my shenanigans, and walked out of the flick at the forty minute mark. You�d imagine this would bother me, and yet, I�m as delighted by this news as I was with the eight minute standing ovation �Clerks II� received in Cannes.

I mean, it�s Joel Siegel, for Christ�s sake. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said of the man, getting a bad review from Siegel is like a badge of honor. This is the guy who stole his mustachioed critic shtick from Gene Shalit years ago, and still refuses to give it back. This is a guy who seemingly prides himself on being �punny� - that is, he likes to add his own nyuk-nyuk wordplay into the reviews he writes/gives.

For �Pirates", he made us all titter with �Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Fun�.

For Pixar�s lastest, he made us squeal with delight when he wrote �Wheelie Good Time for �Cars��.
[...]
I can�t fault Mr. Siegel for feeling �revolted� (his producer�s description of Joel�s reaction) by our flick; in truth, there is a donkey show in it, and I recognize that brand of whimsy might not be for everybody. Film appreciation is very subjective, and maybe Joel just isn�t into ass-to-mouth conversations.

However, I CAN fault him for the manner in which he left the screening.

Apparently, rather than quietly exit, both Joel and his Cum-Catcher (my slang for the fancy kind of mustache he sports) made a big stink about walking out, calling as much attention to himself as possible, and being generally pretty disruptive.

Check this shit out: roughly forty minutes into the flick, when Randal orders up the third act donkey show, Siegel bellowed to his fellow critics "Time to go!" and "This is the first movie I�ve walked out of in 30 fucking years!"

Pretty weak. I realize Siegel is the movie guy on Good Morning, America and, were I in his shoes, I'd be an insufferable prick as well, but there's no call for that kind of crap. In any of the movies I've exited prematurely (whether I was reviewing them or not) I simply got up and left. Fine, maybe I was muttering under my breath a bit, but that was all.

Then again, it isn't like Siegel could hope to gain some cred back by slagging Clerks II, and Smith has been dealing with critical and fanboy backlash ever since Mallrats. This particular imbroglio couldn't happen at a more opportune time for the release of his new movie.

Nahhhh.

Cardinal rule of movie-going: shut your fucking mouth while the movie�s playing. They even ask you to do so in the pre-show run-up to every flick (�Cell phones and pagers off, no talking during the show�). This guy went beyond talking, even; he was making a spectacle of himself as he left. I�ve now spoken to three folks in attendance last night, and all have said that Siegel WANTED everyone to know how disgusted he was, and that he was leaving. If you want to share your displeasure with everyone, that�s fine, dude; just do it AFTER the movie, not during. Some folks were enjoying themselves. I don�t come down to your job and slap the taste out of your mouth for coming up with a line like ��Shark Tale� Is a Halibut Good Time�; so don�t fuck with my stuff WHILE IT�S STILL SCREENING.

I haven't seen Clerks II, and since it appears there will be as many as three reviews for it on Film Threat this weekend, I'm in no particular hurry to do so. Having said that, Smith should probably milk this for all its worth. Being perpetually late on your comic book dealines and revisiting the rapidly dwindling well of the View Askewniverse won't get you invited to speak on college campuses forever.

Hello trailer

Truly you could see at least three of these coming...

Rocky Balboa

Maybe I'm getting soft, but this doesn't look utterly horrible. Stallone may never again be the chiseled dwarf of Rocky IV, and the premise - computer simulation projects past champion defeats current champion - won't be that ridiculous to anyone who pitted the '78 Steelers against the '90 Cowboys in Madden 2000, but so what? He's beating up on sides of beef and wearing that damn hat again, let's do this.

I'm crossing my fingers for a Mr. T cameo.

Jackass 2

I am an unapolgetic fan of the Jackass franchise, and this trailer made me laugh ot loud. They're not hurting anyone but themselves, and - face it - watching a blindfolded Johnny Knoxville get potentially gored by a bull is disturbingly satisfying. I'd see this even if I didn't get in for free.

Of course (and there isn't a trailer yet) not all the news is good:

You know you're getting old when they remake beloved films from your early childhood, well that treatment is set to happen to one of mine. According to Reuters who reports Raven Symone is attached to star in the Walt Disney Pictures remake of '80s cult favorite "Adventures in Babysitting".

The original "Babysitting", also known as "A Night on the Town" in foreign territories, followed a high school senior (Elisabeth Shue) who gets stuck baby-sitting a bunch of kids. The dull night is interrupted when she gets a call for help from a friend (Penelope Ann Miller) stuck downtown, leading her and the kids into a night of misadventures. The original movie marked the directorial debut of Chris Columbus ("Mrs. Doubtfire", "Harry Potter 1 & 2").

It was also Columbus' only good movie, but that's a topic for another day.

I mentioned in one of the reviews I'm too lazy to look up that every movie that's precious to you is going to be remade at some point and you might as well get used to it. Granted, there are a couple dozen "classics" that are probably safe (The Godfather, The Bridge over the River Kwai, and Dr. Strangelove come to mind), but everything else is fair game.

Now, I'm prepared for remakes of Big Trouble in Little China and Buckaroo Banzai, but understand something: if Lynda Carter first caused my pre-adolescent loins to stir, Adventures in Babysitting (and The Karate Kid) proved conclusively to me that I was a heterosexual. I will not sit quietly at this affront to Elisabeth Shue just because Raven Symone wants leverage to get out of her Nickelodeon contract.

Lynda Obst, who produced the 1987 original with Debra Hill, is on board to produce the remake. David Stem and David Weiss wrote the script for the new "Babysitting."

You're all on the list.

"[Forget] you, you mother[father]!"

Companies attempting to profit from their unironic acceptance of the "jive" subtitles from Airplane will have to stick to the Veggie Tales series from now on:

A federal judge in Colorado has handed the entertainment industry a big win in its protracted legal battle against a handful of small companies that offer sanitized versions of theatrical releases on DVD.

The case encompasses two of Hollywood's biggest headaches these days: the culture wars and the disruptive influence of digital technologies.

Senior U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch came down squarely on the side of the Directors Guild of America and the major studios in his ruling that the companies must immediately cease all production, sale and rentals of edited videos. The summary judgment issued Thursday requires the companies -- Utah-based CleanFlicks, CleanFilms and Play It Clean Video, Arizona-based Family Flix USA and the separate entity CleanFlicks of Colorado -- to turn over all existing copies of their edited movies to lawyers for the studios for destruction within five days of the ruling.

Utah's CleanFlicks, which describes itself as the largest distributor of edited movies, through online sales and rentals and sales to video stores in Utah, Arizona and other states in the region, said it would continue its fight against the guild and the studios. CleanFlicks and the others make copies of official DVD releases and then edit them for sex, nudity, violence and profanity.

One wonders if any changes were made to the CleanFlicks version of The Passion of the Christ.

You don't get it both ways, guys: if the movies presented as are aren't to your liking, make your own. You don't get to alter a director's work without his approval. I realize our "human laws" don't hold up against the teachings of Jesus (or Joseph Smith, whoever), so maybe you ask him to pay your legal fees.

CleanFlicks and the others maintained their edited DVDs were legal under fair use guidelines that allow for the use of copyrighted material in criticism, news reporting, parody and other circumstances. The slogan on the CleanFlicks Web site is "It's About Choice." An online listing for Family Flix's offerings on the Web site of the Mormon-based Meridian magazine noted that the content snipped out of its edited videos included all references to "homosexuality, perversion and co-habitation."

Interesting where these people put their priorities when it comes to "choice."

And everybody knows homosexuals are often the only watchable part of most Hollywood releases. A Rupert Everett-less My Best Friend's Wedding would have roughly as many laughs as The Deer Hunter.

Joel Schumacher's Batman movies must've been a bitch to edit.

The mainstreaming of sophisticated digital editing technologies has fueled the cottage industry of movie sanitizers. CleanFlicks and others purchase an official DVD copy of a film on DVD for each edited version of the title they produce through the use of editing systems and software. The official release disc is included alongside the edited copy in every sale or rental transaction conducted. As such, the companies argued that they had the right on First Amendment and fair use grounds to offer consumers the alternative of an edited version for private viewing, so long as they maintained that "one-to-one" ratio to ensure that copyright holders got their due from the transactions. Matsch disagreed.

"Their business is illegitimate," the judge wrote in his 16-page ruling. "The right to control the content of the copyrighted work ... is the essence of the law of copyright."

Let's be honest; these same directors routinely sell the rights to their movies to TV networks for prime time airing. But at the same time, they retain a say in what kind of content cuts are made. CleanFlicks and their ilk didn't just edit out profanity and nudity, but also anything ideologically opposed to their pig ignorant worldview.

Obviously, not everyone agrees with my sage analysis...

Early on, the legal sparring involved Salt Lake City-based ClearPlay, which offers video filtering software that allows for home viewing of cleaned-up versions of Hollywood titles.

ClearPlay offers software programs developed for specific titles that users can run on their computer or ClearPlay's proprietary DVD player along with an official copy of the DVD. With this technology, a nude shot of an actor can be altered to show a silhouette, or profanity can be bleeped out. Because ClearPlay's technology does not involve making an altered DVD copy, it has been shielded from the copyright infringement claims. The debate over movie content filtering activities made its way into Congress, which passed the 2005 Family Movie Act that protects ClearPlay and other software-based filtering companies. Matsch noted that Congress at that time had the opportunity to also carve out legal protections for CleanFlicks and its ilk, but chose not to.
[...]
Matsch's opinion could wind up eliminating most of ClearPlay's competition, but company CEO Bill Aho still criticized Matsch's reasoning.

"While it may be good for ClearPlay Inc., it's bad for parents," Aho said. "Moms and dads need all the help they can get to protect their kids, and these companies were providing a valuable service."

Please don't presume to speak for me, Bill. I make damn sure the most adult thing She Who Shall Not Be Named sees on TV is Buddy Guy on Jack's Big Music Show. We save Deadwood - in all its cocksucking glory - for when she's safely in bed.

A pirate's life for me

In case you hadn't heard, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel opened this weekend, to the tune of $55 million. This puts it on pace to beat Spider-Man 2 for best three-day opening. It is, of course, an "event" movie, which means the opinions of pompous gasbags like myself matter even less than usual.

Nevertheless, my hard-hitting and incisive review is up for your ridicule at Film Threat.
As always, please ignore those annoying goddamned advertising links littering the site like so many cigarette butts in a sandbox.

Tease tease me

A handful of trailers for some high-profile and/or lowbrow movies debuted this last week. Let's take a look, even though it might take away from valuable time better spent discussing Nicole Kidman's marriage.

Spider-Man 3

I'm sure if I tried hard enough, I could find info on the internut about how they're planning on introducing the symbiotic suit, and why Gwen Stacy's just now showing up. For now, I'll simply amuse myself with thoughts of the other ways in which Raimi is going to try and respond to the no-doubt countless e-mails he received from Sony execs asking him to make Spider-Man more "tortured" and "dark" following the success of Batman Begins.

Some suggestions:

1. Peter fails to stop a runaway school bus because he's too engrossed in decorating his MySpace page with shirtless black and white photos of himself.
2. Spider-Man costume no longer includes a mask, because it messes up his bangs. Other additions: a big-ass belt and black Converse All-Stars.
3. While cutting himself to show the world his pain, accidentally(?) disables his web slingers.
4. Refuses to give up front row seats to the Dashboard Confessional concert at Irving Plaza when MJ is kidnapped by the Sandman. Later agonizes about this decision in his journal.
5. Soundtrack consists of nothing but AFI, My Chemical Romance, and Taking Back Sunday. Actually, this was probably going to happen anyway.
6. Converts to straight-edge and pummels anyone who calls him "emo" to within an inch of their life.

The Transformers

Pros:
+ Giant robots
+ Mayhem on the scale of a Toho movie, only with a budget of greater than $75
+ Giant goddamn robots

Cons:
- Michael "Armageddon" Bay
- Michael "Pearl Harbor" Bay
- Guys, it's Michael Bay

Snakes on a Plane

This joke has long since gone from "getting old" to "shovefuls of dirt in the face." Had it opened a month ago however, I feel comfortable in saying it would've given The Passion of the Christ a run for its money.

Your weekend entertainment options

There's The Devil Wears Prada (3.5 stars), for those who'd like a humorous and well-written movie. Especially if your wife or girlfriend nixes your Superman plans.

Superman Returns is still in theaters, after grossing a mere (estimated) $35 million its first two days. Kids will like it, so take them quickly, before it's pulled.

Me? Ill be at home watching the World Cup quarterfinals. Go Germany.

And still no appearance from Beppo, the Super Monkey

My review of Superman Returns is up (2.5 stars). I admit, I went in with somewhat diminished expectations. The trailers never really did it for me, and even the fairly glowing advance reviews didn't assuage those nagging doubts. So I allowed myself a brief moment of hope during the first part, which included the rather impressive space shuttle/airplane rescue. Maybe Bryan Singer could go three-for-three with superhero pics, I thought. Maybe the voices in my head are wrong this time.

As it turns out, it was something of a mixed bag. The Thing That Walks Like A Man, whose knowledge of DC Comics rivals that of even the esteemed Dr. Elmo, was less forgiving. I felt the first half mitigated some of what came after, and made up for Singer's (hopefully) unintentional portrayal of the Man of Steel as a bit of a creep. We both agreed, however, that one aspect of the film (which I don't describe in the review and which I won't spoil here) damages the end product almost irrevocably.

The review does go into some detail about Lex Luthor's unbelievably lame plan for world domination, so be forewarned.

I think kids will enjoy the movie, if that helps. And again, the action scenes are first-rate, but the whole thing ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

On the plus side, The Wife and I saw The Devil Wears Prada last night, and we both agree it's one of the better movies released this year.

Review Recap - 6/23

It's probably far too late to save some of you, but here are a couple reviews from the last few weeks:

Nacho Libre - **1/2 - I freely admit, two beers and a double whiskey helped my appreciation for what is ultimately an unfunny film. What can I say? I'm a sucker for Mexican wrestling.

Click - ** - Stupid Adam Sandler tricks are a weak spot of mine, or were until circa 1997. Nothing I say is going to keep this movie from grossing $50 million, but I do what I can.

Stay tuned. Reviews for Superman Returns and The Devil Wears Prada are coming next week.

Only if Ben Affleck plays "Red-Shirted Security Guy #3"

After Syriana and The Bourne Supremacy, I can't help but feel like this might be a step down for Matt Damon:

Yahoo Insider reports that J.J. Abrams is very interested in casting the Oscar-winning Damon as a young Captain Kirk in the upcoming 'Star Trek' movie that he's directing and producing.

He's so interested that he's apparently already sought support from the original Kirk, William Shatner who "gave his blessing. J.J. got his approval" says a source.

Rumor has it that the new movie would center on Kirk and Spock's early days at a space academy.

This smells like bullshit to me, unless Paramount isn't so much looking to jumpstart the franchise as they are to score some quick cash. Damon's star power would definitely up the box office total from the last Star Trek movie ($43 million for Nemesis, the lowest grossing film in the series), but there's next to no way the guy woulg sign on for more than one.

Still, if true, it couldn't hurt. For too long Paramount has illogically (heh) banked on a built-in audience for the TV cast, and the declining returns have repeatedly proven this wrong. In fact, stand-alone movies would certainly work better at this point than trying to launch another television series, especially after the lackluster performance of the last two. Why not just sell the name, cast, and/or mythology to whoever wants to hang a film on it, kind of like how they turned the Simon Says script into the third Die Hard movie.

Just imagine the possibilities...

Romance? How about Short Circuit 3: They're Having a Baby (starring No. 5 and Data)?

Epic? Locutus of Arabia, or maybe Once Upon a Time in Antos IV.

Comedy? Forget it, Galaxy Quest was already a better movie than most of the originals.

Remake? Treasure of the Sigma Erandi System perhaps?

Noir? Either The Melkotian Falcon or Kei Largo works for me.

I'll give up before I get to Pon Farr and Away.

Don't be fooled

My review of Cars is up at Film Threat, and it is erroneously marked with a 3-star rating. I actually gave it 1.5 stars, but since the FT guys are currently in Sin City covering CineVegas, I don't expect it to be changed before some time this afternoon.

On another World Cup-related note, it looks like Carlos Gamarra is going to have to hire a bodyguard when he gets back to Paraguay.

This week's vexing moral dilemma

Next week, I have two movies screening on the same night, and I'm in a bit of a quandary about which one to see/review.

The choices:

Nacho Libre

PROS:
- Jack Black is a love him or hate him kind of actor, and I've been a fan ever since his Tenacious D days.
- I also enjoy the manly spectacle of lucha libre, so much so I almost fired off an angry letter to the editor of the New York Times after Lewis Beale incorrectly described Nacho as the first movie to bring Mexican wrestling to the big screen. I would've signed it "El Santo," however, which might have ruined the effect.
- Midgets, I'm told, are always funny.

CONS:
- It's directed by Jared Hess, the man responsible for the criminally overrated Napoleon Dynamite. If his latest effort continues Napoleon's trend of deliberate peculiarity, I'm in for a long evening.
- Even I might be forced to admit that Black's shtick is getting a bit old.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

PROS:
- Forgive me, but this looks hilarious. I love the idea of the redneck gaijin (Lucas Black) using his Grand Theft Auto skills to compete with - as Pink Floyd once referred to them - the "wily Japanese."
- Black was good in Jarhead...and American Gothic. Granted, he was all of 14 in the latter, but still.
- Sonny Chiba is in it.
- They destroy over 100 cars. That has to rival The Blues Brothers.

CONS:
- Uh, it's a Fast and Furious sequel, and one in which Paul "Into the Blue" Walker didn't deign to return. That can't be good.
- "Drift racing" just sounds dumb.

Thoughts? I promise to take any and all feedback to heart when making this difficult decision.

"They don't write 'em like that anymore"

"That's for sure."

That's your 2-star review for The Break-Up, right there. I'm waiting for a screener of B13, which already opened, so obviously there won't be a write-up of that.

On an unrelated note, we're watching Transamerica and it never ceases to amuse me that no one in road movies ever takes the interstate. If Bree and Toby hopped on I-70 they'd have been in Los Angeles in four days.

I know, I know...then it wouldn't be a "road movie." Tthhpht.

Post The Break-Up ponderings

1. The character of Johnny O (played by John Favreau) is the spitting image of my friend and sometimes commenter TheDave - if the latter gained about 30 pounds - in both appearance and actions. The latter more specifically, especially when he taunts the Wrigley Field crowd at a Cubs-White Sox game (the character is a Sox fan, Dave cheers rather enthusiastcally for the Raiders).

2. I wonder if Vince Vaughn in an Old 97s fan. Their song "Timebomb" was featured in his 1997 movie Clay Pigeons, and a key scene in this movie takes place at a 97s show, where Rhett Miller and Ken Bethea are featured quite prominently.

Or maybe Aniston is a fan of Miler's. He is rather dreamy, after all.

Hollow Men

Back in the saddle again, after a somewhat self-imposed hiatus from reviewing. So here's my write-up of X-Men: The Last Stand.

Original blog content is so overrated.

Thoughts on seeing X-Men: The Last Stand

"Way to kill a franchise, Ratner."

That, and a number of other thoughts I'd rather not spoil before my review comes out.

Oh fine, one more:

"Why don't they just float the cars over?"

You'll understand when you see it.

Better days are shining through

Got this e-mail yesterday from the 20th Century Fox Publicist:

Just wanted to let you know that GARFIELD: A TAIL OF TWO KITTIES will now open nationwide on June 16th.

Please feel free to call or email me with any questions or concerns.

I am in the process of setting screenings and will have that info out to you as soon as the details are confirmed.

Somehow, I'd conveniently managed to forget there was even a second Garfield movie coming out, much less that it was to be released this year, or that its release date had been bumped up from late to early summer. A sign of quality filmmaking if ever there was one.

Here's the lineup of movies opening that weekend:

Garfield 2
Nacho Libre
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
The Lake House

I don't play a lot of Gran Turismo and I'm not very interested in a movie reuniting the cast of Speed that lacks an exploding bus. Nacho Libre is a little difficult to get a handle on. It has an amusing concept, but if Jared Hess brings the same forced sense of whimsy he did to Napoleon Dynamite, we could have problems.

Maybe I'll just take the week off.

The Da Vinci Load

In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell y'all that I will not be reviewing The Da Vinci Code this week. The continuing encroachment of Real Life events have forced me into a hiatus until next Tuesday's screening of X-3, after which I will return to relate just how badly Brett Ratner has flushed the franchise down the commode.

Therefore, all I have to offer you are the protestations of the righteous:

As fans eagerly await the opening of the "The Da Vinci Code" in the United States on Friday, Christian protests against the film have reached a fever pitch and include criticisms from Vatican officials, who are fuming.

Monsignor Angelo Amato, the second in command in the Vatican's influential doctrinal department, said the fictional work contains slander, offenses and errors, and if "they were directed toward the Koran or the Holocaust [they] would have justifiably provoked a worldwide revolt," he said. "Yet because they were directed toward the Catholic Church, they remain unpunished."

Cardinal Francis Arinze, believed to be a leading contender for pope last year, has called for "legal actions."

"Is 'The Da Vinci Code' anti-Catholic?" San Fransisco's Archbishop George H. Niederauer asked in the archdiocesan newspaper Catholic San Francisco. "Well, sure it is. The book is at least as anti-Catholic as it is anti-Christian."

It's also one of the top-selling books of the last twenty years, which explains why the always fiscally conscious Church is expending so much effort to attack it while leaving lesser known (and superiorly written) Christ-questioning books like Christopher Moore's Lamb to wallow in obscurity.

Someone needs to get Ron Howard interested in filming a Beaster remake, I guess.

When the movie opens this weekend, Catholic bishops in the United States will release a documentary refuting "The Da Vinci Code" for its claims of secret imagery in the painting of "The Last Supper," claims they say have no artistic or scriptural basis.

Their effort is part of this global campaign against the movie, which stars Tom Hanks.

In London, church representatives have gone to movie theaters to distribute 300,000 "fact versus fiction" scratch cards about details in the movie. For example, one item reads: "Among the fictional points noted, the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is a matter of historical record." That would be fiction, the card says.

Pointing out a novel is "fiction:" genius. Next they'll tell us poetry should have a rhyme scheme and John Grisham is a hack.

My only question is, when will the call for boycotts of X-Men: The Last Stand go out?

As I reported here, NBC reporter Melissa Stark yesterday dipped a timid toe in the sea of controversy when she interviewed Code director Ron Howard, asking how he reacted to the controversy the movie has created . . . for the Church! Sounding more like a sensitivity trainer than a Hollywood director, Howard offered up some ambiguous prose about it being healthy thing for people to engage their beliefs.

Lauer took the bull of controversy more directly by the horns when he interviewed the cast and director Howard today. Said Lauer:

"There have been calls from some religious groups, they wanted a disclaimer at the beginning of this movie saying it is fiction because one of the themes in the book really knocks Christianity right on its ear, if Christ survived the crucifixion, he did not die for our sins and therefore was not resurrected. What I'm saying is, people wanted this to say 'fiction, fiction, fiction'. How would you all have felt if there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie? Would it have been okay with you?"

There was a pause, and then famed British actor Ian McKellen [Gandalf of Lord of the Rings], piped up:

"Well, I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction. I mean, walking on water, it takes an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie. Not that it's true, not that it's factual, but that it's a jolly good story. And I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out fact and fiction, and discuss the thing after they've seen it."

With the camera focused on McKellen, one could hear a distinctly nervous laugh in the background, seeming to come from either actor Tom Hanks or director Howard. McKellen's stunning bit of blasphemy is likely to test the adage that all publicity is good publicity.

Any tentative belief I had in the discerning tastes of the American public were dashed last night when, in a moment of weakness, I tuned in to American Idol in time to watch thousands of people turn out to pay tribute to Elliot Yamin in his hometown. This is the equivalent of celebrating the third best karaoke singer in the country this year, but I digress.

Ron Howard and company should be heartened by the fact that advance reviews of The Da Vinci Code are pretty dismal (15% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Heartened, because this year more than any other has proven so far that lousy reviews are no hindrance to box office success.

Blond, James Blond

The new Casino Royale trailer is up. Check it out in all its majesty here.

Parkour! Uncomfortably snug Euro-swimsuits! "The Denchster!" The first fair-haired 007! Take a look at him in that last shot:

Connery had a certain earthy quality about him, and Dalton's portrayal always hinted at the brutality within, but Craig might go down as the first Bond to actually scare the shit out of me. Having said that, I've been a 007 fan since childhood, and I'm willing to give the new guy a shot, if only because there seems to be such a backlash against him.

And because I fear grievous bodily harm.

Run, Ethan, run

Mission: Impossible III review is up. 2 1/2 stars.

Didn't see anything else, so just use your best judgment with regard to this week's other releases. You know we trust you.

"I thought I was looking at my mother's old douchebag, but that's in Ohio."

It never ends:

Kyle Newman has signed on to direct "Revenge of the Nerds," a remake of the seminal 1984 teen comedy.

The project is being developed by Fox Atomic, the new young-adult genre division of Fox Filmed Entertainment. The studio is eyeing a summer start date.

"Young-adult genre division?" What better excuse to turn the previously R-rated Nerds into family friendly PG-13 entertainment?

On one hand, we have the internet now, with its attendant message boards and fanfic devoted to everything from Space: Above and Beyond to Quantum Leap slash. Given how much geek/nerd culture has seeped into the popular consisciousness (Angelina Jolie played a hacker, for crying out loud, and that was back in 1995), the subject is bound to be a little less fresh than when my dad put tape on his glasses and donned a pocket protector to buy us stickets to the first Nerds movie.

And that Columbine thing kinda put the exclamation point on the whole "misfits vs. jocks" angle.

On the other, never has a Presidential administration so resembled a leering collection of high school bullies, especially considering their zealous crusade to roll back hundreds of years of scientific progress. In an important sense, nerds have never been as disenfranchised as they are right now.

Whatever. There better be a Donald "Ogre" Gibb cameo.

Full Spectrum Reviews

They run the gamut this week:

United 93 - *****
R.V. - *

The weekend box office will tell the tale. The impression I (and The Wife, who actually talks to other human beings) get is that there's a sizeable contigent of folks who are not up for seeing this. More's the pity.

Even though you know how it ends...

See United 93. There's no jingoism or chest-thumping to drum up support for the War on Terrah. No beatification of the passengers or demonization of the hijackers. No (well, very little) righteous ass-kickery. It is, quite simply, a superbly effective dramatization of the events of 9-11.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was #1 at the box office this weekend. And for once, I would consider it merited. Is it "too soon" for a movie about 9-11? I honestly don't know. What I do know is that it will resonate with just about anyone over the age of ten, not as a call to arms or justification for American militarism, but as a painfully human story.

See United 93.

The song remains the same

Silent Hill wasn't screened for critics, although I discovered, quite by accident, that there was a screening last night immediately following the one scheduled for The Sentinel. I wasn't invited to that one either, but I still managed to weasel my way in (the review should be up tomorrow). Needless to say, I wasn't inclined to hit a 10 PM show when I had to be up at 6 AM this morning, which is doubtless what Sony was hoping for.

Regardless, it's hovering around a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So...nyah.

In case I hadn't posted these yet:

Phat Girlz - *1/2
Take the Lead - **1/2

Surprise, surprise...I might actually get to check out United 93 next week.

Disgruntled

No reviews this week. Neither The Wild nor Scary Movie 4 screened for the press in Houston. Actually, I take that back...SM4 screened for print media, but not "internet critics." I've snuck into these screenings before, and will again, but didn't feel like hassling with it this time.

As you're all probably aware, this is a growing trend for studios. Rather than attempt to replicate my disgust here, I'll simply point you to my latest column, running today on Film Threat:

Hollywood Hates You

Have a good weekend. Don't go see Scary Movie 4.

When "two thumbs up" isn't enough

It was only a matter of time before something like The Weekly Blurb came out (via MetaFilter):

Have a movie? Want it to be a hit? Don't have the clout, the time, the energy or the talent to make it an international critical success? Realized that it might be the worst movie since Xanadu? You've come to the right place.

We at The Weekly Blurb believe that every film, no matter how
good or bad, deserves a blurb - a nice, punchy, positive bit of praise that can be pulled out here and pasted in your movie's advertising.

A sample, from the Basic Instinct II review (they gave it 10 stars):

David Morrissey brings the same good looks and place-holding capabilities he's brought to other movies he's been in, although I can't think of any offhand at the moment, and David Thewlis and Charlotte Rampling are riveting in supporting roles playing people who have lines.

Any over/under guesses as to the first time a studio actually uses one of these in an ad? I say 6 weeks.

Earl Dittman is combing Monster.com as we speak.

Elklectric Boogaloo

Disney, not content with releasing straight-to-DVD sequels of relatively contemporary cartoons, is bringing out the big names. I discovered this when I saw a copy of Bambi II on a friend's table. The following conversatione ensued:

Pete: "Bambi II, eh?"
Friend: "Yep."
Pete: "Is that the one where Bambi's mother rises from the grave as a flesh-eating zombie hellbent on vengeance against the hunters who killed her?"
Friend: "I�don't think so. I haven't watched it yet."
Pete: "Because that would be awesome."
Friend: "I'm pretty sure it's like the original Bambi, with lots of cute forest creatures and stuff."
Pete: "Oh. Well, I still like my idea."
Friend: "You should write Disney."
Pete: "Definitely. I mean, I'd watch it.
Friend: "Uh-huh."
Pete: And so would at least three of my friends."

Okay, maybe two of my friends.

"He didn't get 'gay' on you, did he?"

Been a while since I've heard about the sinister "gay agenda." Luckily, the American Family Association is on the case:

Wal-Mart has turned aside a massive letter-writing campaign by the American Family Association urging the retailer to refuse to stock Brokeback Mountain, being distributed by Universal Home Entertainment. The group, which has successfully campaigned against what it considers to be broadcast indecency launched the campaign last week after ads for the film began being displayed prominently in the retailer's 3,900 stores. In an interview with today's (Tuesday) Los Angeles Times, the AFA's Randy Sharp, accused Wal-Mart of helping to push the "gay agenda" by "trying to help normalize homosexuality in society." He added, "But how many copies are they going to have to sell to [recoup] the losses of customers who they've offended and will no longer shop at Wal-Mart?" But a Wal-Mart spokeswoman replied, "The fact that we are offering the movie is not an endorsement of the content of the movie or any specific belief. ...We simply offer the latest titles that consumers want."

"No longer shop at Wal-Mart?" See, this is where the AFA strategy backfires. By supporting the retail giant in its quest to drive every other store that sells stuff out of business, they've allowed Wal-Mart to become the only source of clothing, auto parts, groceries, small appliances, and sporting goods for millions of rural Americans. They no longer have a choice.

And Wal-Mart knows it. Don't be surprised if they're increasingly unresponsive to your silly crusades in the future, Randy. Especially when, as in this case, they decide there's money to be made from a film that's already grossed over $100 million worldwide.

Prayerful types needn't worry too much though, Wal-Mart still doesn't stock George Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, America: The Book by the Daily Show gang, that Sheryl Crow album with the handgun lyrics, or any versions of Nirvana's In Utero with the song "Rape Me" listed under its real title (it was changed to "Waif Me" for the retailer).

It isn't like people are still buying In Utero anymore. Or the Carlin book, for that matter.

Best Movie of 2006...so far

Slither.

And I should probably say "best studio release," as I saw several movies at Sundance and SXSW that were better. But anyway...

No offense (well, not much) to my esteemed FT colleague Don, who gave it a mere two stars in his review, but I haven't enjoyed myself at a movie this much in quite a while. Gleefully low budget, and R-rated so as to capture every evisceration and exploding cranium, it's a decidely sleazy good time.

If I had any complaint, it's that it doesn't go crazy enough. Slither felt a lot like the first X-Men movie in that regard, simply because it seemed like Gunn didn't have the budget to do everything he wanted. Still, as remakes go (Night of the Creeps), it's miles ahead of any horror movie released in the last five years.

Of course, the pre-screening margaritas probably didn't hurt.

My review likely won't be up until this weekend. To tide you over, here's:

Inside Man - ***1/2
Ice Age: The Meltdown - **1/2

Git-r-Dumb

So, the really surprising (in a Capt. Renault kind of way) news is that Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector is currently residing at #1 on the Internet Movie Database's Bottom 100 list less than a week after its release.

First of all, I hold no stock whatsoever in IMDB's ratings (including their Top 250), and neither should you. It isn't that I have any special objection to The Godfather being rated #1, or that 143,000 people voted for Return of the King to be ahead of (for which 100,000 fewer people bothered to vote at all)...it's to be expected. People have short attention spans, after all, and after perusing their message boards for a while, let's just say it's a bit much to ask for rational criticism from people who still use "l33t speak" and quote Col. Guile from Street Fighter without irony.

So I don't really have a problem with Larry the Healthy Cable Inspector listed as the Worst Movie Ever. Does it suck? Yeah, probably. Is it one of the 100 worst movies of all time? It wouldn't shock me, but then, I have less of a problem with a one-off film like this, released simply to capitalize on the (hopefully) fleeting fame of the once and future Dan Whitney than I do with hundred million dollar stool samples like Forrest Gump and Pearl Harbor.

Besides, I guarantee you not all of the 1,400+ people (at last count) voting for Larry actually saw it. Sure, it made $7 million at the box office, but those who saw it opening weekened are the kind of people for whom movie criticism might as well be the op-ed page of the San Francisco Chronicle. You could probably count the number of people who consciously shelled out $9 for a ticket and then came home to give it a "1" on IMDB on both hands and one foot.

Besides, I get no end of pleasure at seeing the current #2 movie - Anus Magillicutty - which bills itself on its own DVD cover as "The Worst Movie of All Time," bumped out of the top spot. It was a noble effort fellows, but to paraphrase my grandfather, "There's always someone bigger, smarter, or more offensive aesthetically than you are." I have no doubt the guys at Corporations Unlimited engineered a voting campaign to have Anus perched majestically at #1. And having been forced to sit through it, I'm actually glad "Larry" stole their thunder.

And for the record, this will be most likely be the only area in which I'd ever want that sleeveless hack to succeed.

You can't spell "angst" without "Ang"

Ang Lee, please shut up:

Golden Globe-winning movie Brokeback Mountain was named last year's Best Motion Picture at the 17th annual Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Awards in New York City Monday night. Oscar-winning director Ang Lee received a standing ovation when he took to the stage to accept the award on behalf of everyone who worked on the heart-breaking tale of a secret love affair between two cowboys. He told the audience, "Finally, an award that actually means something. (It will probably be) the very last award I will accept for Brokeback Mountain. And to end the journey here tonight is like coming home. The fact is Brokeback Mountain has helped to change the world."

We get it, Ang; you really wanted Brokeback to win Best Picture. Guess what? It didn't. Crash may go down as one of the more, uh, "unexpected" upsets in Academy Award history, but it doesn't rank as high on the "Buh?" scale as: Driving Miss Daisy, Ordinary People over Raging Bull, Rocky over Network and Taxi Driver, or Titanic, period. And those are just the last 20 years.

Nobody likes a sore loser, Ang. Even Quentin Tarantino, who had better reason to bitch after Gump beat Pulp Fiction, shut up after a couple of days. You lost, let it go.

And referring to the GLAAD Award as "meaning something," implying it's somehow less of a popularity contest than the Oscar and is therefore free of politics and hidden agenda, is almost as funny as Keira Knightley getting nominated for Best Actress.

"Stop a bullet cold, make the Axis fold"

Oh, hell no:

Herbie: Fully Loaded star Lindsay Lohan is desperate to play Wonder Woman in the forthcoming movie version of the comic book superhero. The 19-year-old Freaky Friday actress admits she'd like to showcase her talents outside of kid and teen films, but feels the role would be too fun to turn down. She says, "Wonder Woman would be cool. I'm trying to find roles right now that are different to anything I've done to show my abilities, to show that I have some sort of stretch in me. Because most of the things that I've done so far are aimed at younger girls and are light-hearted."

Yeah, starring in Wonder Woman will really elevate that age demographic.

There have been almost as many actresses rumored to be in the running for this as there were actors for the role of James Bond, among them Salma Hayek, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Connelly, and Jennifer Lopez. Lohan would, I think, be a worse choice than just about any of these.

Except maybe Jennifer Lopez.

I sincerely hope Joss Whedon and company don't take her seriously, and not just because she seems to have confused "Amazon" with "Anorexic."

"What's this movie about?"

You know you're salivating as much as I am to see Samuel L. Jackson's latest, especially after the juicy preview that hit the internets yesterday. I give you, Snakes on a [Motherfucking] Plane.

Not only does this movie appear to absolutely deliver what it promises, it has a snake eating a cat, and one emerging from a woman's decolletage. And it caters to that lucrative demographic consisting of people who are afraid of flying and terrified of snakes. I may be premature in this, but I'm feeling pretty good about this making my Top 10 of 2006.

Even barring that, this movie is going to be huge.

In MySpace, no one can hear you scream

This would be where I make the emabarrassing confession (for anyone who's graduated high school) that I have a MySpace.com page. Except I don't. Blogging's enough of a waste of time that I'm not going to bother keeping up with a bunch of 15-year olds who have no inclination to leave the warm, loving glow of their monitor.

It appears Fox Searchlight feels differently, however:

Two of News Corp's corporate siblings, Fox Searchlight Films and the newly acquired social-networking site MySpace.com, were due to participate in a bit of synergy today (Thursday), with the film company taking over all advertising on the website for its new movie The Hills Have Eyes, which opens Friday. "The [ad] purchase allows the film unparalleled advertising exposure and helps connect site users to the remake of [the Wes Craven] horror classic," Fox Searchlight said in a statement. In addition to ads, MySpace.com users will be able to listen to portions of the movie's soundtrack, view clips and still photos from the movie, download wallpapers and a screen saver, and play a video game based on the movie.

Okay, first: "synergy?" You guys might need to get a new Dilbert calendar.

Second, isn't MySpace's popularity due in large part to the number of teenagers who hang out there, dooming the rest of the country with their idiotic fashion and music choices? And isn't The Hills Have Eyes rated R? How long will it be before some irate parent decides to bring the pain - litigation-wise - to News Corp for exposing their precious little angels to a movie about cannibalistic nuclear mutants?

Although if recent news stories are any indication, a lot of these parents don't know what their MySpacers are doing in the first place.

Digital Video Discotheque - 3/6/06 - Abridged Version

Short version this week, for the following reason:

While I was minding my own business (read: watching The Simpsons) in the back of the house, our neighbor and her sister-in-law came over to ask if we knew of a babysitter who could be found on short notice. We did, but didn't have her number on hand. Not that it mattered, since The Wife volunteered to watch our neighbor's nephew (he's exactly a month older than She Who Shall Not Be Named). She might be in more trouble if the kid turned out to be a monster, but he was great. I especially liked being called "Man" all night, which is apparently his appellation for all non-father dudes.

Onward.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Best one yet, in my opinion, though I still think they're going to have to find a new cast, thanks to the "reverse Macchio" effect on display with Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe.

Howl's Moving Castle - Spirited Away is a tough act to follow, and while Castle is a decent enough film, it suffers greatly by comparison. Also releasing this week: My Neighbor Totoro

Jarhead - AKA That Other Vaguely Controversial Movie Jake Gyllenhaal was in Last Year.

Hogan's Heroes - The Complete Third Season - I'm glad the miracle of syndication and video technology are around to convice me this show wasn't a figment of my oft-fevered imagination. You can understand my confusion as a youngser, since the idea of a wacky comedy set in a Nazi prison camp seems like something only a person in the grip of a complete psychotic break could come up with.

Curse, Death, and Spirit - Three horror shorts from pre-Ringu Hideo Nakata.

The Shaggy Dog/Shaggy DA - Coinciding with this week's release of the Tim Allen Dog remake, which I am not seeing, so don't ask.

The Ape - Spider-Man's James Franco directed and stars in this inexplicable story of an aspiring writer who movies in to a house and ends up with a "trash-talking ape with an affinity for Hawaiian shirts" as a roommate. I must see this.

Dereliction of duty

I'm working on a project that required - among other things - my looking up some stuff about the original Terminator. Specifically, the scene where Reese appears in the alley and swipes a bum's trousers, resulting in what is still one of my favorite lines in movie history: "That son of a bitch took my pants!"

Procrastinating further, I checked the IMDb listing for the actor listed as "Derelict in alley." Talk about typecasting...the guy's name is Stan Yale, and here are some highlights from his 25 movie and television appearances:

2. "Nikki"
    - Through Thick and Thin (2002) TV Episode .... Homeless Man
3. "Black Scorpion"
... aka Roger Corman Presents Black Scorpion (Canada: English title)
    - Love Burns (2001) TV Episode .... Homeless Man
    - Home Sweet Homeless (2001) TV Episode .... Squeegee Guy
4. "The Pretender"
    - Risque Business (1999) TV Episode .... Homeless Guy
5. "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch"
... aka Sabrina (USA: promotional abbreviation)
... aka Sabrina Goes to College (USA: promotional title)
    - Sabrina the Sandman (1999) TV Episode .... Stinky's Friend
7. Persons Unknown (1996) .... Homeless Man
9. The Force (1994) .... Homeless Man
10. Monolith (1993) .... Bum
... aka Monolith (Germany)
11. Save Me (1993) .... Homeless Man
12. Trancers III (1992) (V) .... Alley Bum
... aka Death Lives
... aka Future Cop III
13. Watchers II (1990) .... Wino #1
14. "L.A. Law"
    - America the Beautiful (1989) TV Episode .... First Homeless Man
17. "Moonlighting"
    - Tale in Two Cities (1987) TV Episode .... Bum
18. Terminal Exposure (1987) .... White Wino
... aka Double Exposure
19. P.I. Private Investigations (1987) .... Bum
... aka Private Investigations (USA: short title)
22. The Terminator (1984) .... Derelict in Alley
23. Rhinestone (1984) .... Street Player

He had other, named roles, but it's impossible to tell from those if he was also playing a bum, so I had to go strictly with the ones referencing his severe lack of income.

If I'm reading that right, he played two different homeless characters in the series Black Scorpion. And I'm assuming the character of "Stinky's friend" from Sabrina was also in some way associated with the street life.

You gotta admire a man with that much dedication to his craft.

I'd like to &*#$ the Academy

Finally, an Oscar-related article we can use:

It's up for several honors at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony, but Crash already has taken first prize for the most curse words in a film nominated for best picture.

FamilyMediaGuide.com, which tracks incidents of profanity, sex, violence and tobacco use in films, reported Tuesday that Crash had 182 expletives, including 99 utterances of the F-word.
[...]
Brokeback Mountain ranked second among best picture nominees with 92 curse words, followed by Munich with 22, according to FamilyMediaGuide.com.

Truly a helpful resource, considering all three of the nominess highlighted in the article were rated 'R' to begin with.

The record for most profanities in a film to win the best picture Oscar is held by the Vietnam War drama Platoon, with 329. The Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter is second with 208.

The Deer Hunter, of course, only barely edged out the 206 profanities featured in 1964 Best Picture winner My Fair Lady, including the oft-forgotten scene where Eliza Doolittle refers to Col. Pickering and Henry Higgins as "a shit-smeared ass pony" and "a goddamned fuckbag," respectively.

FamilyMediaGuide says it makes no judgment on a movie's value, but simply tracks instances of profanity, sex, violence and tobacco use as a guide to parents.

I'll admit, I was prepared to mosey on over to the web site and find it populated with so-called experts boasting credentials as impressive as "Dr." Laura's. To my surprise, everyone on their board holds a doctorate or a medical degree, and from actual universities like USC and Cornell (not, as I feared, Oral Roberts University or the Nathan Bedford Forrest School of Race Medicine).

Unfortunately, I see fewer and fewer parents giving much thought to what their kids are exposed to on screen. I saw both Crash and Munich in the theater, and there were kids under the age of 12 at both. For thoughtful parents, this seems like a decent resource. For others, I doubt it'll have much effect.

Except, as with those "Parental Advisory" stickers on your Dead Prez CDs and the ESRB labels on the latest incarnation of Grand Theft Auto, for making these movies that miuch more attractive to consumers, especially those who still find the f-word chortle-worthy. Somewhere in his cavernous Florida manse, Luther Campbell is laughing until the crunk juice spews from his nostrils.

Digital Video Discotheque - 2/28/06

My second of these in as many weeks, which either means it's become a regular feature, or I don't want to write about real world events in fear of rupturing my aneurysm.

I call it "Angus."

Releasing this week:

Network (Two-Disc Special Edition) - Watched this again a few weeks ago. It's nowhere near as funny as I remember it being, probably because I can see Max Schumacher's vision of an "Execution of the Week" program airing in my lifetime. Hell, we're already at the point where so-called "rants" have been marketed into commercially viable entertainment. From top to bottom, this is an incredible movie (if maybe a scene too long), and one that seems less like satire with every passing day.

This "special edition" has commentary by director Sidney Lumet and an old Dinah! interview with writer Paddy Chayefsky.

The Avengers - The Complete Emma Peel Megaset - "Mrs. Peel, we're needed." 51 episodes on 17 discs probably rules this out for everyone but hardcore Avengers fans. And, of course, anyone whose salivary glands activate at the thought of Diana Rigg kung fu fighting in a leather miniskirt.

Excuse me for a moment...

Lady and the Tramp (50th Anniversary Edition) - I confess, I've only seen this once, and that was on a date in high school. I don't think I'd rank it in the upper tier of Disney offerings, but if you're a completist, by all means fork over your dough for this "limited time offer" which includes a couple of deleted scenes and a DVD-ROM feature that allows you to adopt and care for a virtual dog.

Wow, that's pretty pathetic. It does contain both widescreen and pan-and-scan version, however.

Walk the Line - I referred to this movie as "lackluster" when it came out, and I stick by that. Phoenix and Witherspoon are perfectly fine, but the entire movie is a paint-by-numbers biopic, and rarely distinguishes itself.

Features include commentary by director James Mangold and some 10 deleted scenes.

Pride and Prejudice - I've said it before and I'll say it again; just because you turned in a performance better than anything else you've done to this point does not automatically warrant a Best Actress nomination.

Having said that, I'd probably rank this...oh...third out of the nine previous adaptations of Jane Austen's novel. I guess we should be happy she didn't write more than six of the damn things.

Scum/The Firm - Two Alan Clarke classics. The first, Scum, is a harrowing portrayal of life in the British juvenile detention system. Ray Winstone plays Carlin, the fresh meat, in a film that features some shocking scenes of racial hatred and sexual abuse.

The Firm stars a young Gary Oldman as Bex, the leader of a group of soccer hooligans out to cause as much mayhem as possible before their teams head to Europe. Makes last year's Hooligans look like a slap-fight tournament.

Also releasing:

Dog Day Afternoon - Made back in the days when Pacino still, you know, acted.
Newsradio - The Complete Third Season - One of the only sitcoms worth watching in the last 20 years, this is a must-buy solely for the "Arcade" episode, in which Dave confronts his old nemesis: the Stargate Defender video game.
Love Me Tender - Did you know rock and roll began during the Civil War? It's true! Would Elvis lie to you?
The Lords of Discipline - Bland rendition of the Pat Conroy novel. Watch for Bill Paxton, Judge Reinhold, and Michael Biehn as racist bastards.

And show some respect for Judge Reinhold!

Like I said...

I hate being right. Wait, no, I love being right, just not about shit like this:

Weekend Box Office Estimates (U.S.)

ThisWk LastWk Title Weekend Gross Cumulative
1 - Madea's Family Reunion $30,250,000 $30,250,000
2 1 Eight Below $15,722,000 $45,055,000
3 3 The Pink Panther $11,300,000 $61,046,000
4 2 Date Movie $9,225,000 $33,912,000
5 4 Curious George $7,005,000 $43,139,000

Excuse the crappy formatting.

The only movie released this week that was screened for the press, Running Scared, was #9 with just over $3 million on about half the number of screens as any of these.

In defense of Uwe Boll

There's a link to an article about director Uwe Boll on the Film Threat message boards that I really can't bring myself to read. Bagging on Herr Doktor is getting tedious to me, frankly. Granted, the guy has yet to make a decent movie (having seen BloodRayne last night, I can confirm this), and there's nothing out there to indicate this will change in the near or distant future. And this is someone with six freaking movies in production.

Boll has no ear for dialogue, no knack for shooting action scenes, and no sense of plot that doesn't come from Screenwriting 101 or some other movie (the final scene in BloodRayne might as well have been directed by John Milius, seeing as how perfectly it apes the end of Conan the Barbarian). He brings out the worst in his actors, even allegedly good ones like Ben Kingsley and Michelle Rodriguez, who all seem to mill around aimlessly while waiting for the check to clear. What we end up with are alleged horror films that are funnier than most Hollywood comedies. These are the facts, and they are indisputable, as Kevin Bacon might say.

But why isn't our intelligence more insulted by the likes of Michael Bay and Brett Ratner, two guys (names chosen at random, insert your own choices as you see fit) who benefit from monster budgets and A-list talent, and yet still manage to make unwatchable pieces of shit. If I was Boll, and I saw the man who subjected an unsuspecting world to Pearl Harbor getting $122 million to make The Island, I'd be pissed off as well.

Which is worse, from a creative standpoint: another video game adaptaion (albeit of a video game we haven't seen adapted before), or another sequel/remake like Charlie's Angels 2 or The Pink Panther? Who deserves more censure, the director like Boll who - by all accounts - honestly believes he's making the best films he can make, or directors like Ratner and Bay who know they're churning out brain-dead garbage, and simply don't care as long as they're up to their eyeballs in cocaine and Laotian boy whores?

Exaggeration aside, I think you see my point. All of Boll's major American releases (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and BloodRayne) are currently residing in the IMDb's Bottom 100. And yet, Pearl Harbor, Rush Hour 2, and Rent (or Bicentennial Man, all Chris Columbus movies are interchangeable for purposes of this exercise*) aren't. Boll's movies suck, no doubt about it, but he's definitely not alone in that regard.

* Except Adventures in Babysitting

Condition critical

Chris alerts me to this post on Cinematical (a blog I should probably be reading a regular basis):

According to a story in the New York Post, less than two months in, 2006 already tops 2005 for major studio films that have not screened for the press. The Post's Lou Lumenick quoted Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate (whose Friday release Madea's Family Reunion did not screen for the press), as saying, "We are not going to spend $50,000 for the privilege of negative reviews for a film that isn't going to be affected by them."

Oh snap, they're on to us.

I'd venture to say that when a studio announces ahead of time that its movie is not going to screen for the press - like Sony did with last week's #2 movie (heh heh) Date Movie - that it hurts more than it helps, as it creates a backlash and in many cases, a shortfall at the box office. Like it or not, people listen to critics for guidance as to how to spend their hard-earned dollars. People form relationships with particular critics, using them as metersticks for their own tastes and sensibilities, even when there is disagreement. Is there really any such thing as "critic proof", and aren't audiences the biggest critic of all?

I have to disagree with this assertion. Ortenberg, unfortunately, is pretty much right. As I've mentioned here (repeatedly), negative reviews appear to have little real effect on a movie's bottom line. This year alone has given us The Pink Panther and the aforementioned Date Movie, both of which - in spite of the former's novel use of post-screening interviews with real audience members - have done respectable box office.

Contrast that to a critical darling like King Kong, which was widely praised, yet ended up with disappointing (given the studio's expectations) returns. I forget which forum I was reading, but there was a thread that was essentially a litany of complaints about people saying, in essence, "I know Movie X is going to suck, but I'll probably go see it anyway." The number of people who use whatever critics as "metersticks" for their own moviegoing choices are vastly outnumbered by those who'll go to see just about anything, regardless of the reviews.

Of the three movies opening this week, only Running Scared (thankfully not a remake of the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines film of the same name) was screened for the press. The others, Doogal and Madea's Family Reunion were not (I think...if Doogal was, I must've blocked it out). Any bets on what #1 will be this week? Hint: Diary of a Mad Black Woman opened with almost $22 million last year.

The ties that Bond

You guys need to get over it:

Dateline: February 20, 2006 - An international group of lifelong James Bond fans announced the publication of a new website, www.craignotbond.com, in order to launch a boycott of the upcoming Bond film, Casino Royale. Chief among their concerns is Bond producer Barbara Broccoli's questionable decision to fire popular Bond star Pierce Brosnan and replace him with an unknown with a penchant for oddball roles, Daniel Craig.

[...]

When you heard the casting announcement about Craig as Bond, you might have thought that it was all over, and there was nothing you could do about it. Well you were wrong! The movie business lives and dies on the patronage of its customers, the moviegoing public. And, as the old saying goes, the customer is always right! Bond fans are joining together by the thousands to stop Sony and EON from ruining the future of James Bond by hiring Daniel Craig. Join the Casino Royale Boycott now, and you'll be taking the first steps towards bringing back the James Bond we know and love!

GoldenEye was good, I'll grant you, and one of the best Bond films in the last 30 years, but Tomorrow Never Dies? Die Another Day? Easily among the lesser 007 efforts. Not as bad as the dregs of the Roger Moore era, but still.

Face it, Brosnan doesn't want to come back. He's on record as saying he loathed the insistence on one-liners and felt freed from the shackles of the Bond image after getting let go. His public statements of support for Craig only reinforce the fact that the Layer Cake and Munich star is the new 007. Whether this will be a long-running role of more of a George Lazenby thing remains to be seen.

As I've said, I liked Brosnan the first time out, but thought his other efforts were too reminscent of the cheesy 1970s era movies. Sean Connery is still the epitome of Bond, and I always felt Timothy Dalton never got the studio support he needed to make the role his.

As for Craig's "penchant for oddball roles," I assume the folks behind the website are aware that Brosnan's most famous pre-Bond movie parts were the oily suitor from Mrs. Doubtfire and the "VR doctor" from The Lawnmower Man. If they want a return to the jokey, gadget-heavy Bond of the Brosnan and Moore eras, have at it. Those of us with fond memories of the darker, more sinister Bond of Fleming's novels welcome the change, and are eager to see what Craig does with the role.

But by all means, continue with your time-honored tradition of internet petioning. Just remember, it could've been Orlando Bloom.

Digital Video Discotheque - 2/21/06

Bay Area denizen and comments section gadfly Denny gave me the idea several months ago to discuss current DVD releases on APCB. His thought was that I should offer recommendations, which is increasingly difficult, considering the overall gloomy state of movies these days. What follows, therefore (and which may become a weekly feature, depending on how often I remember to do it), is a recap of the highlights and lowlights of the week's offerings (links go to my review, if applicable).

All the President's Men - Alan J. Pakula's 1976 dramatization of Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate investigation gets the double-disc treatment it deserves. No car chases, no gunfights, and no irrelevant romantic subplot - just dogged investigative journalism and great performances all around.

I hear of calls to remake this now and again, and I feel pretty comfortable in saying it will never happen. No CGI opportunities, for starters, and even if they tried to modernize it, what would they use? Monica Lewinsky? There's some hard-hitting political intrigue. Maybe the Swift Boat Veterans could talk to the guys who made the Oliver North biopic.

No, in spite of the plethora of opportunities to go after the criminal conduct of the Bush Administration, today's journalists are far too intimidated to take the risks WoodStein did back in 1973.

Vice Squad - You can keep your Freddys and your Jason Voorhies...es. Ramrod the pimp - as played by Wings Hauser - remains one of the most fearsome villains in cinema history. His performance goes beyond his B-movie environs into true evil, as he tortures his way to the prostitute who got him arrested. Watch for former MTV VJ Nina Blackwood as the hooker Ramrod beats to death with a coat hanger, and look for Fred "Rerun" Berry as a fellow pimp.

Class of 1984 - 1982 was a banner year for cinema nastiness. Anyone who remembered Timothy Van Patten fondly from his days as "Salami" from The White Shadow is in for a rude awakening here. In the best tradition of exploitation cinema, director Mark Lester (later of Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo fame) convincingly portrays a near future where punk rockers run wild, raping teachers' wives and shanking poor Alex P. Keaton (a chubby pre-Family Ties Michael J. Fox). This was a lot nastier than it had a right to be.

North Country - Not a great film, and not a bad one either. North Country simply suffers from poor execution. What starts as a fairly gripping examination of the events leading up to the landmark court case that forced American companies to recognize sexual harassment ends up as a familar courtroom drama. France McDormand also gets negative marks for her "disease of the week" character.

First Descent - Not horrible, but would've been much better in the hands of Stacy Peralta. Poor resolution and a grating "alt rock" soundtrack don't help either. Still, there are some impressive scenes, and the shot of Travis Rice riding out an avalanche is one of the few "heart in throat" moments of the last year.

Rent - Abandon hope, all ye who watch this.

Don't get short with me

A number of short films from the 2006 Sundance Film Festival have been put up on their website. I've seen about five of those listed there, but the one I wanted to single out for your attention is Redemptitude by Nathan and David Zellner.

I've had the pleasure of hanging out with the Austin-based Zellner brothers at SXSW and Sundance, and they're a couple of capital fellows. I especially enjoyed this synposis of the goings-on in the film:

Though we had never been to Australia and weren�t particularly familiar with its geography, we were up for the challenge. We took comfort in the fact that we�d seen the Mad Max films dozens of times, and were peripherally aware of the existence of Paul Hogan and Yahoo Serious. With this knowledge, along with a titular visit to the Outback Steakhouse, we made our epic come to life.

Check it out. I can also recommend Flotsam/Jetsam and Foxy and the Weight of the World. Now go to their web site and bug them to release a compilation DVD.

The year's off to a great start

Latest reviews are up at Film Threat, including:

Freedomland (**) - had potential, but couldn't make up its mind on what kind of movie it wanted to be.

Date Movie (0) - Yeah, I reviewed it even though we left about a half hour in. If Fox doesn't see fit to show me the movie until the Thursday before it opens, I don't really feel compelled to cut them any slack. And every minute of these lousy movies I sit through reminds me of the grim specter of Death waiting at the end of the ride.

That broken graphic on the review is the "Zero Stars" graphic, which still hasn't been fixed, for some reason. If the beginning of 2006 has been any indication, I'm going to need it several more times before the year's out.

One other film (threat) related note. Maybe some of you saw this on The Daily Show the other night:

That's our logo, all right (minus the little "TM" at the end), in spite of some minor variations (our letters are actually connected). It was used in conjunction with a story about Valley of the Wolves - Iraq, a Turkish movie ("starring" Billy Zane and Gary Busey) about how American troops ship Iraqi civilians to a Jewish doctor (Busey) so he can steal their organs. I had a feeling Zane's career was going in this direction, and said as much in my Silver City review.

Busey's involvement is, in a word, unsurprising.

The logo stays on screen for a good while. I'm told several Daily Show staffer are fans of the site, but I stand by my assertion - made after seeing it last night (The Wife kindly taped it for me) - that a friendly note to Comedy Central which thanks them for the pub, but requests that they ask us next time, wouldn't be a bad idea.

That way, when someone we don't like as much (say, Bill O'Reilly or Uwe Boll) does it, we can more easily tell them to piss up a rope.

Speaking of brains leaking out...

What a mess, reviews piling up and me with no place to put them:

Something New - **1/2

When a Stranger Calls - 1/2*

Curious George - ***

The Pink Panther - 0

Firewall - **1/2

As far as this week goes, I'd say to go see Curious George if you have little kids. Everyone else would be better off staying home and pouring battery acid in their eyes.