A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"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.