Schoolio's Movie Corner

[thelastgreatman]

It's not that I don't give him credit, I just thought I'd provide my friend with an easy way out. He clearly sounds about as far from interested in what the book's about as one can be, he doesn't want to make movies like that, I figured I'd give him the option of a painless escape clause.

[thelastgreatman]

Zany teen sex comedy? Is that really how you view it? That's interesting.

[schoolofruckus]

It's not that I don't give him credit, I just thought I'd provide my friend with an easy way out. He clearly sounds about as far from interested in what the book's about as one can be, he doesn't want to make movies like that, I figured I'd give him the option of a painless escape clause.

That's not entirely true. All I've been trying to say is that the script I'm currently working on is not designed for multiplex consumption. If it's only going to play in independent cinema venues, then why cut its dick off by trying to make it work for a mainstream audience? Better to stay true to the spirit of it and write it like an indie than water it down and make it so that it's some bastard movie that nobody wants.

[Yablonowitz]

How does he camera op scenes he's acting in?

Also, if you hate the book that much, do you want to just give it back to me? I can't imagine that you're actually bothering to read it given today's unleashing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v682/yablonowitz/baby-crying.jpg

Poor guy, such a victim.

Randy - could you make me one little promise? Could you please make good on the times you've said you're done arguing/you're tired and leaving, etc? Please? It's such a relief and then the pain just comes crashing in again when you return so quickly. I mean, that's some cruel mother fucking shit you're pulling on my ass when you do that. I want to believe what you write. How can I when you keep coming back after saying you're done? I can't trust you, Randy. Our relationship is doomed. They always fail when there's no trust.

[PotVsKtl]

gus van sants kool-aid...

Holy shit.

Nearly 40 years after its original publication, Tom Wolfe's hallucinogenic tome "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" is headed for the bigscreen.
Gus Van Sant is attached to direct, and Lance Black ("Big Love") will write the script. FilmColony's Richard Gladstein is producing, and he's in the process of setting the project with a financier.

The book told the story of a cross-country road trip that "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" author Ken Kesey orchestrated with a group called the Merry Pranksters. Driving in a psychedelically painted bus from California to visit the World's Fair in New York in 1964, Kesey and his band used the trip as a way to turn on those they met to the mind-expanding wonders of LSD.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117966628.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

[chrislasf]

We are entering some weird star aligning shit. I swear to christ I sent something to Richard Gladsteins office 5 min ago. I am really hoping the universe swallows us soon.

[denies the day]

Ruckus, there's zero homo tendencies in the Casper character.

Any thoughts on Ken Park? Have yet to catch it.

[thelastgreatman]

That's not entirely true. All I've been trying to say is that the script I'm currently working on is not designed for multiplex consumption. If it's only going to play in independent cinema venues, then why cut its dick off by trying to make it work for a mainstream audience? Better to stay true to the spirit of it and write it like an indie than water it down and make it so that it's some bastard movie that nobody wants.

Yup, this is exactly why there's no point in you reading it. You've already made up your mind.

[schoolofruckus]

I'm not going to argue with you about how I feel in my own mind about my script or Robert McKee's book or any correlation between the two. If you're just trying to get your book back, I'll give it to you, but I'll still find a way to read it someday. If you're trying to make me feel guilty for going into it with a "this is going to be largely full of shit" frame of mind, then that's not going to happen.

denies the day, why do you say that so definitively? I see Casper as having an adolescent mancrush on Telly. It's not explicit, but I've always taken it that way. It sure does explain a lot about who he is.

[full on idle]

Holy shit.



http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117966628.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

That is rad.

[denies the day]

denies the day, why do you say that so definitively? I see Casper as having an adolescent mancrush on Telly. It's not explicit, but I've always taken it that way. It sure does explain a lot about who he is.

I don't see any homo tendencies in any of the characters in Kids, save possibly for the two girls in the pool who kiss each other when pressured by the boys. But even that isn't really homo tendencies, not to me anyway.

In fact, all the male characters are over-the-top hetero (as many inner-city youth are or pretend to be) and if Larry Clark wanted me to think one of his leads might be queer, I think he'd do a better job of it since he's not exactly King of Subtlety. Take a look at Renfro's character in Bully. There's prolly a good chance that lead character likes girls and boys (we know his asshole best friend does). But nothing in Kids gives me that same impression.

[thelastgreatman]

I'm not going to argue with you about how I feel in my own mind about my script or Robert McKee's book or any correlation between the two. If you're just trying to get your book back, I'll give it to you, but I'll still find a way to read it someday. If you're trying to make me feel guilty for going into it with a "this is going to be largely full of shit" frame of mind, then that's not going to happen.

denies the day, why do you say that so definitively? I see Casper as having an adolescent mancrush on Telly. It's not explicit, but I've always taken it that way. It sure does explain a lot about who he is.

I have no need for the book, and I wanted you to have it for good reason, but it's disheartening to hear you already condemning it as being an edifice of mainstream, cookie-cutter, or whatever other diminutive adjective you want to use. Call me a vag if you want, I spent a lot of time and thought (eventually) on your script and came to you with exactly as much effort as I have given to any of the people who've paid me to rewrite/replot their scripts.

So putting the book aside for a moment, it's a little bit annoying that after putting three concurrent read-throughs and a solid weekend of thought just about your script you elected to go out of your way to pick a fight with me about my apparently sheep-like belief in the practices that have resulted in all the greatest movies of all time. If you say you don't want to make one of those, fine, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't attack me like I was some unimaginative formulaic hack just because I like stories than are about characters that go somewhere.

Sorry homie, but I really didn't need this war today, and you were kinda instrumental in kicking it off. If you haven't noticed, I've been a bit insane recently, and fighting with half the fucking board wasn't really high on my list of sleepless, drugless priorities. I'm all Valium'd and liquored out now so I don't give a fuck anymore, but for future reference--I'm trying to be helpful, man. I'd rather not have my creativity impugned as thanks for it, and I don't think either one of us should be bringing our scripts up in this public conversation for myriad reasons--especially if the crucial point of discussion is whose is actually breaking boundaries.

Alright, I feel cleansed now. I may have been a dick in the process. If so, I apologize, and I'll gladly accept a decree of "Fuck you, Randy" if that's how you feel. Either way, I just wanted to say exactly what's going through my head. Hope you read the book. Hope you read it with an open mind. Hope you believe what I'm saying about it being a way to expand your creativity and not limit it, although you seem to be resisting that notion with all your might.

Yabs, make with the crybaby faces or whatever, you witty devil you.

[thelastgreatman]

Also, answer MY motherfucking question about how Casper's supposed love of Telly has any effect on the course of events. I haven't seen the movie in years, so maybe it does, but I don't recall a single scene where that comes into play.

[full on idle]

He are serious.

[mob roulette]

SCRIPT WARS!!!

Chapter 4: A New Syringe

[schoolofruckus]

I don't see any homo tendencies in any of the characters in Kids, save possibly for the two girls in the pool who kiss each other when pressured by the boys. But even that isn't really homo tendencies, not to me anyway.

In fact, all the male characters are over-the-top hetero (as many inner-city youth are or pretend to be) and if Larry Clark wanted me to think one of his leads might be queer, I think he'd do a better job of it since he's not exactly King of Subtlety. Take a look at Renfro's character in Bully. There's prolly a good chance that lead character likes girls and boys (we know his asshole best friend does). But nothing in Kids gives me that same impression.

Have you never seen insecure males overcompensate for their sense of sexual confusion by going out of their way to emphasize their supposed hetero tendencies? Because I definitely have.

Randy's quote (omitted to save space because it's on this page)

I understand your frustration, so no "Fuck you Randy" for that response. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as ungrateful - which I must be, since I keep saying that I'm taking your notes to heart and making an honest attempt to look at my script through your eyes, yet you don't get that impression. I only kicked off this debate because that's what happens when you attack movie after movie that I like. I see nothing harmful about arguing the de/merits of all these movies; it only became a war because A) you may forget, you come down with Bill O'Reilly hard-linerism on films that you don't like, which is controversial because the reasons that you don't like them are completely subjective, and B) you're in the minority in this particular fraction of this particular forum, despite the fact that most people in the film-going/making world would probably take your side. I never impugned your creativity; at worst, I chastised you for having a view of what works in cinematic storytelling, as an audience member, that is just as narrow-minded as my feelings towards studying the conventions of it. I would say I'm sorry, but you've told me on a number of occasions that I "don't understand" a variety of things as far as screenwriting is concerned, so I don't feel like my language here went overboard at all.

The only reason I brought up your own writing - which, as I've already told you, was a mistake as far as the public level of argument - is because that specific element went hand-in-hand with what you were tearing down one of the best films I've ever seen for. The same way that your reason for praising "Punch Drunk Love" also happened to be in direct contrast to what you said you didn't like about "Buffalo '66", despite the fact that the two protagonists have the same fucking character arc. Matter of fact - Gallo's character not only undergoes the same loner-to-lover transformation as Sandler's, but he also curbs his violent tendencies of his own volition, which Sandler's never does. Therefore, Gallo's supposedly one-note characterization is, in fact, deeper than the one that you praise for its dynamicism. I await a rebuttal to this, but I understand if it takes a while, because you have your work cut out for you.

As for how Casper's subtle but present crush on Telly manifests itself? How about in the fact that, in his desperate bid to have sex with a girl - and thus prove to himself his sense of straight manhood - he ends up raping a girl and getting AIDS? Again, you don't have to take it that way, but this is how I interpreted that character. Not to say I've ever known a guy who raped a girl and got AIDS, but this interpretation is very much in line with tendencies I've seen from several fucked up young boys.

[full on idle]

SCRIPT WARS!!!

Chapter 4: A New Syringe

You're all kinds of funny. You should post more.

[mob roulette]

jrNT-4hXD3w

Casper does have a nice ass, now that I think about it.

[Yablonowitz]

You're all kinds of funny. You should post more.

I loves me some Mob.

[PotVsKtl]

Did I ever tell you guys how many big-tittied hos I've bonked?

[denies the day]

Have you never seen insecure males overcompensate for their sense of sexual confusion by going out of their way to emphasize their supposed hetero tendencies? Because I definitely have.

Course I have. But not in Kids. *Quinceañera just dropped on my desk as I typed this. The stars are blessing this thread sorta.

As for how Casper's subtle but present crush on Telly manifests itself? How about in the fact that, in his desperate bid to have sex with a girl - and thus prove to himself his sense of straight manhood - he ends up raping a girl and getting AIDS? Again, you don't have to take it that way, but this is how I interpreted that character.
I really don't see how his desperate bid to sex a girlie is nothing more than a drunk, straight 16 year old desire to sex a girlie. There's nothing cinematically I can recall that gives me this impression. Perhaps if there were one lone, telling shot (which could be as simple as a glance) then I could begin to see your point. And I just watched the unrated version 6 hours ago when you brought it up. Srsly.

[schoolofruckus]

Is there a different version available? The only reason that worries me is that I thought the unrated version was the only one available; I would hate to think that I own an incomplete version on DVD. It's been a couple years since I've seen it, but if I watch it again anytime soon, I'll report back with what gave me a concrete idea that Casper had some kind of mancrush on Telly.

On a related note - you're not fooling anyone, Pot.

And because I forgot to respond to this earlier -

garetjax, what did you do on "Brand Upon the Brain!"?

[thelastgreatman]

As for how Casper's subtle but present crush on Telly manifests itself? How about in the fact that, in his desperate bid to have sex with a girl - and thus prove to himself his sense of straight manhood - he ends up raping a girl and getting AIDS? Again, you don't have to take it that way, but this is how I interpreted that character. Not to say I've ever known a guy who raped a girl and got AIDS, but this interpretation is very much in line with tendencies I've seen from several fucked up young boys.

Wait wait wait, your argument for Casper having a homoerotic crush on Telly is that he fucks an unconscious chick at the end? Explain to me how that follows. I took that as just another instance of the only thing that movie depicted: kids doing fucked up shit--drugs, drinking, sex, violence. That's all there was. How that is in any way revealing of Casper having a crush on Telly fucking boggles me.

In my instance, if you want a serious answer that hopefully might help explain the different between Casper and Sprak: Sprak is a representation of what Rich is at the beginning of his movie, a bad person by all accounts. Jay ODs--Jay being the representation of how Rich ended up this person. The moral and spiritual crisis he goes through having seen what was once his nearest equivalent succumb to their shared habit is coupled with the guilt of having sold Jay the pills that killed him, and this guilt coupled with his new search for purity causes him to fall for Pistol. Then as things develop as you know, Sprak and Rich have to split from their long-time incredibly close friendship which Rich is happy to do as it gives him to opportunity to pursue turning his life around--he sees Pistol as everything that is pure and untainted, and forsakes his drug addiction in favor of an addiction to her.

I've recounted all this to hopefully help you see why Sprak's heterosexual love of Rich and jealousy of him and Pistol is a vastly more meaningful factor than any shit in fucking KIDS. Sprak (Rich's past) won't let him escape into this illusion of salvation, and in the end Rich's past forces him to pay the price for the damage he's done to society and to Pistol's life specifically. Sprak's love for Rich now turned into jealousy drives him to corrupt Pistol, to ruin Rich's salvation and thus force Rich to return to Sprak, and their "true love," so to speak.

Of course, as you know, things don't go according to plan. But do you see that I actually made an effort to have some layers to my story other than fucked up kids doing a bunch of fucked up shit?

I really hope you don't actually think my script is on par with Kids, for real.

As far as all the other stuff goes, points well taken, let's move past it. But just because I disagree with you about a movie and express why I don't like them shouldn't always mean giving me a bag of shit--I stopped giving you a bag of shit for liking unbearable crap weeks ago. =)

[KungFuJoe]

Brand Upon the Brain! was awesome! Barbara Steele, the symphony, foley artists & castrato were all great. Certainly the most unique movie going experience I've ever had. It was a fucking great Guy Maddin film too. I wonder how it will be with the Isabella Rosselini narration. I'm going to have to go see it again. I may also have to check out Crispin Glover's "What is it?".

All I know is I really wish I was going to be back in NY for this.
VqMSb5HtRqU

[mob roulette]

Did I ever tell you guys how many big-tittied hos I've bonked?

This guy will always be funnier than me. I'm just a street soldier. Pot's a captain.

I'll report back with what gave me a concrete idea that Casper had some kind of mancrush on Telly.


I always thought that too, Gabe, for what it's worth. Casper is Telly's bitch. Don't know if it's necessarily a sexual thing, but there's definitely a relationship of dominance going on there. Which leads Casper to act out his inherited impotence and/or fantasies on said unconcious female. Or something.

And "Kids" is funny.

And "Brand Upon The Brain" looks great. Thanks for posting homey.

[wmgaretjax]

garetjax, what did you do on "Brand Upon the Brain!"?

I worked in the art dept and did some grip work, nothing special.

[bassmintpdx]

Guys and gals, check it out. Flixster (http://www.flixster.com). You all seen this? It's basically a cross between Myspace and IMDb, and it's awesome. Share your favorite film lists, reviews, suggest movies for other people to watch...let me know if you're on it.

[phoenixsky]

Just watched Kids for the first time and I don't see it. I agree with Randy and Manny. The only distinct feeling I get from their friendship is that Casper (in a very underlying sort of way) looks up to Telly. If anything, the rape is Casper's way of validating his manhood in comparison to Telly. Especially since right before that scene he walks into the bedroom, sees Telly sleeping naked with that chick and says "Lucky fuck" (or whatever). At the beginning I thought it was just a drunken, gotta-get-pussy sort of thing too but since we're dissecting it...

[thelastgreatman]

Just watched Kids for the first time and I don't see it. I agree with Randy and Manny. The only distinct feeling I get from their friendship is that Casper (in a very underlying sort of way) looks up to Telly. If anything, the rape is Casper's way of validating his manhood in comparison to Telly. Especially since right before that scene he walks into the bedroom, sees Telly sleeping naked with that chick and says "Lucky fuck" (or whatever). At the beginning I thought it was just a drunken, gotta-get-pussy sort of thing too but since we're dissecting it...

Head, you're giving me hope in womankind. Good work.

Now, do you agree that it was basically a storyless 90 minute long series of scenes of young kids just doing taboo stuff, and that's pretty much all?

[mob roulette]

i broughts you chikken sammich buts i eated it

[phoenixsky]

Head, you're giving me hope in womankind. Good work.

I think this belongs in the backhanded compliments thread.

Now, do you agree that it was basically a storyless 90 minute long series of scenes of young kids just doing taboo stuff, and that's pretty much all?

I think it does tell a story.

[thelastgreatman]

Ugh, I take it all back, and I run away from this thread again.

[phoenixsky]

Stop it, Chalupa!!

It doesn't always have to be crazy deep. I just think it tells (very beautifully/painfully) of the constant need for a sense of belonging through sex in adolescence.

[schoolofruckus]

Just watched Kids for the first time and I don't see it. I agree with Randy and Manny. The only distinct feeling I get from their friendship is that Casper (in a very underlying sort of way) looks up to Telly. If anything, the rape is Casper's way of validating his manhood in comparison to Telly. Especially since right before that scene he walks into the bedroom, sees Telly sleeping naked with that chick and says "Lucky fuck" (or whatever). At the beginning I thought it was just a drunken, gotta-get-pussy sort of thing too but since we're dissecting it...

How do you know he wasn't talking about the chick?

[CuervoPH]

By the way, Gabe, I don't want to interrupt current discussion, but I finally saw "The Science of Sleep" tonight. I know it was discussed a little while back, but I tried to avoid reading any comments about it until I had seen it.

I think it was a visually stunning film and the performances by the leads were amazing. I love the objects he used to craft the special effects. However, I personally liked "Eternal Sunshine" better just because I love Charlie Kaufman's writing in that one. Still, "The Science of Sleep" is one I will definitely be buying.

(Confession: I still haven't seen "Dave Chapelle's Block Party")

[bmack86]

I just watched Shogun Assassin for the first time. I completely see the influences on Kill Bill Vol. 1. Endless bloodshed and crazy swordplay. The movie is directly referenced in Kill Bill Vol. 2 (they watch it in Bea's daughter's bedroom before she (spoiler) kill's bill). Fun movie, not that great tho. It's only 80 minutes, so it's worth your time. Bloodshed in it is epic for its time.

[full on idle]

I think it was a visually stunning film and the performances by the leads were amazing. I love the objects he used to craft the special effects. However, I personally liked "Eternal Sunshine" better just because I love Charlie Kaufman's writing in that one. Still, "The Science of Sleep" is one I will definitely be buying.

(Confession: I still haven't seen "Dave Chapelle's Block Party")
I think I own Science of Sleep now because I never took it back. I watched it in pieces, few scenes at a time. I would like a shot so much that I just liked it on pause sitting on the side for a while. I need to watch it again all the way at once. Charlotte Gainsbourg is sublime.

DC Block Party's so worth the wait. Get it!

[PotVsKtl]

I just watched Shogun Assassin for the first time. I completely see the influences on Kill Bill Vol. 1. Endless bloodshed and crazy swordplay. The movie is directly referenced in Kill Bill Vol. 2 (they watch it in Bea's daughter's bedroom before she (spoiler) kill's bill). Fun movie, not that great tho. It's only 80 minutes, so it's worth your time. Bloodshed in it is epic for its time.

For you information, Shogun Assassin is a hatchet job edit of the first two films in the Lone Wolf and Cub series haphazardly turned into a single drive-in movie. I'm not saying the Lone Wolf and Cub films are masterpieces, but they sure as hell don't involve disco music.

[schoolofruckus]

Aronofsky's been supposedly working on a "Lone Wolf and Cub" script for a while now. I don't know much about the story - just that it's a Japanese graphic novel - but what little I heard sounded awesome.

[CuervoPH]

Would love to see an Aronofsky take on "Lone Wolf and Cub"...On "The Science Of Sleep" DVD, they had a very brief trailer for "The Fountain", enough to make me want to see it again.

[schoolofruckus]

By the way, Gabe, I don't want to interrupt current discussion, but I finally saw "The Science of Sleep" tonight. I know it was discussed a little while back, but I tried to avoid reading any comments about it until I had seen it.

I think it was a visually stunning film and the performances by the leads were amazing. I love the objects he used to craft the special effects. However, I personally liked "Eternal Sunshine" better just because I love Charlie Kaufman's writing in that one. Still, "The Science of Sleep" is one I will definitely be buying.

(Confession: I still haven't seen "Dave Chapelle's Block Party")

I agree with the first part; I loved the look of "Science of Sleep". The practical effects made the visual design extremely effective. I didn't think much of the character though, which was partially a performance thing, but really more just the way they were written.

I can't wait for Gondry's new film, "Be Kind, Rewind". Jack Black plays a guy with some form of brain magnetization that destroys all the tapes in a video store, so he tries to remake all these versions of classic movies with his friend so that the old lady who rents all these movies will still have something to watch. It sounds like it will be both more fun and more emotionally satisfying than "Science of Sleep" was. Sucks to the release date, though (4/10/08).

[CuervoPH]

Yeah. I remember when I first heard about "Be Kind, Rewind". It sounds like an idea that couldn't work in most hands. But, you have Gondry helming the film and throw in Jack Black, and think, "This could be sweet." I don't know why, but I was thinking it was coming out earlier than that, though. (I'm not arguing with your release date. I guess I was just wishfully thinking.)

[schoolofruckus]

I thought it was too; I was shocked to see that date when I looked it up on IMDb during the writing of that post.

Even though we're not into the meat of 2007's film calendar, I'm already looking forward to 2008:

Be Kind, Rewind
Where the Wild Things Are (from Spike Jonze, no less, holy fuck)
Snow Angels (the David Gordon Green film that played Sundance this year)
The Pineapple Express (another Green film; this one's an action comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco....wait, what!?)
Benjamin Button (David Fincher's adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald story, in which Brad Pitt plays a guy who ages backwards and falls in love with a woman who ages chronologically)


Plus any number of Cannes films like "Paranoid Park" or "The Man From London" that probably won't get released until next year.

And, oh yeah, "Southland Tales".

[PotVsKtl]

Where The Wild Things Are is going to unite the human race. Wars will end. Pollution will disperse from this world. Popsicles will taste better than ever before. Amy will stop interjecting bullshit about her children into every thread. 2008.

[chrislasf]

Where The Wild Things Are is going to unite the human race. Wars will end. Pollution will disperse from this world. Popsicles will taste better than ever before. Amy will stop interjecting bullshit about her children into every thread. 2008.

Dude - a close friend of mine is post supervising this movie. She is a no bullshit kinda girl who is not impressed by much. She was Jim Camerons assistant for 7 years and has seen her share of cutting edge film in terms of process. She told me this film is going to be The Wizard Of Oz for our generation. Blew her out of her fucking chair. It is a whos who of forward thinking creative depatment heads. Apparently the way Spike is using visual effects in combination with practical effects is mindblowing. Maurice Sendak has been on board the entire time and is remaining on the project through the end.

I cant wait.

[PotVsKtl]

Dude - a close friend of mine is post supervising this movie. She is a no bullshit kinda girl who is not impressed by much. She was Jim Camerons assistant for 7 years and has seen her share of cutting edge film in terms of process. She told me this film is going to be The Wizard Of Oz for our generation. Blew her out of her fucking chair. It is a whos who of forward thinking creative depatment heads. Apparently the way Spike is using visual effects in combination with practical effects is mindblowing. Maurice Sendak has been on board the entire time and is remaining on the project through the end.

I cant wait.

I love you. Leak that shit.

[noisemachine]

Sounds great about WTWTA...I have high expectations for Spike Jonze.

[schoolofruckus]

I love you. Leak that shit.

Actually, it's one of ours. I'm trying to figure out who I gotta bone around here to see it early. If I find out who, I'll pass along a name and photo.

[full on idle]

movies

[wmgaretjax]

saw a couple films. "Paris je T'aime" was OK. There were a few great segments (The Van Sant and Depredieau come to mind, EDIT: and the Alexander Payne) but isn't very interesting as a whole. Definitely something to check out on DVD if you are interested. I also saw the anime "Paprika," I'm not big into anime and this is no exception. It was beautiful but the story and characters were flat and uninteresting.

I missed the new von Trier and am thouroughly pissed about it.

[full on idle]

Maybe somebody will post a link to it if you start a leak thread about it.

[phoenixsky]

How do you know he wasn't talking about the chick?

There's nothing up until that point that would lead me to think so.

[downingthief]

I love you. Leak that shit.

Word. Nice work, Chris. I've been giddy about this one, since I heard who was involved.

[KungFuJoe]

saw a couple films. "Paris je T'aime" was OK. There were a few great segments (The Van Sant and Depredieau come to mind, EDIT: and the Alexander Payne) but isn't very interesting as a whole. Definitely something to check out on DVD if you are interested.

I agree that the film doesn't need to be seen until it comes out on dvd, but I enjoyed the whole of it and thought it was very good. Sure, some of the segments weren't that great, but there were plenty of good ones. To me, the most fun ones that I really enjoyed were those by the Coen Bros, Christopher Doyle (the man is a visual genius), whoever did the mime one, and Wes Craven. Those are the ones that come to mind for me. However, Tom Tykwer's was the masterpiece of the bunch. That was the true stand out for me. Perhaps because it was made before this film all came together.


On another note, I watched Chan Wook Park's newest film "I'm a Cyborg, but That's Ok". After the revenge trilogy it was nice to see him tackle a light hearted dark romantic comedy. It definately has it's moments, but it's not one of my favorites. I enjoyed it a shade more than "Lady Vengeance". Overall it's as visually arresting as any of his previous films & the performances are great. It moves along at a rather slow pace, but it is a charming tale that sucks you in by the end. It's not a total disappointment, but I wouldn't tell anyone to rush out to see it.

Tonight I'm going to watch "Yo-Yo Cop Girl" to see if the director of "Battle Royale 2" can actually make a decent film.

[schoolofruckus]

saw a couple films. "Paris je T'aime" was OK. There were a few great segments (The Van Sant and Depredieau come to mind, EDIT: and the Alexander Payne) but isn't very interesting as a whole. Definitely something to check out on DVD if you are interested. I also saw the anime "Paprika," I'm not big into anime and this is no exception. It was beautiful but the story and characters were flat and uninteresting.

I missed the new von Trier and am thouroughly pissed about it.

"The Boss of It All" opens this weekend, and I'm seeing it regardless of whatever else happens.

After Joe's review and this one, I think I'll wait till DVD for "Paris".

[Jenniehoo]

CoSL_qayMCc

I don't know you, but I want you all the more for that.
Words fall through me and always fool me and I can't react.

Games that never amount to more than they're meant will play themselves out.

Take this sinking boat and point it home - we've still got time.
Raise your hopeful voice; you have a choice.
You'll make it now...

Falling slowly - eyes that know me - and I can't go back.
Moods that take me - and erase me - and I'm painted black.

Well you have suffered enough and warred with yourself.
It's time that you won...

Take this sinking boat and point it home - we've still got time.
Raise your hopeful voice - you have a choice - you've made it now.

Falling slowly; sing your melody - I'll sing it now.

Take it all.
I've paid the cost too late.
Now you're gone.

[Mr.Nipples]

no country for old men trailer...
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nerd news:new IMAX godzilla film...
http:...//www.aintitcool.com/node/33010

[J~$£¥]

idpU4UT8vc0

[Jenniehoo]

I'm going to post all my old movie reviews from the old board - because I can. Then I'm going to do Gabe's. I think they should be saved for posterity:

I only have a few. They're all scary movies that are old.

The Descent

I saw The Descent the other night. I feel like writing a review about it because a) I have no job now and have nothing to do and b) I am an authority on scary movies. Well...as much of an authority as anyone else here in the genre of their liking. I've seen them all.

The Descent takes place in the Appalachian mountains, but most of the characters are British. It's a group of female cave spelunkers who are basically balls to the wall type gals looking for a thrill. There's some cheesy female drinking/giggling/bonding type stuff at the beginning here, but the movie starts out with an appropriately chilling event and then lulls us into this character development. I liked it. I didn't give a shitty about most of the women, but you end up caring about a couple, and that's good enough. You know the others are going to die anyway.

So - one of these chicks is American and brought them all here. Her name is Juno and she's a real piece of work. She tells them they're all going to a well known and travelled cave, but she's really leading them to an unknown cave system. She wants them all to discover it together which, plot wise, is a little weak, but like I said: she's a piece of work - so you trust it.

Blah blah - they end up in the cave and get trapped by a rockslide. It comes to light that Juno lied and instead of "you crazy bitch I'll cut you" they're all kind of "that's wildly typical, you piece of work, let's just get out here."

They start hearing strange noises and find remnants of other cavers that had travelled the cave before them. There's some female turmoil being simmered in these scenes - someone's off their medication, someone slept with someone's man, etc. But it works in a surprisingly non-Jerry Springer type way. Probably because they aren't all American. Although you still only really care about two characters.

I will say that this movie made me feel genuinely uncomfortable and claustrophobic as the women crawl through cave spaces. Particularly during the rockslide scene. You feel somewhat safe for them because they've defined themselves as "pros" and appear to have a handle on what they're doing - but you can't help but think, "what kind of a crazy bitch climbs two miles underground to tunnel through a wet, dank cave the size of the sewer pipe in Shawshank Redemption?" How much can you trust that kind of crazy? That's some specially brewed crazy right there.

So - I'm losing whatever hint of a point I had. Someone falls and bleeds profusely and the women are attacked by something they can't see. As this is halfway through the movie already, you feel kind of like, "Fukk, finally..." but the scene has enough going on that it's worth it.

The stock "cynical, tell it like it is, not-ugly-but-not-really-cute best friend" character dies in an unexpected way (I hate it when she goes. That woman never makes it. The rest of the movie is the poorer for it) and the remainder of the film is the surviving women scattering and battling for their own lives against (what turn out to be) blind, human-like creatures that have evolved to live in the caves. Twist? Some of them are babies. Angry, naked, blind babies that climb on ceilings and eat you. I liked that. Evil babies can be scary as hell.

It's just occured to me why I can't do movie reviews. I manage to make everything sound blase when it really isn't. This is probably my favorite scary movie this year. It reminds me of Wolf Creek in the plot build up and then big pay off halfway through, but there's more action and it's kind of cool to see an entire movie shot in a cave.

You also understand what they're saying, unlike Wolf Creek, and the end reminds me of Predator. And anything that reminds me of Predator rules. Because nothing beats Predator. Nothing.

OH - this bothered me, though...the sound that the creatures made was the same sound in The Grudge. I swear I've heard that sound in other scary movies, too. Can we get a new sound guy for thrillers, please? Jesus.

You hear it before you see them, so I thought the little Asian chick with the cartoon face from The Grudge was going to show up in the cave all pissed and crawl on them until they died. Isn't that how The Grudge went? The little girl crawled on them until they died. That was lame as ass, now that I think about it. Nothing's taking ME down by crawling on me and making some stock movie noise. I hated the Grudge.


Jeepers Creepers

I loved Jeepers Creepers. I saw it in a rinky dink theater in my hometown and snuck in a bottle of wine. I had just turned twenty one and wherever I went, a bottle of cheap wine went, too. I kind of expected it to be crap so in the beginning scenes where the brother and sister are fighting I was yelling things at the screen with my friends like, "kick his ass, Sea Bass," and "that girl's a BITCH, man." I used to be a real pain in the ass.

During the scene where the truck of death starts following them I shut my mouth and thought "whoah...this is actually scary." There's nothing better finding a movie TERRIFYING when you have low expectations.

The problem with that is that when Jeepers Creepers 2 came out, I sat middle center with popcorn and a soda waiting for more of the same. And it SUCKED. Basically the opposite effect.

That's a really good point, though. That was on the road in the middle of the day and it was scary as hell. Although I don't know what was scarier, the evil demon or the weird sexual tension between the brother and sister. I might have just been imagining that, though. Cheap wine makes you think everyone wants to fukk.

Blair Witch 2

Last night I watched Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. I'd seen it before, but I figured I'll critique it. Partly because I'm bored, but partly because I get a kick out of coming on this thread and talking about the crappy movies I watch in the midst of artistic, new movie talk. I feel like an Andy Warhol in a room full of Monets. Not worse, just...different.

So, anyway, Book of Shadows. The movie starts off promising. 5 strangers (except the two who are dating) going off into the woods to follow the fame of the Blair Witch. We're given insight to only one of the five - who used to be in a mental hospital for...well....they don't really tell us what for. But apparently it was anachronistically in the 1950's, because the evil looking doctors are smoking as they pour things down his nose. They also inexplicably hose him off while he cowers in the corner. This poor dude apparently ended up at the only mental institution run like a kennel.

So - the five go out into the woods and camp out at the foundation of the witch's house (the last scene in the original movie). One of them's a witch (like Glenda, not the one with the stripey socks) and is easily the most annoying character in the movie. She's also the only attractive one, too, so she parades around in a belly shirt saying things like "blessed be" and "this movie gave us witches a bad rep." The best part about scary movies is that you know the annoying ones are going to die. No other movie genre gives you that comfort. If one of the characters is irritating, you're stuck with them until the end. Moving on...

So we've got the annoying Wiccan and the used-to-be-psychotic boy. Another girl is goth and (as we all know) that's very scary. It must be. If there was any doubt about the scariness from the black makeup and dress, she's also psychic. She hangs out at the graveyard and smokes a lot - like you do...if you're goth. The other two are a couple and they're very boring. They're doing "research" to write a book. At one point, the girlfriend calls the dude a "monomaniacal reductionist" and I thought "wow. This movie's smarter than me."

So - like any group of people preparing to see some scary shitty - they all get drunk and stoned as hell. If there's any question about what they're doing, the soundtrack kicks in with a song offering the words "nicotine, marijuana, heroin, ecstacy and alcohol" which leaves you thinking "ah, they're getting messed up" and also "where's cocaine?"

Anyway - they wake up the next morning and all their research and equipment is destroyed. They suspect another tour group and a lot of yelling ensues. The only surviving piece of equipment is the tapes of last night's activities. You think "how incredibly surprising and helpful" but don't have much time to think that because the female half of the nerd couple has a miscarriage and they all rush off to the hospital.

They all end up at the psychotic boy's house in the Black Hills. Why don't they go home? I don't know. It's apparently not an option. I do know that after I miscarry, I like to visit the home of a stranger in the Black Hills.

In this house, they realize that they've brought something back with them. Something evil. Something...bad. Dum Dum DUUUUMMMMM. They review the tapes to try and find who ruined their equipment, only to find out.....


....oh, I'll just ruin it for you. No one else is seeing this movie, anyway....

...it was THEM! They, under the spell of the witch, killed the other tour group, destroyed their own equipment, and then blacked out. But first, they all apparently had a wild, bangarang orgy. Which is key in scary movie world. Never have an orgy unless you're prepared to die in a scary movie. Because that's the sequence of events. God punishes wild sex.

Honestly, the unfolding of this conclusion is pretty interesting and, while cheesy, fun to watch. They turn against one another in the house and people die in strange ways. The gore isn't really there, but I didn't mind that. Gore shows up in nightmares.

The down side is that this movie isn't really scary. At all. You only mildly give a crap about the characters, so when they die, you're non-plussed as to why you should care.

The Amityville Horror: 2005 Remake

So - the original Amityville Horror was genuinely scary. Just because of that fact, this movie had a hard road to travel. However, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre scared the crapola out of me - and the remake was actually pretty good - so I thought I'd give this movie a shot.

I also fished this movie out of the $4.44 bin at Wal-mart, which always makes you feel good inside. I told the person I was with "FOR THE PRICE OF RENTING THIS, I BOUGHT IT!" Then I told the check out lady. Then I called a friend and told her. Now I'm telling you all.

The unfortunate thing is that now I own a crappy movie.

This movie sucks. The wife is way hotter than in the original and is slightly more badass - which is typical of current horror movie making. We like our dudes angry beyond all reason and our women in tight pants with no fear.

I don't know how much I need to cover the plot here, as we all pretty much know about the Amityville Horror house. There were three or four original movies back in the seventies and eighties, a couple of which sucked balls, and now there's this newest addition to put a cherry on top of the suck sundae. The scariest element of this movie is Ryan Reynolds facial hair. They fail to recreate the everpresent feeling of dread that's present in the original.

The weirdest part of the movie is a scene where the kids are alone in the house with the babysitter. The babysitter is the worst human being on the planet. She gets stoned in the bathroom, asks the 10 year old chubby kid "do you french?" all suggestively, then tells the children, in detail, how people died in the beds they now sleep in. Then she tries to rip off the little kid's KISS poster. That part really made me mad.

In the end, she ends up trapped in the closet and going into shock - so, it's all good.

They changed up the ending a little bit in this one - which actually worked. In the old movie, I always felt that the ending was a little anticlimactic.

The new ending involves a lake and a lot of patience on the part of the viewer.

Don't buy this movie for 4.44 or rent it for 3.99 plus tax. Take up smoking or buy a case of soda instead.

Science of Sleep

I saw it. I thought it was very creative and there were parts of it I liked a lot. As a whole, though, it wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be. It was basically a big baby with emotional problems that needed to be loved but would probably never be able to handle an adult relationship. I don't know - I get that he was looking for peace and found it in someway in his head, but the movie failed on some level because I didn't end up really rooting for him to do anything other than seek some help. And I just felt sorry for her.

Still, on a purely visual level it was wonderful and the creativity of the characters and the movie itself was compelling - but I still can't put my finger on why I didn't like is as much as Eternal Sunshine or Being John Malkovich. Less sympathetic characters? Different writing? I think that was it. Gabe and I agreed that the story was a little weak in terms of getting to the core of you. I don't know. I can see why people would like it though - it was beautiful.

[schoolofruckus]

King Kong

How could this movie fail for me? It's about a giant ass-kicking gorilla! I'm disappointed (though perhaps I shouldn't be, since I wasn't that huge a fan of Peter Jackson's hobbit movies) to report that I found the human characters to be completely uninteresting and ham-fisted. I will say, though, that the pace of the movie - which I've heard mucho griping about - was very strong, and I never really felt the length starting to creep up on me. And once Kong shows up, the movie rules. I can't help myself - the monkey was a fascinating character, and watching him @#%$ up dinosaurs and airplanes and tanks and everything else in sight was pure pleasure for me. I also choked up slightly when he met his demise (since this movie is a remake of a classic story that's been around for 70 years, I don't think this is that much of a spoiler). I think that placing Kong on one's top 10 list either means that one didn't see enough movies in 2005, or that one is a bit caught up in Kiwi fellatio, but it was definitely entertaining and if my list of movies to check out were shorter, I would definitely like to see it again.

9 Songs

I discussed this earlier in the thread devoted to it. It's basically just music and sex. I thought it was highly interesting, but not as profound as it may have been intended. Mostly because it was so short (it could have used more time with the main character) and because the voice-over dialogue sucked.

Trouble Every Day

This film stars - who else? - Vincent Gallo as a man on his honeymoon in France, who frequently abandons his wife so that he can spend time searching for a doctor who he used to work with, and whose wife he seemingly had an affair with. I would love to just leave this synopsis at this, but it won't prepare you for what the movie's really about (on the slim chance that you see it), so I'll just get to the point: the doctor's wife is a cannibal. This film is gory to the point of insanity, and I'll be honest - the acting isn't great (my boy included). However, the photography is stunning, the atmosphere (courtesy of director Claire Denis) is intense and surreal, and the movie's subtext is...unique, to say the least. If you're in the mood for a twisted French film (it's mostly in English, but not all the way), track this one down on Netflix and let me know what you think.


Munich

I went to see this movie on Saturday afternoon before the Broncos' glorious game, because I wanted to see it, and I needed something to occupy me until kick-off. Well, it ended up being the bare minimum of what I needed it to be: a complete waste of time.

This film is about the retaliation mission carried out by Israeli soldiers to avenge the murder of 11 of their Olympic athletes at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. After the 1972 Munich Games end in bloodshed, a team of mercenaries, led by the son-of-a-hero Avner (Eric Bana), traverses the globe with the intent to pick off 11 members of Palestine's terror organization. As the mission progresses, Avner and some of his teammates begin to realize that their actions are just as senseless as the slaughter that provoked them.

Steven Spielberg, while being my favorite whipping boy this side of Ron Howard, usually manages to make fantastic films that fall apart during the epilogue. I would love to merely say that he discontinued this trend with "Munich," but instead, he has literally reversed it: this 164 minute movie pretty much blows, except for the final 5-10 minutes. What the @#%$, Spielberg? I don't know what happened with this film, or if I'm just seeing something different than other people - I've heard of a lot of positive, or at least admiring, reactions. But I felt myself rejecting "Munich" literally from the moment the Universal Pictures graphic ran before the beginning of the film, complete with the kind of solemn Middle-Eastern-woman musical moaning that is Hollywoodese for "You're about to watch a SERIOUS, IMPORTANT FILM about a culture which is different from your own!" I felt my bullshit detectors going haywire, in ways that would make "Cinderella Man" look like "Before Sunset". And from then on, every twist, every decision, every step of the film felt completely phony and irritating and - strangely - insincere. This is all very odd for me to say, and even odder when I experienced it, because I know that this is a subject dear to Spielberg's heart. Not only that, but how could any American not feel the same way (i.e., that vengeance, and in particular, carrying on a blood feud over the Holy Land which has been going on for almost the entire last millenium, is completely counterproductive to a healthy, happy world)?

I mean, I guess I can't say the film didn't work on any level, because I definitely got the point of the movie and felt it pretty deeply. But I also know that I was bored for almost the entire time (one of their assassination missions is really shocking to the point that it almost sucked me back into the film), the acting left me expressionless, the photography confounded me (it looks kind of taut and appropriate, but Spielberg's long-used soft-focus thing is starting to get really @#%$ irritating), and that basically nothing in the story was interesting until the very end, when the horribly overwrought, speech-y climax I have been conditioned to expect from Spielberg is eschewed in favor of an underplayed, effective scene between two men who will never see eye-to-eye. It's WAY too little, too late (especially considering the - and there's no other way to put this - FUCKIN' RIDICULOUS bedroom scene that had just come before it) but it is encouraging in the fact that Spielberg ended a movie with restraint and honesty for the first time, probably, in his whole life.

If he could have taken the end of this movie, and slapped it onto War of the Worlds, he would have had a perfect movie. Nevertheless, I think it's time for him to switch up his crew, get someone other than Janusz Kaminski to shoot his stuff, hire a screenwriter with some balls, and make something that doesn't feel like "A Steven Spielberg Film." Because for me, as I sat through "Munich", I felt like I never wanted to see another one of those so long as I live.

I have more that I'll add later.

THE ARISTOCRATS

I'll make it quick - this is a documentary by Penn (of Penn & Teller) and some other guy about a supposedly legendary joke called - you guessed it - "The Aristocrats." The "joke" is really only set-up and punchline - everyone who tells it basically starts and ends it the same way, but fills in the middle in their own unique way. Thus, it basically exists as a skeleton frame for the person telling it to be as dirty and vulgar as they possibly can be. Here's how it goes (spoiler alert, although this most likely won't matter):

Set-up: A family walks into a talent agent's office, and says, "We have the most INCREDIBLE act for you, it's a huge hit all over town, may we try it out for you?" The talent agent says, "Sure, why not?"

At this point in the joke, the comedian then describes the family's act - which is basically a series of disgusting acts that may comprise of sex, excrement, violence, etc.

So, the talent agent says, "Wow....that's quite an act you have there. What do you call it?"

"THE ARISTOCRATS!"

Okay. So that's the joke. The movie itself basically consists of Penn and the other guy interviewing a hundred or so people in the comedy world (stand-ups, actors, The Onion staff) about the joke's history, and many of them end up telling their version of the joke.

This is definitely one of the worst movies of last year.

For starters, the editing is terrible - they cut back and forth between all these people so frequently that there are maybe only 4-5 renditions of the joke that are actually presented in an uncut fashion. Therefore, we're watching a movie about a joke whose appeal we're never allowed to grasp. I think that this was done intentionally because the nature of the joke itself is so exclusive (apparently, it's something that only really exists between comedians). But if the object of the movie is to shed light on the joke, shouldn't it be presented in some kind of attractive fashion? Also, the constant in-depth examination of the joke only makes it less and less funny as the movie's 100 minutes drag on.

But the Aristocrats joke is so fuckin' stupid to begin with (and many of the interviewees say the same) that it makes you wonder why they would even make a movie about it at all. The entire "appeal" of this joke, for all these comics, is that it allows them to be as gross as they want. And these aren't fringe comics - these are SUPERSTARS.

Think of an established comic personality (George Carlin, Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Paul Reiser) and they're probably in here somewhere. Their renditions never consist of anything beyond "fuckin g and sucking and fisting my daughter and blood and taking a shitty in my wife's mouth," blah blah blah. Well, really, all that does is put all of these people, the providers of laughter in society, in the same lofty comic stratosphere as the guys from Blink-182 - there was, in fact, a hidden track at the end of a Blink 182 CD where the chorus was "fuckin g and sucking" over and over again. I guess seeing as how all of these comics are probably as good at playing music as the guys from Blink 182, it's only fair that they should have similarly base comic talents. But it's horribly depressing to think that this is Aristocrats "joke" has survived for decades (as the movie alleges) and was once reason to throw a party (the film claims that Chevy Chase used to host many a soiree in which the attendees would try to make the Aristocrats joke last for 30 minutes).

You see? "The Aristocrats" is so anti-comedy, it's actually inspired me to start discussing my disdain towards something (Blink 182) that I wasn't even thinking about. This film is hate.

I heard a theory that the Aristocrats joke doesn't even exist, and that this entire movie is a hoax to get people to believe in a legend that doesn't exist. I swear to God, that's the only way this makes any sense. Otherwise, this film is the death of all comedy, and I need to go cleanse my comic pallette just thinking about it. Who's up for watching Schindler's List?


I know nobody cares about this review. I just had to let my feelings out. Thanks.

Note: The idea that this movie is a hoax is kind of hard to buy, because its centerpiece is the sequence where Gilbert Gottfried tells the joke at a benefit function that happened a few weeks after 9/11. The film has footage of that event, which now that I think about it, wasn't the most convincing archive material I've ever seen; but even if that part was staged, this would seem like an easy thing for someone to say, "Wait a second, that never happened." By the way, the 9/11 jokes that Gottfried was telling before he went into the "Aristocrats" joke were actually really funny.

Short Cuts

See, I'm down with that aspect of his work (I've only seen "The Player", "Short Cuts", and the first 30 minutes of "Gosford Park"). The overlapping dialogue thing is also cool after you get to the point where you adjust to it, but I also think he does it just to be pretentious rather than to services his films (he says he does it "to make sure the audience is paying attention").

The thing I just didn't like about "Short Cuts" is that his characters felt like movie characters rather than real people. That wouldn't be a problem if this were, say, "The Big Lebowski," but to me, "Short Cuts" was clearly aiming to be a slice of real life rather than a Hollywood "movie". Altman himself always says that he's more interested in characters and their interactions, rather than plots - and that's what's so stunning about this. Tim Robbins' character was way overwrought. Andie MacDowell's scene when she reacts to her son's accident was horrifyingly bad. Jack Lemmon seemed to have wandered into the film straight from the set of "Glengarry Glen Ross". The stuff with Peter Gallagher trashing the living room; the entire story involving Robert Downey Jr. and his weirdo girlfriend; and on and on. More often than not, I found myself thinking that what was happening was really superfluous.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely realize that my enjoyment of "Short Cuts" is severely damaged by the fact that I saw "Magnolia" first and am rabidly devoted to it. But I just wish I could say I watched it and found that it held up regardless.

Thank You for Smoking

I just saw "Thank You For Smoking" with Tessa. I thought it was decent. It's above-par funny, amusing, not really as provocative as it would like to be, although the theme is definitely coming from the right place. It's just....it felt slight. It seemed like they were attempting a balls-out, edgy, madcap, borderline surreal comedy along the lines of "Fight Club" or "I Heart Huckabees" or "Fear and Loathing", but they didn't really have the guts to go all out. The visuals seemed to make an attempt at having flair and playing into the cynical comedy of the story, but they just couldn't pull it off and really achieve an interesting look. I also think that the filmmakers were short on budget - some of the production design in the movie was really weak. And seeing as how I hardly ever remark on that sort of thing, that tells you that it was pretty bad (in some areas).

In short, I thought a lot of the writing was sharp (although the story resolved itself a little too easily, and the ending wasn't exactly a home run) and the performances were generally good, but the direction definitely felt like rookie work (which it was). And even though I've listed way more criticisms than praise, overall I would say that it's definitely worth watching. On DVD.

We also saw trailers for "Little Miss Sunshine" - a Sundance film that I've been greatly anticipating due to an excellent cast (Steve Carrell, Toni Collette, Abigail Breslin from "Signs", Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear) - and "A Scanner Darkly". Both come out in July and look fuckin' awesome.

Brick

I just saw "Brick". It was excellent. It was basically a David Mamet movie set in high school. As far as adolescent crime movies go, this one was better than "Better Luck Tomorrow", and I liked that one quite a bit. The acting was exceptional - I don't know what the fuck is up with Joseph Gordon Levitt, but between this and "Mysterious Skin", he's doing some amazing work these days.

++++++++++++++++++
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I re-watched "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" this weekend and I came to a conclusion: I hate Johnny Depp. His acting is fucking irritating, and while he might be clever with his acting references, many of his choices are wrong-headed. I mean, yeah yeah yeah, Keith Richards = the pirate in that shitty Disney movie, Michael Jackson = Willy Wonka (possibly the dumbest idea in the history of acting)....what's next, he's going to play John Lennon in a movie and base the character off of Rick James? And I say all of this as a HUGE fan of "Edward Scissorhands" and "Fear and Loathing". I like some of his work, but his performances in films severely irritate me on a consistent basis. And he gets such a free pass for mediocre films - like when "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" came out, I heard so much shitty about "Johnny Depp is great in that". That was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. He was hardly in the fuckin' thing, and he didn't bring anything to the table.


Mission Impossible 3

Chris and I just got back from seeing Mission: Impossible 3. It's better than I thought it would be. The script and most of the performances never really attempt to rise above the level of a pop action film (one that wants to make damn clear that Tom Cruise is NOT gay, at that), but if you take it on those terms, the majority of it is a nice ride. Spectacularly shot and edited for the most part. The ending sucked, in my opinion, because the harmony between effective, ass-kicking thriller and crappy ode to Tom Cruise's fake love life was upset, in the direction of the latter.

As to whether or not I would recommend it, I'll put it like this: If you had an inclination to go see a Mission: Impossible movie in the first place, then you will enjoy it. If it's not something calling your name automatically, you might still have a good time with it, but it won't trigger a summer action movie rennaissance for you (this is the category I fall into).

Movies by Park

I happened to see "Lady Vengeance" the night before last. It was both way better than "Mission: Impossible III", and much more up my alley, but yet, also less satisfying. I say less satisfying because, while it was very good (with Park Chan-wook at the helm, how could it not be?), it was also disappointing to a degree. It shot for greatness, but fell a little bit short. Next to Park's other three films ("Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy", which "Lady" is a successor to, plus his first film, "J.S.A."), this one didn't quite hold up. It was aesthetically delicious, relentlessly edited, and highly unique from a characterization standpoint. But the storyline was far simpler (and disguised by excessive use of flashbacks), and thematically, while there were some challenging and wrenching elements, it wasn't as effective.

One of my favorite things about previous Park films is that he presents the world in an objective sense that heightens the cruelty of the situations facing his characters. He'll show scenes in which one person's torment is another person's joy - not due to sadism, but a difference in perspective. And the morality of the characters' actions is constantly being challenged; you know that everyone is at fault, but you see their motivations clearly and are always having to re-evaluate who's most justified. But with "Lady Vengeance", it's very plainly obvious who is at fault, who to empathize with, and who to hate. That trivialized the story for me.

For the unitiated, here is a brief summary of Park's films. All are available on DVD in the US, except "Lady Vengeance" because it's still in theaters. Unless you are the kind of person who is squeamish in regards to violence, or are completely unable to watch subtitled films, you would do very well to seek all of them out as soon as possible:

"J.S.A." (or "Joint Security Area") - Park's first film is about the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea. The area is called the JSA because soldiers from both sides patrol the area and make sure that the balance of peace is kept. After a murder takes place in the zone, the investigators find that two soldiers from each side had forged a rare friendship, setting aside blind nationalism for a short time in the name of brotherhood and peace. This one is less twisted and more sympathetic than his later stuff, but not in a cheesedick way.

"Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" - This is my favorite of Park's films, and probably one of my top 10 of all time, but it's by far his most brutal. A deaf young man's sister is in need of a kidney transplant. The hospital is unable to find a donor, so he turns to the black market, only to wake up having been robbed of all his money and one of his own kidneys. When the hospital does find a donor, the young man's friend convinces him to kidnap the daughter of his former boss and ask for the exact ransom needed for the surgery. Naturally, everything goes wrong, and sets off a chain of events unlike anything you've probably ever seen in a film before.

"Oldboy" - The film that got Park recognized in the US. This one's about a drunk who gets kidnapped outside the police station one night and imprisoned in a hotel room for 13 years. While inside, he watches TV and finds that he's been framed for his wife's murder; he also starts training and hardening himself physically, becoming a monster who intends to get revenge once he gets out of prison. When he's finally released, he's wearing a suit and he's been given a clip of money and a cell phone. He gets a call on the cell phone saying that he has three days to find out who his captor is. This film has some of the best action scenes in recent memory, and the ending is diabolically brilliant.

"Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" - The new film is about a woman who has been in jail for 14 years. When she was 19, she confessed to the kidnapping and strangling of a 5 year old boy. In prison, she made friends with most of her cellmates, who marvelled at her good nature; upon release, however, she becomes consumed with vengeance. She enlists the help of her old cellmates in her plan, but just when she thinks she's achieved her mission, she realizes that her quest for revenge involves far more than just herself...

X-Men: The Last Stand

Keep in mind, that there will be some information about the movie revealed below. I won't spoil the major surprises, though.

I saw "X-Men: The Last Stand" with Ronnie last night. I went in with high hopes - I liked the first movie, loved the second, and have always liked the characters despite not being a reader of the comics - but somewhat low expectations. Since Bryan Singer (who directed the hell out of the first two films) had moved on to do "Superman Returns", the studio had settled - after a grueling process - on Brett Ratner, the studio stooge par excellence whose lack of talent has never deterred his self-promotion, to continue the X-Men saga. Not only that, but the studio chief and producers were so pissed about Bryan Singer not doing X3 immediately (even though he never said that he wouldn't come back once Superman was finished) that they decided to declare this as the final X-Men film, which meant that they had decades worth of storylines and characters to try to fit into this film. Also - Fox decided that they wanted to put X-Men out before Superman (to....show Bryan Singer that X-Men could be done faster than Superman?), so they announced the release date (May 26) sometime last spring....before they even had a script in place. So the forecast for X3: a rushed, bloated film, made out of contempt, with a shitty director at the helm. Ouch.

It is with a heavy heart that I report that X3 basically succumbed to all the problems that I predicted.

This film is about the final stage of the mutants vs. humans war, in which a billionaire - whose son is the mutant Angel - develops a cure for the mutant gene, with the involuntary help of another mutant whose power is to rob other mutants of theirs. The government starts administering the cure to all mutants who want it, while stipulating (thanks to some politiking from cabinet member and mutant ambassador Beast) that it will never be used on anyone who doesn't ask for it. Well, of course that promise gets broken, so Magneto (if you don't know who he is, then this isn't the movie for you) seizes the opportunity to prey on the mutant community's anger, by inviting them to join his army. Also, the recently deceased Jean Grey has returned as her evil incarnation, The Dark Phoenix. Jean Grey's telekinetic powers had been previously tamed by Professor X's therapy, but it turns out she's easily the most powerful mutant in the story. Now that she's back and furious, her powers turn out to be a danger to everyone.

Let's start with the positives here:

This is a movie about X-Men. And, umm....well, there was....I think....okay, yeah, that's about all.

I'm not just being snide; the truth is, this movie's work was done for it by the previous two. Coming into X3, I'm predisposed to caring about the fates of Wolverine, Jean Grey, Rogue, et. al. It's an interesting story whose characters already have my empathy. So, naturally, when the war starts and the body count starts piling up - and since this to be the last one, they're not shy about killing people off - of course it's affecting. And even though I'm not crazy about the determination to cut the series short, I do like the fact that there are major deaths here. A war on film needs to feel meaningful; if there's no possibility that anyone we care about could die, then it's just a bunch of mindless running around and blowing shitty up. So this film works in that way. There are also certain touches here and there that work great on a character level - I can't spoil these because they give away too much, but they're there, to some degree.

But if I had only this film to go on, I can't say I would care all that much about what goes on here. The film overloads itself with new characters (Phoenix, Juggernaut, Kitty, Angel, Beast) and storylines (Phoenix's rise, the cure, Rogue's jealousy toward Kitty, Storm trying to lead while Cyclops grieves over Jean), yet it's 40 minutes shorter than the previous movie. Ummm...what? As a result, everything ends up shortchanged. Even the stories or characters that work aren't given enough exposition to really dig their hooks in. Not only that, but the action scenes - which, except for the first one that poorly rips off T2, are very nicely conceived - are also poorly executed. Sure, most of them were still cool and exciting, but they weren't well-developed. The scene on the Golden Gate bridge, in particular, struck me as being extremely rushed, and devoid of tension as a result. Also, the CGI effects were pretty subpar in most of the sequences. Sometimes the action was too frantic to really notice, but I just can't help but think how cheap a lot of it looked.

So, the movie definitely fell victim to its rushed schedule; they didn't have enough time to think up (let alone shoot and cut) a film long or patient enough to cover the story they'd developed. I wish I could just cut my criticism short right there, blame the studio and spare Brett Ratner a beating (I've given him plenty in my day, and I could do it again for the rest of today if I felt up to it), but I just can't. Because the truth is, I could have looked past all that and appreciated the movie more if it had been handled by someone who knew what they were doing.

But you see, Ratner is a man who constantly exceeds his considerable limitations. He cut his teeth on Def Jam music videos and Chris Tucker comedies - "Money Talks" and the "Rush Hour" movies. My hatred for "Rush Hour 2" aside, he does have the ability to do those movies all day long. The problem is that he thinks he's some elite director who can be the next Scorsese or Hitchcock or Kubrick, someone who can tackle films of any genre. So he's gone on to make messes of films such as "Red Dragon" (which, by the way, gave him opportunity to attack Michael Mann's work in "Manhunter", which he was remaking) and "After the Sunset" (I watched it on a plane with the sound off and I could hear the lame acting and dialogue anyway). These films suffer from an unbearably lame desire to be cute and funny and nudging the audience at all times, which is manifested in the form of stupid one-liners. In films like "Red Dragon"! Ratner thinks it's great, and for him, maybe it is; it pleases the portion of the general audience who doesn't care if the movie is good or cinematically intact as long as they're smiling the whole time. So he makes his money and gets to say that he's made successful films in a variety of genres. But for my money, if anthrax directed films, they would turn out like Brett Ratner movies.

Anyway - see how easy it is for me to get carried away with this? - that was my biggest fear coming into X3, that it was going to have all these wink-wink moments that are Brett Ratner's trademark. Well, it did. Plain as day. Since when did X-Men characters call each other "bitch"? As in, "Do you know who I am? I'm JUGGERNAUT, bitch!" And the countless little throwaway jokes were particularly annoying coming from Wolverine, previously the model for unspoken, stoic (until he started kicking ass) fury. It destroyed the tone of the movie. And sadly - despite all of the problems I listed above - this is what I will remember X3 for. For its uninspired stabs at broad comedy. And there's only one person to point that finger at.

Also, there's a lot of talk about the last scene of the movie, which occurs after the end credits. I don't know whose bright idea this was - it was most likely Fox's - but oh my God, it was abominable. One of the few bold moments of the movie is erased in a matter of seconds. I honestly would have to say that you're better off leaving the movie once the credits begin.



Wow. I really pissed all over this film. I kind of feel bad; I didn't want to be predictably Schoolio-ish towards a big-budget summer affair on this one, but that's just what came out. What did the rest of you guys think of it? Nando - what about this movie did you like the most?

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Holy shitty.

I just watched this on DVD, and if I had seen this last year when it came out, it would definitely have been on my Best of the Year list. While "Brokeback Mountain" was getting all the attention for placing gay heroes in a historically "masculine" genre (the Western), "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" wallowed in obscurity (I bet many people here haven't even heard about it) while achieving the same thing in an arguably-more-masculine genre (the Action Comedy) - and having a lot of fun with it, at that.

This film was written and directed by Shane Black, the screenwriter of some of the classic buddy-cop-violence-dirty jokes-testosterone flicks from the late-80's/early-90's - most notably, the "Lethal Weapon" movies and "The Last Boy Scout". Those films were full to the brim with unrealistic bullshitty, yes, but if you were ever in the mood to see some bombastic action and humor, they were the go-to (I still think "The Last Boy Scout" is a masterpiece). And because of that, they were ripped-off endlessly in a series of retarded action movies clones, all packaging explosions and profanity in a cynical sea of carnage. In "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" - the first film Black directs - he both embraces and lampoons the formula he spawned.

The hero (and narrator, as he's quick to point out) is Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey, Jr.), a criminal in New York who becomes an actor in LA entirely by accident. The producer who brings him out to Hollywood has arranged for him to shadow a real-life private eye - Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), whose nickname was coined on his sexual preference - for role research. Of course, from the first night of this assignment, they become enmeshed in a murder cover-up rife with fake corpses and powerful men doing very bad things. Harry also reconnects with a childhood friend named Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), who had moved out to LA to become an actress and who has a strange-yet-useful attachment to a series of detective novels.

I'm not gonna lie - the film's plot is a convoluted mess, it requires a lot of disbelief-suspension, and the voice-over is very self-referential in an "Adaptation" sort of way: lots of indulgent acknowledgement to the fact that we're watching an EXTREMELY CLEVER MOVIE. All of which are characteristics that will either amuse you, or piss you the fukk off. The reason why this film works for me is that the performances of the three leads, and the chemistry between them, are all outstanding. Robert Downey, Jr. is often regarded as a fukk up, but he's still got a unique and exceptional screen presence that is impossible not to roll with. Similarly, Val Kilmer is one of the most mercurial actors around, but when he locks into a strong role such as this, he can be as engaging as almost any major movie star. And Michelle Monaghan, whoever the hell she is, definitely seems to get the tone of this movie, and makes a great counterpart to the boys. All three knock it out of the park, and if you just watched their scenes together and completely ignored the plot, you'd still have a compulsively entertaining movie. However, the plot - labrynthine though it may be - also springs enough satirical surprises (not to mention a few touching moments) to function as a great reason for bringing these characters together.

In short, I thought this film was a blast, and I recommend it very highly.
++++++++++++++++++


A Scanner Darkly

I saw "A Scanner Darkly" last night. Oh man, it kicked ass. I wasn't familiar with the book - in fact, I don't know any of Phillip K. Dick's books, but I always love the movies they're based on - so when I got home, I had to read up on it to make sure I understood the story. I got most of it. But holy shitty, the movie is a fever-dream and a half.

The movie is basically about an undercover cop in the near future who has been living incognito with some burn-outs whose drug of choice is a thing called Substance D. This drug's long-term effect is to separate the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and skewer one's entire perspective of reality. If this sounds cool to you, you definitely need to see this movie.

I have more to say about this movie, but I'm pretty damn busy today, and I also don't want to spoil anything. Just trust my recommendation regarding the movie's premise.

The Motorcycle Diaries

I saw that movie with rather high expectations when it was in theaters, and left thoroughly bummed and disappointed. It was widely regarded as being one of the better movies that came out that year, but I felt like it was extremely undercooked. I thought the transformation from Ernesto to Che was completely undeveloped; the guy worked with lepers in his youth, but then he goes on vacation and begins his transition from a naive, privileged idealist into a political radical because...he...worked with...more lepers? The "swim across the river" scene felt like it was trying to turn a molehill into Mount Everest, an intended climax that just wasn't there. I like Gael Garcia Bernal a lot, so I was bummed to have to pan one of his films. But that one just didn't work for me.

Lady in the Water

Yeah, I loved "Lady In the Water". I didn't think all of it was executed 100% perfectly - particularly the scenes involving the Korean woman and her mother, which basically explained a lot of the film's premise in a very talky, easy fashion - but the core of what the movie was about was brilliant. The scenes between Story (the sea nymph who winds up in the swimming pool) and Vick (the writer character played by Night himself) were heartbreakingly beautiful. All of the acting was great.

I honestly believe that all the negative press against this movie (and there's a lot of it, to be sure) is a reaction to Night himself, and his reputation as an egomaniac. It's bollocks. The movie is great.

Miami Vice

I saw "Miami Vice" with Ronnie last night. I'd have to say it's the best movie I've seen this summer. I loved "Superman Returns" and "Lady in the Water", but "Vice" really, really brought it. It's very insular in regards to the world it takes place in, which means that some of the dialogue will come off cheesy, but I tend to be a big fan of movies where the characters feel lived-in, where friends onscreen behave like people who have history. People develop shorthand through years of conversing with each other, so I can buy all that as long as it feels authentic, which it does here.

The digital photography was similar to "Collateral". It looked great to me - I'm just about convinced that urban night exteriors need to be shot this way no matter what - but Ronnie and his filmmaker friend who went to see it with us said that some of the day scenes looked shitty. Either way, the action scenes were exceptionally shot as always, and the price of professional excellence in a dangerous line of work was explored (Michael Mann is the single best director alive in both regards), and with a new twist for Mann, at that. The music was mostly exceptional - sure, the movie starts with the Jay-Z/Linkin Park "Encore" song from the trailers, and of course it makes sense because this is the "encore" for Crockett and Tubbs, but there's also some Moby songs, and two Mogwai songs from "Mr. Beast" that are used to excellent effect.

This review sucks ass because I'm totally rambling and probably not explaining why I liked it so much, but it's the best I can do right now. Just go see the movie, please. For me.

Little Miss Sunshine

The film - which I will provide a synopsis for in case anyone hasn't heard of it - is about the Hoover family, and their quest to drive their youngest, Olive (played by Abigail Breslin, the water glass girl from "Signs"), from New Mexico to California for the Little Miss Sunshine child beauty pageant. The family includes Richard (Greg Kinnear), a motivational speaker looking to get a book deal; Sheryl (Toni Collette), the family's stability beacon, emotionally and financially; brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), a Nietzsche devotee who's taken a vow of silence; uncle Frank (Steve Carell), a Proust scholar driven to the brink of suicide by his boyfriend's desertion; and Grandpa no-name (Alan Arkin), a salty drug-addict who coaches Olive in her pageant dance routine.

Like "Miami Vice", and to a greater, more relatable degree, it was a film of excellent characterizations in which the relationships and interactions between the family felt lived-in and proven as can be. It's an extremely subtle film too - those looking for something as outwardly funny as Carell's work in "The 40 Year Old Virgin" will be disappointed, as will those looking for something as emotionally affecting as the Shyamalan films that Collette and Breslin have played in. The film works mostly on a real-life level that most films never even attempt, let alone pull off. There are moments of absurdity, and some well-placed jabs at the child beauty pageant industry itself, that are mined for good comic effect, but most of where this film works is in the family dynamics. Each character gets a distinct opportunity to make an impression, and their scenes together will endear the film to you like few "family"-driven films you've ever seen before, particularly if you've ever had an uneasy dinner discussion or a stress-driven road-trip with your own family.

Okay, I think I've done my job. The movie just opened in the big markets (LA & NY) this weekend, but I expect - due to generally favorable audience reactions and word-of-mouth - that it will expand quickly to most other parts of the country. Seek it out if it sounds good.

Superman Returns

I loved Superman Returns because it was a meditation on the price of virtue. For all his purity and self-sacrifice - and yes, that was the point - Superman was living a life of regret and unhappiness, despite being the most powerful being on earth. I felt that it had 50 times more soul than almost any other superhero movie I've ever seen, and I find it a tremendous shame that so many people walked away from it going, "m'eh....it needed more action" or "Lex Luthor's plot to take over the world was stupid." Both points were true, or at the very least, debatable, but that wasn't the point of the movie in my eyes. I had other criticisms as well - namely, the introduction of ****SPOILER MOTHERFUCKIN' ALERT**** Superman's son into the equation worked in this film, but I don't want to see a trilogy of movies about the adventures Superdad and Superson - but the movie worked on so many other levels for me that none of that shitty mattered. You, on the other hand, sound like you don't care for Superman as a whole, so I can understand why you wouldn't like it (though I can't understand why you watched the movie in the first place). I thought Kate Bosworth's acting was atrocious, but I was taken by Brandon Routh and all the other cast members. And of course Spacey was awesome.

Also, I just saw a trailer for a new movie from Joe Carnahan, the writer/director of one of my favorite recent movies, "Narc." His new one is called "Smokin' Aces"

Talladega Nights

I saw Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby this weekend in San Diego. I didn't find it all that funny, and I say that as a big fan of Anchorman. It's not a "stupid" movie, per se; much like Anchorman, Zoolander and Dumb & Dumber, it was actually a smart movie that happened to feature a lot of stupid humor. It was consistently assembled and they were pretty devoted to the premise and maintaining the tone they were going for....I just didn't find it funny. Will Ferrell did a good job as Ricky Bobby, and his scenes with John C. Reilly (a brilliant clown who was the only consistent source of laughs) were the high point of the movie. But Sacha Baron Cohen (better known as Borat) didn't do anything for me as the gay French "Formula Un" driver that poses as Ricky Bobby's biggest rival (sort of...this was the least-developed part of the story), and various members of Ricky Bobby's family (his obnoxious redneck kids, his absentee father, his slut whore trophy wife) are just not as funny as somebody seemed to think they were.

Honestly, I can envision this movie as the product of some spontaneous (and probably stoned) conversation that Ferrell and Adam McKay (the movie's writers) had one night, and I'll bet it was funny as hell to them at the time. But by the time the concept made it to screens, it just didn't have the legs to justify a feature-length comedy. I laughed mildly here and there, and there was one good laugh during the commercial montage (the Big Red one, for anyone that's seen the movie), but overall it was more amusing than funny.

What did you all think?



THX-1138

I just watched "THX-1138", the first film that George Lucas ever made. It's a sci-fi film (go figure), but apart from that it's just about the opposite of "Star Wars". It's a sparse, arty, paranoid film about an oppressive future society, in which sexual activity is illegal and drugs are prescribed by the government to keep everyone's emotions and hormones in check. Robert Duvall stars as THX-1138, a worker-bee whose female roommate, LUH-number-number-number-number, has decided to rebel against the system; she's stopped _________, and she's been ___________ as well. Once __________, the two of them....you know....and then they get in trouble. Naturally.

I'd be so irritated with this review if I were you. But I'm gonna just tease you enough to watch the movie, because it really is awesome. I kept thinking how pissed I would be, and how much more I would dislike George Lucas than I already do, if I had seen this film in 1971, before "Star Wars" consumed and then obliterated his creative spirit. This film is fuckin' excellent - it definitely takes its cues from the literary leanings of Phillip K. Dick and George Orwell, but in terms of cinema, I'm not sure what (other than "2001") precedent there was for this kind of thing. Keep in mind that films like "Blade Runner", "Brazil", and the original "Solaris" hadn't even been made. I haven't seen "Metropolis" or "The Forbidden Planet", so I don't know. But in terms of modern sci-fi, this film was definitely ahead of its time. And it's sick. The photography is extremely unconventional - economic, oddly framed. The production design is dazzling one minute and completely barren the next, which is extremely effective. And the sound work is genius, paving the road for films like "Pi" a generation or two down the road. And, in hindsight, "The Island" was swiping this film every bit as much as it swiped "The Matrix".

If you like dystopian-future movies, this film will be right up your alley. It's a little on the incoherent side, but it's wonders are impossible to ignore.

This film is not yet rated

I just watched "This Film Is Not Yet Rated"...finally. I was supposed to see it at a late screening on its opening night (September 1), but I fell asleep after work and didn't wake up in enough time to make the show, even though I had already bought tickets online. @#%$.

But I just saw it tonight. It's possibly the best true documentary I've ever seen.

I'm not a big documentary guy at all - I don't really watch very many. I out-and-out LOVED "Tarnation", but it's hard to call that a true documentary. I hated "The Fog of War", because I thought that Errol Morris pussed out on asking the old guy who was the subject of the movie (and whose name escapes me) some more pointed questions pertaining to the Kennedy assasination and some of the other atrocities the guy was involved in*. Let me see....what other ones....I'm not even going to mention Michael Moore's films, because those are not documentaries (as much as I used to enjoy "Bowling For Columbine" before I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" and had my image of Michael Moore as a person of any reputability completely shattered). I've always wanted to see docs such as "Hearts of Darkness" - about the heinous problems that went into making of "Apocalypse Now" - and "A Life In Pictures" - about the career of Stanley Kubrick. I guess if I'm not watching an actual narrative movie, I'd like to watch a documentary which pertains to actual narrative movies. This one is no exception.

This is a film, as you may expect, about the MPAA ratings board - a group of 9 so-called "parents of children between the ages of 5 and 17" of supposedly varied backgrounds who watch every movie before it comes out in order to slap a rating on it. Very few filmmakers ever deliberately avoid the ratings board, because if a film is unrated, it can't be advertised in mainstream newspapers, or on TV; nor can it be played in a major-chain movie theater or rented out via Blockbuster or any major-chain video store. Basically, if you want your movie to have any shot at finding a sizeable audience, you have to get it rated, and that rating better not be an NC-17, because the same rules apply to NC-17 as they do to unrated. This, as you can imagine, gives the ratings board an ungodly amount of power in governing what you can and cannot see in a movie. And, according to the interviews in this movie, they're definitely not above using that power.

The film's director, Kirby Dick, hires a private investigator - a lesbian named Becky who cheerfully brings her partner's daughter along on stings - to spy on the members of the ratings board and find out who they are and how they operate. There's just one problem - the MPAA does not ever release the names of the film raters. So, this requires Becky to do quite a bit of spying, which proves both amusing and impressive. In tracking down information (often illegally) on the ratings board members, as well as interviewing filmmakers who have gone to bat against the ratings board - including Darren Aronofsky, Matt Stone, Kevin Smith, Kimberly Peirce, John Waters - a number of unsavory truths about the way the ratings system works is brought to light. The evidence (of which there is plenty) states that the ratings board tends to favor:

A. Violence over sex (Obviously. Violence goes almost unregulated while sex is very closely monitored. This is no surprise.)

B. Straight sex over gay sex

C. Big studio sex over independent film sex

D. (Note: Here, I originally wrote "Male orgasms over female orgasms", but even that's not really true, because nobody's orgasms are really permitted. I should have just wrote "Actions without consequence", because it seems that sex can skate as long as no one is shown to be enjoying it, and violence is encouraged to avoid showing blood and gore, and to look very much unlike actual violence)

Not only that, but the truths - excuse me; exposed lies - behind this group of people who pretend to protect the artists, and who purport to go to such great lengths to NOT be censors, will fuckin' INFURIATE you if you care about movies in any way, shape, or form. The information is presented entertainingly, digestably, and yet, without force. Of all the footage of Jack Valenti on TV and with his pals in Washington, you never once hear Kirby Dick pretending to narrate and predict what Valenti was thinking at that moment (unlike a certain other pathetic populist hack). The film's climax is far less grandiose than, say, a showdown with a humiliated Charles Heston, but it speaks loudly because you leave the theater with information in your brain. You walk out mulling over all of what you've just absorbed. I swear, this thing was light on its feet and a non-fiction storytelling dream. It's something that all of you need to see - if you ever get the chance; I say that because - as the film also documents - this film itself was rated NC-17, and then had its appeal of the rating denied unanimously. Coincidence?

Speaking of which - one of my favorite little touches in this movie was the part in the end credits that thanks "all the filmmakers who had the balls to be in this movie". But - as AICN's review said - it's truly Kirby Dick who has the biggest balls of them all.


All About My Mother

I just recently watched my first Almodovar film - "All About My Mother". It's about a single mother who copes with the tragic death of her teenage son by flying to Barcelona to find the baby daddy. Upon arriving in Barcelona, Manuela (the madre in question) meets an old friend, Agrado, a transsexual prostitute who introduces her to a nun named Rosa (Penelope Cruz). Manuela bonds with Rose, while at the same time growing close to a pair of actresses/lovers starring in a local production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

I was immediately struck by how vibrant it was from a visual standpoint; there are some truly virtuoso shots in this film, particularly one at the beginning that involves the death of the son. The scenes between Manuela and Esteban in the film's early going are touching and understated, and you will find yourself loving and sympathizing with Manuela pretty much from the jump. I have to say - the film confounded my expectations extremely, which was something I was initially somewhat off put by, but eventually came to love. This is a film whose characters are afflicted by drug addiction, illness, personal tragedy...yet, it's not a film that invokes a sense of pain or agony. It seemed a little uncathartic, because the characters just move on with their lives, and the film never slows enough to let them suffer. But in reflecting on the film further, and discussing it with Christopher, I realized that this was actually the film's greatest strength - these were strong women who refused to let adversity reduce them to a morose, tormented wreck, instead using laughter and companionship to weather everything they'd experienced. The more I think & write about this film, the more I want to see it - and other Almodovar confections - again soon.

Gabe’s Rant About Directors

Reasons to sit on a famous director:

A) Punishment (heh) for making a truly fukking awful movie, for which I curse the day I wasted my time sitting through it when I could have been watching any of the countless great films I've yet to see. This benchmark disregards any excellent films that the director in question has made in the past, or will make in the future.

B) Intervention for a director who was once doing good work, but has since gone into a tail-spin fueled by money, sensitivity to public criticism, or loss of soul.

C) Interrogation of a filmmaker (one who may or may not be enormously talented) for making one egregious mistake in directing a skilled actor to a miserable performance.

D) Interruption of a director's intent to remake a movie that either I would like to do myself (there's really only one case of this), or that should never be done in the first place.

So, with the ground rules laid out, let's bring out the suspects, along with the criteria they meet and how they met it :

Ron Howard

A - "A Beautiful Mind" and "Cinderella Man" are both in my personal hall of shame, as is the trailer for "The DaVinci Code". That's right - I'm judging him for a film I never saw. Far be it from me to chase a third strike that's clearly out of the zone.

Jared Hess

A - Beaten into the ground though it may be, my hatred for "Napoleon Dynamite" has subsided very little over the past 2+ years. I die a little inside every time I hear someone quote this movie.

Rob Marshall

A - "Chicago", for all its considerable craftsmanship and occasional entertainment value, was shallow and despicable enough to make me wish this man's birth could be undone.

Tim Burton

C - One of my favorites, to be sure, but I'd still like to sit on him and ask him what the fukk he was thinking by letting Johnny Depp perform so terribly in "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

Doug Liman

B - Perhaps not as famous as the others, but check out the track record:

"Swingers"
"Go"
"The Bourne Identity"

....

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith"

One misfire isn't a cold streak, per se, but the severity of that one misfire is such that I'd rather get the sitting-on over with now before things get truly out of hand.

Justin Lin

B - Formerly an indie wonderboy,due to the excellent "Better Luck Tomorrow"; his debut "Shopping For Fangs" was also decent. But his last two films have been "Annapolis" (some crappy military academy drama that starred the guy who played Dr. Osborne's son in "Spiderman") and the latest "The Fast & The Furious" movie.

D - In his queue is a remake of the Korean classic "OldBoy", a true modern masterpiece. That's right. Lin wants to trade Tokyo drifting for torture, hypnosis, and revenge. I'd sit on him as long as I had to in order to convince him that this was a bad, bad idea.

Oliver Stone

A - Is for "Alexander". Nuff said.

B - Is for bowlderized, which is apparently the version of Ollie that we got in "World Trade Center". No, I haven't seen this one either. Cry foul if you want, but I don't have it in me to watch an emasculated melodrama from the hands of a man who has given me 5 of the best films made in the last 20 years.

D - Is for, "DON'T you dare try to remake 'The Fountainhead', Oliver Stone. Don't you fukking dare."

The moral here is that filmmakers from the Pantheon to Purgatory are prone to fukking up once in a while. But I'd have to hire you guys to sit on the aforementioned honorable mentions, because for me personally, there's one fish that's just too big not to fry.

Brett Ratner

This can't be a shock. I think I've ranted against him at least 3 times in this thread, particularly over his mishandling of "X3". But what the fukk, you asked, and it would be dishonest of me to answer otherwise.

A - Ratner's filmography is littered with junk: "Red Dragon", "X3", and "The Family Man" (which I saw enough of to feel justified in dismissing). But I'm gonna have to single out "Rush Hour 2" as the worst of the bunch, simply because it was at that moment that I realized that Ratner's career was going to be marked with idiocy and a failure to grasp anything other than the most base attempts at "entertaining" the masses. You may think I'm going too hard on a movie that makes no attempts to be anything other than a wacky action-comedy, but this movie was oppressively unfunny and shamelessly profit-driven.

B - Hard as it is to believe (much less admit), Ratner's career started off fairly promising. "Money Talks" and the first "Rush Hour" movie were both pretty good. The performances of a young-and-hungry Chris Tucker were more than enough to carry each picture, and the action scenes were sufficient, although no one would have mistook Ratner for the next Scorsese even in those days.....except, of course, Ratner himself. He's spent the ensuing time trying to make films in every genre (which, simply put, he doesn't have the chops for), and nobody's more proud of it than he is.

C - On this count, I would like to ask Ratner how he managed to make Edward Norton boring for an entire movie ("Red Dragon"). Seriously. Norton's career was phenomenal before he caught the Ratner virus, and now he's barely even on the map anymore. I really hope he gets his mojo back.

D - Ratner has decided to take a break from making big budget, franchise-feeding wankfests to try to remake one of the greatest movies ever made - "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie". Now, I recently received a John Cassavetes boxed set for my birthday (thank you, Jennie ), so I spent my Friday night watching both versions of this oft-ignored, yet undeniable masterwork, and the thought of a grimy creature like Ratner putting his hands on it is, in a word, horrifying. Paul Thomas Anderson told Ratner he would personally put a bullet in his head if he remade that movie; I volunteer right now to sit on Ratner until PTA gets his shot off.

You can find corroboration for most of what I've said about Ratner in this article. But I caution you: after reading it, you may want to sit on him, too.

[KungFuJoe]

I'm glad to see Gabe's favorite Park film is "Sympathy For Mr Vengeance". Everyone seems to go fo "Oldboy" and I was beginning to think I might be the only one favoring the other. Not that it matters, but "Sympathy For Mr Vengeance" is definately in my top ten of all time. I'm anxious to see what Gabe thinks of "I'm a Cyborg, but That's Ok".

[thelastgreatman]

Gabe--Oliver Stone has made 5 of the best films of the last twenty years? Out of how many total, like 5 of the top 100? Just curious.

[PotVsKtl]

Well here are the choices:

# World Trade Center (2006)
# Alexander (2004)
# Any Given Sunday (1999)
# U Turn (1997)
# Nixon (1995)
# Natural Born Killers (1994)
# Heaven & Earth (1993)
# JFK (1991)
# The Doors (1991)
# Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
# Talk Radio (1988)
# Wall Street (1987)

I cant get behind even a single one of those being called one of the best films of the last 20 years.

[thelastgreatman]

Well here are the choices:

# World Trade Center (2006)
# Alexander (2004)
# Any Given Sunday (1999)
# U Turn (1997)
# Nixon (1995)
# Natural Born Killers (1994)
# Heaven & Earth (1993)
# JFK (1991)
# The Doors (1991)
# Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
# Talk Radio (1988)
# Wall Street (1987)

I cant get behind even a single one of those being called one of the best films of the last 20 years.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Hence my O RLY face.
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/thelastgreatman/Picture11.jpg

[amyzzz]

I loved The Descent. That movie was creepy as hell WITHOUT the monsters. Why did they even ADD the fucking monsters? Some of those chicks (all of them?) were scary enough as it is. And those crazy birthday cake flashbacks? creeeepy.

[Hannahrain]

I'm curious to know what any fans out there think of this. (http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20070405/117577375500.html) It's not new news, but I haven't seen it mentioned here. I think it has potential to be amazing, given the works of Gorey himself and his influence on people like Tim Burton. Potential, though. Not likeliness. Here's hoping I'm proven wrong, but... I do not like the looks of this. It looks like they are turning it into a feel-good movie. It could end up great, though. You never know. Anyway, thoughts?

[schoolofruckus]

Well here are the choices:

# World Trade Center (2006)
# Alexander (2004)
# Any Given Sunday (1999)
# U Turn (1997)
# Nixon (1995)
# Natural Born Killers (1994)
# Heaven & Earth (1993)
# JFK (1991)
# The Doors (1991)
# Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
# Talk Radio (1988)
# Wall Street (1987)

I cant get behind even a single one of those being called one of the best films of the last 20 years.

And I said that in 2006, so you have to include Platoon (1986). You don't have to agree, though. I don't know how many the mythical "best of the last 20 years" list would have to span in order to include all 5 of those movies. All I was (and still am) saying is that I love Oliver Stone's best work like no other, and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to watch Nicolas Cage - with a fucking mustache - try to share with me the first-hand horror of being trapped beneath the WTC.

Joe, "Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance" is top 10 all time for me. "OldBoy" is probably top 30.


Last night I watched "Marie Antoinette". Not only was it not the vapid disaster it's been portrayed as - it was excellent! And the more I think about it, the more I like it. It's not exactly historically accurate from a presentation standpoint - and I can see (although I think it's pathetic) how that would cause someone looking for another assembly-line period piece to bring out the red ink - but I thought it did a great job of staying true the human aspect of Marie Antoinette's growth. The ridiculous pageantry of the Versailles is played for both laughs and shudders, the film uses a variety of modern ethos to put Antoinette's situation in a relatable context, and the end was fantastic.

It occurred to me about halfway through it this film shared the same fate as "Lady In the Water". Both movies were very very good, and had some brilliant moments apiece, but were considered irredeemable shit upon release. Yet if you read the reviews of "Marie"/"Lady", you'll find that probably 2/3 of the comments have to do with what a spoiled Hollywood princess Sofia Coppola is or what an out-of-control egomaniac Shyamalan is. I mean, I do believe that Coppola clearly has an empathetic streak towards Marie Antoinette, but I take exception to the idea that Antoinette is painted as a hero or that she deserves to be known as "the original Paris Hilton". She's clearly shown as a kid who was thrust into the monarch role way in advance of being ready for it, and - this is critical in debunking the Hilton analogy - she was forced into that as a political gesture by her own family. Sure, she was royalty to begin with, but growing up in one's safe little cocoon of entitlement is not the same as being sold up the river in the name of bureaucracy. Although I guess neither scenario is necessarily the fault of the person who's in it.

But yeah....anyone who was scared initially to watch this movie - for fear it would be a vessel for Coppola to defend accusations that it's her name, not talent, that launched her career - need not fear. It's a bold, strikingly original per