The Merry Widow, I'm Swiss, & Man Bites Dog

The Merry Widow suffers from bad sound quality, making Jeanette MacDonald's voice very hard to understand, and some silly dancing interludes. Not the ones with just the stars, but when they cut to hundreds of people dancing to the Merry Widow waltz, that's unnecessary. However, it does have Maurice Chevalier at the top of his game, Ernst Lubitsch having lots of fun with his normal cleverness, and an interesting plot. Not as good as some of Ernst's other works, but still definitely worth watching. Edward Everett Horton just has a great voice and is almost always the most fun in any movie. But not this one, where it's Maurice's movie all the way.

I'm Swiss was much better when Bill Maher wasn't just saying the same thing I'd said three years ago. Or maybe slightly less when he was talking about Iraq. But when he was talking about things other than politics, like food and pot, then he was much better. I enjoyed it, but I definitely said the exact same things long ago. Plus, the audience was lapping it up, rather than actually thinking about what he said. I just kept thinking that if some Republican watched it, they wouldn't be convinced about anything, they'd just get pissed. Not particularly helpful for a good dialogue on just how insane Rick Santorum or Tom DeLay is.

Man Bites Dog was reprehensible. Just like Natural Born Killers. In fact, I guarantee Oliver Stone and these Belgians were thinking the exact same thing when they made their movies. I'd be convinced that Stone actually saw Man Bites Dog before making Natural Born Killers, except that I'm not entirely clear on the timeline. The problem with this movie was that it didn't really try to get a plot going. It was just "I'm a killer" and "We need money for the movie" and "I'm going to expound upon how I kill people". I'm really not sure about Criterion. Sometimes they just pick crappy movies.

6ixtynin9 & The Outlaw

6ixtynin9 not only has a stupid title (well, at least the one on the packaging, as opposed to the one in the movie itself), but also has some misspelled subtitles. Plus, it may be the silliest and most reliant upon coincidence movie I've seen in a long time. However, it's a movie that is also enjoyable and I'm pretty sure is a big metaphor for the Asian economic crisis. I also don't entirely see why so many characters kept calling the lead so attractive. She was more attractive than every other one, but not particularly attractive. And that gigolo was so damn ugly. Wow.

The Outlaw was horrible. What was Thomas Mitchell thinking? Well, I know what he was thinking, but man, that'd suck to have the Howards fight and get stuck with Hughes directing rather than Hawks. But no one does a particularly good job in this, and Jane Russell acts about as well as I can bench 250. That's right, if she were to attempt to act she'd probably end up with a huge weight crushing her windpipe. Her breasts also are a little too conetastic. Probably wearing a corset. And while we can thank Hughes for magic bras because of the movie, we can't thank him for anything else. Especially not the horrendous score. It's worse than a sitcom's laugh track. Every single time there's a "joke" the score needs to remind you to laugh. And when a character has a setback, it brings out the "wha-wha-wha-whaaa". And finally, I am not a breast man, so that aspect of the movie was completely wasted on me. The only thing that keeps it from being one of the worst movies of all time is the overacting and the whiplash from the characters twisting and turning because the script doesn't really know what to do with anyone. Especially the actor playing Billy the Kid who's a terrible actor. Worse than Jane Russell. Which is really saying something. She was, at least, acceptable in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Which brings it back to Hawks and the script. Since Jules Furthman worked with Hawks a few times on some great movies, my bet is that Hughes is a person who can kill a movie if he's given too much control.

The Company of Wolves & Possession

The Company of Wolves is an interesting version of the Little Red Riding Hood story, with the sexual overtones brought to the fore. It's a fairly good werewolf story, with some good special effects, although I never need to see saggy hairy old lady breasts again thank you very much Neil Jordan. Pretty creepy when Stephen Rea starts to pull the skin off his face. It was also sometimes a little confusing. Clearly from a source with a lot more complicated ideas than were able to be shown in a movie.

Possession would have been better without Gwyneth Paltrow. Rest of the cast is good to great (I really like Aaron Eckhart and Jeremy Northam, and my undying respect for Jennifer Ehle for Elizabeth Bennet continues), but her accent just gets annoying. Plus, really, and as a guy confident in his heterosexuality, why did it take so long for her to go for Aaron? Smoldering good looks and intelligence, plus a love for crappy 19th century poetry? Isn't he just about every woman's dream? (Interesting side note, today I said that every single drunk girl with brown eyes, if given the chance, will play Brown-Eyed Girl on a bar's jukebox, and my coworker said she would have played it had the bartender not explicitly forbade her from doing so because too many do. Not that that has anything to do with it, but just that I think I'm batting two for two on generalizations about women today!) Also, it just reminded me so much of a good version of The Da Vinci Code without the annoying "This is all true and the Catholic Church can suck it" crap. Plus, I bet the book is really well written. And David Henry Hwang finally writes a script for a movie that I've seen after the excellent M. Butterfly. Well, maybe not excellent, but at least fascinating. Really, who doesn't at least notice that the person you're having buttsex with has a penis? Isn't it fairly likely that it might just flop around a little? Just a little?

Ok, this is just a little gay for me now. I mean, I didn't even think Gwyneth is that attractive in this, and her English accent was much better in Sliding Doors. Damnit. Jennifer Ehle is attractive (and from Winston-Salem???) and Lena Headey reminded me of my love for women in glasses (and that I need to see Waterland, which needs to come out on DVD already damnit, and she's in The Brothers Grimm...). There. That's much better.

See, I'm funnier than you

the Wit (56% dark, 39% spontaneous, 27% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 47% on dark You scored higher than 33% on spontaneous You scored higher than 35% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Global Frequency & I'm the One That I Want

I saw Global Frequency. Possibly the best pilot I've seen of a show that didn't get picked up ever. Better than Heat Vision and Jack and Lookwell. Well, those shows were hilariously terrible. This was actually a great show. It really made me want to know what happened next. And the effects were actually good. Acting was acceptable for the main characters, and the ending bit was horrendously cliched, but Michelle Forbes was great, and Aimee Garcia as Aleph was also good (I knew she was vaguely familiar, and then I saw that she was in Angel 3.11, Birthday). I just thought it was a great idea, and it looked like it could be pretty darn good if it was allowed to go on. And I wish that I didn't have to do anything remotely illegal to watch it. But I mainly just want to put another thing online about how good the pilot was and how much WB needs to... I don't know... get their collective heads out of their collective asses and bring Angel and Global Frequency back damnit.

I'm the One That I Want was pretty funny, and vulgar. Vulgar vulgar vulgar. It's weird to see more recent shots of Margaret where she's thinner. It's just weird. I remember catching some of her early stand-up back in the early 90s, and I remember not watching her show. Interesting how that all goes.

Le Petit Soldat, The Sweetest Thing, & California Split

Le Petit Soldat was an interesting film. Especially following Breathless up with that. I've gotta say that Godard is a strange filmmaker, as he's capable of great things, but he gets a little political and occasionally loses himself. It is interesting to see another take on the Algierian independence movement. Sad that both sides using torture hasn't really seemed to teach anyone in power any lessons. Maybe Americans will learn that after the blowback from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Also, I kept thinking that this was going to be about a penis. Yeah...

The Sweetest Thing. Terrible. The only redeeming quality of the entire movie was Selma Blair, who is, at least, attractive, and she was given the most thankless role. Oh, my boyfriend has a big penis and it's pierced. Plus, why did this movie exist? Who wrote that wretched script? Not even remotely funny. The only time I think I laughed was at how stupid it was. I mainly wanted to see any movie in Comedy Central's Secret Stash just to see if I could handle the commercials. I could, but I think they didn't really need to put the Penis Song back in. That entire thing was horrendously bad. Wow.

California Split was typical Altman. Even down to the completely gratuitous nudity. Why, exactly, did the girl need to be bottomless at the club? Did that add anything to the scene except some crack? Elliott Gould was outstanding. He really was made for Altman. MASH, The Long Goodbye, and this are all great roles for him. Too bad he hasn't really done much else of worth. Not Altman. Altman's got a string of great films going back to MASH (although there are a fair share of dogs in there as well (Popeye and Prêt-à-Porter come to mind immediately)), but Gould hasn't done anything else except the Muppet movies and Ocean's 11. Shame. I thought that George Segal was dead. Apparently, he isn't. Didn't notice.

The Punisher, Detour, Runaway Jury, & Lost Horizon

The Punisher was unrelentingly depressing. Ugh. It's better than the 1989 version, but a dead rat can act better than Dolph Lundgren, so it isn't that big of a deal. Travolta was terrible. That was expected. After you go Scientologist you stop being anything worthwhile. Except that you are so crazy you can be interesting.

Detour was short. Short short short. I can understand that it was a fairly early film noir, and that it is definitely historical, but that doesn't mean that there was much I particularly enjoyed in it. And the stupid MPAA giving that ending. The alternate ending would have been much better. That is pretty much the rule. I can't think of any endings that are better with the censorship board. There might be one or two, but so many movies are predictable once you have a character murdered. So much better when you can't tell how it will all end well before that.

Runaway Jury was long. I'm not sure where it ranks on the John Grisham scale, except that there really isn't a good reason for any of his books or movies to exist. I also felt like it was another piece of liberal claptrap that made me want to vomit. Or something like that. Also, seriously, Piven? That guy's career pretty much is riding on Cusack's coattails. He was ok in this.

Lost Horizon was interesting, and the great line ("To put it simply, I should say that our general belief was in moderation. We preach the virtue of avoiding excesses of every kind, even including excess of virtue itself...We find in the valley it makes for greater happiness among the natives. We rule with moderate strictness and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. As a result, our people are moderately honest, moderately chaste, and somewhat more than moderately happy.") was pretty good. Plus, without the novel, we wouldn't have the Shangri-Las, which would probably mean that our music wouldn't be as good. Things named Shangri-La are generally good music. Now, Frank Capra is a fairly good director, but in this case, he just goes on forever. Too many scenes of people expositioning. And it's also too bad about losing the seven minutes or so of film, and just using the stills or sometimes just losing its sharpness. That, because of the expositioning, isn't as jarring as you'd expect, since a lot of scenes are of people looking in one direction and talking or listening. Oh, yeah, and it's racist. But at least there's some naked small boys and girls to make up for it. Wait a second. Naked small boys and girls don't make up for racism.

The Boxer

The Boxer was a pretty good movie about boxing. And Ireland. And hope. But mainly boxing. Ok, not really. It's mainly about Northern Ireland and how self-destructive the IRA was. Jim Sheridan needs to do more work. Seriously. He's only made about five films. And I haven't seen The Field, but the other four are all damn good. And I just kept watching Daniel Day-Lewis and thinking about how he likes to get really into his roles, and I wondered how much of the boxing was real, and how much of the blood and bruises were real. Probably a considerable amount.

Cinemania & The Night Porter

Cinemania was a sort of depressing movie. Well, at least to me, in that I have done what they do all the time for a day or two at a time. But I generally watch maybe 7 movies a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I had seen almost every movie referenced (at least the ones I caught being referenced) in the movie, but I don't know some of the directors. It was pretty funny and I felt bad for all of these people who spend all their money on movies. And are such film snobs. Admittedly, when I showed films, I hated to show 16mm and vastly preferred 35mm, but a lot of that was the projector. There is a considerable upgrade in sound and video quality, but I was generally just as happy with a high-quality DVD. I sometimes wish I had many hours and days to devote to watching more movies, although the first thing I'd do would be to up my Netflix subscription to the max. That might not be enough though. I might have to start watching movies I've already seen before. Or just randomly picking movies. I guess TV shows last longer, but they may not count to these people. Anyway, the watching of the movie at the end reminded me of Gimme Shelter, although I think the band's reactions in Gimme Shelter were slightly more destroyed by how the movie portrayed them then the slightly resigned way that the cinephiles reacted to this movie. Weird how watching someone watch the movie you've watching makes it seem like you're even more voyeuristic than otherwise.

The Night Porter proves that I won't enjoy any movie about Nazis (well, reputable movies about them, I've seen some Nazi women prison films that really sucked, in the bad way) or one with gratuitous nudity. Oh well. It's a little too simple of a movie, with too much focus on the dirty aspects of the story and not enough on... well, actually, I don't care. It just isn't a movie for me. There's very little that this movie could have done to make me like it more than I do now. Plus, the dubbing is horrible. About the only good things in it are the technical aspects. And I've said many times before that I just don't get S&M. Probably never will. I dislike pain way too much. Plus, the movie just goes on way too long. And it's pretentious as hell. And the DVD I watched was scratched up. I had to skip about ten minutes in the middle. I don't think I missed anything (in that I saw the famous suspenders song thing). Had I read the description on Netflix ("Liliana Cavini's controversial erotic drama drew comparisons to Last Tango in Paris when it was released."), I would not have rented it. I still don't understand why Last Tango in Paris is such a respected movie. Actually, I'm not entirely sold on the whole Bertolucci thing either. The only movie I've seen of his I loved was The Last Emperor, but I haven't seen The Conformist. Damn VCR. I would have gotten it too had it not been for you meddling timer-recording.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein was some goofy fun. Some lines and reactions made the movie worth watching. It's not like it's a classic, as I am not that big a fan of the team but it's definitely more enjoyable than some other movie of theirs I think I've seen. Or maybe I'm just half-remembering some other comedy group with a fat guy and a tall guy. Not like that isn't a popular team. I'm also not too happy with the off-canon "killing" of Dracula. I know he doesn't actually die, but they made it seem like he was dead. And the animation was really distracting. I know there was no better way to do the transformation of Dracula, but with the great transformation effects of the Wolfman (about the only good thing about that wretched monster), the obviousness just makes it look worse in comparison. Anyway, it was a pleasant enough 90 minutes. Yay for TCM.

Fort Reno July 14

Last Thursday I went to Fort Reno for the series of free concerts that Fugazi started up back when they still existed.

The opening band was something boring (checking the Fort Reno site, it was the Antiques). The lead singer was annoying as hell. The bassist was good as was the drummer. The keyboardist was eh.

The Sprites were really good, and apparently the lead guitarist/singer was in another somewhat famous band from DC, Barcelona. There were some funny (and great songs), one about Mir dropping on Japan, and one about George Romero, which I need to own. Well, I need to own both of them, but especially that George Romero song.

I mainly went there for Monopoli who were good. About what I expected, which was fun. Now, The Sprites were, in my opinion, the best show, but that is because I'm a sucker for goofy lyrics and great music. Surprisingly good music is better than expectedly good music.

Advise and Consent, Death and the Maiden, Day for Night, Bus 174, & City of Hope

It's been a while, and I may not remember everything I've seen since the last entry.

Advise and Consent was definitely made a long time ago for a less informed public. A little too obvious, and I saw the gay thing coming a long time earlier. Ok, mainly because I read Frank Rich's column which mentioned it, but still. Anyway, really impressive cast that mostly does a good job with some mediocre material. The main problem is that it's completely unfocused. There is no main story, as it flips in the middle a couple of times to focus on new parts of the story. While this is more like real life, it doesn't make for a better movie.

Death and the Maiden had great performances, and was an interesting story, but it just was missing something, possibly no projected backgrounds at the climax. That was really distracting for me. Lots of other things were right, but Polanski could have done better. Somehow.

Day for Night is the best movie about making movies ever. Great movie. Not much is better than Truffaut, a true film lover, making a movie at the height of his talent about how amazing movies are. Wow.

Bus 174 was too long. But other than that little problem, it's a fascinating documentary which gives much needed background to social problems in Rio. Now, it's not nearly as good as City of God, but few movies could tell a better story than that, and the way the filmmakers connect the dots and look for the reasons for the hijacking.

City of Hope was damn good. John Sayles is one of the best directors working today. And this is a typical Sayles film. I can't recommend almost every one of his movies enough. And the cast of this one was great and full of Sayles's normal cast. And the young Angela Bassett was a surprise. Joe Morton needs much more work as well. Just an outstanding film. Weird that I saw it right before tonight's Sopranos, which was also about shady land deals. The 80's-ness of City of Hope was somewhat distracting, but maybe it was set then. Or maybe Jersey took a few more years to get to the 90s than other places in the county. Also weird that it was filmed in Cincinnati. Didn't recognize it.

Gunner Palace, Maria Full of Grace, Bright Leaves, Purple Butterfly, & Troy

Gunner Palace. After driving home and then going to a good dinner (Myra's Dionysus), I made it through about half an hour before I decided I needed sleep more than falling asleep during the movie. So I watched the rest of it later. Can't remember the last time I basically fell asleep during a movie. Well, except for when I rewatched the Star Wars Trilogy with commentaries, and fell asleep during each movie. That doesn't really count, since I'd seen the movies maybe a hundred times each. Anyway, back to Gunner Palace. If it hadn't been for the actual rating, I would never have thought it was PG-13, what with all the "naughty" words that aren't allowed to be said on a screen in front of kids but are allowed to be screamed in public. Woot! I keep getting distracted from the movie. It was pretty good, and a great anti-war movie, and completely blew the Iraq section of Fahrenheit 9/11 out of the water. Too bad there wasn't really enough else there. And I thought that there wasn't enough explaining. Lots of scenes, but short and sometimes confusing.

Maria Full of Grace was great. Beautiful movie, interesting story, plus it had women learning how to suppress their gag reflexes. Which is always hot. Ok, plus, it was all about how bad situations lead to being abused by the drug trade. I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about supporting illegal immigration, but then again, illegal immigration is better than drug importation. Great performance from the lead actress as well.

Bright Leaves was boring. Way too much focus on showing pictures of his kid, and not nearly enough discussing the history of bright leaf tobacco. Those parts were good. But it never really kept my interest for very long.

Purple Butterfly has Zhang Ziyi (or Ziyi Zhang, I'm not sure what she actually is going by now), so it isn't all bad. In fact, that's never a bad thing. Plus it's an interesting story. Gets bogged down in not having enough dialogue. Cut half an hour, and then maybe it'll be better. I didn't realize it was by the same guy who did Suzhou River, which gave me a bad case of motion sickness, even if it was a really good movie.

Troy was long and boring. Who thought it would be a good idea to ruin the Iliad? Who thought it would be good to piss off the only people who might actually like a 3 hour long sword and sandal epic by changing the entire plot? Who thought that this movie could make any sense? Ugh.

Howl's Moving Castle, Underworld, & Secret Honor

Howl's Moving Castle was about what I was expecting from Hayao Miyazaki. Brilliance, with an environmental and pro-woman stance that was only somewhat negated by the almost total androgeny of Howl. Almost total, since there was the towel drop bit, which caused a laugh in the theater. It was the first movie I'd seen in a theater since I moved to the District. It was a nice experience. Having it only 3 minutes away was also nice. Anyway, I highly recommend Howl's Moving Castle, even if it isn't as good as Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. It's better than Kiki's Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro, in my opinion. I also really hope that he doesn't stop making movies. It was so nice to see a PG movie that told a good story. Although my friend staying with me this week said that he didn't like to see PG-13 movies, because he thinks they're just a tease. And to a large extent he is right. At least you know what you're getting with a G or PG movie. And with an R you're getting lots of violence or some nudity. With PG-13, you get fake violence and maybe hints of breasts. Just a big tease. I'm a big fan of having more nudity and less violence in movies.

Speaking of which, I also saw Underworld. Which had just a couple kisses and a hell of a lot of violence. Much of which made no sense. Too bad it ruined the ability of anyone to make a good Vampire vs. Werewolf movie. Kate Beckinsale is hot, but she was the only reason to attempt to sit through that crap. Oh well. And it was strange to see Bill Nighy overacting in lots of makeup after seeing him be so good in The Girl in the Cafe. Sigh.

Secret Honor was amazing. Amazing for Phillip Baker Hall's transformation into Nixon. What a performance. Amazing. Too bad it wasn't all true. The whole Deep Throat rant about using him to get out of the presidency was just so bizarre. But that performance made up for anything. Riveting.