I'm Not There, Nanking, Breakin', & Fat Man and Little Boy

I'm Not There was a mess. Good ideas, lots of talent (Todd Haynes needs to make more movies), and I am a big Dylan fan, but the artifice just kept dragging me out of being involved in the movie. And Richard Gere's section was just a mess. Cate Blanchett was great though, and it's hard to hate too much on it, but I just should've rewatched No Direction Home.

Nanking is a depressing film about the Japanese raping and pillaging their way through what was a huge city in China in 1937. Hundreds of thousands were murdered (including some decapitations), tens of thousands of women raped, and children were bayonetted for no real reason. Seriously, fuck all those people who claim that Nanking didn't happen or that it was exaggerated. They're just as insane as Holocaust revisionists. Denying that massacres happened when there's photographic and firsthand evidence is just insane. Japanese nationalists are some of the worst, denying so many things that there's so much evidence for. The movie's use of famous actors was slightly distracting at first, but I quickly became more and more involved and fascinated by the story. If you aren't a Japanese fascist, you'll find this movie horrifying and a must watch.

Breakin' is terrible. The acting, directing, writing, and everything about it is bad. It also, frequently, suffers from the worst thing that a movie can do: quick cutting, hiding the actual talent of those on display. Also, why use a broom on a wire? Everything else is kinda possible. Joe Piscopo? Maybe you should get a suit that remotely fits you. Ugh. Here's the thing about this movie: big plot points are dependent upon being able to tell who won a dance-off, but I couldn't tell who was winning at any point, and the only way I knew the second one was over was because I was trying to pay attention to Ice-T rap talking in the background, narrating the fight. The movie is a horrible mess, about what you'd expect of a movie produced by the writer-director of The Apple. Still, I have to watch Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. It's on the DVR!

Fat Man and Little Boy has a great cast and tells an interesting story. Roland Joffe is one of those names I'm familiar with and respect the guy, but honestly, looking at his IMDB listing, I see: an uncredited turn on Super Mario Brothers, The Scarlet Letter, an episode of Undressed(?!?), the disappointing Vatel (which I saw less than a month before I restarted blogging), the unseen by me (but well-reviewed) The Mission, and the excellent The Killing Fields. So I get this feeling that I have a positive impression of him based entirely upon how good The Killing Fields is, and conveniently forget about how execrable The Scarlet Letter was. I liked it, but it kinda dragged on a little long.

Woman in the Dunes, Flash Point, Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, & Lost in Beijing

Woman in the Dunes is a metaphorical tale of a teacher who is tricked into living in a house surrounded by sand dunes. It's bizarre and touching, erotic and terrifying, and extremely well-made. Held up to my expectations.

Flash Point is ridiculous. Action scenes... man, I barely remember anything about it. I barely remembered anything about right after I saw it. I remember some of the fight scenes, the one in the driving range, the surprisingly brutal stabbing in the parking garage, and the pretty superb (although completely unbelievable) final fight scene. But the plot? Utterly nonsensical. Not helping: I couldn't tell the bad guys apart.

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan is not a porno film. It's a Shaw Brothers kung fu film, that just happens to have an evil lesbian who runs a brothel, kidnaps a young innocent girl, has many men rape her, and that woman then comes back and starts killing everyone involved, usually with sex. So, um, the fact that there's actually very little nudity, and most of it is played for laughs isn't going to make me seem any less dirty for adding this to my queue is it? I mean, it's not horrible, by any stretch of the imagination, and the English title just makes it seem much dirtier than it is. It's a fairly standard revenge film, but with kung fu. How can that not be watchable, at least?

Lost in Beijing is a look at how capitalism has destroyed the well-meaning Chinese working man. Basically, money corrupts people. Of course. Somehow, this movie got banned and the producers were banned from filmmaking for two years. Seriously, it's about the problems of capitalism. Reminded me of Blind Shaft, as there was also nudity here. No one in this movie comes out looking all that good. Tony Leung Ka Fei (the not as good Tony Leung) is suitably despicable as the owner of a massage parlor and rapist who starts all this corrupt stuff in motion. I, personally, though, hate the younger husband even more. Tony Leung was always a scumbag, but the husband was worse. The movie itself was very good, and does everything that I think the writers and directors wanted.

Blast of Silence, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Easy Living, & Wallander

Blast of Silence is a short little film noir, made in the early 60s, and released by Criterion. As a fan of film noir, and reading the mostly positive reviews back when Criterion released it, I wanted to know how it would be. The writer-director-star moved in the same circles as Peter Falk, and he was going to star in this had he not gotten a paying role. I kinda wish it had been made with Falk. The acting in this is amateurish and could have used a stronger central performance to bring a little bit of range to the film. It's a good plot, and certainly could have been better with a little more. Also, the narration was overbearing. Still, I kinda liked it.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead has talent in it and behind the camera (and Marisa Tomei naked), but it's just a depressing film and I never really liked it. I think I'm less willing to give any credit to films that have good people involved and disappoint than films that I never have any hopes for. Just an overall eh film.

Easy Living is an early Preston Sturges screwball comedy script, about a young office worker who gets hit by an expensive fur when a rich banker tosses it off a building. A series of comedic scenes follow, leading to silly scenes of mistaken identity and the like. It's pretty funny, but not up to Sturges's directorial efforts.

Wallander is based on a series of Swedish mystery novels, set in Ystad, southeast of Malmo. There have been a series of Swedish movies based on the books, but this was a new series of adaptations by the BBC with Kenneth Branagh as Wallander, the drunk detective. He is, as you would expect, excellent, and the movies just made me feel like I was watching Insomnia (but without the actual insomnia). I am really looking forward to see if they would make another series of it, but it all depends on whether Branagh can do Thor and still work on other stuff.

Los Campesinos! at 9:30 Club 8/5

I hadn't seen them before, and in fact, was introduced to them at around the same time I was introduced to the Wombats (who, I must admit, I still kinda prefer) by MBG and they were Quite Good and worth listening to. But I heard they were playing, and Ms. Albright bought me a ticket after her ticket was purchased by her friend). So I was going, and it was an early show on a weekday (YAY!). We skipped the openers, who may or may not have been good (one of the guitarists from The Farmers! was wearing a shirt from Girls. Anyway, we did the "hipster" thing and showed up about ten minutes before the main show started, but MBG just kept driving by parking spots, so we got in there about two minutes before Los Campesinos! went on.

We were pretty far back, which was nice, because they were very loud. Quite good, although their new couple of songs kinda dragged the middle of the set a little. And they didn't play Don't Tell Me To Do the Math(s), possibly my favorite of their songs. Still, when they started the big buildup and then broke into the one two punch of Box Elder (quite an excellent version of it, maybe even bettering Pavement's original) and You! Me! Dancing! (the song that competes with Math(s) for best Los Campesinos! track), the set finished out very well with a few more strong songs. As I'm not familiar with most of their stuff I can't say what else was played, but Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks, This Is How You Spell "HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes & Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics", My Year in Lists, and The International Tweexcore Underground were all very awesome. Gareth and one of the guitarists ended up in the crowd during the last couple songs and the encore, and just seemed to love playing. Stage banter was alternately hilarious and completely indecipherable (I enjoyed their joke about what an honor it was to open for Asher Roth). Basically, a great show.

But it's now time for the return of Douchebag(s) of the Concert! The four (or more, I never turned around to see all of them at once) people behind us. They wouldn't stop talking, sang out of tune and out of time to songs including starting singing well before the actual singing started multiple times, sang instrument parts like "beep beep beep", spilled a beer right behind us so my feet were sticking to the ground for most of the set, knocked into all of us multiple times, gave me a nasty look when I was saving a space for Ms. Albright and her friend and they tried to move into that space and I stopped them, made me write a run-on clause, and, most unforgivably, seemed genuinely excited when Gareth started making fun of the US for giving the world shit like Asher Roth and they thought that Asher Roth was going to come out and play his song or that Los Campesinos! would cover I Love College. So you win, Douchebags.

After the set, which went about 75 minutes long with a one song encore, we left and walked back to the car, and noticed a line. A long line. A line around the block. For Asher Roth. I am sorry for all those people at the 9:30 Club who had to deal with that crowd. In case, I'm not being clear enough, Asher Roth is a terrible, terrible person. And his fans are all bad people as well. The one good thing that he has ever done, from what I can tell, is for Los Campesinos! to be an early concert so I could be home by 10:20.

Run for Cover at Black Cat 8/1

Since none of these bands will ever play again in the forms that they did on this night, it's kinda hard to write a lot about their musicianship or anything like that. So just quick comments on the bands I saw.

The Cherry Bombs (The Runaways/Joan Jett/Lita Ford) had the best line in the night: after playing Cherry Bomb, the one Runaways song that anyone knows, "Lita Ford" said they were only going to play their hits, and then no one else in the band seemed to know what to play next so they had to pass it off to "Joan Jett" to play some of her songs. Fairly accurate representation, but nothing all too special.

Bad Medicine (Bon Jovi) was awesome. Extremely tight set, played the hits, and their Bon Jovi was outstanding. I was able to sing along to every single word of the set. Ms. Albright was disturbed (and possibly disgusted) by my ability to sing along. If I actually liked Bon Jovi, it might have been the set of the night, but the crowd was very into it.

Blonde on Blonde (Blondie) had a "Blondie" who couldn't sing the songs. Sorry. You almost were able to do Call Me, but nope.

Guided by Vices (Guided by Voices) was accurate to the actual band, but were just a drunken mess. Played some of the best GBV songs of the mid-period, but didn't play Kicker of Elves, for which I am (probably inordinately) naming them the worst band I saw, by far.

The Fly Bys (Top Gun) kinda broke the mold as it was more of a skit rather than music. And the music was shite. I hate Top Gun. It is a terrible film and the music is terrible. So screw you guys for getting Take My Breath Away in my head from now until I get something better in my head. Also, your "skits" weren't funny. And you took too long. But you get points for costuming.

Five Imaginary Boys (The Cure) went on too long. It was almost 1 am, and both Ms. Albright and I were exhausted. Also, Lovesong is just eh. You went on too long. And you brought nothing to the songs. Your lead singer did look slightly like Robert Smith, but that was it. Had it not been the Cure, you might have met Guided by Vices at the bottom.

And then finally, the band I went to see (although I knew someone in Bon Jovi as well): Geezer (Weezer as done by old people). My roommate was the lead singer (so I'm biased again). Look, maybe I just love Weezer more than the other bands, but they really were the best. Great costumes, the old people talking in place of the talky bits of Undone were funny, El Scorcho is a fun song to sing (too bad the music isn't all that fun, otherwise I'd do it Rock Band all the time), The Good Life was a perfect choice, and Surf-Wax America was a great set-ender.

Legend of the Black Scorpion, Zebraman, & Nightmare Detective

Nightmare Detective just reminded me of better films about people going into other people's dreams to solve crimes. Wait... honestly, there aren't any good live-action films about that (Paprika is the only one of which I can think). This doesn't break that trend. It should be an acceptable film, but it was filmed far too darkly and it just gets utterly ridiculous well before the end.

Zebraman is a goofy Miike film, ostensibly about a father who is obsessed with an old TV show, and he starts dressing up as the main character and save the world. And it's a family film. So the wife having an affair, the daughter having lots of sex, the son gets bullied at the school where he substitute teaches. Of course. It's utterly ridiculous that it's somehow viewed as a family film, but then again, most of the rest of the world isn't as prudish as we are.

Legend of the Black Scorpion is an adaptation of Hamlet. And pretty much all I could think was that it was pretty, but as an adaptation, it's a boring mess. Overlong and nowhere near as good as most adaptations (of either Hamlet, or from other East Asian Shakespeare adaptations, like Throne of Blood and Ran). Not all that much to say. Reviews were positive, from what I remember, but I need to stop just watching anything with Zhang Ziyi in it.

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, Kiltro, & Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With not only has a grammatically incorrect title, it isn't very funny, and is basically bad. I like Jeff Garlin, but I didn't enjoy watching it at all.

Kiltro is a trashy Chilean action film. Problem is the movie doesn't spend all that much time being an action film. And there's a midget. But mainly, it's full of too quick cuts, bad CGI blood spurts, and poorly choreographed fight scenes. I have to stop adding films just because someone on the internet says it's a cool action film. Barghle.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story feels like it was just ticking off the biographies of musicians and then trying to have the characters be naive and explaining everything. This leads to "humor". The only thing I found funny was the recurring joke with Tim Meadows and drugs. Other "jokes" ranged from unfunny to extremely stupid. But it just wasn't worth watching.

Charlie Wilson's War, Teeth, & National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Charlie Wilson's War depresses me, because it's basically making me root for the mujaheddin. Maybe if they hadn't frickin' pulled out the troops in 2002 and 2003 for Iraq, we wouldn't still have be there. Damnit. Of course, they did note the dangers of the war and the being unwilling to help build it back up afterward. Which, amazingly, we seem to like "fucking up the end game" as Charlie Wilson said. Mike Nichols and Aaron Sorkin do a fine job with the film. Really, it's a frustrating film, but for nothing except my political issues with it.

Teeth is utterly ridiculous. Basically, it's extremely unsubtle, but it's a film about explicit vagina dentata. You don't really see too many films that are explicit in it. There are quite a few severed penii. Well, three. And there's just so much I can take. But I gotta love any film that punishes people for having pre-marital sex for bad reasons. Raping, having sex for money, and being creepy are all more than enough reasons to cut off penii. The dog being named Mother, though, that may have been the crowning touch to the ridiculousness. Of course, the movie is not something that you can watch without cringing horribly, either for the newly depenistrated men or for Dawn's shocked reactions to having just cut off a penis (or fingers). The first couple times.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets is goofy. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit. This one is more ridiculous, and even less based in reality. But Nic Cage, Ed Harris, et al. were lots of fun. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoyed it.

Mansfield Park, The Barchester Chronicles, & The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear

Mansfield Park is the 1983 BBC miniseries version. As such, it luxuriates in the time period, and in an extended running time. And it has a bunch of actors who are extremely recognizable if you've seen enough British miniseries made around the same time. I didn't really like Sylvestra Le Touzel's performance of Fanny Price, and as a whole, I am not really that big a fan of Mansfield Park, but it is the most accurate version of it (plus it doesn't have frickin' Billie Piper in it or basically messing with everything in it like the 1999 version, which I really liked anyway). So, um, see it if you really want to see the most faithful version of Mansfield Park?

The Barchester Chronicles has an amazingly good cast: Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, Alan Rickman, Phyllida Law, Geraldine McEwan, and Clive Swift, among many others, all give great performances. Alan Rickman, in particular, is perfect as the extremely slimy Rev. Obadiah Slope. Anything where he gets to be remotely slimy is extremely worth watching, and this has him at his slimiest. Really, he is pitch perfect. I've never read Anthony Trollope, but I don't feel like I ever will now. Even with the long running time, and far too easy of an ending, it's definitely worth it, especially if you don't mind the BBC video filming, which, along with the aforementioned Mansfield Park, suffers greatly from blurring whenever there's a camera move outside.

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear is a 2004 documentary that's all about how the neocons and al Qaeda basically use the same tactics to get what they want. This, unfortunately for its arguments, makes the claim that al Qaeda was a made up organization that was created in 2001 by the US Government to prosecute terrorists under organized crime laws. This is insane. And pisses me off. Otherwise, it's an ok version of events important to current international relations, but it's also three hours long, and spaced over three DVDs. What the hell? It could have very easily fit on one DVD. Why on three? I don't know. Basically, it was frustrating because it could have been so much better.

The Cat Returns, Summer Palace, & Come Drink with Me

The Cat Returns is the second to last of the full length Studio Ghibli films that I haven't seen yet (My Neighbors the Yamadas is the last). As such, it was the one that I actually took out of my Netflix queue at least once, and didn't re-add for quite some time, due to my belief that it wasn't going to be all that good, not being directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and a sequel to the excellent Whisper of the Heart. Why I took it out? I didn't want to ruin my feelings for Whipser, maybe? Anyway, it was pretty good, but not nearly as strong as the better ones, as this wasn't as meaningful as the best, or as beautiful as them either. If you like cats, that helps. The voice cast for the English version (including Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Kristen Bell, Andy Richter, Peter Boyle, Elliott Gould, Tim Curry, Rene Auberjonois, and Kristine "Joyce Summers" Southerland) were alternately too distracting ("Hey that's Andy Richter!" or "Who is that... Oh, it's Elliott Gould") and pretty on target. Basically, it's not a must-watch by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still good.

Summer Palace is a film that got the director banned from making films in China for five years. He also directed Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River, both of which are about the same quality as this one, although this one has many more nude scenes. Surprisingly, it wasn't the nudity that bothered the Chinese censors, it was the use of brief bits of Tiananmen Square footage, and probably the use of characters involved in the protest as heroes. And we can't have that. Back to the movie. Once the characters left the university, the movie strated to drag slightly and become less interesting. It could also have been the length of the film. I liked it, but could have stood some cutting near the end.

Come Drink with Me is King Hu's last film from Hong Kong, before he moved to Taiwan. It's about a brother who is kidnapped by bandits, so his sister (who is maybe disguised as a man for the first part? It's hard to tell) has to fight the bandits, with the help of a drunk. It's a seminal first wuxia film, clearly important to the genre, with some good fight scenes and impressive indoor sets. Of course, it strains credulity many times, but pretty much is notable for the use of a female protagonist (Cheng Pei-pei) who kicks ass (although her needing to be rescued by a drunk multiple times is less awesome). So good for that mostly feminist character.

The Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier, & Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Darjeeling Limited & Hotel Chevalier should be taken together, although there really is no big point to Hotel Chevalier besides being an excuse for a naked Natalie Portman (not that there's anything wrong with that) and getting Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) stuck in my head whenever I think about this movie. But it's an effective enough mood piece, and completely unnecessary to the plot. Speaking of unnecessary, the main movie, The Darjeeling Limited, frustrates me to no end. Wes Anderson is a very talented guy, but maybe he really does need someone to rein him in with reasonable plots and remotely likable characters, of which there are fewer and fewer in his movies. And with the fewer likable characters, they become much harder with which to identify, and I like the movies less. It's basically been a downhill slide from Rushmore. It's frustrating because he's a talented guy, but he is just too busy distancing himself from reality. Maybe The Fantastic Mr. Fox will be better.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth movie in the series, and the second directed by David Yates (he of the awesome State of Play and the less awesome but still good The Girl in the Café). As a Harry Potter film, it was pretty good, up with The Prisoner of Azkaban as the best, and far, far better than the Chris Columbus abortions. Oh, man, maybe I should use a different word... Anyway, I really didn't like the ending they chose, as it really lessened the emotional impact, but I bet they move some of it to the next film. And I knew that jump scare was coming, and it still got me. Kudos to you, David Yates, for one of the best ever jump scares. The movie focused a lot on the relationships, which was nice, but it could have stood to have a little more plot with the actual Half-Blood Prince, as the reveal itself just felt extremely perfunctory.

Caseus Archivelox: Shiri & Donnie Darko

2002-07-30 - 10:52 p.m.
Ultra violent, somewhat convoluted plot, only two particularly bad subtitles, neither of which I can recall at this time. And of course, they stop the bomb with .05 seconds left. Sure. It's so easy to time it that way. Also, the movie was very easy to figure out where it was going and all. The convoluted plot was only somewhat explained, because I couldn't figure out how it was going to cause a war. Anyway, you don't watch the movie for the plot. It had surprisingly poor action choreography, and it was frequently difficult to figure out what was going on in the myriad shoot-outs. Too much American John Woo, not enough Hong Kong John Woo. And not enough two fisted gunplay, and way too much reloading. I want my gunfights fast, furious, and full barreled furious fast firing. Yes...

That's not to say I didn't like the movie, but it just wasn't as good as the hype. And believe me, the movie was overhyped. Not as much as Titanic which sucked behind its lots of money, Shiri was just eh.

2002-07-31 - 10:53 p.m.
You know what else is creepy? Donnie Darko. And you know what else? It was really good. Really good. A little too creepy to get a 10, but a 9 from me. Thought provoking, and it had one of my favorite songs in it, used perfectly. Love Will Tear Us Apart needs to get more respect for the awesomeness that it has.

The movie itself was just lots of stuff in it. I can't even figure some of it out right now, because my mind is still spinning. Good soundtrack, and I've always been a big fan of people going around in bunny costumes, but this may be too weird for that to continue. Weird similarities between the movie and The Day When People Flew Planes into Buildings. Why is it that I can't even look at dates in September without thinking, "That was two days before the 11th." Even though it was 1996 or something like that. Argh.

Jena Malone (the g-i-r-l-fren, as Jonathan Richman would speak-sing) was good in it, as was Gyllenhaal, but Malone gets more props because she was on the best cop show of all time: Homicide. Wow that was such a good show. Puts most of what is on TV now to shame. And would not be out of place on HBO Sunday Nights. Which is saying a lot, because that's where the good shows are now, not Friday nights on NBC where no one watches it, even if it is better than everything else on NBC except for Seinfeld. Damn you NBC, damn you all to hell.

Caseus Archivelox: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Killer's Kiss, The Pirates of Penzance, & Jurassic Park III

2002-07-06 - 12:51 a.m.
Movies just were better in the 40s. Or maybe they're just better because they aren't the crap of today, or other remakes (EDIT: it's because I hadn't seen enough terrible movies of the time). Here Comes Mr. Jordan was a really good movie, and it had enough surprises to make it much better than I was expecting. That crappy remake with Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait (not to be confused with the excellent Gene Tierney movie of '43, also called Heaven Can Wait)) can't hold a candle to it, and I haven't seen Down to Earth (with Chris Rock (not to be confused with Here Comes Mr. Jordan's sequel (which I haven't seen) also called Down to Earth, with Rita Heyworth)).

Claude Rains is one of the best actors of all time, and I don't think I've seen a movie with him in it that I didn't really like (except for The Wolfman, which I already said was really disappointing, as it stuck to the '30s horror framework too much, without adding anything except for the voyeurism). But Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Notorious, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Invisible Man, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the excellent version with Rains, Olivia De Havilland, and of course, Errol Flynn): all excellent movies.

"Flynn's offscreen life was, incredibly, even more colorful than his movies. An unabashed hedonist and insatiable womanizer, he was notorious for his nonstop drinking, wenching, and general highspirited bacchanalia. In 1942, at the height of his popularity, he was charged with (but later acquitted of) statutory rape." He is also the reason for the line "In Like Flynn", referenced in the sequel (not as good as the original, but still funny) to my favorite spy spoof of all time (Our Man Flint), In Like Flint.

2002-07-08 - 10:59 p.m.
I watched Killer's Kiss and The Pirates of Penzance. Killer's Kiss was Kubrick's second feature film, and at only 67 minutes long, that's debatable. However, it was really good. Nothing compared to his later movies, but an enjoyable film noir anyway. The Pirates of Penzance was one of those movies that I had been seeing in the library for a while and I thought I should watch. It was a v. v. silly musical, but that's to be expected from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical. I'm still more familiar with most of H.M.S. Pinafore, even though I just saw The Pirates of Penzance, and only know of H.M.S. Pinafore from The Simpsons. That's still how I'm most familiar with G&S. Even though my grandparents love them. I did like the songs where they had to sing very quickly. Because they all got very red faced. I think that I really need to stop referencing everything to the Simpsons, because the only song I recognized from TPOP was the Major General song (I am the very model of the modern major general) which Barney sang when doing acrobatics when Homer and Barney were trying to go into space (Woohoo! Default! The two sweetest words in the English language!). Anyway, that's weird. The movie had Kevin Kline, who was very good, and Linda Ronstadt, and when I saw her, all I could think of was her singing the Plow King jingle in Spanish. It also had Angela Lansbury. I once said, when asked by one of my friends what my ideal woman was like, "Angela Lansbury". Immediately. This wasn't something where I tried to find some old woman and it took me a while. This was immediate. I think it's more for her role in Bedknobs and Broomsticks than for Murder She Wrote. Or maybe for The Manchurian Candidate, but that one not as much as she's an evil Communist mother. I don't think she was ever on the Simpsons. Again, too much Simpsons. Although that's impossible, unless it's from the last few seasons. Then it's quite likely to be too much. I think that The Simpsons early references in two of the best episodes (Deep Space Homer and Cape Feare) to Gilbert and Sullivan are somewhat weird, but they do show why I love the show: they're actually referencing more obscure things than I do. Which is good.

2002-07-09 - 11:03 p.m.
I also watched Jurassic Park III. The movie just had no reason to exist. It wasn't bad, but it was boring.

Caseus Archivelox: Vanilla Sky & Tortilla Soup

2002-06-26 - 3:09 p.m.
So the two movies my dad rented from Saturday night. Just by looking at them you wouldn't expect them to be related, but they are in an unfortunate way: both are completely unnecessary remakes of good foreign movies. Vanilla Sky was by far the better movie, because while it did dumb down and add unneeded bells and whistles to a good plot, it was still well directed and acted (by everyone besides Penelope Cruz who continues to be absolutely terrible in English-language films, no, I'm not forgetting Blow, she was easily the worst thing in that movie, and don't get me started on Woman on Top or All the Pretty Horses for her bad acting). Penelope can act in Spanish films, but eesh, she was very bad in this. And it's not that she didn't know what she was talking about, it was a very similar plot to Abre Los Ojos which she had done much better in. But I liked Vanilla Sky.

Tortilla Soup on the other hand. Ok, let me try to recreate what the moviemakers were thinking when they decided to make the movie: Two very white men are sitting in the office of one. They are giggling constantly, have problems making coherent sentences [ed. note: I've made them slightly more sensible, because they really were giggling too much, and it would have taken longer had I included every "Oh wait... wait..." and breaking down in laughing, and their long digressive rant about how hot Velma was and that Shaggy was banging all the women on all the 70s TV Shows, and that he once walked in on a threesome of Ginger, Farrah Fawcett, and The Fonz... but I digress, and you don't care]. One is saying, "Ang Lee is really hot now. Look at Crouching Tiger, and I'm sure The Hulk will be big. But his earlier Hong Kong films are too inaccessible to American audiences. They're stupid. Let's remake one." Another says: "We haven't made a good Latino movie in years. That's a growing audience, and all the pot I've been smoking is giving me some serious munchies, so let's remake Eat Drink Man Woman as a Latino movie." The first: "That's the best idea I've heard since I was passed the script for Big Momma's House." The second: "But we need all the Mexican actors and actresses we can find for the movie." The first: "I don't know any." The second: "What about Hector Elizondo? I'm sure we can find lots of them. And they'll all be incredibly talented, and we can have another Oscar caliber film like Eat Drink Man Woman." Then they both took more hits from the prodigious bong lit with the scripts of people like John Sayles and Charlie Kaufman and started to giggle. 6 months later this piece of recycled claptrap was released and caused me to waste 100 minutes of my life. Every plot twist was obvious from the beginning, I only cared about the youngest daughter (because she looked fairly good) and the eldest daughter because it was Elizabeth Peña who was in one of my favorite movies (and has incredible relevance to my love of serious movies, not to mention my love of dark hair) Lone Star. I loved that movie when I saw it when I was 16 (which is one reason why I can forgive Matthew McConaughey for almost any number of bad films he's been in, although if Reign of Fire sucks because of him, any goodwill will be completely gone). I liked movies before then, but it was more as one of the uneducated masses like movies rather than the more cultured lover of non-s---ty movies I am now. Tortilla Soup was terrible. My dad who normally reads the New York Times reviews to figure out what movies to see listened to some friends (he declined to mention who they where when I asked) who said it was a great movie. Reading the review (which has lines like "There hasn't been this much forced wackiness since what some consider the golden days of sitcoms, and poor [Raquel] Welch doesn't have the acting skills to make her anything other than an embarrassment. She's important in an unforeseen way: she makes you focus on the other performers in any given scene. Martin and his grown children are missing something, besides a script. Even if you haven't seen "Eat Drink Man Woman," "Tortilla Soup" is still as predictable as a fast-food restaurant" in it) would not make me want to see the movie. The only good thing about it is the food preparation scenes. But there is too much crappiness between the food scenes to make it worthwhile. If you want good looking food, go for Like Water for Chocolate, Tampopo, Big Night, or the aforementioned Eat Drink Man Woman. Those are great movies with mouthwatering food. Tortilla Soup wasn't.

The Campaign of the Century & The Blind Side

The Campaign of the Century is all about the 1934 California Governor's election, which is both a turning point for political campaigns (in that this was the first campaign run by full-time political consultants rather than the candidate and this was the first campaign to make large use of televisual advertising (in this case, short trailers before movies)) and for California. Before then, Hollywood wasn't all that involved in political campaigns, but after this campaign where liberal and progressive Hollywood stars were moved to actually be more vocal in the political views, and was the last big hurrah of the political views of the studios being dominated by the studio heads. They were actually garnishing wages and blacklisting people for not supporting Merriam against Sinclair. As enjoyable as the dirty tricks stuff was, I really loved the sections about what was going on during the same time, like the capture of Bruno Hauptmann, killing of Pretty Boy Floyd, William Randolph Hearst visiting Hitler, and many, many more. Really just a fascinating book.

The Blind Side is a fascinating look at the importance of the left tackle in professional (and increasingly college) football. And an interesting inside view of the recruiting and creation of one of the best left tackle prospects in the last decade, Michael Oher. I really enjoyed the book, as Michael Lewis is a great author, who knows just what to include and to exclude, never writing too much when he's putting his stories together. The NCAA regulator interviews were what really made me find this fascinating, though. To me, it seemed like a clear case of where the NCAA should have declared him ineligible to go to Ole Miss based on the rules, but it's also one of those cases that is so ridiculous that it could have ever possibly been a violation that it just pisses me off. Then again, I had just read about what they had done for the kid, and the NCAA didn't have the book. Also, Lawrence Taylor is a beast, I lost a lot of respect for Paul Brown not hiring Bill Walsh when he could have in 1976, and I kinda liked Jonathan Ogden a little more. And I'm terrified about how good of an LT Oher's going to be for the Ravens.

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes & Man on Wire

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes is a documentary about Prairie Home Companion, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the fictionalized movie. Of course, that was designed to be extremely enjoyable, as opposed to an accurate representation of the radio show and the people involved. This one also doesn't have Kevin Kline as Guy Noir. So it works as a documentary but it isn't as good as actually watching a fictionalized version or listening to a show.

Man on Wire took me a while to figure out that the scenes of the young people on wires were not reenactments, and that they had actually filmed themselves so much talking about their plans and practicing. There are times in my life where I wish I had some point when I was 8 or so and had had an epiphany about what I had to do in my life. Would have made my life go in a slightly more direct fashion. It's a story that really is one of a kind, as wirewalking between the two towers will never be done again, and was only done for one day. Fascinating story though.

The Cell & Speed Racer

The Cell looks interesting, but JLo and Vince Vaughn are terrible actors. And so it's basically a somewhat interesting film, but anytime that they're not in someone's mind, it's a terrible at best manhunt film. And man, terrible is an accurate description of the film.

Speed Racer is all bright and shiny colors. It's basically a live action cartoon. Which it does very, very well. It's too bad that the film itself is not all that good. But it looks very pretty. And the cast is surprisingly good, although I wonder just how many of these people had actually seen the second or third Matrix films. Because after the second one, there was no way that they were actually anything other than visually interesting people who are incapable of putting anything on film that means much of anything.

Burn After Reading & My Blueberry Nights

Burn After Reading is a Coen brothers film in the ridiculous comedy vein of their recent "failures" Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, but it is both funnier and more substantial than both. It's a paranoid film for a paranoid age. I enjoyed basically all of the characters, especially J.K. Simmons as the CIA manager. And I felt so bad for Richard Jenkins. Such a good guy, and such an ignominious ending for him. It really felt like they were just having an immense amount of fun with this film, from the opening scene with Frances McDormand to the ending zoom out from the CIA mirror image of the first shot. And George Clooney's character is hilarious, with his sleaziness and ability to save money.

My Blueberry Nights would have been so much better had Norah Jones not been the star. She can't act all that well. So the thing that gets me is that it's quite possible that I had no idea how any of the stars of his Hong Kong films can act, and the difference in my view of this film is based entirely upon my knowledge of the language. Because it looks just like a Wong Kar-Wai film, from the slow-motion to the camera tricks to the soundtrack. I really hate the fact that I have this feeling after basically all the really good foreign directors move to the US. Because it makes me second guess their abilities. But man, even usually reliable actors like Frankie Faison, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman are terrible. It seems like it's just horrible miscasting, but man, that's just painful. Only Jude Law is somewhat acceptable, but that's small comfort in this film.

Margot at the Wedding & Rachel Getting Married

Margot at the Wedding is Noah Baumbach clearly having had a very bad experience with a wedding. I'm not all that sure that it's a remotely good film, but it was interesting. Jack Black is only acceptable in small doses, as otherwise he is overbearing. Acceptable in some cases, but here, he's so low key that he's not really doing all that much. And I just didn't like or care for any of the characters in it.

Rachel Getting Married is such a hipster wedding that it was painful. Hindu themed with belly dancers, two hipsters playing the wedding march and an interracial wedding? Yep, hipster. Anne Hathaway was very good, and she didn't even show her nipples this time, unlike when she was very good in Brokeback Mountain. But pretty much, I just wanted it to be a little less indie. It was so, so indie. And the wedding itself should have ended way sooner than it did. But hey, that dude from TV on the Radio isn't that bad of an actor. Hurray! And the dishwasher scene was funny. Although, seriously, I feel like I have to apologize for not hating this film. At least it isn't mumblecore.

I Shot Jesse James & The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

I Shot Jesse James is actually Samuel Fuller's first film. As such, it's of interest mainly as a curio, because it's certainly not a good film, and the clear change to the facts of his life (made even more explicit by watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford almost immediately after) made me appreciate it less. However, it's interesting to see how much of Fuller's style was already existent in his first film. The longer titled one is a pretty film and the acting was much better, but the earlier film still has a bit of charm, partially because it was so much shorter and focused. I bet the book was pretty good though. I like that Brad Pitt is willing to do films like this. Because I like Brad Pitt.