For No Good Reason: January 2005

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January 31, 2005

How the Internet Killed Film Criticism

Exhibit A:  The Strange case of Michelle Alexandria.  (Thanks to Devin, Friend of Don Murphy, for kicking over this rock.)

There are transgressions aplenty, but this excerpt from her BEYOND THE SEA review is flat-out unconscionable:   "When you compare Spacey's versions to the original music, Spacey clearly adds a spark and sizzle to the tunes that was missing from the original."  Anyone who can listen to Spacey gasping through Darin's greatest hits as he egotistically tries to duplicate the crooner's inimitable phrasing, and hear a "spark and sizzle" heretofore absent in the originals should have their fucking ears boxed. 

Rotten Tomatoes needs to do some serious pruning, and they should start with Michelle Alexandria.  I haven't been this offended since Bowie's GLASS SPIDER tour.

January 28, 2005

A Lovely Mess of a Motion Picture

My initial, one-line reaction to THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.  I need to gather my thoughts for a proper review, but that's the blurb.

January 27, 2005

White People Love HUSTLE & FLOW

While Manohla Dargis calls shenanigans.  Which means that it's this year's SLAM.  I mean, "Is a pig's pussy pork" is only novel and, therefore, screamingly funny to people who've never listened to a Funkadelic record in their life (not the party-friendly Parliament stuff, but an out-there, acid-laced, wade-through-ten-minutes-of-aural-mud-to-find-a-nasty-ass-groove Funkadelic LP.) 

David Poland loved it, though.  He also went to the mat for SOUL PLANE. 

On the plus side, Taryn Manning reportedly gets hit by the nude bomb in this thing, so maybe I'll bother with it after all.  (Rationale that's worked so well for me in the past.  See:  "Campbell, Neve" in WHEN WILL I BE LOVED.)

I Am a Master of Time and Space...

... and RUSH'N ATTACK, but if I hadn't gambled my druthers away at the dog track, I'd be a Master of Motherscratchin' Horror.

Official congrats to Drew and Scott, who are going to be working with the director of one of my beloved "Annuals".  Have fun, boys. 

Oklahoma Embraces Modernity

This is all well and good, but it does nothing to address the lack of clearly defined weight classes, without which the cockfighting world is but one lopsided beating away from burying its own Duk Koo Kim.

Thanks to Bob Balaban for passing along the link.

January 26, 2005

The Annuals

After washing the acrid taste of WHEN WILL I BE LOVED out of my mouth with what has come to be an annual viewing of Kenneth Lonergan's intimate masterpiece, YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, I got around to thinking it'd be worthwhile to compile a list of those movies I go out of my way to watch at least once a year.  Why?  Because your mother's a crab-ridden whore.  That's why.

Seriously, I don't do many repeat viewings of movies, save for certain films that captivate upon their initial release.  (In the last year, that would be ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, PRIMER, KILL BILL, VOL. 2, and THE INCREDIBLES.  And, by the way, sorry about that mother crack; at worst, she smells a bit like a wet Newfoundland.  Decrepit.  With crabs.)  But after those select flurries of viewings, those titles don't necessarily make the annual list, which, you might now be thinking smugly to yourself, is basically going to be a list of my favorite movies.  But that's where you'd be spectacularly full of shit, you see, because, while true in some respects, some of these titles are merely comfort food.  I watch LAST TANGO IN PARIS once a year, but it's not a favorite; it is, however, the film that absolutely blew my mind when I was eight years-old, and I like to revisit it to sort of gauge how phenomenally little I've matured emotionally.

That's more of an explanation than is necessary, I think.  Here are The Annuals:

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE
JAWS
LAST TANGO IN PARIS
THE RIGHT STUFF
TRADING PLACES
CONTEMPT
25TH HOUR
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT
HIS GIRL FRIDAY
BLOW OUT
THE FURY
DIE HARD
HALLOWEEN
PRINCE OF DARKNESS
GREMLINS
CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
MANHATTAN
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE

Added @ 1:06 PM PST

HUDSON HAWK
BULL DURHAM

If a year goes by that I haven't watched one of those titles, it gets popped in the ol' DVD spinner.  Obviously, most of those are films that impacted me one way or another in childhood, so you'll kindly cut me a shitload of slack for the notable absence of Renoir, Welles, Ozu, Pyun, Lubitsch, etc. (though when TO BE OR NOT TO BE finally hits DVD in March, it will surely be added to the above list).

January 25, 2005

Ever Yearned to Watch Uncle Junior Fuck Neve Campbell?

Then James Toback is your rainmaker, and WHEN WILL I BE LOVED your perverse, perfect storm.  For everyone else, it's just further evidence of a one-time worthwhile filmmaker's creative decline that began with BLACK AND WHITE in 1999. 

Toback's an odd bird:  a spoiled rich kid who insinuated himself into the black counterculture back in the late 1960's while gambling himself into serious debt *and* running up a tab of sexual conquests that would make Wilt Chamberlin break out his calculator.  He also allegedly took the biggest hit of LSD in recorded history (the annals of drug history being so scrupulously reliable).  In other words, the motherfucker lived his ass off, and, for over twenty years, these lurid exploits were often the fuel for great screenplays (e.g. THE GAMBLER, FINGERS and BUGSY) that captured life dangling over the precipice.  I adore FINGERS; it's impure male id spurted out at 24fps about a schizophrenic concert pianist/thug (Harvey Keitel) who bears a bruising resemblance to the filmmaker himself.  It's got a Cassavetes-esque wildness about it, though it's absent the indie pioneer's humanism.  There isn't a kind bone in FINGERS' body; it's a masterpiece of misanthropy that enrages as much as it dazzles.  If you've never seen it, do so.  (Working up a head of steam writing about it, I'm wishing I had a copy at the ready myself.)

Even when Toback is overbearing, which is always, he gets such nakedly honest performances out of his lead actors that the films, ostensibly personal statements for the writer/director, become dual confessionals.  Most people either love or hate TWO GIRLS AND A GUY; despite Natasha Gregson Wagner's most useless performance in a career littered with them, I think it's a phenomenal high wire act by Robert Downey, Jr., who rescues Toback's worst writing impulses with one of the great virtuoso film performances of the last twenty years.  Watching him as he flits about his Manhattan loft bellowing the first movement of Vivaldi's GLORIA or banging out a flamboyant rendition of "You Don't Know Me' at the piano while ineptly playing traffic cop in the two-car pileup that is his love life is to see a limitlessly talented actor redline it for ninety minutes.  It's the performance people had been waiting to see Downey, Jr. give for years, and selfishly hoping he'd get around to before killing himself.  (Thankfully, he's still with us, though it's been since WONDER BOYS that he brought his "A" game.)

If Toback's ear was getting a bit tinny with that film, he went stone cold tone deaf with BLACK AND WHITE, which felt like Toback trying to reassert his hipster cred within the African-American community by casting every hip-hop or sports star available.  Most of the Wu-Tang Clan shows up, as does Mike Tyson, but Toback the filmmaker does not, and the film collapses into a heap of disconnected scenes that are only occasionally amusing (e.g. Robert Downey, Jr. risking his life in the name of improv by propositioning Tyson).  It's the kind of disaster that would've made for a great behind-the-scenes documentary.  Unfortunately, one has not emerged.

Toback followed BLACK AND WHITE up with HARVARD MAN, which was so slipshod in its execution I didn't think him capable of a more dubious achievement.  And that brings us back to WHEN WILL I BE LOVED.  Once again, Toback trots out his famous friends -- Damon Dash, Mike Tyson and Lori Singer -- to show us that he's -- yes, Lori Singer -- still a man about town.  Meanwhile, he's investigating the balance of power in male/female relationships, and how it's predicated by material wealth.  Or something.  To tell you the truth, I lost interest early on when Frederick Weller got into an exposition-crammed screaming match with some bimbo on Times Square.  Though there was always an element of the undisciplined about Toback, he was never this clumsy in setting up his narrative.

But I kept it on mostly for the prurient pleasure of watching Neve Campbell in the buff, not to see her get shtupped by Dominic Chianese (the only kind of fucking I want to see Uncle Junior doing is the figurative sort).  As for Toback, you may still be living the wild life at sixty, but your dispatches from the edge have gone from exhilarating to pathetic.  It's an act that's no longer becoming.  Time to keep it to yourself, man.

Jim Garrison Once Did Fifty Minutes on THE TONIGHT SHOW

And James Wolcott is correct:  in today's contentious, soundbite climate, this would be unthinkable.  Read his link to Rigorous Institution, as well.

BTW, I think Garrison was, by and large, a crackpot, but his quixotic quest for justice helped chip away disturbing half-truths in the Warren Commission, which, to my mind, was equal parts investigation and cover-up.

Oscar Commentary

I knew that the cluttered Best Actor category would be the stuff of anguished disappointment today, but I was secretly convinced it would be Cheadle getting the shaft, rather than Giamatti or Neeson.  Obviously, only one of these guys was going to crack the final five, what with the other four -- Eastwood, DiCaprio, Foxx and a horrifically undeserving Depp -- being mortal locks.  So, while I'm happy to see the great Don Cheadle score his first Oscar nomination, it's an absolute injustice that the equally great Paul Giamatti will be receiving his first nomination (and a probable win) for what will likely be a fine performance in Ron Howard's spoonful of saccharine, CINDERELLA MAN. 

And it appears that the Academy fell for HOTEL RWANDA's guilt trip, while turning an indifferent shoulder to Bill Condon's KINSEY.  Being that he's a past winner, I thought Bill was a shoo-in for Best Original Screenplay.  While the competition was stiff, he really should be currently occupying the slot given to John Logan or Terry George and Keir Pearson.  So, boo.  (But "yay" for Brad Bird's nomination!)

Scanning the list for undeserving nominations... everyone knew that FINDING NEVERLAND would CHOCOLAT its way into some prominent categories, so no surprise there.  I've seen TUPAC: RESURRECTION, and, hey, if the Documentary committee wants to reward the executive producer of CRIBS and I WANT A FAMOUS FACE for celebrating the poorly-lived life of a misogynistic, overrated rapper, while again ignoring the consistently brilliant work of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (your BLAIR WITCH 2 cracks will be not appreciated in the comments), then bully for them.  D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles have only been nominated once, while Frederick Wiseman, arguably our greatest living documentarian, has never been nominated. 

SHARK TALE?  I wasn't crazy about INNOCENCE, but that should've snagged one of the slots occupied by the dual PDI assault on quality animation. 

The Best Song category is a disaster area.  Jon Brion's "Knock Yourself Out" distinguishes itself by its absence.  And another year, another Carter Burwell snub.

Edited to add that it's a fucking laugh to see THE SEA INSIDE nominated for Best Makeup over HELLBOY.

January 24, 2005

Pacify Me

The duck's in the poster.  And we're in for a treat from the director of Moriarty's favorite film of 2003.

Thirty-nine days, people. 

January 22, 2005

Like Christmas Day... with a Whip

I'll be seeing Sam Fuller's FORTY GUNS for the first time today.  At the Aero Theater.  In 70mm.  I've had multiple opportunities in the past to see it on crappy video bootlegs, but avoided them, preferring to see this demented, purported classic in its proper presentation.  That'll finally happen at 5 PM today.  I will report back here (at some point).

January 21, 2005

Had Everyone Burned Up on Reentry in SPACE CAMP...

... Jinx would've been up shit creek without the three laws of robotics propping up his defense.  The little fucker would've fried.

PRECINCT 13 Revisited

Director Jean-Francois Richet does the viewer an enormous favor midway through his remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 not by referencing John Carpenter's original, or Hawke's RIO BRAVO, on which Carpenter's film was based, but Renny Harlin's DIE HARD 2:  as Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), the film's protagonist, grapples with a masked bad guy, he winds up pinned to the ground next to a prison transport, its undercarriage lined with conveniently sturdy and pointy icicles.  What happens next should come as no surprise even if you haven't seen DIE HARD 2.

And this is a favor how? 

Well, if you're as unabashed a fan of Harlin's idiotic, logic-flouting sequel as I am, you can read the homage as Richet signaling his crass, audience pleasing intent.  In fact, you'd really better read it as such; otherwise, you're in for a long, tedious journey through an exhaustive compendium of 1980's action film cliches that might be serving some greater thematic purpose if you make the mistake of looking too closely.  Granted, the gritty seriousness of the opening prologue, in which Roenick inadvertently sacrifices his undercover colleagues during a drug buy gone bad, and its Detroit setting get things off to a rollicking, NARC-ish start, but the minute the grinding mechanics of the plot kick in, and we realize that the information imparted in that prologue could've been handled with one simple perception shift in the police station set-up, we know immediately that we're watching trash.  The question is whether it's moronic or self-aware trash.

This is where someone might be tempted to take me to task for suggesting that Renny Harlin has a self-aware bone in his burly Finnish body, to which I say "Samuel L. Jackson in DEEP BLUE SEA."   Obviously, there's something subversive going on in the guy's shamelessly lousy pictures, and that "something" is what Richet has deigned to ape to modestly diverting returns.  Call it the ROAD HOUSE principle:  if the filmmaker doesn't insult our intelligence by putting on airs, we'll gladly roll in the muck with him. 

And, aside from that unnecessary prologue, that's mostly what Richet does, obviating the narrative inefficiency of James DeMonaco's bloated script by amping up the violence and getting decent performances out of his very good ensemble (save for an annoying-from-his-first-overly-mannered-twitch John Leguizamo).  Which is not to say that this go-for-broke sensibility results in any memorable set pieces; again, like Harlin, Richet may be able to pull of a single, well-composed shot (e.g. Gabriel Byrne's confrontation with Maria Bello), but his action choreography is pretty lackluster.  Still, despite the disposability of the major sequences, they get the job done in decent workmanlike fashion. 

I certainly understand Harry's enthusiasm for the film, and concede that he might be on to something with viewing ASSAULT as a hardcore throwback to 80's genre garbage (though I see a lot more Glickenhaus than Pyun on display here).  But this film is competent in a way those films so hilariously were not.  Richet's work is strictly Harlin-ville -- not a bad place to hang out so long as you're familiar with and accepting of the terrain.

Camille Orders Cos Neutered

These allegations are suspect, to be sure, but the famously domineering wife of the great comic can't be taking any chances at this late stage in the game.  The result may be a less aggressive, stay-at-home Cos, but the woman has a fortune to protect.  Actually, this would not be the first time such drastic measures were taken in the world of comedy; fifteen years ago, Charlie Callas revealed in his autobiography FLOP SWEAT that he mutilated his own genitals after developing a delirium inducing crush on the blonde lead dancer in Sting's "We'll Be Together" video.  The impact on Callas's act would prove disastrous when he inelegantly wedged the gruesome experience into his old nightclub routine to the utter horror of an unsuspecting audience at The Flamingo in Vegas.

And while we're on the subject, someone please nominate David Koechner for comedic immortality (or at least treat him to a fine Beef Bowl dinner on me).  The payoff to his "I shit a squirrel" bit in WAKE UP, RON BURGANDY is the stuff of rare, demented genius.

January 20, 2005

Fry Guide

Yes.  That there are people on the talk back expressing disappointment over the likes of John Cleese not getting the nod... <insert .gif of Dar Robinson plummeting 220 feet from the L.A. Hyatt Regency>.

Update:  It took until 1:52 PM EST for some obsessed geek to bemoan Tom Baker's failure to land the role. 

For the uninitiated, Tom Baker is a mediocre British character actor who had the good fortune to land the titular role in DR. WHO during the 1970's. 

Again for the uninitiated, DR. WHO was a mediocre British sci-fi series -- created by the same guy who did the much-better-because-Diana-Rigg-was-positively-delectable THE AVENGERS -- in which the titular character traveled through time in a contraption called the Tardis.  The big laugh being that the Tardis was a telephone booth.  Do yourself a favor and never watch it just to see what the fuss is about; you'll likely be driven mad.  Or, worse, you'll become a fan yourself, which is the same thing as being driven mad, so just forget it altogether. 

Twenty Years and Twenty Days

LBJ becomes the youngest ever to record an NBA triple-double.  The only surprise is that it didn't come sooner (he's been awfully close).  Most importantly, the Cavs stay at .500 in this Western Conference road swing, though the forth quarter defensive collapse is disappointing after their great second half zone performance against the Jazz last week.  I'm not too optimistic about their chances tonight against the Kings, but I'll be watchin' nonetheless.

Trip

January 18, 2005

Bush to Troops: "Get Ready to Die"

"And don't go cryin' to your countrymen, 'cuz they're totally cool with it."  Should be a fun inauguration.  Good thing I've got lots of writing, a boxful of Marx Brothers films, and plenty of reading with which to completely shut it out.

On Accountability Moments

It appears I missed the initial furor over our boy prince's insistence that the 2004 Election was an "accountability moment", which means that, yes, he believes his victory was essentially absolution of  his administration's many, many sins.  It's not that I don't agree with the President; on the contrary, I've been using such rhetoric as a means to browbeat my friends who voted for the jackass into a guilt-ridden stupor (often because "Kerry just didn't seem like much of a better option" to which I still reply "Well, with a clean slate he's a better option than the other guy right now, and, fuck, if he's no good, you get to vote him out in four years!  How's that for a happy confluence of personal responsibility and democracy?")  This is their President, their country, and their mess to anguish/cheer over.  But it's one thing for me to espouse this belief, and quite another for the commander-in-chief to smugly parrot it while his misdeeds over the last four years result in an accumulation of fresh sins for which he will not personally face another "accountability moment". 

I know it's futile to get worked up over the Bush Administration's mendacity, unprecedented for its across-the-board application, when there are sharpshooters like Paul Krugman posted on the parapets, but some mornings I wake up with bad gas. 

January 17, 2005

First Trip to the Gym in a Month...

... and I'm punished not by aching limbs or a horrific scale reading, but, rather, by somehow, in the delirium of a vigorous workout on the elliptical, calling up Climax Blues Band's middle-of-the-road 80's anthem "I Love You" on my random subconscious playlist.  What it's doing hanging out in my deeper recesses in the first place, I have no idea.

Ahem.  The Climax Blues Band being one of three memorably mediocre, tripartite-titled 70's/80's soft rock outfits that defined bad taste during that era (listed below with their biggest hit):

Climax Blues Band - "I Love You"
Pure Prairie League - "Amie"
Little River Band - "Lonesome Loser"

I really have nothing to write about today.  I just got back from seeing IN GOOD COMPANY, and it's neither good nor bad enough to warrant much discussion.  The clunky set-up nearly drove me from the theater, but I hung around, and I'm glad I did, if only for the scattered moments that do work.  Scarlet Johansson's dorm room seduction of Topher Grace is perfectly observed right down to the lighting of the incense (ah, college).  And there's a scene near the end (actually, it should've been the end) between Dennis Quaid and Grace that's so well played, I found myself wishing the rest of the film had been deft enough in its construction to earn the tears it nearly elicits.  It's a lovely little moment that takes the narrative in a direction I wasn't expecting; unfortunately, it's the only unpredictable move in the entire picture.  Done right, this film could've really struck a profound, generational chord.  Instead, it's just formula pap. 

A Love Song for Tony Young

Basketball fans (particularly my Gafflin homies) would do well to check out this site if they haven't already:  http://www.82games.com/.  To my mind, the plus-minus rating is the most accurate reflection of a player's value to his team -- and, to an extent, his fantasy value -- going today.  And again to my Gafflin crew:  what two players are number one and number two this season?  And where's that overrated Luol Deng I used as bait to allegedly pilfer Slammer's roster?  (And, all gloating aside, where's my much-beloved Luke Ridnour hanging out?  Ouch!)

Big ups to the finest lawyer in the land, T. Young, for getting me hooked on this site.

DVD J-Day

Today, I do Becker directing Gabin, Wyler directing Dreiser, and Pyun directing Hauer (and Whirry).  One of these includes a Lee Horsley reference.  Do you know which one it is?

Also, Happy MLK Day to y'all!  This means it's time for my annual viewing of TRADING PLACES, a dating-back-to-college tradition that is either slyly subversive or racially insensitive; I'll let you decide for yourself.  And let me know what you think is the worse MLK Day transgression:  me watching TRADING PLACES, or TCM airing Anthony Mann's THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

Finally, on a serious note (although I'm really not joking about the whole TRADING PLACES thing), PBS will be airing part one of Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward's UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: THE RISE AND FALL OF JACK JOHNSON.  Watch it.

January 14, 2005

Albert Pyun Apprenticed Under Akira Kurosawa?

Tommy Gunn to Akira-san's Rocky Balboa?  Or is there some aesthetic connection between YOJIMBO and CYBORG that I completely missed (you'll forgive me for not explicitly looking for it before now)?

Anthony Lane Writes *Real* Good

From his review of THE LIFE AQUATIC:

"It is heartening to reflect that the best of Bill Murray may be yet to come. These days he is a wiser and a madder man; his ennui has lost any trace of a pose, and he sits around (for a tall guy, he can look oddly squat, verging on the shrunken) as if wearing an invisible T-shirt that says 'I Told You So.'"

He's a bit of an outsider in the critical community (for being a "lit" guy, I guess), and he's not always the most knowledgeable on film history, but, damn it, the man throws down a supremely fluid prose. 

There's also a brief review of LEMONY SNICKET in there, which got me to thinkin' on why we haven't seen any major lamentations on the film's highly disappointing domestic b.o. performance.  (A Jim Carrey family film based on a best selling series of children's novels not getting to $150 million?  Yikes.)  Maybe the regime change at Paramount rendered the topic unappetizing or superfluous.

Bring Your Towel

Even though we're getting a grown-up, unaffected Batman movie this summer, there's really only one film that matters to me.  The lack of Ford Prefect is curious, but, I suppose, understandable given Marvin's scene stealing potential. 

There are those claiming that this will be a big-budget cult film, that it's THE FIFTH ELEMENT without Bruce Willis's drawing power.  While the comparisons to Besson's pretty, but empty-headed intergalactic epic will justifiably rankle Addams fans the world over, there may be something to this.  Is it possible for a cerebral sci-fi parody to find profitable purchase in a country where lazy laffers like BRUCE ALMIGHTY and MEET THE FOCKERS run riot at the box office?  Does "sardonic" sell when delivered without a serrated political edge (i.e. by someone other than Jon Stewart, Michael Moore or your typical FOX NEWS anchor)?

On an unrelated, personal health note, I bravely made it to the forty-something minute point of CATWOMAN before tapping out.  The thought of a filmmaker aping the awful schoolyard courtship from DAREDEVIL and somehow failing to equal its inspration's basement level of incomptence made me woozy with despair.  Look, I knew the movie was going to be shit; I just thought... that... y'know... there, uh... might've been... stuff... <insert .gif of Dar Robinson plummeting 220 feet from the L.A. Hyatt Regency>

January 13, 2005

Rock Bottom: Passed

I just paused CATWOMAN to watch TRL.  This FF teaser better be grislier than Bud Dwyer's last will and testament.

Hm.  So, Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" isn't a cover of the classic, Graham Bonnet-era Rainbow rocker.

And... they show less than fifteen seconds of footage -- way too brief to accurately gauge The Thing's chintziness (though the ever-lovin' blue-eyed one appears to be having skin color issues).  And I won't be seeing ELEKTRA tomorrow to feast my eyes upon its accursed muddled-ness.

Beachwood Outrage

Otherpeoplesblogs chronicles revenge north of Franklin Avenue.  Fascinating.  But you should've camped out until the owner of the car appeared.  Or called me to do it.  I would've passed up an afternoon of DVD watchin' to snap the money shot.

FYI, drive farther north on Beachwood, and you just might run into The Cowboy (of MULHOLLAND DRIVE, not INNERSPACE).

FANTASTIC Fore!

The Naked Critic aka Jeffrey Wells (it's not really, but, y'know, everyone needs the image of a nude Jeffrey Wells singed into their consciousness every now and then) has teed off on the most dreaded comic book adaptation of the year with a detailed but disingenuous sounding review of the new FANTASTIC FOUR trailer, which, by the way, just premiered on the East Coast broadcast of TRL.  (It's not that I doubt the wretchedness of the teaser; it's just that it reads like a rival studio publicist trying to sound like a malcontented twentysomething geek who just lost a screenwriting gig to Alvin Sargent.)  Having just finished laughing at a picture of The Thing I ran across this afternoon in the new EW (there's a pigeon perched on his shoulder, pooping... go ahead and think I'm making that up), I can't tell you how excited I am to see this travesty for myself.

But we here at "For No Good Reason" pride ourselves on giving voice to the folks on the other side of the ideological aisle, so, for the inarticulate, I'll-eat-Mickey-Rourke's-stool-if-you-stamp-"Marvel"-on-it perspective, you can hop over to the SuperHeroHype message boards (which, honestly, I only visited to see if someone was hosting the trailer), where the reaction is like the sightless child blinking off the darkness to gaze upon the glorious visage of Jesus Christ.  There are screencaps there, too.  Enjoy.

VARIETY Venom

From Nicole Laport's story trumpeting Alvin Sargent's deal to write SPIDER-MAN 3 and 4:

The deal caps a spectacular second wind for Sargent, a two-time Oscar winner who will turn 74 in April and has shown that well-honed character development skills can make a veteran writer more valuable than the twentysomething comicbook geeks who usually get these jobs.

Why doesn't she just come out and say "than Dan Harris and Mike Dougherty who usually get these jobs"?  They're the only "twentysomething comicbook geeks" writing for any of the major superhero franchises.

Odd spasm of pique aside, fans of SPIDER-MAN 2 (i.e. sane individuals) should be pleased with this development, as should producer Laura Ziskin, who just scored two more gigs for her septuagenarian writer hubby.

I Believe in Love

Loveconquersall

January 12, 2005

The Bunny Hops!

DeCesare not guilty!  Kind of.  She did violate a protective order, but she'll be otherwise unencumbered by heavy fines and the further scandal of sentencing as she plots her ascent to the welcoming mattress of the next, better rated QB (indeed, Browns fans are already fearing we'll lose our own Anna Benson to rival Steelers wunderkind passer, Ben Roethlisberger, whose dalliance with LPGA temptress Natalie Gulbis is surely but a warm-up to a mid-70's James Caan Playmate run).  Justice was done here today. 

In other news, Cavs lottery pick Luke Jackson will miss the rest of his awful rookie season for back surgery.  Next time I run into Jim Paxson, he better hope it ain't near a stripper pole.

Verdict in Garcia Catfight Case Expected Soon!

Obviously, I'm saddened to see the circus leave town so soon.  The Browns haven't been this exciting in years.  So, while we wait for the conclusion to the tawdriest chapter in Cleveland sports since Jose Mesa's sexual-assaultin, Game-7-blowin' ass skipped town, how 'bout a look at the combatants, and the... um, prize.

DeCesare

Decesare

Hine

Hine

And the strapping stud under center for your Cleveland Browns, Jeff Garcia.

Vintage

No, I didn't swap in a photo of Scott Hamilton.  That is, as we say, vintage Jeff Garcia.

Jeff Garcia Catfight Trial: Day Two

PLAIN DEALER cub reporter James F. McCarty must be tasting Pulitzer.  I mean, not since Upton Sinclair blew the lid off the Chicago stockyards has there been a zestier lede than this:

  • "Browns quarterback Jeff Garcia launched a vigorous defense on behalf of his Playmate girlfriend Tuesday..."

Kinda eases you down on the divan, fixes you a brandy and invites you to keep reading, doesn't it?  Let's continue.

  • "Garcia smiled at his current love interest, defendant Carmella DeCesare, as he entered Cleveland Municipal Court."

True love.  Or a tacit, mutual recognition that, yes, we just fucked in a men's room stall.

  • "Kristen Hine, 32, testified earlier that she went out with Garcia four or five times over the summer - and had sex during each date."

"Sex" being defined in the Professional Sports Groupie's Handbook as "leaving DNA".

  • "Garcia recalled their time differently. He said he met Hine in May at a downtown diner, then partied with her and friends until dawn."

Defined in the Professional Sports Groupie's Handbook as "fooling around" and/or "foreplay". 

  • "The newly signed Browns quarterback drove Hine to his house 'for a tour,' ending up in his bedroom."

Which is where Garcia has historically kept his valuable collection of vintage board games (as profiled in the May 2002 ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST).

  • "Garcia, 34, who was dating DeCesare at the time, testified he 'didn't feel too good about things' and told Hine he didn't want to get involved with her."

Hine testified that Garcia's exact words were, "I want you to set me up, and sue the shit out of my girlfriend."

  • "They remained friends, however, and Garcia later took Hine and a friend to dinner and a concert."

An 80's reunion show featuring Glass Tiger, The Georgia Satellites and one-half of The Hooters.  To wit:

  • "... They never were intimate again, Garcia testified."

But some girls can't take an under-rehearsed, stop-start rendition of "All You Zombies" as a hint.

  • "Garcia said he occasionally exchanged phone calls with Hine but became upset with her after learning Hine had lied to her friends that DeCesare had a sexually transmitted disease."

Defined in the Professional Sports Groupie's Handbook as "being younger and hotter than you".

  • "Garcia was with DeCesare and friends, including several teammates. Hine and her friends gravitated toward the Browns table in the bar's VIP section."

In other words, "the janitor's closet".

  • "Garcia said Hine was wearing a 'Tom Landry-style' felt fedora hat and a big grin. He feared trouble."

In other words, "a Super Bowl loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers".

  • "His premonition proved prophetic when a fight broke out on the dance floor with a flurry of fists and feet."

Forcing Garcia to chuck his Michelob Ultra at lineman Ross Verba for a ten-yard Intentional Grounding penalty and a loss of down.

  • Garcia also recalled a conversation he had with another friend of Hine's in which he questioned her motives for pressing charges against DeCesare. "I told her that if we weren't in the spotlight like we are, this never would have happened," he testified. "She's trying to embarrass two people to bring them down to her level."

Rendering Hine's lawsuit superfluous in the wake of the Browns' 2004 season.  Move for dismissal.

January 11, 2005

TWENTYNINE PALMS

Bruno Dumont returns with his cinema of climactic, left-field homosexual violation.  Unfortunately, this installment's protagonist is a cocky, fairly stupid lout of a cinematographer rather than a quiet lug of a policeman.  This makes all the difference.  L'HUMANITE was COPLAND freed of Hollywood narrative conventions, its hero spared from seeming pathetic outright by virtue of his laconic nature.  Was he stupid?  No.  Naive, yes; a mama's boy, certainly; but not stupid in the slightest. 

TWENTYNINE PALMS' David, on the other hand, is an ignoramus of Gump-ian proportions.  In one of the film's most infuriating sequences (though not *the* most infuriating), David allows his emotionally fragile French girlfriend, with whom he can barely communicate, to drive his Hummer through heavy desert brush.  Thematic implications aside, the gesture is monumentally stupid in that a) she can't drive, and b) he's obviously uptight about his cherry red Hummer, and, hell, even he'd have trouble navigating the brush that lies ahead.  I know, I know... this shows him attempting to shed his controlling personality (or piquing it out of a bizarre masochistic impulse), but whereas he'd been marginally interesting up until this point, this sequence exposes him as an asshole and imbecile of the first order.  On the other hand, his girlfriend, Katia, remains relatively tolerably unstable until she carelessly lures a three-legged dog into the path of their Hummer.  Alas, MENSA won't be breaking down her door anytime soon, either.

Dumont's blasting away at a number of targets here -- the exacerbated, post-Iraq American-French disconnect; male sexual primacy; American environmental rape -- but his rounds are backfiring on him.  As with L'HUMANITE, he's in complete control of his craft; unfortunately, the company he chooses to keep renders his masterful slow build excruciating this time out.

In Honor of Michael Keaton...

... I will shave today.

FOX NEWS2 to Court Angrier, Whiter Viewers

If James Wolcott can start currently false, but likely rumors, why can't I?

And further to a conversation that raged yesterday on Devin's message board, I think the Gitmo prison facility should be turned into a Chuck E. Cheese.

Cleveland Browns Have a Post-Season After All, or "Groza Wept"

Chicks go on trial for catfighting over Jeff Garcia.  Images of the combatants can be found here.  Salient passages:

  • "The feud erupted Aug. 21 at Tramp nightclub, where DeCesare, of Westlake, had accompanied Garcia and teammates Melvin Fowler and Ross Verba."

Yes, the same Ross Verba whose house is a veritable sexual assault factory.  By the way, I'm shocked that that headline didn't read "Browns Offensive Line Woes Continue".

  • "They were celebrating a 17-10 preseason victory that evening over the Detroit Lions."

The season encapsulated.

  • "When Hine arrived at the faux burlesque club, which bills itself as the place for "Naughty Fun,"..."

When in the hell did Bob Evans become a "faux burlesque club"?  Please tell me the Homestead Breakfast is still up to snuff.

  • "A friend of Hine's doused DeCesare with a drink."

Trite.

  • "Hine said she tried to walk away. As she walked toward the exit, however, DeCesare had other plans. Two of Hine's friends testified they saw DeCesare grab a dance pole for support and karate-kick Hine in the head."

Hot.

  • "'Carmella was minding her own business that night,' D'Angelo said. 'She had a drink thrown in her face because she had the gall to be out with Jeff Garcia.'"

A clear violation of the Professional Sports Groupie's Rules of Engagement, which state:

  • "Any cooze in the company of a starting quarterback with a career QB rating of under 100* shall be subjected to a maximum reproof of two (2) profane utterances before allowing for appropriate reprisal.  Physical contact shall be considered a violation of cooze etiquette, and therefore susceptible to a physical remonstration of one (1) karate kick to the back of the head with optional use of a stripper pole for ballast."

Ergo, I find for the reigning PLAYBOY "Playmate of the Year."

* Emphasis mine.

January 10, 2005

I Write for THE DVD JOURNAL, You Asshole!

Just something I've always wanted to say in casual conversation, along with "My name is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and you can eat shit."  (This is unlikely for obvious reasons.  I abhor magic realism.  And Colombians.) 

I have two reviews over at The J this week:  One for Seijun Suzuki's brilliant FIGHTING ELEGY and another for Volume Three of AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE Vol. 3.  Color me supremely disappointed that I was denied ICE STATION ZERO, which went to the capable D.K. Holm (who recalls the film being a pay cable mainstay, though it seems to me the film was most commonly used as "Afternoon Movie" filler for network affiliates; I know that's how I watched it more times than I care to remember.)

I realize that I've been quite the diligent updater today.  Just get off my fucking back about it, okay?

The Life of Jimmy

As per http://otherpeoplesblogs.typepad.com

Good news:  The man Edgar Wright calls Jimmy DOOM-vall has acquired a sprightly young stalker.  Bad news:  she's equally enamored of McG (ain't that always the way?).  Questionable taste in filmmakers aside, she's pretty cute for an internet exhibitionist, doesn't appear to be a LARP-er, and may grow out of the whole McG thing (says the guy who cries himself to sleep if he misses an episode of THE O.C.).  I'd say he's done worse, but, shit, Jimmy's always done pretty well.

At least she's not running a Ted Levine fanpage.

The Politics of Personal Preference Destruction

Just so you know, no one really loves MILLION DOLLAR BABY or SIDEWAYS.  Proponents of either are respectively a) contrarians reacting to the unconscionable affection for a visually shabby salute to snobbery, or b) embracing the shlubby aesthete's ROCKY.  And the only way to remain above the fray is to heap invective on both while singing the praises of SON FRERE, MOOLAADE or MR. 3000.

I suppose this is the time for me to bang out a top-ten list that will include none of the above (liked MDB with strong reservations, really liked SIDEWAYS and didn't see the other three).  Look for it this week; i.e., unless civilization crumbles in response to Randy Moss's simply horrific on-field behavior.  Thank god the weather has me housebound.  It must be bedlam out in the streets.

In Honor of Peter Krause...

... I'm not going to shave today.

Online Film Critics Go 2-2; Cavs are 20-12

Nominations were solid (save for a lack of PRIMER love), and the winners are, too (save for Braff).  Check 'em out here.

Obviously, Edgar should've snagged the Breakthrough Filmmaker award (on a related note, heartfelt condolences to SHAUN's Nick Frost, who lost his mother over the weekend), while Shane Carruth would've been the most deserving of all had he been nominated.  I'd love to see the film clean up at the IFP, but the perception is that PRIMER already won by getting nominated.

Living on the West Coast screwed me out of the opportunity to watch my Cavs absolutely dismantle the Knicks on Saturday's nationally televised game, in which LeBron didn't miss a shot until late in the third quarter (tell me you saw that reverse windmill on the highlights).  Time to rack those wins up now because a brutal Western Conference trip begins later this week, and the Cavs, being a young team with no reliable perimeter threat to keep zone defenses and double-teams on Lebron honest, are going to lose enough to allow either the Pacers or the Pistons to dislodge them from first place in the Central Division.  Now would be the time to pull the trigger on that Michael Redd trade.

As for other Cleveland sports news... is anyone really surprised that Romeo Crennel "blew away" the Browns front office?  What'll really surprise me is if he's fool enough to take the job (though I'd love to see it happen).  And the Indians finally make an off-season free agent signing that might help them win the AL Central, but getting Millwood at this stage in his career reminds me of our blown Jack McDowell deal back in the mid-90's.  I see this guy being on the IR for most of '05, or going 11-10 while the Indians struggle to score runs.

January 07, 2005

Your Monthly Military Strategist Moment

Because I was the scourge of Axis and Allies in my youth...

Isn't it a colossally stupid idea to give your thriving guerilla nemesis a huge, ungovernable platform they can exploit to disastrously bloody effect; thus, making a mockery of your foundering nation building efforts?  Free elections in Iraq are a lovely idea when the time comes that they can be safely and competently coordinated, but now that the "weakened" enemy has graduated to destroying tanks, and can strike with relative impunity in so-called "safe zones", perhaps now isn't the time to hold them.

Suggested by this story off the AP wire.

January 06, 2005

PAPARAZZI, A Film by Mel Gibson's Hairdresser

The disc is in the player; the righteous man is beset.  Shall we begin?  Yes, Lisa.

10:13  --  It used to be they saved the full Fox Fanfare for special movies.  Not that I'm complaining about its use here.  It's a Cole Hauser star vehicle asking us to buy Cole Hauser as a major movie star.  It's already the most self-reflexively stupid film I've seen since AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS.  Tom Rothman must be thrilled to have finally made a movie his lackeys don't have to explain to him slowly in one- and two-syllable words as he thrashes about in the Gymboree ball pool installed in his office.

10:21 --  I wonder if this film was written via keyboard strapped to a heavy bag in Mel Gibson's gym.  The filmmakers are obviously outraged, but it's as if they'd remade THE SWARM as a mild infestation of fruit flies.

10:27 -- I was just about to make a crack about some actor looking like Vince Vaughn with bad facial hair....

10:28 -- Tom Sizemore scours Cole Hauser's trash.  Cue threatening music.

10:31 -- "Everybody wants steak, but nobody wants to date the butcher."  They're debating the ethics of the paparazzi profession in a strip joint.  It saddens me that the writer probably gave himself a mental high five when he put these two together.

10:37 -- They took his wife's spleen.  All told, he's taking it better than I would.

10:40 -- The son's sustained a spinal injury, but, so far, he's still one spleen up on his mother.  This'll be a very jealous household in a few years.

10:43 -- Hauser's bodyguard is the dude from DIGGSTOWN whose brother ends up getting hanged by Bruce Dern's henchmen.  Things are looking up.

10:47 -- Generally, it's not a wise decision to talk shit to the guy trying to hoist your ass up from the precipice of a 100 ft. drop, especially when you took his wife's spleen.

10:49 -- Mel Gibson cameo noted.  He's waiting for anger management therapy.  In a movie that is anger management therapy.  Most self-reflexively stupid movie...

11:00 -- Aside from Hauser setting up one of the paparazzi with a "Disposable Cell Phone", it's kinda hit an inanity plateau. 

11:03 -- Memo to Robin Tunney:  It's never good to be playing your age at thirty-one.

11:08 -- You never ever jostle a woman with no spleen. 

11:12 -- Right about now, Chris Rock is really wishing he never did LETHAL WEAPON 4.  "Send out one of them white bitches"?  Mantan Mooreland lives.

11:15 -- Okay... I was gonna mention something earlier about how they'll probably make use of the traffic cameras posted at intersections out here in L.A.  Seriously.  But I was also expecting a buttload of references to Joe Pesci in THE PUBLIC EYE, so I'm not exactly batting .300 on the night. 
11:30 -- Cole Hauser sadistically laying into Tom Sizemore makes this the second Mel Gibson film of last year to get off on the ceaseless beating of a Christ figure.

11:31 -- Dennis Farina and Cole Hauser regard each other.  Hot.

11:33 -- All those "Cole Hauser's a poor man's Matthew McConaughey" remarks I've been keeping to myself have just taken on a uncomfortably coincidental tincture.

11:34 -- Cameo of the film:  Tim Thomerson.

11:35 -- At last, Hauser can laugh with his paparazzi tormentors.  He just needed to blow off some steam by committing a few homicides.  How very Christian of you, Mel.  And just in case your obsessed ass is reading this, know that I've installed extra locks, four security cameras, and hired the dude who played Minoso Torres in DIGGSTOWN as my bodyguard.  You want my spleen, motherfucker, you better pack a lunch and a dinner, 'cause you'll be pulling a double shift.

On the whole, I was hoping PAPARAZZI would be more outlandishly stupid than it turned out to be.  I'd despair, but, folks, there's only three months until THE PACIFIER.  Vin Diesel and a duck shall lead us.

Now, I'm gonna watch WIMBLEDON without having to turn back to the computer every two minutes.  This is your loss.

Tonight on a Very Special "For No Good Reason"...

There's a reason for the lack of updates today other than the usual uninspired malaise that keeps you coming back to my blog for whatever masochistic tendencies you harbor and should probably be discussing with your therapist or satiating in a fetish dungeon on 14th and Ninth (no, I've never been to the Hellfire Club... okay, once, but you're not getting that story out of me without this becoming a pay site).  Aside from lunch at Ye Rustic Inn, I've mostly been hunkered down at my desk pecking away at another exciting piece for E!, while waiting for people to feed me decent quotes or scoops that'll make the story more than a stale rundown on three of the more highly anticipated comic book titles slated to hit theaters in '06.  Slowly (much too slowly, as my deadline is tomorrow morning), info is beginning to roll in. 

So, to atone for my lack of merry-making, I am going to blog my minute-by-minute reaction to last year's smash hit PAPARAZZI sometime after 10 PM EST.  For those of you who frequent my pal Devin Faraci's site (http://devincf.com), you'll probably remember that I did something similar w/ HONEY not so long ago.  As was the case then, I will be drinking.  As was also the case then, I will be badly in need of libation (this time, I'll be fresh off of watching BORN INTO BROTHELS; last time, I was just bored, which has traditionally been reason enough to knock back hooch in the Smith family history).

Consider yourself warned.  Join me, won't you?

Oh, I may be a little late b/c a new episode of THE O.C. will be waiting for me when I get home. 

January 05, 2005

Dramatic Gestures That Mean Nothing in 2005

The supposed finality of a character burning their manuscript.

A.O. Scott Ain't Got Nothin' on Charles Taylor

In SLATE's Movie Club yesterday, Taylor delivered the most witheringly original slam on SIDEWAYS yet:

"The combination of self-pity and self-regard in Sideways makes it a Cathy comic strip for middle-aged men."

Trot the bases, Charlie.  I rather liked the movie, but that's the riposte with the most-est.

Dakota Fanning Grows Up Fast

Young_love

Playing Tom Cruise's wife in WAR OF THE WORLDS?  Seems like only yesterday she was Denzel Washington's forbidden object of desire in MAN ON FIRE.

Thanks to CHUD for the pic.

January 04, 2005

De Palma Capsulizes De Palma

From "Brian De Palma:  The New Hitchcock or Just Another Rip-Off", ROLLING STONE, October 16, 1980:

"I can tell a story in visual images probably better than anybody.  My weakness is that I've never done a great character story.  I should probably direct somebody else's material if I am going to grow as a director.  I can direct actors well.  But I'm usually so involved in the visual storytelling that the slow rising and falling of the characters' relationships just doesn't interest me.  But it should.  I should do it."

The "other material" was CARLITO'S WAY, by David Koepp.  But since then, and until he retires or dies, he's pretty much the guy described above, which is why I consider him the greatest living today, and why most folks hate his pictures.  He's a formalist with (declining) studio cachet.

Krugman Saves Social Security!

Actually, he'll probably fail, as sane ideas are anathema in the Age of TReason, but that won't stop the TIMES' best columnist from spittin' truth.  So, here's Paul Krugman... back from vacation and ready to inject facts into the specious "Social Security is failing" debate.

The Online Film Critics Get It; Poland Still Doesn't

Baffling GARDEN STATE love aside (affable first-two acts, awful third), this is as good a list of year-end nominations as I've seen.  A Best Original Screenplay nomination for Edgar and Simon (if SHAUN had been a Focus film, they would've been in serious contention for an Academy Award slot), Best Adapted for Marber and CLOSER, Best Original Score for Jon Brion, and Best Actress for Uma.  Good work, gentlemen.

And for your amusement, be sure to read David Poland's "Hot Blog", where he continues to shill for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA by beating up IMDB/WENN for factual innacuracies, which is a bit like... no, exactly like taking a Dwight Evans-autographed Louisville Slugger to the neighborhood retard.  As with the NY TIMES parade of lay-ups last Sunday, this is just too fucking easy, and, in this case, betrays a strange loyalty to the fate of PHANTOM since Poland, last I checked, claimed not to really like the film.  Is he doing a solid for WB by continuing to insist that there's any awards heat on this piece of shit outside of Emmy Rossum, or merely trying to salvage his rep as an Oscar prognosticator by positioning the film as a woulda-been derailed by unfairly becoming a media punching bag ala THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST?  If it's the latter, he'd better find a more persuasive agent of influence than WENN, which probably isn't read by many Academy voters.  Also, he should probably restate the case for PHANTOM as an Oscar contender, since he's the only columnist in creation to have so seriously considered it as one.  I like David.  He's a daily read even when he's off his rocker.  But, man, he really biffed this one.

January 03, 2005

What's the Use of Living in Los Angeles...

... if it's going to be warmer in New York City on January 3rd?  This is such horseshit. 

NYC:  currently 58 degrees
L.A.:  currently 52 degrees

Remarkably, it's stopped raining, and the sun is just starting to peek out.  I think it's the first time I've seen it since I got back into town on the 30th.  Not that it matters; I'm still freezing my ass off in my apartment whilst glumly attempting to track down fascinating tidbits on THE SUBMARINER movie.  All told, I'd rather be tobogganing. 

In the midst of my boredom, I discovered that the greatest word in the English language has an IMDB entry.  This is wonderful, to be sure, but my initial amusement turned abruptly to dismay when I noticed the omission of HOOPER and SHARKEY'S MACHINE.  Also, how did THE OMEN get overlooked while its made-for-television third sequel did not?  And how curious is it that the first four titles are Eddie Murphy movies?  Shouldn't that move us to DEFCON 2 or something?

Finally, will someone do a word count on David Poland's reaction to the Sunday NY TIMES "Arts & Leisure" section, and let me know if it exceeds the total verbiage expended in the disputed pieces proper?

January 02, 2005

It's Time to End Your New Year's Party When...

... Andy Dick crashes it.  It's all fun and games until it's your bathroom in which he ends up drowned in a pool of his own vomit.  Probably naked.  With your cat jammed face-first up his ass.

Happy New Year's, friends, lovers, enemies and terraformers.  Help me celebrate by voting for today's laziest NY TIMES Arts & Leisure opinion piece:  A.O. Scott identifying why critics love SIDEWAYS (not only is the thesis super obvious, its defense is buried under several lengthy paragraphs of needless context), or this zillionth lament on the dulling of SNL's satirical edge. 

For the record, I absolutely agree with A.O.'s assertion; it's just that nearly everyone with whom I've discussed the film has implicity understood this.

I wrote two reviews for THE DVD JOURNAL this morning  (KING ARTHUR and AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE: V. 3) after sleeping through half of New Year's Day.  They'll be up later today in all their uninspired splendor.  Drink deep, and then wonder "Who the fuck is he to be taking potshots at A.O. Scott?"

Addendum:  for something really worth reading, check out James Wolcott's review of a terribly depressing ECONOMIST article.  If you're wondering, Wolcott is good peeps because he knows Brian De Palma is one of our greatest living filmmakers.