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June 28, 2007
LIVE FREE, THANK YOU
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD hits all the right buttons. It’s uncomplicated, unironic, and thankfully lacking the gravitas of DIE HARD 2. It also doesn’t waste a lot of time with needless exposition or motivation, and hops into a loud, energetic, unrealistic experience that fits the ethos of the genre. The ending is a little bit of a letdown (as is the moment of the ubiquitous catch phrase), but the fact that the film operates on a TRUE LIES level of entertainment without feeling a need to offer a running commentary on its improbability and anachronism is refreshing. Justin Long is funny without pandering to lurid anti-sensibilities of bad screenwriting, and it seems reasonable that he would play sidekick on this mission. I’ve always liked the kid, whether in those clever Macintosh commercials, the otherwise awful ACCEPTED, or as the precocious Warren Cheswick in ED.
Much is being made about the evolution/devolution of McClane from a street-smart, wisecracking ordinary Joe into an unkillable, wisecracking angel of death. But I think it’s a logical move: think about it, if you survived the events of the first three films, don’t you think your skills would improve with each new adventure to the point where you could hang onto the rear view mirror of a car while its falling down an elevator shaft rising with flames and escaped relatively unscathed? Either way, the film shouldn’t disappoint fans of the franchise (I’m three for four) or those looking for a decent way to spend two hours in a movie theater.
If you read this today (Thursday), you can get John Piper books for five books each on his website. I recommend the book he edited about Jonathan Edwards.
I’m growing pretty tired of Michael Moore’s act. Generally all acts of leftist corporate rabble-rousing tend to inspire me on some scale, and his ROGER & ME and underrated THE BIG ONE were some of the best. I don’t like Big Health any more than he does, but his theatrics are growing old, and he is clearly becoming obsessed with his own image (in his earlier films, it was his naïve curiosity and basic good-time-Charlie decency that made him interesting and likeable. Well, twenty years later, he’s still playing that sap even though he’s now a global figure with a clear agenda.
But what bothers me isn’t his message, or even his choice of subject, but that he went on Oprah and crowed about how this wasn’t a political issue. Watch the first image of this trailer and tell me he hasn’t linked Big Health with G.W. Bush and thus with capitalism. He realizes that incendiary politics sells (as it did for his FAHRENHEIT 9/11), and that’s the way he’s marketing this movie. Last year, I admired Al Gore for refusing to play these games with AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, and now I’m pissed at Moore for going the other way. It’s impossible for Moore to remove his politic hell-fire and opportunistic muckraking from the message he wants to send.
On THE DAILY SHOW last night, Moore acted (I saw act because that’s what he is, an act) upset because Larry King bumped him for Paris Hilton. Why? They’re basically in the same boat: both are larger than life media figures famous for their exposure. Both remain prominent for their excess. What bothers me is that Moore’s outrage at King was based on his feeling that he’s some kind of expert on Health Care, and not a guy who made a self-starring documentary about it. You may argue that his sudden stardom makes his presence necessary for these movies to be seen, but everything about his persona suggests he’s a guy who loves the spotlight and the controversy he causes.
I welcome your arguments about Moore, but please be clear that I’m not defending Big Health or criticizing Socialized Medicine. Obviously, I have general political leanings away from the latter, but I’m not informed enough to comment on either.
Since people accuse me of being too negative, here are the top 5 songs on my Top 25 Songs on Itunes (All of them are from my workout mix)
1. Neutral Milk Hotel - THE KING OF CARROT FLOWERS, PART TWO AND THREE – I do not find this song sacrilegious, just awesome.
2. John Lennon - INSTANT KARMA – I’m getting a little tired of it, mainly because I listen to it while I run, but it has one of the most infectious beats ever.
3. Belle & Sebastian – DEAR CATASTROPHE WAITRESS – A song I love by a band I’ve never truly loved. I love the way it tells a story without telling a story.
4. Bobby Bare Jr. – DEMON VALLEY – I picked this as my favorite song of 2006. I still love it.
5. Sparklehorse – IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE – I know nothing about Sparklehorse, but I heard this song on a trailer for the (awful) DAWN OF THE DEAD remake and fell in love with it.
Posted by Andytown at 01:13 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 26, 2007
ANDYTOWN ALMIGHTY
EVAN ALMIGHTY is on its way to becoming the HEAVENS GATE of comedies. There are two arguments afloat (get it?):
1. After remarkable success, it’s the failure of the mass marketeering for the religious right.
2. It’s not funny.
This is all very curious to me, as the universally-panned FANTASTIC FOUR sequel is doing gangbusters. Meanwhile, despite almost three times the budget (it’s the most expensive comedy ever made), EVAN opened to half of its precursor, BRUCE. I thought BRUCE was a nice little piece of Capra-corn populist religion. As Walter Chaw more vehemently criticized, it is a little distressing that given all the power of a deity, the wielder would choose to give his girlfriend a bigger bra sizes, promote himself to head anchor on the local news, and divinely empower his dog to use the toilet. But I thought this was all part of a neat, if hokey, philosophical message about man’s self-serving nature.
My problem with this new movie that I haven’t seen is this quote from “god” (played by Morgan Freeman) regarding Noah’s Ark: “I think it's a love story about believing in each other.” I’m not going to argue that at the root of the Noah message is a “love story” – viewed properly, everything in the Bible is a transcendent love story between a believing people and their Creator. But, “believing in each other?” Come on, Detective Somerset! As Frederich Buechner beautifully noted, Noah’s story is so powerful because it’s so dark, so incomprehensible. He writes, “It is a tale of God’s terrible despair over the human race and his decision to visit them with a great flood that would destroy them all except for this one old man, Noah, and his family. Only now we give it to children to read. One wonders why.” His ultimate point is that the story is about us, should we ever decide to become “fools in our faith,” and that the ark “somehow managed to ride out the storm.” Evan Almighty, on the other hand, seems like an excuse for a lot of cute reaction shots of animals and some OFFICE related humor.
I didn’t have high hopes for BLACK SNAKE MOAN. After enjoying Craig Brewer’s largely unseen super-low-budget debut THE POOR AND HUNGRY, I was infuriated by the critical and commercial success of HUSTLE AND FLOW. On my old blog, I wrote:
“Forgive me if I didn’t shed a tear for the ‘violent pimp who wants to become a violent rapper’ rags to riches story. And for a Memphis movie . . . not enough Memphis. Other than a few scenes and a few throwaway lines of dialogue, it could have been set anywhere. Not a fan.”
HUSTLE set itself as a movie about the magic of music, but ended with its ambitious hero becoming famous not through the noble part of hip-hop (its honesty and spirit), but through the gratuitous excess of his gangster image. Brewer celebrates this in the tradition of ROCKY or SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER.
But BLACK SNAKE MOAN is a much better movie, probably because Brewer trusts Blues more than he does rap as a means of salvation, though perhaps in this case it works because said salvation is spiritual as opposed to economical and egotistical. After too many big ticket productions, Samuel L. Jackson reminds us why he matters here: playing a guy who is one bucktooth and syllable away from a Saturday Night Live caricature, he manages to make us believe in a characters who is part Blues myth-incarnate, part spiritual stoic. I struggle to think of another actor who could play this part. For the first time ever, Christina Ricci didn’t make me remember that she got her start playing Wednesday Addams. Only Justin Timberlake is terrible: he looks like he grew up in a trailer park, but so do any ten guys you find in the Mens Room at Alfreds on a given Saturday Night. Timberlake has no discernable acting talent, so he breathes loudly and squints a lot. I’m hoping his acting career dies a quick death before he bankrolls a vanity project that has him playing a good musician.
I finished THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE and can now give it my highest recommendation. It’s about 100 pages too long, but worth the excess.
In order to prepare myself for DIE HARD 4: DIE EVEN HARDER THAN THE LAST THREE TIMES YOU DIED, I watched DIE HARD 2. I hadn't seen it since I was in the ninth grade, when I diagnosed it as "Wicked Awesome." I'm now changing my rating to "Offensive." This has to be one of the worst sequels ever, and yes I did see SPEED 2.
Anybody heard the new Ryan Adams CD yet? Is it worth getting?
Is anybody even reading this?
Posted by Andytown at 11:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 23, 2007
ANDYTOWN PRESENTS 20 SOME-ODD DAYS, 20 SOME-ODD MOVIES
Here's how I feel about these AFI Lists:
Links: (Onion A.V. Club assessment, AFI Web Site, Wikipedia Article - this is the best, as it shows what was dropped and what moved up)
They are a good way to promote movies. I hope that some star-struck teenager beginning to fall in love with old films sees at least five of these great movies. I hope that a fan of conventional Westerns decides to see the highest ranking Western on this list, THE SEARCHERS, because its one of the greatest movies ever made. And I hope it causes someone to ask, "What's so great about silent movies?" And then that someone reconsiders their (probable) conjecture that the 20s and 30s were just a period before movies got it right.
But it's also a way to sell and re-package movies, and that irritates me. After the first AFI list, they moved these movies to a "Special Section" at Blockbuster that had the same rental requirements as the New Releases. Let's not pretend these are about anything but money. There's a reason the Sight and Sound list isn't televised, because John Q. Public would be pretty bored by TOKYO STORY and baffled by 8%. These lists are, with a few esoteric exceptions, "a list of movies people want to see."
I missed the telecast simply because I didn't know it was on. But normally I watch them. I have no problem with voting for the 100 best movie lines, or the 100 best scores, or the 100 best villains, because that's strict fanboy territory and it's obviously not an authoratative list. But its just kooky to rank actors; Clark Gable is six spots better than John Wayne? Explain. Edward G. Robinson is the 23rd greatest star ever, two spots behind Sidney Poitier? Fred Astaire is ten spots better than Gene Kelly? And it's the same with movies, because now some Generic Katie is going to blabbing about how if something is so great, why isn't it on the damn list? In short, these lists live on with an authority that they don't deserve.
That said, I like the new list better than the old one, mainly because it boosts three of my favorite movies: SEARCHERS, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, and CITY LIGHTS. There are still some really overrated films on here (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, SOPHIES CHOICE, the insidious PLATOON, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, TOOTSIE, CABARET, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY) and some are just ranked far too high (HIGH NOON, SCHINDLERS LIST, SOME LIKE IT HOT). The terrible, schlocky, badly dated DEER HUNTER has jumped somehow, while the greatest war movie ever, BRIDGE OVER RIVER KWAI, has fallen.
CITIZEN KANE is still number one and it should be. It is not my favorite movie ever, but it is one of my favorites. I have seen it many times, and each time I try to treat like an academic exercise, to deeply plunder it for its themes, style, and subtext. And each time I just get caught up in the story, with the inventiveness with which Welles tells it, and the energy of the characters and the world they inhabit.
But of course, this is all just subjective. Which is my point. Just for giggles:
MOVIES THAT WOULD MORE THAN LIKELY BE ON MY PERSONAL TOP 100 THAT ARE ALSO ON THE AFI TOP 100
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (#1, all the rest are in no particular order); CITIZEN KANE, THE GODFATHER, CASABLANCA, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, SUNSET BOULEVARD, THE BRIDGE OVER RIVER KWAI, STAR WARS, THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE SEARCHERS, CHINATOWN, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, APOCALYPSE NOW, ANNIE HALL, THE BRIDGE OVER RIVER KWAI, KING KONG, DR. STRANGELOVE, BONNIE AND CLYDE, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SHANE, TAXI DRIVER, JAWS, NASHVILLE, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, THE WILD BUNCH, ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, PULP FICTION, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, DO TEH RIGHT THING, BLADE RUNNER
----
Want to be depressed? Check out this footage of Kevin Durant. Right now, we Memphians could be engaging in a legitimate argument about NOT taking this guy, but instead we cry in our beer and stutter the words, "Yi Jianlin." Watch Durant: dude does not even have to try. His leap is such a natural motion, and the guy has a stutter step that you usually see on 5'8 point guards who have no other skills. He is the complete package and yet he is still the second best player available in the draft. Sigh . . .
Posted by Andytown at 06:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 20, 2007
FIVE LAME THINGS
I have thought of several very ambitious blogposts, but have given up after they failed to resemble anything like something Chuck Klosterman would write. So now I'm back to just making these inane lists of factoids, reviews, and links.
1. Here are my thoughts on all three Ocean movies.
OCEANS ELEVEN: A pretty typical heist movie highlighted by its style and cast. That said, there were no surprises, and the heist relied on a lot of hi-tech hullabaloo. The rest of the cast acted as a mystified audience to the supersmart hypercool of Msrs. Pitt and Clooney (Matt Damon was particularly boring playing a guy who attacked like a retarded fifteen year old; Bernie Mac and Elliott Gould were wasted). But the movie was a hit precisely because it promised what it delivered: big stars strutting their considerable charisma in outwitting a villian somewhere between Dean Wormer and a James Bond criminal mastermind. Nothing about it was very original (duh, it was a remake), and it coasted without invoking the quirks of its better performers (except for Don Cheadle, whose work in this trilogy is my least favorite thing he's ever done). A mild entertainment that happens to be a disappointment because of the amount of talent involved.
OCEANS TWELVE: There was nothing very typical about this one: from its cool, foreign locales to the casting of Catherine Zeta-Jones as an icy supercop (The best scene in the movie establishes this wordlessly), to its bizarre-bordering-on-absurd scenarios. Where the first movie put its stars through the heist theatrics, this one threw them in a state of extended chaos. The result was much more pleasurable - where we had original seen them in a state of unbroken boffo cool, now they're struggling to remain alive and being outwitted by something called the "Grey Fox." Its funny to see these guys wriggle free from the various imposing grasps, as opposed to winking at each other when the script calls for everything to work perfectly. But mainly, I found this one much funnier, probably because Pitt was the centerpiece of the folly, as opposed to the more stoic Clooney. Many things can be said about Clooney, but a master comedian he is not (its being proven that O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU is turning into an aberration in an otherwise laugh-free career). Also, Damon, Gould, Affleck, Caan, and others are given a chance to use their considerable comic gifts.
OCEANS THIRTEEN: It's better than ELEVEN but not as good as TWELVE. Just like ELEVEN, it's throwaway entertainment with an assumed happy ending. Like TWELVE, the supporting cast gets more opportunities, particularly Casey Affleck who deserves the career his lesser-talented brother blew, and Clooney is allowed to look good in a tux rather than try to wrap his brow around the foreign element of comic timing. Al Pacino is here, which is only a good thing. Bernie Mac has a funny scene, then disappears into the backdrop. Ellen Barkin is wasted and, frankly, embarrassed (as is Eddie Izzard). Andy Garcia is better here than he was in the first two. There are several laughs, and the payoff for the heist is rewarding because of the unlikability of Pacino's character. So its a disappointment that happens to be mild entertainment.
2. Sunday's ENTOURAGE was the best of SEASON 3, and offers hope for the new Season (where the result of the movie they made will make for much more interesting TV than the financing of it). But I'm pretty hooked on the song they played over the opening credits. It's by this mostly unknown band called CHESTER FRENCH, and the song is called SHE LOVES EVERYBODY. It's got this weird Smiths/Interpol/Joy Division/James Bond Opening Credit Song vibe going. You can check out their myspace page here.
3. Finished my first paper on Milton. I took the day off today. Now I will have more to do tomorrow.
4. New CD I got and liked: Spoon's GA GA GA GA (or something like that).
5. Speaking of Pacino, he was honored Monday night with an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award. I am a freaking geek for these celebrity get-togethers (I watch them pretty much every year), and this one was probably my favorite, as Pacino is one of my favorite actors. Jamie Foxx's speech was touching, as was Andy Garcia's. It makes you wish that someone would give Pacino his first good role since THE INSIDER. The last six years have offered him one crap role after another, the lone exception being his interesting (but mostly unseen) take on Shylock in an OK adaptation of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Two of his films have gone straight to video. He has starred opposite Matthew McConaughey and Colin Farrell. This just isn't right. Seriously, he and Anthony Hopkins should join forces and kill their agents.
The evening was soured by the appearance of George Lopez, who did an imitation of Tony Montoya (from SCARFACE, perhaps the most overrated movie ever made). For some reason, Lopez thought it would be a good idea to throw in some choice barbs about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Rosie O'Donnell. It was embarrassing, and it only showed to go you how bad the state of standup comedy is in, when this guy is the best they can get for comic relief.
Posted by Andytown at 09:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 16, 2007
THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE
I'm about 130 pages into T.C. Boyle's 1993 Novel THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE and I am loving it. Boyle wrote another book that I really enjoyed, THE INNER CIRCLE. That book was the anti-KINSEY; both took on the controversial sex doctor as their subject, but while the mediocre film was part hagiography, part extremely conventional biopic, Boyle's bookdealt with the thorny psyche of impulsive living. Kinsey thought that sex was a biological mechanism that should have no emotional ramifications - his top assistant comes to realize this just isn't true. It's a fascinating book about a number of topics: sexual psychology, the 50s, marriage, science, and quasi-godlike figures whose charisma masks a blind, fanatical adherence to some really dangerous ideas.
THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE is even better. Once again (WELLVILLE was written first), Boyle takes on a controversial fanatic of a doctor: the inventor of peanut butter and the corn flake, John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg is the type of overzealot who recommends five enemas a day, but he also knows every single one of his patients and has adopted 42 children. His sanitorium in Battle Creek, Michigan, prescribed a steady, wretched diet of granola, thick, awfulyogurt, and crunchy roots. Into this world come a number of explorers, and each of them have a different interest in the good doctor.
Unlike THE INNER CIRCLE, which exists in a sterile world of labcoats only contrasted by the curious lives of its patients and doctors, WELLVILLE is full of anachronistic humor and vocabulary that makes each new page a compendium of turn-of-the-century factoids. It presents us with a world too quickly becoming modern, and too focused on the perfection of man. Highly recommended.
I'm also reading PARADISE LOST, and I invite anyone who wonts to, to join me in my trip from Hell to Earth and Back Again. It's just as good as advertised. Here's a quick portion that really moved me. As Satan and his archangels are gathered in counsel, Belial points out the symptom of intellectual malaise that causes humanity (or devility) to understand itself.
Thus repuls'd, our final hope
Is flat despair; we must exasperate
Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us, that must be our cure,
To be no more; sad cure; for who would loose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through Eternity,
To perish rather, swallowd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion?
Posted by Andytown at 11:23 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 14, 2007
THINGS ARE WHAT YOU MAKE OF THEM
Its been a while since I posted and I can’t claim that I have been attacked by the busy bees or anything, it’s just that I need some enthusiasisizng of my blog project – I have no idea whether or not anyone is reading. But I will try to return to my normal, every two-day schedule. In exchange for the emptiness in your (plural) lives, here’s a pretty long, erratic post that encompasses everything I did this last week.
SATURDAY, I watched Mississippi State win their Super Regional at Dudy-Noble Stadium, advancing to the College World Series for the first time in 10 (11?) years. It was a glorious (hot) day, and the shade was only for the folks with the money seats. I sat in the bleachers and ended up looking like those poor saps from ROAD WARRIOR who were trying to tunnel for gasoline. But the win was beautiful – one of the few really exuberant, unironic memories from my alumni years as a sports fan. Unlike all the basketball wins, which were tainted by later shortcomings, I’m not expecting anything from the Bulldogs in the CWS. They’re there and that’s all that matters.
OVER THE WEEKEND, I watched two movies in my foreign film series™ (aka: dash into pretensia). These are films by directors who loom large in the history of film, but whom I know next to nothing about. Rather than list the films, here are the directors: Bunuel, Jodorowsky, Fassbinder, Truffaut (I know a little about him).
Luis Bunuel’s BELLE DE JOUR has to be one of the most repulsive movies I’ve ever seen, only boosted by how well-made it is. Showing obvious contempt for marriage and anyone who ascends classes, the story centers on a rich young wife who becomes bored with life and decides to become a prostitute. What follows is a gallery of grotesque perverts and amoral bitch-goddesses who signify that star Catherine Deneuve (thoroughly humiliated as an actress in the film) has entered a hell that is still better than her comfortable middle-class existence.
Bunuel clearly has arrogant contempt for his characters, the world they inhabit, and their curiosities. Film is, of course, about exploring curiosity, but I think what makes it for an audience is the degree of compassion or sympathy a director shows for his characters in their journey. By showing none, Bunuel pulls off a neat trick: his film is at once fascinating in its approach and unique in its subject matter. Therefore, it’s an art film and, like most of those films, shows an equal contempt for its audience (in terms of narrative, style, and fooling around with reasonable expectations). Some, Martin Scorsese among them, have hailed it as a masterpiece of sexual exploration. I felt sorry for everyone involved.
According to a thousand sleep-deprived lunatics, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s EL TOPO is “The First Midnight Movie!” The film opens with a bearded, black-clad figure, holding an umbrella (El Topo, or “The Mole”), and a naked seven year old boy on a horse in a desert. El Topo tells the boy to bury his toys and a picture of his mother, which the boy does while El Topo plays on his flute.
From here it only gets weirder.
The film becomes a bloody, absurd spectacle populated by kooky Buddhist mantra-spouting hippies hopped up on mushrooms, er . . . zen. At one point, El Topo buries a man in a grave made from the corpses of dead rabbits. Another master attacks him by throwing butterflies from a butterfly-net. When this series of trials is over, El Topo drops the beard and adopt a dwarf as his Sancho Panza and, after much humiliations, tries to dig a tunnel toward the sun.
Its fans (John Lennon called it his favorite movie) claim its absurdism is merely a puzzle for cryptic messages about war, violence, film, heroes, and the meaning of life. Its director claims it is a masterpiece that marks a new age of film. I claim it is a stupid mess redeemed only by the beauty of several shots. Jodorowsky is obviously a master craftsman; he is also a cinematic charlatan who makes up for his inability to grasp a conventional narrative or make a real movie by throwing a lot of crap into a pot together and making no attempt to make it a soup. It’s only for the die-hard film fanatic. Liking it is probably a litmus test for where you stand as a film liberal or a conservative. I might have liked it more if I were on acid, as has been recommended as the ideal state of mind for watching the film.
HOT FUZZ joins KNOCKED UP as the most I’ve laughed in a movie theater in ages. It has the energy and sheer ridiculousness of THE NAKED GUN and AIRPLANE, but uses a story that’s not so much parody as inspired imitation. I thought SHAUN OF THE DEAD was pretty good, but my utter boredom and confusion for the Zombie genre made it little more than a funny curio that I’ll probably never return to. Parodying POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS II, among others, HOT FUZZ succeeded with me by playing on conventions and creating a few of its own. The film is thankfully unironic in its admiration for the movie its imitating – and the film often works as the same kind of crackerjack cliché entertaining that makes those fun forgettably fun. It’s one of the best movies of the year.
BREACH is a minor success, which makes it, personally, a mild disappointment. Director Billy Ray’s first film, SHATTERED GLASS, is the best film of its kind besides THE INSIDER: the ultra-professional corporate thriller. What this film has that GLASS lacked is espionage, and this element is the most poorly handled. The stakes in GLASS were the respect of a magazine and a presumed public trust in journalism. The Robert Hanssen story offers the standards of the spy/mole genre, and Ray handles it subtly, which doesn’t always work. I’ve read academic journals that were more suspenseful.
And yet, the movie is a success because of the intimacy we get with its characters and the inside baseball that its unafraid to depict. Chris Cooper, for all his wonderful gifts, is a little too steely and proper as Hanssen: every line seems rehearsed, and this seems unrealistic for a man who is falling apart. But Cooper does manage to leave an impression as a certain kind of moralistic, repressed, confident evil. He does amazing things with his eyes and his patience with dialogue. Laura Linney is awesome, investing each scene with subtle characteristics that the script, unfortunately, later spells out for us.
Ryan Phillipe is actor I continually grow more impressed with. Unlike Ben Affleck , Jake Gyllenhaal, or Josh Hartnett, he is able to play an intelligent character, who has gone to college, or gone through military training, or knows how to do things that the average person doesn’t. I was so hesitant to like Phillipe because of his now-forgotten association with the abhorrent I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. That movie, and the SCREAM trilogies, created a forgettable new brat-pack who lack the fun nostalgia of the John Hughes 80s bunch. They played iconic (if broad and dumb) characters, while Phillipe and his gang starred as teen sexpots and scream queens. These actors include, but are not limited to (last names only): Gellar, Hewitt, Prinze, Phillipe, those dopes from DAWSONS CREEK, Gayheart, Reid, Walker. Of them, only Phillipe and Michele Williams have anything resembling a respectable career. Phillipe was easy to write off at the beginning because of his brooding attempts to play tough guys and rebels and his seemingly fake marriage to Reese Witherspoon (which, last time I checked, was still valid). But he’s knocked off a quiet string of impressive, unflashy roles in the last seven years in films like THE WAY OF THE GUN, GOSFORD PARK, IGBY GOES DOWN CRASH (the movie sucked, he was good), FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, and now this. Nice recovery.
Tomorrow at 6 PM on ESPN2: Bulldogs vs. North Carolina!
Posted by Andytown at 04:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 07, 2007
FINISHED (KIND OF)
Finished my paper. It's okay. I read over it and was somewhat impressed that I'd written it, considering how the subject of Kant still perplexes me. I think it's better than a paper I wrote on Whitman last fall even though I felt like I knew enough to write a book about it. Go figure. In my final day of paper-writing, I decided to add another element: thoughts on Rhetoric the Scottish skeptic David Hume. I devoured four articles by him in record time, merely because it wasn't as dense as Kant (Hume is the most readable of "Modern" philosophers). I think this ends my illustrious career as a Kant scholar. This was definitely an educational experience: I will never attempt as ambitious a paper on something I don't have a lot of passion for; I think it was kind of an arrogant endeavor on my part. There are 295 books about Kant (not by Kant; ABOUT Kant) in the U of M library, and I read two of them. My bad.
I need to review KNOCKED UP, which I was such a pleasant surprise. Like everyone else, I caught up with FREAKS AND GEEKS on DVD and enjoyed it. But Judd Apatow's next two projects - the cancelled TV show UNDECLARED and the superhit 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN - left me cold. The former was a raucous romp through a dormitory that was about as similar to a college experience as BEVERLY HILLS 90210 was to my high school experience. The latter was a series of awkward situations forced upon the wallflower hero who responded by acting worse than the worst social retard. Both had funny moments, but the sense of sweetness soured me because it was just an excuse to lay on the dick/fart jokes and dudes acting funny off weed.
But KNOCKED UP is the best comedy since TALLADEGA NIGHTS. Critics are hoo-haaing about the fundamentalist message (basically, Be a man and do the right thing), but I was more impressed by its ability to make the normal funny, instead of the previous, which tried to suppose the ludicrous as normal. Most of the characters in this movie could exist in a way to similar to exactly the way they're depicted. And I liked the way the movie didn't use emotional peaks and valleys as an excuse for good storytelling: the characters are subjected to some tough traumas and they deal with it in unique, often harsh way.
Seth Rogen is given the task of being the star of this movie - a first for him. In VIRGIN, he was the wacky, heavily-tatted Good Time Charlie who thought everything was gay. In FREAKS AND GEEKS, he rolled his eyes a lot and had the benefit of being the only character who didn't have to sustain a character arc. Despite his clearly limited acting range, and his inability to play anything as though its not a scene in a comedy, he's a thoroughly likable schlub, and it makes sense that he could
a) impregnate
b) commit to (and)
c) win the love of
the beautiful star of the movie - which is a neat trick for a guy who doesn't look like he should be on film (Apatow and co-star Katherine Heigl deserve credit for this too). The supporting cast is also stellar, and no one deserves mention over anyone else, though I've always though Apatow's wife Leslie Mann should have been a bigger star, ever since she invested a throwaway romantic interest role in THE CABLE GUY with eye-fluttering thoughtfulness. This will probably end up being my favorite movie of the Summer.
Wilco is doing Volkswagon ads, which is probably going to pay them about as much as they made off YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT, so I guess I'm okay with it. At least its not a lame act of self-promotion or goofing on an image like those Bob Dylan Victoria's Secret ads. I guess people who like Wilco are the kind of people who buy Volkswagons. Go figure.
I rented the recent DVD release MEATBALLS off Netflix because I figured it was the ANIMAL HOUSE of Summer Camp movies, and Summer Camp has always been one of my favorite pieces of nostalgia . . . and it was awful, and Bill Murray was annoying. It just shows how far an actor can travel when he pursues the right material and the right director. Two years later, with the same director, he perfected his comic persona in STRIPES. Five years later, his GHOSTBUSTERS act became the archetype for the late 80s, early 90s comic characterization (a thesis I'm developing; it wasn't until Jim Carrey burst on the scene that it changed). And then after years of alternating between great movies (GROUNDHOGS DAY), duds (LARGER THAN LIFE), and TNT staples (WHAT ABOUT BOB?), he hit the jackpot with RUSHMORE. What a career.
Today I tried to do the NY Times Crossword Puzzle and failed miserably. Sigh . . .
Posted by Andytown at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 05, 2007
DUDE! WAKE UP!
Today I was at the library for five hours. I drank a lot of coffee so I had to go to the bathroom a lot. Sitting in front of the bathroom was this Napoleon Dynamite looking dude . . . he wasn't sitting he was sleeping. The whole time. I suppose at one point he was reading, because he had a BOURNE IDENTITY book folded across his chest.
I was hot in the middle of my much-procrastinated paper on Kant, but I still couldn't help thinking that this was like the Grasshopper and the Ants, where I'm the ants, only there will be no moral to this story because dude slept all day and this paper isl probably too general to ever get published. I just can't imagine why dude wanted to sleep in a chair in front of the bathroom at the U of M library. It was kind of irritating - there had to be some more productive way to spend the day. I wanted to go into "teacher mode." Or maybe it was just that I wanted to do that.
But then, I guess, maybe I did, maybe that's why I'm turning this paper in a week late. Maybe dude was just a symbolic embodiment of what I've been doing for the last two weeks instead of working.
I'm getting pretty sick of this paper. I'm defending someone (Immanuel Kant) for attacking something (Rhetoric) for no apparent reason (by simplifying and generalizing it into something clearly bad). Kant certainly wouldn't thank me for taking on this project; he'd probably say it was pointless. And now I'm almost done with it and I have no idea why I was so interested in doing this: Kant wrote about Rhetoric once, in the negative, and never referred to it again. And I'm trying to suggest that he actually likes rhetoric. And the thing is, I think I've done it (though not exhaustively) and, assuming it works, I feel like a lawyer whose gotten off a client who is clearly guilty (this is all high talk, I know, but still). Kant clearly wanted us to think he hated rhetoric, and I've just proven that he makes extremist statements that can be justified by reading volume after volume of his opaque philosophy. I've basically justified his priggishness and disciplinary snobbery. It has taught me a lot about how to choose paper topics in the future.
Michael Moore was on OPRAH today. This is only the second time I've watched Oprah in my life - the other time Martin Scorsese was on. I have no basis to evaluate Oprah as a cultural phenomenon or a competent TV host, but I was curious to see what Moore is up to with his latest movie. Apparently, he's back to the corporate lion-taming act, which is usually the kind of gut-punching liberalism that I get up for. I liked ROGER & ME and THE BIG ONE because it proved once and for all the fallacious reasoning behind corporate layoff practices, and also the deadened state of retail stores because of bad management and profiteering sleazebags.
But Moore's new movie is, among other things, a call for socialized health care. At one point, Moore told Oprah, "It's not about me, it's about we. We're all on this boat together." And Moore shows many virtuous people who are either being denied health care or can't get it to begin with. But here's my question for Moore, and it's one he has never dealt with: what about the people who exploit the system? Doesn't this just give them more avenues for exploitation? I'm pretty sure that if Moore had his druthers, I'd be paying for health care for illegal immigrants, who take away more than they add, and people who get sexually transmitted diseases because they are irresponsible. No one would take steps to see that these problems change, because we have such an easy quick-fix solution that they can force me to pay for. Meanwhile, I don't make money for the first four months of the year. Why? I realize that as a nation we should be more "we," but this seems to have within it a presumption that everyone is actively participating in their community, democracy, and economy, and this is often not the cass. The answer is NOT more government control. Although I do agree that we have to hold these huge companies accountable.
If anyone wants my Pandora Alt-Country radio station, which is awesome, email me. I did get one post 9/11 Country song explaining why the War with Iraq is a good thing, and one Jessica Simpson song, but I thumbed-down them and now I'm on a steady diet of some seriously good music.
Through another Memphisblog, I found out about this funny story about the Arcade Fire. The blog will take you there.
Posted by Andytown at 06:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 03, 2007
A QUICK ONE, WHILE HE'S AWAY
Just a few quick things on my (apparently) "superhip" blog:
- My BFF David Ozier gave me Bishop Allen's CD CHARM SCHOOL. BISHOP ALLEN's frontman was the engaging lead in MUTUAL APPRECIATION. I really like it. It's kind of like a bastard up-pop-child of Elephant 6, and I don't even know what that means. I've listened to it twice in the last few days, and it's got that catchy, weird, allusion-filled hyperactivity-fueled quirk. At its best, it reminds me a lot of ELF POWER and OF MONTREAL, and most everyone knows how I feel about those two. It's intriguing how many references to the Bible this album has.
- I also bought Loudon Wainwright III's new album written for and inspired by KNOCKED UP (which I'm going to see tonight, Lord willing). The album is called STRANGE WEIRDOS. When I'm having a pissy day, Loudon calms me down. Highly Recommended.
Top 5 LWIII songs:
1) YOUR MOTHER AND ME
2) SO DAMN HAPPY
3) LULLABY
4) NOCTURNAL STUMBLEBUTT
5) DREAMING
- David Stern gets bailed out once again. The prospect of an unwatchable NBA Finals is remedied into . . . well . . . an unwatchable NBA Finals that just so happens to feature the league's most hyped star. Even with Lebron playing the best basketball of his life, both teams play ugly. I predict within two games we'll hear either the Cleveland players complaining about being mugged by Bruce Bowen, or the San Antonio players bitching that Lebron gets all the calls.
- I have been really disappointed by the movies I missed in the theater last Fall and Spring. I already panned PAN'S LABYRINTH (that use of repetition is something I learned as a critic at the MSU Newspaper; don't try it at home); I also was bored by APOCALYPTO and THE GOOD GERMAN.
I will chalk my general disinterest in APOCALYPTO up to the fact that I was distracted, and I watched it on my TV. But I have some criticisms regarding Mel's three mixed passions: on one hand he's obsessed with using the Mayan civilization as a vehicle for bloody masculine rites of initiation, but he also wants to infuse it with a polemical about why civilizations fall. On top of all this is an attempt to draw murky parallels with modern culture through the dialogue, humor, and macho posturing. One of those aspects might have been interesting, but all three together are at war against each other, and the result is confusing when the screen is not filled with action.
But THE GOOD GERMAN was just a huge mess of homage, post WWII politics (yawn), and empty stylistics. I appreciate that Steven Soderbergh refuses to make the same movie twice (except for of course his OCEAN movies), but the detective mechanics of the plot were dull, and the writers and director assumed an invested passion for the characters that I just didn't have. Once Tobey Maguire goes out of the picture, the film loses whatever little momentum it had.
Posted by Andytown at 02:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 01, 2007
DEAR KOBE, I H8 YOU, SIGNED ANDYTOWN
After my vitriol-filled rant in the last email, the sportswriting community has risen to Kobe's defense, here and elsewhere . This is because sportswriters are hard-wired to create controversy, as opposed to maintaining any kind of moral principle. A scoop junkie like the pathetic Dan Wetzel will stand on phony moral principle to make a compelling headline (BOISE STATE IS THE GREATEST TEAM EVER AND NOBODY CARES! CALL THE POLICE!), but this is just because he is lazy and bad at his job. I have no idea how this started or when this started, but I do know from my hideously nerdy collection of 1980s Sports Illustrateds* that in 1989 the climate was much more mature and even-tempered, as opposed to all the clammering and finger-pointing that goes on out there now. Instead of creating controversy, these guys should be going after all the two commissioners who have single-handedly ruined their respective sports.
But the hacks want to defend Kobe and take down the Lakers' organization to fuel their archetypal need for hero/villain stories, despite the fact that he:
A) Is Moody and Aloof Except for Well-Planned Publicity Stunts
B) Has Been Unable to Get Past the 1st Round of the Playoffs since Shaq left
C) Demanded the Exit and Rehiring of Phil Jackson
D) Raped A Woman In Colorado In The Midst of Being The Most Highly Publicized and Promoted Athlete on the Planet
None of those are really being addressed here except for point (C), and this in terms of revisionist history. If Jackson didn't leave BECAUSE of Kobe, then why did he leave? And if Jackson didn't come back at the bequest of Kobe, then why did he come back? Because Chris Mihms wanted him? Kobe has made the Lakers please him at every point, and he has responded in his own sullen, childish way, thus becoming the embodiment of everything that is bad about professional sports: ridiculously talented manchilds** who have not matured emotionally past the age of 16, when the crescendo of adulation became so loud that said manchild stopped thinking.
I don't buy the argument that athletes shouldn't be held to a higher standard than everyone else. Once they start doing endorsements and plastering their face and "identity" across billboards and making chunks of money for it, they become responsible for the image they project. If an athlete doesn't want the traditional scrutiny, he should avoid the spotlight.
On this standard, Kobe has been wildly successful; he's the American Dream for athletes who want to be pampered and have no public responsibility. The situation has worked like this: Kobe is the best sports product that the biggest major market in Sports has, and he knows this and has used this to his advantage. However, Kobe is an extremely selfish individual so he insinuates that his team should dump the legendary player who has actually won the championships (who, of course, proceeds to win a championship). Kobe demands the organization please him at every point and in order to do this takes makes the Front Office schizophrenic: Do we do what's best for the team, or do we make Kobe happy? (No matter what any of these writers say, its not the same thing: Kobe was happy when he's scoring 50 a game and the Lakers are winning 42 games.) In a curious turn of events, the Lakers trade the Franchise Center who has been the star of all their championship runs and fire the most successful Coach in NBA History. And we're arguing that its fallacious to think that this didn't happen because of their very-demanding star?
The Lakers got what they deserved, and Kobe got what he wanted.
* - Which I bought off Ebay for 65 bucks (including shipping) and which I have read three times each because of an insatiable desire to learn more about what Ralph Sampson was up to in 1983.
** - For argument's sake: here are the ten best players in the NBA. The argument, BTW, is that Kobe is the best player in the league, a fact that I wholeheartedly disagree with because I think being the best has something to do with winning.
1) Tim Duncan - He's about to win his fourth championship. Take him off those teams, they struggle to make the playoffs.
2) Dwyane Wade - Next season, the Heat will return to being the best in the East because they have an unstoppable superstar whom everyone wants to play with and nobody wants to play against. Outside of he and Shaq, that team would get stomped by college teams.
3) Dirk Nowitzki - He drops after choking, but can anybody do what he does?
4) Lebron James - After last night's soon-to-be-legendary performance, the only conference final game I've watched, he moves up
5) Steve Nash - If he could play defense, he'd be number one.
6) Shaquille O'Neal - When healthy, he is still an unstoppable, must-be-double teamed force who opens up the floor for the rest of his team
7) Kobe Bryant - Yes, he can do it all, but he is incapable of making a team better; this is not a judgement, just a fact
8) Gilbert Arenas - If I had to choose between him and Kobe, I'd choose him. Kobe is clearly a better (but still overrated) defender, but Arenas likes his teammates and has made an effort to endear himself with fans through joyously weird behavior. Case in point: Me; he's my favorite player.
9) Carlos Boozer - The best true Power Forward in the game; just had a breakout season.
10) Amare Stoudamire - A freak of an athlete who is only getting better
Posted by Andytown at 08:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack