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June 27, 2008

HULK v. THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Since I had a friend in town with whom I usually go see such movies, and since I was kind of aching for something disposable and entertaining, I bought the bullet and saw THE INCREDIBLE HULK.

Here is where you're confused: In 2003, Academy Award Nominated / Internationally Revered Director Ang Lee made a strange foray into comic book movies with HULK (minus the adjectives); HULK came out in the wake of SPIDERMAN, which was light, fun, visually snappy, and geared more toward a younger audience. HULK was a Freudian exercise in rage, the id (or the superego, I always get them confused), and a revolutionary attempt to mirror the aesthetics of comic books in movies.

The comic book genre survived the commercial failure that was HULK. The film succeeds on many levels - there are few uninteresting scenes, and the film toys with the Promethean idea behind a guy wanting to become a superbeing. And yet it didn't really recognize its place in comic book lore. If anything, it tried to separate itself completely; in an unusually insightful review by Harry Knowles of Aint-it-Cool News, he remarked that Hulk was like taking a classics illustrated and turning it into something more complex, as opposed to what usually happens. I think that's about right. But where SPIDERMAN and the Burton BATMAN recognized the inherent ridiculousness of the Superhero and used it as the basis for the humor of those films, Lee's film is typically a somber and cerebral experience. It didn't play well for the people who liked, for instance, DAREDEVIL.

The Hulk is kind of a ridiculous figure who operates on a couple of really interesting psychological levels: he's what happens when we let our anger control us, a giant beating Id (or Superego, or Uncanny, or something) who represents externally what we do internally. Controlling or fighting the Hulk is, I've always felt, a metaphor for the intellectual's response for feeling ostracized. And then there's also the aspect of the Hulk as the perfect weapon, if he could only be controlled or channeled, but it all depends who is going to do that, and how they're going to use him. So those debates are there for whoever wants them (neither version seems obsessed with this, but the latter is much more interested in the military's desire to harness the power).

Many of the complaints about Lee's HULK was the big CGI green man. Frankly, I don't think he's much more realistic in the new one, but he doesn't bother me as much for some reason. Maybe it's because he doesn't interrupt a lot of scenes featuring Nick Nolte as a kooked-out father who may just rationally explain his son's impulse for anger. The new HULK is the action movie alternative to Lee's curious contemplative approach. Each scene seems rushed to prepare for the next action scene, which is where Frenchie director Louis Leterrier shines: I never saw them, but apparently his TRANSPORTER movies were excuses for car chases and kick-boxing. Here that's about right - the INCREDIBLE HULK is stylish without really calling attention to it's style (where Lee constantly reminded you that he was directing it), and tough and fast where the former was introspective. The unINCREDIBLE movie saw the action scenes as perfunctory, and as such they were absurdly ridiculous, as if to call to attention its own artifice and the inherent ridiculousness of the genre. The new movie is visceral but clean, it assaults you without confusing you and, unlike Ang, there's suspense. And yet both movies are kind of humorless and much of this is because Edward Norton, while occasionally a wonderful actor but recently a very dull one, is kind of humorless. The word that comes to mind when I think of Norton is "intensity," which is about right for a dude who can turn into a giant green man when his heart rate gets too high. (Eric Bana, on the other hand, was pretty bland; it's as if his first foray into big movie-making overwhelmed him.) But this is kind of refreshing in the age of the goofball sidekick whose sole existence is to make wisecracks.

But since I have a lot of respect for the Ang Lee movie, I think we can just look at the new one as a sequel. Lee's movie was the origin story, while Leterrier's is the follow-up. It sets the stage for a sequel that could be pretty cool. Although the ending of this movie is just a retread of the classic arcade game RAMPAGE. Either that or a fight between Blanka and Blanka in STREET FIGHTER II.

Just a side note; I didn't see IRON MAN, but there are way too many big name actors in these movies. It's kind of distracting. Did IRON MAN really need Gwyneth Paltrow? Or Jeff Bridges? On the same note, William Hurt - a wonderful actor - adds nothing to a completely obligatory role, and Tim Roth - also great - seems out of place in this sort of thing. The fans of movies like these don't go see them because of their lifetime fanship for KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, so why not cast fresh faces in these roles?

Posted by Andytown at 2:41 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 22, 2008

MIKE MYERS

In 1999, Mike Myers was the fastest-rising comic star in the world. Two years earlier, AUSTIN POWERS, a cheaply produced catch-phrase of a movie, was a surprise hit, and he followed it up with a good dramatic performance in a bad movie (54) and a smash hit of a sequel in AUSTIN POWER 2.

There are few less likely stars than Myers. He is odd-looking, diminutive, and lacks the gifts for physical comedy. Most of his humor involves him looking at the camera as if to remind us that he has just told a joke. This is the defining comic gesture of both Powers and his other iconic, constantly recycled creation, Wayne Campbell. Even when he left Saturday Night Live and the comfortably canned laughter of the audience, Myers still plays ever scene as though he has to wait for the audience to finish laughing. I don't know that I've ever seen a comic presence so in love with his own humor. Everything he does, or did, Will Ferrell does better, only Ferrell doesn't constantly fall back on characters.

But nine years (God Lord!) have past, and the only presence that has kept Myers on our radar is through his voicing of Shrek (and his universally reviled CAT IN THE HAT), one of the many Scottish characters he's done over the years. That's why THE LOVE GURU will probably bomb; everything about it seems like a vanity project, an excuse for Myers to be onscreen again. From the first trailer, it was greeted with a universal "meh;" we grew tired of the Austin Powers schtick after the second movie, but here he's adapting it to some more costumed goofiness.

I think Myers could occasionally be hilarious. His imitation of Ron Wood was brilliant. Dieter on SPROCKETS was inspired; that's still one of the best, most ridiculous skits to ever make SNL. And Wayne Campbell was a pretty nice rip-off a particular personality in the 1990s. He doesn't really exist anymore. Wayne Campbell would be playing video games and goofing around on Facebook today, and would have a web-cam instead of a public access show, and who the hell is Aerosmith and/or Heather Locklear? But the WAYNES WORLD movies had some really funny moments, even if they weren't comic masterpieces. But here's the thing, when you watch Jim Carrey in ACE VENTURA, you leave admiring Carrey's amazing physicality, his absurdly good timing, and his fearlessness. You don't see any of that in Myers.

The best moment in Myers' career was SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER, a genuine funny movie that also made for one of the few romantic comedies I like. It also features my all-time favorite example of the type of job only characters in movies have: in this case Myers makes in living (in San Francisco) reading poetry in coffee shops. This was before Myers' Scottish schtick got horribly, horribly old, and therefore the scenes where he plays his own Father are pretty amusing.

But as a normal guy caught up in a ridiculous rom-com, he performed pretty admirably. It's a shame, then, that he's dedicated himself to overplaying such goofball caricatures ever since.

That's how I feel about Mike Myers.

Posted by Andytown at 11:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 13, 2008

VARIATIONS ON A WEEZER SONG

The latest effort by Weezer has to be one of the most universally defiled albums by a once respected band. Here are a few sample reviews:

AV Club: "The breathtakingly stupid Weezer begs the question: Is this for real? Or are the over-processed hooks and lobotomized lyrics intentional self-parody?"

Entertainment Weekly: "Lyrics that once seemed cheeky and slyly referential back in the halcyon days of their 1994 debut (think ''Buddy Holly'') and 1996's Pinkerton (''El Scorcho'') have become tiresomely Seuss-ical on their sixth outing."

Pitchfork: At this point, Weezer is as much a brand as a band. When Cuomo relinquishes the mic, The Red Album could be by any group of modern-rock mediocrities.

You won't find a more half-heart Weezer apologist than "youres truly" - I like everything they've ever done (including MAKE BELIEVE, an album that was refreshingly about nothing of consequence) and yet I rarely sing their praises. Weezer's breakthrough "Blue Album" more or less freaked my happening in high school and their subsequent albums have been, on many levels, equally rewarding. And, for God's sake, my nickname was Weezer for two years of college, mainly because I wore their t-shirt all the time.

Rivers Cuomo is one of the closest things my generation has to Brian Wilson: he's got a similar eccentric, introspective genius. The guy has the superpower of writing pop songs, but there's a weird beating heart behind them. Take "Buddy Holly" for instance, which is a truly amazing song that rarely gets recognized on anything outside of a "Hey! Remember the 90s!" retrospect. The justly famous music video has, if anything, hurt the legacy of the song - when we think about it, we don't remember Cuomo's false posturing, bravura nerd-rapping, and anachronistic romance, but we remember Spike Jonze magical incorporation of The Fonz.

"Buddy Holly" is kind of a time-capsule for the 90s, because despite its relative recency, there were very few eras more removed from the four-eyed Holly and the ironically mismatched Mary Tyler Moore. But the key line from the chorus, often forgotten, "I don't care what they think about us anyway," is pretty pivotal for the Weezer canon. Weezer has a way of making innocuous phrases poetic, which is why teenagers love them. Like Cuomo, I must have lied about thinking what people thought about me as well, but I didn't tie it into some kind of odd, outsider narrative about a guy dreaming up scenarios about homies "dissing his girl" or another big bang putting some poor bastard "down on the floor."

But "I don't care what they think about us anyway" could be the title of the otherwise nameless "Red Album." That would probably explain why they're dressed up like the Village People. I've often grumbled about the tendency of music writers to forecast the careers of musicians they approve of, only to become jaded and bitter when the artist chooses a different direction. Here's Exhibit A. After PINKERTON, we were all expecting Cuomo's PET SOUNDS, and instead he's given us harmless melodies about going on vacation. Most of the drug-related lyrics are about as believable as the nine year old down the street who talks about his "cocaine smoking" experiences. Lou Reed singing "Heroin" this aint.

And in that rather unhallowed tradition, the "Red Album" is, frankly, brilliant. It features one radio hit (Pork and Beans), one nostalgic tear-jerker on the level of the Beach Boys Disney Girls 1957 (Heart Songs), one trippy art song (Dreamin), and one epic reminder of their greatness (The Greatest Man That Ever Lived). That last song is my favorite song in the Weezer catalog other than "Buddy Holly." It's got a ridiculous hook, Cuomo's obsession with reinventing hip-hop, a bevy of allusions, and the type of rockin' romantic hyperbole that makes music fun.

So, yes, I think it's one of the best albums of the year. And I'm not just saying that. Rather than finding it "unoriginal" or "breathtakingly stupid," I think it's kind of brave. These guys find a way to march to the beat of a different drummer, and they still get on the radio I don't care what you think about them anyway.

I don't care about that

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If you're keeping score, here are some of my favorite albums of the year, in no particular order

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, DIG LAZARUS DIG
Headlights, SOME RACING, SOME STOPPING
The Raconteurs, CONSOLERS OF THE LONELY
Spiritualized, SONGS IN A&E
Destroyer, TROUBLE IN DREAMS
Aimee Mann, @!!! SMILERS
Weezer, THE RED ALBUM

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In November, I reviewed INTO THE WILD and wrote this:

* - Apparently, Hirsch is playing SPEED RACER in a Wachowski-brothers version of the film. Wonder if the brothers W (one half of whom is a cross-dresser, or had a sex change, or something) will imbue this ridiculous bunch of kitsch with a complicated mythology and post-structuralist philosophical overtones? Don't be surprised if this ends up being the HEAVENS GATE of the TV Cartoon remake genre.

Looks like I was pretty prescient.

Posted by Andytown at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 4, 2008

SAVE THE REPUBLIC (Or at least go there)

Here’s what I think about Starbucks (TRADEMARK LOGO):

It’s good coffee. I’ve always prided myself on being able to drink any type of coffee as long as it has a smack-like level of caffeine – which is way I’m so comfortable drinking my own sludge (and I have any left over, I put it in a can and sell it to one of those companies that makes that stuff that you smear on your wall to make a chalkboard)

For a store that makes it a point to plant itself on every corner and play Norah Jones over the intercom, it’s surprisingly unintrusive. For all I know the company is flogging spider monkeys to roast their beans, but the coffee I get at my neighborhood ‘Bucks is black, strong, and er . . . roasty. I like their new blend that has Pike in the title. And while the service isn’t superlative, their employees at least have to adhere to a strict “be nice to customers” policy. And most of the time they don’t want to hector me with questions about why I’m there and then come to discover that I’m writing a really long paper about a book they’ve never read.

On a side note, most Starbucks that operate within other businesses, like bookstores or Targets (a good place to buy chalkboard paint, I hear), are pretty uniformly terrible. They’re not official Starbucks, and the one down the street from me in Bookstar is always understaffed. The guy who works there almost permanently rarely has coffee ready. (Borders also sucks, but they’re Seattle’s Best).

(Interestingly, when I was in San Francisco, I went to the Starbucks across the street from my hotel, which was downtown – lotta homeless around. I saw about six of them wander in the Starbucks. I imagine this must be a problem for them, and I’m really curious how they deal with it. I seriously doubt the Colin Meloy look-alikes/Barristas are naturally capable of handling this.)

But despite the overwhelming fact that you can get wireless at the crappy pizza place down the street (or from your unwitting dope of a neighbor), Starbucks has famously and gruffly offered only T-Mobile and their damnable ripoff Hot Spot. I assume there are a number of reasons there (the close proximity of Starbucks to nearby apartment complexes, for instance) but it mostly translates to dinero in the pockets of Starbucks from their Ugly Uncle, T-Mobile.

In San Francisco, I was supposed to get internet service, but for the jackbooted thugs of Hyatt, “internet access” meant “ten dollars a day,” which is fracking ridiculous considering they were already charging me “an arm and a leg.”

So here’s a pretty lame olive leaf – Starbucks is offering free wireless . . . kind of.

You get two hours a day. And emails from AT&T trying to sell you their poor service (Don’t get me started). And you have to buy a Starbucks card that has five dollars on it at all time. And you can only use the two hours at once, and you can’t conserve it over the course of the day.

All this so Starbucks can start a new ad campaign saying “Starbucks gives Free Wireless! You’re Welcome, World! Give us a hug!” It’s a sham, kids, and I won’t be spending much time in there any time soon.

On a flip side, the best coffee shop in Memphis just opened (or re-opened): The Republic on Walnut Grove. Good coffee, a cool atmosphere, laid-back but quick service, coffee in actual mugs, comfortable booths (and a lot of them) and, of course, free wireless. It’s only a mile from my house but, sadly, it just re-opened and I’ll only get to take advantage of it for a short time. And that's too bad, because the hipsters who work there don't seem to give a damn if you want to spend the whole day there putting pencil to paper on your truly awful novel.

Forget Starbucks and their stupid, sneaky wireless plan with strings attached. Help the Republic thrive! The Republic will live forever!

BTW, if you’re just checking this for the first time today, you get the double-treat/agony of reading my review of Indiana Jones. Go ahead! Just hit the page-down and see what happens! To which I’d like to add: any movie that prominently quotes John Milton can’t be all that bad.

Posted by Andytown at 5:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF TEPID REVIEWS

I saw INDIANA JONES yesterday. I enjoyed it; despite some perhaps unnecessary Jason Bourne antics on the part of Shia LaBouef, the movie crackles along in typical Spielberg fashion. Man-eating insects, scary natives out of some Imperalist nightmare, crypt-robbing, Harrison Ford looking at once bewildered and confident (that wonderful combination of professor and action star), motorcycle chases, angry villains trained in fisticuffs, those really cool map scenes that indicate Indy's globe-hopping, waterfalls, and that inimitable John Williams score.

It clicked to me as I watching this film how the synergy of Lucas and Speilberg came together on the earlier movies. Let's forget Lucas' current pariah status and remember him as creating two and a half awesome, iconic Star Wars movies. And let's forget that Spielberg has since won Academy Awards as the director of important films and is perhaps the biggest name brand director in Hollywood since Alfred Hitchcock. What Lucas brought to these movies was the mythology, the mystery, and seriousness with which Indy takes in his endeavors. I can imagine Lucas being the one who decides that the Ark, or the Sankara Stones, or the Grail, or Crystal Skulls, would be a pretty neat object for Indy to hunt for. And while each could be conceived as a Macguffin, they're not, necessarily . . . you can't say that the Ark of the Covenant with all its religious and archaeological significance, is just "the thing they're trying to get to keep the story moving" - rather, it (as well as the Crystal Skulls) are about knowledge, while the Stones and the Grail are about immortality. Pretty potent themes.

While Lucas was off dreaming up the mythology and, ever the good student of Joseph Campbell, archetypal significance, Spielberg and his screenwriters came up with the whiz-bang set-piece obstacles that Indy had to overcome. The result was pretty magical: I love all three films almost equally.

If the new film is something of a drop-off in terms of mythology and whiz-bangy-blow-up-i-ness, its not a disappointment. I think the Crystal Skull is a pretty cool concoction: it doesn't have a familiar, built-in story for us to ride along with, and the story is cleverly written in a way that teaches us new things about myth, foreign customs, and archaeological method (one of the things that's so brilliant about the series is the way, as I noted, that Indy is at once a conservative scientist and adventurous iconoclast).

It was fun to have Karen Allen return as Marion Ravenwood, and certain scenes involving quicksand and fire ants helped relive the magic of the earlier movies. Cate Blanchett makes a perfectly scary, sexy villain. Spielberg obviously fell in love with her - every scene has her owning the frame, cloaked in light or darkness, glaring at someone behind her firm, military posture. Unlike the villainess of CRUSADE, there's not an ounce of self-loathing, romantic obsession, or insecurity - she's pure Communist, objective pursuit, and I could make an argument that while this may be the worst movie of the lot, she's easily the best villain (on this note, I should point out that I've never really liked Blanchett before, but the one-two punch of I'M NOT THERE and INDY now has her on my list of favorite actors.) As great as Belloq was, he couldn't sword-fight.

I mentioned Shia LaBouef and his sudden turn into the super-hero midway through the movie. At one point, he fences while standing on two moving jeeps, and that's a little much. I guess I could have done without all the 50s nostalgia. Nostalgia for a period was never really the strong suit of this franchise, but it does seem to be the direction Spielberg is going in his film-making (CATCH ME IF YOU CAN was particularly meticulous in recreating the 60s as some kind of sunwashed TV show).

So I don't understand why it's being met with a large degree of boredom. I was not in the least bored. If the film came out in 1992, minus the age jokes and a crucial subplot, I don't think I would have been disappointed.

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A PLEASANT SURPRISE: The latest Will Ferrell movie to die in the movie theaters, SEMI-PRO, was actually really funny. It's not as good as the brilliant TALLADEGA NIGHTS, and wastes Woody Harrellson, but it is definitely worth a rent. It makes me optimistic about STEPBROTHERS.

Posted by Andytown at 1:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 2, 2008

WANT TO SEE THE PRESENTATION I DID FOR THE AMERICAN LITERATURE ASSOCIATION?

No?

Well, here it is anyway. You have to have Microsoft Power Point, but here it is.

https://umdrive.memphis.edu/alblack1/public/thoreau.ppt

Abomb

Posted by Andytown at 1:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

SON OF RAMBOW

SON OF RAMBOW is rad. I mean, seriously: really great. It's the story of two kids who decide to make their own version of Rambo, but it's really a celebration of growing up in the 80s (albeit in England) and it effectively recycles and reinvents about a hundred 80s cliches and fashions. It is strange to believe that we can get nostalgic about the 80s, a period I have very cogent memories about. If anything, unlike that dumb WEDDING SINGER movie, RAMBOW manages to effectively remove the 80s from the land of pastiche and kitsch.

The directors are "Hammer and Tongs," although it's more or less a dude named Garth Jennings. His last movie was THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, whose prominently featured George W. Bush imitation as Zaphod Beeblebrox went unliked by me. But RAMBOW restores the pseudonyms.

Whoever is distributing this quirky, charming little film is flubbing it big time. I saw it at the Stage movie theater with six other people on a Sunday night. It should be selling out the Studio on the Square. Anyone who grew up in the 80s and had a kid on their block whose Mom let them rent PREDATOR will love this, and since that's my generation, that's a lot of people. I expect it will become a major hit on DVD, which only will prove how much the distributors (Paramount Vantage) botched it. After a quick look at the Wikipedia, P.V. looks to be pretty good at distributing big-ticket indie films with big stars and Oscar potential (THERE WILL BE BLOOD, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, BABEL), but fail pretty consistently at putting out smaller quirkier pieces that need good word of mouth and a well-thought-out release strategy to find the faithful audiences they deserve (THE MACHINIST, INTO THE WILD, and now RAMBOW). MACHINIST found its cult following on DVD, and I predict INTO THE WILD will become the FIGHT CLUB for the generation about 10 years younger than me. RAMBOW should spawn its own cult and perhaps (sadly) high-budget imitators.

So see it while you can.

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On another note, how about last week's LOST? Pretty wild, eh?

Posted by Andytown at 10:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack