Guess Who's Going to Bed?

Nobody tells Sidney Poitier when to go to bed

In honor of Elizabeth Taylor's death today yesterday, I dampened my cheeks to the stylings of Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

The movie was enjoyable and I even laughed out loud a few times, which is rare (ask my biographers that follow me everywhere and never have a good tip on a horse). Sidney Poitier was dashing, aggressive, and effective. Katharine Hepburn killed several monologues and the rookie from Connecticut, Katharine Houghton (Hepburn's niece, whom you might remember from her recent performance as Katara's Grandma in The Last Airbender), was the one who made me laugh the most.

Spencer Tracy, on the other hand, reminded me way too much of Robert DeNiro in a comedy, which is a polite way of saying he turned in a poor performance, but unfortunately one not as poor as those of Scott Baio in Arrested Development, which are so poor they come back around again to be funny and are therefore unique and redemptive.

'Maggie the Cat' indeed

If only Most Hideous Man Alive® Bruce Vilanch hadn't stolen my copy of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof I might have cut a more respectable figure this evening as four of the world's leading massage therapists worked me over in the screening lounge aboard my jet and my biographers scribbled wildly. Blaming him for everything that went wrong is so fun these days, especially when the accusations are true.

As it was, the only movie of Ms. Taylor's I had lying around was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and even though she knocks that role right out of the galaxy it isn't exactly how anyone would like her to be remembered.

In your honor, Liz, I am going to bed with this image on my brain instead:

_

A Man and a Woman, Indeed

Although he's been directing movies for almost fifty years, I had never heard of Claude Lelouch until the other day, when I rented a movie he made called A Man and a Woman (1966). This exquisite romance was nominated for four Oscars® during the 1966 season and declared Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay. Not exactly a lightweight.

Much like Michaelangelo Antonioni, Lelouch was a documentary man who found success in art films, although it appears he did not find as much success as good ole Antonioni. Despite having only seen one (1) film of his, I feel comfortable saying that for two reasons:

1. I had never heard of him before the other day and I heard of Antonioni before I uttered my first word (almost).

2. Despite a prolific fifty-year career, he appears to have only made two movies of enduring quality: A Man and a Woman and the 1981 musical Les Uns et Les Autres (aka Boléro). The fact that a 23 year-old Sharon Stone has a bit role in the latter film only piques my curiosity and fear not--it is already on my Netflix queue.

Please do not think I mean to belittle Lelouch's contribution to the world of art, however. Anybody who contributes one exquisite book, painting, poem, photograph, motion picture, building, or sculpture to the global treasure trove can hold their head high in my book.

We should all be so lucky as to be responsible for the crafting of something enduringly beautiful, something strangers the world over can enjoy indefinitely, something that never would have existed without their unique efforts.

In other words, Joseph Heller can rest easy after 38 years of painful (trust me) failure post-Catch-22 and Claude Lelouch certainly has no reason to be ashamed of his cinematic hit ratio.

My Favorite Movie of 2010

Although Black Swan was a fantastic cinematic experience--the best ending since There Will Be Blood?--and a just-in-time tour-de-force effort from Darren Aronofsky (I also loved Requiem for a Dream, but that's about it), after watching the vast majority of the movies I wanted to watch from this past year I can confidently state Blue Valentine was my favorite.

Sorry, Clash of the Titans, but I don't need to see you to know you suck and that says a lot about what you are!

Much like the equally-brilliant A Prophet (2009, France), Blue Valentine is gritty, real, and uncompromising. The actors are allowed to breathe in the frame, the camera records the action free of any agenda, the audience feels like intimate participants in a drama with limitless possibilities. There are tears-of-joy-inducing moments of beauty and there are moments that hurt your soul a little bit, irreparably. In short, it is a lot like real life--which is astonishingly difficult to recreate onscreen even when that is your goal.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are both reliably-talented actors, but there is something particularly engaging about their performances in this movie, something about the air that exists on-screen between these two fictional lovers that is truly something special.

How was this delicate feat accomplished? Well, an insightful piece from HuffPo Entertainment Editor Katy Hall today--reprinted in its entirety--explains a lot about the method behind such success:

The Best Movie of 2009?

Malik & Cesar, who both deservedly won Césars

Finally watched Jacques Audiard's gritty 2009 2hr35min masterpiece, Un Prophète (A Prophet). Yes, I said masterpiece and I am aware that is not a word that should be used as often as it is.

What made it so good? Well, it's interesting you ask because I was about to tell you...

Let's start with something a lot of reviewers neglect to mention about movies they are discussing: the feel. This movie opens unapologetically in medias res--gritty fly-on-the-wall footage of a young man entering prison for a six-year stretch. The camera lingers, unhurried, soaking up every detail, every expression, every nuance. We don't need to know why he's going there--the point is he is headed to prison and we are going to watch what happens as it happens. The audience is instantly cast as voyeurs who have no idea what to expect, no desire to have their hands held through predictable plot devices, no fear to watch unapologetic and sometimes-gruesome reality unfold in front of their eyes without mercy.

Un Prophète was one of those rare movies that picked me up by the collar and stared deep into my life-force without blinking, without promising anything but a raw, beautiful, visceral experience I will carry with me forever.

Inside Job

I have been covering the financial sector for quite some time now, as the sole correspondent for Tell It Like It Is News, so the facts, figures, and villains on display in Charles Ferguson's Inside Job were hardly new to me. I know what happened, I know who did it, and I know exactly why--greed.

With that in mind, there were a few moments I felt the movie dragged (1h45m felt like 2h30m), but overall it was a surprisingly slick production chock-full of beautiful visuals and some highly-entertaining gotcha moments that make it well-worth watching.

And, as an added bonus for the ladies out there, Matt Damon's voice is also on display for at least twenty minutes in total. Although I am so manly I shave the bottoms of my feet, I got chills everywhere whenever he spoke. Money well-spent, Sony Pictures Ltd Intl Inc Megacorporation Nation-State.

Much like the villains in this tragedy have always claimed, there will be plenty of people out there who will hem and haw and tell you everything isn't black and white and it's really complicated but actually rich people getting richer helps poor people somehow.

If you believe these people you are dumb and you know it, which strikes at an important point of similarity that people in the media never seem to point out:

Just as the financial market demolition expert (aka 'Investment Banker') gets his conscience to swallow enormous lies in a series of more easily digestible incremental white lies, truth-bending, and questionable justifications, the Average American engages in a similar series of incremental lies regarding their limited exposure to ruin, the volatile nature of the "free-market" economy, the trustworthiness of those in power, the priorities of the rich, and the extent to which pure evil has permeated our society.

In other words, just as the banker knowingly swallows the lie that he is not evil, his victim also swallows the lie that the banker is not evil.

And so, whether he realizes it or not, the victim is kicked down another rung on that great big ladder from serfdom to Lord, forced to scramble to make ends meet, cut back on spending, get another job, get deeper in debt, etc, until the house of cards ultimately crumbles--at which point he is hopefully old enough to die.

I am a firm believer that the root of most of the problems facing America today is the fact that people don't want to know what is happening in the annals of power. They intentionally ignore the news, ignore the altruistic activists, ignore the canaries in the coal mines, because deep down they know the Warshington/Wall Street elite is so evil they would rather not know the details. Ignorance is bliss, none of my business, everything seems fine, that's just the way things go, the market is cyclical, the Matrix is actually pretty cool, yadda yadda yadda.

Well, to all of you out there who think ignoring a problem of this magnitude is okay because you have yet to be turned out on the street yourself, remember this:

The ostrich with his head in the sand eventually gets bitten in the ass.

_

It is the end of August and I feel thirsty.

So, apparently, does the mewling alleycat outside my window, but unfortunately for me, my thirst is not so easily slaked.

No passing stranger of the opposite sex can solve my hydration problem, even if they wanted to, but here this greedy cat will take all comers and get as much as she wants.

Or maybe my perspective is wrong.

Maybe satisfaction looms in the distance, tantalizingly on her radar but frustratingly never within reach. Maybe she is a tormented soul whose thirst, like mine, is bottomless. Maybe we are two of a kind.

Much like the insatiable central characters in the 1976 Japanese arthouse porno, In the Realm of the Senses, which I watched this evening in (mostly) wide-eyed surprise.

Never in my life have I seen so much penis--and I own one.

Never in my life have I seen two people engage in so much public fornication, to such blase reaction. To say the sex is gratuitous misses the point, but still--it is exhausting to watch.

Here is what Mr. Criterion has to say about the movie, for all you bumpkins out there that ain't never heard of it:

SYNOPSIS: Still censored in its own country, In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida), by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, remains one of the most controversial films of all time. A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual desire, Oshima’s film, set in 1936 and based on a true incident, depicts a man and a woman (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) consumed by a transcendent, destructive love while living in an era of ever escalating imperialism and governmental control. Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone.
SYNOPSIS: WARNING: THIS FILM IS SEXUALLY EXPLICIT

I wish I could agree with their pornography versus politics angle, but there was so little politics involved in this movie that I was bored stiff. Imagine saying that! I wanted more politics!

What exactly...were the politics? I saw some soldiers march past in one scene, but who knows what that's supposed to mean. What I do know is that the entire movie involves a former prostitute fellating, ravaging, and beating/strangling her master-cum-husband, whom she rapidly turns into her willing sex slave.

I'll put it this way--there is a good reason the narrator feels the need, at movie's end, to reveal the events took place in 1936, because any other movie that took place in Japan in 1936 and even hinted at politics would have found that designation superfluous.

Game, set, match. Verdict: Porno. Sorry Criterion--there was no need to salvage this one.

That being said, if you are in for an initially titillating movie that ultimately makes you never want to have sex again, this 'masterpiece' is for you. Enjoy!

_

Michelangelo Antonioni: Under the Microscope

In honor of the long-awaited, upcoming Criterion release of Antonioni's Red Desert (1964) tomorrow (6/22/10), I decided to finally continue with my Director's Corner series. Enjoy!


Michelangelo Antonioni ranks right up there with Eric Rohmer in the pantheon of directors who are reviled by many moviegoers for being boring.

Despite this similarity in mainstream audience response, Rohmer toiled in obscurity while Antonioni was an internationally-renowned auteur who spent his free time in bed with internationally-renowned beauties and made exactly the sort of movies he wanted. Antonioni was even courted by both the Brits and the Yanks, back when Americans still thought Europeans were cool.

The strangest thing about this drastic difference in fortune compared to that of Rohmer is that Antonioni's movies are even slower than those of Rohmer. To give you an example, one of my favorite Antonioni scenes involves three characters who hardly say a word to each other--and one of them is an oscillating fan.

Huh?

Try to Make It Real Compared to What?

I watched Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre this evening and it of course sent my mind running around its hamster cage at full tilt, leaving me unfit for slumber despite a tiresome day.

And so here I am.

For those of you who have not seen it, the movie is little more than a (monumental) dinner conversation between a struggling playwright (Wallace Shaun) and a wealthy theater director / mystical wanderer (Andre).

If you have seen Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, then just imagine Alan Alda's character as a parody of Andre, although I use that word loosely, since they are both pretty hysterical. I laughed out loud tonight louder than I have at any comedy I can remember, although it was not a comedy. [Note: Bob Odenkirk's interesting Melvin Goes to Dinner also owes a great debt to Andre -Ed.]

Andre is one of those fascinating, might-be-on-to-something, faux-humble, name-dropping emotional yo-yos who seem always to be weeping or getting naked in the woods with strangers, who inevitably mentions how he recently had a total breakdown and realized he was little more than a mindless one-dimensional robot when he was wandering around a desert in Africa for months with four toothless gypsies who subsisted on nothing but sand--because they wished it to be so--and then, in the next breath, tells a long-winded, riveting, story about how everything you are doing is wrong because when he rolled around in the grass in Tibet, imaginary monkeys kissed his nose and whispered a nonsense word and then 6 months later that word showed up as a drawing in a book he was reading to his child in Japanese--since he and his wife are trying to teach their kids Japanese, since a renowned physicist who gave up everything to become a brain-dead psychic once told him they are the future--and the funny thing is, the Tibetan language and Japanese couldn't be farther apart, so the character was probably just a meaningless squiggle to the author, but don't you see how it's all connected?

Wallace Shaun is, appropriately, very much the opposite, in term of temperament and opportunity. He is a struggling artist from working-class NY stock, a short, balding, unattractive man who takes pride in crossing meaningless errands off a list, believes there is still a chance for art to be profound, and who only asks that he not find a roach in his coffee mug when he gets up in the morning.

On the intellectual level, Wallace understands all of Andre's soul-searching, emotional journeys, even agrees with him on most of his criticisms of day-to-day life in the Western world, yet he cannot picture his world any other way, has no regard for the vague primal emotions that seem to occasionally rule Andre's tenuous existence, and actually takes pleasure in many of the things Andre despises.


I won't give too much away, yeah right, but one of the most interesting theories mentioned in the movie is that New York City (or any city, really) is actually some sort of 'perfect' prison, built by its inmates--who are schizophrenically also their own guards--who are too proud of their construction to ever leave it. Instead, they mill around giving themselves pointless-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things tasks, meaningless concerns to occupy their minds, trivial reasons for continuing to live there.

Yet, if they escaped, where would they go? To the woods? Would they dance around a fire all night and sleep during the day, making love atop wildflowers? Would they hold a flute in the wind and listen to the beautiful song forever? How long would that peace last until a new prison was built? Is it our nature to build prisons?

Who knows.

But I do know this--the first record I put on after watching the movie was Les McCann and Eddie Harris' Swiss Movement (recorded live at the Montreaux Jazz Fest in 1969; a gem).

Wouldn't you know it, the main refrain on the very first track--my all-time favorite jazz song, if you're keeping track--is "Try to make it real compared to what?"

The song was somehow intended as a critique of the Vietnam War, although I don't fully understand how and I wonder if that was just a cover story for the reality that it was, in actuality, a secret message sent to me from the future, since people/beings in the future would of course know I was watching My Dinner With Andre tonight (today being "Charlie Watched My Dinner With Andre Tonight" Day in the years 2041 and beyond).

If this is the case, I think the future is pretty cool for three reasons:

1. They can send messages through time

2. They have the patience to wait for those messages to be delivered 41 years after they were sent

3. They've not only got it all figured out, but can boil it down to an efficient eight-word sentence.

While we're making lists, I think the future is totally uncool for one reason:

1. The futuristic beings can do all those amazing things and, yet, they haven't found a way to make everything perfect for me. Wait...is there a lesson here?

Maybe...

Reality is what stares back at you in the mirror, what you see out your window, that mysterious smell in your closet. It is the only plane of existence of any importance and you can't hide from it in the woods, in a narcotic haze, by running away, by reinventing yourself. The human brain is too powerful, perhaps too powerful, imagination its Achilles heel.

People are the way they are. Twenty people running off into the woods with grandiose dreams will always wind up with a microcosm of New York, a governing body as petty as Congress, the same personal problems catching up with them.

There are too many variables at play in the world, too many ingrained biological/social/cultural traits to think you can escape from them by disengaging your brain. Reality must be dealt with at face value--get your kicks when you can, sure, but don't be so arrogant as to think that your lingering discomfort and fear won't follow you everywhere.

Death always finds a way.


Or something like that. Hey--thanks for picking up the check, by the way.

_

Review in Brief: 'Moon'

[Fair warning--spoilers abound]

Alright, so all those people bitching about how the Sam Rockwell indie movie Moon was ignored at the Oscars need to shut the fuck up right now, because that movie was a piece of worthless shit.

Not that it didn't have potential--a man all by himself on the dark side of the moon for a three-year jag has all the makings of a fantastic character study.

First mistake: They chose Sam Rockwell to play the lead (only) role and he has absolutely no charisma or depth. They needed Jack Nicholson, they got a pet rock.

Second mistake: They forgot to make the story compelling, letting the air out at all wrong moments--which completely removed any tension--and never building toward anything to root for or against.


Major spoiler here, but Sam Rockwell is a clone. In real life. Ha! (I think he is a clone of the world's first semi-socialized douchebag, actually. -Ed.)

Luckily for you, this revelation doesn't actually ruin too much of the movie because a big part of the problem with it is the fact that this is revealed way too soon. Not only that, but it is revealed by a recently "woken-up" clone, who should be the most innocent character, but is instead inexplicably more savvy than all the other identical 'people' that came before him. I say inexplicable because this incongruous situation is never explained, a reasoning never even hinted at.



Basically, this movie was somebody's ill-advised, wet-dream cocktail of The Shining, Multiplicity, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The twist here, stay with me now, is that Jack Nicholson is completely alone with no personality, there are only three clones instead of four, the original isn't around anymore, and HAL (aka GERTY) is inexplicably pathologically devoted to the nearest human, rather than the mission.

There is never any explanation as to why GERTY (admirably voiced by Kevin Spacey, albeit as an Admiral going down with the ship) was programmed to do whatever the human told it to do, which seems like uncharacteristically bad business-sense for a corporation that thought far enough ahead to build an array of remote-activated signal scramblers and stock the moon base with 200 clones to run it for the next 600 years with minimal trouble/expense.

I know somebody thought it would be 'awesome' to have Sam Rockwell play two versions of the same person (the third one never really participates), but they forgot that he is not Michael Keaton, that he is not a good actor. Sam Rockwell is good at playing a dimwitted rogue and that's about it. You know why? Because that is exactly what he is like in real life.



Quite a few popular actors, quite a few fringe actors even--Mr. Rockwell being a prime example--make a good living playing a barely-clothed cinematic version of themselves. This is not to say that they are completely without talent--since it takes a certain amount of talent to not shit yourself on camera, remember all your lines, draw a gaze, etc--but it is worth pointing out that there is a deep divide between a Sam Rockwell and a Daniel Day-Lewis.

There is a reason why range is such a coveted talent among actors--it implies that the person can actually act. This skill is the main reason actors get nominated for awards (most of the time) and also why Sam Rockwell was deservedly not nominated for Moon.


Aside from that, can we get into the issue with cryonic freezing? Who the hell would ever think there is a need to be in cryonic suspension for a mere three-day trip back to Earth?

I mean...the concept of freezing people for space travel exists as part of a theory of how to get the human race to other solar systems that are light-years away, so as not to require generations of space travelers to get shit done--not to go to the fucking moon.

Yet we are supposed to be affected by the fact that the clones in Moon are vaporized in a faux cryogenic chamber, killed just as they think they are going home? Spare me--ignorance is bliss...

"Oh, you're going to Africa? Well, step right into the cryogenic chamber and you'll be there before you know it!"

"Okay!"

Mind you, this might have worked if the clones were proven to be extremely stupid, but come on--they had to be programmed with a certain level of intelligence to operate an entire space station by themselves. This intelligence precludes the notion that they would be so ignorant as to blithely go along with the cryonics ruse simply because a some dude smiling on a video screen tells them it's cool.

On a related note, if the clones have an average life expectancy of three years and there are ample stocks below, why wouldn't the powers-that-be not just let them peter out and then replace them as needed? What need is there for the cryonics ruse in the first place? Based on the evidence presented, it all seems too forced.


One of the more interesting ideas in the movie--and, sadly, one that was never fully explored--is the notion that people in solitary confinement on the moon appear to have an average life expectancy of only three years, which is potentially based on the life-span of the initial, fully-human Sam Rockwell, or on the lifespan of an engineered clone...we never know.

Which means we never get to know exactly what Sam Rockwell #1 is struggling against--is he fighting a man-made life expectancy or a psychological life expectancy? If we don't know, we can't really care that much. Apparently the filmmaker didn't care about this either...in a movie about the psychology of being alone on the moon...huh.

Come to think of it, what exactly were we supposed to care about in this movie? The fate of a dying robot? I could never really climb aboard that notion, since there was nothing about Sam Rockwell that seemed endearing, relatable, or significant. He and the director seemed more concerned with the detail of the experience--the model of the town, the exercise, the programmed video messages, the sleeping--than the emotions of the affair, which is certain death for a movie that depends entirely on emotional thrust. After all, this is not an action movie--it cannot rely on explosions, danger, bravado, and tits--it needs to mine the depths of the human psyche and in that task this movie fails miserably.


If the whole point of the movie is for Sam Rockwell to escape the lunar hellhole and get back to Earth, back to loved ones, why is it that it took Sam Rockwell #2 to make Sam Rockwell #1 even think about getting home early, even think about the fact that maybe his superiors have been lying to him?

Why is it that Sam Rockwell #2 is apparnetly the first of many clones to suggest that he is a clone, only minutes after being 'born?' Why is Sam Rockwell #2 immediately savvy to everything, full of ideas, hopes and dream, etc?

Shouldn't it be the case that Sam Rockwell #2 benefits from the well-earned wisdom of a dying Sam Rockwell #1 and is ultimately able to escape and lead the rewarding life Sam Rockwell #1 desired for most of his brief life? That would seem to make sense...


Minus the whole 'life and death' element, think back to the plot of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom right now and now imagine if Short Round had to tell Indiana Jones what to do at every step of the way, had to let Indy know what was going on, and then Indiana dies and Short Round escapes.

Huh?

I know, but that is sort-of what happens in this movie. The only thing epic about this movie is its disappointment.


Dessert:

- Does it even take 3 days to get to the moon now? Wouldn't they find a way to do it even faster 200 years from now, or whatever vague futuristic period in which this movie took place?

- Why did Sam need further proof that he is a clone (ie, driving outside the scramble zone to call Earth and discover his 'daughter' is 12 years older than he thought) after he finds an entire secret room full of hundreds of clones that look exactly like him?

- Wouldn't the rescue team see the four sets of footprints in the moon-dirt (that never blows away, since there is no wind, mind you) leading to-and-from/to-and-from the crashed rover and know something was up, and then maybe check the clone inventory, realize something was up, and send a warning to Earth to be on the lookout for a clone in the fuel launch? Just sayin'...

- Note to the Director Dude: What the fuck was with that lame ending audio? You should have chosen one great, emphatic soundbite and gone with it. Let the point soak in, let the audience slowly realize/confirm what you are saying with this movie. As is, it just comes off like a bad sci-fi movie with no purpose, which in this case seems sadly appropriate...

-

From the Vault: Movie Recommendation

There is a movie called The Boondock Saints that has attained a cult-hit status among the Fast & Furious crowd (read: the male equivalent of the Made of Honor crowd) over the past few years.

Despite the fact that Willem Dafoe is in it, this movie sucks.

However, there was also a documentary made about the making of this movie that is awesome. This movie is called Overnight and you should watch it. I've already watched it 400 times and never regretted it.

The Pitch:

The writer/director of the useless turd known as The Boondock Saints is a pudgy prick named Troy Duffy. Troy was a bartender at a bar in West Hollywood who somehow managed not only to sell a script to Harvey Weinstein (of Miramax) for six-figures, but also to get his shitty band a deal to record the soundtrack. As icing on the cake, Harvey even bought the bar Troy worked in and made him a partner.

Sounds great, right?

Troy thought so, too. After he finished puffing his feathers and strutting around the mating grounds unnoticed, he told his bandmates the good news and hired two friends of his to make a documentary about how awesome he is.

All I can say is, we're all fortunate that the releases got signed while emotions were running high, because they are no longer friends yet we get to see the crash and burn in all its glory; this is a rags to riches to rags story, after all.

Rent it!


[Paid for by The Committee to Keep Harvey Weinstein Afloat For Some Reason]

_

Review In Brief: A Single Man

Dear GTC,

I finally saw A Single Man, directed by Tom Ford, and even though the projection wasn't so great at the shitty theater, I could tell the movie was pretty lush.

Too lush? It struck me as little more than a 99-minute perfume ad starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and two bad actors that play male sex objects.

More than anything, this movie made me want to be rich, so that I could not work very much but still afford a beautiful glass house in the hills--near the beach--and wear a nice watch, fine suits, expensive cologne, drive a Mercedes roadster...

Does this make me gay?

-Lost In Los Angeles

_____________________

Dear LILA,

Maybe. It depends on what sort of people you like to have sex with.

-GoodtimeCharlie

_

Funny People: A Review, an Indictment

I understand that the recent Judd Apatow movie Funny People is a drama, not a comedy. I'm okay with that. However, seeing as the drama centers on stand-up comedians, I had at least hoped the stand-up scenes would be funny.

They are not. In fact, they are mostly painful.

And let me get this straight--Adam Sandler plays a mega-millionaire comedian who decides to hire an unknown total loser (Seth Rogen), whom every single person in the movie thinks is not funny--including Sandler, to write jokes for him?

I don't get it...

Nor do I buy either of the two romances orbiting around the predictable bromance. Why exactly did Apatow's wife ever love Adam Sandler? Why does she fall for him again?

Worse than the Sandler/Apatow's Wife romance is the Seth Rogen/Nerdy Girl romance. Huh? She has no interest in him, fucks his roommate, they talk about it once, they have an awkward conversation at a party, he disappears for a few days...and then they're suddenly sitting on the hood of a Jeep Wrangler we've never seen, kissing while looking out over the city atop Runyon Canyon? Why? Because it was written in the script? Seth Rogen is still ugly, fat, horrible with girls, and possesses every single incorrect instinct one person could ever have--what makes the girl change her mind? I guess that's not important to the story...

Whatever, right? At least we have Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Rogen's buddies, to inject some much-needed comic relief into the affair. Hmmm...too bad I never laughed once at anything they ever said or did...


Don't even get me started on Seth Rogen's (and by extension, Judd Apatow's) obsession with talking about his balls. Who in God's name gives a fucking SHIT about what this guy has to say about his balls, or anybody else's balls? I GET IT--he has been obsessed with his useless penis since grade school (guess whose drawings those were in Superbad...) and when he was a teenaged stand-up comic in Canada people must have thought it was funny since he was so nerdy and fat and clearly obsessed with his dick.

Confidential to Seth Rogen: It's not funny anymore, Seth--you need to either grow up or have somebody else write you some better material.

Oye. Anyway, enough about how much this movie and Seth Rogen suck. Let's talk about the bigger issue here--Judd Apatow.

He has been hailed as a comic genius, the man who saved comedy, etc, but let us peruse the evidence before we disagree:

Freaks & Geeks (1999-2000) -- The cult-hit TV show that put him on the map. I found it boring, annoyingly ridiculous, and not funny.

Undeclared (2001-2003)-- Another TV show that wasn't any good and, like Freaks & Geeks, was canceled after about 17 episodes. He wrote and executive produced both shows, as well as directing a few episodes of each. What can we learn from this? He shouldn't have a TV show.

Luckily for him, people tend to fail upward in Hollywood--and he made it to the silver screen.


Apatow later went on to:

- Produce Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) -- Tolerable, but definitely not good

- Executive Produce Kicking and Screaming (2005) -- Awful, as is everything Noah Baumbach has made (even The Squid and the Whale was only memorable for wasting a great performance from Jeff Daniels)

- Write/Direct/Produce The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) -- Probably his best movie, but still not that good

- Write Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) -- 29% on Rotten Tomatoes

- Produce Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) -- Awful.

- Write/Direct/Produce Knocked Up (2007) -- So pointless, boring, unrealistic, and unfunny I couldn't believe this movie could be as bad as it was

- Produce Superbad (2007) -- Probably the best thing he's ever been associated with and the project he did the least amount of work on. Coincidence?

- Write and Produce Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) -- Has anyone ever said a good thing about this movie? Did anyone see this movie?

- Produce Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) -- Haven't seen this one, but it got better reviews than all the rest. Script by Jason Segel; star turn by Jason Segel; directed by Nicholas Stoller; credit to Apatow for having the magic touch!

- Produce Drillbit Taylor (2008) -- The movie that made Owen Wilson try to commit suicide. Is there anything else to say, really? My favorite reviewer's quote so far: "Aggressively bland."

- Produce Step Brothers (2008) -- 3 for 3 x2 He really has a knack for wasting John C. Reilly and producing Will Farrell's worst movies. Hmmm...

- Write You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) -- Adam Sandler's worst movie ever? And that is a very competitive category, mind you...

- Produce and Co-Write the story for Pineapple Express (2008) -- I enjoyed this the first time around, when I probably would have laughed at anything; upon second viewing, I was embarrassed for myself.

- Produce Year One (2009) -- I'd rather watch Ass: The Movie

- Write/Direct/Executive Produce Funny People -- Atrocious. And pointless.


In fact, that is the word that comes up the most when I think about Judd Apatow's movies--pointless. None of them ever warrant a second viewing, none of them ever really say anything, none of them have a compelling plot, none of them are ever really very funny.

So what, then, is the point?

Apatow has been a key player in some of the WORST movies of the last 5 years: Year One, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Funny People, Drillbit Taylor, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights...and he has 13 more projects in the pipeline, officially (including a Sherlock Holmes comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as Watson that I will not be watching).

I know some of his movies made some money, but none of them were HUGE hits. Is that really all it takes to rule Hollywood with an iron fist these days?

So sad...

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Review In Brief: Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart? Not that crazy.

Some dude named Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a touring musician who has a house, a car, a couple of good friends, an agent who returns his calls...he gets laid every night, never has to do an honest day's work...

I had to roll a joint and pour a stiff drink just to get past the first twenty minutes, in a failed attempt to imbue this movie with with some actual rollicking substance abuse. Watching Crazy Heart was kind of like listening to an acquaintance telling me about his 'wild night' in Mexico and remembering why he is merely an acquaintance.

If I were in charge--and I should have been, let's be clear about that--the movie would have opened with the vomiting scene in Houston, then introduced Robert Duvall as his hardscrabble manager (instead of his bartender/AA buddy), and gone from there, as Bad Blake slowly descended into a pit of madness, brought down to his knees by bottles of bourbon finished in one sitting, sordid sex with people's mothers and wives, and a bloodletting fistfight with Duvall that temporarily ended Bad's career.

Bad's 'feud of honor' with a miscast Colin Farrell? I didn't get it--they seemed totally fine. He offered to let Bad play with him, asked him to come on tour with him, and recorded a song of his that made Bad a heap of money. Where is the tension here?

Maggie Gyllenhaal? Awful. I loved her, once. Now she's 2 for 2, shit-wise, considering The Dark Knight's turdish performance, which I initially blamed more on the script, but now fear the blame is shared more than I would like to admit...

And not only should Not-So-Bad Blake have had to actually win her affections somehow (charm?), as opposed to merely receiving them with a humble smile as he scratches his junk and farts, but he should have died in the end, either just before or just after winning her over.

And he should have done it in an awesome way--the ink barely dry on the Last Will & Testament in the glovebox, sober, he drops a cigarette between his legs and accidentally drives off a bridge in West Virginia, isn't discovered for days.


Basically, what this movie was missing was tension. Everything was too easy, nothing was dark enough, I felt no sense of desperation, no craziness.

The writing and directing were horrendous; no surprise they were by the same dude, whose name I won't mention, who also produced. Despite Roger Ebert's assertion that this was 'an astonishing debut,' the only thing astonishing around here is that what's-his-name was able to convince T.Bone Burnett to come aboard and convince Jeff Bridges (who already passed on the script) and Robert Duvall to take part in the production of this turd.

Well, on second thought, it's not that amazing: Bridges received Executive-Producer credit, Duvall got Producer. Rest assured that both men did nothing for those titles/paychecks, so I think we all know what's going on here--they figured it would be a hit whether it deserved to be or not and they did it for the money, not the script, with Bridges assuming an Oscar nod was pretty much a lock. T.Bone not only got his own producer credit, but also made millions on album sales and nabbed himself an Oscar.

Note to the director, since I'm sure he'll be allowed to make movies in the future:

At least try to make Jeff Bridges charming if he's supposed to bed a 24 year-old who doesn't seem to care much for country music! And when country musicians have a feud, it should be some down-home, drunken, bar-brawling bullshit, okay? Or there should at least be some insults traded and maybe even some practical jokes played. The bottom line: something should happen.

'Bad Blake?' Not that bad. He didn't break a glass, punch a guy in the face, get his ass kicked, show up late...and he didn't even drink that much. Hell, I've had more than half a bottle of whiskey in a sitting and I didn't slur my speech and need to vomit. If this guy is as Bad as he should have been, he'd be putting away a bottle by the end of lunch. And he'd be getting slapped and slapping--what, is this rock-bottom for a Sunday-School crowd or is this rock-fucking-bottom?

And don't call Maggie Gyllenhaal ever again--you two are bad news.



Verdict? No Oscars, unless we're counting the one Mr. Bridges will be receiving shortly for his work as The Dude.

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The Thirteen Best Foreign Movies Ever

In the spirit of my previous effort--The Thirteen Best Movies Made in the USA--I have decided to make a similar list for foreign films. Please remember that this list comprises the entire history of foreign cinema and there is necessarily a long list of worthwhile entries that had to be omitted (such as personal favorites Breaking the Waves, The Leopard, Talk to Her, and Jules & Jim--sorry!).


8 1/2 (1961, Federico Fellini, Italy)
Fellini was a master and as hard as it was to leave La Dolce Vita and I, Vitelloni off this list, life is all about hard choices. Quite simply, this is the best portrayal of a tortured artist ever put to film. Part autobiography, part fiction, part comedy, part tragedy, 8 1/2 at once bleeds truth and fantasy. Has there ever been a more likable guy than Marcello Mastroianni? Doubtful, as he is the heart and soul of 3 of the best movies ever made...


Seduced and Abandoned (1964, Pietro Germi, Italy)
This movie bursts with life. It perfectly blends the absurdity of propriety-for-propriety's-sake face-saving Italian customs, the twisted utility of religion as a social institution in the provinces, the absurdity of the Italian legal system, and the lengths men will go to in order to quench their lust. And it's not only really funny and unpredictable, but chock-full of fine performances across the board. There is no way you can watch this movie and not fall in love with Stefania Sandrelli, who also appeared in Germi's previous masterwork, Divorce, Italian Style, alongside Marcello Mastroianni (who shines in a comedic tour de force performance for the ages).


L'Eclisse (1962, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Italy)
Although some people find Antonioni dreadfully boring, I happen to enjoy a scene that is full of such ripe silence that a small oscillating fan is able to become a veritable character, as happens in the opening stretch of my favorite of all his works, L'Eclisse. To paraphrase Jack Horner in Boogie Nights, "there's silence in life, baby" and Antonioni is one of the few who not only realizes that, but uses it expertly in the sonic landscapes of his tales of obsession and lust. I also recommend The Passenger (starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider), La Notte (another Marcello gem), and Il Grido (if you're not scared away by what is essentially a fictional documentary about working class life in a small seaside Italian village).


The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany)
Although I could list a handful of Fassbinder movies that should be on any list of the best foreign films (Martha, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and American Soldier chief among them), I decided I should limit myself to no more than one per director. As such, I chose The Marriage of Maria Braun not only because it is a fabulous, stand-alone story marvelously told, but because I think of all his movies this one perfectly encapsulates what he was often trying to say about the difficulties of life in Germany. His epic 13-episode miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz may have perfectly recreated life in the Weimar Republic between the World Wars that devastated Germany more than any other nation, but it is more than a bit long, uneven, and as unrealistic as it is beautifully and sadly realistic. As far as personal, emblematic, postwar German struggles go, The Marriage of Maria Braun is more my speed. After WWII devastates both her life and her country, Maria Braun is left with nothing save her intelligence, cunning, ambition, and sexuality. She employs all of these tools expertly in her meteoric rise from peasant to wealthy businesswoman, but then discovers that in many ways, she is no better off where she ends up--a magnificent epic from the master of melodrama (sorry, Douglas Sirk, but as much as I like you, I think the pupil outperformed his master).


The Celebration (1998, Thomas Vinterberg, Denmark)
By far the best of the Dogme95 movies, this movie is a perfect example of what I like to refer to as Chateau Films--The Rules of the Game, Gosford Park, and even The Big Chill also belong to this genre. However, unlike those films, The Celebration has the the added bonus of extreme realism (and thus believability, relatability) that renders the weighty secret hanging over the revelers that much more devastating and creates an enthralling tension too-often absent from those movies. Probably the best example ever of why you don't need a lot of money to make a great movie.


Scenes from a Marriage (1973, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden)
This beautifully tragic portrait of an ultimately doomed marriage is right up there with Fanny and Alexander as Bergman at his best, in my opinion. Sure, Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, and The Seventh Seal are good, but there is something too stark and deliberate about those for me. I enjoy the later Bergman quite a bit more, when he took that fatalistic view of humanity and clothed it in a bit more understanding, made the characters supremely relatable despite--or sometimes because of--their flaws, and didn't so much tell a story as hold a camera up as life unfolded for his characters. Of course, the same morals are there, ultimately, but they are delightfully obscured and, for that reason, carry a lot more weight for me. Chief among these late-career films is Scenes from a Marriage, which was both a television miniseries and a (much shorter) theatrical release, and explores exactly how and why a perfect marriage can still disintegrate over time.


That Obscure Object of Desire (1977, Luis Bunuel, Spain/Mexico)
Viridiana, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Tristana...Bunuel's late-career surge (all of those movies were made after he turned 60) is chock-full of captivating tales focusing on the frivolity of powerful men and the seductive power of women--whether they like it or not, in many cases. All are great movies, but I believe Bunuel finally nailed it with the last film he ever made--That Obscure Object of Desire. Blending in a bit of his earlier, more experimental work, the female lead is played by two very different women--different both in looks and comportment, symbolic of the two faces of a woman--but this is a far more straightforward film than Un Chien Andalou. Told in flashback, a man rivets an assembled audience in a train compartment with a tale of frustratingly unfulfilled lust after being seen dumping a bucket of water on a woman's head as the train pulled away from the station. That's it, but it is fun to watch. Trust me.


Murmur of the Heart (1971, Louis Malle, France)
The best coming-of-age, goddamn-I-wanna-get-laid movie ever made. Think of it as the '70s-French American Pie and then end all similarities there, as the protagonist is not just some stupid high school schlub, but rather a more intelligent, French version of Max from Rushmore. Fifteen-year-old Laurent Chevalier is tops in his class, deeply involved in every club at his posh private school, a volunteer for charity, a dreamer with a bright future, and a horny teenager yearning to be an adult like his brothers and parents. Always sumptuous, often inviting, occasionally uncomfortable, this movie is a highly enjoyable ride through adolescence among the moneyed French elite.


Masculin Feminin (1966, Jean-Luc Godard, France)
I chose this in a narrow victory over Jules et Jim for yet another French entrant simply because I enjoy this movie a lot more. The hipness in Godard's movies can sometimes be too much to take, but here it is employed to perfection--both onscreen and behind the camera. Consciously-cool characters, jarring edits, fantastic music, self-reflexive intertitles, sexy young stars, endless topical references, hilarious and/or fascinating tangents (especially the lecture on aspect ratio given to a projectionist)...it all works here in a simple tale of lust and love between two teenagers in France during the 1960s. Unlike other movies with similar subject matter, this movie is better because you are immediately aware that these characters represent man and woman, as opposed to merely players in a self-contained story; no matter who we are, or who we would like to think we are, we see a little bit of ourselves in them. Another Godard movie I recommend along the same lines is A Woman is a Woman.


Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson, Sweden)
As previously stated, I remain steadfast in my declaration of this as the best vampire movie ever made (Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre is a close second, if only due to the terrifying Klaus Kinski in the lead role). Tired of all the bullshit American vampire movies and TV shows these days? Well, sink your teeth into this charming tale of friendship, love, loneliness, and blood-thirst in frigid Sweden. The fact that it involves a child vampire who may or may not have sliced off her genitalia should only entice you more...


The Lives of Others (2007, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Germany)
The clever ploy of having a Stasi agent eavesdrop on two of the artistic heavyweights in Eastern Germany not only allows us access to both worlds--the cultural and political--but also to better see where, when, and how they overlap. A necessarily delicately told story, which mirrors the delicacy required to survive on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall, it nonetheless manages to hammer home a nuanced attack on communism, compromise, those politicians of every stripe that abuse their power, and the people who let them get away with it by staying silent. Von Donnersmarck provides an interesting answer to a difficult question: who are the real heroes of war?


La Collectionneuse (1967, Eric Rohmer, France)
As intellectual as you may find Godard, Truffaut, or Agnes Varda, Eric Rohmer blows them all out of the water--for better or worse. He made an entire movie about Pascal's stance on religion, after all--My Night at Maud's--and is therefore appropriately more obscure than the other New Wavers. Although many people are bored to tears by his movies, I am a huge fan and recommend these other efforts of his, as well: Claire's Knee, The Aviators Wife, Summer, and Pauline at the Beach. La Collectionneuse is probably my favorite of his philosophical musings on love and lust because of the delightful sexual warfare his leading man and women are engaged in throughout the entire movie--many battles are won, equally as many are lost, and ultimately they both lose because they are too proud to pretend that it meant anything. If you are interested in learning more about Eric Rohmer and his movies, check out my in-depth analysis of his career here.


Black Book (2006, Paul Verhoeven, Netherlands)
I've seen just about all of Verhoeven's movies and recommend his pre-Hollywood Dutch efforts--such as Turks Fruit (essentially the Dutch Love Story, but far better), Soldier of Orange, and The Fourth Man--in addition to his deceptively-intelligent Hollywood films: RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers. Oddly, though, it is latest effort that most impresses me. With Soldier of Orange, Verhoeven showed the world a unique and interesting Dutch viewpoint of World War II, through the story of several friends involved in the Dutch Resistance; in Black Book, he once again mines this very personal material (he lived through frequent German bombing attacks as a young boy in Amsterdam and, thus, felt the effects of the grueling war far more intimately than most filmmakers) but with greater success. Essentially, Black Book is the movie that Paul Verhoeven was not only meant to make, but has been preparing for his whole life--it is at once heartfelt, cheesy, violent, introspective, intelligent, populist, and obscure. Not too many people I know have seen this movie, but I want you to because as bold a statement as I know this is, I think it's the best movie ever made about World War II.

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The tallies:

Italy - 3
France - 3
Germany - 2
Sweden - 2
Denmark - 1
Netherlands - 1
Spain - 1

1960s - 5
1970s - 4
1980s - 0
1990s - 1
2000s - 3

As you probably noticed before the tallies made it abundantly clear, I am a man with my heart in the 1960s & 70s and not a big fan of Asian cinema (specifically Ozu and Kurosawa...no thanks!), although I don't mind a Kar Wai Wong, Chan Wook-Park, John Woo, or Zhang Yimou movie as much; don't even get me started on Bollywood.

But what can you do, right? I know what I like and I do a good job of liking it a lot.

Since narrowing down the history of foreign cinema to thirteen films is hardly an easy task, I'm sure there are many y'all think were left out. I encourage you to share your own list in the comments below.

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