We've got Kong; now give us us orangutans.
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... and Woody Allen's the guy with his foot on the pedal. I was going to link to his piece in The New Yorker, the funniest thing he's penned in years, but it's a print-only offering, so I'll just give you a taste and recommend that you pick up the Nov. 21 issue. The title is "Above the Law, Below the Box Springs".
The State Police in Amarillo are a crackerjack group, and members not only must be physically impressive but must pass a rigorous written exam. Boggs had failed the written test twice, first being unable to explicate Wittgenstein to the desk sergeant's satisfaction, then mistranslating Ovid. It was a mark of his dedication that Boggs received tutoring, and his final thesis on Jane Austen remains a classic among the motorcycle police who patrol Amarillo's highways.
Not laugh out loud funny stuff, but clever.
Folks, I'm serious. Rent's a good movie. Unironically so. And if that horrible commotion outside my window is the sound of twelve or thirteen people collectively losing faith in my critical acumen and not just my neighbors watching Something to Talk About in DTS, then so be it.
Finally, do a Google search for "Stand Up and Get Crunk". So proud.
09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
... after chatting with Bill Murray for thirty minutes last night. Sarah S. was there, as was IGN's Todd Gilchrist and a friend of his. It's common for your heroes to disappoint you when/if you finally meet them; Bill Murray was just, as RZA would say, Bill "Groundhog Day, Ghostbustin'-ass" Murray, and, because of this, the world feels a less rueful place today. I've been trying to figure out a way to lucidly recount our conversation; I may still try. I dunno. There is something quite surreal at finding yourself conversing with Bill Murray, and, for whatever reason, the first topic he seizes onto is the greatness of New York City on 9/11.
Now, off to RENT and the end of splendor.
Update: After all the pronouncements of doom, RENT is actually close to great. Somehow, Chris Columbus is the perfect director for this material, which hasn't aged badly at all. More to come on this at Collider.
05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
No director has been more shamefully mistreated by Hollywood than Joe Dante, whose ability to lace ostensibly commercial entertainments with pointed political and social satire is often completely ignored by the mongoloid masses holding forth in print and (mostly) online as "film critics". Now that, according to Dave Kehr, he's tackling the issue of the day in a forthright and characteristically grotesque manner, watch him suddenly fall back into favor with the imbeciles who couldn't realize he was cutting just as deeply with Small Soldiers or Matinee (hell, there's even intellectual merit in his much-castigated Looney Tunes feature). Dante's Masters of Horror episode will air December 2nd on Showtime, and, with the scumbag-riddled Bush Administration making a foolish last ditch effort to spin anew the lies that squandered our military might and international standing, it sounds as if it could very well raise his professional profile to a level not seen since the release of Gremlins (which will always be my favorite film from that legendary summer of 1984). Hopefully, it'll also help fan the flames currently engulfing the White House, which, if we're lucky, will keep burning until we get the "accountability moment" voters were too timid or confused to demand last year.
American film needs smarter agitators. Down with Moore, up with Dante!
01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
For my prurient readers (i.e. Mom), this has nothing to do with rough sex in conjunction with the wonderful William Friedkin flick Cruising. My apologies. Looking back over my knockabout thirty-two years, the only act of rough sex in which I've been a participant that comes close to linking up with a Friedkin movie is the time I was raped by Tree Rollins. (The great thing about this joke, aside from the fetching visual of myself bent over a rack of basketballs getting sodomized by one of the greatest shot blockers in NBA history, is that less than 1% of you a) have seen The Guardian, and b) watched Tree Rollins in his prime, so the full impact of whatever it is I've just done will most likely be lost on you. Also, as a means of clarification, I don't think Tree Rollins ever really had a prime in the traditional sense; he was a slow, physical backup center when he entered the league, and a slow, physical backup center when he finally retired at the age of eighty-seven. But, oh, what a run!)
No, the "cruising", in this case, is in reference to this troubling quote from LeBron James after last night's overtime victory in Orlando:
"I can cruise," he said with a smile. "I don't have to pressure myself to go out there and score when I've got guys like Donyell, Larry and Z."
He's right about one thing: he can cruise. He's proved that in each of the Cavaliers' first seven games in which he's jogged tentatively up-and-down the court looking for purpose or, simply, a place in Mike Brown's offensive and defensive schemes. He's getting his points, but that's the easiest part of his game; what he's not getting much of are rebounds and assists, leaving those of us who've gleefully spoke of a triple-double average somewhere down the line a bit doubtful of those Oscar Robertson-esque prospects. His confidence is gone. As of right now, the self-anointed "Chosen One" is looking a lot like an unwilling draftee.
Until today, I'd assumed he wasn't happy about this. I figured the fact that he hasn't been the go-to guy for the big basket would be eating at him, and that his all-around game would blossom anew once he figured out how to do his thing in the kinds of offensive schemes he would've learned in college and should've learned his first two years in the league had the organization hired a true x's-and-o's coach.
Unfortunately, his suddenly reduced role in the Cavaliers' half-court offense sounds like it suits him just fine. This certainly explains the alarming erosion of a commanding seventeen-point lead against the scoring-impaired Magic last night that would've resulted in a loss had Donyell Marshall not knocked down a three at the end of regulation. That the overtime period was dominated by the same two guys -- Larry Hughes and Z -- who were incapable of holding down the lead while LeBron watched on passively as an on-the-court spectator for the entire fourth quarter shouldn't be viewed as a positive. Had LeBron exerted his will, attacked the basket, and found more ways to get his teammates wide-open looks, he could've kicked back and watched the last five minutes at courtside rather than on the floor.
The conventional wisdom maintains that it will probably take until January for this team to gel, which is acceptable though not terribly comforting seeing as how every single team in the Central Division is a threat to win fifty games. The Cavs' great fortune is that they only have six games against their division rivals before the new year, three of which come in rapid succession at the tail end of December. But even though it's ridiculously early in the season, LeBron couldn't have picked a worse time to cruise. He should be busting his ass, putting that high basketball IQ to work and figuring out a way to get the system, and his teammates, to adapt to his breathtakingly brilliant style of play. Right now, they're just learning to play with a loafer. This way dissension lies.
12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I'm not much in the habit of reading The Drudge Report, which may be why I'm still prone to bursts of bookshelf rattling rage when he panders to the homophobe set by concocting stories that confirm their worst fears. Today, he's using the freshly junketed Oscar hopeful Brokeback Mountain as a means of shamelessly tethering two great hates -- Hollywood and Homos -- that spread hate great together.
Via selective reporting in the low wingnut style, Drudge only quotes some close-minded "playwright" named Sandy Dixon, who forthrightly declares that she's never met a gay cowboy, which obviously means they do not exist. Notwithstanding old girl's likely atrophied gaydar, her claim is detonated in the same Casper Star Tribune article by the International Gay Rodeo Association's Chuck Browning, who is a) a cowboy and b) gay. Drudge disingenuously elides Browning's comments in favor of highlighting Madonna's BROKEBACK seal of approval and the Wyoming Travel and Tourism Division's warning that filthy foreigners are planning to beeline to the state based on rave reviews from the "international community" (i.e. "France"), where, by the way, the film has yet to open. Way to fuel that intolerance, Matt, you self-loathing jackass.
I'll be shocked if BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN catches on outside of the top twenty markets, though there is something very GIANT in the way the film tackles its central theme head-on which might speak movingly to the (hopefully) majority of people in this country ready to move forward and accept that (cue Kevin McCarthy) they're here, they're queer, and, on occasion, they rope steer. If that happens, I welcome the resulting debate with the party of rampant bigotry, because there is no way anyone will be able to go before a camera, claim there are no gay cowboys, and not get laughed off the set.
I may elaborate on this for a Collider article, where it'll fit in nicely with the permissive Vivid girls. FYI, I'm hating myself for that Sarah Silverman headline.
12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
It's this. Because I know... He's got a built-in ability... to lay waste to everything he sees... and now it seems the end is coming, it's coming for us.
Get ready for the invisible touch of the Rapture. Bonus points to P.C. for announcing this in fucking Tel Aviv.
As for why the Creator's hand might be stayed, Dave Kehr's got a blog. And he likes THE ICE HARVEST, which I really want to love and would have seen had Focus bothered to invite me to the many press screenings I've been hearing about.
Also, posting that CREATOR link prompts the question, "What the hell happened to Ivan Passer?"
04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Top Ten
1. Tsotsi
2. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
3. The 40 Year Old Virgin
4. Last Days
5. The Constant Gardener
6. A History of Violence
7.
8. The Squid and the Whale
9. Layer Cake
10. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
The Rest of the
Really Good
Dallas 362
2046
Hostage
Good Night, and Good Luck
Up for Grabs
Brothers
Murderball
Cinderella Man
Land of the Dead
War of the Worlds
The Aristocrats
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The Dregs (In no particular order just yet)
2. The Bad News Bears
3. Cursed
4. House of D
5. The Longest Yard
6. The Skeleton Key
7. Serenity
8. Waiting
9. Stay
10. Saw II
11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)