a / v

Why I stopped blogging

2012-01-05T02:07:00.003-06:00

Hello friends. Some of you have never seen this version of my blog, which I created in July of 2009 when I just couldn't stop blabbing about every damn thing that popped into my head. I could use this space for anything I wanted, as opposed to my Daily Herald blog, which I used for ... well, anything I wanted, as it turned out.

But this blog has been dormant for just a little over two years, and my Daily Herald blog hasn't been updated since July of 2011.

In fact, the Daily Herald blog won't be updated ever again.

Last year brought a lot of changes to my job; our web staff was decimated by layoffs, which meant that all of us on the copy desk had to learn how to manage dailyherald.com. That was a harder thing than I ever imagined it would be, it consumed a lot of my time, and it added to my already epic levels of worry and stress. So blogging took a backseat.

Not long after that, we learned that our website would no longer be completely free. Parts of dailyherald.com would become "Premium Content," meaning that you couldn't even look at it without a subscription. All of the DH's blogs would fall under that label, and I could not, in good conscience, ask anyone to pay for the "privilege" of reading my blog. I barely see any movies, I don't even have cable anymore, and I'm at work when most of you are out there consuming pop culture; any reactions or insight I could provide on my blog would be coming well after the fact -- which is fine, if you're reading it here, on this free site, that doesn't pay me.

But if I'm going to write something that represents the third-largest newspaper in the state, it should be current and unfettered. My DH blog was neither of those things. So I stopped writing it.

Someone at the Herald finally noticed as much, and I decided right then and there to put it out of its misery. The worst part of it is that I'm now in the market for a new computer -- I had convinced TPTB at work to give me a company laptop early in 2011, so I could update my blog "as news happened." I actually used the laptop for that purpose for about, oh, two months. (Though I did use it to work on my actual job from home on more than a few occasions.)

Once I decided to kill the blog, I could no longer keep up the charade of needing a company laptop. (I'm typing this entry on my parents' computer. And yes, I'm also doing laundry for free in the middle of the night.) Of course, now that I'm free of the shackles of my Daily Herald blog, I feel like I can start writing again -- but now I have no computer of my own to write with. Hopefully, that will change soon.

So that's why I haven't written anything aside from tweets and FB posts since July. (Some of you probably think that's more than enough.) I plan on seeing enough movies in the next month or so to make a halfway decent Top Ten list for 2011, so maybe that will bring you back here soon.

Hope to see you then.

The worst movies of the '00s

2010-01-02T12:49:00.026-06:00

I take no pleasure in making lists such as this; every movie here was one that I actually paid to see, whether it was at the theater or in my mailbox. But I've been reading a lot of these decade roundup pieces lately, and more than a few have listed "Crash" -- my No. 2 best film of 2005, and that year's Oscar winner for best picture -- as among the worst films of the decade. People hate that movie because it's preachy and manipulative, which I believe is precisely that film's mission. (They also hate it because it won the Oscar in the year of "Brokeback Mountain," which is no reason to hate any movie. Is it "Crash's" fault that voters preferred it over the other four candidates?) I like it because it plays as a series of very well-acted, well-constructed vignettes, and at least three of those would be the best, most memorable scene in any other movie.

My point is that no movie that won an Oscar, that inspires passionate, intelligent debate, and makes everyone who sees it think about something substantial can be the worst movie of the decade. I give kudos to any movie that inspires thought and thoughtful discussion, which is why, awful as it is, you won't see Eli Roth's "Hostel: Part II" on this list, for example. (Was the movie misogynist or about conquering misogyny? I lean toward the former.)

So here are the ten worst movies I suffered through this past decade. If you can offer an impassioned defense of any of them, let's hear it!

• • •

1. "Starsky & Hutch"
(Todd Phillips, 2004)
OK, I'll admit it -- I have not seen this entire movie. But it belongs atop this list because it is literally the only movie I have ever walked out of. If you went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it, you might not know it was supposed to be a comedy until 15 or 20 minutes in -- and then you would realize that you're not laughing yet. I called it quits about halfway through when the film's big comic setpiece turned out to be virtually identical to "Zoolander's" show-stopping dance-off. The difference, of course, is that "Zoolander" was hilarious. So I got up and walked across the hall, where the Riders of Rohan were about to charge the Orcs at Minas Tirith. I think I made the right choice.

• • •

2. "21" (Robert Luketic, 2008)
The first of three films starring Kevin Spacey that appear on this list, and he plays a teacher in all of them. Hmm. There are so many reasons to hate "21," starting with the decision to turn the Asian protagonists of the real-life story it's based on into white kids (with token Asian friends, of course). Then there's the painful, insulting narration from star Jim Sturgess, which "helpfully" explains everything we are looking at, ostensibly because we're too fucking stupid to follow them movin' pictures. The film's worst sin is going to great lengths to explain how card-counters arrive at "The Count" -- a number telling players how many high-value cards are left in the shoe -- without actually explaining what it is or how they use it to their advantage. What a spectacularly inept film, with another absurd, showy performance from Spacey, who has been squandering his considerable talents for ten years now.

• • •

3. "The Devil's Rejects"
(Rob Zombie, 2005)
In the era of "torture porn," no film was as disgusting, humorless and just plain worthless as this sequel to Zombie's "House of 1,000 Corpses." Zombie's heroes are a depraved family of hillbilly serial killers, which would be fine if anything in this film had the hint of irony or satire. I found nothing funny about a scene where a woman is forced to wear her husband's face over her own, moments before she is splattered across the highway by a semi. It's not scary either, which is the point of a horror film, yes? The final scene, in which the killers are canonized by Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" while the cops gun them down, is execrable.

• • •

4. "Pay it Forward" (Mimi Leder, 2000)
Appearance No. 2 for Spacey, who plays a deformed teacher who finds love with Helen Hunt's cocktail waitress in this Las Vegas fairy tale about a magical boy who inadvertently starts a national trend of kindness. Naturally, he's knifed to death by a Latino stereotype at the end of the movie. (And I laughed, laughed, and laughed some more.) A respected TV director who delivered solid action films in "The Peacemaker" and "Deep Impact," Leder killed her feature-film career with this sappy head-slapper. All it's missing is a whisper from above: "If you kill him, they will come ..."

• • •

5. "Loser" (Amy Heckerling, 2000)
This came dangerously close to being the first movie I ever walked out of, but Holly insisted we stay. Wrong decision. There is not a single genuine moment in this entire film, which all but ensured Jason Biggs would never have a hit outside of the "American Pie" franchise. It doesn't help that the de facto villain of the piece is played by Zak Orth, who must be one of the most loathsome actors working today. (An unfair prejudice? Perhaps, but I'm all about honesty when writing about films.) The only good thing to come out of this movie was the music video for Wheatus's "Teenage Dirtbag."

• • •

6. "Vacancy" (Nimrod Antal, 2007)
At one point in this trapped-in-a-motel-room thriller, Luke Wilson goes outside to use the phone booth. A car speeds directly toward him. He runs out of the phone booth and gets back in the room just as the car plows into the side of the motel. What's the first thing out of wife Kate Beckinsale's mouth? "Did you get anyone on the phone?" Yes, this is another one of those films whose plots depend on everyone in the story being a complete idiot, and Wilson and Beckinsale are perfectly cast, that's for sure.

• • •

7. "Date Movie" (Aaron Seltzer, 2006)
Thankfully, this is the only one of the post-"Scary Movie" parody flicks I've seen. I'm sure if I had seen "Epic Movie," "Meet the Spartans," "Disaster Movie" or "Superhero Movie," they would all appear on this list somewhere. Painfully inept, unfunny, and made for about a buck and a half, "Date Movie's" worst sin is wasting its beautiful and talented star, Alyson Hannigan. We're not through with these awful cash-ins; 2010 brings us "The 40-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It." Yes, that's an actual movie.

• • •

8. "The Life of David Gale"
(Alan Parker, 2003)
The last of Kevin Spacey's trilogy of terror pretends to be an "important" movie about the death penalty, but winds up being a cheap, gotcha thriller that insults the audience and those on both sides of the real-life debate. The outcome of the movie depends on reporter Bitsey Bloom -- yes, Bitsey fucking Bloom -- getting a videotape to the courthouse in time to save the title character's life. But guess what? Her car breaks down! What a joke.

• • •

9. "Battlefield Earth"
(Roger Donaldson, 2000)
An obvious inclusion, I know, but it cannot be ignored. It's hard to pick the film's single worst attribute: the ugly production design? The grotesque makeup? The endless cavalcade of dutch angles? The idiotic screenplay? John Travolta's performance? Forest Whitaker's performance?

• • •

10. "Nim's Island"
(Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin, 2008)
Or "Product Placement: The Movie." When Jodie Foster looks back at her long, storied career, this will be the one she will block out of her mind -- the one where half her dialogue consisted of unnecessarily using brand names. Her character in this children's fantasy is obsessed with Purell hand-sanitizer and Progresso soup, and never lets us forget it. She also helpfully explains that she booked a flight on Expedia. I quote from my Daily Herald blog to fully demonstrate just how shameless this movie is:

"Foster's very first scene shows her children's author run out of hand sanitizer. She calls a pharmacy. 'Hello. Do you have PURELL? How many bottles? I'll take them all.' A delivery boy comes by. 'Just leave them on the stoop! I paid with a MASTERCARD!' She goops up her hands and sits at her APPLE computer, when she lets a phone call go to answering machine. It's her publisher, who says, 'I can just picture you there, alone in your apartment, eating your PROGRESSO soup...' An absolutely masterful shot then shows Jodie's PANASONIC phone with a caller ID readout: RANDOM HOUSE, her character's publisher, and, naturally, the publisher of 'Nim's Island,' the hit book by Wendy Orr!"

• • •

So there you have it. Avoid those ten films at all costs. What are your worst of the last ten years?

Let's go to the movies

2009-12-18T17:31:00.013-06:00

There is an abundance of great films playing in your local theater. Disney's hand-drawn "The Princess and the Frog" is a bright, warm and funny return to form. Clint Eastwood's "Invictus" works as a history lesson and as a truly inspiring sports movie. Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" lives up to its name, and its director's body of work. Roland Emmerich's "2012" is self-aware, expertly made cheese. And of course there is the usual parade of Oscar hopefuls, led by "Precious."

But everyone who loves movies needs to see "Avatar" and "Up in the Air."

They're an unlikely pair, but these two films taken together gave me everything I go to the movies for. One is as beautiful and shocking a spectacle as we've ever seen, the other is a perfectly drawn, insightful character study. They are two of the best movies of the year.

I'll spare you the back story on "Avatar" because A) you've heard it a million times already and B) you can read it a million times more in every other article about it. So I'll cut right to it: He did it. That magnificent bastard did it.

James Cameron spent all that money and took all those years to make this movie, and the effort is all up there on the screen. Other filmmakers have created dense, detailed alien worlds with new creatures and fantastic vistas and so on, but none of them feel real. Pandora does, not just because Cameron's legion of animators have seamlessly blended their work with live-action footage -- at least, I think there's live-action footage in there. But I can't tell, which means they did their job -- but also because Cameron actually understands how 3D should be used.

Even now, most films use 3D just to goose the audience by making them think something is flying at them. Oooh! Ahhh! But Cameron uses 3D to completely immerse the audience in his world, and there were moments where I just plain forgot I was watching a movie and felt like I was there, and that there were too many things to take in all at once.

Now, these kinds of hyperbolic statements have been made by many, many, many people about many, many, many movies, but they are actually true about this one. I have to believe this immersive effect was Cameron's main objective and motivation for making "Avatar," and he has succeeded. For the first time, a commercially released 3D film is as dazzling as the kind of 3D or 4D attractions you see at Disneyland or Universal Studios -- and it is sustained for 160 minutes.

There are long stretches of "Avatar" where every shot is straight-up unbelievable, whether it's the Na'vi natives flying amongst their planet's floating mountains atop irridescent dragons, or the literally jaw-dropping final battle sequence.

As you've probably guessed, the story and the characters can't live up to the world that Cameron has created. As he proved with "Titanic," you don't reinvent the narrative wheel when you're making the most expensive movie ever made -- "Avatar" is every bit as reminiscent of "Dances With Wolves" as you've guessed, and the dialogue is mostly pedestrian. (Sadly, James Horner's score is also pretty bland.) The only character that really leaves an impression is the Na'vi huntress Neytiri.

But what an impression. Actress Zoe Saldana and Cameron's techies turn a 10-foot-tall blue cat into a living, breathing and, yes, sexy woman. The facial animation is shocking, particularly the mouth, the teeth and, most importantly, the eyes. Eyes are the hardest things for animators to bring to life, as proven by "The Polar Express" and "Final Fantasy." In "Avatar," the actors don't get lost under the technology (especially Sigourney Weaver, whose blue avatar is unmistakably hers), and Saldana can probably call herself the queen of motion-capture acting alongside king Andy Serkis, who played both Gollum and Kong for Peter Jackson.

But the star of the film is James Cameron. If you hate going to see movies just for the spectacle, this is the movie you make the exception for, because there's no way this experience will ever be replicated at home. (I know, I know, 3D TVs are coming. But those TVs aren't 30 feet tall, are they?) You may have to pay $14 to see "Avatar" in 3D, depending on where you go; it will be worth every penny. (Just don't sit too close to the screen, because you might get some double vision from the 3D glasses. Sit about halfway up the stadium seats, or halfway back in the auditorium.)

"Up in the Air isn't much of a spectacle; there are some shots from high above America's big cities that are pretty spectacular, but we've all seen those from the window of an airplane. But "Up in the Air" does have something "Avatar" does not: A terrific screenplay.

Jason Reitman's third film is about a "termination facilitator," a lifelong business traveler who basically lives in Hilton hotels and American Airlines jets. Those two corporations' logos are all over this movie, and it would be easy to accuse it of blatant product placement, but their ubiquity is part of the film's effectiveness: everything about Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is corporate, even his de facto home.

"Up in the Air" is a perfect film to come along at the end of this decade. Any film about air travel will undoubtedly conjure up memories of 9/11, and the film hits us right away with Bingham's security-line routine. Many of us have either been fired or know someone who has been fired in recent years, so we can identify with both sides of one of Bingham's terminations. How can you tell someone that their lives are about to be upended? And how can you be expected to accept such news?

The film ultimately becomes the story of how the perpetually disconnected Bingham gradually tries to reconnect, whether it's with the young grad who wants to make his firings more impersonal with a Web chat system, the ridiculously gorgeous kindred spirit who falls into his bed when their paths cross, or the family back in Wisconsin who barely know who he is anymore. Bingham's ultimate destination may seem obvious, but this film does not fall into obvious Hollywood conventions.

Sean Tuohey said he couldn't sleep because he was thinking about it all night. I think it will have that effect on a lot of people who see more of themselves in Ryan Bingham than they'd like to admit. It's not that Bingham is a bad person, it's that he doesn't live the life he wants, or that everyone else thinks he should want. And just when he thinks he's got it all figured out, the game changes.

He's a complicated, human character, the kind that classic movies are built around -- and "Up in the Air," with its thoughtful observances on modern America, is going to be a classic movie, make no mistake. Of all the great films I've seen this year, this seems like the one that will be sticking with us, the one we'll keep coming back to.

Reitman has to be considered one of the great directors now, making films that defy categorization and convention. He already has a reliable stable of collaborators -- Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons and Sam Elliott all make return appearances here -- and clearly gets the best out of all his actors. Clooney is guaranteed an Oscar nomination, and co-stars Anna Kendrick (the young grad) and Vera Farmiga (the gorgeous kindred spirit) probably have them coming, too.

"Up in the Air" should be depressing, but the more I think about it the more I find it reassuring: Yes, we all feel this lonely. Yes, we all make mistakes. And yes, there is reason to keep going.

Try a double feature this weekend. You won't regret it.

10 Years, 10 Performances

2009-12-01T05:24:00.010-06:00

In October, I attempted to rank my 100 favorite movies of the last 10 years, and now I'll attempt to single out the ten performances that impressed me the most from those ten years. Ten are much, much easier to come up with 100; on my films list, I completely forgot about one of the most underrated, underseen films in recent memory ("Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"), and omitted a movie that would almost certainly be in the top 10 or 15 had I seen it before this past Saturday ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).

I know I'm prone to lists, but hey, who doesn't like reading a list? So here they are, in alphabetical order. (Some of them are pretty obvious, I realize ...)

• • •

Amy Adams as Princess Giselle, "Enchanted"

How did Adams go from obscurity to ubiquity? By completely throwing herself into the role of a Disney cartoon princess brought to life by an evil stepmother's spell. She has a joy of performance in "Enchanted" that elevates what could have been a very slight, very forgettable film; her performance is anything but. (Of course, the combination of Disney and comedy killed her chances at Oscar time.)

• • •

Bjork as Selma Jezkova, "Dancer in the Dark"

SPOILER WARNING: This is the final scene of the film

A performance so devastating that Bjork vowed never to act again, thanks in large part to director Lars Von Trier's demanding methods. Aside from the musical sequences, the film is shot cinema verite style with handheld cameras, and Bjork appropriately never seems to be acting. It supports my belief that Bjork is one of those genius artists who would excel in any medium she worked in.

• • •

Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius, "Gladiator"

Best quality I could find, I'm afraid...

The epitome of a star-making performance, and Crowe even won the Oscar for it. He had the bulk and the menace to sell the action scenes, but he also brought gravitas to the gladiator's tragic personal story. His scenes with Richard Harris are particularly touching, as is the finale in which his wife beckons him to the afterlife.

• • •

Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, "There Will Be Blood"

Well, duh.

• • •

Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"

Perhaps the most iconic character of the last ten years, Capt. Jack made a pop classic out of a movie that seemed ludicrous in concept. Separated from the hype, none of the three films holds up -- they're all too long, too complicated, and just too much -- but Depp's work will be remembered by generations of kids (from 8 to 80).

• • •

Dakota Fanning as Pita Ramos and Denzel Washington as John Creasy, "Man on Fire"

OK, I'm cheating a little bit by counting these two performance as one, but this really is the most unexpectedly wonderful on-screen pairing. Amid Tony Scott's frantic, exploitive film, these two actors quickly form a relationship so real that it truly hurts when Pita is kidnapped about 40 minutes into the film. The final scene on the bridge is heartbreaking, between Fanning's all-or-nothing performance and Washington's quiet resignation as she runs toward him.

• • •

Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, "Cast Away"

Tom Hanks' co-star in this movie is a volleyball. And the movie is tremendous. Enough said.

• • •

Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"

For me, the success of the entire "LOTR" trilogy hinges on this one performance. Gandalf is as much our guide and father figure as he is Frodo's, and we can think of no better reason to make the journey than to make him proud.

• • •

Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo, "Kill Bill Vol. 2"

I believe this is what you call a "tour de force." Uma does it all in the second part of Tarantino's martial arts opus: she's a lover, a fighter, a mother, a student and, of course, a rampaging fireball of revenge.

• • •

Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa, "Inglourious Basterds"

Maybe Tarantino's greatest contribution to American cinema was bringing this German actor to our attention. Waltz dominates the screen in a film populated by bigger-than-life actors and ideas. His Col. Landa is creepy, yes, but also strangely endearing -- a particularly bitter pill for the audience to swallow, seeing as he's a Nazi. The film toys with our notions of good and evil and with WWII history, and Waltz's sick grin might as well be pointed at us.

Not with a whimper, but with a bang

2009-11-30T00:57:00.005-06:00

I'm not gonna lie: I enjoyed the hell out of Roland Emmerich's "2012," the latest bit of disaster porn from the same man who brought us "Independence Day," "The Day After Tomorrow" and the execrable 1998 remake of "Godzilla." Emmerich has become a bit of a joke amongst film buffs -- he probably rates thismuchlower than Michael Bay on the hate-o-meter -- but the movie lover in me has to admire his seemingly endless quest to perfect a formula that Irwin Allen probably thought he perfected back in the 1970s. (Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle says it better than I can.)

What sets "2012" apart, aside from its downright brilliant CGI sequences, is the sense that everyone in the movie is in on the joke. Emmerich knows how ridiculous it is for him to make another disaster movie, so he pushes the genre as far as it can go by destroying the entire goddamn world. You get the airplane escape and the White House destruction from "Independence Day"; the shadowy government plan from "Deep Impact"; Michael Bay's casual attitude toward the killing of millions of people; seafaring and underwater adventures from "Titanic" and "Poseidon"; the towering fireballs of "Dante's Peak"; and the ham-handed racial harmony message from "Volcano."

And it works because Emmerich has populated his film with really good actors who all understand the mission at hand. It's an entire movie full of people winking at the audience while they're winking at the audience -- the one-liners are so corny, they parody themselves.

Consider the scene inside the supermarket, where Tom McCarthy's doctor tells his would-be wife, Amanda Peet, that he feels like "something is coming between us." Just then, a crack opens up in the supermarket floor right between the couple while they hold hands. Emmerich and his co-writer (and composer), Harald Kloser, couldn't have thought that was a genuinely funny line, and neither can Peet and McCarthy. But we laugh anyway, because it's so clearly not funny that it becomes funny again.

The whole movie is like that, a cheerful send-up of an entire genre. We should be horrified by a lot of the images in "2012," but we're so astounded by their audacity that all we can do is giggle. The sequence made famous in the commercials, in which limo driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) outruns a series of earthquakes in Los Angeles, is awe-inspiring on the big screen. Ten minutes race by in a blink, and look as if they must have cost about a billion dollars to achieve.

The full cut of this sequence, seen in the theater, is as exciting as anything I've seen all year.

But somehow the actors win the battle against the visual effects. Cusack, whom you could reasonably assume would phone it in for a movie like this, is as engaging as ever, particularly in the few scenes he shares with Woody Harrelson.

Ah, Woody Harrelson. It's so easy to forget about him! But then he shows up and hit another home run, first in "Zombieland" and again in "2012," where he rehashes Randy Quaid's conspiracy nut from "ID4," only with a bigger helping of crazy. I defy anyone to see Harrelson's performance here and tell me "2012" takes itself seriously.

This scene is a clever nod to "Titanic," in which old Rose is shown an animated simulation of the boat's sinking.

Is "2012" better than "Independence Day"? Oh, surely not. Few popcorn movies could ever hope to be as fun and funny as that, and no one here has the star power of Will Smith or Jeff Goldblum. But it does feel like the nail in a genre's demise; what else is there left for Emmerich to destroy? Heaven and Hell?!??

I Heart Peyton Manning

2009-11-16T17:02:00.005-06:00

Who am I? I'm Sean Stangland. And some days I have a man-crush on Peyton Manning.

Sunday was one of those days, for reasons obvious to any NFL fan. Sure, we could say that Patriots coach Bill Belichick was the true MVP of that game for deciding to go for it on 4th and 2 with a 6-point lead, but Peyton still had to drive the ball into the endzone -- which he did, with more than a little help from Reggie Wayne. If Peyton is Football Jesus, Reggie is Assistant Football Jesus. (Or is that Assistant to the Football Jesus?

But even before Indianapolis cemented a 35-34 victory over New England, Peyton was all over our TV, pitching Sony products with a cartoon-eyed Justin Timberlake and the virtual cast of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." He's always entertaining in commercials, which is probably why he does so damn many of them. That Oreo campaign with him and brother Eli was hilarious.

Then of course there was his excellent stint on "SNL" a few years ago:

Peyton outclassed every sports hero that ever hosted "SNL," from Joe Montana to Derek Jeter to Michael Phelps. I'd even say he was a better host than "SNL" favorite Dwayne "The Rock" Johnston, who may not exactly qualify as a sports figure.

Peyton Manning strikes me as one of those people who would excel at anything. Would you be surprised if he had a good singing voice, too? (Well ... yeah.) I am interested to see what he'll do when his playing days are over; he is far too talented and likable to be relegated to the broadcast booth or the ESPN "analyst" chair -- unless, of course, he would insist on actually analyzing the game and not just parroting the company lines. (What a concept!) He's a natural in front of the camera, and I could see him having a successful acting career on television. Could he be a movie star? Probably not, but crazier things have happened.

Of course, the NFL would probably be best served by Manning becoming a head coach. He's practically a player-coach right now, isn't he? Tom Brady may have the GQ looks, the supermodel girlfriend and the championship dynasty, but I defy you to find me a better leader in all of sports than Peyton Manning. The way things are looking so far this season, a dynasty of his own is only a few big wins away.

You think the Colts will take Cutler for him, straight up?

For Your Consideration: "Star Trek"

2009-11-15T23:11:00.005-06:00

The plot is rubbish, and seems strangely incomplete, as if certain problems couldn't be fixed because of the writers strike. Some of the jokes just plain don't work. The villain is woefully underdeveloped, and the actor playing him seems to be giving at least three different performances. And those lens flares, while cool-looking, do get to be a bit much.

But despite all that, "Star Trek" is one of the year's best movies.

It arrives on Blu-ray and DVD this week, and I plan on watching it approximately 11 billion times in the next few weeks. And mind you, this is a film I've already seen seven times in the theater and once through ... alternative channels. My initial review was very positive, but not over the moon.

Well, I'm over the moon now.

So much of "Star Trek" works so well that you can forgive its shortcomings, even if those include the plot itself. It seems like so few entertainments this year have actually entertained -- "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" left me numb, "Up" and "Where the Wild Things Are" were surprisingly melancholy, and "Terminator: Salvation" was depressing in so many ways. But "Star Trek" just puts a big damn smile on my face.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about "Star Trek" is that no one came out of it talking about the visual effects -- they talked about how much they liked the characters and, by association, the actors. They talked about how funny it was. They talked about how much fun they had while watching it.

Those actors were perfectly chosen by director J.J. Abrams and pals. Even Karl Urban and Anton Yelchin, whose takes on Bones and Chekhov seemed too jokey and imitative the first time around, won me over on subsequent viewing.

But Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto so perfectly embody their characters that one is inclined to say they are better than the originals. Pine's Capt. Kirk is far more playful than William Shatner's incarnation, and Quinto's Spock brings a brooding danger that Leonard Nimoy never had. Part of this can be obviously attributed to the fact that Pine and Quinto are playing younger versions of these icons than Shatner and Nimoy did, but these new versions seem so much fuller, and more real.

The whole world created in Abrams' "Trek" feels real, so real that seeing the actors break character on the gag reel that's been making the rounds online is truly jarring. "Star Trek" draws you in completely -- you do not see actors on a set, you see Starfleet officers on a starship.

So perhaps people not talking about the visual effects is the highest compliment that could ever be paid to the film's VFX team; they are so seamless that you never bother to look for the strings, in a manner of speaking. Even the falling effects in the space jump sequence -- the hardest thing to fake, if you ask me -- look great.

And then there's the music. Regular readers must be tired of me gabbing on and on about Michael Giacchino, so all I'll say is this: listen to the cues called "Enterprising Young Men" and "Labor of Love".

With ten best picture nominees on Oscar's slate this year, there is a real chance "Star Trek" could sneak in. Can it beat "The Hurt Locker," "Invictus" or "Up in the Air"? Um, no. But a film this universally loved deserves a spot on the not-so-short list.

So, though no one who actually votes for the Oscars is reading this, I submit "Star Trek" for your consideration in the following categories:

Best Picture
Best Original Score
Best Actor (Zachary Quinto)
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound
Best Sound Effects Editing
Best Happy Fun Time At The Theater
Best Green-Skinned Babe
Best First Ten Minutes of Any Movie, Ever

Caught in a bad romance

2009-11-13T22:38:00.007-06:00

As my Facebook and Twitter feeds can attest, I love the new Lady Gaga video, "Bad Romance." I've watched the video, directed by Francis Lawrence, at least 20 times since it debuted online Tuesday. Whenever I do watch it, I can't watch it just once. It is one of the most exciting pieces of filmmaking I've seen all year, for reasons both intellectual and primitive.

It utilizes only one set: a completely white room with a grid ceiling. One immediately thinks of the room Dave finds himself in at the end of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and the Kubrickian imagery doesn't end there. (One could reasonably assume that the orgy scene from "Eyes Wide Shut" has inspired half of Gaga's eccentric wardrobe.) The song itself references another great director, Hitchcock, with lyrics ol' Alfred certainly never dreamed of. ("I want your Psycho / Your Vertigo stick / When your in my Rear Window, baby it's sick")

The number of cultural references I see (or at least think I see) in this five-minute clip is astounding. Gaga herself is like some otherworldly amalgam of Madonna, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Prince and Grace Jones, and the video contains images that remind us of "Alien," "Where the Wild Things Are," the "Thriller" video, the "Black Hole Sun" video, "The Fifth Element," Amy Winehouse, "Taken," and even the old Sega game "Space Channel 5." (Check out the outfit at 3:32.) Then there are the product placements so obvious that one has to laugh: Heartbeats earbuds, Parrot sound systems, Nemiroff vodka, and even the Nintendo Wii (2:43). Gaga herself becomes some kind of faux product placement, between the "Bath Haus of Gaga" (0:28) and the symbol for her new album stenciled on her cryogenic coffin -- or whatever that is. Throw in a hairless cat and a bat headdress for good measure, and hang all of this on a non-linear plot in which Gaga's beauty apparently causes a Russian gangster to burst into flames.

But of course none of this visual stimulation works without the woman herself. Many can't accept Gaga as a sexual being: She looks odd, and she wears weird outfits, so she must have a penis. Anyone who says that and means it is either hopelessly juvenile or happy to go along with the joke for the sake of conversation. All I know is that, in this video, Gaga acts as if she is the end-all, be-all of the female gender, and who am I to argue with her? She is stunning in "Bad Romance," particularly in her tearful close-ups, and in the Leeloo Dallas-meets-Victoria's Secret get-up she wears in the final dance sequence. The choreography ranges from elegant to ridiculous, which serves Gaga perfectly; she seems to be leading a dirty, sexy, dangerous army at 2:46, and writhes like a newborn animal at 0:49. In an era when we've all been desensitized to suggestive music videos, Gaga makes us stand at attention.

Who can remember the last time I (or anyone else, for that matter) paid this much attention, this much reverence to a music video? Was it Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt"? A Spike Jonze/Bjork collaboration? Either way, it's nice that the medium has found a small bit of relevance again, thanks to pop music's indisputable champion; if there's a more fascinating figure in pop right now, I'd like to know who it is.

Man, am I gonna embarrass myself at this concert in January.

The Movie of the Decade

2009-10-05T23:02:00.018-05:00

"A.I."
• Written and directed by Steven Spielberg
• Starring Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Sam Robards, William Hurt, and Brendan Gleeson; with the voices of Jack Angel, Ben Kingsley, Robin Williams and Meryl Streep
• Released June 21, 2001

Stanley Kubrick died March 7, 1999, just four months before his final directorial effort, "Eyes Wide Shut," was released to theaters. He didn't live to see the 21st century and, consequently, the year 2001, which is an awful shame. Kubrick's work often seemed ahead of its time, even when it was telling stories about the present.

"A.I." was so far ahead of our time that even Kubrick failed to bring it to fruition. Based upon a short story by Brian Aldiss, "A.I." required visual effects that no one thought possible until Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" appeared in 1993. And even then, Kubrick felt that Spielberg himself would be a better director for the project, that it was more attuned to his sensibilities. By this, I imagine Kubrick simply meant that Steven could work better with children and visual effects, for the subject matter was certainly no lighter than what Kubrick was accustomed to.

So Spielberg did direct "A.I.," and adapted the screenplay himself from a screen story by Ian Watson. The result is his darkest and arguably most daring film, and one that began the most interesting string of films in his legendary career.

There's no use in dancing around it, so let's cut right to it: That third act. It has become de rigueur to criticize how Spielberg ends his films, and seemingly everyone hates the ending of "A.I." Many people still think the beings David (Haley Joel Osment) encounters at the end of the film are aliens, when they are clearly advanced mechas -- robots, just like him. They are identical in form to the statue we see at the Cybertronics building where David was built, the one David draws from memory for his "mother," Monica (Frances O'Connor).

Another common misconception is that Kubrick intended the film to end with David trapped at the bottom of the sea, staring into the face of the blue fairy statue that he thinks will make him a real boy. Spielberg has insisted this isn't the case, that the third act was there all along, but he has never helped his case by explaining the intentions behind that third act. Spielberg has never recorded a DVD commentary, and doesn't tell the audience what he thinks they should get out of the movie.

But audiences know what they think they should get out of a Spielberg movie, and that leads to the biggest misconception of them all: that "A.I." has a sappy, happy ending. John Williams' score -- which until the end is ominous and mechanical, not unlike something Philip Glass might write -- certainly does nothing to discourage such an idea. But I find the ending of "A.I.," in which the future mecha resurrect Monica for one perfect day of happiness with David before both go to sleep forever, to be as emotionally, psychologically and existentially devastating as any I've seen.

And here's why.

Monica never loved David. Most of the time she feared David. Upon first viewing, it's easy to identify with Monica and her husband, Henry (Sam Robards), because we are more than a little afraid of David ourselves. But none of David's actions come from a place of malice -- his intentions are pure, and direct: he wants Monica to love him. Any accidents along the way are just that.

Would a mother who loved her son abandon him in the woods? Monica cries when she does just that to David, but one gets the sense she's more horrified with the idea of what she's doing than with the consequences. After all, he's just a robot. A toy. (And a toy who emptied her last bottle of Chanel No. 5, at that.) The crowd at the Flesh Fair, where robots are destroyed for entertainment, is more forgiving than David's mother.

When the future mechas discover David, the de facto leader (voiced by Ben Kingsley) explicitly tells his counterparts to "give him what he wants." And so David is given a fantasy in which the animated statue of the blue fairy (voiced by Meryl Streep) grants him his day with Monica, who is no longer the self-absorbed, materialistic person we saw in the first act. The mechas have created a Monica that is every bit as fictional as the blue fairy, a pipe dream that provides David with closure and happiness just before his "death." The suggestion is that it doesn't matter if David's happiness was false; at least he "died" happy.

There is a parallel here that should be obvious to an atheist -- the blue fairy and the resurrected Monica are fictions, just as God is fiction. We are fed the lie that there is a benevolent being who loves us despite all our faults, and who will protect us as long as we return that love. If that is indeed a lie, it is perhaps the most cruel, and it is the same lie that David believed. And perhaps that is what ultimately humanizes him, what ultimately forces the tear from his robotic eye in the final scene. David has finally abandoned his last scrap of rationality and become just as irrational and stupid as any human.

That's pretty grim stuff. While Spielberg's sometimes-horrifying war films offer hope and belief in the human spirit, "A.I." offers tragedy, and posits that even humanity's capacity for love can be used for evil. It has far more in common with "A Clockwork Orange" than "E.T."

Aside from the film's existential ruminations, "A.I." is of course a technically perfect movie, with seamless visuals and a CGI character that has few equals. (I'm referring, of course, to David's companion Teddy, who may be even creepier than David.) The second act, in which David learns about the outside world from the sexbot Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), draws us deeper into David's personal mystery. For a while, we actually believe in the blue fairy, which I suppose is entirely the point. The "Pinocchio" parallel is pushed to the limit in the Rouge City sequence, where David the puppet visits Dr. Know (voiced by Robin Williams), a holographic search engine that looks and sounds like a cross between Einstein and Geppetto, and seems to have been plucked from Epcot Center.

The seeds of "A.I." can be seen in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," my favorite of Spielberg's films, which was released in 1977. Steven's fascination with "Pinocchio" is all over that film, from Roy Neary's (Richard Dreyfuss) enthusiasm for it in the beginning of the film, to John Williams' repurposing of "When You Wish Upon a Star" at the end. "Close Encounters" is all about a man abandoning everything to follow his dream, and he achieves it; by the time Spielberg made "A.I.," perhaps he realized that the dream doesn't exist.

If you fall into the "'A.I.' sucks" camp, which I suspect most of you do, I implore you to watch it again, and to truly see it through David's eyes, not through the eyes of a filmgoer who expects Steven Spielberg to give you another happy ending.

I truly believe "A.I." is the best film of this past decade, a criticism of the human condition disguised as a feel-good, special effects extravaganza. I seriously doubt that the Steven Spielberg who last gave us "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" will ever top it.

• • •

Did you miss the rest of the 10 Years, 100 Movies series? Start here and work backward. Thanks to all for reading, and I really hope this list, while full of popular films, leads you to reconsider, rewatch and re-enjoy some of the great movies of the past 10 years.

10 Years, 100 Movies: Part 5 (10-2)

2009-10-05T22:49:00.033-05:00

Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2
Click here for Part 3
Click here for Part 4

• • •

We're in the home stretch now. I'm planning to write a full essay on the winner, which will probably require another viewing and a lot of hemming and hawing, so you can expect the final entry by next Saturday (I hope).

This list, I must admit, hasn't offered a great deal of variety; there are multiple entries from both Andersons, Ridley Scott, Peter Jackson, Sam Mendes, Pixar and of course Steven Spielberg. But it is an honest list, albeit one that would probably be laughable to the likes of Walter Chaw and Jeffrey Wells. (Not to mention Kyle Thiessen, who will probably give me a punchin' next time I see him.)

So here are the nine runners-up to the crown, each with extended commentary:

• • •

10. "WALL•E" (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

I've gone on and on about this movie since it came out last June, and a recent viewing proves it hasn't lost any of its power or surprise. "WALL•E" is so many things we think an animated film cannot be, but it also excels at the things Disney is known for; the Axiom, the giant spaceship where the second half of the film is set, feels like the Imagineers' wildest dream of a Disneyland attraction.

The only downside to "WALL•E" is how high the bar is now set. "Up" was a very good film, yes, but descended into cliche in the third act. Next year's "Toy Story 3" will undoubtedly be an entertaining visit with some old friends, but it's not likely to be about anything. And "Cars 2"? Please. But science-fiction may be Pixar's best friend: I am eagerly awaiting Stanton's upcoming adaptation of "John Carter of Mars," which will reportedly incorporate live-action footage.

• • •

9. "The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King"
(Peter Jackson, 2003)

The longest third act in movie history gives "Rings" fans one emotional payoff after another. My mom and my sisters tear up when Aragorn tells the hobbits, "You bow to no one." My dad gets caught up in the Annie Lennox song that plays over the illustrated end credits. I lose it when Sam finds the strength that Frodo cannot: "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you!"

But for all of its visual splendor, no battle, no digital landscape, no grotesque character can match the spectacle of the short sequence in which the beacons between Rohan and Minas Tirith are lit. Watch it here.

• • •

8. "Atonement" (Joe Wright, 2007)

I stayed far, far away from this movie for as long as I could. Wright's adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice" nearly put me to sleep when I saw it on an airplane, Keira Knightley is interminable when she's not in a pirate movie, and it just looked like "The English Patient" all over again. (A good movie, but would you ever watch it again?)

The day after the Oscars, where "Atonement" was awarded the prize for Dario Marianelli's score, Jackie and I saw Knightley's co-star, James McAvoy, at Santa Monica Pier. Perhaps taking this as a sign, we went to see the film that night.

It begins with the sound of a typewriter. As young Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) finishes composing her first play, the typewriter continues, becoming an instrument in Marianelli's orchestra. Briony bounces about the house, looking for her sister Cecilia (Knightley), accompanied by a whirling, portentous melody on piano and cello. When we find Cecilia, she is in the midst of an uncomfortable confrontation with the groundskeeper (McAvoy), seething with tension. The scene is shown twice, once from Briony's perspective, and again from a neutral one, and it quickly becomes clear that it is Briony, not the young lovers, who this film is really about. In ten minutes, the film subverted every expectation I had for it, and had my full attention from then on.

The most unexpected thing about "Atonement" is how rewarding it is on repeat viewings; how much of what happened was real, and how much was Briony's invention? I haven't read Ian McEwen's book, and perhaps it is more clear, but I almost don't want to read it because part of the film's power lies in that uncertainty. As someone with mounting regret and an increasing desire to do it all over again, I am fascinated by Briony and her situation.

As I'm writing this, my iPod has shuffled its way to Marianelli's score. He deserved that Oscar.

• • •

7. "Inglourious Basterds"
(Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

Too soon? Probably. But it feels so right. I don't have much to add to my original review, except to say that Christoph Waltz shouldn't be the only actor winning acclaim for his work here. How about Dennis Menochet, who plays the doomed Monsieur La Padite? Or Diane Kruger, whose roles in the "National Treasure" films couldn't have prepared us for her subtle work as the German movie star in the tavern standoff? Or Michael Fassbender, whose scene with Mike Myers might actually be the funniest in the entire film?

• • •

6. "Dancer in the Dark"
(Lars Von Trier, 2000)

Here we have a film conceived by a notoriously arrogant avant-garde filmmaker, starring someone who had never acted in a film before, telling the most melodramatic story possible, and shot on washed-out video by camera operators who can't seem to stand still. And it works.

"Dancer in the Dark" follows a Czech immigrant (Bjork) in 1950s Washington state who continues to work in a factory even though she's going blind; she needs the money, you see, for her son, who can have surgery that will ensure he won't suffer his mother's fate. But the tragic story gets even worse when the next-door neighbor (David Morse) steals the money. When Selma catches him in the act, he asks her to kill him with his gun. She does, and prison awaits.

But Selma takes solace in her fantasies, depicted as bright, colorful musical sequences (with original songs by Bjork) that Von Trier shot with 100 fixed cameras all rolling simultaneously.

This film is divisive. Some think it's a subversive work of genius. Others find it to be pointless, manipulative, and/or anti-American. I think it's experimental cinema of the best kind, marrying a time-tested genre to a completely different school of thought. And no matter your opinion, you have to admire the once-in-a-lifetime performance from Bjork, who never once seems to be acting while making the most of her child-like beauty.

And you certainly won't forget the ending.

• • •

5. "Gladiator" (Ridley Scott, 2000)

Lars Von Trier probably joined many others in laughing when this film won the best picture Oscar. A hoary sword and sandal epic? A bloated, bloody blockbuster? A mere entertainment? But entertained we were, by a director who had fallen out of the cinematic conscious for a while.

In 2000, I did not name this the best film of the year; Von Trier's film and the Coens' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" were ahead of it on my list. But I keep coming back to "Gladiator," not only because it is extremely entertaining, but because it is an incredibly rich experience, with all departments performing at the highest level.

I've gabbed on and on about Hans Zimmer's score for "Gladiator," so I won't bore you with that again. Perhaps the most surprising thing about "Gladiator" is its script, which is credited to David Franzoni, John Logan and William Nicholson, but was actually forged by Scott, his producers, and seemingly everyone else who worked in a major capacity on the film. Producer Walter Parkes, who earlier co-wrote the screenplay for 1983's "WarGames," explains the arduous re-writing on the extended edition DVD with unusual candor, and it's amazing to think that such a script would be coherent, let alone a classic.

The words wouldn't work without Scott's vision, which is gorgeous as always, or the career-defining performances by Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen and Oliver Reed. If we are to believe the bearded, bonkers Phoenix when he says he'll never act again, his portrayal of Emperor Commodus will be his legacy: quietly menacing, though severely wounded, with the threat (or is it the residue?) of an incestual relationship with Lucilla (Nielsen) lying under the surface.

Of course, it's all secondary to the music.

• • •

4. "The Lord of the Rings:
The Fellowship of the Ring"
(Peter Jackson, 2001)

I didn't like this film the first time I saw it. It might even be fair to say I hated it. I thought I was getting an action spectacular, not three hours of running and crying in a sweltering hot theater.

But then I saw it again, under better circumstances, and with the right frame of mind. And I liked it a lot more. And then I saw it again. And again. And again.

I saw "Fellowship of the Ring" seven times at various theaters, loving it more and more with each viewing. And though "Two Towers" is more exciting, and "Return of the King" provides the considerable emotional payoff, "Fellowship" is the one film of the trilogy that could (almost) stand alone. After the fellowship breaks at Amon Hen, and Sam and Frodo begin their march toward Mount Doom, you are left with such hope that you just know all of your new friends will succeed.

For all the trilogy's technological, mechanical and stylistic triumphs, nothing is more important to its success than Ian McKellen's performance in "Fellowship." It's so effortless that it's easily forgotten; we aren't looking at Ian McKellen, the great Shakespearean actor, we are looking at Gandalf the Grey. The character evolves into a warrior in the subsequent chapters, but in "Fellowship" he is a warm mentor, more of a grandfather figure than a leader. We can't imagine making the journey without him, and it is tragic indeed when he "dies" in the depths of Moria.

Thank you, Peter Jackson, for giving us three motion pictures worthy of being called "The Trilogy." George Lucas certainly didn't. (Well, not in this decade.)

• • •

3. "There Will Be Blood"
(Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

It's one of the greatest performances ever, isn't it? You could pretty much tell that from the trailer. Daniel Day-Lewis is definitely the main attraction of "There Will Be Blood," but not even a performance that large, that dominating can wrestle the movie away from a director like P.T. Anderson, whose earlier triumphs ("Magnolia," "Boogie Nights," "Punch-Drunk Love") gave us no hint he would make a film like this.

Most choose to call Daniel Plainview a villain: he manipulates the people of Little Boston; torments the local preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano); kills a man in cold blood; shuns his deaf son, H.W.; and seems to spin totally out of control. But it's possible that Plainview is Anderson's satirical American hero, a singularly selfish man who values money over everything else, and who even manages to, in a sense, kill God, in spectacular fashion. (It occurs to me that "Capitalism: A Love Story" could have been a great alternate title.)

There has been a lot of argument over whether the final scene is supposed to be funny. The IMDB message boards exploded when the film came out, with the faux-snobs bashing anyone who dared laugh. It's not supposed to be funny! This is a serious, serious movie! HURRRRR! Well, I'm one of those faux-snobs, and let me tell you: I think the last scene of the movie is hilarious, and anyone who doubts that must not know a whole lot about Paul Thomas Anderson. You mean to tell me we're not supposed to laugh at the milkshake exchange? (A similar argument is to be had about Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road," which I found to be darkly funny, and one of the best films of 2008. But many don't understand how anybody could laugh at that film. But I digress.)

Here's another argument we could have: Which iconic performance from the '00s is best, Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood," or Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean"? Discuss.

• • •

2. "Zodiac" (David Fincher, 2007)

Robert Graysmith's entire life was consumed by needing to know the identity of California's notorious Zodiac Killer. His pursuit of the truth damaged his relationships, lost him his job, and may have even come close to killing him. His obsession with finding a man that may be unfindable -- knowing a truth that is unknowable -- is the real subject of "Zodiac," Fincher's best and most engrossing film.

When I got the film on DVD, I watched it pretty much every night for two weeks. Fincher and his actors got me so caught up in the obsession that I started to take it on. I wanted to solve this thing, dammit! Never mind how impossible that is, given the "facts" presented in the film. (And the facts are, apparently, shaky throughout.)

While the crimes were horrible, there have been far more insidious, deadly serial killers; what makes the Zodiac stand out is the all-encompassing dread he inspired, and that comes through in the film, especially in that scene where Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) finds himself alone in a dark basement with a man (Charles Fleischer) who just might be the killer ... and then footsteps are heard from the kitchen above.

Another of "Zodiac's" achievements is the seamless use of CGI to turn 21st century California into 1970s California. The effects are truly in service to the story, and most of them are completely unnoticeable. Early on, when Det. Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) investigates the scene of a cab driver's murder, digital landscapes are used in every direction, augmenting the period work of the production and costume designers. Fincher also uses a few of his trademark impossible camera moves, such as a shot that follows the taxi from above.

"Zodiac" transcends the genres it appears to be a part of. It is not a by-the-numbers police procedural, a killer thriller, a biopic or a period piece. It feels like it is happening to you -- the threat is real, and it's destroying lives in so many ways. It's not the stylistic kaleidoscope that "Fight Club" was, and it lacks the gothic elegance of "Seven." But I'd say it's certainly Fincher's best, most epic film, and one of the most engrossing I've ever seen.

• • •

Coming soon (hopefully): The Movie of the Decade
(post your guesses below)

10 Years, 100 Movies: Part 4 (25-11)

2009-10-05T22:33:00.024-05:00

Click here for Part 1
Click here for Part 2
Click here for Part 3

• • •

25. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (Michel Gondry, 2004)
There are moments of true genius in this twisted romance that suggests you can't kill love, even if you erase it from memory. I saw this film twice when it played in theaters, and those are the only two times I've been able to watch it -- it has proven to be too emotional, too painful an experience for many reasons, but no less wonderful.

24. "The Incredibles" (Brad Bird, 2004)
An animated film ostensibly made for children dares to suggest that not all kids are special little snowflakes? And Disney released it? That's just one reason to love what is almost certainly the best superhero movie ever, not to mention the best James Bond movie ever. (Hey, it features a jazzy, horn-laden score, a villain who lives in a volcano, and tons of gadgets. If this isn't a James Bond movie, then my name ain't Nathan Arizona.)

23. "Donnie Darko" (Richard Kelly, 2001)
22. "In Bruges" (Martin McDonagh, 2008)

21. "Catch Me If You Can" (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
This is Spielberg's most entertaining effort from a decade in which most of his films were serious and/or grim (even his "light comedy" invoked the spectre of 9/11). One has to wonder how much credit he can actually take; how hard is it to make a movie when you've got a great script (courtesy of Jeff Nathanson) performed by Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams and Martin Sheen? My sister likes to call this "as close to a perfect movie as I've seen," and though I have issues with the rather anti-climactic ending, I share her enthusiasm.

20. "Kill Bill, Vol. 2" (Quentin Tarantino, 2004)
19. "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (Joel Coen, 2000)
18. "The Departed" (Martin Scorsese, 2006)

17. "Ocean's Eleven" (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)
Why? The dialogue:
• "I owe you from the thing with the guy in the place." / "It was our pleasure." / "I had never been to Belize!"
• "Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ... ever."
• "They might as well call it 'whitejack'!"
• "He'll kill ya, then he'll go to work on ya."
• "You have lovely hands. Do you moisturize?"
• "Check it out ... all reds!"
• "You could ask him." / "Hey, I could ask him."
• "Ted Nugent called, he wants his shirt back."

16. "The Fountain" (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)
A misunderstood, mini-masterpiece that stretches across three timelines and owes more than a little debt to "2001: A Space Odyssey." The closing moments can best be described as orgasmic, as death, birth and rebirth collide in reality, fiction, and dream. Originally conceived as a big-budget tentpole starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, "The Fountain" was scaled back by the studio, but Aronofsky's imagination was not; he even achieved the film's stunning visuals on a shoestring without the benefit of CGI. Clint Mansell's hypnotic score is as vital to the movie's success as anything else.

15. "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" (Peter Weir, 2003)
Released in the same season as the final chapter of the "Lord of the Rings" saga (and the same year as the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" flick), "Master and Commander" seems to have fallen off the map. Such a shame, for such a meticulously detailed, beautifully constructed sea adventure. It doesn't have Johnny Depp mugging for the camera, but it does have another of Russell Crowe's great performances, particularly in his stirring speech to the young crew near the end: "England is under threat of invasion, and though we be on the far side of the world, this ship is our home. This ship is England."

14. "The Aviator" (Martin Scorsese, 2004)
13. "Revolutionary Road" (Sam Mendes, 2008)

12. "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" (Peter Jackson, 2002)
With the constant barrage of CGI, we are rarely honestly amazed by something on screen -- Gollum was truly amazing. So are the Ents, marching on Isengard. And so, for that matter, is the rest of the second part of the "Rings" trilogy, which introduces us to Rohan and its king, Theoden (Bernard Hill). The battles lack the emotional punches of those in the first and last installments, but "Two Towers" is the darkest, creepiest of the three, a harbinger of the horrors to come for Frodo and Sam, and Aragorn's band of warriors. The extended version, available on DVD, is a richer experience, but not essential.

11. "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (Judd Apatow, 2005)
Time for more hyperbole: Is this the funniest sex comedy of all time? I'm inclined to say yes, though I realize it has plenty of stiff competition (ho, ho). Apatow will have a tough time matching the laugh quotient of this, his directorial debut, and the film that began Steve Carell's run of multimedia omnipresence. Crude as the film can be, the concept could have lent itself to an even cruder film; casting Catherine Keener as a smart, warm counterpart for Carell was a smart move, and makes the film so much more than it would have been in less capable hands.

• • •

Coming soon:
Part 5 (10-2)
Part 6 (The Movie of the Decade)

10 Years, 100 Movies: Part 3 (50-26)

2009-10-05T21:48:00.020-05:00

Click here for Part 1; click here for Part 2.

• • •

50. "Moulin Rouge!" (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
When it first hit theaters, this film's critical and popular success was a mystery to me; how did a movie this flat-out insane connect with so many people? But in the age of the iPod, where singles and ringtones reign over albums, the popularity of Luhrmann's schizophrenic carnival makes sense, delivering short bursts of musical gratification. Sadly, eight years have passed and we're still waiting for Ewan McGregor to make another good movie.

49. "King Kong" (Peter Jackson, 2005)
The success of "Lord of the Rings" gave Jackson the license to do whatever he wanted, and he wanted to make a three-hour epic about a giant ape. It suffers on the small screen, but "Kong" has few parallels as a big-screen spectacle, thanks to peerless character animation by Weta Digital. The most impressive feat, though, belongs to Naomi Watts -- she actually sells a "romance" between her character and a giant ape. (And it's a giant ape who isn't really there, to boot.) The (in)famous scene of Kong and Watts spinning on the Central Park ice was absurd to some, but pure magic for me.

48. "The Royal Tenenbaums" (Wes Anderson, 2001)
47. "Cast Away" (Robert Zemeckis, 2000)
46. "Finding Nemo" (Andrew Stanton, 2003)
45. "Crash" (Paul Haggis, 2005)
44. "Road to Perdition" (Sam Mendes, 2002)
43. "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (Tim Burton, 2007)

42. "Oldboy" (Chan-wook Park, 2003)
The most brutal of the decade's many revenge films, "Oldboy" begins as a mystery: Who kidnapped Korean businessman Oh Dae-su, held him prisoner for 15 years in a dingy hotel room, then suddenly let him go? The path to the answer is caked in blood, and the protagonist's discovery leads to another, more horrifying one.

41. "Bowling for Columbine" (Michael Moore, 2002)

40. "Untitled" (Cameron Crowe, 2000; "Almost Famous" director's cut)
When I saw "Almost Famous" in the theater, I found it extremely underwhelming; what was everyone fawning over? And why was that woman from Rolling Stone such a bitch? But the director's cut -- which is apparently no longer available on DVD -- was a revelation. The 30 minutes Crowe put back into the film made it feel shorter, amazingly. The characters, Penny Lane in particular, are more fleshed out, and the story just feels much more complete. There are other films on this list whose extended versions are as good as or better than the theatrical versions ("Zodiac," the "Lord of the Rings" films), but this is the only one where the director's cut is absolutely essential.

39. "Ratatouille" (Brad Bird, 2007)
38. "Juno" (Jason Reitman, 2007)
37. "Letters From Iwo Jima" (Clint Eastwood, 2006)

36. "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" (Adam McKay, 2004)
I saw this with an absolutely raucous midnight crowd at the Streets of Woodfield, the kind of crowd that can convince you a comedy is far, far funnier than it actually is. But over the years, "Anchorman" has more than proven its worth, as it still makes just about everyone I know laugh. (And it's one of the few films that no one seems tired of quoting ad nauseum.) This movie vaulted Will Ferrell into superstardom, took Steve Carell's career to the next level, cemented Paul Rudd's path and gave Christina Applegate her best chance to shine -- it is her performance, upon repeat viewings, that really stands out.

35. "The Ring" (Gore Verbinski, 2002)
A far scarier and more artful film than its Japanese predecessor, "The Ring" should be laughable on its face: watching a creepy videotape will kill you! But Verbinski ramps up the atmosphere of dread, and the film succeeds within the set of rules it creates, building to that fabulous moment when Samara walks out of the TV set. When "The Ring" ends, we want more -- unfortunately, the sequel violated that set of rules, and was just as silly as the original could (or should?) have been. (One also has to wonder how the film would have played with the original ending intact.)

34. "I Heart Huckabees" (David O. Russell, 2002)
33. "School of Rock" (Richard Linklater, 2003)
32. "Minority Report" (Steven Spielberg, 2002)
31. "The Dark Knight" (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
30. "25th Hour" (Spike Lee, 2002)
29. "Requiem For a Dream" (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
28. "V for Vendetta" (James McTeigue, 2006)

27. "Dawn of the Dead" (Zack Snyder, 2004)
The remake dreaded by every horror fan in the world turned out to be one hell of a movie, better in many respects than George Romero's subversive, exceedingly gory original. James Gunn's often-ingenious script is the framework for an uncommonly good action movie with uncommonly good dialogue and acting, the latter courtesy of Sarah Polley, Jake Weber and Ty Burrell. The distinct color palette that Snyder brought later to "300" and "Watchmen" is present here, but this film is more active, more alive than those loftier films.

26. "Man on Fire" (Tony Scott, 2004)
Ugly, brutal and exploitative, it would seem to be hard to make a case for "Man on Fire" as anything but a guilty pleasure. But it has a haunting quality that takes it to another level. Scott's frenetic, borderline-masturbatory camera techniques actually make sense here -- and that's a big part of why the film works so well -- but its success ultimately falls to Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, who are able to craft an indelible on-screen duo in a very short time. When Fanning's Pita Ramos is kidnapped about 45 minutes into the film, it hurts. We want Creasy Bear to do whatever it takes to get her back. And so he does, but ultimately at a terrible cost. I think it's safe to assume that Ridley's brother will never make a better film than this.

• • •

Coming soon:
Part 4: 25-11
Part 5: 10-2
Part 6: The Movie of the Decade

10 Years, 100 Movies: Part 2 (75-51)

2009-10-05T16:52:00.020-05:00

The countdown of my top 100 movies of the '00s continues. (Read Part 1 by clicking here.)

Part 2 finds me feeling like I have to defend many of my choices; most of the little capsules you'll read here are for films that many of you probably don't like very much. There's a one-two punch here involving Jackie Chan and Tom Cruise that even I find a little embarrassing ... but at least I'm honest.

• • •

75. "Black Hawk Down" (Ridley Scott, 2001)
74. "Memento" (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
73. "Cloverfield" (Matt Reeves, 2008)

72. "Proof" (John Madden, 2005)
Largely written off as a talky bore, I find this adaptation of the David Auburn play fascinating, thanks to its acting ensemble. Gwyneth Paltrow gives perhaps her career-best performance as the daughter of a math genius who may be a misunderstood genius herself. In a bit of casting so perfect you can't believe anyone hadn't thought of it before, Hope Davis plays Gwyneth's controlling sister, and their relationship stirs amid flashbacks to the now-dead genius, played by -- who else? -- Anthony Hopkins.

71. "Grindhouse" (Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino, 2007)
Separated for DVD, the two features that comprise "Grindhouse" work so much better in their original theatrical form, complete with trailers for phony films by Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright and Eli Roth. So few of us got to experience this in the theater, but man, are we a happy little group. Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" is the goopy, silly crowd-pleaser, and QT's "Death Proof" is more of a slow burn, building to a car-chase finale that is so unexpectedly real in the CGI age. (Take that, "Fast & Furious.")

70. "No Country For Old Men" (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007)
69. "Shattered Glass" (Billy Ray, 2003)

68. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (David Yates, 2007)
I thought "Half-Blood Prince" was better when I first saw it, but "Order of the Phoenix" is the "Harry Potter" film that stays with me. It doesn't have the dark elegance of Alfonso Cuaron's "Prisoner of Azkaban," but it does tell the most cohesive, adult story of the series. The kids really are grown up now, forming Dumbledore's Army to subvert the oppression inflicted by Dolores Umbridge and the Ministry of Magic. The climactic scenes within the ministry's walls are tragic and spectacular, much like the characters themselves.

67. "A Mighty Wind" (Christopher Guest, 2003)
This send-up of folk music was the first of Guest's mockumentaries that didn't seem to hate its "subjects," and the result may not be his funniest film, but certainly his best. Many of the songs, written by Guest and his usual repertory company, are good enough to transcend parody, particularly those performed by Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as the film's central characters, Mitch and Mickey. Levy and O'Hara have been working together for a long time, and their real affections for each other come through in a film that, despite some biting humor, feels like a warm hug from some of your favorite funny people.

66. "Hot Fuzz" (Edgar Wright, 2007)
65. "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" (Wes Anderson, 2004)
64. "A Prairie Home Companion" (Robert Altman, 2006)
63. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Ang Lee, 2000)

62. "Away We Go" (Sam Mendes, 2009)
John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph impress in this dramedy about a couple who are unhappy with their lot in life and travel the country looking for a suitable place to raise their impending child. The conclusion the couple comes to won't surprise anyone in the audience, but the journey will, with its alternating moments of hilarity and honesty. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, with small turns from Jim Gaffigan, Allison Janney, Melanie Lynskey, Jeff Daniels and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

61. "Brokeback Mountain" (Ang Lee, 2005)
60. "Notes on a Scandal" (Richard Eyre, 2006)

59. "Shanghai Knights" (David Dobkin, 2003)
Yes, "Shanghai Knights," the sequel to an underwhelming kung-fu Western starring Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, charts higher than "Brokeback Mountain," "No Country For Old Men" and other bits of Oscar bait. What can I say? It makes me laugh. Hard. And it's probably the only American film aside from Tarantino's "Kill Bill" saga that really gets Chinese martial arts movies. Unlike Brett Ratner's "Rush Hour" flicks, "Shanghai Knights" lets Chan do action scenes his way -- and that means very long sequences that tell little stories of their own, and which sometimes owe more to Gene Kelly than Bruce Lee. (Chan explicity acknowledges as much in a fight involving umbrellas.) The script, by "Smallville" show-runners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, is gleefully anachronistic, which suits Wilson's surfer-dude mentality just fine.

58. "War of the Worlds" (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
The first of Uncle Stevie's movies about terrorism is more potent than "Munich," even though it shuns reality in favor of remaking H.G. Wells' famous story about an alien invasion. Moviegoers blinded by their fresh hatred of Tom Cruise only saw what they thought was a total cop-out of an ending; I saw a truly terrifying movie that was the first to capture the feeling I felt on 9/11 -- remember the scene of Cruise looking in the mirror and seeing his face covered in the dusty remains of his neighbors? I get the chills just thinking about it.

57. "Kill Bill, Vol. 1" (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
56. "Star Trek" (J.J. Abrams, 2009)
55. "Monsters Inc." (Pete Docter, 2001)

54. "Signs" (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002)
Yes, it is silly for an alien race to invade a planet covered in the substance that kills them. Yes, M. Night Shyamalan is more than a little enamored of himself. And yes, Mel Gibson is out of his mind. But none of that changes how effective "Signs" is at entertaining an audience, either by scaring us, making us laugh, or, in one scene around the dinner table that might be Gibson's best ever, making us cry. The facts of the invasion may not hold water, as it were, but this is not really a movie about aliens -- it's a movie about regaining your faith, not only in your religion but also in people. All things considered, this is Shyamalan's best film. (And the intense, Hitchcockian score by Shyamalan's constant collaborator, James Newton Howard, is a big reason why.)

53. "United 93" (Paul Greengrass, 2006)
52. "Punch-Drunk Love" (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
51. "Amelie" (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

• • •

Coming soon:
Part 3: 50-26
Part 4: 25-11
Part 5: 10-2
Part 6: The Movie of the Decade

This is not a review of "Zombieland"

2009-10-02T23:19:00.002-05:00

Post rated R for foul fucking language

This is not a true review because I don't think I can give an accurate, reasoned opinion of "Zombieland right now because I wasn't totally in the movie. I was far too distracted by the motherfucker sitting to my right.

Look, I'm all for being enthusiastic at the movies. I have clapped before, during and after movies. I laugh loud when warranted (although I often bring my Sox cap with me to the theater to cover my mouth, lest I get a bit too carried away). I sometimes get so caught up in a great movie that I make a quick, quiet comment to the person(s) I'm seeing it with.

But the fucker sitting next to me at the AMC 30 tonight was basically doing play-by-play for his girlfriend and, by my estimation, my row, the row behind me and the entire floor full of seats. "OH LOOK THEY FOUND GUNS!" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH LOOK AT THAT HUMMER!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH IT'S A FUCKING CLOWN!"

And then he started telegraphing jokes. It's bad enough that the entire audience can see an obvious joke coming, buddy, we don't need you to loudly warn us and then laugh at how "smart" you were. Jesus Christ. The only thing I can compare this to is my first viewing of "Good Will Hunting" at the AMC Randhurst, where I first encountered a play-by-play moviegoer. His shining moment came after Matt Damon asked the douche how he liked dem apples: "OH I GET IT! THAT'S FUNNY!"

His reactions were so loud, so over-the-top that I started wondering if he was a studio plant, put in a big theater to help convince the crowd around him how good the movie is. If so, it didn't fucking work for me.

Yes, "Zombieland" has big laughs. The first ten minutes are damn near perfect, as Jesse Eisenberg's loner gives us a zombie survival primer. ("Rule No. 1: Cardio ... the fatties were the first to go.") The opening credits show super-slo-mo scenes from the zombie apocalypse scored to Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." That got me pretty revved up, as you might imagine.

But the rest of the movie just sort of ambles along, and comes to a dead stop about 35 minutes in -- not a good sign for a movie that only runs 81 minutes. Then, halfway through the film, comes a much-buzzed-about scene that's so funny that I dare not say anything more -- everyone else has already said too much, even Roger Ebert.

But it's all downhill from there, leading to a climactic zombie showdown at an amusement park that, I'm guessing, was actually Disneyland in the script. (There's really no other reason to call the movie "Zombieland," so I'm just assuming ...)

I probably would have enjoyed all of this much more if it weren't for the amateur Joe Buck sitting next to me ... but even without him, I still would have been put off by the film's seemingly endless product placements. The most annoying are for the movie studio itself: In the film, the Graumann's Chinese is showing "2012," coming this fall from Sony Pictures! That's about as shameless as it gets.

But in fairness to "Zombieland" and director Ruben Fleischer, I will hold off final judgment on this zomedy until I see it again in more ideal conditions. I hate to sound like a broken record, but CAN'T YOU FUCKING PEOPLE LEARN HOW TO PROPERLY BEHAVE AT A MOVIE THEATER?!?!?!

OK, I feel better now. Ahhhh.

10 Years, 100 Movies: Part 1 (100-76)

2009-10-01T02:06:00.027-05:00

Yes, I actually attempted to rank the top 100 movies of the decade. It's a little early, I guess, but it will probably take me until at least March 2010 to see all the "important" films of 2009, and would you be interested in reading this list then? I'm omitting films that come out between now and Dec. 31, but I'd want to let those films "breathe," as it were, before I attempted to place them on such a list anyway. (That being said, a few films from 2009 will appear here, and one of them will even crack the top ten.)

These are not what I think are the best films of the past ten years -- I haven't seen nearly enough films to proclaim such a thing. But neither are they necessarily my favorite, as no list of favorites would ever include something as grueling as, say, "Requiem for a Dream."

This list will be some kind of strange hybrid of quality and endearment. That will explain how something like "Shanghai Knights" can appear on the list, not to mention the film that clocks in at No. 100.

So let's get started. Here are the first 25, with commentary on selected titles. Enjoy.

• • •

100. "The Phantom of the Opera" (Joel Schumacher, 2004)
I reserved the last spot on this list for a movie that I know doesn't belong on any best list. Schumacher's "Phantom" was almost universally loathed by critics, and he proves he knows almost nothing about directing a musical or the art of lip-synching, but if you love Andrew Lloyd Webber's songs like I do, then you'll ... accept this movie, which I have. Gerard Butler isn't anyone's ideal Phantom, but he does throw himself into the part; Emmy Rossum's porcelain beauty is the main reason to watch the film, which looks resplendent despite its obvious shortcomings. A guilty pleasure, if ever there was one.

99. "Fantasia/2000" (multiple directors, 2000)
98. "The Terminal" (Steven Spielberg, 2004)
97. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (Alfonso Cuaron, 2004)

96. "You Can Count on Me" (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)
A touching, real family chronicle starring Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo (his breakout performance) as siblings who find themselves living together on the precipice of middle-age. This film has been largely forgotten, and deserves a home in your Netflix queue.

95. "Bandits" (Barry Levinson, 2001)
I'm not gonna lie: Cate Blanchett's beauty has a lot to do with why I like this movie so much. But it's also a criminally underrated caper (yeah, that was a bad pun) with perfect performances from Blanchett and Billy Bob Thornton. We've never really met characters like the two they play, and the scenes where they and fellow ne'er-do-well Bruce Willis politely kidnap their "victims" are uniquely entertaining.

94. "Snatch" (Guy Ritchie, 2000)
93. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (Guillermo Del Toro, 2008)
92. "Chicago" (Rob Marshall, 2002)
91. "Whale Rider" (Niki Caro, 2002)
90. "Milk" (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
89. "Love Actually" (Richard Curtis, 2003)

88. "Touching the Void" (Kevin Macdonald, 2003)
Part documentary, part re-enactment, "Touching the Void" tells the harrowing story of two men who attempt to climb all 21,000 feet of Siula Grande. Getting up the mountain is easy; coming down, however, turns into an absolutely grueling experience for both men. One of the pair has to make the wrenching decision to cut the other loose -- and both survive.

87. "Finding Neverland" (Marc Forster, 2004)
86. "Watchmen" (Zack Snyder, 2009)
85. "Lost in Translation" (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
84. "Capturing the Friedmans" (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)

83. "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)
Mitchell plays the title role in this glam-rock musical about sexual identity that boasts infectious songs by Stephen Trask and a brutally funny script. Mitchell, who in drag looks shockingly similar to Rachel Griffiths, creates a character that feels authentic in a fantastic, over-the-top universe.

82. "Hannibal" (Ridley Scott, 2001)
Regarded as a morbid curiosity upon its release, "Hannibal" has aged very well. Scott takes Thomas Harris's simply ridiculous follow-up to "Silence of the Lambs" and runs with it, crafting a grim opera of gore that is sometimes funny, sometimes repulsive but never, ever boring. As a true sequel to "Lambs," it fails; but it succeeds as self-parody, a concession that the reprehensible villain has the audience's rooting interest.

81. "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (Kevin Smith, 2008)
80. "Little Children" (Todd Field, 2006)
79. "Traffic" (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
78. "Shaun of the Dead" (Edgar Wright, 2004)

77. "Dear Zachary: A Letter From a Father to a Son" (Kurt Kuenne, 2008)
Kuenne made this devastating documentary about the death of his best friend, who was destroyed by a mentally unstable girlfriend. It's constructed like a thriller, with Kuenne playing the part of detective and his friend's parents providing the emotional core; some found this manipulative, but the film's structure helps deliver a gut-punch of an ending that will stay with you. This film was partially funded by MSNBC, which runs it from time to time.

76. "The Darjeeling Limited" (Wes Anderson, 2007)
Yes, it's another voyage into Daddy Issues Land, but "Darjeeling" is Wes Anderson's most beautiful film, thanks to the Indian vistas and the ingenious set design (much of the film's action is shot on a real steam train). I'm pretty sure if you turn the color and the brightness all the way up on your HDTV, this film will burn your retinas with its multi-hued goodness.

• • •

Coming soon:
Part 2: 75-51
Part 3: 50-26
Part 4: 25-11
Part 5: 10-2
Part 6: The Movie of the Decade

Five years after the crash

2009-09-21T18:56:00.003-05:00

It has already been five years.

Five years since a mysterious tragedy that led to a miraculous discovery, a global controversy and an even larger, more disturbing mystery.

On Sept. 22, 2004, Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 left Sydney for Los Angeles at 2:15 p.m., Australia time, carrying 324 passengers and crew. Six hours into the flight, all contact with the Boeing 777 was lost -- never to be re-established. Everyone on board was presumed to have died in a crash, likely into the Indian Ocean. This air tragedy, which claimed many American lives, came 3 years and 11 days after the horrifying 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Coming up empty, the airline called off the search for the fallen plane after a few weeks, angering many of the victims' families. One of Oceanic's own employees, an IT technician named Sam Thomas, gained notoriety with his own Web campaign urging the airline to resume the search; his girlfriend was among the passengers on the plane.

But Thomas wouldn't have to wait long for answers.

Two months after the crash, a salvage ship off the coast of Bali discovered the wreckage of Flight 815 in the Indian Ocean's Sunda Trench, 2,800 miles northwest of Sydney. Footage of the wreckage captured by ROV vehicles, not unlike those made famous in the opening scenes of James Cameron's "Titanic," was broadcast around the world. Some news outlets, perhaps emboldened in a way by the horrors of 9/11, went so far as to show the body of the plane's pilot, Seth Norris, frozen at the helm of the craft. We would later learn that among the plane's cargo was the body of a Los Angeles doctor who died in Sydney, granted a burial at sea along with the rest of the flight's unfortunate souls.

The discovery of the plane seemed to be the end of the story; surely, no one could have survived the impact, let alone the subsequent plunge down a 5-mile-deep trench. Families suffered through funerals for their loved ones, memorial funds were established, and President George W. Bush delivered a moving address at Los Angeles International Airport alongside John Howard, then the prime minister of Australia. Many credit that speech with delivering the final blow to John Kerry's unsuccessful bid for the presidency that November. One of the quirkier tributes to the victims came from, of all places, the Boston Red Sox: Among Oceanic 815's victims was Charlie Pace, bass player for British one-hit wonders DriveShaft. The team adopted "You All Everybody" as its victory song in a playoff run that ended with Boston's first World Series title in 86 years.

But then, inevitably, came the 815 "Truth" movement, an offshoot of the conspiracy theories that still threaten to defile our memories of the 9/11 attacks. An Oceanic pilot named Frank Lapidus made headlines for claiming the pilot shown at the bottom of the trench couldn't be Seth Norris -- the body wasn't wearing a wedding band, and Norris, he insisted, would never be caught dead without it. Many so-called experts said Oceanic's account of what happened made no sense, that the plane shouldn't have been that far off course when it crashed. A Manhattanite claimed his neighbor, mother to Oceanic 815 victim Michael Dawson and grandmother to victim Walt Lloyd, was visited by her "deceased" relatives in December of 2004. She, of course, denied this, and pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage rushed to the woman's defense, painting the neighbor as a far-Left loon.

Then, on Jan. 7, 2005, the truly unthinkable happened: Six survivors of Oceanic 815 aboard an inflatable raft washed up on the shores of Sumba, an island in the Indian Ocean.

The tale of their survival begs credulity. The very identities of the survivors demand it. The Oceanic Six, as they came to be known, included Hugo Reyes, a mentally unstable multi-millionaire; Sayid Jarrah, a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard; Jack Shephard, the son of the doctor whose coffin was in the cargo hold; Sun-Hwa Kwon, the daughter of a prominent South Korean industrialist; and, amazingly, a fugitive named Kate Austen and her infant son, Aaron, to whom she gave birth sometime during the 108 days between the crash and their rescue.

These six unlikely survivors asked us to believe the following narrative: Eight passengers swam out of the plane shortly after its crash, floating in the Indian Ocean on seat cushions. They were carried by ocean currents to the deserted island of Membata, where the allegedly pregnant Austen took care of her fellow survivors. (Shephard testified to this at Austen's trial for the murder of her father, several bank robberies, and assorted other crimes.) Three survivors, including the former rock star Pace, died on Membata. 75 days after the crash, Austen is said to have given birth to Aaron, whose father remains unknown. 103 days after the crash, an Indonesian fishing boat washed up on Membata's shore after a typhoon, and the six remaining survivors took the boat's raft to Sumba, where they were able to make contact with civilization.

The questions started at this press conference, and
never really stopped.

Practically no one believes this story, and the Oceanic Six became something of a laughingstock. Jarrah made an ill-advised appearance on Nancy Grace's cable show, in which the host grilled the Iraqi native at length about the narrative and expressed her disdain for Austen. Jarrah stormed off the set mid-interview. Reyes, already a celebrity in California before the crash thanks to his record-setting lottery win, had a breakdown of a different kind on "The Tonight Show," crying when Kevin Eubanks and the house band played "You All Everybody" as he was introduced to the crowd. Months later, Reyes would be re-committed to the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute after leading L.A.'s finest on a high-speed chase for apparently no reason.

Kwon, who lost her husband Jin-Soo Kwon in the crash, distinguished herself after the rescue, using her settlement from Oceanic Airlines to buy a controlling interest in Paik Heavy Industries, her father's Seoul-based firm. But Kwon did give birth to a daughter, Ji Yeon, in July 2005 -- 10 months after the crash, a fact that reignited conspiracy theorists.

This cable documentary directly accused Oceanic
Airlines of a conspiracy.

Shephard's testimony helped acquit Austen, and the pair got married shortly after the trial concluded. Shephard resurfaced in the news when he saved the lives of a family involved in a car crash.

But the story took its most unbelievable turn in 2007, when five of the six survivors found themselves on an Ajira Airways flight from L.A. to Guam piloted by Lapidus, the former Oceanic pilot who came forward with conspiracy theories of his own. That plane -- which was almost empty, because Reyes bought 79 tickets just for himself -- disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

Two years later, we still have no answers, and no sign that anyone aboard Ajira 316 survived. But the questions are many, and obvious: How the hell could these people have survived in the fashion they described? How the hell could they have all been in a second plane crash?

Many theories have captured the public's imagination; the most ridiculous came from a New York model-turned-prostitute named Arturo Mendoza, who wrote a book detailing a magical, moving island that was lorded over by one of his occasional clients. His story, which included submarines, time travel and a sentient cloud of black smoke, was treated by most as a great work of science fiction, and enjoyed some time on the New York Times best-seller's list.

But really, would that story be any stranger than the one the public has been asked to accept? We may never know what really happened to Oceanic 815 or Ajira 316, but we can honor those lost in these tragedies by continuing to fight for the truth.

• • •

Thanks to Lostpedia.com for the details of the Oceanic Six story, some of which are my invention for this admittedly silly exercise.

Watch Michael Emerson's masterpiece right here

2009-09-21T04:24:00.003-05:00

"We're the good guys, Michael."

2009-09-18T03:07:00.007-05:00

Benjamin Linus has been the de facto villain of "Lost" since he was introduced as "Henry Gale" in Season 2, but I have long believed that he will prove to be one of the show's true heroes, if not the hero.

The line that gives this entry its title is a fan favorite, ostensibly because it is taken ironically: How can The Others be the good guys? They kidnap children, threaten the lives of our Losties, keep people in cages, drive French women crazy and shake bunnies in cages.

But though the person that's been leading them since Charles Widmore's banishment is certainly devious and deadly, The Others are, more or less, good people. And Ben has only acted in their best interests, protecting the island and those he believes it belongs to. The Losties are our heroes because the show is primarily told from their point of view. Jack is the main protagonist, but felt more like a hindrance through most of seasons 3, 4 and 5, which only helped me empathize with Ben and his people.

This past season, Ben and his cosmic counterpart, John Locke, reached their respective low points. John was pulled from the brink of suicide from the last person he expected to call his friend -- who then turned around and killed him. Ben bared his inner struggle to his god, if you will, and was duped into killing that god by a man(?) posing as Locke. Each man has been a patsy for a force larger than they could have imagined, and only time will tell if Ben also has to suffer Locke's ultimate tragedy of finding even further indignity in death.

Season 6 is going to involve some form of "rebooting," most likely in the form of an alternate reality existing parallel to the 2007 existence in which Ben murders Jacob. I believe Ben will be key to uniting these two realities and determining the ultimate fate of the island, and he will redeem his rather sad existence.

It's quite a role, Benjamin Linus, and tonight Michael Emerson acknowledged as much when he won the Emmy for best supporting actor:

I was heavily invested in "Lost" after finishing the first season, but that investment didn't turn into obsession until Emerson showed up near the end of Season 2, a wildly uneven season that had more than its share of depressing and sometimes just plain bad episodes. (Remember "Fire + Water," in which Charlie has religious visions and gets punched out by Locke? That must be the worst episode of the series.) Emerson brought a totally different energy to "Lost" and gave it something it was lacking in the first season: a tangible antagonist. I no longer see him as "the enemy," but that cunning energy is still there, as is the sardonic wit. (Only Josh Holloway can match Emerson for bringing the funny.)

I wonder if Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly feel as if "their show" has been completely stolen by Emerson and Terry O'Quinn. Tough shit. Jack and Kate are still important, central characters, but they will never be as interesting as Ben and Locke, and I think Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse know this. How will they make us truly care for Jack and Kate again in the final season? Where will the journey end for Ben and Locke?

We won't know until May, but until then we can enjoy these great Season 5 moments from "Lost's" newest Emmy winner, Michael Emerson:

(The first clip, incidentally, also contains O'Quinn's best scene from his five years on the show.)

Watch this while you can

2009-09-16T01:55:00.002-05:00

This Goofy short ran with the mostly terrible "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" in 2007, and has been unavailable on home video to the best of my knowledge. Here it is in YouTube form, until Disney gets wise and pulls it. It's in the tradition of the best Goofy shorts of the past.

My favorite albums of the decade

2009-09-09T04:44:00.007-05:00

We're nearing the end of the '00s, and the inevitable deluge of decade-end best-lists has already begun. So I might as well join the fun now.

In thinking about my favorite albums of the last ten years, I realized there aren't many which I love in their entirety. This may be a natural part of growing up; the music we love in our teenage years will never be as important as what we discover afterwards. Nothing on this list rivals the Black Album, or "Jar of Flies," or "Ten" for pure pervasiveness; I feel like I know all of the songs on those albums, because they were integral to my adolescence.

So does that mean the music I've embraced since is more grown-up, more intricate? Not at all. I am admittedly a very superficial music listener nowadays; I value production and arrangement over lyrics and emotion. But at least I am aware of this.

So here are the ten albums that I think best represent my decade. One is a film score, one is a comedy album, and one is an obscurity from Finland. But I think they all kick a whole lot of ass.

• • •

Sean's Top 10 Albums of the '00s
(in alphabetical order)

• • •

"Dark Passion Play," Nightwish (2007)

This Finnish metal band fired operatic vocalist Tarja Turunen and hired the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which painted keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen's melodic songs on an epic canvas. The lyrics mostly deal with the emotional fallout from the firing, and the sounds are appropriately dark and romantic. Emppu Vuorinen's guitar holds its own against Holopainen's bigger-than-life orchestrations, and the result is a score for a film in your mind. Download these: "7 Days to the Wolves," "Amaranth," "The Islander"

• • •

"Death Magnetic," Metallica (2008)

The riffs sound like a rebirth, even if the muddy production sometimes sounds like afterbirth. Metallica fuses every stage of their career (save the "S&M" experiment) into a bruising collection of thrashers. A band on the edge of irrelevance crawled from the wreckage one last time. Download these: "All Nightmare Long," "Cyanide," "The End of the Line"

• • •

"Discovery," Daft Punk (2001)

The very definition of ear candy. The band that annoyed the hell out of me with "Around the World" gave us this unholy concoction of beats, samples, vocoders and kick-ass guitars. If you want to get totally lost in an album with nothing but a dark room and a pair of headphones, this is the way to go -- it almost becomes euphoric. Download these: "Aerodynamic," "Harder Better Faster Stronger," "Something About Us"

• • •

"Fallen," Evanescence (2003)

When I first heard this album, it was like someone was making music just for me. It's dark rock with female vocals, an orchestra, and cinematic sweep. This album led me to the European bands that preceded it, but few of those albums are as consistently entertaining as this one. (Credit that American pop sensibility. Oh, and Ben Moody's chops.) Download these: "Haunted," "Hello," "Imaginary"

• • •

"Gladiator," Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard (2000)

This is the best score of the decade because it is the only one that acts as a main character in the film. Lisa Gerrard's wordless intonations beckon Maximus (Russell Crowe) to his wife's side in the afterlife, and Hans Zimmer accompanies them with a score that encapsulates everything that is best about his often-derided body of work. It lost the Oscar to Tan Dun's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," but it will be remembered long after wire-fu goes back to being a curiosity. Download these: "Now We Are Free," "The Battle," "The Might of Rome"

• • •

"Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)," Marilyn Manson (2000)

The provocateur follows the drug-soaked "Mechanical Animals" with this indictment of guns, God and government that retains much of the previous album's melodic sensibilities while re-embracing the darkness of "Antichrist Superstar." Nothing Manson has done since can quite compete with the unholy trinity he completed here. Download these: "Valentine's Day," "The Fight Song," "Coma Black"

• • •

"A Matter of Life and Death," Iron Maiden (2006)

Maiden loved their war epic so much they played it in its entirety on their '06 tour. I think it's their most consistent album since 1985's "Powerslave," and proves once again that these 50-somethings have more skill and power than just about every band half their age. They are unquestionably the best live band I've ever seen, and I last saw them in June 2008. Download these: "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns," "The Longest Day," "These Colours Don't Run"

• • •

"Mitch All Together," Mitch Hedberg (2003)

This is the only comedy album I can listen to over and over and over again, like it's a great pop record. Mitch's delivery here has an almost musical cadence, and his brand of humor -- definitely influenced by Steven Wright and, uh, Mary Jane -- surprises me, even after 30-odd listens. Sometimes I don't know if I'm laughing at the jokes, or at myself for laughing at the jokes. But I know I love it. Download these: The whole goddamn thing

• • •

"Return of Saturn," No Doubt (2000)

Paste magazine recently asked the Twitterverse to name its favorite album of the decade, and I tweeted back with this. A few days on, I'm not sure if that's actually true, but it feels right, mostly because No Doubt encapsulates just about everything I love about music. "Return of Saturn" had its share of hits, but my favorite songs are the ones radio didn't play to death. No, it doesn't quite boast the murderer's row that "Tragic Kingdom" does, but it's still endlessly tasty. Download these: "New," "Artificial Sweetener," "Comfortable Lie"

• • •

"So Jealous," Tegan and Sara (2004)

The sisters Quin give us a heartbreaking album that goes down so smoothly -- it must be the sweetest bitter pill ever. I rarely listen to albums start to finish, but I almost always hear all of this one when I put it in. Download these: "I Know, I Know, I Know," "Walking With a Ghost," "You Wouldn't Like Me"

• • •

Those are my picks. What are yours?

AWESOME doesn't begin to describe this.

2009-09-02T12:31:00.003-05:00

BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD RETURN! (If for only the briefest of promotional videos. But man, is it sweet.

@ Yahoo! Video

Playlist

2009-09-01T00:29:00.003-05:00

This week's musical offerings:

Every few years, I "rediscover" FNM, and this time I am struck by how awesome their bass player, Bill Gould, is. This song's from "Angel Dust," which must be one of the most underrated albums of my lifetime.

This sister act makes music that tastes like Cherry Coke. (Does that make sense?)

This one-hit wonder was used as a bumper on the Bears broadcast Sunday night, and I was reminded how awesome it is. You might have heard it on the "Boogie Nights" soundtrack.

QT repurposes this bit from "Revolver," a forgotten Italian crime picture, for one of the best scenes in "Inglourious Basterds." Ennio Morricone's still alive, why doesn't QT commission a fresh score from him next time?

This "deep cut" from "Return of Saturn" is one of my favorite No Doubt songs. All things considered, "RoS" might be my favorite mainstream album of the decade.

The end of an era?

2009-08-31T23:51:00.003-05:00

Greetings, Chicago fans. Welcome to Baseball Armageddon.

It feels pretty hopeless around here, doesn't it? The last few weeks have seemed like months as the Cubs and White Sox both circle the drain. I knew the Sox season was OVAH! on Friday when Joe Cowley told WSCR's Bernstein and Holmes that Jose Contreras would be starting Saturday's game. And tonight, as the deadline for playoff eligibility approached and the Sox lost another game in that goddamn Metrodome, Contreras and classy clubber Jim Thome were given the best gift of all: a new address.

Contreras is going to Colorado, where the Rockies are tied with the San Francisco Giants for the NL Wild Card. Both teams are chasing their division rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will now have Thome to pinch-hit in late innings -- and to play DH in the World Series, presumably. The Dodgers also acquired former Sox starter Jon Garland from the Diamondbacks.

On the North Side, Lou Piniella looks like his brain is already resting comfortably on a sandy beach somewhere, while his high-priced left-handed slugger is too busy getting his feelings hurt to play a decent game. The Cubs were supposed to be in the World Series hunt this year, but instead have a realistic chance to finish 10-plus games out of first.

This final baseball season of the first decade of the 21st Century is starting to feel like the end of an era in Chicago, an era in which both sides of town had real expectations of glory. (And of course, in 2005, actual glory down south.)

On paper, the Cubs still look like a pretty incredible baseball team, but they just aren't, are they. Next year, they'll still be saddled with Alfonso Soriano's awful play in the outfield, Carlos Zambrano's loose screws, and Aramis Ramirez's disappearing act. One thing they might have is a new manager -- I think we'd all love to see Bob Brenly in the dugout, but why the hell would he want to inherit this mess?

The White Sox are waving the white flag tonight, admitting defeat in a season that depended on just too many flukes and what-ifs. Even if the pitching hadn't imploded in the last month, do you really think the Sox could have beaten anybody in the first round?

2010 leaves us with a lot of questions on the South Side:

Will Scott Podsednik continue to be valuable? Uhh ... no.

Can A.J. Pierzynski be a top-ten hitter again? Maybe, but what does it matter if he can't throw anybody out or drive anybody in?

Will Jake Peavy be the ace we need him to be? I can't say I'm too optimistic, and even if he does, can we count on Mark Buehrle anymore?

Will Gordon Beckham fulfill the prophecy and become Baseball Jesus? Let us pray.

I'm not too excited about next summer. Those Wrigley crowds might get smaller, sooner, if things continue like this. U.S. Cellular Field had already been emptying out this year, and I don't expect that trend to reverse.

It was one hell of a decade for baseball in this town. I'll always remember Mark Buehrle's accomplishments (no-hitter, perfect game, World Series save), Kerry Wood's dominating performance against Atlanta in the '03 playoffs, Thome's exuberant celebration with the crowd in the one-game playoff in '08, and of course the World Series title that no one expected. But I'll also remember Steve Bartman, the Ligue boys, the Cub meltdowns (both personal and organizational), and the parade of bad pitching in U.S. Cellular.

So, when's that first Bears game?

"Lost" predictions and ruminations

2009-08-30T00:40:00.005-05:00

No spoilers here, just conjecture.

So I've been sitting at this computer all day today, watching "Lost" episodes from seasons 3, 4 and 5 (mostly 5), and I've been thinking a lot about what Season 6 is going to be like. Here are some general predictions/observations inspired by tonight's marathon:

• We already know how Widmore "changed the rules." A lot of "Lost" fans are waiting to hear what those rules are that Ben was talking about at the end of "The Shape of Things to Come," in which Mr. Linus pledges to kill Penny Widmore. I think most of us assumed these rules were some kind of edict handed down by Jacob, Richard or Smokey, but I think Ben's merely referring to something Widmore said in "Dead is Dead," the fifth-season episode that depicts Ben's judgment by Smokey. In the flashbacks, Ben spares Danielle and takes Alex, which pisses off Widmore. Widmore seems to think the island wants the child to die, and reminds Ben of this as he is carted off in the submarine in a subsequent flashback: "If the island wants the child to die, she will die," he says. (I'm paraphrasing.) But Widmore "changes the rules," as Ben says, when his goon, Keamy, kills her.

• Ben is going to die. There are many parallels between John and Ben, and it's only fitting if the faux-Locke -- Esau, as most fans have taken to calling him -- kills the man who strangled John Locke. Ben and Locke have the most tragic stories of anyone on the island, and that's really saying something; it would seem unfair to John if Ben were allowed to survive.

• Hurley and Charlie will be very important in Season 6. In "This Place is Death," the Season 5 ep in which we first see the temple and John turns the frozen wheel, the French scientists who come to the island in 1988 hear a voice reciting the numbers over a radio, and it sure sounds like Hurley's voice. For some reason, Hurley will make the transmission that will later be heard by his roommate at the nuthouse, whose incessant repetition of the numbers leads to Hurley winning the lottery with them. Will we also learn that Charlie -- perhaps speaking through Hurley, because dead is dead after all -- was the musician who programmed the code into the Looking Glass's computer? And what's in that guitar case that Hurley brought aboard Ajira 316?

• Jacob is responsible for separating the Ajira survivors. He must have discovered Esau's plan to kill him, and put Jack, Kate and Hurley in 1977 for a reason -- detonating Jughead, I'm guessing. Ben was needed in 2007 to help carry out Esau's plan, which I believe Jacob let happen. But why is Sun in 2007? That I don't know.

• Esau and Smokey are one and the same. In "Dead is Dead," Ben summons Smokey but it doesn't show up -- because it's taking the form of John Locke. Faux Locke leads Ben to the temple, saying that the island told him where to find it. This helps Esau convince Ben that he needs to follow John. When Ben falls into Smokey's lair, John says he's going to go find a rope. He runs off, and then Smokey appears and judges Ben. It disappears, and manifests itself as Alex, who tells Ben he must follow John's orders. Alex disappears, and suddenly John is back. John, Alex and Smokey are all the same person -- Esau.

That's all for now. This sprained wrist is killing me!

Credit where credit is due

2009-08-26T02:07:00.004-05:00

I realized today that my current taste in pop music has been primarily influenced by one person: Sean Tuohey.

In fact, our friend to the north has been highly influential on my music-listening habits ever since I've known him. It was he who introduced me to Evanescence, which in turn led to my exploration of symphonic metal in general. It was he who convinced me Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato had talent, which led to my current fascination with sugary pop. Heck, it was he who enlightened me to the best beat in the history of hip-hop: Mary J. Blige's "Family Affair," produced by Dr. Dre.

Have I had any sort of influence on my friends? I hope that my opinions on film matter to some of you; I'm pretty sure I single-handedly spread the gospel of "Clerks" to Wheeling High School, and I know I introduced "Donnie Darko" and "Down in the Valley" to more than one person.

In any event, I thought I'd try to make a list of the bands whose CDs I've bought and whose concerts I've seen because of Sean Tuohey, directly or indirectly. I'm sure he'll be able to think of more:

AFI
Aly & AJ
Blige, Mary J.
Blind Guardian
Cyrus, Miley
Daft Punk
Dropkick Murphys
Evanescence
Face to Face
Fuel
Gordon, Nina
Home Grown
Insane Clown Posse
Kamelot
K's Choice
Lacuna Coil
Lavigne, Avril
Lovato, Demi
Mad Season
McKay, Nellie
Meg & Dia
Mighty Blue Kings
MxPx
Nightwish
Osbourne, Kelly
OutKast
Quaye, Finley
Reverend Horton Heat
Sonata Arctica
Symphony X
Veronicas, The
Within Temptation

And there are countless other bands who I've been exposed to because of Mr. Tuohey: Abandoned Pools, The Sounds, Four Star Mary, Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Toasters, Nerf Herder, Smoking Popes, and many, many more.

Thanks to you, Mr. Tuohey, for helping expand my musical tastes beyond Metallica, Megadeth and GN'R.

Stay classy, Solheim winners

2009-08-24T03:58:00.005-05:00

My interest in televised golf began earlier this year when I spent a lost day on Sean Tuohey's couch, watching Angel Cabrera and Kenny Perry battle for the green jacket on a giant HDTV. I've never been a fan, but this year has presented us with some compelling drama on the links.

Working at the Daily Herald, it has been impossible to avoid the hoopla over the Solheim Cup, the U.S.-vs.-Europe event that ended in American victory this weekend out in Sugar Grove. I watched coverage here and there this weekend, and enjoyed seeing the emergence of Michelle Wie.

What I didn't enjoy, however, was the classless behavior of some of her teammates, specifically Paula Creamer and Christina Kim.

Now, I understand that this is a big event -- maybe the biggest the LPGA has to offer. I further understand that the competitors see it as a matter of national pride, and that they feed off the energy of the jingoistic crowd. (A crowd that, all told, numbered 120,000 for the weekend, according to the Daily Herald's Mike Spellman.) And I further understand that the LPGA is on the fringe of professional sports, and that it needs attention any way it can get it.

But none of that excuses Creamer and Kim.

I cannot find YouTube evidence to back me up tonight, but I can tell you that both Creamer and Kim went way overboard in their celebrations today. I'm not talking about after the event, I'm talking about during -- Creamer hit a putt on I believe the 4th hole today and, with her European opponent walking right in front of her, launched into a crowd-inducing, fist-pumping display that seemed to embarrass Suzanne Pettersen. If, say, Carlos Zambrano had put on such a display, he would have taken a fastball to the face in his next at-bat.

Kim was probably the most classless of all, dancing around like Happy Gilmore after every putt. I get that that's Kim's thing -- she's energetic and enthusiastic. But she's also (allegedly) a professional, and she sure didn't act like one this weekend.

Add in the constant "U! S! A!" chants from the crowd -- that chant always sounds so mean to me, for some reason -- and you had one giant display of Ugly-Americanism out at Rich Harvest Farms.

To the women of the LPGA: If you want your sport to be taken seriously, I suggest that you start taking it seriously.

Playlist

2009-08-21T23:45:00.007-05:00

This week's offering of nerdy music:

Wait until you see how Quentin Tarantino uses this song in "Inglourious Basterds." Brilliant.

Speaking of QT, here's the super-sexy lap dance scene that was cut from the theatrical release of "Death Proof." This song kicks ass.

Still my favorite No Doubt song, and now downloadable on RB2 for the Wii. w00t

Another week, another selection from Michael Giacchino. "Parting Words" is probably the best piece from all five seasons of "Lost," stirring and hopeful -- but those of us who watch know what dangers are waiting for Michael, Walt, Jin and Sawyer.

This is Demi's rocker. It doesn't rock that hard, but it's still super-catchy.

Review: "Inglourious Basterds"

2009-08-21T03:23:00.010-05:00

4 stars out of four
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino
Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Melanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Daniel Bruhl & Mike Myers

• • •

The trailer:

The plot: In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Inglourious Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish woman (Laurent) who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

My review: Quentin Tarantino is, let's face it, his own biggest fan. His admirers are many and devoted, but no one loves Tarantino as much as Tarantino. We've known this for a while, and the man's reputation as a masturbatory filmmaker has turned off many in the post-"Pulp Fiction" era. The only modern director who might love himself more is M. Night Shyamalan, whose ever-growing audacity is working against him. Tarantino's ever-growing audacity, however, has brought us to "Inglourious Basterds."

How can I best put this? "Inglourious Basterds" is insane. It is 153 minutes of fucking insanity.

Using David Bowie's "Cat People" in a WWII movie is insane. Scoring the rest of the film to Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western music is insane. Only having five sequences -- five sequences! -- in your two-and-a-half-hour movie is insane. Asking Brad Pitt to do a whole movie with a terrible Tennessee accent is insane. Casting a heavily made-up Mike Myers as a British general is insane.

And the ending? The ending is as audacious as it gets -- and then the epilogue goes further.

There is one thing Tarantino loves more than himself, and it's cinema. All of QT's movies are about movies in one way or another, but none as explicitly as "Basterds," whose plot revolves around the premiere of a Goebbels propaganda film about a German sniper who took down 300 Allies in three days. The entire high command of the Third Reich will be in attendance, and several factions see this as a great opportunity to end the war. Much of the film's plentiful dialogue -- most of it not in English, I might add -- is about film, and the key players include a theater owner (Laurent), a famous German actress (Kruger) and a film critic-turned-British soldier.

The movie itself invites us to cackle with glee as Pitt's Basterds get down to the bidness of killin' gnat-zees. In return, the Nazis cackle as they watch Frederick Zoller (Bruhl) mow down American soldiers in Goebbels' film. Tarantino uses his own movie to show how easily movies can dehumanize the antagonist, no matter how terrible the protagonist might be. Are we, the audience, justified in cheering on the Basterds' lust for revenge? When they carve swastikas into their captives' foreheads, should we enjoy it? Right or not, we do, and Tarantino preys upon the fragility of our own moral compasses throughout the film. (After you see the film, think about this: It's easy for us to condemn the actions of the French farm owner in the opening sequence, but would we fare any better, given the circumstances?)

As in "Kill Bill," the graphic violence in "Basterds" is so over-the-top that it becomes comical. But much of "Basterds" feels like a horror movie, one that uses space, dialogue and editing to build suspense. Three of the film's five chapters (presented in the same fashion as "Kill Bill's" chapters) are built upon long exchanges between people sitting around a table. The third such sequence is almost unbearably long -- but QT rewards the audience with a furious payoff.

Much of this wouldn't work without great performances. Pitt is the de facto star of the film, and he does get big laughs, but the main attractions are Cristoph Waltz and Melanie Laurent. Waltz plays Col. Hans Landa of the SS, a quietly cunning detective known as "The Jew Hunter." Laurent plays Shoshanna Dreyfus, who escapes Landa's death-squad in the film's opening sequence and hatches the cinematic plot to take down the Third Reich. They share a scene in Chapter Three that, in a just world, will be shown twice at next year's Oscars when both actors find themselves nominated.

There's so much more I want to say about "Inglourious Basterds," but I just can't -- too much of it has already been spoiled, I fear, and not just by me. (I already knew the ending going in.) I will say this is a film that demands to be seen in a theater, and demands to be discussed and debated at great length. Love it or hate it, you can't deny its ambition.

Is it a twisted fairy tale? A sick revenge fantasy? An indictment of war? A celebration of war? An insult to the memories of those lost in the war? A fun piece of revisionist history? A mad work of genius? The insane ramblings of a narcissistic child?

It could be all those things. I know one thing for sure: "Inglourious Basterds" is, so far, the best film of 2009.

Why, Bob? Why?!?!

2009-08-19T23:36:00.005-05:00

Variety reports Robert Zemeckis' next project will be a motion-capture remake of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." This is disappointing on so many levels.

• This will be Zemeckis' fourth 3D mo-cap film in a row after "The Polar Express," "Beowulf," and the forthcoming "A Christmas Carol," in which Jim Carrey plays Scrooge and all three ghosts that visit him. His first two efforts produced mixed results -- the 3D was shockingly good in "Polar," and the character animation followed suit in "Beowulf," but neither film gave John Lasseter and his band of geniuses at Pixar nightmares. The "Christmas Carol" trailer looks like more of the same.

• What does Bob Z. have against live-action? Is he arrogant enough to think he's conquered the medium? Yes, he's always been a visual innovator, breaking new ground in VFX on at least three occasions ("Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "Death Becomes Her" and "Forrest Gump"), but surely he is still capable of taking a camera on location and shooting actors in wardrobe, not green suits covered in ping pong balls! His last live-action effort, "Cast Away," was a tremendous film, maybe his most accomplished, and let's not forget that he co-wrote and directed one of the greatest comedies of all time. (I don't have to tell you the title, do I?) Is there a rift between him and Bob Gale that I don't know about? I'd sure like to see them write another flick together.

• "Yellow Submarine" was, at best, a curiosity. It was probably best enjoyed with a joint or a tab of acid. I wouldn't know. Is there an actual story to tell with this, or does Zemeckis merely aspire to make the world's first mo-cap musical?

• Who the hell is gonna play The Beatles? Hopefully not Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman. And will the actors sing and perform new versions of the songs in the film, or will they just use the master tracks?

Of course, none of these personal hang-ups are going to keep me from seeing the movie; I love The Beatles, and I (at least used to) love Robert Zemeckis. I just wish he'd move on from this phase of his career.

But then again, I'm not the one making millions of dollars and breaking new technological ground, so maybe I should just shut it.

In which I steal Quentin Tarantino's idea

2009-08-18T01:12:00.005-05:00

... not that he'll mind, since he's been, ah, re-purposing cinematic ideas for his entire career. (And not that I mind. QT remains the single most exciting name in moviemaking. Nothing gives me quite the same burst of adrenaline as going to see a new Quentin Tarantino film.)

So as part of his promotion for "Inglourious Basterds," which will be unleashed on the public this Friday, QT decided to make a video listing the 20 best films of the past 17 years -- i.e., the 20 best films since he released his first feature, "Reservoir Dogs."

The choices make sense, considering who they're coming from. Here's the video:

So naturally, I want to follow suit and do the same. But here's the problem: Can I separate the 20 best movies from my 20 favorite movies? Many of my choices would appear on both lists, but I think I'll try to rationally decide which films from that time period are actually the best, even if I have no desire to ever see them again. (Something like, say, "Requiem for a Dream" comes to mind.)

So here's my attempt at it. Like QT, I'll start with my absolute No. 1, then proceed alphabetically:

"Magnolia," d. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999
• • •
"A.I.," d. Steven Spielberg, 2001
"Dancer in the Dark," d. Lars Von Trier, 2000
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," d. Michel Gondry, 2004
"Eyes Wide Shut," d. Stanley Kubrick, 1999
"Get Shorty," d. Barry Sonnenfeld, 1995
"The Lord of the Rings," d. Peter Jackson, 2001-2003
"The Matrix," d. Andy & Larry Wachowksi, 1999
"Oldboy," d. Chan-wook Park, 2003
"Pulp Fiction," d. Quentin Tarantino, 1994
"Requiem for a Dream," d. Darren Aronofsky, 2000
"Rushmore," d. Wes Anderson, 1998
"Schindler's List," d. Steven Spielberg, 1993
"Seven," d. David Fincher, 1995
"The Shawshank Redemption," d. Frank Darabont, 1994
"There Will Be Blood," d. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007
"Titanic," d. James Cameron, 1997
"The Truman Show," d. Peter Weir, 1998
"WALL•E,", d. Andrew Stanton, 2008
"Zodiac," d. David Fincher, 2007

I find I'm a bit embarrassed by this list, but at least it's honest. But it does contain two films apiece by Spielberg, Fincher and P.T. Anderson, and the biggest box office success in history. (But like "Titanic" or not, you must admire the massive undertaking it was, and the massive risk it took.)

Many will wonder why the hell "A.I." appears on this list. I plan to write an impassioned defense of Steven Spielberg's woefully misunderstood masterpiece at the end of this year, when I will almost certainly name it the best film of the decade. Yes, I really think so.

Why is "Get Shorty" on the list? Name me a better-scripted comedy from the last 17 years. Oh wait, you can't. Scott Frank's screenplay for that film belongs in some kind of comedy hall of fame, right next to Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale's script for "Back to the Future." It's one of the great underrated films of my lifetime.

OK, time to bash my picks below ...

Playlist

2009-08-14T06:29:00.004-05:00

Another sampling of what's been buzzing in my head lately:

Aly Michalka is definitely the best thing about "Bandslam," which opens today, and this is probably my favorite song by her and her sister's band; I love the piano part.

Heard this for the first time in a long time the other night. This is the pop/punk/ska album that should have conquered the world.

The vocals here are pretty fantastic. Dude sounds passionate about his music.

This is silly, admittedly, but just listen to that woman sing! This is from the "Lord of the Rings" musical that never made it to Broadway after a rocky London debut. The singer is Laura Michelle Kelly, who also played Mary Poppins on the West End, and Sweeney Todd's wife in the Tim Burton film.

Yeah, again with the "Star Trek." What can I say? This is my favorite film score of the year so far. This is the cue that scores the birth of James T. Kirk in the film's fantastic opening sequence.

Review: "Julie & Julia"

2009-08-07T15:10:00.010-05:00

2½ stars out of four
Screenplay by Nora Ephron, based on books by Julie Powell and Julia Child
Directed by Ephron
Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Mary-Lynn Rajskub & Jane Lynch

• • •

The trailer:

The plot (as described by studio flacks): Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in an adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's "Julie & Julia," and "My Life in France," by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Two women who separated by time and space are both at loose ends ... until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

My review: Amy Adams is perilously close to achieving terminal cuteness. For all of her skill as an actor, her chief asset is how downright adorable she is. It's why Frank Abagnale chose her in "Catch Me If You Can," and why seemingly the entire film world fell in love with her in "Enchanted." There are moments in "Julie & Julia" where she's just so ... precious. It gets to be too much.

In fact, the "Julie" half of "Julie & Julia" is entirely too much, with its heaping helpings of forced laughter and unconvincing melodrama. Julie Powell (Adams) is fed up with her job at a 9/11 relief agency, feels disconnected from her husband (Messina) and hates her gigantic New York City apartment. (After all, it's above a pizza place. Oh, the humanity! How a cubicle-bound bureaucrat and an editor at Archaeology magazine could afford it, though, I'll never know.)

She decides to fill the void in her life by attempting every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year, and blogging about it each night. The main attraction of this half of the movie is ogling the food; the beef bourguignon looked incredible.

The "Julia" half of the movie is fascinating and funny, chronicling the life of the master chef (Streep) from her arrival in France to the publication of her first, famous cookbook. Meryl Streep almost certainly has another Oscar nomination waiting for her in February -- it's a performance that goes beyond imitation and into personification, much like Cate Blanchett's turn as Katherine Hepburn in "The Aviator." Just as good is Tucci as her husband Paul, portrayed here as the kindest, most encouraging man on the face of the Earth.

The movie does not delve deep into Paul and Julia's experiences as agents of the OSS. We get fleeting glimpses of Paul appearing before HUAC, and one dinner conversation where Julia denies the couple were ever spies, but that's it. The "Julia" half of the movie is focused squarely on their love for food and for each other, and since they are brought to life so effortlessly by Ephron's screenplay and the two actors, that's all we in the audience really need.

And it's all we want, for that matter. We don't want endless scenes of Adams reading aloud whatever she's typing on her computer. (Between this and "You've Got Mail" -- everything considered, a more wholly successful movie than this one -- Ephron must be cinema's foremost director of talky-typey scenes.) Thankfully, Rajskub (Chloe from "24") shows up periodically as Julie's best friend, poking holes in whatever crisis, real or imagined, Julie is facing.

As the film drew to a close, I feared it would concoct some sort of fantasy sequence where Julie and Julia would meet, managing to tie the two stories together in some cosmic fashion. This does not happen. But neither does any solid connection between the two women, any sense of kinship. Julie Powell may love Julia Child, but Child never got the chance to love her back.

When it's all over, we are left very hungry, and very eager to try cooking that beef bourguignon. But mostly we're left asking why -- why wasn't the movie just called "Julia"?

John Hughes • 1950-2009

2009-08-07T00:38:00.004-05:00

The death of John Hughes is surprising, but it hasn't really gotten to me, even after I realized that my friends, co-workers, family and I quote something from one of his movies every goddamn day.

It seems like John Hughes has already been dead for years. He hasn't directed a movie since "Curly Sue" in 1991, and that's not exactly one you remember him for, is it? In some ways, John Hughes was like the 1980s movie equivalent of The Beatles -- his work was so important to so many, and it was accomplished over so short a time.

Nearly every teen comedy since "Ferris Bueller" owes some kind of debt to John Hughes' body of work, with the possible exception of "Juno." (You might not like Diablo Cody's writing, but you can't deny it is uniquely hers.) Have the generations that followed us been given movies anywhere near the caliber of "The Breakfast Club" or "Sixteen Candles"? No, and it's terrible that John didn't further share his genius with the kids that came after "Ferris."

And he was a genius. I have "Ferris Bueller" on as I'm writing this, and I continue to be awed by its perfection. It's the kind of movie where almost every line of dialogue is funny, and Hughes the director helps Hughes the screenwriter every step of the way; check out the scene where Ben Stein lectures on the Hawley-Smoot tariff, and watch the cuts between the close-ups of his dumbfounded students. It's just perfectly timed, perfectly acted, and just ... right. It's as airtight and well-constructed as "Back to the Future."

One of the happiest memories of my moviegoing life is seeing "Ferris" at a midnight revival screening at the AMC 30 South Barrington. The sold-out crowd laughed hysterically, applauded enthusiastically, and even clapped along to "Twist & Shout." I had a genuine chill-up-the-spine moment in that screening: Ed Rooney tells who he thinks is Ferris Bueller to "pucker up, buttercup." His secretary comes in and says, "FERRIS BUELLER ON LINE TWO!" The camera pushes in on Rooney, horrified, as a musical stinger blasts the audience. The theater went apeshit with cheering and applause. We all knew it was coming, and we all loved it.

I don't know exactly why John Hughes decided to leave the film industry behind -- one might guess it has something to do with fallout from the incredible success of "Home Alone," which he wrote for director Chris Columbus -- but I hope he found happiness out on his Harvard, Ill., farm. He sure didn't sound happy on the DVD commentary he recorded a few years back for "Ferris."

If there's one movie you need to watch again in the wake of the news, it's "Planes, Trains & Automobiles." When you hear "John Hughes," you think first of his teen flicks, and "PT&A" kinda gets lost in the shuffle, which is a shame. Steve Martin and John Candy probably give the best performances of their careers in that film, another that Hughes both wrote and directed. You know "Ferris" and "Weird Science" by heart; reacquaint yourself with Del Griffith and Neal Page.

Are you fucking kidding me?

2009-08-05T08:58:00.003-05:00

Pardon my French, but come the fuck on. Dick Morris basically says fuck Euna Lee and Laura Ling, they get what they deserve for having gone to North Korea in the first place.

The Five-Timers Club

2009-08-05T01:11:00.009-05:00

Update (9/9): Make that seven times.

Update (8/14): I've now seen "Star Trek" a sixth time, thanks to the $2 show at BG Theatres.

No, this isn't about the famous "Saturday Night Live" sketch, it's about movies I've seen five or more times in a theater.

This comes up because tonight, after going downtown for screenings of "District 9" and "Bandslam" -- reviews coming in the Aug. 14 edition of your Daily Herald! -- Lisa and I went to Randhurst to see "Star Trek" again. It was her second time, my fifth. I know, rationally, that "Star Trek" is not a great film, but boy, does it make me happy.

The list of films I've seen five or more times in a theater contains some embarrassing titles, to be sure; keep in mind that I wanted to love the "Star Wars" prequels so badly that I convinced myself they were good. On DVD, however, the truth won out, especially on the dreadful "Attack of the Clones." So here are the members of my five-timers club:

9
"Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace"

8
"Independence Day"

7
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
"Star Trek" (2009)

6
"Magnolia"
"Titanic"

5
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
"Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones"

I may have also seen "Moulin Rouge!" five times, but I cannot find the documentation to support it. (I have every ticket stub since "Pulp Fiction" in January of 1995 at the now-defunct Ridge Cinemas in Arlington Heights, but I can't find all of them from the Buffalo Grove Theatres for some reason. But I know they're somewhere.)

Saturday Night Live - Tom Hanks - 12/08/1990
by ccob

Wes Anderson and "Sleeping Beauty"

2009-08-03T23:56:00.009-05:00

First, a tip of the cap to Jason Sperb, whose blog inspired me to watch "The Life Aquatic" on Sunday.

In the past 36 hours, I watched both "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" and "Sleeping Beauty," two films that appear to have nothing in common, aside from being Disney releases. But as I watched "Sleeping Beauty" this morning -- with commentary by critic Leonard Maltin, Disney/Pixar guru John Lasseter, and animator Andreas Deja -- I couldn't stop thinking about Wes Anderson's colorful confection.

"Sleeping Beauty," released in 1959, was quite a stylistic departure for Walt Disney's animated products. The story was familiar, of course -- it's nearly the same as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," minus the dwarfs -- but the visuals were not. Uncle Walt entrusted artist Eyvind Earle to dictate the film's look, and what he got was a motion picture that looked like a medieval tapestry coming to life. Extensive use of the multiplane camera technique that Disney himself invented lent the film a dimensionality that even masterpieces like "Pinocchio" and "Fantasia" lacked, and all of Earle's meticulously detailed background paintings were kept in focus at all times. The film was presented in a 2.55:1 aspect ratio -- wider than today's widescreen films -- and printed on 70mm film in a process that Walt dubbed "Super Technirama 70." The result was an incredibly gorgeous film that is finally available in its original format on Disney's latest DVD and Blu-ray releases.

"The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures in 2004, was Texas auteur Wes Anderson's most ambitious film in scope, if not in subject matter. Like all of Anderson's films, "Zissou" gives us super-saturated colors and clear-focused widescreen frames packed with detail -- and that's why it kept creeping into my head when I was watching "Sleeping Beauty."

While we can argue over whether Anderson's dark, ironic films connect with us emotionally, there's no arguing that he consistently delivers flat-out beautiful films. (I consider it a great tragedy that I did not see "The Darjeeling Limited" in a theater.) There are frames of "Zissou" that almost demand to be paused, just so you can see everything that's happening. Steve Zissou's tour of his boat is such a sequence; Anderson gives us a cutaway set of the entire vessel, roaming from room to room in one unbroken shot. On the DVD commentary, he says the set was inspired by drawings in World Book encyclopedias and Time-Life books he pored over in his youth.

Techniques and details like that -- along with the eye-popping colors and Anderson's penchant for using titles -- lend Anderson's films a sort of magical quality that seems odd for his subject matter. Of course, that odd combination is a huge part of why Anderson's films work.

And then there's "Sleeping Beauty," which truly is magical. Two scenes in "Sleeping Beauty" deserve to be mentioned among the all-time greatest. One is a stunning forest panorama in which Princess Aurora serenades the animals with "Once Upon a Dream," and the other is Prince Philip's climactic confrontation with the evil fairy Maleficent, whose transformation into a dragon must have been simply astonishing to the moviegoers of 1959. (Man, do I wish I could see a pristine print of "Sleeping Beauty" on the big screen.)

I guess it's highly improbable that the guy who gave us "Rushmore" and "Bottle Rocket" could have been influenced by "Sleeping Beauty," but I find the visual parallels to be fascinating. Anderson's next film, "Fantastic Mr. Fox," employs stop-motion animation and looks like it hasn't abandoned any of the director's techniques. Maybe the parallels will continue to reveal themselves this November.

• • •

These aren't the best quality, but you get the idea.

Review: "Funny People"

2009-07-31T16:23:00.017-05:00

3½ stars out of four
Written and directed by Judd Apatow
Starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill & Jason Schwartzman

• • •

The restricted-audiences trailer:

The plot: When seasoned comedian George Simmons (Sandler) learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship causes him to take a relatively green performer (Rogen) under his wing as his opening act.

My review: Roger Ebert brings this up at least once a year in his own reviews, but I couldn't help but think of it today, so I'll bring it up myself.

Gene Siskel famously asked himself this question if he was unsure the movie he was watching was good or not: Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? If the answer is no, then the movie sucks.

"Funny People" might have made Gene rethink his rule.

Apatow's latest film -- only his third as director, as the pretentious ad campaign keeps reminding us -- is a very good film, maybe even a great one. But I think the lunchtime chat might be even better.

I want to hear Sandler, Apatow and Mann -- Apatow's real-life wife -- talk about how this movie affected their respective marriages, because I can't imagine it didn't.

Here is a film that finally presents Adam Sandler as a real person, not as the violent degenerate he always plays. (Yes, always. His roles in "Punch-Drunk Love" and "Reign Over Me" seemed like departures, but were really just variations on a theme.) The film goes out of its way to make George Simmons seem exactly like Sandler, a megastar whose stand-up career led to a parade of critically reviled films that children adore. In "Funny People," Sandler openly mocks the persona that made him a star, playing a character who wistfully looks back at tapes of his early career -- tapes that show the audience actual footage of Adam Sandler's early career.

The film opens with footage of a young Sandler making prank phone calls while Apatow works the camcorder and Janeane Garofalo stifles laughs while sitting on the floor. This is footage that Apatow shot when he and Sandler lived together, and using it in this way clearly implies that much of "Funny People" is autobiographical, for both men.

And what a depressing picture it paints of these men, men who are now both married with children. If Sandler's character is standing in for Apatow, what does it say that the director casts his actual wife as "the one that got away"? How do Apatow and Sandler's wives feel when they see their husbands' collective on-screen avatar screw around with bimbos and try to steal some other guy's wife? Do Apatow and Sandler really hate themselves this much?

I think the answer was yes, and I think it must be a common experience for comedians. Perhaps that's why so many of them agreed to make cameos in the film: they understand where Apatow is coming from. And, hopefully for him, so does Leslie Mann.

It must seem like I'm prattling on and on without actually talking about the movie, but that helps demonstrate how good a movie "Funny People" is, despite its flaws (which are many). There is a lot going on in this movie, which justifies its epic, 146-minute length, and it gives me a lot to talk about.

One thing "Funny People" is not, is brutally funny -- but that's not a strike against it. This is not a comedy, per se, but a film about comedy. There are funny jokes in it, yes, but "Funny People" is more interested in showing us the process than the performance.

When George and new writing partner Ira (Rogen) write their material, we smile but rarely laugh. But put that material on stage, and give it the comic timing of someone like Sandler or Rogen, and suddenly we are laughing. But mostly Apatow is interested in showing us comics as real people, not as comics. The funniest performances in the movie actually belong to the actors playing the "real" people: Mann and Bana, who play husband and wife, and their children, played by Apatow's actual daughters.

The film's many and varied superstar cameos could have dragged it down, but Apatow gives three very famous people important parts in two of the film's best scenes, scenes that dissect comedy and fame in unexpected ways. One of them I will not spoil. The other addresses Apatow and Co.'s penchant for dick jokes (which this film has in abundance). George and Ira find themselves at a corporate event with James Taylor, who performs "Fire and Rain." Ira asks Taylor, "Do you ever get tired of playing the same songs?" Taylor smiles and asks, "Do you ever get tired of talking about your dick?"

On a personal level, I found George Simmons' story to be very depressing as I struggle with my own feelings about "the one that got away." But I also identify with Ira, who is unsure around women and lacks the "killer instinct," if you will, that allows his friends to chat up women at the bar and bring them home. Rogen plays this character much, much differently than you would expect; this is not a repeat of "Knocked Up," "Zack and Miri" or "Pineapple Express." The leaner Rogen is definitely not the meaner Rogen, and his character is the film's voice of reason. It's a wonderful performance, and so is Sandler's; at the very least, they have Golden Globe nominations waiting for them.

This review has been long, but then again, so is the movie. While it isn't a painful sit, "Funny People" does feel like two completely different movies, and I have trouble reconciling the two parts. The resolution of the second part stretches credibility. Apatow also continues to have problems writing characters that aren't white and/or Jewish; the one black character is a caricature, and "Parks & Recreation's" Aziz Ansari plays a South Asian dude who thinks he's a black caricature. There's also the self-loathing that has become de rigueur for Jewish comedians.

But I wasn't expecting perfection. The lives of our protagonists are messy and complicated, so why shouldn't the movie be the same way?

It's too early to be this excited

2009-07-31T00:38:00.006-05:00

... but I can't help it. The "Lost" Comic-Con presentation has my heart all aflutter for the final act of the best television show I've ever seen -- and it doesn't start until February.

Those magnificent bastards over at DARKUFO have been running an NCAA-style bracket to determine the best "Lost" episode of all time, and it's shaping up to be a battle of season premieres and finales. I guess that makes sense, because something terribly dramatic happens in all of those episodes, but I wouldn't rank many of the bookend episodes among my absolute favorites; they typically focus on more than one character, and "Lost" is best when it dials into one islander's story.

So screw the Episode Cup! Here are my five favorite "Lost" episodes:

1. "The Shape of Things To Come" (4x09) -- One of the most exciting hours of television I've ever seen, and Michael Emerson's masterpiece. On the island, Ben makes a horrible miscalculation when dealing with Keamy, and Alex pays the ultimate price. Off the island, we learn what brought Sayid under Ben's employ. The climactic confrontation between Ben and Widmore sets up a major arc in Season 5, and tells us there are "rules" that The Others live by. I think I've seen this one at least ten times, mostly because of Emerson's work in Alex's death scene. How did he not win the Emmy for this?

2. "The Man From Tallahassee" (3x13) -- A wheelchair-bound Ben is captured by Locke, whose flashbacks finally reveal how he ended up in his wheelchair before coming to the island. Emerson and Terry O'Quinn do the acting equivalent of Ward and Gatti, trading blows to the bitter end. (This episode contains the hamster wheel conversation and the "magic box" conversation.) The ending is a double knockout -- Locke blows the submarine to bits just as Jack is about to use it to go home, and Ben brings Anthony Cooper to the island.

3. "Tricia Tanaka is Dead" (3x10) -- Probably the funniest, most flat-out entertaining episode centers on Hugo's quest to restart the DHARMA van he finds in the jungle. (The show's unfortunate title comes from the explosive post-credits flashback, but has little to do with anything else.) Sawyer gets some of his best lines ever, like in this exchange about the dead body of Roger Linus:

Sawyer: Skeletor seems to like it.
Hurley: That's not cool, dude! That guy had a mom, a family and friends. Oh, and a name! Not "Skeletor," it's Roger Workman!
Sawyer: It's "Work Man," you blockhead! That's his job! He was a DHARMA janitor.

4. "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" (1x11) -- The best Jack episode, hands down. Jack and Kate search for Claire and Charlie after they disappear -- and after Hugo figures out that Ethan was never on the plane. They find Charlie hanging from a tree, and Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly do their best acting of the series in the heart-wrenching scene where Jack resuscitates him. In Jack's flashback, we see why his relationship with Dad was broken -- he ratted him out for being drunk during an operation. Here's an episode where the "Jack Face" is totally warranted.

5. "Through the Looking Glass" (3x22) -- The best bookend episode does, in fact, focus on one character, and it's Jack, whose descent into addiction looks like a flashback, but ends up being a flash-forward. This episode was truly a game-changer, not only because it turned the show's concept of time on its ear, but because it did something even more unthinkable: It ended with Charlie's death.

Honorable mentions:
"The Incident" (5x16)
"Lockdown" (2x17)
"Man of Science, Man of Faith" (2x01)
"Orientation" (2x03)
"Two For the Road" (2x20)

What say you?

I'm sorry, what's the game called?

2009-07-30T16:39:00.006-05:00

Summer is almost over, which means it's time for football training camp to open for our local football team, the Chicago football Bears.

Soon, our airwaves will be full of soundbites from head football coach Lovie Smith talking about how well his football players play the game of football out there on the football field. We'll hear that Jay Cutler can throw the football very far down the football field, that Devin Hester can catch the football, and that Matt Forte can run the football. Maybe we'll hear about how well Brian Urlacher and the other defensive football players are at trying to force the football out of the hands of other football players. Lovie might even speculate on how many football games the Bears could win this football season.

Then we'll tune into ESPN and hear former football players and football coaches talk about their favorite football teams for the upcoming football season. We'll probably hear them say that Adrian Peterson can run the football better than anyone else on the football field, and that Tom Brady is ready to make a triumphant return, throwing the football down the football field. If there's a questionable penalty flag, we may hear debate on whether or not a football player made a "football move."

Hopefully, at some point during either the professional football or collegiate football seasons, we'll get to hear another football rant as awesome as this one from Colorado Buffaloes football coach Dan Hawkins:

In conclusion, football.

Arrested development

2009-07-30T00:55:00.004-05:00

As I'm typing this, Disney's "TRON" is spinning in my DVD player. This past weekend, I joined thousands of screaming teens, tweens and toddlers at a concert starring Disney's next big recording artist, Demi Lovato. I spent the rest of the weekend watching panels from the San Diego Comic-Con on YouTube, with particular interest in the presentation by the cast and producers of "Lost" -- a Disney production that airs on Disney's ABC network. I have visited Disney resorts on both coasts three times since January 2007, and have a framed Jungle Cruise attraction poster hanging over my DVD rack, which contains dozens of Disney movies.

What the hell is going on here?

I am 30 years old. Shouldn't I be listening to Wilco, talking about how great "The Hurt Locker" is, and planning some kind of hiking adventure in Costa Rica?

Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Buehrle

2009-07-28T20:51:00.006-05:00

45 consecutive batters. Forty-five.

Mark Buehrle's perfection stretched across three different games with three different teams, in two different venues. Leave it to the pesky Minnesota Twins to break the streak in that hellish nightmare they call a ballpark. (At least former Sox 3B Joe Crede wasn't the culprit; he was Victim No. 42.)

Even with the accomplishments of the past week -- and the no-hitter in 2007, and the save in the World Series, and the World Series title, and his awesome walks-to-strikeouts ratio -- Buehrle's a longshot for the Hall of Fame, unless he can win, say, 15 games a year for the next eight years. That would give him more than 250 career victories.

But I think history will remember Buehrle without the "HOF" next to his name. He is already a White Sox legend, and now he may flat-out be a Chicago legend. He has been the face of the Sox for the better part of this decade, and certainly among the classiest players to ever call Chicago home. (Could you imagine the uproar if Kenny Williams hadn't renewed his contract?)

I tip my cap to you, sir. Now go win us the division, please ...

Monday's top-ten list on "Late Show"

The last out of the perfecto, seen from the Scout Seats

President Obama's phone call

Pandemonium after Buehrle's 2007 no-no

Ode to Olivia

2009-07-28T01:24:00.004-05:00

My dearest Olivia Munn: Why aren't you starring in Judd Apatow films, stealing Megan Fox's jobs, or playing "Rock Band" and drinking beers with me?

Playlist

2009-07-27T01:02:00.000-05:00

Here's what I've been listening to lately.

I love the Gaga. Call me "lame" all you want.

Dear Jess and Lisa: If I come see you at Great America on Friday, will you ride Logger's Run with me? Love, Sean.

Went to Demi Lovato's concert this Friday. Needless to say, a surreal experience for a single 30-year-old man who doesn't have children. But she's a great live performer.

I heard this band because Demi Lovato name-dropped them on "Fallon" last week. The vocals are awful, of course, but the musicianship is staggering.

Michael Giacchino rules. Why can't this movie be on DVD now?!?

Review: "(500) Days of Summer"

2009-07-25T12:34:00.001-05:00

3 stars out of four
Directed by Marc Webb
Screenplay by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz & Matthew Gray Gubler

• • •

The trailer:

The plot: An offbeat romantic comedy about a woman (Deschanel) who doesn't believe true love exists, and the young man (Gordon-Levitt) who falls for her.

My review: "(500) Days of Summer" is a perfectly entertaining Hollywood rom-com wearing indie clothes. If you A) replace Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel with, say, Shia LaBeouf and Katherine Heigl; B) blind the audience with glossy cinematography; and C) ditch the fleeting use of its lush musical score in favor of Sixpence None the Richer songs, you'd have yourself the Nora Ephron version of "Annie Hall."

But the decisions to cast Levitt and Deschanel are crucial to the film's success, and part of why some may be overstating its perceived meaning or excellence. "(500) Days of Summer" doesn't have anything particularly new or insightful to say about love, but it does have moments of brilliance and truth.

The most brilliant moment of truth comes near the end of the film, when our hero Tom (Gordon-Levitt) goes to a party hosted by his ex, Summer (Deschanel). Tom hopes the party will be a new beginning for the couple, who met at work and began a romance despite Summer's reluctance to enter a serious relationship. Tom's experience in the party is shown two different ways, simultaneously, in split-screen. One shows his expectations, and the other shows his reality. Predictably, the reality doesn't live up to the expectation -- like so many romantic (or hopefully romantic) encounters we all have in real life. The scene is a marvel of timing and execution; kudos to director Webb, who previously helmed music videos for everyone from Green Day to Jesse McCartney.

Webb sprinkles little flights of fancy throughout his film, which is presented in non-linear form -- we bounce around the 500 days of the title as an on-screen graphic tells us which numbered day we're about to see. Tom doesn't break the fourth wall as Alvey Singer did in "Annie Hall," but the tone is much the same, right down to the sudden appearance of animated characters in one scene. Tom's movie-theater daydream, in which he imagines his life as an Ingmar Bergman film, is the film's most obvious nod to Woody Allen, and one of its funniest scenes.

The film also employs a narrator, which by turns feels just right and totally wrong. It goes right in the beginning; When we first meet Summer, we have no reason to like her other than the fact she is played by an actress as lovable as Zooey Deschanel. But the narrator basically tells us we're supposed to go ga-ga for her, so we just go with it -- much like how Tom just goes with it. It's not until later that we (and Tom) realize the situation is not so ideal.

After that scene, the narrator seems superfluous. After the movie, Sean Tuohey and I talked about whether a film that employs the fanciful techniques that "(500) Days of Summer" employs needs a narrator; would the audience accept the split-screen scene or the Bergman homage if they didn't feel like they were being told a story? We even speculated that the entire movie was built around that split-screen sequence, and that the narrator was created just to pull that scene off.

The film's greatest miscalculation is its ending, a scene that plays on auto-pilot, and which ends with a real groaner of a joke. The film's big message? "There are plenty of fish in the sea." Yep, that's about as deep as it goes.

Gordon-Levitt's big scene has Tom, a greeting-card writer, delivering a diatribe against his profession. He says that the sentiments within the cards are as phony and unrealistic as those in the movies, and that they give people false hope. I thought this would be where "(500) Days" finally announces itself as a satire of Hollywood romantic comedies, but the neatly wrapped-up finale pretty much goes against everything Tom says in the scene.

It's no "Annie Hall," and it's certainly no "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," but "(500) Days of Summer" is a promising debut for Webb and a fine showcase for two of our best young actors. It would make a great double-bill with "Adventureland," another tale of young romance that hits all the indie grace notes, but which ends in a much more satisfying manner.

The perfect game

2009-07-23T22:25:00.002-05:00

There are few things in life more exciting than walking into a ballpark.

Every time I walk onto a concourse and get my first peek of the green diamond past it, I feel a tangible thrill throughout my body. This happens at every park -- even the Metrodome, which is just about the most awful baseball stadium imaginable. More often than not, the thrill comes at 35th and Shields, where Jerry Reinsdorf and Co. have transformed the cold, barren "New" Comiskey Park into the bustling, beautiful U.S. Cellular Field. I usually enter the park from Gate 5, go up the escalators, and take a quick lap around the concourse, taking in all the sights and sounds. (Is there a more satisfying smell than that of Polish sausage and grilled onions at the game?)

It wasn't always this way. I used to shun baseball as that slow, boring game where nothing happens. That was easy for a kid who turned 12 the year Michael Jordan and the Bulls won their first of six titles, or a kid who got to see Belfour, Roenick and Chelios in their prime at the old Chicago Stadium. There was excitement in the Stangland house when the Sox won the division in 1993, but it became an afterthought when MJ announced his first retirement amid the Sox playoff series with Toronto. My newfound love for Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, Ellis Burks and Wilson Alvarez stood no chance against the thought of losing Jordan. I remember a flock of us Wheeling High kids piled into Elliott Dennis's living room the next day to watch MJ's press conference on our lunch hour.

But I found my way back to baseball in 2001, when I started working at the Daily Herald. Everyone at the Herald is a baseball fan. Don Friske, the night Sports editor, is an official scorer at The Cell and Wrigley, for cryin' out loud. If I didn't know baseball, I wouldn't be able to carry on a conversation with most of my colleagues. So I reinvested myself, and baseball has become a large part of my life ever since.

Some of my most indelible memories of the last eight years revolve around baseball. One would assume that I'd count the 2005 World Series among the best, but what I remember most about that series is missing the final out because my boss told everyone to stop watching the game and get back to work. If she had waited 30 seconds, we all would have seen history made. But she didn't, and I spent most of that night shaking my head in what felt like defeat. After deadline, I went into the men's room for about 10 minutes and broke down -- I missed the final out of a Chicago World Series! I could have been watching it with my dad and sharing the moment, but instead I'm HERE.

But tonight, under similar circumstances, I've enjoyed one of the best memories. Mark Buehrle was mowing down hitters in the final three innings of the game today while a conference room full of Sox fans attempted to have a Page 1 meeting; we mostly failed. The newsroom's collective joy over Buehrle's perfect game has put me on Cloud Nine all day, even though I didn't see it. I scrolled through the pictures offered to us by the Associated Press a few times today, and got a little choked up each time. Seeing this player -- this wonderful, humble, likable player -- achieve something this historic just gets me. No other sport affects me in quite the same way (although I did nearly destroy my coffee table when the Blackhawks lost in OT to Detroit earlier this summer).

Something about baseball feels so welcoming, so perfect. George Carlin's famous routine about the differences between football and baseball is a favorite of mine because it also feels so perfect. When I sit in the bleachers at Wrigley, with the sun going down and a beer in my hand, it feels perfect. When I drink in the Pittsburgh skyline from a seat at PNC Park, it feels perfect. And yes, even when I'm sitting in the cheap seats, 927,000 feet away from home plate at the Metrodome, it just feels perfect.

I'm not scheduled to return to U.S. Cellular Field until Sept. 19, when my dad and I will watch the Sox take on the Kansas City Royals. What memory will I come home with that night?

Tim Burton's Whimsical Adaptation: Part 10

2009-07-23T07:42:00.000-05:00

Note: Disney has apparently killed every embeddable version of this trailer. Click here for Yahoo's high-res version.

Shoddy visual effects aside, is there a single surprising thing about the trailer for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"? And is there any chance I won't be seeing it?

Though hailed as this wildly creative near-visionary, Tim Burton has rarely given us anything truly original -- and that's a shame, because when he does, the results are usually extraordinary. "The Nightmare Before Christmas," which Burton conceived and Henry Selick directed, is a classic, and "Beetlejuice" remains his most memorable and entertaining film as a director.

But most of Burton's career has been devoted to adaptations or extensions of existing franchises. To wit:

• "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985)
• "Batman" (1989)
• "Batman Returns" (1992)
• "Mars Attacks!" (1996)
• "Sleepy Hollow" (1999)
• "Planet of the Apes" (2001)
• "Big Fish" (2003)
• "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005)
• "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (2007)

And now we can add this rather "Chocolate Factory"-esque interpretation of "Alice" to the list.

I line up for every movie with Burton's name on it, more out of a sense of obligation than one of excitement -- and it almost feels like that's how Tim treats his movies now, too. "OK, I guess I'll make another quirky movie for the Hot Topic crowd." While it fit that decription, "Sweeney Todd" was Burton's best movie in more than a decade because it was a bit of a departure for him: a musical. His best film before that? The black-and-white biopic "Ed Wood," another departure from his decidedly different brand of normal.

What is Tim Burton's true passion? I can't imagine someone with his bursting imagination would want to spend an entire career reinventing someone else's ideas, but that's mostly what he's been doing. (One wonders if he's upset about not directing any of the "Harry Potter" movies.) His next film will be a reinvention of his own idea: "Frankenweenie," a feature-length version of the 1984 short film that got Burton noticed in the first place. I can't say I'm too excited by the idea of that film -- or by "Alice in Wonderland" -- but I'm sure I'll see both of them.

If he really wanted to shock his audience, he'd make a sports movie: "Tim Burton's Roid Rage." That could be interesting...

Another blog?

2009-07-22T20:38:00.000-05:00

Yes, another blog.

Unlike Widescreen, the blog I write for the Daily Herald, a / v will be completely unfettered and uncensored. That's not to say this is going to be a hedonistic den of debauchery; it just means I'll write whatever the hell I want to.

What that mostly means is that this will become the de facto home for my film reviews and retrospective pieces. That "30 Years at the Movies" series I started (and abandoned) earlier this year may resurface here.

But it also means I can write about sports and sports media, two things I won't be doing at the Herald site. (Our sports bloggers pretty much have that covered.)

I will (hopefully) be blogging extensively this weekend about Comic Con at the Herald site, but in the next week or so a / v will spring to life. Consider this your teaser trailer -- or your warning!