Now I Have To Get HBO

"I am speechless. I am without speech."

Of course, the question becomes will this be like The E Street Band Reunion '95 or The E Street Band Reunion '99? Let's all hope for the latter.

Gone Like 'One Love'

"One Love" was one of the (literally) hundreds of tracks Bruce Springsteen, my hero, recorded for his masterpiece "Born in the U.S.A." that was not used. It did not even make onto Springsteen's four disc box set of unreleased "Tracks". And so it remains out there, somewhere, listing, drifting, unknown, like that girl on the Randolph & Wabash Train Platform in the red shoes (perhaps our paths will cross again some day).

Anyway, Judd Apatow's "Funny People" is set for release this Friday and, as I've mentioned before, a Springsteen cameo had been written into the script though it was never confirmed he had agreed to do it. I was pretty well certain he had not, considering no mention of it was made on the Springsteen web site I check more fanatically than my favorite Nebraska Football web site....but I kept hope alive. Until now. Apatow confirmed recently in the San Francisco Chronicle that it was not happening. This is what he said:

"We wrote a cameo for Bruce Springsteen, but it was clear that it was going to be very difficult to get to him, and to get an answer in the time frame that we would need it... He was just another person that Adam's character would be friends with. We had a funny idea that the scene would be Springsteen pontificating about life and death, and that he would go on and on about man's journey and spirituality. And then finally Adam would say, 'Dude, you've got to shut your mouth. This isn't an intro to one of your songs. You're talking way too much.' And then Springsteen would say, 'I'm sorry, man. I just got really nervous. I was babbling, man.'"

What I would give to hear "One Love." What I would have given to see that scene. At least I can find solace in this.

Testify

The sportswriter extraordinare Joe Posnanski began a recent post on his own blog with words that very nearly moved me to tears in my cubicle. They are words I have spoken myself, albeit in a different sort of variation, words beautiful beyond compare, words that summarize how I too feel when I go to the movies, how it's not really going to the movies but going to church (my own personal church). It makes me think of how annoyed I get when a person at a movie says "Why did (they) do that?" or something of the sort and I just want to scream at them "WATCH THE REST OF THE MOVIE AND YOU'LL FIND OUT!!!" It makes me think of how sad I was when I left Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla Sky" (which was right after the double-shot of extreme awesomeness of "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous" and "Vanilla Sky" was just a tragic letdown) and I just wanted to spend a little time in a quiet depression and my girlfriend at the time asked the instant we stepped out of the theater "What did you think?" and how that comment made me want to just ditch her at the theater and go have a beer. It makes me think about seeing "The Merry Gentleman" earlier this year and how sad I was when it ended because it was sooooo good and how I never wanted it to end and how I ended up walking home, all the way from Diversey, because I just needed some time to myself to try and recover. It makes me think about how sitting in the theater after "Atonement" ended, re-realizing I was in a movie theater and trying to come to grips with my mentally drained, weakened state, sitting through every last closing credit, is one of my Top 10 Favorite Moments in my 4-plus years in Chicago and how that probably makes no sense to anyone else and how I don't care whether or not it does.

Anyway, I love Joe Posnanski. I bow down to him. I just really, really, really hope I can still love movies as much as I do now when I get older. The following (from an article that was primarily about golfer Tom Watson at the British Open last weekend) are his words:

"I used to love movies. Sure, I still like movies, but as a child, as a teenager, as a young man, I used to love them in a whole other way. A good movie, for me, was like entering another dimension or a state of hypnosis or something … and it’s almost never like that now. Time had different rules at the movies back then — a good movie would last 49 seconds, a boring scene might go on for four days. I could lose track of where I was, who was with me, what I had still to do. There was so many emotions, some which had nothing at all to do with the movie itself. I can remember the bitter dread I would feel when I realized that a movie I loved was coming close to the end. I can remember the awful harshness of blinding glare as I would walk out of the theater.

More than anything, I remember the sad instant the movie ended. The credits began to roll, and I would think, 'No, the movie isn’t over. The movie can’t be over.' And all the people around would get up, move toward the exits, rushing to beat traffic or something … you could hear their shoes stepping on popcorn and squeaking on the dried glop of Coca Cola and Raisinets. And more, much more, you could hear their instant reviews. 'I hated that — hated it' 'I thought the couple had no chemistry!' 'I didn’t realize it would be that violent.' 'I really liked that part in the park.'

Damn, I hated that. I can remember going on dates when she would ask me, the second the movie ended, 'So what did you think of that?' … and I could never explain to her why that was like stabbing me. 'Just wait until we get back to the car,' I would mutter, with probably an edge in my voice, and she would look at me like I was a crazy person, which I probably was. But I could not help it. I couldn’t talk the moment a movie ended. I couldn’t listen the moment a movie ended. I wanted — I NEEDED — a few minutes of silence, a few minutes to gather myself, to consider the ending of this dark little world I had lived in for an hour and a half or two hours, to brace myself for re-entry. I needed a few minutes to come to grips with the reality that the movie was over and life, which had been on pause, was playing again."

Straw Dogs: Feel Good Remake Of 2010

Back in my early 20's when I had decided it was time to become a "serious" moviegoer I began renting older movies in an effort to broaden my so-called horizons. Some of the films, the more straightforward ones, like "The Big Sleep", helped get me started toward being a more well-rounded cinematic connoisseur but, at the same time, I was still at a point where certain films remained beyond my grasp. (Truthfully, a lot of films still remain beyond my grasp.) For instance, I remember watching "Last Year At Marienbad" because I had read how Michael Mann cited it as a major influence and about halfway in, as baffled as I'd been since my Spanish final at Iowa, I turned it off and watched Seinfeld re-runs to clear my head. I've never tried to watch it again and I never will. If that makes me a mental infant, fine, I don't care, just don't make me watch that movie again.

But during this point in my life I also watched madman Sam Peckinpah's ode to extreme violence "Straw Dogs", a movie in which the wife (Susan George) of a passive mathematician (Dustin Hoffmann) is brutally - and, sweet Mary Mother of God do I mean brutally - raped which leads to a conclusion, involving Hoffmann and the rapists, that is so unrelentingly violent I need to breathe into a bag before I continue writing.

Is it unsettling? Forget unsettling. They haven't yet invented a word to describe how "Straw Dogs" makes you feel. If it ever accidentally winds up in your Netflix queue and gets mailed to you don't watch it, don't even open the envelope, just take it as is and mail it back. For God's sake, mail it back!

Why, you must be wondering, am I writing about such a traumatizing memory? Well, it seems Rod Lurie, the man who just gave us the 10/9/2004 of movie endings, is slated to write and direct a remake of "Straw Dogs".

Do you remember when Jerry finds out the girl he's dating once went out with Newman leading Jerry to ask her, agonized beyond belief, "Why?" To the news of this remake I ask "Why?" just like Jerry asked it that time. Why? Why in the name of all that is sacred and pure on this earth would you remake "Straw Dogs"? What can you hope to gain? Anyone who survived, or didn't survive, the original won't want anything to do with a remake and will anyone who hasn't seen Peckinpah's version want anything to do with a new one?

I see that in the remake Hoffmann's character (who will be played by James Marsden) has been turned into a Hollywood screenwriter. But if you thought Lurie would turn into some sort of comment on the dark soul of the movie biz with the final reel involving all kinds of death on, say, a movie studio backlot, think again. It turns out they move back to his wife's home of Mississippi, their marriage falls apart and then....cue the violence! (I can only assume we will be treated to the most even-handed charactures of Mississippians.)

The wife will be played by none other than Kate Bosworth, a fact which raises a couple obvious questions. 1.) Is the rape scene going to be toned down because otherwise why else would the lovely Ms. Bosworth agree to such a thing? 2.) Will unsuspecting fans of "Superman Returns" wander into this film and then wander back out 2 hours later, dazed, confused, scarred for life, possibly past the point of repair?

"Straw Dogs" did not end well. Neither will this.

My Great Movies: The Dish

Forty years ago today millions of people around the world gathered before their television sets to witness Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first two men to set foot on the moon. But then you knew that part. Did you know just how those grainy but breathtaking images were beamed to all those television sets? This is the story of Rob Stitch's wonderous Australian comedy "The Dish".

In the summer of 2001 I was still serving time in Phoenix. One Friday evening, after a particularly brutish day at the office, I staggered through the dry, god-awful desert heat of the Shea 14 Movie Theater parking lot in Scottsdale, desperate for a film to remedy my 109 degree induced depression. I noticed "The Dish" on the marquee. I didn't even know what it was or who made it but I knew it wasn't one of the overhyped Hollywood blockbusters of the season and so I bought a ticket for it. What followed was one of the most miraculous moviegoing experiences of my life. I ate the thing up with a childish grin on my face and when the hellish Arizona heat smacked me in the face upon exiting the theater two hours later my grin just got bigger.

With the Apollo 11 mission set to light out NASA enlists Parkes, Australia's Radio Telescope ("The Dish"), nestled right in the middle of a sheep paddock, a setting as quaint as the town itself, to track the spacecraft as it traverses the southern hemisphere. The images of the moonwalk itself will come from NASA's primary receiving station in California but merely to be a part of mankind's most daring endeavor is a victory for the townfolk, every last one of them bubbling not only over the lunar mission but over the impending arrival of the country's Prime Minister.

We quickly meet the four men who make the obsevatory hum. Cliff Buxton (Sam Neil) is the man in charge, calm, as steady as the pipe firmly planted in his hand at all times. Glenn (Tom Long) is intelligent but nervous, neurotic and forever fidgety. Mitch (Kevin Harrington) is quick with the quips. Al (Patrick Warburton) is the by-the-book, monotone NASA man who immediately clashes with Mitch.

Parkes' Mayor (Roy Billing), good natured, so sweet on his wife even though she often steals his thunder by finishing his sentences, prepares to greet not only the Prime Minister (Bille Brown, who is never given an actual name in the movie, a touch that feels spot-on after reading Bill Bryson's book "In A Sunburned Country" earlier this year about his journies to Australia in which he laments the fact he is forever forgetting the Prime Minister's name) but the American Ambassador (John McMartin). Rudi (Tayler Kane) is enlisted as The Dish's security guard, a job he is undoubtedly up for but maybe not cut out for, and his sister Janine (Eliza Szonert) stops by at all hours with food for the boys while pining for Glenn, not that he would ever do anything about it. (Hmmmm....am I a Cliff, an Al, a Mitch, or a Glenn? I can't decide.)

Straight away one can sense the film angling to show us the vast differences between the carefree Aussies and the buttoned-up American, yet it never pursues these developments as relentlessly as you might expect. It turns out "The Dish" is less about overcoming differences than it is simply about accepting those differences, realizing how much else we do have in common and getting on with it. Mitch and Al's manly tete-a-tete passes in the blink of an eye.

Consider the American Ambassador. What do you reckon? That he is a quintessential stateside lout, boorish and resistant to the offerings of the continent on which he finds himself? On the contrary, the Ambassador is portrayed, simply, as a genial guy. He is allowed to deliver one of the film's best lines, words that build from events constructed so perfectly to develop its cause that I can barely remember ever laughing so hard in a movie theater (or at home) when he says them.

Stitch allows room for everyone in the film to have a personality and at least a moment or two of honest-to-goodness humor. Kane's intrepid security guard goes a step further - he's funny every time he turns up, even if he's off camera or out of focus in the background ("nighty-night"). It is my favorite performance in a film loaded with terrific ones and exemplifies proper supporting work - he always stands out but never stands above, enhancing each scene he's in but never appropriating anyone else's moment. Most comedic American supporting actors should be so good.

Most importantly, the film is never condescending to any of its characters. They have quirks and faults, like we all do, but it never makes them stupid for the sake of telling a joke or advancing the plot. The movie loves the whole bunch of them and we do too.

It's why "The Dish" is not just a comedy but also a....(should I say it? Do I dare use that term? Oh, well, why not?)....a triumph of the human spirit. Yeah, you heard me. It is, as critic Lisa Schwarzbaum noted, "a comedy that rises out of elation, rather than mere wacky gas." It's about man walking on the moon, after all, our finest hour, perhaps our greatest accomplishment. It wasn't just Neil and Buzz's hour, though it was theirs most of all, it belonged to the whole world. In the 2007 documentary "In The Shadow Of The Moon" that recalled these events, Michael Collins, the astronaut who stayed behind to man the command module, noted how many people told him afterwards "We did it. Not 'You Americans did it', but we did it. Humankind, the human race, people, we did it." This film is an illustration of that sentiment. (Needless to say, I wasn't there and, in fairness, not everyone seems to have felt precisely this way.)

We do not really see the events of the moonwalk and NASA's endeavors and so forth, we see the people of Parkes watching the events. So often the movie is perfectly still as it contemplates the characters contemplating the astronauts, gathered around radios and TV sets for updates on the mission's progress.

But maybe more than anything the film captures the wonder, the stunning wonder, the disbelieving wonder, of this landmark event. A seat in parliament, the girl of your dreams agreeing to go out, the girl of your dreams simply forgoing the pleasure of telling you to bugger off for once in her life, a cyclone dropping out of nowhere at precisely the wrong time, partaking in a little cricket on top of a satellite, even "bullshitting NASA", all of it is not quite as astounding as the moment Tom Long as Glenn delivers a virtuoso line reading that must sum up just how every single citizen of the world felt as they watched the same image on the TV across from them at the same moment - "It's Armstrong....on the moon."

The Plight Of Amy Ryan Continues

Within a few days of each other I watched a little indie movie called "Bob Funk" and then indulged in a random re-watching of Steven Spielberg's mammoth "War of the Worlds". This turned out to be extremely disturbing, and I'll tell you why.

I watched Craig Carlisle's "Bob Funk" because it featured my second favorite actress, Amy Ryan. I had originally planned to see it upon its arrival at the Landmark Theaters here in Chicago back in April except it wound up receiving a mere weeklong run and then was gone. Foolishly I decided to see "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" instead. Or was it foolish?

It must be understood that the Landmark website trumpeted the appearance of Ms. Ryan in this film. It must also be understood that she is featured prominently on the film's poster. Then why in God's name is she only in this movie for three minutes? I'm not exaggerating. She turns up at a bar a few times - three, I think - to swear at the movie's loutish title character when he tries to make a pass (and she's quite convincing when she does this, I might add) and then finally winds up going with him, sleeps with him, vanishes the next day and....so does Ryan herself. That's all we get? You've got Amy Ryan in your movie and that's how you use her? It's like ex Nebraska Football Coach Bill "The Brain" Callahan letting Joe "I Had A Better Pass Efficiency Rating Than The Number One Pick In The NFL Draft" Ganz toil away on the bench. If I'd spent ten dollars to see her for three minutes and not see her for a hundred and five minutes I would have been a not-so-mildly-happy camper.

Lo and behold, a few days later I found myself watching 2005's "War of the Worlds" because, well, I don't know. I think I just wanted to watch a big summer movie since I've avoided most of them this summer and I already knew I liked the first hour of "War of the Worlds" (the rest not so much) but then I realized the movie gods had fated this decision.

Remember when the lightning storm that's really the martians turns up over Tom Cruise's house? "That is so weird," says Cruise's Ray Ferrier. "The wind is blowing toward the storm." His neighbor, clutching her infant son, agrees. "That is weird." Except something's weirder. Who is that neighbor? Is that....could it be....it is! It's Amy Ryan! She gets this line and one line later when she's in a wide shot out on the street and says to Tom Cruise, "Can you believe this?" No, Amy I can't! My eyes had to be deceiving me. I fast forwarded to the end credits and discovered they weren't.

Amy Ryan, future Oscar nominee, the woman who gave not just the finest performance of 2007 in "Gone Baby Gone" but one of the finest performances of the entire decade, was billed as "Neighbor With Toddler". She didn't even get a name!

Isn't Steven Spielberg supposed to be a genius? Isn't he supposed to be able to spot extreme talent? How did he let this happen? She'd been in "The Wire" at this point, for God's sake, couldn't he at least have given her the role of the Exposition Deliverer - whoops! I meant the News Reporter?! It wouldn't have been a huge step up but it would have been something. Plus, you know she would have gone an unexpected way, off the beaten path, that would have made that part so much more worthwhile. For instance, even as Neighbor With Toddler she turns up wearing some sort of pink, frilly skirt over her jeans. I don't know, perhaps this was all the rage in the fashion circles back in 2005 but it struck me as probably being her own decision. "At least let me wear a funky costume if you're just gonna stick me in two scenes with one line each even though I could act circles around the guy I'm saying them to."

It's so sad because you really would have thought after "Gone Baby Gone" that she would start to receive some better offers, some bigger roles. She got a bit in "Changeling" but that was just to be second banana to Angelina in the psych ward. Essentially she's gone from Actress Who Doesn't Get Name In Credits to Actress Whose Name Is Used To Promote Film Because She's Oscar Nominee Even Though We Horrifically Under Utilize Her. (Note: Her character name in "Bob Funk" is Ms. Wright. No. Really. It is. Ms. Wright. Wait...I'm keeling over. I feel sick.)

Yet I'm still hopeful. This double whammy of disappointment led me to Amy Ryan's imdb profile and it appears help is on the way. She's in the new Paul Greengrass film, slated for a release later this year, and though it's two years away she is also in Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut with what appears to be the second biggest role behind the auter himself.

I know patience is a virtue but seriously, movie gods, can't you help our sister out?

Mel Gibson Makes His Comeback...

...well, maybe.

This film's aroma seems similar to Adrien Brody's "Dummy" which wasn't exactly a masterpiece. Then again "Dummy" wasn't directed by Jodie Foster.

The Hurt Locker

At one point during "The Hurt Locker" I almost left the theater for fear that I was honestly going to throw up. This is not to suggest "The Hurt Locker" is not a quality film, because it is, or to suggest my queasiness was a result of the herky jerky camerawork, of which there is plenty, but to tell you how relentless and intense this film truly is.

The movie's focus is squarely on an elite bomb diffusing team stationed in Iraq and it wastes little time dropping us right in the middle of of an extreme life and death situation as one of the men, draped in a gigantic specialized suit, strides off toward a particular bomb's "kill area", the ordeal calling to mind a modern-day astronaut bounding around in some strange, desolate, terrifying place.

This team is comprised of three men: Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and their new commanding officer - who takes charge for a reason I won't reveal - Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner, getting all sorts of deserved hoopla for his work). At the start the three characters may feel a bit familiar. Eldridge frets over what feels like inevitable death. Sanborn might be termed a By The Book sort of officer who balks at Sgt. James when on his first day with the team he heedlessly and needlessly wades into harm's way. Later, James will switch off his headset against Sanborn's advice and even remove his entire suit when facing a carload of bombs because he'd rather "die comfortable".

Yet director Kathryn Bigelow and her screenwriter Mark Boal will slowly peel back other layers to this trio without ever letting the suspense suffer. They confront bomb after bomb, no two are ever the same, and at one point find themselves in a mentally and physically exhausting standoff with some enemy snipers in the middle of nowhere which is what nearly led to my fleeing of the theater. It is among the most grueling war movie passages I have ever witnessed. Many critics and filmmakers will tell you that even anti-war movies can be considered recruitment films and while there is definitely a percentage of the population that would view some of the more testosterone-fueled portions (Baghdad's version of Fight Club, for instance) in that manner I can only speak for myself and these moments of James and Sanborn in the dirt just trying to hang on re-confirmed for me what I already knew - I'd last about 4 seconds in Iraq.

"The Hurt Locker" never really takes the time to ask "why are we here?" and this is refreshing. Day to day survival is the main topic. Certainly the adage that "war is a drug" is also addressed in Sgt. James' endless bravura actions and in Sanborn and Eldridge's questioning of them but you sense a whole lot more lurking beneath this idea.

The need for detachment felt key, removing yourself from anything that even in the slightest way can affect your focus. We see this in an unlikely friendship that Sgt. James forms which ultimately leads to some highly questionable decisions down the road. And even though no one ever stops to ponder just what they are doing in Iraq the film still makes quite a profound statement in this regard.

Again and again Bigelow returns to shots of Sgt. James in that frightening suit, trudging through empty streets with rubble and upturned cars, random citizens watching these events leisurely from rooftops and balconies, one of them even videotaping for who knows what reason, a place that is unsettling and unknowable.

Late in the film when Sgt. James sends he and his two men hurtling into the darkness against everyone's better judgement for reasons he never makes specifically clear it transforms into one of those transcendent moments that becomes more than just what it's about. You feel helpless, wanting to scream, "What the hell are they doing?" It's a good question in more ways than one.

Megan Fox, Cinema Romantico's Got Your Back

I cannot say I have ever been what one might term a fan of Megan Fox. Sure, she's a bit voluptuous and rather agreeable to the eye but, you know, gaggles of actresses fit that criteria. Ms. Fox, though, doesn't have the haughtiness of Sienna Miller or the grace of Rachel McAdams or the luminosity (I said it) of Kate Beckinsale. Megan Fox is just a big bunch of so-what? She's the epitome of blah beautiful. She looks like she was generated in a lab. No personality, no allure, no twinkle.

Or so I thought. Lo and behold, Ms. Fox knows one of the quickest routes to Cinema Romantico's heart - that is, pissing off Michael Bay. To paraphrase Ed Harris in "Gone Baby Gone": You gotta pick a side. If you're a fan of Michael Bay, you're not on my side.

This is why I was stunned to discover Ms. Fox, the star of Michael Bay's box office twin behemoths "Transformers" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was recently quoted as saying the following: "Unless you’re a seasoned veteran, working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience...I don’t want to blow smoke...People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting."

You tell 'em, Megan!!!

Michael Bay, never one to display restraint, fired back: "Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, 'OK Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it. But I 100% disagree with her. Nic Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in 'Armageddon.' Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did 'Transformers' -- and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence from 'Bad Boys.' Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in 'Transformers.' I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films."

You're absolutely right, Mike! How dare she?! Nic Cage wasn't a big actor when you cast him in "The Rock". I mean, seriously, that Oscar he'd won for "Leaving Las Vegas" the previous year? Tiddlywinks, man. Tiddlywinks. You made Ben Affleck, dammit! That Oscar he won for writing "Good Hill Hunting" the prior year sure as heck wasn't what vaulted his punk a-- into the mainstream. Will Smith's acting chops? His charisma? Dust in the wind, baby, without all that tutoring you gave him on "Bad Boys". Would we ever have the privilege of seeing Martin Lawrence tear the roof off the sucker in "Big Momma's House" without your unflappable mentoring? Two words - hell & no. And Shia LaBeouf? Bullseye, Mike. If you hadn't made him we never would have had the chance to never forget him as Mutt Williams in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"....wait a second....you! You, Mike! You did that! If you hadn't single-handedly "exploded" him we never would have been forced to endure Mutt Williams! Aaarrrgghhh!!! Damn you, Michael Bay, and your brilliance at spotting diamonds in the rough, for nurturing and developing primo talent! You've screwed us all with your impeccably skillful ways!

So it's official - I still hate Michael Bay and, thus, in the verbal skirmish between director and actress this blog lends it full support to the actress.

Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I still don't think Megan Fox can actually act.

Quality TV Actually Gets Rewarded

"I want to do that thing rich people do where they turn money into more money." - Liz Lemon

Whatever Works

The lesson of Woody Allen's latest is that in order to get through the unyielding horror show that is life you have to do "whatever works". Something, anything, doesn't matter, so long as it helps your survival, ensures your sanity, whatever works. Well, after I returned home from "Whatever Works" I promptly placed "Manhattan" into the DVD player and re-watched the Gershwin-infused opening ode to the Woodman's favorite city to ensure my sanity. Whatever works, man, whatever works.

I mean, wow, was this movie a letdown. A lot of people have disliked most of Allen's work in the 00's but the only one I recall openly hating was "Melinda and Melinda". Until now. I just did not care for "Whatever Works". It certainly starts out nice - well, at least for me - with Larry David hollering directly into the camera about how "this isn't the movie feel good movie of the year" and disparaging us - the audience - for being "obsessed with any number of sad, little hopes and dreams" (guilty). Now this may not be everyone's pint of beer. Understood. But I'm someone who could listen to Larry David yell all day and never tire of it.

The problem is that once this monologue concludes Larry David is forced to act and, oh boy, is that ever a serious problem. The only acting David has really ever done is on his fantastic HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (or in bit parts on "Seinfeld" such as the mysterious "man in the cape") but on your "Curb Your Enthusiasm" David is improvising. Allen encouraged him to improvise in this movie but instead David rigorously attemped to memorize all his lines word for word and you know what? He sounds just like a guy reciting every line in the script word for word. His performance is so unnatural it gets almost excruciating at times.

He is Boris Yellnikoff, a self-proclaimed "genius" who nearly won a Nobel Prize for quantum mechanics and now spends his days ranting and raving on any number of topics, insulting everyone within a one foot radius and teaching "earthworms" how to play chess. "My child is smart," says one offended mother. "In your opinion," Boris declares, "in your opinion", which is one of the very few line readings David manages to make authentic.

Boris was once married, tried to commit suicide, failed, now walks with a limp and lives alone in a shabby apartment which is how he prefers it, until, of course, a southern belle runaway in the form of Evan Rachel Wood happens to turn up at his place begging for a place to stay.

Thank goodness for Evan Rachel Wood. She's a wonder and the movie would be a waste without her. Now make no mistake, Ms. Wood is playing an underwritten character - strike that! - a woefully underwritten character, like many of Allen's female characters, even in some of his better movies, yet despite her utter cluelessness and her need to be attracted to and then marry (!) a guy like Boris and then leave Boris for guy we know is terribly smarmy because he plays the "flute" which indicates the immense dislike Allen seems to have for this poor girl, Wood still makes her fairly charming.

And that leads us to the film's focal flaw - the screenplay. Woody wants his characters to do certain things and end up certain ways and in certain places but shows no imagination for making any of this happen. He just has it happen. There is no blood, sweat and tears in the journies of these characters.

The esteemed Roger Ebert tries to bail out Woody by writing "It might be complained that everything works out for everyone a little too neatly. So it does, because this is not a realistic story but a Moral Tale." No, no, no, you can't do that. It's a frickin' movie, Roger. I don't care one iota about whether or not it's a "realistic story" within the context of the so-called real world, I care about whether or not the screenplay cheats. And this screenplay has pine tar on the bat and vaseline in the glove and steroids swimming in its system. The plotting here is akin to the episode where George Costanza takes a nap at 10:30 in the morning. LAZY.

Forget it. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. I just want to put on "Bullets Over Broadway" and dream about the Chazz Palminteri character lecturing the real Woody Allen on how to write.

Public Enemies

It seems the biopic is Michael Mann's kryptonite. "Ali" disappointed me and "Public Enemies" disappointed me even more if only because it seemed to be squarely in Mann's wheelhouse. He's the master of the crime saga and "Public Enemies" charts the story of one of America's most notorious criminals, bank robber John Dillinger, busting out of an Indiana prison, going on a spree, meeting a lovely lady, and ultimately getting gunned down outside the Biograph Theater on the streets of Chicago. I have struggled in the 48 hours since I saw it to determine the reason of Mann's failure.

Though, rest assured, it's not a complete failure. Far, far from it. The movie certainly looks good, beautiful photography and costume and set design and the whole thing. The acting is decent. Depp is solid as Dillinger, though not overwhelming, with the most expressive lisp of hair in cinematic history. Marion Cotillard is pretty good as Bille Frechette, a coatcheck girl who Dillinger sees from across the room and decides almost at once needs to be his "girl", and Christian Bale is serviceable as Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who hunted down Dillinger, and Billy Crudup is really pretty good as infamous FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. (I truly hoped this role would get Crudup that much deserved first Oscar nod but the role isn't showy nor prominent enough to make it happen. Alas.) No one - and I mean no one - makes machine gun fire as poetic as Michael Mann. And there are even a few sporadic moments of epic brilliance.

A brief sequence that involves a red light and a green light and a horrifying moment of life and death with Dillinger clinging to an accomplice being dragged outside of a car post prison break and, most particularly, the passage near the end in and around the Biograph Theater. The music, the way it contrasts certain scenes showing in the movie with Depp watching with a smile, the way it draws out the final moments, it's all worth the price of admission even if you have to wait quite awhile to see it.

But what of the rest? It's so...it's so.....it's so.......uninvolving. No immediacy. We're not there. Michael Mann always puts us there. Why wasn't I there? Why??? I cannot fathom how the man who once took the most simple shot imaginable of Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx and Naomie Harris just standing in the middle of a dance club and rendering it as dramatic as Springsteen's moans at the start of "Something in the Night" was unable to bring the same sort of drama to the story of John Dillinger.

Purvis, for one, is not a very interesting counterpoint to Dillinger. Mann almost completely dispenses with backstory but then that's always his been his M.O. Typically he develops character along with the story in a manner far more skillful than most but nothing ever develops with Purvis. He remains dogged but he is detached.

Dillinger's dialogue, and Bille's to some degree too, is peppered with platitudes. A few of those are fine but this many? Certainly Dillinger was a showman in a sense and so this is partly the movie presenting that side of him, yet he was also cold, calculating, and that part feels less authentic when he's spouting off lines destined for Barlett's.

Mostly, I suppose, it falls victim to that which plagues so many biopics, the History Channel Syndrome. Certain events need to be told and there are lot of those events and so the movie speeds us along from event to event and nothing ever feels very....intimate.

That's what it is. Michael Mann movies are intimate. The canvas is normally big, sure, but these sprawling tales of his are always, always told with such intimacy. He finds the intimate moments of his stories and then lingers. Yeah, that's it, too. He lingers. He lingers more than most. That's what I love about his movies. Most filmmakers are in such a damn hurry but Michael Mann finds things no one else does and sees them in ways no one else can and his movies never go into overdrive even though so much is consistently at stake. When "Public Enemies" settles down and finds something that truly catches its filmmaker's fancy it marvels but when it just yearns to say Dillinger did this and then Dillinger did that it bores.

"Ali" felt rushed. "Public Enemies" felt rushed. Michael Mann should never ever be in a rush.

Why I Love The Windy City

What enters your mind when you think Fourth Of July Weekend? Baseball? Barbecues? Fireworks? Parades? Schlitz? Those two dudes who eat a lotta hot dogs?

Not me, hombre. I think of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", one of the ten greatest movies ever made, showing at midnight on the big screen.

Boo-yah, and a half.

In Memoriam

Karl Malden. March 1912 - July 2009.