Inglourious Basterds

If you are seeking a history lesson on the subject of World War II I suggest taking a trip to the nearest Borders, or perhaps Barnes & Noble, and seeking out the section labeled: World War II. If, however, you are in the mood for an extravagant re-imagining of that time and place, a movie that not only explicitly refers to and resembles old World War II films but uses them as a crucial plot point, then, by all means, plant yourself in front of a screen showing "Inglourious Basterds". The latest opus from mad genius Quentin Tarantino is not perfect but it is also never not interesting and almost always entertaining.

Like the "Kill Bill" movies, Tarantino presents "Inglourious Basterds" in chapters. Chapter One tell us: "Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France." Here we meet our obligatory Nazi villain, Col. Hans Landa, (a fantastic Christoph Waltz, who, because I avoided every single review and article regarding this movie over the last few weeks, I learned today is garnering Oscar buzz), the "Jew Hunter", the most pleasantly sadistic villain in movie history, who chats up a French dairy farmer for quite some time, over a glass of milk, who he suspects, correctly, is harboring Jews beneath the farmhouse floorboards. Only one of the Jews manages to escape. Her name is Shosanna (Melanie Laurent, resembling a less hoity-toity Scarlett Johansson).

She moves on to Paris where we catch up with her later, using a, shall we say, alias, as she has become the prioprietor of a cinema left to her by an aunt and uncle. A young and very famous Nazi sniper (Daniel Bruhl) takes a shine to her and works his charms - well, sort of - as he enlists her cinema to screen the world premiere of the Joseph Goebbels (ah, Goebbels) approved film based on his exploits, "Nation's Pride". (Was anyone else hoping to see Tarantino's take on Leni Reifenstahl? I was. Alas, it was not to be.) Shosanna agrees but only because she plans to burn the f---er down and take all the high ranking Nazis inside down with it.

I'm sorry. Was that last sentence harsh? It's nothin' compared to the basterds of the title, the third piece of this elaborate cinematic triangle, a special force put together by good ole southern boy Lt. Aldo Raine (a wonderful Brad Pitt, totally in his wheelhouse, with a hilarious accent and brilliant line readings - "We got a Nazi wantin' to die for country. Oblige him.") with one mission and one mission only - "Killin' Nazis." They are dropped behind enemy lines, disguised as local folk, and become legendary, even with the Fuhrer himself as they do not simply off Germans but also scalp them and sometimes allow the so-called "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth) to bash German heads in with a baseball bat.

Eventually the basterds become part of the plot to assassinate the Nazis at the same cinema with significant aid from a significant Nazi spy, a famous actress named (oh, I love this) Bridget Von Hammersmark (a suitably sultry Diane Kruger).

The first thing you will notice about this movie is the length of the scenes. Tarantino employs so-called setpieces left and right and seems determined to revel in them for as long as humanly possible. The old filmmaking adage is to enter a scene after it gets interesting and get out before it stops getting interesting and I suppose Q.T. follows that adage here but, man, a lot gets packed in between the two. But it's not simply the filmmaker indulging himself. These scenes are crafted with such extended running times to build, in some cases, almost unbearable tension. For instance, the sequence when Kruger's starlet meets with an English General (Michael Fassbender, who gets another one of those extended scenes earlier with Mike Myers, playing British, who is over the top but not any more than any actor ever has been in a black & white B WWII movie) disguised as a German officer in a basement tavern goes on and on and on and on and - suddenly! it devolves into a lightning quick, explosive release of all the apprehension and then poof....it's over.

Unfortunately, a couple scenes just feel long as opposed to nerve-wracking. The film is two-and-a-half hours and it could have used just a little trimming. The handful of voice-overs are totally uneccessary and most of the brief flashbacks are not just superfluous but a little boring. A tad more background on the basterds might have been nice, too. Not that it would have added "depth", per se, but because I think it just would have been darn fun to see.

If anything, this all reinforces the notion that a Tarantino movie is as much about moviemaking itself as it is about story. Hitler and Goebbels are cartoons and concentration camps are never overtly addressed because, hey, how many times do I have to say it? It's a TARANTINO movie. If you are attending his latest feature in the hopes of mining for real emotions, well, just what do you think you're doing? That's not how it works. Never has been.

"Inglourious Basterds" is a fantasyland. In a way this movie has arrived 70 years too late. It should have been an American WWII propaganda film. It may have been nice for all those American troops on the various frontlines around the globe to watch this, nod and smile and think, "If only...."

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Three consecutive weekends of extreme activity have left me feeling a bit under the weather this week and so last night I found myself searching the pay per view channels for something that best fit the following criteria: Movie To Watch While Sick And Laying On The Couch. It didn't take me long to find one.

"Paul Blart: Mall Cop."

Our hapless title character (Kevin James) lives at home with his mom and young daughter and his dreams of being a New Jersey State Trooper are continually dashed by a pesky hypoglycemia problem. He works at a West Orange, New Jersey mall as a security guard, a dead-end job he takes far more seriously than anyone else which leaves him the source of much ridicule. His trusty Segway is practically his security blanket. But hope springs eternal in the form of young, comely Amy (Jayma Mays), who runs a wig kiosk in the mall. Their romantic moment astride that Segway with a little 80's rock for effect is (I'm not ashamed to say it!) awesome - an over the top, ridiculous moment that is played entirely straight. Of course, Paul wastes nary a moment in blundering this romantic possibility, a development that allows James to revel in his customary physical comedy.

Redemption, though, is right around the corner. Black Friday, the worst shopping day of the year, turns even more ominous when a group of strangely under-armed thugs (who also put to use skateboards and bikes, though they seem rather useless when you see them bounding about in light speed like a cavalry of pre-pubescent gymnasts), headed up by a villain so bland he wouldn't have made the cut on the fifth season of "Alias", appear at closing time, wrangle a few mall employees hostage and threaten to....crap. I already forgot. But does it really even matter what they are doing so long as they are there at the mall doing it? The bad guys are merely a platform for Paul Blart to test his manhood! Thank goodness he was rocking out to Guitar Hero in the closed-up arcade when his precious mall was invaded so the crooks missed him!

The cops and SWAT Team inevitably appear outside and council Paul to give himself up but once our man Blart realizes Amy is among the kidnapped he has no choice but to stay inside and make like John McClain in "Die Hard", even if "scooby-dooby-do" is not quite as grand a catchphrase as "yippie-ki-ay".

I have to say, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was refreshing in that it was not quite exactly what I expected, which is to say it was not god-awful. It was really very....very....harmless. I expected fart jokes whipped at me incessantly but not so. A lot of the humor comes from the empathy generated for Paul Blart. By God, we want this security guard to succeed and, against all odds, he does! (Whoops! Did I give it away?!)

John McClain is a fine one-man-against-everyone-else hero and if I were trapped in a mall with terrorists he is probably the guy I would hope happened to be trapped in there with me. But there are times when maybe John McClain is just a little too much, a little too in your face. Sometimes you want a hero who doesn't know exactly how to woo the girl and who at the sight of an automatic weapon cries "Sweet mercy!" and books it in the opposite direction.

Sometimes you just want a little "peanut Blart and jelly."

Fall/Winter Movie Preview

Since when did the best time of year for movies become so disappointing? Sure, there are still a few films I'm excited to see but there aren't that many and there aren't any that really that yank me off the rocking chair and pin me to the floor (?). Seriously, let's look at some of this crap. "2012", the latest foray into disaster from Roland Emmerich. Did he get confused? Did he think we were following Australia's seasons? Shouldn't this movie have come out in June? You've got "Invictus", the story of Nelson Mandela, except it was directed by Clint Eastwood and lately the esteemed Mr. Eastwood's historical films have been about as exciting as a kegger in Sun City, AZ. (By the way, what does Spike Lee think of his pal Clint helming this project? Wouldn't you expect Spike Lee to be making proclamations from behind his pulpit on this one?)

You've got your obligatory "Saw" film and your obligatory Hugh Grant romantic comedy and your obligatory Sandra Bullock romantic comedy and your obligatory Michael Moore "documentary" and your obligatory Tyler Perry movie and your obligatory new Coen Brothers movie and your obligatory soldier returns home from Iraq movie and your obligatory Drew Barrymore directorial debut (Reader: "Wait. What?" Me: "Just forget it. Keep going.") and your obligatory Michael Cera movie where his character's name is Nick. Oh, there's also a rom-com featuring (get this!) Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin that should - repeat should - get you all riled up until you realize it was written and directed by Nancy "Something's Gotta Give" Meyers. (How does this woman keep getting these casts? It's not right. Kate Winslet bailed her a-- out in "The Holiday" and Ms. Meyers better hope this trio does it again.)

In any event, all moaning aside, there are still movies I desire to see. The dozen I yearn to see most are as follows:

12. Whiteout. Seemingly reminiscent of a 1943 noir movie classic in which the jaded hero....oh, forget it. I want to see it because I've got a thing for Kate Beckinsale. We all know it. Sue me.

11. Everybody's Fine. Robert DeNiro plays a father trying to re-connect with his children. I feel like if this was the nineties I'd want to see it a whole big bunch more but, nonetheless, I still want to see it. (Reader: "Hold on, you only want to see it because it's got Kate Beckinsale too!" Me: "No, I really do want to see it, Beckinsale-d or not! I swear!")

10. The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The new Wes Anderson feature with an astounding cast that includes George Clooney, Bill Murray (did I mention it was a Wes Anderson film), Meryl Streep, and Cate Blanchett. (Reader: "Uh, did you know this was an animated feature?" Me: "Wes Anderson? Animated? I don't believe you." Reader: "Sorry, but it's true." Me: "Great. Now I'm going to fall asleep in the theater and have to get woken up by an usher.")

9. Where The Wild Things Are. The new Spike Jonze feature. (Reader: "Wait a second, you just want to see this one because Arcade Fire is played in the trailer!" Me: "I'm not talking to you anymore.")

8. Amelia. Hilary Swank as famed aviator Amelia Earhart. I feel like this one's got bad mojo but I already know I'll be making a point to confirm if that bad mojo turns out to be true or false.

7. Nine. It has Daniel Day Lewis. And that's all any of us need to know.

6. The Boat That Rocked. Richard Curtis, the mastermind of the awesome ensemble film "Love Actually", returns with another ensemble, set in the sixties, revolving around renegade deejays and pop music of the sixties. I'm in.

5. Shutter Island. Scorcese re-teams with his muse Leo for what appears to be a creepy, intense adaptation of a Dennis Lehane ("Gone Baby Gone") book.

4. Sherlock Holmes. Guy Ritchie tackles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's invention. Yes, I said Guy Ritchie. No, I'm not joking. Yes, the Guy Ritchie that directed "Swept Away". Yes, I watched "Swept Away", what's the big deal? No, I didn't like the charades scene either. Yes, despite the charades scene he really is directing "Sherlock Holmes". Stop laughing, I already said I wasn't joking. Why are you so hesitant when I'm so excited? I'll tell you why I'm excited. Dig that cast! Robert Downey Jr. in the title role (and he looks fantastic in the previews) with the superb Rachel McAdams in support. Those two alone get me to the theater opening weekend.

3. The Informant! Saw a preview for this one before "Public Enemies" and I enjoyed that preview more than the whole of the Dillinger pic. Steven Soderbergh teams up with Matt Damon (who is just made for comedy and I wish to God that talent would get utilized even more than it already does) and, man oh man, it looks absolutely hilarious.

2. Brothers. Here we go! This is what I'm talkin' about! An opera! I know, I know, the concept seems a little "Pearl Harbor"-ish but Jim "The Boxer" Sheridan ain't Michael Bay. Plus....forget it. I'm not one to judge a book by its cover but would you just look at the frickin' poster.
1. Avatar. Is there any other choice for the top slot? James Cameron, the man behind "Titanic", finally makes his comeback. Will it be like Jordan in the wake of his whole baseball exile saying after a mere five games back, "Yeah, I haven't played basketball for two years, I might as well go ahead and hang 55 cool ones" or will it be like "Chinese Democracy"? I can't wait to find out.

Guess Who Will Eventually Be Coming To A TV Set Near You

Sorry, Alec Baldwin, your turn as Jack Donaghy is far past astounding, but when this happens you will, for a short time, be only the second best actor in television.

The Time Traveler's Wife

So Gomez is played by Ron Livingston. I can't say I pictured Gomez looking like Ron Livingston. But it works....kinda. Except where's the wild child Ingrid? Nowhere to be found! And what's up with that final image of the 82 year old Clare going the way of Ingrid? It was my favorite part! I couldn't believe-

I'm sorry, what's that? You're confused, you say? Oh. You must not have read Audrey Niffenegger's novel upon which this movie is based. My apologies.

Yes, we find ourselves in that familiar place, a review of a movie based on a book which the reviewer just happens to adore. And I do adore "The Time Traveler's Wife", a book obstensibly about time traveling but really about the necessary sacrifices and problems of a relationship and the worthwhile beauty of singular moments in life.

What to do, what to do? You probably want me to detach myself from my fond memories of the novel and review the film all on its lonesome. But we both know that ain't happening. You mean to tell me that's how you watch movies based on books you just happen to adore? Didn't think so. We're coming at this from different angles but they are angles we should both understand and so cut me some slack. Thanks.

And for all you fellow "Time Traveler's Wife" novel edition fans reading along I ask that you please cut screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin some slack, too. Yes, certain cuts from the printed word version left me sad but a movie is an entirely different animal and as a "screenwriter" (emphasis on the parentheses) myself I empathize with Mr. Rubin. He had to find the spine of the book and use that and that alone to craft his script.

That said, there are no monstrous changes. We still find ourselves in the midst of Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana), a librarian in Chicago who just also happens to be a time traveler. If feeling fear or anxiety or the effects of too much alcohol (and a few other things) the odds are good Henry might vanish into either the future or the past, leaving behind a pile of clothes. The movie does essentially start with Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) seeing Henry at his libarary and recognizing him, though he doesn't recognize her even though he has already met her as a little girl in the meadow outside her parents' mansion because he was, you know, time traveling. The path their relationship takes on the page looks a lot like the same path they take onscreen (read: their fates remain the same) and it's also dealt with very matter-of-factly (dispensing with a great deal of the technical crap real time traveling would no doubt involve, a fact that may concern some people but about which I could not care less).

That said, monstrous changes are not always what make or break an adaptation. Henry is such a good guy in the movie, almost as if the time traveling is just a minor nuisance. Where is the alcoholism? Where is the tougher edge? Henry has to beat people up, steal, cheat, lie, just to survive, and while we get the briefest glimpses of all this the movie sacrifices a lot of the novel's complications.

The movie is less about specific moments and more about straight arc and I'm not sure that's a good thing and yet I also found myself enjoying the movie because, well, I was just glad to see these people up on the screen in front of me. I liked seeing Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams as Henry and Clare. I thought they fit the parts. It was nice.

I realize a movie review is supposed to allow a person to know whether or not this is a movie they should be interested in seeing and that my review probably has not succeeded if you haven't read the book. So sorry, non-readers of "The Time Traveler's Wife", but you're on your own.

My Great Movies: Kill Bill

The core of Quentin Tarantino's ode to his beloved chop-socky and kung fu films is as simple as you will see. Female Assassin leaves gang. Gang attempts to kill Female Assassin. Female Assassin goes into coma, comes to, and goes after Gang. That's it. Ah, but nothing is ever that simple with Quentin Tarantino. The esteemed Roger Ebert wrote: "The film is no story and all storytelling" and few filmmakers can tell a story like the infamous Q.T.

Much has been made of the beguiling Thurman being Tarantino's "muse". Indeed she seems to bring out the best in the filmmaker. At one point in my life I was almost as obsessed with the primary Thurman sequence of "Pulp Fiction" as Tarantino is with Thurman herself but in "Kill Bill" (Volumes 1 & 2) the whole obsession gets taken up a colossal notch. One could certainly spend considerable time analyzing the reasons he places his muse in so many uncompromising, graphic, sadistic situations but doing so would overlook perhaps an even more crucial fact - that is, "Kill Bill" is - in the words of L.A. Weekly's John Powers - "the 'Gone With the Wind' of exploitation pictures."


Well put, although I personally would christen it the "Once Upon A Time In The West" for my generation. While the influences, as with any Q.T. film, are many, it all mixes together to create something that is his entirely own - at least when taken in context of the whole movie and not foolishly breaking it down into two volumes, which we will discuss in a moment. "Kill Bill's" canvas is immense, yet intimate. It is larger than life, but so loving. It is a film where a character can stroll through a crowded airport with a samurai sword in hand and where an airplane descending into Tokyo isn't actually an airplane descending into Tokyo but more of a 1950's styled travel poster for how such an event would have looked and where a character shoots another character with a "truth syrup" that can kill and when the character who has been shot asks "How long does it take for this to kick in?" the other character responds, blithely, wonderfully, "Just long enough for me to finish my point."

As has become his signature, Tarantino freely messes with time. The movie starts well into its story, doubles back, jumps ahead, here, there, everywhere, but I'll provide the basics. Thurman (code name: Black Mamba) is The Bride, formerly an exceptionally skilled member of Bill's (David Carradine) Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She learns she is pregnant (the greatest I-Just-Found-Out-I'm-Pregnant Scene in cinematic history). She leaves the game. She's set to marry, start a new life, you know how it goes. Bill finds out, turns up and he and the four remaining members of his squad - O-Renn Ishi (Lucy Liu), Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), Budd (Michael Madsen), and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) - gun down The Bride and everyone else in the little, lonesome church in cold blood. The rest are dead, but The Bride survives and once she gets un-comatized lights out and gets herself a brand new samurai sword courtesy of the long dormant best samurai sword maker in the business, chalks up a death list (her fifth death list, actually) and determines to take no prisoners.

Warren Beatty turned down the role of Bill, purportedly because he viewed the script as being nothing beyond a procession of fight scenes. Maybe that is how the original screenplay read, I don't know, but it is not how the movie plays.

To be sure, there are fight scenes, a smattering of 'em, some are big, some are small, one repeatedly punches you in the gut and just when you think the biggest punch is about to come, the movie retracts its fist and pokes you in the eye (!) instead. The movie knows when a fight sequence needs to pound the audience relentlessly and when to take it to the brink of being too much and then retreat and reveal something else. They employ music as only Tarantino can, and offer up unique weaponry and such beautiful nonsense as the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. And then there is the most haunting passage of all, luminously shot in black and white, that is haunting precisely because we only hear and never see.

Interestingly, the dialogue, aside from one extended monologue about the Superman comic and a recitation of facts in relation to the black mamba snake, is not quite the Tarantino Speak we have become conditioned to expect. Oh, much of it is still over the top or ridiculous or both but the pop culture is turned down and the pulp is turned up. The line that closes Volume 1 is so indescribably perfect I laughed out loud in the theater. I can only imagine Tarantino laughed out loud, too, when he wrote it.

As mentioned above, the film was released in two parts, Volume 1 in October 2003 and Volume 2 in April 2004. It was not intended this way originally, so why the change? Obvious reasons. A 3 hour plus film threatens box office. It also threatens people's meager, fragile attention spans. Let them be threatened, I say! This is an epic, damn it, not a serial and must be seen as a single unified piece. Returning to the esteemed Roger Ebert, he writes: "...this is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts."

Not all critics liked it. It is an incredibly violent film, but it's a preposterous violence. O-Renn slices off a mob boss's head and blood geysers high into the air, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, like a symphony, it's too fantastical to be taken seriously. Isn't it? PG-13 movies feature machine gun wielding macho men blowing scads and scads of people to smithereens and national landmarks blowing up while civilians scatter and scream but fake blood that lets you know it knows full well it's fake is somehow viewed as excessive and indulgent. I'm more offended watching a crappy action movie than a blood splattered masterpiece, but maybe that's just me.

It was also accused of being empty and soulness, nothing more than good old Q.T. copying images of the many movies to which "Kill Bill" is an ode. But the heart of the movie is The Bride and her quest and while her quest is filled with murder and mayhem it winds up being a storyline traced to the most primal aspect of natures - the lion and her cub, as the end credits put it. In certain cases of extreme distress it's said a mother could lift a bus, or something of the sort, and sometimes in cases of extreme distress a mother can punch her way out of her own grave and fight her way through 88 assassins.

And arguing the film needed to be split because of it's shifts in tone simply makes no sense. An epic's tone will shift. Can't be avoided. "The Deer Hunter" shifted tones. "Gone With the Wind" shifted tones. And hey, what did we already confirm? This is the "'Gone With the Wind' of exploitation pictures."

The first volume comes at you with a vengeance, or as The Bride says to O-Renn, "Attack me with everything you have." And it does. Over and over. It seems some critics left with their senses shot, beleaguered by the assault of carnage. I did not feel that way. (In fact, I left in such a rush of fantastic happiness that despite another horrendous week of work at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage I didn't even need a beer.) But this is because the unbroken "Kill Bill's" intent all along was to work the audience up to a ferocious, spectacular setpiece that would boldly conclude the second act, everyone gasping for breath, and then make a severe about-face, settling down (well, to an extent), transitioning into a movie that is more conversationlist and far more eerie.

The inevitable showdown between The Bride the title character completely dispenses with bloodshed. It's deeper. Is it over the top, too? Well, sure. It's over the top just like a great melodramatic saga should be.

I've written before that these tentpole epics of the past are nearly extinct because our current climate is engulfed with far too much irony. We can't let ourselves go. Thus, in these films Tarantino pulls off one of the neatest tricks I can recall. "Kill Bill" is coated in layers of winking irony to cater to the here and now but, at its core, it is sprawling, huge and heightened and really quite ridiculous. It may be made by a most decidedly modern filmmaker but it is as old fashioned as they come.

A Digression (Sort Of): Bo Pelini Is To Football As Sergio Leone Is To Cinema

The other morning I was walking to work from the train and I could smell it in the air....fall. It was there, by God, I swear. Just the right hint of coolness, the smoky scent of leaves burning in someone's backyard, even though I was nowhere near leaves nor a backyard, and the delicious aroma of a Sierra Nevada at 11 in the morning when your favorite college football team is about to kick off.

"The Quad" blog over at the esteemed New York Times website, which covers collegiate sports, has been counting down all the teams in Division I College Football prior to the season's kickoff (so, so close) and just finally reached my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers, sittin' pretty at #22. During this countdown each post has allowed a guest blogger to make a comment in the team breakdown and Nebraska's guest blogger was a guy called "Gooch" who wrote it in Italian which was then translated by the post's authoer, Paul Myerberg, and it said the following (here's your cinematic reference):

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. A season in football the American, directed from Bo Pelini. The Good: Ndamukong Suh. “The House of the Spear” more dominant of the line is the defensive player. The Bad: The calendar. Nebraska must travel to play its rivals to the north, Kansas, Colorado, and Missouri. The Ugly: The situation to the Nebraska before the Pelini. It is returned for restore the tradition of the Cornhuskers, not for a fist of dollars."

That is - in a word - beautiful. (Say the following in an Italian accent.) The situation to the Nebraska before the Pelini. It is returned for restore the tradition of the Cornhuskers, not for a fist of dollars.

God, I love that. First off, just comparing my beloved Huskers to "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" makes me quite pleased but those last two sentences are just gorgeous. Pure poetry. This is what we needed to kick start the season, I'm tellin' ya. I felt so good about 2009 for my guys as it was but now I feel even better. Perhaps I'll have a Peroni at 6 PM September 5?

Elvis Movie Marathon

This Sunday marks the 32nd Anniversary of Elvis Presley's death and as is often the case TMC (Turner Movie Classics) has chosen to commemorate it by serving up 13 consecutive Elvis Presley movies, starting at five in the morning (CST) and not concluding until three the following morning.

We touched a little bit on his extensive canon back in December and if you still have not had the pleasure of indulging in a little Presley Cinema this is a great chance to do so. Tragically, the film I would most highly recommend, "Roustabout", in which Elvis turns up working and, yes, singing at a circus with Deborah Kerr (Reader: "Wait, wasn't she in 'From Here To Eternity?'" Me: "I refuse to acknowledge your question.") in support, will not air until 1 in the morning on what is technically August 17.

Nevertheless, if you're interested in getting a little up to speed with the Elvis Filmography, and I strongly suggest you do, this is a good place to start. You can watch the "good" Elvis films, "Jailhouse Rock" and "King Creole", showing at noon and nine. You can go on vacation to "Blue Hawaii" at 8:15 in the morning over coffee and donuts or have a little "Fun In Acapulco" over a late lunch at 1:45. Go clubbing with some "Girls, Girls, Girls" at 10 AM or spend your supper seeing exactly how "It Happened At The World's Fair" at 7 PM sharp. The possibilities are endless!!!

And if you don't make it up in time for the kickoff of the marathon at 5 AM for a little Ann Margaret and "Viva Las Vegas", well, have no fear, you can watch the best movie scene Elvis ever filmed on Cinema Romantico any time you want.

Did you watch it? Sigh...that is moviemaking.

The Oddest Pair Since Tom Brady & Drew Henson

In the year 1999 Michigan's head college football coach Lloyd Carr (who sportswriters tirelessly defended while Wolverine fans constantly called for his head) had two main quarterbacks in his stable. One was a highly lauded recruit named Drew Henson. One was a not-as-highly-lauded recruit named Tom Brady. Yet anyone with eyes could clearly see Brady was better. I vividly recall watching Michigan play its rival Michigan State in 1999. Brady started, the Wolverines went up, Henson came in, Wolverines fell way behind, Brady came back in and led comeback that fell just short, and all you could think was....why the hell didn't this Tom Brady guy play the whole frickin' game? Yet the next week the two guys shared time again. Look, I obviously couldn't coach a college football team but I think time has vindicated my viewpoint.

You know the rest of the story. At least part of it. Tom Brady's got a few Super Bowl rings, several dozen magazine covers and a wife who looks like this. Drew Henson....well, according to wikipedia he was just released by the (are you ready for this?) Detroit Lions. The Detroit Lions! The first team in the history of the NFL to not a win a single game the whole season! Do you appreciate this?! The team that went 0-16 decided Drew Henson wasn't good enough to play for them!

Sorry, Michigan fans, but do you wonder if you could have won a national title back in '99 if Lloyd Carr knew what he had? Anyway, I digress because college football season is so near and I'm getting antsy. But I have a point here that I'm getting to and it's specifically about odd, mismatched pairs.

David Mamet, that relentless writer, the man who gave the world the foul-mouthed poetry of Alec Baldwin's "always be closing" speech in "Glengarry Glen Ross", the hard-drinking lawyer played by Paul Newman in "The Verdict", the hilarious, hard-edged satire of "Wag the Dog", Robert DeNiro's Al Capone beating a man to death with a baseball bat in "The Untouchables", and Alec Baldwin (again) lusting after a much, much too young lady in "State & Main" will, as the film community had long expected, pen an adaptation for Disney of "Anne Franke: The Diary of a Young Girl."

And cue the crickets! I mean, really, if they were in the attic all talking in Mametspeak don't you think they would have been caught after about two hours?

The Cove

"The Cove" has all the elements of great fiction. A murderous conspiracy cover-up. Daring nighttime raids with the threat of arrest and even torture hovering over them. Haunting images of blood red water. A heroic, complex protagonist who is on the road to redemption as he assisted in bringing about the very thing which he is now dead set on bringing down. And, of course, the time honored scene in which the hero barges into a crowded room at the climax to confront the enemies face to face.

Except "The Cove" is not fiction. It is fact. A documentary, probably on its way to winning an Oscar, directed by Louie Psihoyos with a former dolphin trainer turned activist Ric O'Berry as its driving force. Once the trainer for the various bottlenose dolphins posing as "Flipper" on the 60's TV show, he experienced a transformation when one of these mammals died in his arms in a manner that he felt proved they were self aware and just as intelligent as mankind. From that moment forward he crusaded to free captive dolphins around the globe. As he says in the film, "If a dolphin's in trouble anywhere in the world, my phone rings."

Perhaps they have been in the most danger, day in, day out, for years and years, in the Japanese community of Taiji, specifically in the hidden cove of the movie's title where hundreds are dolphins are lured, the best are selected for sale at extragavant costs to various dolphinariums, and the rest are, to put it very mildly, slaughtered and sold, usually mislabled, on the meat market, where its high traces of mercury are having an altogether different and potentially grave effect on the Japanese people.

Because dolphins do not fall under the commercial whaling ban imposed by the IWC it is not considered illegal, but Japan also claims - and we see this on camera - that when dolphins are killed it is done so in a "humane" manner. O'Berry knows this is not true. He has seen it with his own eyes. But the primary goal of "The Cove" becomes to show it to everyone else. How? The cove itself is off limits and heavily guarded. We see other activists who turn up, only to get themselves arrested and, thus, not be allowed to return.

O'Berry says his days are spent trying to avoid being arrested, which he does, barely. Indeed one flat-out disturbing image shows one of these dying dolphins taking its last breaths and then vanishing below the water as the Japanese fishermen responsible for these atrocities watch, smoking and laughing. Yes, laughing. Out loud. O'Berry talks of wanting to "pop" these people with his fists and you can understand why.

Together Psihoyos and O'Berry put together what is described as their own "Ocean's Eleven" team in an effort to secretly infiltrate this cove. World-class free divers and employees for George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic who can fashion high-def cameras hidden in rocks and foilage and even your usual crazy sort of guy who is always on the lookout for a little adventure hop onboard. They all know the stakes. If they are caught, it's jail. No one hesitates.

Psihoyos proceeds to weave this tale of environmental espionage in with the bigger picture, the dangers to Japanese citizens, most of whom do not even seem to be aware any of this is going on, the government's defense that they must use dolphins for food since their own feeding seriously hampers the country's fish supply when reality would seem to dictate this problem is being caused by humans.

The footage the team obtains is impossible to describe, simply calling it "hard to watch" means nothing when you consider that the whole debacle is real. Psihoyos smartly limits comments in the wake of it. There really is nothing that can or needs to be said.

There has been much made since the film's debut about American dolphinariums, such as San Diego's Sea World, purchasing their dolphins from Japan. Sea World and the others were, naturally, quick to defend themselves. But it seemed to me all that missed the point. While "The Cove" offers some of the most graphic footage I have ever seen, it counters that with a breathtaking portrait of a lone free diver and a lone dolphin, well, let's just go ahead and say it, communing. Side by side. The killing, the mercury poisoning, the money made, all of it is horrible and just reinforces Ric O'Berry's main message - dolphins were not meant for captivity.

A Digression: Lollapalooza '09

I could offer up one of my long-winded monologues but you know what? I don't think so. I'm just too ecstatic, too still-basking-in-the-moment. So in an effort to be succinct (or as succinct as is possible for me) yet still hyperbolic I'll say this...

Ra Ra Riot makes me really happy. Like, insanely happy. No band since Arcade Fire has made me as happy. They make me smile and make me sing along and make me dance (kinda, sorta, at least in public - at home, a little bit more than kinda, sorta) and make me really, really, really glad to be alive, even if I'm watching them in 100 degree heat and drinking Bud Light (ugh). And even if I'm lying in bed after being outdoors on the hottest day of the entire summer in Chicago for 9 hours and surrounded by a sweltering mass of humanity and the scent of ganja every which way and can't go to sleep because my head hurts and my stomach hurts and I'm sunburned and I have to go to work tomorrow, well, I just slip on the headphones, play a little "Oh, La", go back to Ra Ra Riot's set at 12:30 earlier that afternoon in my mind, and it's all gooooooood, baby.

They were f---in' awesome yesterday. I just wanted to get that on record. When my friend Dave and I left Wicker Park Fest last summer after seeing them for five bucks I remember telling him in a couple years we'd be coughing up a lot more to see them at Lollapalooza '10. (So I was off by one year. Close enough.) Well, yesterday as we wandered away from the stage after their set I told him in a couple years we'd be seeing them at Lollapalooza when the sun was setting (i.e. Future Headliners).

We shall see. If God is just....

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

As I held out my ticket stub for Stephen Sommers' "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" to the usher he took note of the cellphone (yes, I own one) in my other hand and stated, "Sorry. All cellphones must be confiscated prior to entering the theater." I was, shall we say, a bit confused. "I'm sorry?" I said, rather politely. "Paramount's orders," the usher continued, "they want to avoid a 'Bruno' situation. Gotta hand over the cellphone or I can't let you in." "Do I get the cellphone back?" I wondered. "Depends on whether or not you liked the movie," stated the usher.

At that point I kindly thanked the usher for his time, turned around and walked out and handed my ticket to a surprised young man in the parking lot.

No doubt this pains you, my loyal readers, as you had turned to this blog in a desperate attempt to determine whether or not "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" was worth your hard-earned money, considering Paramount had prevented nearly all critics from screening it beforehand to inform the public of their opinions. But never fear! Having DVRd Wednesday's Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien for the sole reason that Sienna Miller was his guest I decided to watch the clip of the movie played during her interview and give my thoughts on "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" based on that! Okay, here we go...

Someone shoots out a window with a bazooka. I think it's a bazooka. I don't really know. And then we see Sienna Miller in her black leather suit running across a glass building with the Eiffel Tower hovering in the background so anyone who's confused knows we're in Paris. Then there's a robot scaling a roof. I think it's a robot. I don't really know. Then someone or something shoots the Eiffel Tower and a plume of green smoke - or something - appears. Then we see the robot. He's not really a robot. He's a guy in a metal suit. Or something. Then we Sienna Miller smile a devious smile (ooooooh myyyyyyy god).

Then a dude in a white suit jumps out of a window into a hovercraft. Or something. Did I see him before? I think he might have shot the bazooka but I'm not sure. I'm already getting confused. Now the Eiffel Tower is starting to give way. Uh oh. Now it falls down. Damn. Now Sienna Miller jumps aboard that hovercraft thing and now the guy in the metal suit jumps onto it too and then the dude in the white suit knocks out the guy in the metal suit and then Sienna Miller gets a pretty bad one-liner. And then we're done.

So based on this information I'm giving "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" a C-minus, basically because Sienna Miller looks quite fetching in that leather suit and she was very charming on Conan O'Brien.

In Memoriam

"What can be said for (John Hughes) is that he usually produces a real story about people he has clear ideas about; his many teenage comedies, for example, are miles more inventive than the recent sex-and-prom sagas." - Roger Ebert

John Hughes, who passed away yesterday at the age of 59, was a prolific and much loved filmmaker of the 80's and, thus, if you came of age in that decade, as I did, at least one, if not more of his films, probably hold a special place in your heart. While I have both heard and personally know people who have said "'The Breakfast Club' changed my life" I must admit that I never much cared for "The Breakfast Club" then and don't much care for it now. No, for me the Hughes Masterpiece was always "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". It spoke to me as a kid. It spoke to all of us as kids. How could it not?

When Ferris (Matthew Broderick) pulls back the curtains in his suburban Illinois bedroom to declare "How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?" it was truly a punk rock moment. We all wanted to hop in Cameron's (Alan Ruck) dad's convertible with that trio and roll through downtown Chicago.

Yet as much as the movie was about kids it was also about adults, these three teenagers getting their first glimpse at a world without school, full of both promise and wonder but also full of "snooty" enemies and untrustworthy parking garage attendents. Remember the way they sit down to dine at Chez Louis? Toasting their water glasses, trying to emulate the older people around them, yet chewing on their ice when they finally take a sip?

It was about yearning for freedom but also about the fear that promise of freedom inevitably elicits, when you leave behind your best friends for college and for the mysterious world of grown-ups. This terror is perhaps best illustrated when in a brief chat on the future Ferris's ravishing girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) asks Cameron what he's interested in to which Cameron replies: "Nothing." Sloane echoes that sentiment. And then, of course, Ferris launches into his parade-float version of "Twist and Shout" that washes everyone's cares away, kids and adults alike. (In 1986 could I possibly have known that some day I would wind up pushing papers in the exact same business district as Ferris's dad?)

The most common complaint I've heard leveled at the movie over the years is the shallow, cartoon-like, portrayal of the adults, particularly Ferris's primary nemesis, Principal Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), who scours Chicago and the 'burbs in a misplaced effort to ruin Ferris's day off and make an example. But with each passing year, the older I get (32 in less than a month), the more I realize "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is not just about kids and not just about kids on the verge of becoming adults but about adults, too. We need days off just like any rambunctious teen. I think maybe Ed Rooney was a little jealous, a little envious.

It defines the notion that youthful dreams are alive at any age and it's why I've never much cared for the sentiment that "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was an 80's movie. It was a movie made in the 80's. Fair enough? It was special to me then, it's special to me now.

John Hughes all but disappeared from movies in the early 90's (though he still wrote screenplays because, as we all know, writers have to write) and he was missed ever since. We will continue to miss him.

Scott & Phillips (Worthy Heirs)

After a disastrous year of the long-running film review show "At the Movies" (started, of course, by the esteemed Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel) in which Ben Mankiewicz and Ben "Give Me Fifty Cents & A Snickers Bar And I'll Give Your Movie A GREAT Review!" Lyons took the torch from Richard Roeper and his various co-horts and did everything short of dunking it in the Mississippi River to make it go out it has been announced that the torch will now, thankfully, be handed to A.O. Scott of the New York Times (who I very much like) and Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune.

Rare are the days anymore in America where everyone wins. Today is one.

Funny People

The third true "film by Judd Apatow" opens with comedians riffing and closes with comedians riffing and has a lot of scenes of comedians riffing in the first and second acts but not so much in what, I guess, is the third act and it is this strange, overlong passage that is "Funny People's" ultimate curse but also sort of its blessing.

Adam Sandler stars as a once famous comedian now turned famous movie actor George Simmons. As you may have read, the movie opens with real-life footage from many years ago of a young Sandler making prank phone calls. It is actually quite effective, allowing for an authentic segue from the young, carefree George Simmons to the older, current George Simmons who, despite having a sprawling mansion, no longer has anyone with whom to make those prank phone calls. He's all alone in a bad way. The film then gets us right to its primary plot point - George is dying, fast, from a rare blood disease unless some experimental medicine can do the unlikely and cure him.

Faced with this frightening proposition George returns to his roots in the form of stand-up comedy. At the club he encounters Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) who is young but not exactly an up and comer. His roommates, Leo (Jonah Hill) and Mark (Jason Schwartzman), who has a role on a terrible sitcom, "Yo Teach", that we all know could easily exist in the real world, seem to be on the fast track to success. But George takes to Ira. He asks Ira to write some jokes for him, though he also asks him to be his personal assistant in this time of crisis. Ira, desperate, excited, agrees.

George and Ira form a curious relationship that isn't exactly a friendship. How much of a stretch was it for Sandler to play this part? Probably not much, but either way he's darn good. Everything is a joke. Or an insult. Whatever Ira does, whatever Ira says, whatever anyone does or says, for that matter, George replies with a joke or an insult. He often turns to that semi-Spanish accent Sandler has used in his own life, suggesting someone trying to get far, far away from their own persona. Ira puts up with it, perhaps because this is his ticket off of sleeping on a sofa bed and working at the deli counter.

One brief moment in particular seemed to summarize "Funny People", or at least summarize what "Funny People" was up to that point. George has finally clued in the world outside of his mansion to his disease and he we see him chatting with the real life Andy Dick. And Andy Dick, of course, instantly commences to riffing about the whole ordeal. There is absolutely no time for any seriousness or real emotion of any kind within the worlds of these people because everything is potential fodder for comedy. Everything.

You may have also read of Apatow's expanding ambition in "Funny People". This comes in the form of the lost love of George's life, Laura (Leslie Mann, the real life Mrs. Apatow). It was 12 years ago. George cheated on her. That was that. Now she is married to an Australian named Clarke (Eric Bana) who cheats on her too. Apparently.

Having learned George is sick, Laura tries to reconnect with him. This sets the stage for the film's elongated detour into the world of Marin County (the setting of which allows for my favorite line of the movie, a throwaway about pizza quality). Just what is Apatow up to here? Against Ira's advice, he and George find themselves having a day with Laura and her two kids at Laura's home. Her husband is out of town. A day turns into the night. Laura's husband unexpectedly returns. The night turns into the next day. It keeps going and going....but to what point and purpose?

The material at this point in the movie is tough. A married woman cheating on her husband with her children essentially right there. Then her husband turns back up and even though it feels as if he was written primarily as a blowhard lout Eric Bana actually does a decent job of getting some empathy here and there for the guy and we soon realize Laura is left with a far less severe Sophie's Choice moment. This guy or that guy? Is it worth trying to save her marriage? The idea that Apatow is chasing here brings to mind this article by Judy Berman I just read on Salon.

But the presentation of all this isn't always tough. George does not really do much of anything, other than having his disease, to get himself into this position. Laura gravitates back toward him because, well, she has to or the movie doesn't have that necessary conflict. She's obviously drawn to these sorts of men but the screenplay does not always feel like it's being fair to Laura. She's just the pawn in this game. Plus, Apatow still wants to work in the comedy and you can't resolve situations this dire with the old reliable Everyone Fights On The Lawn. That's too easy.

One neat thing Apatow does manage is to leave George's character almost arc-less. Really, at the end, what has he learned? Watch it and tell me. Doesn't it seem as if George's problems get Ira and Laura and even Clarke to grow up more than him? I think it does.

These plot developments show a filmmaker - one who has had a stunning run of success this decade - willing to get out of his comfort zone. Good or bad, I say good for him.

500 Days of Summer

- "I named my cat after Springsteen."
- "What'd you call it?"
- (pause) "Bruce."

I'm leading off with this quote from "500 Days of Summer" to remake a point I've made before and will undoubtedly make again: the chemical equation of certain films allows certain people to react to them more strongly than others. The equation of "500 Days of Summer" allowed for a strong reaction from me. Our lead, Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon Leavitt), is a hopeless romantic who believes he won't be truly happy until he meets "the one", a determination he has made based on sad English pop songs and a misreading of the end of "The Graduate". He works at a job he isn't particular passionate about and didn't mean to end up in but, you know, a guy's gotta pay the bills, or whatever, and so there he is.

But then Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel, she of the always ultra quirky, sexy line readings), a woman whose favorite Beatle is Ringo, automatically earning her 10,000 cool points (the film has a great soundtrack but couldn't this revelation have made way for "Act Naturally"?), turns up as the assistant of Tom's boss and love blooms on an elevator when they both realize the other has the same taste in music. (Swoon.) But, before we go any further, allow me to state that "500 Days of Summer" makes it clear from the outset, much like "Annie Hall" (and what romantic comedy anymore doesn't take at least a page or two from "Annie Hall"?), that these two will not end up together.

The movie skips freely around in time, starting with day #488 of the title's 500 days and then jumping back to the beginning and then forward again and then backward again and all over the place. Again, similar to "Annie Hall". Perhaps the title cards weren't necessary. But, c'mon, modern day movie audiences need those cues or else they get "confused". I know it. You know it. Never mind. That's another topic.

The movie's intent with this device to conjure up the feeling we all have when it comes to past relationships. Our memories of them are rarely linear. You remember getting the kiss on the cheek in the parking lot after you drunkenly ate ribs but then that makes you remember the time she blew you off when you were supposed to go to that wine tasting and that makes you remember when you recommended a bottle of wine....but I could do that all day. Tom too often seems to be remembering what he wants to remember. Summer is an easy woman to love and it seems as if she loves him but she seems locked down to the notion of just having a good time and ignoring marriage. Tom wants marriage, or at the very least wants to be able to officially announce he and Summer as being a couple. Why wouldn't she want to take things to that so-called level when everything seems so idyllic?

But was it all idyllic? One character calls him out, telling him something like, When you think about it again, think about it harder, or remember everything. The movie employes other gimmicks too, like a post-coital song & dance and, my favorite, the side-by-side discourse on a man's Expectations of a date and the Reality. What We Want and What Happens. What could be sadder?

"500 Days of Summer" is the debut of Marc Webb and a strong debut it is, though I must observe it could have been much stronger. Summer remains at a distance for much of the film. Partly this is the film's plan. How well does Tom know her? But there is one sequence when she lets him into her world (and, for God's sake, the narrator needed to be cut from this scene - we know what's going on, don't pound us over the head with the hammer!) and couldn't she have let him in just a little bit more. Two deep and complex leads as opposed to one always makes for a richer experience. The supporting characters are also given the shaft. Tom has the requisite two best friends who both seemed to have more life beating in them then what is offered and he also gets the obligatory advice-giver in the form of his younger sister but she exists solely to give advice and for no other reason. (Remember Lili Taylor from "Say Anything"? She gave advice and had her own crisis with Joe.)

But then no movie is perfect (except for "Chinatown") and "500 Days of Summer" doesn't just get the job done but gets it done in an above average way. It's fun to watch. You will laugh and smile and remember some of the people you have loved in your own life. You will leave the theater in a good mood.

The last line? The last line is kinda corny, sure, but you know what? If you don't like it, you weren't supposed to like it anyway. You need a different chemical equation.