The Da Vinci Code (May 2006)

I never realized that Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou were such incredible listeners. In "The Da Vinci Code" if one isn't listening to the other present some amazingly long winded passage on the Knights Templar then they're both listening to Ian McKellen spout for eons on Mary Magdalen and the "greatest cover-up in human history." There is soooo much talking in this movie. It just goes on and on and on. It's agonizing.

Please don't misunderstand. I love movie dialogue. I worship it. It's one of the world's finest art-forms (right up there with 16th century cartography) as far as I'm concerned, and an art I and many others have still not mastered. But dialogue must be about something. It can't exist solely to move everyone and everything from Plot Point A to Plot Point B. Then it's just a race to see what theater patron falls asleep first.

The script even contains the ancient device of planting a question and/or comment early on (in this case a joke that was once made at Tom Hanks' expense), not answering it and then bringing it back later in the movie. This can in certain instances be quite effective but here it's brought back at the wrong time and feels terribly awkward.

Granted, "The Da Vinci Code" novel spent - what? - 1,314 weeks as the New York Times Bestseller. I have yet to read it but perhaps Dan Brown's novel was never meant to be adapted for the big screen and that's pretty much what I'm forced to assume after viewing the film. There is nary a moment of character development. Oh, we get some mish-mash about Tom Hanks being trapped in a well as a kid and that makes him frightened of small spaces but this felt like Brown flipping through the Big Book of Character Tics and choosing this one. Tatou's Sophie Neveu gets even more of the shaft in that regard. Well, at least until the end when she's revealed to be.........but then I don't want to give anything away for the "12 people who haven't read the book".

As we begin symbologist Robert Langdon (Hanks) is summoned from his lecture/book signing by a French police inspector (Jean Reno) to assist with a murder in the Louvre. It seems Langdon is the chief suspect. But Tatou's Sophie - a police cryptologist - arrives to warn Langon that he is in danger and reveal the murdered man to be her grandfather who wanted her to meet Langdon. Helpfully, the murdered grandfather has left an assortment of clues that set Langdon and Sophie forth on their quest. A quest that leads them to Langdon's old friend (Ian McKellen) who - also rather quite helpfully - happens to know every last thing about the conspiracy which Langdon and Sophie are tracking.

We also follow the more brutal tale of monk/assassin Silas (played strongly by Paul Bettany) who's into self-flaggelation for atonement of his sins. I'm not at all familiar with the Opus Dei, apparently a rather devout sect of the Catholic Church that follows doctrine rigidly but judging by Silas it does not appear to make for a romping life. Silas is in league with the so-called Teacher (a character who allows for the mandatory "twist") who are out to protect the conspiracy of the Holy Grail from everyone and anyone.

They brave an assortment of chases and narrow escapes, all of which seem mechanical and uninvolving. I wonder if the book barely mentions these moments while director Ron Howard realized he needed to pump up the action quotient seeing as how this is a summer movie. Whatever the case, they seem oddly boring though I must admit they're a welcome interlude from all the speechifying.

The Catholic Church is all up in arms and every day there's a new story detailing the controversy created by this book but I think everyone's missing the point. Dan Brown wanted to make millions off an "airport rack book" but knew a typical plot wouldn't do the trick. Brilliantly (I must admit), he hit on the whole Holy Grail conspiracy and used that as his jumping-off point. It worked since, as we mentioned earlier, it's been the New York Times Best-Seller for 1,314 weeks. But really it's just a conventional thriller gussied up with a religious twist and in the guise of something deeper. Hey, he got me too. I paid $9.25 to see it.

There comes a moment when the police are bearing down on our main characters and it seems all hope is lost. How will they get away?! Ian McKellen smiles and declares, "Well, actually I have a plane." Maybe it was just me but this moment reminded me of the scene in Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks" when Jim Brown says to Tom Jones (playing himself), "Can you fly a plane?" And Tom Jones replies non-chalantly, "Sure. Ya' got one?" The only problem is the scene from "Mars Attacks" was more convincing.

(Footnote: "The Da Vinci Code" very nearly becomes only the 2nd movie after "Before Sunset" to be set in Paris and not show the Eiffel Tower. But, tragically, only moments before it ends, Ron Howard cuts away to stock footage of........well, you know. So close, yet so far.)

Stromboli (October 2005)

There are many reasons why thus far I’m in love with the city of Chicago and last night another reason vaulted to a spot very near the top of the list. Last night I was able to watch "Stromboli", one of my 3 favorite Ingrid Bergman movies, on the big screen....with a beer. THAT’S a reason, ladies and gentlemen.

As my love for old movies has grown, so has my love for Ingrid Bergman. I came to her through the old warhorse “Casablanca” but it’s her complex portrayal of the conflicted spy in Hitchcock’s “Notorious” and her turn as the torn spouse in “Stromboli" that set her apart.

“Stromboli” was the first of a wave of the so-called Italian neo-realism films. Not realism in the sense they feel precisely real and authentic (hence the scene in which the svelte Bergman is hiking an active volcano in her sundress but never mind) but in the sense they shunned filming on sets for actual locations. That practice is now commonplace but a huge step forward in the 40’s.

At the end of World War II Bergman is living in a refugee camp and agrees to marry an Italian solider in order to leave the camp. The couple then returns to the soldier’s hometown, the island of Stromboli where she finds a rigid life and no acceptance from the locals which leads to her planning escape.

All this is the so-called plot but really the plot is just a way of letting the dear Ms. Bergman give a tour-de-force performance that belongs in the annals of the finest cinema has produced. Seeing the film for a 3rd time on Tuesday night allowed me to wallow specifically in her acting and not have to concern myself quite as much with the story. For instance, when the “happy” couple is married watch Bergman’s face closely – her expressions are restrained almost to the point of being non-existent but at the same time you can see the anguish and the crisis of conscience. I will argue strenuously this is one of the moments that bridged the gap between the over-emoting of early actresses to the more subtle acting of more contemporary actresses. She wasn’t necessarily the first, but she was among them and perhaps the best.

There are scenes in which the camera tracks with Bergman – never cutting – and just watches her. There’s no place for her to hide, as so many films do in this day and age. But maybe most notable is the scene in which she visits the priest to, apparently, ask for help in getting off the island. The scene lasts, maybe, four minutes but it watches her go through – as Cosmo Kramer might say – “a full palette of emotion”. The writing leads her on the journey but she has to convince us. And she does.

Hovering in the background is the island’s always active volcano. The volcano works as That Which I Normally Don’t Speak Of (i.e. symbolism). Maybe it’s just me but it seems the Europeans are much more adept at handling symbolism in films than Americans. We prefer to bash people over the head with our symbolism, reinforcing the point we want to make for fear our audience is too stupid to understand what’s going on whereas in “Stromboli” the volcano simply enhances Ingrid Bergman’s plight.

We all know the volcano is going to blow but before it does we see a scene in which Bergman’s fisherman husband and the rest of his motley fishing crew reel in fish after fish, killing them right there on screen – or so it appears. And then the volcano blows. This is the film showing us man terrorizing nature and then nature terrorizing man. But instead of learning anything man winds up terrorizing man, man turns on himself, and it all ends where so many of our personal episodes do (well, at least where mine end up) – screaming at God.

In the hands of a modern-day performer this scene probably sinks but with Bergman it rises to the level of mythic.

Paradise, Hawaiian Style

"I like my job. It's fun. It's interesting. And I meet a lot of nice people."
"Nonsense. Tourists aren't people. They're....tourists."

This is one of the many "classic" exchanges in the "landmark" 1961 musical "Blue Hawaii", in this case between Chad Gates (Elvis Presley) and his she-witch of a mom (Angela Lansbury - yes, you read that right). I mention it because I am on the verge of becoming a terrible tourist myself in the Aloha State as I jet out tomorrow to visit my friends Becky (blogger extraordinaire) and Eric on the Big Island. And, thus, I'd like to advise that since I have no intention of even thinking about this blog while I'm away, let alone posting on it, fabled Cinema Romantico will be shrouded in darkness for the next two weeks. Sort of.

I recently waded through the dreck of this blog's early, pioneer days when I sporadically updated and was trying to figure out 1.) How to write movie reviews and, more specifically, 2.) How I wanted to write movie reviews. So I've set a few auto posts with some of the more decent (I think) work I managed to churn out - the work where I managed to get across what I was going for - when this was but a fledgling blog and negative five people were reading. Enjoy. Maybe. If not, I will eventually return with my "much anticipated" summer movie spectacular.

And what better way to say a hui hou than with this rad-to-the-max "Blue Hawaii" clip?

Joe Versus The Volcano

Recently I pulled up an article regarding vaunted Eyjafjallajokull and it contained the following caption: "Joe Versus The Volcano." If you know me, well, you know exactly where that led - that is, the Netflix queue. I've seen John Patrick Shanley's 1990 box office flop turned cult classic 3 times now and, if I'm not mistaken, they have somehow happened at precise 10 year intervals. Which seems perfect when considering the film's theme.

If it wasn't anything else (and it is) "Joe Versus The Volcano" would be a triumph of production design. The sets here are all larger than life and gorgeous to look at even if they come in the form of a dreary colossus of an office where beaten-down employees trudge for miles through mud to reach the flourescent-lighted innards that seem designed solely to make people ill. But they are also gorgeous to look at when they are gorgeous to look at, such as the sailboat the Joe of the title will take the island bearing the volcano of the title, where it will drift beneath wonderous pretend moons. Every last detail seems to have received vast attention and it pays off.

Joe, played by Tom Hanks, enters the aforementioned office at the film's start looking like a more pale, more frail version of Tom Cruise in "Interview With The Vampire". I guess we know he has just seen the sun but you wouldn't believe it. His boss (Dan Hedaya) is stuck in an eternal debate on the telephone ("I'm not arguing that with you") and his co-worker (Meg Ryan) appears to have asthma, probably just when she's at work. Joe retreats to his own corner of the office which he desperately - and unsuccessfully - tries to brighten with a festive lamp. A lamp his boss, of course, orders removed. My days at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage never looked so good.

Joe has a doctor's appointment. He always has doctor's appointments. He hasn't felt well, we learn, in "eight or nine years." Goodness. His doctor (Robert Stack), his office complete with a crackling fireplace, explains that Joe's problem is actually quite simple: He has a "brain cloud." He has another four or five months to live - during which he will feel terrific - and then he will die. Joe takes the news surprisingly well. He quits his job, tells off his boss, asks out that cute co-worker of his. Then something else happens. A guy named Samuel Harvey Graynamore (Lloyd Bridges) turns up to explain there is an island in the south Pacific, an island rich in a mineral Graynamore needs to keep his super conductor business profitable, and to get the orange-soda guzzling island inhabitants to give up this mineral they want a human sacrifice for their volcano, angry, roaring, and about to blow its top. Why Joe would be perfect, Graynamore reckons! And so he is. Joe agrees to do it.

He will be transported to the island by Graynamore's daughter Patrica (Meg Ryan, again) aboard that cinematic sailboat but not before he is first met in L.A. by Graynamore's other daughter, Angelica (Ryan, a third time), a poet and a painter, looking suspiciously like a young Nicole Kidman, who when Joe explains he was an "advertising librarian at a medical supply company" replies "I have no response to that." That should be everyone's response to the ancient, irritating "what do you do?" query, if you ask me.

Hanks is so fantastic the entire movie because he never refuses to stop playing straight. He is surrounded scene after scene by exemplary supporting characters (I didn't even mention Ossie Davis as a no nonsense limo driver) who are the ones required to take things up a notch and deliver manic monologues. Hanks sits back and reacts, asks questions, slowly coming to grips with the purpose of his plight.

And through it all, Shanley, the talented playwrite and screenwriter (Oscar winner for the equally operatic, romantic "Moonstruck") returns again and again to questions such as, Why are we here? What does it mean? How the hell are we supposed to live life? These, of course, are matters of the most universal, the most enormous order. Can they be figured out in an under-two-hour once-upon-a-time fairytale? I say, Why not?

The first time I watched it I remember there being so much build-up to this mysterious island and this volcano but its payoff is brief, different, strange and (uh oh) not exactly what I expected. (The movie's death knell at the box office?) Now? Twenty years later? I think the key sequence is before the island is ever reached, when the sailboat has gone under at the hands of the typhoon, and Joe and Patricia are out on the vast ocean, adrift atop Joe's expensive, watertight luggage. She she is still knocked unconscious. He rummages through his suitcases and finds a transistor radio. He locates a station playing "Come Go With Me". He sets it down and dances. Yeah, he's who-knows-where in the 65.3 million square miles of the Pacific, he has no food and barely any water, the sun's beating down on him, the potential love of his life is knocked out cold, and even if he does get rescued he's gonna have to, you know, jump into the mouth of a frickin' volcano, but right now, unmindful of any of that crap, he's just grooving to The Dell Vikings.

Has there ever been a purer expression of one man living in the moment?

When Patterns Aren't Sensed

In 2004, working as director, the venerable Clint Eastwood served up the striking "Mystic River" and, in the process, helped win Sean Penn and Tim Robbins their first Oscars. A year later came a little thing called "Million Dollar Baby" that just happened to be - in the opinion of this blogger - the best movie of the decade which, in the process, earned Morgan Freeman his first Oscar and Hilary Swank her second.

Then came the back-to-back takes on the Battle of Iwo Jima, first from the American perspective in "Flags Of Our Fathers" - which I found to be terribly underwhelming and by-the-numbers - and then from the Japanese perspective in "Letters From Iwo Jima" - a little better but still lacking. Then came the routine and boring escapade "Changeling". These three movies - while not straight biopics - were all based on fact.

Then came "Gran Torino", problematic in parts but overall a very well done movie with a fine, crackling leading performance from Clint himself. It was an original screenplay.

Then came the routine and boring escapade "Invictus". It was based on fact.

So....

Not based on fact...good. Based on fact...bad.

Not based on fact...good. Based on fact...bad.

NOT based on fact...good. BASED on fact...bad.

Now word comes that Eastwood's next project will be a biopic of J. Edgar Hoover.

I give up.

The Invasion vs. Body Snatchers

Recently, late at night, I started watching, on AMC, "The Invasion", with icicle queen Nicole Kidman in the lead, the 2007 film that was an update on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" from 1956, from Jack Finney's novel. It wasn't very good. Yet, I soldiered on. Why? I guess I just felt a sense of duty. What I began, I must finish. I wished I hadn't. Anyway, when I pulled up the esteemed Roger Ebert's review of it the following morning I found that 1.) He didn't like it either and 2.) Referenced the third remake of Finney's novel, 1993's "Body Snatchers", directed by Abel Ferrara, as being "by far the best of the films." You don't say? I had never seen it (nor have I seen Phillip Kaufman's second remake from 1978). To the Netflix queue I dashed! It was time for a comparison!

And what a comparison it is! You can see the difference between the glossed-up Hollywood-ization of "The Invasion" and the far more lo-fi suspense of "Body Snatchers". Dare I say which one I preferred?

At the outset of "The Invasion" we see Nicole Kidman, harried, not looking well, downing Ritalin as she gulps Mountain Dew and all you can think is, "Nicole Kidman drinks Mountain Dew?" But seriously, folks....the film then flashes back to its real beginning. A ha! The classic jump-ahead-in-time-to-disorient-the-audience opening, usually an indicator of desperation in the editing room. The real beginning shows us the body snatching alien lifeform clinging to a space shuttle as it crashes into earth, sending debris far and wide, which people gather up, tastelessly referencing the real life Columbia disaster. This causes multitudes to be infected with this mysterious alien disease. Quickly on the scene to investigate is Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam) who, before we have even the scantest of seconds to get emotionally invested in him or even know who the heck he is, gets infected with the disease, too. Blimey! In a twist of fate, he is the ex husband of Carol Bennell (Kidman), a therapist and our main character.

It's important to note how fast the previous paragraph moves. Like lightning, baby. If it is a jitterbug, the opening to "Body Snatchers" is an ominous waltz. Seventeen year old Marti Malone (Gabrielle Anwar, and whatever happened to her?) and her family is moving to a southern military base where her father (Terry Kinney, who you might recollect as being the one, the only John Cameron), with the EPA, has come to run some tests in the wake of people there starting to act a bit out of whack - referenced in a wonderfully mad monologue by Forest Whitaker as a potentially deranged Major.

On the way to the base they stop at a gas station and Marti takes a detour to the restroom where a soldier emerges from the darkness, grabs her and declares, "They're out there." Later, on the base, in voiceover, Marti declares, simply, "We didn't know it was coming. If we did, we would've run." I love, love, love that. I love movies that tell us something bad is going to happen and then sit back and let us wait. "Body Snatchers", unlike "The Invasion", establishes a real rhythm.

Marti is presented as an authentic teenager. She is wary of her stepmother (Meg Tilly). She loves her little brother (Reilly Murphy) but also harbors resentment as to the attention he receives. There is a great moment where she has broken curfew with a handsome young helicopter pilot but is still portrayed as being responsible enough to comfort her brother after he has begun to grow suspicious that not all in their new home is as it seems. (In fact, the scene where his suspicion intially sets in is small, simple, probably could have been shot for twelve bucks, but is infinitely more creepy than any sequence of a car chase with zombie-ish bodies clinging to the hood.)

"Body Snatchers" delicately builds tension for a full 50 minutes before unleashing hell whereas "The Invasion" constantly stops and re-starts so it can bang us over the head with a few pots and pans of forced action, probably because it doesn't trust that anyone in the audience has - or even knows how to spell - attention span. What an insult. Sure, the effects in "The Invasion" are much better but so what? There is a god-awful effect at the very end of "Body Snatchers" that still terrified me to my core because of its emotional resonance.

And nothing could make the differences between these two worlds more pointed than the respective conclusions. In "The Invasion" you can sense producers smoking cigars and shouting into phones, "People go to the movies to escape!" In "Body Snatchers".....eh, not so much. Not so much at all. You can understand why, according to "trustworthy" wikipedia, it was only released in 12 theaters.

Perhaps the most crucial aspect, though, between the two is The Message. "The Invasion" is adamant that you are aware of its allusions to the war in Iraq. So adamant, in fact, there is a scene in which Carol and a Russian Ambassador have a debate so heavy handed the Ambassador actually says the following words: "Can you give me a pill to make me see the world the way you Americans see the world? Can a pill help me understand Iraq, or Darfur, or even New Orleans?" Please bash me over the head with your mallet some more! Please, sir, please!!!

Ebert indicates "Body Snatchers" may have been an allusion to the AIDS epidemic but I thought it was far more primal. Kids always fear that adults won't listen, right? And by telling "Body Snatchers" from the kids' point of view it becomes an examination of this without ever doing it explicitly. More subtle in filmmaking, more subtle in storytelling, it's no surprise "Body Snatchers" is the remake to see.

Two Family House

The strains of Raymond De Fellita's "City Island" still reverberating through my head I Netflixed his 2000 film, "Two Family House", a prize winner at Sundance, which, like "City Island", is set in New York (though in the 50's this time out) and based on De Fellita's own life - his Uncle Buddy, specifically, who in the film is played just about perfectly by Michael Rispoli.

When Buddy came out of the Navy he had dreams of being a nightclub singer, and, in fact, we find out he is pretty good. But these dreams were not nurtured by his wife Estelle (Kathrine Narducci), not a bad woman, really, but the sort of person who views each and every single dream conjured up by anyone as a pipe dream. Instead Buddy took one of those soul-crushing jobs at a factory and put into motion various harebrained, moneymaking schemes that failed to make money, flaming out spectacularly.

His latest scheme involves buying a shabby two family house of the title so that he and Estelle can live upstairs while turning the downstairs into Buddy's Tavern. The inevitable problem? The tenants living upstairs already have no intention of leaving. Or paying rent. This would be Irish boozehound Jim O'Neary (Kevin Conway) and his pregnant wife Mary (Kelly Macdonald, yes, the Kelly Macdonald). Buddy tries to get them to leave. Jim is a bit, shall we say, stand-offish. He knows his rights and, more importantly, he knows his loopholes. So it comes to pass that Buddy and a few neighborhood pals from the bar he frequents turn up one morning with baseball bats to execute an eviction and, well, when you consider Mary is pregnant I am fairly certain you can guess what event chooses to transpire simultaneously.

The baby, however, turns out to be half black. Hmmmmmmm. This does not sit well with Jim. Or the neighborhood.

This set-up is handled well but the film gets better as it moves along. After De Fellita wisley moves Jim out of the picture this means Buddy will have to kick Mary and baby out so he can get to building his bar. Yet he checks up on them. He buys them a place to live. He visits. He helps out when he can.

As operatic as "City Island" was, "Two Family House" aim is more blue collar. You won't pick this up at first. The photography illuminates Staten Island and the art direction is superb. These are working class folks but often the images look too good to be true. The story, however, isn't too good to be true since apparently - as stated above - it was true. And it shows. Buddy is far from perfect. It's why he evicts Mary a few days after she's had a kid. He's just a tiny bit racist, maybe even a tad sexist, and despite proclaiming on several occasions that he's never cheated on his wife in 11 years, well, I told you, he visits Mary at her place. But he's not a bad man. He's not. He's a wonderfully illustrated character who simply wants someone in his life to accept the fact he has dreams. Like he sees something in Mary that keeps bringing him back around I think the viewer will be able to see something in Buddy that they recognize. The end is lovely but it's also a lot more difficult than you will expect. This is refreshing and makes it rather moving.

After these two films I declare that De Fellita has a truly great film in him. I hope he makes it.

Date Night

Scenes Worth The Price Of Admission. This is the moviegoing phenomenon whereby a movie mired in mediocrity can momentarily be redeemed - and, in fact, justify the usually exorbitant ticket price - by a single scene that somehow stands above all the muck situated before and after it, a scene that makes you shake your head and wonder aloud, "Why couldn't the entire movie have been like that?"

"Date Night", an amalgamation of "After Hours", "Adventures in Babysitting", and the "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry and George masquerade as Murphy and O'Brien to score a free limo ride, is a movie with a Scene (Totally) Worth The Price Of Admission. The rest is dubious. Phil and Claire Foster (comedic superteam Steve Carrell and Tina Fey) are a self-proclaimed "boring couple from New Jersey" who for their traditional Date Night decide to take things up a notch and go into the city and to a sushi restaurant where reservations are nearly impossible to attain and, thus, when the hostess comes around calling out for the "Tripplehorns" and the Tripplehorns refuse to respond Phil decides to live large and take the reservation that is not theirs.

A little while later two men turn up at the table and ask them to step outside. Phil and Claire, of course, assume the reservation jig is up. Except when they do get outside and into the alley the two men draw guns and demand a flash drive. Uh oh. And so Date Night begins in earnest as Phil and Claire's descent into a humorous Manhattan hell that will find them crossing the paths of a mobster (Ray Liotta), a crooked district attorney (William Fichtner) and a former real estate client of Claire's (an always shirtless Mark Wahlberg) who will offer crucial assistance a time or two, as they battle to save both their lives and their marriage.

The film makes an interesting choice by employing the chemistry of its two talented leads as its primary source of funny. The gags and one-liners, surprisingly, aren't all that great. There is more straight action than you would expect. You wonder how often Carrell and Fey improvised their best material. (Consider the scenes where they mimic other diners' conversations.) They certainly feel like a real couple, stuck in the doldrums, and I liked the sequence where they were on the street corner completely out of sorts and Carrell was throwing up from nerves and no one walking by cared or even noticed which felt authentic. But more often than not director Shawn Levy's movie is stuck in a low, lackluster hum when such an abusrd premise demands a kick into serious overdrive. Which brings me to....

The real Tripplehorns whom, of course, Phil and Claire will eventually have to meet. Midway through they turn up in the form of James Franco and Mila Kunis and for their lone scene - the finest five minutes I have witnessed at a movie this year - a film that had caused me to casually chuckle here and there suddenly made me laugh for real - way, way out loud, both clapping my hands and stomping my foot. They are not simply hilarious - though, rest assured, they are, almost every single line they say being truly excellent (my favorite, and, don't worry, because it's out of context: "I won a ribbon!") - but also convincing. They're in love. They're the couple "Date Night" should have been about. Wild, woozy, inspired, it is 100% comedy gold. And for a fleeting second as the scene neared its conclusion I thought the real Tripplehorns might team up with Phil and Claire Foster. Alas, it was not to be.

As Franco and Kunis disappeared out the window and down the fire escape I wanted to call out to them, in all sincerity, "Please take me with you!"

Ummmmm....

Yet again Kate Winslet (i.e. The World's Greatest Actress) has failed to take Cinema Romantico's advice. This, of course, is not surprising. What is surprising is the direction she has taken instead.

According to the Washington Post, which is according to AustraliaNews.com, her next role will be in a film comprised of 17 shorts put together by Peter "There's Something About Mary" Farrelly. It is described thusly:

"(Hugh) Jackman plays a man whose testicles are located under his chin and Winslet plays a woman who goes out on a date with his character."

Any other actress or actor in the world and I would be extremely, extremely concerned. But Kate The Great gets a pass.

For now.

A Digression: Bruce Springsteen, Up Close & Personal

This past weekend I was in Cleveland for my friend John's bachelor party (debauchery: accounted for) and being a noted Springsteen-fanatic this necessitated an excursion to the nearby Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for the mammoth exhibit titled: From Asbury Park To The Promised Land, The Life And Music Of Bruce Springsteen. To simply call it amazing would be a grotesque understatment but I also don't mean to torture you with one of my epochal, rambling posts. So it's list-making time!

The Top Ten Best Parts Of The Bruce Springsteen Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Exhibit:

10. The Oscar he won for "Streets of Philadelphia".

9. Family photos of a super young Bruce and his sister Virginia on what appeared to be the Jersey Shore. I have no idea why but, man, those tore me up.

8. The actual recording tapes containing his audition for Columbia Records.

7. A little message book opened to a page listing - amongst other things - the seven digit phone number for Clarence Clemons. ("Man, I better write down that Clarence guy's number so I can give him a call.")

6. The saxophone Clarence used for the "Jungleland" solo. Holy....

5. The various incarnations of handwritten lyrics for "Born to Run". It was really cool to see the song taking its shape right in front of you. Plus, a couple pages also contained phone numbers for women. (Oh, Kim and Delores, who were you and where are you now?)

4. The late Danny Federici's glockenspiel (literally held together by duct tape). When we got back in the car afterwards (and I'm not making this up) "Born to Run" came on the radio which meant that we were hearing the glockenspiel we'd just seen.

3. The 1960 Chevy Bruce bought after "Born to Run". I touched the door handle. No, you weren't supposed to touch (or photograph) anything. I didn't care and it was worth the risk because now I have a touched a door handle Bruce Springsteen has touched. And I really, really don't care how that makes me sound.

2. The four track he recorded "Nebraska" on. This is to say it was the four track Bruce Springsteen took into his bedroom on January 3, 1982 and proceeded to RECORD FREAKING "NEBRASKA" ON. You now have my permission to pass out.

And far and away....

1. The keyboard he used to record "Tunnel of Love". Thus, I was standing before the keyboard used to record my favorite Bruce album which means I was standing before the keyboard used to record my favorite album by ANYONE which means I was standing before the keyboard that made those remarkable, heartbreaking notes played during the second verse of "Brilliant Disguise" (which I have pretended to play innumerable times on my car's dashboard) and created the "wedding bells" on "Walk Like A Man" and that helped make the song I want played at my wedding. It was one of the five most beautiful things I've ever seen. Honestly. The spot from where Alice Munro jumped in "Last of the Mohicans", Eric Crouch's 95 yard touchdown run against Missouri, Lady Gaga's Saturday Night Live performance of "Paparazzi", the look the girl who sat next to me at ADP who I was completely infatuated with gave me the morning I returned after taking the previous day off as she said "You can't miss any more days" and the keyboard Bruce Springsteen used to record "Tunnel of Love". That's the list.

Standing before it I alternately almost sobbed and fainted, and I'm pretty sure I did have a couple heat flashes.

(Postscript: I have only one gripe. Why the f--- is The E Street Band not in the Hall Of Fame yet? There are oversights and then there is massive, needless idiocy.)

My Great Movies: Black Hawk Down

A group of Army Rangers idle around the base on the eve of what would turn into the catastrophic Battle of Mogadishu, chronicled in Mark Bowden's book "Black Hawk Down", the basis for Ridley Scott's film from 2001, and a soldier says to Staff Sgt. Matt Eversmann (Josh Hartnett): "I don't know about you but I was trained to fight." Eversmann replies: "I think I was trained to make a difference." The line sounds corny, and it is because the other soldiers chuckle, chide Eversmann as an "idealist", and even Eversmann manages to grin at himself.

Much later in the film, in the midst of the battle, after one black hawk helicopter has already been shot down by the enemy, a second American chopper is hit by a rocket propelled grenade and slams into the ground on the opposite side of the city meaning that a second rescue mission comprised of soldiers already attending to the first rescue mission will have to wade back through hostile territory. The film shows us a shot of the mission commander, General William Garrison (Sam Shepherd), back at base, his face rife with disbelieving terror. At this moment you realize that making a difference amounts, essentially, to jack squat.

In the wake of both "Green Zone" and the Oscar run of "The Hurt Locker" I turned to perhaps my favorite of all war movies, one helmed by Ridley Scott and produced by a man whose pedigree I have lambasted a time or two, Jerry Bruckheimer, proving that so long as the product is quality I will respect it. ("Black Hawk Down" should have won Best Picture. Of course, it should have been nominated first.) The basics of the real life mission were this: A U.S. Special Operations Force was charged with capturing the foreign minister and top political advisor of the Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. However, at the onset of the engagement Private Todd Blackburn (Orlando Bloom) was seriously injured when he fell from a Black Hawk helicopter while fast roping, setting off a chain reaction of events, including the shooting down of the two choppers, giving the book and film their titles, as American soldiers fought to evacuate the wounded and found themselves in a furious firefight with local militia that lasted throughout the night before a large task force came to their aid the following morning. 18 American soldiers lost their lives, 73 were wounded and while reports vary wildly on Somali militia casualties Bowden's book estimates more than 700 died.

The film's 30 minute first act is conventional. We get to know the soldiers - kind of, as they are sketched briefly and broadly. Specialist Grimes (Ewan McGregor) is a desk jockey who pontificates on the finer points of making coffee and yearns to see action until, of course, he gets to see action. In the brief conversation between Sgt. First Class Sanderson (William Fichtner), of Delta Force, and Captain Steele (Jason Isaacs), of the Rangers, we sense dischord between the two groups. Tom Sizemore's Danny McKnight is your typical laconic Colonel who will eventually make like a modern day William Prescott at Bunker Hill and casually stroll about the battlefield with no fear even as the bullets buzz all around him.

The politics of the mission are also inevitably addressed. A gun runner (George Harris) supplying weapons to the enemy is captured to, in turn, assist in capturing the two men the military want. He lectures General Garrison ("This is our war, not yours") and Garrison lectures him back ("That's not war - that's genocide") while other soldiers reference belief in "recruitment posters" and the notion of either helping Somalia or watching "a country destroy itself on CNN."

In fact, the scenes are conventional only on the surface and work to set up the film's primary theme. Once they have concluded and the logistics for the coming battle have been laid out, as the men wait, there is a monumental exchange between Eversmann and Sgt. First Class "Hoot" Gibson (Eric Bana, exemplary ensemble work, standing out but never standing above) that draws the line in the sand.

Eversmann: "You know, it's kind of funny. Beautiful beach, beautiful sun. Could almost be a nice place to visit."
Hoot: "Almost."
Eversmann: "You don't think we should be here?"
Hoot: "What I think? Don't really matter what I think. Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit goes right out the window."

And from that moment forward, for the remainder of the film's running time, politics and all that shit really does go right out the window. From that moment forward, "Black Hawk Down" transforms into an unrelenting assault on the viewer's nerves and ears, machine gun fire encompassing the soundtrack for what seems like the duration (and take time to consider the almost amazing absence of the shaking camera). It is difficult to grasp and almost impossible to stomach, admittedly, as Scott does not shy away from serving up frequent bursts of frightening violence and indulging in what now seems like the standard bullet-excavated-from-the-body sequence. Most telling is the initial American casualty - tragic, of course, but the way in which Hoot instantly and matter-of-factly declares "he's dead" is simply the situation. Get on with it or you'll be dead, too.

The "primary objective" having been lost, as Garrison states, it is an 18 hour rescue operation, a wrenching war of will, that exhausts the viewer as much as the characters onscreen. As the stranded soldiers wait out the night in hostile territory for a slow-developing rescue it reaches the point where, as the Somali enemies ferret out their position, it gets to be almost too much, to have gone on too long, and I can only imagine the viewer's feeling mirrors the feeling of those troops in real life - my God, this needs to be over. It's hard to watch, but also hard to shake. As is the sequence of the battered men finally making their way back to the safe zone. The shot of the teeming Somalians lining each side of the road, cheering them on, may seem cliched and corny at first until you consider the exhausted faces of the American men as they pass expressing only one thought: "Please just get the hell out of our way." Certainly I wish the movie could have ended a scene or two earlier (then again, it also doesn't end with a shot of Old Glory waving in the wind), the only time post-first half-hour the film seems determined to "explain". But did some want more "explaining"?

"(W)hat were they doing in Somalia in the first place?" asks Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "Why did an entire city seem to rise up in hatred against them? What purpose did their bravery serve?" Upon the film's release one of its actors, Brendan Sexton, publicly attacked the film, claiming the final product was altered from its original script which "In certain scenes, U.S. soldiers...were asking whether the U.S. should be there, how effective the U.S. military presence was, and why the U.S. was targeting one specific warlord in Somalia, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid." Sexton's entire take on the situation in Somalia and the American military's role is very thoughtful. But these ideas have nothing to do with what drives "Black Hawk Down".

The film's aim is not to comment on either the civil war in Somalia nor on the United State's decision to become involved. It's lone comment is that once we do become involved this is what can happen. Wars are fought for all sorts of reasons - often political, often misguided, often both - but whatever those reasons may be once the choice has been made it is the troops who are put in harm's way and the potential for being subjected to a nightmare like the Battle of Mogadishu is always present. If someone wants to rail for or against war that is what they need to remember. No film that has ever preached these ideas openly with on-the-nose dialogue has said it near as well as "Black Hawk Down".

Maybe this thought is best expressed in Sizemore's Colonel McKnight whose convoy of humvees first rounds up the prisoners before becoming enlisted in assisting in the rescue of the downed chopper, an exercise that goes spectacularly wrong as they are ceaselessly attacked. The mission commanders, circling Mogadishu high above in a helicopter of their own, guide the convoy below to no avail. "You don't understand. It's road block after road block." Their fancy computer maps know which way to go but the reality of the situation - which they can't see and do not understand anywhere near as well as they assume - is far different.

Back near the beginning, at the conclusion of the mission briefing, these two mission commanders notice Colonel McKnight smiling, cynically, to himself and wonder if there is something about the plan the Colonel does not like, leading McKnight to give a long list of potential problems. "Life's imperfect," says one commander. "Yeah, for you circling above it at five hundred feet, it's imperfect," replies McKnight. "Down on the street, it's unforgiving."

Lord Help Me, I Want To See MacGruber

For anyone who might not know, the film "MacGruber" is based on a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch in which Will Forte sends up the old school TV character "MacGyver" who could fashion a bomb out of absolutely anything (like, say, a pipe wrench, a hand towel and a sausage egg mcmuffin) wherein MacGruber always fails to deactivate a ticking time bomb meaning he and his cohorts are then blown to bits. These sketches typically last 19 seconds. How in the world this can possibly be transitioned to the big screen is anyone's guess and I intended not to even see if it could be done.

Until I saw the trailer. And then I was in.

Now make no mistake, my desire to see this movie has nothing to do with Will Forte himself or with his SNL co-star Kristen Wiig. God, no. I want to see "MacGruber" for one man and one man alone - the man who plays Deiter Von Cunth, the film's obligatory villain....

Val Kilmer.

Val Kilmer is the villain of "MacGruber." That is inspired casting. That is genius. The questions, of course, are numerous. Did Val Kilmer know he was in a comedy? Did anyone bother to tell him it was a comedy if he didn't know? Did Will Forte actively instruct people to tell Val Kilmer it wasn't a comedy? In the previews he looks so serious. Which only makes me want to see it MORE.

And, of course, based on past information are we meant to assume that Val Kilmer is now under the impression that he is better equipped to engage in terrorism than actual terrorists? Damn it, this is fascinating! It's the casting choice of the year! I can't stop thinking about it! I'm so excited! Rest assured, May 21st I'll be at the theater. And I'll be rooting for the bad guy.

(And I'll probably walk away very disappointed.)

Desert Island DVDs

Fandango Groovers Movie Blog today is spearheading a multi-blog event that is - in its own words - "a variation on the radio program Desert Island Discs: For those who don’t know the show has been running on the BBC for nearly 70 years. Guests are invited to imagine themselves cast away on a desert island with only eight pieces of music to listen to." But in this case bloggers are asked to envision themselves cast away on a desert island with only eight DVDs. So....eight movies I love implicitly....eight movies I would choose if I could never choose any other movies again....eight movies I could watch over and over and never ever tire of....

You might not believe me but I made this list in about 34 seconds. I know what I want. What would you want?

Cinema Romantico's 8 Desert Island DVDs:

- "Last of the Mohicans". No explanation necessary. The Washington Monument of my DVD collection.


-"Million Dollar Baby". The Lincoln Monument of my DVD collection. I know that for some "Million Dollar Baby" - particularly the third act - is hard to watch, and I totally understand, but it's not for me. I find moviemaking that incredible easy to watch.


- "The Myth of Fingerprints". I only watch this movie once a year but I have to fight off persistent urges at many times during the year to keep that once-a-year tradition alive, believe me. I could watch it 180 times a year - possibly even 255 times a year. It is the Jefferson Monument of my DVD collection (and now I will stop with this whole Washington D.C. landmark comparison nonsense).


- "Lost In Translation". I imagine it's going to get just a bit lonely on that desert island and this is - far and away - my favorite film to watch when I feel a little bit lonely (and/or lost).


- "Before Sunrise". No one to talk to on the island? No worries. I'll let Jesse and Celine talk for me. (Note: I've have yet to write a review of this movie. Tragic. So here's my friend Rory's review.)


- "From Here To Eternity". Now do you understand why I'm so concerned Jessica Simpson might one day star in a remake of this? Do you hear me, Simpson?! Keep your grubby hands off! Don't think I don't know what you're up to!


- "Without Limits". When I moved from Iowa to Arizona my first day out on the road the enormity of what I was doing hit me and I had a little bit of a freak-out. I mean, of course, I did. It's me! That night at my hotel in Oklahoma City I found "Without Limits" showing on TV and I cannot describe how happy it made me and how much it calmed me down. Cinematic comfort food.

- "Elizabethtown". Don't judge me!!!

Bart Got A Room

Imagine, if you will, that Woody Allen decided to remake "American Pie" and you're on the path to understanding writer/director Brian Hecker's supposed autobiographical film. Substitute a south Florida setting - that, if not for mentions of internet dating and "E-Flowers", would feel like the 1950's - for the not-so-gritty streets of Allen's Manhattan, employ numerous jazz standards for the score and serve up a hero in the form of Danny Stein (Steven Kaplan), a sadsack, kvetching teenage romantic (South Florida Danny Stein?) whose goal is to both score a date for the upcoming prom and to "get a room" for afterwards since, hey, the fabled Bart - George McFly without as much screen time - got a room. (Why the film even makes way for a brief appearance by the buxom Jennifer Tilly, the same woman whose only Oscar nomination was scored in - yes! - a Woody Allen film!)

Danny's best friend for eons has been Camille (Alia Shawkat, or, as she's known in some circles, Maeby Fünke) and with prom on the horizon she suggests that perhaps it would be best for these two dateless pals to attend together. Danny evades her proposal since his recent routine has been giving a nightly ride home to sumptuous sophomore Alice (Ashley Benson), who doubles as a cheerleader, and all signs, like Alice changing out of her cheerleader outfit right in front of him in his car while opining about how much she yearns to attend the prom, point to her wanting Danny to ask. Eventually he does. She says he misread her signs. Of course.

Thus begins Danny's plight in earnest. His friend, obsessive tanner Craig (Brandon Hardesty), tries to assist in the hookup but to no avail. The seemingly awkward moment of a teacher reading aloud student's journals in class leads to an opportunity of enlisting a date only to have it go horribly awry. Even Danny's father (William H. Macy), a single version of Jim's Dad in "American Pie", who drags his son along on dates to the sort of restaurants where they have the tenderloin-and-baked-potato special for patrons prior to 5:30, aids the effort. (And pay close attention to the first of the father's dates. She doesn't say a single word but is kept in the frame the whole time, her bug eyes never straying from him, hestitant and frightened as he eats his Big Pickle. She might give the funniest performance in the whole film.)

No doubt the hijinks and "twists" are several shades past predictable but it's the air of the way Hecker's film allows these hijinks and "twists" to unfold. It's most old fashioned. You can feel the warmth permeating from the edges of the screen and I found that refreshing. The parents love their kid and the kid loves his parents. They assist him in his cause because they trust him - like when Danny's mom (Cheryl Hines) agrees to reserve a hotel room for him in advance. Sure we have to endure the creaky scene of Danny's dad trying to enlist the aid of a woman who makes a living, shall we say, turning tricks near the end but even then he's doing it out of love.

And what's most joyous is the finale. While so many movies waste promising opening acts to peter out with obvious endings, "Bart Got A Room" kinda inverts that script. It's not precisely the end you expect. Yes, they wind up at prom and, yes, Danny and Camille wind up as companions at it (whoops! did I give it away?!) but the movie doesn't "end"-end at the prom. It ends in a different way. With a message I rather quite liked. I guess it was nice to see a teen movie where that Blink 182 kinda crap didn't infiltrate the soundtrack and the parents weren't all clueless morons and the hero's motives weren't sleazy and there aren't any people like Stifler running amock.

Maybe this will make me sound like a 57 year old man but there's hope for our children yet.

City Island

Location is often key in movies but never has it been more important than in Raymond de Fellita's just released film where the opening voiceover informs us the City Island of the title is a tiny fishing community in the Bronx surrounded by the waters of the Long Island Sound and Eastchester Bay. "Most people don't believe it until they see it," we are told. This location - "New England by way of Washington Heights" - is both heightened and romantic and, in turn, sets the film's tone. It's old fashioned, operatic, and concludes with all the major characters - and there is a lot of 'em - spilling onto the moonlit street to confess their secrets, and don't presume I've given it away because you know from the opening minute a film of this sort has to end this way. It's "Moonstruck" in the Bronx instead of Brooklyn.

Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) is a correctional officer and head of a noisy household where dinner always ends in loud arguments with his wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies), his young son Vinnie (Ezra Miller) and now their daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcio-Lorido, striking) who is home from college. No doubt they are so tightly wound on account of the clandestine way they lead their lives. Everyone smokes but no one knows this. Vinnie is addicted to internet porn in the form of, shall we say, overly-hefty women who eat - a lot - on camera. Vivian has, in fact, dropped out of college and is now employed as a stripper as a means to earn enough money to re-apply. Vince has a regular poker game that isn't really a poker game but an acting class (Alan Arkin is its teacher and his initial monologue is the funniest I've seen so far this year). He dreams, desperately, to be like his hero, Marlon Brando, whose biography he reads and keeps hidden amongst the towels in the bathroom.

At his acting class Vince is given a partner, Molly (Emily Mortimer), and they are presented an exercise in which they are each to divulge their most secretive secret in order to give a monologue about it at a later class. This functions as nifty way to dramatize the pasts of these two characters and it allows for Vince to tell Molly of the biggest bombshell he is keeping to himself.

Vince comes to the realization that a new prisoner, Tony (Steven Strait), happens to the son of the woman on whom Vince ran out many years ago. (This is not a spoiler. It is revealed straight away.) Tony is on the verge of release but has no family to be released to so Vince volunteers, bringing a convict to live in a home already rife with tension.

The film's most refreshing aspect is its refusal to pander to the characters. No one here is bad, they just have problems, you know? These people can be cold but it's only because they care. There are numerous situations ripe for the implementation of the Idiot Plot (coinage: Roger Ebert) but they never materialize. The gravest decision made by Joyce is certainly unkind but the reason she makes it rings true because it's simply on account of what she thinks is payback. Meanwhile the relationship between Vince and Molly remains platonic where a lesser movie, if not adding a whole romantic subplot, would have at least had them caught in some sort of asinine compromising position. Instead these two help to draw out crucial characteristics in the other, like Molly convincing Vince to go for an audition which - and I don't want to get too hark the herald angels here - is certainly the finest movie audition in a movie I've seen in a number of years.

Sure, sure, the way the movie ends is not how things are resolved in real life. But who's to say it's not how they are resolved on City Island?

The Ten Commandments (In Less Than Two Hours)

With collegiate basketball's Final 4 coinciding this year with Easter Eve it meant most of the basketball would be running concurrently with ABC's annual showing of Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 Biblical epic "The Ten Commandents" starring Charlton Heston as the one, the only Moses. Thus, being such a studious film scholar, I decided it would be an invigorating experiment to view "The Ten Commandments" during halftime of the first Final 4 game, during the thirty minute window between the end of the first game and the start of the second game, halftime of the second game, and whatever remained afterwards and write a review. Really, who wants to sit through all of "The Ten Commandments"? (I have, as a matter of fact, and enjoy it, perhaps more than should be allowable.) ABC had scheduled a four hour and forty-four minute chunk of time for the telecast. It seemed excessive.

Lo and behold the experiment got off to a rousing start when the Butler/Michigan State game hit halftime at 6:03, meaning that "The Ten Commandments" was just finishing up its opening credits as I flipped over. Perfect! This way I would truly be able to ascertain if a viewer could glean all the pertinent info to this 220 minute motion picture in less than 120 minutes.

It opens with a voiceover taken directly from the Book Of Genesis and all I could think about was how much noted screenwriting guru Robert McKee abhors voiceover. But what if the voiceover is based on Scripture? Would he still denounce it, and if he did would God strike him down with a bolt of lightning? I almost want to pay the $4500 (or whatever it costs) to attend one of his workshops to ask him this question.

Once this finished baby Moses is put in the infamous basket and sent off down the Nile where Bithiah (Nina Foch) - she and her cohorts resembling Old Testament Orange County Housewives - locates his basket and tasks herself with becoming this baby's mother, this baby whom she will name....Moses. It doesn't take us long, however, to move on to Adult Moses (Charlton Heston) who has just returned from battle and announces to the Pharaoh Seti (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) that he has made allies with the Ethiopians who then perform a brief Ethiopian song & dance number. And at the end of this sequence we receive our very first mention of the possibility of the existence of....(drums & trumpets)...."the deliverer." But at this point it was 6:23 and the Butler/Michigan State game was revving back up.

At 7:34, in the wake of the most exciting conclusion to Butler toppling the Spartans, I hurried back to "The Ten Commandments" to find Queen Nefertiri (Anne Baxter) being primped by her subordinates.

A word here about the majority of shots in "The Ten Commandents": it's like watching a play. Really, it is. Each one of them is meticulously staged with characters lined up and remaining in particular poses (like standing with one foot up on something and one hand on the hip) for the duration of the shot, which can sometimes be awfully lengthy. In fact, the next day, on Easter Sunday, I indulged in my traditional viewing of "Cookie's Fortune" and watching the re-written version of "Salome" that Glenn Close's villainess puts on for the town's Easter Play isn't much different from "The Ten Commandments". It's bascially a $13 million community theater production.

Anyway, while Nefertiri is being primped someone sets fire to the chariot house! Oh no! Why, it's Joshua (John Derek)! For this little misdeed Joshua is set to be whipped to death by Baka (Vincent Price - yes, Vincent Price) only to watch in wonderement as Moses swoops in to save Joshua and not only save Joshua but kill Baka in the process. The following exchange is critical:

Joshua: "Why does a Prince of Egypt kill the Pharoah's Master Builder to save a Hebrew?"
Moses (extremely Heston-esque): "I am Hebrew."

It is via this exchange that Joshua reaches the realization that, yes, Moses is The Deliverer! See?! You DON'T need to watch this whole movie! This proves it! I watch a scene foreshadowing the fact someone is going to be "the deliverer", check out for an hour and ten minutes and return at almost the exact instant the identity of "the deliverer" is revealed! What in the name of the Son of God was DeMille doing during all that time?

Now Moses, draped in cinematic chains, meets the Pharoah face to face (and in this meticulous shot notice the woman standing on the right edge of the frame with a disinterested look the whole time - did someone shoot her with a tranquilizer?) who names Rameses (Yul Brynner) as his successor and Rameses - in the classic movie villain mistake - refrains from executing Moses and banishes him to the desert. And then it was time for West Virginia/Duke to tip off in the Final 4.

At the ensuing halftime, approximately 9:02 PM, I return to "The Ten Commandments" to find that Moses has grown that mountainous beard and gained possession of his staff, the staff which he promptly uses to make the Nile run red with blood. Yeah, Rameses, how do you like him now?! Still not that much, apparently, and so Moses makes hail fall from a clear sky. Yet Rameses still remains unimpressed and still refuses to free the slaves. So, again, we had previously learned Moses is the deliverer and has been banished to the desert, check out for a whole half of basketball and return to find Moses trying to win the freedom of the slaves and failing. What did we miss? Moses in the desert? No big deal, if you think about it. He's the deliverer and now he's failing to deliver - the point in the 2nd act when all hope seems lost - and that's all we really need story-wise. This is awesome! 9:22 PM and it's back to basketball!

With Duke routing the Mountaineers of West Virginia and only a couple minutes left in a game that is essentially over I flip back to "The Ten Commandments" at 10:10 PM and - sure enough! - find Rameses and his soldiers having backed Moses and his people up against the Red Sea. You know what's coming, baby! The Red Sea parts, Moses and his people make it across and the water collapses on the pursuing army.

So again, we check out for a little under an hour and return just in time to see the big setpiece, the one thing who anyone who watches this film actually wants to see, and all in less than two hours!

Therefore I think Cinema Romantico has definitively answered today that "The Ten Commandments" did not need to run 220 minutes. A severely condensed "Ten Commandments" will do you and the kids in Sunday School just fine. And yes, I'm aware that in the film there is still the part where Moses has to hike up Mount Sinai to retrieve the tablets bearing, you know, The Ten Commandments themselves but by this point in the evening I'd already consumed five Two Brothers Resistance IPA's and so my mind was wandering and I didn't have the patience and I watched Lady Gaga perform "Bad Romance" on DVR instead. After all....

The Ten Commandments..."Bad Romance". Tomato...tomahto.

The Holiness Of A DVD Collection

"Don't you buy a movie because you're somehow passionate about it and want to watch it again and again? Does this guy feel that way about 'Hard Rain?'" - The Onion, April 2003

Often when I inform someone I have purchased a new film on DVD this someone will immediately ask "Is it good?" This question does not make even the slightest bit of sense to me.

If I told you I bought a plane ticket to Melbourne soley to see Kylie Minogue perform live would you ask me if I liked Kylie Minogue? If I told you that the 1990 Nebraska Football Team was led in rushing by a dude named Leodis Flowers (note: they were) would you ask if I liked Nebraska Football?

The answers, of course, are no and no. You wouldn't. So why when I excitedly tell you about my most recent DVD purchase do you wonder if I think that DVD is good?

Perhaps I treat my DVD collection with a bit too much, shall we say, reverence. My friend Daryl used to leave me messages posing as Jed of the S.T.A.A. ("Starship Troopers" Association of America), pleading for me to move my copy of "Starship Troopers" - his favorite movie and one I do think is a fine film - to my "main video case." Which is to say that, yes, I have a Main Video Case and a Junior Varsity Video Case.

Like Rob Gordon tackling The Great Reorganization (of his record collection) in the face of another breakup, I find something beautiful in the moment a new DVD enters my possession and I sit down to pour over my current collection in order to determine which film is getting bumped off varsity to make room for the latest entrant. Oh, these proceedings can be as anguished as poor Sonia Sotomayor at her confirmation hearing but, nevertheless, it's riveting! One addition to an anthology can make all the difference while the subtraction is moved to the case below the TV, in my heart and in my mind but out of sight. No longer is it part of that which will define me when a guest decides to scan the racks of my movie purchases.

(Guest: "You have "Serendipity" in here? Right next to "Meet Me In St. Louis?" - Me: "You got a problem with that?")

I have friends who scoff at this notion. They would proudly display a copy of "Casablanca" alongside a copy of "Next Of Kin". Well, I'm sorry but I just can't live that way. The DVD case is too sacred a place for irony. It is not a parlor game meant for your amusement.

As Nick Hornby once noted: "It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if...your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party." I can still vividly recall the moment in a high school classroom where somehow (I don't recall the precise reasons) the film "Last of the Mohicans" was mentioned and the girl (I won't say her name) sitting directly to my left said (no embellishments): "I fell asleep during that movie." I was this close to unloading a torrent of f-bombs on her and then heaving my textbook through the neartest window.

I'm sorry, but if you fell asleep during "Last of the Mohicans" we could never be a couple. We just couldn't. It's how these things work and we all know it. Don't lie.

She wants to rent "Made of Honor" and refuses to watch "A Fish Called Wanda" because the costumes are "dated"? Adios, chica. She teared up at Bruce Willis's farewell to Ben Affleck in "Armageddon" and doesn't care for "Juno" because she feels as if "no one talks like that in real life"? Hit the bricks, lady, and beat it. You think Adam Sandler movies are all "fast paced comedic romps" but think "Lost In Translation" is "slow"? I urge you to leave the room at once before you're coated in brains from when my head explodes.

Your DVD collection should stand for something, damn it. Don't you love movies? Don't you most especially love the movies you love? Like George Costanza and Festivus all those cases lined up side by side are part of who I am. "Elizabethown" is on the top row? Only a couple places over from "Annie Hall"? Your damn right, it is. I wouldn't have it any other way. And that's exactly the way everyone's DVD collection should be. Your DVD collection is you, thus you should tend to it accordingly.

Hot Tub Time Machine

What if the John Cusack and Joel Murray characters living it up on Nantucket back in the summer of 1986 had suddenly found their future selves popping up via some sort of time travel device and therefore having to relive that whole "One Crazy Summer"? Do you think this would upset John Cusack, what when you consider he apparently loathes both that film and its counterpart "Better Off Dead"?

The gloriously titled "Hot Tub Time Machine" is centered around three wrecked (to different degrees) men who used to be best pals back in the 80's. Adam (Cusack) has just returned home to find his girlfriend gone. Nick (Craig Robinson) has left his dreams of being a rock star on the back burner to marry a woman he only recently discovered has been cheating on him. Lou (Rob Corddry), meanwhile, pulls into his garage and rocks out to Motley Crue while leaving his car running, the exhaust of which nearly kills him, which prompts everyone to assume he has attempted suicide.

Due to this development, Adam and Nick, along with Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), who lives in Adam's basement, wallowing away his days in darkness, text messages and sim gaming, determine to drag Lou to festive Kodiak Valley, the site of which in long-ago 1986 the trio had a raging weekend they still remember. Together they will relive their youth and, in doing so, gain perspective on adulthood. Or something.

Tragically it seems Kodiak Valley has fallen on hard times because....oh, who cares? The point is just outside their hotel room is this hot tub, you see, and when they climb in for an evening of drunken revelry they are transported back in time to that exact same weekend of 1986.

Thankfully the movie gets most of the obligatory references - hey! that's Reagan on the TV! hey! that guy's talking on a RIDICULOUSLY large cellphone! - outta the way right at the start and then gets into the "meat" of the story, which is Jacob, the writer of "Stargate" fan fiction, coming to the conclusion if they do not retrace their exact steps of what actually happened on this evening it might turn out they will not exist in the future. And, hey, this concerns this poor Jacob, too, because his mom is at the resort and is apparently a bit of a, shall we say, lush.

So....Adam has to re-break up with his girlfriend - which gets him stabbed in the eye with a fork - and Nick has to cheat on his wife - even though she's only 9 years old in 1986, which makes for the movie's finest scene near the end - and Lou has to get re-beat up by some obnoxious "Red Dawn"-loving wacko. Or will fate cause a few unforeseen twists? Stunningly, for a movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine", the goings-on are a bit more earnest than you might presume, especially in Adam's rather unexciting courtship with a young rock critic maiden who has arrived to review the big Poison show.

Now, don't misunderstand, "Hot Tub Time Machine" is still crass and bad word-ridden. Of this film the esteemed Roger Ebert writes: "...I think the density of the f-word reaches the saturation point..." But to what point and purpose? Peter Capaldi's incessant swearing in "In The Loop", for instance, was flat-out poetic. Leslie Mann's tumultuous torrents of profanity in "Knocked Up" were full of feeling. But here it is just repetitive and annoying. A lot of reviews have noted Corddry's work. Maybe it's just me but I disagree. Robinson's character explains Cordry's character thusly: "You know how groups of friends have the a--hole. He's (meaning: Corddry) the a--hole." Exactly! And I don't like the a--hole!

Characters have traveled in time, for God's sake! All bets are off! Get inventive with your gags! The history of The Drive is re-written and that's your payoff?! Is that really supposed to be funny or am I just that old? Or consider the plight of the one-armed bellhop (Crispin Glover - yes, George McFly himself is in another movie about time travel). We see him in present day with one arm so we know that when we go back in time we see how he loses that arm and, again I ask, that's the payoff? You see that box, (screenwriters) Josh Heald, Sean Anders and John Morris? Think outside of it! Or why when Robinson is delightfully riffing on the "Johnny B. Goode" sequence of "Back to the Future" couldn't we see a lithe female off to the side with a telephone yelling into it: "Stacy. It's Tracy. Your cousin, Tracy Ferguson. You know that new sound you've been looking for? Well, listen to this!"

Am I being too hard on this movie? No. I don't think I am. And even if I am, well, I don't care, because someone has to stand up and demand more creativity from vulgar, time traveling movies. This might sound absurd but for something called "Hot Tub Time Machine" it really should have been more outlandish.

But perhaps the film's most disturbing element, one that seems to have been ignored by the critics, is the presence of Cusack, who doubled as producer, the same man who loathed the aforementioned two 80's cult classics in which he starred. What are we to make of this? Is this Cusack's way of saying he regrets turning his back on those two films and wishing he could re-write this portion of his personal history? Or is Cusack - again, he was a producer - saying this is how you make you such a film?

Either way I'll take the Korean drag racers over Rob Corddry projectile vomiting every day of the week.