Dear Universal, Could You Allow Me To Screen The Adjustment Bureau In Advance Of Its Release Date?

If you know me and are aware of who I am and how I feel and my views of life and love and the world and the cinema and at the risk of jinxing it and at the risk of assigning it expectations which cannot possibly be reached (though, as I have stated before, I personally do not believe anything can be, as they say, built up too much), well, a man's gut reaction is his gut reaction and I have no choice but to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me movie gods. So here it is.

"The Adjustment Bureau" might just be the greatest preview I've ever seen.

Venice Underground

Recently my best friend and his lovely wife took time out from their festive lives in New York City to visit me which led to a Sunday afternoon brunch which led to wandering about my neighborhood which led to passing a thrift store advertising $3 DVDs for sale which led to my best friend and I browsing racks and racks of DVDs of movies we'd never heard of (and probably wish we'd never heard of) which led to me becoming obsessed with finding a DVD of a movie I'd never heard of for the specific purpose of reviewing it for my blog and, after much perusal, and after also finding "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" tucked away amidst all the crap, and after begging my best friend to lend me the necessary $6 (thanks, Jacob! This review wouldn't exist without you! You did the world a service!) since I'd just handed over all my money for coffee and overeasy eggs on top of biscuits and gravy, I had the perfect DVD in my hands.

"Venice Underground" (2005). This DVD appealed to me over the others because - despite its hilariously gratuitous cover - its cast and premise seemed to suggest it took itself seriously. That is what I wanted.

The cast is an awesome mix of slumming knowns - Edward Furlong, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Mark Boone Junior, Eric Mabius, and the man, the myth, Danny Trejo - and (there is a reason they're) unknowns - Nichole Hiltz, Nicholas Gonzalez, Randall Batinkoff, Carolina Garcia. The premise is painfully, expectedly by the book: the drug trade along the Venice Beach Boardwalk is, like, completely and totally outta control. So the Police Captain (Ed Lauter), who at one point actually declares someone "couldn't keep his hand out of the cookie jar", enlists the "bold" scheme of Sgt. Frank Mills (Batinkoff) who wants to take young pups not even finished with their training in the police academy and have them go undercover. He explains thusly: "Cops think and act like cops. These kids are all instincts and street smarts." After throwing up in his mouth a little, and against his better judgement, the Police Captain acquiesces.

This A-list squad isn't as motley as you'd expect. On the contrary, they are quite glamorous and a couple of them appear to have wandered over from some canceled Reality TV island. It's kinda like "The O.C." meets "Serpico." Gary (Furlong) and Tyler (O'Keefe) are an item. Samantha (Hiltz) is initially in bed with Sgt. Mills but it turns out this sly little minx is also in bed with Danny (Mabius) and, oh yeah, she's pregnant. Yes. Pregnant.

Kudos to Samantha for ceasing to drink liquor in the face of her impending pregnancy but, that said, should she really stay on the case? Should she really be busting down doors with a glock? Should she really be going under deep cover as a hooker? I mean, I hate to be that guy but, seriously, she's PREGNANT!!! Is this the message writer/director Eric DelaBarre yearned to send with "Venice Underground"? Pregnant women can be undercover cops, too?

Regardless of all this activity in the boudoir, though, the Venice Boardwalk drug ring must still be brought down, and so it will, as our intrepid gang wheels and deals its way through a shady music biz exec (Boone Junior) and a riotously unthreatening low level drug dealer named Joby (Bret Roberts) and an ominous dude in a car with no plates (Brian White) and the godfather, sort of, of a southside gang (Trejo) and so on and then, of course, there is the "mysterious" Man With The Golden Gun whose point-of-view we always see as he goes around eliminating the competition.

The acting is uniformly wooden (Furlong appears to have gone on an overnight drunk just prior to filming) and the filmmaking is predictably terrible as DelaBarre employs endless title cards ("Northside Dealer's House. 2:40 PM.") and insipid little flashbacks since I assume that he assumes no one was really paying any attention and awful slow-mo - lots of awful slow-mo - and in one moment of surreal absurdity, during the climactic gunfight and (half the money in our budget when towards this) explosion - the scene switches from late afternoon to night in 2 seconds. And don't even ask how the owner of the "mysterious" Golden Gun is revealed. That's the best you've got? Dude, no one's asking for a "Sixth Sense"-like twist but couldn't you have given it a little more thought?

What did I honestly expect from a $3 DVD of a movie called "Venice Underground"? Uh....this, I guess. What it does is re-inforce the fact that there is this whole other side to the movie business, all these little low budget movies on the fringe that eventually wind up on $3 DVD racks. Its producer was Jeff Most who, in looking at his IMBD credits, produced "The Crow" and "The Specialist" way back in the day, and has since produced the seemingly endless gurgle of "The Crow" follow-ups and a bunch of other movies like "Venice Underground". He must have money to toss at people like Furlong and O'Keefe and Trejo so he must be well off. Probably has a nice house in the cheaper section of the Hills. He's making a living. Respect.

But as someone who genuinely believes the cinema can change lives and re-align the stars re-realizing these facts about the industry just depresses me. Thank God I have "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" to cheer me back up.

Knight and Day

Some movies just seem so much better in the frigidness of cineplex air conditioning. It's a hot, humid, sweaty summer afternoon and so you steal away to the theater and sit in the cool and watch a movie with two megawatt stars that has them do what megawatt stars do. They Meet Cute. They banter, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. They are likely on the run. They engage in any number of the following in any possible order: crash land a plane in a cornfield, get into car chase, fire machine guns, trot to various global locales, get female megawatt star into bikini, drink champagne, discuss MacGuffin, kiss, end movie at place referenced near beginning of movie. So, let's see if James Mangold's "Knight and Day" fits the bill, shall we?

Megawatt Tom Cruise is Roy Miller, a secret agent of the most super kind who Meets Cute with megawatt Cameron Diaz's June Havens a total of three times in about four minutes. First, The Bump Into at an airport, which is directy followed by a second Bump Into, which will be followed by the Heightened Romantic Interlude On Airplane, which also helpfully references Roy and June's dream of forgetting all their troubles and lighting out for Cape Horn which is where the movie will....woah, hold your horses. I'm not just giving it away for free! You gotta buy your ticket like everyone else! Anyway....

In the immediate aftermath of their Romantic Interlude On Airplane June retires to the restroom while Roy offs every single person - pilots included on the plane - so that when June returns from the bathroom she finds Roy landing the plane in a cornfield at which point we begin getting our bearings on that pesky plot. Roy Miller is in possession of a never-ending (literally) battery called the Zephyr (a wonderfully throwback MacGuffin name, if you ask me) which was created by a nerdy scientist played by Paul Dano at mininum wattage named Luscious Jackson (suggesting the makers of "Knight and Day" like to rock out now and again). But the C.I.A., given a face via Peter Saarsgaard and Viola Davis, is after the Zephyr, too, and they are under the impression Roy is trying to steal it rather than protect it. But is he?

This is for June Havens to determine as she and Roy, trailed not only by the C.I.A. but also by a Spanish - I think - arms dealer (Jordi Molla, no wattage whasoever), turbocharge their way from the streets of Boston to a deserted island to an Austrian train to Salzburg to Madrid, alternately trusting him and not trusting him, now again sipping champagne with him in ritzy resorts, every once in awhile finding themselves in a car chase and/or gunfight, while Roy Miller grins and cackles and shoots people and keeps telling her over and over to trust him even as he will do several things that come across as not-trustworthy - such as slipping her into an obligatory bikini at his off-the-grid home while she's sleeping after being (necessarily) drugged.

None of this works, of course, if we don't buy the megawatt stars' characters and I think Roy and June, separately, are believable simply because they are both so aligned with Cruise's and Cameron's personas. Much ado will be made of how Cruise is essentially just riffing on his recent public personality and, to a certain extent, this is true. Is he or isn't he nuts? Are those or aren't those crazy eyes? When he tells June "Everything happens for a reason" he truly, truly believes this is a clear cut explanation. Diaz, meanwhile, is an actress I've always appreciated a great deal when she is playing frenzied and flustered, out of her element, and rarely in "Knight and Day" is she in her element, not even when she's being fitted for a dress for her sister's forthcoming wedding. Generic rom coms ("The Holiday") and serious acting ("Gangs of New York") are not her forté but I think she works quite well here. ("You keep saying my name! Why do you keep saying my name?! It's freaking me out!" This is a line I think I can hear Katie saying at home.) I won't suggest that Cruise and Cameron have the-vineyard-just-caught-on-fire chemistry, because they don't, but they are good enough on their own that you will only feel a minor twinge of disappointment when their eventual kiss coughs and sputters.

The action scenes are, you know, action scenes, they won't change the world, but they'll do and the movie is smart enough to know that in the midst of the action scenes the blah effects aren't the point as much as Roy and June's interaction.

Will "Knight and Day" work as well outside of the frigid cineplex air conditioning? Can it hold up in your living room on a fall evening or on a winter afternoon? Doubtful. So you better go see it now. Preferably when there are heat advisories.

Your Summer Movie Moment Of Zen

The Wizard Of Oz: The Prequel

Cinema Romantico's sources have indicated that, contrary to reports tabbing Sam Raimi, Ridley Scott has been hired to direct a prequel of the landmark 1939 film "The Wizard Of Oz." In an interview with the Provo Basin Standard Scott was quoted as saying "This version (of 'The Wizard Of Oz') will be the most historically accurate yet."

According to the Provo newspaper the prequel will be based in part on the forthcoming book by Idaho State Professor Stanley Cost entitled "The Great And Powerful Oz: A Search For The Real Wizard" which, centered around recent archaeology findings in the Canadian Rockies, posits that L. Frank Baum's beloved children's book was founded more on non fiction than fantasy.

A discovery late last year of a thread of burlap 95 miles west of Mount Columbia determined to have been torn from a balloon's sandbag dated to 1893 corresponds with the timeframe of a small Canadian community called Emerald Township, located in the province of Alberta which, through extensive research, Cost claims was once governed by an ex-medical quack.

"It is believed he was a man called John Whistler, nicknamed the Wizard for his medical practice of mysterious potions," explained Professor Cost, "who fled from the authories via hot air balloon after it was discovered he was charging patients for false remedies."

Scott explained via phone the movie's main intent will be to capture a "realistic portrait of the mythical wizard." This means cutting the original version's much beloved song and dance numbers. "You can't show a seriously unbalanced man scamming an innocent community and then cut to a scarecrow singing. You just can't. In these harsh economic times it's obviously not what the people want," said Scott.

He also advised the new film will not contain any flying monkeys "since, as you know, flying monkeys don't actually exist."

The film's release date has yet to be confirmed.

O.J Simpson & Besame Mucho

Recently I caught "June 17, 1994", one of ESPN's most recent entries its for-the-most-part well done "30 for 30" documentary series in which they chronicle famous sports-related subjects of the past, such as Wayne Gretzky's humongous trade to the L.A. Kings, Reggie Miller and Spike Lee's courtside catfight and a re-visiting of The U (the Miami Hurricanes' once ultra-successful, ultra-controversial college football dynasty). "June 17, 1994", directed by Brett Morgen, is a fantastic re-telling of that single day strictly through television images, without the use of voiceover or talking head interviews, as numerous events in the sports world somehow converge into a 24 hour period. Arnold Palmer's final round at the U.S. Open. The New York Rangers, having just won the Stanley Cup, parading through ticker tape in Manhattan. The World Cup kicking off on American soil. Game 5 of the NBA Finals. A decidedly really-doesn't-look-like-he's-taking-steroids Ken Griffey Jr. becoming the first person since Babe Ruth to hit 30 home runs by June 30th. And, oh yes, O.J. Simpson, in the wake of his wife's murder, turning fugitive before finding himself in a slow motion chase down an L.A. freeway.

Originally I typed up a post about how this event was a pre-cursor to Princess Diana's awful death and how it foreshadowed the coming doom of Reality TV and how the whole event (which I never saw at the time because I was at work, thank God) just makes me want to weep for America but, you know, that was all depressing. Instead my thoughts drifted elsewhere....

"The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear." I liked it better than it's predecessor. It's not better than the original, per se, because really they're the same movie, it's just that from a personal standpoint there were little moments I personally preferred more. ("We couldn't have picked a better day. This fog will keep us concealed." - "That's not fog, Frank, the number two engine's on fire.") Of course, when one's mind drifts to "The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear" it therefore must also drift to the fact O.J. Simpson is in the cast as the oft-beleagured Nordberg, the sidekick to Leslie Nielson's immaculately deadpan Lt. Frank Drebin. Nordberg spends the majority of his time in the films getting bruised and battered. He gets shot who-knows-how-many-times and is sent hurtling down an enbankment at a baseball stadium before flipping into the air and is dragged via bus all the way to Detroit. (Clearly there is some retrospect subtext here but I'll stay away from it.)

My favorite sequence of the trilogy occurs in the third act of the second film. To set the stage: one Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer - paralyzed and in a wheel chair - is set to give a speech urging President George Bush for a national policy of clean renewable energy sources. Ah, except villainous oil magnate Quentin Hapsburg (played with just the right amount of straight smarm by Robert Goulet) has kidnapped Dr. Meinheimer and set it up so an impostor Dr. Meinheimer will give a speech re-advocating dependency on foreign oil. Drebin and his cohorts have, of course, sniffed out this scheme but Drebin's repeated misguided attempts to bring Hapsburg to justice have resulted and him and his cohorts being barred from the hotel where the imposter Dr. Meinheimer will be speaking. Luckily, Drebin's ex-wife Jane (Priscilla Presley), currently Hapsburg's beau, believes her ex and is set to let them into the hotel....until Hapsburg tracks her down and locks out Drebin. So, needing a way in and a quartet of mariachi men conveniently strolling by, Drebin, Capt. Ed Hocken, the real Dr. Meinheimer, and Nordberg assume the guise of this mariachi band and sneak into the hotel where they find themselves sneaking along the stage just as the curtain is raised to introduce the President. And so it begins.



Refusing to panic, Frank Drebin steps forward and strums his guitar. Then the rest - Ed on guitar as well and Meinheimer and Nordberg on the trumpets - launch into a stirring rendition of "Besame Mucho" with Frank taking lead vocals and the rest adding shouts of "Hey!" ("I think we'd better make our move." - "You're right. I'm thinking something more up tempo, like 'Guantanamera.'") This is where it gets really interesting.

Consider, if you will, the situation. To execute their diabolical scheme Hapsburg and his fellow conspirators merely need to keep four men out of the hotel. The four men are Drebin, Ed, the real Dr. Meinheimer, and Nordberg. Or, to say it another way, two older men, a man in a wheelchair, and a guy that kinda looks like O.J. Simpson. Now this mariachi band has, for reasons unknown to anyone, taken the stage. This mariachi band comprised of....two older men, a man in a wheelchair and a guy that kinda looks like O.J. Simpson.

What's even better is the look on Hapsburg's face clearly indicates this mariachi band was not on the agenda and so he can't quite figure out why they're playing yet, at the same time, he is also unable to deduce that, in fact, this quartet is made up of two older men, a man in a wheelchair and a guy that kinda looks like O.J. Simpson. Meanwhile Jane, seated to his right, does realize, though it takes her fifty seconds - fifty! - that this is Frank and his cohorts, goes to cover her mouth in shock but, afraid Hapsburg will pick up on it, glances at him as she lowers her hand. And still Hapsburg is clueless.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Uh, Nick, what movie do you think you're watching here? This is 'The Naked Gun 2 1/2'. Of course, he's not going to figure out who they are." And I know. I understand. I'm the most anti real world movie fan there is. If someone is whining about how Leo didn't get on the board with Kate at the end of "Titanic" and I have access to a mallet then in all likelihood that someone is getting hit with the mallet. But the more I think about this scene from the real world perspective, the more it makes me laugh. It's absolutely hilarious! HOW CAN NO ONE KNOW WHO THEY ARE???!!! This scene works best when considered with a completely straight face.

But is it that precise necessity to look at this sequence that I love so much from a real world perspective that ruins it in the end? Lindsay Lohan has become an alcohol-monitor-on-her-ankle wild child but does her presence in "Prairie Home Companion", my favorite film of 2006, ruin it? I fervently adore "Gattaca" but does the eventual terribly bad breakup between Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman (the film's stars) ruin it? Lawrence Phillips went on to assault two women and run over some kids with his car and is currently serving time in jail but does his presence in my beloved Nebraska Cornhukers' 1995 Orange Bowl win ruin it?

I honestly don't think so. I watch that clip of the Drebin-infused "Besame Mucho" now and I laugh. Then again, as O.J. steps forward to belt out those last notes on trumpet, I still can't help but think, "Why couldn't this have been a different football player?"

Jonah Hex

Why did I see a Hollywood summer blockbuster based on a comic about which I know absolutely nothing that had all sorts of production problems? Because I like Josh Brolin and because I think he deserves to be a star (and because I think he deserved the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "Milk" more than Heath Ledger for "The Dark Knight", except saying that out loud is heresy and so, using my better judgement, I won't type those words). As the title character - an ex soldier in the confederate army, who, after betraying his commanding officer, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), by refusing to follow an unethical order, has - as is typical of these situations - his house burned and family massacred and then has his face branded (literally) and is thought to be dead before being brought back to life by some helpful Native American Indians and then wandering the land seeking work as the frontier's best bounty hunter - I realized almost straight away that Josh Brolin is my generation's Robert Mitchum. And that made me realize that Josh Brolin needs to be cast in the Robert Mitchum role opposite my Official Cinematic Crush Sienna Miller in the Jane Greer role in my "Out of the Past" remake that I am currently shopping around Hollywood to utterly no avail. (I'm thinking Val Kilmer for the Kirk Douglas role. But that's not locked in.) Oddly, though, this wasn't my most enormous epiphany during "Jonah Hex", but I'll get to that later. First, the movie!

Jonah Hex has turned bounty hunter only because it is presumed that Quentin Turnbull died in a hotel fire and, thus, no all-important revenge can be had. Except, of course, Quentin Turnbull didn't die in a hotel fire. (Whoops! I meant, SPOILER ALERT!!!) Turnbull and his cohorts have their sights set on constructing (gasp!) "The Weapon" (the words of President Ulysses Grant, played with what appears to be great disinterest by Aidan Quinn) and using it to destroy the Union on its centennial celebration. Once President Grant realizes what Turnbull is up to he enlists the aid of Jonah Hex, currently a wanted man who is shacked up with the requisite hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, Lilah (Megan Fox, who is so vastly out of her element as an actress it's like watching Rick Moranis masquerade as the fourth Ghostbuster). Hex agrees to assist if only because this allows him to exact his long awaited revenge. And so it goes.

The film has a few things going for it - namely, the premise. I like the fact that it feels so much like a futuristic western that is still set in the past (and I dug seeing Washington D.C. with the Washington Monument under construction). It has an absolutely fantastic supporting performance by Michael Fassbender in the typically tame role of The Bad Guy's Main Henchman. What Fassbender does with this stock character is downright amazing. I didn't even know it was him. I stayed for the closing credits to see who the played the part and, ye gods, it was Michael Fassbender. Well done, chap. You made the movie for this viewer. It is also lean and mean, mostly forgoing superfluosness, which I contend is mandatory for action films.

Except none of it is very thrilling. The action in "Jonah Hex" is extraordinarily routine. Nothing captures the eye. Rather than sit forward with anticipation you sink into your seat, disinterested. The story can mine familiar terrain, no problem, but then the additional flourishes need to be inspired. Instead Jonah Hex flees a gigantic explosion behind him not once, not twice, not even three times, but four. Four times! Yet despite the movie's big budget blasé attitude I am so glad I bought a ticket if for the simple reason that I'm certain I discovered Hollywood's greatest unknown secret.

Megan Fox isn't real.

I'm serious. In the wake of "Jonah Hex" I am convinced Megan Fox doesn't actually exist. It's not simply that no real person could possibly act that badly but, well, look at her. Consider her discombobulatingly rail-thin waist and consider her mind-bending, uh, chest area and especially consider the way a soft light seems to emanate from her in every single shot of "Jonah Hex", a soft light you ordinarily see surrounding characters created entirely by.....CGI.

Don't you find it suspicious that Michael Bay "discovered" her? Are we postive his "discovery" wasn't him creating her in a lab? Sure, sure, there is a whole "backstory" on Wikipedia but I'm not buying it. Her first film was "Holiday in the Sun"? Please. Has anyone actually seen this? How can we not be sure Michael Bay didn't create "Holiday in the Sun" himself? How can we not be sure Michael Bay didn't create this whole "backstory". I think she was "bullied and picked on" in middle school to generate empathy. I think he became jealous of how much success his "creation" was having and, thus, invented the whole "feud" to get rid of her. But he couldn't just "kill" her so he allowed her to be used in "Jennifer's Body" (A cheerleader who has a lesbian makeout scene? You're telling me that doesn't have Michael Bay's fingerprints all over it?) and "Jonah Hex" (A prostitute in bustiers? Again, Michael Bay's fingerprints) to throw people off the scent and let her "career" die naturally. Well, you didn't fool me! Oh, I understand the risk I run of exposing this on my blog and that's why if over the next few weeks the many forced references to Sienna Miller and Lady Gaga diminish and reviews praising "The A Team" and "Toy Story 3" pop up you will know that Hollywood came and got me. That's fine. I am willing to sacrifice. Now, everyone, go tell it on the mountain before it's too late!

Megan Fox is the real life S1m0ne.

Winter's Bone

At the center of Debra Granik's Sundance award winner, out now in theaters in selected cities, stands 17 year old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence, who in a perfect world - ha! - would already have Oscar pundits buzzing). The spare images that open the film perfectly summarize her situation. She has dropped out of school to tend to her younger brother and sister because her mother is "sick", long gone mentally, and her father, a noted meth cooker, is in prison. Then the story kicks in. The sheriff turns up at their house and advises Ree her father has been released from prison by using the house to post his bond. He now has to turn himself in by the end of the week. If not, the house will be taken. This is a problem because her father seems to have vanished. If the house is taken, where do Ree, her mother and her siblings go? And so to prevent this she must find her father. This is the engine that drives "Winter's Bone", written by Granik and Anne Rosellini, based on Daniel Woodrell's novel. Ree Dolly is a character driven by desperation.


She morphs into an Ozarkian Nancy Drew, combing the perpetually gray backwoods, talking to friends and family, all who look as world weary as her, in an attempt to glean a lead, any lead. Few, like Teardrop (John Hawkes, even skinnier and more sickly than usual), Ree's dad's brother, seem willing to help, if only because they know what will happen if they do. No one can be trusted. "I thought blood was supposed to mean something," declares Ree. Apparently not.

The film is a triumph of langauge. The cadences sound real, unrehearsed, often uneducated, but often suggest something bigger, a rural tragedy perhaps. "Talking accounts for witnesses and he don't want none of those." A glimmer of a scene between Ree and an Army recruiter is pieced together perfectly, bringing into tight focus the world where this movie exists and the world where it doesn't.

The look of the film is a triumph. It may be technically considered an "indie" and while there are a few handheld shots here and there even then the camera fails to wobble. It is classic filmmaking in the lo fi sense. You will be immersed in the chill, sense the wet leaves crunching beneath your feet, get the willies from the various shabby shacks into which Ree treads. It conjures up that line Sandy Powell had at this year's Oscars: "I’d like to dedicate this to the costume designers that don’t do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals. The designers that do the low-budget ones." Nothing here feels fake.

But, most importantly, the film is a triumph of storytelling. It is basic but elegant, never over-embellishing, never railing about socio-economic "points". "Winter's Bone" is about Ree - who is featured in every scene -trying to find her father to save her family and not a thing more. Her decisions make it move. It is two hours of real life cinematic power. And it is the sort of movie from which one would benefit a great deal seeing fairly cold and so of it I will say no more except to say this: The gauntlet, movie fans, has been thrown down.

Note the time in the log. Cinema Romantico has seen the first great movie of 2010.

Get Out Of My City!

Perhaps taking exception to some things I've said in the past Cinema Romantico's Official Public Enemy #1 (i.e. Michael Bay) decided that simply making "Transformers 3" and causing me to know it existed wasn't enough. He has now decided to (gulp) film it in the city where I live.

Well played, Mike. Well played. But don't think I won't come down to where you're filming and heckle you. And don't think I won't be able to find where you're filming, either. People will be able to hear you shouting through your bullhorn all the way from Carol Stream, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder.

Your Summer Movie Moment Of Zen

My Great Movies: A Fish Called Wanda

Currently my colleagues at Anomalous Material are engaged in a tournament to determine the greatest comedic film of all time which posits a basic question - namely, what is comedy? Mel Brooks has famously said: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." The esteemed Roger Ebert has written: "People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing." Colin Firth has offered: "Almost every comedy you see is about people making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale because it is psychologically very real." And Aristotle (who wasn't Belgian, as "A Fish Called Wanda" helpfully tells us) wrote that comedy is "the action of men worse than ourselves."

If you ask me, comedy, genuine comedy, is Kevin Kline as American thief, pseudo-philosopher Otto masquerading as CIA agent "Harvey Manfrenjensenden" in a stunningly dubious effort to cover for his "sister" Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) who is attempting to seduce English Barrister Archie Leach (John Cleese) whose wife and daughter have just unexpectedly turned up which leads to Archie's wife calling Otto "stupid", the one adjective Otto will not tolerate being directed at him under any circumstances, all of which builds to a line that might seem a simple throwaway but, considering the circumstances, could very well be, to this reviewer, the funniest single piece of dialogue uttered in 100 plus years of cinema.

"We haven't been to the pub for fifteen years."

This sequence, arriving at the halfway point of the 1988 Charles Crichton directed film, is rivaled only by "Dr. Strangelove's" initial War Room scene. It does not contain anyone falling into an open sewer and dying, per se, but to watch John Cleese's baffled facial expressions throughout is to witness a man dying a couple dozen little deaths over a few minutes time. Kline's Otto is desperately trying to be serious as he intones as this supposed CIA Agent - "It's a smokescreen?" - but fails most miserably. All of the major characters here are making errors in judgement, from Wanda cheating with a married man to Archie cheating right back to Otto just being Otto to Archie's wife mistaking a precious jewel as a present intended for her. All the actions seen here are essentially being committed by people worse than ourselves.

"A Fish Called Wanda" is a transatlantic enterprise, its cast headlined by two Brits and two Yanks, and it refrains from the "Airplane!" style of relentlessness, trusting that a few moments of quiet are but a small price to pay for fully formed characters thrust into a story tailor made to accentuate their awesome absurdity.

Its starting point is a jewel heist masterminded by George (Tom Georgeson), the character most capable of avoiding errors in judgement which, of course, makes him the least funny of the main players, utilizing a team of his trusted accomplice Ken (Palin), his girlfriend Wanda and, of course, Otto, only pretending to be Wanda's brother when, in fact, he is her lover, though she does not necessarily seem intent on making this relationship last. When it turns out Wanda and Otto are scheming behind the other duo's back, George gets picked up by the police and carted off to prison where Leach is assigned as his Barrister. Unfortunately, Wanda and Otto's plan of absconding with the precious jewels runs aground when it turns out the place George had hidden the goods is no longer the place where they are stored. In an attempt to discover their new hiding place Wanda determines to seduce and then betray unsuspecting Archie, saddled with home life not so much routine as barren, who feels her charms work him over illustrating, as the esteemed Roger Ebert noted in his original review, "a universal law of human nature, which is that every man, no matter how resistible, believes that when a woman in a low-cut dress tells him such things she must certainly be saying the truth."

Blending tart, ironic British humor with the conventions of an American rom com Cleese's layered screenplay serves up an unlikeable quartet that is always loveable. Consider Palin's Ken, tasked with taking out the old woman who was the heist's one witness and with testimony could put George behind bars. A devout animal lover who tends to a tank of tropical fish, Ken's hits go spectacularly awry as rather than eliminate the woman he proceeds, one by one, to knock off her trio of beloved dogs instead, wracking him with terrible guilt. A dog getting run over? Not that humorous. A dog getting run over by a guy who weeps at the death of a fish? Hilarious! Time and again "A Fish Called Wanda" trots right up to the line, threatening with supreme veracity to cross it, but never does, not even with Ken's secondary trait of an astonishing stutter. It's worth noting to anyone who may question the running gag's taste that Palin's own father suffered from a stutter and rather than employ the stutter as one of those typical screenplay facile keys - as in, once the stutter is overcome the character has "triumphed" - it exploits it at crucial junctures as a firm obstacle. Ken triumphs when he finally gains a fantastic, if prolonged (anyone? anyone?), bit of "revenge!"

Cleese's Archie Leach, meanwhile, takes his cue from the real life man from whom the character gained its namesake and is but an ordinary Englishman thrust into a tantalizing series of events that allows him to rip off the shackles of his staid life - "Do you have any idea what it's like being English? Being so stifled by this dread of doing the wrong thing?" - and become a full fledged Leading Man who, in a sly wink to the conventions of the genre, will find himself caught up in the Climactic Chase To The Airport to get the girl.

Ah yes, the girl. Curtis. Wanda. Outwitting the movie's bevy of males at every turn she is not merely the token lady or the love interest but the miana, the nucleus, the straw that stirs the drink. A modern update on the classic archetype of the screwball heroine she is sophisticated, tough, ambitious, she gets that which she wants first by using Archie and then by helping him to rekindle his long since dormant manhood. Sure, Archie is married but the marriage is quite clearly running on fumes - his wife Wendy (a deft Marie Aitken) is a self involved part-time shrew - and our allegiance to the brewing courtship between Archie and Wanda is sealed once we get a glimpse of the married couple's twin beds. Seriously? Twin beds? Don't kid yourself, viewer, this is a union justifiably falling by the wayside and the conclusion allows for Archie to finally step up and take matters into his own hands, though this isn't a case of the woman being tamed, per se, and we all know who will be making the decisions when this duo arrives in Argentina.


All of which brings us to the fourth and final member of this comedy rock group. Rightfully earning an Oscar for his supporting work Kevin Kline's acting perfectly melds with Cleese's writing to bring Otto, riddled with quirks, to life of only the most high definition sharpness. An unquestioned commentary on blowhard Americans he is a know-it-all who knows nothing, getting called out (by the other American, mind you) while remaining disdainful of anything British. At one moment he unwelcomingly finds himself stuck in cement causing him to bellow, "F---ing limey cement!" Apparently if it had been American cement, it would all be okay. He uses foul language sparingly but effectively - never superflously - including the finest implenation of the eff-you insult mankind has ever been privy to and consistently finds himself in the wrong, often trying to then make it right only to re-emphasize the wrong. Reactionary, uncouth, delusional, he manages to effectively re-invent the Dead Man Who Isn't Really Dead Scene and seems insistent his own armpits smell like Obsession by the other Klein. I don't like making lists - oh, who am I kidding? I love it - but the three greatest comedic performances of all time are as follows: George C. Scott in "Dr. Strangelove", Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Carribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" and Kevin Kline in "A Fish Called Wanda".

It broke no new ground and was not a step forward in the genre of movie comedy but this was never its intent. It is merely a professionally made, perfectly paced and driven by original characters played by actors ideal for their respective roles set loose in a story that generates just enough empathy to counteract the zaniness. You could be a movie fan all your life and never see something like this. It would be a film of epic proportions. It would be....the perfect comedy.

Nights and Weekends & The Guatemalan Handshake

If Marisa Tomei has turned into America's answer to Kate Winslet in the arena of cinematic nudity than it would appear that Greta Garwig has turned into Mumblecore's answer to Marisa Tomei in that same arena. She was fearless in the recent "Greenberg" and in "Nights and Weekends", released two years ago, conceived and directed and mostly improvised by Garwig herself and Joe Swanberg, she is far more fearless. Or crazy.

The film opens with a decidedly unadorned, lengthy sequence in which James (Swanberg) and Mattie (Garwig), a long distance couple - he lives in Chicago, she lives in New York - that only spends random Nights and Weekends together, lay down on the living room floor and in one continuous take remove all their clothes (this is to say: all their clothes) and get freaky. Oh my. Now I'm sure if the DVD contained a director's commentary we would be told at length how this scene symbolizes the film's "naked honesty" or some such thing. But it looked to me like they were simply going for shock value: see this! See how risqué it is! See how "French film" we are!

From there the film presents the downfall of this long distance relationship, arguments between the pair, as often in real life, stemming from the most of trivial of matters and somehow ballooning. She visits him, he visits her and then in the third act - for reasons the film chooses not to reveal - they have already broken up but now James has come to New York City and so they re-unite as friends though clearly they are not over one another.

I saw "Nights and Weekends" not so much because I just recently saw Garwig in Noah Baumbach's "Greenberg" but because I've been working my way through the Mumblecore genre. My first encounter with Mumblecore was Aaron Katz's "Quiet City" (2007). Except it wasn't. I had, in fact, already seen two Mumblecore movies but when I saw them I didn't know they were considered Mumblecore. "The Puffy Chair" left me rather underwhelmed and while I enjoyed "In Search Of A Midnight Kiss" to some degree I didn't think it was a particularly special film. But "Quiet City" smacked me upside the head in the way I wish more films would and I was so taken with it that 1.) I named it #9 on my totally personal, highly subjective decade-end list and 2.) Decided to immerse myself in Mumblecore.

I watched the work of Mark & Jay Duplass and Joe Swanberg and I watched "Humpday", which got some positive buzz at the time of its release. Yet with each film I found myself less and less impressed. "Nights and Weekends" left me feeling like I'd been swimming in raw sewage (and no, I didn't love it). Maybe this is because "Nights and Weekends" is specifically about the end of a relationship, which can be so miserable and noxious, and "Quiet City" was about the beginning of a relationship, hope and elation warming the screen. Except it was more than just the premise of each film. The filmmaking of "Nights and Weekends" was less compelling, much rougher around the edges, a sense of clueslessness posing as "low budget" and "faux documentary". Katz's images in "Quiet City" were more painterly (Erin Fisher standing outside the bodega late at night, or the shot of the two of them in the wind on the roof, or the film's closing shots on the train) and suggested a director who truly knew how to use a camera to tell the story with the script as a mere guideline whereas "Nights and Weekends" employed awkward transitions and nudity for "story" and "substance."

But the tipping point arrived with the "award winning" debut of writer/director Todd Rohal, "The Guatemalan Handshake." I use quotation marks not because it didn't actually win an award, because it did, but because I have no idea how it won an award. (Apparently it won the Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival.)

Rohal's film is about a demolition derby driver named - oh, Christ - Donald Turnupseed who vanishes in the wake of a power outage setting in motion a series of events affecting his pregnant girlfriend, his helplessly car-less father, a pack of wild boy scouts, a lactose intolerant roller rink employee, an elderly woman in search of her lost dog, and his best friend – a ten-year-old girl named Turkeylegs. Or at least that's the synposis given on Wikipedia. I used it here because as you actually watch the film you don't have any clue what's going on. You don't know who anyone is, where they are, or what they're doing. I hated "Away We Go" because I felt it was trying too damn hard to be QUIRKY. But at least "Away We Go" established a story of some sort. "The Guatemalan Handshake" completely dispenses with story and character in the name of being QUIRKY. It is QUIRKY to the point of mind numbing distraction. After all, a character's name - as established - is Turkeylegs. And another character's name - as established - is Donald Turnupseed. And Donald Turnupseed wears purple socks. "The Guatemalan Handshake" is what happens when filmmakers stop being real and start getting QUIRKY. I had to stop it after 45 minutes. I literally couldn't take it. It was excruciating. Later I realized the moment probably doubled as the one when Mumblecore died in my house.

The filmmakers responsible for the Mumblecore movement have, of course, bristled at the term. I find this hysterical. It's like Coolio getting incensed at Weird Al for spoofing "Gangsta's Paradise" or, even more so, it's like the Boston Celtics' Glen Davis getting upset over his longtime nickname "Big Baby" and asking people to start calling him "Uno Uno" (after his jersey number) instead. What....why....are you....people know you BECAUSE of "Big Baby". Probably more people know you as "Big Baby" than as Glen Davis!!! The only reason people know Mumblecore is, well, because of Mumblecore. The name has allowed the movement to gain traction which has given its "founders" more noteriety than they could have possibly hoped for and, you know, led to Greta Garwig getting a role opposite Ben Stiller and the Duplass Brothers making a movie with Jonah Hill and an Oscar winner previously mentioned named Marisa. But whatever.

Andrew Bujalski said this of the term: "It makes perfect sense for bloggers to sift through the films and pluck out commonalities. But the reductive concept that we’re somehow the same — that bugs me." And I realized Mr. Bujalski was exactly right. It is reductive. Mumblecore is not all the same.

"Quiet City" is fantastic and I'm content to do without all the rest.

Faithful In My Fashion

No question, as those who have endured "Leap Year" can attest, the romantic comedy is currently in a state of crisis. Can it survive? Can it recover? Can it progress? Perhaps the answer lies in the romantic comedies of the past, and not just those which garner the most fame, but in those relatively unknown to modern day audiences. It was with these thoughts in mind I sat down to watch to 1946's "Faithful In My Fashion", starring my Iowa homegirl Donna Reed, a post WWII rom com that is by no means brilliant, did not aim to change the rules of the game, but serves up its pleasures modestly and, most importantly, without the chicanery so common to the awful rom coms of now.

Jeff (Tom Drake - or, as he's also known, The Boy Next Door in "Meet Me In St. Louis") is a soldier home in New York City for a two week furlough where he is eager to re-unite with Jean (Reed), employed at the same department store where he worked and with whom he fell head over heels four years ago before he left and to whom he became engaged while he was away. He surprises her at the store as the movie opens but the expression on Jean's face gives away that all is not as it seems. No, in these last four years Jean has fallen for one Walter Medcraft, a man we assume is not as worthy for Jean as Jeff once we learn he works at the same store in (ugh) the accounting department. But Jean cannot bring herself to tell Jeff the truth.

Her gossipy co-workers, realizing she has failed to spill the proverbial beans, express their disappointment and when she decides once and for all that she must confess they all realize she can't. After all, Jeff only has two weeks before he must ship out again. These two weeks must be all happiness, no sadness, and so shall it be.

(Sidenote: Throughout the film Jeff refers to Jean as "Chunky." Yes. Chunky. Donna Reed is not even remotely chunky. Is this supposed to be 1946 irony? I can't say because it's never explained. Who on God's green earth thought that was a good idea? Lionel Houser, screenwriter, I'm looking at you.)

Of course, it won't be that easy. Jean's life is a little different now, like, say, the fact she no longer lives at the apartment where Jeff thinks she lives and where he is set to pick her up later that night which leads to Jean and her boss, Mr. Dilworthy (Edward Everett Horton), convincing the current occupant of the apartment, Professor Boris Riminoffsky (Sig Ruman), to move out for two weeks so she can move in to keep up the charade. Luckily, Riminoffsky is as an apparent romantic and is more than happy to oblige. Of course, Riminoffsky doubles as a music teacher and so after he has departed Jean unwittingly allows a stampede of instrument-wielding children into the apartment moments before Jeff is set to show up. Now....

Here are where the differences between then and now begin to appear. As a modern day viewer I was conditioned to expect Jeff walking in while the kids were making a mighty racket and then Donna Reed feigning that she's a music teacher and hijinks of all sorts ensuing. Not so. She manages to usher the kids out just as Jeff arrives and, sure, she calls one kid Tommy when his name is actually Eddie but that's the extent of the "wacky" misunderstanding and then the scene evolves into something far more affecting as they recall the first time they met and he sits down at the piano and plays a tune and you can in Jean's eyes in that lush black and white (while I'm at it, Donna Reed's beauty was much better served with her hair down than up in that Elaine Benes-y wall) how and why she fell for Jeff way back when and, hey, she might just be falling for him all over again. It is a vivid illustration of characters driving the plot rather than the alternative which is what we here in the 00's are used to having served to us.

Or consider the inevitable confrontation between Jeff and Walter minus the fact it isn't a confrontation at all but two men who don't know they are both engaged to the same woman. In 2010 Walter is a boorish blowhard so the audience can openly root against him even though this makes it implausible that Jean would ever want to be with him in the first place. (See: Bradley Cooper in "Wedding Crashers.") Walter, however, is just as friendly as Jeff but the movie - and this is damn tricky, people, when he only has a single scene - makes him multi-dimensional when he admits in a roundabout way that he is not ready for marriage.

Or consider the conclusion when Jean's good-hearted co-workers (and it's strange to use the phrase good-hearted in conjunction with the Wicked Witch Of The West - Margaret Hamilton) scheme to bring she and Jeff face to face after after the end of the second act, as he must, has appeared to have lost Jean. It might be a little disturbing for modern day viewers to hear these good-hearted co-workers refer to Jeff as the "customer" and Jean as (ahem) the "merchandise" but nonetheless the script shows intelligence in that it doesn't let anyone but Jeff and Jean make the decision for them.

"Faithful In My Fashion" isn't a classic but a competent, professional film without any needless fluff. Today's multitude of wannabe rom coms would be wise to pay attention to it. (Which means they won't.)

Your Summer Movie Moment Of Zen

Green Street Hooligans

In the wake of America being awarded the 1994 World Cup an Iowan sportswriter opinined as to which host city would be best equipped to handle the traditionally turbulent British football fans. In the end, he decided, the city where I live, Chicago, is the only one that could have stood up to them. Now, as it turned out, England didn't even qualify for the 1994 Cup but nevertheless....the question was intriguing. After living here for five years do I agree with this take? Well, I think the South Side could definitely go toe-to-toe but, no offense, North Siders, can you imagine football hooligans marching up and down tony Clark Street? Better yet, can you imagine the drunken young man on Addison who yelled at myself and my friends from above his porch as we passed below last Fourth Of July weekend yelling at football hooligans? He would not have seen the sunrise again.

With the latest World Cup, and the historic U.S./England match, looming, I decided to get myself in the mood by Netflixing a film I'd been curious to see since its 2005 release, Lexi Alexander's "Green Street Hooligans", detailing a young American wannabe journalist named Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood) who has just been expelled from Harvard after taking the fall for his cocaine-hoarding roommate and who travels across the pond to visit his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani) who has settled down in London with her husband Steve (Marc Warren) and their young son.

Almost instantly upon Matt's arrival, revealing right away the rather lazy narrative the screenplay will continue to employ, Steve's football hooligan brother Pete (a convincing Charlie Hunnam) turns up at which point, because of a planned romantic night, Steve gives Matt some money and shoves he and Pete out the door to a football match.

Now....is this really the course of action Steve would take? When Steve's "secret", dredged up later in the film, becomes known it makes this initial jumping off point for the film's story absolutely impossible to buy. The character of Steve, once all things are considered, simply would not have sent Matt off with his brother and no argument otherwise can be made. The filmmakers were so desperate for a Reveal they forgot their Reveal negated the Set Up.

But, you know, whatever must be done to get Matt where he needs to go, which is into the world of the Green Street Elite, a "firm" that does not so much support its team, West Ham, as use it as a handy excuse to make like a much more public Fight Club and assault rival "firms". Their home base is a pub where pints flow freely and Pete indoctrinates Matt into this violent world as all seem accepting except for the obligatory shifty, Yank-despising weasel, Bower (Leo Gregory), who negotiates with the Green Street Elite's notorious nemesis, the Millwall firm, spearheaded by Tommy Hatcher (Geoff Bell), whose history goes mighty deep with his sworn enemies. Things take an irrevocable turn for the worse when Bower spies Matt entering....The Times building! Which convinces Bower that Matt is undercover journalist!

Again, we find the film's over-reliance on coincidence. The only reason Matt enters that building is because his dad, as he must, has visited after Shannon has informed him Matt was expelled and Matt's dad says he can get him a job, which Matt doesn't even necessarily want, but his dad insists and so they enter the building right as Bower happens to be nearby. The fate of your film can't rest on this sort of plot point. You cannot let the audience see the strings being used to control the characters.

From here the story tries to get hefty like a Shakespearean tragedy as more skeletons come tumbling out of the cupboard, only to watch as it sinks swiftly under this supposed heftiness as we find Matt running to the final showdown like the jilted lover to the airport as the conclusion then becomes completely dependent on a jaw-droppingly awful decision made by Shannon that, again, to belabor the point, this character, as presented for the film's duration, would not have made.

All the story breakdowns are a shame because, I suppose, in a way "Green Street Hooligans" still effectively made its point to me. If I'd been Matt I never would made it past the first act. One fight and I'd be back on a plane for America to re-invest in college football. There may be hate in my nation's greatest sport but it's a respectful hate, even in its biggest rivalry. There may be an Ohio State supporting punk band called The Dead Shembechlers (named after ex Michigan Football Coach Bo Shembechler) that hates it rival Wolverines so much it has songs entitled "Michigan Stadium Is A Pile Of S---" and "I Peed In Ann Arbor's Water Supply" but on the day the man who gave them their namesake passed away the band, at a "Hate Michigan" rally that night, had a moment of silence for the deceased coach and donated all proceeds from the rally to the charity of the Shembechler Family's choosing.

I shudder to think what the Green Street Elite would have done.

The Karate Kid

"I just miss the classics, you know, like 'The Karate Kid' or 'Harold and Maude.'" - Pat Heely (Matt Dillon), "There's Something About Mary"

I'm old enough to have seen "The Karate Kid" in the theater - my dad took me - and then I spent the evening perfecting my own woeful variation of The Crane Kick. I'm old enough to have seen "The Karate Kid" multiple times afterwards on our (cough, cough) Beta VCR. Many is the time I would fast forward that sturdy Beta tape to the All Valley Karate Tournament and watch the drama unfold. Eventually, however, I became dismissive of "The Karate Kid".

But why? Was it because of "Karate Kid 3?" I don't really remember any plot points from "Karate Kid 3" but I do remember watching it with the two sons of my sister's godparents and the three of us making incessant fun of it. Was it because the actress who stars in my second favorite movie of all time was (gulp) "The Next Karate Kid" and so to simply pretend this doesn't exist I have to shrug off all "The Karate Kid" movies? Is it because when I argue Elisabeth Shue deserved the Best Actress Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas" (damn you, Sarandon) that I simply must sneer at "The Karate Kid" or otherwise risk undermining my own point?

With the remake starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, the precocious son of Will and Jada, of "The Karate Kid" descending upon theaters I felt a duty to revisit the original (released in June of 1984) and see what was up. What was up is that once you get past all the basics of John G. Avildsen's film, past the fact young Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio, whose acting career, in retrospect, was simultaneously made and derailed by the role) moves from Newark, New Jersey with his mother to The Promised Land of California where as fast as you can say "sweep the leg" he Meets Cute with comely young Ali (Shue) at a beach party before Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and his Jets turn up on motorbikes to show Daniel who runs things leading Daniel to train in the ways of karate with the mystical handyman at his apartment, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita, who improbably earned an Oscar nod meaning that, yes, there were two future Oscar nominees in this cast) in order to face down Johnny Lawrence once and for all at the aforementioned All Valley Karate Tournament (which in sports lore ranks somewhere between the 1998 NBA Finals and Super Bowl III), and once you get past the whole boy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks love story ("Not that boy from Reseda"), and once you get past the obvious 80's references such as the insipid tune "You're The Best" turning up during the tournament montage you begin to see "The Karate Kid" has an awful lot going in relation to the subject of bullying.

When I was raised bullying was not taken as seriously as it is now. For instance, I had a middle school classmate who composed a Hit List. Literally. It was titled "Hit List". I remember seeing it. (Note: I was not on it.) Now this kid never actually did anything and no one did anything to him about it but can you imagine what would have happened to him in this day and age? He would have been locked up. No one ever would have seen him again. And this is a way of saying there is some significant bullying in "The Karate Kid" that just kinda gets glossed over. Daniel gets karate chopped and karate kicked and gets punched in the face (trying to hide his black eye from his mom) and gets run off the road and after turning the tables briefly on his bullies at a Halloween dance he probably would have wound up in the hospital had the spry Mr. Miyagi not swooped in just in time to save the day. The film's chief villain, in fact, is not so much Johnny Lawrence as it is Johnny's infamous sensei John Kreese (a frightening Martin Kove), the man who gives the just-as-infamous order to "sweep the leg" late in the film, and runs his dojo like David Schwimmer ran Easy Company in "Band of Brothers". "We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Here, in the streets, in competition, a man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy."

Which brings me to the development I had forgot - that is, in order to end the bullying Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel to Kreese's dojo where Johnny Lawrence trains and makes a pact with Kreese that no one will touch Daniel until the karate tournament. This just seems, well, wrong. The most crucial plot point of the film is essentially a back room deal bartered by two grown males over the fate of an innocent teenager. Will this be the case in the new "Karate Kid"? If so, will critics and audiences stand for it?

Of course, all this allows for the film's finest passages, the extended training sequences between mentor and protege as Mr. Miyagi has Daniel partake in numerous household tasks that only masquerade as meaningless before their true intent is revealed and the little bit where Mr. Miyagi indulges in a bit too much sake with the photograph of his deceased wife (which does not end, thankfully, with Mr. Miyagi telling Daniel "You're like a son to me" and letting the audience glean this on its own) or the date between Daniel and Ali when Daniel's mom drives.

In the end, though, I just couldn't get past the bullying. Look, I hate being the Real World movie guy but in light of recent events it was foremost in my mind, not that it necessarily stained my moviewatching experience.

If there was one kernel I took away from "The Karate Kid" twenty-six years after its release its this: I only wish Phoebe Prince - and allow me to be perfectly blunt - had been afforded the opportunity to Crane Kick the complete shit out of every single person that ever bullied her.

Get Him To The Greek

Imagine if in 1972 a guy like, say, Bob Newhart was tasked with tracking down Keith Richards at his French villa and then somehow getting him stateside for both an interview on NBC in New York and a concert a couple days later in L.A. Can you fathom the vodka bottles emptied and the cigarettes sucked down and heroin scored and the words typed on the police blotter during such an escapade? Could Newhart possibly survive this ordeal? Well, there is "Get Him To The Greek", out in theaters now, in a nutshell, a film centered around rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), first glimpsed as a critical supporting character, seven years sober, in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and now back as the focal point in this film, separated from his wife, pop diva Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), after the spectacularly unsuccessful single "African Child" and now off the wagon with extreme prejudice.

Meanwhile, back at Pinnacle Records, its President, Sergio (Sean "Puffy" Combs, channeling his inner "Tropic Thunder"-Tom Cruise), is desperate for ideas in this tough marketplace and when “affable nitwit” Aaron Green (Jonah Hill, shockingly dialed down) proposes an idea for a 10 year anniversary show of Aldous Snow’s legendary set at the Greek Theater in L.A. it is Aaron himself who is sent off to London to reel in Snow and take him first to New York City for an interview on the Today Show and then to the Greek of the title. Snow will not make things so simple, of course, forcing straight arrow Aaron to indulge in every vice imaginable, briefly work as a drug mule, and repeatedly get screamed at via phone by Sergio, not to mention there is the mandatory subplot of Aaron’s spouse Daphne (Elisabeth Moss) home on the range, a workaholic nurse who has just been offered a job in Seattle, a place where she seems to expect Aaron will move without any qualms. (Why do I dread marriage? Because of the moment when Aaron suggests they attend a Pixies/Mars Volta show and Daphne counter-offers six hours of "Gossip Girl." I rue the day I can no longer see Tift Merritt at 10:00 on a school night because, you know, it’s Tift Merritt at 10:00 on a school night.)

There are hijinx aplenty and numerous celebrity cameos and Jonah Hill vomiting, approximately, fourteen times and, yet, stunningly for all its rock star excess there is considerably less bad language in "Get Him To The Greek" than in "MacGruber." Go figure. It’s also much more enjoyable. Relatively. I don't want to give away the best gags but the film, written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, is overlong by, maybe, 15 minutes, getting far too sentimental in the third act (while also unskillfully ripping off Billy Crudup’s Golden God sequence in "Almost Famous"). It yearns to weave a bromance between Aldous and Aaron into a bit of a father/son dynamic with Aldous and his Vegas showman pop (Colm Meany) into a more domesticated rom com between Aaron and Daphne that takes a most bizarre turn when Aldous "helpfully" turns up for an assist. This sequence may have played funny on paper - who knows? - but onscreen it manages to simultaneously fall flat and get weird, and not in a good way. The decision made by Daphne rings so false based on the character we have been shown throughout it manages to briefly derail the proceedings.

And it's made more tragic because for all the complexity "Get Him To The Greek" fails to generate between its two principal characters despite devoting most of its screen time to them, it contains an alluring, deceptively sweet dysfunctional romance off to the side between Aldous and the ingenue Jackie Q that cheats them out of a real resolution by substituting another celebrity cameo instead. That is a real shame.

If "Get Him To The Greek" decides to keep the streak alive and make a sequel implementing one of its supporting characters then may I humbly request its subject be the none-too-successful reconciliation of Aldous and Jackie Q?

Your Summer Movie Moment Of Zen

So with the worst time of the year for movies upon us the staff at Cinema Romantico has decided to try and keep our collective spirits up by ripping off the infamous exercise of Mr. Jon Stewart, hopefully sticking to it each Friday for the rest of the summer. And what better way to kick it off than with the worst summer movie of the past decade?! Enjoy!

Movie Spin Offs I Want To See

With "Get To The Greek" set to descend upon theaters, a film featuring the character of vapid but vociferously hilarious rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), originally featured in the marvelous rom com "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", I couldn't help but feel my mind drift off to supporting characters from other films who deserve their own spin offs. Once I started compiling the list the names poured forth like Sierra Nevada from the tap on a college football Saturday.

- Mouse Alexander (Don Cheadle), "Devil In A Blue Dress". About an hour (maybe more) into this Denzel Washington driven regular-joe-turned-private-eye the main character's violent, hair-trigger, raucous, boyhood pal turns up with a gun in hand and doesn't take more than a few minutes to unload a bullet into a poor sap's shoulder to glean some necessary info and you think, "Holy gods, who is this dude?!" And it seems like in the blink of an eye, as soon as he has arrived, he is gone. As wonderously rapturous as Jennifer Beals is as the femme fatale title character (have you ever wanted to make love to a voice? Woah! Did I just say that out loud?) and as good as Denzel always is, this movie belongs to Cheadle's Mouse. An entire film belongs to him, too. (Note: Will someone please explain how he didn't get an Oscar nod for this?)

- Club Doorman (Craig Robinson), "Knocked Up". No, he doesn't even have a name but I would give it all up to see the trials & tribulations of the most stressed out doorman in the fifty states.

- Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), "No Country For Old Men". This was my friend Brad's idea, actually, and it's a magnificent one.


- Madeleine White (Jodie Foster), "Inside Man". I don't even need to explain this one.

- Sherman "Preacher" Dudley (LL Cool J), "Deep Blue Sea". Important Note: I'm joking. Or am I?

- Hollywood (Whip Hubley) & Wolfman (Barry Tubb), "Top Gun". Obviously it's too late for this spin off but everyone who came of age in the 80's knows it should have happened.

- Kelly (Anna Faris), "Lost In Translation". Perhaps one day Sofia Coppola could make a mockumentary showing 24 hours in the life of the most ditzy actress this side of Jessica Simpson.

- Detective Otis Tucker (Courtney B. Vance), "Cookie's Fortune". Maybe this guy doesn't deserve a whole movie but he definitely deserves his own show on FX.

- Gina Callebrese (Elizabeth Rodriguez), "Miami Vice". I have waxed poetically and at length on this miraculous performance/character (in a horrifically underappreciated film) before but it is the movie spin off I most want to see.

What movie spin off do you most want to see?

Mulholland Drive

David Lynch movies have never been my favorite rides at the amusement park. Oh, I've tried. Lord knows, I've tried. "Wild At Heart". "Blue Velvet". "Lost Highway". All these viewings were filled with bewildered head scratching, baffled eye squinting, and such. The British film critic Paul Taylor has said Lynch's films are "to be experienced rather than explained." Fair enough. I experienced them. I didn't enjoy the experience. Thus, I had not experienced his "Mulholland Drive" (2001). But then it turned up on a bounty of decade end best of lists. My colleague Castor of Anamolous Material named it his #1 film of the 00's. On the flip side, I could not forget my friend Daryl's memorable email the morning after he first saw "Mulholland Drive" which took the form of an open letter to Mr. Lynch and contained many memorable phrases, including: "Once the movie was over, my wife and I broke down the timeline, re-shuffling the movie into its correct order so we could analyze your brilliance. When we were done, there was one missing piece I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Then I realized what it was. I couldn’t figure out at exactly what moment you made the worst movie in history." I Netflixed it anyway.

So early on we find a movie director named Adam (Justin Theroux) at a meeting where a couple of very strange men - one who is an espresso hound, one who is Dan Hedaya - have turned up to advise Adam and his producers that a particular woman will be cast in Adam's latest film. Adam is not pleased. Then the espresso hound is brought his beverage of choice by a portly waiter. Then the espresso hound asks for a napkin. The portly waiter brings it to him. At this point the portly waiter, standing in this room with a director who is mad that he has been told who he will be casting in his own movie and with Dan Hedaya staring down Adam and with this very strange espresso hound, assumes a look that is best described as Terrified Confusion. Thus, he quickly pivots and gets the hell outta there. This illustrates how I often feel watching David Lynch movies. Terrified Confusion. What in the world is going on here? And while often I want to make like the portly waiter and flee the room, I end up staying, sometimes for better, usually for worse. "Mulholland Drive", I think, was for the better.

Okay, brace yourself, here goes: a beautiful woman (Laura Elena Harring) is in the back of a limo traversing the road giving the film its title high above glittering L.A. when the driver stops, points a gun at her and orders her out. Except just as she steps out a couple cars of wild, unruly teenagers smash into the limo and send it flying. This beautiful woman somehow survives, albeit slightly injured and now with amnesia, and wanders away from the wreck and down into L.A. and takes refuge in a home where its owner just happens to be leaving for an apparent trip of some sort.

This is the same home where lovely Betty (Naomi Watts) will be staying, as it belongs to her aunt, as she attempts to make it as an actress in Tinseltown - already with an audition lined up. But when she finds this beautiful woman in the house - this beautiful woman who assumes the name Rita on account of a nearby Rita Hayworth poster - Betty, displaying a seriously plucky attitude, will determine to assist Rita in figuring out who she is and, of course, why her purse is packed full with stacks of cold, hard cash.

And all of that is only about 18,000 feet up Everest.

See, this is sort of a perfect film for a viewer like me, so far as I detest, as I've mentioned before, playing the Guess Ahead Game when watching a movie. I much prefer to immerse myself in the moment. Oh, you could play the Guess Ahead Game watching "Mulholland Drive." Play away. Be my guest. It's not going to get you anywhere. The questions that have been poured over for the last nine years in reference to this film I do not think could ever be definitively answered. (My colleague Castor has gone stunningly in depth on this topic.) It's a fantasy that makes an about-face into reality. Or is it the other way around? Or is it all reality? Or is it all fantasy? Or is it something else? But what the heck else could it be? What is so wonderful about "Mulholland Drive" is that does not appear to have any interest in truly answering these questions.

I hated "Shutter Island" because it was nothing more than an elaborately designed puzzle assembled specifically to SHOCK the audience. Every scene prior to the reveal of this one gigantic puzzle piece exists solely to both hide the "twist" and make it "apparent" on repeat viewings. It's not a story. It's a science experiment. I suppose in theory "Mulholland Drive" has a gigantic reveal in the third act but I do not believe, not even for a second, that this was David Lynch's prevaling concern.

What I watched was a movie in which you could get fully lost (like a dream - hmmmmm....), a filmmaker in complete command of his craft, staging scenes that - regardless of how they fit into whatever happens at the end - are put together so meticulously and with such assuredness they are breathtaking to behold. A hit gone amazingly, and hilariously, awry. A jilted husband taking out his frustration on the wife's precious jewels. The most eerie magic show any man, woman or child has ever seen. (If there are any questions with this movie it should be why are there only, like, 14 people at this magic show if they can perform magic like that?) A moonlit rendezvous with a dude named The Cowboy ("How do I meet this cowboy? Ride on out to the range?"). A movie audition implementing Linda Scott's celestial pop tune "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" (which is made even more riveting by the fact Lauren Reed is the one lip-synching to it).

Do I really want to waste my time considering David Lynch's "point" or what he was trying to "say" or what is fantasy and what is reality when there is such sinister, sweltering splendor filling every inch of the frame? It goes all the way back to that Paul Taylor quote - how Lynch's movies are "to be experienced rather than explained."

You want explanations? You want to know why all of the sudden Betty has morphed into Diane Selwyn and why Rita has been made over into Camilla Rhodes? You want to decipher the deeper meaning of the blue key? You want to know more about this freaky monster apparently lurking behind Winkies Diner? You want to know who in the name of Roy Rogers was the Cowboy? To simultaneously borrow a word from the movie itself and quote Juno Macguff: "Silencio, old man!" Enough with the questions! The Loch Ness Monster will always be better served by idiot scientists refraining from getting in the water and trying to prove for or against and weren't the polar bears on "Lost" a whole lot cooler when you had no idea why they were there?

Forget about trying to put that puzzle together and just let the various pieces lay scattered about on the coffee table. Look at them. Aren't they beautiful?

In Memoriam

Dennis Hopper. May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010.