Embarking On A Kylie Pilgrimmage

(Important Announcement: I'm going on vacation for the next week - the content of which I'm about to self-involvingly describe - and, thus, for the next 7 days Cinema Romantico is going all auto post via posts that I have authored over the last couple years but never published for varying reasons. So enjoy. Perhaps. I hope. And I'll catch back up with you in real time soon.)

I am ashamed of many things in my life, dear readers. My inability to use chopsticks. My fear of the trough at Wrigley Field. My affection for "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle." But I am not, never have been and never ever will be ashamed of my love for the music of Kylie Minogue. I mean, she's hot, yes - is she ever - but, irregardless, her music rocks, and the very fact that her music rocks is actually a critical part of why she's so hot. Any minute of any hour of any day of any week of any month her music automatically makes me feel like I'm young, even if I'm feeling old, and it's a Saturday night in some place, any place, I really want to be where tomorrow and yesterday are meaningless. You know in Springsteen's "Racing in the Street" where in the last line of the last verse he sings about riding to the sea to wash the sins from his hands? Kylie's music is the sea that washes the sins from my hands. Long ago I lost track of how many times I've been told to pony up my "man card" on account of my fondness for Kylie when considering that straight males in American society are only "allowed" to like certain things and long ago I stopped giving a shit. Life is too damn short to not like Kylie. Thus, when she announced she was returning to tour in North America for only the second time ever, I flipped my proverbial lid. I'd seen her, of course, the first time she came through Chicago in 2009 and wrote on this very blog: "I, we, all of us, need that second go-around with Kylie." And then asked, almost fearful, "Will she return?" Well, she was returning! One problem: three months and a couple weeks ago I learned Kylie was not returning to Chicago for her second go-around.

I was heartbroken. Devastated. Crestfallen. Genuinely. I could not fathom it. I had not even considered the possibility that she would not make it back to the city where I live. Would she really choose Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale over Chi-town? (As my friend Ashley, who had planned on attending with me, commiserated in an email: "Fucking Fort Lauderdale???") Apparently. She wasn't even putting on a show within driving distance. We had lost. Woe was us. My dream of seeing a show at every single one of Kylie's North American tours was dead only two tours in. Pardon me while I throw myself off the Michigan Avenue Bridge.

Oh, but dear readers, I forgot about one thing. Namely, my old mistress Fate.

The Friday evening that very same week I attended a charity event at Murphy's Bleachers for my friend Dave's office and paid $25 to drink all the beer I wanted to do away with my no-Kylie blues. I also bought $20 worth of raffle tickets for the event's grand prize - two Jetblue airline tickets. When it came time for the grand prize of the raffle, simply assuming I wasn't going to win because, seriously, I wasn't going to win, I thought to myself - honest to God - "If I actually win this thing, I'm going to New York to see Kylie Minogue." The raffle tickets had come in the form of playing cards and when the announcement came up that the winning card was the four of spades I looked at the four of spades in my hand for what felt like a good three hours. Surely, that wasn't a four. Or a spade. Couldn't be a spade. Not a chance. I must be seeing things. That must be a club. Or a heart. Right? In fact, it was my friend Matt who looked at my card and hollered "You won!" So I did. He pulled me to the front of the room and it was confirmed. Victory was mine. The plane tickets were mine. I was so shocked the guy running the event literally told me to "be happy" to which my friend Dave - knowing me all too well - replied "You don't understand, all you've done is add to Nick's anxiety."  

Indeed. From that point forward I was bombarded with advice - not just that night but for days afterwards - by people telling me where should I go and what I should do. Jetblue doesn't go overseas so that was out but they do fly down Caribbean way and to Cancun which is where some guy at Murphy's Bleachers whose name I still don't know told me I should go. Someone else told me I should go to Costa Rica. Someone else told me I should go to the Bahamas. Everyone had thoughts on the matter. I had thoughts, too. Alaska. San Francisco (where I've been once and always wanted to be again). St. Lucia. But......

A little over 10 years ago, my friend Rory, a fellow E Street Disciple, convinced me to fly with him to NYC to see Bruce Springsteen's last show of the Reunion Tour at Madison Square Garden. I remember people at the ad agency asking me what I had done while I was in New York. "Did you see the Empire State Building? Did you see the Statue of Liberty?" "No," I said, "I saw Bruce." I know it's hard for some people to understand - and I don't necessarily want or require them to - but Bruce, to me, is just way cooler than all that what-have-ya.

I'm going to get so high on her music I might just not ever come down. 

Oh, don't get me wrong, there are places on this planet I still want to visit. But I know myself. I know who I am. I know how I roll. Even if I could have used these Jetblue tickets to go anywhere, even if I could have gone to Barcelona or Sydney or, heck, even if I'd gone to St. Lucia I know exactly what would have happened. I would have been laying out in the sun on some sparkling beach with turquoise water just a hop and a skip away and I would have shook my head and said to myself, "Man, I should've gone to see Kylie Minogue instead."

That's why this morning, as I type this, I am on the verge of hopping the train to O'Hare to meet up with my friend Ashley to board a flight to New York City to crash on my best friend's couch to go to the Hammerstein Ballroom to see Kylie Minogue live. Or, like my friend Rory said in response to an email I sent him back in July on the 10th anniversary of our sojourn to the Apple to see a concert, "How crazy the world is and how sometimes it ends up making perfect sense."

NYC Postcard: 7 New York Movie Shots I Love

"I bet they're asleep in New York. I bet they're asleep all over America."

The way Humphrey Bogart says this in "Casablanca" seems to say just as much about New York City as even Woody Allen's brilliant, loving ode via monologue at the start of "Manhattan." As in, New York comes first. The rest of America, second. I adore the place, even though I, like the Woodman, romanticize it all out of proportion.

Here is one romantic's postcard of that romanticism.

"Saturday Night Fever" (1977). Woody & Diane sat in the shadow of a bridge, too, but I prefer Travolta's Tony Manero gazing across the East River, longingly, hopefully, sadly.

"New York, I Love You" (2009). Most populous city in America but sometimes, even amidst so many people and so much madness, it's just you and your thoughts.

"Quiet City" (2007). Twilight. Saturday. Heading into the city. Who knows what magic awaits?

"Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993). I always think this is how every meal out in New York City is supposed to look. Late evening, tiny place, closely packed tables, but entirely empty, kinda like a 1920's speakeasy, and that wine you're drinking is totally against the law.

"The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001). "She and her brother Richie ran away from home one winter and camped out in the African wing of the public archives." The older I get the more I dream of running away from home one winter and camping out in the African wing of the public archives.

"The Wackness" (2008). A hot summer day in Central Park with a couple perspiring 40 ozs, chill music on the boombox and a girl you totally dig. Perfection.

"Serendipity" (2001). Just keep your pie-hole shut. You knew this was coming.

My Great Movies: Boogie Nights (1,000th Post)

Yes, difficult to believe, I know, but Cinema Romantico has now been spewing forth on the movies (with the intermittent tangent on Springsteen or Lady Gaga or Nebraska Football) for a whole 1,000 posts. It's kind of amazing, really, and I want to sincerely, from the oceanic depths of my heart, thank every single person who has ever stopped by here to read one, five, ten, twenty-five, fifty, however many posts, even if you thought I was an idiot (which I pretty much am). It means the world that my melodramatic opinions have reached anyone at all. I really do love writing this blog.

I wanted Post 1,000 to be special, obviously, and there are several favorite films I have not written much about that I considered expounding on but I realized that I wanted Post 1,000 to not merely be about a favorite movie but about the romance of going to the movies, which is just as important. After all, this blog is called Cinema Romantico. And so I leaned back, closed my eyes and drifted off......drifted away......drifted back to......

Iowa City. 1997. A "burgeoning" English major at the U of I. Friday night doubling as Halloween. Due to events involving canned Busch Light I never made it out of the apartment which wasn't actually my apartment but my friend's apartment. The next morning I had recovered completely because I was young then and could recover completely with but a single night's sleep and so my friend, his girlfriend, her friend, and I piled into his girlfriend's friend's car and traversed north to the slightly smelly hamlet of Cedar Rapids for a showing of "Boogie Nights" because it was garnering raves and it wasn't out in the I.C. We had lunch, wandered through the Lindale Mall, bought our tickets, took our seats, and, as the previews started, three people sat down right in front of us, specifically one ginormous dude with a bulbous head who sat right in front of my friend's girlfriend's friend who was never shy about voicing her opinions and combined a loud sigh with a "What the fuck?" before moving from the seat to my right to the seat to my left which I actually sort of dug because it made us look like a couple even though we weren't. Sigh. But I digress.

The movie opens with a tracking shot, though at the time I didn't realize it was a tracking shot until the point the tracking shot ended and I thought to myself, "Wait, was that one take?" I was stunned. I'm still stunned. To this day no one shot in any movie has astonished me more. I've seen the Statue Of Liberty. I like this shot more. Yes, it's ambitious and a technical marvel but it's also thematic, establishing these people the camera tracks as one big, (highly) dysfunctional family and then, right at the end, discovering the about-to-be new member of the brood. (This shot is set to The Emotions' "Best Of My Love" which I therefore became obsessed with which caused me to buy the soundtrack 48 hours later and it's also the shot that led my friend Daryl and I to spend an evening once long ago watching "selected tracking shots" which eventually morphed into simply watching "selected scenes from 'Boogie Nights'", always beginning with the beginning.)

We were introduced to "Eddie Adams from Torrance" (Mark Wahlberg, shattering forevermore the image of Marky Mark), a high school dropout, working two jobs, one at a nightclub called Boogie Nights, where he is first introduced to adult film producer Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) who with the crucial assistance of one Rollergirl (Heather Graham, shattering forevermore the image of Mercedes Lane) gets him to walk out on his belligerent mother and his passive father to enter the world of "exotic pictures" by hopping a bus straight to Jack's opulent 70's pad where a raging party is in progress. It was at this moment the film seemed to elevate into another, mostly unfrequented realm.

Could a movie really do this? Could it really, twenty minutes or so in, just when it's beginning to rev up, kinda put a hold on the narrative and devote so much time to a booze/drug fueled southern California party, merrily skipping from character to character, situation to situation, episodically, and not only not lose interest, but gain interest, gain power, gain resonance, and make every moment, every fame feel so uniquely true and alive ("I have a look! Chocolate love! One hundred percent!"). It was pure, Kilimanajaro-esque cinema, and when Eddie is introduced to Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) at said party, they have this conversation:

Reed: "What do you squat?"
Eddie: "About two."
Reed: "Super, super."
Eddie: "What about you? What do you squat?"
Reed: "Three fifty."
Eddie: "Wow."
Reed: "It's no B.S."
Eddie: "That's a lot."
Reed: "Where do you work out?"
Eddie: "In Torrance, where I live."
Reed: "Cool. Do you ever go to Vince's out here? No, I would have seen you. I'm there every day."
Eddie: "I've always wanted to work out at Vince's."
Reed: "Say, did you ever see that movie 'Star Wars?'"
Eddie: "Four times."
Reed: "People tell me I look like Han Solo."

At this point - this very point - my friend reaches across the empty seat between us, forcefully grabs my arm and says, happily but not quietly, "They're talking about nothing!" My friend, you have to understand, is quite possibly the most sarcastic person I know and, yet, the sound in his voice at that moment was pure joy. One hundred percent.

In a few minutes time when the hapless Little Bill (William H. Macy) happens upon his wife in the driveway committing, uh, misdeeds with a gentleman and then Little Bill walks away only to find himself in a conversation about "the photography of the film" with Ricky Jay while the, uh, misdeeds still go on right there in the background the friend of the girlfriend of my friend to my left laughed so hard and so long I honestly thought she might never stop and just keep going and going until we got back to Iowa City. But I understood, and I understood because later in the film when Melora Walters' Jessie St. Vincent says the line "It's true - you are Brock Landers" I almost laughed as hard and as long as she did.

After the sequence in which Eddie truly becomes Dirk via the filming of his first scene in his first adult picture on the drab set located in Jack's basement where Julianne Moore (shoulda won the Oscar, but don't get me started) as Amber Waves, who speaks in the whole film in some sort of dry, sincere, zoned-out, drug-addled voice that mystically rises above perfection, memorably portrays a casting director - "As you may or may not know, this is an important film for me. If it's not a hit I'm going to get kicked out of my apartment. My landlord's a real jerk." - who essentially says to Dirk, who is there to audition, to quote Marc Bolan of T. Rex, "Bang a gong/Get it on", which is followed by them doing just that for a protracted amount of screen time, the friend of the girlfriend of my friend and I both realized simultaneously the two blonde girls around our age sitting in the row in front of us over to the left had vanished, never to return. (They might have been the first walk-outs but they were not the last.)

For reasons too long and pointless to explain (and that I don't really remember) the word "pantalones" had become some sort of strange, oblique inside joke amongst several of my running mates in The I.C. which is why when there is the moment when the marquee of one of Dirk Diggler's adult features is shown displaying the title "Spanish Pantalones" my friend and I lost it.

I can still remember the sequence when Don Cheadle's earnest Buck Swope enters the donut shop to get some food for his pregnant wife and then the sudden, unexpected robbery and then the guy with the hunting magazine pulls the gun who offs the robber who offs the guy with the hunting magazine who accidentally offs the donut shop clerk which leaves Buck, whose dream of opening his own speaker store had died swiftly several scenes earlier when the bank wouldn't give him a loan, standing, covered in blood, face to face with a sack of cash and the way Paul Thomas Anderson drew that scene out with the camera, zooming in on Buck and then the money and then Buck and then the money and how unbelievably conscientious I was of the beautiful, brilliant editing and how I kept playing that little moment in my mind over and over for days and days afterwards.

And then, of course, The Drug Deal Gone Wrong. Smarmy Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) leading Dirk and Reed on the most awe-inspiringly ignorant, laugh-out-loud comical, indescribably awkward, unforgettably strange robbery attempt in the history of western civilization. If I truly became self-aware at any point during the two-and-a-half hours of just what was happening, this was it. It's not necessarily that I thought to myself "My God, this is a masterpiece", though that's what it was, but that, despite its obvious influences, I was witnessing something completely unlike anything else, something bold and relentless and reckless and trashy and genuine that dared its audience to go right there to the edge with it and those who fled the theater - and there were a few - when all of us in there realized what that last shot was going to be did not go to the edge. And that last shot, I think, was as much Paul Thomas Anderson - who would go on to make frogs rain like cats and dogs and make "There Will Be Blood", which is to say he's ultra-confident and uber-cocky - showing off his cojones to the flabbergasted audience as it was Dirk Diggler.

When it was over the four of us sat there, quietly, and watched all the credits unfold and then staggered out of the theater and to the car in the late-autumn-in-Iowa darkness, and as we made the return trip southbound on I-380 "Sympathy For The Devil" came on the radio which seemed and seems appropriate because dancing to the "woo woos" in "Sympathy For The Devil" is the only possible way I could truly express how "Boogie Nights" made me feel that celestial day in October 1997.

Long live the movies.

What The Movies Do

Early this January I attended a weekday early evening showing of "True Grit" downtown at the AMC East and as I often like to sit much closer to the screen then most other patrons I was fortunate enough to have no one in front of me and only one couple off to my right who were quiet and well behaved throughout. Golden! Except, uh, not quite. Just as the movie was starting two couples entered and, sure enough, sauntered into the row directly in front of me. Then they stood there, debating where to sit, before finally one couple sat down all the way to the right and one couple sat down all the way to the left. Huh? Didn't really matter. It would've been fine....except time after time the two women would scurry to the center of the row, converse about who-knows-what and then scurry back to their seats. This must have happened 9 or 12 times. What the hell is going on?! Why aren't they sitting together?! Do their husbands not like each other?! What do they keep discussing?! Why does she keep checking her Iphone?! WHY ARE THEY HERE?! WHY ARE-

But then, suddenly, magically, there was this moment when Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Laboeuf (Matt Damon) have crossed this river and they've left Mattie (Hallee Steinfeld) on the other side because, you know, come on, she's a 14 year old girl. No way she's fording this river. No way. It's best if she just goes on home. But then, by God, she fords that river and this music plays and my heart surged and my lips unwittingly twisted into a giant smile and those people in front of me......wait, what people in front of me? There are people in front of me? Nope. Not anymore. Heck, I'm not even in a movie theater. To paraphrase Lykke Li: I'm Good, I'm Gone.

Theoretically movies are about a lot of things. They are about writing and acting and directing and lighting and the soundtrack and production design and sound mixing and marketing campaigns and profit points and opening weekend box office and all this and all that but, really, truly, deep down there in places that sometimes we talk about at parties, they are about all those things coalescing into one thing and one thing only: getting good and gone.

Waterloo Bridge

Let us consider the climate of the country into which Mervyn LeRoy's feature was released. It hit theaters on May 17, 1940. Hitler and his Nazi thugs were running roughshod across Europe. Brussels fell to them on May 17, 1940. 18 days later Britain's evacuation at Dunkirk would end. Another 18 days after that France would surrender to Germany. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, FDR was trying to navigate America's way into the global brawl. So on and so forth. It must have been turbulent and terrifying. And then, in the middle of it all, came "Waterloo Bridge."

It was set in England during World War I and opens, essentially, with the first ever Meet Cute during an air raid. As Capt. Roy Cronin (Robert Walker, dashing) stands on, ahem, Waterloo Bridge the air raid sirens sound. A group of passing girls panic and Capt. Cronin advises them to hurry to the nearest shelter. One of the girls, Myra Lester (Vivien Leigh, striking and phenomenally brilliant - more on that later), drops her purse. Sweet Lord, no! Bombs are about to fall! Roy helps her scoop up her belongings, including her good luck charm, a billiken, and they hurry to the shelter where the two of them pass what ordinarily would be tense moments flirting like a couple in a 1940's melodrama. She's a ballerina and has a performance once this pesky air raid concludes and invites him. But he has an officer's dinner, a dinner which he will ultimately choose to skip for the performance.

The action moves to dinner for two at the Candlelight Club which concludes brilliantly, luminously, perfectly, to a waltz to "Auld Lange Syne", as, one by one, band members bow out, snuffing a candle as they do, soon leaving Roy and Myra in the near pitch-black, their glowing attraction lighting up the room all on its lonesome, the audience unconditionally surrendering to the elaborated perfection, and leading, of course, to the First Kiss, which is The Best Kiss In Movie History 1(A). This is to say that Hawkeye and Cora in "Last of the Mohicans" is still officially #1 but that the kisses are so different. The kiss in "Waterloo Bridge" is gentle and gently melodramatic and the kiss in "Mohicans" is passionate and full of infatuation.

But this is to be merely a one night rendezvous as Roy is set to ship out with his unit the following day. Except fate, as it must, will intervene and will continue to intervene, a la "Romeo & Juliet" (which contains as many serendipitous occurences as "Serendipity", not that Shakespeare scholars will ever admit this), throughout, as Roy's unit is delayed for 48 hours, allowing him to track down Myra, who defies her crotchety, yet ultimately, kind of, prophetic, ballet instructor, and propose to her. She accepts, except fate intervenes and the otherwise kindly priest explains the law forbids him from marrying anyone after three o'clock. Come back tomorrow, he says. Except fate intervenes and Roy's unit is sent to the front a day early, preventing the marriage, and causing Myra to ignore her important balletic performance to partake in the grandest of all melodramatic traditions - chasing after your loved one as the train pulls away. Sigh....

Anyway, Myra gets the heave-ho from the company and her loyal friend Kitty joins her and the two make due as best they can in a tiny little apartment while Myra waits for her one true love. Except fate intervenes when Myra happens upon the obitutary section of the daily paper listing one of the casualties of war as.....Capt. Roy Cronin. Naturally, she has a complete meltdown and, naturally, desperate for money, becomes a streetwalker (yes, a streetwalker) where as she waits one day at Waterloo Station for the boys comin' home fate intervenes and she runs into, naturally, Roy. He lives! And he promises to marry her, just like he always promised, but can she go through it in the face of the ruin her life has become?

Is this is a war movie? It's set during a war, yes, but the war is never really seen. The audience never senses grave danger to Roy when he talks of the front lines or is shipped out. Heck, in the opening scene we see the older version of Roy - the film is a flashback - and so we know he hasn't died even while Myra thinks he has. Yet, despite that and despite a first act marinated in the most fabulous sort of (aforementioned) melodrama, the film, in the end, is something far more sinister.

Vivien Leigh's performance here is a force with which to be reckoned, in some ways making her much more famous turn as Scarlett O'Hara seem mushy. Robert Walker is just kind of genial, an off season resident of the Corn Palace, beaming, laughing, taking life as it comes. He's an optimist, and says so, but Leigh's character is the realist, even wondering aloud after that first kiss if this is not love but a stolen season. She employs her eyes - as all the great ones do - to extravagant effect, often looking down and away, even in the early-going, as if to clue us into the later passages when she can't bear to look her one true love in the eye, ashamed of her transgressions. The final scene finds her marching down Waterloo Bridge, her eyes steeled, staring down oncoming traffic, and you see what's coming and you know what's coming and she and Leroy draw it out and draw it out and draw it out.........you're helpless.

Did Americans on May 17, 1940 feel helpless? Did they see what was coming and did they know what was coming? Did they assume there was no way they would not eventually be pulled into war? Did they feel like Leigh stalking Waterloo Bridge? The ending on a technical level is fairly dark, yet one cannot help wonder if there was a certain form of catharsis for audiences to witness this startling conclusion.

Then again, perhaps "Waterloo Bridge" is merely movie testament to the way in which true love, however long gone, whatever may have went wrong, never fades. Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Hell no.

Summer Movie Spectacular Q&A

As always, with the extravagant summer movie season set to befall us quite soon, even though it's, like, 52 degrees outside and snowed last week, Cinema Romantico sat down with the Hollywood e-zine Film de Cinema for a little question & answer session. The following is the exact transcript.

Film de Cinema: You "famously" walked out on "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." Do you plan on risking a ticket to "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides?"
Cinema Romantico: At first it was a definite hell no. But then I found out Penelope Cruz was co-starring and my mind started playing tricks on me.
FdC: How do you mean?
CR: Well, I keep thinking that maybe Penelope's presence will get Johnny Depp to re-up his game and return to the bravura acting of the first one in the series that yielded the Best Performance Of The 00's.
FdC: So you're saying it's highly probable you will leave a showing of "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" cursing your own name?
CR: Yes, it is.


Can Penelope Cruz be the Joakim Noah to Johnny Depp's Derrick Rose? Or is it the other way around?

FdC: Anything for which you're openly excited?
CR: "Daydream Nation." Totally. Kat Dennings is the new Rosanna Arquette.
FdC: What does that mean?
CR: I have no idea. I'm just trying to get quoted on the poster.
FdC: Anything else?
CR: Can I be honest?
FdC: We're all friends here.
CR: "Larry Crowne." I really want to see "Larry Crowne."
FdC: Sure. The one where Tom Hanks gets laid off and goes back to college and falls for his professor played by Julia Roberts.
CR: Two true blue movie stars in the summer. An old fashioned kinda story. I'm intrigued.
FdC: Did you know Nia Vardalos co-wrote that script?
CR: Oh crap.

Shut up and let me have false hope.

FdC: How about "Super 8", J.J. Abrams' film, wherein-
CR: No, no, no!!! I don't want to know anything!
FdC: I wasn't going to give anything away about the plot! No one knows the plot!
CR: Still! I have to go in fresh!
FdC: "Midnight In Paris" stars your Kate Winslet #2.
CR: And Carla Bruni.
FdC: Who?
CR: Ici vous allez.
FdC: .....sigh.....
CR: Hey! Snap out of it! Her husband could have you killed so just leave it alone.

FdC: How excited are you for "Thor?"
CR: Yeah....not gonna happen.
FdC: But it stars Natalie Portman.
CR: Uh, that's Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman, thank you.
FdC: Right. Sorry. But it stars Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman.
CR: Sorry, but even the presence of Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman can't liven up "Thor" for me. I'd rather stay at home and watch "Black Swan" on DVD.
FdC: C'mon, man, you have got to stop referencing "Black Swan" and Natalie Portman's Academy Award winning performance on here. You're pissing people off.
CR: Okay, okay, sorry. No more references to "Black Swan" or Natalie Portman's Academy Award.

Oops! How did this picture get in here?!

FdC: Thoughts on "The Green Lantern."
CR: I don't know. I'm not sure Seth Rogen can pull of a superhero.
FdC: No, no, you're thinking of "The Green Hornet."
CR: "The Green Hornet?"
FdC: "The Green Lantern" stars Ryan Reynolds.
CR: I thought Ryan Reynolds was Captain America?
FdC: "Captain America" is Chris Evans. That comes out in August.
CR: And that's the movie where Robert Downey Jr. turns up as Iron Man?
FdC: That's "The Avengers." That's supposed to come out next year.
CR: Next year? When does "The Green Hornet" come out?
FdC: It already came out. In January.
CR: January? What about the new "X Men" movie? Did I that miss that one, too?
FdC: Nope. You're good. That comes out June 3rd.
CR: Super. And that's the one with James McAvoy as Wolverine?
FdC: No, he's taking over Professor Xavier. Hugh Jackman is still Wolverine.
CR: Hugh Jackman is in the new "X Men" movie?
FdC: He's in "The Wolverine." That comes out in 2012.
(Cinema Romantico collapses on the floor.)
FdC: We need some smelling salts over here!
(Film de Cinema gives Cinema Romantico smelling salts.)
CR: Okay. I'm good. Sorry about that. Continue.

Ryan Reynolds as The Green Lantern, not to be confused with Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet or Chris Evans as Captain America in "Captain America" and "The Avengers" with Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man and Chris Hemsworth as Thor, also starring in "Thor."

FdC: On a lighter note, how about "Friends With Benefits?" Intrigued?
CR: What's that one about?
FdC: Well, this guy and this girl decide to start sleeping together with no strings attached.
CR: Wait, didn't I already see that?
FdC: Uh, sort of. It was called "No Strings Attached." It came out in January. It starred Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.
CR: (Throat clear.)
FdC: Sorry.....Academy Award Winner Natalie Portman.
CR: This summer sucks. Is there anything original?
FdC: Let me check my notes. (Checking notes.) "The Hangover 2." "Cars 2." "Kung Fu Panda 2." "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2." "Spy Kids 4." "Final Destination 5." A remake of "Conan the Barbarian."
CR: You're killing me here. Give me something. Anything.
FdC: Well, there is one movie I haven't mentioned yet but I'm not sure I should.
CR: Please?
FdC: Eh......
CR: I'm begging you!
FdC: "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." Hey! What are you doing?! Get off that ledge! GET OFF THAT LEDGE!!!!!!

The Two Horsemen Of The Apocalypse.

Cookie's Fortune & A Good Kind Of Conundrum

Tell me, do you ever have this problem? You love a particular movie with such passionate fervor that you cannot manage to convey via words why you love it as much as you do? The late Robert Altman is/was generally considered as one of the all time greats. His "MASH", "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "Nashville" have all been selected by the National Film Registry for preservation. "Gosford Park" earned him several awards. "Prairie Home Companion" was my favorite film of 2006. But, far and away, no contest, his "Cookie's Fortune" (1999), which I traditionally view every Easter Sunday , is my favorite of his many, many films. One of my favorite films period.

I have attempted two reviews of it and I am vastly disappointed in each one. If talking about music is like dancing about architecture than my talking about "Cookie's Fortune" is like kayaking about transcendentalism (?). I just can't get it right. Is it because my affection is too devout? Is it like a Yankees fan trying to write objectively about Derek Jeter? Is it merely an enormous exercise in impossibility?

Maybe we need a sabermetrician for Hollywood. Huh? How 'bout it? Maybe we need to establish a movie geek's NERD, a quantitative measure of expected aesthetical cinematic value. Auteur Matchups. Statistically Notable - Or Otherwise Compelling - Actors. Box Office Earnings (And Distribution). Historical Context. Quality of Moviewatching Experience.

Gee whiz. Does that sound like fun? Or does that make you want to stab yourself in the face with a stalagmite? Yeah. Me too. I rue the day Bill James becomes bored with baseball and turns his attention to movies and starts devising algorithms to prove Jack Haley was the true MVP of "The Wizard Of Oz" and that "Quiz Show", not "Pulp Fiction" or "Forrest Gump", was the real Best Picture of 1994. Kate Winslet is The Greatest Working Actress. Okay? She just is, and if some cinematic sabermetrician tries to prove otherwise I'll poison his cobb salad. Fair warning.

Was that harsh? Probably. But I'm not taking it back. Either way, there is no mathematical formula to break down my "Cookie's Fortune" love affair. So what to do? Maybe I should just say that watching "Cookie's Fortune" feels like this and this mixed together in a fruit salad bowl.

Not doing it for you? I suspected as much. Darn it. Maybe it's like the whiskey tasting my friends and I attend every Tuesday at the local Irish Bistro. Our awesome instructor asks us to taste a whiskey and then asks if we liked it. But why did we like it? Damn, woman, I don't know, it just, you know, tasted good. "Okay," she'll say, "so what did you taste?" Let's see......kind of a wood burning stove, maybe? As opposed to gasoline. I hate the whiskeys that taste/smell like gasoline. So what about when I watch "Cookie's Fortune"? What do I taste/smell? Let's see......spanish moss in the morning? Azaleas, perhaps? Candied yams. Bourbon and coffee. The way sweat smells right when you enter air conditioning. Definitely catfish enchiladas.

What?

I still have no idea. I'm trying. Honestly, I am. Maybe it all just comes down to what Robert Warshow once wrote: "A man watches a movie, and the critic must acknowledge that he is that man." I am a man (relatively). I am that man when I watch this movie. Which man? The man who believes firmly in the existence of The Loch Ness Monster. The man who when driving through central Wisconsin stopped briefly in Chippewa Falls to see Lake Wissota because that is where Jack Dawson went ice fishing. (Yes, yes, yes, I know Lake Wissota was man-made several years after the Titanic sank and so this situation was implausible but the man that mentions this factual error is not the man I am.)

Does that help? Probably not. Look, maybe it's all just as ineffable as that feeling a person gets the night before Easter Sunday or Christmas Morning or Thanksgiving. I can't explain it. I don't want to explain it. Let's just leave it alone, shall we?

The Secret To The Universe (Ferris Bueller Knows)

What is most astonishing is that despite having seen "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" for the first time as a wee lad at the Valley 3 in West Des Moines twenty-five years ago, it has taken me this long to realize which character is most symbolic of John Hughes' day in the life classic. It's not Cameron Fry or Sloane Peterson or Edward R. Rooney (Dean of Students) or Jeanie Bueller or even, stunningly, the title character himself. No, no, no, no, no. It's the Parking Garage Attendant.

You remember the Parking Garage Attendant (Richard Edson). Ferris and Sloane and Cameron, upon having gone through the whole rigmarole of ditching school, find themselves at a downtown Chicago parking garage in Cameron's cold, cruel father's 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California. "One hundred and twenty-six and somewhere between three and four tenth" miles. A car Cameron's father "loves...more than life." It needs to be protected properly or, of course, Cameron will feel the wrath. Ferris spots the Parking Garage Attendant, slips him a "finski" and requests he take "extra special care of this vehicle." The Parking Garage Attendant obliges. Cameron does not and kind of blocks the Attendant's entrance into the vehicle at which point the Parking Garage Attendant says the most important line in the film.

"Relax." (Edson then offers a facial expression that has left me riotous with laughter every single time I have witnessed it in the last twenty-five years.) And from there, as we all know, rather than find it a nice, safe space, the Parking Garage Attendant and his pal (Larry Flash Jenkins), who hops aboard seconds later in the background, partake in their own mostly unseen day off, touring the sites of the Windy City at high, jubilent speed. In but a single moment the Parking Garage Attendant has boiled it all down to the most vital basics. Dude, don't let The Man get you down. Relax. It's called The Moment. Find it. Live it. Appreciate it. (Watch the scene if you would like.)

I cannot tell a lie. Strictly work-wise, the past couple weeks have been rough and draining, especially when considering one of my most consistent and sought after goals in this world is not to let my job - however well my employers at any given time may treat me - consume my life. Well, my life was consumed. After working both Saturday and Sunday my friend Daryl noticed my arduous discontent, quickly and gentlemanly offered me the delicious remnants of his 12 year Glenfiddich, though before indulging in them I went for a run that only worked to sour my mood more because I pushed myself too hard and aggravated the ol' standing-in-one-place-for-five-hours-at-Lollapalooza-to-see-Lady-Gaga injury. Losing patience and hope fast, I collapsed before my DVD shelf and decided to let my hand go to whichever DVD it knew I needed. It took but a few seconds. 

It does not cease to amaze how so much of what you watch and love as a kid, from TV ("ALF") to cartoons ("Transformers") to movies ("Conan the Destroyer"), you watch as an adult and immediately want to place a call to your parents to apologize profusely for hours and hours for ever having forced them to sit through such excruciating schlock. Yet..."Ferris Bueller's Day Off" never worsens and it never dates. It somehow grows stronger. It is decidedly set smack dab in the middle of The 80's but it remains timeless. How?

The main characters are kids, sure, but more than that they are young adults. They don't overly address their soon-to-come issues all that often because the film, in a way, is a defiant poem to the heavyosity (coinage: Woody Allen) of real life, a fact which certainly left some critics cold. Christina Lee wrote of its "insatiable appetite for immediate gratification - of living in and for the moment." But, Ms. Lee, if we're not allowed to live in and for the moment then, fuck, hasn't the planet Earth already lost? I bite my thumb at you, ma'am.

My office rests in the same business district as Ferris's dad's office. I often think of this as bittersweet irony. Leaving the office and walking to the train in the ghost town of the South Loop on a Sunday is not just a sobering situation but one that can invite anger, especially when your train is coming and the trains on weekends are ten minutes apart and these tourists on the escalator are just standing there, oblivious to the fact that I just want to hurry past them and get to the turnstile! Move, people! MOVE!!! But they don't and I miss my train and I'm going to have go through this all again the next day and the next day and the next day and-

"Relax." This is a movie about young adults reminding adults that sometimes, hey, that's what you gotta do. The baseball gods invented day baseball at Wrigley Field so adults could take the day off and soak in the sun and drink beer and be surrounded by the grace of so many lovely women. The Art Institute is on Michigan Avenue so you can go down there for an entire afternoon with friends and eventually, unconsciously get separated from your friends as you get hopelessly, beautifully lost in your thoughts as you breathe in painting after painting. There are so many songs you love so that when you hear them, anytime, anywhere, you can bust a move.

No doubt you also remember the climactic "Twist and Shout" sequence set during the parade with Ferris on the float lip syncing to Lennon and the crowd going bananas and then there is the shot of Ferris's dad way up there on who-knows-what floor in his office and he hears the commotion below and rises from his desk and walks to the window and you think, "Oh no! Will he spot his son and end the ruse?!" Or maybe you think, "Will he shake his head, upset this big to-do is interfering with his ability to no doubt process and file a few reports?" Instead the movie cuts to the float and then back to Ferris's dad, in a moment that is oh so brief but oh so crucial, shimmying.

When the day comes that a rough eight or ninety-two hours on the job prevents me from shimmying to a song I love is the day I will know The Man has truly gotten me down. Which is to say, not yet.

The Romantics

If on the eve of your wedding day you find your fiancé "staring out at the sea like a lovesick sailor", well, it's probably safe to assume that all is not well. And despite the film's title, all is not well with The Romantics, a group of seven uber-privileged college friends who have gathered, as they must, for a wedding. It is the marriage of Tom (Josh Duhamel) and Lila (Anna Paquin). Tom used to be in love with Laura (Katie Holmes), and vice versa. Lila has asked Laura to be her maid of honor even though they are not necessarily best pals. Why? Because women are working on a whole other level, man.

The rest of The Romantics arrive. There is the rehearsal dinner at which various, drunken, tepid toasts are made. Then Lila hustles off to bed and the remainder of The Romantics steal half the minibar and gallivant into the night the way they once were. Jake (Adam Brody) is married to Weesie (Rebecca Lawrence) and Pete (Jeremy Strong) is married to Tripler (Malin Akerman, who is absolutely bewitching). They all have their own problems. And then there are Tom and Laura, pretending to try not to notice they are still attracted to each other. The six of them take an alcohol-infused moonlight swim at which point Tom turns up missing. The remaining quintet decides to search for him and, naturally, which is to say the screenwriting gods issue a thunderbolt of proclamation, the two married couples swap for the search - Jake and Tripler, Pete and Weesie. Drugs will be done. Dares will be made. And Laura finds Tom hiding. Things are gonna go down, but in a very literary way.

This is because the film, written and directed by Galt Niederhoffer, was based on a novel (also written by Niederhoffer). Imagine "Rachel Getting Married" losing the indie vibe and going for 80's Woody Allen with thirtysomethings. The language here is deliberate, icy like the north Atlantic. Tom and Laura argue beneath the old oak tree like the ex Ivy Leaguers they are, unleashing torrid complete sentences and quoting poetry with the nastiest of intentions and culminating in Tom's epic lifeguard monologue which is a horrific natural disaster of writing and acting, like some out-of-his-element sap at District Speech Contest trying to recite a couple pages of Nicholas Sparks. At this point it snaps into focus: Why is Tom the object of affection? Duhamel, lacklusterly handsome, like any slicked up doofus who uses his Harvard background as an excuse to extend an invitation to the pants party, generates virtually no charisma and leaves us wondering......this is the guy?

Then again, maybe Tom is supposed to be monotonous. Lila seems to be employing her future spouse in the manner of a $5,000 poker chip, like even if she's unhappy for the rest of her life with this guy she still will have won the war with Laura. Laura, on the other hand, is possibly just obsessed with Tom because she's obsessed with unrequited love which as Lila points out in a much better scripted argument - beginning in the present and then shifting, quickly, cattily, into trivial past events - unrequited love is just an excuse to prevent yourself from facing any kind of real consequences.

Which makes is so ironic that the film's sudden ending seems to excuse itself from facing any kind of real consequences. If this was Niederhoffer's ultimate intention she might be shrewder than I realize. But I'm not giving her the benefit of the doubt. Either way, the governing trio is less than riveting, desperate for more vampirish bite in the manner of Akerman who illuminates, ultra-deviously, the screen whenever she appears. She says: "I was headed for greatness. Now I'm headed for a breakdown."

Sigh......aren't we all?

Bringing Everything Down To Movies (No, Literally, Everything)

A couple weeks ago, before I had taken even one sip of my crucial morning coffee, I began reading an email from my father in regards to his wishes once he, uh, let's see, how do I put this....passes into that Great Lake In The Sky. Or something. No child, of course, is really ready for this particular email, even if the events being discussed are likely still far away in the future, of his or her dad expressing he hopes his next move is to the cemetery, and no child who is slightly addicted to caffeine is ready for it if he or she has not had even one sip of his or her crucial morning coffee.

Nevertheless, my father made it apparent that he was coming down on the side, for any number of reasons, of cremation. Now at this point, I suppose, the child should have a minor freak out, envisioning his or her father's ashes in an urn on top of the mantle (or wherever the ashes are to be placed), sensing the finality of death and how it all goes so quick even if so many days feel endless. But my mind went somewhere else and regular readers of this blog, I'm willing to bet, know exactly where it went.

Would I take my dad's ashes on a road trip like Drew Baylor did in "Elizabethtown"? Hell yes, I would. (Insert shot of my dad shaking his head.) I'd buckle my dad in and we'd link up with I-80 and trek north to his boyhood home of Red Wing, Minnesota, where I spent many a summer with him, and we'd get there via Fairbault-Northfield-Canon Falls-Vasa-Red Wing. Or, maybe, we'd go Fairbault-Zumbrota-Goodhue-Hay Creek-Red Wing. Either way. We'd chill in Bay Point Park and swing by the T.B. Sheldon. We'd hike to the top of Barn Bluff and look down on "Mark Twain's muse (and) Jeff Buckley's funeral bed." Then we'd navigate our way to downtown St. Paul to pay homage to the Fitzgerald Theater on Exchange St. because it's my dad who made me the Garrison Keillor fanatic I am today. Then it would be northward to Duluth where I'd carry my dad across the Aerial Lift Bridge, triumphantly. I'd take him down to Canal Park and we'd watch a grain barge make its dramatic entrance into the harbor. Then we'd hop on over to the Pickwick for a reuben (thousand island, please, no dijon). After that we'd revisit Highway 61 for the scenic excursion to Grand Marais, the place which - I'm just theorizing here - I think my dad feels about the way I feel about the state of California - that is, it's utterly perfect every time I visit, so why would I want to reside there and potentially undermine that perfection?

I'd take him cross country skiing on the Gunflint Trail one last time, even though I'm likely a worse skier than Paris Hilton, and then I'd take him into Sven & Ole's for a victorious pitcher of Labatt and there would be a comely young waitress resembling Kirsten Dunst (but with a Northwoods accent rather than Bluegrass) who would drink my dad's half of the pitcher and we would discuss our mutual dismay of Pluto being demoted from planetary status and she would play this song on the jukebox and we'd decide to meet up at Artist's Point the following morning to see the sunrise....but there I go getting carried away.

Anyway, I hope my dad doesn't mind that's there my mind went. I guess, at the very least, he shouldn't be surprised that's where my mind went. Also, dad, I hope you don't mind listening to a lot of Lady Gaga.

2nd Funniest Thing I've Heard On TV In 8-10 Years

So how does the ever epic Ron Swanson of "Parks and Recreation" (i.e. my favorite show on TV, and it's not even close) remember mega movie star Julia Roberts?

"Is that that toothy girl from 'Mystic Pizza?'"

This guy rules.

Seducing Dr. Lewis

Once St. Marie la Mauderne, situated on a tiny, remote island off the coast of Quebec, was a great fishing village. Its denizens worked hard all day but took pride in that work. Their lives may been simple but they were rich and rewarding. Now the town has fallen on hard times. The fish have dried up. Its shanties seem an encapsulation of rundown. Its few citizens - 120 - line up for welfare checks. One of the few who can manage an actual employment gig at the town bank is under threat of being replaced by a bank machine. But hope emerges! A plastics company, tempted by a desperate pitch by the town of a tax exemption, considers building a factory in St. Marie. There is, as there must be, a caveat: the town must prove to the factory it has a doctor. Which they don't. Because, seriously, what doctor wants to live and play off the remote coast of Quebec?

"Seducing Dr. Lewis" (2003), directed by Jean-Francois Pouliot, is what you might call one of them humanist comedies. There is funny, sure, but it comes not from forced gags and out of the blue one liners and projectile vomit. Rather the script, written by Ken Scott, simply lets these villagers be who they are and their natural reactions to the situation at hand are therefore often humorous, endearing and true. Usually all three at once.

With St. Marie's actual Mayor having fled for a real job in the "city", Germain Lesage (Raymond Bouchard) appoints himself the position and presents himself the task of tracking down a doctor to show to the factory. Fate intervenes and Dr. Christopher Lewis (David Boutin) arrives by boat and then by another, smaller, decrepit boat to find a town whose interests incredibly link up with his. St. Marie is heavily invested in cricket. Beef Stroganoff is the special at the lone diner. A local radio station is devoted to the wonders of fusion jazz. Heck, the fatherless Dr. Lewis finds himself quite moved when Germain spins the tale of his young son having perished much too soon.

But, of course, in reality, St. Marie knows nothing of cricket (they like hockey). Stroganoff seems a foreign delicacy. One character openly declares: "I challenge anyone to listen to fusion jazz!" And Germain's story of his young son is a....(No, Nick, don't do it! I said, don't do it! Noooooooo!)....fish tale. Heck, this doesn't even consider the fact that Germain and his crack team have tapped the doctor's phone to glean info to maintain the charade. All this is merely a means to bait and then hook (those are the movie's words, not mine) this city slicker into staying put at such a seemingly dismal outpost.

Dr. Lewis, as we know from the get-go, is on a collision course with the truth. The truth, you might say, is represented by St. Marie's lovely Eve (Lucie Laurier). She's the one who hands out the welfare checks and who refuses Dr. Lewis's timid, genuine advances and who does not partake in the town's charade. She's the one who tells him what's what at the crucial moment. Why, you might wonder, does she wait so long? And why, you may ask, did I just give that little nugget away?

Look, the charms of these sorts of movie do not rest in the eventual revelation but in the build up to that revelation and in the way both the people pulling the ruse and the ruse's victim both reach that greater understanding who they are and what this means. Sure, tapping someone's telephone is, you know, illegal and immoral but St. Marie isn't doing it out of mean spirit. Truly, they're not. They're doing it out of desperation. Occasionally there is nobility in being disingenuous. Everyone knows the legend of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and then not being to lie about it but how many know the truth of our greatest Founding Father's ring of spies and his spectacular web of misinformation used to deceive the British? He employed copius lies to earn victory in the so-called Glorious Cause. St. Marie la Mauderne might not be fighting for independence but they are fighting for survival.

Whatever it takes. But, you know, only in specific situations. 

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

I had originally watched Shane Black's return to screenwriting and/or directing several years ago when I was severely under the weather. I remember the film feeling leaving me feeling torn, as if the film's illusion wanted to but never did manage to change into something real. Then again, the fact that I was using Natalie Imbruglia lyrics to summarize "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" might have suggested that I was even more under the weather than I realized. This past New Year's my friend Brad suggested to give it a re-watch and so I did.

"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" suggests what might happen if Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker ever decided to go Charlie Kaufman. I mean, the film is meta, layers wrapped up in layers, but it's intent on letting you know that it knows what its doing. The narrator openly references "Lord of the Rings" and its multiple endings and, earlier, upon forgetting a few facts, harshly advices the audience, "I don't see another god-damn narrator, so pipe down."

That narrator is also our main character, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), a thief from New York who by a classic case of cinematic happenstance blunders into a movie audition and is so convincing the studio flies him out to L.A. where he finds himself at one of those hip hoppin' parties at a house in the Hollywood Hills with a pool where women ask "What do you do?" as a means to determine if you're sleep-with-himable. (Downey Jr.'s reply to one of these women when she asks, gets the answer and then walks away - "That's it?" - is just brilliant.) Harry, set to play the part of a private detective, is introduced to Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer), a real life private detective, who will school him in the ways of the trade. Ah, but this is not the only person Harry meets. He also, in a classic case of cinematic happenstance, finds himself with his high school crush, Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), who has come to La La Land in much the same manner as "Bowfinger's" Daisy ("Is this where I go to be an actress?"), to see through her starstruck dreams.

Complications arise. Harry goes on the job with Perry and they find themselves ensnared in some sort of multifarious scheme involving murder and kidnapping and ransom and cars driven into lakes and so forth. Meanwhile, Harmony Faith Lane's sister has gone missing and since Harry introduced himself as a private detective she pleads with him to investigate and so he does even though he doesn't really know what he's doing.

That sincere deadpan Downey Jr. has been perfecting over the years is just perfect for this part and Kilmer re-proves he's sort of a cinematic Carmelo Anthony in that when he's interested (like here) he's pretty damn good and when he's uninterested (which is often) then look away and Monaghan, an actress who I've felt has always been of the she's-just-sorta-there variety, apparently has a giggle so infectious that casting directors and directors need to be making note of it. "Monaghan. Giggle. Use ASAP." The humor of the film is rapid fire with tongue stapled gun to cheek. Consider this exchange.

Perry: "Look up idiot in the dictionary. You know what you'll find?"
Harry: "A picture of me?"
Perry: "No! The definition of the word idiot which is what you are!" 

That, I venture, is Black taking one of those hideously overused phrases and turning it on its head. That's funny. There are more lines like it. Okay, so then what of all the gay jokes? There are so many gay jokes. Like Kilmer's Perry referring to himself and being referred to as "Gay" Perry. (Say it out loud.) Humorous. But then there are just more and more gay jokes and so you wonder if maybe the plethora of gay jokes is a commentary on the plethora of gay jokes in movies except then there are still so many more gay jokes after you have that thought you wonder if, no, maybe Shane Black just really likes gay jokes. This is the the guy that wrote "The Last Boy Scout." Except then you wonder if maybe he's taking the gay jokes over the top as a commentary on movies taking gay jokes over the top. Except then your head starts to hurt.

By far the film's strangest moment is when Harry finds himself in the wrong house and hides under someone's bed and is forced to use a gun. Suddenly the movie wants to be taken seriously. Wait, what? You've told somewhere in excess of 250 gay jokes and now there are actual ramifications? You hear often of Scenes That Took Me Out Of The Movie. This scene took me out of the movie. Be certain, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" isn't merely nudge nudge wink wink cinema, it is shove shove I'M WINKING AT YOU cinema. Which is fine. But then don't ask me to care. But maybe Black didn't want us to care. Maybe the point of this sequence was to show how Hollywood movies so often give us no reason to care and then out of the clear blue sky ask to care. And maybe Downey Jr. is just too good of an actor and played the scene too real which is why it came off strange. But maybe Black knew he'd play it that way and......

Ah hell, I don't know. My conversation has run dry. That's what's going on. Nothing's fine. I'm torn.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

I can't get over the fact his name is Mr. Brainwash. This is the persona adopted by the French immigrant at the heart of our story when he becomes a street artist in the third act. He sets up a show in this gigantic space and works the media so that he has thousands of people lined up waiting to get in, many of whom seem to be there solely on account of the hype, many of whom seem to have no idea of his work yet shout about his importance anyway. "Nobody's doing what he's done." What he's done? He hasn't done anything! You haven't been inside to see what he's done yet! So, someone's getting brainwashed. But who? Them? Us? Everyone? But there I went and got ahead of myself.

Thierry Guetta is the French immigrant, a man who at the film's beginning carries a camera with him everywhere to document everything - the reason for which is one of those convenient pieces of therapeutic backstory that feels straight out of a Dan Brown novel (?). But, as the wry narration provided by Rhys Ifans (one of the film's high points) tells us, Guetta soon finds himself immersed in the weird, wonderful world of street art via an artist calling himself Space Invader, who gallivants all over France putting up strategically random paintings of, uh, Space Invaders. (Note: A long ago co-worker of mine at the ad agency used to do something very similar wherein he was always randomly, secretly, plastering small-to-medium photos of Des Moines KCCI weatherman John McLaughlin all over the office. Honestly. That, I assure you, was no hoax.)

Guetta meets more street artists - always, always with his camera running - including Shepard Fairey, on the verge of going big time via Obama's memorable "Hope" image. But there is one street artist whom Guetta yearns to film but who is so mysterious and unknowable it seems impossible. Ah, but is it? Fortuitously (?), Fairey introduces Guetta to the one, the only Banksy, a faceless rock star in his native England and, thus, Guetta hooks up with Banksy who nearly instantaneously allows this blathering Frenchman into his seemingly rather private inner circle (?).

Eventually Banksy suggests the best idea for his new partner in artful crime would be to take his massive amount of footage and create a film documenting the street art movement. One problem: Guetta not only has no idea how to make a movie but has labeled none of his cans of footage which are stored away in an unknowable pattern at his home.

Nevertheless, Guetta manages to piece something together, something, seen in glimpses, that employs more demented quick cuts than a Michael Bay movie and makes even less sense. Distraught, Banksy decides to take over the film and, to do so, assigns Guetta back to L.A. to work on his own street art. And, thus, Guetta morphs into Mr. Brainwash, suggesting Joaquin Phoenix in "Gladiator" ("Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted"), creating an overloaded version similar to Warhol - as several interviewees mention - that threatens to spin far, far out of control. Yet, it doesn't. It's a success. Definitively. Hugely. And so it seems this documentary the faceless Banksy has wound up making would be less about himself than about this Mr. Brainwash and how he has worked in an unassuming way to kind of trivialize their guerilla art and show how it, like everything else in our wonderful, wonderful world, is susceptible to commercialization.

So....we come to the numerous accusations leveled that this is all a hoax perpetrated by Banksy and his peeps. Is it? Well, like a wise man once said, never trust a man who looks like the Nazgûl, which is to say that if Banksy tells me it's not a hoax, uh, well, sorry but I'm going to need some notarized documentation telling me it's not. If this is fiction then the holes in Guetta's story are actually kool in the gang. They don't matter because it's a perpetrated parable. If this is non fiction then those holes actually become more problematic. We are told Guetta runs a vintage clothing store that apparently funds globe trotting trips to document street artists and that when he turns into Mr. Brainwash he re-mortgages his business and essentially sacrifices all he's got for this one shot to make, uh, I don't know, photos of Elvis with a machine gun that look like something militia camps in Mississippi would sell as souvenirs. And all we get are about 17 seconds with Guetta's wife and no time with his kids? Where were they? How did they feel?

If "Exit Through The Gift Shop" isn't real then Banksy has managed to create a rough edged (kinda like street art, I guess) take on the rules of his game. If it is real and you were Banksy (or Fairey, or all the rest), seriously, wouldn't you want to lock Guetta in a pillory on Hollywood Boulevard?

Machete

-"You've reached the voicemail of Danny Trejo. Leave a message and I'll get back to you."

-"Danny. Hey. It's Robert Rodriguez. What's up, hoss? How you doin'? Listen, I wanted to run an idea by you. Remember that fake preview we had you shoot for the whole 'Grindhouse' thing? 'Machete?' Where you go around killing everybody with a, well, you know. I'm thinking of expanding that into a feature film. Seriously, man, it'll be great. You should do it. I think I might be able to get DeNiro to play a part. He owes me for the one thing. We'll sell the whole movie in the guise of it being all about immigration reform but really it's just about, you know, lots and lots of killing and lots and lots of blood and I've got this super cool idea storyboarded about Cheech Marin getting crucified and we'll get Michelle Rodriguez in an eyepatch and, oh, right, we've got Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan lined up too. You'll get to make out with Jessica Alba AND see Lindsay Lohan's what-have-yas. How many actors can say that? Am I right, bro? It's a can't miss! So give me a call back."

Yes, yes, yes, I'm fully aware "Machete" (2010) is just supposed to be a brainless B Movie. And that's what it is. And that's fine. Except, you know, a good majority of brainless B movies are bad. Not, as they say, so bad it's good, just bad. Couldn't "Machete" have been a little entertaining? The root of the problem - as much as if I say it I'm opening myself up to the possibility that the person who I'm about to criticize will track me down and inflict harm on me - is its leading man. Remember how in "Heat" Danny Trejo is one of the quartet of bank robbers? And remember that critical sequence where they realize Pacino is on 'em and they are discussing if they should just walk away? All four of them - DeNiro, Kilmer, Sizemore and Trejo - are present in this scene and yet the director, Michael Mann, presents it as varying shots of just DeNiro, Kilmer and Sizemore until the final wide shot when we realize Trejo has been there the whole time. Why? Did Mann see the footage of Trejo in this scene and tell the editor, "That guy can't act. Hide him." I'm sorry but Danny Trejo in "Machete" is so boring. Dude can't carry a movie. This is the plain truth. His gruff sameness can be ideal in certain supporting roles but here it becomes obsolete in about 15 minutes.

Tragically, he's matched by most of the rest of the cast. Robert DeNiro as Texas Sentaor John McLaughlin has an accent that might be the epitome of comes-and-goes and Steven Seagal has apparently gained so much weight that Rodriguez can't even hope to disguise it in the "climactic" swordfight and Jessica Alba....my God in Heaven, Jessica Alba is a bad actress. That's mean. I know it is. And I'm sorry. But, well, look, I shouldn't be a government spy and Rebecca Black shouldn't be singing and Jessica Alba shouldn't be acting. That's just the way it is. Rodriguez gives her the best speech in the whole movie and she turns it into toxic river sludge on account of her ceaslessly wispy delivery. "We didn't cross the border! The border crossed us!" Sure, Malcolm X is rolling in his grave at the sound of that but you get the right actress/actor shouting that line and it could be golden mozarella. Instead it's just utterly inert. You know who gives the best performance in this movie?

Lindsay Lohan. Scout's honor. Her role is kind of irrelevant but she seems to be the only one with any grasp of how to play this material. Genuinely tongue-in-cheek. She's about to wink at the audience....and then doesn't. Her personal life, of course, has become the Wreck Of The Edumund Fitzgerald and this is just a sad reminder that if she could clean herself up she could be a legitimate star. So it is.

Robert Rodriguez, meanwhile, has lost all sense of style with his need to make B movies. Recall, if you will, that gunfight in "Desperado" where Banderas takes on the whole bar that was gorgeously operatic in both its staging and extravagance. Now Rodriguez just puts a standstill person on camera shooting a machine gun (at who knows what - he often doesn't even bother with logistics) and expects it to work as a payoff all on its lonesome. Ugh. Is he purposely trying to make awful B movies since that's what the bulk of B movies are - awful? Who knows? All I know is "Machete" taught me two important lessons, neither of which had anything to do with immigration reform.

1.) I really don't belong in the grindhouse. 2.) Evelyn Salt could kick Machete's ass.

Running Scared

The 80's are often laughed at but if it wasn't for The 80's we wouldn't have the Buddy Cop movie. Oh, I'm sure prior to the year 1980 there were movies about cops who were buddies but, make no mistake, The 80's perfected this highly suspect art form. So don't say the Me Decade never gave you anything.

"Running Scared" is a 1986 entrant into the derby, pre-"Lethal Weapon", post-"Beverly Hills Cop", filmed by Peter Hyams on location in sweet home Chicago, and starring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as......okay, I'm being completely honest. When I sat down to write this review I realized I could not remember the names of their characters. Not that this matters so much. They really are just Billy & Gregory, or Crystal & Hines. Either/Or.

Don't laugh. Those ARE Chicago's two toughest cops.

The Buddy Cop film on ever reliable Wikipedia is summed up thusly: "...involving two men of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime and/or defeat criminals, sometimes learning from each other in the process." However, aside from the obvious racial differences, Billy & Gregory really aren't that different and therefore don't find themselves in much self generated conflict. All the conflict in "Running Scared" comes from the bad guys.

The bad guy is Jimmy Smits, a semi-opulent Chi-town drug lord, and after Billy & Gregory's attempts at getting Jimmy Smits' lackey - Joe Pantoliano, with a whisp of red in his hair meant to symbolize, I think, a punkish attitude - to wear a wire, Billy & Gregory's chief (Dan Hedaya) sends the two play-by-their-own-rules detectives on a forced vacation to Key West where the movie truly revels in its eightiesness. Montage to cheesy synth-driven song? Check. Crystal & Hines shirtless? Oh yeah. Crystal & Hines on rollerskates? Better believe it. And it is in Key West where the buddy cops decide that they will buy a bar, survive their final 30 days on the force and retire. But, of course, they get dragged back into the case against Jimmy Smits as the stakes escalate.

So yeah, "Running Scared" really has it all. The cops are called on the carpet by the boss. There is the impending retirement scenario. There is the comes-and-goes subplot of the veterans having to train the rookies. There is the ex wife (of Crystal) who is around simply to be employed as a hostage late in the 3rd act. There are wisecracks galore (that "I'll be back" of Crystal's must've killed in '86). There are ridiculous action setpieces, most notably a car chase that uses the Windy City locale to extreme effect by placing the chase on the "L" tracks (and if I ever missed a movie because the trains were delayed because of a car chase on the "L", I would be rather upset).

The film's finest asset, by far, is the easy-going, unforced chemistry between its two stars, and it made me think about the Oscars and the moment when Billy Crystal turned up and everyone seemed relieved in the face of the James Franco Calamity - "Here's an Oscar host" - except, well, isn't James Franco more of a Gregory Hines? He's a showman, not a comedian. Hell, give Franco a few lessons and he'll be tap dancing up a cyclone. The funniest line in "Running Scared" isn't even Billy's, it's Gregory's. "It's not the voltage that'll get ya. It's the amps."

Maybe Seth Rogen should be hosting the Oscars.