This Summer They're Gonna Come In And Just Devastate

"When we comin' through get tickets to see me
We work for the paper so there'll never be a preemie
Lyrics are abundant cuz we got it by the mass
Egos are all idle cuz the music is the task"

July 15, 2011. My favorite theater in the city. "Beats, Rhymes & Life." The Tribe movie is coming to Chi-town. I.CAN'T.WAIT.

An Ode To The Greatest Summer Of My Life

Memorial Day Weekend 1997. I dress up in my maroon vest and cheap black bow tie. I climb in the Tenacious Tempo and set sail down Hickman Road, past what were then invitingly empty plots of land but are now full of strip malls and grocery stores and gas stations, blasting "The Beacon Street Collection" by No Doubt, singing along (badly, but loudly) with Gwen. Within 15 minutes I have reached the rather unscenic corner of Hickman & 86th in West Des Moines, Iowa (Most Chain Restaurants Per Capita In The United States). Destination: Cobblestone 9 Theaters, my home away from home for the Summer of '97.

I settle in at cash register 4 on the west side of the lobby so that I can be summoned between show times to assist in the cleaning of theaters. The whole team is in place. Dave Gorden and Brad Dean, the 'stone's Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan, who at some point this summer will stay up for at least 60 consecutive hours, refusing to take breaks while on the clock for fear they will fall asleep on the crappy sofas in the break room. Jeni Roberts, Drew Barrymore in "Charlie's Angels", whose apartment, whether she knows it or not, is about to host oh so many post-shift after-parties, and who I saw a couple years ago when I was home for Christmas at some un-posh Des Moines bar and embraced like a long lost sister. Josh Zagoren, Tom Jones in "Mars Attacks!", with whom, upon seeing "Conspiracy Theory" in August, I will harmonize on "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" numerous times while cleaning the popcorn kettle. "Salazar Reignfort" (i.e. Wretched Genius), Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, a pupil of my speech teaching father down the road a piece at Urbandale High, who I'm still friends with and with whom, on more than one occasion, I have drank three too many Carlsbergs and who will likely leave an asinine comment at the conclusion of this post. The young vixen home from college whose first name rhymes with mecca, Lisa P, with whom nearly all us idiot males will fall in love with at least once over the next three months. And the late, great Matt Tettinger, Captain Mal Reynolds, assistant manager extraordinaire, who will take me on numerous bank runs and one humid evening bust a serious and seriously hysterical move in the office to some crappy 80's song and then tell me, straight faced, as I'm laughing so hard, "It's all in the legs, Nick." (There were others, of course, but we don't want this post to be 870,000 words long.)

We count our cash and stack our soda cups and unfold our popcorn bags and unlock the candy counters. We regale each other with ridiculous stories. I likely quote "Seinfeld" at least 7 times ("Why is he so obsessed with Ovaltine?" - "He just thinks anything that dissolves in milk is funny."). We are Captain John Miller and Pvt. James Francis Ryan biding time, waiting in Ramelle for the Germans. You see, Spielberg's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" is opening. Over the course of the next three days, when it's all said and done, it will have racked up a then weekend box office record of $92 million. We pour soda, scoop popcorn, fetch chocolate raisonettes, dash to and fro from theater to theater, cleaning up the leaked soda and spilled popcorn and dropped chocolate raisonettes and every now and then I look across the lobby toward the enchanted land of the box office (which I was not yet privileged enough to man) where the line of people waiting to buy tickets for "The Lost World" still stretches out the door and down the block. The line never ends. Never. More people and more people and more people and more people and so on, etc. This is because the show times for the film are as follows: 12:00, 12:30, 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30, 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30 followed by the always foreboding midnight show.

"We work for Carmike as concessionists. We're damn good, too. But you can't be any geek off the street. Gotta be handy with the hokey, if you know what I mean, earn your keep."

But we did not care. No, sir, we did not. We were a family. One big, happy, massively dysfunctional family in matching uniforms. We were all in this together. The patrons kept coming and we kept working and then, after it was all over, after "The Lost World" had set the single day box office record, we all crossed 86th Street to Perkins and took over its many booths and drank coffee and soda and devoured The Tremendous Twelve (4 pancakes, 4 strips of bacon, hash browns, and 3 eggs over easy, thank you) and laughed it all off like it was nothing. Hell, we still had three more months of this to go and that was all right because Cobblestone 9 was the circus and our concession stand was The Greatest Show On Earth.

I have never loved a job more than the Summer of '97 and sadly, yet beautifully, I know I never will.

Give It Up (Linkage)

I have only recently (idiotically) realized I don't give props often enough to the hella good bloggers surrounding me every which way that I reguarly read. So the plan here at Cinema Romantico is to do so much, much more often, starting right now.

The Kid In The Front Row ceaselessly produces brilliant, heartfelt posts on any number of subjects and has an uncanny ability for authoring something right when you needed it most without realizing it. And this one flashes me back to the 80's and sitting beside my mini boombox, desperate to record Debbie Gibson, Steve Winwood and U2 to one of my forty-two dozen TDK tapes.

Louis at Obscure Thoughts wrote a fantastic piece on NBC's fine show "Community" a couple weeks back about which there really is nothing to say except, Just Read It.

Andrew of Encore Entertainment, my fellow "Titanic" devotee, is in the midst of a marathon celebrating movies he loves in honor of his birthday, including a mesmerizing ode to, uh, "Titanic." If you still refuse to like "Titanic" after reading it, just go away (if I haven't already asked you to go away for not liking "Titanic", and I probably have). He also had a great entry centered around a specific shot in "The Wizard Of Oz" which I love because it speaks to how often unfamous and random shots can speak the most to us.

And Ripley manages to say in one sentence what I spent, like, 33 paragraphs fumbling around trying to say about "Bridesmaids."

Everything Must Go

When I think of Will Ferrell I think of over-boisterousness and voice immodulation. I think of that moment in "Old School" when he and his pals are grilling the applicants for their fraternity and Will Ferrell, suddenly, roars at one of them like a lion which prompts Vince Vaughn's character to admonish, "Pace yourself." In nearly every role Ferrell's ever played - even the good ones - there are moments when you just want to tell him, "Pace yourself." But there is another Will Ferrell I enjoy, one not seen nearly enough, where he stops forcing things, whether the film requires him to or not, and just lets the situation play out and reacts to it. And as the Nick Halsey of "Everything Must Go", his situation is both dire and, soleley from a cinematic standpoint, simple. It's Italian Neo-Realism filtered through Frank The Tank. He gets fired from his sales job of 16 years and then returns home to learn his wife (never seen) has changed all the locks on the house and placed all his worldly belongings out in the front yard. All men would have a different reaction. Nick's is to buy a few beers and settle down in his recliner. "I'm not leaving my stuff."

Based on a Raymond Carver (very) short story, this is the whole set-up. Working as writer and director, Dan Rush is in no hurry to push these events faster than they need to go and his film works best when it simply lets Nick deal with it. His car is impounded. His credit cards are turned off. Where's he going to shower? What's he going to eat? How's he going to get this stuff off the lawn? Is he going to get this stuff off the lawn?

Detective Frank Garcia (Michael Pena) turns up. It seems those beers Nick is drinking are not just a one time coping mechanism. He is a former full-fledged alcoholic and Frank was his sponsor. He had curbed his addiction. Recently it returned. Perhaps this is what has wrought the situation on the lawn. Frank calmly explains Nick has the right to hold a yard sale for no more than five consecutive days. After that, he'll have to go to jail.

Gradually a family-like trio, not totally unlike "The Station Agent", just more confined, will form. There is Samantha (Rebecca Hall), his brand new, pregnant neighbor across the street, a photographer who has moved halfway across the country on account of her husband who hasn't even arrived yet. There is Kenny (Christopher Jordan Wallace), a young, chubby kid, who pedals his bike up and down the block all day and dreams of making the baseball team.

All the supporting actors are fine but Rush decidedly puts the ball in Ferrell's hand and asks him to win the game, and while Ferrell had done dramatic work previously - "Stranger Than Fiction", "A Winter Passing" - he mistook doing nothing for depth. Here, for the first time in his career, he locates the middle ground. He plays Nick as an entirely functioning alcoholic, someone who can put away a 12 pack and still get to work on time but who slowly, unwittingly, lets all those 12 packs pull him under. His poolside confession to Hall's character about what essentially got him fired and what possibly led to his wife turning her back on him is startling, due in no small part to the quiet way he goes about re-telling it, the manner in which he repeatedly employs the words "ya know", the fact that he's really not that angry, partially because he himself can't say to a certainty what happened. It's regret, but more than that it's a disbelief and, simultaneously, a complete understanding of why he let himself go back down that path. What's most puzzling, though, is at the screening I attended several audience members laughed intermittently during this monologue. It's not funny in any way. Are people just programmed to laugh at this guy? Was this nervous laughter? Confused laughter? Come on, let's give this guy his due. He's not ready for Shakespeare in the park, mind you, but this is a considerable step forward.

And that is what "Everything Must Go" is spread out over 90 minutes. A step forward. A guy who needs to get it together finally comes to real terms with this when he's exiled to his lawn. The movie has no giant payoff at the end precisely because it can't. Nick manages to solve the crisis put forth at the film's beginning. That's it. Now the hard part starts. 

Gaga = Bruce (More Proof)

"Whenever I’m dressed cool,
My parents put up a fight.
And if I’m a hot shot,
Mom will cut my hair at night.

And in the morning,
I’m short of my identity.
I scream Mom and Dad,
Why can’t I be who I wanna be?

I just wanna be myself,
And I want you to love me for who I am.
I just wanna be myself,
And I want you to know, I am my hair."

- Lady Gaga, "Hair"

"The only visible light would be the smoldering ember from his father's cigarette, which Bruce could see through the screen door. Sometimes Bruce would try to wait him out in the driveway, next door to Ducky Slattery's Sinclair Station, slicking his hair back in a futile attempt to conceal its length. Sometimes he would go in, and the two would argue about Bruce's hair, his attitude, his future. 'Pretty soon," as Bruce told it, 'we'd end up screaming at each other, and my mother would come running up from the front room, trying to pull him off me, trying to keep us from fighting with each other. And I'd always end up running out the back door screaming, telling him that it was my life and I could do what I wanted to do.'"

- Eric Alterman, "It Ain't No Sin To Be Glad You're Alive: The Promise Of Bruce Springsteen"

Oh, and the piano throughout "Hair" is totally Roy Bittan filtered through RedOne. At last! You can't tell me Gaga didn't know what she was doing! YOU CAN'T TELL ME SHE DIDN'T KNOW!!! Damn it, I love her.

Countdown to (Potential) Armageddon

"Put on your shades because I'll be dancing in the flames." - Lady Gaga, "Edge of Glory"

If tomorrow really is going to be the end of the world, well, dear readers, Cinema Romantico has regrets. So many regrets. Too many to list, really, but here's a few.

I regret not seeing "Black Swan" a 4th time in the theater.

I regret not seeing "Million Dollar Baby" and "Atonement" a 5th time in the theater.

I regret buying a ticket for "Van Helsing", "The Mummy 2" and "Revenge of the Sith."

I regret not seeing "Eat, Pray, Love" simply so I could be able to re-stake claim to having seen every Billy Crudup movie.

I regret not climbing that damn fence in Chimney Rock Park to see where Magua died in "Last of the Mohicans."

I regret not telling that girl I went out on a date with a few weeks ago who never called me back what I really thought when she made derogatory comments about Kirsten Dunst's acting ability. 

I regret pretending to enjoy the fifth season of "Alias" as it was happening.

I regret having not read Sarah Vowell's new book because I was waiting for the paperback.

I regret eating a chicken sandwich for dinner at the Riverview last weekend instead of a burger with blue cheese.

I regret buying a ticket to see Blue Mountain at Schubas and then not going.

I regret not quitting my job and moving out of my apartment to follow Ra Ra Riot's latest tour.

I regret not quoting "Seinfeld" one last time. Wait...that one I can rectify. Let's see, a final "Seinfeld" quote to sum things up before the end of days. Got it!

-"I bet George will be relieved." 
-"Yeah, when he's dead he'll be relieved."

Moving On (But Not Going Away)

"You can call me sentimental, but the fish are coming with me."

It all started because of a Cameron Crowe movie. Seriously. Go back and look it up. Post #1 on Cinema Romantico (billed by no less venerable a critic than Lester Farner of the Pueblo Gazette as "The Most Melodramatic Blog On The Internet, Bar None!") was a review of "Elizabethtown." October 17, 2005. And God, was it rough. I wrote it because I was irritated with all the critcism the film was receiving and decided I needed to stand up and defend it. And the rest, as they say, was history. Cinema Romantico has gone from the blog three people read to the blog Tift freaking Merritt read at least once (I like to fantasize she checks back in from time to time even though I know she doesn't). I've become quite attached to this little piece of internet real estate the last 5+ years. Which brings me to my point.

Castor of the infinitely awesome Anomalous Material, a movie site that makes mine look due south of amateur hour, invited me to join his stable of writers and I humbly, gladly accepted. I cannot imagine a better place to attempt to advance my film writing. The majority of my reviews and rants will be moving to his neck of the woods as of right now.

This said, I do not plan on Cinema Romantico completely going away, just becoming less prolific. I will still need a forum for various cinematic pontifications here and there as well as a place to go when I need to drop a couple dozen paragraphs about a killer concert or orate on the theology of Lady Gaga or write yet another mash note to my official cinematic crush Sienna Miller. And so forth. I still need this as an outlet, man.

But after 1,000 posts here it will certainly be nice for a new challenge. So I urge you, if you have not already, to check out my new home and get to know it. It's a great place to be.

Horrible Bosses Trailer (Or: The New Rizzoli & Isles)

The upcoming "Horrible Bosses" in which three pals, it seems, decide to murder their, ahem, horrible bosses has the quite the cast going for it. You've got Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman and Charlie Day and Colin Farrell and two Oscar winners, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx, and, of course, the Floydster. But none of that is what interests me.

What interests me is a brief moment near the very end of the trailer when two detectives are glimpsed - two detectives played by Wendell "Bunk" Pierce and Ron White. I say again, Bunk & Ron White.

Now that has show on FX written all over it.

The Beaver

Of course an actor's or filmmaker's off screen transgressions has no bearing whatsoever on the quality of a film but they can, in certain instances, affect the context. Mel Gibson, star of "The Beaver", directed by and co-starring Jodie Foster, has had his share of, shall we say, disagreeable off screen transgressions in the last few years, a fact which does not prevent Gibson from throwing himself into the role of Walter Black, "a hopelessly depressed individual", with a fairly patient but tired wife Meredith (Foster) and two young sons, who, in the deepest fit of that depression, is kicked out of the house, retreating to a hotel room with a bottle of vodka and a puppet in the form of a beaver that for some mystical reason he has rescued from the trash, intent on committing suicide by leaping from his balcony until, at the last second, a voice jolts him to safety.

That voice belongs to Walter. Well, not really. It is the voice of the beaver on his left hand. And, thus, Walter determines the beaver needs to stay with him. He draws up cards, explaining the situation, how his physician thinks it best everyone goes along and lets him see through this "phase", and returns home to his wife and kids, all of whom accept this unique but seemingly improved version of Walter. That is, almost all of them. Meredith and their youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) go along but Porter (Anton Yelchin), a senior in high school who makes money by writing students' papers in their respective voices, is less than ecstatic his father has been let back in after having finally been let go. Walter and The Beaver return to the flailing company of which he is President and immediately proposes an idea for a - you guessed it - beaver hand puppet that becomes an overnight smash success.

The movie hits all the beats you expect it to and, for the most part, hits them in just the way you anticipate and at times becomes over-reliant on the montage (you're better than that, Jodie) but the film's primary issue is its tone. It waffles. At times you sense a riff on a film like the superior "Lars and The Real Girl", a heightened fable, such as in the office scenes and in those moments when Walter and The Beaver make the rounds on national TV. But then it turns around and wallows in the darkness, occasionally really wallowing in it but occasionally refraining from taking it as far as it could. He and his wife have sex with The Beaver right there and it's never clear whether this is supposed to be funny or freaky.

As a whole, "The Beaver" becomes more than it is because of its performances, and not just Gibson, who does not do a ventriloquest act here, rather moving his mouth in tune with The Beaver, yet still somehow giving two separate performances - dying and fighting to stay alive - and leaving you thinking not that everything's gonna be all right but that maybe everything's gonna be all right.

But the film's finest performance belongs to Jennifer Lawrence in the typical throwaway role of Norah, the uber-hot valedictorian, who hires Porter to pen her graduation speech since she is having a serious case of writer's block. Sure, she is given just a touch more shading than is normally allowed, getting a bit of backstory while also finding herself transformed by Porter as opposed to being around solely to transform him. Still, there isn't an exorbitant amount of depth to the writing of Norah and Lawrence, the recent Best Actress nominee for her marvelous work in "Winter's Bone", shapes a fully realized individual who is closed off and tight lipped for a reason while also playing that aloofness in a way to mirror all those high school girls who know full well they can manipulate idiot teenage boys at a whim. She got game.

"The Beaver" obviously does not absolve Mel Gibson of his sins and even though I bought a ticket for his film it seems fairly likely the guy is a sexist, homophobic anti-semite. I'm pretty sure I don't like him. Still, what I can't get over was how so many people piled on Jodie Foster for openly coming to the defense of someone she genuinely seems to consider her friend, despite his terrible faults and weaknesses. Kyle Killen's screenplay for "The Beaver", written some years ago, unwittingly makes a case for both the character Gibson plays and Gibson himself. How the hell can someone get better if no one will stand up for them?

Bridesmaids

In my favorite college football book (stay with me!), "The Sweet Season," author Austin Murphy recounts the story of a student athlete who, for a time, lived in a co-ed dorm with co-ed bathrooms which meant that, yes, he sat in stalls next to women who were......well, you know. As he said, "You forget girls do that." "Bridesmaids", directed by Paul Feig and written by Annie Mumolo and its co-star Kristen Wiig, is here, rest assured, to remind us that girls do that. Oh, do they ever. In sinks of bridal shops and even on the street. I saw Jim Carrey do it on the lawn in "Me, Myself and Irene" but you know what? Maya Rudolph doing it on the street in a wedding dress that isn't hers was funnier, specifically because of her reaction, which is wonderfully restrained and graceful. You watch and can't help but think if, say, Lauren Bacall had a scene where she dropped the kids off at the pool on the street in a wedding dress that wasn't hers she probably would have played it the same way.

Look, I so did not want to come out of "Bridesmaids" and start throwing around the Judd Apatow (who acted as producer here) comparisons but it's simply unavoidable. Famed screenwriting guru Robert McKee essentially instructs to study the formula of successful screenplays and copy it. Mumolo and Wiig have essentially studied the formula of successful Apatow films (written or produced) and copied it. You can't tell me it ain't true. Like Jason Segel writing himself the lead for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and then, you know, conveniently getting scenes in bed with both Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis, Wiig conveniently writes herself an opening scene in bed with her sex buddy played by Jon Hamm which, amongst other endeavors, involves him feeling her up. How many times do you think Wiig "messed up" that take? Not that I begrudge either of them for such decisions. God, no! If I could write myself a role where Malin Akerman and I drank whiskey at close proximity in a hot tub I'd do it. Damn right, I would. "(T)he promise of miracle made real," David Thomson has written, "is what the movies have always been about." And I'm just saying that, hey, living out your fantasy onscreen goes both ways, just like poop jokes.

Wiig's Annie is thirty-something with a life plan slowly disintegrating. She once operated a successful bakery that has gone under and now works a job she hates at a jewelry store and has not one but two wacky roommates. Then her best friend Lillian (Rudolph) announces she's getting married. This, naturally, delegates responsibility to Annie to plan and throw the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. But, of course, there's a problem, and it comes in the form of Lillian's kinda new best friend, Helen (Rose Byrne), wealthy, pseudo-sophisticated, and a real bitch, who wastes no time in worming her way into the mix to take over the reigns of everything Lillie. One of the film's most masterful sequences is the rival speeches at the engagement party between Annie and Helen which are played to the hilt by both actresses. Humor that produces look-away-with-uneasiness laughter is just so fun and, in fact, much of the film's best work involves nothing beyond conversations. (Annie's tete-a-tete with a young teen. Annie and Lillian riffing at brunch.)

The other bridesmaids are introduced. There is Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), long married and sick of her children and her husband (she gets the movie's best line, involving The Daily Show), and Becca (Ellie Kemper), prim and proper, and both forgotten by the screenplay as it progresses, and Megan (Melissa McCarthy), a hefty and zealous government employee who says and does what she wants. Annie also has the obligatory love interest who comes in the form of a cop (Chris O'Dowd, sweetly funny) who pulls her over for busted break lights and urges her to both get the break lights fixed and re-enter the world of baking. He fits the requisite Harlequin quotient on account of his Irish accent.

And while you may think the film's principal villain is Helen, you would be wrong. No, that dishonor goes to William Kerr and Michael L. Sale. Who? You know when the editing Oscars are announced how you might get up to the bathroom or not pay attention? Well, you should. It's people like Kerr and Sale who make it so apparent how great editing too often goes unnoticed. How in the world was this movie over two hours? Were all the actresses in the editing bay screaming, "Don't cut my lines! DON'T CUT MY LINES!" Most of the setpieces don't know when to call it quits or spend most of the time repeating the same joke so when a punchline that's actually quite good arrives it loses a certain amount of impact (see: Annie's Airplane Meltdown). And Annie's bottoming out at the end of the 2nd act somehow, improbably, goes on even longer than Owen Wilson's tortuously long bottoming out at the end of "Wedding Crashers." Kerr and Sale's work here is a disgrace to their profession and a disservice to their stars. It could have been much better if those two knew how to operate a delete button.

Granted, being overlong is a problem that plagues most of Judd Apatow's work. But then that's the whole point, really. "It is what it is" is an insanely over-used phrase but there really is nothing better to say for summary. "Bridesmaids" is exactly what it is. So please, let's not kid ourselves that it's anything more.

Looking For An Angel: Found

My friend Ashley and I arrived at the Hammerstein Ballroom post-Algonquin Hotel martini (yes!) for Kylie Minogue's concert to find a line that stretched down the block and around the corner and then down that block and around another corner and so we got in line and quickly sped ahead and, well, since the venue is located on West 34th Street in Manhattan once we came back around that initial corner and onto the initial block we were afforded a perfect view of the Empire State Building at twilight. It was quite beautiful. 102 stories of exquisite art deco twinkling at the top in emerald green. But I think you see where I'm going. Which is to say that when I walked out of the venue two hours later in a celestial rapture I did not even notice New York City's tallest building because despite being only five feet tall, Kylie Minogue towers over the Empire State Building with the the greatest of ease.

Kylie knows the way to unbridled ecstasy.

And even though I could easily unleash another 72 proclamation-laden paragraphs, for quite likely the first time in my life, I think I want to leave it at that and not take it any further. It's nothing personal. It's that the show was very personal to me and I'd kinda just like to keep it that way.

The Double Hour

Being me I, of course, wanted to see a some kind of film while I was in New York that I likely would not get to see in Chicago and initially I had settled on "Sympathy For Delicious", Mark Ruffalo's directing debut, until I realized "The Double Hour", an Italian crime film, was playing at the Lincoln Plaza Theater which meant it was a few hops and a couple skips away from the Lincoln Center and, well, since much of "Black Swan" was set at Lincoln Center I had to visit it to bond with it because, hey, it's me and that's how I operate.

If speed dating wasn't already an "Amityville Horror"-esque prospect - and it is - "The Double Hour" (released in 2009 in its native Italy, just released in the States) will forever assure it of this stigma. Consider: our protagonists, Sonia (Kseniya Rappoport) and Guido (Filippo Timi), meet speed dating and sparks are sensed primarily because they both seem so weary and on guard about the whole god-awful ordeal. She is a chambermaid, he is an ex cop now working a crummy job as a security guard. They go out. They go out again. All seems well. Love is in the air. In the whisper of the trees. So much so that he does something he says he has never done and takes her to the house he has been hired to guard, momentarily shutting down the security cameras for an afternoon frolic in the woods when a bunch of thugs in ski masks turn up, tie them up and rob the house of all its immensely expensive art. And when the lead thug makes a move on Sonia, Guido attacks and a gunshot sounds.

The film then moves into its second act where things turn much more ominous in a very restrained but suitably eerie way. The many seeds planted in the early stages - Sonia's fellow, slightly scatter-brained chambermaid, a spooky guest at the hotel, a detective Guido still knows - intermingle with your typical tricks of a horror film, such as someone who we assume is dead turning up on a camera, songs appearing when no music is playing, and so forth. But then the movie does the most unusual thing at the conclusion of the 2nd act via a twist I will not reveal.

What I will say is that this twist, initially, appears to render all we have just seen mute. But this is not necessarily the case. The poster for "The Double Hour" trots out the ancient tag: "Nothing is what it seems." Except this tag might very well be the complete opposite of the film's intent. Indeed, while everything did not appear to be what it seemed, it might end up being what it seemed to be all along. And if this is true it makes "The Double Hour" doubly depressing. It's like a twice baked potato of despair. Which might not be a good film for most Americans to see on vacation. Me? I didn't mind so much. But, you know, I'm also the guy who, as stated, immediately after "The Double Hour" ended bopped across the street to chill at Lincoln Center for a couple hours because, in theory, it's where Natalie Portman - er, Nina Sayers - er, whichever - went and....but then you still might not have seen "Black Swan."

Never mind.

Arcadia (Seeing My Favorite Actor On Broadway)

This stage review (the first in the history of Cinema Romantico!) comes with a couple critical disclaimers. 1.) I am not much of a play-goer, which is actually a serious fault of mine when considering I live in a city with a fairly vibrant theater scene and 2.) Most of the 3 hour play I was quite starstruck, considering I had managed to score a second row seat and, thus, for most of the 3 hours was no less than 10 feet away from Billy Crudup, my Kate Winslet of male actors, a guy I have watched countless times as Russell Hammond and Prefontaine. When he first enters the stage at the Barrymore Theater it was all I could do to keep from shouting "I've defended 'Waking the Dead' more than anyone alive!" which no doubt would have upset the southern tourists to my left (who were quite concerned - literally - when a "young man" such as myself sat down right next to them, no doubt intent on stirring up some sort of trouble). And Billy Crudup. It probably would have upset Billy Crudup. And I really didn't want to upset him when this was potentially the only time I would ever be in the same room with him.

Mr. Crudup, who we will get to (oh, will we), does not show up until the second scene of the first act, though, and, really, things get rollicking pretty much right from second one of the opening minute. The play begins in 1809 on the English estate of Sidley Park where dashing Septimus Hodge (Tom Riley) is tutoring 13 year old Thomasina Coverly (Bel Powley). Eventually Ezra Chater (David Turner), a poet, will enter and this is significant because it seems Septimus has engaged in "carnal embrace" with Chater's wife and, thus, Chater challenges him to a duel. When we flash ahead to the second scene Bernard Nightingale (Crudup) turns up at the present day incarnation of Sidley Park to enlist the assistance of Hannah Jarvis (Lia Williams), presently on the estate researching the home and the garden, in an effort to prove that the aforementioned Chater was killed in a duel not by Septimus Hodge but by one Lord Byron. Rest assured, this is not merely the tip of the iceberg, but the tip of an entire theatrical Ice Age.

If I had any regrets in seeing "Arcadia" it's that I did not read the play beforehand. Written by Tom Stoppard, it is stacked and packed, dense beyond all belief, overflowing with ideas and comedy. Oodles of comedy that is balanced, expertly, against all the talk of the universe and sex and mathematics and architecture and landscaping and hermits and grouse......wait, grouse? Yes, it seems Valentine Coverly (Raul Esparza) is trying to use the Chaos Theory to determine why the population of the grouse at Sidley Park has declined and......who knows. I kind of mentally threw up my hands at the mention of the grouse. Not that I was mad. Far from it. I was simply overwhelmed and, in some ways, I sort of enjoyed it. As an avid cinema-goer stuck with so many movies that often have less than half of one idea this sort of idea-intensity was a real rush.

So was Billy Crudup. Granted, I'm irrefutably biased and not as in tune to what makes a great stage performance as opposed to a great film performance but this concerns me not even a little because my joy at watching him play-act was immense. From his very first moments you realize that all the Crudup-isms are in place, right there in front of you, a couple breaths away. The whisp of hair he's always brushing out of his face, the slightly pigeon-toed gait, the most expressive hands in the business, the smile that walks the high-wire between sincere and smirk. Except, of course, the difference is that in movie acting, typically, less is considered more and being onstage allows an actor to indulge in the opposite end of the spectrum. More is more. More was more. God help me, was he fun to watch! At the start of Act II he presents his lecture on Chater and Byron to Hannah, Valentine and Chloe (Grace Gummer) and even as you realize he is clearly a pompous ass blindly rushing ahead with his so-called facts in an effort to make a grand name for himself you also realize he comes down on the side of the arts against science - "quarks, quasars, big bangs, black holes - who gives a shit?" - which is painted by Stoppard, I think, as being both right and wrong and neither and Crudup's delivery of this material is just fiercely side-splitting. I'll never ever forget it.

As you can see, Billy Crudup delivers a brilliant portrayal.

Late in the show there was a moment during an impassioned monologue when, suddenly, spit shot out of Crudup's mouth and across the stage and, naturally, I lost focus for a moment because......well, that was Billy Crudup's spit! I saw Billy Crudup's spit! Up close and personal! Which might make me weird. Which is fine.

In the end, despite being, at this point, only sixteen going on seventeen, it seems apparent that Thomasina is the smartest of the whole big-talking bunch when she formulates some sort of complicated theory that she effortlessly deduces whereby the death of the universe is imminent. Yet this seems to concern her far less than getting Septimus to teach her how to waltz and so "Arcadia" concludes with Septimus and Thomasina - and, eventually, two other characters - waltzing, elegantly, around the stage. Perhaps this is merely because I saw Kylie Minogue live less than 48 hours earlier approximately 13 blocks away and that show, to me, was as simple and pure an expression of The Meaning Of Life as I have ever encountered but the implication of these waltzes were oh so clear. As in, hey, Valentine, enough about the god damn grouse, switch off the laptop and just dance.

The Greatest Blog Entry Of All Time

So The Kid In The Front Row typed up a nice post posing five questions pertaining to movies and I liked it so much I thought I would try to answer them in a post here on Cinema Romantico and as question #5 was "When you think of your love for movies, what one image comes to mind?" I knew immediately what the answer was and Googled "Jodhi May Last of the Mohicans" to find an image from the scene at the end where she commits beautiful suicide by throwing herself off the cliff - a moment that 1.) Made me cry 2.) Made me want to write movies and 3.) Made me once author a piece titled Why The Tale Of Alice Munro Is A Metaphor For Life, in which I understatedly declare it to be "the most beautiful moment in the history of art." Which, of course, it is.

ANYWAY, the first result that flashed up was a post at the movie blog Victim of the Time written way back in July 2007 titled "The Performance That Changed My Life" - namely, Jodhi May as Alice Munro in "Last of the Mohicans." (Note: He made this post exactly 365 days before I launched a week long celebration of "Last of the Mohicans" on my blog. Which is to say, how the f--- does anyone not believe in a higher power?)

The perfect movie shot.

Seriously? I think I stared at the screen, mouth agape, for about four-and-a-half minutes. Naturally, the author and I don't completely agree, which is to say he does not apparently care for Michael Mann's 1992 film in any other way, shape or form, which is fine, while it is, as we all know, my #1 favorite movie of all time, forever and ever. Nevertheless......he writes about how this particular performance of May's as Alice, the younger sister of Madeleine Stowe's Cora, is The Performance That Changed (His) Life primarily because of that moment right there at the end when she commits beautiful suicide by throwing herself off the cliff. He elegantly writes:

"Basic description does not do this moment justice. Perhaps what I'm going to say is hyperbolic, but it is also the truth. Have you ever experienced a moment you can't explain, where something affects you in a way you never expected, in a way it will probably never affect someone else, in a way it may not ever affect you yourself again? This is what happened to me here. The look that Jodhi May gave to the camera in that tiny second of film startled me, made my heart stop, made me weep- and I didn't understand why. There had been no build up, no groundwork- it was simply a sudden, unexpected moment. It was overwhelming in its despair, its sorrow, its harrowing hopelessness. I've never had a moment like it since. I've never watched the film again for fear that I would lose the remnants of the feeling."

......sorry, my mouth was agape again. (......getting it together......) While I vehemently disagree about there being no build up and no groundwork, well, everything else resonates in a way that stuns me beyond all inane metaphors. How the is this possible? How can someone else write "what I'm going to say is hyperbolic, but it is also the truth"? That's my line!!!!! I was going to leave Victim of the Time a glowing, raving comment but he went on to write: "I doubt that you, if you watched it, would feel the same, for I can only feel that it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. It is MY moment. Is there anyone else in the world who felt so strongly, from feeling so disinterested, in that piece of film? I doubt it, and, more importantly, I hope not."

I mean, I can't leave a comment! Right? How would this dude feel if he knew I knew took a pilgrimage (spelling courtesy of my friend Ashley) to North Carolina to see the sites where this movie was filmed, specifically saving the spot where Jodhi May gives the look he writes about for last and sat there for, like, two hours?

Then again, I wasn't disinterested in the rest of the movie. But still. I don't want to risk it and spoil it for him. So I'm not leaving a comment. And even though I'm linking to him (because it wouldn't be right, obviously, if I didn't) I hope he never reads this. But I would also hope that he would understand why I had to write this and link to his post. It's just, you know, weird when you truly find a kindred spirit, someone who gets it.

Do you think he's also obsessed with Kylie Minogue? No, no, no, no, no! Never mind! I don't want to know!

So Close, So Far

The movie gods have screwed us again. Which would be fine, because they screw us often, except they tantalized us with the promise of correcting a massive mistake and taking pity on those of us who love "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) so much we have posters of it at home on our walls.

It was briefly reported last week that Hilary Duff, set to re-imagine the role made famous by the great Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, a casting choice with which Cinema Romantico has decisively disagreed from the beginning, had been dropped from Tonya Holly's forthcoming "The Story Of Bonnie And Clyde." Justice! But not so fast. This rumor was quickly refuted. Apparently the film's official Facebook page had this to say: "The TMZ story was not originated by the producers of 'The Story of Bonnie and Clyde'. Hilary Duff is still slated to play Bonnie Parker."

Faye Dunaway was slightly distraught when she heard the news.

Or as Sofian Al Khateeb so eloquently said on the same Facebook page (spelling and capitalization his): "Listen to me TONYa and the producers of 'The Story of Bonnie and Clyde'. Hilary Duff must play Bonnie Parker. cus without her this movie is NOTHING YES NOTHING ..............and Hilary will make the movie even better."

Oh, Sofian, I hate to quibble, but if only NOTHING YES NOTHING described this entire project.

A Life In Movies

Andy of Fandango Groovers whose inspired blogathon last year, Desert Island DVDs, went platinum ten times over, has conjured up a new awesome blogathon idea for our lives in movies. This time bloggers are asked to name their favorite film from each year of our lives thus far. This wound up being more difficult than expected. It turns out certain years are stacked and certain years are not. Nevertheless, I think I could survive on these 33 films.

1977: "Star Wars: A New Hope." If everyone has "their" Beatle, then I believe everyone has "their" "Star Wars" film. Me? I'm totally a "New Hope" man.

1978: "The Deer Hunter." I recently read film historian David Thomson's fantastic "The Whole Equation: A History Of Hollywood" and near the end he had some revelatory words on this Oscar winning Vietnam opus. Such as, "Political details aside, I saw an epic and tragic vision about America's determination to overawe rather than understand the alien world - indeed, the historical errors rather proved that point."

1979: "Manhattan." On Saturdays "Annie Hall" is my favorite Allen picture. On Sundays it's "Manhattan." (What?)

1980: "Airplane!" "The life of everyone onboard depends on just one thing: finding someone back there who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner."

1981: "Raiders Of The Lost Ark." A cannonball filled with confetti, electrolytes and awesome sauce.

1982: "Dead Men Wear Plaid." Kinda the "Airplane!" for noir lovers. Ah, to be a slipped a mickey by Ingrid Bergman.

1983: "The Keep." This early period horror film from Michael Mann, my favorite director, is considered a failure and it sort of is. It shows he had not yet figured how to tell a story but also indicates that when it came to visuals and atmosphere, well, Mann was already Mann.

1984: "Ghostbusters." Mad props to Venkman, Stantz and Spengler. The (almost) end of the world never was and never will be more fun.

1985: "Better Off Dead." Even at the risk of ensuring John Cusack never reads this blog again.

1986: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." "The Breakfast Club" didn't change my life. "Ferris Bueller" did.

1987: "Roxanne." I think the name of my blog gives away the fact that I am a certified hopeless romantic and this film is hopeless romanticism at its funniest, richest, and finest.

1988: "A Fish Called Wanda." If you will indulge my (truthful) hyperbole, I contend this is the greatest straight up movie comedy ever made. All hail Otto.

1989: "Glory." In the years since I first fell for this Civil War film I have realized the themes are made a bit too simple and the writing is often quite convenient but, still, it has the look and feel of a mighty epic and it still swells with that old-fashioned movie magic.

1990: "Goodfellas." It shouldn't be so much fun to watch De Niro and Pesci beat Frank Vincent to within an inch of his life while "Atlantis" by Donovan plays on the soundtrack but, as we all know, it really, really is.

1991: "JFK." Never mind Oliver Stone's facts or politics, filmmaking-wise this is as pure as Sienna Miller's ethereal beauty.

1992: "Last of the Mohicans." If you didn't guess this one, please advance directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

1993: "Mad Dog and Glory." A low key, wonderfully strange little film that 1.) Manges to make the inherently unlikable David Caruso likeable and 2.) Features the only scene in Robert DeNiro's vast canon in which he sings Louis Prima directly over a dead body.

1994: "Heavenly Creatures." Not only Kate The Great's first film but Peter Jackson's one stone stone cold masterpiece. If you haven't seen it, please remedy this situtation immediately. It really rather boggles the mind.

1995: "Before Sunrise." I believe we just established I was a certified hopeless romantic and this is hopeless romanticism at its most lyrical. It has no action? Please. It has more action than "The Matrix" Trilogy.

1996: "Jerry Maguire." "This is Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Stockholm, two masters of freedom playing before their art was corrupted by a million cocktail lounge performers who destroyed the only true American legacy......jazz."

1997: "The Myth Of Fingerprints." Despite the fact I once triggered a bar brawl (slight exaggeration) when someone dared question the immense quality of "Titanic" I'm still selecting "The Myth Of Fingerprints" as my '97 fave, which should let you know just how serious I am about this film. And if you tell me it's like "The Big Chill" I'll aim my throw up at you.

1998: "Without Limits." My favorite actor as Prefontaine. Or: the Bio-pic done right.

1999: "Cookie's Fortune." As discussed a couple weeks ago, I can never get my thoughts on this marvelous film just right. An Altman-ed mint julep? A comedy of southern manners gone partially wrong? I don't know. I give up.

2000: "Almost Famous."  Because I believe that if you play Tift Merritt's "When I Cross Over" with a candle burning you will see your future.

2001: "The Dish." This film was released in 2000 in its native Australia but was not released in the States until 2001 - so I'm counting it - where I saw it in the theater during my tour of duty in Phoenix one particuarly awful, awfully hot day even though I had no idea what it was about and left two hours later in a state of utter transcendence. I love this movie.

2002: "Sunshine State." A Floridian tale of woe that is less about the politics and commercialization of the state of its title than about how so often the dreams of adults get stranded on the sandbar of life.

2003: "Lost In Translation." The toughest year of the 33. Back then I would have told you "Kill Bill" - and I still adore that movie so - but in the years since Sofia's masterpiece has become more special to me.

2004: "Million Dollar Baby." "People die every day, Frankie. Mopping floors, washing dishes and you know what their last thought is? I never got my shot. Because of you, Maggie got her shot. If she dies today you know what her last thought would be? I think I did all right."

2005: "Elizabethtown." I'm fairly certain that - at the present time, flaws and all - this is my favorite movie. I know what you're thinking and you're probably right but, hey, the heart has reasons that reason doesn't know.

2006: "Prairie Home Companion." Perhaps the greatest gospel song ever filmed.

2007: "Atonement." This is not merely history written in lightning, this is history written in solar flares.

2008: "Rachel Getting Married." Forgiveness is a real bitch.

2009: "The Merry Gentleman." Sure, it made $749,418,162 less at the box office than "Avatar" but I urge you to get to know Kate Frazier. It'll be good for your soul.

2010: "Black Swan." I have employed numerous words about this movie in the past few months so today I will only employ one to describe it completely: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

The Worst Three Screen TitIes In Movie History

Often, screen titles can be helpfully informative ("Platoon"). Often they can beautifully summarize a movie's intent ("Last of the Mohicans", in the way it merges the epic setting with the personal situation, showing the personal can be epic). Often they can be funny (Joe Pesci in "Casino" mentioning "back home years ago" at which point a screen title pops up that says "Back Home Years Ago"). But sometimes they can be flat-out terrible. These three, in my estimation, are the worst offenders.

3.) "Whiteout", the infinitely awful "thriller" from 2009, opens with a harrowing shot of Antarctica accompanied by a screen title helpfully advising the audience: "Antarctica: the coldest and most isolated land mass on the planet." Who else excitedly awaits the day a French thriller opens with a shot of the Eiffel Tower (because of course it would open with a shot of the Eiffel Tower) accompanied by a screen title that says: "The Eiffel Tower: a puddle iron lattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris."

Pacific Ocean: the world's largest ocean.

2.) At the very start of my mortal enemy Michael Bay's infintely awful "Armageddon" we receive a baritoned voiceover from the one, the only Charlton Heston presenting us with a history lesson on the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. He finishes by intoning, "It has happened before....it will happen again" (ooooooooooh) and then transitions to a present day title card - the esteemed Roger Ebert deemed it "the masterful title card" - that declares "65 Million Years Later". So that's how long ago it was! Phew! I forgot!

1.) So in the infinitely awful "Godzilla" we've slogged through the obligatory opening scenes in which Godzilla himself (or was it herself? I don't recall) has destroyed a few fishing boats and the requisite American team of hardened military personnel and clumsy scientists have gathered and are now tracking the creature and then (poor, poor) Matthew Broderick gives that speech about this being the "dawn of a new species" or something god-awful like that and then the movie cuts to a shot of Manhattan beneath a torrential downpour and with an ominous musical score to accompany it we receive the following screen title....

"The City That Never Sleeps."

Maybe it's just me but that kills me. It absolutely kills me. Perhaps you have to see it. That title card popping up with that music is just so dreadful it might have to be experienced. What was the reason for it? The shot, if I'm remembering correctly, it's been quite awhile since I've seen it, is the formerly standard Manhattan boilerplate establishing device with the camera pushing in on the deceased World Trade Center. So everyone already knows it's New York City, right? Were they trying to be "clever"? "Funny"? What the hell gives?

I'm pretty sure Matthew Broderick just read the screen title for himself.

What's even crazier is that at this point the movie itself has already been in New York City since we had to get introduced to that annoying, whining ex love interest of (poor, poor) Matthew Broderick's and her struggles as a down-on-her-luck wannabe news reporter. But when we showed up in Manhattan at that point we didn't get the title card. So why are we getting it now?

Do you see what I'm rambling about here? It's wonderful, just wonderful. The most out of place, hideously used, preposterously unforeboding-when-it-really-wants-to-be-foreboding title card of all time.

Is it worth a Netflix? On its own, probably not. But that title card in conjunction with Jean Reno asking the old man what he saw AND complaining about America's version of French Roast coffee? Absolutely.

You're welcome. This is why I'm here.

The Road

Ten minutes into this cinematic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel, set in a grimmer-than-grim, bleaker-than-bleak post-apocalyptic world, a father (Viggo Mortensen) shows his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) how to insert a pistol into his mouth to properly, if need be, blow his brains out. And so the viewer reaches an understanding as to how this film could go from being originally set for release in 2008 to being released in 2009 and receiving lukewarm reception at the box office, so much so that it barely surfaced at theaters here in Chicago before going back under.

If anything, "The Road" is a triumph of a place and time that hasn't existed, realistically creating a world long since ravaged by some unnamed disaster, where mankind struggles to survive with no plants or animals on which to feed, and sunlight non-existent. Director John Hillcoat filmed on real locations in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Oregon because, as he told USA Today, "We didn't want to go the CGI world." Hallelujah. Those words are music to my ears. Green screen grime always looks too pristine.

The grey landscape mirrors the mood where the happy moments in which Father and Son indulge - a can of soda, a swim beneath a waterfall - are barely seen. As soon as they begin Hillocat is already cutting away from them as if to reinforce the pointlessness of that happiness. Even a shelter upon which our characters stumble that offers food and a decent place to sleep isn't around for long.

Previews for "The Road" seemed to suggest it was setting up an inevitable showdown between roving gangs of cannibals and the Father trying to save the Son from them but this could not be farther from the truth. This film has no interest in that sort of clockwork-like conclusion. Any untrustworthy people they encounter on their journey possess no extra insidious motives. The Father always bellows the same question: "Why are you following us?" And to this the recipient of the question always bellows back: "We weren't following you!"  Everything here is random, without reason, which makes it doubly awful.

The Father and Son's destination is the coast. Why? Perhaps this is simply the fallback action of any survivors post-apocalypse. Like The Court Yard Hounds sang: "I'm gonna head down to the coast/Where nothin' ever seems to matter." Not that anything really matters anywhere else in "The Road." The only thing that does seem to matter is staying alive which comes across as a less pleasant option than death in this scenario but there goes that damn human resolve for you. Even when you're more likely to be feasted on by cannibals than to pass away in your sleep, we've gotta try to survive.

Your Holy Grail Of Lost Footage?

In cinematic circles legends abound in regards to footage shot and lost, footage discussed, written about, dreamt of, but never seen. Legends such as Orson Welles original, intended cut of his "Citizen Kane" follow-up "The Magnificent Ambersons" which RKO supposedly butchered, and which Jim Emerson posted about, thus, inspiring this post. The lost 17 minutes "2001", supposedly in possession of Kubrick's family. The two hour plus cut of "The Breakfast Club", the rumor being that the late John Hughes had a copy of this uncut film. And, of course, the urban legend surrounding the cut sequence in "Million Dollar Baby" where Hilary Swank fights ex figure skating legend Kristi Yamaguchi for an episode of Celebrity Boxing (requested by the studio to make it more "audience friendly" but removed in editing by Eastwood).

For my money, though, if there was ever any lost cinematic footage on which I could get my greedy hands, my Holy Grail Of Lost Footage, if you will, it would be the infamous excised Basketball Scene in Woody Allen's landmark "Annie Hall" (1977).

Speaking of the scene to The Guardian in 2002 Allen said: "I wrote and shot a scene for 'Annie Hall' involving the Knicks and Earl The Pearl (Monroe). I was extolling the concept of the physical over the cerebral, so I wrote a fantasy basketball game in which all the great thinkers of history - Kant and Nietzsche and Kirkegaard - played against the Knicks. I cast actors who looked like those philosophers to play those roles and they played against the real Knicks. We used the players on the team at that time including Earl, Bill Bradley and Walt Frazier, and we shot it inside Madison Square Garden after the last game of the season. Of course the Knicks were smooth and beat the philosophers easily; all their cerebration was impotent against the Knicks...But I cut the scene from the picture, not because it didn't come out but because I had to keep the picture moving and it was too much of a digression. It didn't break my heart not to use it in the film. I always feel that anything I cut out of a film is always a mercy killing."

Allen has said in other interviews that he likely tossed out or destroyed the footage 20-odd years ago and so it will apparently be forever unseen. No doubt it was a mercy killing and it would have felt out of place in the film but, nevertheless, who wouldn't want to see Earl The Pearl execute that patented spin move against Nietzsche and then tell him to suck it?

eXistenZ

"Come on, Pikel, nobody actually physically skis anymore." - Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), "eXistenZ"

Funny how the mind works. I had been thinking about crazy Canadian David Cronenberg's 1999 video game opus since seeing Christopher Nolan's "Inception" not simply because they both kinda deal with worlds of alternate realities but mainly because they shared similar mind-f--- "Lady Or The Tiger?" endings. When I finally got around to re-watching "eXistenZ" (yes, that is how it's spelled) for the first time in 10+ years I found myself thinking less about its parallels with "Inception" and more about the Mii that had been created for me at my Friends Reunion Weekend in Iowa.

As the film opens the greatest video game designer in the world, the brilliantly named Allegra Geller, is addressing an apparent townhall meeting in regards to her latest virtual reality game, eXistenZ, and as she and several fellow gamers prepare to delve into it a young psychotic stands up with the strangest looking gun in the history of mankind, bellows "Death to the demoness Allegra Geller!" and attempts to assassinate her. He fails. And Allegra and her bodyguard/marketing assistant Pikel (Jude Law) flee for safety.

That there, folks, in Jude Law's hand is what we call a Gristle Gun.

Okay. So back to that gun. It's organically made, or something, "a gristle gun", and fires, ahem, human teeth. Perhaps, we think, this movie is not all that it seems. Especially when Pikul advises he was never fitted with one of these funky bio-ports that is necessary to play Allegra's game and, thus, Allegra decides in the midst of assassination attempts that he needs one to which he says something like "You can't just get fitted for bio-port" at the country gas station at which point the film cuts to a Country Gas Station (literally) and a guy named Gas (Willem Dafoe, perfectly cast), an Allegra Geller worshiper, who takes poor Pikul in back and hooks him up with a bio-port.

And now it becomes difficult to discuss "eXistenZ" in specifics for fear of revealing too much because like "Inception" there are layers bundled up in layers, mysteries wrapped in riddles. When you compare the two films what is strange is how "Inception" is based on dreams but often comes across like a video game with assorted levels of advancement and machine gun fire for machine gun fire's sake while "eXistenZ" is based on video games but often comes across like a dream in which nothing makes sense, where people craft guns at trout farms and go to Chinese Restaurants in the forest and asks for "the special because there is no special" and then you wake up and try to remember how it all fit together.

Both films also overflow with exposition. "There are things that have to be said to advance the plot and establish the characters, and those things get said whether you want to say them or not," explains Allegra, and that line could also function as a single sentence synopsis of "Inception". Of course, one of the nifty little tricks of "eXistenZ" is that all the exposition and all the wooden acting and all the questionable special effects are allowed a scapegoat by the film's conclusion and this troubles me less in relation to "eXistenZ" itself than in relation to the future of movies where eventually every screenplay will have a giant Reveal solely as a means justify their onslaught of exposition. That'll be the day.

And that brings me back to my Mii, the same glasses, the same hair, the same face, the same everything. I wanted my Mii to look like Billy Crudup but I was overruled. What happens when our Mii does everything for us? Do kids these days shoot hoops in their driveways and pretend they are hoisting up the shot to win the National Championship or do they just play basketball downstairs on the Wii? Will there come a day when nobody actually physically skis anymore? Will Linsdey Vonn compete at the next Olympics not on an actual slope but in a room at some Sheraton as her Mii?

DOESN'T THIS BOTHER ANYONE ELSE?????

Daniel Day Lewis: How Far Will He Go?

"You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?" - Bones, "Star Trek IV"

Daniel Day Lewis never left his wheelchair during the filming of "My Left Foot". He slept in an abandoned jail cell for "In The Name Of The Father" and lived on "The Crucible's" village set without running water or electricity and he fended for himself in the wilderness for six months, sleeping with a rifle, to prepare for "Last of the Mohicans." He trained 7 days a week for 3 years, sparring with professionals, to become "The Boxer." He memorably freaked Cameron Diaz to high heaven by insisting that everyone call him Bill (his character's name), not Daniel, on set of "Gangs of New York." 

So.....if two time Oscar winner Day Lewis were going to play, oh, I don't know, let's say.....Abraham Lincoln, how far do you think he'd go to prepare?