Transformers 3: The Reviews Are In!

As established upon the release of its predecessor, the only way I will be attending a screening of "Transformers 3: Revenge Of The Dark Side Of The Moon" (in theaters today), directed by this blog's Public Enemy #1, Michael Bay, is if Paramount sets me up on a scotch sampling date with Sienna Miller at Duke of Perth. Otherwise, no go.

And yet - yet!!! - some of the reviews are saying the movie isn't so bad. I mean, they're saying it's bad, sure, obviously, but that it's also, maybe, on some level, perhaps on multiple levels, "bad". No, no, no, no, no, no! Not "bad". "Good."

Am I the only one thinks Rosie Huntington-Whiteley looks like a Stepford Wife?

Andrew O'Hehir of Salon writes: "What makes 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' interesting, to the extent that something that's so fundamentally idiotic and soul-deadening can also be 'interesting,' is what you might call its aesthetic and ontological ambivalence. To put that in English, Bay doesn't seem quite sure what kind of movie he's making, or what the point of it is. With 'Dark of the Moon,' he pushes the dumbass summer popcorn-movie formula to the max, and then pushes beyond that into an incoherent, purely symbolic realm that's closer to experimental cinema than to Hollywood: sunsets and helicopters and vertical plunges through space and aircraft crashing to the ground and images of apocalyptic destruction and male bodies in motion and female bodies at rest (always as observers and objects, but never as subjects), all of it set to a throbbing score that never quite reaches the moment when it tries to sell you a beer or a pickup truck or pills to make your dick bigger."

And A.O. Scott of The New York Times writes what has to be my front-runner for Best Movie Review Of 2011. He writes: "I can’t decide if this movie is so spectacularly, breathtakingly dumb as to induce stupidity in anyone who watches, or so brutally brilliant that it disarms all reason. What’s the difference?"

He continues: "Plot summary is unnecessary: the script, by Ehren Kruger, is its own Wikipedia. Everything will be explained, as the cameras swirl and jump, and the music (by Steve Jablonsky) rumbles and blasts. 'Drop the bridge!' someone will say, referring to one of the drawbridges that span the Chicago River. A few seconds later you will see the bridge dropping and, just in case you are uncertain of what is going on (maybe you were texting your friend, who sneaked into 'Bad Teacher' with hopes of hearing Cameron Diaz swear), someone else will say, 'The bridge is dropping!'"

His review almost makes me want to see this movie. Almost, I said.

Greedy (Or: Maintaining My Dunst Completism)

Hello, everyone!!! Sunday afternoon here at Cinema Romantico's place!!! My mind is delightfully glazed off a delicious post-brunch Two Hearted Ale with my friends Ashley and Dan and so I have decided it's time to finally to take that Netflix DVD of "Greedy" (1994), the only Kirsten Dunst movie I have never seen, and just get it over with. In two hours, assuming I survive, I will officially be a Kirsten Dunst Completist.

That's Kirsten Dunst. Over there to the left.

Opening Credits: Kirsten Dunst, twelve years old at the time of the film's release, is nowhere to be found in the opening credits. Understandable. We were still about eight months away from Kirsten out-acting Tom Cruise in "Interview With A Vampire." But do you know what name does turn up in the opening credits? Joyce Hyser, a name which likely only means something to a certain sect of people known as Bruce Springsteen Fanatics since Ms. Hyser was the woman Bruce dated back during the early 80's. (Was she the "baby" of "Drive All Night?" It's possible.) In the film Hyser resembles a slightly less sinister Linda Fiorentino in "Jade", not that I've seen "Jade."

4 minutes 42 seconds: So it seems what we have is this: Uncle Joe (Kirk Douglas) is a rich, egocentric millionaire on the verge of expiring and his entire lecherous family is hoping to be named heir to his fortune.

8:30: Kirsten Dunst makes her first appearance. She does not get a line. She is Jolene, the daughter of a character played by Bob Balaban whose name in the film I forget because for the rest of the movie I just thought of him as Russell Dalrymple, President of NBC.

9:00: We are introduced to the buxom pizza delivering "nurse" Molly played by Olivia d'Abo who the family fears has her sights set on Joe's money.

9:30: The entire family sits down for an argumentative meal while Kirsten Dunst is banished to the kids table even though within 5 years she would be out-acting every single wannabe at the adults table. Well, maybe not Kirk Douglas. Although I'll take Besty Jobs over Spartacus every day of the week and you can quote me on that. Twice.

11:45: Phil Hartman's wife is being played by Siobhan Fallon which means, faithful readers, that yes! We have two ex-"Seinfeld" members in the cast since Fallon had a brief stint as Elaine's roommate ("Such a great improv class tonight"). But that's not all! Her character's name in "Greedy"? Tina. Her name as Elaine's roommate? Tina. We have now officially entered meta-land.

18:49: Okay, so Michael J. Fox is a professional bowler who doubles as the good-hearted cousin of the entire lecherous family who's well-to-do father turned his back on Uncle Joe years ago. The lecherous family members decide that perhaps if they can bring Michael J. Fox into the fold that Joe will leave his fortune to him and, thus, the lecherous family members can strike up a deal behind the scenes.

22:43: Michael J. Fox and his girlfriend (Nancy Travis) discuss his dream of opening his own bowling alley but how, alas, he doesn't have the necessary funds. Hmmmmmmmmm.

28:15: Michael J. Fox, professional bowler, misses his chance to make the Top 5 of a tournament and therefore appear on a national telecast when on his final roll he improbably hits himself in the thigh with his bowling ball which promptly goes gutter. I am fairly certain I have never bowled over 100 and, yet, I have never hit myself in the thigh with a bowling ball.

34:00: Happy birthday is sung to Uncle Joe and, yes, Kirsten Dunst as Jolene is one of the singers. "Judges?! Does this count as a line?!" The judges give a thumbs down. Damn it.

38:00: Michael J. Fox shows up for the birthday celebration just as the hapless butler attempts to break a pinata while, amongst others, Kirsten Dunst as Jolene can be seen and heard cheering him on. "Judges?! Does this count as a line?!" The judges give a thumbs down. Son of a...

47:30: Joe offers Michael J. Fox the money for his dream bowling alley, if he will call his well-to-do father and admit he was wrong and Joe was right.

1 Hour: Kirsten Dunst still has not said a line.

60:88: Olivia d'Abo is seen in a bikini for a second time. Fetching, yes, but I'm not ashamed to say I find her way more attractive fiddling with her retainer in "Kicking and Screaming" and saying things like, "You might want to slow down. There's no alcohol in that."

Olivia d'Abo (with Josh Hamilton) in "Kicking and Screaming", a film I highly, highly recommend.

62:28: Kids are seen fighting in a long shot and one of them, a girl, yells, "Mommy!" Might have been Kirsten Dunst. Unable to confirm. "Judges?! Does this count as a line?!" Judges give a thumbs down. Motherf...

69:58: Michael J. Fox has become the beast he swore he would never become in an effort to get Joe's money, going so far as to hire an actor to portray his father, except it appears Joe may have instead fled the premises with Olivia d'Abo and......oh, who are we kidding? Is Kirsten Dunst going to get a line or what? WHY THE HELL AM I WATCHING THIS?????

75:00: I haven't seen Kirsten Dunst in, what, 10 minutes? 15? 25? I have no idea.

82:00: There have been so many about-faces in the last third of this film I feel like I'm watching Ron Rifkin on "Alias." (Anyone? Anyone?)

83:00: I don't think she's getting a line.

Closing Credits: And she doesn't. Lines spoken by Kirsten Dunst in "Greedy": 0. I just watched a movie solely to say I had seen an actress in it who doesn't even earn dialogue. I think I need to seriously re-evaluate my life.

Then again, if I watch a movie with Kirsten Dunst in which she doesn't speak would this, perhaps, cancel out another Kirsten Dunst movie down the road for my official completism? Like, say, "Melancholia?"

Happiness Is A Canadian Husband & Wife Indie Rock Duo

"It's embarrassing to want so much and to expect so much from music, except sometimes it happens." - Bruce Springsteen

I have often wondered what it would have been like to be present in Sun Studios while Elvis was recording "The Sun Sessions." You know, "The Sun Sessions", the blueprint for rock 'n' roll. How would it have felt to be standing there, maybe leaning on the wall, perhaps sipping a Coke, listening to Elvis rip and roar "That's All Right" and shake his hips while declaring in no uncertain terms "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine" and lament how the "Mystery Train" took his baby? What would it have looked like? How would it have sounded? How would it have felt?

Eureka, I finally have my answer. It would have looked and sounded and felt like this:

Let The Mystery Be

By now you have seen this photo dozens of times. A young guy and girl in the midst of the Vancouver post-Stanley Cup riots sharing a kiss. What did you think the first time you saw it? I was entranced. I must have stared at it with astonished awe for at least a couple minutes. A sensationally private but altogether beautiful moment with the most publicly frightening backdrop imaginable. Many people probably instantly assumed it was photoshopped or some such thing. But I'm an earnest mo-fo and so that never crossed my mind. I believed in it from the get-go.
 
Who were they? What brought them there in that moment? Was he a Canuck fan and she a Bruin fan or vice versa? Or were they both Canuck fans? Both Bruin fans? If the former, were they morbidly depressed in defeat? If the latter, were they drunk on victory? Did they not like hockey and go anyway just to say they were there? Did they not attend the game and merely get caught up in the melee afterwards? Did they even know each other? Did they just meet that night? Did they sit across the aisle from one another, share a glance and think "He/She's the one for me"? Was this a passionate "Brief Encounter" set against the backdrop of hockey fan rioting? Did they fatefully run into one another in the midst of the riot? Was this just a sudden eruption of infatuation in the middle of ridiculous chaos? If so, would they spend the night together? Would they get married the next morning? Or in a couple years? Would they have a loving union and wonderful kids? Would they spiral into a rageful divorce? Or would they never speak again? Would they dream of one another for the rest of eternity? Would they see footage of the riots 25 years from now and remember that kiss? You could go on and on for days and days. And the best part?
 
The best part was I didn't know. I'd never know. It was a glorious mystery that would be left unsolved to the ages. A snapshot of a magnificent moment in time that only its participants would ever truly understand. The rest of us, to paraphrase Julie Delpy in "Before Sunrise", could invent the best and worst for them.
 
Except I knew none of that was true. I knew within 48 hours we'd have the whole damn story. What, you think modern media can leave anything alone? Ha! WE.HAVE.TO.KNOW.

Scott Jones is from Perth, Australia and Alex Thomas, his girlfriend of six months, is from Vancouver, British Columbia. They were trying to escape from the mass turbulence. Riot police swarmed them. She went down. He went back for her. He kissed her to calm her down. Which is both a little frightening and, admittedly, a little romantic. I'm glad they're both okay and I'm glad it sounds as if they are nobly going to refrain from cashing in on this situation (on the next season of "Amazing Race", Scott Jones & Alex Thomas!) and I don't want to make light of what happened to them but, damn it, this is all so boring now.

How much longer would this have lasted if we had not known their names and we had not known their situations and if they had just slipped into the ether, two real-life lip-locked Easter Island statues, a timeless, perfect photograph left for generations to view as they smiled and wondered?

Re-Seeing Alicia Silverstone

As I explained a few months ago, Alicia Silverstone, a year older than me, was my most significant (and most utterly unattainable) high school era crush, the lilting protagonist who spoke for the entire lot of supposedly disenfranchised Gen-X'ers in Aerosmith's "Cryin'" video. Eventually, when I got older, I moved on. Ms. Silverstone moved on, too. Which was why it floored me when while watching "The Art Of Getting By" I suddenly realized she was on the movie screen in front of me.

The Alicia Silverstone of then.

Silverstone's Cher Horowitz of "Clueless", as you might recall, was the queen bee of Bronson Alcott High School who memorably aided in the love of her male debate teacher. In "The Art Of Getting By" she lends a helping hand to our young male protagonist specifically because she is that protagonist's......English teacher. Full circle. Help me, Rhonda.

Silverstone, to me, was still always Cher or the girl getting her belly button pierced and karate chopping that guy who would go on to a certain level of fame in a show on an island in the face. But now she was all grown up.

The Alicia Silverstone of now. And you know what? I'm okay with it. So piss off.

Her eyes were assisted by thick glasses, her hair was pulled back in a decidedly unfetching bun and she appeared to have a pimple on her forehead that she must have insisted she wanted to show up on camera because, hey, the makeup department could have cleaned that up in a jiffy. She was an English teacher, but she was dressed like a librarian. Long gone was the flannel, combat boots wearing rebellious femme fatale that flipped off Stephen Dorff in the ultimate act of meaningless meaning. She probably likes to stay at home on Fridays now with a Netflix DVD and get to bed 'round about 10:30. Alicia Silverstone is a person in her mid-30's. Just like me.

Oddly, or perhaps not, I don't think she's ever looked more beautiful.

Eat, Pray, Love

I think the line that made me laugh the hardest in the whole two hours and twenty minutes (really?!) of a movie I was watching merely to maintain claim to having seen every Billy Crudup movie ever was a line that I'm reasonably certain wasn't supposed to be funny. It's near the end and Madam Julia is with Javier Bardem, The Frenchman In The Jaunty Hat, which is my own invention of the male version of what Nathan Rabin coined The Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and Madam Julia says: "I'm sick of people telling me that I need a man." Oh, how I laughed! "But Madam Julia," I wanted to shout, "the whole movie is about how you need a man!"

At the start she's married to Billy Crudup but he's a little self centered and they're not a good match, anyway, which she understands even when (in a fine bit of Crudup-esque acting) he makes a passionate plea at the divorce hearing for her to stay and why make this a movie about one of those marriages where people stay together even though they're miserable because, uh, I don't know? Their Catholic guilt? That's the American way?

So she gets out of that and almost instantly falls for James Franco who plays a character that is so utterly ridiculous it would have been ridiculous if anyone but James Franco had played it. He played it in a way that suggests the character itself is totally in tune to his own ridiculousness and revels in it. But she still apparently can't "find" herself and even though James Franco essentially waits on her hand and foot he's blocking any attempt she has at "finding" herself and so she has to break it off and go live in Italy, India and Bali for a year all on her own. Ok. Fine. I'm still going for along the ride. I get the benefits of being alone. Believe me, I do. Except......

She arrives in Italy and within 7.3 seconds has met a fellow American and the American introduces her to an Italian guy and he knows other Italian guys and within 2 minutes she has a whole loving Italian family. Wait, what happened to being alone to "find" herself? She's in Italy! Couldn't they have gone for a little Italian Neo Realism?!

Then she moves on to India to go to this ashram but the going gets tough and Madam Julia can't quite get going and I thought, "All right, maybe now she pushes herself all of her own accord and to get the job done and figure out-" Oops! Suddenly here's Richard Jenkins as a Texan who calls Madam Julia "groceries" (she eats a lot, see - ha! ha!) and talks exclusively "in bumper stickers" (Jenkins, though, has, by far, the film's best and most genuine moment in a monologue about the tragic event that brought him to India, and it's the only time the film truly made me sit up and take notice) who lends her crucial aid and offers fatherly advice and helps her on her way.

Have no fear! The Frenchman In The Jaunty Hat is here!

Then it's on to Bali where Madam Julia meets cute with Javier Bardem when he nearly runs her off the road and then he pursues, fairly relentlessly, and she finally gives in and, hey, even though she's so sick of everyone telling her she needs a man, now she has a man! And so she's "found" herself! So the movie can end! Yay!

The eeriest part, however, is earlier when she's in this Italian barbershop with that American friend of hers and these jovial Italian men are getting their hair cut and one of them says something to the effect of: "You entirely idiot Americans. You work five days a week and then spend the next two days in your pajamas watching TV." And then, of course, goes on to declare how we inevitably have no idea how to be in love with life, or something to that effect, and all I could think was, How would these two Italian guys feel if they knew the only reason I'm watching the movie they're in is to see an actor who's already been in his two most prominent scenes? Is this me being an idiot American? Do I have no idea how to be in love with life? Would these two Italian guys be watching a movie just to say they saw it? Or would they order pizza and proscuitto and campania and carbonara and truffles and wine and cheese, cheese, cheese - wait, do Italians actually eat this much?

I don't care. You know why? Because I actually know how to function on my own. Which even after two hours and twenty minutes (really?!) Madam Julia still had not figured out how to do.

The 2nd Most Beautiful Photo In The World

Q: If you're Lady Gaga why do you make your most straight forward video yet for "The Edge of Glory?"

A: Because Clarence Clemons is in it, and if Clarence Clemons is in your video you don't need s--- (including, but not limited to, fake blood, lipstick guns, soda can hair curlers, sea monkeys and Beyonce).

The two biggest bad-asses in the long, decorated history of big bad-asses.

In Memoriam: Clarence

From behind the stage at Madison Square Garden on July 1, 2000 during yet another massive rendition of "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" I watched Bruce Springsteen take the hand of Clarence Clemons as the two stood there, joyous, defiant, locked hands raised in respect for "the ministry of rock and roll." All by itself it was a beautiful moment I can still see more clearly in my mind than any image ever on any 77 inch LCD TV. But the moment was more, and it was more because this was the last night of the Reunion Tour of Bruce and The E Street Band that had by then stretched out over a year. When Bruce broke up the band back in 1989 it seemed clear the person who was hurt most by this dissolution was Clarence. And with the band coming back together and hitting the road it's safe to assume that maybe Clarence was the happiest. Except now it was the final evening and at that specific moment in time no one - perhaps not even Bruce - knew what lay in store for the future. Maybe the band would play more, maybe they wouldn't, maybe this was it, and so when Bruce went to relinquish Clarence's hand, Clarence refused. He pulled Bruce back and made him dance. And Bruce obliged. Clarence, damn it, did not want the moment to end.

Clarence Clemons, The Big Man, saxophonist in The E Street Band, passed away yesterday from complications of a stroke at the age of 69. And if The E Street Band is a family, and it most surely is, then that family might have just lost its most essential member. It's safe to say he is (specifically) rock and roll's most famous, cherished sax man. Some of his sax solos wrench the heart, some of them soothe the heart, some of them make the heart soar. His most famous solo came on "Jungleland" from the "Born to Run" album in 1975 which is the Jordan River of rock and roll sax solos. Last April I stood in front of the very saxophone Clarence used to play that solo at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland during the gargantuan Springsteen exhibit. Like many things there that day, it was all I could do to keep from grabbing every person who walked by, shake them and scream, "THAT'S THE SAXOPHONE CLARENCE USED TO PLAY THE 'JUNGLELAND' SOLO!"

His solos could be shots of electrolytes in the midst of rockers, like "Badlands" or "I'm Goin' Down." His solos could be elegant codas, like "Bobby Jean" or "Back In Your Arms." They could be the warning shots at the start of a song like "None But The Brave" or they could be the gospel like "The Promised Land" or they could be spiritual whispers like "American Skin." In the early days of The E Street Band his sax was often omnipresent, like "Rosalita" or on the splenderific cover of "Mountain of Love" they used to do way back when. Or his sax solos could, simply, just be epic, like "Jungleland" or like "Mary Lou" or like my favorite Clarence sax solo on "Drive All Night."

"Drive All Night" is a lengthy (eight minutes plus) tune from "The River" album (1980) that is nothing much beyond bass, piano, a hint of drums and one of those majestic Bruce vocal tracks where he sounds like he's drunk on romantic delusion. Which he sorta is because just wants to drive all night down the highway or the freeway or the back roads, whatever, just to get home to his baby to "taste (her) tender charms" and to "sleep tonight again in (her) arms." Over and over and over he makes this plea and he's not really even making the plea to her. He's making it to her in his mind. This is a lonely, heartbroken, devastated man. And well......

Max Weinberg has called Clarence's saxophone "the soul of The E Street Band", and this is so spot-on it's stunning. People don't think or act or function with their honest-to-God souls quite as often as they should, it's only once in awhile that true soulful feeling comes to humanly fruition. This is why Clarence's sax only turns up now and again. It's only when the song becomes truly soulful that it's required and it's why his sax is nowhere on the "Tunnel of Love" album (1987). That album was about Bruce's marriage to Julianne Phillips disintegrating. Bruce's soul was dead. The sax couldn't show up.

And when that Clarence solo crashes in during "Drive All Night,' a solo longer than most of his for Bruce, you realize that what you're hearing is the narrator's soul and that the narrator's soul is genuinely cracking right here before your eyes (or in your ears). His sax was so often soulful, but never more so than on this song.

As you may know, Clarence's sax recently turned up on the latest Lady Gaga album "Born This Way." The last track on the album is "The Edge Of Glory" which features a prominent solo from The Big Man but even more telling, especially this morning, is the way the song ends. It's one of Clarence's aforementioned elegant codas in unison with a bit of synth that sounds, eerily, a little like an EKG flatlining. They go out together, meaning the very last sound you hear on Lady Gaga's mega-monstrous record isn't Gaga. It's Clarence.

I reckon a few weeks or a few months or a few years from now there will be E Street Disciples who claim a bit of sadness that his last sound on record was on "Born This Way" as opposed to a Bruce record but I can only speak for myself. And I speak as a man with a photo of Lady Gaga embracing Bruce Springsteen on his refrigerator. Thus, I could never have hoped to a imagine a better way for him to go out. He wasn't fading away. He was still relevant, all the way to the end.

In fact, I'm gonna crank "The Edge Of Glory" right now. Clarence is gone. Except he isn't. And he never will be.

Newsflash: Born In The USA Does Not Suck

Note: I wrote this on Saturday, prior to the truly terrible news of Clarence's stroke, in regards to a particular comment I hear and read often that irritates me, and that was merely underscored when a Lady Gaga/Springsteen fan made a get well video on Youtube for Clarence and one of the first comments was "I'll bet this girl is only familiar with 'Born In the USA' and nothing else." Yes, when in doubt trot out the fake fans only like "Born In The USA" cliche. Christ. Those are Springsteen fans with whom I so do not want to party. So I'm still posting in the wake of the truly terrible news because it still irritates me. 

Once when explaining I was a diehard Bruce Springsteen fan, the person to whom I was explaining asked me: "Which era do you like?" I replied: "All of them. I like all of them." And this is true. Granted, I'm a little cool to his very first album but after that? I love the early romantic Springsteen and the folk-singing Springsteen and the 80's snyth-y Springsteen and I love bits and pieces of the early 90's Springsteen (the version of "Living Proof" with The Other Band off "Plugged" is mind-blowingly fantastic) and, more often than not, I love his work in the recent 00's.

Then again, I'm not a blind fanatic. His "Queen of the Supermarket" made me have a nervous breakdown the first time I heard it and I think "Last to Die" (which he based on a Kerry Slogan) is absolutely atrocious and I think "Real Man" might be the worst song ever recorded by anyone because if you're capable of recording "Racing In The Street" you should never record a song like "Real Man" and I still grieve over The Super Bowl. So yeah, I can see it both ways. And I mention all this because a sentiment I often hear in Springsteen circles was recently re-iterated in a Bill Simmons (i.e. The Sports Guy) column.



I like this album, so apparently I'm not a "real" Springsteen fan. Excuse me while I bash my head against the wall for five hours.

He writes: "Look, I totally get the Cult of the Status Quo, which afflicts MMA fans, hockey fans, and American soccer fans, in particular — they all have a chip on their shoulder because they're still in that 'we're all rooting for a local music band and we don't want it to go mainstream' stage, so they unabashedly drive away anyone late to the party. (It's the reason Springsteen die-hards loathe the 'Born in the U.S.A' album — from that point on, Springsteen belonged to everybody, not just them.)" Oh, for heaven's sake. Man, I am I tired of this argument. And it pops up everywhere! Even in my favorite Springsteen piece ever written by anyone she wrote "'Born in the USA' does suck." Come on, girlfriend! You're better than that!

Don't misunderstand, when Ra Ra Riot finally becomes huge - and they will, if there's any justice - and I'm at the United Center to see them I will be standing there screaming, "I saw these guys at one of those four band shows when they didn't even have an album! Where were you then, huh, ya bunch of posers?! WHERE WERE YOU THEN?!" But let make me this very clear: if the album that breaks them to that highest of plateaus is good, then it will be good. Case closed. And what it does or does not represent for their "status" will be meaningless.

This is to say that simply as an album of music, "Born In The USA", irrefutably, does NOT suck. I say again, "BORN IN THE USA" DOES NOT SUCK. My best friend has argued time and again that the album is "dated" on account of its decidedly 80's synth-riffs, and this - even though I always refuse to acknowledge his point, usually on drunken principle - is accurate. Those synth-riffs do date it. However, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is very much of the 80's. Its fashion and much of its soundtrack is so 80's that, technically, it makes it "dated." Yet, the core of the film, its spirit, its themes, its very essence, is timeless. This is why "Born In The USA", despite being dated, is, in fact, timeless. And really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good.

"I'm On Fire" and "Cover Me" are two of the most raw, needy songs Bruce has ever recorded. His vocal on "Cover Me" is pure, undeniable, beautiful anguish. (It also contains one of the better Bruce guitar solos.) "Working on the Highway" is the classic Springsteen Juxtaposition where the music is upbeat and happy, masking a love story gone wrong wherein our faithful narrator winds up on a chain gang. "I'm Goin' Down", in a way, is the perfect expression of The E Street Band sound, the guitar, the bass, the drums, the organ, the piano, and finally the sax all working together in a harmony so freaking perfect it might just make you tear up even though it's a completely casual, tossed off tune. "Bobby Jean" is a guy (Bruce) singing a love song to his male best friend (Little Stevie). In a word: risky. And how can any Springsteen "diehard" not get a lump in their throat at Clarence's solo at the end? And the title track is the best song of Max Weinberg's life. Seriously, listen to it and ignore what the lyrics do or do not mean and the synth and just listen to Max's drums. My God. My f---ing God. Everyone knows Max because of Conan. Everyone should know Max because of his drum fills on "Born In The USA."

Which brings us to "Dancing in the Dark." Yes, it's poppy. Very, very poppy. Yes, the video is terrible. Very, very terrible. But can I ask this: HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THE LYRICS??? It's the most introspective song of Bruce's career. It's brilliant and dark - so, so dark - and if you can't (read: refuse) to hear it because of Courtney Cox, then I call shenanigans.

When my friend and fellow Springsteen disciple Rory and I saw Bruce and The E Street Band at Madison Square Garden there was a jackass standing in front of us who said - literally - to his friends: "If he plays 'Ghost Of Tom Joad', I'm outta here." I prayed the whole time for Bruce to play "Ghost Of Tom Joad" (he didn't) so that guy would've been outta there. And if you think "Born In The USA" sucks just because a lot of people like it, I wish you'd get outta here too.

Scooter & The Big Man (May They Bust The City In Half At Least Once More)

"One of the most significant things is the cover, where I'm not on the cover by myself. I'm on the cover with Clarence. That was an enormously significant message to send to our fans in a sense that the record was about friendship. When you look at that cover, that's what you see."

- Bruce Springsteen, "Wings For Wheels: The Making Of Born To Run"

Countdown To The Tribe Doc Goes On

At my friends Daryl and Megan's Memorial Day weekend soiree one of our friends showed up with his new girlfriend and at one point, entirely of her own volition, without me having mentioned them or played them, said: "If you put on 'Midnight Marauders', I can rap all night."

Immediately I knew she was to be trusted.

I first watched the preview for "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest" over at the always awesome Film Intel and, well, is it wrong to admit it gave me goosebumps?



"I think the reason A Tribe Called Quest is still relevant is because it was truth." - Q Tip

The Tree Of Life

How does Terrence Malick choose what shots go in his movies? That's what I want to know. There are five editors listed on the infamously reclusive Malick's fifth film but I can only imagine the director was often in the editing bay with the whole lot of 'em. He'd have to be! "Okay, these shots of the street lamps, Terrence, what do you want us to do with these? And the clown in the dunk tank? Where is that supposed to go? And you have, like, seventeen hours of footage of this river just rolling. How much of this are we supposed to use?" I mean, seriously, how much footage does this guy shoot? Would it fit into the Alaskan Pipeline? Does Malick have this all planned out ahead of time? When he's shooting these seemingly innocuous images is he already shaping them inside his head for the film? Or does he just make it up afterwards? Does he go in and pick through the images to link them up with whatever meaning he's attempting to convey? Is this why he shuns the spotlight? To just make it all that much more unknowable? If he isn't around to give tidy answers at press junkets it just illuminates the Mystery Of The Universe, no?

This is all smoke and mirrors, yes, and this is because "The Tree Of Life" is basically unreviewable. Analysis and criticism is useless in the face of its vastness. I would hesitate to term it a movie and/or film. It is an exploration of a life lived. No. Strike that. It is an exploration of life - in general - lived. (You'll see.) It makes me think of Ethan Hawke in "Before Sunset" saying he wanted to write a novel that took place "within the space of a pop song." Malick has made a movie that takes place within the space of a Brahms Symphony.

Its characters are not necessarily characters, nor are they charicatures, they are more like poetic essences of the whole wide world. There really isn't a story. It's anti-story. Well, not anti-story. It moves into a realm beyond story - for the most part, anyway. In fact, when it inches closest to a conventional story, toward the end of what passes for a so-called 2nd act, is when it kinda gets stuck in the mud and turns a little boring. The lead up to this tale of a 1950's family gone wrong is chock full of images, singular images piled on top of singular images and reinforced with singular images. It's breathtaking. It moves the movie along in what passes for a grandiloquent montage except it's not a montage at all.

As you get older and flash back to your youth or to other loving years gone by, what happens? You begin to lose a sense of exactly what happened and what words were spoken. All you have is the picture. The image. Those stay, forever and always, and their power never fades. For damn near an hour Terrence Malick makes a movie of a faded youth told from that aged youth's (Sean Penn) flashbacks that he is remembering entirely via these unforgotten images. It is beautiful, balls-to-the-wall cinema that re-defines the notion of epic. And in so many ways this elongated passage is precisely why the movie has to get bogged down and bitter and boring and a bit more uninspired as it goes along.

If you don't stay in love with life, the life will get sucked right outta you.

Super 8

Summer is the time for sweet nostalgia because summer was once the time when you and your friends were free and it truly felt like school was out forever and days and nights felt endless and endlessly wonderful and you hung out and made crummy home movies or pretended you were various characters in "Predator" with your backyard substituting for the South American jungle and your bike was like escape-on-wheels and at night you listened to your favorite tunes on the Walkman you saved up all spring to buy and dreamed that something, anything, would happen in your small town, even if it was akin to one of those old monster movies you stayed up past your school-month bedtime to watch, and that if it did you and your pals would have the bravery and the belief that you could stand up and do something about it and that if you did maybe, just maybe, the lovely girl for whom you pined, likely from the "wrong side of the tracks", might just take your hand in hers and that if she did it would make mincemeat of whatever massive "thing" it was that had just overtaken your town because love overcomes all odds (even a suspect third act).

In Lillian, Ohio in a sugar-coated 1979 writer/director J.J. Abrams introduces us to a group of friends in their effort to make a homemade zombie movie on a Super 8 camera. Charles (Riley Griffiths) is the auteur, Cary (Ryan Lee) is the "explosives" expert, Martin (Gabriel Basso) is the leading man - which is why off camera he's the most clueless and cowardly of them all - and Joe (Joel Courtney) is the makeup (i.e. Fake Blood) specialist, though he also doubles as "Super 8's" protagonist, a 13 year old whose mother has just lost her life as the movie opens and whose father Jack (Kyle Chandler), a local deputy, has essentially shut down and closed off from his good natured son. The four enlist lovely Alice (Elle Fanning) as their leading lady and she manages to sneak out of the cold, messy home governed by her alcoholic father (Ron Eldard) to shoot a scene in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere at the town train station. As they do, a freight train is seen in the distance and the kids hurry to get off a shot with the rushing cars in the background for "production value", but as they do the train becomes involved for very specific reasons to be revealed later in a cataclysmic crash that the kids barely evade.

Things in town turn weird. Dogs run away. Lights flicker. Items of all sorts are reported stolen. People vanish, even Lillian's sheriff, which leaves Joe's father in charge as he desperately tries to make sense of an ever increasingly senseless situation and attempts to deal with the super-secretive, no-nonsense Air Force Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich) who has arrived to run clean-up for the government since the train belonged to them and who we know instantly is not telling the whole truth because, hey, he works for the government.

"Super 8" is a manifestation of the attitude, right or wrong, kids have toward adults and that whether or not our parents are fair and loving and whether or not our school teachers actually turn out to be fairly heroic, kids are kids and feel constricted and hemmed in and yearn to break free and to show these adults who ground them and tell them they're too young for any number of things that they can give just as good as everyone else. And that's what the kids of "Super 8" do as events spiral at a quickening pace out of control.

It's a shame the film's decision to let the kids drive the action for the most marvelous first hour is forsaken in the end to re-subscribe to the ancient summertime law that special effects and special effects laden derring-do must drive things instead. Abrams' screenplay improbably loses a handle on its indomitable spirit and strangely ignores the movie within a movie aspect it had carefully been nurturing, yet the graceful little love story it has crafted in those initial sixty minutes between our man Joe and our girl Alice keeps us watching and rooting and holds the movie up and even the symbolism-drenched shot at (almost) the end I didn't mind so much simply because while I loathe those sorts of shots in tough-minded films, well, in films like this one I cherish them so. The movie knows that mankind and all else alike just need to let goooooooooooooo.

The first song I fired up on my iPod afterwards was Cyndi Lauper's "Good Enough." Of course, it was. "Super 8" is "The Goonies" for those of us who have, over the years, graduated from a Walkman to an iPod. It wears its Spielberg-ness openly and proudly (it even keeps quoting that John Williams-y harp on the soundtrack) precisely because its primary intent is to recall those films of J.J. Abrams' youth. It is an action packed, fire breathing expression of nostalgia and as all great practitioners of nostalgia know, one of its hallmarks is to recall the best and overlook the worst, which is why I'm choosing to overlook the routine conclusion and remember the best parts of "Super 8." Because those best parts are really pretty fantastic.

Roxanne

When I recently visited New York three of my friends and I stopped off at a way cool Brooklyn bar for a few drinks and some food and one of the establishment’s perks was showing three simultaneous movies with a certain theme. The theme of this night was 80′s and one of the films was "The Jerk." Three of the four at our table decided "The Jerk" was the quintessential Steve Martin movie. I, of course, was the holdout. 
I believe then and believe now that "Roxanne" sits atop the formidable talent’s canon.

Sure, he’s always thought of as a funny guy, "Born Standing Up." He’s remembered for his wacky late 70′s, early 80′s comedies or his 00′s slumming for paychecks, likely to fund his art collecting. But when I think of Martin I always think of his distinct ability to blend humor with wistfulness. I think of his inate ability to play happy and sad within the same frame. I think of him with his face shrouded in the shrubs beneath Daryl Hannah’s balcony as she tells him (even though it’s not really to him) his pouring forth of his heart on paper was “eloquent” which he aptly corrects as “Not eloquent – just honest.” Steve Martin, I think, wanted to be Wordsworth as much as he wanted to be Jerry Lewis.

The film is based on the 1897 Edmond Rostand play Cyrano de Bergerac and it opens with a nod to that material as Martin’s C.D. Bales, the fire chief of a Washington ski town, finds himself in a duel opposite two lugheads with a tennis racket and ski poles substituting for rapiers. It is clever and funny. But it is the moments right before this sloped duel that interest me most – C.D. leaving his house and bopping and skipping – literally – down the street and along the sidewalk singing Fats Domino’s "I’m Walkin." You have to be of a certain unswervable disposition to sing to yourself in public. This is the portrait of a carefree man in love with life! But then the two lugheads inevitably insult the elongated nose of C.D. and while we see that he has learned how to live with this funky appendage we will soon see that he has not necessarily learned how to deal with it. 


Two outsiders change his existence. The first is Chris McConnell (Rick Rossovich), an ace firefighter who has been called in to help instruct C.D.’s rather lamentable band of firemen, a group including Michael J. Pollard, weirdly hilarious, a young Damon Wayans and the town’s mayor (Fred Williard) who is spearheading Oktoberfest and says of his uniform, in that memorable Williard-ese, “I want it to say action with style. Sort of a GQ firefighter.” And while Chris may know just how to handle a burning blaze, well, when it comes to women he makes men clueless about females look like they’re totally in control.

The other outsider is Roxanne Kowalski (Daryl Hannah), an astronomer who has arrived to view a comet she has predicted will pass soon in the sky overhead. She is disarmingly sweet, incredibly intelligent, and one of the few fashionable women who roamed the style-confused 80′s, making the jean jacket vest look as innovative as Faye Dunaway’s mini skirts and berets in "Bonnie and Clyde." Roxanne and C.D. meet cute when she gets locked out of the home she is renting……naked. Again, Martin’s screenplay indicates its intentions. This easily could have led to crude and idiotic obviousness but Martin keeps the tone light and, dare I say, character driven. He asks if she would like a coat. She says no and then when she realizes he didn’t bring him a coat says, increduously, “I was being ironic.” Martin’s reply is classic: “Oh, irony. We don’t get that here. We haven’t had irony here since 1979 when I was the only practitioner of it and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at.” 


And upon getting her back into her home with the greatest of ease, he falls for her almost instantly, and how could he not, listening to her wax rhapsodically about her passion, the manner in which he steals little glances of her as she does so, luminously subverting the cheesy 80′s score that accompanies it. One of Martin’s most brilliant decisions, and a lesson which rom com writers of the here and now should heed, was to make Chris a genuine doofus as opposed to a raging prick, his looks offset by the fact that a ridiculously attractive woman sends him running to the bathroom to hurl into a trash can. This is identifiable. Even when he tells Roxanne, in a fit of pitiful desperation, ”Your knockers are like melons” you can’t get upset because, damn it, the guy is trying his best, and it makes it much more believable that Roxanne might be attracted to him in the first place.

Of course, one of the film’s stretches is that we are asked to believe she somehow fails to recognize the fact the guy of the “Your knockers are like melons” line is not the same guy sending her flowering tomes via the U.S. Mail (remember letters? Sigh….) and spouting prose from beneath her balcony. She even recognizes this fact out loud as he’s spouting it - “Your voice is different.” Ah, but that’s the whole point, isn’t it? In the midst of their inevitable argument about C.D. actually penning the letters that made Roxanne swoon, C.D. advises the handwriting and the signature didn’t even match. How could she not have noticed? “Because you wanted to believe it!” C.D. declares. “You wanted it all! All the romance and emotion, all wrapped up in a cute little nose and a cute little ass!” Harsh, maybe, but maybe true.

Like Jesse of "Before Sunrise" declaring “People have these romantic projections they put on everything that aren’t based on any kind of reality” (guilty!) or Elaine Benes of "Seinfeld", staunchly pro choice, learning her potential one true love might well be pro life and dismissing such a possibility because, “Well, he’s just so good looking”, the movie is well aware that problems with love are not always caused through deceitfulness by the other person but often by deceitfulness within our own minds. C.D. is so convinced his super sized protuberance will prevent him from ever finding love that he has to resort to ghost writing love letters to actually tell Roxanne how he really feels. He might be that fun loving guy who sings to himself as he walks, but he’s got self doubt just like the rest of us.


That’s the Martin I most enjoy – the sentimentalist. The Harris K. Telemacher of "L.A. Story" was a wacky weatherman, sure, but he wanted to leave the wacky behind him and find something real and meaningful in the traffic sign ravaged landscape he called home. Bobby K. Bowfinger’s effort to make a film was filled with wacky hijinks, yes, but he was one man grasping at one last shot to make his one big dream come true. It’s why when I look at Martin I don’t see the guy with the arrow on his head, I see the guy with the big nose.

Which is why I dig the way he chose to end his adaptation. Cyrano de Bergerac dies but C.D. Bales gets the girl. Hollywood eloquence? Nah. Just honest.

My "Conversation" With Sienna Miller

So, it turns out my friend Ashley, who you might remember as my fellow Kylie pilgrimager, knows a guy who knows a girl who is working on the production of the cinematic adaptation of Elmore Leonard's crime novel "Freaky Deaky", set to star my official Cinematic Crush Sienna Miller, a production taking place as we speak in, ahem, Detroit, a cool 283 miles from Chicago - a mere Megabus ride away.

Clearly, this is the only chance I will ever have to re-enact one of my all-time favorite movie scenes, a scene from, ahem, an Elmore Leonard adapted movie, making like George Clooney in "Out of Sight" tracking down JLo for a drink at that fancy-schmancy hotel bar overlooking the snow-infused sorta bright lights of The Motor City.

I'll search every bar in Detroit and eventually find Sienna Miller sitting beside a rain-pelted window, alone, cooly smoking a cigarette, sipping at a whiskey, and I'll stroll up in my custom made Zeglio suit, and say, "Can I buy you a drink?" At this point one of two things will occur.

1.) Sienna will mace my eyes and run away, at which point I will vow never to wash my eyes again.

...or...

2.) Sienna and I will have this conversation.

Sienna: "So long as you don't mind if I smoke."
Nick: "Mind? I encourage it."
Sienna: "You want one?" (Offers a cigarette.)
Nick: "No, no, no, I don't smoke."
Sienna: "But you're encouraging me to smoke? That doesn't make any bloody sense."
Nick: "I'm an enigma."
Sienna: "Yeah. I don't think so."

Nick: "Are you even allowed to smoke in here?"
Sienna: "They asked me to stop."
Nick: "What did you do?"
Sienna: "Blew smoke in their face."
Nick: "Sigh..."
Sienna: "Did you just say 'sigh' out loud?"
Nick: "Yes?"
Sienna: "You're having a cigarette or we don't have a drink."
Nick: "Okay, okay, okay!"

-He sits down, she hands him a cigarette and lights it. He takes a drag. Hacking coughs ensue.

Sienna: "Whiskey?" (Offering her glass.)
Nick: "What is it?"
Sienna: "Stagg. 141 Proof."
Nick: "Are you serious?"
Sienna: "This is my second."
Nick: "How is that even possible?!"
Sienna: "You're a bit daft, aren't you?"
Nick: "I was thinking something more along the line of......lower proof."
Sienna: "Weak toleranced Americans. You're all the same."
Nick: "No, no, no!!! We're not!!! I swear!!! I can handle it!!!"

-She slides the glass across the table to him. He takes a drink. Hacking coughs ensue. She grins.

Sienna: "This is going to be the night of your life."

-Nick passes out.

An Open Letter To Perry Farrell

This is the thanks I get? Last year I shelled out $90 to stand in the heat and the mud with a bunch of teenagers for five hours and drink lukewarm, disgusting Bud Light because your punk ass won't sell decent beer at your monlothic Lollapalooza hoedown to see Lady Gaga and no one else and this is the thanks I get? I was all ready and willing to shell out another $90, Perry, to see my current favorite band in the world Wye Oak (who at present, yes, I like more than Gaga), and no one else, play for no more than 45 minutes at your fancy-pants outdoor fest, and what do you and your minions do?


It's not you, it's Farrell.

Schedule them for Friday afternoon. Well, of course you did, you monopolizing bastard. Over 100 freaking bands and the one band I want see you schedule for Friday afternoon. What am I, made of time off?! Answer: NO. I'M NOT. I might - repeat: might - have been able to finagle a half day to catch their show but even that won't work because you scheduled them to PLAY AT NOON!!!!

Noon? Are you kidding me with this gobbledygook? Wye Oak isn't the Ray Connif Singers. They're not a Traffic cover band ("We don't do Winwood solo songs"). They're not Twirling Merlin, winner of Battle of the Bands at Xippo. You couldn't have put 'em on at 5? 3:30? 2:15? Even 12:45 so I COULD HAVE MADE IT TO THE FREAKING PARK ON TIME????? I mean, I know Coldplay gets the primo slot because they're Coldplay but, let's be real, in an axe-off with (Editor: Please insert name of Coldplay's guitarist here) Jenn Wasner would jackhammer him into amnesia. In a one-on-one fight to the death with Chris Martin, Jenn Wasner would win in .0037 seconds.

Down with 'palooza.

Granted, you've still got some bands I like. Maybe if I could check out Lykke Li and Lissie - oh, except they're playing on different days. But maybe if I could see Lissie and Ryan Bingham - oh, except Lissie goes on 30 minutes after Ryan Bingham so I'd somehow have to book it from one end of Grant Park to the other end in the hope that - no, screw it. And you. I've had it up to here, Perr-Bear.

I just bought a ticket to see my beloved gothic enchantress at Pitchfork instead. Maybe I can get a microbrew there.

I Refuse To Believe Real Steel Is Real

Please, everyone, watch this preview right now and then tell me this movie is made up.



It is made up, right? That trailer can't be real. Can it?

No. It can't. I refuse to believe it. I don't believe it.

I said, I don't believe it! Stop pestering me! Leave me alone! Hollywood has not resorted to...to...to...this.

I'm not here.

This isn't happening.

I'm not here, okay? I'm not here.

I SAID, I'M NOT HERE!!! THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!!!

37 Reasons Elizabethtown Is Currently My Favorite Movie Ever

(Reader: "Oh no. Did Nick get drunk and watch 'Elizabethtown' again?"
Cinema Romantico: "Yes. He did. Our sincere apologies.") 

1. The sound of the cicadas enveloping Drew when he first gets out of the car in Kentucky.
2. “I teach him about Abraham Lincoln and Ronnie Van Zant, because in my house they are both of equal importance.”

Chuck & Cindy: "Lovin' life, lovin' you."

3. Chuck & Cindy.
4. Chuck & Cindy’s wedding beer.
5. “Life and death and life and death! Right next door to each other! There’s a hair between them!”
6. Rusty's Learning To Listen Part 8.

7. Claire's red hat.
8. Claire's Makers Mark tee shirt.
9. Ruckus.
10. Paul Schneider’s reaction shot after his dad says “You can’t be buddies with your own kid.” I think Schneider will have a long, successful career but he will never have a moment, as far as I'm concerned, better than this one.
11. The girl holding Cousin Jesse's (Schneider) son on her lap at the end at the memorial who I really, really, really like to imagine is Jesse girlfriend.

12. "Summerlong" by Kathleen Edwards.
13. Bill Banyon.
14. "You will not defeat me."
15. Claire's walk of shame. The greatest walk of shame in the long history of great walk of shames.
16. The fact that when Clare makes her walk of shame Chuck is in the hotel lobby drinking a beer at ten in the morning.
17. The fact Claire sees the Mississippi River not as Water Flowing South but as “Mark Twain’s muse and Jeff Buckley’s funeral bed.” Seriously, Chicagoans, do you see Milwaukee & Honore as a street corner in Wicker Park or as the home of Championship Vinyl? Don’t talk to me if it’s the former, thanks.

18. The fact Claire takes mental pictures. Honest to God, my favorite pictures in life are all mental pictures. Every single one. 
19. "Come Pick Me Up" by Ryan Adams.
20. "I just recently decided that maybe things really are black and white."
21. Orlando Bloom. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I know he's not very good here. But you know what? Stevie Van Zandt isn't a very good singer, either, and I'm always ecstatic when he harmonizes with Bruce. Sometimes a lack of skills is made up for with good intentions.
22. The Brown Hotel, because when/if my friends Dave and Daryl and I ever make our talked about trip to tour the Maker's Mark distillery I am GOING to stay at the same hotel Drew Baylor stayed at, so help me God.
23. The World's 2nd Largest Farmer's Market.
24. Dinosaur World.

25. Drew throwing the ashes at the Lorraine Motel. Goosebumps, man.
26. 60B: ETown theme.
27. The Greatest Chili In The World.
28. “The rich fury of our almost romance.” That line essentially encapsulates every romantic relationship I’ve ever had. Sad, but true. Almost romances. That’s my specialty.

29. Susan Sarandon tap dancing. I hope when I die my theoretical wife busts a move onstage to “Bad Romance.”
30. "Learning To Fly" by Tom Petty.
31. "But something happened between us that was not part of the plan."
32. Last Looks. Especially when it turns out what you thought was a last look wasn't really one at all.
33. The look Dunst throws Bloom when he enters the hotel lobby with his dad’s ashes while she’s chilling with Cindy & the girls.
34. Drew grabbing Claire's hand when they go after the forgotten urn.
35. The scene where Drew and Uncle Dale and Bill Banyon are standing around the kitchen at night. That scene oozes life. You can feel yourself in that room. You can feel it.
36. Drew and Claire's watching the sunrise ending in kind of a letdown because the movie is smart enough to know the best part is the actual decision to stay up and go watch the sunrise together.
37. "I say make time to dance alone with one hand waving free." A-fucking-men.

Please Let Sienna Get Freaky

There are only two shows on TV I religiously watch, NBC's "Parks and Recreation" and FX's "Justified." "Parks and Rec" I've covered now and again but as for "Justified", which is based on a short story by noted crime author Elmore Leonard, there is something about Timothy Olyphant as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, re-assigned to his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky, that draws me in. His charisma is so unforced, the way he tilts his forehead down while simultaneously tilting his eyes up, all with that smile that seems to say: "I'll have some peach cobbler, sure, but you make one wrong move and I'll stab you in the forehead with my dessert fork." He's the most good-hearted unrelenting badass on the airwaves.

I mention this because all last season while watching "Justified" I kept thinking to myself, over and over, "What if my official Cinematic Crush Sienna Miller starred in a film adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel? How cool would that be?"

Okay, you got me. I never thought that a single time. Nevertheless, if the glorious rumors are to be believed, our darling Sienna might just be starring in a movie adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, "Freaky Deaky", in which she would apparently portray an ex 60's bomb making radical turned...wait for it...romance novelist.

Sienna Miller as an ex 60's bomb making radical turned romance novelist??? I'm there. Sign me up. Mark me down. Ticket bought. Paid for. Show me the way to the theater. Let's do this. She's gonna drink whiskey, right? I mean, I just assume bomb making making radicals drink whiskey.

Sienna Miller: Bomb Maker.