Double Feature Theater

Today Marc of Go, See, Talk is spearheading a brilliant blogathon in which we are to imagine ourselves as movie theater owners and then set up a week's schedule of double features, with Sunday being our special triple feature. Believe me, back in the days when I used to manage a movie theater (which was really just a multiplex) I would fantasize about what I'd run all week in Theater 16 where they'd shove all the movies that had been around forever.

Alas, I was never given the chance. Now my dream has come true!

Monday: "The Big Sleep" / "To Have And Have Not." The totality of the first film combined with about the first 40 minutes of the second film might just make for the most sheerly watchable 155 minutes in the history of cinema.

Tuesday: "Before Sunrise" / "Quiet City". My theater could follow-up the young Jesse and Celine with the old Jesse and Celine, but thought it would instead be best to continue re-living our youth and serve up a much less talky companion piece subsituting Park Slope for Vienna. (Note: If you didn't know, the still in my blog header is taken from "Quiet City." Thought I'd mention it.)

 
Wednesday: "Ruby In Paradise" / "Sunshine State". Two underseen indie gems that show the Florida you don't necessarily see in the postcards. The former contains the best performance of Ashley Judd's life. The latter is John Sayles' best film.
 

 

 
Thursday: "Roxanne" / "Bowfinger." When you're alone and life is making you lonely you can always......watch "Roxanne" & "Bowfinger" back to back.

 
Friday: "Captain Blood" / "Adventures of Robin Hood." Motion pictures do not, cannot and will not get any more rousing and spirited than these two certified Flynn/De Havilland/Rathbone/Curtiz monumental landmarks.

 
Saturday: "My Blue Heaven" / "Goodfellas". I had several ideas for this slot but was having trouble choosing and then this double feature was pitched to me one night by a couple friends over a few beers when I explained this particular blogathon and it was just way too good not to include. The story of Henry Hill as told by Ephron and then by Scorsese.

Sunday: "The Insider" / "Heat" / "Last of the Mohicans." In the 1990's Michael Mann made three movies. These three movies. One was a true story set in the world of "60 Minutes", one was about bank robbers in L.A., one was set during The French & Indian War, but they all had one thing in common. Each one was a masterpiece.

The Real Soul Of Walk The Line

There is only one cinematic sequence that has so ably captured the essence of just what makes live music so exhilarating. "Almost Famous" didn't do it and neither did "The Commitments" nor "Once." "High Fidelity" has that truly majestic moment when Lisa Bonet's Marie de Salle is covering Frampton at the long-gone Lounge Axe and Rob and Dick and Barry are all listening and watching, rapturous, but that is about the audience's reaction to the music onstage, not the music onstage itself. No, the one moment that manages it occurs in a sequence placed at the 1:10 mark of a 2:15 film (coincidence?) by James Mangold about the life and times of Johnny Cash that won Reese Witherspoon an Oscar for playing June Carter called "Walk the Line."

In a brief moment at an awards show Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) tracks down June and pleads for her to go back on tour with him. Reluctantly, she agrees. The film then switches to June, alone onstage with her immaculate autoharp, singing "Wildwood Flower", "my mama's favorite song." It's a beautiful rendition and it's important to note that both Witherspoon and Phoenix did their own singing in the film. This is crucial on a number of levels. It lends a distinct authenticity that, say, Jamie Foxx in "Ray" lacked by being dubbed but in the case of Witherspoon - as you can hear on "Wildwood Flower" - it actually makes some of the music a little bit better than the real life June Carter. Call that blasphemy, fine, but I'm someone who thinks Lucinda Williams's rough-hewn voice is the finest in music and so I can appreciate non-traditional singing but, sorry, man, June Carter just didn't have the tonal magic to these ears. Then June introduces Johnny Cash and he comes out and he and his backing band tear into Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe" and it proceeds to work as a rip roaring duet between Johnny and June.

What I love most about live music is what George C. Scott said he looked for in his fellow actors - "Joy Of Performance." That's the golden goose, man. Hey, I adore gloomy, black-hearted, depths-of-despair songs as much as anyone else but when I shell out my hard earned cash for a concert ticket I don't want to see bands staring at their shoes, acting haughty, giving me a political rap, so on and so forth. I want to see Joy Of Performance. Ra Ra Riot has Joy Of Performance. Arcade Fire has Joy Of Performance. Tift Merritt has Joy Of Performance. Kylie has Joy Of Performance. Zola, as previously established, had Joy Of Performance. And you best believe Bruce & The E Streeters have Joy Of Performance. Joaquin & Reese as Johnny & June belting out "It Ain't Me Babe" in that scene have Joy Of Performance like Anheuser-Busch has Yeast.

I return to my original review of it oh so many years ago in the rough pioneer days of this blog and see that I wrote of this particular scene that it made "me want to stand up in the theater and cheer." Which is kinda how really great live music makes you feel, right? James Mangold as director only chooses to present a couple shots throughout this sequence from the front of the stage, and, frankly, I wish he would have done with away those shots too. This isn't our moment. It's their moment. Johnny & June's. Most of the shots are from behind them or pushing in tight on Johnny's face, the camera right there with them, intimately, because that's how they perform this song - intimately. The smiles, the non-verbal asides, the honest-to-God joy. (This is the best version of it available on the internet. Unfortunately the scene is all chopped up and the audio is taken from the studio recording but you can still catch glimpses of the real scene here and there. You should probably just go to Netflix. It's worth it.)

That look from June to Johnny before they even start singing, that look that says, "All right, I'm ready, you ready?" And he sings: "Go away from my window / Leave at your own chosen speed / I’m not the one you want, babe / I’m not the one you need." And then she laughs - oh, mother of mercy, that laugh, and then she joins in. "You say you’re lookin’ for someone / Never weak but always strong / To protect you and defend you / Whether you are right or wrong." And Reese's expression when she sings "wrong" all alone could have won her the Oscar.

Now they really get into it. Frenzied. Impassioned voices. Tearing into the lines. A ragin' joy. "Someone to open each and every door / But it ain’t me, babe / No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe / It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for. Babe."

"Go lightly from the ledge, babe / Go lightly on the ground." But now it gets a little more serious because now Johnny notices his wife Vivian (Ginnifer Goodwin) and his three daughters sitting down there in the front row. He loses his smile. He sings, looking at them. "I’m not the one you want, babe / I will only let you down / You say you’re lookin’ for someone / Who will promise never to part / Someone to close his eyes for you / Someone to close his heart." This is tougher to watch. Sure. During these moments I imagine Julianne sitting in the front row at the Tunnel Of Love Tour and watching Bruce and Patti dueting on "One Step Up" and just shaking her head and thinking, "Oh f---. I'm gonna be divorced in a year, aren't I?" But I also like to imagine that, well, Julianne didn't want to be unhappy, did she? She didn't want to be trapped in a failing marriage, right? Look, I'm positive "Walk The Line" trivializes certain aspects of Johnny Cash's real life first marriage and I'm positive that sort of thing was difficult for those real life children to watch in the movie but I'm also positive that June Carter was the real one true love of Johnny Cash's life, and vice versa, and that once all parties got this figured out the better off they all were and this moment is almost all of them realizing it before they realize-realize it. Because then Johnny regains that grin and tears back into the lines with June. "Someone who will die for you and more / But it ain’t me, babe / No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe / It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for. Babe." And it all ends with the finest shot of the movie, a long one of Johnny's family - but specifically Vivian - watching the show and June hovering, out of focus, on the edge of the frame, which suggests June's presence in Johnny's entire life.

It would be easy to look at this moment apart from the context of the film, I suppose, and say it ain't as good as the real thing. In his review for the esteemed New York Times A.O. Scott wrote: "(Y)ou have to wait until the final credits to be reminded of what Johnny Cash and June Carter really sounded like. Their disembodied voices carry more presence, more humor and hurt, than anything in the movie itself." Stephanie Zacharek weighed in: "(Phoenix) bravely sings Cash's songs himself, in a voice that gamely struts the territory and yet has one crucial, unforgivable drawback: It just isn't Cash's." But live music is all about reinvention. Enchantress Lissie majestically covering hip hop maven Kid Cudi (and that's not one of those crummy "Look how ironic we're being!" hip hop covers - that's mad passion, yo) and Justin Townes Earle covering one of my 10 favorite Springsteen songs, a song driven by piano and driving it by finger picking instead, and Springsteen re-inventing (and bettering - I said it!) Dylan's "I Want You". Just cuz it ain't the real thing doesn't mean it's not the real thing. For a brief window, Joaquin and Reese step outside of the film and make this song their own.

But, above all else, this scene knows that what lies at the heart of so much great music is juxtaposition. Sad songs can be so happy and happy songs can be so sad and dark songs can brighten and bright songs can darken. Which is why when Johnny and June keep hollering "It ain't me, babe" we all know what they're really saying.

"Oh, it's definitely you, babe."

Countdown To Armageddon (Resumes)

For the last several years, Cinema Romantico's official S--- List has looked like this:

1.) Michael Bay.
2.) Hilary Duff.

Michael Bay, of course, earns the top slot for merely being Michael Bay and Hilary Duff had earned the #2 spot for choosing to star as Bonnie Parker in Tonya S. Holly's ill-inspired remake of the landmark 1967 classic "Bonnie and Clyde", which this blog humbly believes to be one of The Five Greatest Movies Ever Made. Rumors have had that remake stopping and starting and Hilary Duff dropping out and getting fired and this, that, and the other but, as far as I can tell, at least for right now, it's still on. Which would be bad enough. Except......

Maybe in this version they can get Miley Cyrus to "re-imagine" the role of Bonnie Parker?

Enter Neil Burger, the new #3 on Cinema Romantico's official S--- List. Why? Dude has decided to enter his own horse in the "Bonnie and Clyde" Remake Stakes. It's not really even technically a remake but to take a crack at the same story still means you're messing with this movie and, well, let me make this very clear and do so in capital letters for extreme, over-the-top emphasis:

WOULD YOU GIVE IT AN EFFING REST?! WOULD YOU LEAVE THIS MOVIE ALONE! PLEASE! HAVE YOU NO HONOR?! HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?! HAVE YOU NO RESPECT FOR THE CINEMATIC INSTITUTION, YOU CHARLATANS, YOU GRAVE ROBBERS! GO FIND YOUR OWN MOVIES!!!!!!

And rather than point out that we have drawn yet another step closer to the inevitable "From Here To Eternity" remake with Jessica Simpson, I instead ask us all to remember happier times:

Judging Strangers Solely By Their DVD Collection

I just spent a long weekend in the far reaches of northern Minnesota at a lovely cabin nestled right up against Lake Superior a little ways south of Grand Marais with my father and my stepmom. Over the span of four days I never had access to the internet and I never turned on a television set (re-fresh-ing), which is to say I never watched a movie. But that didn't stop me from perusing the DVD collection amassed by the cabin's owners over the years and judging them on it. It's how I roll. Thus, here is me passing cinematic judgement out loud.........

"Ocean's Twelve." Nice start, cabin owners. Nice start. Is it possible they, too, believe it lays waste to both "Ocean's Eleven" and "Ocean's Thirteen?" Is it possible they, too, believe it is a genuine comic masterpiece? Is it possible they, too, believe it contains the best performance of Julia Roberts career? Is it possible they, too, agree with my man Bob Turnbull who calls it "a full bore art film"? Eh......probably not. Someone probably gave it to them for Christmas. But that doesn't matter. It's in the collection, the others aren't, and that is massive, massive bonus points.

Extra massive bonus points for "Sense and Sensibility." A Kate Winslet film! And only a few spaces down, "Mission Impossible III"......a Billy Crudup film. Okay, it's obviously not a Billy Crudup film, it's a Tom Cruise film, but Billy Crudup is in it and even though it's arguably the most phoned-in performance of his career this still means there are films featuring my favorite actress and my favorite actor in this collection. And who knows? Maybe the cabin owners watched "MI: III" and thought: "My, who was that charmingly good actor who played Tom Cruises's handler?"

Billy Crudup, star of "Mission Impossible III"

 Things are lookin' good. But wait......

"Sleeping With The Enemy"? Bad Julia. "Valkryie"? Bad Tom Cruise. "Red Dragon"? Bad Brett Ratner (which is insanely redundant, but still). And by far the worst of the three "Austin Powers" flicks (i.e. "Goldmember"). But wait......

"Sideways" and "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." Two fantastic road movies! And even though I'm not a huge "Total Recall" guy, well, Paul Verhoeven is to my friend Daryl what Michael Mann is to me and so in reference to Arnold's Mars movie we'll just say......classy, cabin owners. But wait......

Is this......it couldn't be......could it......it is!!! It's "For Richer Or Poorer"?! Oh, woe is me. And right next to "Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood"?! A few places over from the syrupy dreck of "The Cider House Rules"? I need something here, cabin owners! You're losing me! I'm fading! Wait!

"Mars Attacks!" I'll take it, sir. I could do a whole post on the genius of Natalie Portman in that film (she's so understated that she almost becomes overstated), not to mention at least a few lines about the President and the First Lady eating off TV trays, not to also mention several sentences on Tom Jones being able to fly a plane.

"Castaway" has a some game, I guess, and I supposed I didn't abhor "Chocolat" and, well, I dig the opening credits to "For Love Of The Game" (and the music over them) but......

A Gene Hackman "Class Action" / "Runaway Jury" Double Feature DVD? Are you kidding me here? Not to mention the unofficial Brad Pitt "Seven Years In Tibet" / "Troy" Double Feature? "War of the Roses" and "The Quick and The Dead" cancel each other out but seriously, picking the Ben Affleck Jack Ryan with "The Sum Of All Fears" isn't doing anyone any favors.

I don't know, cabin owners, after a nice start you're losing ground. I may not be able to give this collection a passing grade. Unless......wait, what's this? "Reefer Madness"? A three disc collection of films from the 30's showcasing the evil wiles of marijuana use? Including one film called, obviously, "Marihuana" (correct spelling), with the following synopsis (recorded word-for-word in my notebook - I stress this is not made up or embellished):

"A young woman drowns while skinny dipping at a beach party. Another teen gets pregnant after a turn with her boyfriend in the sand. Both horrors are a result of dope smoking. The mother-to-be gives up her baby and becomes a hardened drug dealer."

That's what I'm talkin' about, cabin owners! That's bold! That's outta left field! That's what 1936 guidance counselors must have been showing their students in class! You put "Marihuana" on the same shelf as "Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood" and you're clearly working on an advanced level!

Thus, on the strength of "Marihuana", "Ocean's Twelve", "Sense and Sensibility" and that Tom Cruise movie with Billy Crudup, I rate these strangers' DVD collection a good solid.........seven and a half. (Anyone?)

Give It Up (Two Essential Links)

Last Thursday, within the space of a couple hours, I read two posts that made my proverbial juke joint jump. Pardon the language, but these pieces are my kinda shit.

My friend Becky writes a deliriously mesmerizing ode to the museum experience.

The Mad Hatter had a unique experience while taking in "Paris Je T'Aime" and re-creates it majestically.

I'm not worthy!!!

The Old 96er

"Oh, good God."

The Night I Got Zola'd

My sincere, desperate apologies to everyone for writing about music again on this movie blog but 1.) Music for me in 2011 is turning into what movies in 2007 were for me and 2.) After what happened last Saturday I had absolutely no choice but to write this. Regular readers know that in the face of such epic beautifulness my fingers are unable to prevent themselves from typing. I tried to fight it off, but it poured out anyway. Thank you for your patience.

Working The Stage is a euphemism often associated with seeing Bruce Springsteen live. In fact, during the "Magic" tour of 2007, writing for the venerable New York Times, Jon Pareles employed that very phrase. Often during his shows, Bruce will run from one end of the stage to the other and back, over and over. I had never seen another performer in person do this so consistently......until last Saturday night.

Last Saturday, Chicago's heat-ridden Pitchfork Music Festival was mostly a drastically disappointing affair. (Except for this song by Cold Cave. That song knocked me all the way to Door County, Wisconsin. Freaking fantastic, and just as good was the band's second lieutenant keyboardist who looked like Win Butler but acted like a Male Regine Chassagne, in as much as he spent as much time dancing away from his keyboard as he did playing on his keyboard. Loved that guy.) The Blue Stage, the smallest venue at the fest, was running behind, the sound had been an ongoing problem and most fest-goers were fleeing for D.J. Shadow followed by the headliners, The Fleet Foxes. Imagine you came on at the tail-end of a scorching day to a sparse crowd with sound bleeding over. I'd waited all day for this but I'll be honest, I was worried. And then......

Ladies and gentleman, the 6th Female Bruce Springsteen.

She made her entrance in a dress that wouldn't look entirely out of place on Stefani Germanotta, a dress that brought to mind a blonde-haired medusa in an eerie painting of a toiling, rolling sea, and, lo and behold, she worked that stage like New Jersey's most famous son, turning the fest's tiniest stage into a twilight-infused, tree-ringed St Peter's Basilica. She abandoned the microphone stand time and again and ran from one end of the stage to the other and then back again and then back again and then, etc. Just like Bruce. She danced, and she didn't dance in the way of soulless choreography - no, she danced freely, doing as she pleased, unconcerned with what anyone may have thought, which, to paraphrase John Cusack in "High Fidelity", gave her grace. She spun and lifted her hands to the heavens and headbanged. And her voice......she sang......it sounded the same as......

......a fallen angel that looks like Kate Beckinsale in "Underworld."

In my obscenely melodramatic existence I have this ridiculous need to quantify every female artist I listen to in relation to Bruce Springsteen which is why there is this ongoing battle in my mind for The Female Bruce Springsteen, and every artist that has ever held the title has encapsulated a portion of Bruce that I hold dear. Lucinda has the voice and Neko has the lyrics and Kathleen has the emotionalism and Tift has the earnestness and Gaga has the histrionics and now Zola, the 6th Female Bruce Springsteen, has the stage presence and, even more, the euphoria. 

She is always described as "goth." I call her goth. When I told my sister I was going to Pitchfork I explained I was going primarily to see "my goth girl." It's shorthand, I suppose, but this stigma is unfair. In the aforementioned article by Mr. Pareles he also wrote this about Springsteen: "He’s as serious as any public figure alive, but he leaves audiences euphoric." To listen to Zola and to see her live is to see someone that makes music awash in solemn, albeit hard-hitting, bone-crushing, seriousness, but leaves you euphoric. No, no, no, she leaves you drenched in euphoria.

Sarah Vowell, in her classic essay "American Goth" in which she became a goth for a day, wrote this: "Goths...are the pale-faced, black-clad, vampiric types with forlorn stares framed by raccoon eye makeup. The name derives, of course, from 'gothic,' a style, according to my dictionary, 'emphasizing the grotesque, mysterious and desolate.'" So we are meant to assume, I suppose, that the music of Zola Jesus - which envelopes you in a sort of fierce sameness, marked so often by those martial drums that come across like a romantic's heartbeat, that, if you're paying attention, branches out into different, subtle directions - is "grotesque, mysterious and desolate." I can only speak for myself, of course, but I have never - not once - been struck with that feeling from a Zola Jesus song. Last year when I first fell in love with her music I wrote this: "Her music makes me feel like I'm driving through New Mexico beneath a cloudless sky with a killer cup of coffee and a full heart." I stand by that sentiment.

Goth, not goth, whatever, all I know is last Saturday I wasn't at a Springsteen show but, for the first time in my life, still felt like I was on E Street.

(Note: You can watch a song from her performance here if you would like, and I recommend that you do, but please, please, please be advised that the sound is rather rough and it doesn't truly do justice to the sensation of having been there - because no video ever can and because you really needed to be there to feel that immense wall of sound - but it might at least give you an idea.)

Where Did You Go, Kerri Green? (No! Never Mind! I Don't Want To Know!)

Rock musician Jeff Buckley tragically drowned at the age of 30 in the Mississippi River and, thus, in the words of Chuck Klosterman, "his album 'Grace' instantly evolved from 'slightly better than good' to 'totally classic.'"

Marilyn Monroe tragically passed at away at age 36 and, thus, guaranteed she would always be age 36, the blonde pop icon standing over the subway grate in the white dress forever and ever.

Kerri Green, the teen actress those of us who grew up in the eighties, particularly those of us who were idiot adolescent males, remember so fondly, did not pass away, but once the Me Decade concluded, she entirely of her own choosing vanished from the pop culture landscape, never to return.

And I realized re-watching her as the uber-lovable Andy, Josh Brolin's hopeful squeeze, in "The Goonies," that to the majority of us she will always be that same teenage girl. She will never grow up, never get old. She will always be Andy, innocently incandescent. She will always be John Candy's daughter in "Summer Rental," not the obligatory "I-hate-my-dad-he's-so-stupid" daughter, but kind, loving, and hopeful her father can maybe just do a little bit better. She will always be Maggie in "Lucas," where, you might be remember, she shared scenes with the quarterback of the high school football team played by, ahem, Charlie Sheen who hell be damn sure no one will ever remember as "Cappie from 'Lucas.'"

You can, of course, in this day and age find pictures of the latter day Kerri Green on the interweb and while I suppose it looks like her, it also doesn't, specifically because she hasn't been omnipresent in the entertainment world for a couple decades and she was free to mature on her own and out of the eye of the feeding frenzy of the Access Hollywoods of the world.

Isn't there something refreshing about a child star who chose to dictate the terms of her life and be remembered the way she saw fit? She somehow pulled the trick of both burning out and fading away, and yet not really doing either of those things. She's something far more rare.

Kerri Green: a cinematic non period comet.

Local Hero & The Misleading Synopsis

Often I find people who will judge the viewing worth of a film solely on the trailer and/or synopsis. This is unspeakably dangerous. Have you ever seen the trailer for "Sugar," the miraculous 2009 film about a Dominican baseball prospect who comes to the States? The trailer presents it as an utterly typical sports movie, following the expected beats, the cliched EKG format, through its entire two minutes, making it seem as if the film will conclude with our pitching hero on the mound with the ball in hand to win the Big Game.

The movie could not be more different. There are a few expected developments, sure, but those are handled with a realistic grace and not only does it not conclude with the Big Game, it does not conclude (figuratively) on the baseball diamond. The last act is so unexpectedly refreshing when I watched it in the theater I could have sworn I was smelling the sweet grass of a dewy meadow. (A dewy meadow?) The point is, if you judged that film by its preview, you would have missed out.

The synopsis for "Local Hero" (1983) on Netflix is as follows: "In this good-natured fish-out-of-water comedy, disenchanted Texas oil tycoon Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster) sets out to buy an entire Scottish town in order to drill offshore. When one curmudgeon stands in his way -- he refuses to sell his precious beach -- Happer calls off his negotiating dogs and visits the town himself to finish the deal. Of course, it's not long before the quirky, small-town vibe works its magic on this cynical outsider."

Reading this, you think one thing: I've seen the movie. Except you haven't. Not even close. My God, is this synopsis off. First things first, Lancaster's Felix Happer isn't even the main character. No, the main character would be MacIntyre (Peter Riegert, who you most likely "remember" as fictional NBC President James Kimbrough on the "Seinfeld" series finale). He's the hotshot salesman at the oil company sent by Happer across the Atlantic to buy an entire Scottish town in order to drill offshore. He's the cynical outsider on whom the quirky, small-town vibe works it magic.

Except to say that is sort of a disservice because 1.) The dude isn't presented as all that cynical, just a little wary because Happer thinks he has Scottish roots when he doesn't and 2.) The film is so low-key, so understated, so intent on refusing to throw a quirky, small-town vibe pie in the face of its audience. The locals may be colorful and they may be personable but they're not wacky and they're not all up in your face. They just sort of let the town's aura quietly and slowly wash over MacIntyre rather than force it on him, and MacIntyre's transition is so easy-going it's almost as if the character hasn't even realized it's happened once it has.

Even better, though, is Happer. Again, reading the synopsis one easily conjures up the image of Burt Lancaster in a ten gallon hat, shouting "yee haw!", and wondering when the Highlands are going to incorporate rodeo. Instead we quickly learn that Happer's #1 passion isn't oil, it's astronomy. He seems less concerned with MacIntyre's reports on the potential sale of the town than on MacIntyre's reports of how the wide open Scottish sky looks. The film's most beautiful moment is a slighly drunken MacIntyre doing his best to report on the aurora borealis via telephone to Happer back in Houston. And Happer just sits there, smiling, at his desk, and the way Lancaster says the line "You're a lucky man, MacIntyre" makes you know he really means it. Procuring the sale is insignificant in the face of the honest-to-goodness northern lights, and when Happer finally, inevitably, shows up on the scene his presence just illuminates that thought.

The way the town and the area and the essence gently reveals itself to MacIntyre throughout made me realize that if I'd judged the DVD solely on its Netflix synopsis, the movie never would have done the same thing to me.

My 10 Favorite Firsts

Anna at Split Reel concocted a pretty rad list all with, well, it's a fairly self-explanatory title. I was left with absolutely no choice whatsoever but to rip it off. Wish me luck.

My Favorite Directorial Debut:
"The Myth Of Fingerprints" by Bart Freundlich (And likely the only good movie he'll ever make.)

My Favorite Acting Debut:
Kate Winslet, "Heavenly Creatures"

The First Movie Theater Experience That Moved Me:
"Groundhog Day" (Read About It Here)

The First Film Character I Had The Hots For:
Sloane Peterson, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

The First Film Character That Annoyed The Hell Out Of Me:
Jim Carrey as The Riddler

The First French Film I Saw:
"La Cage aux Folles"

The First Asian Movie I Saw:
"Rashomon."

The First Movie Poster On My Wall:
"Ghostbusters"

The First Time I Thought The Film Was Better Than The Book:
"Jurassic Park"

The First Time I Realized Robert De Niro Is A Genius:
Jimmy Conway in "Goodfellas"

A Scene For Today

Rob: "I always hated that song."
Barry & Dick: "Yeah."
Rob: "Now I kinda like it."
Barry & Dick: "Yeah." 
Barry: "I wanna date a musician."
Rob: "I wanna live with a musician. She'd write songs at home and ask me what I thought of them. Maybe even include one of our little private jokes in the liner notes."
Barry: "Maybe a little picture of me in the liner notes."
Dick: "Just in the background somewhere."

-"High Fidelity"

Countdown To The Tribe Doc Is Almost Over

1.) Am I the only one in Chicago currently less excited for the opening of "Harry Potter" than for the opening of "Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest"? I mean, if Phife Dawg had run the Hogwart School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

2.) Am I allowed to wear my Tribe Called Quest tee shirt when I see the movie in the theater? Or is that like wearing a band tee shirt to that same band's concert?

3.) ONE DAY!

ONE DAY!!!

ONE DAY!!!!!!

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

The Greatest Harrison Ford Line Reading Of All Time?

It's easy to assume the answer to this question would arrive via the venerable "Star Wars" franchise. Perhaps when everyone's favorite Princess (sorry, Kate) says "I love you" and Ford's Han Solo replies - say it with me! - "I know." Or maybe you think it comes earlier in the same film when he declares: "You could use a good kiss!" Or when he wonders, not un-wrongly, "Who's scruffy looking?" Or simply when he calls Leia "Your worshipfulness." I mean, that's classic. Right? Worshipfulness is such a great word.

-"Your word is worshipfulness."
-"Could you use it in a sentence?"
-"Han Solo referred to Princess Leia as 'your worshipfulness.'"
-"Worshipfulness. W-O-R-S-H-I-P-F-U-L-N-E-S-S. Worshipfulness."

But, of course, you would be wrong. The Greatest Harrison Ford Line Reading Of All Time is found in his other most venerable franchise, the one in which he wears the fedora and bears the name of the place that houses the real Kokomo.

Yet I must stress, again, it's not what you're thinking. It's not: "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" It's not: "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." It's a line I heard when I happened to catch about 10 minutes of the movie this weekend on TV. It's this......

"You wanna talk to God? Let's go see him together. I've got nothing better to do."

You might recall the situation. Marion has just died, except, of course, as we will soon find out she hasn't died. But right now Ford's Indy thinks she has and that's all that matters. So he does what any self-respecting male would in such a situation - drowns his sorrow in whiskey. Eventually he is approached by a few menacing men who direct him to a public meeting with his nemesis, the French archaeologist Belloq. "Belloq," Indy says, "I oughta kill you right now."

Belloq is also searching for the ark of the covenant - except he's doing it on Hitler's duestche mark - and he's essentially the one responsible for getting Marion killed and he forces Indy to have a seat and then he goes on and on and on like so many villains do in such situations before finally getting to the main point of his thesis - that the ark is "a radio for talking to God." And, thus, Indy declares the aforementioned line.

It's the way Ford says it. The gruffness long before the gruffness became his be-all, end-all trait, the way he halts just slightly between each word as if he's savoring all of them, but then, briefly, it gets even better because he stands and goes for his gun. I don't know if it had ever completely clicked in my mind, even though I've seen "Raiders of the Lost Ark" dozens of times, but, hey, Indy's about to waste this guy right here in front of everyone. Cold, cold blood. It's not that far from Han blasting Greedo, really, except that Han was so laconic and Indy for this moment in time suddenly becomes psychotic. Although, as we know, everyone else in the place pulls guns and Sallah's kids show up right on cue and so it doesn't happen because it can't happen because then you don't have the rest of the movie which means Spielberg didn't wimp out but still......

It's at least a little fun to think about, isn't it? What if Indy really had killed Belloq right then? They would've gone to talk to God together. And even though we would've missed out on the rest of the movie and that would've sucked, well, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" never would've happened. That's something.

Horrible Bosses

Movies are really pretty simple. You can implement raunch and toothbrushes in butts and Jennifer Aniston mostly naked, sure, and you can even choose to forgo your main characters learning any type of valuable lesson, if you want, for the sake of comedy, but it still all comes down to setups and payoffs. "Horrible Bosses", like a long list of movies before it, is all setups and no payoffs. Well, there are payoffs, they're just lame and uninspired, as if the writers (John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein, Michael Markowitz) had a week to finish the whole script, spent the first six-and-a-half days working on the setups, became exhausted, and just prior to passing out engaged the Screenwriting Auto Pilot.

Nick (Jason Bateman) works for David Harken, played by Kevin Spacey with an elitist smarm that reminded me a little of his role as the anal retentive boss of the real estate office in "Glengarry Glen Ross." He has come in early and stayed late for years and years, all in the hope of landing a promotion as Senior Vice President Of Sales, a promotion that Harken decides to bestow upon himself instead. So Nick kinda hates his boss.

Dale (Charlie Day) works as a dental assistant for Dr. Julia Harris (Aniston). He's an easy-going guy with a shady past that's not actually as shady as it appears who yearns to do nothing more than get married to the lovely Stacy (Lindsay Sloane). Except it turns out Julia has designs on sexually harrassing her way into Dale's heart. The more he resists, the more she turns up the heat. So Dale kinda hates his boss.

Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) doesn't hate his boss, the genial Jack Pellit (Donald Sutherland). In fact, Jack tells Kurt that one day he'll probably he taking over the whole company. Except the instant after saying this Lou has a heart attack and dies, meaning that instead of the reigns being handed to Kurt they are handed to Jack's son, the incomprehensibly loutish, foul-mouthed, disgusting Bobby (Colin Farrell, teetering on the brink of unrecognizable in a bald cap with a bad combover). So Kurt kinda hates his new boss.

Thus the three address the hypothetical question of murdering their bosses which goes from hypothetical to reality in record time which finds them unwittingly tracking down a self-professed "murder consultant" (Jamie Foxx, who takes the art of sucking on a straw to new heights) and hatching a scheme wherein they will each off one of the other's bosses. This set-up has all sorts of potential. Imagine a modernish version of The Marx Brothers remaking Hitchock's "Strangers on a Train" (which gets name checked) by way of "Ruthless People." Except now imagine it's not as good as that premise sounds.

The bosses themselves are quite likely the high point. Spacey's good but Farrell one ups him and Aniston one ups him. I caught a ride back to Chicago from Des Moines last week with my friends Jeff and Maria and Maria spent much of the time reading gossip magazines in the front seat and then handing them back to me when she was finished which was how I learned that apparently in real life Ms. Aniston is dating Justin Theroeux, an actor I like who, as it turns out, doubles as a "bad boy" which, if the gossips are to be believed (and why wouldn't they be?) means Jennifer has been turning into a bit of a "bad girl." (She got her first tattoo!!!) Is this why she took the role? To impress Theroeux? If so, job well done. She's a femme fatale wielding a waterpik instead of a cigarette.

That said, the character doesn't much go anywhere or build to anything significant. Ditto Farrell. He seems squarely in his wheelhouse as a paranoid cokehead but his comeuppance is unfairly cheap. Spacey gets more screen time and, for lack of a better term, arc, yet the more he's around, the more the humor is strained. This, as it turns out, is the film's main motif. Foxx's "murder consultant" is set up nicely and then given a payoff beyond dull and obvious. Dale in his opening voiceover is all about getting married and being a husband but his fiancé is used as the crutch for one gag and then completely forgotten. And rather than the film escalating to a dizzyingly ridiculous conclusion that delivers the biggest laugh (or, at least, a suitably hilarious one), it instead devolves into - you guessed it! - a car chase. Really? To quote Luke Wilson from "Anchorman" after having his other arm lopped off by the bear: "Oh, come on!"

This is not to suggest the movie is entirely unfunny. Our trio of leads actually develop a nice a rapport even if Bateman is just being Bateman and Charlie is just being Charlie (Sudeikis, however, is beginning to strike me as someone who wants to be more than a Bateman but hasn't realized he doesn't have the necessary charisma to pull it off) and they have some great tossed off lines and little moments like Dale rocking out to to The Ting Tings in his car. (It's funny because it's true. Uh, at least in my case.) But is it so much to ask to go on a comedic roller coaster as opposed to just sitting in a dunk tank and having the screenwriters lob jokes at the target and pray that some of them hit?

"Horrible Bosses" didn't need to be masterpiece. It just needed to be, you know, better.

Personality Soup

Apparently this little cinematic exercise has been making its way around the blogs. I noticed it over at Andy's Film Emporium, and clearly was left with no choice but to take a crack at it. It's an exercise wherein you list the certain movie characters who most represent certain aspects of your personality, adding up, I suppose, in theory to a Movie You. Here's mine:

The Michael Cera Freaked Out Face.

Michael Cera. Even though he's 11 years younger than me, in just about every film you see featuring him he is a bit harried and most crucially he always gets what I like to term The Michael Cera Freaked Out Face. My closest friends are treated to my own version of The Michael Cera Freaked Out Face probably more than they would like. In fact, one out of every two photos taken of me includes this face.

Robert Lewis (Ewan McGregor), "A Life Less Ordinary." A hapless guy with a pitiful love life and a crummy job whose one dream is to write The Great American Trash Novel. Nonetheless, he is genuine, good-hearted and only means well. In a fit of desperation he kidnaps Cameron Diaz, yes, but he gives her a blanket after he ties her up and cooks her dinner. And while it's folly to suggest I could ever, uh, bed Cameron Diaz, if I did and she improbably said "You were great" my reaction, 100% guaranteed, would be to look confused and say: "I was?"

Otis (Carlos Jacott), "Kicking and Screaming." Antsy, though occasionally testy, Otis is a neurotic who avoids confrontation at all costs (drinking a beer with food in it rather than risking offending the waitress).

Otis: "I can't change my habits. I'll be sleeping all day, awake all night."
Max: "It's Milwaukee."
Grover: "It's only an hour's difference, Otis. You won't even notice."
Otis: "I'll be hungry at five. I'll be ready for the local news at four."

Rob Gordon (John Cusack), "High Fidelity." It's not simply that I live in Chicago and am an obsessive and hyperbolic music fan but also that I recently caught a look of myself in a mirror and thought, "Oh my God, I'm starting to dress like John Cusack in 'High Fidelity.'" Which is to say I'm becoming just a bit of a hipster dufus. And I'm okay with it.

Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale), "Serendipity." Rest assured, the only person more obsessed with the issues of fate and destiny than yours truly, is Beckinsale's Sara.