Yes, Malin Akerman Is Still My Official Cinematic Crush

Yesterday if you were watching CNN and/or E! you may have seen the following newsflash scroll along the bottom of the screen:

Report: Cinema Romantico To Re-Name Katie Holmes As Official Cinematic Crush Following News Of Holmes And Tom Cruise Divorcing.

This, of course, was because Katie Holmes was Cinema Romantico's O.O.C.C. (Original Official Cinematic Crush) only to cede her throne when she agreed to wed the Cruise-ster.

Therefore I feel the need to publicly announce today that in spite of these rumors Malin Akerman IS and will REMAIN for the foreseeable future Cinema Romantico’s Official Cinematic Crush. Absolutely and Unequivocally. This is NOT changing.

Yes, Malin Akerman is still my official Cinematic Crush, so just calm down.

In fact, I have gone so far as to contact my lawyer to contact CNN and E! to demand a retraction. Though it should be noted my lawyer is actually my friend Dave (who conducts business from Goldie’s Lounge – Home of the $1 PBR! – between games of pool) and, thus, these retractions most likely will not happen.

Then again, the timing of this divorce coupled with the timing of so many stories about Malin Akerman and Tom Cruise French-kissing in "Rock of Ages" does make me a bit worried.

Tom wouldn’t steal my Official Cinematic Crush twice, would he?

Friday's Old Fashioned: Fat City

I recorded John Huston’s 1972 film “Fat City” off Turner Classic Movies and TMC host Robert Osborne found himself with co-host Ellen Barkin who explained that the forthcoming film was not only one of the most influential on her as a fledgling actress but a film that found Huston, a pioneer of classic film, leaving behind his classical tendencies to make something influenced by the more rogue and gritty filmmaking that was then populating the art form. This you can tell from “Fat City’s” opening moments which pairs a tough-luck musical score with raw, on-location shots of a Stockton, Calfornia that would seem to have seen better days (if, in fact, it HAD better days).

Eventually the camera moves indoors and finds our main character, Billy Tully (Stacy Keach), laying in bed in a broken down one room apartment. He lights up a cigarette. If the first thing you do upon waking up is smoke a cigarette without getting out of bed, well, you probably have a issues. (It’s like leaving a bar in the middle of the day and declaring “I’m drunk”, which happens later.) At this point Kris Kristofferson’s sorrowful “Help Me Make It Through The Night” picks up on the soundtrack and now the camera follows Tully as he readies himself – sort of – for the day and trudges about town. Yeah, this is a long way from classic film, all right. Long and ponderous takes in that washed out 70s look with pop music for accompaniment. It truly sets the vibe.

The setting, I suspect, is crucial. I remember years ago watching “The Trigger Effect” with a friend of mine and when the characters left behind Los Angeles in the wake of a power outage to find themselves in a more desolate section of California my friend and I both dismissed this: “That’s not how California looks.” Of course, we’d never been there and had no idea what we were talking about. Only when I found myself in central California several years later did I realize, “Oh, that’s exactly how California looks.” It’s climate is not coastal and in the summer it was dry and hot. Set smack-dab between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Pacific Ocean it lends the feeling of a population that had struck out for the promise of the coast, only to fall short and wind up here instead.

Tully was once a decent boxer, decent enough to make a living at it, but now he’s down and out of shape. He limps to a gym for a little training and happens upon 18 year old Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges). They spar. Tully can tell the kid’s got somethin’. He recommends Ernie pay a visit to his old coach, Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto). A familiar pattern seems to be emerging – mentor and protégé. But Huston’s film – and Leonard Gardner’s novel upon which the film was based – ignore this pattern. Ernie’s not really as up and coming as he seems, losing his first two real fights. Tully, meanwhile, continually pledges that he’s going to get himself back into shape and get a few fights, like an alcoholic who keeps swearing that this next drink is his last. Or HER last, like Oma (Susan Tyrrell), the local lush with whom Tully begins a rough and tumble relationship that involves a lot of day drinking and a lot of night drinking and, by extension, a lot of verbal sparring which prevents him from actually sparring in the ring. 

Tyrrell, nominated for an Oscar for supporting actress, is perhaps the film’s lone link to the past. It’s a showy role filled with slurred words and extravagant gestures and she plays it to the hilt, credibly earning our sympathy and Tully’s even if her only skills in life seem to be draining a bottle and hurling criticism. There is a magnificent scene in which Tully is lamenting his lot in life to a nameless couple humoring him. Huston includes every shot of Tully with Oma in the frame beside him, a boozed-up vacant look in her eyes that isn’t vacant at all. Her nagging is a means of calling him out.

Eventually he will climb back in the ring with his old pal Ruben in the corner but this fight is literally and figuratively thousands of miles and several years away from Rocky vs. Apollo. This is a back alley brawl set in a boxing ring, two aged, exhausted men hanging on for survival. Tully wins in the end but, of course, whether or not he really wins is open for debate. The victory doesn’t even earn him enough to cover his debts after Ruben takes his cut. He slips. He slides. He’s a man fortunate enough to get “one last shot” and blockheaded enough to blow it in spite of having his arm raised.

The end finds Tully back to being down and out and, drunk, he happens upon Ernie who has gotten married and had a kid and finally won a fight and seeing Tully staggering nearby he tries to flee but his car won't start. (Believable, by the way, in this movie.) Reluctantly, Ernie agrees to a cup of coffee. Tully gives some rambling advice to which Ernie pretends to pay heed. Then they just sit there sipping coffee in another long and ponderous take, and we realize "Fat City", after all, was very much about a mentor and a protégé. The protégé has learned he doesn't want to be anything like the mentor.

Go See Turn Me On, Dammit! 2.0

"The plot of 'Turn Me On (Dammit!)' resembles the Emma Stone comedy 'Easy A,' but the tone is darker and more challenging." - Chris Hewitt 

I like Emma Stone. She comes across as funny, intelligent and having a good head on her shoulders, not unlike her character in "Easy A." In fact, I suspect her character in "Easy A" would adore the itsy bitsy Norweigan film "Turn Me On, Dammit!" (In fact, Stone's mother in "Easy A" is played by Patricia Clarkson who hosted a screening of "Turn Me On, Dammit!" earlier this year to help build word of mouth which automatically earns her 575,000 bonus points from Cinema Romantico.)

(Reader: "Oh no. Is this idiot blabbering about that freaking movie from Norway AGAIN? When does it end with this guy?")

I mention my thoughts on Ms. Stone because I don't want you to assume that because of what I'm about to say I hold a grudge toward her. Quite the contrary. And what I'm about to say is this: Dear Chicagoans, next week "The Amazing Spider Man" (starring Emma Stone) opens but if you, like me, are stricken with sequel-itis and blockbuster-discontent then say no mas to "The Amazing Spider Man."

And I ask you to do this because The Siskel Center, in all its glory, is bringing Jannicke Systad Jacobson's marvelous "Turn Me On, Dammit!" back to Chi-town starting next Friday July 6th for a one week run. You should see this movie instead. (Check out all the showtimes here.) And if you still don't believe me, well, then perhaps you will believe my fantastic colleague, Mette, bless her heart, who called it "a film the world has been waiting for." (Truth.)

THIS IS YOUR CHANCE, CHICAGO!!!

This is your chance, Chicagoans, to tell Hollywood you genuinely want genuine, original storytelling and not another bloated 3D chunk. Remember, to see an unecessary Hollywood reboot when storytelling greatness awaits makes cowards of men.

Also, at the Siskel Center you can watch "Turn Me On, Dammit!" AND drink a beer! Everybody wins!

Dissecting A Scene From Raiders Of The Lost Ark

We have just been introduced to Marion (Karen Allen) at her bar in the mountains of Nepal where she has just won the infamous shot contest. Everyone at the bar is ushered out. As the last person leaves Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) himself enters. But we don't necessarily see him enter through the door. We see him enter as a humongous shadow cast against the wall, looming over Marion in the lower left hand part of the frame. I love this shot. No, no, no, no, I LOVE THIS SHOT. I love this shot so much I named it one of My 13 Most Iconic Movie Images.

Initially, Marion is taken aback. She adjusts quickly, smiles, laughs, throws a glass aside, and walks toward the camera which, crucially, allows her to become EVEN with the size of Indy's shadow. As in, nope, you're no bigger than I am. Not anymore, slugger.

"Indiana Jones," she says with that chuckle that is one part cocky, one part knowing, one part disbelieving. "Somehow I always knew you'd come walking back through my door."

Indy smiles. Marion loses the smile. She punches him. "I learned to hate you in the last ten years!" she exclaims, and he just stands there and takes his medicine. He deserves it. He knows it. Even if he says, "I never meant to hurt you." "I was a child!" she shouts. "I was in love! It was wrong and you knew it!"

It was wrong and you knew it. There are a lot of critics who argue there is little to no characterization in this greatest of the great action movies. I would argue, as I always do, that they are somehow missing likes this one. "It was wrong and you knew it." Indy is, of course, our hero. Yet, he apparently engaged in an age-inappropriate relationship that he KNEW was wrong only to go ahead and take part in anyway. You will find so-called dramas that don't have the size of those balls.

"You knew what you were doing," he dismisses. "Now I do," she retorts. "This is my place." And it is, it really is, because at that point a few people previously in the bar re-enter and she casts them back out.

From here they argumentatively banter and Indy makes it clear he needs a "worthless gold medallion" that, of course, is not really worthless at all that belonged to Marion's deceased father. He offers her "three thousand bucks" and "another two" when they get to the States. He grabs and turns her and the following exchange is set in glorious reverse shots supremely acted by Ford and Allen with their faces illuminated by a crackling fire.

Indy: "It's important, Marion. Trust me." (The look on his face when he says "trust me" is just MIND-BLOWING. It somehow says "Trust Me" while simultaneously saying "I Am Not To Be Trusted.")
-Marion goes to break free from his grip but he keeps her close and forces the wad of cash into her hand.
Indy: "You know the piece I mean? You know where it is?"
-Marion meanwhile has this shit-eating grin plastered to her face because she KNOWS she's got this archaeology guru who broke her heart right where she wants him after all these years she spent hating him.
Marion: "Come back tomorrow."
Indy: "Why?"
Marion: "Because I said so, that's why."

Now we switch to a wide shot of the bar. Marion turns and walks to a wooden table and takes a seat on top. Indy walks past, eyeing her warily. She just laughs. She says: "See you tomorrow, Indiana Jones."

And the shot of Indy at the door shows him pausing, looking back, sort of, and Ford brilliantly cluing us into the fact simply via that facial expression that he knows that by her saying see you tomorrow that there is no chance in hell that he is seeing her tomorrow. And then he leaves. And then we see Marion in a wide shot set in the ceiling just above rafter. And she looks like the loneliest person in the world.

She climbs off the table, walks around to the next table in line and has a seat. We see her straight on, the camera filming her face through the flame of a candle. She removes the aforementioned "worthless gold medallion" that isn't really worthless from within her shirt where it hangs via a chain. She looks at it, pondering it, as if it represents Indy himself since, hey, it sort of does. And what happens then?

The flame flickers.

Wild Target

Late in “Wild Target” our surrogate professional assassin (Bill Nighy) is explaining why his chief rival is not up to par and it is because he is needlessly barbaric. Except astute viewers will recall that much earlier in the movie as our surrogate professional assassin is tracking the inevitable love interest (Emily Blunt) whom he has been contracted to kill he follows her to a dressing room at an outdoor market, blasts a few bullets into the closed curtain, hears a body fall and turns to walk away only to see the inevitable love interest ahead of him and walking away. He returns to the chase, never mind that innocent person in the dressing room he just, you know, SHOT TO DEATH. Isn’t this……needlessly barbaric?

That, in a paragraph, is the foremost issue with Jonathan Lynn’s “Wild Target.” Or, more to the point, that is the foremost issue with Lucinda Coxon’s screenplay, it ignores the way it has chosen to it establish its characters in the first act to have them and do and say things that given the only context we have make absolutely no sense. Pity because Nighy and Blunt are two hella talented performers who can lock into these sort of roles with a tractor beam – he, a buttoned-up, closed-off baretta-wielding ninny who keeps fine china in glass cabinets and plastic over all the furniture. She, a Manic Pixie Con Artist, a kleptomaniac in the whimsical Winona Ryder vein with sauciness to burn.

The story: Rose (Blunt) employs a fake Rembrandt (and a blonde wig) to fleece Ferguson (Rupert Everett) out of a cool $900,000. Ferguson hires the enigmatic Victor Maynard (Nighy) to track her and take her out. At first, as they must, hijinxs prevent him from achieving his assignment until he is at last afforded a clear shot from a roof top and then……refrains from pulling the trigger. Why? Because she’s Emily Blunt, dammit, and she can’t be killed in the first reel, that’s why! Seriously, the screenplay offers no credible reason why he has suddenly reversed his stance unless, I guess, you count the whimsy with which she thieves someone’s orange juice. And hey, let’s face it, if I was an assassin and saw Malin Akerman thieve orange juice I’d swoon like the first time Warren Beatty’s Clyde laid eyes on Faye Dunaway’s Bonnie.

Victor’s mother (Eileen Atkins) – with whom Victor has a serious Claude Rains/Leopoldine Konstantin in Notorious vibe (if Notorious had been a screwball comedy, that is) – chastises him. Assassinations, you see, are the family business, passed down from Maynard to Maynard, and his failure to complete the contract could cook both their proverbial gooses. So Victor tries again only to instead find himself gunning down the OTHER assassin Ferguson had hired, rescuing Rose, collecting Tony (Rupert Grint), the unlucky drifter who happens to be smoking a cigarette nearby when he is thrust unwantingly into the line of duty, claiming that he is merely a private detective who happened along, and takes them back to his sterilized countryside home to hide out while Ferguson hires Victor’s chief rival, the aforementioned barbaric Hector Dixon (Martin Freeman), to find them.

It is at Victor’s home where the screenplay begins to suffer breakdowns so massive it is one of those they should present as a six week course to demonstrate what NOT to do. Despite establishing that Victor suffers from sexual confusion (he over-trims his banzai trees), the film fails to follow up inventively on this detail and instead rushes he and Rose into full-blooming love because……uh, because……because within something like 12 hours Rose just decides she loves him. There is convincing motivation for this because, in fact, there is NO motivation for this. Okay, so they’re in love. Now what? Why, we need a reversal, of course! So Rose snoops around Victor’s bedroom for reasons never made clear and for a brief moment I entertained the idea she might be conning Victor. Alas, she’s not. She’s just snooping so she can discover that he’s (gasp!) not a private detective but an assassin! And that (double gasp!) he was hired to kill her! Thus, she gets mad at him and, thus, decides she doesn’t love him anymore and, thus, runs away and, thus, the other assassin finds her and, thus……oh, you can hear the screenwriting machine creaking and crying out for badly needed oil.

Speaking of which, are we sure Lucinda Coxon isn’t the code name for the T-1000 Screenwriting Machine? Is that mean? I can’t help it. There’s this Dutch film called “Waiter” I saw at the 2006 Chicago Film Festival where the Waiter himself becomes so fed up with his life he breaks into the room where a writer is concocting his story to demand changes. I wanted Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt to break into the room holding the T-1000 Screenwriting Machine to demand changes.

Certified Copy

Once upon a time I was at a wedding. I met this girl. I really, really dug her. After the reception a bunch of us carried the frivolity back to a bar and she and I were sitting together – like, close together – and we were talking and it was awesome and I caught myself thinking at one point, “You know, anyone here who doesn’t know us looks at us would probably think we were married. Well, maybe not married, but in that first throes of a relationship when everything is joyful and you’re under the misguided impression it’s going to be joyful forever.” But then I thought, “Well, maybe they wouldn’t think that. Maybe they’d just think, Oh, those are two drunken idiots who hooked up at a wedding.” Either/Or when in reality we were neither. Perception from person to person can vary so wildly and swing so quickly. It reminds me of those miraculous lines from Mark Twain’s Adam & Eve Diary: “Been examining the great waterfall. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls. Why, I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility.”

A French woman (Juliette Binoche) and an English author, James Miller (William Shimell), who have only met but a couple hours ago are in a pictueresque coffee shop in the scenic Italian countryside. He gets a phone call and steps outside to take it. The woman working the counter compliments Binoche on her choice of a husband because she can tell by the kindly and patient way he treats her that he is a good spouse. They are, of course, not actually married. But Binoche never corrects the woman. And she discusses this James Miller as if they have been married for 15 years and have a child (which she – herself – does). So, this woman in the coffee shop closes up and goes home and lives the rest of her life thinking that nice woman and that nice man were married. That is her perception specifically because Binoche never attempts to alter that perception. And does Binoche possibly buy into that perception herself?

“Certified Copy”, the latest film from Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, is, as the title implies, a film that asks – often overtly – if a copy, if a reproduced piece of art is as valuable and/or authentic as the original piece of art itself. Is a $6 12x18 rolled-up recreation of Emmanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing The Delaware” as valuable as the original canvas that hangs in The Met? Yet, even more so, and even more so in retrospect, as you go over the words and the images of “Certified Copy” again and again, which you cannot help but do, you realize that it’s less about art than it is about the philosophical debate of epistemology. That is, just what the hell are we seeing?

The film opens at Miller’s reading of his latest book, ahem, “Certified Copy.” Binoche’s Woman – who remains nameless throughout – attends with her Beatle-haired 11 year old son whose distractedness at the whole event leads them to light out early, though not before Binoche gives her phone number to Miller’s editor with instructions to call her. He does and they meet and at this prodding they leave the town of Tuscany behind and light out by car for the countryside, chatting primarily about the relationship between copies and originals which weaves in and out of discourse on Binoche’s frustration with her family life and whether life itself is better if it is one of decided simplicity as opposed to one bound to an oppressive go-getter attitude. Then they go to the coffee shop and that is when something most unexpected occurs.

It’s not a twist in the Shyamalan sense of the word but if you don’t wish to know the sudden left turn “Certified Copy” takes then I suggest you read no further. Which is to say that as Binoche and Miller continue walking and talking after their coffee break it quickly dawns on us that their manner of speaking has morphed into that of a couple married for 15 years. And this is because as near we can tell that is precisely what has happened. Or is that what they were all along? Were they play-acting leading up to this marital bickering? Or did they decide to start play-acting while they were in the coffee shop and they aren’t really married at all? To quote “Kill Bill’s” Earl McGraw: “Good gravy marie.”

There are echoes of other films all over the place – like, say, “Before Sunrise/Before Sunset”, two films in which two people strolled scenic European locales and talked. Heck, just like “Before Sunset” this film opens at a book reading and establishes the Looming Deadline Device. (Miller has to be back to catch a train at 9.) Other critics have compared it to Rossellini’s “Journey To Italy.” Perhaps it's an art house "When In Rome"? But do you know what film popped into my mind most? David Lynch’s “Lost Highway.” Remember when Bill Pullman is arrested and locked up and the next morning the cops go to the jail cell only to discover Bill Pullman has become……Balthazar Getty? That’s what I thought of when this woman and this man left the coffee shop as a married couple. What’s happening? More crucially, HOW is this happening? Who knows? Who cares? We’re like Gil Pender in “Midnight In Paris”, baby. Don’t ask HOW, just go along for the ride.

Of course, the ride needs to be exciting on its own terms. It is. Acting goes a long way when there is essentially only two of you and the leads both deliver performances worthy of superlatives, particularly Ms. Binoche. From moment to moment she effortlessly shifts from enchanting to frustrated and convincingly portrays a person often frazzled by the fact her mind seems to be several places at once. Shimell meanwhile is playing two different people within the same part – observant and courteous in the first one, wearied and insulting in the next. And though the story is ready-made for confusion and lack of an arc, Kiarostami cleverly builds the film through the dialogue. The dialogue is the narrative because everything said in the first half sets up and carries us through to the second half. Though despite all that we are still left at the end with questions as to just what we are seeing. The answer?

That's up to you.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Alice (Or, Is Woody Allen Sort Of A Lazy Writer?)

--Can a film from 1990 officially be called "old fashioned"? Sure. Why not? Also, this review wound up being less about "Alice" than a pontification on Woody Allen's whole career. My advance apologies. I couldn't help it. You will see why.

A little ways into Woody Allen’s enjoyable lark “Small Time Crooks” (2000) the Woodman and his band of criminal misfits have accidentally tunneled from under the cover of a cookie shop to a dress shop next door as opposed to the intended bank. They stand in the dress shop with their hard-hats and shovels, baffled. Woody suggests they could just tile up the hole. Uh, never mind the question of getting cement, how they are going to close the hole and tile it when they’re inside the store? The question is never answered. Instead the police officer (Brian Markinson) who was so taken with the cherry cinnamon cookies being peddled by The Woodman’s wife appears and threatens to haul them off to jail unless they heed his advice to franchise the cookie shop and bring him in as partner, which they do. How the floor is repaired and/or how their ruse is covered up is never addressed, not even in throwaway.

In many ways this scene speaks as a whole to the way Woody writes – that is, he is less interested in the precise mechanics of his narrative then he is in exploring the ideas and themes contained within that narrative. This was true even of his recently acclaimed “Midnight In Paris” which, as my friend Becky astutely noted, “was sullied by the main character's complete lack of struggle or self awareness. Owen Wilson's character did nothing to achieve the realization that an artist has no choice but to live in the present moment. Each and every thing he hoped for in the movie was handed to him from on high.” I dare say these points are inarguable. Yet, at the same, it's just The Woodman’s way. Ol’ Gil Pender was merely the underdeveloped character he used to develop his whimsical film about those very ideas. As many critics have noted before, Woody Allen’s characters rarely ever do anything Woody Allen isn’t telling them to do.

Much like “Midnight In Paris”, “Alice” (1990) – which leaves me but one film shy (“Another Woman”) of what has turned into a 14 year project to see every film Allen has written & directed – is very much about the fantastical. The title character (Mia Farrow) is a Manhattan-styled housewife who leads a life of shopping, massages and home renovation. Her husband (William Hurt) is never really around even if he’s always there and, thus, her life, as it must, adds up to steaming plate of nothing, despite her two children – children who primarily exist, of course, to work as a conduit to her Meet Cute with Joe Mantegna’s handsome jazz obsessive named, uh, Joe.

Most crucially, however, her back hurts. No doubt her back hurts on account of the stress of the empty existence she is leading. Or this what she assumes until she visits the highly recommended Dr. Yang in Chinatown who asks her to look into a spinning wheel and deduces that no, the problem has nothing to do with her back – it’s in her……wait for it……heart. Thus, Yang starts handing out herbs – make that, magic herbs, herbs that can cause her to become a Marie Browning-esque seductress and to become invisible.

Ah yes. Invisible. How convenient! This allows Alice to see Joe's true feelings for his ex-wife and this allows Alice to see that her husband really is cheating on her. She doesn't even have to do any real leg work. She applies her own version of a cloaking device and presto! She's got the goods! And, rest assured, it only gets worse because in the end darling Alice decides she will flee her husband with the kids in tow for Calcutta to work with Mother Teresa. Now......getting to Calcutta to chill out with Mother Teresa would take a little work, no? Of course, we see NONE of this work. Now......having a life-changing experience with Mother Teresa would take a little work, no? Of course, we see NONE of this work. It's told via montage. A montage! Apparently sainthood takes all of, what, sixty seconds?

You could argue - as Vincent Canby of the esteemed New York Times did in his original review - that it is all "magical realism"and, thus, yours truly needs to lighten the hell up and just go with the flow. I would counter that the Woodman is using the "magical realism" as a crutch to avoid doing any heavy lifting when it comes to writing. If it's a one-off, maybe not. But clearly there is a pattern here to Woody's work.

Allen's amusing 1995 film "Mighty Aphrodite" was, amongst other things, a commentary on the original Greek storytelling structure including, but not limited to, the fabled deus ex machina, a phrase which in Latin means "god from the machine." This was the device whereby a "god" would literally descend via machine to the stage to resolve all the conflict, and near the end of "Mighty Aphrodite" a helicopter descends from the sky to provide a once-and-for-all love interest for the Mira Sorvino character which leads the narrator to say out loud "Boy, talk about a deus ex machina." This is funny, sure, but it's also telling.

In fact, years earlier in Allen's one act play called "God", God Himself, acting as the grandest of all deus ex machinas, swoops down in a chariot to save the main character and resolve all the conflict but as God is lowered to the stage he gets stuck in the very wire that is lowering Him and winds up strangled to death instead. A messenger then arrives with a telegram for the main character: "God is dead. You're on your own." Again, quite funny, but also telling.

How many times can you employ a dues ex machina and then just laugh it off by essentially saying, "I'm making fun of the device." I would have liked to see if Alice could have gotten along WITHOUT those magic herbs, just like in a way I wonder (as much as I enjoyed the film) what would have happened to Gil Pender if that antique car hadn't pulled up at midnight.

Mohican Monopoly

To coincide with Hasbro’s recent announcement of a version of their famed board game “Monopoly” based on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film “The Godfather”, Hasbro and Twentieth Century Fox Pictures have announced plans to create a version of “Monopoly” based on Michael Mann’s 1992 film “Last of the Mohicans.”

The game will feature noted locales from the 1757-set action/adventure/romantic epic such as Fort William Henry, Fort Edward, Lake George, Huron Village, Cameron’s Cabin and, of course, Cantuckee & The Place Where Alice Jumped (i.e. Park Place & Boardwalk). Utilities have become the Well and the Candle. Houses are Cabins and Hotels are Forts. The Railroads are a Horse, a Birch Canoe, a Stagecoach and a photo of Daniel Day Lewis running.

What character piece will YOU be? Will you be Hawkeye’s musket? Chingachcook’s battle axe? Cora’s flintlock pistol? Dunan’s bayonet? (Who would want to be Duncan’s bayonet?) Colonel Munro’s gray hair? General Montcalm’s pantaloons? Magua’s earring? Jack Winthrop’s tricorne? 

Whoever you are just hope you pass “Go” and collect $200 in beads and strong whiskey. If you’re not so lucky you might wind up in the Stockade or have to draw a “Chance” card which could find you “hung for sedition” or “shot for desertion” or, worst of all, learning that “The Great Sachem has decreed that you be burned in the fire.” But then you also might "Come across a war party and track 'em" and, thus, collect $50.

The possibilities are endless! The outcomes too numerous to imagine! The fun guaranteed to be non-stop! And if you think this is merely yet another shameless money grab, well, you're probably right. After all, those are the ways of the Yengeese and the Francais traders and their masters in Europe infected with the sickness of greed.

Don't See The New Dark Knight Rises Trailer Here!

We COULD show you the fourth trailer for the forthcoming event of events "The Dark Knight Rises."

OR we could show you the trailer for 1984's "Streets of Fire."

Hypothesizing Billy Crudup's Part In The Watch

We're all friends here, right? We can be honest with each other, yes? Excellent. So then we can all agree that the preview for the Vince Vaughn/Ben Stiller/Jonah Hill ostensible comedy in which they fend off an alien invasion, "Neighborhood Watch" - er, "The Watch", looks terrible. Well, not terrible. Mediocre. But more than just mediocre. Depressingly mediocre. But no, not depressingly. More like......tiredly. Tiredly mediocre. Like it's so mediocre it just makes you tired and desperate to lay down for a nap. Except that, of course, is not our most pressing issue today. No, our most pressing issue today is the fact that Billy Crudup, my favorite actor, the actor whose ENTIRE oeuvre I have seen (yes, even "Eat, Pray, Love"), is in "Neighborhood Watch" - er, "The Watch." And that means I have to see it. Which brings us right along to the second problem and, by extension, ultimate question.

Billy Crudup is not in the tiredly mediocre preview for "Neighborhood Watch" - er, "The Watch."

Where are you, Billy? WHO are you?

Every description I can find of the part he is set to play in "Neighborhood Watch" - er, "The Watch" - is of the "creepy neighbor" (per movieweb.com). Nextmovie.com describes his character thusly: "Every town has one: the creepy, weird, maybe slightly off (to put it nicely) resident." Indiewire describes him as "a creepy and weird neighbor" and then goes on to ask "Correct us if we're wrong, but it sounds like Crudup's going to be putting on the bad guy hat for this one?"

Hmmmmmm. The bad guy. Is that why he's not seen in the preview? I am made to remember the time many years ago I first saw the preview for Mel Gibson's "Ransom" and when it ended the friend I was watching with turned to me and said, "Well, obviously Gary Sinise is the bad guy." "Why?" I wondered. "Because he's hardly in the preview!" my friend countered. And, of course, my friend was right.

But I don't think so. I think if his character is established as the "creepy and weird neighbor" it would be far too obvious to then go ahead and make him the bad guy. Nope, I'm wagering that Billy Crudup is going to assume The Old Man With The Snow Shovel In "Home Alone" Role. He SEEMS creepy and weird only to swoop in and save the day at a crucial moment and prove himself to merely be......wait for it......misunderstood.

Either way, I really don't want to watch this movie. Not that it's going to stop me. I am, after all, an idiot.

Prometheus

Locke: "That's why you and I don't see eye to eye, sometimes, Jack because you're a man of science."

Jack: "Yeah, and what does that make you?"

Locke: "Me? Well, I'm a man of faith."

These lines are from the Season 1 finale of "Lost." The episode was written by Damon Lindelof. Damon Lindelof (and Jon Spaights) wrote the screenplay for "Prometheus". So while "Prometheus" will be very much billed as "A Ridley Scott Film" - and while it does contain numerous gorgeous and vast images - it has Lindelof's fingerprints ALL over it.

Consider the moment late the film - the context of which I will not reveal - when our main character, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace), who has been without her precious cross pendant for much of the film has the pendant returned to her and places it back around her neck. This image clearly symbolizes Elizabeth holding onto her faith (she's a woman of faith, you see). Except then the android character, David (Michael Fassbender), says: "After all this you still believe, don't you?" That is such a hallmark of Lindelof it hurts. Why let the image speak for itself when you can show the image and then thwack the audience in the face with the words from your laptop to overemphasize the meaning of the image?

Crissakes, the name of the movie is "Prometheus." Remember, Lindelof, who co-created "Lost" with J.J. Abrams, was responsible for a character named JOHN LOCKE. Why simply allude to the noted English philosopher when you can just name the whole character after him? Prometheus was the Greek God who created man from clay, and as "Prometheus" opens in a spectacular wide open shot set against a thundering river we see some sort of extra-terrestrial being that looks suspiciously like a souped-up human who may as well be a cinematic Prometheus appear to sacrifice himself to create man. As in, us. Human folk.

Thus, a spaceship called Prometheus takes to the stars to track down a distant planet to act on the information Dr. Shaw and her fellow archaeologist/boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover in a secluded cave via a drawing which they determine to be both a map and invitation from what they suspect are humanity's creators. The mission is funded by aged billionaire Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) and commanded by ice queen Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) whose tightly coiled blonde hair looks so frigid you could probably bounce a baseball off it. And that's why the ship's technical captain Janek (Idris Elba, kind of referencing Yaphet Kotto and Al Matthews at once) suspects she must be a robot, not unlike Fassbender's David the Android (who apparently styles himself after T.E. Lawrence) who in the tradition of androids might possess his own agenda.

The Prometheus sets down upon discovery of a potentially man-made structure ("God doesn't build in straight lines") and off the archaeologists and for-hire accomplices go and because this film still takes place in the "Alien" universe, well, for all the big picture queries it still wants to do the Monster Mash and make sly little nods to the original. (The best of which involves a nifty take on John Hurt's famous chest-bursting sequence, though it could certainly be a read in an entirely different light, too, depending on how seriously you want to take this whole venture.) And this often makes it feel as if it (sort of admirably) brings too much to the table.

Scott and Lindelof clearly made a film intended to be ABOUT what it is about more than about WHO it is about, which is why all the characters here go no further than archetypes. And that's fine. What isn't so fine is the way they insist on their film's deeper meaning by having these characters constantly, over and over, TELL us what the movie is about. That, admittedly, is one of the most ancient complaints on record - show instead of tell - but then Lindelof essentially has only ever written in exposition and, thus, Ridley Scott the auteur takes a backseat to the return of the franchise he originated. What all this exposition does, however, is cause the film - especially the later moments when it should be building a full head of steam and wrenching us with tension - to movie in frustrating fits and starts.

Granted, the film does a fine job of posing questions and planting seeds and gently dropping in theories and leaving its most crucial questions - How did we really get here?, What good is faith if science disproves it? - un-answered and allowing all of this to seep through your mind (not unlike the film's mysterious black goo) afterwards. It made me think about the conversation I had a few months ago where I was called on the carpet for the possible ridiculousness of believing so tried and truly in the Nativity Story. I mean, yeah, sure, I understand the absurdity of it at its core and that a lot of its elements have been disproved and even though I know the story is really more about faith than the story itself I still choose to believe that the story happened much like Elizabeth chooses to put back on that cross after all she's just gone through and discovered.

BUT... Just because a film gives you ideas to discuss with your theater-going pals around coffee afterwards does not automatically mean the film ITSELF was good. Right? There is the generally correct argument that a film only needs to work while you are watching it. To quote the esteemed Roger Ebert: "If you also want it to all be plausible in hindsight, you’re probably disappointed when a magician doesn’t saw a real person in half and leave the severed corpse on the stage.”

This is to say that "Prometheus" might be the first of its kind - a movie that actually works better when you are NOT watching it. Except I think that's a fairly severe problem.

Why Emily Blunt Has The Best Muppets Cameo

Do you know why Emily Blunt rocked in “The Muppets”? She didn’t rock in “The Muppets” just because she was a sassy Brit (though, rest assured, that helped). I’ll tell you why she rocked in “The Muppets.”

She rocked in “The Muppets” because as Miss Piggy’s Parisian Vogue office receptionist she initially and forcefully and, of course, sassily rejects The Muppets attempts to get into see Miss Piggy. But then when The Muppets excuse themselves and return cleverly – which is to say, not at all cleverly – as “Muppet Man” – all the Muppets stacked up on top of one another and disguised by a lone, elongated trench coat – she is clearly, highly suspicious and yet she allows this mysterious “Muppet Man” into see her boss anyway.

That’s the best part. She knows – she KNOWS – that this odd seven foot tall swaying person who shares the face of a face of a Muppet that was JUST in her office isn’t QUITE right but she also can’t QUITE put her finger on what isn’t QUITE right about it.

I can’t properly convey how or why (even though I just tried) I find this so hilarious, but I do. I think it's side-splitting.

In fact, every time, for the rest of my life, when I watch "The Muppets" I will be actively rooting for Emily Blunt to realize that Muppet Man is/are the very people she was trying to keep out of Miss Piggy's office. And I will be vexed when she fails to figure out their ruse yet again.

"No, Emily! It's THEM! It's The Muppets! WHY ARE YOUR EXTREME POWERS OF SASSINESS SO SUDDENLY USELESS IN THIS SITUATION?!"

Friday's Old Fashioned: Sweet Bird Of Youth

Chance Wayne (Paul Newman) rolls back into the hometown he long ago abandoned in a convertible for a chariot, cool as a cucumber listening to Charlie Parker, with a vodka-chugging, pill-popping Hollywood starlet spectacularly named Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page) at his side – er, passed out in the backseat. He deposits her in a hotel suite and then sidles down to the bar where he orders a martini and makes a phone call to the Louella Parsons, ensuring the people he knows at the nearby table hear him making a call to the Louella Parsons. Clearly he’s letting these small town bumpkins know who went out to the west coast and struck cinematic oil. But wait, the Louella Parsons can’t be reached. Does he really know her? Or is this all a ruse?

This adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ stage play “Sweet Bird Of Youth” by Richard Brooks (who also helmed as director) sets up the stage and then slowly, over the course of two hours, draws back the curtain to reveal the seedy, suspect goings-on backstage. Chance Wayne, it turns out, is no Tinseltown Player, he is the driver and/or loverboy of Ms. Del Lago (i.e. Princess Kosmonopolis) and he has come home to re-gain the girl that got away. That is the subtly named Heavenly Finley (Shirley Knight), daughter to the subtly named “Boss” Finley (Ed Begley), so called for his status as the local ornery political head honcho. He’s such a sexist pig he smacks around his mistress AND his daughter who he also prims and poses as a perfect “heavenly” angel (ah?) for means of electability. And this is why years ago he denied Chance Wayne’s request to ask for Heavenly’s hand in marriage. And this is why he and his unctuous son routinely make un-veiled threats against Chance upon his return to mind his own beeswax.

Chance, it turns out, wound up out west to prove he could be a Cary Grant as opposed to merely wearing a bartending jacket fashioned after one Cary Grant wore. And this is why his intention is not just to re-woo Heavenly but to blackmail Princess into granting him the shot in the movies to which he feels he has become entitled. And, in the end, the latter makes us wonder about his true motivations for the former?

Paul Newman is so inherently Paul Newman-y that even in that introductory scene in the bar with him masquerading as a movie star it’s hard to see him for what he is – a rat’s ass. He wasn’t always this way, as the movie will show us, but since leaving his hometown and coming back he has morphed into a desperate manipulator. Thus, when Heavenly pledges her desire to still be with Chance as opposed to the town doctor to whom she is engaged at the behest of the “Boss”, Chance rebuffs because he still must see through his dreams. But this, of course, all smells distinctly of hogwash. 

Tennessee, it would seem, had a mighty big bone to pick with Hollywood. Whether it’s the way Alexandra del Lago is nothing but drunk, disturbed and useless until she is suddenly offered a new part to play at which point she cleans herself up lickety split as if to suggest her whole personality was a put-on or how it is eventually revealed Chance’s return has less to do with winning the hand of fair Heavenly than with blackmailing his movie star lady friend into getting him a movie star part. Though don’t think the author sides with the small town. On the contrary, he paints them to be just as conniving and cold-hearted as the out-of-towners. Williams hailed from Dixie but the worldview is strikingly similar to that of a particular Dane……one Lars von Trier. Everyone is evil. Except for Heavenly. Because, you know, obviously.

The happy ending, however, seems oddly out of place, probably because it wasn’t happy at all when performed on Broadway. Yet for that very reason it seems to contain a certain amount of splendid poetic justice. Can’t you just imagine Tennessee Williams watching the movie version, seeing the ending, laughing, taking a gulp of bourbon, and saying, “Yup. That’s the Hollywood I was referring to all right.”

An Ode To 80's Malin

With all due respect, if you don’t understand, it’s because you weren’t there (i.e. The 80's).

You don’t understand because you don’t know the term Stone Cold Fox was coined entirely on account of Susanna Hoffs. (Okay, I have no documentation to actually back up that claim.)

You don’t understand because your first honest-to-goodness hardcore real-life crush probably never came to school with her hair immaculately frizzed, an Esprit shirt underneath her jean jacket which radically paired with her tight-rolled Guess jeans.

You don’t understand because your heart was never broken that one time when she failed to show up at the roller rink and you spent the whole night playing Pac Man and then trudged home and listened to "Don't Be Cruel" by Bobby Brown on your Walkman and thought: "These lyrics are so true."

You don’t understand because you didn’t totally see her that one time she didn’t put in her contacts and came to school wearing nerdy glasses which weren’t all that different from your nerdy glasses and how seriously it made you swoon.

And that is why you probably don’t understand that the “Rock of Ages” trailer is the most beautiful Malin Akerman has ever looked.

Our Idiot Brother

The beginning of “Our Idiot Brother” really could be a parable straight outta the Bible. A biodynamic farmer was selling at a local market when a uniformed police officer happened to approach and request a bit of the ganja. Cordially skeptical, the biodynamic farmer declined. But upon hearing the police officer complain of stress and a tough week on the job, the biodynamic farmer took pity on him. He handed him a bag of the ganja and accepted payment of $20 only because the officer respectfully insisted. Three seconds later, he was arrested. But not for what he’d done wrong. Only for what he’d done right. “Go and do likewise,” he said to his cellmate in cell block #9.

Okay. So maybe it’s a Bible parable by way of Cheech Marin (somewhere my confirmation Pastor is shaking his head) but this a perfect intro to Ned Rochlin (Paul Rudd) and his unwavering, well-meaning, naïve belief in the human spirit, a belief not reciprocated by his dreadlocked lady friend Janet (Kathryn Hahn) who kicks him out of the house and off the biodynamic farm once he is let out of prison. Oh yeah, she also – like the meanie she is – keeps his dog…..Willie Nelson. (Ha ha! Ned’s a STONER! GET IT???!!!) Thus, Ned’s three sisters, mostly against their will, are forced to step up one-by-one and let in their idiot brother.

His three sisters all have problems of their own. Liz (Emily Mortimer) is married to a documentarian (Steve Coogan) so douchetastically aloof she has essentially shut down and entered the most remote reaches of denial. Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) is a wannabe journalist at Vanity Fair who would have us believe she's the equal of Nicole Kidman in “To Die For." Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a slightly scatterbrained prospective standup comedian in a lesbian relationship with Cindy (Rashida Jones) who consistently comes across so above and not worth the fray of this Rochlin family that you wish she could just kind of go off and be in her own movie about becoming the first person in the world to circle the earth on a hang glider. (Late in the movie she and Ned team up for a Willie Nelson Rescue Operation that is not afforded a proper payoff.)

It goes without saying that Ned’s cluelessness will expose cracks in the respective livelihoods of his sisters and that at first they will be unfairly offended and annoyed by his idiocy before they eventually come around to realize his idiocy and his idiocy alone has helped transform their lives for the better. Everybody wins! Yes, even the young closed-off son of Liz with whom only Ned makes inroads by simply (gasp!) taking an interest in what the son likes and inadvertently suggesting perhaps parents would be better off ditching all those clichéd child-rearing manuals and smoking weed instead.

The authenticity of all this hinges on Rudd who must achieve being likable while being simultaneously unwittingly meddling while never grating on our nerves. He manages his feat of strength nimbly and even manages – in the film’s most serious and not necessarily by extension finest moment – in a scene set improbably around charades to make our hearts crack just a little bit. It’s the scene that despite the non-smelly sort of Pigpen haze that seems to surround him at all times proves Ned is not daft. He’s aware of his surroundings and of who his sisters are and of who he is, a fact which is underscored by his humane treatment of famed socialite Lady Arabella (Janet Montgomery), a piece of plot that would have gone the other way in 9 out of 10 movies.

There’s an actual verse in the bible that goes something like this: Why do you pass judgment on your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” Speaking of which, wouldn’t you love to see Ned’s conversation with God at the judgment seat?

Rampart

LAPD officer Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is standing around his cop cruiser with a young rookie he’s showing the ropes grabbing a bite to eat. Dave notices the rookie hasn’t touched her fries. He doesn’t eat much himself, we are told, but he does not care for people who waste food. He demands she finish the fries. No, no, no, not demands – he forces her to finish the fries. Dave Brown has a code. He never explains the nature of this code, perhaps because it is unexplainable or perhaps because he does not quite understand its specifics himself. Perhaps it is innate, but he adheres to it rigorously and will follow it right down to the end of the line.

Corruption in the LAPD is an ongoing cinematic tradition (and a real one too as “Rampart” is based in part on the real life Rampart Scandal of the mid-90’s which is mentioned here and there throughout the film) and there are faint echoes here of 2001’s “Training Day” which won Denzel Washington an Oscar for playing a corrupt L.A. cop. But whereas Denzel went for operatic, Woody goes for introspective. And whereas the screenplay for “Training Day” still took time to try and explain its main character's twisted motivations (“Sometimes you gotta have a little dirt on you for anybody to trust you”), Woody is never afforded any times out to give advisements and he never asks for absolution. He is – to borrow a time-worn phrase – who he is. He is who he is when the movie starts. He is who he is when the movie ends.

He cruises the sun-blotted streets of L.A. like Travis Bickle With A Badge. He seems convinced of his own self worth even if others are not, like his two daughters, one of which he had with each of the two sisters who he married separately and who now live next door even though they often seem wary of his presence. Women surround him, whether it’s the occasional lady he picks up at a dark bar and then ignores or the defense attorney (Robin Wright Penn) with problems of her own and whom Dave senses is up to no good from the get-go even if he ignores his own warnings. The Assistant D.A. (Sigourney Weaver) is on his case, too, for having busted up a date rape less in the manner of a law-abiding police officer than a vigilante and now for having been caught on tape beating a not-totally innocent man to within moments of his life.

In the context of the film, however, Dave is not headed for a trial date nor a well-staged shootout. His reckoning is all internal, his trajectory a straight line downward. It’s sort of sickening to watch, not unlike the scene in which Dave visits one of those underground havens for deviants that you wish only existed at the movies and finds himself high on god knows what shoving food in his mouth like Pizza the Hut.

Harrelson is so strong this, underscoring and alluding to everything so often just with his eyes and his body language, that he cultivates in our minds his character's entire life lived up to the start of the movie. It is the sort of life where one spends all his days digging his own grave. And for the 90+ minutes of "Rampart" we are watching as Dave finally climbs into that grave and has the dirt shoveled on top of him.

Guest Posting On Flixchatter

The wonderful Ruth of the ultra-fantastic Flixchatter - currently up for a Lammy, by the way, for best blog (go here to vote) - graciously asked me to author a guest post regarding my favorite Chicago movie on account of her visit to the Windy City this past weekend. It took me about 17 minutes to author yet another epic tome on the unending magic that is "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Check it out!

Friday's Old Fashioned: Riffraff

If sitting down to watch a film from 1936 called “Riffraff” about striking dockworkers that stars Jean Harlow, The O.B.B. (Original Blonde Bombshell), and a then up and coming Spencer Tracy the viewer could be forgiven for thinking it to be along the lines of, say, a Nora Ephron-ized “On the Waterfront” in which the strike is merely a backdrop to a mismatched romance between Terry Malloy and Edie Doyle. And J. Walter Ruben’s film (produced by the inestimable Irving Thalberg) gets itself going in just that sort of context.

Harlow’s Hattie lives down on the wharf with her whole family, including a younger brother played by a young Mickey Rooney which goes to show that young Mickey Rooney was just as annoying as old Mickey Rooney. Tracy is Dutch, a cannary worker who seems indifferent to his co-workers’ calls for a strike until he is made to realize their unctuous boss Nick Lewis WANTS them to strike so he can bring in cheaper labor. Thus, Dutch leads his co-workers back to work only to eventually make an about-face and push for a strike anyway.

That happens often in “Riffraff” – about-faces. Hattie clearly loves Dutch but Dutch is just too ornery and so Hattie parades around the docks on the arm of Nick which makes Dutch jealous and so Hattie and Dutch have a top-volume shouting match that ends with Dutch declaring he would NEVER marry Hattie, not even if she was the last woman on the long shore, and she declares right back that she would NEVER marry Dutch, not even if he was the last man on EARTH. And then the very next shot is of Hattie and Dutch’s wedding. And within about 1.5 seconds of exchanging vows the two are exchanging insults. Their entire union brings to mind the wise words a girl I once knew said of a couple we both knew: “Their entire relationship is based on giving each other shit.”

But don’t presume that they don’t love each other, because they do in their own morbid way which they will prove again and again as a film that seems ripe and ready to be a comedy of bickering jarringly, and kind of awesomely, transforms into something darker. You really don’t see it coming.

A second go at a strike leads to Dutch losing his job and his union card and the majority of his and Hattie's belongings and leads to Dutch determining that he will go west to make a name for himself which leads to him warming his hands around a measly fire at a hobo camp. But Hattie still loves him and tracks him down but he flees on the back of a train instead, refusing to face his better half in the face of failure, and so Hattie decides to steal some cash in the name of love and this, of course, lands her in prison and in prison......her baby is born.

I get the distinct sense movie audiences didn't see a lot of babies being born in the clink on screen in the same year Jesse Owens went over to Berlin to show Hitler what was what. That seems like something the MPAA would have frowned upon - like, if you get sentenced to prison you should be under the impression that you have officially revoked the right to have children. But that's just the start because then it glorifies breaking out of prison and harboring fugitives and so on and so forth. The tonal shift is jarring, so much so that at the appearance of the baby I actually said out loud to myself "Woah, I didn't see that coming" and the original review in the venerable New York Times in '36 seemed offended. Frank S. Nugent wrote: "It hardly seems fair to subject one of the screen's best comediennes to the rigors of mother love and a husband with an acute social consciousness." It hardly seems fair? Says who? You? Translation: How DARE, Ms. Harlow, you choose to try something different???!!! This wasn't exactly what I was expecting!!!

Is this to suggest "Riffraff" is a smashing success? Not at all. To start, the end lacks the punch that the second and third act set-up would dictate, as if the creators realized they were sullying Harlow's image and quickly reasoned they needed to restore it in the last second to make sure people went home from the theater without the wrong idea. Have faith in the idea, boys! See it through! The film also can't quite shed the airy tone it establishes at the outset as it goes along which prevents the drama from going all the way. And while her intentions were more than admirable, Harlow, to be fair, didn't quite have the necessary reach for this type of role yet.

Still, it was an admirable wonder to watch her try and the real shame of it is that she did not have many more chances to try again.

Ridley Scott Announces Sequel To "1492: Conquest of Paradise"

Director Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus”, the prequel to his seminal 1979 film “Alien”, hits theaters tomorrow and Scott also recently announced plans to helm a sequel to his 1982 cult sci-fi classic “Blade Runner.” Scott, never one to just chill on the veranda with Chablis, has now announced his intention to film a sequel one of his lesser-known works.

“1504: Prediction of the Eclipse” will follow “1492: Conquest of Paradise” by focusing on Christopher Columbus’s fourth voyage to the new world which ended in a minor-to-major disaster when he and his crew found themselves stranded on Jamaica and the natives, after initially assisting them with food and water, put an end to their aid causing significant tension to mount. Columbus finally got he and his men out of the jam by utilizing his knowledge of a forthcoming total lunar eclipse to inform the natives that his God would demonstrate His displeasure by "obliterating" the moon.

Scott, however, in an attempt to make “1502: Prediction of the Eclipse” as authentic as possible will wait until April 2014 to start shooting so he can shoot the crucial total lunar eclipse scene during an ACTUAL total lunar eclipse. And if, for some reason, the shot fails to come off he will then postpone production until October 2014 to utilize the next total lunar eclipse.

Meanwhile, Russell Crowe, whom Scott tapped to portray Columbus himself, has now officially been reported as missing on the Atlantic after having decided to sail from Spain to Jamaica in a replica 15th century ship using only a compass, cross staff and astrolabe to guide him in an effort to “get into character”.

The "Famous" Raiders of the Lost Ark

Last week I read an interview with famed producer Frank Marshall over at Grantland.com and what most caught my eye was a parenthetical reference in which author Bryan Curtis, while discussing Marshall’s production work on "Raiders of the Lost Ark", offered this bit of trivia: “Marshall can be seen as the Nazi pilot in the famous Flying Wing fight sequence.”

The “famous Flying Wing fight sequence.” Isn’t this phrase a tad redundant? Did he really need to throw the “famous” on there?

Allow me to summarize "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

It opens with the famous Mountain Dissolve shot.

This gives way to the famous Rolling Ball sequence.

This leads into the famous Airplane Flight Map sequence.

This is followed directly by the famous Shot Contest sequence.

This starts us on the path to the famous Which Basket? Sequence.

This is the preamble for the famous Indy Shoots The Big Dude With The Sword sequence.

This is just a bit before the famous “Bad Dates” sequence.

This is crucial set-up for the famous Map Room sequence.

This is even more crucial set-up for the famous “Snakes – why’d it have to be snakes?” sequence.

This zips us along to the (aforementioned) famous Flying Wing sequence.

This preludes (the most) famous (of all) Truck sequence.

This is superseded by the famous U Boat sequence.

This is succeeded by the famous Melting Faces sequence.

And, of course, it's all wrapped up by the famous Warehouse sequence.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark": it's a fairly famous movie.

Ceremony

Seeing something as feeble as “Ceremony” merely puts into brighter focus the awesome ballsaliciousness of “Young Adult” and re-asserts the minor travesty that was Diablo Cody failing to earn an Oscar nod for writing its script (probably for the simple fact that she’s Diablo Cody and she’s now sooooooo “out”). Written and Directed by Max Winkler, "Ceremony" (2010) is sort of a wheezing wannabe of the best stuff of Noah Baumbach, the great American purveyor of obnoxious a-holes.

“Ceremony”, in fact, has parallels with Baumbach’s “Margot at the Wedding”, a film which many did not like specifically because its characters – old and young alike – were so explicitly unlikable. And this I do not dispute. Nicole Kidman’s title character was indeed unlikable. She might have even strayed into the outlying territory of monster. Did I “care” about her? Perhaps not, but I think it’s dangerous to say that we must “care” for every character that comes along in movies. Margot, to these eyes, was still fascinating, even as she kept drowning her pancakes in more narcissistic syrup. In that way she was very much akin to “Young Adult’s” Mavis Gary – trainwrecks that you do not merely slow down to observe up close, but stop the car completely so you can get out and gawk.

“Ceremony’s” Margot is Sam Davis (Michael Angarano), a self-absorbed children’s author who drags his best friend Marshall (Reece Thompson) who he hasn’t actually spoken to in over a year along for what is presumably a guys-weekend in upstate New York at the Little Mohican Inn only to immediately lead them in a wedding crashing escapade. Ah, but they’re not just crashing the wedding. Sam knows The Bride (Uma Thurman – my poor Uma, what have they done with my poor Uma?). In fact, Sam and The Bride have history – boudoir history, one might say, and Sam has swooped in to bust up the marriage and abscond with the girl. Helpfully, The Bride’s Fiance is named Whit Coutell (Lee Pace) which, of course, gives away the fact that he long ago earned one of the sacred chairs at The Douchebag Round Table. Unhelpfully, The Bride is just as self-involved as her fiancé and as Sam and, in fact, her fiancé knows about Sam and about The Bride’s other dalliances and he doesn’t much care and she doesn’t much care about his other dalliances because in a frank conversation with Sam she openly admits to being “selfish.”

That’s pretty bold and is probably the best moment in the whole movie. The problem, however, is that none of this selfish trio is as magnetic as Mavis or Margot. They don’t captivate with their a-holery. They are uninteresting a-holes and even worse is that Angarano and Uma – my poor Uma – generate as much pizzazz as an orphaned 4th of July sparkler. They don’t even look like they had history, let alone act like they had history, and it is because of this that the so-called love triangle yields no tension and because it yields no tension THAT is why we do not care.

Worst of all, though, is Max Winkler’s cowardice at the end, by which I mean he chooses at the very end to absolve Sam. Seriously? He treats Marshall worse than Jonah Hill treated McLovin'/Fogel in "Superbad" and then the movie has him say he's sorry once or twice and expects us to want to pat him on the head and say "awwwww, it's okay. We forgive you." No. We don't. We shouldn't. And neither should Marshall.

This Means War

Like an amalgamation of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", "There's Something About Mary" and the "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry and George are mistakenly outed as gay men, "This Means War", directed by McG, aspires to be the ultimate date movie in so much as it combines a rom com with an action flick. Except such a scenario requires delicacy and when you actively asked to be called McG, well, it becomes quite clear delicacy is not your forte.

Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are not only your typical mega super duper CIA agents, they are best pals, like, 4Ever & Ever ♥. The film establishes that they have separate residences but you sense throughout that just as easily they could have bunked together in one room with twin beds. As the film opens they are in the midst what is specifically supposed to be a "covert" operation only to have it, of course, wind up totally overt and rather than nab the bad guy they are after, Henrich (Til Schweiger), they kill the brother of the bad they are after and, thus, as he must, Heinrich swears revenge. Sigh. Meanwhile the CIA Director - played by Angela Bassett which suggests "This Means War" occupies the same universe as "Alias" - is so fed up with Tuck and FDR that she sentences them to desk work. 

This is when Tuck - divorced with a son - reveals he yearns for a woman in his life with whom he can actually share the oh so special bond he and FDR share. And so he turns to internet dating which FDR - a playa's playa - finds offensive and humorous. Eventually Tuck has a wonderful first date with a lovely lady except that then the lovely lady immediately goes to rent a movie and runs into - ye gods! - FDR who chats her up and turns her off and pursues her anyway to eventual success. 

The lovely lady is Lauren Scott, played by Reese Witherspoon in any number of spectacularly low-cut cocktail dresses, her well-coiffed blonde hair not blowing in the breeze, but I'll be honest when I say she was obviously most fetching when glimpsed in sweats with giant headphones clamped around her ears and singing out loud to herself as she walked in public and ran into her - gasp! - ex. Her ex who is engaged, because of course he is because this merely underscores how Lauren is "married to her job" and "can't find the right man." (Dammit, Reese, aren't they sending you better scripts? Get it together, girlfriend, you won an Oscar, for God's sake.) Perhaps the right man will be Tuck? Or perhaps it will be FDR?

It does not take long for the two mega super duper CIA agents to discover they are dating the same woman and so, as any two movie characters would, they make a bet to see who can woo lovely Lauren first. This results in spy movie shenanigans filtered through a screwball comedy as they install secret cameras and run data ops and break into her apartment to analyze her likes and dislikes. It's all more than a bit stalkerish and could very well fear the guys' motivations but then we must remember that Barbara Stanwyck and her father were con artists trying to bilk Henry Fonda in "The Lady Eve" which is generally considered a "classic". Motivations aren't always pure.

Lauren seeks council with her foul-mouthed best pal (Chelsea Handler) and tries to determine which guy she should choose and in one way there is real suspense because neither Hardy nor Pine, I suspect, is a bigger star than the other which means Hollywood Pecking Order cannot necessarily determine the outcome. Yet, we also remember that Hardy's son and ex-wife for whom he clearly still has feelings were established and so......whoops! I mean, spoiler alert! Anyway, in spite of the love triangle and in spite of the inevitable Lauren Is Kidnapped By Heinrich Leading To A High Speed Chase third act climax (duh) "This Means War" almost unwittingly morphs into a bromance between Tuck & FDR that assumes non-covert "Top Gun" (as read by Quentin Tarantino) overtones. 

Were McG and his writers even aware this was happening? Will they now try and claim they DID know it was happening even though they didn't? Lauren Scott feels oh so much like Kelly McGillis' Charlotte Blackwood in that she just keeps getting in the way of the boys' good times. I fear that despite Lauren winding up in FDR's arms and Tuck re-uniting with the mother of his child that these two gentlemen are going to go the way of Dennis Quaid in "Far From Heaven." And that would leave Lauren like Julianne Moore and that's just not right.

Any woman who is comfortable enough in her own skin to stay in Friday night with a movie and popcorn with a pre-game of cutting a rug to Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It" deserves true happiness. 

Own it, girl!