(The) Help! That dastardly Howard!

The Wicked Witch of the West. Darth Vader. Nurse Ratched. Hannibal Lecter. And now, joining their ranks, Hilly Holbrook from The Help!

(Trumpet flourishes, followed by crickets)

Wait, sweet little Bryce Dallas Howard played one of the most dastardly villains of all time?

Well, yes, I would argue she has. No, she's not quite up there with Margaret Hamilton just yet, but as millions of people who have seen The Help know, Howard filled her villainous heels quite well. Maybe a little TOO well.

I seriously cannot remember the last time I felt that much seething hatred for a female character. Hell, the last time I hate a male character that much, it was Will Ferrell in Bewitched - and he wasn't trying to be hateful, which only made me want to snap his neck that much harder.

And yet, now that I think about it, that's really the secret to what makes Hildy so awful. There's no doubt that this relentless social climber does some extraordinarily mean and spiteful things. But what makes them mean and spiteful is the fact that she's actually not always trying to be mean and spiteful. In a way, she can't help it.

Part of the problem is that Hildy's a product of her times. She's one of the worst kind of racists - one who doesn't think she is. She feels that because she gives them a good job in a nice house that's help enough to them. Doesn't matter that she treats them like dirt most of the time, she's doing them a FAVOR! She's like one of those hypocrites who goes to church week in and week out, acts all pious that day, and then acts like an ass the other six days of the week.

So yes, when Hildy gets her "just desserts" (you know exactly what I mean if you know the story) there's a certain gleeful satisfaction in her comeuppance. But what sells Howard's performance isn't outright villainy. It's the fact that Howard lets us see the cracks beneath the surface. She makes it readily apparent that Hilly is so hateful because she hates herself above everyone else. And that, in the end, is her tragedy.

When I came out of the film, I feared for Howard's safety. So palpable was her hatefulness that I was afraid irate women might try to whomp her over the head with their purses - or maybe with their cell phones. At first, Howard seemed destined to be typecast as the ethereal waif in the likes of The Village, or Clint Eastwood's Hereafter. Now she might be in danger of getting typecast as the bitch.

And you know what? That's still an upgrade for Howard. Even before she became an actress, she was cursed with the middle name of the city in which Opie conceived her. Now, she has something to sink her teeth into and is less likely to get lost as "the girl" in Spider-Man 3 or Terminator Salvation.

You've come a long way, Bryce - you're one of the best assets of this movie that fully deserves its status as a sleeper hit. Glad to see people are waking up to you.

Thoughts in shuffle mode - Stewart, Cooper, Powell, GIlliam ...

Well, geez - I almost missed my mark to keep up blog posting at least twice a week. I better get in my licks now before Middletown's hot air balloon festival subsumes my existence.

The other day I mentioned seeing Born to Dance with Jimmy Stewart. Most people know this as the movie in which Jimmy Stewart sings! (That sentence demanded an exclamation point.)



It's a charming little programmer. Not a "great" movie by any means, but Jimmy is charmingly awkward. And I would like to have $1 for every time Eleanor taps, please.



I also watched Wings last week. No, even though this is me writing, I'm not talking about that band Paul McCartney was in after the Beatles. I'm talking about the very first movie to win the Best Picture Oscar. It doesn't have much of a reputation - many consider it clunky and creaky. It IS dated and overlong, to be sure, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. Sure, Sunrise from the same year was the better choice, but Wings has a lot to recommend it. William Wellman is the director, so it looks great - and the aerial photography is astounding. The performances are solid, and it's easy to see why Clara Bow was an "it" girl.  It's also a kick to see Gary Cooper in a very early (and very short) role. He had magnetism even then.

I've also been reading the book The Battle of Brazil, about the making of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and it made me order a new copy of that film. I have the old deluxe Criterion laserdisc set, but alack, those don't play too well on hi-def TVs - so I ordered a used copy of the Criterion DVD set. More on that later.

I knew the story about the wrangling and mangling around the film, but the book is an illuminating read nonetheless. I particularly loved this quote from Gilliam, talking about studio suits

"You listen to these people, and you just have to shake your head. They are so goddamned sure they know what they're talking about, and all they are ever doing is guessing. They invent their own research, then depend on it as if it were science. They have no respect for the intelligence of their audience. Then when they succeed, they break their ass trying to tell you how brilliant they were in doing it."

Seems like little has changed in 30 years ,,,

Focusing features - back to the diary

Some time back on this blog I had decided to adopt more of a diary-like format to get me to write in it more often.

As too often happens with me, the best laid plans fell flat. Granted, I've been through a lot of trauma this year, including having a tree fall through my house, but I hate that I haven't written here very much and that my audience has dwindled as a result. 

So I'm going to try again to re-spark this. Can't make any promises it'll stick. I guess I'd like to try to post at least twice a week. I seem to work better if I set myself goals and deadlines.

Haven't seen anything new theatrically since I saw Cars 2, and the rest of the current crop doesn't impress me. I do not voluntarily give Michael Bay my money, so I'm skipping Transformers Trois. The reviews for Tom Hanks' Larry Crowne make it look eminently skippable. The jury's still out on Horrible Bosses, and I need to see Zookeeper like I need to be stampeded by an elephant. 

So that leaves me to discuss the classics. The summer classic movie series has started around here. Saw Hitchcock's Frenzy last week. and I still think that's Hitch's best picture of his troubled post-Birds period. Some may argue that it's hard to get into because the "wrong man" (Jon Finch) is a particular prick, but I think that makes the picture novel and daring. Sadly, Athena Massey, who played Finch's sort-of love interest, only died this past weekend.

Fun trivia: the editor of the movie, John Jympson, and the cinematographer, Gil Taylor, performed the same duties on A Hard Day's Night. This is what you notice when you're a credits geek like me. 

This past weekend I saw West Side Story. Still a great picture, and Natalie Wood is still miscast, but the fact that Natalie doesn't look the least bit Hispanic isn't what bothers me. It's the same problem I have with My Fair Lady - the face and the voice simply don't match. 

Of course, the same voice in both cases is the ubiquitous Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and sang the high, operatic notes of "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (Marilyn handled the rest.) 

Marni was the epitome of  a session musician - the player who is technically proficient but has very little personality. And a friend of mine made a very good point. Why is it that females so commonly get dubbed, yet it doesn't happen as often with men? 

Case in point: Jimmy Stewart warbled his way through a movie I watched this weekend, Born to Dance. Jimmy readily admitted he didn't have a very good singing voice, yet according to Robert Osborne of TCM, the MGM brass thought that a "professional" voice would have sounded phony. 

Oh really? Well, that didn't stop them from dubbing Ava Gardner in the 1950s Show Boat, even though she had a perfectly capable singing voice, as That's Entertainment 3 revealed. For that matter, Audrey Hepburn sang pretty well in Funny Face, although I understand she didn't have the operatic tone needed to pull off the Lerner and Lowe numbers of My Fair Lady. 

Still. with all this replacement going on, why was Brando permitted to sing as flat as a board in the film version of Guys and Dolls? And why in God's name did they let Lee Marvin grunt his way through Paint Your Wagon? Hell, at least Clint Eastwood could carry a tune, which is more than can be said for Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia.

These are rhetorical questions, of course, but I think we know the answer...

The DGA noms - the HDTV squash n' stretch

January 10, 2011

The DGA noms were announced Monday.  The nominees are:


Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russell, The Fighter

All five nominees are deserving, most especially Mr. Nolan. And he could win, but The Social Network has collected just about every critic's award under the sun, and I have a growing feeling that this is Fincher's year. And what's wrong with that, as the song once said?

The surprise for most people here was the omission of the Coens for True Grit. And they could still make Oscar's cut, supplanting Russell. Both fir the profile of auteur directors that the Academy likes, but the Coens have a longer resume and are more highly regarded. I'm betting they get in with Oscar.
------

I was going to write about Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I watched on Sunday, but as the owner of a new HDTV, I feel compelled to speak out on a GIANT pet peeve of mine - people's insistence on "stretching" the picture to fill the TV frame.

This drives me NUTS , because it makes movies, especially old movies,  look terrible. A little education is in order here.

Movies come in 3 basic shapes. The first of these is the 1.33: 1 ratio, what's called the "Academy" ratio. Almost every movie made before the 1950s fit into this shape, which was a very modest rectangle and was the size of standard definition TVs. Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Singin in the Rain, to name a mere three, are examples.

Then there's the 1.85: 1 ratio, which came out in the 50s. This is about the size that HDTV's are now. Movies made this way include North by Northwest, E.T. and A Christmas Story, to be somewhat seasonal.

Finally, there's the 2.35: 1 ratio, or what's called Scope. Movies made this way include How to Marry a Millionaire, all the Star Wars movies, and Inception. HDTV's slightly letterbox Scope films, with small, unobtrusive black bars on the top and bottom.  Here's a comparison:

Blessedly, movies made in 1.85: 1 and 2.35: 1 typically don't suffer on HDTVs. But oh, the horrors that are done to 1.33: 1 movies. Here's a prime example:

This is the best musical of all time, Singin' in the Rain. The bottom frame is how it's supposed to look, with the bars on either side. This is the way Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen meant for us to see it. See how naturally proportioned the faces are, even with Donald O' Conner contorting his?

The middle image is zoomed in, which doesn't look horrible to me, but still isn't right. It's the top image that's the atrocity. 

Frustratingly, so many people feel they have to "stretch" the image to fill the frame which makes the actors look like linebackers, or like they had really horrible facelifts. Or maybe they're auditioning for Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Whatever the case, it defeats the whole purpose of HDTV - to make the image look better. 

It's even worse when cable channels stretch the images on their own. AMC-HD is an egregious offender of this. They were showing John Ford's Fort Apache the other day. Fort Apache was NOT shot in widescreen. Yet AMC felt compelled to make it that way.

It's worse still when HD channels take a cropped version of a movie, like say, The Godfather, like the one that would get shown on a standard-def TV. Then, they stretch THAT image to fill the frame. It's comically, egregiously WRONG. 

I know some HDTVs have a mode that only stretches the outer image of the picture, keeping the center relatively intact. That looks kinda-sorta OK - unless the camera moves, in which people and objects on the outer edge of the frame  look like they're reflected in funhouse mirrors. This page explains the various modes pretty well. 

To my eyes, there's nothing fun about this. Whatever the case, it defeats the whole purpose of HDTV - to make the image look better. 

Let me put it this way. If Francis Ford Coppola came to your house and watched a cropped/stretched print of The Godfather, he'd probably shit his pants. And if you ask me, that's even worse than waking up next to a horse's head in your bed. 

PS - I know some plasma HDTV owners are concerned about the issue of a 4:3 picture causing "burn-in." This page addresses that issue. 

A New Year, a new format: Diary of a Cinemaniac

I've often thumbed my nose at New Year's Resolutions. All resolutions do is give you something to break and then make you hate yourself for doing so.

No, instead I make New Year's Wishes. Wishes imply no obligation. They simply express a desire and a hope for something better. My wishes for this blog are three-fold: To do something new and fresh (at least for me), to increase posts, and hopefully increase my readership. I saw that I wrote 164 posts last year, and I really ought to be doing more than that, to maintain interest both for myself, and for you.

Then a projector bulb flickered on over my head. (We movie geeks think visually.)  Contrary to popular belief, I don't see a movie every single day. But I do something movie-related every day, whether that's seeing a movie, reading a movie news story, or even having a fun movie conversation with someone. That being the case, what I'll do is write this blog in a diary format.

Mind you, I will still write reviews of movies in theaters, and I will definitely continue the He Said/She Said reviews I've been doing with my Cox colleague, Hannah Poturalski. I'll still predict the Oscars, opine on  trailers and all that fun stuff. I'm just repurposing the content.

It will look something like this. Entires will typically be a bit longer than what I've posted here.  - consider this Condensed Cream of Criticism.

Jan. 1, 2010

Bells Are Ringing (Vincente Minnelli, 1960): Not the finest hour of Vincente Minnelli, Arthur Freed or Comden and Green, but still quite charming all the same, with a winning lead performance by Judy Holliday, in her swan song. GRADE: B




Jan. 2, 2010

Flipped (Rob Reiner, 2010): The first movie I started watching in 2011 is the best movie no one saw in 2010. It's also a return to form for Rob Reiner, with this being his best film since The American President. Give this one a try. You won't be sorry. GRADE: A

All Good Things (Andrew Jarecki, 2010): A quite intriguing mystery/drama, powered by an excellent performance from Kirsten Dunst. When she disappears from the last third of the film, however, the movie slides off the rails as it becomes too bizarre and moody. Still very much worth a look. GRADE: B




January 3. 2011


(Insert thoughtful tribute to Pete Postlethwaite here)


Jan. 4. 2011


Sir Critic returns to the newspaper with a look ahead at 2011's movies!


Jan. 5 2011


The PGA has announced its nominees. These could well be the 10 Oscar nominees too.


127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit

Also saw Tron Legacy (Joseph Kosinski 2010): a bit like the original – great visuals, iffy story. What makes it a clear step down from the original is it takes itself too seriously. As ahead of its time as the 1982 Tron was, it still had that Disney cheesiness that was typical of the period. I missed that sense of fun here. 


(Note: I will post a full He Said/She Said review of this later.)


Jan. 6, 2011


Black Swan continues to resonate in unexpected, funny ways. Had this conversation with a friend on Facebook.


Friend: (I saw) Black Swan. For the first time, not the 101st like you. ;-)


Me: So I have a thing for leotards. Sue me! ;)


Friend: Perfectly understandable. I think I may have a thing for several things I didn't necessarily have a thing for before, as a result of seeing that movie. :)


Me: Like Tchaikovsky, I'm sure.


Friend: ‎...if that's what you want to call it. ;-)


Me: ‎...if that's what you want to call it. ;-)


Other friend: Eric - only you could come up with a link from that movie to the Beatles.


Me: I gotta be me.


------------
Insular? Obsessively detailed? Well, yeah! Ya wanna make something of it?


In all seriousness, this is a work in progress. But let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I think I'll go free up some space on my clogged DVR ....

Sir Critic is thankful for ...

Never mind the turkey - Thanksgiving itself gets killed every year.

The holiday gets so lost in the shuffle between Halloween and Christmas. There are loads of Halloween and Christmas movies, but precious few that cater specifically to Thanksgiving.

So that's why, for the first time I'm writing a Thanksgiving post.  I'd like to thank several parties who have contributed significantly and/or memorably to my film-loving journey.

Long-established directors who have worked at least as long as I've been alive, such as Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, and especially Martin Scorsese. Thank you for reminding people that yes, they do still make 'em like that anymore.

Newer directors that have risen to prominence in the 80s and beyond, such as the Coens, David Fincher and Christopher Nolan. Thank you for giving me the assurance that great, director-driven films will flicker for a long time to come.

Turner Classic Movies, for being the best channel on TV and for giving every filmmaker and film viewer something to strive for and to cherish.

Roger Ebert, for maintaining the platinum standard of film criticism, no matter what hurdles you had to leap.

TV screens are getting bigger, wider, and prettier. That's fine. But thank you to those who remember that no matter how fancy, or how much cheaper the home viewing experience is, it can never compare to the TRUE big screen. 

Amy Adams for being so damn lovable and talented. I'm thankful for you, even if you did get engaged to someone else and had his baby. I'm still looking forward to The Fighter.

Scott Copeland, for being my fellow film buff, and even more importantly, my best friend for almost exactly 20 years. Write more often when you can.

Allison Dickson, for so scarily mirroring my thoughts and especially for being a local friend again. You ought to write more reviews. You're better at it than you think you are.

Kimberly Scampone, for being my first protege and even for disagreeing with me fairly often. It's actually rather refreshing. My toenails are wearing down!

Merrilee and Todd Embs, for sharing my great love for TCM, for all the great movie nights, and crediting me for their deeper appreciation of film.

My new reviewing partner and colleague Hannah Poturalski for joining me on the He Said/She said blogging adventure. I look forward to working with you more, and I promise I'll get that Morning Glory review up soon.

Susan Egan, for being so sweet to me all these years and supporting and promoting my writings. I hope I get to see you again soon.

Angela Allen and Hilary Johnson, for being such cherished friends although neither of you is into movies (or the Beatles!) much. Thanks for understanding that being friends with me means going out to the theater every now and again or sitting down to watch one of my old favorites.

To my family near and far, who created, indulged and supported my movie mania for decades. If it ever gets tiring, just remember it all started with you.

And finally, to my audience - to everyone who has ever read my blogs/reviews even once. No matter how small or large you get, you are all very important to me, even if I'll never meet some of you.

Thank you one and all. Now go get more out of life. Watch a movie.

The summer in a nutshell

Here is the clearest sign so far that this summer has sucked: 

A movie theater near me has 20 screens. It is playing 8 movies. The lineup?

The A-Team: I've heard it's more like the D-Team.

Grown-Ups: I've heard even Sandler fans don't like this one.

Iron Man 2: Decent, but no more than that. 

The Karate Kid: Maybe if I'm really bored. I can think of better ways to spend two and a half hours.

Knight and Day: I already jousted with this stinker.

The Last Airbender: One can only hope so, based on the stench emanating from the reviews.

Toy Story 3: YAY!

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: I am of the wrong age and gender to be persuaded. Saga my ass.

20 screens. 8 movies. 2 worth seeing. Any questions?

Summer fizzle/Blog fizzle

My apologies for not posting much of late. I've become the Interim Lifestyle editor at work, and I've been doing quite a lot of learning and juggling this this week. Hence, that leaves me with little opportunity to write a post of much length or coherence once I get home. 

It doesn't help that so far this is the most blah moviegoing summer I can remember. I haven't seen anything theatrically since Shrek Forever After, and that was more than two weeks ago - an eternity in my own little world. However, I do hope to see Get him to the Greek and Splice this weekend - and of course I will review Toy Story 3 at the earliest opportunity after it comes out June 18. (Paul McCartney's birthday, and Roger Ebert's too - the Pixar folks sure can pick em.) 

In the meantime I've been amused by all the hand-wringing and labored analysis over why this summer's box office is lagging. Uuuuuuuhhhmmmmm ... could it be the movies don't look that interesting? And if they don't look that interesting to me, imagine how they must look to Joe or Jane Average. One of my favorite film writers, Anne Thompson, cuts through the muck in this post.

Summer Fizzle: Audiences Avoid the Blahs, Inception Pops (Video Featurette) - Thompson on Hollywood

I'll be back as soon as my work schedule and brain power allows. 

The director non-grata list: new member Noah Baumbach

If I seem to be surly when writing this post, you would be correct. There are a number of reasons, but one of them is movie-related.

I had the misfortune of seeing Greenberg this past weekend. Usually, I'm proud to be of a (sir) critical bent, but there is at least one film every year for which critics go bananas, and then I end up slipping on their peels. This year, it's the well-reviewed Greenberg.

I shouldn't have been surprised at this. In fact, I wasn't really surprised at all. I had seen a previous film by writer-director Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale - which I hated. That movie was filled with pretentious, condescending, holier-than-thou twits whose company I could not wait to leave. That's the title character of Greenberg (Ben Stiller) in a nutshell.

Most critics disagree with me. They loved The Squid and the Whale, and they loved Greenberg as well. And in a small sense, I could see why - these are the sort of self-consciously hip films filled with intense emotions that pass for emotional authenticity in a landscape dominated by Bigger, Dumber movies. Baumbach's dramatic and visual styles also echo American filmmaking of the 70s, for which so many critics carry a torch.

Hey, I wish American movies had more depth of feeling  too - just as long as the feeling isn't one of arrogant self-righteousness, like most of Baumbach's characters. Baumbach knows this - he makes a joke out of it by having Greenberg  be a serial complaint writer. He grouses to everyone from Starbucks to a pet cab conpany for daring not to make everything JUST as it should be for him.

Problem is, Greenberg spends the entire movie moaning and groaning about this, that and the other with precious little indication he's ever going to change. Spending a couple hours with this schmuck is akin to being Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade and having to listen to M. Emmet Walsh's BS all day long. I can understand why a number of Greenberg screenings have seen walk-outs.

And yet, I wasn't totally down on Greenberg, and the reason for that is Greta Gerwig. She's a very charming and skilled  actress who plays a much younger woman that Greenberg fancies, but - surprise, surprise - Greenberg can't commit. Gerwig conveyed  empathy. vulnerability, winsomeness - basically the antithesis of everything Greenberg conveys. Had the movie been more about her, I might have actually liked it. Because of her, I consider this movie marginally more tolerable than The Squid and the Whale.

That may sound like faint praise in this context, but still,  Grenberg sealed this deal:  If a film is written and directed by Noah Baumbach, I'm not buying a ticket. He joins Stephen Daldry in the Directors Whose Movies I Will No Longer See Club. After that suffocating overdose of self-importance called The Reader sucked the life out of the theater, I vowed never again for any of Daldry's movies. The double whammy of that film and of The Decades ...er, I mean The Hours made him dead to me. My best friend Scott Copeland offered the best slam on The Reader by writing that "it managed to make copious amounts of Kate Winslet's nudity boring."

I remember at the end of The Reader there was a dedication to producers/filmmakers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella - and I remember adding in my head " ... either of whom would have made a much better film than the one I just watched."

Neither Buambach nor Daldry has made a film as wretched as Bad Boys II, but loathe as I am to give any credence to my favorite whipping boy, Monsieur Bay, at least his frenzied incompetence keeps me alert and awake!

Not that I'm going to go see Transformers 3 now that I don't have to do so!

Random musings while things settle

Hi folks - I've been meaning to post more often than I have, but I've had a run of bad luck lately and have had no energy when I've gotten home. I've even tried to watch the musical Gypsy to cheer myself up and fell asleep both times, snoozing on the couch all night - the fault of my lack of pep and not the film, I'm sure.

Here are my quick reactions to some film-related pieces I've seen lately.

Can 'Iron Man 2' beat 'The Dark Knight'? | 24 Frames | Los Angeles Times

In the opening weekend? Yes. Total box office gross? No.

The Frenzy On ...J. Lo, You Coulda Been a Contenda

What happened to her? It's really quite simple. Once she was an actress named Jennifer Lopez who starred in the likes of Out of Sight. She then morphed into a celebrity called J.Lo who appeared in the likes of Maid in Manhattan. Actress > Celebrity.


MCN DVD Reviews: April 6, 2010


The only new DVD release I'm interested in seeing is Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The idea of Werner Herzog directing a Bad Lieutenant movie, coupled with Nicolas Cage in off-the-wall mode, is irresistible. But first I have to get through John Woo's Red Cliff, Warren Beatty's Reds or Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces. I only regret that Almodovar's Film isn't called Broken Red Embraces.

When is a Julian Lennon video also a Sam Peckinpah film?: 9 stylistically suspect music videos made by famous film directors 

This was a fascinating piece about film directors losing their mojo when they turned to music videos. The author is absolutely right about Brian De Palma's "Dancing in the Dark" for Springsteen and Sam Peckinpah's Julian Lennon videos - works that show absolutely none of the personalities of the directors.

But "Bad" does have Scorsese-an energy, even if it's not one of his better works. I was surprised to learn that David Fincher directed Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love," video, but stylistically it makes absolute sense - it's just surprising to see the director of Seven coming across as  horny. Maybe Tyler Durden made him do it.

Finally, the author of this piece is understandably amazed that Michael Bay's video for the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" isn't lewdly tasteless. But thinking about this makes me realize music videos and commercials are where Bay should have stayed. He directed the Aaron Burr/Got Milk ad, one of the cleverest commercials of all time, and it's visually stylish without being incoherent. It's when Bay has to direct anything longer than five minutes that he gets into trouble.

We'll be right back, after Eric's brain is found

My apologies for the lack of posts of late, but my workload has absolutely pulverized me this week. I've been so swamped I can practically catch flies with my tongue.

But before I hop off and join Kermit the Frog,  a quick trip into the past, present and future.

The past: The Informant! came out on DVD Tuesday. I thought it was one of the best films of the year, which means it's better than most people say it is.  Sort of like Shutter Island. Here's my original review.

The present: The fairly well reviewed  horror flick The Crazies is out in theaters today. So is the fairly well slammed Cop Out  by Kevin Smith. I may check out The Crazies at some point and will eventually see Cop Out, but I have to agree that a film directed by Kevin Smith and written by someone else (like Cop Out) sounds less appealing than a film written by Kevin Smith and directed by someone else.

The future: I will be  attending the AMC Best Picture marathon for the third year in a row this weekend. How do they do that now that there are 10 nominees? Split them into two weekends, of course.

This Saturday:

10:30AM: Avatar (3D)
1:45PM: Up in the Air
4:00PM: Precious
6:45PM: The Blind Side
9:15PM: Inglourious Basterds

Next Saturday:

10:30AM: Up
12:45PM: A Serious Man
2:45PM: The Hurt Locker
6:00PM: An Education
8:00PM: District 9 

And yes, I am fully aware - and happy - that I am crazy. So until next time, folks ...

Someday I'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me
La da-da de, da-da do
La da da-da, la-de-da-doooo ,,,

Quentin on Marty

I found this terrific YouTube clip of Quentin Tarantino at a director's forum talking about when Brian De Palma told QT about making Blow Out - and then seeing Raging Bull. Watch the clip - it speaks for itself and is absolutely priceless. (Language slightly NSFW).



"No matter how good you think you are ...."

A movie-related vacation!

nHi everyone. I've created a new blog, but don't worry, I haven't gone all Sybil on you - at least not yet. Maybe closer to Three Faces of Eve. That blog will be sort of my personal journal. However, since the first post has to do with movies, I thought I'd share it here too.

Next week I will be going to New Orleans for the first time to visit my dad (who lives there), and I'm very

Disney's new movie, The Princess and the Frog, is set in New Orleans. Alas, the movie itself will not play there while I am there, but the Museum of Modern Art has this cool exhibit, which I plan to attend!

My dad says he also intends to take to The Clover Grill, which was featured in a scene from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 

And check out this EXTREMELY cool-sounding theater I found! They are showing Miracle on 34th St. (blessedly, the ORIGINAL and not the mezzo-mezzo 90s remake). And if you know me, you know I love nothing better than to see old movies in old movie theaters!

So that's some of my itinerary so far - and I welcome comments on this blog to. So in the interest of spawning some, let me ask you - anybody been to New Orleans and/or have any suggestions as to what I should see? I'll be there from Monday Nov. 30  through Friday Dec. 4.

Mea culpa for the lack of activity

My apologies to everyone for the drop in the frequency of posts. I've been having computer/Internet problems (and various other problems) of late. I have oral surgery this week to remove five teeth, which will either A) totally knock me out and make me unable to write or B) force me to write so I have something to fill my time while I recover. I'm hoping for B - and a little cooperation from technology will help too.

I'll be back - I hope!

What movie(s) would you watch on your birthday?

It's my birthday today as I type this, and I point that out not for selfish reasons, but for a curious one. Yes, I've got a question on my mind.

What is the ideal movie to play on your birthday?

One might think, "Well, that's easy, it's gotta be your favorite movie, right?"

Well, no, not necessarily. If I had to name one movie as my favorite, it would probably be Hitchcock's Vertigo, which I DO love, but I really don't care to have my heart ripped apart on my birthday. If I were to watch something of Hitchcock, it would be something a little less foreboding, like maybe Rear Window, or North By Northwest, or To Catch A Thief, so I can stare at Grace Kelly for hours. (Or Eva Marie Saint, if I go NBNW).

Besides the Hitchcocks, I'm also liable to watch something musical - either the pure bliss of Singin' in the Rain or the adrenaline rush of A Hard Day's Night. I'm sure both come as giant shocks to those of you who know me well.

So what did I watch on my birthday this year? Nothing, I'm afraid. I spent my evening at dinner with my family, then when I got home I blogged for you all instead of watching those movies! Aren't I altruistic?

So what would be the movie you would watch on your birthdays?

What a glorious testimonal, I'm happy again

From the movie Lulu on the Bridge:

Willem Dafoe: What's your favorite book?

Harvey Keitel: I don't have a favorite book.

WD: What's your favorite movie?

HK: I don't like movies, I never go to them.

WD: I thought every American loved the movies.

HK: Not me. (pause). I used to go, when I was a kid. But then Gene Kelly retired and the joy kind of went out of it for me.

WD: You really like Gene Kelly?

HK: Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.

WD: Which film? Which song?

HK: My favorite number would have to be "Singin' in the Rain." Never get tired of it.

WD: For once, I agree with you. I love it too. In fact, I would even go so far as to say it's one of the finest, most beautiful things ever created by an American. As good as the Declaration of Independence. As good as Moby Dick.

HK: It's better than that stuff. "Singin' in the Rain" is forever.





Indeed!

(As quoted from the American Masters special, "Anatomy of a Dancer.")