This was great. I couldn't stop laughing after J. Mascis was onscreen for seven seconds or so saying, "I'd never seen a fat guy move so much." That guy.

And it's nice to see Flea paying respect to the force that made him who he is. That being THE MINUTEMEN and their Red Hot Chili Peppers influencingness.

There don't call him the Master of Suspense for nothing. There were scenes where I was literally at the edge of my seat, the last thing I expected from a 65-year-old movie

Pretty interesting documentary with a "sort of" candid looks at Mick's everyday life.
And what a life it is!
He seems to have limitless energy and his hands in just about everything.

Dark Water

This had to be one of the lamest things I've seen in a while and it was beeming with a great cast of people with literally nothing to do. Should be embarrassing but I bet it was a great payday for them.


Be Cool

"Sombie. Look at me" I'm sure this particular line is far more meaningful in other contexts but after the 5th or 6th time it comes out of Travolta's enormous head I began to ponder who the hell would bother? I think the very idea that this kind of Hollywood-plays-a-parody-of-itself and all those involved (Steve Tyler? What the hell did they promise him for doing this nonesense anyways?) would know better. Again. Clearly somebody got paid. alot.


Breaking Away

Watching this one again I still have a sweet spot for the whole 'townie' experience. Especially having grown up in a college town. This is a really good flick although I found many of the transitions in the film to be kind of odd. Including the music that follows them. Many of the edits are just clunky but it still holds up despite all the things that throw it off the track periodically.


Rebound

I've never been a big Martin Lawrence fan but I do realize he's now the hardest working comedian in Hollywood these days. This thing was fairly harmless and rather run of the mill as plots go. I kind of wonder if there's some scripts that are like madlibs.
Just change the names and the sport and whammo!-You've got another cheap comedy for the year! And it's pretty funny... if you're twelve.


Fat Albert

I'm not sure whether I covered this one before or not but it additionally goes where Cosby appears to be heading to and that's retirement. This picks on the fact that the landscape of old is disappearing. Kids pick this up in re-runs and all that this film endures to preach. Is actually outdated and old which includes the real people it supposedly involved. There's nothing wrong with it considering the material but just like many of Cosby's attempts in film (Ghost Dad for ex.) They just don't do anything new or more interesting than those reruns of his show.


The Longest Yard

This thing oozed like a Simpson/Bruckheimer film. Clearly Sandler thought this was a sure thing. Sorta strange when a film decides to balance on the thin line between straight and gay behavior in which it obviously leans to the hetero world but clearly makes exceptions for prison.




actually no. I have them on. It's still a red 'x'

Worth watching just for the sex scene and the last 12 minutes. The rest is atmospheric if a bit monotonous.

I'd add that not only did 'Dark Water' rip this off but Tony you sound like your reviewing porn.

Pretty good. Better than the first? Maybe. A few overdone metaphors (saving the train while being "crucified" to the front of it, etc.) aside, great special effects, really fun, and thankfully no more post-9/11 overtones. K.D. was really cute, too.

I still don't understand why that girl brought him cake or what the purpose of that scene was. I thought it was going to pay off later but it never did.

You watched all these movies in the same week?



What a great collection. Put it in a box set and call it "things to watch when you're babysitting your autistic nephew".

Make it 'weekend' and call it crap that's on tv when your babysitting your kid and you'd be on the right track.

What's wrong with a 911 overtone in a superhero movie? We have all our good young mainstream directors making these things. Part of the deal is supposed to be that they're going to stretch beyond the usual and say someting more, isn't it? Anthony Lane says they should just give it up and have dudes catch cars and shit, but I think the ambition is okay. The problem is that the aims have been so cliche. Oh no, it's really stressful being a superhero. With great responsibility...blah blah blah. I thought the shades of a coming out story in X-Men I worked.

Okay. But how's Uma?

if it's your own kid, it isn't baby sitting

I think it's called "raising". And from the movies you're showing him, sounds like you're doing a bad job.

Uma is filling in the blanks here and doing a bunch of the usual junk these days. I can only guess she's just looking to keep working to put food on the table... as if that were a problem.






True that. It's my own downtime that I'm talking about. Can't do much when he's napping.



I don't let my kid watch TV just yet. However, he gets enough when I'm at work and he's at the babysitters.

I forgot two others.


All We Are Saying directed by Rosanna Arquette

This one is kinda dull. It gets old pretty quick even though it's a who's who in R'n'R
I felt like it wouldn't have been made had it not been for her access for being herself.
Nothing really develops here at all.


Punk Attitude directed by Don Letts

Really made for TV which has a mess of talking heads kinda revisiting who had it hard
and how the whole grunge scene came out of this earlier period of artists.
Particularly telling moment when Gary Miller of Bad Brains describes how at their first show in the UK some jackass yelled 'Yankee Nigger Go Home!' which led him to put down his guitar jump off the stage and beat the snot of out of the guy.

Did anyone see Annapolis? How crappy is it?

Cliches a plenty...and pretty hollow...

I watched it cause Justin Lin's last film, BETTER LUCK TOMORROW was one of my favorites the year it came out. I didn't hear any of the warnings of how bad it is, and watched it anyway. It really excels at being completely boring and worthless.

Thanks for the warning

Woody Allen's latest is Scoop.

Previewed last night. An enjoyable bit of fun: Scarlett Johannson is an intrepid college student unsure of a journalist or dental hygienist career, who gets embroiled in a murder mystery thanks to (get this) the ghost of a recently deceased British newspaper reporter (Ian "Cocksucker Al Swearingen" McShane). Woody is the American magician who gets dragged into the proceedings, kicking and screaming. Hugh Jackman is a British politician who may or may not be the murderer.

Like I said, an enjoyable bit of fun. This may be the least pretentious film of Woody's career...and in his portrayal of Sidney Waterman, aka "Splendini", may be the funniest performance he has given in any film. Nerve-racked, kvetching, but eager to please, the movie just crackles with his presence.

Wish I could say the same for Scarlett--she is mediocre as hell. Her character jokes at one point that she could be Katherine Hepburn or Rosalind Russell (the old fashioned screwball mystery genre is what the film is obviously striving for), but can't seem to act her way out of a paper bag here --odd, because I thought she did a great job in Woody's "Match Point".

Anyway...it's worth a look.

Fuckin' cops and shit. Fuckin' heroin. Fuckin' car chases and trains and shit. Motherfuckers.

Popeye Doyle is a badd ass....

This guy is frickin' tool...


*Chinatown lite...


*I love Linklater



It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books

I still haven't watched disc 2 of the Slacker Criterion DVD. Is It's Impossible... any good?

It's pretty boring. It's shot in super 8 and is an advertisment for Amtrak.

The Commentary track he [linklater] taped for the film is pretty interesting, though.

it's nothing special.

edit:
Also, Daniel Johnston is featured near the end of the movie...I think he gives Linklater a tape of his music(?)

how was this? the preview makes it look a little corny.

Its strange that thought she was great in Match Point. I thought nearly all of the acting in Match Point was terrible, however, i still really enjoyed the movie overall. I'm going to see Scoop as soon as possible though.

It's getting atrocious reviews.

It's not very bad.

I most enjoy how Woody's new found fatherly role toward his female lead is giving reviewers the opportunity to let out all their bile about him "pawing" women in his older movies. Not that I'm defending him, but I find it ridiculous that critics love to walk all over such a harmless man. It's an easy target. If they had real nuts, they'd be going after Ron Howard, DaVinci and the big money. It's very American than we can be so disgusted by some old dude necking with an actress and totally unmoved by the most callous violence, cynical lies and historical distortions.

What Scoop betrays more than anything is just what a careless filmmaker Woody is. It's a totally flip, disposable movie with simple jokes, a slack script and amorphus characters. It's no more deliberate or considered than a Shouts & Murmers essay--a slight Woodyish spin on classic Male/Female detective comedy. So don't expect more than a few cheap laughs.

Despite the waves of empathy and adoration Johansson drew from young cinephiles and intellectuals with her minor-key performance in Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, it remains to be seen whether she can summon performances to match her ascendant stardom. Without a doubt, she’s lost here, wandering unconvincingly through her paces as Allen’s cross between Nancy Drew and Hildy Johnson. It’s hard not wonder whether her career would be better suited if she let her body do the talking instead of a voice that, for all its husky allure, she has yet to master.

Missing from our 1950-69 poll as only I voted for it. The remake is the one of the worst films of all time.

"raspberry!!"

OK, then it didn't get enough votes. My bad and good man.

Have people actually seen the new one?

There are more cell phones in this movie than guns. Still excellent.

Fire
Think Brokeback Mountain, only in India with lesbians.
Good, but not great

Donen is sorely underrated. Right before Bedazzled he made 'Two for the Road' which is a masterpiece and hugely influential. It's a much better showcase for Audrey Hepburn then his earlier overrated Charade. As if just making 'Singin in the Rain' wasn't enough.

They're doing a Donen retrospective at the AFI center in Silver Spring right now. If you were in DC, you could see all his movies on a huge screen in stunning color. I love that theater. Today's they're showing "It's Always Fair Weather" by Donen, Lynch's "Blue Velvet" and a kung-fu comedy called "My Young Auntie (ZHANGBEI)"

Escaped the heat yesterday by catching "Miami Vice." Pretty bad, esp. for Michael Mann. Way too slow in the middle, ridiculous love story, not enough action.

There are 4 examples of "whacked" behaviour in this post - did everyone spot them all? :
1. Not enough action.
2. Ridiculous love story.
1. Michael Mann directing a movie version of Miami Vice.
2. Bob going to see this trainwreck.

Guilty as charged.

Bob, your expectations for the film should be attributed to the heat, not your sensibilities.

proof.

based on the play which in many moments it pretty much felt like it. I enjoyed it for what it's worth although I'm not sure it's going to really blow anyone away. Kind of a minor piece from the guy who brought us Paltrow in 'Shakespeare In Love'

Far and away the best of the 70s 'Disaster' movies. Richard Lester is very underappreciated. The two Beatles films are actually among his least interesting. He made a better feature before them ('The Mouse on the Moon') a better feature in between ('The Knack...and how to get it') and many better films aftewards.

Stoned: (the Brian JOnes movie)

--very good (***)

Tony, do you have a master list of underrated people somewhere?

Yes.

#1. Otto Preminger

I'm just glad that the parts of the book that I thought were especially funny turned out to be just as funny in the film. And that I wasn't the only person laughing. The lengthier scenes invloving the scramble suits (especially toward the end) really fucked with my head after a couple of minutes. Overall, pretty great.

I spent all my time complaining about Keanu, but now I'm wondering who I would better choose to cast in the role if I had my way. Were you happy with his performance? Have any ideas for a better actor for the part?

I just started this:



So far, I like.

they tend to be people who were extremely famous for one or two films at the expense of their other work. Donen with his musicals, Lester with his Beatles films...most people have forgotten he did Superman II and Superman III (probably his worst feature but still not that bad).