MeyerBros

I ran into this* today, while checking out feminist reviews of various movies. Then I started watching Match Point because Blockbuster had it and I thought it might be interesting. It wasn’t. It broke the third rule. I didn’t even make it a half hour in.

update: I fixed this link.

i’m serious. it’s not even subtle a little bit. the voice of farm-boy jesus’ real alien father says “you walk among the mortals but you are not one of them. because of their capacity for good, i have sent them my only son” - and people discuss whether they need this super-jesus-savior, and then he gets crucified by (and this is the good part) kevin spacey and parker posey. cyclops is there, but he just gets jealous of jesus, who happens to be stalking his wife and listening in on all their conversations with his super-jesus powers. then cyclops flies a plane and saves jesus from his first death, and jesus has a little baby sequel with big blue jesus-sequel eyes and flies off into the night like tinkerbell or santa-clause saying “i’ll always be around”. and i believe him. he’ll always be around stalking poor married women and watching and listening to their every move and conversation and having little sequel babies that will grow into big sequel blockbusters with super-sequel jesus powers to stalk more women on bigger and bigger home entertainment systems. oh i just can’t wait for that third coming.

2 out of 5 stars
someone airbrushed my fugard

I have to admit - I saw it coming when I saw the airbrushed cover art. And I was right. Within the first five minutes this movie had deviated so far from the book (and the book’s intention) that there was no way back. The complexity of Athol Fugard’s characters is reduced to simplistic stereotyping and meaningless redemption. Fugard’s story is gritty and complex, where this movie has an air-brushed and pristine gilding with nothing underneath. The movie changes everything from Tsotsi’s past (where the political context of apartheid is removed and replaced by a drunk father), to the present story (where a complex story of personal growth is replaced by a crime thriller), and even his implied future (where an honest story of redemption is replaced by, well, fluff). There is no way to call this the same story. Please read the book (and the rest of Athol Fugard’s work) before you watch this movie.

my reviews of “snakes on a plane”, “a man without a country” by kurt vonnegut jr., and a South Bend Tribune review of “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” as performed at New World Arts.
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from the commentary to “Lonesome Jim”:

Steve Buscemi: “These Riki’s bars were real. But they’re no longer around. Right?”

Jim Strause: “The Riki’s went under. Yep. Ricki’s one, two and three are all gone.

SB: “That’s sad. i mean, are they still bars?”

JS: “Actually, no. Main Street’s become kinda grim.”

Come back home, Jim. Main Street has never looked less grim. (And i know at least Ricki’s one is still a bar - the White Horse lounge is a sketchy little place, but they donated props for our most recent show at NWA).

This afternoon, instead of vegging out in front of the television, I decided to catch up on the latest trailers on Apple. Here are my top four:

1. Ground Truth This movie looks like the true sequel to Farenheit 9/11. It tells the stories of young men and women in the armed forces from enlistment through deployment and death, injury or homecoming. You may think you’ve heard these stories before, but the professionalism and polish of the trailer suggest a movie uniquely powerful and moving. The release date of September 15th is timed for maximum impact. Spread the word.

2. Fast Food Nation You’ve heard of the book, now watch the movie. The fictional premise of the film allows us an insider’s view of the fast food industry that Michael Moore could never give us. It looks funny, disturbing, insightful and incriminating. Just what McDonalds needs. Move over Supersize Me.

3. Science of Sleep I loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and this film, by the same director, looks even more creative, playful, surreal and wacky. The trailer combines stop animation and live action to capture a world where dreams and reality merge. Looks like one of those visually compelling enough I might even want to watch it in the theatre.

4. Accepted At first glance this looks like just another teen movie. Highly improbably story, but with a moral that looks straight out of The Teenage Liberation Handbook: middle class suburban kids teach themselves. Oh and it has Lewis Black from the Daily Show. Of course, it could be a complete flop as well.

Oh and Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny looks like another hilarious Jack Black movie. But once you’ve watched the trailer you’ve probably already seen all the funniest moments.

excuse: it had john cusack and billy bob thornton. not that that means much anymore, but it was worth a shot.

result: fargo without the good.

tag line: never trust someone else to do a coen brother’s job.

it does seem like there is a consistent slide in quality films coming out of the movie industry. especially, perhaps, in the writing. and they wonder why sales are dropping off in the theatres…

so i saw Syriana the other night (i should note that i watched most of the movie by myself, because aparently it wasn’t good enough to keep the attention of hannah and kelly for more than 45 minutes). i thought it was a decent movie, but way too complicated to really understand without rewinding a few times. i have to admit that i actually watched 3/4 of the movie, read the wikipedia synopsis, and then finished the movie. i had most of the plotlines and characters correct, but there were a few things i definitely would not have caught without reading the synopsis, even after watching the entire movie. perhaps the characters are a bit stereotyped (especially how all Arabs are presented as puppets of the US). oh, and it criticizes the US, which is why columnist Charles Krauthammer says “Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.” well, i’d like to see him try anyway.

i would review this movie, because i did watch it, but the ninja beat me to it and said everything worth saying.

and then said some more things - but go check it out.

(hint: not a great movie)

a new documentary from aaron russo. starts with a question about income tax (turns out there is no law or constitutionality behind it, according to this) and ends up with a documentary on american facism.

crazy.

Breakfast on Pluto is a great new movie with Cillian Murphy as an Irish transvestite in the 70’s. I watched tonight and was blown away. Another great story from writer/director Neil Jordan who also wrote and directed The Crying Game. Both are entirely worth your time - though this one is distinctly more positive (in its own little way) than the earlier. And Patrick ‘Kitten’ Braden rivals any of my uninterested heroes - defining a new, more intriguing, niche in the genre (The Dude (Big Lebowski) and Cool Hand Luke being other favorites).

Speaking of The Dude: Last night’s film was The Hudsucker Proxy, another Coen Brothers favorite of mine (co-written with Sam Raimi (who caught that the name ‘Hudsucker’ was stolen from an earlier Coen/Raimi collaboration (starring who else)? come on, people, try to keep up). Tim Robbins is great, I love Paul Newman, and I expected Bruce Campbell (I already linked to him) but suddenly I was seeing Steve Buscemi in a bit part and John Mahoney (who I loved on stage at the Steppenwolf in Chicago “I Never Sang for my Father”) as the newspaper editor. oh - the connections. i love (pseudo)indi-film.

Today I also ordered several books:

• Stone Cold Dead Serious by Adam Rapp
• Fat Pig by Neil Labute
• Indian Killer Sherman Alexie
• The Saint Plays Erik Ehn
• Passion Play: A Cycle by Sarah Ruhl

I’m most excited by those last two, with Sherman Alexi close behind (though this doesn’t look like his most interesting book (i’m not the thriller sort)).

Twelve minutes long, all animated, created entirely with free/open-source software (notably Blender). Released under the Creative Commons attribution license (just like this blog) - all of the production files are available for reuse, remixing, whatever.

I’d review it, but I haven’t watched it yet. Still waiting for it to download (I’m going for the low-quality 155MB Quicktime download instead of the super-duper hi-def 5.1-surround MPEG4 850MB download).

Oh, don’t forget the link.

So I went to the drive-in movie theater in Plymouth Indiana last night and saw Over the Hedge and Mission Impossible III for a total of $7. Not a bad deal, I must say. And the drive-in experience was kinda fun. They have speakers outside if you want to sit on blankets, or you can tune your car radio to a certain station for even better quality, depending on your car. Unfortunately, the drive-in theaters are sort of upset about this whole daylight savings time change thing, because all of a sudden they can’t start until 9:00 pm, and it was still too light outside. By 9:30 it was fine, but that meant that the 2nd movie didn’t end until 1:00 am.

So, M:I III…Good movie, overall. Way better than M:I II in any case, but that’s not saying much. The entire movie was a bit too action-packed and just another way for Tom Cruise to show off, but that’s to be expected. It had the usual plot twists that hardly count as “twists” anymore for M:I movies, and the fun gadgets, etc. Like everyone else, I liked the scene at the Vatican.

Over the Hedge was better. In the spirit of Ice Age, but with a more fun plotline and setting. Not a real thinker, but entertaining and humorous.

In other news, I’m moving into Carl’s room. He doesn’t know yet, but I’m pretty sure he won’t mind. And if he does, what’s he gonna do from 1000 miles away?

Alright. So I haven’t been a very reliable blogger the last week or so. I repent and I’ll reform my ways, I promise. Starting now.

So, I put up some new mini-reviews of movies I’ve seen recently - The Red Violin, Pride & Prejudice, Mission Impossible 3, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wag the Dog, some others. Some better, some worse.

Quality funny: the Yes Men strike again. Their MO is to build fake corporate websites, then get invited to conferences / media events as impostor representatives of a corporation. A couple years ago, the BBC interviewed them, believing them to be Dow Chemical reps, and on behalf of Dow they accepted responsibility for the Bhopal chemical disaster, which killed 15,000 and injured up to 600,000. Their stunt forced Dow to remind the world that neither Union Carbide nor its new corporate parent, Dow, have ever accepted any responsibility or lifted a finger to help the survivors.

In their newest trick, they “represented” Halliburton at an insurance industry conference on “catastrophic loss”, where they demoed Halliburton R&D’s newest project - the Survivaball, an inflatable “one-man gated community” to preserve the lives of corporate managers during future floods and natural disasters caused by global warming. In response to a serious question from the audience: “what about terrorism?” they “had to explain that, well, you know, it’s mainly — it’s got a bit of defensive capabilities, some elementary RPGs and maybe some other, you know, torpedo launchers, but basically … mainly that’s used against affluent members of the community who are trying to destroy your — you know, of the neighboring community, because those are the only people who can afford at that point to travel. You know, terrorism from the Middle East or whatever, we’re just not — that’s out of the picture at this point.”

Hey NWA, you got good actors - could they stand up in a suit in front of a bunch of insurance execs and say that with a straight face? If so, volunteer to help out the Yes Men! It’s like the Action-Comedy Co-Lab, but real life and even funnier. Elementary RPGs!

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