Highbrow flix, low brow ramblin’s
It’s a scientific fact that people love lists of stuff. I love reading best / worst lists but I think the most revealing kind of list a movie critic can write is the “movies that other people like but I don’t” list. Nothing describes an individual’s personal taste like a list of idiosyncrasies.
Continue reading ‘A List of Popular Films That I Do Not Like’
Popularity: 100% [?]
via chud.
I don’t get why anyone would want Sam Raimi back on the Spider-Man franchise. I don’t understand why Raimi would want back on, his last three films were spider man movies. It’s time to do something different.
Three movies is the absolute maximum anyone should spend on one of these franchises. Raimi had an alright run, he hit his spider-man apex with number two and now it’s time for some new talent. The cast especially needs to be swapped out. There’s so many great up and coming young actors these days, all of whom are way better than Tobey McGuire (note to self: call him Dopey McGuire, that will be funny).
Here’s my choices for who should take over the franchise:
Continue reading ‘Spider-Man 4 Casting Post Sam Raimi’
Popularity: 24% [?]
Here’s a good article to read, Roger Ebert’s review of Blue Velvet. But it’s not his original review that they print in all his books, it’s a second (but still negative ) review that he wrote after interviewing the great David Lynch.
He doesn’t say so explicitly but it’s pretty obvious that this is his first sit down with Lynch and Ebert seems disarmed by Lynch’s own peculiar brand of being David Lynch. Of course we have the virtue of hindsight but imagine meeting David Lynch and not knowing what to expect.
Ebert is a great film reviewer but he has a natural gift of missing the point (see his review of the matrix. read that review and tell me he understood what that film was about). I understand that reasonable people can disagree about great films. No matter how great a film is it’s value is ultimately subject; I get that but after reading his two reviews I’m confident in saying that Ebert just doesn’t get this movie.
I think this second review explains a lot about Ebert’s problem with the film:
in ‘Blue Velvet,’ there are some scenes in which a woman is degraded and humiliated and made to suffer obscenely, and other scenes in which we’re supposed to giggle because the call letters of the local station are WOOD, and they give the time “at the sound of the falling tree.” Sorry, but I just couldn’t get my lips to smile.
I suppose I can see why one might confuse Blue Velvet for a spoof of some kind. Lynch approaches life from a slightly askew angle that grants even the most serious and deadpan scenario an aura of absurdity. Also there’s undeniably an element of humor to everything he does; but Lynch is the definition of sincere and he never descends into parody or mockery. What Ebert mistakes for parody is actually a very strange man’s idea of what normal people do behind closed doors.
Popularity: 25% [?]
The Rock plays Boxer Santoros who is a movie star, and a film producer who wrote a screenplay, and he has amnesia, and he traveled through time, and is married too a presidential candidate’s daughter, and he’s cheating on her, and he’s searching for some kind of secret, and his name is sometimes Jericho Kane and he’s the key to everything going on.
Continue reading ‘Review of Southland Tales’
Popularity: 52% [?]
Right before getting to finally see the Coen’s latest No Country For Old Men; in a packed theater Sunday night; I happened to be reading in New York Times Magazine where they said they didn’t consider NCFOM to be a western…
Well too bad, because it’s about border towns, and bounty hunters, and desperadoes and sheriffs and the main character, Llewellyn (the suddenly great actor Josh Brolin) wears a cowboy hat fer chrissakes. How many western movie cliches are you allowed to cram into your western cowboy movie while claiming it’s not a western? This is just like when the Coens claimed Fargo was based on a true story, they’re always trying to pull one over on us.
Continue reading ‘Review for No Country For Old Men’
Popularity: 16% [?]
John Campea has an interest to read but boringly named movie site called “the movie blog”. He might not know a lot about naming websites but he’s good at coming up with conversations starters.
Recently he’s created some controversy by coming out against the writers strike. Not only did he not display the “we support the writers” banner on his blog, he actually whipped up a anti writers guild banner with a big red cross-out over the writers guild, like he is to writers guilds what the ghostbusters are to ghosts.
I’m not putting up my own writers guild banner because that would imply that someone asked my opinion or gave a fuck what I think. But the point is that John is completely wrong on this.
1. John compares the writers asking for a cut on the finished to a carpenter asking for a cut every time someone sits in a chair they made. That’s cute but it’s an invalid analogy. Every business has a unique business model, and you can’t compare carpenters to writers.
2. Almost the entirety of John’s argument is that he disagrees with the residual system. That’s fine but it has nothing to do with the specifics of the strike, residuals are the way the movie business model work. If you don’t agree you’re entitled to your opinion, you might even have a good point, but that’s irrelevant to this particular strike.
This is the system they have and the writers are just looking to make their living within that system. And if the residual system were really so terrible the studio could just offer the writers a pay increase and be done with it. Frankly it’s a weird complaint from John. Since he’s not employed by the Hollywood machine what does he care about the specifics of how the revenue is distributed.
3. The writers aren’t just asking for more residuals, their point is that there are whole new avenues of revenue that didn’t exist at the time of their last negotiation. DVD sales, downloads, streaming; all these new media don’t just add to the revenue coming in, they cut into the old streams of revenue. Imagine if instead of a raise the studios gave the writers a cut of the profits from theatrical releases. Now suppose the studio’s decided the next day tat theatrical releases where a waste of time and they were going to premiere their new movies on TV. The writers would be justified in wanting to renegotiate in that particular case.
Popularity: 15% [?]
I’ve been going through some of my older reviews and I thought I should post some for your enjoyment.
First up is a great movie from a few years back called Mysterious Skin. Directed by Greg Araki and staring the great Joseph Gordon levitt.
Continue reading ‘Review of Mysterious Skin’
Popularity: 14% [?]
Having some free time yesterday, I went looking for a good book to read. Instead of a good book my eye was caught by Aint It Cool: The Harry Knowles Story. I’ve been a reader of Aint It Cool for a long time but I’d never gotten the desire to read his book. A lot of people don’t get it; but I’ve always enjoyed Aint It Cool for it’s enthusiasm and completely unprofessional lack of cynicism even as I was unimpressed by their equally unprofessional editorial standards. It’s a quick read and only about an hour or so I was able to get through a sizable portion of the book. I liked his addendum’s on his favorite / least favorite films as well as his list favorite studio projects that aren’t making any headway.
In particular I recommend the chapter on Matt Drudge, focus groups and especially the preamble by noted filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. In a succinct page and a half Tarantino ably sums up what it is about Knowles that makes us interested in his opinions. It was interesting read and for me at least a nostalgic blast from the past and a reminder of what’s great about Knowles.
That last part should read “what used to be great about Knowles”. I know I’m not breaking the story of the year here but Aint It Cool News has completely lost it’s mojo. I don’t even know why I bother reading it anymore. There’s an ironic part of the book where he’s criticizing Matt Drudge and it’s a pretty blatant case of Harry fretting about the mote someone’s eye while ignoring the plank in his own. The warning signs have always been there but Harry’s degenerated into a total studio shill, a guy whose first mission is to do damage control for the studios. There’s no film too rancid that Harry can’t pad out an apology for under the guise of a “review”.
And it’s not just Harry either. Drew “Moriarty” McWeeny is a good writer but he’s symptomatic of the site wide loss of credibility. I remember when Showtime announced they’re absolutely bullshit dumping of Takashi Miike’s much anticipated entry on Masters of Horror, anthology because it was “too disturbing”. Chud.com got it right with their mix of humor and indignation. Aint It Cool on the other hand got McWeeny; who was employed by the series; to pen this completely pandering apology. It was McWeeny scolding the fans for not considering the business aspect.
Want a precise moment in time where AICN allegiance shifted from the film geek to the studio? It’s these two sentences:
“Showtime saw the episode, they freaked out, and they decided not to show it. Considering it’s Miike, that shouldn’t really surprise anyone.”
It was an almost cartoonish moment of hypocrisy for a site that once considered itself a guerrilla resistance to the corporate entertainment media.
Popularity: 14% [?]
I was passing some time on youtube just now reaquainting myself with this classic scene from Goodfellas. It made me think about great / favorite tracking shots throughout history. Here’s my personal list of top ten. There’s only ten spots and it hard to choose the order so lets not have any hurt feelings, they’re all winners. Yeah, and my criteria for “tracking shot” is pretty liberal.
10. Children Of Men. There’s a bunch to choose from but my favorite is in the car. The Kills are on the radio and a truly unexpected incident of violence ensues.
9. Citizen Kane. The camera goes up onto the roof, lighting flashes and we go through the sky lights
8. Scar Face, the chain saw scene. we go out the window and down to the convertable. An obvious influence for tarrantino’s ear scene in Resevoir dogs.
7. Blood Simple. right over the passed out drunk.
6. Nostalgia. Tarkovsky and tracking shots is a subject that deserves a more words than I’m prepared to write.
5. Halloween. One of the best opening scenes ever.
4. Evil Dead II. Through the woods, into the cabin, out the other side and into the air. Extra points for low budget.
3. Touch Of Evil. Welles’s greatest slight of hand trick. Fantastic tracking shot + fantastic sound design = the best fucking moment of cinema period (.)
2. Irreversible. The whole damn movie, but especially the last scene, but especially the whole damn movie.
1. I, Cuba. The one where the camera goes under water is the most famous but my favorite is the riot. For those two scenes this one gets the top spot.
Extra prizes for specialness: Russian Ark for being the longest to date (had to look it up, haven’t even seen the film). the Luimere Brothers and DW Griffith . Running around naked in Medium Cool. Rosemary’s Baby for giving us the infamous camera attached to an actor. The rabbit ear kid goes down the hill in Fargo. Scorcese wildcard: pick your favorite. And Sun Rise which would be on the proper list but I just don’t like the film.
Did I leave out your favorite? Sing me the song of your woes in the comments.
Popularity: 22% [?]
Before getting to my review of Ridley’s Scott’s prestige gangster picture you should read Jeremy Smith’s article on the use of pop music in cinema.
“Ten years after the triumph of Mean Streets, the wedding of the image to popular music was now an industry in and of itself.
For true connoisseurs of cinema and music, the cheapening of this marriage has not completely eroded its ability to inspire. Until the failure of Bringing Out the Dead, Scorsese was still astonishing with counterintuitive uses of classic pop songs, his master thesis being Good fellas. From Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches” to Sid Vicious warbling “My Way” over the closing credits, the film is a miraculous blending of musical eras and genres.”
Continue reading ‘A Review of American Gangster’
Popularity: 17% [?]
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