Blog Cabins: Movie Reviews and Commentary Made Fun

Stained Glass Cinema Sunday (#48)

2009-07-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

As mentioned previously, I'm out of town right now (currently walking around D.C.), but I figured scheduling one of these was easy enough. That being said, since I'm not here to confirm or deny any answers, I figured I'd make this one difficult, so as to keep you all busy while the cat is away.

To help, I'm giving you a hint: this is not a recent film. Good luck.

Standings:
J.D. - 11
Fletch - 7
Wendymoon - 5
Jason/Daniel, Nick - 3
Evan Derrick, Jason Soto, David Bishop - 2
Steel11Kane, TonyD, Luke Harrington, Rachel, Adam Ross, Justin, Anders, Dreamrot, Dave, BD79, Clive Dangerously, JLG - 1

Here are the altered/actual posters from last time:

Goodnight you princes of Blogger, you kings of Wordpress (and a mini-TGITDNMAR)

2009-07-10T22:37:00.001-07:00

It's that time again for TGITDNMAR, which (obviously) stands for Thank God It's The Day New Movies Are Released.

Well, Mrs. Fletch and I head out for the lovely and hopefully not too humid East Coast tomorrow on a weeklong vacation. We're off first to Washington D.C. to do all of the normal touristy stuff (and see some friends), and then we'll drive to the Cape Cod area to see some more friends and make our way to Martha's Vineyard and/or Nantucket. It should make for an excellent getaway from the supposed-to-be 116 degree Phoenician heat this weekend - we're getting out at just the perfect time.

Hopefully (and almost assuredly), I'll find some time to check in while away, but even if I don't, I have a post scheduled for later this weekend, and just might schedule another if I find some time tomorrow morning. But otherwise, I won't be back full-time until next Saturday at the earliest. Have a great week, see lots of movies, and if you're looking to really kill some time, send me an email and ask me for our of the 4 invites I have to go for Flickchart.com, my latest addiction (thanks mostly to Tommy Salami from Pluck You, Too! and Rick "The Hat" Bman from Stop the Planet of the Apes...). It's a site where, instead of just applying stars or tomatoes or cucumbers to individual films, you are given two films at a time, and (assuming you've seen both) you must pick one. It's that simple, and if that doesn't sound great, trust that it is. The best part is you end up slowly but surely building your list of favorite movies, and the more you do it, the more accurate your list will be. If you'd like to read more, Rick wrote a longer post about it here.

And now for a little TGITDNMAR. By the way, know that any percentages given are with the caveat of "not for at least a week from now..."

Bruno
Sasha Baron Cohen and Larry David have made it really hard for us to not think of Borat when it comes to Bruno, but not only do they probably not care about that, they likely see it as big positive. At least that will get folks into the theater; I'm not sure it's gonna help afterwards when people are comparing the latter to the former.

I'm not too worried. It looks funny as hell despite the fact that Bruno was my 3rd favorite character (and everyone else's) after Ali G and Borat on Cohen's Da Ali G Show. I'm there.
Fletch's Chance of Viewing (in the theater): 98%

I Love You, Beth Cooper
Is director Chris Columbus in the witness protection plan or something? Let me get this straight - the guy has a major hit streak with Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Mrs. Doubtfire and (a modest hit in) Nine Months. Then the guy makes a pair of movies that either bombed or earned a collective "meh" from audiences in Stepmom and Bicentennial Man. THEN he somehow gets to helm the first Harry Potter flick, which turns out (no suprise) to be a huge hit. He does the second one as well, and the producers more or less wish he'd stick around and direct the whole series. He doesn't, which turns out great for the series, turning it into a director's showcase of sorts, and Alfonso Cuaron made my favorite with the next one in line, Prisoner of Azkaban (cue violently agnry comment from R2D2's Nick...now).

Still with me? Okay, so he doesn't do any more Potters. What does he do? Not a damn thing, really. He made some documentary no one has ever heard of in 2005, the same year he made the musical Rent, which I paid no attention to, so it must not have mattered culturally speaking. That's it! Since 2002! And here we are in 2009 and he's helming this teen comedy, which looks like fried, sauteed, and boiled crap on a stick. Oh, and it stars a fugly kid (sorry, fugly kid). Not just meh, but blah. On the bright side, they did a bit of inspired casting by getting Cameron Frye himself, Alan Ruck to play one of the parents, and commercial actor (formerly seen on the TV show Ed) Pat Finn, who I like and wish well. Aside from those two, though, this movie can go back to the hell from whence it came.
Fletch's Chance of Viewing: 1%

Fletch's Film Review: Outrage

2009-07-09T12:28:00.001-07:00

It's hard not to, ahem, get behind Kirby Dick's Outrage. If there's one thing Americans love more than schadenfreude and the building up/tearing down of our public figures, it's exposing hypocrites for what they are. On the heels of the Larry Craig/airport bathroom scandal, Dick set out to do just that; with an arsenal of journalists, bloggers, radio personalities, and even disgraced former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey behind him, Dick goes on the offensive for the GLBT demo, firing back at politicians that fight against gay rights in public, only to (perhaps) be living lies when it comes to their private lives.

Dick and Co. know it's a slippery slope they're playing on. For each politician they go after, from Craig to Florida governor Charlie Crist to former New York City mayor Ed Koch, there are a number of sources that claim behind-the-scenes knowledge of the lives of these men that goes beyond the public eye. The film steers away from the more opinionated style of documentaries from their liberal counterpart Michael Moore and stays the course with facts and hard data backing it up. Unlike Dick's last doc, 2006's This Film Is Not Yet Rated, Dick is nowhere to be seen; instead, he leaves the talking to sources like McGreevey, former Tempe (Arizona) mayor Neil Giuliano and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, all current or former politicians and all out gay men.

The filmmaking is sound if not particularly noteworthy; it's less of a story being told here than a series of case studies each delving into the lies and voting records of a singular politician. That being the case, your enjoyment of the movie is likely tied to your socio-political leanings going in. That being said, even though I'm pro-Outrage and Dick's goal, a small part of me can't help but worry that maybe, just maybe, the film is a mistake. If even one of Outrage's targets is not, in fact, homosexual, then the whole affair becomes a well-meaning, slanderous waste that helps no one and hurts the movement entirely. It's easy to point fingers, but you had better be aiming them in the right direction.

Oh, and the Harvey Milk tie-in at the last second felt sappy and forced. The connection is credible - Milk was a force in the gay community and a leading proponent of gays outing themselves, but coming on the heels of Milk's success, his inclusion lessens Outrage's own impact and makes it seem as though it's merely a docu-epilogue to last year's biopic.

Fletch's Film Rating:

"Darn tootin!"

Counting Down the Zeroes: Code 46 (2003)

2009-07-08T16:00:00.003-07:00

[Editor's note: this post is part of Ibetolis' excellent, ambitious Counting Down the Zeroes project, in which he's asking bloggers high and low to write about their favorite films from 2000-2009. It also features yearly top tens from a number of bloggers, and in-depth looks at the awards ceremonies from the various years. Comprehensive as hell. I chose to write about the underseen, underrated Code 46.]

For the past 20 years, I've lived in the Phoenix metro area. It's no New York City in terms of the variety of our diversity, but it's certainly a place where you notice the lack of an official language. The Spanish language is everywhere. This type of experience may or may not be common to you; if you reside in California or Washington, you might be learning Japanese without trying; if you're in Toronto, your proximity to Montreal might be enhancing your mastery of French. And if you live in New Orleans, well hell - you might be picking up French, Spanish and Creole.

It's funny - for the sake of simplicity, I'm all for America adopting English as it's official language, but the melting pot of languages as seen in Code 46 appeals to me more than anything else. In the global community depicted, people from all over the world are not just bi- or tri-lingual, they're simultaneously multi-lingual, peppering their speech with a palabra from Español here, a bon huit from Français there, along with Chinese, Arabic and other languages as well. It might be a bit 'pixies and fairy dust,' but to me it represents a hopeful future in which the world gets small as we embrace other tongues and other cultures. After all, it's harder to have miscommunication problems with the world at-large when you're all speaking the same language.

Roger Ebert, in his two-and-a-half star review of one of my favorite films of the Noughties, said:

"The problem with Code 46 is that the movie, filled with ideas and imagination, is murky in its rules and intentions. I cannot say I understand the hows and whys of this future world, nor do I much care, since it's mostly a clever backdrop to a love affair that would easily teleport to many other genres: Investigator falls in love with mystery woman, helps her commit crime, risks being left hanging out to dry. Double Indemnity."

I can't argue much with his basic premise - taken to its basest level, the storyline of this Michael Winterbottom drama is not earthshatteringly original. But what film's plot could survive being narrowed down to 18 words and come out feeling fresh anyhow?

Similarly, while I'm loathe to boil down my appreciation of Code 46 to a substance vs. style argument, I must admit that the style is where my love for it comes from most. It's set, a la the similarly genetically-enhanced Gattaca, in a vague near-future, in a time where the ozone has eroded to such a level that day has become night and night day, turning the world's population into vampires in their attempts to escape the harsh effects of the sun. Those with means, and with "papelles" (similar to visas), live in megalopolises while the unlucky huddled masses are forced to live a nomadic life in the vast deserted spaces in between.

Samantha Morton's Maria works for the Sphinx, a Customs-like corporation that deems who is and isn't allowed to travel and live within the confines of the cities. "The Sphinx knows all," say the characters. Specifically, Maria works with the papelles themselves, and having grown up "outside" prior to gaining entry, is sympathetic to those wishing to travel to places the Sphinx won't allow. So she cheats the system, and in time, an investigator (Tim Robbins) is sent to determine which of the workers is illegally smuggling papelles. Given an "empathy virus" prior to his arrival that allows him intuition into people's minds, Robbins' William Geld is put in a position to quickly identify the culprit. But, for reasons tied to the title and prologue, William feels a connection to Maria and, despite his best intentions does not turn her in, instead falling in love with her.

So yeah, the story's rote. Only it's not. Like the literal talk soup going on, this simple love story is sprinkled by writer Frank Cottrell Boyce with a great twist that adds a heaviness to the proceedings that most love stories can't touch. At the same time, Winterbottom tosses in subtle futuristic technologies that are not only ingenious but believable for a near future (for example, when William enters his Shanghai hotel room with the bright morning sunshine blaring in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a simple touch of a remote button tints them all by many shades; later, we see that the television he's watching is not a stand-alone set, but embedded into one of the windows. Brilliant.).

I'll take my chances with the Sphinx - perfect or not, this is a world I want to live in.

Tuesday's Twelve Tags #28

2009-07-07T10:49:00.007-07:00

Last week's winner: Jason Soto, with 9 points.
The theme: Each film starred a former and/or current famous stand-up comedian. (Jason Soto)

Early!

Here's the new dozen. The rules are simple: I'm going to give you a dozen taglines, all you have to do is name as many flicks that they belong to as you can. Try to resist the Google. Get the most and you win. There will always be a theme, though it's worth will vary according to how difficult I think it is. This week, it's worth 4 points.

1. The adventures of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world.
2. They only met once, but it changed their lives forever
3. Strangers shouldn't talk to little girls.
4. Things fall down. People look up. And when it rains, it pours.
5. How far would you go for a friend?
6. May the best hitman win.
7. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story
8. Sit back. Relax. Enjoy the fright.
9. Just Because They Serve You... Doesn't Mean They Like You.
10. The world's greatest leader is a hostage in the most dangerous place on Earth. Now only the deadliest man alive can save him.
11. The hardest thing in life is sell
12. They're selling music but not selling out.

As you get them right, I'll mark them as gotten and stuff. Good luck.

Standings
Justin - 8
Nick - 5.5
Jess - 4
J.D. - 2.5
Shane, Jason Soto - 2
Sea_of_Green, Kyle - 1
Dead Pan, BD79 - .5

Correct answers so far:
1. Falling Down (BD79)
2. The Breakfast Club (Justin)
3. Hard Candy (Justin)
4. Magnolia (Justin)
5. 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 day (BD79)
6. Smokin' Aces (Justin)
7. The Paper (Justin)
8. Snakes on a Plane (Justin)
9. Clerks (Justin)
10. Escape from New York (BD79)
11. Glengarry Glen Ross (BD79)
12. Empire Records (Rick "The Hat" BMan)
Theme - Each film takes place over the span of a single day (or less). (BD79)

Who's ready for some movie blogging?

2009-07-06T20:13:00.003-07:00

Not me.

Sorry. Blame the holiday. It's only gonna get worse, too. On Saturday, Mrs. Fletch and I are packing our bags for the East Coast. There will be no laptop accompanying us, and though I'm sure I'll encounter an internet connection somewhere along the way, I don't plan on doing much writing. Perhaps I'll schedule some posts in advance, but I anticipate this place being a bit of a ghost town for a week or so after this Friday.

Until then, I do have things I've been meaning to post, I just need to gather the stamina and desire to do so. Your patience and understanding are appreciated. Woe is me and stuff.

Stained Glass Cinema Sunday (#47)

2009-07-05T12:55:00.002-07:00

J.D.'s back, and extending his already impressive lead. Time for a harder one...

Standings:
J.D. - 11
Fletch - 7
Wendymoon - 5
Jason/Daniel, Nick - 3
Evan Derrick, Jason Soto, David Bishop - 2
Steel11Kane, TonyD, Luke Harrington, Rachel, Adam Ross, Justin, Anders, Dreamrot, Dave, BD79, Clive Dangerously - 1

Here are the altered/actual posters from last time:

TGITDNMAR (7/3/09)

2009-07-04T10:25:00.006-07:00

It's that time again for TGITDNMAR, which (obviously) stands for Thank God It's The Day New Movies Are Released.

This 4th of July, I will be declaring my independence from movie theaters. I feel so empowered.

Public Enemies
Michael Mann's Butt Score notwithstanding (see next post below), many are saying what I've been thinking about this movie for some time: oh look, Mann made Heat: 1930s Style. And while that shouldn't be a slight against it - after all, Heat is a great flick - for some reason, it's a major turnoff here.
Fletch's Chance of Viewing (in the theater): 29%

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
And yet, we were desperate enough to see this a few days ago. So much for talking bad about Public Enemies. I'll pin this tail on Mrs. Fletch - we'd seen the prior two installments, and she's smitten with talking animals, extinct or otherwise. Sure, let's go with that excuse...
Fletch's Chance of Viewing: 100%

Happy 4th of July (Americans)! To the rest of you, happy Saturday.

Bang for Your Butt

2009-07-02T13:36:00.001-07:00

Tangent One
I'm a bit of amateur stat geek. I pay close attention to the weekend box office results, as evidenced by the summer box office games I've devised and such. I play (and win!) fantasy football every year, much to the disdain of a certain Mrs. Fletch, and I dive into analyzing the prior year's stats every July/August in preparation for the upcoming draft(s). I'm a baseball fan and am familiar, if not an expert, with terms like OPS and VORP. I spend all day in Excel and/or Access.

You get the picture.

Tangent Two
If you've read reviews here for some time, you've probably seen me rant a time or twelve about the length of some films these days. Sam Raimi's insufferable 139-minute Spider-Man 3. Gore Verbinski's 169-minute (!!!) third Pirates of the Carribean movie. Even great films like Paul Thomas Anderson's 158-minute masterpiece There Will Be Blood could stand to have a little fat lopped off the top. In my world, movies should not be shorter than 85 minutes and should not be longer than 120 unless there's a really good reason; if you can't tell your story in two hours (give or take a few minutes), then I just might have a problem with you, and my butt most certainly does.

Tangential Combination
So anyway, sometime over the last few days, someone asked me if I was going to see Public Enemies. "I dunno, probably" was probably my answer; the trailer looks ok and all, but I just had this bad feeling about the Johnny Depp-starring, Michael Mann-directed crime saga.

And then I realized what the problem was. Mann doesn't make bad movies - after all, his 11 features have an average IMDb rating of 7.3, just below Steven Spielberg's 7.4. But damned if his movies aren't long as sh*t, and they seem to have been getting longer as his career's gone on. Have a look:

Movie	Rating	Length
The Jericho Mile	7.5	97
Thief	7.2	122
The Keep	5.7	96
Manhunter	7.2	119
The Last of the Mohicans	7.7	112
Heat	8.2	171
The Insider	8.0	157
Collateral	7.8	120
Ali	6.5	157
Miami Vice	6.0	134
Public Enemies	8.7	140

It should be noted that the score for Public Enemies is artificially high (as most new releases on IMDb are) and will likely be below 8.0 by Monday.

Short story long, what I longed for was a metric that told me whether a movie was worth the toll it took on my butt. Not to say that any movie literally bothers my butt to sit through, but you know what I mean - even during a movie like the aforementioned There Will Be Blood, you'll probably find yourself stealing more than a few glances at your watch, wondering just how close to the end this thing is. Or maybe you're sick of 3-hour movies that all but guarantee a trip to the restroom and some missed plot points.

A large factor in deciding what movies I want to see is who is directing, so I figured this metric would work better if we could look at a director's body of work and assign a figure, in the end deciding whether or not they are a Friend of Your Butt (FYB) or an Enemy of Your Butt (EYB). (Before we proceed, please head over to the gutter, lean over, and pick up your mind from it. Thanks. Jerk.) Then, when director X has a new film that comes out, we can look at his/her Butt Score to help determine whether or not it's worth it to see their film in the theater or to maybe wait for a time when a pause button and/or restroom is but a few paces away. But how to quantify that accurately...

In the end, the best solution is sometimes the simplest. To determine a single film's Butt Score, all you do is take the length (in minutes) and divide it by the IMDb rating. I realize IMDb rating's might not be the best judge of a film's value, but a) it's close enough and b) so long as the same scale is used across the board, the results should keep their integrity (integrity, ha ha). Again, let's use Mann as an example:

Movie	Rating	Length	Butt Score
The Jericho Mile	7.5	97	12.93
Thief	7.2	122	16.94
The Keep	5.7	96	16.84
Manhunter	7.2	119	16.53
The Last of the Mohicans	7.7	112	14.55
Heat	8.2	171	20.85
The Insider	8.0	157	19.63
Collateral	7.8	120	15.38
Ali	6.5	157	24.15
Miami Vice	6.0	134	22.33
Public Enemies	8.7	140	16.09

The lower the Butt Score, the better. A great example of this can be seen with The Jericho Mile and The Keep. They clock in at 97 and 96 minutes, respectively (identical), but thanks to a much better rating, Jericho has an impressive 12.93 Butt Score. Of the 69 films I've looked at thus far, the average is 17.37, and only nine were lower than 12.93. Here in the infancy of this metric, the determination of a director's FYB/EYB rating will depend on where their body of work falls in relation to that average score; to do this, I'm taking tossing out their highest and lowest Butt Scores and averaging the rest. Michael Mann, as is turns out, isn't as bad as I might have thought, thanks to the high quality of his work, but the survey says that he is still an Enemy of Your Butt, with a Combined Butt Score of 17.88.

So that's the crux of it. I figure I'll use this brilliant/awful new metric as the springboard for a new feature where I occasionally inform you on the Enemy/Friend status of a topical director. In the meantime, here are a few other bodies of work:

Quentin Tarantino

Movie	Rating	Length	Butt Score
Reservoir Dogs	8.4	99	11.79
Death Proof	7.3	90	12.33
Kill Bill, Vol. 1	8.2	111	13.54
Kill Bill, Vol. 2	8.0	136	17.00
Pulp Fiction	8.9	154	17.30
Inglorious Basterds	8.3	148	17.83
Jackie Brown	7.6	154	20.26

Combined Butt Score: 15.66
Quentin Tarantino is a Friend of Your Butt

Michael Bay

Movie	Rating	Length	Butt Score
Bad Boys	6.5	118	18.15
The Rock	7.2	136	18.89
Transformers	7.4	144	19.46
The Island	6.9	136	19.71
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	6.6	150	22.73
Bad Boys II	6.2	147	23.71
Armageddon	6.0	150	25.00
Pearl Harbor	5.4	183	33.89

Combined Butt Score: 21.58
Michael Bay is a Enemy of Your Butt (which is the least surprising news I've heard all day; Pearl Harbor had the highest Butt Score of any film I looked at...by far. 2nd worst was Armageddon...)

Wes Anderson

Movie	Rating	Length	Butt Score
Rushmore	7.8	93	11.92
The Darjeeling Limited	7.3	91	12.47
Bottle Rocket	7.2	91	12.64
The Royal Tenenbaums	7.6	110	14.47
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou	7.2	119	16.53

Combined Butt Score: 13.19
Wes Anderson is a Friend of Your Butt (of the six directors I looked at, Anderson had the best CBS. Rushmore placed 4th overall, with Rob Reiner's This is Spinal Tap the clubhouse leader with a scant 10.25 Butt Score. Kudos, Rob Reiner...and irony.)

So...I'm insane, aren't I? Be honest.

Working on something big...

2009-07-01T14:00:00.002-07:00

Sit tight. Have patience. Don't move your butt. Stay there. It's coming soon. It's sofa king we todd ed that it's genius. You're guaranteed to love/hate it.

Tuesday's Twelve Tags #27

2009-06-30T18:33:00.002-07:00

Last week's winner: Justin yet again, with 10 points.
The theme: Each film featured actor Tom Wilkinson. (Justin)

Here's the new dozen. The rules are simple: I'm going to give you a dozen taglines, all you have to do is name as many flicks that they belong to as you can. Try to resist the Google. Get the most and you win. There will always be a theme, though it's worth will vary according to how difficult I think it is. This week, it might be difficult. It's specific yet general. I'm making it worth 8 points.

1. Check your pulse at the door... if you have one.
2. He's taken them hostage. They're driving him nuts.
3. The only thing white is the house.
4. They'll do anything to save their best bud.
5. Brian's about to discover the woman he loves isn't the woman he loves.
6. A comedy with a language all its own.
7. An American excess story.
8. "Hello, my name is Andy and this is my poster."
9. After life there is more. The end is just the beginning.
10. A comedy of incredible proportions.
11. The show has been cancelled...but the adventure is just beginning.
12. He sees dead people... and they annoy him.

As you get them right, I'll mark them as gotten and stuff. Good luck.

Standings
Justin - 8
Nick - 5.5
Jess - 4
J.D. - 2.5
Shane - 2
Sea_of_Green, Jason, Kyle - 1
Dead Pan, BD79 - .5

Correct answers so far:
1. The Haunted Mansion (Clive Dangerously)
2. The Ref (Jason Soto)
3. Head of State (Clive Dangerously)
4. Half Baked (Clive Dangerously)
5. The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Alex)
6. Spanglish (Alex)
7. Brewster's Millions (Alex)
8. Man on the Moon (Clive Dangerously)
9. What Dreams May Come (Clive Dangerously)
10.
11. Galaxy Quest (Clive Dangerously)
12. Ghost Town (Clive Dangerously)
Theme - Each film stars a former/current famous stand-up comedian.

Public Service Announcement: You go to Big Lots! now

2009-06-30T12:15:00.004-07:00

If you're a fan of buying DVDs, especially ones at low low closeout prices (!!), you should head to Big Lots! soon. I happened to go there yesterday looking for some random thing made out of plastic (they have lots of those there) whence I happened upon a large cardboard utopia filled with terrible movies from days gone by.

Spent a good 15-20 minutes perusing the likes of Hooper, New York Minute, and 2-packs with Cobra and Tango & Cash (which I really should have gotten, based off the Brion James post). Alas, I did not get any of those movies. However, I did pick up the threesome below (note: shockingly, I did not see the movie Threesome amongst the choices) for a grand whopping total of $8.00. The first two were three dollars apiece and the third was but two. As a bonus, all were widescreen; keep an eye out for evil Full Frame DVDs lurking out there, like the one they had for Dave Chappelle's Block Party.

Awesomeness. If you have a Big Lots! in your metropolis or village, get there fast. Well, maybe you don't have to go that fast - after all, I think much of your competition is old people and/or other people with bad knees.

Familiar Face - Unknown Name #15 - Brion James

2009-06-29T14:03:00.001-07:00

Call them what you want - character actors, "That Guy(s)," scene stealers - I don't care. This is a regular feature where I spotlight one performer, whether they be longtime veterans like J.K. Simmons or Barry Corbin, or a fresher face just making their way up the stardom ranks. For previous FF-UNs, click here.

Today's Familiar Face-Unknown Name:

Brion James

Where You've Seen Him (high profile): Blade Runner, most famously. Also, 48 Hrs., Another 48 Hrs., The Player, and The Fifth Element.

Where You've Seen Him (not-so-high profile): Another Bruce Willis vehicle in Striking Distance. Any number of TV shows (Hunter, Silk Stalkings, The A-Team, The Dukes of Hazzard), but mostly in a bunch of sci-fi or action B Movies, judging by the titles (Steel Dawn, Red Scorpion, Mutator, Scanner Cop, Spitfire, and my favorite by a country mile, Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills).

Character Specialties: Dirtbags and their cousins, scumbags. Shifty-eyed psychopaths. "From Wikipedia: "Concerning his talent for playing villains in films, he stated in an interview in Fangoria magazine, "'I consider myself a classical character actor like Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery, Charles Laughton. I always like to play bad guys. I'm real good at psychotic behavior."

My favorite role: First of all, I'm a little ashamed to say that I really haven't seen all that much of James' highest-profile work. I don't even think I've seen all of 48 Hrs. Haven't seen Tango & Cash. I've seen Red Heat, but it's been forever. Surely haven't seen the cadre of B movies. Easy as it might be to pick Leon from Blade Runner, I'm going with General Munro from The Fifth Element. For what really wasn't an essential role to the movie, he took hold of it and made it a ton of fun. A rare time where I can recall him getting a chance to smile.

Little Known Facts: Did a healthy dose of voice work (Superman and Batman animated TV shows, amongst other things).

Acted in five Walter Hill films (48 Hrs., Another 48 Hrs., Red Heat, Hard Times, and Southern Comfort).

Here's a sad story via IMDb: "[on his part in Another 48 Hrs. (1990) being heavily cut down] Total Recall (1990) came out a week before Another 48 Hrs. that summer, it made 25 million. The studio panicked. My stuff was in there until one week before the film opened. They cut 25 minutes out of that movie, a week before it opened. It went from around 140 to down to around 95 minutes. They said cut all the behavior, action, comedy, done. I lost every major scene I had. That's the last time I ever cared about a movie because I went to the press screening and it was like getting kicked in the stomach, seeing what's not there. I'm the third lead and I looked like a dress extra. All the stuff that they had in the set-up, stuff in the trailer, all those scenes were gone."

The saddest story of all, though, and one made sadder by the fact that I was completely unaware of it...James died 10 years ago come August 7th. He died of a heart attack in 1999 at the age of 54.

On Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brion_James
On IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001397/

Stained Glass Cinema Sunday (#46)

2009-06-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling that you're either going to get this right away or not at all. Pretty popular film, though...

Standings:
J.D. - 10
Fletch - 7
Wendymoon - 5
Jason/Daniel, Nick - 3
Evan Derrick, Jason Soto, David Bishop - 2
Steel11Kane, TonyD, Luke Harrington, Rachel, Adam Ross, Justin, Anders, Dreamrot, Dave, BD79, Clive Dangerously - 1

Here are the altered/actual posters from last time:

TGITDNMAR (6/26/09)

2009-06-26T15:15:00.002-07:00

It's that time again for TGITDNMAR, which (obviously) stands for Thank God It's The Day New Movies Are Released.

Saw Night at the Museum 2 last night. No, I can't believe it, either. What can I say? We were desperate for popcorn and the company of strangers that we don't have to sit next to. The popcorn was good.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
You know, despite my hatred of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, I was all set to repeat my actions from two years ago and blow some money on this loud, mind-numbing action flick. Maybe the action would be more coherent. Maybe John Turturro and Jon Voight would have larger or smaller roles, making the film more/less enjoyable (depending on whether you were annoyed by them, entertained by them, or both). Maybe Megan Fox would do a striptease for no good reason. All this was reason enough to check it out.

But no. Apparently, it's not only gawdawful, but it's 147 damn minutes long. I can wait for HBO.
Fletch's Chance of Viewing (in the theater): 7%

My Sister's Keeper
Counterprogramming alert!!!

Don't want to see the testosterone-fueled flick where everything gets blown up and dies quickly? Well, how about a chick flick (with kids) where people die slowly and painfully.

Reminds me very much of this part (specifically, the popcorn part) of Eddie Izzard's tremendous Dressed to Kill comedy special from some years back:

Fletch's Chance of Viewing: 0%

Time to hit the DVR for movies to watch this weekend...

P.S. - Oh, by the way: I accidentally overwrote this week's TGITDNMAR over last week's, so the first few comments won't make a lick of sense...oh well.

Fletch's Film Review: Away We Go and Sin Nombre

2009-06-25T14:37:00.002-07:00

Seeing Away We Go, the romantic comedy/road trip film co-written by humorist Dave Eggers and wife Vendela Vida, a week or two after seeing Sin Nombre, an immigration and gangland drama from director Cary Joji Fukunaga, it's practically the eighth wonder of the world that I didn't hate Away. I certainly couldn't blame others for feeling that way.

Sin Nombre tells the converging stories of Sayra and Willy. Sayra is attempting to emigrate from her native Honduras to America. She does this via a dangerous and lengthy top-of-a-train ride throughout Mexico, along with her uncle and previously estranged father. They cross paths with Willy aka El Casper, a conflicted gang member in southern Mexico. El Casper has just taken on a new young protege, El Smiley, a situation which allows the audience a glimpse into just how brutal (and yet appealing to young boys) gang life can be. Due to circumstances larger than themselves, Willy and Sayra meet, bond, and end up on the run for America - one fighting to live another day, the other looking for something worth living for.

I don't know if it's white guilt or general American guilt or what, but I had a hard enough time not feeling like an asshole just watching Sin Nombre. Sayra, Willy and their families (blood or gang) are killing themselves just to get into the United States, just to get themselves menial labor jobs, just to be thousands of miles from their families and home countries. How much luck, or lack thereof, is granted merely by birthright? Regardless of where one might stand on the immigration debate, it's hard not to empathize with the plight of these dreamers.

On the other hand, there's the Sam Mendes-directed Away We Go, the tale of Burt and Verona, a pair of Q (not using the word...you know what it is) intellectuals; she's some sort of technical artist of medical illustrations, he's a salesman that likes to whittle wood in his spare time and dream of a "Tom Sawyer-like" childhood for his soon-to-be-born offspring. Oh, and get this - they think they're "f*ck-ups" because they're in the their early-30s and have a piece of cardboard for a window in their Colorado trailer home. And Burt's parents, who were deemed to be the de facto baby-sitters of the coming grandchild, are moving to Belgium or some such Euro destination. Woe is them! Whatever will they do?

Here's what they'll do: this supposedly lower-class couple of f*ck-ups will tour North America in search of a new place to settle down. They'll fly to Phoenix, then drive to Madison, Montreal, Miami, and god knows how many other places, all while the audience sits back and wonders how they're able to afford this what-seems-like-a-month-long vacation, seeing as how they can't afford to fix a window. Along the way, they'll be re-affirmed in the notion that everyone else out there, no matter how well-off they might seem financially or emotionally, is just as screwed up as they are, if not worse. And they'll end up in the most logical of destinations, the one place they never considered in the first place.

Now you tell me - how am I supposed to feel bad for Burt and Verona after watching Willy and Sayra? Is there any context in which they don't come off as whiny, self-entitled twits? Waah, Colorado isn't perfect for us, so we're gonna just freely travel anywhere the hell we want, with no concern for finances, to find the Utopia for our unborn child. En route, we'll act like ungrateful children to people because we don't agree with their lifestyle and we'll bolt anywhere at the first sign of trouble. Meanwhile, Willy and Sayra will risk their lives for drinking water and the privilege of changing clothes.

Amazingly, I didn't hate either Burt, Verona, or Away We Go. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph made for a likable couple, Buffalo Exchange-duds and magical vacation money notwithstanding. And, despite their circumstantial differences, the Away couple isn't really all that different from the Nombre one: regardless of where you're born, we can all identify with the notion of wanting to make our lives better, and just as it's not the fault of the person in poverty for being born there, it's not the fault of the middle-class denizen for being born there.

But it is entirely acceptable to hate the Away couple played by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton. They're just douchebags.

Fletch's Film Rating:
Away We Go

"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."

Sin Nombre

"Darn tootin!"

Poll results; new poll

2009-06-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

In this, the year of Nine/9 movies, you are largely undecided, with District 9 and the Daniel Day-Lewis muscial Nine taking the top spots in the last poll. Though maybe your lack of a frontrunner was my fault; after all, I somehow excluded the Nine-iest movie of them all: some indie flick called $9.99. Clearly, that would have won.

New poll, about funny movies, is up and has been for a few days. In fact, it already has more votes than the Nine/9 poll received in its entire run. Got it - I've made a mental note that you're enthralled and mesmerized by polls with lots of choices.

Working on getting my Certified Famous Friend

2009-06-24T08:28:00.001-07:00

For the last year or so, I've been hankering to have a Certified Famous Friend of Blog Cabins. I've never been one to care much about celebrity gossip, and I'd never be one to "geek out" in the face of a celebrity (I'm much more likely to intentionally ignore them if I see them, as I figure they get more than enough of the geeking), but I just kinda think it'd be cool for me to have the ear of a well-known actor or director, and vice-versa. They can give me meaningless yet fascinating dirt to dish from the set of their new movie ("You'll never believe what Vin Diesel puts in his cereal!") and I can give them a place to vent, anonymously or not. As a bonus for them, I might even be selloutish enough to give them unequivocal positive reviews and stuff (but maybe not, I do have my integrity to think about).

Well, I just might be one step closer today than I was three days ago. See, I noticed a little spike in my traffic yesterday. A visit to my neighborhood friendly StatCounter showed me that I was getting a number of visitors from a Facebook referral and a handful from Twitter. I'm not a Twitter member and I keep my Facebook pimping to a minimum, so I knew it wasn't from me. Also, I could see that the landing page was a specific post and not the main page.

Turns out the post being linked to was my plea to the hot comedy directors of today to get Matt Walsh, Ken Jeong, and Joe Lo Truglio a starring feature, either together or seperately. Typically, referral links from FB and Twitter won't let you see what page (in other words, who) was linking to you, and that was the case yesterday. But this morning, I noticed that one of the Twitter referrals looked like someone's profile and not just the usual "home" link. It's this one: http://twitter.com/MORGANVUKOVIC

Might not seem like much, but after some further internet investigating (aka stalking), I've come to learn that, in March 2009, Morgan Vukovic married Matt Walsh. First of all, thanks to the magical Wikipedia for that info. Second, thanks to Morgan - I hope you liked the post; please let Matt know that I've been a fan of his since I first saw him and his cohorts on Upright Citizens Brigade some 10+ years ago, and that I'm still waiting for Ass Pennies: The Movie.

[Update: how dare I! The lovely Morgan has done just fine in her own right, studying with UCB and working in films, TV and videos, including a part in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Here's her IMDb resume: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0904382/.]

Of course, should Matt like to become the Certified Famous Friend of Blog Cabins, even better.

If that were the case, I might even be able to dish all about his "new half-hour comedy series Players, which was recently greenlit by Spike TV. Walsh, creator and executive producer of the show, stars in the series alongside his Upright Citizens Brigade comedy partner Ian Roberts, playing Walsh's uptight older brother who he runs a sports bar with. Spike has ordered 10 episodes of the series, which recently went into production in Los Angeles and is set for a summer 2009 premiere." (Wiki again)

Tuesday's Twelve Tags #26

2009-06-23T15:43:00.001-07:00

Last week's winner: TTT front-runner Justin, with 7 points.
The theme: Each film contains a MacGufin, in a hotly contested, hotly debated race. See last week's comments for more. (Nick/Justin)

Here's the new dozen. The rules are simple: I'm going to give you a dozen taglines, all you have to do is name as many flicks that they belong to as you can. Try to resist the Google. Get the most and you win. There will always be a theme, though it's worth will vary according to how difficult I think it is. This week, the theme is worth 3 points.

1. Two cops. One is all talk. The other is all action.
2. Trust me. I'm a doctor.
3. He's About To Get Medieval On You.
4. We all make choices. What's yours?
5. She was the first of her kind. He was the last of his.
6. His love for her forced fate to change.
7. Falsely accused. Wrongly imprisoned. He fought for justice to clear his father's name.
8. Control Your Fear
9. Lose your heart and come to your senses.
10. What would you do if they destroyed your home, threatened your family. Where would you draw the line?
11. Discover the mystery behind the legend.
12. Snow covers everything...except the truth

As you get them right, I'll mark them as gotten and stuff. Good luck.

Standings
Justin - 7
Nick - 5.5
Jess - 4
J.D. - 2.5
Shane - 2
Sea_of_Green, Jason, Kyle - 1
Dead Pan, BD79 - .5

Correct answers so far:
1. Rush Hour (Jess)
2. Paper Mask (Justin)
3. Black Knight (Justin)
4. The Last Kiss (Justin)
5. Stage Beauty (Jess)
6. If Only (Jess)
7. In the Name of the Father (Big Mike)
8. The Ghost and the Darkness (Justin)
9. Sense and Sensibility (Justin)
10. The Patriot (Justin)
11. Girl with a Pearl Earring (Justin)
12. Smilla's Sense of Snow (Jess)
Theme - Each film features Tom Wilkinson (Justin)

Stained Glass Cinema Sunday (#45)

2009-06-21T10:18:00.003-07:00

Early bird gets the worm...

Standings:
J.D. - 10
Fletch - 7
Wendymoon - 5
Jason/Daniel, Nick - 3
Evan Derrick, Jason Soto, David Bishop - 2
Steel11Kane, TonyD, Luke Harrington, Rachel, Adam Ross, Justin, Anders, Dreamrot, Dave, BD79 - 1

Here are the altered/actual posters from last time:

Fletch's Film Review: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

2009-06-19T09:04:00.004-07:00

Tony Scott just doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. The True Romance and Top Gun director has what most would consider to be a successful career, both commercially (especially commercially) and critically (hit and miss, but not reviled like Michael Bay), but the 64-year old director seems to be regressing to his teenage years. 11 and eight years ago, respectively, he gave us Enemy of the State and Spy Game, two espionage thrillers; the first one of the paranoid variety, hearkening back to co-star Gene Hackman's 70s classic The Conversation, and the second a more standard-fare mentor-mentee rescue mission. Both were sharply written with strong casts and twists aplenty. (In fact, I think Spy Game is one of the more underrated movies of the last decade - hint hint, Daniel; it shouldn't win any awards, but it's thoroughly engaging and smart, along the lines of Ronin, which was not coincidentally released the same year as Enemy.) However, good as each was, they each demonstrated a little bit too much affection for, well, I wouldn't even call it action, but for "actioning up" non-action scenes, taking simple tasks such as driving a car or flying a helicopter and "jazzing" them up with camera tricks, special effects and overly loud sound effects.

Fast-forward through Man on Fire, Deja Vu, and Domino to this summer's Pelham and we find that Scott is literally drunk and/or in love with these hacky tricks. He takes what it is an interesting, simple premise (the subway hijacker/subway dispatcher relationship) and tarts it up with so much crap that you can't help but hate him for it. There are plenty of these sequences to dislike, from the oddly edited opening credits montage to the 1080 degree (or more) spin-arounds (I'd be shocked if the camera or editing sat still for more than 3 consecutive seconds), but the biggest culprit is easily a delivery of ransom money from a Federal Reserve bank to the subway station. Scott intercuts this race to get the money there a number of times, and each time, you'd swear that an epileptic was holding the camera with a nearly-deaf guy next to him doing the sound. If you'd like to re-create these scenes yourself, it'd be quite simple: get in your car, tune in to a rock/rap fusion station and crank it as loud as it goes, slam the gas and then shake yourself around violently in your driver's seat until you got into an accident. Mission accomplished.

If Scott were a novice and/or unsuccessful filmmaker, I'd be blaming the studio for wanting to spice up what might have felt "too adult" for a summer popcorn movie; but I can't do that - this is a 40+ year filmmaking veteran who has a number of box office hits under his belt. The blame is all his. And the aggravation all mine.

But not yours, since Pelham has inspired me to do yet another installment of Fletch's Stick Figure Synopsis© (contains a big, kind of obvious SPOILER). Enjoy.

Fletch's Film Rating:

"Whatever."

Random Leftover Thoughts:

* It's really not said enough, but John Travolta is really...not a good actor. In Pelham, he's tremendously appealing and likable - he's a fun villain - but the guy is just not believable at being menacing or dangerous. As inferred in the Stick Figures above, I got a sad kick out of the fact that he punctuated just about every one of his lines with "blah blah blah motherf*cker!!" (angrily), as if that made him seem more dangerous or unhinged to the audience. I just kinda thought it made him pathetic.

* Along the same lines...if you know me at all, you know I'm no prude, especially when it comes to language, but the incessant use of the word "f*ck" and its variants was just too much. This is not an "I'm offended by such coarse language!" complaint, it's an "I'm offended by such lazy screenwriting" complaint. Want an example of a movie with excessive F words that worked perfectly? It's called The Big Lebowski.

* The Turturro wave from the helicopter was hilariously awful. On so many levels. The teenager "relationship" is pretty lame, too.

* A small part of me thinks that I will ironically enjoy this tremendously when it hits cable and I watch it 35 times on HBO. That's not a definite, but I'm just warning you (Mrs. Fletch).

Familiar Face - Unknown Name #14 - John Carroll Lynch

2009-06-18T12:48:00.001-07:00

Call them what you want - character actors, "That Guy(s)," scene stealers - I don't care. This is a regular feature where I spotlight one performer, whether they be longtime veterans like J.K. Simmons or Barry Corbin, or a fresher face just making their way up the stardom ranks. For previous FF-UNs, click here.

Today's Familiar Face-Unknown Name:

John Carroll Lynch

Where You've Seen Him (high profile): Lynch got his first professional credit at age 30 in 1993, but it wasn't until Fargo in 1996 that he gained real attention. Playing Marge Gunderson's postage-stamp designing husband probably wasn't the kind of role that one would think would propel anyone to any kind of notoriety, but the film was an unexpected cult and mainstream hit, earning $25 million stateside and picking up seven Academy Award nominations. Since then, he's been in such feature films as Gran Torino, Volcano, Face/Off, Zodiac, and of course, The Drew Carey Show, where he played Drew's cross-dressing brother.

Where You've Seen Him (not-so-high profile): Recently, he's been bouncing back and forth between TV and film and, outside of Gran Torino, none of the projects have really caught on with the public. There was the unseen Benecio del Toro film Things We Lost in the Fire, the underseen HBO series Carnivale, the Fox series K-Ville and the Albert Brooks bomb Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. He also had decent-sized roles in Gothika, Confidence, and Bubble Boy.

Character Specialties: Lynch has been a slippery one to lock down into a type, as the best character actors seem to be. He can do menacing, gullible, downright dumb, sensitive; if I had to pin him down to one phrase, it would probably be "generic white male." That's not meant as an insult, but to insinuate that when you need someone that fits the middle of the road, a guy that disappears in the crowd, with potential for a wide array of emotions, he's your man.

My favorite role: It might be tempting to say his Polish barber from Torino, but all these years later, I have to go with Norm Gunderson. He gave so much with so little screen time, and even his dopey "Ok, Margie" lines can induce a chuckle.

Little Known Facts: A couple of not-really coincidences with me, but that's about it. First of all, my sister's last name is now Carroll, so that probably helps me remember his name. Also, Lynch was born in Boulder, Colorado, where I lived form age 8 to 13. Though, in doing research on that, I also learned that Jessica Biel lived in Boulder at the same time as me, but the 12-year old version of me probably wouldn't have been too interested in the 7-year old version of her anyway.

Also, he had his garden featured in August 2008 Sunset Magazine, so he's got that working for him, which is nice.

On Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carroll_Lynch
On IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002253/

Stuck in a rut (TV rant)

2009-06-17T12:31:00.002-07:00

Ready for a quiz? I'm going to give you the plot summary of a TV show, and I want you to tell me which show it is. You up for it?

Ok, here we go.

It centers on our protagonist, see. And our protagonist has this profession that requires them to do "X." And when they're doing their job, they're like, the best in the world at it. But the twist, the brilliant "Aha!" is that, in their personal life, our protagonist really sucks at applying the tools that they have when doing "X," creating opportunities for all kinds of drama and personal growth and stuff.

What'd you guess?

If you said In Treatment, the show with Gabriel Bynre where he plays a shrink that helps other people but has a messed up head of his own, you're right! Congratulations.

If you said the new Edie Falco show Nurse Jackie, where she plays (duh) a nurse that happens to pop pills in her spare time, you're also right! A cookie for you.

If you said The Sopranos, where James Gandolfini played a mob boss that wasn't even the boss of his own family, you're right! Pat on the back.

If you said Dexter, where the guy from Six Feet Under plays a detective that happens to be a serial killer on the side, you're right! Ugh...

Noticing a trend here, perhaps? I'll be honest, I've not seen more than 10 minutes of any of these shows outside of The Sopranos, but it doesn't seem like I need to. And I'm guessing there are probably, oh, 428 other shows on TV that follow this same formula (sounds like The Mentalist is another, for instance). What gives? I mean, Hollywood filmmakers are constantly berated for going the sequel/remake/adaptation route ten too many times, but at least the plots aren't all identical.

Since I can't think of anything better offhand, I'm just gonna give in and offer my ideas for some TV pilots. Feel free to make me a showrunner at any time:

* Bob Barnaby is the world's best janitor. But - get this - he's a pathological litterbug, and that gets him into all kinds of tomfoolery and trouble with other janitors, who may or may not know his identity. Oh the drama!

* Joan Gershwin works for a PETA-like organization and is beloved in the community. She's helped organize spay/neuter clinics all over the world and has been there to help out whenever a catastrophe occurs and animals need help. But when she goes home at night, she molests her puppies and mocks her turtles! Oh noes! Will her neighbors learn of her behavior and "rat" her out? Will her talking parrot sing like a canary? Egads!

* Ted Anderson is a world-class swimmer,a former Olympian who now trains the world's best up-and-coming 50- and 100-meter specialists. But when the tarp is on the pool and Anderson washes up after a long day, he nearly drowns every time he showers! Gadzooks!

C'mon, TV. Enough with the formula.

Tuesday's Twelve Tags #25

2009-06-16T17:41:00.006-07:00

Last week's winner: Nick and BD79, who tied with 6 points each.
The theme: Each film was the number one film at the box office in the year it was released. (BD79)

Here's the new dozen. The rules are simple: I'm going to give you a dozen taglines, all you have to do is name as many flicks that they belong to as you can. Try to resist the Google. Get the most and you win. There will always be a theme, though it's worth will vary according to how difficult I think it is. This week, the theme is worth 4 points.

1. Can you really trust anyone?
2. A repo man is always intense... but only a fool gets killed for a car.
3. A story of sex, thugs and rock 'n roll.
4. It's a guessing game of mirth and mystery!
5. Your ally could become your enemy
6. 365 days in the making - and every minute of it an exciting NEW thrill for you!
7. Trust him.
8. Makes Ben Hur look like an Epic [Yeah, this one was just used recently. I know.]
9. "I don't care what you do to me, Mike - just do it fast!"
10. Their war. Our world.
11. As big and timely a picture as ever you've seen! You can tell by the cast it's important! gripping! big!
12. Girls like me don't make invitations like this to just anyone!

As you get them right, I'll mark them as gotten and stuff. Good luck.

Standings
Justin - 6
Nick - 5.5
Jess - 4
J.D. - 2.5
Shane - 2
Sea_of_Green, Jason, Kyle - 1
Dead Pan, BD79 - .5

Correct answers so far:
1. The Spanish Prisoner (Justin)
2. Repo Man (Nick)
3. Rock'n'Rolla (BD79)
4. Charade (Alex)
5. Ronin (Justin)
6. Citizen Kane (Alex)
7. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Justin)
8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Nick)
9. Kiss Me Deadly (Justin)
10. Transformers (Kano)
11. Casablance (Alex)
12. Pulp Fiction (Justin)
Theme - Each film contains a MacGufin (Nick/Justin)

Filling society's need to quantify things...

2009-06-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Is there a song that fit/improved/altered/changed a film for the better any more than this one?

It's such a damn perfect song, and carries with it such mood, that it's 100% inseperable from the film for me, and I love the distance between the settings and tone of the film contrasted to the feeling the song carries.

Hans Zimmer's "You're So Cool," from True Romance: