Londonism

CineRobot has a lot of new stuff recently so how about a short film I made? When in London in September I filmed a bunch of the city with a small, super8 styled camera I was carrying. I love the dreamy, over saturated look of the images of this camera and think it perfectly fits my memory of spending time in London.

Here is the first one of various little short things I plan on filming in the upcoming months--including LONDONISM2.

Subscribing vs. following

I think I posted something in error a few weeks ago. The followers list sign up might not send out e-mails to you when posts/comments occur. It is more a Facebook style app to see who is following CineRobot. I've had a few e-mails about people thinking they were going to get e-mail notices when posts were coming after signing in. For that, you will need to put the same info in the "sbscrb to CineRobot" box just below the poll box. You can choose to be alerted to posts + comments or just posts. Let me know if this doesn't work either.

UTW review of Good Hair

Go here if you want to read my review this week in Urban Tulsa Weekly. It's the Chris Rock documentary Good Hair, which examines various social, cultural, political elements to the way African-Americans (mostly women) choose to wear their hair.

Channing Tatum: horrible actor & dream invader

It's bad enough when you watch some movie you don't like--at least that's done by choice and you can turn it off or walk out of the theatre. What happens when you wake up in the middle of the night and realize you have just had a dream about a movie and it was force fed to you against your will? That happened to me a few nights ago and let me tell you, it wasn't a good night's sleep. On the bright side, it may lead to a new film being adapted and turned into box office magic by adroit Hollywood insiders if they happen to stumble upon this post by sheer accident.

Any dream with lunk headed actor and Vanilla Ice worshiper Channing Tatum (see photo of the douche himself) in it can never be good. Ever. Tatum, who has been in such films recently as Fighting and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, seems about as bright as a brain-addled turtle. I've seen him a few times being interviewed and the guy has difficulty accessing the part of the brain to make these things we call sentences. I don't want to go out on a crazy limb here but his career owes more to that rockin' bod and his pouty face.

So, imagine my inner terror when Tatum shows up in a dream where I'm at a movie theatre watching a film. Get ready Hollywood producers and wannabe screenwriters for a doozy of a premise that I want a co-story credit (I'll use an pseudonym due to embarrassment, unlike the current spate of Hollywood types) if you steal this idea from my subconscious. I suggest casting Tatum in the lead too since I can attest to his ability to play this role to perfection--it's right in his range (the character's name is Duke and this will be Tatum's third role as "Duke"; this makes it easier for him to recall his lines) as he'll play a guy who grunts and never lets loose with dialogue with more than two syllables. Call Tatum quick!

The plot of the film early on is about skateboarders in their late 20s who refuse to give up the casual lifestyle they are immersed in. It's their life, their passion, their reason for getting up in the morning and taking to the pavement. The leader of the pack, a surly (yet sensitive!), gifted boarder (Tatum!) thinks it might be time to give up the board but he's torn between loyalty to his crew and the new found maturity he is pondering (pony up the money for Megan Fox!). Imagine the emotional fireworks as we cut to Tatum's face scrunched up in deep thought (he's trying to remember the short phrase he's supposed to utter) and he has a eureka moment and hollers out, "I'll get that G.E.D.!" Later on, Duke (uhm, Tatum, I'm getting confused myself) decides med school is the route to go as that will show all the haters!

Here's where the film takes an odd, but believable twist--at least believable in this day and age of filmmaking. While on a post-dawn skate, Duke/Tatum begins to do battle with these demonic creatures that rise out of the cement and attempt to pull people under the concrete and into the netherworld of hell. This is where the film can load up on the CGI that will coax all the males into seeing this PG-13 rated movie. Duke/Tatum gets to fight off all kinds of demonic spawn, naturally shirtless, with his skateboard in a flame ridden underground city.

Unfortunately (well, fortunate for my well being actually), this is where I woke up but I believe I've laid the groundwork for any filmmaker, producer or Hollywood type to take this idea and run with it. I know, it's not a sequel. It's not based on a graphic novel or a comic book. It's not based on a book or a TV show either. This is something you don't see a lot of now--an original idea via my dream state. I'm not sure I'd score it that high if I had seen it at a test screening but don't brush it off yet. Isn't the awesomely bad Channing Tatum, shirtless skateboarding scenes and lots of violent (but not too violent as we don't want that scary R rating that would cost us that precious teenage market) demon fighting be enough to PR/cross promote the shite out of it into a hit? Didn't you, dear Hollywood, just do that with soulless films like Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe? It can be done again and again and again and again and again and again and again. These idiot audiences of 2009 will never get wiser and they will lap it up every time.

UTW review of Paranormal Activity

Go here if you want to read my review for Paranormal Activity in this week's Urban Tulsa Weekly. It's a low-tech horror film that taps into your imagination.

Poll questions + searches + other changes

I've updated CineRobot's layout and settings somewhat. New features include the ability to search CineRobot for particular actors, actresses, directors and films--there's posts going back over four years now so you'd be surprised how many names pop up in posts. Try a few searches and you'll see what I mean.

I've also added a poll question that I'll change every couple of weeks--unless no one ever answers the question. If that happens I'll scrap that. They are anonymous so there's no reason to be a lurker and to not answer it! The first one is relevant as I'm going to go see The Thing this week and Halloween is coming up soon--not to sway your responses.

There is also a link on the bottom of the sidebar to add yourself as a "follower" to CineRobot. This should send you a notification each time a post is made--so you don't have to come back and check every so often. Not sure if this will allow you to see the polls on the home page but you could always head over to the home page after you've read the new post.

There might be a few more changes on here too as the new layout offers other things that might make CineRobot more interactive, we'll see. Whether or not the interactive stuff stays or goes might depend strictly on you, dear readers.

The Sewing Circle

Book review. The Sewing Circle is kind of a sleazy book about actresses during the 1920s-1950s who were lesbian or bisexual. Garbo, Dietrich, Bankhead, Hepburne, Stanwyck and many others.

The Sewing Circle is written by Axel Madsen and he writes with the air of an academic as he digs up the dirt on these Hollywoodians. He's not. This faux academia gives the book an ever sleazier edge as it pretends to be something it isn't. When the gossip and the details start flying, it makes them even more jarring.

Not great but luridly interesting if you like to read about this era of films as it dishes out all kinds of tales about women (and men) who lived secret lives outside of the glare and the glamor as cinematic stars.

UTW reviews: American Harmony + Bright Star

Go here if you want to read my reviews for the week. I reviewed American Harmony--a doc about barbershop quartets--and Bright Star--the latest from Jane Campion set in 1818 London and around the poet John Keats. Bright Star is one of my favorite films of the year.

Recent films

Tricks. Poland. 2008. This is one of the sweetest tales of childhood I've seen in a while. I'm not a huge fan of coming of age films with really young kids but Tricks has a terrific blend of various elements connected to youth. Set in a small Polish town, a kid follows his pretty sister around while trying to figure out if the man who lingers at the train station is the father who abandoned them. Simple story that is utterly charming from start to finish.

Westworld. 1973. USA. When I was a kid Westworld and Logan's Run were a couple of my favorite science fiction films. I watched them over and over again as both are just really cool ideas. Westworld is about a theme park for adults populated by robots. Robots! Well, when their machine circuitry goes awry and guests start getting killed, that's a problem, isn't it? Original bald brother Yul Brynner plays a gunslinger who refuses to die. Directed by Michael Crichton, this is just pure 1970s fun.

Into the Wild. 2008. USA. I didn't see this when it came out because I read the book and therefore had been exasperated by this story once already. College grad with romantic, extremely idealized smarts burns money, wanders in the West before starving to death in the Alaskan wild. True story. Earnestly directed by Sean Penn with a direct On the Road for the 21st century quality. That's good. Into the Wild was a lot better than I expected, it has a great ensemble cast and Emile Hirsch is wonderful and charismatic in the lead role.

National Treasure. 2005. USA. Surprisingly enjoyable summer blockbuster action yarn that stars Nic Cage and his toupee out to redeem his family name from scandalous slander. Lots of historical scavenger hunt around the globe styled adventures--some more believable than others. Okay, mostly not believable. I watched part two a couple days later and it was terrible!

UTW reviews: Capitalism: A Love Story + The Invention of Lying

This week for Urban Tulsa Weekly I reviewed Michael Moore's newest Capitalism: A Love Story and the Ricky Gervais comedy The Invention of Lying. Don't be frightened but Capitalism: A Love Story is a 1,600+ word review! To read both of them go here.

Movie tickets #11

September movies

Westworld---1973---usa ****

The Hangover---2009---usa ****

Big River Man---2009---usa ***

Coco Before Chanel---2009---france **

National Treasure---2005---usa ***

Fish Tank---2009---england ***1/2

Broken Embraces---2009---spain ***1/2

National Treasure 2---2008---usa **

The September Issue---2009---usa **1/2

The River---1951---france ***

Just Another Love Story---2009---denmark ***

Tricks---2008---poland ****

Sin Nombre---2008---mexico ***1/2

The Great Buck Howard---2009---usa ***1/2

Yes Man---2009---usa ***

The Express---2008---usa ***

Eagle Eye---2008---usa **1/2

Into the Wild---2008---usa ****

The Happening---2008---usa **

The Surrogates---2009---usa **1/2

Out of Sight---1998---usa *****!

UTW Surrogates review

This week was my first as a film critic at Urban Tulsa Weekly. It's a weekly paper published in the Tulsa area. I'll be reviewing one or so films a week for them. I will try to publish the link to my reviews on CineRobot in case anyone wants to check those out.

You can go to urbantulsa.com, click on cinema to read all the reviews; or just click Surrogates and it should take you right to my review.

I don't know how long they keep their reviews archived in case it doesn't work a month from now.

A new record!

Mark your calender for September 18, 2009 as CineRobot history was made. On my recent trip to London I set a record--most expensive movie ticket ever paid by me for a new release. In fact, I broke the record a couple of times (London is expensive!).

The official new record: $20.64 (which is what the 13 pounds translates to on that day's exchange rate).

I saw Sin Nombre at the Apollo Picadilly Circus Theatre. Over $20? Madness!

Heartbeeps

Andy Kaufman is one of my favorite entertainers of the past thirty plus years. He took comedy to some odd places that it had never gone before but I had never seen his famously bad 1981 film Heartbeeps until recently. Wow. Heartbeeps lived up to the hype--it is bad, really, really bad. It's one of those rare creatures though, it's so awful, and you know it's horrible as you watch it, but you can not turn it off or look away. Train wreck city that leaves you thinking--how did this movie get made? So, in some weird way, it's actually good despite it being so crappy! Make sense?

Heartbeeps is something that could only have been made in the early 1980s. Straight to video is a term invented for a film like this. Kaufman and Bernadette Peters star as robots who escape a robotics factory and go on a walkabout. Okay, I'm intrigued with that so far. They build a baby robot for some reason (it does cute robot baby stuff!) and are joined on their journey by an old school borscht belt robot named Catskill. While they are gone they are pursued by a defective police robot known as Crimebuster Deluxe and a couple of bumbling factory workers (one of which is Randy Quaid). The pair engage in lots of robot based discussion about the world they encounter (one of them: what is a rainbow?) that expresses the similarities between human relationships and ones between artificial intelligence.

Heartbeeps is supposed to be set far enough from 1981 that it's very futuristic and modern yet it's 1981 technology on display. Rather than trying to come up with new things--we get large computer consoles with blinking green text on the all black screen, Atari 2600 joysticks, bad '80s rock band haircuts and outfits (Christopher Guest has a small role wearing some crazy overalls out in a junk yard and looking like he should have been on the set of Revenge of the Nerds set in alternate world). They do come up with things like beer in a bag so I don't want to completely rag on their imaginations. Beer in a bag, that's about it.

I'm glad I saw Heartbeeps as it's one of the few, if only, things with Kaufman in it I hadn't seen. It's terrible yet oddly captivating due to its cheesy, silly, over earnest ways. It is worth seeing if you like Kaufman or the genre of "it's so bad it's good." I can see why Kaufman was interested in making Heartbeeps as it taps into his love of innocence and childlike awe. He had those things in his comedy from day one. Too bad this wasn't up to the high standards he had set in his work in television and stand-up comedy.

I Heart Charlotte Gainsbourg

It's been awhile since I've written about a French actress so let's put a stop to that right now. Meet Charlotte Gainsbourg if you don't already know her.. It's been hard to avoid her if you like French or indie films as this has been a great decade for Gainsbourg. She's piled up a collection of interesting roles and has more on the way. She's balanced taking on everything from French romantic comedy to historical drama. There is a lot of buzz about her performance in the upcoming flamethrower of a film, Lars von Trier's Antichrist, so it doesn't look as if Gainsbourg is going to slow down anytime soon.

Gainsbourg, who is the daughter of influential singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and English actress Jane Birkin, started the decade off right with My Wife Is An Actress (2001), a fun farce about relationships written and directed by her husband, Yvan Attal. She appeared in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's bleak fest 21 Grams and another French comedy Happily Ever After in 2003/2004. In 2006 Gainsbourg took on probably my favorite role of hers in Michel Gondry's surreal romance The Science of Sleep. I love that quirky film. I also liked the no-nonsense historical drama Golden Door (2006), a tale of immigrants trying to just get to New York and through the Ellis Island experience that wasn't always so welcoming.

Gainsbourg decided to go the route of her father in 2007 with the release of a record called "5.55." Unlike some other vanity projects by actors/actresses (the list is too long to go into but you know who these people are), Gainsbourg, who teamed up with the French electronic duo Air on the album, produced a quality album of moody French and English language songs. While not as good as Zooey Deschanel's foray into the music world (She & Him), this might be the second best recent release by an actor/actress trying to create music. The song "Beauty Mark" sealed Gainsbourg into my mind for a long time to come.

Edinburgh film notes

I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days. It's a real change of pace from when I was in London. Less people, slower, easier to walk the city without looking at a map every five minutes, less to do, better accents. 

I've fallen in love with two art house theatres in Edinburgh--Cameo and Filmhouse. These two theatres are close to one another and specialize in indie, documentary, foreign and rep cinema--in other words, my kind of place. The Cameo originally opened as a Vaudeville house in 1914 and I love the ex-Vaudeville theatres. There's something so ghostly about those rooms to me. Filmhouse is a converted church! How cool is that? It sits on a bustling street with a pair of strip joints with lurid neon of women on poles in the window of one of them. There's nothing better than coming out of a theatre in an urban setting and having strip bar neon lighting up the sidewalks. 

I saw four films at the Cameo and Filmhouse on my visit and one thing I realized is they show a lot of commercials before the features over here. You think we have it bad in America with the pre-show commercials? Move to Scotland, it's much worse. One film started at 6.15 with the first commercial but between that and the trailers that followed the film began at 6.35. Twenty minutes of commercials! They seem endless and cover everything from Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to Scottish travel to bank ads. If you see a bunch of movies this would drive you absolutely batty. I was fed up in just the couple of days I've been here. 

What have I seen here? I caught the new Pedro Almodovar Broken Embraces and liked it a lot. He's been on a creative roll lately. Penelope Cruz is a pretty good actress in her Spanish films. When she's in one with English she seems terrible but I love to see her in something from Spain and her and Almodovar are kindred spirits (this is film #4 for her and Pedro). I was pretty disappointed in the documentary The September Issue that is about Vogue magazine, fashion and its editor Anna Wintour. I thought it was kind of dull and uninteresting. I saw a Jean Renoir film I'd never seen with his 1951 set in India drama The River. It was a beautiful Technicolor film print that had the Filmhouse so packed I had to sit in the front row (right next to a guy who yelled at some people in the back for being noisy during the Citizen Kane trailer--my kind of guy!). I also fed my Danish fix by watching the over the top romantic thriller melodrama Just Another Love Story. Not great but it's set in Denmark, which is enough for me. 

I'm heading back to London for a few more days and have two or three things I'm wanting to see--a Polish film called Tricks and the French crime two parter Mesrine. A lot of other stuff I need to do there so not sure I'll get to them. I'll give it my best shot of course. 

London film notes

I'm stealing the motto of London's Odeon's chain where they claim they are "fanatical about film." The new motto of CineRobot: psychotic about cinema! That just sounds a little more serious and frightening. Here's a blurry photo of me in front of the Covent Garden Odeon.

I've only seen three films the past week while in London because Sarah and I were just really busy. There's so much to do in London that we were ambushed by other things--walking the maze of city streets, museuming, eating, figuring out what to eat, shopping, resting, stopping and looking at the fold out map that rested perpetually in my right back pocket. We'd finally make it to a theatre and plop down exhausted and foot-sore after a day's activity.

Another reason we haven't seen a bunch is that I've crushed my personal record for most amount paid to watch a film--factoring in the conversion of dollars into pounds, it costs about $18 to watch a single movie. You got it, eighteen bucks! The previous high for me was $12 so there's a new benchmark that's going to be hard to top.

The three films Sarah and I saw were: Big River Man, Coco Before Chanel and Fish Tank. The best of the three is the gritty, British, teenage rebellion film Fish Tank. While there's been a lot of films similar to this--Fish Tank pulls no punches and is somber and intense. Coco Before Chanel, starring Audrey Tautou, on the other hand is dull, dull and more dull. I almost went to sleep during the first thirty minutes--maybe this was due the fact I'd traipsed all over London before I saw it? No, I don't think that's it as it's just not a great film and has lots of problems.

I'm up early tomorrow morning to catch the 6.19am train into London King's Cross Station; then I'm on the 8.00am train to Edinburgh for the next 3+ days. I've located a couple of theatres there so I plan on seeing at least one film there.

London/Edinburgh

The moment this post hits CineRobot I will be in a jet heading to the UK for a couple of weeks. I'll mostly be in the London area except for four day jaunt by train up to Edinburgh. I'll try to post things while on my trip--might be short posts, might be more frequent than once every three days, might just be photos of movie theatres or who knows what.

August movies

The film of August, and maybe 2009, was without a doubt The Hurt Locker. Recommended! District 9 was also very good. I enjoyed Inglorious Basterds more than Tarantino's last couple of films but still felt it was flawed in some aspects. I saw three films with the word "heart" in the title toward the end of the month which I didn't realize until I was writing the films down for this post.

The Hurt Locker---2009---usa ****1/2

Prom Night In Mississippi---2008---usa ***

Harry In Your Pocket---1973---usa ***1/2

Barcelona---1994---usa ****

Shaun of the Dead---2004---england ****

16 Candles---1984---usa *****!

Evil---2005---greece **1/2

Hard Times---1975---usa ****

District 9---2009---south africa ****

(500) Days of Summer---2009---usa ***1/2

Heartbeeps---1981---usa **1/2

Paper Heart---2009---usa **1/2

Inglorious Basterds---2009---usa ***1/2

Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo---2009---usa ****