Elizabethtown--another of worst of 2005

This was a flaming disaster. Has writer/director Cameron Crowe drank some kind of dangerous elixir that is causing him to make completely awful and shite movies all of a sudden?

Vanilla Sky was horrible from start to finish and now Crowe delivers Elizabethtown, which is even worse. I guess with Crowe and company I expect the film to be much, much better than what I witnessed, but after these two recent duds, maybe I should rethink that?

Elizabethtown isn’t funny, it’s not emotionally engaging, not a single character has any depth—it’s basically one of the most artificial and phony films I’ve sat through in a long while.

A big problem is the male lead, Orlando Bloom. The man is an awful actor. I don’t care how pretty he is or how he can make the cheeks blush when you look at him—the man has absolutely no screen chemistry as a leading man. After seeing Kingdom of Heaven earlier in the year and now Elizabethtown I’m convinced that Bloom will only do a movie no harm if he is in “elfin” mode ala Lord of the Rings. The funniest scene in the entire movie is when Bloom attempts to cry. Now that was comedy!

Crowe’s script is a hodgepodge of story directions—does he know what kind of story he wants to tell here? There is way too much bland narration from Bloom that comes of as smug and adds nothing to the film (as most narration does—it’s lazy screenwriting the vast majority of the time). The film is too long as well but that goes into the nest that Crowe was unsure what kind of story he wanted to tell.

And let me address the use of music in the film. Crowe pumps Elizabethtown full of so many musical background moments it’s as if he can only reveal his characters by finding some obscure/classic song from his or his wife Nancy Wilson’s record collection. Jeez, man, if you want to make videos go make videos, I was hoping to watch a movie here.

I’m not even going into Kirsten Dunst and the "there one sentence, gone the next" Kentucky accent of hers. Why even try to do a Southern accent, any accent, if you aren’t going to stick with it for the FULL movie? Plus, the completely ridiculous scene with Susan Sarandon at a funeral eulogy. I mean, tap dancing for God’s sake?! I think Crowe has lost his mind with that bit of nonsense.

I did like seeing Tulsan Gailard Sartain, the Round Barn in Arcadia, Oklahoma and My Morning Jacket showing up as “Ruckus” to do “Freebird” at the earlier mentioned memorial service. But that’s not enough to save this disaster of a film.

Elizabethtown might be the worst film of the year, considering the people involved, its high profile release and the amount of sheer train wreck quality it maintains throughout.

Flightplan--possible worst of 2005

So this is what Jodie Foster has become? Foster, the Academy Award winner, who was once thought of as one of the best actresses working in Hollywood, is now officially making movies for C-A-S-H-O-L-A.

Maybe she had dinner with Robert De Niro as he’s completely gone the same route with sludge like the woeful Hide and Seek. It’s a sad day when De Niro gives one of his best recent performances on a bleeping American Express commercial!

It’s not that Flightplan is poorly made technically or just flat out bad, it’s just dull, uninteresting and lifeless. Often that’s the biggest sin and timewaster of all a movie can have.

With Flightplan’s predictability and the absurd twists that are pure screenwriter 101 invention, Foster has fallen to unseen depths. I’m sure there is a willing sponsor to see her act in a commercial extolling the virtues of beer, credit cards or financial investment that she can fall back on. Mr. De Niro’s agent has those numbers for you Jodie whenever you are ready for them.

Originals better despite age

Screened a sometime scratchy print of Alien at Circle Cinema for the midnight series and I really enjoyed it after having not seeing it in well over a decade. On Friday night, a young woman who works there came out after 20 minutes saying it looked “too ‘80s” for her taste.

The next night I watched it and loved the colorful, yet low-tech view of the future as conceived by Ridley Scott in 1979. The movie is a claustrophobic, tense journey into the unknown that combines horror and psychological thriller in ways often duplicated since.

I’ve heard this kind of complaint a lot from younger people and classic older horror/thriller films. They will claim the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre was awesome but the deranged 1974 version was boring or unprofessional. During the re-release of The Exorcist a few years ago teenagers were laughing during certain scenes, yet, I hear their peers say how scared the middling knock off The Exorcism of Emily Rose made them as we exit the theatre. When I hear these kinds of statements, I just want to shake some common sense and taste into the lot of them!

What makes Alien better than Alien Resurrection or Halloween better than Halloween 9 (the list goes on and on) is that the early films have an originality in story, attitude and execution that the following sequels can’t even sniff, despite the new ones having all the advantages of komputers to aid their graphics.

It’s not all about graphics and high-powered komputers young movie watchers.

The early films have a subtlety and nuance to them that the remakes/sequels do not. The later films tend to go the blunt, in your face route as they feel they have to be so “full on” they have to top the originals. This doesn’t make them better movies; it just makes them noisier.

The early “classic” films often realize it’s the quiet moments that are the most terrifying. It’s in these quiet moments during Alien when “Ripley” is battling these alien beings alone in some empty part of a deep, black, silent space, when we let our imagination take over. The imagination is more terrifying than any amount of noisy, komputer generated effect can ever dream of producing.

So, as I sat in the tiny, darkened Circle Cinema and watched the low-budget effects/set design I found comfort, tension and fear in its well-aged flicker from the projector.

Slow-motion overdose

I finally got to see 2046. Watching a Wong Kar Wai movie, 2046 particularly, is kind of like visiting a foreign country where you do not speak the language. There is a period of adjustment to become settled in while in this place--watching 2046 is the exact same thing. The first 30 minutes were a mess as I was trying to get my bearings in the story as it flew all over the place. After that, I settled in and the images started to cascade to the screen and 2046 became enjoyable.

2046 is loosely connected with In the Mood For Love (loosely is appropriate as you do not have to see the first one to watch 2046). The story really isn't a story--driving narrative force is not a strength of Wong Kar Wai--as we see a man and his loves in 1968 Hong Kong. The man also exists as an alter-ego and character in a pulp novel in the future while riding a superfuturistc train filled with beautiful "love" androids. I liked the sci-fi aspect of the film and wish it would have had more of that in there rather than the 1968 stuff. The light train just looked flat out cool.

People walked out of 2046 left and right as I guess it's not for everyone with its aimlessness and jumping around. I never thought I'd say this about a Wong movie but he used slow motion too much! Like always, incredible cinematography by Christopher Doyle and others. Loved seeing Faye Wong in something again as I have a big crush on her.

While I don't like this as much as In the Mood For Love, 2046 is still an interesting, puzzling, hyper-romantic, slow-motion drenched tale that leaves a lot to the viewer to decipher.

Serenity

Serenity is a movie that should never have been made. In 2002 it was a doomed television show called Firefly that was allowed to make only 12 episodes before getting the axe. Never mind it had a rabid following, critics loved it, or Joss Whedon, the man behind the popular shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, created it.

In a way, Serenity is a landmark kind of movie because fans of Firefly were so fanatical about the show—they wanted justice. They wanted the story to continue whether on another channel or the big screen. They called themselves “Brownshirts” and immobilized themselves on the Internet. Three years later Serenity arrives in theatres everywhere. Can it please the already on board Brownshirts and new people as well? The answer is a resounding yes.

I was a fan of Firefly but had my doubts regarding the movie. I was worried it was going to be a rehashing of the series plot just ramped up to “movie” size for people who hadn’t seen the show. Early on in the film, these concerns were gone and I got to just enjoy the story and the characters I wasn’t expecting to see again.

Have you ever heard someone say, “Well, that’s kind of a space western” or something similar? Serenity is that space western. Even though it’s set hundreds of years in the future—this is a western. Serenity has that same pluck and spirit of westerns of yore and use slang, speech mannerisms, technology and weapons that have a direct connection to the old west.

The story concerns a rag-tag group of individuals who scrape along by doing petty robbery and illegal freight running to isolated outposts at the edge of a planetary system’s frontier. Their ship (named Serenity after a defeat in a war that several of the crew were involved in and are still haunted by) is a bit dodgy and rundown. Their survival depends on the success of their next job—legal or otherwise.

They bring along passengers from time to time and they happen to have a doozy with them in a young, damaged girl named River. River can read minds. River is also a killing machine who the ruling planetary government wants to get rid of. A ruthless assassin is dispatched to slaughter the crew and anyone who stands in the way of getting to River.

That’s the gist of the story but Serenity is so much more. Serenity deserves to be seen. It’s leap years better than the over-hyped mess that has become of the Star Wars franchise and other middle of the road science fiction releases.

Serenity is interesting, funny, smart, surprising and exciting science fiction and should please anyone whether you want lots of action and space explosions or if you want great characters. It’s just a great story that was a great television show and now it’s a great movie. Thanks Brownshirts, I owe you one for letting us see more of the crew of the Serenity.

Bob Moog 1934-2005

(A few weeks ago Robert Moog passed away. Being a huge fan of synethesizers you can
not avoid Moog's impact on what could be done with electronic instrumentation. He had
more influence than anyone else and his Moog synths happen to be the end all, be all
for me and many other electronic music fans. I wrote this piece earlier in the year when
the documentary Moog came out and wanted to post it here on Cinerobot. Enjoy and
long live the Moog synthesizer!)

I'll admit it: I'm in love with a machine. It's a love affair that has lasted over twenty years
and began one early teenage day when I watched a group of men from England stand
behind a bank of synthesizers. They pressed keys. They twiddled knobs. Waves of
electric sound erupted from their machines. I was awestruck.

The man who did more than anyone else to give birth to the modern analogue synthesizer,
Robert Moog, is the subject of a documentary recently released on DVD. Moog (pronounced
like rogue) began making modular synthesizers (he coined the phrase, meaning a synthesis
of previous ideas into one instrument) in 1964, but these early synths were huge systems,
that due to expense, few people could afford. This changed with the introduction of the minimoog
in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The minimoog, and its variations, helped usher in modern
electronic music as young musicians were able to afford the smaller, more mobile synths.
Soon, artists such as Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman were performing extended prog-rock
solos while German band Kraftwerk were showing what analogue synthesizers could do in a more
traditional pop song format.

When I hear good electronic music created with analogue synthesizers I think I am hearing
music from the future. To see a person standing in front of a machine that takes up half a
wall, cables and wires plugged in everywhere, notes surging from the keys--this is an
exhilarating thing for me. It is the sound of the future, of science fiction and of the unknown.
Robert Moog is the mad scientist creator of the possibility of such a sound, and to paraphrase
Moog at one point in "Moog", to play a Moog synth is like being a current of electricity inside
a machine. It's that idea that makes analogue synthesizers so fantastic. When you play one
you are not playing a string, drum or traditional instrument--you are playing electricity. What
is more futuristic than that?

It is that futuristic element that people thought was so frightening when the Moog synth first
came into being. Moog states in the documentary that traditional minded musicians and the
general public thought of the synths as "harmful" and possibly ruinous to the future of music.
It took until the late 1970s with bands emerging from the punk rock aftermath to spread the
synthesizer sound to a more mainstream, youth friendly pop market. In England bands such
as Fad Gadget, Human League, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan (the huge sweeping notes on
"Cars" are from Moog synths), Orchestral Maneuvers In the Dark and John Foxx, as well as
 the Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra were at the forefront of a new electronic music.
Current bands such as Toronto's Solvent and England's Ladytron are examples of the usage
of the instruments in the 21st century. Virtually every dance band on the planet uses it in
some shape or form to create its grooves. The analogue synthesizer is such a key instrument
now it will never disappear and hopefully will retain its futuristic quality.

The documentary is a short (72 minutes), bare bones affair that comprises interviews with Moog
(who often does not look comfortable on camera), old footage of the early days of his work,
interviews with other people who love the instrument and live footage of bands playing various
Moog synths (Stereolab, Money Mark and Mix Master Mike, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman
among others). I loved that there were theremin bits (an instrument played with the magnetic
fields of electricity--you literally play air when playing a theremin, think "Good Vibrations" by the
Beach Boys) in the film. I personally would have loved more old footage and live performances
to at least push the running time up to 90 minutes but am just happy to see anything about Bob
Moog and his groundbreaking Moog synthesizer. When you are in a lifelong love affair, like I am,
any amount of time will make your heart happy. If you see this, maybe you'll too fall in love. 

The trouble with free screenings

Last night I happened to be at one of these promotional screenings that are populated with people who are there for one reason: free movie! When the film is some brainless popcorn blockbuster this is fine with me as I don't need to pay much attention to write a 500 word review and don’t become bothered by the chatter and noise that will come from the audience.

But last night I was trying to watch the new David Cronenberg movie, “A History of Violence”, with a packed theatre and it was rough going (I should have known there would be issues when I saw that the crowd was culled from the listeners of a local sports station known as the “Sports Buzz” and an urban top 40 station called “Powr95”). Brutish, loud behavior erupted continuously from the emotionally stunted and just rude people who were there because it was free.

For example, there is kind of a heated sex scene between Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello that involves oral sex in a more ramped up way than is normally seen in American films. Giggling and cackling erupted all over the theatre like the audience was nothing but hormone drenched junior high boys. It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed for these people. One guy sitting next to me kind of moans out loud during the scene while saying to anyone within earshot, “That’s what I’m talking about right there.” Thanks for sharing you moron.

Bello later does a brief full frontal nude scene and you would have thought the first lady Laura Bush was baring her pasty, robot-ass pubes up there the way people gasped and guffawed.

And people act surprised when Americans are accused of backward, prudish thoughts regarding sexuality? Come watch a free movie in Tulsa with adult themes with (gasp!) naked people and those stereotypes will hit you full on in the face.

Even the violence in the story drew protests and shock from the people around me. This was a David Cronenberg movie people! But, as I said, the audience was here because it was free, not because the film is getting seriously good reviews or because of Cronenberg’s previous films. The shame is I was there as an avid film lover and an adult who can handle adult themes. Unfortunately, these repressed yahoos couldn’t.

I was at another free press/public screening a few months ago for a film called Me and You and Everyone We Know. I loved this movie but it is not for everyone, as it is a hyper-quirky meditation on love and how people connect or disconnect from one another in the 21st century world.

Well, an aspect of the film involves children and sexuality—a taboo subject if there ever was one. I counted six walk outs during one scene in particular.

I felt kind of sorry for those people leaving. I can see them muttering to each other during the film: “I don’t care if this is free, what in the hell is this junk? Some 8 year old talking about poo in and out of butts forever and people pay for this garbage? Let’s get the hell out of here and go watch Flightplan, now that’s some real moviemaking!”

Do people ever look and see what movie it is they are getting free passes to? My experience says no, they just show up and expect the formulaic dreck that usually comes down the road. When they come face to face with something odd or surprising, they turn away, get up and leave or sit and giggle like teenagers.

Here’s hoping that next time I’m at one of these screenings every single person will get up and leave the theatre who is shocked, freaked out, disturbed, offended, sickened by what they see. If I’m the only person left in the darkened theatre after they’ve left in a huffing-mad horde, that would be fine and dandy by me.

Lord of war = lord of crap

There’s always a multitude of reasons why a big Hollywood movie fails to draw a crowd and is labeled a bust. Some of the more popular ones include horrible marketing, wrong choices regarding release dates with too much competition or an uninterested, apathetic viewing public. My personal favorite and the reason I think Lord of War has tanked in box office return—the film is terrible.

No one involved in any movie before it is released is thinking the film is going to be a disaster. They are dreaming of the moolah that will be flowing into their bank accounts. Embarrassing acting or clichéd and poorly written scripts never enter into it until it’s too late and negative reviews pour in while theatre seats remain empty.

Lord of War has a combination of bad elements—acting, story and writing—that make it one of the least enjoyable bits of cinema I watch the entire year. Worse films may come my way, but on just enjoyment factor, Lord of War is just wretched from its smug beginning to its smug ending.

Nic Cage stars as Yuri Orlov, a dissatisfied Ukranian-American living in Brooklyn. One day he’s hit with an epiphany after watching local Russian gangsters carry out a hit in a restaurant. Days later he’s somehow scored an Uzi and is selling it in some low-rent hotel.

Soon after he’s running guns in other countries and we never see how he engineered these connections. Who knows, maybe in Brooklyn in the 1980s you could just spread the word that you are ready to run some guns and poof, machine guns and grenade dealers just show up at your stoop. Lord of War was in such a hurry to get ahead in the story it couldn’t fabricate a plausible back-story and this makes Yuri’s rise to riches/power completely ridiculous.

Lord of War attempts to be a revealing satire so we see messages hammered into us like “guns are bad” and “governments are corrupt” and “guns used by governments kill people” (oh wait, I used that one already). I’m not opposed to films with this message on an international, or local, level but when they are delivered in such a forceful, humorless, soulless way all I feel is revulsion.

What makes this even worse is it uses this “smugger than thou” narration by Cage that attempts to explain the motivations of Orlov and how to run guns to foreign dictators. The narration is often played for laughs with lame quips about Bin Laden and weaponry but it falls flat the entire movie. At times there was more narration than dialogue in the film and it just did not work.

Nicolas Cage is awful in Lord of War. He delivers a performance that is so distracted and bored I am curious why he even agreed to do the film (cash money baby!). His speech is spoken with teeth clinched tightly so often I wonder if he had some kind of dental issue going on while this was filmed. I won’t even bring up his toupee as that might be hitting below the belt. You’d think with a budget of millions that a better toupee wrangler could be found wouldn’t you?

I don’t know what has happened to writer/director Andrew Niccol. The first two films he wrote or directed were The Truman Show and Gattaca—two great, interesting movies. Since then it’s Simone and Lord of War—two horrible movies. Who knows what his next one will be like but I’m losing interest in a hurry after watching Lord of War.

Lord of War is a heavy-handed, soulless, vile satire that fails on nearly every level—writing, acting and story—that is an unpleasant thing to have to sit through.

My kind of science-fiction

To put it simply, Code 46 is my kind of science fiction. Directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton, it’s sci-fi that puts ideas over CGI bombast that tells a romantic story set in a future of restrictive laws and extremely controlled genetic manipulation.

Code 46 is atmospheric as all get out and is a bit on the slow side (something I enjoy) as the story itself isn’t all that gripping—the film is more nuance than thrilling adventure. I don’t mind that, as I like seeing the future portrayed in realistic ways without shootouts with high-tech weaponry.

The film shows the future as it might be in our lifetime—society is rigidly controlled; people either live in cities of neon and glass or are shunted into empty desert wastelands; DNA is monitored so completely that who you sleep with, marry or have kids with is administered by government law; people take a “virus” to know a language, become psychics or learn something; languages have become global with people using English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese as they speak; it’s a future of architecture and design that varies wildly between those who have and those that do not.

Despite some clunky narration from Morton, Code 46 is an interesting reality-based future that we might see in our lifetimes. Forget flying cars or jetting off to Mars or that kind of sci-fi, this is sci-fi that is attainable, as it’s much like the world we live in, only buried in the technological future that we careen toward as a culture and planet.

The whereabouts of 2046

I've been waiting to see 2046, Wong Kar Wai's follow up to In the Mood for Love, for what seems like years (which is how long I've been reading about the project). A couple of months ago I was watching uninteresting trailers before a film when the trailer for 2046 came on the screen unexpectedly. My heart exploded in my chest and I almost jumped up from my seat and hollered out to the smattering of people, "Yes! Wong Kar Wai!" like I was some kind of Star Wars nerd about to watch George Lucas' latest cash cow product tie-in.

I still haven't seen the movie and I'm starting to get angry about it. I might have to drive somewhere to see it if it doesn't hit Tulsa soon. Has anyone else seen it or want to see it?

Weeks and weeks of movies

I’ve been quite busy the past few weeks so here’s a group of short reviews of some of the things I’ve watched worth mentioning.

It’s the ten-year mark for Martin Scorsese’s Casino, so I decided to watch it again. It’s a great movie from him and one that belongs next to the other high marks in his career--my personal favorites being Raging Bull and Good Fellas. I don’t see how a film can be made that can completely cover the dead era of Las Vegas in the ‘60s and ‘70s better than this unbelievably detailed and nuanced film. Scorsese even makes Sharon Stone turn in a good performance and that is miraculous since she is so unrelentingly awful. Oh, and never let Joe Pesci put your head in a vise. Bad things will happen, particularly to your eyeball.

My own festival with James Garner is still going strong as I’ve seen 16 of his pictures this year. Saw Victor/Victoria, Duel at Diablo, Decoration Day and Tank the past month. That’s four different films from the talented Garner that vary greatly from a Blake Edwards film to the silly tank driving picture. The man is just a solid, solid actor and makes me proud to be a fellow Okie.

Enjoyed The Constant Gardener. This was a pleasant surprise that had Ralph Fiennes’ best work in years and maybe Rachel Weisz’s best ever. It’s an artistic, lively, challenging mystery directed by Fernando Meirelles and is worth checking out.

Saw Junebug and was kind of lukewarm toward it. I loved the performance of Amy Adams as a talkative, pregnant Southerner. She is just so unbelievably open and honest in this film. Other elements I found put upon and the dude from the O.C. I wanted to punch in the throat. He should stick with trashy tv. Loved seeing Will Oldham show up for an unexpected cameo. The weird folk art painter and his “erotic” Civil War battlefield scenes were great. I wanted more of that guy and his crazy accent!

I also saw one of the filthiest and funniest films I’ve seen in a long while with The Aristocrats. Proud that Circle Cinema is the only place in Oklahoma showing the documentary, as everyone else is too scared I guess. It’s just language people. Although, it is one of the nastiest, crudest, vulgar things I’ve seen in a long while. It’s also frequently hilarious as a bunch of comics try to top each other in how filthy they can make an old joke that’s been around forever. The Aristocrats is as much about the way comics work as it is about the joke. Hilariously filthy!

Swede director Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-Ever is about the most heart wrenching, bleak and depressing film I’ve seen in a while. The film is about this teenage girl that is abandoned by her mom and she resorts to prostitution in some hellhole in Russia. She thinks she is escaping to Sweden but it just gets worse for her. Powerful, yet, the sort of unrelenting film that will make you shove a handful of prozac into your mouth after you’ve seen it.

Frank the evil bunny

Here's another photo from the Donnie Darko screening. I got to Circle Cinema about 11.15 that night and this person was already in the lobby waiting for the film to begin. It made me think that a good turnout was soon to come despite the looming thunderstorms that hit the city right as the movie was starting.

Midnight movie turnout

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while but I've been busy busy busy.

The turnout to Circle Cinema's first midnighter was great! The theatre holds 105 and we drew 91 on night one; 86 on night two. I was very pleased and happy with the response. Thank you Donnie Darko!

Here's a photo of the first crowd a few minutes before the film started.

Alien is this months film if anyone wants to come lose sleep on September 30/October 1.

Midnight movies in tulsa

If you happen to reside in the Tulsa area and want to attend a midnight movie, this Friday and Saturday (august 26/27) will be the first screening of a monthly series I am programming at Circle Cinema. We will be screening the director's cut of Donnie Darko. Circle Cinema's website is circlecinema.com if you want information on where the theatre is located or want to see how it is being fixed up. The theatre was built in the 1920s.

Future films in the next few months will be Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, Run, Lola, Run and Harold and Maude.

The 40 Year Old Virgin and the drive-in

Before I discuss this week’s review of The 40 Year Old Virgin, let me praise the most American of movie going experiences—the drive-in. I decided to go to the Admiral Twin to see the movie and from the retro commercials; the cars streaming by on the neighboring freeway; the stars dotting the blackening Tulsa night sky; the movie on the massive, peeling white screen; this is the make-up for the perfect summer movie going experience. If you haven’t been to a drive-in recently—go! I don’t get overly patriotic often but going to a drive-in makes me proud to be an American as this is something only done in the U.S.A.

Now, on to director Judd Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin and what turned out to be an extremely enjoyable movie that had me laughing out loud all the way through it. I'm a huge fan of a couple of tv shows Apatow was involved in--Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared--so I had high hopes for this one. The 40 Year Old Virgin is gleefully filthy and frequently hilarious and is by far the funniest movie of the year.

Steve Carell (Anchorman, The Daily Show) plays Andy Stitzer, a 40 year old electronic store employee who is content to surround himself with time consuming hobbies like collecting toys, playing video games and painting miniatures. He doesn't even drive a car for pete's sake, he likes to bike around town instead. Women do not enter into the equation. In fact, women have never entered the equation, hence the title of the movie.

Stitzer’s buddies at work find out he’s a virgin while playing poker and begin to attempt to rectify the situation by involving him in a variety of schemes that degenerate into comic horror and mayhem that usually sends Stitzer running away in extreme embarrassment. This is good for us as the events are very funny.

Stitzer meets Trish (Catherine Keener) in the electronic store and the two hit it off after some false starts. Trish actually has three kids and is a grandma (a “hot granny” as is said in the film) but this doesn’t frighten off Andy. The film moves forward on a couple of different levels—will Andy ever have sex and what will happen when Trish finds out he’s a virgin.

I expected The 40 Year Old Virgin to be kind of a one-joke pony with nothing but “virgin” related jokes—but it’s so much more than that. The backbone of the story is actually a sweet love story (yes, punctuated with lots of graphic language that might offend some) as Andy is just this great guy—who cares if he’s never had sex. In fact, the film’s message has kind of a pro-celibacy, sex is overrated lean to it that may get lost in all the other dirty shenanigans that occur.

Carell is perfect and believable as a man who has not had sex. He’s part geek, part sweetheart. The supporting cast (Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco) is also up to the task as the buddies get significant moments in the film to ham it up and act/talk naughty as their romantic lives are too messed up to be giving advice to Andy.

While The 40 Year Old Virgin is not for everyone because of the frank, graphic language (think of Something About Mary only with more cursing), it is still a sweet, charming story filled with memorable characters and is hands down the funniest film I’ve seen this year. And it's even better if you go watch it at a drive in.

Terrence Howard's duel roles in 2005

I've been meaning to write something about the two great performances Terrence Howard has turned in this year but have been waylaid by activity. I saw him on the cover of an entertainment magazine this week and figured I'd join the praise heaping.

Howard has given two of the fiercest performances I've seen this year in two of my favorite films of the year--Crash and Hustle and Flow. In Crash he was playing support in a stellar ensemble cast whereas in Hustle and Flow he was the lead and in virtually every scene. Both films show Howard as an actor to watch in the future.

I loved Crash. It's a rambling, multifaceted story set among a variety of people in Los Angeles (and can stand beside other great L.A. films with lots of characters such as Short Cuts and Magnolia of recent years) that tackles some tricky subject matter such as race and class. Howard plays a successful television director who has his outlook on who he is turned upside down when a racist cop (in a great role from Matt Dillon) accosts him and his wife late one night.

All of a sudden the director is thinking about his own "blackness" in the "white" world that he lives in and he explodes in a fit of rage, letting loose all the frustration and pain in a tense few moments that might get him killed.

It's a great performance that sees Howard stewing and boiling inside, just below the surface, waiting to unleash this frustration that is obviously tearing him up. In a film with a lot of great performances, Howard's might steal the show.

In Hustle and Flow, Howard taps into some of the same qualities--the frustration and anger--but gets to express them in completely different ways. He plays a small time pimp and drug dealer named DJay in a run-down section of Memphis. After running into a friend from high school who has some recording equipment and DJay starts to dream of doing more than pimping and tries to do some rappin'.

The film is kind of a rap filled, urban Rocky that might have flopped had it not been for the charismatic lead performance of Howard. He gives a very assured performance that his him drawling a syrupy, slow, Memphis drawl as he encourages his woman, scolds them and promotes himself. DJay is always promoting, whether it's women or his efforts to record some tracks. Howard's performance is subtle, raw, full of nuance and flash yet honest from beginning to end and it's hard to take your eyes off him.

I'll be watching for Howard's name in the opening credits based on these two great performances this year.

Murderball!

Murderball is an electrifying new documentary about men who play a sport I have never seen before called quad rugby (aka murderball). I love certain sports--baseball is at the forefront--but watching the all out violence of a quad rugby match played by men known as "disabled" is both thrilling and kind of inspiring.

The documentary introduces us to a variety of people--from those who play the sport, to their families and even their girlfriends. All topics of these men's lives are covered including how they were injured and its impact on their daily lives. And yes, this includes some frank discussion of sex (which was great to hear as its absence would have left a void in the film).

There are a lot of reasons this is a great documentary and one is the fact the film doesn't try to make the audience feel pity for these men. These guys are just normal guys who curse, make jokes and insult each other, talk about getting lucky with women, are as complicated as the rest of us and have the same competitive juices throbbing in their veins as other athletes.

The sheer emotion and passion that explodes out of these guys during matches is often riveting to watch. I would have loved to have seen even more of the actual game images as it's a compelling, violent sport with these metal, tricked out wheelchairs battering into one another over and over.

The film is centered on a feud/rivalry between one time USA player and now coach of Canada, Joe Soares, and the USA team--particularly player Mark Zupan--and who will win the gold medal at the Para-Olympics in Athens in 2004. The USA team is used to winning and Soares is seen as a traitor after switching sides to Canada.

Zupan is a captivating subject and just reeks of screen chemistry with his badass quad rugby ability, massive tribal tattoos, long goatee and penchant for dropping f-bombs. Zupan's face is usually a blazing scowl or this terrific grin he unfolds from time to time. Without Zupan this would not have been as interesting (of course the same can be said for Soares--a complex, screaming like a banshee while coaching, bull of a man).

Murderball is a raw, honest, lovingly crafted documentary about the testosterone-fueled sport of quad rugby and is one of my favorite films of the year.

Broken Flowers

I was in Dallas over the weekend and got to see Jim Jarmusch's latest, Broken Flowers. I really liked the film as it is a deceptively simple story (as a lot of Jarmusch films are), is peppered with lots of wry comedy, utilized little camera movement and has long, slow passages. In many ways, Jarmusch's style fits in with foreign filmmakers as he doesn't dwell on story resolution, plot twists/gimmicks or by blowing stuff up like a lot of American directors. If you have the same taste as I do, this is a good thing.

Broken Flowers tells the story of a man (Bill Murray as Don Johnston) who finds out he might have fathered a son 20 years earlier after receiving an anonymous letter from an ex-lover. Urged on by his mystery loving neighbor Winston, played by the talented Jeffrey Wright, Johnston goes on a quest to find the woman and the son.

It's a very simple premise and what follows is a loosely connected series of re-connections with people long lost in the fabric of life. Some of the meetings are comical, some are sad and some are extremely uncomfortable. All of them are painted with Jarmusch's love for everyday moments of life. From the shots inside the various houses of objects to the great p.o.v. shots from inside the car as Johnston drives in different parts of the country--Jarmusch has crafted another lean, beautifully spare film. In this day of flashy, show-off, video style directing, it's great to see someone so confident that restraint becomes more striking than any amount of hollow, wham-bam visual theatrics.

Another interesting thing in Broken Flowers is the acting of Bill Murray. Murray is on an interesting roll at the moment by creating these detached characters who often seem at odds with the action that is occurring around him. At times, Murray seems to be in a completely separate film than the actors in the same scene. I'm not sure how far Murray can take this approach--he's used it in various degrees on his last 4 films--but it is interesting to watch.

Michael Bay is a talentless hack

An interesting thing happens about an hour into director Michael Bay’s latest film The Island, he remembers that he is Michael Bay. At this point of recognition he reverts to his usual strategies that largely involve wrecking or blowing up anything that moves. It’s a shame, as The Island could have been his best film but it ends up being just another massive waste of time that degenerates into a 90-minute orgy of explosions.

The film starts out promising as Bay is obviously channeling George Lucas’ icy 1971 bleak science fiction film THX 1138 as the look of The Island is a virtual copy—no colors as everything is white or black, the future is a cold place with nothing but concrete, glass, steel and our society is rigidly controlled with few personal freedoms.

Ewan McGregor plays Lincoln Six Echo, a man in this sterile future world who begins to question all around him, including a contest known as "The Lottery", that will decide who gets to go to an island paradise and escape the confines of the city. The dream of winning the lottery to get out of this place and onto the utopian island is the driving force of people’s existence.

The moment Lincoln Six Echo escapes the control of this world, and takes Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) with him, the film becomes a kind of a Logan’s Run dosed up on massive amounts of steroids. It’s at this point to the stops being about an idea and just becomes a silly prolonged chase scene that Bay is infamous for.

Quick history lesson on Bay: he is the man who has given us crimes against cinema such as Bad Boys and The Rock and that embarrassingly bad Pearl Harbor. To think that Bay could make a film about ideas rather than about explosions, I guess I was kidding myself.

Bay just has to be himself. And showing us sweeping helicopter zooms, cheesy slow motions of explosions, cars flipping over again and again, machine-guns and rockets blowing even more stuff up is just Bay letting us see how macho he can be. Bay is as subtle as a jackhammer to the skull and it’s dull, soulless and insulting cinema to anyone who loves movies.

The true star of a Michael Bay film isn’t the actors or script—it’s the person who sets up all the various explosions or destruction that is going to ensue. That person needs a vacation after working on a movie like The Island because they will have pushed the “explode” button so much their finger will be sprained. I’m not kidding. Bay will blow or shoot anything up—cars, buildings, helicopters, more cars, train-stations, streets. Anything. It becomes exhausting at a certain point and not at all thrilling or exciting, as Bay believes it might.

The Island is just further proof that Michael Bay is a hack director. He takes an interesting idea about a utopian future world and ruins it by making it a cliché ridden exercise in excess with him just blowing things up. Any ideas that the movie tries to develop is lost by the end of the film, just one more thing Bay blows to bits.

The joy of the f-word

The most refreshing thing about the raunchy comedy that often takes place in Wedding Crashers is that it is R rated. We actually get to hear cursewords! We live in a PG-13 world during the summer (and most of the year unfortunately) with Hollywood sticking sequels, comic book adaptation after comic book adaptation (really, when will it end?), a various assortment of action films and the recent summer pre-requisite--teen horror film--down our collective throats. To actually hear the word "fuck" pop up that second time (therefore assuring the movie a R rating) almost fills me with the subversive feeling of danger as I sit in a darkened theatre. "Did he just say what I think he said?" I ask myself.

In fact, Wedding Crashers, like so many recently released R rated comedies, is pretty one dimensional and relies on seeing how much humiliation it can unleash on its main characters. But who cares? The actors spout out "dirty" words, get into naughty situations, multiple breasts are exposed (hey, if you are gonna go for the R, you might as well toss in some nudity too!) and the very funny Vince Vaughn experiences a variety of uncomfortable scenes where he gets to curse in all its glory (unfortunately, the tiresome Owen Wilson is in this too. He has two acting expressions: the squint--which he does so often I often doubt his has eyeballs--and the pursed lip pout. Both acting strategies are really annoying and I'd rather he said nothing in movies, regardless of if he's cursing or not.).

So I'm hoping Wedding Crashers does big business in the next few weeks after it had a solid opening weekend. In this ever increasing sanitized world we live in, it's nice to have the choice to actually see something not made for 14 year olds but for adults. Now, don't even get me started on the NC-17 rating as I can go all day on that topic, it's just nice to have some R rated comedy every now and then.