Movies I watched this week, from favorite to least.


When this movie came out in 2000, Laura Linney might have qualified as my least favorite actress of all time: humorless, shrill, miserable, no fun at all. But after seeing this, The Squid And The Whale and Breach, it's pretty clear that the problem with Congo, Absolute Power and Primal Fear wasn't her so much as Congo, Absolute Power and Primal Fear. Turns out Mark Ruffalo deserves my respect as well. I already knew Matthew Broderick does great passive-aggressive.


Humor-wise, time has shown you can relent even less than they do here. But I can't imagine anyone pulling off the surreal structure and matter-of-fact religious irreverence today with the same craft or inspiration (seeing The Ten on Wednesday, though!).


Teen outcast chic is sadly traded for junkie chic, and wolfsbane-as-methadone is a less gripping metaphor than lycanthropy-as-adulthood. Everything else is as awesome as it was the first time.


It's possible that if I lived in England I might have enough hostility towards countryside demagogues to appreciate the tonal shift that occurs in the last third, but my current stance on mass murderers got in the way of the ha-ha a lot more than my stance on zombies did in Shaun Of The Dead.


As great as Dean Stockwell's Leopold is, Orson Welles' Clarence Darrow is such a platitudinous bore that I might prefer Murder By Numbers for Ryan Gosling's Loeb (Sandra Bullock gives fewer speeches, too).


For a cheap, poorly directed, chemistry-free film shelved for a year and dumped on DVD, this sure has a lot of celebrity cameos.


Proof that Lukas Haas is not ready to play a dad, convey a mental breakdown or carry a movie.

Shaun Brady's Transformers review for the Philadelphia City Paper noted "if you had 'just under six years' in the office pool regarding when an airplane slamming into the side of a heavily populated high-rise office building would go from chilling reminder to nifty action scene, collect your winnings." You can also cash in if you gave the same answer for when a poster featuring a destroyed NYC monument, burning skyscrapers and a date would go from disturbing memorial to appetite-whetting teaser for an eagerly anticipated future blockbuster.

Seriously, what the fuck? Was the problem with War Of The Worlds that Spielberg didn't incorporate the horrors of 9/11 into a monster movie effectively enough? Now we have to make a Godzilla movie with POV digicams, so we can really capture what it's like to watch large groups of people run from unthinkable destruction? How is this less tacky and disgusting than if they just used terrorists? If you're going for real-life chaos and agony, use a real-life threat! It's really hard to make Uwe Boll look mature, but at least the manic nihilism promised by the trailers for Postal is an adolescent response to the tragedies of the last decade. I guess I just prefer my exploitive trash honest.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Unconditionally Guaranteed [Mercury, 1974]
I've always suspected that underneath the naive surrealism the Captain might be a dumbbell, and now that he's really (really really) trying to go commercial he's providing proof. This time he really (really) does it--writes dumb little songs with dumb little lyrics and dumb little hooks. Maybe all the dumb dumb parts can be blamed on svengali and cocomposer Andy DiMartino. And I admit that a lot of these are passable ("Magic Be") to wonderful ("Sugar Bowl") dumb little songs. But they're still dumb. Really. B- Robert Christgau

Essential reading: Rescue Dawn - The Truth

Movies I watched last week (plus a few I forgot from the week before that), from favorite to least.


While watching the film, I was slightly disappointed by the lack of "holy shit" moments equal to the monster's first appearance on land, and the mix of uncompromising wit and sentimentality made me slightly uneasy (I cared about everyone and nothing could be predicted). In hindsight, knowing the film never devolves into arbitrary cruelty, I'm impressed by how John-Hoo Bong pulled off the co-existence. The family, maudlin when they're not cranky and almost pathetically bound together, makes the stream of metaphors and social commentary emotionally resonant whether or not you know anything about Korean history. And as Joshua Clover notes, the movie makes you want to know more. It's a rare film I like more after watching it, and a rare film I want to see more than once.


Peter Segal and Elliott Gould are compulsive gamblers on a bender, Robert Altman directs. A must-see for fans of the above, though if you're already a fan the pleasures are almost too predictable.


Outcast teenage girls deal with burgeoning womanhood and lycanthropy. In high school, I would have been crushing big time.


Roger Corman obviously felt that Bonnie & Clyde lacked titty, and while I prefer the original, I'm sympathetic to his corrective endeavor.


The references to incest and scatology lose their effectiveness fast, and I'm not sure why Gilbert Gottfried's performance was so outstanding to anyone other than Rob Schneider, but you get a lot of funny from a lot of funny people here, including some comedians who haven't had an act worth a damn in years.


While I enjoyed the comic asides and constant ironies enough to ignore Jeanne Moreau's allegedly passionate wandering, the last scene really annoyed me: how the hell did the scheming lovers take such magazine-worthy photos of themselves traipsing through the woods with a tiny spy-camera? Was there a third person taking the shots and telling them when to pose? Louis Malle wouldn't have made this kind of mistake later in his career.


David Fincher keeps his fetishistic indulgences in relative check (I guess you have to forgive him one slo-mo murder set to "Hurdy Gurdy Man"), but he doesn't replace them with anything other than accomplished digital. His infamous endless takes and re-shoots effectively make the cast look tired, and no one acts below their well-established game (Chloe Sevigny even tries to make the frustrated wife of the obsessive hero less shrill than usual). Still, the emotional toll on the characters is neither as engaging nor as effectively expressed as the true-crime details. 70 takes isn't just a sign of a perfectionist, but of a director who doesn't know how to get what he wants.


It has a genuinely intriguing concept and images that still marvel ten years deeper into CGIety, so its status as a cult sci-fi classic is more than deserved. It also stars Keifer Sutherland as a genius scientist, so the word "cult" isn't going anywhere.


Pretty dry even for a '70s Walter Matthau comedy, but it picks up steam once it focuses on the former company man's sneaky getaways. Both this and The Host feature a character putting a paper clip on the end of a plug to cause a blackout and evade capture, and I swear I've never seen that in a film before this week.


The story's problems are pretty standard Stephen King: corny childhood camraderie continued through adulthood, promising scares that devolve into a cosmically boring battle between good and evil. What makes the film exceptionally batty is that the screenwriter preserved all of King's most ridiculous details, while the director filmed them in the most matter-of-fact manner possible. Oddly, they're both Lawrence Kasdan. Donnie Wahlberg plays a sickly, retarded alien made of pure love, Morgan Freeman has magical eyebrows and Jason Lee tries to reach for a toothpick while keeping a murderous alien worm trapped under his toilet seat.


This trailer features kicking and Paul Rudd's bottle blond mane. They're the two reasons I rented this, and the two things worth seeing it for.


Freddy Rodriguez will someday have a very popular TV detective show and Christian Bale needs to stop trying out American accents, or at least stick to one per movie.


I love Jim Carrey for deciding to make a Joel Schumacher sex thriller at this point in his career (most of his breed just stick to comedies and Oscar bait), especially one in which he plays both a sociopathic dogcatcher and a tatooed saxophonist detective named Fingerling who fucks to She Wants Revenge. Sadly, the twist requires so much exposition that both sex and thrills get lost in the shuffle.


The only theatrical movie Peter Bogdanovich has done over the last decade, and if it wasn't for the celebrities in the wasted cast, you'd never guess it wasn't made for TV.

SONGS IN MY "2007 HITS" IPOD PLAYLIST II


The Killers, "For Reasons Unknown"

I blame the Velvets for my weakness for pounding drone-strum and by way of Lester Bangs I blame them for the joy I get from the line "It was an open chair we sat down in." There's even a droll bass vocal under the opening verse and Cale-wise piano-bang in the chorus! With Brandon serving huge chunks of ham on top, it's almost too tasty. I swear I like songs that don't go duhduhduhduhduhduhduhduh. Those that do just have an easy in.

SONGS IN MY "2007 HITS" IPOD PLAYLIST I


Interpol, "The Heinrich Maneuver"

I've passively listened to Our Love To Admire at least six times, and all I know about it is that I don't hate it. I dig generic new wave drone-strum as long as it's got kick, and complaining about the quality of their lyrical come-ons is a fool's game, so if these songs offend in new ways, they've eluded me so far. But aside from some pimply hootchie-koo and a hook or eight, the single is all that's stuck with me. It's generic Interpol, but that in itself is validation for everyone who argued these guys had a unique sound. Ian Curtis more sullen, Michael Stipe more ambiguous, Ian McCulloch more of a yodeller and Anthony Kiedis more of a minstrel. The drums slam hard and metronomic, the guitars reverb and rise, and Paul Banks' flat holler is right there with them, showing no doubt in lines like "you wear your shoes like a dove" and "I've got a plan with forward in my eyes!" None of his idols above would mutter "my...god..." right before the chorus either, that's ALL Paul. Their obvious and monomaniacal quest for poon may keep them from achieving a zeitgeist as grand as REM's, but the taxidermy pics in the album artwork could imply the band's getting into the environment - album no. 4 may still be their Life's Rich Pageant!

I went on vacation recently, and came back to find myself without internet again. It should all be better now, though, and this blog is going to kick back into gear. I haven't been watching much in the way of movies, but here are the few I've seen since I last posted one of these things, from favorite to least.


Not quite as fascinating as Crispin Glover's video for "Ben," but close enough. Plus, the DVD features a commentary track for said video. More words-per-minute than any other in history, I'd reckon.


A '70s heist flick highlighted by Christopher Walken's massive blond mane and Martin Balsam's mincing queen*. Sidney Lumet at his crudest.


Richard Widmark can do sweaty and desperate without becoming Klaus Kinski, and Jules Dassin's noirs may be the most beautiful in film history, but this script was cheesy.


Burt Lancaster's stodgy professor is equally annoyed and enlivened by bisexual firebrand Helmut Berger and the family of rich assholes that support him. But the charm is almost destroyed when Lancaster and the jerkoffs sit around, openly discussing how the professor was equally annoyed and enlivened by their presence in his life. Once you've shown, PLEASE do not tell!


A crazed loner with maternal abandonment issues kills and scalps a variety of women. Rare exceptions to the monotony: the loner shoots Tom Savini's head clean off and dons his finest polyester to discuss photography with Caroline Munro.

==

*You may remember Martin Balsam as the P.I. Norman stabs in the face in Psycho, Shelley Winters' suffering husband in The Delta Force, Joe Don Baker's suffering stakeout recipient in Mitchell, juror #1 in 12 Angry Men, Mr. Green in The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three or from one of his countless other character roles. Watching him play a "fruit" will blow your tiny little mind.

Artists whose entire discography rates below three out of five stars in the 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide: Paula Abdul, A-ha, America, Paul Anka, Apollonia, Asia, Bad English, Beautiful South, Pat Benatar*, Berlin, Big Black, Biz Markie, Blues Brothers, Bodeans, Michael Bolton, Pat Boone, Boy George, Brand Nubian, Breathe, Bulletboys, John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, Carpenters*, Joe "King" Carrasco and the Clowns, Exene Cervenka, Chad And Jeremy, Harry Chapin, Cher, Andrew Dice Clay, David Allan Coe, David Crosby, Cutting Crew, Morris Day, Taylor Dayne, Dead Boys, El DeBarge, John Denver, Dino, Dio, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Dream Academy, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Melissa Etheridge, Fear, Jose Feliciano, Firm, Fixx, Force M.D.'s, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Glenn Frey, Kinky Friedman, Friends Of Distinction, Galaxie 500, Bob Geldof, General Public, Debbie Gibson, David Gilmour, Dobie Gray, Great White, Sammy Hagar, Happy Mondays, Richard Harris, Jerry Harrison, Highwaymen, Holy Modal Rounders, Englebert Humperdinck, Icehouse, Iron Butterfly, Jets, Journey*, Kansas*, Kenny G, Kingdom Come, Knack, Trini Lopez, Mama Cass, Barry Manilow, Milli Vanilli, Kylie Minogue, Mr. Mister, Molly Hatchet*, Eddie Murphy, Nazareth, Robbie Nevil, Juice Newton, Night Ranger*, Nylons, Poison*, Pussy Galore, Quiet Riot, Eddie Rabbitt, Rhinoceros, Kenny Rogers, Runaways, Scandal, Charlie Sexton, Michelle Shocked, Nancy Sinatra, Slayer, Soup Dragons, Sparks, Rick Springfield, Ray Stevens*, Al Stewart*, Stranglers, Joe Strummer, Stryper*, Styx, Talk Talk, 10cc, Tiffany, Tanita Tikaram, Toto, Tranvision Vamp, Triumph, Twisted Sister, Uriah Heep, Vanilla Fudge, Vanilla Ice, Vanity, Gino Vanelli, W.A.S.P., Jan Wiedlin, Wilson Phillips, Winans, Winger, Jesse Colin Young*, Zebra.

*A compilation or live album by the artist was given three out of five stars.

New Electric Six video! One that appears to have something resembling a budget!

"[Hagar] was precisely what the band needed...5150 was a leap forward musically, proving Van Halen to be as adept at ballads as balls-out rockers."

Rock albums from 1980-1992 that received 4.5 or 5 (out of 5) stars from J.D. Considine in the 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide:

Anthrax, Attack Of The Killer B's
Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
Captain Beefheart, Doc At The Radar Station
Cocteau Twins, Heaven Or Las Vegas
Def Leppard, Pyromania and Hysteria
Dire Straits, Brothers In Arms
Thomas Dolby, The Golden Age Of Wireless
English Beat, I Just Can't Stop It
Fall, This Nation's Saving Grace and Bend Sinister
Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw & The Cooked
Peter Gabriel, Security and So
Go-Betweens, Liberty Belle & The Black Diamond Express
Golden Palominos, Visions Of Excess
Guns'n'Roses, Appetite For Destruction and Use Your Illusion II
Robyn Hitchcock, Gotta Let This Hen Out!, Element Of Light and Perspex Island
Hunters and Collectors, Hunters And Collectors and Ghost Nation
Husker Du, Candy Apple Grey and Warehouse: Songs and Stories
King Crimson, Discipline
Kix, Blow My Fuse
Living Colour, Vivid and Time's Up
Los Lobos, The Neighborhood and Kiko
Madonna, Like A Prayer
G.W. McLennan, Watershed
Metallica, ...And Justice For All and Metallica
Midnight Oil, Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mining
Police, Zenyatta Mondatta, Ghost In The Machine and Synchronicity
Pretenders, Pretenders and Learning To Crawl
Prince, Dirty Mind, 1999 and Purple Rain
R.E.M., Murmur, Life's Rich Pageant, Document and Out Of Time
Replacements, Let It Be and Pleased To Meet Me
Paul Simon, Graceland and The Rhythm Of The Saints
Sonic Youth, Sister, Daydream Nation, Goo and Dirty
Sting, ...Nothing Like The Sun
10,000 Maniacs, In My Tribe
Richard Thompson, Daring Adventures and Rumor and Sigh
Richard & Linda Thompson, Shoot Out The Lights
Time, What Time Is It?
UB40, Labour Of Love
U2, War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby
Van Halen, 5150
Wire, The Ideal Copy
Woodentops, Giant
Steve Wynn, Dazzling Display

Movies I watched last week, from favorite to least.


The missing link between John Hughes and Kevin Smith, for whatever that's worth to you.


Serious lead isn't really Marky's forte - he needs an ensemble cast to bully and bounce off of - but even if he can't singlehandledly make an overlong slo-mo action flick with confused attempts at political commentary satisfy, he survives it.


I'm guessing Herman Meville told it better, but Crispin Glover.


Walter Hill on the way up, Ryan O'Neal on the way down. Bruce Dern as the median.


Why do so many counterculture comedies just feel like logy Mel Brooks?


Self-important melodrama full of good actors who'd rather be anywhere else and Robert Redford. There's a decadent house party where the herky-jerk dancing devolves into a mock shoot-out between the cartoonish, boozing over-thirties, though. Dug that.


"Fuck the traps, I watched Saw for the doll!"

Maybe I'm just grateful to see the Hives in a follow-up video to a #1 single, but I'd rate "Throw It On Me" as the best video of the mo'. Very honorable mentions: Eve doing Missy better than Gwen or Fergie, Ne-Yo debating sending his ex a letter (not a myspace message!) before calling her at a PAY PHONE (dude is old school!), Lil' Mama giving me hope for the future, The White Stripes making eyes at each other over novelty solos, Enrique Iglesias overcoming some meta bullshit with wounded passion and his beautiful beatiful face, Shop Boyz redeeming a lame rewrite of Trick Daddy's "Let's Go," QOTSA rocking in the face of death by sexy, R. Kelly and Usher getting played, Timberlake staring into your vagina as reward for putting up with four minutes of his screensaver, Maroon 5 humping their instruments as Adam Levine stares us down in a sexy airport, Linkin Park taking on the weight of the world while rocking out in the desert with a lot of gear, and The Plain White T's singing an acoustic ballad to a girlfriend in NY named, duh, Leila.

These children are now old enough to be VH1 dating show contestants. Probably too old.

Top Five People I'd Rather See Get a VH1 Dating Show Than Bret Michaels

5. Liza Minelli. Given 50 men, let's see if she STILL winds up a beard!

4. David Lee Roth. Dude is like Ozzy, Flav and Bret Michaels put together. Reality TV gold. All his talk radio failure proved is that he needs an editor, and VH1's got the best. The opening credits can recreate the boardwalk sequence from "California Girls." Hell, make it the theme song!

3. Britney Spears. 50 skeevy men fight for the hand of the world's most famous single mother! Too famous for this kind of shamefulness, you say? Don't forget, she's already HAD a reality show. Within five years, she'll have divorced again and be ready to accept her role as a has-been. Actually, judging by her current desperation, make it three.

2. Tim Gunn. The problem with a gay-themed dating game is how quickly it could turn into the man-on-man orgy middle America isn't ready for. But not with Tim Gunn around! Gunn claims he's been resigned to singlehood ever since he was jilted by a philanderous lover in the '80s. The '80s! Sounds like VH1 needs to stage an intervention! Can they, with the help of 50 dashing, intelligent and fashionable men...Make It Work?

1. Morrissey. One of the few celebrities I can think of where the dating pool could be co-ed. At the end of each episode, the remaining contestants would be given gladioli and told "I think you understand me." The tears! The screaming! The bicycle rides! The potential for bi-curious heartbreak! "Morrissey, I saw Shauna making out with Lance." "Lance...you've lied about your interest in me..." "no, Morrissey, no..." "I am...repulsed by your treachery. You don't understand me, Lance. Please leave." "MORRISSEY!!!! MORRISSEY, NOOOOOO!!!!" Security goons pull Lance away as Morrissey turns from the miserable affair, his face awash in sadness. But eventually, one lucky man or woman will get to hear "There Is A Light That Will Never Go Out" sung by candlelight. And if no one understands him, there's always next season.

DVDs I watched last week, from favorite to least.


Another Billy Ray thriller about a mediocre staffer (Ryan Phillipe) who ostensibly proves his worth by revealing that his more successful, more fascinating antagonist (Chris Cooper) is living a whopper of a lie. And like Shattered Glass, it's so aggressively factual that the DVD includes a commentary track with the real-life hero (who looks greener than Phillipe!) and a corroborative news segment. As it concerns the FBI rather than The New Republic, Ray gets to incorporate gunplay and races against time. Not only is Cooper's performance unsurprisingly more layered than Hayden Christiansen's was, Phillipe (who has carved a niche as a well-intentioned lightweight with this, Crash and Flags Of Our Fathers) makes for a better hero than Peter Saarsgard, despite the marital strife cliches.


Nick Nolte's chiseled sheriff of few words eventually has a showdown with childhood friend/romantic rival/drug kingpin Cash Bailey, who understandably refers to himself in the third person and is played by Powers Motherfucking Boothe. Additional gunfire for director Walter Hill's Peckinpah tribute is made possible by an elite cast of B-movie veterans, including Michael Ironside, William Forsythe, Tiny Lister and Lamar from Revenge Of The Nerds. Hollow, but I'm not complaining.


A casually pathetic French millionaire tells a cabin car of polite countrymen about his obsession with a manipulative virgin. Pretty thin compared to Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie.


Peter Weir used the outback as an ominous mystical/natural threat in Picnic At Hanging Rock. Here he uses Aborigines, which is a lot more offensive whether or not he thinks white Australia deserves what it gets. Richard Chamberlain, playing a visionary attorney, doesn't help.

I haven't seen David Milch's John From Cincinnati yet, but after wasting a weekend watching Season 3 of Deadwood I won't be in any rush. Even by Season 2 I was basically watching it as a soap, indifferent to its artistic merit as long as the characters I was emotionally invested in were flung about dramatically. But thanks to the startling number of uninteresting individuals thrust into the mix, most of the cast is only given one or two Emmy moments over the entire season. The Doc is reduced to coughing fits and Sol Star gets a minute or two of teary time with Trixie near the end in exchange for episode after episode of nodding at angry people. Sometimes you'd just get a second long shot of a character to remind you they're still alive.

Instead of focusing on characters fans already know, we get a completely worthless season-long subplot involving Brian Cox and a troupe of actors (as if this show really needed more empty theatricality), countless scenes with a blustering racist who won't shut up until he's rendered comatose by a horse, Wyatt Earp and his brother (just so I could scream "THAT'S WHO HE IS! I THOUGHT IT WAS NATHAN FILLION!" when my housemate asked if the guy from Queer As Folk has shown up yet), some unfunny British dude who looks just like the Russian dude, the painful return of Stephen "My Voice Is My Passport, Verify Me" Toblowsky and dozens of anonymous no-goodniks working for evil Gerald McRaney. And while Major Dad does an OK job as George Hearst, his presence can't help but demote the show to CBS quality rather than HBO. If they'd wrapped up his belabored drama half way through, maybe we could have seen more of Cy Tolliver seething with impotent rage and Al Swearingen remembering he's supposed to be a bad guy. The bloat was annoying enough over a weekend, but I can't imagine what it must have been like to turn on HBO week after week and find out how little the plot had progressed. Its cancellation feels like a mercy killing, as Milch would have undoubtedly found a shark for the townsfolk to jump in Season 4.

According to the bonus features on every season, Milch writes his episodes laying on the floor with several pillows, surrounded by writers, assistants and other cronies. A stenographer takes down his every word, which he then edits off of a giant TV screen. While that is totally fucking awesome, when the pottymouth Shakespeare got painfully ornate (in some episodes it feels like everyone's as desperately florid as E.B. Farnum), I couldn't help but think of this dude literally resting on his laurels, beaming with pride at the words on the monitor before him. Lacking much to distract me, I pictured that a lot.

Leila thought someone on John From Cincinnati had my last name, but it turned out one of the leads is named "Mitch Yost." Close enough for me to check it out someday, though.

DVDs I watched this week, from favorite to least.


Despite unforgettable moments of brilliance, I haven't seen a movie under 90 minutes that felt this long since A Night At The Roxbury. The bracketing story's excruciating, with whimpering feebs pondering the metaphorical ramifications of multiple interpretations of a crime until you have no desire to do so yourself. Judging by its absence from the fourth and most powerful sequence, it's possible the score's earlier obnoxiousness was meant to be satirical. Toshiro Mifune's great, but you already knew that.


The director was rightfully demoted to Zucker Bros. scriptwork for years after this, but Thomas Haden Church, Rob Lowe and screenwriter James Gunn (who should give the material a Buffy-style TV revisioning if he ever finds the time) earn every raise in public profile that followed this film. Plus: Gunn and future wife Jenna Fischer's on-screen meet-cute!


Skating spills, Candid Camera, gay fetish porn, parent abuse.


It doesn't take long to realize that Idi Amin is a magnetic megalomaniac despot, so a feature-length documentary about him should show us a little more than that.


Christopher Walken (reminding us that he's not entirely beholden to camp) and Leonardo DiCaprio (well cast as a manchild) hold their own against clumsy cartoons Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and John Williams. Unfortunately, the movie continues long after Walken dies.


Halfway through the movie, a retired gangster returns to London to discover his brother committed suicide. 2/3rds through, when he discovers his brother had been raped the night before, he decides to get revenge in the last quarter. Clive Owen doesn't even buy a shave and a trenchcoat until the last ten minutes. The title promises a bit more than all this.


Contains action scenes almost devoid of lighting, arbitrary and incessant use of splitscreen, casualty-free military battles worthy of a G.I. Joe episode and an inscrutable psychedelic climax. Everyone involved in the post-production must have been wearing stretchy, purple Bad Idea Jeans.