Three times the suck or, not so marvelous

Those that keep up with the ever churning geek rumor mill are by now fully aware of the level of suck that X3 threatens to unleash next summer, but, as if to drive the point home, CHUD is reporting another set of disturbing turns. From casting mishaps to more overzealous spinoff development, this film is driving down to the depths of cinematic waste faster than you can say The Core.*

Maybe after Fantastic Four comes out and posts the severely dissapointing numbers I'm expecting based on its surefire combination of bad reviews, negative hype and awful marketing, Avi Arad and Tim Rothman will have the sense to ditch the impossible release date, bizarre script choices and flack director they've saddled to their Summer '06 tentpole.

And speaking for Fantastic Four's box-office, director Tim Story apparently made the claim that his film was going to "whoop War of the World's ass" at the box office. Not only is the statement telling about where Story's values are in all of this (box office returns), but Spielberg and Cruise also shed some light with their reponses. When questioned about the remark, these are the gentlemanly replies the two gave:

Cruise: I’d like to see that picture do really well, and I want all the movies to do well. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m going to go see that picture. I can’t wait.

Spielberg: I want to go see it with my kids.

The thing is, not only are they showing professional politeness, they're refusing to engage in Story's blustery, finacially-driven braggodacio - because they don't have to. Fantastic Four already backed off its planned July 4 weekend release date because anyone who's ever been to a movie knows there's no way a cobbled-together mess like FF can compete with Spielberg and Cruise against aliens.

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*Or, alternately, Catwoman.

Elbert on Ebert

Over at The New Republic, Elbert Ventura absolutely nails everything that's wrong with that omnipresent critical mediocrity, Roger Ebert. While Ebert was once an interesting critical force, he's long since become the bad lite beer of film criticism, trading quality for mass market appeal. Some highlights from the piece:

"Those thumbs have since come to emblematize for some all that is wrong with film criticism."

"Covering about five movies per episode and devoting much of the time to a recitation of the plots, the show offered bite-sized commentary and didn't hide its consumer-oriented approach."

" By ... 1999, Ebert had become less of a critic and more of a brand--a service journalist dispensing consumer tips. Ebert's decision to replace Siskel with Richard Roeper only confirmed his anti-intellectual bent. With so many critics to choose from--guest co-hosts rotated in the interim--Ebert picked a Sun-Times columnist who, as best as anyone could tell, wasn't qualified for the job at all. Indeed, Roeper has been a disaster, an unapologetically ignorant dabbler who, unfortunately, has been granted instant credibility thanks to Ebert."

"In the path from mere critic to cultural institution, Ebert has adopted a pose at once populist and condescending. In a Slate "Movie Club" discussion with fellow critics from a few years ago, Ebert defended his rave of The Green Mile, which some lambasted for its retrograde racial politics, by brushing off his duties. He wrote: "Most of the ideological criticisms of The Green Mile are by and for sophisticated and subtle observers, writing for one another. The average moviegoer with $8 and a seat in an Abilene multiplex is likely to find himself or herself subtly more complex, humane, and liberal after seeing that film than before." In other words, why bother thinking deeply about a movie when the audience won't?"

FILM REVIEW; 'Land of the Dead': Sympathy for the zombie

Thanks largely to George Romero, no one thinks twice when you announce your intention to go see a movie about flesh eating corpses that rise mysteriously from their graves to attack the living. The absurdity of the existence of the zombie-movie subgenre is almost entirely his fault, having made the most famous zombie movie of them all, Night of the Living Dead.

Land of the Dead, Romero’s third sequel to his original zombie classic, extends the genre into a Mad Max like dystopian future, in which humans clump together in haphazardly fortified enclaves while the undead roam the earth. Like his previous entries in the series, it’s primarily about a small band of survivors struggling with an inexplicable, unstoppable menace, but in Land he’s expanded the world around them, allowing it to grow in some clever and unexpected ways. Romero’s latest outing serves up a bloody stew of severed limbs and social commentary sprinkled with deft characterizations and a surprisingly sharp narrative – a perfect B movie.

Dead, like so many summer releases, works primarily in the mode of an action movie. An opening sequence introduces the mythology – the dead have risen to eat human flesh – and the protagonist, Riley, a strong, silent, man-on-a-mission type played with low key determination by Simon Baker. A post-apocalyptic society has grown out of the wake of the dead’s rise, leaving the masses huddled into slums while a few rich power brokers luxuriate in a skyscraper haven run by the evil capitalist, Mr. Kaufman (Dennis Hopper). Before long, the security of both the masses and the elite is threatened, leaving Riley and a crew of toughs to battle it out with the zombie hordes.

You might not expect much in the way of plot from a relatively low budget zombie movie, but Land of the Dead’s narrative arcs move the story along with surprising grace. At 94 minutes, it’s shorter than most action extravaganzas, but it feels complete. Character conflicts and plot twists arise organically out of the story; nothing ever feels tacked on. Like the concept behind the zombies themselves, it’s simple - but unnervingly effective.

With a few quick strokes, Romero fleshes out an entire society, positing on what turns human civilization might take after a few decades to adjust to the zombie nightmare. The undead threat becomes integrated into ordinary existence: surrounding towns are the source of supplies and electrified borders exist to keep the hordes at bay. Zombie cage fights are staged at seedy nightclubs. Inside Mr. Kaufman’s tower, the elite live extravagantly while the masses amuse themselves with drugs and other vices. Life, in a very mundane sense, goes on.

The societal decay allows for some none-too-subtle commentary on Romero’s part. Mr. Kaufman and his cronies are clearly a stab at an oppressive capitalist elite, hording wealth and supplies while abusing the common people living in squalor below. Romero even empathizes with the zombies, making several subtle allusions to 2001: A Space Odyssey as the zombie leader, Big Daddy (Eugene Clark), learns to communicate and operate tools, evolving from dumb, flesh-eating brute to slightly less dumb flesh-eating brute – but never quite descending into total monstrosity. In Land of the Dead, zombies are people too.

Like Night of the Living Dead, which mirrored the racial chaos of the 60s, and Dawn of the Dead, in which zombies flocked to the mall in satire of consumer blight, Land of the Dead gives audiences a strong dose of socio-political awareness along with its array of exploding zombie skulls.

But for those who aren’t interested in a civics lesson, Land of the Dead delivers plenty of glorious zombie mayhem as well. From carved out guts to creative beheadings (this is almost certainly the only film in history to feature a decapitation by drawbridge), this film must be hell on the projectionists, because every reel plays like it was dipped in blood. The movie is replete with the goopy, glossy gore that used to infest horror series but has disappeared in recent years with the popularity of the PG-13 rating. People with weak stomachs are advised to avoid the film, but for those with an unsated curiosity about what it looks like to have a zombie rip apart flesh with its teeth (and hey, who out there doesn't fit this category when you really get down to it?), this is your movie.

Three decades ago, genre directors like John Carpenter, George Miller and David Cronenberg made workmanlike action and horror B-films that were smart, scary and satisfying. Land of the Dead eschews the teen-slasher cheekiness and spooky mysticism of so much modern horror and returns to the efficiency and audacity of the old masters. Marked by wit, intelligence and organ-displacing violence, Land of the Dead resurrects both the zombie movie and the spirit of classic horror.

A herd of little Americas running around in the Arabian sandbox

Before I get back to hyperbolating (new word!) about the alien devastation, Spielberg reeked on my mind yesterday, I'd like to point to this insightful commentary from everyone's favorite (well, except James Wolcott) stew of conservative yucking, The Corner. This is what John Derbyshire worries about regarding the President's attitude towards Iraq:

It is one part of the fundamental American creed that any person can be made into an American. With some basic exclusions -- "any person" should not be a drug addict, an ax murderer, a committed Marxist-Leninist, or a suicide bomber -- this is true. It's only true at the individual level, which is the level at which we do most of our thinking -- we are individualists. Ship, say, 300 million Chinese peasants to the USA, and the nation would be radically transformed... but so far I have heard of no plans by the Bush administration to do that.

It does not, however, follow that every nation can be made into America. Yet this seems to be what the President believes, unless (which I don't think is the case) he is an extraordinarily good actor. George W. Bush has completely internalized the multi-culti creed: Not only are all human beings broadly the same (true), but all human societies are broadly the same (false), or can be made so by spending some money and shipping in some management consultants and systems analysts (false, false, false).

Now, I didn't get to hear the speech on account of some tremendous, earthshaking conflicts that threatened my very existence (I forgot, and then fell asleep), but think Mr. Derbyshire's statement rings true even without Bush's most recent words.

Many of the neocon set have blundered into thinking that with a little bit of spit and polish, the U.S. can march into a country and turn it upside down with a little bit of determination and stick-to-itiveness. But producing a free-thinking Western style democracy is not the product of just a little more elbow grease; it's the result of decades, if not centuries, of cultural attunement.

Think of slavery. The racial bias it created is something we're still dealing with 150 years after the fact. Niether Iraq nor its Arab counterparts are not going to become America II without lifetimes of patience and cultural refinement. America wasn't built in a day, and two hundred years later, it's clearly still developing. Let's hope our leaders will have the foresight and patience not to expect anything more from Iraq.

An almost apology for more geek salvating

I know, I'm turning into a drooling, obsessive geek with no substantive commentary. I promise, I'll have a lot to say if I can pick my damn jaw up off the floor.

Cause, yeah, I just saw War of the Worlds.

I can't remember actually having my jaw DROP before... in a very literal, very uncontrollably awed sense. But it did today, for almost 2 hours.

Spielberg is amazing.

To do this weekend: attend fireworks, watch aliens annihilate Earth

The reason I've not been updating as much is that I've had boxing gloves surgically attached to my hands and it's really freaking hard to type. I'm getting better at it though.

Anyway - Spielberg! Cruise! Freaking ILM aliens!

And a bunch of happy critics!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I usually try to avoid fits of rabid geek hyperbole, but sometimes, well...

KING FREAKING KONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quickly on 'Land of the Dead'

My review won’t be out till Monday, but my immediate reaction to Land of the Dead is one of unequivocal adoration. It’s the perfect action-horror B film, and fans of the best genre work from John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro and others will not be disappointed.

Oren's 'New Republic' downfall

Michael B. Oren’s recent New Republic article about the German-made Hitler film, Downfall, starts off with a good idea, but lets it drive him much further than it should. The film, which chronicles the final days of Hitler and a number of other top Nazi operatives in and around his Berlin bunker, has been met with both praise for sweeping scope and dramatically jacked-up performances and uncertainty for its willingness to humanize Nazi leadership, especially Hitler. But Oren doesn’t want to let anyone read the film as insight into the dictator’s psyche, for he suggests its entire purpose is to smooth over the German conscience.

Oren’s claim is that the film is a deceitful reimagining of the German people as fellow Nazi victims. He’s bothered by the distinctions made between good Germans (many citizens) and bad Germans (the top Nazis), but the counterclaim one inevitably ends up with – that all Germans were equally evil – is ludicrous. While Downfall might make the German people seem less enthusiastic than they were, Oren wants to make the case that the film should make no distinctions within the Germans. To him, they were all Nazis, and thus representations of Ultimate Evil who should be portrayed as nothing less.

Oren simply won’t accept that, despite widespread enthusiasm for Nazism, the citizenry was being abused by a megalomaniacal dictator. In his view, there is no division of blame, and the German people are Hitler’s co-conspirators.

Not only does this view make a sweeping, impossibly broad historical indictment, it misreads the film. Downfall doesn’t let the German people off the hook, but it does recognize that the actions of some (Hitler and his closest associates) were far worse than the actions of many, and that, though the Nazi party's actions as a whole was clearly evil, it was comprised of people – people that had the capacity to transcend that evil.

Did the German people deserve some blame for not rising up against Hitler’s atrocities? Certainly. Oren, though, doesn’t want to recognize that the people were in the grip of a violent sociopath who wouldn’t hesitate to kill them should they rebel. Nor does he accept that, within the Nazi party, individuals could have broken ranks with the party line.

Oren’s idea that the film is as much about the German people’s complicity as the men in the bunker is right, but it doesn’t let them off the hook. Instead, it simply reminds us not to judge the masses as a collective, singular entity. Downfall is about humanizing the Nazis, and when that happens, they can't remain the colelctive shorthand for unadulterated evil that they've become. Oren is understandably nervous about the film's altered perception, but he's allowed his nervousness to become a collective indictment without examining the individuals involved.

The John Spencer Rumsfeld Explosion

Last night, after spending far too long staring slack-jawed at the new War of the Worlds trailer (see previous post) while it looped at full size on my computer monitor, I popped in the Criterion Collection's fantastic release of Alarm favorite Michael Bay's The Rock.

Aside from the criminally underlooked cinematography with its deep, sunset oranges and withered yellows and greens, what's really great about this movie is the casting. A grizzled, animalistic Sean Connery gets teamed with Nic Cage in prime tic-ridden geek mode to form one of the most unlikely but thoroughly entertaining action pairings in recent memory. Ed Harris does the sorrow laden man of honor thing with total commitment, though you have to see him curse at the cast on the second disk blooper reel to get a true sense of how utterly seriously he takes it.

Even Michael Biehn turns a performance worth watching, probably the only time he's done so without the aid of James Cameron. Best of all, though, is the decision to cast Phillip Baker Hall and John "Leo" Spencer as the bureacratic curmudgeons who get to argue about releasing Connery's character from an illegal thirty-year imprisonement. Hall, whose work with P.T. Anderson is borderline iconic, is one of the best character actors working today. As for Spencer, I've said it before, but he was born to play the role of cantankerous government codger. I don't even want credit for the idea: I just want him to star in Donald Rumsfeld: The Movie right now, dammit.

They're already here indeed

As if you needed any further convincing to see War of the Worlds, Yahoo is hosting a new web-only trailer for our annual July 4th alien invasion celebration, guest sponsored this year by Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise (Will Smith is on vacation). With some tantalizing glimpses of ILM's sure to be jaw-dropping tripods, it's the best trailer yet for a film that, despite scads of advertising, has managed to keep an aura of mystery all the way up to its release date. In a little less than a week, Steven Spielberg attempts to return to form with the awe and wonder* that made him a legend - and if that fails, there's always the fun of having nasty aliens scare the hell out of you through the vicariously vacuous vessel we know as Tom Cruise. Damn that dude's got good hair.
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*Not to be confused with "shock and awe," though Rummy's pushing to have actual aliens attack Earth next summer. The CGI unions, of course, are up in arms, but since when has the other Donald ever cared about organized labor?

On media consolidation

"There is a reason why TV executives believe that the Michael Jackson's trial or Tom Cruise's engagement deserves more media coverage than the decline of the middle class, the increase in poverty that we're experiencing or the growing gap between the rich and the poor."
-- Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders, TPMCafe

Maybe it's because, you know, people watch it. And TV is a business. You know - to make money.

If people cared about another story covering "the decline of the middle class," then they'd seek those stories out. But celeb gossip plays big, and gets covered accordingly. Like it or not, the media, at least any organization that wants to be profitable, is largely in the business of giving people what they want, not telling them what they ought to be interested in.

Painted Hellfire

Following up my previous post on Avi Arad's description of Ghost Rider's fiery noggin ("eternal hellfire!"), the boys at CHUD have posted a painted image of what the film's CGI artists are going for. Last I heard, Nic Cage was looking to star in this film, but I still think this looks more like how Avi's head will appear after Fantastic Four brings Marvel the sort of box-office embarassment that's usually reserved for Kevin Costner sci-fi epics.

Arad, not content with destroying just one of the company's hottest properties with a bad script, poor directorial choice and disregard towards fans, is apparently set on making it a new tradition with next summer's X3.

Snobnobbing

It is sometimes shocking to me to realize that there are people out there, many of them in fact, whose days do not consist of ingesting a vast array of cultural trivia - people who work a community college financial aid department, or unironically drive Buicks, for example, or who not only do not consider Cinderella Man “schmaltzy,” but do not even care to know what the word means. Or all three.

For those poor, sad souls with neither the time nor desire to better themselves with cultural trivia, conversing with the pop-culture culture savvy may prove difficult or tiresome – possibly even irritating. Not everyone has the intellectual stubbornness and mind-numbing perseverance required to be a culture snob. Fortunately, Vanity Fair editors David Kamp and Steven Daly have collaborated on what looks to be a series of guides to cultural arcana that aim to help the non-snob make his or her unenlightened way through the jargony discourse of young men with absurdly large record and film collections.

Their first volume, the Rock Snob’s Dictionary, is a collection of entries which seek to serve "as a primer for curious music fans who sincerely want to learn more about rock but are intimidated by unexplained, ultra-knowing references in the music press to 'Stax-y horns,' 'chiming, plangent Rickenbackers,' and 'Eno.' " Much like The Hipster Handbook, which delivered an astute, psuedo-ironic analysis of the varied hipster culture and its subgroups, the dictionary is both a winking, kitschy, self-flagellating stab at geeky pop-culture mavens and a handy reference.

Now, I am no stranger to rock snobbery, but Daly and Kamp’s next volume is even closer to my heart. That’s right – they’re working up The Film Snob’s Dictionary. It won’t be out till February of 2006, but Daly and Kamp have already released a quick preview of its cover and contents. A sample entry:

Harryhausen, Ray. Animator and visual-effects maestro (born in 1920) behind a series of terrifying films, putatively for children, that combined stop-motion animation with live action. In such films as Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), spray-tanned actors and actresses did furious battle with stiffly moving but nevertheless nightmare-inducing centaurs, minotaurs, walking statues, and other exotic predators. Though his filmography is more familiar to Kitsch Snobs than to kids, Harryhausen was awarded an honorary Oscar for his work in 1992, and was slyly namechecked in the Pixar film Monsters, Inc. (2001).

CHUD details Marvel's upcoming supercinema

CHUD is dishing dirt on Marvel's upcoming slate of superhero films. There are some useful bits on upcoming projects, including Spider-Man, Captain America and even Silver Surfer. One interesting point, however, was this bit of wisdom direct from the mouth of Marvel's Hollywood dealmaker, Avi Arad, concerning Ghost Rider's flaming skull: "You can't extinguish it," he said. "It's hellfire." One can only assume that this is what Marvel's looking for to heat things up when Fantastic Four inevitably starts producing review headlines like "Fantastic Bore."

FILM REVIEW; In 'Batman Begins,' The Dark Knight gets a fresh start

Gone are the days when macho bruisers like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone ruled the box office. In place of their muscle-bound behemoths, blockbuster audiences have found a new, more appealing hero, the comic book superhero. Superhero films have grown quickly into a box-office staple that shows no sign of letting up. This summer will bring audiences a big-budget Fantastic Four adaptation, and 2006 will see a third X-Men film and the first entry in the Superman franchise since 1987.

For now, though, the attention is on the newest Batman film, Batman Begins. In this fifth installment, director Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer attempt to revive the series from its campy, insipid treatment at the hands of Joel Schumacher in 1997’s Batman & Robin. Instead of picking up where Schumacher left off, Nolan and Goyer erase the previous four films’ chronology and start the mythos over from scratch, and the result is the best representation of the Batman character yet to hit the screen. Batman Begins is an origin story that captures both the gritty urban decay of Gotham City and the barely repressed rage that drives the hooded hero’s vigilante ethos. Although Nolan and Goyer try to cram too much into the script, ending up with an awkward, disjointed narrative, the film so perfectly captures the essence of the title character that it hardly matters.

Totally ditching Schumacher's Icecapades-inspired garish superhero opera, Batman Begins tells a personal, human story about the events that drive young, wealthy heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) to don a suit and cape and lurk in alleys fighting criminals. In keeping with this focus, Nolan has given the series a much needed visual makeover, tying the blighted modernism of Blade Runner with the 70s-style metropolitan grit of Taxi Driver.

Gone is the haunting gothic expressionism of Tim Burton’s original Batman and the gaudy cartoonishness of Schumacher’s miserable third and fourth films. Batman Begins eschews both the excesses of previous entries and the saturated four-color flash of other comic movies, bathing its frames in a mixture of deep blacks and musty golds; it’s got a darkened dreariness that never descends into the self-parodying heavy-metal circus of the Crow sequels or Marilyn Manson.

Nolan’s style is one that is both incredibly impressive and entirely transparent – it details an intricate, layered world without ever calling unneeded attention to itself. His camera work, for the most part, is equally self-assured, resisting the urge to indulge in needless stylistic flourish. Like his own noir thrillers Memento and Insomnia, as well as the 70s era crime flicks from which he's drawn so much influence, the film, at least until the end, has the grainy, lived-in feel of a gruff cop thriller, not an over-budget summer escape.

While previous Batman films have focused on grotesquely exaggerated production design, Nolan is the first helmer to highlight the performances. The cast is loaded with A-List heavyweights, and almost without fail, they turn in excellent performances. Morgan Freeman, as Lucius Fox, plays the same goodhearted repository of wisdom that he’s been playing for years – at this point he’s so ingrained in the role that he probably doesn’t need to do much more than place a cardboard cutout on screen for us to empathize with him – but it’s a role he plays with such salient grace that it’s easy to forgive the typecasting.

Screen giants Michael Caine and Liam Neeson also manage to be compelling, despite their underwritten roles. Neeson, especially, as Bruce Wayne’s mentor Henri Ducard, has to speak some incredibly clunky lines about the virtues of becoming a symbol for justice or some such grandiose nonsense, but he saves these scenes with a delivery that toes the line between calm assurance and barely-sequestered ferocity.

Katie Holmes, on the other hand, grinds the film to an eye-rolling halt every time she appears on screen. As an assistant D.A., she’s Bruce Wayne’s love interest, but Holmes is so flat that the only chemistry they generate is the kind that blows up in your face. With her faux-spunky determination and perky moral rectitude, she’s like a prissy JV cheerleader delivering a bad speech on criminal justice for a class final – cute, but terminally annoying.

Most impressive is Christian Bale as Wayne/Batman. The film gives him a full 40 minutes to play Wayne before donning the Batsuit, allowing him ample opportunity to internalize the frustration and rage that eventually drives him to vigilantism. As Wayne, Bale shows us the combination of controlling snobbery and insecurity that such a dual life would surely generate. Yuppie by day, serial-killer by night Patrick Bateman is clearly the progenitor here, the difference being that this flamboyant playboy channels his rage into something more constructive.

As Batman, he’s genuinely frightening, a creepy lurker in a weird costume that hisses out spooky dictums in a nightmarish, raspy whisper, dropping from the shadows onto unsuspecting prey like Ridley Scott's original alien. With his sleek, hard-shelled rubber suit, he even looks like one.

The horror-film build ups to the action, in which Batman stalks his prey through Gotham's dirty wharfs and alleys, are some of the best moments, but they promise a bit more than the bigger setpieces can deliver. When the action gets going, Nolan’s camera work devolves into a frenzy of blurred close-ups. It’s trying for a sort of heightened, speed-freak impressionism, but it’s anything but impressive.

Goyer’s script is equally misshapen, structured around three distinct acts that never gel into a cohesive whole. After a solid first act, in which Wayne trains with Drucard and the League of Shadows, the film moves into the creation of all the mythic Batman elements: the suit, the car, the cave. For longtime comic geeks, this is exciting stuff, as the development of the legend is finally given explicit, plausible (for a comic book movie) explanation.

The script's best work is in its setup - the first act builds the man, the second builds the legend. But the payoff never really comes, as Goyer tosses in a whole new conflict that the first two legs don't support. After nearly two great hours, the final act descends into a fairly typical mish-mash of action clichés, and Nolan and Goyer seem to be struggling to hold it all together.

Despite its flaws, though, Batman Begins gets the most important elements right: Batman himself, and the bleak, crime-ridden, morally conflicted cityscape in which he exists. Nolan and Goyer still need to work on putting together a more cogently structured script, but for the first time, they've translated Batman's iconic presence into a fully-realized big-screen hero. He's not just a symbol; he's also a man.

Sup, Holmes? You OUT

IMDB News is reporting that Warner Brothers has dropped Katie Holmes from the Batman sequel, while Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman have all signed back on. Seeing has how Holmes performance was almost universally despised, this is the first sign that WB is looking to do right by the sequel and find someone who less resembles a rich friend’s cute but annoying little sister. You know, like an actual actress. Tom Cruise is militarizing his Scientologist Army for an attack on the WB lot even as I type.

Now the focus seems to have shifted to the real question: who will fill Jack Nicholson’s shoes as Batman’s arch-nemesis* The Joker? Ain’t It Cool is spreading gossip (as they tend to do) that the lead contenders are Adrienne “I’m that crazy guy from The Jacket” Brody and Mark “Whatever happened to me?” Hamill. Hamill has something of an edge in that he’s been voicing various incarnations of The Joker on the excellent Batman animated series, while Brody is really hoping that his Diet Coke "bounce" commercial will inspire support from weight conscious studio execs who also enjoy pogo sticks.
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*What a wonderful day it is when you get to use the words “arch-nemesis.” That's like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or at least a free beer at Friday's.

Reverseblog is all "What's up?" to Armond White

"I am more than aware that taking Armond's hyperbole too seriously on any level is unnecessary at best, and unhealthy at worst."

Salon: Coldplay Sucks!

Ok, Salon isn't saying Coldplay sucks, at least not directly (and without some of the New York Times' vitriolic edge in their recent takedown of the group) , but they do manage to call them "weird" in their introductory paragraph and make a pretty strong case for the strangeness that goes on between Coldplay frontman and British Prime Minister tony Blair. Pretty quickly, they get around to calling Martin's elbow-rubbing with Blair barf worthy."

Chris Martin of Coldplay is morphing into Tony Blair of 10 Downing Street. And the rock-politics love-fest imagined above is a reality over here. Martin really did send a hand-written note to Blair, via a journalist, that said: "Dear Mr Blair, My name is Chris; I am the singer in a band called Coldplay ... I think all the stuff you're doing this year in terms of trying to sort the whole place out is BRILLIANT. The Make Poverty History campaign that you're behind is not just a slogan, it's a real possibility, and myself and most of my friends feel like you're one of the only politicians on the world stage who actually wants to achieve it." Martin also offered Blair guitar lessons and wrote down his cell number and, sure enough, he received a call from Blair's people a few days later."

In an article that can't quite bring itself to deliver an Armond White style all-out rail against the band, Salon calls the group "bland" and "middle of the road," saying the band is "neither rock nor experimental." It's almost as if writer Brenden O'Neill is annoyed that Coldplay isn't any worse a group than it is.

The blanding of British rock has happened before... But the punks came along in '76 and told the Prog Rockers to fuck off. Surely there is another Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious out there, watching the rise of Coldplay, Keane, Radiohead and the rest with great unease and plotting to do something about it?

It's funny. Music critics, many of whom spend vast amounts of time dropping virulent word bombs about the state of the music industry*, find something that's mildly acceptable and get annoyed that it doesn't fit into their categories of horrid, miserable crap or brilliant, world-changing, messianic brilliance. Mediocrity is like critic kryptonite.

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*With good reason, for the mainstream music industry is truly the pits

Ed Klein goes to the Hill, reveals experience to K.J. Lopez

This NRO interview with author Ed Klein is a worthwhile follow up on the previous post about the new Hillary book. Corner favorite K-Lo conducts an interview that probes but never pushes, and don't even think about taking that the wrong way. For example:

NRO: Hillary has tried to position herself as a moderate. Is she? How much of the "radical" Wellesley girl is still in her?

Klein: Hillary has been a woman of the ultra-Left ever since she entered Wellesley College 40 years ago this year. She’s been consistently anti-military (despite her recent votes), pro-nationalized health care, and pro-abortion without parental consent. You can take the girl out of Wellesley, but you can’t take Wellesley out of the girl.

Lopez doesn't take it any further than that (or if she did, it's been removed from the published version), simply allowing Klein to make this accusation but provide no backing for it whatsoever.

Still, it's a useful preview for what topics the book will cover, even if it doesn't provide much in the way of substantive discussions of how those issues will play out.

A fluttering of wings at the box office

Despite some unkind words by Armond White's co-inflamer, Mathew Zoller Seitz, over at the New York Press, Batman Begins opened reasonably well this weekend, taking in approximately $71 million in its 5 day opening. This is certainly a reputable opening number (hey, I'll take $71 million), and Salon is reporting that its producers believe it will lead to a sequel, but it's hardly the Spider-Man 2 like super smash that Warner Brothers had crossed their fingers for.

Scheduling the film for a mid-week opening and midnight previews, the studio clearly hoped that this would become an instant mega success. Batman, though, arrived without the massive hype the webslinger generated, and certainly without the high expectations so many had for the sequel. However, my guess is that, especially with the generally positive reviews and word of mouth that have been circulating, this is a film that will have legs.

Next week's big genre release is Land of the Dead, a hard-R Romero zombie flick that will certainly have a much smaller audience than a mainstream movie like Batman, meaning Bats will have some time to take advantage of that good word before America's two favorite people, Spielberg and Cruise, arrive for our traditional July 4th alien attack with War of the Worlds. Look for Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale to pull better than anticipated numbers during the second week at the box office. This is a movie that people will want to see again, or that they'll make the effort to see if they haven't.

Films at the witching hour

The New York Times has a fun bit on the evolution of midnight movies today that talks about the difficulties of programming obscure and cult films when such movies are so easily obtained on DVD. It ends with this piece of advice on how to pick a perfect midnight film:

"You have to imagine that a certain percentage of your audience will be high on various substances, and you want to find a movie of that quality."

While I'm not one to partake in the whole illegal substances vein of fun, I will certainly attest that the absolute best theater-going experience of my life was seeing Evil Dead II at a midnight screening in Lexington, Kentucky at a theater that serves alcohol. Utter brilliance made, er, brillianter. Um.

Rob Schnieder's leaning tower

Sure to be the biggest hit of the summer.

Hilary Duffle bag

It's not as if anyone is convinced that Hilary Duff movies are anything but tween-pandering dreck. However, just in case you weren't sure, or maybe needed a refresher in pithy ways to dismiss a n adolescent fluff film, IMDB's summary of reviews for her new movie, The Perfect Man, is on the job:

The Perfect Man, starring Heather Locklear and Hilary Duff, is being offered up this weekend as "counterprogramming" to Batman Begins, which opened on Wednesday. Many critics suggest it really amounts to no competition at all. "The Perfect Man takes its idiotic plot and uses it as the excuse for scenes of awesome stupidity," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Lou Lumenick in the New York Post scores it for its "sticky, straight-to-video caliber." Likewise Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News describes it as "this nondescript piffle." And Jan Stuart in Newsday proffers this advice: "If you are planning on seeing the new Hilary Duff comedy over Father's Day weekend, show Dad how much you care. Leave him home."

PS - That's two posts about irritating Hil(l)arys today. How do you (dis)like yours - one "L" or two? Maybe if The Perfect Man had been a satire about Bill Clinton...

Hillary Schmillary

Kaus has an excellent take on the New York Times' wacky reading of the conservative reaction to that new Hillary book.

NYT's Raymond Hernandez breathlessly reveals that "Republican and conservative activists are behind a vigorous campaign to promote a controversial new biography about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton." Apparently it's advertised on a Web site that once got some money from Richard Mellon Scaife! The real story--too subtle for a paper that has to dispatch a correspondent to cover conservatives the way they'd send a foreign correspondent to India--is that the right-wing reception of the new Hillary book has been wary and remarkably hostile.

As usual, he gets the cordoned-off-from-reality New York liberal reaction almost perfectly. Almost, that is:

Printing the predictable story your readers expect to read instead of the intriguing story that's really out there is more or less the definition of "hack," no? ... [But the NYT actively ignored the previous day's Orin piece, which said the opposite and had some GOP quotes to back it up--ed Good point. That makes the NYT piece less "hack" and more ... something worse. The GOP congressional delegation could ceremoniously burn the book in the middle of McPherson Square and the NYT would ignore it and write a piece describing its insidious promotion by "Republican activists."]

The Times wouldn't ignore the book burning; they'd dually accuse conservatives of being book-burning censors and of being engaged in a plot to get people interested in it by pretending to be against it.

Armond White has sophisticated taste

I haven't seen Miranda July's new film, so I can't comment on it directly. But both The Cinetrix and the New York Times' A.O. Scott, a sizzling combination of blogger princess and mainstream maven, have endorsed it heartily. So you have to wonder what's going on when Armond White says this about the award winning film:

July's simplified comedy-drama—a cine-cartoon—is not offensive like Jonathan Carouette's neurotic exhibitionism in Tarnation. But there's a similar amateur's arrogance in both; they threaten to drag the cinema back to an emotional naivete that sophisticated filmmakers usually transcend. [emphasis added]

Sophisticated, huh? You mean like Sahara? Like Torque? Like motherfucking You Got Served? All of which you praised. Honestly, Armond.

It's just vexing, really. You've got the insight, vocabularly and rhetorical style to crush a thousand Entertainment Tonight cutesy publicist critics, but you're as tempermental as 10 year old. I want to defend you. But... but... You Got Served? Sheesh.

A Slate of films

After a flurry of traffic and activity earlier this week, things have died down a bit due to that unfortunate recurring event, finals week. Since you asked, I’ll say that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it often is, but this is somewhat balanced by the fact that I have to endure it twice this summer because of the 6 week terms.

Since then, Slate’s been going movie-crazy with its Summer Movies Issue,* which has been imminently enjoyable throughout.

Bay and Summer go together like gasoline and matches

Bryan Curtis’ defense of Michael Bay makes him a man – nay, a Man – after my own heart. I have long sided against Bay’s snotty detractors, choosing instead to revel in the unhinged cinematic testosterone shots he delivers with such punch. As much as I love gritty 70’s social commentary film and ambiguous foreign cinema, I was raised on celluloid spectacle, and Mr. Bay delivers the bang like no one else.

Say it ain’t so, Joe

But delivering is apparently not in WSJ critic Joe Morgenstern’s repertoire. Slate’s movie coverage was supposed to feature one of their signature conversation/arguments, this time between Slate’s own movie-magistrate David Edelstein and Mr. Morgenstern. The topic – “Did George Lucas and Steven Spielberg Ruin the Movies” – is a familiar question for cinemaniacs during the heated months, but it’s one that won’t get answered this week. Joe’s response to David’s opener is nowhere to be found. Will these arrogant critics never learn? Just because you win a Pulitzer doesn’t mean you can leaving our man hanging like that.

Box-office insanity looks to bloggers

Michael Agger takes up a lot of space to reveal what most people who follow the box-office already know: movie crowds are fickle. Sure, it drives the studios batty,** but it also keeps them at least willing to try new things on occasion. If consumer science ever nailed down a true blockbuster formula, we’d be stuck with 12 months of summer (which, I suppose, compared to this Spring, wouldn’t be so bad). It goes on, however, to suggest that internet movie reviews just might be the future of film marketing. Maybe I’m in the right business after all.***

Big freakin’ teeth

Rebecca Onion’s article on shark films makes a good recap of the genre, but doesn’t mention that CHUD siterunner Nick Nunziata is currently producing a new super shark film, Meg, with Guillermo del Toro, of annoyingly-difficult-to-type-name fame. Who knows what will happen when the first generation of net movie geeks start getting their various films into production? The only thing that’s certain is that it will further crowd the web with aspiring movie dorks, all hoping that some a lot of bad copy and ellipses will put their shitty genre film into production.

*How does one have an “issue” at a daily webzine? I fear I shall live a long time with this question unanswered.

**Hopefully Chris Nolan style.

***Ok – kidding, but it’s a nice fantasy for about 3 seconds.

In the beginning, there was Batman

The general consensus seems to be that Batman Begins is the first film to capture the brooding hero’s true spirit. Although neither of my articles on the film will be out till next week, I’m going to take this moment to chime in some basic thoughts on the film.

Batman Begins is successful not because it’s a Great Movie, but because it’s a great take on the Batman mythos. For the first time, the character feels right. Watching Bale trudge through vast icy mountains or awkwardly skid down rocks into an rocky, undeveloped Batcave, I had to actively remind myself that this very serious, finely crafted thing on the screen in front of me was a Batman film. By removing all of the previous incarnations’ winking, goofy referentiality, Nolan and company have captured the deep, essential essence of who Batman is, a tormented soul acting out of an all-consuming fear and rage. While there are significant flaws, especially with David Goyer’s awkwardly structured script, Nolan and Bale make Batman real for the very first time.

Wayansland

Do you know that there are 9 Wayans siblings with screen credits? And an additional 3 without? That's a whole damn studio! Or it will be anyway. Several of the Wayans brother (it really doesn't matter which ones) announced plans to open a movie studio and theme park on an abandoned military base in Oakland. The proejct is expected to restore economic vitality and reduce crime in the area, creating thousands of new jobs. Neither the studio nor the park has any intention of hiring additional workers, as Keenan or Marlon or Brando or one of them said, "there's still not enough jobs to keep us busy. You think we're gonna hire your ass?"

Movies movies movies movies movies

Slate's summer movie series is too wonderful to even talk about right now (though I'm sure I'll get around to it tomorrow). And if that weren't enough to make your day a blockbuster, how about this - Batman Begins starts showing in 1 hour! I won't be seeing it till tomorrow afternoon*, but the reviews are pretty solid so far. Slate! Batman! And in the next two weeks - a new Romero zombie film and Spielberg's War of the Worlds! Everything is exploding with really carefully framed precision!
______________________________________
*Such is the plight of the working man. Sigh...

TPM Cafe guest bloggers answer those pesky questions we've all be wondering about

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero is joining the yawn-fest over at TPM Cafe this week. As expected, his most recent post is full of probing idiocy, most prominently when he poses this vexing question:

"Yesterday, I was the commencement speaker at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This was a speech I really struggled with. How do you talk about such weighty issues--the Patriot Act or torture--in an uplifting and event-appropriate way?"

Hmmm. Maybe you could try a novel approach and not talk about them? I've got a question: since when did torture become an appropriate issue for a commencement speech? You'd think after four years of coffee-fueled all nighters and subsequent tests, students would already have a lifetime's worth of experience with interrogation.

But of course, the ACLU approaches everything from an entirely different perspective than everyone else. Romero dubs his speech a success because "no tortillas were thrown" by the students. Well that's a relief. Mexican food projectiles must be a regular problem for him; it sounds like everyone forgot to make a Taco Bell run before the ceremony.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

is "an immensely entertaining piece of star-driven summer fare." Or so says I. My review is up at Relevant Magazine.

Bratner tries for a Prisonbreak

Now here's a Brett Ratner project I can get behind. Dark Horizons has posted details on the new Fox series, Prisonbreak, another shot at long-form action suspense a la 24.

"Combining the hope of The Shawshank Redemption, the camaraderie of The Longest Yard and the tense procedure and spectacle of The Great Escape, the series promises to reveal additional pieces of the puzzle each week as Michael carries out his daring plan to mastermind the ultimate prison break - and solve the far-reaching national-scale conspiracy that landed him and his brother there in the first place.

Prison Break is created, written and co-executive-produced by Paul Scheuring (A Man Apart). Brett Ratner ("Rush Hour" films, Red Dragon, X-Men 3) directs the pilot episode and serves as executive producer."

The premiere will air Monday, August 29.

Although 24 has degenerated into thought-free, illogical espionage fantasy, clearly making brazen appeals to careless, casual viewers at the expense of attentive fans, 'm curious to see if the network will give a show like Prisonbreak the chance to actually develop a story over a long period. Certainly, it won't match the depth and intricacy of The Wire, but the setup is unique and seems to lend itself to the multi-threaded, roundabout approach required to sustain a season-long plot.

Mr. White goes after Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Once again, Armond White proves it's his job to spout socio-political moral hysteria like a drunk vomiting his night's fun into the toilet. Wrong as he may be, his reviews are always amusing to read. My quite different take will be online shortly.

"[Mr. and Mrs. Smith] proffers gleaming high-tech weaponry and high-fashion costuming to camouflage its unexamined ideology. (Jolie in diamond earrings and tinted sunglasses makes a very distracting killer.) John and Jane are not just pin-ups prettifying political nonsense; they're high fascist models selling a Western pop-cult jamboree of homeland cruelty and brutal espionage.

Is it too soon to call this violent trash the year's most repugnant film?"

Aw, Armond. Come on. Settle down. I'm sure that somewhere, someone is working on a sequel to Sahara just for you.

NARAL's choice to terminate their poll numbers

William Saletan’s piece on NARAL’s newly developed abortion polling language is insightful and thorough – worth your time to read. It’s also revealing, in some unintended ways, about the weaknesses of the abortion lobby and their overreliance on slippery language to sway a debate about something far more tangible than words.

Saletan starts by pointing out how stacked the deck is against abortion proponents.

“Only 22 percent of Americans say abortions should be "generally available." Another 26 percent say "regulation of abortion is necessary, although it should remain legal in many circumstances." That's a pro-choice total of just 48 percent, even when you phrase the second option to emphasize regulation. Thirty-nine percent say "abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases," such as rape and incest, and 11 percent say all abortions should be illegal. That's 50 percent support for two hardcore pro-life positions.”

This just affirms what many have begun to suspect: the mood of the country is swinging dramatically towards the pro-life position. There are several possible reasons for this: the surge in evangelical Christianity, a growing distaste for what many see as unfettered liberalism and the results of a protracted, steady message by pro-life forces over the last several decades.

Abortion activists are understandably anxious about these numbers, but are hoping (as action groups tend to hope these days) that they can turn those numbers around by reframing the message. According to the article, if they poll using the phrase “We should promote a culture of freedom and responsibility by focusing on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services, access to affordable birth control and by providing comprehensive age appropriate sex education in schools,” they get a 61 percent response in their favor.

Saletan goes on to point out the importance of the value words “freedom and responsibility,” calling them “plastic.” And he’s right: they can mean anything or nothing. Subsequently, the words become useless, about as representative as "4 out of 5 doctors agree..". Everyone, or at least the majority of Americans, wants to affirm freedom and responsibility, but when applied to abortion that could mean any number of things. NARAL’s new language gets people to accede to some generic values that everyone already agrees with. What it doesn’t do is get anyone to change their position on abortion.

One of the things that makes the abortion debate such a hot topic is that, unlike many issues, it’s not going to be solved by better language. Freedom and responsibility are great values to uphold, but neither affirmation is likely to change one’s view on the human dignity of a fetus. An abortion is either an individual choice to remove a hunk of one’s own cells or an unfortunate killing of a human being not yet detached from it’s mother. The words freedom and responsibility are hardly likely to change a significant number of attitudes about either position. Saletan points out the likelihood of NARAL blunting their new weapon fairly quickly in this passage:

“What is NARAL's version of responsibility? On the way out, I put the question to the organization's president, Nancy Keenan: What's the difference between making an abortion decision responsibly and making it irresponsibly? "Women make all of their decisions responsibly," she says. But if every decision is a responsible decision, then responsibility means nothing.”

And, one wonders, what about the women who decide not to support abortion? Are their decisions responsible as well? The statement is almost too ridiculous to talk about.

Saletan’s final point is the one that has probably been most responsible for declining support for uninhibited abortions. In this, he reveals his personal reasons for supporting abortion, making a fairly standard libertarian argument:

“I've always agreed with pro-choicers that the government is incompetent to regulate abortion. But I've never liked their aversion to moral judgments. If they'd just admit that abortion's legality doesn't make it right, or that some women take it too lightly, or that every abortion is tragic, I'd be so relieved. "Responsibility" gives me something to hold on to. It reassures me that the moral substance of life, which ought to take place in the personal and family spaces where government has no wisdom, really is taking place there—or at least that pro-choicers think it should.”

Not surprisingly, this is the pro-abortion argument I find myself most receptive to, but it’s one that NARAL will never be able to get behind. Admitting that abortion is a moral decision, and a tragic one at that, would establish a clear link between the procedure and the end of a human life, something that would very likely lead to a further slippage in the polls. For most people who aren’t ultra-strict libertarians, unrestricted access to abortion only makes sense if it’s a woman and her body making a decision with no more consequence than a haircut. Remind people that it’s “tragic,” or that NARAL’s vision of abortion on demand allows women to terminate their pregnancy out of flippant whim, and watch the poll numbers slide even more.

Birds don't REALLY wear tuxedos, do they?

Apparently, stupid people are everywhere, as evidenced by this depressing tidbit in the New York Times:

Whether it's because computer-generated effects have gotten so good, or because penguins just seem to be from another planet, people are being fooled, and not just children. Gabriel Gigliotti, 26, of Los Angeles recently went to the movies with his girlfriend and her parents. "After a preview for 'March of the Penguins,' my girlfriend's mother leaned over and whispered, 'Are they for real?' " he said.

This calls for a long rant about the state of media-saturated stupidity in which America has buried its weak, unimaginative brains. But I will repress my vitriol, for I have television to watch.

Dancing With Reality

Dana Stevens' latest Surfergirl entry is as delightful as always, and includes this stunningly obvious yet also revelatory bit of truth:

"Bad dancing is simply more fun to watch than bad singing is to listen to."

You'd never have thought it, but once you hear it, there's little room to argue.

Internal bleeding

The New York Press' Russ Smith ponders the amusing possibility of schizophrenic media reactions sure to come in the face of being forced to make a choice between McCain and Clinton in '08.

More intriguing, however, should a Clinton-McCain race emerge, is what side the media elite will line up on. This is the sort of decision that can't be made lightly by journalistic sycophants, a battle that'll pit husband and wife, children and parents, Harvard alumni and cable television buddies against one another. Sort of like a Civil War, without the blood and guts and yucky stuff like people being killed. It's a quandary that makes a longtime McCain opponent like yours truly hope that he prevails in winning the nomination; one, because he's the most likely to defeat Clinton; and two, not to be flip, the entertainment factor can't be beat.

Just imagine the tsouris at The New York Times alone: Maureen Dowd lines up with then-septuagenarian McCain, while Paul Krugman (on the assumption he's not fired by then for any number of actionable offenses, such as referring to "Indians" instead of "Native Americans" in a column) is certain to unzip for Hillary. David Brooks is already a McCain whore from 2000, so that's easy, and John Tierney, currently the only Times op-ed writer who seems to possess a conscience might be disgusted and ask for reassignment to the paper's Buffalo bureau.

Smith eventually asserts that they'll have to come down on the side of Clinton, which is true, if only for the fact that no elite media organization would want to get behind what will become the"I guess I have to" choice for white, Southern evangelicals. For these liberal types, God is ok, but only if he doesn't have any influence on someone's life.

Smith's major mistake, though, is that he seems to think McCain's nod is all but inevitable.

There's really no way for Republicans to avoid a hold-your-nose vote for McCain. If Clinton wins it's likely she'll carry along additional Democrats to Congress, possibly even regaining both chambers. And with so many elderly Supreme Court justices refusing to stand down today, President Hillary could dramatically shape the judiciary in her own image, a cause for recurring nightmares.

Smith acknowledges how distasteful many Republicans will find McCain, and in doing so, he underestimates the power of the party's culturally conservative base. Despite the good press McCain will get in the primaries and the inevitable support from moderate wings of the party, the most unified block of conservative voters are religious conservatives who place cultural issues at the fore. Whether its James Dobson and his over-touted band of Christian footsoldiers or a coalition of churches that have, through all the hulabaloo about "values voters," finally become (too) aware of their own political clout, the right simply doesn't seem to have the choice to nominate a cultural moderate.

Look at the Schiavo case, in which a fairly small portion of the party grabbed the leadership by the balls and forced Republicans' hands in the matter. The Christian right is too strong to allow a candiate that doesn't fit their profile, and McCain, liberal sympathizer that he's percieved to be, doesn't fit the bill.

James Lileks on Wookie rednecks

James Lileks addresses his clever, amusing thoughts on the latest Star Wars installment, including this deep insight into white, Southern Wookie culture. Howard Dean just hates these guys:

Not enough Wookies. And I don’t see them as the kind of guys who’d use a bowcaster, frankly; they seem more like shotgun types. You would not want to fight an army of a pissed off Wookies with shotguns. I bet they drink, too. They’re probably always drunk all the time, which is why their language seems so incoherent; for all we know they’re not saying anything at all, just yelling. Because they’re all hammered.

The New Man: Ass-ugly, with fashionable backwards suspenders

Yahoo News talks about the New Man, and provides a helpful photo.

"We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.

A [Brad] Grey day, or Mission: Screw the Audience

The New York Times is reporting that Paramount Chairman Brad Grey is giving the go-ahead to the $150 million next installment in the Tom Cruise Tries to Convince the World He Really is a Badass, For Real, Ok? series. Meanwhile, Aint It Cool says that Grey has stopped production on what looked to be a budding masterpiece, or at least a damn fine film, Paul Greengrass' Watchmen adaptation. With all the furor over the box-office decline, one would think that studios might have the sense to avoid this sort of staid, star-bloated rehashing. But no, just like Katie Holmes, Paramount audiences are getting fucked for the sake of a little publicity.

Hey studios, let's assign some narcissistic schizophrenic hacks to our other superhero tentpole pics while we're at it! Oh wait....

Where there's smoke there's fire

We all know smoking is bad for you, often resulting in such symptoms as urine-stained teeth and an affliction doctors refer to as "Waffle House waitress smell." But until recently, the Justice Department was trying to put the hurt on the leaf-growers' coffers too. Turns out they were just playing mean, kind of like when your girlfriend gets out the handcuffs but gives you a "safe word."

"As he concluded closing arguments in the six-year-old lawsuit, Justice Department lawyer Stephen D. Brody shocked tobacco company representatives and anti-tobacco activists by announcing that the government will not seek the $130 billion that a government expert had testified was necessary to fund smoking-cessation programs. Instead, Brody said, the Justice Department will ask tobacco companies to pay $10 billion over five years to help millions of Americans quit smoking."

Afterwords, Brody insisted that the $120 billion check he'd been seen flashing to the limo full of coked-up hookers the night before was "a Christmas gift, and I don't know why anyone would think otherwise." Brody refused further comment, except to ask if anyone had a light.

There's a bomb on the bus

Hitch (the former Nation scribe turned Bush War-on-Terror cheerleader - not the Will Smith film), tosses a bomb at airport security procedures.

"Airport security is still a silly farce that subjects the law-abiding to collective punishment while presenting almost no deterrent to a determined suicide-killer."
--http://slate.msn.com/id/2120330/

Sit and spin: what to do with a useless thumb

The New York Times is reporting that Roger Ebert gave The Longest Yard a thumbs up on TV, but then, after visiting Cannes, realized - surprise, surprise - that what he really wanted to do his thumb was tell Sandler and co. to shove it.

In a review last month that offered an unusual glimpse of how sausage is made, Mr. Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The Chicago Sun-Times who also has been reviewing on television for more than two decades, explained how "The Longest Yard" had forced a professional crisis. He had already taped his review of the film for "Ebert & Roeper," giving it a thumbs up, before he attended the Cannes Film Festival.

There he saw 25 films with much higher aspirations. He writes: "I sit here staring at the computer screen and realizing with dread that the time has come for me to write a review justifying that vertical thumb."

After entertaining the idea of magically flipping that thumb, he concludes that he was right all along, that the movie "more or less achieves what most of the people attending it will expect."

Well, we're all fortunate that bad judgement and pandering, populist crticism shows up to save the day. I could go on about how this is representative of all those nasty trends in film criticism that place the untrained, repetitive demands of some hypothetical average viewer above the sense of the critic, but instead, I'm going to get back my Monday night crack marathon, er... The West Wing.

A right to bear [virtual] arms

Playing violent video games does not directly cause harm to anyone.

Let’s be absolutely clear about this: no matter how much virtual blood may be shed during hours spent glued to the boob tube, Xbox controller in hand, and no matter how much of a waste of time it may be, video gaming neither kills nor harms anyone.

Blindingly obvious and simple as this may seem, video-gaming bashing censors want the public to believe that violent video games should be done away with, or at least severely restricted. But it's not because video games are directly linked to violence, it's because of the message they sell.

Jack Thompson, a lawyer who has fought video game companies in court, says in this interview that video games are “killing simulators,” and likens video game companies to cigarette manufacturers in what he claims is their dangerous effect on young people. Says Thompson, “The very same people … who say games can't encourage anyone to do anything are the same people who tend to get upset about tobacco ads because they encourage kids to smoke.”

But the problem with equating video game makers with big tobacco is that video games don’t actually harm any one. Video games are a representation of violence, but they are not actual violence, and that’s something that goody-goody crusaders on the left and right don’t seem to willing to acknowledge.

A better comparison would be to say that video game violence is like a kid taking a pen and pretending to smoke with it. Both are simulated actions that cause no direct harm to anyone nor guarantee any harmful result, and, as such, should not be forced into the same category as smoking which is always, unarguably, directly harmful.

In some ways, it’s comparable to the recent allegations that Newsweek’s possible misreporting caused the Arab riots, and subsequently, the deaths that occurred in the riots' wake. Again, the blame is shifted away from the individuals who are making the wrong decisions, in this case the rioters. Rioting, and certainly rioting that results in death, is wrong. Period. The fault of the reporters does not excuse in any way the fault of the rioters. While Newsweek’s reporting was lamentably wrong – and deserving of much criticism – placing the blame for those killed in the riots anywhere but on the heads of the rioters is faulty. Similarly, placing the blame for teenage violence anywhere other than on the teenagers who commit the violent acts is misdirected.

Anti-video game activists stem from the same strain of outraged parental cucklers who placed warning labels on records and raised a furor over NYPD Blue and other too-hot TV, eventually leading to the television rating that everyone has the pleasure of ignoring today. Once again, they’re trying to accomplish institutionally what ought to be done in the home. If anything, warning labels encourage lazy parenting; trusting some monolithic, nation-wide council of strangers to correctly label what media is and isn’t acceptable for your kids is naïve at best.

In the interview, Thompson’s entire argument is predicated on the idea that violent video games encourage kids towards violence. Hyperbolically, he calls games “murder simulators,” and makes the following ridiculous claim:

“Eventually there is going to be a Columbine to the factor of 10, a slaughter in a school by a crazed gamer. And when that happens, when America figures out these kids were filled up with virtual violence, Congress may ban the games altogether. You wise guys who think you're so clever about saying what kids ought to play and then putting [Mature] games in the hands of those kids, you will wish you listened to me.”

Whether or not video games truly encourage violence is not the issue. Instead, the question revolves around whether or not we’re going to restrict specific outlets from promulgating speech that we disagree with. While it’s probably true that few people want their kids encouraged towards violence, is it the place of the state to decide what media companies can promote? And if they can, who gets to decide what counts as “encouraging" violence? To restrict expression on the grounds that even though it has no directly harmful or illegal result, but instead may, in a very few cases, promote a message we disagree with is the worst sort of moralist, paternal bullying. The old adage is true: people have a right to be wrong. Thompson would deny them that right.

This trend towards cultural consternation of unpleasant speech is symptomatic of the ongoing threat to the free speech freedoms that also allow wholesome, moral speech (whatever someone’s definition of that might be) to go unchecked. If the government passes legislation restricting content in video games, they can just as easily pass legislation restricting what people can see, say, hear and read in churches or schools. Since most sensible people agree that the government’s place is not mucking with these institutions, it seems only rational that big brother be equally absent from others.

It’s not the job of the government to advocate for or against violence in video games, films, books or music. The job of the government is to protect the rights of those industries to say what they want, and along with that, the rights of their critics to deplore them – but not to shut them down. People like Jack Thompson want to regulate what other people’s children can and cannot see, but that’s the job of individual families. Thompson and his supporters need to stop trying to do the nation’s parenting, and the nation’s parents need to step up take responsibility for what their children are seeing, watching and playing.

On 'CSI', Tarantino digs a shallow grave

I’ve never been a fan of CSI. From its inception, the entire idea seemed like a Bruckheimerian Law & Order, a sexed up, gore-heavy cop show featuring the usual array of far-too-attractive young faces. Upon hearing that Quentin Tarantino was directing this season’s two-episode finale, though, my interest perked. Tarantino’s glib-n-grisly sensibility, his love of genre and his ability to elevate low-brow formula to classy character drama all seemed like a direct fit with the CSI universe.

It was all tentative, though, as television is a far different beast than film. In film, a director has ultimate authority, allowing him to make the necessary stylistic and narrative changes to his movie so that it stays within the boundaries of its genre even while drastically reimagining its tropes. But network television, bound to its commercial breaks and carefully diagramed 42 minute structure, is not nearly as malleable a medium as theatrical film. The question, then, was whether Tarantino’s talent would be able to mesh with the stringent demands of the idiot box.

And the answer is a disappointing sort of, but not really. This season’s two part finale, “Grave Danger,” has a certain methodical slowness to it that typical CSI episodes lack, but, with one glaring exception, it’s pretty much business as usual for William Petersen and company. It’s a decent two hours of television, but, despite the reccomendation of Slate's estimable Dana Stevens, it bears no resemblance to the greatness of Tarantino’s pristine four-film oeuvre.

One possibility for this might be that, though the story idea was Tarantino’s, he didn’t write the screenplay. Tarantino’s directing has always been excellent (especially in the Kill Bill films), but it’s his writing that has truly elevated his work. Here, directing a rather average script by a staff writer, Tarantino has nothing to do except control the pacing.

The only time his influence stands out is in a particularly bizarre scene that occurs towards the end of the second episode. A CSI agent who’s been buried alive (the titular “grave danger”) goes into a tremendously disturbing, grotesque fantasy in which he dreams that his coworkers are dissecting him with gleeful, brazen malice. Shot in gritty black and white, its first-person lab-table view is reminiscent of Tarantino’s much-maligned trademark trunk-shots.

The scene is played for bizarre, over-the-top, gross-out humor, showing characters ripping out organs and tossing them aside with shocking flippancy. But tellingly, the scene is non-essential to the outcome of the show, a throwaway clearly designed to allow for quick removal if it didn’t work. As much energy as the scene generates, it’s a needlessly drastic tonal shift from every other scene, and should have been gutted* from the show.

The Weinsteins recently announced that Tarantino’s next project will be a double feature with Robert Rodriguez titled Grindhouse, in which each director will create a 60 minute short film that serves as an homage to 70s era low-grade horror and martial arts flicks. Hopefully this next-short form experiment with genre will return him to the snappy, energetic work that's made his big-screen gambits such a treat.
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*I award myself no clever points for this.

I'm actually studying Gertrude Stein, not Dostoyevsky

David Brooks, insightful as always, beat me to the punch* in tackling how Bob Woodward's description of his chance White House encounter with Mark Felt perfectly encapsulates the anxiety-ridden aimlessness of big-city young-adulthood. Smartly, he doesn't turn Woodward's experience into an opportunity to dole out the sort of Sage Elderly Wisdom (TM) that floods at recent grads(Network! Be aggressive! Join the Navy!). Instead, he simply reminds us that even the greats were once young and uncertain, weighing the advantages of graduate school over an entry-level job processing flag requests and giving Capitol tours (a job I'd gladly accept, thanks).

As someone who may or may not resemble the young person so accurately described in David Brooks' new essay, I'll simply highlight a couple of sections and leave you to read the whole thing:

"Places like Washington and New York attract large numbers of ambitious young people who have spent their short lives engaged in highly structured striving: getting good grades, getting into college. Suddenly they are spit out into the vast, anarchic world of adulthood, surrounded by a teeming horde of scrambling peers, and a chaos of possibilities and pitfalls. They discover that though they are really good at manipulating the world of classrooms, they have no clue about how actual careers develop, how people move from post to post."

"They often feel stunted and restless (I haven't moved up in six months!), so they adopt a conversational mode - ironic, self-deprecatory, postpubescent fatalism - that masks their anxiety about falling behind."

"In college they were discussing Dostoyevsky; now they are trapped in copy-machine serfdom. They spend their days amid people with settled careers, but they teeter on the cliff's edge."

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*This is not to suggest that we are in any sort of competition, or that my getting to the subject first would have at all influenced Brooks' topic choice. A slow day for the Times is something like 1.3 million readers. A good day for this blog is any that hovers around 8.

New York Times: Coldplay sucks

Coldplay is "the most insufferable band of the decade."

What powers the internet...

And I thought it was just a tiny IT guy running off his Doritos gut in a hamster wheel...

The Internet is powered by bored office workers who sit at their desks forwarding emails, surfing the web, reading and writing blogs, and IMing funny links to their friends. These people have inadvertently created the Bored at Work Network (BWN). It is amazing to me that the BWN can distribute media to literally millions of people each day without any centralized coordination. The BWN is bigger than CNN, bigger than Fox, bigger than NBC, CBS, or ABC and it is powered primarily by people goofing off at work. Some of these bored office workers are doing more than forwarding silly emails and web sites. They are also building world class encyclopedias, operating systems, and web servers. They are vanquishing political leaders like Trent Lott or media figures like Dan Rather. And when they go home for the night, their computers are still chugging away finding life on other planets and curing cancer. --Jonah Peretti, in Gothamist

Almost as revealing as that thing with the waterwheel or whatever

One of life's great mysteries - at least for upper-middlebrow cinephiles who spend their days lurking on the web and exaggerating minor film-related questions into Life's Great Mysteries - has been the absence of a photograph of New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis on the Times' Movies page. What on Earth could possibly keep her mugshot from public display? A simple desire for privacy, perhaps, or possibly something more insidious. Was she diseased - leperous maybe? Or was it something something far stranger; indeed it left open the question, was she even human?

But like all life's enigmas, a resolution will eventually present itself.* Weird.

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*Except for some obvious exceptions, like the meaning of anything in Lost Highway and the continued ability of Paul W.S. Anderson to land high-profile directing gigs despite producing film after film of cinematic sewage.

Hey! Whaddaya know...

...Turns out Rush Limbaugh is a bloviating ass. This is shocking. SHOCKING. I mean, really - Rush Limbaugh making assinine overblown statements about Democrats? Never...

SAT has they answer to happiness and fulfillment

Recently, I wrote on the difficulties inherent in the new SAT Essay section, but The Corner's Kathryn Lopez (yes, I've been partaking in The Corner's shady wares a lot today) just highlighted a new atrocity in the section. The sample essay question she picks out begins with this lovely bit of instruction:

A sense of happiness and fulfillment, not personal gain, is the best motivation and reward for one's achievements. Expecting a reward of wealth or recognition for achieving a goal can lead to disappointment and frustration. If we want to be happy in what we do in life, we should not seek achievement for the sake of winning wealth and fame. The personal satisfaction of a job well done is its own reward.

Really? I'm glad that issue is finally solved. Thanks to the those wonderful folks over at The College Board, I can start on my path to gauranteed happiness and fulfillment immedietly. This is a major development, people. Come on! Recognize!

Honestly, though, is this sort of pat moralizing what the SAT needs to be doing? Isn't there a better way to give an essay test than to require students to assimilate a disputed worldview before they write? Now there's an idea for an essay question.