[CinemaRatty] tag: commercials

Unrelated-Related Documentary for the 2008 Presidential Campaign: The Weather Undergound

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:55:00 +0000

I was surprised to be listening to the news and hear mention of the Weather Underground.

The Weatherman, a radical liberal American terrorist organization in the late 1960s and 70s that was based out of Chicago. This group did terrorist acts against the United States, often bombing police stations, court buildings, and prisons as well as major US targets like the Pentagon and the US Capital. Violence and bombs by the weather underground occurred across the US in Detroit, New York, Chicago, and San Fransisco.

There purposes often were vague, but were related to fighting US Imperialism and Capitalism, and was lead typically by college students and college educated white Americans, and often paralleled the black liberation movement. Some protests had more direct purposes, while others seemed to be more destruction oriented than message oriented. The Weatherman's group largely disintegrated after the Vietnam War

The story of the Weathermen was told exquisitely in the Academy Award documentary, The Weather Underground (best documentary nod in 2004). The documentary largely focuses on one of the principal leaders, Billy Ayers. This documentary is particularly interesting, simply because it's interesting to watch in our current age where discussions on terrorism are very politically, socially, and culturally prevalent following the September, 11th attacks in 2001.

There has been a recent discussion of the Weather Underground, and particularly the unapologetic leader William Ayers (pictured left) in relation to Barack Obama. Obama is apparently associates to some degree with the adult William Ayers who is now professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Although Ayers never was convicted of any crime, he also is completely honest and unashamed of his involvement in the Weather Underground, often making comments to the effect of people not setting off enough bombs today.

Obama and Ayers were both members of an anti-poverty organization called the Woods Fund of Chicago. Ayers and Obama also both live a few blocks from each other in Hyde Park Chicago, and Ayers has given money to Obama's campaign.

This connection has led some people to suggest that Obama is more left-leaning than he would like most people to believe.

Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who has created a controversial non-profit American Issues Project that funded heavy ad campaigns in 13 markets connecting Obama to Ayers has created a stir, including a response by the Obama campaign directed at McCain.

This campaign is certainly grizzly and aggressive and we're nowhere close to November yet. While, I'd love to know you're thoughts on this connection, the commercials, and Bill Ayers connection...

But beyond that, the point of this post is really to encourage you to rent or netflix or find somehow a copy of Sam Green & Bill Siegel's documentary The Weather Underground. It's a great film, and really something that will entertain and stir a unique discussion.

Tonight on the Tube: Secret Life, Greek, Eureka & The Cleaner

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:09:02 +0000

News & Notes

Tonight, NBC has America’s Got Talent returning from its Olympic hiatus. Also, ABC, CBS and NBC all have Democratic National Convention coverage.

Over on cable, ABC Family has the second season premiere of Greek, BBC America has the series premiere of Gavin & Stacey, BET has a What’s at Stake special, FX has the Rescue Me minisode finale, Oxygen has the fourth season premiere of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, and TBS has the premiere of the World’s Funniest Commercials 2008.

Enter to win a Greek Prize Pack to celebrate the return of the ABC Family show for a second season.

Prime Picks

House (FOX): Repeat. House and Amber are fighting over Wilson and Cuddy wants performance reviews of House’s team, in “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” from this past season.

House (FOX): Repeat. House believes that his favorite soap actor is sick and decides to treat him whether he wants it or not, in “Living the Dream,” from this past season.

ABC, CBS, and NBC all have Democratic National Convention coverage tonight, but it plays depending on your time zone. Like here on the west coast they are all on at 7:00 p.m. PT.

Solid Selections

NCIS (CBS): Repeat. The whole team is under investigation after the arms dealer Director Sheppard has been tracking is found dead, in “Internal Affairs” from this past season.

Reaper (The CW): Repeat. Sam is being targeted by a demon revolution, in “Cancun.”

ABC, CBS, and NBC all have Democratic National Convention coverage tonight, but it plays depending on your time zone. Like here on the west coast they are all on at 7:00 p.m. PT.

Cable Choices

Secret Life on the American Teenager (ABC Family): New. Lauren is seen kissing Ricky, George spends some time with Amy and Ashley, and Tom gets himself some pizza and a stripper. Plays again later.

Eureka (Sci Fi): New. The Fixer invites a celebrity archaeologist to town that brings a cursed Egyptian tomb to town. Plays again later and again next week before the new episode. Last week’s episode, “I Do Over,” replays right before.

The Cleaner (A&E): New. The FBI wants William to help them find a former agent and won’t take no for an answer. They find him in the tent city of a meth manufacturer. Plays twice and again later twice.

Other Options

Food Detectives (Food Network): New. More food myths are looked into. Plays again later.
Greek (ABC Family): Season Premiere. The show is back with all the houses competing in the Greek Week competitions. Calvin and Rusty continue to try and maintain a friendship while competing for their respective houses. Casey is trying to figure out what to do with Rebecca. Plays twice and again later. Nine episodes from the second half of season one replay leading up to Secret Life of the American Teenager. Enter to win a Greek Prize Pack that includes a DVD set, t-shirt, Frisbee and a drink cozy.
The Office (TBS): Repeats. It is “Safety Training” and then the “Product Recall.”
Road Tasted With the Neelys (Food Network): New. The Neelys visit Baltimore, Maryland. Plays again later.
Smallville (The CW): Repeat. The “Justice” episode from season six replays, which has the Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg back in Smallville with the Green Arrow trying to take down one of LuthorCorp’s secret labs.
World’s Funniest Commercials 2008 (TBS): Premiere. I got a chance to see this already and there are some pretty funny commercials, but with Eureka and the return of Greek in the same timeslot tonight, I can’t really recommend it. But, it does play again later and again this Saturday night, either of which would be a good time to check it out.

Sports Notes

USA has U.S. Open Tennis coverage.

Late Night

Saving Grace (TNT): Repeat. Last night’s second summer season finale episode, “You Are My Partner,” replays.

TV Marathons

ABC Family has nine episodes of Greek.
CMT has eight hours of Nanny 911 episodes.
Discovery Channel has six episodes of Dirty Jobs.
Oxygen has episodes of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency all day.
Sci Fi has eight episodes of Dark Angel early.
Spike has 12 hours of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes.
TNT has five episodes of Law & Order.

Free Subscriber Downloads:

Printable Fall 2008 TV Schedule v1.03 (PDF) - Last Updated: 8.09.2008 - Get a look at the Fall schedules for ABC, CBS, The CW, FOX and NBC all on one page.
Printable Fall 2008 Cable TV Schedule is in the works.

I Want Morgan Freeman To Deliver My Eulogy

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Narration is a tad overrated. And quite lazy at times when it comes to telling a story. But listening to Morgan's voice just makes you want to write a movie with nothing but narration. His voice is like crispy bacon in a pan. A little sizzle and just the right amount of snaps.

In truth, Freeman is like crack cocaine to bad storytellers. When in doubt, have Morgan narrate because he makes everything sound so dramatic. I can only imagine him reading my final words.

Piper, husband to Laura and father of two. Piper was a good man. A nice man. One might say that Piper loved life. And food. A lot of food. And probably too much beer. And boy could Piper sweat. The guy would walk a flight of stairs and one might think he just walked out of the shower. And he was not a quite man. Most could hear him a few blocks away. But he loved to laugh. Inappropriately at things. But he was a good man. A nice man.

Man, just reading the words there I sound like a huge loser. But thinking about Morgan Freeman reading them, I'm suddenly a superhero.

I'm reminded again of how good Freeman is with a recent batch of Visa commercials for the Olympics. I wasn't a very good Olympics watcher, but I did catch a lot of these commercials. And they were wonderful. Each 30 seconds as jam packed with drama and emotion as any Olympics I've ever watched. This is due to wonderful writing and of course the most wonderful voice narrating today. Mr. Morgan Freeman.

MICHAEL MOORE'S PET PEEVES (SOMETHING WE CAN ALL AGREE WITH HIM ON!)

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:29:00 +0000

Moore the merrier- but not when it comes to mobile phone users who disrupt theater performances.

Mercurial director Michael Moore is one of the most divisive people in the film industry, but he's finally zeroed in on some everyday complaints that both liberals and conservatives can agree with him on. Among his pet peeves: operators on the American 411 telephone directory assistance program who can't speak English; people who disrupt shows by blabbing on their mobile phones and, lastly, the outrageous trend in movie theaters of subjecting paying customers to endless commercials - when they want an evening away from the constant barrage of mind-numbing ads on TV. (To read Moore's comments click here) (To read Cinema Retro's editorial on mobile phone users in theaters, click here) On the latter point, I couldn't agree with Moore more (hey, that's a catchy phrase!). Last week, with a gun in my back, I finally relented and went to see the ultimate chick flick, Mamma Mia! Arriving on time at the theater was a grievous error, given the amount of ads I had to suffer through. They were so abundant I literally expected an intermission before the movie itself started. Oh, and for those of you who haven't slept nights wondering what my opinion of Mamma Mia! might be, the bottom line is I was totally surprised at how much I liked this unpretentiously corny and goofy movie. Every member of the cast is completely charming and Meryl Streep turns out to be a Godsend for anyone who has been trying to prove there is life after age 30. She's quite a singer, as well. The same can't be said for Pierce Brosnan, who couldn't carry a tune if it had handles. However, Brosnan gives a fine performance and reminds us that he's still one of the most charismatic leading men on screen today. Also: the Abba music remains the ultimate guilty pleasure. No matter how much you knock it, you still can't get the songs out of your head. Now that I've come out of the closet to confess I liked Mamma Mia!, I guess my credentials will be revoked in The Sam Peckinpah Fan Club- Lee Pfeiffer

An Interview With Alessandro Alessandroni

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:36:28 +0000

Ennio Morricone is certainly a genius and the maestro of Italian cinema, but part of his genius is including the right people in his work; Edda Dell’Orso is voice, Franco De Gemini is the man with the harmonica, and Alessandro Alessandroni is his wizard of sound. Alessandroni may not be a familiar name to most, but his contributions to the Italian cinema have been countless and indispensable. Alessandro reflects on his long career in soundtracks with Cinema Suicide writer Tim Fife.

Alessandro Alessandroni was born in Rome in 1925. He began his musical career playing with the locals of Soriano nel Cimino; “I became a musician step by step while I was a student. My first experience (playing music) was in a small village where I spent my summer vacations. I learned to play the mandolin in a barber shop; I was 12 years old. I soon moved to the accordion and later took three months of lessons in piano. On my own I gradually learned double bass, tenor sax and guitar.” Alessandro at the time was studying economics at a university in Rome, but eventually gave into devoting his life to music.

Alessandro began performing in nightclubs regularly and eventually met future collaborator Nora Orlani, who soon after meeting asked Alessandro to sing with her vocal group 2+2. Alessandro eventually left the group to start his own quartet, I Caravels. During this time, he also was recording music for television series, commercials, and documentaries. Through this medium, he found himself working on movie soundtracks and eventually caught the ear of frequent Fellini collaborator Nino Rota. During an early 1960’s session for a Rota score, Alessandro began to whistle and Rota was instantly floored at what he had heard. “Nino Rota was a very good musician—it was a pleasure to work for him—and also a great gentleman.” Alessandro recalls. “He was excited with my whistle and I recall he summoned me into the recording studio and asked me to whistle for Fellini!”

BCI / Eclipse supplemental work

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:01:00 +0000

And here's the promised part 2 of the "Upcoming and recent DVD work" update post!

Our biggest job so far, and one that's likely to keep us occupied for at least a year, is the work we've been doing since early 2008 on ten (soon to be 15 or more) titles for the BCI / Eclipse DVD label. Anybody who knows this company's work knows about their dedication to off-the-beaten-path Japanese cinema. Whether it's the original Sonny Chiba ninja TV series Shadow Warriors or long-lost Akira Kurosawa films, BCI has always shown a real dedication not only to technical quality, but also to digging out some of the most interesting films to release as part of their catalog.

The full list of titles has already been posted on the web, but I don't think I've ever addressed them here. These ten were licensed by BCI from Japanese film studio Shochiku. So here we go...

Battle Heater (1990)
The debut feature from Another Heaven and Spiral director George Iida, a fun, low-budget comedy/horror film that feels like a lost brother to Sam Raimi and the Coen Brothers' little-seen Crimewave. We did an audio commentary with Iida earlier this year, joined on the track by model maker and f/x artist Ken Hamashima. Ken, who works as a professional toy designer now, also contributed a video interview to the disc about his work on the film, and tons of still photos covering the behind-the-scenes f/x work.

Unlucky Monkey (1998)
The third film from director / former actor Sabu (aka Hiroyuki Tanaka), starring Shinichi Tsutsumi as a bank robber whose situation goes from bad to worse when he accidentally stabs a young girl during a getaway. We did an audio commentary with Sabu and Tokyo-based writer and translator Jason Gray, and Sabu loaned us his collection of stills, articles, promotional materials, and original storyboards for a gallery on the disc.

Go for Broke (1985)
aka V Madonna: Daisenso. I had never heard of this insane, 80s action riff on Seven Samurai before getting the BCI gig, and now I'll never forget it. A group of high school kids hire a tough group of girl warriors to protect their school from a biker gang that's constantly harassing it. Mayhem ensues, along with lots of bad, bad 80s fashion, hairstyles and music. One of the few non-pink efforts by legendary pink filmmaker Genji Nakamura, this one has fallen through the cracks of most Japan cinema fans, but no longer, as it's going to blow people's minds once they see it. Nakamura has agreed to do an interview or commentary with us, but it has yet to be scheduled. Get a preview of the insanity here, in a collection of vintage Japanese TV commercials. The movie one will be obvious (I think it's #3).

East Meets West (1995)
The late, great Kihachi Okamoto has long been one of our favorite filmmakers, and it's been a thrill to peek inside his world while working on this, his second-to-last film. Shot in New Mexico, the movie is about a samurai (Hiroyuki Sanada) who comes to America in the late 1800s to protect a gold shipment, but winds up teaming up with an American schoolteacher, an Indian maiden and a young boy when the gold is stolen by outlaws who murder the boy's father. Co-starring Naoto Takenaka, with cameos by Ittoku Kishibe and Tatsuya Nakadai, the movie is a loving tribute to samurai films and westerns, and a beautiful swan song for one of Japan's greatest filmmakers. Earlier this year, we did a long video interview with Okamoto's widow, Mineko, who also served as producer on many of his films, including this one. She also gave us access to a huge collection of stills and memorabilia from the film, which will be assembled into a gallery for the disc. More extras are being worked on, as well, but still subject to confirmation.

Judo Duel (1965)
Karate Wars (1978)
This pair of martial arts films will most likely come out as a two-movie set of some sort. I wasn't aware of either film prior to the BCI job, and even Japanese friends had a difficult time identifying the first one! It turns out that Judo Duel is aka The Birth of Judo aka Meiji no fusetsu: yawara senpu, directed by Kunio Watanabe, a forgotten filmmaker whose career goes back to the silent days of Japanese cinema. His most well-known film (at last to me) seems to have been the Shintoho blockbuster Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War, a historical epic produced by legendary exploitationeer Mitsugu Okura, who also produced well-known Japanese horror and ghost movies like Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku. According to the web, Watanabe did films in all kinds of genres for most of the Japanese studios, before winding up at Shochiku late in his career (well into his 60s), where he did this film and another famous martial arts story, yet another version of Sanshiro Sugata. Judo Duel features some great actors (Ko Nishimura, Tetsuro Tanba) and the trailer looks good, but I haven't been able to see the film yet and supplement prospects look pretty slim. Watanabe passed away in the early 80s, many of the actors are also dead, and even hardcore film nerd friends of mine in Japan know nothing about the movie. So file this one under "real discovery", and let's hope it's a good one.

Karate Wars, aka Karate daisenso, on the other hand, is a bit more of a known quantity. Directed by Hideo Nanbu, it's an entertaining martial arts vehicle for the multi-hyphenate and semi-notorious celebrity Hisao Maki (above). Maki-sensei was a disciple of the famous kyokushin karate master Masutatsu Oyama, also a teacher of Sonny Chiba and the subject of films like Karate Bullfighter and Karate for Life (which Maki had a hand in producing, I believe). His older brother Ikki Kajiwara (who died in 1987) was an incredibly prolific manga writer, and creator of many well-known sports manga series, like Ashita no Joe, Tiger Mask, and others. Maki himself is also a screenwriter and a frequent collaborator with director Takashi Miike, having produced or written films like the Bodyguard Kiba series, the Family series, Big Bang Love, Waru, and others. And, they say, he's got affiliations with a certain underworld society famous in Japan for missing fingers.

Well, back in the late 70s, Karate Wars was produced at Shochiku by Kajiwara, apparently on a very low budget, as a vehicle for his younger brother to show off his martial arts skills. It's an entertaining film, basically following the stoic Maki as he travels from Japan to Hong Kong and Thailand in order to show the superiority of Japanese karate to those countries' native martial arts. There are lots of real martial arts fights, a bit of filler romance and intrigue, and popular Toei villain Nobuo Kaneko even appears as a slimy corporate type. I've only seen the (poorly) dubbed version, but rest assured that the eventual BCI disc will feature the original Japanese soundtrack (and hopefully the English dub track as an alternate soundrack).

The even-better supplement news is that Maki-sensei has agreed to do a video interview with us and we hope to shoot it on our next trip to Tokyo, in his Roppongi dojo. I'm hoping to ask him about Mas Oyama, as well, and archive that footage for any future reissues by BCI of their Chiba / Oyama titles. Needless to say, it should be an entertaining and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to talk to the man himself. It's going to be a challenge finding someone to help with translation, though, as all of my Japanese friends are scared to meet him!

Rikyu (1989)
Basara - The Princess Goh (1992)
This pair of titles represents the arthouse quotient of the BCI / Eclipse deal, I suppose, and are the final two films from legendary filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara, director of Woman in the Dunes and Face of Another. Rikyu was a major return to filmmaking for the director, produced by Shochiku studio scion Kazuyoshi Okuyama and featuring an all-star cast and big budget. It was Teshigahara's first narrative feature film since 1972's Summer Soldiers, after the completion of which he took a more than ten-year break to devote himself to his late father's ikebana school, the Sogetsu-do.

Rikyu stars Rentaro Mikuni as the real life Sen no Rikyu, a sixteenth century scholar and creator of the Japanese tea ceremony who was executed by his friend, the Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi, after he expressed reservations about his Lord's military ambitions over China and Korea. It's a gorgeous, epic film, and was followed by a semi-sequel, Goh-hime, produced by much of the same crew and taking place during the same historical period. Rikyu has seen some crappy public-domain releases in the US before, but BCI's edition will render those all obsolete with a new transfer and, we hope, the most extensive supplements of any of the titles on this list. Details for it and its companion are still being worked out, but we should be getting started on these in the next few months.

Violent Cop (1989)
Boiling Point (1990)
And finally, the titles that have most online fans abuzz. This pair of titles, the first two films from director Takeshi Kitano, have already been released on DVD in the US, but their transfers leave much to be desired and they featured zero supplements. There are some PAL discs out there of the films that feature better film transfers, but again, little in the way of supplemental material. But no more! If all goes well, you can look forward to some exclusive interviews and other supplements for these films, and maybe even a commentary or two. Like the Teshigahara films, details are still being determined, but we had a good meeting with Office Kitano this past spring and we hope to start work within the next month or two on the films.

The possibility of some meaty extras was significantly increased when BCI recently announced the acquisition of five additional Kitano films from another licensor: A Scene at the Sea, Getting Any?, Kids Return, Hana-bi (Fireworks), and Takeshis'. Three of these have had prior (poor) US discs, but the comedies Getting Any? and Takeshis' will be making their US debut with the BCI editions. Once we get our foot in the door at Office Kitano (and a contract for the work on these additional five from BCI), we'll be covering all seven films with cast and crew interviews (depending on peoples' availability), and trying to locate as many supplements as we can for the films, making the BCI discs the definitive editions to date of the titles.

You can see why our calendar is sagging under its own weight these days...

That's plenty for now, but I'll leave you with one more tantalizing bit of information. It's far from confirmed yet, but there's one more exciting title that BCI's working on acquiring that I'm really looking forward to doing some work on. I can't name the film yet, but it's very well-known in the US and put a certain bad-boy director on the map with international audiences. Keep your fingers (and feet) crossed!

Corporate Budgets Cut + Campaign Season = Too Many Political Ads and Images of Wind Farms

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:14:00 +0000

So, my post title probably says it all, but when I watch TV I feel like an overwhelming percentage of the commercials are political ads.

And I'm not just talking about McCain commercials about Obama being the biggest celebrity in the world. I'm seeing tons of district and local election commercials too...and some are so low budget it's sad.

I can only attribute all of this to the fact that corporate budgets are cutting back on ads, especially while the economy is struggling, and people either have more limited disposable income, or reserving their disposable income because of uncertinty.

It seems to me, that the result is that any foundation, politician, or coalition can afford more ad space in prime-time then they know what to do with it.

Have you experience this as well?

Just another reason to hope the economy improves, so we can see better commercials!

Also...what's up with the wind farms...every other commercial has windmills in it. ExxonMobile, Visa, republican politicians, democratic politicians, and T. Boone Pickins all try to sell themselves with Windmills.

Is the windmill the peace sign for this new age?

Full Metal Laughtrack

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:39:00 +0000

Wow... the reviewers who complained that the climax of Pineapple Express was too violent for a comedy are in for a surprise when they see Tropic Thunder. The very first scene of the film—well, not counting a bunch of very funny fake commercials and trailers starring the main characters—is a wild spoof of bloody Vietnam films like Platoon and Apocalypse Now in which a minor character’s head wound performs the same basic comic function as a seltzer bottle. The scene is going well, with the characters getting their hands blown off and their guts slit open right on cue—until stars Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) and Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) get into a fight over who gets to cry during their big emotional scene together. Before you know it, they’ve stormed into their trailer, leaving director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) so distracted that when a planned $4 million explosion goes off, none of the cameras are rolling to catch it.

Shades of the opening scene from The Party! But the main characters in Tropic Thunder aren’t oblivious extras like Peter Sellers’ Hrundi V. Bakshi—they’re pampered Hollywood divas too intent on making sure their hotel room has TiVo (as per their contract) to bother reading the script. It would take me many more paragraphs to explain how they all wind up lost in the jungles of Laos; or why Kirk, a white Australian, has had surgery to turn him into an African-American; or how Tugg gets taken prisoner at a heroin farm; or why they tie lowbrow comic Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) naked to a tree. Suffice it to say that all this happens, and it all makes a certain amount of off-the-wall narrative sense.

I had a divided reaction to Tropic Thunder. On the one hand, plenty of this movie is laugh-out-loud funny in a gleefully tasteless way—especially all the stuff dealing with Simple Jack, a box-office bomb in which Tugg, hoping for an Oscar nomination, played a mentally retarded farmboy. (Robert Downey Jr. has an inspired speech in which Kirk—who’s won five Oscars—informs Tugg that if you want to win an Academy Award with that kind of role, you have to play a character who only seems retarded, like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man or Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. Tugg, on the other hand, made the same mistake Sean Penn made in I Am Sam: he went “full retard,” and the Academy never gives the award to full retard.)

And yet, at the same time, there’s something oppressive about this movie, which wants to be a scathing satire about Hollywood excess at the same time that it wants to impress you with its own expensiveness. This is no quick-and-dirty shoestring comedy: the cinematographer is John Toll (who also shot The Thin Red Line, Legends of the Fall, and Braveheart), who may be the unlikeliest person to photograph a Hollywood comedy since Vittorio Storaro shot Ishtar. Stiller spares no expense, from the costly songs on the soundtrack right down to the supporting actors: he even gets Tom Cruise and Matthew McConnaughey to do extended cameos as, respectively, an abusive studio head and Tugg’s agent. Neither performance is particularly amusing (the endless scenes of Cruise in his fat suit dancing to hip hop are especially tedious, and constitute a much more embarrassing minstrel act than Robert Downey Jr.’s “blackface” routine), but that’s not the point. Tropic Thunder is, on one level, a big party for the Hollywood cool kids, proof of the power of Stiller's Rolodex, and the presence of insiders like Cruise and McConnaughey lets you know Stiller is sitting at the best table in the cafeteria.

Ben Stiller is a strange case. Of the big comedy stars in movies right now, he may be the least naturally gifted performer. There’s always something guarded about him—I can’t think of a single spontaneous moment he’s had in front of the camera, not even when he’s improvising. He’s always eager to “make fun of himself,” as on Extras or The Ben Stiller Show, but even then, there’s a fundamental narcissism to his personality that makes those bits ring hollow. He plays ball: for all of Stiller’s potshots at the shallowness of Hollywood, Tropic Thunder also contains some of the year’s most obvious bits of product placement—TiVo as a major plot element, an incongruously long shot of Tom Cruise holding up a copy of Maxim.

But he’s a hard worker—you don’t develop biceps the size he sports in Tropic Thunder by being lazy—and he’s smart about surrounding himself with talent. Getting Robert Downey Jr. in the cast, for instance, was a masterstroke. His Kirk Lazarus is a dazzling characterization—with no first-hand knowledge of black people, Lazarus has cobbled together a new “black” persona apparently based on half-remembered Fred Williamson movies. He’s not fooling anybody, but he’s such a committed actor that he simply cannot break character. He’s gone “full black man.”

Then again, maybe I’m selling Stiller short. Maybe it takes an insider, a consummate studio politician, to get a movie this loony made in the first place. Tropic Thunder has the feel of an early version of a script, with all the nonsensical, cockamamie stuff that movie executives usually demand to be rewritten somehow still left in. I still prefer the casual good-time buzz that a movie like Pineapple Express leaves me with over the macho comic aggression of Tropic Thunder, though. Why go through the trouble of putting Tom Cruise through hours in the makeup chair to turn him into a fat, hairy, foul-mouthed chatterbox? Seth Rogen can deliver all of that the moment he steps out of his trailer.

Repulsion

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:27:07 +0000

Repulsion (1965)

Ranking: Yes

Feeling somewhat cheated after watching Wizard of Gore
on Scream (well, I liked it...) Mr. White and I decided to watch this movie which came on afterwards. I'm glad we did.

The plot (for anyone unfamiliar with it) involves a disturbed young woman (Catherine Deneuve) who lives with her sister (Yvonne Furneaux) and manages to live her life. When her sister goes away on a trip with her boyfriend, things start to fall apart and she basically goes crazy. Thematically very similar to Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant.

And it scared the living shit out of me. In a subtle way (if such a thing is possible). It was just so intense and creepy. Whenever the commercials came on and violated the film I would jump and exclaim 'holy shit'. ("You keep doing that", Mr. White said.)

It was just a generally engaging film. I was quite concerned about Carole, particularly the fact that the only thing she seems to eat in the whole movie is a biscuit.

And that her descent into total craziness is so believable, almost rational. I could see that happening to me if I were left alone for long enough, and that worried me. Okay, I'm not quite that terrified of men, nor am I paranoid schizophrenic. That just means it might take a little longer...

And that thing about the crack in the wall! Frig, that was spooky. And the rabbit head. Weird. I dunno, the movie just freaked me out in a general sense (as did the other films in Polanski's little trilogy of creepiness). It was really well done.

Catherine Deneuve was really good in a cute/scary sort of way. I dug her, and sympathized with her character in a weird way. Felt bad for her boyfriend, though. He seemed like a nice enough guy.

Yeah, I spent a long time worrying about this movie afterwards, which is probably a good thing. Can't think of anything else to say about it (I only know how to trash movies...).

END

Directed by: Roman Polanski. Written by: Roman Polanski and Gérard Brach. Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Patrick Wymark.

Find a dangerous windy place

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:30:00 +0000

While flipping through Gord Shriver's Boris Karloff: The Man Remembered this morning, I ran across a list of commercials Karloff shot in America and YouTube had this one up.

Man, he really was the King, wasn't he?