First Draft

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar

No, this post isn't about my cat or even fictional super slob Oscar Madison. It's my annual post-Academy Awards piece, which I decided to share with y'all. It's rambling, discursive and random. Hmm, that sounds like *all* my posts. Oh well, time for some random thoughts about the Oscar telecast:

This year's broadcast was pretty good: Martin and Baldwin were very funny and had some good zingers. It was interesting to watch Martin play his *original* 1970's comic character for the show. It worked pretty well too.

Okay now for the promised random thoughts about en event that I enjoy but don't take very seriously:

• I got really tired of everyone sucking up to James Cameron. It got to the point that every time Cameron's name came up, I turned to Dr. A and said: "Are the going call him a genius or a visionary?" The sub-text was: hire me again, o megalomaniacal director.
• How were they able to fit the giant egos of Cameron, Oprah and Streisand in the hall?
• What was up with fluffing the best actor and actress nominees? They had colleagues and whatnot blowing them air kisses. It was really embarrassing and ate up 10 minutes of the show.
• What the hell was Sarah Jessica Parker wearing? It looked like a breast plate or a shield or something. And she's allegedly a fashionista.
• Jeff Bridges channeled the Dude in his acceptance speech. I'm glad he won because he's been so consistently good and unhammy over the years.
• Why did Barbra Streisand hand out the Best Director award? Her track record as a director is spotty at best. They should just let Marty or Clint do it every year.
• I hated the way they relegated the lifetime achievement awards to a pre-Oscar banquet. It was particularly egregious to not let Roger Corman and Betty Bacall accept in person. The audience did give them a standing ovation when they were introduced. But it was tacky, tacky, tacky.
• They snubbed Bacall and Corman whilst featuring Miley Cyrus and various Twilight cast members. Will anybody remember who they are in 10 years? Maybe, maybe not. I didn't recognize quite a few of the Brat Pack when they assembled for the tribute to John Hughes. 
  
• The bad dance numbers must go. This year they tried to be cool and used break dancing to represent The Hurt Locker. Sigh.
•  I got very annoyed listening to the people who made Precious. They were all self-righteous and sanctimonious. I guess that's what happens when you hang out with Oprah.
• It's great that Kathryn Bigelow broke the glass ceiling for movie directors; especially since she doesn't make chick flicks. It was also a bonus that her indy film beat out Cameron and his blue behemoth. The only problem is that it didn't seem to piss Cameron off that his ex-wife won. Oh well, one can be philosophical when you've made the top two grossing flicks of all time.

Weekend Question Thread

Horrible movie you enjoy even though you know it sucks?

Me? Sweet November. 

Shut up.

A.

Weekend Question Thread

Worst movie you've ever seen?

Mr. A will insist that "our" answer to this is Species. I still say it was Eyes Wide Shut.

A.

Jesus 2

Oh, GREAT:

Hoping to replicate some of the box office success of "The Passion of the Christ," indie producer Bill McKay is mounting "The Resurrection of the Christ," with a 10-week shoot starting in July.

McKay, through his American Trademark shingle, has set an Easter 2011 release, with Samuel Goldwyn Films handling domestic for the $20 million production. Day-and-date international launches will come through an array of distributors.

Scribe Dan Gordan ("The Hurricane," "Murder in the First") is penning the screenplay with a focus on the power, greed and ambition of those involved in the crucifixion -- Pontius Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas and Judas.

"It's as much about the key players as it is about Jesus," McKay said. "We want to bring in the 'Gladiator' dimension of the first century against the political milieu of the time."

Jonas McCord, who helmed Antonio Banderas starrer "The Body," has been tapped to direct.

Shooting will take place in Israel, Morocco and Europe. McKay asserts that "Resurrection" will remain faithful to Biblical and historical records.

Veteran producer and Filmcrest president J. David Williams, who also serves as exec producer on the film, is heading the investor group for "Resurrection," consisting mostly of U.K. participants. He told Daily Variety that he's also assembled another $20 million for P&A.

"We think it's a very commercial film that's targeted at an underserved demographic with a lot of crossover potential," he added.

This could be cool, actually, telling a story about someone whose basic message was "stop being such DICKS, people" getting nailed to a tree for his trouble, with all the attendant political and religious power-struggle stuff involved.

However, the hope for a replay of The Passion of the Christ, in which anything interesting that could have been said about Jesus was drowned out by a pornographic celebration of violence and gore, is probably not a good sign. Granted, the marketing, which was basically "Go see this or you're a pussy who can't TAKE what Jesus did for you, you pussy" was genius. Making it into a dare, into a way to prove one's Christian bona fides, making purchasing a movie ticket an act of courageous faith, was incredibly shrewd. And SICK. And predatory. And brilliant. Just like much of Consumer Christianity.

A bazillion years later that movie and its whole attendant "phenomenon" continues to piss me the hell off. First, because it exemplifies everything I hate about pop-culture Jesus. You had churches handing out door hangers for people to "spread the good news" to their neighbors about the movie. Merchandise that included crucifix nail necklaces. Pre-printed sermons for pastors to use to talk about the movie. And all the while crazy Mel Gibson getting crazified all over the TV talking about how persecuted he was for making this movie, like a bunch of people saying mean things about you is on par with what you just freaking filmed. Like if you took what that movie made and what it cost to get it made, you couldn't basically rebuild Haiti right now, wholesale, down to a manmade island with a giant waterslide.

Second, it pissed me off because it was a horrific waste of a damn good story. There are about five minutes in The Passion worth seeing, after you've gotten over geeking out about Aramaic: Jesus with Mary, and mom teasing him for making a table that wasn't even on top. Apparently he went into saving the world because his carpentry skills blew. It was funny, and warm, and made me consider what I've been taught since childhood in a whole new light. And then two hours of nonstop bloodshed, which if you're reasonably desensitized to movie violence, just gets unbearably BORING.

So Jesus: The Sequel doesn't HAVE to suck, but if they're modeling it on the worst film of the last decade, and acting like that's a good thing, I can hear the hoovering from here.

A.

Thanksgiving video 3: Go back to all your own goddamn holidays!

Tear Down This Wall, Mr. Bono

I wonder if this could be called a Bono no-no:

A U2 show marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has run into controversy - after organisers built a wall around the venue.

A two metre barrier has been erected around the Brandenburg gate to keep out people without tickets for the show.

"It's a shame that a barrier has been set up. It's stopping many Berliners from hearing the concert," local politician Frank Henkel told the BBC.

The U2 show is part of the MTV Europe Music Awards, which take place later.

Ten thousand tickets were given away free online and snapped up within hours.

Now police in the city say they're expecting as many as 100,000 people to descend on the square in front of the Brandenburg gate to try and catch a glimpse of U2.

Mr Henkel, Christian Democrat floor leader in the Berlin city-state parliament, said: "It would have been so much better if as many Berliners as possible could have taken part.

"We don't know who's responsible for this, whether it's U2 or MTV.

He continued: "10,000 people is a lot, but U2 could have had an even bigger audience enjoying their music at this wonderful location."

McGuinness said Berliners think it is "pretty ironic" that an event to mark the falling of the wall has resulted in another one being constructed.

That's an understatement, dude. It's *fucking* ironic and may even qualify as an Edgy clusterfuck. Achtung, baby, my ass. Hmm, I wonder if the ghost of Ronnie is haunting U2 with long, boring stories about Jack Warner and Daryl Zanuck. A scary thought indeed.

Every time I contemplate the Berlin Wall, my thoughts turn to Billy Wilder's hilarious film One, Two, Three. It's a Cold War/Coca Cola imperialism comedy starring Jimmy Cagney talking a mile a minute and shouting at everyone within, uh, shouting distance. Here's the trailer:

Concern Trolling: Even Movie Reviews Aren't Immune

Wow:

The documentary has a laudatory tone; after following Obama for two years both Rice and Sams said they voted for him. The film could leave Obama fans pining about potential yet unfulfilled and give opponents another example of the media fawning over the president.

In the first place, ain't nobody needs ammo to take shots. If Republicans don't have any cannonballs they just stuff a wheel of parm in there and let fly, so let's not worry too much about handing over some spares. They were gonna bitch about media fawning anyway. 

In the second place, what kind of tone should a documentary have? This insistence that anything and everything recorded or written has to be impartial is just so much bullshit. A documentary can do anything it wants. I heard the same bitching about Going Upriver and Kerry back in 2004, back before there was dirt, and seriously. The Obama doc is a story about a campaign that ended in stunning electoral victory. Should the theme song be Terms of Endearment?

In the third place, you know what else this documentary could do? It could finally provoke a Cylon assault. It could make Obama king of England. It could cause an Axelrod-imitating pornstache craze to sweep elementary schools. It could cause an outbreak of smallpox. It could cure cancer. It could inspire an all-male revue of David Plouffe look-a-likes which would, in turn, drive Kal Penn back into acting. It could kill, once and for all, the notion that you should buy breakfast cereal on the Internet. It could do a lot of things.

That paragraph is there for one reason and one reason only: To provide a phony sense of balance in a futile attempt to stave off angry phone calls from the slavering wingnut hordes. That should go well. After all, it's worked so many times in the past.

A.

Wearing Out the DVD Player Lately

I haven't read the book yet, but this is just the most perfect thing.

A.

Be Great Instead of Being Ashamed

Bono, and Obama:

“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. If they’re not familiar, it’s because they didn’t make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don’t know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They’re a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn’t there in 2000, but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

A.

'If I walk away from this, it will be a lifetime wasted'

Watching this today, it's hard to remember it was made in 1990 about Ireland. It could be made tomorrow, about America.

A.

Kung-Fu Zombie

People. When you see this sort of thing you're supposed to alert me immediately. Not wait for Metaquotes to do it:

I JUST WATCHED A MOVIE CALLED KUNG-FU ZOMBIE.

IT WENT A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

1 MINUTE: THIS MOVIE IS CALLED KUNG-FU ZOMBIE

2 MINUTES: HOPPING ZOMBIE PRIEST PLAYING THE CYMBALS AND GIGGLING LIKE A LOON

3 MINUTES: ZOMBIE DOGPILE

4 MINUTES: SPIKED PIT OF DEATH

5 MINUTES: SHIRTLESS DUDE RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS KICKING ASS

6 MINUTES: FURNITURE FIGHT

I am going to go rent this mofo right now:

A.

L'Affaire Polanski

I wasn't planning to say anything about Roman Polanski's renewed legal problems but I'm a lifelong film buff so I decided to take the plunge. Rosemary's Baby was one of the first grown-up movies I remember seeing in a theatre as what is now called a tween. It scared the living shit out of me in a really good way and helped to inspire a lifelong interest in creepy, dark and pulpy films and books. I think that Chinatown, Repulsion and The Pianist are also timeless classics. Chinatown was the perfect merger of film noir and roman a clef storytelling with truly amazing performances by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston. There's even a creepily effective turn by the director as a knife wielding thug as seen above.

Having established that I admire Polanski's films: does that impact my opinion of his arrest? Hell, no. The fact that he's an artist doesn't excuse plying a 13 year old girl with quaaludes and liquor and then raping her. It's a crime, folks, and one that Polanski pled guilty to some 30 years ago. Then, instead of either taking his medicine or withdrawing his guilty plea and standing trial, Polanski became a fugitive.

Polanski's recent arrest in Switzerland was a surprising development BUT it was partially caused by his lawyers' attempts to set aside his conviction. That's right, unlike the creepy bleached skin perv Wacko Jacko, Polanski was *convicted* and then committed another crime by fleeing the country. I know I'm repeating myself but it's something that's gotten lost in the discussion of the case. It's not about international film festivals and artistry, it's about a child being raped by a man 30 years older than her.

Polanski's defenders have said and written some bizarre things. Some have claimed that it was a youthful indiscretion: it wasn't, he was 43 at the time. Whoopi Goldberg has, quite notoriously, claimed that it was "not rape-rape." That's a particularly disgusting  claim coming from a woman and downright preposterous as applied to the facts of the case: drugging a child and forcing yourself on them may be dubbed statutory rape but it's definitely rape. I think Whoopi rolled her dreads too tightly or something that morning.

Other Polanski apologists have asked us to forgive him because he'd had a hard life prior to becoming an admitted rapist. It's true: he survived the Shoah, fled Communism and his wife was among those slaughtered by the Manson "Family." All true: but many, if not most, criminals have had horrible life experiences BUT if you commit a serious crime such as rape, you need to be punished. Inner city youths with sad life stories don't have the likes of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein passing petitions around in their behalf.

Finally, the most offensive as well as legally dubious defense is the "he's an artist so he can do whatever he wants" argument. It's poppycock, piffle and hooey. It barely dignifies a response other than: Holy Nietzche, Batman. 

Now that I've ranted about Polanski's defenders, do I think that the proverbial book should be thrown at him? Not neccessarily. I think, for a change, he should be treated no better or no worse than any other defendant in his position. Give the rich man the same medicine a poor man would get: it's called equal protection and equal justice.

Cross-posted at Adrastos.

Kissing Jessica Stein

This was on TV the other night and I had completely forgotten how, any other problems with it aside, I loved the titular crazy fucking lunatic:

A.

RIP John Hughes

My little brother and I used to watch this move over and over and over and over, until my mother hid the VHS tape in the laundry basket:

John Hughes dead at 59.

A.

Hopscotch

 

I've been following the saga of what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it, along with Jello Jay's contribution to the story today.  And the whole thing just reeks of CIA ass-covering.  The Republicans are too busy trying to claim torture is peachy to be spending any time dumping blame on Nancy and Co.  No, this sounds to me like the CIA trying to deflect blame.  In the slimiest manner possible.

Which gives me a very lame excuse to talk about my favorite movie of all time (well, excluding the Audrey Hepburn oeuvre):

Hopscotch.

There's a reason the Criterion Collection remastered it.  It has it all--comedy, adventure, romance (and A, if Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell didn't watch this movie to get inspiration, you coulda fooled me.  Best. Middle-aged sexy.  Evah.).  Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Ned Beatty (as a CIA ass who needs covering), and Sam Waterston in the role that made me love him forever, even before I'll Fly Away.

Anyway, I'm thinking the CIA needs a Miles Kendig to do a little housecleaning.  Too bad he's just a fictional character...

Oscar-Worthy

Dustin Lance Black wins for his screenplay for Milk:

A.

Conservative Masterpiece

Yeah.

A.

'I Know, But I Feel I Have To Speak Anyway'

Another movie in constant rotation in the cold: The Girl in the Café:

A.