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May 31, 2006

Prairie prairie, why ya buggin'

According to dates provided in the press kit for A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, the Garrison Keillor radio show of the same name came into this world approximately two weeks before I did. It feels old-timey, and the movie cannily acknowledges this via two cynical characters -- Tommy lee Jones as a coporate exec who's about to ax the show, and Lindsay Lohan as a brooding teen who writes songs about suicide and thinks her mom's Christian folk is annoying.

I should warn readers right off the bat -- if you are a longtime fan of Keillor and his show, this is not the review for you. I have never listened to him. I avoid public radio in general, in large part because any time I've stayed with my dad in North Carolina it goes on all the time, from the moment I step into his car at the airport to the moment I step out for the flight home. The slow, methodical pace with which the on-air personalities talk, the god-awful theme tunes most shows have, the adoration and exultation of folk music...all drive me bananas. On the other hand, I know that if I ever appear on NPR, it will likely make my dad's day; whenever L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan is on, I usually get the highlights summarized over the course of our phone conversations. This I don't mind; I'd rather hear it from him than actually listen to the radio.

It just feels like NPR is totally boomer-oriented, and has nothing to say to me or anyone my age whose tastes don't lean retro. This may just be North Carolina's NPR, of course.

So why review something I'm obviously clueless about? I'll say this: If I were assigned to review this by any employer, I would suggest it be given to someone else instead. But I suspect that I have a reader or two who may be in the same boat as me, with little to no knowledge of Keillor, but some familiarity with Robert Altman, Tommy Lee Jones, Lindsay Lohan, Meryl Streep et al, wanting to know if the movie's worth it for them. If you fit that description, keep reading. If not, please don't waste your breath saying I just don't get it, because I've pretty much admitted that already.

Now, after all that warning...It isn't a bad movie. It isn't a great one either, just a low-key session of improv comedy and music that delivers a few chuckles but no belly laughs. My impression is that's Keillor's kind of style anyway.

If you happen to be sporting a graying ponytail, this is definitely for you. An individual of that description was laughing out loud at every little mildly comedic aside.

The premise of the movie is that Keillor's characters are reall, and put on a live radio show every week in a theater and in front of an audience. Most of them don't know it, but this will be the last show ever, as new corporate owners plan to flatten the theater and turn it into a parking lot. Meanwhile, another uninvited guest is prowling around -- a mysterious woman in a white trenchcoat (Virginia Madsen). Guy Noir (Kevin Kline), a doorman who fancies himself an old-style private eye, is trying to figure her out.

Most of the movie is the variety show, interspersed with wacky goings-on backstage. It's basically a live-action version of The Muppet Show, though of course Prairie Home Companion predates John Denver/Kermit the Frog duets. Not surprisingly for an Altman movie, many of the actors seem to be improvising, and watching them is like sitting in on an improv class. Occasionally it's great, sometimes okay, and every once in a while you wonder what the point is.

In addition to all the aforementioned characters, we get Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as singing sisters who used to be part of a gospel group that almost made it; Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as risque singing cowboys Dusty & Lefty, Maya Rudolph as the pissed-off, pregnant stage manager; and Keillor as himself, hosting the show and singing humorous commercial jingles in between acts (if you're the sort of person who cracks up at the sound of imagined Indian words like "Piscacadawadaquoddymoggin," or a line about not wanting to put "Descartes before the horse," this movie is your comedy gold)

Keillor makes for an agreeable onscreen presence; I'd certainly be quite happy to see him take on other roles after this. He doesn't seem intimidated in the least by the likes of Meryl Streep, but maybe having written the dialogue has something to do with that. As for Lohan, playing Streep's daughter...I think about what Woody Allen might have done with a sullen teen character (if you saw HOLLYWOOD ENDING, or that one with Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci, you kinda know) and I cringe. Altman and Keillor may be old, but they're no fools at portraying youth.

The problem with the improv structure is that not everything pays off. Tommy Lee Jones' character is utterly pointless; why does he visit the show, not speak to anyone, then leave? He already knew the show would be axed, but he doesn't seem inclined to change his mind, though Guy Noir briefly seems to hatch a scheme to dig up some old friends that doesn't plan out. The assumption is that Jones is there to tell everyone about the cancellation, but the only person he tells knows already. Later, it's implied that Jones fails in his mission, but that that changes nothing. It's an odd subplot that seems to have had parts deleted.

And the music -- is it unbearable folk? It is folk, and for my liking it goes on a bit long, but isn't unbearable. It's the same band Keillor uses on his show, so if you like them, chances are you know it. The whole vibe is a bit like watching your friends put on a show, or in my case, like watching my dad's friends put on a show.

Posted by LYT at 6:01 PM | Comments (15)

May 30, 2006

Casting Call

A friend of mine is looking for three bald guys ("real whack-job types") for a small scene in his new movie. Must bring own sunglasses.

Offhand I can't think of anyone I know like that, but I thought I'd throw it out there to the masses. Email me with your info if you're into ti, and I'll pass word along.

Posted by LYT at 7:27 PM | Comments (5)

SCREENING OPPORTUNITIES

Yep, that's a plural...

WEDNESDAY EARLY AFTERNOON -- "A Prairie Home Companion," directed by Robert Altman and based on Garrison Keillor stuff.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT -- "Loverboy," a chick flick directed by Kevin Bacon and starrign Kyra Sedgewick, Kevin Bacon, and some of their famous friends.

THURSDAY NIGHT -- "The Omen," directed by John Moore, starring Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, and SATAN!

affirmative responses only please.

Posted by LYT at 4:22 PM | Comments (8)

And how was your Memorial Day?

Photos taken by "Duke Floored"

Posted by LYT at 12:05 AM | Comments (8)

May 29, 2006

Oh dear god

Forget the official movie site for THE ROOM. Jaye found the official Tommy Wiseau site, and it's a muthafreakin' treasure trove.

Posted by LYT at 12:45 AM | Comments (3)

May 28, 2006

ROOM at the top

I thought I had experienced it all. But I was wrong.

If you've seen THE ROOM on DVD, you've been privy to the spectacle. But until you've experienced it live at the Sunset 5, you have no fucking idea.

I did some Internet searches before going, hoping to find some reviews of the movie from when it first came out, to see how it was received. All I found was one paragraph by Scott Foundas in Variety, saying it was the kind of movie that made people demand their money back in less than 30 minutes. Nothing on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB links or MRQE. I need to remedy this.

I also learned that writer-director-star Tommy Wiseau, in addition to purchasing that humongous billboard on Highland that's been up for 3 years now -- effectively making him the new Angelyne -- actually submitted this thing for an Academy Award, and took out a full page "for your consideration" ad in Variety. How can he do that? Let us merely note that he claims to have raised $6 million for his movie, and the film itself looks it was done for AT MOST $100,000. And that's assuming no-one involved in the production got a good deal on anything, though the credits note that part of the movie was shot "on location" at the Tommy Wiseau Stage.

So why all the fuss, you may ask? What IS this movie?

In one sentence, it's the story of a guy whose fiancee is cheating on him with his best friend. But that's like saying CITIZEN KANE is about a guy who misses his sled and then dies.

Here's the official synopsis submitted to IMDB by the producer:

"The Room" is an electrifying American black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies. It has five major characters. Johnny, played by Tommy Wiseau is a successful banker with great respect for and dedication to the people in his life, especially his future wife Lisa. Johnny can also be a little too trusting at times which haunts him later on. Lisa, played by Juliette Danielle is a beautiful blonde fiance of Johnny. She has always gotten her way and will manipulate to get what she wants. She is a taker, with a double personality, and her deadly schemes lead to her own downfall. Mark, played by Greg Sestero is a young, successful and independent best friend of Johnny. He has a good heart, but gets caught up in Lisa's dangerous web and gives into temptation. This eventually brings him to great loss. Claudette, played by Carolyn Minnott is the classy, sophisticated mother of Lisa who has had disappointing relationships in her life. She wants her daughter to be married as soon as possible so she can benefit. Denny, played by Philip Haldiman is an orphan boy, naive and confused about life, love, and friendship. Denny is very ambitious and also very grateful to the people that are in his life. "The Room" depicts the depths of friendship and relationships in one's life and raises life's real and most asked question: "Can you ever really trust anyone?".....Are you ready for this quirky new black comedy?....Are you ready to see reflection of your life?,,,,"Experience this quirky new black comedy, it's a riot!" "Director Tommy Wiseau's style is reminscent of Tennessee Williams."

Note the quotes attributed to nobody. Initially pushed as a drama, the movie has been re-pushed as a "dark comedy" due to its newfound cult of people who laugh at it, not with it. Dark? "Dork comedy" would say it better.

Let's start with Wiseau himself. Vaguely resembling Lurch's shorter brother, he speaks with an accent that seems to combine Arnold Schwarzenegger with Cousin Balki and Pepe Le Pew, usually concluding every sentence with a half-assed effete laugh. I'm not sure if he even exists in this dimension -- he seems to be on another plane of existence from the other actors in his film. Check out the terrifying animated "gleaming eye" version of Tommy on the official site.

Now, bear in mind that he cast himself as a romantic lead, including some nude sex scenes (actually just one that gets re-used twice). The man is in shape, but his body has a weird texture that resembles papier-mache, and makes you suspect that maybe he got third-degree burns as a kid. During the sex scene, he appears to be humping his costar's navel.

Another weird quirk is that Tommy, who in a humongous acting stretch plays a character named Johnny, insists on greeting every character who enters frame, every single time. So most of the dialogue is taken up with lines like "Oh hiiiiMark, wha's new wit' you?"; "Oh hiiiDenny, wha's new wit' you?" There's even a scene with a dog where he says "Oh hiiiDoggy!"

There's a character who casually mentions that she has breast cancer, only to never speak of it again. There's a drug dealer referred to only as "Chris R." who shows up with a gun and then disappears, with the apparent assumption that he'll turn himself in. There are repeated scenes on a fake "rooftop" with the San Francisco skyline bluescreened in. There's a scene where everyone is wearing tuxedoes, apparently for Johnny's wedding, except that we later learn his wedding is weeks away. Lots of football tosses from people standing three feet away from one another, which Wiseau claims is supposed to give the audience the idea that they don't have to play by the rules.

There's a soundtrack mostly featuring songs with choruses that repeat the same phrase endlessly. "You are myrose you are myrose youa re my RO-O-OSE/You are myrose you are myrose youa re my RO-O-OSE" That is the height of creativity compared to "I will I will I will I will I will I will I will I will..."

Characters we've never heard of suddenly show up as if they've been part of the story since the beginning, in one instance to just randomly have sex in their best friends' living room. A tape recorder apparently keeps running for several days, somehow only managing to record the one incriminating conversation it needs.

You get the idea. I've seen plenty of bad movies as a critic, and even several that are fun in a bad way, but none so monumentally inept and yet gut-bustingly funny at the same time. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE gave me nowhere near as many belly laughs. Tommy Wiseau is a bit like Shatner or Schwarzenegger before they became self-aware. Wiseau does get that people think the movie's funny, but I'm not convinced he understands why. Or that he understands English.

Now, when this movie plays at the Sunset 5, Wiseau shows up. As do a vocal crowd of fans who've memorized the movie and know exactly how to point out the glaring errors of the film in the funniest possible way.

Wiseau begins with a Q&A. Most movies do this AFTERWARD, so that people have a chance to see the thing before asking questions, but never mind -- many of the audience are diehard regulars (I may join them).

I wasn't taking notes at the time, but roughly paraphrasing, here are some of the questions and answers:

"Did Lisa ever get that twitching neck thing taken care of?"
"Ha, yes, well, maybe in the sequel we'll do a move about it, did you say twitching or witching? Because it could be like witchy-witch, you know? Haha."

"Did you realize Lisa was that fat when you hired her?"
"No, but you shouldn't say fat because it's not a good word."
"Pleasantly plump?"
"No, that's two words. You have to substitute one word with one word."

"Were you influenced by the existential angst of Dostoevsky?" [the guy had to rephrase this question three times before Tommy got it]
"No, I have no influences. I influence myself."

"What's your favorite movie?
"I like Awesome Welles"

"Who's Awesome Welles?"

Then, Tommy decided to show off his improvisation skills by asking the audience to pick a word, after which he would tell a story involving that word. The word was "push-ups." And the story was something like: "Remember the part where I'm in the park running? I'm running and running, and then I got down to do push-ups, and this woman was running by and she went over me because I was down on the ground, and I looked up and I saw two apples."

Unfortunately no recording was allowed, so that's not word-for-word. But close.

And then the movie got going. Moving pans across the San Fran skyline elictied the chant "go! go! go! go!" and the word "ALCATRAZ!" yelled out every time the famous island showed up. Every time there was a random cutaway to unfamiliar scenery, someone would yell something like "Meanwhile, in ROME..."

One of the set decorations is a framed photo of a spoon. Whenever it shows up onscreen, everyone yells "SPOON!" and throws plastic spoons in the air. People clap along to the songs. Not all of Tommy's onscreen greetings to other characters are acknowledged, except for the charcter named Denny, whose every appearance is greeted by the audience with a loud "HI DENNY!" Think of Norm on Cheers.

It's truly weird that this ineot little movie has become a grassroots cult phenomenon, but there you go. Hedwig and the Angry Inch tried for similar status, but isn't there. SHOWGIRLS attempted a revival as camp. But this verges on ROCKY HORROR in its screening vibe. I don't know if it would be as amazing if Tommy didn't show, though.

The next screening is June 24th, same night as the Press Club awards, and it's the third anniversary. If I get done in time, I'm going.

Posted by LYT at 4:15 PM | Comments (12)

May 27, 2006

New merch!

Just in time for Memorial Day, I've designed a couple of patriotic shirts for you to show your love of country and LYT, but not necessarily in that order.

Posted by LYT at 9:38 PM | Comments (1)

Portland, prepare to get Mad

MAD COWGIRL, that is. Saturday night, June 10.

I'll be there.

Will you?

Posted by LYT at 4:15 PM | Comments (3)

"Oh hiiiiTommy. Wha's new wit you?"

Justin and I are going to see THE ROOM at midnight tonight at the Sunset 5, following our recent, thoroughly enjoyed, DVD viewing of it. The live screenings apparently get pretty wild.

Anyone else want to come?

Posted by LYT at 12:26 PM | Comments (2)

May 26, 2006

La, la, la-la, story of my life

Since some of you apparently liked the "Decade of Drunkenness" post and want more, here it is. Year 2 post college, a.k.a. "the best of times, the worst of times."

It became clear damn quick that the apartment on Hawthorn was not anywhere I wanted to stay, especially when friendly gay manager #1 was replaced with friendly gay manager #2 who likes to rehearse show tunes for the musical he's putting on. With the year lease ending, it was time to find something better.

In Los Angeles, single apartment deals are pretty shitty, but two-bedroom units are often quite the deal. I was to find out why the hard way. But at first, all was good. One of my best friends was also in the market, so we decided we'd be room-mates. I found a good place fairly quickly; it's only about two doors down from where I currently reside. Big, spacious, and it even had a dishwasher, a luxury I miss to this day.

The first harbinger of problems was that my friend didn't have great credit, so the landlady basically made me responsible for everything. Which led to a double security deposit, but I figured that would be the end of it.

And living in that place was FUN, with the only bad time being right at the beginning when the intercom wasn't hooked up and I had to wait at home all day to watch for UPS vans that never came and then claimed they did. I think everyone has had a day like that involving UPS. But anyway, I liked the idea of coming home to someone, and neither one of us had a problem with the way we were living, or the decor (movie posters, mostly). It was a good space for parties too; the best I've ever lived in.

I was working at Laemmle's Sunset 5 for minimum wage; my first day on the job, I was trained by a loudmouth skater kid by the name of Matthew King. Back then he was thin, praised Ronald Reagan, and thought handicapped people should be euthanized, or so he said. But in a strange way, I respected that. He seemingly liked conservative policies because he didn't like people that much, which I found completely consistent. There was no pretense or self-delusion about it at all, and even as his views have changed, there still isn't. In addition to liking Reagan, though, he liked Michael Moore (who at that time was just seen as a documentary film-maker, rather than the embodiment of all Leftism), and that may have been his "downfall."

He also had dreams of writing screenplays. In recent years, those have been realized. "No, I just fucked you up...THE ASS!"

My 2-bedroom place back then was a total of $820 a month. These days, my 1-bedroom is more than that.

Anyway, the living situation became difficult when my friend lost her job, then found a new one where they treated her atrociously, and quit that one. With no income coming in, she couldn't pay. The landlady seemed to develop a split personality at that point, negotiating calmly with my friend but then turning around to me and saying I was responsible for all of it. My friend didn't want to ask me to cover the rent, but I didn't have a choice.

It's one thing to have to kick out a room-mate who isn't paying, but it is super-super worse if that person is a good friend on hard times. Still, there wasn't any way I could pay the full rent every month by myself. I asked her to move. Some stuff belonging to other people got left behind, and after giving them a week to reclaim it, I tossed it. Not a very nice thing of me to do, but by that point I was on my last nerve, and needed the room to be empty so I could get someone in there quickly.

I found a new roommate in the form of an extremely quirky character who worked at the Sunset. We'll call him "Pretzel," as that was his nickname. From Arizona, he looked extremely clean cut and normal, but if you stopped to have a conversation with him, it soon became apparent that words didn't quite mean the same things to him as they might to you and I. Very well-meaning but strange, and his previous residences, I gleaned, were with rich older women who used him as a boy-toy (though it wasn't clear that women were really his first choice).

Every night he would lock himself in his room with a 12-pack of Natural Ice, and play the exact same mix tape, which featured some classical and some pop. He was the easiest and most pleasant roommate I've ever had, but unfortunately for me he had a much higher tolerance for Spartan conditions, and soon decided to move to a cheaper place with less amenities.

I tried to find another roomie via a roommate matching service, but I think they all got put off by my movie posters. I was going to have to move again. Finding a new place was an ordeal, as I would make appointments with landlords who never showed up. But finally I found a place nearby that seemed acceptable, and the building even had a pool! [not my current digs, folks, and I'll tell you about that later]

My friend and ex-roomie came by and helped me move, and in the intervening years, paid me back every cent of rent that I had covered her for. She's doing pretty well for herself these days as a musician.

Pretzel left town, came back, then disappeared again without leaving contact info. I hope things turned out okay for him. I miss that guy.

And Matthew King, as you know, makes all this possible.

Posted by LYT at 5:27 PM | Comments (2)

Taking Tony Pierce's Honest Blogger quiz

I don't think my political biases are in any way hidden or unknown, but just because I'm bored right now waiting for the plumber to come fix my drain so I can dye my hair safely again, here goes.

1. which political party do you typically agree with? Green.

2. which political party do you typically vote for? Green.

3. list the last six presidents that you voted for? I'm not old enough to have voted for six, but in reverse order: Kerry, Nader, Nader, Clinton

4. which party do you think is smarter about the economy? Greens

5. which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs? Democrats

6. do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out? Don't know; I'd ideally like to see it put to a majority vote among the Iraqi people.

7. who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11? Osama Bin Laden as a person; as for country, to the extent that we failed to nail a group of Mid-East males on expired visas taking flying lessons without learning how to land, the U.S. has some responsibility there.

8. do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in iraq? The definition of WMD seems to change every day, so probably.

9. yes or no, should the u.s. legalize marijuana? Absolutely, as well as all other popular drugs.

10. do you think the republicans stole the last presidental election? Let me just say that I don't believe there were any more dirty tricks in the last election than there typically are in any election; which doesn't mean it was necessarily all above-board.

11. do you think bill clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with monica lewinski? No, but he wasn't; he was impeached for lying in the Paula Jones case. That case may well have been bogus, but busting presidents for that sort of thing is a good idea, and one can only wish the precedent would have been followed up on with the current guy.

12. do you think hillary clinton would make a good president? Hard to see, the future is. I think she'd be tolerable and occasionally insufferable.

13. name a current democrat who would make a great president: I never thought I'd say this, but Al Gore is looking good. I think Kerry would have been okay too.

14. name a current republican who would make a great president: I can't think of one. I think Giuliani would be tolerable, but I generally think Republicans are so far wrong that it's hard to find a great one.

15. do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion? Yes, but I'd rather they restrict it to first trimester unless there's a damn good excuse.

16. what religion are you? None, a seeker.

17. have you read the Bible all the way through? No, but the parts I have read are ones I've studied pretty well.

18. what's your favorite book? Right now I'll say V For Vendetta

19. who is your favorite band? Erasure

20. who do you think you'll vote for president in the next election? A third-party candidate, unless the Reps pick McCain because I want to vote against him.

21. do you think President Bush should be impeached for domestic spying? Yes

22. do you think President Bush should be censured for okaying the leak that led to outing a CIA agent? Yes.

23. do you think it was a coincidence that gasoline prices have nearly tripled and oil company profits have hit record highs while there was a US President whose family made its fortune through oil? No, but name a major party candidate who ISN'T in bed with big oil.

24. do you think President Bush is the worst US President ever? and if not, who is? Depends what you mean by worst. Reagan was a better leader, but I think his long-term effect was more detrimental. Bush's comibination of incompetence and dull-witted ornireness is tough to beat, though.

25. what website did you see this on first? tonypierce.com

Posted by LYT at 12:41 PM | Comments (2)

LYT heading back to DVD

I know, it's been a while. But come the fall, there will be new discs imbued with my presence. Thursday morning, I conducted an extended interview with Linton Semage for the American releases of his movies PICKPOCKET and THE OUTCAST.

I also finally learned how to pronounce his name: Say-mah-gay. You can sing it to the tune of Destiny's Child's 'Say My Name" and it works perfectly.

Linton's English is rudimentary, which doesn't stop him from conversing at length using large gestures and simple phrases. He is after all, trained in ballet and mime. For interview purposes, however, we had a translator, whose name was something like Mr. Sararanayaka.

Some things got lost in translation along the way. Like I would ask how many years it took from his first industry job to making his film, and the translated response would be something like, "Yes, I did many things, many jobs." But along the way, we did get some good stories, like the time he was rowing aboat by himself, for a movie and the boat sank, and he couldn't swim. That take ended up being used in the film, and despite being terrified of drowning, the first thing he sadi he did on shore was to laugh at himself.

Linton wore a "Mad" magazine T-shirt the whole time, which I thought was hilarious, given how ultra-serious his films are.

And when the interview was done, it turned out his family had prepared a big Sri Lankan meal for us! Spicy chicken, spicy cooked pineapple, fish cakes, saffron rice, potato salad, the works. Tasty and mouth-burning.

As soon as he finishes the script for PETAL, we should get working on it. Given how dialogue-free his movies tend to be, I can't imagine it'll take that long. He's hoping one day we can all do a movie in Sri Lanka, where his family apparently owns an elephant.

Anyway, some fun stuff in the interview, which will be divided between the two DVDs.

Posted by LYT at 11:38 AM | Comments (1)

May 25, 2006

A little back-patting is in order, athankyouverymuch

LYTrules.com is one of THREE finalists for Best Individual Weblog at this year's Press Club Awards.

The other two are:

The L.A. Times Lakers blog, Andrew and Brian Kamenetzky (two people count as an individual?)

and

Mayitpleasethecourt.com, J. Craig Williams

The two blogs that bested me last year, Reason's Hit & Run and LA Voice, are now in a separate category for group blogs.

I just KNEW that nearly dying of appendicitis would be good for something!

Posted by LYT at 2:37 PM | Comments (4)

May 24, 2006

If they fighted...

"When kids of all ages discuss comic books and superheroes, there is inevitably one question that comes up time and again: If that one guy and that other guy had a fight, who would win? Comics companies occasionally indulge these debates with special issues pitting Thing against Hulk, or Wolverine versus Spider-Man, but the results are rarely satisfactory. There's good reason not to kill off -- or even damage the credibility of -- a profitable character, so the battles usually end in a draw.

Movies don't have to play like that. And with the apparent decision having been made that X-Men: The Last Stand is indeed the last in the series (future movies are expected to focus on Wolverine and Magneto in solo adventures), 20th Century Fox and director Brett Ratner go for it. Characters fight, and characters die -- and those who survive are quite clearly marked as winners or losers. Timeless playground debates are settled at last. "

Read the rest HERE

Short takes after the jump

THE CONRAD BOYS

Following the sudden death of his mother (from a sharp pain in the side, apparently), 19-year-old Charlie Conrad (Justin Lo) becomes the guardian of his nine-year-old brother Ben (Boo Boo Stewart), and postpones college in order to support the two of them by working at a restaurant. Matters are complicated when a handsome stranger named Jordan (Nick Bartzen) comes to town and awakens repressed feelings in Charlie; then even more so when the Conrad boys’ estranged, reformed-alcoholic father (Barry Shay) returns. Lo wrote, directed, edited, produced, and stars, most likely out of necessity; but cutting back on the duties might be a good idea next time. The main problem is that he simply isn’t a good actor here, and his character is an unlikable whiner regardless. Somehow, though, the story remains oddly compelling; unlike many first-time directors, Lo isn’t over-indulgent and keeps the story tight, although a forced climax involving a former associate of Jordan’s is awkward. Say this for him, though; he doesn’t make the ending easily predictable.

HATE CRIME

One day, a truly original screenplay will be written in which churchgoing, beer-drinking Southerners will be portrayed as something other than evil hypocrites. Until then, here’s this, a cautionary tale about what happens when a mean-spirited closet case named Chris (Chad Donella) moves next door to a happy, soon-to-be-domestically partnered gay couple (Seth Peterson and Brian J. Smith) and becomes the immediate prime suspect when one of them is discovered nearly beaten to death. Chris turns out to be the son of a fire-and-brimstone preacher (Bruce Davison) who’s pretty clearly based on Fred Phelps, the infamous “God Hates Fags” preacher known for picketing funerals. Initially, writer-director Tommy Stovall seems to be going for a CSI vibe, with a flashback or two to what witnesses saw before the crime occurred, but eventually the movie becomes a rather simple-minded endorsement of vigilante justice. If Stovall was trying to be morally ambiguous, he has failed by stacking the deck and resorting to stereotyping one side even as he tries to combat clichés on the other.

SEE NO EVIL

You would think that a pornography director would be a decent fit for a slasher movie -- both genres feature wooden, often comical acting, and the barest hint of plot in order to facilitate numerous “money shots” full of screaming and bodily fluids. Yet Gregory Dark seems unable to make the transition. Wooden acting and bad story, yes; but waiting a full 30 minutes between the first and second kill scenes is unacceptable, and he manages to spoil most of the gory deaths -- and one shower scene -- by using overly discrete camera angles and quick cuts (c’mon, man, it’s R-rated!). WWE wrestler Kane (a.k.a. Glen Jacobs, formerly known as The Christmas Creature, Unabomb, Dr. I. Yankem D.D.S., and Diesel II) makes a decent big-screen debut as the retarded nutjob son of religious fundamentalists, now prone to digging out eyeballs with his fingers, and yes, he does use his signature chokeslam. The teenage victims seem inspired by other WWE characters, most notably a Lita lookalike who captivates the killer.

Posted by LYT at 11:52 PM | Comments (5)

May 23, 2006

SCREENING OPPORTUNITY

Mystery Movie, tomorrow night.

Sorry, but I'm not supposed to say what it is publicly. It is a big studio film.

If you want to come, you'll have to take a leap of faith.

To reiterate the rules:

1. I must know you, either by name or reputation.
2. It is for ONE person only.
3. I DO NOT CARE what reason you may have for not being free. This is an opportunity for people who ARE free.

And finally, for this instance only...Please DO NOT use this space to speculate what the movie might be. I will delete any posts that do so. It isn't SUPERMAN or PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.

Posted by LYT at 1:25 PM | Comments (1)

Wreckless Intent

The new WWE CD comes out today. It has Batista's theme entrance music on it.

Go buy it, and let us never speak of this again.

Posted by LYT at 1:21 AM | Comments (1)

May 22, 2006

Decade of Drunkenness

It has been ten years since I graduated film school. The first five of them were a struggle, yet ultimately led to most of the best friendships I have right now. Including both brothers.

It was about the five-year mark when I got my first tattoo. A few months later, 9-11 happened and my youngest brother was conceived.

It's a good time to look back at that first year post-college and be damn glad I'm not there any more. When finals and graduation were fast approaching, I hadn't even thought about looking for a place to live. A friend of my uncle Mike was moving out of town, and tried to set it up so I could take over his apartment, but the landlord never, ever called me back. So I kept trying to call him, and then he got mad at me for doing that. So I thought, fuck that guy.

I looked in the LA Weekly ads, and pretty much went with the first one, a small place on Hawthorn around the corner from the Mann Chinese, which at that time was a 3-screen theater.

The room was small, but slightly bigger than my freshman dorm room I'd had to share. The landlord was a friendly enough gay dude. There was A/C. I liked being in Hollywood.

But there were downsides. No bathtub. Roaches. A drug-dealer friend of my neighbor's who kept trying to scam money off of me. I called the cops on him and they were rude to me.

Dogs were allowed, and would occasionally shit in the hall. Or just bark all day until their master came home. And then there was Jimmy the freaky kid, who ran around shirtless showing off his pale white skin, had really long hair, and spoke incomprehensibly. He'd always want to talk, too, about Spawn, which was the one word I could make out in his conversation. His mom was a big fat white trash type -- I couldn't imagine how the two of them fit into one of those apartments.

It was around this time that I saw BARTON FINK, and realted to it like few movies since. Like Barton Fink, I was writing a screenplay for money -- a terrible one, in my case, that was a half-hour softcore porn about a horny invisible man (not my idea, and no, I didn't save a copy. Worst thing I've ever written -- virgins shouldn't script porn). Like in BARTON FINK, my walls seemed to sweat. And the only friendly neighbor was a big fat Italian-American New Yorker named Joey, who lived down the hall. I still have the set of knives he gave me when he moved.

Joey didn't turn out to be a wanted criminal, as far as I know.

My fridge was tiny, as was its icebox -- freezing stuff simply didn't work, so I resorted to canned vegetables, and did without ice cream for a year. I also learned to love Jack Daniels, a love that lasted.

Summers royally sucked, as all my friends disappeared for the season. The routine went: New movie Friday, see the rest Saturday or Sunday if there are any, look at new CDs Tuesday, look at new comics Wednesday, read the Weeklies Thursday...repeat. Spend rest of time pacing in tiny apartment.

Once the fall came, and USC went back in session, things looked up. I started writing an actual feature script for money at my Corman internship, and many of my friends moved into the infamous 1321 house. Some of those names are now familiar to much more than our immediate circle: Lucky McKee, Justin Stone, Ben Boyer, Zach Passero, Jaye Barnes (as she was known at the time), Shelli Merrill, Chris Sivertson. This was when the short film "Forking" was made.

But that crappy apartment drove me nuts, and I developed a trick to help me deal with it a little bit. I would get myself in the mindset that I was looking back through time, in the spacious place I would inevitably have, thinking back on the hard times of small space with the future knowledge that it didn't last.

It didn't. And I do think back with that knowledge.

Posted by LYT at 3:23 PM | Comments (2)

May 21, 2006

SCREENING OPPORTUNITY

UPDATE: This opportunity is now taken.

X-Men III: The Last Stand.

Directed by Brett Ratner

Starring Captain Picard, Gandalf the Gay, Van Helsing, Frasier Crane, Hard Candy girl, and more

Monday night (that's tomorrow, yo)

Posted by LYT at 6:25 PM | Comments (10)

Snaps Cup

Every time something like the Da Vinci Code comes up, some snooty pissed-off culture-police types say something like, "Oh, you know that if they tried to do something like that about Muslims or Jews, there'd be hell to pay!"

It's true. So I just want to take the time to say:

YAY CATHOLICS! Thanks for not suing or rioting!

now, if we could just get you to reconsider the whole condom thing...

Posted by LYT at 6:21 PM | Comments (9)

May 20, 2006

I get letters

From a Mr. Chris "Rollo" Garcia (I don't know who he is)

"What's so great about the flailing, mugging embarrassment that is you,
is that surely in 10 years or so, you're going to look back and be paralyzed and
self-exiled in likely-fatal mortification and shame. You might, if you finally
gain some self-awareness and humility (let's not start with rudimentary talent),
even off yourself. Don't do that. Just. Go. Away.
Ick.
You're gross. I shiver. Having been at your self-love kiddie orgy(oh, you are so
ironic, you know, because you just say it, that you rule!!) I must hurriedly go
bathe, perchance drown."

Well, Chris -- and you can take this any way you'd like -- don't hold your breath.

Posted by LYT at 1:27 PM | Comments (10)

May 18, 2006

Hedging My Bets

How sure is Dreamworks that OVER THE HEDGE is going to be a well-liked movie? So sure that they invited me to review it for this blog. Will they regret that decision, or be proud of it? Read on...

When Reuben was 2, and had rudimentary speaking ability, I marveled at how ingrained in the child's wiring the love of cartoons was rooted, and the inherent knowledge that cartoons were for him. He couldn't put together a whole sentence, but he could demand "Cockoons! Cockoons!"

So one time, when it was just the two of us, I put the TV on to Cartoon Network, and it was showing ReBoot, one of the first CG-animated action cartoons. Reuben's reaction? "NOOO! Cockoons!!"

He didn't recognize it as a cartoon, because it looked too real. Only after many assurances that it was in fact a cartoon did he settle down and appear to realize that it wasn't quite live action.

I mention this because for much of OVER THE HEDGE, i.e. any scenes in which humans don't appear, it feels like a live-action movie; sure, the animals don't look exactly like actual animals, but they're no less realistic-looking than some of the Jim Henson Creature Shop creations that used to populate fantasy movies and TV. Several kids were loudly crying at the screening, in what sounded like fear. I can't say for certain that it's because the movie looked more realistic than they'd thought, but it might be. I mean, early on there's a big bear voiced by Nick Nolte who promises to kill the hero, R.J. the raccoon (Bruce Willis). Nick Nolte uttering pronouncements of death can be kinda scary even if you're full-grown, but add fangs, claws, fur, and several hundred imaginary pounds...caveat emptor, parents.

The movie begins with a very funny gag involving a vending machine, which leads to R.J. running out of food and stealing, then losing, the big bad bear's stash. The bear is scheduled to hibernate for one more week, but he offers that death threat if the food is not 100% replaced by the time he gets up again. It seems like an impossible task, but then he comes upon a small area of woodland whose inhabitants have similarly awakened from hibernation, only to find that most of their habitat is gone, surrounded by a hedge that leads into human suburbia. Finding food for them is going to be harder than ever, it seems...until R.J. introduces them to junk food, and shows them how to retrieve it from the humans. Naturally, he's planning to take it all for himself to feed the bear, but everyone gathers the stuff so fast, you wonder why they couldn't just get doubles of everything.

Among the lead characters are Garry Shandling as Verne the tortoise (a surprisingly good casting choice), Wanda Sykes as Stella the skunk ("STELLLAAAA!" Yes, they do go there), William Shatner as a possum who likes to make big hand gestures and overact (I think this is the first time since the Filmation Star Trek cartoon that Shatner has been animated as -- more or less -- a version of himself, and it's genius), Avril Lavigne as his slightly stupid rebel teenage daughter (not bad casting there either), and the character who's likely to be every kid's favorite -- Hammy the hyperactive squirrel, voiced by Steve Carrell, who steals the show every time he's onscreen. Plush toys of this guy should sell through the roof.

Parts of this movie I love; others, I don't. Initially there's some social satire, most of which has been in the previews already, like this exchange:

"That's an SUV, humans ride around in them because they are slowly losing the ability to walk."
"How many humans fit in there?"
"Usually? One."

That aspect, which was predominant in the newspaper comic strip whence this toon originates, doesn't last as long as maybe it should. (For the record: the LA Times hasn't carried the strip in a while, and I never found it memorable. I couldn't tell you if it's faithful or not, but the strip's creators think so.)

The rest of the movie is a series of imaginative, madcap chase sequences, interspersed with plodding, boring bits about the importance of family. Why do kid movies so often feel the need to force a message down? Tom and Jerry cartoons never used to have messages, nor did Looney Tunes. As always, we get the "parent-child" conflict: of R.J., who does what he wants all the time and has fun, regardless of consequences, versus the scoldy, sensible Verne, who may be a killjoy but is usually right. Both, however, agree, ad nauseum, about the importance of family, punctuated by the downbeat music of Ben Folds, who nowadays seems to be joined to Shatner at the hip (canya blame him?).

There are also three different visual allusions to nuclear bomb explosions. Sign of the zeitgeist? As far as the humans are concerned, our "heroes" are practically terrorists setting off WMD, if you think about it.

The human characters are all disposable except for Allison Janney as a Stepford-style housewife, and Thomas Haden Church, doing that thing he does as a balding exterminator. Accidentally shooting a pink flamingo ornament, he exclaims "These things are so lifelike! Curse you, plastic moldsman!" I've been a huge fan of Church since DEMON KNIGHT, and he can do no wrong.

OVER THE HEDGE isn't that long, but it feels longer, and might have been more enjoyable as a series of shorts. I think kids might have more fun with the DVD, where they will presumably be able to skip directly to the wild & crazy chase scenes, and skip Ben Folds completely. Those parts spoil us; you need a quick attention span to take in all the details flying at you, but then you're punished for that afterwards with a long slow bit.

Sit through the end credits for the final payoff of an earlier gag.

In theaters, an animated short called "First Flight" will be running before the movie. I was told it would be shown at my screening, but it wasn't.

Posted by LYT at 4:29 PM | Comments (13)

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa

"While minor details of the book have been changed, there aren't any surprises to the film, though Sony and director Ron Howard have done their damnedest to pretend that there are by being all secretive. As for the challenge of making puzzle-solving more visual, Goldsman has simply reached back to the template he employed for A Beautiful Mind. Like Russell Crowe's John Nash, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) visualizes mental puzzles via glorious 3-D special effects. He is also similarly stalked by the annoying Paul Bettany."

The full review is up to code

Posted by LYT at 12:04 AM | Comments (5)

May 17, 2006

Because alcohol and dessert aren't damaging enough by themselves

I don't know how many people already know this, but there's a new Ben and Jerry's flavor called "Black & Tan."

It's a swirl of chocolate ice cream and Guinness ice cream (they say "cream stout," but it's obvious what they mean).

The taste is really odd at first -- definitely ice cream, but definitely Guinness too. I think I like it. As far as actual drinks go, it's more like an Irish car bomb than a black & tan.

Now, where's my Jack & Coke sorbet?

In other news, I have officially quit Nutrasweet, and am trying to quit alcohol, but who knows, the latter may well not last.

Posted by LYT at 10:23 PM | Comments (9)

Some facts on Leonardo

Well, sort of. I used to have a history teacher who would give homework assignments like "Give me ten FACTS on Leonardo! Ten FACTS on Michelangelo!" (pronounced 'Micah Langelo'). And he'd bang his fist on the desk every time.

Anyways, seeing as how my dad's an art historian, I called him up the other night to ask about some of the stuff in the Da Vinci Code. So here are just a couple of clarifications:

CLAIM: The apostle painted next to Jesus in The Last Supper has no beard and looks feminine -- could this be Mary Magdalene?

ANSWER: No. It's the Apostle John, beloved by Christ, who is traditionally depicted clean-shaven with boyish features.

CLAIM: Leonardo used backwards-writing in his journals as a kind of a secret code.

ANSWER: "That would be a pretty obvious code!" says my Dad. Leonardo did use backwards-writing, but the most likely reason is that he was left handed, and wrote this way so as not to smear the fresh ink with his hand while writing. (At least in the movie, the characters aren't as stupidly baffled by this "obvious code" as they are in the book.)

and just to debunk something in the movie itself, from my own knowledge...

CLAIM: Mary Magdalene wrote a Gospel.

ANSWER: There is a Gospel of Mary Magdalene, but none of the serious historians believe that she actually wrote it.

Posted by LYT at 3:54 PM | Comments (4)

May 16, 2006

Possibly my next movie project...

I have just received word that I can formally announce the beginning of production for PETAL, the first American-made film by Linton Semage (Dr. Suzuki in MAD COWGIRL).

Linton describes it as a tragedy, about a 3rd world country family that comes to America to suffer a worse fate. The story is told thru the eyes of the daughter. Cinematography will be by either Gregory Hatanaka or Spike Hasegawa. I hope it's Greg, because Spike's kind of an A-hole.

My part in the production will likely be in some kind of technical/crew capacity. The leads of this film are children, and I'm told there are no roles for adult white guys.

Though a certain English-accented gent believes differently. His name rhymes with "Thugless."

Posted by LYT at 11:02 PM | Comments (1)

May 15, 2006

While we're on the subject...

They taste about like silkworms - texture that's like a once-crunchy item gone slightly stale, dry, dusty, not much flavor.

Posted by LYT at 6:03 PM | Comments (5)

Okay, so you think MY taste in food is weird?

New Times food critic Stephen Lemons has a feature story on underground chef Kaz Yamamoto that is by turns lip-smacking, hilarious, and utterly disturbing. Some quotes:

"The taboo we Westerners have regarding the consumption of canines aside, I now understand why dog flesh is regarded so highly to this day in many Asian cultures. Like some odd cross between pork and beef, there's nothing quite like it. Can't think of a lovelier way to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Dog."

"Most people would be surprised to discover that lions, kangaroos, antelopes, hippos, reindeer and zebras can be brought into the States by reputable vendors and served openly. But Yamamoto takes this one step beyond, skirting the intricate tangle of local, state, federal and international regulations to obtain and cook whatever he damn well pleases. "

" It is in fact a ferruginous pygmy owl, roasted with the head intact so that we can see, despite its denuded state, that what we're noshing is one of those endangered cactus dwellers, so beloved of Arizona environmentalists that the creature's mere presence has halted the construction of schools and roads. The tiny, browned bird body before me could fit neatly into the palm of my hand. 'Chef Kaz encourages our guests to enjoy the fowl whole, bones and all,' our dazzling maître d' informs us"

"Yamamoto suddenly chimes in, "I cook for Ruth Reichl, too." He refers to the influential editor of Gourmet magazine and former New York Times food critic. "I fix her penguin liver pâté, with peppercorn and Armagnac. She stay with me the night and we make love for 15 hour, she love pâté so much. I love her long time. This before I have girlfriend. She say I too controversy to write about. Too controversy!" "

""The Phoenix zoo have lot of monkey," shrugs Yamamoto. "Sometime they lose one. Maybe they think it escape. Maybe they should pay their employee better. For guard on night shift, $500 is lot of money. Same for sea lion at SeaWorld. If sea lion not perform in show, sea lion go bye-bye." "

""There many Mexcan immigrant need money," confides Yamamoto during my inspection of his Anthem residence. "Sometime they sell me kidney, arm or leg, or just slice of liver. Very, very expenseeve. These Mexcan never have to work for year, I tell you. And Mexcan liver with onion? Is sooo deleeshus. You must try.""

""One day I hope I can cook whole Mexcan," sighs Yamamoto. "Maybe baby Mexcan that mother sell to me. Then I make for my good friend Jon Kyl. I know Senator will like to eat Mexcan. He only like Mexcan when on his dinner plate.""

The whole story, with pictures, can be read HERE.

Posted by LYT at 5:26 PM | Comments (11)

May 14, 2006

What's entertainment? part 2

As if to prove that UNITED 93 and HARD CANDY were not the toughest things cinema can throw at a man, I have been pummeled yet again.

It's one thing to see actors pretending, however believably, to be tortured.

It is arguably an even harder thing to watch actors representing real people in a real recent tragedy re-enacting everything.

And then there's A LION IN THE HOUSE. Made for TV, but getting a screening in one of our markets and thereby meriting a film review, it's a documentary about kids with cancer. It was made over the course of six years, and is a little under four hours long.

We get to meet some pretty cool kids, including a teen who has been fighting tumors for ten years, a cute little 8-year-old girl who likes playing with home movie cameras, and a street-smart trash-talking black kid who loves Nike clothes and pledges to overcome. We learn to like them, a lot even.

And then we watch as most of them die. And not just die, but die in the worst of ways. We get graphic footage of brain surgery to remove cranial lesions. Tubes inserted inside faces, and shoved up noses. Puking. Screaming. Adult diapers. Strokes and paralysis. And then the corpse.

It's a very well-made film, and it is also wrenching and disturbing. I'm not over it. Why would an audience member want to be subjected to this?

If this weren't my job, would I have kept watching?

But then you think about the fact that whatever you undergo while watching is less than a small fraction of what those involved must have suffered. And they participated in this film so that people would know they existed, and that their kids never gave up until there was simply no other choice. And maybe you personally don't owe it to them to know who they were and what they did, but by God, someone does. Why not you?

Posted by LYT at 7:13 PM | Comments (5)

May 13, 2006

Calgary public art

It's a city with many permanent scultpures, murals and stuff. Too bad the shopping isn't quite as interesting

Posted by LYT at 7:56 PM | Comments (3)

My Grandfather's...merchandise!

Given the popularity of the columns, this seemed like a natural.

I don't know if anyone outside the family will be into it, but I don't care.

View and/or buy HERE

Posted by LYT at 7:20 PM | Comments (1)

May 12, 2006

REBELUTION RECORDS EVENT May 20 CANCELLED

Yep, that's the Poperratic show advertised in my Blogads space right now...no explanation, just got a myspace bulletin from the record label.

I'm disappointed, but I trust something else will come together soon...watch the Blogads space.

Meanwhile, SONNY BOY at the Nuart at midnight tonight!

Posted by LYT at 4:53 PM | Comments (4)

May 11, 2006

The being mentioned bvy Dave White, plus nothing else

Being mentioned by Dave is amazing.

See here.

Dave talks about "the loud-ass screen" in movie theaters. I feel compelled to mention that screens are not sound-devices. The sound comes from the speakers, which are all around, so the loudest area is actually dead center.

Still, Dave has vertigo, so I don't begrudge him the back row. It's all him.

Posted by LYT at 11:34 PM | Comments (4)

It ain't me, but...

...today's LA Weekly features the debut of a New Times film reviewer: Denver's own Bill Gallo.

I'll be interested to see if this causes any consternation.

Posted by LYT at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)

Barney blarney

Reviewing a new Matthew Barney film is not an enviable task, but I gave it a go.

"Drawing Restraint 9 is part of a series of 12 artworks, none of the rest of which are films. Some involve Barney putting himself in some sort of harness or restraint system while trying to create a drawing (hence the title), but by the time he got around to part nine, that concept appears to have evolved into his favorite standby: petroleum jelly sculptures. In this case, large ones that slowly collapse like glaciers when removed from the mold, and become hellishly difficult to clean up after (cleanup being part and parcel of the artistic experience of the piece). Imagining that the crew of a whaling ship might have to deal with analogous experiences led to the inspiration for the film."

the rest here

my final CityBeat reviews after the jump

SAVING SHILOH

Indiana Jones. Mad Max. Shiloh? Yep, the floppy eared dog is, as of now, officially the star of a cinematic trilogy. Needless to say, he proves a little bit easier to save than Private Ryan. In the first movie, the li’l pooch was saved from an abusive meanie of an owner named Judd (Scott Wilson). In part two, Judd tried to reclaim him, then got into an automobile accident which caused him to rethink his priorities and become a better person. In this third (and one hopes, final) installment, the big cliffhanger is...wait for it...will Judd stay nice? A mysterious string of local thefts suggests otherwise, but Shiloh’s new young master Jason Dolley believes in Judd, and sets out to prove his innocence, even as several odd coincidences suggest guilt.

Michael Moriarty has been replaced in the series with Gerald McRaney, and dialogue and acting are laugh-out-loud bad. This is strictly a movie for those who think family values trump production values, seemingly shot in someone’s backyard and featuring the cheesiest fake newspaper front pages you’ve ever seen. Wilson, best known for In Cold Blood, is believable as the squirrel-eating, temper-throwing Judd, but no-one else here deserves him as a costar. Wait long enough and you’ll get to see the dog swim, if that sort of thing floats your boat.

SIDE EFFECTS

A recent episode of The Daily Show had a feature on a former Florida model who now works as a pharmaceutical sales associate, using her sex appeal to pitch new prescription drugs to doctors. This is more or less the movie version, supposedly based on writer-director Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau’s experiences in the industry. It might have worked better as a documentary. Made on a budget of $190,000, the movie looks like a group of overly made-up, amateur actors on minimally dressed sets doing some improvisation, to some rather lame emo tunes on the soundtrack. Additionally, it’s ironically as guilty as those it skewers, in that attractive blonde star Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy) is trotted out several times in her underwear as if to make us forget that there isn’t much to the movie itself. She plays one of the aforementioned attractive reps who decides she’ll quit in six months; with nothing to lose, she starts being blatantly honest, a la Bulworth and Network, and becomes more successful than ever. Will bigger paychecks woo her back into the fold? Better question: of all the people affected by big drug company scams, do we really care about the ethical dilemmas faced by gorgeous salespeople?

Yes, the marketing of life or death medicines as though they were any other commodity is despicable, but the issue deserves a more serious treatment than the one at hand.

Posted by LYT at 12:40 AM | Comments (2)

May 10, 2006

Plugging more friend stuff

Mark Heuck at the Nuart theater asks: "Would you be able to start getting the word out about the May 12th midnight show of SONNY BOY at Nuart? Director Robert Martin Carroll is going to be there to talk, and I'm working on getting other cast members too. I reeaally need some posteriors in seats for this one, because this is some kooky APPLE-style territory here and it would certainly benefit from your preliminary approval. "

You may also know Mark as "The Movie Geek" from that comedy game show "Beat the Geeks." I'm not familiar with SONNY BOY, but if it's in any way akin to the experience of watching THE APPLE (which I never heard of before Mark screened it, and am eternally grateful for), it'll be a good time.

Also, Douglas nearly always shows up for these things.

Posted by LYT at 2:41 PM | Comments (3)

May 9, 2006

What's Entertainment?

When someone asks if a movie entertained you, or if it is entertaining, the usual assumption is that they refer to its having been something to enjoy, make you feel good, possibly offer some escapism. Hence the popular refrain that UNITED 93 cannot possibly be entertaining.

But feeling good is far from the only reason people consume entertainment.

Most "serious" critics tend to like movies that speak to the human condition, or Say Something about the Way We Live today. My ex liked relationship movies, in order to see how different characters deal with universal situations. A significant section of the audience likes to be scared. Some people want to be disturbed by movies -- Gaspar Noe, for one, owes his career to them. Among the year's most acclaimed movies in 2005 were BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, about repressed people who are unhappy most of the time and make all the people around them unhappy too; and MYSTERIOUS SKIN, a movie in which one of the protagonists keeps having molestation memories and the other repeatedly has sex with ugly, nasty middle-aged men. Did either one entertain you?

These are some of the things that went through my mind after viewing UNITED 93 and HARD CANDY in relatively quick succession. Both, I think, require an alcoholic beverage afterward.

Regarding UNITED 93, I would have to say that in a certain way, it is "entertaining," in that it grips you and keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entirety of its running time. We all know how it ends; the tension is wondering when the characters onscreen will figure out the 9-11 master plan that no-one predicted but we all know too well in hindsight. It's an effect similar to that of reading the original Bram Stoker DRACULA novel, which tells the story from several perspectives, allowing you, the reader, to see the big picture and figure things out way before the characters do, making you want to yell at them to figure the shit out before they're totally doomed.

UNITED 93 also shoots to hell most movie cliches about hijacking. In any other movie, establishing that one of the passengers is a pilot and another is a retired air traffic controller would be an obvious planting for the inevitable payoff where they have to land the thing themselves. It ain't like that.

There's a need on the part of any audience to try to single out characters to identify with, and in this case the person closest to a lead is the gray-haired air traffic controller, playing himself, who ultimately makes the call to ground all planes. I don't know that you can call it a great acting job, per se, but it feels truly real.

Two very minor questions I have, as a frequent air traveller: United flight 93 appears to have more legroom than most planes. Also, the passengers seem to strike up an awful lot of conversations for a group of random strangers -- and I'm talking pre-hijack.

I think it was Manohla Dargis who said that there isn't really much to be learned from this movie, but I think there is something. Our wars tend to be cast by those who wage them as grand struggles of good and evil, but this particular movie of this first battle in the War on Terror depicts the people on both sides as human beings with all their frailties, fears, and ideals. And neither side really "wins" - they only thwart one another's goals.

Is it accurate? It depicts the passengers breaking into the cockpit, which I've heard never happened. The stuff on the ground can be reasonably assumed accurate, since all involved are playing themselves. I suspect the stuff on the plane is as close as we'll ever get. Interesting that director Paul Greengrass has found himself in this verite niche -- how would he have handled WATCHMEN, if he had gotten it? Would he have used his current style, or made it more straightforward like THE THEORY OF FLIGHT?

Anyway, as difficult as UNITED 93 is to take, HARD CANDY is almost as bad, though it doesn't have the same real-world echoes. But again: Do you want to be "entertained" by a movie about pedophilia? It's very well done, and I'd choose it over MYSTERIOUS SKIN, mainly because everything that happens is in the service of moving the story along, whereas I felt like Gregg Araki was simply getting off on the myriad digressions into what David Ehrenstein calls "the dulcet tones of ejaculate gagging."

It's mostly a two-character story, driven by dialogue, but it isn't like a filmed play, if you were worrying. It is inherently cinematic in that certain scenes absolutely require you to be unable to see everything that's happening in particular room. Some of those scenes could have used a bit more visual shorthand, but would almost certainly have been slapped with an NC-17 had it been done so.

The plot is like Takashi Miike's AUDITION, only it cuts to the chase much more quickly. A thirtysomething photographer (Patrick Wilson) of underage models in risque poses brings a 14-year-old girl (Ellen Page, soon to be Kitty Pryde in X-MEN 3) home with him, only to have her drug him and then reveal herself to be the Queen Bitch of Vengeance. What follows is mostly her torturing him as he tries to escape -- it's only towards the end that we get any sense of whether or not he deserves it begging the question of whether or not anyone deserves such treatment. If you're a guy, you'd be hard-pressed not to feel at least some sense of vicarious emasculation at what transpires.

Too much description will affect your enjoyment of the thing. I would have liked to see more of a balance of power, perhaps -- imagine, say, if MISERY didn't have the typewriter-to-the-head scene. Page will be a natural member of the X-Men, as she's basically super-powered here too, with the intellect of Batman and the evasion skills of Nightcrawler. Brian Nelson's script is tight, but a more ambiguous, evenhanded finale might have been more thought-provoking. It might also have led to an NC-17, however.

Director David Slade makes the best transition from music videos to feature film I've seen since Mark Romanek's ONE HOUR PHOTO. The movie's pretty much just set in a one-story hosue, but it's never visually boring.

Both HARD CANDY and UNITED 93 are among the year's best films, but are they entertainment?

I hope I've given you enough information to decide that for yourself.

Posted by LYT at 5:00 PM | Comments (6)

Also in Fango...

A little piece on NAKED BENEATH THE WATER, a movie I make a very noticeable cameo in.

Posted by LYT at 2:03 PM | Comments (1)

Horrific?

Jaye gets a plug from Fangoria.

(doesn't sound like the tunes from THE WOODS are included, which is a shame, but prolly a legal nightmare)

Posted by LYT at 3:49 AM | Comments (2)

May 8, 2006

More response on Pajamas Media running pro-Republican ads

Lefty Marc Cooper has responded similarly to Amy: "you seem to read the ads more closely than I do. Im rarely aware of what they are nor do I care."

Certainly not the attitude I would have, but I understand not biting the hand that feeds.

Rest assured that I know and approve of (sometimes tacitly, sometimes enthusiastically) every advertiser on this site.

Posted by LYT at 2:18 PM | Comments (7)

Sympathy for the White man

Regular readers know that one of my favorite blogs is written by Dave White, arguably the best movie critic in Los Angeles and the only one I know of other than me who started by doing zines.

Anyway, he has a book out now. I bought it yesterday, and tore through it in a couple hours. You can't stop once you start, sort of like the way Dave is with delicious pancakes.

It's called "Exile in Guyville: How a punk rock redneck faggot Texan moved to West Hollywood and refused to be shiny and happy." And it's a bit like his blog, but longer and with better punctuation. It's a synopsis of his first year in WeHo, and each chapter is usually him complaining about something minor, which sparks off various other tangents, and then at the end in italics he mentions a few other things that happened which were often more significant. Eventually he stops bitching because Parker Posey tells him to.

How many books feature an introduction that tells you that listening to Slayer while reading the book will make it way better? Nor is he going to stop to explain who or what Slayer is if you don't know. The book kind of reads like an episode of Seinfeld starring Dennis Miller, only Dennis is fat, gay, and still funny.

One time when I linked to Dave here, someone got pissed off at me and wrote something like "Thanks a lot for sending me to a queer site about queers!" so I suppose it might be a good time to mention that Dave digs the dudes, in case you didn't figure it out yet. But he's as gay-married as you can be in a state that doesn't actually allow gay marriage yet, so like most married dudes he doesn't talk about doing it. Then again, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN didn't go into any details either, but people were afraid to go see it, and there aren't any hooters in Dave's book except his own, getting squeezed in a vice as he gets checked out for male breast cancer.

Actually, that's not true, he talks about chicks with fake implants a lot. And he watches people have sex on the street beside his house a few times. Sometimes guys offer to blow him in exchange for a cigarette. He never says yes [spoiler]. And he gets away with talking shit to bitchy queens that would get a straight guy labeled bigoted, but Dave can do it because he's gay too, although his husband accuses him of being homophobic at one point.

I want this book to be made into a movie. But then people might not see it because they're afraid to see dudes kiss. Still, I would want Dan Haggerty to make a cameo because Dave honest-to-god fantasizes about him. And Jack Black should play Dave just because there's an argument in there about whether or not Black's character from HIGH FIDELITY is Dave.

Anyway, if you like his blog, you must buy the book. Now.

Posted by LYT at 1:32 PM | Comments (5)

May 5, 2006

Possibly Missable

Does anybody really get that excited when they hear that there's a new MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie coming out? I certainly don't. Like many others, I suspect, I go to see them because they're there, though if I hadn't gotten to see this new one for free I wouldn't have paid. I never liked the first one much ("Surprise! Jon Voight's the villain!"; "Surprise again! Jon Voight's STILL the villain!"), and I did enjoy part two a fair bit just because it was so over the top that it played like someone parodying John Woo, except that it was John Woo, plus the plot was a rip-off of NOTORIOUS, a movie that badly needed more slo-mo pigeons, Metallica music, and motorcycle-fu.

M:I 3 has some great action sequences -- one on a bridge that's being attacked from the air, and another where Tom Cruise is sliding off the top of a skyscraper that plays like a remake of DIE HARD. Unfortunately for the film-makers, they're mostly in the middle of the movie, and they forgot to put a big one at the end, where it ought to be. As a result, the film whimpers to a close, and leaves you on a low-energy note, which may (somewhat unfairly) skew reviews negative.

Oh, and Philip Seymour Hoffman? Hardly in the movie at all. When he is, he delivers his lines matter-of-factly in a manner that any actor could do. The only reason to even remember the character is that he's played by Philip Seymour Hoffman; had the exact same performance been given by someone lesser-known (Colm Feore, for example), few viewers would even remember the character.

The story is that Ethan Hunt (Cruise, who as we all know loves the poontang), is about to be married to hottie nurse Michelle Monaghan (her being a nurse actually proves useful later in the story - who'd have guessed?) when he gets asked to come back into the field to save Keri Russell from the clutches of Hoffman's men. Russell's pretty good as a hard-ass agent; better than most of you probably think she'd be, I'll wager. But the mission goes wrong, and Hunt gets reprimanded. But since Hunt, much like Cruise, is a nutjob workaholic perfectionist, he can't resist using his time in the office to put together a team to kidnap Hoffman, who's character's name is Davian, by the way, which I mention in order to set up a terrible pun momentarily.

So they get Davian while he's at the Vatican, but the man has high level connections and gets free again, which is big trouble for Hunt, because Davian digs revenge of a very personal type. Sorta like that one religious cult whose name I forget at the moment.

What it all boils down to is that everyone's after a biological weapon called the Rabbit's Foot -- it's a measure of scriptwriter cuteness that we're never told exactly what it does, but let's just call it...here comes that awful pun I mentioned...the Davian Flu.

Thank you, thank you, I'm here every night.

Ving Rhames is back on the team, and even though I thought he was the computer expert, there's a new computer super-expert played by Shaun of the Dead. There's also a hot exotic ass-kicking chick (Maggie Q), and a sarcastic Irishman (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). But it's really all about Tom, who just seems to get less and less believable as an uber-action hero. Funny thing is he's indestructible man for most of the movie, bouncing off cars and stuff, but then when Davian finally gets him in a one on one fight, he dominates. Philip Seymour Hoffman owning your ass, action man? Seems odd.

As a director, J.J. Abrams has learned one or two good things from TV. He keeps the plot moving, even when cutting from one scene to another might seem a little jarring. Convey the information, and move on -- he's good at that. There are a couple things I wished he'd lingered on a little bit -- the whole action sequence on the bridge would have worked better had it been clearer that Davian is inside one of the armored cars, so you know why people are trying to bust into it. I blinked and missed the part where that was established.

As much as I loved Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG, she isn't very effective here. I would rather have seen Ethan get it on with Keri Russell, assuming that I have to see him get it on with anybody. They're a better and more logical match as characters.

Another big problem is that the villain's ultimate scheme isn't some big ludicrous bad thing -- it's actually a pretty pragmatic piece of realpolitik that is admittedly distasteful, but not bad as global strategy. Certainly not something most Republicans would have a problem with in real life, and within the context of an action movie (in which killing one's adversary is par for the course in order to save the world) not a particularly villainous thing at all.

So yeah, parts of the movie are fun, but a weak villain and a drag-down ending works against it. Wait for rental.

Posted by LYT at 5:38 PM | Comments (7)

My Grandfather's Column

Editorial note: While I like his general point here, my grandfather has obviously never been the victim of identity theft, as I have.

The Truth will make you free

The great majority of the printing I do via my computer is done on the back of already once used paper. Often this will be statements of my financial affairs or other private correspondence. Sometimes when I feel I have no need to make a particularly good impression I use such second hand paper to communicate with friends. Occasionally such messages as I've sent thus are returned to me because they contained such "private" information. If I were very careless I suppose I might accidentally reveal something which might harm another person but I have no objection to anyone becoming aware of my personal financial doings.

One definition of heaven is that it is a place where there are no longer any secrets. Everyone will know all there is to know about everyone else. God, we are told, is one from whom no secrets are hidden. If we are to share in his divine nature then we too will have access to whatever was once secret. That may at first seem a bit alarming but in reality it's a tremendous liberation. Jesus is recorded as saying to some Jews who believed in him: "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." Experience tells me that when I reveal something of which I am ashamed, far from that making me feel worse it makes me feel liberated. As T.S.Eliot famously said: " human beings can't bear too much reality." But when we do own to some part of the reality we have kept secret it brings a sense of freedom. Heaven is the ultimately real. If we are to belong to heaven we shall have to learn to face the whole of reality including those bits of which we are most ashamed or by which we are most disgusted.

Ultimately I have nothing to fear but everything to gain from the truth.

-Peter Graham

Posted by LYT at 1:35 PM | Comments (5)

May 4, 2006

Pajamas Media ads get political

Tony Pierce called it on this a while back. Pajamas, of course, has always claimed to be ideologicallly open while featuring overwhelmingly conservative members. The ads the blogs were going to run, though, were supposed to be non-partisan.

As of 9:47 p.m., I checked a few of the Pajamas blogs, and all the ones I saw, including more liberal members like Marc Cooper and Amy Alkon, featured an ad that offers to tell you how to fight back against Hillary Clinton by helping Bill Frist. Knowing Marc and Amy as I do, I suspect they don't much care for Hillary. But I would hope they'd have greater antipathy for Frist.

This is exactly why I was never interested in joining. Partisan ads.

UPDATE: It's not on Amy's site any more. And her response: "I think people know I don't write the ads, or pick what runs. They rotate. "

Now, see, I would have a real problem with that on my blog -- not so much that I'd have to pick every ad, but not being able to veto the option of taking money from a right-wing Republican to promote his political cause. Surprised she doesn't, actually.

Posted by LYT at 9:46 PM | Comments (3)

Reviews! I got reviews! (updated)

I doubt anyone here will believe me, but I promise I am not the one who entitled the following review "Welcome to Hooters":

"The most important thing to know about the new movie Hoot, adapted from the children's book by Carl Hiaasen, is that it's co-produced by Jimmy Buffett, who also appears in a small role and provides new music for the soundtrack. Middle-aged drunks and boat owners might possibly rejoice at the news, but their kids may be scratching their heads just a bit. As one might expect from the king of the Parrotheads, the movie version of Hoot is essentially a paean to hanging out on the beach in Florida. But because the target audience is a fair bit under 21, there aren't any margaritas or babes in bikinis — though the female lead, played by Brie Larson, is an all-purpose youth fantasy: a blonde bombshell who wears nerd glasses yet is also strong enough to terrify the school bully. "

more here

"It's hard not to get pulled into the emotional flow before the movie is done. You know how it must end, of course, as all stories of dying people inevitably do, but Dylan is no saintly cancer-boy begging for your Disney tears. He calls "Bullshit!" on talk of God, shares his medical marijuana with friends, needlessly picks fights, and has as his principal goal the task of inducing a celebrity to essentially commit statutory rape on him. "If you were ten years older ..." she wistfully tells him; "... I'd be dead," he responds. "

the rest is here

UPDATE: I see I'm being quoted in some of the ads for ONE LAST THING as "Luke Y. Thompson, Village Voice." I bet that makes my "friends" in New York happy.

Posted by LYT at 2:26 PM | Comments (3)

First!

Yes, today is the first anniversary of the day David N. Scott said to himself, "hmm, I always post the same thing over and over again on other blogs...what if I could do the exact same thing, but on a blog of my own?"

And it's become more. So much more.

Okay, not much more. But still.

Raise your glass to Pererro.

Posted by LYT at 2:01 AM | Comments (6)

May 3, 2006

Best DVD news in a long time, and a galaxy far, far away...

Han shoots first

Clive Revill is the Emperor

Yub yub.

ON MUTHAFUCKIN' DVD! OFFICIALLY!

...once again, George Lucas does something he said he'd never do.

Oh, and for those of you who bought the Special Edition box set already...

HA HA!

Posted by LYT at 9:58 PM | Comments (17)

May 2, 2006

Probably old news to all by now, but...

...if you haven't seen or heard about Stephen Colbert's routine at the White House Correspondent's dinner, you must check it out now.

Back when I was in high school, with a rather tyrannical school administration, I spoke up by writing sarcastic letters to the school paper that said the opposite of what I meant, but in exaggerated, over-the-top fashion in order to actually make the opposing point. Rather like when my uncle Kip, back in the '70s, sported a bumper sticker on his vehicle that read "Richard Nixon is not a motherfucker."

Colbert has taken that idea and made a career of it -- and most impressively, he never breaks character. The man has Swift-ly become one of my heroes.

Yeah, his show was a little shaky at first. But now? It's even better than the Daily Show (which he was always the best part of).

Posted by LYT at 10:57 PM | Comments (6)

Off the Beat

May 11 will mark the last time my byline appears in L.A. CityBeat for the forseeable future.

It's been a good run, and I wish everyone there the best.

Posted by LYT at 6:56 PM | Comments (1)

May 1, 2006

Eh?

Posted by LYT at 7:22 PM | Comments (2)

Press photo of me in Calgary

...seen taking a photo of the audience at the Uptown Theater.

Posted by LYT at 1:45 AM | Comments (1)

Too much information?

A handy-dandy directional sign inside a Canadian men's room.

(note the highlighted letters within each word)

Posted by LYT at 1:24 AM | Comments (7)