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September 30, 2006
While I'm on iFilm...
Anyone who hasn't seen the Fozzy music video I'm very briefly in can watch it here.
Blink and you'll miss me. Look for aqua hair.
Posted by LYT at 11:49 PM | Comments (5)
Batterton & James ad #5
We posted this on Youtube last week, but there were some tech problems. Still some minor sound sync issues with this one, but I think you'll forgive us...
and for those catching up, the rest are here...
Posted by LYT at 11:23 PM | Comments (1)
"I didn't know..."
Hey, look, it's me on a stage!
I've been participating in something called No Shame Theater on Friday nights, thanks in large part to two lovely ladies: Julia Carpenter, who's been going there for a while, and Lindsay Stone, who invited me along, and I frankly would go anywhere she aks.
It's a pretty cool deal for anyone theatrically inclined: Show up at 10 pm, and if you want, get cast in someone's 5-minute bit, or even write your own. Generally, anyone who wants to be in something can be. It's at the Powerhouse Theater in Santa Monica. Google it if you're so inclined -- I don't want to make things too easy.
Even if you just come to watch, that's fine too. Admission is $5 for everyone, but that includes a free beer. And Chuck Sklar, star of my favorite unreleased movie TOMORROW NIGHT, is an alumnus (so's John Leguizamo, but he usually annoys the crap outta me).
Tonight, I've been working on customizing a wrestling action figure. I tell you this because I am so broke that dating is not something that concerns me right now, so I don't care if it loses me points or whatever, but exchanging Road Warrior Animal's arms for arms with the correct tattoos on them without wrecking the figure was a bitch and a half, so let me relish in my pride.
Posted by LYT at 10:44 PM | Comments (5)
Belated linkage
Martin Devon, a self-described "knuckle-dragging conservative" Republican friend of mine whom I haven't seen in quite some time, wrote a pretty good post on Sept. 11 of this year. It's worth reading. Here's a highlight:
1. Why do they hate us? They actually don’t hate us. This isn’t about us at all. It is about them, and about how angry they are with themselves. Lashing out at us is just they way they vent their anger.
2. How can we defeat them? We can’t defeat them. Or more accurately, ‘defeated’ is where they are starting from. How can you defeat someone who already believes that his life isn’t worth living? How can you beat someone for whom blowing himself up is the ultimate self expression? No. We can kill them. We can allow them to kill us. We can take away their capacity for destruction. Or we can “un-defeat them” — show them a life worth living.
Read it all.
[If you feel like posting a comment on his page, tell him to blog more while you're at it. And come to more Press Club parties like he used to.]
Posted by LYT at 9:02 PM | Comments (0)
September 29, 2006
THE LOST to play Los Angeles again
Saturday night, Oct. 14, at the Mann Chinese 6-plex. You can be fairly certain there'll be some cast and crew there.
For tickets and other info, hit up Screamfestla.com
Posted by LYT at 6:34 PM | Comments (1)
E Online quick takes
and
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Posted by LYT at 4:19 AM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2006
No longer young and hot
A guy at a screening the other night asked me point blank how old I was.
My response then, as it usually is, was "How old would you suspect I am?"
"Are you under 30?"
"Not quite."
"That's too bad, because I'm doing an article on critics who are under 30."
WHERE WERE YOU 1999-2004???? I SOOOO wanted to be in an article like that.
Now I'm just over the hill. Someone should interview me for something, though.
And since I'm so old, here's an observation about those darn kids -- I think it's hilarious that people think nowadays that putting the hood up on your tracksuit makes you look tough, like the Unabomber or some shit. It was especially funny at the screening of which I spoke, where some kids were wearing hoods over their 3-D glasses. It isn't possible to look tough in 3-D glasses -- an exception can perhaps be made for Biff Tannen's gang in 1955, but NO-ONE else -- and adding the mock-thug touch just made it funnier.
Also, you're there to see OPEN SEASON. No gangsta are you.
Posted by LYT at 1:20 AM | Comments (1)
September 26, 2006
space-filler type-post
Not much going on in my world at the moment, so I thought I'd just kill some time by looking at a recent letter to the Village Voice, which bemoans "the ongoing destruction of the film section, taking what was widely considered to be the most essential and intelligent film coverage of any American weekly and dumbing it down by using (mostly) slack-jawed syndicate critics."
I find it funny that "slack-jawed" was this reader's insult of choice for me and some of my cowriters -- clearly the scribe likes SOME of us, but I'm betting the exception ain't me. "Slack-jawed" is often an insult aimed at Southerners, so by that standard, I guess I qualify, as do Jim Ridley and Robert Wilonsky.
But having had TMJ since I was young, a condition which makes my jaw constantly tense and likely to pop in and out of its socket when I chew hard, I can honestly say that my jaw is anything but slack.
So there.
Oh, but it goes on...
"Running more capsule reviews from these yobs doesn't really equate to expanding arts coverage."
"Yob" in every use I've ever heard refers to an English lout. So, a Southern slur followed by an English one...I guess this person actually does have my number after all!
Posted by LYT at 12:34 AM | Comments (6)
September 24, 2006
Continuity error on Star Wars DVDs
I bought the new Star Wars DVDs, and on my non-HD TV they look great, the originals anyway.
But when I put in the Special Edition of JEDI, I noticed a significant error in the movie itself. If you have the DVD, skip directly to the chapter entitled "the Max Rebo band."
The key "enhancement" in this scene is replacing the band's original song with a new, worse one, and inserting new characters, notably a CG Joe Cocker cartoon thing, and a CG version of lead singer Sy Snootles (a yellow, blue-spotted, female alien with a trunk), originally a puppet.
But at the very beginning of the shot, as the camera begins to pan, you can see the original puppet Sy Snootles in the left corner. The dead giveaway is that puppet Sy has a headdress with a single feather in it, sticking up. CG Sy does not. By the time the pan has ended, though, CG Sy, sans feather, has walked into frame.
I watched it twice to be sure. Surprised no-one has called George's attention to it.
UPDATE: I checked the imdb, and this was NOT listed among the "goofs." I submitted it just now.
Posted by LYT at 1:40 AM | Comments (6)
September 23, 2006
Transcript of Bill Clinton interviewed by Fox News
Why is he apparently the only Democrat who can effectively debate Republicans?
Posted by LYT at 7:51 PM | Comments (9)
New Batterton & James short!
This is number four...
Posted by LYT at 5:22 PM | Comments (2)
September 22, 2006
SCREENING OPPORTUNITIES
It's been a while since I did this last, so to reiterate the rules:
The first person to contact me, and confirm their attendance once I give full details, gets to be my screening guest, provided I know them or know of them (i.e. Internet friends I haven't met in person can be eligible too). Because things fall through, don't assume that because someone has posted yes in comments that they have won.
Also, I don't need to read a bunch of posts from people explaining why they can't come. Just those who can.
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, featuring Forest Whitaker as Ugandad dictator Idi Amin, Monday night.
OPEN SEASON in 3-D IMAX, CG cartoon with Martin Lawrence and Ashton Kutcher, Tuesday night
Posted by LYT at 4:34 PM | Comments (0)
E Online short reviews (updated w/JACKASS)
and
Posted by LYT at 3:15 AM | Comments (5)
Having now seen both BORAT and JACKASS NUMBER TWO
I think BORAT shoud have opened sooner. The two movies aren't exactly the same -- one of them has a plot, for example -- but the two films have many similar gags, with JACKASS taking them more to the extreme.
Both enjoyable, but I'm glad I saw BORAT first, and think that's the way it should have been for everyone.
Posted by LYT at 2:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2006
What does your moviegoing weekend look like?
I missed the screening of JACKASS: NUMBER TWO, as it conflicted with ALL THE KING'S MEN, which I was paid to see (and suggest that should be your only acceptable excuse for attending). I'll probably pay to see it this weekend. Anyone wanna go?
But there's other stuff opening that I've seen too, and since no-one is paying me to talk about it, I'll give you my opinions for free, because I'm cool like dat.
First, there's John Gulager's FEAST, which will play midnight shows this Friday and Saturday only. I saw FEAST a year ago, and understand there have been some reshoots since then. mostly to show more monsters, which is cool. My one complaint about the first viewing was that the monsters move so fast you never get a good sense of what they look like. Some mystery is good, but it's useful to know, for instance, which body parts are the ones they use to kill people.
I've known John's dad Clu for a while now, and though he's retired from acting, he came back just to help out his son, in a pretty significant role as a bartender. In a notable in-joke, another character derisively says of him "He thinks he's Billy the Kid"; one of Clu's star-making roles was in fact Billy the Kid.
FEAST was the third Project Greenlight movie, and I have a hunch they hired John because he looks and sounds like a character in a comedy, and they figured he'd be easy to mock on TV. I don't think they counted on the fact that film-making is in his blood, and he actually has skills; certainly more of them than the previous two Greenlight directors, who made limp coming-of-age tales.
As for the movie, it's quite straightforward -- a group of disparate strangers hole up in a bar as a bunch of unknown monsters of unknown origin attack and start killing everybody off one by one. Henry Rollins is particularly funny as a nerdy motivational speaker, but the comedy never cheapens the threat, which is the key to a good horror comedy. FEAST is no classic, but it's a fun night out. The print I saw was kind of dark and brown-tinted, but I don't think it was final; I really hope the color is a little better on this version.
Also opening is RENAISSANCE, a new animation from France that's not quite like anything you've seen before. In stark black and white, with no shades of gray, it's motion-captured with enhancement -- real actors and locations were used, but they inhabit a sci-fi version of Paris that's photo-real in a way (if you imagine a B/W photo set to maximum contrast level), but enhanced with new buildings and technology. The plot is a typical anime-noir, with a kidnapping leading to a plot to develop eternal life via chemicals -- you'll be lucky to figure everything out the first time around.
My main issue with it is the dialogue. It's easy to complain about English dubs -- done here by the likes of Daniel Craig and Jonathan Pryce -- which sound flat and uninvolved, but the truth is even the French version was dubbed -- the motion-capture actors did not do their own dialogue even in the original vernacular. Had they done so, I suspect the movie wouldn't feel quite as emotionally detached as it does now.
On the other hand, this is one of a very few movies that I'm inclined to say is one of the year's best based on style alone. It'll make you wonder if maybe SIN CITY should have been done this way. And I know I said somethign like that about ULTRAVIOLET too, but I'm pretty sure the plot of RENAISSANCE makes sense, though it's convoluted enough that I cannot be 100% sure.
Finally, we have FLYBOYS, a World War I aviation movie produced by Dean "Dullsville" Devlin. In brief: The flying sequences are great fun, and there are a lot of them. The dialogue scenes might have been written by someone with a mental handicap.
Now, to be fair, I'm a sucker for these things, though I still haven't seen it done better than WINGS in 1922. Back in the day, of course, actors actually flew planes up into the skies and enacted the whole thing for real. The producers of FLYBOYS had, I believe, exactly ONE plane that was flightworthy, and they motion-captured all the others from it.
The movie is taking some hits on historical accuracy. For me this isn't glaring, except for one big question: How is there a guy with glasses in the flying squadron? Isn't 20/20 vision kind of a prerequisite, even today when we have much better technology? Then there's the blatant movie tactic of having the most evil German of all painting his plane jet black, when all others are red.
Irony note about flight gear: according to the movie, if you're going to crash, goggles must be removed, as they were made of glass and could stab you in the eye if they broke. Kinda defies the point of eye protection, no? And the scarves are apparently primarily used to keep your neck from chafing while craning to look for enemies.
I'd far prefer a movie called Flygirls -- whatever happened to Cameron Diaz's Jackie Cochran movie, anyway? -- as aviatrixes give me a raging hard-on, so I got my money's worth in the scene where James Franco romances a beautiful French girl (Jennifer Decker), by taking her for a biplane ride, and she dons the helmet and goggles and off they go. But I can't recommend it to YOU for that -- if I did, I'd also have to recommend Rocky & Bullwinkle, The Crocodile Hunter movie, and The English Patient. And I can't do that.
The problem with the dialogue scenes is what I call speechifying -- endless uttering of words plus inspirational music that could easily be summed up in one sentence. "Hey, sorry I was racist"; "War sucks"; "People died in that battle, so let's get drunk"; "You're hot, but you might die so I can't date you"; "You think flying a plane will be fun...but PEOPLE GET KILLED IN WAR!", etc.
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN did this in spades, so of course that makes every other film-maker think it's okay. By the same token, just as RYAN was worthwhile for the battle scenes alone, I would say the same for FLYBOYS, though it was a stupid move to put the big zeppelin money shot right there in the trailer.
Posted by LYT at 4:03 PM | Comments (7)
Awww yeah. I actually got a long review this week.
Enjoy, though if your name is Andy Klein you may take issue with me on JET LI'S FEARLESS...
"Sounds good, but don't forget that this is the same Jet Li who said that last year's idiotic Unleashed, in which he played a man raised to think that he's a kung-fu-fighting dog, was "my best work yet" (according to that movie's official Web site, anyway). Disillusioned by fans who have praised his combat ability over the years, Li has come to worry that viewers weren't getting the right message about martial arts, and now seems determined to make the audience pay a hefty penalty in sappy drama just to enjoy a few cool fight scenes."
Read on, if you dare.
Posted by LYT at 3:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2006
Me roasting Cathy
Photo courtesy of Emmanuelle
Her caption is "Everybody Outraged."
It was a fucking roast, people. This how you do it. Incidentally, it was the second roast I've been a part of -- the first was held by my friend John Daily, who decided he wanted to be roasted. Greg Crum (my sophomore college roommate) and I were heralded as the highlights of that one.
Posted by LYT at 4:57 PM | Comments (3)
U.S. foreign policy, in a nutshell
(found via Pererro)
Posted by LYT at 12:56 PM | Comments (1)
Mad about Steeples
This may only be of interest to friends in our circle, but the current issue of MAD magazine features a spoof of "My Name Is Earl," inked by legendary caricaturist Mort Drucker, long known as the best artist they have for movie parodies. (Drew Friedman, who joined in recent years, is phenomenal, but more of a photo-realistic style than Drucker's spot-on caricatures)
Eddie Steeples, as "Scab Man," is drawn twice in it. The first time, Drucker makes him look a bit too hefty, but the second time, he nails it. MAD ain't what it used to be, but being caricatured by Mr. Drucker is still an honor and a sign of fame. I'm not buying the mag to do a scan, but if anyone has one, send it to me and I'll post it.
Funnily enough, the parody features an extended Scientology-bashing riff, in which one of the things "Hurl" supposedly has to make amends for is giving Tom Cruise a lot of bad career advice. It isn't clear whether or not they know that Jason Lee is also a Scientologist.
Posted by LYT at 3:54 AM | Comments (4)
September 18, 2006
My Grandfather's Column
Editorial note - though the specifics of this piece are aimed locally, the bulk of it seems relevant to all.
What IS Christianity?
Christians are as different from each other as are for instance the British or the Americans. Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs vary widely. Yet many of us are content to make judgments on the basis of our very partial knowledge. Thus you may hear: "How wonderful these Christians are. They seem to love everyone" or, just as likely: "How ghastly these Christians are; they're such bigots that you can't discuss anything with them."
I find it fascinating to learn how other people feel and think about religion in general and Christianity in particular. I also have a hunch that, in spite of the extremely secular age in which we live, a good many others share this curiosity.
Surveys show that most people in this country still call themselves Christians while they hasten to add that they don't attend a place of worship except for christenings, weddings and funerals.
Back in the first century of the Christian Era this religion was something new, different and exciting. Its adherents believed that history was about to come to an end and their urgent task was to persuade others to join them in order to be 'saved' before the end of that age. I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud in that I don't spend much time trying to convert people to Christianity. In part at least that is because my view of Christianity is so different from that of most of the people I meet. On top of which my regular readers will know that I am uncertain about so many things that I find myself more suited to a general search for truth than for people who will simply accept what is true for me.
Three of us who happen to belong in various ways to Buckland Newton Parish Church have decided to start a group to explore what Christianity means to us. We are calling it Wayfarers. We represent youth, middle age and old age and we hope to be joined by people who share this aim of exploring each other's thoughts about the Christian thing. We hope the group will set its own agenda; this might begin with such fundamentals as: "Is there a purpose in (my) life?or: "Is there life after death?".
If you feel you might be interested in what we are doing please let one of us know. We are Helen Simpson, Sarah Hawkins and myself. We plan to start at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 28th in the small room at the back of Buckland Newton Village Hall.
-Peter Graham
Posted by LYT at 12:07 PM | Comments (3)
Quote I've heard the most in the past week or so...
"I didn't know you could act!"
Posted by LYT at 12:11 AM | Comments (3)
September 17, 2006
New Batterton & James short!
Soon to be added to ifilm, myspace, and pererro. But here first! (except for YouTube, obviously. Though if anyone wants to actually download these, there are actual secret links on this site where you can do that.)
Posted by LYT at 12:43 AM | Comments (2)
September 16, 2006
The question of the Message Board
When I first started this site, the thing I wanted most was a message board. I wasn't familiar with blogs and comments, and the blogger program I used didn't allow for comments anyway. It was my hope that old friends from Ireland, family from across the globe, and current associates could all mingle there.
It hasn't worked out quite that way. The board is mostly dead now, and every day I delete 2-5 new members with Russian email addresses who are obvious fakes. I've been wondering whether to even ditch it altogether.
But I don't think I will. Here's why -- in the long term, as stuff like MAD COWGIRL gets out there, people will find this site who never knew about me before, and probably won't feel like commenting on whatever thread I have going on the blog about some bad dating experience or a new movie review. There have been people like this who either use the contact form to email me directly, or sometimes just post on whatever thread is first regardless of if they're on-topic.
The readership, and off-topic stuff, isn't really big enough to justify the baord at the moment. But some day it could be. Seems easier to leave the thing intact.
Posted by LYT at 5:09 PM | Comments (9)
I'm not really interested in seeing BLACK DAHLIA, but...
Can someone who has seen it tell me which actresses bare their stuff? I know from Movieguide that there's "upper female nudity," but I want to know who. Mia Kirshner? Scarlett Johansson? (if the latter, I will go see it)
I'm guessing it's most likely some unnamed extras. But I must know.
Posted by LYT at 2:42 AM | Comments (24)
September 15, 2006
Now THIS is a movie review
Just wanted to share this with everyone since I liked it so much.
My former high school classmate Jason sent the following review of the first two "Batterton & James" shorts:
Dude, you are fucking retarded. I mean that in a good way, that was some funny shit. keep up the good work.
THAT, my friends, is how you review something. Uncensored and from the heart (or nads, whichever).
Posted by LYT at 12:47 AM | Comments (3)
September 14, 2006
head-scratcher
Apparently, WWE's Vince McMahon recently decided that ECW shirts bearing the slogan "EC f'n W" were too risque and gave his company a bad image.
And yet...
THIS is acceptable?
Hey, I dig it. I'm just saying, let the ECW fans have theirs too.
Posted by LYT at 5:18 PM | Comments (0)
I think mixed-race chicks are hot
...so I have one thing in common with our governor, anyway.
Plus I'm pretty sure we both agree that COMMANDO is an awesome film.
Posted by LYT at 5:02 PM | Comments (2)
NOTLD 3-D
Last weekend, I was invited to see NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3-D. I dig the 3-D movies, though not as much as a certain director friend of mine who incessantly chants "Is it in three dimension?" as a mantra, and when drunk, will yammer on and on about how "three-dimension" movies change your life.
I met said individual for the first time at a 3-D festival. It was also the first time he encountered Douglas Dunning, so I guess those movies really did change my life. But NOTLD 3-D was at the Egyptian, where Douglas is banned for threatening that when he gets through with it, there won't be a brick left standing in the place.
I had to wait outside in line for quite a long time. I'm not used to waiting in line for a movie. I noticed that horror movie fans tend to dress a lot like me. Either that or they're total nerds, like the guys behind me babbling about how Brian De Palma isn't the true director of his own movies because he doesn't know how to operate the camera.
Sid Haig walked around entertaining the crowd a bit, with references to fried chicken and such. After about 30 minutes, we got to go in.
I should note that this showing was in polarized 3-D, though in most of its release it will be in anaglyphic (red/green) 3-D. I'm not too fond of the latter, though it's not yet possible to do the polarized stuff on a mass-produced DVD and have it work properly. The screenwriter, Robert Valding, emailed me the next day to say that it looked better in anaglyphic, that the polarized showing was darker than it ought to have been, and some scenes went into 2-D that shouldn't have. I noticed the latter issue, but not the former; I am nonetheless glad I saw it in the polarized format.
Fist thing to note is that this is NOT the George Romero movie with enhancements. It's an unofficial remake, seeing as how the original is in the public domain and anyone can do anything they want with it (like that hideous version that had new footage inserted). The NOTLD name is this movie's biggest strength and greatest weakness -- from a marketing standpoint, it sells the film; but it suffers by comparison to both Romero's original and the 1990 remake by Tom Savini. It's more comedic than both -- most of the characters are potheads -- and has an actual evil villain (guess who...I mean, you don't put Sid Haig in your movie and have him play a sane, well-adjusted, morally upstanding type). Romero's social commentary is largely absent also -- Ben isn't a black guy this time around.
On the plus side of the additions, there's a naked sex scene featuring two completely irrelevant characters. It's awesome. And the nicest nod to the original is a text message on a cell phone that reads "coming 4 u barb."
But the reason to see the movie is the 3-D, bottom line. As a 2-D remake, it wouldn't pass muster. As an original flick with a different title (STONED DEAD, perhaps?), it would entertain on cable or video (it's way better than HOUSE OF THE DEAD II, also featuring Haig). As a 3-D zombie flick on the big screen, it offers you something new and fun. There's a spoileriffic 3-D bit at the end involving fire that is especially cool.
See this in a theater. It will lose at least 40% of the fun factor on DVD -- at home you may not appreciate, for example, just how important it is that all scene transitions are dissolves, dissolves in 3-D being particularly cool.
It's like seeing one of those 3-D movies at a theme park, except it's hard R, longer, and more fun. You won't wanna take it home, but you'll probably enjoy the ride while it lasts.
Posted by LYT at 2:53 PM | Comments (1)
I have two short reviews...
...on this page
Posted by LYT at 2:28 AM | Comments (1)
September 12, 2006
Attention Myspace members
http://www.myspace.com/battertonandjames
Add it!
Posted by LYT at 11:08 AM | Comments (1)
New BATTERTON & JAMES short online
First, in case you missed it, here's the first one again:
And now, the second:
Posted by LYT at 12:51 AM | Comments (8)
September 11, 2006
What's changed for you in 5 years?
On 9-11-01:
-I was assistant arts editor at a major L.A. news-weekly.
-I had had sex once in my life, and it hadn't been great.
-my hair was aquamarine-colored.
-my editor was named Suzanne Mantell
-I had recently gotten my first tattoo
-my only major online presence was via a geocities Internet adaptation fo my first 'zine.
-I had one brother, who had just turned 3.
-the only sushi I was familiar with was tuna tartare.
-I was in the midst of working on a cover story about Louis C.K. that ended up never running in any paper.
-I had no idea what a "blog" was.
-I was regularly invited to parties at the editor-in-chief's house, and at other venues around town where I would invariably recognize colleagues, one of whom is no longer with us.
-I had only recently been put on full-time salary.
-I had never appeared in a feature film.
-I had just seen a movie called THE GLASS HOUSE, and predicted it would do well. It might have if anyone had still been in the mood for such things.
Posted by LYT at 3:48 PM | Comments (4)
In case you didn't see it yet...
[Note: this post has been temporarily removed while the "Batterton & James" TV spot undergoes final tweaking]
Posted by LYT at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)
I'm in the New York Times, sort of
They quote something I wrote elsewhere that you've already seen. But hey, my name is in the NYT.
Posted by LYT at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)
Now it can be told
Back when I was pleading for extra work on this site (not that I've stopped, mind you) Amy Alkon and Emmanuelle Richard proposed to the American Cinema Foundation that they should hire me to direct the tribute video fpr the Cathy Seipp roast. I was of course interested, though not having a camera or editing software seemed to put me at a disadvantage. Fortunately for all, the ACF was not only interested, they also knew a guy with camera and editing equipment to team me with.
That guy, Mo Lenjavi, is a craftsman and a half. We had two weeks to put together a rough cut, and could pretty much only work weekends. We managed to line up as many Cathy acquaintances as we could on those days, and if anyone was overly tentative, we acted as though they weren't going to be involved. When some of the tentatives did come through, it was a nice surprise, and we worked with what they gave us, mainly by integrating bits of video footage throughout the show.
Since the show was outside, on TV screens full of glare, and the DVD player seemed to operate on a 20-second delay, the final viewing experience may not have been 100% optimum. However, every attendee who signed up can get a clearer, sharper copy, which will also feature some of the footage we didn't use -- extra hilarity from Matt Welch, David Ehrenstein, "Odysseus" (as performed by a wrestling figure), and more.
[note: in the comments thread below this one, ACF's Gary McVey made a special offer to readers of this website. Contact him if you want to see if it still stands.]
I doubt I'll have smoother film-making jobs than this, especially paid ones. No-one told me what to say or how to say it, and the only feedback we got at the rough-cut stage was that it looked great.
I take no credit for the Mickey Kaus video -- that was all him.
Steve Smith asked a while back which classic roast comedian I'd be emulating in my speech. Relatively speaking, I'd have to say I probably came the closest to Gilbert Gottfried, as I was almost certainly the most profane and the meanest.
You can maybe be the judge. I tend to speak off-book a bit in public, but the essential text of my speech follows after the jump...
Thanks Rob Long, or as the ladies call you, Rob Short. Y’know, because he’s not that tall. Rob Long, as we all know because Cathy’s told us 100 times, used to work on the TV show CHEERS, set in a bar where no-one ever gets drunk. I loved that show. I believed in that show. So it’s pretty much Rob’s fault that I’m an alcoholic. Thanks a bunch, Rob.But this evening is all about Cathy, and really, what can I say about her? Other than she’s the only blonde republican pundit I don’t wanna fuck. I’m just kidding, Cathy, I’d totally nail you, like right now...I’m just afraid I might catch cancer. Speaking of which, I hear Ann Coulter’s trying to get cancer, because she’s jealous of how thin you are.
I kid, but since we’re on the subject of sex, I once heard Cathy say she’d rather suck cock than smoke a cigar. Which proves that she actually does have one thing in common with David Ehrenstein.
alicublog recently speculated that Cathy invents liberal friends just for the sake of her column. What you may not know is that that’s absolutely true...I am a figment of your imagination. But really, some of these characters she talks about are so obviously made up. Like this one “friend” of hers, who’s apparently on the editorial staff at the LA Times, wears a pink vest, looks like Ben Affleck, and is married to a French woman? Yeah, nice try, Cathy, I really believe this so called “Matt Welch” exists.
I first met Cathy at the LA Press club, where she puts on several events per year, like that one “My Friend Rob Long is awesome”...that was a good panel...and that other one “Rob Long’s new book is really cool”...I was there...and who can forget “What Rob Long did last Tuesday.” We get it, Cathy...you’re friends with a guy who worked on a show that was popular some three decades ago.
I’m exaggerating, of course...Cathy’s honored a whole bunch of other right-wing nutcases over the years, but I never paid much attention because there was free food. Is everyone enjoying the free food here? The booze isn’t free, so I expect to declare bankruptcy by the evening’s end.
So who else have we got here? Andrew Breitbart...I once implied that he had made an off-color joke, and he responded by saying that he doesn’t have any jokes in his repertoire...I think his speech tonight proved that. We have Luke Ford, the one and only die-hard fan of both Dennis Prager and Air Supply, which proves that his aesthetic taste is every bit as suspect as his intellectual acumen. Ross Johnson’s still upset he didn’t get the role of The Thing in Fantastic Four...You know how they say “If these walls could talk”? Have a conversation with ross, and you’ll realize a wall CAN talk.
Roger L. Simon, is the man who created Moses Wine. I love Moses Wine -- two dollars at Trader Joe’s = awesome!
Amy Alkon...you know, one of these days, Amy Alkon is gonna figure something out. Every week, she writes about how she goes to Starbucks, and some kid there is being an asshole. Hey, I have an idea...Quit going to the Starbucks where the asshole kids hang out! Amy likes to say that there is no God...funnily enough, that’s what her boyfriend Greg said right after they first slept together. “There is no God!” Don’t be mad, Amy...I’d hate for you to have to take my picture with your cellphone!
Ray Richmond I haven’t known that long, but I already hate him. I remember he once wrote an article for New Times LA called “Who wants to be an idiot?” I don’t know the answer to that one, Ray; how’s it workin’ out for ya?
Jill Stewart...ya know, people like to complain about Jill Stewart being right-wing and intolerant, but in fact, she has a lot of sympathy and compassion for charity cases...just look at her boyfriend, Norm.
But back to Cathy...she used to sometimes make fun of my hair, when I’d dye it funky colors, because lord knows she’d never ever stand for a hideous dye job. Honestly, Cathy, your chemotherapy wig looked better than this bleach thing you have now.
Not that I’m superficial like that. I recognize that Cathy is an important part of the contemporary blogosphere. Cathy has often asked the question, “Why don’t the mainstream media employ more bloggers?” Well, Cathy, maybe it’s because nobody who reads the LA Times gives a flying fuck that some gay guy at the City Lights bookstore thinks Orianna Fallacci’s a fascist. Or that your daughter Maia’s applying for college and might want to major in Russian. Look, I think we all love Maia, but I can probably speak for everyone here when I say thank Christ there wasn’t a blogosphere 15 years ago, or we’d have read 5 posts a week about Maia’s bowel movements in her diapers...and how they somehow prove that Leftists aren’t very tolerant.
Who the hell is this Fallacci chick anyway? If I were to say I don’t like Muslims, would Cathy write the same column 18 times in a row about me? Of course she would.
And Cathy’s comments section...hoo boy. We’ve got David N. Scott, who thinks a stale aint-it-cool-news cliché is funny every single time; Mike K., a doctor who thinks AZT is still used to treat AIDS, and that secondhand smoke is good for you; Odysseus, a soldier in Iraq who assures us that everything’s going great! There and we’re winning!...But if we’re not, it’s only because of the media. And then there’s David Ehrenstein, who calmly and rationally lays out the liberal perspective without ever resorting to hyperbole...or random links to photographs of giant penises.
Actually, Cathy secretly likes those photos... she’s never seen any that size in real life.
But seriously, when I look around this room, and see all these kinds of freaks and degenerates -- including the one in the mirror -- it stands out to me as a testament to the kind of person Cathy really is. Because we’ve got total assholes from all over the spectrum in the house tonight, and we’re all here to honor someone who’s somehow managed to put up with all of us, and even be a good friend. She’s a crazy Republican nutjob, but goddamit, she’s OUR crazy Republican nutjob, and I salute her.
Posted by LYT at 9:22 AM | Comments (8)
September 9, 2006
Don't forget -- Cathy's World gets rocked tomorrow!
4pm, Hotel Figueroa, downtown near Olympic & Fig. Free admission, free food. You just gots to rsvp to theadvicegoddess(at)aol-dot-com.
Though I can't tell you the program specifics, I was VERY involved in the programming from a creative standpoint, and fans of any aspect of my artistic expression over the years will find much to enjoy, especially if they also know Cathy.
Plus every guest who wants one will be able to sign up at the event for a FREE DVD of the event plus bonus features, which again, I was heavily involved with.
But hell, y'all, it's a free thing to do with free food. Isn't that enough?
Posted by LYT at 10:18 PM | Comments (3)
Some brand new entertainments
I recently had the occasion to come into possession of some rather unusual shorts -- failed commercials of some kind made in very late 2001.
There are 10 in all, though I suspect there may be a possibility of finding more at some stage, and I will certainly be exploring that possibility.
It's time to roll out the first one -- I shall be posting one a week, as time and scheduling allows.
CLICK HERE for both RealMedia and Quicktime versions. (Quicktime is the highest quality and likely to be most compatible with most systems)
Or go HERE to rate the thing on iFilm. And tell your friends.
Posted by LYT at 4:38 PM | Comments (3)
September 8, 2006
Some review stuff
I wrote a review for LAist today. Didn't make me any money, but I got to be totally free-form and unedited and weird in it, so that was cool. Here's a taste:
"Writer-director Andrew Bujalski, possibly needless to say, isn’t comparable to either -- his humor isn’t deadpan dry enough to be like Jarmusch, or surrealist enough to be C.K. His characters have conversations about things like iron deficiencies or good David Bowie versus bad David Bowie, and argue mildly about how to make cookies, but there aren’t any funny lines as such. Maybe you’re supposed to be all, “Hey, this situation seems uncomfortably familiar to one I recently experienced! Boy, the parallels sure are amusing!”"
and here's the full link.
Also my E! Online stuff is up for the week. Check out quick takes for Broken Bridges and The Protector.
Posted by LYT at 8:52 AM | Comments (0)
September 7, 2006
Lost review: DEAD MAN'S SHOES
Sometime I write stuff that never runs, for one reason or another. A one-paragraph synopsis of the following review ran in the Village Voice, but the movie never expanded to wider markets, and came out on DVD this week.
Crabby Paddy
Considine goes on a swift killing spree in Dead Man’s Shoes.
Can we please declare a moratorium on movies that open with fake home-movie footage designed to show us that the main character, in happier times, was once a cute li’l kid? It wasn’t exactly the most innovative thing ever when The Wonder Years was on, and it’s a sign of dramatic weakness -- if your lead isn’t a good enough actor to convey the whole “lost innocence” bit, no amount of faded film stock in which a small toddler prances about a kiddie pool is going to help. P.S. nobody has shot home movies on Super-8 in many, many years.
Paddy Considine is a good enough actor, and the one thing that Dead Man’s Shoes has going for it. Director Shane Meadows gave Considine his first big break with A Room for Romeo Brass, and the actor repays the favor on a regular basis; in this instance, he even cowrote the screenplay. Not that much writing is evident; one imagines the script to be full of sentences that read “Characters walk across the screen as sad music plays.” At heart, it’s a revenge movie, but in trying to be one of those serious revenge films that question violence while indulging in it, it manages to keep virtually all the characters unsympathetic and uninteresting. You don’t feel for the guy who wants revenge, nor do you care about the pathetic losers he makes into his bitches.
Considine is the aggrieved party, an ex-soldier named Richard who comes home to a small town in England to see his retarded brother Anthony (Steve-O lookalike Toby Kebbell). Anthony had been hanging out with the local gang of drug-dealing thugs, and in his attempts to fit in been cruelly abused, though he seems to take it all with a smile. Richard, however, is out for blood, and after breaking into various gang members’ houses and pulling pranks, he tells the ringleader Sonny (Gary Stretch) that he will kill them all, and they can even try to come and get him first if they’d like. Fortunately for Richard, Sonny’s gang are the stupidest hoods in the world.
So check this out: Richard tells Sonny he’s staying in the local abandoned farmhouse. Sonny shows up with all of his gang, and sends one of them out of the car to negotiate with Richard, who shows up wielding an ax. Sonny, still in the car, aims a sniper rifle at Richard, but accidentally shoots his friend in the head. Then, instead of ganging up on Richard four on one, or hell, running him over with the car, they flee screaming. And we’re supposed to feel any tension whatsoever about the fact that their demises are most likely imminent? Instead, you just wonder how they ever managed to get the better of a retarded kid.
As the story progresses, black and white flashbacks reveal the extent of the tortures inflicted on Anthony, leading to a “twist” that’s as much a cliché as the home movie footage, and one you’ll see coming if you’ve watched any “twist ending” films in the past six years. It makes Richard’s quest seem a bit more justified, but too late. Meadows’ idea of a character arc is to have Richard suddenly say and do seemingly out-of-character things at the last minute; Considine does his best to make these swings believable, but the key scene may still make you go “huh?”
Dead Man’s Shoes is 86 minutes long, but it feels padded and overlong even at that. With no-one especially appealing in the story, you might hope at least for some creative kills (the press notes promise “increasingly elaborate” death scenes) but nope. The kills are all remarkably easy and quick, so the story is padded out with music and flashback montages. Meadows based the movie on a true story about a young man from his hometown who died, and the bad guys are thinly disguised representations of real bullies he knew. Presumably, then, he gets some sort of catharsis out of watching them get their just desserts in a fictional form. It’s too bad he’s unable to impart any of that vicarious thrill to the audience.
Directed by Shane Meadows. Screenplay by Paddy Considine and Meadows, with additional writing by Paul Fraser. Starring Paddy Considine, Toby Kebbell, and Gary Stretch. Not Rated.
Posted by LYT at 6:03 PM | Comments (5)
Answer the question!
Well, whowouldwin?
[photos courtsey of Raphaelle Ayach]
Posted by LYT at 1:58 AM | Comments (6)
Fellow film critics (and guests), I'll say this again
Control your fucking cough or leave the screening room!
No specific fingers pointed here, because I don't know who the culpable parties were. But there were more than one of you tonight.
And it's particularly inexcusable in a screening room that serves free hard candy you can suck on.
Posted by LYT at 1:12 AM | Comments (7)
September 5, 2006
POPERRATIC'S "VAGUS" CD TO FINALLY DEBUT OCT. 31
You may know her as ATE 13, soundtrack artist for MAY. You may be more familiar with Poperratic, from MASTERS OF HORROR. Or you just know Jaye Barnes Luckett, the human being.
If you've heard her play music, though, you know an album's long overdue.
And finally, it is set. Get in on the preorders now for a special deal.
Posted by LYT at 11:20 PM | Comments (1)
Almost longer than the review itself
Fishbowl LA interviewed me about IDIOCRACY. I offered some wild speculation.
Posted by LYT at 9:10 PM | Comments (5)
Here's my brief review of Idiocracy
right HERE
(E Online doesn't allow excerpts to be reprinted elsewhere)
I should have some good stuff to show soon. In the meantime, do I have any friends who either (a) still use PCs rather than Macs; or (b) use a Mac but have Windows RealPlayer downloaded on it? Drop me a line and you might get a sneak preview.
Posted by LYT at 1:21 PM | Comments (15)
September 3, 2006
THE WOODS to be bare-bones DVD after all?
In case you missed it further down the board, Simon Caleb writes in from the UK:
Hi all,I've now been informed by a suit at Sony UK that all dvd releases world-wide will be extra-less.
What a downer!Here's hoping somewhere down the line Lucky get a chance to revisit this film and compile a loaded SE, not to mention a better edited final reel!
Since Lucky hasn't had any involvement in any DVD extras for this (as of the last time I talked to him), I tend to think this is true. Though I wonder where the rumors of very specific extras came from.
Posted by LYT at 11:59 AM | Comments (4)
September 2, 2006
the Cathy Seipp roast Sept. 10 - some perspective
I know that I share some readers in common with Cathy. As best I can tell, Cathy's blog refers more readers to this site than any other. And I also know that many of you here who don't know her personally probably disagree strongly with some of her political stances, as she would with mine.
However...I hope that when it comes to the possibility of attending the roast on Sept. 10, which is free and will have free food, ideology is not a huge factor in influencing your decision. Considerably more than half of Cathy's friends are politically centrist-to-liberal. And the odds of the craziest right-wing pundits like Horowitz or Coulter attending are pretty low, really.
The American Cinema Foundation, which is sponsoring this event, is self-described as "center-right." But believe me, if I had a major issue with them, I would not have worked with them as closely as I have. Their goal is to increase the dialogue between conservatives and Hollywood, not to censor or silence any left-wingers. Increasing the dialogue is always a good thing, in my book, whether in the Middle East or in Hollywood. Cathy has never screened friends or fans on the basis of ideology.
So don't be afraid of the big bad wolf. I know a few of Cathy's regular commenters in person, and without exception, they are less intimidating and/or insane when you meet them than one might assume.
Except that David N. Scott character. He's a psycho.
[Sept. 10, 4 p.m., The Hotel Figueroa, downtown. LYT as featured speaker. Admission free. RSVPs essential to theadvicegoddess(at)aol(dot)com]
Posted by LYT at 7:10 PM | Comments (4)
Freudian Slip...
So, to the homosexual activists in our midst, we say, "What's your beef? You already have the right to due process before we kill you, take your property or put you into prison."
I'm not sure the folks at Movieguide meant it to come out quite that way...
[I've saved a screen capture of it just in case they try to tone it down later]
Posted by LYT at 6:51 PM | Comments (2)
Creative Laboring
I may be broke, but this looks like a fun weekend nonetheless.
Last night I went to the Julia Carpenter exhibition that I plugged here on the site a few days ago. I admired the art, took some photos (still to come), drank all her beer, complained that there was no more beer, turned to red wine in desperation, and bought some CDs (it was in a record store). On the way back I ate at Burrito King, which I had been told almost two decades ago, the first time I ever visited L.A., was a must-eat. So after all this time, I got to enjoy a tongue burrito that was served with incredible speed.
This morning, I had a sort of impromptu "test screening" of the short film I've been directing for money, and it went as well as could possibly be expected -- everyone, but most importantly the people paying me, loved what my editor/cameraman and I came up with. Some complained it was too SHORT! It looks like we might find a way to re-use some of the footage that didn't make it in, though. Better too short than too long.
And tomorrow, the shorts idea that prompted me to get a haircut may begin to take some real shape. We'll see, but I'm never more fulfilled than when I'm doing this kind of stuff.
If only more people would pay for it...
Posted by LYT at 6:30 PM | Comments (1)
Eight is Enough
Happy birthday, bro.
Posted by LYT at 12:10 AM | Comments (3)
September 1, 2006
and more...
The Weekly has posted by very quick (and appropriately so) CRANK review
Posted by LYT at 4:19 PM | Comments (2)
Ohmigod! Reviews!
I actually drove out to Anaheim to find the only theater that was still showing HEADING SOUTH:
"Granted, this may seem like a jarringly odd comparison, but like the recent dud Phat Girlz, Heading South deals with the hot-button issue of middle-aged women discovering their sexuality anew thanks to the efforts of muscular black men with exotic accents whose standards of female beauty are more flexible than those of your average American dude. It's as if How Stella Got Her Groove Back suddenly resurfaced on DVD, and a couple of enterprising producers only just remembered it was a hit, and might be able to withstand a little cloning. It can't."
read the rest
and here are some quick takes...
and
LASSIE (you know you're curious)
There's a good chance a quick-take on CRANK may be posted by the end of the day (no press screenings, so hooray, a 10 a.m. showing for me!)
Posted by LYT at 12:51 AM | Comments (2)