« September 2006 | Main | November 2006 »
October 31, 2006
C Deez treats
Two of the most significant CDs in the history of all music came out today.
First, the nearly decade-in-the-making debut album from POPERRATIC. Not sure where you can buy the hard copy -- some do exist, I'm told -- but itunes has the download.
(UPDATE: Here's a list of all the stores in and near L.A. that are supposed to have it)
Also Britney Spears' husband, whassisname, the luckiest dude alive...his disc's out now too. Want something scary? He's performing at the West Hollywood Halloween parade tonight.
I'd go, but I'm tired and still have things to write. Sad how Halloween ought to be my favorite holiday (not that it actually is a holiday), but it takes resources to celebrate properly and neither I nor any of my friends seem to have such things.
So I usually end up working.
Posted by LYT at 8:16 PM | Comments (10)
Doctor and severed limb
I introduce my Vermont-ian uncle Tim and aunt Merle to the joys of severed cephalopod tentacles at an excellent Huntington Beach sushi bar.
The tentacle is real, but we didn't eat it -- the sushi chef just thought it'd be cool to have it in the photo.
Posted by LYT at 7:59 PM | Comments (1)
Reminder - upcoming LYT DVDs
A week from today, Nov. 7, you can buy BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING, the full-length stop-motion animated feature directed by Christiane Cegavske, and featuring a commentary track on which I interview her.
December 5th is MAD COWGIRL day! NO commentary track on this one, but it will feature an hour's worth of deleted scenes, featuring LYT characters that didn't make the final cut, among other things. Plus some vinatge kung-fu movie trailers that have never appeared on any disc before.
It will also feature a bonus segment with Jasper Boring, who was apparently hired as a production accountant following his departure from Batterton & James.
Buy them as Christmas gifts!
Posted by LYT at 2:47 PM | Comments (0)
No ass clowns here
Though I was in Fozzy's "Enemy" music video, I was never on set when Chris Jericho was. However, we were at the same party a week and a half ago...may have been a party foul to ask for a picture, but since I didn't make any money from the shoot, I had to at least get this.
Posted by LYT at 2:11 PM | Comments (6)
October 29, 2006
Horror movies revisited: SAW, DRACULA
Just bought the director's cut DVD of the first SAW at Best Buy for $7. It's not in the limited edition case that had red fluid trapped inside, but the discs are the same.
Interestingly, I think I enjoyed it more this time, even though the plot ostensibly hinges on a mystery that has long since been revealed -- the identity of the mysterious Jigsaw Killer. Though the sequels focus on John Kramer (Tobin Bell), most of the first film steers you towards thinking it's a creepy hospital orderly named Zep. And the coolest thing in retrospect is that Zep is played by Michael Emerson, currently playing lead villain "Ben/Henry Gale" on LOST. He wasn't on Lost at the time, of course, but now, anyone familiar with his work there will instantly pick up on his creep factor.
And now that Bell and Emerson are both familiar to us, it's easy to tell by looking at a small detail like an eye or a lower jaw -- or just hearing the voice -- when the robed figure onscreen is Kramer and when it's Zep. That both are so distinct to us now (but not then) is a testament to the casting director. But what about Cary Elwes, you may ask, whose acting was so bad? On second viewing, I didn't find it as bad. He overdoes it sometimes, and admits as much on the commentary track, but I can believe the character might lay it on a bit thick as well. Danny Glover isn't at his best, but he's okay.
The SAW trilogy wasn't planned as such, so there are some inconsistencies, though remarkably few plot holes in all. Jigsaw actually tells lies in this one, whereas in the sequels he always tells the truth, just in a roundabout way where no-one will believe him. And "I want to play a game" isn't such an obvious catchphrase yet.
The final reveal of Kramer felt like a ridiculous cheat the first time around, but in light of the trilogy as a whole, including scenes in SAW III that refer back to the events of part one, it fits better; the only issue with it now is that Jigsaw blatantly lies about the nature of the "dead body" that's actually him, rather than being elliptical -- presumably, his blood isn't actually dosed with a poison that would kill you if inhaled via a cigarette. Charlie Clouser's score is perfect, and was never better than in part one, though it's remained consistently good.
So thumbs up for Saw -- the three movies so far are perhaps the best initial threesome of any slasher franchise. It would seem obvious to make a slasher series inspired by SEVEN, but no-one actually did until SAW. Four is unlikely to be as good, since it'll either be a prequel or a totally new story.
_________________
Now, on the other hand, we have BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, which I just revisited for the first time since seeing it in the theater.
Dear God. You people think VAN HELSING is cheesy? Consider that VAN HELSING was originally conceived as a sequel to the Coppola Dracula.
I remember at the time being glad that Coppola's movie followed the Stoker storyline more than most adaptations, and bothered only by Keanu Reeves' "English" accent and Winona Ryder's half-hearted sexuality.
Watching it now, I think they're of a piece with everything else. How did anyone ever take this movie seriously? It's high camp, like drag-queen level camp, from the huge eyes superimposed over the Martian landscape of Transylvania, to old Dracula's butt-shaped hair, young Dracula's Lennon shades, many ridiculous wigs, no expalnation whatsoever about how renouncing God makes you into a shape-shifting vampire, Richard E. Grant and Tom Waits cavorting around an asylum where people wear cages on their heads, wolf-fucking, and Dracula's shadow which moves around independently like something out of Looney Tunes.
And you want to complain about Keanu's accent?
Let's be real: this isn't Bram Stoker's Dracula. Stoker never had his Dracula tied to the real Vlad the Impaler, nor did he have any kind of reincarnation thing going on with Mina Harker. Coppola used all of Stoker's characters, but in many ways the Jack Palance TV version is truer to the source, as is the Lugosi classic. This is more like "Vince McMahon's Dracula." Realistically, yes, John Cena and Trish Stratus could deliver performances every bit as convincing as those of Keanu and Winona here (or perhaps King Booker, whose funny faux-English accent these days actually beats Keanu's). With Kevin Thorn or Gangrel as Count Dracula.
It's a technically complex achievement, but tonally it really is the BATMAN AND ROBIN of Dracula movies; a bloated, over-the-top, West Hollywood Parade version of a story intended to be darker and more restrained, starring celebrities run amuck in performances no-one bothered to restrain or direct.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you, if that's what you're looking for. But it's no more Stoker's Dracula than rubber nipples are Bob Kane's Batman.
Posted by LYT at 5:15 PM | Comments (4)
October 28, 2006
The penultimate Batterton & James short
For those of you who don't like big words, that means next week's version will be the last one.
Posted by LYT at 8:12 PM | Comments (4)
October 27, 2006
Wring my Bell
God damn, I love the Saw movies. SAW II was one of those rare movies that I actually attended twice before it opened. I need to revisit part one again, and soon, though it suffers from a relative lack of Tobin Bell. For my money, Jigsaw is the best slasher villain since Freddy Krueger, and it's not incidental to their places in my heart that both characters have been portrayed by skilled actors who were relatively unknown prior.
Lionsgate had no problem showing me the first two. Why, then, were there no screenings of this one? Arguably to preserve some of the plot secrets, but it's not like part two didn't have its share of surprises.
But I'll say this -- the folks behind the franchise have very successfully managed to put out some credible disinformation online this time around, and if you're a reviewer who's not even aware of the nature of it, you could easily spoil that particular aspect, though doing so wouldn't ruin the movie, as it's not even the key thing.
The bottom line is that whether Lionsgate feared bad reviews or not, this is most definitely NOT a substandard entry in the series. It follows the SCREAM 3 rules for a trilogy, introducing new backstory, looking at the first two stories in different ways, and even bringing a nice sense of closure to the whole thing, rather than ending with a blatant hook for a sequel, as the first two did.
Once more, the movie follows two storylines -- one involving John "Jigsaw" Kramer (Tobin Bell, again fantastic), literally on his deathbed at this point, and the other involving victims caught in a maze. The principal victim here is Jeff (Angus Macfadyen, looking like Russell Crowe crossed with Luke Ford), a would-be vigilante whose son was killed by a drunk driver and now, courtesy of Jigsaw, is presented with the chance to get revenge on those he deems responsible, but at a heavy and painful cost to himself.
Meanwhile, Jigsaw's new protegee Amanda (Shawnee Smith, way hotter than in the last two) has kidnapped a doctor named Lynn (Bahar Soomekh) to keep John alive until Jeff has finished all of his tests. Lynn has an iron necklace of guns locked onto her neck and rigged by remote to John's EKG -- if his heartbeat stops, the device blows her head off.
Savvy viewers will expect that all is not as it seems. Part of what makes Kramer such a great character is that he always tells the truth, albeit elliptically, but his victims are always so enraged at him that they don't heed or believe him. He's also in such physical pain already that there's no point in threatening him -- death would be a blessing.
I'm not going to spoil any of the kills or other acts of violence, except to say that some of it even made ME wince -- Jeff's trials take place in a meat-packing plant, so let your imagination run wild, and it still won't likely get as wild as director Darren Lynn Bousman and Leigh Whannell's gory flights of fancy. My only disappointment is that the one device Jigsaw calls his favorite only shows its effects in jerky close-ups, and a nice big master shot of it in action would have been tasty.
Dina Meyer's back, too, though they cop out a bit by giving her a bathtub scene where the water's all cloudy so you can't see anything. That said, later in the movie you get a nude scene you won't soon forget, but not from Meyer.
The song over the end credits is a bit lackluster, though it eventually fades into death metal. Shoulda reversed the two tunes. That aside, I loved this movie.
And since it's in theaters today, I'm going to place a big honking spoiler warning on the comments for this post. Want to know details? Want to discuss details? Do so. But if you haven't seen it yet and you want to go in cold, don't read the comments.
Posted by LYT at 1:51 PM | Comments (13)
My brief take on Babel
I didn't much care for it
Posted by LYT at 12:43 AM | Comments (9)
There's a lot of competition, but...
Bill O'Reilly may have just uttered his dumbest line ever.
"Isn't it interesting that Iraq now -- this Muslim country that 10 years ago nobody even heard of, all right, is now impacting on how we live in America."
Was Bill in a coma in 1991?
Link in the Media Matters infobox on the right-hand side of this page.
Posted by LYT at 12:32 AM | Comments (1)
October 26, 2006
"Yeahhhhh....Rrrrright...Scissor hands, uh-huh, uh-huh"
Scott Timberg spends the day with Tim Burton.
Posted by LYT at 4:57 PM | Comments (0)
Short review fest
My reviews for CRUEL WORLD and ROMEO AND JULIET: SEALED WITH A KISS can be found on this page
Then there's also
and
Posted by LYT at 3:20 AM | Comments (2)
October 23, 2006
It's not every day...
...that you go to work and find yourself in line behind the star of your least favorite commercial on TV.
I'm talking about the Carl's Jr. one.
"You want pastrami? The burger? You want pastrami?" That old chick. She was in front of me on the way in to Raleigh studios, apparently en route to shoot an appearance on "Ugly Betty," that Tv show where they think putting a decent looking girl in glasses and braces makes her ugly somehow.
Carl's Jr really have had fucking annoying ads for a long time now. THough I also hate that ad with Nick Lachey where he doesn't get as many chicks as the guy wearing the name-brand deodorant. Since I don't remembver the brand, the ad obviously didn't work too well even though I see it all the time.
Posted by LYT at 11:40 PM | Comments (21)
Those Damn Liberals...
...always trying to comapre Iraq to Vietnam, when everyone knows there's no...
oh, wait...
the President says there IS a similarity!
Posted by LYT at 1:11 AM | Comments (1)
October 21, 2006
New Batterton & James
Matt may have a big incision in his stomach, but he somehow mustered the strength to get this one out on schedule.
Posted by LYT at 5:12 PM | Comments (4)
October 20, 2006
Lamest apology ever
No hard feelings, right?
Posted by LYT at 10:57 AM | Comments (6)
Positive thinking
Webmaster Matt's scheduled for surgery today.
Wish him the best.
Posted by LYT at 1:44 AM | Comments (4)
Don't think so
Some Oscar prognosticators seem to think this will be the movie to beat.
I just do not see it. I know every baby boomer I've ever met has a major hard-on for Motown, but I see nothing about this movie that encourages the casual viewer except for some big-name actors. A fake Diana Ross musical bio? Why not do the real thing?
I have a hard time seeing ANY leading Oscar contender this year, which is why it might just be Scorsese's time to shine.
UNITED 93 should be the leading movie, but I don't think enough people saw it.
Posted by LYT at 12:04 AM | Comments (5)
October 19, 2006
Pretty much the ultimate Star Wars toy
When I was a kid, the coolest toy to have was the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. But as awesome as it was, it had one major frustration -- the interiors weren't like the movie. Re-enactments of The Empire Strikes Back didn't quite work if only two figures could fit in the cockpit, and there was no passage from cockpit to passenger area.
All these years later, there is finally a Falcon playset that's to scale. The problem?
It's 100% diecast metal and costs $3,000. If you're smart with your money, you'll never own it.
But take a look, and imagine what the children of CEOs and celebrities will be begging for this Christmas.
Note that the figures in the photos are all diecast too, and run about $160 apiece -- but they are the same scale as regular Star wars figures.
Posted by LYT at 5:56 PM | Comments (5)
Review quick takes
and
DOA: Dead or Alive (Reader note: DOA just got pushed back to a December date)
Posted by LYT at 1:27 AM | Comments (6)
October 18, 2006
The messages you get on Myspace
Just received this one as a "new event invitation":
Johnny Cash has just released some FRESH NEW RINGTONES we are offering to our mySpace friends.All of the ringtones are compliments of Johnny Cash to say thanks for being a mySpace friend! So get on over there and get your phone buzzing with the sounds of the your fav tunes.
Even putting aside the fact that Johnny Cash is dead, the notion that he would want to thank me for being a friend by jazzing up my hypothetical cell phone strikes me as hilariously incongruous.
Posted by LYT at 2:41 PM | Comments (3)
October 17, 2006
The shirt off David Arquette's back
Last Thursday night was the unofficial opening of Screamfest 2006, with a documentary called GOING TO PIECES about the history of slasher movies. It's fun, though constrained by certain licensing fees to leave out some key aspects of genre history, like for instance the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre (too costly -- but the sequels were available).
The after-party was at the Hollywood Wax Museum, which I've never paid to enter and am glad I haven't. RealScan technologies and the like have made waxworks less special than they used to be -- if I can buy an exact replica of Tim Curry from LEGEND at Sideshow Toys' site, a wax bust of him that wasn't laser-scanned isn't as impressive. Most of the facial likenesses at the museum are quite good, but some of the bodies look like papier mache -- the Rock is there in Scorpion King garb, and his body has no muscle definition at all. Their Darth Vader looks like a cheap Halloween costume.
On the other hand, their deluxe Jesus diorama is impressive -- the Last Supper in the forefront, and the crucifixion scene behind a veil that can only be seen when the lighting is right.
Many of the characters are iconic -- Stallone, Schwarzenegger, the Duke, Chuck Norris...then there are others that just seem weirdly dated, like a Crimson Tide diorama, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A Batman movie display mixes and matches, with -- of all the choices to have -- George Clooney's Batman beside Jim Carrey's Riddler, Danny DeVito's Penguin, and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. Russell Crowe's Master and Commander character shares a ship with Captain Jack Sparrow and Orlando Legolas, while Tom Hanks hangs out on the beach with his volleyball.
Newest charcters: Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx in Miam Vice outfits. Yeah, like people will remember that movie as anything more than a weird TV show trivia footnote.
But walking around with martinis in hand was cool. And all the bartenders had Jason masks.
Next night was the official opening, with the world premiere of David Arquette's THE TRIPPER. David's such a nice guy that I feel kinda bad that I've given him some lousy reviews in the past, but, well, I'm sure Courteney Cox can console him real nice. I did like David being serious in The Grey Zone, but I'm not a big fan of his comedy acting.
As a director he has some potential. The premise of THE TRIPPER is that some dumb hippie kids to a big concert up in the woods that features Fishbone but attracts a cropwd you'd associate more with Dave Matthews. Little does anyone know that a maniac who's a big Ronald Reagan fan is stalking the stoners with an ax.
Now, here's something I found a little odd in the presentation. I actually spoke to David Arquette on the phone before seeing the movie, as he wanted to ensure that the killer's appearance (as well as identity) remained a secret. I wanted to run a photo of the killer in the Weekly, but he said they're never gonna use any images that give that away. I disagreed with that theory, but agreed not to describe the killer.
I'll just say this: the killer's obsessed with Reagan. What do you THINK he looks like? If it were me, I'd be selling the hell out of the way he looks. The attempt to keep it mysterious for a while doesn't help the film, as it requires the guy's first few killings to be handled in shadow and quick cuts.
It also doesn't really matter what his identity is. There's exactly one legit red herring, and it's so obviously supposed to throw you off track that it won't.
The cast features several notable names, including Jason Mewes and Jaime King among the teens terrorized, Tom Jane in a funny deadpan role as the macho local sheriff, and Paul Reubens as a foul-mouthed concert promoter. Jane and Reubens in particular do wonders with their roles.
The script also has some political subtext, including some rather hilarious Bush-bashing. Arquette appears as a dumb redneck, but his sympathies are clearly liberal...but are hippies really the best embodiment of the left, if you want audience identification?
A good slasher movie should make you either identify with the kids trying to escape, or root for the killer and his inventive methods. THE TRIPPER hedges too much on this score, in part because of trying to hide the killer, who doesn't start busting out Reagan-esque quips until late in the flick. He should be doing that from the getgo. I hope Arquette gives this another pass in the editing room, because there are slow spots that could be ironed out. I like the main concept, some of the performances, and the way gratuitous nudity male and female is used for laughs. But it's an uneven thing.
David Arquette was in attendance, in a white suit covered in bloodstains. He had some gift items to hand out to people who had tickets hidden under their seats, but no-one actually bothered to look for the tickets, so after the movie he just started handing stuff out. I was on my way out of the theater, when I hear him go, "Here you go, big man. You need this," and he hands me a sweatshirt.
It's blue, and has the word "Reagan" written on it in sew-on letters like a collegiate shirt.
I'll have to wear it to Cathy Seipp's house sometime.
Posted by LYT at 12:05 AM | Comments (2)
October 15, 2006
New Batterton & James
Posted by LYT at 4:55 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2006
THE LOST - tonight - Hollywood
This is probably the last chance for Angelenoes to see it again until mid-2007
9:30 p.m. Mann's Chinese 6-plex, Hollywood & Highland. Director Chris Sivertson and star Marc Senter in attendance, and possibly more.
It's entirely possible tickets will sell out, so be on time!
Posted by LYT at 3:09 PM | Comments (1)
You know my opinion matters on this one...
How's WWE champion John Cena in the new movie THE MARINE? I tell all at E! Online.
Posted by LYT at 1:14 AM | Comments (5)
October 13, 2006
Fulfilling a goal in an odd, backwards way.
Check out this press release from TNA wrestling:
FOZZY TO APPEAR ON "iMPACT!" BEFORE "BOUND FOR GLORY"See the national television debut of "Enemy" from Fozzy
On Thursday, October 19, on TNA "iMPACT!" on SpikeTV at 11pm ET, Chris Jericho and his band Fozzy will be featured in a music video for the song "Enemy" from their "All That Remains" album.
The national television debut of the video will feature Jericho and Fozzy along with the stars of TNA Wrestling just days before the "Bound For Glory" Pay-Per-View extravaganza on Sunday, October 22 live from Detroit , Michigan .
TNA Wrestling directors David Sahadi and Kevin Sullivan, who have worked with Jericho in the past, will be producing the music video for the "iMPACT!" broadcast.
"This is simply awesome," Sahadi told TNAwrestling.com "I have always had tremendous admiration for Chris Jericho as a professional and as a person. He's one of the coolest guys I know."
Remember who appears in the "Enemy" video? That's right. ME.
So the end result is that I will be appearing on a nationally televised wrestling show. Always wanted to do that.
Posted by LYT at 1:21 PM | Comments (1)
October 12, 2006
The Bad Movie
I started writing about the bad movie earlier, then a flick of my wrist accidentally hit the wrong key and it all got erased. That pissed me off for a while. Now I’m back.
With at least two movies opening this week that didn’t even screen -- THE GRUDGE 2 and THE MARINE -- how is it that I actually saw a movie so utterly disastrous?
Well, nobody expects an action movie from WWE films to be super-great (not after SEE NO EVIL, anyhow), and surely nobody who saw the Japanese JU-ON THE GRUDGE 2 is expecting much from the remake either.
But MAN OF THE YEAR is directed by Barry Levinson, and stars Robin Williams, Laura Linney, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and Lewis Black. It even has a decent enough premise -- what if someone like Jon Stewart or Bill Maher ran for president? (watch Chris Rock’s HEAD OF STATE instead)
To start with, the jokes Williams uses are so old they’d get any comedy show hosted by his character cancelled. Hey, remember the one about how George Washington and Barbara Bush look alike? It’s in there. How about the one about NASA spending millions of dollars on a pen that writes upside down in space, while the Russians used a pencil instead? Yep, and it’s far less funny told by Williams in a fake Russian accent.
But then, after Williams’ Tom Dobbs decides to run for president (and why he suddenly decides to do so is never clear), he makes a choice not to be funny on the campaign trail. Hmm, why did we come see this movie, again? Then his manager (Walken) finally persuades him to be funny again, and he goes up in the polls. He gets in the debates and ignores all the rules, a situation that in real life would have security haul his ass out.
Oh, and then he wins the election. Don’t worry, that’s not a big spoiler, because then the movie gets into its real plot, which isn’t comedic at all -- the reason Dobbs wins is because the company that owns all the voting machines didn’t fix a major error. But the only person who knows this is Laura Linney, who works for Diebold, er, I mean Delacroy. The rest of the story is kind of a half-assed ‘70s political thriller wanna be, with shadowy goons from Delacroy hunting down Linney to stop her telling the truth. But she knows if she can just get to the new president, he’ll believe her. Only she’s starting to fall for him and doesn’t want to be the one who brings him down.
No doubt someone thought the Diebold machine issue would be timely, but here’s the problem: The real-life fear about Diebold machines is they don’t leave a paper trail, and the CEO made comments about delivering Ohio to Bush. In the movie, there is no political agenda at all; the company just doesn’t want anyone to know there’s a glitch, because it might hurt their stock. So they inject Linney full of drugs, and later try to murder her over that. Nefarious means, but not in the service of an especially evil scheme.
Also the movie’s being marketed as a comedy, and it isn’t funny. But if it in fact is supposed to be a thriller, it isn’t very thrilling either. If the point of the movie were that Dobbs is perceived as funny despite his hoary material and crappy delivery, and no corporate interests care that an anti-corporate candidate wins but they do worry that a computer error will come to light, even though it’s an error that can be fixed...Do you care?
Oh, and there’s a subplot about Walken’s character being a smoker, which means that he ends up in the hospital at a certain point, and eventually is in a wheelchair. This has no effect on the plot whatsoever; it’s just there. Walken narrates the film, in an awkward post-production style that makes it clear the beginning of the film wasn’t playing well to test audiences, but he’s narrating to a shadowy figure in an opposite chair whose face you never see. I was thinking the final gag would be the reveal of whom that person is -- maybe Jon Stewart or Bill Maher, saying, “I can do better!”
But no - it’s never revealed who the person is. So why even stage those scenes? Why not just have Walken narrate the existing scenes?
The real ultimate joke of the movie, one that’s at the audience’s expense, is that it actually ends up endorsing the two-party system and condemning its own premise. So the one interesting idea in the whole thing is finally shot down.
So to recap: Not funny, not timely, not thrilling, and no courage of its own convictions. An embarrassment for all concerned.
It’s still not the worst movie of the year, though -- BATTLE IN HEAVEN has that award sewn up as far as I’m concerned.
Posted by LYT at 4:17 PM | Comments (4)
A few Voice/Weekly things by me...
Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker
Posted by LYT at 12:22 AM | Comments (4)
October 11, 2006
Buy a MAD COWGIRL poster!
It's the only movie poster that has my name on it. I'm gonna get some soon.
Posted by LYT at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
The King Is Alive
Roger Ebert just chimed in to let us know he's alive and well.
Posted by LYT at 10:40 PM | Comments (3)
It'll be late for Halloween but...interesting
Heard about this Horror Movie Festival that's gonna be in theaters nationwide for one weekend in November?
Looks interesting, but it'll force fans to try and cram eight movies in a weekend, which is hard even for me.
Warning -- the trailer at the link features gratuitous use of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre "developing snapshot" sound effect. You'll never want to hear it again.
Posted by LYT at 7:36 PM | Comments (2)
Time and Tideland
Terry Gilliam’s latest movie arrives with much word of mouth preceding it, most of it bad. It also arrives in the wake of THE BROTHERS GRIMM, his least interesting movie to date, and the failure of DON QUIXOTE. Cinephiles used to automatically take Gilliam’s side when he complained about creative interference from studios, but these days, even when doing an indie, he seems to go ridiculously over budget and run into trouble. It’s fair to ask if maybe he should start to shoulder a wee bit of the blame for his own difficulties. Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean made MIRRORMASK for $4 million -- why can’t Gilliam do likewise?
But TIDELAND seems to have been exactly what he wants, though perhaps not what the audience wants. It has a lot of his familiar themes -- a child’s imaginary world, crazy characters who live on the peripherary of life in odd, storybook settings, a mixture of English and American sensibility. In some ways, it’s darker than he’s gone before, dealing explicitly with themes of necrophilia and pedophilia. It’s beautifully shot by Nicola Pecorini.
And it’s a little bit boring. As a work of art I endorse it and recommend seeing it -- it takes chances like few movies this year have. As entertainment, not so much. I’m still mulling over exactly why I never felt any vested emotional interest in the thing. There was a specific point near the end where I thought to myself, “This ought to be really moving.” Yet I wasn’t really moved.
The story begins as what could almost be THE FRANCES BEAN COBAIN STORY. Young 9-year-old Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) is the daughter of a shaggy, heroin-addicted rock star (Jeff Bridges) and his bleach-blonde, over-lipsticked junkie slut hag of a wife (Jennifer Tilly). Jeliza-Rose helps cook up their drugs for them. But then mom dies, and Dad decides they’re gonna head out to Jutland, Denmark, managing to make it as far as his boyhood house in the middle of a vast field. Dad proceeds to slowly die, while Jeliza-Rose explores the surroundings, using her imagination to make it come to life, and encountering scary neighbor lady Dell (Janet McTeer) and her retarded little brother Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), who soon becomes Jeliza-Rose’s best friend.
The movie’s adapated from a novel, and two of Gilliam’s significant changes, as per the press notes, were to lose the narration by Jeliza-Rose, and to make her more resilient and less emotionally affected by her parents’ deaths. These may be the key to why the movie isn’t as engaging as it should be; Jeliza-Rose at times seems impossibly naïve, and mostly immune to any kind of emotional trauma. It’s hard to worry that she’ll come to any harm when she seems impervious to it. Janet McTeer’s Dell is the most interesting character of the bunch, and that may be simply because she’s the most experienced actor. Fletcher’s Dickens acts convincingly handicapped, but he ultimately goes so overboard that it’s hard to take him as any kind of realistic or understandable representation.
TIDELAND makes me think back to Asia Argento’s THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS, which dealt similarly with a child, a junkie parent, and fantasy elements. The kid in that knew enough to be legitimately fearful for his life, and that was a strong source of narrative tension. Jeliza-Rose may as well be a kid playing in the garden in any household; her parents seem to have had no influence whatsoever, and at their very worst were only minor inconveniences. I was one of a very few who loved Argento’s movie; I think Gilliam could learn a little from it.
Still and all, this isn’t the terrible film people said it is. It’s consistently beautiful to look at, and its story is hardly conventional. It’s a tough sell for the masses, but cineastes need to watch, as much to see what Gilliam got right as to figure out what he got wrong.
Posted by LYT at 6:13 PM | Comments (2)
Pardon my French
Did you know that "poontang" is most likely a word derived from "putain"?
[Due to being a magnet for spammers, this post is now closed to comments.]
Posted by LYT at 3:03 PM | Comments (1)
My Grandfather's Column
*The Church and Sex*
From the days of the New Testament to the present time the Church has never sorted out what it thinks it ought to believe about human sexuality and behaviour. When we look to the Jewish scriptures (our Old Testament) we find things that would surprise many Christians. There is virtually no condemnation of fornication. Most of the great men of those days enjoyed sexual relations with many women. Solomon, the wisest of them all, is reported as having 700 wives and 300 concubines; and the only reason for condemning all this was that his foreign wives led him astray and caused him to offer incense to their various gods instead of sticking to the pure worship of the one true God. Again there is no condemnation of the love of men or women for members of their own gender. The clearest example of this is the love between David and Jonathan, which was "passing the love of women".
Looking to the negative side of Old Testament views of homosexuality, we find that a man who lies with another man "as with a woman" should be stoned to death - precisely the same punishment as should be meted out to anyone who picked up sticks on a Saturday (the Sabbath Day). In much of these old books God is portrayed as a ferocious god of battles, who encourages his people to slaughter men, women and children who get in the way of Israel's aggressive appropriation of other people's lands.
Turning to the New Testament it's St Paul who creates most of the problems we now have to deal with as Christians. He believes women should be thoroughly subordinate to men, shouldn't voice any opinions when the Church assembles but instead "ask their husbands at home". He understands nothing about sexual orientation, assuring us that men were being made gay in punishment for their homosexual practices. Even normal marriage is regarded by him as inferior to virginity. Famously he said:"It is better to marry than to burn". To be fair he did also say a few very positive things about marriage and was aware that it could be a cause of great blessings.
What should matter to all of us who claim to be Christians is what Jesus had to say. There are no recorded words of his about sex outside marriage, certainly nothing about homosexuality. To a woman taken in adultery, a crime punishable by death under the law of Moses, he said: " I do not condemn you" but also :"Sin no more". Here and elsewhere he tells us that men and women should remain faithful to their partners; anything else falls short of God's plan. But love and forgiveness mark all that he says and does. Our marriages may fail. That is sad but nowadays our Church does not condemn but bless a new start..
As for homosexuality we remain divided. Liberals like myself believe that same-sex committed loving partnerships should be honoured and respected just as partnerships between heterosexuals. What matters surely is that there should be no coercion, no exploitation, no abuse - all evils which I think are more prevalent within marriages than with gay couples. There are of course other Christians who believe that every word of the Bible was dictated by God and must be taken literally and followed without question.
One of the saddest things about all this is that the world-wide Anglican Communion seems likely to fall apart over this issue in spite of the many things that still unite us and the many more important things there are for us to be doing together.
--Peter Graham
Posted by LYT at 12:56 PM | Comments (10)
Manson, Disney. Disney, Manson
I guess this is proof that everyone sells out eventually.
I just heard on KROQ that Marilyn Manson has recorded a new song for the latest anniversary reissue of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS soundtrack album.
My disdian for the movie is well known -- I think it's a bitter Disney pill coated with a Gothic sugar that helps it go down with a crowd that would otherwise shun the cartoon cliches it peddles.
I remember when Marilyn started and was seen as extremely subversive. He got arrested a few times. Now he's working with Disney?
Sigh. The inevitably of aging and selling big.
Posted by LYT at 2:12 AM | Comments (24)
October 10, 2006
Bad Nite Out
Tonight I saw what is indisputably one of the worst movies of the year. Big stars, big-name director, heinous screenplay...HOWARD THE DUCK and GIGLI had more cinematic merit than this movie. It is a full-scale disaster that misfires at every opportunity.
Out of respect for review embargoes and such, I won't name it yet. But ask me again on Thursday.
Posted by LYT at 2:12 AM | Comments (3)
Since we're Youtubin' Tommmy...
Here's a good clip from THE ROOM...
Posted by LYT at 2:09 AM | Comments (1)
October 9, 2006
An episode of "Playboy Adventures" featuring TOMMY WISEAU!
No nudity, just profanity. Takes a little while for Tommy to show up, but it's worth it.
Posted by LYT at 6:06 PM | Comments (2)
Ultimate compliment?
So, I was showing the Batterton & James movies to a longtime friend from college today. About the third oen in, where Jasper starts choking on water, he asked me the following question:
"Who is that?"
I was sitting right beside him, and he didn't know he was watching me.
Posted by LYT at 3:17 PM | Comments (2)
MAD COWGIRL on DVD Dec. 5th
You can preorder it now.
In a unique bit of synergy, it gives me great pride to announce that Jasper Boring makes an appearance on the DVD extras. Not the shorts you've seen here, but some new stuff.
Also note that the DVD cut will be slightly different from the theatrical cut, most notably in the soundtrack.
Posted by LYT at 1:57 AM | Comments (1)
October 8, 2006
Batterton & James T-shirts!
Straight from December 2001 and authorized by Jasper Boring himself, these promotional shirts can be yours today.
Posted by LYT at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
New B & J
Posted by LYT at 7:24 PM | Comments (4)
October 7, 2006
Nothing more certain than Death and Texas
The last thing I generally expect going into a slasher movie nowadays is that it’s going to make political points. And maybe the timing is coincidental, but when I was watching THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING, I couldn’t help but think of George W. Bush.
The key is a scene where R. Lee Ermey’s Sheriff Hoyt has two captives and is basically torturing them. He refers to his past as a Korean war POW, and then derisively notes that in those days they didn’t have rules for treatment of prisoners (the movie is set in 1969). His two prisoners have in fact lied to him: one is a potential draft dodger while the other is about to sign up for a second Vietnam tour, yet they have pretended otherwise, but when one gets second thoughts about lying, the other tells him to “stay the course.”
Deliberate? Coincidental? Seems too on the nose to be entirely accidental. Slasher movies have always been about fear of a socially conservative rule, with the boogeymen generally enforcing a strict anti-sex, anti-drug, anti-fun agenda. Related to that is the fear of rednecks, as in THE HILLS HAVE EYES, especially the recent remake, in which the cannibal mutants sang the national anthem.
There’s even a really horrible attempt at an APOCALYPSE NOW homage early on, where the would-be draft dodger is in a hotel room and we see the ceiling fan slowly rotate above him. I’m not fond of such blatant “homages,” as they usually take me out of the movie. But it should be noted that the entire beginning of this movie is a little off, starting with the scene where Baby Leatherface basically pulls his own bad self out of his mother’s womb. Appropos for a Chucky sequel, but not for something pretending to be based on a true story. And yeah, the whole bit about showing you the “origin” of Leatherface? Don’t act too surprised, now...but it turns out he’s a big ugly retarded guy who never liked other people that much, and one day he got his hands on a chainsaw. Not that that was really the point of the prequel. Basically, they wanted to do another Texas Chainsaw remake franchise movie, but somehow felt that since Leatherface got one arm chopped off in the first one, that they couldn’t do a sequel. Lord knows nobody could possibly enjoy a movie about a one-armed dude wielding a chainsaw.
The plus side of doing a prequel is you also get to have Sheriff Hoyt back, although you also know he isn’t gonna die yet. All the other family come back too -- the fat neighbor lady, the old mama (whose singing of “Hush little baby, don’t say a word” gets really damn annoying; doesn’t she know any other creepy songs?), and of course Old Monty, who actually has legs in this one, and we learn how he loses them, though we never see why he would require a pissbag -- I know he has one because I have the action figure, which comes with mini-pissbag, and yet we never see him get shot in the penis or anything like that which would require such a thing. Oh yeah, we find out that Leatherface used to wear a mask made out of leather, which must be how he got the name. Then once he figured out how to cut faces off, he changed his mind, but “Skinned-Face Face” doesn’t have the same ring to it. I’ve been a fan of Andrew Bryniarski ever since HUDSON HAWK, and it’s cool to see him be a horror icon. Original Leatherface Gunnar Hansen was once a dick at a Fangoria convention to my friends who were promoting MAY, so Andrew all the way for me.
Which brings up something I’m probably going to get kicked out of the horror fandom fraternity for -- I think there’s way too much blind idolization of Tobe Hooper’s original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. It’s a great title, it’s well shot, and it was ground-breaking...but you know what? I enjoy Marcus Nispel’s remake, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, a lot more. It has its flaws, for sure, and I’ll even name the most egregious ones...
1. Jessica Biel being the one hero chick who doesn’t do drugs or have sex, and she lives. Unforgivable in a post-SCREAM world.
2. The shot is the house at night with a massive floodlight clearly behind it. No real house is EVER backlit like that. I’m fine with most of the stylization, but that shot really calls my attention to the use of big studio lights.
3. Harry Knowles’ severed head. Too obvious an in-joke.
4. Don’t fucking show me Leatherface without the mask. Whatever he looks like is gonna be less scary than flayed human skin.
Nonetheless, Hooper’s original has an even bigger issue as far as entertainment goes -- it takes forever for Leatherface to show up, and once he does, the movie ends like 20 minutes later. The remake has much better pacing, and Ermey’s Sheriff Hoyt is an amazing addition.
Now, if you want to talk about Hooper’s sequel, that’s another story. TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2 is untouchable.
But back to the prequel at hand. Knowing none of the villains will die, what’s the tension? Just whether Jordana Brewster can survive or not. And I adore her, but she’s wasted in a role most any hot actress could do. Still, the tension surrounding her is enough, even if her character is dumb enough to flee to the exact same place Jessica Biel did in the other one, though maybe this is just setting up how Leatherface knows chicks will run there in the future.
BTW: It’s 1969, and a song from 1970 is on the soundtrack. Just thought I’d point that out.
And after all that, I still enjoyed the movie. Most slasher sequels are just lame retreads; this is a retread, but it’s well shot and acted, even when the onscreen logic is odd (if you're a fan of Jason movies, you got no moral high ground here, son; this is a much better put-together movie than FRIDAY THE 13TH PART WHATEVER). The credits are a rip-off of SEVEN, but at least they changed up the music and made it ambient industrial and not too rockin’. Director Jonathan Liebesman is also a bit too fond of shaky-cam, which works momentarily to disorient (or as the English say, disorientate) -- moderation in this area would be good.
But regardless of all that, we’ve got a movie about crazy Southern folk killing and eating stupid kids who pass through, and it doesn’t hold back on the gore. I have very little patience for those who hold Hooper’s original up as a classic and then disdain this -- it’s a silly kind of snobbery when the directors of these new versions seem every bit as eager to deliver on the guts. No-one complains about John Carpenter’s remake of THE THING.
Nispel’s “original” is better, but this one still delivers. Those who would look down on it, recall that that’s exactly how the mainstream looked at the original movie...which, by the way, isn’t even the best fictionalized Ed Gein film out there (that would be PSYCHO). Much love to Hooper for laying the groundwork, but he never set out to make a sacred cow.
Posted by LYT at 4:26 AM | Comments (1)
E! Online quickies
and
Posted by LYT at 2:26 AM | Comments (0)
October 5, 2006
Remember?
In my Comicon coverage, I mentioned the "Holy Shit!" moments this year were the presentations of 300 and Grind House.
Half of that equation has now been made public. See what you think of the official 300 movie trailer.
Posted by LYT at 7:31 PM | Comments (2)
Of actors and roles
I enjoy watching my friends act, especially in the cases of some who can truly make me forget that this is a person I know. But there are times when it's simply impossible to totally suspend disbelief, and it can result in an inappropriate reaction.
Take John Cameron Mitchell's SHORTBUS. There's a scene in it where a character randomly comes across an anonymous dead body. It's a somber moment, as you might expect.
The body, however, is played by Mickey Cottrell. If you know him, I probably need say no more.
If not...
Mickey is an actor who's also a publicist. He's a very dogged publicist, too, and will leave repeated messages until you call him back, always yelling excitedly down the phone. "LUUUUKE! MIII-ckey Cottrell here. Come see MY MOVIE! There are only FIVE MORE SCREENINGS! IT's got HARDCORE FUCKING IN IT!"
I love the guy. He's hilarious, and he knows it, and plays it up. But he's the furthest thing from a corpse you can possibly imagine, and it's hard not to crack up watching him do a blank stare of death.
Posted by LYT at 4:19 PM | Comments (1)
October 3, 2006
THE WOODS talkback
Max has created a forum for spoiler-ish discussion on the Message Board. (If the hyperlink doesn't work, look for the topic under the "LYT film projects" section)
Non-spoiler conversation about the film can happen either there or in comments below.
Posted by LYT at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)
I've waited THREE YEARS to say this...so if anyone still cares...
...THE WOODS exclusive set visit photos are NOW POSTED!!!
For most of you, it'll be an all-new experience. For me, it's a nostalgia trip.
A few caveats:
-If you haven't seen the movie yet, BEWARE OF SPOILERS. Some of the photos depict things that aren't in the final cut, but some also depict sets from near the end of the movie.
-I will grant you permission to reuse the pictures provided you credit me and link back to this site (NOTE: this only applies to photos taken by me, or of me only. Pics credited to Jaye, or of me with others, may need additional permissions).
-Remember that this trip was also a vacation for me; not every photo is directly relevant to the movie.
Now, GO LOOK.
Posted by LYT at 2:44 AM | Comments (6)
October 2, 2006
The Mark Foley scandal
What am I missing?
Yes, it's hilarious that sanctimonious Republicans have sexual peccadilloes. But as I understand it, the page was 16, which is age of consent in Washington DC.
If the age is a problem, change the law. Yes, it's creepy for a 52-year-old to send dirty IMs to a 16-year-old. But if it's not illegal, what's the scandal?
Look, I love nothing better than to see right-wingers get all defensive. But is there really any "there" there, from a civil libertarian's perspective?
Posted by LYT at 11:12 PM | Comments (30)
SCREENING OPPORTUNITIES
Tomorrow night, Tuesday -- THE DEPARTED, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring pretty much everybody.
Wednesday night -- EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, starring Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson
(quite the contrast)
Posted by LYT at 6:44 PM | Comments (3)
October 1, 2006
Is anyone watching?
If you've been watching the Batterton & James shorts, please take the poll.
Posted by LYT at 6:34 PM | Comments (2)
B & J #6
Since spot 5 was only sorta new this week, here's a bonus brand new one. We're more than halfway done now...
Posted by LYT at 5:56 PM | Comments (2)
Congrats to BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING!!!
Special Jury Award at Fantastic Fest in Austin. AICN says: "For its originality and stunning visual audacity! Blood Tea and Red String is a dark psychological fairy tail, a work of creative passion by director Christiane Cegavske. The films eccentric and unique vision will be with you like a feverish dream for years to come."
I'm proud to be on the DVD commentary track for this movie. More details to be announced next week, once the film opens in New York.
Posted by LYT at 12:11 AM | Comments (3)