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December 31, 2006
Where's Offpat Been?
Marrakech, it seems.
And while visiting the market, he found an object that may be strikingly familiar to my readers...
Isn't it funny how the bootleg DVD cover is better than the real one?
Posted by LYT at 7:15 PM | Comments (3)
December 30, 2006
LYTrules.com's Person of the Year for 2006
The more I thought about it, the more the only choice became clear.
I never thought a blog called "LYTrules" would have a guest blogger -- it seemed almost beside the point. Then in March, on a visit to England, I came across a big stack of columns that my grandfather, Peter Graham, had written and printed in the local village circular. It occurred to me immediately that they deserved and merited a larger readership than that.
So I tried to persuade him to have a have a blog of his own, where he could engage in discussion with others whose ideas differed -- this is a man who has actually been known to convert Mormon missionaries who came over to discuss their faith with him. I said I'd set up the blog and do all the work -- all he had to do was write the posts.
But much as he liked the idea, the concept of increased email spam bothered him more. He finally said something to the effect of: "I'll send you the columns, and you can do what you like with them, but I haven't got it in me to do anything more."
So no Skypilot blog. Instead, once a month, his words class this joint up a bit. I even designed a sweatshirt in the Spreadshirt store just for him (he has never seen it, to my knowledge).
I'm hoping to interest him in a Q&A type feature at some point down the road, but he may not feel up to it. In any case, I have given him some 1500 additional readers he wouldn't otherwise have, and who knows, maybe he attracts readers here that I wouldn't otherwise have.
Peter Graham is our Man of the Year. And if anyone is interested in purchasing his autobiography, he may still have a few copies!
Posted by LYT at 4:13 PM | Comments (10)
December 29, 2006
Christmas Haul
Thank you, everyone!!!!
Posted by LYT at 5:31 PM | Comments (4)
The LA Weekly critics poll in full
Here it is in all its raw data glory. See every individual ballot! Every nominee!
You may note my top ten submitted differs slightly from what I printed here -- Scott decided PAPRIKA didn't count for this year, though by Academy rules it does. Like I said, these things can be arbitrary.
Posted by LYT at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)
E! Online review
Posted by LYT at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2006
LA Weekly film critics poll (updated)
I had thought they'd show all the lists online, but doesn't look like it. Anyway, if you want to see the one major poll that I was invited to be part of, check it out.
UPDATE: for those who want to know what my submissions were, 'twere these...
BEST FILM :1. United 93
2. Superman Returns
3. Children of Men
4. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
5. Saw III
6. Crank
7. jackass number two
8. Paprika
9. Lady Vengeance
10. The FountainBEST ACTOR:
1. Tobin Bell, SAW III (Fuck anyone who disagrees!)
2. Peter O’Toole, VENUS
3. Ken Watanabe, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA [NOTE: After seeing PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, I hereby replace Ken with Will Smith]BEST ACTRESS:
1. Helen Mirren, THE QUEEN
2. Lisa Ray, WATER
3. Robin Wright Penn, SORRY HATERSBEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. Ken Davitian, BORAT
2. Adam Brody, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
3. Michael Sheen, THE QUEENBEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Geraldine Hughes, ROCKY BALBOA
2. Mandy Moore, AMERICAN DREAMZ
3. Bahar Soomekh, SAW IIIBEST DOCUMENTARY: Shakespeare Behind Bars
BEST FIRST FEATURE: Brick
BEST UNRELEASED FILM (unranked):
1. The Woods
2. Mad Cowgirl
3. Wristcutters: A Love Story
4. Blood Tea and Red String
5. Nyocker! (The District!)
6. Imprint (Takashi Miike’s banned “Masters of Horror” episode, released as a feature on DVD)
7. Pervert!
8. Free Zone
9. Time (Kim Ki-Duk)
10. A Lion in the HouseWORST FILM OF THE YEAR: Battle in Heaven
Posted by LYT at 2:38 PM | Comments (4)
Back on the 'Beat
LA CityBeat, that is. And yes, I'm still with VVM too. And looking for more.
Posted by LYT at 1:51 PM | Comments (1)
December 27, 2006
37 Great Films of 2006
Every publication that I write for has its own restriction on the rules. The standard one is that there be only ten on the list, an arbitrary number based on the decimal system, which is based on the fact that we have ten fingers. Then there's all this stuff about where they opened, and for how long. The "cool" critic pick for number one this year seems to be Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS, which I have not seen, but I think it's stretching the rules a bit to say that the best movie of 2006 is one that came out overseas long before I was born. I can be a stickler for such things within a certain window -- I may have seen such movies as Kim Ki-duk's TIME and the Hungarian animated film THE DISTRICT this year at festivals, but since both are likely to be formally released next year, I prefer to make them contenders for next year's list. But then you have something like PAPRIKA, which did one unheralded week in Los Angeles in advance of an April release next year. It may be arbitrary of me here, but I'm considering it a 2006 movie. It's up for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and has no chance in hell.
Other great movies from this year that I expect may be on future lists include WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY, THE LOST, DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE, and BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON.
And now to the list. Kenneth Turan in the LA Times used the occasion of Clint Eastwood's WWII double-header to make his a list of double-features. He did not, however, credit this technique to the man who beat him out for a Press Club award in 2000, that being Gregory Weinkauf, who consistently rates the best of the year in terms of double features.
I'm going to borrow the technique because duality really stood out to me in many instances this year, but at least I give due credit. This is not a list of every single movie I liked, nor is it technically "in order," since the doubleheader nature usually invoilves me liking one of the pair more than the other. My top tens you'll see elsewhere will be different, adhering to the various requirements.
1. UNITED 93/A LION IN THE HOUSE. You might not want to actually make this a double rental night, because first of all A LION IN THE HOUSE is around four hours long, and also both movies will emotionally wreck you. The latter is a documentary, and the former a painstakingly staged re-creation; both punch a big gaping hole through the conventional Hollywood notions on the subjects, those being hijacking and cancer. The theme of both could be summed up as "No-one really dies nobly." We all go kicking and screaming, scared and vulnerable, as flawed and as human as we ever were. Perhaps the best one can hope for is to be memorialized in a movie that will make others think.
2. SUPERMAN RETURNS/ROCKY BALBOA. Childhood heroes of the '70s and '80s return, a little worn around the edges, but still ready to be our buddies in times of need. In the case of Rocky, we get the real guy back; in the case of Supes, the best facsimile money can buy. The cynics dismissed both, but I'm too hardwired to love these guys and besides, to embrace Superman and Rocky is inherently to renounce cynicism. I'm all for dark and tortured souls, but every once in a while it's nice to believe in a hero who'd be your best friend too. Bring on the Flash Gordon remake, and be sure to include Queen music.
3. CHILDREN OF MEN/FREE ZONE. One reminded us of the virtue of the long tracking shot; the other, of how a story could be told almost entirely via close-ups inside a moving vehicle (including a nearly ten minute opening closeup shot of Natalie Portman crying till makeup runs down her face). Both tell of worlds torn apart, but one is sci-fi and the other only feels like it. Both have journeys to "free" zones, but the outcomes are radically different, even as they point to similar themes. And neither is didactic in taking sides, though both long for hope in a landscape of hopelessness.
4. TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY/STRANGER THAN FICTION. How do you make a film of an unfilmable book? Make it about the attempt to do the impossible. A postmodern movie about a novel that was postmodern before the term existed, and a postmodern tale about the inner lives of characters affected by their author's writer's block, both of which heartily amuse with their existentialism. Marc Forster, along with Darren Aronofsky who we'll get to later, gets my award for Most Improved Director of 2006: every one of his films is substantially better than the last. Oh, and since it's in vogue to cite Charlie Kaufman, let me be clear -- both of these movies own Charlie Kaufman's arse. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND are indeed masterpieces, but HUMAN NATURE and ADAPTATION? Not so much. If TRISTRAM SHANDY and ADAPTATION fighted, Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan would handily win.
5. MAD COWGIRL/SORRY HATERS. See what digital video plus one fearless actress can do. Jeff Stanzler's meditation on terrorism and paranoia took advantage of the mobility and intimacy of the medium to let us into the world of a very disturbed Robin Wright Penn, while Greg Hatanaka's MAD COWGIRL...well, look, I hardly need to write anything more about that, do I? Obviously I'm hugely biased, but arbitraily leaving it off the list because of my involvement doesn't seem right either.
6. SAW III/SILENT HILL. In the year of studios not screening stuff, two of the movies not shown proved to be far more creative than the rest. Both were horror movies that depended as much on atmosphere as anything else, with stories that were thought through quite carefully, so much so that many were confused. In subtle ways, both also speak to very real fears...SILENT HILL to the fear of fundamentalism and nuclear terror, and SAW III to the notion that torture and revenge are not things we can separate ourselves from or always blame on the villain. If Anthony Hopkins could get an Oscar for Hannibal Lecter, Tobin Bell more than deserves one for his performance as Jigsaw. I'm dead serious. Pyramid Head from Silent Hill just deserves an action figure.
7. CRANK/ A SCANNER DARKLY. Two drug movies that try to actually get you into the high itself. The genius of CRANK is that, even though it’s an action movie about adrenaline, it doesn’t just do the ADD/Michael Bay thing, but duplicates everything about a stimulant high including, the weird slo-mo lows that you start to feel around 5 a.m. SCANNER, meanwhile, duplicates hallucinogen highs via rotoscoped animation, and finally delivers a Richard Linklater movie where the endless philosophizing makes sense within the story – druggies do that all the damn time. Keanu Reeves has never been more, uh, animated. As for Jason Statham in CRANK…the naked standing-up bike ride, and the public doggystyle Amy Smart adrenaline-fuck in front of an audience while talking on the cell phone at the same time, well…surely no commentary necessary?
8. JACKASS NUMBER TWO/BORAT. I don’t feel that either has a whole greater than the sum of its parts, but the nude wrestling in BORAT and just about every other scene in JACKASS made me laugh harder than anything else on the big screen this year. I don’t need any other justification to have them on my list.
9. PAPRIKA/AMERICAN DREAMZ. This may well be the biggest stretch I make on this list, but hey; both involve dreams, and feature unlikely romances. PAPRIKA is one I don’t think anybody really saw but me, yet it convinced me that animator Satoshi Kon is consistently one of the best directors working today. The story, in brief, involves an attractive but repressed scientist and her unbound id/avatar, Paprika, who can enter other people’s dreams via a new technology, one that has also fallen into evil hands. AMERICAN DREAMZ was unfairly criticized for what it wasn’t (a razor-sharp critique of George Bush) without being appreciated for what it was – the odd coupling of the admitted asshole Simon Cowell character played by Hugh Grant, and the impossibly shallow, unfeeling Kelly Clarkson-esque social climber played by Mandy Moore was unexpectedly real and even strangely touching. As a commentary on the bizarre quest for shallowness that is reality TV, it worked; yet managed to create likable characters nonetheless. Revisiting it recently, I liked it even more than I did the first time. PAPRIKA had one of the coolest soundtracks ever, but I think DREAMZ needed to be a bit more absurd in its parodies, though “Mommy, Don’t Drink Me to Bed Tonight” is a standout.
10. LADY VENGEANCE/CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. You can tell just by looking that Park Chanwook and Zhang Yimou have carefully considered every single composition, right down to the color and shape of each individual object onscreen. This year, both used that meticulousness to convey the intricate revenge schemes of a woman scorned. While I still think HERO and OLDBOY are better movies, those are high standards, and the fact that both directors managed to reach close to the same heights again is good news for filmgoers.
That’s ten double-features, but why stop there?
11. THE FOUNTAIN/PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER. Darren Aronofsky’s first movie PI was so bad I never would have guessed he’d make something I unabashedly love. Tom Tykwer’s first U.S. release (but not his first movie) was RUN LOLA RUN, one I loved a lot that he followed with several tedious, overlong meditations on silence or whatever; I doubted if he would ever make another one I loved. Both struck back with movies about attempting to capture the essence of something transient – a brief life, the scent of a woman – and both protagonists ultimately realize that there is no joy to be had in artificially capturing that which nature has chosen to take away.
12. CLERKS II/VENUS. I had become so disillusioned with Kevin Smith over the years that I began to wonder whether my love of his earlier films had all been some kind of immature delusion, but then I saw this and he won me back, which was no small feat. Smith’s gift is understanding people like himself, and conveying that onscreen – his gift is NOT high-concept fantasy-comedies like DOGMA. Revisiting his original slacker “heroes” ten years later, he finds them still “stuck in second gear” (the phrase is way more relevant here than it was on the “Friends” theme song, so I’m appropriating it), contemplating what seems to be an ever decreasing list of options. I’d be happy if Smith makes a new CLERKS movie every ten years, and if he ever gets to part 6 it might look a whole lot like VENUS, with Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillips as aging bachelors who hang out at the coffee shop talking shit and complaining about failing health problems.
13. THE QUEEN/FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS. I may be a little more susceptible to the charms of THE QUEEN than most; when you grow up around the British Isles, you get the royals on TV a whole lot, and seeing James Cromwell as Prince Philip is just hilarious. But the real hook with both these movies, and one that resonates in the era of “reality” celebrities, is the changing nature of heroism, with the old guard who favored stoicism and silence versus the new celebrity whose every flaw is tabloid fodder. Should the Queen/American soldier be seen as a larger than life icon, or are both more heroic if they reveal their vulnerabilities? Both movies argue for the latter, but I’m not sure it’s always the right answer.
14. WATER/THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS. Two controversial films about young children in hellish situations; one inflammatory because it told an unpleasant truth, and the other because it didn’t at all. Deepa Mehta tells of a child bride widowed and thrown into a religious sanctuary for the discarded; Asia Argento of a boy born to a terminal fuck-up who insists on remaining his legal guardian despite her obvious inability to parent. Whether the stories are 100% true is a red herring of sorts – neither is a documentary, after all. But both serve as testaments to the resiliency of youth, and indictments of adults without the imagination to see beyond long-held boundaries, social and emotional. They make it look easy, but just check out Terry Gilliam’s TIDELAND to prove it ain’t.
15. SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS/BRICK. A documentary about murderers learning drama, and a detective story about teens playing 1930s gumshoes. Both deal in the power of words, and use artifice to get to deeper issues.
16. TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY/PAN’S LABYRINTH. Jack Black and Kyle Gass reconstruct some of their greatest hits, and Guillermo del Toro does likewise. Both movies are dominated by giant horned demons – Doug Jones as a mystical faun who assigns life-threatening tasks to a young girl with a literal fascist of a stepfather; and Dave Grohl as Satan, pissed as hell that his tooth has been made into a guitar pick and ready to challenge anyone in possession of his property to a rock-off.
17. RENAISSANCE/ULTRAVIOLET. Two near-cartoons that have significant flaws and yet remain hypnotically beautiful and immersive. RENAISSANCE bore the scars of dubbing, yet even in the original French, the voice cast weren’t the same as the actors who were actually motion captured for the black-and-white stylized animation. In the U.S. dub, the voices sounded particularly disconnected from the action onscreen, which didn’t help the already convoluted storyline…but as I said at the time, the unique and immersive style of the thing is enough of a hook to induce repeat viewings. I’m not sure ULTRAVIOLET even has anything resembling a plot, but watching Milla Jovovich ballet-fu her way through a Tron-meets-fashion-runway futurescape on the screen at the Cinerama Dome was one of my favorite viewing experiences of the year.
18. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING/THE PROPOSITION/PERVERT! Okay, I’m stumped here. There isn’t any connection between these three, save that they’re very good at what they do. A solid social satire, a bloody Aussie western, and a Russ Meyer tribute featuring a homicidal claymation penis. You should watch them all.
Posted by LYT at 1:48 PM | Comments (5)
December 26, 2006
Did anybody end up working on Christmas?
I did.
Posted by LYT at 4:24 PM | Comments (2)
Silver muthaphukkin' Surfer!
It's been a good week for new movie trailers.
Posted by LYT at 1:18 PM | Comments (2)
December 25, 2006
Merry Christmas
And I don't mean that as a political statement -- just enjoy the day off.
Unless you have to work. In which case, be glad that most customers will likely be in better moods than usual.
Posted by LYT at 11:21 AM | Comments (4)
December 24, 2006
Amy Alkon's new penpal
It's Jack Abramoff. Really.
Posted by LYT at 10:09 AM | Comments (4)
December 22, 2006
The Toys R Us ordering story
Thanks to Toysrus.com's stupid wishlist system -- you can make one, but nobody gets to see it except you -- I decided to buy myself some Christmas presents from them this year. Among the items were four 12" Marvel action figures: Iron Man (gold armor variant), Venom, Hulk, and Wolverine (unmasked variant).
Sure enough, after I placed the order, I soon got emails confirming the stuff was on its way, albeit in two different shipments. But warning bells went off when each item on the emailed receipt was simply labeled "12" Marvel figure." No mention of which character.
The first box arrives. It contains Venom and Iron Man, and a notice saying one of my items has been back-ordered (though they charged me for it anyway). The back-ordered item, according to the receipt, is Hulk.
Then I check order status online. Apparently, UPS claims both packages were delivered to me (i.e. also the one with Wolverine), even though only one was. I call both UPS and Toys R Us customer service, and initiate the procedures to see what happened to Wolvie. Normally, I'd expect maybe Wolvie got left with the building manager, but not so this time.
Two nights later I'm doing laundry, and the manager surprises me with a package he says came that day. It's the right size...could it be?
Nope. It's another Venom.
Great. I call TRU customer service again, and they say they'll send me a prepaid UPS shipping label to ship it back. I tell them that if I'm going to have to drive to a UPS place anyway, how about I just return it at a store? They tell me that should be fine.
So I do that. And Toys R Us stores really are hellish this time of year, for employees and customers. Waiting forever with rowdy kids, phones going off all over the place, and refund desk employees who can't do anything without a manager, who by-the-by just decided to go on break.
After going through about five levels of employee, I'm told flat-out that I cannot return it at the store. The item is "coming up red" when they try to scan the barcode on their computer. They tell me I have to call customer service and ask them.
It takes me about five repetitions to explain to them that I am here precisely BECAUSE I called customer service.
"Well call them again, and tell them it's coming up red."
The drive back home from lower La Cienega is no fun. It never is.
I call again.
It turns out that because the last person I talked to initiated proceedings to send me a return shipping label, that was now the only way I could send it back. Joy.
So I did that, about a week ago.
CUT TO: Today. I get a phone call from a guy at the front gate. He has a package that's for me, that got delivered to his building down the street.
I let him in, and he gives it to me. "It's Wolverine!" he says. Turns out he found it opened, on his porch. There is no Luke or analagous apartment number in his building, but he and his boyfriend are big comic book fans, and they knew this was a highly collectible toy.
The figure seems fine. Nothing's missing. But it isn't the unmasked variant.
Thankfully, I prefer the masked version. But when I ordered online, only the variant had been available.
Side note: After ordering the figures for myself (but before receiving them), I ordered the same Hulk figure for my brother Adam.
He received his.
Mine is still back-ordered. Customer service lady told me it was ready to ship, but no email has been sent confirming that.
Posted by LYT at 5:44 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2006
How to find MAD COWGIRL at Virgin
If it's not in "Cult," look in the "International" section.
Just a tip-off from a roving producer... I couldnt find it in Amoeba today.
Posted by LYT at 11:00 PM | Comments (1)
What does your moviegoing weekend look like?
Since it's Christmas and all, maybe not much. But it's one hell of an opening slate we got going.
CHILDREN OF MEN, which I and every other critic in the known universe recommend highly, starts in limited release. But don't let critical acclaim scare you -- it still kicks all kinds of ass as a sci-fi/action movie. The only difference is that your non-geek significant other will find stuff to like in it too. And I suspect political pundits of all stripes will find ways to say that it justifies their arguments.
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is running for one week in L.A. before a wider opening next year. If you wait, nobody's going to "spoil" it -- Japanese troops fight a battle, and we know how it ends. But fans of war movies in general, and Clint Eastwood's brand of aging, tragic machismo in particular, will dig it like the Japanese dig tunnels in the film. HA!
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER completes a trilogy of sorts from Zhang Yimou, which began with HERO and continued with HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS. HERO was a period art-house action movie for guys, FLYING DAGGERS the chick flick version, and I'd have to say GOLDEN FLOWER is the same thing for old people. Which isn't a knock on the movie, but rather a commentary on the fact that plot and costumes are far more important than action this time, though the final action sequence delivers on most levels. Until you get there, though, it's a tragedy of courtly intrigue and familial betrayals that's more Shakespeare than John Woo. The ending is a bit of an off-note, which I think accounts for some disproportionately negative reviews (sending people home pissed off is a risky thing), but it's a beautiful film. A colleague even found it "too beautiful," and said it made her want to look at garbage out on the street afterwards.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD is a solid directorial effort from Robert De Niro, and might be considered an even more realistic version of CASINO ROYALE, all about how being a spy means neglecting your personal life and becoming a hardened bastard. The biggest problem with it is that Matt Damon ages 20 years, but seems to have skipped sessions in the makeup chair -- by the movie's end, his fully grown son seems to be the same age as him. It's not a very emotional movie, and I suspect that'll hurt it with Academy viewers, but for those who find the business of deduction fascinating, there's much to like here.
THE PAINTED VEIL has that classic '40s feel to it, where characters seldom say quite what they mean, but it comes through loud and clear if you're listening. Edward Norton and Naomi Watts are nearly always fun to watch, and don't disappoint, though Watts is given a look and accent that remind me a great deal of my mother, which was a bit of a distraction for me! Some great location shooting in remote areas of China.
VENUS is a triumph for Peter O'Toole, but maybe not so much for everyone else involved -- it definitely suffers from LOTR syndrome (i.e. too many endings). But it is the rare movie about an old man lusting after a hot young thang that doesn't merely feel like an exercise in actorly ego.
I didn't get to see the BLACK CHRISTMAS remake or NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM. I will definitely see the former, mostly because I'll be paid to do so.
If you're reading this, you need to see at least one of the films mentioned above. Preferably more.
I figure you'll all probably choose ROCKY BALBOA, though. And you'll be glad you did.
Posted by LYT at 1:22 PM | Comments (6)
Another trailer to see...
The official, double-feature version of GRINDHOUSE
Posted by LYT at 10:59 AM | Comments (1)
December 20, 2006
Get healthy, get drunk...part two
On Jaye's advice, I went to purchase some oil of oregano as hippie cold medicine. The clerk, after showing me the options, pointed me to the best one, "oregano spirits."
Turns out this shit is 65-75% grain alcohol. The rest is oregano oil. And you're supposed to take it with water four times a day.
Proves that last post correct, I guess.
Posted by LYT at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)
Four drinks a day is "moderate"?
If you say so...
Posted by LYT at 7:32 PM | Comments (3)
Trivial note
Last night I attended a screening of the original BLACK CHRISTMAS. At the time, I was trying to remember what terrible recent movie Bob Clark directed.
Now I remember: BABY GENIUSES 2: SUPERBABIES.
It had moments of inspiration, but really poorly done overall. Still, Clark made A CHRISTMAS STORY, which is an all time great that makes up for a multitude of sins.
Posted by LYT at 6:54 PM | Comments (2)
Bad Robot!
The new TRANSFORMERS movie trailer
Posted by LYT at 12:35 PM | Comments (1)
December 19, 2006
E! Online quickie
At the last minute I was asked to review ROCKY BALBOA. So here's my more official take on it.
Posted by LYT at 6:06 PM | Comments (0)
down the Amazon...
A big thank you to Matt for the CD and Jesse for the Sin City book.
If anyone else is looking to buy me Christmas stuff, the Amazon list is here.
Posted by LYT at 1:54 AM | Comments (0)
BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING one of Barnes & Noble's 10 Best DVDs.
Check it, biatch!
and buy the DVD too. I'm on it.
Posted by LYT at 12:55 AM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2006
Flags of our Fathers Episode I: The Phantom Americans
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is a handsomely made war movie. For a film featuring mostly unknown actors, it differentiates between the characters effectively and easily. And it sure as hell is a lot more straightforward than FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, to which it effectively functions as a prequel.
In my opinion, it's not as interesting as its predecessor.
If IWO JIMA is HAMLET, FLAGS is ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN, not so much in the comedic sense but definitely in the way that it deconstructs a traditional tragedy, using very peripheral characters only glimpsed the first time around. The huge irony is that FLAGS was marketed as a patriotic, flag-waving movie, when in fact the movie is all about how marketing war as a glorious flag-waving, patriotic thing is hollow and cynical, even when the cause is just.
IWO JIMA should have come out first, but the political reality is that Clint Eastwood would have been slammed for praising the Japanese soldiers' patriotism if he hadn't first primed the pump by showing our side of things. The practical reality, for me as a viewer, is that once you've had something deconstructed, watching it played again in straightforward fashion, even if from a different perspective, is not quite as interesting or complex. And maybe it doesn't need to be, except that these films are companion pieces and comparisons are inevitable.
There's no plot to spoil about IWO JIMA, really. A brave general prepares to fight a battle he already knows is lost, for leaders he has come to realize are liars, but he digs his heels in and determines to fight until every last man is dead. History has recorded the outcome; the appeal here, if one can call it that, is seeing what his tactics were, and experiencing them vicariously in a way that no documentary footage has permitted.
If you know your Johnny Cash songs, you know what happens to Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), one of FLAGS' three leads, but you probably don't know what happened to the Ryan Philippe character and the other guy who isn't Ryan Philippe. So already there's more dramatic potential there. But it's also both war movie and social statement, and the statement's a bit more in-depth than "war kills people." You get to experience the action of the battlefield, but you also get to see how the public perceives heroism, and how the old-school notion of stoic bravery comes into conflict with the ever-burgeoning media age in which the public wants to know every personal detail (also a major theme of THE QUEEN).
My only big problem with FLAGS is the final five minutes or so, wherein the narrator decides to explain the theme of the film to me. I kinda got it -- Clint Eastwood ain't exactly David Lynch, knowhutImean?
And I'd totally be down for a 4+ hour movie that splices both flicks together, preferably not in total chronological order. I'm sure an online fan somewhere will do just that, but here's hoping maybe Clint considers it too.
Posted by LYT at 6:52 PM | Comments (1)
A word about top ten lists...
Just thought I'd give the heads up, as people might be confused to see different lists online at various places.
Rules are different for different places. The LA Weekly requires the film to have played LA for at least a week, but they also asked me to submit an "unreleased" films top ten that can include festival films, direct-to-DVD, and stuff that played New York or Cleveland or wherever.
E! Online just requires movies to have played somewhere in the US for a week. So you'll see two lists online by me that will differ slightly.
Here on this site, I'm going to do something totally different, and make my own rules. The whole thing's fairly arbitrary, after all. As you know, I never hold myself to a set number here.
Posted by LYT at 6:19 PM | Comments (4)
Another MAD COWGIRL contest
Click HERE
Posted by LYT at 1:04 PM | Comments (0)
New pictures
Finally got around to posting a few dozen new things on Buzznet, all from Thanksgiving and the Cathy Seipp DVD party.
Click on the left-hand Buzznet link for all of them, but here are some samples>>>
As Lionel Chetwynd and Mickey Kaus debate where they're going to dump the body of the oblivious Bradley J. Fikes, Rob Long looks suspiciously at this photographer.
Sometimes, thought Mickey, the bottle of tequila is half-empty, but other times it's half-full.
Cathy bravely takes stances on controversial issues. For instance, she's not afraid to display her love of bread.
Posted by LYT at 12:32 AM | Comments (2)
December 17, 2006
Clothesline From Hell
The Ultimate Warrior now has a blog. Plus if you order any of his new merchandise, he'll send you a personally signed Christmas card.
And if you get any of his T-shirts covered in terrorist blood, he offers a full refund. Really.
Posted by LYT at 11:37 PM | Comments (1)
Ehwhaaa?
Time Magazine's Person of the Year is..."You." This is an odder choice than "The American Soldier," a couple years back, which induced me to create my own LYTrules.com person of the year.
Turns out "You" basically refers to bloggers, something Time is only just now starting to understand - they have profiles on 15 different photobloggers, politi-bloggers, vid-bloggers, etc.
So if YOU don't have a computer, or don't use it much, you don't get to be you. Or something.
I would make a case for Borat as person of the year. Or maybe Mahmoud Ahmedinajad (it's not about liking the person - Hitler and Stalin both got the "honor" in previous years). One's a barking mad, attention-hogging fake character who uses anti-Semitism to provoke people into stupidity and implicitly discredit himself, and the other one's Borat. Or something.
I don't know who would be the LYTrules.com person of the year for 2006. There's no obvious contender. Last year Matt King won, in large part for taking care of all my affairs online and off when I was incapacitated. Previously, my uncle Pat won for being everyone's favorite commenter, but he hasn't been around as much lately.
I think the best possibilities are the following:
-Matt King, again, for being webmaster and doing camera and editing on the Batterton & James shorts.
-my grandfather Peter Graham, author of the new monthly feature "My Grandfather's Column."
-Reuben J. Thompson, originator of the catchphrase "If him, and him, if they fighted...Whowouldwin?"
-Cathy Seipp, whom I spoofed for April Fool's and whose "roast" allowed me to flex some film-making chops.
-Gregory Hatanaka, whose movie MAD COWGIRL facilitated trips to San Francisco, Calgary, and Portland for me this year.
If anyone can think of any other worthy nominees, post 'em. The idea is to pick the person, other than me, who has had the most influence on this blog for calendar year 2006.
Posted by LYT at 5:10 PM | Comments (56)
Alternate, easier MAD COWGIRL contest
If you didn't win mine, you can also try to get the DVD here
Posted by LYT at 2:13 AM | Comments (0)
MAD COWGIRL contest answers
The winner of the DVD is renowned kitten-murderer Julie Scott, aka Burgandyskies, who got 8/10.
Here are the full answers...
1. Linton Semage, who plays Dr. Suzuki, hails from what country?
Linton is a multi-award-winning director and actor in his native country of Sri Lanka. Here in California, he works at a 7-11.
2. Which LYT relative makes a cameo onscreen?
NO-ONE got this right. MAD COWGIRL hadn't fully wrapped when I was hospitalized last year. My mother flew out from England to take care of me, and when I brought her to the set, she ended up making a cameo as a nurse in the scene that also featured James Duval's mother Lucie.
3. "Pick up the damn phone!" is a line of dialogue that appears in both of Gregory Hatanaka's movies. In real life, which MAD COWGIRL actor originally said it to Greg?
Douglas Dunning's infamous "Pick up the damn phone!" message on Greg's answering machine appears as a hidden extra on the DVD.
4. In what previous movie did James Duval, Sarah Lassez, Devon Odessa, and Jaason Simmons all appear?
The reason we were able to get James, Devon, and Jaason was because they were friends of Sarah's, dating back to the time they all appeared together in Gregg Araki's NOWHERE. In a bit of narrative symmetry, NOWHERE featured Jaason's character raping Sarah and driving her to suicide; revenge was sweet in MCG.
5. In the movie, what is Therese and Thierry's surname?
It's only said aloud once -- when Thierry is busted for selling bad beef, radio host Sir Miles Graham mentions his full name, Thierry Mathis.
6. According to Douglas Dunning, his character Miles Graham does what to the story? [hint: think of my "Mad Cowgirl co-star" t-shirt]
Douglas claimed at various stages that he was "the male lead" and/or "the co-star" of the film, due to the fact that his character "propels the story forward."
7. What famous martial arts movie weapon does Therese use in her battle with the Ten Tigers?
The flying guillotine. Our prop was imported from China and made form the original article, as seen in MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE.
8. The tagline of the movie is "If you eat it, you will be in hell." To what is Pastor Dylan actually referring when he utters that line?
Though the poster would have you believe the line refers to beef, Pastor Dylan is responding to a question about eating oysters and shrimp. His response cites the prohibition against shellfish in Leviticus. I accepted shellfish, oysters, shrimp, or any combination as correct, though "seafood" was too vague.
9. What conservative TV pundit did I portray in a scene that was deleted from the movie, but appears on the DVD?
Wally George. I think everybody knew that.
10. In order to "have a Thunderbolt Kick just like Cindy's," what phone number must you call? (hint: It begins "1-888..."
1-888-555-KICK. Most common wrong answer was 1-888-KICK-ASS. But all movie phone numbers have 555 in them.
I hope those of you who didn't win will consider buying the disc anyway. I'd give away more if I had more to give.
Posted by LYT at 1:26 AM | Comments (5)
December 16, 2006
MAD COWGIRL contest - LAST CHANCE
Deadline approaches in less than four hours. If you've been holding off, don't leave it too late!
Posted by LYT at 8:26 PM | Comments (0)
Virgin Megastore at 8000 Sunset disappoints again
For the second time (first time was Dec. 5) they claimed to have MAD COWGIRL in stock, failed to find it, and did not offer to special order it.
Had lots of BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING, though. At least five copies. Buy that DVD too, it's animation, and I'm on the commentary.
Posted by LYT at 7:32 PM | Comments (0)
First of many, I hope
Last week I got paid to act, for the first time ever.
It was a slightly surreal experience, having been contacted only the day before by my friend Marvin from MAD COWGIRL. The director and crew were mostly Chinese, and didn't speak English except for maybe one or two, but they wanted some big scary Americans to be all gangsta and menace the Asian lead actor, who looked a lot like OLDBOY's Choi Min-sik (but it wasn't).
The movie itself was in English, with Oldboy Dude clearly not a native speaker, but passable. Because I was the most badass of the three tall guys who showed (they had casual clothes; I had a black trenchcoat and skullcap), I got to be the leader, who in the script is named Yellow Hair.
Irony duly noted that it's the first time in some five years that none of my hair is yellow.
There wasn't any dialogue, but I got to drive a Mercedes into the garage. That was a little frightening -- none of the controls in the car seemed to correlate with anything in my own '95 Trio, all LCD displays and automatic things. My leading lady figured it out better than I did.
The project is called, I think, A DATE IN PARADISE. Oldboy dude, in the stuff we shot, sees the woman he fell for a year ago, only now she's with Yellow Hair, and blows him off. So he follows them into the house and my goons kick his ass.
I had to do that head-flip thing where it's like I'm signaling my guys without actually saying anything, and I always seemed to do it better when cameras were off than when they were on. Finally, we decided to just let it roll as I did it multiple times. I'm too tense to have a loose neck come naturally to me.
I'm hoping the scene is significant enough that it doesn't get cut, but have no idea where the movie's gonna play. Maybe I'll become big in China.
Getting money for such things is nice.
Posted by LYT at 7:13 PM | Comments (1)
December 15, 2006
Fun review of MAD COWGIRL at Skullring.org
This guy totally gets it.
Beware of heavy spoilers, down to descriptions of the final scenes in the film.
and remember: My MAD COWGIRL DVD contest ends tomorrow night. Right now, the person who's in the lead is one who hasn't even seen the movie yet.
Surely those of you who have can step up to the challenge?
Posted by LYT at 6:42 PM | Comments (2)
Reviews
Eragon reviewed both HERE and HERE (if the two reviews fighted, whowouldwin?)
and David Lynch's Inland Empire HERE
Posted by LYT at 1:25 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2006
Sore fingers delay blogging
my index finger, a.k.a. the "mouse" finger is all sore and stuff.
Posting will be light until it recovers a bit.
Posted by LYT at 12:41 PM | Comments (4)
December 13, 2006
Retail update
MAD COWGIRL is not being carried by Best Buy stores. Though it does appear to be available on their website.
Confirmed carriers so far include:
Amazon.com
Netflix.com
Blockbuster.com (NOT Blockbuster stores, just online)
Virgin Megastores
Amoeba Music
Rasputin Music
Transworld (Suncoast, Musicland, Wherehouse)
Fry's
Kim's Video
Twist & Shout
Word is the copies that stores have been getting are selling out very quickly, and all of us involved thank you for the support. Keep it up and spread the word!
Posted by LYT at 3:08 PM | Comments (1)
MAD COWGIRL contest reminder
So far, the high score is 6/10. Think you can do better?
You have until Saturday.
Posted by LYT at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)
Cholera Me Badd
Tonight I went to a screening of THE PAINTED VEIL, a movie based on a Somerset Maugham book from the '20s, in which a doctor feels so vindictive towards the wife who cheats on him that he volunteers them both to go to a remote part of China where cholera has broken out, possibly so both of them will die. Edward Norton and Naomi Watts star.
After the movie, Norton, director John Curran, screenwriter Ron Nyswaner, and costar Toby Jones (The Truman Capote actor who isn't Philip Seymour Hoffman) took the stage. Being a front row guy, I was in close proximity. Norton made a joke about how this was the most intimate he'd allowed himself to be in a movie since costarring with Brad Pitt, and that acting with Naomi Watts made him realize how off-track he'd gone by costarring with so many guys.
The movie was quite good, with a kind of '40s sensibility to the dialogue where all the subtext is clearly stated to those who can hear it, but perhaps subtle enough to slip past the ears of obtuse moralists. But this isn't really a review.
The point of discussion that I found most interesting was that the shoot was not only not continuous, but was perhaps as inconveniently scheduled as could be, with the climactic emotional beats being set for the first week of shooting, such that Norton and Watts, having had no time to establish chemistry, weren't sure what level of intensity their confrontations should play.
Director Curran solved this problem by shooting the scenes several times, at different levels of emotion, giving him as many editing options as he needed in the final analysis, depending on how chemistry in the subsequently shot (but chronologically earlier) scenes developed.
I'm not sure every director would have thought of that. So it seemed worth sharing.
Posted by LYT at 2:06 AM | Comments (3)
December 11, 2006
Like a Role-ing Stallone
Inside, I wept like a bitch.
Imagine if somehow, some way, Christopher Reeve could have starred in SUPERMAN RETURNS. That's what ROCKY BALBOA is like.
Yes, it's corny and manipulative. But wonderfully so. And unlike, say, ROCKY IV, it's not just fights -- there's lots of good character business.
ROCKY BALBOA is a champ! It comes out swinging! A stunning final round! Stallone's performance is a knockout! A one-two punch of nostalgia and exhilaration! A powerful emotional gut punch!
et cetera. Too bad Sly couldn't get Survivor to record a new song, though.
And I have some minor issues with the direction, but not enough to spoil the fun. Sly favors shallow focus, so that when Rocky and Paulie are standing inches apart, one of them might be out of focus. Then during the final fight, it goes to black and white at one point, and you think RAGING BULL. But then Rocky bleeds neon red, and one is immediately reminded of Gatorade commercials.
I won't tell you who wins. But it's to the movie's credit that the outcome is in any doubt.
You probably know already if you're a sucker for this or not. If you are, it will work. Trust me.
Posted by LYT at 10:48 PM | Comments (9)
Cathy Seipp isn't doing very well...
Now might be a good time to show some love for one of our favorite ideological opposites.
Posted by LYT at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2006
Shots from the past
Courtesy of Marty Perea, some photos of my first college band, Tato Shots, approximately a decade ago...
Marty is the lovely drag queen Virginia Slim in these pics, and that's Dave Roche on guitar, with Tom Allen doing guest vocals in the middle photo.
Posted by LYT at 11:52 PM | Comments (6)
Not-so-secret Santa
Last night, at Virgin Records in Hollywood, I purchased their one and only copy of MAD COWGIRL.
It's the only copy I have at the moment. But given how limited my gift-giving abilities are these days, I've decided that I'm going to give it away, right here, to whomever turns out to be the biggest MAD COWGIRL fan. I'll also throw in a DVD of the American Cinema Foundation's Roast of Cathy Seipp, directed by me.
RULES: Below are ten Mad Cowgirl trivia questions. You may enter once, and only once -- whoever has the most correct answers sent to me by midnight on Dec. 16 (which should, I hope, allow me to get it to you by Christmas) will win. So if you only know one answer, send it anyway -- everyone else might score zero. Some answers can undoubtedly be found either in my blog archives or on the web, but I'm not sure all of them can.
Send name and address to contests-at-lytrules.com, with "MAD COWGIRL contest" in the subject line. Specify if you'd like me to sign one or both DVDs.
Major cast and crew members are ineligible, but if you were just an extra in one scene or something, I'll allow it.
Okay, here are the questions:
1. Linton Semage, who plays Dr. Suzuki, hails from what country?
2. Which LYT relative makes a cameo onscreen?
3. "Pick up the damn phone!" is a line of dialogue that appears in both of Gregory Hatanaka's movies. In real life, which MAD COWGIRL actor originally said it to Greg?
4. In what previous movie did James Duval, Sarah Lassez, Devon Odessa, and Jaason Simmons all appear?
5. In the movie, what is Therese and Thierry's surname?
6. According to Douglas Dunning, his character Miles Graham does what to the story? [hint: think of my "Mad Cowgirl co-star" t-shirt]
7. What famous martial arts movie weapon does Therese use in her battle with the Ten Tigers?
8. The tagline of the movie is "If you eat it, you will be in hell." To what is Pastor Dylan actually referring when he utters that line?
9. What conservative TV pundit did I portray in a scene that was deleted from the movie, but appears on the DVD?
10. In order to "have a Thunderbolt Kick just like Cindy's," what phone number must you call? (hint: It begins "1-888..."
Okay. If anyone gets them all I'll be very impressed, but remember, you don't have to get them all right. Just more than anyone else.
Posted by LYT at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)
Maybe a worthy cause
Though I remember thoroughly disliking THE LAST UNICORN as a kid, I'm sure I have some readers who are fans. They might be interested in this latest press release from Lionsgate:
On 2/6/07 Lionsgate will release The Last Unicorn: 25th Anniversary Edition — a widescreen digitally remastered DVD version of the animated classic, including additional features and material — with special Conlan Press distribution on behalf of author and screenwriter Peter S. Beagle.The Last Unicorn has been a worldwide success in its theatrical film, cable, VHS, and DVD versions. But to date, author and screenwriter Peter S. Beagle has never been paid anything from the millions of dollars the film has earned.
Now, by special arrangement with Lionsgate Entertainment, customers can ensure that more than half their purchase price of this 25th Anniversary Edition DVD will go directly to support Peter S. Beagle and his projects by buying through Conlan Press (www.conlanpress.com).
Although The Last Unicorn: 25th Anniversary Edition will be available from all major DVD retailers, only purchases made through Conlan Press (www.conlanpress.com) will benefit Mr. Beagle.
Posted by LYT at 2:20 PM | Comments (0)
December 9, 2006
LYT/GWB
Here's me impersonating George W. Bush at last weeks No Shame Theater performance.
Posted by LYT at 3:45 AM | Comments (0)
December 7, 2006
VENUS (not exactly a review)
A British actor, quite the fop
Lawrence what made him his name
Now he's a crazy old man
And Peter is his name
He's got it!
Yeah, baby, he's got it!
Here's your Oscar, here's Best Actor
The X-factor
Well, he's your winner, the thesp-i-an
Best you're seein'
His weapon is his wit so wise
Swearing like a sailor man
Licking on some young chick's neck
Well, do it while you can
Wa!
He's got it!
Yeah, baby, he's got it!
Playin' horny, playin' gropey
Takes the trophy
His performance, leaves no boredom
They'll award 'im
Posted by LYT at 11:28 PM | Comments (2)
E! Online quickie
Posted by LYT at 10:37 PM | Comments (5)
LA Weekly short takes
Click here for my opinions of SCREAMERS, SCREEN DOOR JESUS, and UNACCOMPANIED MINORS.
Asl me sometime about the occasion on which I was a stranded Unaccompanied Minor. I don't know that it would have made for a better movie than Paul Feig's, but it wouldn't have been much worse.
Posted by LYT at 12:17 AM | Comments (6)
December 5, 2006
Respect
I don't know that I actually learned very much from the classes I took at USC. I saw some good movies, discovered that the weather tomorrow will be exactly the same as it is today 60% of the time, and that Christian fundies are everywhere.
But one guy I did learn from was a professor named Eric Trules, who taught me improv and solo-performance monologues. Before his classes, I had real trouble being spontaneous, and I think he may have been the only teacher who actually managed to bring something out of me in a constructive way. The LYT you see today would not be the same without him.
In fact, you can't spell "LYTrules" without Trules.
I bring this up because he has a movie that came out on DVD today too. It's not about improv; rather, it's a personal documentary about family, crime, and cancer. It played at the Sunset 5 when I worked there, over 7 years ago.
So if you have time and money, check out THE POET AND THE CON on Amazon or Netflix.
...right after you buy MAD COWGIRL.
Posted by LYT at 3:44 PM | Comments (5)
BUY THIS! NOW! TODAY!
Posted by LYT at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)
December 4, 2006
for what it's worth
Site traffic continues to increase, but there were two days in particular that had huge traffic spikes last month.
Can you guess what they were?
(answers after the jump)
No, not the Britney Spears link.
It was:
1. The day after election day, when I posted about almost getting my ass kicked.
and
2. The day after I responded to Stu Van Airsdale (the "Dispiritingly Facile" guy).
Conclusion? People like to see me getting into fights.
Tim Curry's performance in the movie LEGEND continues to dominate the random searches that come here.
Posted by LYT at 8:41 PM | Comments (4)
Too Soon!
Does this mean that my fantasies of a Sivertson-Lohan drinking contest must remain solely in my imagination?
Posted by LYT at 7:48 PM | Comments (1)
Like a Rolling Rocky
AICN has been running a fascinating series of Q&As with Sylvester Stallone that are more candid, interesting, and geeky than anything I've ever read from him before. The questions come from the fans, span his entire career both high and low, and his answers will surprise you.
Seriously, it's a must read. Four parts are posted thus far:
Posted by LYT at 6:13 PM | Comments (3)
A Tale of Two Securities
When I first started as a film critic, I was astonished at how easy it was to get onto a studio lot. Literally, all you had to do was drive up, say "I'm here for the screening," and in you went. As long as you don;t look all conspicuous like Harry Knowles, getting spy stuff could have been quite easy.
9-11 changed everything(TM). With rumors going around that the decadent Hollywood movie studios were the next terrorist target, everything got tight. Some studios instituted metal detectors, which meant that I would invariably have to take off my steel-toe boots every time. One major studio had two stages of metal detector, and still does -- one at the entrance, then another inside, just in case you picked up a Bowie knife in the bathroom. Another studio instituted what looked like an amateur driving test, making a mini-maze of concrete barriers that a driver had to navigate prior to encountering the first security guard.
Things are a bit easier now. One of the lots that had metal detectors now insists on ID, but they don't actually check it against any list -- as long as you own an ID, it means you're not a terrorist. Others are annoying, making you pull your driver's license out of its wallet insert so they can swipe it through something or other, as your wallet's plastic card holder tears just a wee bit more.
Monday night, I was asked at the last minute to attend a screening for E!, but the invite was very specific about how the invite was non-transferable, and my editor was in fact trying to transfer it to me. But he told me it would be okay, and I believed him, because this is the man who helped me score my first kiss with a woman, which is more than most of you have done. And of course he was right.
In fact, they didn't ask for ID or anything. Just waved me into the lot when I told them what I was there for. And this was no slouch of a screening, dear reader: it was one with the two leads in attendance, one of whom is a hugely famous actor beloved by most people.
Everyone there was dressed really nice, which told me they probably weren't critics. Most critics look like they just shopped at a thrift store, using the employee discount. These people looked like office types who changed into their expensive casualwear which costs more than I make in 6 months.
I did see one critic -- F.X. Feeney, who really deserves the rank of film scholar rather than critic, since he writes books on the subject. Nowadays, he's working for the company owned by the famous star of the movie. But he's always been good to me, and he gave me a nice pep-talk on this occasion. When someone like FX, or Manohla Dargis, or Andy Klein likes my work as a critic, then really, what the fuck are all the haters talking about? Those who know their craft dig me, or at least are willing to humor me.
After the film there was free food, which was mostly really nice cold-cuts and stuffed mushrooms. Also the worst, most neon-green mojitos ever. But there was a line at the bar, and waitresses had the mojitos, so of course I drank three. But my point here is that anyone who had known about this specific screening could have gotten in. No-one ever checked my name or credentials even though I was wearing a trenchcoat over top of shorts.
All of this is in contrast to the subsequent day...
Same lot. Next morning. I had been promised a "drive-on" pass. It was not in the system. I was ushered into the "15-minute" lot and told to talk to the guard on duty at the pedestrian gate.
This guard was a scar-faced dude with a really crudely drawn forearm tattoo of a skull with a dagger through it, I'm talking the type of tat a character on The Simpsons would have, only less well drawn than Matt Groening could have done. He called the publicist and got no answer.
A few minutes passed. He called again. Got an answer. Tapped keys on his computer for 10 minutes (no exaggeration). Finally tells me, "This pass isn't showing up."
I got there at least 30 minutes early. With about 20 of them already gone, the pass finally gets emailed to Mr. Skull-Knife. "You know where the theater is, right?" he asks.
Remembering last night's directions, I respond "Right at the stop sign, then straight on?"
"You got it."
So I went that way, and was a bit concerned when no-one was around to check me in. But I went into the theater anyway. Onscreen, a large CGI spider is weaving a web, to the strains of inspirational music.
Then a barnyard fades in. I've wandered into CHARLOTTE'S WEB.
There was a time when I'd have stayed, figuring that if I see it before anyone else, I might get to review it. But that doesn't happen any more, and I don't want to see the movie just for fun. As soon as the preview indicated the presence of Dakota Fanning and fart jokes, I figured the book had not been improved upon.
Point is I was in the wrong theater. I look on my visitor pass, that also has a map of the studio on it, hoping to find a clue as to where I really should be.
I wonder if I should have gone even straighter on than the theater. An butch female security guard on a bike asks if she can help me, instantly realizing I'm an interloper. I look at the address on my pass, and ask where it is. Indeed, straighter on.
I run. Time is of the essence. I find the screening room in the building dead ahead, and see what looks to be a cop movie on the screen.
The film I'm looking for is a period piece. I look again at the address on my pass, and realize it's several floors up. I take the elevator.
The pass has led me to the publicity office. The publicist is more than a little surprised to see me, and tells me a computer crash is responsible for my pass not being at the gate on time. I am now 15 minutes late for the movie, but she tells me exactly where it is on my tiny map, and says the guy running the screening hasn't returned yet, so I might not miss anything at all.
Run, Luke, run. (Luke rennt)
I don't have any part of my hair dyed fake red, so the analogy isn't as perfect as it could be. But I get there. The movie has started, but the main character is still a baby.
The rest of the movie turns out to be great.
Posted by LYT at 12:17 AM | Comments (6)
December 3, 2006
The posting a lot won't last forever, so enjoy it now...
I have nothing to do at the moment but write, and I've seen a bunch of things. So I share, and dream of the good old days when I made a lot more money, and taxes didn't try to fuck a broke-ass freelancer up the ass.
If it feels like I'm overloading you now, just wait till I stop. Then you can catch up.
Matt just did a big overhaul on the merchandise page, updating the Amazon links to not only include newer stuff I've been associated with, but also some cream of the crop projects involving friends. It's by no means comprehensive -- if it were, Lee Smith novels would overwhelm everything else -- but ought to give you some good gift ideas that, in return, will help out some very deserving creative types who make nowhere near enough.
Just click the merchandise link at the top of this page.
Posted by LYT at 5:20 PM | Comments (6)
My Grandfather's Column
The Search for Truth
"What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer." So wrote the famous essayist Francis Bacon some four centuries ago. You can find the background to this in St John's Gospel, chapter 18, verses 33 to 39. Describing the purpose of his life John tells us Jesus said:"For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
In the Wayfarers' Group, which first met at the end of November I ended the session with a brief reading from "One Minute Wisdom" by Anthony de Melo. The idea is to end with a reading from this book at every meeting. (By the way we are still a small enough group to be able to welcome additional people who are interested in the same basic subject: the purpose of life. We meet next on Tuesday, the 30th of January in the back room at Buckland Newton Village Hall at 8 p.m. and would be delighted to welcome anyone who cares to join us.)
The essence of de Melo's book is what has been held in common by all the great mystics and wise people of every religion and none down the ages. He frequently refers to a character called /the Master/ and explains that this man is not a single person but a Hindu Guru, a Zen Roshi, a Sufi Mystic. He is Lao Tzu and Socrates, Buddha and Jesus, Zarathustra and Mohammed. Each of these great teachers could have said: "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
In religion, in science and in philosophy it seems to me vital to realise that our knowledge is almost entirely provisional. What we feel sure is true may one day be proven false. Unfortunately many religious people refuse to recognise this fact. They cling for instance to the beliefs they were taught at school and at their mothers' knees: such weird and disproved ideas as that this world - indeed the whole universe - was created in six days by a god who then had a rest; ideas that all reputable theologians rejected ages ago. I want to stand with Jesus rather than with religion; to bear witness to the truth, to seek the truth, however awkward that search may sometimes be. I must never assume that I've got all the answers. In fact I've almost none; but I'll go on searching, I hope, until I die. Meanwhile we have to live by the best insights we've had. In my own case I seek to live as Christianly as possible and take Jesus as my main mentor and guide. He promises that we will ultimately know the truth and the truth will make us free.
A happy New Year to you all,
Peter Graham
Posted by LYT at 1:53 PM | Comments (1)
Smells Like Mean Spirit
It's kind of ironic that director Tom Tykwer made his name with the super-fast, not-a-second-to-spare movie RUN LOLA RUN, and then proceeded to make every subsequent movie as slow paced as possible. LOLA was an amazing piece of cinema, but I must confess to having some difficulty sitting through HEAVEN and THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR (one of those art-house flicks with an annoyingly misleading title -- it's about a nurse).
PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER runs at around two and a half hours, and could probably be shorter without losing any of its essence, but it is the first Tykwer flick since LOLA that really feels like it delivers on the promise he showed us back then. Also, it once again features chicks with the kind of flaming red hair that doesn't exist in nature.
I missed the first few minutes due to some insanity that I hope to tell you about later, but I don't think that will affect my overall judgment; take it into account as a caveat only if you wish to undermine me somehow. (Lord knows enough people do these days.) The movie is narrated by John Hurt, which may lead the discerning cineaste to expect chalk outlines, digital video, and a woman suffering for three hours in a Lars von Trier production, but no, this is the oppulent opposite of Dogme. Women do suffer, but we'll get to that. Our protagonist is an amoral delinquent youth named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, played by a guy named Ben Whishaw, who has appeared in LAYER CAKE and gives off a major Jamie Bell vibe.
The setting is 18th-century France, but not a particularly realistic version, more of an '80s Terry Gilliam version of France. Isn't it interesting that this year, everyone seems to be doing Terry Gilliam better than the man himself? I'm not one of the casual dismissers of TIDELAND, but looking at how effortlessly Guillermo del Toro aced a very similar story to it in PAN'S LABYRINTH, and at the way Tykwer here evokes an atmosphere here that's on a par with Gilliam in his prime, you have to wonder.
Another Gilliamesque touch is that once you've created an elaborate fantastical period-piece atmosphere, you promptly throw in a totally incongruous character doing comedy, and that falls to Dustin Hoffman in PERFUME. As Paris' most famous master perfumer, he seems to be the only cast member who got the memo that a Funny Accent was required, but since it didn't specify WHICH particular funny accent, he goes back and forth between several, among them English, Italian, and Dustin Hoffmanese New York Jew. From a strict acting perspective, it's Hoffman's worst performance in a long time, but as far as entertainment value goes, it works.
Non-native English speakers never seem to notice accent issues when making Hollywood films -- SILENT HILL had the same problem. The humor of it is needed in PERFUME, though, which can take itself too seriously at times. Once Hoffman disappears from the narrative, Alan Rickman shows up, and he mostly plays it straight.
So, the story. Jean-Baptiste has a super-sensitive sense of smell, which you'd think would be a terrible liability in a past where everyone's covered in filth, but as John Hurt tells us, he doesn't distinguish between good smells and bad -- just likes finding new ones. His nose is so discerning that he can duplicate smells, and use his nose to create a kind of spider-sense where he knows what's coming from a mile away, almost literally.
Raised as a slave, he finds his freedom during a trip to the big city, where he meets Hoffman, but before that, gets his first smell of...POONTANG! It gets him so enthused that he inadvertently kills the redhead who's the source of the odor, but ever afterward, he becomes obsessed with reproducing the smell of a woman.
This may derive from the fact that he was born in a fish market, but the movie never explicitly makes THAT connection. Leave it to me, and let's see how many other critics can get away with it!
Anyway, Jean-Baptiste gets frustrated that the process of distillation doesn't work for preserving human odors, so he goes to Graz, Austria (hometown of the Governator, incidentally) to learn how to do it by amphorage [EDIT: Reader "Mathias" informs me that "That ist totally wrong. He made it to the famous french city called Grasse." I'll take him at his word; since the movie exists in a fantasy realm of sorts, absent specific accents, it's hard to tel.]. There, he proceeds to start preserving women in fat to suck out their smells. But alas, they have to die first. It makes for an awesome odor, but still, nobody loves him.
There's a certain amount of capitalist critique going on here, with the idea that ultimately, if the final product is worthwhile, it doesn't really matter if people have to die along the way. More obvious is the theme of the tortured artisan who cannot please himself no matter how much he pleases others. Also, if you've ever been tempted by those ads for cologne that contains pheromones (I used to have some, and when I first met Ron Jeremy he reeked of it), it may amuse you to think of this movie as a hypothetical backstory.
What makes the viewing experience slightly slow going is the blankness of its protagonist, who isn't especially heroic or dynamic, just instinct-driven. Plus the fact that the running time is, y'know, pretty long. But it's worth the journey.
I haven't read the book, so I can't compare and contrast. But I will say that much of Hurt's narration isn't absolutely necessary, especially since it disappears for long stretches once the plot gets going. It possibly should be there more, or a lot less. If less, I think Tykwer might have realized that some judicious trims would be helpful.
But the art direction is impeccable, and any movie with an orgy scene is aces in my book. Despite the reservations, and the fact that I saw it in the morning under less-than-ideal circumstances, I liked it a lot and recommend it. And not for the naked dead chicks, either.
Posted by LYT at 1:24 AM | Comments (9)
December 2, 2006
Are we not MEN?
CHILDREN OF MEN, if marketed right, could be one of the biggest movies of the year. I somehow doubt that will actually happen -- putting a fetus on the poster isn't a great way to draw the masses inside -- but the film itself has something for everyone, except maybe (and possibly ironically, given the title and subject matter) children.
For the geeks: Science fiction with a daaaarrrrrk tone, just like y'all are always complaining that comic book adaptations don't have enough of. For the women: Clive Owen, strong female characters, men who aren't afraid to cry, and relationship/trust issues. For the guys: Shit blowin' up real good. For the political ideologues: worst-case scenarios both left-wing (Dept. of Homeland Security gone fascist) and right-wing (immigrants form armed Islamic terror movements). For the Christians: a pro-life theme, and a story that is essentially a really fucked-up allegorical version of the Nativity.
There might be some issues for fans of novelist P.D. James, on whose book this is very loosely based. The book is awesome, as is the movie, but both are quite different in everything but premise and character names. Director Alfonso Cuaron, no stranger to big-screen book adaptations (A LITTLE PRINCESS, HARRY POTTER 3), has adapted in more to fit the War on Terror paradigm, but unlike the case of V FOR VENDETTA earlier this year, such alterations don't ruin things. The key, I think, is that Cuaron focuses first and foremost on telling a compelling tale, while the Wachowski brothers and James McTeigue were more in love with the notion that they were about to throw a political firebomb.
Here's what both film and book have in common. A few years in the future, no more children will be born (James has all the men becoming sterile; Cuaron, the women. Interesting that neither wants to blame her/his own gender). After the youngest man on Earth dies, a disaffected type named Theo is recruited by an attractive woman named Julian for a top-secret mission -- help to save someone who, after all these years, has somehow managed to get pregnant, the first such case in many years. (In the book, it's Julian herself; onscreen, a new character named Kee). Also, in this future world, old people are encouraged by the government to commit suicide via a system called Quietus, but Cuaron and James differ on what the program actually entails.
Aside from that, the stories are radically different. James' book is a lot more English in its depiction of a world determined to keep up appearances; hers is a subtle dictatorship, where the people are more or less happy with the government, only occasionally seeing its brutal side. She envisions that, with no more young people being born, everyone in the world generally starts to chill out a bit more and get less aggressive. In this story, Theo is an academic, a history teacher whose job seems particularly pointless as history itself is about to end. He is also the cousin of England's dictator Xan, a man who was never particularly curious or interested in politics but found himself at the top, where he has used the crisis to strengthen and centralize his powers (sound familiar?). Theo is a man so out of it that he accidentally ran over his own child years ago, something that still haunts him and of course ruined his marriage. Julian is a former student of his, married to a man he detests and in the process of founding a rather pathetic resistance group made up of five people who call themselves The Five Fishes.
Cuaron, by contrast, imagines that people would become MORE violent, and the Fishes are an actual terrorist organization. It's never clear what Theo (Clive Owen) does, but he's no academic, his child was killed by the flu, Julian (Julianne Moore, presumably cast because her name is so similar to the character's) is now his ex-wife, and Xan doesn't appear at all, though one of his plot functions is filled by the Minister of Transportation.
Women may have stopped having kids, but England is overpopulated, thanks to small-scale nuclear wars in other countries (a throwaway sight gag indicates that Russia nuked Kazakhstan; Borat finally pissed off the wrong people, it seems). Immigrants are put in cages and rounded up for deportation into slums along the coast. The expectant mother, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) is a Fijian immigrant sure to be killed by the government if they were to capture her, for it wouldn't do to have the symbol of hope for the world turn out to be an undesirable. For this reason, too, she's incredibly valuable to the resistance, but the film's pretty clear that most sides are assholes playing politics that couldn't care less about the human being involved -- it's similar to Alexander Payne's abortion comedy CITIZEN RUTH in that regard, though the features aren't alike in any more obvious ways.
Watching it, I couldn't at first get the book out of my head, until Cuaron suddenly and dramatically kills off one of the main characters. At that point, it was "holy shit, this guy's taking us on a wild off-road ride here!" time. And speaking of off-road ride, CHILDREN OF MEN boasts one of the world's slowest car chases, and one minor gripe I have with this scene is that it's awfully convenient how they happen to be on a hill when the car won't start. But it is an amusing counterpoint to the fact that earlier in the story, Theo only seems able to board or disembark a bus when it is in motion.
And from slow and small, things get really big later. Everyone's going to go on and on about a single-take tracking shot late in the game that involves an elaborate action sequence. Film schools will study this for years to come, but it's so late in the story that it would be unfair to describe it in any detail here (don't expect that courtesy from every critic). It is safe to say that in that particular scene, Cuaron seems to be building on the groundwork of Paul Greengrass in BLOODY SUNDAY.
Brief Paul Greengrass-related tangent: Do you think (or do you know, UK and Ireland readers?) audiences in the British Isles went on and on about how they wouldn't go see BLOODY SUNDAY because it would depress them, the way they did here about UNITED 93? I say that unless you personally know someone who was killed on 9-11, buck up and watch UNITED 93. So far, still the best movie of the year.
Now back to the "off-road ride" metaphor. There are moments in CHILDREN OF MEN where it not only feels like a fucked-up Nativity tale (miraculously pregnant girl and guardian endure hardship, evade the pursuit of all the king's men, and must give birth and very humble circumstances to a child who could symbolically be a savior), but also like a fucked-up Disneyland ride. There's a bus trip through the heart of an Abu Ghraib-type deal, and a boat ride that made me think of Pirates of the Caribbean, only the water's all polluted and you might die at the end.
The supporting cast are all aces: Michael Caine as Jasper the aging hippie, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Luke the zealot, and best of all, the always-brilliant Peter Mullan as a two-timing border cop, a character not in James' original but a very welcome addition. There's one shot when Mullan first arrives, through a whole in a shattered window, that calls attention to itself just a bit too much for my taste, but like the downhill car thing, really a minor trifle compared to how kickass everything else is.
I hate, hate, HATE it most of the time when some critic or other says "Oh, this is a movie for grown-ups." Generally, what they mean by that is "This is a movie where nothing really happens except people talking about repressed feelings, and there are definitely no explosions in it anywhere, no sirree, that's adolescent crap and people who enjoy that are stupid." So rest assured that that is NOT what I mean when I say that CHILDREN OF MEN is destined to stand alongside such adult-skewing sci-fi as A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, BLADE RUNNER, and any other seminal dystopian flick you'd care to name.
And in case you were wondering: Quietus, in the book, means putting a bunch of old people out to sea in a kind of mass funeral, though they're still alive at the beginning. It's also a key plot point; when Theo discovers that not every participant is willing, he chooses to rebel. In the movie, it's a home suicide kit, and only serves the story as a minor red herring in one scene.
Go see it. Go. And read the book too.
Posted by LYT at 7:12 PM | Comments (3)
December 1, 2006
Van Wilder 2
E! Online review here
and
LA Weekly review at the bottom of this page
I could just say "it sucks," but they pay me to be more articulate than that.
Posted by LYT at 4:59 PM | Comments (2)
E! Online quickie
My take on 10 ITEMS OR LESS
Reviews of VAN WILDER 2 should be up later today at the Weekly and at E! (as usual - different reviews, same opinion)
Posted by LYT at 12:31 AM | Comments (1)
Global Orgasm for Peace
I'm down for this, but I'm gonna need some help, I think.
So who's willing to get it on for the cause?
Posted by LYT at 12:26 AM | Comments (5)