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June 29, 2008
LAFF is over now
But there'll be one more post. It will involve JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3-D and AMERICAN SON. The two movies have nothing else in common. More later.Posted by LYT at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)
Hellboy II
I've seen it. I've spoken on it. Need to know more?
Okay, just a sample...
Broom reads Hellboy a bedtime story, which we see enacted by CGI wooden dolls, that establishes what the plot of the movie will be – an indestructible army commissioned by elves and mythical creatures once laid waste to humanity, but was then buried (in Northern Ireland near Belfast, ironically enough) after a peace treaty was signed. The only way to revive said army is by the reconstruction of a golden crown, whose parts are divided between humans and elves.Enter the present day, and one very pissed-off elf named Prince Nuada (pronounced Nu-WAD-da), who’s like an evil Legolas after a 6-day meth binge, and so fast that he can slice a raindrop in half with his sword. He’s played by Luke Goss, who was also the main Reaver in BLADE II (alongside Ron Perlman), and a surprising choice for badassitude considering his past…
Posted by LYT at 11:52 AM | Comments (9)
June 28, 2008
Catch-up LAFFers
Two posts since last we spoke.
One of them is here...
and the other is here...
Posted by LYT at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2008
Key -- Largo
Quick and to the point: New LAFF post is HERE
Posted by LYT at 11:07 AM | Comments (2)
Not a post about the Dakota Fanning rape movie.
Well, not quite, anyway. More LAFF craziness...
So I went to see the apparent world premiere of WINGED CREATURES, and must report that Dakota Fanning does not get raped in it. She starts quoting lots of scripture, which is a far less awful fate. (The rape movie is called HOUNDDOG, it turns out.)I want to know how it is that scary RING girl Daveigh Chase is now 18, hot, and legal, while Dakota Fanning doesn’t seem to have aged at all, ever. She’s still only 14, apparently, but hasn’t she ALWAYS been, like, 14? Or does it just feel that way because she’s made 30-some movies? (seriously, 37 acting credits on imdb. Some are TV, but still…)
Posted by LYT at 1:53 AM | Comments (2)
June 25, 2008
Village Voice reviews Wicked Lake
Nothing positive to say. But it'll probably be the only review that singles me out.
Though calling me a "former" contributor just might be wistful thinking...
Posted by LYT at 3:47 AM | Comments (6)
June 24, 2008
LAFF again
Fans of Fight Club will want to read this one...Wry narration kicks in, courtesy of Sam Rockwell as our protagonist Vincent Mancini (“hero” would be the wrong thing to say), and no doubt your mind is already thinking FIGHT CLUB – same setting, same style, same author. And yet, crucially, no hitting, and a different director. There are no crazy jump-cuts or digital effects (just one neat bit of rear-projection, and yes, “rear” in this case is a double entendre), but there is a whole lot of fucking. Vincent, you see, is a sex addict, and even though Sam Rockwell may not seem like the studliest actor in the world, he is a fast talker, and that’s half the battle when it comes to scoring sometimes (the other half, at least here, is to find women who share the addiction).
Posted by LYT at 1:02 PM | Comments (0)
Not at home...
I'm staying in west L.A. for a few days, so if you're calling my home number and getting no response, it's cuz o' that...
Posted by LYT at 1:12 AM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2008
Attention Readers!
If you are going, or have gone, to Comic-con and would be willing to talk to a reporter about the way hotels suddenly up their prices during that time, drop me a line, or comment below with your email..
It's not me writing it, but a friend. He just doesn't know a lot of comic nerds. I reckon a few must be reading here.
Posted by LYT at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
Boogeymen
So yeah, I managed to work a wrestling reference into a piece on documentaries about a Republican and a Nazi. Stretch, I know, but I needed an excuse for a good picture...
Posted by LYT at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
Shit fucking piss tits cock cunt motherfucker!
Rest in peace, George Carlin.
I also aim those seven dirty words at my credit card bill. At least my car is now running better than ever, but $2000 of extra debt really doesn't help right now.
Having a running car, though, is a must, since everything is now a commute. Pay attention, kids: living next door to work is only great until you stop working.
Meanwhile, here's another LAFF blog.
And some pictures.
Posted by LYT at 2:26 AM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2008
I win (update with judges' comments)
This is a really, really sweet victory, for obvious reasons.
Congratulations also to my fellow ex-OCers Janine Kahn, for her amazing work on the OC Weekly blog (I told her we'd beat REASON, and we did -- sorry, Matt Welch!); and Derek Olson, honorable mention for his cover story on an unusual art curator.
There's nothing quite like hearing Harry Shearer read words you've written, especially when those words are: "What possible benefit is there for Megatron, a giant robot with a huge blaster on his arm, to shrink down to a tiny handgun?"
The article in question is HERE
UPDATE -- According to LA Observed, here's what the judges said: "An easy, fun read. Thompson brings a knowledge of the genre into play to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the film."
Posted by LYT at 2:36 AM | Comments (15)
June 21, 2008
A Night in the Life of Derek Olson
I've seen enough to know that this is pretty accurate...
Posted by LYT at 2:52 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2008
Blogging LA Film Fest - day 1
Over at LA Weekly.com. Sample:
There may be things to complain about this year, like the parking, which doesn’t look to be quite as convenient as last year, and may be a large part of the reason that most of the movies don’t start till late afternoon. Though even that I can’t complain about as far as opening night goes, since I found a meter a block from the Majestic Crest, and it had 30 minutes on it; for 31 cents, my parking for the night was paid, and I didn’t even have to panic about the garages closing early.
[Note: if you want to comment on the piece, please do it over there.]
Posted by LYT at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2008
I'm back at E! Online for a li'l freelancing
"Early on in the movie, Myers' guru character, Pitka, is doing yoga and literally sticks his head up his own rear end. There could be no more apt metaphor for what ensues onscreen"
Posted by LYT at 12:58 PM | Comments (5)
LAFFing all the way
The Los Angeles Film Festival starts today in Westwood, through the 29th. Barring any major disasters, I'll be there every day except this coming Saturday. It's probably my second favorite time of year, after Comic-Con, and a whole lot cheaper.
LA Weekly has a big preview in the current issue, with critics giving advance brief assessments of most of the titles. I did seven of these; go check the whole lot out.
And if anyone reading has an extra ticket to the "Journey to the Center of the Earth" premiere, let me know...
Posted by LYT at 3:02 AM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2008
"Madam, I'm Adam"
...and six years old today!
Methinks it's time for my littlest bro to sign my other arm...
Posted by LYT at 4:49 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2008
My Grandfather's Column
What IS this Christian hope?
I ended my last piece by saying that Christians were supposed to live in hope as well as in faith and love. We hope that we are going somewhere, that we are on a journey which will in time lead us to unending joy. We, like our Jewish predecessors, have always though of our life as a kind of pilgrimage, a journey with a goal ahead of us. It's not an easy journey that we take and we often take wrong turnings but we firmly believe that in spite of any failures on the way we shall at last reach the goal. The goal lies the other side of death.
My two favourite wise men have written more eloquently of death than I possibly could. Here are thoughts of the Christian mystic Anthony de Mello: "Why should I be afraid of death? I am happy that my candle should be extinguished when the daylight has come."
A bit more extensively I quote from Kahlil Gibran (who was not a Christian): "In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid on him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?.. Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
When the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."
--Peter Graham
peter.graham[at]bucklandnewton[dot]com
Posted by LYT at 1:47 PM | Comments (3)
June 16, 2008
SILENT's Not Golden
SILENT RUNNING is one of those sci-fi films that I think more people know about than have actually seen. I've certainly been aware of it a long time, but only finally got around to seeing it last night as an on-demand rental from Netflix. A good option, that, but then I'm more used than some to watching DVDs on a computer. You have to, as a critic -- so many screeners don't work right on regular players and require a computer program to process.
As this is a film from 1972, starring a 36 year-old Bruce Dern who's now in his seventies, I consider the statute of limitations on spoilers to have expired. Not that you couldn't guess the ending pretty easily once the story gets going.
The movie has a great premise, but the execution doesn't live up to the potential. In a future where Earth has been ravaged by eco-disaster (though everyone who lives there still sounds reasonably happy, from all the information we're given), spaceships that maintain collections of soil samples and bio-domes filled with forest life both animal and vegetable are drifting around the solar system, awaiting the day when they'll be called home and used to re-seed the Earth's environment.
[If this sounds similar to the plot of WALL*E, bingo. It's a very direct influence on director Andrew Stanton.]
One of these vast ships is (somewhat improbably) maintained by a crew of four humans and three robot drones that appear to be the ancestors of the "Gonk" Power Droids in Star Wars. Three of these guys -- played by Ron Rifkin, Cliff Potts, and Jesse Vint -- are just regular joes, who like to screw around having races around the spaceship corridors in their little electric carts. The fourth, Freeman Lowell (Dern) is a total eco-hippie who tends the forests, makes a big show of eating free-range organic food that he grew himself, and chastises his crewmates for enjoying convenience over nature. When he isn't in a worksuit, he has a propensity for wearing monk-like robes.
Still, his shipmates humor him, right up until they receive new orders. The project is to be junked, and the ships recommissioned for commercial purposes. To provide a rather drastic break from the original mission, the forest domes are to be jettisoned with small nuclear bombs inside of them, evaporating all evidence. This doesn't sit well with the allegorically named Freeman, who jettisons his coworkers instead, keeping his favorite forest attached while feigning mechanical failure to the powers that be. Drifting deeper into space, running out of options, he begins to lose his mind, renaming the mechanical drones Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and treating them as his best friends.
It's a good story, but one that I think would have had even more impact if there were no Earth to come back to. By all indications, however, Earth, while not what it once was, is a place with a constant temperature of 75 degrees and 100% employment where people are mostly happy. This makes Freeman's quest a bit more futile than it might otherwise seem. If he were truly the last hope, with the last remnants of the planet, the stakes would be high to more than just him personally. Dern makes the character work, and it's a revelation to those of us who think of him only as an old-man type.
The direction is by Douglas Trumbull, special effects artist on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, a.k.a. the greatest movie ever made, so it's no surprise that the models here look great, though I take issue with a commenter on Trumbull's imdb page who says his effects haven't dated at all. Maybe not so much in 2001, but here, yes, they have just a bit, the biggest issue being the variability between whether the stars outside of any given window are static or moving. But even Star Trek: The Next Generation didn't get that right 100% of the time. And Huey, Dewey, and Louie don't move mechanically, exactly -- there are little people inside those costumes, and they walk like humans rather than stiff machines.
That said, the effects don't make or break the movie. One aspect that does come close to breaking the movie, though, is the soundtrack, which boasts some ridiculously awful Joan Baez songs. Imagine the worst '70s eco-tragedy hippie songs you can possibly conceptualize, and you're close. That cheeseball song from the old Gil Gerard Buck Rogers TV show is masterful by comparison.
I guess what really feels like it's missing here is what came so naturally to 2001 (and to a lesser extent, Tarkovsky's SOLARIS): that sense of being a tiny speck in the vastness of space, the drive to continue the mission even as you realize your own relative insignificance, and the madness of loneliness grown exponentially bigger when you realize that there is no other life for millions of miles. Trumbull likes to use close-ups more than wide shots, and even when he gives us spaceship exteriors, he tends to show sections of the ship rather than the whole thing adrift in the darkness...save the very last shot of the ship, which implies that only then does he want to emphasize the abyss. Yet the poster, and the movie's tagline, as seen in the picture above, suggest an altogether different approach, agoraphobic as opposed to claustrophobic. My memory could be very faulty here, but I seem to recall THE BLACK HOLE capturing some of that feeling. Haven't seen it in years, though, and I don't entirely trust my childhood self.
The screenplay is an interesting collaboration: DEER HUNTER director Michael Cimino and his regular collaborator Deric Washburn did a draft, and then Steven Bochco, of TV cop show fame, did another. In the end I think the Bochco sensibility (close-ups, drama with quirky humor) won out over the Cimino style (epic, slow, widescreen vistas, risk of boredom).
So I know this is usually taboo to say, but...I'd like to see a remake! There's more good here than bad, with the potential for something epic, and that's why the missteps that are made are so aggravating. The idea of this movie is better than the thing itself, which probably explains why it's better known than seen.
Posted by LYT at 1:36 PM | Comments (10)
June 15, 2008
Happenings
Young Marky Mark would have called this guy by an anti-gay slur, I bet...
Every time I see the word “happening” used as a gerund, I think of the late wrestling announcer Gorilla Monsoon, who always pronounced it happaneen, and would say it about everything. Every big event, even some that quite obviously were not sold out, he’d say, “It’s a happaneen, folks! The fans here are literally hangeen from the rafters!” It was really annoying. But had this been an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the fans would be hanging by their necks from the rafters. Mass suicides being the main plot device of THE HAPPENING.
Now, chances are good that someone has blabbed something to you about the cause of the mass suicides, and you may be pissed because you think the big twist got blown. Well, chill, because there is no big twist. The cause is guessed at fairly early on, and never 100% confirmed. We’ll see if I can go the whole review without saying it, but really, it’s not a SIXTH SENSE-level spoiler. It’d be the equivalent of going into the first LORD OF THE RINGS movie already knowing that the One Ring belongs to Sauron. I will say, because the photo above comes right out and spells it out, that Shyamalan seems to have been inspired by the recent urban legend about bees disappearing en masse, and came up with this movie to answer the question, what if that happened with people?
Maybe it’s because almost everyone has been calling this the worst movie ever, setting my expectations low...but I liked the movie. Me and Manohla Dargis and Jeffrey Wells are the only ones, it seems. I’ve read some of the negative reviews, and I don’t think the haters are really missing anything, per se...except maybe this: I’m convinced that some of the stuff the naysayers think is “unintentionally” funny is fully intended to be so. It’s very deadpan, and not a little twisted, but many of the suicides -- which include a man lying down under a riding mower, and a guy at the zoo annoying the lions till they bite his limbs off one at a time – are greatly amusing, and so ridiculous, yet disturbing if you think about them in real-world situations, that I have to think they’re meant to be, and it works for me. There’s also a scene where Mark Wahlberg has a conversation with a plastic tree that’s an obvious joke, and a bit early on where he’s teaching a science class and reprimands one of his students for being a pretty boy, telling him he can’t get by on his good looks forever. Now, either Shyamalan has never heard of the Funky Bunch, or that’s an in-joke.
There’s also a funny bit of character business that I think everyone can agree is deliberately, weirdly funny – when one of the survivors says to her husband, apropos of nothing, “We got binoculars in the back...from when you were spying on our neighbors.” Shyamalan’s direction always seems so serious that it’s easy to imagine he may be screwing up when he draws laughs, but I’d lay down money that many of these were deliberate.
Where I’m less sure is in some of the really clunky exposition. Every time a character turns on a radio or the TV, it promptly delivers the exact bit of explanation that’s needed right at that time. This is a little too silly to work in context; especially so when it’s used to hammer home the “moral” at movie’s end. It’s also evidence that Shyamalan could use a writing collaborator. I have zero problems whatsoever with his direction – even LADY IN THE WATER had nicely filmed sequences, but they just happened to be in the service of an idiotic story that made no sense. And that’s not to say that the guy is a totally crappy writer; regardless of its silly ending, THE VILLAGE contains one of my favorite battle-of-the-sexes dialogue exchanges in all of cinema...
Bryce Dallas Howard: “Why can you not say what is in your head?”
Joaquin Phoenix: “Why can you not stop saying what is in yours?”
Nonetheless, all of his movies since UNBREAKABLE could’ve used a polish. And this one’s no exception, but it was a more enjoyable viewing experience to me than his last two. (Except for circumstances at my particular theater, but more on that later). I will be interested to see what he does with his live-action adaptation of the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, where he has to work with a pre-existing property.
I haven’t talked about the plot much here, because really, the main plot point is one you probably don’t want to know if you haven’t seen it. Suffice it to say that mass suicides are occurring, initially described as being the result of an unknown neurotoxin. Wahlberg plays a science teacher named Mr. Moore (I half expected his first name to be Michael, given the environmental political slant that develops, but no, he’s named Elliot) who’s having marital difficulties with weirdly neurotic wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel). Together with fellow teacher Julian (John Leguizamo, who strikes me as being about as much of a math teacher as I am a ladies’ man) and his eight year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), they flee Philadelphia (like Stephen King, Shyamalan always visits disaster on his own home city and state) for rural Pennsylvania, hoping that by dispersing into smaller groups in less populated areas, they’ll be less inviting targets for whatever it is.
Leguizamo’s bearable. I hate the guy in many things, but in serious roles he tends to be okay (see also CRONICAS). And Wahlberg, everyone else seems to think is terrible, but he’s playing a mild-mannered guy who’s in shock the whole movie. Given that, what he says and does doesn’t strike me as preposterous, any more so than the film’s premise anyway.
So yeah, I had a good time. I would have had a better time if not for the fact that every OC multiplex seems determined to thwart me to some degree. I’ve mostly given up on The Block, after seeing IRON MAN there opening weekend and the sound being crappy, plus none of the employees there ever close the auditorium doors once a movie starts. I don’t want to hear DOOMSDAY in the background while watching FUNNY GAMES, thanks. And if you are going to stand around in the lobby talking loudly, I’d hope you’d notice that the doors are open, like they aren’t supposed to be.
The new AMC at The District in Tustin boded better. Only 14 screens, big staff, stadium seating. And yet the opening titles were just slightly out of focus. I notice this because I sit close.
So I go into the lobby to complain. Get the attention of the ticket taker and tell her. She says to go to guest services and tell them. I ask her can’t she do it, since I’m missing part of my movie? She shrugs. There’s already a guy talking to guest services about something else, so I yell “Focus in theater 9! And please shut the door too!” before running back in.
[Note: I worked in a movie theater. At the theater where I worked, ANY employee had the ability to call the projectionist and ask him to check the focus.]
30 minutes later, I come out again, as focus is still slightly off. No one is there at guest services. I yell a “hello.” The ticket taker girl sees me. I tell her it’s still not fixed. She gives me a knowing “Okay,” like she’s gonna fix it.
The fixing never happened. I think it’s lame to ask for a free pass or womething if you sit through the whole movie, so I didn’t. Maybe I should have walked out. But I enjoyed myself enough that I didn’t want to, which I guess speaks to me having a good time with the filmmaking, at least.
Now, I hesitate to recommend it nonetheless, just because everyone else I read seems to hate it sooooo much. But whatever. Caveat emptor. It's a smart move to use contemporary fears of WMDs as a subtext -- worked well for THE SIGNAL, which also had a really twisted sense of humor. But I have a feeling that a more definitive horror flick on the same theme may be coming. Perhaps it'll be the Stephen King CELL adaptation.
Posted by LYT at 11:07 PM | Comments (6)
He's Dad, Jim
Here's to the "Absent-Minded Professor"
photo by Elena Luz Gomez.
Posted by LYT at 12:51 PM | Comments (3)
June 14, 2008
Crashing THE HAPPENING
I'll write a review a little later, but I wanted to point out a problem so glaring it appears in a commonly disseminated production still.
Take a look at the photo below. See anything that maybe should have been fixed?
Look closely. Maybe my eye is just extra-trained, but it's patently fucking obvious to me (and more so on the big screen) that a section of the road has been replaced by a crash mat painted the same color as the road, so that the cop can fall over dead without cracking his head on the pavement.
You can see the outline of the mat -- looks sort of puddle-shaped.
Posted by LYT at 7:32 PM | Comments (4)
June 13, 2008
Meet the Press' Tim Russert, dead at 58
Quite a sudden shock, that.
Who'll fill the footsteps of the old guard of newsmen? None of the young 'uns seem up to it, except maybe Brian Williams.
Posted by LYT at 1:59 PM | Comments (0)
Noooooooo!
What are the odds...
My favorite L.A. film critic laid off mere weeks after me. Purely by coincidence.
Dammit, I don't trust many other reviewers. And none of them reviewed absolutely everything, like he did.
I've talked to him about this and it sounded like some degree of burnout was happening. Here's hoping that after some time off, he'll be back somewhere in full force.
UPDATE: Here's more on the story.
Posted by LYT at 11:55 AM | Comments (3)
Green-Eyed Monster
"What'cha gonna do, brother, when the Hulkster runs wild on you?"
It’s not the Gamma radiation that makes Edward Norton’s irises glow, one suspects...but the fact that his big Marvel superhero movie is, and will always be in the shadow of Iron Man, not just because they both happen to be coming out the same summer, but because this is played as a de facto sequel to Iron Man, as you no doubt know since Universal started showing Robert Downey Jr.’s cameo in the TV spots. Normally, I wouldn’t spoil such a thing, but the studio has, desperately trying to use trickle-down superhero economics to pad their grosses, and it will probably work. But while Edward Norton arguably has more acting range than Downey, Bruce Banner the character does not. He looks sad, he looks in pain, and he looks like he’s running. That’s pretty much all the part calls for. Now, Norton claims he wrote the script, though the credits say Zak Penn did, and he also claims he was the motion-capture basis for the Hulk, though, you guessed it, the credits name someone else there too.
But it’s not like this was a script to be super-proud of. This is a script that so perfectly fits the three-act format that, right as the final act is about to begin, one of the characters states that he’s “ready for round three.” The movie is entirely structured around three fight sequences between the Hulk (Norton) and his arch nemesis Robert Wilonsky, er, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who tries upping the ante each time, before finally deciding, for no apparent reason, that he’d love to be a giant, stupid mutant.
Nonetheless, for a Hulk movie, this is still a better structure than Ang Lee’s “take a whole hour to explain that Bruce Banner gets big and green when he’s angry, then have a final fight with his dad where nobody cam figure out what’s happening” strategy. Lee’s storytelling was dull and plodding, but it must be said that his visuals were better. The comic book panels, the green mushroom clouds, the Hulk dogs, and even the Hulk himself were all visually cool. Here, there’s no beating around the bush – the Hulk looks like an unfinished CG effect, as does the final mutant Blonsky, who’s kinda-sorta called “Abomination.” It’s a step backwards in realism, and some of my colleagues argue that it’s meant to be that way, believing that a certain amount of cartoonishness is intended. I don’t quite buy it. But nor am I a total CG-hater. If you are, this isn’t for you – the Spider-Man movies looked less cartoony.
The thinking here – and I’ll be blunt – is to emulate the Schumacher Batman strategy. Yes, really. Think about it: you have parents complaining that a comic book movie was too serious and morose and not child-appropriate, so your solution is to hire a less artsy director (Transporter 2’s Louis Leterrier in this case) and give him the mandate that the follow-up has to sell more toys and be more like the TV show people remember fondly. It’s a strategy that works better for Hulk, because the Hulk TV show was (mostly) not campy, and took its characters seriously.
Oddly enough, the Hulk comic book WAS campy, at least early on, what with Hulk talking like a retarded Tarzan (“Hulk hate puny human!”) and fighting foes like the Toad Men from outer space. The Hulk movies are still pretty morose, though this one does add more jokes, like Banner using bad Portuguese to tell a thug that “you wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.” We also learn that Banner can’t have sex without Hulking out, which disappoints Betty (Liv Tyler), who is clearly hoping that certain parts might be able to grow just a little bigger and greener.
It’s great to not have to go through an extended origin sequence again, even though this is a “ret-con” (look it up on Wikipedia; I don’t have to go through an editor here and I’m not going to dumb down the geek-speak). As the opening credits roll, we get a hilarious reenactment of the Gamma accident that made Bruce go green, staged melodramatically like a silent movie, or more precisely a Guy Maddin imitation of one. In this new telling, Bruce’s first transformation injured Betty and angered her dad, so he went on the run, and is now in Brazil, where he works in a factory that produces energy drinks. Speaking of which, 7-11 has a Hulk-themed Slurpee called “Radiation Rush.” In what reality is the idea of drinking radiation supposed to be appealing?
In the search for a cure to his condition, Banner has been corresponding online using the amazingly subtle alias of “Mr. Green.” A certain “Mr. Blue” thinks he can help him, and I figured this would probably end up being Beast from the X-Men, but no dice – Fox still exclusively owns those rights. It actually turns out to be Tim Blake Nelson in a blue T-shirt, playing a character named Samuel Sterns, who may end up being a villain called The Leader in some future sequel. Anyway, the military find Banner after some of his radioactive blood contaminates one of the drinks, and an American customer has a bad reaction. Thus busted by Blonsky and his crew, Bruce Hulks out, and runs to Guatemala in one night. Then, as Banner, he walks to Mexico in like a day, crosses the border, and is in Virginia in seconds of screen time. Guess he’s secretly The Flash as well.
One thing I don’t get about Hulk filmmakers is why they feel the need to make everything else in the movie green too. Energy drinks, alcoholic drinks, lights on the military equipment, backgrounds...wouldn’t the Hulk stand out more against a contrasting background? And while we’re on the subject of nitpicks, Hulk is bulletproof and flame-proof...but afraid of thunder and lightning?
Leterrier, Penn (and Norton, I guess) load the movie full of Marvel in-jokes, as well as a TV appearance by the late Bill Bixby, which I might have missed if not for the effeminate guy sitting behind me in the theater yelling “DAT’S DA GUY WHO PLAYED HIM ON TV! HA HA!” I suspect Bixby is actually alive and hanging out with Elvis.
Still, the big question is whether or not this movie is ultimately better than Ang Lee’s version. I’ll say that it’s more fun, but in technical terms possibly not “better” per se. I had a moderate amount of fun, and proclaim THE INCREDIBLE HULK pretty okay. But I have seen better.
Posted by LYT at 1:25 AM | Comments (1)
June 12, 2008
Quick review
The Animation Show, for LA Weekly
Posted by LYT at 6:38 PM | Comments (0)
Before getting laid off...
I wrote this summer movie preview piece for OC Weekly. A sample:
Topping my must-see list is Disney/Pixar’s WALL.E (June 27), a confession that elicits strange looks from many of my peers, who seem to think the film is just another sequel to Short Circuit. Kids likely don’t need to be given a reason to see a movie about a robot in outer space, but for you more jaded types, here’s the lowdown: WALL.E is the last operational robot on a hideously polluted Earth that has long been abandoned by humanity. Centuries of compacting the rubbish, cube by tiny cube, have caused the little guy to develop a bit of a personality, and when a rocket touches down, revealing an iPod-esque robot named Eve, WALL.E tags along on her return journey to a luxury starliner in orbit, where the spoiled remnants of the human race have evolved into slothful blobs in hover-chairs. Director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) has said that his chief inspirations were sci-fi movies of the ’70s such as Silent Running. The movie is also very sparse on dialogue, as the robots communicate in R2-D2-like fashion, as “voiced” by R2-D2’s sound designer himself, Ben Burtt. Tell me that doesn’t sound pretty damn great.
Posted by LYT at 5:46 PM | Comments (2)
June 11, 2008
Here's what I hate
In order to maintain sewer lines in the basement of my building, all cars had to move out of there.
A reasonable request, but there's a catch: the cars can only be moved between the hours of 6 and 7:30 a.m.
This is because all parking in my neighborhood is banned between midnight and 6. And the sewer work began at 7:30.
Why is it that all service/repair types work ridiculously early hours?
UPDATE: Of course they couldn't fucking finish in one day. So yet another goddamn 6 a.m. wake-up call is in my future.
Posted by LYT at 3:24 PM | Comments (3)
June 10, 2008
Blogging for Los Angeles
I have a new blog post up at LAWeekly.com, that spells out in more detail just what I was doing taking those downtown photos over the weekend.
Here's the lede:
"On June 6, 7 & 8, we’ll swing the doors to Downtown LA wide open!” Thus spake the full-page ad in the recent Weekly, and who was I to doubt, or to need a better excuse? I always enjoy myself downtown, yet the last time I spent any time there was a year ago, ostensibly to find my blogger friend Ben Sullivan a brand new cowboy shirt, but also to bid an L.A. farewell to myself and Matt Welch, who were scheduled to move away shortly thereafter.Matt’s expecting his first kid soon, settled in a new home in Washington D.C. I, on the other hand, could not stay away.
Posted by LYT at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
June 8, 2008
Everything's great when you're...down-town
Window-washer's rig, roof of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel
View from the pool/park area at the Bonaventure, 5th floor
Store window display
America...no trash wlecome
Last wall standing after demolition
Self-portrait
God, I love downtown L.A. Even more so after having to put up with downtown Santa Ana for a year.
Posted by LYT at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
June 7, 2008
Help
Anyone know how to fix a garbage disposal? Mine broke when I tried to get it to chop carrots. Drano doesn't help.
Posted by LYT at 12:07 AM | Comments (2)
June 6, 2008
I didn't see this coming
Previously only available in Germany, THE LAST EVE comes to U.S. DVD Aug. 26th, from Vanguard Cinema. Pre-orders are on Amazon now.
If you're an LYT completist, happy to own this for two scenes that feature me, you'll want this. If not...
Posted by LYT at 9:15 PM | Comments (2)
By the way...
...I'd like to note that I've felt particularly proud to be an American this week.
Bonus: Apparently, Barack laid the smackdown on Senator Palpatine recently.
[photo courtesy of BarackObama.com]
Posted by LYT at 8:34 PM | Comments (1)
Want to replace me at OC Weekly?
The ad has been placed...
I suspect whoever gets it will be doing the work of two, but who knows.
Posted by LYT at 1:22 PM | Comments (1)
The Khan Film Festival
Even if you think you know what this is, watch it anyway...
Full story on how this came together HERE
Posted by LYT at 12:54 PM | Comments (1)
June 4, 2008
For the first time in a year...
-I replaced a lightbulb
-I cleaned my kitchen floor
-I did ALL my laundry at once
Shredded a bunch of documents too, but I do that a lot. I might vacuum for the first time soon.
I guess I may have to pay my own way to the Press Club awards, where two of my OC Weekly stories are finalists, but one way or another, I'll be there.
People ask me what next. It is almost inevitable I'll move back to L.A. county, but I have to be able to afford it first, and I can't just yet - unless you know of a one-bedroom apartment in L.A. with A/C, a dishwasher, and less than $1000/mo rent.
I will be doing some odds and ends for the LA Weekly and others. I am also happy to say I will be covering the LA Film Festival (don't yet know for whom, but I will), which is one perk of the whole situation -- were I still on staff here, I would most likely have had to miss it. And it is one of my three favorite things to attend all year.
One more speaking part in a union film and I can be SAG. I think.
Meanwhile, I still live right across the street from my old office.
Oh, and I also have info on WICKED LAKE showings in San Fran, NYC, and Pittsburgh...
SAN FRANCISCO: "Another Hole in the Head" Film Festival
Monday, June 9 @ 7:15pm (Roxie Theater)
Thursday, June 19 @ 5:00pm (Roxie Theater)
NEW YORK CITY: the Two Boots Pioneer Theater (155 East 3rd Street and Avenue A) from June 27th to July 3rd.
http://fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=6616
PITTSBURGH: Saturday, June 21st at noon, as part of the HorrorHound convention
http://www.horrorhoundweekend.com/shows/200806/events.aspx
More interesting posts than this one will come soon enough, promise...
Posted by LYT at 1:59 AM | Comments (11)
June 3, 2008
There's an election today in California
Please go vote. Numerous people and interests are counting on you not to.
The most important thing on this ballot is Proposition 98. It is framed as a restriction against Eminent Domain -- the ability of the government to seize private property.
It does indeed restrict that. But it also ends rent control in California.
Rent control restricts the amount that rent can be raised each year. In some cities, it's zero. In L.A., for example, it's some exact percentage, and landlords always raise it the maximum, so that rent after the first year tends to be a really odd figure.
If 98 passes, landlords can't mess with your current lease, but the moment it's up for renewal, or you leave, then they can. If they can raise the price by any amount they want, cities like L.A. will not be affordable for lower-income workers. And without them, the city will ultimately have big problems.
I will be screwed if 98 passes, as will most of my friends out here.
Then there's 99. If it passes with a larger yes vote than 98, 98 is canceled. 99 is also about eminent domain, but less restrictive on it than 99.
So: No on 98, yes on 99. DO NOT FORGET.
Because if 98 passes, I may have to move to YOUR state. And you don't want that.
Posted by LYT at 12:16 AM | Comments (5)
June 2, 2008
"Sex" Ain't So Shitty
C'mon, can any movie where you get to watch this lady gettin' it on be all bad?
I should say upfront that I've seen maybe only two complete episodes of SEX AND THE CITY on TV. They struck me as pleasant, un-substantive, and certainly inoffensive...in other words, didn't make much of an impression. From what I've seen, and having seen the movie now too, it seems to me the appeal is similar to that of FRIENDS, where the whole idea is that you imagine how great it would be to have friends like these. Only in this case, minus the dumb guy and the hangdog nerd, and with more frank dialogue, as well as sex scenes that look like actual real-life sex, though no nudity for Sarah Jessica Parker because she's the producer.
"But wait!" I imagine Mr. Average Horny Dude saying. "She's not hot, so it's good that we don't see her naked!" Well, you may think that. But I used to think the redhead wasn't hot at all, imagining that it would only take a quick headshave to make her look like the Roswell alien. Then I saw the movie, and near the end she gets naked and gets it on, and I'll be damned, it was pretty appealing.
The thing about SJP -- based on what I see in this movie, anyway -- is that she looks good in casual clothes, and terrible in formal wear. The whole pulling her hair back tight and letting it frizz out the back is a terrible look for her, and when she finally dons the super-expensive wedding dress, complete with blue feathers in her hair, I think it looks awful. Then later in the movie, in plain ol' street clothes, she looks fine.
Anyway, I guess I should be consistent and call them all by their character names from now on. So, SJP plays Carrie, Cynthia Nixon is Miranda the redhead, Kristin Davis (the hottie above) is Charlotte, and Kim Cattrall (first woman I was ever attracted to, incidentally after seeing MANNEQUIN at age 12) is Samantha. In this movie, Carrie and Miranda are the protagonists, with Samantha and Charlotte as the respective wacky best friends. New Line publicists were all antsy about spoilers, but really...like there's plot here? Carrie's en route to probably being married, but doesn't know whether or not her man's fully into it, while Miranda's possibly en route to being divorced, though her man's definitely not up for that. That's the entire story, folks. Will the marriage happen? Will the divorce happen? What do you think?
I don't understand the visceral male dislike for this movie. Yes, it's long, but it doesn't feel as endless as some chick flicks. In fact, let me give you a quick list of reasons why it's better than most chick flicks:
-No-one gets a terminal disease.
-Characters who don't communicate with each other do so as a result of deliberate falling out, not because of some wacky misunderstanding that could easily be resolved if anybody tried.
-There are no group sing-a-longs to a Motown song.
-There are fashion montages, but at least they're livened up with witty banter or narration.
-People get naked and fuck, and it isn't all softly lit and slo-mo; it's rough and sometimes awkward.
-Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson aren't in it.
-The movie doesn't overplay the crying moments. Writer-director Michael Patrick King knows that pretty much everyone watching the movie is invested in the characters already, so no need to manipulate you into feeling bad for them.
-The soundtrack isn't shitty adult contemporary. Run-DMC/Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" is on it, and not even ironically.
-Frankly, I'd like to have friends like these. Hanging out with groups of women has always been fun for me, and not in a lascivious way. Maybe because I don't have a significant other dragging me to the mall every week, I find it a novel experience to watch women clothes-shop and see what they get out of it. I know, that probably won't last forever. Plus these ladies are drunks.
-Also, guys, it's not all sophistication. There's a Mexican diarrhea joke, and a dog that likes to hump things.
So Anyways, it seems to me that this flick is basically WRATH OF KHAN for chicks -- a movie based on a cult show you love, in which the characters deal with middle age and the issues of their past. Only instead of blasting said issues with photon torpedoes, they talk themselves through neuroses. Carrie is referred to as "The 40 year-Old Bride," which made me think that this is wish fulfillment in the vein of THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN.
But then I look at the guys the characters are with. Yes, Carrie's dude, Mr. Big (Chris Noth) is handsome, witty, and super-rich (as opposed to merely rich enought o afford everythign you need in New York, which describes all our heroines), and Samantha's dating a movie star, but the husbands of Miranda and Charlotte look like gay stereotypes -- Charlotte's guy is a paunchy, shaven-headed dude who looks like he should be directing theater, while Miranda's with a whiny uptight nerd who seems like a closet case. I notice some critics complain that the show and the movie are really about gay men rather than women, and this is the biggest piece of evidence in that direction. There are only two actual gay characters in the movie (not the husbands), so of course they end up hooking up.
One thing that struck me about this and similar movies is that the richer a character is supposed to be, the emptier their house is. Why is that? If I were rich I'd probably own assloads of useless junk. Maybe it's in their other houses.
Another thing that struck me is how much the women talk about wanting a happy ending, and how different that phrase's meaning is when used in a guy-comedy.
Then there's Jennifer Hudson, who's here for the same reason Aisha Tyler showed up on FRIENDS -- endless skepticism and complaints about the fact that a show set in New York only ever has white people on it. Her name's Louise, and she's from St. Louis, which King seems to find hilarious, so he belabors it a few times. Naturally, she ends up with a handsome black man, but not one who has any impact on the story whatsoever, since that would have required coming up with more than one fully developed black character -- an insurmountable challenge, it seems.
I don't see where they can go with more of these movies, but I'm sure there'll be a way. And I'll probably check it out, too -- after two and a half hours with these ladies, I've decided that I like them.
Posted by LYT at 1:59 AM | Comments (3)