You may notice something a little different in the film section of NOW this week — specifically, my piece on the increasing sophistication of American television, in contrast to the dumbed-down movies that clog the megaplexes this time of year.
Basically, I’ll take any excuse to tell people how great “Lost” is. What, you want to fight about it? I’ll be down at the Dharma docks.
Sorry for the late post this morning — I’ve been tangled up in the AV Club’s always essential “Lost” recap and comment thread. (I know, it was another Kate episode, but the left-field return of Mac from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” made the whole thing worthwhile.)
Anyway, today’s new thing is my latest MSN Movies gallery, which should have gone up last weekend but somehow didn’t — a look at Luc Besson’s legacy of European action movies to tie into the release of “From Paris with Love”, which I quite enjoyed but no one else did, apparently.
Ah, well. Chacun a son gout, right?
My latest MSN DVD column is up, spotlighting left-field Best Picture nominee and my #1 film of 2009, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “A Serious Man”.
You should see it. Whether you think you’ll like it or not, you should see it. How many other movies will you ever see that feature a stand-alone prologue in subtitled Yiddish?
Sure, maybe the next “Transformers” movie if Michael Bay is feeling especially perverse. But how many other movies?
First things first: Yay for the New Orleans Saints on the occasion of their very first Super Bowl win, which brings some joy to their still-struggling town four and a half years after the levees broke. (Somewhere in Dallas, Bush probably thinks he’s responsible for the victory.)
And boo to the viewers of Puppy Bowl VI for choosing bug-eyed freak Jake as the event’s Most Valuable Puppy. That’s just not right — did they feel nothing for Kiva? She tried so hard!
Turning to newer stuff, the A.V. Club has two excellent pieces up for your consideration: A Valentine’s Day-themed Inventory of 22 romantic-comedy characters who don’t actually deserve love — they remembered Jada Pinkett Smith in “Woo”, which is kind of awesome — and Nathan Rabin’s latest My Year of Flops case file, dedicated to Alec Baldwin’s lost feature “Shortcut to Happiness” … the adaptation of “The Devil and Daniel Webster” where Jennifer Love-Hewitt played the devil.
Sometimes, a movie gets lost for a reason …
Sure, we could talk about “Dear John” finally knocking “Avatar” out of the top spot at the domestic box-office this weekend, and the significance of James Cameron’s movies only being vulnerable to critically panned genre exercises.
But a story in today’s New York Times is much more interesting: Apparently, people in the Philippines are being attacked and even murdered after performing a karaoke version of “My Way”.
Seriously.
Doesn’t that make you want to talk about nothing else for the rest of the day? Never mind the prospects for the Super Bowl; what other songs might get a performer marked for death? (According to the piece, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” has a body count of eight in Thailand — and all from the same performance.)
My last karaoke performance was a duet of “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”. Sure, I barely escaped with my life, but I figured that’s just what happens when you take the Julio Iglesias part …
From the fine folks at Crooks and Liars: What the fine folks at Fox News edited out of Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Jon Stewart.
You can find the official Fox version of the interview in three parts on the YouTubes.
Someday, I will figure out how to embed video. And that will be a glorious day.
With the Oscar nominations announced, the studios will be spending this weekend resituating their big contenders, leaving a handful of new releases to spackle the empty slots in the megaplex that were previously occupied by “Nine” …
“Dear John”: Having endured “Message in a Bottle”, “The Notebook”, “A Walk to Remember” and “Nights in Rodanthe”, I am contractually exempted from any further Nicholas Sparks movies. Susan took the bullet, bless her.
“From Paris with Love“: John Travolta, entertaining? Perish the thought! And yet, somehow, his go-for-broke Samuel L. Jackson impression fits perfectly into Luc Besson’s latest European shoot-em-up. Hell, he even makes Jonathan Rhys Meyers look like a credible action hero, rather than a hollow-boned prat.
“Frozen“: Adam Green’s merciless thriller strands three young people on a chair lift — and us along with them — in a tense, occasionally excruciating study in survival horror. If you’ve ever had frostbite, well, prepare to feel a lot of sympathy pain.
“I Killed My Mother“: After spending nine months on the festival circuit — Cannes! Toronto! Palm Springs! — Xavier Dolan’s festival smash finally opens in Toronto. I can’t say I’m one of its biggest boosters, but it’s certainly worth a look if you’re curious as to what the fuss was all about.
“St. John of Las Vegas“: Who is Hue Rhodes, and how did he talk Steve Buscemi, Sarah Silverman, Romany Malco, Peter Dinklage, Tim Blake Nelson into appearing in his terrible, terrible movie? You know what? Don’t answer that. Just tell me he’ll never work again, and we can all go home.
The new issue of NOW features my interview with Adam Green, whose new film “Frozen” marks a major step forward for the director of “Hatchet” and “Spiral”. He’s a talented guy with an admirable work ethic; fans of survival horror are going to want to see his movie.
There’s also supposed to be an online Q&A with Xavier Dolan, the young writer-director-star of “I Killed My Mother”, but that hasn’t gone up yet. I’ll link to it when it does. There it is!
A quick roundup of yesterday’s media blitz: The CP24 and Here & Now appearances don’t seem to be online anywhere, but I have links for the NOW podcast (right-click and save to desktop), my CTV News Channel hit and the Global National piece — which uses maybe five seconds of a fifteen-minute interview, at the very end.
Maybe they’re banking the rest of it for future stories? I did give them a lot of material.
Anyway, the Oscar thing seems to be settling down now, as the media’s attention turns to other, shinier things. Like the season premiere of “Lost” — which was freakin’ awesome, wasn’t it? I’ll bet you Rose, Bernard and Vincent were blown back to the current situation, as well. Yay!
Today was supposed to be relatively calm. A quick CTV News Channel hit, a podcasting session at the paper, and then some other non-Oscar related things.
Ha. I say again: Ha. By 1 pm, I’d racked up appearances on CTV News Channel, CP24 and Global National — though that Global National piece won’t air until about 5:30 this afternoon, so you may still have time to catch it. (I’ll update with web links if they become available.)
Somewhere in there, I also managed to bang out this analysis for the NOW site, running down my various disappointments and surprises. I think it reads coherently — which is nice, because I’m long past the point of coherence myself.
Oh, and when the Global National piece is done? Flip over to CBC Radio One (99.1 FM in the Toronto area) and catch me around 5:45ish on “Here & Now”. Also discussing the Oscars. Because that, apparently, is all I do now.