Movies

I Have Mixed Feelings About This

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Next, he's going after the guy who underscooped his popcornIt’s finally happened: Somebody got shot in a movie theater for talking.

The weird part? The movie was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, a film that wouldn’t necessarily encourage loudmouthery.

Over at Cinematical, Peter Martin takes the long view of the incident, asking pertinent questions like “Who brings a gun to a Cate Blanchett movie?” and making sure we note that the assailant sat back down to finish the film after blasting his cap, while the rest of the audience fled the screening. (I’m just glad he didn’t open up on the other theatergoers for cutting off his view.)

Since the victim wasn’t critically wounded — just shot in the arm — it somehow feels okay to make light of this. And in truth, it’s pretty great that no one was killed, because this is the sort of incident that’s been coming for years.

People aren’t quiet in movies any more. And acceptable theater behavior — talking, texting, taking cell calls — has gone completely out the window since multiplexes have turned into party zones, with the video games and the Burger Kings and the bar service. (And who brings a kid to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, anyway? Was “Marley & Me” sold out?)

I’ve shushed more than my share of babblers — usually by shaming them with the same voice I employ to stop dogs from eating my bedding — but I’ve never come even close to getting physical with anyone. Of course, I’m not packing heat, either.

Was it George Carlin or David Cross who came up with the bullet theory of reducing gun violence? (UPDATE: It was Chris Rock; thanks, Mark!) Let everyone have a piece, but make the bullets $10,000 each, so you really have to think through whether someone needs killing.

Ah, that won’t help. People will just club each other with their gun butts. Which would, I’ll freely admit, make “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” a lot more entertaining.

Culture Shock

A Billion Souls Cried Out, and Then … Nothing

'Robot Chicken' Already Did ItIf you thought the “Star Wars Holiday Special” was as low as George Lucas could go … how about “Star Wars” on stage?

Oh, yes: TV Guide is reporting that Lucas, John Williams and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra are prepping “Star Wars: A Musical Journey”, which will pair clips from all six films with live performances of selections of Williams’ scores. But it’s classy; it’s going to have live narrators!

Yes, that’s right: George Lucas is cribbing ideas from Guy Maddin now. I sense a great disturbance in the Force.

That said, I’d love to hear Isabella Rossellini try to get through the opening crawl of “The Phantom Menace” …

Movies

Resuming a Regular Schedule

Hey, everybody! It's Medieval Timothy Olyphant!I am not a sentimentalist, but waking up from a mild turkey coma, seeing fresh snow on the ground and realizing that there are sixty Jaffa cakes begging to be eaten … ah, that says Christmas to me.

My values are slightly skewed, mind you. But not as badly (segue!) as the values of the people who green-lit the soulless failures that make up this morning’s Sympatico/MSN gallery, which nods in the direction of “The Spirit” and “Valkyrie” by running down seven other recent movies that appeared to have everything in place for successful ventures, only to botch the job hideously.

Sorry to bring up “The Golden Compass” again, but relevant is relevant.

Happy Boxing Day, everyone! May you make it safely through the malls, find great deals where you need them, and enjoy at least one piece of candy before noon.

Movies

So What’s Opening Today?

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This is how you'll feel at the 140-minute markI think there’s some stuff. Also, it seems Harold Pinter has died. Somehow that cheap shot about his “Sleuth” screenplay being a sign of early decline seems kind of mean now. Not wrong, mind you, just mean.

“Bedtime Stories”: Adam Sandler plays a shiftless uncle who learns the value of growing up when the bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew start coming vividly true. But the really improbable part? Keri Russell plays his love interest. Rad bears witness.

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“: Brad Pitt ages backwards! Cate Blanchett dances! New Orleans serves as a clumsy metaphoric backdrop for an epic American tale that’s as digitally processed — and, ultimately, as pointless — as a certain 1994 Oscarpalooza directed by Robert Zemeckis. I don’t blame David Fincher for trying (and failing) to tell a human story as much as I blame screenwriter Eric Roth; now, that guy can just go Gump himself.

“Marley and Me”: Look, I know the dog is adorable. I also know what happens to the dog. I will be elsewhere, probably forever. But Rad acknowledges that the movie worked on him, so that’s something.

“The Spirit“: Frank Miller tries to bend Will Eisner’s doofy crime-fighter to his misogynist will, and fails mightily. Some eggs just aren’t meant to be hard-boiled — especially when Samuel L. Jackson is ranting about them at full volume in every other scene. (Louis Lombardi’s a hoot, though.)

“Valkyrie“: Yeah, Tom Cruise doesn’t really pull of the German-aristocrat thing as well as he thinks he does. But at least he’s not the only thing pushing against Bryan Singer’s tale of a 1944 coup attempt within the Nazi high command; that whole Hitler-assassination plot somehow fails to generate a whole lot of tension. On the upside, you’ll witness incredible advances in digital swastika technology.

“The Wrestler”: Darren Aronofsky’s gritty tale of a lug’s redemption has been greeted ecstatically at film festivals around the world, and it is indeed very good … though, much like Mickey Rourke’s disintegrating hero, it’s also a little on the clumsy side. But that’s really the worst thing I can say about it, and Rourke really is amazing, as Barrett and Jason argue at greater length.

Oh, and “Waltz with Bashir” opens tomorrow. It’s very good. If you aren’t braving the Boxing Day hordes, there are worse ways to spend a soggy afternoon …

DVD, Movies

Don’t Look Back in Anger

So nice, so very very niceSince Christmas falls on Thursday this year, this week’s NOW hits the stands early — and with it, my list of the ten best movies of 2008. (Barrett’s and Susan’s lists are in there as well, but obviously mine is the most awesome.)

Some more pre-holiday business: If you’re near a radio (or a computer) at 1 pm this afternoon, dial up 590AM (or click on the “Listen Live” tab at The Fan’s website) to catch me on my brother’s radio show. I have no idea what we’ll be talking about. Latkes, maybe.

Oh, and for all of you who were worrying that Blu-ray player prices weren’t coming down fast enough, check out these Boxing Day deals: Best Buy will be selling its house-brand Insignia player for $99.99 come 8 pm. Which means you’ll probably be able to pick up a Samsung or a Sharp for about $200. I’d recommend doing that, by the way; the Insignia is profile 1.1, which means no picture-in-picture commentaries or BD-Live functionality.

Of course, if you really love yourself, you’ll get a PlayStation 3. Spirit of the season and all.

Movies, Pointless Personal Digressions

Christmas Is a Time for Helping

Santa? That prick?Seriously, it’s in the Constitution or something.

Thus, I’m helping my wife with some last-minute shopping this afternoon, helping her entertain her brother later this evening (not exactly a chore, mind you), and helping my brother tomorrow afternoon by appearing on his radio show to talk about sports movies, or Christmas sports movies, or something.

Yeah, well, there’s not a lot of stuff to talk about on Sports Central this week. But I’ll be giving it my best shot at 1:05 pm tomorrow (Wednesday). In the Toronto area, tune us in at 590 AM; online, you can go to the FAN website and click on the blue “Listen Live” tab near the top right of the home page.

And if you’re experiencing a similar holiday slowdown, call in and tell me which “Slap Shot” movie is your favorite. I promise not to judge, unless of course you pick the wrong one.

Culture Shock

Ah, Christmas

1 Comment

And he still has his machine gun, ho ho hoSo here we are again with the holidays, and the abrupt stoppage of interesting stuff happening in the world.

But wait! The Onion AV Club saves the day again, with its list of 42 seasonal delights that don’t make us want to bludgeon an elf to death. Or they do, but in a good way.

As always, the comments beneath the article — which, this time, include an intriguing sub-thread about the inescapable darkness of “It’s a Wonderful Life” that echoes Wendell Jamieson’s great New York Times essay — are just as engaging as the piece itself.

And if you don’t come out of this wanting to spin up “Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics” again, well … let’s just say that won’t be coal you find in your stocking come Thursday morning.

DVD, Movies

Result!

It's a long walk to the pie shopsLovely news from England: Joanna Hogg’s “Unrelated”, which my FIPRESCI jury picked as our prize-winner at the London film festival last year, has won this year’s Guardian’s First Film award, beating out Anton Corbijn’s “Control” in what sounds like a very tight race.

I’m delighted, really; no disrespect to Corbijn or his film, but “Control” is ultimately a fairly conventional accomplishment. “Unrelated”, on the other hand, is something out of the ordinary — an unaffected, almost minimalist drama about simple human conflicts, played out under the unforgiving Mediterranean sun.

Ever since I saw “Unrelated”, I’ve been quietly agitating for a Canadian distributor to take a look. It hasn’t happened, for whatever reason — I suspect the film’s smallness works against it on an international level. I guess I’ll have to settle for importing the UK DVD when it’s released in February, and pressing it on friends with multi-region players.

It’s part of the job, really it is.

Pointless Personal Digressions

A Modest Proposal

www.wandaspieinthesky.comI am writing this surrounded by Christmas cake. Like, literally surrounded by it; today is the day Kate brings the boozy fruitcakes she’s been marinating in our fridge out to her parents, so she’s been dividing them up all morning.

And it’s not that I don’t enjoy a slice of boozy, heavy fruitcake; I do, I do. But over at Salon.com, Vincent Rossmeier’s written a very compelling argument in favor of pie, rather than cake, as a holiday dessert:

Sure, plastered with enough frosting and chocolate-ganache implants, cake cuts a fine appearance at a party. But do you ever hear anyone talk about what’s on cake’s inside? Cake’s dazzling superficiality and popularity has allowed us to ignore its tasteless core. All the while, pie has been standing in the corner waiting patiently for us to notice — a little homey looking, sure, but with a personality like you wouldn’t believe.

I know he’s talking about conventional North American cake, rather than fruitcake. (And, again, I really do like fruitcake.) But he’s touched a chord in me, and now I’m pretty sure I have to stop in at Wanda’s around the corner to see what their seasonal pie offerings might be.

It’s all ultimately in the spirit of giving, of course. So nobody’s being slighted. I fully intend to share.

My other other gig.