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Who could have seen what hell SEX AND THE CITY hath wrought?
No one and you would have been a fool and a liar if you had any presuppositions of its strength at the box office this past weekend.
What I find odd, more than the final tally, is its 85% female tracking of who was going to see the film. Of course it’s a classic chick flick in ways that the ladies, and the gay men who love them, showed they were ready to shower with dollars upon dollars. This cultural touchstone for many packs of rabid frauleines really took some people by surprise.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them.
The only reason why I was tipped off like a concerned parent who can smell a pedo in a crowd was that my wife (sorry ladies, I know it’s hard to take…) became Tom Cruise batshit crazy to see this movie. She needed to see this thing the very first night it came out. I will tell you this about my woman: She NEVER wants to see ANY movie the day it comes out. She simply refuses to even entertain the idea. In fact, the Friday nights that SPIDER-MAN 2 and 3 came out I was assured I would be going all alone. What’s odd, and really shocking to me, is that she was asked to see the film at 10:30 on last Friday.
The reason I bring up the specific time is that, depending on the height of the moon in the sky, she can’t stay awake to see anything. I was convinced, absolutely convinced, she was going to end up sleeping through the movie. I was sure she was going to tell me that she wasted a Friday evening premium ticket price on a nice nap. Such wasn’t the case as she came springing home around 1 in the morning to say it was worth all the hype, all the marketing and all the hubbub she has been saturated with for weeks. I couldn’t complain with such a glowing reception and I thought it curious when she went to see it a second (!) time no more than a day and a half later with plans to see it again this weekend.
The grosses of this movie, oddly, didn’t shock me based on what the wife thought after she saw it. For all the things that IRON MAN did for me as a giddy comic book geek, I understood perfectly how she felt about the SEX AND THE CITY film. It would be abhorrent if I went on a written tear about how on earth this film about some sex crazed yentas just gum flappin’ for 2 and 1/2 hours because she should shine that same sense of perception about my indulgence in flicks where men get wrapped up in tin.
It’s nice that the ladies have a movie they can call their own and nicely trounced the INDIANA JONES-lite installment by a good percentage on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and, as of this writing, Tuesday as well. The legs that JONES is supposed to have seems built for a midget if these box office figures are any indication and, since everything is made to be horse race, it seems Sarah Jessica Parker’s face was just horsey enough to beat the whipped-one by a nose.
Sometimes, these articles just write themselves. And, just to get the taste of girl sweat off of me, enjoy the following picture of Phoenix as made real by some random woman dressed as the red-haired harbinger of doom:
Ahh…Much better…
Director: Gil Kenan
Cast: Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Saoirse Ronan, Martin Landau
Release: October 10, 2008
Synopsis: For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember’s once powerful generator is failing . . . and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city’s existence, and help the citizens escape before the lights go out forever.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Negative. Gil, I have no clue what this movie is about.
I mean, I tried watching the trailer. I did. I watched it twice even. However, one of the things that I don’t get is that this seems to be DEMOLITION MAN 2: THE MOLE PEOPLE. You’ve got people living under the ground on what looks like a soundstage that is supposed to look like people are living under ground. Secondly, the concept is a arbitrarily goofy.
One of the first things that we read, big ups to you for not using a voice over, is that in order to save the human race an underground lair (commonly known as a nerd’s basement in their parents’ house) was built but that’s not really the goofy idea. You say that it was only supposed to last only 200 years. I guess I’m really stuck on the “only” part of that 200 years. Why only 200 years? What about 201 years? Would that be too long? What about 199 years? Would that be too soon for people to come out of? And why are they down there in the first place? And what the fuck is up with those dudes with flashlights running around at the beginning of the trailer? Is this a nuclear winter sort of thing?
The point is here, for those paying attention, is that you do not start a trailer by having to make me, the viewer, guess the back story. Obviously you have one and I am sure you’ll fill me in but you making me work, dude, and I don’t like that when it comes to my trailers.
After you’ve basically spun me around like those “˜tards you see in between quarters at basketball games who have to spin their foreheads on bats then try to dizzily shoot some hoops much to the delight of everyone in the audience I am trying to piece together the narrative once you tell me this place exists. OK, so you have a briefcase that was counting down 200 years until it went to zero, I think I follow you this far, it opened up, I know that, but some girl thinks it might be Armageddon and you have this treasure map looking thing which is in tatters. Oh, someone drags their hands in some water like in TRON; I loved that movie. They drink water like it’s energy and I’ve never forgotten that whenever I’m really thirsty and I chug a nice tall glass of agua.
So, you have some idiot girl having access to this really important thing, you have Bill Murray looking like this is going to pay for his beach house in the Hamptons, he doesn’t even say anything, then you have these kids, a la Scooby Doo, trying to fix/run away from a busted generator.
Gil, what is up with this movie, man? Is this is a kids film, an adventure yarn, some kind of flick where it’s all about finding replacement parts for this machine? See, again, this isn’t a good thing. Confusing me is easy, but I can guarantee a lot of other people who are smarter than I would have the same concerns here.
I will say that I hear the word escape being used a lot by some kids. Now, I don’t want to be some rain on your parade but is it just these kids who are trying to escape or are you going to doom all the other adults in this who have no clue what these whipper snappers are up to? One of the logical conclusions I have about the film is that if these kids escape the city of Ember, who is going to take care of them once they get to the outside and, if this city is doomed, then am I to believe that there is going to be wholesale death and destruction for everyone else? That doesn’t sound like much fun, Gil.
And, much like WAR OF THE WORLDS, I am a bit concerned over the human brake system, Tim Robbins. I like the guy but did you see WAR OF THE WORLDS? I mean, the movie was cruising down the filmic freeway doing 55 and then all of a sudden, THUD, my face was in the windshield. I hope what I see here isn’t really representational because I’m more than a little concerned by the lameness of how he’s used here.
BURN AFTER READING (2008)
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton
Release: September 12, 2008
Synopsis: A dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. An ousted CIA official’s (Academy Award nominee John Malkovich) memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employees intent on exploiting their find.
View Trailer:
* Medium (YouTube)
Prognosis: Positive. If push came to shove, I would assert that some lexicographers would state “shit” is a bon mot that is on par with “fuck” as a word which, when properly used, accentuates clever witticisms; a lot would depend, I would think, on execution.
Lots of the time, most of the time actually, these words are just background noise in an otherwise common parlance we all partake in when we banter back and forth with other people. Now, when Brad Pitt uses a word like “shit” in a sentence written by the Coens it takes on a whole new level of hilarity.
I love this trailer because of Brad Pitt’s use of “shit.”
Now, it’s not the only thing I dig about this preview because, frankly, it knows how to work; whoever cut this thing to make it red band has obviously been reading this column and has said to themselves, “I wonder what Chris thinks about people who abuse the power of the Red Band.” And, for those late to the game, I abhor senseless swearing as a means to achieve Red Band status, even though I will personally delight in shots of ladies in their undergoods, this is also a shameless attempt to try and convince people you are “teh” awesome and that you’re really hardcore. That said, this trailer delicately chooses its moments in order to achieve its Red Band designation.
Right from go, I like the setup. No voiceover, no cards, no context, nothing. The story is engaging enough that when you first see Brad wiggling a CD wrapped in a Day-Glo case in his fingers the back and forth between everyone in the room is not nearly Mamet quality but it’s funny. His first use of the word “shit” worries me that we’ve got some abuse of the Red Band designation; it almost feels ostentatious and exploitative.
Now, as we get further into this, Brad (who’s a – definitely looking older with the advent of HD and b – absolutely deserving of some respect with his oeuvre, easily balancing Malibu Beach House Payment quality work with things like this) and his lady hatching a plan to blackmail the author of these very high level memoirs is brilliant. It seems like the only way, you would think, to get Ma and Pa Middle America on board with this movie would be to help them out with a voiceover and some cards to explain things but the Coen’s marketing strategy here works as Pitt unleashes his second “shit” to excellent effect and tosses out a “dickwad” moments later for an encore. In fact, the totality of these events is nothing less than hilarious. Feel free to disagree but you’d be wrong if you did. Malkovich, as usual, is rock solid as the agent in question who fights, literally, to get the CD back. McDormand, as well, shines as she should.
Now, after we get past the initial blackmail situation we do enter some sticky territory. The narrative begins to confuse slightly so this obviously means a deduction of some points from the East German judge. If you go back and forth and listen real hard you probably could get what is going on, I think Clooney is schtupping Malkovich’s wife and Clooney, Goddamn his charisma, brilliantly pulls off a “back door” pun to great comedic effect, but after that there is a whole lot going on that is really confusing. Even the cut scenes manage to just befuddle even me in deciphering what in the hell is going on.
At one point I am glad J.K. Simmons, as the head of some clandestine government organization, steps in to tell Sledge Hammer himself (I loved, loved, loved that show), David Rasche, to report back as soon as this all makes sense. Exactly my point!
###
Worth Reviving
While talking to a fellow film fan/addict, at least a generation behind me, I discovered that as much as they loved the medium, they sorely lacked the experience of witnessing the films that blew my mind and opened a whole new doorway for the remarkable talents of today. An amusing anecdote; having mentioned, “Electra Glide in Blue” its amazing dramatic opening, its bent on the “Easy Rider” mythos and extolling Robert Blake’s performance, my friend interrupted me. “Robert Blake the killer?” bemused the young fiend, had no idea of the depth and range of Mr. Blake’s performances in such masterpieces as, “In Cold Blood” and “Electra Glide”¦”
That’s when it dawned on me. At least two generations have been nurtured on a stream of processed junk food celluloid that has been siphoned through an unstable era of video and dvd half-baked rental chains that have only been interested in bottom dollar cinema. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video lead the way of the demise of the revival houses. Homes to long lost forgotten movies that sometimes developed cult followings due to their obscure vision that set off minds like that of the two Davids (no ““ not the mutts from American Idol) ““ Lynch and Cronenberg. There was also the appreciation for storytelling inspiring the works of P.T. Anderson and the Coen brothers. Sometimes just downright exploitive fun tickled the guilty pleasures of Tarantino and Rodriguez spurring their imaginations. Add the chance to get reacquainted with classics such as Night of the Hunter and To Kill a Mockingbird and have one realize how good movies use to be.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a film snob. I got over my film school pretentiousness years ago. I loved Sin City, 300, and Knocked Up. I just find that there is a plethora of entertainment out there that has been virtually untapped by many and with just a little guidance I may be able to lead some of you to the Ark of the Covenant of celluloid. Originally, I had suggested to Chris naming this section “Worth Revisiting” but it made more sense calling it “Worth Reviving” with a nod to that lost realm of movie houses.
Now the sad part, what I’ll suggest to you dear reader will be hard to find in the GRCs (generic rental chains). Ask your local Blockbuster/Hollywood employee if they have an obscure title and they’ll either deliver the usual glazed look or robotically attend to their computer to check the inventory of the bland and mundane ““ more than likely telling you it’s unavailable or only to be had as a purchase at a ridiculous sum. Not true ““ buyer beware! Netflix has one of the most extensive libraries I have seen. I do not work for them nor am I a member. This is merely a fact that I must hail to whoever is behind them. They don’t have it all, but they have damn near 90% of it!
Now the decision of what I should use to premier this piece with. That’s easy since I just turned my film-loving 19-year-old nephew on to one of the greatest mind-altering films of the “˜70’s, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s, “El Topo”. My nephew not only ate it up, but also insisted on seeing everything else this genius had created.
El Topo launched the popularity of cult films, midnight movies and a surge in revival house attendance. This is very apropos since David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Dr.) has just announced that he will be producing Jodorowsky’s next film. Lovers of the weird, unusual and taboo may wait with baited breath ““ your mind is about to explode and the remnants will need to be cleaned with a high powered wet/dry vac.
Even when Jodorowsky attempts a mainstream storyline (i.e. Santa Sangre), he pushes the envelope and freaks us out. The only one that comes close to his universe is Lynch himself and that’s downright scary. I have now seen all of his films and ready to be placed into an asylum. Seriously, I could not see any sane person sitting through an entire Jodorowsky festival ““ too hard for the mind and the stomach to digest. I suggest taking him in small doses ““ a viewing here and there ““ perhaps one month intervals. My 19-year-old daughter is a movie fanaddict and I have not been able to muster the courage to introduce her to his brand of metaphysical nightmare cinematic upheaval, but I have promised her a viewing of his socially dysfunctional horror story Santa Sangre during her next visit. So, without further ado”¦
El Topo
Unfortunately, my first viewing of this masterpiece of madness was not at a revival house. It was a legend that eluded me for years till a good friend in the late’80’s lent me a bootleg copy on VHS. Poor sound, graininess and a 25″ RCA TV could not dampen the power of this man’s vision. I found myself rewinding back to scenes verifying what I was witnessing. I had not been this confused and mesmerized since my first viewing of 2001: a space odyssey. Not that they’re in the same genre, but possibly the same existential level, making one think and contemplate on what they are experiencing. That is probably the best way to describe this metaphysical western that has a cosmic mystic/master gunfighter face down four, just as unusual, rivals in order for him to reach self-enlightenment and a surreal resurrection. Confused yet?
You do not have to be a big western fan to appreciate this film. It goes beyond any kind of normal storytelling as the director/writer and star (Jodorowsky, himself) leads us onto a journey across vast deserts, encounters with bizarre characters portrayed by an array of deformed actors (dwarves, armless gunfighters), and what IMDB christens the “Definitive Cult Spaghetti Western.” Sounds too whacked out? Yes, this is one that could disturb and elicit all sorts of negative thoughts. But it could also have you realize how boring many films have been in the last ten years. This is a film you will be compelled to talk about once you have sat through an entire viewing. Okay, it is not for everyone, like my wife who prefers the Kate Hudson and Cameron Diaz Lite affairs.
At one time, I made the mistake of believing that film was transcendental. I thought a good film could be appreciated by all ages (as long as it was age appropriate). I learned at an early age that I was wrong ““ the hard way ““ when I took my grandparents to see Taxi Diver. The film eluded them. The movie and their grandson who insisted they see it repulsed them. Later, they urged me to seek therapy. The only therapy I needed was accepting that certain people could not see beyond the violence or dread of a brilliant piece of work.
Sorry to digress. El Topo means, “The Mole” and he is the lead gunfighter who travels with his young son and happens upon the massacre of a town. He saves a young woman and leaves his son in care of some monks. El Topo then joins the women on a mission to kill all four outrageously designed villains. He is then left alone, wounded in the desert and later taken away, semi-unconscious, by a mysterious sect of deformed people that hide him away in a secluded cavern. Years later he awakes and joins a dwarf woman who introduces him to a small town that is home to a weird religious cult and run by a ruthless sheriff. El Topo eventually builds a tunnel to help the cave dwellers escape.
To make things even weirder ““ ET’s son is now grown and is a monk in the town. Once the tunnel is completed, the story is brought to a violent and bloody crescendo. Poetic, surreal and original are just a few words describing the journey Jodorowsky takes us on. Please remember this is before the advent of CGI or any of the other preferred effects work that appears today. In fact, the blood and violence does not place the story in the backseat as so many others have. Instead, it is blended well and sits on a precipitous of madness that challenges the viewer and makes one think in a non-linear way. This is an experience well worth the visit if you can find it. Netflix does have it available, and for those more daring ““ it is available through Anchor Bay by way of a four-disc set, including Jodorowsky’s long lost short film that was recently discovered in a German attic in 2006. Once again, a warning, this is not for everyone. In fact, my grandparents are probably turning over in their graves, and if Jodorowsky was aware of it, he’d probably film that too.
Director: Jody Hill
Director: Nanette Burstein
Director: Baz Luhrmann
No matter what, we as fans of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg will always expect more, and rarely will they deliver. So I urge everyone interested in seeing their future movies to stop genuflecting to your celluloid deities and accept them as better-than-average filmmakers who have faults with touches of brilliance. This way, one can walk out of Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with a fun sense of nostalgia and newbies can have just as good of a time as the rest of us.
Director: Christopher Zalla
Director: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
Director: Christopher Bell
Do NOT take anyone who was responsible for your baby batter to see FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL unless you want to be very uncomfortable as I was where there was copious and obnoxiously needless nudity.
Director: Adam McKay
Director: David Gordon Green
Okay, while my cohort, Chris, made nice-nice to his wife and indulged her with the sub-par chick flick, “Made of Honor,” yours truly acted like a real man and ticked his spouse off. She insisted I get out of the house and take the kids with me. There was a method to my madness (rarely do you want to tick off a woman part Cherokee/Scottish descent) – with a busy weekend ahead of us, I wanted to catch “Iron Man” before anybody told me anything about it. And, I had little desire to suffer through another Patrick Dempsey pretty-boy flick with wife pining over him. I liked him better before the nose job.
Even though this marks the brothers’ return to the directorial lens, some would take contention with that and point out V FOR VENDETTA as a possible return to form, it is SPEED RACER which is wholly theirs. One of those who are in the thick with the brothers Wachowski, Christian Oliver, stars as Snake Oiler, a rival racer who has his own eye on winning the Casa Cristo Classic cross-country road rally.
CS: What kind of part are you playing in the movie?
Like you said, they are very private. They are very much all about the work. And I love that. I respect that. I think they don’t need to be in the limelight ““ they don’t want to be in the limelight. They are like kids. They want to play. They want to have fun. They want to push the envelope. It’s fun when you get to be a part of that ““ it’s very exciting. And then you want to do whatever you can to bring something to the game. So, it was fun.
CS: And certainly it shouldn’t pass without notice that you are a theater buff and I’m very impressed with the kind of credentials and one of my favorite stories, Candide, a brilliant story. I’m utterly fascinated and I want to know how the playwright was able to translate such a big story into a theater length show.
CS: You have been around ““ it’s obscene how many cities and countries you have been in doing acting. I know a lot of actors just go to LA and just hope to God they can spend their life in LA but you have obviously spread yourself around all over the world and one of my questions is I don’t know if it has played but the BBC mini-series coming up ““
OLIVER: For me, personally, I always need to be challenged. In the sense, that if I get to play like ““ I don’t even want to go there ““ but if you put me in a typecast clean machine ““ I can dial it in anytime but make sure you pay me. Other than that I’m looking for something to be challenged.
It’s easy to by cynical about films nowadays.
CS: I have to agree with you. I remember making movies of my own with my own video camera and this movie made me reflect on that and I still don’t have any solid reasons why I did it but I’m finding out that a lot of other people did that as well.
JENNINGS: We had the French exchange. And I’m sure if I were to go back in time it wasn’t the way I remember it but I remember these kids getting off their coach and the seemed so exhausted compared to us and so much cooler and so European. And then they had mustaches and we thought that was really cool because I was the latest developer in the history of time. We tried to make it so that anyone watching this film would understand that feeling. Obviously in order to get that we played around with it and he becomes a peacock ““ a Pied Piper and everyone can relate to the kid that people follow or are awestruck by even though you look back and say that guy was kind of a jerk ““ what was I thinking? It sorta came out and tried also to capture that when you look back you often realized that things weren’t so straight forward, like I said about RAMBOW. I remember the kids we thought were cool were invariably, they were but also more to it than that. There was always more to it. We were trying to get that across in the film. There was another side to it.
CS: Right. And on the subject of the script, at least in previous interviews I’ve read about you talking about fundamental influences coming in where Bill and Will are, do you think things are different today with the speed and access in which kids now are able to be exposed to so many different messages?
CS: I do. It’s what a lot of people who have seen it have reflected on saying, I remember having friendship like these and all of a sudden you’re in 8th grade, 9th grade and you just turn around and they are not there anymore and you don’t ““ no one is angry at one another ““ it just happens.
CUMMINGS: It’s interesting, isn’t it?
CS: But you have to say, “If I HAD to ““ If someone put a gun to my head…”
CS: And how was that transitioning from a television atmosphere to a film? Does the scale change? 
CS: Overachieving while being funny. I have to believe it’s one of the hardest things in the world to try to do but do you ever get to the point where you are doing sets every night, obviously some nights go better than others, is being funny a draining thing? Are there times you don’t want to laugh or do anything associated with comedy?
CUMMINGS: My first ever was Paul Reiser. I found a book he wrote called “Couplehood” that he wrote in 89 or 90 and it’s kind of like what Mad About You was based on. It’s all about couples living together and the mundane goofy things that happen. Just like you said, it was about buttering bread in the morning, making coffee all of these little things and made these hysterical, brilliant commentary about the most mundane things and open it up to a hysterical world. The things we take for granted every day ““ you get up, take a shower, get in the car ““ all these things he had such interesting, funny observations. I was so fascinated ““ his sense of humor was so insane. Followed by George Carlin and big for me too was Bill Cosby. I used to watch his show religiously because so much of that was based on his stand up and then later ““ Dave Attell ““ he’s a legend now but he’s very edgy and then I got introduced to Lenny Bruce and then Bill Hicks and it was kind of over.
Director: Jon Avnet
Director: Andrew Fleming
I can only imagine how Lars and the Real Girl would have failed in different hands. Any one of our favorite screen funny men could have easily launched it into sublime orbit or underplayed to yawning effect. And, the same could be said for some other major directors as well. The viewers can be thankful that this complex yet simple touching story was handled with a fine balance, as was Ryan Gosling’s portrayal as Lars.
I had the fortunate chance to be part of the 8th Annual Phoenix Film Festival. Both filmmakers and fans joined together to view an array of talent spread out over seven days. There was a wonderful sense of camaraderie that permeated lending tremendous support in a competitive arena. And, why not, these are after all independents banding together over one goal ““ to be seen and recognized.
Director: Morgan Spurlock
PANNELL: I think pretty much everything he intended pretty much worked out. If it seemed like something wasn’t going to work, he was always in discussion with us. He was always asking us how do you feel and how we feel about our characters and welcomed opinions but we weren’t running around trying to run the set but very open and we felt very comfortable ““ at least I did, speaking for myself. If I didn’t quite understand something I would try to understand it with questions. It’s really like a novel ““ a great narrative piece of work ““ and you want to show that justice especially when the director is the writer.
CS: During the shoot how long were you on set making this film?
CS: It says you are currently in Los Angeles and I would imagine it’s nice to be able and go back to LA if you were to compare being on jobs, the difference between working on something like this and working on something with tons more money behind it”¦
PANNELL: On my shoulders? This is the biggest part I’ve had to date. I told someone earlier that you don’t have to have a million dollar set to bring professionalism to the set, and handle yourself in a professional manner and I think everyone did that. It worked like clockwork. Jeff was the perfect captain for the film. I hope that I did it justice in Jeff’s eyes. At the end of the day, you say, Oh I should have done it this way, or I should have done it differently. Hopefully I’ve learned from it.
A lot of superlatives could be used to describe the fierce yet melodic sounds of 
BARRETT: That’s the genius of Joe Gittleman, producer of the Bosstones sound. He knows the Bosstones sound like I know the Bosstones look.
BARRETT: I really wouldn’t have minded that but to be the Bosstones is not the Rolling Stones. It’s just not for everyone or easily understood. It’s hard to explain. At the peak of our popularity I really didn’t enjoy that as much as I probably should have. I took it too seriously. It felt to me like, “Oh shit, all these fans that we’ve created throughout the years ““ punk and ska clubs are going to hate this.” It wasn’t like we were trying for those things…things came to us. When Kurt Cobain died and people were feeling pretty miserable we thought it was time for people to feel a little bit better and we happened to be there with bands like Green Day, Rancid”¦it was time for uplifting music, which is what we’ve always been doing. It wasn’t like we flipped our flannel shirts off and put on the suits ““ here we are we’ve been being the Bosstones for 10 years before that. My mask could be off.
CS: And then going back for the Hometown Throwdown certainly helped to gel a lot of things, but how was it going back this year?
CS: If it’s anyone that deserves some kind of mainstream recognition, it’s them. They played 5 nights in a row ““ all of the shows surfaced nightly on the Internet ““ but it was amazing to hear the guys, over the course of 5 nights, getting tighter and tighter. It was sold out and they mentioned they wanted to do it again next year. What’s it like to go out there and do something 5 nights in a row in one place ““ what’s it like by that fifth night?
BARRETT: I don’t know. None of it is solved. Busy schedules but I’d like to tell you it’s really difficult and I don’t know where it comes from and I’m really gifted and I can spin several plates at the same time but it doesn’t seem like hard work to me. It feels like I’m doing things I like and glad to have the opportunity to do it.
CS: That launches me into asking you why these students are so special. Why were they so successful? Anyone with a math kind of brain could have figured it out. What made them so different?
CS: Did you think that when you started to explore these characters, was it based on greed or was it based on something else underneath it?
CS: Did they get their fill at the end? These kids didn’t grow up and continue to be this way so how did everyone cycle out?
CS: This opportunity didn’t start it, they already had it in them.
CS: Is it moot now to try and count cards, then?
YOO: And if you go to these other places, they may not have face recognition software and may not be quite as savvy but if they catch you there are still places where they will backroom you. People go to Native American casinos and do this sort of thing because in general the casinos are not as high tech or savvy as the ones in Vegas. I know there are triad owned underground casinos in different cities around the world. And if you have the balls to go to one of those places and card count, you should get a prize.
Director: David Schwimmer
Director: Louis Leterrier
Director: David Ayer
Director: Jessica Yu
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Director: Michael Haneke
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
The one stand out moment has to be, without question, ONCE’s “Falling Slowly” winning an Academy Award; it was the best reason why you should believe in the Academy voting every now and then. It certainly filled me with the kind of armchair happiness for this film that I haven’t felt for a lot of films being entered into these contests in quite a while. And, to boot, Jon Stewart’s insistence to allow Marketa Irglova to give her speech after Bill Conti’s Gestapo Noise Brigade shuffled them the hell off the stage after Glen Hansard spoke so passionately about the experience. I had a sense of validation for being so vocal in this column for people to get out and see this little film that could and, most importantly, it represented the choice on my ballot that meant I tied the leader for the most number of correct guesses: my wife.
In other, more important news, I took my 4 year-old to see U2-3D on Sunday afternoon.
Director: Michael McCullers
Director: Noam Murro
One of the gripes, I feel, that many have echoed was that these characters are interminable; their journey seems to go on and on without any reason why you or i should give them any regard. I can see that but I can’t agree for the simple reason that when we are introduced to these brothers, played deftly by Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody, they are really broken men. The story gives the sense that these three have lived their life infighting and conniving against one another but we’re never quite sure of any these things; that is what’s so alluring about this particular Anderson film. In previous films we’re given cutaways to previous moments in his characters’ lives, the scene where Gene Hackman takes a potshot at his own son with a BB gun is the reason why the flashback can be a good tool if used appropriately, but he does none of that here.
Director: Zac Penn
Director: Steven Spielberg
That said, though, I am wondering what the Cease and Desist letters going out to 
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Director: Kent Alterman
I saw SPIRAL months ago.
CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Hey, Joel, Jeremy.
MOORE: We wanted to do something interesting with those two characters and have them mirror each other in a way.
CS: Could you talk about the writing process itself, i.e. co-writing? Where did the process begin?
BOREING: I’ve written things and Joel hadn’t done as much as that but he made films and I hadn’t been a part of that process. I probably had more moments of being not so much surprised but interested in the distinctions between the way I thought things would be on the page and the way they wound up being.
So, there is this interesting phenomenon that the people who are in the arts can sort of relate to this loneliness. Mason can’t do a 9 to 5 job out in the world and with the fluorescent lights and the headset and timecard he can’t be himself, he can’t relate in that environment. And a lot of us who come out here are that way ““ exaggerated to the degree of a Mason but when he’s at home he is immersed in the music that he loves and the art that he loves and thinks that he’s knowledgeable about things that he can relate to and open up to be the artistic, insightful guy and again, that is Joel, or that is Zac and that is Adam Green, even Amber Tamblyn. They are not at this extreme as Mason ““ we are telling a story here that is fiction – but then we can all relate.
But the visuals in this movie are what drives the movie because a lot of this movie are just two people talking and the cameraman is playing a character, a part in this movie ““ voyeuristically speaking. He is watching Mason as he’s going through his struggles. All of that was accessible to us. Because all of that is creating, between Adam and I, how the shot is going to look. We had these long shots of steadicam just moving around the world and one of my favorite shots in the whole movie is when Mason comes in from talking to Amber on the street and not inviting her up because he obviously has paintings of this other woman on his wall and he’s not ready for that transition. Mason looks out, looks at the paintings, and then storms into the bathroom. That shot right there is just one shot. It just moves all the way around and introduces you to the block where Mason spends 90% of his time.
CS: Dane, if I could close with the final question ““ I’m paraphrasing but Chris Rock said there’s the Stand Up Comedian’s Success Kit. Included in the kit is a movie, a book, a television show, now while you’ve said you’ve done pilots of a television show do you think that you will write a book? Do you think you will find success in a television show or do you think you’ve honed your craft well enough where you don’t have to spread your brand of comedy over different forms of media?
Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowki
Director: Steven Greenstreet
This animated short pushes the boundaries of what traditional animation is capable of when you don’t have a budget like Pixar and when you don’t want your film to look like it came out of a Disney back alley. Alex not only employs a different medium, his last being live action, but he incorporates what he’s learned from his first film as it relates to pacing, direction and ambiance. The latter can make or break a film like this, the entire production is less than ten minutes long but it never feels like a short, and Alex masterfully orchestrates a voice-over by Paula Garces (HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE) whose voice drips delicately, and deceptively, with animation that looks like it was tightly polished with a shoe boy’s rag.
Director: Fred Wolf
Director: Peter Berg
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Director: Roland Emmerich
Director: Christopher Nolan