What I'm Watching

Netflucks (the moniker that seems to be sticking to this pr-deprived enterprise) certainly makes it easy to remember - they give you a list of everything you've watched.  Without further ado...

Q&A (Sidney Lumet, amazing performances, which tends to go without saying in a Sidney Lumet movie) (not netflix btw)
Bill Cunningham New York (Richard Press) (excellent doco on NYT street fashion photog.)
Still Waiting (Jeff Balis) - cause I liked the first, your fairly standard gross out comedy, not bad, not the first though, though far better than say the Harold and Kumar sequel.  Balis, an indie producer based in LA, was incidentally the guy fired off Season two of Project Greenlight (the one with Shia LeBeof)
The Expendables (Sly Stallone) - have a client who may be in the new one, due diligence, not without its entertainment value, not exactly a rumination on existentialism, and in fairness not trying to be
Alice In Wonderland  (Tim Burton) - no doubt I am the last person in the US on the planet to see this and you all have your own opinions, but I found it pretty breathtaking, and Helena Bonham Carter rocks it out
Running the Sahara (James Moll - doco) - not bad.  Incongruous Matt Damon narration.
Hobo With A Shotgun (Jason Eisener) - Not bad, worth the watch, I think this director has a future.
and
Bronson (Nicholas Winding Refn) - Really knocked me out, as did Tom Hardy, who I met right after this film came out in the US at a pool on the roof of some WeHo hotel.  (Nice guy, wasn't very happy about how Bronson got treated by its distributor, or how he got treated.  He was already hanging with Leo and the Inception crew by then, so I imagine he got over it soon enough).  So Kubrick-like thats both its most amazing and probably most attackable attribute.  I was pretty much stopped in my tracks.  A must see.

Watching

the Scorsese narrated documentary on Val Lewton, who began his career working for Grumpy namesake David O'Selnick. Definitely interesting stuff, and learned alot. But as an aside, here's another set of lost twins for you.

Karloff did a few movies with Lewton at RKO.

And then Abe Vigoda, Tessio in The Godfather and from Barney Miller.

Anyone else ever notice this.

Grumps

What I am Watching

Searchers (John Ford)
Sunshine (Danny Boyle)
Atonement (Joe Wright)
Frontier(s) (Xavier Gens)
Ils (David Moreau)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
Irreversible (Gaspar Noe)

da da dan ta, dun ta da. dun ta dun to, dun tun tun tun tun

So what am I gonna do. Wait for it. I can't. I'm nine years old, OK. Deal with it.

I am going to the first showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at 12:01 at the Battery Park Cinema near my house.

Yes, its gonna be packed. And yes, its raining (though not too badly).

When I was a kid, I used to cut school to go see these movies when they came out. Indiana Jones is the closest thing I have to an inspiration for why I am in the movie business now (of course, its never just one thing), the root cause of all this.

So yeah, I am going. I just wish it started a little earlier. Gonna do the popcorn and the whole schmear I think. Might as well go all out.

This is the first time I've gone to a theater on opening night in forever, I think. Maybe my ex, Jeanne dragged me to one when we were dating. She also liked to shop for Christmas presents on the Friday after Thanksgiving. She doesn't mind crowds so much, not like me.

But I'm going, and I have pretty high expectations, despite mostly good but slightly mixed reviews.

Grumps

Mean Streets - See It Again

What can you say about Mean Streets? Is it possible to determine the overall impact of the movie, Scorsese’s early classic, on not only his later films, but on the entire genre of gangster movies (which Mean Streets is not), Italian-American cinema (which it is), and film acting in general (due to stunning perfs by Deniro, Keitel, and very powerful and realistic supporting characters played by David Proval, Richard Romanus, and Amy Robinson, who was never again in a movie (though she has produced many)).

I don’t want to review this movie here. Its been review to death. Just reminding those who haven’t seen it, or seen it for a while. See it again. It might be Scorsese's best movie. Its like watching a French new wave film shot in Little Italy (and Los Angeles, where most of the movie was actually filmed), with Deniro instead of Belmondo and Amy Robinson instead of Jean Seberg or Jeanne Moreau. Its simply kinetic and realistic. And timely. The movie hasn’t aged, except for perhaps the sequence where the two Riverdale kids get swindled out of the firecracker money.

What I am Watching

What I am Watching:
300. Whoa. The most testosterone laden movie Ive seen since Peckinpah and Fuller. Lots of fun, too. A true comic book.

The Prestige. Dont miss it, its great. Christopher Nolan's best film and that is saying a bunch.

Bringing Out The Dead (1999) - I missed this somehow, Scorcese and Schrader and Grumpster fave, Tom Sizemore. Really interesting, and definitely dark and moody. Like dessert with Paul Schrader.

What I am Reading:
So You Want to Be a Producer, Lawrence Turman (producer of The Graduate, et al.) - Worth the read, though I dont know if it really addresses an answer to the title.

What I am Watching

Heroes, Season One. Yes. Great show.
Accepted - Not exactly Animal House.
Serenity - My first Joss Whedon. I get it. Pretty good. Summer Glau rocks.
Action (1999 series with Jay Mohr) - A little bit overbaked. Definitely has its moments
Californiacation - First episode was pretty decent. Potential

What I am Watching

Saw III - Not so bad. Some good stuff. Ultra gory at the beginning before calming down quite a bit.

Ratatouille - Full of heart. Not a barrel of laughs like Shrek but a very good solid stroy story and a classic toon that will play forever. Peter O'Toole is a classic too.

Hot Fuzz - To me, funny but a little bit overhyped. I liked it though I wish it went a bit further- the last thirty minutes are the best and I think they could have been well served by getting there a bit sooner and playing up the very fun homage(s) to American action movies. A lot of fun, nonetheless.

Dexter season 2 premiere - the fun continues. One of the best shows on tv.

Family guy - season three. Every bit as good as the Simpsons, maybe better.

What I'm Watching, What I am Reading

What I'm Watching
Entourage Season IV. Yes!
Borat - Funny but remarkably uneven. Way overhyped, i thought. Brilliant performances, though. But like the show, kind of a one joke wonder. And the producer's body, I just didnt need to see that. Ugh.
William Castle's Homicidal -Dated psycho ripoff from the master showman. And I didnt even figure it out.
Friday After Next. It is what it is. Has some good stuff. Katt Williams with the pliers is a funny bit.
Battle for Shaker Heights. Say whatcha want, I liked it. I liked the script a bunch.
For Your Consideration. Good, though felt like it coulda been better than good. Some very funny stuff, tho.
Biggie and Tupac. Great, spooky doco. Check it out.

What I am Reading
Making Movies, by Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico). Pretty interesting so far.

Historic/What I am Watching/Reading

I cannot believe it. My internet wireless connection went down for no reason yesterday. Absolutely, worked one moment, dead the next. And with my busy social life out here (NOT), it sucked pretty bad. I tried everything, including endless searching on the net while physically plugged into the router in the main house.

After almost a full day of on and off searching, I found a Mac helpsite that gave some suggestions for fixing this problem (with the particular error message I was getting- it seems that macs, while they dont get viruses, have other sorts of problems that people often randomly experience and post about online - thats been the case whenever I've had a Mac problem).

Anyway, finally, i followed these steps, trial and error style, and I am wirelessly connected to the internet again. I am a little incredulous, because I am not particularly technical. And I am having some problems with the safari browser, which wont let me connect to certain sites because of security concerns. Blogspot, included, I am posting using Camino.

But Im back, in any case, and pretty damn excited about it . Can you tell?

Anyway, here I am.

What I am Watching: Lords of Dogtown, Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Office Season 1, Search and Destroy (someone should have destroyed the DVD before I watched it).

What I am Reading: Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes by famed sales agent John Pierson. A fun read but probably only for those in the biz.

Fear And Loathing Review

Sometimes you see a movie and it doesn’t resonate properly the first time. Maybe it’s the depth of your experience, or lack thereof. Maybe its something else, like there are layers of subtext. In the case of my initial reaction to Terry Gilliam’s adaption of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I think the cause was different. For whatever reason, when I first turned it on, watching it on DVD when it was released, I didn’t make it past the first twenty minutes. And I love Terry Gilliam, always have. I think, though, that when I saw one of my favorite books on screen, from one of my favorite directors, it set my expectations for comedy so high that what I saw in the first twenty minutes was quite disappointing. I was watching at a friend’s place, we turned it off, and I never bought or rented it afterward.

Well, its years later, now, and I’ve had the chance to see this brilliant movie. I think the first twenty minutes is kind of the orientation period. It’s the elevator ride down. I stopped the movie before I had a chance to acclimate to its vision, to embrace what Gilliam was trying to do with the book. The way that a world is created is undeniable, and even after watching just the first bit made me realize that he had done that, but to write it off as a terrific failure, one that was brave and masterful and just didn’t work.

But I had to give it another chance. I mean, this is Terry Gilliam. Brazil, Terry Gilliam. With Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. And I am glad to report that it was my short attention span, my ADD, whatever, that led me not to recognize the brilliance in the vision and the humor that resounds throughout. Its just that he doesn’t explain his vision, the background of the characters and their real-life behavior; he just asks you to hold on to the back bumper until youre running faster than you ever have, at the same speed as the car.

The casting is brilliant, with great cameos up and down, including Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Ellen Barkin, Chris Meloni (great as Sven, the Hotel Clerk), Gary Busey (may I have a kiss before you go?), Viggo Mortensen, Cameron Diaz, Penn Jillette, Harry Dean Stanton and a bunch of others. The photography completes the trippy atmosphere, as does the use of the rear projection in driving scenes. And Del Toro is a great foil to Depp, whose movie it is and who carries the movie with his performance and voiceover and complete dedication to his homage to Hunter S. Thompson (who appears in a flashback).

Watch it. Own it. Live it (well, probably not, you’ll get arrested). And try the Land Crab.

What I am Watching

Lady in the Water - Omigod. What the hell was that. Worse than expected, despite a valiant effort from the always excellent Paul Giamatti.

Idle Hands - Well, at least Jessica Alba is in it.

Dexter - a must see tv series on Showtime. Excellent, consistent, interesting.

What I am Reading, Watching

William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade - Funny, and interestingly off base sometimes with respect to its predictions of the future (It was written 20 years ago). Its interesting also, to read the writing of those who have made it in the entertainment biz because they are always, to some degree, spinning. They don't totally give it to you straight, because they may have to work with the people about whom they are writing again, or they may just run into them at a dinner party. In any event, this industry classic is more than worth the read for any screenwriter.

Watching...yes, more horror.

The Ring Two - Snore. Chuckle. Snore.
Evil Breed - Porn Stars and Richard Grieco in a "horror movie" - add it up. Very high scores on cliche and unintentional comedy, though. Never saw I guy get strangled by his colon before.
From Dusk Til Dawn II: Texas Blood Money - looks like they were missing Bob Kurtzman on this one. I saw it on SciFi, so it was cut with commercials, so I can't really give much of a real opinion though.

Still More What I am Watching (You think I get off the couch?)

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown: Leguizamo and Romano can make anything sound good. Starts slow, but pretty decent overall.
High Tension: Yes, I'd never seen it. Quite an exercise in style. An interesting point - I think horror fans particularly forgive the serious plot flaws of the movie, because its so stylish and the violence is so...violent. Its a fun exercise, and Alexandre, well, you see the chops that got him Hills Have Eyes, and entry into the Splat Pack. Got its limitations, but overall worth the ride.

What I am Reading, Watching

Reading: What Just Happened, Art Linson (again, and even better than Pound of Flesh).
Watching: the last few episodes of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, before it goes off the air
Paul Schrader's Dominion - Exorcist Prequel - Paul Schrader dont do horror
Waiting - A rueful guilty and very funny (at moments) pleasure, falling squarely within the humor range of an eighth grader. Perfect, right?

More Watch List, Read List

Watching
Exorcist II: The Heretic (ugh)
Exorcist III

Reading
Art Linson's A Pound Of Flesh - from the producer of Untouchables, Fight Club - very entertaining

Watch List

The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Cache (Hidden)

Wolfen (not the first time).