l-dopa

~Jeff

Poetry by Taalam Acey from the film What Black Men Think.

Not safe for work link.

Tim Dirks has written an excellent article on the most controversial films ever filmed. The list starts off slow (“Aladdin”?) but that’s only because it’s in alphabetical order. See how many of these films you’ve watched; I think I’ve only caught about 25% of them.

NOTE: this article spawns annoying pop-under ads.

~jeff

Nifty piece of typographical theater by Jarratt Moody available for viewing here. He tells me he did it in After Effects; I had no idea After Effects was capable of this kind of coolness.

~jeff

Farce of the Penguins

I’ll admit it, I’ve been very excited about this movie for a long time. Written, directed and starring Bob Sagat, (note: if you haven’t seen “the aristocrats” stop reading this, and go rent it. Now.) It is a retelling of “March of the Penguins.” Narrated by Samuel L “mothafucka” Jackson and also featuring Lewis Black, it sounded to me like the perfect comedy. However, the reviews were almost unanimously horrible, calling it all sorts of mean things.

Although it wasn’t the work of comic genius I was hoping for, I was genuinely entertained, and would recommend it to anyone who has a pretty clear idea of what they are in for. Featuring a post-ironic awareness of how ridiculous the whole thing is (Sammy the narrator routinely gets into fights with the penguins), Bob Sagat manages to put together a decent joke. It’s just one of those ideas that sounds better than it works out to be. Kinda like the Sarah Silverman TV show, versus her fantastic movie.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Featuring a very sullen Tommy Lee Jones, this was a slow, albeit gorgeous journey through rural Mexico, all while hauling his decaying friend home for burial (really, his third burial. Hence the title.) Although it gets tossed around a bit too much for it’s own good, “Quixotic” is the perfect way to describe this movie.

It even has a donkey.

School for Scoundrels

Bad Santa teaches Napoleon Dynamite to stop being a push-over in order to get the girl.

Extras: Season 1: Disc 1

I’m going to admit something right here, and I don’t expect you to like it. I’m not nuts about Ricky Gervais. I know it’s heresy. I know he’s a comic genius. I know “The Office” is the best show ever. I’ve tried to get into it, a few times, but never been smitten with it. I’ve just constantly found it too cruel, too grating, too uncomfortable. I even love the American version of the “The Office,” but the British original has just never done it for me.

So, as partially an attempt to redeem myself, I rented “Extras.” I can learn to love Ricky, like everyone else. I just know it!

I thought it was OK. That’s it, just OK. Kate Winslet got a good chuckle out of me rehearsing dirty phone sex in a nun habit, but I never found it laugh out loud funny, and Ben Stiller did my least favorite Ben Stiller character, which is the yelling, angry, petulant asshole. Think I’ll pass on disc two.

What’d you watch lately?

Has anyone else been following the Litvinenko story with as great interest as I have?

And did those same individuals enjoy Casino Royale as much as I did?

It seems that Daniel Craig, who played James Bond in the recent incarnation of Casino Royale (the highest grossing Bond film yet) and a Vatican assassin in Elizabeth, is on the list for playing Alexander Litvinenko in a movie based on the assassinated spy’s book, Blowing Up Russia.

I’m looking forward to that one, yes I am.

“Night at the Museum” looks like it very well might be the worst movie that either Ben Stiller or Robin Williams have ever done, and that’s really saying something. How could it have been written by Dangle and Travis Junior?

~jeff

Nice initial offering from “Dot Comedy”, NBC’s stab at a You-Tube-style online comedy channel.

~jeff

So that’s what the lasso does.

The product of an animator who clearly spends most of his time staring at Flash. I think Jon Land will be either proud or threatened.

I’m still waiting for someone — anyone — to explain his creepy role as “Phillip Jeffries” in Fire Walk With Me, but nonetheless David Bowie continues to show up in interesting sounding movies:

David Bowie will join the Christopher Nolan-directed “The Prestige,” the Touchstone Pictures/Warner Bros. drama that stars Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine… Here he’ll play inventor and electrical wizard Nikola Tesla, who is approached by one of two competing magicians for help in pulling off the ultimate magic trick in 1878.

~jeff

This is not a review of snakes on a plane. It’s not. Sorry. There are lots of those.

This is a review of the audience. I was at the 10 pm Saturday showing at the Metreon. I held out from the very tempting 8:10, because I wanted to see it in DLP. There was hissing in the previews, one drunk fellow in the front who had good effort and rubber snake, but clearly wasn’t ready to be the star of this audience. His only solid contribution was shouting “Skanks on a Plane!” when the about to be dead whore headed off to be bit. (Note: this isn’t a spoiler. The whore always dies.)

There was a smattering of hissing through the film, a solid bit of cheering in appropriate places, laughter at the especially campy aspects of the dialog, (“Time is Tissue!” –Snake Expert) and an entertaining round of trivia with the helping girls behind me trying to figure out just what movie that Adam Sandler was in (It was “Punch Drunk Love”).

Now I know it was a Saturday night. But I really thought that they would be more audience enthusiasm. Where were the rocky freaks?

Mike Nelson, best known for playing “Not Joel Anymore” on cult classic cable show “Mystery Science Theater”*, has a new venture: Riff Trax. For $1.99, you can download an mp3 of Mike’s commentary track which you can then sync-up and play over the movie. As of right now the only movie commentary track is, of course, Roadhouse, but there are promises of more to come.

If the commentary is half as funny as his work on Mystery Science Theater — or his excellent book Mike Nelson’s Movie Megacheese (which if memory serves I believe has an entire chapter on Roadhouse as well) — it’ll be great. I just wish I had a copy of Roadhouse lying around, then we could be going off the rails on a Swayze train. If you know what I mean.

~jeff

* which always struck me as slightly unfair, as Mike was one of the writers for Joel. Sure, he didn’t have the same stoned-out charisma as Joel, but why hold that against him.

Excellent list of great movie endings — maybe a little spoiler heavy, though. If reading through it doesn’t make you want to rewatch at least five of these movies, maybe you’re not obsessive enough about your movies.

~jeff

Fig. 1

Link.

~jeff

Great collection of anecdotes about one of the most influential movies of the 80’s (and a personal favorite of mine), Richard Linklater’s “Slacker“.

~jeff