Fauteuils d'orchestre

quick bit

On my way out, but just quickly:

"INTERMISSION" is now up, this one is about Ignmar Bergman:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6821-On-The-Road-With-Bergman

Also, if you get the chance - DON'T skip "Fantastic Mr. Fox." Ignore the underwhelming, slapstick-heavy trailers. It's a beautiful little romp of a thing, possibly the best thing Anderson has been involved with since "Rushmore." The notion that Anderson directed this "hands-off" by email is baffling once you see it - it looks so completely and utterly "him" from the titles to the colors to the staging... even the tiny little costumes on the animals. And there's a random exchange about songwriting that I know I'll be quoting for the rest of the year.

The main thing I was unsure about was the risky decision to use deliberately fake-looking puppets an animation. The "sets" all look exactly like sets, with visible joints and brush-strokes, you can see the "fingerprints" of the animators in the real-fur animal characters (when a pregnant Mrs. Fox is said to be "glowing," the next cut replaces her with an internally-lit double clearly made from painted plastic) effects are accomplished using cotton for smoke, cellophane for water and the barest hint of rotoscoping... even the cinematography is stage as though shot by a camera that can only move in 2 directions - in, out, back, forth - at any given time. Topping it all off, the animation itself avoids smoothness at all costs - it looks as though the puppets were moved only ever-OTHER-frame.

But the ultimate effect is really hypnotic. The "trick" is that it's all about the details. The puppets are astoundingly detailed - the animals have tailored clothes, real fur, rows of realistic teeth, expressive faces and eyes that not only have pupils but irises - and intricately animated: Lips curl back over teeth, tongues move to enunciate and whiskers twitch in-sync. A minute or two in, it clicked for me: Anderson has always been fixated on cinematic artiface - look at the lovingly-obvious water-tank shots in "Life Aquatic," or the unmistakably-unreal animated fish in the same. An amazing amount of work went into "Mr. Fox," and he wants you to SEE that work happening.

Gvie it a look.

V (TV series)

His blood runs through my instrument

The real brilliance of Seth Green and Matthew Senreich's "Robot Chicken" is that it may be the first sketch comedy series to fully grasp the concept that, while blasphemy is funny, blasphemy against "official" religions is pretty hard to do these days: It's played out, for one thing, and the ever-decreasing irrelevance of organized faith in much of the modern world means that there aren't as many people who'll actually be offended.

SECULAR "religions," on the other hand, are much more a part of our lives now, and the jokesters who "get" that tend to be the ones who're on the real cutting-edge now - think Stewart/Colbert's open mockery of journalistic gravitas, South Park's constant assault on politically-correct piety, "Borat's" goosing of the politeness-instinct, that sort of thing. Or recall that in it's early prime "The Simpsons" drew gasps for it's evisceration of the sitcom nuclear-family ideal.

"Robot Chicken's" idol-to-be-shattered of choice is the religion of Nostalgia: Their main recurring them is taking the movies, TV shows, cartoons and - especially - playthings that my generation (which is, of course, also Green & Senreich's generation) tends to hold sacrosanct because of the impression they made on us at certain ages. And they're damn good at it - I've seen an aquaintance who regarded themself a casual student of the "nothing can offend me" school of psuedo-nihilism respond with bug-eyed shock at RC's re-fitting of "The Neverending Story's" famous "SAY MY NAME!!!" exchange into an (innevitable, in retrospect) sexual context; and I have an aunt whom I'm fairly certain would burst into tears if someone showed her the "Wizard of Oz alternate-ending" sketch.

With that in mind, my favorite RC sketch of all time is probably the short bit goofing on Dan Fogleberg's song "Leader of The Band." If you're not familiar, here's the song:



So... yes, one of those sappy/sentimental ballads; but if you knew of it beforehand you probably also know it's up there with "The Cowboys" or "Brian's Song" in the "stuff guys are allowed to cry during" pantheon. People play this song at their father's/grandfather's funerals. There's a pretty good chance that at some point, somewhere in the English-speaking world, someone is fighting back manly tears while quoting from this in the vicinity of a casket and/or headstone.

So, here's what "Robot Chicken" did with it...


http://robotchicken.wikia.com/wiki/Leader_of_the_Band

When I saw that the first time, I remember thinking "That's WRONG!!!" and THEN realizing that this was the first time I actually MEANT it in a long time. Brilliant stuff.

Escape to the Movies: "The Road"

I wish it was better.

("Intermission" should be up around 5pm ET on The Escapist)

Babies

hat tip: Chud:
http://chud.com/articles/articles/21679/1/MOVIE-MAKES-STUNNING-CLAIM-THAT-BABIES-ARE-CUTE/Page1.html

Well, doesn't THIS have "this year's March of The Penguins" written all over it...




Can't lie, looks cute, kinda surprised nobody thought of "find an excuse to run video of babies for 90 minutes" until now. There's actually a HUGE, more-than-a-little creepy market out there for what amounts to "infants-as-art-objects"... In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and blame this movie NOW for the fucking Anne Geddes movie we'll probably get about a year later.

Precious: Based On the Watching of the Movie "Precious: Based On the Novel "Push" by Sapphire" by MovieBob

So I finally saw "Precious: Based On the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," which has become this year's movie that people judge you as a person based on your opinion of it (see also: "Life is Beautiful.") You're either moved-to-life-altering-tears by director Lee Daniels' presentation of an illiterate, morbidly-obese teenager (Gabourey Sidibe) gradually dragging herself out of a nightmarishly-abusive home life with help from friends, teachers and social-workers in 1987 Harlem; or you're a heartless bastard who's either "trying" to dislike it or you just can't take the heat.

Honestly? I'm torn: What you've heard about the acting is true - Sidibe is a revelation, Mo'nique comes close to very nearly eradicating bad memories of... well, pretty much everythign she's ever done anywhere ever (seriously.. was she EVER good in ANYTHING before this?) and somehow Daniels defies all known laws of nature and wrenches a great turn out of Mariah Carey. Maybe Daniels in the wrong profession: He should be an acting coach, exclusively assigned to actresses who've previously failed to demonstrate anything resembling ability (he also produced the Halle Berry Oscar-victory piece "Monster's Ball.)

What he probably SHOULDN'T be doing is directing entire films, because everything in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" ranges from uninspiring to laughably bad. Problem numero-uno is the actual story - once you get past the sheer SCALE of the abuses heaped on Precious (you can practically hear the carnival barker: "Incest! Force-feeding! Baby tossing!") it's difficult to ignore that it's not much more than a grimier, nastier Lifetime movie; right down to Paula Patton's (to be fair, very well-acted) walking-cliche role as the saintly Alternative School teacher who takes it upon herself to rescue Precious.

More problematically, Daniels injects some fantasy/dream sequences, ostensibly representing Precious introverted escape whenever things get too intense, that play-out like bad comedy. He also indulges in ham-fisted irony, as when Precious looks at herself in a mirror and sees a blonde caucasian model instead (gee, do you think that reflection will look different by Act 3??) and a shockingly trite bit where the world-opening effects of education on Precious are visualized by spinning the camera around her and projecting a "great moments of the 20th Century" news-clip assembly onto the walls - an easy contender opposite "New Moon's" seasonal-transition bit as the year's worst use of montage. And don't get me started on the film-school-look-at-me moment where Precious imagines herself and her mother inhabiting a scene from Vittorio De Sica's "Two Women." The hell!?

There's also a few bits where the film seems (perhaps inadvertently, so just be clear I'm suggesting incompetence and not malice) to join it's villains in making fun of Precious: Moments of condescension like Precious' voice-over opining of "they talk like people on TV shows I don't watch" while sitting-in on political chatter between Patton and her partner (why does she know what it sounds like, then?) and did it really require the scene where Precious steals a bucket of fried chicken and devours it while sprinting down the street?

It's impossible not to be effected by the level of squalor on display or the tremendous performances (honestly, the actors yank the film from bad to pretty-good more or less by themselves), but as a functioning film it's DEEPLY flawed. Shower the cast with praise and statues, fine... but the placement of the film itself on any kind of "year's best" list is - at best - charity and at worst self-deception.

WATCH/READ THIS: "Ode to Minions"

I dunno how many people remember to check it out here and there, but Matthew Taranto and Chris Seward's "Brawl in The Family" is consistently one of the better webcomics out there; especially considering it's working from a premise - goofing mainly on Super Smash Bros.-related franchises - that you'd think wouldn't have much room for growth.

To celebrate "strip #200," they've pulled out the stops for a musical episode. It's pretty damn great (the last three panels just SLAY ME), you can check it out HERE (make sure you enable the music): http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/?p=938

And, since this is the Internet, here's a youtube of the panels "cut" to the song:

Escape to the Movies: "New Moon"

Guess how it was. Go on, guess.



And here's this week's "Intermission," which is also about "Twilight" though significantly more introspective in tone:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6797-Twilight-of-the-She-Geeks

I wholeheartedly support this unlikely and possibly baselass rumor

Heading out to a "Ninja Assassin" screening and a midnight of "New Moon" - since my press-invite seems to have gotten lost in the mail or whatever - but this was a little too on-topic to pass up.

The big "geek rumor" of the last few weeks has been that Sam Raimi and the "Spider-Man 4" production have been casting around for actresses to play Felicia Hardy, aka "The Black Cat." Fans of breasts and those with financial stake in any manufacturer of Adult Female Halloween costumes, rejoice.

Character is a professional thief, sometimes equipped with magical "bad luck powers," with the uncanny ability to creep about unnoticed in spite of a physique and costuming preferences that insure she enters a room about thirty full seconds before she enters a room, if you take my meaning. Mainly started out as a shameless "Catwoman" knockoff, but became a mainstay once artists' enthusiam for drawing her (and fans' enthusiasm for buying products bearing her... let's say "face") somewhat cornered writers' into doing something interesting with her; in this case making her (pyschologically) into a female role-reversal on her own male fans: She's obsessed with Spider-Man, but strictly as an object of fetish - standard-characterization is she's got it bad for Spidey as-in "the guy in the red/blue costume," and has an almost-violent lack of interest in who he actually is without it. For those playing at home, THIS is why Peter Paker's life always has to be stacked to suck so much - so that we can still feel bad for him even with stuff like "consequence-free no-strings on-call copulation with stunning blonde sex-addict" also hanging around his background. (Speaking of writers, it took approximately 2 1/2 pages under Kevin Smith's pen for Cat to "come out" as bisexual, right at the point when that was still somewhat novel for female superheroes. That's a record, even for Smith.)

As is common with these things, even though NO ONE from the production has confirmed that this is even remotely true, "anonymous sources" (read: people's agents) have been leaking rumors of pretty-much every age-appropriate female actress working as being "considered for the role." Julia Stiles, Rachel McAdams and others got name-dropped right away, with Anne Hathaway (dear god, do I even dare DREAM!?) being the most-recent. The only reason you're not hearing Scarlett Johansson's name is that she's already "Black Widow" in "Iron Man 2" and "Avengers."

Left unsaid is how pissed Warner Bros. will be if this is true and they're now "prevented" by not wanting to look dopey from the otherwise-obvious inclusion of Catwoman in the next "Batman."

Star Trek, again

To celebrate the release of "Star Trek" on DVD, The Escapist has bumped my theatrical review of the film back onto the homepage. Sounds like a good idea to me...


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-escapist-presents/721-MovieBob-Reviews-Star-Trek

INTERMISSION: YOU BIG DUMMY

Yes, this is yet another post full of excuses for not blogging regularly, but at least I’ve got a doctor’s note this time. I was having some bad symptoms which required an impromptu visit to the cardiologist this week to get poked, prodded, and run through the wringer. Or treadmill, if you want to be literal about it.

Now, not to worry, it’s not THE BIG ONE or anything like that. In fact, my heart actually tested above average for my age, something I could have told the doctors BEFORE they started inserting the needles if they had bothered to ask. (After all, in Whoville they say that when I came home to the Church my small Grinchy heart grew THREE sizes that day!) Unfortunately, I do seem to have developed a case of severe reflux coupled with borderline acute exhaustion. So, I’ve been busy these last few days trying not to be busy. And trying to figure out how to live without caffeine. Guess which one’s been harder?

Anyway, the blog will continue (can’t disappoint my tens of fans), but it will probably still be in fits and starts for the next two or three weeks while I settle into my new routine. And my new (sob) diet. You know, for a guy who harps on the Catechism all the time, I don’t see how I missed the paragraph which states, “Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them.” What a big dummy.

Escape to the Movies: "2012"

And yet MORE about "2012" and Roland Emmerich in this week's INTERMISSION:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6772-Disasterpiece

This is why South Park still matters

Just got done watching the newest "South Park," titled "Dances With Smurfs." Let it be said for the record that not only do Parker and Stone now officially hold the Heavyweight Championship in the category of Glenn Beck mockery; but that the long, drawn-out "are they really going there" reveal of what they're really looking to slap-around is one of the best "South Park Misdirections" ever, easily.

As usual, you can watch the whole thing at southparkstudios.com right now:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/251890

That'll do nicely

Below, the trailer for the Louis Leterrier directed remake of "Clash of The Titans."



I just want to point something out here: The very first thing we see in this trailer is a giant scorpion. Not the stars. Not the locations. Not an important object or even an inkling of the plot. GIANT. FUCKING. SCORPION. I'm sold. This looks awesome.

And why am I apparently the only guy on the web who doesn't find something inappropriate about the heavy metal in the trailer? It's 67 seconds of angry bloody dudes in swordfights with giant scorpions, Medusa and The Gods - this is EXACTLY where Metal is supposed to go!

...and you don't even have to play it backwards!

Here's a bit of a flip-side "rhyme" entry to the Natalie-Portman-becomes-veganism-evangelist piece from last Thursday: Actor Adam Baldwin - impressively still riding on the geek-godhood train evidently granted everyone who was on "Firefly" - believes that he has detected a sinister, subversive message hiding deep within the popular culture... specifically, hiding deep within the 1970s "Sesame Street" tune "We All Sing The Same Song."

No, really. Here's some money-quotes:

"Yet, embedded in its visually intoxicating muppetry and otherwise innocently entertaining educational content there lurks highly controversial political messages designed to promote multiculturalism and global citizenship"

"A main tenet of the multiculturalism and Enviro-Statism inculcated by Modern Liberal educators and as practiced on “Sesame Street” — exemplified in “We All Sing the Same Song,” is the diminishment of the unique greatness of American culture."

But to get the full effect, you really need to check out the whole thing. Here's his initial article:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abaldwin/2009/11/03/sesame-street-all-monsters-are-equal/

And here's the follow-up piece:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abaldwin/2009/11/09/sesame-street-habitat-for-political-correctness/

And, of course, to complete the picture, here's the vile work of propaganda that's got him so worked-up in the first place:

CUTAWAYS: QUEEN KONG

Well, whatever plague my son brought home from school this time has finally run its course, but I have to say I didn’t appreciate having my recent blaxploitation horror marathon continuously interrupted by bouts of projectile vomiting. Still, the combination of the two did bring to mind this scene from Queen Kong. (Yes, Queen Kong.)

Yow! I guess good roles for black actresses really were pretty scarce back in the pre-Cosby show days, huh? Maybe Halle Berry wasn’t being blubberingly self-indulgent after all when she won the Academy Award for best actress exclaiming, “it's for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened. Thank you. I'm so honored. I'm so honored. And I thank the Academy for choosing me to be the vessel for which His blessing might flow.”

Okay, so maybe there was a wee bit of self-indulgence in that speech. But it’s hard to blame her too much. You see, even though a purely black cinema can trace its origin all the way back to 1916 when the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, the first movie company organized entirely by black filmmakers, began producing films which “proved a revelation to those who have never seen our folks in anything but comedies”, it never really garnered much attention outside of the basements of black churches. Instead, Hollywood filled its productions with stereotypical racial characterizations along the lines of Lincoln Perry’s Stepin Fetchit, a bug-eyed trickster who feigned ignorance and laziness in order to avoid having to do anything his white bosses demanded of him. In a 2006 NPR interview, film historian Mel Watkins noted that while many black viewers were in on the joke (kind of like the ladies in the Queen Kong clip) and considered Perry’s character subversive, “black leaders were putting pressure on Hollywood to rid the screen of the stereotype he was responsible for creating.”

Unfortunately, when things finally did begin to change for blacks onscreen during the civil rights movement, collective guilt over past insults resulted in something of an over-compensation on the part of white film makers. As John Silk wrote in Racism and Anti-Racism in American Popular Culture, “the major new black stereotype to appear in the nineteen-fifties and sixties [was] that of the impossibly noble and virtuous superhero – the ‘ebony saint’.” (Those so inclined may insert their own political jokes here cause I ain’t touching it!) So you can see the problem black actors had with their prospective roles as the 1970s approached. You could play a Pickaninny or a Poitier, but precious little in between.

Now you don’t need to know that woefully inadequate history of pre-70s black cinema to enjoy blaxploitation movies like the upcoming (very soon, I promise) Scream Blacula Scream, as they contain enough of the usual tropes of drive-in fare (car chases, kung-fu, etc.) to satisfy just about any B-movie fan. I mean, on the level of pure spectacle, it really doesn’t matter if it's Don “The Dragon” Wilson or Fred “The Hammer” Williamson doing the fighting, just as long as somebody’s punching somebody else in the face. But the backstory does help some if you want to understand these movies’ significance to later generations of black film makers. After all those years of stereotypes and missteps, it was the blaxploitation movie which finally ushered in a period where not only was there movies about black people and black issues from across the social spectrum, but they were movies which people of all colors were actually willing to pay to see. I think it’s safe to say that it was the Pam Griers of yesteryear who kicked opened the doors (literally) and made it possible for the Halle Berrys of today to have the same opportunities as white actresses have to choose to ruin their careers by making a movie like Catwoman.

As a Catholic, the slow evolution of the black image in Hollywood gives me a little hope that one day we could see the same for The Church. Cause we’re not seeing a lot of it right now, that’s for sure. As Deacon Paul Jarvis wrote in the St. Thomas Standard, “Hollywood culture (and the media in general) is toxic to people of deeply held and lived Catholic faith.  And because of this, those who write the twisted and silly stories about twisted and silly nuns and priests basically write from nothing… This lack of experience merely perpetuates the cartoonish Catholic stereotypes endemic to our historically anti-Catholic nation. What seems to be needed are creative practicing Catholics who can make it in Hollywood and, in spite of Hollywood, make a difference…  We need Catholic scriptwriters who will not only exclude insipid stereotypes from their scripts (think Sister Act), but actually call attention to them when they somehow slip into a script.  They ought to make a big stink about them, in fact.  We need creative Catholic risk-takers who will conjure up imaginative, faith-inspired stories that resonate with all readers and viewers – while challenging them at the same time.”

I agree with all of that. But I’d also like people to actually watch the movies those “catholic risk-takers” make. Considering what worked for blaxploitation, there has to be some Catholics out there with the wherewithal to make a movie that contains all of the things Deacon Paul called for, and yet still has plenty of time for scenes where somebody gets their face kung-fued. Under the proper requirements of just war theory, of course. Come on, guys, I know you can do it. I have faith.

"Boondock Saints" press event

Part of the lead-up to having review-screened "Boondock Saints" last week was the opportunity to sit down for a roundtable interview with Troy Duffy, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus and Billy Connolly. Coverage of the event, and some more specific ruminations about the film and it's following, can now be found in this weeks "Intermission" article:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/6742-Oh-I-Want-to-Be-in-That-Number

Escape to the Movies: "A Christmas Carol"

I wonder which word they WON'T be using if it underperforms at the boxoffice...

Points for cojones, at least. Barrie Osbourne is producing a biopic of Muhammad:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/02/matrix-producer-plans-muhammad-biopic

They'll be using the same format as Moustaphha Akkad's "The Messenger" back in the 70s: i.e. avoiding the taboo depiction of The Prophet via camera placement and POV shots.

Y'know what'll be nice about this? A near-total lack of controversy. Since there's no chance that nutters in America will protest, calling it "terrorist propaganda;" that anyone in the actual Middle East will stage ultraviolent mass demonstrations against it, or that members of other world religions will piss and moan about Hollywood being "nice" to Muslims and "mean" to them. Nope, should be a pretty uneventful production... ;)

Berentein Bears... really?

So say The USA Today, Shawn Levy - the Michael Bay of safe, empty family-comedy - will direct a live-action (huh?) adaptation of "The Berenstein Bears" for Walden Media:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2009-11-03-Berenstainbears03_ST_N.htm

A series of children's books spanning a few decades or so by now, the main setup is basically your average nuclear-family sitcom cast with talking bears: Doltish but well-meaning father, emminently wise mother, troublemaking son, bratty daughter. I always thought Mama Bear came off as kind of a bitch, honestly...



This, I guess, is the price we'll have to pay for "Where the Wild Things Are."

The books are basically self-contained life-lessons without much in the way of antagonists or continuity, so apparently Levy's film will make use of "kiddie franchise adaptation plot #6:" Transporting the characters to "the real world" to interact with incredulous humans. Because that was such a good idea in "Fat Albert." I eagerly await seeing which popular youth sport Brother Bear will show hitherto unheard of proficiency at, what sort of "wacky" modern clothes Sister Bear will wind up in during the innevitable makeover-with-new-friends scene, and finding out which big chain store will plunk down the product-placement dollars for the honor of having Mama and Papa get lost in - amazed at all the crazy technology and gadgets. I think I remember that Papa was supposed to be a lumberjack, so hopefull there's a scene where he gets his hand on a chainsaw. (You can have that one for free, Shawn.)