R.I.P.

Beloved screen actor Paul Newman has passed away at the age of 83. The actor leaves behind a treasured filmography that includes classics such as The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. During his career he earned a total of 9 Oscar nominations, including a win for The Color of Money. His final big screen performance was in 2002's Road to Perdition, directed by Sam Mendes and co-starring Tom Hanks and Jude Law. He had since appeared on television in the HBO mini-series "Empire Falls," for which he earned an Emmy award, and most recently voiced a talking car in the Pixar hit Cars.

Just Because He Can

Perhaps it's time to forgive Roger Ebert for his "thumps up" review of both Garfield: The Movie and its sequel Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. Often criticized, occasionally accosted (What did ever happen to Vincent Gallo?), but always a perennially relevant film source, Ebert has gotten even more proudly uncompromising later in life. The ailing critic (still recovering from emergency treatment for salivary gland cancer) recently summoned the nerve to tell off the all powerful Disney Co. after a contract dispute, ending in the banning of his trademark phrases "thumps up" and "thumbs down" from all broadcasts of the syndicated At the Movies (a reformated version of what was once Ebert & Roeper nee Siskel & Ebert). Now he's simply taken to mocking the hell out of low IQ ingrates on his "Movie Answer Man" column found at RoberEbert.com. Here he tells off a slang-crazed super fan of the grand debacle Disaster Movie in cryptic internet abbreviations as incomprehensible as those used in the inquiry. Perhaps if he was an ordinary man, just another blogger or another column writer, it would seem tacky and probably not all that funny. But he's Roger Ebert. And that makes this hilarious.

Q: Yo dude, u missed out on “Disaster Movie,” a hardcore laugh-ur-@zz-off movie! Y U not review this movie!? It was funny as #ell! Prolly the funniest movie of the summer! U never review these, wat up wit dat?

A: Hey, bro, I wuz buzier than $#i+, @d they never shoed it b4 hand. I peeped in the IMDb and saw it zoomed to #1 as the low$ie$t flic of all time, wit @ lame-@zz UZer Rating of 1.3. U liked it? Wat up wit dat?

Roger Ebert's greatest piece of writing? I think so.

I Just Don't Think I Can Do It

I try to make a habit of seeing as many new release films as possible, partiularly those that a) have pop culture resonance or b) seem poised to receive major accolades. The reason being that these are the films that will likely come into conversation (actual or digital) in the next 6-8 months. They are also the ones you're expected to have a constructed opinion about. And I do not tolerate echoing general critical consensus in lieu of real opinion making. Criticizing films sight unseen is slander. I sat through Gigli purely so that when I mocked it viciously, it came from a place of truth. Simply going along with the negative flow would have been dishonest. So when faced with a film suchs as Saul Dibb's The Duchess, a feature whose every fiber seems to contradict any and all things which appeal to me - honesty, temerity, unpretentious raw smarts - I have nowhere to turn. Despite galvinizing critics, the film has a real awards future. Nominations in fields such as costuming and art direction seem to be a lock. And depending on the intensity of emerging competition, stars Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes just may be on an awards shortlist, if not the actually nomination ballot. When the Oscars role around, the cynic in me would love to inform anyone who asks about how the slow, sullen film is unworthy of all prizes. But of course, to do that I'd have to see it. And to see it, just might deaden my soul.

What's He Got To Lose?

M. Night Shyamalan made 3 films I love (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs) and three films whose combined runtimes equal 6 hours of my life I'll never get back again (The Village, Lady In The Water, The Vanishing). To have produced the former 3 features, there must be talent in the man. I confess the latter 3 are true stinkers. Hell, lately he couldn't even make an appealing American Express commercial (Remember Wes Anderson's masterfully clever busy on-set ad? Well Night tried a gloomy surreal take that aired far less and to no one's delight). Regardless, word from the man himself that the proposed but long dismissed sequel to Unbreakable may finally come to be can't help but make me excited. The chance he might make a good film again (a continually waning fact of life, I might add) now seems just a little bit less hopeless. Night spoke to MTV's Splashpage recently about how the film's iffy critical and commercial reception convinced him to put off what was expected to be a trilogy of films based on the comic book-esque tale of a man who discovers that he possesses superhuman abilities. Also encourraging? Stars Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are reportedly game. The bad news? The film's rights still remain with Disney, the distributor of Night's first 5 thrillers. He recently jettisoned to 20th Century Fox, complicating the relationship with Disney to say the least. Either way, nothing could suck more than The Happening, right? Right?

Splash Page » Samuel L. Jackson, M. Night Shyamalan On The ‘Unbreakable’ Sequel That Never Was, But Might Be#more-2422#more-2...

A Message from Diablo Cody

Some people love Diablo Cody and some people love to hate Diablo Cody. Some people, we shall call them the rational ones, appreciate her work on Juno and are waiting to see the upcoming Jennifer's Body to make a judgment call on her potential future. Either way, it has become a bit hip to hate on the ultra-popular indie that could and its former stripper cum self-taught media magnate scribe. Cody (born Brook Busey) recently took to her MySpace page to defend herself and digitally bitch slap her detractors. Below is a bit of a highlights package assembled by Slashfilm.com.


"I may have won 19 awards that you don’t feel I earned, but it’s neither original nor relevant to slag on Juno. Really. And you’re not some bold, singular voice of dissent, You are exactly like everyone else in your zeitgeisty-demo-lifestyle pod. You are even like me. (I, too, loved Arrested Development! Aren’t we a pretty pair of cultural mavericks? Hey, let’s go bitch about how Black Kids are overrated!)

I’m sorry that while you were shooting your failed opus at Tisch, I was jamming toxic silicon toys up my ass for money. I get why you’re bitter. I took exactly one film class in college and– with the curious exception of the Douglas Sirk unit—it bored the shit out of me.

I’m sorry to all those violent, semi-literate fanboys who hate me for befriending their heroes. I can’t help it if your favorite writer, actor, director, or talk show host likes me. Maybe you would too, if we actually met.

I know my name is fake and that it annoys you. What, do you hate Queen Latifah and Rip Torn, too? Writers and entertainers have been using pseudonyms for years. Chances are, you’re spewing bile under an assumed screen name yourself. I’m sorry if you think I’m like some inked-up quasi-Suicide Girl derby cunt from 2002, but I like my fake name. It’s engraved on an Oscar. Yours isn’t."

It Has To Be Good, Right?

Because You Know You're Curious...

Odd couple alert: Jack White, of the grunge happy The White Stripes, and R&B recording artist Alicia Keys collaborated on this, the highly anticipated theme tune to the newest and most ambiguously named Bond film, Quantum of Solace (due out in November). White recently made waves by admonishing the use of his song in a Coke Zero ad and denouncing any implied affiliation between himself and the product. Anticipation for the song had escalated in recent months after very public reports surfaced that troubled singer Amy Winehouse had been hired to write and record a theme, but ultimately was unable to deliver on account of what we'll simply call "personal issues." White was then hired as her replacement.



Note: This is a radio rip so you'll probably notice some choice sound effects and inane lead-out banter. But I still think you get the idea.

Burn After Reading

In their 90s prime, Joel and Ethan Coen very famously made the Oscar winning masterpiece Fargo and the once-shunned but now cultishly adored farce Big Lebowski consecutively. In what seems to be the new millennium equivalent, they follow up the triumphant No Country for Old Men with the manic goof-fest Burn After Reading. Well, back then they still had something to prove. And consequently, people took Lebowski as a disconcerting retreat from seriousness rather than an escalation of comic prowess. Now, however, critics and fans alike worship the Coens for their absurd wit and tightly wound narratives. The consequence being that this time around, everyone is in on the joke. Knowing the brothers are American masters only makes the brainlessness of Burn After Reading all the more tasty. Numskulls can sometimes translate their lowbrow charm to screen and earn a quick laugh but masters can forge a low IQ and still come away with something brilliant. What the Coens do in Burn After Reading is not a commercial cash-in hack job, but simply an opportunity taken to wash their hands of more solemn metaphor. In fact, for those who found the meditative and sometimes non-commercial No Country for Old Men pretentious, this may even look to be the better film. Their powers of story telling and arresting imagery have gone nowhere. The material has just been made lighter and the brothers have got the tongues in cheek to match it.

The essential story centers on a freshly fired employee of the CIA (John Malkovich) trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman (Tilda Swinton) who is having an affair with another married man (George Clooney). Matters are complicated when some of Malkovich's personal info ends up in the hands of truly stupid employees at a fitness chain called Hard Bodies. The doltish personal trainer Chad (Brad Pitt) thinks he has stumbled on to government secrets whereas he really has nothing but scraps from a proposed memoir and some financial information. He shares this find with his surgery obsessed co-worker Linda (Frances McDormand) who sees the event as an opportunity for lucrative blackmail that might earn her enough cash to pay for her much desired face lift and tummy tuck. Overseeing the lot is their very mild-mannered boss (Richard Jenkins), in desperate love with Linda, who of course notices nothing. The eagle eye to the whole debacle though is J.K. Simmons in a minute but wonderful comic turn as the CIA operative trying to keep tabs on the increasingly elaborate and incomprehensibly stupid actions of everyone involved.

Government apathy and American obsessions with sex and physical perfection - the moronic nature of the entire modern age, in fact - are merely fodder for this low scrutiny satire. No agenda is set specifically but the general implication of the material - namely that we're all raving, needy, thoughtless Starbucks patrons bouncing around like pinballs - rings out loud and clear. And when the books is closed on the primary narrative (by film's end a near afterthought) there is a resounding sensation that nothing has been solved, and even more embarrassingly, there was really no problem at all.

Burn After Reading certainly feels like perhaps one of the most loose, fast-paced, and ultimately uneven films in the Coens' filmography, but it's so filled with pizazz and unstoppable energy that nothing else seems to matter (and nothing here really does). As with the film's characters, who run around foolishly with nowhere really to go, the film itself zings about so frenetically that you almost never realize it's heading nowhere. It's a 90 minute delight that passes before you at such a sprint, there's hardly even time to catch your breath.

What you most remember about the ride in the moments that follow are the performances, so magnetic and exciting and yet built on little more than high-adrenaline and the air in the room. So perfectly comic is Brad Pitt's mindless Chad that he literally makes the empty time spent waiting in a car funny. Pitt's every little twitch and sneer are laughable for reasons logic can't describe. So too are Clooney and McDormand as two ravenously needy lovers with no future. The two most polar opposite of all these performances shine the brightest though: Malkovich in a truly spastic foul-mouthed 90 minute rage and Richard Jenkins, all sad eyes and honest words, as the film's one and only gentle soul. The two are so disparate that there could be no other plausible end than for them to square off in the final frames.

Grade: B+

DVD of the Week: Then She Found Me

The foundation of Then She Found Me, Helen Hunt's directorial debut, rests upon very simple sitcom-worthy principles. However, the execution is a gentle mix of unsentimental drama and unforced character comedy. Hunt stars as April Eppner, a recently divorced school teacher who has been newly bombarded with a glamorous talk show host claiming to be her mother (Bette Midler) and a charming Englishman who may just be the man of her dreams (Colin Firth). The potential for cheap gags abounds as in when April meets her mother, a mismatch of the highest caliber, and finds herself at odds with the chatty, self-obsessed woman. The scene could be entirely about their disparity. April could be the righteous, composed daughter and her mother could simply be the vacuous narcissist she initially seems. Instead the scene breaths extra life into the characters with a soft vulnerability that, like much of this film, adds welcome dimension to familiar situations.

The multi-talented Hunt proves herself to be an able writer and director here, but it is her honest and unglamorous performance that really makes this film riveting. This is probably Hunt's first truly rewarding film role since her Oscar winning turn in James L. Brooks' As Good As It Gets. And as masterful and charming as she was there, it was Jack Nicholson's film at the end of the day. This one is hers, through and through.