Miscellaneous: The May Clean-up Post

AKA stuff I meant to cover last month.

The Dinner Game. I still haven’t gotten to the theater to see Francis Veber’s new comedy The Valet. But Anthony Lane’s review in the New Yorker prompted me to watch this 1998 film. Lane writes, “The very thought of its plot, with its high-spirited misanthropy – a club of worldly friends meet once a week, each of them competing to bring along the most complete idiot he can find – still makes me laugh.” He’s right. It’s a perfectly turned farce, the kind they don’t make any more. Except for Veber, apparently.

28 Weeks Later. I usually think claims of horror movies being allegorical are so much malarkey. Not so here. This film is quite clearly the first post-9/11, post-Iraq, post-Mission Accomplished scarefest, and that only adds to its intensity. The ending sequence hits my personal nightmare trifecta – zombies in the subway in the dark. Jesus. I doubt you’ll see a better sequel in this season of them. You may not see a better movie.

The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. I stumbled onto this while channel surfing. Not only is O.J. in it, so is Anna Nicole Smith. Which means no one will ever laugh at it again. (OK, it’s the least of the Naked Gun movies, but there are still good jokes in it.) Was ever a film so snakebit?

Miscellaneous: Links

The only celebrity interviews worth reading are those in which the subject is either loose or candid. From Cannes comes an example of each. Representing the former, the gang from Ocean’s 13. For the latter, Michael Madsen.

Thanks to GreenCine Daily, I spent some quality time with the latest issue of Bookforum. Featuring Luc Sante on Georges Simenon, authors and filmmakers discussing the art of adaptation, lists of the best books-into-film, and more.

I don’t want a large Farva: movies continue to corrupt today’s youth. Hat tip to The Obscure Store.