Book: The Killing of the Tinkers, by Ken Bruen (2004)

Reading this novel is like grabbing hold of a live wire while ripped to the gills on Guinness. You’re instantly swept up by the Gael force of Jack Taylor’s personality. I wouldn’t mind if Jack took a drop of Powers every now and then instead of Jameson’s, but otherwise I have no complaints. (Well, one. George Pelecanos’ name is misspelled. In two different ways.)

Bruen uses pop culture references better than any contemporary writer who is not Nick Hornby. His crime fiction allusions are particularly sharp. I’ve read too many mysteries that drop names as a ham-fisted way of acknowledging the author’s influences, which are generally all too evident to start with. But Taylor’s riffs on Ed McBain or Lawrence Block give us insight into his personality. When I finish a Bruen book I not only want to read another one, but every title he’s mentioned as well. The bastard.

DVD: Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)

From Charles Taylor’s recent Salon piece on the cinema of dislocation (subscription or day pass required):

“There is plenty to distinguish CRADLE OF LIFE from the mainstream dross around it: the plot actually makes sense, and the action sequences are shot so that you can tell what’s going on in them ... (The movie) wrests fun from the very rootlessness that is so anxiety-provoking to contemporary sensibilities ... The plot may globe-hop, but it does so at a pace that makes us feel as if we’re on a quest proceeding by train or horseback rather than high-speed jets.”

Sorry, Charlie. This movie’s a mess. Why he mentions it in the same breath as LOST IN TRANSLATION and the entire output of Wong Kar-Wai is a mystery.

I’ll give you that it’s better than the first film, which is saying almost nothing. The plot is standard action movie hooey that may scan from one scene to the next but falls apart as a whole. On top of that, I’ve seen it before. (Ransoming a contagious disease? That’s, like, so M:I 2.) It’s no worse – but no better – than your typical summer extravaganza. It certainly didn’t tap into any zeitgeisty feelings of ennui. Although it did create them.

BTW, the punctuation in the title is pure guesswork. For all I know, there are semicolons and hyphens in there.

Movie: Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

No, I haven’t seen it. Yet. I’m a completist like Slate’s David Edelstein. I’ve seen both Predator movies and all four Alien films, as well as the short-lived Fox Kids cartoon, “Li’l Aliens.” (OK, I made that last bit up.) I even confess to liking director Paul W. S. “For the last friggin’ time, I am NOT the guy who made BOOGIE NIGHTS” Anderson’s earlier SF efforts EVENT HORIZON and SOLDIER.

But I’ve got concerns. Chief among them is that this movie screws with the continuity of the Alien series. AVP is set now, in Antarctica. If chest-bursters were on Earth in 2004, how come nobody in ALIEN recognizes them? Huh? Tell me that.

Actually, the filmmakers may have a ready answer. According to AVP reviews, Lance Henriksen plays billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland. It’s a nice nod to Henriksen’s performance as the android Bishop in ALIENS. But the company that employs the crew of the Nostromo in the first film and funds the expedition in the second is named Weyland-Yutani. Which raises the possibility that the firm has been hunting the aliens ever since their founder uncovered them decades before. It’s an intriguing notion.

And I am such a geek.

Miscellaneous: Link

From Movie City News: even celebrities have garage sales.

Movie: Zatoichi (2004)

For a while, it seemed as if Takeshi Kitano (aka ‘Beat’ Takeshi) would take over the world the way he’d conquered Japanese TV. His crime dramas HANA-BI (FIREWORKS) and SONATINE were released to great acclaim; both deservedly turn up on the Online Film Critics Society list of Overlooked Films of the 1990s. Their combination of formal discipline, graphically minimalist violence and deadpan comic sensibility seemed to herald a new style in filmmaking.

But Kitano’s American debut BROTHER never really took flight, while KIKUJIRO saddled him with a kid. A TV vet should have recognized that as one of the telltale signs of shark-jumping. He’s probably best known now as one of the dubbed hosts on Spike TV’s MOST EXTREME CHALLENGE. Which, admittedly, is not the worst thing in the world to be known for.

His latest film isn’t a complete success, but it does represent several steps in the right direction. The blind wandering swordsman Zatoichi is a legendary figure in Japanese pop culture, appearing in some 20 films. Kitano plays him as a man of few words but shockingly blond hair. There’s certainly enough story to play with: rival gangs, a ronin with a dying wife, siblings close to achieving long-sought revenge. But the movie is indifferently plotted. Elegantly composed but languid scenes are punctuated by the director’s trademark pokerfaced comedy, along with weirdly beautiful mayhem. (All of the bloodletting is rendered digitally, so the fight scenes look like image captures from a video game recreated on rice paper.) The movie exerts a peculiar fascination without kicking into high gear.

And then, with forty minutes to spare, you can feel Kitano take the reins and say, “OK, enough screwing around.” The various plot lines coalesce, the action comes fast and satisfyingly furious, and everything ends with a full cast tap-dance number. ZATOICHI may lack the control or elegiac beauty of Kitano’s ‘90s films. But it shares their unique spirit. And it’s unlike any samurai movie you’ve seen before.

Miscellaneous: Overlooked Movies of the Past Five Years

Speaking of the OFCS list, we might as well stay on top of the current decade (what are we calling it again? The aughts?) and name a few movies that have already slipped under the radar. Let me start with two from 2001: the Australian drama LANTANA, with a top-flight ensemble cast including Anthony LaPaglia and Geoffrey Rush, and Fred Schepisi’s adaptation of the Graham Swift novel LAST ORDERS. David Hemmings is marvelous in one of his final performances, fully embracing the blustery lion character actor phase of his career. You can also see how much son Nolan, playing his father in flashback, resembles Dad in his BLOW UP glory days. Both of these films were victims of the year-end awards hype folly; they were held back by their respective studios in hopes of Oscar attention that never came, and as a result went through theaters quickly. Now is the time to catch up with them.

DVD: Schoolhouse Rock! 30th Anniversary Edition

All 46 animated shorts are here: ‘Conjunction Junction,’ ‘I’m Just a Bill,’ ‘Interplanet Janet.’ Plus a new one on the workings of the electoral college that would have come in handy four years ago.

The words to all of them have been rattling around my head for years. It helps that they’re set to catchy music that at times is worthy of Sondheim. Let’s see him find a melody for this lyric:

“Interjections show excitement or emotion. They’re generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point or by a comma when the feeling’s not as strong.”

I was reluctant to watch one called ‘Figure Eight’ because it had an odd affect on me as a child. It features a more wistful song than the others, one that evoked a powerful feeling in me which I was too young to identify as melancholy. I was always a morbid kid, but it had to unnerve my parents seeing their six-year-old staring gloomily out the window when he was supposed to be hopped up on Frosted Flakes and watching SUPERFRIENDS. Rosemarie had never seen ‘Figure Eight.’ When it ended she said, “No wonder it freaked you out. That woman sounds like Blossom Dearie.” Turns out it is Blossom Dearie. They’d probably slap a parental advisory on it now.

Movie: Yu-Gi-Oh! (2004)

There’s a character in this game-turned-TV-show-turned-movie named Obnoxious Celtic Guardian? Have I been missing out on a good thing?

TV: Late Night Line-Up

Craig Kilborn threw the schedule in an uproar when he pulled the plug on his own show. I kind of enjoyed Kilby’s program, even though it was packed with B-listers and coasted on a lazy hipster vibe. Craiggers didn’t have any illusions about his place in the Hollywood food chain. And watching him hit on the latest SI cover model had a certain oleaginous charm.

The theory is that CBS will wait for Conan O’Brien’s NBC contract to expire, then get him to jump ship with the understanding that he’ll move to 11:30 when David Letterman retires. It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard. My only fear is that the earlier time slot would take the edge off Conan’s show. (Watch ‘Classic Dave’ on Trio to see what a difference an hour makes.) Conan certainly couldn’t engage in bizarre experiments like last night’s show. The entire hour was an infomercial for the newly-released LATE NIGHT DVDs. Conan wore a series of progressively uglier sweaters. Bruce Jenner co-hosted. Such hijinks won’t fly at 11:30.

Miscellaneous: Links

Stuart Klawans can’t get Jonathan Demme’s THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE out of his head. Neither can I, only I mean it in a bad way. It remains, for me, the missed opportunity of the summer. I’ve realized that the movie is not just a redo of the 1962 original. Think about it. Veterans of a foreign war plagued by night sweats and the vague sense that someone, possibly their own side, has done something to them. Creepy New York locations. A woman who may not be what she appears. It’s also a remake of JACOB’S LADDER. It’s two, two, TWO remakes in one. And still no bargain.

Critical hosannas for COLLATERAL be damned. Dave Kehr says the ultimate L.A. noir is and always will be KISS ME DEADLY.

Book: Hand To Mouth, by Paul Auster (1997)

We’re all friends here, right? I picked up this book, subtitled A Chronicle of Early Failure, to feel better about myself. It never hurts to read about the struggles of a writer you admire. I also assumed Auster’s background would reassure me about my own. A New Yorker who writes literary fiction? No Hemingwayesque exploits for him, I figured.

Then I get to the section where Auster ships out on a freighter. Later he’s hired to translate the North Vietnamese constitution. Damn it. There must be some way I can spin my common straw into gold. Don’t let anybody kid you; being a movie theater usher is hard work. And I wrote phone sex ads for a while, too. I could tell you some stories. Not that you’d want to hear them.

Auster boldly deals with the question of money, dropping precise figures. How much he has, how much he needs, how much he’ll settle for. But the original hardcover edition of the book is even more daring, in that it includes samples of his work from the period. (The 2003 paperback is only the opening memoir.) There are three plays in the style of Samuel Beckett that frankly didn’t do anything for me. And yet within them are the seeds of the ideas that Auster would explore more fully in his New York Trilogy as well as THE MUSIC OF CHANCE.

Also here is SQUEEZE PLAY, a 1978 mystery novel published under the name Paul Benjamin. It’s a pastiche, but an engaging one; Auster’s a sure hand with a wisecrack. The plot turns around a clever twist that Auster gives away in his memoir, which takes some of the fun out of it. Not that more ammunition is required in this particular battle, but here’s Auster on novelists of the American hard-boiled school:

“I had developed an admiration for some of the practitioners of the genre. The best ones were humble, no-nonsense writers who not only had more to say about American life than most so-called serious writers, but often seemed to write smarter, crisper sentences as well.”

The third appendix is the most fascinating. At his lowest ebb, Auster became obsessed with selling a card game he’d invented called ‘Action Baseball’ to toy manufacturers. He’s ruthless in detailing this episode of his life; he knows that his chances are slim, but that only drives his desperation. Included in the book are the game’s rules and a sample deck of cards. I don’t know why it didn’t sell. It looks like fun.

Music: Ultimate Manilow

We’re all still friends here, right? Rosemarie got me this CD because I have an unfortunate tendency to belt out Barry’s ‘Ready to Take a Chance Again.’ The sad truth is if you say ‘The Last Waltz’ to me, my first thought will not be The Band but Engelbert Humperdinck. I’d call myself a lounge lizard, but you have to go out more than I do to qualify.

Not every track on the disc is a winner. I still think ‘I Write the Songs’ sounds like it was composed for the opening ceremonies of the Goodwill Games. But Manilow is an accomplished craftsman who’s not afraid of key changes and genuine emotion. Even the hard-hearted Joe Queenan found love for Barry in his book about the worst in American pop culture, RED LOBSTER, WHITE TRASH & THE BLUE LAGOON. Yes, ‘Could It Be Magic?’ and ‘Weekend in New England’ are pure, uncut schmaltz. But if you don’t feel something stirring within you when Barry goes deep, you’re dead inside.

Miscellaneous: Overheard

“With Halliburton and all those companies owning everything, we’re getting closer and closer to that movie ROLLERBALL.”

Video: The Late Show (1977)

Character actor Eugene Roche passed away last month. Most of his obituaries focused on his lengthy television career, including a stint as the Ajax man in a series of commercials. For me, his work in this Robert Benton film stands out as a highlight.

Art Carney stars as Ira Wells, a retired Los Angeles private eye. His ex-partner turns up dead on his doorstep one night, plunging Ira into a case that starts with a ransomed pet cat and leads to blackmail and murder. The mayhem revolves around the wealthy fence played by Roche, a man who’s the best salesman of whatever swag he has lying around. MAUDE’s Bill Macy makes a memorably sleazy impression as a man with his fingers in any number of half-baked pies. The cast also includes Joanna Cassidy, who in a just universe would have been a huge star.

Lily Tomlin plays the flaky woman who wants her cat back. Her SoCal shtick gets tired quickly, but then I’ve never warmed to Tomlin as a performer. The DVD’s sole extra is a clip of Tomlin appearing on the Dinah Shore show with some portion of the Doobie Brothers. (I don’t know how many Brothers there were, so I can’t tell if it’s all of them.) In the clip she refers to the film as a ‘spoof,’ which brings up my only problem with it. As enjoyable as THE LATE SHOW is, at times there’s an unmistakable whiff of parody about the proceedings. I get the same feeling watching 1973’s THE LONG GOODBYE, which was directed by this film’s producer Robert Altman. There’s a nagging sense that the filmmakers think of the genre as somewhat beneath them, that they heap on twist after twist more to satirize Raymond Chandler’s knotty storytelling than to keep the audience guessing. Which is unfortunate, because THE LATE SHOW’s plot ultimately resolves itself nicely.

It’s hard to imagine a movie like this being made in today’s youth-obsessed Hollywood, although Benton pulled it off with 1998’s TWILIGHT. Despite the presence of Paul Newman, Gene Hackman and an all-around stellar cast, that movie flopped at the box office. It has its moments, but it doesn’t crackle the way THE LATE SHOW does. Watch it to enjoy Art Carney in top form, and to pay tribute to Eugene Roche, an actor who improved everything he appeared in.

Video: The Point (1971)

When I was growing up, I must have watched this animated special every time it aired. It debuted on DVD a few months ago, and I realized I didn’t remember anything about it.

Other than the premise, which is admittedly hard to forget. In a village where everything has a point – including the heads of the villagers – a boy (voiced by Bobby Brady himself, Mike Lookinland) born with a normal head is ostracized and eventually banished because of it. Heavy stuff for a seven-year-old.

The show is definitely a product of its era, filled with counterculture thinking that dates it somewhat. It’s billed as a fable, but even on those terms it’s obvious and a bit repetitive. It would be tough getting a kid to sit through this today. And the ending doesn’t exactly make sense. Young Oblio returns to the village with the understanding that everything in life has a point. (I said it was obvious.) The evil Count removes Oblio’s hat and is shocked to see that now Oblio, too, has a point. Great. I’m with you so far. Then all the points in the village disappear, including the ones atop the people’s heads ... except for Oblio’s. I guess the poor little bastard is destined to be a freak no matter what.

I was at a loss to explain what I responded to in the show until the sequence with the giggling fat women dancing in the buff. Then it all came back to me. Nope, nothing inappropriately sexual here.

The animation by Fred Wolf, who would later work on the landmark TV special FREE TO BE ... YOU & ME, is witty and engaging. You can see the influence his style had on later artists like Bill Plympton. The redoubtable Paul Frees contributes wonderful voice work. But the music by Harry Nilsson holds the entire enterprise together. The DVD has an option that allows you to skip directly to each song. I should have taken advantage of it.

Dustin Hoffman narrated the original; in the home video release it’s Ringo Starr. According to the IMDb, one version featured narration by Alan Thicke. I’ll bet his take worked very well. Believe it or not, Thicke can be very funny. I have fond memories of his work as deluded local talk show host Dennis Dupree on the short-lived sitcom HOPE & GLORIA with Cynthia Stevenson.

Miscellaneous: Links

Salon’s Charles Taylor is an interesting film critic, even though I seldom agree with him. You’ll need a Salon day pass to read his latest piece on the budding cinema of dislocation, but it’s worth it. The essay convinced me to take a look at LARA CROFT: THE CRADLE OF LIFE, “the only adventure movie since THE MASK OF ZORRO that can be called romantic.” As if I need an excuse to watch Angelina Jolie.

Elsewhere, Dan Chiasson reviews the first wave of lad lit. TV Barn fears for the future of Trio. (Courtesy of GreenCine Daily.) And from Sarah Weinman, a great, far-ranging interview with espionage novelist Charles McCarry.

Video: Murder, My Sweet (1944)

At long last, my copy of Warner’s film noir collection has arrived. Expect me to wax rhapsodic about it over the coming weeks.

MURDER, MY SWEET is often cited as the movie that changed the perception of Dick Powell from song and dance man to dramatic actor. I can’t speak to that transformation, because I pretty much only know the latter incarnation. Particularly his performance as the writer convinced he can resist the charms of producer Kirk Douglas in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. Seeing Powell burst into song, now that would throw me off. Powell later claimed to be the person who convinced Ronald Reagan to become a Republican. If that’s true, it’s his most lasting contribution to history.

He makes a splendid Philip Marlowe in this adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. He handles voiceover and world-weary quips with aplomb, although he’s helped along with great dialogue courtesy of Chandler and screenwriter John Paxton. Marlowe is no iconic character here, but a man trying to earn a living. Money is his primary motivation; as Marlowe says, he’s “a small businessman in a dirty business.”

1944 was a critical year for film noir; DOUBLE INDEMNITY and LAURA were also in theaters. Director Edward Dmytryk seems to be drafting the noir playbook as he goes. Many of the trademarks are already in place with this film: the high contrast cinematography, the paranoid sense that the protagonist is and always will be several steps behind his enemies. Dmytryk uses a few arresting visual tricks to convey Marlowe’s state of mind. Cobwebs obscuring the image, black pools bubbling up to drown the world in darkness.

For those keeping score, Marlowe is hit on the head twice and passes out a third time. Another noir staple. Maybe I’ll keep a running tab on blackouts for the whole collection and post the results here.

Graphic Novel: Hench, by Adam Beechen and Manny Bello (2004)

Comic book stores always provoke an odd reticence in me. So do shops that specialize in classical music or jazz, for that matter. I’m always convinced that I’ll be found wanting by the staff and the handful of devoted customers forever milling around the counter, swapping opinions. These stores come across as the province of experts, who speak in a language all their own, clotted with references I don’t understand.

It’s a foolish notion, I know. Who cares if you’re shown up in front of a bunch of geeks? On top of that, it almost never happens. Yes, you occasionally run into a clerk who’s like Jack Black in HIGH FIDELITY. But for the most part, they’re like Todd Louiso in HIGH FIDELITY. Enthusiastic. Eager to share their knowledge. Bald.

It helps when you have something specific to look for. The idea behind HENCH is so simple and so brilliant, I’m amazed it hasn’t been done before: a superhero story told from the point of view of a supervillain’s henchman, one of those masked nobodies who gets roughed up as a prelude to the big showdown. “A regular guy in funny pants.” Like Mike Fulton, a former college football star with a bum knee who starts henching as a way to pay the bills. The book includes amazing full-page panels done in the style of various comic art legends, like Steve Ditko and Joe Shuster.

Funny how in all the recent Marvel superhero movies (SPIDER-MAN, DAREDEVIL) there haven’t been any henchmen. Union troubles, maybe. In the BATMAN movies, the heavies always had a few goons around. And Ned Beatty played the most famous of henchmen, Lex Luthor’s Otis, in the SUPERMAN films. Could be henchmen are more of a D.C. Comics thing.

Movie: Collateral (2004)

Michael Mann has done the impossible: he’s made an entire movie set in Los Angeles where the primary modes of transportation are a taxi and the subway. This film may do more to improve smog conditions than the Prius.

Mann is an Oscar-nominated, world-class director, but he made his bones on the crime beat: MIAMI VICE, THIEF, RED DRAGON. (Call it MANHUNTER if you want, but we all know it deserves Thomas Harris’ title.) It’s good to have him back. COLLATERAL is a fleet, supple and alluring thriller. For Mann, it practically qualifies as a romp. He doesn’t strain for significance here, as he occasionally did in 1995’s epic cops-and-robbers drama HEAT. He simply takes a crackerjack premise – a hit man in town for one night forces a cab driver to become his accomplice – and pushes it as far as it can go.

The director’s unerring eye for casting makes it easier. Tom Cruise’s greatest strength as an actor has always been his self-awareness. He knows he can’t camouflage his own intensity, so he often chooses roles where it becomes integral to the character (MAGNOLIA, JERRY MAGUIRE). Leave it to Mann to realize that Cruise’s superhuman drive would make him a truly merciless sociopath. Cruise is up to the challenge. Instead of turning off his legendary smile, he employs it to chilling effect, wielding it like a samurai sword.

Jamie Foxx has a far more difficult task: to make a man whose sole defining quality is his innate decency compelling. He pulls it off without seeming to break a sweat. Foxx was terrific in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY and ALI, and on the basis of the trailer alone, I’m ready to give him the Oscar for his work as Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford’s biopic.

Mann directs like a master jazz man, allowing plenty of other great actors – Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Irma P. Hall – to jam for a while, going off on crazy riffs that bring you back to the melody in surprising ways. It goes without saying that the movie is a treat to look at; Mann’s stylishness is on full, glorious display here, Cruise’s monochromatically gray appearance being only the most obvious example. He filmed 80% of the movie on high-definition digital video, on the theory that those cameras “see better” in the dark. The results are up on the screen. The night itself is alive under Mann’s gaze. Watching this movie, you’re getting a glimpse of the future of the medium.

Miscellaneous: Links

The people behind Trivial Pursuit have declared my adopted hometown of Seattle the quintessential city of the ‘90s. It’s official: I’m living in the past. When an honor is bestowed on you by Kato Kaelin, you know it’s going to stick. I walked past the Trivial Pursuit time capsule yesterday. I didn’t see Kato or Nancy Kerrigan, but I did encounter a Bono lookalike. And a guy dressed as Austin Powers screamed “Shagadelic!” into my face.

Meanwhile, my actual hometown of New York City has a bigger show than the Republican National Convention to deal with as Lebowski Fest rolls into town.

Miscellaneous: Meaningless Milestone

This is my 100th post. Free coffee and donuts in the back of the hall.

Movie: Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)

Here’s one that should be on that underrated list. (For that matter, so should another movie directed by George Armitage, MIAMI BLUES.) When I first saw this gleaming black comedy about a hit man attending his high school reunion, I shrugged it off as “pretty good” rather than admitting how close to home it struck. Every time I see it, it cuts a little deeper.

Part of the reason is the presence of John Cusack, whom I have long regarded as my cinematic doppelganger. Some guys think they’re Steve McQueen, I think I’m Cusack. We’re so much alike that it’s uncanny. Honest. One Christmas Joan sent me a sweater by mistake. It was awkward.

It doesn’t help that Cusack’s character Martin Blank is exactly my age. We’re both members of the Class of ’86, so his issues were very much my own at the time. The soundtrack conjures up uncommonly vivid memories, which is probably why I never bought it.

Ultimately, the movie works because it’s truly funny, blending rat-a-tat Preston Sturges-style dialogue with a gonzo sensibility. It’s one of the only films to make good use of Dan Aykroyd, here playing an assassin who wants to start a union. Cusack’s frequent costar Jeremy Piven shines, but it helps that he’s given great lines. He calls the reunion the “‘I’ve-peaked-and-I’m-kidding-myself’ party,” and greets Cusack thusly: “You look good, man. You look Tony Robbins good.” Cusack’s relationship with his psychiatrist (a perfectly cast Alan Arkin) predates THE SOPRANOS and is also depicted more realistically, in that the doctor lives in constant fear of his patient. And the movie was filmed during that brief window when Minnie Driver was at her most crushworthy.

I was in high school when John Hughes was cranking out the movies that are now oddly venerated. (Shortly before leaving the New York Times, Elvis Mitchell called Hughes the one genuine auteur of ‘80s cinema. I’m sure his departure from the paper was in no way related to that statement.) I wasn’t really a Hughes fan, probably because I couldn’t wait to get out of high school. I can still remember attending a party at a friend’s house to watch the just-released videotape of THE BREAKFAST CLUB. I was the only person there who hadn’t seen it. I thought it was an amusing if obvious piece of fluff. I certainly didn’t swoon over it, the way everyone else did. Although I pretended to, because there were girls there.

Watching this movie again, I finally understand that reaction, the sense that someone has taken your own thoughts and emotions and explained them to you. GROSSE POINTE BLANK is my SIXTEEN CANDLES, released a decade late.

Miscellaneous: Link

My dream job, available at last.

Book: Sunset and Sawdust, by Joe R. Lansdale (2004)

The champion mojo storyteller’s latest is a corker, set in a Depression-era East Texas lumber camp. The beautiful Sunset Jones shoots her no-good husband in the head with his own gun during a cyclone, then inherits his job as constable. Things get a mite twisted from there.

If the plot synopsis isn’t enough to pique your interest, I’ll let Joe’s words do the job. A spider walks across water “as if imitating Jesus in a hurry,” and one of the characters is “big enough to go alligator hunting with strong language.” I’d cite a few other examples, but they’re a tad, um, earthy.

TV Movie: Bet Your Life

Billy Zane has one of the stranger résumés in Hollywood. He’s the secondary villain in TITANIC, after the iceberg. (Talk about sad ends to careers. Somebody should have told that ‘berg that a dip in the grotto at Hef’s pad isn’t always a good idea.) And now Zane is appearing in a TV movie with contest winners.

This umpteenth variation on ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ is the culmination of NBC’s NEXT ACTION STAR, a series I did not see one minute of. My policy on reality TV: finales only. I saw everyone get fired on THE APPRENTICE, but I have no idea if it was for cause. Joel Silver produced ACTION STAR as a way to bring back the halcyon days of the ‘80s, when he-men heroes like Van Damme and Seagal were a separate and inexpensive breed.

The male winner, Sean Carrigan, does not understand the concept of eye contact. The female winner looks like a fembot version of Tori Spelling, as redundant/terrifying/intoxicating as that may sound. She has been blessed with the name Corinne van Ryck de Groot. Which is even fun to type. Corinne van Ryck de Groot. I want her to become famous so I can continue saying it. I want to spend the next several years baffling video store clerks with the query, “Do you have the latest Corinne van Ryck de Groot movie?”

Zane fares well here, but so would any pro acting opposite amateurs. I always thought his performance in TITANIC was amusing. He was asked to do a Snidely Whiplash-style caricature, and he delivered. (His valet was David Warner, for God’s sake. How many hints do you need?) I may be the only person who enjoyed the 1996 movie THE PHANTOM, with Zane as Lee Falk’s costumed hero.

Here’s a free tip for NBC executives: switch the prizes on your reality shows. The winner of LAST COMIC STANDING has to outrun fireballs in a slapdash TV movie about a stolen microchip, while the beefcake crowned NEXT ACTION STAR must do five minutes of observational humor. The one who fares worst has to marry my dad.

Miscellaneous: Titles

Thanks to Michael Mann’s latest, I can now program a second night in my Interlocking Titles Film Festival.

Night #1: Basic, Instinct, Basic Instinct
Night #2: Collateral, Damage, Collateral Damage

Let me know if there are any I’ve overlooked.

Video: Arlington Road (1999)

This movie didn’t impress when I saw it on its initial release, but I revisited it for two reasons. The great Eddie Muller, in the film noir primer he wrote for GreenCine Daily, names it a favorite recent example of the form. He calls it “timely and timeless, an insightful thriller that didn’t cop out at the end.” It’s also one of the few studio films about terrorism made in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. I wanted to see how it held up after 9/11.

The answer is: not very well, for the same reasons I didn’t like the film the first time. Jeff Bridges plays a widowed college professor and single dad who slowly becomes suspicious of his new neighbors (Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack). The script demands that one character be able to predict how another will react at every turn. Credibility goes out the window in a hurry. Plus Bridges’ character is too unstable from the get-go, ranting to his students about government excesses, taking them on a field trip to the site where his FBI agent wife was killed in a Ruby Ridge-style standoff. Working your spouse’s death into the curriculum is not the way to stay on the tenure track.

Eddie’s right about the ending. It’s bleak and uncompromising. But the movie’s length blunts its impact. You’ve got so much time to think about what’s going on that you can see the twist coming a mile off. And as much as I hate to disagree with an expert I revere, I’m not even sure that I’d classify the movie as noir.

Considering how upfront Robbins has always been about his politics, is casting him as a potential right-wing extremist intended as some kind of statement? Or a joke?

Director Mark Pellington does conjure up quite an atmosphere of dread, a feat he repeated in his follow-up movie, 2002’s THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES. With the right script, he could scare the bejesus out of everyone. Although arguably he already did that in the video he shot for Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy.”

Movie Preview: Suspect Zero

More serial killer hooey, although with a solid cast (Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart) directed by E. Elias Merhige, who made the ubercreepy SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE. But the movie indulges in one of my cinematic bête noires: the on-the-nose code name. According to the trailer, SUSPECT ZERO’s plot touches on a top-secret remote viewing experiment known as ... Project Icarus. A partial transcript from a staff meeting follows:

Official #1: What are we going to call this program to push human experience to its very limits?
Official #2: How about we name it after the mythological figure who flew too close to the sun and plunged to his death?
Official #1: Done! Next on the agenda, copying costs.

The worst example of this occurs in the movie version of JUDGE DREDD. (I was a fan of the comic book, all right?) Eggheads set up a cloning protocol called ... the Janus Project. And are then surprised when it produces twins, one good, one evil. I told myself that they changed the project name retroactively so they could pretend they saw it coming.

This Slate article explains the procedure the military uses to come up with code names. Sometimes the results can be confusing. I initially thought Operation Nimrod Dancer (Panama, 1989) was a reference to Deney Terrio.

Miscellaneous: Links

In the Atlantic, Eric Alterman explores Hollywood’s connection to the Democratic party. The Don Rickles fan site thehockeypuck.com says that the videotape I mentioned yesterday is on file at the Museum of Television and Radio. I was just there two weeks ago. Had I but known.

Website: Overlooked Films of the 1990s

Prepare to waste some time. The list of 100 movies, assembled by the Online Film Critics Society, can be found here. (All praise to GreenCine Daily for the link.)

There are a few titles that I’ll be adding to my Netflix queue, but it no doubt says something about my taste that I’ve seen most of these movies. Many of them more than once.

The Coen Brothers’ MILLER’S CROSSING deservedly tops the roster. #2 is Todd Haynes’ gut-wrenching drama SAFE. I still can’t fathom that Julianne Moore was not nominated for an Oscar for her performance. Atom Egoyan’s THE SWEET HEREAFTER is #3.

My top two choices, ZERO EFFECT and Neil Jordan’s adaptation of the Pat McCabe novel THE BUTCHER BOY, come in at #19 and 20, respectively. Other personal favorites stud the list: JOE VS. THE VOLCANO, MATINEE, QUICK CHANGE, TOPSY-TURVY. I do have to quibble with the inclusion of GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. Don’t get me wrong, I love the movie. But I don’t see how you can consider it overlooked when every male under the age of 35 can quote the script verbatim. Will you go to lunch?

Book: The Middle of Nowhere, by Bob Sloan (2003)

This was my first book by Sloan, and I enjoyed it. Lenny Bliss and his family are great characters. The plot revolves around the ruthlessness of upper-crust New York teenagers, a subject Sloan handles with skill.

But it’s also the latest book I’ve read that badly needed a copy editor. There were enough dropped words, incorrect pronouns and switched character names to prove distracting. Then there’s the error that may not be an error. One of the characters compares his life to “Lennigan versus the ants,” a reference to the classic Carl Stephenson story ‘Leiningen versus the Ants.’ We haven’t spent much time with the character at this point, but we get the sense that he’s a buffoon. Maybe his getting the title wrong is another hint. But I’m not entirely sure.

I remember being assigned Stephenson’s story in school and thinking, “A guy fighting a relentless army of insects? This is homework?” Later that year we read Richard Connell’s ‘The Most Dangerous Game.’ Obviously, that class was an academic high point. ‘Leiningen’ was filmed as THE NAKED JUNGLE (1954), one of the many movies in which Charlton Heston wears a neckerchief. All I remember about it, aside from the neckerchief, are the ants.

Magazine: The New Yorker, 8/2 issue

From Zoë Heller’s profile of comedian Don Rickles:

“A video that he released in 1975 called ‘Buy This Tape, You Hockey Puck’ gives a poignant glimpse of his frustrated thespian aspirations. In among excerpts from his Vegas act, various comic skits, and a big musical number with Michele Lee, there is a jarringly sober ten-minute scene from ‘Inherit the Wind,’ with Rickles playing the impassioned William Jennings Bryan character and Jack Klugman playing the Clarence Darrow character.”

I have a new mission in life.

Miscellaneous: Link

At Out of Focus, Aaron writes a love letter to Turner Classic Movies’ August schedule. Which means I don’t have to.

Movie: The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Does that title actually mean anything?

Fun movie, though. It’s a marked improvement over the original. It still has the same problem THE BOURNE IDENTITY had, which is that the stakes aren’t high enough. If Matt Damon fails in his mission, then the worst that will happen is ... he’ll be killed. The forces of evil won’t prevail, they’ll just get a little richer. In a spy thriller, I expect something more to be hanging in the balance.

Matt Damon continues to impress in the role, but the real star here is director Paul Greengrass. His 2002 film BLOODY SUNDAY may be the best I’ve seen in this still-young decade. The techniques he used to create a savage immediacy in that movie are employed here to great effect, recreating Bourne’s thought processes. Everything comes to him in flashes and shards of memory. Unlike many of today’s ADD-afflicted action directors, Greengrass makes his edits as part of a design rather than a way to keep the audience awake. The movie wraps up with a kick-ass car chase through the streets and tunnels of Moscow that goes on the list of greats.

TV: American Candidate

This Showtime series is a political version of SURVIVOR. Ten people who want to run for President compete in weekly competitions. The winner receives $200,000 and a chance to ‘address the nation.’ I assume that means you get 20 minutes right before the season premiere of THE L WORD.

I mention the show only because it turns out I went to high school with one of the ten finalists, activist Keith Boykin. Oddly enough, this is the second time a former classmate has turned up on a reality TV show. During the L.A. season of MTV’s THE REAL WORLD, I saw an old college friend answering phones in Roger Corman’s office. Rosemarie wants to know how I could end up seeing two of my classmates on TV when she went to school four years more than I did and has yet to see even one. What can I say? I ran with a flamboyant (read: needy) crowd.

Miscellaneous: Links

Silly me. I should have known that Harlan Ellison would have weighed in on I, ROBOT. He does so here. And Michael Chabon finally says what he thinks about SPIDER-MAN 2, for which he received story credit. Surfergirl, aka Liz Penn, aka Dana Stevens, recounts a Ted Koppel/Jon Stewart smackdown I wish I’d seen. And it turns out that the brainwashing method used in the original MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE actually was The Method.

Movie: The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

John Huston didn’t see the point of remaking of good movies when there are bad ones waiting to be improved. Sound advice from the man who had the third crack at THE MALTESE FALCON. But Hollywood is first and foremost a business. A little pre-sell never hurts.

I came to terms with the idea of a new CANDIDATE for two reasons. First, the 1962 version, directed by John Frankheimer and adapted from Richard Condon’s novel by George Axelrod, is so peerless that comparing any movie to it is inherently unfair. And second, God knows there’s enough going on in the world to give the story relevance.

So it’s purely on its own terms that Jonathan Demme’s remake is an utter failure.

As the lights went down, I realized that I hadn’t seen one of Demme’s movies in the theater since PHILADELPHIA over ten years ago. It’s as if the impact THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS had on audiences frightened him. That film’s writer Ted Tally has said that he turned to Demme after an early screening and asked why all that power and craft couldn’t be put in service of, say, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Demme seems to have taken the question to heart. Every movie since has been crippled by the director’s oppressive good will. (A deleted scene included on the DVD of THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE proves the point. One of that film’s poorly defined villains gets shot – by accident, natch – and we see her dying vision of her mother waking her up. Any filmmaker who would even consider using this moment has no business directing suspense, even of the romantic comedy variety.)

There’s a new heavy in the 2004 CANDIDATE. The brainwashing is now being done by the evil conglomerate Manchurian Global. It’s a hackneyed idea, for starters; as Jamie Weinman points out on his blog, corporations are the standard villain in most Hollywood movies now, primarily because Hollywood movies are made by them. It’s an easy way to avoid offending any segment of the public. What’s worse is this plot twist is completely nonsensical. Manchurian Global, we’re repeatedly told, already has the ear of those in charge. Why muck about with implantable microchips and assassinations when you’re landing every government contract? Why own the presidency when it’s cheaper to lease?

Manchurian Global’s muddled plan also drains the movie of suspense. It’s hard to get worked up over a conspiracy that can be unraveled via Google.

WARNING: political rant approaching.

Having a corporation be the villain is just another example of the movie’s lazy, left-wing bias. Casting Al Franken as a TV reporter is not only not funny, it’s a way of tacitly telling half of the potential audience, “You’re not welcome here.” Other prominent liberals turn up as pundits. The film’s idea of being inclusive is having Meryl Streep play a Gorgonized version of Hillary Clinton; it’s funny, the movie says as it elbows us in the ribs, because we all know our Hil isn’t really like that.

I want to avoid comparisons to the original, but the 1962 version had a darkly comic take on politics that was only slightly exaggerated from the era’s Cold War hysteria. Demme’s version is tone-deaf when it comes to the subject. Tossing in references to faulty touch screens and the American incursion in Indonesia does not mean you are engaging with the vital issues of the day. Even the little things are wrong; no Presidential candidate, not even Reagan, would sign off on a poster that has his face appearing on Mount Rushmore. (If it’s intended as satirical, it’s too little, too late.) And the idea that Raymond Shaw (Liev Schrieber) would be named running mate is totally implausible. A two-term Congressman? Representing New York City? Who hasn’t had a long-term relationship in his adult life? And you thought Dan Quayle was an easy target.

For the most part, the new CANDIDATE has gotten positive reviews. It currently has an 83% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. (I know, it’s far from scientific. But I work with what I have.) Maybe the critical establishment is giving Demme’s film a pass because they genuinely like it. Maybe they want movies to matter the way they did in the ‘70s, when pulp thrillers like CHINATOWN and THE CONVERSATION spoke to the tenor of the times. Or maybe Demme’s movie plays to their own politics enough to blind them to its evident flaws. (Jesus. I sound like Bill O’Reilly.) I have my staunchly-held beliefs, too. I’d like to think that they wouldn’t prevent me from doing my job, whether that’s making a thriller that includes a few thrills or calling out a once-favored director when he doesn’t.

Movie: I, Robot (2004)

A few too many 85-degree days in a row will drive a man to do odd things. Like see a movie he has no real interest in just to get out of the sun for a while.

I could tell from the previews that this film had little connection with the source material. (According to the credits, it was ‘suggested’ by Isaac Asimov’s book.) As my nephew Luke astutely put it, if this movie were really based on Asimov, Will Smith would be the villain. The author’s Lije Bailey novels, about a detective paired with a robot partner, are crying out to be adapted for the movies. Instead, his classic short story collection gets contorted into a futuristic cop thriller. It goes to show the power of a good title. I, ROBOT is much catchier than THE CAVES OF STEEL.

It’s not a bad movie, just a boring one. It’s not imaginatively written. Will Smith does cop stuff straight out of THE NAKED GUN. It’s not imaginatively directed by Alex Proyas, whose DARK CITY remains a haunting film. It’s not even imaginatively cast. I’ve seen Bruce Greenwood, Chi McBride and James Cromwell in their respective roles too many times before. Bridget Moynahan tries to shade Susan Calvin (why did they have to keep Asimov’s names?) with some complexity, including the sense that the character is far more at ease around robots than humans, but the movie essentially ignores her. Shia LeBeouf turns up for reasons as yet undetermined.

To my surprise, the writers do come up with an explanation for the robot mayhem that’s at least somewhat consistent with Asimov’s three laws of robotics. Too bad it’s not interesting as well. Still, the robots are cool, and there are plenty of dandy gewgaws stuffed into the corners of the frame. And it’s two hours of uninterrupted air conditioning. You could do worse.

This project has been kicking around Hollywood for ages. Harlan Ellison wrote a screenplay based on Asimov’s book in the late ‘70s that has taken on legendary status. It was published in book form in 1994, featuring remarkable illustrations by artist Mark Zug.

Other than Ellison’s opening, in which Asimov’s three laws bubble up on screen as if viewed through water, none of his work made it into the finished film. From what I know about Harlan, I’m sure he’s happy about that. I don’t think his script is entirely successful; the framing device cribbed from CITIZEN KANE isn’t that involving, and the ending is abstruse enough to make THE MATRIX look like a Three Stooges short. But Ellison has an intuitive understanding of Asimov’s work. He weaves the plot around four of the Susan Calvin stories, including ‘Liar!’ and ‘Robbie,’ dramatizing them in a way that maintains the essence of Asimov’s voice. Maybe they can make this movie and call it something else.

TV: The Daily Show

It’s always mandatory viewing, but never more so than during the Democratic National Convention. Jon Stewart's segment on the cable news networks’ coverage of the event, specifically MSNBC’s handling of Al Sharpton’s speech, was shocking as well as funny.

Book: The Butcher’s Boy, by Thomas Perry (1982)

On his website, Perry voices concern that his Edgar-award winning debut “would seem confusing, or even quaint” upon being reissued in 2003. He needn’t have worried. This thriller, about a methodical hit man and the FBI agent on his trail who’s not even sure her quarry exists, remains a lethal piece of work. The reprint includes an excellent introduction by Michael Connelly, who offers as good an explanation of the mechanics of suspense as I’ve ever read. And he ought to know.

Book: Shoot to Kill, by Wade Miller (1951)

A Mystery*File interview with Robert Wade, one half of this writing team (along with Bill Miller), led me to pick up this book. It’s the last in the Max Thursday series, and one that plays with the P.I. archetype in some fascinating ways. Plenty of twists packed into 179 lean pages.

The edition I have is a Harper Perennial reprint from 1993 featuring some truly lame blurbs. “Eminently satisfactory,” says the New York Times. The Herald Tribune calls it “steadily absorbing,” while the Saturday Review of Literature praises it as an “honest job.” I’ll bet they could have found someone to describe it as “bracingly adequate” if they’d looked hard enough.

Book: A Ghost of a Chance, by Bill Crider (2000)

You won’t find better company on a transcontinental flight than Bill’s Sheriff Dan Rhodes. And great atmosphere to boot.

Miscellaneous: Links

Amazon encourages its reviewers to end their anonymity. Slate explains how Jane Smiley gets so many letters to the New York Times published. She should be happy with one, like I am. (It appeared December 15, 2003, if you’re playing along at home.) And here’s a beautiful website that has prompted me to use the word ‘conquistador’ more often.

Movie: La Dolce Vita (1960)

It was the perfect way to end our trip to New York: watching a pristine 35mm print of Fellini’s epic picaresque with a sellout crowd at the Film Forum, and following it up with cappuccino and cannoli at Pasticceria Bruno on Bleeker. (Mention my name if you go there. It won’t help you any, but it’ll do wonders for my reputation.) We would have preferred going to Saturday’s late show, when a dancer who appeared in the film would be in attendance, but there was no way we could have done that and caught our flight home.

There’s little I can add to what’s been said about this movie, rightfully regarded as one of the classics of world cinema. Fellini had the uncanny foresight to capture the moment when society went to hell, when public and private life collapsed into one continuous sideshow, when every event from the arrival of a film star to a possible miracle became fodder for the sensation machine. He foresaw the rise of Paris Hilton and 24-hour cable news 45 years ago. Yet Fellini’s characteristic humanism remains intact; he sees beauty in the shallows and holds out the hope that we’ll turn it all around.

Marcello Mastroianni’s performance as the once-serious writer who may no longer be a serious person never fails to astonish. He’s a purely reactive presence who anchors the movie by communicating a complex inner life. He’s acutely aware of how trivial he has become, but he can’t fathom how to change. It’s heartbreaking.

The sequence with Anita Ekberg as the visiting film star is justly celebrated. It perfectly captures what I always thought it would feel like to be drawn into a celebrity’s orbit: the thoughtless flirtation, the sense of being subsumed in an energy that’s all heat and no light. And as for Ekberg frolicking in that fountain ... mother of God. Rosemarie called her a force of nature. But words fail me.

It was great seeing the American International Pictures logo at the start of the film. From Dr. Phibes to Federico Fellini. High culture and low, brought to you by the same people. Miramax continues in a proud tradition.

Attraction: The American Folk Art Museum

New York’s best kept secret. The vest-pocket sized space is cunningly used, thanks to a design by architect Tod Williams (father of the director of THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR). The current exhibits on quilts and the work of Sister Gertrude Morgan are compelling explorations of the creative impulse.

Magazine: Entertainment Weekly

Having read two issues back-to-back, I can now tell you how to get your letter to the editor published. You can:

1. Gush over the cover, including a reference to how the photograph made you drool or otherwise lose temporary control over your bodily functions, or;
2. Criticize the cover, offering a worthier subject from deep within the recesses of the issue in question.

Coming in a future installment: how to break into the pages of IN STYLE by praising a celebrity’s courage and/or taste in floral wall coverings.

Movie: The Italian Job (2003)

I caught this for the second time on cable last night, and it held up nicely. (So now that Mark Wahlberg has finally gotten a ‘60s remake right – after PLANET OF THE APES and THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE, aka CHARADE 2.0 – will he promise to leave that decade’s films alone?) The movie’s no classic, but then neither is the original. This new version is simply solid entertainment, served up with a surprisingly light touch.

This is the movie that Edward Norton did under threat of legal action, and his evident dislike at being involved actually improves his characterization. OK, it is his characterization, but it works. It’s strange to see Donald Sutherland roaming the canals of Venice again after DON’T LOOK NOW.

What’s needed in a film like this is a cast with charismatic, quirky appeal that performs with precision. On that score, the Mini Coopers deliver. As for the human actors, they’re all ridiculously attractive. I can barely believe that Charlize Theron is a member of my species, much less an ace safecracker. I wouldn’t mind seeing people who look like Sterling Hayden show up on heist crews every once in a while.

TV: Entourage

Mark Wahlberg’s first foray into television is HBO’s latest must-see series. It’s a comedy based on Wahlberg’s own life, about a kid from Queens who becomes a movie star and the friends from the ‘hood who migrate to L.A. to coast on his fame. The show is brutally honest about the show biz pecking order, and if it exaggerates life in Hollywood, it’s only by a matter of degrees.

Adrian Grenier makes a believable superhunk. (That’s an official industry term. I looked it up.) The most interesting dynamic is between Grenier’s closest friend/quasi-manager, who’s in way over his head, and his agent Ari, who as a professional can’t believe he’s got to put up with this nonsense but will do whatever it takes to please his client. Jeremy Piven finally gets the breakout role he’s been waiting for as Ari. The rap he lays on Jessica Alba, telling her she’s an amazing “self-empowered” young woman of the millennium whose “unique energy” needs to be showcased, is mesmerizing. Particularly because Alba, playing herself, utterly fails to register onscreen. Piven goes after her like she’s, well, Charlize Theron. If he can make me believe that, he can make me believe anything.

Website Update: Practice

My latest ‘In the Frame’ column from Mystery*File is now available. Extended reviews of books by Rupert Holmes and Scott Phillips, a look at Humphrey Bogart on DVD, and more. Read it here.

Miscellaneous: Air Travel

Delta showed a rerun of THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR on my flight back from New York. I guess they really are in dire financial straits.

A pictogram in the airplane bathroom showed a hand dropping a variety of objects into a toilet, with a large X going through the collection. The items included a cup, a razor blade, a diaper and a sanitary napkin. Does this mean that I can’t throw any of these things into the toilet? Or that I just can’t throw them in all at once?

Movie: The Door In The Floor (2004)

Writer/director Tod Williams came up with an ingenious solution for adapting John Irving’s sprawling novel A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR: he only filmed with the opening section. Instead of unfolding over the course of 37 years, the story takes place in a single summer. The book’s protagonist, Ruth Cole, is only a child here, conceived in the aftermath of a horrible accident that killed her brothers. The film focuses on her parents and their attempts to come to terms with their grief. Ted (Jeff Bridges), a revered children’s book author, disappears further into his bohemian artist persona, drinking to excess and sketching nudes of local society women. Marion (Kim Basinger) is on the verge of simply disappearing, until her husband’s young assistant, well-played by Jon Foster, arrives for the season.

Williams does a marvelous job of capturing the woozy feeling of summer in the Hamptons. But the tone of the material defeats him. Other than an extended section about two-thirds of the way through the film when Williams intercuts between the characters beautifully, the mood is excessively somber. He avoids the pathos other adaptors of Irving have fallen prey to, but he sidesteps the humor as well.

Bridges gives a galvanic performance, investing what could have been a clichéd character with tremendous life, but the movie undercuts his effort by being more judgmental about Ted’s behavior than Marion’s. That recessive role would be a difficult one for any actress other than Julianne Moore to play. Despite a game effort, Basinger isn’t up to the task. Credit to Williams for an arresting closing shot that almost elevates the entire film.

From the I-wouldn’t-have-noticed-this-had-I-liked-the-movie department: this section of Irving’s book is set in 1958, but Williams has updated it to the present. Which makes it hard to accept that the young assistant wouldn’t know the nature of the accident that killed the Coles’ sons. A writer as famous as Ted Cole would have websites devoted to his work, and some of them would dwell on the tragedy excessively. I’m just saying.

To my knowledge, this marks the second time that the great New York theater actor Larry Pine has played a surrogate Charlie Rose. The first was in THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS. Seems like nice gig.

Miscellaneous: Theater

No trip to NYC is complete without taking in some live performances. I mean the professional kind, not just the street theater that’s constantly erupting in front of you on the subway. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve seen on this trip:

The Musical of Musicals: The Musical! The writers of this spoof take one simple, melodramatic premise (the old “You must pay the rent!/I can’t pay the rent!” chestnut that I still perform to this day using only a folded sheet of paper as a prop) and offer five interpretations in the styles of different composers. Rodgers & Hammerstein, Steven Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kander & Ebb all take their lumps. There’s some deft parody here, as well as some gleefully awful puns (“A funny thing happened on the way to decorum”) that add to the merriment. A show that actually gets funnier as it goes along.

Bug. One review calls Tracy Letts’ award-winning play “a sensational noir thriller.” The play’s website touts it as “sci-fi mix(ed) with a touch of terror and a dash of comedy.” Neither description works for me. All I can say is that this play has literally haunted my dreams since I saw it. In a dingy Oklahoma City motel room, a crack-smoking waitress with a husband due out of jail takes up with a spooky drifter. Their relationship progresses into Sam Shepard terrain, then takes a hairpin turn into conspiracy theory and paranoia. The result is an intense, harrowing experience. The two lead performances by Paul Sparks and especially Shannon Cochran (so memorable as the little girl’s mother in THE RING) are astonishing. Hands down the highlight of this trip. Unless you count seeing a phalanx of NYPD officers drag a guy out of the Times Square subway station in handcuffs.

The Rejection Show. A monthly showcase of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE sketches, TV pilots and New Yorker cartoons that, for one reason or another, were passed on by the powers that be. Most of them are as funny as what did make the grade, and you can see them all for only five bucks.

Attraction: Museum of Television & Radio

The staff at this museum tells you as you buy your ticket that all you’ll be doing is watching TV. On a day with near-100% humidity, I can’t think of a finer cultural experience. You’re allowed to select up to 4 programs from the museum’s library, and you have 2 hours to watch them.

I was amazed by the number of people who requested episodes of FRIENDS. Isn’t this show on six times a day everywhere in the country? I had a list of programs at the ready:

- MORTON & HAYES, which I’ve written about before;
- NO SOAP RADIO, an absurd 1982 limited-run sitcom starring Bill Dana and Steve Guttenberg that struck me as hilarious;
- An episode of THE HARDY BOYS featuring the singer David Gates (‘If’).

Maybe I should explain that last one. This particular show was about a Russian woman who wanted to defect. The signal to proceed would be a song that Gates would sing at a certain point in his concert; if she heard it, she was to go to agents positioned in the crowd. If she didn’t, she was to return to her Soviet minders. Word comes down to Frank and Joe: the plan is off. They signal Gates, who starts performing a different tune. The woman, in tears, begins heading for the exit. Then the Hardys realize there’s a mole in the operation, and that if the woman goes back to the embassy she’ll be killed. They wave frantically to Gates, who in the middle of his song stops and switches to the one that means the coast is clear. To an 11-year-old, this was the height of drama, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I still get chills when I think about it. I wanted to watch the show again to see how it held up – and to eliminate the positive feelings it engendered toward David Gates.

Needless to say, the museum had none of my selections.

They did have Rosemarie’s first choice, an episode of THE DAVI D SUSSKIND SHOW about being a Jewish son featuring Mel Brooks, George Segal, David Steinberg and Dan Greenburg that she remembered as the funniest program she’d ever seen. It held up rather well. We came up with a few alternates that weren’t available, like the Oscar ceremony featuring Rob Lowe dueting with Snow White (apparently, all copies of that telecast have been destroyed, the remains placed in earth which was then salted so that nothing would ever grow there again). But we were able to fill out our card with some other goodies:

- The final TOMORROW show, with Chevy Chase and Peter Allen joining Tom Snyder;
- The Thanksgiving episode of WKRP IN CINCINNATI, which ends with Gordon Jump’s immortal line, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly”;
- A 1981 Doug Henning magic special in which all the strings are clearly visible.

What did you expect me to request, the moon landing? I know how that ends.

The radio part of the museum is also impressive. This week’s offerings included an Orson Welles tirade against Thomas E. Dewey, an installment of BUCK ROGERS, and a Mercury Summer Theater broadcast of AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS.

Miscellaneous: Outdoor Advertising

Any doubts I had about the mainstreaming of porn were banished during a trip to the TKTS booth in Times Square. The billboard promoting Jenna Jameson’s latest home video – filmed in 35MM – was as large and as prominently placed as the one plugging I, ROBOT.

Movie: Point Blank (1967)

OK, maybe I have been watching a little too much TCM lately. Perhaps it’s for the best that I had to go to New York during their ‘Crime Wave’ festival. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left the house for a week.

John Boorman’s film version of the Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake) novel has countless admirers, and I’m one of them. But the first half-hour or so is rough sledding. All of the nouvelle vague influences – the editing style, the looping structure, the use of sound – seem forced, as if Boorman feels he has to justify his involvement with such lowbrow material. Boorman has written that he took a “pulp thriller … (and) tortured it into an existential dreamscape,” crafting a meditation on both Lee Marvin and America, “a man, a nation, in violent and hopeless pursuit of their destiny.” Which is all well and good, but Stark’s novel was a damn fine crime drama to begin with. That becomes apparent soon enough as sheer narrative momentum takes over and Boorman’s flourishes have no choice but to serve the story. TCM followed this with Antonioni’s BLOW-UP (1966), a film where similar stylistic decisions feel like part of an organic whole throughout. (I didn’t watch that screening, though. I’d rather check out the recent DVD.)

I once read an interview with Boorman where he said he didn’t like working with a good script because it meant there was less for him to do. That’s some attitude, mister. Still, his films are always worth seeing. ZARDOZ (1974), an SF film he wrote and directed, is a pretentious and stupefying mess with a truly disturbing ending. His most recent film THE TAILOR OF PANAMA is a terrific adaptation of LeCarre that hasn’t been seen by enough people.

Movie: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2004)

I did leave my digs in New York to check out this movie, reuniting CROUPIER star Clive Owen with director Mike Hodges. It’s essentially a riff on an earlier Hodges film, the spellbinding GET CARTER. Owen plays Will Graham (no apparent relation to RED DRAGON’s FBI agent), a one-time London gangster who “had a breakdown” and now roams the countryside in a caravan. Bearded, solitary, and working off the books, he tells himself he’s renounced his old life. Then his younger brother (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) commits suicide, and Will returns to find out why. His mere presence sets the underworld in an uproar, despite his insistence that he’s only back to resolve the question of his brother’s death.

SLEEP is a deliberately low-key work, concerned primarily with character and mood. It’s fascinating how Hodges and writer Trevor Preston are able to delay key pieces of exposition in this simple story until very late in the film. The ending is somewhat enigmatic, but considering the movie’s overall gloomy tone it’s clear what ultimately happens. Or at least I think it is.

Owen, as usual, gives a terrific performance. He was so good in his single scene with Matt Damon in THE BOURNE IDENTITY, hinting at a complex history in only a few words, that he ruined the movie for me. I don’t want to spend time with a punk kid like Damon when Owen is at large. The actor’s name is often bruited about as the next James Bond, and with good reason. There’s a scene in SLEEP after his character has cleaned himself up when he embodies the essence of Bond as Ian Fleming described him: a handsome man whose looks have an edge of cruelty. I can see why people would like him to make the part his own. But I hope he passes on the role if it’s offered and sticks to the path he’s on.

Miscellaneous: In-Flight Announcement

Flight Attendant: We are about to land into John F. Kennedy International Airport. All cell phones must be discontinued.

The first sentence is just poorly phrased. The second may have been a call to revolution. But as the airlines don’t feed you anymore, I was too tired to act on it.

Movie: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

I prepped for my trip by watching the New Yorkiest movie ever made. Robert Shaw leads a cabal of criminals holding a subway train full of passengers for ransom. Walter Matthau (with an assist from Jerry Stiller) is the transit cop on the case. A perfect snapshot of the city in the ‘70s, the film bristles with attitude and excitement. It’s ridiculously entertaining. Featuring a note-perfect ending and great music by David Shire.

This movie and another by director Joseph Sargent, the bleak SF thriller COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT (1970), were regular TV staples when I was a kid. Sargent went on to a storied career directing prestige TV movies for ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’ and HBO, like MISS ROSE WHITE and the recent SOMETHING THE LORD MADE. These productions may rack up Emmys, but they have none of the juice of Sargent’s early features.

Then again, he also directed JAWS IV: THE REVENGE.

Movie: Madigan (1968)

I’d bet if you pitched this movie, an engrossing potboiler tracking New York detective Richard Widmark and police commissioner Henry Fonda over a weekend, to a studio now, you’d get no takers. Too much like LAW & ORDER, they’d say. People can see this stuff for free at home. That’s exactly why I’d also bet that it would make a fortune.

In 2002, when Tom Hanks was named the recipient of the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, a movement sprang up pushing for Widmark to receive the honor. Why hand trophies for career achievement to whelps like Hanks, the argument went, when there are plenty of older performers who should be acknowledged while they are still with us? Widmark, who will be 90 this year, deserves the honor for his debut as KISS OF DEATH’s giggling psycho Tommy Udo alone. So far, the AFI has resisted the pressure. They’d rather toss the award to a big name in the hopes of driving up the ratings for their basic-cable kudocast. I hear Heath Ledger will be next year’s honoree. If the push for Widmark begins anew, I’m ready to enlist.

Movie: The Girl Hunters (1963)

It’s risky enough hiring an author to adapt his own work. But to let him play the lead, too? Mickey Spillane is Mike Hammer in this low-budget effort from Roy Rowland, who directed many of Robert Benchley’s classic short films of the late 1930s and ‘40s. Spillane may look the part, but his voice sinks him. He sounds too much like Tony Bennett. Shirley Eaton, who would later be painted to death in GOLDFINGER, is the grieving widow who plays all of her scenes in bikinis. The movie uncannily recreates the feel of a Spillane novel, in that halfway through I had no idea what the hell was happening and no interest in finding out.

You don’t see many authors-turned-actors anymore. Stephen King hammed it up in CREEPSHOW and Richard Price occasionally turns up in bit parts, but it seems more an affectation among tough guy writers like Spillane and Norman Mailer. I’d like to see it come back. Where’s John Grisham as a genteel Southern attorney, or Tom Clancy as the gung-ho Secretary of Defense?

Website Update: Home

I'll be in New York for the next few days, but I'll try to update the blog from the road. Posting will be sporadic and possibly more cosmopolitan.

Movie: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

I know. I’m late to the party. But I gave up being Mr. First Nighter years ago. Fanboys get on my nerves. And that includes crunchy granola, NPR-tote-bag-clutching fanboys. I’ll try to be brief. Wish me luck.

It’s gotten so you can’t shoot your mouth off about certain movies without making a 12-step-style qualification first. (“Hi, I’m Vince, I’m a lapsed Catholic and I thought the violence in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST overrode whatever spiritual message it had.”) Even admitting that you’ve seen said movies invites preconceived notions, behavior I’m guilty of myself. It was almost enough to make me buy a ticket to ANCHORMAN and then scuttle into Michael Moore’s movie instead. If people are going to judge me on the basis of my ticket stub, I want them to think: he’s an American. If, like me, you’d like to keep politics to a minimum around here, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

On Michael Moore: I loved ROGER & ME and his early TV stuff, but found his public persona obnoxious. I didn’t see BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE in the theater because I expected a one-note anti-gun screed. What I eventually got was a thoughtful, nuanced look at a far more pressing problem, America’s culture of fear. It deserved to win the Oscar, but Moore’s acceptance speech irked me. Especially because he’d delivered it verbatim at the Independent Spirit Awards the day before. (Hire a writer if you’re so busy. I’m available.) On George W. Bush: I didn’t vote for him, but I wasn’t thrilled about the guy I did vote for. And I’m not talking about Ralph Nader.

Whew. And now that that’s out of the way: the movie’s a bust.

As a polemic it’s scattershot, hopping from the Florida recount to Bush’s finances to a ground-level look at the war in Iraq. Its argument never coheres and consists of ancient left-wing shibboleths. A few still have currency: a volunteer army that draws primarily from the lower class does have a real societal impact. But most are simply embarrassing. The fact that everyone in the oil bidness knows everyone else, and that they all have links to various governments, does not constitute a conspiracy. And the notion that, as a result of these relationships, President Bush is more beholden to these interests than the American people is insulting. Moore’s logic isn’t consistent from film to film. It’s disingenuous to make a movie dissecting media manipulation only to follow it up with one that elbows the audience in the ribs and says, “Hey! You’re being manipulated!”

As a movie, it’s boring. Moore knows how to make the most of found footage, and there’s some clever use of music. But anyone who’s been paying attention to current events will soon find their mind wandering. Perhaps, like mine, it will take up the question of the movie’s Palme d’Or win at Cannes. Jury head Quentin Tarantino says the decision was not political, that FAHRENHEIT won because it was the best film in competition. Nonsense. I’ve sat through plenty of festival crap in my time, and I find it impossible to believe that there wasn’t one movie about gay cowboys eating pudding, to quote Eric Cartman, that made better use of the medium than Moore’s jumbled agitprop. I have no problem with the Cannes jury honoring the film. But they should have had the balls to admit why they did it.

Will the movie affect the November election? Considering that attention spans are so limited that we’re already nostalgic for the ‘90s, I’d say the odds are against it. But I admire Moore for raising tough questions, especially when the media has abdicated that responsibility. They are the true villains of this film. (Why did it take three years for the infamous footage of Bush on the morning of 9/11 to surface? And when it did, how did it end up in a documentary? By what definition is the President’s reaction to a breaking crisis not news?) Say what you will about Michael Moore, but in an age when people hide behind bottom-line concerns and Internet pseudonyms, he’s putting his name and reputation on the line for matters he believes in. Which makes him an asset to the country.

Even when his movies aren’t good.

Movie: Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Saying that I prefer this one to its predecessor is damning it with faint praise. The first installment was dull, and not just because it was saddled with recounting Spidey’s origins. The movie was so determined not to botch the franchise that it took no chances. The result was competent and uninspired.

It’s amazing how a $400 million gross can help everybody cut loose.

From the opening credits, which recount the plot of the first film in bold comic panels, to Michael Buble’s hipster cover of the old cartoon theme over the end, the film courses with energy. The script by Alvin Sargent is clean and focused. (Sargent turns 73 this year. I know he’s married to the film’s producer Laura Ziskin, but still. 73? Attaboy!) Alfred Molina makes Doc Ock a memorable villain, largely because we can see his face. What was the point in casting an actor as gauntly expressive as Willem Dafoe in the first film only to put him in a mask?

Director Sam Raimi knows the limitations of the superhero genre. Why else would he push for Tobey Maguire, whose distinctive voice allows us to identify with the character even when in full costume? Maguire plays some of his Spidey scenes sans mask here, a gambit that does more to heighten the movie’s reality than the New York location work. (The first SUPERMAN remains for me, in spite of its bloat, the best of all comic book films, because we can watch Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman throughout. No make-up, no masks. Just actors. Raimi has learned the lesson well.)

It’s miracle enough that the amiable goofball who masterminded EVIL DEAD has developed into an accomplished filmmaker. Raimi’s adaptation of A SIMPLE PLAN proved that. But to infuse so much joy and personality into a blockbuster of this magnitude is nothing short of astounding. Raimi gives good comic book. He films the accident that gives birth to Doc Ock in a series of arresting images that build in power; the effect mirrors that created by a great graphic novel. He then immediately tops himself in the hospital scene where Molina realizes that his new appendages have a mind of their own. Raimi doesn’t shy away from the horror of the sequence, or from its perverse beauty.

He also injects his trademark silliness in a way that adds to the film’s impact. And to end the movie the way he does – to give us the traditional shot of the lone hero swooping into the hard heart of the city, and then to loop back and close on the silent-movie planes of Kirsten Dunst’s face, allowing us to comprehend the scope of her sacrifice – takes genuine nerve.

Johnny Depp deserved the praise heaped on him for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. But nothing else in that movie came close to matching his performance, and as a result the entire enterprise felt out of whack. You could feel the rest of the film scrambling to catch up with him. Raimi’s work here is the directorial equivalent of Depp’s acting. But his sheer delight at doing his job and doing it well graces every aspect of SPIDER-MAN 2. I was ready to stay in my seat and watch it all over again.

Website: About Last Night

Terry Teachout’s blog is one of the best around. Teachout is the Wall Street Journal’s drama critic, and last week he was nominated by President Bush to sit on the National Council of the Arts. Today’s entry is about the new Warner’s film noir DVD set, and about noir in general. I like his definition of the genre: “the porn of pessimists.”

But last week he unintentionally tapped into the Web’s idiotic side. He posted the Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index, a list of 100 choices along the lines of: Letterman or Leno? The Who or The Rolling Stones? Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? As Teachout explained, the quiz was “thrown together to amuse and edify,” and “measures the extent to which your taste resembles mine – but that’s all.” I looked it over, found it interesting, and promptly forgot about it. I didn’t even bother to figure out my score.

Within days it was all over the Web. I found the link on other sites. Several people forwarded it to me. It was even featured in USA Today, fer Chrissakes. What I don’t understand is why. All it tells you is how well you’d fare over a beer with Mr. Teachout. It’s the pseudo-intellectual version of a Cosmo sex quiz. But for a while, I couldn’t get away from it.

And I still haven’t tallied up my score.

Video: The Day of the Dolphin (1973)

Some great movies have been made when A-list talent tackles a high-concept idea: THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, ROSEMARY’S BABY. Plenty of crap results, as well. But when I was a kid, in the days before ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, the lousy films still attained a strange kind of respectability, as if no one wanted to admit that big names could be responsible for such stinkers. I remember THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL being hugely popular among my parents and their friends, even though aside from its great if crazy Ira Levin premise the movie has nothing going for it. Look at all the Oscar winners involved with this thing; it can’t be as bad as it seems to be.

Every adult I knew loved this movie, too. It’s about a talking dolphin who is used in a plot to assassinate the President. Concepts don’t come much higher. But you can’t laugh a movie off the screen when it comes from GRADUATE golden boys Mike Nichols and Buck Henry and stars Patton himself, George C. Scott. That would be rude. Or maybe the talking dolphin (voiced by Henry) won everybody over. I’m at a loss to explain its popularity otherwise. The movie is tedious and full of the knee-jerk anti-establishment paranoia of the era.

Maybe it still has an audience; the well-produced DVD only came out last year. It includes an interview with Henry, who says that Nichols made the film only to get out of a contract. He admits that the movie’s a stiff, but says the best-selling novel on which it’s based is even worse. From his description, I believe him.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been a remake. They could get someone more laid-back to play the scientist. Owen Wilson, say. And this time the dolphin could speak perfect conversational English. A big star could do the part. Sean Penn, maybe, using the Spicoli voice from FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. It would be more of a buddy movie, sort of a FINDING NEMO meets LETHAL WEAPON.

Excuse me. I have to call my agent.

TV: Ultimate Film Fanatic

Comedy Central’s late, lamented BEAT THE GEEKS asked harder movie questions than this IFC game show, which doesn’t even have a lightning round. Instead, there are lame debate and show-and-tell segments featuring celebrity judges.

On the plus side, those celebrities included Richard Roundtree. I love the surly usherette who serves as hostess, and the fact that the category ‘Hollywood Loves Hookers’ was all about Best Actress nominees who played prostitutes. And any game show that quotes Tom Cruise’s raunchiest line from MAGNOLIA uncensored in a question can’t be all bad.

Video: The Man With Two Brains (1983)

The diversions of one’s youth always seem better than whatever crap the kids are into now. This is true even of dopey comedies; there’s a reason why the Bowery Boys still show up on TV. But I find it hard to believe that any selection from the oeuvre d’ Adam Sandler will hold up as well as this Steve Martin film does two decades on. Bear in mind that I did waste a good chunk of my high school years watching it endlessly on cable.

It riffs on the mad scientist genre and DONOVAN’S BRAIN in particular (a clip from that movie appears on Martin’s TV), but unlike most contemporary comedy you don’t have to know the source material to get the jokes. Martin and director Carl Reiner also include a wide range of humor: wordplay, slapstick, absurdity, sex farce. It helps to have actors who could play this story straight, like David Warner and Whit Bissell. (RE-ANIMATOR was two years away, so casting Jeffrey Combs as a creepy intern is funny only in retrospect.) Plus it features my all-time favorite cameo appearance.

The jokes are in service of a serious idea, one that runs through much of Martin’s work: what is that draws us to another human being? You can actually see how his Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr could fall in love with a disembodied brain voiced by Sissy Spacek. By the way, typing in that name just made my spell check short-circuit.

And then there’s Kathleen Turner, managing to be drop-dead sexy and hilarious all at once. She’d debuted in BODY HEAT only two years earlier, and there seemed no limit to how far she would go. Yet her career, like her BODY HEAT costar William Hurt’s, basically ended with the 1980s. Her last good movie was 1989’s THE WAR OF THE ROSES, her last decent part in John Waters’ SERIAL MOM. She’s probably best known now for playing Chandler’s transsexual father on FRIENDS, which seems like a particularly cruel joke. Once upon a time Hollywood knew what to do with actresses who were smart, sexy and took no prisoners. If Turner had been around in the ‘40s, she’d be a legend now.

Movie: Anything Else (2003)

Woody Allen arrests his recent slide somewhat with this movie. It’s a mess, but at least it’s got something on its mind, even if that something can be summed up in three words: dames is grief. Jason Biggs makes an appealing Allen stand-in and Christina Ricci taps into her abundant natural charm, but he’s a doormat and she’s been saddled with too many psychotic quirks to make their romance plausible. Woody himself plays the most interesting character, a would-be comedy writer crippled with rage. And Danny DeVito scores the biggest laughs as an agent who’s too much of a mensch. As an actor, DeVito’s been on a tear lately, offering up one finely-tuned character performance after another. Allen can still crank out hilarious lines when he feels like it:

Psychiatrist: Tell me about your dream. You dreamt the Cleveland Indians all got jobs at Toys ‘R Us?

Video: Deep Blue Sea (1999)

It’s that old, primal story, man versus genetically-modified supershark. This is good, dumb fun, featuring one of the great death scenes of recent years. And it comes up with a perfectly credible reason for Saffron Burrows to strip down to her skivvies. That’s just good writing.

You can say this for Renny Harlin: he makes popcorn movies without a shred of pretense. No DAY AFTER TOMORROW pontificating for him. Some of his films are dopily entertaining, like this one and THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. Some are not, like CUTTHROAT ISLAND. The film-going public needs to file a restraining order to keep Harlin away from Sylvester Stallone at all times, lest we get another CLIFFHANGER. Or worse, a sequel to DRIVEN.

I saw a trailer for Harlin’s phantom project MINDHUNTERS earlier this year. There’s still no sign of the film itself. Somebody may need to call Dimension and remind them that it’s ready for release. It has a typically overheated Harlin premise (one of the FBI’s Behavioral Science psycho experts turns out to be ... a psycho), with a script by THE COOLER’s Wayne Kramer and the prospect of another loopy Val Kilmer performance. The movie’s been wrapped for so long that Harlin has had time to reshoot Paul Schrader’s EXORCIST prequel in its entirety. MINDHUNTERS’ original release date was April 2003. According to the IMDb, it’s now slated for 2005. In the U.S., at any rate. Filmgoers in Harlin’s native Finland as well as the United Arab Emirates have already had their chance to check it out. It apparently opens in the Netherlands today. So to any readers in Amsterdam:

Ga naar de bioscoop! Geniet van! (Translation by Babel Fish. Blame them for any and all syntax errors.)

Newspaper: Daily Variety

I’d link to this if I could, but it’s subscription only. Variety connects its content to its ‘Slanguage’ dictionary. In its positive review of KING ARTHUR, the phrase ‘A.D.’ (as in 60 A.D.) is highlighted. Clicking the text brings you to this helpful definition:

a.d.: assistant director. ‘Alan Smithee’s career began as the a.d. on Warner’s GYPSY’

Movie: De-Lovely (2004)

Exposition is a bear that every movie’s got to cross, but in a biopic it’s murder. Stanley Kubrick told William Goldman that in his planned film about Napoleon he “wanted to do the whole sweep of a man’s life” even though, as Goldman observed, film doesn’t do that very well. Goldman went on to work on CHAPLIN, which attempted it anyway. His solution was the inelegant addition of Anthony Hopkins’ character, the editor who cleared up a few points in Chaplin’s autobiography by asking obvious questions that made you wonder what the original manuscript read like. (The entry on Goldman in David Thomson’s BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM ends: ‘One doubts that he was present or conscious when the device of the publisher/interlocutor was conceived,’ but in WHICH LIE DID I TELL? Goldman says it was his contribution. Can we get these two together for lunch? I’ll pay.)

This film about songwriter Cole Porter cribs Goldman’s technique, but with a theatrical panache that raises your hopes. Porter’s ethereal guide in his last moments (Jonathan Pryce) has arranged for his life to be staged as a musical, with Porter as director. It’s a clever piece of writing by Jay Cocks, not only acknowledging the artificiality of the structure but embracing it. Sadly, the storytelling turns rote soon after it’s introduced.

DE-LOVELY is a toothless version of what Todd Haynes attempted with FAR FROM HEAVEN, asking the musical question: what if MGM had made NIGHT AND DAY, their 1946 bio of Porter, without constraints? The answer is a movie in which the subject of Porter’s homosexuality is glossed over in decorous fashion.

Some critics are reevaluating the earlier film in the wake of this one. Let me say that NIGHT AND DAY is one of the most criminally boring films I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think Cary Grant could be bad in anything until I saw it on TCM last week. I didn’t even believe Monty Woolley as Monty Woolley. Especially when he started ogling chorus girls.

A few of Porter’s songs are staged as musical numbers which are uniformly dreadful. (Louis B. Mayer singing ‘Be A Clown’?) They serve as a reminder that above all genres, musicals require directors with a cohesive style. Irwin Winkler is one of the great producers: THE RIGHT STUFF, GOODFELLAS, ROCKY. As a director (AT FIRST SIGHT, NIGHT AND THE CITY), style is not an arrow in his quiver. I’m not sure he has a quiver.

Most of the songs are sung by what K-Tel calls ‘contemporary artists.’ Robbie Williams tosses off the title tune with such élan that I’m embarrassed he’s not a huge star in America. Elvis Costello does just fine by “Let’s Misbehave,” but the man still doesn’t know what to do with his hands. For some reason, his wife Diana Krall is made up to look like a film noir hash-house waitress. The less said about Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morrissette the better.

But Porter’s music beguiles even under this treatment. ‘Night and Day’ remains one of the great achievements of the 20th century. And Kevin Kline gives a titanic performance as Porter. Even when he’s playing opposite Ashley Judd, who mistakes hauteur for elegance. Even in old age prosthetics that indicate the research department consulted the wrong book, because he looks more like Noel Coward. He carries off the most difficult trick you can ask of an actor: he makes you believe he’s a genius, and a world-famous one to boot. DE-LOVELY is not a successful movie. It’s not even a good one. But God help me, I kind of enjoyed it.

Miscellaneous: Links

Sarah Weinman offers up thoughts on (and the full text of) Jim Fusilli’s Wall Street Journal piece on the perils of being a book critic. And courtesy of GreenCine, Bruce Feirstein explains what’s wrong with Hollywood.

Movie: Before Sunset (2004)

Generally, it’s a bad sign when your own thoughts knock you out of a movie. If some stray notion passing through your head commands your attention more than what’s onscreen, that usually means the movie isn’t doing its job. But every once in a while, it’s an indication of the opposite. Your reaction to what you’re seeing simply overwhelms you. That happened here, during an intense scene in the back of a car between Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke). The two were just talking – that’s pretty much all they do – but I became acutely aware of how suspenseful SUNSET is, how it turns the screws tighter than most thrillers. How long before one of these two says something that they cannot take back – or something that they’ll have to act on?

The characters were introduced in 1995’s BEFORE SUNRISE, the unlikeliest film to spawn a sequel and, as director Richard Linklater is fond of pointing out, the lowest-grossing one. Celine and Jesse meet on a train in Vienna and spontaneously decide to spend Jesse’s last night in Europe together. The film is all about romantic impulse, about being at an age when you’ve stopped expecting magic but still acknowledge its existence. The rambling, self-conscious dialogue between the two is like an incantation, willing that magic to life.

But their reunion did not come off as planned. The characters are older now, their choices no longer charged with possibility. They find themselves in Paris with little more than an hour before Jesse again returns to America. What follows is a flirtation that unfolds in real time, one with stakes so high as to be almost unbearable.

The film’s emotions reach a dizzying high point when Celine reaches out to caress Jesse’s head only to pull away before he notices her. It’s obviously a gesture she’s rehearsed countless times in the nine years since she last saw him, but those nine years have brought enough fear and doubt to hold her back. The blithe spirit who once spent a night in a stranger’s company cannot touch a friend’s skin now.

Linklater and his actors (who contributed to the script) raise the tantalizing prospect of hope conquering regret. They’ve come up with the most perfectly realized ending of the last few years. Even the Paris sunlight seems to be collaborating with them.

Miscellaneous: Link

Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas cook up a DVD commentary track worth listening to ... for Disney?