Video: The Missing (2003)

It goes without saying that Ron Howard’s western looks great. The world’s up to its collective armpits in fine cinematographers. Even Kevin Smith’s worked with some. And Howard’s movie is peopled by actors who are at home in the period setting, like Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett. Too bad THE MISSING is inert from first frame to last.

Casting is part of the problem. Half the actors onscreen remind you of other, more entertaining westerns. Jones conjures up memories of LONESOME DOVE. There’s Val Kilmer from TOMBSTONE. Even the reverend from DEADWOOD puts in an appearance. Then there’s the story. I can’t speak to the novel it’s based on, Thomas Eidson’s THE LAST RIDE. The adaptation plays like a gloss on THE SEARCHERS (Jones, who abandoned his family to go native, tries to track down his granddaughter before she’s sold into slavery) that manages to be queasily titillating and politically correct at the same time. There’s a jarring shift in tone when we’re asked to accept that the black magic of the lead villain (Eric Schweig) is real. What had been a mannered attempt at a traditional western veers into the psychedelic territory mapped by Monte Hellman’s THE SHOOTING, with some cheap horror movie scares tossed in. Genre-bending is always difficult to pull off, and Howard never lays the groundwork for the transition. The DVD includes a few short westerns that Howard made as a child; it’s obvious that the man has a deep love of the genre. But loving something doesn’t automatically mean you understand it.

Why is that whenever directors want to stretch, they’re drawn to material that’s obviously outside their wheelhouse? Why don’t they dig deep into what they’re intuitively familiar with and try to subvert the form? All of Howard’s movies are about the power of the family unit. He even shoehorned this theme into APOLLO 13, a film that, to steal a line from my friend Noelle Noble, should have had more frosted spaceships and less frosted lipstick. But Howard’s New York-set comedies (SPLASH, THE PAPER) bristle with energy. I know he’s got a Preston Sturges-style social farce in him. We could use one right about now. Couldn’t he have made that instead of a self-consciously grim horse opera?

TV: Best Week Ever

The first show to use Abu Ghraib as a punchline. It’s official: VH-1 is the network of the damned.

TV: Superstar USA

The PUNK’D version of AMERICAN IDOL. I don’t know why the WB is going to these lengths when Fox found William Hung by accident. I must admit I was impressed by ‘celebrity judge’ Vitamin C’s ability to flatter terrible singers. I’d expect no less from the woman who originated the role of Amber von Tussle in HAIRSPRAY.

A show that sets up the delusional for a fall doesn’t bother me in the least. We have a surfeit of self-esteem in America. But I have to wonder about the friends and families of the contestants. Do they think that much of their loved one’s talents, or that little of the pop stars cranked out by the AMERICAN IDOL factory? This program raises more questions than it answers.

Miscellaneous: Links

A clever yet horrifying idea that we all should have seen coming: an animated film where your favorite supermarket icons like Charlie the Tuna and Mr. Clean join forces. In this world, are the Keebler Elves considered a gang? And in New Orleans, Anne Rice pulls up stakes.

Movie: Super Size Me (2004)

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was a horror movie styled like a documentary. Morgan Spurlock’s indictment of America’s fast food culture is a documentary that plays like a horror movie. WATCH the audience recoil as Spurlock loses his lunch – literally! HEAR them gasp when the results of his bloodwork come back!

The straight journalistic aspects of the movie are well done. Spurlock uses McDonald’s own filings in lawsuits against them to damning effect, and he makes an excellent case against the commercialization of school lunch programs. But the essence of the film is its hook: Spurlock goes on a 30-day all-McDonald’s diet with disastrous effects on his health. The experiment brings home his point in way that the facts never could. By week two, you want to ask him why he doesn’t stop when it’s obvious that the food is bad for him. Then you realize that you could put the same question to the “heavy users,” in McDonald’s own parlance, who down Big Macs at least once a week.

Spurlock is being touted as the heir to Michael Moore; A.O. Scott wrote a piece linking the two in Sunday’s New York Times. But there’s a critical difference between them. Moore, the 50-year-old ex-Mother Jones editor, views himself as a crusader against monolithic corporations that prey on an unsuspecting public. Spurlock is 33, which means he came of age in the era of branding and media savvy. He knows that to some degree we’re all complicit in the success of these companies. Spurlock says at the outset that his movie is about finding the point where corporate responsibility ends and personal responsibility begins, an admission of culpability that Moore seems unwilling to make.

Two mistakes: when a map of America’s fattest cities is shown, one in south Florida is clearly labeled “Maimi.” And at no point in the film does Spurlock eat a McRib. I know they’re back. I can see the posters.

TV: The Sopranos

A dream sequence? Didn’t we get one of these a few seasons ago?

It is healthy to dream about celebrities, though. Psychiatrists say that it shows a well-developed sense of self-esteem. I learned that tidbit on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES.

Miscellaneous: Links

Here’s a surprise: some banana republics have better voting systems than AMERICAN IDOL does. And all hail the Eurovision Song Contest.

TV: CSI: New York

The spinoff will be introduced on Monday’s season finale of CSI: MIAMI. I’m tempted to watch because the new show will star Gary Sinise, one of those terrific Chicago actors who imbue every performance with a kind of grounded theatricality. But I’m also afraid that he’ll be hamstrung by the rigors of the franchise. I love Anthony LaPaglia on WITHOUT A TRACE, but the series doesn’t give him the opportunities to dig deep the way he did in films like BULLETPROOF HEART and LANTANA. Then again, Vincent D’Onofrio has managed to turn LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT into a showcase for his twitchy histrionics, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Sinise stars in one of my favorite movie scenes of the ‘90s. In the so-so thriller RANSOM, he plays a crooked cop who masterminds a kidnapping. When his plan falls apart, he walks into a laundromat to ponder his next move. The play of emotions on his face as he comes up with a particularly ruthless solution and then steels himself up to carry it out is riveting. No special effects required.

Movie: Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

Nelson Gidding, one of the film’s writers, passed away recently. I watched this movie for the first time a few weeks ago. Noir expert Eddie Muller named it as a personal favorite. So did director Jean-Pierre Melville.

The movie comes late in the noir cycle; some of the trademarks of the coming revolution in cinema are already in evidence, like the stark cinematography and innovative use of music. Robert Wise directs with a spare style that seems fused to the material. Robert Ryan plays a racist so desperate for a score he throws in on a bank job with an equally desperate black jazz musician (Harry Belafonte). The tension between the two finally boils over when the robbery goes south. Ryan is fearless; his scenes with Gloria Grahame are played with a blistering neediness. The closing moments overtly state what had been neatly underplayed, but it’s a bracing, adult film.

Gidding also wrote Susan Hayward’s I WANT TO LIVE! as well as THE HAUNTING and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Here’s to a fine career.

Movie: Act of Violence (1949)

World-class director’s Fred Zinnemann’s lone foray into noir surfaced on TCM. It’s set primarily in one of those picture-perfect California towns where sin goes to fester. The underrated Van Heflin plays a veteran who’s built up a thriving business as a contractor. When his ex-service buddy Robert Ryan (again – where would noir be without him?) shows up intent on killing him, we naturally take Heflin’s side. Slowly, the truth comes out; while in a POW camp, Heflin sold out his own men to the Nazis. The reappearance of his one-time friend sends him spiraling into the shadows. Ryan’s sputtering attempt to justify his crusade to Heflin’s wife (Janet Leigh) is topped by another exceptional scene where Heflin’s rationalizations collapse into self-loathing. Potent stuff. Few characters in contemporary entertainment are as complex as Heflin’s is here, and when they are, that complexity becomes the entire point of the enterprise. (Witness AMERICAN BEAUTY.) That Zinnemann’s film can give us a taut story as well is nothing short of miraculous.

Miscellaneous: Links

North Korean pop culture tries to take root in the south. And no wonder most movies suck, with screenwriters carrying on like this.

Video: The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

I’ve never seen anything more French in my life.

Sylvain Chomet’s animated feature is virtually dialogue-free, its soundtrack filled with a cacophony of multilingual mutterings and sound. Chomet has forged a style that combines Tex Avery and Jacques Tati. There’s not much of a plot. An elderly woman raises her grandson, drawn to look like a Gallic Marty Feldman, to compete in the Tour de France. When he’s kidnapped during the race and Shanghaied to the city of Belleville, Grandmere pursues him with the help of the title act, a trio of elderly musical performers.

Belleville is not America, exactly, but a place where the cars are big, the hamburgers are bigger, and everybody is fat and proud of it. Chomet doesn’t spare his countrymen; the French gangsters are a collection of oddly shaped noses underneath berets, and the triplets attack their nightly dinner of frogs with a frightening gustatory zeal. Chomet includes enough visual quirks to carry the film past its slow patches. He’s aided enormously by Benoît Charest’s music and an insanely catchy title song by Mathieu Chedid. A music video, included on the DVD, belongs in heavy rotation on Guy Maddin’s MTV.

TRIPLETS gives the lie to the received wisdom that hand-drawn animation is dead. It’s strange that Disney and Dreamworks keep pushing this argument in an era when Hiyao Miyazaki won an Oscar for SPIRITED AWAY. More than any other form, animation demands a clearly-articulated central vision. Pixar’s films have that; the company’s last two efforts weren’t directed by John Lasseter but obviously spring from his sensibility. American conventional animation may be dead because there’s no place in the system for iconoclasts like Chomet. Bill Plympton has made a go of it. His full-length films like THE TUNE and I MARRIED A STRANGE PERSON don’t have the impact of shorts like HOW TO KISS, but he’s fighting the good fight. Mike Judge ultimately turned to TV.

BTW, BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD is back on MTV2. I wish Judge would make new episodes. I want to hear the boys’ commentary on Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirrty.’

Movie: The Battle of Algiers (1965)

Gillo Pontecorvo’s controversial film about the French campaign against Algerian nationalists made the news when the Pentagon screened it prior to the invasion of Iraq. I saw it during its re-release earlier this year. It’s a harrowing piece of work.

Now word comes from Cannes that a remake is in the offing. (The Variety article on the project is subscription-only.) The original film’s producer and costar Saadi Yacef is involved, and the story will be opened up by adding an American character.

Most projects trumpeted at Cannes never come to fruition; half of them are announced only to squeeze a few bucks out of dissolute investors who are distantly related to Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. But this strikes me as a particularly bad idea. To paraphrase John Huston, there’s no point in remaking a film they got right the first time. And “opening up” a story almost never works.

What really annoys me is the rationale behind the remake. Producer Basil Iwanyk says, “A lot of people are trying to dramatize what’s going on the Middle East ... (but they) are afraid to look anti-American and don’t want to touch political issues.” Good luck. Iwanyk is to be commended for giving it a shot, but going back to the 1950s and a conflict that involves the U.S. only peripherally isn’t the way to illuminate the current crisis.

The recent contretemps over Disney’s decision not to distribute Michael Moore’s FAHRENHEIT 911 has led to bogus cries of corporate censorship. But the real fallout from media consolidation is the unwillingness of the studios to make films tackling contemporary issues at a time when we desperately need them. Oliver Stone said pre-9/11 that he wanted to make an ALGIERS-style thriller about terrorism. Instead, he’s retreated to ancient Greece. I do have hope, though. TRAFFIC collaborators Steven Soderbergh and Stephen Gaghan are reteaming along with George Clooney for SYRIANA, a film based on ex-CIA operative Robert Baer’s gripping book SEE NO EVIL. If they succeed, perhaps others will follow.

Miscellaneous: Link

Roller derby makes a comeback. Setting up a remake we can all agree on: Charlize Theron in KANSAS CITY BOMBER.

Website Update: Comments

Thanks to the Blogger relaunch, this website now has comments. Feel free to sound off.

TV: Aaron Spelling

TV Land aired a mini-marathon of the master’s shows as part of Moguls night. He’s selling many of them to the movies now, which is a relief. I was afraid he would run out of money. (This is where I’m supposed to say that the wealth of Croesus couldn’t buy Tori Spelling a career, but I’m a fan. Tori’s very funny in the indie films THE HOUSE OF YES and TRICK.)

During the credit sequence of CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE, respect is paid to other Spelling shows. Drew Barrymore hugs the hood of STARSKY & HUTCH’s Striped Tomato, and the car that delivered Mr. Rourke to the seaplane dock at the top of every FANTASY ISLAND explodes as the Angels flee. Nothing like misplaced reverence to set the tone for your movie.

Any episode of STARSKY & HUTCH is much funnier, albeit unintentionally, than the recent comedy version. Here’s a line from David Soul as he’s leaving Capt. Dobie’s office: “Starsk, hand me my sweaters.” Let’s see Owen Wilson top that.

If TV Land wanted to pay tribute to Spelling, why didn’t they bring back BUDDY FARO with Dennis Farina and Frank Whaley?

TV: Morton & Hayes

Speaking of long-lost TV, did anyone watch this show other than Rosemarie and me? It aired during the summer of 1991. Each week Rob Reiner would introduce a newly recovered two-reeler starring the forgotten comedy team of Chick Morton and Eddie Hayes (Kevin Pollak and Bob Amaral). The shows were pitch-perfect recreations of Abbott & Costello shorts, written by, among others, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Joe Flaherty. Considering the talent involved, you’d think the show would be better remembered. I want a DVD of all six episodes, primarily to prove that I didn’t imagine them.

Movie: The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

I had my post written even before the special preview aired on Fox: “Does watching 10 minutes of this movie mean that I don’t have to go see it? And if I don’t go, will Al Gore call to give me a hard time?”

But then I watched the preview and damned if the movie didn’t look like a good, stupid time. If the mercury breaks 85 degrees, I’ll go. And according to the science of this movie, it will.

TV: The Blockbuster Imperative

Trio’s pop culture documentaries don’t have much in the way of new information, but they’re easy to watch. This one detailing how tentpole movies took over Hollywood contains some smart comments from writer/director David Twohy, who knows his way around big-budget B-movies (THE FUGITIVE, PITCH BLACK).

A studio marketing rep talked about how depressing it is to dupe people into seeing movies she knows are crap. So now PR flacks are not only lying to us about their product, they want to commiserate with us as well. Doesn’t anybody hustle with conviction anymore? Give me a guy in the Jack Valenti mode, who will insist that he thinks WATERWORLD is the next wave in big-screen excitement even as he’s being run out of town on a rail. At least that guy worked for my ten bucks.

Miscellaneous: Links

A walk down Brooklyn’s Memory Lane, although I don’t see why the reporter has to razz my man John Saxon. And Cannes jurors Quentin Tarantino and Tilda Swinton agree to disagree.

Video: Death Race 2000 (1975)

David Carradine’s career resurgence prompted me to take another look at this movie. It’s a highlight not just for Carradine, but for producer Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel. (I miss Bartel. Back in high school, when everyone else was inserting toothpicks into the backs of their cable boxes so they could watch PORKY’S for free, I was obsessed with EATING RAOUL. There’s nothing sadder than sitting in the cafeteria reeling off lines from a movie that nobody else has seen. Unless it’s writing a blog that nobody is reading.)

Many people are familiar with the movie’s premise. In a dystopian future, the national sport is a cross-country race where points are scored by killing pedestrians. (People 75 and older are worth the most.) But that’s only a hint of how truly unhinged this film is. The United States is led by a President-for-life currently governing from his summer palace in China. Much of the movie is structured around the nonstop TV coverage of the race, which plays like a demented combination of professional wrestling, SURVIVOR, and ESPN’s remotes from the NFL draft.

It’s all served up with typical Corman verve; the damn thing’s only 78 minutes long. Here the cheap vitality adds to the flow of ideas. This is the movie that A CLOCKWORK ORANGE thinks it is, in only half the time and with better jokes. And it hasn’t dated at all. If anything, it seems even more relevant. Everything that goes wrong in the race is blamed on the French, for God’s sake.

A big-budget remake is in the works, but I’m certain it will have none of the original’s gonzo energy. The focus will be on the cars and the outsized characters. And it will be at least half an hour too long.

One other observation: whatever happened to casual nudity in the movies? It just made everything ... better.

TV: Turner Classic Movies

The network devoted an entire afternoon to movies beginning with MURDER. As in IN A PRIVATE CAR (1934), BY AN ARISTOCRAT (1936), and so on. I managed to catch MURDER ON A HONEYMOON, a Hildegarde Withers mystery from 1935. Co-written by the great humorist Robert Benchley and filmed on location in Catalina. Can a TV network be declared a national resource?

Music: Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

Every time I go to the gym I’m assailed by the limp electronica remake, so I bought the Journey original from iTunes. Let me state this in no uncertain terms. I love this song. Unironically and unreservedly.

TV: Jeopardy

Power Players week, featuring D.C. insiders. The first contestants were Bob Woodward, Peggy Noonan and Tucker Carlson. None of them knew which team John Elway QB’d for, and many of the pop culture questions went unanswered. I’m not picking on them. I just thought politics was a redoubt for what guidance counselors call “well-rounded individuals.” Like Tracy Flick in ELECTION. I’m more well-rounded than these three. I even know who the Secretary of Labor is. Go ahead. Ask me.

Book: The Burglar on the Prowl, by Lawrence Block (2004)

My influences as a child were Bugs Bunny and James Bond. I like to think of myself as a synthesis of those two icons of masculinity. Nobody else does, but I do. As an adult, Block’s Matt Scudder series has had the biggest impact. They’re low-key books with a stark emotional intensity as well as the most loving depiction of New York currently in print.

It’s a measure of Block’s skill that he also writes the Burglar series, which read like Nero Wolfe tales penned by P.G. Wodehouse with a dash of Damon Runyon thrown in. The latest is a hoot. Coincidence piled on coincidence, and a chapter that ends with our hero Bernie Rhodenbarr assembling the entire cast in one room and saying, “I suppose you’re wondering why I summoned you all here.”

Video: American Splendor (2003)

Either this or MASTER AND COMMANDER was my favorite movie of 2003, depending on which day you ask me. An adaptation of the autobiographical comics of Harvey Pekar, SPLENDOR blends live action and animation, documentary and dramatic film, in service of a story about the necessity of stories. And it’s hilarious into the bargain.

It’s also proof that Hollywood needs to get out more. There’s no way the Cleveland of this movie could be recreated on any soundstage. It should have been eligible for the foreign film Oscar as the entry from America.

Movie: Out For A Kill (2003)

Steven Seagal’s movies are going straight to basic cable now. I’m sure that as a Buddhist he’s one with the decision. The movie was directed by Michael Oblowitz, who made the flawed but interesting Jim Thompson adaptation THIS WORLD, THEN THE FIREWORKS a few years ago. Any hope of watching this movie was obliterated when Rosemarie observed that Steven Seagal now has Ann Miller’s hair.

Miscellaneous: Link

A New York Times article puts a post-9/11 spin on summer blockbusters. Universal’s Stacey Snider says she greenlit VAN HELSING because she was struck by the word vanquish in the script: “It just feels so strong, like it’s going to eradicate bad things.” Conquer, quell and subjugate are still available, screenwriters, so let’s get cracking.

TV: The Sopranos

Oscar nominee Mike Figgis (LEAVING LAS VEGAS) takes the reins and proves there’s room for directorial flourishes in episodic TV. Some of them worked: the use of the zoom after Johnny Sack disrespects Tony in the matter of the Vespa scooters, or holding on Tony as he storms away from Janice’s house instead of going to black as the credits roll. But Figgis’ most showy trick, employing slow motion as Carmela brushes off her onetime lover, knocked me clean out of the show.

Movie: I’m Not Scared (2004)

Based on Niccolo Ammaniti’s novel, one of the best-selling books in recent European history. Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) and his family are spending the summer in the Italian countryside. At ten years old, he’s feeling the first stirrings of adolescence, staying up late to write stories, wandering away from the playmates that have been forced on him by circumstance. At an abandoned house he discovers a pit, inside of which is another ten-year old boy who believes that he’s dead. As the two boys bond, Michele pieces together the story of how his new friend came to be there.

Director Gabriele Salvatores, responsible for one of the most uninspired of ‘90s Oscar-winners in MEDITERRANEO, does an extraordinary job of capturing a child’s eye view of the world. Every adult looms mysteriously, including Michele’s exhausted mother and charming but distant father (Dino Abbrescia, a young Italian Anthony Hopkins wielding a cigarette holder). Salvatores and d.p. Italo Petriccione lay on a few too many shots of rippling wheat fields due to face the thresher, but they also uncannily recreate the quicksilver feeling of long summer afternoons when the grown-up world seems to forget that children exist. Cristiano is an enormously engaging young actor, devouring the world with curiosity. But the movie is made by the otherworldly Mattia Di Pierro as the sad little boy who calls Michele his “guardian angel.”

Seeing this and MAN ON FIRE only days apart made for an odd double-bill: kidnapping as seen from both sides. Odder still is the fact that the novel MAN ON FIRE is set in Italy during the same period.

Video: Stuck On You (2003)

For once the sweetness that has overwhelmed the last few Farrelly Brothers films feels like an integral part of the story. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play conjoined (not Siamese, thank you) twins trying to make a go of it in Hollywood. THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY may be funnier, but in some respects this is the Farrellys’ best movie. It’s certainly their most mature, if that word can be said to apply to them. The film is a detailed exploration of the long-term bond between brothers, a subject these two know something about. The movie loses steam toward the end, and the climax, a number from a musical version of BONNIE & CLYDE, seems out of place. But there’s a sight gag involving Kinnear and a park bench that’s worthy of Chaplin: simple, funny, and almost absurdly moving.

TV: King of the Hill

Johnny Depp scores as a Texas yoga guru. No surprise, really, because he’s got a voice for animation. His delivery of the line “I demand that you buy a tank top” is priceless.

Relying on their voices alone is a great way for actors to show off their chops. I gained a whole new respect for Jennifer Aniston after hearing her on this show and SOUTH PARK.

TV: 100 Hottest Hotties

Hottie #4 Britney Spears was introduced along these lines: “No one else has made so many men look up the statutory rape laws in their state.” It almost made me put the parental lock on VH-1 for my own protection.

TV: State of Play

I’ve decided to wait for the DVD. There are so many commercial interruptions during this political thriller that BBC America runs a recap every time they come back from break. This is not how you build suspense.

TV: A&E’s Blondie Live By Request

Has anyone ever called one of these shows and said, “I’d like to hear something off the new album?”

Website Update: Theory

I’ve finally gotten around to posting a few of my theories. See me struggle to explain it all here.

Movie: Man on Fire (2004)

A.J. Quinnell’s 1980 novel has been filmed twice, putting it well ahead of THE DAY OF THE LOCUST. Its popularity is easy to fathom. The stripped-down tale is ready-made for Hollywood. Burned out military man becomes bodyguard. He bonds with his young charge. She gets kidnapped, he raises hell. Cue music.

The story has a primal kick, but name a revenge movie that doesn’t. The genre’s rules are so rigorously defined that the only means of personal expression comes in the choice of weaponry. In KILL BILL, we got Hattori Hanzo swords; here it’s exploding suppositories. It’s enough to make you long for the days when a simple handgun was enough for Charles Bronson. The filmmakers have cagily updated the novel’s setting to Mexico City, where kidnappings are a daily occurrence and the police are often implicated. In a system so corrupt, the movie insists, vigilante justice may be the only recourse.

Denzel Washington’s tendency to hold himself in reserve works against the movie here. He’s not enjoying himself, so neither can we. I suppose we should thank him for that. We can enjoy his performance, though, which is a model of economy and precision. He conveys his character’s alcoholism in the way he clutches his glass. Brian Helgeland’s screenplay has been salted with obvious dialogue that reeks of studio input. At one point, Denzel cites the best temperature at which to serve revenge, and he goes out of his way to give the line a flat reading. The man knows crap when he's delivering it.

The physical contrast between Washington and Dakota Fanning as the young girl he’s protecting is used to almost comic effect. Fanning holds her own against Washington’s brooding strength better than Ethan Hawke does in TRAINING DAY. Christopher Walken has a high time as an American pasha with a food fetish who would lick his fingers after eating a saltine. His scene with Giancarlo Giannini as a sympathetic police inspector is a gleeful hambone duet. Mickey Rourke does a small turn as a shady lawyer. Age and plastic surgery have turned this once-sleek actor into a dead ringer for Cameron Mitchell.

Tony Scott directs in a hypersaturated style that cries out, “I’ve seen AMORES PERROS!” In only three years, the dense cinematography employed on that film by Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu has become a cliché, to the extent that it seemed like Innaritu himself was ripping it off in 21 GRAMS. I did like Scott’s use of subtitles, rolling them across the screen, changing their size and position when someone shouted. But then again, I’m a sucker for fonts.

TV: Friends

Ten years and I didn’t see a single episode. What do I win?

TV Commercial: Van Helsing

Judging from Kate Beckinsale’s monster-whupping ensemble, SHREK 2 is not the only movie this year to feature Puss-in-Boots. I know her character has a name, but to me she’ll always be Saucy Kate.

Miscellaneous: Links

Major League Baseball does what Willem Dafoe could not and escapes from the clutches of Spiderman. Maybe the steroids helped. The Chronicle of Higher Education advises commencement speakers to update their pop culture references. Courtesy of Lee Goldberg, here’s his brother Tod at the L.A. Times Festival of Books living out every writer’s dream: being interviewed by Byron Allen. And BBC radio listeners say that Warren Zevon’s ‘Werewolves of London’ has the best opening lines ever. Paul Herzberg agrees with the artist but not the song and offers a few worthy alternatives.

Magazine: Movieline’s Hollywood Life, May issue

MOVIELINE used to be a fun rag. Gossipy, full of blind items and celebrity interviews that would occasionally go off the rails. No other magazine would have run Joe Queenan’s ‘Mickey Rourke For A Day’ piece.

Over time, the magazine’s focus drifted to younger actors, interchangeable faces I couldn’t remember long enough to forget. But I kept up my subscription because the magazine was ridiculously cheap. For a brief period, I think they were paying me to read it.

Last year, a glossy called MOVIELINE’S HOLLYWOOD LIFE appeared in my mailbox. It had been remade completely. The contents page reads that it’s now “published monthly except bi-monthly March/April, July/August and December/January.” That’s what, nine times a year? Is there a word for that? (Yes, there is: erratic.) Each issue is stuffed with 12-page fashion spreads and photos of boîtes on Sunset. I can make it through the written content in seven minutes. I timed it. And now that the publishing schedule has changed, my subscription has been extended far into the foreseeable future. I’d cancel it, but I get more satisfaction tossing the magazine into the trash than I would from forcing some beleaguered operator into sending my $1.87 back.

The May issue, though, is pushing it. There’s a list of ‘Young Hollywood Whatever-Happened-Tos’ like Wes Bentley and Rachael Leigh Cook, people who once were regular fixtures in the magazine. The cover story is on Alicia Silverstone, and in a violation of every rule of show business, she’s not promoting anything. Her TV series MISS MATCH has been cancelled, and her movie SCOOBY DOO 2, in which she only had a supporting role, opened weeks ago. Shouldn’t she have been on the ‘whatever-happened-to’ list? Hedda Hopper is spinning in her grave.

Music: Norah Jones

I’m used to hearing Norah Jones at the gym and in Starbucks. But on Country Music Television? Does she have to be everywhere now? I think I’ve stumbled onto a little-known provision of the Patriot Act.

Miscellaneous: Links

Dennis Lehane talks about life after MYSTIC RIVER and his new short story in the Atlantic Monthly. (From Sarah Weinman.) Proof that broad, uplifting comedies are popular everywhere, even in Iran. And thanks to the efforts of the New York State Attorney General’s office, the recording industry now owes the late Don Ameche the princely sum of $203.

Movie: Owning Mahowny (2003)

There’s such a glut of independent movies that a few are bound to fall through the cracks. If they don’t hit, they disappear quickly, even from film-friendly markets like Seattle. Every once in a while I catch up with one that I wish I’d seen on the big screen. Not because its look demands it, but because I would have liked to have added a few more bucks to the till.

Herewith, I apologize to OWNING MAHOWNY. I should have been there for you, man.

Richard Kwietniowski made one of the great indies of the ‘90s in LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND. Few things are funnier than hearing John Hurt utter the deathless words ‘Hotpants College 2.’ And the subject matter of his follow-up film is fascinating. Dan Mahowny was a meek Toronto bank clerk who embezzled millions of dollars to feed his gambling habit. (Although it is Canadian money, so you have to factor in the exchange rate.)

The movie plays like the blackest comedy, because it’s set long after the point when most addiction movies end. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Mahowny as someone incapable of feeling highs or lows. At the casino where he blows most of ‘his’ money, he’s dubbed the Iceman. In the words of the Mephistophelean manager (Hurt), he’s a purist who only cares about the next hand.

Mahowny gets away with stealing money because he appears so blandly competent. Such a recessive smudge of a man can tell any lie to auditors and superiors and be believed. The casting of Hoffman is an uncanny choice. He’s extraordinary here, as is Hurt and Maury Chaykin as Mahowny’s oddly solicitous bookie.

As recently as fifteen years ago, a filmmaker like Kwietniowski would have been swept up into the arms of the studio system. Now directors are largely left to their own devices. It was six years between films for Kwietniowski. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait six more. Even if we do, I promise to show up next time.

TV: On The Air With Ryan Seacrest

Without a sparring partner, Seacrest is the Oakland of talk show hosts: there’s no there there. He needs Simon Cowell, or the twenty-something version of Kelly Ripa. Maybe he should just bring back Dunkleman.

He referred to VAN HELSING as ‘the new monster drama.’ So if you spend more than $75 million it’s no longer a horror movie?

Miscellaneous: Links

A look at science in the movies and the remarkable true story of screen siren Hedy Lamarr. January magazine has a great, long interview with Lawrence Block. And Major League Baseball and Sony Pictures finally go too far. The press release is a little coy, so I'll spell it out. ‘On-field ... signage’ means that first, second and third base as well as the on-deck circle will feature the Spiderman logo.

We're through the looking glass here, people.

Website: Defamer

The twisted folks at Gawker give their New York treatment to Los Angeles.

Miscellaneous: Links

This interview with Julianne Moore describes a skit on SESAME STREET that sounds funnier than anything I’ve seen on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE lately. And courtesy of Sarah Weinman courtesy of Gawker, here’s the funniest article yet on BERGDORF BLONDES author Plum Sykes.

Movie: Starship Troopers 2

Let’s be honest. Going direct to cable is never a good sign. But I had hopes for this sequel. Screenwriter Edward Neumeier penned the original movie, and FX guru Phil Tippett is also back, this time as director. Unfortunately, they believe that the audience wants nothing but bug battles. There’s none of the barbed social satire that made Paul Verhoeven’s film a deranged fascist masterpiece. The FX are good, especially in light of the low budget. But the rest of the movie is a pale imitation of ALIENS. Except for the scenes when it’s ripping off ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. Or SPECIES. Or THE HIDDEN. Or THE THING. You’d be better off watching the CGI TV series, which is more faithful to Robert A. Heinlein’s novel.

TV Commercial: Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman

Halfway through the ad for this movie, I realized it was an ad for the game.

Magazine: The New Yorker, 5/3 issue

So it turns out that legendary songwriter Doc Pomus (“This Magic Moment,” “Save The Last Dance For Me,” “Viva Las Vegas” and my personal favorite, Andy Williams’ “Can’t Get Used To Losing You”) is the brother of legendary divorce attorney Raoul Felder, currently representing David Gest. Doc’s not with us anymore, but I hope his gifts run in the family. You can’t tell me there’s not a musical in the Gest/Minnelli divorce proceedings.

Stupefying fact: Felder and his wife live on Sutton Place in New York, but they also own “another luxury residence, above the Museum of Modern Art, which Felder uses primarily to store his out-of-season suits.” I never should have left law school. But the Peace Corps dentistry program called to me.

Book: The Narrows, by Michael Connelly (2004)

I haven’t read this book, although I plan to. I enjoy Connelly’s stuff. What I have read is Janet Maslin’s review, wherein she calls the book Connelly’s “best crime novel since CITY OF BONES.” Which came out in April 2002. So it’s his best work in two years. Strong praise indeed.

To be fair, Connelly does keep busy. He’s published two novels in the interim. I liked LOST LIGHT quite a bit. (It was nominated for the Best Novel Edgar until Connelly graciously removed it from consideration because he’s the head of the awarding organization this year.) But CHASING THE DIME is as bad a novel by a writer of his reputation as I’ve ever read.

TV: King of the Hill

Bobby earns the wrath of his friends when he confuses Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulroney. This is a fear that keeps me up nights.

Miscellaneous: Links

The backlash against Lynne Truss’ EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES begins.

TV: 10.5

Thanks to the magic of special effects, the Space Needle topples. And lands in downtown Vancouver.

TV: The Sopranos

After a few meandering episodes, we get a brilliant show that pulls every plot thread together. An out-of-left-field twist involving a minor character sets up the rest of the season. Meadow’s 4AM argument with her boyfriend could practically stand on its own as a short play. Gandolfini’s work in his closing scene in Dr. Melfi’s office was a bravura piece of sustained acting. No word at post time from the Mafia experts at Slate if a guy’s nickname ever ended up on his headstone by mistake.

Book: Redemption Street, by Reed Farrel Coleman (2004)

The second in a series about Moe Prager, an ex-NYPD cop turned sort-of P.I. In this story, set in 1981, Moe investigates a 1965 fire in a Catskills hotel that claimed the lives of seventeen people, including Moe’s first crush. Moe is a great character, and this outing is a solid, low-key effort with a last page that strikes a perfect, heartbreaking note of melancholy.

Video: Detour (1945)

I watched this again in tribute to Eddie Muller’s DARK CITY DAMES. Sixty-eight minutes of pure nightmare. The shabby quality of the print only adds to the overall sense of doom, and the ending is more of a fervent wish than a resolution. Edgar Ulmer made this movie in six days. Ann Savage only worked on it for thirty hours. But in that short span of time they touched something primal. Something that refuses to die.

Movie: Hollywood Homicide (2003)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I like this movie. A lot. And I have said it before; here I am making a case for it in Slate’s Movie Club. Scroll down. Way down.

Movie: Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Fourteen minutes. That’s all I could stand.

Video: The Statement (2003)

Another muddled thriller than squanders a great premise. Michael Caine plays an aging Nazi sympathizer on the run from the authorities and a mysterious group of Jewish commandos. He’s aided by officials from the Catholic Church and the French government. There’s precious little suspense, but what surprises is that the movie can’t work up a decent froth of righteous anger. A disappointment, considering its pedigree (based on a novel by the great Brian Moore and adapted by Oscar-winner Ronald Harwood). Caine’s performance almost salvages the movie. The man has no vanity; there's not even a token effort to make his character likeable. Too bad the script doesn't give him material to run with. Only a scene with his estranged wife (Charlotte Rampling) has any real juice.

TV: Dinner for Five

This week’s guests are all actors with serious Chicago time on their résumés, like Jeff Garlin and Joe Mantegna. Host Jon Favreau is savvy about the balance at the table, often including older actors who not only have stories to tell but know how to tell them (like Burt Reynolds or James Caan in previous shows).

It’s funny how every week Favreau begins a sentence with “Back when we were making SWINGERS ...” as if the movie were some kind of indie-film touchstone. Sadly, I think it might be. Sadder still is how profane many of his guests are. That Gina Gershon has some mouth on her. In every sense of the phrase.

Music: The Best of Bond ... James Bond

A collection of music from 007 movies that omits the best such song since Shirley Bassey’s heyday: “Surrender,” from the end credits of TOMORROW NEVER DIES. It’s sung by k.d. lang, who was born to do Bond music. And if bombast can be said to be sly, that’s what this arrangement is. On the plus side, the album came out too early to have Madonna’s ‘Die Another Day’ on it.