Miscellaneous: Come Blow Your Own Horn

Various commitments are keeping me from delivering work of the high standard I’ve set here at the ol’ internet homestead. But I can’t slack off, not when I’ve received concrete proof that I am A Force For Good In My Time. In recent days, I have:

- Convinced the eminently sensible Bill Crider to record The Gong Show Movie.

- Gotten my whip-smart nephew Luke to fall in love with “the Budapest underground murder mystery thriller romance dark comedy Kontroll.”

- Helped a total stranger discover the miracle that is Out of the Past. If you search for the dialogue exchange from the movie that was featured in the Oscar tribute to film noir, this site comes up first. Meaning that I have Robert Mitchum’s back.

- Persuaded my friend Mike to use his Barnes & Noble gift card on two Mickey Spillane classics.

As Mike himself told me: “You’re changing lives, dude.” Yes. Yes, I am. Now if I can only get a few more people to watch The Apple, I’d be in business.

TV: The American Idol Exchange Of The Day

Simon Cowell: This stage either makes you, or it breaks you.

Me, dripping with sarcasm: Well said.

Ryan Seacrest, simultaneously and without a trace of irony: Well said.

Miscellaneous: Links

Yet another reason to be in New York: the Film Forum’s Don Siegel retrospective. Oh, to see Charley Varrick on the big screen. And four diaries offer a day in the life of Hollywood.

Miscellaneous: Mystery*File

The latest installment of my column ‘In The Frame’ is now up at Steve Lewis’s excellent Mystery*File. I review Massimo Carlotto’s The Goodbye Kiss and Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square, both from foreign fiction specialists Europa Editions. I also revive an old feature of this website, Remake Rematch, to consider the 1947 and 1995 versions of the noir classic Kiss of Death. Check it out.

Miscellaneous: Blasphemy of the Day

During the “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO” ad that lead into last night’s Sopranos/Big Love extravaganza, I realized that I’m more excited about this summer’s return of Deadwood.

Book: Prayers For The Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno (2006)

Nobody can accuse Ferrigno, author of dark SoCal crime fiction, of thinking small. His latest novel is set in 2040, decades after a series of terrorist attacks has torn the United States asunder. Most of the country now lies within two camps: the Bible Belt, driven onward by Christian soldiers, and the Muslim Republic of America. Ferrigno’s novel is set in the latter, depicting a country that has been turned inside out and yet remains strangely familiar.

The plot, fairly standard thriller stuff, pales in comparison to the setting; it lacks the ingenuity that George Alec Effinger brought to his Budayeen stories, which also depict an Islam-centric future. Ferrigno, a master of tough-guy wisecracks, allows that dialogue to crop up here in ways that are occasionally jarring. And a few aspects of his new world are hard to swallow.

But the book is lethally well-paced, and Ferrigno has a keen understanding of the ways that devout religious belief can inform one’s view of life and the world. Plus, he regularly lobs in features of the future America – like San Francisco’s rebirth as a fundamentalist redoubt nicknamed Sharia City, or the fate of Mount Rushmore – that are chillingly perfect.

In the book, Seattle is the Muslim Republic’s capitol, and the new White House is located a stone’s throw from Chez K. There’s a Trader Joe’s there now. Serves them right for their decision to stop stocking the cream soda that Tod Goldberg got me hooked on.

Trailer: Larry The Cable Guy, Health Inspector (2006)

This preview succeeds where others have failed, in that it has me wanting to know more. Like: Is he a cable guy or a health inspector? Can a man be both?

Music: Elvis Costello Live With The Metropole Orkest, My Flame Burns Blue

It’s a knee-jerk reaction. I will buy anything with Elvis Costello’s name on it. Which can get expensive, because the man is nothing if not prolific. In the last few years he’s released albums of piano ballads (North), roots music (The Delivery Man), and straight ahead rock and roll (When I Was Cruel).

I wasn’t entirely sure what My Flame Burns Blue was when I snapped it up. Now I know. It’s the best recording I’ve heard in ages.

In July 2004, Elvis appeared at the North Sea Jazz Festival with the Metropole Orkest, a full jazz orchestra complete with string section. Together they performed raucous covers of Elvis songs old (‘Watching The Detectives’) and new (‘Episode Of Blonde’), as well as experiments like ‘Hora Decubitus,’ a Charlie Mingus composition for which Elvis composed lyrics. It works like gangbusters.

I love everything about this album, from its Saul Bass-style cover art to the film noir musical arrangements. It even comes with a bonus CD of excerpts from Il Sogno, a suite of music Elvis wrote for a ballet based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’m telling you, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

TV: Carson’s Comedy Classics

Vintage Tonight Show bits – including ‘Johnny San, Samurai Detective,’ in which Johnny and Doc Severinsen pretend to be Japanese complete with bad accents, faulty swords and, for some reason, Liza Minnelli – are now available on demand. And an hour of my life is gone like that.

Miscellaneous: Link

In the era of government wiretapping, Slate considers the evolution of the paranoid thriller.

Movie: The Gong Show Movie (1980)

My love of The Gong Show drove my father crazy. “What’s the point of a talent contest with no talent?,” he’d ask. I couldn’t mount a defense, because I was busy stuffing my face with peanut butter. I was also too young to articulate the genius of Chuck Barris.

It’s hard to believe that Chuck’s show was once considered a harbinger of the end of civilization, particularly in light of what’s currently on TV. But as the saying goes, the pioneer is the guy with all the arrows in his back.

Chuck was visionary enough to recognize a simple truth: those who are untalented still crave attention. On The Gong Show, scorn and celebration were conjoined. Yes, your armpit rendition of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” was an abomination, and frankly the tutu didn’t help. Yes, you were gonged by L.A. Dodgers great Steve Garvey. Yes, we are laughing at you. But you got to be on TV, nobody’s feelings were hurt, and you can come back at the end of the show when the confetti drops. There was something pure, innocent, even noble about The Gong Show. It was a half hour during which every dog had its day.

Now, eating animal testicles on Fear Factor is a way of building your personal brand, people bounce from one reality show to another as if it’s a career path, and there’s no gong on American Idol. I ask you, what’s worse?

Chuck’s “unauthorized autobiography” Confessions of a Dangerous Mind – later turned into a terrific film – tried to make sense of the public’s hostility toward him. But his first attempt to deal with the subject was The Gong Show Movie. Made during the waning days of the TV series, it didn’t receive a real theatrical release and has never been available on video. Finding it on TV the other day was like sighting the Flying Dutchman.

The movie’s a true cri de coeur, asking the eternal question: Why does everybody think I’m an asshole? It combines uncensored audition footage with absurdist scenes of Chuck struggling to get through life. Think of it as Jackass meets 8½, with musical numbers by Chuckie Baby himself.

It’s not a good movie, by any stretch. Chuck’s not much of a director; he should have turned the reins over to his writing collaborator, cinema wild man Robert Downey. But so help me, I loved every minute. I paid it the highest compliment I can think of: I didn’t erase it from my DVR. A day will come when I will want – nay, need – to revisit it. It’s even given me a new catchphrase. “Dr. Crawford, if you please ...”

Sundance Channel will be airing the movie a few more times throughout March. I cannot honestly recommend it to anyone. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Miscellaneous: Late Blogging The Oscars

I’m fairly sure that “live blogging,” whatever that is, involves a level of technical expertise that is beyond my capabilities. I also have it on reasonable authority that it would impede my drinking. (Seriously. I had a pitcher of martinis and an entire bottle of wine to get through. Is this thing on?) That didn’t stop me from recording my thoughts throughout the telecast.

The Pre-Show:

How do I hate Billy Bush? Let me count the ways.

This is why I love David Straitharn. Even his answers to stupid red carpet questions (“Was it hard to smoke so much?”) are interesting (his cigarettes were made with pipe tobacco because it smelled better, was less harmful, and the smoke looks good on camera).

The Actual Show:

The opening, featuring a city of movies that includes every major global landmark and cinematic character, is cheesy.

The intro comedy film with every living Oscar host is funny. Points for making hay of the fact that nobody wanted the gig this year.

A rock-solid monologue by Jon Stewart. He will be asked back.

Damn. Even Clooney’s acceptance speech is good. At least another has stepped up to don the mantle of brooding dark Irish sexual charisma. I could use the rest.

Are they going to play music under every winner? This is a bad idea.

This is why I love Ben Stiller. When the man does a bit, he commits completely.

They are going to play music under every winner. This truly is a bad idea.

A salute to the biopic? Am I imagining this?

Could I rock the ascot look like Morgan Freeman, or do you have to be a man of a certain age?

Both supporting performance presentations reunite co-stars. Clooney and Nicole Kidman (The Peacemaker), Freeman and Rachel Weisz (Chain Reaction). Am I the only person who notices this? I am, aren’t I?

Lauren Bacall introducing a tribute to film noir? This is officially the best Academy Awards show ever.

The campaign ads for best actress bring the finest of The Daily Show sensibility to the Oscars.

Why do the documentary presenters have to stand next to a TV like they work at Circuit City?

The March of the Penguins team brought stuffed penguins with them. That is ingenious.

During ‘In The Deep,’ the song from Crash, dancers are acting out the movie. Including a police officer unlawfully groping a woman. I thought the restraining order said that Debbie Allen had to stay 500 yards away from the Oscar show.

Now a salute to issue movies? Who signed off on this?

Mickey Rooney is under contractual obligation to provide one sage nod during each Oscar telecast.

How long has Grease been considered an epic?

The sound mixing winners from King Kong coordinated turns at the mic like the Four Tops. Well done, lads.

The Altman intro by Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep is pitch-perfect.

The Hustle & Flow song’s chorus now says, “Got a whole lot of witches jumpin’ ship.” I can live with that.

I assume those are union guys removing the lamppost after their number is done. Does the local provide their tuxedos?

Did the Three 6 Mafia just give a shoutout to Gil Cates? I love show business. And America.

Seeing Ziyi Zhang reminds me that my favorite movie of last year was 2046, and it wasn’t nominated for a damn thing. Rent it now.

Philip Seymour Hoffman did not bark. Color me disappointed.

Crash’s surprise win means that, unless I’m mistaken, Paul Haggis is the first person in Academy history to write two consecutive Best Picture winners. More importantly, it means that my prediction of at least one major upset panned out. Because in the end, tonight is all about me.

Miscellaneous: And The Winner Izzzz ....

I don’t mean to go all Jimmy Carter here, but it seems like malaise has overcome the Academy Awards. As producer Lynda Obst says, it’s a strange year: “The East Coasters love it because it’s so arty, and the Left Coasters hate it because it’s so arty.” Conservatives point to the nominees as proof of Hollywood’s lefty agenda, while liberals are either defensive or excessively proud of themselves.

These are the Oscars That Frivolity Forgot. The Academy Awards are supposed to be meaningless folly, a chance to laugh at the movie business’s penchant for self-love. They’re subjective opinion passed off as objective truth, accompanied by spangly dresses. They’re ice dancing with less falling.

But not this year. This year, they apparently mean something.

The torpor has even affected me. I’m not in an Oscar pool, and I can’t bring myself to write a category-by-category “who will win” post. I just can’t muster the enthusiasm.

I know who I’d like to win. Munich, Terrence Howard, William Hurt, Amy Adams, Noah Baumbach’s script for The Squid and The Whale. I predict disappointment.

While I’m at it, a few other random predictions and observations:

Jon Stewart will dazzle as host. Every interview indicates that he knows exactly what’s required of him: to be unobtrusively funny and to keep the show moving. He seems to be harking back to the Johnny Carson model, which is fine by me.

There will be at least one major upset, in part because the conventional wisdom (Brokeback, Ang Lee, Hoffman, Witherspoon, Clooney, Weisz) calcified early. If everyone knows who’s going to win, nobody will vote that way.

Actress/singer Kathleen ‘Bird’ York, nominated for her Crash song ‘In The Deep,’ costarred opposite Michael Madsen in the TV series Vengeance Unlimited. I point this out to complain that the show is still not available on DVD.

In 1994, screenwriter William Goldman proposed the category of Movie Snubbed By Oscar That Would Come To Be Regarded As A Minor Classic. His on-the-money choice then: Groundhog Day. My pick now: The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

The high point of the ceremony will be the speech by Lifetime Achievement honoree Robert Altman. A maverick like him won’t pass up the opportunity to say something memorable.

The high point of the coverage will be watching A-list actresses shy away from E! commentator/loose cannon Isaac Mizrahi, particularly after Scarlett Johansson slammed him for being handsy at the Golden Globes.

For that reason alone, I intend to break with tradition and watch some of the pre-show this year. I’ve already made my run to the liquor store for supplies. Cocktails at Chez K will be poured early and often.

Miscellaneous: Link

John Rogers gives the lie to the myth of the heartland audience. Go, Kung Fu Monkey, go!

Movie: Night Watch (2004, U.S. 2006)

Installment one of this Russian trilogy packs in every conceivable fantasy/horror element. A battle between the forces of good and evil that has raged for millennia, check. Vampires, check. Owl women, double check.

Director Timur Bekmambetov is clearly in love with this mythos (based on a series of novels), and tells the story with potent images that slash through the complexity. It’s mainly a set-up for the other two movies, but what a set-up. It helps immeasurably that the film was shot on the grimy streets of Moscow instead of some artfully soiled back lot. For once, souls actually seem in jeopardy.

The movie’s best feature is its use of subtitles. They’re not just words on the screen but a part of the atmosphere. Swirling away like blood in water, changing color or size, being blown off the screen when supernatural badasses throw down.

Not every foreign film could benefit from this treatment, but something’s got to be done. At one point in Caché, the actors sit down on either side of a white table and the captions disappear almost completely. They could have been swapping croque monsieur recipes for all I knew.

TV: American Idol

Now that the audition phase and Hollywood Week are over, I treat the show as if it were a basketball game. By watching only the last ten minutes, I don’t have to suffer through any performance in its entirety or hear Randy Jackson repeat “Dawg Pound, we got a hot one tonight!” in the hopes of turning it into a catch phrase. Why is AI lifting this Dawg Pound shtick from Arsenio Hall’s old talk show? Magic like that can’t be recaptured.

Thanks to Matt Zoller Seitz, here’s the first of Dave White’s columns on the show for The Advocate. Legendary TV writer Ken Levine is also a fan. His explanation for why no 15-year-old can sing Sinatra should be handed out to every would-be crooner who auditions next year.

Miscellaneous: Links

The New York Times’ David Carr slays the demons of Oscar coverage. And writer John August on being a professional in a world of amateurs.

Miscellaneous: Adventures in the Skin Trade

On my last trip to the barber I was early, so I sorted through the magazine rack. There, along with Us Weekly and Blender, was a current issue of Playboy.

My first thought was: again?

As a kid, I would get my hair cut at Sal’s. The barber shop was located in a subway station, and the barbers who co-owned the place were both named Sal. They were referred to, respectively, as “Big Sal” and “Thin Sal,” sparing them the indignity of being known, respectively, as “Fat Sal” and “Little Sal.”

One afternoon I was looking for a magazine and spotted a stack by Big Sal’s chair. He was in the middle of a story, so at first he didn’t notice me. I lifted up the top copy of Popular Mechanics only to discover that the rest of the periodicals in the stack did not contain the blueprints for crystal radios.

A roomful of strangers, several of them racetrack touts, rose en masse to protect my innocent eyes from what my father would describe on our awkward walk home as “men’s magazines.”

Twice in almost three decades isn’t a pattern. But now I had to wonder if those desperate adolescent years spent skulking around trying to look at such magazines without getting caught by my mother or Sister Maureen or a judgmental stranger wouldn’t have been better spent getting haircuts. Lots and lots of haircuts.

Finding myself in a semi-public place with access to a “men’s magazine” prompted other existential questions:

1. Don’t I owe it to my frustrated younger self to at least flip through this issue?

2. Am I being watched?

3. Can I hold the magazine in such a way that passersby will not be able to see the cover or what I’m looking at?

4. Wait a minute. Lisa Guerrero from Monday Night Football is in here?

5. How much difference is there between Playboy and a lad magazine like, say, Maxim?

The answers, for those of you scoring along at home:

1. Yes, I do. 2. Probably, but for reasons that have nothing to do with my choice of reading material. 3. Yes, but it will do permanent damage to my wrists and neck. 4. And how. 5. Not a whole hell of a lot.

Darren McGavin, R.I.P.

In a long and varied career, Darren McGavin may not have had a true breakout role. But read any of the many appreciations of the man’s life and you’ll find two performances singled out.

I’ve spoken before about my affection for the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I would race home from seven o’clock mass on Saturday nights to watch McGavin’s intrepid, irascible reporter take on vampires and headless motorcyclists. For a show that barely lasted a season, it’s had a remarkable impact. Chris Carter cites it as a huge influence on The X-Files, reruns of the original air to this day, and Kolchak returned to the airwaves in a new incarnation earlier this season.

Then there’s his work as “The Old Man” in A Christmas Story. When the movie was released in 1983, it sank without a trace. Repeated television broadcasts transformed it into a holiday staple.

Which brings me to another favorite McGavin performance. In ‘Distant Signals,’ an episode of the anthology series Tales from the Darkside, he played Van Conway, an alcoholic has-been actor. His closest brush with stardom came when he starred in a short-lived TV show clearly modeled on The Fugitive. Conway’s character is on the run, wanted for a murder he didn’t commit. Twenty years after its cancellation, the show’s creator and star are approached by a representative of a foreign TV network (Lenny von Dohlen), one that wants to fund the series’ final episodes. With the representative’s help, Conway sobers up and miraculously regains his youthful vigor.

The representative leaves with the episodes in hand, and Conway offers his theory about what really happened: von Dohlen is in fact an emissary of an alien race, one that has lost its home and is doomed to wander the universe. During their travels they picked up broadcasts of Conway’s series and identified with his character, a man drifting from place to place. They simply wanted to know how his story ended.

In a strange way, ‘Distant Signals’ encapsulates Darren McGavin’s career and the actor’s lot in life. Do good work. You never know who’s watching and how much it means to them.

Movie: The Birdcage (1996)

Among the reasons to revisit this farce is a historical oddity. It features not one but two of this year's Oscar-nominated screenwriters - Dan Futterman (Capote) and Grant Heslov (Good Night, and Good Luck.) - as actors. That seems worth a mention.

Movie: Tristram Shandy, A Cock & Bull Story (2005)

There are any number of way I could praise this singular movie, based on Laurence Sterne’s supposedly unfilmmable novel. I could point out how it’s one of the most faithful of adaptations, hewing to the spirit if not the letter of Sterne’s rollicking book. Which would strictly be a guess on my part, as I haven’t read Sterne’s rollicking book.

I could observe that the film is a cunning exploration of how a story well-told, or in this case barely told at all, can illuminate life even while failing to capture it in all its complexity. But that sounds pretentious, and may not even make sense. Unless you’ve seen the movie, in which case it might.

I could acknowledge the movie’s uncanny ability to portray the sense of community on a film set, the way the behind-the-scenes action comes to reflect what’s unfolding before the cameras. Only I haven’t spent that much time on film sets. Based on my limited experience, I can say that SHANDY nails two things perfectly: the director always looks like he’s just been beaten with a hammer, and the writer’s sole concern is what he’s going to eat.

So I’ll simply say that TRISTRAM SHANDY is funny. Hilarious, even. Steve Coogan is a bloody genius who knows no fear. As is Rob Brydon, who has the nerve to do his flawless impersonation of Coogan to Coogan’s face.

At one point, Coogan, playing himself as well as the title character and the title character’s father (you can see why I didn’t bother to explain the plot) tries to impress a production assistant by boasting about the offers he’s receiving to do movies in America. This prompts Brydon to launch into his equally impressive Al Pacino imitation. It turns into a profane verbal jazz riff, one that ends with Brydon (as Al) saying, “Fuck you, asshole. I’m taking you down.”

That single, generic line, effortlessly tossed off, made me realize how the rest of the world views American actors – and American movies. It also made me laugh out loud.

Book: Dean & Me, by Jerry Lewis (2005)

If the Gideons really want to change lives, they should leave copies of DINO by Nick Tosches in hotel rooms. This biography of Dean Martin is simply one of the greatest books in print. I was a Dean Martin fan before I read Tosches’ masterwork. Afterward, I was a disciple.

Naturally, I was interested in the perspective of the man who knew Dean better than anyone, or at least as much as any man could. Martin & Lewis were together for ten years, and became one of the biggest draws in comedy.

The book is subtitled “A Love Story,” and for once Jerry isn’t kidding. His affection for the man he still calls “my partner” is clearly evident, as is his respect for Dean’s skill as a performer. And not only as a singer; no less a name than George Burns called Dean “the greatest straight man I’ve ever seen.” Jerry analyzes Dean’s talent in a way that students of comedy will appreciate, pointing out how Dean subtly took over Jerry’s role as the cut-up when he appeared with Frank Sinatra, allowing Frank to score laughs as the straight man. Jerry also doesn’t pull any punches about Martin & Lewis’s very public break-up.

At its best, the book is a guide to a bygone era in show business. Performances that began at three AM, special late-night celebrity shows where Milton Berle gets heckled by the likes of Red Buttons, Jack Carter, Henny Youngman, Danny Kaye, Alan King and Joey Bishop.

My favorite story in the book: Jerry had to learn to quick-draw a pistol for Pardners. According to him, he was the fastest gun in Hollywood. Coming in at #2 ... Sammy Davis, Jr.

Jerry’s co-writer James Kaplan is the author of THE AIRPORT, a terrific look at life behind the scenes at JFK in New York. He does a remarkable job of keeping this book tightly focused on the Martin & Lewis relationship while retaining Jerry’s distinctive voice, with jokes and egomania in equal measure.

TV: Slings & Arrows

So not only is Rachel McAdams lovely, talented, and in possession of the good sense to bail on Tom Ford’s sleazy and idiotic Vanity Fair cover. She also had the class to return to this winning Canadian TV series about backstage hijinks at a theater festival after MEAN GIRLS and THE NOTEBOOK made her a star, allowing the show to wrap up her storyline and set up the second season.

Book: Go By Go, by Jon A. Jackson (1998)

Jackson’s novel begins as a tough-minded tale about novice Pinkerton agent Goodwin Ryder, assigned to infiltrate the labor movement in 1917 Montana. Jackson ably weaves in actual historical figures, like union organizer Frank Little and Dashiell Hammett.

The book then takes a surprising turn, vaulting ahead to the 1950s. Ryder’s life doesn’t veer as from Hammett’s as it first appeared, and fallout from his actions in Montana is still having an effect in the era of Joe McCarthy. The shift in story and tone caught me completely off guard, but Jackson handles it beautifully.

He also offers some thoughts that bear repeating with the memoir falling under such scrutiny:

“Was it possible to tell such a thing honestly? I didn’t believe it. Even if you could remember all the details ... That was what made fiction necessary. The factual truth, I’m convinced, is not possible, even if you could be absolutely sure that there would be no repercussions – an impossibility in itself ... fiction was a way of telling the truth, of saying how it had been, without worrying about the petty details.”

Miscellaneous: Links

I’m not alone. Slate doesn’t have much respect for figure skating or ice dancing either. Finally, time for KISS KISS BANG BANG, RED EYE and OLD BOY to get some love: the Saturn Award nominations are out.

Music: Ennio Morricone, Crime And Dissonance (2005)

Let the e-brickbats fly when I say that I cannot take figure skating seriously. Don’t get me started on ice dancing. I can’t even bring myself to watch Skating With Celebrities, and you know how I feel about C-listers trying to pay the bills.

Still, in catching some of the Winter Olympics coverage of the ... activity (it’s not a sport, dammit), I’ve noticed how popular the music of Ennio Morricone is. Among his prodigious output, his score for The Mission has been getting quite a workout in Turin.

That prompts me to mention this new collection, compiled by Alan Bishop and featuring liner notes by avant-garde musician and longtime Morricone admirer John Zorn. The tracks are from films like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin (which sounds much better in Italian, Una Lucertola Con La Pelle Di Donna), and contain the wild cacophony of sounds that are the master’s trademark, like racing heartbeats and orgasmic human voices.

Great music, but awfully hard to skate to. Brian Boitano could pull it off, though. He did two salchows and a triple lutz while wearing a blindfold.

Miscellaneous: Today’s Morbid Thought Occasioned By A Trip To The Theater

Someday I will see a movie trailer and think, “That looks good. I’ll go to that when it comes out,” not knowing that I will be dead before the movie is released. For all I know, this moment has already happened.

This is why I shouldn’t go to the movies by myself.

Movies: Grab Bag

Worthy movies always get overlooked in the year-end awards derby. Here’s a trio of films not fated for Oscar glory that still deserve an audience:

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Tommy Lee Jones’s feature directing debut took home acting and writing prizes from last year’s Cannes Film Festival, but wasn’t picked up for distribution until several months later. It’s a grim, intense fable about a West Texas ranch hand (Jones) determined to return the body of his only friend to Mexico in the company of the Border Patrol agent (Barry Pepper) who killed him. The movie’s an odd fusion of Sam Peckinpah, Cormac McCarthy, and hallucinogenic westerns like The Shooting, but with a deadpan humor all its own. Tough, compelling stuff. Jones should get back behind the camera as soon as possible. (Although considering that he’s set to star in the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of McCarthy’s NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I’m willing to wait.)

The World’s Fastest Indian. Anthony Hopkins stars as Burt Munro, the odd duck New Zealander who set a land speed record on his 40-year-old Indian Scout motorcycle at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1962. Grade-A hokum; you know exactly where the movie’s going, but it’s so charming you can’t wait to get there. Hopkins is clearly having a blast.

Caché. Michael Haneke lives to make middle-class bourgeois types uncomfortable. He would no doubt be disappointed to hear that while I enjoyed his thriller about a couple who find themselves under surveillance, I also coveted everything about the life of Daniel Auteuil’s character, from his book-lined dining room to his sensible wife Juliette Binoche. I’ve read that the closing shot contains a clue that reveals the identity of the villain. If that’s true, I missed it.

Miscellaneous: Snow Flakes

This Slate piece saluting American oddballs in the Winter Olympics – particularly that last paragraph – actually got me to chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” like Homer Simpson.

Miscellaneous: Links

Work is still backed up around Chez K, but according to New York magazine's cover story on A-list blogging that's no excuse to let this site lie fallow. So I'm linking to that story, as well as some cogent thoughts on same by Matt at scrubbles.net.

Speaking of the A-list, don't you wish more big stars would cut loose like Bruce Willis? And Slate asks the musical question: which sign of the apocalypse is it when Barry Manilow has the #1 album in America?

Placeholder: Cue The Queue

A new tradition around the old internet homestead begins today. When work is piling up and I don’t have time for a proper post, I will list the three Netflix movies currently gathering dust next to my TV.

Happy Endings (2005). I’ve watched the film, but haven’t had a chance to look at the supplemental material. I’d like to, because I enjoyed the movie. Don Roos’ sprawling comedy about disparate lives in Los Angeles features a terrific cast – Lisa Kudrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal (singing, no less), Steve Coogan, and the always-underrated Tom Arnold.

Murder By Decree (1979). Ed Gorman recently called this Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper pastiche “one of the best suspense films of any kind I’ve seen.” And Ed’s word is good enough for me.

Kiss Of Death (1947). At some point, I’ll be reviewing the new DVD of this noir classic for Steve Lewis’ Mystery*File. I point out that I have had this disc for over three weeks in the hopes that Netflix will not throttle my account. I’m no threat to anyone’s profit margins.

Book: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller (1961)

Back in January, I publicly resolved to broaden the range of my reading material, to tackle some of those books I keep saying I’ll get to.

CATCH-22 topped that list, for the simple reason that I’ve talked about the novel for years without ever reading it. Joseph Heller gave a name to a concept that seems like such an intrinsic part of modern life – a no-win situation created by laws or regulations – that I felt comfortable slinging the term around without knowing its origins.

But how often is an individual able to crystallize a society’s thoughts in this way? (The most recent example is Stephen Colbert and ‘truthiness.’) I felt the best way to honor Heller’s accomplishment was to go to the source.

Of course, the problem with taking on a classic is that nine times out of ten, you’ve got nothing worthwhile to contribute to the conversation. (Warning: this is one of those nine times. I probably should have said that earlier.) But there’s no point in taking on a classic if you don’t let people know you’ve read it, so what is a boy to do?

First, make one observation. The anniversary edition I read included an odd introduction by Heller in which he mentioned the role humorist S. J. Perelman played in CATCH-22’s success. I’m not surprised Perelman praised the book, because it features the kind of dexterous wordplay for which he was famous.

Then, offer a favorite quote.

“You know, Yossarian ... I really do admire you a bit. You’re an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I’m an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I’m in an ideal position to appreciate it.”

And remember, everyone has a share.

Miscellaneous: Links

I link to this article on filmmaker Park Chan-wook as an excuse to tout his movies Joint Security Area and Oldboy yet again. And personally, I’d be thrilled to be traded for a cartoon rabbit.

Book: The Twisted Thing, by Mickey Spillane (1966)

Beer commercials and the movie version of Kiss Me Deadly. For years that was how I knew Mickey Spillane. The only book of his I tried to read was BLACK ALLEY, which revived his Mike Hammer character in the 1990s. I didn’t finish it.

Still, his name is often invoked with great affection around Chez K. Whenever I suffer delusions of grandeur about my (ahem) career, Rosemarie hits me with R. Lee Ermey’s line from Full Metal Jacket: “You think you’re Mickey Spillane? You think you’re some kind of fucking writer?”

Ermey’s character probably read THE TWISTED THING and enjoyed it as much as I did. It features kidnapping, murder, baby swapping, mad scientists, boy geniuses, and illicit lesbian (correction: Lesbian) photography, all of it served up at a breakneck pace. It’s the kind of book where you’re pretty sure the plot doesn’t make sense, but you couldn’t be bothered to go back and find out.

Then there’s Spillane’s two-fisted writing style, forever teetering on the brink of parody. Here’s Mike Hammer encountering a vulnerable young woman:

“Impertinent breasts that mocked my former hesitance, a flat stomach waiting for the touch to set off the fuse, thighs that wanted no part of shielding cloth.”

Coincidentally, I knew a guy named Shielding Cloth. One of those Choate bastards, never picked up a check.

Or consider our hero at the moment of revelation:

“The pieces didn’t have to be fitted into place any longer ... they were being drawn into a pattern of murder as if by a magnet under the board, a pattern of death as complicated as a Persian tapestry, ugly enough to hang in Hitler’s own parlor.”

Spillane once said that if your first sentence sells the book, your last sentence sells the next book. THE TWISTED THING has a corker.

When I had to do a recitation for a college English course, I did ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling. I’d memorized the poem for an assignment in fifth grade and had trotted it out ever since. (I don’t like to work very hard.) Most other students chose similar material. My friend Pat, however, held the room rapt with the legendary ending to Spillane’s first novel I, THE JURY. To this day, I wish I’d thought of that.