Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Show-It-All

Mr. Show - Seasons 1 & 2 (1995-1996)
directed by Troy Miller, John Moffit, and Stacey Peralta
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Coach

I could have spent more time on that title, but my own half-assedness is an adequate enough tribute to a show I indifferently sort of liked. I think I prefer some of Bob and David's cast trivia - Tom Kenny! - to the inevitable Jack Black rock opera tributes, and I think Bob might be funnier than David (if nothing else, he's not as tiresome), but hey, alright, those billiards tricks and southern senators are pretty funny.

Or maybe it was just nice to see Mary Lynn Rajskub and think about this again:

Sunday, March 25, 2007

While You Were Out

Flaming Star (1960)
directed by Don Siegel
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
seen somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

I hate to say it's cynicism that makes a western better than average, so I won't. What I'll say is that Elvis was probably pretty proud of "Flaming Star," and he should have been.
Jane Eyre (1944)
directed by Robert Stevenson
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

Didn't James Agee say something about Orson's jelly-dish peepers in "Jane Eyre" somewhere? What about that silly fake nose, or those sound-stage theatrics everywhere but where they're needed most (like the climax)? Adaptation or not, if the castle burns down in a mad gothic conflagration, we need to see it. Or couldn't the prosthetic take the heat? Only the nose (and ol' Goetz) knows.
Berlin Express (1948)
directed by Jacques Tourneur
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at La Cinémathèque française

The same can-do wartime camaraderie as those helmeted Powell & Pressburger fantasies, with a little more American bite and a little more American sap. In the bombed-about breweries, sad-clown variety halls, and international mêlée of everyone speaking the wrong language, it's more than a little Arkadin, too.
Lost Highway (1997)
directed by David Lynch
5 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at Cinema Le Champo

"Pete, I just wanted to jump on and tell you that I'm really glad you're doing okay."

That, and come on:



Not since Phantom Lady.
INLAND EMPIRE (2006)
directed by David Lynch
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at MK2 Hautefeuille

I can't shake how much this feels like a clips episode from a fake Lynch sitcom - cryptic mysteries, vague dread, length for the sake of running time. As an experiment in low-budget moviemaking or a testing ground for digital manipulation, why not. But it's so far from the poppy fields of Chief Cole's best work that any defense is just a cherry-picked apology.
Bobby (2006)
directed by Emilio Estevez
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

There are worse things than a pair of liberal starry eyes, but "Easy" Emilio Estevez only invokes the same sad feeling we all get looking at the cover of an Arthur Schlesinger biography (or even a snap of The Schlesz himself!) without ever inspiring any on his own.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Give Him a Hand

Deliverance (1972)
directed by John Boorman
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD at JL's

Boorman's use of the long shot in favor of the close-up makes for one of the most effective turn of events I've ever seen in a movie. It's unique as an instance when I've actually felt the perspective and panic of a particular character even as I register my own remove from the unfolding horrors. Dickey gets my all-time favorite author cameo (step aside, Stan Lee), and that crowd at the hotel dinner table matches early Spielberg for unimpeachable authenticity.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

I Olmos Hate Myself

Battlestar Galactica (2003 Miniseries)
directed by Michael Rymer
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

It doesn't really matter what I thought about this series' three-hour pilot episode, since I'm the guy who was willing to sit through two seasons of Veronica Mars with nothing but one line I liked in the first episode to inspire me. With TV, I hit the ground running. Sorry gang. If Netflix ever gets around to sending me A Girl Is A Gun I'll write something great for you.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Posterity





Lollipop is Crazy

The Adventures of Pete & Pete - Season Two (1994)
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

For me, it's Endless Mike Hellstrom lending Big Pete the Mustang for Big Pete's Big Date with Ellen Hickle. And in spite of Big Pete not really being the Mike Hellstrom sort on the inside, you realize that he's still, maybe, a little disappointed. And maybe it's why he teams up with the Kreben-Up gang in the bus, however briefly, and it's certainly the reason that Stu's own heartache manifests itself in a skewered scarecrow in the middle of nowhere. It isn't easy.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Bad News Bears (2005)
directed by Richard Linklater
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Not the original, blah, blah, blah. I haven't seen the other "Bad News Bears," and I probably should. But kid humor is actually pretty topical - some of what's funny in 2005 wasn't even on the radar twenty years ago - and Linklater films his California dugout in such a nice swatch of light that, well, don't be a sourpuss - be a Puffy Taco!



(and fuck you Ballapeno - without Puffy T you'd be nothing!).

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Spare Me, Manohla

Zodiac (2007)
directed by David Fincher
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at the worst theater in Mississippi

Fiction makes the mundane interesting. So if you want to make a movie about an unsolved serial murder spree, and not make it strictly about obsession, and you don't want to jump to any sensational conclusions, or judge any of your characters for the choices they made, or even explain the details of the case that well, then you make a big movie like "Zodiac," where good actors move through well-lit minutiae (especially well-lit when the theater leaves the lights on!) and nothing very interesting happens except for one or two deftly edited murder sequences. It's everything The Black Dahlia isn't, but that isn't to Fincher's credit.

Let's just push the button

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
directed by Leonard Nimoy
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from JL

Yes, this movie gets all the nuance in each character's relationship to each other, and yes, it gives the bit player his day in the sun. Yes, it's very funny. But the whole enterprise - ha! - shows such fussy disdain for contemporary America that I, for one, don't miss the future at all.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Haymarket Fever

The Haunted Strangler (1958)
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
directed by Robert Day

Corridors of Blood (1958)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
directed by Robert Day
on DVD at JL's

"The Haunted Strangler" makes great use of memory - specifically the look of horror frozen on a victim's face - and it's nice to see a physically grotesque Karloff without the monster makeup (though the obvious joke is that he's just making fun of retarded kids).

"Corridors of Blood" is trickier, better shot, and more enjoyable - Christopher Lee presides over the rest of the actors like Zeus from on high. It also manages to be a movie about addiction without just being a movie about addiction.

Anyway, here's a Marvel frame from box set artist Darwyn Cooke for everyone's half-assed Friday: