This week: the indie "Friends With Money," starring a quartet of talented actresses in bittersweet portrayals of life, with or without marriage, with or without moola, with or without a place in line at Old Navy. Hear us here.

Posted by Barbara Page at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's say you're one of those unfortunate yet genetically blessed castaways on "Lost."

Since we're suspending disbelief that much, let's also pretend in that handy hatch there's a cable-ready TV instead of a dusty 1970s computer that needs numbers entered every 108 minutes.
And on that old-school TV set with limited capabilities, only five shows are available for the rest of your time on the island.
Now's your turn to weigh in on what shows you would watch to help your island stay more enjoyable.

Posted by jbarol at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I just rented "Wolf Creek" and stayed up late watching it. Alone. In a big empty house...

Scared? Neither was I. Sickened and repulsed and a little angry, but not scared.

Quick "Wolfie" synopsis: three nice college-age kids - two babes and a beefcake - are driving across Australia when their car breaks down. Then they are horribly, endlessly tortured by a hillbilly. Then they're killed by said hillbilly.

That's it, and it sucks. Now, I decided to rent this flick because I remembered it getting some OK reviews and I am, as ever, on a quest to find a horror movie that's genuinely scary.

Also, "Hostel" was about pretty much the same thing and turned out to be good, if not really scary.

"Hostel" was about two college-aged guys who find a couple escorts to spend time with in Europe, then get tortured brutally. There's lots of death and tons of fake blood. The torture scenes are even more graphic in "Hostel" than "Wolf Creek," but it's all done in a fun sort of way. Even though we were watching a guy get his eyeball drilled and his achilles tendons cut, there was sort of an anti-Bush's America joke to the whole thing. It was cool.

"Wolf Creek" is not a joke. It's endlessly mean without the slightest hint of fun to it.

There no satisfying ending, either, but at that point I was pretty sure there wouldn't be. So what I'm left wondering is - What's the point? Was this film some kind of exercise in audience manipulation - meaning, did the director just want to see how much disgusting vileness the audience could take? Do directors do that sort of thing?

I remember reading about Kathryne Bigelow, who made "Stange Days" and "Point Break" and "Near Dark," and how she pushes a tone in her violence that gets harsher when most movies would lighten it up. There's a technique to that, and "Wolf Creek" is a movie that seems to be nothing but cranking the violence to 11 and breaking off the knob.

I honestly didn't think there was really such a thing as "gratuitous violence" until "Wolf Creek." How sobering.

Posted by Phil Parker at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, we're back from a loooong spring break. Our flick this week was "Thank You for Smoking," the satiric comedy about corporate spinmeisters. We hate to disagree with the boss (see second item below), but we found the movie (and its lead, Aaron Eckhart) a charmer. We even bought into Katie Holmes, although, of course, we'd never resort to such newsgathering tactics. Hear our comments here.

Posted by Barbara Page at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forty years ago this April, "Dr. Zhivago," drubbed by the critics, won an impressive five Oscars, including ones for screenplay and cinematography.

Not that the film needed the golden fellas. Or the critics' approval.

It was a smash hit at the box office. Russian tunics were briefly a fashion statement. And the movie's "Lara's Theme" (aka "Somewhere, My Love") spilled out of radios, elevators, piano bars and love nests everywhere.

I saw the film in a theater in the '70s on a rerelease, but parts of the '70s are (mercifully) vague for me. So the other night I plunked down with the DVD to see whether "Zhivago" was a romance for the ages or just somewhere, my dud.

First, a recap of key elements:
-- The 1965 film is based on the Boris Pasternak novel, which recounted the Russian Revolution and its difficult aftermath. The novel was banned in the Soviet Union but was published elsewhere (first in Italian) in the late 1950s and became an international best seller.
-- The director was David Lean, who had just had an epic hit in "Lawrence of Arabia." He had screenwriter Robert Bolt distill the large novel to its love triangle.
-- The three principals were Omar Sharif as Yuri Zhivago, the idealistic doctor and poet; a 20-year-old Geraldine Chaplin as his loyal wife, Tonya; and Julie Christie as Lara, the freespirited, working-class woman who shared Zhivago's heart with Tonya.
-- Other key characters were Alec Guinness as the Soviet general who was Zhivago's half-brother; Tom Courtenay as Pasha, Lara's estranged husband and coldblooded partisan; and Rod Steiger as the smarmy Komarovsky, who defiled the young Lara.
-- The film was made (principally) in Spain, for its vast plains and for its four varied seasons.

OK, my take:
-- It's long. Long. 200 minutes long. When it showed in theaters, it had an intermission. Thankfully, with a DVD you can pause and take more than one break. Trust me, your bladder will thank you, because:
-- It's cold. Cold. Yes, the movie features all four seasons, but when the snow and chill come, it seems they stay forever.
-- The love theme plays so incessantly it reminded me of when I was trapped in an early Disney World ride where dolls galore were miked to "It's a Small World (After All)."
-- Zhivago says very little. When he feels poetic, he stares out a window. Most of the time, the camera dwells on his doe eyes. Not that dwelling on Sharif's doe eyes is a bad thing.
-- The love triangle is curiously tame. Tonya understands. Lara understands. Zhivago drifts between them. Much more interesting is Steiger's nasty, outsized Komarovsky.
-- That said, the sweep of Russian history and the cinematography are magnificent. Protesters march in the night, the only color the red of their flag. (They are singing the "Internationale," the socialist anthem. The extras reportedly sang it so lustily that residents at a nearby Madrid suburb broke into their own cheering and popped open bottles, thinking Franco had died.) Horses and riders charge down a field, a Red Army train hurtles by (Lean had a thing about trains) and sleighs whip around streets and roads. Wonderful. The film also captures the grim days, the deprivations, the violence that follow overthrow. It's not hard to imagine the same scenes playing out in the Balkans -- or in Iraq. In that sense, the film is timeless. (In fact, the only giveaway that it was filmed in the '60s is Christie's hairstyles.)

So, a B-minus. What raises it to a more solid B is the bonus disc with features on the making of the film and cast/crew interviews. Particularly charming is Chaplin, intelligent and funny.

Should you see the film? (Or see it again?) Yes, for history. No, for romance. Yes, for visual beauty. No, for aural assault -- unless, of course, you love "Somewhere, My Love." Really love it.

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Thank You for Smoking" sucks a little, wheezes a little, and when it finally exhales after 90 vacuous minutes, you're left with little more than wasted air.
All right, I didn't hate it that much. But I didn't love it. And a movie based on a book as funny as this one ought to do better.
Maybe it was the casting. At no point did any of the actors, including Aaron Eckhart in the central role as tobacco shill Nick Naylor, really make you laugh. About the only one who connected with me was Sam Elliott, playing the cancer-riddled Marlboro Man. And he's only played the Marlboro Man about 50 times in his career. Katie Holmes as a temptress/reporter interested in profiling -- heh, heh -- Naylor? No way.
It's a renter.

Posted by pcasaus at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Writer's Guild of America (whatever the bloop that is) just release its list of the 101 greatest screenplays of all time. Click here to check it out.

The list is, in a word, awesome.

Screenplays make the movie more than any other factor. Check recent history:

In 1997, "Fargo" won the best screenplay Oscar. "The English Patient" won best picture. You tell me which was the better movie.

In 1998, "L.A. Confidential" won best writing. "Titanic" won best picture. Again, which was better (12-year-old girls need not respond)?

The next two years the same movie won (deservedly) both awards: "American Beauty" and "Shakespeare in Love" (though "Private Ryan" probably deserved best picture, so let's conveniently forget this one).

In 2001, "Almost Famous" won script and "Gladiator" won picture. Not sure what to make of that. I've seen both about 50,000 times. Call it a wash.

In 2002 the best film of that year ("Memento") was unforgivably robbed of the best screenplay award in favor of "Gosford Puke," (I know, this is a real sophisticated blog we've got going here - I think there was an entry about some ballet documentary last week that you're free to go find) and wasn't even nominated for best picture. Which is a joke. Instead, "A Beautiful Mind" became one of the crappiest movies to ever win the top Oscar.

Check the list. "Memento" made it. "Mind" didn't. All hail the list.

The American Film Institute unveiled its best movies of all time list not too long ago (click here) and it sucked. Clearly, AFI is an organization cromprised of potential patients for assisted-suicide doctors.

"King Kong" is a better movie than "Pulp Fiction"? Really? "Fantasia" is one of the greatest films of all time?

The AFI garbage list had three movies on it that were made after 1990. These are likely the same people who feel "The Simpsons" is too violent for television and that cars go too dang fast nowadays.

This new list is so radical and badical that there's not even much to complain about. "Pulp Fiction" and "The Sting" are probably too low, and "Tootsie" at No. 17 seems high, but all the classics (including the new classics) are here.

So if it hasn't come across enough, I love this list. I want to settle down with the list and make an honest woman of it. I love that "Groundhog Day" (I'm a god. I'm not the God... I don't think) is No. 27, right below "Double Indemnity" (How could I have known that murder could smell like honeysuckle?). That two of my all-time favorites ("Sullivan's Travels" and "The Usual Suspects") can be so completely different yet sit just five spots away from each other. That "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "The Princess Bride" both made the cut, and exactly where they should be. Even "Sideways" is there (Hooray!)

(Wait! One complaint. What's up with "Jerry Maguire" at No. 66? It's ahead of "Raging Bull" and "Witness" and 35 other better movies. "Almost Famous" doesn't make the list, but "Jerry Maguire" does? The power of fan-friendly one-liners, I suppose.)

These are movies worth watching again and again, and that's what makes a great flick. AFI's got "Birth of a Nation." The Writer's Guild's got "The Producers." Enough said right there.

What do you make of the 101 Greatest Sceenplays? Can you think of any movies that got unfairly shafted? (The only two that come to mind for me are "Old School" and "Anchorman". I'm only sort of kidding.)

Posted by Phil Parker at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was sitting through the very cool "Inside Man" this week, and it forced deep reflection - as deep as a person can reflect on this sort of thing - about what makes a good bank robber flick.

In this case, it was mostly Clive Owen. A smart and eerily calm robber in the movie, his Dalton Russell (whose mere name is cool in itself) is a smooth character even when he's erupting in nasty moments of violence against the hostages.

(The scene were he's playing a little kid's racist video game and gets slightly appalled by the violence is worth the afternoon price of admission in itself.)

First I thought he reminded me of Cary Grant's robber in "To Catch a Thief," a great old Hitchcock movie I haven't seen since I was a kid (in fact, the only reason I can call it "great" and "old" is that it's a Hitchock movie and therefore both of these things).

Cary Grant and.... no one else. In fact, only two great bank robber movies even come to mind: "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Heat."

Pacino and, uh, Fredo were NOT cool in "Dog Day." They were freaked out and overwhelmed by their situation.

DeNiro was damn cool in "Heat," but that was different. He had a coolness that embodied total professionalism. He wasn't funny or even breezy in the least - the character wouldn't allow for that.

(One last parenthical note here: Anyone who liked "Heat" should check out FX's new show "Thief," which replaced the best show on television - "The Shield" - and still more than holds its own in the Tuesday-night time slot. "Thief" is like a serialized version of "Heat," following the sometimes-brutal misadventures of a heist crew and their families, and it's terrific.)

Who am I missing? Is Dalton Russell suddenly the quintisential cool-guy bank robber in cinema history? There got to be more....

And what are some comparable robber movies?

Posted by Phil Parker at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What a delight! This documentary traces the Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo from the 1930s to the late 1950s, featuring the (often) Russian emigres who became international stars, first in Europe and then later crisscrossing the United States. These dancers, now in their 80s, bring vibrant memories and humor to the doc. And what great archival footage of feathery -- and fierce -- performances. A must for any dance fan -- and for history and cinema buffs.

Kudos to the Guild for keeping this film through Thursday, rather than just a weekend run. So leap over there.

Posted by Barbara Page at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)