Louie

Ian A.: I really like the laid-back absurdity of Louie

Bill: I still can't tell if I like that show.

Some episodes will be great, or parts of episodes will be great, and others put me off.

The tone is so befuddling.

Ian A.: it's still finding its voice and its legs, yeah, but I think it's more hit than miss

Bill: Oh, I think the tone is exactly what CK wants; it's just so outside the rhythms of every other TV show ever.

Even stuff like Buffy and MASH, which would turn from comedy to drama on a dime, felt different.

Ian A.: he is in total control of the thing, writing, directing, starring, so it probably is his pure vision on screen

Bill: Louie is stone-faced black humor, with bits of outright comedy, outright tragedy, skin-crawlingly awkward moments, etc. It's both more realistic and natural than any other sitcom, and also more absurd than any of them.

Ian A.: exactly

Bill: All at the same time, and sometimes different times, and it's just... so weird.

And the narratives, which aren't narratives at all, just bits. And sometimes the bits connect, and other times they don't.

And where Two and a Half Men or something would have a coda where they show that mother and son really do love each other, or a punchline where he gets beaten up by the bully's parents, Louie keeps going past that, not giving us what we expect...

And I didn't like those episodes, they just really made me feel uncomfortable. Which is the point.

Ian A.: it's more honest than any other comedy, in that it's not all about setting up punchlines and fabricating outlandish situations

Bill: My favorite moment is still the bit from the pilot where his skeeved-out date flees into a waiting helicopter and disappears

Ian A.: haha, yes

Bill: It helps that CK's worldview hews very close to mine.

It's, like, Vonnegut. A tragicomedian who loves humanity but despises society.

Ian A.: precisely

Coen Bros porn oeuvre

In chronological order of release:

Jizz Simple
Miller's Tossing
Barton Fuck
The Cumsucker Proxy
Fuckgo
The Big Leboinkski
O Boner, Where Art Thou?
Unswallowable Cruelty
The Ladyfillers
Two Girls, No Country for Old Men
Burn After Peeing
A Serious Wang

Some of these might actually exist, but I'm not going looking.

The Merry Gentleman

If you cut all the awkward pauses out of this movie, it would only be half an hour long. However, if you keep telling yourself Michael Keaton will interrupt each pause by saying "I'm Batman," it's the funniest comedy of all time.

Two Nightmares

I tried mucking with the fonts and styles and format of this page. Everything looks ugly, and I don't know enough HTML to make it prettier. So let's at least experiment with dropping the orange.

So I just watched A Nightmare on Elm Street and the ten-year-follow-up, New Nightmare, both by Wes Craven, for the first time. Dang, that first one's deeply ingrained in the pop-pulp consciousness, isn't it? I'd never seen it before, but somehow, nothing seemed unfamiliar-- the cut, bleeding body of teenaged Tina being drug up onto the ceiling, the faces stretching out of a wall, the Raimi-inspired geysers of blood (then again, did Raimi not use the blood geysers until Evil Dead 2, which came out after this? Craven and Raimi had such a back-and-forth during this horror era that I can't remember), etc. The imagery lingers still; we all know who Freddy Kreuger is, even if we haven't seen the films. The imagery, however, doesn't interest me as much as the ideas. The core concept-- that our dreams are when we are safe, no matter what happens in them, and what happens when that changes-- is a solid one, but there's some decent stuff in there about the human experience, as well.

It seems safe to say Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was heavily inspired by Craven's first Nightmare, even if we forget about Whedon's own Nightmare-riff in the first season of the Buffy TV series. Whedon portrayed high school as hell, but Craven beat him to it by showing high school as a nightmare, and protagonist Nancy's nightmares are mostly tied to the horrors of being a teenager-- remember, Craven originally intended Freddy to be an invention of Nancy's mind, not an actual supernatural serial killer. Nancy's fears come to fruition through the loss of her friends, and her parents' unwavering disbelief in whatever she tells them, even when faced with the 'truth.' Teenagers often stuggle with their parents, and with the notion of their own mortality; I'd say the fear of death begins to emerge in the teenage years. If not a fear, then a grudging respect, an acknowledgement of its existence, even as teenagers try to act immortal. Nancy doesn't so much defeat Freddy as she accepts him, yet turns her back on him-- because she's grown and matured past the point where she needs him, where he derives his power.

Craven's creation grew without him, however, and the studio pumped out five more in rapid succession. On the series' tenth anniversary, Craven and the original Nancy, Heather Langenkamp, return, and New Nightmare focuses on distinctly adult fears. Craven throws amusing metafictional twists in-- this time, Freddy invades the "real world," tormenting the creators of his films. Rather than a silly romp where Freddy tries to kill everybody on-set, however, it shoots to be more ambitious than that. Langenkamp plays herself, and Freddy-- and Craven, whose script within the movie is also the script for the movie itself-- attacks her by playing to the fears of a wife and mother and actress: the loss of her husband, the taking of her child, a fannish stalker, and the haunting presence of her career, always drawing her back to the Nightmare series. Within the movie, Craven describes this new iteration of Freddy as a manifestation of the loss of innocence; how great is that? Such a loss occurs in the teenaged years, as showcased in the first film, but it doesn't end there, and kids don't just wake up as adults one day. The movie also likens horror film mythology to the grim and grisly fairy tales of yore, which is a neat comparison. Yes, the themes and ideas within the movie are great; the execution is less so at times, and the movie develops extremely slowly, lurching into plodding and repetitious at a few points.

The first one's wacky horror fun, a clear 80s classic; the, er, seventh one's a mediation on horror films and the adult experience. I'd say both are worth one's time.

And hey, who knew that Johnny Depp kid would make something of himself?

Sometimes I cross my 7s
and sometimes I do not
but they are all my children
and I love them.

Bill's favorite films of 2009 (the list so far)

Still many more films to see. But so far, here's what I liked the most. Alphabetical order:

(500) Days of Summer
Adventureland
Black Dynamite
Crank 2
Up
Whatever Works

My expectations! They are high!

Words I use far too often in my writing

1. However
2. This
3. Is

Example: "This is, however, the way I write."

Film flam

I only want to do stuff-- like write these capsule film review things-- when I'm supposed to be doing something else, like, you know, getting a Master's Degree. Screw that. Movies!:

88 Minutes: I get that mysteries and thrillers need some red herrings in there, but this movie is nothing but red herrings, to ridiculous, plot-devouring lengths. Other ridiculous lengths? Al Pacino's hair. Good gravy, it's a terrifying bouffant, and probably got paid 20 million for this. The hair, not Pacino.

Criminal: It's a low-key con man movie with John C. Reilly, before he did nothing but absurd comedies. It's alright. Moving on.

District 9: So this movie cost like a tenth of Avatar or something, but the effects work is phenomenal anyway, with real alien aliens and crazy violence. I wish it had stuck with the documentary style throughout, but I can see why that would have been difficult to maintain. Mostly, though, I didn't like it-- 85% of the dialogue is just the man guy screaming "Fuck!," after all, and it doesn't so much end as slap on a "To Be Continued." There's not a lot of story here, but the violence is well done, and the apartheid theme is very apparent. Give Blomkamp the Halo movie now.

Everything Is Illuminated: Slow going, mostly in Russian, but just funny and moving enough.

Frost/Nixon: Frank Langella really doesn't look or sound like Nixon, but here, he is Nixon, somehow.

Ghost Town: Ricky Gervais stars in a romantic comedy in which he can talk to ghosts, and it really goes through the regular screenplay motions, and relies too much on some of that awkward humor Gervais likes so much, but it still turned me into a blubbering wreck by the end and I don't know why. So I ended up liking it a lot. That was odd.

Good Dick: This, however, was shit. Jason Ritter plays an idiot, and Marianna Palka-- who wrote, directed, and stars-- plays some damaged porn addict he tries to woo. The characters' interaction doesn't feel real, or make much sense at all, and it's one of those films where you can't root for anybody because you want everybody to get hit by a bus at some point. Sure, in indie movies, everyone's a fuck-up-- bleh.

Human Nature: Maybe Charlie Kaufman's worst movie? I can see what he was trying to do, but the script could use another pass. Still-- Dinklage!

Let the Right One In: I'd rather this than Twilight. What appears to be sweet puppy love in this is actually deeply disturbing when you put any thought into it at all, and I like that that's the point. It's tops as far as Swedish vampire flicks go.

Man Bites Dog: Nothing is more disturbing than this, however, the blackest of black comedies, a faux documentary about a serial killer where the main actor's family, playing his family, had no idea it was a killer picture, and showcasing just how completely insane this killer guy really is, following him around on his murder sprees, watching him give friendly advice, mixing drinks called "Dead Baby Boys," raping, killing, and, as the movie progresses, dragging the film crew further and further into his dark vortex. There are a few laughs, but mostly, it's satire that stabs instead of tickles.

Terminator Salvation: Well, it was better than Terminator 3. McG was clearly trying to make this Children of Men, only with killer robots. The story feels completely empty, though, and the set pieces aren't particularly clever, so it's all just sort of there.

Up: I bawled like a baby at about three separate points in this movie. All of the elements feel completely incongruous-- floating houses, lost explorers, boy scouts, talking dogs, rare ostrich creatures-- but it all comes together in a beautiful way. Just change the name of the Best Animated Feature Oscar to the "Pixar Award," already.

Vantage Point: Listen, if you're going to base your movie around a gimmick-- like showing a crazy incident from multiple perspectives-- don't throw the gimmick away once you get to the third act. That feels pretty lazy.

Wall Street: So... greed is... bad?

Whatever Works: Maybe Woody Allen's best film in a decade or more. Sure, it's an old script, but it's because of Larry David that the whole thing comes together. He plays the "Woody Allen" role here, but where Woody's characters are usually nebbishy, passive, easily walked over, David is callous, direct, forceful, though he still ends up letting things happen, rather than express any true sense of control. He somehow falls into marriage with young runaway Evan Rachel Wood, and as her family comes to claim her, they too fall under New York's bizarre sway, and everyone is sort of transformed by the end-- finding whatever works and sticking to it. Meanwhile, it's goddamn hilarious.

World's Greatest Dad: Who knew Bobcat Goldthwait had it in him? He wrote and directed this, and did a pretty fine job. Robin Williams plays the failed writer father of a kid who dies by autoerotic asphyxiation; Williams fakes a suicide note, and accidentally creates a nationwide movement worshipping his son as anything but what he truly was. Williams goes along with it in a bid for success, but-- well, naturally it all falls apart, though said destruction appears triumphant in the end, with a fantastic usage of "Under Pressure" winkingly telegraphed.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Well, it was better than X-Men 3? I guess? I don't know why they keep shoehorning 50 new mutants into every movie, or why sense is the first thing thrown out the window, really... Bleh.

Six Word Reviews

Back to my old ways already.

(500) Days of Summer: Unapologetically clever, bittersweet, and heartbreakingly true.

2001: A Space Odyssey: I'm sorry, I fell asleep. Repeatedly.

Being John Malkovich: Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich? Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich!

Bonnie and Clyde (1967): So much better than Public Enemies.

The Brothers Bloom: Life is but a long con.

Dial M for Murder: Palpable narrative tension is Hitchcock's trademark.

Dog Day Afternoon: Never knew this was a comedy.

Domino: What was the point of this?

Is Anybody There?: Let's care more about old folks.

The Maiden Heist: Walken, Freeman, Macy (nude). Lame movie.

The Mutant Chronicles: Surprisingly not a pile of shit!

My Favorite Year: Peter O'Toole yay, everything else, nayyyyy.

Network: This gets more relevant every year.

Public Enemies: Precious hours you won't get back.

Revolver: You're not that clever, Guy Ritchie.

Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother: More like Gene Wilder's lamer movie.

Spies Like Us: This movie is no Three Amigos.

Strange Brew: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern drank my beer.

State of Play: Almost as good as BBC's original.

Sunshine Cleaning: Needs more cleaning, less aimless angst.

Tootsie: This Hoffman guy is going places.

The TV Set: Showbiz is an ouroborous of turds.

The Zero Effect: Bill Pullman? Best sociopathic detective ever.

Duplicity; Humpday

All the commercials made Tony Gilroy's Duplicity out to be a romantic comedy about zany spies trying to backstab each other and get in each other's pants at the same time, and it's really not that. It's the closest thing we've got to a modern day Stanley Donen caper picture, however, combining corporate espionage and intrigue with some PG-13 sexy romance. Clive Owen gets to pretend to be James Bond again, Julia Roberts gets to do the same thing she always does, Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson get to pick up their checks, and everybody goes home kinda satisfied but not overly so-- that waiter's not getting any extra gratuity, just the usual 15%. It sounds like I'm ragging on it here, but it's a decent movie.

Humpday, from "mumblecore" veterans Lynn Shelton (who writes, directs, and appears here) and Mark Duplass (co-director of The Puffy Chair, which I hated, and Baghead, which I loved, and star both here and on FX's the League, which is a great show), is also a decent movie, albeit the commercial opposite of Duplicity. Duplass plays Ben, a husband with a normal life (and wife), but his old buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard, of Blair Witch and a bunch of other things), a Kerouacian free spirit, shows back up, and soon enough the duo, after much drinking, decide to enter an amateur porn festival together, in which they plan to film themselves going all slash fiction on each other. It turns into a ludicrous macho standoff, with neither one willing to back down from it, even at the cost of Ben's marriage. It is the most narratively monumental game of gay chicken ever.

In most hands, this movie would be an utter farce, a potentially Wildeian comedy of errors, but in the so-called "mumblecore" (I'm beginning to hate that word) movement, it's as grounded as possible, with the characters taking it pretty damn seriously. There's some issues with tone and storytelling here, but I don't really see how else the filmmakers could've pulled it off; they did the best job possible. Naturalism is the key with these mumblecore pictures, especially in the semi-improvised dialogue, and the acting. Leonard puts in a great performance as the wild card who isn't as wild as he tries to be, and who yearns to have the kind of life Ben does, though Ben is equally jealous of his friend. Alycia Delmore, however, as Ben's suffering wife and the only sane character in the entire film (though she has issues of her own), steals the whole thing, and should get some kind of award for this, though I sincerely doubt the Academy will be sending out screeners.

I didn't love it, but I'm glad to see these naturalistic films (way better than "mumblecore," right?) gaining more legitimacy and notoreity, and I'm interested to see what the participants do next. If they get too polished and Hollywood on us, however, they'll lose some of the magic.

The Girlfriend Experience

So I'm back (from outer space) and I'm attempting a new (to me) film/movie/talking picture (or two) a day. And the idea is to write about them.

For a semi-experimental film about an escort and starring an honest-to-todger porn star, Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience has precious little sex or nudity of any kind. What it seems to be is a disjointed film, chronologically, narratively, and thematically. Is it about a specialized escort trying to make it to a higher class? Is it about the decline of her relationship with her boyfriend, who's okay with her sex work-- to a point? Is it about the recession and the silly expenditures the rich people indulge in despite the financial crisis? Well, obviously it's all these things, but nothing every really gels, and no plot strand seems to reach fruition, or-- tee hee-- climax.

The titular girlfriend experience is a service protagonist Chelsea (Sasha Grey, whose career is mirroring her character's a bit-- a sex worker trying to make it up a few rungs higher on the ladder of legitimacy) provides, as well as her own relationship with the boyfriend, whose plot arc never goes anywhere despite all the screentime wasted on it. So much of the film seems a bit of a waste, and whether it's because Soderbergh is more content to meander than clearly move forward, or because Grey's acting is, while not terrible, incredibly flat, I'm not sure. Should the audience project on her character like her clients do, molding her into whatever they need, particularly the ladyfriend they wish for? That would be the pretentious film student's view, but I was hoping for something a bit more concrete.

If anything, a more conventional plot or tone would've helped this, and for an independent film, that's surely crazy talk. So many directions could have been taken, but the filmmakers appear more content to just let everything sit there onscreen instead. If the film were a call girl, I'd complain that her rates are too high. She's a pretty thing, sure, but I thought she'd have more substance, and the sex should be better.

Everything I've seen in the last four months in one sentence or less

...and on ZMF's "Optional/Not Optional" scale:

9 Songs: Not a movie, more like pornography spliced with concert footage. Optional.

30 Rock season 3: Just about as good as the first two seasons. Not optional.

Adventureland: It's about a socially inept writing major and the emotionally destructive girl who makes or breaks him-- yeah, this one hit really, really close to home, but it was damn good. Not optional.

Andy Richter Controls the Universe: As funny as I remember it being-- maybe funnier. Not optional.

Barton Fink: Falls somewhere in the middle of the Great Coens Ratings List. Optional.

Black Sheep: You'd think a movie about man-eating sheep that turn people into were-sheep would be, you know, better. Optional.

Brick: A cool high school film noir with dialogue and atmosphere that takes a bit of getting used to; worth it. Not optional.

Californication season 2: The definition of guilty pleasure. Optional, for that reason, but I like it.

Celebrity: Kenneth Branagh tries his best Woody Allen impression in a Woody Allen movie, Woody Allen Woody Allen. Optional.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie: Like a really good episode of the show, but not as great as the show itself. Optional, I guess? Make up your own damn mind.

Crank 2: High Voltage: The batshittest movie ever put to celluloid, and one of my favorite films of the year. Not optional.

Dexter season 3: Not as good as the first two, by a lot. Optional.

Drag Me to Hell: Middlin' Sam Raimi, not a patch on Evil Dead 2. Optional.

Good Night, and Good Luck: A great portrayal of the social responsibility of journalism, which is just what we need right now. Not optional.

Gran Torino: Clint Eastwood at his scowliest, in a movie that could be about my dad. Optional, though.

I Love You, Man: Way funnier than I thought it'd be, Bro Montana. Not optional if you like humorous things and/or Lou Ferrigno.

IT Crowd season 3: Very nearly a funny sitcom. Optional.

Once: The songs are great, but everything else is sort of there. Optional. Soundtrack? Not optional.

Primer: This must be how people who hate time travel stories feel all the time; this movie is smarter than me. Not optional.

The Royal Tenenbaums: Wes Anderson makes films like Kurt Vonnegut writes books (don't ask me to explain that; I can't). Not optional.

Star Trek (2009): All spectacle, no substance; too much Lucas, not enough Roddenberry. Optional.

Stupid Teenagers Must Die!: Stupid, should die. Optional.

Visioneers: Galifianakis can do better, and has; dull to the point of annoyance and forgettable. Optional.

Watchmen: Sort of like Watchmen, only with more fight scenes, violence, sex, cursing, and slow motion; read the book, for Chrissakes. Optional.

Zombieland: (That's right, I went to a theater!) It's no Shaun of the Dead, but it's better than 98% of those other tired, dead-eyed zombie pictures. Not optional if your taste is remotely similar to mine.

I've seen this happen in other people's lives, and now it's happening in mine

3:10 to Yuma: Third acts aren't usually the best part of a film, but here they are, probably because that's the original bit-- the short story and later stageplay-- that the screenwriters are writing around. This remake of a movie that adapted a play that adapted a short story or whatnot is okay, I guess, but that scene in that one room holds all the power, and all the thematic presence. Everything else is just there to fill in the run time.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: A fanciful look at the power of belief and imagination, dressed up as a truly bizarre Terry Gilliam adventure movie. Really quite fun, though, although I could've done without the Robin Williams shtick. Everything else is grand, however, from John Neville as the titular Baron, to a young Sarah Polley as the precocious young girl who accompanies him on his adventures, to round up his former compatriots and save the town from being sacked. Throw in a dozen other familiar faces, from fellow Python Eric Idle to a teenaged Uma Thurman. Then, go nuts. It's a cool kooky movie.

Australia: It's been too long since I saw this, and I really don't have anything specific for it. It was okay, an almost paint-by-numbers Western epic set in the Australia of some decades back, and it's okay if you like that kind of thing. I didn't run screaming, so there's that. But it's also pretty darn forgettable. Nicole Kidman's the proper English lady who meets the rough and tumble Hugh Jackman, and together they've got to save her cattle ranch or something, and a half-white, half-Aboriginie kid who becomes mixed up in these affairs. Points for Bryan Brown, though. But no Paul Hogan? For shame.

Before Sunrise/Before Sunset: I finally got to see both of these in a sort of double feature format, and I absolutely loved the experience. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play two characters who have a chance meeting on a train in Vienna and spend an entire night walking and talking, and falling in love-- in the sequel nine years later, they encounter one another again in Paris and do much the same as in the first one. The entire focus of both films is on two people talking-- over, over, two-shot, etc. The dialogue sounds like that kind of pseudo-intellectual bullshit you might not put up with in reality, but in the films, it endears you to the characters. The things they say are the story, shaping what plot there is, who the characters are, and what they will be. The young romantics (and apparently professional conversationalists) reunite nine years later, echoes of that one night they shared in the past, defined by their missed chances. Both films really have a marvelously naturalistic style to them, and work as fantastic companion pieces. Exceptional acting from the two leads, combined with passive direction that really puts focus on the characters and the dialogue. When I eventually run my hole-in-the-wall independent movie theater, I'll run this as a double bill sometime. I could probably go on about these for ages. I think I'm in love with these films.

Changeling: J. Michael Straczynski wrote this; he also wrote Spider-Man comics for several years, and one can see the relation between the two concepts in the notion of power and responsibility. Angelina Jolie plays a mother whose child goes missing; the police find and return a boy, a boy who isn't her son, but the cops refuse to admit a mistake and eventually send her to a mental hospital. Of course, their comeuppance eventually comes up. As this is a Clint Eastwood movie, it occurred to me to think of it as a Western; one woman versus overwhelming odds, but with the posse she manages to accrue, she gets the job done.

Enchanted: Disney never really needs to make another movie again after this one; it's the apotheosis, really, of the entire storytelling engine they've been using for decades. Animated princess (Amy Adams) finds herself banished to the real world, and learn that fairy tale love might not be as happily ever after as she originally imagined. The "real world," of course, starts falling into line with animated Disney tropes as worlds collide. But it's fun, and sweet, and aims higher than most of these cartoons, meaning parents should enjoy it along with kids. (Side note: James Marsden only ever plays the role of the boyfriend/husband who the lead female ditches for another guy, doesn't he?)

Gone Baby Gone: I suppose we'd call this neo-noir, wouldn't we? Ben Affleck puts in a surprisingly good directorial effort with the story of a young private eye dispatched to find a kidnapped girl, and all the harsh and grisly directions it takes him in-- leading to a pretty good moral dilemma, but it's about power and responsibility again-- and "our hero" follows up on his original responsibilities, and bears the consequences. Affleck succeeds with the casting-- I'm not talking about his brother Casey, Morgan Freeman, or Ed Harris, or any of that-- I'm talking about all the folks in the background, ripped from the streets of Boston, perfectly matched to their slum-ish surroundings. Weird looking folks-- regular folks from regular streets. It adds realism. Also? Amy Ryan is good at this stuff.

Sleuth: A super twisty-turny remake of the original Sleuth, also starring Michael Caine, this time as the old man, with Jude Law as the younger guy. Blatantly adapted from the stage, but captivating in the performances, though it starts to go a bit too out-of-left-field by the end. Still, keeps the audience guessing.

Taken: I've been waiting to see this one for a while, thanks to the pure elegance of the trailer. That's where the plot really should've started; the obligatory 25 minutes of set-up wasn't really needed, as everyone watching this just wants to see Liam Neeson destroy people. Should've started like Crank. But otherwise, it was a good action piece, as one expects from Luc Besson. It reminded me of, say, Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX series. You know with absolute certainty that Liam Neeson will complete his mission; it's all about how he takes the bad guys apart. Their inevitable comeuppance. I love inevitable comeuppances.

WALL-E: My word, this film was just absolutely brilliant, wasn't it? From the animation-- so intent on appearing like an actually filmed movie that they hired Roger Deakins, los bros Coen's favorite cinematographer to consult on the lighting-- to the romance-- who knew two robots with a limited vocabulary would be so captivating?-- to all the little details and laughs Pixar loves to throw in-- only they would have the balls to make a couple clips from Hello, Dolly vitally important to the emotional throughline of the story-- yeah, a great movie. The story's superb, an utterly scathing satire on how our consumer culture is destroying the planet and turning us into fat, helpless babies. One tiny robot, the Johnny-5-lookalike Wall-E, however, gets caught up in a HAL-esque robot conspiracy when he discovers one weak sapling still on the otherwise desolate Earth. From there, it's a race to save the future of humanity. My, what a charming, smart, fun, funny, exciting, and emotional bit of work, certainly Pixar's finest.

My Xbox is now pretty much just a Netflix machine

I may be busy, but since when has that stopped me from setting aside 20 hours a week to watch TV? Eh?

Charade: A delightful Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn/other-people-you-know caper picture that twists the plot about every ten minutes to keep the audience on their toes (or the edge of their seat), like a humor-laden Hitchcock. But I expect nothing less of Stanley Donen.

Charlie Wilson's War: I had no idea who was behind this as I watched it, but it makes sense that it's a Sorkin/Nichols joint. It's just damn well written, filled with quick dialogue delivered by clever actors like Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, a surprise guest appearance by Ned Beatty, and good based-on-a-true-who-cares characterization of Wilson himself.

Coraline: Can I use the word "delightful" again? Henry Selick brings the goods when it comes to stop motion, and a creepily cute Neil Gaiman story is perfect material for him. A young girl finds a tunnel to another world where button-eyed doppelgangers of her parents seem to care more for her than her real parents do, but that's before all the body horror creeps in and only this lonely girl can save the day. Also: Keith David. See it.

Delicatessen: From the director of Amelie, eh? Well, it's set in a dystopia where food's hard to come by and a butcher/landlord feeds his tenants by chopping up the hired help. Gotta love the French. Wonderfully bizarre, sweet, ridiculous, and exciting, it reminds me of Dead Alive, but with cannibals instead of zombies.

Dexter seasons 1 & 2: I'd seen a few episodes of this before, but watching them all from the beginning-- well, now I'm hooked. As I'm sure you know, Michael C. Hall plays a serial killer who works for the cops and kills murderers to sate his needs, and who has trouble processing human emotion-- but then, how does that make him different from any other male? The first season, based on a novel, is mostly marvelously plotted, a tight suspense thriller; the second season initially sacrifices plot in favor of character, delving further into Dexter's underlying psychosis, before pulling the rug out from under him-- and the audience-- a few times. Do we root for him? Do we hate him? Should we? There's really some fantastic writing on this show. Also, grisly murders. Everybody wins!

The Fall: Quite possibly the most gorgeously shot movie in the last decade or so, Tarsem's The Fall was on my list just because Lee Pace, of Pushing Daisies, was the star-- but man, I'm glad I watched it. It's a period piece story of a crippled stuntman (Pace-- and they actually managed to convince the crew and the other actors that he was a paraplegic) who tells a young girl an epic adventure story in order to get her to sneak meds to him so he can commit suicide. The story within the story was filmed in about 18 different countries, according to the credits, with minimal CGI-- and these locations are utterly amazing, breathtaking in their beauty. Action, unrequited love, bandits, pirates, and Charles Darwin-- it's got everything. But the visuals! They're the best part.

Fanboys: I watched this because I was promised Kristen Bell in the slave Leia outfit. Shallow, I know, but not as shallow as this incredibly unfunny movie about a bunch of hopeless Star Wars geeks who infiltrate George Lucas' compound or whatever. But hey, a Shatner cameo! All is right with the world.

The IT Crowd season 2: I'd watched season one a little while back, and so I watched this too. Six episodes isn't so bad for a sitcom that's usually on the cusp of being clever and funny but never quite manages to reach it. But hey-- this season has two former stars of Garth Marenghi's Dark Place! Yeah! Richard Ayoade either brilliantly plays bizarre, awkward, inept characters, or he's the William Hung of acting. I'm pretty sure it's the former.

Leverage season 1: I'd watched this as it aired weekly on TNT, but I'm rewatching it again on Netflix, in lieu of purchasing the DVD set. But I have to say, this is a marvelously well-done show, and watching it in the intended order, as opposed to TNT's slapdash reordering, opens one up to the subtler character arcs and recurring gags and plot bits. It's a bad-guys-gone-good con artist heist show, very similar to the BBC's Hustle, and just as cool and tasty. Tim Hutton leads a magnificent ensemble, but it's usually Beth Riesgraf, as the slightly-crazy master thief Parker and Aldis Hodge, as uber-geek hacker Hardison, who steal the show. The writing is very strong-- hurray for John Rogers and his crew. Season 2's on now, so catch it if you can.

Party Down season 1: I didn't know what to expect from this, a comedy show about a group of failed actors and Hollywood types who work for a catering service, starring people who are sort-of vaguely familiar (plus Jane Lynch and Martin Starr, who I guess are vaguely familiar to people who aren't obsessed with pop culture), co-created by Paul Rudd and the guy who did Veronica Mars, among others. But it turns out it's quite funny, very crass, and successfully manages to make me care about the characters, not just chuckle at their antics.

The Puffy Chair: So I loved Baghead, also from the Duplass brothers, right? So naturally I'd love this, the little indie movie that put them on the map and stuff, right? Well, no; the main characters generally come off like unlikable assholes or unlikable fools, as they do exactly the opposite of what sane people would do on their long journey to deliver a chair to the protagonist's dad for his birthday or something. It's mumble-y, relationship-y, and seems to be about the pointlessness of just about everything. I really, really hated it.

Son of Rambow: This was good'un, though. From the directors of the pretty-okay Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, with Jessica Hynes/Stevenson of Spaced in a dramatic role! But what it's really about is a sheltered, awkward boy and a pain in the ass troublesome boy who team up to film a sequel to First Blood. Yes! It's about weird kids becoming cool and cool kids being weird and dogs attached to kites and friendship and all that, but it's a good little movie.

Some talkies what I seen down at the picture show

Ever listen to Kashmir on repeat for two hours while playing Halo? I have.

30 Rock Seasons One & Two: I watched these quite a while ago, but I figure I'll give quick capsule reviews to the TV seasons I watch, too. I don't follow 30 Rock regularly on NBC, but I ended up marathoning through these two seasons and falling completely in love with the show. It's wonderfully absurd, with quick, sharp dialogue, and Alec Baldwin at his comedic best. Also, I may have fallen in love with Tina Fey. While it doesn't utilize the various members of its cast as well as it could-- with some just fading into the background or disappearing altogether for long stretches-- its pace keeps you in rapt attention. It's just the right kind of offbeat to work in both mainstream and alternative circles, I think. Combine that with a parade of guest stars at their silliest (Tim Conway: "Who is Conan O'Brien, and why is she so sad?"), and you've got a lovely show formula. Upload season three already, Netflix!

Alien Apocalypse/Man with the Screaming Brain: Saw these two Bruce Campbell flicks years ago when they aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, but I just bought the two-pack for super-cheap on Amazon (It literally says "Double the chin!" on the packaging). They're two movies Bruce filmed back-to-back in Bulgaria on the cheap. Alien, directed by Bruce's pal Josh Becker, isn't as terrible as I remember. Cobble together Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, and Spartcus, and you've got the plot-- astronauts return to Earth from deep space to find giant bugs took the place over and enslaved humanity. Leave it to Bruce to save the day. In made-for-TV sci-fi standards, it's watchable.

Screaming Brain is what the hardcore chin fans are after here, though; it's Bruce's feature directorial debut, the story of a rude American businessman who travels to Bulgaria, dies, and ends up sharing a brain with a dead KGB agent. They team up to find the woman who killed them both, and it takes them on a path involving robots, Ted Raimi, and Stacy Keach. The film's pretty awful (in a good way), but the extras on the disc are great, detailing the 20-year chain of dead ends that finally let up so they could make the film. Bruce always gives the best commentaries, as well-- he's a natural raconteur who will gladly reveal all the ridiculousness of the moviemaking process. The movie's clearly not up to snuff with how it was originally conceived, but he seemed glad just to get the damn thing made.

Anatomy of a Murder: Preminger's classic, this movie's almost three hour running time just flies by. It's a classic courtroom drama for a reason; marvelously written, incredibly realistic, and fairly incendiary for its time-- Jimmy Stewart is pretty much the precursor to James Spader's Alan Shore here, though there's no damn closing argument, which is upsetting-- it's a great old-timey movie.

Baghead: This is a Duplass brothers flick, part of that "mumblecore" genre all the kids are talking about, which usually describes a movie shot for next to nothing on camcorders, with plotting and script giving way to improvisation about relationships. But! The Duplasses take that and throw it into the middle of a cabin-in-the-woods horror story, which turns the film into a generally tense story featuring characters we actually care about. It's funny, it's scary, it subverts the viewer's expectations every ten minutes or so, undergoing constant permutation. If you're up for an indie horror-dramedy-mumblecore-relationship-spoof sort of movie, you're not going to find one more well done than this. Fantastically written. Definitely the best movie I've seen in a while. And I watch a lot of movies.

Bananas: An early effort from Woody Allen, this has the feel of a Peter Sellers or Mel Brooks movie, instead. The usual Allen nebbish follows a girl he's hung up on to a stand-in for Cuba, accidentally becomes involved in the resistance, and later becomes the leader. There are some really fantastic scenes here rife with intellectual absurdism. The courtroom scene in particular is famous for a reason ("This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.") And the Catholic cigarette commercial...! I lost it. Great movie.

Californication Season One: I turned this on because I was bored and depressed, and I figured it would have boobs. Color me surprised when I cottoned to it pretty quickly! I think that's how the show probably hooked all its viewers. It's a great guilty pleasure show, with crass humor and sex scenes, but the writers put great dialogue in David Duchovny's mouth, and that sells the whole thing.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: There's little plot to speak of in this film, but Johnny Depp's acting is excellent. He embodies the completely disintegrative character of Raoul Duke (aka Hunter S. Thompson), as he goes on the mother of all benders. What's it actually about? Good question, but just sit back and experience the thing with Terry Gilliam's excellent direction and the parade of people-who-are-now-famous. It's probably the closest thing to a drug trip you can get without actually dropping acid.

Jeremy Clarkson: Heaven and Hell: This isn't a movie, but rather some kind of straight-to-DVD Top Gear spin-off, where Clarkson talks about cars. And it's cheeky enough, I guess, but lacks all the true madness and camaraderie of proper Top Gear, so it's just okay.

A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy: Another Woody Allen picture, this incorporates some Bergmanian and Shakespearian riffs (obviously) as three couples in the early 20th century undergo their own romantic crises and partner-swapping. Kinda cute, funny, well-written... you know the drill with Woody by now.

North by Northwest: I'd somehow avoided seeing this classic Hitchcock adventure film. And it's fun and all, but knowing all the beats going in probably hurts it. Cary Grant tries his damndest to play an everyman, and pretty much succeeds. Eva Marie Saint-- who looks exactly like Kristen Chenoweth here-- does a capable job as well. Still not my favorite Hitch film (that's Rear Window), but it's a fun, exciting sort of film.

The Reader: No fun or excitement here, but it's very good nonetheless. This is one of those movies you only need to see once. It's a thoroughly dramatic tale of a young man who has a sexual relationship with an older woman when he's in his teens, only for her to vanish from his life-- and turn up on trial for Holocaustian war crimes when he's in law school. He must struggle to come to terms with it, yadda yadda. Winslet got all the credit and awards here, but it's the young David Kross who owns the whole movie. He's a revelation. The first, hell, hour or so is slow, but it's filled with sex so that you'll stick through it. And you'll be glad you did, though you'll never want to see the movie again. You should see it once, though.

Slap Shot: Paul Newman clearly had the time of his life on this picture, playing an over-the-hill, unscrupulous hockey coach/player looking to get his team one last shot at glory by becoming the most violent sumbitches they can. And it's great. Not exactly funny for a comedy, but just plain fun.

Sleeper: Supposedly one of Woody Allen's classics, but I didn't like it. It's a 1984/2001 sort of future-sci-fi spoof, but a lot of the comedic bits fall flat or are too dumb. Too dumb? From Woody Allen? I never would've expected it.

Slumdog Millionaire: What a miserable pile of movie this is. Maybe I willed myself to dislike it-- because I never, ever like the Best Picture winners-- but damn. It was shot well, and the subtitles were done interestingly, and that's all I liked about it. Every character except our protagonist and his main squeeze is an asshole, and the entire plot is massively contrived-- so every question he's asked on Millionaire happens to relate somehow to a story from his unfortunate life? Ugh. Ugh ugh, ugh, bleh.

The Thomas Crown Affair: This is the original, what with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. And it's dreadfully boring, wasting time on McQueen playing with toys like a dune buggy or a glider, or staring off into space, or whatever. The music's neat, the splitscreen techniques are good, and McQueen's maniacal laughter is awesome, but it's still dull.

Valkyrie: It's a Tom Cruise/Bryan Singer movie, so of course I didn't like it. Flat, flat, boring, dull, etc, whatever. But Bill Nighy's in it! Yay!

Unfortunately, Steve Guttenberg does not appear in any of these

Scratch the life thing. Agoraphobia is less stressful. Odds, ends, and Woody Allen:

Crimes and Misdemeanors: Martin Landau acts the heck out of his role in this Allen movie mostly about a guy who slips further and further down the moral scales as he lets himself be convinced into offing his mistress. Meanwhile, Woody Allen plays the same guy he always plays-- he's the misdemeanor here. Eventually, the two converge, sorta. I guess it's not a bad film, but it's not my favorite.

Defiance: James Bond, Sabretooth, and Billy Elliot play Jewish brothers who end up forming a community of Jewish refugees somewhere in Belarus, and have to deal with Russian partisans, harsh weather, and dwindling food reserves, not to mention Nazis. The performances are all pretty damn solid, and the whole thing is just shot beautifully. I quite enjoyed this one. Seems it's truer than most based-on-a-true-story stories.

Definitely, Maybe: I will watch Ryan Reynolds in anything, even chick flicks. This one's got a pretty decent structure, at least, as future Reynolds regales his daughter with his romantic past, and she has to figure out which lady in the story is her mom. There were really only two ways to take the plot-- the obviously obvious way, and the obviously "twisty" way, and they went for the latter, but there's some decent writing along the way, and some very pretty girls. Also, Elizabeth Banks is becoming the white female Samuel L. Jackson-- she's in everything.

Manhattan: Apparently Woody hates this one, which is odd, as it's one of his most beloved. A black-and-white tale of a nebbish (guess who) unable to choose between his jailbait girlfriend or his best friend's mistress, and-- hilarity ensues!-- as well as truths about the human condition, as always. Um, I liked it. 'Nuff said. Moving on.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man: Despite the title, it's not a Woody Allen movie, but a John Carpenter one! Sort of noir, almost a comedy, but not really, it's Chevy Chase's middlin' period, in which he plays a guy who gets turned invisible and runs away from Sam Neill. It's fairly good, rather than terrible! Hurray!

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist: I only rented this because the title had a Thin Man reference, but that's about all I liked. Michael Cera's basically me if I was an actor instead of a recluse, but I can't see his career lasting past 25 if he only accepts "awkward teenager" roles. C'mon, kid!

Shadows and Fog: This is Woody's Kafka tribute, or possibly Threepenny Opera homage, or both. Black and white, filled with... well, shadows and fog, it seems to be primarily about illusions in one form or another. Nothing quite makes sense by the end, but there's a veritable parade of famous people in bit parts throughout.

Sukiyaki Western Django: A Japanese Spaghetti Western, and sort of remake of like three other movies. Shot in English, apparently, and featuring a gratuitous Quentin Tarantino cameo. Uh... Yeah. I didn't quite get what was happening in most of it, due partially to the dialogue being so quiet and everything else being SO LOUD, but the action was pretty badass.

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat: On its way in the mail seconds after David Carradine's death was announced, this forgotten imitation gem from the late 80s features the man himself as a powerful vampire who had formed a sort of vampire retirement community, feeding off fake blood, but naturally everything goes wrong when a human family moves to town and a vampire faction decides to go back to eating people. The real reason I watched it is because Bruce Campbell plays a Van Helsing. It is by far his campiest performance, but he at least provides some much-needed mirth. The lunacy of this film is brewing under the surface, usually going unacknowledged, but very much there the whole time.

Words about pictures

A life. A life would be good.

Broken Flowers: I'll watch anything with Bill Murray in it, and this travelogue-of-an-aging-lothario-who-finds-out-he-might-have-a-kid-and-so-goes-on-a-journey-through-some-women-in-his-life-and-maybe-undergoes-some-self-discovery works as a mystery with no solution, with clues that have no meaning save what we may give them out of a need for something. It's another suitable entry into the "Bill Murray states off into space" genre.

Dead Alive: I really really really didn't like any of the Lord of the Rings films, or the King Kong remake, so this is my new favorite Peter Jackson movie. It owes pretty much everything it's got to Sam Raimi, in that it seems like it's trying to top Evil Dead for sheer horror lunacy. And I think it succeeds. Not just because it's officially the goriest movie ever made, thanks to using up oceans of fake blood, but because it goes completely mental in the brilliant third act, after a slow, slow build-up. But we get mutant zombie baby violence, lawnmower violence, womb-on-man violence, and lawn-gnomes-on-bleeding-cavities violence. That's my kind of violence.

Die Hard: So it came as a surprise that I never actually saw this. I mean, I know everything about it-- it's so engrained in the public consciousness-- and I've seen the ending a bunch-- but most of it was kinda new to me. And it's probably one of the best action movies ever made, with a fantastic villain from Alan Rickman and awesomeness from Bruce Willis, back when he had hair and stuff. Well-scripted, even if there's a large portion in the middle where Bruce is just kinda sitting around and not doing anything.

Edge of Madness: I only watched this because I've been crushing on Caroline Dhavernas since Wonderfalls, and... it's boring boring boring. A period piece drama with a tinge of mystery... and I didn't give a damn about any of it, sorry.

Hancock: There was a story in here somewhere, but it went off the rails about halfway through, with some bullshit mythos stuff that tried to explain stuff, but that was entirely unnecessary. Will Smith's character arc is not earned, but done out of convenience. Jason Bateman plays the same guy he always plays. Meh.

Hatchet: This also had some fun gore in it, and cool makeup effects. It's a cheesy, purposefully shlocky B-movie horror flick with some cameos from horror icons like Robert Englund and Tony Todd. See it if you like that kind of thing.

JCVD: I would've liked this better if Netflix Instant had given us the subtitled version instead of the awful dubbed version, where Jean-Claude Van Damme doesn't even voice himself, I'm pretty sure. Otherwise, it's his best movie ever, playing himself as an action star who's lost his edge, is losing his daughter, and finds himself in a hostage situation where the police believe he's the perp. He has to try to live up to what everyone sees him as-- his family, the cops, his captors-- when he really just wants to be a guy. I had some issues with the ending, but Van Damme's performance is excellent. I could tell from his face alone.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior: I admit, I pretty much slept through this whole thing, but I think I absorbed it by osmosis. ... Pass.

Mister Foe: Or Hallam Foe to everyone not in the US, this movie is completely despicable. I only watched it because I have a crush on Sophia Myles, alright? But anyway, it stars Jamie Bell as this messed up peeping tom who does some really lousy things and suffers no repercussions, and Sophia Myles as a woman who takes a liking to him for no discernable reason whatsoever, especially after she finds out about some of those really lousy things. It seems everyone in this movie is either an idiot or an asshole, and I don't like those types of stories. At all.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop: Die Hard in a mall. With a fat guy! Fat guys are always excellent physical comedians, which doesn't entirely make sense. Otherwise, this was dumb dumb dumb. I hate awkward comedy, especially when it's shoehorned in. This could've made for a good 80s-style action comedy, but they managed to dumb it down to its basest levels.

Point Blank: It's kinda stylish, but instantly forgettable. Lee Marvin doesn't kick as much ass as I assumed he would. Needed more ass-kicking.

Terminator/Terminator 2: I had not seen these in years and years, so running a double feature was a fun idea. The first one's a great chase flick with some monster movie tropes and time travel conundrums thrown in. And the second one, of course, is one of the biggest and best action flicks ever, and one of Arnold's best. Does the new Terminator have skull-laden grounds and laser guns? Because it should.

What About Bob?: Is another Bill Murray movie I hadn't seen in forever. Anyway, it's about a super-neurotic fellow who learns to cope with people and the outside world as he drives his psychiatrist insane. But! I want to talk about Charlie Korsmo, who plays the kid here. I think this lad made like four movies ever before he went into MIT to be a genius. Those movies-- Dick Tracy, Hook, etc-- are all great, and feature some of the best and/or most popular actors ever. Man, what an awesome life this kid had when he was like 12. Hot damn.

Young People Fucking: I'm sure this was only popular because of the title. But anyway, the script is actually pretty good, and some of the acting is... well, surprisingly better than I thought it would be. It follows a night of hawt sexxorz among different couples-- the friends, the exes, the first date, etc-- and features some pretty good dialogue. I mean, it could work as a stageplay. Almost.

Bride of Son of Godzillastein

Loads of stuff to whine abo-- review and discuss. Onwards. (Updated slightly later on 5/23/09)

The Amateurs: Jeff Bridges and a remarkable all-star B-list cast consisting of guys like Ted Danson, Joey Pants, and Bill Fichtner fill this cute little movie about some old small town nobodies trying to make a porno and instead discovering themselves. No, I don't know how that's suddenly become its own genre, either, but this movie tells a fun story. Jeff Bridges can sell anything.

Bottle Shock: Based-on-a-true-etc. of that time in the 70s when a bunch of snobs decided California wine tasted better than the French stuff. I watched it because it had Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman. Also: the new Captain Kirk plays the central character, a hippie loser who manages to pull together and etc. etc. Cliche, sure. The romantic relationship angle of the story completely failed to work, but everything else was okay enough.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Yes, it's just like Forrest Gump, and yes, it's three hours long. I still liked it. Some would call it slowly paced, and there are huge bits which could probably have been skipped with no harm to the narrative, but I enjoyed moseying about in its world. The CGI was fantastic and mostly invisible. It's that kind of movie that just slowly wraps you into a bear hug; not a "feel good" tearjerker or anything, but a comfortable drama, of sorts. Brad Pitt and David Fincher make good movies together.

The Darwin Awards: Here's an odd one. Joseph Fiennes and Winona Ryder are insurance investigators winding their way through odd episodes of Darwin Award candidates-- idiots who got themselves killed. Except sometimes no one dies, which therefore defeats the definition of the Darwin Awards themselves. It's not quite funny or cute, but it strings together mishaps and a sort of murder plotline, but the entire thing never quite gels.

Doubt: I expected to be bored to death by this, but was surprisingly fascinated. Meryl Streep and Amy Adams and The Seymour Hoff are all fantastic in their roles, which captivated me enough to get me into the plot-- of the hardass nun who's on the case to expose the priest as a kiddie fiddler. But is he or isn't he? It's got actors' actors acting their hearts out and is written so well (after all, it's a stage adaptation) that you'll forgive the slow build and get sucked into the story. Also, it might, just maybe, make you think, rather than melt your brain into fine Hulu goo.

The Good German: The incongruities in this caused it to fail for me. Soderbergh shot the whole thing like it was made in 1945, and rips off Casablanca enough that it's got that whole feel of an old-timey film-- except for all the cursing and the gratuitous boobies and the violence. Why capture the mechanics of an old movie if you don't go for the feel, as well? Lame. And Tobey Maguire is at his most annoying. I'll watch Clooney in anything, but c'mon.

Hanky Panky: I went on a bit of a Gene Wilder bender. Here's one that features him and his later (and now late) wife Gilda Radner, rather than Richard Pryor as it was originally written. It's yet another Gene-Wilder-is-wrongfully-accused-and-gets-into-an-adventure-to-clear-his-name movie, but I love those, and this one's got enough of a Hitchcockian feel to keep one interested. Ends too abruptly, though. And those computer tapes! How quaint is that?

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People: Like I said, Bridges can sell anything, but the rest of this movie falls apart despite the Simon Pegg. All of the jokes fall flat, everyone's an asshole, and it succumbs to Hollywood cliche by movie's end. No wonder this was a massive flop.

Last Chance Harvey: And here's your movie for the old people. It's a romance between Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson that seems too easy-- I never quite believe it. And it's all about the old guy finding himself and becoming a man to his daughter again and bleh. I hate nonstop awkwardness, be it for humor or drama's sake, and the first third or so of this movie is nothing but that crap. Blerg, as Liz Lemon would say.

Naked Fear: Alright, I admit sometimes I seek out crap just to amuse myself. This movie was bloody awful-- the Most Dangerous Game, but with a lot of female nudity in act two. You can probably extrapolate the rest from that, except maybe not the pointless B-plot of the determined deputy who contributes nothing to the story, nor the chick going crazy at the end, etc. Why was Joe Mantegna in this? To whom did he owe money?

Outland: The little description called this "High Noon in space," and I didn't believe them until the last act. Unfortunately, I fell asleep during the climax. Otherwise, it's probably your standard "Sean Connery is a space cop whom no one wishes to help but he gets the job done anyway, by gum" story, with added Peter Boyle.

Ratatouille: I am not the biggest Brad Bird fan-- right, I'm the guy who didn't like the Incredibles-- but this wasn't bad. Needed more Patton Oswalt, but it's sort of a sweet story as only Pixar can bring you, I guess.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil: Another one of those Gene Wilder flicks. This time, he's deaf and Pryor's blind and they're on the run and have to save the day, and it's actually a fairly amusing and enjoyable romp with some fun adventure bits. I love this genre of movie-- the comedy adventure road trip sort of thing they don't make anymore. We need more of these.

Stir Crazy: Okay, and in this one Wilder and Pryor are wrongfully imprisoned and there's a rodeo and Craig T. Nelson and-- look, just watch the damn thing. If you like those kinds of movies--you know the ones--then you'll like this.

Superfly: You know, I think I like parodies and homages to blaxploitation more than the blaxploitation itself. This one bored me. Not enough awesome.

Sweet and Lowdown: Woody Allen directs Sean Penn as a self-destructive and apparently crazy genius guitar player who goes through a series of episodic misadventures until finally he breaks down as an unhappy loner. A kooky mix of Woodyesque styles, but pretty good.

The Ten: The guys from the State bring you a series of interconnected episodes sort of related to the Ten Commandments. The best one is probably the bit with Liev Schrieber (who is surprisingly hilarious) and all the CAT Scan machines. If you like casual absurdism and comedy sketches, as well as movies stuffed with famous people and "that guy!"s, then you will probably like this.

Vanishing Point: I was digging this a lot right up until the ending, when it stopped making much sense to me. But it's cross-country car chases and weirdos in the desert and naked girls on motorcycles and you've all run to go watch this by now, haven't you? The inspiration for Tarantino's Death Proof, but far more exciting! That's what this is. No excuses-- just drive.

Where the Buffalo Roam: Bill Murray plays Hunter S. Thompson in a brilliant and dangerously mad performance, while Peter Boyle plays Dr. Wylie-- I mean Dr. Robotnik-- I mean Carl Lazlo. I didn't quite see much of a throughline here-- it's a few episodes that feature both Thompson and Lazlo being crazy, and that's it-- so I didn't quite get it, but it was wildly entertaining the whole time, so I think that's enough.

Who's Harry Crumb?: This here's a John Candy detective adventure comedy from the late 80s or somesuch. It tries to be Fletch, but it fails miserably, and is one painfully awkward joke after another. Pass.

Let's see if I even remember anything I've watched

Dear Blog,

Haven't written in a while. Hope you are well. How is the missus? I need a distraction. Time for reviews.

Death Race: I imagine video stores (what are they?) have entire shelves dedicated to the "Jason Statham drives around and kicks ass" genre by now, and this one's another entrant into that oeuvre. And it's okay, I guess, more like a by-the-numbers story about the wrongfully imprisoned Statham getting roped into a dystopian future prison racing circuit. Nothing defies expectations, but you get what's on the tin: Jason Statham, in a car, kicking ass.

The Hoax: I'm not usually one for Richard Gere movies, except maybe The Jackal, but this one was pretty good. Gere plays a dude who fakes his way through writing Howard Hughes' biography, and it becomes an overly complicated mess that takes his life and sanity on a downward spiral. Alfred Molina plays his man Friday pretty effortlessly, and there are some other famous  people in it. Gere's desperately improvising his way out of screw-up after screw-up was pretty fun to watch, however.

Kindergarten Cop: One part of my Schwarzenegger/Reitman double feature, this is another Arnie entry in a long string of solid, awesome movies. Badass cop Schwarzenegger ends up becoming a substitute kindergarten teacher to root out and rescue a mobster's ex-wife and kid, and, you know, it becomes one of those comedies that is also a drama. They don't make those kinds of things anymore-- it seems like they almost went out with the 80s, and this is one of the last and best of them. 

King Ralph: A surprisingly solid movie that's got a lot of heart and a couple laughs, and shows how great an entertainer John Goodman is while also reminding us of how Peter O'Toole can take any old script and raise it up. Loaded with British actors you're bound to recognize-- even Camille Coduri, who would play Rose's mum on Doctor Who years later-- it's another genre-mixing picture worth watching, of a Vegas slob who accidentally becomes king of England and ends up becoming a better person, etc-- it's the journey that matters, and it was a fun one.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: I somehow managed to avoid this movie for years, but I'm thankful to see it now. It's excellent-- Shane Black at maybe his loosest and best. What may be a standard action/comedy flick in other hands becomes something almost transcendent when you add in actors Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer, both of whom had a sort-of comeback with this film. Funny, exciting, and quite awesome, I enjoyed it as it riffed on old pulp novels and stuff. Also: Corbin Bersen.

Memento: I also can't believe I'd never seen this. I knew the general structure of it, but watching it for the first time is a revelation-- the viewer's brain constantly working, ticking away, trying to unravel the plot and story and inevitable twist as the scenes unveil themselves backwards, our opinions of the characters shifting as we go further into the past, following the path of what Guy Pearce forgot. It's more than a mystery thriller with a fun structure-- it's a filmic experiment, and further proof that Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors working right now.

Radio Days: Another Woody Allen movie (with a young Seth Green playing a young stand-in for Allen himself!), this picture, as the title implies, takes us back to the age of radio, and tells various interspersed and intertwining tales about New York life back when the radio tied all of society and culture together. Great stuff.

The Shadow: Meanwhile, this is even worse than I remembered it being. Alec Baldwin, Penelope Ann Miller (of Kindergarten Cop fame!), and more stuck with a dire script playing characters we aren't given any reason to care about, while the Shadow's pulp roots are mostly ignored for a more overblown, supernatural focus. Who knows how crappy this movie is? Not the Shadow, apparently.

A Shot in the Dark: The supposed best of the Clouseau movies, this follows Peter Sellers' bumbling detective through a series of mishaps whilst he attempts to solve a murder that everyone else believes is already solved. Of course, he just happens to be right, as the lunacy explodes around him. Nudist colonies, crazed kung fu manservants, and senior officers with slipping grips on reality collide.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot: Sylvester Stallone thought this movie was a big pile of crap, but frankly, it's better than most of his resume. Sure, it's trite and silly, but it's short and the story gets stronger as it goes. Estelle Getty is a badass, by the way.

Twins: The other half of the Ahnold twofer, we have this, also from Ivan Reitman, and also in the vein of comedies that are more than  just comedies. It starts off broad and gets slightly more nuanced as it goes, as Danny DeVito plays a sleazy bastard that gets a little nicer as he introduces lost twin Schwarzenegger to the world. Also, Kelly Preston was a major fox.

Videodrome: So apparently they're remaking this Cronenberg/Woods collaboration for the modern era, probably as a generic sci-fi thriller. The original, however, is something more, something that could only exist during the emergence of home video, offspring of crappy VHS and Betamax and pirate television. The graininess of the magnetic tape world helps the atmosphere of this film-- you couldn't do it on DVD. James Woods gets sucked further and further into a conspiracy that gets more and more unhinged from reality as we know it, and discovers the new flesh-- the electric womb of the boob tube. Trippy but interesting.

P.S. Reviews of My Name Is Bruce, Hellboy 2, and Punisher War Zone are on Comics Should Be Good. They were all better than I expected!

It turns out Blogger doesn't like infinite titles

A four word review of Synecdoche, New York, auteur writer Charlie Kaufman's difficult-to-pronounce directorial debut and quite possibly magnum opus, an utterly bizarre story of a lonely genius played by Philip Seymour Hoffman who mounts a play about his life that takes place in a life-sized replica of New York, which creates worlds within worlds, infinitely looping inwards, and seems to be about life, death, love, the endless enormity yet meaningless minisculity of existence, which, coincidentally, the movie in which this is all taking place is also about, that is a film I was totally not in the right emotional state to watch, though maybe I was, and which has the librarian from Ghostbusters in it, which is awesome:

I didn't get it.