I finished up an interesting Shakespeare on Film series with the Douglas County Library System – ending with Michael Almereyda’s just fantastic Hamlet (it’s fucking amazing - re-orders the universe in a way), and Orson Welles’ savage MacBeth - and am looking forward to talking Pan’s Labyrinth and, among others, Birth and Days of Being Wild for a couple of new series at the end of this month. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be doing Philip Noyce’s The Quiet American – the film that I’m starting to think is better than Noyce’s other film from that year, Rabbit-Proof Fence. At the time of the latter’s release, I remember calling it “critic-proof fence” to the consternation of the picture’s publicist. What a jackass I am.
A couple of Bergman events planned for the mothersite – and a eulogy proper planned for airing in this blog, penned by one of our fine writers – but for now, RIP, by the way. I’ve mentioned it before around here but we got the name of our daughter from his The Seventh Seal: thus are we bound to art. I’m reminded, too, of a great Coleridge quote:
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversly fram'd,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all ?
I never thought Bergman necessarily deserved any of his reputations: great artiste; insufferable bore; airless intellectual – but there are certainly a handful of films of his that I think about not infrequently. I consider it to be a great honor to have spoken about Persona a few months ago. I’m looking forward to writing it up in the near future.
Just finished a particularly long project that’s taken a lot out of me but, simultaneously, given me a tremendous amount of insight into an American icon I had heretofore taken for granted – and am engaged in another mega-project that I hope will segue into a few personal projects. A couple of interviews simmering: too soon to talk lest we jinx them – I’m feeling a new energy around these parts and hope that it doesn’t flag before a few more tent-posts are planted into the ground.
Saw a giant standee for the new Robert Zemeckis Beowulf that made me fairly hard, I have to admit. Especially its script by Neil Gaiman. . . okay, especially the Frazetta-like profile of Angelina Jolie. I guess there’s a new teaser for The Dark Knight floating around and am happy to report that a second viewing of Harry Potter 5 is as good as the first. I suspect the same won’t be true of any subsequent screenings of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine.
Currently reading J. Hoberman’s exceptional The Dream Life. Currently listening to Gram Rabbit’s “Music to Start a Cult To”. Francis Coppola admits that he wanted to do Godfather IV with an ailing Mario Puzo in the same week that I discovered that the new director’s cut of The Outsiders is possibly his last true masterpiece – and weep at the revelation that Ray Harryhausen has praised colorization using the “we wanted to shoot it in color in the first place”. Fuck all over that. Have given up on “John from Cincinnati” apparently just at the moment that it started to get good – thank goodness for On Demand – and is it just me or has “Big Love” turned “Carnivale”?
Weird few weeks, guys – seismic upheavals on the personal front though nothing fatal, I think – but it’s all left me feeling exhausted, a little delirious in that head rush when drinking sort of way, and present in a way that I haven’t been in months. Let’s hope it lasts.
54 comments:
"Big Love" turning into "Carnivale" is an amusing sentiment. One I wouldn't have made, but now that you have, I find it somewhat true.
What did you think of "Carnivale" in the end, if I may ask, Walter? I just pulled your review of the Season 1 set, and it seems you saw it like many critics, intermittently interesting, but taking to long to start. What did you think of the Second Season and the coitus-interuptus ending?
I actually preferred Season 1 to Season 2, which I felt jumped along too quickly and at times the "town-of-the-week" structure annoyed me as too episodic, but I still see it as a singular achievement in television. As a grim fantasy, I'm hard pressed to think of much to its quality level, even in feature film. And, as no one disagrees, technically it was amazing. Matt Zoller Seitz talks about high quality TV like HBO having a number of Howard Hawke's (i.e. The Wire) but no Wong Kar Wai's. I think "Carnivale" might have been that, but no one ever wants to discuss it as such.
Sadly, too my taste at least, much of the discussion of the show on the internet at the time was either fanboyish following of plot details (which I have not issue with) or a religious game of connect-the-symbological-dots. Neither interest me much. Cheers!
RIP Michelangelo Antonioni.
Serrault, Bergman, Antonioni – who's next?
Hopefully nobody. These things are supposed to happen in threes, right?
I gotta catch up on the last two episodes of Big Love and John From Cincinatti. John's cookout speech I think was the moment that established the series and turned it around (and probably what will permanently kill the ratings and get it canceled).
I never saw Carnivale - don't know what we're talking about here.
Carnivale was amazing, Almereyda's Hamlet, not so much... I didn't care for it, anyways. My favorite Shakespeare on Film would have to be Wells' "Chimes at Midnight", which I guess isn't strictly Shakespeare, but whatever, it's close enough.
And actually it was YANG, Serrault, Bergman, Antonioni. My money's on Goddard next.
Was Almereyda's Hamlet the one with Bill Murray as Polonius? I really oughta know that since I wrote a paper about it for my freshman Shakespeare class. There sure are a lot of versions of Hamlet on film.
Concerning who's next? - I'm kind of amazed that good old Jules Dassin is still alive...
Ref Carnivale; I'd just like to mention that it contains the only violent scene in YEARS that affected me (the tar-and-feathering sequence to Jonesy). I still get chills thinking of that... and a little smile when I remember the miraculous resolution.
Wonderful series, just finding its feet. I'd read any books if the creator bothered to release anything like that to finish the series.
Ref: John From Cincinatti. I think the "cookout speech" is overhyped. At best, it made you a little more relieved the writers *seem* to have something in mind for the show, and aren't just being weird for the sake of it. At worst, yet more impenetrable gobbledegook to cloak the fact the writers have no clue what's going on! :)
I still don't see Harry Potter 5 as a watershed in the series. It's pretty, yes, but they've all been pretty ... I'm gratified that John William music is confined to his awful "Imperial March Redux" opening theme music ... I like the throughline of the kids basically turning into terrorists/freedom fighters to a) overthrow an ineffectual social order as a method of b) combating ultimate evil personified. But the direction and editing were so truncated, so de-oxygenated, so anxious to hit all the key marks that it reminded me most of all of HP1 and that's not a good thing. Oh, and somebody's been giving Emma Watson too many tips about "ahk-ting." Maybe I'll try a second viewing on DVD.
HP5 is pretty good but not quite great. I should see it a second time, I think, before withholding final judgement. Also, that way I can enjoy Evanna Lynch some more. I feel more than a little pervy saying that but (1) it's not like that, totally, and (2) she's pretty great, right? Right.
I don't get the antipathy that John From Cincinnati's been getting. It doesn't even feel that terribly obtuse to me, so much as it feels real dense and willfully obscure. What I mean to say is, it's putting things out there knowing full well they won't pay off until a couple weeks later. I always got the sense that all my attention would eventually be rewarded. It feels more like a ten hour movie that's serialized over multiple weeks than a show with multiple episodes, in other words.
Either way, I'm really loving it and I get real excited thinking about it. At the very least, it strikes me as a brave show, one of the most aggressively weird things I've seen in a long long time, in the cinema, TV or otherwise. It's not often that TV agrees to confound as much as this show does and for that alone I tune in every week.
Plus it's really funny.
Hey all,
Not to horn in on Walter's post, but I just want to apologize in advance for any patches of dead air at the mother site. I had to have my arm re-broken yesterday because it didn't heal, and consequently I'm back to being a one-handed bandit for the next few.
On the plus side, there's a lot of great stuff in the pipeline, including a massive DVD career retrospective from Walter, an in-depth interview with a reclusive Hollywood talent, and our first batch of Blu-ray reviews. I'd planned to blog about my gradual conversion to HiDef but I think that will have to wait until I can better pace myself.
No HD DVD reviews? Blu-ray only? IS FILM FREAK CENTRAL BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE?????
(That may possibly only be funny if you're acquainted with any home theater forums.)
Almost forgot: what do y'all think of the trailer for Halloween? I must admit, I can't believe how fucking intense the commercials for it have been; surprised they're airing in prime time.
Whoops--forgot the link.
I was really hoping for an enthusiastic high score from Walter for Ultimatum, so this is a bit disappointing. Of course, I DID like Supremacy more than Identity, so hopefully that trend will continue.
Here's a nice little bit from the litter box. And to those of y'all who hate it when I post hate mail. Well, fuck you. Moreover, fuck you. No, seriously - I post it because I don't have the heat to respond to it anymore. But listen - this reminds me of something an old, lost friend said once in my defense of wanting to share the bile and, consequently, incur odd slings and arrows from the peanut gallery: she said that the only thing that explains a lot of the backlash backlash is that they're jealous that they're not getting any. Crickets.
You gotta dig that you're doing something right when ass-crunches like Jeffy here write you regularly to tell you that Michael Bay is just Michael Bay like Hitler is Hitler is Mussolini is Mussolini is Bush is Bush is Flesh Eating Bacteria is Flesh Eating Bacteria and so on. What kind of cunts actually think that the best thing to do is look away when someone is shitting on the rug?
Voter turnout = 34% - and Jeff is one of them, I fear. No one to blame but ourselves.
"I've read many of your reviews and even contacted you before. Since you
seem
intent upon continuing with the same annoying tendencies, I figured I'd
return the favor and ask you again to stop.
Here's the thing: it's really tedious that you continue to mis-use the
terms
"misogynist", "homophobic", and "racist" (and their derivatives)
whenever
you feel the need to vehemently attack a movie whose only real sin is
being
low quality. It grows tiresome, and feeds common ignorance regarding
the
terms.
Since journalism (of a sort) is your profession, you must have studied
the
English language - you certainly enjoy wheeling out your vocabulary -
so you
must understand why I am confused as to how you cannot grasp a basic
fact:
that if a person in one of your pet trait groups is portrayed in a way
with
which you disagree it is not necessarily an attack on or devaluation of
that
trait.
In other words, racial humor is not necessarily racist. A joke about a
gay
person is not necessarily homophobic. Having a female character wearing
a
midriff-bearing shirt is not misogyny - nor is it necessarily misogyny
if a
female character is a victim of violence. In your recent review of
Transformers (admittedly a garbage film) you somehow found a way to
incorrectly fit all three of your pet terms into a single paragraph,
which
I'm sure is some small victory for you, but really only emphasizes how
ridiculous your position is. Stories - and media - naturally objectify.
Characterizations are necessarily limited. While you may find the
results
lacking or unimaginative, tarring them with emotionally-charged
invectives
adds nothing.
I wonder at what point film critics became so full of themselves. At
the end
of the day you're just a guy who watches movies and tells us whether or
not
you like them. It's an entirely subjective issue. I imagine your lofty
sense
of self-importance and constant desire to pass judgment on the rest of
society stems from frustration with your own impotence. After all, in a
world where Tyler Perry and Michael Bay routinely pull in millions of
dollars selling schlock, I'm sure it's frustrating trying to force
everyone
to believe that the latest navel-gazing and self-flagellating efforts
of
your favorite, neglected art house filmmaker will somehow save them
from
themselves. But people are people, and when you make a living trying to
convince others of your opinion you're going to suffer frustration ...
particularly when you constantly insult and belittle those who might
disagree with you.
So, again, for the love of god, stop saying everything is racist,
homophobic, and misogynist. It's a movie about gigantic robots, made by
Michael freaking Bay. What did you expect - Truffaut?
Sincerely,
Jeff"
Here's Jeff Parson's email: newage_lightbulb@hotmail.com
So now he's got a soapbox. Here here for the First Amendment.
I love it when you post your hate mail. But it's just hard to believe that a) people can be so dense, b) that they can get so worked up over someone else's opinion, and c) that they keep coming back for more.
PS - Halloween trailer = friggin awesome. Can't wait.
Boy, of all the silly things to complain about:
"This tendency, which is a problem due to laziness as often as intent, isn't as big a deal here, because it's slightly more lazy than intentional."
This isn't the kind of hate mail I'd rather not see. I dislike schadenfreude, but this guy isn't as stupid as he is insecure and misguided.
I wonder if he's ever realized that this shit is cumulative. Maybe a certain kind of racial joke isn't racist, but if it contributes, even accidentally, to racism, and doesn't contribute to art, let's just call it racism and be done with it. Racism isn't subjective; Michael Bay doesn't have to think he's racist for it to count.
I'm not at all interested in the new Halloween. DVD all the way. Kinda sad, because The Devil's Rejects wasn't formulaic for even a moment AND it ended with Freebird of all things without being trite or meta or literal or metaphorical. It was just nasty good.
Walter hasn't pissed me off at all lately, but one sentence in his Zodiac review might be the oddest thing he's ever said:
Not as flashy as Fincher's other films, Zodiac is no less a science-fiction thriller than Alien3 or Fight Club...
OK, I can sorta see how Alien3 is a sci-fi thriller, though if there's ever been an "alien in outer space" movie that isn't a sci-fi thriller, it's probably Alien3. And Fight Club is at least a thriller, of a sort, and even though it's decidedly not sci-fi, one could at least suggest that it has a sci-fi tone. Kinda.
But Zodiac? Whatever there is that's interesting about Zodiac--whatever is there, or kinda there, or there under layers, or there in a sense--is SO terrestrial, and SO invested in the brilliant, mundane, procedural humanity of the case, that I feel I can say, with as much objective rightness as I've ever felt, that Zodiac isn't any kind of a sci-fi thriller.
Don't know if anyone saw it, but I found out through Roger Ebert's Answer Man column that the illustrious Mr. Bay advised a film critic to go on a vacation to "help him get rid of his hatred."
... Really?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find a copy of Blow-Up, because I've been putting that off for far too long. I hope no one fosters any ill will that I saw Profondo Rosso first.
I'm rooting for Halloween--the trailers all look brutally nightmarish while still
retaining the feel of the Carpenter original. (Though If it aint got my PJ in it--it just aint Halloween) Loved the Tommy Doyle makeup—gave me the frickin' willies--can hardly imagine a better choice than good old MMD to play Dr. Loomis. I remain bemused that Rob Zombie has turned out to be one of the most interesting American directors of the last decade (would that I heard myself saying that 10 years ago..."Dragula" my ass) Still a little uneasy about those reshoot reports--but, I'm gonna be there opening night—hoping that Rob cuts away on the gravedigger’s story and gives us a Rabbit in Red matchbook cover--just for old time’s sake.
I’ve usually enjoyed reading the hate mail myself (the regular letter feature is one aspect of FFC I sorely missed) after the shits and giggles however, my hope is that they are starting points for discussions more interesting than “Boy that dude is a moron—etc”.Like this current letter, seems to me that the central argument behind most of these writers is: “You’re not supposed to sound intelligent, especially when discussing film—which is inherently unworthy of serious discussion”. What’s most disturbing to me is that this opinion is so often couched as common sense. It’s also interesting that this type of hate-mail rarely bubbles up over anything other than these gigantic, multi-zillion dollar movies, which I assume is probably the only stuff most of these letter writers ever see. Geez—does anyone really say “Art House” any more? Btw—there was an interview with Brett Ratner in the Globe and Mail this a.m.---what a doofus—love the Spielberg analogies too---Ratner couldn’t pull “Always” out of his ass.
At least, unlike most critics of critics, he recognizes that criticism is "an entirely subjective issue." Although he says it as if that minimizes the process, and complains that critics are the ones forcing their values on audiences, rather than the filmmakers with thousands of screens and millions of dollars in production and marketing power.
By the way, AAGH! and OWCH! and Sorry, Bill, about your ongoing arm troubles. No phrase has ever made me cringe more than "I had to have my arm RE-broken," as if the first time wasn't agony enough.
How did you suffer the original injury? Same way as this guy?
What do you think of Zombie's apparent integration of Halloween II's "sister" plot point into the proceedings? (Or, if you want to get technical, the remake seems to cull more from the television version of the original.) Seems a little odd to me, more for the fact that Halloween II is probably the best representation of Carpenter's greatest flaw as a filmmaker and (in this case) a screenwriter: when he doesn't care about a certain project, he lets that indifference seep into every aspect of it. Check out the making-of documentary on the Halloween: H20 DVD when he essentially admits that, dictated by a deadline, he ripped off The Empire Strikes Back for Halloween II's big familial twist; kind of makes you wonder where Lucas got Return of the Jedi from. Of course, apathy never seems to be Zombie's problem, so here's hoping that he's got something great in the wings concerning that particular aspect.
Only another month until a new Russell Mulcahy movie hits the theaters. I know Walter hated the first two Resident Evil movies, but the red band trailer for the third looks pretty entertaining. Anyone else with me on that?
Yeah, the Res Evil III trailer is really good.
So was the Res Evil II trailer.
Means nothin'.
Do people really think that the Halloween trailer actually looks good? Maybe I'm just too much of a skeptic (only ever saw about a half an hour of The Devil's Rejects, at a friend's house, with people talking, so I can't really say I gave it much of a fair shot) but this just looks like a typically pumped-up remake, and of a film whose greatest virtue was, arguably, that was a model of restraint among its genre. I'm sick to death of that whole dirty, grainy, Marilyn Manson-video aesthetic, especially.
Blah.
I like that the Resident Evil movies have stopped looking like Sprite commercials and have switched their look to dusty...crap...commercials.
I'm actually a little scared by Halloween. I read this pretty negative script review a while back where Zombie has Myers masturbating to pictures of dead rats and stuff and the dialogue was reportedly terrible. (Zombie's writing constantly veers between satanic brilliance and puerile shittiness, really my only complaint about Devil's Rejects.)
What, no review for Bratz?
I heard that it's a lot like being raped by MySpace...
I heard that it's a lot like being raped by MySpace...
Sign me up.
Jefferson: Thanks, man. The re-break was definitely one of those 'don't try this at home' moments. The guy told me I sounded like Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin.
I kind of like that Zombie is putting the sister mythos into it - without knowing that he'd cribbed it from Empire (and probably liking it if I had known), finding out that Laurie was Michael's sissy was something like a cold bucket of water when I was ten. Still makes good sense to me and that last image in the trailer of Michael carrying someone off married to the earlier "Why" of why is he coming back for his sister? - well, gentlesouls, I think that's pretty f'in cool.
I wouldn't presume that this is going to be a grinder, either, though, just because the trailer looks a little TCM Redux-y.
Good topic: why do you think that torture porn has failed as a genre? For me I think that it's too literal. The tie between torture and titillation has to be more submerged, I think, for a mainstream audience to embrace it. I'm not saying we're not sick little fuckers, I'm saying that we don't like to be sick little fuckers in the company of pals. Everybody jerks off; not everybody engages in circle jerks. And just like most people take it as common sense that movies aren't worth talking about; most of those same people also have a sense - like an animal smelling something off - that something's off.
My theory is that torture porn is too brazen a commentary on what it is that makes us turgid. This is the stuff you troll for in the middle of the night -not the stuff you enjoy in the company of friends and lovers.
Eh - not so stunning as revelations go, I guess. Even for me.
Alternatively, the shit that the US is passing off as "torture porn" is nothing more than... shit? The Saw movies are meaningless, the Hostel movies are worse, the Hills Have Eyes was godawful and none of these films are effective in the least at creating the violence and depravity we've come to associate with the harder Korean and Japanese cinema. None of these films have anything on, say, Miike; it seems to me that fuckheads are embracing the Saw series as being hardcore because it's not - "Oh, I'm so hard because I sat through all of Saw" - when it's actually extremely tame, but they can still consider themself with the cred, without having to watch something actually hardcore.
And yeah, all of the films are appropriately subtextually lacking as well as being ineffective. Where's a fucking Audition when you need one?
I also doubt people who love "torture porn" could hack a round of Imprint
Yeah, dudes are too pussy to watch a real snuff film!
With subtext!
Y'know, I don't think it's a matter of being "too pussy" - I think that it's this mainstreaming of t-porn that's a little like the mainstreaming of actual porn. I mean, if you're old enough to rent porn, you're not renting the soft-porn shit and if you're honest enough to rent t-porn, you're not showing up for Hostel. Essentially, subtextually, when you rent "Midget Squirters from Low-Income Families in Haiti" - the fact of it is the subtext of it. When you rent "Barb Wire", you're a tool.
Ditto watching Nacho Cerda's "Aftermath" vs. renting that Roland Joffe/Elisha Cuthbert flick.
It's not, again, that it's not hardcore enough, it's that it's not hardcore at all: it's a cash grab. The Guinea Pig flicks are fascinating as all hell, but they're not in the multiplex, calculated to earn the Franklins from idiot kids. It's a raincoat flick and worth a conversation: the watered down version is too obvious to merit one.
Torture porn is a clever but misleading term. Really we're talking about modern horror. That the Saws and Hostels can be called torture porn is simply a slight escalation of the violence in a slasher flick without the slasher structure. The Hollywood horror film could eventually approach the hardcore content of one of the Guinea Pig movies, but it would still be boring for the same reason it is now:
Any horror that really works owes as much to identification as it does to graphic content. Once upon a time, Psycho worked because people identified with showering and motels. Audition works because the torture comes from a relationship structure, an uneven one at that, in which an older man pursues a younger woman, and SHE turns out to be sadistic.
But in modern horror, the victims are rarely in plausible situations, and even when the setup doesn't destroy the film before it starts, the characters are so badly created that the process is doomed. All characters, even the expendable ones, are fleshed out just enough to come up glaringly short. Hollywood is so obsessed with knowing, self-conscious character construction that you never just find yourself in a story, you know, with peripheral characters and jerks without a back story and heroes who aren't damaged.
Want a good horror movie? Chances are you're looking for loose ends.
Whatever happened to Kathryn Bigelow? After "Strange Days", I expected her to become a big-budget presence, but from her imdb page there wasn't a lot I missed. A shame.
When Youngblood came out in 86, I was nine years old. Perhaps that explains my early fascination with this film, I must have watched it ten times (then again, Youngblood, Mighty Ducks and Slapshot were the only hockey films I knew, and Slapshot only from irregular TV repeats). I was lucky enough to stumble upon the film a few years back and see with my own eyes how awful it really was. Damn.
My favorite Swayze, by FAR, has to be Road House. Sure, it's dumber than a drunk, but Goddammit, if it isn't the most gloriously macho (both gay and hetero) movie ever made. Everyone knew exactly the kind of movie they were in, even Gazara - though it'd been funny if he'd have played it as if he were in a Cassavetes flick...
The death of Bergman reminded of the time he and Fellini met in Rome and got into a heated argument about who knew more about death. Well, RIP Ingmar - you and Fellini can now continue your conversation - this time with much more insight.
My latest post is up now - this time I take a look at "Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia." Check it out at...
www.gottaseeitweekly.blogspot.com
Not much to add other than a kudos to Walter for another masterpiece with the Swayze piece. I've definitely been talked into giving Red Dawn and The Outsiders fresh viewings. S.E. Hinton's novels were always pre-adolescent favorites of mine, though most memory of the books/film adaptations (as I recall, only Taming The Star Runner didn't get the Hollywood treatment) have been wiped clean.
Hey guys, has anybody read the Onion AV Club interview with Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner? Oh my Lord. Tucker calls Ratner the new Spielberg. I'll say no more.
-Bill
"Hey guys, has anybody read the Onion AV Club interview with Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner? Oh my Lord. Tucker calls Ratner the new Spielberg. I'll say no more."
Considering Tucker is a functional illiterate, I wouldn't put too much stock in anything he has to say about anything.
Did anyone read Scott Foundas's piece about Ratner? Its nauseating.
It's seven pages long - I think I'd prefer to watch Catwoman than read the whole thing.
I'm assuming that Ratner made the Spielberg comparison initially, since the only true talent he has is the gift of gab.
Fuck
Question: Between this stunt and all of the articles and interviews and buzz, how the hell did this happen? Where did Ratner become popular? How did he become popular? What the fuck?!
This feels especially depressing ripping off the interest generated from the Dinner with Joss Whedon auction. For all the shit thrown at him, I'm sure all would much prefer to see a film he'd make (and yet can't scrape the funds to create) over the latest $100 mil Ratner crapfest.
Stay tuned this Sunday for our own interview with Chris Tucker. Ian really delivered something special.
He killed him?
Cold but hilarious.
And here I thought you'd do an interview with Whedon. But the anonymous comment made it all good again.
Hey Walter,
Is there any chance you will be reviewing "Talk to Me" with Don Cheadle soon? I am curious what your thoughts are?
That was a good interview, particularly for the epilogue. I am bothered by the idea that someone wouldn't know the definition of "misogny", but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Shame Ratner himself couldn't attend, that would have been fascinating..
Thanks, Ryan. Ratner's last-minute cancellation stung, no doubt, particularly because I had spent so much time combing through his filmography. But even if I am tempted to bid on that dinner auction with $4,000 that I don't have, try to see if a tape recorder would count as my "guest"--I think flying solo with Tucker ended up being more enlightening than one with both would have been. The Ratnerthon did give me an excuse, though, to make my way through "Prison Break", which certainly gets better as it goes along. Review forthcoming.
Way OT here, but any chance of getting a review, or even opinions of, Stardust? Having read around a bit, it sounds as if it could either be a total mess, or kinda fun except for the gay pirate captain business with DeNiro, which just sounds clumsy and stupid. Any thoughts?
Slightly more relevant: bang up job on the Swayze retrospective, Walter. You deserve some kind of medal for that.
The epilogue definitely makes that interview something special.
Good interview with Tucker. I saw Rush Hour 3 yesterday and I gotta say - I have never seen such lazy, incompetent writing and directing. I mean, I've heard the phrase "phoning it in" but this is ridiculous. Not one ounce of effort was made in any aspect of the movie. Amazingly bad.
Stardust on its way. It's great. Even the gay pirate stuff, though I suspect he's only a cross-dresser.
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