Hoho

If you ask me, Christmas has come early at FFC, as this past week has truly been one of our finest in recent memory. In case you missed any of these, allow me to draw your attention to Travis' Revolutionary twofer comparing La Commune and 1900 as well as the final instalment in his series of Gary Cooper reviews, Sergeant York. Meanwhile, Walter says Dreamgirls is something of a nightmare and newcomer Ian gives the old Yuletide smackdown to Ron Underwood's live-action version of The Year Without a Santa Claus.

This Friday may be light on theatrical reviews as Walter recuperates from a minor but no less incapacitating injury.

Something About Inmates and the Asylum

Hello fellow Film Freaks:

If you've been reading this blog for long, then maybe you know me as the anonymous "ian" fellow who's always posting responses to the missives that appear here, usually a dashed-off paragraph or a humorous shot in the dark at the latest screencap contest. However, contrary to popular belief, I do actually have a last name and, what's more, write professional criticism; I've been peddling my wares to various publications lately, and as you may have already guessed, I've landed what amounts to a real dream gig. So with great excitement, I'd like to introduce myself: I'm Ian Pugh, and I'm the newest staffer here at FILM FREAK CENTRAL.

Never fear, I'm not going to be the Dick Sargent to anyone's Dick York around here in any way, shape or form, but I will be specializing in TV on DVD. Finally, an opportunity to fully delve into the pleasures and pains of the boob tube without having to live by the networks' clock. Suffice it to say that this means fewer commercials that try to call Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest the "film of the decade," or try to pass off an Air Bud sequel by way of Look Who's Talking as anything less than goddamn terrifying. At the very least, I'll be armed with a "skip" button. Wonderful invention, this "dee-vee-dee."

My deepest thanks go to Bill, Walter, Travis and Alex in allowing a relative greenhorn like me to join their ranks. After leaving comments here for so long, I feel a little like Mark Wahlberg in Pittsburgh epic Rock Star... or maybe its Philadelphia counterpart, Invincible. (Memo to Marky Mark: I'm onto your diabolical plan to control Pennsylvania's inspirational film market.)

For those interested seeking out more of my critical work beyond the blog comments, check out my biweekly article "What's at the Movies" at The River Reporter of Narrowsburg, NY (this week it's Deja Vu) or The Triangle, the student newspaper of my collegiate alma mater, for which I still write the occasional review of a theatrical release. A brief cross-section from the past few months: Death of a President, Poseidon, Open Season, The Queen.

But my love affair with television is a lifelong one, and to tackle it head-on like this will be a fascinating endeavor. I look forward to trading barbs and ideas with all of you good folks here at the blog, who have been immeasurably helpful in my critical escapades. Look for my first FFC article soon.

But until then, let's open the floor for a somewhat generic question: with much of the water-cooler fare on holiday hiatus, what has everyone been watching on the old idiot box lately?

Update - 12/13/06
Feel the sting of The Monarch with my review of The Venture Bros.: Season One. Meanwhile, Walter documents the slow, painful decay of Anglo-American relations in The Holiday. In case you missed them: Bill checks the specs on the Little Miss Sunshine DVD, and Travis continues his Gary Cooper odyssey while tackling oddly-named DVD collections with The Taking of Porky's 1 2 3.

Update - 12/15/06
Walter takes on a weekend of movies that went without a spell checker with Eragon and The Pursuit of Happyness.

R.I.P. Peter Boyle -- for as many great moments you could find in the man's career, my personal favorite is a throwaway from Taxi Driver: his weary salutation, "Char-lie T..."

And despite the news reports, the Golden Globe nominations fail to surprise anyone.

Lindsay Lohan: Auteur

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Quickee Contest

Before I forget, my good friend Brigitte has a new movie coming out called Dark Rising. Looks like a hoot (it's from the producer of Phil the Alien); check out the trailer here. And the official website here.

First reader to guess the source of the screencap below gets a copy of An Inconvenient Truth. (North American residents only.)

Sorry to pull a hit-and-run--the Christmas rush has started early and is making things pretty hectic around here; stay tuned.

And good luck!

The Short Goodbye

For me, the saddest thing about Robert Altman's death--or "retirement," as he would probably prefer it be known--is that there'll be no more Robert Altman movies in the figurative sense: as influential as his sprawling ensemble pieces proved, his work is so resistant to codification as to be inimitable.

This isn't a eulogy (I don't feel entitled to write one, it seems too possessive somehow), but an invitation to share your thoughts on his body of work, his legend, his je ne sais quois. I also urge you to check out the lovely obituary Keith Uhlich wrote for THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, which includes links to a plethora of tributes to Altman's legend.

Blockbuster Receives Exclusive Rights to All Weinstein Films

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Blockbuster (BBI) said Wednesday it reached a four-year deal giving it exclusive U.S. rental rights to Weinstein films, allying itself with the independent movie studio as it battles for market share.
The deal teams Blockbuster with movie industry veterans brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein as it tries to counter an expensive rivalry with Netflix (NFLX) over online rentals, as well as cooling store-based movie rentals.

Bobby, a depiction of Robert Kennedy's final day before being assassinated, starring Anthony Hopkins and Demi Moore, and The Nanny Diaries featuring Scarlett Johansson, are part of the first slate of rentals movies to be exclusively available at Blockbuster. Read More.

You could probably guess where I come down on all this. I really fucking hate Blockbuster. I usually think that people who complain about such things are way out of touch with reality, I mean there are several things that are worth getting really angry about and Blockbuster hiring people who don't know 8 1/2 from 9 1/2 Weeks, making filmmakers turn in R-rated cuts of their NC-17 films, requiring all returned DVDs to be rewound, masking late fees under their "no late fees promotion" as "restocking fees"; it's not on that level. Anybody who gets really mad at that or even places it on the same level as Congressmen cutting taxes while increasing military funding and cutting social spending while adding tighter restrictions on abortion is a pampered little shit. But maybe I'm wrong, this news somehow really infuriates me. The idea that I might have to walk into a Blockbuster to rent Grindhouse is so utterly degrading that it's vaguely sexual. I'd rather rent from McDonald's.

I got the pic from Florida-area video store Video Rodeo, whose archival ads remind me of why I'm only gonna pursue that dream of opening my own video store once I win the lottery.

Sweet Nothings

I don't get as much Reader Mail as Walter and the others do but then I haven't exactly been cranking them out lately. Nevertheless, I thought I'd share a few recent missives to nourish your apparently insatiable appetite for schadenfreude.

From: Jackie Sims
Subject: No Business Like Show Business(WONDERFUL MOVIE)

OH COME ON BILL! THIS MOVIE IS FROM THE HAYDAY OF MOVIES. WHEN CORNY AND SIMPLE WAS INTERTAINING. WHAT A WONDERFUL LINE UP OF STARS AND SONGS THRU OUT THE MOVIE. IN FACT , IM GOING TO WATCH IT FOR THE SECOND TIME IN TWO DAYS SHORTLY. I OWN A PROJECTOR AND I WATCH IS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE SEEN, ON THE BIG SCREEN. ALONG WITH THE STERIO MUSIC ETC , ITS A WONDERFUL MOVIE TO WATCH. I REFUSED TO WATCH IN MY HOME THEATER, THE C--P THATS COMING OUT NOWADAYS. ONCE IN A WHILE , I BUY A RECENT MOVIE AND THINKING MAYBE THIS ONE WILL MEASURE UP TO OLD HOLLYWOOD MOVIES, BUT IT ALWAYS WOUNDS UP BEING A PIECE OF C--P! NO WONDER MOST OF THE MOVIES ARE STAYING ON THE SHELVES NOWADAYS? IF YOU GO TO THE MOVIE STORE AND LOOK, YOU WILL SEE THAT ITS THE OLD HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS AND MOVIES THAT ARE THE HIGHEST PRICED ON THE SHELVES. THATS BECAUSE THEY ARE SELLING AND THEY ARE DEFINATLY MORE INTERTAINING THAN THE C--P HOLLOWOOD IS PUTTING OUT NOWADAYS. IF THE MOVIE WAS MADE AFTER 1980 , ITS USUALLY NOT WORTH WATCHING. THE MAGIC IS GONE BILL. THERES NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS IS A FEEL GOOD MOVIE. WHEN ONE IS DONE WATCHING ,IT MAKES A PERSON FEEL GOOD. NEW MOVIES NO LONGER EVEN HAVE THE CREDITS OR THE LOGOS AT THE BEGINNING? HARDLY ANY MOOD MUSIC? THERES SOMETHING MAGICAL ABOUT SEEING THE 20TH CENTURY FOX LOGO AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PICTURE. THE DRUM ROLL ETC. I SAY BRING BACK THE MUSICALS , AND DISCONTINUE THE ON SLAUGHT OF ACTION MOVIES DEPICTING MURDER ,CRIME ,AND GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE. THATS NOT INTERTAINMENT! THANKS FOR HEARING ME OUT.

I love it when they're considerate enough to censor the word "crap" but not to turn off the goddamn caps lock.

From: Doug McNichol
Subject: Big words for such a little guy

Well, aren't we 'intellectual' in our choice of words. Impressive.

'Hagiography' ?? 'Reductive' ??

Get a life, asshole. Try words like 'cheap', or 'stupid'. Words that everyone can understand. Words that describe you.

What kind of unnerves me about this one is not that I can't tell whether he's demeaning my stature as a film critic or as a person in his subject heading, but that he's going to the mat for Gia. Seriously, Gia?

This next one is 'inviso-texted' to remove spoilers; highlight the white area to read them.

From: "Bruce Marks"
Subject: Black Book

Dear Bill,

I couldn't agree with you more about 'BlackBook'. I recently saw the film at The London Film Festival with a Q&A afterwards with Verhoeven and Carice. Verhoeven has taken his Hollywood baggage on board with never trusting the audience's intelligence and a lack of the 'poetry' he exhibited in 'Soldier of Orange'. When I questioned him why he thought it was necessary for the beginning of the film to tell the audience the main character lives; he didn't have much of an answer; especially when he could have done it in a much subtler way like lighting the Sabbath candles in the Kibbutz with the family gold lighter which the Germans obtained after murdering them. The transitions of falling in love with the head of the Gestapo and the trumped up motivation of the turncoat doctor at the end of the film really cheapened it for me. Maybe this is Verhoeven's halfway house on to something better. It was watchable and in today's movie environment; it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Best wishes,
Bruce Marks

Not sure how that got in there. Oh well, the law of averages means that someone's bound to side with us at some point.

Apropos of nothing, THE ONION A.V. CLUB's Nathan Rabin recently coined "The Perfume Paradox" to describe what happens when a terrible movie gets under your skin and thus becomes impossible to dismiss. I struggled to think of an example from personal experience until I watched the new-to-DVD Little Athens, a Crash-y, quasi-Larry Clark ensemble piece about a group of twentysomething New Jerseyites whose intertwining lives predictably revolve around drugs and sex. But the vibe of the film is ineffably non-nostalgic, if Linklater-esque, making it feel more like a bad memory than like a Rob Weiss-style monumentalizing of bad behaviour--that and the use of the awesomely beautiful "Let Down" over the closing credits go a long way towards neutralizing and even redeeming the clicheed characters and their stock transgressions. (Admittedly, Radiohead and Little Athens star Erica Leerhsen are two of my Achilles Heels.) That being said, I have to believe I wouldn't think twice about the film were it not for the Radiohead song and the bravely nihilistic denouement that precedes it; and as Rabin mentions Perfume's finale as the reason for its half-life, does that mean it's really all about the last lap, as Robert McKee--at least in Adaptation.--likes to say?

Can you think of a movie where the opposite holds true? Is that even possible? Of course, with viewers becoming increasingly expectant of instant gratification, I can see filmmakers working to perfect their openings and letting the rest die on the vine.

Last but not least: new Spidey trailer!