Halloween Grab Bag- Rob Schmidt's "Wrong Turn"

The baddies in "Wrong Turn" are as repellent-but-flat as the ones in "The Strangers." Unlikely newspaper headlines in the credits lay out the adversaries and their inclinations: "Rednecks like to Inbreed! Inbreeding Causes Deformation and Psychosis, Scientists Say! Deformed Redneck Murderers at Large! Teens Missing, Feared Killed by Rednecks!" Are rednecks really the last minority movies can happily judge by the color of their skin? The skin of their necks? As it happens in most of these movies, a team of normies deviate from the road of civilization into redneck territory, (with Esso gas stations and hostile, toothless greasemonkeys who say things like: "You cuttin' wise with me, son? You one of them snooty, scientific city types?") Then the normies begin to die in sadly familiar ways. They're played by the likes of Desmond Harrington, Jeremy Sisto, Emmanuelle Chriqui from "Entourage," and my personal goddess of brusque beauty, Eliza Dushku, whose wonderfully inane Twitters never cease to amuse.

Halloween Grab Bag- Bryan Bertino's "The Strangers"

"The Strangers" billed itself as being "inspired by true events"- in the sense that there's such a thing as murders. The creepy first third is effective, as the perfect couple played by Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler return from a failed marriage proposal/lover's quarrel to find that masked meanies are trying to kill them in their own house. ("Why?" "Because they were home.") Then the carnage starts, and the characters start doing dumb things like splitting up and inching into rooms for maximum suspense. Liv Tyler is a beautiful swan of a woman and the movie flatters her, but the bad guys are so deliberately blank and motiveless that one's left aching for the teasing, satirical evil of the preppie boys from Michael Haneke's "Funny Games"- the "event" this movie is TRULY based on.

Obligatory Semi-Mute Halloween Ackowledgment

Dear Imaginary Bleeder:
Here's a little preview of my Halloween costume. I'll be dressed as a fight scene from "Alien Vs. Predator." It looks a little ambitious but I think I can pull it off with some Saran wrap and imagination.

Harald Zwart's "The Pink Panther 2"

Steve Martin's "Pink Panther" re-inventions are not exactly a cause to champion, but, you know what? These reboots are unjustly vilified. They're exactly as good (or bad) as Blake Edward's movies, often less tedious: Martin knows when a gag needs to end, which Edwards didn't. What don't they have? Nostalgia, or Sellers. But if you get bogged down on that, you won't appreciate that Martin is NOT impersonating Sellers but instead is working on a new comic creation that happens to share name, nationality, and clumsiness with Inspector Clouseau.



"Pink Panther 2" is entirely in the spirit of "Return" and "Revenge," with a cast any of those movies would envy: John Cleese in the Herbert Lom role, Alfred Molina, Andy Garcia, Jean Reno, Lily Tomlin, Jeremy Irons, Bollywood beauty Aishwarya Rai, Johnny Halliday (pretty much the French Elvis), and a sweet Emily Mortimer, who reveals herself as a wonderful comedienne, which you might have guessed from her "30 Rock" appearances.



All of them treat the movie like the vacation it probably was, but their fun rubs off on you if you're in the appropriate mood. The exception is John Cleese, who's looking sedate and bedraggled, his ire set to 30% of Basil Fawlty's.
The problem, from an audience stand-point, is not that these movies aren't as good as the originals. They're much the same, and improve in many points, (don't argue that with a Sellers fan!) The problem is that PG-slapstick seems quaint in a world in which "Jackass" is going 3D and shoving its pierced dick on your face. Steve Martin juggling wine bottles seems a little...well, clueless.

Here you get to see Johnny Halliday (looking like whatever the male version of a "cougar" is) attempting to communicate across generations and language barriers with an appreciative Joss Stone. Most precious of all, you get to see James Dean dubbed to French.

Scott Turow's "Innocent"

There's currently 5 books in my rotation with Stephen King's praiseful blurbs on them. They range from a "Conan the Barbarian" collection to a recent Michael Connelly novel. Is that a testament to my Big Mac and Fries taste? To shady mind-control techniques from the publishing industry? I get worried. (Yes, I read several books at once, mock away. I mean, not at ONCE. That would be AMAZING. Freak show amazing!)
Anyway, among the King-approved books is Scott Turow's "Innocent."



And that's what you do for a buddy, you breathlessly blurb their disappointing book. I'm a HUGE Turow fan, but "Innocent" is like being put on double jeopardy: didn't we already see Rusty Sabich get accused of a murder? Even the uninspired book title hints at the "return to the well" nature of the enterprise. The writing, as always, is adequate, but not as good as in previous novels and Turow gets too interested in pyschological explorations when we're begging for courtroom thrills. Also, I couldn't help but feel that Turow has turned a definite deaf ear to how women talk. Take the line with which an adoring young temptress throws herself at 60-year-old judge Sabitch:

"Do you think I am top-heavy?"

"Top-heavy"? What coy, unlikely male-fantasy dialogue is that? And when did "Do you think I have nice tits" go out of style?

And to prove the Internet, like a good Tolstoy novel, has EVERYTHING, here's TopHeavy.Com, a no-nudity, almost safe for work site about women with big boobs and tight clothes. I wonder what the Stephen King blurb for TopHeavy.com would be like.

Maggie Stifvater's "Shiver"

The ultra-popular "Shiver" is- inevitable comparison- "Twilight" with werewolves.
"But, Hans," you say. "'Twilight' already HAD werewolves!"
Hey, don't tell me, I know! It's a sad time for American literature, what do you want me to do about it?



In all fairness to Maggie Stifvater's "Wolves of Mercy Falls" series, the "Romance Times" exultations are better written than the ones in "Twilight," but that's like saying that acupuncture fights cancer better than crystal healing.
It's pretty easy to tell if "Shiver" is for you after reading this extract from the back-cover:

"And then I opened my eyes and it was just Grace and me- nothing anywhere but Grace and me- she pressing her lips together as though she were keeping my kiss inside her, and me holding this moment that was as fragile as a bird in my hands."

Did you swoon at all that sensuousness? Or did you throw up on yourself a little? Now you know if you're the target audience. (All "sparkling vampire" jokes are hereby officially replaced with "yellow-eyed werewolf" jokes.)

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's "Still Life with Crows" (Pendergast Book 4)

"Still Life with Crows" is the most entertaining of the Pendergast books so far, a killer-in-the-cornfield thriller that has less action than previous entries, but makes up for it with more world-building: this small town is brought to life with enough detail to earn one of those pervasive Stephen King blurbs. (Is it only me, or does every other book have some hyperbolic praise from King stamped right on its behind?) Pendergast is in full Sherlock Holmes mode, accompanied by a teenage Watson called Corrie Swanson that probably has a dragon tattoo somewhere.

Mark Millar's "Marvel Knights Spiderman: Volume 1: Down Among the Dead Men"

The Marvel Knights imprint was meant for grittier, more complex titles; not quite "adult," but Spiderman certainly takes merciless beatings that punch the secret identity right out of him. Mark Millar sets up this Spiderman mystery with the abduction of Aunt May, and Spiderman swings through a criminal underworld more complex and interconnected than the one usually shown in Spidey's All Ages titles. Electro, Vulture, and the Owl are prominently featured.

Blake Edward's "The Pink Panther"

A different kind of '60s hep cat.



A classic is not necessarily a masterpiece: all a movie has to do to be a classic is survive. "The Pink Panther" is a classic, but no masterpiece. Its elements have survived. The brilliant opening featuring the Pink Panther cartoon; Peter Sellers as the bumbling, clueless klutz, Inspector Clouseau; Henry Mancini's definition-of-lounge score; gentlemen thiefs, (played by the likes of David Niven and Robert Wagner); seductive international beauties like Claudia Cardinale (Fellini's "8/12") and Capucine (Fellini's "Satyricon"); posh resorts and lavish parties.

But do you recall how slow and boring most of the movie is?


ABOVE: "I'm being kittenish! With a tiger! Tigers are like kittens. They're feline. I'm "feline" good hahaha."


ABOVE: "I'm being kittenish too! But with an actual kitten, because I'm not retarded like Claudia Cardinale."

Ralph Bakshi's "Fritz the Cat"

The same subversive countercultural forces that spawned the National Lampoon are behind Ralph Bakshi's "Fritz the Cat."



Robert Crumb famously hated this commercial co-opting of his comic creation- (a horny, pot-smoking college-age cat who waxes existential about life on the way to his next pick-up). Crumb's hatred was more a reflexive "they fucked with my vision" Alan-Moore-hatred than a reliable assessment of the actual movie. Crumb also felt that the film had a right wing, anti-hippie message. (!!!) I suspect the main grudge was that Bakshi dismissed Crumb's complex visual style, because it would have been impractical to try to reproduce, for the same reason you can't rent a gaggle of under-paid animators and ask them to come up with new Picasso paintings. This looks nothing like Crumb. Instead it's Bakshi's animation, which is usually visionary and pathetically low-budget, sincere and smirky, lovingly crafted and careless, all in the same cel.



If you can get past the crude animation and stoned-out plotting, past the jive-talking crows, and past the cute cartoon cat that has orgies, tries pot, and joins a gang of neo-Nazi-Commie terrorists- you get a brutal, unsparing satire of '60s counterculture that is kind of dead on.
It's also an artifact of a movie. As a sample, take the scene where white college girls (well, ugh, bitches and foxes) flock around a black man (ugh, crow) and try to seduce him by saying condescending things like: "I joined the Black Panthers!" or "Why does a great actor like James Earl Jones always have to play black men?" Much to their chagrin the crow snaps his wings, and sashays away: "I ain't no jive ass black n***r, honey. Who do you think I am? Geraldine?"
That moment encapsulates what's wrong with the flick: Sure, that the supposedly manly crow turns out to be gay is funny- the movie loves to mock our expectations- but it's the slur that bothers modern audiences. Except that's not where the stress is supposed to lie. The things that "Fritz the Cat" means us to find shocking are kind of charming in a post-"South Park" world. The really offensive things are the ones that are localized in time, inexplicable to a time traveler from 2010.
Does anyone alive have any idea what that "Geraldine" dig means?

Typical scene: Fritz does the "wounded existentialist poet" bit on his way to a foursome.
"Yes! 'Existential.' I heard that word once!"
"What does it mean?"
"It means like cool, gear. You know, stupid!"

Gear. Wowzer. Groovy, fab, heavy times those were.

Rick Meyerowitz' "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great"

"Making people laugh is the lowest form of humor"
- Mike O'Donoghue, National Lampoon writer.



Before its shameful descent into the abyss of indifference in the 80s, and before it affixed its name to a series of execrable "sex" comedies in the 2000s, the National Lampoon was America's funniest magazine. Sure, "The Atlantic" had its LOLz, but the National Lampoon was Mad magazine with a college degree and a profitable drug habit. Rick Meyerowitz, the prolific illustrator behind the classic "Animal House" poster, compiles some of the best loved pieces, (meaning there's practically nothing from the '80s here), and puts them within the context of a tribute to the creators. The perverted, suicidal, hilarious creators.



Some spoil-sport critic might point out the back-patting air of mutual congratulation on the tome: virtually every mind behind the Lampoon gets described as "the smartest, funniest person in a room of smart, funny people." But it's Gahan Wilson, Doug Kenney, Henry Beard, Sean Kelley, P. J. O'Rourke, Anne Beatts, Charles Rodrigues. That's a pretty unrelenting cavalcade of funny people.



Check out some classic covers, hep cats, if you can dig it.

CHAPTER 119: DOUBLE SIGHT

Nicole and Monsieur Beausire have fled the scene, leaving Andree (Keira Knightley) alone to utter a prayer for her brother, Philip; a prayer motivated by another presentiment, (the thing that comes after a present and before a sentiment.)
She finds a couch and settles on it with a book. To her misfortune it's a dictionary of botany. Who needs roofies in the water? A paragraph into it, her eyelids are drooping. Andree reaches, half-asleep, for the goodnight glass of compromised water that Nicole has conveniently left by her side, in a little charming table.
She brings it close to her lips, and just as she's about to swallow the concoction, the presentiment returns. She puts the glass down on the table, one hand clutches at her throat, and a familiar electric jolt agitates her body.
For a second, it's as if she's died.
All at once she's pulled up by forces she doesn't comprehend- and she stands on tip-toe, in the frightened trance she's felt before, in the magnetic grasp of a man who is, perhaps, a magician.
She exits the room, each step decisive but calm, and walks past the door that Nicole has treacherously left open, to the porch which is now being invaded by Gilbert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).
"Andree!"
She doesn't see him or hear him, pusing past him with zombie-like persistence, and he's reminded of the trance that, a million chapters ago, similarly made Andree walk around shamelessly in her undies, back at the Chateau de Taverney.
He's afraid, but as compelled to follow her as she's compelled to meet... someone... someone who's concealed a few yards outside the house, and who is now revealed by LIGHTNING as he emerges, riding a splendid black horse.
Gilbert knows that handsome, pale face; the dark cloak; he recognizes the outstretched hands that beckon Andree ever closer.
"Joseph Balsamo!" he mutters, but does not give himself away with some jealous fit, and instead waits things out from... *sigh*... behind a bush. This is the 15th time this happens, I've been counting.
From the vantage point, Gilbert watches as Andree nearly collides with Balsamo's horse, which is illuminated by coiling bolts of lightning.
BALSAMO: "Do you see?"
ANDREE: "I see, but next time ease a girl into a trance, won't you?"
B: "No time, I suffer, I am nearly mad, I need your help now! I need you to fly through astral planes- and reach my house. Do you see it?"
A: "My soul dives into a street lit up a lonely lamp. There is a dark mansion there."
B: "Fly through the antechamber, through the wall, past a sleeping-room, over the kitchen sink, and then enter the small cell that hides behind the fireplace! Are you there?"
A: "Yes, I am. The room is empty."
B: "Andree, I need you to find Lorenza, the woman who was in that room! How did she escape?"
A: "I see her- I recognize her- it's the same woman you asked me to follow all that time ago, the one who had stolen your horse. Her clothes are torn. She has a wound on her side and suicide on her head. She intends to dash her brains against the wall, but then she notices something in the chimney-piece, the one guarded by two marble lions. There is a bloody impring upon the eye of one lion. It is not her blood."
B: "It's my blood! I betrayed myself."
A: "She presses the eye, and the chimney swings open, and she... escapes..."
B: "No!"
A: "Also, before doing that, she stole the box with the golden lock, the one that has all your important secrets."
B: "Even more 'noooo'! But where is she now?"
A: "I see her run away from the house in madness, in the direction of the Bastille. She stops a passerby and asks for the adress of the lieutenant of police, M. Sartines."
B: "And then?"
A: "Then she checks out at a boulangerie, orders a croissant with almonds and a large hot chocolate, and starts reading Paris Match."
B: "Oh. I wouldn't have expected that. I suppose I have plenty of time, then."
A: "No! Wrong vision! She's still running towards the Police! You must stop her before she exposes you!"
Balsamo roars and spurs his brave, recovered horse Djerid, and instantly beast and rider are flying off like missiles to try and intercept Lorenza.
If only he hadn't forgotten to bring Andree out of "magnetic sleep."
A: "Hmmm. Hellooooo. Still in a trance here. Balsamo? Little help? Anyone?"

Mary Roach's "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex"- and THE PILL

Man, I love a woman with balls!
Wait, wait.
I meant I love a woman full of intellectual curiosity willing to pursue unconventional venues of research with audacity. You know, someone who blinds me with science.



Mary Roach is such a woman. She asks the weirdest questions with disarming sweetness, and "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex," has her asking a LOT of weird questions, involving such delicate matters as penis transplants, panda sex, priapism, 17th century prostitutes, clitoral stimulation kits, men with extra scrotums, and the best way for pig breeders to inseminate sows:
You tickle the love button hidden deep within her yahoo, get on her back to imitate the weight of the boar, insert bags of pig-happiness into the entrance to her yahoo, then fondle her hoo-has gently. If you sense a deeper connection, rub her chin and behind her ears, eventually she has a whiz-bang and her yahoo sucks the pig-happiness out of the bags. It's something breeders have been doing for centuries. No, they don't like to talk about it, not even in euphemism. Yes, think of that the next time you're having a ham sandwich. Yes, aside from the human female, the female pig is the only other animal known to be aroused by the massaging of her mammaries.
Roach writes in a humorous, friendly, clean but frank mixture of PG-13 and NC-17 that makes it clear that when she picked up "Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid To Ask)" her first reaction was: "Afraid? Why would anyone be afraid?" Beneath all the stomach-churning tidbits about folks who love to have their urethras expanded, there's a serious intent in "Bonk": celebrating the scientists who dare to wonder even as the world vilifies them as perverts. Alfred Kinsey, Robert Latou Dickinson, and Masters and Johnson all get their due. Even better, without ranting or losing her older sister approachability, Roach makes it clear that prudishness, censorship, sexism, fanaticism and cowardice have kept us dangerously ignorant of the fundamentals of human life and happiness. (Yes, I'll get on the soapbox for her.)
Take "The Pill."



The problem with the Pill is pretty symptomatic of how little we know about sex, and how little we allow ourselves to know. The Pill causes female libido to plateau at a lower-than-natural levels. It raises your estrogen levels so you're perpetually out of the ovulation cycle, but it does so by putting testosterone out of commission, effectively killing your sex drive. (Understand: it doesn't affect your ability to enjoy sex, it affects your ability to SEEK OUT sex.) Alarmingly, the situation isn't reversed even AFTER you get off the pill. You're basically menopausal for good.
The little bugger has been around since the '60s and it's only in the last five years that studies about decreasing libido emerged. Why isn't this a more discussed issue, or listed as a side-effect?
The FDA doesn't care that much, for starters. Why? Because it's hard for a scientist to propose that artificially making women "less slutty" might be a medical problem. Why else? Most women don't notice. The liberation that being on the pill gives them balances out the lessened interest in sex (loosening up makes for BETTER sex, unsurprisingly). Most women who use the pill are already in relationships, or in circles where they receive frequent male attention. And few women would dare tell their doctor that they don't find themselves hunting after men the way they used to. Recall: a man's sexual conquests are viewed as the very essence of health and social status; a woman's interest in sex is still something to look at with disapproval.
Avoiding the conversation is not the answer.

I'll leave you with this sobering reminder: the penis of the 6 foot long, 250 lb adult male panda is about an inch and a half big. That's in its full blown glory.

Track down Mary's books "Stiff" and "Spook" (about death, and what happens- or doesn't happen- afterwards, respectively). She also has a new one out, "Packing for Mars," about life for the gravity-deprived.



---

This is my recent Google history. If someone found it I would probably be sent to sex rehab or something. The things I do for you, Dear Imaginary Reader!!!
""Mary Roach"- "Sexy Scientist"-"Stiff"- "Urethra Expansion"- "penis torturing tools"- "how to arouse female"- "how to arouse female pig"-"how to fondle female pig breasts"-"birth control"- "low libido"- "Panda Penis."

Guy Maddin's "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I said before that the wonder of ballet eludes me, except as an outlet for anorexia: if you're going to weigh 20 lbs, you might as well get some art out of it. The exception that proves the rule (or my ignorance) would be Tchaikovsky's music- and even there, it's the MUSIC I'm reacting to.
I don't believe that Guy Maddin understands ballet much better than I do. "Dracula: The Pages of a Virgin Diary" is a relatively faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. You won't mind that Dracula is a Chinese ballet dude; this is not the queue for realism. The problem is that while "Dracula" triumphs as a recreation of a silent horror movie, it does not translate as the choreographed vision of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.



Maddin lets us see very little dancing here, because he's not that interested in how people move within a shot: he's interested in how shots move in relation to each other. Frequent close-ups and jumps and cuts and reaction shots and visual stutters make it impossible for us to place the characters as graceful dancers, instead of actors moving awkwardly within their frames. Dance is best viewed in a wide shot, with motions expressed in their entirety from beginning to end- or else in an intimate kinetic way that puts us right there with the dancer. Most other approaches just result in folks spazzing while the camera is busy thinking about something else.
The "Dracula" ballet is "set" to borrowed music from Mahler's Symphonies- but it could have been Beethoven or Cee-Lo for all the difference it makes. But then I feel like most ballets treat music as incidental, there to reassure us we're not watching a humorless mime show. (I may be plain ignorant, I admit.) And the fact that "Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary" isn't fully a ballet might be the reason why I wasn't throwing holy water at the screen. I enjoyed it as a quirky addition to the "Dracula" mythos, and specifically as a winking-but-reverent homage to F. W. Murnau's "Nosferatu." It smells of garlic and blasphemy to say that Guy Maddin is making some of the best silent movies of all time, but consider that the great silent film-makers were NOT making campy, scratchy, hysterically-stylized movies: they were really working with the best technology at their disposition, making the best movies they knew how to make. Maddin is LIMITING himself to achieve the same results- (no, honestly, more entertaining results). He's playing basketball with one hand tied behind his back, and still dunks with the best.
Or... dancing ballet with one leg sawed off? Is that the right metaphor?

John Ford's "Fort Apache"

ABOVE: OH YEAH BABY. And we MEAN "baby."

Shirley Temple was the curly-haired, skirt-lifting temptress whose lollipop-licking ways aroused Americans right out of the Depression; but by the time she starred in John Ford's "Fort Apache," audiences were turned off by the unsightly onset of adulthood- and by breasts that could no longer be ignored. Temple did all she could, what with enunciating like an infant and making constant moues, but the thrill was gone.


ABOVE: Eeeew. Pubescent!

Shirley plays the patriotically-named Philadelphia, the daughter of joyless martinet Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda). Thursday has been put in charge of Fort Apache. Hint to Fort makers: Don't name your fort after the dreaded Apaches. It's inviting trouble, like calling a motel "The Serial Killer Inn." Soon enough the Apaches attempt a raid undistinguishable from the one in "Stagecoach" and it's up to John Wayne to calm down the great warriors Cochise and Geronimo, (which he does with an unthinkable amount of respect, even referring to Cochise as a "good, decent man"...and he doesn't even add "for an Injun!"
"Fort Apache" offers slapstick, drunk jokes, and bitter tragedy, but what makes it great is how it understands the lies that turn soldiers into heroes. Thursday's martial pride overtakes his common sense and causes unnecessary deaths, but no one will admit the fighting was worthless, for the sake of the fallen.

But back to what we all came here for: Shirley Temple demonstrating her technique!


ABOVE: You like them big, don't you?

Guy Maddin's "Careful," "Twilight of the Ice Nymphs" and "The Heart of the World"

Guy Maddin's work in "Careful" and "Twilight of the Ice Nymphs" is entrancing, unique, and I have no idea why I hadn't caught up with his movies. (I'm on my way to remedy that.) Maddin is a film nut, a fetishist of the past, drawing from early world cinema, especifically expressionism, but not in vulgar imitation. You can sense the excitement of someone who's discovering how to make dreams visible, if not necessarily understood.



"The Heart of the World," a short, densely packed homage to silent Russian cinema, is clearly one of the best short films you'll ever see.

Alan J. Pakula's "Presumed Innocent"

I once had the pleasure to hear Scott Turow talk against the death penalty with an unemotional appeal to logic. He's not primarily a writer; he's an ethical thinker and a lawyer who happens to write very well. His novel "Presumed Innocent" is often credited with kick-starting the legal thriller genre that dominated best-seller lists in the '90s, but his relatively small output kept him a second runner to John Grisham. (Turow, who still practices law even though he doesn't have to, typically takes 3 years between novels.)



Alan J. Pakula's very good 1990 adaptation of "Presumed Innocent" stars Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich, a criminal prosecutor who finds himself accused of the murder of a HAWT colleague played by Greta Scacchi. The movie also stars Raul Julia as a commanding defense attorney; a very good Bonnie Bedelia as Rusty's loyal wife; Brian Dennehy as a fat rich white guy; and no less than three eventual cast members of "The West Wing." As a whodunit, "Presumed Innocent" sacrifices believability for surprise, but it's the little human flaws in the characters that make this an outstanding courtroom drama. These people are self-interested, corrupt, mistake-prone. Ford's character in particular has so many moral lapses he could easily have become unsympathetic: He cheats on his loving wife, goes all stalkerish when THAT doesn't work out, and his treatment of evidence borders on obstruction of justice.
But it's Harrison Freakin' Ford- Han Solo AND Indiana Jones AND Jack Ryan- so we forgive his extra-marital trespasses. Besides, who among us would resist a full on assault from a sex machine like Greta Scacchi?



No, no, wrong picture. This is what I meant:



GOLLY, AGING SUCKS!

"A Bit of Fry and Laurie" Series 1

Most of us feeble Americans knows Hugh Laurie better as Doctor House in the eponymous show. Heavily indebted to "Monty Python," "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" is a 4th-wall breaking show: (A lot of "We couldn't figure out a good way to finish the sketch, but help us out!!!") They're brilliant and funny and all.. but this is decidedly a small show starring big talents.

John Ford's "The Searchers"

If "Stagecoach" is a picture of America pulling together, "The Searchers" is a picture of America falling apart. This movie is all about prescience. Let me put it this way: After a violent terrorist act, a racist war-mongering cowboy goes on a years-long, single-minded quest that turns bloody, isolates him from his allies, and pushes him to madness: all to liberate someone who doesn't even want to be liberated.



John Wayne is Ethan Edwards (Uncle Ethan to some), a bitter, utterly anti-heroic Confederate soldier whose family is annihilated by a Comanche raid. The Comanches also kidnap his niece, Debbie (who will be eventually played by Natalie Wood). His neighbors rally around him- there is no question that the Comanches have done something terrible, and need to be punished- but Ethan alienates them all with his blood-thirsty disregard for a plan or logic or safety. Only his adopted nephew remains loyal: a sweet young man whom Ethan won't acknowledge as "kin" because he has some Cherokee blood in him.
Except the young man is only following Ethan because he doesn't trust the searcher (the extra "s" in the title is plenty ironic). As a matter of fact, he's pretty sure that Ethan isn't out to rescue anyone. He's out to KILL the girl for having let herself be "tainted" by Injuns.



This must be stressed: Ethan isn't a lovable curmudgeon transformed by our revisionist eyes. Ford and Wayne are fully aware of the man's racism, his inability to let friends and family in, his willingness to spill into violence. The portrait of the Indians is regrettable as any in a pre-60s Western, but less than some: they have an actual culture, for starters, and the only honest-to-God "good guy" in the movie is half-Cherokee. As the mad search progresses, ever bloodier and more hopeless, Ethan arrives at the unthinkable decision of making his will out to this half-blood companion.
That's his only friend, after all.
In a weird way, (and most things about "The Searchers" are a little weird), this is a story about a man who's propelled to kill by his racism and learns to GET OVER IT. Until the moment when the Stockholm Syndrome girl played by Natalie Wood sinks into her uncle's arms we're not sure if Ethan is going to kill, rape, or rescue her. (If you watch the trailer, there's an intimation that Natalie Wood is Wayne's love interest- you wouldn't know better from this shot.)



"Let's go home, Debbie," is one of cinema's classic lines, because it is one of relief, a pointing to a happy ending.
It's also a lie.
There IS no home for Debbie to return to. She's foster-family material at that point. In one of the deepers variations of "riding into the sunset", there is no home for Ethan either. He walks up to the threshold of a house, guides Debbie in... but he's not going inside. He's a cowboy vampire, uninvited. He understands that, it's the price for what he's done. The door closes on his face.



Unlike "Stagecoach," "The Searchers" remains gorgeous to look at, with its panoramic expanses. It's a fun movie, for all of its darkness, and if you watch one classic Western in your life, I don't know any other I could better recommend. GO WATCH NOW!

The Top 10 "Spongebob Squarepants" Lines That Are Perfectly Innocent but Sound Incredibly Filthy Out of Context.

10- "I don't want to spend my whole life with nuts in in my mouth!"



9- "You can't help but be wet all the time, can you?"
8- "I suppose Squiward is in his room, playing with his clarinet as usual."



7- "It smelled so fishy it reminded me of Grandma!"
6- "It may be crusty and full of crabs, but I can't wait to get in there!"



5- "Once we had all the jelly we needed, it was easy to slip into the clam."
4- "So NOW I know why they call you Mrs. Puff!"



3- "Patrick, if you don't reach in deeper, you can't get the chocolate!"
2- "Once you spread your sauce between the buns, you're done."



And #1:
"Spongebob, nobody wants to see you engorge yourself!"

Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me"

The main character in Almodovar's "Broken Embraces" calls himself Harry Cain, a noir monicker that clearly alludes to James M. Cain. Cain is the quintessential noir story teller: if you've ever watched a movie where a sultry woman seduces a man into a simple money-making scheme that goes awry, you can thank Cain.
Or "blame," depending on the movie. I'll go with blame in the case of Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me," a charmless, unpleasant adaptation of the 1952 novel by Jim Thompson. (Thompson was a crazier Cain, a writer whose pulp fiction is distiguished by a joyful derangement, if my reading of "The Grifters" is representative.)



The screen adaptation is true to Thompson's trademark violence, but miscast beyond hope. Casey Affleck was clearly chosen to play the affable deputy/sadist killer because of his throat-scraping, inoffensive voice. It doesn't work. Kate Hudson was clearly chosen to play the deputy's ingenue of a girlfriend because someone thought she was still as young as in "Almost Famous." It doesn't work. Jessica Alba was clearly chosen to play a tough-living prostitute because of her sweet hotness. It REALLY doesn't work. (One can't help but think the movie would have improved a solid 20% if Hudson and Alba had switched roles.)
The character actors are wasted when they're not distracting, most noticeably a very-late-arriving Bill Pullman. The mystery aspect of "The Killer Inside Me" is risible, with nonsensical contrivances and an ending so egregious it's almost worth turning it into a You Tube video.



I hate to use the word "misogyny." It's a meaningless, bitter term that gets handed out to pretty much anyone who's ever owned a penis. It's complete bullshit- about 80% of the time. When it's on target, though, it's sickening, as it's the protracted glee with which the Affleck character punches women's faces into deformity. There's no need to confuse what a movie shows with what a movie means: Winterbottom's hardly arguing women should be brutalized, only showing that this one crazy guy does it. But the lingering, sexualized shots of Alba's spanked ass; the women's general reactions to the beatings ("Please sir can I have some more"); the way in which nothing equivalent happens to the dead male characters... all these are problematic.
Think "American Psycho" without wit or relevance. Or better yet, don't think about it too much.


ABOVE: Cry all you want! Now you know how I felt when I watched "The Love Guru"!

Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces"

How does the Almodovar story go?
You've got the frantic, campy, transgressive black comedies from the "Movida Madrilena," (the coke-fueled, revitalizing pop-punk movement that also gave birth to Mecano.) "Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" is the culmination.



Then there's the sex movies of the '90s (one third comedy, one third melodrama, one third thriller). Most of them had a fake sheen of maturity, like Almodovar was a little embarrassed by humor, but equally reluctant to turn out some stodgy French movie. It was a transitional period but at that time felt like an effective plateau, recycling tales of S&M romance and high heeled trannies ("Live Flesh" is the highlight.)



Suddenly came his two-punch masterpieces at the turn of the century: "All About My Mother" and "Talk to Her." It's possible I love them so much because their success coincided with my college years, when I became greedily interested in the classics of world cinema, to the neglect of actual coursework: I watched more and better movies between 1999 and 2003 than before or since. Case in point: after watching "ABMM" premiere at the Miami Film Festival, I must have gone through a dozen Almodovar flicks in less than two months- a nerdy feat considering there was no Netflix at that time, and I certainly was not going to find "The Law of Desire" at Blockbuster, and I had to travel to a hole-in-the-wall specialty store that LITERALLY had holes in its walls. But it was worthy because this wasn't Hitchcock or John Ford or Truffaut, some dead guy to feel nostalgic about: Almodovar was irrepressible ALIVE and turning out memorable movies and visibly getting BETTER and you could wait to experience NEW movies from him. Also- unlike Bergman or Fassbinder or Fellini- you could safely take girls out on dates to see an Almodovar movie because they looked like soap operas and were enjoyable as such.



But- and I say this as a fan- Almodovar has hit another plateau. His last three movies, "Bad Education," "Volver," and now "Broken Embraces"- while certainly not bad- have been at the same pitch. There's no progression, no sense that Almodovar has let inspiration stir his worldview. Sure, they're colorful, (he knows color better than pretty much any director not working on a cartoon movie), but they ramble structurally and end up being a little boring. Rambling has always been an Almodovar thing, but it worked before when he was doing it in a crazy field all his own, not in genre movies. It's not that I miss crazy young days (typical characters: transgendered nun on heroin! Gay Muslim terrorist! Housewife who only gets off when punched by bald men!), but I have been underwhelmed by these last three movies and their tastefulness. They're thrillers that don't work because they are not about actual thrills, but about the recreation of other thrillers.



"Broken Embraces" is a good Almodovar movie, but not a great one. A lot of it relies on Penelope Cruz to save the day, just as she did in "Volver," (or "Vicky Christina Barcelona" for that matter). When she's not on screen the movie whimpers and dies. (If you like Cruz, as I do, she has some pretty hot nekkid scenes worth seeking out. If you DON'T like her, she gets pushed down a flight of stairs. Really, there's something for everyone.)

---

One moment in "Broken Embraces" signals Almodovar's current disconnect from the muse of the world. It's a collaborative writing scene between two men, one of them allegedly a GOOD writer. This moment is supposed to be a positive EXPLOSION of creativity, but it feels like a conversation between two 8 year olds. It goes more or less like this:

WRITER 1: "We should write a thriller!"
WRITER 2: "Ok, like what?"
WRITER 1: "This might sound a little extreme, but what if we write a story about vampires?"
WRITER 2: "Vampires, you say? Night creatures that suck blood? Like Dracula? That's a little odd, isn't it? "
WRITER 1: "Yes, but- this is going to blow your mind- what if they're MODERN DAY VAMPIRES?"
WRITER 2: "Whatever could you MEAN? In this day and age?"
WRITER 1: "Yes, and maybe they, like, work at a BLOOD BANK!"
WRITER 2: "You're brilliant! This is going to be a hit movie!"
WRITER 1: "Awww, do you really think so?"
WRITER 2: "It is the most original idea I've ever heard. And such potentials for metaphor! I can NOT wait. Probably Steven Spielberg will want to direct it. Vampires... Who would have thought of that?!?"

UGH. Clearly Almodovar heard an underling mention "New Moon" and how the kids were going crazy about it, felt he should throw a condescending bone at pop culture. Someone better FedEx him some "True Blood" DVDs soon.

THE SUPER ABRIDGED MARIE ANTOINETTE SAGA- Part 2: JOSEPH BALSAMO. RECAP UP TO CHAPTER 118

It's the early 1770s, and we've met a Joseph Balsamo- a.k.a. The Count of Fenix (Johnny Depp), a magnetic, mysterious man who claims to have lived for centuries and who travels along with his ancient wizardly mentor, Althotas (Richard Harris), in search of the ELIXIR OF LIFE, not to mention a New World Order. Joseph is cool and seductive and leads a powerful cult, but he's still got problems of his own: his beloved Italian wife, Lorenza Feliciani (Monica Bellucci). She's an astral-projecting medium who hates his guts when awake- and adores him while sleep-walking- and just tried to stab him.
We've also met a young Dauphiness with the unpromising name of Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) who's settling in the court of King Louis XV (Robert de Niro) after marrying the walking ineffectiveness that is the Dauphin, soon-to-be Louis XVI, (Jason Schwartzman). Marie Antoinette quickly finds herself in a gossipy feud with Louis' mistress, the wily Countess Dubarry (Anne Hathaway), who is aided in her endless machinations by her siblings Jean and Chon (Gerard Depardieu and Evangeline Lilly), as well as the Marshal Duke de Richelieu (Jack Nicholson). The Countess Dubarry has a romantic threat in one of Marie Antoinette's young companions, the beautiful but haughty Mademoiselle Andree de Taverney (Keira Knightley). The horny old king has taken a shine to Andree, and is using Richelieu (with help from the pretty waiting maid, Nicole Legay) to, it appears, drop a roofie on Andree's drink, and enter her bedroom.
Gilbert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the young philosopher who's been repeatedly humiliated by Andree, is running to save her from her fate.
Or slap her, it's hard to tell at this point.

CRITERION: John Ford's "Stagecoach"

"I was a good cowhand. Then things happened."
John Wayne as Ringo the Kid in 1939's "Stagecoach."



Things have happened to the characters in John Ford's first great Western. They're desperate people traveling through a desperate landscape, waiting for Geronimo's dreaded Apaches to assault their frail stagecoach, but driven on by their secrets and mistakes. Among the passengers: a pregnant woman hoping to find the father of her child; an alcoholic doctor who has drunk his way out of a reputation; a meek whiskey salesman whom everyone mistakes for a clergyman; a Southern gambler with a treacherously thin mustache who may- or may not- have killed somebody; a hooker with a heart of gold who's been expelled from town by the hatefully pious; John Wayne as a wanted, honorable outlaw; and a respectable, arrogant banker who is quite possibly the worst criminal of them all.
It's the motley American microcosm you've seen in hundreds of movies, people with nothing in common except their distrust for each other, who are forced by circumstances to look past their differences and become something bigger and better together etc etc. "Stagecoach" has the blueprint, though. These could be stereotypes, but they're not. I submit that the real difference between a stereotype and an archetype is that stereotypes leave us unmoved, while archetypes involve us at a primal level, and "Stagecoach" is an involving movie.
It's partly the great set of character actors, (particularly Thomas Mitchell, who won an Oscar for his boozehound doc.) It's partly Ford's deft direction, the way he alternates between the Monument Valley exteriors and the confines of the coach, between character moments and action scenes that remain reasonably rousing.
A lot of it is John Wayne in his first major role, and his first collision with Ford. The director was clearly aware that something very special was happening: When Ringo the Kid makes his classic entrance, the camera alarmingly zooms in on his face, goes into a woozy soft-focus, as though it was about to FAINT with excitement, and then Ford practically stops time so we can worship Wayne.
None of the other caracters get THAT kind of treatment.





"Stagecoach" is flawed, though: by the technical limitations of its time, and by a long, unnecessary epilogue that breaks with the plot's ensemble aesthetic, (this might as well be called "Stagecoach... And Other Less Interesting Things That Happened Afterwards.")
Also, you know, there's the whole nameless-Injun-killing thing. A little hard to take for the modern viewer, how no one stops to think that maybe the Apaches have a pretty compelling reason for being pissed at the INVADING, LAND-RAPING WHITE GUYS. It's what you get in a Western, of course, but elsewhere Ford would show a more ambivalent awareness.
I'm thinking of "The Searchers," which I just re-watched as well. More on that soon.