So, So Effing Hot

Brian, last night I had this crazy dream where I was eating a sheep and now my pillow's gone... Oh wait, here it is. What the hell was I eating?



















Bloody hell - it's so effing hot! Argh! Even at night. And when it's cloudy. And in the refridgerator (don't ask). Yesterday they played a great old Simpsons episode where Lisa cheats on a test. Why is this show not as brilliant as it used to be anymore? Argh! Family Guy and South Park have left it in the dust. Argh!

Anyways, I feel too lethargic to write much. I saw two films I shall now not analyse. Rocky gets a B. Highlight: Finding out that Sylvester Stallone could once act, and could once write. What happened? The ending is awesome. Yay.

Yesterday I saw Three Kings. This is by the guy who made I (Heart) Huckabees. Very entertaining movie. A bit too Hollywood at the end, but as this movie features Ice Cube pulling a Stallone and acting well (omfg), Cliff Curtis as an Iraqi rebel (hehe), and acclaimed director Spike Jonze as a US solider and the fourth biggest character (OMFGWTF?) it gets a B+.

I obviously recommend both films.

I also watched the latest mindblowing extravaganza from the mind of visionery auteur Dennis Liu, and am still pondering its meaning. I shall elaborate in my "The Films Of Dennis Liu" feature some time this week, though I must say well done, good sir. Top notch camerawork and editing as always, the music works so bloody well and I just wish I could unlock this complex-yet-simple short's hidden secrets sooner than I thus far have. I have a theory involving a talking giant cookie and rice paper, but I shall not say more until this is fleshed out in my mind and supported by evidence.

For those yet to see his latest movie, here's an unauthorised still frame to whet your appetite:



















What does it all mean? Possibly, as Leonard F Wheat suggests, that the overman will triumph over HAL, and that (as this image suggests) the overman is moronic. Doesn't say much for regular man. Liu's film must therefore be critical of humanity, and pro-rice-paper-wrapped-cookies. Yes.... the theory is coming together...

"I'm gonna 'ave a butcher's 'round the house."

The Limey
Steven Soderbergh seems to gain more of my respect with every feature of his I see (excluding Ocean's Twelve). First of all let me just say this: I'm a huge fan of extremely long "epic" movies done well, and as such The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now Redux, Das Boot and Lawrence Of Arabia rank among my favourite films. I'm rarely as impressed by 90-minute short-features because there are so few which can, in this limited running time, achieve the same heights without extra time for development of plot, character etc. to successfully develop its themes to the depth of a not-drawn-out 3-hour film. That doesn't mean it can't happen. Reservoir Dogs in my opinion does more in its 90 minutes than any other 90 minute film I've seen and I believe it to be a superb movie. On the other hand, films like Run Lola Run and Punch Drunk Love, while excellent in their own right, don't really leave me with enough to take away from them to consider them to be "great."

The Limey is a film which I could praise extensively if I was so inclined to sit here and do so, but at the end of the day for all of its individual achievements (including one of the most brilliant opening 15-minutes of any movie ever) it is quite limited as to what it achieves as a whole. It's essentially an intriguing but brief glimpse into the world the film creates, a fleeting glance at the lead character in a small chunk of his life from the start to the finish of his attempts to take revenge against the man he believes is responsible for his daughter's death. The plot is extremely simple. The guy he's after is guilty. The protagonist tries to track him down. Does so then decides he won't kill the guy unless that guy knows why he is being killed. Stuff happens. This stuff is paced amazingly well, following a "rhythm" (constructed primarily of course through its use of music and editing) which is perhaps more natural than that of any film I've seen these last few months. In fact, I encourage Simon, Dennis, Sonny and anyone else reading this who may want to be a filmmaker to see this film for it's editing style if nothing else: a very unique approach which in some ways can be seen to have spawned that used in Traffic (though with a more radical, less mainstream approach in The Limey) which sees moments of past, present and future cut into the middle of scenes as though the film is a memory within a restless mind, looking at where something will eventually lead, how something links to something else, a moment of a conversation similar to another, or simply a moment of pause where a character's face says something on it's own while the dialogue continues in the soundtrack. All in all this movie is a really good for what it is, and it's certainly immensely entertaining and well-written. But it's not exactly very ambitious and like many 90-minute films I guess that's where it falls short in my eyes, probably because of what I personally look to take out of a film.

Overall I'd rank it like this amongst Soderbergh's other works that I've seen:
Traffic B+ (4/5)
Ocean's Eleven B+ (4/5)
The Limey B (3.5/5)
Erin Brockovich B- (3/5)
Solaris C+ (3/5)
Oceans' Twelve D- (0.5/5)

This is a VERY STRONG "B" to the extent that a second viewing could push it into "B+" territory. Anyways, according to IMDB this is the weakest of the five movies I rented (7.1/10) so if I enjoy the other four more I'll be a very happy lad by the end of the week.

Same Old Shit

More DVDs Reviewed
Yeah, all I talk about on here is movies, but so what? If you don't like it stop reading the blog because there's a whole lot more to come in future, I can assure you.

Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith
Finally watched my DVD copy of this awesome prequel-series-finisher the other day. I'd already seen it five times in theatres, including four times on the IMAX Mega-Screen (figured I'd make the most of my last chance to see a Star Wars movie in theatres before Lucas and Jim Cameron make them all 3D). In fact, on the second day it was out I saw it on both of two consecutive sessions (12:30 then 3:30) having already seen it once the previous day. Was I perhaps hopelessly caught in the clutches of oh-my-god-this-one-doesn't-actually-suck fever? Probably. But after the mediocrity of Episodes I and II, Sith was an extremely pleasent surprise worth making the most of. That's not to say it's perfect. I think the story overall is told very well, we see what we always wanted to (Anakin becomes Vader) and we can now begin to understand the reasons for his transformation and perhaps even view the Vader of the original trilogy in a new light.

Having said that, there are little bits and pieces that don't quite add up. In particular, Anakin's reasoning seems inconsistent at times, for example discovering that Sidious is in fact a Sith seems to convince him at that point in time that the Jedi were right and that Sidious was lying about the Jedi plans to overthrow the senate etc. to the extent that he dobs Sidious in to Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson. When he agrees to work with Sidious little has changed to alter this way of thinking and he appears to join him solely for the purpose of saving Padme's life - yet later in the film believes the "Jedi are evil" again. I can understand the following: Working with Sidious as a way of saving Padme, his being partially motivated by his obvious desire for power, and perhaps even to an extent his wanting to take revenge against the Jedi for their lack of faith in him because of the way his judgement is clouded by the dark side and his own anger. But, when he fights Obi-Wan, "the Jedi are evil." I can see where the point of his deciding the Jedi really were trying to get power supposedly happens, it's when Mace Windu is about to kill Sidious and Anakin says he must stand trial, but the thing is that Anakin doesn't say this because he thinks it's "right"and that the Jedi are evil for not agreeing as they must clearly want Sidious gone so they can control the senate, but rather he says it as a desperate way of stopping Windu from killing the one man who Anakin believes can save Padme. Rant over.

It doesn't really detract too much from the overall experience if you're willing to overlook it (which for me is a little difficult as it's quite central to Anakin's change) and ultimately when Padme is killed and he has nothing left but his lust for power it is at least convincing that he would go from there to be the Vader we have always known from the original trilogy. It's just that I believe the movie cheats a little to get there.

Overall, this gets a very strong B+ from me, or 4 out of 5. Really, really awesome in most ways, but still falls into a few of the traps of the previous two installments (ie. some of the hammy lines, the overly-serious theatre-like acting styles) and absolutely fails to capture the magic of the original trilogy as I discovered a day later re-watching Episode IV: A New Hope, which is just completely different in it's tone and narrative structure and, most importantly, has Han Solo. A New Hope incidentally gets an A- or 4.5 out of 5, not an "A" because (a) Empire Strikes Back is better and (b) the ending where they just get some medal when it's over is shit.

Cinderella Man
Saw this yesterday. If I had to choose between this and last year's best picture winner Million Dollar Baby (neither compares to the Martin Scorsese masterpiece Raging Bull) I think I'd give Cinderella Man the edge in a tight contest. This is a movie which doesn't really do anything too original and at times is a little OBVIOUS in the techniques used to portray whatever aspect they're highlighting, whether it be a scene, a flashback or an "Angle On." That said, as far as solid Hollywood Oscar-bait drama goes this is as solid as a rock, doing almost everything right while rarely being exceptional and ultimately making me give a damn about Jim Braddock and what he's essentially fighting for. The perfomances are very good all around (though neither Crowe nor Giamatti deserve the awards attention they've been getting - both have done better work) and it's an uplifting story made all-the-better for the fact that you watch it knowing that what you see really happened (within the confines of the events portrayed obviously, there'll be a fair degree of creative dramatisation on the part of the writers regarding how these events unfolded). I think it deserves a solid B+, or 4 out of 5.

Bubba Ho-Tep
A cult favourite presenting a scenario where JFK and Elvis are actually still alive and living in secret at a Texas resthome, this low-budget B-movie horror-comedy is absolutely worth seeing if you're a fan of the whole B-movie "genre." This movie thrives on the type of lines you don't need to be Shane Black to write, often funny but charming as part of the whole even when jokes fall flat just because the whole thing is in that "cheap movie" spirit. It's great fun watching JFK (who was "dyed black" and is portrayed by the late Ossie Davis) scooting around on a motorised wheelchair and Elvis - relying on a walking frame after one too many shakes of the hips took its toll - battle an evil mummy determined to suck the souls out of the asses of the rest home's elderly residents. The mummy's mere presence in the film is absurdly contrived and makes little sense - but that's perfectly in line with what you expect from this type of movie. I'll give it a strong C+ or 3 out of 5 for originality, and I recommend it if you want to try a different kind of movie. Very entertaining.

Video Ezy
Went there this morning to return Cinderella Man and Bubba Ho-Tep and rented:
Heat
Rocky
Three Kings
The Great Escape
The Limey
I've seen none of these before so this should be a fun week. Ciao.

IMDb Eats Brain Cells

For those of you unfamiliar with IMDb - or the Internet Movie Database as it's fondly known among those who despise acronymns - it's a handy site which you can use to look up information about films, mini-series, TV shows & video games and gauge what the overall general consensus regarding a particular film is simply by viewing a film's score out of ten (calculated according to public votes). However, the discussion boards at IMDb are likely to make you lose all faith in any hope of a bright future for humanity. It's as if everyone with an IQ lower than their age gave up trying to find the "Register" button at idiot-filtered discussion websites and ended up dwelling at the easy access boards at IMDb. I often browse these forums for a laugh at the end of a long day and today came across something rather humourous which pretty much proves my point about the high concentration of sheer stupidity over there. The original poster who began this particular thread, recognising like so many others before him the failure of IMDb morons to read a post as anything but serious, decided to provoke the typical IMDb backlash-response by posting absurd comments along the lines of confusing the upcoming Steve Carell movie adaptation of the TV show Get Smart with a prequel to John Travolta's Get Shorty and taking it to such an extent of errors that how anyone managed to read this as a serious comment is bewildering, and quite disturbing in fact. I mean, these same people are allowed to drive on our roads, share their opinions and hold a kitchen knife, all within the confines of the law. Anyways, as they say in comedy plot synopses (synopsii ? ), "hilarity ensues."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425061/board/nest/31454970

My favourite bit:
"If it was actually a joke, we could take it, unfortunately it was somebody being completely serious. "

Then there's the screencap I took a few months back when Sin City was first released in theatres in America (items of note marked in red). For added hilarity, check out the author of the second marked thread.

http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/5665/sincityimdb2nf.jpg

On an unrelated note, have any of you guys seen the Domino trailer? It's not as bad as the Apocalyptico one but it's still pretty fucking awful. "MY NAME IS DOMINO HARVEY (*echoes* Domino Harvey...domino harvey...) I AM A BOUNTY HUNTER" Urgh. In fact, seeing as I mentioned it, have any of you NOT seen the Apocalyptico trailer yet? YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS! MEL GIBSON HAS GONE INSANE! This must be the worst trailer I have ever seen. Ever. And I watch most trailers as soon as they get uploaded to the net. The trailer is here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/apocalypto/

If it doesn't work, try downloading a QuickTime update (if you are given this option) or if you have iTunes then try the iPod version. Once you get it, if you pause it near the beginning of the smash-cut montage at the end of the trailer you may spot a Gibson cameo (note it is in fact Gibson and not Saddam Hussein) in which he confirms my suspicions of his insanity.














(More info at http://cinemablend.com/new.php?id=1949)

The Dominion Post Can Go To Hell

So desperate is Vincent Ward to dodge the bad buzz surrounding his latest film, the stinker River Queen, that an advertisement has been taken out in the latest Weekend Herald which prints the entirety of The Dominion Post's glowing 4.5 our of 5 review as a counter measure to the Herald's (surprisingly) much more accurate 2 out of 5 score. There is a part of this Post review which compares River Queen to, amongst other things, Apocalypse Now. Let me say this again. River Queen is being favourably compared to Apocalypse Now by a person whose opinion on such matters earns him a salary. If it turns out that the review was posted in some joke-section of the paper then all will be forgiven, but otherwise I'll be turning a blind eye to any Dominion Post reviews, grades & opinions in future and I can justify this further as a seperate quote appears on the ad from another journalist from the same paper who exclaims that it's "one of the 10 best New Zealand movies of the past 10 years!" or something along those lines. Off the top of my head I could name Whale Rider & The World's Fastest Indian as being better and that took 2 seconds. At that rate, extended over an hour of brainstorming, I could theoretically name 3,600 kiwi films which are better than River Queen. Hell, why don't we all just direct our own better-than-River-Queen NZ-made film right now. It's so easy, anyone can join in on the fun. It works like this: Turn on a video camera. Point it at something. Mission complete.

Above: Dominion Post employees graze near New Plymouth (Reuters)

The Pile

Prologue
I had something to say and forgot it, so I'll just be unimaginative and ramble on about how my writing is going. Firstly, I was flicking through a pile of stuff I wrote last year regarding film ideas that at one stage I thought I'd lost, but what I discoved - much to my surprise - was that while some was really quite awful, other notes & script pages in the pile actually made me go: wow, this isn't that bad at all. It's always good to leave writing for a while and then come back to it as it means you're less familiar with the work when assessing it, whereas trying to judge if something is good or bad the day after finishing a week's worth of writing on it makes it rather hard as you skip over certain poorly-written things that you take for granted, and on the other end of the quality spectrum you often fail to realise the freshness and originality of really good ideas because you've re-read the damn thing too often too recently for anything special to jump out at you.

The Saga Continues
So what I have discovered is that I have an entirely filmable 2-pages-of-refill script that's ready to shoot if I can find 3 willing actors, and this particular script was forgotten about after being written entirely and without revisions during a 15 minute spell of some class early last semester when I clearly wasn't paying attention to the lecturer. I'm glad (and amazed) that it didn't get thrown out between now and then and actually made it into the "pile", and having read over it I can see now that while it's a completely pointless short which is probably more weird than actually humourous, I think I want to make it anyway just because I can (logistically) and I want the practice. So yeah...if you want to act in it, let me know and I'll explain what it's about (ie. very little).

Act III
Aside from that surprise discovery I re-read the material I wrote for my "Untitled Man-In-A Bear-Suit Project" which is, as you may have gathered, about a guy in a bear costume (who thinks he's a bear). Anyways, the part of the script I bothered to write last year is pretty good (maybe 10 pages worth I guess), and as this film is essentially a "sequel" of sorts to the one I'm writing at the moment I can essentially get back to it once I finish my current script with the confidence of knowing that even if I screw up the rest of it, it can't possibly ALL suck.




















Everything That Has A Beginning Has An End
So that brings me to my current "Untitled Romantic Idealist Filmmaker Project" which currently consists of about 34 pages which range from "WTF?" to "Meh" to "Possibly Good But Hard For Me To Judge". I guess I can't really comment on the quality because, as I said before, it's difficult when you're still currently working on something to distance yourself from it and give it an unbiased and unclouded judgement. Not to worry, once a certain person finishes a certain project that certain person (assuming they haven't forgotten) is going to give me some feedback on the first 10 or so of those pages (ie. the ones that open the film and thus don't need the entire screenplay's context for a judgement of quality), and based on that feedback (in other words: if it doesn't get ripped to shreds - which I don't mind of course, honesty is all I ask for) I may ask for feedback from a couple of other people to get a wider perspective on where I can improve. I just figure at this stage that if it isn't that good I'd be better to try to improve it before getting more feedback from a wider scope of people. That and it's less embarrassing if less people know it sucks.

Dances With Maoris

River Queen Sucks Ass
At the end of Vincent Ward's latest movie, we see Samantha Morton standing on the shore ripping pages from her journal and tossing them into the sea. Why oh why couldn't they have taken a hint from this idea and done the same with this movie's screenplay? River Queen ranges from passable to awful, building from a bad start to reach of a point of acceptable quality shortly after the half-way mark and maintaining this until its laughable final climax. I considered leaving on two seperate occasions: the first when I finished the lunch I'd brought with me as the set-up was pathetic and I saw little to stay for, and the second time was when it reached the point of having indulged in one too many natives-on-screen cliches when "voices on the wind" alerted Cliff Curtis to his son's death a mile or so away as if he had somehow used his mana to sense a disturbance in the force. Here is a list of things this movie could have done to not be so sucky:
1. Hire Tony Scott
It has been well documented in the New Zealand media that director Vincent Ward was "removed" from the director's chair at the request of anxious investors due to problems on set and the fact that production was running way over schedule. As far as I'm concerned, they should have removed him earlier. A good place would have been after the opening credits sequence. At times this film is handled with apparent incompetence by those involved, particularly the opening set-up which has to be the single laziest I have ever seen and includes one of those POV stalker-guy shots of a kidnapper watching Morton's character playing with her son; you know, the shot that's been a cliche since the beginning of seventies horror? In addition, Ward's montage sequences are amateurish and achieve nothing, and there is an unforgivable "no shit" moment in which a flashback of Morton with her now-deceased former lover (the father of her child) is played for the 3rd time in the movie to drill in a point regarding what is unfolding between Morton and Cliff Curtis's character which is already as obvious as Ward jumping into frame and shouting an explanation to the audience in case they didn't quite understand the basic human body language involved. Movies like this piss me off to no end. So if Ward's out, bring Tony Scott in. I mean, if the material sucks anyway you may as well make it visually interesting. With Scott at the helm we'd get a 376-different-angle quick-cut montage set to rock music as the waka makes its way up river, rather than the uninspired, lifeless cinematography and over-used pipe-whistle / rattlesnake tail "music" we are instead landed with. What this cliche-ridden movie desperately needed was something fresh, and Tony Scott could make Battleship Potemkin exciting.
2. Replace the Maoris with Wookies
This would have eliminated Temuera Morrison from the cast, and thus we would not have to see his naked ass twice in one minute when he goes for a paddle in the river. Secondly, this movie portrays the Maori at times as having some sort of supernatural-ness to them, a mistake typically made in otherwise "realistic" Hollywood productions when dealing with certain "obscure" foreign cultures, with Temuera Morrison having a recurring dream which tells him what must be done, and with (as I said before) Morrison and Curtis inexplicably feeling the death of Curtis's son. I found this all to be quite shit myself, and Wookies are cool so I'd put them in instead as it worked well in Revenge Of The Sith.
3. Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer
The movie critics at the NZ Herald may have bad taste but they got one thing right in identifying Kiefer Sutherland's accent as being that not of an Irish solider but of a pirate. As this film needed some life, they should have gone either of two ways. 1: Sutherland was therefore obviously hinting that he felt the movie needed a pirate during the filming of his scenes, and as such Vincent Ward should have listened and re-written his role as (if not the whole film about) Captain Sutherland. Captain Sutherland would wear an eyepatch but his good eye would have the sight of an eagle, and he would pierce his enemies right through one side of their throats and out the other with his hook. What's more, if Captain Sutherland was moved up to top billing and made the lead character he could have been chasing after Maori gold, setting up for some good old-fashioned swashbuckling fun, adding some much needed swordplay which director Tony Scott would no doubt shoot and edit awesomely. The other way they could have gone was this: if Kiefer Sutherland happens to be a method actor and starts plundering the crew's supplies between takes in the character of Captain Sutherland, they should have just allowed him to do what he does best and play Jack Bauer. Jack would have gotten Samantha Morton's kid back AND saved the world within 24 hours. If they really want to stick with that cultural identification theme maybe Bauer could join the Wookies, then together they could battle Irish droids in a scene set to rock music and featuring 1,684 cuts per minute. Now THAT'S a movie! Tony Scott should have skipped Domino and just made that. Plus then Mickey Rourke would have had an opening in his schedule (as he would no longer be doing Domino for those who need a Vincent Ward-esqe OBVIOUS clarification) and he could have appeared as Bauer's arch-nemesis. I'm so pitching this to Hollywood.
4. Feed The Movie To Vincent Ward
Okay, so if none of those options were available they should have just accepted defeat and tossed the script in the trash. But now that the thing's been made and all of those above scenarios are written in hindsight, they could at least take every print they've made, cook it, stir it in a pot, and feed every disgusting mouthful to Vincent Ward with the condition being that he isn't allowed to make another movie until he finishes the cauldron of River Queen stew. That way he'll think twice about wasting $20million that could have been spent on 5 Saw sequels or else used to buy drugs for the poor who not only need them more than the rest of us due to the need to escape from the complete and utter hopelessness of their worthless lives, but who otherwise have to steal to afford their fix. Hollywood investors just never think about needy homeless junkies, and the creation of River Queen has sadly had a harmful impact on both crime rates and cases of depression in poor socio-economic regions.
OVERALL
Skip River Queen. Watch Munich instead. Munich kicks ass. Spielberg is back to the Catch Me If You Can / Minority Report form of 2002 (in quality, not in style) and its amazing to think he only began shooting the thing around August LAST YEAR. 4 months before release! Damn him and his efficient awesomeness. So yeah, River Queen gets a D or 1/5, while Munich gets an A- or 4.5/5. I may elaborate on the latter at some other point in time, but not yet as I feel I need a second viewing to better articulate why I was so impressed.

Old People Are Cute, Annoying

The Set-Up
Hmm, low on time. Must do this briefly. Left home at 12:50pm local time. Weather was overcast, warm but not too warm with a cool breeze bringing about a good balance and making it a nice day for a walk. Arrived at the cinema at approximately 1305 hours. The lines were long but a third queue opened up and I was quick to pounce. You need speed in this game if you're going to survive. Bought a ticket. Handed over my Gold Card. She knew I meant business. I got my ticket and headed to Cinema 8. Nice place. A little crowded, not too noisy. The talk died down at the trailers started. Nothing special. Then the lights faded. Everything went quiet.
An Hour And A Half With Dick And Jane
Fun With Dick & Jane has been yet another $100million-dollar-grossing Jim Carrey comedy hit in the US despite poor reviews from critics. My opinion is that it's an average movie, the first half is a little subpar and feels padded at times but the second half (once Dick & Jane finally get on with stealing to put an end to their financial woes) is very entertaining and makes up for it. It's interesting to note that the entire film seems to be set in the year 2000 for the sole purpose of a single joke that closes the movie once the storyline has been resolved. Anyways, this movie is funnier for its physical comedy than anything else and credit for this, of course, goes to Jim Carrey who carries the whole movie on his shoulders. Tea Leoni's okay but doesn't have a lot to do. This gets a C or 2.5/5.
The Part Of The Blog Entry That Makes The Title Relevant
After that I saw Memoirs Of A Geisha. This is a movie which I believe is undeserving of the bashing it has received overseas from critics who are, as always, far too quick to compare the film to the book it is adapted from. That's the thing about "high profile" adaptations; I don't get why so many people seem determined to put so much emphasis in their judgment of the film version on how it does or does not carry over certain traits and/or the overall quality of the source material. A film is itself a single text which regardless of its origins should be judged based on its own merits. Sure a comparison may be interesting and shouldn't go unmentioned, but damning Memoirs for its failure to capture the subtleties of the characters in Arthur Golden's novel despite still representing these characters in a way which is regularly considered acceptable to most other films (ie. they are perhaps slightly simplistic but certainly adequate to carry the story) once again shows that critics rarely keep in mind their audiences - and as such their purpose for providing their critique - as a non-reader of the novel, as the majority of those seeing the film would be, would likely be satisifed with the characters on-screen. This is an interesting tale, well-acted, beautifully crafted and one which I highly recommend you check out in theatres. I mean, the score is really nice and this movie is so awesome just to look at that I'd recommend it even if they removed the dialogue. This gets a solid B, or 3.5/5, from me. Now, in case you're wondering, here's the bit about the old people. I sat behind three old women having a day out together, and it was quite humourous the way that they kept asking each other questions in order to collectively follow the film, and even more humourous the way the loudly discussed whether or not the man on screen was the same man from earlier (Ken Watanabe, and for the record it was in fact Watanabe both times). However, due to the fact that they were loud enough for me to understand what they were discussing (not absurdly loud but THAT loud, with me in the row behind them) did make their cute old-peopleness grow somewhat annoying after a while.

Constant Potato Gardener

Couch Potato
Last night on Tv1 they played a BBC docu-drama showcasing a "what if?" scenario regarding what would happen if Yellowstone blew its top in a "super-eruption." It was a solid two hours, both informative and entertaining with surprisingly decent CG effects used to show the eruptions etc. (given it was made for television). I now know that if it happened America would be fucked over, the world would be plunged into freezing temperatures and that the man responsible for tracking Yellowstone's volcanic activity will be caught in a moral dilemma, choke on ash, starve for a while, devise a plan for helping people and then get out alive. I forget how much of all that was fiction but it was made by British people and British people seem smart so I mindlessly accepted it all as fact. Also on TV was The Hulk, which I taped. I watched the first 20-25 minutes of it when I got up this morning and it was horrendous. I may have another go at watching it next time Ang Lee breaks into my house and holds me at gunpoint, which happens more often than you'd think.

By Request: Part One
Following David's suggestion I shall now count down my Top 10 Favourite Movies Of 2005, or at least half of them. Note that these are all 2005 US Calender releases (ie. those technically within 2005 Oscar guidelines) so films such as Million Dollar Baby, The Woodsman & Finding Neverland, while released in New Zealand in early 2005, do not count. Anyways, if you missed any of these movies last year, I recommend that you try to check them out when they're out on DVD. (Note: Audience scores sourced from IMDB weighted average scores, and Major Critics scores sourced from Rotten Tomatoes "Cream Of The Crop" average scores.)

10. The Constant Gardener
Fernando Meirelles' next project after City Of God saw him tackling a John le Carre novel involving international corruption amongst drug companies and the efforts of one man to track down the killers of his wife. As one movie fan commented, audiences may have been turned off by the title which suggested something along the lines of: "Now to figure out who killed my wife and put a stop to all this corruption...but...must...keep...gardening," with the film failing to break-out as a mainstream success like it should have done. Rachel Weisz recently picked up the Supporting Actress prize at the Golden Globes for her role and while I was somewhat surprised by that decision both she and Ralph Fiennes are certainly very good in their roles (I was more impressed with Fiennes myself).This movie gets a solid B from me, or 3.5/5. Among its shortfalls is the unforgivably artificial plot development which sees a tribe attack on a village coming at exactly the right moment to force Pete Postlethwaite's character to come with Fiennes, ensuring Fiennes would get the information & help he needed from the reluctant doctor. (Audiences 7.6/10, Major Critics 8.2/10)
9. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit
I feel no shame or embarassment in listing a clay-mation family movie amongst the ten best films of the year. It is a fantastic film which I would rate above both of Pixar's most recent critically-acclaimed efforts Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, filled with fun, wit, plenty of humourous innuendo and enough movie references to please any fan of cinema. The animation is superb, particularly in creating effective sets and lighting beyond the typical simple, sunny production design you might expect from a less innovative team than the people at Aardman, and it gets a strong B or 3.5/5. (Audiences 8.1/10, Major Critics 7.8/10)
8. Crash
I have a lot of negative things to say about this movie, but much of that stems from the fact that I firmly believe the praise that has been heaped upon it is completely unjustified. This is not a "masterpiece." It's a very good but uneven drama. It often succeeds in achieving an emotional connection with its audience but at the same time too often cheats by getting somewhere through completely contrived circumstances. Its drama is often powerful but just as often it's about as subtle as a man running up to you on the street and shouting EVERYONE'S A RACIST, EVEN IF WE DESPISE RACISM, HOW INSIGHTFUL OF ME. At the numerous awards ceremonies that have bestowed honours in the last month or so, this movie kept getting recognition where it didn't deserve it (screenplay) and nothing where it did (direction). Again this gets a strong B or 3.5/5. (Audiences 8.5/10, Major Critics 7.1/10)
7. Sin City
I've seen this movie three times now, once at the cinema (had to sneak in, still hadn't turned 18 when it came out so that was an...interesting experience as it turned out) where I was underwhelmed and disappointed (having anticipated it for the best part of 8 months), once at the Univeristy's AV Library when I enjoyed it a lot more having known what to expect, and once at home on DVD when it improved once again. This is entertainment galore, noir on overdrive, Kill Bill-esque in its violence and very very stylish. Sin City doesn't take itself too seriously, it prides itself on its cliched noir style of dialogue and perfectly forgivable hammy lines and it amounts to one hell of a good time for anyone not too overcome by the numerous implied or silhouetted decapitations and castrations which take place (come on, they're bad guys, they deserve it!). This movie gets a B+ or 4/5, and I look forward to the planned second and third movies in the series. (Audiences 8.4/10, Major Critics 7.1/10)
6. The 40 Year-Old Virgin
Not since There's Something About Mary has there been an R-rated comedy this good. It's funny, endearing, daring & is actually well-written enough to treat the 40-year-old virgin in question (played by the always awesome Steve Carell) not as some archetypal uber-nerd with a catch-phrase, wheezing voice, thick glasses and stutter but rather he is portrayed as a genuinely nice guy, somewhat nerdy due to what he occupied his relationshipless life with, but who's simply been out of the dating game for too long to feel that he can comfortably re-enter it. The Wedding Crashers got a lot more hype upon its release and while it was certainly a well-above-average comedy it is in fact The 40 Year-Old Virgin which I believe to be the better of the two. No doubt the Academy will overlook a film like this but it was nice to see Carell and co-writer and director Judd Apatow nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Virgin at the annual Writer's Guild Awards. (Audiences 7.4/10, Major Critics 7.1/10)

To Be Continued...

Movies That Suck

There's nothing quite like wasting two hours of your life watching a film that never should have been made. In honour of these experiences, here's my list of the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2005. Please steer clear of these movies or, if you've seen them and liked them, please steer clear of me because I may feel the need to hit you. Repeatedly.

10. Fantastic Four
One of the dumbest movies of the year. It has its moments such as the bar scene where The Thing meets that blind woman, but these are largely overshadowed by things like the retarded poses the lead characters are all "frozen" in as they are taken over by whatever-the-hell-that-red-shit-is and turned into morphing mutant superheroes. Strangely though, it's actually quite a fun movie for all its stupidity and I... shock, horror.... actually almost half-enjoyed it overall simply because it was refreshing to see something so unashamedly cheesy, so filled with hammy-dialogue and wooden acting and so damn illogical. As such, I was uber-generous and gave it a just below average but very soft C-, or 2/5. This is based on my overall feeling of it more than anything, and I'll avoid seeing it again just to save it getting the D+ it no doubt really deserves.
9. The Skeleton Key
Urgh. This is a movie that feels like its constantly building up to something only for nothing to happen. The twist is rubbish, in fact it feels like a "spooky" ending to a campfire ghost story designed to send a chill down the spine of a six-to-eight year-old. I mean, I'm obviously focusing on the negative here because a D+ or 1.5/5 movie tends to be filled with negative things to say about it, but I suppose there are moments of intrigue, the cast performs adequately and it at least tries something different in terms of its subject matter - voodoo as opposed to just some inexplicable ghost-conjuring curse like most supernatural thrillers these days.
8. White Noise
In many ways White Noise really isn't that bad. It's just that it's really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really boring. To get an idea of how boring without having to watch it, re-read the previous sentence at a slow pace. Then multiply that by three. It has a decent enough premise, it's a little spooky at times, Michael Keaton is adequate in his role, but the writers are very unimaginative and the ending is horrendous. Another D+ or 1.5/5.
7. XXX: State Of The Union
Remember what I said about Fantasic Four being dumb? Basically this movie is even dumber, and even less fun. Ice Cube plays a pudgy guy who you just know could never pull of those stunts in reality (they could have at least hired someone in the Vin Diesel mould) and who escapes danger not by outsmarting his opponents or out-gunning them for that matter but due to luck, like when the bullets happen to miss him when he's swimming away from a boat he just trashed or something (I forget what happened, too busy at the time trying to remind myself what logic was like as by this stage I hadn't seen any for at least half an hour). A hero who gets by on luck? What the fuck were they thinking? If the climax is anything to go by, they weren't. D or 1/5.
6. The Devil's Rejects
Horror fans seem to love this movie and even the critics were quite kind considering the genre. I'll give it credit for three things; the first thing being its interesting approach in treating the disgusting antagonists as people the audience should care for, the second being that I feel like making a splatter-horror now just because it would be fun, and the third being that it was the only movie of the year disgusting enough to make me feel like walking out of the theatre. D or 1/5.
5. Constantine
Constantine is, incredibly, even more boring than White Noise. Keanu Reeves gives perhaps his worst performance since the terrible second Bill & Ted movie and the ever-solid Rachel Weisz seems to appear for the sole purpose of making the audience wonder why she would stoop to such a crap calibre of cinema (thankfully she also did The Constant Gardener this year). There were some very interesting visuals, I'll give the director that much, but he needs to work on having some worthy material to apply them to or else they're just wasted. Another D or 1/5.
4. The Longest Yard
I'm an Adam Sandler fan. Ever since The Waterboy I've thought all but one of his movies has been at the very least worth watching (the exception being Little Nicky) with the exceptional romantic comedy 50 First Dates being my favourite of the bunch (aside from Punch Drunk Love which isn't what I mean by an "Adam Sandler movie"). But The Longest Yard is almost as bad as Little Nicky and while it doesn't reach that film's lows this is one remake they never should have touched. It's poorly written, rarely all that funny and just never takes flight. An extreme disappointment which, once again, earns just a D or 1/5.
3. Madagascar
What the hell was that?! Those were the words on the tip of my tongue as I left the theatre, wondering exactly where the story was and if anyone could actuallywatch this movie and give a crap for what happened (if anything did indeed happen). There is no story structure beyond a beginning. It's basically: set-up, followed by stuff happening with no real degree of importance, and then it finishes with the unrelated message that its better to eat fish than be a cannibal, because even though every single other animal is able to talk, fish - conveniently - are dumb and so the writers can overcome the idea that the lead character, who is a lion, is eating animals of the same species of his friends. D- or 0.5/5.
2. The Ring Two
This movie is an incomprehensible mess. The first one was one of the finest of its genre and was genuinely scary in places without having to resort to the usual jump-scare cheap thrill rubbish of movies like The Grudge, rather creating its terror through tension and atmosphere. This time you see the shock-moment of the first movie where Samara exits the TV once again... did I say once? I meant at least three times. It's like watching fat Uncle Bob sitting on the couch repeating the same joke that made people laugh originally at every opportunity he gets, unable to grasp the idea that it's only funny the first time. It JUST ISN'T FUCKING SCARY ANYMORE WHEN YOU OVERDO IT YOU LAZY, UNIMAGINATIVE MORONS. Basically, The Ring Two is like making a sequel to Pulp Fiction where they act out the Royale-With-Cheese conversation six times and in which the main plot is driven by the assumption that goats are made of lettuce. That pretty much sums it up. F. 0 out of 5. And it deserves every pixel used to construct that 0.
1. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
I have no idea what this movie was about. All I know is that it was terrible. Really, really terrible. F. 0 out of 5. Worst movie of the year. Possibly ever.

God, Globes & Globules

God
Or, more specifically: God, City Of. You know, the film by Fernando Meirelles? I've seen it before, didn't remember it well enough to enter into meaningful discussion about it and as such have seen it for a second time. Good movie. Perhaps one of the best movies of the last few years. But not good enough to join my exclusive platinum-card "A" Club. City of God is a film which studies its subject matter from a distance, viewed documentary-style through the eyes of the semi-protagonist/narrator, and while it manages to maintain a gripping story throughout its condensed two-hour running time there isn't really any kind of knockout punch that would make it exceptional, perhaps because its detached style of storytelling (however efficient, and holy crap is it efficient) makes it difficult to connect with the film in any way. Sure, you feel sad when you see a kid proving himself to a gang by shooting another kid whose screaming in pain at the end of an alleyway from the bullet in his foot, and sure its a well-written movie and calling it well-shot or well-edited would be the understatement of the century, but as a whole it's a really technically sound movie with a very good story and which leaves you more than satisfied but which never reaches the same heights achieved by other great movies. I'll give City Of God an A- or 4.5/5. In other words, watch this movie. However, considering it's in the Top 20 on IMDB's all-time movie chart with a score of 8.8, I do believe it to be overrated.

About My Movie Grading System

Globes
We finally got coverage of the Golden Globes on TV2 last night at the horrendous time of 11:55pm. Good old VCRs. I watched it this morning and I have to say that it was entertaining, especially the speeches made by Hugh Laurie, Steve Carell (Ca-Rell, not Carol as I've been erroneously pronouncing it before now) and Geena Davis. I liked the informal-ness of it all, makes for more fun than the Oscars even if, as I said before, the awards themselves were as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise.

Globules
I had to have a group of 3 to make the title sound more interesting, and I figured globules fit with God and Globes because its like "Globes" but not and, like God and Globes, began with "G" and thus allowed for the formation of what some may refer to as alliteration. In reality, I have nothing to write which is even remotely related to globules. My condolensces to fans of globules, whether they be gelatinous or otherwise. If you feel you have been mistreated, I recommend Google Image Search where a query for "globule" or "globules" or the like may or may not yield a series of globule images to whet your unfairly hungered appetite for globule related items.

Woogie

David Lynch Still Kicks Ass At 60
So today David Lynch, the other-other awesomest director in the world (alongside Tarantino and Coppola) turned 60 years old, and I thought I'd celebrate with a quote from Eraserhead:

Mr. X: I thought I heard a stranger! We've got chicken tonight. Strangest damn things. They're man made. Little damn things. Smaller than my fist. But they're new. Hi, I'm Bill.
Henry Spencer: Hello there. I'm Henry.

I love stuff like that. From now on I'm putting weird characters saying random stuff into every script I write.

Yesterday
I may not have blogged yesterday, but what I did do was help out on Dennis's short film shoot for Kiwi. Dennis's or Dennis'? D?ennis's' maybe. Anywho, I use the term "help" in the broadest sense in that my role consisted of casting an inconsistent shadow over the actors by standing in the wrong place and eating a Toblerone I bought from the dairy (at 2 for $2, and I foolishly went for some variety and got a Whittakers bar with it instead of a second Toblerone). Mmm... Toblerone.

Here is some Toblerone in pixel form:








Woogie
Filmmakers, listen up. From now on, and I mean this quite seriously, the correct terminology for a block of shots or a scene which is moved from one point on a production schedule to another is a "woogie." You may have a woogie-scene, a woogie-sequence... perhaps even a woogie-montage. Why? Because yesterday Dennis coined this phrase for that very purpose on his shoot and it kicks ass.

Lynch: "Action!"
Watts: "Wait, are we shooting the scene where I talk backwards to a midget about gum coming back in style or are we doing the weird one?"
Lynch: "We're shooting the woogie."
Damon: "Matt Damon."

Perhaps "woogie" could be adapted for a wider use, maybe when a scene set at a later point in a timeline is moved back in the narrative, like when a movie begins with a climax and then tells the story leading up to it. That climax would, therefore, be a woogie.

Ebert: Lynch's use of a woogie casts a shadow of intrigue over the film in that as the events unfold there is this ever-ominous tone to it all and you can't help but feel a sense of hopelessness because you know how everything will turn out for the characters trying so deperately on-screen.

Artist's depiction of a woogie:

Crime Makes For Good Entertainment

Well I'll be brief, but today I watched a couple of DVDs looking at characters on the so-called "wrong side of the law" having themselves a fun time, namely Quentin Tarantino's Palme d'Or winning classic Pulp Fiction and Steven Soderbergh's highly successful caper remake Ocean's Eleven. Pulp Fiction is a film I must have seen a dozen times and it's my equal favourite movie ever (alongside Apocalypse Now, and I've only seen the inferior-say-fans-of-the-original Redux cut, and American Beauty). It just kicks ass in every way, even if it falls short of perfection only by failing to quite maintain the quality of the first segment (with the Vince & Mia date) throughout the still-better-than-anything-else-ever-made second and third segments. I don't give films an A+, but if I was to make any exceptions it would be for this and those other two films I listed. I just can't get sick of them, and as they're so dissimilar I can't really seperate them into any order of favouritism either.

Ocean's Eleven meanwhile is a film I've seen only twice before today and it's been a while since my last viewing; despite much of the film being familiar the first 15 minutes felt new to me. I seriously didn't recall them at all. Basically, this movie is awesome. The first act lags a little in that while it's trying to maintain that cheeky cleverness that it does so well later on it doesn't quite work yet because, until the characters all come together, the film seems to be without any cohesive rhythm. That said, the pay-off is so god-damn worth waiting for. This movie exudes coolness. I mean, even just shots of George Clooney standing beside Brad Pitt in an elevator looking "confident" in their expensive suits makes this movie seem "cooler" than the average flick because you see them like that and you just know that these likable characters are too smart not to win. And how they get there is quite an oh-so-cleverly-plotted ride.

Director Steven Soderbergh is one of the ten best working in the business today, and something I noticed is that while many filmmakers concentrate on creating the types of visuals that enhance the story but leave much of the sound in the film as purely functional for the audience's visceral experience, Soderbergh goes one step further and seems to craft the sound so that it adds something through contrast between scenes just as effectively as his cinematography (don't be fooled by the DoP credit going to Peter Andrews, it's just Soderbergh's pseudonym). And the closing sequence following the heist is so damn beautful both visually (esp. the silhouettes against the fountain) and in terms of the very old-fashioned musical score that it once again emerges as being a class above your typical Hollywood movie. This is a well-earned B+, or 4 out of 5.

Ratings Of Various Sorts

Television Ratings (i)
So after going on about the new shows debuting last night I only even saw one myself when it aired, taping My Name Is Earl and 7:30s better-than-usual episode of Two And A Half Men due to what was a rather busy night of trying to get things-I-should-have-done-earlier done. Anyways, new carpet's all done, everythings been put back, I finally sorted out the stuff I had to re-arrange into its old place, and I learnt my lesson as to what happens when you procrastinate - although the fact that I have "learnt" this lesson before and yet it still happens... regularly... suggests said-lesson probably won't stick. No matter, Everybody Hates Chris gets a solid B or 3.5/5 from me for its premiere. Obviously this rating is based on a TV-scale and is not comparable to a movie grade. It's a good show and Chris Rock's voice-over is often very funny... but I think it'll take me a while to get used to the concept of pretty much the ENTIRE show being driven by Chris Rock's voice-over. Seriously. It's original I guess for that, but still it would be nice if the characters on-screen were given maybe an inch more breathing space. My Name Is Earl on the other hand is undeniably very very good. One thing about most new shows, in particular Desperate Housewives, is that it normally takes me a few episodes to "warm" to the characters (not necessarily "like them", but just be used to them in the way that is intended I guess), but with Earl and co. I felt like I knew who they were, and was very satisfied with the impression I had been given, after all of 15-20 minutes. Very funny show, nice absurd humour thrown in every once and a while (like when Earl and his brother - being smalltown Southerners - find out a guy they were trying to fix up with a woman is gay, they don't just leave but run away screaming from his house ala a-pending-bomb-explosion, followed by the voice-0ver: "thinking back, the running probably wasn't necessary") and what's particularly impressive is the way it plays on the stereotypes of its trailer-trash characters while at the same time coming across as fresh and original. Earl, for all his bad deeds, is kind of a dumb-but-charming lead character who is very likable. Definitely a VERY strong B+ or 4/5 for the premiere. I have a good feeling about this show.

Television Ratings (ii)
For those unfamilar with how US TV ratings work, and I mean viewership ratings, a 13.4/21 means that of all of the 110 million or so US households with TVs, 13.4% were watching a certain program, and that this represents 21% of the total households with TVs who were watching TV at that time. Why is this of any concern to people like you and me; us non-Americans? Quite simple really; whenever an American program stops airing despite its popularity here, it means that in the States (where it matters) the ratings simply aren't high enough for that show to stay on the air - the higher the ratings, the bigger the audience, the more money for the US network from adverisers. Scrubs is a regular top-10 show in the all-important-to-advertisiers 18-49 demographic in New Zealand, but it doesn't mean shit when it comes to Scrubs chances of staying on the air; it's not doing all-too-well in America and hasn't been since it lost the post-Friends timeslot on NBC.

Now that I've gotten that beginner's guide out of the way; Holyfuckingshitballs at American Idol. I've very much come to loathe these Idol shows as the seasons have worn on, particularly the especially-useless NZ Idol, but apparently America fails to share this sentiment. Now in its fifth-season (and only the original winner, Kelly Clarkson, has actually gotten anywhere; Fantasia who? Carrie Under-what now? Did idle-American Ruben Studdard get swallowed by his own fat or something?), American Idol posted a freakin' 21.0/30 rating in its second hour. How big is that you ask? Well, CSI, the top-rated show this season in the States and one which sometimes beats the other networks when it's just a repeat, has averaged 16.1/24 for its 15 episodes so far in 2005-06. Idol - the show which epitomises the concept of the dream in that the chasing of that dream (the show's search for an idol) is more popular and exciting to audiences that the attainment of that dream (considering how many vote for the winner, the number of records that winner sells is normally a very microscopic fraction) - is a show that isn't showing signs of slowing down. Those are massive ratings. Massive. Now why can't those same morons watch something decent like Arrested Development instead of letting it get cancelled?

Good news though - Boston Legal is still doing well-ish in its time-slot, posting a 7.9/13 (on par with its season average) in the second of three episodes guest-starring Michael J. Fox. And 24's debut last Sunday drew more viewers than it did last season thus proving, through the idea that those who have seen it simply don't stop watching, how right I really am about its awesomeness. Unfortunately, CBS's Love Monkey (starring Tom "Ed" Cavanagh) has a lot of work to do if it is to stay on the air, posting just a 5.9/9 in its first episode (most shows, unless they're Desperate Housewives, lose viewers in each of their first few weeks).

Anyways, if you're interested to know what isn't in danger of leaving your screens in the near future, here are America's Top 20 shows of the season:
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272season,00.html

Movie Ratings (i)
Yesterday, Wes Craven's best movie since the uber-awesome Scream come out on DVD: Red Eye. I saw this in theatres too and while I enjoyed it a little better the first time (when I didn't know what would happen) it still remains a terrific little movie which benefits from simplicity, a Run Lola Run-esque short running time and a couple of terrific performances from the-future-biggest-star-in-Hollywood Rachel McAdams and the always creepy Cillian Murphy (Dr. Jonathan "Scarecrow" Crane in Batman Begins). Brian Cox on the other hand dozes through his role, given very little to do but lie unconscious, eat snacks, watch television and answer the phone. Hell, scrap "very little" - I think I just wrote his part of the screenplay. Seriously. If you like tight thrillers, thought Flightplan could have been better, or liked "that chick in Wedding Crashers/The Notebook" then this movie is for you. Having now seen it twice, I'll give it a strong B, or 3.5/5. It does what it does very well, even if it isn't all that ambitious beyond being entertaining, actually having a decent set-up to go with its solid premise, and maintaining a suspenseful atmosphere.

Man Bag

Is It So Wrong For A Man To Carry A Bag?

Have you guys ever seen that episode of Friends where Joey buys a hand-bag and finds himself defending what he calls a "man bag" from the oh-so-witty remarks of Chandler Bing and co.? Is it really so wrong for Joey to want to carry a bag? Isn't it more practical than just carrying what you can in your pockets just to meet society's expectations of what a man should be like in public? Should a "real man" not feel the need to carry so much with him to warrant the need of a "man bag" as a practical measure? Why in a society which claims to strive for equality between genders do these boundaries as to what a man can - "masculine things" - or can't do - "feminine things" - persist to be upheld?

The other day I was out in the city and bought....




















.... a couple of DVDs (I hope those who know me well were not fooled by this ingenious little piece of misdirection) and as such found myself with a couple of plastic bags in my hands from the music/DVD stores I purchased them from, as you do. And then I thought... well, I'm carrying around this drink bottle in my other hand, why don't I just slide it into this plastic bag like so...and wait a sec - my pockets would be a whole lot lighter if I put my wallet and cellphone in there too, it's just practical... and before I knew it I had transformed my socially acceptable plastic bag into a "man bag" of sorts. It was only practical? Wasn't it?

Well, the story doesn't end there. A couple of days later I found that my two pairs of shorts that have pockets were both being washed. Afterall, as a man I spend as little time as possible in clothing shops and as such just have a few shorts, a few shirts etc. and cycle through them, usually wearing the same thing for a couple of days at a time or until I spill food all over them (basically the same thing). So I have 3 pairs. And 2 have pockets. Now, I was gonna go and see a movie, requiring:

• My wallet
• My cell-phone (If it rains I might need to get picked up, I'm still working on that license)
• My drink bottle (It's too hot in Summer to go for a couple of hours without a drink)

And I had no pockets. So my fulfillment of certain masculine obligations in being very "meh" about clothes in fact lead me to do a very "non-masculine" thing: I saw that same plastic bag still sitting on my desk and thought - if I don't have pockets, I may as well carry this stuff in the bag. I doubt I'll run into this situation again, and thus this was a one-off "man-bag" experience, but was it so wrong? Should I even be asking about it, bowing to the pressures of so-called social norms in feeling insecure about carrying a bag with stuff inside? Or should I have been impracticle and risked dropping and breaking my phone by trying to carry that and my wallet in one hand (with my drink bottle in the other) just because society says so? Is it so wrong to think that, as long as I'm not talking about carrying it around with it daintily hanging from a shoulder or filled with make-up and whatever-the-fuck else ends up inside women's handbags, men got the short end of the stick when it was being decided which gender was "allowed" to carry around a bag? Maybe the REAL manly thing to do is to step out and face the world and say: Hey! I'm carrying a bag and it's NOT just because I bought something - and I'm okay with it! So deal with it!

Now on that particular day I just spoke of, when I had just gotten home from seeing that delightful Hilary Duff movie at the cinema with my man-bag in one hand and my purse in the other, I looked at the mirror and noticed my figure would look much nicer in a cardigan and skirt and I wondered - is it so wrong for a man to...

On A Serious Note

Assuming you read that all in its intended tone and were not scared away before this last little bit :D just a reminder that Everybody Hates Chris and My Name Is Earl are premiering on Tv3 at 7:30 and 8:00 tonight repectively. If you like good television, I hear these are both very much worth watching. Finally 3 may have a Wednesday line-up to challenge Tv2's traditional dominace... or at least until Lost returns (which I hear is soon!).

Snore

How Predictable? This Predictable.
So, as I type this, the annual Golden Globes have come to an end and as usual my predictions were right on the money. Hell, so were most people's. Here's a rundown of the winners:

Movies
Brokeback Mountian picked up Best Drama, Best Director and Best Screenplay. These awards were never a contest. It has the Oscar locked up, quote me on that. It's had it for months and now this is the final nail in the coffin for any of the other contenders. OR IS IT? Hold on a sec now, Walk The Line (as predicted) picked up Best Comedy or Musical (it is neither, but rather a drama about a musician like Ray, the other "Musical") as well as Best Actor and Actress in a comedy or musical. Still, I think that's just because all the big competition is listed under drama more than anything, and it wouldn't have won any of these against Brokeback, Huffman or Hoffman. Hehe, the drama actor and actress winners have similar names. How humourous for simple-minded fools like myself.

Courtesy of IMDB (in other words, "shamelessly stolen without permission from IMDB, complete with ready-made links"):

Best Motion Picture - Drama
Winner:
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Other Nominees:
The Constant Gardener (2005)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
A History of Violence (2005)
Match Point (2005)

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Winner:
Walk the Line (2005)
Other Nominees:
Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
The Producers (2005)
The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Winner:
Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (2005)
Other Nominees:
Russell Crowe for Cinderella Man (2005)
Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow (2005)
Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama Winner:
Felicity Huffman for Transamerica (2005)
Other Nominees:
Maria Bello for A History of Violence (2005)
Gwyneth Paltrow for Proof (2005)
Charlize Theron for North Country (2005)
Ziyi Zhang for Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Winner:
Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line (2005)
Other Nominees:
Pierce Brosnan for The Matador (2005)
Jeff Daniels for The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Johnny Depp for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Nathan Lane for The Producers (2005)
Cillian Murphy for Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Winner:
Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005)
Other Nominees:
Judi Dench for Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)
Keira Knightley for Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Laura Linney for The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Sarah Jessica Parker for The Family Stone (2005)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Winner:
George Clooney for Syriana (2005)
Other Nominees:
Matt Dillon for Crash (2004)
Will Ferrell for The Producers (2005)
Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man (2005)
Bob Hoskins for Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Winner:
Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener (2005)
Other Nominees:
Scarlett Johansson for Match Point (2005)
Shirley MacLaine for In Her Shoes (2005)
Frances McDormand for North Country (2005)
Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Best Director - Motion Picture
Winner:
Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Other Nominees:
Woody Allen for Match Point (2005)
George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
Peter Jackson for King Kong (2005)
Fernando Meirelles for The Constant Gardener (2005)
Steven Spielberg for Munich (2005)

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
Winner:
Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana
Other Nominees:
Crash (2004) - Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) - George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Match Point (2005) - Woody Allen
Munich (2005) - Tony Kushner, Eric Roth

Of these 10 categories, I picked 9 but failed to go for Rachel Weisz in the Supporting Actress category (I though they'd give Brokeback Mountain an acting award at some point and Michelle Williams seemed a good bet despite sucking on Dawson's Creek). I haven't bothered posting the song or score stuff as no-one really cares.

Television
I'll skip over mini-series awards too as no-one watches them unless they are produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and are about the second world war. And are called Band Of Brothers.

Lost & Desperate Housewives, the ratings winners, found themselves on stage tonight winning Drama and Comedy respectively. And - WHAT THE? Steve Carell actually won best actor in a comedy for The Office!!!! Yes!!!! An awards show that actually gives a crap about the people who really deserve to win! Actually, the Globes suck like the Oscars and just "go with the buzz flow," but I'll suspend my dislike of them for a moment to celebrate Carell's victory. Interesting to note that despite Desperate Housewives actresses having four of the five comedy show actress nods they lost to the fifth nominee (whose show I have never heard of). I think Marcia Cross deserves an award myself, with the equally-impressive Felicity Huffman having won at the Emmys already. Kiefer Sutherland lost Best Actor in a drama, though I know Hugh Laurie's good from what brief looks I've had at House.

Best Television Series - Drama
Winner:
"Lost" (2004)
Other Nominees:
"Commander in Chief" (2005)
"Grey's Anatomy" (2005)
"Prison Break" (2005)
"Rome" (2005)

Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy
Winner:
"Desperate Housewives" (2004)
Other Nominees:
"Curb Your Enthusiasm" (2000)
"Entourage" (2004)
"Everybody Hates Chris" (2005)
"My Name Is Earl" (2005)
"Weeds" (2005)

(Note how 2 shows I just plugged without even seeing were nominated? I really am right all the time, and thus you should listen to my recommendations and enjoy a richer, more fulfilling life... in front of your TV screen...)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy
Winner:
Steve Carell for "The Office" (2005)
Other Nominees:
Zach Braff for "Scrubs" (2001)
Larry David for "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (2000)
Jason Lee for "My Name Is Earl" (2005)
Charlie Sheen for "Two and a Half Men" (2003)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy
Winner:
Mary-Louise Parker for "Weeds" (2005)
Other Nominees:
Marcia Cross for "Desperate Housewives" (2004)
Teri Hatcher for "Desperate Housewives" (2004)
Felicity Huffman for "Desperate Housewives" (2004)
Eva Longoria for "Desperate Housewives" (2004)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama
Winner:
Hugh Laurie for "House, M.D." (2004)
Other Nominees:
Patrick Dempsey for "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)
Matthew Fox for "Lost" (2004)
Wentworth Miller for "Prison Break" (2005)
Kiefer Sutherland for "24" (2001)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama
Winner:
Geena Davis for "Commander in Chief" (2005)
Other Nominees:
Patricia Arquette for "Medium" (2005)
Glenn Close for "The Shield" (2002)
Kyra Sedgwick for "The Closer" (2005)
Polly Walker for "Rome" (2005)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Winner:
Paul Newman for Empire Falls (2005) (TV)
Other Nominees:
Naveen Andrews for "Lost" (2004)
Jeremy Piven for "Entourage" (2004)
Randy Quaid for "Elvis" (2005) (mini)
Donald Sutherland for "Commander in Chief" (2005)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Winner:
Sandra Oh for "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)
Other Nominees:
Candice Bergen for "Boston Legal" (2004)
Camryn Manheim for "Elvis" (2005) (mini)
Elizabeth Perkins for "Weeds" (2005)
Joanne Woodward for Empire Falls (2005) (TV)

May I just ask - how do James Spader and William Shatner, having won every award known to man for their roles as Alan Shore and Denny Crane respectively, suddenly not get nominated? Are they suddenly worse for no reason? This just highlights the way the Globes, like the Oscars, try to "give it to someone who hasn't already won." The Golden Globes are as predictable and meaningless as hell, but Steve Carell's win at least gives them an ounce of credibility which they can use to try to stay afloat as they sink beneath 16 tonnes of bullshit.

Love Monkey!

A New Genre Of Television Is Born / I Am Right
There are two things of note on this page at MetaCritic. Firstly, as well as "Drama", "Comedy", "Soap" and "Reality" being TV show genres, the staff at MetaCritic seem quite convinced that "Celebrities On Skates" is a genre of its own. Interesting.

Secondly, there is a lesson there for those who have not yet come to realise that I am always right. Even when it seems like I am wrong, hell - even if it is "proven", it just means I am right either in some deeper subtext that you are too stupid to understand or else my being wrong is simply my way of proving I am right about the bigger picture to which the issue at hand pertains, and I am simply making a point in having you prove a certain point-of-view that disagrees with what I have very intentionally mis-stated, and you are simply thinking too small and narrow-mindedly to realise it. Yes. That's it.




















On the left-hand coloumn of the link above is exemplar A of this theory: 24 kicks ass. I said it before, no? Now, note how this page provides evidence to prove this to be the case. Of all the new and returning shows which critics have taken any interest in for the second half of the US television season, 24 has an average grade of 90/100 with 8 of the 20 reviews being perfect scores and its lowest grade of 70/100 are all of 2 points lower than the average grade of the 2nd best new or returning show. In fact, looking back at MetaCritic's Fall Season guide, it's an even higher grade than those of critically acclaimed season-launching shows like Ricky Gervais' Extras, Chris Rock's Everybody Loves Chris and the smash hit comedy My Name Is Earl. The latter two start on TV3 this Wednesday at 7:30 so don't miss them, even though the it's-gotten-better-than-it-was Two And A Half Men is on 2. Tape it. And if you normally watch Coronation Street on 1 at 7:30 consider this notice that you are banned from this blog and as such you should ignore my advice and watch that rubbish instead. Good shows don't need viewers like you.

Anyways, as I was saying, 24 is in it's freakin' 5th season and is still that good. With no signs of slowing down. Whatsoever. Notice with the Globes and Emmys how new shows get recognition in their first couple of seasons and are then forgotten about as the fresh shows get all the hype? Well 24 is beating even the most-hyped new shows of the year. Hell, the 2005-06 debutant Commander-In-Chief, a big hit in the ratings and a show up for 3 major Golden Globes tonight in the US including Best Drama, got a 56/100 from critics. Versus 24's score of 90. NINETY, in case you missed it the first time. This is why you must watch 24. And why I am right. If you still aren't convinced, and I do have to assume morons might read this: if the 4 wins and 11 emmy nominations for the 4th series alone (presently screening on TV3) really aren't enough to sway you, the new series of 24 sees Sean "Poe-tay-toes" Astin joining the cast for a few episodes (how big a part he will play has not yet been confirmed), presumably doing so because he wanted to make another work of awesomeness after The Lord Of The Rings ended. And Sean Astin is right almost as often as I am.

Also coming to a small screen near you some day, Tom Cavanagh (Ed of Ed) is back with another well-received dramedy called Love Monkey. I like it already and I've only read the title. In case you missed his old show, and I hope it was because you were busy curing cancer or burning the sets of Coronation Street everytime it was on, Ed was this awesome quirky show about a lawyer who was fired from a big-city law firm after a single ommited commar in a contract cost a client shitloads of money. Ed moved back home to Stuckeyville where he set up a new practice working out of his recently acquired bowling alley (which he also continued to operate) where he met up with old friends, made some new ones and tried to woo Carol Vessey (Julie Bowen, who is now a second-season star of Boston Legal - a show which is even better than 24). So yeah, hopefully Love Monkey is good and doesn't get cancelled (not that these two things always go hand in hand, ie. Arrested Development).

In keeping with the T.V. theme of this entry, here are my
Top 10 Favourite TV Characters
10. Phil Stubbs (Ed) - Michael Ian Black
9. Homer Simpson (The Simpsons) - Dan Castellaneta
8. Audrey Horne (Twin Peaks) - Sherilyn Fenn
7. Jack Bauer (24) - Kiefer Sutherland
6. Andy Brennan (Twin Peaks) - Harry Goaz
5. John Locke (Lost) - Terry O'Quinn
4. Denny Crane (Boston Legal) - William Shatner
3. Fox Mulder (The X-Files) - David Duchovny
2. Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks) - Kyle MacLachlan
1. Alan Shore (The Practice / Boston Legal) - James Spader
Honorable Mentions
11. Eric Cartman (South Park) - Trey Parker
12. eq. Michael Scott (The Office - US) - Steve Carrell
12. eq. Dave Brent (The Office - UK) - Ricky Gervais
13. Albert Rosenfeld (Twin Peaks) - Miguel Ferrer
14. Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers) - John Cleese
15. Dana Scully (The X-Files) - Gillian Anderson
16. Pete Martell (Twin Peaks) - Jack Nance
17. Dwight Schrute (The Office - US) - Rainn Wilson
18. Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG-1) - Richard Dean Anderson
19. Mike Flaherty (Spin City) - Michael J. Fox
20. Peter Griffin (Family Guy) - Seth MacFarlane
21. Sydney Bristow (Alias) - Jennifer Garner
22. Margaret Lanterman aka The Log Lady (Twin Peaks) - Catherine E. Coulson
23. Frasier Crane (Cheers / Frasier) - Kelsey Grammer
24. Niles Crane (Frasier) - David Hyde Pierce
25. Catherine Martell (Twin Peaks) - Piper Laurie
26. Benjamin Horne (Twin Peaks) - Richard Beymer
27. Ed Stevens (Ed) - Tom Cavanagh
28. Man From Another Place (Twin Peaks) - Michael J. Anderson
29. eq. Stewie Griffin (Family Guy) - Seth MacFarlane
29. eq. Stan Marsh (South Park) - Trey Parker
30. Tommy Hill aka Hawk (Twin Peaks) - Michael Horse
31. Mr. Bean (Mr. Bean) - Rowan Atkinson
32. eq. Janitor (Scrubs) - Neil Flynn
32. eq. Phoebe Buffay (Friends) - Lisa Kudrow
33. Adrian Monk (Monk) - Tony Shalhoub
34. Bree van der Kamp (Desperate Housewives) - Marcia Cross
35. Senor Droolcup (Twin Peaks) - Hank Worden
36. Philip Banks (The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air) - James Avery
37. eq. Catherine Willows (CSI) - Marg Helgenberger
37. eq. Gil Grissom (CSI) - William Petersen
38. Tony Almeida (24) - Carlos Bernard
39. Sam Malone (Cheers) - Ted Danson
40. Denise Bryson (Twin Peaks) - David Duchovny, and there is no spelling error in "Denise" ;)

Alan Shore is a no brainer on a list like this. I mean, how many characters are so good they get to move from show to show like actors do? I may have missed some other great characters because I made this list on a whim, and there are plenty of others out there on shows I still need to see like Seinfeld that are probably just as good as this lot, while there are also some characters that I need to see more of before considering them, like Huff's Crag Huffstodt (Hank Azaria) and The Practice's Ellenor Frutt (Camryn Manheim). Anyways, as you can see, Twin Peaks shaped incredibly awesome characters like no show before or since. As you can also see, I have way too much time on my hands.

The Conversation

4 Out Of 4 For Coppola
Oh wow. Wow. I'm not going to write up a proper "review" as such of the 1974 movie The Conversation because I don't think I could do it justice without going through it again and taking notes on what made this film so damn good. This is the type of movie that makes you realise how shit contemporary Hollywood movies are, how much potential there is in this art form, and how try-hard the majority of "art-house" movies really are. This is a film that reminds me why I want to make movies. It never forces its plot. It's an intriguing thriller / mystery which breaks the mould of the genre in that rather than focusing on the plot itself it is in fact more than anything a character study. It doesn't try to be clever. It doesn't hurry things up. It just slowly and patiently unfolds, and the audience is taken on a journey of discovery as the lead character Harry Caul, a very normal, very realistic middle-aged freelance surveillance expert with very real limitations tries to figure out what the conversation he recorded on his last assignment really means - leading him to have somewhat of a moral dilemma as he considers whether or not he should just drop it like a professional who has done his job, or try to warn the people who he thinks may be in danger that the people who hired him know about... their conversation. Absolutely stunning masterpiece. Yes, that word is used far too often. So are terms brilliant, work of genius and any other as-good-as-it-gets superlative you can throw at a movie. But nothing could possibly overstate the quality of this film. I've now seen 4 Francis Ford Coppola films since I knew who he was (not counting seeing Jack when I was about 9) and the four I speak of happen to be his supposed classic quartet, all released between 1972 and 1979, all made consecutively as the only movies he made in that period (The Conversation was made in between the first two Godfather movies, losing to Part II for best Picture in 1974, while Apocalypse Now was originally released in 1979) and all are superb. This one is the only one that doesn't slot into my Top 10 of all-time in fact, but it's in my Top 20 right away and could go higher with repeat viewings. So it's an A, duh, which, duh, means 5/5.

Why don't they make movies like this anymore? Seventies films are awesome. In the last month or so I've seen Marathon Man, Dirty Harry & All The President's Men and while none of these three very good films come close to the quality of The Conversation there's something about the pacing, the way they're photographed and the style of the drama in these movies that you just don't see anymore. In a recent passage on IMDB.com, cinematographer Oliver Stapleton talked about how these days the way films are shot has been largely influenced by the way television conventions have evolved and I can see what he means - there has been a noticable move away from the painting-like-composition of still-camera wide shots that few directors, David Lynch being among those who still qualify as exceptions, actually still use today, with cinema instead moving towards more close angles and moving cameras, the types of things which are so much more effective when used sparingly. Hail to the wide shot, slow edits, mumbled conversations and plots that don't need a tie-up epilogue.

Youth Without Youth, Coppola's first film in 9 years, is due out in coming months. Can he recapture the quality of his seventies efforts? Or have his supposed "failures" as he adapted to these modern conventions seen him lose the magic touch he once had. The Conversation and the other Coppola films I've seen are so brilliantly directed that I can't imagine how someone that competent could go through such a "mediocre spell" as he supposedly (I haven't seen his eighties and nineties flicks) has. Hmm.

About My Movie Grading System