American Dreamz

American Dreamz. As has been the theme lately, I'm home and available(between phone calls) and I have HBO. American Dreamz was on today and it looked less than terrible. Not much less, I really wasn't expecting much here, but as you know that's never stopped me before.

Dreamz is a movie that begins as a parody of American Idol, following the premise of a talent search reality-type show, following a few characters including the British host, and the travails of the American President who is struggling to improve his public image.

Little do you know, but I'm actually a sucker for Hugh Grant films. I kind of like the whole blink-awkward-blink, stutter, awkward-blink-awkward routine. I haven't liked all of his movies(Music and Lyrics) but others surprisingly weren't so bad(About a Boy). Mandy Moore is surprisingly unattractive, but also surprisingly perfect for the part. Sam Golzari's big eyes and open face also fit his character quite well.

The movie flows well, and most of the casting is pretty good. Willem DaFoe is in a new part for him, and nothing is too over the top silly for me. If you come in with low expectations, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, as I was.

Lucky You

Lucky You. So last night I was waiting for the Sox game to start, and checking out all of the HBO channels. Mugs wasn't home and my dad was snoozing, so I watched the worst movie on TV at the moment. Lucky You. Two things you should know about me :

I hate Eric Bana with a passion.
I am a very good, and very experienced poker player.

I thought one would be a plus, one a minus for watching this horrible horrible movie. Nope, they're both negatives. Eric Bana is terrible, annoying, lisping, stupid, and lifeless. Drew Barrymore is useless(here) and Robert Duvall is completely wasted in his role. But that's not the worst. The poker action in LY is ridiculous. They went through the trouble of using a real poker room, and including all sorts of real life poker professionals. Then what do they do? Make it stupid, unrealistic, annoying and predictable. Whoever wrote this putrescence has obviously never played poker in their life. I would imaging they can't even spell poker. Drew Barrymore's character in the movie knows more about poker than whoever penned this. Seriously, it's more than I can handle, a day later.

Enough bad things. You already know I don't recommend it. Surprisingly there were a couple of good things. Debra Messing isn't terrible(yes that's a positive). Also, I liked how degenerate and obviously out of control Huck(Bana) was. He really was a problem gambler. Until the happy ending of course. And Horation Sanz. I love that portly bastard. Those small things keep it from surpassing Magorium as the worst movie reviewed. Congrats(golf clap)

The Flock

The Flock. Crime suspense, with some elements I like. I'm a big fan of Claire Danes(unfort Mugs isn't) and Andrew(Wai-Keung) Lau. Lau is an stylish director, making the Infernal Affairs series among other films. Richard Gere manages to make a not terrible movie every once in a while, how can I not check it out?

Set as a taut abduction thriller, Gere and Danes seem to have good antagonistic chemistry. Not cops, both agents track and keep up with registered sex offenders in an area. We explore a dark world, where no one on either side is a good person. Molesters, murderers, abductors, and just twisted fetishists are explored, and indulged. I don't have a ton to say about it because it was mostly things I'm not dying to talk about.

Very dark, and very creepy The Flock doesn't leave you feeling good. It is well made, and well acted, but I can't imagine it being mainstream with the subject matter. I'd like to recommend it
because it is a good movie, but it is definitely disturbing and not for everyone or every mood. Proceed with caution

**--**
Well, this was a short review and Top Gun is on TV. I'll talk about it for a min. Some parts of it are so terribly dated. I can't imagine finding Kelly McGillis attractive, and the bar scenes are insane. However, the soundtrack is stil rock solid, and when Goose dies, it still gets one a bit choked up. How can you not flip to it when it's on?
PPS* did you know Maverick's replacement partner Merlin was Tim Robbins? Me either...

Lust, Caution

Lust, Caution. Here is the latest movie from acclaimed director Ang Lee, who you know from movies such as Crouching Tiger, Brokeback Mountain, and Sense and Sensibility. Lee makes slow moving beautiful films starring beautiful people, that are in general entertaining and tend to be re watchable.

Lust, Caution came from Netflix recently, but one has to find the right time to watch it. We had actually settled on watching The Flock instead, but neither of us wanted to get up and change the DVD so we stuck with LC. The movie opens in Japanese occupied 1942 Shanghai, stylish and seemingly era appropriate.

Settings and outfits are terrifically done, and Lee's eye for beauty is immediately apparent. One of my favorite Chinese actors, Tony Leung, shines in the male lead. The story flows slowly but steadily, immersing us in the world of a group of Chinese revolutionary college students. Violence is at a minimum, but the NC-17 rating is definitely earned with the steamy scenes. Mugs and I both agree it should have been called "Caution, ... ... Lust!" but both words in the title are certainly earned.

Ang Lee has created another visually stunning, great movie. Easily captivating for the whole two hours, if it's on TV I'm sure I'll watch it again. I'd definitely recommend it for most folks, if you can live with some slowness and a lot of love scenes.

**
PS - Congratulations to Syracuse University, who today in Boston won their unprecedented 10th mens Lacrosse national title. Lets go Orange!

TMNT

TMNT. So I'm home on this lovely Memorial Day weekend, hanging out with my father. After watching another disappointing Red Sox game(we're no longer in first place) I took a break from the Deadliest Catch marathon to check out TMNT on HBO Family.

I was a big fan of the turtles the first time they came around, I remember being mildly intrigued when this project emerged. Some interest + duty to my readers = unfortunately-not-HD animated viewing.

I wasn't really sure what to expect going in. I didn't really hear anyone talking about TMNT when it came out, and I wasn't sure who the target audience is. Narrated by Lawrence Fishburne, we're greeted by central American martial corruption that has opened movies like Rambo and reminded one of the ending of Hulk. We are then treated to a story from long ago, an interesting legend in the style of the back story from The Fifth Element(warlord from long ago waiting for an aligning of elements to harness outside forces).

The turtles (I assume they're no longer teenaged, as it has been 14 years since the last installment) act silly enough that we're going for a young audience, but there is enough action and CGI April O'Neil to aim for a slightly older crowd as well. The back story is interesting and cool looking, and there is plenty of turtle martial arts to please action fans. We are also treated to the voice talents of Ziyi Zhang, Patrick Stewart, and the venerable and always under appreciated Mako, who has starred in numerous movies, animated pieces, and enjoyed success on Broadway. Sadly, Mako died the day after he was announced as the voice of Splinter, after he had recorded all of his lines.

The movie stays interesting for an adult(if you're familiar with the subject matter) and should be light enough for children. I didn't expect too much here, and I was pleasantly surprised. I was disappointed at the lack of Bebop and Rocksteady but if that's my biggest complaint then I think we're doing ok.

In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah. When this movie came out I really wanted to see it. I loved the name and thought Ben Kingsley was in it for some reason. Well, he's not in it, and the name refers to a pretty stupid scene in the movie. Two strikes but here we go anyways.

So Elah actually stars Tommy Lee Jones. In a role seemingly very similar to No Country For Old Men, which I liked a lot. The pacing and visual style also seem very similar to NCFOM. Subject matter is a missing soldier, tension between civilians and military personnel, I like it so far. Also, the missing son is Jonathan Tucker, who was in Mugs' ballet class when they were young. We've seen him on things like Law and Order(CI of course), it's nice to see him succeeding.

Like No Country, Elah is slooooooow and deliberate. Unlike No Country, Elah is boring as shite. Really boring. Margo said the story is really what hurt it. Nothing interesting, or gripping, or suspenseful. They're trying so hard to not be formulaic, they just avoided anything that would catch our attention. Jones is good, and Tucker seems fine in his sporadic parts. Charlize Theron seems to be in full on "I'm a real actor mode", no longer wanting to be a sex symbol. She's fine, nothing too special here.

The movie is just slow, and not very interesting. I say pass ...

Birthday.

Good evening faithful readers. Today is May 18th, today is my birthday. Many things have happened on May 18th. It is sometimes Victoria Day, Mt. St. Helens erupted on it, and it is the birthday of
Our last pope(JP II)
Reggie Jackson
El Guapo
Chow Yun-Fat
Tina Fey
Jessica Cutler, an old friend from elementary school (*not safe for work)(same year as me too)
Stephen Geller
...
Me !

I was born on this day in 1978, which makes me 30 and officially over the hill. To celebrate this momentous occasion, a trip was made to Atlantic city, featuring Dan, Yoni, Steve(Geller) and myself. We decided to stay at the Borgata, which was very expensive but sounded worth it. The drive down took about 8 hours which sucked, but we all met up and silliness ensued.

So what happened this weekend? Nothing too crazy to be honest, but we had a lot of fun. We played some table games, I showed my skills at poker, and I was briefly stricken with the disease known as lobstermania(I caught it from Yoni). I also have a bad beat story from the WSOP satellite I played in. I won't bore you with it here but I'll tell anyone who asks.

Our room in the Borgata was fairly disappointing, but the hotel itself was an experience. It has restaurants, clubs, stores, and lots and lots of gambling. I didn't leave the hotel from Friday when we got there til Sunday when we checked out, I didn't need to. Sunday we had brunch at a local place called The Pirate's Den, where Yoni gave them an Oreo cake to serve us, complete with trick candles.

Now I'm home again, we'll see how long I can stretch this thing out.

American Gladiators

American Gladiators(the new one, season 2). I've been wondering lately what is wrong with my movie consumption. I think right now it's the Red Sox. They're taking up an awful lot of my evening time, taking the place of 3-4 movies a week, minimum,

Sunday night was the season premiere of the new American Gladiators, and I watched it tonight. Overall I'm happy with the additions this season. There are a few new events that seem fun, and many of the older ones have been spiced up. We also have a few new gladiators, last season's contender champions among them. On the women's side they have sexed appealed it up, adding two attractive female gladiators to bring their grand total to two. On the men's side, they have brought in Rocket who, while also adding some sex appeal, seems to be only fit for chasing on the wall.

First of all I'm very glad I was watching this on DVR. There's almost as much fluff in AG as in the Olympics. Skipping ahead in 30 second chunks has rarely been so useful. They try to make us care about these useless overly energetic wannabes, with time they could use on another event. I love the events, but despise the fluff.

Speaking of fluff, the second set of male contenders featured a man with a prosthetic leg.
"I want to prove I can do anything". Well, you can't. Lame Lame Lame(ha!). It's like when there was the little person on the Amazing Race, who kept shouting she could do anything then complaining when people wouldn't help her pathetic flailing at things she needed to reach, eventually crying that it wasn't fair. This contestant, John, was just terrible. He was awful at every event, he should have been embarrassed to prove that he in fact couldn't do the same things as his two legged opponent(The Wall was the worst event, as Wolf visibly started late, then climbed slowly trying to make John feel like he had a chance). Then came the Eliminator. I thought the two women in the first match up each taking over 10 minutes to finish had been bad. John struggled to swim, then kept getting his prosthetic caught in the cargo net. He limped his way to the travelator, the clock no longer displayed. Unable to climb after several attempts(edited to seem like not as much time) they turned off the damn conveyor belt. John barely walked up even still, then he was greeted with a heroes welcome at the end. Really? That's worth celebrating? He was bad at every event, and had to cheat just to finish. Bravo gimpy, bravo.

The show is still fun, but lets concentrate on the athletic events, not the autistic students or underdog stories.

Bottle Rocket

Bottle Rocket. Wes Anderson's first film. Starring a very young Luke and Owen Wilson. I acquired this DVD recently, and question why I had never heard of it. I like the actors and the director, I like quirky comedies, and I'm in touch with movies in general. I wonder how it slipped through my fingers. Margo saw it a long time ago and recommended it, so here we go.

Well, two things become immediately obvious :
This is indeed a Wes Anderson movie
This is one of his early works

Anderson has a style all his own, somehow creating characters and settings independent of time or place. He also has a fondness for the Wilson brothers, as they seem to be in all of his projects. Bottle Rocket is fairly slow going, and is more of a character study than a story. Not all that much happens, but we're given a lot of strange dialogue and interaction. Anderson gives a boutique role to James Caan and manages to get a funny part for Kumar Pallana(playing Kumar), who works his way into each of Anderson's films.

It's a slice of bizarre life in the American southwest, and it's entertaining if you're not expecting a masterpiece. Certainly worth it for Wes Anderson fans. Check it out if you get a chance.

10,000 B.C.

10,000 B.C. It looked very intriguing when it came to theaters, and even though it would most likely be bad I still wanted to see it. I finally got my opportunity today. I expected something similar to Apocalypto, which was bad(like a 4 out of 10 maybe), but not as horrendous as everyone seemed to write. I believe some of the bad reviews it garnered were anti-Mel Gibson sentiment.

10kbc is bad. Very bad. Very Very bad. Much worse than Apocalypto. I think the decision to subtitle was very good in Apoc, the decision to have everyone speak English in 10kbc was a poor one. It was ridiculous. The idea that they would have a complex spoken language in 12 thousand years ago is just silly. That a whole other race would speak it fluently(complete with idioms) after meeting one man for a short period of time is sillier. That men could speak English to our hero, and real time translate with someone speaking a third language entirely from a few hundred yards away is the silliest yet. Language was far from the movie's only problems. The geography and technology were both so out of place one wonders why they bothered trying to say it was earth, or naming it as a specific time in history.

OK, time to stop picking on details. The acting? Terrible. Writing? Maybe it was written by the woolly mammoths they must have spent so much money CGI'ing. The score was over the top and completely inappropriate. I watch a lot of bad movies(as you can see here). I don't mind watching bad movies, I have fun with them. 10,000 BC however, wasn't fun to watch. If I wasn't reviewing it, I would have turned it off pretty quickly. The writer and director should be punished for this result. What's that you say? They're the same person? And he produced it too? For shame Roland Emmerich, for shame. He has a history of bad, large scale movies. I'm honestly surprised he didn't make Waterworld, whose level of disaster nears 10kbc.

Don't see this movie. Or see it for free. Don't give any more money to such a bad project. Maybe Emmerich will stop making movies, or maybe not. One can only hope ...

(PS, as I write this, The Last Castle is on TV. A guard in a tower just shot a prisoner in the head from about a hundred yards with a shotgun. A shotgun. And it only made an entry and exit hole. Huh? How many things are wrong with that?)

Pootie Tang

Pootie Tang. When I came out with my top 5 list, I was asked by a coworker about 'Pootie Tang'. I saw it a long time ago I think, but I didn't really remember it. That isn't necessarily a bad sign, as I've most likely forgotten more movies than most people have seen. I'm not holding it against PT. So I got it from Netflix, and here we go.

Pootie is written by Louis CK, who I think is a terribly underrated and hilarious writer and comic. I was sad when Lucky Louie was cancelled after just one season. Our star/hero is Pootie Tang, played by Lance Crouther who hasn't done much else. But the ensemble cast around him is great. Chris Rock plays a number of roles, and the hilarious JB Smoove(who was most recently fantastic in Curb) is his lifelong friend and sidekick, Dave Attell is the right-hand man of the bad guy, and Jennifer Coolidge is the (very abusive)evil seductress, and the off the wall Wanda Sykes is our female protagonist/voice of reason.

Pootie speaks charming gibberish, and he's always too cool for whatever situation he's in. The film is campy and terrific, and I loved every minute of it. Each character is well cast and well placed, and the movie is short and sweet. We even have a couple of actors from the Wire, Dirty Dee and Froggie.

If you like silly comedies, check it out.

Top TV Shows

I have done a top 5 Movies list, and I wanted to do a couple of other lists. Movies 6-10 will come some day, probably this summer, I have to really sit down and think about it. First I will do a top 5 TV shows.

I want to provide two Caveats :
1) These are shows I find it most enjoyable to watch. This is not the highest quality shows, as when I was thinking about it, that was too boring.
2) I am not including any cartoons on here, as at least one(not one you'd guess) would be on this list. I am going to come up with a separate list for animation.


1) Seinfeld. Totally cliched but what can I do? If I didn't make it #1 it would be for the sake of trying to be different. No thanks. Seinfeld was consistently funny, and it pervades our culture. Larry David and Jerry gave us phrases, situations, stereotypes, all sorts of things that have really become a part of our lexicon. With four of TV's more memorable characters starring, memorable fringe characters(Newman, Peterman) and a never ending bevvy of beauties Jerry dated, Seinfeld excelled in every way. It was funny the first time, it's funny the second time. Any time Seinfeld is on it's good for a laugh.

2) The Wire. I've said it before, I'll say it again. While the Wire was on, it was the best show on television. I've seen many many shows, movies, plays, etc. The Wire was simply amazing. Terrific cast, writing, pace, set, stories. Just so well done. If you didn't watch the Wire, you can't take violence, or you're simply crazy. Only two options.

3) Flight of the Conchords. Genius, pure Kiwi genius. Bret and Jemaine(real and character names) are each terribly funny. Their interactions are funny. Their manager Murray is hilarious, and how he handles the band, his life, and his job are original and knee slapping. Mel is creepy and endearing at the same time, and I like the music so much I bought the CD. If you like quirky comedy, you should certainly check it out.

4) To Catch a Predator. I enjoy laughing at the discomfort of others, and predator is jam packed. Weird, creepy guys, overzealous cops. And the justifiably smarmiest TV show host this side of Gene Rayburn. I just can't get enough of these guys begging Chris Hansen for mercy and telling him about their families, good jobs, and responsible lives, outside of the whole sex-with-12-year -olds habit.

5) High Stakes Poker. Strange choice here. But, if you consider that there are a spate of poker shows out there, and this is the only one that gets it right it makes sense. Gabe Kaplan is blessed with a comedic mind, and a wealth of poker knowledge and experience. His rapport with AJ Benza is pure gold. High Stakes Poker is played with the largest stacks, and it's a cash game so there's a higher quality of play. They get all of the biggest name professionals, as well as amateurs ranging from dead money(LV gynecologist Dr. Amir Nassiri) to ringers (Cirque de Soleil creator Guy Laliberte). Poker After Dark is fun, but it's a tournament format and there's a severe lack of commentating. HSP is the best of a burgeoning genre, and I love to watch it.


Notably left off :

All animation, see above.

Little Britain. Terrific, hilarious show. However, the recent emergence of That Mitchell and Webb Look makes it less unique. Still terrific, but got bumped out of the top 5

The Office. Terrific show. I don't miss it. It's terribly funny, but I can't separate out the US and UK versions well enough, and similar humor can be seen in other Carell and Gervais projects.
Extras is terrific too.

The Ultimate Fighter. Great reality TV, without most of the contrived drama. And good UFC action. There's a lot to like here, it's just not a ton better than Top Chef or a few others, so it didn't quite make the top.

More later, I'd love to hear your opinions.