"This! Is! Caketown!"

This killed me.

Enjoy.

A Mess O' Links

Just a few links before I close my laptop for the night.

1.) I had a fun little geek moment earlier this evening when I watched the first "webisode" from the set of "The Mist". Frank Darabont has come back home to adapt and direct yet another Stephen King story, this time one of the leaner, meaner, straight-up scary stories King's written this side of Richard Bachman. Anyway, click here to watch Frank Darabont have a lot of fun shooting the "earthquake scene".

2.) Fun clip from, of all places, CBS's The Early Show. It's a good indicator of what happens when you throw good facts into the wood chipper that is the Bush White House spin machine. Harry Smith is trying to get White House Press Secretary Tony Snow (he of former Fox News glory) to speak about Democratic complaints regarding subpoenaed testimony from WH aides Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. Bush has offered to let them talk to Congress so long as it's behind closed doors, no transcript is made, and no oaths are sworn to. If you listen to Tony Snow, however, you might be coaxed into thinking Bush is bending over backwards to be a nice guy to those mean ole Congressional Democrats. Of course, that's the opposite of the truth. Watching hacks spin is never fun, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, but it seems particularly soul-crushing in this clip. When Harry dejectedly says, "You bet," at the end of this clip, you can tell he's at the end of his rope. But Tony just keeps on smilin'.

3.) Yet another fun clip on a similar subject. This is Patrick Leahy explaining to faux-maverick Republican Arlen Specter what the Bush White House is really offering regarding the Rove and Miers testimony. In a word: "Nothing." Leahy's one of my favorite Senators. (Fun fact: it was Leahy who was at the receiving end of Cheney's legendary, "Go fuck yourself" comment. Anyone who pisses off Cheney has to be an okay guy.)

4.) Lily Tomlin has publicly responded to the recently published clips of her and David O. Russell's freakouts on the set of "I Heart Huckabees". You can read it here. She's good. After I saw those clips I was thinking Tomlin must be a really mean and selfish person. After reading this short item, however, I think Lily Tomlin's totally cool.

5.) Wanna see inside true "green living"? Check out this article from The New York Times. A couple of New Yorkers decided to live "green" for a whole year so the husband can write a book about the experience. The article's currently listed as the Times' most emailed article, and I'd say the fact that the couple have eschewed the use of toilet paper is the main reason why. What do they do, use their hands? Looks like the answer is yes. "Bowls of water and a lot of air-drying" is how the writer coyly alludes to the toilet-going process in the green apartment. (Shudder.) I guess I'll have to buy the book to find out more. Unlikely.

"300" : Reviewed

You know that song I mentioned on Monday? "Insect Eyes"? Couldn't be more tired of it now. I'm actually listening to it now but don't feel like skipping to the next track on my already done-to-death iTunes playlist entitled "Listenable Songs". It's a bad habit of mine -- I find a song I like and then listen it into the ground. I predict the next victim will be "Counterfeit Rules", a song by a group called Snowden. It's real good, I'd been trying to steal it for a long time and finally got it yesterday, but by this time tomorrow, I suspect I'll be shuddering at its first note.

Anyway, "300". As you may already know, I've been following this film with great interest. That first trailer Warner Bros. put out for this movie, replete with digitally-enhanced color palette, apocalyptic imagery, a shovel-bearded Gerard Butler screaming pithy, manly encouragement to his soldiers ("This is where we fight! This is where they die!") all set to a lyric-less Trent Reznor track, worked like gangbusters. And Zack Snyder's great work on the "Dawn of the Dead" remake all promised very good things for this film. Did he come through?

Mostly yes, but a little no.

I saw "300" on opening day. I'd been planning to see it on the IMAX screen up at the Mall of Georgia, but a quick check of Fandango the morning of revealed that all the shows were sold out. (That's how far I usually plan in advance) And all the next day's shows. And all but the midnight show on Sunday. Crushing disappointment. Once I'd stopped shaking and wiped my tears away, we (myself, my wife and my brother) decided to see it on one of the comparatively tiny screens I'm forced to see everything else on.

Overall, I liked "300" quite a bit. Predictably, I think "Sin City" is a good film to compare with "300". Not only are both films adapted from Frank Miller graphic novels, but both directors decided to be slavishly faithful to the source material, in effect bringing the comics to life panel by panel. I think that in this respect, both films succeed beyond expectations. But when bringing the comic to life is the director's primary aesthetic mission, particularly if the comic in question strives for a stripped-down, graphic look, realism falls necessarily by the wayside, and with it go authentic human emotion and the genuine cathartic experience most films are shooting for (even though most never get close). This movie was loud and beautiful and evocative, but I didn't really feel this movie as I'd expected to; I never got particularly wrapped up in the plot. I think Snyder was so deeply engaged with the process of making each shot perfect and trailer-ready that, along the way, the story arc may have been given shorter shrift.

Part of the problem might have been that because each shot in "300" is so finely-wrought and infused with the inherent emotion that comes with depictions of war, there was no room for emotional peaks that most films have at their disposal to really drive home a moment. When Leonidas's wife gives the evil politician a piece of her mind, I didn't feel like there was a lot of resonance in that moment, even though Snyder and his coterie of screenwriters set it up as best they could. The fact that the Spartans in this film are all members of a national death-cult and value their lives not at all weighed against their notions of honor might explain why I wasn't terribly concerned with which Spartans lived and which died. Hell, they didn't, why should I?

To continue with my quibbling, I thought that whenever the story veered away from the 300, (particularly Butler's King Leonidas), the movie was the worse for it. The Sparta sets and the Xerses throne room sets seemed more appropriate for a syndicated Saturday-afternoon action show than a $100 million studio release. Sets built for film are just shitty mock-ups, of course, (any stroll through a museum filled with film props illustrate this fact very clearly) but often the filmmakers help sell the sets as the genuine article through deft lighting. In both the hunchback seduction scene and the scene in Sparta where a bad thing happens to Leonidas's wife, I thought the lighting was slapdash and inappropriately bright and colorful, which made the not-so-great sets look all the worse.

But enough bitching. For the most part, this thing's glorious to watch and I'm looking forward to seeing it again on DVD. Gerard Butler as King Leonidas is fantastic in this. Though he seems like a fresh face, looking back at his filmography, I realized I've actually seen him work in both "Dracula 2000" (he played Dracula) and "Timeline" (he played the bad guy) both of which I'm embarrassed to admit I saw in theaters. But the thing is I still don't remember him in those films. I think he needed a good part in a good movie to demonstrate his star power (chances Orlando Bloom is given frequently and happily squanders), so I think he's here to stay. At least for a while. There's already talk that he wants to do a prequel to "Escape from New York" -- he would play Snake Plissken. I'll keep an open mind but it sounds like a misstep to me.

As for the hullabaloo over the political undertones in the film, I'd say they're blown a bit out of proportion. I don't think Zack Snyder has an axe to grind or a message to deliver with "300". (Though Frank Miller might have had one back when he wrote and drew the thing in the late 90's.) Apparently, Iranians are going gaga with rage over the movie back in the former Persia, just from hearing the descriptions of how they're portrayed in the film. (In this case, I think seeing the film would only make them more angry, and likely with cause).

Truth be told, seeing this film I got the distinct impression that "300" really was a pro-Bush, pro-"War on Terror" propagandist film. The warriors, led by their warrior-king, are the good and righteous ones who realize that war is the only answer, while the craven politicians are back at home in the Senate, debating and being devious, cynical ninnies, undercutting the "troops" with their nasty dissent. Throughout the film the nebulous concept of "freedom" is given a great deal of import by the steely Spartans who've been hung out to dry by their own myopic countrymen as well as Leonidas's stoic wife left behind to keep the homefires burning. Sean Hannity might as well have been the screenwriter. But my guess is that while that interpretation is valid, it exists outside of the film or the filmmakers intent. I don't believe anyone involved with this film was in anyway making a pro-"War on Terror" movie. It just happens to be one because that's how Miller wrote it back in 1998 (three years before September 11th, incidentally). Snyder's pled ignorance on the subject of political statements, and I'll take his word for it. But if some New Yorker article comes out in 5 years that reveals Zack Snyder is actually a big friend of all the Fox News personalities, "300" will make a lot more sense.

Anyway, this is already so long I suppose it doesn't matter if I want to drone on a little longer about the movie. Here's two things I thought were funny.

1.) One time Leonidas's wife actually says these words: "Freedom isn't free." I thought instantly of the song with the same title in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's brilliant "Team America". The next lyric in that song, by the way, is, "No, there's a hefty fuckin' fee." My wife turned to me when she heard it to whisper the song to me. (The true cost of freedom is a "buck oh five.") Very funny. I was kind of shocked that got all the way through into the finished film; didn't Snyder or any of them see that movie.

And 2.) the high angle wide shot looking down on the Spartans as they tromp en masse towards their deaths. Every single one of them is ripped and cut in exactly the same way. Fat pecs, sculpted abs, rippling arms. There was just something very gay about it that made me laugh. Were all those guys really that cut do you think, or was there some prosthetics and make-up involved? Had to be, right?

Anyway, despite the movie's flaws, I think Snyder's work with "300" bodes well for "Watchmen". Some reports say that Snyder's adaptation will be set in the 80's (perfect) and it will be a long film (as it should be) and that Gerard Butler will have a role in it (hopefully as the Comedian). So far, I haven't heard a single thing I don't like about what Snyder and his team are up to. I think because Alan Moore's graphic novel is more layered and nuanced and well-written than Miller's "300", we have a stronger foundation on which to build and the makings of something really great. Or the biggest letdown in a generation. We'll see.

Lily Tomlin Snaps and David O. Russell Adolescentizes Before Your Very Eyes: VIDEO PROOF! (Also "Watchmen" Tease and Davendra's "Insect Eyes")

Hello all. I'm back from my sickness. Pretty sure it was strep throat. Probably the worst viral dustup I've had in my life - during the worst of it, when every swallow of water was an ordeal, I felt acutely every one of my 30 years. I've still got a lingering cough that makes getting to sleep slightly problematic, and eating takes a little effort because my throat's still kind of swollen, but the worst of it is over.

Anyway, over the hiatus my Nyquil-sloshed brain has been half-heartedly composing blog entries (mostly about "300" and "Zodiac"), but I'm going to save those for another day. Today, something appeared on-line that demanded the immediate attention of the Inanities. Indeed, it demands your attention.

A few years back (perhaps more) I was over at a fledgling cinematographer's apartment who lived in the same building as me. We'll call him David. While I was over there, David's roommate, a fledgling editor we'll call Mike, popped a DVD into the player. On it were two clips unlike anything I'd ever seen before. What they showed was an actress (Lily Tomlin) and a director (David O. Russell) screaming obscenities at one another on a movie set ("I Heart Huckabees"). The director even trashes the set and throws things, narrowly missing humans (but then hitting one accidentally). "Is this what goes on on Hollywood film sets?" I wondered. "Or is this kind of bullshit unique to these people and this movie?" I don't know but I suspect the former. Anyway, I looked for those clips later to watch them again and revel in the bad behavior, but they were nowhere to be found. Well, no more. Today they're up for all to enjoy, for all eternity. Click here for the clips.

It's hard to tell who's the bigger asshole from these. If you only saw the car one, you'd think Lily Tomlin deserved the prize. If you only saw the office clip, you'd think it was Russell. In a way, they kind of offer both sides of the story: they're both assholes and they each deserve the abuse they so liberally heap on each other. Though I haven't heard of Lily Tomlin being quite as awful as this on other film sets, I have heard of David O. Russell being a belligerent asshole on the set of "Three Kings". Such an asshole in fact that George Clooney had to physically pull Russell's big ass off of some Iraqi extras who weren't seeing the fullness of his vision. So perhaps the asshole edge goes to Russell.

And finally, I saw this a while back but never had a chance to put it up. Since "300" blew up two weekends ago, the heat on Zack Snyder's next project, "Watchmen", got turned way up so that even non-geeks are interested in it. Turns out Zack, Mel Gibson-like trickster that he is, inserted a conceptual, pre-production still from his work on his next project into a late trailer for "300". Here's the link to the Aintitcool story, but I thought it would be easier if I just posted it up. So here it is:










Frickin' cool huh?
Anyway, it's the first in a long sequence of cool, teasing imagery that will culminate in the first big trailer, which will be amazing, and then the sequence will end when the actual film's released, which won't be half as good as we'd all been led to believe. Perpetual build-up and letdown. The new Hollywood model.

And lastly, have you guys noticed the cool weird song in the "Hills Have Eyes 2" trailer? It starts up about halfway through and it's pretty much the only eerie thing about the trailer. The song's called "Insect Eyes" and it's by an artist called Devendra Banhart, in case you want to grab it up off the internet for the price of $On The House. It's kind of cool.

Okay. All done.

Update: Sick But Alive

Howdy ya'll. I came down with something pretty mean a few days ago and it's laid me up pretty good. I'll be back to blogging as soon as it clears up (which I'm hoping will be soon), and I'll return phone calls (you know who you are) when my voice isn't quite so froggy.

Scooter Takes a Bullet for Darth Cheney, and Alberto Axes US Attorneys for Not Being Political Enough

Some interesting things going down in Washington these days.

First, there was the guilty verdict today for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of lying to federal prosecutors and obstruction of justice. To some extent, I feel bad for the guy. Other than being a conservative in the awful Bushie Neocon mold, his biggest flaw, legally speaking, is that he worked for the Vice President -- that can't help but compromise a guy morally. Sure, he could have said "No" when Cheney asked him to be his Chief of Staff, but who could have known what Cheney would become once in power? He seemed so level-headed as SecDef back in Bush the Elder's days. Then again, you run with a bad crowd long enough, their bad behavior's bound to rub off eventually. Now he's going to jail.

Anyway, what the trial made clear was that orders came down from Cheney to squash Joe Wilson (the diplomat who investigated the since-debunked claims that Saddam was looking for "yellowcake" plutonium in Niger), and Scooter dutifully fell in line and started a'squashin'. It's since come out that Richard Armitage, the relatively dovish right-hand man to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, was actually the guy who gave Valerie Wilson's name to Richard Novak (as well as Bob Woodward). This inconvenient revelation dashed the neat storyline that the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame was a concerted effort by the White House hawks to stamp out any dissenting voices in the run up to the war. The trial seemed to bear out something a little more convoluted than that, but no less nefarious. Cheney's office DID run a campaign to discredit Joe Wilson by making his trip to Niger look like nepotism (his wife worked for the CIA and got him the gig, therefore Joe Wilson isn't credible -- still not sure how that works, but anyway), and even though Cheney had to out a covert CIA agent to discredit Wilson, he was prepared to do it. If nothing else, this administration is filled with end-justifies-the-means sort of people.

As Cheney didn't testify during the trial, today's guilty verdict puts pressure on Cheney to explain what he was doing, and what he knew during this period. Some pundits are making the prediction that this deep-vein thrombosis Cheney came down with after his recent trip around the world will give King Cheney a convenient reason to resign and avoid all those pesky inquiries from his subjects. But then again, this is Dick Cheney. One gets the sense he'll do whatever it takes to keep his white-knuckled stranglehold on the Presidency.

The other emerging story involves a group of eight US attorneys who were recently fired by Alberto Gonzales. Hearings on the subject started today on Capitol Hill. The evidence seems to suggest some political motivation behind the pink slips. In one case, two New Mexico elected representatives, one a Senator and one a Congresswoman, appear to have put pressure on at least one of the US attorneys to hurry up and indict some Democrats before the recent elections. When the US attorney(s) in question resisted, he (or they) got the axe a few short months later. Another fired lawyer was knee-deep in the middle of a massive corruption investigation (the largest in US history) that would have swept up a number of key Republicans when she got the boot. Another US attorney out of Arkansas was fired without cause and replaced with a deputy of Karl Rove who just happened to specialize in so-called "oppo research", or digging up dirt on political opponents. That the firing happened to be in Arkansas makes the political overtones politically obvious: Rove may well have sent his man to dig up dirt on Hillary to use in '08. The US attorneys were all given BS reasons for their dismissal, everything from "not aggressive enough prosecution of border-related crimes" (that from NM-R Senator DeMenici), to overly aggressive prosecution of alleged child- molesters.

The whole thing stinks like crazy, but luckily, we've got Dems in power who can investigate the hell out of these people. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who's shaping up to be even worse than former AG John Ashcroft (I know, hard to believe), looks to be right in the middle of this. Taken together, the major crime perpetrated here is this, as Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo writes:

"There is a clear and growing body of evidence that at least three of these firees were canned for not allowing politics to dictate their prosecution of political corruption cases. Or, to put it more bluntly, for not indicting enough Democrats or indicting too many Republicans. Which is to say they were fired for not perverting justice."

If this gets any bigger, Gonzales may not weather this storm. How great would that be? Cheney AND Gonzales resigning? And Bush fast on their heels when his term's up. What a beautiful dream.

Anyway, for some fantastic in-depth reporting on these issues, you ought to visit TalkingPointsMemo.com and its sister site TPMMuckraker. And Andrew Sullivan's usually got a good take on the overreaching of this administration.

See "Zodiac"

I saw David Fincher's "Zodiac" on Saturday afternoon. If proclaiming, in March, that a film is the best movie of the year so far wasn't a kind of backhanded compliment, I'd say that "Zodiac" is the best film of the year so far. It's actually a bit better than that. I'm guessing it'll make my top ten list when December 31st rolls around. I'm a little hesitant to talk about the movie because I haven't gotten that film critic's knack for talking about a film without giving anything away (then again, so haven't a lot of film critics), and the things I liked about this film aren't spoilers per se, but might dampen the enjoyment of the film for the uninitiated. So I'll just say, go and see it. It's 2 and half hours long but I wanted another 20 minutes. It's a detective story, but seeing it made me feel like I'd never actually seen a detective story on film before. "Zodiac" feels like something completely new and I think it deserves a look while it's still in theaters. Though its $11.3 million weekend gross as compared to "Wild Hogs"'s almost 40 million dollar take makes me think "Zodiac" won't be in theaters long. Take advantage while you can.

Kerry Confronts His Defamers, And "The Departed": Revisited

For anyone who felt that Kerry was grossly mistreated by the so-called "Swift Boat Vets for Truth", the group that sunk the Kerry campaign in '04, then you should take a look at this clip. It's long and it doesn't really start getting fun until a few minutes in, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Kerry's icy prosecutorial skills come out on someone who really deserves it.

The clip shows John Kerry questioning a Bush nominee for an ambassadorship on Tuesday the 27th of February. Turns out this nominee gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat group back in '04. As far as I can tell, it's the first (and likely only) opportunity Kerry has had to confront one of these guys. True, this dumb schmuck wasn't the one doing the slandering, but he helped finance it, which is pretty bad. What's best about the clip is that the guy is just as craven and mealy-mouthed as you'd expect a Bushie Republican hack financier to be. He calls Kerry a "hero" to his face, but when asked if he would condemn the Swift Boaters who called that heroism into question, he demures and says that kind of tactic was necessary, because "the other side was doing it, too." He also can't recall actually giving the Swifties the $50,000. "When asked for money," he says, "I usually just give." Seriously.

Weak.

He cites the "Bush is Hitler" MoveOn.org ad that a member created and which MoveOn posted up on its site as an example of the terrible negative stuff "the other side" was doing in the '04 election. That's really the best this guy can come up with. A stupid user-created ad that MoveOn pulled off their site within hours of it going up. I'm sure it put a lot of people firmly in the Kerry camp. Anyway. It's a wonder Kerry didn't so much as raise his voice at the guy.

On a slightly related note, Bill Kristol, oh he of odious Neocon fame, has been railing against HuffingtonPost recently. Not because of anything the site itself posted, but rather because of things the readers posted up in the comments section. When Vice-President Cheney was supposedly the target of a suicide bomber in Afghanistan the other day, some readers chimed in with their sincere and inarticulately-worded regret that the bomber hadn't been successful. (I didn't actually read the comments on political blogs. Who does? So many whackos.) So Kristol blasts Huffingtonpost based on these comments, in effect characterizing Arianna Huffington as a leader of the pro-assassination left. Does it get any more intellectually dishonest? I wonder what we'd find if we trolled some of the comments on the righty blogs? My guess is I'd find as much illiterate vitriol there as anywhere. Andrew Sullivan has a moderate conservative's take on it here. Ugh. I used to think Kristol was a conservative in the David Brooks mold, that is a fairly reasonable person, but Iraq and his unceasing warmongering ever since we went in have put him squarely into the dangerously delusional knee-jerk Coulterian whacko stratosphere.

Anyway. Watched "The Departed" again yesterday. [I'm going to talk about this movie as if everyone's seen it, so alert: SPOILERS AHEAD!]

Just amazing. Every scene is so smart and thought-out and inventive. I forgot how often Scorsese played with the score (or the "scorce" as David McHugh called it). Some Irish song would be going full blast and then Matt Damon starts dialing his cell phone and the song cuts out like Thelma hit the Stop button on the CD player. It's as if, every now and again, Scorsese wants to remind you that these people are actors and the story is made-up -- in other words, he wants to remind you you're watching a movie. One of the few guys making movies who'll take little risks like that, just to see how they'll go. One thing I appreciated more on the second go-round was how artfully Monahan and Scorsese set up Sheen's character as a kindly paternal anchoring presence in the film - they do it to a.) balance out Mark Wahlberg's abrasive character, but mostly to b.) make his death really sting. In a way Sheen's death echoes Gandalf's "death" in the first "Lord of the Rings" movie. In each case the death of the kindly, powerful, knowledgeable character that everyone really liked makes the audience feel acutely how solitary the path is the hero has to take for the duration of the film. An excellent device and a great script. Of the nominees I'd say Monahan absolutely deserved Best Screenplay and Scorsese deserved Best Director for that movie. Good stuff. (Though watching it again I see a little more clearly the things that irked me about Nicholson's performance. The rat-pantomiming thing he does in the last bar scene, for example. I wish Scorsese had done a few more takes here and there, or at least used less over-the-top, hammy takes in the finished film. Ah well. Nothing's perfect.)

Ruffalo Says "Nuh-Uh" To Whining to the New York Times

Today I've got a follow up to this post regarding the New York Times article that was sort of about "Zodiac" but mostly about Fincher being a director actor's don't like working with.

In this follow-up interview Reeler did with "Zodiac" co-star Mark Ruffalo, Ruffalo offers a different take regarding Fincher's interactions with the actors on-set than the New York Times article did. In this brief item, Ruffalo says the following:

"Yeah, you hear stories about him being so hard and intense," Ruffalo said. "And then I met him, and I immediately just loved the guy and was thinking , 'Well, when is he going to change? When is this guy that you keep hearing about going to pop up?' And my relationship and friendship with him got deeper as we went along. I think Fincher, what he has no patience for is incompetence or just a casual attitude toward the work. If you come in and you don't know your lines and you're not prepared, Fincher's going to eat you for breakfast. You know? And so the actors who complain about Fincher are usually the ones who don't show up knowing their shit, kind of."

He goes on in the article to essentially call out Gyllenhaal and Downey Jr. for being unprepared on-set. Ruffalo seems credible here, but I'm not sure his perception on the matter totally reverses the impression left by the NYTimes article, though it definitely calls it into question. In any event, I'm hyped for "Zodiac" this Friday. Early word has been very good. I'd have been happy with "Panic Room" good, but some of the critics seems to be talking "Se7en" good. Can't wait.

"Squid and the Whale", "Employee of the Month", and "Kramer vs. Kramer". Your Tuesday Passel of Movie Reviews

With this Blockbuster Total Access thing we've been doing, I've been seeing a lot of movies. We just took the two we got in the mail yesterday back to the store today and got "The Departed" and "The Prestige" in exchange (for free!). Yesterday the wifey and I watched both "The Squid and the Whale" and "Employee of the Month". One was much better than the other. I'll let you take a guess as to which one was which.

1.) "The Squid and the Whale". I'd been avoiding this one for a while, never interested enough in the premise to grab it off the shelf instead of some other movie. But when it came in the mail yesterday (as the wife put it on the queue -- even though "Black Sunday" has been at the top of the queue for quite some time, it's never come -- I'm beginning to think Blockbuster's banned it from our household), we watched it right away. The film was a pleasant surprise. Jeff Daniels plays English PhD and creative-writing professor Bernard Berkman, husband to Joan (Laura Linney) and father to Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline). Bernard is a once-famous writer tapped out of the Grady Tripp mold (Michael Douglas's character in "Wonder Boys") whose rage at the slow decline of his writing career has slowly destroyed his marriage and forced his sons to take sides between the parents. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, the film is based on his own life growing up with two writers, the novelist Jonathan Baumbach and the Village Voice writer, Georgia Brown. The heart of this story is Walt's freeing himself from his father's burdensome expectations and unhealthy advice, but taken altogether "The Squid and the Whale" is also a 2-hour seminar on why it's never a good idea to get divorced. Particularly if you have children. Baumbach looks at the divorce of the two parents from everyone's viewpoint, and it's wrenching and sad and painful for everyone. Though the mother (Linney) comes off best, everyone has their moments of pettiness or extreme self-absorption. In other words, it's difficult at times to feel sorry for any of them (though the youngest boy is a true innocent through all of it, despite his icky behavior). At times it feels like perhaps Baumbach is, perhaps, too frank with the facts of his adolescence during this painful time in his life, but overall it's a strong film. Everyone's good in it, but Jeff Daniels was a real stand-out to me. Partly because the role was the most fleshed-out and best written (Noah seems to have the most to say about this character), but mostly because Daniels completely inhabits the role of a guy who's so wrapped up in himself and his own feelings he can barely spare a thought for his children, and even still manages to make him sympathetic. Though just barely. Anyway, a good film.

And right after that I took in...

2.) "Employee of the Month". Not good. The trailers succeeded, I thought, in making this thing look like a good-hearted, solidly funny dumb comedy from the Adam Sandler school of filmmaking (the tolerable Sandler movies, anyway). But honest-to-God there isn't a real laugh in this entire movie. I think that the middling, amateurish script (curiously devoid of jokes considering some of the funny people involved; I would have thought that Harland Williams or Andy Dick could have written up a laugh line or two, but no such luck) is a big part of the problem, but I have to say the star of the film, Dane Cook (for whom this is his first starring role), is really the weakest link for me. His performance is so shot through with a kind of phony "aw-shucks" sincerity that you can never see past Cook's look-at-me-and-love-me performance to the story (such as it is) beyond. It's as if he was told by his management team that to be successful as a Hollywood movie star, it's not about being funny or interesting on-screen, it's about playing characters that audiences like. There's some legitimate argument to be made there, but no matter how likeable Cook tries to make his characters, the fact that he is neither funny or interesting in this film, can't help but derail his nascent career if he keeps doing stuff like this. The fact that he's got another big role in the upcoming Kevin Costner/William Hurt movie "Mr. Brooks" says to me he's got a good agent, and a studio with a close eye on Cook's comedy tour grosses. Not to pile-on, but this movie just has so very little going for it. Dax Shepherd, the weird Zach Braff clone, is game with a dumb role but with this movie and "Let's All Go To Prison" under his belt, I wonder if he isn't getting the stink of Bad Movie on him. time will tell. Jessica Simpson is in way over her head here with the role of romantic interest. Her vacuity is on full display here, but the director, to his credit, must have noticed this, and tries at every opportunity to distract the viewer from her blank-faced performance by presenting her air-conditioned breasts in revealing tops. This tactic usually works. Anyway, a bad movie. I was kind of surprised. I thought Cook was funny on SNL, I think some of his jokes (stolen or no) are funny and well-told, and thought at least some of that would come through in this movie, but man does it ever not.

And then Saturday night on AMC, I caught all of ...

3.) "Kramer vs. Kramer". AMC was showing a bunch of Best Picture Oscar-winning films (without commercial interruptions -- how great is that?), and I started into this one and never once lost interest. "Kramer" won the Best Picture Oscar for 1979 (beating "Apocalypse Now") and though I don't think it's a better film than "Apocalypse" (they seem way too different to even compare), I thought it was memorable and very well-done. The movie starts with Joanna Kramer (Meryl Streep) walking out on Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) and their son, little Billy (Eight-year old Justin Henry, who got himself a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance -- he was the only nominated member of the cast to lose). So Ted, who's a big time ad executive, has to juggle raising his kid and a high-stress job with very little help. The scenes where he and his son adjust to a wifeless and motherless existence are effective and moving. Predictably, Ted has a hard time handling all of these responsibilities, and soon loses the support of his boss who doesn't like that Ted isn't working his usual 80-hour weeks, and then loses his job altogether. The sequence when Ted vows to get a new job in 24 hours (and then does!) is riveting. The film serves in some respects as an indictment of the judicial system's unquestioning preference for the mother over the father in custody cases. I guess director Robert Benton should be commended for not making Streep's character more unlikeable, or obviously less fit as a mother -- that would have been ham-fisted and preachy -- she gets fairly even treatment in the film and it's that balance that keeps the movie real and engrossing. The movie succeeds, I think, in making the point that a father's role in the upbringing of a child is in many ways just as important as the mother's. The film's ending was too happy, too pat, and not terribly believable -- the honest ending for the movie was obvious but the filmmakers (and perhaps even the author of the original novel) disappointingly opted for a more audience-friendly end, but aside from that, a great movie.

AND! And I now understand another of the "Family Guy" movie references. This scene comes directly from "Kramer vs Kramer". Funny stuff.

Tepid Oscar Wrap-Up

I think last night was the first time (in a long time) that the best movie I saw in a given year won the Best Picture Oscar. I was very pleased to see Scorsese win Best Director and his movie get Best Picture, but what a giant slog to get there. At least I predicted that last night (even if I got Best Supporting Actor and Best Picture wrong). Since I'm having trouble forming coherent sentences right this minute, I'll just do a quick Liked and Disliked in a listish form.

LIKED: Ellen's hosting. The musical number with Will Farrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly. Very funny but a little wobbly in places. And Jack Black making eyes at Helen Mirren was pretty funny. The little factoid that appeared during the Cameron Diaz interview in the pre-show that her childhood nickname was Skeletor. I laughed and laughed at that. She DOES look like Skeletor! Children can be mean, but they can also be witty little bastards. The Al Gore/Leo DiCaprio presentation where Al ALMOST announces his run for the Presidency, Michael Mann's movie montage, Scorsese's win, "The Departed"s win. The part where Ellen asked Spielberg to take a second picture of her and Clint Eastwood. "Maybe center it a little more?" Funny. Maybe that's it.

DISLIKED: The speeches. God, the speeches. Didn't they do away with speeches one year in the seventies? They need to try that again. Or maybe require that everyone submit one and have a group of Academy members screen them for any mentions of anyone who works in the entertainment industry. I didn't even like Forrest Whitaker's speech. The song performances. Uniformly dreary. And Melissa Etheridge's song for "An Inconvenient Truth" was probably the worst Best Song winner since, well, last year's win for that "Hustle and Flow" rap song. Man, it's really bad just about every year. Pretty much all of the other film montages. Ennio Morricone's all-Italian acceptance speech. (Does Clint really know Italian?) The chorus of "foley" artists, who made the art of foleying sound pretty much like something anyone can do. All those damn "Pan's Labyrinth" wins. Scorsese's Oscar speech. I thought he was maybe going to say something he'd prepared, talk about film from a film historian's perspective, but it was just more of the same thanking bullshit. I guess everyone in Hollywood still gets jazzed at the idea of having their name mentioned in front of a live television audience, and hold it against you if you forget their names.

Anyway. This show just seemed more boring than in recent years. I don't know if it's because the movies were kind of lackluster this year (and that "Children of Men" didn't get more nominations), or if it was just a straight-up boring as hell show. Probably a bit of both.

Pre-Show Predictions

Before the Oscar telecast starts up tonight, I thought I'd post up some predictions. I'll get right to them.

Best Picture: I got a weird feeling it's going to be "Little Miss Sunshine". I think this movie benefits from being a smart, tightly-written, well-shot movie that people have been dismissing for awards since it came out. It might have enough underdog buzz to eke out the win. I think people thought "Babel" was too alienating, "Letters from Iwo Jima" too Clint-y (not to mention no one's seen it), "The Queen"not sweeping enough and too modern for a movie about the royals, but I think if it's not "Little Miss", then "The Departed" has got the best shot -- it's also helped by being the actual best film of all of the nominees.

Best Director: I think Scorcese's DGA win makes him a lock. If he doesn't get it, we'll know once and for all the Academy loathes Marty.

Best Actor: Forrest Whitaker, and he deserves it.

Best Actress: Helen Mirren, and she deserves it.

Best Documentary Feature: My man Al Gore with "An Inconvenient Truth".

As for Best Supporting, everything I'm reading says it'll be Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson. As for the show itself, I predict a real snorer. Good luck with this four-hour behemoth, Ellen!

Other than that, enjoy the show!

Just a Bunch of Time-Wasting Links

A couple interesting links I came across today.

1.) I like David Caruso. For some reason after he left "NYPD Blue" to star in a bunch of flops and essentially killed his career, I felt bad for him because I thought he was kind of an exciting actor, or at least he could be, and he'd made some bad decisions. Happens to the best of us. So when he rocketed back to fame by being cast in the lead in the first "CSI" spin-off, I was glad for him. This compilation of clips from his show, "CSI: Miami", however, makes me believe that he may have traded in any edge he might have once had as an actor, and has become instead more of a "presence", a kind of "gruff cop" archetype viewers can depend on seeing every week. His slide into a hammy cariacture of himself is actually pretty funny. He's laughing all the way to the bank. You can watch it here. (I have to say the writing has to bear some of the blame for this.)

2.) If you like fun ways to waste your life away, check out Linerider.com. You draw a line, press play, and a little man on a sled rides that line wherever it goes. Good times. Also some fun movies that some users, possessed of a bit of ingenuity and a whole lot o'time, made using the program. The movies made using this program was one of a bunch Slate spotlighted in its feature on so-called "Machinima", or movies made using video games. You can check that out here.

3.) "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" opened with "Daily Show" style ratings on Sunday, so says Variety. Tom Shales's review of the show in the Washington Post is quoted in the article. He said the show "isn't terrible." So far, all evidence to the contrary, Tom. In case you doubt, here's another clip from the show. It's a riff on global warming alarmists and it's just as funny as it sounds. The thing that the "1/2 News Whatever" doesn't seem to get is that although "The Daily Show" does have a left-leaning bent, they don't not go after the Democrats or the excesses of the left. More often, it seems, Stewart and his crew go after TV news in a very scathing and effective way. But the "jokes" on Surnow's new show are aimed exclusively at "left" targets (just as the rest of the network does), so even if there were some moments of humor on the show (none in evidence so far as I can tell), they fall flat because it's a show that, openly, avowedly, has an agenda to push, in this case to "correct" the imbalance the "Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" created. I'm doubtful this show can work on any level. (Also: Heath, you'll love the dig on the ACLU at the end of the clip.)

All right. More tomorrow.

Yet Another Post about "Silence of the Lambs"

I've been watching some of the documentaries on the new 2-disk "Collector's Edition" of "Silence of the Lambs", and there are some fascinating tidbits in it.

* Sean Connery was the first actor Jonathan Demme sent the script to for Lecter. He had a "commercial" Lecter in mind (Connery) and a "perfect" Lecter (Hopkins). When Connery passed, Demme figured he'd done his due dilligence to make the film more obviously commercial and very happily went to Hopkins to see if he'd do it. "Are the lambsh shtill shcreaming, Clareesh?"

* Jodie Foster used to call the actress who played Catherine Martin (the girl in the well) "Patty Hearst" (jokingly) because she was always hanging out with Ted Levine, who played her captor, Jame Gumb.

* Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins never really spoke to each other until filming was nearly completed. Only rarely were they both physically present for a shot because of all the POVs and close-ups.

* Jonathan Demme rarely did more than two or three takes to get his shot, and his cast and crew were happy --Demme created a very collaborative, congenial atmosphere on his set. (I include that to contrast with the Fincher post of yesterday. Cheap shot, I know, and every director's different and all that, but it's definitely possible to make a brilliant film and create a positive working environment. Blah blah.)

*Thomas Harris (the novelist) and Ted Tally (the screenwriter) were acquainted with one another BEFORE the novel's publication through Tally's wife. Harris did business with the art gallery she worked with. Harris sent Tally a galley copy of the book prior to publication.

* Gene Hackman bought the rights first because he wanted to produce, direct and STAR in the film as Lecter. When Tally turned in his screenplay, he said it was too violent and sold the rights back to Orion. Orion gave it to Demme.

Lots of good stuff on that bonus disc. I'm also looking forward to the documentary they did with Howard Shore on scoring the film. It's one of the great scores, I think, particularly because it manages to tell a story that can get almost operatic at times, but the score itself never gets too showy.

Anyway, I'm very into "Silence of the Lambs" right now (as you can tell), and this 2-disc DVD edition is the perfect way to groove on this "Silence" phase I'm in. Just the same way that watching a really bad movie can be a depressing experience, watching a fantastic movie can be exhilarating. They make it look so easy that it gives the impression (false though it may be) that making a genius film is simply a matter of getting out there and doing it. But the truth is that films like "Silence" are an absolute rarity. Even though they assembled an extremely talented crew of people to make that film, none of them, in my opinion, have even come close to being involved in a film as good as "Silence" in the years since. Except maybe Jodie in "Nell".

Ttotally timeless.

Fincher Joins an Elite Club, and The Chairman of New Line Cinema Nearly Dies. Your Tuesday Inanity

A couple of very interesting entertainment stories came down the pike yesterday. Both are from The New York Times.

1.) David Fincher's an ass-hole. I think we all knew that from the stories that filter out from his film-sets (like the professional beakup between Fincher and D.P. Darius Khondji on the set of "Panic Room"), but this is the first time I've seen it laid out in black and white. Jake Gyllenhaal, who stars in Fincher's upcoming film, "Zodiac", had this to say about working with Fincher:

“What’s so wonderful about movies is, you get your shot,” he said. “They even call it a shot. The stakes are high. You get your chance to prove what you can do. You get a take, 5 takes, 10 takes. Some places, 90 takes. But there is a stopping point. There’s a point at which you go, ‘That’s what we have to work with.’ But we would reshoot things. So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where’s the risk?”

And Robert Downey Jr. said:

“Sometimes it’s really hard because it might not feel collaborative, but ultimately filmmaking is a director’s medium,” he said. “I just decided, aside from several times I wanted to garrote him, that I was going to give him what he wanted. I think I’m a perfect person to work for him, because I understand gulags.”

Mark Ruffalo said:

“The way I see it is, you enter into someone else’s world as an actor,” he said. “You can put your expectations aside and have an experience that’s new and pushes and changes you, or hold onto what you think it should be and have a stubborn, immovable journey that’s filled with disappointment and anger.”

It's not hard to see what they're all getting at. They all hated being on this movie. In the same article, Fincher is quoted saying, "Every once in a while there are actors you can defeat." And, about "Panic Room": "I was kind of impatiently waiting for everybody [he means the actors] to get where I’d already been a year and a half ago." With "Zodiac", he ditched the meticulously-storyboarded approach he brought to "Panic Room" and decided he would, instead, "be more attentive to watching the actors." Lucky actors.

All that being said, I think Fincher's one of the best directors working today. Kubrick was notorious for shooting crazy numbers of takes, and I wouldn't have wanted him to lessen those numbers by a single one to make the actors feel better, or like him better. And I think Fincher may not be too far out of Kubrick's league. I guess it's just a little depressing that at least three men renowned for making exceptional films -- Michael Mann, James Cameron, and now David Fincher -- are all unrepentant bastards while working. Does excelling in this medium require a myopic perfectionist hard-ass with a special talent for making others feel small? I would say probably not (I still haven't heard a bad word about Peter Jackson, for example), but it seems to help. I'm very happy to see their films ( "Zodiac" comes out March 2nd), I'm just glad I don't have to work with them.


2.) New Line Cinema Chairman Robert Shaye nearly died in 2005. He caught the streptococcus A bacteria, came down with a very serious from of pneumonia (the same kind that killed Jim Henson), and the doctors put him into a medically-induced coma for 6 weeks. Holy crap! Can you imagine? Giving the OK to the doctors to put you under for six weeks knowing the chances of dying while comatose were (and I'm assuming here) pretty damn good? Creepy.

Anyway, Shaye's recovery took a long time, but I'd say he was getting pretty close to fighting weight when he got all bastard-y with Peter Jackson about the audit Jackson requested for the "Fellowship" DVD sales. (Jim Cameron weighed in saying that, even with the most transparent studio, you still do an audit. This leads me to believe New Line's got something to hide here). Because of that lawsuit (which Shaye's fighting), Shaye doesn't want Jackson to direct "The Hobbit", and is trying to get Sam Raimi to do it. Ugh. I could MAYBE say no to a non-Peter Jackson-directed "Hobbit" if Shaye got some nobody to do it (or worse a somebody like Ratner or Story), but a Raimi-directed "Hobbit" would be hard to say no to.

Book Illustratin'

After two weeks of incessant posting, I thought I'd give you an illustration interlude. As the actual writing part of my book winds down (yes, I'm still entering in those changes -- got hung up on a problematic scene but I think I fixed it today), I've been thinking more and more about illustrating it. The idea of big, full-page pen and ink drawings isn't appealing to me (way too much work), but I like the idea of little drawings that could appear on the first page of each chapter, just above the big number. In addition to the painted, full-page illustrations in King's "The Gunslinger", the artist, Michael Whelan, also drew these great, ultra-detailed little drawings that kind of gave the story an added layer of richness. That's kind of my template.

The above is an unfinished sketch (the two trees that frame the scene ought to be black, for instance), but if I did a finished version of this, I'd put it at the beginning of Chapter One. The drawing shows the unfriendly emissary of the gated community, Richard Junger (in his black Mercedes) parked at the end of the paved road watching the hero drive up the dirt road. Anyway, it's a first draft.

The Blazing Beacon of Truth That is the Inanities Has Shown "24" the Error of Its Ways. Also More "1/2 Hour News Hour" Badness For Your Amusement

Good news for "24" fans. After what was, for me, nearly a whole week of being conflicted about watching the show because of this afore-blogged about "New Yorker" article, Howard Gordon, one of the executive producers of the show, said yesterday that they'll be dialing back on the torture in the remaining shows. Go here for the story. Though Gordon says they're decreasing the amount of torture on the show because it was getting to be "trite" and NOT because of any human rights concerns, I'm just glad they got the message, even if it wasn't Surnow. I'm sure he's up in his office shaking his head at the "liberal media" and the "PC gestapo" everytime he thinks about what they've made him do, but I think the slight shift in the show's content is good for the culture and good for Fox's bottom-line because now liberals can watch the show guilt-free again. Of course the bad news is that they've already shot 16 of the 24 episodes -- all of them no doubt chock full of torture and thinly veiled Republican dogma -- so this new anti-torture directive will effect only the final eight. Good enough, says me.

Also, the new Surnow-produced Fox "comedy" show, "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" premieres tonight on Fox News. If that first clip wasn't enough to convince you that ultra right-wingers are incapable of writing and/or performing comedy, this clip ought to do the trick. No doubt, the two "stars" in this clip agreed to do it because they're close personal friends with Surnow. In a way, this clip makes the New Yorker article come alive by showing concretely the extent of Surnow's connections with these sort of people. In terms of comedy, this clip's even more cringe-worthy. The laugh track makes me depressed -- they don't even want to fool you into thinking actual people are in the studio laughing it up at this dreck. It's as if they know their audience won't know the difference. Yeesh.

Anyway, enjoy the awfulness, and enjoy your weekend.

JJ Abrams Nabs "Dark Tower" to Direct? Also: TVM's Website and Rogan V. Mencia: Plagiarism Smackdown!

I read a depressing and widely-reported rumor the other day on Aintitcoolnews.com (who was in turn reporting it from IGN.com). It's just a rumor at this stage, but it isn't exactly without credence. The rumor is that JJ Abrams of "Lost" and "Mission Impossible 3" fame, has been tapped to direct Stephen King's 7-volume epic "The Dark Tower". For anyone who has affection for Roland Deschain and this weird sci-fi/western amalgam and looked forward to one day seeing it on the big screen, this is bad news.

The background on this (which I think Aintitcool's Quint talks about in the item) is that King and the writers of "Lost" had a symposium of some kind recently where the empaneled JJ Abrams talked about how much they loved King, and the also empaneled King talked about how much he liked "Lost". Strangely, one of King's primary reasons for enjoying the show (which he talks about in his Entertainment Weekly column) is probably the main reason I think the show's lost a lot of steam: King likes that the "Lost" writers don't know where the show's headed. I imagine this is so because that's how he writes (with at least one exception) and thinks it's the best way to go with novel-writing. So anyway, on-stage and off, Abrams goes on and on to King about the "Dark Tower" and how much he'd love to adapt it and King offers it to him.

I hope it's not true, but if it is, this is why it's depressing: JJ Abrams.

King's a great writer, but he doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what is good and what is bad when when it comes to adaptations of his own work. How else can you explain how he keeps giving Mick Garris his novels to adapt even though Garris has screwed them up abysmally time and time again? How else can you explain why King believes the ABC mini-series version of "The Shining" is superior to Kubrick's? Granted, some of that has to be authorial myopia that comes from being so close to one's own work, but whatever the case, King isn't the best judge of who best to bring his stories to screen. So by choosing JJ Abrams, and this is what's galling, he's decided to reward mediocrity and buckets of flattery by giving JJ, the son of a well-connected TV producer, his magnum opus to adapt as he sees fit. Given both King's and Abrams's long-standing relationship with ABC, my guess is they'll go this route and ABC will be accommodating with millions of dollars to each. Abrams has just one feature under his belt, ("MI:3", a big-budget franchise movie that, despite a 100 million dollar budget, managed to feel like TV), and now he just gets this?

Anyway, I know this is all way geeky and I seem pissed all out of proportion to this story's actual importance, but I really like "The Dark Tower", a story a lot of talented filmmakers would all kill their grandmothers to make, but somehow Abrams gets to be the guy? I'm not saying that there is no possibility that Abrams could make this into a worthwhile film, but why take the chance as the odds are against him? There are a lot of A-1 directors out there sitting on the bench who'd make something worthwhile out of this stuff if they got a chance at the plate, but . . . all right. I'm done talking about it.

In other news, I stumbled over an old high-school classmate's website the other day. Trevor Van Meter was a year ahead of me at Sanderson, and back then he was (and is now) a really talented visual artist. My junior year, he painted a giant, muscly Spartan (he was our school's mascot) on the wall of the gymnasium that was about 20 feet high and ten across and looked not at all like a high-school student's effort at large-scale painting. Anyway, he's good and in the intervening 12 years, he's gotten into professional illustration. Here's a link to his site. Though I like his style of illustration and T-shirt design, I'd really like to see what he's been drawing in a more naturalistic, pencil on paper kind of style. Anyway, popular illustration-themed blog, "Drawn!" like his stuff, too, and has linked to Van Meter here, and here.

Finally, this: Joe Rogan (of "Fear Factor") and Carlos Mencia (of "Mind of Mencia") don't like each other. Rogan has taken it upon himself to end the practice of comics stealing material from other comics. He says, and I paraphrase, "If this kind of thing happens in the recording industry, it's all over the news. If it happens in comedy, no one cares." He cares. Carlos Mencia (along with Dane Cook) are notorious in the comic community as joke-stealers. At a recent show, Mencia called Rogan (who sounds like he was in the audience heckling) up on stage to put the matter to rest. This is what happened. (It's a 10-minute clip and features loads of cursing, in case you're at work). I'm not really a fan of either of these guys, but their on-stage fracas is fascinating.

I'm not sure what it is, but I think the sub-culture of comedians is characterized primarily by stunted emotional development. The conversation they have on-stage resembles more a back-of-the-classroom argument in a 10th-grade remedial English class than it does two ostensibly grown men trying to make their case in front of a worked-up audience. Anyway, it's interesting.

More tomorrow.

Maybe the Very Very Old Will Find it Funny?

Okay, yes, I'm flogging the Joel Surnow thing to death a little, but this was too good not to mention.

In Monday's post, I mentioned the new show that "24" executive producer Joel Surnow was producing for Fox News. Entitled "The 1/2 Hour News Hour", it's supposed to be the conservative answer to "The Daily Show". What I didn't know when I mentioned that was just how soon we'd get a taste of the show. A clip leaked onto YouTube today. To be completely honest, I was a little worried I'd think the show was funny. Like I'd have to eat crow and tip my hat that they'd done the impossible, that is make jokes with a conservative slant funny. But now that I've seen the clip, I can rest assured no such crow eating will ever take place. I'd say this qualifies as Exhibit 2,348B proving conservatives aren't funny.

Watch. Believe.

"Hannibal Rising" to "Nashville"

So, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I saw "Hannibal Rising" on Sunday night. Not too good as you might have guessed. I knew going in that the reviews had been nearly universal in their antipathy towards the film, but I went hoping to see if there was even a little flash of the Lectery goodness I love so much. No such luck. The guy who plays Lecter (Gaspard Ulliel) has this terrible, Eurotrashy accent which, even if there'd been any good lines for him to deliver, would have mangled them. Worse, he's got this Crispin-Glovery joker-mask for a face. Not a trace of Hopkins in either appearance or demeanor, and not even an interesting new take on the character to make up for it. Some of the movie's difficulty lay in casting Noel but I think Harris's novel is central to the film's failure. True, the Lecter character never needed fleshing out -- I think he was just fine as Harris left him at the end of "Silence": enigmatic and unpredictable -- but much about the backstory Harris gives Hannibal is just disappointing. The reason he eats people is because starving opportunists ate his sister when he was a kid? And he's a Lithuanian whose father's named Count Lecter? You almost think Harris thought about the whole thing for a second, called it good and went ahead, thinking all the while to the 5 million dollar check he'd soon deposit. I wished he'd paused for a few minutes and thought a little harder. Would have made a better book and possibly a better movie and he would have gotten the same cash. Anyway, neither was good enough to devote more ink to than just that.

Also, I watched "Nashville" finally. I thought it was dull, overlong, and self-indulgently meandering. It feels like a movie that's so of that particular moment that if you weren't in any way present for that moment, the film has no impact. I totally concede that I may just be an uncultured goof but, so far, after having watched two of his "classic" films, "M.A.S.H." and now "Nashville", the critical glow that surrounds Altman still mystifies me. Maybe "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" will be the one that redeems him for me. I saw the first few minutes of that movie and it looked great. Here's hoping.

[Ed. note: The kid's name isn't Gaspar Noel as I originally wrote, but Gaspard Ulliel. Just lazy.]