Matthew McConaughey's victory dance (and other Oscarcast highlights)

Matthew McConaughey dances. Bill Murray snarks. And Ellen DeGeneres serves pizza. Read all about it here.

Remembering James Gandolfini in The Mexican

The passing of time and lives often can change attitudes about certain films and the performances they showcase. In the wake of James Gandolfini's recent death, some critics and bloggers have written eloquently and/or appreciatively about the Sopranos star's scene-stealing supporting turn as a brutally efficient but unexpectedly sensitive hit man in The Mexican, Gore Verbinski's 2001 dark comedy top-lining Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. And yet, even now, the movie itself continues to be widely regarded as something of a misfire, a rattletrap star vehicle built for two that offered too few laughs.

So I feel compelled to once again file a minority report: The Mexican, as I noted in my original 2001 review, is "an arrestingly offbeat shaggy-dog story that somehow remains fleet, fresh and funny even during its most dizzying mood swings between droll whimsy and sudden violence... Working from a witty and free-wheeling screenplay by J.H. Wyman, director Gore Verbinski... does a fine job of fusing the movie’s disparate elements – everything from frenetic slapstick to affecting tragedy, from blazing gunplay to sepia-toned, silent-movie flashbacks – into a consistently engaging and uniquely satisfying whole."

And yes: It's more fun than Verbinski's upcoming The Lone Ranger (despite the latter's own homage to silent-movie comedy conventions).

For the benefit of those who tuned in late: Pitt plays Jeff, a low-level courier for L.A. mobsters who is sent south of the border to retrieve an invaluable (and possibly cursed) antique pistol known as -- yes, you guessed it! -- The Mexican. His mission delays the long-planned Las Vegas holiday he intended to enjoy with Samantha (Roberts), his live-in girlfriend, who's so infuriated that she sets out for Nevada by herself. Along the way, however, she makes the acquaintance of Leroy (Gandolfini), who forces himself upon her as a traveling companion.

Again quoting my 2001 review:

Leroy says he plans to hold [Samantha] as a hostage, just in case Jeff gets any funny ideas about delivering The Mexican to the L.A. mobsters. Samantha is incredulous – she doubts Jeff would ever have any ideas, funny or otherwise – but, like her errant boyfriend, she’s in no position to argue.

One thing leads to another, on parallel tracks, on either side of the border.  In Mexico, Jeff bumbles his way from one sticky situation to the next, evidencing survival skills that give a whole new meaning to the term “dumb luck.” (Another character marvels: “By the grace of God, you have managed to Forrest Gump your way through things!”) In Las Vegas, Leroy is an unexpectedly sympathetic listener while Samantha prattles endlessly about her rocky relationship with Jeff.  Indeed, the funniest scenes in The Mexican illustrate that, deep down, Leroy is a deeply sensitive fellow with his own set of relationship “issues.” When he isn’t shooting people, or handcuffing hostages to hotel-room beds, he’s a real sweetheart.

Gandolfini is splendidly funny as Leory, a sad-eyed lug who just happens to be ruthlessly lethal in his unforgiving professionalism. He’s sneaky and subtle in his scene stealing, but at his very best during an interlude in a roadside diner where he and Roberts give and take as equals. Pay close attention, by the way, and you’ll catch his wink-wink, nudge-nudge allusion to the anxiety-ridden mobster he portrays in HBO’s The Sopranos.

I have Jeff Wells, of all people, to thank for making me aware of this charming YouTube clip. Enjoy.

My Top 10 of 2011

To begin, as I do every year, with my standard disclaimer: This may be my list of the Top 10 Movies of 2011 – but it’s not necessary a rundown of the year’s 10 Best Movies. Because, quite frankly, I haven’t seen every single movie released in the US during the past 12 months. But it most certainly is a list of my favorite films to open in U.S. theaters in 2011.

(To be sure, at least one didn't open in Houston – but that is H-Town's loss.)

These are, of course, purely arbitrary and totally subjective choices. And I’ll freely admit that, a decade or so hence, I might look back on the following lineup and want to make additions or deletions. At this point in time, however, I can honestly state these are the 2011 releases that impressed me most. And best. So there.







Hugo. Martin Scorsese’s awesomely fantastical and fervently heartfelt fable of resilience and renewal is an exhilaratingly loving ode to the magic and immortality of cinema, a stirringly exciting adventure with a delightfully Dickensian flavor, and a powerfully eloquent expression of human longing for a sense of purpose. Not incidentally, it’s also the very best 3D movie ever made. And I must admit: I never thought the sight of a mechanical man drawing a picture ever would get me teary-eyed. But… Well, if you passionately love film and you see this particular film, you’ll understand.







The Descendants. George Clooney gives the finest, strongest performance of his career – so far – in this richly amusing and deeply affecting dramedy by filmmaker Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt). You could say Clooney’s character – Matt King, a Honolulu lawyer whose life undergoes dramatic changes as his wife hovers near death – is a typical Payne protagonist, a normally risk-averse fellow who gets shaken out of his routine, and shocked out of his expectations. But Clooney makes that character uniquely, memorably and well-nigh perfectly his own.







Daydream Nation. Charged with alternating currents of teen angst, sardonic wit, nervous dread and impudent sensuality, Canadian filmmaker Mike Goldbach’s dazzlingly inventive comedy suggests Juno as reimagined by David Lynch – or a sunnier, funnier Donnie Darko – as it renders the misadventures of its sarcastic, sexually precocious 17-year-old heroine (a breakthrough performance for Kat Dennings) who remains whip-smart and wickedly droll while confronting the peculiarities of life in the weirdest small town this side of Twin Peaks. (This Canadian import received criminally sparse U.S. theatrical release – but it’s well worth catching on cable or home video. And, yes, those are quotes from my original Variety review on the DVD package.)







Young Adult. Charlize Theron’s brilliant performance as a spectacularly self-indulgent thirtysomething author who behaves not just badly but borderline madly while revisiting her hometown is nothing short of jaw-droppingly fearless. And so is the sharply insightful and often discomfortingly comical movie – created by the Juno team of director Jason Reitman and scriptwriter Diablo Cody – that showcases Theron’s Oscar-worthy star turn.







Margin Call. Armed with his own savagely smart and profanely witty script and an impeccable ensemble of perfectly cast actors, first-time feature director J.C. Chandor takes dead aim at the Wall Street wheeler-dealers who – while swept up in a perfect storm of unchecked greed, wanton hubris and self-absorbed panic – triggered the financial meltdown of 2008. The movie is some kind of David-Mametesque  masterwork, suspenseful and sardonic in equal measure, but be forewarned: If you play a drinking game that calls for taking a shot each time some anxious character reacts to bad news by gasping “Fuck me!” – you’ll likely be passed out on the floor by the midway point.







50/50. And now for something completely different, a comedy about cancer. No, make that: An extraordinarily funny and exceptionally humane comedy about cancer, inspired by the real-life experiences of scriptwriter Will Reiser. Joseph Gordon-Levitt compellingly ricochets between emotional extremes as a Seattle radio producer who relies (sometimes begrudgingly) on emotional support from a raucously uninhibited buddy (Seth Rogen) and a sincere neophyte therapist (Anna Kendrick) while fighting the good fight against a dread disease.







The Ides of March. George Clooney does his finest work as a film director – so far – in this acerbically crafty and meticulously crafted drama about power plays, double crosses, inconvenient tragedies and brutal disillusionments behind the scenes of a Presidential campaign. Major props go to Ryan Gosling, who so adroitly conveys profoundly mixed emotions as a campaign tactician that even during the final second of the last scene, you’re not entirely certain just what he’ll do next.







Midnight in Paris. Woody Allen’s immensely likable and immoderately clever comedy has Owen Wilson hitting all the right notes (at precisely the right moments) as the sort of character Allen himself used to play in his films, a romantic who’s deeply mistrustful of intellectuals, but equally skeptical of those who don’t know (or care) about the artists and artistry he admires. While on vacation in Paris with his materialistic fiancée (played rather too convincingly as a hectoring nag by Rachel McAdams), Wilson’s Gil, a successful screenwriter determined to write his first novel, is magically transported back to the 1920s and allowed to hang out with such luminaries as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. It’s a great place to visit – but perhaps, Gil reluctantly realizes, not the best place to live.







Win Win. Written and directed with subtlety and skill by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), this warm-hearted yet clear-eyed comedy surprises and delights while focused on a financially stressed lawyer and part-time high school wrestling coach (Paul Giamatti at his finest) who does the right thing for the wrong reasons when he becomes the surrogate father for a client’s teen-age grandson (Alex Schaffer, arguably the most promising newcomer of 2011).







Moneyball. To be entirely honest, I don’t know nearly enough about the inner workings of The National Pastime to judge whether every minor detail in the storyline – the literally “inside baseball” stuff – is altogether accurate. But I can spot a great movie about dogged persistence and seriocomic obsession when I scout one, and I can tell when a major star (Brad Pitt, take a bow) gives a performance that marks him as a Hall of Fame player, so Moneyball scores a spot in my Top Ten lineup.

Runners–up: Warrior, Buck, Brotherhood, Contagion, We Bought a Zoo, Super 8, Thunder Soul, Rango, Drive and The Artist.

Blast from the past: Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own

Not very long before the 1997 release of The Devil's Own -- the late Alan J. Pakula's thriller about an IRA terrorist (Brad Pitt) who hides out under an assumed name in the home of a too-trusting New York cop (Harrison Ford) -- Pitt was quoted by interviewers as being highly displeased by the way IRA activists were depicted in early rewrites of the script. (Midway through production, he denounced the movie as the  "most irresponsible bit of film making — if you can even call it that — that I've ever seen." He seemed to have changed his mind about the project by the time I caught up with him at the New York junket for Devil's Own. (At the very start of the video, we're caught briefly chatting about the long-delayed release of Hard Eight -- a.k.a. Sydney -- which starred his then-sweetheart Gwyneth Paltrow.)




But I have to say: Looking back at my interview with Ford at the same junket, it strikes me that he was still a tad unhappy about his co-star's going public with complaints. Come to think of it, Ford doesn't seem much happier about the then-upcoming re-release of Star Wars movies, does he?

20 years on with The Show Business Bible

During an especially affecting moment in Spring Forward, one of my favorite films, Ned Beatty – playing a parks and recreation worker on the verge of retirement – marvels to a younger colleague played by Liv Schrieber that, somehow, when he wasn’t looking, several years slipped away: “Time goes by, and it seems like a little time. You turn around, and it was a big time.” How true.

Twenty years is a big time by anybody’s measure. But I’ve had a mostly grand time during my past two decades as a free-lance film critic (and, periodically, theater critic) for Variety, the venerable trade paper that I still think of as The Show Business Bible. That it actually has been two decades is a little disconcerting – has it really been that long? – but never mind. This weekend, it’s also a cause for celebration.

To be precise: My first three free-lance reviews – all of them for films shown at the WorldFest/Houston International Film Festival -- appeared in the weekly edition of Variety dated May 2, 1990. One of the movies just happened to be Red Surf, a melodrama about drug-dealing surfers starring a very young George Clooney. (For the record: the other two were Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter and something called A Girl’s Guide to Sex.) One week later, Variety ran my review of another WorldFest/Houston offering, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, a spoofy sci-fi B-movie that showcased a very young Billy Bob Thornton in a supporting role. And two weeks after that, I reviewed yet another WorldFest feature: Across the Tracks, a dysfunctional family drama co-starring a very, very young Brad Pitt.

So you see: Right from the start, I’ve specialized in spotting fresh talent for The Show Business Bible. Well, OK: I’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to spot fresh talent. Thanks to Variety.

I already was gainfully employed as a film critic for the late, great Houston Post when I was approached – by no less a luminary than Peter Bart himself -- to serve as a Variety stringer. But in my mind, writing for Variety – even back when I started, at a time when film critics didn’t receive a full byline – was not just a step up but a leap forward. To put it simply and hubristically, it was, to my way of thinking, a sign that I had arrived. I had made the grade, passed the test, completed my apprenticeship – and somehow gained entry inside a very select circle. I felt I had become part of a grand tradition. And you know what? I still feel that way.

Blame on my misspent youth. Back in the mid-to-late '60s, when I was a high school student in New Orleans, I fortuitously discovered The Show Business Bible in a library and was instantly smitten. In fact, I'm not ashamed to say that, while I was growing up, there was something truly magical to me about Variety, my own private gateway to Hollywood and beyond.

On Fridays -- after school or, quite often, very early in the morning, before classes -- I would take the bus downtown to buy Variety at a newsstand. (It took two days for the weekly edition, then published on Wednesdays, to reach N.O.) I would devour all the reviews of movies and plays and TV shows, all the news about movies in production and box-office hits and misses, and gradually master the Variety-ese slanguage so I could fully understand what to the uninitiated must have seemed like indecipherable code. And, of course, I would marvel at the colossal special-edition issues dedicated to film festivals and year-end wrap-ups, all them filled with dozens of full-page ads for forthcoming movies.

I continued to be awestruck buy The Show Business Bible well into my twenties and beyond. I still have a photo somewhere that my wife took of me during our first trip together to New York in the mid '70s, long after I had begun my professional writing career. It's a picture of me standing in front of the old Variety office near Times Square -- the one with the big Variety logo emblazoned on a huge ground floor window.  I am smiling a great big goofy kid's smile in the picture, like a True Believer enraptured by his proximity to some hallowed shrine.

So, of course, when Peter Bart called more than 15 years later…

I know, I know: Some of you will be quick to dismiss all of this a sentimental blathering, or shameless self-aggrandizing, or both. And that’s your prerogative. For others, it may seem odd, if not downright incomprehensible, for anyone to still feel so emotionally bound to anything so seemingly antiquated as a newspaper. But, hey, that’s my prerogative. Besides: I’ve also been writing web-only reviews for Vaiety.com for quite some time now, so it’s not like I’m exclusively an ink-stained wretch. But I remain, deep down, an analogue guy in a digital world, as my heart continues to beat to the rhythm of a printing press. That may change – well, actually, that must change, eventually – but not too soon, I hope.

This is probably where I should write something about all the notable filmmakers whose first films I reviewed for Variety at various and sundry film festivals. And after that, I guess I should toss out ten or twenty titles of films that I got to review before anybody else thanks to my Variety affiliation. But that really would be self-aggrandizing, and I would deserve every brickbat tossed in my general direction. So I’ll leave it at this: I am deeply grateful that I’ve been a part of the Variety team for the past two decades. And I look forward to my next 20 years with the organization. (Assuming, of course, that they'll have me.) Because even though I know that the day may come when print media as we now know it will go the way of 8-track tapes and VHS movies, I’m sure that Variety, in some form, will survive and thrive. And I hope to remain part of its ongoing tradition.

Brad Pitt to the Rescue

I often donate T-shirts and other movie-promotional items to local churches and other charity groups during clothing drives for various causes. So, like, if you ever see a TV news report on some earthquake in Mexico, and there's a survivor walking around in a Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star jersey with his meager belongings kept in a The Longest Yard tennis bag, you'll know who's likely responsible. But, really, I've never been involved in a large-scale effort like this. And I can't help wondering why this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

Oscar poll

OK, you folks have decided that Mickey Rourke (46 %) should edge out Frank Langella (30 %) and Sean Penn (23 %) in the Best Actor race. (Neither Brad Pitt nor Richard Jenkins got any votes at all. Make of that what you will.) So now I'm asking: What's your pick for Best Picture? You can vote over on the right hand side of the blog until 6 pm CST Sunday (Feb. 22).

Just like in the movies

If you plan to visit New Orleans within the next few days, you might want to pay a visit to The Clover Grill -- featured prominently in a key scene in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- before tourists start flocking there in search of Brad Pitt. It's really a delightfully no-frills, old-fashioned Big Easy joint, and it fairly reeks of local color. Indeed, you should drop by after a long night of hearty-partying further up on Bourbon Street. At around 4 am, you're likely to find transvestite hookers at one table, cops at a second, wide-eyed tourists at a third and, whenever I can make it back to my hometown, me -- at the counter, wolfing down breakfast after closing down my favorite blues clubs and guzzling a few grenades. Have fun. Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Westerns ride again

USA Today sees a renaissance for the Western on the horizon as 3:10 to Yuma, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (with Brad Pitt, above) and No Country for Old Men prepare to gallop into megaplexes. Also in USA Today: A DVD guide to Westerns (including the original 1957 3:10 to Yuma) starring the late Glenn Ford.

l want you to put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen, and give a warm New Orleans welcome to Bradgelina

They're moving to my hometown, and are already looking to get more involved in local charity work, according to US Magazine: "The couple hopes to raise awareness for the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast region." Angelina is interacting with non-celebrity moms, with Brad is continuing his efforts to encourage construction of environment-friendly homes.

So I would just like to go on record as saying that, henceforth, anyone who makes a snotty remark about Pitt or Jolie can kiss my ass. OK?

And for pretty much the same reason: Spike Lee and Sean Penn are off-limits, too.