Actually, it looks even better in the current issue of Esquire. Of course, the magazine's cover-story interview with Daniel Craig keyed to Cowboys & Aliens ain't chopped liver. But I have to say: That isn't the reason I'm so very glad to be a subscriber today
Here's another insightful and elegantly written review -- which just happens to quote me. Yeah, you guessed it: I'm going to milk this cow until the teats run dry, and then I'll make belts and hamburgers. (Note to the humor-impaired: That was a joking reference to a barnyard animal, not a sexist remark about... well, you know.)
PalinWeek.com reports. You decide. Meanwhile, Judy Berman of Flavorwire.com rounds up reviews written by people who have seen The Undefeated -- including me, of course -- so you don't have to. And Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic reports that moviegoers are conspicuous by their absence at an opening-day screening of the Sarah Palin documentary. Which is not to say, however, that the film doesn't have its defenders here and there.
The seventh edition of Fantastic Fest -- the world's wildest genre-movie extravaganza -- is set for Sept. 22-29 in Austin, Texas, the only place on the planet weird enough to handle its spectacular excess. Judging from today's announcement of the first 20 titles confirmed for the FF2011 schedule, I'd say festivalgoers are in for the usual smorgasbord of heavy artillery, sexual perversity, edgy sci-fi, scantily clad cuties, flesh-eating zombies and unrestrained ultra-violence. Still no word yet, however, on whether creative director and co-founder Tim League will be getting back into the ring with anyone.
I keep telling myself: OK, tonight I'm not going to watch all those freakin' news shows. No Keith, no Rachel, no Hardballor Last Word. I'm not gonna plant myself at my dining room table and divide my attention between MSNBC or Current on my HDTV, and Talking Points Memo or Daily Kos on my laptop. I'm gonna go out to a screening, or watch a movie on my HDTV -- hell, I still haven't caught up with all the Harry Potter films! -- or write something for this blog or some other venue, or connect my new Blu-Ray player so I can downstream movies, or even try to organize the piles of magazines and stacks of DVDs in my home office. But then a story like this breaks, and I know -- I just know, dammit! -- what I'll really be doing tonight. (Hat tip to Kelly for the above illustration. You can check out her other work here.)
OK, I admit: This first trailer for John Carter -- set to open March 9, 2012 at theaters and drive-ins everywhere -- appeals to my inner geek. But did I miss something, or have the folks at Walt Disney decided to downplay the movie's literary source? I mean, it's based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels, right? So what's with the bland movie title? Shouldn't the Disney brass be afraid that some folks will buy tickets expecting to see Noah Wyle back in the emergency room?
Steve Pond of The Wrap reports on the off-the-radar success of a no-budget indie movie that could very well encourage and inspire other indie moviemakers. (Of course, it does help if you have a popular TV actress as one of your leads.) Haven't seen it yet, but I must admit: The above clip, which suggests a collaboration of John Cassavetes and Claude Lelouch, definitely has piqued my interest.
Yeah, he turns 69 today. And, sure, he admits that his agent thought he might be too old to "get" Cowboys & Aliens. But you know what? Jon Favreau told me that Harrison Ford can still do some serious ass-kicking. And I believe him.
[Back on October 7, 1994, at a time when Johnny Depp was better known for soulful sensitively, not self-satirical swashbuckling, I praised his change-of-pace turn in this under-rated gem.]
Edward D. Wood Jr. -- war veteran, Hollywood fringe-dweller and uncloseted cross-dresser -- wanted to make movies in the worst way. Unfortunately, that is exactly what he did.
Long before the term ''high camp'' conjured up images of anything other than a mountaintop military base, Wood labored indefatigably in the 1950s netherworld of no-budget, fly-by-night film production. Among his most notorious credits: Glen or Glenda, a passionately sincere but largely incoherent defense of transvestism as a way of life; Bride of the Monster, a stark and stupid cheapie-creepie that climaxes with Bela Lugosi battling frantically, albeit none too convincingly, with a rubber octopus; and, most infamously, Plan 9 from Outer Space, the sci-fi howler that deserves a place of dishonor on anyone's Top Ten list of Le Bad Cinema.
Each of these films is of a mind-frying, jaw-dropping awfulness that must be seen to be disbelieved. And yet, at the same time, each clearly is the work of someone who passionately believes in the seriousness of his endeavor, whose intensity of purpose is surely no less than that of the people who made Birth of a Nation or Battleship Potemkin.
Which goes a long way toward explaining why Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, the Batman movies), one of Hollywood's hottest properties, chose to direct Ed Wood, a hugely entertaining and sweetly sympathetic tribute to one of the worst moviemakers -- if not the worst -- who ever darkened a soundstage.
Ed Wood is an extremely funny film, but its humor is not that of the hectoring, cheap-laugh variety. Maybe the mondo-bizarro Burton responded to Wood's misadventures with a kind of ''There but for the grace of God ...'' recognition. Or maybe he simply was taken by the notion that any kind of artistic impulse, even that of someone with all of the ego and ambition but none of the talent of a true artist, is worthy of consideration.
For whatever reason, Burton has managed to make something altogether unique -- a compassionate farce -- that can be enjoyed even by people who never heard of Wood, who would never willingly submit themselves to a Wood work.
And if you are familiar with Wood's slapdash Z-movies, so much the better. You will be prepared to appreciate the astonishing fidelity of Burton's efforts to re-create their look and feel.
Johnny Depp, who was effectively cast as Burton's Edward Scissorhands, gives an atypically exuberant and marvelously crackpot performance as Ed Wood. The most striking thing about his portrayal is the boundless, never-say-die enthusiasm he constantly conveys. Early in the film, while reading a blistering pan of a Los Angeles stage production he directed, Wood focuses on the review's only left-handed compliment. ''See!'' he enthuses. '''The soldiers' costumes are very realistic.' That's positive!''
Much later, Wood remains equally chipper when, shortly before production begins on Plan 9 from Outer Space, he must cope with the inconvenient death of a leading player, Bela Lugosi. Wood decides to use footage of Lugosi he has already filmed, and rely on a stand-in -- a much younger, taller stand-in -- to play Lugosi's role in other scenes.
Sure, this means the other actor will have to keep his face covered with a cloak. But so what? “Filmmaking is not about tiny details!'' he warns a naysayer. ''It's about the big picture!''
The heart of Ed Wood is Wood's symbiotic but genuinely affectionate relationship with Lugosi, played with richly comical crankiness by Martin Landau. When they first meet, Lugosi is a reclusive has-been -- as he puts it, ''just an ex-bogeyman'' -- who hasn't worked in four years, and has been a morphine addict for two decades. Wood uses him to raise the meager financing for his threadbare films, but always treats the burnt-out star with the utmost respect. Lugosi responds with touching gratitude and, when the cameras are rolling, utter professionalism.
Of course, Lugosi can't quite figure out what Wood is doing during the production of Glen or Glenda, a movie in which the hero (played by Wood himself) reveals his fondness for women's clothing to his lovely bride-to-be (played by Wood's off-camera girlfriend, Dolores Fuller, who is in turn played by Sarah Jessica Parker). But that's OK. Nobody else, except Wood, can make much sense of the film, either.
Burton and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski present a shamelessly romanticized view of Wood's life, work and eccentricities. They end their story long before the real-life Wood began to churn out sleazy paperbacks and porno movies while he wasn't drinking himself to death. And the filmmakers even succeed at making Wood's transvestism seem like a harmless, even lovable quirk. The movie is never funnier, or more endearing, than when Wood explains to a low-rent producer that, even though he loves to wear high heels and angora sweaters, he is proudly heterosexual. In fact, he's so wholesome, he fought bravely in World War II. ''Of course,'' he admits, ''I was wearing women's undergarments the whole time.''
In addition to Depp and Parker, who are extremely good, and Landau, who will be an Oscar nominee if there's any justice in the world, Ed Wood also features Jeffrey Jones as the fake mentalist Criswell, Patricia Arquette as Wood's incredibly accepting wife, and Bill Murray as an effeminate hanger-on and transsexual wanna-be. Vincent D'Onofrio is priceless in his brief bit as Orson Welles -- yes, that Orson Welles -- who pops up just long enough to offer Wood some valuable encouragement: ''Visions are worth fighting for.'' Not surprisingly, Wood takes this advice to heart.
OK, I can accept that Terence Stamp has come a long, long way since I first viewed him on theater screens as an impossibly handsome young star in Modesty Blaise, Billy Budd and The Collector. I know that he long ago aged into being a craggy character actor, most notably in The Limey(a film, as I noted in my 1999 review, that cleverly utilized "flashbacks" from the 1967 Poor Cow to show Stamp's grizzled avenger as a much younger man). But this report that Stamp has been cast as a "grumpy pensioner" in an upcoming film is... well, enough to make me feel pretty damn grumpy myself.
After 9 ½ hours of Shoah, Claude Lanzmann's exhaustive and exhausting oral history of the Holocaust, we're left with unforgettable moments.
Like the moment when a farmer who tilled his fields near the Treblinka death camp recalls the screams of Jewish prisoners: ''At first, it was unbearable. Then we got used to it.''
Or the moment when Simon Srebnik, a survivor of the genocidal campaign at Chelmno, returns for a reunion with villagers who profess to be happy about his survival. ''Why do they think this all happened to the Jews?'' Lanzmann asks the villagers through an interpreter. ''Because they were the richest!'' a villager replies. Srebnik winces.
There's the moment when Abraham Bomba, a barber who cut the hair of women bound for the Treblinka gas chamber, breaks down during Lanzmann's inquiries. Lanzmann is persistent: He must know what happened when Bomba's friend, a fellow barber, realized his wife and sister were among the prisoners about to be gassed. ''Don't make me go on, please,'' Bomba implores Lanzmann. But Lanzmann is quietly, implacably firm: ''We must go on.'' So Bomba tries to describe a scene almost too agonizing for mere words.
Later, there's a moment when Franz Suchomal, former SS Unterscharfuhrer at Treblinka, vigorously sings a tune taught to Jewish prisoners at his death camp. He finishes the song, then tells Lanzmann: ''No Jew knows that song today.'' Suchomal smiles as he speaks.
Henrik Gawkowski doesn't smile as he remembers driving the train that brought whole boxcars of Jews to Treblinka. He talks of hearing the moans and shrieks over the sound of his locomotive. He talks of remaining almost constantly drunk to deaden his senses. He talks of trying to warn his disembarking passengers that they were not going to work details, that they were about to be processed by a killing machine. He traces a line across his neck with his index finger. The moment is terrifying.
Such moments are separated by many long minutes and hours during Shoah. (The title, a Hebrew word, means “annihilation.”) No doubt about it: This epic 1985 documentary, twelve years in the making, is punishingly long, rigorously demanding and deliberately repetitious. And yet it remains irresistibly mesmerizing from start to finish, a towering achievement with a cumulative impact that is nothing short of devastating. This week at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, you have the choice of viewing it all in a single day – starting at 10 am Thursday, with a lunch break at intermission – or in two parts at 2 pm Saturday and Sunday. Either way, expect to be enthralled and amazed.
Without resorting to documentary footage or period photographs, Lanzmann strives to re-create and re-examine the Holocaust by presenting it through the words of survivors, witnesses, perpetrators and not-so-innocent bystanders. His approach is remarkably effective, and his interviews -- some of them recorded with hidden video cameras -- are chillingly enlightening.
He juxtaposes the words with jarring images. The lush green fields we see once were the site of mass graves described by death camp survivors. The camera sweeps us down a long country road, forcing us to retrace the route taken by Jews on their way to destruction at Auschwitz. And repeatedly, insistently, there are the trains: belching steam, rattling along tracks, relentlessly moving toward the end of the line.
The device is poetic, but the interviews are prosaic. Lanzmann doesn't want to deal in euphemisms or generalizations. He has the patience to ask specific questions: How big were the crematoriums? How many people died each day in the Warsaw ghetto? Exactly how did the German government pay for the ''resettlement'' of Jews? (A low-level Nazi era bureaucrat recalls buying one-way tickets -- at excursion-rate prices -- with money confiscated from Jews when they were arrested. That's right: The victims paid for their own trips to the gas chamber.) What was the life expectancy of a Jew who arrived at Treblinka? (Usually, four hours.) How did SS commanders dispose of so many bodies?
And most important of all: Why? Why did the Polish underground refuse to give weapons to the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto? Why did the Allies ignore the pleas of Jewish leaders to launch a special campaign against the Holocaust? Why did people in Germany and Poland deliberately ignore the unmistakable evidence of the monstrous crimes being committed at the death camps?
Why did this all happen to the Jews?
It’s clear that, by the time Lanzmann started work on Shoah, four decades after the end of World War II, many of the Holocaust survivors he interviewed had moved beyond grief, had numbed themselves so they could live with the guilt of living while so many others died. (''If you could lick my heart,'' a survivor tells Lanzmann, ''it would poison you.'') It’s also obvious that other interviewees, for a variety of reasons, preferred not to remember what they had seen or experienced, what they had done or had done to them, and needed to be coaxed, if not coerced, into giving their eyewitness accounts.
Lanzmann would not let anyone forget. And his lasting legacy is an unforgettable film.
I am an immigrant's son, and I get paid to go to the movies. Truly, this is the land of opportunity. And so, to celebrate the birthday of our great nation, I give you the ridiculously corny yet tremendously affecting speech given by a beleaguered U.S. President (potently played by Bill Pullman) to rally a final push against invading extraterrestrials in Independence Day. Maybe our current Commander in Chief needs to give a similarly rousing address to rally us against the latest threat facing us.
For weeks, I've been telling people that Horrible Bosses might turn out to be the funniest movie of the summer. And, mind you, that was before I viewed the above NSFW red-band trailer. (Hat-tip to Jeff Wells for the tip.) Now I'm even more eager to wallow in the raunch. Does this make me a bad person?
And the first smartest thing, of course, was push for Francis Ford Coppola to be hired as director of The Godfather. You can read more about that in my CultureMap interview.
As William Goldman told me several years ago during the Toronto Film Festival junket for The Princess Bride: It's very hard to be a satirist at a time when the real world has loonier stuff than you would ever dare make up. To be entirely honest, even after I was alerted to this astonishingly over-the-top and beyond-the-pale campaign ad by Talking Points Memo, I thought the damn thing was a put-on, a joke, a Saturday Night Live sketch. But no. Geez, this makes the infamous "Daisy Ad" look positively subtle.
Throughout my four fun-filled days in Nashville for the 2011 CMA Music Festival -- during which time, I'm happy to say, I made my very first pilgrimage to the mecca of country music, the Grand Ole Opry -- I was amused and intrigued by the various and sundry promos on display for the forthcoming Captain America movie. Was this Paramount/Marvel's way of hyping the action-adventure as a summer blockbuster as all-American as... well, country music?
Whatever the motivation, the hoopla obviously elevated the film's profile -- and even may have attracted a few new fans for the red-white-and-blue superhero.
Indeed, the hoopla may have attracted some new fanboys, too.
The Wild West will get a little wilder this summer when Cowboys & Aliens appears at theaters and drive-ins everywhere. But you don’t have to wait until the July 29 opening date to get the inside story on this eagerly awaited sci-fi adventure film. You can read my up-close and behind-the-scenes preview in the July issue of Cowboys & Indians, now on sale at fine newsstands everywhere.
novels, right? So what's with the bland movie title? Shouldn't the Disney brass be afraid that some folks will buy tickets expecting to see Noah Wyle back in the emergency room?
, a passionately sincere but largely incoherent defense of transvestism as a way of life; Bride of the Monster
, a stark and stupid cheapie-creepie that climaxes with Bela Lugosi battling frantically, albeit none too convincingly, with a rubber octopus; and, most infamously, Plan 9 from Outer Space
or Battleship Potemkin
.
, the Batman
movies), one of Hollywood's hottest properties, chose to direct Ed Wood, a hugely entertaining and sweetly sympathetic tribute to one of the worst moviemakers -- if not the worst -- who ever darkened a soundstage.
is an extremely funny film, but its humor is not that of the hectoring, cheap-laugh variety. Maybe the mondo-bizarro Burton responded to Wood's misadventures with a kind of ''There but for the grace of God ...'' recognition. Or maybe he simply was taken by the notion that any kind of artistic impulse, even that of someone with all of the ego and ambition but none of the talent of a true artist, is worthy of consideration.
, Billy Budd
and The Collector
. I know that he long ago aged into being a craggy character actor, most notably in The Limey
(a film, as I noted in my 1999 review, that cleverly utilized "flashbacks" from the 1967 Poor Cow
to show Stamp's grizzled avenger as a much younger man). But this report that Stamp has been cast as a "grumpy pensioner" in an upcoming film is... well, enough to make me feel pretty damn grumpy myself.
, Claude Lanzmann's exhaustive and exhausting oral history of the Holocaust, we're left with unforgettable moments. 
. You can read more about that in my CultureMap interview.
told me several years ago during the Toronto Film Festival junket for The Princess Bride
: It's very hard to be a satirist at a time when the real world has loonier stuff than you would ever dare make up. To be entirely honest, even after I was alerted to this astonishingly over-the-top and beyond-the-pale campaign ad by Talking Points Memo, I thought the damn thing was a put-on, a joke, a Saturday Night Live sketch. But no. Geez, this makes the infamous "Daisy Ad" look positively subtle.
