Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Back to drew's blog-o-rama?
Watch: A Slipping Down Life Trailer (Quicktime).
Remember way back in 1989 when Lili Taylor was in Say Anything as Corey, the "ugly duckling" teenager who was kookily obsessed with a handsome fella who was obviously an overrated ass? She wrote those crazy songs with titles like "Joe Lies", and uttered poignantly insane things to him "You invade my soul".
Flash-forward to 2004, and coming soon to a theater near you is "A Slipping Down Life", featuring Lili Taylor as an "ugly duckling" teenager who's kookily obsessed with a handsome fella who's obviously an overrated ass. Okay, maybe she ain't a teenager in this one, but this really looks like it's got one of those gag-inducing "Walk To Remember" kind of vibes. Plus, if you look on Amazon, almost every description of the book starts with "Evie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager." So there. Lili Taylor is 37 years old now, and the poor thing still gets roles like this. Patrick Fugit, beware.
Anyhoo, from the trailer, it appears to be one of those cookie-cutter flicks where girl obsesses on boy, boy doesn't know girl exists, girl carves boy's name into her forehead, boy then pays attention to girl and matures, realizing things like 'you make me feel like I can be myself." Oh, and Irma P. Hall makes a green, smiling tuna casserole that looks sort of like the birthday cake Geena Davis might make for her spawn in The Fly. Yawn.
Besides, that whole "engraving their name into your forehead" thing doesn't work at all. Believe me, I've had Bananarama on mine for years, and do they ever have the common courtesy to contact me in any way? I mean, besides to renew the restraining order? I'll bet Jerry Maguire would have been a better flick had Renee Zellweger engraved the name "Jerry" in her forehead to get his attention/pity. Then the irritating kid could have said to Tom Cruise "Did you know a human head weighs eight pounds? P.S. My mom's human head has your name on it. P.S.S. Call child services."
I'm always complaining about how Hollywood just recycles the same crap over and over, that true creativity is deader than disco. Well, I take it all back when it comes to this flick-to-be I just read about, the adaptation of The Dogs Of Babel. Creativity is alive and kicking, and comes in the form of a talking dog according to Dark Horizons. I kid thee not.
The best selling book by Carolyn Parkhurst is about, and I quote, "a linguistics professor whose wife dies after falling from a tree. The man becomes obsessed with teaching their dog to speak in order to learn whether the death was an accident or suicide."
How can I possibly go through this life without finding out whether the good professor actually does teach the dog to not only talk, but to explain, all CSI-style, the exact way his wife dies. Did she fling herself from the tree because she was married to a man who spent his evenings discussing politics with his ferret? Was she pushed by a deranged squirrel? Does it have a crazy surprise ending, where the dog is somehow crucially involved with her death, because of blackmail or not getting the enough Snausages? Or does the dog not exist at all in some Charlie Kaufman-esque twist? Hmmm? Oh, the possibilities are just overloading my brain.
So, I've given it a lot of thought, and here are the top five possible things I think the dog will wind up saying during the suspenseful climax of the film.
(1) Rye Ruv Roo.
(2) The name's Poochie D, and I rock the telly. I'm half Joe Camel, and a third Fonzarelli.
(3) KILL! KILL! KILL!
(4) Whose leg do you have to hump to get a dry martini around here?
(5) You're acting like a first year f*cking thief! I'm acting like a professional!
I fully understand and forgive you in advance if you never come to my blog again.
According to Coming Soon, Parker Posey is going to star in the USA Network show Frankenstein, playing "a female cop who unravels the myth of Frankenstein, alongside her partner, through a seemingly standard homicide investigation. The weekly series finds doctor Victor Frankenstein and his creature residing in present-day Seattle, having survived the past two centuries through the doctor's genetic tinkering."
Feh.
I've got so many problems with this. First off, to be anal retentive, "a female cop"? It's Parker Posey. Call me crazy, but it's 2004, perhaps it's about time to lose the "female" every time we mention the cootie-laden creatures known as girls along with jobs that were solely male in the 1950's.
But that's just nitpicking. The main thing is that I love Parker Posey. She was the indie slacker queen there for many years, starring in many a fine film like Dazed And Confused, Party Girl, The Daytrippers, Clockwatchers, House Of Yes, yadda yadda. This is where her strength lies, being unmotivated, sarcastic, disaffected, and perhaps a tinge on the crazy side. Why do I want to see her as a cop tracking down Frankenstein of all things? I have a sneaking suspicion she's not going to be an unmotivated, sarcastic, disaffected, perhaps crazy slacker cop.
Not that I'm not all for breaking into drama at some point, but for a USA series about a modern day Frankenstein chillin' with his creature in a rainy city filled with flannel and overpriced beverages bearing pretentious latin names? She can do better, I'm sure of it. Besides, why is Doc Frank living with the creature in the emerald city? Aren't they, you know, mortal enemies now? Are they now living together all Perfect Strangers style? Or do they look more like this? Either way, sounds a tad on the schlock side to me.
Although, since they haven't cast her sidekick yet, I suggest this fella.
Let me start off by saying that complaining about Harvey Weinstein being an insufferable prick (to paraphrase Nate) is trite, cliche', and done by now. We all know that even though Miramax has put out oodles of quality films, as head honcho he's been schmuck numero uno for many, many years now. There's absolutely nothing new to say about the fella, so let's all cease speaking ill of the man.
After this post.
Via ceerock, I came across a letter that Weinstein wrote to Errol Morris back in 1988 about The Thin Blue Line. Saying that the letter was appalling is like saying Jesus got a little roughed up in The Passion; it's the understatement of the year. And remember, this isn't the Harvey Weinstein post-Pulp, when he was a Master Of The Universe. This is circa 1988, when 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed would have no clue what Miramax was. He's like a walking cautionary tale, if he didn't exist, we'd have to create him. Indie filmmakers can tell their children "You better be good, or Harvey Weinstein's going to chop twenty minutes out of your first movie."
Okay, let me jump off the soapbox now and onto a slightly shorter one. Errol Morris is one of the finest documentarians (is that a word?) of our time, and we all know who the better man in that l'il scuffle was. 2003 was arguably the best year ever for documentaries (Spellbound, Stevie, Friedmans, OT, yadda yadda), and Errol Morris made The Fog Of War, which was the finest documentary out there. Art, it was. It took a guy, Robert McNamara, who I was not a fan of beforehand, and made me empathize with the guy. Notice, I said empathize, not forgive, before I start getting napalm in the mail. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend you rent it when it comes out May 11.
And to do my part in helping spread the gospel learned by Robert McNamara, here's the list of 11 lessons. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There's something beyond one's self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6. Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good you may have to engage in evil.
10. Never say never.
11. You can't change human nature.
There are a few things that give me joy in life, besides, y'know, love and all that fun stuff. And one of those things is watching people swear. There's just something so pure and wonderful and soul-cleansing about letting some bad words fly. Wasn't that the true appeal of Q*bert, after all? C'mon, I'll bet if people were polled anonymously, they'd confess that their favorite part of watching Inside The Actor's Studio is seeing what the actors say their #1 swear word is. And their least favorite moment would be hearing James Lipton pronounce the name "Bernard Pivot".
There is a point to this. Britain's Channel 4 has an advert (see, I'm even pickin' up on the lingo here) featuring actors proclaiming their favorite obscenities. Could this be more custom made for Drew? In America, we go on the express train back to the 1950's because of a boob, and over in England, they've got commercials with
more cussing than Melanie Griffith after a bender. Go figure.
So check it out, and bask in the joy that is profanity. And in case you were wondering, my personal fave is Richard Schiff (aka Toby on West Wing) saying "motherf*cking c*cksucker", followed closely by Peter Krause (Nate on Six Feet Under) uttering "insufferable c*ck". Because I'm mature like that.
Here's a list of more actors' profanities-o-choice, including my own top choice by Jack Lemmon. I'm proud to have provided some choice potty mouth for your perusal today.
Link via Metafilter.
Also, in case you didn't know, I'm "not a must read". And alas, I'm also a cinematic tease. It's in the newspaper (The Toronto Star to be precise, check it out), so it must be true. Hmmm...I do believe my last evaluation at work also included the phrase "not exactly useless." At least this piece in The Star didn't include other similar phrases from my work evaluation, like "chronic stapler thief" and "should put as much time and energy working as he does making his rubber band ball."
All petty whining aside, I must admit, they did say some nice things too. I certainly was included in some fine company and it still is pretty darn cool to be mentioned; I can handle the abuse. Hell, I'd rather read some semi-snarky comments about my blog than, say, sit through a movie like The Human Stain again. I am only human, you know.
And as somebody famous once said, there's no such thing as bad publicity. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the famous person wasn't Pee Wee Herman.
There's cinematic crimes against humanity, and then there's cinematic crimes against humanity. The full I, Robot trailer would fall in the latter category.
The concept itself had so much potential. Isaac Asimov, one of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time, paired with Alex Proyas, director of The Crow And Dark City. Arguably two of the top flicks of their respective genres. Sure, then Will Smith came aboard, but I gave the big lug the benefit of the doubt, thinking that for sure, they would tone down his "Will Smithness" for a prestige project like this. Hell, he was fine in Ali, so I wasn't totally grasping at straws. He was surely going to prove he was all growns up in this one. Then I saw the trailer.
Words cannot describe this atrocity. Every time I try to even type about it, I burst into tears and wind up rocking in the fetal position muttering "Will Smith will be tried one day for his crimes against movies" over and over again. So I did what any logical fella would do in my situation. I busted out my Ouija board, and decided to see what Isaac Asimov himself had to say about it.
Drew: So, Isaac (we're BFF, so I can call him by his first name), did you happen to
see the new I, Robot Trailer?
Asimov: What the F*CK? Have you ever seen such a sh*tty piece of crap in your life!? I couldn't even tell it was based on my writing until the end! I thought it was a sneak preview for Men In Black 3, for chrissakes! This is one of my best works, and they befoul it by using The Fresh Prince, the principal from Boston Public, and were my eyes deceiving me, or was that one of those Coyote Ugly bimbos in there as well?
Drew: Indeed she was. Wait, didn't Coyote Ugly and Boston Public come out after your...ummm...expiration? How do you know those B-level pop culture icons?
Asimov: Hey, the afterlife is a snooze, man. Gotta fill the time somehow. To be honest, I spend most of my week waiting for The O.C. to come on. That Mischa Barton turned out to be quite the hottie. Who knew?
Drew: Uh...okay. Back to I, Robot. I was especially appalled by Smith's "You thought I was calling you sugar? You're not that rich" line. That wasn't in your original book, was it?
Asimov: I get to communicate with a live human being for the first time, in like, 6 years, and I get the brain dead one. Of course that wasn't my line, schmuck! Hardly any of the dialogue was! Do you think I would have won all those awards if I wrote things like "Baby, what happened to your face? Did that Frank Murphy beat you up again?" They would have laughed my ass all the way back to Russia.
Drew: Sheesh, SOR-RY. Talk about touchy.
Asimov: Sorry, man, sorry. It's not you. I'm just still really pissed about this whole thing. Between the hideous casting, putrid dialogue, Bjork-looking robots, and that "Rules were made to be broken" tagline, I'm turning over more than Paris Hilton in that video with the crappy resolution.
Drew: Well buddy, sorry to say, but there's nothing you can do about it now. You know, being dead and all.
Asimov: Nothing? Listen Oda Mae, I want you to get me Johnny Cochran, I'm suing
for defamation of character! Also, I need you to do a bunch of other things for me. First, I have a few things to say to 20th Century fox. So, take a letter. Dear Ass Clowns: You dumb motherf-
Unfortunately, our communication broke off at this point. Perhaps I'll contact him again when the sequel, "We, Robots", co-starring Anthony Anderson hits the big screen.
Truth be told, I was pretty darn excited when I read a while back that Terrence Malick was going to make a movie about Che Guevara. Because, I must confess, I didn't know much about Che outside of the fact that he was a Latin American revolutionary and seemed to adorn t-shirts of people that I thought were pretty cool, if not a hair on the kook side. So I figured I could be entertained and heck, learn a little along the way. And the fact that Benicio Del Toro was playing the lead role and Javier Bardem and Franka Potente had supporting roles only sweetened the deal.
So imagine my dismay when I read that Mr. Malick, now affectionately referred to by me as "the bastard", is shelving the project for a year! And is he shelving it to make an even grander project? A fresh tale that will scintillate me like no project in the history of cinema, perhaps?
He's making Poca-FREAKING-hontas. Because that's a story that I've never heard before. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he'll do a different take on the story, and Colin Farrell is a good choice as anybody to play John Smith, but c'mon, Pocahontas? I'll step out on a limb here and declare that any subject matter already covered by Disney is not exactly fresh material.
And you know the ironic part? Malick says he intends to return and direct Che in 2005. Let's look at the last 3 movies he made, and the dates involved, shall we?
Thin Red Line, The (1998)
Days of Heaven (1978)
Badlands (1973)
So he's saying that sure, he took 20 years in between Days And Thin Red, and it'll be at least a 7 year window in between Thin Red and this Pocahontas flick, but now, he's gonna make two movies in two years?
I truly believe that this is going to occur.
I also believe that Michael Medved's favorite movie of this year is going to be
Kill Bill 2.
Charlize Theron & lighter & sucking on apple=?
Well, I'm certainly not going to say that the Oscar winning star has made herself a cutesie l'il apple bong. For that would be libelous and wrong. And so out of character for me. You can judge for yourself by looking at a bigger picture of Charlize and this alleged apple pipe, which I'm not saying it is.
Heck, maybe she was about to light the stem and make a homemade birthday apple for a loved one. Or perhaps she was doing a mime of Brad Pitt as Floyd in True Romance. Or...ummm...she was making hot apple cider in some quirky South African way?
But still, who am I to determine what, if anything, she is doing with that forbidden fruit? You know, she could just be eating it while smoking her cigarette at the same time. But one word of advice, if I may, Ms. Theron.
Don't bogart the Golden Delicious. (Link/pic via New Yorkish)
You know, whenever I'm shooting the breeze with a person who has seen the mighty fine Sofia Coppola sophomore effort Lost In Translation, I'm always asked the same question. And that question is "Sir, if you're not going to purchase anything, could you please step aside?"
Oh yeah, and I also get the "What did Bill Murray whisper in Scarlett Johansson's ear?" inquiry. And I fully admit, it's sort of fun to come up with various things he might have said like "I'm sorry about Osmosis Jones", "Did you know Jude Law shares the same hairline as I?" or "Screenshots of your tush are going to spread on the internet quicker than the MyDoom worm." But it's just like "What's in the briefcase?" question for Pulp or the "Does Kris Kristofferson intend to bump off Strathairn and company in Limbo?", we're never really gonna know; it's left up to our imaginations.
And though many people whine about not being told everything, I appreciate that sort of thing. I don't need everything spelled out for me. Call me crazy, but I'm the sort of fella that thinks that Frailty would have been a much better movie had it been left more ambiguous.
Now, with all that said, I found (via Heaneyland) where a writer for the NY Times had gone through the effort to translate what the director of the Suntory Time commercial was actually saying to Bob during the commercial shoot. It's a pretty entertaining read, so check it out and see what was, of course, lost in translation.
Oh, and for the record, Anna Faris was obviously doing a spoof that was based, at least partially, on Cameron Diaz. Don't let everybody's denials fool you, they're just being nice. Do I have irrefutable proof to back this up?
To quote my sadistic seventh grade algebra teacher, "shut up, that's my proof."
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Obviously, I'm not trying to re-invent the movie blog wheel here. I'm just never lacking in opinions about movies, pop culture, news, and other assorted hoohah. And my mailman has put a restraining order on me, so here's my place to vent.
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