The Gospel According to Prisco

I can’t say I’m a Wong Kar Wai fanatic.  He does beautiful stuff, and he’s extremely nuanced and stylistic.  But, I don’t know.  I’m not one of those die hard cinemophiles who masturbates all over himself with every foreign indie release.  But the cast intrigued me in this, so I decided to check it out.

Essentially, it’s a series of vignettes following a lonely girl as she travels from town to town, seeking enlightenment and love and blueberry pie.  I think?  It’s a bit artsy for even my tastes, but it’s very well acted.  Norah Jones is the lead, and who fucking knew she was an actress?  I just thought she was a songstress, but here she is, throwing down a hell of a performance.  There’s not much for her to do but stare forlornly at the ground and make frowny faces for most of the film, but she does it quite alluringly. 

It’s good to see Jude Law back to work.  I sort of forgot why I liked him until this movie cropped up.  Jude Law’s a good actor DESPITE all the roles he’s taken.  And then we’ve got David Straithairn and Frankie Faison putting forward pretty dependably solid performances.  Both of these guys are just go to for interesting characters.  Rachel Weisz has a terrible accent and a powerful delivery that will be cropping up in casting sessions from here to eternity.  And I don’t know why, but Natalie Portman is playing a poker gambler, and for some reason, I just love her.  It’s one of those roles that will let the haters hate on her, and the lovers love on her, and I am staunchly in the latter camp. 

Hell, I loved Garden State. 

The camera work is smart and sparkly.  Wai kind of turns the camera on America’s view of itself.  Everything is neon and nighttime, vaguely garish.  Which is how most of us view Asian cities, particularly China or Japan.  I got a little fed up with the slow-motion shots, where inexplicably the action suddenly goes all dramatic and slow motion.  Norah Jones features on the smoky sultry soundtrack, because you’d have to be an incredible fucking doofus to cast her in your movie and not ask her to throw in a couple songs for the benefit of all.

It’s a sweet film, and a short film, under 90 minutes.  I would definitely recommend this as a DVD purchase, or as a nice date film. 

Damn that George Clooney.  He’s just such a charming motherfucker, isn’t he?  And now, he goes and directs a movie that’s not half-bad.  It’s not offensive enough to the senses to rail against it, but I really don’t think anyone needs to dash out to the theatres and watch it.  It’ll be a wonderfully successful DVD rental, and that’s about it.  And that’s about all it deserves.  I mean, director-wise, he’s done better: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.  And actorwise, he’s certainly done better.  I won’t even count his Oscar nominated stuff. 

I like Renee Zellweger.  I’m sorry.  I know she’s gotten whomped on for her scrunch-face and her diva attitude.  But she was great in Empire Records, she was very good in Chicago, she was marvelous in Cold Mountain, and by god, she’s fantastic here.  I’m sure there are any number of actresses who would have done better with the part, but she’s terrific as the plucky smartmouthed reporter.  It’s no Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hudsucker Proxy, but she’s very fun to watch.  And John Krasinski.  Hmm.  He was alright, because he’s a nice guy, but I just don’t think he’s got enough chutzpah to be sharing lead status with these two.  I really want to see him take a Ryan Reynolds route, sort of jibber jabber along in the supporting fields and then jump into the lead stuff.  But hell, he’s still good. 

That’s kind of the metaphor for this movie.  It’s alright.  The plot’s not that intriguing, and it felt weirdly long.  There’s not much football action, it’s more screwball comedy than anything else.  But if you want something to watch with the folks one quiet weekend, go for it.

Again, this was another film I didn’t think I would enjoy as much as I did.  Most of this has to do with Jason Statham.  If Jason Statham played Dracula, I would seriously consider drinking blood.  I don’t know what it is about that bastard, but he’s just so goddamn cinematically charismatic.  

The Bank Job is cheesy, but in that fun 70’s throwback way.  It’s what they wish they had done with Austin Powers.  There are far better heist films, even one based on true stories, but this was just enjoyable.  It’s not the best film this year, certainly not even top five, but it’s worth a gander.  

I had seen Michael Haneke’s original film when TA-ing a screenwriting class.  My instructions were to pop in the video and watch it if I wanted to.  I got paid for this.  Well.  Sometimes I miss grad school.  I remember being utterly mindfucked by the movie, and asking the professor what the hell it was.  He just laughed.  He said, “Did the class like it?”  I said, “I don’t know.  Most of them were just confused.”

Funny Games is essentially his shot for shot English language remake, and it’s just that.  Same movie, same lines, different actors.  Better actors?  Kinda.  No one will ever surpass in my mind the two maniacs of the original, but the family is better represented by Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, and their son.  

The movie is a vicious startling commentary on cinematic violence.  It forces the audience to deal with their own desires to watch horrible things happen to seemingly innocent people.  It breaks the fourth wall in surreal ways, putting a mirror up to the bloodlust of the crowd.  At best, it’s thought provoking and painful to watch.  At worst, it’s an arrogant attempt at a message film.  It works, it works very well.  Almost too well.

While some people will merely avoid this because the subject matter makes them exquisitely uncomfortable, others will watch it and just shrug.  Most of the violence happens off screen and we’re forced to listen to the sounds and grunts and shrieks of agony and terror.  If it were remade by someone else, the entire thing would be shot on YouTube and star hot young stars.  

But Haneke makes his point, as do many European directors, at the expense of his audience.  He’s not worried about people enjoying the film so much as having a visceral experience.  It recalls much of Lars Von Trier’s work, especially the Dogme 95 stuff.  But there’s something to be said for art being too artsy.  And this smacks slightly of that.  

However, if you’re able to stomach it, I would suggest watching this.  You probably won’t like it, but that’s kind of the point.  But it will make you think.  

I thought this movie would be a marvelous piece of crap, in the same way that Rob Zombie jam packed House of 1000 Corpses with every single movie homage he could fit, like a child mixing sodas at a dispenser, until all that was left was a sugary, disgusting mess.  And the director, who helmed The Descent, does cram in a lot of crap.  We’ve got Escape from New York, and Alien, and The Road Warrior, and a couple Renaissance Faires, and James Bond, and 28 Days Later and probably more I’m missing.  But it’s so gleefully over the top, you don’t care.  It’s not a good film, not by any measure, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch.  This will be a top DVD rental, and it damn well should be. 

The story is basically that a super virus infects Scotland, so they wall off the entire country, and then everyone hates Britain.  Then the virus starts to spread again, so they send in a mercenary (Rhona Mitra) to find a scientist (Malcolm McDowell) who some how survived to see if there’s some sort of cure.  She only has 35 hours, because that makes the movie more tense. So she gathers up a force and makes her way into the hellish wasteland that is Scotland, where she must content with maniacs.  The rest of the movie is her scrambling around killing things that are trying to kill her.  

It’s so over the top it’s literally insane.  People don’t just get decapitated, they get arms and legs chopped off.  Nobody gets shot, they get ventilated.  Nobody falls off a car and smashes into something, they get splattered across the road.  Never once can you take this movie seriously, and it’s brutal fun. 

So when it comes out on video, get yourself a copy.  It’s a get drunk and hoot and holler type of film.  And you’ll rarely have a better time watching a movie that with this one.  It’s pure cinematic junk food. 

But how I so wish she didn’t.  

This dreadful piece of crap some how managed to take a wonderful cast and just do awful things with them.  I’m pretty sure this movie was what killed Oscar Wilde.  The story was so bland and unappealing and preposterous, that I immediately blocked it out, and instead gazed upon the various cast members and thought about the other things I saw them in.  Ah, Amy Adams, you were so good in Enchanted.  Thank you for showing me your fanny.  And Frances McDormand, I wish you got pushed into the woodchipper in Fargo, because you have never done better than that role, and from the looks of things you’re pretty much destined to forever be making people wonder why the Coens keep bringing their mother to the Oscars.  And look, there’s Caesar!  And Moaning Myrtle!  

What’s bizarre is that everyone for the most part has these sparkling characters.  Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone gave them much in the way of dialogue.  So they just sort of stand around not doing anything.  In fact, you can see them almost wincing when forced to go on with the terrible terrible no good very bad plot.  I think I actually saw Amy Adams mouth “I’m sorry” at one point.  She might have been saying “Ham Story”.  I’m no good at reading lips.  

Don’t waste even one day with this crap.  Even my beloved Higginbottom, who dragged me to see this, was even woefully disappointed.  But I’ve made her do terrible things for me in the name of love.  And to me.  

Holly Black loves fairies like people love to hate on Diablo Cody now that she’s won an Oscar.  She was responsible for my first foray into teen fiction, the pretty decent Tithe, and a book which prompted me to present my evaluation of the literary section as such to wondering parents: “Well, it’s got a lot of swearing and sex, but no more so than your average eighth grade school day.”  So when she teamed up with Tony DiTerlizzi, who’s former work I am not familiar with, I was a bit nervous.  SHE’s doing a kids novel? 

But these adorable little books were made, and no foaming-mouthed parents stormed back into Barnes and Noble, so I figured they were safe.  When I heard Nickelodeon had bought up the rights, I got a little mouth vomitty.  But, then I saw the trailer and thought, there may yet be hope.

The Spiderwick Chronicles tells the story of three children: a fencing champion daughter and two twin boys, both played by Freddy Highmore (obviously pre-August Rush), one brooding and troubled and the other a bookish nerd.  They begrudgingly follow their newly-divorced mother from the hustle and bustle of New York to a mansion in the middle of nowhere that was long abandoned by their crazy-great aunt.  Mysterious sounds start to unsettle the trouble boy, Jared, who ends up smashing holes in walls while trying to stop whatever’s scratching behind.  He ends up discovering a hidden attic laboratory, and in there a field guide of the faerie world by Arthur Spiderwick, his great-great-uncle.  What follows is the children’s attempts to defend their home and the field guide from marauding goblin hordes working for the evil ogre, Mulgurath (Nick Nolte), who wants the book so he can kill all the other faerie creatures.

This was a spectacular movie.  The goblins, instead of being giant gremlinesque critters, are instead these fat, toads that scamper along like tubby gorillas, which somehow make them more horrifying.  The faerie world can only be seen through a special seeing stone, or if a hobgoblin (voiced by Seth Rogen, thereby completing his contract that he appear at least once in a movie every month from here to eternity) spits on their eyes.  This caveat makes for some exciting action, while some people can’t see the impending peril, and others can and try to warn them.  It does a wonderful job of exploring the world of fantasy, how it tends to be the realm of the children, and everyone else thinks these people are crazy. 

It’s a pretty intense movie, and essentially pretty violent for a kid’s flick.  Something on the par of Gremlins, not necessarily getting zit-popped in a microwave or pureed in a blender, but there is some exploding stove action, and plenty of scratching and biting and stabbing.  It’s a gooey movie, with green snot-like blood spurting out of wounds and splattering around.  Also, tomato sauce and vinegar are like acid to these creatures, so there’s plenty of splattery wounds corpsing up the monsters.  If I said it once, I’ve said it a million times, it’s good to be a Roman Catholic.  We’re safe from vampires, demons, and now goblins.  Now who’s laughing, Martin Luther?

I’m really pleased that Nickelodeon respected children enough to keep the action intense and truthful.  Freddy even spouts out a “What the hell?”.  This isn’t a movie for children under 8, perhaps, but it’s for those kids who aren’t ready for PG-13.  It hearkens back to the days when we were kids and got to see Raiders of the Lost Ark with all it’s face melting action, or Luke get his hand chopped off with a lightsaber in Empire Strikes Back, or even the foul mouth of Chunk in The Goonies.  This actually felt like it was the baby of Goonies and possibly that other perennial favorite Monster Squad.  I’m glad to see them not pandering to oversafe parents and to the baby crowd.  Good for them.  And the action and pacing are good enough to even keep an adult’s interest.

The only fault I would have the movie is it’s more saccharine safe ending.  Teeth were rotting in my head, but that was mostly because I don’t have dental care.  The sentimentality plays, but at touches it gets a little overly much.  But it’s a family film, so it’s hard to begrudge it that.  The cast is superb, with Mary Louise-Parker taking off from dealing to do a decent job as the overwhelmed mother, David Strathairn as Arthur Spiderwick putting in another solid performance, and Joan Plowright awesome as always.  I didn’t recognize Seth Rogen’s voice as Hogsqueal, but he does a decent job.  Nick Nolte is spectacular as the grizzled Mulgurath.  But I think for the critters, the hat tip goes to Martin Short.  I don’t know what happened to him, but he’s a good actor, and I really hope he starts to pop up in better projects.  I couldn’t remember where I’d seen Sarah Bolger, the girl who plays Mallory before, but she was the daughter from In America who killed me with her rendition of Desperado.  She’s good, she’ll be in more stuff, probably not as much as Annasophia Robb or Dakota Fanning, but you’ll definitely see her again.  And Freddy Highmore, well, by now I would have thought to have had my fill, but he’s just a good actor.  It’s tough to buy him as the troublemaker, but that part quickly devolves into more curious.  He’s particularly impressive as the bookish kid, not because he’s a soft boy, but because that kid starts to snap by the end of the film, and his emotional range is pretty impressive. 

All in all, think hard about bringing your little little ones to this movie, but it’s really a great flick.  I will now have to snatch up the tiny tomes and read them for myself.  Though I get word from my first grade teacher brother that there are even better things on the horizon as far as kid lit.

I got that teeth rattling feeling in the back of my head with the foreknowledge that this could not possibly be a good movie.  It sounded like they took a romantic comedy and tried really hard to jam it into National Treasure, and along the way something got broke.  How spectacularly bad this movie would be actually made me lose wisdom teeth.  It was almost a lesson in how not to make a movie.

I would tell you the plot, but it managed to be like Swiss cheese.  If you added it to anything else, it would be tasteful and palatable, but by itself it’s stinky and full of holes.  Logic bounces off this thing like rain off a poncho.   Apparently, Matthew McCona..Mc…High School Girls and Kate Hudson met on her spring break, had a whirlwind sexual romance, and have been married for 10 years, which would make her about 12 when they got married. Anyway, because she’s a history grad student (snicker, snicker) and he’s a diver, they’ve been searching for a lost Spanish treasure off the coast of the Keys. Don’t worry, they’ll explain the backstory of the treasure seven or eight times during the course of the movie.   Mostly to fill in the loooooooong gaps between cockblocked action sequences.  

I don’t know if they purposely made everyone else useless in the cast in order to make the leads look better, but halfway it worked.  Matthew Highschoolgirls is actually very charming and amusing during the film.  Not enough to make you forget what a piece of shit you’re watching, but I guess him being shirtless for most of the film is meant to amuse the countless lonelyhearts flocking to this tripe during their bitter Valentineless’s weekends.  For the fellas, unfortunately it felt like we were watching Pirates of the Caribbean with all the skeletons in the cast.  I got no problem with a girl being skinny, but seriously, that bitch needs a taco.  Ten tacos.  Just slap her with them.  If she’s wearing a bikini throughout the film, and she looks like a cardboard cutout, there’s a problem.  And since she acts like one for most of the film, dragging it down like a lead anchor, they would have been better off just getting a cardboard picture and dubbing the lines.  I hear Lindsay Lohan’s out of rehab. 

Fortunately, they decided to just DESPOIL the rest of the cast by giving everyone dauntingly tragic accents.  First, we’ve got Donald Sutherland doing a faux British, you know, cause it makes him sound richer.  Which I’ll give them, whatever, Donald Sutherland’s clipped speech patterns sound funkdified anyway.  Then we give him a daughter, Alexis Dziena, who’s best known as the inexplicably naked fifteen year old from Broken Flowers.  Her role is basically to squeal alot, sound dumb, and look unappealing in whatever outfit you put her in, mostly because she’s got a body like a fifteen year old naked chick from Broken Flowers.  I’ll even give them that. 

Then you got a stunning triumverate.  Malcolm Jamaal-Warner decides to affect a Caribbean accent about as realistic as Dave Chappelle’s in Half-Baked.  Even his co-hort doesn’t need to let everyone know he lives “right ne-ah dah beeech.  Bo-oy!”  Only to top him is Ewen Bremner, who seems to wander from film to film unsure of what he’s doing.  For some reason, they wanted him to be Ukrainian, so he comes off sounding like a drunk frat boy doing a bad imitation of Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October.  Between his natural…Scottish/Welsh?…accent, and the weird Vampire stress on his words, it’s hard to understand what he’s saying.  Not that it matters.  His character is essentially pointless.  But the topper is Ray Winstone, tubbier than ever on his Beowulf royalties, trading every bit of his Proposition-cred for what I presume to be a Cajun accent.  It’s like your grandmother doing a Foghorn Leghorn imitation, unless your grandmother is Mel Blanc.  Which would be eerie.  I don’t understand why you’d cast talented accented actors and then insist on giving them accents that do nothing to advance their characters.  Ray Winstone could have been British or Australian and it would have been fine, so too could have Ewen Bremner.  There was no reason to give them those accents.

The most irritating part of the movie, in a drab dishwater drinking film already, was easily the character of Bigg Bunny, a rap mogul ala Sean Puffy Combs, who owns one of the keys.  Apparently, McHugs ows him lots of cash, so he tries to kill him.  Because that’s what rappers do, yo.  Then, when he learns of the treasure, and now that he’s got the promise of money from two seperate treasure hunting teams, he decides that he’s going to try to kill everyone and get his own inept crew of thugs to gather it.  Even though he’s already rich enough to own a key island.  I guess black people are just murderous and greedy.  It’s the only way they become successful.  Just ask Oprah.

So Fool’s Gold not only manages to fail entirely as a romantic comedy, but as an adventure comedy, and essentially as a movie.   I know it won’t be strong enough of a failure to drive a stake in the hearts of either McStaythesameage’s or Kate Hudson’s career.  But I’m sure it’s not going to be a moment of pride on either’s resume. 

I think I have a mancrush on Martin McDonagh.  I have yet to read a play of his that has not given me wood.  They are hilarious, violent, and dazzling.  I watched his Academy Award winning short film, Six-Shooter, and it’s still the best two dollars I ever spent on iTunes.  So when I found out he was doing a feature length film, I was giddy with delight.  But also wary, because February tends to be where studios drop their less-enjoyable films. 

In Bruges is the story of two hitmen on the lamb in Belgium after a murder goes terribly wrong.  Ray (Colin Farrell) assassinated a priest for his first job, and in doing so managed to kill a young boy.  The bullets went through and hit the kiddie.  Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is the fatherly hitman who brought Ray along and is responsible for taking care of him.  Their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), is not happy with them, and sends them to Bruges, ”a fucking fairytale”, to await orders.  Ray hates Bruges, and soon gets involved with a girl working on a movie set, and ”befriends” the dwarf who’s the star of the sequence. 

While the body count isn’t particularly high, it doesn’t to be.  This was the most entertaining, heartbreaking, and brilliant movie I’ve seen in a while.  In other words, it’s sheer McDonagh.  The writing is unbelievably tight, and nothing is wasted.  Even scenes that seem like they are totally throw away, they come back later to justify actions.  This all comes from his background as a playwright, and his ability to weave a tale.  It’s got all of the unusally non-PC dialogue one would expect from McDonagh, such as a weird dialogue about the suicide rates among midgets and the impending race war.  But you would be hard pressed to have a better time with a movie.

The acting is fucking phenomenal.  Colin Farrell makes up for his entire past decade with this movie, and banks on future fuck ups.  He imbues Ray with all the manic energy and spastic nastiness you would hope.  He was essentially born to play this role, and it’s a return to Tigerland, and a rememberance of his talents.  Brendan Gleeson is always good, and in here he’s beautiful.  His character is so sweet and caring and fatherly, despite being a killer.  You never doubt for a moment that Ken can kill, but he’s such a rich tapestry it makes for such an enjoyable character.  In anyone else’s hands, this would be easily stock or cardboard.  But the economical glimpses we get into Ken make him such a worthwhile person to watch.  And Ralph Fiennes as Harry is completely over the top and insane.  It’s wonderful.  I don’t know who gave him his prostethic teeth, but his bitter open mouth rantings draw comparison to Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast. 

I would highly recommend this movie, not just because it’s good, but because it features a Harry Potter reunion worth its weight in gold.  Mad-Eye Moody versus Voldemort, and we’ve got Fleur Delacour as a drug dealing Dane.  Hell’s yeah. 

I got to see this in a sneak preview at the DGA.  I love Michel Gondry, mostly because Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is my favorite movie of all time.  I thought Charlie Kaufman was brilliant with Spike Jonze, but after witnessing this spectacle, I was hooked on Gondry. 

The Science of Sleep came out, which was sans Kaufman, and I was wary.  And while I liked it, it was sort of like, wow, hmm, how about that.  It was very qwirky and unusual, and difficult to understand.  I’m all for insane narrative and especially the imaginative, but it sort of stumbled my brain.  I remembered Human Nature, and despite the pairing, I thought it was a piece of shit.  So they don’t always hit them out of the park.  It’s kinda like Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.  Together, they write like geniuses.  Apart, well, not so much.  Pop Quiz!  Did you even know the Wilson brothers wrote and directed a movie last year?  The answer is: no.  You did not. And not that you should have. 

Anyway, my dear friend Fluffy McGee said, have you seen the trailer for the new Michel Gondry film.  I hadn’t.  So she directed me to it.  The premise:  Jack Black suffers a magnetism attack and erases all the videos in the store owned by Danny Glover and run by Mos Def.  So to cover their tracks, they have to remake all the movies.  Movies like Ghostbusters, and Men in Black and Rush Hour 2.  They remake them by acting them out themselves. 

Oh.  Hell.  Yeah.

So with feverish anticipation, I sprung to the theatre and watched this baby happen.

It’s an absolutely adorable film.  It’s rated PG-13, but I don’t recall anything particularly bawdy that merits that rating.  It’s just an honest to God sweet movie.  About community coming together, and about fame, and moviemaking, and about being a star, and about copyright infringement.  It’s got all the bizarre qwirks one would expect in a Gondry film:  people wearing tinfoil hats, bizarre crossdressing, etc.  But it’s such a delightfully funny and cute movie. 

Is it great?  No, not really.  Not on the scale of Eternal Sunshine.  It won’t change your life.  It might make you want to go out and grab a camcorder and couple friends and fuck around for the amusement and degradation of a few YouTube douches.  But it makes you hearken back to those days when you and your friends might have made stupid movies on someone’s borrowed/stolen camcorder.  Just so you could watch them.  We stained our friend’s yard and treehouse (and ourselves) with food coloring because I learned how to make blood packs and we wanted to make a zombie movie that consisted of ways we could shoot cap guns and blow up blood on each other.  I have since learned how to make a girl look like she had a fetus torn from her and then smash the baby on the turf.  I love gore effects. 

Anyway, the movie itself smacks of the sweet sentimentalism of a Jean Shephard or Garrison Keillor, but its set in Passaic, New Jersey, with all the cheer of the armpit state.  Mos Def and Jack Black are so much fun to watch together you don’t want to see them in more movies, you want to BE in movies with them. 

And that’s the best part of the film.  The process, which they call “Sweding” in the movie (cause it’s Swedish?), is them reshooting the movies with each other in the starring roles.  Then eventually, it becomes the townspeople in their own movies.  Their redone versions are only 20 minutes, but they are so hysterical.  Because it’s not a parody, it’s a reimagining with no money.  How would children shoot this movie, with cardboard cutouts and yarn special effects?   You’ll crack yourself stupid laughing at it. 

I really think people should flock to this flick.  It won’t be your favorite movie ever, but it’ll definitely make you feel happy.