QUICK THOUGHTS, RECENT OBSERVATIONS & SHOUT-OUTS

- Watched the making of Alien on the  Alien Quadrilogy DVD. Interesting, it’s pointed out that besides the look of Kubrick and his 2001, the biggest influence on Ridley Scott was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

- Caught First Blood (1982) on TV one morning. I always enjoyed that flick (and despised the sequels). This time seeing it, I was less impressed with the supporting actors performances (a little melodramatic and too much yelling) and the editing had some questionable cuts. But let me give a shout-out to Jerry Goldsmith’s terrific score. He’s of course has had a distinguished career, but I’d put the First Blood score up there with his definite classics The Oman and L.A. Confidential.

- Hey Casting Directors.  I understand that I’ve been blackballed from the industry for my ahead-of-my-time acting style (and my left of Marxism politics). 

But CDs you should take note of this dude,,, he shoulda been in Ironman or something....

I rewatched the first season of HBO’s epic crime masterpiece The Wire.

Okay. Fine. The TV awards are bullshit. I guess The Wire has never been up for best show. Fine it’s official, the Emmys are a joke. But rewatching season one, boy was I blown away by the performance of Larry Gillard Jr. I mean, of course any rational voter could fill up their acting award nomination cards with the entire cast. But I was especially impacted by Gillard’s work as D'Angelo (Dee) Barksdale. His pent up pain and self-torture from being the one dealer with a conscious is so multidimensional. The  scene where he explains the rules of Chess and later when he gives up his family are so powerful. (I also recall, later in the series in prison a scene where he explains the meaning of the Great Gatsby as being very moving).

- I've been watching lots of James Bond flicks on TV. 

One major issue I have. I'm convinced that I could beat-up Roger Moore if I had too. Really. I'm no Ali, but look at the guy.

Live And Let Die has the best opening song. The Spy Who Loved Me's is good too ("Nobody Does It Better"). 

I kinda like the Octopussy song "All Time High" by Rita Coolidge (hey, didn't she direct Rambling Rose and Valley Girl?). 

A View To A Kill may be one of the worse Bond flicks, but I'll give a shout-out to that tune as well.

- Watching what seemed like a rational little episode of  Naked Science on The National Geographic Channel... I’m officially convinced, and this is hard to declare... I no longer believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster (or Nessie to her friends). Shit! I’m still hoping for some hard-core National Geographic evidence for the existence of The Yeti ( I gave up on his American 'cuz, Big Foot at least two years ago).

- I rewatched Finding Neverland. I think I lost weight in my face from balling my eyes out and blowing pounds of snot into tissues. I'm gonna right another post about how much I love Kate Winslet. I hate to say this about someone so early in their career, but she is at the least in my top five favorite actresses of all time (let's see, Bette Davis, Shelly Winters. Maybe Streep, Mirren, and I don't know, Gloria Grahame? I'm forgetting a buncha fine actresses).

- Speaking of Dame Mirren, I was really looking forward to finally catching the Stephen Fears flick The Deal which The Queen was more or less a sequel to. First airing on British TV in 2003, it tells the story of the dandy Tony Blair and his rise to Prime Minister (well played by Michael Sheen who would reprise the role in The Queen) and the toll it took on his political partnership with (the current British PM) Gordon “the Gump” Brown. Though enjoyable, not as riveting as the Helen Mirren flick. 

- Speaking of politics, lemme give a shout-out to Obama's amazing speech on the final night of that reality show called The Democratic Convention.  

It was kinda a cross between Charles Foster Kane’s “My first official act as Governor will be to appoint a Special District Attorney to arrange for the indictment, prosecution, and conviction of Boss Jim W. Gettys” speech and MLK’s “I have a dream” speech. 

I thought Al Gore managing to compare Obama to another first term Jr Senator from Illinois, Mister Abe 'no mustache'Lincoln himslf, was very cleaver. 

And I find it almost offensive that these drones who were Hillary Clinton supporters, now may vote for McCain because he has used the cute gimmick of adding the sassy Sarah Palin to his ticket. If these voters actually believed in Hillary because of her stance on the issues, Palin is the poller opposite on most, veering extreme to the right. If say they thought Hillary brought more ‘experience” to the job then Obama does, well Palin brings none.        

However, if they were only voting for Clinton because  she is a woman...and now they want Palin to get elected because she also has a vagina, well that’s just as bad as the goons who said they would never vote for Hillary because she’s a woman.

- Speaking of vagina, um, um, um... I got nothing to add. 

Um, maybe a shout-out to vaginas, to all sexual and urinary organs. You rock!

- How about this: saw for the first time the strange Brit-flick, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, excellent. This 1969 flick about a charismatic teacher at an all girls school, shocked me.

Where I was expecting some uplifting 'teacher who inspires' drivel, in the To Sir, With Love or Dead Poets Society mold, this is closer to perhaps Notes on a Scandal. 

The untraditional teacher in question, Miss Broadie, brilliantly played by Maggie Smith, may be ‘inspirational’, but she’s also a twisted, manipulative, borderline-insane, fascist wannabe, who even tries to coax one of her “girls” into banging a male teacher (her own ex-lover she is trying to unload). Fascinating stuff.

And hey, I don't mean to say that all “inspirational teacher” flicks are lame (though 90% are horrible). I do love Martin Ritt’s whitey in blackville movie Conrack (only on VHS so pretty much only available at Rocket Video) and I’d give a shout-out to The Paper Chase, Blackboard Jungle (and it’s remake The Class of 1984), Election and Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers.

- I saw and loved Wall-E. Sadly for me, I could really relate to the little robot (much more then I could relate to, say, The Dark Knight). And for the first hour or so I forgot it was even an animated film, it looked so cool.

Also I enjoyed the corny live stage show, “Disney's Flight of Fantasy” that the over priced El Capitan Theater offers before each screening. With a shout-out to the confetti bombs and that one dancer, very attractive, I think she played The Little Mermaid.

- British director  Neil Marshall, after making two memorable B-movies Dog Soldiers and The Descent,  took ten steps backwards with the disappointing nightmare of a mess Doomsday. Which is more or less a hodgepodge of Escape From New York / The Road Warrior / Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome / Streets Of Fire / District 13 /  Knightriders & The Sword and the Sorcerer and that was just in the first half that I sat through.

- Rewatched a great movies: Outlaw Josey Wales. Easily Clint Eastwood's best work as a director.

- Lastly, a shout-out to the cult British show Spaced that finally made it to DVD. It's wonderful. And better then any American TV comedy in decades (with Arrested Development being the exception). A must. I’ll leave it as that, readers in-the-know will know what I’m talking about.

- sweeneyrules

NEW RELEASES - AUGUST 12, 2008

American Mall

The Art of War II: Betrayal

Blood Scarab

CJ7

Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel

How the Garcia Girls Spent Thier Summer

Irina Palm

Kiss of Death (1973 - China)

The Orange Thief

The Search For John Gissing

The Secret

Smart People

TELEVISION:

DC Superheroes: The Filmation Adventures

Kenny Vs. Spenny - Volume 1

The Love Boat - Season 1, Volume 2

Prison Break - Season 3

South Park - Season 11

The Wire - Season 5

NEW ARRIVALS & REPLACEMENT DVDS:

Ghost World

Invaders: Season 1

Jerry Maguire

Love Finds Andy Hardy 

Ong-Bak: Thai Warrior

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 2

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 4

STUFF: SEXY FILM GEEKS, 1968, LAZY ACTORS, BLAH BLAH BLAH

HOLLYWOOD- Sitting here on Saturday Night, drinking a beer, watching The Shootist, when I should be out trying to bang chicks, I recalled back to a couple weeks ago when I was at The Egyptian Theater checking out a James Mason double feature. 

I spotted the fantastic writer Kim Morgan whose website Sunset Gun is one of my favs for interesting articles.

Dorkaly, I said hello to her, said I dug her site and I made googly eyes at her. 

The dudes she was hanging with, shuffled her away from me.

Oh did I mention she’s like, good looking. And she knows a lot about movies!

Oh baby, what coulda been.

So defeated, I went to my seat and watched Joe inhale a box of milkduds.

(Maybe I should have done the Chachi “wa wa wa” to her).

Any-whooo...

Recently she posted a fun piece on her Favorite Car Movies (Two Lane Blacktop, etc. Glad to see Mad Max included)

Personally I hate cars (grew up in Detroit). Maybe I’ll make a list of my favorite bicycle movies...

Let’s see, off the top o’ my head... The Bicycle Thief, Breaking Away, The Muppet Movie, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, The Wizard of Oz, Condorman, etc. 

(Wow, these lists just roll out of me like magic or a gift (and sometimes a curse) from.... God!”).

Also I should point out a few weeks ago Mrs Masters posted a great piece celebrating what woulda been Bette Davis’ one-hundredth birthday. Give those reads.

Speaking of that old biddy (Davis, not Morgan)

This cool site Cine Beats have a excellent examination of the flick The Nanny (1965)

After being so disappointed watching  Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, I tend to blow off all those post  What Ever Happened to Baby Jane thrillers Davis made, but this piece makes me wanna recheck out this Hammer flick (I watched it some years ago, but didn’t give it my full attention, I think I was clipping my toe nails that evening).

Speaking of sexy movie-nerd babes... 

You may of read Manohla Dargis’ review of a documentary, I’m completely itching to see, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Good news: it’s been announced that it’ll premiere on HBO this summer, as well as a number of other festival-fav documentaries.

The controversial doc about the shrimpy Polish director of Rosemary’s Baby will premiere on June 9th. 

Hey, can someone with HBO tape it (or burn it or whatever) for me?

For that matter, did anyone tape that final season of The Wire? Salivating to see that as well.

Speaking of Rosemary’s Baby...

It 'twas 1968, a landmark year for flicks, a watershed moment, the end of an era, the summer of love, blah blah blah....

In his Dread Reckoning column at Pop Matters 

Marco Lanzagorta  calls 1968 ‘A Terrifying Ruby Jubilee’

and illustrates “...1968 saw the radicalization of American society, and an accompanying revolution in the realm of horror genre film making".

Anticipating programs at Film Forum and The Lincoln Center in the NY Times, A.O. Scott explains under the title The Spirit of ’68 “Paris in 1968, as turbulent a year cinematically as it was politically”

I’m waiting to find a used copy or when it comes out in soft cover, but I’m excited to read Mark Harris’s book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. 

He breaks down who the five flicks nominated for the Best Picture Oscar came to be and what they represented in the film world.

On KCRW’s The Treatment, Harris was interviewed by Elvis Mitchell 

Sarah Kerr at Slat reviews the book.

What Five Academy Award Contenders Can Tell Us About The '60s

There’s an excerpt from the book on Entertainment  Weekly’s website 

Inside the Making of 'The Graduate

Sam Kashner had his own The Graduate article in the March issue of Vanity Fair.

Now it’s posted on the ‘net.

Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of The Graduate 

Speaking of ‘68... 

Gene Hackman got famous that year with Bonnie And Clyde (the new double disc DVD has some great ‘making of’' shit on it).

Geoffrey MacNab of The Independent reports that Gene Hackman Bows Out (he's retiring from acting)

To bad some of his peers continue to make terrible flicks

On the Rocket Blog I pointed out the limits in the roles Pacino and De Niro do in Cop Or Criminal

And back in January, under the title Coppola Now! in writing about the two method hams I wondered....

“The movies no longer feel like events and De Niro no longer seems to give a shit who he works with. 

Why did he do Hide and Seek? Was he dying to work with the director of Swimfan?”

Stealing my idea, Patrick Goldstein in The LA Times says “The once-great actors are embarrassing”

Pacino and De Niro: How the mighty have fallen

(and he doesn’t credit me and his writing doesn’t have my charming drunken grammatical errors. Mister Bigshot, with an editor).

Speaking of fading acting careers (no not my own)...

Michael Cieply at The New Times went all Aint It Cool News, reporting about a sneak preview....

Tom Cruise, in Bit Role, Nips Studio’s Top Gun

They raved about his unbilled role in the latest forthcoming Ben Stiller flick Tropic Thunder

And now with all the disastrous speculation being written about his new flick Valkyrie 

The Times writes another lovey-dovey piece in defense of him.

The Nazi Plot that's haunting Tom Cruise And United Artists

Hmmm. I wonder if the the toothy star has “an in” there. 

Speaking of... nothing

Okay, quickly...

From Twitch

I hope this flick gets released.

Can PARANORMAL ACTIVITY Be Seen?

I kinda liked this low budget flick Mulberry Street (my ‘lil review here)

At The House Next Door there’s a good interview with the Writers/ Director

This is a crazy cool web site.

TOMB IT MAY CONCERN - David Zuzelo Scribbles on Mangled Media! One man's journal through the swamps of mangled media! From Jess Franco to Christina Lindberg to the art of Eurocine. Mangled Media knows no bounds. Nor does it recognize good taste!

"sweeneyrules out"

A Fan's Ga-Ga Goo-Goo Rave

What’s been the best film of the century so far (okay, the last seven years)? 

I wouldn’t be alone out there in video-store-geek-land by declaring my choice....

"THE WIRE" (2002-2008)

That’s the epic HBO series told in five seasons (1-4 are available on DVD and number 5 begins airing this week) about the workings of inner city Baltimore. It seems to be mostly centering on the police work and drug traffic, but it also branches out into the politics, the dockyard unions, the public schools, the newspapers and occasionally the prisons, the churches and the rib shacks. For some being engulfed by this story, and it’s all-consuming, is like moving ton another planet. 

Hey, that’s not a movie! Some may sneer. Fair enough. 

Maybe I should of asked... “What's been the best Novel of this century?”

Because like a novel each season plays out slowly and tightly, it’s about the small intricate details and how slowly they interweave into each other.

This is the show for anyone who prefers, say The Day Of The Jackal (Zinnemann 1973) to the Mission Impossible films. I remember seeing a Mission Impossible flick when the American heroes pull up to the Vatican in a van to begin their mission, I remember wondering, I’d like to know how they went about renting or stealing that van. And when they’re done, what will they do with it, how will some low-level flunky cover their prints etc. 

The Day Of The Jackal (Frederick Forsyth’s book and the film) was about the little pieces to make the big picture happen (an assignation).

So if you prefer the wam-bam to the small details of procedure maybe stick to CSI or whatever. The Wire is about the small, deliberate details and so much more. 

So far, in the first four season, The Wire has probably introduced at least 100 characters and what’s most incredible is they all have different shades, no one is JUST a cop, a criminal, a drunk, a thug, a junkie, when you think you know someone, you learn more and are surprised. 

In comparison to other good shows I would call fairly complicated... 

“The Shield”, a blast, usually an adrenaline rush, but even a show where the hero can be just as rotten as the crooks or “The Sopranos” where the criminals and goons are also sensitive and self conscious. They got nothing on the depth of the challenge and the rewards The Wire offers. 

There are no stand-alone episodes. I remember being frustrated often by “The Sopranos” , when plots would developed and never gone back to (usually with a supporting character) and episodes that cold be (dropped into) a part of any season (remember that lame Rap Music episode?), where nothing is added to lead to wherever we are being taken. Often on “The Shield” they may get involved with a crime that gets wrapped up in forty minutes and mean anything to the over all story-arc. 

The Wire is truly a serial, It is one giant continuing avalanche that slowly gathers more rocks and builds up more steam (I’m a bad writer there is a better comparison then an avalanche). The Wire has no stand-alone episode.  There are no stand-alone minutes that don’t support the whole.

And unlike other HBO shows... 

(I believe) The Wire has no dream sequences. You know, those cheap devices you often see to explain a characters inner-self and give the director a chance to get his David-Lynch on.  “The Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under” used ‘dreams’ too often either to explain characters or as a gimmick to tease the audience. 

Offhand the only dream sequences in a non-experimental films that I ever found absolutely necessary were in Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski 1968) and Audition (Miike 1999). Non of that bullshit in The Wire.

Okay. Let me stop yelling at you!

I’ll whisper. 

The Wire is an incredible ride.

It’s closer to a novel then a movie. 

But unlike some novels, it’s candy not homework. 

Sometimes a supporting character in a early seasons becomes a main focus of season four (Roland 'Prez' Pryzbylewski or Maj. Bunny Colvin ). And the main guy in season one is a minor part of season four’s trajectory 

(I have no-doubt that say, McNulty will regain more plot time in season five). 

It like an on-going investigative newspaper series that just gets more and more detailed.

Actually the closest I’ve ever seen to The Wire in print, is perhaps “Land Of Opportunity”, William M Adler’s study of The Chamber Brothers, the dealers who basically created the crack era in Detroit and became a bigger employer to the city then Ford or GM.

Also Richard Price’s amazing novel “Clockers” about the inner working of the drug trade (the Spike Lee film version of the novel is watchable, but so lightweight in comparison to the book). Price’s follow-up novel “Freedomland” detailed the back scratching of urban politics much in the same tradition as The Wire but I would add not as entertainingly.

Actually Richard Price has since gone on to write a couple of episodes. Here’s part of a conversation between him and the show’s creator and main-man David Simon on video.

Read what folks much more articulate then me have to to say about The Wire...

 - Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik offered his take  (I swear I jotted this my rant down, before I knew about his piece (we appreciate a few of the same things)

 - The baddass literary magazine The Believer has the full text of big-time author  Nick Hornby’s interview with creator David Simon

 - The NY Times gave a taut recap of each of the first four seasons.

 - For hard-core fans, Creative Cow has a nice piece on the visual style, Inside HBO's The Wire by Nick Griffin.

And coming to Rocket Video on January 24th

Interview and to sign stuff  

 

     Lance Reddick

                                                    

             As Cedric Daniels on The Wire

We will have more on this Rocket Event later this week.

But this should be interesting for any Wire fan and any time fan, he been all over the tube for years, including “Law And Order”, “Oz”  and Sidney Lumet’s short lived "100 Centre Street". He also has a vast theater background on Broadway in Angels In America  and last year in the acclaimed revival of August Wilson's  Seven Guitars.

And he’s a nice guy who knows where the coolest place to rent movies is.

Extra Lance -shout out.

Check out this clip of him. 

On The Wire his Daniels is stoic and sometimes tortured by the choices he faces and the political game he finds himself having to play. 

(between you and me, I think of him as tall and wiry, now I don’t wanna seem too gaga, but seeing this clip, besides being a great actor... the guy is in shape, man. He coulda played Batman or something! I'm gonna ask Jeff to ask him  if he does sit-ups and shit.) 

      -sweeneyrules