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17Oct

Gravity

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With movies that rely heavily on special effects, I like to employ the “late-show test”: Thirty years from now, when the film plays at 2 a.m. on some cable channel (or on a movie-chip implanted by Netflix into my brain), will it still seem good?

I believe that, for example, in 30 years Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey will still be considered a classic – a perplexing classic, sure, but nevertheless a classic. I also think Apollo 13 will still entertain. Ditto for Marooned, a mostly forgotten 1969 thriller about astronauts stuck in space. On the other hand, there are plenty of old science-fiction movies which, although impressive at the time of their release, now seem laughably dated. Which brings me to …

Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron’s nail-biter about two astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) who are quite literally lost in space after satellite debris pummels their mother ship. The astronauts, in the middle of repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope when disaster strikes, must somehow save themselves. That’s the plot. The story goes from plausible to silly to utterly ridiculous in 90 minutes.

Gravity is all about movie-star power and special effects. Clooney, as you might expect, cracks wise. Bullock, as you might expect, does a lot of heavy breathing and talking to herself. Cuaron’s script makes the leanest of attempts at character development – there is some gratuitous chatter about Bullock’s dead daughter, and jokes about Clooney’s playboy past – but Cuaron’s not really interested; it’s just filler between the more visual scenes. The 3-D special effects are impressive, but without a compelling story (as in Marooned) or themes (as in 2001), I’m guessing that Gravity will one day strike viewers of the late-late show as a quaint piece of fluff. Grade: B

Director: Alfonso Cuaron Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney Release: 2013

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

12Oct

The Weekly Review: October 6 – 12

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The Minnesota Lynx won their second WNBA title in three years. In Minnesota, these are the only sports titles we win. And so, in honor of our beloved women’s basketball team, I am this week including lots of lynx.

*****

Normally, Fox’s Jesse Watters comes off as a smirking, condescending jerk. But I will have to admit that his interview with Shubedi Shudarson (pictured at top), a United Nations guest from Nepal, was priceless. Shudarson’s discourse on Nepali cuisine can be found at one minute, twenty-five seconds of this lynx.

*****

CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen and Carol Costello discussed the Obamacare Web site:

Cohen: I still can’t log in.

Costello: OK. So I guess you can call maybe and get a live person on the phone to fix some of these problems — is that true?

Cohen: Well, what you can do is if, like me, you’re not able to log in and you want to get insurance, you can call the 800 number that they have on their site. They can help you with a lot of it over the phone and they can also send you information by snail mail.

Imagine that. Isn’t modern technology amazing?

*****

We all hate commercials. But the following ads are causing me to lose sleep at night.

“I won this 55-inch TV for less than thirty dollars on DealDash.com!”

You, too, can experience this charming woman — over and over and over again — by clicking on this lynx.

*****

This teeth-gnashing, suicide-inducing Goodwill commercial ran last year and now it’s back. If I have to suffer through it again this year, so must you. Click on this lynx.

*****

“President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture.” — Fox’s Anna Kooiman (above), falling for and then reporting a fake story from a parody news site.

Sooner or later, when you staff your cable-news shows with blond bimbos, it will come back and bite you in the ass.

*****

Maxim is running another story about everyone’s favorite summer event, the “Smallest Penis in Brooklyn” pageant. Evidently, this was the only show in 2013 that did not feature Miley Cyrus — and she’s not happy about it. Click on this lynx.

12Oct

Night Film

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by Marisha Pessl

Is it possible that someone at the Random House editorial department has a vendetta against Pessl? That’s the only explanation I can think of for the bizarre proliferation of italics in her book. You eventually get used to it, but the infestation of italicized words in every other paragraph is, initially, a major distraction.

In other respects, Pessl’s thriller is a mixed bag. Her plot is imaginative: An investigative reporter hunts a mysterious cult-filmmaker named Cordova, whose young daughter kills herself by leaping down an elevator shaft. But there are stretches of Night Film that are so poorly written – so illogical or overwrought – that at times it resembles an earnest high-school student’s essay for English class. A typical simile from page 205: “The woman’s small black eyes swarmed it like flies over a turd.” I’m not sure why they failed to italicize “turd.”

06Oct

Reviews in Short: October 2013

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I Spit on Your Grave 2

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This is why Web sites like “Mr. Skin” exist. If you have no desire to suffer through the ridiculous plot and unpleasant gore of a film like this, but you do think star Jemma Dallender is a hottie, “Mr. Skin” has screen grabs for you. Dallender spends much of Spit 2 in the nude, playing a model who is raped, whisked to Bulgaria (don’t ask), and assaulted again before she escapes to exact revenge. The most shocking thing here is the presence of actor Joe Absolom, who plays such a sweet guy on the British series Doc Martin. His agent must have put his balls in a vise. Release: 2013 Grade: D-

*****

Movie 43

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I’m not convinced it was entirely a coincidence that, just two months after the release of Movie 43, esteemed film critic Roger Ebert was in his grave. A lot of Hollywood A-List talent appears in this comic disaster, which relies almost exclusively on scatological “humor.” There might be some 10-year-olds who enjoy this but, if so, I weep for America’s future. Release: 2013 Grade: F

*****

The Call

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Teen girl is abducted at the mall and stuffed into the trunk of a car, where her only link to the outside world is a cell-phone connection with 911 operator Halle Berry. It’s realistic, pulse-pounding stuff – until the final half hour when, for reasons known only to the filmmakers, the plot goes all Silence of the Lambs on us. Release: 2013 Grade: B-

*****

Oblivion

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The problem with Oblivion, essentially a video game for the big screen, is that in between its glitzy CGI and action scenes we must endure: a) flat characters, and b) a pretentious story that steals ideas from much better sci-fi films. That’s the bad news. The good news? If you’ve just purchased a new high-def TV, it sure does look pretty. Release: 2013 Grade: B

05Oct

The Weekly Review: September 29 – October 5

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28Sep

The Weekly Review: September 22 – 28

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Seems to me that it’s much too easy to terrorize a town these days. Man up, towns.

*****

Buttocks Number One:

“[Criticism of corporate bonuses] was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitchforks and their hangman nooses, and all that — sort of like what we did in the Deep South. And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong.” — AIG’s Robert Benmosche, above, whining to The Wall Street Journal

If you didn’t want to grab a pitchfork before, you probably do now.

Buttocks Number Two:

Nothing newsworthy about these buttocks. But they are just about perfect buttocks, so here you go.

*****

“It is incredibly fluid.” — CNN’s Dana Bash, employing the latest word of the moment that every media outlet must hammer to death. Next week there will be a new word, because these things tend to be fluid.

*****

“The [America’s] Cup returns home to where it belongs: in the hands of American sailors who defied the odds, who are so courageous, who are so disciplined, who are so focused, and who had such strategic plans to give our country — USA, USA, USA — a victory we will never forget.”

That was Nancy Pelosi, who apparently digs rich-guy sports, and whose panties might have gotten into a bunch if anyone had bothered to inform her that Team USA had exactly one (1) American on its 11-man crew.

26Sep

Night Shift (1982)

Posted in Books, Movies, TV & Web, Oldies | 1 Comment

Thirty years ago, Warner Bros. released a low-budget comedy called Night Shift and, if you’d asked me at the time, I would have predicted big things for the movie’s youthful director and stars. Ron Howard, better known as “Richie Cunningham” back then, displayed a light directorial touch with his second theatrical film. Howard cast his Happy Days co-star, Henry Winkler, against type as Night Shift’s milquetoast hero. Rounding out the cast were Shelley Long, who seemed ready to assume Goldie Hawn’s crown as cinema’s queen of quirk – and a new kid named Michael Keaton.

My prediction would have been spot-on for Howard, now one of Hollywood’s power directors. But Keaton’s star has faded, Winkler is now making commercials for reverse mortgages, and Long appears in obscure TV movies. Fickle place, Hollywood.

But Night Shift was first and foremost a coming out party for Keaton, who shines as Billy “Blaze,” a gangly, energetic hustler with a cockamamie, irresistibly infectious act.

Howard and his actors took what could have been unsavory material (prostitution) and whipped up a warmhearted romp. The story, in which Winkler, Keaton, and Long team up to run an escort service out of a city morgue, captures early ‘80s New York City in all its sleaze (a Plato’s Retreat-inspired sequence) and glory (a series of hilarious running gags featuring eccentric Gothamites). It also boasts catchy ‘80s music courtesy of Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and Rod Stewart.

I still think this is Howard’s best movie – but Keaton steals the show. Is this a great country, or what? Grade: A-

Director: Ron Howard Cast: Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton, Shelley Long, Gina Hecht, Pat Corley, Nita Talbot, Bobby Di Cicco, K.C. Winkler, Monique Gabrielle Release: 1982

Watch the Trailer (click here)

21Sep

The Weekly Review: September 15 – 21

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Balloon Week!

Fox Balloons!

“Look how happy those girls are in their balloons!” — some idiot on Fox & Friends, watching Elisabeth Hasselbeck, above right, race in a giant ball.

British Balloons!

Miley Balloons!

Hey … it was a slow news week.

15Sep

Reviews in Short: September 2013

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The Collection

I’m tempted to slap The Collection with an “F” for its bare-bones plot and ridiculously excessive gore. However … if you are into splatter flicks — I generally am not — this sequel to The Collector is better than most of its gore-horror brethren thanks to a decent budget and some slick, fast-paced direction. Release: 2012 Grade: B-

*****

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

The camera certainly loves Amber Heard, who plays one of six teens who (yawn) encounter trouble at an isolated ranch. Director Jonathan Levine also seems to love stilted dialogue, “scares” that don’t scare, and a twist that any horror-film fan can see coming from a mile away. This mediocrity was filmed in 2006 but sat on a shelf for seven years, awaiting distribution. Too bad it’s not still sitting there. Release: 2013 Grade: D+

*****

World War Z

Here’s proof that you can have an astronomical budget and Brad Pitt for a leading man … and still produce just another silly zombie movie. Brad plays a perfect family man (of course) who saves the world (naturally) while fighting off hordes of the undead. The zombies are not particularly original, but they do look cool in some overhead CGI shots. Release: 2013 Grade: C-

*****

End of Watch

If you’re not a big fan of police, End of Watch could change your mind — at least for a couple of hours, thanks to the chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as two patrolmen in South Central L.A. There isn’t a great deal of story, but it’s refreshing to watch a crime drama in which the cops are neither bad to the bone nor avenging super studs. Release: 2012 Grade: B+

14Sep

The Weekly Review: September 8 – 14

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“In space … apparently you can hear all kinds of weird shit.”

*****

War Drums Update

Irritating phrase of the week: “trust, but verify”

Irritating word of the week: “degrading”

If you trust in something (or someone), there is no need to verify. If you bomb somebody (or something), it is not “degrading.” Degrading is what happens to the nerd in high school who gets his pants pulled down in the cafeteria.

*****

CNN’s Crossfire: I can’t bring myself to watch it, because it features Newt Gingrich with his fat, smarmy persona and castrato voice. Did I mention that I don’t care for Newt Gingrich?

*****

Whatever your feelings about the show itself, is there another program that does cooler trailers than American Horror Story?