The Grouchy Editor

12Apr

Four Past Midnight

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by Stephen King

I’ve been a member of Stephen King’s “constant reader” club for years, but I fear that I might be coming down with a case of King fatigue. Maybe I could call it “Castle Rock Burnout.” One symptom occurs when King characters, past and present, begin to blur together and induce a feeling of déjà vu: In Four Past Midnight (published in 1990), we once again meet the small-town sheriff, the awkward teen, the shady businessman – even King’s demons, witches, and monsters begin to feel a bit stale.

06Apr

The Weekly Review: March 31 – April 6

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Ass You Like It

“Shake your wiener!” — Welcome to Myrtle Manor’s Chelsey, above

TV Report

Winning Me Back: Welcome to Myrtle Manor. OK, I’ll admit that a lot of this stuff is probably staged (how many trailer parks conduct beauty pageants?), but the knuckleheads at Myrtle Manor are an engaging bunch, gosh darn it.

Losing Me: The Walking Dead. Major, longtime characters keep getting killed off by the show’s writers, and I’m just fine with that, which is probably not what AMC’s producers have in mind.

Game of Thrones: Downton Abbey for the dungeons and dragons crowd. It’s soap opera, but so well-produced, well-acted, and visually arresting that it’s easy to get sucked in to its fantasy world.

Orphan Black: I don’t know if it’s a good sign or a bad sign when your opening episode goes out of its way to showcase the heroine’s derriere. OK, I’m lying; it’s definitely a good sign.

Basic-cable channels seem to occupy a nudity no-man’s land. Not bold enough to flash full-frontal and too timid to bare boobs, basic channels opt instead for shapely rear ends. So do we. Keep up the good work, basic cable.

Tatiana Maslany and her two co-stars on the premiere of BBC America’s Orphan Black.

Myrtle Manor’s Chelsey doing what people usually do at trailer parks: strutting her stuff in a beauty pageant.

Game of Thrones’s Emilia Clarke demonstrates why teenage boys want their parents to get HBO.

An extra on the set of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

*****

From New York magazine:

No, no, no. Bad idea. You’ll ruin the show for teenage boys and for … other people. You want male nudity, go watch Spartacus. Below, a gratuitous penis for Matt Zoller Seitz (and, of course, for Myrtle Manor “wiener girl” Chelsey).

Meanwhile, on Survivor, Brenda (below) strives for success.

*****

I haven’t been watching much Rachel Maddow lately. She spends too much time on issues of great importance to a relatively small number of people, including gay rights. But when Maddow turns to matters like government corruption or military misadventures, there’s no one better in cable news. On Tuesday, she and Eliot Spitzer skewered former SEC chief Mary Schapiro, and it was terrific journalism.

*****

Two weeks ago, I introduced a “please let them be struck by lightning” list by spotlighting a pompous, irritating spokeswoman for AARP. Money-grubbing, shameless Fred Thompson, shilling for AAG in the picture above, makes the list this week.

*****

The thumbs are all buried now, and that’s a bummer.

I thought Roger Ebert was a superb writer but a critic with … uh, peculiar taste. But if you love movies, Ebert was a big part of your past, and it’s sad to see him go.

02Apr

Reviews in Short: April 2013

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Despite an appealing cast, this high-school drama strikes an immediate pity-party tone and never strays from it. Charlie (Logan Lerman), abused as a child, is timid in school, misunderstood by girls, suicidal and, to an irritating degree, Oh. So. Sensitive. He is befriended by two seniors — a girl “with a past” (Emma Watson) and a gay boy (Ezra Miller) who dates the school’s quarterback — and they all become best buds. In this movie, most (not all) of the heterosexuals are brutish, insensitive clods, and our heroes are all tragic victims. If you love snow angels, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then this is a movie for you. But gag me with a spoon. Release: 2012 Grade: C-

*****

The Grey

A plane goes down in the Alaska wild, where Liam Neeson and a small group of oil workers face hostile elements and inhospitable wolves. The Grey wants to be both thrilling adventure and a profound meditation on the meaning of life — and falls short. The wolf attacks are fairly entertaining, but the “deep meaning” scenes sputter because Grey’s characters are thinly drawn, with a vocabulary that seems limited to the word “fuck.” Release: 2012 Grade: B-

*****

Hitchcock

It plays fast and loose with the facts, but Hitchcock is a surprisingly sweet biopic. If you can overlook the screenplay’s fabrications about the famous filmmaker’s alleged monetary problems and supposedly shaky marriage, and focus instead on the interplay between stars Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock) and Helen Mirren (wife Alma), the reward is a droll depiction of an enduring creative partnership and, as a bonus for film buffs, an amusing look at the making of Psycho. Release: 2012 Grade: B+

*****

Suspiria

Jessica Harper plays a young American who enrolls at a German dance academy that turns out to be something else, entirely. Horror director Dario Argento’s primary-colored movie is an expressionistic treat, with a score by the Italian band Goblin that could make your skin crawl (in a good way). Unfortunately, the stilted dialogue, dated special effects, and wooden acting could have the same effect (in a bad way). All in all, though, this is one eerie, sensory experience. Release: 1977 Grade: B

*****

Ted

Mark Wahlberg stars as a 35-year-old slacker who must choose between his walking, talking teddy bear and Mila Kunis. If you would choose the teddy bear, then this is a movie for you. There are a few amusing pop-culture references and the animation is good, but writer-director Seth MacFarlane’s big-screen debut is mean-spirited, childish and, well, pretty much unbearable. Release: 2012 Grade: D

*****

The Impossible

The special effects are impressive — most of them were created the old-fashioned way, using miniatures and water tanks — and there are some fine performances, but this fact-based drama about one family’s struggle to survive a tsunami that pummeled Thailand in 2004 is often a drag. Knowing the fate of the family deprives the story of suspense, and we are instead left with more than an hour of unrelenting misery. It’s realistic, sure, but aren’t disaster movies also supposed to entertain? Release: 2012 Grade: B

30Mar

The Weekly Review: March 24 – 30

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These endless smoking bans and tax hikes are making me bitter. A Norwegian professor named Bharat P. Bhatta says that fat people should pay more for airline tickets because they create more jet-fuel consumption. Ten years ago, I would have said that was mean-spirited. Not anymore.

*****

Evidently, there are only two issues that warrant media attention these days: gun control and gay marriage. I don’t own a gun and I’m not gay, so I do not, as they say, have a dog in these hunts — at least, not directly. But all of this babble about “fairness” and “equality” is a joke to single Americans — gay and straight. Here’s why.

(The article addresses single women, but most of the points apply to single men, as well.)

*****

It’s not often that I agree with the talking heads on Fox News and on MSNBC. Dr. Keith Ablow (above), a talking bald head, was singing my tune when he said government should get out of the marriage business: “That means: No preferential treatment at tax time, no preferential treatment for married folks by insurance companies. Everyone should be treated as an individual.” Meanwhile, over at MSNBC, Bob Franken was proposing pretty much the same thing: time to dump unfair benefits for married people.

*****

Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box at a museum. Performance art, or mental illness?

*****

Bill Carter of the New York Times has praise for Barbara Walters, who is said to be retiring next year: “She was doing interviews with every big figure in the news at that point in her time. She was part of that whole shuttle diplomacy era, flying back and forth in the Mideast between Begin and Sadat and all the other big figures, like Castro and Gaddafi and all these very famous figures in history.”

Depressing, because now we have Dennis Rodman doing that job.

*****

Here are pictures of Jeffrey Toobin getting clobbered outside of the Supreme Court. I don’t know about you, but I enjoy seeing Jeffrey Toobin getting clobbered.

30Mar

Room 237

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I love Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining — even though the man who wrote the original story, Stephen King, does not. I have never understood King’s disdain for the 1980 film adaptation of his novel. King’s stories, after all, have been bastardized on screen many times (sometimes by King himself), from Sleepwalkers to Thinner to Maximum Overdrive. And yet, this is the movie that rankles him?

But much as I like Kubrick’s movie, my admiration is nothing compared to that of some fans, five of whom describe their Shining obsession in Room 237, a documentary about hidden messages in the film. Or so these people believe.

According to these conspiracy theorists, who have laboriously studied the movie (often frame-by-frame), Kubrick, a meticulous filmmaker, planted subliminal messages throughout his movie. The Shining, they say, is an allegory about the Holocaust (look how often the number 42 appears!). Or, The Shining is a commentary on the “white man’s burden” — a burden our ancestors relieved by committing genocide against the American Indian (see those cans of Calumet in the background of the pantry?). But wait: Kubrick is the man who helped the United States government falsify footage of the 1969 moon landing, and the evidence of that hoax is scattered, confession style, throughout The Shining.

A problem with Room 237 is that there are so many conspiracy theories proposed that they tend to cancel each other out. Assuming Kubrick did insert subliminal comments about the Holocaust, did he also plant messages about manifest destiny, and about Apollo 11? Not likely.

Personally, I was intrigued by the patterns in the carpeting of Kubrick’s Overlook Hotel and their alleged symbolism. Then again, if you are going to spot Minotaurs in pictures of snow skiers on the wall, you might as well analyze every other picture on the walls of the hotel — or every cloud in the sky, for that matter. Wait, someone does analyze the clouds … and spots Kubrick’s “face.”

When I was in college, I took a film class where we studied Hitchcock’s Psycho. I noticed something in a scene in which Norman Bates disposes of evidence by pushing a car into a swamp. As the vehicle sinks, Hitchcock shows a close-up of the license plate, and we can clearly see the letters “NFB.” In my class paper, I speculated that the letters might be a wink from the director to his audience: NFB = Never Find Body. My professor loved this theory and gave my essay an A.

But who knows? Maybe the letters NFB were completely arbitrary. Maybe The Shining is simply a great horror film littered with continuity errors and an art director’s whimsy. Sometimes a monkey tossing a bone into the air is just a monkey tossing a bone into the air. Grade: B

Director: Rodney Ascher Featuring: Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns, John Fell Ryan, Jay Weidner, Buffy Visick Release: 2013

Can you see the electrical cord for the TV? Of course not, because there isn’t one.

Watch Trailers (click here)

27Mar

Come Out and Play

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Going in to an “evil kid” movie, you know it’s just a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. In Come Out and Play, a low-budget remake of a 1976 Spanish cult film, the evil kids eventually do come out and play — but the wait is a bit of a drag.

Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Vinessa Shaw play young Americans who are also in a holding pattern. Beth, seven months pregnant, and husband Francis decide to enjoy some pre-baby free time by vacationing at a picturesque Mexican island. When they arrive at Punta Hueca, there are children playing and fishing off the dock. Upon further exploration of the village, Beth and Francis make an unsettling discovery: There are, seemingly, only children on the island. Where are all of the adults?

(The director of this film is a strange character called “Makinov” who seems to have one or two bones to pick with the world. In a YouTube video, Makinov shields his face beneath a hood, a la pick-your-favorite-serial-killer, and rants against modern society. During the end credits of Play, Makinov dedicates his movie to “the martyrs of Stalingrad.”)

Think what you will of Makinov the politician, the man knows how to stage a creepy scene. When children perch atop a fence lining a village street, silently watching as Beth and Francis pass by, they resemble nothing so much as the ominous crows in The Birds, at rest on a schoolyard jungle gym between attacks. Makinov, like Hitchcock, takes something that’s everyday normal — children, birds — and turns it into an object of fear. When you do something like that, you run the risk of generating unintentional laughter; to his credit, Makinov generates suspense.

But this movie is not The Birds. Despite an eerily effective soundtrack, arresting visuals, and a pair of surprising plot turns, Come Out and Play simply takes too long to get to the fun stuff. Grade: B-

Director: Makinov Cast: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vinessa Shaw, Daniel Gimenez Cacho Release: 2013

Watch the Trailer (click here)

27Mar

Top of the Lake

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I’m not sure why everything isn’t filmed in New Zealand. Sure, Southern California has nice beaches and nearby mountains and a big city, but … New Zealand — have you looked at pictures of New Zealand?

Sundance Channel is airing a seven-part miniseries from director Jane Campion called Top of the Lake, a crime drama filmed in New Zealand. Elisabeth Moss plays a young police detective who, while home visiting her cancer-stricken mother, gets drawn into the case of a missing 12-year-old girl who also happens to be five-months pregnant.

The plot is a bit familiar (at least through the first three episodes): Robin Griffin (Moss) is basically Clarice Starling, a conscientious cop trying to conduct serious business while battling male-chauvinist colleagues and her own personal demons. When you’re telling an oft-told tale like this one, it helps if your supporting characters add luster. And boy, do the supporting characters add luster to Top of the Lake.

Peter Mullan is rough, gruff, tough and — surprisingly — quite funny as the apparent villain, a drug lord named Matt Mitcham, father of the missing girl and several adult sons with biblical names, if not leanings. Holly Hunter is also in the cast as the spiritual guru of a tribe of middle-aged women living in “Paradise,” a makeshift commune that is, unluckily, located on land that Mitcham considers family territory.

(I’d like to add that David Wenham, as Griffin’s sort-of boss and potential romantic interest, also lends wonderful support to the drama. I’d like to say that, but I have to be honest: With his mumbling delivery and heavy New Zealand accent, I couldn’t understand a word that Wenham said.)

Campion, sharing directing duties with Garth Davis, lets the actors and story proceed at a leisurely pace, but don’t equate “leisurely” with tedious; this mystery takes unexpected turns and has a chilly, pervasive sense of doom. But the real star of the production is New Zealand — the spectacular mountains, hills, and lakes. These stunning vistas put Hollywood, California, to shame. Grade: A-

Directors: Jane Campion, Garth Davis Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Peter Mullan, Thomas M. Wright, Holly Hunter, David Wenham, Jacqueline Joe, Gavin Rutherford, Jay Ryan, Genevieve Lemon, Robyn Malcolm Release: 2013

Watch the Trailer and Clips (click here)

23Mar

The Weekly Review: March 17 – 23

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Black Hysteria Month

Like O.J. before him, Tiger Woods is rebounding from scandal with the help of a blonde from Minnesota. Tiger’s courtship techniques, well documented in text messages to a former flame in 2009, seem to work well for him. Did the Woodsman dust off some of the charming gems reprinted below to woo Lindsey Vonn?

*****

Oprah is reportedly doing a sex scene in an upcoming film called The Butler. Guess I’ll go ahead and cancel my cataract surgery, because I’d hate to accidentally see that.

*****

“I’m only in my 60s. I’ve got a nice long life ahead: big plans.” — woman in AARP commercial

I don’t usually wish physical harm on people, but if a bolt of lightning struck this smug woman, strutting through the woods as if she owns the world, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

*****

TV Report Card

Vikings — moderately entertaining, but no great shakes

Bates Motel — moderately entertaining, but no great shakes

Top of the Lake — moderately entertaining, but … the jury is out

Here’s the problem with AMC’s The Walking Dead. The zombies are slow, stupid, and about as life-threatening as a June bug infestation. The only time these sluggards pose a threat is when you are dumb enough to do something like sleep in a tent, outdoors in the woods. Early on in this series, the heroes — you knew it — slept outdoors in tents in the woods.

Meanwhile, on The Americans:

*****

It’s been awhile since we checked in with the gang at Survivor:

*****

Hmmm … did someone on The Big Bang Theory get a boob job?

*****

Dumb Quote of the Week

“Lena Dunham, for instance, is totally great at being naked.” — Libby Gelman-Waxner in Entertainment Weekly. If we need any more proof that men and women are from different planets, this quote ought to do the job.

*****

Who is this Roma Downey, a producer of History’s The Bible? Is she the one who chain-smoked and hosted that 1980s talk show? Or is she the actor who got sent to jail and drug rehab?

17Mar

The Searchers

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by Glenn Frankel

It’s funny how you can sail through life thinking that you are reasonably well-versed in popular culture, yet be oblivious to certain landmark events (or movies). I lived for 20 years in North Texas, but had never heard of Cynthia Ann Parker, a legendary frontier girl who was abducted by Comanches near Dallas in 1836, and whose kidnapping became the basis for John Ford’s classic western, The Searchers – a movie I have not seen.

Frankel’s book is an ambitious attempt to link Parker’s story, Ford’s movie, and America’s tortured racial past, but it’s only somewhat successful. Searchers suffers from the same disease that afflicts so many other historical books: the author’s obligation to include genealogical minutiae of interest primarily to other historians. Yes, I’m intrigued by Cynthia Ann’s tragic life – but please don’t bore me with details about her uncles and aunts.

16Mar

The Weekly Review: March 10 – 16

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Myrtle Manor “Wiener Girls” Chelsey and Lindsay (see below)

*****

Facebook honcho Sheryl Sandberg made the rounds plugging her new book, Lean In, in which she preaches that women can “have it all.” Or so I heard — do you really think I read this stuff?

I figured that superwoman Sandberg, as part of her having it all, lays claim to some virile, race-car-driving husband. Or possibly a pool-cleaning boy toy. Here are two pictures. Guess which dreamboat belongs to Sandberg.

*****

It was rather rich to see that anti-bullying crusader, Anderson Cooper, in Rome as part of the media’s collective kiss-ass over the Catholic Church’s latest P.O.P. (protector of pedophiles).

*****

TV Report Card

Growing on me: The Americans on FX

Beginning to lose me: Welcome to Myrtle Manor on TLC

The two shows do have one thing in common …

*****

If I am ever on trial for my life, I will instruct my lawyers to reject any gravel-voiced, older females during jury selection. I notice that on Nancy Grace’s program, an inordinate number of callers are gravel-voiced, older females, and they often seem to harbor vast quantities of hostility. None of these angry ladies on my jury, if you please.

I picture these women at home, a glass of whiskey in one hand and a Camel in the other, glaring bitterly at their television screens. Sort of like a couple of women on a well-known animated sitcom …

*****

It’s been much too long since we’ve heard from my favorite celebrity grouch, Daniel Craig. Happily, Craig was in a New York supermarket when he encountered a picture-snapping fan.

“Is watching me food shopping with my wife really all that interesting to you?” Craig reportedly screamed as he snatched the offending camera. That’s my boy.

*****

Will someone please explain to me the popularity of Justin Timberlake? Are boundless energy and ubiquity the same thing as genuine talent?