Fuck the Reviews…

Crank is the best movie of the year.  It's a fucking tour-de-force of insane action on par with anything Leone or Peckinpah ever produced. Run, do not walk, to see it if you have any love for action movies.  It's fan-fucking-tastic.

It was part of a quintuplet of great movies I watched this weekend including D.O.A. (the original, not the remake), the afore-mentioned Crank, The Big Lebowski, Vertigo, and good friend Mark Wheaton's A&E TV Movie, Wildfire: Last Stand at Yellowstone.

Shock Treatment

Ah, just got the Shock Treatment sountrack in the mail today. Shock Treatment is the mostly ignored sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I have on VHS (although, I don't know that i have a VCR that works anymore), and it's actually a pretty good time. It's sort of a surrealist post-modern type thing, with some excellent pop-rock a la Rocky Horror.Anyways, according to Amazon, there's a DVD on the way, but, who knows. Highly recommended all the same.

Quotes to Live By

All the money does is buy the bed. Getting out of it is the problem. - Shane Black

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey

"Get down and give me... INIFINITY." "Dude, there's no way I can do infinity push-ups."

"Maybe he'll let us do them girly style..."

I don't know why, but it remains one of my favorite movies of all time.  Viva la Wyld Stallyns.

Costume Design Seperated at Birth

Planet of the Vampires (1965)

X-Men 3 (2006)

Vacation Week Viewing

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance

I love westerns, obviously. I mean, I committed a good year of my life to Western Tales of Terror, and have been hammering away at a couple other western projects this year as well. There's something so earnest and heartfelt about even the cheesiest of western that's missing in modern cinema. The Cowboy movie is an art form unto itself. That being said, I'm not really a John Wayne kind of guy. I think he's... well... just a bad actor. That being said, there's a couple of John Wayne movies I love. True Grit is one, El Dorado another, and, then, there's The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance. It's certainly one of the most traditional movies John Ford ever directed, and the performances of Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne serve to turn a story of revenge and politics into one of the most compelling coming of age stories about adults ever made. John Wayne plays the more experienced, more cynical, and for the most part drunk and abuse cowhand. Jimmy Stewart becomes his ward, of a sort. The political back drop of the territory fighting towards statehood is this great counter point to the idea of the West being tamed. It's delicate and smart, and outright compelling.   The twist, along with the bitter-sweet ending, are also some real cinematic highlights.  Just for seeing how a character can be both the winner and the loser simultaneously. So, if you want a classic black and white western, this is where to go. Well, this and High Noon, obviously.

On a side note, they must say the name Liberty Vallance several hundred times through the course of the movie. It's... very strange.

Hard Candy

David Slade is a genius.  I can't remember the last young director to so amazingly execute a film.  The shots, the editing, the acting, are all pitch perfect.  It's really a masterpiece.  The only strike against it is the subject matter, which is a turn off for a lot of people.  But, that being said, it's so expertly done, so well-crafted, that it doesn't matter what it's about.  It's a movie about 2 people who are pathological liars embroiled in a battle of wits, the equal to which we haven't seen in a LONG time.  This is classic cinema, and we're going to see a lot more of Slade in the future, if there's any justice in the world.

Mission Impossible 3

So, well... It's hard to come up with something to say that hasn't been said before about the movie. It's good, not great. It's like a higher budget episode of Alias, which in the long run, turns out to be more satisfying than most of Alias because there's an actual ending and y'know, the set pieces are brilliantly done. Tom Cruise... is distracting at best, but is nicely balanced by a lot of smaller bit roles by Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, John Rhys-Myers, and Simon Pegg. The thing that most makes the movie work though, is the performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He's spectacular.

So, look, it's not Die Hard, but nothing is anymore.

Match Point

As a life long Woody Allen devotee, I've let him slide. Sure, Small Time Crooks, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, Anything Else, and Melinda and Melinda are total and utter shit... but, just before those we had Sweet and Lowdown, Deconstructing Harry, Everyone Says I Love You, etc. etc. etc. So, y'know, the guys made sixty movies, is seventy years old, and has been butchered in the press for the better part of ten years now. But, you always hope that he's going to come back from it. Match Point's at least a step in the right direction. Aside from two big problems, the movies pretty excellent. The third act does a lot of good to fix what's not so good in the beginning, leaving you with a sense that the movie is much better than it actually is. The directing is incredible. The shots and editing are master classes in film making, and it shows that Woody is every bit the filmmaker his idols Fellini and Bergman are. The spare use of music, the delicate use of location and letting... it's really pretty outstanding.

Then there's the two problems.

The first is actually not so much a problem as a sticking point. Everyone points out the similarities with Crimes and Misdemeanors... Well... I'd say it teeters on the edge of being a remake, or as their known now a 'reimagining' of the movie. It's achingly similar. And while Dina, who's never seen C&M enjoyed the movie well enough, it nagged at me throughout.

Secondly, and there's no easy way to say this. Scarlett Johansson is positively atrocious. Every scene she's in the movie loses steam and chemistry, the inevitablity inherent in the story instead feels like formula all because of her less than one-note performance (a semi-tone performance?) She's gorgeous. Really, really sexy. And has the presence of a three day old Sea Bass Special at Norm's. The scene's where Rhys-Myers is 'over-come' with his desire for her become caricatures rather than eruptions of passion. And it's not just a stylistic thing. She's so out of place in the movie, and completely and utterly out-acted by everyone around her that it really, really hurts the film overall.

It's definitely the best movie Woody's made since Sweet and Lowdown, but, it doesn't capture the uniqueness nor mastery of that film by any means. Instead, you're left with a fairly successful pot-boiler with one extremely bad performance. Worth a rent, though.

Alien Nation Did Not Age Well

Alien Nation

Originally uploaded by Joshua Hale Fialkov. My Tivo's Conspiracy Wishlist taped Alien Nation for us.  I have pretty fond memories of both the movie and the series.  There's some great stuff in there (the drunk Newcomers in the milk bar, the knee to the balls, etc.) but overall it just feels... empty.  It has the tone and depth of a Schwarzenegger film, which is fine, except that it deals with big (and interesting) issues.

And James Caan is suprisingly bad in it... he does this sort of whiney complainer type thing that belies the character.  Maybe it's having recently watched his powerhouse performance in Misery (which gets more or less ignored for the more obvious Kathy Bates performance), but, it's not Caan at his best.

Mandy Patinkin on the other hand....

Thank You For Smoking

In a weekend with a new Spike Lee movie, I chose the son of Ivan Reitman's movie. It's really excellent. Go see it asap. Worth every penny.

History of Violence

Finally watched it. It's fucking excellent. Go rent it.

This weekend’s movie…

So, I'm a comic creator, with a long running fascination with Alan Moore. So after Wizard World LA on Saturday, when I decided to head out with Dina and grab a movie, there was only one movie I wanted to see. Find Me Guilty.

Yeah, to be honest, I could give two shits about V for Vendetta. I'm sure it's at least a fun time, but, reviews from trusted sources make me figure I'll just wait to be disappointed on DVD instead.

Anyways, for anyone who knows me, Sidney Lumet is pretty much my favorite director, despite some pretty uneven films later on in his career. I mean, this is the guy who made Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and Equus. IN A FUCKING ROW. One after the other, each one wholly different than the others, each one a hallmark of it's genre. Plus, 12 Angry Men, Q&A, Prince of the City, and my personal favorite, the Mamet penned The Verdict. The guy has just made some of the best movies in the history of the medium, and generally gets ignored in favor of guys with less range (I'm lookin' at you Scorsese and Coppola).

Find Me Guilty is a bit of an oddball, and more in line with his more recent movies like Guilty as Sin and Night Falls on Manhattan quality wise. The thing that I was left with at the end was this feeling that I'd seen a real movie. Not neccessarily a great movie, or a life-changing movie, but, by the end, you feel like you've been through this epic life with the characters (and you have, the movie chornicles two years of a trial in suprising depth considering the movie isn't that long), and like you're slightly different for having watched it. There's a few mis-steps, mostly in terms of music choice (they use this Benny Goodman like score that belies the slightly heavier tone, which I suppose was to help make it feel more like a comedy than it actually is.)

And, then, there's Vin Diesel. I've had an embarassing man-crush on Vin since I saw Pitch Black years ago. It's just a great little movie, and he's got more charisma then Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme combined. He's no Bruce Willis, mind you... but who is? Anyways, I've always enjoyed his work, even the excretable XXX and Fast and the Furious. I knew underneath all of the muscles and smart ass exterior, there's someone with a lot of talent. Find Me Guilty, well, I don't know if it quite proves that, but, it shows that Vin is definitely capable of more than he does normally. He's pretty excellent, although, I'm still left wondering how far the character is from the guy underneath. He's volatile, uneducated, and aggressive, with a hang dog look and slight paunch that goes against the usual cut and shaved Vin look, and a wonderful sense of comic timing. He's pretty remarkable in the movie. The rest of the cast is great as well, including Peter Dinklage as the lead attorney and Ron Silver as the judge.

So, look, it's not Armageddon. There's nothing exploding, and really, nothing much happens, but, it's a damn fine film, that'll take you back to the 70's at least in ethos, and considering what else is in theaters these days, that's not a bad thing.

Night Watch

So, after the disappointment of Ultraviolet, we went into Night Watch.

The movie's a bit of a head scratcher. I'm steeped in Russian tradition (in part thanks to immigrant parents, a born-in-Russia-but -not-a-mail-order-bride girlfriend, and an obsession with Chekov, Solzhenitsyn, and Tolstoy) so a lot of the weird incoherent stuff was reminiscent enough of things I've heard here and there that I let them slide. Gary, who I saw it with, thought it was all just incoherent bullshit. I'm actually kind of sorry I didn't take Dina, because I get the feeling it would've made at least slightly more sense to her than it did to either of us.

So, bizarre mythos aside, the movie's pretty fun (if over long), has a bit of an uneven tone (which I'm just attributing to it's ethnic origins, I mean... what other nationality has produced books with titles like Cancer Ward, about the camarederie of forgotten about cancer patients telling racist jokes and croaking one by one?), and visually stunning (although some of the more simple stuff is lacking, the effects are positively remarkable.)

So, sort of a hesitant recommendation. My money still sits on 16 Blocks as the best movie thus far of 2006. Hollywood, it's time to prove me wrong.

Ultraviolet

I LOVE me some bad sci-fi movies, but holy fuckballs is this the worst thing I've ever seen. We actually walked out 20 minutes in. Obviously you expect the acting and the plot to be heinous, but the effects... it looks like a PC game from 1992.

It's just... wow.

I never walk out of movies, but Ultraviolet has joined that exclusive club.

16 Blocks

Probably the most fun I've had watching a modern action movie in... shit I don't know how long. Richard Donner directs the film into a frenzy of 70's era stunts and plot twists, which give the movie a feeling closer to 3 Days of The Condor than Die Hard. Bruce Willis is pretty great as an over-the-hill can barely stand up beer gutted shit bag of a hero, and Mos Def teeters on being annoying, but manages to stay endearing.

Look. It's not Shakespeare, or shit, even Scorsese but it's a breath of fresh air and worth the money.

Added Some New Stuff on the Side There

There's a little RSS feed of my last.fm thing, so you can see what i'm listening to, and I added a del.ico.us blog roll. Thinking about mounting a redesign of the blog, but I've been swamped just trying to keep up with the three new projects, my freelancing work, and trying to figure out what happens with the rest of my life. So I need a nice distraction, I suppose, I just don't know that I can afford the time to do it.

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Also of note, I started getting art in on my other new project with an artist y'all should know and love. I'll announce it officially once we're more than a few pages in (hate to jinx things). It's been shown to the brain trust, and everyone's pretty ecstatic about it. It's a much more sophisticated action piece than Western Tales of Terror, while still being considerably more accessible than Elk's Run. It's even got a clearly descriptive title that's not quite so on the nose. I do listen to Warren Ellis' advice afterall.

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Elk's Run 6 is going into lettering as soon as Keating finishes colors (which should be any day now) and issue 7 is at least half penciled if not more at this point. It's my favorite of the bunch, and makes getting through the script for issue 8 (le grande finale') tremendously daunting. So much so that I've managed to start (and script) three other projects rather than work on it. This week is it though. I'm putting the son of a bitch to bed, and moving on whole heartedly, and with joy to the next projects.

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Is this format strange?

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Got quite a bit of feedback (although you wouldn't know with how none of you bastards post in the comments) on Punk (as seen below), even had a few publishers sniff around. That's good. It'll be nice to have something come out that a large cross section of people will actually be interested in that I also enjoy writing. Like I said before, doing it feels like it makes my brain stretch, and that's a good thing.

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Being that tonight is my night off (I have transcriptions, a job interview, and Elk's Run 8 to do this weekend), I watched The Jacket (beautifully shot, well acted, hell, even pretty well scripted, and yet... eh. The endng's just not there,) 12 Monkeys (after The Jacket I figured I'd watched the clone, might as well watch the masterpiece it liberally takes from as well), and the first half of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I can't remember what I said about it when it originally came out (it's somewhere in the archives here), in watching it for what is my third time (twice in the theater, dammit), it's finally gotten to the 'Alright, this movie doesn't work anymore' phase for me. Which is a shame. I've listened to the radio show, read the books, watched the BBC show, and played the video game constantly throughout my life. And they never get old. The movie... eh... They softened it too much in the wit and fury departments, and inflated the zany and quirky to a point where it eclipses the other more important aspects of the film. Yes. The Lemon Juice helmet is a funny addition... but, we've got a main character who's reduced to being a babbling idiot for the sake of it. Just hurts the overall movie when all of your protaganists are bumbling idiots except for the one character who seems to get kidnapped constantly.

Anyways, go read the book. It's worth it.

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Now, to bed I go.

Serenity

Just sat down and watched Serenity on DVD. First time since seeing it in the theater. I think it might justbe the best Sci-Fi movie of the past ten years. Just like the Firefly was the best Sci-Fi TV Show in years, the movie manages to really move leaps and bounds beyond it's contemporaries. It's just an exemplary piece of fiction, based wholly in the realm of characterization, which, frankly, we haven't seen since the original Star Wars. Prior to this, there was The Matrix. The first one. The good one. But, you compare the two, and you see that The Matrix is a movie about ideas. Big ideas. The characters are merely paper dolls the Wachowski's move into position to execute on those ideas. And they do it brilliantly.

Serenity does that too. It's about big ideas. Courage, heroism, love, freedom. But, it's not about the concepts as abstracts. It's not about destiny, and every step of the way you feel the peril these characters are in. You really don't know who's going to make it, and you actually give a fuck because of it.

Joss Whedon shops at my comic shop. Or, at least he did. I haven't seen him in a while. The shop is populated by luminaries. I manage to see Bruce Timm hanging out there just about every week, as well as a slew of other big name comic pros, animation guys, and film and tv writers and directors. (Apparently, the entire writing staff of Alias comes in together every Wednesday, for example.) And I generally greet, talk to, wave, or nod to all of them. But not Joss. I'm outright terrified of him. The work he's done, specifically as a genre creator initimidates the fuck out of me. He is the real deal. This guy pulled himself up and redefined television. Really. Think about how many shows with such in depth continuing stories there were Pre-Buffy. Think about how many shows there were that so effectively hit such a wide demographic, yet never felt targeted or market researched to death. St. Elsewhere. Homicide. Hill Street Blues. Twin Peaks. That's really about it. Even the stuff David E. Kelly was doing back then lacked the true feeling of continuity (and not in the fanboy "Please see episode 2x04 for more information" kind of way.)

Joss turned 'genre' into a successful model. I truly believe that his work paved the way for the renaisaance of Superhero movies, action movies, and animation. (I mean, c'mon, he did work on Toy Story that gave it it's wittiest banter.)

What's saddest about watching Serenity now is knowing that this is probably the last we'll see of the characters. When I saw it in the theater, there was a palatable feeling of hope... that this was the time when something good would win out over something safe and mediocre. But, now, we know that Star Wars Episode III: Ruining a Generation's Childhood would go on to be one of the biggest hits of the year, and Serenity wouldn't even make back it's budget.

But, Joss came out of it a film director and screenwriter. He's got his horror movie in the pike, and then Wonder Woman. Which means finally there might be an even bigger audience for a man who might just be the most talented son of a bitch in Hollywood.

Can't Stop the Signal.

Favorite Script Sale of the Week

From Done Deal Script SaleTitle: Rex Mex Log line: A pro basketball player flees to Mexico to avoid dangerous creditors and ends up hiding in the country's basketball league. Writer: Shawn Patrick Agent: n/a Buyer: Paramount Pictures Price: n/a Genre: Sports Comedy Logged: 12/9/05 More: David O. Russell and Blumhouse Productions’ Jason Blum will produce.