Bastards Ad Infinitum

Caught the trailer for Inside Job last the other night before Centurion (basically The Dirty Dozen in second century Britain, and as awesome as that sounds). Looks like it shares a lot with an excellent Planet Money/This American Life/ProPublica collab from earlier this year, right down to the name, which bodes well. While it seems like ‘How did this go to hell so badly?’ vein has been mined pretty heavily as of late, there’s still plenty we don’t know about the bastards who broke the global economy and how they got away with it. If director Charles Ferguson’s debut effort, the Oscar-nominated No End in Sight, is any indication, expect this one to be enlightening, compelling, and utterly devoid of hope for any sort of justice or decency to be salvaged from it’s subject.

 

Everything Will Now Be Terrible Forever

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOA!  WHOA!

I like John Krasinski as much as the next guy. He’s a nice enough seeming fella, and a fairly talented performer.

He is not, however, Captain America. I repeat, he is NOT Captain America.

And yet, it looks like he will probably be playing Captain America. This is a national tragedy dwarfed only by the more recent news that we will not get to spend the next few months laughing at what a total fucking asshole Harold Ford, Jr. is. I mean, I guess we can, technically, but it will always be out of context and seem kind of weird.

 

Zurich Is Stained

“Hello, Switzerland! So nice to see everybody, so nice to receive my lifetime acheivement award from this country that has no extradition agreement with the United States! …What? You do have an extradition agreement with the US? Well, I really must be going, I seem to have left an important piece of luggage in France.”

Not so fast, Mr. Polanski.

Noted director and convicted pederast Roman Polanski, aka Pervy von Pervenheimer, was arrested today in Zurich, where he was to accept an award from the Zurich Film Institute. Funny story – the Zurich Film Institute does not actually exist, and is merely the greatest ever prop in the world’s longet running episode of To Catch A Predator.

The arrest follows the botched attempt to capture Polanski at the 2003 Academy Awards, where his Best Director Oscar for The Pianist was presented in a less than traditional manner – situated beneath a cardboard box held up by a stick.

 

Reheated Popcorn: I Don’t Have To Tell You Things Are Bad

It’s official – I’m upset.

First, this week in remakes brought the initial casting notes on the remake of Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 classic Straw Dogs, which will see James “Cyclops” Marsden take over the Dustin Hoffman role. Also notable is that in the remake, helmed by Rod Lurie, the part of the English Countryside will be played by the Deep South. Peckinpah’s brilliant and disturbing thriller about a young couple attempting to defend themselves against a night of increasingly brutal home invasion hardly needs to be remade at this point, for two reasons.

First off, it’s simply an incredible film, vying with The Wild Bunch  for the storied directors finest work, featuring such unflinching violence that it remained banned in some parts of England until just a few years ago.

And second, pretty much every film in the latest wave of home invasion thrillers, from suckscapade that was The Strangers, to the critically heralded Them, to Michael Haneke’s unnecessary but assuredly lucrative Hollywood remake of his own Funny Games, is more or less a pale remake Peckinpahs classic, owing  their very premise, and often the strongest parts of their execution, to Straw Dogs.

But apparently, that’s not enough. This week also brought news from Variety that a remake of Alan Parker’s 1987 noir-horror cult classic Angel Heart is apparently in the works. An occult detective story featuring absolutely sinister cinematography, nerve wracking pacing and the freakiest sex scene of all time, between Lisa Bonet, Mickey Rourke and several gallons of blood, Angel Heart didn’t catch at the box office but has become a deserving cult classic in it’s second life on home video.

If you haven’t checked out either Straw Dogs or Angel Heart, and too many people haven’t, nows the time to take advantage of the one good thing either of these remakes promise to bring – a little more attention to the deserving originals gathering dust on movie store shelves.

 

Reheated Popcorn: Jack Cardiff RIP

Reheated Popcorn is the little corner of Glaring Health Code Violations that I usually reserve for expressing my dismay at unnecessary remakes like the upcoming Red Dawn, or baffling sequels like Tron 2.0. But I’m not going to complain this week, at least not any more than I already have.

Instead of complaining about the future, I’m going to look to the past and urge everyone to take a look at some of the work Academy Award-winning British cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff who died earlier this week at 94. Over a career spanning seven decades, Cardiff guided the camerawork on a number of films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, most notably in excellent dramas like  The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and the heartbreaking The Brave One. His finest work may have come in The African Queen or, arguably the Kirk Douglas epic The Vikings, but contemporary audiences will probably be more familiar with his later, action dominated work, like Conan The Destroyer, The Dogs of War and Rambo: First Blood Part II. 

So, in the interest of lighting a candle, rather than cursing the stupid, stupid darkness, head down to the video store and grab a classic crafted by an artist with a camera. Even if it is a classic starring the Governator.

 

Reheated Popcorn: Good Idea/Bad Idea

It’s adaptation-o-rama this week with two films based on earlier works – one that looks crazy good, and one that seems just crazy.

First up, we’ve finally got a trailer for the adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are, and it looks great. I’m pretty skeptical about this adaptation, as I’m sure are a lot of people to whom this story was really special as a kid. But a perhaps preemptive hats off to Spike Jonze – from the looks of a trailer that feels fantastic, goofy, and dark, it would appear that he’s going to pull this one off and do Max and the rest justice. Now, for how the script by Dave Eggers will hold up… we’ll have to wait and see.

Speaking of my treasured childhood memories, it looks like not all of them can be so lucky as to go unsullied. Example –  the Farrely Brothers have finally gotten the green light for their big screen Three Stooges movie. If early reports are to be believed, the casting decisions look like the biggest joke of all – Jim Carrey will probably acquit himself pretty well as Curly, but Benicio del Toro as Moe? Sean Penn as Larry? Really? Penn hasn’t been funny since he was Jeff Spicoli, and del Toro is a great actor, but a comedic giant he ain’t. Now, maybe everyone will surprise us, but at first look, this may be the worst idea since bringing Curly Joe into the fold. So for right now, just take a deep breath, press play, and hold onto the good memories we’ve culled from the Saturday afternoon television lineups of our youth.

 

Easy as 1-2-3

With Friday the 13th doing brisk ticket sales and remakes of Escape to Witch Mountain (now with The Rock!) and Last House on the Left (now with more…rape?) due to be swallowed whole by the box office juggernaut that Zack Snyder’s Watchmen promises to be, it was only a matter of time until the next unnecessary rehash got announced.

The Taking of Pelham 123, please stand up for your dubious honor.

When one of the coolest and most original caper flicks of the 70’s gets a reboot, Walter Mathau’s sneering, rumpled transit detective will be played by – Denzel Washington, who else? And for everyone who’s been clamoring for John Travoltas return to action movies, and who hasn’t, you can stop holding your breath – Mr. Saturday Night Fever himself will be reprising Robert Shaw’s smooth, grim and calculating mercenary leader, Mr. Blue. 

One bright spot – director Tony Scott has shown that he can do biting cynicism and gallows humor alongside great action – but it’s been a while, and more recently… well, if you’re hoping for anything but a fast paced but ultimately by the numbers terrorist/crime drama, you may want to save a couple bucks and hit the video store instead of the theater.

 

Something in the Air

In addition to this blog and a slew of freelance gigs, I also write for the (bias alert) excellent webzine Popmatters. There’s always interesting stuff up, but this article by Jennifer Byrne is really something. It manages to blend scientific research with a healthy acid dose of cinematic snark, which is awesome and notable on it’s own.

But it also serves to further a thesis I’ve often proposed, albeit mostly in the under appreciated art form of the inebriated rant rather than the experimental abstract: sappy, formulaic romantic comedies  are actually an insidious plot to destroy civilization as we know it. How? By warping our expectations of relationships and crippling our ability to love. Check it out and right your brains before we’re all rendered incapable of breeding.

 

It’s the Future, Now Where Are My Terrible Mutants

It’s almost a decade into the much ballyhooed 21st century, and if you’re anything like me, you’re starting to get a little impatient with technology. Sure, it’s all well and good to be able to steal music and software from the ether, and battle diseases that were once death sentences with often astonishing rates of success.  But, in the words of one of the great modern philosophers – ” We still have weather?! Give me a break!”

This post marks the beginning of It’s the Future an ongoing feature dedicated to giving you the latest news on all the neat stuff this era was supposed to provide, from devastating ray guns to revolutionary cybernetic arms. Each week will provide a look at how close we really are to the wonders and horrors of living in the world of tomorrow, today. In keeping with the latest economic news, let’s go ahead and start with the horrors.

In cinemas throughout the world in the 1950’s, you seemingly couldn’t turn around without bumping into a giant monster. Filmmakers the world over, terrified and transfixed by the sheer power of the atomic bomb, turned their pens and miniscule budgets towards the more creative horrors that this new and terrible tecnhology could create. 1954 saw the first appearance of everyone’s favorite irradiated monster, Godzilla, in an inspired film blending the best elements of environmental fable and a metropolis being destroyed by an enormous lizard. In Them!, humanity was plagued by humble ants tranformed into monstrous man-eaters by mere proximity to nuclear testing.

The variations on a theme continued with giant spiders, giant gila monsters, and giant…well, you get the idea.Eventually, no animal was safe from being turned into a vicious, bloodthirsty killer courtesy of the miracle of celluloid. Night of The Lepus brought us the previously unimagined horror of giant killer rabbits, and  Black Sheep taught us the horror of… evil sheep. While the creatures may change, the lesson stays the same – as sure as the sun will rise, when mankind mucks about with nature, animals will become gruesome monsters, destroy our cities and gruesomely devour us.

Luckily for mad scientists, hot-rodding teenagers and grizzled generals the world over, it appears that mutant animals are simply more pitiable than fearsome. Chances are that no special forces teams will be scrambled over this two headed calf. And even after exposure to massive amounts of radiation, this poor frog would probably just die a painful death rather than grow to gargantuan proportions and threaten the safety of even a sleepy hamlet, much less a bustling cityscape.

Even when mutations are caused by human activity, the effects are often deeply underwhelming,  more grotesque than blood-chilling, as is the case of these two headed fish larvae recently found in Australia’s Noosa River.

Though the cause of this deformation, found in millions of larvae to date, remains up in the air, the probable culprits are one of two farming chemicals commonly used in the affected region – either endosulfan, an insecticide or carbendazim, an anti-fungal agent that’s closely related to Benomyl, which was found to cause abnormal numbers of chromosomes, among a variety of other unpleasant side effects, in lab testing. Neither substance has been found in the river as of yet, but a number of test results are still pending.

Meanwhile, even if these Blinky wannabes are not about to lay fire-breathing waste to the Sydney Opera House, we’d all probably do well to remember the lesson behind so many B-grade monster movies. When humanity recklessly messes around with nature, it usually doesn’t end well for humanity. And if whatever is mutating these fish moves into human populations, we may well find ourselves wishing for the sort of problem we could solve with a well placed artillery bombardment.

 

The Fourth Quarter Drive

News from the land of “Better Late Than Never” – as the Obama campaign concentrates on (and struggles?) to bring young and first time voters to the polls sooner rather than later, Errol Morris has launched People in the Middle for Obama, a late in the day ad campaign that hopes to push remaining fence-sitters into the Democratic camp.

The site features Errol Morris’ interviews with “real people” in the center of the political spectrum, telling the filmmaker and viewers why they are voting for Barack Obama. Each interview with a self identified Democrat or Republican voter is framed by the same featureless white backdrop and simple, carousel style musical tune, displaying Morris’ signature minimalist style. But content-wise, there’s really not a lot new here, with voters talking about being tired of negative campaigning, scared of the state of the economy, etc. And even stylistically, these shorts pale in comparison to Morris’ body of short works, like Mayo, which was somehow overlooked for an Oscar.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone by Errol Morris, a groups of Peruvian medicine men has thrown their support behind Obama as well, the BBC reports. And while they may not be a huge constituency here in the states, if there are shamans out there practicing magic and dispelling evil spirits, it’s good to know that they’re on your side, right?

 

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

I always kind of wanted to be an astronaut as a kid, but that had less to do with any passion for space travel than it did with one simple fact: astronauts got all the cool toys. Pens that wrote upside down. Freeze dried everything. Tang. Adult diapers that you apparently get to take home with you. The bells and whistles that NASA supplied for it’s intrepid explorers were always second to none. Case in point – this artificial intelligence therapy program.

Created by a former astronaut who now teaches space medicine, the program combines animation, video and audio elements to recreate or summarize difficult or hazardous situations encountered by veteran astronauts. The program is meant to aid in decision making, relationship management and controlling depression in the high pressure environment of a space flight by putting trainees into tough situations and letting their choices make the situation better or worse, a method of training and therapy that should be familiar to anyone who has ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

The results of these tests won’t be available to the public, of course, but in my heart of hearts, I like to believe that astronauts aren’t that different from the rest of us, and that the first round of testing will be devoted to it’s only logical use: seeing how fast you can bring the International Space Station plummeting in a fiery ball back to earth.

And as one means of computerized therapy enters the space age, another goes the way of the dodo as JVC ends production of standalone VCRs, bringing an end to an era in home entertainment. Somewhere, the guy who invented Beta max is smiling grimly and snickering to himself. I shared a lot of good time with a lot of VCRs, from the first time I ever saw Batman to the copy of Pulp Fiction that played perpetually in my first apartment. And as a longtime video store clerk, I get to watch one of my few pragmatic, handyman style skills – dismantling fixing, cleaning and reassembling a VCR – be rendered obsolete before i even turn thirty.

For hardcore VHS fans (you know you’re out there) and those who are just reluctant to own copies of Con Air on two separate formats, you’ll still be able to get combo players that play DVD and VHS formats. But let’s face it – it’s just not the same.

I’ve had friends argue that VHS will never really fade out, and will instead come to fill a home entertainment niche similar to the turntable, becoming a staple in hipster pads everywhere, treasured for it’s retro cool and nigh-indestructible recordings. I see where they’re coming from, especially when it comes to valuing a medium that can take a beating – I’ve seen people take some truly heinous actions against VHS tapes, with no discernible damage to the film, something that DVDs But considering how consolidated home entertainment is becoming, from gaming consoles that double as movie players to directly streaming HD video at your fingertips, even the discreet, archaic, indie charm of the VCR may not be enough to keep it in favor forever.

Rest well, good friend.