Category: (by verdict)

they’re back. mike and i and a bunch of others are going to see them in minneapolis later this month. it will be my third time seeing them live. the previous shows were brilliant adaptations of sketches from the show for the stage. this tour is apparently mostly new material from which they hope to spin off a new show and a movie. here’s an av club interview replete with video.

i have this emotional connection to the kids which i can’t quite explain–and it doesn’t translate to them individually (though i did watch newsradio religiously). it may be that it takes me back to those halcyon days of grad school, when we had no money and theory seemed like something worth fighting drunkenly over in bars. oh, wait, those were nightmarish days. anyway, as intellectually satisfying as the kids’ comedy can be (like a man getting hit in the groin by a football, it works on so many levels) my primary relationship to it, and them collectively, is one of love. i almost burst into tears when “having an average weekend” played at the beginning of the show the first time i saw them live (i think it was at the wiltern–john, pete, did we all go together?). mike, make sure to bring some hankies, and be ready to hold me close on the 26th.

I would provide a mild recommendation for Jake Kasdan (& co-writer/comedyimpresario/medialovechild Judd Apatow)’s biopic shenanigans. As it began, I was sucked into its pitch-perfect mimicry and its generally sly and absurdist approach to parody — Apatow learned some of these chops on the old “Ben Stiller Show,” which offered up some of the greatest, sharpest showbiz satires ever made. (My favorite was the Behind the Music documentary about the rise of U2, who were managed early on by Reuben Kincaid.)

Alas, those bits were 10 minutes long, and this is almost 90, and … well, it is never more than a sly absurdist parody. John Reilly remains one of my favorite comic actors, unrivalled in the portrayal of earnest dimwit intensity. But Dewey Cox–and every character–remain sharp but shallow caricatures, and the film doesn’t develop the sense of character the way other Apatow films (or even the best Will Ferrell vehicles) do. Watching Anchorman I felt like I was inside Ron Burgundy’s head, and it was a wonderful strange place, but Dewey’s all too familiar. Walk also avoids the scattershot quantity-theory of parody (a la Airplane), which allows it to be much smarter but also less frequently funny. I admired the craft of the jokes, and I’m not sure a general intellectual appreciation ought to be the primary outcome for a comedy like this.

I did enjoy the full-frontal male nudity. Penises are funny.

I watched two hip new documentaries, each with killer soundtracks, camerawork and cuts energizing the essentially talking-heads focus, flashy titles providing further information, and (in one) interwoven clips and photos which provide an Errol-Morrisian counterpoint to what a given talking-head is saying. Continue reading What’s up? Docs.

Fuck Brett Ratner. Chan’s return to Hong Kong for an old-school silly/pathos-drenched/action-thriller Robin B Hood is ridiculous and reasonably good fun. But I recommend it for its pedagogical import: this story of two burglars who end up caring for a baby they’ve kidnapped is really just like parenting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thrown a shit-filled diaper at Kris, and it’s splattered the wall and her to hilarious effect. Or accidentally tied the baby carriage to an armored truck, and then had to commandeer vehicles in a mad chase to rescue the happily-cooing Max. I was so glad to see a movie finally, finally get it right.

Seriously, if you like Jackie Chan, you’ll like this. A few great gags, in the stuntman sense–e.g., hopping from air conditioner to air conditioner down the side of a building. A lot of inane but harmlessly pleasant gags–e.g., diapers, a strange Brokeback Mountain joke, etc.

Oh, I’m thinking of opening a blog for discerning, film-loving parents. Besides these rare instances of films which accurately represent, I’ll be doing some serious kids’-film criticism. My first post will explore the numerous continuity errors I found in Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. Shameful.

Maybe now we can pry that fucking gun out of his hands.

This doesn’t “belong” on the blog, but The Darjeeling Limited‘s soundtrack had reminded me of a couple of great Kinks songs, and I spent some few months if they would ever release those tracks on iTunes (rather than forcing me to buy the whole album) or if the Kinks catalog would ever free up. Yesterday I gave up, and downloaded the whole old album: Part One Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround. And goddamn it is a great, great album, every song a wonder.

What have you been listening to?

Jules Dassin died this week. Has anyone else seen the great Rififfi and one of Richard Widmark’s (who just died, too) best performances in Night and the City .

Into The Wild, directed by Sean Penn and based on the book by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story (though elements are fictionalized) of Christopher McCandless. Escaping a dire home situation after graduation from college, McCandless, who goes by the name of Alexander Supertramp, embarks on more than two years of wandering across the United States, seeking more and more remote wilderness, until he ends up in Alaska where he, essentially, starves to death.

The closest analogue is probably Grizzly Man, and I have to admit that I watched this prepared to dislike it intensely. As with Grizzly Man, the lead distains human companionship (McCandless was befriended and helped by a number of apparently fine people who cared deeply for him), and believes that only in the wildest, most rugged parts of nature can he find himself. His death is, in a sense, inevitable. But the movie is actually very touching (with the occasional mis-step from Penn) and ultimately powerful. You can read it as a critique of McCandless’ if you like, in that his human companions — played almost uniformly superbly by Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook and others — demonstrate the importance of social relationships.

But the film works ultimately because it, and the country and scenery, are simply gorgeous. The Colorado river, Salton Sea and mountains of Alaska are the stars, and just occasionally you can see why McCandless gave his life to get closer to them.

There’s something about apocalyptic sci-fi that can amp up the pleasures of genre. Even pea-brained exercises like Reign of Fire (dragons ride again!), Doomsday (’80s b-movies ride again!), and Le Dernier Combat (Luc Besson’s only good movie!) have an infectious energy, and when directors syncopate the thrumming backbeat of social commentary (in Romero’s zombieworlds and the recent 28 reiterations, George Miller’s Max-world, or the delirious The Bed-Sitting Room) . . . it’s sheer delight.

But give a director with some recently-earned auteurial cred a chance to find his or her deeply-satirical vision of the world to come, and you get thudding shite like Zardoz, Quintet, and now Southland Tales.

Continue reading World’s end and the hapless auteur