Before we proceed, let’s pretend The Wicker Man didn’t happen.

Neil LaBute’s too damn great to be forever lumped in with the detritus of that project, though he did write and direct the thing (instead of seeing it, just watch this great comedy trailer for it). Instead enjoy as he does stuff a little more mainstream as to allow him back into his pocket of scathing and oftentimes sublime plays-turned-features.

His latest work as a director (not as a writer) is Lakeview Terrace*, starring Samuel L. Jackson and the soon-to-be-huge Patrick Wilson. It’s the one about the policeman who terrorizes the lives of a mixed race couple (Wilson and Kerry Washington), a sort of Pacific Heights meets Unlawful Entry transposed with Something New by way of Internal Affairs with a dash of every Shield episode tossed in. Mix in some Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD and you might as well dust off the mantle.

And hey, one of the producers is Will Smith!

The trailer paints the film as somewhat familiar but I’m kind of psyched to see how LaBute handles this kind of material. Plus, it looks like Samuel L. Jackson might not be too hammy in this, which is a blast of fresh air. Plus, Patrick Wilson’s great.

Plus it’s free if you live in or around one of the cities below!

All you have to do is use the appropriate link, include your mailing address, and a pass for two might make its way through the postal service to your mailbox between a bill you don’t intend to pay and a flyer for a discount meat warehouse. YOU ARE WELCOME!

What

follows is a scattershot bit of random thoughts, links, and images that

showcase the lunacy that exists in the entertainment world and beyond.

Folks who remember my old missives from the old Steady Leak articles

should find this kind of stuff familiar. Folks seemed to get a kick out

of the first installment, and each Wednesday should fall victim to

another installment. Don’t expect anything deep here but something may

tickle your fancy.

1. WHICH CRUSTACEAN?

This is confusing. Is Publix the KING OF CRUSTACEAN or is the store manager the KING OF CRUSTACEAN? Also, shouldn’t someone named Rich DiRocco be working the night shift at the Atomic Hoagie Shop? Also, am I missing something? Did the world’s crustacean population get rocked by famine and intrigue, leaving just one easy to conquer beast? Or is the competition between grocery chains so strong that each location has to illustrate their fiefdom and lordship and shits? More likely some rambuncitious IT person with a very low tolerance for education ran roughshod over the Publix franchise with his/her ill-conceived notions of what constitutes the kind of rhetoric that’ll inspire shoppers to return to the chain. Looks like Public will have to go to India for their tech support needs.

2. 2%. ALL THE TIME!

Photo by Nick Nunziata.

“I’m into Fage!”

3. Shitter With The Red Dress, Red Dress On! Shitter With The Red Dress On!

Photo by Stephen Lambrechts.

“This air freshener is no joke. I had two martinis and a bowl of chili and all I can smell is Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds because that’s the scent of sophistication. I’m already three-quarters of the way through this dump and though my hindquarters are working overtime to create something truly malevolent, this air freshener is more than up to the task. I’m astounded. It’s like anteater except instead of ants it eats up shit smell. I might just stay here a while and totally not get high off my total non supply.”

4. Calista Flockhart = Skim.

Photo by Justin Starr.

This ought to be a t-shirt. It’d be totally cool to have a chick flaunting her heaters to guys who’ll then go to jail when they grab them and make love to them because she was asking for it. I’m flummoxed. What the fuck is a Human Milk Formula Preparation Area, aside from every woman’s sternal region? Are we finally making strides towards doing away with ladies, because I’ll totally be able to finish my rewrite of the scriptures with that kind of newfound spare time. I’m going to call it the King Ghidorah Bible and it makes a ton more sense. Noah compares scars with Quint and Brody while coming up with recipes for two of damn near every animal and wait until you read about the Members Only jacket of shitloads of colors. OK, if we have the technology to recreate the milk all we need is research into how to automate dish washing and food preparation.

“…”

5. I Just Bought a Scatman Crothers and Two Charles Durnings!

Photo by John Makarewicz.

Now you know where Mom and Pop stores come from.

6. “Dan… we all sat you down to tell you… YOUR UNCLE DAVEY MISSES YOU!!!!!!”

Photo by Marc Pilvinsky.

Who on Major Bludd’s green Earth would fall for a psychic intervention’s? Wouldn’t you see that coming? Especially with the big sign out front.

I’ll be damned, it’s good ‘ol Psychic Intervention’s place! I’ve long wondered how he was doing and now I know. AND JUDGING BY THE ORNATE LANTERNS, HE IS DOING WELL.

7. Shop at Scaramanga’s Pawn Shop.

Photo by Steve Murphy.

The clientele is very exclusive here. While there’s no shortage of coins and DVD’s, finding gold guns is rough unless you tweak the settings on your N64.

8. One of the Best Entrees at Ghost Rider’s Bakery.

Photo by Andrea Rothe.

I got so excited when I first saw this until I realized this wasn’t a link to candid photos of Larry Storch. Looks like my classified ad goes unanswered for the thirteenth straight year.

9. Now You’re Just Making Park Names Up.

Photo by Mark Tenn.

Willy Wong was a simple man. He liked chives. He liked Hogan’s Heroes. He liked going into playgrounds and puking on his penis to entertain the kiddies. One day he did it and slipped on a sprinkler unit and broke all of his fists. He sued the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department and won. As a result he has his own little universe where kids can be kids and men can be behind them.

Since when did basketball skills trump a good pukedick?

10. “And The Winner of the 10K is… I AM SAM!”

Photo by Kent Reynolds.

There’s a reason retards are fast. If they were slow you could capture them and put them in the 100 gallon tank you just set up in the garage. Sure, you’ll have to move the live rock and the pistol shrimps, but a little gravel and driftwood and a few Crystar figures and you have yourself a fully realized retard environment. That’s insensitive. Retards are total 2% people.

Actually the retards are the people willing to pay $2.60 for Marlboros.

11. Why So Yahoo Serious?

Photo by Joe Salhab.

This photo made George Stephanopoulos speechless. It made Georgia peachless. It made Lew Alcindor reachless. It make Dustin Diamond Screechless. It made Christa McAuliffe teachless. It made Brian Wilson Beachless. It made Johnny Butane Creechless. It made Stacy Keachless. It made Willem Dafoe’s character in Speed 2 leechless.

12. Logic 57, Organized Religion 0.

Photo by Chris Hayes.

Weird thing is that the figure on the left is Tilda Swinton and the one on the right is reknown bagpipe virtuoso Paddy O’Reachapart.

13. “Let this be a penisbeacon to the lot of you!”

Photo by Matthew Day.

It’s good to know that dude from The Little Mermaid poster’s getting work.

14. So Much For My Porn Name…

Photo by Matthew Day.

There’s really no market that can’t be ruined or perfected by a product bearing the Thunder Nipples moniker. Think it over and you’ll know I’m right. And remember, when you see Tit Lightning… count the seconds before the Thunder Nipples to know how much of a lead you have on them.

15. “This is not what I meant when I said it was my dream to be penetrated by Al Kaline!”

Photo by Matthew Day.

True Story:

I skipped school one day as a 7th grader and was playing in my garage with an axe, cutting up Star Wars toys for fun (as as pre-emptive George Lucas creative voodoo) when I accidentally slammed down on a D battery. It exploded and the battery acid shot out into my eyes. I blinked just in time but it burned the area around them, creating a weird “raccoon” effect. I was blinded and called my dad’s office by feel on the phone. They got me to the hospital where they put dye on my eyes, finding that I’d scratched my retina and I had to be treated like some bizarre oddity, wearing mirrored sunglasses to school for a few weeks. Now that wouldn’t make me an oddity. It’d make me a poker player.

False Story:

I climbed Mt. Everest and let the Yeti handfuck me.

Battery Sharpening Story:

There are none.

By the way:

“Every day our mailbox makes paper babies!”

Message Board Thread.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE! and HERE!
STUDIO:  Universal Studios
MSRP: $19.98 each
RATED:  PG-13
RUNNING TIME: 91 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
-Deleted Scenes
– Alternate Ending
– Balls Out: The Making of Balls of Fury
– Under the Balls: The Life of a Ball Wrangler

The Pitch

Ballsport. Or more accurately, ballsweat.

The US coach’s constant threats of violence towards the team would’ve been taken more seriously if not for his serious problem with depth perception.

The Humans

Directed by Ben Garant
Written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant
Starring Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, Thomas Lennon, Robert Patrick, Terry Crews, Diedrich Bader

“So what I do is, after each role like this, I just put a little piece of my dignity in this jar, you know, for safekeeping.”

The Nutshell

Randy Daytona (Fogler) was a child phenom on the pro ping pong circuit, racking up wins left and right. When his time came to shine in the Olympics, some shady dealings by his father broke his concentration and allowed him to fail on the biggest stage of them all (and also lose his father, who was subsequently killed). Many years later, working as a novelty lounge act, he is recruited by an FBI Agent (Lopez) looking for him to infiltrated the underground extreme ping pong circuit and help them catch the criminal underlord Feng, purported to look like George Takei. With the help of a blind trainer and his daughter, Daytona gears up to compete in the holy grail of underground ping pong, a sudden death tournament at Feng’s opulent palace  where Randy looks to avenge his father’s death and reclaim the glory of his childhood, taking his rightful place as the real king of pong.

There’s little to do other than cower in the presence of Robo-penis.

The Lowdown

What is it about Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon that they can be so good when it comes to playing around with their fellow members of the extant (but still constantly intermingling) State troupe and come off so comedically flat in all of their other enterprises? The connective tissue between the films they’ve written that have been developed for the big screen is that a lot of them have genuinely good concepts at their core; Night at the Museum’s success is completely understandable given that it’s premise is one that has crossed any child/young adult with a pulse’s mind who has ever stepped foot in a museum in their life. Balls of Fury’s ‘Bloodsport in the realm of competitive ping pong’ is a similarly fertile concept that is completely lifeless in its delivery to the big screen, compounded by the fact that there’s no Shawn Levy-shaped scapegoat to place this film’s disappointing lack of verve or humor on, as Garant himself is the director of the picture.

While off-putting for newcomers, everybody else was, if not necessarily comfortable, then at least used to Ken’s penchant for fucking all things stationary.

I think a great deal of the film’s shortcomings comes from the fact that it is constantly trying to defy convention to the point that its defiance becomes what is expected. Sometimes convention can be good, it helps build a familiarity with the audience. If they would’ve played the whole concept a little straighter, some of the characters would’ve resonated a lot more loudly and the whole picture would’ve become funnier simply by virtue of the fact that it’s taking something marginal like competitive ping-pong and playing it straight. They never seem to get this, and the film’s concussive piling on of jokes in which people fall over or a blind man fails to look in the correct direction have the cumulative dulling effect of an old fashioned cloth covered in ether. Worse than trying too hard to be funny is the fact that the plotting is just downright sloppy and ill-conceived. Instead of showing us that the Randy Daytona character is improving with the training sessions we’re instead treated to a couple of montages where he fails miserably followed by him defeating stern competition effortlessly.  Similarly the film builds to a final epic confrontation between two characters and then backs out of it and changes gears, a subversion of convention that the film never manages to recover from (although it was already in a Schiavo-esque state of consciousness at that point, so its probably a moot point). Not even a game Maggie Q running about kicking people in the face can save this pile of hands.

The ‘Swing Free or No Hard’ campaign for boxers over briefs was scratched before it ever saw air.

And despite a couple of welcome comic ringers being utilized (Patton Oswalt and Terry Crews), there isn’t a lot of good coming out of the performances. The closest to getting the vibe is Lennon as the sadistic German ping pong champion, but even that skirts the line of parody too closely and never feels like its being played straight enough to actually work. Even Christopher Walken, usually able to mine uncomfortable nuggets out of any role in any film, is reduced to looking silly instead of being given any real solid business at any point in the movie. It’s a shame to see a talented group of comedians fail so conclusively with a premise as promising as this one, but it goes to show that movies like this work as a sort of cautionary tale about what happens when comedians are trying to work by the studio’s rules instead of creating comedy that’s fully representative of their own sensibilities.*

“I keep have the same nightmare: I’m walking down Sunset Boulevard, and a beautiful woman approaches me. She tells me she’s a huge fan and asks if she can have an autograph. I say of course and as I’m signing it, she says ‘When does the next season of Mind of Mencia start, anyway?’. And then I wake up.”

The Wii tie-in game for Balls of Fury is just about as poorly constructed as the movie itself, but fails on different grounds. Since the previously released Wii Play already had a ping pong mini-game option, Balls of Fury would have to differentiate itself by smoothing out the game engine and having a more reactive Wiimote that would make gameplay easier. It does add some options to ping pong (multiplayer) that are nice additions, but on the whole the game feels a little lacking overall in terms of encouraging replay value. The general idea of the thing is to get enough volleys to build up your power bar to unleash a furious special move (either a zig-zaggy thing, one where it disappears and reappears or a NBA Jam-esque ‘He’s on fire’ volley) but the game wears out its welcome quickly.  And while having each character be able to recite only one line of dialogue from the film is kinda funny in a provoking nostalgia for old consoles and their limited memory for audio sort of way, it becomes intensely grating after the third or fourth match (or halfway through the first, depending on your mileage). While there is something to be said for a videogame where you can choose to play as Terry Crews, this becomes awfully repetitive, awfully quick. Easy to avoid, especially if you have one of the other ping pong options for the platform. Still, infinitely more entertaining that the trenchfoot for the brain that is the feature film.

“I get what you’re going for there. A little Gamorrean guard mixed with the Shredder. It’s nice, really.”

The Package

The cover art is bland, and highlights the cast instead of taking the easy opportunity for a large print testicle joke, which is unfortunate. The transfer is solid and the sound is equally so, and there’s a few extras for fans of the movie, which there shouldn’t be. None of them add up to much (the deleted scenes and alternate ending aren’t missed), and the Under the Balls feature is somehow less funny than the movie. Still, there’s something to be said for effort. Even if that something is “stop”.

“Oh wow, you really have a manic sort of Jack Black vibe in your performance, Dan.”
“Yeah, I get that comparison a lot.”
“Really?”
“No.” *solitary tear rolls down cheek*

*As an additional note, can we officially put a moratorium on the victory lap end credits sequence with the cast singing a song utilized in the film? This sucks even when the movie is good, so imagine the pain inflicted by heaping this on top of a poor movie.  Exception: If Michael Haneke decides to have the cast of Funny Games sing along to “Bonehead” over the end credits. That’s it.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO:  Rhi Entertainment
MSRP: $19.95
RATED:  NOT RATED
RUNNING TIME:  265 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
–    Beyond the Yellow Brick Road featurette
–    On Set With the Director
–    Gag Reel
–    Interviews with the Cast and Crew

The Pitch

It’s bad fan-fic made corporeal to haunt your face.

“I got one of the tech guys to make this thing 32x compatible.  Awesome, right?”

The Humans

Zoey Deschanel, Alan Cumming, Neal McDonough, Richard Dreyfus, Kathleen Robertson

The Nutshell

DG (Deschanel) reminds you of a certain someone from cinema’s past, as she’s a small-town waitress with a big city attitude. However, an attack and a fortuitous leap into a tornado later, DG finds her self in a land known as ‘The O.Z.’ (Yup. I swear I’m not fucking with you.) where she meets a handful of familiar types along the way: a man without a brain, a ‘tin man’, and a cowardly lion. She’ll need their help to escape the clutches of the evil princess Azkadellia (Robertson, and I hope the catering and/or paycheck was worth it) who’s looking to capture DG for her own nefarious purposes.

Rough approximation of what I looked like by minute two hundred and sixty-five of Tin Man.

The Lowdown

Unnecessary remakes and sequels have been a fact of life for long before movie magazines and film critics have trumpeted them as the death of cinema. They’re a fact of life in the movie industry, a shining example of the ‘no new ideas’ paradigm taken to its lazy conclusion. However, some properties are still able to infuriate everyone with their almost inexplicable existence. Tin Man is one such product. Have you found yourself watching the Wizard of Oz and thinking, “This is all well and good, but I’d like to see this scenario regurgitated from the perspective of a thirteen year old boy”? If so, this is precisely the movie you’ve been waiting for. Indescribably boring, dour and lacking any vitality whatsoever, Tin Man is the antithesis of everything the original Oz was, stretched out garishly over an interminable six hour span.

This movie makes its hay from slight tweaks from the original Oz’s formula, specifically tweaks that seem to have come from the mind of a hormone-ravaged adolescent racist.  Remember the flying monkeys? And how they were fucking terrifying?  Well now they fly out of the wicked witch’s boobs! AWESOME! Remember Toto? Now he’s a black guy AND a dog! Do you like the Tin Man? Now he’s packing heat! Did you like Auntie Em and Uncle Henry in the original? No? Well, now they’re robots! So despite the attempt at changing and revising the template set by the original, they still stay pretty close to the source material, only making room for these wholly retarded cosmetic changes. However, they’re only one atrocity in the litany committed by this pile of steaming wetfart.

The aforementioned titmonkeys.

There’s ineptitude at every stage of the game, leaving enough blame for the world to indulge in on this project. The script, direction and acting are all below below par and can all be singled out for special scorn as part of the wholesale failure of this enterprise. On the level of the script it manages to take each character in this film and equip them with character beats and quirks established at the outset only to disregard them and never utilize them again for the duration of the picture. Case in point: the character of Glitch, played by Alan Cumming. It’s established at the outset that since his brain has been removed he sometimes has a ‘glitch’ and repeats things multiple times. As an astute viewer of films you would take this as foreshadowing that perhaps this would figure into the plot at a crucial moment somewhere down the line. For example, the scene during the climax in which he’s relaying crucial information to his fellow protagonists in order to foil the evil plot would seem like precisely the time in which this character quirk would come in to play. You would be wrong. This film teaches you that you establish character traits and then discard them immediately thereafter, because who’s going to remember silly details twenty eye-sodomizing minutes later? It blends into one giant writhing ball of hurt in your brain after a certain amount of time, so what’s the need for attention to detail? Perhaps the most offensive trait of the screenplay is its attempts at placing itself in the same chronology as the original, only set further down the line. Its one thing to clumsily fail at trying to recapture the magic of the original, but don’t try to place your work alongside the other as part of the canon. It’s fucking heretical. 

“Devin!  You thought you could hide behind the internet??  Block this pop-up, motherfucker!”

The place the film falters most, and it truly lets down its performers, is in the acting department. Nobody comes out of this looking good, although I will say now that Neal McDonough and Richard Dreyfus seem to realize the tenor of the project and try to elevate it at least, even if they don’t particularly succeed. Alan Cumming is given nothing to do, and as a result sort of flails around and constantly refer to his lack of a brain in lieu of any acting. Kathleen Robertson vamps it up in a truly atrocious performance, where somehow her costume manages to meet her at the summit of Mount Campbutnotinafuntowatchevenifyou’redrunksortofway. However, special attention must be given to the truly heinous performance of Zooey Deschanel. Now, if you’ve seen The Happening you’ve probably thought to yourself “Wow, nothing could’ve prepared me for how terrible she was in that movie.” However, this mini-series was like Silver Surfer, a herald of the horrible acting that was yet to come. Her performance is Razzie-level, and I don’t think it’s really her fault: she is completely let down by being put into a position where she has to show wide-eyed wonderment with her surroundings and the situations.  Earnestness and wonder are not Zooey’s trademark talents. She’s best when she’s playing things sardonic or more realistically. At some point during this production someone should’ve told her she comes off as particularly low-functioning on the mental health spectrum whenever she tries to register a reaction of awe, surprise or shock.  One thing can be said for certain of these performances: whenever you see these actors again in a film you’ll feel like Dorothy in the original Oz, waking up from a terrible dream that they somehow managed to include themselves in.

For your edification, the Monodeschanelith.

The direction could’ve been the sole highlight of the picture, adding life and at least manufactured interest in the proceedings in a purely visual sense, but the camera doesn’t do much of anything. When it goes dutch as we watch Azkadelia’s followers working in her castle we feel confused as to why the camera has specifically chosen this and only this moment in which to free itself from the shackles of establishing/two-shots. I can count the number of times where I felt a sequence was adroitly or competently directed in a way that at least covered for the series other deficiencies on no hands. There’s no vitality or energy behind any of the sequences, everything feels perfunctory (and there’s some truly hideous SFX work when the forest creatures, whatever the fuck they were called, are chasing our protagonists through the woods; it looks like they’re speed walking for their lives). There isn’t a complete dearth of compliments to be given to the series, though. It has a really remarkable sheen to it, with immense scope for a television mini-series. The universe feels lived in and the set design is really solid, and even the costume design is worthy of praise. Even some of the ideas aren’t complete shit; the tin box rebels are kept in as punishment is an inspired concept (although how exactly he stays alive and grows a hobo beard without any nourishment is something that begs answering). There was also one or two shots in the film that contained the spark of wit that the entire six hours needed to be infused with, but at a grand total of about forty-five seconds over three-hundred and sixty minutes it’s a pretty poor average (don’t see a lot of major leaguers batting .002). This is a huge misfire and a blight on everyone’s resumes, avoid at all costs.

It was hard for the cast to get much in the way of constructive feedback from the director, Sarah Bellum.

The Package

The cover art is emblematically plain and gives you just a hint of the vast treasure trove of Deschanel faces contained within. The three part miniseries is spread out over two discs with the first two parts on disc one and the last part and all special features contained on disc two. And lo and behold, the special features are held to the same rigorous quality standards of the feature, and are all a hellish slog to get through. The gag reel is notable for not containing any bloopers, and the behind-the-scenes featurette seems to show off how ‘fun’ and ‘energetic’ the set was, instead coming off as a lame birthday party where your uncles get drunk and dance to whatever’s playing on the radio. And the cast interviews take on a shambolic conversational tone, whereas I would’ve treated them like the Nuremberg Trials, holding these people responsible for the crimes they’ve committed.  

Yogi wept.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO:  Warner Home Video
MSRP: $19.98
RATED:  PG
RUNNING TIME: 104 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
– Unwrapped episode

The Pitch

It feels a little like a sitcom pilot filled out with some dramatic beats to make it feature length. Say, Caroline in the City meets meat and potatoes. And I say this knowing nothing of the basic premise of Caroline in the City.

The Humans

Catherine Zeta”-Ray Bill” Jones, Aaron (The Dark Knight) Eckhart, Abigail (Kit Kittredge) Breslin, Bob “Motherfucking” Balaban

“I’m truly sorry…it would seem she’s been exposed to near-fatal levels of Little Miss Sunshine.”

The Nutshell

Kate (Jones) is a workaholic who is very devoted to her job as head chef. You can tell this because she goes to therapy for it, but at therapy she just gives her therapist food. So anyway, her sister dies in the type of accident where the one person dies and the other (in this case, her daughter, played by Breslin) looks to have gotten a severe case of rug burn. So Kate takes her into her home, where they just can’t relate (she’s all like “My mom’s dead!” and Kate is all like “Soufflés!”). Enter fun-loving, free-spirited sous chef (Harvey Two-Face Dent) who likes to sing and dance and generally enjoy life. This is in clear conflict with Kate, who apparently doesn’t go for singing or happiness. Perhaps he’ll break through her gruff exterior and show her to enjoy her job and life? Perhaps some sort of conflict will separate them temporarily? Soup’s on, motherfuckers (original tagline for the film).

Hopes were running high at the outset of the third annual Radio Fans Race for the Cure.

The Lowdown

Light comedies, be it romantic or otherwise, are one of the toughest tightropes for a filmmaker to walk. This is the bread and butter of Hollywood, something it’s been making since its infant stages, so one expects effortless entertainment from this product. However, the problem with that is that those seemingly effortless bits of breezy entertainment usually require more strenuous effort than other works and Hollywood hasn’t seemed to excel at this in many decades. Part of the problem is displayed by movies such as No Reservations; instead of trying to make a light and fluffy comedy with likable characters that you root to join together despite whatever machinations of the plot are thrown at them, these movies tend to add some sort of leaden dramatic element that helps absolve them of the duty of making a diversionary entertainment. This seems to be the role of Abigail Breslin’s character of orphan relative in this movie, to distract you from the fact that the light comedy isn’t being particularly comedic. The drama doesn’t contain any emotion or legitimate pathos at any point, so it comes off as leaden and unnecessary. And when the film tries to turn on the battle of the sexes/romantic comedy switch, the dialogue doesn’t crackle with sex like the best of screwball comedies and the two leads are never given enough time to strike up a truly intoxicating romance on screen, so you’re left with a relationship that comes off as severely undercooked.

“Let’s face it: you either die as dough or you live long enough to become the crust.”

And a food metaphor seems apt for what’s troubling this film most. At the end of the film, it seems like a recipe that seemed good on paper but when put into motion, comes out completely unmemorable. All of the different ingredients (family drama, light romantic comedy, ode to the deliciousness of food) feel like they should blend together into something palatable, but they are still all distinctively separate in the finished product, and don’t feel like they’ve come together into one cohesive dish. In fact, you never really feel like you spend enough time with any of the characters (especially Eckhart’s) to fully understand their motivations or make them unique and complex, despite game performances from almost everyone (and the inclusion of some stellar supporting casting in the form of Patricia Clarkson and the aforementioned Balaban). Instead the film seems happy to hit the montage button whenever possible to condense the moments in which we’d see the characters grow in front of us to try and force emotion instead of earning it.  The direction is certainly competent and moves well but it only manages to put a nice sheen on something that upon further inspection is in need of some substantial revision. It settles for fast food when it should be aiming for gourmet, and while I can’t say the film was bad, it certainly has made no impression on me one way or the other*. Only watch it for initiation into the Talibalaban.

“You mean I went through this nine month prep time and we ain’t even gonna serve Rosemary’s Burger?”

The Package

The cover art skimps on the orphaned child aspect that seems much bigger than the implied antagonistic relationship between the two chefs (which lasts all of three minutes or so in the film, actually), but I’ll take airbrushed mannequins standing in a period photograph over floating heads any day of the week. The film looks good (captures all the gauzy romantic hues used throughout) and sounds fine and comes equipped with a full screen version of the movie as well as widescreen in case you’re a hateful person. The only extra is an episode of the Food Network’s UnWrapped based around the making of this movie, and it manages to be as light and inconsequential as the film itself. Meaning it’s not a slog to watch, but you’ll forget it as soon as the special features menu appears again.

“What do you mean you thought my husband was the one with the stroke?”

*I didn’t like it.  Sous me.

A Nice Hard Slap – OK, Now We Really Have an Oil Crisis.

OK people it’s finally time to start worrying about this oil situation. Sean “Puffy” Combs is flying commercial. PROOF. Seriously people. We cannot inconvenience this man any more than we already have. Some suggestions:

1. Don’t drive.

2. If you do drive, use a Mustang. The horse.

3. Telecommute. Especially strippers, priests, and waiters.

4.
Find the shortest distance between two points and go that way. Through
schools. Across water. Through a luncheon. It’s for P. Diddy!

How
much longer is this guy going to have to risk spending $200,000 to fly
himself and his entourage across the country? That means unnecessary
autographs. It means waiting in lines. It means no airgina.

We
need to put aside our differences with those linen-wearing valvolines
and put this crisis to bed before Mr Diddit needs to use Amtrak.

Think about it.

–
Nick Nunziata has gas.

Before
I go, here’s the latest thing I’m adding to the blog. Each day I blog I’ll
have a song, a piece of artwork, a photo, a Mary Worth, or something to
further justify your click and to give the trolls a little more ammo. Today, an ART JAM in progress, the SCIENCE FACILITY STOREROOM:

It’s funny when you think about the way love is portrayed in film. You rarely ever see an honest display of how love can unfold. Sure, we’ve all had butterflies in our stomach, went through puppy love, and generally just made a jackass of ourselves in the name of “love”, but what about when the honeymoon is over? Love can be cruel and merciless, but that is never really seen in film. If so, it’s usually just played for laughs and it’s rather short lived. The two star crossed lovers will see the error in their ways, and come running back to one another in slow motion while the latest emo song plays in the background. In reality, love will take your last dollar, the home you live in, and basically just give you the finger while it walks out the door with someone else….fade to black.

Why is it that Hollywood rarely ever allows a love story to play out honestly? I think the last semi-accurate portrayal of a relationship gone bad I’ve seen was ‘The Break-up’. Even that movie had its flaws, but at least it had the guts to leave the two main characters apart from one another at the end of the story. Their was no last minute resolution between the two characters, and no one made an illogical decision to save the relationship. It ended rather ugly, and people spent the rest of the movie trying to hurt one another. Sadly, that is really more true to life than Hollywood would rather admit. In real life we don’t get a Hollywood ending, just a feeling of resentment, anger, hurt, and loss.

So why do they continue to make every love story like a Lifetime movie? Would people rather see the fantasy of love, rather than the truth of it? Granted, you could make an argument that all movies are fantasy, and it’s no different than watching a completely unbelievable action flick, far-fetched horror story, or sci-fi epic that takes place on some alien planet. We all like to live vicariously through these types of stories, that’s a part of why we enjoy the movies so much. Whether it’s the mannerisms of the cool lead character, the witty dialogue you wish would come out of your mouth at the drop of a hat, or the sexy female that just seems so obtainable at the end of the day…it’s just so satisfying to watch. So if that’s the case, are we really just hanging on to the illusion of love at the end of the day? Do we all realize it’s a rather complicated emotion, and just prefer to see it play out in a harmless manner?

I guess I’m just rambling about the topic now. Consider me a jaded person when it comes to this subject. I’ve felt the embrace of love in my lifetime, and I’ve also been kicked by the wayside while it stole my wallet and trampled over the remnants of my heart. Maybe it’s just a little frustrating that I didn’t have a reference movie to play in my mind, or live vicariously though while going through that kind of state. All I had to choose from were Hollywood endings that did not speak to me or my situation, and just left me with a hollow feeling inside. Luckily we always have music to turn to in times of need, but it would be nice to have a few more movies that could visualize the ugly truths of love. She can be wonderful at times, but sometimes you really need to see that bi*ch that she can be to fully understand how she works.

With only about seven weeks to go before the cameras roll, Inglorious Bastards is sprinting towards the starting line, grabbing actors whenever possible along the way. Two huge roles have remained open: Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, the ‘Jew Hunter’, and the chief female protagonist Shoshanna.

Now, only one is left. Quentin Tarantino has cast 51-year old German television actor Christoph Waltz as Landa. Waltz has been seen in a handful of projects outside Germany (the Kevin Spacey flick Ordinary Decent Criminal and Queen’s Messenger) but none come close to being the lead antagonist in Tarantino’s new movie. I can’t wait to hear the complaints pour in, but I’m excited to see a relative unknown (in this country) with the role. Now I have no expectations at all. (And I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees a real resemblance to Tim Roth in the photo at right.)

Also in the cast, and replacing the rumored Nastassja Kinski, is Diane Kruger. That’ll be a real step up from her National Treasure appearances; now she’ll have the geek cred of working with Tarantino and a nice Disney royalty check to fall back on in case Bastards goes the way of Grindhouse.

Now let’s get A Girl Cut In Two‘s Ludivine Sagnier in as Shoshanna and we can get to Cannes.

Few things go better together than actor Jeffrey Combs, director Stuart Gordon, and author H.P. Lovecraft.

Thanks to Combs, we know a little bit more about Gordon’s latest Lovecraft adaptation, The Thing on the Doorstep, which is being written by Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator) and focuses on a young girl who, aided by her skills of seduction and sorcery, can transfer her mind into another man’s body. Unfortunately, Combs has decided to sit this one out.

The Re-Animator star tells Fangoria that the film looks to be “wall-to-wall” sex.

“…because the whole idea is that people get infected by having sex, and so everybody is doing it. And I just said, ‘Stuart, no, thank you,’ because I know how it breaks down and how it is on set, and I didn’t really want to be in that world.”

The heavy sexual content is something unique to Gordon and Paoli’s take on Lovecraft’s story, which originally told a less erotic tale of mind transference.

“It was just too much, it was like, ‘And then they’re writhing, and then they’re humping some more, and then they build to a climax, and then they climax, and sweat…” I wish him all the best with that one, but not every project’s right for me.”

Gordon is expected to begin filming The Thing on the Doorstep this fall.