Darker than THE DARK KNIGHT and raunchier than any other Superhero movie ever, WATCHMEN busts out of development Hell into theaters today and it’s sure to be #1 this weekend. Knowing nothing of the source material, I sat transfixed and alternately baffled at what I saw at a late screening last night. Set in an alternate America in 1985 in which Nixon (played with a cartoon-ish prosthetic nose by Robert Wisden) is still president, a group of Superheroes has been disgraced and placed under governmental control. When The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a power player with a crusty charisma is murdered, Superhero turned vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) focuses on tracking down the killers. Among the not-ready-for-the-Justice-League heroes are Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), and Billy Crudup as the completely CGI crafted Doctor Manhattan.
Much of this film feels like a Frankenstein monster of a movie with pieces from pop culture classics stitched together – the rain drenched neon-lit dystopian cityscapes from BLADE RUNNER and the War Room set reproduced exactly from DR. STRANGELOVE for instance. For an over the top action movie it’s really exposition heavy at times which works better than expected especially the soft spoken Crudup, who somehow makes a giant naked blue man animation into a study in eloquence. As for the action, the fight scenes lack edge and urgency, but the overall thrust is engaging if not transcendent. As Rorschach, complete with a cool morphing ink blot mask, Haley is the stirring standout showing how far he’s come from pitching for the BAD NEWS BEARS. A sequence involving Rorschach in stir is absolutely gripping with Haley stealing the movie away from his co-stars and the scores of expensive bombast.
As I mentioned above I have not read the original beloved graphic novel on which this is based so I can’t judge how faithful it is, but it certainly felt like a true comic book movie. It was almost as if bold panel edges and invisible establishing text were present while Crudup’s Doctor Manhattan looked like he had literally walked off the printed page. The soundtrack is quite unorthodox for a Superhero epic – an opening montage set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” sets the tone with odd choices like Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sounds Of Silence”, and Nena’s “99 Luftballons” following suit. Unfortunately, despite all these eccentricities and that it's leaps and bounds better than Snyder’s 300, the film is way too long with a number of plodding parts that don’t gel. As a better than average popcorn flick it’s sure to have many fans, but it had ambitions way above that. Despite that WATCHMEN doesn’t soar to the heights it aims for, its intense intent and wicked sense of self is nearly intoxicating enough.
Ah, the art of the snark. In his blog not long ago, Roger Ebert wrote a brilliant breakdown of the current over-proliferation of snarking in the press (“Hunt not the Snark but the Snarker” - February 25th, 2009). After calling it “cultural vandalism” he chided writers such as Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke and LATimes reporter Patrick Goldstein for their cheap shots at the Oscars and he concluded gracefully, as Ebert is known to do, by quoting a Lewis Carroll poem. If the protagonist of this film, celebrity journalist Sidney Young, was a real person there’s no doubt Ebert would’ve singled him out too. For despite that Young is the creation (and alter ego of) paparazzi pundit Toby Young (from his book of the same name), as played by an in-your-face Simon Pegg he would be likely be one of the most unavoidable media masters of snark today.
After upsetting a posh party with a pig he claims is Babe from BABE 2, Pegg is hired by the editor of Sharp’s magazine (Jeff Bridges again in very un-Dude territory). Pegg and the magazine, based on Vanity Fair, are an uneasy fit as he insults everybody in sight especially an extremely miscast Kirsten Dunst who bases her entire performance on constant eye-rolls (oh, was that too snarky?). Pegg has 2 goals – to get ahead at the magazine no matter what it takes and to bed a model/starlet played by Megan Fox. He has to contend with Fox’s powerful publicist (Gillian Anderson) and an asshole boss (Danny Houston) as we have to contend with his unlikable unctuousness while the predictable plot goes through the motions.
This is the kind of film that doles out such beaten to death comic clichés as a transsexual that fools the leading man and a small dog getting crushed (see A FISH CALLED WANDA for how to deal with this better). Pegg, who can lift even a lightweight rom com like RUN FATBOY RUN above total mediocrity, here is helpless to save this material. Bridges sums up Pegg’s character’s sense of humor in their first interview scene as: “snarky, bitter, and witless.” That sums up the movie as well; it mistakes snarky for funny over and over again. But if the joke that Pegg wore a bright red t-shirt that said “young, dumb and full of come” to the interview makes you laugh then this might be the movie for you. As for me, this film lost and alienated me, but I know I’m probably the millionth snarky movie
“You’ll never look at a windshield wiper the same way again” could be the tagline for this biopic of frustrated inventor Robert Kearns. Kearns, played with pluck and aplomb by Greg Kinnear (in non smarmy mode happily), developed an intermittent windshield wiper in the 60’s and took his idea to the Ford Motor Company. After studying his work they pass on paying him but use the method anyway causing him to sacrifice his marriage and sanity to fight for the credit. His wife (Lauren Graham) tries to be supportive, as do his 5 kids, but he goes off the deep end and has to be institutionalized – a point the movie stresses by opening with a bath robed frazzled Kinnear on a bus claiming he’s going to Washington D.C. by request of the Vice President.
There’s a big heart here but the obsessed man alienates the world around him to plead his life’s case formula is adhered to way too strictly. I knew nothing of the real life story here but because I’ve been schooled in the scenario, from Jimmy Stewart in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTONto Richard Dreyfuss in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, I knew exactly what to expect in terms of the plot-point highs and lows. But I bet most people would watch this and just know it's going to end in a climatic court scene, you know? Still, it is an interesting story told well with solid performances by Kinnear, Graham, Dermot Mulroney as a subtle backstabbing colleague, and most notably Alan Alda as a crusty but suave lawyer who advices our hero to settle. FLASH OF GENIUS is an earnest and straight forward effort that will surely fall in line with other inventor-done-wrong-by-the-system biopic ilk (TUCKER, anybody?) some night in the future on The History Channel. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know, but it’s the best I can do for this fair film.
As another period piece true story that I was unaware of, (hey, that’s why they makes these movies!), this film delivers a case study of how California became a contender in the worldwide wine wars. Alan Rickman, in his best comfortably cagey demeanor, plays sommelier Steven Spurrier, who in 1976, traveled toNapa Valley to sample wines for a blind taste test against French wine. At the same time, a grizzled Bill Pulliman with a winery named Chateau Montelena is struggling with massive debts while he labors to make chardonnay. He’s also struggling with his long haired freewheeling son Bo (Chris Pine) and foreman Gustavo (Six Feet Under’s Freddy Rodriquez), who grew grow up with soil underneath his nails and the smell of the grapes in the air that he breathes (his words) and so has wine plans of his own. For the obligatory sex subplot there’s a blonde UC Davis graduate student (Rachel Taylor) who sleeps with both Pine and Rodriquez because, uh, the movie needed a sex subplot.
The best thing about this film is its cinematography. The film makers were obviously in love with the NapaValley with many sweeping shots of the orchards bathed in luscious crisp sunlight. It gives SIDEWAYS a run for its money in that department for sure. There is a nice sprinkling of wit mostly coming from Rickman’s snotty character: “You think I’m an asshole, and I’m not really -it’s just that I’m British and you’re not” but I wouldn’t say this movie is really that funny. It’s a likable lark with some wine fun facts about fermentation even if doesn’t give as much color to its characters as its scenery. BOTTLE SHOCK moves no mountains and shakes no new ground, but, to borrow wine jargon, it goes down smooth and finishes well. It would be the perfect complement to a wine tasting party, even (or especially) with the sound turned down.
“Getting you laid is hard enough without having to explain the whole Bruce Campbell factor” says one scruffy teenager (Logan Martin) to another (Taylor Sharpe) at the beginning of this low budget “comedy horror” (as Campbell himself calls it) film. This sarcastic kid taunts his friend by going through a stack of DVDs (for some reason he has in his car) reeling off their titles – “Death Of The Dead”, “Maniac Cop”, “Moonwarp”, “Man With The Screaming Brain”, “Alien Apolcalypse”, and so on - I seriously don’t know which of these is real or fake but I’ll get around to IMDbing it. Not being able to take his buddy’s abuse anymore, Sharpe hits the brakes screeching his vehicle to a halt and exclaims “Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor of his generation!” Martin replies: “Dude, forget thumbs, Ebert wouldn’t wipe his crack with this trash!” He does however concede “I kinda liked BUBBA HO TEP.” Sharpe: “*Everyone* liked BUBBA HO-TEP!” This is a nice self mocking intro to an entire movie of self mockery but if you haven’t seen EVIL DEAD (or any of its sequels) and had no idea who that odd square jawed guy was in small but vital parts of all 3 SPIDERMAN movies, then this movie wasn’t made for you.
It’s a movie for Bruce Campbell fans exclusively, made by a Bruce Campbell fan – namely Bruce Campbell. Like the in-joke precedent set by Ricky Gervais’ Extras, Campbell plays an exaggerated version of himself. He’s a heavy drinker that bitches at gofers on the set of a sci-fi cheapie named “Cavealiens” when his lemon water isn’t cold enough (actually its one literally pissed off gofer’s urine) and, of course, he has an ex-wife who he calls at 3:00AM from the floor of his back woods trailer. Yes, these are all obvious joke clichés about a “big ass, self obsessed movie star” (as wooden love interest Grace Thorsen says) but that’s the point you see. The premise is that a small town named Gold Lick (that’s right) is tormented by a Chinese war diety called Guan Di and they call upon Campbell to bring his zombie/vampire/alien/whatever fighting skills to defeat this demon. Yep, ¡THREE AMIGOS!, GALAXY QUEST, and more recently TROPIC THUNDER have done likewise actors-must-become-what-they-portray plots much better but here it’s just an excuse to make fun of a career full of schlock and bombast. I mean, as stupid as the residents of Gold Lick are, they don’t seem to think he’s anything but Bruce Campbell and his thinking its a movie shoot is pretty poorly handled as well.
Campbell quips through every scene with his unique brand of big chinned charm but unfortunately very few of his one-liners are funny – “You don't know fear, kid. You've never worked with Sam Raimi” being one of the better ones if that says anything. As for the production, it’s about as cheap as one would expect with fades that give it a “made for TV” feel. To call this movie bad or even a turkey would surely be taken as a compliment by Campbell and crew because that’s what they were going for -a ‘so bad it’s good’ vibe, but as Enid in GHOST WORLD said: “it’s so bad it’s gone from good back to bad again.” Sure, it’s a straight to DVD for fanatics only throwaway and one that’s not without its charms but if you don’t appreciate Campbell or his oeuvre I doubt it’ll win you over. As the taunting kid quoted above said, BUBBA HO TEP is a better gateway to geekery * but the EVIL DEAD films are the most essential of Campbell’s filmography. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure indeed. Except here it’s the same man.
“I hope that when they grow up, these babies will watch this film and will see it just as an ancient video game that has nothing to do with reality.” Ari Folman used that line in more than one Awards acceptance speech this season but didn’t get a chance to use it at the Oscars as his film lost to DEPARTURES last Sunday. Still, it’s quite an achievement for his film to be the first animated film to receive a nomination for an Academy Award or a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Utilizing flash animation with old school drawings and 3D technologies, not the rotoscoping that formed recent works such as Richard Linklater’s A SCANNER DARKLY and Brett Morgan’s CHICAGO 10, Folman tells the complex nightmarish story of his experience as a soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War. Later, as a stoical Isreali film maker, he consults with former army friends about reoccurring visions of a massacre he faced while having intense difficulty remembering what really went down. Half documentary; half surreal drama, it was often tough sitting through as the animation is often stiff and the pace is glacial but the textures and imagery linger in an astoundingly affecting manner.
Honestly, I was not as moved as I would’ve liked while viewing a late night screening after a long day with the bleak battered terrain stretching endlessly and the sickly looking characters’ detachment battling my compassion. However, the next morning after a night of processing these elements, so dry and unpleasant at first, now have force and urgency that requires deeper inspection. There are many dead bodies and much blood on display and it’s hard to separate from likewise videogame aesthetics, like Folman wishes they could be forever restricted to, yet a preserving passion encloses it all. As fluidity challenged as it is, WALTZ WITH BASHIR has a penetrating soul to it even if I would be hard pressed to call it entertainment. What I would call it is one of the most challenging cartoons that you’re ever likely to meet.
* Or reboot or re-imaging or whatever rationale they’re using.
This is not one of those “Hollywood has completely run out of ideas” posts – though the amount of remakes coming down the line is staggeringly depressing. No, this is about when a new version of a beloved cinematic staple is announced and it’s obviously threatening to the original actors who won’t be included. Inspired by Faye Dunaway’s response to the absurd casting of a proposed BONNIE AND CLYDE remake (see #4), this list is what I believe are the funniest and most pointed reactions to redundant rehashes:
1. “I am Snake Plissken!” - Kurt Russell on an upcoming ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK redux. He elaborates in an interview with Entertainment Weekly: “I didn’t play Snake Plissken, I created him! Goldie [Hawn] and I were talking the other day about this, and I said, ‘Man, this is weird, isn’t it?’ And she said, “When they were going to do a remake of Private Benjamin, I thought, ‘I didn’t play Private Benjamin, I created that role!’” Russell may not have to worry, with the state of the economy the movie is likely to be axed. Well, with hope that is.
2. “Nobody ever offered me a part.” - William Shatner on the new J.J. Abrams STAR TREK prequel. This is actually not so ridiculous a complaint – if Leonard Nimoy as Spock (in an odd time warp way I guess) can be included, why can’t the original James T. Kirk? Shatner even made a youtube video response to clarify things. Watch it here.
3. “They didn’t even ask me!” - Adam West on being left out of the first BATMAN reboot starring Michael Keaton in 1989. David Letterman made this into a comic catchphrase and on a Saturday Night Live sketch, Michael McKean did a dead on impression of West declaring: “I wanted to play - Uncle Batman. He - he would be an older, distinguished gentleman -- much like yourself, Commissioner Gordon....(addressing Weekend Update anchor Norm McDonald) and he would help Batman fight crime!” Needless to say that didn’t happen. As Robin (David Duchovny – that’s right) on that skit said: “Holy Not-Taking-Your-Medication, Batman!”
4. “Couldn’t they have at least gotten a real actress?” - Faye Dunaway on the casting of Hillary Duff in the BONNIE AND CLYDE remake. Duff responded “I think that my fans that are going to go see the movie don't even know who she is. I think it (what she said) was a little unnecessary, but I might be mad if I looked like that now too.” Jeez, show some respect little Miss 15 minutes of fame gone into obnoxious overtime! This is another should be axed project with only this cat fight left standing.
5. “These comedy remakes are horrible!” - Tom Selleck on the possible George Clooney * movie redo of Magnum, P.I. He elaborated: “I tell you what worries me - because I love Magnum and we have loyal fans - is they take these TV show titles, and they buy them and they spend $100 million on special effects, and then they make fun of them and trivialize it. Then they try and get the actor who used to be in it to do some ridiculous cameo to prove to the audience that it's OK. And I will not do that.” Sounds like a not so subtle jab at the Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson STARSKY AND HUTCHbut a lot of other TV to movie adaptations fit the bill.
* Now it looks like Matthew McConaughney is on as Magnum. Sigh.
6. “Pointless” - Gene Wilder on the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (The Wilder original was entitled WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY). Wilder went on: “It’s all about money. It’s just some people sitting around thinking ‘how can we make some more money?’ Why else would you remake Willy Wonka? I don't see the point of going back and doing it all over again. I like Johnny Depp, and I appreciate that he has said on record that my shoes will be hard to fill. But I don't know how it will all turn out.” Well, it turned out pretty bad. Depp’s Wonka was creepy not charming like Wilder’s and the movie misfired on many other levels. “Pointless” actually is an understatement. 7. “I’m furious” - Jack Nicholson on Heath Ledger getting the role of The Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT. From an interview in 2006:
MTV: What do you think of another actor, Heath Ledger, playing the Joker in next summer's "The Dark Knight"?
Nicholson: “Let me be the way I’m not in interviews. I’m furious. I’m furious. [He laughs.] They never asked me about a sequel with the Joker. I know how to do that! Nobody ever asked me.”
Nicholson, right after Ledger’s death, told reporters in London “I warned him.” What? Nicholson warned him about playing the Joker? “It’ll kill you!” Is that what Jack advised? Or was it a threat/curse? Anyway as much as I love Nicholson (and readers of this blog should know this well), his Joker was a joke while Ledger’s was the real deal. I know Jack as a 3 time Oscar winner knows this well by now. 8. “Fletch is me.” - Chevy Chase on the proposed (but stillborn) FLETCH re-whatever it is: “If I played any part in the Fletch remake, think about it: as soon as I appeared on the screen people would say, “Hey… There’s Fletch, man!” Silly idea. Keep me out of it.” Chase pissed off Kevin Smith (read Smith’s blog to find out how) who had a “Son Of Fletch” pitch, then FLETCH WON was on as a prequel with possible Chevy providing an older Fletch voice-over perspective with Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Zach Braff, and Joshua Jackson (?) being tossed around for the role. This is more and more looking like another ‘not gonna happen’ projects. Unless they put it on the Underhill’s bill...
9. “When he had to do fart jokes, he lost me.” - Jerry Lewis on Eddie Murphy’s THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. Despite that Lewis was an executive producer on this and its sequel NUTTY PROFESSOR II: THE KLUMPS he told Entertainment Weekly just last year: “I have such respect for Eddie, but I shouldn’t have done it. What I did was perfect the first time around and all you're going to do is diminish that perfection by letting someone else do it..” On Sunday however, at the Oscars Murphy presented Lewis (“from one Nutty Professor to another” he said) with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and bygones were nowhere to be seen.
10. “Give me a break”- Joey Bishop on the “re-imagining” of OCEAN’S 11: Not exactly a reaction to his role because Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra’s original part) is the only name used from the 1961 original in the George Clooney/Brad Pitt/Everybody in Hollywood remake but Bishop’s response is priceless nevertheless: “There will only ever be one Rat Pack. It’s a joke. All they are doing in the remake is a cheap impersonation of the original Rat Pack. People knew about Frank and his broads and Dean and his drinking. They knew that we partied together. With the new version, you've got five or six people who never had any association with each other off screen.” They can’t sing either, right Joey? Right? Oh, sorry Mr. Bishop passed away in 2007. Maybe the success of OCEAN’S 11 and its 2 sequels was too much for him.
Okay! Another patented Film Babble Blog list down. Anybody’s amusing response that you think should have made the list? Please let me know. More later…
I did considerably better this time with my Oscar picks than the several years. I got 18 out of 24. Instead of listing all the categories like last year (and of course because they are listed on my last post as well as everywhere else online), I decided to just look at the ones I got wrong:
BEST ACTOR: My pick:Mickey Rourke for THE WRESTLER. Who won: Sean Penn for MILK. I can’t say I was completely taken aback – I knew it was a tight race and I knew Penn had a slight edge. Still, I loved the underdog comeback story of both the movie and Rourke’s real life back story so I can’t say I’m not disappointed either. Penn did however acknowledge Rourke nicely in his acceptance speech: “Mickey Rourke rises again...and he is my brother.”
DOCUMENTARY SHORT: My pick:THE CONSCIENCE OF NHEM EN. What won:SMILE PINKE. I really was just shooting in the dark here - I haven’t seen any of the nominees so I was going by internet research. I feel like even if I had seen them I’d still be taking a wild guess.
SOUND MIXING: My pick:THE DARK KNIGHT. What won: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. I should have known not to vote for the same movie in both sound editing and mixing. Sigh.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: My pick: VALS IM BASHIR (English title: WALTZ FOR BASHIR. What won:OKURIBITO (English title: DEPARTURES). This was because I heard more buzz for BASHIR and neglected to really look into the others. I’ll rectify that by checking them all out in the very near future.
As for the 81st Academy Awards broadcast itself I enjoyed host Hugh Jackman though I thought his song and dance numbers went on too long as did the show itself but that, of course, is a given. The “In Memorium” segment was poorly done (give everybody the big screen treatment next time!) and the one presenter presents multiple awards deal seemed to even throw Will Smith when he had to step up to the task: “Yes, they still have me up here... I think Hugh is napping.” My favorite bit of the show was presenter Ben Stiller in fake beard and sunglasses in an obvious parody of Joaquin Phoenix’s now infamous Letterman appearance of a few weeks back.
To his awkard antics (or non-antics) and his declaration: “I just want to retire from being the funny guy”, co-presenter Natalie Portman remarked: “You look like you work at a Hasidic meth lab.”
Ah, another Oscars over. Now back to the daily grind.
With 2 days to go I thought it was time to finalize my Oscar picks for this year. Like I’ve said before I’m going in with a certain percentage of guts, wild guessing, and a bit of internet research. The last few years I’ve gotten the same score - 13 out of 24 so don’t think I’m talking like I’m any expert. Far from it but here goes anyway:
3. BEST ACTOR: Mickey Rourke - I believe this will happen but it’s a personal choice as well. His acceptance speech is sure to be a tearjerker. I’ll probably be all cried out from his interview with Barbara Walters earlier in the evening by then though.
4. BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet
5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger - It will indeed be extremely shocking if this doesn’t happen. Seems like even if not for his incredibly untimely demise, Ledger would still pick the winning card.
6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz - feels like there may be a major surprise in this category but I’m going with Cruz, again for personal reasons.
17. ANIMATED SHORT:PRESTO - This is the only one I’ve seen (it’s the only many have seen since it was at the beginning of WALL-E) but it seems to have the edge.
2008 was definitely not as strong a year in film as 2007 as it had many more clunkers and mediocre movies that crammed theaters weekend after weekend. I mean this was a year in which respected icons Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (together again for the very first time!) appeared in a movie nobody cared about while Mike Myers and Adam Sandler competed over who could make the least appealing former SNL player vehicle ever (THE LOVE GURU and YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN respectively). I avoided those movies but I saw more than my share of absolutely awful films. Here’s the worst of the worst:
1.WANTED (Dir. Timur Bekmambetov) This ginormous train wreck of a movie actually featured a ginormous train wreck in a central sequence that was certainly its most memorable moment. That, for way obvious reasons, is fitting because the awful premise that attempts to flesh out a FIGHT CLUB-ish dis-satisfied working cog scenerio into a Swartzennegerian high octane comic book extravaganza just ends up a CGI suckfest. I felt sorry for James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie (who make one of the most unconvincing screen couple action duos ever) along with Morgan Freeman, Terrance Stamp, and even the damn fake train for having to take part in this high octane tripe. I literally got sick seeing this last Summer, that may have been the food at the Raleighwood Cinema Grill, but this sure didn’t help!
2.AN AMERICAN CAROL (Dir. David Zucker) Michael Moore responded to a question from Time Magazine’s Richard Corliss about this movie that mocks him with “[Cyber-silence].” Not dignifying it with an answer was beautiful on Moore’s part because a film that treats Bill O’Reilly like he’s a hero and treats the audience like idiots ready to lap up faux patriotism presented as cheap shots at a popular liberal documentarian should be (and was) roundly ignored. Chris Farley’s brother Kevin was in the lead role as the ersatz Michael Moore – enough said?
3.CHAPTER 27 (Dir. J.P. Shaefer) Infamous John Lennon murderer Mark David Chapman is no deranged Travis Bickle poetically stalking the mean streets, and this is no TAXI DRIVER. Jared Leto gained weight but no cred for this disgusting nothing. Fun fact: Lindsay Lohan’s only screen appearance of 2008 was in this as a Beatle groupie named Jude. Oh, actually that’s not really much of a fun fact. Nothing about this is. Read my review of the detested DVD here.
The most aptly titled film on the list by far. Ben Stein used to be likable despite being a former Nixon speechwriter because he was like ironic, you know, as the game show host on Comedy Central’s Win Ben Stein’s Money and that classic cameo in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (“Bueller? Bueller?”). Now he’s destroying that charming ironic image by trying to debunk the theory of evolution and equate those scientists who supposedely repress the study of Intelligent Design to Nazis. This poorly made, poorly written, and just plain poor non doc is even stupider than it sounds. I was too appalled to write a review when I watched the DVD a few months back but I highly recommend Roger Ebert’s blog-piece (not an official review mind you but still brilliant) “Win Ben Stein's Mind” (Dec. 3rd, 2008).
5.THE HAPPENING (Dir. M. Night Shyamalan) The only thing that happened here was we were given the undeniable sign that Shyamalan should be stopped at all costs. Donnie Wahlberg, so good in THE DEPARTED, regressed into a placid persona that will be SNL impression fodder forever. It wasn’t his fault though, some actors are only as good as their material and he was given a formless piece of high concept crap in which to run around aimlessly in. Again, how can we stop Shyamalan such a Hitchcockian hack from offending again? Any ideas?
6.THE ONION MOVIE (Dirs. Tom Kuntz & Mike Maguire) In Britain this was renamed NEWS MOVIE which makes it appear to be in the series of putrid non satires including EPIC MOVIE, DISASTER MOVIE, MEET THE SPARTANS, etc. and though that’s not really accurate it’s still right as rain to add it to that bunch of bullshit. Read how I believe it killed off the tiny sub genre – the sketch comedy film – here.
Bad Bond – bad! Read how bad here. 8.WAR INC. (Dir. Joshua Seftel) A while back I wrote about how much I craved a new good John Cusack film (A Cry For Quality Cusack - Oct. 6th, 2007) and while he did make a close to decent film this last year (GRACE IS GONE) he took a huge step backwards with this quasi sequel to GROSS POINT BLANK which is just grossly unwatchable. Glib with not a plausible frame or laughable line, WAR INC. wastes not just Cusack but Dan Aykroyd, Marisa Tomei, Ben Kingsley, and even the voice of Montel Williams (that’s right) as well in this toothless political parody. Even John’s usually reliable sister Joan comes off as unbearably obnoxious. I never wrote a review of it but the Onion A.V. Club’s Nathan Rabin’s hilarious appraisal (“No Blood For Oil Stridently Political Case File #129: War, Inc.”) in which he labels it a “Fiasco” is well worth checking out.
9.THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (Dir. Chris Carter) Way to kill off a possible franchise, Mr. Carter! Make a movie that contains none of the original supernatural charm of the seminal series or the previous film and make it excruciatingly dull too, why doncha? Read more of my bitching here.
10. CASSANDRA’S DREAM (Dir. Woody Allen) Hey - The Woodman has a film on both my Best Of and Worst Of 2008 lists! The luscious VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA luckily erased memories of Ewan Macgregor and Colin Farrell as brothers who scheme to…uh, like I said I don’t remember. I just remember being bored and wondering if Woody would ever make a good movie again. Thankfully he did. Read more about my darkness before the dawn (I know –sounds appealing doesn’t it?) here.
Okay! I skipped so many movies that probably would’ve made the list had I seen them – 88 MINUTES, SPEED RACER, FUNNY GAMES (I did see the original if that means anything since it was a frame by frame remake), BANGKOK DANGEROUS (more crappy Nicholas Cage!), THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, MAMA MIA!…the list goes on and on. Well, for now at least, it stops.
Darker than THE DARK KNIGHT and raunchier than any other Superhero movie ever, WATCHMEN busts out of development Hell into theaters today and it’s sure to be #1 this weekend. Knowing nothing of the source material, I sat transfixed and alternately baffled at what I saw at a late screening last night. Set in an alternate America in 1985 in which Nixon (played with a cartoon-ish prosthetic nose by Robert Wisden) is still president, a group of Superheroes has been disgraced and placed under governmental control. When The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a power player with a crusty charisma is murdered, Superhero turned vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) focuses on tracking down the killers. Among the not-ready-for-the-Justice-League heroes are Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), and Billy Crudup as the completely CGI crafted Doctor Manhattan.
Much of this film feels like a Frankenstein monster of a movie with pieces from pop culture classics stitched together – the rain drenched neon-lit dystopian cityscapes from BLADE RUNNER and the War Room set reproduced exactly from DR. STRANGELOVE for instance. For an over the top action movie it’s really exposition heavy at times which works better than expecte
d especially the soft spoken Crudup, who somehow makes a giant naked blue man animation into a study in eloquence. As for the action, the fight scenes lack edge and urgency, but the overall thrust is engaging if not transcendent. As Rorschach, complete with a cool morphing ink blot mask, Haley is the stirring standout showing how far he’s come from pitching for the BAD NEWS BEARS. A sequence involving Rorschach in stir is absolutely gripping with Haley stealing the movie away from his co-stars and the scores of expensive bombast. 
