Worship (?) For Wanted

Wanted
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie

I don't know if it's just because girls hate other girls or if it's just that fat girls hate* reallyracy-turned-glamorous-mother-earthtype movie sirens, but I never thought I'd see the day where I'd fork out a tenner or two to see Angelina Jolie strut around on the big screen. It's because of the Almighty Morgan Freeman (did he act before he was 50 or did he have an epiphany at the office one day that inspired him to scoop up all the wise-man-on-the-mountain roles? Must research...) or this face-melting Bekmambetov-led cinematic mind-warp --- for why I am still here after I was sold a ticket to a theater seat that doesn't exist (true story) so I take the seat next to it and don't complain rather than kick up a fuss which would probably be well good fun --- I have no excuse.

One critic says that Wanted "would have been revolutionary 10 years ago." I say Wanted is an absolute landmark picture in the comic-translation-to-film history. This is absolutely the no-limits-comic book-perception of reality fully realized in film format. As an old-fashioned tale of revenge the plot is derivative, but that's all beside the point because the action is so ridiculous. Stunts serve non-stop feasts to the eye, gunslinger stand-offs are choreographed like bending-bullets sword fights, and there's even a mother-kickin' montage. But it's confusing. Ignoring the fact that it's based on a comic, it's like a strange hybrid between The Matrix and Shoot 'Em Up. I was rollin' in the aisles, but are we supposed to laugh? Realizing that I find something so excessively violent so entertaining saddens me a bit.


3 Fudge Sundaes






*secret girl code for "deep down, just really jealous of"

Rental Rundown

This week my film obsession led me to a world full of BBBBBsss. Two of the films include Natalie Portman, just bad luck I guess.


Be Kind Rewind
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover

Guess Gondry didn't get the memo. JACK BLACK IS ANNOYING! Thank goodness Mos Def appears to make it all betterBUTwhat's really annoying is that Danny Glover appears with that annoying lisp thing that I recognized in Shooter that I don't ever remember hearing in any of the Lethal Weapon filmsOKAY so I lied so I've only seen bits of the first, no thirdOKAYI've never actually seen Lethal Weapon, I just don't remember Danny Glover having a lispDIDhe have a stroke or something?

Known for his homemade but dream-grammar-ly creative films (i.e., most recently Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Be Kind Rewind is a bit soft. It provokes some giggles, but it's no barrel of monkeys. The best bit can be found in the special features where Gondry explains how real people are so much better than actors because they are so grateful for the opportunity to be involved in film making-a bit of the warm-fuzzy.

2 Fudge Sundaes + 1 mini Sundae bringing final score to: 2.5 Fudge Sundaes



The Other Boleyn Girl
Director: Justin Chadwick
Starring: Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana

Not so sure Scarlett Jo-ManVoice and Natalie Port-whore make a good tag team. I like how Hollywood thinks it's okay to to call films "historical dramas" whilst damaging them with inaccurate tabloid chatter for the sake of cheap thrills. Hmmm... some nice shiny costumes that make Eric Bana look like he has a million-mile-wide wing span, nice. I was expecting this one to make me be ashamed of my nationality, but our American girls' take on mock-Tudor accents are politely subtle rather than outlandishly embarrassing. It's a case of one watching something that one might think will be an utter disaster but just happens to turn out to be okay. Phew! That was a close one.

2.5 Fudge Sundaes


My Blueberry Nights
Director: Wong Kar Wai
Starring: Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman

GAHHHHH! EVERYONE IN THIS FILM IS ANNOYING!!!!!!
Despite the fatal casting fallacies, Wong Kar Wai's English-language debut is beautifully shot with a lovely, lyrical pace. Besides that annoying Wong Kar Wai signature thing where the same pop song appears sometimes several times, as if it's supposed to be some sort of recurring character, My Blueberry Nights is peachy, streaming like a well-rested, reflective cinematic sigh.

3 Fudge Sundaes

Uh...More Like Sux & the City!

Maybe it's because I was introduced to the slut-tacious fab four while I was serving time in purgatory (a.k.a., my mom's) during that slice of time in-between university graduation & the rest of my life--but I never deemed the one-track-minded overcompensated-because-we're-not-in-our 20s-thirty-minute skits more than mildly adequate. Probably due to a case of the Mondays I was too frail to fight off, I strangely find myself in a crowded theatre showing the box-office smash Sex & The City (Still crowded a few weeks after release?! My faith in the human race plummets to new lows) with some chicks from work: a bit of the girls-nite-out & junk-snack binge.

So you don't have to be a die-hard fanatic of the show to understand the film. The film's first five minutes are, like, ya, this really cute, like, crash-course so you're all up to date. When it comes to the basic premise of the show/the film, the whole bloody situation would be more bearable if these 40-50somethings weren't running around like kids on E, opening their legs for anyone just for the sake of crackin' Sunday brunch conversation. It'd be nice if the show featured characters women could easily look up to instead of so easily look down upon. With a pampered rich racist named Charlotte, a no-shit-but shits-for-personality-lawyer named Miranda, a 50 yr. old Paris Hilton named Samantha, and a 12 year-old trapped in the body of the Wicked Witch of the West who dresses in the dark (now, I probably don't have to tell you her name), plots surround mind-numbingly superficial drama which could be easily found in the day-to-day le local soap opera. Characters don't ask social, political, economical, or environmental questions, nor does it seem like they care. Maybe they are completely oblivious to the rat's hole humans are making of the planet, YESSSS!!! Samantha for President! I don't know about you, but when I'm 50, I'd rather be worrying about more important things than funky-tasting man-juice or where I can buy the best insoles, coz you know those bitches' feet hurt from walking "all over the city" in that designer couture. I can see it now, Sex & The City 25th Anniversary Reunion: our ladies spend their golden years in scuba gear because Global Warming has decided to bob for the Big Apple and put it completely underwater.

Oh, and about the actual film? Cliché-diseased, 2 & 1/2 hours too long, and a complete waste of human energy. It even made my gummy-sweets taste bad.

Don't Call Me Gary Oldman or Don't Worry I'm Not a Celebrity Stalker

The first memories I have of Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 (....or was it 1993? Who cares, it was that decade when everyone wore really unflattering baggy jeans in that white-washed bland blue color, ugh, what a mess...) Gothic-masterpiece-wannabe Bram Stoker's Dracula are my mother's maternal sneers at my father for dragging my tween-brothers out on a school night to see it in all its erotic wetness & fake-nipples-glory. I should have known that shit was poison. Once my dad stole a VHS version of it from Flockbuster, I knew not to watch it when my mom was around. Strangely enough, when I got the opportunity to watch it, I was too young to care about all the 400 year-old-walking-undead-heavy sexual petting and liked it for the costumes.

FASTFORWARD (hahahah remember that word? oh VHS...) to university & I wander about to Cackbuster to rent a film, and because I was feeling nostalgic, end up picking Bram Stoker's Dracula. About a decade after it had been made, here is where it starts to sag. The bright colors I remember appear less dramatic and it all seems Soooo 90s. I see it as the sappy romantic comedy that it is (key word being: COMEDY: specifically referring to the classic comic relief provided by Winona Ryder & Keanu Reeves attempting to speak with Victorian English accents--they must have been mega-cheap to hire-- because whoever thought that was a good idea was seriously overdosing on E [or whatever drugs the creative elite/creatively desperate were taking back then]). What's even more painful is that as an adult, I realize that the only thing credible about the production (well, the costumes are still pretty cool in that derivative-ly-surrealist--hollywood-copy-kinda-way) is Gary Oldman's portrayal of the lovesick bloodsucker. He's absolutely committed (or seriously benefitting from some seriously crafty editing), and is one of (if not the only) convincing contribution to the entire film.

I've recently suffered from sudden brain-fluid loss, and as I've lost the ability to make sound decisions, I've rented it once more. This particular edition consisted of this really scary featurette, a-bit-of-the "making-of." There's one bit where Gary Oldman shows the camera this photo album that he carries around, full of pictures of his son, which make access to intense emotions much easier for him. SCARY! .....but after giving it some thought, I decided that this was a comforting discovery, as it showed that even someone as well-respected and accomplished as Gary Oldman has to work hard at what he does...even if it is a little creepy.

I've now watched it nearly five times in a row. NERD!!! But it doesn't end there! My ill of ease has transformed into a full-fledged Gary Oldman obsession--did you know that he was married to Uma Thurman from 1990-1992? (I know what you're thinking...that height difference must have been awkward....) Now I've decided that I must see all of his films. Arggg....maybe not all of them...maybe just the ones where he plays "galactic trailer trash" with bucked-teeth and an Arizonian accent or the world's most influential, manic-depressive, Romantic composer, or the one where he trots around as a toe-sucking- Sex Pistol-turned-heroin-junkie: just the ones where he's basically psychotic,.... but that's most of them, isn't it?

Don't cry for me, my condition is weakened by thoughts of his actual, current age and his actual, reallyshrill-London accent. At least I don't sit around making things like this all day long:

just a little of the scary

Or do I?

Speed Racer Saved!

Apparently this one has been getting slaps left, right, and center. Some say it's all sweets and no substance. Someone at Village Voice really wants it to be deep, and I gotta admit, I want it to be deep too...but that might be because I got a hard-on for Emile Hirsh...

who still looks forever young...

...oh no, does that make me a paedophile?

Oh the horror!!!

Wachowski Worship Session & Another Reason Why I Read Village Voice

Un-Musical Music Writing & Old-Fashioned Banter

I was asked to review the latest Bauhaus album & I immediately answered “I’m too young to review that!” What a poor excuse for laziness, huh? But it’s true! Most music can only be fairly weighed in the context in which it was born and/or most flourished, and the mind to execute this sort of criticism could only come from eyes who have witnessed it first hand, or not?

I’ve always been a fan of music criticism that operates without comparing the artist to every other artist that’s fiddling around at the time (“this band sounds like this band and this band, but through a moldy-microwaved tray of cheese chips”) or any other artist that has fiddled about in any other time (“this band sounds like Debbie Harry fronting James Browns’ backing band on a spaceship tour through Jupiter’s moons”). Can we review without band-dropping? Which is to say, can we criticize without comparison to other bands or other artistic movements? Can we let go of cultural context? Which is to say, can we review musicians without comparing them to other musicians, review their music without comparing it to other music, and review music un-musically?

That's probably too many questions.

Check out journos Passantino and Wells duke it out in an argument about music journalistic agism, punk’s significance, (or lack thereof), and letting go of the past. It’s best to read-- or attempt to read Passantino’s rant. His convoluted-obscurist, stream-of-pop culture-cesspool-consciousness, knot-grammar is knitted for a particular, acquired taste and like one DiS-reader noted, is “almost unreadable.”

Thanks But No Thanks

Under attack, Wells has a more elegant, comedic pace, making Passantino look like a whiney little girl.

Classy Comeback

La Vie En POO: Video Killed the French Radio Star

It's the rags-to-riches story of the little girl with the big voice. With a cafe singer for a mother and an acrobat for a father, it's no doubt that Édith Piaf was meant to be an entertainer. And from the looks of it, although Édith would ultimately become France's greatest popular singer, she lived the life of a rock star. Born Édith Giovanna Gassion on December 15th, 1915 in one of the poorest parts of Paris, she would experience extreme poverty, disease, and parental abandonment very early on. Almost entirely raised by prostitutes, Piaf went blind due to a case of keratitis until a supposed pilgrimage honoring a saint miraculously cured her. She began singing whilst accompanying her father in his street acrobat act when she was 14. Despite the emotional drainage caused by a myriad of lovers, mobsters, and the death of her first and only child, Piaf persistently sang on the streets of Paris until she was discovered by a popular nightclub owner when she was 20.

Co-starring in Jean Cocteau's successful play Le Bel Indifférent in 1940 was one of many opportunities Piaf had to meet and become friends with the famous and elite. Demand for her peaked during World War II and after the war, making appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and performing at Carnegie Hall made her an international star. Like a French Judy Garland, Piaf was known for her emotional rawness. She was known to deliver such poignant passion that it seemed like every time she sang a song, she died a little. Piaf breathed overwhelming intensity into her songs, literally defining what is now called "torch songs," ballads that celebrate triumph of heart and soul. Battling alcohol and morphine addictions led to her dependancy on others and unpredictable behavior. She was only 47 when she died of liver cancer in 1963.

Full of physical and emotional strife, Piaf's life seemed to have all the proper ingredients for an equally emotional, but beautiful film, right? Not so fast. Music biopics are risky because there's a very fine line between Walk the Line and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Non-fictional film is never easy because it almost never lives up to the facts and often lays on the mythology too thickly. Musical miming just doesn't cut it. There's no way actors can deliver the charisma of the original artists and last year's Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose is no exception. Director Olivier Dahan was probably inspired by the roller-coaster dramatics of Piaf mythology and thought that such would translate seamlessly into charismatic cinema. Too bad the roller-coaster antics translate into just that: a choppy cinematic trip of whiplash.

Although Marion Cotillard provides an admirable transformation as Piaf (it won her an Oscar), the back and forth jolts across decades look like nothing but a self-satisfying format full of flickering flashbacks and inaccessible emotional outbursts. Viewers are catapulted into Piaf's dirty laundry without any answers, without a chance to emotionally connect to her. Historical fact: what Piaf lacked in showmanship, she made up for with fantastic vocal articulation--which means, the girl was never comfortable with herself. This wishy-washy presence portrayed by Cotillard only amplifies the superficiality of the fact that she's lip-synching. The music, which defines Piaf as a continuous cultural force, is drowned by this sad and troubled film. What could potentially feature one of music history's most beautiful voices looks like nothing but a mess of fractured, swiss-cheese memories that feel closer to a shallow slide show than an actual biography.

I'm into French culture just as much as the next escapist American wannabe, but La Vie En Rose is utterly nauseating. Whilst in desperate attempt to culturally enlighten myself, I've been known to dabble in vintage yé-yé girl music and the like from time to time. Piaf's records were inevitably part of my to-listen list. After experiencing the cinematic disaster that is La Vie En Rose, I simply can't listen to Piaf anymore! Don't let this happen to you! For the safety of one's artistic soul, let this serve as a lesson to all: listen to Piaf's music or watch La Vie En Rose, one or the other. Do both and suffer tragically painful and irreversible consequences!

NO FUDGE SUNDAES FOR THIS ONE! NOT EVEN FOR FUDGE'S RESEMBLANCE TO POO!

Read the edited version of this review (if we can even call it that) & a variety of cream cakes at EverythingRock