The All Movie Staff Presents: What We’re Watching
July 14th, 2008 | 5:01 pm est |
Another week and another set of varied viewing habits by the All Movie staff are thrown out to the blogosphere once again. In this edition, an editor chimes in with recollections of unengaging card dealing cinema, while a peer finds solace in the zombie film genre as she takes a long look at the current political spectrum. In a surprising move, culinary how-to’s rule one of our staff member’s kitchen, just as his fellow cube-mate digs into kung-fu kicks and ancestral dreadlocks. We also learn that it’s never too late to play catch up with the crew, as our last presenter proves with his regretful ride on the Be Kind Rewind train. As always, enjoy.
Robert Luketic would appear to be a perfect director for a movie about Las Vegas. His style is empty, soulless, corporate, and surface oriented. That said, like the city itself, he can be quite enjoyable in the right company. Legally Blonde succeeds thanks to the always game Reese Witherspoon, and 21 works as long as Kevin Spacey is on screen delivering his lines with that devilish charm that can only be called Spaceyesque. Otherwise, it feels like a movie made by people who saw Rounders and Casino and didn’t understand them. (P.S. – The non-fiction book it’s based on is outstanding)
Director Bruce McDonald tells the tale of a psychologically fragile teenager searching for her missing brother. In order to communicate her fractured state of mind, he constantly breaks up the screen into multiple images. Three minutes in you worry you might get a headache, but he proves fascinatingly adept at this approach that never grows stale even when the truths being revealed about the characters are not as revelatory as you are led to expect. A successful slice of avant-garde art-house cinema.
I’ve been watching a lot of election coverage, to be quite frank. Movies are fun and all, but more important than Cindy McCain’s favorite cheese? Come on, people; this is a post-9/11 world we’re living in. We all know that a vote for provolone means the terrorists win. Besides, I can’t vote for anyone until I know how they would defend America against zombie attack. I thought it wise to further inform myself by re-watching as many zombie films as humanly possible. You know, for tips.
I started out with 28 Days Later and followed up immediately with 28 Weeks Later. Then it was on to the original Night of the Living Dead and the more recent Land of the Dead. I skipped Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead for one reason and one reason only: the absence of badass Zombie John Leguizamo, who fought his inevitable undeath until he got the chance to kill Dennis Hopper. I will, of course, get to the others in due time, despite the lack of Zombieguamo. The thing is, even though Land of the Dead doesn’t have the street credibility of the original trilogy, it introduced something original nonetheless: the potential for zombie evolution. I almost rooted for the zombies — they were just trying to get by! Give the undead a little brain, I say. Don’t we only use, like, 10%, anyway? However, I do not advocate zombie rights in 28 Days Later and its sequel. Those crackhead zombies are just mean.
Ahh, there’s nothing like some good ol’ Hong Kong Donnie Yen police action to get the movie juices flowing. This one dishes out some hot hand-to-hand action, as well as some Tony Jaa-ish knee-to-face moves. Yen is, as always, superb – many times wowing with just one simple move that goes by so fast, you’ll be scrambling for the A-B Repeat button on your remote. Worth it alone for the explosive turkey in the microwave scene!
God bless Roland Emmerich. His movies might not be worth a spit, but they’re nearly always easy-to-digest bits of Hollywood abundance. In this one, super models and Colin Farrell look-alikes stand in for tribes of cavepeople as they battle prehistoric ostriches and dodgy green screen in order to wow their easily-entertained target audience. Not at all good, but funny to have on in the background if you’re doing housework or anything other than paying any real sort of attention to the screen.
America’s Test Kitchen, Season 8
Last week I was called a “foodie” by a good friend, and though I’ve railed against labels my entire life I found myself suddenly suffering from a severe case of verbal paralysis – completely unable to refute or rebut that pointed observation. The fact is, I’ve always liked to cook; I nearly went to culinary arts school instead of studying film and journalism, and I’m a rabid fan of Cook’s Illustrated. When I saw that the folks at Cook’s were creating a television show my taste buds began to pop and I knew instantly that I would be tuning in every week. Unfortunately when it comes to television, my viewing habits are a bit chaotic and I have a hard time following any series consistently. Thankfully for folks like me, the epicurean geniuses behind this informative and entertaining, yet occasionally corny (the Odd Todd segments make me squirm) cooking show have been particularly consistent about getting each season of the show on DVD.
I’ve only had the opportunity to make two of the recipes featured in season eight so far, but as expected they were both outstanding; the “Oven-Fried Onion Rings” were crisped to delicious perfection thanks to an innovative crust made from Saltines and Kettle Chips, and the “Skillet Barbecued Pork Chops” were phenomenal for their tasty tenderness and spectacular sauce. Both recipes took a fair amount of work, but we’re well worth the effort. You can find the recipes online by heading over to the official website for America’s Test Kitchen (registration required), or just buy the DVDs and take your sweet time marveling at all the work that goes into crafting each delectable dish.
Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx
Like star Gene Wilder’s sister film from the same year, Start the Revolution Without Me, this way-offbeat seriocomedy from director Waris Hussein and scriptwriter Gabriel Walsh arrived at a now-extinct era in American cinema, when both video and multiplexes were things of the future, local theaters stacked up all kinds of oddball second-runs and one often had to drive great distances to see what one wanted. Magisterially, this one rose above the clamor and scored a fairly decent several-month run after its July 1970 premiere, deservedly winning points not only with critics such as Judith Crist and Rex Reed, but with counterculture types who loved its lyrical celebration of damning the man. Wilder is the title character, an uneducated Irishman who spends his days following horses around Dublin and scooping up manure to sell. Then, just when he’s made the perfect nonconformist life for himself, he gets a piece of devastating news that threatens to send him trudging off to the foundry every morning – Dublin’s famous delivery horses will soon be replaced by automobiles. Everything in this film, including the romantic relationship between Quackser and an American student (then-ingénue Margot Kidder) is first-rate.
What a disappointment this film is, and what a lazy mess. The story – about a couple of Passaic video store clerks, Jerry and Mike (Jack Black and Mos Def) who accidentally demagnetize all the tapes in their store and must re-film (or “swede” all of the movies – had real promise, especially when visionary Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep) signed on to helm. One imagined that if anybody could find a way to make the movie visually inventive, Gondry could. It has a handful of real laughs and some valid themes, but the premise never takes flight and the interesting visuals are nonexistent. My beef: although the movie indicates that Jerry and Mike “sweded” Last Tango in Paris (imagine the parodistic possibilities on that one!), Gondry skipped over the brilliant possibility of depicting scenes from that remake with Black and co-star Melonie Diaz, who could be shoe-ins for Brando and Schneider!! Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Alan Alda in a comedy about George Plimpton joining the Detroit Lions? You bet – and this movie scores time and again by taking that comic premise to some lovely places. It also sports one of the earliest film appearances by sex symbol-in-the making (and future American Gigolo co-star) Lauren Hutton. Old VHS copies of this one are going for obscene prices, but Turner Classic Movies offered a rare screening of it this past weekend.
