"I want what happened in the movie last week to happen this week; otherwise, what's life all about anyway?"
- Moviegoer (Jean Shevlin - PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO 1985)
Sorry for the lame lack of posts lately - damn it, we've missed the Oscars, the MILLION DOLLAR BABY debate, and the release of the PASSION UNCUT!
No matter, we're back and ready to go so let's start with some
MOVIES IN CURRENT RELEASE:
GUNNER PALACE Dir. Petra Epperlein/Michael Tucker. A.O. Scott of the New York Times says "not a movie anyone should miss". Well I think a lot of people would do just fine missing this flick. Don't get me wrong this is fascinating stuff at first approach - U.S. soldiers take over a bombed out pleasure palace formerly owned by Uday Hussein in Iraq and both party and carry on their service from those headquarters. Filmed on video in 2003 - this is a poorly constructed and presented documentary. The hushed tones of the director's voice over and the loose thread narrative does little to engage the viewer. A shame really because in all the rubble that litters the streets of Baghdad and in all of the footage taken of the 2/3 Field Artillery lies a much better film than this.
ROBOTS Dir. Chris Wedge/Carlos Sardanha. Slick but disjointed PIXAR competitor. Some laughs but few and far between - Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel's trademark sentimentality sabatoges this pretty early on. The voices of Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Paul Giamatti, and bit-part roles by Jay Leno and Al Rooker help make the time pass by but the fart jokes and lame pop-culture references makes me want to see THE INCREDIBLES again to see how it's really done.
- Bertie Shafer
And then a few
CURRENT DVDS
THE RUTLES 2 : CAN'T BUY ME LUNCH
"Did you ever get the feeling that the truth is less revealing than an outright lie?"
- Ron Nasty (Neil Innes)
An utterly unneccessary and painfully unfunny sequel to the classic '77 NBC TV special parody of the Beatles (ALL YOU NEED IS CASH). Apparently former Python and also formerly funny Eric Idle felt he was justified re-hashing the enterprise by airing un-used footage from the original and adding new A-list celebrity interviews (Steve Martin, Conan OBrien, David Bowie, Salman Rushdie, even Jewell for Christ-sakes!) but except for the occasional witty line - "I loved A HARD DAY'S RUT, that has influenced all of my work. That and some of the stuff the Turtles did" (Garry Shandling) this is a cringe inducing fest of bad ad-libs and smug posing.
THE RUTLES 2 confirms that Eric Idle is officially THE GREEDIEST PYTHON.
For those of you keeping score -
John Cleese - THE SNOTTIEST PYTHON
Michael Palin - THE WORLD WEARIEST PYTHON
Terry Jones - THE MOST MEDIEVAL PYTHON
Terry Gilliam - THE MOST OVER BUDGET PYTHON
Graham Chapman - THE MOST DEAD
END OF THE CENTURY - THE STORY OF THE RAMONES
"To the short list of great rock docs - DON'T LOOK BACK, LET IT BE, THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, etc. - must now be added END OF THE CENTURY" - Kurt Loder (MTV News)
Sorry Kurt - it's good but not that good. Ultimately a sad tale of New Yawk leather and denim clad mock hoodlums saving rock 'n roll. 3 of 'em are dead now. The tale is biased and rough but this is at least better than last year's hodgepodge RAW. Too bad full performance clips aren't presented as extras and a more rawking structure wasn't applied to this material like the KIDS ARE ALRIGHT comparison Loder lofts. Such a coulda been. I guess the definitive Ramones doc is still to come.
And now a new filmbabble feature - we take a look at a notable music-endowed soundtrack and give a sort of play-by-play :
GARDEN STATE SOUNDTRACK BREAK-DOWN
Zach Braff’s directorial debut was notable in many respects but its soundtrack with its focus on current indie pop rarely heard in movie theaters was a youth flavor favorite of 2004. In a new film babble feature we present a guide to how the music is presented in a chosen flick. GARDEN STATE gets the once over by Olof Defer.
“Don’t Panic” by Coldplay is the first song in the movie and it only plays briefly over the short opening credits. Fitting since the song is lyrically spare with a repeated refrain so a sniplet of it does the trick especially as a title shot filler.
The Shins “Caring Is Creepy” accompanies Braff’s rebellious night-time motorcycle ride but again only briefly as he is soon pulled over by a former friend who is now a cop.
Braff’s ecstasy-tinged couch-potato party scene is enhanced by Zero 7’s trippy techno “In The Waiting Line”. Fades in and out appropriately.
Telling him that this one song “will change your life” Natalie Portman lends Braff her walkman headphones so that he can listen to a bit of The Shins “New Slang” in a hospital waiting room. The song re-appears in the next scene fading in as Braff undergoes examination by his doctor and then helps the transition into the next bit – re-meeting Portman outside the hospital.
As Portman gets on Braff’s motorcycle and they ride down the street light guitar strumming from “I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You” by Colin Hay decorates their repartee until the chorus of the song surfaces to punctuate the end of the couple’s sequence together as they perform a funeral for Portman’s recently deceased hamster.
The Cary Brothers country ballad “Blue Eyes” plays in the background at a local watering hole as Braff and Portman continue their courtship and further discuss their neurosis’s.
The belting chorus of “Fair” by Remy Zero swells up as Portman displays her questionable tap dance skills to Braff in the romantic light of a fireplace in the unfurnished mansion of their silent velcro millionaire friend (Armando Riesco).
Possibly taking a note from that infamous Volkswagen commercial from years back Nick Drake serenades our protagonists (now with Steven Saarsgard in the side-car) with “One Of These Things First” as travel on Braff’s motorbike.
A pychedelic sitar starts off the techno-flamenco “Lebanese Blonde” by Thievery Corporation as Braff, Portman, and Saarsgard do a Tarentino stride through the Jersey underworld on some seemingly wild-goose-chase mission of Saarsgard’s devise.
Hard to shake off comparisons with THE GRADUATE when Simon & Garfunkel appear to sing “The Only Living Boy In New York” as our protagonists scream into the infinite abyss. This scene which was heavily featured in the movie’s advertising campaign is undoubtedly the defining moment of the entire film.
Iron and Wine’s “Such Great Heights” chimes in only for a moment to help frame an image of our protagonist couple now post-coital - asleep and content until Braff grows restless and gets out of bed.
“Let Go” by Frou Frou heats up the airport scene where Zach decides his destiny’s direction with its beat bop beauty and it takes us through the first half of the end credits. Bonnie Somerville’s acoustic guitar ballad “Winding Road” finishes off the second half and provides a sweet melancholic closing statement.
More later...
is the Green Art Nail
