At the Cinema - September 2009

Inglourious Basterds 10 out of 10

You’ll like this movie if
a. you like Quentin Tarantino
b. you like Brad Pitt
c. you like gratuitous grossness that makes you look away at times.

Tarantino, always reserved, does no less than a little history rewrite in this audacious World War II opus. This crazy movie joins Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills as Tarantino masterpieces. The 2 hour and 20 minutes fly by as Tarantino weaves his story.

Brad Pitt anchors the movie as Lt. Aldo Raine, the head of the legendary Basterds, a Jewish killing squad in Nazi-occupied France. But it is two star making performances that carry the day here. The one that is going to get the most recognition is Christoph Waltz as Col Lans Handa, the Jew Hunter who becomes through Waltz' craft one of the all-time great movie villains. But it is Melanie Laurent as Shoshanna Dreyfous whose intense desire for revenge carries the movie. They’re both scary good.

Make no mistake, this is every bit as gory as you’ve come to expect from Tarantino. It’s not for the faint of heart. So, don’t go if you’re easily offended. But, if you like your entertainment over the top, this is your cup of blood.

It Might Get Loud – 8

You’ll like this movie if:
a. you like rock and roll
b. you like the guitar
c. you like Led Zeppelin, U2, or The White Stripes

While not a great movie, this is an often fascinating portrait of 3 great guitarists and their creative process, their reverence for their musical roots, and their evolution as technicians. Documentary Director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) got together Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White and filmed them together and separately. It’s pretty cool stuff.

The film peaks as it’s ending with the three jamming on The Weight. It left me kind of wishing there been more of that. In fact three greats just sitting there playing some songs would have been a pretty fine movie by itself.

Julie and Julia – 8

You’ll like this movie if you like:
a. Meryl Streep
b. The joy of cooking
c. The joy of eating

Once again here’s a movie that surprised me. The lukewarm reviews of Nora Ephron’s latest had me a little reluctant, but this is a charming movie. It weaves the story of Julia learning French cooking and putting it into an American cookbook with a modern-day blogger (Amy Adams) cooking her way through the same cookbook.

I laughed, I cried, I got real hungry.

As always, Meryl Streep is phenomenal here. If you don’t remember Julia Child, who died in 2004, you can’t fully appreciate this performance. Meryl Streep is a true National Treasure. She tops my current list of Female National Treasures, which by the way goes something like this:

Meryl Streep
Barbara Streisand
Jodie Foster
Bonnie Raitt
Julia Roberts
Ellen Burstyn
Sheryl Crow
Julia Louis Dreyfous
Anne Hathaway
Tina Fey
Amy Adams
Natalie Maines
Sarah Silverman

The Informant! 7
You’ll like this movie if:
a. you like Matt Damon
b. you like Steven Soderbergh
c. you like corporate intrigue
I have to admit that Soderbergh’s critical acclaim puzzles me a little. My favorite movies by him are Erin Brokovich and Out of Sight. Those Oceans 11,12, and 13 movies were Hollywood earmarks – mindless pork for the masses. Here, Matt Damon shines in Soderbergh’s take on a corporate whistleblower story that probably has David Brinkley rolling over in his grave.

I had never heard of Archers Daniel Midland when it inexplicably began sponsoring This Week with David Brinkley back in the 90’s. Apparently, they had a lot of money to spend (and the movie tells why) so they began advertising, but advertising what? I remember being mystified then, and they went away as quickly as they had appeared.

Damon plays Mark Whitacre the biochemist whistleblower who suffered from a multitude of problems, all fully on display in The Informant! There are some amusing sequences, and more than a little irony as the story unfolds. Not the worst way to spend 2 hours.

Saints Report #3 - September 27, 2009

The Saints are for real. With a stout defensive effort to go along with a miraculous halftime cure of Pierre Thomas’ knee injury the Saints pounded a good Buffalo Bill team into late submission.

After the Saints matriculated down the field on a routine first drive, the Bills defense turned up the heat on Drew Brees and forced the Saints to run. And run they did, first Lynell Hamilton, even Reggie Bush, and Pierre Thomas to two touchdowns and an amazing 126 yards after halftime.

Meanwhile, other than a fake field goal that resulted in a touchdown, the Bills did nothing on offense against the Saints retooled defense.

The Bills offensive strategy is puzzling. Let’s review: you have an injured running back, a young QB of modest talent, a new star receiver, and a center who confuses shoes with hands (Have you ever seen so many bad snaps?) Sounds like the perfect recipe for a no-huddle offense, doesn’t it? The Bills seem inexplicably committed to this Vietnam strategy and don’t seem to understand their personnel. But, their defense is a strong one, and the Saints pulled away in the 4th quarter – but don’t be fooled by the 27-7 score. It was closer than that – and the credit goes to the defense, which if it can keep playing like this should make me one hell of a prognosticator.

Now, here come the Jets to town, to be followed by an East Coast powerhouse parade of Patriots, Giants, Panthers, Falcons, and even the Cowboys. Expect the equally undefeated Jets to copy the Bills’ blueprint of stopping the pass first. Let’s hope our Pinball Wizard keeps the miracle cure.

Saints Report #2 - September 20, 2009

When you arrive in Philadelphia and you order that first genuine Philly cheese steak sandwich, you can’t believe that they ladle cheese whiz on it.

Yesterday, the Saints went to Philly and gave them a taste of Brees whiz.

Too corny? Well, these are heady times for Saints fans, so forgive us. For three years the Saints offense has shown spurts of brilliance, but rarely got the wins you’d expect. This year, not only are there a multitude of weapons on offense, there seems to be an emerging maturity. There’s just a certainty and a confidence to this offense. It's impressive.

Sunday Drew Brees and the offense got the special teams help that was lacking in week 1, as they pummeled the Eagles 48-22. The defense, while nowhere close to dominating, appears significantly improved over the porous past editions. Darren Sharper has proven to be the fastest dividend-paying free agent pickup ever, as he picked off his 3rd pass of the year, returning it 97 yards to cap the scoring.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to play the Eagles again. Donovan McNabb would’ve made a difference. But right now the Saints have the momentum.

Next week we shuffle off to Buffalo to get some wings and a win.
Corny. Get used to it.

Saints Report #1 - September 13, 2009

The report from Section 116 - We watched the game with soaking wet socks and shoes. The rain storm going into the dome insured that the victory (at least for the crowd) was in the building of this wonderful dome.

Within the climate controlled confines, the Saints put a W up, and in the end that’s what matters.
Drew Brees was humming that ball.
Mike Bell was running that ball.
Darren Sharper was hawking that ball.
The receivers were catching that ball.
Reggie Bush was bobbling that ball.

Drew Brees tied the Saint's team record with 6 touchdown passes, but let up on the throttle at the end, or he would have certainly chipped in another one to tie the NFL mark. For him, it was that easy.

The special teams had it a little tougher, giving up too many yards, dropping punts (Reggie), not blocking, etc. Not a good day – they’ll need to get better. Where was Rod Harper?

The defense showed some promise. Darren Sharper was the high point, playing the ball hawking safety – a role we haven’t seen in a long time, if ever.

Mike Bell had a great day running the football, except for a fumble that the Lions took all the way back. There’s one obvious question: When Pierre Thomas comes back, with 2 running backs that can hit the hole and get positive yardage, will Reggie Bush (who can’t hit the hole) get any more carries? Same old problems – as likely to lose 7 as he is to gain 7, and now too loose with the football – laying it down 3 times by my count in this game. Reggie needs to be a slot receiver – period. This magical offense doesn’t need him to be magical – just reliable.

Next up – a trip to Philly for a Cheesesteak.

Music Mission Impossible

Entertainment Weekly, covering the hoopla surrounding the 9/9/09 release of Beatles products, named the top 50 Beatle Songs of all time. Couldn't resist making my own list below. Well, someone had to do it!

Here's their list:

A Hard Days Night
A Day in The Life
Yesterday
Strawberry Fields Forever
Something
She Loves You
Let It Be
Tomorrow Never Knows
Norwegian Wood
Across the Universe
Eleanor Rigby
Penny Lane
Help
Hey Jude
In My Life
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Blackbird
Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight
Can't Buy Me Love
Revolution
If I Fell
We Can Work It Out
I'm Only Sleeping
I'm a Loser
Paperback Writer
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Rain
I Saw Her Standing There
I Want You (She's so Heavy)
All My Loving
I Am the Walrus
I Should Have Known Better
I've Got a Feeling
Nowhere Man
Dear Prudence
She Said She Said
You Won't See Me
Taxman
With a Little Help from My Friends
Day Tripper
I'm Down
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Come Together
Lovely Rita
Ticket to Ride
Helter Skelter
Here Comes the Sun
I'm So Tired
All You Need Is Lovef


Here's mine:

Yesterday
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
A Day in the Life
All My Loving
I Saw Her Standing There
Hey Jude
Eleanor Rigby
In My Life
Let It Be
Here Comes the Sun
Here There and Everywhere
Norwegian Wood
I've Just Seen A Face
Nowhere Man
Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight
We Can Work It Out
I Want to Hold Your Hand
Revolution
Strawberry Fields Forever
Something
She Loves You
I Should Have Known Better
Two of Us
Come Together
Ticket To Ride
Blackbird
She's Leaving Home
Good Day Sunshine
Because
A Hard Day's Night
I Will
Help
Across the Universe
Rocky Raccoon
Back in the USSR
Dear Prudence
Got to Get You Into My Life
When I'm 64
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Twist and Shout
Love Me Do
Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds
With a Little Help From My Friends
Martha My Dear
If I Fell
Can't Buy Me Love
All You Need Is Love
For You Blue
Julia
Anna

Saints Report # 20 February 2010

BOURBON STREET EXPLODES

Roman Harper recovered Ladainian Tomlinson’s fumble at the 5 yard line with 32 seconds to play to preserve the New Orleans Saints improbable first ever victory in the highest scoring Super Bowl ever Sunday night in Miami.

Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees led his team to a 42 – 38 victory, rallying his team from a 4th quarter 10 point deficit, culminating in a 32 yard scoring strike to Marquis Colston with 2:32 remaining. The Saints offense then had to stew on the sidelines as NFL MVP Phillip Rivers guided the San Diego Chargers to the doorstep of victory, only to have Tomlinson cough up his 2nd fumble of the game, this time on a jarring Jonathan Vilma tackle.

Coach Sean Payton of the victorious Saints, went back to his roots, completely abandoning the running game that had been so dominant in the Saints 14 -2 regular season, allowing Brees (42/60 482 yards) to gunsling it out with his former teammate Rivers (28/40 312 yards). Both teams scored at will, but it was ultimately Brees and his incredible corps of receivers (Colston 8 catches for 112 yards, Moore 9/101, Shockey 7/77, Meachum 4/32, Bush 6/62, Thomas 5/65, Henderson 3/33) that triumphed. Brees set records in every passing category, but neither team could pull away. When the Chargers took a 10 point lead with 11 minutes to go after returning a Bush fumble 88 yards, it looked like Bree’s heroics would go for naught. But he wasn’t finished.

The Saints, division winners who handily beat the Seahawks and Packers en route to Miami, had a much easier path than did the Chargers, who despite their wild card record of 9 – 7 beat the Jets, the Colts, and finally the Patriots, all in overtime. In the end it was the Saints relatively fresh offense that finally wore down the Chargers.

Thus ends the long drought of the New Orleans faithful, who saw more playoff victories this year than in the previous 40 years combined. Bourbon street was reported to be in near-riot condition.


So, that’s how it will end. How will it begin?

It will begin this week with a harder than expected victory over the Lions. Watch for the Lions to pull out all the stops (Remember Payton and Haslett in their first year – coaches don’t get conservative until their 2nd year.)

This year, the most important Saint is Pierre Thomas – If he can carry the load to the tune of 1000 to 1200 yards (despite the fact it looks like he’ll miss the first game), the running game will keep the defenses honest.

While I’m still not sold on the Saints outside linebackers (when are they going to give Dunbar a real shot?) it looks like the secondary is deeper and presumably Jason David is on a couch somewhere enjoying the millions he didn’t earn. If Gregg Williams can pressure the QB (particularly Matt Ryan and Jake Delhomme) the Saints will go a long way.

Watch for our home-viewing parties to begin on Sunday September 20th when the Saints travel to Philly. Ain't it great to be undefeated?

At The Cinema - August 2009

District 9 – 0 out of 10

Now comes the review that will apparently kill my credibility with an entire nation of moviegoers. But, I’m dumbfounded. I read the rave reviews and couldn’t wait. I should have. This was the worst movie I’ve spent money to see since The Black Dahlia.
Ted Williams, Drew Brees, Bill Mazeroski and all the other 9-wearers should even be insulted. Couldn’t it have been District 4?
I guess I just completely missed it. I don’t usually laugh out loud at a movie – but this one is so ridiculous in almost every way, that I just couldn’t help myself.

6 Reasons I couldn’t help laughing at the screen:
First, the movie is subtitled. When the aliens speak, you get subtitles. When they are talking, the main character seems to understand them only part of the time. So, who subtitled the movie? Think about it.
Second, same old aliens. Why is it that every alien on screen is a dressed up 2 eyed, 2 armed, 2 legged creature. These are just dressed up grosser than most. Just once wouldn’t you like to see a round ball alien with eyes all over, so it could see in all directions, rolling through the streets? Go back over all the movie aliens – why 2 eyes? Think about it.
Third, (spoiler alert) the main character gets some alien fuel splashed in his face and begins to become an alien. So if I pour gas on a turtle, it will become a man? Ridiculous. Think about it.
Fourth, I’ll take my allegory a little lighter please. The social references, apartheid, man’s inhumanity to man, is layered on so thick it’s laughable. I get it – we suck. I’ll think about it.
Fifth, the action is laughable. I’m serious, every time a body exploded I laughed. Out loud. I kept thinking, “so this is what it was like to experience Planet 9 from Outer Space in a theater.” Think about it.
Last, the “coming attractions” before the movie were horrible. Now, this may be quibbling, but when every preview is basically the same slasher movie, and the previews go on for 15 minutes, you realize you are being targeted as a lowest-common-denominator audience. The previews were actually insulting, and so repetitive they put me in doze-land. Think about it.

So, go see this if you want to. Reviewers and audiences seem to love it, so I could be wrong. Maybe it will go down as a classic. That seems to be the consensus. I’m short, so it’s not hard for things to go over my head. I’ll chalk this up in the “am I that out of touch?” column. I’d have rather spent my money on cookies.


500 Days of Summer – 8 out of 10.

This is a good movie. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should see it. You’ve lived it.
Hasn’t everybody?

You know the story. Boy gets girl. One of them thinks the other is the “one.” One little problem – the vote is tied 1 – 1. Heartbreak ensues.

This movie is a natural descendant of Annie Hall. I looked on line at the Metacritic scores (my favorite web site) and 3 of 15 reviews mentioned Annie Hall in the first sentence. But, I watched this movie thinking the same thing. Let me make this perfectly clear – I knew Annie Hall, and you’re no Annie Hall.

In other words, 500 Days of Summer isn’t quite that good, despite what the guy who was sitting behind me thought. Laughing that loud should be reserved for someone watching Congress. Nevertheless, while it’s not Annie Hall, what it is, is a multi-media presentation of the natural progression of that doomed relationship where one participant is more convinced than the other that “this is it.”

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt wonderfully plays the likeable guy who wrongfully believes he’s hit the love jackpot. The great Zooey Deschanel plays the girl – you know the one – the blood sucking tramp who rips your heart out, shreds it to little pieces, then boils it in a pot of heated spit, takes it out and stomps on it, while she screws with your head, makes you spend money you don’t have in a doomed-to-failure attempt to impress her or even make her happy or convince her you’ll do anything for her, while she’s seducing you like you’re the only one at the same time she’s plotting her escape in such a way that it will devastate you and make you not to ever want to see a woman again, except she teases you to keep you hanging by a fingernail while your last shred of dignity slips away and you wish she’d just go ahead and kill you by hanging you from your toes off the tallest building in town and beat you with a bat til you fall and split your head open so that your brains flow all over the sidewalk and she tromps through your blood with her new boyfriend, whom she used to make fun of, off to that commitment she said she’d never want to make, when what she meant was she would never make any commitment with you because she wanted to just be friends which was the farthest thing from your mind and the very thought of “just being friends” made you want to take a blow torch to her hair and toast her like a marshmallow until she came to her senses, and her hair grew back and she took you back.

You know, that girl.

So see this movie if you want to be entertained, or if you want to see some really inventive movie-making, or if you want to re-live that time the blood sucker told you “I think we need to take a break….”

You know, that girl

Speaking of having been at the first screening of Planet 9 From Outer Space, as I was in my first review, here are my Time Travel 10, the 10 Entertainment things I’d really like to travel back and see live:

The Beatles in Concert
Woodstock
Camelot on Broadway starring Julie Andrews, Richard Burton and Robert Goulet.
Al Jolson
The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman
Billie Holiday
My Fair Lady on Broadway with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison
Louis Armstrong
Buddy Holly
Monterey Pop

What’s your time travel 10?