I remember how controversial the whole Bart Simpson ‘Proud to be an underachiever’ thing was, and then all of sudden there was Beavis and Butthead and no one ever mentioned it again. Bart Simpson was sort of mischievously wily, happily under read, and benign. The B twins were willfully and gleefully stupid, barely literate, and …
“That sort of thing ain’t my bag baby” Austin Powers on Swedish Penis Enlargers despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In which, Mike Myers looks at 1997 and decides it could be a lot more fun. Wow, what was going on in people’s heads in the ‘60s. Everyone was living in constant fear that the world …
Continue reading “Austin Powers International Man of Mystery”
“I’m not even supposed to be here today!” Kevin Smith actually pulled it off. Clerks for me was kind of like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan were for so many nascent Rock stars. You’re stuck in a dead end town. You’re stuck in the purgatory of a job you hate. You love comic books, but …
The execrable Quicksilver would probably not merit mention if I didn’t have personal unique experience with its subjects and surroundings. It would be like a lawyer refusing comment on the nonsense in The Firm, Legal Eagles, or any episode of Ally McBeal. Kevin Bacon plays an Options Trader on the floor of the Pacific Stock …
“You may find out one day that when you’ve had money and lost it. It’s much worse than never having had it at all.” Oliver Stone, hereafter known as Mr. Subtlety, writes great anti-heroes or at least I suppose that’s looking at the bright side. Rappers around the world swear by his script for the …
“Who been putting out their Kools on my floor!” I was a floor trader for ten years and the only positive role model I ever had was Eddie Murphy in Trading Places. He’s the definition of joyful cool as he delicately picks among a group of hyped up white men desperate to sell him orange …
“Mother, this is your other son Aron. Aron is everything that’s good, Mother. Aron, say hello to your Mother.” There is something wonderfully basic about the James Dean legacy. He really only made three films. All of them were arguably excellent and his performances in each are without a doubt brilliant and fiery. He died …
“You’re tearing me apart!” There ought to be some sort of law that states something to the effect of the following. If you have a role in a dramatic movie deemed to be a classic, you shouldn’t be allowed to then go ahead and typecast yourself in a silly sit-com. It kind of ruins things …
“So you saying Diz and Duke on one side and junkies on the other. So I kick [fellow musician laughs] I can kick! [more laughter].” The best story I ever heard about Charlie Parker, played here by Forest Whitaker, was in Miles Davis’ autobiography and involved a taxi cab ride with Bird, a naked woman, …
Field of Dreams is based on a novel by W.P. Kinsella that I thought to be practically unfilmable. It’s about Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), a 60s liberal, who never got along with his hard bitten father about anything but their love of baseball. Costner follows his wife to Iowa, where he becomes a struggling farmer, …
I coached little league baseball for four years and the truth is kids swear. You’re not supposed to encourage it, but it’s pretty damn amusing when it happens. If this movie had a love scene lit by candlelight with Susan Sarandon in a bathtub, it might be the best movie ever made about baseball. If …
Lee Blessing wrote a great play about Ty Cobb in which the hall of famer lamentingly compares his life to a “goddamned Greek tragedy.” Cobb’s father was a strict educated Southerner who had little regard for baseball players. When his son left home to join his first pro team, the old man’s only words were …
Poor Babe Ruth. He was desperately and passionately hopeful that his life story would be made into a Grade A classic like “The Pride of the Yankees,” and in return he was rewarded with “The Babe Ruth Story,” starring the incredibly un-athletic and clown-like William Bendix, in perhaps the closest thing to an Ed Wood …
Dear Adam, I understand your predicament. You finally made a movie that Roger Ebert liked (Punch Drunk Love) and nobody went to see it. Hell, even the fat man saw it for free. It must be horrible to put your heart and soul into a quality piece of work only to be abandoned by …
Continue reading “Memo to Sandler Et Al. : Stop Remaking Good Movies”
The Supreme Court says that pornography is any act that has no artistic merit and causes sexual thought. That’s their definition essentially … no artistic merit causes sexual thought. Hmm, sounds like every commercial on television doesn’t it?. – Bill Hicks. The new millennium has been quite an adventure so far for the …
Continue reading “Film as Propaganda – Art, trash, heroism, treason, evil?”
