Edgy MD

I would think that, unlike the Soviets, the North Koreans would have a hard time occupying a portion of the US for very long. The Soviets were an empire. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a heavily militarized, but otherwise small and very undeveloped rouge state that we could devastatingly counter pretty quickly. I imagine the Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans would privately love it if NKs provoked the US. A Chinese invasion repelled by the cast of Friday Night Lights --- now there's a solid jingoism movie.

That's what Wes Anderson makes, man. Bittersweet, tragic and retro-stylized. I like that this was actually set in an actual year --- 1965, I think --- instead of so many of his films which are set in more or less contemporary times but seem to be psychologically caught in Anderson's 1970s childhood.

Didney.

I think they could have if he wasn't already raking in more money than anybody on television by generating publicity as someone utterly unconcerned with redemption. Else, despite Martin originally suggesting Michael Douglas and Mel Gibson as leads to his son, the film turns into a family affair, with Emilo's mother Janet producing, and sister Renee appearing. The film does its job despite no real surprises, and the real money shots clumsily executed, the money monologues sounding forced, robbing the audience of the authentic pilgrim experience it attempts to deliver. Hanging over all of it is that Martin's character is taking the pilgrimage while devastated by the loss of his beloved son, played by Emilio in flashback, leaving the viewer feeling somewhat awkward watching a story not about how much he loves his dad, but how much his dad loves him. I think, with Wisdom, Emilo became the youngest dude ever (at least to that point) to script, direct, and star in a film, but 26 years later, despite laudably ambitious subjects, I'm not sure he's gotten the hang of it yet.

A barely fictionalized account of John Huston's adventures in Africa, using the filming of The African Queen as an excuse to indulge his obsession to shoot an elephant. The screenplay and the book are by the writer Huston apparently drove crazy during the filming. Clint Eastwood directs and stars and is sort of unsettlingly... wordy... in his performance as the Huston stand-in.

Martin Sheen stars as a grieving opthamologist walking El Camino de Santiago, meeting other pilgrims from other countries as he goes. No wife of bath, though. Emilio Estevez directs.

27. Short Cuts (1993)-- Raymond Carver stories set in a sprawling Altman film? YES, PLEASE. Long, but worth it. Girl I absofuckinglutely should have been with in college, but wasn't because we were never available at the same time, gives me a call. I'm working in Chelsea, and she just started a grad program that has brought her back to the city. Can we get together? "Hells YEAH!" I say, but cooler than that. (I work in Chelsea, after all.) I tell her I'll head up to her place after I get off at 5:30. "Great!" she says. "Great!" I say. A half hour later, she calls and says she wants to get some lab work done. Can I kill some time and come up a little later? "Sure! I'll duck into a movie after work and get the A line up there after it lets out." "GREAT! Looking forward to seeing you!" I duck into... Short Cuts! By the time I get up there seventy hours later, pulled and stretched to my limits emotionally, GIASHBwiC is absofuckinglutely asleep. My love life once again resumes its struggle to survive like it's being sprayed from overhead by ominous helicopters. To this day, my one-item bucket list reads "Punch Matthew Modine in face."

I guess I just find that folks, including me, offer his films respect, but aren't riveted, or out there evangelizing for Sayles. Maybe this one could have been cut a little tighter. Maybe another could have been shot a little more artfully. Brother frumma always seems like a bad print to me, like the post-production wasn't there. And of course it was a spaceman movie with virtually no special effects. I guess Roan Inish was his most professional film, and there are certainly worse sins than not coming across as particularly professional, but his Springsteen videos have certainly shown polish. Out of curiosity, have any of his films ever been nominated for an Oscar, for anything? He's certainly got a voice.

Yes, certainly, but it remains that it isn't really the most inspired Labor Day selection.

Is there a fully realized John Sayles movie? Folks praise virtually everything he does, but there's usually a "but" in there (though not for Chuck, above).

I more or less agree, but really, as left-leaning as Hollywood may be, how many great union-organizing movies have they made? If this isn't as good as it gets, it may be close. Hollywood's best movie built around a union may be On the Waterfront, and in the union are the villains in that.

Films Featuring White Dudes (and Chicks) Getting Involved in Some Dangerous and Fucked-Up Shit (54%) 50. Dead Man (1995) 46. Heavenly Creatures (1994) 45. The Limey (1999) 40. Trainspotting (1996) 39. The Blair Witch Project (1999) 36. L.A. Confidential (1997) 35. Naked (1993) 34. Seven (1995) 31. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills (1996) 27. Short Cuts (1993) 26. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 25. Fight Club (1999) 24. Crumb (1994) 23. Carlito�s Way (1993) 21. Fargo (1995) 19. Exotica (1994) 16. The Big Lebowski (1998) 13. Boogie Nights (1997) 12. Miller�s Crossing (1990) 11. Barton Fink (1991) 10. Being John Malkovich (1999) 8. Unforgiven (1992) 7. Reservoir Dogs (1992) 6. Out Of Sight (1998) 2. Pulp Fiction (1994) 1. Goodfellas (1990) Films Featuring White Dudes(and Chicks) Getting Involved in Some Relatively Harmless but Still Kinda Fucked-Up Shit (8%) 49. American Movie (1999) 48. Ed Wood (1994) 42. All About My Mother (1999) 28. Election (1999) Films Featuring White Dudes (and Chicks) at War (10%) 47. Starship Troopers (1997) 43. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 33. The Matrix (1999) 30. The Thin Red Line (1998) 18. Schindler�s List (1993) Films Featuring Juveniles Experimenting in Some Potentially Fucked Up Shit (4%) 9. Rushmore (1998) 4. Dazed And Confused (1993) Films Featuring White People Being Assholes to One Another (4%) 44. Metropolitan (1990) 37. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) Films Featuring Other (Non-Fucked Up, Non-Violent, or Non-White) Themes (22%) 41. Raise The Red Lantern (1991) 38. Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control (1997) 32. Close-Up (1990) 29. Irma Vep (1996) 22. The Sweet Hereafter (1997) 20. Red (1994) 17. Safe (1995) 15. Groundhog Day (1993) 14. Hoop Dreams (1994) 5. Chungking Express (1994) 3. Toy Story 2 (1999) (Many of these might still qualify on one level or another, but more typically feature the miserable and bizarre.) Many of these are excellent films, but the preponderance of the themes in the assemblage of the list makes clear what kind of lives the compilers see as worth exploring.

RealityChuck wrote: Edgy DC wrote: What a disappointing decade.I disagree. There were plenty of great movies on that list and it was still a time when adults drove Hollywood (thought that was fading). Things are far worse now, as Hollywood has decided only to pander to teenage boys. The music, OTOH. . . I'm sticking with the notion that the list makes the decade look like one long Altamont.

No, I don't think it's off topic. Music in the 90s was also adversely affected by the elevation of white guys getting into some fucked-up shit and fucking some motherfuckers up.

What a disappointing decade.

These guys like movies where white guys get to get into some fucked up shit and fuck some motherfuckers up, don't they? Fantasizing fan bois. Get over yourselves.

Jack Leathersich ‏@LeatherRocket I'm about to go #HAM in this grocery store

I always wonder what it does to a marriage between two actors when the crappy film they meet on becomes an embarrassing bomb that negatively affects their careers. Does it somehow doom the marriage (more than it already is, as a marriage between actors) to be associated with such a dog? Is their meetup story too embarrassing to speak of? They'd love to go on with the marriage and forget the film, but every article about them includes the phrase, "The couple, who met on the set of...." and so their relationship becomes for people a constant distasteful reminder of a movie they're desperately trying to put behind them.

I'd like to see a movie about the 1930s Superman, when his powers were somewhat analogous to John Carter's Martian skill set --- superhuman strength and speed with the ability to leap 1/8 of a mile --- plus a side dosage of invulnerability.

Gilbert Arenas?

I wonder how horrific it would be. I sometimes think we aren't horrified by cultures we're born into, even if we disagree with them. No matter how repulsive from an objective distance, to us, it's just the sea we spring from.

This is directed by Robert Lorenz, Eastwood's long-time production partner, so maybe he's our new Sandra Locke and Eastwood just has a blind spot with the guy. If you told me that this was a Disney production, it would explain a lot --- the parallel rom-com plot featuring Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake (both Disney properties at least in part), profanity lite, larger-than life John Goodman, coupling without copulating, and absurdly over-drawn villains with a condescending attitude toward minorities (who get the arrogant whities' goats just by being the innocent angels they are). It's also easy enough to spot hastily re-assembled bits and themes from other movies --- Gran Camino, Moneyball, Crazy Heart, and others I guess.

I guess you can look at it that way. His eyesight is going, and he occasionally trips over furniture and curses it. But I don't want to give too much away, do I? It's sort of overbaked and underwritten in a Disney way, in that you know after Act One about 97% of what's going to happen in Act 5. You know how I wrote in the Gran Torino thread how Clint finds a way to take bits of his other movies, rearrange them, and make them new? This takes bits of his other movies and slap them back in more crassly and cheaply and makes them seem all tired. And shouldn't Amy Adams be playing his grand-daughter?

God, I hope I'm not too late. Listen, this is an embarrassingly bad movie and a worse baseball movie. I'm sorry to all of you that I even brought it up. Stay away. Watch Clint talk to the chair. Watch the Mets. Just don't watch this. I'll give it two stars, maybe one and half, because I generally reserve lower ratings for things that are Satanic, and this isn't malicious, so much as horribly and hamfistedly rendered. But, well, you might get angry. I did. That scene I wrote up top. That would have improved this film. And i say that as no compliment to myself. On second thought, I'm giving them too much credit. Being that the working title of the movie was probably Fuck You, Moneyball, it kinda was conceived in malice, at least to some degree. One and half stars for you, Trouble with the Curve, and it gives me no pleasure to say so. My scouting judgment is that you look like an A-ball flameout.

Clint Eastwood, appearing in a movie he didn't direct for the first time in two decades, plays an aging baseball scout in sort of an anti-Moneyball movie. I'm sure as a baseball movie, it'll be crazy stupid. And my wife finds Amy Adams to be way too squeaky, but I'm putting all that aside and lining up for this to-NITE. Actually, I'd have loved to have gotten a chance to write this movie: "You can't scout a ballplayer with a computer. What you've got to do is go up to the kid and punch him in his fucking face. Kick him a few times and call him a pussy, and then you... What's everybody looking at?! You want a ballplayer, don'tcha? How do you think I knew how Eddie Murray would turn out? I punched him in his fucking face! Jack Clark, Tom Niedenfuer... all the greats. I punched Brien Taylor in the face and he laid on the ground crying. I knew that kid was for shit, I told the Yankees so, and they went and drafted him anyway. WHAT THE FUCK IS EVERYBODY LOOKIN' AT?!! Jesus!!" Writes itself.