Edgy MD

I certainly am not requesting that they should hve tried to make it seem like all indie film-makers were pure and good and right. I'm suggesting that my sympathies didn't tend to fall where they seem to be steering them towards. Where do you rate it on the 1-5 scale?

See, I thought their sense of humor was mean, bitter, un-funny, and self-congratulatory. And so I didn't want to see the film they were shopping at all. There's a scene where two guys are running around Park City, Utah --- home of Sundance and a half dozen other satellite festivals that run concurrently --- papering information kiosks with posters for their film, and covering up all the posters already there. And when a filmmaker who had a single poster taped up whines at their scorched Earth tactics, they reply with this supposedly realist argument that somebody else is going to come by in 20 minutes and cover all their posters up anyhow. My sympathy was sort of totally supposed to be with them, but it was with the whiney one. I watched it until the end, because it exposed a lot of hypocrisy and shady dealing --- and the same deck stacking I run up against selling songs --- but man, my main takeaway was that indy filmmakers can be a pack of annoying dorks with inflated egos. And the worst part is, because Kevin Smith is a funny raconteur, these bunch of guys (almost invariaby guys) seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the key to sellig your indy film is being a hip, wry, sniggling, detached dude flinging the insouciance. And almost all of them simply come across as garden-variety jerks.

Couple of guys with a camera make a movie, apply to a bunch of festivals, make the rounds, then make a seond movie --- this one --- about applying to festivals, making the rounds, and the politics and backscratching and egos and corporate interests that govern the film festival circuit.

There's already editorials out there crying for the Mets to not call him up lest he be damaged by the losing atmosphere.

You can find a handful who did all that and contributed songs to his or her films, but very few who contributed underscoring. The closest matches I can come up with are pop stars who merely dabbled in filmmaking --- Paul Simon, John Mellancamp, David Byrne. Nonetheless, I imagine his scoring was tinkling themes out on a piano and leaving it to a pro to orchestrate the full arrangements. I don't know if I'd guess same about Chaplin. Quincy Jones, maybe, but only a handful of thrown-off acting credits, and a mostly poor history as a filmmaker.

I'm glad to see Josey Wales there. I'm a fan. I think it's an American Seventh Seal, but I didn't think too many others took it seriously.

I think we need to divide these films into three categories --- Good, Bad, Fugly

Yeah, this is dumber, more insulting, and less ably rendered than the standard fare in which he appears. I promise. Not making that list is Winter Passing (2005), which I think you'll like.

metirish wrote: A return to form I'm reading for Will Ferrell , his best since Ricky Bobby said another. Yes or no.....I remember you liking Ricky Booby. I don't recall having seen any films recently with the word "Booby" in the title.

This was dumber than a box of dumb. It was so dumb, it should have been called The Eighth-Inning Guys. I was offended that it was this dumb so close to Ground Zero. Seriously, I was embarrassed for all involved. I was additionally sympathetically embarassed for men, women, cops, old people, and the homeless, among others. And I don't mean any of this in a good way. There was a dumb action movie called The Hard Way set in New York, and released in 1991. Comic buddy cop bullshit with Michael J. Fox and James Woods. Few think about that film from day to day. It was released, it was dumb, it sucked, and it was forgotten. This film will additionally slide down that same continuum of public awareness, but I thought of The Hard Way on my way home, thinking, "Man, The Other Guys sucked so much that The Hard Way would really make a nice palate cleanser right now." Maybe if you're kinda drunk or high or have the giggles going in this movie will reward any foggy good will you bring to it, but there was a scene where an old lady crossing the street with a walker is forced to be a go-between in sex talk between two other characters. Now, you may think OLD LADY + WALKER + SEX TALK = GOLDMINE OF COMIC GENIUS, but I was reduced to the sort of embarassed mortifications that I used to get watching Three's Company when I was 11. But that's me, right? No, I was in a theater filled with half-stoned, half-witted Baltimore teens, and I turned around and they were all kind of waiting for the scene to mercifully end. Three or four joined me in eventually putting their damn fingers in their stupid ears. If the rest of your day is a homerun, this is the film that will reach out and interfere with it while it's still in play, leading to a review, with your day eventually being sent back out the to base paths, where you still may have hopes for it, but instead find it disappointingly stranded on third, with Marky Mark chasing three jive-assed hanging sliders out of the strike zone.

Will Ferrell and Marky Mark are a mismatched pair of detectives. One is dying for more action and the other is doing all he can to avoid it. Action comes calling, and so do hyjinx, mayhem, romance, and those things popcorn films are made of.

You know who's still in the system? John Holdzkom, that's who. Maybe I should adopt that big maniac.

I guess it wasn't too late for him to salvage this season after all.

Jeurys' selection a few days ago? Potent, it seems. He threw his finest ball of the season in knocking off MFTampa: 6 2/3 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 9 K. Let's see some more of that, kiddo. Done and done. Against first-place Palm Beach, no less 7.0 IP, 1 ER, 7 H, 0 BB, 9 K, 0 HR Who the heck was that?

Nice number kid. I always thought that might look good on a power hitter at Shea.

Lost in the non-excitement of the Mets universe last week was news that Eddie Lora --- the throw-in in the Wagner/Carter trade --- after triple-slashing to the sweet tune of .088 / .209 / .235 // .445 at Kingsport this year, has announced his retirement from baseball at the age of 21. I didn't really get a chance to adopt him, seeing as how he packed it in before I signed up. I just looked up and there he was, all quitted. I said, "Eddie, what the hell? You stunk, but it was only 12 games." He just shrugged and said, "It was really important to the team to get some measure of a win out of the deal, so I thought I'd beat Wagner by retiring faster than he did. SUCKER!"

Don't know what's going on, but Lutz --- who's been as hot as David Wright has been cold --- was pulled in the third inning last night.

I haven't seen a Leonardo DiCaprio film since Catch Me if You Can, so I'm basing this on the publicity shots and trailers for his films, but doesn't his head seem to be getting progressively larger with each movie?

The subject seems irrelevant enough, but is rendered large by the performances and other touches. I've got say though, athletically, the Leeds players look like a bunch of sad sacks who couldn't beat my junior high team. I went Stoke City. Ms. Edgy enjoyed it and Sheen's performance as the asshole at the center of the story. Maybe too much.

He's trending well.

You just know this guy has partied with A Boy Named Seo.

I realize this guy is getting a late start and is playing largely with younger guys, but holy crap. After going 2-4 for the (running away with the division) Brooklyn Cyclones yesterday, he's up to .391, and has a chance to become the league's first .400 hitter in four decades.

Hard to believe that, with all the takes you need and compression and other technology, you can't really improve on Currie's live vocal, but there you go.

Jeurys and Brad Holt are something of a 1-2 punch of disappointment this season.

DC went 3-3 with a triple, walk, and stolen base yesterday. He's going from top hitter on the Cyclones to top hitter in Cyclones history.