1. X-Men: The Last Stand
I thought X2 was better than the first one, and I always kinda figured, out of all the superhero franchises, X-Men was the one that had so many characters and potential storylines that I'd actually want to see sequel after sequel, so it was kind of dismaying to hear early reports over the past year about this one killing off several characters and seeming to wrap up the end of the trilogy. I managed to stay away from full-on spoilers enough that I was genuinely shocked by one particular death, and not in a good way. In fact, I was kinda pissed.

The movie itself was alright, less bland than the first one, but kind of punishingly dark and violent at points like War Of The Worlds was, where at some point you kind of feel beaten down by all the noise and explosions and emotionally wrenching plot twists. It also felt kinda disjointed sometimes, especially with Ben Foster's Angel character, who was hyped up as the big new character in this movie, but ended up having only a handful of scenes that were mostly backstory adding up to not much in the end. And a lot of characters having limited screen time to make room for boring ass Storm was a lame trade-off. I cracked up every time Kelsey Grammer was onscreen as Beast, though. That shit was inspired. I was kind of surprised by the Juggernaut quoting a web meme, Snakes On A Plane-style, although it wasn't that funny.

2. The Girl in the Café
Pretty good HBO original movie that I caught on TV recently. A lot of the basics of the plot screamed Lost In Translation knockoff (older man and younger woman who barely know each other have weird semi-romantic relationship over the course of a few days in a hotel in a foreign land), but it had a little more going on with the political subtext of taking place during the G8 conference. Still, it felt a little thin and contrived, and got by mostly on the talent of the two leads. Bill Nighy is great, although I don't know if I can watch him oversell a meek character without being reminded of his perfect turn as Slartibartfast. Kelly Macdonald's accent is just adorable, too.

3. Mad City
I thought I had seen or at least seen trailers for every mid-late 90's Travolta flick from the post-Pulp Fiction avalanche, but somehow I don't remember even hearing of this one at all before catching it on TV recently. It was a little overwrought in making its points about media manipulation, but it was still pretty good, particularly for Dustin Hoffman's character. I think the weirdest thing that I remember about it, though, is that John Landis had a small role for no apparent reason, and had no other involvement in the film.

Labels: Movie Diary, movies

Got a few things in the City Paper this week: a profile of the Maryland MC Hots, with an accompanying mp3-packed post on Gov't Names, and a couple more reviews of cheesy family flicks. I think J.G. is gonna be mad at me for dissing Hoot, but my review got edited way down and I think some of the meaner stuff (and the parts I was proud of) got cut out, but I'm a little happier with how the R.V. one came out (credit goes to Ethan for the first line of that one).

Labels: Baltimore City paper, Baltimore music, Government Names, movies, some shit I wrote

1. Ice Age: The Meltdown
Last week I tried to go to an advance screening for some movie called Hoot for the City Paper, but it was so advanced that the theater didn't have a reel of it and were presenting it via sattelite, and had a bunch of technical problems. They started the movie 45 minutes late and even then said you might not be able to see the ending, so I said screw it and decided to catch a later screening. But the theater felt bad and was throwing free tickets at people to make them feel better. So the next night, I was able to take J.G. to this for free, so it wasn't a total waste. The first Ice Age is easily my favorite non-Pixar digitally animated feature, so I was kinda looking forward to this. The Wile E. Coyote-style extreme slapstick of the scenes with Scrat are still by far the funniest parts, and sometimes the actual plot with the main characters dragged a little, but it was still almost as good as the original. I wouldn't mind seeing more sequels.

2. The Gong Show Movie
I was somewhat shocked to learn that a full 22 years before Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, there was already a movie about Chuck Barris that blurred the line between fact and fiction. In fact this might be the most bizarre idea for a movie adapted from a TV show ever, with Barris basically directing himself playing himself as the put-upon host who has to deal with people with crazy talents coming up to him all the time on the street trying to get on the Gong Show, with a lot of odd dramatic interludes although basically no plot. And a young Taylor Negron in a small, uncredited role. If nothing else, watching this movie affirmed for me that comparisons of the American Idol auditions to the Gong Show are perfectly apt.

3. Dig!
Man, this was hard to watch, partly because I identify with the inevitable failure of shitty rock bands far too much. Plus I don't like the music by either of the subjects of the movie, save for maybe the Veronica Mars theme song. It really is a pretty amazing document, though, simply because, in most rockumentaries and Behind The Music type things, there's not much actual footage of the wildest stories, but for these bands, there seemed to be a camera around for everything crazy that ever happened to them. This guy may have replaced Bam Margera as the single most annoying despicable person I've ever seen, the same kind of infuriating inability to take anything seriously and questionable facial hair, along with being one of those guys who's in a band but only ever plays tambourines and maracas and shit like that. Just watching that guy for a couple hours was exasperating, I can't imagine travelling across the country in a van with him.

4. Neighbors
Neighbors has the distinction of being the last, and perhaps least seen film in John Belushi's short career. It's also one of those movies where the 2 lead actors, Belush and Dan Aykroyd, seem to be in roles that could have just as easily been reversed, and according to the IMDb page, they actually were originally set to play the opposite roles, but then switched at the last minute. Aykroyd plays the kind of wild, unpredictable character that Belushi was best known for, and Belushi plays a straight man not unlike the ones played by Aykroyd in later films like the Great Outdoors. But Aykroyd also often did wacky, so his role isn't much of a stretch. But it is kind of odd to see Belushi as a mild-mannered suburbanite with graying temples, playing an age that, at 32, he wouldn't live to experience. He does let loose a little toward the end of the movie, though. It's one of those farcical comedies where certain characters don't seem to operate by any logic at all, to the point that by the end, even the straight man seems to be operating by no rationality, and at that point, you don't care about the plot at all. Which might be excusable were it funnier.

5. The Family Stone
I took my lady to see this and then we went to Red Lobster, a while back, while this was still in theaters but had already been out for a while. It was a little better than I expected, made good use of a big ensemble. Speaking of reversed comedic roles, Luke Wilson is good at being the straight man, but it was refreshing to see him actually be the funny guy for once, and he's good at that too. At some points the tone of the comedy became kind of cruel and shrill, with characters behaving unbelievably and the story coming to a predictable and unlikely resolution, but still, not bad. I'll probably watch it again in a year or two when it's on cable.

6. White Noise
Man, what the fuck happened to Michael Keaton? There are so many "gracefully aging" actors of his generation that still headline a new movie every couple months that I'd gladly trade in for Keaton to have a decent career. This movie probably could've done better with a good trailer, I remember it giving me no motivation to want to see the movie, but having watched it on cable, they totally could've cut together a spooky and intriguing trailer that would've made people want to see it as much as The Ring. It wasn't very good, but I did get good and creeped out watching it, partly because it's about the dead speaking through electrical signals, and my cable was acting up and making all sorts of glitches and jumps on the screen that enhanced the creepiness of it.

7. Cellular
Another one I found myself on the couch wasting an afternoon on, but it definitely surpassed my humble expectations, which were that the movie had nothing to offer beyond the premise established by the trailer. It was pretty fun, though, good plot twists and more cell-related humor than one could ask for.

8. The Apartment
A black-and-white classic that won a ton of Oscars after it was released in 1960, I'd heard good things about this for a long time and finally caught it on TV. Movies this good always make me yearn for a time from before I was born. It's a comedy, but one that plays out very carefully, revealing plot twists so subtly you never see them coming. It's weird to watch something from so long ago that Shirley Maclaine is actually kind of hot, though.

Labels: comedy, Movie Diary, movies

My adventures in reviewing crap movies continue in this week's City Paper with The Shaggy Dog. Unfortunately I didn't have room to expound on how ridiculous Robert Downey Jr. is in this, how squandered Philip Baker Hall is but still really funny when he says his one line, the obligatory "Who Let The Dogs Out?" scene, or the walking gay joke that is Tim Allen's son in this movie.

Labels: City Paper, movies, some shit I wrote

The Minutemen doc We Jam Econo, which I saw a screening of last year, still isn't due out on DVD until June (2 discs with a bunch of extra interviews!), but in the meantime, some dedicated fans have digitized an Nth generation bootleg of Corndogs, the legendary-but-never-officially-released SST home video from 1985, which is full of all sorts of videos, performance footage, interviews, general bizareness and evidence of George Hurley's amazing hairstyles, much of which was re-used in Econo.

Labels: Mike Watt, movies, The Minutemen

A while back, I decided to try something a little different and do some little movie reviews for the City Paper, and told the arts editor, Bret, to feel free to toss me any mainstream flick the real film critics don't want to be bothered with. And I got exactly what I asked for, because my first review is of Aquamarine.

Labels: City Paper, movies, some shit I wrote

Last week, I went with J.G. and Mike to see The Boys Of Baraka, a documentary that follows four "at-risk" boys from Baltimore city, average age 12, who are enrolled into a boarding school in Kenya that is supposed to give them the education and discipline they can't get in Baltimore public schools, so that they might be given a better chance at going to a good high school and graduating. The City Paper's been covering the Baraka School for years, and I'd been looking forward to seeing this movie since it first screened at festivals last year, and it finally opened at the Charles a couple weeks ago.

The night we went, the movie had already been playing there for a week, but I guess since it was a Friday night, they went all out, with one of the film's 2 directors, Heidi Ewing (who, I have to say, is kind of a babe) speaking before and after the film along with the cinematographer. Two of the four boys the movie centered on, Montrey and Devon, who are now about 16, were also there, taking tickets before the movie, and after the movie answered questions from the audience along with Ewing. So it was kind of cool to see how they're doing now, and hear their own thoughts about their experiences in Africa. One of the classmates of the 4 kids featured in the film who's seen a little bit in the movie is now a local rapper named Ammo who I've met and seen perform a bunch of times, and also plays Spider on the 3rd and upcoming 4th seasons of The Wire, so it was cool to see him in the movie. And in other Wire news, we saw Detective Freamon in the lobby after the movie.

The movie itself is definitely worth seeing, although by no means perfect. At 84 minutes, it felt maybe too short, and sometimes I questioned what the filmmakers chose to focus on. It's decidedly a story about the 4 boys more than about the school, but I would've appreciated a little more background about how the school was started and how their teaching methods differ from that of U.S. public schools. Although it will definitely make more of an impact as a feature film, I almost wish they had gone the route of a mini-series or some other format that would allow them to show more footage and explore the topic at greater length. Maybe an eventual DVD release will offer more information, I hope. And sometimes the dramatic ambient music was a bit much, but for the most part, the storytelling was handled well and with a light touch, and allowed its subjects to define themselves. Although there are some incredibly sad and infuriating moments, there's also a lot of footage of kids just being kids, excited to be in Africa around lizards and hedgehogs.

Nonetheless, it's an interesting look at an experimental alternative to public schools that is unfortunately no longer available, as the Baraka School closed down a year into the shooting of the film due to political turmoil in Kenya. But the film will hopefully shed some light on what is happening in Baltimore and in cities like it all over the country, where young kids that are as full of potential as anyone are being statistically presumed to end up dead or in jail if they aren't given a fair shot at graduating high school. One of the most promising things that the director mentioned after the film is that current Baltimore mayor and possible soon-to-be Maryland governor Martin O'Malley's wife saw and loved the film and made him see it, and it's led to him discussing options for opening a boarding school like Baraka here in Maryland.

It is worth noting, though, that while the film closes with Montrey getting great test scores and getting into one of the best schools in the city and generally being the beacon of hope at the end of the movie, the truth is apparently a little different. I came across a blog post by a Baltimore city school teacher who had a little inside track on the situation, and reports that Montrey failed out of the school he got into after a year, and is now at a decidedly less prestigious public school (although he also has very positive things to say about some of the kids he's taught who went to Baraka). Of course, there's no way for the filmmakers to have really known that when they finished filming, but I noticed that noone mentioned anything about that or clarified his situation when speaking after the screening. I was tempted to stand up and ask a question about that or something else, but I do respect what the boys and the filmmakers have accomplished and didn't want to come off rudely. They said at the end of night that the movie is going to keep playing at the Charles as long as people keep coming to see it. So I hope it gets a long run and people from all over the city get a chance to see it and the movie isn't limited to the Charles' usual art house crowd and reaches the kind of people it's really about, so if you get a chance, definitely go out and see it.

Labels: Baltimore music, movies, story time

My silly, half-assed, but actually more or less sincere tribute to the late Chris Penn on Powet Movies.

Labels: links, movies

1. Tristan & Isolde
J.G. and I saw this the other night because it's one of her favorite stories/myths and she was curious to see how a film adaptation would come out, although she found the "the original Romeo & Juliet" tagline pretty distasteful. Although there are few things I'm more wary of than the post-Gladiator new school of historical costume epics, I found it relatively painless, although not great. Apparently they changed a fair amount of the specifics of the original story and removed a lot of magic and mysticism from it. James Franco is still on the 8-year streak of rebellious brooding that began with Freaks & Geeks, although his performance was actually pretty strong, and the rest of the cast was decent, Rufus Sewell being a standout.

2. I Heart Huckabees
Maybe it was because I watched this really late at night while grappling with insomnia, but this was kind of a listless, unpleasant viewing experience. It definitely seemed like he was going for something kind of unique and with more depth than the average 'quirky' 00's comedy, but the fact that almost everything about it, from Jason Schwartzman down to the Jon Brion score, carried the stench of that trend made it hard to seperate from all the other movies of the past few years that it harbors obvious comparisons to. Plus, almost everyone in the cast aside from Wahlberg was tremendously annoying. I might give it another chance sometime, but I don't know if mileage will vary.

3. Jersey Girl
Saw this on cable recently, and I have to say, despite the Bennifer and poor box office and negative reviews and being disowned by even View Askew nerds, it was actually alright! If Kevin Smith's goal was to make something as un-Kevin Smith-y as possible, he did a pretty decent job, even if occasional reminders kept popping up, like the bartender from Dogma making a joke about crotch rot. Even George Carlin had a role that required him to do something other than mug and raise his eyebrows, which was a little refreshing. And there were some parts that were genuinely funny and surprising, like the Will Smith cameo, which was kind of subversive and clever in a way that Huckabees only wishes the Shania Twain bit was.

Labels: comedy, Movie Diary, movies

1. King Kong
I never had much interest in the King Kong story, but considering how well Peter Jackson executed the Lord Of The Rings movies, I was looking forward to seeing what he did with this. The end result was overwhelming but not entirely in a good way. I liked the long first half of character development, and the cast, especially Jack Black, definitely rose to the occasion, but once the action got going, I wasn't entirely on board. There were definitely some amazing sequences, but some of the scenes with the dinosaurs and giant insects were just too long and eventually became overkill (something that always bothered me: if there's an island full of dinosaurs and all kinds of giant creatures, why would the movie be ostensibly just about the giant ape?). For a while the movie became kind of a house of horrors that was both impressive and a little greuling to watch in the same way that War Of The Worlds was.

Also, Peter Jackson has a couple habits that seem to be holdovers from his low budget gore movie days that keep plaguing this and LOTR, specifically the way he switches to a lower rate of frames per second so things move kind of slow and choppy every time there's some dramatic or pivotal scene. I swear he does it 20 times in the first half of King Kong and it gets so annoying. That said, there are some pretty spectacular sequences. And I have to give J.G. credit for noting the little in-joke reference to Dead-Alive (a crate in the boat labelled "Sumatran Rat Monkey").

2. The Producers
Covered on Powet Movies.

3. The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
We were taken to a dreamworld of magic. Never read the books but enjoyed this, particularly for Tilda Swinton, who's really good at playing the same kind of evil/ethereal being as she did in the underrated Constantine.

4. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
We saw this in the theater when it first came out a couple months ago but I don't think I ever wrote about it. I was always a fan of the earlier shorts, though, and they did a good job of expanding out into a longer and more complex storyline and making use of a bigger budget. My favorite might remain The Wrong Trousers, but they made the jump to theatrical features really well.

Labels: comedy, links, Movie Diary, movies

I'd been hearing for a while that Nicole Kidman was in Baltimore filming a movie, and on Thursday I got to see some of The Visiting, an Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake, being shot downtown. I was down there for a quick trip to the bank, and they had set up shop on the 100 block of East Baltimore Street. It kind of held me up for a few minutes, which was a little aggravating since I was afraid of getting a parking ticket (I got back to my car just as a meter maid was walking by, so I really dodged a bullet). I didn't see Kidman anywhere, but I did see a scene get shot that involved a lot of extras walking down the street with semi-futuristic headsets, and then a small group of people running/chasing down the street. According to the IMDB page and the message board on there, the movie takes place in Washington, but half it's being shot in Baltimore, and they've already shot stuff around the Hopkins campus, so I'm wondering if they're just going to pretend those scenes are D.C.? Supposedly they'll be shooting around Baltimore until the week before Christmas. It was kinda exciting, since it's not every day that I see a shooting crew around here (Homicide: Life On The Street used to shoot in my neighborhood all the time, but The Wire all takes place on the West side, and I live on the East side).

Labels: movies, story time

1. Sign O' The Times
Considering that this is a concert film version of one of Prince's best and most canonized albums, it's surprising how little I've ever heard about it, even in Matos's SOTT book it gets just a passing mention. And I mean, it's not bad, if you can handle the hilariously pretentious dramatic vignettes that occasionally pop up between songs, although all in all it does kind of take away from the odd magic of the album itself. There are a few songs that the live renditions drop the ball on (the title track comes to mind), but there's also an amazing "If I Was Your Girlfriend", and performances that made me like songs I always kind of disliked or ignored like "Forever In My Life" and "Play In The Sunshine". And the sheer variety of different treatments of the songs highlights what I love about Sign O' The Times to begin with: the multitudes it contains.

2. Walk The Line
Covered on Powet Movies.

3. Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story
Holding the dubious distinction of being one of the most memorable ripped-from-the-headlines made-for-TV movies of all time, when this came on the Encore channel, I just had to watch it. And it was definitely worth it, from the laughably sympathetic rendering of Joey Buttafuoco, to Alyssa Milano's insane sweatpants cameltoe, to the surprisingly grisly depiction of Mary Jo's bloody head soaking the hospital bed pillow.

Labels: Movie Diary, movies, Prince

1. Finder's Fee
At first I clicked over to this when it came on TV because it's written and directed by Survivor/Rock & Roll Jeopardy host Jeff motherfucking Probst, and was kind of expecting it to be terrible, and visually it was pretty lousy, looked like a Lifetime movie or something. But it actually turned out to be pretty good. Kinda reminded me of Suicide Kings in some spots (buncha young guys trying to corner and get something out of old guy, twists ensue), but sharper dialogue and a little more character development. Includes Matthew Lillard being annoying, James Earl Jones being stoic, Robert Forster being grizzled and Ryan Reynolds not being Van Wilder.

2. Batman Begins
Saw this when we went to Delaware to visit my mom, for $2.50 a pop at the 2nd run theatre that used to be the first run theatre back when I lived there. Heard good things but was still kinda surprised at how good it was. I'm a fan of the 90's animated series and the Burton/Keaton flicks, and this was pretty consistent with the dark tone of those while still packing some new tricks. Christian Bale won me over despite initial skepticism, Michael Caine was good, Katie Cruise's character was surprisingly more than just an empty romantic foil, even if she wasn't up to playing it to its full potential.

Labels: Movie Diary, movies

4. Constantine
I wasn't even sure if I was gonna watch this, and when I did, I had low expectations: it got lousy reviews, weak box office, and a lot of flack for supposedly not being faithful to the graphic novels it was based on. But man, I really liked this. Keanu did alright in it, although some other leading man could've done a better job of brooding and looking haggard in that role, and him being there unfortunately makes it seem like a Heaven and Hell version of the Matrix at times. But the rest of the cast was strong (even Gavin Rossdale and the kid from Even Stevens!), the story had some good twists, and the CGI all served up some really memorable imagery. Definitely a pleasant surprise.

5. Finding Neverland
This was pretty pleasant and enjoyable, with some sad bits. Reminded me a bit of Big Fish, although I didn't like it as much maybe because the way it evoked the power of imagination was an overly familiar story. Kinda funny to see Dustin Hoffman in there, considering he already did a Peter Pan movie.

Labels: movies, Netflix Diary

1. Eddie Izzard: Dress To Kill
J.G. and I just got Netflix at the new apartment last week. This was one of her picks. A friend of hers at school had a copy of this that they watched constantly and could quote every other word of it. He's funny! I like when he makes some European historical reference that goes over the American audience's heads, and then taunts them about it.

2. Freaks and Geeks, disc 1
I was a big fan of the show during its original run, been wanting to rent or buy the DVDs ever since they came out but hadn't until now. I was a junior in high school when it was originally on, and I don't identify with it as much anymore obviously, but it still holds up pretty well, although in kind of a different way than I'd expected. I'd seen most of the episodes before, I think J.G. had only seen one or two. Not through the whole season yet but looking forward to getting more discs. Kinda even more looking forward to getting the Undeclared DVDs, though. I don't know if that show was better but it was definitely funnier.

3. Hotel Rwanda
Another J.G. pick. She'd seen it already and I hadn't. It was interesting to get a humanized perspective on something that was all over the news when I was just a little too young to grasp what was going on. They did a good job of showing how quickly the situation broke down, and how nice things were before.

Labels: comedy, movies, Netflix Diary, TV

The Island
This was J.G.'s choice, and when the credits rolled, she turned to me and apologized. I didn't think it was that bad, though! I didn't go in expecting much but they got a lot of mileage out of a not great premise. A lot of bad, unintentionally funny dialogue, but also some genuinely funny moments, like when they learned how to say "dude". It kinda reminded me a lot of old school dystopian sci fi flicks like Soylent Green more than anything recent. And it was clever how they managed to work Scarlett Johansson's real life Calvin Klein ad into the movie.

Labels: Movie Diary, movies

1) War Of The Worlds
Really this was just worst case scenario porn, wasn't it? The kind of thing that I'd be bored by if I waited to see it on DVD, but in the theater with the big sound system and everything the really cool scary scenes actually make my jaw drop. Still kind of unsatisfactory, though, just because it didn't feel like there was any connection between the 28 different ways the aliens would kill people other than that they all looked weird and scary, and their downfall, which of course was part of the original H.G. Wells story, but still felt rushed and unsatisfactory.

2) Sabretooth
J.G. likes to watch these terrible low budget made for TV flicks on the Sci Fi Channel, and I have to say, this one was pretty entertaining. The computer animated sabretooth tigers would've been kind of impressive in a video game but in any kind of live action movie it just looks fake as hell. And it decapitates a bunch of people and there's a lot of needlessly complicated plot lines and character interactions, and Gimli from LOTR/Professor Maximilian Arturo from Sliders was there too! The plot about reanimating an extinct species that kills a bunch of people was ripped off pretty hardcore from Jurassic Park, but not nearly as much as the movie that came on after it, Raptor Island, which we didn't stay up to watch all of because it was getting late. But Lorenzo Lamas was in that one! And Raptor Island 2: Raptor Planet is coming soon!

Labels: Movie Diary, movies

I usually find Disney's straight-to-video sequels distasteful, at least to whatever extent I can feign offense at anything Disney does for a quick buck, but The Emperor's New Groove was easily their best non-Pixar feature out of the last dozen or so, and I have to admit I'm kinda looking forward to the December DVD release of Kronk's New Groove, which centers around Patrick Warburton's character, who was the best thing about the original.

Labels: movies

1) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
My brother already saw a midnight screening on Wednesday before flying out this weekend, but he's the kind of geek who's gonna see it multiple times, so I went with him for his 2nd and my first viewing last night. I'm not a huge SW fan but I figure if I'm gonna see it eventually I should see it in a theater. Of course, we got there during trailers and had to sit in the 2nd row staring straight up at the screen right in front of our faces, but it was still cool. I was satisfied with all the light saber battles and General Grevious was pretty cool and McGregor definitely stepped his game up and became a focal point. It occurred to me that SW/Lucas has a weird fixation with severed limbs, especially hands. And even with the PG-13 rating there was still a strange lack of blood spurting. Go fig. The best part of my long, boring graduation ceremony was that at the very end as everyone filed out, the orchestra started playing the Darth Vader theme music, which was pretty cool to hear while I was walking around dressed in a long black robe.

2) End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
On Friday I was about to go to bed and was channel flipping between Conan and some other stuff and was pleasantly surprised to come across this playing on PBS, of all places, and stayed up to watch the whole thing. It's fascinating but also kind of depressing to hear their story told from such an insider perspective, so different to what I'm used to hearing or reading about them. Less mythologization about how they invented punk and so on (although there's plenty of that too) and more of the actual band members' perspective. The depressing part was finding out how much they fought and stole each other's girlfriends and hated each other, which kind of shatters the illusion of them as a unified front, this gang of guys who dress alike and go by the same last name and stayed together for years and years and years, which was always a big part of their appeal. But it makes for a great story, and it was told pretty well.

Labels: Movie Diary, movies

1) We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
Last night I drove down to D.C. as soon as I could leave school and met up with my friend Mike, and then walked down to the Black Cat from his house. We were a few minutes late, and the movie had already started and the little downstairs bar where they were screening it was packed. It was kind of crappy conditions, we had to cram ourselves in the back, and there's a big column in the middle of the room, right in our line of vision, so most of the time I could only see about 1/3rd of the screen. I'm still glad I went, though, and I look forward to seeing it again under more ideal conditions. There are many bands I love more than the Minutemen but maybe none that inspire me more and make me more excited about the act of making music. The live footage was amazing, and since the individual songs are so short, they could be incorporated into the movie without threatening to interrupt the narrative. Lots of good interview moments, too, although I sometimes felt like I was waiting through the hyperbolic praise just to get to the personal anecdotes and really interesting stuff. At the end of the screening, a guy, I believe one of the filmmakers, said he want a picture of everyone at the screening to send to Watt, which we all smiled and waved for.

2) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
I have to admit I was kinda geeked out about seeing this. Growing up I had access to my father's huge personal library of sci-fi books, but of course, the satire stuck with me more than most of the real stuff. I mean, it's probably been at least 10 years since I read any of those books, but the prospect of a movie being made of it and being done well was still pretty exciting to me. J.G.'s also a fan of the books and wants to see it, but it'll be a couple weeks until she graduates and comes home from school for good. So I'll probably see it again with her, but I was impatient and had to see it opening weekend. And it was good. I'd read the name of the director a few times in articles but it wasn't til the opening credits rolled that I realized that it was the same guy who did all those music videos as Hammer & Tongs. I was skeptical of Mos Def's casting from the beginning, mostly because I think he's pretty overrated as a rapper and haven't seen any real evidence of his acting talent either, but ultimately I was rooting for him to be good in it. He was really the weak link of the cast, though, had tons of funny/memorable lines from the book to work with and didn't manage to make the most of any of them. Everyone else was solid, though. Sam Rockwell was good, although I was kind of put off by the fact that he kept doing a slight G. W. Bush impression (because his character is an idiot who became president, GET IT? wink wink). Just kind of a cheap joke, if you ask me. Lots of other things I could say, but mostly I was satisfied as a semi-fanboy and it even did pretty well at the box office, which is nice.

3) Sin City
I heard plenty about how good and cool-looking this was, but not nearly enough about how funny it was. For the first hour or so, I wasn't sure if I was laughing at it or with it, but by about an hour in, it was pretty obviously the latter. Like, the reaction of that guy with the swastika on his forehead to getting impaled? Hilarious. Supposedly that winking comedic element isn't in the comics (excuse me, graphic novels) at all, which is interesting considering the creator was so involved in the movie he got a co-director credit. Did he set out for the adaptation to poke fun at the source material, or did Rodriguez talk him into it, is what I'm wondering, I guess.

4) Dreamcatcher
Saw this on HBO a while back while dogsitting at my dad's house watching sattelite TV all day. I can't remember the last time so little about a movie was given away by the trailers. So much so that it feels like saying really anything about it is a spoiler. But I will say that it was completely ridiculous and shockingly bad. After a certain point, you don't care at all what happens but you just have to keep watching to see what else they have the balls to throw in there. OK, i'll tell you this much: there's an alien that nests inside of people and makes them fart until it escapes out of their butts. And the alien, whose name is Mr. Gray, is repeatedly addressed by a mentally retarded character (played by DONNY WAHLBERG) as "Mr. Gay". I swear I'm not making any of this up.

Labels: comedy, Mike Watt, Movie Diary, movies, The Minutemen