Specials: Helprin's caution. "Serenity 2"? How "Hoodwinked" Happened. "The White Countess." SNL.
Sunday's specials:
What a friendly neighborhood I live in! This morning, I'm walking around the streets of Shoreline, Washington, and as I'm waiting at a crosswalk, I see in the window of the house next to me...
...a wooden cross...
... a Bush/Cheney poster...
... a digital-readout message panel that is flashing these words to all who pass by: "Liberals - THE ENEMIES WITHIN"...
... and a security camera, pointing right at me and anyone who happens to walk by and notice the sign. Why? To record our reactions? Will my name go on a list if the sign made me shake my head in dismay?
Hmm. Can you smell the hatred?
On that note...
WANT DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE?
Mark Helprin, author of A Soldier of the Great War and Winter's Tale (two of my favorite novels), turns in one of his thought-provoking editorials at the Los Angeles Times.
A FUTURE FOR FIREFLY?
Is there hope for the Browncoats? The "maybes" cointinue. SciFiWire stokes the fires of hope for Serenity 2.
HOW HOODWINKED HAPPENED
The Los Angeles Times tells the real story behind the real story of Red Riding Hood.
THE WHITE COUNTESS
Adam Walter reviews the last collaboration of Merchant and Ivory.
SNL: SCARLETT NIGHT LIVE
Johansson's hosted SNL last night, with Death Cab for Cutie... just so you know, so you can be furious right along with me if you missed it.
STILL NO WINNER
Half-Shot Contest #4 seems to be stumping everybody. Have you made your guess? Remember: The film is in color, not black and white. The film is more than 20 years old.
Specials: Download a free Narnia script. Brad baby. Wheaton vs. Catholics.
Thursday specials:
WHAT DID MR. BEAVER SAY?
The official script of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe isn't easy to get. But fans have put one together, if you're willing to read their version...
BRAD AND ANGELINA'S BABY NAMED SEXIEST FETUS ALIVE
Borowitz strikes again. (via Mark Shea.)
CATHOLIC PROFESSORS, YOU'RE FIRED!
Wheaton, which proudly houses papers by the Catholic writer J.R.R. Tolkien, fired a popular professor recently for converting to Catholicism, says The Wall Street Journal.
Altman wins an Oscar... at last.
What's your favorite Robert Altman film?
I love Gosford Park. And several others...
He's been one of the Oscars' most overlooked talents for decades. At last, he's getting some credit.
Specials: Sarris on where "Brokeback" is broken. Pretty woman, Gump may join Mike Nichols. CNN on religious media.
Wednesday's specials:
SARRIS DARES TO SHRUG OFF BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Courageously stating some of the obvious problems with Brokeback Mountain, Andrew Sarris demonstrates that he's willing to swim upstream against the tidal wave of hype:
Hence, I suppose that my ultimate objection to Brokeback Mountain lies in its stretching out what originally begins as a physical relationship between two young men to, after 20 years, Ennis and Jack quarreling like an old married couple about the forced infrequency of their reunions. Yet what are the odds that they would have managed to stay together if they had been together all that time? The current odds on married heterosexual couples staying the course are no better than 50-50, and that is as true in the red states as it is in the blue.
Besides, the problem of the economic disparity between lower-middle-class Ennis and upper-middle-class Jack isn’t sufficiently addressed in Brokeback Mountain, even though Ennis is rendered virtually immobile by his pressing need to keep his job to support his kids. By contrast, Jack has the means and the time to hop down to Mexico to sleep with male prostitutes. In this, he follows a pattern of promiscuity that raises doubts about the stability of any more lasting day-to-day relationship between him and Ennis.
And just for the record, none of the classic women’s pictures that I mentioned actually made me cry. They were too good for that. All they did was create an aching feeling of loss in the pit of my stomach. I never felt that ache in Brokeback Mountain, despite all the artful acting, writing and direction devoted to that end.
Speaking of Brokeback, here's a photo featured today at Jeffrey Wells' Hollywood Confidential...
TOM TAKES TEXAN TASK
Julia Roberts may join Tom Hanks in a Mike Nichols film about "Charlie Wilson, the rogue Texas congressman who oversaw the covert funding of the Afghan rebels in their battle against the Soviet Union."
BIG MEDIA DECIDES PEOPLE NEED RELIGION
CNN on the religious-media revolution.
Half-Shot Contest #4
What film is this half-shot from?
The winner will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
HINT: The film was in color, not black and white. I couldn't find a color-version of this shot.
"What If" Question of the Day...
As tired as I am of the Brokeback Mountain and Chronicles of Narnia debates, and as uninterested as I am in the Munich debate, I find myself almost nostalgic for The Passion of the Christ. So my question for the day is this...
If someone were to pick up where Mel Gibson left off and direct the next ambitious New Testament film... who should direct it?
Mel Gibson looks like he's going to be busy for a while, what with Apocalypto on the way, and a project about the holocaust.
Seems that the much-rumored sequel to The Passion of the Christ won't be hitting screens any time real soon... if it happens at all. But it seems almost inevitable.
So I'm wondering... who has the integrity, the vision, and the strength to venture into those turbulent cultural waters and deliver something lasting and significant? Whose background could withstand the harsh, penetrating gaze of the mainstream media, who will go so far as to attempt to perform character assassinations on the filmmaker's family members?
And what character should be central?
Go see "Hoodwinked!" ... a particularly clever and hilarious new animated feature.
If you like animation, fairy tales, or good strong comedy, Hoodwinked! is well worth seeing.
I interviewed writer/director Cory Edwards, and was mightily impressed by his talent and his conviction about making great entertainment for all ages. His Christian faith is clearly the foundation of his desire for excellence, and this is a startling debut, funnier than the Shrek movies and perfectly cast with great voice actors like Patrick Warburton, Andy Dick, and Jim Belushi.
When I saw the film on Saturday, the kids laughed, and their parents did too, even though it never lapsed into what passes for "adult humor."
Watch the half-hour Behind the Scenes Special:
Airing Thursday, January 12 on ABC FAMILY, 11:30am PST, 2:30 pm EST (check local listings to confirm). You'll see interviews with the entire cast, as well as Cory and his colleagues Todd and Tony. Download the show as a video podcast on ITunes. Just go to the Movie Trailers page on the Music Store.
Visit HoodwinkedTheMovie.com for clips and fun stuff from the movie.
My interview is coming soon... so stay tuned.
Michael Leary's Top 10 of 2005
One of my favorite film writers, Michael Leary, who blogs at ImageFacts, sees more of the international highlights than I do, partly due to living between Chicago and Scotland.
Thus, I've been eagerly awaiting his Top Ten list, and here I am, reading it at The Matthews House Project and taking notes for future DVD rentals...
I haven't seen the film he put at #1.
Specials: "Bourne 3... 3 as the Wind..." Plus: Indy 4, Jurassic 4, "Capote" beats "Brokeback." Praising "The New World."
Monday is Sequel News Day!
"BOURNE THREE... THREE AS THE WIND..."
For updates on The Bourne Ultimatum, Indy 4, and Jurassic Park 4, click here. (Looks like Jason Bourne may have a new main squeeze. And no, it's not Ben Affleck.)
NATIONAL SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS DOESN'T GO BROKEBACK
The NSFC names Capote as Best Picture!
5 C's in a row! CHICAGO CRITICS CROWN CRASH, CACHE
A good day for Crash and Cache... but not Johnny Cash.
"THE MOST MOVING AMERICAN [FILM] IN THE FIFTEEN YEARS I'VE BEEN A CRITIC"
Matt Zoller Seitz on The New World:
Other people direct movies. Terrence Malick builds cathedrals. "The New World" is my new religion, easily the most pictorially innovative and moving American studio release I've seen in the 15 years I've been a professional movie critic. To appreciate it requires viewers to abandon narrative filmmaking conventions they're comfortable with (perhaps even spoiled by) and learn a new language, a primordial language of pictures that largely bypasses narrative cinema's persistent theatrical influence and plugs into the rhythms of thought.
ANTHONY LANE BERATES THE FILM YEAR THAT WAS, SEEKS HOPE IN THE YEAR TO COME
Lane's article features a fine assessment of Orlando Bloom, and the problem with the movies of 2005.