On a scale of one to ten, I give Little Miss Sunshine an Eleventy-Three.
I laughed the entire movie, and am still convinced that Alan Arkin makes every movie better with his presence. Discuss.
by John Cole| 87 Comments
This post is in: Movies
On a scale of one to ten, I give Little Miss Sunshine an Eleventy-Three.
I laughed the entire movie, and am still convinced that Alan Arkin makes every movie better with his presence. Discuss.
by John Cole| 18 Comments
This post is in: Movies
I am a sucker for anything involving Vince Vaughan (I will watch anything he is in, and still think Swingers is one of the greatest movies ever made), so I picked up the Break-Up.
Not sure what I think of it. I liked how realistic the fights were- circular reasoning, escalation, pettiness, etc., but I am not sure what I think about the movie in total.
by John Cole| 2 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Military, Movies
If you are looking for a high quality viewing experience, I would recommend Shadow Company, which may be one of the best documentaries I have seen in years. Give it a look.
This post is in: Movies, Politics, Popular Culture
Michael Moore will live the American dream and see his day in court:
A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, is asking for damages because of “loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation,” according to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week.
Damon, 33, claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview Damon did with NBC’s “Nightly News.”
He lost his arms when a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter exploded while he and another reservist were servicing the aircraft on the ground. Another reservist was killed in the explosion.
In his interview with NBC, Damon was asked about a new painkiller the military was using on wounded veterans. He claims in his lawsuit that the way Moore used the film clip in “Fahrenheit 9/11” – Moore’s scathing 2004 documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq – makes him appear to “voice a complaint about the war effort” when he was actually complaining about “the excruciating type of pain” that comes with the injury he suffered.
In the movie, Damon is shown lying on a gurney, with his wounds bandaged. He says he feels likes he’s “being crushed in a vise.”
“But they (the painkillers) do a lot to help it,” he says. “And they take a lot of the edge off of it.”
Damon is shown shortly after U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is speaking about the Bush administration and says, “You know, they say they’re not leaving any veterans behind, but they’re leaving all kinds of veterans behind.”
Damon contends that Moore’s positioning of the clip just after the congressman’s comments makes him appear as if he feels like he was “left behind” by the Bush administration and the military.
I have no idea if the case has any merit, but I do like the idea of Michael Moore being sued. I understand that many people on the political left are angry about the political events of the last decade. I can understand that. What I can not understand is the desire to use that anger to lie and manipulate facts, something Moore does gleefully and frequently. Fahrenheit 9/11 was, from an aesthetic standpoint, a great film. But there was so much bullshit packed into the polemic that any point he was trying to make was completely overshadowed by the distortions and the dishonesty, and those on the political left who continue to cheer Moore are just missing the point.
This post is in: Movies, Popular Culture, General Stupidity
It seems like everywhere I turn, I am hearing people squeal about how the Da Vinci Code is anti-Christian and more evidence of Hollywood’s anti-Christian bias. Enter Michael Medved, Christianity’s biggest Jewish supporter:
MEDVED: I do, but the buzz has turned very decisively negative. When you see that there are people in India who are talking about fasting to the death to protest the film.
When the Gallup poll shows that 48 percent of Americans say they will definitely not see “The Da Vinci Code”, that‘s not a good sign for a box office blockbuster.
One of the things you see with this movie, Tucker, as I have been writing about this for 20 years literally, that Hollywood keeps attacking religion again and again and again. Films that have anti-religious themes and particularly anti-Catholic themes and they never make a dime. They tend to do very, very badly at the box office.
Now this film has a guaranteed box office return because of the tremendous success of the novel. But the idea that, by refusing to soften some of the anti-Christian, some of the—what people would consider to be heretical themes in the movie, that they could have, by softening it, I think ensured a much greater financial indication.
I don’t have any links to offer, but I am pretty sure ‘Hollywood’ didn’t commission Dan Brown to write the Code. In fact, I am willing to bet he never expected to sell 40 million copies, and I am reasonably sure Hollywood is only ‘attacking Christians’ with this movie BECAUSE the book sold 40 million copies.
I have no problem with critics panning this movie, but the sheer idiocy of the professionally aggrieved religious right is, as always, a bit too much to swallow. I will say this one last time- the Da Vinci Code is fiction. Much like creationism, for that matter. If I hear any more whinging on this subject, I am going to begin to think the Romans had the right idea.
by John Cole| 24 Comments
This post is in: Movies, Previous Site Maintenance, Sports
I will be watching the olympics tonight, but I also rented a bunch of movies since we are supposed to get hit with a snowstorm. First up is Hustle and Flow, which I hear is supposed to be fantastic. Later on, or probably tomorrow, is Thumbsucker.
Just watched Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which was mildly entertaining until the lead character turned into Kathy Bates in Misery. I do like Tyler Perry’s characters, though, who make me laugh.
At any rate, post your Olympics observations here, and if you are interested, my corporate masters have a new specialty blog called Gold Rush dedicated to Olympics coverage.
*** Update ***
Hustle and Flow- what a pleasant surprise. A little raw probably for some of the genteel crowd out there, but a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Definitely better than Crash.
by John Cole| 56 Comments
This post is in: Movies
I could only watch 45 minutes of Crash. Was the point of the movie to try to jam as many storylines of objectionable people into a movie?
Blech. Should I finish this movie?
*** Update ***
I finished it, against my better judgement, and if that is the best Hollywood has to offer, I am ready to give the Oscar to Brokeback Mountain, which I have not seen yet (I hate love stories of any kind).
BTW- L4yer Cake was excellent. I kept wondering why it did not receive wider play in the US. Until I saw the ending, and then I knew why it did not play in US markets.