We watched The Illusionist last night, and we've got Half Nelson and Idlewild (still) for the weekend.

I liked The Illusionist, but I couldn't stop comparing it to The Prestige, which I saw first and liked better. Norton is constantly awesome, though, and I was pleased to see that Biel can act when she feels like it. Plus, I have a weird and possibly inappropriate crush on Rufus Sewell, so that was fun. (What? He's got that scary-hot thing going. Rawr.)

Rufus is the destitute man's Jude Law.

I'm trying to watch every Altman movie. I watched The Long Goodbye actually enjoyed that one. I watched the first 10 minutes of A Wedding before nodding off.

We just rented Room because people I know are in it, and it got raves from IFC and Cannes and Sundance...

You know what?

People at Cannes and Sundance and IFC can go fuck themselves.

What a fucking waste of time and filmstock.

Rufus is my textbook definition of UglySexy, and he's the only reason I rented The Illusionist. I ff-ed through a lot of it because it was another of his villain roles. I have watched a lot of crap for that man. (I love The Oldman, but Rufus TOTALLY should have been Sirius Black.)

Next on Deck: Hope and Glory. I saw part of it on tv about a month ago, and I'm dying to see the rest of it.

Great movie. The scenes with his grandfather are worth the rental.

You're making me question everything I believe to be true, The Dude. Is this some kind of Lent sacrifice?

Just saw The Constant Gardener. Man, that is an oddly paced film. I really liked it a lot, though; it was surprisingly affecting, especially given how much Ralph Fiennes tends to skeeve me out.

Apparently, The Dude's chosen to give up watching good movies. And sterility. But no one deserves that torture, not even Hitler. Well, maybe Hitler. And Owen Gleiberman. But no one else.

You know what's wrong with Norman Jewison's The Hurricane? It's that it's really 2 movies sloppily welded together. The one about the life of Hurricane Carter is excellent, mainly because of Denzel Washington's brilliant performance. The one about the 3 Canadian hippies and their young protege (a protege hippie? How '80s!) who helped Carter argue his case in Federal court is just terrible, loaded with bad dialogue and one-dimensional characters. And at 2 1/2 hours long, the bad parts make even the good parts seem interminable. Oh, and also? Enough with all the flashbacks and flash-forwards. I got tired of trying to figure out where I was in the damn story.

On the other hand, Shadow of the Vampire? Hilarious and brilliant. Anyone who loves Willem Dafoe, Eddie Izzard, Nosferatu, or movies about megalomaniac directors who cheerfully sacrifice (and not just figuratively) cast and crew members for the sake of their "vision" should watch it. I'd guess 80 years from now, someone will make an equally fanciful film about the torturous making of Miami Vice in which Michael Mann will be depicted as actually shooting people in the head.

All I can figure is it's the same impulse that makes people cut themselves.

On the Long Goodbye he had enough talent around him to reign him in and I think Altman really started going off the rails around Nashville (I decided not to do this cronologically because the thought of watching Tanner 88 all the way through filled my heart with dread). Anyway, Leigh Bracket adapted the script, John Williams did the music and this is the first time I've noticed Elliot Gould had star power (if not understood it). Having to adhere to a detective plot and not loading the movie down with 50 people talking over eachother. Vilmos Zsigmond captured early 70's California in all its glorious hideousness.

Kind of like a trippy episode of Rockford Files.

Now this is not to say it wasn't without the Altmany pretentiousness that make you want to bitch slap the screen. Ok we get it he lives next to hippies! There's an absolutely bizzare scene with the villians (one a young Swartzeneger) that had to be some bong rif, Sterling Hayden is a finger nails on chalk board the security gaurd who thinks he's Rich Little is classic Altman jack offery, and the sight of Henry Gibson trying to exude menace... imagine his Illinios Nazi played strait. Why don't you get one of your hippie daisies from Laugh-In and beat him with that Hank?!

My mother insists that Hope and Glory is exactly like her wartime London childhood. Except for the wealthy relative with the house on the river and the glam mother. And ignoring the fact that, according to my grandmother, Mum used to hide under the table in air raids and had to be carried shrieking into the shelter. So not very similar at all really.

Invincible.

Rented purely on the basis that Mark Wahlberg is insanely hot. And he didn't disappoint. The movie is well done, but pretty by the numbers, and I don't understand or like football.

But Marky Mark had biceps that were out of this world. That's my recommendation.

A Wedding oh good god!

Altman cannot deliver a joke to save his life (In fact I think that's how he died). Brevity being the soul of wit: this movie goes for 2 1/2 hours. As I've said before his delivery comes for a mile away has a slight yet thunking punch line and and he just lingers as if to say "see? See? wasn't that funny?" And the whole premise is weddings don't go well, like this is some incisive statement.

All his usual trademarks: crowded paper thin cast of characters, esemble of varrying talent, overlapping dialouge that makes the movie impossible to follow, showwy sequenses and "You get this? This is going to be on the -*test*-('")!" symbolism.

Of course the accompanying documentary has rapturous praise for the smallest detail. "The cork didn't popout of the bottle!" "The old guy was slow getting up the stairs!" Yeah ok it's imrpov and sometimes mistakes have great results, but this principal doesn't hold because this is bad improv. It's like a "guess you had to be there" anecdote that was in no way funny if you were there.

This is widely recognized as one of his worst and came in an era when most of the big name Decade Under Influence directors where smothering under the weight of their egos. It's amazing that Altman managed this feat on what should have been an easy comedy as opposed to a pretentious excercise like Quintet, or Heaven's Gate.

Altman must have some serious grudge against Charlie chaplin to give his daughter the most grating parts in history.
For the cast,

Famous actress Altman inexplicably convinced to get nude: Mia Farrow

Career has been given a big part: Desi Arnez Jr

Biggest Wasted Talent: Paul Dooley (guy is a great comedian)

Character a wanted to bitchslap the most: Geraldine Chaplin's wedding planner

Most pretentious set piece: singing hyms during a tornado

Most overwraught piece of symbolism: the frog

I gotta tell ya, Dude, you're really taking a beating for humanity. I've seen the 5 films Altman acolytes swear are his masterworks (M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, and Short Cuts) and I could feel brain cells withering and dying with each one. It's not just that Altman can't tell a joke (and he can't) or that he has all the subtlety of a ball-peen hammer to the frontal lobe (and he does). For me, it's summed up by this:

He takes the most thunderously obvious fact and delivers it like it's some sort of pearl of wisdom that he's just discovered all by himself. Hey, didya guys know that the military frowns upon rebels and mavericks who don't play by the rules? Or that there are a lot of people in Hollywood who-get this-care more about money than movies? Or that the Old West was more complex than the black hat/white hat world of John Wayne movies? Gosh. Next you're gonna tell me that there are no documented cases of a giant ape being shot off the Empire State Building by biplanes. And I should add that if you're gonna market yourself as a rule-breaking bad boy, I shouldn't be able to predict the entire last act of your films not 10 minutes after I've popped the tape in the VCR.

So, yeah, not a fan. Not at all. And I don't envy your task at all, Dude. Vaya con Dios, Amigo. I'll tell them you died bravely, but in excruciating pain.

I just got The Wild. It's the animated movie with Kiefer as the voice of the lion. It wasn't horrible. And I couldn't stop laughing because Jack Bauer was a LION. And Eddie Izzard was hilarious as a voice character.

It was enjoyable. Predictable, but still enjoyable. The animation was really well done and very pretty.

The passion of Ayn Rand. I thought it was pretty good and Dame Helen managed to act well through a silly accent. it assumed the audience had a certain familiarity with Rand (is she still a well-known cult figure in the US? She's mercifully unknown here) and I discovered I'd been (mentally) pronouncing her name wrong for years.

Beyond Therapy: I didn't go into this one blind. On this pointless quest I've been looking at the message board on IMDb and while even Altman's biggest apologists admit he makes unwatchable bombs there's this mantra about his recognized misses: "underrated". So unlike H.E.A.L.T.H., A Wedding, Ready to Wear that word is absent from the reviews there. Unabashed Altman fan Roger Ebert gives this BT one star (the lowest rated in Altman's oeuvre).

From Altman's "Filmed play" exile, I'd seen a friend in a college production. And it was shit, BT had to have been dated by full dress, not at all funny and broad as a barn. The playwright publicly denounced the movie and as hard as it is to believe Altman did the work an injustice.


I'm no francophobe, but Altman's interjection of French at every turn is the height of affectation. In fact for no good reason he filmed the movie in Paris to sub for New York.

For some reason he's constantly moving the shot over to the extras, in particular one patron who has the Brittney Spears shaved head. With that he shifts the dialogue so you can't follow the conversation. There's an entire conversation with Julie Haggerty with her back to the camera.

Cristopher Guest pretty much plays Corky St.Claire and is predictably wasted.

If I had been tied down and forced to watch this as an S&M trip I would have been screaming the safe word after 5 minutes.