Movie Overload

Yet another attempt to create yet another movie review blog.

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The Hudsucker Proxy: What the new year is all about, Charlie Brown.

With the Christmas season, there is a plethora of movies to choose from.  Some that capture the spirit of the season, from the classics like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Miracle On 34th Street. Others are romances like The Shop Around The Corner and Love, Actually.  Then there’s Christmas action movies like Die Hard or anything Shane Black ever wrote.  There’s even room for comedies like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or (an overlooked favorite) The Ref.  

But a week after Christmas, and the pickings are slimmer.  There are movies about New Years Eve parties (200 Cigarettes, New Yeas Eve), movies where the New Year is a specific plot device (Money Train, Trading Places) and even movies that have a pivotal scene on New Year’s Eve (The Godfather Part 2 and When Harry Met Sally) but very few movies about what the new year represents to us.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Coen Brothers

“That’s right.

New York.

It's 1958 -- anyway, for a few mo' minutes it is. Come midnight it's gonna be 1959. A whole 'nother feelin'. The New Year. The future... 

 Yeah ole daddy Earth fixin' to start one mo' trip 'round the sun, an' evvybody hopin' this ride 'round be a little mo' giddy, a little mo' gay... 

All over town champagne corks is a-poppin'.

Over in the Waldorf the big shots is dancin' to the strains of Guy Lombardo... Down in Times Square the little folks is a-watchin' and a-waitin' fo' that big ball to drop...

They all tryin' to catch hold of one moment of time...  to be able to say -- 'Right now! This is it! I got it!'

 'Course by then it'll be past.

But they all happy, evrybody havin' a good time.

Well, almost everybody. They's a few lost souls floatin' 'round out there.

Now if ya'll ain't from the city, we have something here called "the rat race." Got a way of chewing folks up so that they don't want no celebrating, don't want no cheerin' up, and don't care nothing 'bout no New Year's. 

Out of hope. 

Out of rope. 

Out of time. 

This one's Norville Barnes.”

And with that opening, the film begins, and I gotta tell you, it gets me every time. 

The Hudsucker Proxy is about the rise and betrayal of a young fresh faced kid off the bus from Muncie, Indiana, Norville Barnes, played by a young, wide-eyed Tim Robbins.  Norville arrives in the big city and gets a job at the lowest point, the mail-room of Hudsucker Industries.  At the same time, the founder and President of the company, Wearing Hudsucker (Charles Durning), interrupts a board meeting to leap out the window of the 44th (45th, counting the mezzanine) to his death.   When the board learns that Wearing’s shares of Hudsucker stock will be available to the public in one month, Janurary 1, their shock turns to horror.  But vice-president Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman, in one of the greatest moustache- twirling roles of all time) has a plan: Get an idiot, place him as president, depress the stock worth, then buy up all of the shares once the new year hits and vote the idiot out.  Now if only they can find an idiot...

Jennifer Jason Leigh rounds off the cast as Amy Archer, a brassy, cynical reporter who goes undercover as Norville’s secretary to expose the new president of Hudsucker Industries as the moron everybody believes he is.  The problem is, while naive, Norville isn’t an idiot.  In fact, Norville has a million dollar idea that’ll put Huducker back on top.

You know.  For kids.

Naturally, everybody is skeptical, except for Mussburger.   What better way to sink Hudsucker stock?  So Hudsucker Industries goes forward with the production of the.... dingus.

In an amazing sequence, we see the idea go from idea to prototype to the cost analysis to the naming to the phenomenal overnight success of...

 the Hula Hoop.  

Naturally, this success doesn’t sit well with the board, and Mussburger must put more insidious plans in place to oust poor Norville, whose success has gone to his head just when Amy was starting to believe in his goodness.  I don’t want to give the rest away, but I will say that the Coen Brothers made this as a tribute to the legendary director Frank Capra.

Anybody who has seen any of  Capra’s films (his 2 most famous being It’s A Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) will recognize that the Coen Brothers were writing a love letter to the filmmaker when they made The Hudsucker Proxy.    With its themes of miracles, darkness vs light, belief in goodness being more powerful than cynicism, hope overcoming hopelessness, and it never being too late for new beginnings, as well as use of the “Capra Myth”: ‘that individual courage invariably triumphs over collective evil’,    I think they succeeded.

So this New Year’s Day, maybnewe before the brunch but after the Advil, I cannot recommend a movie higher than The Hudsucker Proxy for a comforting dose of hope for the new year.

J. DiBattista

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Roger Ebert died today. Rest in peace, good sir. No man has had more influence over me during the course of my life than him. He will be missed by myself and millions of others. In the 1970s, I used to watch Sneak Previews when it was on our local PBS station. Which was considered weird for a kid under 10. When it changed to At The Movies, I followed. The biggest impression the show left on me was when they reviewed Evil Dead 2. Here was a film critic who loved, what looked like to me, the weirdest horror movie ever made. I became obsessed with watching that movie, but my parents being born again Christians, I was never able to rent it. When I finally saw it 4 years later, it blew my mind. But I will always connect the Evil Dead series with Roger Ebert & At The Movies. Roger Ebert was and always will be, for me, the reason I love film and the reason why I want to think about, discuss, and dissect film. He taught me that critiquing films, even ones we loved, were a good thing. And those lessons at such a young age inoculated me against the current trend of not thinking about movies at all. And I'm proud of the lessons learned from Roger Ebert. When my friends say "you're such a criticizah", I think of Mr Ebert, and I'm proud.  Thank you Mr. Ebert, from the bottom of my heart.

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Go to Netflix and scroll down.  They give you a randomly generated suggestion category for April Fools day.  This was mine.

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Netflix Instant Pick Of The Week:  Holy Motors

The incredible French film Holy Motors was released on Netflix Instant this week, and I could not be more ecstatic.   This was on my list of the top 5 best films of 2012, though I still cannot seem to wrap my head around it.  In the film, we follow a man (Denis Lavant) who rides in a limousine to 9 different  "acting"  jobs, where he puts on different guises, performing  wildly different scenarios, seemingly for no-one. But that short description sums this movie up as accurately as saying The Godfather is about a man returning from World War II to help out with the family business. 

Holy Motors is such a  bizarre, poignant, funny work of art that comments on the nature of film, the roles that we play with others,and of life itself.   I honestly wish I had the words to describe how transcendent this film was for me.   I was so disappointed (but not surprised) that this was passed over by the Academy this last awards season.

Holy Motors is a challenging film, but one you'll want to watch over again in order to fully absorb it.  

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In January 1978, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan spent 5 days spitballing what would become the screenplay for Raiders Of The Lost Ark.  The following is a transcript of the tapes of that meeting.  It really is a fascinating look at the creative process of three people who, undoubtedly, were on top of their game.

Source: Maddogmovies.com

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Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the international Kick-Ass 2 trailer.  Now with at least 75% more Hit-Girl!

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The more I see of Iron Man 3, the more awesome it looks.  In this new trailer, Pepper Potts dons the Iron Man armor.  

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This might just be the cynic in me, but I want this to be much better than I fear it's going to be.  I read this book over 20 years ago and completely fell in love with it, but it's been in development hell since the 80s, and while I know the technology has finally caught up with the book, it's going to take more than the director of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to bring this book to life.  I predict the Ender's Game movie will fall into the same kind of trap that The Golden Compass did:  alienating the fans of the series by catering to the non-fans who don't really care, resulting in nobody going to see the movie.

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Marvel fails at photoshop.

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It's here.  The Kick Ass 2 red band trailer.  I must have watched this 5 times in a row after this first aired.  I cannot wait to see this movie. Hopefully they're able to make Mark Millar's original cynical script for the comic into something better, like they did the last time.  How about you?  Thoughts?

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The best zombie stories are ones that uses the zombie as a metaphor.  The BBC's In The Flesh, a show about what happens to the once infected after we're able to cure the zombie plague, is just one of these stories.  Not only better than that "other" zombie show, but easily one of the best new shows to come out in a very, very long time.

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Riddick is not the John Carter we want, but the John Carter we deserve.

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Completely buried in another story, apparently Ghostbusters 3 will start filming next summer.

I am a sad, sad Jamie.  Buried about 3 or 4 paragraphs into a story about some new Tom Cruise movie is a little tidbit about how Ivan Reitman is directing Ghostbusters 3 next Summer.  Without Bill Murray, of course.

le sigh.

They refer to it as a "reboot", but I'm not sure if that means a complete re-starting of the Ghostbusters franchise or the fabled "passing the baton" that Dan Aykroyd's been talking about so much these days.  Either idea sounds to me like a complete shitshow.  We're talking about a new cast and if Hollywood has anything to do with it, it'll be full of guys who are about 5 years past their over-saturation date.  Think Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Danny McBride, Bill Hader or Ken Jeong.  Maybe they'll throw in a little Paul Rudd or Adam Scott for the sardonic flavor that will be sorely lacking with Bill Murray's absence.

And that's the biggest issue:  Bill Murray is not, in any way, involved with a Ghostbusters sequel.  Let's face it.  Bill Murray made that movie what it was and it was pretty much him alone that made Ghostbusters 2 worth watching.  (well, him and Peter MacNicol)  And the people involved don't see the lack of Peter Venkman as a problem. They're forging ahead because they know in their black little hearts that this movie will at least make its money back at the box office based on curiosity alone.   Batman & Robin, one of the worst movies in a franchise of all time, made double it's production budget back if you combine both the foreign and domestic box office. 

I, for one, will not be paying one red cent to watch a Ghostbusters without Bill Murray.  Please join me in this boycott.

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Argo is great filmmaking.

There was a point a few years ago that Ben Affleck had become somewhat of a joke, or at the very least he was beginning to be taken less seriously as a box office draw.   A string of misses, as well as being part of a "power couple" that grew more distasteful as time went on, Ben Affleck was on his way out in Hollywood.  Then something happened.  He directed Gone Baby Gone. And it was really good.  I, for one, was more than pleasantly surprised at this side of Mr. Affleck.  He had a talent that went far beyond acting and it was kind of exciting to witness. With Argo, his third directorial feature, I think it's safe to say that Ben Affleck has moved from "really good" to great as a director.

Argo tells the true story of CIA operative Tony Mendez's efforts to rescue 6 American Diplomats who escaped being taken hostage on the  November 4, 1979 Iranian takeover of the U.S embassy and were hiding out at the Canadian Ambassador's home in Tehran.   The rescue plan involved Mendez posing as a Hollywood producer scouting filming sites in Iran for a  movie called Argo and leaving with his "film crew", the 6 American Diplomats.

Affleck has made a movie that brings suspense, humor, and an amazing attention to detail together to recreate this period in time almost flawlessly.  The script reveals details about the characters and about that period of time without ever feeling like it's stopping the movie to give exposition.  The cast here, ranging from Allen Arkin & John Goodman  to Affleck & Bryan Cranston to Rory Cochran (always a joy to see him act) & Clea Duvall are amazing to watch.  You really get the sense of dread from those playing the 6 diplomats.  As silly as it sounds, whoever did the hair and makeup should be nominated for an academy award.  There are actors in this movie I didn't recognize until at least halfway through the movie, and that attention to making sure the cast looked authentic to the time period helped draw me in even further to this film.

As it is October, we are right in the middle of Oscar bait season.  Argo may not be as "artistic" as a film like The Master, or as ambitious as Cloud Atlas or as obvious an Oscar choice as Lincoln or Hitchcock.  But it's a solid film with great acting, a tense story and direction that shows the potential of what could be a true auteur.  I can easily see Argo in that Oscar nomination list come January.

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I'm never sleeping again.

Few things are as upsetting as being woken up in the middle of the night by a spider crawling on your face.

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Another Carrie Remake Promotional thingy.

Call 207-404-2604.

 It's the number to Carrie White's house.  Very creepy and gets you into the mood for the upcoming movie!

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Ok.  Get it out of your system.  wah.  remakes suck.  now watch this teaser trailer.  first, nobody can deny that Chloe Grace Moretz is an amazing actor, as is Julianne Moore.  Chloe was amazing in Kick-Ass and was the only watchable thing in Dark Shadows.  Second, it looks like they got actual teenagers to play the teenagers in this instead of 30 year olds.  Third, a lot of the book of Carrie was told in interviews with the townsfolk, and the trailer seems to reflect this with the voiceovers.  So this movie seems like it's closer to the book than the original was.  I, for one, am cautiously optimistic.