Yes, it’s true, I still hate the movie Crash, but boy did director Paul Haggis do a great and brave thing in renouncing Scientology after 35 years, in large part because of the San Diego branch’s inaction against Prop 8. Read this article containing his letter to the higher ups. He not only throws the “religion” under the bus, he backs up and runs over it a few more times for good measure. Wow.
Sales was unique in kids’ show hosts. Appealing to kids at the same time as Captain Kangaroo, both had different approaches for entertainment. While Captain Kangaroo’s Bob Keeshan had a witty and gentle nature, Soupy Sales was completely off-the-wall like a wiseguy young kid from the streets you couldn’t help but laugh at because he was genuinely funny. Both men had older viewers but Sales got the college kids. This was even true when he revamped his show in the 1970’s. I remember some of my high school classmates being fans. Watch how masterful he is in front of the camera as he’s waiting for a song to be cued. What a natural he was.
The type of trailer I detest the most is the “audience reaction” ones, where the screams and flinches of people who look like they stand in line for every Carrot Top theatrical release are supposed to convince me to watch the next “great” horror film. Seriously, this is an audience in Hollywood. It’s already pre-fucked up.
RIP Vic Mizzy (aged 93), one of the least known of incredibly strange lounge music composers. He was best known for the themes of The Addams Family and Green Acres, but also created great movie soundtracks for a number of Don Knotts films in the 1960’s. Here’s one of his best works, the theme to The Pruitts of Southampton, a song which is not only catchy but brilliantly lays out the premise to those who’ve never seen it (including me, but I’m working on that).
Two interesting views of Chicago and The Olympics:
One possible reason why the U.S. was voted out–the difficulty in securing Visas.
And this good view from a Nation writer.
Grayson’s right: the GOP wants people to suffer and die. How else would you explain the reasoning given by Ga. Republican Paul Broun to a young man in debt because he needed psychiatric medication after he attempted suicide? This is so fucking unbelievable that even the crowd couldn’t stand it, booing Broun when he tells him to hit the emergency room and cheering when someone yells out “That’s why we need the public option!”
Credit The Whole Delivery for this great find.
Over at Brian’s Drive-In Theater, you can watch this George Montgomery hoot of a movie. The low-budget action hero stumbles upon a group of white South African drug runners trafficking in giggle weed. Tippi Hedren, acting as poorly as her hair styles, shows up to help him out. I love how the bad guys never finish off Montgomery but save him for death “later on.” This happens at least a half-dozen times, including once when he’s mauled by vicious dogs! Damn!
Slumdog Millionaire has, of course, won Best Picture. No surprise at all, given how the Academy has a great knack for choosing undeserving films for the top spot.
From now on, I will refer to such new winners as finding the “…” Moment taking the last movie receiving the dishonor and inserting it in the phrase. For instance, Slumdog Millionaire just found the Crash Moment. Previously, Crash found the Titanic Moment, and so on. And I use “moment” for the time unit, because that’s how long bad choices will be remembered. I’m serious. I’ve had a heluva lot more requests for No Country for Old Men after it won Best Picture than I had for Crash in its award aftermath.
So will next year’s winner be a good choice or will it find the Slumdog Millionaire Moment?
Recently, Time Out Chicago published an article on the “guilty pleasures” of film and what can be considered camp and crap. Being a connoisseur of the latter, I thought I’d give my thoughts on such things.
My response as posted by Time Out Chicago:
“There’s a major factor missing in discussing guilty pleasures: marketing. “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and “She Hate Me” were heavily promoted (I had to sit through the horrendous trailer for the latter over 6 times). Studios don’t put these movies in theaters unless they believe we’ll watch them. That makes us real suckers. Whether a feature has merit to each of us individually doesn’t make a dime’s difference. Your wallet is a little bit lighter–that’s all that matters to them.”
I do agree with the alluded premise that there probably is no longer any movie considered a guilty pleasure, since (with the advent of the internet) you can find someone out there who loves a horrible film for perhaps a legitimate reason.
I would argue that, instead, we could be discussing guilty displeasures: those films generally considered classics but are simply unbearable to watch. Such a category could have a great range–from Hollywood Oscar winners (Titanic and Crash come immediately to mind) to films unnervingly taught to high school and college students who have to suffer through them (Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Last Year at Marienbad). I kid you not, I’ve actually had movie companions fall asleep during arthouse films I found as boring as watching a snail race and later have them tell me they liked the film. Uh, yeah.
While fans of Slumdog Millionaire try explaining to me how a cliche-ridden, exploitative eye-irritant should win the Best Picture Oscar, I’m busy seeking out entertainment that doesn’t get highly promoted but is nonetheless fantastic. Have you ever heard of La Leon? London to Brighton? Let the Right On In? Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa? Discovering films like these on the big screen is the great joy of moviegoing. And, of course, that’s not to mention the endless number of movies released on VHS and DVD yet to be discovered. Head to a good independent video rental store and you could be quite satiated without Blockbuster, Hollywood and Netflix.
So if you’re idea of a great guilty pleasure is She Hate Me or Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, then, yes, you are a sucker.
