Maybe my generation is obsessed with ubiquity, but for whatever reason, all the books I’m thinking of reading right now have the word “every” in the title.
Everything Bad Is Good for You by Steven Johnson
Everyware by Adam Greenfield
Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra
Oh, wait…
If you’ve got six grand burning a hole in your pocket, you can get a TED membership and attend their annual conference in person. What makes TED so awesome is that they make those high-end presentations available online for free nintey-nine. I recently pigged out on their big idea buffet, and here are some of my favorite talks:
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor describes her own stroke.
Dan Gilbert on happiness. Fascinating.
News Flash! The Dark Knight Still Making Shitloads of Money! Although, for my money, its greatest achievement thus far is this. More on that list here.
8/1
Wide
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Jet Li is the mummy. And Maria Bello is Rachel Weisz.
WILL IT SUCK?
Probably the most notable replacement is actually behind the camera, with Rob Cohen (Stealth, xXx) taking over for Mummy 1 & 2 helmer Stephen Sommers who, in spite of all the suck he brought to Van Helsing, really seemed to have a knack for these films. Cohen has a knack for making Brett Ratner seem inspired.
Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (creators of Smallville, two of the 73 writers on Spider-Man 2) definitely have a knack for this sort of thing, so their writing will fight Cohen’s direction.
And it’s always fun to see Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh together (check out Twin Warriors if you ever get the chance).
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This is, arguably, the last major action-adventure flick of the summer. $101mil.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
One guy gets to decide the fate of a U.S. presidential election. No, not Karl Rove.
WILL IT SUCK?
Director’s a newcomer and the co-screenwriter did Bad Company (the Chris Rock/Anthony Hopkins one) which bodes well for the we-hope-it’ll-be-so-bad-it’s-good Bangkok Dangerous, which he also wrote, but not so well for this.
Preliminary buzz, however, is pretty good, and I have to admit, choosing between Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammar’s a tough call.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Not much competition. Costner plays to his base. $35mil.
Limited
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
A photographer stalks a serial killer who finds his victims on the NYC subway system.
WILL IT SUCK?
Good idea to combine Clive Barker (based on his short story) with director Ryuhei Kitamura (Azumi, Versus). Early buzz seems to think so, too.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Even Clive Barker is pissed about Lionsgate’s half-assed release strategy. $1mil.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Single mom turns to immigrant smuggling across the Canadian border to make ends meet.
WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. Sundance gave it their Grand Jury Prize. And Melissa Leo and Michael O’Keefe are longtime favorites of mine.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The Grand Jury Prize is no guarantee of box office (see Quinceanera, which won both Grand Jury and the Audience Award at Sundance 2006). $2mil.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
A guy and a girl who met online hang out on New Year’s Eve and will-they-or-won’t-they kiss at midnight ensues.
WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is very good. Supposed to have a bit of an early Linklater vibe, which is not surprising given the executive producer.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Early Linklater didn’t make much, either. $1mil.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
British kid’s Bar Mitzvah has to compete with the 1966 World Cup.
WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good, which is remarkable given that it’s from the director of Leonard Part 6, City Slickers 2 and Made of Honor. Co-writer also penned the upcoming adaptation of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People with Simon Pegg.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Selling itself as the next Billy Elliot, but that’s unlikely. $2mil.
Next Week: Can’t stop the pants.
A selection of my latest posts for E-Gear…
Here’s a video review of the Snowflake USB Mic using the mic to provide the audio.
And here are some posts about…
Lionsgate’s long overdue (imho) deal with YouTube.
Dr. Horrible (yes, I used the same tag line twice).
More reasons why Verizon and Comcast suck.
If these take a while to load, I apologize in advance. We’re having issues.
Is it just me, or were there an inordinate amount of movies in the early 80’s where an introverted white guy gains his manhood by becoming a pimp?
And by inordinate, I mean three.
Night Shift (1982)
The Fonz gets his groove back by running an escort service out of a morgue. The film that broke Michael Keaton and Ron Howard (as a major studio director). Featuring the Rod Stewart version of “That’s What Friends Are For” over the closing credits. Also, Shelly Long as a whore.
Risky Business (1983)
The granddaddy of all white-guy-becomes-a-pimp movies. Introduced a fresh faced, Scientology-free Tom Cruise, broadened Bob Seger’s base and gave Curtis ‘Booger’ Hanson the immortal line, “I don’t believe this! I’ve got a trig midterm tomorrow, and I’m being chased by Guido the killer pimp.” Oh, and Guido was played by the legendary Joey Pants.
Doctor Detroit (1983)
The forgotten stepcousin of all white-guy-becomes-a-pimp movies. Nerdy Dan Akroyd grows some balls as his alter ego, the flamboyantly dressed pimp daddy Doctor Detroit who, for some reason has, like, a metal arm or something.
I don’t think this sub-sub-genre would work with a black guy becoming a pimp, if for no other reason than the racist stereotype that there’s nothing unusual (and, therefore, funny) about a black guy becoming a pimp. Hard to say if any other race could pull it off. I think the underlying concept, however, is that you have a downtrodden guy who, for some reason, is only able to assert himself once he gains control of a bevy of prostitutes.
In each case, the prostitutes are eager to have Mr. Bland take over, usually because of dissatisfaction with current management. So you get a nice little savior fantasy that’s equal parts racist and chauvinist. It’s also an interesting variation on the whole white man finding his soul through a minority surrogate subgenre (see The Legend of Bagger Vance for a typically cheesy/offensive/unbelievably dull variation on this).
I think out of an awareness of the racial pitfalls inherent in their premise the films tend to avoid making the “evil” pimp a black guy. The closest you get is the sidekick pimp in Night Shift, played by the late Badja Djola. The Primary Evil Pimp in that one is none other than Richard Belzer.
So was there an epidemic of disenfranchised white guys in the early 80’s whose only recourse was to acquire ho’s? Without a fight club to join, was this the only way to find their manhood? And how did pimpdom become the new symbol of manhood? For a shallow interpretation of what manhood means, it has all the ingredients. Subjugation of women? Check. Wealth at the expense of others? Check. Conspicuous displays of said wealth? Check. Perceived sexual prowess/domination? Check.
And why pimping and not that other enterprise labeled as black in the 80’s, drug-dealing? Because pimping is funnier. When a white guy starts dealing drugs, it’s a crime drama. When he becomes a pimp, it’s a comedy. I’m sure there’s a whole thesis to be written on why.
Dave Chappelle once said that the only book you ever have to read to understand capitalism is Pimp by Iceberg Slim. Given the capitalist-crazy 80’s, I guess I should be surprised there weren’t more movies like this.
A while ago I promised to post my five favorite docs, so, here goes (in no particular order)…
This is not a documentary I was expecting to like. I wasn’t expecting to dislike it, but I was curious because it had been playing in the same movie theater in Austin for over a year and Kevin couldn’t stop talking about it. I was not expecting what sounds like a reality TV show premise (A bunch of folks have to stand touching a truck. Last person standing wins it.) to turn into a “human drama” and one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Period.
2. Spellbound
Probably the most tension I’ve ever felt watching a doc, much less one about a spelling bee. Also the first movie review I ever had posted online, so a bit of a sentimental pick (the site’s gone now). The director of this film went on to do the criminally underseen narrative feature Rocket Science in 2007.
3. Why We Fight
I suppose the reason this analysis of the military-industrial complex resonates with me so well is that it fits my fairly cynical world view when it comes to conflict. With lines like “When war is that profitable, you’re going to see a lot more of it,” and facts like every part of a stealth bomber being built in a different state so no senator dare oppose it, Eugene Jarecki draws a fairly dismal, albeit complex picture, with the Iraq War as only the latest iteration of a very old routine. More here.
It’s not the best rock doc ever made. It’s probably not even in the top twenty. But I love it anyway. Phil Jouanou’s energetic camera really captures the epic scope of this period of U2’s evolution. And the music doesn’t suck, either. This is the movie that got me into U2 in the first place. After seeing it at the Senator theater in Baltimore I went and got pretty much everything they’d done. And to this day, I’m still their bitch.
This is the one documentary that fills me with unfettered patriotism. It does this without pandering, stating just the facts. In most docs, that’s a recipe for depression. But this manages to present the moon landing in a context that provides hope for the future, taking something that I figured was a dead issue and turning it into a rallying point for a new tomorrow. More here.
In which I give you a tour of the packing in progress…
Update: The DVDs have been packed, but a healthy reserve have been put into a DVD wallet for easy access.
The big story this weekend was, of course, Space Chimps, which managed to gross $7.4 million instead of the anticipated $7.3 million.
Oh, and The Dark Knight did okay, I guess.
It is very gratifying, actually, to see a movie with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes beat the opening weekend record set by a movie with a 61% rating.
Oh, and if you haven’t watched this yet, get on that. Be sure to watch the HD option. It’s worth it. (Same goes for this if you haven’t seen it yet.)
7/25
Wide
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are the title.
WILL IT SUCK?
Understand, there are good Will Ferrell movies and bad Will Ferrell movies. Some of the better ones (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, The Landlord) were co-written by Ferrell and Adam McKay and directed by McKay. So was this one. It’s also interesting to see Reilly get a story credit here, as it’s interesting to watch him re-invent himself as the Big Budget Comedy Sidekick instead of his previous gig as the Low Budget Drama Guy Who Gets Shit On.
Early buzz is good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Some of the better performing Ferrell flicks have also been Ferrell/McKay outings. $112mil.
THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Mulder! Scully! Aaah!
WILL IT SUCK?
They’ve got Chris Carter directing and co-writing with long-time X-Files scribe Frank Spotnitz, so it’s coming from the heart. It’s also a stand-alone, monster-of-the-week ep, which should suffer less from convolution. And it’s got Xzibit. What more do you want?
Early buzz is good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
For better or worse, X-Files is its own thing and doesn’t really suffer from competition. And the residual audience is stronger than you might think, especially if they don’t have to deal with the mythology which, by the end, had become a mess. $84mil.
Limited
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Doc profiling several teens at a midwestern high school.
WILL IT SUCK?
It’s very good. Infectious even. More here.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The The Wackness of summer docs. $7mil.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Kid commits horrible crime. After he gets out of jail, tries to start over as an adult. You can guess how well that goes.
WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. From the writing/directing team behind Intermission. Apparently on British TV first, as it was nominated for a bunch of BAFTA TV awards, taking home Best Actor and Best Director.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Not much to make this stand out. $1mil.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Remember when you were talking about Brideshead and I was all, “Let’s revisit that later.” I wasn’t bullshitting.
WILL IT SUCK?
I’m more psyched than I probably should be given my lack of enthusiasm for literary adaptations. But when you put Michael Gambon, Emma Thompson and Matthew “If this doesn’t break him, Watchmen will” Goode in the same flick, I pay attention. Not to mention that one of the scribes here penned the 400-hour-plus-but-you-should-see-it-anyway BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and the other co-wrote The Last King of Scotland. The director has done loads of British TV (Cracker, Touching Evil) and last year’s Becoming Jane.
Early buzz is good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Once it hits wider release, look for this to be the August counterpunch to all the suck. $11mil.
Next Week: Is Jet Li my Mummy?
At the advance screening for The Dark Knight (rhapsodic review here), I met Philadelphia Weekly writer Alli Katz, who has a very cool blog. It reminds me of Spamusement and The Wolverine Daily, where a blogger takes a cool idea and just runs with it.
MTV brought music videos into this world, then replaced them with The Hills. As such, we might expect their now nearly decade-old foray into film production to be equally shoddy.
But it is not.
Sure, they’ve had their share of crap…
Pootie Tang
Crossroads
The Fighting Temptations
But they also made…
Election
The Wood
Better Luck Tomorrow
The Original Kings of Comedy
Save the Last Dance
Orange County
Tupac Ressurrection
Napoleon Dynamite
Blades of Glory
Their batting average critically is probably no better or worse than most production companies, but that’s the thing. It’s MTV. It should suck balls. The generation that grew up with them is used by now to turning up our noses up at them. But they’ve held their own.
A low opinion of MTV might also suggest a blunt-force financial strategy along the lines most Hollywood studios which says, “Make dumb movies that make a lot of money.” But only two of their films have broken $100 million domestically (Blades of Glory and The Longest Yard).
MTV Films’ business plan seems to be much more like that of an independent arm of one of those Hollywood studios. “Make movies that don’t cost a lot of money, but have an audience large enough to make that money back. They can be smart, too, if you like.” They’re kind of like Teen Paramount Vantage (also owned by Viacom).
Of course, they’re also behind the upcoming Friday the 13th and Warriors remakes, so what the hell do I know?