'We are Link Bob-Omb'

Today is Irish beauty and movie star Maureen O'Hara's 90th birthday. Oh, don't look so surprised Maureen! Ya know I love you though it's true I rarely talk about you herein. Hmmm, how to remedy? I'm beyond thrilled that you're still with us and I love you with great heaping muchness. xoxo, a fan.

Where were we? Linkage!

I went a little crazy today because I was catching up on my web browsing and some actual reading (gasp). Enjoy.

SLATIFR Dennis Cozzalio interviews Self Styled Siren. Terrific read if you love erudite movie lovers and I do, I do, I do. Can't wait for part 2.
ToH! Julia Roberts back on top, even at #2
Heroine Content on the women in Scott Pilgrim vs the World and one distasteful element.
Totally Looks Like James Buchanan totally looks like John Lithgow!Movie|Line Wish Michael Douglas well, he's got a tumor in his throat.
i09 Jason Schartzmann on his villain role in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

It's kind of hard to be in a room and every time you get punched or hit people applaud. You're kind of like "wait, wait, wait it's fake I'm nice, I'm NICE!"

Ha. Fun movie that.
PopEater is Neil Patrick Harris thinking of quitting showbiz? Eek.
The Wrap says we need more female action heroes. Which we do. But there's a strange suggestion here that Angelina Jolie has just become one with Salt. Uh, that happened many years ago -- Jolie as badass, not Jolie as Salt.
Salon When should a director stop messing with their earlier films? "Serial recutter" Michael Mann has a new version of Last of the Mohicans (1992) out for home consumption.
Maurice's Blog Batgirl! I can't tell you how much I obsessed over Yvonne Craig as a wee kid so I relate.


Nick's Flick Picks is about to debut what sounds like a fascinating and sorely needed new "grading" system. Maybe everyone will copy this!
/Film new photos from Sofia Coppola's Somewhere.
MNPP JA finally sees the Johnny Depp Pretty in Cry Baby. Funny post.
Dave Kehr a new Kim Novak box set with five films.
Scanners a beautiful and enthusiastic piece on The Kids Are All Right and how expertly judged the filmmaking is: editing, shotwork, etcetera
Movie Dearest on the DVD rerelease of Orlando and the ageless Tilda Swinton
Blog Stage "Matthew McConaughey Can't Stand Up By Himself" Hee. I've never noticed this before but GLENN did last year as Vertigo reminds us in the comments. Glenn is brilliant. I wish I'd started my "posterized" series a year ago and beat him to it.

To Sing and Die in L.A.

Glenn from Stale Popcorn here to share some thoughts on 2004, the current year of retrospective here at The Film Experience.

Two of my favourite films from 2004 share Los Angeles as a setting. One is about a serial killer driving around the streets in a taxi while the other is about lesbian musicians trying to catch a break. So the similarities pretty much end there. I like to imagine that they filmed right around the corner from each other and that they accidentally caught each other on film. Hiding in the background.


The first title I speak of is Michael Mann's Collateral. Perhaps the best pure thriller of the decade, the film is noteworthy for many reasons. First and foremost there is the decade-topping cinematography by Paul Cameron and Dion Beebe. Truly an awe-inspiring piece of camerawork there, don't you agree? Expressions like "I've never seen that on screen before" are just kept for James Cameron, okay! But other than that the film is just a really great thriller. Fast-paced, sleek and effective while also giving us plenty in the way of technical and actor prowess. Collateral was originally set in New York City and if it were made in NYC of the 1980s then it could've been just as good, but I think LA was the right home for this one.

The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Editing and Jamie Foxx got nominated for Best Supporting Actor. If I had a say it would've gotten nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and, depending on the day, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Foxx and Jada Pinkett-Smith respectively. Depending on the day! My favourite moment of the movie? When Tom Cruise's hired assassin trips over a desk chair! Whoops! It looks so completely by accident and genuine.


The other 2004 LA-set film I wanted to mention was Prey for Rock and Roll. It's not an expertly made film, but it's an entertaining one and one that has an addictive raw edge to its portrayal of a struggling band. Unlike most of these movies where the band or singer is so tailor-made for stardom that you can predict the scene where a record manager spots them, the band in Prey for Rock and Roll, with Gina Gershon on vocals and lead guitar, is exactly the sort of band you'll find struggling to play pub gigs for the rest of their lives.

I particularly like that they sound like they're from the wrong era. Sounding like a mix of Hole and L7 with a bit of Curve thrown in despite being set in the 1980s. Although, while I wasn't in LA at the time, perhaps that's where that style was originating, in which case the film has another interesting dimension. Clam Dandy, the band within the film, probably would have gone on to release one album to immense critical acclaim with a cult following, but would have then followed that with Billboard-seeking mainstream hooks and would eventually peter out before breaking up and forming side-projects. The title track and "Every Six Minutes" are fine examples from the original songs on the soundtrack and even if they aren't presented within the film in any spectacular production numbers, they are great songs to have pop up on an iPod every now and then. Bonus points for Lori Petty!

Sir Links-a-Lot

Vanity Fair How the Fantastic Mr. Fox puppets were made. Cool slides
Boy Culture From Queer to Eternity
fourfour on Precious. I wish I'd read this days ago. Beautiful piece that will hopefully slap some people silly who have wanted to condemn this movie for existing.


Cinema Blend Romola Garai's Spider-Man surprise
Los Angeles Times good piece on Sir Ian McKellen (The Prisoner) on Gandalf, gay rights and Macbeth
The Auteurs looking back at Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans and seeing a conflict of movies within
In Contention Brenda Blethyn London River FYC
Awards Daily Christian McKay Me and Orson Welles FYC
Silly Hats Only remembers François Ozon's 8 Women

About this trailer to Leap Year, Amy Adams next romantic comedy...



I'm not one of those people who likes to trash romantic comedies, especially not before I've seen them. Like any genre it can contain brilliance as well as trash. But it really does seem like Hollywood isn't even trying anymore. People liked to bag on romantic comedies even when they were popular (like in the 90s) but even those films didn't take such lazy shortcuts of having the right guy be so obviously superior to any other guy who might be in the movie. [tangent: Hello, Matthew Goode too Good! Good as in Great. I just saw A Single Man and his perfect human specimen thing makes more sense from beyond the grave]. For instance, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle. He was a sweet guy. If anything he's more attractive than Tom Hanks. You feel for him when he realizes he's not the right one for Meg Ryan and yet that doesn't interfere with your joy in watching the movie stars get together at the end. Trust the audience. They aren't dumb. They aren't as dumb as you think.

Oh and way to give away the ending, trailer. Couldn't you have flashed a spoiler warning?
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'Txt Critic' Takes Aim at Public Enemies (Negative)

'Txt Critic', my frequent anonymous review donor, has apparently become drunk on his power to reach millions of Film Experience readers (shut up! Let me dream). He has abandoned his habit of one or two sentence text reviews of future releases. Now I'm getting full paragraphs by e-mail. I'll have to change his handle. Here he is on Michael Mann's summer drama Public Enemies.

Warning: He doesn't like it and doesn't mince words

Glossy, somewhat stylish, good production value and all that, but almost completely inert. I wasn't "bored," and it's not a complete and utter failure, but it's probably the least interesting movie Michael Mann's ever made. There is zero character definition. No one has an arc of any sort -- we learn NOTHING about any of the three central characters -- and the "action" isn't particularly compelling, at least not enough to compensate for the complete dearth of emotion or thematic complexity. It's the height of "this happened, and then this happened..." storytelling, without ever giving us a reason to care. There's a couple well-shot shootouts/carchases, but the movie's never EXCITING, and Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale are playing completely flat, undefined, static characters. Dillinger (Depp) robs banks. What do we learn about him over the course of the movie? He's nice and won't take civilians' money. That's all we get. Purvis (Bale) wants to catch Dillinger. Why is he so driven? We don't know. He's told right at the beginning of the movie by J. Edgar Hoover "catch Dillinger" and that's about it. He never grows "obsessive" or shows us what's lurking behind the curtain (i.e. making the character interesting) -- he just wants to catch Dillinger. There's no parallels between the two, they have no real back-and-forth, we aren't shown comparisons and contrasts.

We don't get a clue why Billie (Cotillard) and Dillinger care about each other, we just see them kiss occasionally. Depp gets one quick scene of humanity, Cotillard gets two, and boring Bale gets none -- there's a lot of hollow brooding and flat delivery here. I read some interview where Mann said he had Depp lay himself "bare emotionally" for this part or some such remark -- horseshit. This might be the laziest performance Depp's given in the last decade

Um, Ouch. And so hot on the heels of his birthday, too. Have you no heart?

Without the occasional cool music track and the clear, crisp, digital look of the film, we'd get almost no stamps of Mann. There might be some Mann apologists on this one, but I think response is going to be overwhelmingly muted, if not outright dismayed.

I asked him where he falls on the Mann-Fann spectrum and he claims he's generally a devotee. "I even like Ali and Miami Vice" he assures. Another confirmed Mann junkie, In Contention's Kris Tapley has already expressed a (very) positive reaction. Perhaps it'll be a divisive picture? I had thought we were looking at our earliest real Oscar contender but then Up happened. If Enemies does disappoint, we might not see any of the Oscar players that will pop Up's balloon (prepare yourself kids. If even WALL•E couldn't do it...) until October or November.

Public Enemies opens on Wednesday, July 1st.

April Showers: Miami Vice

In between Michael Mann (Public Enemies) movies I always forget that I really like his work. If you could reach into one of his movies you would be able to feel something... a cold surface maybe, vibrations from a loud noise or a drop of sweat hitting you. He has a real gift for atmosphere and texture. And apparently he has a thing for sex in the shower since two of Miami Vice's three big sexual scenes take place there.

The first shower scene is basically relationship detail. The music is soothing and we're just observing the easy intimacy of co-workers/lovers Naomi Harris's Trudy and Jamie Foxx's Tubbs.


The second shower scene is curious. We've spent several minutes watching Gong Li's Isabella and Colin Farrell's Sonny fall in love/lust (same thing in the movies on account of time is sped up). They've just realized that their relationship is a bad idea. Or maybe they've just decided it's a good idea to vocalize that obvious conclusion. The shower scene following this announcement begins oddly though it follows the same structure as the first shower scene. The man is lost in thought or zoning out, as one sometimes does when the hot water is drumming into one's skin. The woman enters and the intimacy begins. Only this time the music moves into ominous chords as we see Gong Li approaching the shower. She's all blurry like killers are as they approach shower curtains.

She tears open the shower curtain in a rather violent edit. It's the cinematic language of threat. Michael Mann is trying to ratchet up the tension in this dangerous affair (they're violent business partners and Sonny is also an undercover cop and could bring her down) but there's something about the shower entrance that feels little cheap. Like a 'Boo! Gotcha... she's just there for more nookie' red herring.

It probably shouldn't have tipped that threatening. After all, what's threatening about showering with Gong Li or Colin Farrell? Unless you have a heart condition, jump in and grab the soap!


But I love that Michael Mann is determined to keep the audience off balance. This next bit works better. He's been pulling us into the relationship and then suddenly, he's pushing away. The lovers kiss and stare and Isabella whispers something into Sonny's ear. See, we can ogle. We can practically touch the wet tendrils of hair clinging to hot skin but we're not allowed any closer. We're no longer privy to this conversation.

[Come see the new blog. We'll renew this series in April]
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These Films Are Not Yet Reviewed (Pt 1)

Time for some Spring er...End of Summer OK OK Early Fall Cleaning. Geez, this year is zooming by. Time to address the movies I never wrote about whilst the guilt is (productively?) consuming me. Herewith notes on films I haven't been talking about. [Shortbus, Little Children and The Black Dahlia get their own posts soon.]

Let’s just do these in alpha order.

Idlewild. There’s a couple of highly choreographed musical numbers that are good fun but everything surrounding them is dead weight. No matter how tricked up the film is with idiosyncratic visual flourishes like moving freeze frames and talking alcohol flasks, this movie just can’t stay energized. The story is dull. The acting is bland. D+

Lady in the Water. Remember when it became clear that Michael Jackson had completely bought into his own myth: the statues of himself on album covers, the royal moniker, the ‘leave me alone but worship me’ persona. M Night Shyamalan might as well be moonwalking or wearing one sparkly glove. He’s locked himself into his own Neverland. Instead of a castle, it’s a movie. Though I hesitate to even call Lady in the Water a movie. It’s more like a radio show in that the camera is, for the first time in a Shyamalan movie, almost beside the point. This movie is basically a string of scenes of various characters telling you the story or, rather, pieces of the story. The story seems to be made up on the spot thereby escaping those pesky screenwriting demands of interior logic, structure, and audience accessibility (which you’d think would be sacred for a filmmaker that fancies himself a populist). Unlike Shyamalan’s other films which invite you to play along to some degree this one keeps you forever in the dark. You can’t ever join in because there’s so much withholding and backtracking and sudden “oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you this part” cheap evasions.

Lady in the Water is like a drowning victim that thinks itself a lifeguard. The water is all of the M Night’s worst instincts. The only thing that’s not incomprehensible, maddening, and immature about this film is that it does have a bit of a sense of humor. Thanks for small favors. D (when I’m in a good mood) F (when I’m not)

The Last King of Scotland . While most of the acclaim surrounding this film attachs itself barnacle like to Forest Whitaker’s massive frame, there’s more going on within that a baity biopic portrait. Everything you’ve heard about Whitaker is true: he’s frightening, funny, and practically possessed by the spirit of Idi Amin. But the rest of this film is good, too. At first it appears to be just your typical liberal white guilt epic (wherein you see the plight of minorities through the eyes of a white do-gooder) but what’s shifty and superb about The Last King is the way it doesn’t even pretend heroism in its protagonist, Amins personal physician (a sly and nimble James McAvoy) but rather gives him to you warts and all. Some people read the film as a racist tract about a scary black man but its flexible enough as a movie to offer other ways of looking at it. I saw it more as an indictment of ignorant and clumsy Western intrusiveness. Doesn’t the doctor in fact make the situation worse as the film progresses? I’m not sure that The Last King of Scotland knows how to connect all of its strong pieces into one devastating whole, but even when it oversells its own merits (take the sound editing for example: lots of loud whispering to denote paranoia –uh huh, got it.) it’s impressively scrappy and forceful. B

Miami Vice. Michael Mann’s adaptation of his own hit television series is too ambitious and plotty for its own good but however lacking it is in the storytelling department, it’s got some good setpieces, inspired tech touches, and atmosphere to spare. Plus, there's a restrained and effective performance from Colin Farrell and a lived-in "team" feeling from the ensemble cops that is sadly lacking from most action films. Worth a rental. B