RIP Chris Penn, 1962-2006

This picture of Chris Penn in all his hairy-chested glory is more flattering than the one on his IMDB page that has already been used on one of the first sites to report his death. I first saw it reported on MTV News in a brief rundown of minor stories earlier tonight, and it wasn't until an hour or so later than Google News turned up something. No word yet on cause of death, but dude was only 43.

Top 10 Reasons Chris Penn was awesome:

1. He handled being the 3rd most famous Penn brother with grace and humility. Or maybe he was a bitter, egotistical ass, I don't really know.

2. He was in Rush Hour, but I tend to think of him more for his appearance as a bartender in the video from the movie's soundtrack for Jay-Z's "Can I Get A...".

3. His other notable music video role was in Sublime's "Date Rape" video, as the titular date rapist.

4. Cribbed from his IMDB page: "Is in three different movies with close-range shootout scenes at the end (Reservoir Dogs (1992), True Romance (1993), and Corky Romano (2001))."

5. He filmed a scene in True Romance right after Michael Madsen's rottweiler ripped his throat out.

6. Also cribbed from IMDB: "Originally had role in American Pie 2 (2001) as Stiffler's dad but the scenes were cut since they were not deemed to fit in with the original movie." Stifler's dad! Can you imagine that? Mabye if they hadn't cut him, he'd have gotten a spot in the straight-to-DVD American Pie Presents Band Camp with that kid who played Stifler's brother.

OK, six reasons is enough. One love, CP.

The Producers (2005)

Mel Brooks' 1968 directorial debut The Producers won him an Oscar for his original screenplay, and earned Gene Wilder his first Oscar nomination, but for years remained relatively little known compared to Brooks' later genre parodies like Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Spaceballs. But it was always a favorite in my family, and over the past few years I was pleased to see The Producers take on a second life as a hugely successful stage musical starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, which meant that finally "Springtime For Hitler" really was a Broadway smash. And since the waiting lists and ticket prices for the Broadway run meant I'd probably never get a chance to see it live, I was glad they decided to make a movie version of the musical so I could see for myself what they did with it.

Although I still highly reccomend the 1968 version to any fan of the musical, it's very clear from the jump that 2005's The Producers is a very different beast, and much more was changed in the translation to Broadway than the addition of a few more songs. But since Mel Brooks was still intimately involved in the writing of the stage book and the new screenplay, the new scenes and new jokes retain the inimitable Brooks voice of the original. And at 134 minutes, compared to the original's 88 minutes, a whole slew of new scenes and subplots are present. The role of Ulla, which was relatively small and received 7th billing in the original, is beefed up to 3rd billing for Uma Thurman's perfect performance in the new version (Uma...Ulla...Uma...Ulla...I wonder if Letterman is excited to make note of this role). And one of my favorite characters in the original, Lorenzo St. DuBois (aka L.S.D.) is gone entirely to make more room for Will Ferrell's Franz Liebkind.

At over 2 hours, The Producers definitely felt a bit overlong for a comedy, especially compared to the original's brisk pacing. Movie audiences might've benefitted from the same intermission that Broadway audiences got. But it seems as if director Susan Stroman, who also directed the play, was hesitant to cut any of the handful of songs and scenes that could've been lost. And I sometimes found myself wishing the movie didn't feel so much like a stage production minus the audience. That said, the movie had constant laughs and great performances. I'm a huge fan of Gene Wilder in the original and count it among his top 3 performances ever, and Matthew Broderick was definitely paying homage with his take on the role, although sometimes he lapsed into mere impersonation. And though Nathan Lane diverged more from Zero Mostel's perfect performance in the original, he makes the role his own, particularly in the song and dance sequences.

On first viewing, I had to get over a little of the shock of just how much the filmmakers changed from the original, but now that I know that, I look forward to enjoying the 2005 version for what it is in future viewings. And every time I started to feel as if the original spirit of the original had been tossed out the window, they preserved some small detail that I loved, like the fact that Mel Brooks once again dubbed his voice for the storm trooper who says "Don't be shtupid, be a shmarty, come and join the Nazy party!"

The Chronic of Narnia

The Chronic of Narnia Rap
Missed this when it was on SNL, hilarious.

The Iron Giant

This is easily one of the best movies in the past decade. If not the best.
As an early birthday present to myself I finally grabbed The Iron Giant special edition DVD. While I'm not nearly as interested in bonus features and such on DVDs as I used to be, I'm super happy just to have this film in my collection.
Brad Bird, the visionary behind Pixar's The Incredibles, brings Ted Hughes book to life as a visual and narrative masterwork. Its a simple tale of a robot who fell from the sky and is taken in by a young boy and taught wrong from right and bad from good. Cold War hysteria rears its ugly head and the Giant becomes the target of a government investigation with the aim of destroying him.
It sounds awfully simple and the kind of thing you'd expect from televised animation, but it really isn't. Its a well plotted and well executed film with many layers. And unlike a lot of animated movies that drop in jokes intended to fly over the kids heads for the parents, The Iron Giant never dips that low and instead treats all viewers the same and allows them to understand the characters intents and morality in a very natural way. Theres no sexist humor, no brutal violence, and certainly not sugar coated or dumbed down.
This is the thinking man's children's movie. Its a magnificent example of how fantastic a child's imagination and perception can really be. If kids really do pick up on all the bad media they take in, then its certainly possible for them to learn about being good and kind and accepting others and not jumping to conclusions from The Iron Giant.
I don't know who might read this blog entry, but I feel strongly that if you've never seen this movie, at least rent it. And watch it with a kid. Its got ET, Bambi, and Superman all wrapped up into one and has enough heart to touch a viewer of any age or background.

X3, trailer, game, and thoughts

Brett Ratner's bid to doom the franchise!
Ok, maybe not. Take away what I know about the movie from spy reports and this actually looks good. Not as killer as that first X2 teaser with Holst's "Mars" playing over the footage of the army invading the masion all with Magneto's voice-over... but its still decent. Nerd note: Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut in Magneto's army doesn't make sense since he isn't a mutant. But if we got organic webshooters, we'll get this and no-one will probably care too much.
The Xverse has some nice caps of the trailer if you can't watch it for whatever reason. I already made myself a new desktop celebrating the infamous Magneto quote from the X-Men Arcade game: Welcome To Die!

New Game Informer magazine (Splinter Cell cover) has a 6 page story about the X3 game from Activision. 3 playable characters: Wolverine (obviously), Iceman (cool!), and Nightcrawler (huh?).
The game itself bridges the gap between 2 and 3, and will feature missions returning to Alkali lake to salvage bits from Stryker's Cerebro to fix the one damaged during the assault on the mansion. Wolvie also meets up with Deathstryke who's survived, and will go to Japan (Silver Samurai?). His levels will be brawlers, taking on many enemies and taking cover only long enough to heal before pounding through more enemies.
Iceman gets very fast paced levels as he'll race around using that ice surfing trick I loved so much from the old Spiderman show. Looks like his levels will use some Sonic the Hedgehog type stuff. one of the screen shots show him using an ice blast against a fire engulfing a nuclear plant (likely Pyro's handywork).
Nightcrawler's levels will supposedly set his story out away from the action of X3, hopefully explaining away why he's not in the movie. He gets *bamf* around people, kicking them in the back and also sneak around.

Movie games are SO hit and miss these days, which is better than they used to be, which was all miss. Though I know I should prepare for another ass game linked to what may very well be an ass movie, x2 was too kind to me to just abandon it now. I still saw Batman Forever after all, but learned my lesson by Batman & Robin.

New Marvel DVDs

Ultimate Avengers is a new Direct-to-DVD release funded by Marvel. With Daredevil, Punisher, Blade, Hulk, F4, and even the X-men franchise heading for disaster, animated movies are the way to go. They still got Spider-Man I guess, but these little animated features have great potential for Marvel since they don't have to comprimise the source material at all with odd effects or casting.
I'd still pay to see a sweet World War 2 era Captain America movie. Toss in a Hugh Jackman/Logan cameo for fun...

King Kong (1933)

The original King Kong is finally available on DVD, and was also run on TCM this past week.
Having never seen this movie with the appreciation I have for cult cinema and special effects as an adult, I was shocked. I mean, this was pretty graphic, and once the action started rolling with Kong's introduction it really didn't stop. I have no idea whether Peter Jackson's fondness for storytelling or fondness for Kong fights will win out in the remake, but even in 1933 with stop motion effects, its all giant ape attacks until the very end, and its all great to watch.
I was astounded by how many people were crushed, eaten, or just chewed up and let go. Between Kong and all the dinosaurs, this had to be the biggest body count of any film of that era.
Performances were good for their time, and certainly the concept carried the picture, but this movie is quite a bit like The Wizard of Oz. Its a classic that can't really be improved upon or modernized in any fashion without losing something. PJ's remake really has more to fear from stepping out of Kong's shadow than the Rings trilogy.

Revenge of the Jedi

Never buy your DVDs at a supermarket.

Superman Returns?

Superman Returns teaser trailer is finally available. But is this really a teaser for the new movie? It uses music from the original movie as well as Marlon Brando's voice for Jor-El. The clips are clearly the new movie, but its a kinda confusing deal.
For the first time I'm wondering if Singer's boyish love of the Donner original might be more detrimental than helpful. Bah, nothing can keep me away from this movie...

Walk The Line (2005)

There's a point about a half hour into Walk The Line where Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Johnny Cash crosses over and becomes fully convincing. And for me, it was the exact moment between him stepping up to the microphone and saying "hello, I'm Johnny Cash", which didn't quite ring true to my ears, and him beginning to sing "Get Rhythm" in a near perfect Cash tone. And through the whole movie, my suspension of belief came and went, and for every shot where he struck the right pose and his voice had the right pitch, there were two where I just saw Joaquin Phoenix playing a role not unlike several he's played before. But that third of the time that he hits the mark really is something.

These days, we get glossy but lovingly detailed biopics about pop culture icons of the 20th century at least once or twice a year, and even if they're all amazing stories about incredible people, they're not all well told. Walk The Line just about does the job, but is carried far more by the acting than the storytelling. The direction of James Mangold, whose resume includes the middling mystery Identity and fucking Kate & Leopold, tells us about Cash's unique and eventful life in a fairly dull way, but it lets Phoenix's occasionally brilliant depiction of Cash lead the way and keep it interesting.

Phoenix's world class Cash is occasionally cheapened by the number of scenes featuring lesser impressions of other musical legends, like Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Jerry Lee Lewis aside, none of Cash's tourmates were depicted convincingly or had any memorable scenes. And having them in every other scene for a large chunk of the movie dragged it down and made it feel a little like those horrible made for TV movies about Jimi Hendrix or The Temptations that they rerun on VH1 all the time. Even the stunt casted Shooter Jennings barely resembled Waylon Jennings.

I'm alright with the fact that they had to Hollywood up the plot a little bit for the movie to work, but I was pretty annoyed with how they reduced Cash's life story to a love story. June Carter was, of course, a huge part of Johnny Cash's live, but I'm sure he did and said things that weren't 100% motivated by their relationship, though you wouldn't know it from watching Walk The Line. Reese Witherspoon had nearly as much screen time as Joaquin Phoenix. And as soon as she agreed to marry him and their conflicts were resolved, the damn movie was over. I do respect that choice, though, because I'm glad they didn't bother to do a heavy make-up job on Phoenix for him to portray Cash in his later years, collecting awards and recording alt-rock cover albums with Rick Rubin.

Anytime an actor portrays a singer, the question arises: let them sing or dub the original voice? Ray played it safe and let Jamie Foxx lip sync to the voice of the real Ray Charles, but in retrospect, especially after his uncanny Ray impression on Kanye West's "Gold Digger", I wish they'd let him give it a try. And I'm glad Walk The Line let Phoenix give it a try. It's clear he doesn't possess Cash's deep range naturally, but he does an admirable job anyway, and I'm sure it would've taken me out of the movie a lot more for the voice and the face not to match up than for the voice not to match up with my memory of the real Cash. And I stayed with the movie just enough to feel like I really got a feel for his life that I wouldn't have gotten from just watching the A&E Biography.

The Post-LOTR Renaissance

The Fellowship is everywhere! Look at the cast list for return of the king and click on any of their names. Pretty much all of them are working. In the past month I've seen Boromir, Frodo, and even Aragorn himself in movies. Samwise and Merry seem to be doing pretty well on TV too. And Of course demand for esteemed Gandalf and Gimli hasn't dwindled yet either.
This is the biggest troop of actors to spill onto the silver screen from a single project since Boogie Nights when Don Cheadle, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, and John C Reilly started popping up in every goddamn movie you saw.
Now I won't dismiss the cinematic contributions of Zoolander and Old School, lending the Wilson Brothers, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, and Ben Stiller to a seemingly endless parade of screwball comedies... but the Fellowship Of The Ring are hitting thrillers, dramas, horror, and comedy. Doesn't Viggo have a band too? They'll end up in musicals before long too.

Tin Men (1987)

Barry Levinson's career has been pretty spotty for a director of his stature, but he never seems to falter when he sticks to painting on the pallette he knows best: Baltimore in the 50's and early 60's, the city he grew up in during the era of his youth. From his debut, 1982's Diner, to 1999's Liberty Heights, it's a subject he keeps returning to. Where those flicks carried sentimental, autobiographical touches and centered on young guys, roughly the same age Levinson was at the time, Tin Men is about two middle-aged aluminum siding salesmen, played by Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito, who never knew each other professionally until a fender bender set off a venemous personal feud.

DeVito doesn't play against type, as essentially a more sympathetic variation on Louie DePalma, but Dreyfuss manages to cut a dashing figure in contrast to his usual anxious, nasal screen presence as the younger, single tin man. Eventually, their comic back-and-forth of revenge and oneupsmanship escalates to the point that he steals DeVito's wife and the story takes a slightly more serious, emotional turn, although the transition feels natural and not jarring or an unwelcome downer. As the battle of wills becomes a love triangle, the laughs come more from the supporting cast, including John Mahoney. In a way, movies like this (and Barton Fink and Say Anything) are a cruel reminder of the streak of great supporting roles Mahoney had before sinking a decade into one monotonous role on "Frasier" brought him to greater fame but effectively stalled his big screen career.

As a Baltimore resident, I'll always watch these movies partly just for the scenery and how it's used. And the thing about Baltimore that Levinson's period films always underline for me is that in a lot of neighborhoods on the North side, all you have to do to convincingly set the clock back 20-50 years is park a bunch of classic cars on the street. Nothing else has really changed on a lot of those blocks lined with rowhouses. Really, the only thing that takes me a little out of the story and jolts me back to 1987 is the presence of the Fine Young Cannibals in multiple club scenes. "Good Thing" was a jam, though.

Alex Garland's Million Dollar Halo Script reviewed!

Lation Review has handed down a Five Star Rating to the Halo Movie Script!
This comes directly from a critic who has not played the games, but did enough research on the back story to see if the movie fits. Obviously, it looks like we're in for a fast paced Covenant War unlike anything we've ever seen in film or games if this review is to be beleived.
I'll admit that even though I like the Halo story, its second to the action. Garland (28 Days Later) was hand picked for this project because the Covenant are religious radicals not far off in behavior from the rage zombies. And without having to factor in stuff like player difficulty and whether the processor can handle "X" many troops on screen at once, the Halo flick will likely amp up every major event from the first game. We're even going to be given battle scene with an entire Spartan army (I'm sure we'll all be looking for Spartan 458)! And thats the first scene in the movie!
Obviously, even though it'll be taking the game's story and the review only covers the first act, spoilers follow so read at your own risk.

Flight Plan (2005)

Jodie Foster is a newly single mom trapped in a confined space trying to protect her daughter from an unseen madman.
I'm talking about Flight Plan not Panic Room! This one is totally on a plane!
It wasn't a terrible movie, but if Foster is only going to do one script every 3 years, she could've picked one that wasn't so like the last. It was worth watching for a moment when the oxygen masks dropped in the plane and a random woman screamed as she realized that the rubber band on hers was broken and she couldn't put it on. Can't be sure if that was funny on purpose, but I laughed hard.
I don't think its any kind of spoiler if I say that the villain on the flight is not one of the Arabs. Honestly, Hollywood can't make an Arab bad guy on a plane now. I was kept guessing until the story revealed itself, which I'll give them credit for. I don't usually figure stuff out early but given Foster was set up as delusional early on, any clues from her perspective were kinda written off as bogus.

Prophecy (1979)

"That indian guy looks suspiciously like Frank Stallone," My fiance noted quite accurately upon Armand Assante's introduction. As you can infer, he's quite italian looking, not in the least native.
And so it was that I was witness to Prophecy, which was not The Prophecy as I'd hoped, but one of the most horribly hilarous movies I've ever seen.
So yeah, with the Halloween holiday coming up, I set my DVR to record a ton of classics off Turner Classic Movies, and the decidedly less prestigious AMC. As a standard of comparison, TCM was running Hitchcock's silent film "The Lodger" while AMC ran "Species II"
Now I don't consider "Species" to be a classic, and the sequel you can probably infer is several magnitudes worse.
Anyway, This "Prophecy" doesn't star Christopher Walken, but instead some weird beared guy, who works as an inner city doctor. He's then called upon to help settle land dispute between some lumberjacks and native americans. So while this is I guess supposed to be a fish out of water story, he looks more out of place in the city than in the woods because of his odd Mountain Man looks.
At about the half hour mark I finally realize that "hey, this is the wrong damn movie" but we're too far into it to turn back now, so we kept going.
Turns out the lumber company is poisoning the water with mercury. Mercury, which doesn't make any sense to have in the water to assist in paper production. Mercury, which causes autism in infants but apparently gigantism in tadpoles and mutant horror in bears.
Bad Movies can take it from here. You especially want to see the exploding sleeping bag.
"Prophecy" is directed by John Frankenheimer, who helmed the political classic "The Manchurian Candidate" and the Ben Affleck bomb "Reindeer Games"
I'd have to say the mutant bear ranks somewhere below Affleck.