As I've said before, this blog is in slowdown for a while, but even more so with the election upon us. It's affecting us in all sorts of ways (from horrible panic to sleeplessness to random outbreaks of crying), but it's not just me and Canyon, and maybe Masticator, who I'm sure would be grateful for some event to take Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross off the front pages of the UK papers.
The election has also affected the reincarnated half-Thanagarian reality-anomaly/sock monkey hybrid who is keeping the streets of our town safe at night. I think he's felt strongly about this election for a long time now, but is only now endorsing Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America.
After many threats and demands, Canyon and I carved that Halloween pumpkin for Hawkmonkey, as his sock hands are not built for sensitive work like that. They're perfect for cracking heads, though, hence our fear.
We used a variety of knives and a screwdriver (no pumpkin sculpting tools around, sadly, which meant we had to improvise, McGyver-style), as well as the evil FridgeKiller, the knife that stabbed a deadly hole in our fridge recently. It didn't do any damage to anything other than the pumpkin, which makes a change, after a recent bagel-slicing task ended in blood and tears. That goddamn knife is possessed.
I must admit, I was reluctant to do this for Hawkmonkey. Regular readers may remember my early support for the Rufus T. Firefly / Dickie Pilager ticket, but that faltered a while ago, what with it being revealed that Firefly is a Freedonian by birth, and therefore ineligible to run, and Pilager, after taking over the campaign, could never get past his association with the evil industrialist Wes Benteen. A shame. Firefly's pro-eating-crackers-in-bed / anti-whatever-it-is philosophy is exactly what the world needs right now, but these silly rules just got in the way. As a result, much as I don't want to, I'm forced to throw my support and formidable political influence behind the duo of Merkin Muffley and Bob Roberts.
I'm not sure they're good for the USA, but Muffley reminds me of my nervy, ineffectual self, and I'm reassured to know that Bob Roberts is there to run things from the sidelines, and after the last eight years we all know that a powerful, sneaky, vicious and immmoral vice-president is vital. Plus, he's a kickass musician. Know hopelessness!
A little while ago Canyon and I were discussing Sydney Pollack, and if I recall correctly I went on at length about a documentary I had seen broadcast on BBC2 (it might have been an installment of Naked Hollywood, though that doesn't sound quite right). Sydney Pollack was interviewed about his directorial method, along with Joe Dante and John Sayles. I told Canyon about how I had come away from it with far more respect for Dante and Sayles, as the former was hilarious and unpretentious, and the latter was stoic even while seemingly exhausted by his attempts to create difficult and politically distinct movies outside a studio system that would never let his movies get released. They were inspiring, talking about low-budget filmmaking and how hard it was to get funding, but Pollack seemed to be a bad fit for that show, being part of the system that Dante and Sayles had railed against.
It was weird hearing the other two talk about their troubles while Pollack chatted amiably about how he had edited scenes in Havana, the boring, bloated, and pricey Robert Redford vehicle he had been working on at the time, seemingly taking for granted that he was in a position to make films that were expensive award-baiting prestige projects while other artists were struggling to get films made to the extent that Dante had to don scuba-diving gear for a shot in Piranha even though he had had no training with it. I came away thinking ill of Pollack.
It wasn't really fair of me to do that, and I feel pretty crappy for not giving him the benefit of the doubt already, and even more so now that he has sadly passed away. I doubted him for not having the political commitment of John Sayles, but even if I never could understand why something as slick and empty as Havana needed to be made, this is the guy who directed Three Days of the Condor, one of my favourite thrillers, which has a paranoid plot that, when I rewatched it recently, amazed me with its accidental topicality (CIA ineptitude, oil wars, assassinations, etc.). He also directed Absence of Malice, a terrific drama about journalistic ethics. I could only have thought of him as being a glossy Hollywood director if I decided to ignore the more challenging films in his filmography, instead focusing on his bland dramas, like Random Hearts and Sabrina.
That said, as a director I sometimes found his choices perplexing. Why make Havana? Why remake Sabrina? Why bother adapting The Firm? I remember the film critic for The Mirror once referring to that movie as "Two hours of Tom Cruise running towards the camera while looking worried", which sums it up perfectly. Also, why did he get Dave Grusin to do the soundtrack? It needed more than tinkly pianos to create tension in that most flaccid and uninvolving of legal dramas (I place the blame at John Grisham's feet, not Pollack's. He did his best with some dreadful material). It was all very peculiar.
Perhaps those movies are other reasons why I had my silly preconceptions, but I should have been more forgiving. While he was directing movies that seemed worlds away from his early, challenging work (e.g. Jeremiah Johnson, Castle Keep, They Shoot Horses, Don't They), he was also one of Hollywood's most interesting producers. Just this week HBO showed Recount, the dramatisation of the theft of an entire country (figuratively speaking) that he had produced. In recent years he had teamed up with Anthony Minghella to produce a series of interesting (or potentially interesting) films; Minghella's own post-English Patient movies, Philip Noyce's Catch A Fire and The Quiet American, Kenneth Lonergan's forthcoming Margaret, and Tom Tykwer's Heaven, not to mention his solo work on Ira Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue and George Clooney's Leatherheads. His support for outsider movies made within the studio system (or rather their "independent" production houses) was commendable. How many of these unorthodox projects would have been made without his clout behind them?
Even while being foolishly dismissive of his fascinating work as a producer, I still derived pleasure from his acting work, especially when playing seemingly approachable authority figures who have a sinister heart, as in Eyes Wide Shut, Changing Lanes, and Michael Clayton. As shown in those movies, his forte was the role of the pragmatic, seemingly down-to-earth managerial type who would eventually stab you in the front and then passionately explain why he was in no way responsible for your death, blaming it instead on your inability to understand the corporate line. That said, my favourite performance is from his most entertaining movie, Tootsie, which is one of those movies I would include on my "Perfect" list. Here is his funniest moment, tearing a strip off pre-drag Dustin Hoffman.
It's a testament to his gift for comedy that he had several guest roles on sitcoms to his name. So what am I saying here? That I feel really really bad for not giving the guy the benefit of the doubt while he was alive. Good director with a fascinating filmography, terrific and likeable actor, defender of offbeat "independent" cinema. It's a shame I'm only just realising that now. RIP, Sydney Pollack. You shall be missed.
The first actual real proper trailer for El Hombre Incredible has arrived, and sadly it's apparent that the rumours that Edward Norton and Marvel are fighting over final cut are true. Those of us waiting to see a proper Hulk movie will be very disappointed by this new light comedic take, with Norton now playing Banner as a Catholic priest, Tim Roth playing a Rabbi instead of a gamma-irradiated monster, and both of them fighting over a recast Jenna Elfman who converts to Judaism at the end of the film. Lots of spirited discussion about religion, not so much with the Hulk Smash. See for yourself.
Okay, so it's only a teaser, but I really doubt this will interest many but the most excitable fanboys. That said, it's opening the same week as The Happening, which also might not interest audiences, driving everyone to see the green priest movie in the hopes that someone will get hit in the head with a car. That theory depends on the oft-unquestioned belief that every weekend during summer millions of people will always feel compelled to go to the cinema. For all we know they'll just stay home, crank up the A/C, and rewatch either Signs or the Ang Lee Hulk. Either way, it's cheaper than a trip to the local multiplex.
I'm on the fence about Ed Norton. I appreciate he is obviously very talented, but for some inexplicable reason I can't muster the enthusiasm for him that other people seem to. The two performances I like most by him are Fight Club (where his face is obscured by blood and scars for a lot of the film) and Kingdom of Heaven (where his face is obscured by a big mask for all of the film), so perhaps I just have a problem with his face, which is my failing and shame on me. I also get the blues thinking about his habit of fiddling with the films he appears in. Dude, if you want to be a perfectionist, hurry up and get Motherless Brooklyn going. Leave everyone else alone.
He's also producing a documentary about Barack Obama right now, which will either be a historical document of immense import or a depressing curio, depending on how America votes. Normally I'd keep my cards close to my chest and not talk about politics, but earlier this week, after I discovered the Amazon tag system, looked at the scary covers of several books that are Amazon tagged as "editor promised cake", and I suddenly realised that I was wrong all along. Liberals are desperately eager for dirty bombs to blow up right in our faces because they hate life and money and want us all dead and poor, in that order, which leads me to unhitch myself from the Obamanon wagon and put my support behind the hot independent duo of Rufus T. Firefly and Dickie Pilager on the "Wait 'Til I Get Through With It" ticket. (Sorry Canyon, I know your political heart lies elsewhere!)
Enough with the politics. I may have been severely underwhelmed by that trailer, but just to prove I was on the right tracks, the latest trailers for Speed Racer and Wall*E appear to have made some of the internet doubters rethink their annoying hatery. I'm not 100% crazy about the Wall*E trailer, thinking the propulsive music doesn't go well with some of the comedy asides shoved in towards the end, but visually it's still astonishing, and it shows some of the reportedly enormous scope of the film. Speed Racer, on the other hand, looks better than ever. That trailer is already one of my favourites of the year, and features the phrase, "Cool beans!", which makes me love it even more. Hopefully all of the fanboys who have been crying about it being a "kids" movie (ugh) will cease their yappeting and get onboard now.
ETA: Speed Racer trailer!
Speed seems like a young Ricky Bobby at the start.
