Lazy Post Courtesy Of Barry Levinson

I'm the worst procrastinator I know. I just spent an hour pootling around on the internet instead of washing up dishes and sheets. Fair enough, but I also did that because I'm too lazy to reach over and pick up a 360 controller and play Half-Life 2, possibly because I know starting that up will mean I definitely do nothing else for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, that's some outrageous laziness, so I'll make myself feel better by writing about it. I guess this is what it is to be a blogger.

Anyway, while looking for Watchmen Comic-Con footage after being inspired by these incredible posters, I stumbled across this trailer, for Barry Levinson's new movie What Just Happened:



I'm in two minds about Levinson, who hasn't made anything I've wanted to see since Wag The Dog. He's made some stuff I hope to never see again (especially Sleepers), but Diner remains a favourite of mine, and Bugsy and Tin Men are fantastic. He does seem to have a strange selection of projects on the way, though, including yet another TV series based on Leslie Charteris' Saint novels, this time starring Thomas-Jane-clone James Purefoy, and an adaptation of Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods, with, get this, Robert Redford playing Bryson. I know!

It's written by producer Art Linson, adapting his own book. I have a copy of that somewhere, stuck under a pile of cheap second-hand sci fi and popular science books. I got it back in the days when I would read pretty much any book about the film industry, and yet that remains untouched. Even I had no stomach for something that appeared to be as self-pitying as that, and we're talking about not bothering to read a teeny-tiny 192 page book. Seriously, Art, if you don't want a job as a successful Hollywood producer, I'll trade you right now. I bet the best day on my crappy job is far less gratifying than even your worst day trying to prise the latest hot actor off the wall of his trailer.

Anyway, the movie looks like little more than the usual Hollywood navelgazing silliness, which is galling as Levinson has already plundered this well a couple of times previously. That said, there are interesting things about it, such as the cast, featuring Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn who, from the trailer, looks like she gets to play yet another miserable wife, just like in Unbreakable and Beowulf. Levinson has also managed to get the terrifying Michael Wincott to cry like a baby. For that precious image, I thank him. But hey, check it out! Is Bruce Willis channeling genius singer/songwriter Will Oldham?


Excellent. And ZOMG! It's internet search term sensation Moon Bloodgood!


Sadly, from what I can tell from the trailer, she has been cast as Miscellaneous Superhottie Doing Sexxy Things With Chopsticks, doing little more than making Art Linson feel better about himself by flirting with his onscreen representative (aka Robert De Niro). Still, at least appearing in the excellent-but-doomed Journeyman and the not-at-all-excellent-yet-equally-doomed Pathfinder is not stopping her getting work. She's also going to appear in McG's Terminator Salvation in a frighteningly good cast that includes Christian Bale, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Helena Bonham Carter, which is great news.

In less great news, she's also in Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li, which is an early contender for worst film of 2009. In the middle of a frighteningly uninspiring cast, Moon plays second fiddle to Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog (I can see that, but Grand L. Bush will probably remain the definitive Balrog), Neal McDonough as Bison (??!?!?!?), and Chris Klein as Nash. Plus, it's directed by hapless Doom helmer Andrzej Bartkowiak; Paul W.S. Anderson was obviously too busy doing post on Death Race to take the job. It's rare that a nerd-film is announced that I have no interest in, but they managed it. If it's good, I'll eat my words, lightly braised in a vowel sauce, but I don't hold out much hope.

::sigh:: I guess I should do that washing now. In the meantime, knock yourselves out with the first animated installment of Get Your War On (beware, NSFW).

Things I Learnt Today (Nov 13th)

1) Paul Verhoeven is directing the sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair and the remake of Topkapi at the same time.

No, he's not doing a Spielberg and making one while finishing the post on another film; the sequel to Thomas Crown is also the remake of Topkapi. Do you see what I did there? I've not seen Topkapi, and I can't imagine that a sequel to Thomas Crown is necessary even though it's one of those movies that's guaranteed to switch off my motor centres and fix me to the sofa whenever it comes on TV because it is so goddamn perfect. So why am I happy? Because I'm always happy when Paul Verhoeven directs movies. Except for Hollow Man (which at least featured some gutsy moments and fantastic effects), his filmography is full of classics, with special mention to Starship Troopers, a film that no less an authority than England's greatest documentarian Adam Curtis said was "the most prescient, brilliant work of the last 20 years." If you don't believe me, check out the reaction of the mother at 1:20.



Black Book, released earlier this year, was a magnificent film about personal and national morality, loyalty, and courage, told with Verhoeven's customary ballsiness and energy. There were no breasts unexposed, no obvious motifs unused, no Hitchcockian suspense sequence unHitchcocked. I can't imagine The Thomas Kapi Affair will be anywhere near as bold or imaginative or moving as that instant classic, and I'm not sure I want to see more of Fierce Pierce's heaving, glistening buttcheeks (especially now he's older and not quite as Bond-pert as he once was), but Verhoeven's earned my trust a million times over. He could direct Garfield 3: Cat in a Bread Basket and I'd still watch it.

2. Canyon makes a mean chicken piccata.

Yum! Good news for me, but bad news for her, because she's going to be cooking that a lot. Sorry, Canyon!

3. I love cheap things.

Amazon Marketplace is the worst thing in the world because it is the best thing in the world for offering cheap things, and I love buying cheap things so much that I will go on Amazon Marketplace and buy a million cheap things and pat myself on the back for buying cheap things but the postage and packing will quadruple the price and I won't notice that until I look at my bank balance a month from now and see large blobs of expenditure all over my otherwise pristine balance. This week I have bought:

* What They Did to Princess Paragon by Robert Rodi.
* Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Philip Ball.
* Gus Van Sant's Elephant.
* It's Superman! by Tom De Haven.
* Repo Man soundtrack.
* Black Swan Green by David Mitchell.
* The Angry Island by AA Gill.

Combined price prior to postage and packing: £15.90. It could just be that I'm addicted to having things pushed through my letter box and will buy any old crap that I don't need just to have that sexxy exciting adrenaline rush. I'm sure I'm not alone there.

4. We made a big mistake not watching Journeyman earlier.

We were very behind on this show, and have spent most of today catching up, and damn, it's good. Not the best show ever, but way way better than we'd hoped. Part of it is the appealing and complicated quadrangular relationship that is so much more interesting than the kiddie stuff on most other shows. The other thing is the growing realisation that the showrunners are taking the time travelling seriously. The seventh episode was like Back To The Future 2, with all the skipping back and forth and fretting about our heroic journeyman and journeywoman and whether they can cover their tracks. More on this wonderful show at a later date, I'm sure, if it doesn't get cancelled before the writers strike finishes. Oh, we also found out that co-star Moon Bloodgood (Livia the journeywoman) is shooting up the Maxim Top Hottie list. This means very little to us. I will say, that considering how "hotties" are treated on TV shows most of the time ("Stand over there with your boobs out and giggle at the protagonist."), I love that she's sensibly dressed, serious, intelligent, and mysterious. She's a very compelling character.


That said, from what we've heard, linking a picture of her from the fifth episode and merely just writing her name, Moon Bloodgood, will apparently increase the number of hits to this blog by an order of magnitude, even more so than the phrases, "Jumbleberry Crumble," or "Sonya Walger's boobs". Welcome, Moon Bloodgood fans! Hopefully you'll like it here.



5. Jamie Foxx is off the chain.

He's on an old Letterman right now (thank you Diva TV! ITV4 screwed us by taking it off, those scummy scumbags), and seriously, he's off the chain. James Brown impressions, anecdotes about operations; he's unstoppable.

6. I'm psychic.

One minute after writing that Jamie Foxx is off the chain, he said to Letterman that The Kingdom, the Peter Berg film he was promoting a month ago, was off the chain. Foxx! Get. Out. Of. My. Mind!