In the blistering heat of a New Mexico afternoon, a 1978 Chevy Silverado pulls into the bare parking lot of a bowling alley.  Out of the vehicle stumbles a gruff middle-aged man who stares in disappointment at the shabby facility, grumbles a curse, and reaches back in the vehicle for an old plastic bottle half-full of urine; he dumps it on the pavement before slamming the car door, taking a swig of McClure’s, and walking toward the alley.  This is “Bad” Blake – country star of yesteryear – and this is his gig for the night.

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Besides injecting  fashion sense, it appears the man who once saved Gucci can proverbially plunge his poetic syringe into the hearts and minds of  moviegoers.
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Great Britain and her citizens value the high drama of their aristocracy in equal measure to how much we Americans value our conquests in war.  American audiences look to Hollywood for jingoistic fantasies and (recently) anti-war pictures just as the Brits seem to crave costume dramas that are alternately revealing and respectful of royalty.  The Young Victoria, the most recent addition to this ever-growing category, shares both of those qualities.  
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We learn three things while watching Davis Guggenheim’s music documentary It Might Get Loud. First we learn that Jack White, though a phenomenal guitar player and one of the most innovative artists of his musical generation, is a pompous brat and quite full of shit. Second we learn that The Edge is nothing more than smoke & mirrors – the electronic man behind the Wizard’s curtain. And last, but certainly not least, we learn that Jimmy Page is still the coolest guy in Rock & Roll.
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It’s still the eighth day of Christmas, so it’s not to late to give you my gift. Are you ready?

This all started when I went to Disney’s A Christmas Carol back in November, hoping to hate it so I could write a fun review. To my surprise, it was strangely compelling, and got me thinking about Dickens’ story and how it’s been adapted ad nauseam. I made up my mind: I would read through the story, and then watch every adaptation I could get my hands on. Some of them were quite good. Some of them were nauseating. Read on for the results…

THE TEN BEST:

10. Scrooged (1988)

All I could think of when watching this one was “This is really weird.” And it is. And it might not even be that good, but it was definitely different enough to stick in my head. Bill Murray plays a TV exec haunted by spirits that include a golf-obsessed zombie (in the Jacob Marley role) and a fairy with a penchant for beating people up (as the Ghost of Christmas Present). The pacing is off, and the humor is hit-and-miss, but I imagine it gets better with repeat viewings. It’s not too hard to see why this one’s a cult favorite.
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Well, half a movie is better than none at all, right? I hope for Nora Ephron’s sake (and the sake of all those who sat through her latest) that is true, because half a movie is just what we get with her latest candy-coated confectionary, Julie & Julia. On the one hand, half of this bipolar motion picture is a vibrant and joyous movie about love, passion and French cuisine, starring the effervescent über-actress almighty, Meryl Streep, walloping out a pitch perfect portrayal of the ever-fascinating “Lady of the Ladle” Julia Child. On the other hand, Ephron’s typically underwhelming will-o’-wisp filmmaking style lends to the other half of her film being an annoying, and quite cloying, middle management kind of affair, featuring the usually dependable Amy Adams as wouldbe back door cook and average cubicle cutter, turned dogged blogger Julie Powell. It is a tale of two women – one weak, one strong, one a powerhouse, one a sniveling wannabe, one an ingenue, one Meryl “freakin” Streep – and no matter how hard poor Miss Adams, or for that matter, poor schmucky Miss Powell, tries, never these twains shall meet.
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The opening scene in The Bad Lieutenant shows a sizeable water moccasin swimming within the murky water of an abandoned police precinct. The deluge that has consumed a domicile of justice has seemingly washed the safety of New Orleans away due to the effects of hurricane Katrina.
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Elegantly shot and with a luscious, almost dreamy feel – as if we bear silent witness to the inner workings of protagonist Jenny’s sixteen year old fantasy world – director Lone Scherfig’s An Education is a visual wonder to behold at times. The film is draped in period lucidity (set In the post-war, pre-Beatles London suburbs according to the official Sony press release) while also dripping with a fantastical cinematic fluidity – as if we have been dropped into the perfect incarnation of early 1960’s London while also are assuredly watching an imaginary filmic version of that same said early 1960’s London. Scherfig, whose most well known work is the sentimentally acerbic, but not overtly cinematic, Dogme entry, Italian For Beginners from nine years past, creates a mood here with her camera that shows specks of the visual pinings of both Scorsese (when he’s not riddling his whirling dervish camera with blood) and the enigmatic portraitist Wong Kar-wai. In essence, a sumptuous dewey-eyed look at the innocence (or seeming innocence) of long ago days.
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It’s strange to think about it in an era when it’s impossible to escape the ubiquitous “Disney Princess” brand, but the venerable animation studio produced all of three princess-themed films during Walt Disney’s 40-ish year tenure there. Of the nine princesses included in the standard lineup, six are from the last 20 years (that translates to twice as many princesses, in half the time, for those of you keeping score). Why the sudden flood? A lot of it has to do with the studio’s one creative genius passing on and leaving his place open to businessmen. The Little Mermaid was a hit in 1989, so the studio continued to base their films on the same formula: plucky, independent princess; dashing-but-bland hero; goofy comic relief sidekicks; ugly villain; six Broadway-style songs; lots of cleavage.
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It’s Christmas time, and that means the public is 67% more likely to go to a movie if it has a Christmas tree on the poster. Okay, I just made that fact up, but it sounds plausible, right? And I guess the promoters behind Everybody’s Fine thought so, hence the Christmas tree on the poster. So, just in case it really is that important to you to see a Christmas movie, I guess I should warn you that Everybody’s Fine is not, in fact, a Christmas movie. Actually, it’s a loose remake of the 1990 Italian movie of the same title, and just like it, it’s set in the summertime.
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Few films rival the rythmic pacing of well executed poetry, few films induce gasp and tears and laughs; few films leave a stain on your mind and create forums for discussion. Few films are like the gem that is Precious.
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Wait, Wes Anderson is trying something new?
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I’ll admit from the start that I don’t quite know how to write about Joel and Ethan Coen’s new film A Serious Man, but I’ll begin with a few things I know for sure.  I know that this is a hysterically funny movie and that it made me laugh so hard that my stomach started to ache.  I know that it is very personal on the part of the filmmakers and that it is perfectly executed for just that reason.  I’m confident that it achieves a polished completeness and finality that many directors only dream of.

But do I understand it?  I wish.  
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For all those who contemplated what a domestic sitcom would be like if it were directed by someone like Luis Bunuel, along comes the pitch black Chilean comedy The Maid. Filmed in the director’s actual childhood home and at least partially based on his own childhood memories, Sebastian Silva’s The Maid is the story of the life-long, live-in maid of a well-to-do Santiago family who we first meet in what very well may be the zygotic beginnings of a nervous breakdown. The film is a revelation of erratic psychosensual characterization. Bunuelian indeed.
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There are few things that Walt Disney Pictures wears more proudly on its sleeve than its complete and utter lack of new ideas. Not only is Walt’s legacy based almost entirely on adapting literature and folklore, but since his death the studio has repeatedly cannibalized its own past with an almost frightening relish. The relentless remaking began with Robin Hood in 1973 — a retreading of the studio’s 1952 feature The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, and the very first (!!!) animated feature produced following Walt’s death — and has only sped up since, with everything from The Absent-Minded Professor to Treasure Island receiving multiple versions, and all of them with a slew of sequels, even if they have to spit on a few graves to get them made. (Fun fact: Louis Prima’s widow actually sued to keep the King Louie character he created out of The Jungle Book 2.)

With that in mind, I guess it’s no surprise that the Mouse House has deigned to grace us with yet another version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, that classic tale that everyone in the entertainment industry has already raped into oblivion. For anyone keeping score, this is the third version of the tale to have the Disney branding stamped on it (which really shows a surprising amount of restraint on their part, all things considered), the other two being 1983’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol and 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol (which actually may be one of the best adaptations of the story ever — not that you asked). This new version, while not un-gimmicky, eschews the Mr. Magoo-inspired shoehorning in of extraneous characters, and has been titled simply (and perhaps somewhat resignedly) Disney’s A Christmas Carol.
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Weaves, extensions, braids, and self esteem, along with sodium hydroxide.

Wait, sodium hydroxide?

These are the follicle-altering components highlighted in Good Hair; a permed, curled, and  lazily combed documentary that examines the effects of those in the African American community.
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I’ve walked out of the movie theater smiling quite a bit this year. I’ve seen a lot of great films that all left me with something different to take home. “This is it” was no exception. It shot me with a jolt of love straight to the spirit. I’ve always been a big MJ fan ever since I was little, and the man (in spite of his personal issues) left a big impression on me. From his grooves to his moves, it all boils down to an energy that reflects positively on everyone around you. And that glow comes across vividly here.
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In Scott Hicks’ The Boys are Back, the camera swoops and soars over the Australian outback, finding a golden, carefree freedom in the vast expanses of scraggly trees and windblown grass. Then, an hour in, it suddenly runs smack into the cold, blue walls of a British boarding school and is suddenly penned in, trapped, staid. The striking contrast runs throughout the film, and is all at once stunning and silently at home in a film that is concerned primarily — if not entirely — with the essential and inescapable conflict between freedom and security. It’s a drama that will probably go largely unnoticed, but there’s no denying that it has a quiet power all its own.
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For those unitiated into the exciting world of film buffery, a “high-concept” film is defined as a movie you can sum up in a single sentence: “Giant lizard attacks Tokyo”; “Will Ferrell as an oversized elf”; “Die Hard, but on a battleship.” Stuff like that. The (extremely accurate) theory is that most Hollywood producers won’t bother to take the time to read an entire script, so you have to come up with something you can sell in a few words. The same is likely true for prospective audiences as well, so as the bean counters took over Hollywood, Hollywood was taken over by this type of fare — for good or for ill.

Ricky Gervais’ (star/writer/producer/etc. of the original British version of The Office) new vehicle, The Invention of Lying, is a prime example of a “high-concept” film — so much so that the concept itself is the title (I believe that the last time so little credit was given to audiences, snakes were on a plane). What if, the film asks, humankind had never developed the ability to state anything other than the facts? And — yes — what if one man figured out how to do otherwise? Ready? Go!
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Word-of-mouth and the Hollywood hype-machine will launch Paranormal Activity into the stratosphere (made for $11,000 and it’s already grossed $33 million) before turning around and stabbing it in the back. Overheard I’m-not-making-this-up quotes include “the second coming of horror!” and “the scariest movie of the decade!” Such hyperbole might be merited in a vacuum, but now that the cat is out of the bag (i.e., the Internet), proclaiming it The Savior of Horror will only tarnish the experience for future audiences.
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