The 81st Academy Awards

Award shows in general are nothing but big ego fests with the biggest and phoniest stars of music, stage, film and Television gathering together to show off their money, phony smiles, and big egos.

However, I am happy to report that at this year's Academy Award show all the phony smiles and the insincere adjectives were all left out on the red carpet. (I counted, 26 Fantastics- 21 Amazings and 17 Incredibles) And although some people who know more about stylish fashion than I do said some nasty things about the gowns, I thought everyone looked “mauv-a-lous.”

The show was great. Host Hugh Jackman was a real breath of fresh air. He’s an entertainment triple threat. He can do it all, sing, dance, be humorous, (as opposed to being “funny”) and of coarse he is also an actor which is appropriate for a show giving out awards for people who act. I’m so glad they got rid of those hipper than thou ridiculous comedian hosts who think they are so funny - but are not. Yes you Billy Crystal.

I thought the stage production was first rate and having five star presenters gave out the awards for best actors and supporting actors was a fantastic idea. Way to go!

The down side was Sophia Loren. Please, Sophia, you’re almost eighty, cover yourself up, - your breasts have lost their allure….and that dress…ugh. . Also, enough with the makeup. You looked like you were made of orange plastic. Age gracefully. Your best days are over. You’re no longer twenty, accept it with humility. Don‘t go on embarrassing yourself in public. Genuinely “aged” Italians are beautiful.

The biggest disappointment for me personally was Mickey Rourke. When I saw the Wrestler I said Mickey Rourke was “Randy the Ram” and I foolishly expected that Mickey Rourke had resurrected himself just as the Ram had. I thought he had finally figured it out and he was back, broken but repaired. I was totally wrong. The “new” Mickey Rourke is nothing new. He’s back on the Hollywood phony track with all engines running. He’s got the petal to the metal, getting more miles to the smiles than ever before. So much for being the real deal.

I’m not surprised he didn’t win best actor. When I saw him stagger up to the podium in all his phoniness on the Golden Globes with sun glasses on and his long straggly unwashed hair hanging over his right eye I said to myself…so much for this guy, he’s toast. He just doesn’t get it. We wanted to see Randy the Ram up there not some Las Vegas gambler dude in a white suit coat and white shoes with no socks, dripping with gold and silver chains.. how phony can you get.

You blew into town and caused a real buzz, but its already over pal. We’ll be looking for you working as a casino greeter on some small cruse ship working the L.A. to Acapulco route. I think that’s what your fellow resurrected actor Bert Reynolds is doing these days.

I’m sorry to tell you this Mickey my boy, but this was your last chance to get it right and you blew it big time. You’re 56, grow up, stop smoking, take a good look in the mirror, get yourself some decent clothes, put on some socks and go live in Bakersfield for a few years…you’ll get the picture.

Its really too bad…you could have been a contender…

Vicky Christina Barcelona

This film gets the BOOT!
Whoa, time warp alert, time warp alert! The Time Train pulled out of the sixties forty years ago but Woody Allen forget to get his ticket to ride. Poor guy, he’s still stuck back there making movies with sixties images and sensibilities. Hey Woody, news flash! Europe is no longer the romantic capitol of the world, and dark handsome Spaniards are more likely to be Muslims than white American tourists seducers. As for art, Woody you disappoint me. The time for slash, splash, and roll, abstract painting is soooo over. And using that outdated cliché of a painter throwing paint at a canvas in paint splattered cloths to make him look like a “serious out of control genius” ..please….you’re embarrassing yourself. Maybe we should send a bus back to pick you up, - but its probably too late, your brain wrinkles are probably set for good by now.

The Visitor

I give this film the BOOT!
This is a story of an old, very boring, college professor.…he’s so boring I fell asleep. I don’t remember what happened….. I think maybe he plays the bongos because I remember hearing bongo drums. If you’re having trouble sleeping I totally recommend this film as a way to get a good nights sleep without using drugs.

Frozen River

I liked this film a lot. Visually it reminded me a bit of the Coen Bros., Fargo. The pace and timing was good and the film rolled along nicely. It was a continuous ride with no speed bumps or stop signs. No sex or mean violence either. I liked that. The story is about people smuggling in upstate New York, small time stuff, almost amateurish in a way. It takes place at the Canadian border on the Mohawk Reservation. The main reason I think this film worked so well is because it was directed, and the screenplay was written by a women, Courtney Hunt. The real guts of the film is about mothers and their natural instincts to care and protect their young. It is a very moving subplot that could only be told by a woman. Courtney Hunt has been nominated for Best Director, and Melissa Leo, who played the leading roll, was nominated for Best Actress in this years Academy Awards nominations. I hope they both win because this was a fine piece of filmmaking and they both deserve it.

Rachel Getting Married

This film gets the BOOT
You are invited to a wedding. The bride is a young white college graduate who is marrying a young African American. The big wedding is an international affair with a smorgasbord of music, food, dress, and people - its like a big get-together party at the UN.
Its just dripping with interrogation, love, and togetherness. “It’s a small world after all!”
However, screenwriter Jenny Lumet, (daughter of director Sidney Lumet whose work,” Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead,” I reviewed last year) manages to screw up this commingling of open-minded and open-hearted people by dropping into its midst the bride's drug/alcohol addicted younger sister. She gets a furlough from the detox center to attend the wedding and as soon as she arrives she starts having stand up sex with the best man. Why Ms Lumet would send this emotional suicide bomber, with a ton of emotional explosives strapped to her waist, into this mix is beyond me. When she detonates it makes the film look like you are watching two movies simultaneously. Its no fun at all.
So my advice to you is this; send back your RSVP with your regrets and then go out and have yourself a good fish dinner with the money. A Fillet-O- Fish burger at McDonald’s with a Coke and a large order of fries…yea, that would be good.

The Dark Knight

My involvement with Batman goes back to 1943 when I played Robin to my brother’s Batman. (that’s me on the left) Our costumes were fashioned by my mother and aunt out of cheesecloth. These were not some kind of Halloween costumes either, they were everyday play costumes. Of course living on a ranch we were rather isolated, so playing all day in Batman and Robin costumes didn’t subject us to ridicule from city kids.
That was 65 years ago. I hardly recognize the Batman character anymore. He’s now some sort of high-tech robot with a “utility belt” that has every conceivable weapon imaginable. I noticed Robin got chucked somewhere along the way too. I suppose today’s kids probably play Batman on computer games. So much for healthy outdoor play…
But all that aside, the real reason I wanted to see this movie was to see what all the Heath Ledger fuss was about. I have no complaints but I don’t know if his acting is all that award worthy. Jack Nicholson was also nominated for a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the Joker so maybe there is something about the character that escapes me.. .maybe its something about acting with face paint, I don‘t know. What really gets me though is I thought my brother and I whipped the Joker good back in 1943, I’m surprised he’s still around. That guy just won’t go down.

Defiance

Another Holocaust movie. “Earth to Hollywood, earth to Hollywood,… Hello?” I know you have some sacred cows but this cow has been milked to death and its carcass is starting to stink up the barn. Its time to close the casket lid on the dark foul odor of the past and step out into the new light of hope and change. Step out of your limos and breathe in the fresh sweet air of love and forgiveness that is sweeping over our land. Embrace the future, dwell not on the stench of the past.

The Black Balloon

This is an Australian film about a military family with two teen age boys, one with autism. They move to a new neighborhood and are confronted with all the prejudice and misunderstanding one might expect from neighbors and school mates. I suspect that the Autism Council of Australia may have had a hand in the production of this film. I’m sure it will be shown at schools and at Autism awareness meetings everywhere. This film either leaves you depressed or encouraged depending on your mood and your willingness to see, graphically, some of the difficulties encountered by having an autistic teenage son in an otherwise normal middleclass family.

Australia

No question, this film gets the BOOT!
I went to my thesaurus to see if I could find some adjective to describe how bad this film is, a word that hadn’t been used already buy some other critic….no luck, they have all been used. I’ll tell you how bad this film is. Wal-mart refused to buy it for their “One Dollar DVD Bargain Bins.” “These are hard times,” I was told a spokesman said, “people don’t have money to throw away on this sort of crap.” Stuck with all those worthless DVD’s, Fox tried to unload them in a New Jersey land fill but was stopped by the EPA. They were afraid some kid might dig one up fifty years from now and become ill from watching it,” Cultural Contamination” I believe is what they called it.
Australia was produced, directed , and the story written by Baz Luhrmann. He also had a hand in writing the screenplay as well as the lyrics for the title song. Someone in Hollywood should break all of his fingers so he won’t be able to ever write again.

Waltz With Bashir

This is an animated film from Israel. In 1982 the Israeli Defense Forces allowed the Lebanese Phalangist militiamen to slaughter and murder thousands of Palestinian men women and children in a Lebanese concentration camp. This film depicts one Israeli soldier’s reoccurring nightmares and emotional trauma from having been there. Israeli Defense Forces could have easily prevented this atrocity yet they choose to look the other way and do nothing. International outrage (except from the United States) condemned, but was powerless to punish those responsible for allowing this crime against humanity to happen. Israel’s powerful friend and protector, the United States Of America, who supplies the war tools (aircraft, bombs, tanks, munitions, etc). would not permit it. However, history shows us, and the Bible confirms, that as the great wheel of history turns, those who are on the bottom will one day be on top.
Eventually the strong become weak and the weak become strong. Eventually the great War Crimes Tribunal will reconvene and the Palestinians, with their laundry list of grievances, will no doubt be first in line. Meanwhile, as history’s big wheel keeps on turn’n, Palestinian cities keep on burn’n…bodies, bodies, bodies float’n down the river…

Slumdog Millionaire

If someone was trying to get a confession out of me all they would have to do is say they were going to send me to a slum in India if I didn’t talk - I would confess in a New York minute. I would tell them anything they wanted to know! Watch this film and you’ll know why.

Synecdoche New York

This film left me so confused that I was forced to use one of my lifelines; I checked with Mick LaSalle’s review of the film in the S.F. Chronicle hoping for guidance. No help - I’m still confused.

The Wrestler

Mickey Rourke is the big winner in this film. His career has been a rollercoaster ride of semi-successes and semi-failures. But now, finally at age 56, he has hit one out of the park. I have never seen a better fit between actor and part. He was “The Ram,” He was so convincing I thought I was watching a documentary. No one could play the part of a wrestler and be that convincing with a flimsy body. No way - not even with a ton of special effects. Mickey was the real deal. He not only acted the part he looked the part. He has a convincing wrestlers body with all the bulk and muscle in the right places. Thats because he knows his way around a gym - his father was a bodybuilder. He also knows what being in the ring is all about having been a boxer for several years.
This film was also timely. The Ram, having to beg for a demeaning job at a delicatessen counter, had to take this humiliating step because he ran out of money. Its a step we will see a lot of proud American men taking before this year is out. I was very impressed with Mr. Rourke, I hope he wins an academy award.

Standard Operating Procedure (Documentary)

I remember back in art school seeing old lithographs and engravings of torture methods used during the inquisition. Pope Sixtus and the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I and Ferdinand II, used every torture method imaginable to rid the world of heretics. I never dreamed that America could or would one day engage in such barbaric behavior. But that day came in 2004 when the Abu Ghraib torture party became public. That’s what this documentary is about, that Abu Ghraib torture party. We witness Americans torturing other human beings and laughing about it as if it were a frat party. Even history’s masters of torture, the Catholics, were amazed at this shameful display of American behavior. When asked, an Arch Bishop at the Vatican said, “The torture? A more serious blow to the U.S. than the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, except that the blow was not inflicted by terrorists but by Americans against themselves.”
I grew up believing in the old B-Western standard of ethical behavior. I can’t imagine the Lone Ranger torturing some guy to find out where his hideout is located. It's just not the American way. There is a book titled, The Lone Ranger’s Code of the West, values and ethics of the legendary champion of justice, by Jim Lichtman. It spells out just what the Lone Ranger would do if he was confronted with an ethical or moral dilemma. I suggest it be standard issue for all new Army recruits so that they might have some idea of how Americans should act, morally and ethically.

Made In America (Documentary)

The Bloods and the Crips are rival gangs in south central Los Angeles. (Yes, where you’ll find the original McDonalds) Both gangs formed in the early seventies after the Watts riots. They continue their blood feud to this day. It is a feud reminiscent of the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda. And don’t think electing Barack Oboma is going to change things, this cancer is malignant and its too late for chemo. Murder, drug trafficking, extortion, and robbery, are just some of their activities. If you think this is just a small bunch of street hoodlums guess again. The Bloods boast a membership of over thirty thousand nation wide and the Crips about half that number. That’s the size of a small city. It’s African American against African American in a fight to the death. The only part the whites have played in all this was to create the conditions. They did it through discrimination and neglect.
If this topic interests you I suggest you watch this documentary.

Man on Wire (Documentary)

This is a documentary about Philippe Petit’s tight rope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974. It is done well with actual footage taken at the time and some recreations. Watching all the planning and preparations that was needed I was amazed that this small group of Frenchmen could actually pull off such a stunt. But they did - with spectacular results. Petit grabbed the attention of the whole world with this half hour of daring acrobatics. The WTC was unpopular at the time and the office space was mostly un-rented. All that changed after Philippe’s walk. A cynic would say that the tower guards were told to divert their eyes so as to let this spectacle proceed. It would have been prudent for the New York Port Authority to deny any complicity should things have gone wrong.

I’ve Loved You So Long

This is a French film so it is filled with love, poetry, cigarettes, fountains, lonely cafés, sad eyes, happy, brighter than they should be children, intellectual jousting around the dinner table, old men who don’t talk but smile at little children a lot, lots of talk and kissing in the kitchen, and funny looking cars. I won’t tell you what its about but it starts with a lonely woman waiting for someone at the airport. Who is she, who is she waiting for, where has she been, what did she do, why did she do it…all that will be revealed as the ball of twine slowly unravels. It ends when the last bit of twine is pulled off the core. I don’t expect you will find this film at your local multi-plex theater so you will probably have to rent it.

Milk

…..while all this was going on I was doing a series of ceramic cowboys and listening to George and Tammy sing, Two Story House. “….you’ve got your story and I’ve got mine,..together we live in a two story house”

Frost/Nixon

Why anyone would exhume Richard Nixon’s image for a film about an old interview with David Frost is beyond me. The film is so-so with the best part being the late night phone call from Nixon to Frost and the worst part being the obnoxious “hippie” character. In spite of all that here’s why I want you to see this film.
In 1962 my wife Alice was working for the phone company at the Bermuda building in downtown Oakland, CA. One day after taking her to lunch I was returning to my car and as I turned the corner here was Richard Nixon and a few of his people coming up the street. He was running for Governor of California at the time having lost his presidential bid two years before. He was shaking hands with people as they walked by. So I walked up and shook his hand. Now I’m a kind of handshake aficionado so I remember it well. He had a small white hand, almost the color of alabaster. His shake was not something you can describe with the usual, “clammy“ or “limp” or “firm“ or any thing like that. With his hand in mine it felt like I was holding a white rubber glove filled with Jergens Lotion. It had a kind of non-human “squishy” feel about it.

Anyway here’s the deal. (I’ll assume you know about the Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation thing) There’s a scene near the end of the film where Kevin Bacon shakes Richard Nixon’s hand. Now if we add a new dimension to the six degrees game by connecting my handshake with Nixon and the Kevin Bacon handshake with Nixon,… and then we add you reading my review about it, ….do you see what I’m getting at? It will make a great opening line at a party or with a blind or computer date, “Do you know that I saw Kevin Bacon shake Nixon’s hand and I know someone who saw Kevin Bacon shake Nixon’s hand who actually did shake Nixon’s hand?” We’re grabb’n at straws here, but these are hard times….

The Reader

This film gets the BOOT
If you go to see this film here is my prediction; You pay your money and after about fifteen minutes into the film you will find yourself knee deep in slop. By the time the credits are rolling at the end of the film you will be completely submerged in a cesspool of toxic waste. You will run home from the theater, burn your clothes and take a long hot shower.
Here in an alternative; for the price of a ticket you can get three “Happy Meals” at your local McDonalds. A far better deal, - and far better for your system too!

Burn After Reading

After stumbling last year the Coen Brothers have regained their balance. They are back in form and once again they’re shooting those half court three pointers. All the actors (and there is an impressive bunch) put on a good show for the C-Bros. and the result is a most excellent and entertaining film. I don’t love many films but this is one I would ask out for a second date.

W.

I Throw My Boots At This Film

To me the White House represents the American image, what America stands for. Everything good and noble and just and righteous and compassionate, all the “good guy” stuff like never shooting a man in the back or never drawing your gun first or always giving a hand to the down trodden, all this and more is represented by the White House, - “ the people's house” . When we as Americans handed over the keys to the White House to George W. Bush in 2001 we also handed him the keys to the vault where our image with all our American dreams and ideals were kept.
The White House already smelled like a whore house when George W. and his gang of thugs moved in, but the damage they did far outstrips anything done by all the former presidents combined. George and his thugs blew open the safe, trashed, burned, and plundered its contents scattering our dreams and ideals to the wind. The damage is so severe that it can never be repaired. All of King Obama’s horses and all of King Obama’s men can never put America’s image back together again. The American image is a dead image walking.
Oliver Stone’s Film about George W. Bush is a mockery of image making. Next to the real George W. Bush Oliver Stone’s Film looks like a trip to fairyland to visit the Prince who has just wrecked the Kings coach in a drunken night of carousing. “Shame on you George you naughty boy!” Oliver Stone should be marched to the great Hollywood blackboard and made to write a thousand times, “I will never make another movie about an American president.”

About My Reviews

Professional film critics love movies. They go to see films because they love them. They consider all films good films unless they run into a bad one.
I am just the opposite. I consider all films bad unless I run into a good one. That’s because Hollywood films are about making lots of money, not about art or a higher level of consciousness or the lifting of the emotional and ethical standards of the masses. Hollywood has a, “do whatever you need to do to get all you can out of them” attitude. Violence, sex, money, power, surface beauty, and brutish language are the normal bill of fare for Hollywood movies. They are only entertaining if you have been conditioned to think that all that stuff is entertaining. I don’t. I find most Hollywood films a disgusting waste of film.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a throwback from the Hays committee, I don’t believe in censorship of any kind, but I do believe in responsibility. If you look around and see what kind of society we are living in, what values our youth have, what they think valuable and worthwhile, what they think it is to be human, you will see its a reflection of our contemporary Hollywood films. Films should lift us up as human beings not throw us down into an animal pit to wallow in the slop of greed, sex and violence. We should hope for more from our film industry. I know I do.
Hollywood is a gigantic wall in this country, well fortified with people with vested interests. I would like to think my reviews are like throwing a stone against this wall. I know Hollywood knows nothing about me and my reviews and would care less if they did. However, I will say this, and the Bible will bear me out, beware of a small man with a rock.

Doubt

There is no doubt about this film…It’s a good one. Meryl Streep plays an uptight play-by-the-rules nun who is principal of a religious school. She runs a very tight ship. (think Blues Brothers and the nun they called, “The Penguin“) She suspects the parish priest, Philip Seymour Hoffman, of molesting one of her students. She builds a mud wall of circumstantial evidence which Hoffman turns into brick in his ‘suspicious actions and guilty eyes kiln‘. She wins, he is removed from this parish, but is kicked upstairs to lead an even bigger parish. And ironies of ironies, he also becomes principal of an even larger school.
As the nun sits and contemplates what she has done a wrecking ball of doubt demolishes the wall she so devoutly built. I loved this film.

Revolutionary Road

Dreamers are like hydrogen filled balloons hovering over reality, pulling at the ropes that keep them moored to the humdrum of everyday life. Over time the hydrogen seeps out and they slowly pancake to the ground dejected and deflated. But in some cases they explode in flames like the Hindenburg, “ Oh, the humanity!“ That was the case in this film. Not a bad film…but not a good one either. The high point was the heated argument between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. It was reminiscent of that great argument between Richard Burton and Elisabeth Taylor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (1966), a real earthquake of an argument. The words of Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer sum up this film nicely, “To believe that if we could but have this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.”

Grande Torino

The Clint Eastwood I love is the cowboy Clint. I never cared for the Dirty Harry Clint or any of his other Clint personas. That’s not to say his non-western films are no good its just that I think Clint as Josey Wales is about the best Clint ever. Grand Torino is Dirty Harry Clint in retirement, well past his prime but still doing what he does best…snarl out tough one liners with gun in hand, like, “..feeling lucky punk?” and in this case, “Get off my lawn!” Word has it this is Clint’s last film. I would have loved to see him go out in a western…. but that’s not my call. So if this is it, farewell Clint, its been a good ride.
A note to theater owners: You should not allow any male over 65 to see this movie, especially if he is a Viet Nam vet. After seeing it he might have the illusion he’s tough. He might go off and do something stupid. You could get sued for aiding and abetting.

Mama Mia!

I don’t care much for these fancy Hollywood musicals. They’re so, so, so,….I don’t know, so corny. The only singing in a movie I like is the old Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, “sing a song in the saddle on the trail to some new adventure” kind. Those weren’t musicals, Roy didn’t break into a song while he was having a shoot-out with bad guys. He just sang his song and got on with his life. He didn’t stand there looking foolish singing and dancing about on a rock by the sea. Besides, Roy, Gene, and Tex had some pipes which is more than I can say for Pierce Brosnan. Couldn’t they have dubbed in some old Robert Goulet tunes for his part?
But don’t let me spoil your fun, if you like these kind of movies you will probably like this one. Just remember, we’re in a recession. It ain’t wise to be throwing your money away on foolishness.

Benjamin Button

A BOOT for Button.
This film is waaaay too long... and flat. Its flatter than “Flat Foot Floogie’s” feet. Dullsville times two. I saw Brad Pitt and director David Fincher on the Charlie Rose show and I gathered from that interview that the making of this film was one big mutual admiration society love feast. “Everyone got along so wonderfully…” was their mantra. Therein lies the problem. The best films are made when there is some tension on the set. Maybe between actors or between one or two actors and the director. But to sit around each day after a “wonderful” day of shooting having cappuccinos talking about how great everybody is will usually produce a “blah” piece of work. Besides, the subject of aging backwards is creepy on film…it may work for a novel but visually it can give you the creeps. So, if you only have ten dollars in your pocket and you can’t decide whether to have dinner at Mimi’s or to go see this film…I would go with the Chicken fried steak.

Film reviews for 2008

It's time for me to get my branding iron out and stoke up the fire because Hollywood will be coming up the trail with a whole new herd of films soon. This 2008 herd don't look like much from what I can see from here, but I'll withhold my judgement until they are all in the corral.

So check back with me here at the Bunkhouse after the holidays cause I'm gonna start cut'n and brand'n the good ones and give the boot to the others...just like I did last year. No use you wast'in money on films that ain't worth two hoots and a damn...specially these days when money is tight.

Film Reviews for 2007

I've rounded up the major films for 2007 and put my cattle brand on the ones I liked and gave the boot to the one's I didn't. These ain't no long boring reviews with fifty dollar words and "sensitive" perspectives..these are "cowboy" cut to the chase reviews.
So if you're gonna get all huffy if I give some box office mega-buck hit the boot, go get yourself some hot chocolate and your teddy bear, snuggle up to the fire and read Roger Ebert's reviews.