Gondry shorts

Writer/director Michel Gondry has an irresistibly effervescent sensibility. Salon's Video Dog has fetched a dazzling collection of his short films.

Quote of the week

Matt Pais of Metromix on "All the King's Men:"

Jude Law must be tired: His accent logs thousands of frequent flier miles going back and forth between Law's native Britain and his character's native South.

Would you share your Netflix queue?

Sam Anderson's article in Slate about the way that being invited to view his friends' Netflix queues -- and their ratings -- made him feel

like an information-age window peeper, like I had dipped my toe into the shallow end of a pool whose deep end was Watergate. This feeling only intensified when many of my real-life friends refused to accept me as their Netflix friend. Though they'd talk to me all day about their DVD-watching habits—their three-month Buffy binges and methodical screenings of the entire Owen Wilson catalog—for some reason they wouldn't let me see an actual list of the actual films they were actually renting. They seemed to fear some kind of Netfloixtation.

Netflix lists and preferences may just be the most personal and revealing information you can share. To mix a metaphor, it's like the DNA of your soul. This is not who you say you are; it's who you are. The always-thoughtful ezine Flow has a worthwhile article in the current issue about "anti-fans," about how define ourselves by what we don't like. My son likes the scene in High Fidelity when Barry (Jack Black) refuses to sell a record he doesn't like to a man who wants it for his daughter's birthday. "Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song! Oh oh oh wait! Is she in a coma?"

Unlike the fantasy worlds of MySpace and the blogs, it's less a social platform than a practical tool, so the data is exceptionally pure.

Anderson's piece is reminiscient of the classic My TiVo Thinks I'm Gay, about a man who was so rattled when his TiVo kept suggesting programs with gay themes, based on what he had previously recorded that he ended up setting it for macho programs he had no intention of watching, just to reassure it (or himself) that he was, as he insisted, "the straightest guy on earth."

[H]e tried to tame TiVo's gay fixation by recording war movies and other "guy stuff." "The problem was, I overcompensated," he says. "It started giving me documentaries on Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann. It stopped thinking I was gay and decided I was a crazy guy reminiscing about the Third Reich."

It's one thing to let TiVo or Amazon form some ideas about who you are by reviewing your past selections. But inviting your friends to take a peek at your Netflix queue and the ratings of the movies you've seen is more personal than having Amazon suggest that because you bought The Da Vinci Code you might like Harry Potter. It's even more intimate than giving your friends "family" status so they can see the pictures of your last trip on Flickr. It's deeper than letting the world see your eHarmony questionnaire. Everyone checks "yes" to liking walks on the beach. But how many people are willing to admit that they gave four stars to a Pauly Shore movie? Anderson says that

Some of my friends' queues were like formal French gardens: vast spectacular landscapes organized down to the smallest detail, with different genres and moods so delicately interwoven that the discs arrived at home in perfect complementary patterns. Other lists were pure wilderness: big shaggy patches of documentaries interrupted by massive blocks of anime, with scattered thrillers blooming in the middle of bright wide fields of sappy comedies. One friend seemed to be systematically testing the limits of how many Ken Burns documentaries a human being can withstand. My in-the-moment friends, I discovered—the ones who eat canned sardines for dinner and tend to let leases expire without finding new places to live—were also living hand-to-mouth on their Netflix lists (one had only three titles in her queue), while my more practical friends had lists long enough to keep them entertained for years, and—in the event of untimely deaths—to bestow upon their families generations of orderly, effort-free renting. Some lists were tortured records of cultural duty: Dense classics would march solemnly towards the top, only to be demoted (as soon as watching them became a real possibility) and replaced by season three of Felicity, until finally all the most challenging films of the 20th century were pooled at the bottom of the list like dark sediment beneath a froth of romantic comedies. It's the Netflix version of the divided soul: The end of your list is the person you want to be—Eraserhead, the eight-hour BBC Bleak House, the complete Werner Herzog—while the top is the person you actually are: Wedding Crashers, Scary Movie 4, The Bridges of Madison County.

There's a High Fidelity-style "I am what I like" element to all of this. In my case, I publish reviews that make it pretty clear what I think about the movies I see. But okay, I'll admit it. At the top of my Netflix list at the moment: Disc 2 of "Monterey Pop" (we have Disc 1 here right now). Come to think of it, though, that was my husband's suggestion. There are some other items added by my daughter ("Donnie Darko," "Clerks," "Bottle Rocket"), too. So I suppose what you can tell from my Netflix queue is that I see a lot of movies in my day job and often leave the little red envelopes to the other members of the family.

Time lapse

In these ineffably sad and moving films, Noah photographs himself every day for six years. Noah explains more about his (ongoing) project -- including why he does not smile -- here.

In a similar film, a girl known just as me films herself every day for three years.

Quote of the week

From Desson Thomson's hilarious review of "The Covenant:"

Director Renny Harlin, whose colon-studded credits include "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" and "Exorcist: The Beginning," knows the deal here: Pay homoerotic homage to youth and beauty, crank up the heavy metal on the soundtrack, and spare no effort to backlight the omnipresent rain.

Heavy Pockets

Haevy Pockets is an exquisite mix of animation and live action is about growing up, feeling different, loyal friends, and floating up into the sky.

How it Should Have Ended

The hard part in writing a screenplay isn't coming up with a concept or characters or dialogue -- it's the ending. Too many movies run out of steam sometime in the second act. The wonderful website How it Should Have Ended has hilarious and highly satisfying endings for "The Matrix," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Superman," and more. If you have trouble getting them to play, try viewing them here.

Cruise/Redstone takedown, part 2

Slate says that

Redstone, who recently married a woman half his age, puts great stock in his virility. And in recent years, he has periodically released his excess testosterone by firing good-looking, middle-aged bucks who have gotten too big for their britches. Last month, it was megastar Tom Cruise. Earlier this week, he cashiered Tom Freston, the CEO of Viacom and one of the founders of MTV.

Is Redstone's need to fire younger guys merely rational decision-making by a canny CEO? Or does it reflect some bizarre reverse-Oedipal envy?

My dad on NPR

My dad's wonderful interview on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" covers everything from the conversation with Bobby Kennedy 50 years ago this month that changed his life to what he told President Kennedy about the communications satellite launch to how he feels about having television's most famous sinking ship named after him.

Star Wars Geek Heaven

This website has meticulously researched and documented shot by shot comparisons of the original 1980 and 2004 versions of "The Empire Strikes Back." Some people have way too much time on their hands. And they use it to create something as wonderful as this and share it with everyone just for the pleasure of it. I love the internet.

Hunter doesn't like "Wicker Man"

One challenge for the movie critic is finding yet another way to say something is awful, even when -- especially when -- we're complaining about the same things that were wrong in last week's exhausted genre flick -- un-funny buddy cop adventure/un-cute romantic comedy/gross-out teen comedy/gross-out teen thriller/dumb remake of some long-gone TV show. So I get a big kick out of critics who are entertaining on the subject of how not-entertained they were by the movie. As they say, when movies are good, the best critics are very very good, but when they are bad, they're better. This week, I liked what the Washington Post's Stephen Hunter had to say about The Wicker Man:

[I]t was long rumored (an urban myth, never proved or disproved) that [Rod] Stewart, the rock millionaire, immediately bought up all the prints [of the original version] and had them destroyed and that was why, for so long, "The Wicker Man" was rarely seen....Only Stewart can say whether this is true, and he's not talking. I do believe that in a few years, Nicolas Cage will buy up all the prints to this "Wicker Man" and burn them. I'll be happy to help him.

Movie Mom on NPR's "Morning Edition"

I was interviewed for NPR's story about the failures of MPAA's rating system.

OK GOes to the VMAs

I was very happy to see OK Go performing live at MTV's VMA awards. It just, um, goes to show, however, not just how much better the original video is, but how much more "live" it seems, too. The live broadcast kept switching to different cameras. Oh, boy! An overhead shot, so we can see that "OK GO" is written on the treadmill mats. Oh, boy! A view over the shoulders and around the heads of the audience! I know it's MTV, but choreography is an art of movement and space. And I know it was live, really happening as we watched, but the mosaic quality of all of the different cuts makes us feel as though it was compiled. If you use the camera to break up the dance into fragments and glimpses, it becomes about the camera, not the dance. The original video was filmed like a Fred Astaire dance number -- in one take, the camera standing still at the proscenium level, giving the audience the best seat in the house. Ironically, it feels more "live" than the live broadcast because it is so indisputably done in one take. The video includes a mistake that the live performance did not, and that, too, gives it more of a real-time, flying-without-a-net quality.

The same applies to sports. The tricked-up basketball scenes in this week's release, "Crossover." The flurry of quick cuts, with some shots sped up and others slowed down, obliterates any interest value in the ability of the players to pass and score. It might as well be done in CGI. When we watch basketball, we want the camera to give us the best seat in the house so we can see the player shoot and score. We don't want a kaleidoscope of fractured images. Of course, when we watch a movie, we also want good dialogue, fresh storylines, and interesting characters, none of which appear in "Crossover," but that's another story.

Gilligan's Island boat up for sale

Come sit right back and hear a tale -- the S.S. Minnow is up for sale. One of the four boats used for the television show "Gilligan's Island" is being offered for sale. In a case of life imitating art, the boat capsized on a trip from Alaska to the U.S., but it has been restored. "Gilligan" creator Sherwood Schwartz named the boat after my dad, Newton Minow, then the chairman of the F.C.C. He had called television a "vast wasteland" and urged broadcasters to do better. Schwartz intended it as an insult, but our family has always considered it an honor; if we ever have a family coat of arms, the S.S. Minow will be the centerpiece.

Don't trust the Dove

I have about had it with the Dove Foundation, which bestows its "family-approved" seal on media it considers appropriate. It is beyond me what kind of standards they apply. Material Girls gets not only their okay for 12 and up, they call it "a perfect comedy for moms and daughters" -- a blurb picked up in the movie's ads. Dove does acknowledge in its review that there are some language issues and tsks that a character's "thank you" when told she's too thin "might send the wrong message to young girls about body weight issues."

For some reason, they don't think to mention some other areas of concern, like the main character's decision to copy Erin Brockovich and wear skimy clothes to beguile a young man into letting her look at some files. Or that doing so gets her arrested and thrown into a jail cell with prostitutes who stroke her arm suggestively. They don't think to mention that the behavior of the silly rich girls is as clueless after their big supposed new understanding as it was before. Worst of all, they don't think to mention that it is a bad movie, poorly written, directed, and acted. Even if this film had no objectionable material, its complete worthlessness would make it unsuitable for viewing by kids. One family value has to be that children deserve quality entertainment.

And Barnyard is "suitable for all ages?" I would suggest that under "violence" they might want to mention the death of the main character's father, and how that character could (should) feel responsible. But what they feel is worth mentioning is the sight of a child's tush when his pants are pulled down. They do mention the predatory coyotes but they gloss over the death of the father and don't even bring up the weirdness of the main character's love interest being pregnant (by a bull who was killed) and later (off-screen) giving birth. It's even weirder that they abdicate their responsibility to provide some kind of guidance by deferring to audience members. Their "worldview" report leads off

The Dove Foundation recently hosted a special screening of "Barnyard," and the response was very positive. "It was pretty good," said a lady named Laura who had brought her three-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son to the screening.

The Dove Foundation says that it promotes "family-friendly entertainment. Our standards and criteria are based on Judeo/Christian values, free from the pressure of commercial interests. We believe in a positive approach of commending high-quality, wholesome movies rather than condemning filmmakers for not meeting those standards."

Neither of these movies can be considered "high quality." The one thing people should be able to rely on from Dove or anyone else who provides guidance to families about media is a clear picture of any area of concern. These reviews are inadequate and misleading. If I had a seal, I'd stamp them "not approved."

Duds In The Water

As the old joke goes, "How do you make a million dollars in Hollywood? You come to town with $10 million and start investing in movies." As this Business Week article makes clear, investing in movies is riskier than stock-picking on Wall Street. And, as it makes even more clear, Wall Street knows very little about the movie business.

The finance pros figured they had moviemaking all figured out. But several megaflops have some Hollywood insiders wondering if the private-equity guys are in way over their heads. "It's tough to be an investor when the studio gets to pick the films and you stand behind them in line to get paid," says leading Hollywood banker John W. Miller of JPMorgan Securities. "It's hard to see how you can get more than single-digit returns -- if you're lucky."

Um, duh.

The Wall Streeters arrived in Hollywood armed with sophisticated models that they say will protect them from losses. Essentially they project film profits based on the records of directors, stars, genres, and even distribution dates.

Oh, yeah, that works. Just ask the folks who invested in the recent dud made by the man who had one of the best track records in Hollywood history, M. Night Shyamalan. Fellas, as they say on Wall Street, "past performance is no guarantee of future performance."

Someone had better tell that to Dan Snyder. The guy who owns the Washington Redskins hasn't done too well with Six Flags, but he thinks he has the time and the ability to go where Sumner Redstone fears to tread and make it work with Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner, who, based on her statement last week apparently thinks that anyone with money is a hedge fund. So she knows as little about investors as he does about movies. I won't predict the merits of the films that are likely to emerge from this partnership, but I would by a ticket to a documentary about this new relationship. And I'm accepting suggestions for a cute TomKat style nickname for the partnership.

Update: be sure to see today's post from the always-hilarious Andy Borowitz:

In the latest ominous sign for the film career of actor Tom Cruise, a large video piracy ring based in Beijing said today that they will no longer sell illegal copies of the star's films, calling Mr. Cruise's recent behavior "unacceptable."

Baby Weinstein

Many thanks to my friend Danny Ornstein who sent me this hilarious
item from The Onion:

New 'Baby Weinstein' Tapes Prepare Infants For Career In Entertainment Law
August 24, 2006 | Issue 42•34


LOS ANGELES—Zazz! Entertainment, Inc. announced Monday that sales of their Baby Weinstein series of children's DVDs, CDs, and videotapes designed to inspire children under the age of 3 to pursue careers in entertainment law reached their 3-million mark. "We're proud to be the only multimedia company featuring colorful imagery of kids pre-verbally arguing their own contracts, playing with the building blocks of major franchises, and refusing to be seen on the screen with competing babies," company founder and producer Josh Noah Levy said. "And we're currently going to court to make sure we remain the only people doing that." Despite the success of such titles as Baby Spielberg and Baby Ovitz, production halted in July after several babies made what Levy called unreasonable demands for their mommies.

Positively My Last SoaP post

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi has a perceptive assessment of the lukewarm box office reception for "Snakes on a Plane." Two of the people he spoke to made especially important points:

(1) In the words of a studio spokesman, "you can never be sure that the people who are Googling your movie are going to go out and see it."

(2) "New Line might have erred in marketing the movie, too, by withholding the film from critics before its release, says Douglas Gomery, a film and mass-media scholar. That not only signals that a bomb is afoot but also killed whatever momentum the movie might have built up, says Gomery, who notes: 'They had the ball rolling, and then it came to a dead stop.'"

Most of the critics liked the movie. If reviews had been out before it opened, it might have brought in audiences beyond the hard-core junkies who made a big fuss online. A good thought to keep in mind in a week in which none of the nationwide releases is screening in time for reviews.

Oh, and this just in: there's a new porn film called "Trouser Snakes on a Plane." I'm going to try not to think about that one too hard.

The Invincible Jeannette Catsoulis

My favorite movie review quote of the week, by one of my very favorite critics, my friend Jeannette Catsoulis, from her New York Times review of "Invincible."

Battling inexperience, hostile teammates and an excess of slow-motion photography, Vince is soon being pummeled in summer training and body-slammed in a losing game against the Dallas Cowboys. As Jackson Browne mopes on the soundtrack and the football fans wilt in the stands, Vince’s embittered dad, Frank (Kevin Conway), cautions against optimism. “A man can only take so much failure,” he warns. Recognizing that the same is true of movie audiences, Disney piles on the uplift on and off the field.

If only the movies were as entertaining and smart as her reviews.

Home Film Festivals

Feel overwhelmed with your options on Netflix? Eyes glaze over looking at the New Releases shelf at Blockbuster? An overdose of fungible multiplex fodder? Take a look at Spiritual Cinema and Ironweed Films. Both seek out the arresting, the inspiring, and, most of all, the unusual, and send it to you.