A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Count me among the Wes Anderson acolytes who believe (excepting the man's opus, The Royal Tenenbaums) the divisive filmmaker's skills are only improving with age, each title improving upon the last and broadening the brushstrokes of the truly distinctive and imaginative cinematic storyteller of our generation.

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" is no exception.

In his latest work, Anderson again visits the well in terms of artistic design (the diorama sets return, this time vivid portrayals of European mountainscapes), acting talent (Schwartzman, Wilson, Brody, Swinton, Dafoe, Norton and Murray - all are here, and in top Andersonian form, with the last sporting a cheeky handlebar mustache that is just DAMN PERFECT) and whimsy.

What is new here is the exceptional talents of the leading men, established Ralph Fiennes as M. Gustave, the veteran concierge of the titular lodging, and newcomer Tony Revolori, 17, who plays Gustave's pupil and later valet, Zero. Anderson takes some time introducing us to these characters, choosing to couch his latest story through the conceit of a girl reading a novel, then an interview with that novelist (an inspired cameo from the great Tom Wilkinson), then Jude Law appearing as the young author drawing inspiration for the book from F. Murray Abraham as wealthy proprietor Mr. Mustafa, and finally the realization that Zero is a young version of Mustafa at the hotel in 1932.

The set-up here affords the perfect opportunity for a kind of metafiction, but all the other timelines are quickly subsumed by the exploits of Gustave and Zero. There is an attempt at the end of the film to tie together some points Anderson is trying to make about storytelling, but the problem remains that the central narrative is just too damn compelling. Only in the stylistic choice of shooting a final scene in black and white do we realize that the 1932 story is just that - a story we are receiving third or fourth hand. It's a missed opportunity for what I term an "Anderson moment" - a glimpse of grander meaning beyond the absurdity and beauty of what is unfolding onscreen.

Imagine, for example, that Alec Baldwin's narrator in "Tenenbaums" were introduced before the story even begins, and that he is tied in some tangential way to the family. You'd get a sense of what is set up in "The Grand Budapest Hotel" but never fully realized.

This is all nitpicking, however. Fiennes quickly shows he gets Anderson's dialogue and penchant for absurdity in the midst of a very serious story. Here, the threat is personified by the onset of war. An army, bearing a "ZZ" seal that in terms of iconography is a next-door neighbor of the Schutzstaffel in Nazi Germany, encroaches upon the story at key junctures that remind us the stakes of what is occurring onscreen. Like all Anderson villains, however, their presence is merely a contrivance that serves as backdrop for another more personal story, the father/son relationship that builds between Gustave and Zero.

It will surprise no fan of Anderson to learn both characters are fatherless males with very real personality quirks to kink out. You can blink and see in these characters Steve Zissou/Ned, Mr. Fox/Ash, Royal/Richie Tenenbaum, etc. It should also surprise no fan of Anderson's that this relationship ends almost as abruptly as it begins and never obtains the perfect loving, fatherly role we expect in conclusions to such stories.

Anderson takes us on a wild adventure that runs at a breakneck pace to a conventional, art heist conclusion. He does it with character actors that sparkle together onscreen with an oddball chemistry he seems to have a knack for creating. Though Mark Mothersbaugh is not present for this installment of Anderson's oeuvre, the precocious sound of Anderson still plays as backdrop for the story, and the shots are purely Andersonian - wide-angle pans of extremely elaborate sets that work perfect for the time period.

This is Wes Anderson and his players at perhaps their greatest synchronicity to this point, even though the story itself carries none of the personal weight we see in "Royal Tenenbaums." It is an adventure not to be missed by fans of the filmmaker.

Verdict: 4.5/5 stars

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review: Man of Steel

There's a scene in Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer's reboot of the Superman film franchise where our hero, Clark (Henry Cavill) visits the Smallville parish. We've received the obligatory backstory at this point, with Kevin Costner and Russel Crowe performing valiantly as Jonathan Kent and Jor-El, respectively. The evil General Zod (Michael Shannon) has arrived on Earth and demands Clark turn himself in, ostensibly to save the human race.

As Clark and the bewildered minister discuss the moral quandary, Cavill's profile is framed by a stained-glass image of Christ in a not so subtle nod to Superman as savior. It's a brief moment in the film, certainly not a narrative thread one would call dominant in the film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's an interesting choice given the note Nolan and Goyer left their last superhero project, The Dark Knight Rises. It's as though the heroes of the DC Universe, on the screen, are both grappling in worlds that are extremely gritty but built ideals that existed way back when these characters were created. It's a dynamic that, in the Dark Knight trilogy, worked because of the inherent tragedy at the center of the story: the death of the Waynes, and Batman's righteous quest to carry on their ideal, within limits.

Superman has no limits. We know that early in the film, when Lara worries their son will be killed on Earth and Crowe's Jor-El deadpans, "How?" Therein lies the center problem with any Superman film, and the reason 2006's "Superman Returns" left many moviegoers with a bad taste in their mouths. How do you craft a villain for a hero with so few weaknesses?

Snyder and Co. do well with Shannon's Zod, and his accomplice Faora-Ul (Antje Traue). But Nolan and Goyer's mold just doesn't fit the Superman mold perfectly, and in grasping for a narrative that makes sense in this universe, there are some misfires (the church scene chief among them, because the idea of Superman as a martyr to human beings fails on a few levels).

That's not to say Man of Steel isn't a great film. It is, it just feels disjointed. The performances, particularly of Costner and Crowe, stand out. It's just too bad that the questions of patriarchy and the effect they have on Clark are never fully explored. In one scene, Clark bickers with Jonathan about his future. Within minutes of screen time, Jonathan is taken from Clark forever, and the emotions as a result feel...slightly off. That may be because the origin story is told through flashbacks, a narrative technique that works in this film but lacks the gravitas, say, of a "Batman Begins."

The film looks great, though. Snyder is the perfect choice to direct a film in which hand-to-hand combat becomes pivotally important, as it does in the film's final third. The director's signature camera slowdown works excellently here with the jerky, thrusting movements of Zod's foot soldiers, and the climactic battle between Zod and Clark in the skies above Metropolis will take your breath away, regardless of whether you watch it in two dimensions or three.

Much has been made of Cavill's lack of the humor that makes Superman relatable to the audience. It's a valid complaint, but also one with its origin in the source material and not the story that Nolan and Goyer are trying to tell. This is a story with weight — questions of humanity and how it might react to the larger question presented by Superman's presence: How do our notions of the universe (and even God) change when a man with such abilities appears on Earth? The smartest decision the team made was making Jonathan and Martha (Diane Lane) keenly aware of the effect this knowledge will have and using it as the source of their wish to shelter Clark from the world. It gives this tale a touch of humanity and reality that might have otherwise gone by the wayside with so many things blowing up.

I'm not sure where the Man of Steel franchise will go from here. Given the early box office returns, a sequel is inevitable. And while not perfect, Man of Steel sets the canvas on which to paint a number of very interesting stories (and potentially set up that Justice League movie, eh, Warner Bros.?). Let's just hope the next time out, that story is chosen from the start and remains focused during all of those aerial theatrics.

Verdict: 4/5 stars

The Shallow End Presents: An Inexplicably Close Look at an Obscure Song "Some Postman" by The Presidents of the United States of America

In an effort to post with this blog with increasing frequency, and because of a new-found awareness of the obscurity of my music taste while running with an iPod in the cold weather, I've decided to delight you, dear Shallow End reader (all three of you), with some of my thoughts on the random-ness that comes across my shuffle screen. This will be a semi-regular feature (read: whenever I'm not pulling my hair out about a quantitative reading assignment) so stay tuned!

This edition of the inexplicably close look centers on that kooky mid-90s favorite alt rock band, The Presidents of the United States of America. You'll remember them as those guys who wrote that song that Weird Al covered into a Forrest Gump spoof. Well, soon after the trio went on an indefinite hiatus for reasons unknown to this blogger. Perhaps the gents didn't want to be lumped in with the scandals of the second half of the Clinton presidency. Or people started buying their peaches at organic wholesalers.

In any event, the Presidents returned in 2004 with "Some Postman," returning to that odd world in which many of the band's songs take place where apparently the mail carriers are malevolent and Smurfs are 30-feet tall. The angst-filled power pop ditty is told through the eyes of an upset lover whose melodramatic missives are being intercepted by a disturbingly voyeuristic postman. Think Newman, but one who exclusively eats chocolates meant for another.

The song, perhaps self-consciously, is riddled with anachronisms. We're supposed to expect that lovers, in the age of sexting and Skype, are still trusting their love notes to employees of the federal government? And that said employee is clocking in at 6 a.m.? And ignoring the obvious breach of political correctness (why can't a female post carrier be pilfering my sonnets)? The band seems to come to terms with this just before the final verse, as a mournful cry of "1993!!!" follows the chorus. If only, Presidents. If only.

Of course, we could be missing the point entirely. Perhaps the postman is, himself, fictional. And the Presidents are singing out the uncertainty of love. Maybe that lover crying waiting for the package wants to believe there's some mean, hound-dog evading man in a safari hat hoarding her box of chocolate roses from Danny, who's totally committed to her but also wishes to finish his dissertation in a town full of young co-eds longing for a slightly older and grizzled art history Ph.D. candidate. Perhaps some postman is simply a Love in the Time of Cholera-esque metaphor about the idyllic nature of love and the inability to every truly know that it is being returned to you.

Or maybe I'm looking too closely.

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review-Paranormal Activity 3

I'll admit, I was one of the many swept up in the original Paranormal Activity social media frenzy back in 2009. From The Blair Witch Project to Cloverfield, this hesitant horror film fan has always appreciated the clever narratological approaches taken by the so-called "found footage" genre. After seeing the sequel last year, I once again stepped up to the plate to defend the franchise and the increasingly exploited plot conventions that had permeated the grander horror classification in the interim. Success breeds imitation, and what Paranormal Activity 2 did well, it did better than its copycats.

Which brings us to this year's iteration, which despite generally favorable reviews is drawing comparisons to the Saw franchise in film and (among the geeky) the Call of Duty franchise for simply putting a new coat of paint on that same old Buick we've taken around the block a few times. This is a fair criticism-much of what happens in the third film of the incredibly successful franchise we've seen before. This demon, we learn, hasn't really invented any new tricks.

Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman of Catfish fame seem loath to mess with Oren Peli's polished premise in any way. Once again, we are introduced to an almost fetishistic (and, in one scene, this classification becomes more literal than families attending the film may appreciate-but then again, if you're making a family trip to the cineplex to see Paranormal Activity 3, you probably have a few skeletons in the closet of your own) videophile male whose desire to document the strange occurrences in his home draws the ire of his live-in lover. The fresh coat of paint here is a nice pastel white--we're in the year 1988, in all its lovely Magnavox glory. The couple in question is Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) and Julie (Lauren Bittner), mother of the sisters who have become the central possessed entities of the series thus far.

Paranormal Activity 3 serves as a serviceable prequel. There is less exposition at the beginning and throughout the film than perhaps this generation of agitated cinema-goers will allow (this reviewer included), and the ending of the film is clearly geared toward the extenuation of the series for a fourth installment around this time in 2012 (predictions of world catastrophe notwithstanding). As we head toward this inevitably inconclusive conclusion, the filmmakers tread an already well-worn narrative path-tension builds, creepier stuff starts happening, and what started out as innocent conversations between a young girl and her imaginary friend turns horrifically violent.

Which is, of course, the most inexcusable of Paranormal Activity 3's transgressions. The series has not yet reached a point where it has become a parody of itself (though a self-referential "jump" joke from a babysitter--I know, another innocent babysitter is pulled into the fray, surprise!--comes agonizingly close to doing so), but the move is flirting with taking the satirical plunge. It may have been the noisy theater I was in for the screening, or the need for audience members to ease the tension with nervous laughter, but from my experience it seems as though audiences are becoming increasingly cognizant of this threat. There was much more laughter and restlessness during Paranormal Activity 3 than I witnessed in the other entries in the series.

The one shining addition to the series is a cinematic choice by the directors that plays off the technical limitations of the 1980s. Lacking the ability to film the entire downstairs because of the limitations of the widths of lenses, Dennis decides to mount a camera on top of an oscillating fan in the downstairs living room/kitchen area that causes the camera to move agonizingly slow from one end of the room to the other. The directors use this for three specific scares that increase in intensity, but one can't help but feel that the trick was under-utilized just a little bit. The clever tactic becomes subsumed by tricks we've already seen before-flying furniture, human beings, and unexplainable auditory cues.

This happens in the conclusion of the film as well. The final 15 minutes, which are advertised to "mess you up for life," recycle the first-person camera techniques of The Blair Witch Project and, in a much more recent example and to a greater effect, Paranormal Activity 2. Yes, some messed up stuff happens. And you probably won't want to think about it as you fall into listless sleep after watching the film (damn noisy water pipes). But to say that the film does anything extraordinary in the last 15 minutes is a misnomer at best and dubious advertising at worst.

The mark of a desperate horror franchise might be to ratchet up the intensity in succeeding installments in the last few moments to make up for the diminished quality of the film that proceeds it. In Paranormal Activity 3's sense, the opposite may be true. The family unit of Julie, Dennis and the girls may be the most believable and sympathetic of the series yet, and certainly the introduction of the imagination of children allows the film to explore some themes that were absent from the other films. But the denoument (or lack therof) in Paranormal Activity 3 left me unsatisfied...even as I was prying my fingers from those poor armrests in the cinema.

Paranormal Activity 3 does what it needs to do. It moves the series along and provides just enough fright to keep the audience's faith in the filmmakers going. The characters, while fitting into roles already established in the franchise, allow for some inspired performances from another cast of talented non-superstars. The scares, while also derivative, at times (and especially in the final few moments) break out of the expected mold and produce some organic and original horrifying moments. But one gets the feeling that the found footage genre, and the wonderful installment in this series that revitalized it two years ago, is walking a thin line of irrelevancy.

Verdict: 3/5 stars

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Review-Moneyball

*I would like to apologize for the lack of updates in the Shallow End recently. My grad studies have migrated my blogging vigor to misplacedjayhawkreporter. Expect a few more frequent updates when my editing/reporting duties die down next semester.*

"It's hard not to be romantic about baseball."

So says Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) at a pivotal moment of the denouement in Bennett Miller's "Moneyball." Writ large, we might say the director and film have a hard time not being Romantic about American individualism.

Like Michael Lewis' book that inspired the film, baseball is merely a narrative overhang in Moneyball, a kind of distraction for the sports crowd while more subversive plot threads are un-spooled within. At the center of this narrative web is Beane himself, who is presented as a fractured former player whose impulse to be smarter than the game is endeared emotionally to the audience in a series of biographical flashbacks. This produces the effect of a biopic without an emphasis on the bio, and provides the framework for a climactic merging of timelines that underscores the metaphoric significance of the film as a whole.

Pitt embodies Beane with such perfection that even the tired clubhouse tirades become matters of high drama. Pitt's Beane broods, but Bennett deftly unfolds a narrative that makes this brooding palatable. Voices early in the season about the failure of the A's inundate both the audience and Beane on-screen, exacerbating the "us against hte world" mentality that is established in the opening moments of the film. Actual footage of the 2001 American League Divisional Series dances across the screen, devoid of any type of sociopolitical slant aside from the flashing of the respective payrolls of the two teams before the game's final out. The Yankees, who would eventually lose the World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks, triumph over the A's in a scene that has the potential to be tasteless in its disregard for post-9/11 sensitivities until it flashes the smiling mug of Rudolph Giuliani. Beane still smashes a transistor radio into tiny bits, and the frame of Moneyball is born.

The other half of the "us against the world" mentality is filled in (literally, the character Peter Brand is merely an amalgamation of several associates Billy Beane worked with at the A's in the early 2000s) by Jonah Hill. Hill plays the part with his usual pathetic charm and naivety, which is entirely called for in his depiction of 25-year-old statistics expert Brand. As the film progresses, a clear rapport develops between Hill and Pitt that keeps the heartfelt moments between them from becoming melodramatic. In particular, a scene near the end of the reel has Beane and Brand reviewing film of a game with Brand's intent to show Billy just how important what he's done to the game of baseball is. Aaron Sorkin is incredibly evident in this scene, as Brand's admission that the game film they have just watched is a "a metaphor" astutely deflects the schmaltzy weight of the scene. Sorkin's writing never lets you forget that this is a sports film, just as "The West Wing" was a show about White House politics, "A Few Good Men" was a courtroom drama and "The Social Networks was "the Facebook movie."

As teased above, though, Moneyball is about much more than the game of baseball. It's equal parts biopic, conventional sports story and Ben Franklin-esque American autobiography. In no scene is this more apparent than when they all come crashing together at the end of the A's record-breaking winning streak in September of 2002. I had a very real moment of cognitive dissonance watching my beloved Kansas City Royals attempt to figuratively destroy the dream of a process they themselves probably should have been employing at the time (don't forget which green pasture Johnny Damon left first, movie-goers), but the importance of this sequence was in no way diminished by my boyhood biases. As Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt) rounds the bases after a walk-off home run to win the A's 20th consecutive game, images from Beane's distant and recent past flicker across the screen in a very Roy Hobbs-eseque moment. The success of a man has translated to the success of a team and, by extension, an idea.

Moneyball succeeds in remaining neutral on the analytic/Romantic debate about baseball, as we leave Beane choosing loyalty over prosperity and to the strains of his daughter's guitar and lyrics identifying Beane as a "loser." In an analytically cold sense, maybe this is true. But the Romantic story of American ingenuity expertly draped over this sports film is much more satisfying.

Verdict: 4.5/5 stars

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Review-Grave Encounters

It's about that time again. Time to break out the candy corn, toilet paper rolls and adult diapers for another thrilling season of Halloween cinematic fare. To that end comes "Grave Encounters," a film that piggy-backs on a lot of what we've seen before in the genre while also providing a nice amount of meta-commentary on the cynicism for the paranormal that shows like Ghost Adventures (ripped off pretty heavily here) engender in the general public.

If you have vertigo, you might want to sit this one out.

This year's vogue "found footage" flick comes to us courtesy of the Vicious Brothers, making their directorial debut in a rather safe formula. "The Blair Witch Project," "Cloverfield" and the "Paranormal Activity" films have all made millions of dollars in profit at the box office, and who can blame some indie film-makers from thinking they can facilitate horrific lightning striking twice again?

The problem with "Grave Encounters" is that it does none of the things those other films do to make us feel a part of the action. The movie does an excellent job of establishing characters we may actually have sympathy for early on, but relegates them to blubbering buffoons quickly in the second act (if you don't laugh at the fate of Houston Gray, purported paranormal psychic extraordinaire, you weren't watching close enough). The only character who feels like he may have some real weight is the film's main protagonist, Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson), whose Zak Baggans vomit-inducing routine actually shifts into real, disturbing horror as the film progresses.

Another mistake "Grave Encounters" makes is to allow gaps in the narrative to pry viewers from their visceral reaction to the events on-screen. Some creepy shit happens, to be sure, and that's important for these kinds of films, but with "Cloverfield" and "Paranormal Activity" there was always a sense that we were building to some kind of understanding-that the rational world would hold some kind of explanation or means of understanding what we were seeing in the end.

In a bold move, "Grave Encounters" throws realism completely out the window in the middle of the film. It's an interesting take on the genre, but what exactly happens is never fully explained. The significance of what we see on screen, then, is marred completely by the impossibility of contextualizing the images that flicker before our eyes. Okay, a dead woman rises out of a bathtub (real original, guys), some hands come out of a wall, and people disappear. Got it. Tell me what it means, please.

"Grave Encounters" shows flashes of self-referential brilliance in the opening moments that are marred by silly execution at times and overly deferential scares. That doesn't mean you shouldn't turn out the lights and give it a shot, though. Because when the film does scare you, it scares you in a big way. And its most disturbing scenes rank right up there with the classics of the genre. Just make sure you've got those Depends ready.

Verdict: 3/5 stars

Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn-"The Fighter" Review

The Fighter does several things a great sports movie needs to do. It introduces us to a down-on-his-luck journeyman with one last legitimate shot at glory. Mark Wahlberg deftly steps into the shoes of Mickey Ward, a welterweight who has been used one too many times as a "stepping stone" (read: fighter pulverized by others en route to their own title shots) by his overbearing family. Ward's mother and manager, Alice (Academy Award-Winning Supporting Actress Melissa Leo) has a little trouble releasing the umbilical cord, and proves completely inept at getting her younger son into a fight that will allow him to rise in the ranks of his weight class (can someone please draw me a diagram that explains who is the champion of the world in boxing in a weight class anymore? It's like trying to figure out what "spending cut triggers" mean). Meanwhile, Mickey has to deal with his older brother Dicky (played with heart-rending pathos by Skeleto-ahem-Christian Bale), a crack-addicted former fighter himself whose unwillingness to let go of the past (he "knocked down" Sugar Ray Leonard in the late 70s) is only surpassed by his inability to be counted on when Micky needs him.

Add to this bubbling cauldron of familial dysfunction the presence of local law enforcement as Mickey's new trainer after Dicky lets him down for the final time and goes to jail, and a love interest (Amy Adams) with her own thoughts on how Micky can reach the top, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. Which is precisely what happens about an hour into the movie. Then, a metaphoric cake delivered to his old crack buddies by Dicky himself and one porch-top confession of guilt later, and everyone is back behind Micky again as he fights for the unlikeliest of titles against a far superior foreign fighter.

Is all this sounding familiar? That's because it is. The crack addiction angle with Dicky is perhaps the most interesting and emotionally-realistic part of the film, and undoubtedly as the credits roll the audience gets the sense that Dicky's sobriety is a much more significant accomplishment than David O. Russel's titular hero. It's unsurprising, as a result, that Mark Wahlberg didn't get the dap most that he deserved for portraying Mickey. The movie never really seems to be about him exclusively, even when that last triumphant punch is inevitably thrown. This is no fault of Wahlberg's-the character quite simply goes through most of the movie without a spine. When he finally does develop the backbone to stand up to his brother and mother, it is the actions of others that allow a peaceful resolution and all of his loved ones standing in the corner behind him. "The Fighter" is less a testament to the resiliency of an unsung warrior (even though the obligatory training montage in the middle of the film wants to force you to think otherwise), but more about the wily-nily Cinderalla story that emerges as a result of forces beyond Mickey's control.

The Fighter is an excellent sports movie. It is also a stylish and endearing journey down a well-beaten path, with lots of pretty performances to look at. This "based on a true story" feature somehow still winds up playing out like a Disney miracle (with a larger portion of drug use and language than another Mickey would find acceptable), and less a true character exploration of the titular hero. We should expect more from Oscar-nominated motion pictures.

Verdict: 3.0/5 stars

Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review-Captain America: The First Avenger

In the midst of dubious foreign policy in Libya, a looming debt crisis being spoken of in apocalyptic terms, and even our biggest sports stars involved in what appears to be money-grubbing labor negotiations, perhaps now is the perfect time to revisit the ideals (real or imagined) that make this country great. Enter Captain America: The First Avenger, a shot in the collective arm of the United States to the tune of $65 million in its opening weekend. The film is a competent companion to Marvel's current stable of independent Avengers flicks, establishing a narrative focus for the character while also providing some impressive fireworks along the way. However, like those other films, Cap lacks the ideological depth that films like Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Kick Ass, and the current Batman trilogy illustrate the comic book medium is capable of.

To that end, the performances here fill stock roles that we've come to expect from the genre, without any particular character dominating the action in any memorable way. Evans (THE HUMAN TORCH WAS DENIED A BANK LOAN!) is a pretty believable Cap, exuding the charm, charisma and selflessness we would expect from America's hero. When he tries to bring some emotional depth to the character in the form of mourning for a fallen soldier, however, the act gets a bit tired. The love interest (Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter) is similarly forgettable and formulaic. Sure, she grabs a tommy gun at one point to take out an assailant and puts a wayward private on his ass in boot camp, but her appearances throughout the film are meant mainly to bring out Evans' doughy eyes and remind the audience the American spirit can conquer anything it sets its mind to (which, of course, works on two levels, as Carter is a Brit enlisted in the American army for some reason or another).

Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, and Hugo Weaving all provide perhaps transcendent ensemble performances. Jones is your typical Doubting Thomas, brought into the cult of Cap just as easily as Carter eventually falls for the leading man. Tucci once again attempts to steal the prize of Actor Who Takes The Least Number of Flattering Roles from Steve Buscemi by portraying a grizzled and disenchanted German scientist who defects and mentors Cap through the transformation process. Weaving steps into the role of villain as masterfully as ever, though he's given little to work with other than Red Man (I knew there was some anti-Commie stuff in this film, too!) who wants to destroy world and rebuild it with himself as leader. We've seen this a hundred times before, and while Captain America brings some interesting period piece elements to the show, it doesn't do anything interesting or meaningful with them.

In fact, all the shortcomings of the film could be attributed to a shallowness that pervades all 2 hours and 4 minutes of its run-time. Nazi ideology and iconography is removed completely from the film, replaced by the faceless Hydra who walk, talk and act like Nazis but allow the film to make a PG-13 point about war and America without dragging unnecessary political baggage into the fold. In fact, after the first hour of the film, the mention of Hitler and the Nazis ceases altogether, leaving the believability of the film to hinge on the ideas and values Cap stands for. Of course, those ideals and values include the introduction of the token African-American soldier who is Harvard educated and drops in at just the right moment to save the day. The viewer expects a certain amount of vapid ideology when walking into a movie called Captain America. But this film takes that presumption and uses it as a license to make a film that says little, if anything, about America that doesn't seem to be tired or a cliche in this modern world, and ignores completely (through the loss of Nazi ideology as the enemy) any moral high ground upon which America's (and thus Captain's) superiority could be argued.

Still, on the other hand, Captain America does exactly what a comic book movie providing exposition for an obligatory multi-hero sequel film should do. It provides a creation narrative for both the idea and the abilities of the hero in question without allowing ideology or unnecessary plot complications to get in the way. Put simply, Captain America is a thrilling ride that pays homage to conceptions of America that may or may not still exist in this modern, complicated world in which we find ourselves. It will certainly be interesting to see how Marvel handles the transition to the modern world for Cap in the upcoming Avengers film. As an independent picture, however, Captain America answers the call of duty...but does little to go above and beyond it.

3D Note: If you're thinking of seeing the film in 3D, I'd advise against it. The only cool effects occur during one particular combat montage in the middle of the film, otherwise you're getting pretty basic touch-up animations that have little, if any, "wow" factor.

Verdict: 3.5/5 stars

Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn-"Cedar Rapids" Review

In many ways, Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" (the follow-up to his moderately successful adaptation "Youth in Revolt") bears a striking resemblance to its metropolitan namesake. Featuring several big-name comedy actors (and starring current hot commodity Ed Helms) indicating the potential for a mainstream "big city" hit, in its cinematography and willingness to shift tone and play it blue when necessary, "Cedar Rapids" very much embraces its indie origins. In the first ten minutes, we're treated to awkward sex between Tim Lippe (Helms) and his favorite grade school teacher (Sigourney Weaver) and an auto-erotic asphyxiation death suffered by Lippe's idol, Roger Lemke (Thomas Lennon, channeling Lt. Dangle at his awkward best during his brief time on-screen). The "tragedy," as Lippe believes it to be, forces Lippe to attend an annual insurance conference in Lemke's stead held every year in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Leaving home for the first time ever, Lippe is thrust headlong into into the dangerous world of Midwestern insurance sales politics, and before the film ends Helms' misguided hero has found himself dabbling in adultery, illegal drug use, prostitution solicitation and some impromptu insurance-inspired karaoke.

All of this is handled to perfection by Helms, who has had more than his fair share of experience playing the naive straight man over the past several years on both TV (The Office's Andy Bernard) and the silver screen (Stu in both Hangover movies). In fact, none of the performances here are anything we haven't seen before. Reilly plays the same over-the-top, obnoxious blowhard we've seen in Talladega Nights and Stepbrothers. Stephen Root and Kurtwood Smith each portray fat cats of the industry willing to bend the rules to make a quick buck, placing them squarely in the camp of conventional comedy foils. Indeed, much of the criticism for "Cedar Falls" seems to be with its predictability. The story arc follows a pattern you can anticipate reasonably well in the first several minutes, with the naive hero finally spreading his wings and understanding what we wants out of life once he broadens his horizons. Think "Mr. Deeds" on a much smaller scale without the obligatory Steve Buscemi cameo.

Underneath this layer of conventionality, however, lies a chemistry between the four main characters (in addition to Lippe and Ziegler, the gang includes Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Ronald Wilkes and Anne Heche as Joan Ostrowski-Fox) that makes the predictable story worth watching. Helms captures just the right amount of believability out of the hopelessly-lost small town boy to anchor the film, and we can't help but cheer for him, even as he's bemoaning the loss of a life we know he's not happy living. Whitlock, in particular, shines as a jovial roommate and fellow salesman to Lippe, who is horrified originally to be sharing a hotel room with an "Afro-American" gentleman. The rapport that builds between the four stars can be seen most acutely in the shorts that accompany the final credits. If anything, Cedar Rapids is guilty of establishing relationships it doesn't ultimately explore. At the end of the film, we get the sense that these characters love and care about each other, but we're deprived of seeing how those relationships turn out down the road.

Maybe that's the point, though. "Cedar Rapids" is a film that explores familiar territory, giving us a main character hopelessly inept who finds himself on a voyage beyond the confines of his ordinary life. We see an evolution in Helms' Lippe, but one that Arteta makes sure in the final scene not to let reach too far. The film, thus, preserves the down-home simplicity we like to believe still exists in middle America. Bucking no trends and forging no paths that haven't been worn several times before, it does make for a nice hour and a half distraction showcasing the talent of several of today's established and up-and-coming comedic actors. Like a nice trip to a sleepy metropolis in the Midwest, populated by chain restaurants and all the excitement of a hotel swimming pool, we take comfort from knowing what to expect in "Cedar Rapids" and having it delivered in a nice, simple package. ("Hey, Timbo, did you just make a dick joke?")

Verdict: 4/5 stars

Change in the Sofa: A Look Back at the Music Video

Later this summer, MTV will resurrect perhaps its most popular and controversial original series of all-time, Beavis and Butthead. While MTV hasn't released much information about the form in which the series will make its return (let's hope, for the love of God, Hollywood's current crush with "gritty reboots" doesn't find its way into this revival. I don't think I could stomach a Cornholio with a painkiller addiction and a Butthead driven to revenge-fueled madness after being laid off of his job following the housing bubble burst), it is highly likely several staple features of the show will return. Chief among these necessary elements, of course, should be the duo's hilariously-misinformed criticism of contemporary music videos.

But, have you taken a look at the stable of potential fodder for MTV's poster-boy idiots this year? Let's try and overlook the fact (like MTV's marketing department has done for years) that the medium has been rendered culturally irrelevant as a result of the format switch of the station in the early 2000s that is an easy target for hack stand-up comedians throughout this fine country. The music video, as an art form, has lacked any kind of significance since about 2002, placing the medium in the same category as fax machines, pay phones, and the Seattle Mariners. Prior to MTV's complete abandonment of the staple element of its brand since the early 1980s, however, there were several technical achievements in music video production that elevated the medium, at its height, to a level of certifiable artistic pursuit that in many cases exceeded the quality of the songwriting itself. This post celebrates those videos during the heyday of their cultural significance, beginning with perhaps the finest example of how a music video could transform a pop music hit into a cultural phenomenon.

Michael Jackson
"Thriller"
From Thriller, Epic Records, 1982
Director: John Landis


Michael Jackson's Thriller featured several memorable music videos with "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," but it was his decision to develop this long-form video with its own self-sustained narrative (and the most-mimicked dance sequence in the history of popular music) that stands the test of time as perhaps the first big push in what a music video could be. No longer did we need to have a rock band performing in an abandoned warehouse, or (perhaps more popular in the early 80s) crazy-looking artists simply crooning into a camera as their shellacked hairstyles bobbed up and down on cable-ready television sets.

A-Ha
"Take on Me"
From Hunting High and Low, Warner Bros., 1985
Director: Steve Barron

Embedding disabled for this video. Click link to watch on youtube.

There were actually two versions produced for this 1985 breakout hit, but it is Steve Barron's version that introduces animation in a uniquely stunning way for the period that was often poorly imitated (see: Paula Abdul's "Straight Up") but not duplicated until the early 2000s (as we'll see later). The story told in the video itself may have little (if anything) to do with the content of the song, and I'm still not certain where the evil biker gang fits in, but damn if the rotoscoped music clip hasn't penetrated deep into the fabric of our collective popular culture consciousness.

Peter Gabriel
"Sledgehammer"
From So, Geffen, 1986
Director: Steven R. Johnson


Peter Gabriel and Steven R. Johnson channeled their inner Tim Burton and produced this stop-motion masterpiece in the midst of some rather vapid hair band fare that populated much of the music video scene of the mid-1980s. I'm not sure if they intentionally filmed the stutter-step dance moves of Peter Gabriel or they put some of those mo-cap balls on me during my moves on the dance floor at prom. Either way, the video simultaneously oozes cool and inspires nausea.

Pearl Jam
"Jeremy"
From Ten, Epic Records, 1992
Director: Mark Pellington



Apparently, by 1992 we'd tired of zombies, Dr. Katz-style sketchy animation and mouths that morph into clay bullhorns to scare children with music videos, so Eddie Vedder and Mark Pellington turned the camera on the legion of angst-y teens created by the new grunge movement. What resulted remains, to this day, one of the most haunting psychological portraits in the medium that brilliantly captures the raw emotion of just one of many of the instant classics that found their way onto Ten. The controversy created by "Jeremy" kick-started the confrontational career of the grunge era's last great legacy on today's music scene.

The Beastie Boys
"Sabotage"
From Ill Communication, Grand Royal Records, 1994
Director: Spike Jonze



From the "Police Squad!" homage in the video's opening seconds to the grainy video effects driving home that 1970s vibe to the stone-faced selling of the parody by the Beasties, "Sabotage" has classic satiric video written all over it. Throughout the years, the group has produced some hilarious videos with varying degrees of success. This is their "Citizen Kane," folks.

Weezer
"Buddy Holly"
From Weezer (The Blue Album), Geffen, 1994
Director: Spike Jonze



Perhaps it's a little vanilla to list two Spike Jonze videos back-to-back, from the same year nonetheless, but you can't include a list of great music video concept ideas and leave out the Fonz. I mean, let's leave aside the technical accomplishment of the video, which was mind-blowing back in 1994 (this is before Lucas went back in and changed the Gredo/Han Solo thing, remember? Putting Rivers and the boys on the set of "Happy Days" convincingly simply for a music video made me feel, as a seven year-old snot-nosed kid, as though I were the Indians and Spike Jonze the Spaniard had just made fire jump from his hands right in front of me). Joanie loves Chachi, but I love this video (cue laugh track).

Jamiroquai
"Virtual Insanity"
From Traveling Without Moving, Sony Soho Square, 1996
Director: Jonathan Glazer



You have to give English acid jazz band Jamiroquai props for a few things in this video. The first would be totally pulling off that plush Abraham Lincoln imitation cranial wear. The second would be capturing the essence of their album title in a nice, neat four minute video package. Finally, actually making something called "acid jazz" relevant in a way that didn't involve illegal drugs, a soundproof garage, and a complete DVD set of the Battlestar Galactica series.

Korn
"Freak on a Leash"
From Follow the Leader, Immortal/Epic, 1999
Director: Todd McFarlane



So, clearly Korn went a different direction with the animation than A-Ha did some fifteen years prior. Props to them for having the stones to hire acclaimed comic book artist McFarlane, who apparently laid the groundwork for the film "Eight Crazy Nights" with the character models. I'll admit, I wasn't a huge Korn fan, but I was a big supporter of any one who had a chance to knock off certain boy bands from the number one spot on Total Request Live, which I watched every afternoon when I got home from school (I still love you Carson! Even though you're only on at 2:30 AM and I honestly couldn't care less about your 2,345,763rd interview with Fred Durst). That's a nice profile of your fan base, too, Korn. Do I need to bench 250 just to get a pre-order of your new CD?

Fatboy Slim
"Weapon of Choice"
From Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, Skint/Astralwerks, 2000
Director: Spike Jonze




I imagine the pitch for this video went a little something like this:

Fatboy: For this video, I just want a guy dancing in a lobby. He's wearing an old timer suit, with slacks that rest just in the sub-lingual area. Midway through his foxtrot, gravity gives way, and he starts dancing on the ceiling.
Label: Hmm. I like it, but in order for it to be fully enjoyable during an acid trip, we're going to need the perfect man to play your dancer.
Fatboy: Christopher Walken just got done shooting "Catch Me if You Can." He should be available.
Label: Here's a blank check. Make this damn video.

The rest is history.

Gorillaz
"Clint Eastwood"
From Gorillaz, Parlophone, 2000
Director: Jamie Hewlett



This video taught us that it could be possible for pop stars to develop a massive following in spite of being not strictly human. It is a theory that continues to be tested today with the success of Lady Gaga.

The White Stripes
"Fell in Love with a Girl"
From White Blood Cells, XL, 2002
Director: Michael Gondry



What more should we have expected from the brilliant mind that gave us "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the slightly-less intelligent same mind that gave us "The Green Hornet"? The White Stripes always had a knack for producing fiendishly cool music videos, and the length of their first single that exploded off White Blood Cells in 2002 gave them the outlet necessary to unleash this dizzying feat of childhood engineering over the top of what is essentially a straightforward old-time rock and roll love song. When I tried to recreate it in my room, all I ended up with was something that looked like a house and four swallowed red bricks.

Johnny Cash (Nine Inch Nails cover)
"Hurt"
From America IV: The Man Comes Around, American Recordings/Universal Music Group, 2003
Director: Mark Romanek



Perhaps the best praise for Johnny Cash's final music video should come straight from the lips of the original songwriter, Trent Reznor, in an interview with Alternative Press in September 2004:

"I pop the video in, and wow... Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps... Wow. [I felt like] I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore... It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure."

Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Can't Stop"
From By the Way, Warner Bros., 2003
Director: Mark Romanek

Embedding disabled by request. Click link to watch video on youtube.

RHCP has been known for some rather interesting visual interpretations of their hits ("Scar Tissue," "Otherside," and the trippy Crazy Taxi-looking "Californication"), but this accompanying short for the third single off an extremely underrated album in their oeuvre is perhaps the most arresting. Where can I snag a fluorescent backpack, Anthony?

Yellowcard
"Ocean Avenue"
From Ocean Avenue, Capitol, 2004
Director: Marc Webb



Okay, so it's a tad too derivative of both "Run Lola Run" and "Groundhog Day," but if you can make the complicated premises of those two films work in less than four minutes over a standard pop song, you've got to be doing something right, correct? Doesn't the lead singer look like a guy you stuffed in a locker in seventh grade? Oh, no, that's right. That was me.

Beck
"Girl"
From Guero, Interscope, 2005
Director: Motion Theory



Beck may have hit his songwriting peak with "Odelay" in 1996, but his best music video came almost a decade later. Taking a page (see what I did there!) out of MAD magazine, the video features some interesting city planning choices. An otherwise forgettable love pop-py love song becomes a type of real Escher-ian nightmare.

Vampire Weekend
"Oxford Comma"
From Vampire Weekend, XL/DGC, 2008
Director: Richard Ayoade



I'm not a huge fan of the avant-garde, or the one-take camera trickery, but for some reason in this video the two fuse together to create an enjoyable interpretation of a single I preferred to "A-Punk," which ultimately rocketed this New York indie band to fame in the summer of 2008. It could be the clear Strokes influence on the guitar riff or the use of the Futura font (also employed by Kubrick, Wes Anderson, and the animated series "Doug"). Whatever the reason, "Oxford Comma" seems to have the artistic creativity, inspiration and style that endears it to the video shorts of yesteryear. And yes, the punctuation decision in that last sentence was very consciously-made.

Obviously, there are many other great videos that visually or conceptually elevated the form. Let me know what some of your favorites are below!

Virtual Dork-Duke Nukem Forever Review

Read this review on Neoseeker.

All you really need to know about Duke Nukem Forever can be found out during the brief introductory video that precedes the main menu the first time you pop the game into your console. A grainy video featuring the eponymous hero firing stiffly at franchise-staple pig aliens while a generic three-chord power metal song plays in the background invites players into the action. A tint of red bathes all objects on screen, signalling the gory death that will abound during the roughly sixteen hours of gameplay in the single-player campaign. At the end of the CGI sequence, Duke (voiced once again by Jon St. John) brazenly declares, "I'm back, baby!" Is that a good thing?

Not if you read several prominent gaming publications. DNF (as I will refer to the game from now on...those of you lucky enough to compete in a timed sport will understand the irony of the acronym which stands for "DID NOT FINISH" in the results) currently can lay claim to a paltry 50 score (out of 100) on Metacritic. Yesterday, 2K Games (the publisher of DNF) fired the PR firm in charge of handling publicity for the game after its President tweeted a warning to all gaming journalists mocking the title in the press. It's not hard to understand this reaction after playing DNF for five minutes or so. The game takes clear potshots at industry leaders (Halo, Call of Duty, even Mario gets called out at one point), inviting through its arrogance the wrath of gamers and other developers in response to the game's faults.

Of which, even as a huge Duke fan (I'll admit I hobnobbed with the super-geeks early Tuesday morning to pick up the game at midnight), I have to admit there are several. Originally, Duke Nukem games allowed for a high level of interactivity in the main world, either for comic or gameplay-specific effect. This feature finds its way into DNF, though in comparison to games like the recent Fallout titles which boast the ability to manipulate all objects in the game world through the first-person perspective, Duke's interactivity seems mild by comparison. Also, in the first few minutes of the single-player campaign (after a rather interesting and-to a certain extent-refreshing take on the tutorial mode present in most of today's shooters) and in the room of rewards present as a result of accomplishments in online play, the ability to interact the world causes framerate hiccups and stuttering.

Enemy intelligence is another sticking point. Foes will repeatedly rush you aggressively, but rarely work together as a team. Circle strafing can take out most enemies, just as it did back in Nukem 3D back in 1997. The most advanced tactic enemies will use to defeat you (outside of some of the inspired, old-school throwback boss battles that occur frequently to break up the action) is to toss some pipe bombs every now and then. Pacing throughout the game can be hit-or-miss. In addition to the aforementioned boss battles (which are difficult, but not impossible-the way shooter boss fights should be, rather than the scripted sequences seen in games of today if you ask this reviewer), there are turret sequences which are rather straightforward scattered throughout as well as some actually enjoyable platforming and physics puzzle sequences.

Many reviewers (including IGN) panned DNF for its decision to include driving, turret, and puzzle/platforming sequences in between the competent shooting mechanics present in the game. I, instead, found these additions to be rather entertaining and certainly enjoyable when used as transitions between fast-paced shooting. We're obviously not talking Half-Life 2 quality mind-benders, but Gearbox does make a point to both introduce interesting challenges within their game world that transcend simply pointing a shotgun or yanking the tusks off a pig-cop close up. During one inspired sequence late in the game, players are treated to a sequence that integrates a lift, a physics puzzle with barrels, and gunplay into five or so minutes of perhaps the most promising DNF gameplay. The physics system in DNF, however, can at times be wonky, and platforming can be frustrating with some unresponsive controls on occasion. Expect to fail and even die a few times making the correct jump.

Which leads to my biggest complaint with DNF. The loading times on the Xbox 360 are unacceptable even by N64-generation standards. I spent more time waiting for the game to reload after dying in a boss battle than I was actually fighting. I got in the habit of leaving a book open so I could at least feel like I was doing something productive with the time I had to wait for the game to catch back up with me. In these days of autosaving and massive game worlds that can be streamed instantaneously with only minimal loading times measurable in seconds, it is absolutely inexcusable that, after learning a strategy to defeat a boss in the first few seconds, I have the time to watch an episode of The Wire, heat up a ham sandwich, and map the human genome before I get back into the action.

This problem could have been alleviated entirely if DNF had simply employed a feature present in many games today of an interactive loading screen. The pinball, air hockey, and crude whack-a-mole (Alien Abortion!) games playable during a strip-club dream sequence in the middle of the narrative would have made nice loading screen distractions. As it stands, we have some stock music that repeats itself every five seconds (we're talking dream-haunting levels of redundancy), a concept art image of the level we are playing, and a few bone-headed text suggestions at the bottom of the screen (these things have to be ironic inclusions by the developers. "When getting shot at, try to avoid bullets" is a "pro tip" that appears frequently during loading screens. Can Gearbox come over to my house and mash up my solid food for me, too?).

This criticism brings up perhaps the central conflict present between the audience and DNF, and fuel for the review conflict that cost that PR firm a client. How do we judge DNF? As a game developed in 2011 with the current shooter audience in mind, or as an homage to a generation of gamers who have evolved themselves, but simply looking for a nostalgic good time? To answer this question, I found myself drawn back to my experience with the Wii version of Goldeneye released late last year. That game was essentially a retelling of a classic title with the trappings of modern shooters. The gameplay was competent, the multiplayer was just as much fun as gamers remembered, and it employed certain features that were sure to bring in a new and younger audience to a game that was a classic of a previous generation.

In many ways, I think DNF tried to do the same thing. There's a competent shooter here, with some fun gunplay (the shotgun, for lack of less punningly-excruciating terms, is a blast to fire at enemies) and the same attitude you remember from back in the day. I believe the reviewers at IGN, who suggested the game would only be funny to a 12 year old, missed the point. Duke Nukem will always be about going over-the-top. In the humor department, that means taking the macho, Hollywood action hero (who may be disappearing, except in revivals like "The Expendables" and therefore no longer as funny to a mainstream, youthful audience) and extending him to his chauvinistic and arrogant limit.

Duke is still Duke (even though some of his quotes will be repeated to the point of nausea by the time you complete the game) and the attitude of the series is still very evident. Several instances in the game let you know the developers are self-aware, and that we shouldn't be taking this too seriously. In a shooter genre where we're forced-with games like Bioshock and Modern Warfare 2-to make ethical choices based on what and whom we're shooting, it's nice to know that we can step into the shoes of a guy who simply wants you to know, "I'm from Las Vegas, and I say KILL 'EM ALL!" That Duke is back, and love him or hate him, DNF at the very least reminds us that such a hero can still exist. With more polish and a focus on its own identity and that of its audience, a sequel to this mediocre title could show us that subsistence in the modern world isn't all the Duke should be looking for.

COME GET SOME!

Verdict: 3.0/5 stars

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Special Feature-Top 10 Greatest Sports Movie Villains of All-Time

Here's a list I composed a few years back and posted over on the ESPN.com blog pages. This is very important work I'm doing, people!

10. Alejandro "Butch" Heddo
Film: Rookie of the Year

You only see him once or twice during the film. But as he's grinding the wood on the grip of his bat, shouting "This one's for mommy! MOMMY!" I got chills. Honestly. He also saved John Candy from having the dubious honor of "fattest guy in the film." Take a look at the tape. It's there.

9. David Simms
Film: Tin Cup

He took Roy's car after schtoinking his ex-girlfriend! Of course, in the end Costner gets the girl and Crockett lays up like the pansey he is. This is in fact the Merriam-Webster definition of justice.

8. Mark (Annie's brother)
Film: Field of Dreams

Again, someone's trying to convince Kevin Costner he's not worth anything. And again Costner proves him wrong. Not only is Mark a smartass realty broker, he also interrupted James Earl Jones' beautiful speech about the history of baseball. And he almost killed Ray's daughter! What a jerk.

7. Ernie McCracken
Film: Kingpin

Played to perfection by the incomparable Bill Murray. Not only did he cause Roy to lose his hand, he then mocked him for it years later. "I didn't want to lose to a guy with no hand, you know?!" Bonus points for a terrific comb-over job.

6. Baxter Cain
Film: BASEketball

Am I the only one who's amused that the great Robert Vaughn's 100th film was Trey Parker and Matt Stone's often overlooked genius sports comedy that includes no fewer than five completely homoerotic sequences? "You're excited, feel these nipples!" Anyway, hopefully inclusion on this list will help make up for the loss of the priceless autographed Ty Cobb baseball bat.

5. Rachel Phelps
Films: Major League, Major League 2

Anytime a former Las Vegas showgirl takes over the team and tries to sell it to another town with Bob Uecker in the booth, you're top 5 material. Did anyone else think Rene Russo was hotter in these movies than Margaret Whitton? Just me? Okay then, moving on...

4. Ivan Drago
Film: Rocky IV

Killing Appollo Creed in the first five minutes wasn't even his biggest offense. He's a Commie for God's sake! Inexcusable pre-1989. And he inspired that terrible and often-mocked montage towards the end of the film. DRAGO!!!! Oh, and by the way Sly, that's a really fantastic speech you made at the end of this film. What I could understand of it. We-es CAN change!

3. Judge Smails
Film: Caddyshack



"It's easy to grin, when your ship comes in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man worthwhile, is the one who can smile, when his pants are too tight in the seat."

Gets some points for having a smoking hot niece and for pulling off that incredible hat, but come on? Treating Spaulding like he did just for being an asthmatic screw-up and his incessant racism put him in the top 3 (Colored boy?!). Now, how 'bout a Fresca?

2. Shooter McGavin
Film: Happy Gilmore

"Nuh-uh. I called it first."

The tour pro whose right arm is just a little longer than his left and a proclivity for end-rhyme threatened to burn Happy's grandma's house down and then relieve himself on the remains. He also wasn't aware Grizzly Adams had a beard. I think that puts him near the top of our list, no?

1. Jack Parkman
Film: Major League 2

"Obviously Taylor's thinking...I dunno WHAT the hell he's thinkin'!"

It's really no contest. With a name like Jack Parkman, how can you NOT name him number one? The fact that he played for the Indians for most of the season until it was apparent they were terrible and THEN jumped ship to Chicago is reason enough to hate the guy, but to suggest that Rick Vaughn's new pitch should be called "The Masturbator"? In the words of Harry Doyle, "he's still a dick."

Honorable Mention: Hercules ("Sandlot"), Warden Hazen ("The Longest Yard"), White Goodman ("Dodgeball"-would have made the list if this character wasn't an exact replica of Tony Perkis from "Heavyweights")

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review-That Evening Sun

Ryan Adams requests, in the appropriately-titled "Tennessee Sucks," for "something blue to put us out of our way/'Cause Tennessee sucks in the summer." Roll credits on "That Evening Sun," an adaptation of a William Gay short story directed by Scott Teems and starring Hal Holbrook. The film insists upon a slow, deliberate pace throughout, highlighted by an understated score teeming with the sounds of Tennessee in the summer (13-year cicadas notwithstanding). This is a Southern movie-it's hard not to read into the land ownership conflict between Abner Meecham (Holbrook) and Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon). But there's something more to this story. It isn't a pure generational-conflict film, like say a "Gran Torino," but that element is certainly present. It's also not a story of redemption, or of good triumphing over evil. Because there is really no good or evil here. Audiences swaying their allegiance to Meecham immediately for being displaced by a boozing, wife-beating deadbeat who even "walks like white trash" (in the words of Meecham) will be discouraged by some of the revelations of the second half of the film.

This is really where Holbrook shines. He can at once make the audience believe that his claim to his family's farm is legitimate, and that his intentions for sticking around in the tenant cabin are just. At the same time, we can't completely dismiss his lawyer son's (played more-than-competently by Walter Goggins of "Justified" and "The Shield" fame) admission that his father was mean and ill-tempered with him, and with his wife. Whether as a consequence of the source material (I admit, I haven't read the short-story yet) or of Teems' directorial decision, some sympathy is introduced back into Meecham's character in the final act of the film, but this sympathy is immediately undermined by what amounts to be an apparent plot to win his farm back through drastic measures. Throughout all of these developments, Holbrook never allows us to believe that Meecham isn't simply human, reacting to a world that he cannot completely control anymore, no matter how much he'd like to. Meecham's stubbornness, like the Romantic vision of the Confederate soldier fighting for "state's rights" rather than to preserve the pernicious continuation of slavery, becomes his most endearing quality, and Holbrook comes through in spades portraying this flawed protagonist on-screen.

The subsequent performances are nothing to really write home about. Barry Corbin does an amusing turn as neighbor Thurl Chessor, similar in age and temperament to Meecham and thus providing another mouthpiece against the coming tide of modernism in the rural South. When Thurl admonishes to Abner that he should be proud of his son getting out of town and making something of himself, Abner tells us, "I am proud of him. There's a difference between leaving home and forgetting the place exists, though." Teems never lets the audience forget the beauty and majesty of the place Meecham seems to be protecting. The soundtrack and visuals all play into a Romanticized version of the rural South that persists even as the credits roll. You don't have to be from the South or have lived there for a time to appreciate the film, but it sure doesn't hurt.

For all that it does well, "That Evening Sun" ends without resolution. I'm sure that's part of Teems' point, and certainly is a component of the post-modern short story Gay wrote ten years ago, but it doesn't allow the film to really come to any sort of cogent conclusion. The audience is left with several characters we're not sure what to do with, and the dramatic action of the final thirty minutes of the film remains somehow detached from the rest of the film. Its implications are never fully explored. This may work in the shorts Teems directed before this feature-length debut, but it leaves this reviewer with the conclusion that Teems and Holbrook tell a very interesting story, but don't really take it anywhere.

Verdict: 3.5/5 stars

A Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn Movie Review-The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

This is a Western? It seemed to me to be two and a half hours of Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt staring at each other. I thought I'd picked the film out of the wrong section of the DVD store. I really wanted to like this film, and to be completely honest, there are a ton of great performances here. Jeremy Renner, Sam Rockwell, and Sam Shepard all shine in supporting roles, but with the possible exception of Rockwell none of them are given enough time to fully develop their characters. Zooey Deschanel seems like a cruel, sexy afterthought thrown into the film for the heterosexual male audience who likely are a little uneasy two hours into the film by the thick sexual tension between Ford and James. I mean, I'm not a Freudian or anything, but the scene with James in the bathtub? More than a little suggestive that something more than hero worship is going on in Ford's head.

Affleck and Pitt are superb, but only when they aren't simply gazing into each other's eyes...which has to be roughly 50% of the film. I mean, Affleck stared into the camera so intently I thought he wanted to kill me by the end of it. The first two hours of the film, consequently, stand as a sickeningly melodramatic foreplay for the aesthetic and intellectual feast that occurs in the film's final 30 minutes. The most interesting part of the movie occurs once James is dead. The psychological toll the assassination has on the Ford brothers is infinitely more interesting than James' descent into madness.

I was also a bit off-put by the past-tense third-person narration present in the film. The only reason I can figure the director decided on this approach was to constantly remind his audience that this re-telling of the story must be digested by an audience removed from the Romanticism of James that was present following his assassination. At the same time, however, Dominik goes out of the way to establish this presentation of James. In the scene where James reveals he has killed Ed Miller to Charley Ford, James insists that Ford should "pity him" as well. By the end of the film, it's difficult not to. The cold, passionate voice of the narrator simply seems out of place. Though I loved the decision of how to shoot the final moments of the film. If it had ended any other way, I would have been more upset than I am.

As it stands, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is not the sum of its spectacular parts. The film drags as an art-house investigation of a time period that simply isn't conducive to that kind of treatment. One gets the feeling that the story being told on screen isn't the truth, but simply another one of Ford's stage shows with overly temperamental characters. Crying doesn't make a Western edgy and realistic, as Dominik seems to want it to do. It simply suggests another kind of Romance that is not heroic. I don't prefer that approach to the gritty realism of, say, an Unforgiven. If you're a Pitt or Affleck fan, however, you can do worse than a viewing.

Verdict: 3/5 stars