SIGOURNEY WEAVER: ‘ALL FILMS WILL EVENTUALLY BE 3D’

Weaver believes 2D will go the way of black and white, and I don’t completely disagree. Hollywood is absolutely freaked out over piracy, so freaked out they’ve embraced their own Patriot Act with SOPA, and the real benefit of 3D is how it makes piracy that much more difficult. A lot of piracy is done via camcorder, someone sneaking a small camera into a theatre. You can’t do that with 3D.

The problem, and it’s a major one, is that many of us don’t like 3D. If we did, 3D televisions would be flying off the shelves, when just the opposite is happening.

Never in my life have I enjoyed a film more in 3D than 2D. I hate 3D and find it a distraction. Moreover, I think it’s become a crutch for filmmakers. CGI spectacle is much easier to create as opposed to doing the truly hard work of crafting the kind of story that draws you in much more powerfully than heavy glasses.

‘MONEYBALL’ IS ON THE MONEY ON DVD

Finally saw “Moneyball” last week and can’t recommend it enough. Brad Pitt’s performance is only outmatched by a brilliant screenplay written by Aaron Sorkin. Well, it’s co-written, but the feel and rhythm of the story and dialogue tells you it’s really Sorkin’s vision and imprint that guides the thing.

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JAVIER BARDEM IS BOND 23′S VILLAIN

This is good news. Bardem is a larger-than-life presence on the screen and Bond could use some larger-than-lifeness — especially if all that larger-than-lifeness is filmed on a tripod.

GENE HACKMAN TO COME OUT OF RETIREMENT?

Somewhere around 1983, Gene Hackman became my favorite living actor and remained so until his 2004 retirement (Michael Caine now owns that spot). Last I heard, The Mighty Gene Hackman is loving life somewhere in Arizona, where at the age of 81 he paints and writes.

I’d like to– No, I want to always remember Hackman as the epitome of everyday masculinity that he portrayed so brilliantly in every film regardless of the role. I don’t want to see him old and frail. Today he might be as strong and vibrant as Robert Duvall is at the age of 80, but if he’s not I don’t want to know about it.

This is why I refuse to see “Ragtime.” I simply cannot bear the thought of The Mighty Jimmy Cagney as an old man and won’t put myself through it.

TARANTINO CASTS DON JOHNSON AS PLANTATION OWNER PIMP IN ‘DJANGO’

What a superb piece of casting. With better script choices I’m almost positive Johnson could’ve been the movie star he deserved to be. You want to see an underrated pulper that thanks to Johnson’s hangdog performance deserves a bigger audience…?

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ZOOEY DESCHANEL’S ‘NEW GIRL’ FIRST TV HIT OF THE SEASON 

Whether it’s on television or in the movies, Deschanel deserves to be a star. With so many cookie-cutter actresses out there, she really stands out. There’s a quality about her and a very real talent. Though I’ve never met her, I did get a chance to watch her work for a day on a film set and can testify that she’s every bit as charismatic and fetching in real life. And that voice … wow. 

WHAT?!?! MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS LOST A PART TO JAMIE FOXX? 

What was Quentin Tarantino thinking? Normally, I wouldn’t even come close to questioning the director’s normally inspired casting choices, but just the idea of Williams — who brought to life “The Wire’s” Omar, one of the greatest characters on the big screen or small — in the title role of Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” makes me want to get in line for a ticket now.

Nothing against Jamie Foxx, but Williams is one of those once in a generation actors. Reportedly, Tarantino is writing a part in the film just for him. So that helps some.

Some. 

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Even Charles Bronson might counsel the vigilantes in “The Boondock Saints” to light a candle or repeat a yoga mantra.

“The Boondock Saints: The Truth & Justice Edition,” just released on Blu-ray, brings the Brothers MacManus back to kill and kill again in between saying their prayers.

It’s all hooey, of course, served up with flair by writer/director Troy Duffy. Critics weren’t particularly kind to “Saints.” Most film scribes scoff at well crafted vigilante features like 2009’s “Harry Brown.” Imagine their disdain for “Saints,” a tale which doesn’t have time for any moral equivalence jibber jabber.

“Saints” remains a good vs. evil steel cage match, a key reason why its legacy endures, warts and all.

Connor and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) kill two Russian mobsters as the story opens, but the police clear them on grounds they acted in self defense.

That “defense” gives them an idea. What if they went around whacking other lowlifes in their Boston neighborhood? They could balance the scales of justice without dealing with red tape or shady lawyers. Wouldn’t they be doing the Lord’s work?

Before you can say “lock and load,” the brothers have whacked a rogues gallery of cretins from the same Russian outfit. They’ve also caught the attention of Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe), a crack FBI agent out to stop the brothers before they can tidy up the rest of Beantown.

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Okay, maybe not the best year ever, but easily my favorite of the years I’ve covered so far.  They should change the award to: The Academy’s Favorite Movie of the Year. Either that, or they could give out the award years later when a movie has either stood the test of time or has not.

But even then, some dumbass would do this.

The nominees:

“Forrest Gump” – The part that always confused me was he said, “She tastes like cigarettes,” like it was a bad thing.

“Four Weddings and a Funeral” – For my money, the oddball nominee at the time. I like it more now, but back then I was convinced it was only nominated because it’s British.

“Quiz Show” – I love the part when Herb Stempel cranes his neck to see what’s going on in the other soundproof booth, CLONKS his head on the glass, then checks-real-quick to make sure no one in the studio audience saw him. We saw ya, ya sponge-memoried freak.

“The Shawshank Redemption” – Great movie, saved by the studio’s rejection of the alternate ending, in which Red goes to Buxton, but can’t distinguish one hayfield from another because he’s never read a Robert Frost poem, screams in agony; meanwhile, the grocery store owner calls his P.O., who calls the fuzz, who come to Buxton, and gun him down. As life flickers from his eyes, he realizes he’s laying on a piece of volcanic glass that has no business being in a hayfield in the middle of Maine. He laughs to FADE OUT. (more…)

Have you seen the new music videos by Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera? If you haven’t, let me save you nine minutes of precious time. Both videos feature the young, attractive, talented singers clad in lingerie dancing, gyrating and engaging in simulated sex acts with both men and women.

In a word, boring.

Rather than hit these two from the completely legitimate position of criticizing their moral bankruptcy (especially in the case of the the underage Cyrus), let’s have some fun and hit them from the other side. That’s right, let’s talk about “art” and “feminism”.

Sure ladies, your new videos are “edgy,” “stylish,” “provocative,” “liberating” and “artistic”….for 1985. Fact is, we’ve seen this all before. The crazy wardrobe, stylized lighting, racy sexuality, blah, blah, blah. Madonna was doing this stuff 25 years ago. I have to laugh when people point out the obvious comparisons between the new Xtina video and Lady Gaga’s recent video achievements. Both of them are simply poor imitations for the “Grandmother of Smut” herself. Taking Xtina to task for ripping off Lady Gaga is like criticizing a Tarantino parrot without acknowledging the wealth of films that QT has paid “homage” to himself. (more…)

Take a ruthless Nazi leader who can order the deaths of a Jewish family with the same dispassion with which he requests a glass of milk. Mix his story with that of a Jewish woman who flees the slaughter of her family only to grow up and discover an opportunity to kill Hitler himself. Add in a cocky American Lieutenant named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who leads a secret mission in which each of his men are ordered to scalp 100 Nazi, and you’ve got the combustible mix of lead characters who cross paths with explosive results in Oscar-winning writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, “Inglourious Basterds.” 

Bringing together his usual strengths as a director of intense performances from sterling casts, an amazing score pasted together from classic scores of past films, incredibly sharp and catchy dialogue and a warped time frame that that will throw viewers through a satisfying series of loops, Tarantino has easily made his best film since “Pulp Fiction.” Coming off a humiliating misfire with 2007’s “Death Proof,” which was half of the box-office disaster known as “Grindhouse,” Tarantino has admitted that he felt the need to double down on his strengths and prove that he was just as relevant and inventive as ever.  (more…)

During the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival, few doubted Federico Fellini’s “8 ½” was a masterpiece. The film was not merely contending for the Grand Prize; it was clear that no conventional prize could put a tag on the sheer artistic genius and refreshing power of the movie. Threatened by Fellini’s highly formalistic language, the Communist Party’s movie department (who were making decisions behind the scenes), as usual, suspected something potentially harmful for the cause of the international proletariat. They put pressure on the head of the jury, a Soviet filmmaker Grigori Chukhrai, not to award the Grand Prize to “8 ½.”

Chukhrai was in a tight spot. He had his share of problems with the system with his 1959 war movie “The Ballad of a Soldier,” when he did not depict Nazis as stupid animals but rather as a highly organized and evil intelligence. Because of that, some in the government tried to ban Chukhrai and label him a Nazi sympathizer. They failed. First, Chukhrai’s movies about the war were Soviet classics and second, Chukrai himself was a war hero who fought through almost every battle of the war all the way to Berlin. (more…)