Monkey strong bowels

If you’re looking for something to occupy your time now that you finished the Powerpoint presentation you said it would take another week to complete, the entire first four seasons of “Newsradio” are on Hulu.

You’re welcome.

QOTD: 1/30/09

David Parmet:

If your success depends on getting people to ‘do something,’ anything they wouldn’t normally do or be inclined to consider doing, you are going to fail. That includes visit your web site, join your proprietary social network, wear your t-shirts, whatever.

On the other hand, if you can create a compelling case, or give people something that makes perfect sense to them so that they naturally want to participate, you just might be onto something.

A small request

Can we get live-streaming of the television upfront sessions in May? Cause honestly I think they might be the funniest programming the Internet has ever seen.

Movie Journal: Opportunity Knocks

Dana Carvey is, as you’d expect, the primary reason to watch Opportunity Knocks. The movie, released in 1990 (which was actually around the time his popularity on SNL was beginning to wane) casts Carvey as a con-man who goes around pulling small time jobs to keep him and his partner out of debt to a mobster. On the run from that mobster Carvey’s character winds up getting involved in a much bigger con by taking on the identity of an in-demand businessman, a situation that results in him falling in love and eventually forsaking his lay-about lifestyle.

It’s not a great movie – sometimes it can be downright painful to watch and it’s not aged well in the 19 years since its release – but it is funny more often than not and Carvey is quite charming in the role. It’s essentially an outlet for him to pull out a handful of impressions and voices, but that’s exactly what the audience was asking from him at that point. When the humor drops, though, Carvey seems oddly capable of expressing some genuine emotions.

Like many of the movies I’ve been watching lately, Opportunity Knocks is available on Hulu right now so if you’re one of those that saw it when it came out and want to revisit it, now’s your chance.

Republican arguments against the financial stimulus package

Disingenuous on every level.

Not sure what the scariest part of this picture is

Holy crap.

Listen to the way he goes on and on in his many media appearances this week. The man actually believes what he’s saying, despite the fact that he apparently has no understanding of constitutional law or anything like that. He’s not insane – he’s fully delusional.

DVD Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I’m not going to get into the whole discussion of writer/director Woody Allen’s career in this review of his latest movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It’s kind of useless and puts VCB unfairly up against Allen’s classic films.

Judged on its own merits, then, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a very enjoyable and entertaining movie with a handful of top notch performances and a story that, while you can probably easily see what’s coming, still holds your interest throughout.

Vicky and Cristina are two friends who, for their own reasons, wind up taking a two month vacation together to Barcelona, where they’ll be staying at the house of one of their distant relatives. Vicky is a tragic romantic, always looking for the drama in a relationship and always seeking excitement. Cristina, on the other hand, is more sensible about love and is engaged to a nice, safe, reliable and successful guy back in New York City.

While in Barcelona the two meet Juan Antonio, an artist who they find out has an ex-wife who is emotionally unstable, with whom he had a torrid romance filled with great passion both good and bad. While Vicky is immediately drawn to him, Cristina wants nothing to do with him, especially since he’s so forward about his intentions to get both of them into bed.

To map out the path these characters take would necessarily spoil the plot of the movie. While some moments seem a bit contrived most of the story follows a path that, at least for these characters, seems genuine and that helps the viewer’s enjoyment. Most all of the performances, especially that of Javier Bardem, are great and they all seem to inhabit the characters, something that helps their actions seem very natural.

The one glaring exception, as usual, is Scarlett Johansson as Vicky. The poor girl…she really can’t do a single thing. The narration that is heard throughout the film, I’m convinced, was deemed necessary solely because Johansson is not capable of actually expressing an emotion. She’s just blank. She stares off into the distance and, were it not for the narrator explaining her character’s emotions, it would be hard to tell if she were longing for a more exciting romantic adventure or just wondering if she should have Ranch of Italian dressing on her salad at lunch. I’ve never been a huge fan, but this movie is probably the most glaring example in her filmography of just how incapable she actually is of expressing her character’s emotional journey. In other films she’s been helped by her other actors that have prodded things along and picked up the slack and here it’s the narrator that carries her water.

Other than my problems with Johansson’s performance – and your milage may vary depending on your tastes – Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a very good film that shows Allen as a writer/director still has a lot of life left in him.

The movie’s DVD release contains just the film. That’s been the case with all the DVDs from the director, who apparently feels extremely strongly about including no bonus material that would go inside the filmmaking process or anything along those lines. Still well worth picking up if you’re a fan of Allen or are just looking for a good exploration of romance and relationships.

Movie Journal: Support Your Local Gunfighter

If you’ve never seen Support Your Local Gunfigher, or its predecessor Support Your Local Sheriff, you really are missing out on a couple of highly enjoyable movies.

In Gunfighter, James Garner plays a con man of sorts who, in an attempt to sneak out on the high class madam he’s engaged to, winds up in the town of Purgatory, a small Western outpost that has two mining companies that will stop at nothing to put the other one out of business. He’s mistaken for a famous gunfighter one owner has hired to take out the other, but the other – played by Harry Morgan – tries to hire him away. Eventually Garner’s character turns the situation to his advantage and wackiness generally ensues, especially when Morgan’s daughter – played by Suzanne Pleshette – gets involved.

It’s a slow paced buy quick-witted movie that has nothing offensive about it and is great to watch. It and Sheriff were often on TBS or some such channel about 15 or 20 years ago and I would always wind up watching them if I came across them on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. So when I saw that Gunfighter was on Hulu (it’s only available there for a couple more days) I immediately started it up. I’m very much hoping Support Your Local Sheriff, which is just as funny and features many of the same cast members, is available there soon.

Movie Journal: Baghead

The first half hour or so of Baghead is pretty standard Mumblecore fare. Four friends, two guys and two girls, decide that in order to seize their own movie business destiny they’re going to go to a cabin in the woods and write something for themselves. There are various romantic connections between the three. One guy loves one of the girls but is too afraid to say anything. The other guy is also attracted to that girl but has a history with the other one and they seem to still be occasionally sleeping together. It’s all complicated and everyone has trouble expressing themselves.

It’s that first half hour that actually winds up being the weakest part of the movie. It’s filled with most of the usual tropes of the Mumblecore genre and, while I’m usually a fan of that stuff, it doesn’t quite gel for me.

After that, though, when they’re at the cabin and they start seeing a mysterious figure appearing outside wearing a paper bag over his head, the movie kicks into gear and becomes quite entertaining and enjoyable. After leading you down several paths the resolution is real and doesn’t at all feel like a cop out, even if it’s something that you might be able to predict early on.

In talking about the movie to FilmCouch’s Paul Moore, I said that maybe my problems with the first part of the movie stemmed from my knowledge that there was something different coming and I was anxious for the movie to get there. If, like me, you can get over the hump you’ll probably enjoy this unique take on the horror genre.

Movie Journal: Walk Hard – The Dewey Cox Story

There have been a number of successful, at least as measured by box-office and critical standards, biopics of legendary musicians in the last few years. Ray, Walk the Line and a handful of others have all followed a pretty standard formula. Talented young adult, tragic story, drug and alcohol abuse, redemption. It’s all very sentimental.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is just what was needed to have more than a little fun with that formula.

John C. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox. After slicing his brother in half at a young age, Cox turns to music to express himself and the pain he feels. That leads him on a career path that will see him have a number of hit records, a wife and several dozen children, heavy drug use, groupie-filled orgies, an encounter in India with The Beatles, a divorce, another marriage, a TV show and ultimately a shot at reclaiming his legacy.

If it doesn’t sound all that funny in the telling let me assure you that is is very funny in execution. Reilly is fantastic as Cox, a character that brings in a little Johnny Cash, a little Brian Wilson, a little Jim Morrison and a little of a handful of other musical icons whose stories have been told. It’s not quite on the level of something like Talladega Nights or Anchorman, mostly because without someone like Will Ferrell to play off of Reilly to often figuratively winks at the audience about how funny all this is.

Still, it’s well worth checking out as it’s a much needed lampooning of the musical biopic genre and all the emotional manipulation those movies bring with them.