ARCHIVES
This is where old material from any of the tabs (Politics, Culture, Art, Reviews, etc.) will come to live after their shelf life in the categorical field is done.
MOVIES
Both Michael Moore's "Where to Invade Next" and Marvel Studio's "Deadpool" have excellent opening credits, so if you plan on seeing either (or both), don't be late and pay attention!
Starting with the less serious film, "Deadpool" is a hoot, a total parody of the Marvel genre and its tongue is firmly in cheek. The New Yorker kind of panned it but I'm pretty sure Anthony Lane isn't nearly the arrested adolescent I am, so he just didn't appreciate how this pure escapist, spoofing "action/adventure" and even comic movie is pretty satisfying if you want some grown up sarcasm and heads exploding now and then. No spoiler alerts here: Ryan Reynolds makes fun of himself and the genre, Stan Lee does a "gratuitous cameo," the bad guys are evil and the good guys less so. And TJ Miller is a great sidekick and wiseass as Deadpool's bartending pal. I don't go to see the other Marvel spectacles (Have never seen any Iron Man or X-Men or Wolverine flix...not even on cable or streaming) but this one (R-Rated, no less) intrigued me and it was worth the $9.50 and then some.
"Where to Invade Next" should be seen by everyone. Period. Even if you don't like Michael Moore (and he certainly is an incredibly unattractive human being) and his politics (clearly far left "leaning"), this is an important film. Moore puts in high relief how off the rails the values of the United States have gone. Critics will assail Moore, claiming the United States should not, and can not, be compared to "those" Europeans countries like Italy, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and especially not to Tunisia or Icleand! But this is, at its core, a movie about morals. It is about political choices governments and their populations make and the attendant attitudes those choices reflect. Hearing from people in the "invaded" countries (where Moore "claims" ideas to bring back to the U.S.) is what is most striking throughout the film (even the French school children). Any reflective and thoughtful person has to come out of the theater wondering how we could be where the U.S. is today, with its 1% and corporate greed, with the persistent racial, gun, and prison violence, and the significant gender gap that clearly effects our place in the world. This may not be an intentional endorsement of Hillary Clinton, but it certainly is an endorsement of greater participation by women at all levels. Go see it and let me know what it makes you think about. Well worth the entire ($9.50) admission fee.
Eye in the Sky
April 2, 2016
"Eye in the Sky" is a wonderful, and darkly serious, film well worth seeing. Gavin Hood's direction is near flawless and his ability to blend suspense, farce, and political commentary is masterful. Performances are top-notch, with Helen Mirren and the late, great Alan Rickman leading the way. Aaron Paul, as the drone pilot, stationed in Las Vegas, taking orders from England, to target people in Kenya, shows that "virtual" warfare can be just as devastating to the warrior as hand-to-hand contact. A big thumbs up!
MOVIES
Both Michael Moore's "Where to Invade Next" and Marvel Studio's "Deadpool" have excellent opening credits, so if you plan on seeing either (or both), don't be late and pay attention!
Starting with the less serious film, "Deadpool" is a hoot, a total parody of the Marvel genre and its tongue is firmly in cheek. The New Yorker kind of panned it but I'm pretty sure Anthony Lane isn't nearly the arrested adolescent I am, so he just didn't appreciate how this pure escapist, spoofing "action/adventure" and even comic movie is pretty satisfying if you want some grown up sarcasm and heads exploding now and then. No spoiler alerts here: Ryan Reynolds makes fun of himself and the genre, Stan Lee does a "gratuitous cameo," the bad guys are evil and the good guys less so. And TJ Miller is a great sidekick and wiseass as Deadpool's bartending pal. I don't go to see the other Marvel spectacles (Have never seen any Iron Man or X-Men or Wolverine flix...not even on cable or streaming) but this one (R-Rated, no less) intrigued me and it was worth the $9.50 and then some.
"Where to Invade Next" should be seen by everyone. Period. Even if you don't like Michael Moore (and he certainly is an incredibly unattractive human being) and his politics (clearly far left "leaning"), this is an important film. Moore puts in high relief how off the rails the values of the United States have gone. Critics will assail Moore, claiming the United States should not, and can not, be compared to "those" Europeans countries like Italy, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and especially not to Tunisia or Icleand! But this is, at its core, a movie about morals. It is about political choices governments and their populations make and the attendant attitudes those choices reflect. Hearing from people in the "invaded" countries (where Moore "claims" ideas to bring back to the U.S.) is what is most striking throughout the film (even the French school children). Any reflective and thoughtful person has to come out of the theater wondering how we could be where the U.S. is today, with its 1% and corporate greed, with the persistent racial, gun, and prison violence, and the significant gender gap that clearly effects our place in the world. This may not be an intentional endorsement of Hillary Clinton, but it certainly is an endorsement of greater participation by women at all levels. Go see it and let me know what it makes you think about. Well worth the entire ($9.50) admission fee.
Eye in the Sky
April 2, 2016
"Eye in the Sky" is a wonderful, and darkly serious, film well worth seeing. Gavin Hood's direction is near flawless and his ability to blend suspense, farce, and political commentary is masterful. Performances are top-notch, with Helen Mirren and the late, great Alan Rickman leading the way. Aaron Paul, as the drone pilot, stationed in Las Vegas, taking orders from England, to target people in Kenya, shows that "virtual" warfare can be just as devastating to the warrior as hand-to-hand contact. A big thumbs up!
TV
If you happen to be a Netflix subscriber two new series were dropped this week (April 2nd): The Ranch and Flaked. I will only say that I did not make it through the first episode of either and do no plan on going back to see what I missed (?).
Despite a fairly positive review in the Friday NY Times, I found "The Ranch" impossible to watch. The premise, Ashton Kutcher as Colt Bennett, a high school star who was the 'back up to the back up" on a national championship Florida (or Florida State) team in 1999 returns home to Colorado on his way to a tryout with a semi-pro football team in Denver. His father, a cowboy Archie Bunker named Beau, played by Sam Elliott (not wasting much energy), runs the family ranch with older brother “Rooster” (played by Danny Masterson, another "That 70s Show" alum). Debra Winger plays the divorced Mom, Maggie, who owns a bar in town. The repartee is stupid, the acting is bad, even for a sitcom, and the laughter is canned. Watch at your own risk.
"Flaked" is a Will Arnett vehicle that is horrible. Arnett's "Chip" is a recovering alcoholic who lives in Venice, California (tooling around on a bicycle). While Chip seems a bit less smarmy than Arnett's usual characters there is nothing appealing about this show --- AND it's not funny! The basic premise seems to be that Chip, despite being a late-30s/early 40s grown man, is still "finding himself" amid a group of cliched sidekicks and, based on the 20 or 25 minutes I watched, the women are objects of desire (and much younger than these guys --- and why, exactly, would these women be attracted to Chip?) with little else to offer. Oh, yeah, Chip runs a shop of some kind that is about to be foreclosed, which will apparently lead to wrangling with a wife he has not officially divorced yet. It's all very precious and while Venice itself looks interesting, the way the show is shot, I felt like someone had stolen 20 or 25 minutes I'll never get back and I got nothing for it. Watch at your own peril.
February, 2016
Vinyl Arrives
If you already have HBO or HBO GO or HBONOW
you may have already seen the first episode (pilot) of VINYL, the Martin Scorsese/Mick Jagger produced series about the New York City music scene in 1973. If you've seen it, you may share some of Your Humble Critic's reactions or you may find that he has, as has been the case so often in the past, shoved his head far up his you know where.
The quick and dirty review: after waiting months and salivating over the teaser trailers, what a disappoinment! We are introduced to Richie Finestra (wonderfully rendered by the always excellent Bobby Cannavalle) a music executive (American Century Records) in a tailspin until he stumbles upon Punk/New Wave music in the village (in the form of the New York Dolls) and the burgeoning rap/hip-hop scene in the Bronx.
The pilot episode is rife with the abuses of the time (drugs and alcohol more than sex) and there are pretty poorly referenced icons (Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, England Dan and John Ford Coley, etc.) as well as mentions of the likes of Ahmet Ertegun (head of Atlantic Records) but none of it feels authentic and the show suffers from that. We are blasted with music from the time as well as flashback classics like Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, and Bo Diddley --- as we go back to the 60's for Richie's "creation" story which includes destroying the career of a promising young blues artist ("Lester Grimes" played by Ato Essandoh -- whom "Copper" fans may remember as the post Civil War doctor in NYC). We've heard it all before (literally) and seen it all before (in one movie or another). There is even a gratuitously violent scene involving the always amusing Andrew "Dice" Clay (playing radio station mogul "Buck" Rogers) and the Imus favorite (right wing stooge) Bo Dietl, along with Mr. Cannavale.
Too much of VINYL is like a broken record, playing the same scratchy segment again and again. The ending of the episode, which involves the collapse of the Mercer Arts Center (an actual event but not at all as depicted in this tripe) and Richie's symbolic resurrection could not be more heavy handed.
Nonetheless, I'll tune in to the next few episodes hoping James Jagger's "Kip Stevens" and his punk band"Nasty Bits," as well as the iridescent Juno Temple (as A & R assistant Jamie Vine) might resurrect the series (along with Lester Grimes) to make it live up to all the hype.
Despite a fairly positive review in the Friday NY Times, I found "The Ranch" impossible to watch. The premise, Ashton Kutcher as Colt Bennett, a high school star who was the 'back up to the back up" on a national championship Florida (or Florida State) team in 1999 returns home to Colorado on his way to a tryout with a semi-pro football team in Denver. His father, a cowboy Archie Bunker named Beau, played by Sam Elliott (not wasting much energy), runs the family ranch with older brother “Rooster” (played by Danny Masterson, another "That 70s Show" alum). Debra Winger plays the divorced Mom, Maggie, who owns a bar in town. The repartee is stupid, the acting is bad, even for a sitcom, and the laughter is canned. Watch at your own risk.
"Flaked" is a Will Arnett vehicle that is horrible. Arnett's "Chip" is a recovering alcoholic who lives in Venice, California (tooling around on a bicycle). While Chip seems a bit less smarmy than Arnett's usual characters there is nothing appealing about this show --- AND it's not funny! The basic premise seems to be that Chip, despite being a late-30s/early 40s grown man, is still "finding himself" amid a group of cliched sidekicks and, based on the 20 or 25 minutes I watched, the women are objects of desire (and much younger than these guys --- and why, exactly, would these women be attracted to Chip?) with little else to offer. Oh, yeah, Chip runs a shop of some kind that is about to be foreclosed, which will apparently lead to wrangling with a wife he has not officially divorced yet. It's all very precious and while Venice itself looks interesting, the way the show is shot, I felt like someone had stolen 20 or 25 minutes I'll never get back and I got nothing for it. Watch at your own peril.
February, 2016
Vinyl Arrives
If you already have HBO or HBO GO or HBONOW
you may have already seen the first episode (pilot) of VINYL, the Martin Scorsese/Mick Jagger produced series about the New York City music scene in 1973. If you've seen it, you may share some of Your Humble Critic's reactions or you may find that he has, as has been the case so often in the past, shoved his head far up his you know where.
The quick and dirty review: after waiting months and salivating over the teaser trailers, what a disappoinment! We are introduced to Richie Finestra (wonderfully rendered by the always excellent Bobby Cannavalle) a music executive (American Century Records) in a tailspin until he stumbles upon Punk/New Wave music in the village (in the form of the New York Dolls) and the burgeoning rap/hip-hop scene in the Bronx.
The pilot episode is rife with the abuses of the time (drugs and alcohol more than sex) and there are pretty poorly referenced icons (Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, England Dan and John Ford Coley, etc.) as well as mentions of the likes of Ahmet Ertegun (head of Atlantic Records) but none of it feels authentic and the show suffers from that. We are blasted with music from the time as well as flashback classics like Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, and Bo Diddley --- as we go back to the 60's for Richie's "creation" story which includes destroying the career of a promising young blues artist ("Lester Grimes" played by Ato Essandoh -- whom "Copper" fans may remember as the post Civil War doctor in NYC). We've heard it all before (literally) and seen it all before (in one movie or another). There is even a gratuitously violent scene involving the always amusing Andrew "Dice" Clay (playing radio station mogul "Buck" Rogers) and the Imus favorite (right wing stooge) Bo Dietl, along with Mr. Cannavale.
Too much of VINYL is like a broken record, playing the same scratchy segment again and again. The ending of the episode, which involves the collapse of the Mercer Arts Center (an actual event but not at all as depicted in this tripe) and Richie's symbolic resurrection could not be more heavy handed.
Nonetheless, I'll tune in to the next few episodes hoping James Jagger's "Kip Stevens" and his punk band"Nasty Bits," as well as the iridescent Juno Temple (as A & R assistant Jamie Vine) might resurrect the series (along with Lester Grimes) to make it live up to all the hype.