But have no fear, this site may be dead, but another is just beginning. I’ve decided to open things up a bit and start a site of my own where the topics won’t be confined elusively to cinema. It’s called Boxing Uwe Boll and it’s still in the early stages of development. I’ll likely be tinkering with it extensively over the next few weeks, so bear with me if it appears a little rough around the edges. So I urge you to check it out if you have the time. Chances are, if you’re stopping here anyway, you really have no reason not to head on over there. Unless you’re for some reason compelled to look back over the old, outdated entries here on COMACC over and over again. Do whatever you please.

But, then again, most directors aren’t Kevin Smith.

Smith, famous for firing back against critics who spoke out against his truly abhorrent Clerks II, is at it again. This time, instead of Good Morning America film critic Joel Siegel, he is upset with the MPAA for failing to give Zack and Miri Make a Porno the R rating he feels it deserves.

Dealing with this setback as tactfully as ever, Smith issued a 90-minute presentation that the Associated Press describes as being “peppered with profanity,” insisting that the film deserves “a hard R” rating. Indeed, an R-rated version of the film is scheduled for release on Oct. 31, 2008, providing, of course, that Smith can deliver the goods without sacrificing the – ahem – content.

No stranger to the NC-17 label, Smith’s first feature film, the groundbreaking independent movie Clerks, originally received this same rating due to its sexually explicit content, even though it features no nudity whatsoever. At the time of its release, it was the only film to ever successfully earn a repeal from an NC-17 to R rating. So, to win this battle, Zack and Miri seems to be in the most capable hands, even if those hands do belong to Smith, who periodically seems to bite the studio and critical hands that feed him.

Despite this rating crisis and the box-office doom that an NC-17 rating typically delivers, Smith managed to reassure fans that, while the film is a “really sweet love story,” it is also just as raunchy as his previous canonical filth, which includes wild romps through necrophilia, interspecies erotica and countless poop jokes.

So, rest assured Kevin Smith fans; actor Seth Rogan, who plays the title character Zack in Zack and Miri, attests that it truly is “a really filthy movie.”

Albeit, “a really filthy movie” that only deserves an R rating.

Ben Kingsley has decided to become an actor again.

Kingsley’s most recent mention in this blog is here, which sadly may not even be his most demeaning film role. At the turn of the century, the Oscar-winning British knight had critical gravitas to spare for the range he demonstrated playing serious roles in big-ticket message movies like Gandhi and Schindler’s List as well as edgy indie films like Sexy Beast. Sure, he took occasional pay-the-bills supporting roles in the odd passable comedy (1993’s Dave) or pulpy sci-fi film (1995’s Species), but these didn’t significantly alter his image as an actor capable of incredible focus on weighty parts.

But in 2005 something went horribly wrong. Kingsley appeared in A Sound of Thunder and Bloodrayne, two films that were near-locks for worst-of-the-year lists. In separate years, they might not have looked so bad on his résumé, but Thunder’s delayed release made it an ugly one-two punch. Amnesia, insanity, or replacement by an evil doppelganger are among the few plausible explanations for Kingsley’s participation in these hideously unprofitable and critically embarrassing films.

That may be changing. The Wackness (out now), reportedly features Kingsley in an energized (and apparently energizing) role as a pot-smoking therapist connecting with a teenager. Transsiberian and Elegy (both later this year) feature him in a Sundance-screened mystery-on-a-train and a cultural critic in a Philip Roth story, respectively. All have the potential to be good solid impressive chances for Kingsley to, well, act.

One still needs to probably flat-out forgive him for The Love Guru and assume that John Cusack’s regime change parody War, Inc. and narration for the animated Noah’s Ark: The New Beginning are a wash. These are nonetheless encouraging signs that an unquestionably talented actor is coming back into his own in 2008.

It’s hard to talk about film, especially when you’re in the business of film criticism, without acknowledging the demise of Roger Ebert’s long-running television show “Siskel and Ebert & the Movies,” known as “At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper” after the tragic passing of Gene Siskel in 1999. The untimely death of Siskel took a toll on the show that would leave a permanent void.  While I commend Richard Roeper for doing what he could to fill Siskel’s shoes after his passing, the dynamic relationship between the two original critics was lost forever — a relationship, mind you, that was captured most wonderfully in their cameo appearances on the short-lived animated show, The Critic (and yes, Ebert really did like Benji the Hunted and Siskel, sadly, liked Carnosaur).*

Despite the absence of Siskel the show could, and did, go on with Ebert. But now, it’s hard to argue that with the complications following Roger Ebert’s battle with cancer that, among other things, resulted in the loss of his voice, the show has reached the end of its 33-year run. There remain some positives to pull out of this. For one, the mere fact that the show lasted 33 years is a testament to the success of what Roger Ebert refers to as a formula based on simplicity. It was a show lacking in unnecessary adornments or photogenic stars (Ebert and Siskel could be best described as humble in appearance); their one novel design being the implementation of the patented “Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down” system of analysis, a system so deviously simple that its ubiquity in film criticism seemed almost inevitable.

Beyond that, it’s good to see that despite his hardships, Ebert continues to do what he loves after an extended hiatus. I grew up listening to and reading Roger Ebert’s analysis. Some disparaged him for being too commercial, but for a critic playing to a mainstream audience, his insights were never watered-down. Even when he made judgments that I did not share in, he still managed to find some semblance of sanity and logic in his opinions that made even the most outrageous claims seem perfectly valid. Here’s hoping that even if his television show passes on, his voice remains prominent in the world of film.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I feel it necessary to point out that their tumultous relationship did also produce moments such as this. We all have our bad days, right?

Hauk: “You going to kill me now, Snake?”
Snake: “I’m too tired. Maybe later.”

Escape From New York‘s Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is a character that is essentially nonplussed by everything that happens to him. Shanghaied into service by the autocratic U.S. government? Whatever. Attacked by a mob of subterranean crazies? Big deal. Forced to fight a giant with spiked clubs? Meh.

Russell’s stoic annoyance works because he’s given such great larger-than-life foils. Legendary spaghetti western actor Lee Van Cleef and Bond villain Donald Pleasence both chew scenery like there’s no tomorrow. Adrienne Barbeau and Ernest Borgnine aren’t exactly understated supporting actors either. The Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes) is the only one who can stay as cool as Snake.

Snake’s incredibly narrow expressive vocal range tops out at a threatening hiss and bottoms in a reticent grunt of pain. It feels as if he is even playing to the lack of sound in his environment and even the film itself; most of the movie’s action eschews words for environmental sounds and the excellent dark disco soundtrack. Vangelis is often lauded as the ambient king of early ‘80s film music, but director John Carpenter, who composed most of his own scores, did more with less. This emphasis is even more evident in Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween, Carpenter’s best films.

Snake is just a guy forced to do a terrible job, who is so disgusted by the situation that he can’t be bothered to even become outwardly angry. He is extraordinarily cool, but not in a heroic or enviable way. This is appropriate because under most moral systems, action heroes who are likeable or relatable are ethically disgusting. Rarely should a character that excels in violence be likeable or relatable.

Plissken’s sole true heroic action comes at the end of the film, and even it is arguably as much an act of spite as it is of justice. His attitude in this final gesture as he walks into the fadeout — not even bothering to run from the pandemonium he has probably caused — is as noncommittal as anything the dislikeable, non-relatable man has done before. Which is how it should be.

Last week, Lucasfilm announced it will premiere the long-awaited theatrical release of the most recent addition to the Star Wars universe, the animated Clone Wars series, on August 15. This marks Mr. Lucas’ most recent attempt to rekindle a relationship among his increasingly alienated fanbase, which has long been severed.

Lucas, who is known for relying heavily on CGI technology in his films, will finally seal the Star Wars series’ fate in animation. Where fans once marveled at the special effects mogul’s capability to effectively create space-centered set design, now they are increasingly turning against the director who’s overuse of CGI technology aided in the creation of three critically-panned Star Wars prequels.

While some fans attribute the onset of Lucas’ downward spiral to the creation of the Ewoks in 1983’s The Return of the Jedi, I believe his directorial inferiority was solidified in 1999’s The Phantom Menace. Yes, I am talking about the introduction of one Jar Jar Binks, arguably the most annoying character in the entire Star Wars universe.

Jar Jar Binks, while not only aggravating to watch, represented a jump into computer animation previously unprecedented in any Star Wars film. In fact, by the time Revenge of the Sith was released in 2005, Lucas was so heavy-handed with his CGI usage that nearly every shot was altered by CGI or set in front of a green screen. Instead of expanding the ability for audiences to suspend their disbelief, Lucas’ dependence on computer animation, as well as his preference to direct in the editing room, is charged with stifling the actor’s abilities to effectively work with their surroundings and throw themselves into the character.

With this new series, Lucas will hopefully take the skills obtained through his fluency in CGI and finally transfer them into a coherent format. By transferring to a strictly animated format, perhaps he can mend the rift between he and his fans and further continue the fanatic interest that lies within the Star Wars empire. Perhaps, however, it is too late and that cannot happen.

I mean, what do I really know?

I thought the Ewoks were cute.

The Dark Knight comes out this week and you’re probably thinking, what the hell am I going to do the rest of this summer? Well, if this latest batch of movie trailers is any indication, not much. For this week’s “Best Case, Worst Case” I’ve decided to gather together the more questionable releases of the late summer, films I’ve deemed “summer afterthoughts.”

Poorly-timed big-budget flicks, nausea-inducing romantic comedies and morally objectionable children’s films, these are the sad selection of films that attempt to fill the gap between the summer blockbusters and the Oscar-baiting arthouse film season. These films simply can’t compete against the bigger fish in the cinematic summer pool, so a late July/early August release date seems appropriate. By the end of this tour through the dregs of Hollywood, it will feel less like an adventure and more like a Bataan Death March. Well, here goes nothing:

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Since the release of the first Mummy film in 1999, the series appears to have strayed drastically from its nominal villain. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (effectively known as The Mummy 3) appears no different, supplanting the decrepit, bandage-bound antagonist with Jet Li, reprising his role from every film he’s ever been in.

The close proximity in release dates between this and Brendan Fraser’s other big-budget misadventure Journey to the Center of the Earth leads one to believe that the actor’s M.O. this summer was, “I’ll star in anything!“

Best Case: A decent, if confoundedly hollow, action-adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones. The first film approached this only to falter down the stretch as the plot became increasingly predictable, but there’s no reason to think The Dragon Emperor couldn’t succeed where the other films failed. Right?

Worst Case: A clusterfuck of special effects and overindulgence (see, Van Helsing). The potential always exist with films like this to provide the audience with an abundance of eye-candy. Sometimes less is more, and films like The Mummy work best when presenting a great deal of restraint. Sadly, the trailer — complete with a CGI yeti, a three-headed dragon, a barrage of CGI arrows (for a film starring Jet Li, this is shamefully reminiscent of Hero) among other over-the-top oddities  — does not reassure us of this.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

Whoa! Talk about time traveling back to the nineties. This film is at least a decade late, especially considering that there was already an X-Files movie released at a more appropriate time.

Best Case: Let’s put the goofy subtitle aside here and focus on the writing. The X-Files always featured top-notch writing and some truly compelling mysteries. With that in mind, the latest film has the ability to provide a much-loved series with a fitting coda. It will be interesting to see whether or not Chris Carter leaves his story open for yet another extraneous sequel or if he finally puts it to rest by tying up all the loose ends.

Worst Case: More of the same for a series that — like all long-running television shows — began to grow stale and repetitive in its twilight seasons. It’s hard to gauge from the trailer, but this film feels like a retread of the first film and, sadly, interesting casting decisions (one feels that Xzibit was brought on to the film simply for alliterative purposes. Remember this, Mr. Singer, when the time comes for X-Men 4) certainly can’t make up for shoddy screenwriting.

Mama Mia

Movies like this always perplex me. Is there some inherent humor in not knowing who your real dad is of which I’m not fully aware? I guess if you’re forced to pick your dad out of a lineup of three, that must be when the hilarity ensues.  It would all depend on the tone of the film and this one can go a number of ways: contrived dramedy, meretricious musical, conniving tear-jerker. Who knows? However, kudos to Merly Streep for demonstrating the positions she’s willing to put herself in for the sake of acting.

Best Case: I may not be qualified to venture a guess as to the best case scenario with this film. I don’t know, easy to fall asleep to? Bearable acting? Maybe the sound goes out at the particular screening I would hypothetically be attending? For me, the best case scenario would ultimately be not seeing this film at all. I think that’s a good place to leave it.

Worst Case: See the above description. I can’t seem to talk about this film in a positive context, so even an apparently objective take on it results in not-so-veiled criticism.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Assuming you watched the above trailer, there is absolutely no reason for me to describe this further. What you see is what you get. Horrible, horrible imagery that could have just as easily jumped from the pages of Dante’s Inferno, or been spliced in with the gruesome journey through hell in Event Horizon without anyone taking notice.

Best Case: N/A

Worst Case: Remember the penultimate scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Nazi’s finally open the Ark only to be struck by a blinding light that causes all their faces to melt? Well, I see this film having a similar effect on viewers. In fact, I suspect that the film itself doesn’t exist outside of the brief trailer that’s available (frankly, it just doesn’t seem possible). Instead it serves as part of some massive government conspiracy to harvest the ignorant people of the world (the only possible target audience for this putrid trash) by luring them into the theater and obliterating their already vacant minds with some sort of mind-control ray gun (perhaps, for sake of consistency, fired by a wily chihuahua, or in an act of boredom just some random scientist in a sterile lab coat) turning them into brain-dead combatants that are then sent overseas to fight in Iraq.

Sound far-fetched? Seriously, would the alternative (i.e., this film actually existing in a feature-length format) be any more believable? Oh God, I sincerely hope not.

“There’s a lot of slow-motion. The episodes were running up to 8 minutes under. The only way to stretch them out was with slow-motion. And, we, tried to keep the slow-motion away from the dialogue as much as possible, but anything without dialogue was considered for slow-motion.”
-Dean Lerner

Fire Joe Morgan, a blog that satirizes bad sports writing, frequently chastises writers for excessive use of food metaphors, which are apparently frighteningly common in columns about Juan Pierre’s baseball prowess and the importance of not “clogging the bases.” I’m half-tempted to turn FJM’s lens on the reviews for My Blueberry Nights, few of which could resist using dessert puns to peg the movie (recently out on DVD) as an unsubstantial confection. I resist the temptation because as corny as they are, most of them are still pretty accurate.

This is a Kar Wai Wong film in which the lovelorn leave keys at restaurants and eat food immediately before it’s supposed to expire. This is not the first Kar Wai Wong film in which the lovelorn leave keys at restaurants and eat food immediately before it’s supposed to expire. That would be 1994’s Chungking Express, the film that (along with In the Mood For Love and 2046) established Wong as a pared-down romantic with a feel for loosely structured stories and moody, colorful visuals.

The light and airy shades of Chungking are replaced here with heavy red and black brocade, smothered in velvety musical layers of Norah Jones and repeated douses “Try A Little Tenderness” (soundtrack on Blue Note!). Kar-Wai filmed Chungking in 23 days as a break from another film, and it’s characterized by a spontaneity that leaves specific interpretations to the audience. My Blueberry Nights is the opposite, with heavy-handed letter-writing narration that tells the viewer exactly what protagonist Elizabeth (Norah Jones, in her acting debut) is feeling.

Jones herself is actually a respectable blank slate for Wong to slop with cinematic oil paints, but it doesn’t help that she’s upstaged by a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it film debut by fellow singer Chan Marshall (Cat Power) as the one who got away. Jones also doesn’t get much traction playing against Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, and Jude Law, who all go over the top and sport ridiculous accents in this film. I’ll admit that my skepticism of Law’s Manchester accent is secondhand, as I am far too much of an American original rube to distinguish between a London and Manchester brogue; I feel a bit more confident in thinking Weisz’s “oh mah gawd” Memphis femme fatale and Portman’s southwestern gambler could only have been greenlighted by a director from halfway around the world.

Visually the film makes more than a few interesting cinematography decisions, and more than a lot of extraneous, terrible ones. The worst are the incredibly distracting speed-change camera effects that produce a sort of stuttering action and, in their frequency, remind me of the explanation from the late, great Darkplace, quoted at the top of this post.

Oh the summer nights, right? Exactly—not the greatest time to see movies. And with Wall•E already a distant memory and The Dark Knight just around the corner, we’re all looking at a dearth of cinematic treasures this weekend. Time for the first of an indeterminate numbered series.

• Ladies, be prepared to swoon: Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen will team up in a yet-to-be-titled Sherlock Holmes and Watson (respectively) film. It’ll be directed by Etan Cohen, a man perpetually an H away from an Academy Award, and Judd Apatow has signed on to produce. I can’t decide whether this is terrible news for Ferrell’s career, or terrible news for Ferrell’s and Cohen’s careers.

• Speaking of curly hair, the theme song of Pineapple Express is up on Lakeshore Records’ MySpace page. It’s sung by Huey Lewis, and is, without a doubt, incredible. More than Rogen deserves.

• Speaking of shameless marketing, remember Hellboy? Well, he’s apparently a real person, as he appeared on Inside the Actor’s Studio. But he also spent some time with Chuck, who is a fictional character in an TV show that’s not currently on the air. Hmm…

• Speaking of leaps in logic, the trailer for a new movie called Fly Me to the Moon is in theaters now. See, these flies, they go to the moon. Read the title again. Then the last sentence. Get it? It’s in 3-D.

• Speaking of sensory overload, Guy Ritchie is going to be directing Sherlock Holmes in 2010, starring Robert Downey Jr. Wow, Sherlock Holmes…deja vú. (See what I did there?)

Watching a Guy Maddin film is sort of like sifting through a stranger’s record collection. You get a feel for their tastes, recognize their deepest influences and soak an entire history without really knowing them. For Maddin, the silent era of filmmaking serves as a road map through his soul that we read in place of conventional dialogue or narrative. The films of Lang, Murnau, and Griffith, they emanate from every frame, telling his personal story through each vintage iris shot, every oddly-placed intertitle and even from the grainy black and white that appears aged and dated in its newness. His films certainly alienate a large number of audience members — they stand as far as one can get from commercial filmmaking without crossing the threshold into experimental cinema — but in terms of his passion for cinema, his film’s exhibit an undeniable charm.

Guy Maddin’s latest film, My Winnipeg, takes a slightly different approach than we’re used to from this maverick Canadian. Following a pseudo-documentary framework, it still adheres to that same silent era theme prevalent in his past work, but with a more introspective tinge. The film is literally about itself, about the way in which Maddin is attempting to disentangle his past from the checkered history of his city of origin. It resembles Micheal Moore without all the trumped-up drama, or This American Life without the linear narration.

For a film so brilliant in its design it does manage to stumble out of the gate, implementing the same foolhardy cinematic experimentalism that uses abrasive word repetition, incongruous intertitles and jarring superimpositions to get under the audience’s skin. But it begins to coalesce into something more substantial and less meandering when Maddin attempts to reenact scenes from his childhood using what he claims is his actual mother and some hired actors to play his siblings. Rather than coming across as vain or self-obsessed, these moments display an odd sense of humor (the father buried under the living room rug, the crazy new tenant of his childhood home that refuses to leave), and their astounding meta-structure add an extra layer of depth to the film.

As one can imagine, the film is terribly anecdotal, but not annoyingly so.  It follows a certain rhythm. Typically he’ll divulge a secret occurrence from his past, find some way to tie it in with the history of the city and then explore one of the many oddities that have come out of Winnipeg over the last century. Whether its the governmental corruption, the disenfranchisement of the Winnipeg Jets (yes, the movie spends a great deal of time discussing hockey!) or the death of hundreds of horses who froze solid in a river with their heads still protruding from the ice in twisted agony, each story could be a film unto itself.

As the oddball tales pile up, I suspect so does the audience’s incredulous attitude toward them. Some of the stories sound plausible, others — such as the law in Winnipeg that states that no old signage can be destroyed — feel invented. Telling is the fact that the woman he claims to be his real life mother in the film is actually played by actress Ann Savage.

I won’t say which stories are true and which are simply tall tales because I feel it’s more fun to track them down on your own. In any case, it’s not as if Maddin is attempting to pull one over on the audience and manufacture truth for his own designs (much like Micheal Moore does). Many of his stories are quite obviously fabricated, but there’s a kernel of truth to even the most absurd stories in My Winnipeg and the underlying theme of the project makes sense when you take the stories as part of an overarching narrative theme: the demolition of a city’s personal history.

One aspect of Winnipeg that Maddin’s harps on throughout is this notion of the general sleepiness of Winnipeg’s citizens. Winnipeg has 10 times the sleepwalking rate of any other city, he says. Is it true? Does it matter? Not really. What’s important is the message Maddin seeks to convey.  How true it is that we sleepwalk through the destruction of our own heritage, oblivious to the obliteration of the buildings and landscape that shaped us as youths. It’s terribly nostalgic, but for Maddin — and many of us — it’s also terribly tragic.