Monday, February 04, 2008

I Read Something... Super Bowl Sunday



What movie this year has the Worst Overall Box Office?

The Brothers Solomon grossed $900,926, the least of any of the 166 films in wide release. (Portfolio Mag)

I recently watched this twice and I am very partial to Will Arnett, ever since his amazing role on Arrested Development, and his over the top antics and deep voice (which will be the voice of the new Kitt in the upcoming Knight Rider TV series). It's sad to see because this is the second failed collaboration with Arnett in the lead and Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show) directing, the other being the overlooked and offbeat hilarity of Let's Go To Prison. These aren't your average stupid comedies. They are uber-ridiculous dark comedies with ludicrous plotlines and characterizations that it seems to fly over most people's heads.

On a positive note, there seems to be progress in the return of Arrested Development, possibly to the big screen. Arrested Development had a devoted following, but it was too small for Fox to keep this laugh-a-second-a-thon with an amazingly talented cast on the air. But I would say the film successes of Jason Bateman in Juno and especially Micheal Cera in Superbad have spurred the idea. This is a fan's demand thing that was caved into before with the return of Family Guy to TV. But anyway, the wheels seem to be in motion but no writing can be done of course due to the strike. Universal seems interested and having Ron Howard as a producer and voiceover lead for the project surely doesn't hurt. This is according to E!.

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If you don't Les Savy Fav, you should and either way you should see their usually amazing live performance on Conan O' Brien.



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For once, I actually watched a few of my Netflixs this weeks instead of burning them and forgetting about them. I even watched the excellent documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters twice. The film portrays the exploits of two men fighting over the crown of World Champion of arcade Donkey Kong.

One man is a pleasant schoolteacher that is new on the scene named Steve Weibe who is trying to topple the score of the whiz kid Billy Mitchell and his quarter century old Donkey Kong Scoring record. Billy Mitchell now has an uber-mullet and hocks hot sauce out of Hollywood, Florida. As we all know dweebs are generally funny, see a long list of movies from Revenge of the Nerds to Real Genius to American Splendor to McLovin in Superbad. The King of Kong shows these unbelievable funny nerds being interviewed about the record and the deeper meaning and of greatness of Donkey Kong and old school arcade gaming in general.

This movie is just full of comedic gold and a late addition to the best films of 2007 and definitely one of the top documentaries of the year.

The same can not be said for some of the other crap that arrived in ym mailbox this week but it is my own fault as I do set the list.

So I'd heard some good thing's about The Nines, the directorial debut of a good screenwriter named John August. He wrote Go and then a bunch of film's for Tim Burton like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish. The Nines is a confusing film starring Ryan Reynolds as an actor in trouble who is put under house arrest and seems to be haunted by the phrase "the nines."

The film tries to be trippy, confusing and not give away any of its twists but the twists are ultimately confusing and inexplicable as the people who read the script paying for the film to be made. Humorously enough, this is probably the best performance of Ryan Reynolds career and at best a second rate supernatural thriller/ comedy / multi-plotline confuser. It's about as confusing as this description.

The last film I watched was the much delayed Factory Girl, the semi-fictional biopic about the life of 60s artists' muse to the stars / fashion trendsetter Edie Sedgewick. Her life gets intersected with some of the most interesting people of that era including Andy Warhol and a controversial relationship with Bob Dylan, that was the subject of lawsuits during the attempted releases of the film. The film is interesting and choppy that primarily rides the beauty of Sienna Miller to enchant the audience and strength of her performance to keep them interested.

She does a good job for the most part but the druggie decay parts are always hard to deal with. Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol is the film's most interesting part like he almost always is doing, moving along the film's most interesting parts showing the filming of Warhol's very experimental films and even more avant-garde directing style. The stuf that went on in the Warhol's Factory and his surrounding band of sycophants.

But the awkward use of the faux Bob Dylan character played by one of the least promising overused actors Hayden Christensen seems to give a falsified reason for Edie's downward spiral.

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Interesting list from one of the many magazine's I subscribe to, Paste Magazine. The Art House Powerhouse 100


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I finished reading "The Professor and the Madman," a story about the long development of the Oxford English Dictionary. It's a very interesting book that is pretty well written, although it dwells a bit too much on the same topics and does a bit too much speculating for a historical nonfiction book. But the one thing I will remember besides the fact that it took over 75 years to finish the mammoth project and that the creator died of Pluerisy.

According to a Wikipedia search, Pleurisy is a lung ailment with many famous cases including the deaths of cruel Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes, Charlemagne and Karl Marx.

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And watching the crazy Tom Cruise Scientology tapes (Gawker), I looked at a list of current "notable" Scientologists. Besides running amok on "That 70s Show" with Hyde and the Redhead as well as the big guy and Earl on "My Name is Earl." I like the list of former members including Jerry Seinfeld with the quote:
"took a couple courses a number of years ago."
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A golfer named Ian Poulter thinks he can challenge Tiger Woods.

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Last year it was on my birthday. This year it's Feb 12. Don't forget about IHOP Free Pancake Day. I'll be there.


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