Feature film numbed the radio star

What variety!

As much of a big NPR nerd that I am, it'll be a while before I understand what possessed them to make a movie of PHC. There are probably certain particular ways in which this film might have worked, but what we're given is this sort of bizarre melancholy mish-mash that would probably be a confusing downer to anybody that doesn't know the show, and kind of frustrating to folks like me who generally like the show.

I really like the voice actors on the radio show, but the movie pretty much sidelines them in bit roles and calls in mainstream talent to do their characters. Keillor, who literally makes the show what it is, is stuck playing himself in the film while Kline gets to have the fun as Guy Noir, and Dusty and Lefty are played by Harrelson and Reilly.

All the radio show's characters aren't real characters either, but performers or staff on the show. That is to say, Dusty and Lefty aren't out on the range, they're basically country music stars. Guy Noir isn't a detective, he's an ex-detective working as the show's manager. Gone are the creative little radio ads they do for the Ketchup Advisory Board, Rhubarb Pie, etc. No news from lake Wobegon.

The polished, name-brand cast also kind of muddles the radio show's folksy mid-western vibe as well. Instead of quirky stories about simple prairie folk getting themselves into unusual jams, we're watching divas and showbiz types hamming it up in a loose and meandering plot surrounding the last broadcast of a fictional version of the show. Tommy Lee Jones is some radio tycoon who's shutting the show down. Virginia Madsen shows up as some kind of angel. Lindsay Lohan is a gloomy teen whose mother and aunt are performing on the show. Some old performer guy passes away in his dressing room backstage.

How this is supposed to seem coherent to the uninitiated is beyond me. It isn't exactly a bad film, just sort of confused. If it's inaccessible for somebody who doesn't know the show, then who is it for? And if it is for the PHC-initiated, why play so fast an loose with canon?

I can't help but wonder now if NPR will be the next vein Hollywood will tap for movie ideas. Car Talk kind of got a cameo in Cars. What's next? Flora's indicated some interest in Wait! Wait!. This American Life, maybe? We can watch the mishaps that occur as Sarah Vowell visit historical sites while David Sedaris works through issues with his family. Ira Glass just sort of sits agape at the whole thing.

... and all that other stuff

When the traditional summer pastime fails to captivate and inspire, a viable alternative for me has become the summer box office race. Thanks to sites like BOM and RT, watching the millions pile up (or not) weekend after weekend for various feature films takes on the drama of any sporting contest. There are statistics galore, records to smash, and punditry at all levels. I can't for the life of me see the real significance of p2 breaking the 10th day BO record relative to a just plain overall week 2 record, but the numbers are there, and I can't help but find myself impressed nonetheless.

For the rooting interest, there's definitely a skew towards affiliated projects, but generally I just go for the movie I like. Luckily that typicaly jibes well with the affiliations, particularly this year with p2. Catching screenings becomes something like cacthing ballgames. Besides plain old personal enjoyment, there are conversations to be had about how well the thing will perform down the line. There's even smack talking, or at least awkward concessions when your film underperforms somewhat.

I talked about p2 at length, but I've been watching other stuff that I've been meaning to write about.

Box scores from the summer BO Race...

Superman Returns: Classic beats New

"I'm back."

It seems that the popular consensus on the return of the Superman has settled down firmly somewhere around 'disappointment'. My expectations weren't very high for it anyway, but I was hoping that the six years of development hell the project wallowed in would've resulted in a minimally compelling re-imagining of the man o' steel to make him relevant today. It's quite a challenge, but I didn't see much point otherwise.

Their approach? Make some truly radical changes... to Lois Lane! Everything else in the movie, from the titles to the soundtrack to Lex and Super himself, stayed pretty much the same as the original movies. But Lois is now a jilted single career mom, which might have worked if she wasn't cast as somebody who looked like a fifteen-year-old. All this, and she still goes into rooms and locales alone (or with offspring in tow!) that b-grade horror movie bimbos from our parents' generation would've known to avoid. It's a competently-made film otherwise, but stuff just seemed to become less and less important and coherent as the movie went on.

Also have to remark on the 3D -- It's pretty crummy. It seems that they skimped on some features of stereoscopy and tried to compensate by overdoing it in other areas. The result was that everybody looked like they were on flat cards moving in and out of the screen at ludicrous speeds while lacking the motion blur to make that motion seem organic. There are lots of different ways to tackle stereoscopic 3D, so don't let this film chase you off from other 3D films.

The Devil Wears Prada: Style ties Substance

Miranda Priestly and the Fashion Factory

I'm still not entirely sure what a sleeper hit is, but I think this is it. While all eyes were on the MoS over the July 4 weekend, this became kind of a curiosity as it held its own amazingly well and has kept apace with Superman in the weeks since then. I wouldn't be surprised to see Super drop below it in the daily BO (obviously never the overall BO) in coming weeks. (looks like it did over this weekend)

I caught one of our screenings for this and did indeed find myself enjoying it way more than I'd care to admit and actually saw it a second time with the Moms because I knew she'd like it. It's your basic Cinderella story with Streep as some twisted merge of the fairy godmother and the wicked stepmother. Hathaway's cute enough as the protagonist. It isn't any more redeeming than, say, Johny Depp cavorting about on a sailboat, but in some ways it's as if the fashion industry was making some attempt to explain itself in this movie in a way that non-fashion types like myself can appreciate.

Okay, this entry's already pretty long. I'll hit some of the other stuff later this week.

The devil wears seafood

Many a lobster dinner was expensed as 'reference' for this film.

So did you see it? Given the BO(1), chances are good you did. And given the exit polling, (92% of a very diverse audience rating it as very good or better) you pretty much liked it.

Besides haughty self-righteous indignation, one of the things I felt staring at that 52% on RT last week was a warm fuzzy recollection of days of yore, when I could rely on critics to slam summer movies I had terrific fun at. They're hard to find now, but I do remember reading some pretty nasty reviews for 'junk' movies turned classics like Ghostbusters and Back to the Future back in the day.

For a while there it seemed like the critics kind of got it and were right there with us in seeing silly summer fun for what it was, such as when they loved the original back in '03. So this time they saw that it was silly, saw that it was fun, and yet they slammed it seemingly with relish. Go figure.

Anyway, if you had talked to me after the preview we got about two weeks ago, I would have dropped some good money on an RT rating somewhere in the high 70s/low 80s. I guess it's good I didn't, but I really would've out of some passive-aggressive spite even if I knew then what I know now. In fact, dare I say it, I actually liked this one much more than the original, and many folks at the screening were equally surprised to find that they agreed.

I was actually pretty luke-warm about the original, kind of for many of the reasons the critics are slamming it now. It kind of moved slow for me. The plot seemed a bit obfuscated and somewhat inconsistent. I didn't quite connect with the characters.

So lynch me, I think Keira looks kinda hot like this.

This time I did. The sequel built nicely off a familiarity with the old characters and put them in interesting new situations with what I found to be campy-but-fun banter in the finest tradition of certain space epics from our collective youth. I really enjoyed the new characters, from Harris's crazy witch doctor to the evil trading company guy to Nighy's Davy Jones(2). Especially Davy Jones, actually.

The plot, frankly, made a lot more sense to me than the original, where I never quite could resolve everything about the cursed gold, who was cursed, and who needed to do what to fix it. It actually cleared up some of the questions and inconsistencies raised by the original in a very satisfying way.

Pace-wise, I really didn't feel the 150 minutes. Seriously. I had a smile on my face the whole time and always found something on screen to keep me interested. It ends on a terrific note and I am primed for part trois, particularly what creative things they find to do with one Mr. Chow Yun-Fat.

Those hills look familliar...

FULL DISCLOSURE: Yes, it could be said I have connections to this film. Apparently several scenic photos from my Brasil visit last winter came in handy for a few BGs we slapped together. So take this all with that grain of salt, but most of you who know me will know that I'm brutally honest about our projects.

FULL DISCLOSURE 2/CONFESSION: Yes, I did see the movie which the title of this entry spoofs, and will probably lose hetero points for saying I really liked that one as well. To be fair, I was taking my Mom for her birthday... After seeing a company screening for it at which I figured it'd be something she'd like, which she did. So yes, I've seen that film twice and pirates deux once.

(1) Box Office. What do you think it stands for?

(2) I have to stress that his face is NOT prosthetic, but totally CG, right down to the eyes. We (in the collective sense) did the mix of mo-cap and animation that you might recall for certain characters from certain other epics involving bad jewelry.

Lost me there

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

This guy was about the only reason I was rooting for France. After that I just sort of didn't care who won, and just wanted the damned thing over with.

That said, I sort of feel for the guy right now. Surely we've all screwed up before, and the consequences of just how stupid this move was is going to be drilled into him for the next few days (months/years/life), if it isn't already. The man's got a lot of talking to do.

Think of the children!

Looks like there's a good chance the final could turn out to be that vision of soccer hell I was talking about earlier. A primer:


Euro 2004 Ad for the Guardian UK

The SF Chron had a nice piece lamenting the problems some teams have had staying erect, and how it may be influencing our next generation of players:

A thrilling World Cup is still one big flop -- CW Nevius, SF Chronicle

The 'I' is silent

Ai meu deus!

After an 11 game run from the law of averages, the Brazilian National Soccer Team turned themselves in peacefully Saturday to French authorities in Germany. A few of many stories:

Brazilians come to terms with 'national shame' -- Calgary Sun

Brazil fans destroy Ronaldinho statue -- Radio New Zealand

Three Men Protest Brazil's Game Against Ghana In The Nude -- All Headline News

A rough google search

Yes, soccer is a team sport, but individuals can have a defining influence. On Saturday, France had Zidane. After watching this man and Henry work for about the first 20 minutes there wasn't much doubt in my mind who deserved the win.

Brasil naturally has a whole bunch of I's on their team, but in a more formal sense Parreira seemed to pin the team's fortunes on Ronaldo. Apparently a lot of the folks still really love the guy, and to a degree I do too, but I was perpetually aggravated by the missed passes and stumbling throughout the tournament. It's like the whole team kept trying to feed him the ball, but he was too often a step too far behind it or sluggish and lumbering on the movement afterwards. Can't take anything away from the goals he did score, but it felt like too much of the offensive focus was on him when it really didn't need to be.

One thing I began to notice was the sort of denial the ESPN sportscasters had about the whole thing. Going by their commentary, you would've seriously thought Brasil was dangerous throughout the match. But even with their frantic efforts in the last minutes, Brasil never seemed like it had much control of the game, and never looked like a real threat. (ONE -- count 'em -- ONE official shot on goal through the whole game.)

Anyway, Brasil's out, their national morale and stock exchanges will be in the toilet for a few days, but on the bright side I can let the World Cup fall slightly lower on my list of concerns. Apparently Ronaldinho can prioritize other interests as well.

In terms of rooting interest, I really did like what I saw from the French Saturday. This isn't some issue of pride -- I just really want to see Zidane and Henry play some more. You always hear about the legendary players like Beckam, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho, but the one guy that really brought it this time appears to be Zidane.

This is also by the process of elimination. I positively hate the Italian team's flop-focused style of play. Portugal falls into kind of the same style, but actually nastier. Germany's style I can respect a little more, but they do seem a little thuggish as well. I'd prefer a Germany-France final for the game, and I'd watch the Italy-Portugal 3rd place match as a kind of window onto football hell, where two whiny, floppy, bullying teams make life miserable for each other, fans, and refs.

No comment

From a Guardian Unlimited review:

After flirting with Looney Tunes comedy, Hollywood pastiche, Peter Jackson-style grandiosity, and seafront pantomime, it eventually becomes clear what course the Pirates franchise has really plotted: a packed universe of characters; epic action; strange lands; freakish monsters; a curiously sexless central couple. This isn't an updated swashbuckler, it's a backdated Star Wars! The comparisons are too plentiful to put down to coincidence. Not only does the narrative arc parallel that of the Empire Strikes Back, but virtually every character here has a Star Wars equivalent. Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg are the substitutes for R2D2 and C3PO, commenting from the sidelines, while Naomie Harris's swamp-dwelling prophetess is a Yoda surrogate. One wonders what George Lucas's reaction will be when he watches the movie.

Unfortunately, the Star Wars connection applies to Orlando Bloom, too. He's a Mark Hamill in the making. He's simply too boyish to conjure any sort of heroic authority. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if Keira Knightley turned out to be his sister, and there are hints that Depp's Jack Sparrow has the potential to do a Han Solo.

Don't look at me man, I just work here. Saw it last week and think it's worth knocking out a review for. I'll try that over this (hot damn!) 4 day weekend.