Film and television

Freddy Rumsen : Sterling Cooper :: Dave Mustaine : Metallica

I’m not sure if I’ll pick this one up, but the first Lego Indy game was ridiculously fun.

Undecided on cereal, I went with some Honey Nut, in honor of my man Omar.

As predicted, my back feels like it had a run-in with the Baseball Furies (sans Warriors backup). If this is what aging is, count me out.

Overheard: "What's up for tonight?" "Wanna watch Ghost Dad?"

Not much real covergence in It Might Get Loud's meeting of the minds, but their individual stories still sent me straight home to my guitar.

This piece describes my distaste for Napoleon Dynamite perfectly.

This looks like it just might be refreshingly old school.

There are many glasses of water scattered around my apartment. I expect Joaquin Phoenix to show up and start killing aliens any minute now.

Found four out of five 35mm reels of Son of Sinbad (RKO, 1955) in Harvard College Library's trash. What shall I do with them?

With Inglourious Basterds and the return of Boston's international students, my earnest pursuit of multilingualism begins at last.

In this sixth and final Thin Man film, the party is over. None of the fun of the series’ early films remains. We could always count on Nick and Nora to gracefully navigate the mysteries that fell in their laps with wit and aplomb (and of course a healthy dose of liquor). Above all else, it was their surefootedness and levity that made them endearing. Song of the Thin Man abandons these traits, setting them… See more →

Heading out to the Thin Man marathon at the Brattle Theatre, hoping Mr. Giggle Factory from last night doesn't sit directly behind me again.

The last-minute discovery of local screenings of several Thin Man films suddenly made this a proper weekend.

We’re seriously not past this shit yet? "Something’s wrong with the TV! It’s got these black bars up and down it! I think it’s broken, Robbie, help me!"

District 9 begins with some interesting racial subtext, but ultimately turns into a popcorn movie. Meh.

Wow, Bob Mould mentioned in the same breath as Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix: movies.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/mov…

Life moves pretty fast. We're lucky to have had John Hughes stop and look around once in awhile. RIP.

Successfully restrained myself from having a Tex Avery moment on the subway: youtube.com/watch?v=OQtYQouzN…

Dreamt James Cameron gave The Terminator the George Lucas treatment, removing "I'll be back" and adding an inflatable parking garage scene.

The first sentence is priceless.

I get the sense this idea was well-intentioned, but you know what they say about good intentions. Who would be shocked to see Hollywood arrive late to the digital age with a calculated plan to line executive pockets on the backs of scores of faceless artist drones?

"You seem to have mistaken my home for an African American mortuary." #1stdraftmovielines

The theatrical audience experience of The Room was everything I was promised. Ineptitude of this caliber deserves its fanatics. Count me in.

Comfortably seated in Coolidge Corner Theatre, moments away from finally seeing The Room. Overheard: "I'll reimburse you for the spoons."

Oh, Mr. Raimi, you don't always deliver, but when you do, you bring more than I ordered, and your actors pick up the bill.

Remember those amazing scenes of a desolate, abandoned London in 28 Days Later? I'd like to see that in Harvard Square.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil made me smile. A lot.

Why must a TV show's biggest spoilers be clearly displayed by its own DVD menu?

Obama, economic crisis, swine flu? Whatever. If 2009 is remembered for one thing, it will be the invention of the fat mall cop film genre.

All we are is dust in the wind, dude. Dust. Wind. Dude.

Overheard: "Thunderdome was great until they saved the Ewoks."

Being perhaps the only weight-challenged member of the Rebel Alliance didn't mean he deserved the name Porkins.

The Horseman was good, but it mostly just made me appreciate Park Chan Wook that much more.

Days since I last cried in a movie theater: 0.

Heading to the Paramount to see Sin Nombre.

The Objectified panel is a testament to the comprehensiveness of the film by being mostly redundant.

In line at the Paramount with @jasonsantamaria, waiting to see Objectified.

Waiting with @jmspool for Jeffrey Tambor's acting workshop to begin.

Drinking Paul Rudd's beer.

Most comic book movies that make a point of being slavishly devout to their source material either fail or are working from pages that are inherently more cinematic and less intellectually dense than Watchmen is. To shoehorn Watchmen into a decent feature film would require significant restructuring, and unfortunately, this film misses the forest for the trees, offering tediously superficial reproductions of panels that were designed to be printed on paper, not celluloid. If Zack… See more →

That the Peanut Butter Sandwich is the Cousin Oliver to the Girl Scout Cookies' Brady Bunch hasn't stopped me from eating half a box today.

Got Watchmen out of the way.

There is a great premise here, but not quite enough plot to fill out a feature. As a result, there’s some heavy padding, mostly in the form of a superfluous love story that films of its era unfortunately weren't allowed to go without. Edmond O’Brien gives a solid performance, smoothly alternating between manic and shrewd, but the rest of the cast is easily forgotten. Genre fans ought to give it a look; others might not… See more →

Why are Stringer Bell and Ziggy Sobotka slumming it in Prom Night? Also, why am I watching Prom Night?

Morgan Spurlock is smart. If he called the movie Why Osama Bin Laden Is Irrelevant, which he certainly knew before he began, it would have garnered a lot less interest. And then his target audience would have missed out on some good conversations he had with people at all levels of society throughout the Middle East, which reveal that the world's real problems are poverty and the codependency of extremists and corrupt governments. As filmmaking,… See more →

Anxiously awaiting the start of Cinematic Titanic with @waynekoby, @drinkerthinker, @beep, and many overweight people in trenchcoats.

Was sure I'd get tickets to a taping of The Conan O'Brien Show at some point before it was over. Also, where is my flying car?

After his impossibly beautiful girlfriend dumps him, a slacker schlub takes a vacation in Hawaii where high jinks ensue, he somehow attracts yet another impossibly beautiful woman, and he comes to realize his amazing potential. Apatow devotees and detractors alike will find exactly what they’ve come to expect from anything bearing his name: A level of sophistication and cast of reasonably endearing characters that fall just short of saving this formulaic, broad comedy from itself.

Apatow's secret weapon is to make the successes of his identifiably average leads seemingly plausible. I tend not to buy it.