The Rocketdog Blog: February 2006

February 28, 2006

Comment Withheld

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I'll be studying for a Final Cut Pro Certification test all day today. My Best Picture blogging series continues tomorrow.

Labels: baseball, etc.

February 27, 2006

Good Night, and Good Luck. Plus: I Don't Watch the Oscars, I Just Blog About Them

I don’t care about the Academy Awards. Even causal observers realize that, for any given year, the nominated films and performances aren’t necessarily the best among contenders. This is largely because official selections are determined as much by multimillion dollar advertising campaigns, paid for by the studios and specifically targeted at a few hundred Academy voters, as any notions of critical merit. I also don’t care for the self-important pomp of Hollywood studios pretending that the ultimate measure of a film’s success is anything other than its bottom line. While I do believe that most studio types have aspirations towards making quality films, this element is always, always, held subservient to the net gross. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with that; movies are a business, after all, and they cost a shit ton of money to make. But the Oscars – and the annual September - December deluge of studio-produced faux-indie Oscar-bait films that precede them – are nothing more than a result of Hollywood trying to affect its own measure of artistic credibility. It’s a farce enabling the movie industry to perpetuate the fantasy that, in the end, it’s something above all the dollars and cents. It’s not. Sorry, Hollywood, I’m not buying into your shameless orgy of self-deception. You’re a bunch of money-grubbing corporate whores, and one night of manufactured pomposity isn’t going to change any of that. So it is for these reasons that I never watch the Academy Awards. I tend to avoid pretty much all discussion of them, and whether or not a film has won or been nominated for an Oscar generally has no influence over whether or not it’s one I’m going to add to my Netflix queue.

[Insert big sigh here.]

Until this year. No, this year I’m going to try to care. It’s not because the movies are better (always debatable). It’s not about my man-crush Jon Stewart hosting the telecast, which I’m probably not going to end up watching anyway (I had thought about watching last year when Chris Rock was the host, but copped out when I remembered that I’d still have to put up with all of that ridiculous Oscar crap in-between Rock’s emceeing).

No, this year it’s different. Because this year, folks, this year…it’s about having a blog. It’s about me not having anything else to post about on that blog. It’s about this idea I have about writing a separate post reviewing each of the five of the Best Picture nominees, and doing it before the show airs on Sunday.

Yes, this year, it’s about setting goals. Goals like, “I’m going to blog about 100 movies this year.” Except that it’s not, because this time I’m going to do better than living up to only 4 percent of that goal. Also, the Olympics are over, and I have nothing else to do with my free time.

“Now wait just a damn minute,” you may be saying to yourself. “Five reviews in six days? Good lord, he only wrote four over all of last year! Is he crazy?” I reply: Perhaps. But just as the Academy Awards are Hollywood’s attempt to perpetuate the fantasy of its own artistic relevance, blogging about the Best Picture nominees perpetuates my fantasy that people actually read my blog. And thus, like the Oscars, as an exercise it is absolutely vital. To that end, I begin:

Oftentimes, films rooted in historical fiction, such as biopics, or those depicting a certain event, suffer from too much sexing-up. Artistic embellishments of the kind added for dramatic effect by writers, directors, and producers to make a story more appealing to an mass audience can sometimes result in material that is out-of-touch with its subject, or that is so unbelievable as to lose its credibility as a realistic account. With Good Night, and Good Luck, the story of legendary CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow’s on-air clashes with Senator Joe McCarthy, as seen from the point-of-view of Murrow and his news staff, I’m wondering if the opposite isn’t true: the filmmakers had so much respect for their subject – and communicating its topical messages – that they forgot to make the film dramatically suspenseful.

That’s not to say that the drama isn’t there – there’s certainly loads in the source material, and screenwriters George Clooney and Grant Heslov manage to parcel out plenty of well-played tense moments along the way, such as when Murrow (played the excellent David Straithairn) and his co-producer, Fred Friendly (Clooney), first make the decision to take on McCarthy. In the end, though, the action never reaches a boiling point; there’s really no dramatic climax to the film. I hope I’m not giving too much away here plot-wise (this is a matter of historical record, after all, but if you really don't know anything about this movie and really hate spoilers, you might want to skip ahead to the next paragraph), but a typical example of GNGL’s dramatic shortcoming occurs when Murrow’s staff finds out about McCarthy’s pending investigation by the Senate, an event that will eventually lead to McCarthy’s censure and the end of his own investigation. All of the real action of this scene happens off-camera; instead, we hear the news via a telegram read out loud in the news room. This exposition via a secondary source is all we ever get of this event ever occurring. Instead of dramatic payoff, we only see the result: the relieved smiles, the joyful back-slapping among the reporters – but the moment itself, the humiliation and the eventual downfall of Senator McCarthy, all happens miles away, in another location.

Part of the reason for these shortcomings may be in GNGL’s use of archival footage to present public figures of the day, such as McCarthy himself. While this technique does a fine job in setting the period of early 1950s America, immediately transporting us back in time in a way that a digitally manipulated recreation could never achieve, in retrospect this decision may have been the rope the filmmakers were using to bind their own hands. In giving us all of this great archival footage of McCarthy, his witnesses and his colleagues in the Senate, the filmmakers ensure that fictional representations of these people are impossible. For that reason, these characters, so critical to the dramatic development of the film, are forced to remain peripheral; we can’t be present with McCarthy when he hears the news about his pending investigation, because there is no archival footage of that event happening. Instead, we as the viewer have been locked in the newsroom with Murrow and Friendly, while the most important events in the story happen outside its doors. With this in mind, the filmmakers may have been better off leaving the archival footage, fascinating as though it may be, to the DVD extras. (Incidentally, I just thought I’d mention that test audiences’ chief complaint about the film was that the “actor” portraying Senator McCarthy was “too unbelievable.” If you’ve never seen footage of McCarthy in a full anti-commie fervor, he’s something to watch.)

One other beef with the film: GNGL is in fact one of those constantly beating-you-over-the-head “message” movies. In a year when an arguable four of the five best picture nominees are overtly liberal “message” movies, GNGL is not a standout for pressing an agenda. I don’t have a problem with any of that, per se, but GNGL is not a subtle film. Unlike, say, Brokeback Mountain (which I will get to later in the week), GNGL states its message, or rather multitude of messages, in finger-wagging snippets of dialogue ostensibly spoken to other characters, but clearly aimed at the audience. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not a huge problem, and frankly I think it’s easier to get away with this sort of thing in a historical fiction than in a straight-up fiction fiction (I have no doubts, for example, that Murrow actually spoke in the terms he conveys in the film). But blatant statements of the BIG MESSAGE of any film via dialogue spoken by the characters always comes off as a little clumsy, and GNGL has several of these moments.

Labels: metablogging, movies

February 23, 2006

Bonsai Kittens, and the Dark Underbelly of Olympic Curling

Something I thought I would mention over the last week but never got around to: Christy would like me to point out that the Bonsai Kittens website I linked to several days ago is, in fact, not real. Well, when I say Christy would like me to point that out what I really mean is that after the idea of Bonsai Kittens sent Christy into a hyperventilating fit I thought it might be a good thing to mention. So everyone calm down, nobody really keeps little kittens alive in jars as decorative objets d’art. Bonsai Kittens are a notorious Internet hoax. But they are also very funny.

I also thought of another reason to love Curling yesterday while watching the US Men’s team’s heartbreaking Semifinal loss to the Canadians: American skip (team captain) and Minnesota pizza-parlor entrepreneur Pete Fenson looks exactly like a younger David Lynch. I shit you not! Click the links!

Labels: metablogging, movies, sports other than baseball

February 22, 2006

The Winter Olympics: As Addictive as Crack

Ok, so I'm back in California after two weeks in the big MO, one good and one hideous, and I'm going to leave things at that. Due to the abject hideousness of the latter week I haven't felt like writing anything, much less posting inane quips about nonsensical internet crap.

But now that's over with. Back to inanity! Has anyone else been watching the Winter Olympics?

As I do every year these things roll around, I had every intention of ignoring the whole spectacle. But then, as always happens, I get sucked in anyway; I checked out freestyle snowboarding the other day on a friend's TV and I've been hooked ever since. Slalom, Luge, you name it. I sat for two hours the other day watching Ice Dancing. Ice Dancing! Suddenly I'm taken back to the 1996 Summer Olympics, when I spent several days riveted to the phenomenon of Women's Gymnastics. Oh, the drama. Why have you never answered any of my fan mail, Kerri Strug?

The snowboarding events have been especially compelling, for me – that's a sport I would have never considered to be Olympic-caliber, or even really a sport, until I tried doing it myself. Holy cow. Five of the most painful, frustrating days of my life. I mean, does anybody reading this comprehend how difficult it must be to do something as ridiculous and dangerous as Snowboard Cross? And remember that these people don't just tackle their sport with the professionalism and determination of incredibly gifted athletes, they do it stoned. I'm in awe.

The sport I've really gotten into, though, is Curling. Often described as "shuffleboard on ice," Curling seems like exactly the kind of thing that would be anthema to a televised broadcast. But I love it. Seriously. Shuffleboard notwithstanding, the sport also has many parallels with baseball, what with the 10-"end" (inning) structure, the offensive rotation, and the drawn-out pacing. Basically what I'm saying is, if you're like me, and you like watching televised baseball, you'll enjoy curling. If you're thinking about checking it out, though, you'd better hurry up – the women's medal matches end tomorrow, and the final men's game is on Friday.

Actually, all of the Olympic sports are over by Saturday, right? Well great. Now what the hell am I going to do with my free time?

Maybe I'll take up smoking again.

Labels: sports other than baseball

February 12, 2006

Dogblogging

It’s dogblogging day at the Rocketdog Blog. Because I said so.

Maya’s excess of fur makes her not ideally suited to windy days at the beach.

Meanwhile, the Rocketdog himself stares down a stick-wielding Labrador. I’m really digging the lighting in this photo.

Maya and I chill on the couch. My dogs and I love browsing the internet together. Ozzie wants a bonsai kitten.

Ok, that's all I've got. That wasn't so bad, was it?

Labels: dog stuff, photoblogging

February 10, 2006

Will Bill O'Reilly Play in Peoria?

I think this is kind of cute. Since the grand old age of Hollywood, it's been cliché for producers to judge a movie's mainstream appeal based on whether or not it will "play in Peoria." In the Jan 30 - Feb 5 weekly edition of Variety, Ben Fritz puts the old maxim to the test by checking box office receipts at the lone Peoria, IL theater showing Brokeback Mountain, a film derided by conservative pundits everywhere as being too far outside the mainstream to ever be a hit outside of liberal metropolitan areas.

So, were they right? Not if Peoria audiences can be any indication. The movie earned $15,695 its opening weekend, surpassing national top-earner Underworld: Evolution to become the theater's most popular movie.

Labels: movies, politics

February 08, 2006

Existentialist Garfield Comics

This message board post made me laugh out loud so hard, I seriously almost started crying.

I've got to stop looking at crap like this at the office.

Update: It looks like the link got pulled. Sorry, guys.

Update: Or not? Give it a click; if it works, it works. Screwy message board.

Labels: etc.

February 07, 2006

The Ten Best Movies of 2005: A Confessional

I’d thought about doing a top ten of 2005 list like a lot of movie-writin’-about folks are doing around this time of year. Unfortunately, as soon as I started to plot this llst out I was forced to confront a harsh and embarrassing reality about myself: I don’t even think I watched 10 movies last year that were actually released in 2005. Here I write a blog that’s at least 70% ostensibly about movies, and I don’t even fucking watch movies. Well THAT sure bummed me out. Stupid goddamn blog.

It’s been a dirty secret of mine for a while now that I don’t actually see all that many movies. I’ve been doing better recently, but the thing is that once I started film school, watching movies became sort of like homework. Even if whatever I was watching wasn’t for a class, I’d inevitably end up writing out three or four pages of notes, because I felt like I should be doing stuff like that. The obsessive analysis just got too be too much work, and it stopped being fun. Why do anything you don’t enjoy anymore if you don’t have to?

So this is embarrassing for a lot of reasons, obviously, considering the profession I claim to be trying to break into. I tried doing something about it on my old blog when, back around this time last year, I made plans to watch at least 100 movies in 2005, and afterwards post a short review of each one. A year later, my grand total for reviews written in 2005…well, it was four. I wrote reviews on four movies. Out of 100. And the really sad thing is that, even leaving the reviews aside, I didn’t watch 100 movies last year. Nowhere close. I wasn’t really keeping track, so I can’t be sure, but I probably didn’t even see half of that.

But here I am with my stupid list, which I decided to draw up anyway. Sort of. I guess you could say I kind of half-assed it. In fact, I kind of really half-assed it (one-quarter-assed it?!?). Not only are several of the movies on this list not actually from 2005, there are at least two movies on this list that I didn’t even watch in 2005, but since they were released last year I’ve included them anyway in order to make the list at least marginally relevant (ha ha!).

So here we go: In descending order, a list of the 10 best movies I watched in 2005, regardless of whether or not they were actually made in 2005, or frankly whether I even got around to watching them in 2005! Thanks a lot for reading the blog. I’m going to go slam my head in the refrigerator door for a few hours.

(I’m in the middle of a personal Woody Allen retrospective right now, so there are a few of those on the list. For films not released in 2005, I’ve indicated the appropriate year in parenthesis after the title.)

My ten favorites:

Good Bye, Lenin! (2003)
Capote
Grizzly Man
Bananas (1971)
Brokeback Mountain
Interiors (1978)
March of the Penguins
A History of Violence
Love and Death (1975)
Supervixens (1975)

A few honorable mentions:

War of the Worlds
Play it Again, Sam (1972)
Winged Migration (2001)
Harry Potter and the Whatever It Was This Year
The Aristocrats

Labels: metablogging, movies

February 05, 2006

Wagons East

I'm leaving for Missouri in the morning for a couple of weeks. If anybody over there wants to get in touch with me, I have an awesome movie you need to see.

So...yeah. Obviously I'm kind of new to this naming-your-blog-post thing. Did anyone else ever see Wagons East? God, that movie was terrible.

Labels: movies

February 04, 2006

In the Can

It’s Something Special is done. Finished. Complete. In the can. Kaput.

So to speak. The sound is still a preliminary mix, so that needs to be worked on. And of course I’ll need to see how this thing screens before I’m completely satisfied that I’ve got the funniest possible movie I can put together (because, you know, when you’ve watched the same group of scenes 500-something times, it becomes a little difficult to tell if the jokes still work). So there’s all that. But barring any last-minute crises arising from any of that crap, I’m confident in saying that, for all intents and purposes, It’s Something Special is finally, incredibly, done.

I’m feeling pretty good right now. It’s been almost two years to the date that I started working on this ridiculous movie, and god DAMN am I ready to put it behind me. I’m also satisfied with the final cut. I think it really is a good film. A good student film, to be sure, but I think it holds its own even when taken outside of that context, and it’s also pretty damn funny. At any rate, I’ve certainly gotten a lot more out of this material than I expected to back in April of 2004.

Anyway, here’s a question: Over the next few weeks, I’ll be screening ISS for as many people as I can hook up with, but since I know most of the friends who might be reading this are spread out all over the country, there’s no way I’m going to be able to get in touch with everybody who wants to see this movie. So I’m wondering, should I put a copy online for download? I’m only asking because it would be a huge file, probably around 80 – 100 MB, so you’d have to have a pretty fast connection in order to be able to watch it that way (and also because I’d vastly prefer showing the film in person). I could also stream the video, but I don’t have a lot of experience doing that, and anyway I’m always frustrated with the quality of streaming media. Or, I don’t know…I guess I could even mail out copies of the DVD. I’ve already got a decent DVD layout put together, so that might be the best option to go with...

Well, what do you guys think? Should I put a copy of the video online, or mail out DVDs, or…what? If anyone reading this just can’t wait to see my bad-ass new movie in person, and has a preference for how they’d like to get a copy from me, send me an e-mail or leave me a comment below. I’ll figure something out.

(Off topic, but my original title for this post was going to be, "Ken Burns Can Suck My Dick." I changed my mind at the last minute. He still can, though.)

Labels: movies, work stuff

February 03, 2006

AT&T Park

It's official: the San Francisco Giants now play in AT&T Park. While I've been known to have bitched about this sort of thing in the past, it's important to note that whatever the name, Pac Bell / SBC / AT&T Park is the first baseball stadium in the last forty years to have been built entirely through private funding. Considering that most professional sports teams tend to threaten relocation unless the public coughs up a good deal of the construction costs for their venues, I'm happy to let the Giants' owners call the thing whatever the hell they want to.

$8.50 for a 16 oz. beer, though...that I can take issue with. Greedy fuckers.

Labels: baseball

We Got a New Dog

Her name is Maya, and we're not sure what she is. Some kind of hairy Yorkie-mix-thing. BUT SHE'S 100% CUTE.

We actually adopted her a few weeks ago, but I held off on posting about it because I was in the process of shutting down the old blog. As you can probably tell from the photo, this one is Christy's dog.

Labels: dog stuff, photoblogging

February 02, 2006

Walk the Line

I finally got around to seeing Walk the Line a few days ago, and it got me to thinking: What is it about big-budget biopics about famous musicians that seems so formulaic? Is it the obligatory scenes of the musician, hunched over a [piano / guitar / notebook], conscientiously divining the first [notes / lyrics] of their eventual smash hit single? Or is it the history of [childhood trauma / poverty / lifelong racial prejudice] enabling these tourtured but brilliant souls to fill their music with such naked honesty? Or what about the musician’s struggles to cope with [said traumas / sudden fame / a bad marriage], inevitably leading to a downward spiral into [drug addiction / alcoholism / a love / hate relationship with their own inflated ego] and thus subsequently setting up their own [ephiphany followed by triumphant redemption / death]?

I think there's only so much you can do to turn a real-life person's life into a three-act narrative, but It’s hard to watch Walk the Line and not think of last year’s Ray, a movie so like this one that it’s like seeing two screenwriters’ variations on the same sheet of “Hollywood Mad Libs." Unlike Ray, however, this film has the relationship between June Carter and Johnny Cash – a real-life Hollywood love story if there ever was one – to anchor the film, relegating Cash’s struggles with drug addiction to subplot status. For that reason, Walk the Line has more focus than the meandering Ray, making this the better of the two movies. (Other close matches include any film about Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Richie Valens, Eminem or any other musical celebrity, ever, with the possible exception of this one.)

Other notes: the musical numbers require somewhat of a suspension of disbelief, because right off the bat, it’s clear that Jaoquin Phoenix can’t sing like Cash. His chin tucked into his chest and his eyes bulging out of their sockets, you can actually see the man struggling to hit those low notes and it’s not pretty. Reese Whitherspoon, on the other hand, tackles the June Carter numbers – and her character – with total conviction. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon may have gotten Oscar nominations, but Witherspoon's is the better performance.

Labels: movies

Brokeback to the Future

This is cute.

Labels: etc., movies

February 01, 2006

Before I Forget

This site has an RSS feed. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.

My friend Meghan asked me a few days ago what podcasts I'm listening to. This gave me the idea of putting links to some of the ones I like over there on the sidebar (under "Podcasts I'm Listening To" – hey hey). In short, the first three are about movies, Slate features articles from their website, OTM is the same as the NPR radio show, BP Radio is about baseball for math nerds, and Podnography is a hilarious and well-produced podcast about the porn industry (the link is not work safe).

Finally, In case anyone reading my old blog thought that the "major post" I mentioned last week was referring to a pending announcement for It's Something Special, THAT major post is coming in a few days. Stay tuned.

Labels: metablogging, podcasting

First Post

Welcome to the Rocketdog Blog. Here's to hoping I can keep this thing more current than my last one. Any comments or suggestions on the site design would be much appreciated.

Also: am I too obsessed with my dog? Just wondering.

Labels: metablogging

The Rocketdog Blog