The Oscars Are Classy and You Can Suck It

The Hurt Locker won Best Picture, and as per usual, people are pissed. People were pissed at Crash, Shakespeare in Love, and Dances With Wolves. People will always be pissed. I say people get pissed because they don't get the Oscars. Their expectations are wrong going in. This year's Best Picture race best exemplified that. Let's take the top 2 contenders, Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

Avatar is by far and away the movie for which 2009 will be remembered. However people feel about 3-D (I personally think it adds nothing to filmmaking, yet) Avatar was the movie that made the form legitimate. A lot of movies have used it, but Avatar got people excited about it. It pushed films to the ends of what is possible because James Cameron is the only one who has proven he can experiment that wildly and still make money.

The Hurt Locker is, simply put, the only good Iraq War movie ever made. Making a movie about a war while it's still going on is tough. That's why Robert Altman made M*A*S*H about the Korean War, even though it was clearly about Vietnam. Hollywood's best attempts to capture our current Middle East quagmire result in crap like Jarhead and Stop-Loss. The Hurt Locker relies on nothing fancy, except solid filmmaking and a good story.

The Avatars of this world have legions of fans, billions of dollars, and total media exposure. The Hurt Lockers of this world have the Oscars. At the end of the day, money dictates filmmaking. The medium is incredibly expensive to do right. Without award shows, box office would be the only motivation to make films. Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, and the story sucks. The film will move the medium forward, but it won't move society forward. Nobody came out of Avatar with a thought in their head they hadn't had before, and that's fine. People don't go to movies to think; they go to movies to be entertained, and that's why Hurt Lockers don't make lots of money. And that's fine. As a society, though, we must, from time to time, demand more than escapism from our artists. So says The West Wing,

"There is a connection between the progress of a society and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo di Medici was also the age of Leonardo Di Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was the age of Shakespeare."

Simply put, art encourages and inspires the forward momentum of society.

The people with the money, studios and investors, need a concrete motivation to dump millions of dollars into movies with substance. The Oscars is it. The Academy rewards the kind of deep storytelling that box office numbers discourage. Studios like winning Oscars because Oscar exposure boosts box office numbers, and winning an Oscar makes investors want to give those people more money. Sure, the Oscars are just a night of self-congratulations, but they're congratulating each other for focusing at least some of their energy on making films that raise the bar artistically.

This is what I'm saying about people's expectations being wrong. Avatar didn't lose because the Academy hates Sci-Fi or hates popular movies. Avatar lost because the Academy hates shallow movies. If you go in expecting the Academy to reward popularity, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. If you think Avatar was the kind of deep, artistic film I've been talking about, you should read a book some time. If you think this means I think popular movies shouldn't win Oscars, I'll leave you with one last thought.

The Dark Knight, the third highest grossing film of all time, brought weight to the Superhero genre, which I love, and is already inspiring everyone else to do better. For that, it should have been at least nominated for last year's Best Picture. It wasn't, but its exclusion changed the way the Academy picks the top prize. The Academy is growing with society, but I hope it never gives up on depth.

I Love Supporting Actors: William Fichtner

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Ryan Sparks - "Grace Under Fire"

Burke - "Go"

Justice Christopher Mulready - "The West Wing"

Bank Manager - "The Dark Knight"



Why He's Awesome:

Truth be told, I had the idea for this whole supporting actors thing during the opening sequence of "The Dark Knight." Nolan's Batman series has a predilection for great supporting actors, and as soon as I saw Fichtner, I knew his second movie would be even better than "Batman Begins." I've thought he was awesome since I first saw him as Grace's love interest on "Grace Under Fire." He was just so oddball, and so sincere.

In the second half of the '90s, he won roles in some of the most memorable movies of the decade: "Virtuosity," "Strange Days," "Heat," "Contact," "Armageddon," and "Go." In "Go," he went for it, like I had never seen before, playing a creepy-ass police officer, who turns out to be an Amway salesman way too comfortable being naked around other men. Since then, he has worked consistently in movies and TV, even showing up in the only episode of "The West Wing"'s season 5 that I liked, due in no small part to his portrayal of a hard-nosed Republican federal judge.

I hope he never becomes a leading man, and keeps doing what he's been doing for another 20 years.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

If you look closely, you'll see he wears in many of his roles a ring that once belonged to his grandfather.

Check out his imdb page.

Great Scenes From Bad Movies: Mallrats

For years, I considered "Mallrats" to be one of my favorite movies. After a more recent viewing, I realized, the movie is, for the most part, enjoyable, but not as great as I thought it was. In the wake of Kevin Smith's Southwest Airlines run-in, I'm realizing more and more that his movies, while genius to teenagers, don't have the substance I once thought they did. How is it I thought this movie was so great?

The reason was one good scene.

The movie centers around Jeremy London's T. S. trying desperately to win his girlfriend Brandy back from the clutches of her father, who's trying to stage a Dating Game update at a mall. The gem of the movie turns out to be Jason Lee, in the role that started his star trajectory. Lee's Brody is a comic book geek who spends all his time at the mall, but Lee sells his bullshit as if he's Aristotle. He's smug and sarcastic and unavoidably loveable.

In a big, final attempt to win back his love, T. S. sneaks himself and Brody onto her father's "Truth or Date." Brody takes over the show. His snarky answers and comments are a testament to Smith's writing ability, but moreso, they show a star bursting out of a role too small for his talent. He beats on the host, the loser third contestant suitor, and the ridiculousness of the very idea that anyone could reboot The Dating Game. I keep keep blathering, but I'll just close with a quote:


Brandy: Second Suitor, would you ever make whoopee in public?
Brody: I already did once today. But my cousin Walter jerked off in public once. True story. He was on a plane to New Mexico when all of a sudden the hydraulics went. The plane started spinning round, going out of control. He decides it's all over, whips it out and starts beating it right there. All the passengers take a cue from him they whip it out and start beating like mad. So all the passengers are beating off plummeting to their certain doom when all of a sudden the hydraulics kick back in and the plane rights itself. It lands safely and everyone puts their pieces, or whatever, away and deboard. Nobody mentions the phenomenon to anyone else.
Suitor #3: Did he come or what?
Brody: Jesus Christ, Gil! There are just some things you don't talk about in public.

I Love Supporting Actors: Jane Lynch

You know, this gal:
Notable Roles:

Christy Cummings - "Best in Show"

Paula - "The 40 Year Old Virgin"

Gayle Sweeny - "Role Models"

Sue Sylvester - "Glee"



Why She's Awesome:

Nowadays, she's everywhere. She's so ubiquitous, you might think she'd always been so. Her style is always so out there, so funny, you'd think that's the way she's always been. Did you know she played a press room reporter on "The West Wing?" She is far more versatile than anyone gives her credit for. She doesn't need to be, though. She plays out there better than anyone. Surrounded by the Christopher Guest regulars, she stood out in "Best in Show."

Since "The 40 Year Old Virgin," she has finally moved out front and center. She plays crazy more straighly and more honestly than anyone. Love or hate "Role Models," you know you enjoyed, even looked forward to every time she was on screen. Never has youth volunteering been so overtly creepy. She finally has earned her place on a successful TV series, giving her the opportunity to build a character as only Jane Lynch can.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

In "A Mighty Wind," she actually played guitar and did her own singing.

Check out her imdb page.

My Favorite Movies of 2009

Hands Down, The Best Movies of the Year

Crank: High Voltage

To be fair, I love Jason Statham movies in general, so I'm biased; however, it's goofy; it's cheesy, and it has more imagination per frame than any other movie of the year. In a year where storytelling was replaced by filmmakers trying to paint over crappy movies with a layer of feigned social conscience, it was refreshing to watch a movie that didn't even pretend to be bigger than it was. For people just willing to give themselves up to ridiculousness, this movie will blow you away. As soon as you have free time, rent the first Crank movie, give yourself a few days to think "How the fuck are they going to make a sequel to that?" then rent Crank 2.

Zombieland

"Shaun of the Dead" is a better made movie, with greater emotion and depth of character. However, I love "Zombieland" so much more. It's just pure fun. I can't remember laughing so hard for such a sustained period of time. I don't even like zombie movies, but subject matter aside, this movie was so fucking good.

Inglourious Basterds

What I hate most about Quentin Tarantino are those long dialogue scenes. The man seems in love with his own writing, and he thinks his pop culture references make him cooler than everyone else. Even worse, his philosophy about everything isn't as thoughtful as good actors make it sound. With Basterds, he finally figured out that if we're going to sit in one place for 20 minutes, we want some fucking tension. Gone are the rants about milkshakes and '70s television, and in their wake, he brings us two of the most tense film scenes I've ever seen (the farm house and the basement). As a Jew, I found this movie to be a cathartic piece of fantasy. I would never support the wholesale torture and murder of any group of people, but in a movie, safe behind squibs and prat falls, I can enjoy watching those Nazi bastards die.

Really Great Movies of the Year

Star Trek -- I can't wait to see where Abrams takes this. So many possibilities. The man James Kirk was before and the choices he made shaped the times. With Kirk changed and the Vulcans mostly extinct, I can't wait to see how they replay some of the major events of the series, then jump to The Next Generation and see how different the whole universe becomes.
Saw VI -- Real, relevant social conscience comes to the Saw franchise. It has always had that subtle hatred toward the medical community, but this movie gets so specific and so cathartic. Saw VI should be required viewing at health insurance companies. Not the best Saw movie, but definitely up there. I hope they crank these out for decades to come.

Moon -- Solid sci fi that makes "District 9" and "Avatar" look like really expensive student films. The entire movie is just Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey. That is really all you need. You don't need CGI for sci fi. You don't need giant aliens and themes that hit you over the head. Moon is full of twists, but not gotcha twists, twists that add to the depth of the story.
Drag Me to Hell -- Oh, Sam Raimi, how I've missed you. No one else can bring a horror movie with so many hilarious moments. I saw this movie in a mostly empty theatre. Me, my girlfriend, and one other couple left the movie with ear to ear smiles. Everyone else left confused. This is why I love Sam Raimi. He makes Sam Raimi movies, and nothing else. Luckily, Sam Raimi movies are brilliant. Sam Raimi, Sam Raimi, Sam Raimi.
Up -- It's not possible for Pixar to have a record this good. How do they do it? Statistically, they have to make one bad movie. They just don't. I'm glad I saw this as an adult because as a kid, it would have made me cry. It made me cry anyway, but as an adult, I can handle it. I've never seen a movie full of so much adventure and so much sadness.

Movies That Deserve a Sentence of Honor

I Love You, Man -- The word "bromance" cheapens the brilliance of telling a love story between two men that isn't gay but can still play up the emotional importance of male relationships.

Up in the Air -- I can watch George Clooney do anything, even fire people over and over and over again.

Taken -- What saves this movie from being a Bourne rip-off is that at its center it's about a loser father trying to prove himself to his not-so-easily-impressed daughter.

The Princess & The Frog -- When Disney isn't so mired in bullshit, they can actually crank out a movie with depth and beauty that doesn't sacrifice anything to tell a good story.

Watchmen -- A better director wouldn't have so missed the depth of this story, but then better directors tried and failed.

Inkheart -- It's like that Adam Sandler movie where the fairy tales come to life, but without the weight of being an intolerably crappy movie.

17 Again -- What sells this movie for me is how they treat the fantasy nerd that never grew up supporting character with enough respect as not mock the things he loves (see: the kids who think they're aliens in "Just One of the Boys")

I Love Supporting Actors: Keith David

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

King - "Platoon"

Goliath - "Gargoyles"

Big Tim - "Requiem for a Dream"

Dr. Facilier - "The Princess and the Frog"



Why He's Awesome:

No long, drawn out gush fest. He's got the best pipes in animation and voice-over. Gargoyles's Goliath is the greatest cartoon character ever. The man can show up anywhere in a movie and command respect, laughs, or endless cringing as he insists Jennifer Connelly take a strap-on in the butt. He's the villain in the new Disney movie, and according to his IMDb, he has a dozen new projects coming soon. As long as he can speak, this man will work, and he will be awesome.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

While shooting "Platoon," he saved Charlie Sheen's life. During a helicopter scene, the Huey banked too hard, and Sheen would have fallen out the open door, plunging to his death, had it not been for David's quick reflexes.

Check out his imdb page.

"Death at a Funeral" Will Change Film History

And if it doesn't, we're just not trying hard enough.

Neil LaBute and Chris Rock are re-making Frank Oz's "Death at a Funeral," a movie released only two years ago. Oz's movie was pretty funny but far from perfect. Its box office draw was just ok, despite the involvement of Whedon mainstay Alan Tudyk and everyone's favorite little person Peter Dinklage. The brilliance of this re-make is how little time has past since the original.

This isn't "Ocean's 11" or"The Manchurian Candidate." This movie hasn't been around long enough for anyone to have a deep emotional connection to it, so now's the perfect time to build on the original. It had many problems, and better filmmakers have a responsibility to do better.

Everyone loves Frank Oz, but he's the guy who put Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Edward Norton in a movie and turned it into a flop. Talented he is, a good filmmaker he is not. The studios gave him a few chances, and along the way, he got half way toward making some pretty good movies. Let's re-make all Frank Oz's movies, using a better filmmaking team. They could even re-team De Niro and Norton. That's not so far-fetched, Peter Dinklage is reprising his role in the new "Death at a Funeral."

Let's look even further in the future. Hollywood should start re-making every well-conceived, yet poorly executed movie. No need to look to decades past. Let's start with the "Star Wars" prequels.

I Love Supporting Actors: Wallace Shawn

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Vizzini - "The Princess Bride"

Mr. Wendell Hall - "Clueless"

Rex - "Toy Story 1, 2, 3-D"

Stuart Best - "Murphy Brown"



Why He's Awesome:

He was fucking Vizzini. I could stop there, but you know I won't. "Inconceivable." That's a ten cent word he single-handedly added to the general vernacular. In and of itself, it's not that funny a word, but his delivery hits it out of the park. Amazing. No one dies of iocane poison like Wallace Shawn. Because of him, we all know the two classic blunders (never get caught in a land ward in Asia, and never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.) After working steadily for the next eight years, he comes back with another classic and totally different character, as the lovably hopeless Mr. Hall in the "Clueless" movie and TV series. I cannot think of a better match for Amy Heckerling's go-to gal Twink Caplan.

His best known voice work is Rex in the "Toy Story" movies, but that distinctive delivery of his can be heard all over the modern animated world from "The Incredibles" to "Chicken Little" to "Happily N'ever After" to "Family Guy" to, yes, "The Princess Bride" video game.

My favorite Wallace Shawn role, though, is a series of four guest spots he did on Murphy Brown as Stuart Best (possibly the best fictional name ever, combining ex-Beatles Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best). He plays a former FYI reporter, kicked off the show for being AMAZINGLY annoying. He even has his obnoxious, semi-folksy catch phrase, "That's alls I know." In his second appearance on the show, he wins a seat in the House of Representatives, and subsequently embarrasses Murphy at the inauguration. She gets her revenge by inviting him on the show to share his views, of which she knows he has none. Turns out, he was bankrolled by white supremacists. If you haven't seen the episode "The Best and Not-So Brightest" from the seventh season, I won't ruin it for you.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He's a fairly successful playwright, having won several Off-Broadway awards. A troupe doing one of his plays beat my high school out of the finals at the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild One-Act Play Festival, and I'm still bitter about it. Also, today's his birthday.

Check out his imdb page.

Great Scenes From Bad Movies: The Transporter

My first Transporter movie was Transporter 2. It's amazing. That movie is a bastion of ridiculousness. Jason Statham is white ninja. That guy rules. Before they could reach the heights of Transporter 2, they had to setup the character and all his back story, blah blah blah. It has some good action sequences, but overall, it tries too hard to be a real movie.

There is, however, one good scene.

I called it oil fight.

Statham's Frank Martin spends the whole movie fighting his way up a crime syndicate. Based on his moves, and a box some chick finds in his house full of character revealing information, he clearly knows how to handle himself in a fight. He's quick on his feet, and he knows how to use his environment to his advantage. Like I said, white ninja.

The zenith of Frank's amazingness is in some sort of workshop area. He's got to fend off a butt load of bad guys all by himself. To gain the advantage, he spills a bunch of oil on himself and the floor. Using the oil in every imaginable way, he slips out of their grip, makes them lose their footing, launches himself across the floor at them. It's fundamental scene work. Take one thing and use it in every way imaginable. Frank tops himself by taking apart a bike -- with his feet, of course -- and using the pedals, he gets a more solid footing on the oil.

This is why The Transporter movies are better than the Bourne movies. Jason Bourne takes out a dozen guys just because he's awesome for some reason. Frank has to earn every bit of kick ass. He earns it even more in Transporter 2 with "hose fight." It's like oil fight to the nth degree.

Check it out, oh, and also Crank 2, best movie of 2009.

The World Needs More... (part 2)

Seriously Deluded Politicians
(Sarah Palin, Joe Wilson, Dennis Kucinich)

Sarah Palin is the best thing to happen to American politics in years. I cannot get enough of her. Clearly, she has a bunch of guys feeding her information and she can't be bothered to fact check it. I was getting tired of politicians debating issues. What really brings the message home is when people with a microphone just stand up and throw scary made up shit into the mix. Death panels? That chick'll say anything to get elected something. What's she running for? Who knows? But she's gonna win.

Drivers
(Guy on cell phone, Lady who forgets she has a turn signal, Whoever's nearby)

It's only a couple ton piece of machinery, other people will just get out of your way. The conversation on your cell phone, way more important. Change lanes or stop to make a turn whenever you feel like it, without giving any sort of indication to the other drivers you intend to do so. God, if only there was some sort of device to communicate all that so easily. Oh, the turn signal. Fuck that. That's just revealing your plans to the enemy. You know what, fuck the other people on the road. I'm just going to honk at them whenever I feel like it. It's not like the horn was placed in cars to avoid accidents.

Pro-Lifers

Here's a secret. Liberals LOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEEE killing babies. We get off on it. Seriously. We sit around looking for those smaller than us to wipe out, and since we're all skinny, weak intellectuals, really only babies fit the bill. I'm glad you guys are out there reminding us that we're not rapidly approaching 7 billion people strong without the resources to support even 6 billion, so people who do the responsible thing when they accidentally get pregnant should really focus on the narrow moral issue and not the big picture.

Families with 10+ Children
(Octomom, The Duggars)

Speaking of overpopulation, I love the Duggars. These people have balls. They say only-children don't know how to share, but these guys are hording all our planets precious resources for their legions of children. As a twenty-something, I'm a bit worried about my seed surviving. The Duggars have it all figured out, just freak and let the chips fall. If they keep this up, the world will be predominantly Duggar. That's bad ass. Oh, let's not forget Octomom. God told her six kids is enough, and she said, "Fuck you, nameless deity."

Pundits / Unqualified Opinions
(Everyone, even guests, on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, TV at large)

Truth is relative. It's very Zen. What is truth, really? If someone wearing a tie says something on TV, it goes out to millions of people, most of which will repeat it without corroborating evidence. Sarah Palin says, without evidence, that Obama's health plan includes Death Panels out to kill grandma. The pundits repeat it, even when they're saying, "There are no Death Panels," they're repeating it. In an attempt to be "fair and balanced" they cart out an unqualified crackpot to say Death Panels exist to counter the learned experts who say there aren't. There is actually something in writing declaring what is and isn't part of this bill (by which I mean the bill itself), and still people say they hate Obama's plan because they're against Death Panels. Pundits have the real power in this country, and if everyone on the internet acted like a pundit, we could all rule the world, every last one of us. Fact checking and giving a crap about consequences, or even other people, is for suckers.

I Love Supporting Actors: Clea DuVall

You know, this gal:
Notable Roles:

Katie Reed - "ER"

Stokely "Stokes" Mitchell - "The Faculty"

Ginny - "Identity"

FBI Agent Audrey Hanson - "Heroes"



Why She's Awesome:

I swear, I thought this girl was around forever. While looking up her career for this, I discovered only her second role was a stint on ER as the girlfriend of a kid turning 18 who wanted his mother to honor his DNR. That came before all those teen movies she was in, like Can't Hardly Wait, She's All That, and The Faculty. Maybe my teen years are all just blurring together, but I cannot believe her career is just about as long as the run of ER.

She's the kind of supporting actor whose God given distinctive look guarantee her work forever. Even in all those teen movies, she was always the one you could pick out of the crowd. That brooding darkness made her the one who got goth kids into teeny bopper films. Her best teen movie has to be The Faculty. She's like Elijah Wood, but a girl.

I put Identity on her notable roles because I wanted to mention that movie. I love it. Also, it was her first real adult role, but she wasn't quite a full adult. Our first glimpse of how she'll fare as an adult actress came in her stint on "Heroes." As much as I love her, I rolled my eyes when she showed up. Thankfully, she spent the rest of the season proving me wrong. She's really grown up, and while the distinctive look that will keep her constantly employed will guarantee she'll never headline a blockbuster, I look forward to many, many more Clea DuVall movies.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

She's an only child.

Check out her imdb page.

The World Needs More... (part 1)

Sports Teams with Names That Aren't Plurals
(Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Wild, Tampa Bay Lightning)

Plural team names imply the coming of many together under one banner. Who needs teamwork anyway? Any dumb football or baseball team can just take a thing and pluralize it. Washington Redskins, that's just a bunch of dudes deciding they want to be racists. If I were a professional athlete, I'd want to play under the banner of an abstract concept, like magic, or a really loud bang. Which would you rather play a game of hockey against, Senators or Lightning?

Non-Horror Movies with 3+ Sequels
(Die Hard, Superman, Fast/Furious, Star Wars)

Horror movies have really nailed filmmaking. Just create a really good character and have him do the same thing in a bunch of different situations, like putting him in space. Just imagine the end of Godfather 4, so many people would die in a sweet montage. The Matrix hit a snag with 2 and 3, redeem yourselves, Wachowskis, by making 3 more movies, just to let us in on more of that sweet mythology. The X-Men took a last stand, but I think they have a few more stands in them. Die Hard 4 rocked. Superman 4 and 5, amazing. Why stop there? Spin offs galore. I want to know Anton Chigurgh's back story, don't you?

Watery Beers
(Tecate, Natural Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Keystone Light)

Tecate must be the best beer of all time. They sell it in 30 packs because it takes about thirty before you start tasting the beer. It's great because you can have a beverage that barely qualifies as alcohol, but you can feel cool because you're "getting drunk." Can you feel the buzz? I can. Even better than Tecate? That's right, Tecate Light.

Bars
(Pat's, Cheers, New Angle)

Bars recently have started adding things like those little touch screen game dealies or karaoke to get us to hang out there. Why? Do we really need an excuse to buy drink after drink of cheap alcohol that we can pick up at a Ralph's for half the price? Bars may be the ultimate business model. They don't waste electricity on lighting, they only need about 3 servers/bartenders no matter how big the crowd gets, and they get tons of word of mouth. As an added bonus, bars are the perfect place to find quality ladies. I met my girlfriend at a bar.

Sarcasm/Cynicism/Irony
(Your Mom, Keith Olberman, Atheists, Alanis)

Honest emotional communication is fucking hard. It's much easier to hide behind jokes. This way I can bitch and moan and insult and complain without having to take any real responsibility for it. Even harder than sarcasm is seeing the positive side of people where they're all such idiots and assholes. Once I figure out the definition of irony, I'm going to dedicate myself to replacing all honest artistic expression with it.

I Love Supporting Actors: William Sadler

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Col. Stuart - "Die Hard 2"

Grimm Reaper / English Guy - "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey"

Heywood - "The Shawshank Redemption"

Sloan - "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"



Why He's Awesome:

Most character actors find a niche and stick to it. The guys who work for decades find a way to play similar characters and play them better than anyone else. Sadler does the exact opposite. He can play a staunch military man or the goofy comic relief.

The pantheon of Die Hard villains is an impressive group to be a part of. Sadler brings every bit of gravitas and evil as Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons (yeah, even Timothy Olyphant). Unlike those acting giants, Sadler went toe to toe with John McClane and gave him a worthy physical challenge. Sadler's career never got the attention of the other three, but man can he act. In the second Bill & Ted movie, he played not one, but two characters. Despite his roles of great focus, it's his ability to just show up and be a solid character that makes him great. His Heywood in Shawshank does nothing more memorable than mispronounce Alexandre Dumas, but in a movie so perfectly put together, he's just another amazing supporting actor. He's so perfect, he played in two more Stephen King adaptations, The Green Mile and The Mist.

Strangely, my favorite Sadler character is a recurring role on Star Trek: DS9. Sadler plays Sloan, your average shadowy shadow agent with loose morals. The role could have been forgettable had it not been for Sadler. In the utopian future society of the Star Trek universe, Sadler was the first truly evil Federation officer I had ever seen. Many officers in Star Trek's past had been misguided by whatever to take matters into their own hands, but Sloan truly believed that for an ideal society to exist, someone must do its evil. Sadler's calm demeanor and unmemorable smallness made this revelation all the more chilling. He declares in favor of an assassination plot "Inter arma enim silent leges (in times of war, the law falls mute)," a declaration of moral ambiguity that changed the very basis of an entire fictional universe.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He was born on the exact same day as Ron Perlman.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Lane Smith

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

D.A. Jim Trotter - "My Cousin Vinny"

Coach Jack Reilly - "The Mighty Ducks"

Walter Warner - "Son in Law"

Perry White - "Lois and Clark..."



Why He's Awesome:

Lane Smith has been all over movies and TV since the '70s, but it's only more recently that he rose to better notability.

My Cousin Vinny is one of my favorite movies of all time, and he's one of the reasons. He's just a funny guy. The trial at the center of the film gets rolling with his opening statement, in which he mines a simple legal speech for every bit of comic gold. He can be both condescending and charming, Southern and insightful, soft and intimidating. The character just calls for a D.A. with no real emotional attachment to the case, but Smith brings to the table real depth, far more than the movie required.

Once he got on our RADAR, he kept coming back, and he kept getting better. In The Mighty Ducks, his very presense is enough to push Emilio Estevez to the brink. In Son in Law, he provides the perfect counter-point for Pauly Shore. Even in the end when Pauly's Weasel vibe takes him over, he manages to maintain his dignity, while spouting Shore-isms. That has to be up there in the canon of acting abilities.

He finally got the notoriety he deserved as the great Perry White. In almost every other incarnation of Superman, Perry White was just a throwaway background character. He gave Lois and Clark their assignments, and maybe got kidnapped once or twice. Smith turned Perry White into a father figure, and for a guy whose dad got blowed up on a distant planet, Superman could use every daddy he could get. Not even the great Frank Langella in Superman Returns could match Lane Smith's Daily Planet Editor-in-Chief. (side note: both Lane Smith and Frank Langella have played Nixon)

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He died in 2005. Seriously, I just found this out researching his career.

Check out his imdb page.

Great Scenes From Bad Movies: Eurotrip

Eurotrip is my holy grail of bad movies. It gets so close in so many places, but it never comes together. It has moments of near brilliance, like how they end up in eastern Europe with next to no money, only to discover that in the former Soviet block, a couple American dollars makes you a millionaire. Unfortunately, most of the jokes rely on broad European stereotypes and the movie never lives up to the obvious talent behind it.

There is, however, one good scene.

The movie opens with main character Scott's girlfriend Fionna dumping him right after he graduates high school. Oh yeah, then she tells him she's been cheating on him. Oh yeah, then after being treated to Scott getting zero sympathy from friends and family over his broken heart, he shows up to a sweet end of school party, where he finds out Matt Damon's the guy (or one of the guys) she's been screwing.

And here's the best part. Mr. Damon plays the singer of a sweet band, who treats the party to a rendition of Lustra's "Scotty Doesn't Know." He calls Fionna, played by the imminently fuckable Kristin Kreuk, up on stage and tells her the song is in celebration of their anniversary. That's right, not only is she cheating on him, they've been doing it for a year. She's the premier whore of their little town, and apparently Scott's the only one that doesn't know. Some select lyrics from "Scotty Doesn't Know:"

Scotty doesn't know,
That Fionna and me,
Do it in my van every Sunday.

She tells him shes in church,
But she doesn't go,
Still shes on her knees, and...

Scotty doesn't know, oh.

Damon belts out this little love ditty, while Fionna whores it up on stage, and poor Scotty's left to wallow all alone. This scene had me. I was convinced this was going to be the first good National Lampoon movie since Loaded Weapon 1. Like so many other National Lampoon movies, this one disappointed me. It's never again as funny as the opening, and despite flashes of awesome, it never again comes together.

Fall Movie Preview: My Takes

All About Steve (when guys do it, it's romantic. when girls do it, it's stalking)

Gamer (the movie looks awful, and I can't wait to see it)

New Moon (a sequel to that Sam Rockwell movie, already?)

Jennifer's Body (it's gonna be just like Juno, right?)

Love Happens (Along Came Picture Perfect Good Girl Break Up Friends)

Surrogates (like A Scanner Darkly, without the distracting rotoscoping, oh, and a plot)

Capitalism: A Love Story (when last we saw Michael Moore, he was masturbating all over himself, how will he follow that?)

The Informant! (the title has an exclamation point!!!!)

Fame (doctor? laywer? no, children, what the world needs is more actors)

Coco Before Chanel (Audrey, you're really testing my love for you)

Amelia (Swank, just come out of the closet already)

Ong Bak 2 (he's just going to keep hitting you in the head)

Saw VI (i hope they never stop making these)

Nine (wait, is this the one with Judi Densch and Fergie or the one with the ass kicking dolls?)

2012 (no one blows up cities like Roland Emmerich)

The Blind Side (white people fix black people)

Sherlock Holmes (i fuckin' hate pikeys, dear watson)

Brothers (Tobey Maguire and his brother, poor man's Toby Maguire)

Help Me Understand District 9

HEAVY SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

I feel like I'm missing something. In a summer that brought us such mid-numbing, popcorn crap like Wolverine, Terminator: Salvation, and Transformers 2 (all of which I turned my brain off an enjoyed), I can understand why District 9 rises above the crowd. Unlike most of the movies this summer, even Star Trek which rocked, District 9 had some real thought behind it. I can fully understand why people are swooning over it. But this movie was far from the best movie of the year. It's far from the best sci-fi movie of the last ten years, as some have said. Frankly, I thought it was just ok.

You can say I'm just overthinking it, but this list excludes all the nit-picky stuff like, "How can these clearly sea-creature-based aliens survive in our atmosphere?" That kind of stuff I don't think about, and even if I do, I brush it aside as leaps of logic necessary to tell a story. These are the things that truly bothered me about District 9:

1) Their attempts to make the messages about apartheid not so heavy handed resulted in a movie that makes no sense to anyone that knows anything about apartheid. It's not an allegory for apartheid because the situation is completely different. In reality, the blacks of South Africa were the native population and the whites came in and oppressed them. In the movie, the South African government took the aliens off their ship to help them, then eventually turned on them. I get that the aliens got out of control, but so soon after apartheid, there's no way the people of South Africa would react like this. Many of them still remember apartheid, and like how the Germans view the Holocaust, it would be such a pock on their collective psyche that they would never let this happen again so soon. In the original short film, which I just watched, it all takes place DURING apartheid, which actually makes sense.

2) The movie is not true to itself. At its core, District 9 is an action movie, as evidenced by the third act, which is all violence, no weight. As much as it's dressed up as a thinking man's action movie, it's just a regular action movie with a thin veil of thought. Not a single one of the major issues of the film gets resolved. The end of the movie focuses so much on the action, we never get a resolution on anything really. I'm all for ambiguity, but there's a difference between an ambiguous ending, and an ending that doesn't resolve anything.

3) The first act spends so much time with them handing out these eviction notices when they should have spent more time setting up the world. The aliens have been here 20 years, how did we get from welcoming them and saving them to oppressing them? Clearly, humans and aliens have the ability to communicate, how could we not, in 20 years time, teach them how to properly act on our planet? What did we try before the ghetto? Was this a last resort, or did one day we all just decide to throw them into District 9?

4) A list of loose plot threads and missed opportunities:

a- I was frankly pissed off that when Wikus stormed MNU, he didn't have the chance to confront the scientists that tortured him. These scientists just got to get away with being evil?

b- No one but Wikus sees how horrible District 9 is. Yeah, eventually, Wikus' buddy uncovers everything, but he could have done that whether Wikus turned into an alien or not, making the big resolution of the film not even remotely related to the story.

c- MNU's goals were far too shallow. Weapons? That's it? This is literally a multi-national corporation, and all they want from the aliens is to unlock their weapons technology? Why don't they have teams of scientists working with the aliens to go through the mother ship and learn the diverse technologies?

d- How did a ship with barely enough power manage to stay hovered over Johannesberg for 20 years?

e- How did their fuel turn Wikus into an alien? Do they all look the way they look because of exposure to this fuel? If this fuel has just been lying around for 20 years, why has no one else been exposed and transformed into an alien?

f- They tell us prawn is a derogatory term, but then never tell us what to actually call them. If prawn is derogatory, wouldn't it be like the n-word to them, and subsequently wouldn't the aliens react appropriately to being called prawn?

5) Could the aliens and humans communicate with each other or not? In the beginning, Wikus confronts Christopher with an eviction notice. Christopher actually reads it and points out the legal points of said contract. Wikus reacts like Christopher's just being difficult like the rest of them. He doesn't even acknowledge that this stupid alien has so quickly picked up on the fact that what they're doing's pretty illegal. That led me to believe Wikus didn't really understand their language. But then, once he teams up with Christopher, suddenly they're easily communicating. Writers, seriously, you can't just change the facts when they're convenient.

6) Why didn't the aliens, with their clearly superior weaponry, just rise up and demand better living conditions? Wikus, with his one gun, broke into MNU and took on a clearly well-trained military unit. I get that 20 years later, they've sold their guns for cat food, but how did they ever let themselves get subjugated. You can say they didn't rise up for fear or reprisal, but they clearly establish that the prawns are just the dregs of society, none of which really think globally, so why wouldn't they just grab a gun and demand the living conditions they want? Normally, this would be the sort of thing I'd just let go, but the weapons are such an important part of the story, I can't just ignore how they half-handled the issue of guns.

7) The violence was wholly unnecessary. Really, my main problem was the gun that made people explode. I'm all for deplorable violence, but if this is supposed to be a thinking man's action movie, why is the violence so explicit?

In conclusion, this is what I think happened. The ending of the movie was supposed to be that this ship was a test for the human race. These aliens send a ship full of refugees to a planet and see how the dominant species treats them. The ending was supposed to be another ship coming and telling everyone what assholes we are and warning that they're coming back to destory us. Then South Park did the exact same thing (with the pine-box derby racer episode) and they realized Matt Stone and Trey Parker stole their poignant ending. They couldn't come up with a more meaningful ending in time, so they cobbled together what we got.

Am I just completely off my dot here?

I Fear for the Life of Eva Marie Saint

I'm not one to get crushes on actresses. Whenever someone asks, I usually say Angelina Jolie or Jessica Alba just because they're safe answers. I have for a while now sort of had a crush on Eva Marie Saint, from On The Waterfront and North by Northwest. It's not like I dream of dating her or anything; she just turned 85. Back when everyone was playing all melodramatic, she was just honest, meek, and classy. She went toe-to-toe with Brando, and that's not an easy thing to do.

She was in On The Waterfront with the recently deceased Karl Malden. That movie's screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, just died and it got me thinking these thing do usually come in threes, so who's next? Normally, I wouldn't be so superstitious, but celebrities are dying left and right these days. In honor of Schulberg's death, NPR replayed an old interview with Saint, and while she relived the old days, I started wondering who the third one could be.

Brando? Dead. Lee J. Cobb? Dead. Rod Steiger? Dead. Elia Kazan? Dead. Martin Balsam? Dead. Fred Gwynne? Dead. Composer Leonard Bernstein? Dead. No one else in that movie matters, except Eva Marie Saint.

This started as a really horribly joke in my head, but now I am seriously freaked out Eva Marie Saint's going to die. And her last movie's going to be Superman Returns.

I Love Supporting Actors: Alan Ruck

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Cameron Frye - "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

Capt. John Harriman - "Star Trek: Generations"

Rabbit - "Twister"

Stuart Bondek - "Spin City"



Why He's Awesome:

I was going to save him for later, but John Hughes just died, so he gets a bump. Come on, everyone loves Cameron, and that's a testament both to the genius writing of John Hughes and the soulful acting of Alan Ruck. He can make any character loveable, whether he's stupid or skeevy, you always love everything he does. He's a perfect go-to guy for procedurals. He just shows up and plays a horrible lawyer or patient or criminal that you're drawn to for every moment he's on screen.

In his younger years, he played these sheepish characters, like Cameron or Capt. Harriman. In Generations, he just repeats the line "That's not coming until Tuesday" and it gets funnier every time he says it. He's the perfect meek foil to an increasingly annoyed Shatner. All that changed, though, after Spin City. His Stuart is the most loveable pervert you will ever see. The guy's a skirt chaser in the classic sense, and like many to come before him, he finds a way to make the jerk endearing for year after year.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

Before Ferris Bueller, Alan Ruck played Matthew Broderick's best friend in a Broadway production of Biloxi Blues, and in 2005, he played Leo Bloom in The Producers, who was originally played on the stage by Matthew Broderick.

Check out his imdb page.

I Love Supporting Actors: Stephen Tobolowsky

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

Werner Brandes - "Sneakers"

Sammy Jankis - "Memento"

Ned Ryerson - "Groundhog Day"

Bob Bishop - "Heroes"



Why He's Awesome:

When I came up with the idea of doing a series on supporting actors, he was the first on my list. "Sneakers" has always been one of my favorite movies. In the movie, the good guys chop up tape of his voice to get past a voice authorization lock, and his inflection absolutely makes the phrase "...my. voice. is. my. passport. verify. me." In "Memento" he put that goopy voice of his to good use as the sad, doomed Sammy Jankis. And who could forget Ned? Ned Ryerson? No seriously, you cannot forget him after hearing him over and over again.

I was excited when he showed up on "Heroes." The man has worked consistently in film and TV for like 30 years. He'll never be big, but he'll always find work. Too bad he died so quickly on "Heroes," but maybe one day there will be a solid series role for him.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He played the evil lieutenant guy in "Spaceballs" who proclaimed, "These are not them! You've captured their stunt doubles!"

Check out his imdb page.

Great Scenes From Bad Movies: Notting Hill

Say what you want about "Notting Hill." No, really, rip into it, it's awful. Is anyone really interested in watching Julia Roberts complain about being a successful actress? I like Hugh Grant as much as the next man (translated: not at all), but I have no vested interest in watching him fall in love. His quirky Britishness was appealing enough in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but I don't need to be repeatedly convinced that a jack-ass deserves love.

There is, however, one good scene.

For Hugh and Julia's adorable first date, he brings her to his friends' house for dinner. This is the one honest scene in the movie. What would happen if you brought a movie star home with you? His sister follows her into the bathroom. His pathetic friend trips over himself trying to connect with her. After dinner, they fight for the last brownie.

The brownie scene is my favorite part. They go around the table telling their sob stories, the winner earning the brownie. One is cursed with ugly physical features and a horrible instinct for men. One is paralyzed by a car accident and just found out she can't have children. And then there's Julia. For a brief moment, I feel her pain as she talks about the tabloid pressures and the plastic surgeries that have becomet the unfortunate side-effects of stardom. But then she goes on to reveal that she knows she's a horrible actress and dreads that one day the world will discover she sucks and she'll fade into oblivion having contributed nothing real to the world.

For the rest of the movie, Hugh's adorable friends are criminally underused, probably why the rest of the movie blows.

I Love Supporting Actors: Harry Dean Stanton

You know, this guy:
Notable Roles:

FBI Agent - "Godfather II"

Jack Walsh - "Pretty in Pink"

Chief Engineer Howard - "Down Periscope"

Roman Grant - "Big Love"



Why He's Awesome:

Roger Ebert, it turns out, has the Stanton-Walsh rule, wherein he states any movie featuring Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmett Walsh can't possibly be bad. This rule is either a testament to Stanton's choices as an actor, or the innate qualities he exudes. Is he drawn to good projects, or are good projects drawn to him. Either way, Stanton is always the guy whose face you remember, but never remember from where. That's why I included his small role in Godfather II. He's one of those people that distracts you from even a great scene as you struggle to remember what you've seen him in. You do, indeed, struggle because you wouldn't expect that guy to be Molly Ringwald's father from Pretty in Pink.

You may be thinking Down Periscope clearly defies Ebert's rule, but give that movie another chance. Of all the goofy, screwball comedies to come out of that era, Down Periscope holds up. Arguably, that's because Stanton's in it. He plays an amazing washed up old veteran who still gets excited running submarine engines. His scant few moments on the screen are a delight.

After 50 years in the business, Stanton can still land a role on a hit series. I've never seen Big Love, but I'll bet you while most actors of his age would simply be greatful for the job, the cast and crew of Big Love are probably much more greatful to have him on set.

You'd Be Surprised to Learn:

He was the best man at one of Jack Nicholson's weddings, and after that marriage few apart, Jack stayed on Stanton's couch.

Check out his imdb page.