Pop Culture Round Up: November 29 - December 5

I can't say I'd put many of these on my list if I took the time to make one, but I can tell you that there are some great ones in there like 48 and 15. They've even got the same quote I used last January in my Culture article!

Recently I was reminded of this glorious thing, which I stumbled upon years ago for legitimate work reasons. That job was terrible, but at least it had that.

Part of me thinks that this is terrible, and the part of me motivated by scheudenfraude hopes this blows up like David O. Russell did awhile back.

If I tried this challenge, I wouldn't need new reading material for a solid two years.

The more we learn from Anton Chigurh, the better.

The first person to get me one of these wins top prize. For reals.

This never would have happened on Slings & Arrows.

I'm a little concerned that this will be awful, but I'm going to try to hope for awesome. Or at least not sucky.

"Viva Las Vegas meets Tommy?" How have I not heard of this before?

Yay! Really yay!

Alex Kingston would be an excellent Doctor. Lobby hard!

"TIME TO SPARKLE" is my new sign off.

I was unconcerned with this rivalry this summer, but now I am jazzed about the re-release. I am going to go see it again.

Holy shit! You know who they should centre this around, don't you? Eric.

Feel free to read this if you want to bring yourself down.

Go to the source and read the entire thing if you need a laugh after the above link.

And, because it is that time again: Independent Spirit Award Nominees and National Board of Review Winners.

I know, I know you are sick of my weird love-loathe thing with Twilight, but I clicked on over to The Old Hag because I used to love it and now haven't been there in, like, for-EVAH, and what do I see? A Twilight review. I don't make a point of linking reviews, but, hey, I love what she's got to say, and I can't wait to read her linked article.

Burn After Reading (2008)

Story: Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) quits his job at the CIA. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with Harry (George Clooney) and plans to divorce Ozzie. Looking for a picture of his financial information, she burns a disc from his hard drive, which is misplaced at Hardbodies. It falls into the hands of two Hardbodies employees, Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt), who try to blackmail Cox into paying for several cosmetic procedures for Linda in exchange for the disc.

I don't think I've told you anything here that happens after the first twenty minutes, which is about how long I spent waiting for this movie to start. Whatever this was supposed to be, I doubt weirdly off-putting with occasional funny bits" was the goal.

Seriously, I don't get what this was supposed to be. A lark? Doesn't seem like enough fun for that to be true. A satire, as CBC implied to me? Of what, I reply. I know that in the past I've said things along the lines of "it's not supposed to be anything," and that remains true for certain movies. But this isn't that kind of movie. Writing and directing brothers Joel and Ethan Coen go one step beyond this time (cue up "One Step Beyond" by Madness). It's just not enough of anything to be any more than mediocre.

I'm fairly certain you could build an entire movie around the deliberate way Malkovich pronounces "memoir," Clooney's delivery of "Well, hello!" and Pitt's dancing, and I wish that they had. The overlapping plot doesn't work the way it should, it takes too long to get to the Hardbodies characters, and, though we end with the always impeccable J.K. Simmons, there's no emotional pay out because there was never any emotional buy in. The only character that seems to garner any sympathy is Richard Jenkins as Ted, the Hardbodies manager with the best boo-boo kitty face in the industry, so naturally he's relegated to a minor role. The rest of them barely earn a shrug. Well, at least when it's funny, it's very funny indeed. B

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Premise: While out hunting, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds a mess of dead bodies, several kilos of heroin, and two million dollars. He takes the money, attracting the attention of the local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) and a ruthless killer (Javier Bardem).

This marks the third movie in which I have seen Brolin this year. In the first two, he was delightfully, endlessly greasy. To be quite honest with you, I'd be alright with it if that was all Brolin had to give. He could show up, grease away, and be done with it. I'd ask for nothing more. But then here he is, giving me so much more. So much more I can hardly take it. Llewelyn's not the best guy (he takes the money, after all), but he's not the worst either. His interactions with his wife are hilariously offbeat, his conscience gets him at the worst of times, and he's surprisingly inventive. Brolin succeeds in not just making Llewelyn a strikingly realistic screen presence but someone whose friendship you wouldn't mind having. Considering he does all this with extremely limited dialogue, it's nothing to shake a stick at.

Indeed, writing and directing duo Ethan and Joel Coen, working from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, make this movie as silent as the grave save for ambient noise. The dialogue is slight and infrequent, the movie nearly scoreless. Long shots of men walking through the desert are met with no swelling score, only wind and the crunch of sand and rock. It's beautiful, naturalistic picture, and the lack of a score only adds to its power. For, in a filmography littered with classics, this offering may well be the Coens' materpiece. Their choice to rely heavily on ambient noise ramps up the tension in a movie that does not bring you to the edge of your seat. Oh no, you are plastered to the back of it, weighed down by the intense atmosphere of its imposing terror. You sit stock still and barely breathe.

Assisting in that terror and tension is Bardem, whose Anton Chigurh brings new meaning to the term 'casual menace.' As Chigurh, Bardem is downright nonchalant in his murders and a complete mystery in addition to that. It's a wonder that one man can be so perfectly indifferent to his work and yet have such a dedicated work ethic. And when that work is murdering any number of people in pursuit of stolen drug money, it's chilling.

Jones' Ed Tom Bell is as much a framing device as he is a character, opening with a monologue, then disappearing, then returning later on to observe, it would seem, the cat and mouse game between Moss and Chigurh from the outside. Even so, Bell is a fully realized man in Jones' care, weathered and world-weary but still upright. His final monologue will bring you to your knees.

Ingenious, thrilling, and sometimes playful, this Coen picture is not to be missed. A

Fargo (1996)

Plot: Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) plans to have his wife kidnapped by Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) in order to ransom her to her rich father, Wade (Harve Presnell). Due to a misunderstanding with a highway patrolman, Gaear commits a triple homicide, which puts the very pregnant but very savvy Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) hot on their trail.

I don't know why, but I found it really difficult to sum this movie up.

Alright, I'll just come right out and say it: I don't see what the big deal is about this movie. You know I love the Coens (writers/directors/producers/editors, blah, blah, blah), but I felt like this movie was made before they really found their collective voice.

You also know that I love Joel's fantastically talented and largely under-appreciated wife (although she did win the Oscar for this one). I'd watch this movie all over again just for the scene where Marge almost throws up not from the gruesome sight of the murder victims but from her morning sickness. That stuff kills.

And Macy is definitely at the top of my underrated American actors of the 20th and 21st centuries. He just seems so sweet, and it's almost pitiable when he realizes that his actions might have an adverse effect on his son.

I don't want you to think that I went into this one thinking that it was going to be in the comedic vein of their other films - I knew it was a straight forward thriller. As such, I was pretty disappointed that they let you know what was going to happen in the first, oh, 20 minutes.

Whether or not this is true, we are told that the events are based on a true story. As such, is the audience supposed to believe that the facts allowed the Coens no room to speculate? I just kept wondering why Jerry could possibly need that much money, and his reasoning was never addressed.

Basically, the whole thing felt so full of unexplored potential, which wasn't what I was looking for.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Brief: After Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning) takes a flying leap from the 44th floor of Hudsucker Industries, Sidney J. Mussburger (Paul Newman) plots to drive down the cost of the soon-to-be public shares, so the board can gobble them up and continue to be millionaires. They install an educated yet naive mail room clerk, Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), as their proxy president. Things turn sour when Barnes invents the hoola-hoop, putting the company back on top. Meanwhile, Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a journalist who goes undercover as Barnes' assistant to get the real story.

More Coens. And I do love my Coens. The film's stylish and hilarious, but . . . well, I'll get back to that.

Newman is fantastic as a devilish CEO. Robbins, as you well know, is crazy talented, and this performance is inspired. My only real concern is the annoying accent/way of talking Leigh adopts. What is that about? What is it supposed to signify? I didn't get it.

Okay, seriously, I can't seem to think of much to say about this movie. The box said "two thumbs up!", all triumphant, but I don't agree with that. The movie is like a wool sweater. It's warm and comfortable and soft, but it also a little bit itchy. If you don't condition yourself to ignore the itchiness, it will drive you crazy. Yup, that's actually how I feel about the movie.

And that's the thing with the Coens. It's almost as though you have to know how to watch them. If you don't realize how tongue in cheek everything is, you are liable to find it inconsistent and even trite. They aren't, at all, but it could seem that way.

Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

Brief: A bored divorce lawyer (George Clooney) falls for the soon-to-be-ex wife (Catherine Zeta-Jones) of his philandering client (Edward Herrmann). Although he initially finds her attractive, it isn't until he realizes what a creative gold-digger she is that she actually piques his interest.

The whole time I watched this move, I sighed, "Oh, Coens" in a delighted way. That said, if you don't like the Coens (freak!) or if you don't prepare yourself going into the movie by knowing and accepting that this is a Coen movie, then you aren't going to like it, and you might not get it. Not get it, you ask? But it's a romantic comedy? What's to get? Well, dear reader, that would be the purpose of Coen movies. They require you to suspend reality and move into their magical and sometimes frightening little world. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Clooney, having worked with the Coens before (O Brother, where art thou?), blazes on the screen with Zeta-Jones. He seems to be attempting a cross between Clooney and Jimmy Stewart under Frank Capra's direction, but it all works out. Any of the bumps are quickly put out whenever he and Zeta-Jones share the screen - white hot chemistry. White hot.

Of course, the more scheming Zeta-Jones gets, the more charming and desirable she becomes. Perfectly costumed, lighted, and made-up, Zeta-Jones becomes the object of anyone's affection that she chooses. Good for her.

Alright, this isn't the Coens best work. It's also not the best romantic comedy I have ever seen. It is, however, Coen through and through, and, if you are a fan, you'll get a real kick out of this feature.