Pop Culture Round Up: July 17 - 30

Oops . . . forgot to publish this one.

Netflix video-on-demand expands to Canada

Bureaucracy Meets Art, Delighting Christo

Among Celebrities, Mystery’s Not Fashionable

A new type of tear-jerker

Another reason for voting reform: Parliament needs women

Hooray for Budapest: Is Hungary the New Hollywood of Europe?

TV's Celebrity Guest Star Epidemic: What's in It for Them?

Digital movie standard tackles format hurdles

The Strange Gender-Humor Divide in Fake-Real News Shows

Jay Baruchel Broke Apatow Ranks to Make The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and It Didn’t Work Out So Well
You can read my response to this here.

Bollywood flops take-off on TV

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries

Armond White: “I Do Think It Is Fair To Say That Roger Ebert Destroyed Film Criticism”

Ernest Hemingway Stories As Told By George Plimpton

The fine art of recommending books

L.A. Artist's 37-Year-Old Nudity Too Much For YouTube

Alfred Molina joins Law & Order L.A.

NoizeMC, aka Ivan Alexeyev, and Russian Rap Inspire a Movement

Verbed!

It's a name game with hybrid fruits

Gay tango festival puts new spin on Argentine dance

Hollywood is squandering one of its greatest comedic resources: Paul Rudd.

Lee Pace to Play Edward's BFF in Breaking Dawn?
Please, please let this come true.

The Short Take: Neglect 2009 - Part I

Oh, blog, how you have been neglected in the last year plus. I think now my ticket stubs have hit critical mass: the pile is so big that it seems impossible to tackle them. I've decided that I am just going to work my way through them until they disappear. No system, no plan. Write a phrase, write a paragraph until they're all gone. Might back date the posts to break them up, but that's it. You with me?

Red Cliff (2008)

Plays at times like a John Woo parody rather than a John Woo movie, but then Takeshi Kaneshiro shows up as the hottest damn war strategist ever and makes it all worthwhile. Between that and Tony Leung's badassery, it's definitely worth checking out. Too bad we slow North Americans can't enjoy the two movie version they got in China. B

Mary and Max (2009)

I think I'm a little sensitive to movies where people finally get what they want when what they want is something small. Instead of beating us over the head with how deserving the protagonists are or what hard lives they live, Mary and Max's lives are presented as matter of fact (and odd and adorable) that the idea that all they each want is a friend is enough to break your heart. It's also nice to hear Philip Seymour Hoffman outside of his wheelhouse. Makes me want to send him a pom. A-

A Single Man (2009)

A Single Man is a sensory delight from start to finish, though perhaps not for the reasons Tom Ford would like me to point out. From John Hamm's rich voice on the other end of a phone line to Lee Pace showing up with a calabash pipe,* this movie is delicious. Ford's direction is, at times, too formal and too fussy, and Julianne Moore kind of goes off the rails. I never thought of her as an actress in need of direction, but there it is. Colin Firth finally found the exact right role for his cerebral, internal, occasionally sensual gifts, but he won't win the Oscar. It's a shame, really, because when is a role like this, one that takes place entirely behind a mask, going to come up again? A-

Crazy Heart (2009)

Crazy Heart is exactly the kind of small movie that showcases brilliant acting and little else. The story is shopworn and the coda unnecessary, but, man, who wouldn't want to draw near as Jeff Bridges worked out a melody sitting on his porch? Maybe Maggie Gyllenhaal is just inside by an open window, typing away at her computer. Robert Duvall's going to be here any minute now, and somehow you agree that it's a good idea for him to bring Colin Farrell along. You'd line up for that, wouldn't you? So the story hits its beats a little too hard and characters that could have been more are either buried under exposition or given short shrift. But the view is beautiful (thanks, DP Barry Markowitz), and how many more times are you going to get invited to a party like this? P.S. Bridges will obviously win. B+

Good Hair (2009)

Your $1000 weave is on layaway. At what point do you realize that your priorities are seriously out of whack? The movie delivers a lot of new, surprising information (you'll practically do a double take when Raven-Symoné starts sliding her weave around) but shows no real interest in diving into the socio-political-economic reasons behind why black women approach their hair in such a way. On the other hand, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of "creamy crack." B

Legion (2010)

I'm a big fan of bad movies (almost as good as great movies, I say, and just as valuable), so how bad does it have to be that I would tell people that not see it? Pretty fucking bad. Paul Bettany is kind of awesome in that his idea of showing Michael's love for humanity is to act like he wants to make out with whomever he's talking to (it helps that he's lookin' good in this movie), and there's something wonderfully offbeat about Kevin Durand. Aside from that, there's nothing redeem a movie so messy it can't even follow its inner logic. D-

The Wolfman (2010)

Emily Blunt, you sure do look good in period clothes. Anthony Hopkins, you've got some sort of Alan Rickman thing going on here with the way you add syllables to words (Rickman is the king of turning words you thought you knew and understood against you). Rest of the movie? You're cool for the first act, big on scares and atmosphere. The work that goes into the Benicio Del Toro's transformation is genius, the rest of the movie is not. Way too much atmosphere, not enough plot. Hugo Weaving's still cool beans. Should have told half the movie from his point of view and had it go ramming into Del Toro's. That would have been something. C

*Whoo! Foxy TV men!

Pop Culture Round-Up: April 18-24

Oh, good. I've always wanted to know.

Because we're still stuck on All the President's Men?

Whoo! Take that, criticism in crisis.

Can it be resurrected as a movie instead? Or a mini-series? Or, you know, a TV show?

You know, I'm still not sure I want to see this as a movie.

Huh. Of course, if they really wanted to do this list right, it'd be Billy Connolly and Joe Morton at the top.

Hmm.

Everyone's just looking to cash in, aren't they?

Take that, slump! Make the rich richer. Oh, proletariat, how could you?

Squee! One can only hope.

Aw.

Holy crap. Out of print books? This is the revolution calling.

Won't get any arguments with a Supernatural movie 'round here. Not that we're getting one, mind.

Like most things Twilight-related, overwrought and unnecessary.

Dude, those books are going to be killer.

I'm a little confused because I thought someone was already hired for the job, but, hey, I guess he knows vampires. Do you think he'll find a role for movie-boyfriend Ben Foster?

Pop Culture Round Up: April 4 - 17

I had one ready for last Friday, but I didn't have time to publish. Ah, well, I'll do better soon.

Are there still young critics? Okay, I know the answer to that, so I hope the answer is soon.

This is going to be great.

I haven't made up my mind if that's kind of awesome or just Neil LaBute's woman-hating fault.

Didn't we learn anything from Eternal Sunshine?

YAY! I will happily stay home Saturday nights for The Piemaker.

Number 10's probably my favourite even though I'm pretty sure it takes place over one day.

Mapping the Cultural Buzz: How Cool Is That?

It's like Golden Girls starring men.

I think it makes us feel like we're all hanging in there, and we're all in it together.

Heh. Yup, that's all.

I rocked it, and so can you. It may surprise you to learn that I rocked this one even harder.

I hope Harry Hamlin gets a cameo.

I am so confused by this news. It seems antithetical.

It's kind of Apocalyptic, but I like it.

More returned art!

I believe it.

We should should what, exactly? Stop making disaster movies in order to protect children's imaginations? Your point is beyond me, Lisa Kennedy.

Aw, yeah. Covering his werewolf and now his vampire bases. I hope zombies are up soon.

You're not the only ones left wondering what this means for next season.

“I’m reading it going, ‘Really, we’re going to put fucking shark in Jason’s spine and he thinks it’s going to work?’ ”

"The story is allegedly a loose retelling of the 16th U.S. president's life story — embellished with the notion that he is also a highly skilled vampire slayer." Yes. I love it.

While I'm pretty sure that Julian would be dead, I'd still watch it.

"Turns out, Milton was more rebellious and politically left than I realized. He was a risk-taker. He was arrested and imprisoned. Thanks, in part, to Andrew Marvell, he barely escaped a death sentence." Dudes, Milton. Milton. Can you believe it?

Hip-hop theatre! That excites me.

It's the movie choices that save it.

I don't know how they do it, but the tie-in products continue to be genius.

Pop Culture Round Up: January 17-23

I feel more inclined to watch now.

Ah, George, where would we be with you? I would so read an oral history about you.

I feel like this is the eighth article I have read like this.

"Hopes to put the episodes online"?! What do these bastards want from us?

I was upset about this when I first found out, but now I just feel meh. It happens.

"Movies like “10,000 B.C.” are popular because they appeal to our sense that life used to be more in sync with the environment." Huh? What does it mean if movies like that don't appeal to you?

Dude, that's just what I think!

Heh: "For humans, there is something captivating and unforgettable about the arrangement of two balls."

At first I though "aw" because I think lifelong affairs are sweet, but then I thought, "That's weird" because why would you have an affair with a married man for so long? What are you going to get out of that? I guess I should read the book to find out.

I think this has the potential to be one of the coolest things ever.

I'm so confused. I thought we heard about this movie last year.

I had no idea there was such a thing.

Ha!

Is there anyone in pop culture they didn't keep a file on?

Ah, George, where would you be without that show?

Pop Culture Round-Up: January 10 - 16

Criticism in crisis is back in full force: LA Weekly's theatre critic shifts to "Critic-At-Large" [shudder], and LA's Daily Breeze has dropped their theatre critic as well. Is there no theatre in LA? That doesn't sound right.

But what if you are in the target demo, and you don't watch any of those shows? Who's targeting me?

What? Do I really have to reconsider my slight obsession with returned Nazi art? Mind, I would like there to be some sort of condition that requires the art to be donated to a period of time to the museum of the rightful owners choice. Being too poor to go around buying expensive art, I never saw the point of keeping it locked away.

I'm not looking forward to many of these. Surely 2009 has more to offer?

Adieu.

That's true -- what did happen there?

There should be more rapping about that show.

When Gossip Girl asked us on Monday, "Does anyone remember Georgina?", the correct answer was, "Yes, the writers." Girl better get hooked up with Agnes and stir that shit up.

"A couple of songs this year, we wanted to do particular styles, like a club tune, and we wanted to do a West Side Story-type musical song." I can only hope this leads to the return of angry dancing, which is only a step away from dance fighting.

Pretty much anyone associated with Supernatural already has a good reputation with me.

People, do not deny yourselves Slumdog Millionaire. Even if you don't like it.

What the hell? That's a mistake. This, however, is not. Actually, it might be. If Spider-Man 3 taught me anything, it's that having multiple villains doesn't always work. Mind you, it worked just fine for Batman Returns.

I am going to see this one.

There's nothing about this that isn't funny.

For our tough economic times.

Huh, what? Actually, I think that's alright.

Ooo, I think I might like that. Of course, I'd like it a lot better if the stupid fuckers at the alphabet network weren't such stupid fuckers to begin with.

Oh, what the hell? Grow up, Parents Television Council.

I'm not sure how exciting a LINCOLN SMASH-less TV season will be, but I'm okay.

Yay! But why isn't it about Eric?

I'm all about 2, 7, 14, 15, and 17. As for five, it's occurred to me recently that it might be a better soundtrack than it is a movie.

GAH! Is there nothing this man can't or doesn't do? I'm beginning to think that he thinks that he's Peter the Great reborn.

Phew.

Okay, I've keep silent over this one because when your favourite (living) actor quits acting, it's little like your (movie) boyfriend breaking up with you from out of nowhere. I had some stages of grief to go through. I'm (mostly) okay with it now. He remains a prime candidate for my burgeoning celebrity interventionist* career with news like this, though. What kind of crap friend is Casey? He doesn't stop him from going out in public looking like Vincent Gallo, and he can't even be bothered to help him figure out right from left.

'Tis the season:

LAFCA winners.

BAFTA nominees.

Golden Tomato Awards.

*N.B.: This isn't for the type of problem that would land you on Intervention. We deal with more celebrity-specific issues like how to style your hair for public viewing, considering pants, and, apparently, when to keep your dreams of becoming a rapper to yourself.

Pop Culture Round Up: November 15 - 21

Yay! Pretty much any colour other than white excites me, though.

Punk's great, and I totally want you to read about it, but a pop culture curator? How do I get that job?

Didion and Linney are enough to make me forget pretty much anything. Including the fact that I don't get HBO. Sigh.

You should read this entire gallery because Seth Green is great, but what the? How far into the bell jar have I gone that I didn't realize he was going to be on Heroes? Just when I was thinking of breaking up with Heroes for real.

Oh, wait, maybe I should. Tim Kring is an idiot.

They are all good reasons to go see the movie, but it's A that really excites me. Wouldn't it be great to point to something you've done and say, "That about sums me up"?

It is extraordinarily quotable, and it does lend itself to repeat viewings, but I don't know if I'm down with a road trip to Kentucky just for The Dude. Well, maybe I am.

I'm down with that.

A Center for Future Storytelling? Again, how do I get it on that?

Now French cinema is being rejuvenated? Was it withering before?

I think that's an excellent pick. It was my favourite show when I was a kid, and he was a total badass.

Yes!

I should probably be upset by some of these, but I find them too funny instead.

You guys, my mom is not going to be impressed when I tell her about this.

So, my obsessive reading and sometimes overwhelming social schedule of late have made me happier? Actually, that makes sense.

Is it bad that after six years, I've still never been there?

Why is there only one photo with this profile?

See? All stolen art stories are WWII related. Or maybe not.

Aw, poor unscripted shows. No, wait, I only watch one unscripted show. Never mind then. Ha.

NOOOOOOOOO! I cannot underestimate my reaction to this news to you. It's melancholy that's been bubbled over by rage. I don't mean to alarm you, but I love Lee Pace now. Also, that show is genius. But where am I going to get regular doses of Lee Pace? Or Jim Dale? Or Chi McBride? Fuck, Television. Why do you have to be like this? That's gangsta love.

Pushing Daisies (2007 - ?)

During my TV on DVD summer gluttony, I found myself thinking that it would be nice to have a forum to talk about all these TV shows I watch. Sure, there are lots of places that I could talk about TV, but I wanted a space where I could work out my thoughts. Then I remembered my Angel post from way back in the day*, and I realized that I already have that forum! Thanks, blog!

I give you TV Thursdays, the day of the week on which I shall write about a TV show, currently airing or possibly not. My beloved Pushing Daisies came back to us last night, so it seems as good a place as any to start.

I picked up quite a few new shows last year, in some cases due to vacuums created by other, more beloved shows' cancellations (sniff, Veronica Mars) and in others due to writer's strike programming vacancies. Pushing Daisies was neither. I immediately forced two of my friends to start watching it as I was ensorcelled by the pilot (or Pie-lette, in PD speak). I could you that it appealed to me on multiple, vacant fronts: the dialogue's rat-a-tat-tat of a good Gilmore Girls episode, the mystery-of-the-week (MotW) of Veronica Mars, the surrealist bent of Dead Like Me.

Even so, to define PD by other shows would be a limiting mistake. It's thoroughly original. At its base, it's a procedural, but the MotW, while inventive, is never that important. The basics: Ned (Lee Pace) can wake the dead with a touch of his finger. A second touch makes the person dead, again, forever. If Ned doesn't administer the second touch within 60 seconds, the person lives, but someone else will die in his/her stead. That's how we got Chuck (Anna Friel), Ned's childhood sweetheart and current paramour, who walks around avoiding touching her boyfriend, so she can avoid dying again. P.I. and pop-up book enthusiast Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) uncovered Ned's secret and used it to blackmail him into becoming his business partner. On the MotW front, Ned wakes up the victim, gets the intel on the murder, and then Ned and Emerson solve the case for insurance money. It's a pretty good racket.

None of this is anywhere near as exciting as Olive (Kristen Chenoweth), the sole waitress at Ned's pie shop, The Pie Hole, and Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz as Chuck's grieving aunts Vivian and Lily, respectively. Vivian and Lily Charles were, back in the day, celebrated synchronized swimmers until a rogue kitty litter accident blinded Lily in one eye, turning the sisters into a pair of cheese obsessed recluses.

Right about now you might be thinking, "How does one survive under the weight of all that quirk?" Friends, factors that combine to make the show not oppressive but transcendent:

A) Dead people. Every episode has at least one dead person, and, as bizarrely and humorously as they die, it's still murder.

B) Orphans. Ned's mother is died when he was 10, and his father abandoned him shortly thereafter. Chuck's father died when Ned tried to revive his mother, not knowing how his powers worked, and her mother died in childbirth. Except . . .

C) Season(s) long mysteries. At the end of last season we discovered that Chuck's mother didn't die in childbirth after all. In fact, she never existed! Lily is Chuck's mother, and only Olive knows the truth. Plenty of questions have been raised since that revelation, and only one was answered in last night's season premiere (Chuck's dad was Chuck's biological dad). We also learned that Emerson has a daughter, apparently estranged, and he writes pop-up books to help her someday find him.

D) Details. This show is bar none the most creative I've seen in a long while. Watch a single scene, and you will see the immense work that goes into art design. It's off the wall, old fashioned, and always detailed in such a way that weaves into story.

E) Cast. Obviously a good cast can make or break a show, and it's even more important on a show as out there as this one. It works largely because of everyone's ability to act like this is just the way things are. Sure, the script requires people to balk at something or other at least once an episode, but it's the snappy comic timing and genuine dramatic chops of the cast that make the show really sing.

I know a show centred around a pie-maker with the touch of life sounds crazy, but you'll find it's not if you give it a try. If anything, it's out of this world.

*Boy, I sure was hung up on in the idea for a made-for-TV movie. When am I going to realize that those sorts of rumours almost never come to fruition?

I was brought in to leverage your synergy

The WGA and HFPA were kind enough to announce their nominees on the same day, so I suppose I should get with the synergy and tell you about them.

WGA: I can't begin to tell you how excited and pleased I am that Flight of the Conchords is getting so much attention. "Sally Returns" is an excellent episode, although I am kind of at a loss to figure out how you could choose any one episode of the season and say, "Yes, that's the one." What about "Drive By" or "Bowie"? Oh, show. Also glad to see attention for Friday Night Lights(a.k.a. the best damn show on television) and Pushing Daisies (a.k.a. the sweetest show on television). Otherwise, pretty standard stuff.

Globes: I'm thrown right away in the first category because I haven't even heard of The Great Debaters*, and I'm also a little underwhelmed. Wasn't this supposed to be a great year for movies? I swear I heard that somewhere. Everyone in Michael Clayton was amazing, but the movie wasn't. I have no desire to watch Atonement, and now I am starting to feel awards season pressure to see it. I think I am supposed to be excited or at least surprised to see nods for Eastern Promises or Juno or John C. Reilly for Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I'm not, though. I'd rather see more attention for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford or Gone Baby Gone or, for the love of pete, any frickin' song at all from Once.

Their TV nominations, on the other hand, are something to write home about. We've got the soft core insanity that is The Tudors; Sally Field and Holly Hunter for their great shows; Michael C. Hall going up against Hugh Laurie; Lee Pace, Anna Friel, sadly no Chenoweth, and Pushing Daisies on the whole; and James Nesbitt for Jekyll. He plays four different characters, two of which are so physically different its unnerving. Being Mr. Hyde must be such fun.

And, while we're here, check out the New York Film Critics Circle 2007 Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association 2007 awards, the New York Film Critics Online 2007 Awards, the DC Area Film Critics Association 2007 Awards, and the TIFF Canadian Top 10.

*Oh, no, wait. I think I've seen that poster before. Even so.

Pop Culture Round-Up

Dennis Lim on James Gray: Mr. Gray is smart and neurotic enough both to complain about being misinterpreted and to know that he shouldn’t.

Vote for yourself, then check out my suggestion in the comments section.

"Director knocks populism, current films" has got to be on the the funniest sub-headings I've read in a while.

"Filmgoers may feel they're in a time warp lately, with movies revisiting what many consider the second golden age of American cinema, if not literally -- they're all set in the present day -- then in style and sentiment." Except that We Own the Night isn't set in the present day, Ann Hornaday makes a pretty good point.

Yay, Crosstalk is back! And they're talking about the only new show I have picked up so far this season: Pushing Daisies.

This isn't the kind of movie that would normally interest me, but the casting is certainly keeping it on my radar.

The rockin' David Edelstein got a blog. I'm glad of it.

Ed. Note: I hope to be back to the business of writing about the movies I've watched very soon. Last night marked my first foray to the theatre and the first new, non-previously-blogged movie I have seen since September 30.