BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD is one of these magical realist New Orleans storm parable vehicles for an unknown 5-year-old actor. Kinda like early David Gordon Green meets Spike Jonze circa WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE with a dab of BEYOND THUNDERDOME. It deals with the racial and class divide in the face of imminent environmental disaster. You know the type.
Our protaganista and narrator is a tiny little girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) who lives in “The Bathtub,” a town on the other side of the levees. Everything is made of junk and they know when there’s a storm it’ll all be underwater, but they have alot of fun and celebrate more holidays than on the other side. They have fireworks and stuff. There’s music and drink. (read the rest of this shit…)
I don’t know if this is true but I heard it’s good luck for movie critics to start a year with a Clint Eastwood review. So I saved TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE for the occasion.
It’s a pretty standard mainstream feel-good-about-everything-at-the-end father-daughter relationship drama, but I couldn’t resist it because Clint plays the stubborn old grump dad and Amy Adams plays the daughter. She’s pissed off and sarcastic through half the movie but I’m still powerless in the face of her charms. I’m sorry.
Here’s the situation: Gus (Clint) is a veteran scout for the Braves baseball team, sent to evaluate some young hot shot out in North Carolina (Scott Eastwood). But Gus is secretly losing his eyesight and openly losing favor in the organization to a young douchebag (Matthew Lillard) who prefers modern methods involving computers and statistics. Gus’s best friend (John Goodman with an impressive mustache) worries they’re gonna drop him if something goes wrong, so he begs Gus’s estranged lawyer daughter Mickey (Adams) to come keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, a young pitching-phenom-turned-scout who Gus likes (Justin Timberlake) helps out and tries to woo Mickey. (read the rest of this shit…)
This is gonna be an awkward conversation starter, but, uh… anybody here seen MANDINGO? It’s a deeply uncomfortable, ugly movie, not just in showing horrible things, but in making us follow main characters who don’t see anything wrong here. Directed by Richard Fleischer (20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, MR. MAJESTYK, CONAN THE DESTROYER) and written by mentally ill two-time Academy Award nominee Norman Wexler, it was maybe intended as a prestige picture but received as trash and exploitation. I don’t care which it is but I do think it’s pretty brilliant, even STARSHIP TROOPERSy, in the way it confronts racism, so I thought it would be worth discussing before DJANGO UNCHAINED comes out. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE PAPERBOY is the new one from Academy Award nominee for Best Director Lee Daniels. That’s the guy that did PRECIOUS, BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE as well as SHADOWBOXER, BASED ON THE IDEA THAT HELEN MIRREN AND CUBA GOODING JR. ARE ASSASSINS AND SHE RAISED HIM BUT ALSO THEY’RE FUCKING AND SHE HAS CANCER. I feel like the critical community embraced PRECIOUS without really picking up on how nutty it was, or doing a background check on Mr. Daniels’s previous work. So they did cartoony “wh-wh-whUHHH?” double-takes when THE PAPERBOY played at Cannes and had a part where Nicole Kidman territorially pisses on Zac Efron from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. Because it’s a Lee Daniels movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Remember when it got out that Channing Tatum had been a stripper before he was an actor? I forget if he said it in an interview or if it was Wikileaks or something, but there were alot of stories about it in the entertainment journalism and it was a big joke to everybody. But who’s laughing now, motherfuckers? Tatum found the best possible way to own that on the set of HAYWIRE when he convinced Steven Soderbergh that his experiences would make a good movie. It might’ve gone a different way if it was on the set of GI JOE and it was Stephen Sommers that ended up directing MAGIC MIKE. But Soderbergh is the guy to take any subject matter, find what’s interesting about it, bring out the innate and sometimes unknown talents of his cast, and shoot it beautifully. He’s made one of his little independent character pieces, but he threw in just enough shirtless cowboys humping stages to advertise that for the ladies.
After the election on Tuesday, which brought us 4 historic gay rights ballot victories, the first openly gay Senator and the most women in the Senate ever, it was a no-brainer to spend Friday night watching Spielberg’s movie about Abraham Lincoln and his people’s fight to eke together a coalition to pass the 13th amendment to the Constitution, ending 400 years of slavery. Also, SKYFALL was sold out. (read the rest of this shit…)
After discovering THE LOST a couple weeks back I wanted to see what else writer/director Chris Sivertson had done. The answer was I KNOW WHO KILLED ME and this underground fighting movie that coincidentally has just come to disc. It’s like the guy predicted when I would catch up with him and said “You know what, I want to do something special for ol’ Vern. Give him a movie in a genre he enjoys.” (read the rest of this shit…)
What if there were like a book of maps, only it was made out of the sky? That would be weird.
Well, anyway. At a climactic point in CLOUD ATLAS a character talks righteously about freedom, and about refusing to accept boundaries. And that’s what Lana and Andy Wachowski (who directed this along with Tom Tykwer) have done with their lives, their careers and this movie in particular. If you haven’t heard what CLOUD ATLAS is, it’s a nearly 3-hour epic based on a supposedly unadaptable book. It takes place in a bunch of different time periods ranging from the age of slavery to a dystopian future to even a post-apocalyptic future after that. But not in order – it jumps around from story to story, like a bunch of unrelated movies edited together as a weird joke on Youtube. (read the rest of this shit…)
You guys know who Booker T and the MGs are, right? The amazing instrumental R&B group, centered around soulful organist Booker T. Jones, with a group of super-tight studio musicians including Blues Brothers Steve Cropper and (in a later lineup) Donald “Duck” Dunn. They were the house band for Stax Records, so not only did they have all their great albums but you can hear them backing up Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and others.
If you know them you might also know this song, “Time Is Tight”:
Recognize that? Their somewhat similar song “Green Onions” is used in way more movies, but “Time Is Tight” is in FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, so you’ve at least heard it in there.
One thing I didn’t know until a couple years ago is that this song was originally composed as part of the score for a 1968 movie called UP TIGHT, directed by Jules Dassin (RIFIFI). I found the soundtrack on vinyl, but at that time the movie had never been on video. It finally came out a couple weeks ago so I checked it out.
As I start writing this I haven’t read any reviews or comments on THE MASTER yet, but I’m betting there’s alot of this:
1. It’s a masterpiece, if you don’t get it you’re dumb, why don’t you go see some mainstream movie like whatever that one movie is called, the one that you like, I don’t know the name because I don’t watch that kind of crap or know what it is
2. It’s pretentious nonsense that is pretentious, if you like it it’s Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s totally meaningless. Boring. The critics! Fuck!!!!!
Probly heavier on #2.
I would like to propose a third view, which is B. Kind of in the middle of the two. But in a separate column I think.
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if that's your thing:
1. Patreon
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody
(NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
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(you pay the same amount you were gonna pay anyway they cut me a little slice)
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(I can't get the search box widget to work anymore, so click on MOONWALKER and then search for what you want.)
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Tell your friends about my reviews and my books and everything. Only cool people though please, we don't need a bunch of suckers and/or chumps around here.
THANKS EVERYBODY. YOUR FRIEND, VERN
* * * *
Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Gary Jive on Fatal Deviation: “I once worked on The Purifiers – a Scottish kung fu movie. It was basically The Warriors in a futuristic…” Apr 28, 14:04
Stephen on Fatal Deviation: “Vern, I’m here for the Moving Target review if you ever end up doing one. Still feels surreal that Roger…” Apr 28, 14:04
CJ Holden on Fatal Deviation: “Okay, Boyzone were NOT a rockband. They were a boygroup, but one of those that tried to pass as a…” Apr 28, 08:25
Schmoe Gunn on Bullet to the Head: “This one is uneven, but all the ingredients are strong flavors and they go well together. All the characters are…” Apr 27, 15:49
pegsman on The Getaway (1972): “As usual I’m late to the party (but I had to read everything just to see if anyone took a…” Apr 26, 22:57
Ben on They Will Kill You: “I think the big strength this has over say kill Bill is that kill Bill always felt like a homage…” Apr 26, 17:28
Rawbeard on Normal: “I’ve not seen Normal but I also want to recommend Free Fire by Ben Wheatley if you haven’t seen it…” Apr 26, 14:59
Curt on The Getaway (1972): “I completely agree about the 1970s being an interesting era for all those reasons. It’s the “I only like chocolate…” Apr 26, 10:27
so-and-so on Normal: “oh for sure, i didn’t know the film would elevate to russian mob violence when i went into it. i…” Apr 26, 09:50
CJ Holden on Normal: “so-and-so, can you imagine the ridicule NOBODY would’ve gotten if it would’ve been about an average Joe who just randomly…” Apr 26, 04:41
so-and-so on Normal: “i didn’t see the point of giving odenkirk an action hero backstory in Nobody, because it removed the one potential…” Apr 25, 11:11
Mr. Majestyk on The Getaway (1972): “I think I’ve led to an oversimplification of Tarantino’s complaints. It wasn’t just the unhappy ending thing. He was more…” Apr 25, 09:15
Curt on The Getaway (1972): “That’s another thing the 1970s film bros were always very fixated on – the knee-jerk equations of “downer ending =…” Apr 25, 08:03
KayKay on Æon Flux: “Yeah I saw this years ago, was bored out of my skull and can’t be arsed to re-visit it. Which…” Apr 25, 07:23
KayKay on The Getaway (1972): “But in terms of betrayal though…. doesn’t the chick in THE CRYING GAME turning out to be a dude sting…” Apr 25, 07:04
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD is one of these magical realist New Orleans storm parable vehicles for an unknown 5-year-old actor. Kinda like early David Gordon Green meets Spike Jonze circa WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE with a dab of BEYOND THUNDERDOME. It deals with the racial and class divide in the face of imminent environmental disaster. You know the type.
I don’t know if this is true but I heard it’s good luck for movie critics to start a year with a Clint Eastwood review. So I saved TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE for the occasion.
This is gonna be an awkward conversation starter, but, uh… anybody here seen MANDINGO? It’s a deeply uncomfortable, ugly movie, not just in showing horrible things, but in making us follow main characters who don’t see anything wrong here. Directed by Richard Fleischer (20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, MR. MAJESTYK, CONAN THE DESTROYER) and written by mentally ill two-time Academy Award nominee Norman Wexler, it was maybe intended as a prestige picture but received as trash and exploitation. I don’t care which it is but I do think it’s pretty brilliant, even STARSHIP TROOPERSy, in the way it confronts racism, so I thought it would be worth discussing before DJANGO UNCHAINED comes out.
“If anyone’s gonna pee on him, it’s gonna be me!”
Remember when it got out that Channing Tatum had been a stripper before he was an actor? I forget if he said it in an interview or if it was Wikileaks or something, but there were alot of stories about it in the entertainment journalism and it was a big joke to everybody. But who’s laughing now, motherfuckers? Tatum found the best possible way to own that on the set of HAYWIRE when he convinced Steven Soderbergh that his experiences would make a good movie. It might’ve gone a different way if it was on the set of GI JOE and it was Stephen Sommers that ended up directing MAGIC MIKE. But Soderbergh is the guy to take any subject matter, find what’s interesting about it, bring out the innate and sometimes unknown talents of his cast, and shoot it beautifully. He’s made one of his little independent character pieces, but he threw in just enough shirtless cowboys humping stages to advertise that for the ladies.
After the election on Tuesday, which brought us 4 historic gay rights ballot victories, the first openly gay Senator and the most women in the Senate ever, it was a no-brainer to spend Friday night watching Spielberg’s movie about Abraham Lincoln and his people’s fight to eke together a coalition to pass the 13th amendment to the Constitution, ending 400 years of slavery. Also, 
After discovering 
What if there were like a book of maps, only it was made out of the sky? That would be weird.
You guys know who Booker T and the MGs are, right? The amazing instrumental R&B group, centered around soulful organist Booker T. Jones, with a group of super-tight studio musicians including Blues Brothers Steve Cropper and (in a later lineup) Donald “Duck” Dunn. They were the house band for Stax Records, so not only did they have all their great albums but you can hear them backing up Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and others.
