Tag Archives: Bill Murray

Ghostbusters

When I was a little girl, I had a Ghostbusters siren on the right handlebar of my bike. On the left, I had a Slimer horn. I was dedicated to kickin ass and bustin ghosts and doing both from the luxurious banana seat on my Blue Angel bike. But the boys? The boys always kristen-wiig-ghostbusters-2-16132-1468265440-1_dblbig thought I should be Janine, the secretary. There’s nothing wrong with being a secretary, but there’s a reason nobody plays secretary. It’s just sitting at a desk! I wanted the glory, dammit, not the paperwork.

So a word to all you “Ghostbros” out there: there’s a reason why they’re “ruining your childhood” by making this movie. It’s because it’s little fucks like you who ruined mine.

And while we’re on the subject, I don’t buy this “It’s about our childhood” argument anyway. No, it’s not. You’re sexist, magotty little misogynists and you’re too afraid to say it to my face because you know I’ll kick your ass. This movie does not have the ability to time travel back to your snot-nosed lame-ass childhood where your only friend was your Stay-Puft marshmallow man toy and make a mockery of it. You’re the one making a mockery of it, and I’m guessing you have been for about 35 years. This bizarre hatred for a movie you’ve never seen is sexism, pure and simple. Hollywood has been rebooting movies for years. No one cried to their mommy when they rebooted Batman. ghostbusters-iii Nobody worried that their childhood Batman was ruined. No one panics when they reboot James Bond every 10 years. As long as you replace a man with another man, everything’s cool. Look, I’m sorry adulthood isn’t working out for you. I’m sorry girls never took an interest. But hating this movie won’t make you cool. And if you are truly, truly worried that seeing a brand new Ghostbusters movie will somehow sully your memory of the first, here’s a thought: just don’t watch it. I know! It’s revolutionary! Don’t go to the movie (I’m sure you exercised this right when they made a sequel back in 1989, one that failed to live up to its predecessor, or to its sucessor). You don’t have to judge it without having seen it. You don’t have to out yourself as a coward and a woman-hater. You just have to opt not to see it. I mean, it’s a stupid move because this movie’s great, but I’m guessing you and stupid moves are well-acquainted.

I won’t bother you with a synopsis because I’m guessing you all know what Ghostbusters do. It’s pretty much just a new team who happen to be women, who happen to know a lot about the occult, who happen to be sciency enough to do something about it. The script is hella-funny. The ghostbusting is pretty badass. And there’s just enough spook to get your pulse racing in a few places. Plus Paul Feig is just the right guy to get the job done. I knew we were in good hands when I saw how reverently he treated Spy – this guy is just a fan of movies. He’s respectful, but he knows how to poke fun in just the right places. And he writes exceptionally well for women.

The ladies are superbly well-cast. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig are the most talented comediennes we have, but they play straight-ladies in this case. Ghostbusters is a coming out party for Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, and let me tell you, they have arrived. Matt was surprised by how much he liked Jones in this but for me, it was all about maxresdefault McKinnon. Her character is bizarre and oblivious but McKinnon somehow humanizes her and pulls off some really cheeky, sweet, inspired moments under Feig’s loose direction (being an SNL alum probably helps quite a bit – he’s a big fan of letting his cast improvise). We stayed right to the end of the credits to squeeze every bit of juice out of this thing, and were rewarded. In fact, the movie itself is crowded with little gifts, among them cameos from plenty of original Ghostbusters. Who was your favourite, Matt?

M: I’m always excited to see Bill Murray but Dan Aykroyd’s part was the funniest even though I didn’t recognize him at first.

It was really great seeing love and support from the 1980s cast. This movie isn’t about replacing an old favorite, it’s about updating a classic and introducing it to a whole new generation. Homage is paid. Respect given. Isn’t that enough? Sean, you’re the right age and sex to be outraged by the audacity – how do you feel?

S: It did not ruin my childhood or ruin my memories of the first one. It was definitely more fun than the sequel. It was an enjoyable movie that I can’t understand anyone hating. Just a good old summer blockbuster.

The first one was a bit of magic. It was different and fun and exciting. The 2016 Ghostbusters isn’t a new idea, it isn’t different, but it’s just as fun and exciting. I can’t imagine what more you’d want.

The Jungle Book

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I hate being right.

Haha, okay, no I don’t. I love it. I knew I’d hate this movie, I avoided it like I feared it might give me Zika, and when I finally did break down and watch (because it was the fare being offered on the first night of drive-in season), I hated it even more than I’d anticipated. That uptick is maybe partially your The-Jungle-book5 fault. It’s received some fairly positive reviews so I had hope that it wasn’t as bad as my gut was telling me. But now I know the truth: either the movie-going public are idiots, or they talk up a bad movie in order to trick others into paying to see it too, thus assuaging their guilt and annoyance at having sat through it themselves.

Self-righteous, much? Yes, I enjoy being that too. But I truly did loathe this movie. I had little to no interest in seeing this movie and was relieved when Matt said he’d cover it for us (being a boy scout, he felt he had some personal connection to the material). But guess what? Matt never saw it, the chump, and he’s left it to me to attack people’s childhoods. I can only assume that’s what it’s about. I don’t have any warm fuzzy feelings attached to the 1967 animated version of this one. I could have hummed some of the bars of the more popular songs, but couldn’t have told you the plot. But the minute I heard it was live-action, I was out. Forget it. Realistic-looking animals that still for some reason talk? I couldn’t fathom how this would be done well.

Neither could Jon Favreau, as it turns out. And the thing about realistic-looking animals is that they’re still cartoons. They’re very accurate, very expensive cartoons, but it’s just some fancy animation that makes it harder for me to anthropomorphize but doesn’t stop them from breaking out into song. The tiger is so menacing looking you can practically smell the rotting meat caught between his yellowed 3-inch teeth, yet he has the velvety smooth voice of Idris Elba. Bill Murray was a nice choice for the more playful Baloo, but let’s remember that Baloo is still a bear. A sloth bear, sure, but a bear’s a bear. Sloth bears are usually known to be docile for a bear, but they’ll still attack humans who encroach upon their living space, and Mowgli doesn’t just encroach, he fucking rides him! And thejunglebook56b918f52fcee+%25281%2529 then there’s King Louie, the big-ass scary mother fucking ape. Modeled after Apocalypse Now’s Colonel Kurtz, King Louie is a gigantopithecus, an ancestor of the orangutan, who in real life would have been about 10 feet tall and over 1000lbs. He’s hostile AF but he’s oddly voiced by Christopher Walken. Now, I love Walken almost as much as his mother does, but it was a weird and jarring choice. King Louie is scary, but Walken’s voice is far from it. He’s got the voice of a stand-up comedian or a jazz band leader, it’s one of the most recognizable voices out there, and it didn’t belong to this ape. And then he breaks out into a show tune, which is NOT something Colonel Kurtz would be caught dead doing, so the tone of the movie just falls apart like the chain falling off of a bicycle, and the whole thing just stinks. Stinks! And not just because it’s a temple full of monkeys.

So why bother making a “live-action” version of the movie when there’s only a single live thing about it? Neel Sethi as little Mowgli is pretty charming, but he never met a single animal during the filming of The Jungle Book – which is a good thing, because seeing a small boy in the arms of how-the-beautiful-visual-reality-of-the-jungle-book-was-made-on-an-la-sound-stage-954479 a black panther makes most adults want to scream “Run you little idiot!” In fact, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was brought in to make puppets for Sethi to act against, but those were completely replaced with CGI versions later. And as for the lush Indian landscape, it’s 100% phony too. The whole thing was filmed on a back lot in smoggy Los Angeles with a blue screen and some Styrofoam painted to look like jungle.

Tonnes of people loved this movie and I’m not one of them. If you’re going to maxresdefault give me talking animals, that’s fine, but they’d better also have careers and pants and fart jokes. If an animal looks real and normally eats people, I don’t want to see him dancing around with a man-cub. I have zero tolerance for this movie and as far as I’m concerned, King Louie can kiss my ass.

A Very Murray Christmas

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Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t Scrooged, the redux. It’s a plotless variety show without a lot of variety, but it’s got Bill Goddamned Fucking Murray, so what else do you want?

It’s Christmas Eve and Murray is contractually obligated to put on a Christmas special live from the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan. He’s in no position to be doing such a thing and the show is doomed to hell, but so what? His piano accompanist is Paul Shaffer, for crying out loud. How bad could it be?

Well, as Amy Poehler and Julie White come bustling into his room to assuage his pre-show jitters\brow-beat him into meeting his obligations, it would seem that they are worried too. There’s a blizzard blanketing NYC, and none of the celebrity guests have shown up. No guests at all, actually, except for Michael Cera, playing a slimy talent agent desperate to sign Murray (who is famous in real life from being unrepresented).

Murray starts off singing dejectedly but can’t even finish his first song. The special’s a disaster! But wait! Who’s that sight for sore eyes revolving through the door? Why it’s none other than Chris Rock, here mistakenly, but here nonetheless, and despite his vehement refusals, he gets emotionally manipulating into joining the live broadcast. Singing ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ as a duet, Murray and Rock are one of the highlights of the show. In a special that’s not even an hour long, Chris Rock proves he may not be a singer but he is indeed an actor; the reluctance to join in spackled across his slowly turns into Christmas cheer as the joy of the song spreads to his heart…until the power goes out, and he takes the opportunity to make his escape.

“Force Majeure!” cry his cheeky producers. The contract taken care of by an act of god, White and Poehler hoof it out of there too, leaving Murray to mope around a nearly-deserted hotel where he comes across a sobbing bride (Rashida Jones) and her wobbly wedding cake. Dream wedding ruined, no guests in sight, no preacher to marry them, and a bunch of lobsters going bad, she and her groom (Jason Schwartzman) have fought.

Never fear: when not hosting Christmas specials, Bill Murray also proffers marital counselling, and so in he goes to save the day, and spark up some more “impromptu” holiday tunes. Jenny Lewis playing a waitress is on hand to do the lady part of ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’, everyone’s favourite date-rape carol, and the band Phoenix is conveniently on hand pretending to be kitchen staff to back up several more ditties, so that Jason Schwartzman can prove there is a worse singer in this thing than Chris Rock.

And then Maya Rudolph shows up playing a washed up lounge singer, and holy hell, she just puts them all to shame. She belts out a ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ so good that even Darlene Love would approve (she sang that song on Letterman every Christmas since 1986 except for the writer’s strike in 2007 – this will be her first year without, since Dave is retired). It’s not surprising that Rudolph is amazing: she is, after all, daughter to soul singer Minnie Riperton and composer-songwriter Richard Rudolph. Oh, and granddaughter of Teena Marie. She’s got chops, plus extra credentials for often impersonating Beyonce on SNL, and for playing in a Prince cover band called Princess. And I’ve got a huge crush on her.

Then the action mysteriously leaves the Carlyle Hotel for a decked-out soundstage in New Jersey, where two new guest stars join the festivities: Miley Cyrus, cheating on her own cameo in The Night Before, and George Clooney to mix the martinis. An unlikely pair? If you say so!

I wish I could find something to be grumpy about with Miley’s performance, but the truth is, she sounds good. Perched atop Shaffer’s piano, Silent Night is rendered faithfully, although there’s probably a little too much leg for the holy parts. The real surprise, and delight, is when Clooney pipes up during ‘Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin.’ Is the world ready for this side of George Clooney? Unfortunately he flashes a lot less leg, but he does look awfully dapper in his suit.

Anyway, director Sofia Coppola did quite a job of rounding up a slew of stars and dipping them in Christmas coating. You can play a real game of celebrity bingo, as you’ll see in the comments. There’s no plot, no story, no moral: just a lot of the ever-charming Bill Murray. It’s available on Netflix and it’s the kind of thing you can easily just put on in the background while you do some holiday baking or cleaning or wrapping, or better yet – some imbibing.

Cheers.

Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You

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Rock The Kasbah: a has-been (never was?) agent (Billy Murray) decides to cash in on his one remaining client (Zooey Deschanel) and have her tour the USO circuit in Afghanistan. A panic attack has her taking off with his cash and passport, which means he’s stuck in the middle east with his thumb up his ass. He meets a number of expats – Scott Caan and Danny McBride are war profiteers, Kate Hudson is a very profitable hooker, and Bruce Willis is “Bombay Brian” – but none are overly helpful (unless you count being hog-tied in a Marilyn Monroe wig, which I don’t) and some are down right exploitative. But then he comes across big talent (Leem Lubany) in a small cave in Kabul, and convinces her to seek fame and fortune on Afghan Star (their American Idol). The only problem: women in her culture are forbidden to sing, or to even remove the face covering that would allow her to do so. Critics are savaging this as a one-note performance and I suppose they’re right. I kinda loved it though. I love Bill Murray, and I liked Kate Hudson very much in this too. I wish we could have seen more of Deschanel but Lubany was such an interesting discovery I couldn’t help but root for her.

Zooey Deschanel interviews Palestinian co-star Leem Lubany here.

Our Brand is Crisis: Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton play fictionalized versions of American political analysts brought in to help rival parties during a Bolivian presidential election (based on a true story and a documentary of the same name). This movie goes straight to a cynic’s heart, not even bothering to pretend that politics are remotely about doing good or making change, or that elections are the will of the people. They have no respect for the electorate they manipulate so easily. I’m not always crazy about Bullock but she’s better in this than I’ve seen her before. Her talents are harnessed effectively, her comedic timing not wasted on idiotic movies nobody would ever watch if it wasn’t for cross-Atlantic flights (and this role was converted for her – it was originally intended for man). That said, there’s a little something lacking in Our Brand is Crisis. It’s not biting enough. You can’t make a political satire and then go limp.

Burnt: the Assholes were busy dancing with Dan Aykroyd so we passed our screener tickets along to a couple of conscripted assholes, Justin and Ben. When I asked Justin what he thought about the movie, about a nasty chef played by Bradley Cooper, he said “It was good.” So what do you think? Does he have what it takes to become a permanent Asshole? When prodded for further detail, he called it “decent”, which in a way is a win because half of all of Justin’s movie reviews consist of him making the retching throw up sound, but it’s also a loss because what he means is: it’s fine. If you’re curious to see Cooper play an asshole, then rent it when it comes out on DVD, but don’t waste your money on this one.

A little light incest

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I just watched Hyde Park on Hudson, in which the fabulous Bill Murray plays president Franklin Roosevelt, who engaged in an affair with his cousin Daisy (Laura Linney), among many others (women, not cousins. as far as I know).

FDR was a powerful man and president and Bill Murray manages to show his loneliness and sadness without giving up his strength. Linney and Murray embrace the occasional absurdity of their situation, Daisy realizing, while giving ole FDR a handie in the car, that they are not just 5th cousins “but also really good friends.” Ahem.

During this time period, FDR is visited at his vacation estate not just by the many women he’s fucking, but also by King George and his wife. A “social” rather than official visit, the royals hope the USA will commit to helping them in the war against Germany. In turn, the Roosevelts feed them hotdogs, and created a scandal with bigger headlines than Hitler was currently enjoying.

Although rooted in fact, this isn’t Lincoln. It’s a comedy. Murray shows a lot of range and gives us a very interesting portrait of a man who is historically significant but also just a man. The performances are good but I’m not sure the movie really conveys anything fair or enlightening about the events. But who cares, it’s Bill Murray!

What’s your absolute favourite Bill Murray movie?

What About Bob

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Bob (Bill Murray), a needy neurotic and narcissist, is thrown for a loop when his therapist (Richard Dreyfuss) goes on vacation. Unable and unwilling to take no for an answer, Bob tracks Dr. Leo to his lakeside cottage and imposes himself the family.

Sean and I are off to the cottage this weekend and we intend to have a lot more relaxation and a lot less surprise guests. Of course, if a client of mine did show up unexpectedly, it wouldn’t go quite like it does in the movie. Bob is not charismatic, he’s obnoxious and self-centered. And sure Dr. Leo’s a dick, but Bob could be dangerous and has already proven himself to be a liar and a stalker. Not only is it inappropriate for Bob to show up, it’s also strictly against the rules. I would be calling the cops. Sean would not be bonding with him under any circumstance. This movie really riles me up in between bouts of cracking me up.

While I find this movie professionally disturbing, I also find it hilarious, because: Bill Murray. I love Bill Murray. He’s kind of an ass, and impenetrable, and yet somehow I adore him. He has weird methods on-set, rewriting lines and improv-ing, which tends to get the goats of a lot of his co-stars (Richard Dreyfuss famously included, plus Chevy Case, Richard Donner, Lucy Liu, and McG, who claims Murray head-butted him; Dan Aykroyd would nickname him The Murricane for such behaviour). He took a circuitous path to comedy, attending college for pre-med but then dropping out after being arrested for marijuana possession. He then ended up doing National Lampoon Radio Hour with Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi, and eventually met back up with them on SNL as well. He was a bankable comedy star throughout the 80s and 90s, and then reinvented his career more recently as a dramatic actor, taking on roles where he’s often cynical or depressed (or both!) rather than the flat-out nuts of What About Bob.

Bill Murray is a Hollywood Luddite – he has no agent, and no business manager. Pete Docter wanted him for the voice of Sulley in Monsters, Inc. but had no way of contacting him and had to move on. Murray went on to voice Garfield instead because he was anxious to work with the Coen brothers. Sound fishy? You’re right. The script is co-written by a Joel Cohen, but not that Joel Coen. A business manager may have sussed that out. He’s also missed out on roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, The Squid and the Whale, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Little Miss Sunshine – the latter being the only one he regrets.

Bill Murray is an icon with legendary status among his many fans. An entire website is dedicated to telling the best Bill Murray stories. He’s elusive but if you catch him on the right day, he can be surprisingly engaging. He has inspired all kinds of tributes, from the Bill Murray colouring book my sister sent me for Christmas, to Cook Your Own Food – A Bill Murray Scratch And Sniff , which depicts the sights and smells of various Murray movies.

So while I’d freak out of Bob showed up at the cottage, Bill I’d welcome with a glass of scotch and open arms. Wouldn’t you?

Weekend Round-Up

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Project Almanac – I have mixed feelings about this one. I wasn’t bored by it, but the story is thin. I like the championing of the inventor, but I disliked the very trite time-travel routine, where the same costs and benefits are explored here as have been elsewhere a thousand times before. The kids are likeable enough but you know what? Enough with the “found footage” thing. It’s done. Let’s drop it.

Gambit – A movie with Colin Firth and Alan Rickman AND Stanley Tucci you want to like. But can you? It’s a remake, written by the Coen brothers, about an art thief who recruits ditzy Cameron Diaz to pull a fast one on his boss – and then dares to be surprised when it doesn’t quite get pulled off as planned. Firth is solid and has great comic timing but Diaz exists on a level so far beneath him it’s not fair to either. I have the feeling Firth was hoping for The Big Lebowski but ended up in The Ladykillers. Better luck next time, y’all.

San Andreas – The three Assholes who went to see this together are also the same three Assholes planning a trip to shitty, shaky San Francisco next month. Oh sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. Lots of wine, we heard, those weird, slopy streets, and just a beautiful coastal drive away from LA. San Andreas is not exactly a boon to tourism. Made it seem a little reckless to travel there (let alone live there), in fact. But we survived the movie and as of this time have not cancelled our plane tickets, mostly because Sean couldn’t find the number. I watched this movie totally stressed out, from start to finish. Is there a plot to this thing? I have no idea. WATCH OUT FOR THAT FIRE! Is there good acting in this thing? I don’t know, does dodging debris count? WATCH OUT FOR THAT FLYING CRUISE SHIP! It was a disaster movie so jam-packed with disaster that some leaked out the sides. It keeps you so busy racing from one near-death experience to another that you never have time to question the holes in the movie, because every hole is filled with exploding glass – in 3D!

Dear Zachary: A Letter to his Son About his Father – In 2001, Andrew Bagby was brutally murdered. Soon after, his girlfriend, the prime suspect, announces she’s pregnant and Bagby’s bereaved parents have to interact with their son’s killer in order to gain any visitation with the grandson who looks just like him. This is a documentary Kurt Kuenne who isn’t a particularly talented documentarian, but who was Bagby’s best friend. This is a tribute to his friend, and also to the parents who went to great lengths to make a life for a grandchild born out of tragedy. I was prepared for this one to hurt my heart, but I wasn’t quite as prepared as I needed to be. Check it out on Netflix.

Aloha – Cameron Crowe’s greatest offense is being too successful too early in his career. Does this stand up to Almost Famous? No, it doesn’t. And not many movies would. But would people be giving Aloha as hard a time if it were written and directed by anyone else? This film is imperfect. It drags in places (but has flashes of brilliance to prop things up) and it tries to involve too many, which takes away from the central story, which is the one we’ve put our butts in the seats to see. Emma Stone plays Jennifer Lawrence opposite Bradley Cooper (what is it about Bradley Cooper, by the way, that his characters are constantly romancing women he could have fathered?). Anyway, he plays this deeply flawed individual and she plays so pert and perfect you want to punch her right in the googly eyes. But you’re supposed to root for them I think, even though Rachel McAdams makes a tantalizing (and age appropriate, while still being younger) alternative. They exchange some witty banter, some banal banter, look at an atrocious toe, and induce Billy Murray into a dance scene. It’s not a cohesive movie by a long shot, but nor is it as bad as the critics will tell you. The story wants to be more than it is. The movie is beautiful but straight-forward. There’s very little art here. What we have in abundance is white people, puzzlingly, since it’s set in Hawaii, where the census tells us they’re relatively rare and Hollywood tells if you squint hard enough, George Clooney passes for Hawaiian.

Going Clear – The more I learn, the less I understand. I didn’t learn anything new (in fact, nothing that’s not on the Wikipedia page), and I think they went a little soft on the former members they interviewed. Has anyone else seen this?

Just off the Top of O-Ren Ishii’s Head: 10 Death Scenes I Will Never Forget

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I’m not really a Final Destination kind of guy but with stock dwindling at my favourite video store just two weeks before it closes, I settled on a movie that my friend had been trying to get me to watch for months. Final Destination 2- so far left on the shelves by eager shoppers looking to take advantage of the store’s Everything Must Go policy- has a death scene that apparently I just had to watch.

Watching the movie, I couldn’t be sure which scene she meant. There were a lot. Could it be the lottery winner who slipped on some spaghetti and got his head smashed in by a falling fire escape? Or the grieving mother who was decaptiated when she got her head caught in an elevator door? Turns out I should have been watching for the teenager who was crushed to death by something- what exactly I can’t be sure, things happen fast in this movie- while chasing away some pigeons. Apparently, if you watch closely, he explodes long before anything falls on him. How does she know? She’s watched it in slow motion. Several times.

While I may not have even been temptedc to check the tape on that one, it got me thinking of my favourite on-screen passings. After all, we just saw some real beauts in Mad Max: Fury Road on Friday. Here’s my attempt at a Top Ten. I left out a lot out, I know. How about you? What are some of your favourite scenes that I might have missed?

10. Count Laszlo de Almásy The English Patient (1996)

One of the movies that I am most likely to meditate on the finality of death after watching. Once we’re gone, everything we’ve felt, everything we’ve feared, everything we’ve loved die with us. It’s painful to watch Ralph Fiennes suffer from his burns throughout the movie and when Juliette Binoche’s Hana agrees to help him end his agony once and for all, I could almost feel his last breath. Even though, technically, the scene ends before Laszlo does. Before this act of mercy, Hana reads him this.

“We die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers, fears we’ve hidden in like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. We’re the real counttries. Not the boundaries drawn on maps, the names of powerful men”.

9. Phil Groundhog Day (1993)

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Condemned to live a bad day over and over until he gets it right, Phil (Bill Murray) uses this opportunity to try new things without having to wake up with any consequences. He makes a move on the girl he likes and punches the guy he doesn’t. He runs around town playing hero. He even gives dying a try. His suicidal phase is one of the funniest and darkest parts of the movie. (I haven’t seen the movie in awhile so I can’t remember if it’s made clear to us whether Phil is counting on waking up the next morning or hoping not to).

Before my favourite of said suicide “attempts”, Phil calmly walks into the lobby ignoring the pleasantries of the hotel staff and steals their toaster. Phil calmly prepares himself a nice hot bath and takes the toaster in with him. This scene would also make my list of Top Ten Reasons I Love Bill Murray.

8. Captain Frye The Rock (1996)

Ed Harris’ General Hummell is a madman but he really does think he’s doing the right thing. It’s the mercenaries he brings with him to sieze Alcatraz Island that make me nervous, especially Captain Frye. Played with his usual sneer by character actor Gregory Sporleder, there’s just something not quite right about this guy. He always seems to be wishing he was pushing an old lady down a flight of stairs.

A lot of these guys die for their cause in spectacular fashion but director Michael Bay saves the best for last when chemistry geek/action hero Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) shoves a vial of sarin gas in his mouth and smashes it with his fist. Neither Bay or Cage have gotten much right since but they did good here. This guy had it coming.

7. Sydney Barringer Magnolia (1999)

P. T. Anderson gets our attention right from the start and manages to hold it for Magnolia’s entire three-hour running time. Seventeen year-old Sydney Barringer jumps from the roof of his nine-story apartment building only to have his suicide attempt interrupted both by a safety net installed by some window washers and by a shotgun blast from a sixth floor window that killed him instantly. His unsuccessful suicide became a successful homicide when his own mother accidentally fired a shot while threatening his father during a heated argument.

Anderson didn’t come up with this story on his own. It’s an adaptation of a sort of urban legend that had been circulating for years but it sets up the strange events that follow perfectly.

6. Guy in elevator Drive (2011)

Ryan Gosling is a charmer. He swept Rachel McAdams off her feet both on and off screen and even taught Steve Carrell how to be a smooth talker. Just don’t get on his bad side. This guy’s not fucking around. He understands the golden rule of action movies. When someone’s giving you trouble, sometimes you’ve just got to stomp on their face until they’re dead. He doesn’t carry a gun much in Drive but why would he? He’s got his boot.

5. Edward Bloom Big Fish (2003)

The deathbed scene in The English Patient inspires me to meditate on death. Big Fish inspires me to reflect on life. Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) finally understands the value of myth and the key to good storytelling while seeing his father (Albert Finney) through his final moments. For most of his adult life, Will stubbornly told stories with “all of the facts, none of the flavour” but, when his father asks him to tell him “how he goes”, Will ad-libs a fantastical story fit for Ed’s remarkable life- one that undoubtedly touched so many others, even if the details are a little embellished. I still get chills when I watch it.

4. Cecilia Shepard Zodiac (2007)

I feel crass talking about an on-screen depiction of something that actually happened in the same post as the twisted thrills of Drive but there aren’t many scenes in 21st century American film that are more effective. All the recreations of the Zodiac killings in this movie are almost impossible to watch without some temptation to look away but this one at the beach is the most chilling. I felt a wave of anxiety every time I found myself anywhere secluded for weeks after watching this movie. The Zodiac killer was never caught or named but this faceless killer- now probably long gone- still haunts me.

3. Elle Driver Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

I only allowed myself one Quentin Tarantino entry on this post and I could have easily done one just on the Top Ten Tarantino Death Scenes. He’s the guy that knows how to do it, whose mind seems to take him to to places most of us wouldn’t dare. Daryl Hannah’s Elle puts up quite a fight against the Bride but the fight’s pretty much over when Uma Thurman’s antihero plucks out her only good eye. Adding insult to injury beyond anything I can imagine, poor Elle hears a sound that can only be Uma crushing it beneath her feet. Good and pissed but with nothing much she can do about it, Elle thrashes about unitl a poisonous Black Mamba finishes her off.

Elle Driver was an assassin and a bit of a sadist but I can’t help but feel just a little bad. What a way to go.

2. Spider Goodfellas (1990)

Everyone has a favourite scene here and I could have probably done a Top Ten just on this one movie but Spider (Michael Imperioli) really gets a raw deal. After finally being able to get back to work after being shot in the foot by Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), the poor waiter finally stands up for himself and tells Tommy to fuck off. Tommy’s gangster buddy love it and tease Tommy until he loses it and empties his clip into the poor guy, shocking his buddies. “What the fuck, Tommy? We were just kidding around”.

Tommy’s a funny guy (yes, sort of like a clown) and I sure did miss him after he gets whacked. But he really was a mad dog. It’s probably for the best that he never got made.

1. Lester Burnham American Beauty (1999)

This also made my list of Movie Moments That Took My Breath Away. Lester makes it very clear from the start that he won’t survive the movie and the final moments are filled with tension as we wait for something to happen. Writer Alan Ball presents us with three suspects and we’re not sure until after the killing shot is fired who murdered Lester Burnham.

The murder is beside the point anyway. The tragedy is that Lester dies in pretty much the instant that he finds inner peace. His life flashes before his eyes as he reflects on all the beauty in the world. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry. You will someday”.

City of Ember \ Stardust

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Once upon a time it was movies based on Young Adult Fiction week, and I watched some stuff that I would normally never watch. Some of it was bad, some of it was not bad, and some of it was so bad it was almost good. In the end I was so glad to put it behind me I never got around to talking about the stuff that didn’t fit in either category – not good enough to endorse, but not bad enough to make fun of. So here it is, the middle of the road:

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen or heard of City of Ember because I didn’t know there was a Billy Murray movie I hadn’t already smothered in love. He plays the mayor of a town built deep underground by a team of scientists just as the world was ending. They buried instructions on how to return to the surface after 200 years too, but stupidly entrusted them to politicians, who predictably bungled the thing and lost the instructions and now their city is crumbling, the power supply is failing and food is running out. Things are dire: teenagers to the rescue! Two “young adults” (Saoirse Ronan & Harry Treadaway) take it upon themselves to do the thing countless older, smarter, more intrepid people (including their parents) failed to do.

The visuals are stunning. I loved the sets of this underground world, everything just a little off-kilter, labyrinthine without being claustrophobic. But the story never quite lives up to what our eyes suggest. The plot is modest, maybe even thin. Writers of this young adult genre seem to follow a pretty strict guide when it comes to their dystopian adventures: the founders, vague as they are, have decreed that people be assigned specific jobs and these jobs are ceremoniously given out and then life is spent labouring away at whatever “very important” job you’ve been given. There is little in the way of joy, but if you keep toiling away then your life is well-spent. BUT then there’s always some young upstart who questions the system. Sound familiar? City of Ember is basically Subterranean Divergent, although really I should say it the other way around since City of Ember came first.

The adventuring is pretty tame, the action mild, and the denouement predictable. This is post-apocalyptic-lite. Martin Landau gives a small performance worth seeing, and Tim Robbins isn’t half bad either. Bill Murray is, of course, always fun to watch, but otherwise this film is blander than you might think possible, though of course that was also Matt’s verdict on Insurgent.

Stardust came out in 2007, just a year before City of Ember, and it also passed me by. I haven’t been a “young adult” in at least a decade and haven’t been a typical consumer of this genre ever, so I guess it’s not so surprising.

I’m not remotely sure that I or alone else can really distill this story, but here’s my attempt:

Tristan is the young adult in question, a lad living in a quiet English village, madly in love with the town’s most beautiful girl who doesn’t give him the time of day because of course she’s way out of his league. Throwing him a bone, she agrees to consider him if only he will catch her a star, and so of course he follows a fallen star over the breach in the wall surrounding his village and into a fantasy kingdom called Stormhold where the star turns out to be Claire Danes. Everyone following? Fallen stars that look remarkably like Claire Danes are quite popular – she’s also being pursued by a witch (Michelle Pfieffer) who wants to eat her heart to make her young, and a bunch of princes (let by Rupert Everett) who believe a ruby she carries will inherit them the throne. So now poor Tristan’s saddled with this star who’s pretty high maintenance, and the only help he gets is from his mother, who’s unfortunately bound by a spell, and a transvestite pirate (played with MUCH enthusiasm by Robert DeNiro- and no, I’m not kidding).

The story didn’t speak to me whatsoever (sorry Neil Gaiman, I’m still you’re girl!), but hello, with a great pop-up role by De Niro and another by Ricky Gervais, it’s pretty much worth watching on that basis alone, and those moments felt more like the trademark oddball Gaiman humour I’m used to. The special effects are pretty awesome (Michelle Pfieffer uses a sword designed for but never used by Magneto in Matthew Vaughn’s 2006 X-Men movie) but the action-adventure really gets bogged down by a sluggish pace. This movie drags on. It’s a string of fun moments but didn’t quite work for me as a cohesive whole.

The Monuments Men

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Based on the “true story” of a motely gang of art historians, museum curators, and the occasional sculptor for balance, who risked their lives to save and protect major works of art that were stolen by Nazis during the second world war, The Monuments Men, as they were called, feels a little like a war-themed Ocean’s 11.

Critics were pretty hard on this movie, but having finally watched it, I feel like that’s unfair. Art expert Franks Stokes assembles a crack team just as impressive as any of Danny Ocean’s – Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville and Dimitri Leonidas all give strong performances though they compete for screen time. Bill Murray and Bob Balaban are probably my favourite duo; they play off each other fabulously. The trouble with The Monuments Men is with the tone: this wants to be a light-hearted caper, like Ocean’s 11, but Clooney feels too much reverence for the subject and so throws in another lecture rather than a joke. Truthfully, when George Clooney lectures, I’m going to listen. That man has the twinkliest eyes short of Santa Claus. But this is not exactly playing to his cast’s strength, or his audience’s expectations.

The Monuments Men arrive mostly as the war is winding down, so there aren’t a lot of battle scenes, which is not to say there is no blood. Anyone looking for a typical, action-driven war movie will be out of luck, though it certainly looks like one, with beautiful, crumbly post-war Europe shot and framed with care. This one is more of an intellectual exercise, with a moral question at its heart: is a human life worth a piece of art?

Clooney’s character answers this rather touchingly, in the end, with an older version of himself visiting a monument he recovered in the 1970s. “Yeah,” he says, eyes twinkling. I wondered for half a second if this was perhaps the real Frank Stokes but it was the twinkle that gave it away. Must be a Clooney, I thought, and so it was (Nick, George’s dad).

George Clooney knows this is a story worth telling, and seeks to honour the men who made it possible. It just feels like maybe this is the wrong medium to do it. Even at two hours, he just barely manages to give each of his actors one big “moment.” The monuments are pretty well served, but to really know the men, maybe a miniseries would have been more appropriate. Next time, George, take it HBO.