Fin de cinéma

25 December 2008

Where Is My Man?

R.I.P. Eartha Kitt. Total sex kitten.

23 December 2008

Results of indieWIRE's 2008 Critics Poll

Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon was named the best film in indieWIRE's Critics Poll; Hou also was named best director. Though both of those wins were certainly welcome and exciting, most of the other winners went to predictable choices: Mickey Rourke, Heath Ledger, Charlie Kaufman, Man on Wire and Ballast. Look deeper though and you'll find a lot of wonderful picks, like Asia Argento for Boarding Gate, The Last Mistress and Mother of Tears. Here's the full list.

2008 List #3: Music, I Suppose...

Out of necessity, not so much authority, I’ve made a half-assed Best of 2008 for music. There’s a lot going against me as far as this list is concerned. A.) My computer, which holds all of my music files, is dead, and although I didn’t lose any of the files, I don’t really have access to them to better assess the year’s offerings. B.) No matter how savvy I think I am when it comes to keeping current, the music blogger elite’s annual lists always intimidate instead of inspire. C.) With the dead computer, the past two months have been barren in regards of exploring anything new. So with multiple reservations, I present the 10 best albums of 2008, 7 honorable mentions, an unorganized list of 31 worthy singles (some appeared on 2007 albums, but showed up as singles this year) and a few thoughts on the annoyances, 2008 style.

What other way would you expect to open this list than with Beyoncé's irresistible track, whose video has forever become inseparable with the song itself? Jessica Suarez from Pitchfork described it best as "a break-up song in going-out shoes," and no other song this year (or really since Outkast's "Hey Ya") has captured the entire country's attention. I wouldn't suggest making a mix CD of these singles unless you want people to think you're terribly bipolar.

1. Beyoncé - Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
2. Hercules and Love Affair - Time Will
3. Portishead - Hunter
4. TV on the Radio - Halfway Home
5. Lykke Li - Little Bit
6. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
7. Eagles of Death Metal - Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)
8. Estelle featuring Kanye West - American Boy
9. Yeasayer - Wait for the Summer
10. Goldfrapp - A&E
11. Emmanuelle Seigner & Brett Anderson - Les Mots simples
12. Bon Iver - Flume
13. Grace Jones - Well Well Well
14. Brendan Canning - Churches Under the Stairs
15. Kanye West - Flashing Lights
16. French Kicks - Said So What
17. Yelle - Ce jeu
18. Cat Power - Ramblin' (Wo)man
19. Antony and the Johnsons - Another World
20. Ra Ra Riot - Dying Is Fine
21. Santogold - Creator
22. Cold War Kids - Mexican Dogs
23. Poni Hoax - Antibodies
24. DeVotchKa - The Clockwise Witness
25. Atlas Sound - Quarantined
26. Sébastien Tellier - Pomme
27. Sigur Rós - Ára bátur
28. Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
29. Neil Halstead - Oh! Mighty Engine
30. Björk featuring Antony Hegarty - Dull Flame of Desire
31. Mariah Carey - Touch My Body

Comments on the singles with the applicable number are as follows. (2) "Blind" was named the best single of 2008 by Pitchfork and, though it's quite good, it never felt like the stand-out of the album for me. (5) The best pop song of the year, hands down. (9) The album version is a lot better than the single edit. (11) Mrs. Roman Polanski and the former lead singer of Suede made for a fetching duet. Seigner appears (barely audible) on his album Wilderness from this year. (19) Was sure to be the perfect anthem for a John McCain victory a few months ago. (21) Yeah, it was the most M.I.A. track of her album, but rocked me harder than any of her others. (28) Despite coming from a band with a douche-bag following that increases with each album, it's one of the few times I think lead singer Caleb Followill's voice did as it should. (31) Yeah, um, it's really lame (not because it's Mariah, but because the lyrics are awful), but it was as close to "Shake It Off" as we were going to get this year.

The Worst of the Year: I stayed far away from both my radio and MTV for most of 2008, which spared me plenty of nominees in this category, but I still caught MTV making nice with Britney Spears at the VMAs (just a year after that fiasco), going overboard to the point of awarding her their top honors. Madonna, of course, made another desperate attempt to reconnect with a younger audience, enlisting Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, again falling flat. Decide for yourself what's more humiliating: Madonna singing, "Sometimes I think what I need is a you-intervention," or Timberlake uttering her name as if he were Wayne Campbell. Although I think the hottest contenders for Worst Song I Had to Listen to in 2008 are Kid Rock (for that Leonard Skynard bullshit) and The Killers (questionably still releasing albums and posing nonsensical questions like, "are we humans, or are we dancers?"). Both make me wish Pierce Brosnan would release an entire album of ABBA covers.

The Worst of the Year, Part 2: Horrible, attractive actresses that have made horrible movies (with a few exceptions) shouldn't torture us further by making horrible music, but Scarlett Johansson and Zooey Deschanel didn't listen. I'm having a tough time deciding whether to watch The Other Boleyn Girl and The New Guy over listening to these albums again. Deschanel and M. Ward's She & Him album left the looming threat of being titled Volume One.

Wong Kar-wai, "The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie," Others DVD Update

First off, Sony has moved I've Loved You So Long's release date to 3 March, as opposed to in February. Kino has announced two special(-er) editions of Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together and Fallen Angels. Other than improved artwork, I don't know how these discs will differ from the previous releases.

Hounddog, aka "The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie," will be available on 3 February through Empire Pictures. The gay musical Were the World Mine is set for 26 May from Wolfe Video. And finally, First Run Features has another musical, Opera Jawa from Indonesia, on 31 March.

indieWIRE's List of the Best Undistributed Films of 2008

indieWIRE's year end polls are usually the best places to find either what you've missed from the year or a likeminded round-up of the finest the year had to offer. In conducting their annual list of the best undistributed films, Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza] topped the charts, despite tepid reception when it premiered at Cannes (small proof that you can only take negaitve Cannes' reception so far). In the number two spot was Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day, the latest from a filmmaker whose name frequently appears on these lists. Pablo Larrain's Tony Manero, Albert Serra's Birdsong [El Cant dels ocells] and (tied for 5th) Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum [35 rhums] and Koji Wakamatsu's United Red Army round out the top 5. A handful of still-undistributed films from 07 hang onto the list including Abel Ferrara's Go Go Tales (whose deal with IFC seems to have been erroneous), Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Ploy and Roy Andersson's You, the Living - all three of which rank among the finest films I've had a chance to see in the past two years. Check the full list via indieWIRE (particularly if you're a distributor).

20 December 2008

2008 List #2: USA Region 1 DVD Premieres

By my count, 44 titles were scratched off the M.I.A. for DVD list I made last year. A few were announced and then swiftly canceled (Ken Russell's The Devils, Patrice Leconte's The Hairdresser's Husband and The Perfume of Yvonne) and others (like Marguerite Duras' Nathalie Granger, the Taviani brothers' Kaos, Sidney Lumet's Daniel, André Téchiné's Hotel America) were curiously missing on my lists. 2008 also saw new-and-improved discs of some of my favorites (Godard's Pierrot le fou, Gregg Araki's The Living End). I didn't have the time or the money to buy a lot of DVDs this year, so I can't comment further. 2009 already has 10 titles ready to cross off the list: Criterion's Simon of the Desert, The Exterminating Angel, Dodes'ka-den and Danton; Koch Lorber's Taxi Blues and L'Innocente; Warner's Far from the Madding Crowd; New Yorker's Same Old Song; MGM's Yentl; and Universal's Howard the Duck (!). Beginning sometime in January, I'm going to revise the MIA lists, and around then, I'd love for you all to help me perfect it. They are as follows (keep in mind I haven't taken off the released titles yet, and there's a few that I mistakenly thought weren't available): Pre-1950, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s. Here are the 44 (excuse me if I'm miscounting... cold medicine can do that to you) Region 1 USA DVD premieres that I could scratch off the MIA list, in order of their release date (thanks to DVDBeaver for some of the images):

Akira Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear – Eclipse/Criterion [available in Eclipse's Post-War Kurosawa box]
Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It – MGM
Agnès Varda’s Le bonheur – Criterion
Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom 2 [Riget 2] – Koch Lorber
Jean-Luc Godard’s Passion – Lionsgate [part of the Godard box set]
Jean-Luc Godard’s Détective – Lionsgate [part of the Godard box set]
Jean-Luc Godard’s Hélas pour moi [Oh, Woe Is Me] – Lionsgate [part of the Godard box set]
Patricia Rozema’s When Night Is Falling – Wolfe
Paul Schrader’s Touch – MGM
David Lynch’s Lost Highway – Focus Features
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s Fiorile – Koch Lorber

Seth Holt's The Nanny - 20th Century Fox
Jean-Luc Godard’s La chinoise – Koch Lorber
Louis Malle’s The Lovers [Les amants] – Criterion
Louis Malle’s The Fire Within [Le feu follet] – Criterion
Olivier Meyrou’s Beyond Hatred [Au-delà de la haine] – First Run Features
Shohei Imamura’s The Ballad of Narayama – AnimEigo
Tsai Ming-liang’s The Wayward Cloud – Strand Releasing
Derek Jarman’s The Angelic Conversation – Zeitgeist [part of the Derek Jarman Glitterbox]
Derek Jarman’s Blue – Zeitgeist [part of the Derek Jarman Glitterbox]
Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio – Zeitgeist
Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein – Zeitgeist

Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain – Criterion
John Sayles’ Baby, It’s You – Paramount/Legend
Patrice Leconte’s The Girl on the Bridge [La fille sur le pont] – Paramount/Legend Films
André Téchiné’s J’embrasse pas [I Don’t Kiss] – Lionsgate [part of the André Téchiné set]
Hector Babenco’s Kiss of the Spider Woman – City Lights
Derek Jarman’s War Requiem – Kino
Elia Kazan’s Boomerang – 20th Century Fox [Amazon lists this OOP already, so who knows if it was actually released; let me know if you picked it up yourself]
Luis Buñuel’s La ilusión viaja en tranvía [Illusion Travels by Streetcar] – Lionsgate [note that according to Amazon, there are no English subtitles for either of the Lionsgate Buñuel titles]
Luis Buñuel’s Nazarín – Lionsgate
Lou Adler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains – Rhino
Max Ophüls’ The Earrings of Madame de… [Madame de…] – Criterion

Max Ophüls’ Le plaisir – Criterion
Max Ophüls’ La ronde – Criterion
Yasujiro Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon – Criterion
Luchino Visconti’s Ludwig – Koch Lorber
Claude Chabrol, Jean Douchet, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Daniel Pollet, Eric Rohmer, and Jean Rouch’s Six in Paris [Paris vu par…] – New Yorker
Elie Chouraqui’s Love Songs [Paroles et musique] – Sommerville House
Larry Kent’s The Apprentice [Fleur bleu] – Sommerville House
William Friedkin’s The Boys in the Band – Paramount
Samuel Fuller’s White Dog – Criterion
Lars von Trier’s Europa [Zentropa] – Criterion
Bruno Barreto’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands [Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos] – New Yorker [hopefully! But you know New Yorker...]

2008 List #1: The Best (and Worst) of Television

Ever since HBO raised the bar for television, it’s a lot less criminal to indulge in one’s love of the serialized medium. Plenty of grave offenses to the excellence that shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Oz, Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm created still exist today. How does a laughless show like The Big Bang Theory continue to rake in viewers when Arrested Development gets the plug pulled on it prematurely? Questions like these will plague our thoughts just as much as the what-ifs Twin Peaks left us after its second season. Keep in mind that my last-minute movie consumption has prevented me from watching Generation Kill, which is now on DVD. The nice thing about the medium of television is that, like I did after suffering three seasons of Nip/Tuck and two episodes of this year’s putrid I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single in which middling writer/director/actor Eric Schaeffer ponders the title’s disbelief to nails-on-chalkboard extremes, you can always turn it off. So, here’s my first of at least six lists rounding up the year 2008, with an honorable mention to Cloris Leachman telling John Stamos that she wanted to fuck him with her Oscar on Comedy Central’s Roast of Bob Saget. I should probably suggest you not read about the shows you haven't caught up with yet, as spoilers will certainly follow.

1. Summer Heights High – HBO – with Chris Lilly

Chris Lilly’s hysterical, brilliant mockumentary about the lives of three awful human beings who call the titular Summer Heights High their home for a term beats Christopher Guest at his own game. At turns unbearably funny and gut-wrenchingly unsympathetic, Summer Heights High balances its double act gracefully. Lilly goes places you never expect him to with Ja’mie King (the private school cunt with a love for incorrectly using the word “random” who manipulates and condescends her way through her year-long exchange), Mr. G (the self-applied “director of performing arts” with delusions of grandeur putting on an exploitive musical about a schoolgirl who died of a drug overdose) and Jonah Takalua (the disobedient Pacific Islander who would rather break-dance than learn how to read). Watching Mr. G’s “arena spectacular” makes the only salvageable moments of Hamlet 2 look pitiful by comparison (“She’s a naughty girl with a bad habit / a bad habit for drugs”). Summer Heights High is easily the most refreshing television import since The Office UK. For more Ja’mie (my personal favorite) and Lilly, be sure to check out the show he made before this one, We Can Be Heroes, which I can only hope will be picked up by HBO sooner or later. The DVD set for Summer Heights High will be available on 24 February 2009.

2. Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live)

Sorry Amy Poehler and Sarah Silverman, but Kristen Wiig is not only SNL’s funniest comedienne, but perhaps even the funniest person who’s ever been on that entire show (take that comment lightly, this is coming from someone who gains and loses sporadic interest in the show on a regular basis). She’s taken Silverman’s place as the scene-stealer of dude comedies; her scene in Knocked Up provides more laughs than the rest of the film combined. Though she seems to be often stuck in deleted scenes (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) or unfunny roles (The Brothers Solomon), her comic genius truly comes through on SNL, playing a slew of neurotic or unflattering characters (as well as dead-on impersonations of Suze Orman and Björk) and always emerging as the only good thing in badly or underwritten skits. As NBC.com is one of the worst viral sites around, I’ve gathered together a few clips for your enjoyment. Wiig as Virgania Horson and Her Pony Express (thanks to my friend Mike for posting this on his Facebook page!); as the Deformed Sister of Laurence Welk Quartet; as one of the work-out ladies for Body Fuzion, with Drew Barrymore; as Björk in a send-up of The Sundance Channel's Iconoclasts; as Sue who sure is excited about throwing a surprise party, with Christopher Walken; as one-half of a set of adorable twins, with Seth Rogan; as Kyra Sedgwick, followed by a new crime program starring Penny Marshall, also with Andy Samberg as Juliette Lewis; as Suze Orman and again; as Crazy McCain Rally Lady on the Weekend Update; as one-half of another set of twins for a new Disney Channel program, with Amy Adams; as Penelope at traffic school, also with Amy Adams; as Jennifer Tilly on Celebrity Apprentice; and as the Target Lady, with Jonah Hill. Forgive me if some of the videos don't work.

3. (tie) Great Actresses As Greatly Embarrassing Republican Ladies: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL; Laura Dern as Katherine Harris in HBO’s Recount

Tina Fey emerged to be the only good thing to come from the hasty media obsession with Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, showcasing the thespian side of our favorite hot, rimmed-spectacled gal. Like my experience in seeing Christine Ebersole play Little Edie on the Broadway version of Grey Gardens (which was lame otherwise), Fey didn’t just impersonate the similar-looking Palin, but became her in such a way that I could barely tell the two apart. “It seems that when cornered you become increasingly adorable.” Who knew even better things were to come for Fey at the beginning of 30 Rock’s third season? Check NBC's website, under the "Most Popular" category, to see the sketches.

The other fabulous depiction of a real-life female pawn for the Republican party came from one of my long-time favorite actresses, Laura Dern, in Recount. In the past few years, she’s been continuing to astound with dynamic performances in the wildly different Inland Empire and We Don’t Live Here Anymore, but just when I thought I’d never get another Ruth Stoops, she delivered some comedy magic as Katherine Harris. In easily upstaging the rest of the predominantly male cast (Kevin Spacey, Bob Balaban, Denis Leary, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinson, among others), Dern is the only reason to watch the simply passable, well-intended docudrama. Recount is available on DVD.

4. The Wire – HBO – 5th and Final Season – with Dominic West, Lance Reddick, Wendell Pierce, Clarke Peters, Michael K. Williams, Sonja Sohn, John Doman, Aiden Gillen, Andre Rojo, Clark Johnson, Thomas McCarthy, Dierdre Lovejoy, Seth Gilliam, Delaney Williams, Frankie Faison, Corey Parker Robinson, Jim True-Frost, Domenick Lombardozzi, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Jamie Hector, Tristan Wilds, Jermaine Crawford, Felicia Pearson, Amy Ryan, et al.

Had this been the final season to any other show, I probably wouldn’t have included it. But as it’s The Wire, the smartest show in HBO’s illustrious history, I can put my reservations aside. Cramming a shitload of information into a meager ten episodes, not the least of which involving a “serial killer,” season 5 felt as though it rushed through everything the show so deliberately laid out in seasons past (it was especially hard to try to top Pryzbylewski’s staggering stint as a mathematics teacher in Season 4). I would have allowed the show the sinister killing of its best character had the writers stuck with the raw, unforgiving nature we’d become used to by that point. Characters got off too easy in the show’s finale, developing an attachment the creators swore they’d never display. All that aside, The Wire was the most uncommonly compelling show of the decade (I keep Six Feet Under in a different basket), and I’m sure its legacy will last through DVD, even if no other show comes close to touching its vigor. All five seasons are currently available on DVD. [On a side note, I’m working on a piece which examines how The Wire has changed, for the worse, my cinema obsession. Look for it as soon as I finish these lists.]

5. 30 Rock – NBC – Seasons 2 and 3 – with Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBreyer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Keith Powell, Katrina Bowden, Lonny Ross, Maulik Pancholy, Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman

What began as a nice alternative to the multi-camera sitcoms that the networks kept throwing at us evolved into the cleverest show on NBC and a more-than-welcome replacement for the void Arrested Development left. Fey’s writing was never in question, but in the early episodes of season 3, she’s finally eluded the Dorothy Petrillo Zbornak curse, in which the lead actor of a sitcom is consistently upstaged by their co-stars (not that I don’t love you, Bea Arthur!). Baldwin, Morgan, Krakowski and McBreyer are uniformly hilarious, and though Friedlander leaves something to be desired, he finally got laughs out of me when, in season 2, he shows up at a gay disco where they’re playing a club mix version of Krakowski’s smash hit in Europe, “Muffin Tops,” and, in season 3, when he responds “yes” emphatically when Morgan, dressed as a white woman for a Freaky Friday experiment, asks if he wants to make out with him. With guest stars including Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston and Steve Martin, I can’t help but think 30 Rock is on the upslope. Season 3 is still in progress; seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD, and you can catch all the episodes streaming on NBC.com.

6. Lost – ABC – Season 4 – with Matthew Fox, Terry O’Quinn, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Emerson, Josh Holloway, Naveen Andrews, Yunjin Kim, Jorge Garcia, Daniel Dae Kim, Elizabeth Mitchell, Henry Ian Cusack, Jeremy Davies, Emilie de Ravin, Jeff Fahey, Ken Leung, Harold Perrineau, Rebecca Mader, Mira Furlan, Alan Dale, Kevin Durand, Tania Raymonde, et al.

Lost would be nowhere without Twin Peaks, as you can imagine. It followed the show’s entire mold: intrigue your audience in the first season before fully introducing the supernatural head-scratching in the second. Ending the otherwise lackluster third season with a real mind blower, Lost cut its episodes by around ten, making it even more concise and wonderfully infuriating than it ever had been. With a deal made by the creators and ABC, which will conclude the show’s run in 2010, Lost will have what Twin Peaks never could… an ending. Heartbreak, anger, elation and confusion will be brought to us for another two seasons with the possibility of our Oceanic Six making their way back to the island. For the especially amazing episodes of Season 4, check out “The Constant,” in which the island’s lone Scotsman Desmond Hume (Cusack) discovers with the help of wormy Daniel (Davies) the two-way nature of time travel, or “The Shape of Things to Come,” which answers and poses more questions about that fucking smoke monster. Season 4 was just released on DVD, though you can watch every episode streaming on ABC.com, and Season 5 will begin early 2009.

7. Project Runway – Bravo – Seasons 4 and 5

Gay, straight, man, woman, I dare you to resist the charms of Project Runway (I’ve heard many hilarious confessions of friends who’ve caught their fathers watching the show). Cramming a season and a half into 2008, my would-be guilty pleasure (I’m seldom guilty about anything I like) awarded its top honors to the two most deserving winners in both seasons. Keep in mind that Project Runaway is the only reality contest that actually awards creativity over meager talent and mutiny and, without being too invasive, introduces you to plenty of wonderful (Chan Marshall look-a-like Leann Marshall and the endearing Sweet Pea), memorable (Christian Siriano) and detestable (I’m looking at you, Kenley) contestants. Sure, plenty of the players weren’t up to snuff in the past two seasons, but could you really live without the addition of “hot tranny mess” into your vocabulary? For shits and giggles, here’s Amy Poehler playing Siriano on SNL, and despite his best efforts, Blayne’s catch phrase “licious” will never catch on. Season 4 is available on DVD; no word yet on season 5 (or when the show will be rid of its legal troubles).

8. (tie) Unwatched/Unfinished Seasons of the Runners-Up of TV's Most Offensive, After The Hills: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – FX – Season 4 – with Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Kaitlin Olson, Danny DeVito; South Park – Season 12 – Comedy Central – with Trey Parker, Matt Stone

I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve only caught a few episodes of the latest season of the fantastically mean-spirited sitcom about five selfish assholes and the Philly bar they own, but what I’ve seen leads me to believe that, like 30 Rock, the show is only getting better. Politically incorrect, undeserved narcissism hasn’t looked this good in a while. No word on when Season 4 will hit DVD, but the previous three are already available for you to catch up.

It’s hard to believe that South Park has maintained its appeal after twelve seasons, when the high priest of animated sitcoms, The Simpsons, fizzled out years ago. Like It’s Always Sunny…, I only caught selective episodes, including the Cloverfield spoof and the brilliant raping of Indiana Jones by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas by way of Jodie Foster in The Accused and Ned Beatty in Deliverance, but as soon as I finish the remaining films for my other Best Of’s, I’ll be heading over to ComedyCentral.com. The 12th season will be available on DVD on 10 March 2009.

9. True Blood – HBO – Season 1 – with Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Sam Trammell, Ryan Kwanten, Rutina Wesley, Lois Smith, Chris Bauer, Nelsan Ellis, Lizzie Caplan, Carrie Preston, Michael Raymond-Jones, William Sanderson, Adina Porter, Alexander Skarsgård, Jim Parrack, Stephen Root, Kristin Bauer, Michelle Forbes, Todd Lowe, Deborah Ann Woll, et al.

Alan Ball’s television follow-up to Six Feet Under hasn’t yet lived up to its predecessor, but in laying the groundwork for a sexy, Louisiana vampire tale, the show definitely has promise. Six Feet Under really hit its stride in its second season, so I won’t fault True Blood in allowing the viewer time for a little establishment. Sure, Sookie Stackhouse (Paquin) is a stubborn, self-righteous pistol, and yes, it appears as if the show can’t figure out how it feels about bar-owner Sam Merlotte (Trammell). However, in Tara (Wesley), the viper-tongued best friend with the most hideously unlikable mother (Porter) in television history, and Bill (Moyer), the tender-hearted vampire love interest, the show more than makes up for the issues it raises with the other characters. The biggest faults so far involve a lame, convenient serial killer plot and the show’s lax nature in killing off major characters, which doesn’t allow for the institution of a world where no one’s safe as much as it does in ridding the show of characters that haven’t been given the chance to grow. The show will be available on DVD on 12 May 2009, with the second season beginning sometime in the summer.

10. The Life & Times of Tim – HBO – Season 1

I’ve been reprimanded by many of my friends for never allowing myself to get into Adult Swim, but things may change after seeing HBO’s version of Cartoon Network’s R-rated animated comedies. The premise is fairly simple: generally nice guy Tim is thrown into awkward situations involving hookers, mistaken identity and misconstrued good intentions, escalating in each 15-minute episode. After watching at least three episodes, The Life & Times of Tim quits feeling like the cringe-inducing, prone-to-failure antics that made the shitty Meet the Parents films so successful and becomes the perfect time killer for an aimless day of browsing the On Demand section of your cable provider. The best laugh I got all season occurred when Tim (writer/director/co-creator Steve Dildarian) asks Debbie (Bob Morrow), the surly lady of the evening, for help in learning gospel songs, only for Debbie to break out in Eddie Murphy’s “Party All the Time,” innocently mistaking that for a beloved church-going tune. Season 1 will be available on DVD on 24 March 2009.

As for the underwhelming or just plain despicable television programs I caught this year (usually when bored and visiting with my mother): Katherine Heigl’s Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze romance (and just about everything else) on Grey’s Anatomy; Hugh Laurie’s continued wasted performances as that whacky, unorthodox Dr. House; I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single; Little Britain’s unsuccessful relocation to the US; Tracey Ullman’s painfully unamusing State of the Union; anything and everything about The Hills; that stupid show on MTV (redundant, no?) about parents talking to their kids about sex (I don’t really care to find out what it’s called); The Big Bang Theory, proof of why the best sitcoms on TV don’t use a laugh-track; and the shittiest why-the-hell-is-this-still-on-the-air-program According to Jim, which shares a cell with Everybody Loves Raymond and Home Improvement in hell.

18 December 2008

Ryko Titles for March

Lucio Fulci's A Cat in the Brain (which was previously announced and canceled a while back) will make its Region1 debut from Grindhouse Releasing. Umberto Lenzi's Fatty Girl Goes to New York [Cicciabomba], which co-stars Anita Ekberg, and Joe D'Amato's Top Girl will be MYA Communications' two releases. here! Films/Liberation Entertainment will be releasing four titles in March: Rosser Goodman's Holding Trevor (which co-stars Jay Brannan from Shortbus), Leeong Hee-il's No Regret, Dan Clark's Cthulhu and David DeCoteau's The Raven. Cult Epics is re-releasing Jean Genet's Un chant d'amour, though I haven't been able to figure out if it's to be any different than their previous release (the Genet doc is still listed as an additional feature). And finally, Severin will release the "dwarfsploitation flick" The Sinful Dwarf, from director Vidal Raski. All titles street on 31 March.

SAGs, Chicago

The Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced, despite the threat of a strike, and they were typically boring, and shamefully missing Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky (Frozen River's Melissa Leo was the surprise nomination). The Chicago Film Critics' Association went with WALL·E as their best picture. Their full awards can be found here.

17 December 2008

Criterion + Others

Criterion announced their slate for March, which includes Akira Kurosawa's Dodes'ka-den which I thought was the last Kurosawa film to become available in the US (I don't know where I got that information as I know neither The Most Beautiful nor Sanshiro Sugata are available). The other titles include Andrzej Wajda's Danton, starring Gérard Depardieu and Patrice Chéreau, Roberto Rossellini's Il generale della Rovereand with Vittorio De Sica and a new disc for François Truffaut's The Last Metro [Le dernier métro], also starring Depardieu as well as Catherine Deneuve and Andréa Ferréol. The latter will include a short film entitled Une histoire d'eau, "co-directed" by Truffaut and Godard.

Universal has set 17 February for Changeling. Choke will be out from 20th Century Fox on the same day. Hunter Hill and Perry Moore's Lake City is hitting DVD shelves on 3 March from Screen Media Films. The film, which premiered at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, stars Sissy Spacek, Troy Garity, Rebecca Romijn and Drea de Matteo.

Strand Releasing announced Claude Miller's Un secret for 10 March. And finally, Water Bearer Films will have Lior Shamriz's Japan Japan (from Israel) and Rémi Lange's Devotee (from France) on 24 February. I have a much bigger list of UK and French DVDs coming in early 2009, but I'll post that later this week.

Now put your hands up

Unless another city throws me for a loop, I probably won't be posting any more of the Critics Awards for 2008. But as IndieWire's Peter Knegt said, Toronto's film awards were "a nice change of pace," honoring Wendy and Lucy with both the best picture and best actress (Michelle Williams) awards. Rachel Getting Married won Best Director, Supporting Actress and Screenplay. You can check out the rest of Toronto's selections here, but you'll have to wait until January before they unveil the award for Best Canadian Film.

Temptation

Might I direct you to Scott Tobias' excellent piece on one of my long-time favorites and one of the most heinously marketed films of the past 20 years (Tobias addresses this in the piece), Exotica. It almost seems the duty of film writers to remind audiences why Atom Egoyan was once such a powerful voice in cinema (as he doesn't seem to be doing much convincing with any of his latest films, though I still have some hope for Adoration).

16 December 2008

More Awards, Lists

I'm holding back a lot of behind-the-scenes complaints I have for the St. Louis Film Critics Circle, but I feel pretty strongly embarrassed by not just the special categories but their winners too. Having an award for "Best Comedy" is silly enough, but awarding it to Burn After Reading is just shameful. "Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film?" Please. But Slumdog Millionaire as the best foreign language film?!?? I'm really going to keep my mouth shut until I've officially said goodbye to this city. You can see the full winners here. In other awards news, San Francisco went (predictably) with Milk; San Diego favored Slumdog Millionaire.

Slant Magazine also published four lists of the best films of 2008, from Ed Gonzalez (Rachel Getting Married), Nick Schager (Synecdoche, New York), Bill Weber (Still Life) and Andrew Schenker (The Duchess of Langeais). In the City of Sylvia made three of their lists, and I'm oh-so-pleased to see I won't be the only one with Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate on mine.