For the love of Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park III
2001
USA
Dir: Joe Johnston

When it comes to Hollywood movie franchises, there always seems to be bizarre patterns of success involved. For anything starring Jason Statham, the second incarnation always stands above the others (I know this to be true of The Transporter, but I’ve heard from various, reputable folks that this is also true of Crank). For a number of the trashy horror chronicles, the Jason Statham rule also proves true (see Final Destination or Rob Zombie’s Halloween… also, outside of the horror genre, the X-Men films), but conversely there’s also the 1 and 3 rule, which applies to two of Wes Craven’s series: the original Nightmare on Elm Streets and Screams (you can argue against Scream 3 being good, certainly, but it’s hard to say it isn’t at least somewhat of an improvement over the 2nd). After indulging for the first time in the third of its series, I would contest that the Jurassic Park series (I’d say trilogy, but I’ve heard another one is in the works) falls into the 1-3 rule, though I know neither of its sequels are held in particularly high regard.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park will always be a notoriously memorable viewing experience for me or, in other words, one that marked a special turning point in my youth. The summer movie season of 1997 will be remembered best as the summer where I first recall truly loathing films of any sort, though it seems hard now to imagine that I was ever “easy to please.” The epic disappointment of The Lost World in May was quickly followed by the colossal disgust of Batman & Robin. Hollywood, for the first time I can remember, has failed this thirteen-year-old with their embarrassing sequels to films I had thoroughly enjoyed during my childhood. Needless to say (perhaps), I decided against seeing Jurassic Park III at 17, already fully jaded, expectedly angsty and unjustifiably haughty; I do know a few of my friends got really stoned and laughed their way through it, but I think I was even “too cool” to get high at that age.

The decision to watch Jurassic Park III nine years later proved to be a fortuitous one. I don’t think that sober, snotty seventeen-year-old would have been half as amused by its ridiculousness (or by the great Téa Leoni!) as this twenty-six-year-old admirer of the low-low-brow was. Like the hilarious and peculiar consistency in which Nicolas Cage has been playing characters with money troubles, Sam Neill returns to the series as Dr. Alan Grant after skipping out on The Lost World and gets tricked into returning to the dinosaur-infested island by a couple of zeroes and a dollar sign (well, as he points out at some point in the film, it’s a neighboring island from the one in the first film, one that’s become overtaken by wild dinosaurs). He’s tricked by a bumbling pair of loons–played by William H. Macy and Téa Leoni (whose hair was clearly styled by the world’s most dedicated Chynna Phillips fan)–whose son (Trevor Morgan) has gone missing on the island after a hang-gliding disaster with the teacher who fucks Reese Witherspoon in Election, who I believe is supposed to be Leoni’s new husband but looks convincingly enough like the town pederast. That the guy from Election shows up, not to mention Laura Dern in a thankless cameo, makes sense when you see Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor’s names appear in the end credits as co-writers. Unlike a lot of other writer-for-hire jobs, Payne and Taylor’s involvement isn’t mysterious or lost in translation, as their contribution can be seen entirely in Macy and Leoni’s characters, who appear to have been magically transported from a very different movie about goofy, bickering exes who inevitably fall back in love with each other. (In a perfect world, Dern would have reprised her role as Ruth Stoops instead of Dr. Ellie Sattler and been cosmically transported into Jurassic Park III).

All of the big dinosaur attacks, once Neill lands on the island with his protégé Alessandro Nivola and the Macy/Leoni odd couple, resemble little of what happens in the first two films, as new director Joe Johnston (the man responsible for such gems as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, The Pagemaster, Jumanji and most recently The Wolfman) shows more of an affinity for the Turok video games than the filmmaker he’d worked under for years. As is always the case for sequels, the stakes are higher, which here translates as the black guy getting offed earlier than he usually would (it takes a little longer for Michael Jeter to bite it). Of course, Macy and Leoni’s far-fetched-in-the-real-world but sure-to-be-true-in-the-movie-land notion that their child is still alive proves true, and of course, the kid is magnetically drawn to the otherwise misanthropic Dr. Grant… and thankfully isn’t half as irritating as the two writer’s contrivances that pass as Richard Attenborough’s grandchildren in the first film (the children of neurotic parents always turn out a lot saner than usual in movies, don’t they?).

At just ninety minutes, Jurassic Park III’s climax smells like the trenchant cocktail of screenplay revisions and budget-cuts, but that’s hardly a setback. Jurassic Park III provides more entertainment than it ever should have; placing a bunch of respectable actors in the broken back half of a jet that’s being tossed around and smashed by a dinosaur has never been a bad idea in my mind, and when those actors happen to be a desperate Sam Neill, a hot Alessandro Nivola, a mustache-donning William H. Macy and Téa Leoni (no adjective needed), I’m sold.

All three Jurassic Park films are available on DVD from Universal everywhere; Blu-rays have yet to come out for any of them.

Moi, ailleurs

In addition to my own proceedings, I participated on two other sites' '00s round-up, both of which were posted today. Firstly, over at The Auteurs Notebook, a collection of writers submitted a single image from a single film from the past ten years and then defended that with a single sentence. The image I selected came from Claire Denis' L'intrus.

Over at Out 1 Film Journal, I was asked to contribute my Top 13 Films of the '00s (which you can find here), as well as 5 performances and directors (for their entire output over the past ten years). You can see the results at the link above.

The performances I selected, in order, were:

1. Isabelle Huppert - La pianiste
2. Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
3. Tilda Swinton - Julia
4. Laura Dern - Inland Empire
5. Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson

So to conclude my list-making of the '00s, I came up with 20 runners-up, alphabetically. It's predictably female-heavy. Had I seen Inglourious Basterds before a few days ago, I probably would have included Mélanie Laurent... but I'm always reluctant to make such high claims without allowing time to set in first.

Asia Argento - Boarding Gate
Javier Bardem - Before Night Falls
Juliette Binoche - Code inconnu (or Le voyage du ballon rouge)
Björk - Dancer in the Dark
Maggie Cheung - Clean
Penélope Cruz - Volver (or Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Béatrice Dalle - À l'intérieur
Julie Delpy - Before Sunset
Emmanuelle Devos - for really every single film I saw her in during the '00s, I couldn't choose just one
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Antichrist
Olivier Gourmet - Le fils
Gene Hackman - The Royal Tenenbaums
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Ashley Judd - Bug
Samantha Morton - Morvern Callar
María Onetto - La mujer sin cabeza
Clive Owen - Closer
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos - Femme Fatale
Carice van Houten - Zwartboek
Jürgen Vogel - Die freie Wille

My 10 Favorite Cinematic Madwomen

I don't know how this blog passer-on'ers work, but I've been noticing a handful of the blogs I read picking out their 10 favorite film characters, and a whore for lists, I'm going to post mine anyway (though I think you're supposed to be tagged). But instead of my 10 favorite film characters, of which I could never begin to narrow down, I've chosen my 10 Favorite Cinematic Madwomen. That sounds a lot more fun than the other idea. And, yes, some of these ladies suffer from a higher form of neurosis than others, but they'll always have a soft spot in my black heart. Note: I should mention that these are not ranked.

1. Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) - Showgirls

"I used to love Doggy Chow too!" Beware of her flailing arms and legs. She's a kicker and, as seen in her pool "love making" with Kyle Maclachlan, a flopper too, and she storms out of rooms like no other.. Hailing from "different places," Nomi lights the Vegas scene on fire; I don't think the town has ever been the same since.

2. Dawn Davenport (Divine) - Female Trouble

"I've done everything a mother can do: I've locked her in her room, I've beat her with the car aerial. Nothing changes her. It's hard being a loving mother." The parents of Dawn Davenport, shit-kicker/supermodel/burglar/high school drop-out/"loving mother," were right: nice girls don't wear cha cha heels. And her best friend Concetta (Cookie Mueller) was also right: we're just jealous 'cos they're so pretty.

3. Ramona Lutz (Amanda Plummer) - Freeway

"I bet you like havin' your wierner sucked." It's hard to choose from Freeway's cornucopia of eccentric characters, all of which make Reese Witherspoon's Vanessa Lutz look normal by comparison, but I've always had a fondness for her hooker/methhead mother. Ramona's just under a lot of stress; her sister died three months ago and she's tryin' to get off Methadone. A special mention for Vanessa's lesbian cell mate Rhonda (Brittany Murphy) and the queen of the prison Mesquita (Alanna Ubach). John Waters approves.

4. Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) - Rosemary's Baby

Politely refuse if Minnie offers you something she refers to as, "snips and snails and puppy dog's tails." That's the best advice I can offer.

5. Ashley St. Ives (Edy Williams) - Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

"You're a groovy boy, I'd like to strap you on some time." I unofficially decided to choose only one character per director, and it was awfully hard to pick between fab porn actress Ashley St. Ives and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'s Varla (Tura Satana). In case you didn't know, there's nothing like a Rolls, and she'll be happy to show you (around the 9 minute mark).

6. Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern) - Citizen Ruth

"Suck the shit out of my ass, you fucker." When Ruth finds out she's pregnant (again), that doesn't stop her from hittin' the hardware store for some grade-A huffin' material. I'm still searching for the best opportunity to tell someone what she tells the guy who impregnanted her.

7. Margaret White (Piper Laurie) - Carrie

Margaret was right in telling her daughter Carrie (Sissy Spacek) that they all were going to laugh at her.

8. Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) - Mommie Dearest

Don't fuck with her, fellas. There's that famous scene, but I always loved it when her daughter Christina (Diana Scarwid) tells the frantic Joan that she isn't "one of her fans."

9. Anna (Isabelle Adjani) - Possession

Whether placing the meat carver up to her neck or making "love" to a demon, Anna commands the screen, much more so than her limp husband played by Sam Neill. Arguably one of the greatest moments in cinema history (and film acting) occurs when she exits the subway car and goes into a frenzy in the terminal.

10. Neisha (Macy Gray) - Shadowboxer

She'll take five drinks and something strong, bartender. Just when you thought asking Denzel Washington to see the warrant would be Macy's only explosion on the film screen (aside from playing herself in Spider-Man), she tops that with every one of her (two, maybe three) scenes in Shadowboxer. The best is when we finally get to see the "Ladies' Night" she was telling Vanessa Ferlito about, where the only other bar patron is a frightening drag queen she gets Cuba Gooding Jr. to buy a drink for. If only I had the skills to rip that scene from my DVD onto YouTube. Read more here.

I strayed away from the more sympathetic of the crazies, like Ashley Judd's Agnes in Bug, Faye's Evelyn Mulwray in Chinatown, Bibi Andersson's Alma from Persona and Margit Carstensen's Petra von Kant from The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. And I couldn't justify calling Kelly (Constance Towers) in The Naked Kiss "crazy."

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.

Koch Lorber in September + Others

I had previously announced that Koch Lorber will be releasing Céline Sciamma's Water Lilies [Naissance des pieuvres] on 2 September, but they will also be releasing Rodolphe Marconi's documentary Lagerfeld Confidential on the same day.

Additionally, Lionsgate has announced a Special Edition of Jeunet et Caro's Delicatessen for 26 August, though the shift of rights from Miramax to them is not something I'm aware of. They will also release a film called Kitchen Privileges, formally titled Housebound, starring Peter Sarsgaard, on the same day; the film is an update of Roman Polanski's Repulsion with Catherine Deneuve.

The Weinsteins have tentatively announced a special edition of Jet Li's Fist of Legend for 9 September, but I wouldn't hold my breath on this one, as the Weinsteins, particularly when under the Dragon Dynasty label, have delayed numerous releases. It should be the first time the film is available uncut and undubbed in the United States. Rhino is also set to release for the first time on DVD Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains starring a very young Diane Lane and Laura Dern on 30 September.

As mentioned by Eric, MGM will release their special edition of Night of the Hunter on 9 September. No additional material has been announced yet. Porchlight Entertainment will release the Canadian drama Normal, starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Callum Keith Rennie and Kevin Zegers on 7 October. Image will release the Pang brothers' Re-Cycle on 23 September, and HBO will have their original movie Recount, with Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, Bob Balaban, Denis Leary and John Hurt, on 19 August. Miramax will have Joachim Trier's wonderful Reprise out on 2 September.

On the international front, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi's Actrices [Actresses], which is owned by IFC in the US, will be released in France by Wild Side Vidéo on 26 June. France Télévisions will release Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra in France on 9 July. TF1 Vidéo released David Oelhoffen's Nos retrouvailles [In Your Wake] on 7 May. Lee Chang-dong's Cannes-winning Secret Sunshine was released on the same day from TF1. I cannot vouch for subtitles on any of these discs.

In the UK, Axiom Films released the unavailable-in-the-US Alice in the Cities from 1974 and directed by Wim Wenders. Arrow Films will have a special edition of Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, on 23 June. Two months after Gaumont releases it in France, Yume Pictures brings Nagisa Oshima's Pleasures of the Flesh onto DVD on 25 August. Mr. Bongo Films has Antonioni's Identification of a Woman [Identificazione di una donna] on 30 June.

Soda Pictures will release the acclaimed La léon, from director Santiago Otheguy, on 25 August; Water Bearer Films should have the film available in the US later this year. Artificial Eye will release Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress on the same day. Artificial Eye will also have Roy Andersson's You the Living on 14 July. BFI will also have two films from Terence Davies, whose documentary Of Time and the City was widely regarded as one of the finest films to play at this year's Cannes Film Festival, on 21 July: The Long Day Closes and The Terence Davies Trilogy.

For those without a region-free player, you can find Denys Arcand's L'âge des ténèbres [The Age of Ignorance] from Alliance Atlantis on 30 June. The film stars Diane Kruger and Rufus Wainwright, among others, concludes Arcand's trilogy which began with The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions, and still has no US distributor.

(S)he's Lost Control 2

Riddle me this: Is anyone finding it troublesome to return to Inland Empire? It seems to be selling well on the Internet (with multiple covers for those Lynchian losers who felt the need to own both the Naomi Watts and Laura Harring covers of Mulholland Drive), but I'm concerned. I revisited the film (or, the DVD) over the weekend and couldn't even get a fourth of the way through it. I also attempted More Things That Happened, a companion piece to Inland Empire that runs about the same length with stuff Lynch cut out (I know, you're surprised anything was cut out as well), and found it to be even more troubling than Inland Empire. Did Lynch really go as wrong as I was afraid he had? Should we be thanking all those French producers who've breathed over Lynch's shoulder in the past for not allowing him to give us this?

I get the feeling that the die-hard Lynch fans are jumping on the Inland Empire bandwagon out of guilt for initially rejecting Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I think, now, most people see FWWM as one of his finer endeavors, something completely unexpected and thoroughly unsettling. Lynch's weirdness in IE makes FWWM pale in comparison, but is that the reason why it has such a high IMDb rating? I think it's quite obvious, when viewing IE, that he had no idea what he was doing, with parallel storylines that almost scratch the surface of another just enough to make people think, "maybe it does make sense." And, in a grand scale, IE does make sense, but you have to trim all the fat to get to just a meager understanding of what exactly is going on.

And, really, for the most part, IE isn't so much to look at in its digital format. A beautiful image or two barely justifies three hours. Please, share your thoughts, particularly if you have revisited the film since its theatrical release.

Baby's On Fire

Pick of the Day: Citizen Ruth - dir. Alexander Payne - 1996 - USA

The only thing that irritates me more than parking spaces dedicated to "expectant mothers" at grocery stores is hearing about celebrities having babies. And, to honor all those media-whores and those who actually care about them, my pick of the day is Alexander Payne's Citizen Ruth, a dark comedy about abortion. I thought about using Rosemary's Baby, but I'll save that for a later date. Ruth (Laura Dern, in one of her best roles) likes to huff paint and, after finding out she's pregnant (for the fifth time), a court orders her to abort or go to prison. A bunch of crazy pro-lifers (headed by Swoosie Kurtz) take it upon themselves to make Ruth the poster-child for their cause in an leftist, godless America. While Sideways was, in my opinion, the most overrated film of last year, Citizen Ruth (along with his follow-up, Election) remains a biting and relevant satire.


On a sad note, Shelley Winters died this past weekend. I may hate the "In Memoriam" tribute, which usually just amasses to a popularity contest, at the Oscars, but when one of the screen greats passes, I think it's only best to recognize their contributions. Expect some picks of the day this week dedicated to some of Shelley's best.