New Fountain of Useless Information Issue 7

overture, curtain, lights

Welcome to yet another star studded, action packed, suspensefully funny issue of your favorite bathroom material (and those of you using this as toilet paper....use it in good health). Anyway.....I'd ramble on a bit more about nothing in particular, but I've got plenty to write home about so.....on with the show this is it.

welcome to the 21st century

It's amazing what kind of a country we live in. Our government can't get their act together on reforming health care, social security, or welfare, but give them a topic that really matters and watch how they screw us all for a few bucks. If you haven't heard the FCC finally has gotten their shit together with HDTV (high definition television for those still living in caves). What this means for Joe Six Pack and his family is that by the year 2006 he's gonna have to shell out a shit-load of money to replace his TV and VCR with new digital versions. That's right....digital TVs and VCRs will be hitting the market by the end of next year (expect prices to start at $5000 for TVs and $1000 for VCRs). By that point a good number of broadcast stations will also begin broadcasting digital signals (don't worry they'll have dual analog broadcasts for at least a year before going all digital). For those of you with more than one TV currently trying to figure out if you'll be able to afford the upgrade or children, you will be able to buy a converter that will change the digital signal into analog so your current TV isn't completely useless (the converters starts at around $200). Anyone currently contemplating the step "up" into DVD may want to think twice now because the current DVD players aren't compatible with tomorrow's TVs even though that first D stands for Digital. This is just another step towards that really neat concept called conversion. You know, that's where your blender will also toast bread, call 911, and orally gratify you all at the same time. Isn't progress just spiffy? Smaller, digital, and all-in-one aren't necessarily good things, but we're humans...we'll never learn.

speaking of our government

How many of you out there knew about the new federal law that makes it illegal for a motion picture to depict minors having sex or in sexual situations even if the actors in the roles are not minors? Huh...what'd he just say? Basically what this means is that certain movies like...oh I don't know....let's say The Last Picture Show could technically be banned and deemed illegal because Cybil Shephard has sex. Now I believe at the time Cybil was in her 20's, but her character was still in high school. Get the picture? This law was one of those silly things that was tacked onto some other stupid congressional idea (I believe it may have been the balanced budget act) and it's purpose was to weed out "pornography" (whatever the hell that is....but that's a whole other ball o snot). Didn't anyone really think of the ramifications of this? Thankfully so far...not. But it's gonna happen. If we live in a country where some backwater hick congressman can complain about NBC's airing of Schindler's List as being too violent and sex-filled, then you know where he's headed next. If it ain't gonna be The Last Picture Show, it could be Porky's or Risky Business or Biloxi Blues or (fill in the blank with any other movie title where teens have sex).

Well...I think I'm done with my political rant....oh wait one last thing.....I may not like Ted Turner for a variety of reasons (colorization, trying to supress Crash, marrying Jane Fonda), but the man did come out and say the right thing on a subject that's taken up way too much time in the news. I'm paraphrasing, but he was attributed as having said something to the effect of "Why are we wasting our time broadcasting information about a bunch o wackos who killed themselves, when we should be celebrating the 6 billion smart people who didn't?" Enough said

siskle and ebert can go f!@# themselves

I'm tired of movie critics these days. All they do is lie and make hypocritcal and false statements. The bald turd and the fat blob have this tendency to watch movies, enjoy movies, and then sum up by giving it a thumbs down. What?!!!! "I liked it, but I can't recommend it." How asinine does that sound? My current beef with them (and others) concerns the big screen remake of The Saint. This film is by no means an Oscar contender, but it's also not the dog that they claim it is. Their biggest mistake is comparing it to the James Bond films. To "quote" Lloyd Benson "I like James Bond, I know James Bond, This is no James Bond." Part of this may be the fault of Paramount's marketing department. They are trying to make The Saint comparable to last summer's similar source material Mission Impossible (another film with an undeserved bad rap). The previews make this film out to be a rocking action film along the lines of any one of the Bond pictures. It's not. It's not even close. Just because a guy who used to play The Saint went on to become James Bond (I'm talking about Roger Moore for those that don't know), doesn't mean that The Saint and James Bond are the same person....they're far from it. Bond is an international superspy with a cool attitude. The Saint is a Robin Hood-like thief who also does some detective work. The new film has more in common with Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief that any other film (quick aside...Hitchcock was originally supposed to direct the 1930's movie version, but he backed out to do Rebecca instead).

Val Kilmer starts as Simon Templar, a master of disguise and a techno-freak who will pull off any theft as long as the price is right. He's hired by a Russian oil magnate (from whom he just stole a chip) to steal a cold fusion formula from an American scientist (Elizabeth Shue). Templar seduces her, steals the formula, and then feels guilty about it because she fell in love with him. On top of this, she hadn't put the formula in the correct order, so the Russian ain't too happy either. Now he's got to save himself and the girl and possibly even Russia itself from this madman.

Okay...plot sounds simple enough. The movie has some problems. First is the opening. We get a Dickensian orphanage and a back story for Simon Templar that is just plain goofy (I won't even describe it, but it has to do with mean clergymen and the death of his childhood sweetheart). Second is Emma's (Elizabeth Shue) heart condition. She takes pills, but then all of a sudden she doesn't need them. Perhaps the excitement of being with Simon has "cured" her? Yeah right! I like the concept that even Simon isn't sure of who he is (thus explaining his need for disguises) and I like that each new persona is named for a Catholic saint. But another thing I don't like is the pay-off for him becoming "sainted". A Catholic saint needs to perform three miracles to get the designation. Simon performs two that work with the story...the third doesn't (he gets Emma to tell him she loves him...blech). Before Paramount ran the film for test audiences, Emma died at the end. This could have been his third miracle....bringing her back to life (with or without the pills), but it wasn't to be. The movie has a great musical soundtrack, including an update of the TV show theme. Roger Moore has a brief voice-over at the end of the film. On the whole, I enjoyed the film once I realized what it was really trying to be....no thanks to Siskle and Ebert.

short takes

Sling Blade - this Oscar winning film (Best Adapted Screenplay), is a very riveting and surprising film. It runs well over two hours, and even though it is leisurely paced, it doesn't feel slow. If you don't know the story, I'm not going to give it away. I went in only with the knowledge that this film was kinda like Forrest Gump, only slightly more psychotic. Billy Bob Thornton deserved the Oscar he did win and the other he was nominated for (Best Actor). John Ritter (of Three's Company fame) gives a surprising performance. So surprising, in fact, some of you may not quite recognize him at first.

Sleepers - an all-star cast barely appears in this 2 1/2 hour plus film. Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Brad Pitt, and Jason Patric are all listed above the title, but have little screen time in comparison to the four youths who this film is truly about. Four boys from Hell's Kitchen accidentally kill a man and are sent to a juvenile detention center where they are mentally, physically, and sexually abused by their guards (including the lead guard Kevin Bacon). Years later, two of them (who are now gangsters) spot Bacon in a bar and kill him. The other two (a journalist played by Patric and a lawyer played by Pitt) help their buddies and exact revenge against the system that made them what they are. Dustin Hoffman plays the defense attorney and DeNiro plays a priest who has been the boys' friend throughout their lives. The movie is riveting for the first hour and a half following the boys growing up, but then it bogs down for the remainder of the film when it pretty much turns into a courtroom drama. Minni Driver also stars. The movie is based on a book whose author claims the events he depicts are true.

Grosse Point Blank - John Cusack stars as a hit man who is having problems with his life. His competition (played gleefully by Dan Aykroyd) wants him to join the union he's putting together. His shrink (played nervously by Alan Arkin) is afraid of him. And his high school ten year reunion is coming up. He reluctantly goes home to discover his childhood home is now a convenience store, his mom's in a home, and he's still pining for the girl he stood up on prom night (Minni Driver). Hilarity ensues as Cusack has to dodge others who are trying to kill him, old friends he doesn't want to remember, and a target he doesn't want to kill. This is by far one of the funniest films in quite some time. It's Pulp Fiction meets Pretty In Pink. Joan Cusack also has a supporting role as her brother's secretary.

Chasing Amy - Kevin Smith (director of Clerks and Mallrats) brings us his most mature and thought provoking film to date. The story is quite simply the classic one of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy finds out girl is a lesbian, boy and girl become good friends, boy's best friend can't handle the lesbian because of his own sexual "frustrations", girl is won over by boy and becomes his lover, boy finds about girl's past in which she was heavily into sexual experimentation with both women and men, boy can't handle fact that girl slept with other men, and then all hell breaks loose. Somewhere in this whole chaotic mess is an appearance by the two characters everyone loves Jay and Silent Bob. References to his two previous films abound. The first half is hysterically funny, the second half is not as funny, but it shouldn't be. The only real problem with this film is Joey Lauren Adams' acting in certain scenes. It would have been more appropriate if she were less hysterical and more calm.

McHale's Navy - with a cast that includes such funny people as Tim Curry, Tom Arnold, Bruce Campbell, French Stewart, Brian Haley, Dean Stockwell, and Ernest Borgnine, you'd think this would be a very funny film. Well, you'd be thinking wrong.

peaks and valleys

Last year we had the pleasure of two alien invasion movies (the unintentionally funny and stupid Independence Day and the hysterically funny, yet slow moving Mars Attacks). This year we get dueling volcano movies. First came Dante's Peak starring Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton in which a geologist with a painful past tries to warn a town of impending doom. It's only in the last half hour that the volcano erupts, the first part of the film setting up some typical character development. Now comes Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, Gabby Hoffman, and Don Cheadle in which a tectonic plate shift causes a volcanic eruption in downtown Los Angeles. It's the first fifteen minutes where the characters are set up in a completely negligible fashion and then the rest of the film is spent running from slow flowing lava. Both films have decent premises that are marred by different problems. Dante's Peak spends way too much time on character development and some of that doesn't pay off in expected ways (which is a good thing), but it takes too long to get to the inevitable. Volcano plays more like a Mel Brooks parody of a disaster film (which is what Mr. Brooks should do next...a big nineties disaster film comedy....but I digress) in which the characters are so stupid it's incredible. Just one example (because I could go on forever about the stupidity in this film): a man rescues a guy from a train car, but the lava has surrounded the train. The guy knows he's gonna die, but he sacrifices himself to save the 220+ pound guy he's carrying fireman style over his shoulder. He jumps into the lava and begins to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. Agonizing pain, yes...realistic, no. But the man still has energy to hurl the unconscious man a good five or six feet over the lava to safety. Now forgive me if I'm wrong (I'm no geologist), but if you got anywhere within, let's say three inches of lava, wouldn't you burst into flames? And if you stepped into it, wouldn't you immediately burst into flames (including the 220+ pound guy on your shoulders) instead of melting? Volcano is full of silly things like this (including a racial harmony message that has no place in this film). If you want a better film, catch Dante's Peak when it comes out on video (probably in August or September). If you want something that's action-packed, yet truly awful check out Volcano. Next year we get dueling asteroid movies. Hooray For Hollywood.

not fun in the summertime

It's usually around this time of year that I give a rundown of movies that we can look forward to this coming summer, since the summer movie season starts around Memorial Day. Since, as far as I'm concerned, the summer movie season started the day Dante's Peak opened (February 7) I'm going to let you know what NOT to look forward to. The summer of 1997 will be looked back upon as the WORST summer movie season since the last summer movie season (and you thought that was bad). The Lost World is the sequel to Jurassic Park. It should be better than the book (which read like a remake of the movie Congo) because they've changed a lot of it. Speed 2: Cruise Control is the most useless excuse for a sequel since The Cannonball Run II (Keanu was smart getting out of this one). Con Air is the first of this summer's Nicholas Cage action films (and this summer's Simpson-less Bruckheimer film)....the second might fare better as it co-stars John Travolta and is directed by John Woo (it's called Face Off and has nothing to do with hockey). Batman And Robin....don't get me started....look for the June issue to be an all-Batman issue that rips both Joel Schumacher films apart (the better Batman film is coming straight to video and it's animated). Hercules is this summer's Disney Animated Masterpiece (their 35th by their count) and is the only film I can't wait to see. It looks hysterical. Harrison Ford returns in Air Force One....guess what gets captured by terrorists. James Cameron has out-done, out-scheduled, and out-budgeted himself with the quickly approaching $200 million epic Titanic which fictionalizes the characters while keeping the facts straight (when will someone learn not to give this man all the money in the world). Sigourney Weaver returns as everyone's favorite alien-killing Ripley in Alien Resurrection (hey didn't she die in the last one....well this one's a clone). Spawn and Steel leap off the comic book page as the entire nation sighs and goes "Who?"....Everyone's favorite video game returns in Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Bruce Willis plays a cab driver in search of The Fifth Element. Those are the highlights (or nighlights)....even further in the future look for Tomorrow Never Dies in which James Bond returns to stop a Rupert Murdoch-type from destroying Hong Kong (it has Pierce Brosnan, Jonathan Pryce, Michelle Kahn, and Teri Hatcher - a new update on this next month along with a review of Raymond Benson's first Bond novel....whose first printing in Britain sold out in one week). Next summer look for Tim Burton to direct Nicholas Cage as Superman Reborn (or Superman Lives depending on whom you talk to). Michael Keaton puts in a cameo as everyone's late lamented Dark Knight in a script by Kevin Smith that's being rewritten by others (and yes it features Luthor, Brainiac, and Doomsday). Also if you haven't heard the cast for the next Star Wars (possibly called Balance Of The Force) film is shaping up as follows: Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Natalie Portman, and Ewan MacGregor as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi (although as we go to press, those last two might be out). More on this as it develops.

As we go to press: Alien Resurrection has been pushed back to November to get away from the "summer competition". And James Cameron's uber-film Titanic will not be docking anywhere near July 4th weekend unless they can get the special effects done in time. Apparently 100 computer geeks working round the clock from now until July 1 isn't enough time or man power. More money is needed. The way Hollywood does accounting (something I've briefly touched on before and should tackle in depth soon), this film will NEVER COME CLOSE to turning a profit.

dance, vidiots, dance

Well, the new technology DVD (Digital Versatile Disc - though no one but Toshiba will apparently call it that) has been on the marketplace for about a month. To state my opinion once again....I think this is a format with a lot of potential that is being marketed by the biggest A-holes this side of Mars. Once again backing up this claim (and once again bashing that corporate non-entity known as Warner), Warner Home Video is distributing their titles (as well as subsidiaries MGM/UA Home Video, New Line Home Video, and HBO Home Video) through three channels: directly to accounts, through Ingram, and through Image Entertainment. These last two are middle men; one a giant in the video distribution system, the other in the laser distribution system. Both companies are restricted from distributing to accounts anywhere except the seven "test markets" (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Chicago, and Washington DC). They have both been warned that they will punished if they even accidentally break this distribution pipe (I think the punishment had something to do with being forced to watch Twister and Being Human back to back for a whole month on end). Anyway...the accounts that Warner distributes to directly are apparently not affected by this since places like Media Buys and Nobody Likes The Wiz are getting shipments into their stores in those cities and side shipping them off to other places (like Norwalk, CT where a certain small video store is heavily into laserdisc and would love to jump the gun but can't because they aren't big enough to deal with Warner and Image can't ship to...but the fucking Wiz is not only selling the (&*^%&^ Warner titles, they're blatantly advertising them!!!!!!! AARRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!)

Anyway....the hippo Warner (hippo as in hypocritical) once again gets a raspberry for their stupid plan of "test marketing" DVD and creating a false demand where none exists. This is the second of many raspberries that Warner will be getting from me in the coming months. On a surprising note, even though they've decided to neglect their laserdisc market, they apparently are putting the direct to video animated Batman movie Sub-Zero on laserdisc. Thanks for small favors guys. Too little, too late. What about that box set of The Wild Bunch you promised 2 years ago. You know the one that you postponed so you could put together a documentary. A documentary so good, you postponed the disc to release the documentary to theaters. The one that played in theaters and got an Oscar nomination (ha ha it lost). That same documentary that's being released on DVD only along with a widescreen/dolby digital version of The Wild Bunch. Fuck you very much guys.....oh and speaking of things from Warner that will probably never show up on laserdisc:

here's johnny

ABC has just finished airing a brand new six hour miniseries version of Stephen King's The Shining. Now, you may ask, why would we need a six hour miniseries when Stanley Kubrick made a perfectly good two hour movie 17 years ago (was it that long ago)? Well because Kubrick's film wasn't anywhere near perfect. Stephen King has always stated that he's been disappointed by Kubrick's film even referring to it as a "big beautiful car, with no engine". Apparently in order to get the rights back from Kubrick, King is no longer allowed to bad mouth the movie version. However, his view is a matter of record, and this contract doesn't apply to me...so I'll be ripping it apart as I go about reviewing the new version (actually I won't be ripping Kubrick's film apart...as a film it's quite good - and scary - as an adaptation of King's novel, it sucks).

King has written a very faithful adaptation of his own novel and has helped director Mick Garris cast it in a novel and unique way. Steven Webber (of TV's Wings) plays Jack Torrence, blocked writer, former drunk, fired teacher, loving father, and now caretaker of the Overlook Hotel - a place so haunted I wouldn't know where to begin. Jack takes his job seriously, so seriously that he winds up not working on his play to start researching a book about the hotel's rich and eerie past. It is this obsession that the ghosts use to get him drinking again (even though there's no alcohol in the snowed-in hotel) and then use a drunk Jack to get his son, whom they want more than anything. Jack's son Danny (played by Courtney Mead) has a special gift....a type of telepathy referred to as "Shining". The hotel's cook, Dick Halloran (Melvin Van Peebles) has it too, and it's he whom Danny "calls" from Florida to help them at the end. Our last character in this story is Jack's wife Wendy (Rebecca DeMornay) who loves her husband, but is still slightly unsure of his former drinking habits.

All of this stands in contrast to Kubrick's film where Jack (Jack Nicholson) is insane from day one and doesn't seem to have any love for his family, where Danny is a stiff who can only "talk" through his finger, where Wendy is a whining screaming sissy (played to perfection by Shelly DuVall), and where Halloran becomes dead as soon as he sets foot in the Overlook at the end (and so goes Scatman Crothers).

In the film, it is Jack that the hotel wants. In the book, and now the mini-series, it's Danny. Director Garris has done some stylistic things reminiscent of Kubrick's film, but without the artsy, and constant, use of a steadicam. This miniseries is a slow boil that takes it's time setting up everything, but once Jack goes over the edge (around the fourth hour) things move at such a clip and keep you so on the edge of your seat, you wonder why the hell you're watching knowing you're gonna be frustrated when they have to cut to commercial. Wait for this on video if you didn't see it yet. It's a must see, but you really shouldn't have to deal with the commercial breaks. It'll play much smoother as a 4 1/2 hour video.

As for King and the miniseries format, there's only two possibilities currently for him: a remake of 'Salem's Lot (already done as a decent 4 hour miniseries = 3 hours on video) or The Talisman (the ONLY way to do this book). The rest of King's work that currently remains unfilmed, consists of bloated books that would be better served as feature films where the script has cut the fat and gotten to the heart of the story (specifically speaking Desperation and The Regulators). Oh....and The Dark Tower series shouldn't be filmed until King's written the last part (and who knows when that'll happen....part IV comes out in late summer)

it's the end of the issue as we know it, and i feel fine

Well that's it for this month. Next month comes a review of the sequel to Jurassic Park entitled The Lost World, an overview of recent Shakespeare films, a look back at this past TV season and a look ahead at the next one, a review of Raymond Benson's first James Bond novel Zero Minus Ten, a goodbye look at Virgin Books Doctor Who: The New Adventures as it comes to an end (and the how's and why's of it's end as well as where the good Doctor may show up next), and the usual movie reviews, video reviews, rumor updates, and Warner bashing (I'll have a new excuse next month...promise....sorry Jason).

As for future things to look for: the long awaited debut of the Nowhere Man episode guide, the second season episode guide to SeaQuest DSV, and a 50th issue spectacular (50 issues....if this is #7...how do you come close to 50?.....this is the NEW Fountain of Useless Information...I started the OLD version in November of 1992 and having missed a few months here and there I'll hit my 5 year anniversary on my 50th issue and I'm planning something very special.....even I don't know what it is yet).

So until next month:

Be seeing you

Joel
Master Of His Own Domain