Playing Catch Up Again

Hey folks,

I'm still trying to catch up on films from 2005 so I can publish my Top 25 (I've got seven open slots right now...and I don't feel like adding mediocre films to the list, but I will if I have to as I want to get it out of my hands by the time the Oscars roll around this weekend). I've been a bit bust between producing Room Service in Darien (which is going to be very funny...it opens March 10...call 655-5414 for tickets) and doing last minute sound effects for A Few Good Men in Stamford (which opens March 3...don't have the phone number on my mind, but curtaincallinc.com is the web site) and finalizing a cast for Sly Fox which I'm directing, it's been a bit crazy...

And let's add in all the Malcolm related stuff as well...

Anyway...today we've got a few catch up reviews...

The Dukes of Hazzard is a pretty crappy movie based on a popular, but dated TV series. I watched the original show when it was on. I wouldn't call myself a "fan" in the sense that I watched it religiously...but I did watch it often enough to enjoy it. The original show was about a couple of "good ole boys, never meanin' no harm". The Duke Boys were good guys, likeable guys, well meaning guys. They were Tom Wopat and John Schneider...and we loved them for being such gosh darn swell guys while they were evading Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane and foiling the machinations of Boss Hogg.

The movie is pretty much the porn version of the TV series. The minute you heard that Johhny Knoxville and Seann Scott Williams had been cast as the Dukes, you knew the film was gonna be a problem. These guys tend to play jackasses...and not quite likeable jackasses at that. So that's pretty much what we get here. And that attitude seems to have been absorbed by every other character. Even Uncle Jesse as played by Willie Nelson is a dirty joke telling, marajuana smoking, bad ass. The "plot" involves the Dukes trying to stop Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds...oh how the mighty have fallen yet again) from strip mining all of Hazzard County. How they get there is so silly and pointless I won't even bother to tell you.

While every TV series turned big screen movie needs to find its "hook" to make it work, turning The Dukes of Hazzard into this was the worst possible way to go about this one.

Sometimes a movie comes out that gets so much praise and I sit there watching and go "huh?" So it was with Brokeback Mountain. The film is amazing acted, beautifully shot and well written. But the pacing is slow as hell. The film takes its time telling its story and not in the good way. After about 40 minutes I was ready for the film to end. So while I can appreciate some of the praise that has been heaped upon the film, I don't understand all of it. Not the first time.

Crash is more my kind of film. It asks questions, it challenges and it moves. I don't want to say much more about this film because I was so enthralled by it...but if a film can have both a cameo by Tony Danza in which he probably does his best acting ever and have a performance by the normally vapid Ryan Phillippe that is Oscar worthy then you know its a great film.

With the musical genre still trying to will itself back to life, we're getting a couple of oddities this year. While The Producers may have blown up all the flaws of the stage version while remaining relatively faithful, Rent arrives about ten years too late for any purpose. The timeliness of the show ended around the turn of the century and the decision to use the original Broadway cast (or most of it) who are all too old to be playing twentysomethings was probably one of the worst casting decisions in film history. Everyone gets an "A" for effort except director Chris Colombus who still has a bland hand when it comes to visual style. He gets a "B-". The film as a whole gets about the same.

That's all for today. I'll be back before the end of the weekend with my long awaited Top 25 of 2005 list...come hell or high water.

Be seeing you.