The Year of Living Safely.

Either Jack Black is being reined in with a poor script, squelched by a conventional director, or he’s just plain gettin’ too old for this shit.

Maybe a combo-wombo of all three? YEAR ONE is a missed comedic opportunity, crying in the wilderness like Charlton Heston as Moses; a biblical comedy of pamphlet proportions.

Black is Zed, an inept caveman hunter; his best friend is Oh (Michael Cera), a willowy gatherer from the same small tribe. To score a tribeswoman, Maya (June Diane Raphael, almost more luminous than Maggie Gyllenhaal in DONNIE DARKO), Zed eats of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (what are the odds it’s right near their village?). Zed and Oh are subsequently banished from the village – not by God but by their tribe – and what started as a promising premise (a comedy featuring cavemen with modern day sensibilities) loses itself by expanding way past its time period; past its Use By date, if you will.

Every time Zed and Oh meet new characters on their banishment trek, the characters are in a further evolutionary epoch – for example, the first people they encounter are Cain (David Cross) and Abel (Paul Rudd), with writer-director Harold Ramis himself cameoing as Adam. One funny night in Genesis, and the next day, Zed and Oh encounter Greek soldiers, circa 3,000 BC, led by Vinnie Jones (they look like Romans, but Ramis tells us the costumes were researched as Greek). Then we’re back to biblical times when Zed and Oh meet Abraham (Hank Azaria) and trek to Sodom.

Poffraham The Cukumciser

Azaria bludgeons us unrepentantly as Abraham, cutting his words like a machete (channeling George C. Scott’s Abraham from THE BIBLE: IN THE BEGINNING, 1966), as he would start cutting foreskins on a whim for the sake of honoring his god. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (aka McLovin) is Isaac, the son who was saved from being a human sacrifice by “an angel” in the bible, but here, by Zed and Oh. (Like McLovin, Isaac tries to scam liquor cos he’s too young.)

Oliver Platt goes fey-tilt as the high priest of Sodom, falling hopelessly in perverse love with Oh, who becomes his golden-painted bitch, forced to rub body-oil into the High Priest’s matted jungle of chest hair that makes Paul Stanley’s chest look like Hugh Grant’s.

Olivia Wilde is the princess of Sodom (chosen as Maxim’s Hottest Female of 2009 – guess there’s no accounting for taste – if a woman is that flat, is appearing topless any kind of coup?), who really has nothing to do except pretend to be hotter than June Diane Raphael.

Look for Kyle Gass (Tenacious D’s rage kage) as the Eunuch.

These are A-list comedians populating this sprawling tale, so each vignette is hilarious unto itself (David Cross’s constant underhandedness, Azaria’s obsession with circumcision, Platt’s obsession with body oil, etc.), but none of them stitch together into a cohesive whole. Besides a watery questioning of organized religion, YEAR ONE takes no risks, and resolves with little fanfare and nothing interesting to say. I had higher hopes, considering Judd Apatow is one of the producers.

An Alternate Ending on the DVD shows the destruction of Sodom. That might have worked better than the lame theatrical release. If you’ve got nothing to say, at least say it loud with fireballs.

END

The Family that frays together…

What do you get when you reunite two high maintenance sisters after years of not speaking to each other? Higher maintenance.

Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son, Claude (Zane Pais) travel from Manhattan to Long Island, to attend the wedding of Margot’s sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to shiftless musician wannabe, Malcolm (Jack Black), whom Margot does not approve of.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, MARGOT AT THE WEDDING is one of those indie films where nothing actually happens, but everything gets complicated anyway, through small secrets and past deeds woven into the fabric of the characters’ lives before the camera started rolling.

We find that author Margot has visited Pauline for a number of reasons, none of which involve the joy of seeing Pauline wed – she runs from problems in her own marriage (to John Turturro) and harbors designs on a past lover (Ciarán Hinds) who lives nearby.

Grounded in reality, the camera does not shy away from these characters in their most intimate moments, and it is a pleasure to see the movie treating sex with such casualness, rather than with sanctity or prurience. The hotness of seeing Nicole Kidman masturbating is balanced quite egregiously with seeing Jack Black naked…

The backbiting and secret-sharing and illicit love affairs fly like daggers of snarkiness; Malcolm, a slave to his emotions, gets his Jack Black on and creates laughs from thin air in a character toned down for indie consumption; some crazy neighbors figure in some eerie confrontations; eventually the dysfunction reaches fever pitch and – like every indie movie about family dysfunction – ends like it’s in the middle of a senten

END

Apocalypse Maybe.

Bringing the Thunder.

As gut-wrenching as APOCALYPSE, as heartfelt as RYAN, and as filthy as fuck, TROPIC THUNDER is another in the small oeuvre of Ben Stiller writer-director-actor comedies where Stiller goes “full retard” for maximum satirical jungle juice.

Action movie juggernaut, Tugg Speedman (Stiller) and a platoon of spoiled-rotten actors (Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel), are having spoiled-rotten-actor issues while filming a cheddar-cheesy Viet Nam war movie with their frazzled director (Steve Coogan) – until their military consultant (grizzled Nick Nolte – that’s kinda tautologous nowadays) suggests they be air-lifted into real jungle in Southeast Asia to man them up, whereupon Tugg is captured by real guerillas (whom he thinks are actors), with his platoon forced to use their cheese chops and fake props to save him.

Brother Poffy

Plucking references from APOCALYPSE NOW, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, PLATOON, the RAMBO series, THE DEER HUNTER, BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, the cinematography sometimes brushes up so close to those classics it is eerie.

We sometimes mistake Stiller for a mediocre talent when we see him as Actor Only in drab dishrags like MEET THE FOCKERS and ALONG CAME POLLY, or mediocre milestones like MYSTERY MEN and DODGEBALL – but we need to separate those acting-only jobs from his personalized writer-director-actor projects.

This is the same man who brought us the brilliant – yet too-quickly-canceled – THE BEN STILLER SHOW (1992) and after getting his directorial feet wet with the GenX throwaway REALITY BITES, his subsequent writer-director-actor output is from stellar left field: THE CABLE GUY (1996), ZOOLANDER (2001), and now TROPIC THUNDER.

THUNDER is a tribute to the shit-kicking industry of movie-making; self-effacement, narcissism and irony girds the script and fuels the characters: Stiller’s Speedman is everything that Arnold and Stallone were, with ten times the hyperbole; Jack Black is heroin junkie Portnoy, with the fart-driven comedy franchise THE FATTIES; Brandon T. Jackson is hip-hop superstar Alpa Chino, with a soft drink line called Booty Juice; Jay Baruchel is the naive youngster starstruck just to be around legends; and under-used Steve Coogan is the flustered director who cannot control his movie stars.Tom Cruise IS super agent Les Grossman. He owns Les Grossman the way Les Grossman owns the quivering humanity lapping at his feet like surf on sand. This far into his career, somehow Cruise manages to slamdunk an iconic new character into the entertainment melange; unthinkably capitalistic, unapologetically inhumane and goddamn nut-drainingly hilarious. But you won’t know him when you see him… You’ll be loving the vitriol issuing like molten excrement from the fat, bald exec with the acid tongue (he keeps reminding his assistant (Bill Hader), “A nutless monkey could do your job!”) and at some point his mannerism or voice will sound familiar and you will suddenly see through the prosthetics to the Scientologist beneath!

Matthew McConaughey is Tugg’s agent, and still playing that same drawly surfer dude he has claimed as his own well into middle age. Danny McBride is the itchy-trigger-fingered explosives “expert.”

But TROPIC THUNDER belongs to Robert Downey Jr. For once that comedic force of nature known as Jack Black does not steal the show. Downey claims that award for, ironically, playing a black. He is simply astonishing as an Australian, Kirk Lazarus, an actor so immersed in Method that he undergoes “skin pigmentation” to play the role of an African-American, in a nod to that Hollywood idiocy of placing white movie stars in non-white roles.

At first it seems like a joke – but Downey goes deep. And never lapses. He IS The Black Man. He inhabits the skin of Lazarus so fully that most of his lines are ad-libbed – and sound authentically black! He lives the black vernacular, the black swagger, the black inflection… I’m sure African-Americans would pick his slipups (as I pick his fake Australiana), as the actual black guy on set does (Alpa Chino continually lambastes Lazarus for racism), but it’s so damn close to perfect, a troop of white policemen clubbing him would be hard pressed to tell.

When Tugg accuses Lazarus, “You people are always complaining…” Lazarus counters with “What do you mean ‘you people’?” To which actual-black-guy Alpa retorts, “What do you mean ‘you people’?”

Tugg’s previous Oscar-tilting role was in SIMPLE JACK, where he played a retarded man, yet lost the Oscar. Lazarus advises Tugg he shouldn’t have gone ‘full retard’: “Check it out: Dustin Hoffman – RAIN MAN, look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic? Sho’. Not retarded. Tom Hanks – FORREST GUMP. Slow? Yes. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain’t retarded…” He’s right – which shows how retarded Hollywood is.

In an inspired piece of screenwriting, the SIMPLE JACK subplot, the classic war films and this film’s opening scene itself all come together to create a satirical yet somehow tear-jerking climactic scene.

If Hollywood would make more movies like this one, maybe movies lambasting Hollywood like this one wouldn’t have to be made.

END

La Dumba.

Laugh Hard.

Musicians: this one’s for us.

WALK HARD is not for Guitar Hero fakers or karaoke jackasses or talentless DJs with the audacity to call their fade-ups and fade-downs “mixing.” Let me say it again: WALK HARD is for MUSICIANS; for we who have lived the road, beaten the boards, spanked the groupies, trashed the dressing room, fart-filled the studio, fed the beast our day-job dollar, and slapped the roadies and called them Susan.

Cuke Hard

The public won’t get WALK HARD as deeply as musicians will. And I don’t care. Cherish it, Musicians. Hug it and pet it and call it George.

After the two formulaic, Hollywood-drenched biopics, RAY and WALK THE LINE, set the standard and simultaneously lowered the bar for musician biographies, WALK HARD takes every single cliché from those glossy turkeys and parties with a penis in your face.

John C. Reilly is fictional songwriter-guitarist Dewey Cox, who rises to superstardom on the wings of cliché. Cliché so battering and obvious, we will never look at musician biopics with a straight face again, especially those featuring the seminal artists of the 50’s who rose from dance halls to superstardom – Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly. They ALL look like spoof biopics now!

Dewey finds he is talented at a young age, soon after slicing his brother in half with a machete, Monty Python style, who telegraphs the tragedy: “Everything’s fine when you have such a long life in front of you!” Later, Dewey’s father (tough-as-nails Raymond J. Barry) would constantly lament, “The wrong keed died!”

John C. Reilly lives Dewey Cox, performing all his comedic songs himself, which are actually enjoyable and catchy country/rock and roll tunes. We follow him from his big break in a colored club “where people come to dance erotically,” to touring with Elvis and Jerry Lee, to immediate radio airplay with his hit Walk Hard (“recorded just 35 minutes ago by Dewey Cox”). Dewey meets The Beatles (Jack Black as Paul, Justin Long as George, Paul Rudd as John), experiments with musical styles from Dylan to Bowie; on through the 70s he hosts a TV show and marries Cheryl Tiegs (playing herself, taking the name Cheryl Cox-Tiegs – yeah, say it out loud). In the 80s, Dewey succumbs to mind-altering drugs while trying to compose a magnum opus with ethnic orchestras, trampolines, farm animals and fruit. He even takes a leaf from his friend Will Ferrell’s book and runs naked through the streets during a freakout.

WALK HARD will be compared to the progenitor of this rocku-mockumentary genre, SPINAL TAP, as WALK-HARD’s makers also display actual hands-on, penis-on knowledge of their target.

Writer-director Jake Kasdan and co-writer Judd Apatow ladle out every single vignette that musician biopic screenwriters have grown lazy on – from teens at the dance warming to Dewey’s high school band and jiggling in ways that make a priest yell, “devil’s music,” to the record producer admonishing Dewey then suddenly loving his song (a riotous John Michael Higgins cameo, “…and if somehow you are able to sing a song now with these boys whom you haven’t even met… but I’m telling you right now, I don’t think it’s going to happen… I’ll give you 15 seconds”), to the whining wife in curlers (Kristen Wiig) cradling three babies, constantly telling Dewey he’ll “never make it” – even whilst he is on the road supporting a number one album. With a penis in his face.

Musicians know these scenes from their own lives, and how Hollywood has compressed them to nut-squeezing idiocy. Kasdan and Apatow display a virtuoso’s knowledge of their subject, down to making the instrument-playing look authentic (a pet peeve of all musicians watching musician movies). The script is as taut as a guitar string and sings like a Les Paul plugged through a Marshall stack on 11.

Johnny Cash and Ray Charles would be spinning in their graves – if they were not laughing so hard.

Slap a roadie for me. With your cock.

END

Movie: Chop Socky. Message: Kung Fooey.

With astounding cinematography, well-written characters, directorial creativity, incredible technical prowess and stunning animation, KUNG FU PANDA only lacks in one department – its message that Prophecy Is Better Than Practice.

Directed with kinetic frenzy by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson like Michael Bay meets John Woo, the awesomeness of the Panda is diluted with the insidiousness of the Pander.

Jack Black voices fat panda Po, who lives in a China where animals populate the land (mainly ducks and bunnies as the proletariat classes). Obsessed with kung fu, he watches from afar as the famous Furious Five (Monkey, Crane, Tigress, Mantis and Snake) show off their martial arts skills in the imperial palace. Through a series of mishaps, Po is accidentally chosen as the Dragon Warrior, a prophesied protector of the kingdom. The indomitable evil force he must combat is an exceptionally trained, villainous snow leopard called Tai Lung (Ian McShane, eating scenery like candy). The leopard’s prison escape is a chest-beating showcase of his thunderous kung fu talents that will have you howling for red meat.

Though this impossible matchup should end in Po’s grisly death, he triumphs. No surprise. Kid demographic. But it’s how he does it that sends chills up my spine with its insensate message – every few minutes, the promotion of laziness over dedication. Despite the film being beautiful to look at, despite kung fu as realistic and energetic as any live action thriller, despite A-level talent voicing these pixels (Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Michael Clarke Duncan), the laziness message is simply stupefying. To make it more stupefying, though a message like this should destroy the film’s credibility, instead it is regarded as laudable!

Which shouldn’t be a surprise in a society that has come to regard mediocrity as a favorable trait over virtuousity – America. What arrogance and hubris that bum-lazy Americans should set this tale in China, a land renowned for its rigorous discipline.

Silly mystical prophecy is no substitute for experience and hard work, yet that is how Po is chosen, over five warriors specifically trained for the combat of Tai Lung. Throughout the tale, the Furious Five warriors continually whine over how to defeat Tai Lung if an inexperienced pudge like Po combats him. Simple! When Tai Lung arrives, everyone fight him! Apparently, just because “the prophecy said” only Dragon Warrior Po can combat Tai Lung, no one else is allowed to step in and save the land. And this stupidity is borne out when the Five fight Tai Lung and fail.

The very discipline this movie exalts is simultaneously disparaged when Po goes Tom Cruise in THE LAST SAMURAI and attains proficiency within weeks by training with the little Common Panda kung fu master (Dustin Hoffman); proficiency which his peers took decades of dedication to attain. Relating to Everyman characters is fine, but there is another class of character we cannot relate to, that we aspire to (like the Furious Five, like Superman); higher characters that drive us to be more than just Everyman. But that’s too much to ask bum-lazies these days.

This message in KUNG FU PANDA is the same “Believe in Yourself” guff that allows Guitar Hero wankers and Air Guitar douchebags and Karaoke dipsticks to think they’re actually “talented.” The damnable, insufferable, noodle-eating message that youngsters glean from this otherwise-enjoyable movie is that proficiency is instantaneous if you would only “believe in yourself.”

No. It is not. “Believing” gives you the impetus to start training in your chosen art/profession. But it will take years to become proficient.

Why do I rail so hotly against this silly story element in this kid’s movie? Because I have tangible evidence that this wrongful message is being heeded unconsciously: in the form of piano students. Kids who have been playing for less than one or two years thinking they can perform rock songs authentically by learning them by rote, parrot-fashion; rushing blindly into the playing, no control, no technique, no knowledge, no feel, no practice, just glazed-eyed for the quick fix instant gratification. This primal behavior is directly linked to media of this ilk.

Murder and sex on film always get the bum rap for influencing children adversely, but “family films” – as I’ve always maintained – are far more dangerous and cause far more breakdown of respect for elders and institutions than a few bleeding bollocks or horsewhipped whores.

Everything about KUNG FU PANDA is excellent. Only the message is kung fooey.

END

Be Kind – Put this movie out of its misery.

BE KIND REWIND looks great in the trailers. In long form, not so hot.

Mos Def is an excellent actor. Jack Black is an even better comedy tornado. So putting them together in BE KIND REWIND should have begat gold – instead, a debacle as unfunny as your VHS tape getting caught in the damned video player.

Jerry (Jack Black) gets magnetized and accidentally erases all the VHS video tapes in his friend, Mike’s (Mos Def), store. Instead of doing anything remotely sensible – like re-purchasing all the videos in their catalog, or – how about this wacky outlaw idea? – purchasing DVDs (welcome to the twentieth century, Luddites)! – Jerry and Mike hit on the insensate idea to re-film all the video titles in their own inimitable, no-budget format.

This is one of those films where you prime yourself to laugh because you love the comedians involved, and then that fake smile kinda freezes on your face after the first few stillborn non-jokes. By the time you realize you’ve been gypped by the funny trailers, you’ve already paid for the parking.

Suspending our disbelief is way beyond this movie’s ken, as writer-director Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, 2004) cannot even deliver plausible reasons for these characters to cling so ignorantly to outmoded technology at the outset. Maybe REWIND flopped at the box office because not enough people could relate to the VHS format. (Kids who hire this DVD will probably wonder what the title actually means!)

The ludicrous, mildly funny concept of re-making iconic movies badly is not supported by the reality of the world we live in, because Jerry and Mike remake these movies banking on their poverty-stricken clientele (who still own VHS machines) to hold them up financially by hiring the re-made videos – but in this world where DVD technology (and now Blu-Ray) has superseded VHS outright, their base would dwindle exponentially, making their scheme a losing battle from the outset.

There is a subplot about Fats Waller being born at the video store; another subplot about the store being closed down to make way for a hyperspace bypass; and yet other subplots that came and went as wistfully as the silly device that made Jerry magnetized. Danny Glover is still lisping badly through those dentures, Sigourney Weaver makes an imperious appearance as a government agent (or something) who brings her judicial clout to destroy all the illegal videos (thank you, Ripley!), the great Paul Dinello is criminally misused as Weaver’s assistant, and Mia Farrow makes an absolute assface of herself as a store customer who declares “The past belongs to us, and we can change it!” (Er… you working for the Bush Administration, honey?)

There is potential galore for the plot to be an ingenious, inventive affair, but the film tries so hard to make us laugh that even Jack Black is floundering and unconvincing.

And the ending is syrup times cliché times embarrassing, as the whole neighborhood joins in to make and watch a home-made movie about Fats Waller supposedly living his life in the neighborhood, thereby “proving” the video store building is sacrosanct and shouldn’t be torn down to make way for a mall. Of course, all the demolition guys waiting on the sidelines (who are being paid by the county to do their job without discernment) watch the movie as well and are moved to stay their hand. Even though that hand will now be lopped off by the congloms who are paying their medical bills and salaries…

Movie hits one salient point: Jerry’s and Mike’s remade films (which they call “sweded” – pertaining to some weak gag about Sweden) are only 20 minutes long, and they realize shorter films means more hires, means more income. Which is exactly the reasoning behind big studios supporting the “accepted” movie running time of 90 minutes. Longer running time means less screenings, means less income. It’s got nothing to do with integrity of the story or art or customers’ enjoyment. Only A-List directors even GET the budget to go “overtime,” so to speak, because their “brand” can still pull in that same amount of income that shorter movies do (and those movies are generally of better quality as a by-product of the funding). It’s a vicious, ornery circle of greed and filth.

Under the illogical and inept storyline, there is an allusion to this YouTube generation; this coterie of losers will accept the lowest quality film-making as long as they are in it.

Only for Jack Black completists, Mos Def fans, indie aficionados and people who can stand Danny Glover’s lisping without scratching their eyes out.

Painfully long for a one-note idea, this movie would’ve worked better if Gondry had re-made it for no budget and with a running time of 20 minutes – SWEDED!

END

Tenacious D – bringing Satanic sexy back!

Fueled by Rocket Sauce… oh, and Satan.

To paraphrase Salieri from AMADEUS, “Displace one ‘fuck’ and there would be diminishment; displace one ‘suck my cock’ and the structure would fall.”

The Poff of Destiny

Belched forth from Satan’s unholy vagina, the dynamo Jack Black and the cherubic Kyle Gass master-explode in TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY, their foul-mouthed vernacular so integral to the comedic fabric of this film that when the Prudies bellyache “every second word is fuck,” they aren’t far from the truth.

And that’s a good thing.

In making the transition from the live stage and television to the big screen, Tenacious D thankfully steered into the curve, and in chronicling their “rise to power” did not bow to the corporate whiners who would try to widen this movie’s demographic by softening its blows.

And Tenacious D blows a lot.

This movie is a road tale, a rock paean, a musical odyssey, a combo-wombo of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, The Who and REN AND STIMPY. A veritable Gospel According to Tenacious D.

In the beginning there was Lil’ JB (Troy Gentile, playing young Jack Black like electrodes attached to testicles) whose father (Meat Loaf) would not let him rock. So he petitions the master piper, Dio, for advice (just to hear Ronnie James let fly, “Go – my – son – and – ROOOOOCK!” is worth the journey), following his dream to Venice Beach where verily he didst meet solo minstrel, KG, in a conflagration of Bach, Beethoven and Eine Kliene Nacht Muzik. Thus – with Jack Black’s rocket-fueled psycho-tenor and Kyle Gass’s axe-tastic acoustic – was Tenacious D born from rock thunder and stale pizza.

In contemplating how their legendary heroes could be so smokin’ barbecue tasty, they notice that all of them – Rhoads, Van Halen, Young, Townshend – wield the same guitar pick.

After The Tale of The Pick is revealed by a grizzled master of disaster (Ben Stiller) at – where else? – Guitar Center, they begin The Quest to acquire The Pick, to chase down the Creamy Rock Greatness that it promises.

In a movie carved from the same black sabbatical cloth as SCHOOL OF ROCK, Jack Black once again flies slam-banging, accompanied by the rock soundtrack of MY generation. It is a wonder to behold this hurricane of adrenaline, his every minute action tailored for maximum overdrive. Some viewers comment on PICK OF DESTINY losing impact and drive in the second act, but I would hazard a guess it is simply their lack of appreciation for the tornado appeal of Jack Black.

Not since Martin & Lewis has there been a comedy duo so adroit; like Martin and Lewis, the seeming “straight man” – Kyle Gass – is a master comedian himself, knowing his place in the matchup and lending impeccable timing to the mix. And his guitarwork is freakishly astounding.

Splashy standout tracks are Kickapoo (the opener), Classico (Gass’s composite arrangement of Bouree in E Minor, Fur Elise and Eine Kliene Nacht Muzik, with Black inserting as many filthy lyrics as humanly possible), Master Exploder (the metal fantasy sequence) and Beelzeboss (the final showdown with Satan, played by a very outraged, very red Dave Grohl).

Though SPINAL TAP was the progenitor of this genre of rock obliviousness, the lines are fast blurring between the cheese and the rock. Master Exploder scares us into realizing that the gaggers (Tenacious D) are actually more talented than the “serious rockers” they spoof – this is what the Cinderellas and the Y&Ts and the Great Whites actually look and sound like! Ultimately, Master Exploder – featuring Black banshee-wailing as ominously as Rob Halford or Chris Cornell – is Real Rock. Shot from the engorged penis of hell.

If you were weaned on metal, if you are fueled by Satan, you’ll love PICK OF DESTINY and find much to be amused: from the Guitarway to Heaven (director Liam Lynch could not secure the rights from Page and Plant to actually call it the “Stairway”), to the subscription rock magazines, to the big-talking small-fry (Kyle comporting himself around his shithole like it was a palace that “his albums” were paying for), to the rock idol worship, to the CLOCKWORK ORANGE allusion, to the Power Slide from The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again (which, as any lombard will tell you, is the most awesome moment in that song), to the fact that Stiller’s rock burnout sage cites Robert Johnson as the first owner of The Pick of Destiny (very cool, considering that Johnson is regarded as the first true guitar god, the man who started rock rolling through the blues).

Paying homage to their wonderboy HBO series, a wealth of familiar faces and situations appear, from the open-mic gig (with announcer Paul F. Tompkins raising ambivalence to suicidal heights), to policeman Kirk Ward, to meeting Lee (J.R. Reed) and battling Satan, with a host of cameos, from Amy Poehler, Tim Robbins (doing his Rade Sherbedgia), Colin Hanks – and Sasquatch!

In the most beauteous twist of all, Tenacious D’s quest to worship Satan through the majesty of rock leads them to a great inner truth: that “Satan is not in a guitar pick – he’s in all our hearts.”

How right they are.

END

We feel like we shouldn’t be watching this… we shouldn’t.

Lotsa Lucha, Lessa Libre.

Apparently, wrestling IS real.

A body-shaved Jack Black, squeezing his scrote into a sky-blue leotard and wrestling as a Mexican luchador by night whilst tending orphans during the day as a monk, must have sounded good on paper…

Greenlighting the writers and director of quirky hit NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared and Jerusha Hess) would have also been a no-brainer in this industry that sees your last success as its future income. Add to the mélange writer Mike White, who penned Black’s last stormbringer, 2003’s SCHOOL OF ROCK, and the product of all these A-Listers is NACHO LIBRE, a movie where the phrase “comedic payoff” is as foreign as its cast.

Poffo Libre

Resting on their DYNAMITE laurels, the writers seem so self-conscious that any portion of their innocuous dialogue may find legs as schoolyard or water cooler catchphrases that no effort is expended in tightening up the lackadaisical pacing, timing, action or script itself. Like its hero, NACHO LIBRE lacks any kind of punch. (Although the name of Jack’s and Mike’s new production company hits a home run: Black and White Productions.)

Set in a Mexico where everyone is greasier than is racistly possible, and where the first language is English, delivered with an English-as-a-second-language accent, Black is Ignacio, an unwilling monk who tends a poverty-stricken orphanage, with his monk superior doing a Mexican Ray Romano (i.e. being not funny). Into this orphanage comes Sister Encarnación (Ana de la Reguera, trying hard to be mistaken for Penelope Cruz), for no reason other than to give Ignacio blue balls.

Obsessed with the Mexican free-style wrestling known as Lucha Libre, Ignacio enlists the aid of a street thief, Esqueleto (anorexic Héctor Jiménez – or maybe he just looks anorexic next to Black), to partner with him in small-time, underground wrestling matches, bodyslamming canvas as his alter-ego, Nacho. Attired in flamboyant head mask and sky-blue stretchypants, losing matches with wild abandon, Ignacio yet makes enough cash to afford fresh food for the orphanage and a pimpin’ lifestyle for himself and Esqueleto.

There is a silly life-lesson attached to this aspect of making money. Encarnación tells Ignacio that fighting is only acceptable in the church’s eyes if it is done for someone who needs help. Does no one appreciate that Ignacio’s winnings raised the cuisine of the orphanage from feces gruel to Bennigan’s Chinese Chicken Salads? Yet the movie pursues this fallacious point as avidly as it resorts to fart jokes when nothing else seems to be working.

After losing all his battles – because he was supposedly fighting only for the fame – Nacho wins his last fight, ostensibly because he has rethunk his attitude to fight for the orphans who need his help – but his spurt of winning spunk only comes when he sees Sister Encarnación enter the arena and visions of nun-pie careen his endorphins. Which effectively means: not only was he not fighting for fame, he was not even fighting for anyone who needed his help – he fights for the reason every animal on earth fights: to impress chicks. (This is, ultimately, the most noble quest of all, from an Earth ecosystem point of view – procreation. Try telling that to people who pretend they are on a “higher spiritual plane” than the rest of us heathen, by dressing in black smocks and white collars.)

Black has still “got it” – but he can’t save this film with it; there are two major bellylaughs, when he unleashes his “JB” persona, belting out anthemic paeans in his inimitable Tenacious D idiom (complete with “bedo-bedo-boopoduuu” horn lines). These moments were, alas, too few to make a difference, Black meeting with the same fate as Jim Carrey in 2005’s FUN WITH DICK AND JANE: a super comedian in a role that would have better suited a non-comedian like Rob Schneider or Jason Biggs. With an accent unintentionally vacillating between Tony Montana, Shatner and Hervé Villechaize, the Jack Black we automatically laugh at was subsumed by foreign ambiguity.

Speaking of foreign ambiguity, Peter Stormare is completely misused as some kind of fey oracle, an opportunity to skewer Connery’s Ramirez from HIGHLANDER going wanting. All the other wrestlers are one-dimensional, most of them wearing their masks full-time to avoid any kind of humanization, especially the film’s cardboard villain, Ramses (Cesar Gonzalez).

Nacho’s mask is ripped off in the final battle with Ramses for the same reason that all masks and helmets are removed for no apparent reason (SPIDER-MAN, MISSION TO MARS, RED PLANET) – so that during high anxiety, we can see his facial expressions and relate to his emotional palette. Film-makers think we have not yet caught on to this lame gambit.

At movie’s end, when we realize that Nacho has still not consummated his relationship with Sister Encarnación – and probably never will – so as not to send a message of monk-nun infidelity (as if that would shock a PG-13 audience – maybe for the fact that it is purely a normal heterosexual relationship involving no young boys), we can only grimace, like Nacho, through clenched teeth and balls as blue as his stretchypants.

END

When The Anchorman was Man-Anchor.

Will Ferrell makes me laugh. I’m not afraid to say it anymore. His shamelessness knows no bounds and I, for one, salute his strangely misshapen nude torso.

In ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY, Ferrell is the blowhard, brain-soft title character, in love with his own self-proclaimed legend. And why not? His veteran standing and perfect hair have made him San Diego’s number one anchorman and a veritable god amongst newsfolk.

Into this perfect 70s world of Men (Men who “discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn”), bringing her “exquisite breasts!” – comes Veronica Corningstone (severely luscious Christina Applegate), aspiring anchorwoman.

Anchorcuke: his hair was perfect.

Of course, this is open invitation to Burgundy’s all-male news team to conspicuously seduce this “woman with a small brain; with a brain a third the size of us. It’s science.”

Simply by being The 70s Male, Ron’s team gives us Truth In Jest: There’s Field Reporter, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), muttonchop sideburns and a cock of the head to match his jaunty, bellbottomed step; Sports Desk, Champ Kind (David Koechner), cowboy-hatted, beer-swilling Man’s Man, with an affinity for Ron Burgundy’s “musk”; and ambiguously-retarded Weatherman, Brick Tamland (Steve Carrell, whose way-off-script performances here and in BRUCE ALMIGHTY and THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN indeed prove his mettle as a comic, yet which doesn’t excuse him from accepting the job in the remake “for American audiences” of Ricky Gervais’ comedic masterpiece, THE OFFICE. That ain’t right.)

And there’s Ron Burgundy himself – Anchorman (“I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany”), Jazz Flautist (“Hey, Aqualung!”), Legend (“Last time I looked in the dictionary, my name’s Ron Burgundy!”). From doing shirtless barbell curls in his office (“sculpting my guns”) to impress Veronica, to wailing, “I’m in a glass cage of emotion!” (while in a phone booth), Ferrell (who co-wrote the movie with director, Adam McKay) takes Burgundy on a mad joyride and abandons him somewhere between 70s chic and imbecile.

Ron’s team must endure the infiltration of female Veronica into their complacent All-Male world, as she steals away the heart and job of their beloved leader. Along the way, every aspect of 70s normalcy is tweaked to hyperbole, from the news team suddenly bursting into an a cappella rendition of The Starland Vocal Band’s Afternoon Delight, to Ron’s appraisal of the “new fad called jogging, or ‘yogging’ – I think the ‘j’ may be silent,” to hosing off Brian Fantana’s almost-lethal man-fragrance, Sex Panther.

The comedy hits on all levels, from the subtle (the television spots, with the News Team all looking up at the camera on cue) to the broad (Burgundy’s and Veronica’s love-making fantasy), to the insensate (the street battle of the Network News Teams, involving tridents, amputations and Roman gladiator man-nets). The usual suspects all cameo: Vince Vaughn (as competing Network Anchor, Wes Mantooth – after bequeathing this character name, where else can you turn?), Tim Robbins with a blond-fro (ditto with this ‘do), Ben Stiller as a seedy Spanish News Anchor, Luke Wilson (whose amputations in battle cause him much annoyance), and Jack Black as a hard-ridin’, hard-vengeance biker (“Did you just throw a burrito at me, Brosef?!”).

The dependably hilarious Fred Willard is Station Director (constantly apologizing on the phone for his son’s felonies at school), who fires Ron after he is fooled into swearing on air – a practical joke by Veronica that goes awry.

So begins Ron’s spiral into oblivion, wandering the streets in a hermit-beard, drunk on milk, whilst Veronica’s star rises as the world’s first female anchor. Ron must mine untapped reserves of Man-Reportage to rise to the occasion and come to terms with Veronica’s equality. In a bear den at the San Diego Zoo, all is resolved.

With its dialogue generally more “cerebral” than most SNL alumni offerings – as ridiculous as that may sound – and a cast willing to take themselves beyond the fringe for the cause, ANCHORMAN ranks alongside A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY or WAYNE’S WORLD as a stupid, stupid idea that somehow went horribly, horribly right.

END

Yes! We Have No Bananas!

Pure entertainment. Twenty-five hairy-bottomed, big-dumb-galoot feet of it. And nothing else. Despite the ubiquitous refrain of beauty and beast subtexts and alienation metaphors and caveats against taming nature, searching for deeper meaning within this wholly implausible tale will only lead to senseless cavil and being considered the big ponce for taking it so seriously in the first place.

If there is any message we can glean from this fanciful ape tale, haunting our sensibilities since before there was rock and roll, it is that Women Will Kill You – One Way Or Another. But we already knew that.

Cucumber Kong

Director Peter Jackson actually fixed what wasn’t broke! How he did it is a wonder to behold. The sheer spectacle of KING KONG 2005 over-rides any shortcomings it may possess – trouble is: there are no shortcomings…

Comparison with Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1933 KING KONG is not only inevitable – it should be compulsory, to fully appreciate Jackson’s phenomenal achievement. Purists may want to leave the room, as it is going to get quite – er, hairy for King Kong aficionados, even Fay Wray reportedly remarking to Naomi Watts, “Ann Darrow is mine!” For an actor to succumb to such petulancy over a figment, one shudders to imagine what the action-figure fanbase may be plotting against us.

Into that cauldron of knotted knickers we dive…

Upon re-watching 1933’s static KONG – after viewing Jackson’s kinetic 2005 remake – we realize, to our shock, that the reasons we considered that film a “classic” have all been rendered moot, at the very least, academic. Released during the Great Depression (when “talkies” had been existent a scant five years), it was pioneering for a simpler time and a much simpler audience; filmic sophistication was at an all-time low and suspension of disbelief was at a premium. As dambusting and magical as it was – saving RKO Pictures from bankruptcy – it reads now as riotously unsophisticated and virtually unwatchable, with its token white-supremacist racism, its sophomoric “love affair” between Darrow and Driscoll; the merely-sad look of the then-pioneering rear-projection and stop-motion techniques; and – most heinously – the primitive, community theatre acting styles of all the principals.

Before blindly dismissing Jackson’s vision for the sole reason that it is a “remake,” I challenge you to re-watch your deteriorating VHS copy of that plasticine ape movie. Note the storyline – juvenile, at best (the two major “breathtaking” sequences – Kong versus tyrannosaur and Kong climbing the Empire State – merely “set-pieces,” to elicit the “wow-factor,” with no plot import or reasoning, respectively); note the motivation of the principals – apart from Denham, no one else has any (Kong especially has no compelling reason for any of the anthropomorphized caretaker duties he undertakes for his puling charge); note the unfolding of the interspecies “love story” – there is none (Darrow is ferried around by an inexpressive Kong, at every opportunity attempting escape – when she isn’t playing the helpless coquette with no leg muscles). And every two minutes we must endure the mind-scratching screaming of Fay Wray, like some kind of Tourette’s victim (perfectly corroborating the 1930’s perception of “Woman with the scientifically-proven smaller brain,” who couldn’t possibly have climbed down that log herself when the tyrannosaur approached to eat her).

In KONG 2005, all these inadequacies have been addressed. Our newest incarnation of Ann Darrow (golden child Naomi Watts) is a vaudeville performer so down on her luck in Depression-era New York that she has reached the stage of, “To get work in this town, which Big Ape do I have to screw?” As luck would have it, director Carl Denham (Jack Black, in a role which will rocketsauce his career), desperate to find a heroine for his adventure movie, “discovers” her in a sequence which not only pays homage to the original film, but which supplies Darrow with suitable backstory and motivation enough to voyage with Denham into the unknown.

To an island merely a scrawl on a sea-dog’s map, Denham’s hired tramp steamer runs aground. The island natives are more than restless; face-pierced, alien and lethal, they kidnap Darrow as sacrifice to their simian god – Kong.

Director Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have taken an unmolded lump of clay (all puns intended) and added all the bells and whistles which the original film strived for and alluded to, but did not quite achieve due to budget, its place in history and lack of film-making experience. KONG 2005 has not only improved on its progenitor’s technical icing one-hundredfold (which goes without saying, and which is NOT the reason this film is better than the original), it also boasts character development, motivation, Method acting, and actually possesses the “love story” foretold, but never realized, in that far, far away galaxy of 1933. (Jackson opted to run with the plot-holed broad strokes of the original story, so criticizing him for merely sticking to the asinine and implausible plot is moot. His bravura re-rendering of that storyline is his gift to us.)

Other improvements on the original include Denham absconding with his movie reels when his funders get cold feet, writing rubber checks to all and sundry to retain the impetus of his outlaw campaign; the boat captain played more believably (than 1933’s calm, unquestioning senior) by a skeptical Thomas Kretschmann (suitably grizzled and indeterminately Euro) and a veritable kidnapping of writer Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody, oozing leading-man cool), who tries to alight the boat as it is about to sail, even while police rush to board it, to arrest Denham. Even seemingly benign and obvious developments, like Darrow and Driscoll engaging in spanky-spanky en route to their destination, gives Driscoll the much-needed motivation later in the film, to leg it over carnivore-infested territory to find her.

KONG 1933 had no such delving into characterization, and KONG 2005’s non-efx exposition might be construed as unnecessary in a “blockbuster spectacle” film – but diving into special effects flummery immediately would serve to diminish the “story” which Jackson takes the time to reverently improve upon. For those who snidely question why KONG 2005 takes 187 minutes to spool a tale originally only 104, we must surely question their apprehension of “plausible backstory.” We see how far they are willing to stretch their suspension of disbelief in the original – with specious backstory and performances so camp you could hold a three-ring circus under it – and surmise that they only support its primacy out of misplaced loyalty. KONG 2005 suffers from “length” only in the minds of those short-attention-span critics whose idea of proper film length is denoted by Big Studio Decree pertaining to crowd attendance, shorter films meaning more screenings, meaning more income; but more so denoted by their spongy posteriors jonesing for a Raisinets-and-plastic-pizza fix after two hours of thankful existence sans junk food. Absolutely zero connection with inherent quality or visceral, wet-panted enjoyment of a film.

Were the original, naïve storyline remade note for note, the same critics would bury Jackson for those reasons. As forewarned, you just can’t please the Purists – or the spongy posteriors…

KONG 2005 is not overlong. It is under-appreciated.

Once upon Skull Island, the movie ratchets into the stratosphere, in sequences where Jackson has no equal, as his creative cameraplay swoops through time-blasted village constructs and lush landscapes tantalizing with vestiges of ancient ruins. Bringing his masterful LORD OF THE RINGS wizardry to bear on these stunning tableaus and ancient designs, we realize that, due to his pedigree, Jackson is the only person who could have remade KING KONG with any semblance of majestic authenticity.

And then – the sauropod stampede… where Lord Peter Jackson illustrates quite definitively that Bigger is, in fact, Better.

Reality. It’s gonna kick your CGI ass.

Taking his cue from the original’s biologically-incorrect carnivorous sauropod chasing sailors while roaring like an ocelot, Jackson gives us a herd of stampeding sauropods in an astounding pursuit that sees raptors attacking and humans dodging the elephantine legs of the beasts during the stampede – a sequence that needs to be seen to be believed, even if just to view the level of unbridled insanity that the state of computer graphic technology has attained.

In fact, the whole Skull Island interlude is so rife with arterially-bursting CGI that “breathtaking” or “awe-inspiring” are not only understatements, they are sins against humanity. There are words yet to be invented for this bombalicious middle section of KONG 2005 – and our children will be speaking them, wearing their underpants over their heads – or whatever passes for fashion in those far-forward days.

Peter Jackson is George Lucas with a soul. Not having to rely on Lucas’ ILM studios, helming his own company of effects madmen (WETA Digital), Jackson shows George how to do “More is More” without losing sight of the human protagonists at the heart of his tale. A perfect example being the tyrannosaur attack…

…Where everything gets ten times trickier for Jackson and Co. – for in the original movie, the battle between Kong and the t-rex was an effects stunt for the sake of effects (oooh! like no one in the black and white era ever made that lowbrow call), but now, not only is the tyrannosaur battle chair-clutchingly mind-careening, this event is the seal on Darrow and Kong’s “relationship.” The major thematic element of KONG 1933 – the vaunted Beauty and Beast entanglement – was seemingly written in the press junkets, rather than into the movie itself; at the tyrannosaur attack of 1933, Kong had not yet displayed any particular proclivity towards his captive, except for ferrying her about like the spoiled brat she was. Why then, did he risk his life battling a t-rex for her? With 1930s anthropocentrism prevailing, it was assumed that simply because Darrow is Human, she should unquestionably be defended – but to Kong, she was nothing more than a plush toy with an annoying squeal. By 2005’s t-rex battle, Kong has at least invested some emotion in Darrow (albeit as an intriguing and amusing plaything), thereby justifying some smidgeon of motivation to risk his life for her. Still, it’s a stretch that anyone would go the distance with three tyrannosaurs over a pet hamster…

“Ah, a woman wearing a pink nightie. My luck is changing…”

On the boat, Darrow broached the concept with Driscoll that the best way for a man to get the attention of a woman is to ignore her. After the t-rex battle, Kong actually plays this card with Darrow, who realizes that the only way she will survive is to ally herself with the King of this jungle, running after him in supplication. And for the first time in any Kong movie, a palpable connection is made between Darrow and the ape, as he whisks her onto his shoulder, Toomai style. (Film buffs, watch for the homage to the original battle, where Kong breaks the t-rex’s jaw and then toys with it.)

Wray never found any pity for the beast at all, opting to scream like a loon anytime it was near. In the 1976 remake, Jessica Lange (glazing through her role as if on the verge of full-throated orgasm), went a small way towards “loving” the ape with her entreaties to, “Pick me up so they won’t shoot you!” It has taken the talent of Jackson to give bodyheat to the “Beauty and the Beast” catchcry, with Watts volunteering herself to Kong. But don’t touch yourself just yet. This is not a love story – never has been, unless you take into account that “pet hamster” thingy. For what other kind of “love” could exist between a Homo sapiens and a Gorilla giganticus – not counting those types only found on illegal internet sites?

Nonetheless, Kong’s and Darrow’s attachment is so pronounced by the time Driscoll appears to “save” her – as she sleeps in Kong’s palm, having curled there of her own volition, after sharing the beauty of the sunset together – that it actually seems implausible that she would desert her ape captor, as her human savior seems oh-so-impotent compared to the masculinity of the beast; the first KONG movie where this doubt even crosses our minds, all other heroines tripping over their diaphanous gowns rushing into the arms of their man-heroes.

Now if only we could ignore the fact that Kong’s grasp should realistically crush over half her bones, or that her neck should have snapped a long time ago with him manhandling her like a doll, we’d be in that delusional pink that the original’s supporters seemingly wallow in.

“This is what happens when you have two working arms, Rexy!”

In the movie’s only weak sequence, Kong is captured by Denham and the boat crew (- after battling three tyrannosaurs? I don’t think so!). At this point in the original film, Denham (Robert Armstrong) melodramatically bellows, “We’re millionaires, boys! I’ll share it with all of you!” in a ludicrous stentorian swish. Jackson’s team have re-defined Denham – the fanatic movie director so bent on giving the public something they’ve never seen that he will go to any lengths to achieve it – by making Jack Black repeatedly promise hollowly, whenever a crew member gets killed, “We’ll finish the movie – and we’ll donate the proceeds to his wife and kids!” so that when Kong is captured and Black mimics Armstrong’s stagey effeteness, it is now played for what it really should have been – a running gag on his insincerity. Black is playing a heartless man who doesn’t know he’s heartless. Armstrong was playing a carnival barker – with a swish to die for.

If Jackson gave Kong limbs, Andy Serkis breathed life into them. Doing double-duty in this film – as the eponymous ape, and as Lumpy, the cook, Serkis’ effectiveness as Kong – with over 100 sensors attached to his face for motion capture of the subtlest expressions – is wondrously demonstrated when Kong faces off against the last t-rex standing, with Darrow at his feet protectively. Glancing down from Darrow, up to the t-rex alternatively, Kong’s eyes actually register caring to threat, caring to threat, as he looks back and forth! So how to capture that “cute” aspect of the 1933 Kong – whose innocence seemed to grow with his onscreen time – with Jackson’s realistic, battle-scarred silverback? Marvel at the poignant scene on Central Park’s frozen lake, where the displaced Kong finds himself with Darrow in a brief interlude, sliding over the ice with her, ecstatic that he has reunited with his pet hamster.

The reverie lasts no longer than it takes to wipe away a lone tear, as the tragic finale looms atop the Empire State Building, which Kong climbs, with Darrow as willing accomplice, in a misguided attempt to escape the madding crowd. By now, Jackson has stacked his deck with the message that the original film found so hard to convey – that Kong is not the most dangerous beast – humans are. As Darrow sorrowfully watches a final sunrise with her wild and crazy pal, she repeats once more, “Beautiful!” now referring not only to the pastel-palette horizon, but also to Kong, as a part of that natural world – inevitably cut down by a “civilized” world which could find no place for twenty-five hairy-bottomed, big-dumb-galoot feet of nature within its concrete heart.

The Arabian proverb that opened KONG 1933 is barely applicable to that flawed masterpiece, after witnessing the depth of emotion that infuses KONG 2005’s heart-breaking skyscraper flourish. The telling scene atop the Empire State is one of aching perfection: Kong and Darrow, in profile, with the cityscape in pastel dawn behind them, she sitting in his palm, gazing into each other’s eyes. All is silent. A clutch of biplanes suddenly drone from behind the building, across the background sky. Kong huffs. Darrow knows it is the end. “And lo, the Beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.”

Peter Jackson’s KING KONG incarnation has breathed life into the legend for at least another 70 years – until someone with as much vision, economic and technological clout as he, can re-vamp it to blow a future generation’s bollocks to the Cretaceous. Hopefully (new words having been invented), my grandson will be able to describe that new version with greater aplomb, with his Webster’s New Malafrabjous English Dictionary by his side, a copy of KONG 2075 in his holo-DVD, and his underpants over his head.

END