Hmm, I dunno. It was good. I was glad Katie Holmes declined to return until I found out that her character died. I thought it was maybe a little ambitious, plot-wise–having three big characters, each with their own motivations, made things a bit complicated. Heath Ledger was, in fact, pretty great. Too bad he’s not coming back.

The most interesting thing, for me, was how little a role Bruce Wayne/Batman played in it. It was the Harvey Dent/Joker/Gordon show, for the most part, with Batman basically reacting for the first 3/4 of the film (except for the Hong Kong jaunt, which seemed frankly unnecessary, plot-wise, but was really cool, action-wise).

Also, I think this movie was basically a superhero remake of No Country for Old Men. It’s a morally-questionable hero grappling with a fundamentally chaotic, destructive force, and in the end nobody really wins. Plus, Tommy Lee Jones was Two Face once.

Another observation: whoever did the soundtrack kind of stole from There Will Be Blood–the same unharmonious whining drone played right before action scenes. It was actually pretty great.

And I’m pretty sure the whole thing was also a powerful indictment of the war in Iraq, and the surveillance state that has sprung up here in America.

8/10. I want to see it again in IMAX.

I sat next to a stupid nerd who laughed uproariously at jokes that were in the trailer that we all watched six months ago. In the middle of the movie he spent a good thirty seconds rustling a plastic bag, trying to take out a bottle of Snapple. Two thumbs down to that guy.

And I’m sorry, but if you aren’t standing in line for opening night it is LAME to dress up like the Joker and put makeup on and all that. If you insist on being that much of a weenie, at least commit to a midnight screening.

Anyway, spoilers welcome in the comments.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)
20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler’s List (1993)
22. Rushmore (1998)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
40. Speed (1994)
41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006)
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993)
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006)
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

Thoughts:

I sure have seen a lot of movies. The disparity between this list and the book list is somewhat depressing.

Interesting how two high-budget, special-effectsy sci-fi sequels–Aliens and Terminator 2–got love over their arguably better but unquestionably less showy predecessors. Also interesting how one sequel generally seen as significantly better than its predecessor–Toy Story 2–got no love. WASSUP WITH THAT?

Putting a trilogy on the list–in the #2 spot, no less–seems kinda shady, no?

Hoop Dreams: Just too depressing. I had the wrong expectations for this one, perhaps. I certainly would never watch it again, though.Oh, um, I had this one mixed up with The Basketball Diaries. I am an idiot.

The Bourne Supremacy: Really? I mean, it was fun and all… is this like the Da Vinci Code of this list? I don’t understand. See also: Men in Black, Clueless, and the criminally overrated Napoleon Dynamite.

Back to the Future: greatest time-travel movie with an incest-based subplot.

L.A. Confidential couldn’t crack the top 50? Unlike, er, Shrek? I am just going to pretend these movies are unsorted, because otherwise I might have an outrage-induced coronary.

Of course if they are sorted, I can definitely back up putting There Will Be Blood way above No Country for Old Men. GOOD CALL, EW! (note: I’m not being sarcastic.)

Basically, I think it’s pretty difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff with so little perspective. Some of these movies came out last year. This is a fun discussion piece, but the presence of Evil Dead 2 on the list should tip you off that it’s not to be taken too seriously.

That said, it wasn’t that great a movie, and I blame it all on the purple-pantsed beast himself. I think Hulk, at least in this incarnation, is just not a very interesting character–he’s a very powerful behemoth, but he has no personality (and even if he did, he couldn’t articulate it). And although he is very very strong and pretty nimble, in this movie so is his adversary. So it’s just two bigass monsters ramming into each other, which just isn’t that exciting.

But I very much agree with this review from Slate–more than anything else, The Incredible Hulk was a great teaser for the upcoming Captain America, Iron Man, and Avengers movies (also, they’re making a Thor movie!). As someone familiar with a number of the characters and plot points Marvel is taking from the comics, it was enjoyable to see some long-term threads get introduced, and it will be gratifying to see them pay off in the next few years of summer blockbusters.

Also, Tiger Woods is ridiculous. Anyone think Mediate has a chance tomorrow?

I saw the new Indy movie, and it was good!

It wasn’t great, but it was certainly enjoyable and well-made and not in any way a depressing mistake that spoiled the legacy of the films that came before it (looking at you, Phantom Menace…).

Be warned: SPOILERS OF DOOM after the jump.

Okay, so let’s just jump right in and deal with the extraterrestrial elephant in the room. Yes, the movie is about aliens. No, that didn’t bother me. The first movies were about the Ark of the Covenant, Jesus’ Immortality Cup, and a temple of…doom. They were all about mystical, supernatural forces that turned Indy’s cynical, skeptical world upside down. So the alien aspect of this one is really in keeping with its predecessors. Now, the execution of that theme is another story, and I think it’s safe to say that certain aspects of it were a bit over the top–the alien skeletons merging into a living being that disintegrated Cate Blanchett was silly. But, again, I think if you look objectively at the other Indiana Jones movies you’ll find similar examples of things getting ridiculous once in a while. That’s half the fun!

Harrison Ford is, yes, decrepit. But they handled it well, acknowledging his age and moving on. It was sad that they killed off his dad, but I guess Sean Connery wasn’t interested in a cameo–plus that plot point ended up making Indy’s relationship with “Mutt” almost borderline touching.

My favorite parts:

• The scene in the van where everyone found out whose kid was whose. Silly, absurd, but funny and kind of sweet. Karen Allen is still pretty awesome.
• The whole jungle car chase, except for the cacti in the nuts part, which was a bit much. I could live without seeing anyone get hit in the groin for comic effect ever again. However, I loved a) the ridiculous sword fight; b) the horrifying red ants; and c) driving over three huge waterfalls without any permanent damage.
• The nuclear test sequence. Good, funny, completely implausible. Great start to the movie. Except that at one point Indy said “nuke-u-lar” and my heart fell.
• Indy blowing the poison dart into the mouth of the guy. That was awesome!

My least favorite parts:

• Shia the Buff swinging across the jungle on CGI vines, trailed for no reason by a gaggle of monkeys
• Cate Blanchett evaporating–when her eyes started burning I thought for sure we’d at least get to see her face explode!
• Ugh, the wedding. Did it really have to turn into a Victorian romance? We already understood that Indy was back in love with the mother of his newly-discovered child, we didn’t need that trite, cheesy ceremony. Although I did love the moment when Shia almost picked up the fedora, which would have caused an extremely dorky riot, only to be rebuffed by Indy, who will clearly get another opportunity to be acerbic in the transition to Indiana Jones III: The Rosemary-Scented Carcass.

But you know, overall, it was a really fun movie. I believe it would be reasonable to describe it as a comic romp. Spielberg is great at this stuff, and I think he managed to rein in some of Lucas’s more egregious instincts.

I haven’t really discussed everything I liked or disliked about it, but that’s a start. Suffice it to say that it satisfied my reasonably-low expectations and I’m glad they finally got around to making it. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should!

Then, this:

I love techno viking.

[Movie Website]

I am back in Boston. I have a couple of weeks before classes start up again, so I think I might find a project to occupy my time until football season starts. I am thinking about upgrading essentially every component of my desktop pc–this 1.67ghz AMD processor and piddling 1gb of RAM just aren’t cutting the mustard anymore. I think it’s offending my awesome flatscreen monitor to be associated with such a pile of garbage. I am going to stop writing sentences that begin with “I”.*

^* Except this next one. I am contemplating making a permanent shift to placing all non-quoted punctuation outside of quotation marks from now on. It makes a lot more sense, but I don’t want people to think that I’m some kind of dorky anglophile. Well, you know what? Screw it. It’s just the internet. From now on, periods and commas will go outside of punctuation marks!

And guess what–it is really pretty good. It has its cheesy moments, and it is a little too excited to reference the obvious cultural influences (Nancy Drew, Raymond Chandler–and I assume Buffy will get referenced at some point), but for the most part the acting is good and the writing is deft, both in terms of scenes/dialogue and in terms of multiple episode plot arcs). I’ve watched the first 8 episodes and I like where it’s going so far. Also, I’m very impressed with the music, which is low-key (i.e. it’s not like the OC, where every episode was a launching pad for some indie band) but very good.

Naturally it was cancelled (I think–although I guess there’s some small chance that it will be uncancelled), but I’ve still got quite a few hours of it left to watch and enjoy.

And while we’re here, I might as well tell you: the new Pirates of the Caribbean was thoroughly mediocre. Depp was funny, as always, but between Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley there’s all the personality of a manilla envelope filled with tax forms. The plot was somewhere between “wacky” and “incoherent,” trending towards the latter. The special effects were pretty neat (it’s worth seeing on a big screen, probably, just for some of the sea battle effects). Overall, I give it 4 out of 7 sins. On the plus side, the ending indicated that if they decide to cash in with yet another sequel, Orlando and Keira will not be central characters.

Also, I’m pretty confident that Transformers will be the mindless spectacle of the season!

And for that matter, why doesn’t anyone have DVDs that skip all those stupid copying warning messages? I would be absolutely shocked if they have any positive effect on piracy. Just like every other aspect of “copy protection,” it inconveniences honest consumers while doing absolutely nothing to slow down pirates.

Damn it all.

I could really go for a Strawberry-Kiwi Crystal Pepsi ™ right now.

I finally broke down and listened to Lily Allen. I am enjoying it a lot, even if it is highly subject to ridicule. It’s just fun and catchy and alien enough that it stands out amongst the indie rock/hip-hop/pop horde.

Next on my listening list: the new Ted Leo. I am PUMPED to hear this one.

Also, I could really go for a new Daft Punk album. I love those guys. Unfortunately they’re busy working on a movie which doesn’t even feature their music!

Excellent.

Here’s an example. I have been watching Undeclared, Judd Apatow’s TV followup to the ill-fated but excellent Freaks and Geeks. My honest opinion of Undeclared is that it’s just okay. I honestly find listening to the commentary tracks more entertaining than watching the regular shows. But because I like most of Apatow’s other work (Anchorman, 40 Year Old Virgin, etc.), I gave it 4 stars on Netflix, so that it would recommend more Apatow-ish shows/movies to me.

I can’t imagine I’m the only person who tries to anticipate what a recommendation engine will do and aims to game the system to get optimum results.

Obviously, this is relevant for any service that is based on a recommendation engine. I use Amazon’s stars the same way, and there’s lots of other similar stuff going on in other areas.

Bonus content:
Definition of the day: Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “monopsony” as “an oligopsony limited to one buyer.” Tremendously helpful, thank you MW.

I will note here that my Netflix habits are unconventional. During my early days as a Netflix subscriber, I spent anywhere from 1 to 3 hours a night watching DVDs on fast forward with the subtitles on. Because I read fairly quickly, I was able to follow twists and turns at high speed, thus increasing my cultural literacy in record time. This is impossible with Watch Now. To fast-forward, you grab the slider and drag it to the right, then wait. It’s more like teleporting than running at high speed.

Um, yeah. Most people rent movies to, you know, watch them–not just to get the Cliff’s Notes version. (This also goes a long way to explain why he doesn’t have a problem with the “sub-DVD” image quality–he isn’t watching movies for anything but the dialogue and plot, so who cares how it looks?)

On the other hand, he definitely has a point here:

Conceptually, Watch Now is the perfect vessel for instant movie gratification. Ever rent, say, Street Fighter Alpha and discover that it’s not the modern classic your “friend” promised? With Watch Now, you can watch two minutes and abandon ship. You’ll still have 17 hours minus 58 minutes of watching time to go. So, in between checking sports scores and reading blogs, you’ll be able to catch up on old episodes of that new hit TV show everyone’s raving about.

That is a fair criticism–it is really annoying when a Netflix rental is a dud, especially when it’s a “classic.” Many’s the time I’ve watched 10 minutes of a movie and then let the DVD sit around for months because I didn’t want to watch the rest but didn’t want to feel guilty about returning it unwatched. That’s what economists call “dumb.”

However, I’ve had Watch Now for a month or two now, and aside from taking a moment to try it out I haven’t used it at all. I haven’t even considered it. I’m pretty busy and can’t even keep up with my Netflix DVD stream–I’m averaging 1 or 2 discs a week, which is not that great. But when I have time to watch something, I’m watching the DVDs, for several reasons (at :

• I have a sweet TV. I spent too much money on it, but now that it’s here I want to use it. And although I could, technically, watch Watch Now movies on it, I wouldn’t consider it. The resolution sucks, and I’d have to use my keyboard/mouse to play, pause, fast forward, rewind, etc. But at the same time, watching things on my monitor isn’t ideal either. Watching short youtube vids is one thing, but sitting in a deskchair staring at a blurry movie on a screen 18 inches in front of you for two hours is another. It might be okay for watching an episode or two of a tv show, though–which leads us to…
• Watch Now selection is a joke. This was the first thing I noticed when I checked out the service. You can’t go online with a movie in mind, because they barely have any movies online. You have to just browse through what they’ve got and hope you find something that piques your interest. Not ideal. As part of his review, Salam notes “I can honestly say, however, that in the 12 or so hours I’ve spent watching Netflix’s streaming offerings, I’ve seen nothing I would pay to see.” Yikes! This will probably improve in coming months, but until they reach some critical mass of availability it’ll be hard to get me too interested.
• Watch Now only works on PCs running Windows, via Internet Explorer. This isn’t a huge deal for me but it is annoying. I use Firefox, not Internet Explorer, so I’ve got to go just slightly out of my way to access the service. And it turns out that “just slightly” is the smallest amount too great to get me to go out of my way. Of course, for lots of people (linux/OS X users) it’s not just an annoyance–it’s a complete barrier to use. Much like the selection issue, this will probably sort itself out soon (well, I’d guess that linux users are just plain out of luck as usual). Who knows if it’ll make any real difference, though.

It sounds from the review like Salam would be more or less happy if the service just had better content selection. But I don’t think most people would feel that way. Who wants to watch a low-res (and often 4:3 rather than widescreen) movie with no special features on their computer screen in an age of high definition and director’s commentary? Not I. And as long as the average person’s bandwidth is limited to DSL/cable, Netflix won’t be able to significantly improve image quality.

But that’s not to say that there’s no place for Watch Now. The first thing they got right is the price (it’s free, or rather its cost is part of your monthly fee for the DVD rental service). This means that if you’re stuck in a hotel or an airport or a library or a coffeeshop (or anywhere with internet service) with an hour or two to kill, you can just tune into Watch Now and watch the minutes melt away. What a great bonus feature! Netflix would be wise to market it this way, as an extra perk that comes with membership, rather than disappoint users who expect easy instant access to DVD-quality movies on their laptops.

Anyway, whenever I read something like this, I wonder how much (if any) of the writing comes from the celebrity whose name is on the top. I know that people ghostwrite books all the time, but do they ghostwrite these bite-size polemics? Just based on the eloquence of the language and the artful structure of many of these pieces, I’m guessing yes, but it just seems wrong. Outsourcing a heartfelt plea for global justice smacks of inauthenticity–it’s one thing to hire a hack to help you make a quick buck off your hardcore fans (not a good thing, necessarily, but defensible at least) but it’s another thing to say to a staffer, “I’m against landmine use, could you put together an emotional essay about it for the Times?” Of course, this whole post is incredibly unfair; I have no idea whether Jolie actually wrote that thing, and there’s no evidence suggesting that she didn’t. But it doesn’t feel very likely to me.

At any rate, I actually think it’s great that Jolie is using her celebrity for a good cause (and “suggesting” to Brad that he might want to do the same). And she’s been doing it for a decade now, so it’s hard to chalk it up to a cynical stunt. Ultimately, even if she’s just lending her name to someone else’s writing, she’s contributing to a cause she cares about and trying to make the world a better place. That’s a huge improvement over this guy, even if he did write it himself.

In other news, I saw Ghostrider over the weekend and it was, well… Nicholas Cage was abysmal. I believe there’s a place for Mr. Cage, and bad movies is definitely it, but this wasn’t the bad movie for him. He is old and has fake hair and was not fun to watch. He was entertaining in Face/Off and Raising Arizona and Con Air, but this was not the vehicle for him. At this stage in his career, he should stick to movies where he doesn’t have to make out with women under 40 or play a badass. When he was all CGI and on fire it was pretty fun, though. The villains were, for the most part, stupid and boring. The climactic scene was a huge letdown. The first scene where he turns into Ghostrider was the best part of the movie, except for when his dad–SPOILER–died.

Anyway: although the movie was put together with sequels in mind and it made enough money that I’m sure they’re greenlighting one right now, I really hope that they decide to replace Cage with someone who can credibly play a man who doesn’t have osteoporosis.

And that’s my review of Ghostrider. Hey, they can’t all be coherent.

There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge.

I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena. As a result, I must assume personal responsibility for my words and apologize directly to those who have been hurt and offended by those words.

The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life. Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith.

I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one on one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.

I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery. Again, I am reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. I know there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that that door is not forever closed.

This is not about a film. Nor is it about artistic license. This is about real life and recognizing the consequences hurtful words can have. It’s about existing in harmony in a world that seems to have gone mad.

Say what you will about the man; that is a good apology. Of course a cynic would argue that it’s really just an impressive bit of damage control, but I would never say anything like that.

[MollyGood]

• Tom Cruise and Katie, wow! (June 2nd, 2005)
• Tom Cruise engaged in real relationship, really. For real. (June 17, 2005)
• Tom Cruise and Katie… really? (December 2nd, 2005)
• Contemplating a Mel Gibson boycott (March 2nd, 2004).

There are two lessons I draw from these posts:

1. I can see the future.

   I accurately described Tom Cruise’s farcical marriage (including the sham baby!) and anticipated Mel Gibson’s going around the bend.*

2. Who cares?

   These aren’t world leaders or great philosophers; they’re purveyors of generally mindless entertainment. As much as I enjoy making the case that they are somehow coercing their fans into sharing their awful beliefs, I don’t think I can seriously argue it. Do you think anybody has become a scientologist because of Tom Cruise’s meltdown? Is there anybody walking around today saying, “you know, Mel’s right–Jews ARE responsible for the world’s suffering!”?

   There will always be people who think these things, and at least a few of those people will be famous. But does it really make any difference in my life if Tom Cruise is a raving lunatic, or if Mel Gibson drinks too much and reveals his (completely unsurprising) bigotry? I don’t think it does. And does it somehow change the value of their work? I don’t think so, at least in the sense that I think an artistic work (yes, I am including The Patriot and Cocktail in the category) should be judged on its own merits, and not by the context of its creation.

All that being said, though, I find it doubtful that I will ever watch a Tom Cruise/Mel Gibson movie without being distracted by thoughts of their respective derangements. I know that as soon as The Passion of the Christ came out, Gibson’s filmography took on a different shape. Suddenly I noticed that almost every role he played required him to get beaten, abused, or tortured–and often sacrifice himself for a greater good. And of course Tom Cruise’s manic grin and desperate affability look different in the cold light of morning, as well.

I like to read and write about the personal lives of famous people, and I do think there’s an element of relevance in some of these stories. Fame carries with it influence, and a celebrity’s views on significant matters like race, religion, sexual orientation, global poverty, etc. can actually make a real difference in the world. For example, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to argue that The Passion of the Christ acted as a real, if minor, energizing force in the evangelical Christian movement. But there’s a huge difference between the effect of releasing that movie and the effect of making some boorish and offensive remarks after getting pulled over for drunk driving. I don’t like Mel for saying the things he said, but I think it’s somewhat hilarious that there are people out there condemning him for them after giving him a pass when he released his polemic two years ago.

In summary: Mel Gibson is a hateful jerk**, which we pretty much already knew. Tom Cruise has constructed an elaborate but clumsy public life to mask what is surely a pathetic and weird private life. Making sweeping judgments about either man because of how he chooses to live his life is both unfair and inevitable.

^* Yeah, I know. Not exactly the most difficult prognostication ever performed.

^** Isn’t it interesting how Mel’s getting excoriated for his entirely predictable anti-semitic rant while getting a free pass on calling a female officer “sugar-tits” and attempting to threaten his way out of the arrest by claiming to own Malibu? Do you still want to see this guy as the lead in What Women Want?

“I never wanted movies to be an end. I wanted them to be a means so that I could have a decent life — meet attractive women, go out on dates, live decently. Not opulently, but with some security. I feel the same way now. A guy like Spielberg will go live in the desert to make a movie, or Scorsese will make a picture in India and set up camp and live there for four months. I mean, for me, if I’m not shooting in my neighborhood, it’s annoying. I have no commitment to my work in that sense. No dedication.”

I could cut and paste a lot more, but the whole article is a good read. Check it out.

I saw Clerks 2. Here’s what I thought:

It is what Clerks would have been if Kevin Smith had $5 million when he made it. It features celeb cameos, relatively high production values, and a soundtrack that, sadly, replaces “Berzerker” with cheesy soft rock. The dialogue is the same–meaning it cavorts between the profane and the profound. Okay, mostly the profane.

I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t a particularly good movie. It was studded with references to earlier Smith movies and cameos from Smith’s extensive support group (unsurprising), its plot was thin and fairly predictable (unsurprising), the acting was often wooden (definitely unsurprising). The dialogue was awkward when not geeky or homophobic, and was consistently and continually obscene–this, of course, is no surprise either, but I was still occasionally floored by the extent to which Smith is happy to tackle subjects that plenty of people would rather never think about. This is definitely not one to see with your mom.

A short aside: Smith’s ideosyncratic dialogue has been compared to David Mamet’s, and I think it’s an apt comparison. There are actors who are good at delivering the lines (the guy who plays Randall; Jason Lee) and actors who are emphatically not (the guy who plays Dante is unfortunately the biggest transgressor here–he’s just so whiny or creepy, depending on whether he’s complaining or trying to act romantic). What’s interesting is that general acting chops seem to have little to do with this–Ben Affleck is not much of an actor but he does well in Kevin Smith movies, I think; Rosario Dawson is a decent actress but watching her try to wrap her mouth around these lines is pretty painful.The guy who plays Elias, Trevor Ferhman, turns out to be another guy who can handle Smith’s ridiculous dialogue. Despite his more or less one-dimensional character getting put through the embarrassment wringer, I think he was the funniest guy in the movie.

But anyway, there were a few great things about this movie.

1. Most of the actors are homely.
   Dante, who was not exactly a heartthrob in Clerks, has gotten chubbier, bumpier, and generally less attractive since then (this is not ignored in the script, either). Randall, who was skinny, gawky, and angular, has filled out considerably. He’s not fat but he’s round, and it took me a while to get used to the disparity. Rosario Dawson is pretty much the only attractive person in this movie (sorry, Kevin Smith, but your wife… not so much). And to be honest, it takes some getting used to–watching unattractive people make out is not a typical cinematic experience. But I appreciated it. Most of us aren’t blessed with natural good looks, the time to go the gym for four hours a day, and the money to get whatever surgical procedures might be necessary to put us over the top. So it’s nice to see characters on the screen who are no different. And, frankly, it works better for Smith’s style anyway. Who’s more likely to be fascinated by the minutia of science fiction movies and theology–beautiful cool people or hapless losers?
2. The middle third of the movie.
   It plods along before that, with a few laughs but mostly exposition and weak gags. And it falls apart, to a degree, after that, when Smith tries to tie things up in a way satisfactory to his rabid fans. But this movie has a sweet spot in the middle where a lot of funny stuff is happening. I won’t go into it except to say that the donkey show is, as it should be, the centerpiece of the film. It’s Kevin Smith at his best–hilarious and deeply disturbing.
3. Jay and Silent Bob.
   Still pretty funny, although if I never have to see Jay’s pressed ham again I won’t mind. (I won’t spoil the movie, but suffice it to say that there’s a moment in this one that goes well beyond a pressed ham. I think it was very funny but it definitely destroyed my last shred of innocence.) Jay, who was like seventeen when they made Clerks, is pushing thirty now, and thanks to a well-publicized battle with heroin, he looks it. There’s certainly something sad about a grown man recovering from hard drug addiction playing a childish drug pusher, but Smith uses that obvious concern here to good effect.
4. The complete disinterest in pleasing a mainstream audience.
   You gotta admire guys like Kevin Smith, David Lynch, Woody Allen, Michel Gondry, M. Night Shyamalan, and David Cronenberg. They make their movies the way they make their movies, and if nobody shows up that’s fine with them. The results aren’t always good but you can’t call them safe or boring. I’d trade one The Professional for a dozen Starsky and Hutches. But not Old School. You can pry Old School out of my cold, dead hands.

Now, all that being said, I cannot believe this movie got an eight minute standing ovation at Cannes. It’s a filthy, awkward, and slight vanity project. It’s an extended billet-doux from Smith to his rabid niche. It’s not a work of art–the only moment of actual cinematic ambition, a whirl-around-camera capturing an argument, comes off as adorably amateurish. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time watching it, but I just don’t buy the idea that a bunch of cineastes were so enthralled with the movie that they applauded for more than thirteen percent of an hour. The only thing I can think of is that it was essentially a long-overdue thank you for the original Clerks, which really did change the face of indie cinema. But this movie, Clerks 2, doesn’t deserve a standing ovation. It deserves a rental.