The Barnesyard

I have come to terms with it: I will be sick for the rest of my life. I caught a cold on the last day of my vacation, which was about 8 days ago. Every time it seems to subside, it just keeps coming back. I have tried everything to point the nausea: AirBorne, Wal-Borne, Halls, Sucrets, Chloraseptic, Odwalla juice, orange juice, rest, no rest, exercise, lethargy, chicken soup, and on and on and on. If anyone knows of any hot new cures, like swallowing leeches or rubbing garlic on your stomach, let me know. There seems to be no end in sight.

I'm sure a lot of people will attempt to pin blame for Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" on its prolonged editing process, on the maelstrom surrounding the Miramax divorce from Disney, and even on Miramax itself (the Weinsteins are far different from the usual empty suits Gilliam is accustomed to hoodwinking), but in truth, "The Brothers Grimm" is as wildly uneven and disjointed as any Gilliam film.

Gilliam is certainly a visionary filmmaker, but does he even know what he is seeing? "Brazil" and "Time Bandits" are both overstuffed junk piles, "The Fisher King" is a shameless and misguided stab at "humanity", and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is an indifferent travesty of less-than-epic proportions. The only Gilliam films that work for me are "Baron Munchausen" and "12 Monkeys" -- those films have the same lurching tone and episodic structure of all Gilliam's films, but they at least had strong central themes to keep them comprehensible. The rest of the films are jittery, teetering collections of scenes and stuff. "The Brothers Grimm" is no different.

Becky walked out early, which surprised me because I felt the early scenes were the most intriguing: Matt Damon and Heath Ledger play the titular characters, roaming con men who exploit the fears and legends of local townspeople by staging elaborate exorcism/performances. Things are going well until a real enchanted forest starts swallowing up girls (with more than passing resemblances to the Grimm's classic fairy tales), and the Grimms are forced to save the day.

This material might have worked if Gilliam could hold a thread of the story for more than 7 seconds, but the film is jampacked with needless plot and pointless characters. Jonathan Pryce and Peter Stormare, usually reliable character actors, ham mercilessly as a French general and an Italian torturer, respectively. They are like characters from a Monty Python sketch, but not funny as written, and even worse, completely superfluous. And once the film settles into the Enchanted Forest story, it becomes an endless series of CGI effects, most of them terrible -- the most egregious was the Gingerbread Man, who looked like the dancing goo from "Flubber".

Although they shouldn't get the majority of the blame, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger are oddly inappropriate choices for the leads (it's as though they cast the first two actors with a space in their schedule) and serve to highlight the film's jumbled intentions. They're not suited for comedy, yet are encouraged towards goofiness. They're completely unsuited to the grimy Germanic setting, and don't seem much like brothers either. I'm not here to hate on them, although Ledger, with this film and "Lords of Dogtown", has established himself as one of the truly inept actors of his generation. Watching his strange gesticulations and mushmouthed line deliveries, one shudders to think of the tics and mannerisms he will bring to his role of a gay cowboy in Ang Lee's upcoming "Brokeback Mountain".

That said, I didn't hate "The Brothers Grimm". It has a really neat concept, even if it goes a very conventional route to realize it. As with any Gilliam film, there are awe-inspiring moments and bold choices. But as usual, it is as substantial as a parade float.

GRADE: C+. (Note: I will be using my usual grading system for now, but Darcey is working on a barn graphic for me: for example, this film would probably get 2 or 2 1/2 "Barnes").

Well, the Michigan text came through so now I am babysitting a very long print job and walking around the office with giant coffee blotches on the front of my shirt. Luckily there is already a generalized contempt for me around here or I would worry about a slip in social status. Perhaps I should have listened to the women who knocked on my door at 9:30 this morning who offered me a word of God's love. Why do these people never show up in the afternoon? If there is a God, he should know I like to sleep in. And if God's love is so swell, then why do they hide the prize with a long, seemingly innocuous opening spiel (I thought they were charity collectors at first)? Why not open with God's love instead of hiding it in your palm and springing it out like a mountebank or a telemarketer? Of course, religion, like the film industry, is a dirty business for dirty folk, and the refuge of charlatans, fascists, and rapists. And not just Christianity, but all of them. And like any film, faith is experienced by different folks in different ways, some of them quite positively despite being drowned out by incessant hype from the higher-ups. But films are much more entertaining and only take up a couple hours of your time as opposed to eternity. So I'll stick with the one true faith: the cinema.

No, this isn't some backhanded swipe at Ebert and Roeper (although how sad is it that Roeper is now "the cool one"? I think Ebert is merely entranced by the lights and colors at this point, and maybe the opportunity to get off his feet for a couple hours), or a nostalgic hate on Joey "Ballsdick" Baltake. The worst critic currently working: James Rocchi. Does this guy like any other movies besides "Stir of Echoes", "Girl With a Pearl Earring", or "Sliding Doors"? More to the point, does he like any movies that are watchable? Just look at the guy's picture and you can envision the setup he must have in his mother's basement (he doesn't live with her, she lives with him, dammit!!).

If you don't know who Rocchi is, that's because you probably haven't subscribed to Netflix. I don't want this to come off as an advertisement, but if you are serious about movies and don't have Netflix, you either have easy access to the Library of Congress or you're insane! Just because it's a bandwagon doesn't mean you shouldn't jump on it. Some bandwagons are good: for example, the 1953 Fred Astaire/Cyd Charisse film "The Band Wagon" is excellent. I don't know what else to say without belaboring this point to death. I am heading home for lunch because I've spilled coffee on my shirt and Michigan is taking its sweet time putting up introduced bill text. The long-awaited "Brothers Grimm" review will be up this afternoon.

Naturally, the first day I start my blog is the first day in months that I have any significant work to do -- to anyone who doesn't know, I work at StateNet, of which the less said the better. Even this explanatory note was postponed by a half hour when my bosses congregated near my desk to talk about fantasy football.

In brief, this blog will be a forum for film reviews, essays, and ideas...a trip inside the mind of the most obsessive and authoritative film fanatic I've ever known...me. It is an outlet where all the arguing voices in my head can be released...I've tried the old drill-a-hole-in-the-skull trick, and the results were mixed at best.

At heart, film is about passion. My reviews will be passionate and personal, and I hope that your responses will be the same. I will post my review of "The Brothers Grimm" when I have more time this afternoon, but if you don't get a chance to read it this morning, be warned...the review will NOT be positive.

I will keep my comments about Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" brief, since, like toilet water, the film exists to be shat on and dismissed.

In short, this is the most monstrous display of self-infatuation since Jonestown. Think of all the outsized egos that we have encountered through the past century of pop culture: Orson Welles, Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Madonna, Truman Capote, etc.etc. With this film, Gallo trumps all. I am sure he would love this to be considered the lost Antonioni film, but in truth it makes "Gerry" look like "His Girl Friday". Boring and brainless, it is a monument to self-delusion and audience contempt. Even without the real-time blowjob scene, Vincent Gallo would still be the most repugnant screen presence to come along since Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald stopped making films.

Now that we've dispensed with that, I leave you with this solemn promise. If I ever see Vincent Gallo in person, I will try my hardest to knee him in the testicles. I can't promise I'll connect, but damn it, I'll try.

Without any ado whatsoever, here is Mike Dub's list:

1) Citizen Kane
2) Casablanca
3) The Maltese Falcon
4) Dr. Strangelove
5) Annie Hall
6) Taxi Driver
7) Vertigo
8) Pulp Fiction
9) Double Indemnity
10) The Rules of the Game
11) The Last Detail
12) Bonnie and Clyde
13) Chinatown
14) The Godfather
15) Psycho
16) The Conversation
17) Crimes and Misdemeanors
18) Some Like It Hot
19) The Graduate
20) Cool Hand Luke
21) 2001: A Space Odyssey
22) The Asphalt Jungle
23) Singin' in the Rain
24) Animal Crackers
25) The 400 Blows
26) 8 1/2
27) Breathless
28) The Godfather, Part II
29) Rashomon
30) Paths of Glory
31) Kanal
32) Rebel Without a Cause
33) Goodfellas
34) The Wild Bunch
35) Dog Day Afternoon
36) Sunset Boulevard
37) The Killing
38) The Night of the Living Dead
39) M
40) Network
41) Bridge Over the River Kwai
42) Glengarry Glen Ross
43) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
44) West Side Story
45) The Thin Man
46) A Streetcar Named Desire
47) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
48) The French Connection
49) Anatomy of a Murder
50) Duck Soup
51) and 1 more for luck) Touch of Evil

Francis Ford Coppola emerges as the top director, with 7 nods on the 2 lists. After that comes Scorses and Kubrick with 6, Woody Allen and Billy WIlder with 5, Hitchcock and Welles with 4 apiece, and 3 each for John Huston and Tarantino. Me and Dub presented our lists to each other one at a time, and you know what long-winded boars we can be...it was like the longest, most boring AFI special ever. This January, there are tentative plans for a top 100 list-off.

I am going to see "Brothers Grimmm" tonight with DP...I will let you know.

This list was compiled on August 12, 2005. Any other day would have produced a different list. Most of these films are available on Netflix or from the Dan Barnes Film Library, by special requests for F.O.B. (friends of Barnes).

1) The Searchers
2) Citizen Kane
3) Taxi Driver
4) Singin' in the Rain
5) Vertigo
6) Magnolia
7) The Apartment
8) Chinatown
9) Dr. Strangelove
10) Pulp Fiction
11) The Godfather
12) Some Like It Hot
13) The Man Who Wasn't There
14) Casablanca
15) The Purple Rose of Cairo
16) Fargo
17) Rear Window
18) Annie Hall
19) Mishima: A Life in 4 Chapters
20) It's a Wonderful Life
21) Jean de Florette
22) Tokyo Story
23) Blow Out
24) About Schmidt
25) Nashville
26) American Gigolo
27) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
28) McCabe and Mrs. Miller
29) Goodfellas
30) To Have and Have Not
31) Reservoir Dogs
32) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
33) The Graduate
34) Apocalypse Now (the original, not that Redux shit)
35) Bonnie and Clyde
36) Airplane!
37) The Conversation
38) Bridge On the River Kwai
39) Requiem For a Dream
40) The Passion of Joan of Arc
41) The King of Comedy
42) The Third Man
43) Star 80
44) City Lights
45) Raging Bull
46) Boogie Nights
47) Crimes and Misdemeanors
48) One From the Heart
49) Touch of Evil
50) Treasure of the Sierra Madre
and 1 for luck) 2001: A Space Odyssey

WHEW! Ok, go ahead and print that out and post it on your refrigerator for convenient access. I will write out Dub's list later, although 19 of our 51 films are the same. Personally, I am buffaloed by all the longass titles on my list...oh, why couldn't I have loved Max and I Am Sam? Oh yeah, they were terrible.