The Barnesyard

Well, Movie Night Week has officially come to a close, and although I still haven't seen the elusive Great Movie of 2005, there are some films out there that are well worth your time, especially "Wallace and Gromit" and "North Country".

Additionally, "Separate Lies", "Everything Is Illuminated", and even "Domino" should please certain people, although they are all certainly compromised efforts and not for every taste However, after 56 films that I have seen from 2005, here is my current top 10 (for the purposes of this list, Scorsese's documentary "No Direction Home" will not be considered):

1) Hustle and Flow
2) The 40 Year-Old Virgin
3) Grizzly Man
4) Wallace and Gromit
5) Mondovino
6) North Country
7) Mad Hot Ballroom
8) The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy
9) March of the Penguins
10) Everything Is Illuminated


I am the first to admit that that is a pathetic top 10 list..."Hustle and Flow" is the only film that I feel even approaches greatness, and even t one is still somewhat compromised. And as much as I liked "Wallace and Gromit" or "mondovino", neither of those has any business being in a top 5 list. Granted, we still have two months to go, plus the extended period in early 2006 for late-releasing Oscar bait films, but it is still pretty grim.

However, there may be some reason for hope...I have been looking through the Fall and Winter movie previews, and I have identified two dozen films that appear to have the potential (shown either through the film's cast and crew, the preview, or advance critical notices) to rank somewhere between good and great. Here is my top 10 most anticipated films for the rest of 2005, listed in alphabetical order to avoid the insinuation of critical bias.

-Breakfast on Pluto (good-looking preview for this Neil Jordan film)
-Brokeback Mountain (huge buzz)
-Capote
-Jarhead
-King Kong
-Munich (Spielberg's film about the terrorist incident at the 1972 Olympics)
-Paradise Now (another great looking preview)
-The Squid and the Whale (with Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney)
-Syriana
-Where the Truth Lies (new Atom Egoyan film)

Addtionally, we have the 1st installment of Narnia, the 4th of Harry Potter, Woody Allen's "Match Point", Malick's "The New World", Depp in "The Libertine", Steeve Coogan in Michael Winterbottom's "Tristram Shandy", Cusack and Thornton in "The Ice Harvest", Ralph Fiennes in "The White Countess", Knightley in "Pride and Prejudice", "Zathura", "The Producers", Jaz-Z in Jim Sheridan's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'", "Walk the Line" about Johnny Cash, and Downey and Kilmer in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang". Will any of these films prove to be the elusive Great Film of 2005? Only time will tell.

Day 5: "Separate Lies" (Director: Jullian Fellowes)

"Gosford Park" screenwriter Fellowes' directorial debut is another peek behind the placid facade of upper-class British life, with uptight businessman Tom Wilkinson and his dissatisfied wife Emily Watson doing brilliant work as a married couple whose secrets and infidelities threaten to destroy their privileged life together. Fellowes tells the story in fits and starts, and piles on the personal revelations, stiff-lip suffering and plot twists. "Separate Lies" starts as a domestic drama ,turns into a ethically charged mystery and then changes back into a romantic tragedy a la "Madame Bovary". All the elements never quite gibe together, but the performances carry the film through some of the rough spots. Wilkinson, who can easily slip over into hamminess, is especially good as a privileged man with exacting standards and great influence who finds himself in an uncomfortable position of weakness and difficult decisions. A good first film with some fine performances, not much more. Not for everyone's tastes.

Grade: B.

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Day 6: "North Country" (Director: Niki Caro)

Sincere, plot-lite drama about determined single mom (Charlize Theron, even better here than in "Monster") who takes a job at a Minnesota coal mine in the mid-1980's, only to be faced with an avalanche of sexual harrassment from the very first moment she begins work. Eventually, the sexism and cruelty become to much for her, permeating through the entire community and affecting her family, and she sues the mine. This low-key, well-made film from the director of "Whale Rider" evokes agit-prop Hollywood films like "Norma Rae" and "Silkwood", not only its humane treatment of topical issues, but in the way that Caro gives the piece an authentic sense of time and place, with realistic characters. "North Country" never approaches the sublime, and the courtroom scenes are typically cliched, but Caro doesn't wallow in sentiment either. The film also gives Woody Harrelson his best role in a decade, as the ex-local hockey star turned lawyer who agrees to defend Theron's case. Well worth seeing.

Grade: B+

Up next: Movie Night Week -- what we've learned.

I'm sorry about the quality of those pictures. Let's all just call it a day and we'll come back tomorrow rested and refreshed. There will be movie reviews all day long tomorrow, with capsule reviews of "Melinda and Melinda"; "North Country", "Separate Lies"; " "Pumpkinhead"; Nick Ray's "Party Girl"; and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Also, me and Jesse will give our picks for the upcoming NBA season. Incidentally, in the office football pool, Jesse once again won the week but still trails in the overall standings. Again, this is despite yet another incident of misinformation, when Jesse assured me that Marc Bulger would be starting for the Rams. Fortunately, I was able to overcome this abominable episode and hang on to first place. Jesse, I feel you just don't quite have the handle on this whole cheating thing. I mean, when the 1919 White Sox decided to blow the World Series, they didn't turn around and win the thing, did they? And when the 1954 New York Giants stole signs by posting a guy with binoculars behind the wall in center, they didn't lose the division, did they? You really need to work on your cheating skills. Not to mention your football picking skills.

"Wallace and Gromit in the Cruse of the Were-Rabbit" (2005 - Directors: Nick Park and Steve Box)

For those of you unfamiliar with Nick Park's claymation creations Wallace and Gromit, the former is a cheese-obsessed nitwit and constructor of Rube Goldberg machines, while the latter is his expressionless, long-suffering dog and business partner, who is also the real brains behind the outfit.

I have known some people who are repelled by animator Nick Park's jerky stop-motion animation, but I think it looks amazing and appropriately dingy and lived-in -- my only problem would be the grotesque design of the human characters. Park's three shorts, which netted him a couple of Oscars, are mini-masterpieces of detailed design and chaotic action, even if they are far more clever than they are funny.

"The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" doesn't expand considerably upon the shorts, although it is certainly more intricate and ambitious, with celebrity voices (Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter), some neat plot twists, and a bevy of impishly cute bunnies.

The story involves Wallce and Gromit's burgeoning careers as humane pest control experts, and their dogged pursuit of a supernatural giant rabbit that is threatening their small English village's annual giant vegetable festival. Carter voices Lady Tottington, an upper-class love interest who hosts the veg festival, while Ralph Fiennes lends his pipes to the role of her suitor, a buffoonish, amoral hunting fanatic.

Things first go haywire when Wallace's attempt to brainwash the bunnies backfires, and the Were-Rabbit is unleashed. Park and co-director Steve Box have a few more twists up their sleeves, although even their most inspired gags, such as a bunny who slowly transforms into Wallace, are only partially exploited.

Like I say, "Wallce and Gromit" impresses with its invention and cleverness, even if it remains a bit restrained, never spilling over into hilarity. The animation is brilliant and fluid, with a car chase into a giant rabbit hole that looks amazing. The film should please fans of the duo, but won't win over any non-fans.

Grade: B+.

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Don't forget to check back on Monday for the thrilling conclusion of Movie Night Week.
Day 5: "Separate Lies"
Day 6: "North Country".

Of course, I also want to see "Capote", but I am waiting for Darcey to finish reading "In Cold Blood" before we go. I want everyone to follow my lead and go see something that looks interesting this weekend. We can all talk about it on Monday morning. See you then.

A few things to look forward to next week:

-Monday: The thrilling conclusion of Movie Night Week: Day 5 - "Separate Lies"; Day 6 - "North Country". Plus, the weekend roundup of parties, football, and horror movies, as well as more Jillary wedding photos.

-Tuesday: The beginning of the NBA season, with the Kings playing in Oklahoma City against the New Orleans Hornets. Me and Jesse will also be giving our predictions for the upcoming season.

-Wednesday: Dare Daniel 6: "Malibu's Most Wanted".

-I'm also still waiting on Dub's review of "Forty Guns" for our Duelling Reviews feature. Also, next week may see the release of the long-rumored Plotz 2: "The Majestic". Or I may be full of shit. You make the call.

-Up next: My review of "Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit."

Despite Little Richard's unabating popularity, he continues to get no respect from the local 50's-themed restaurant cabal. After last month's disastrous trip to Johnny Rocket's, which had no Little Richard selections on its nickel jukebox, me and Darcey decided to give the competition, Mel's Diner, an opportunity to make amends. But there were no Little Richard songs on Mel's jukebox either! The Bee Gees? Check. The Knack? Got 'em. CCR? There. But the king of the 1950's, the man who once sang "Good golly, Miss Molly, she sure likes to ball"? Mel's would prefer to pretend he never existed.

Sure, the food at Mel's was vastly superior to Johnny Rocket's, but this spiteful, unprovoked insult to the great Georgia Peach made me sick to my stomach. When will the City of Sacramento stop eating its own and recognize Little Richard's contributions to our fair city? What is happening to our moral fabric?

I urge all concerned readers write Heather Fargo and your local city councilperson and demand that Sacramento's favorite son The Georgia Peach be honored with a lifesize statue in front of City Hall! It's long overdue, folks!

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Up next: Day 4 of Movie Night Week: "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"

In honor of the World Series, I did this week's Dare Daniel coin flip tournament in the style of the baseball playoffs, with 8 competitors, a best-of-5 first round, and consecutive best-of-7 series for the final 2 rounds. The championship series came down to "Malibu's Most Wanted" and "Operation Dumbo Drop", but Jamie Kennedy trashed Denis Leary and his fuckin' elephant by a 4-1 margin. So look for the next installment of Dare Daniel: "Malibu's Most Wanted" in the middle of next week. In the interest of transparency, I wanted to post the entire playoff brackets here, but the scanner wouldn't read it legibly. However, this document will remain on file at the Barnesyard compound for any concerned citizens to peruse. With all the talk of corruption and indictments floating around, I figure it is for the best.

What a week for the world! Harriet Miers bows out of the Supreme Court nomination, the U.S. death toll in Iraq hits the 2000 mark, and the Chicago White Sox win their first world series in nine decades! Unfortunately, none of those were interesting enough to make the Top 5. So without any further ado, let's find out if Little Richard has any juice left as we count down the top 5 things that happened in the world this week.

5) The Barnesyard plows through two wedding buffets on the same day. They said it couldn't be done. They said he didn't have the belly for it anymore. They called him Ol' Joey Nobelly, right to his face. But last Sunday, the impossible became possible and the dreams of men grew just a little bit bigger. First stop was Brian and Erin's elegantly catered brunch -- French toast squares, eggs benedict, freshly sliced fruits, salads, wraps, rolls. That night was Joel and Hillary's now-legendary taco/nacho bar, with vats of salsa, sour gream, and guacamole, as well as some delicious pork carnitas on the side. Truly a day for the ages.

4) Song of the week: "Cells" by Teenage Fanclub. I'm a fan, but even I'll admit that these pop-obsessed Scots make albums so clean they're practically bloodless. But this song off their latest album, "Man-Made", adds to their list of brilliant, unrecognized singles that are considered radio classics in some alternate universe. "Cells" is the perfect power-pop Halloween song, a spaghetti Western meets Zombies tune with obscure lyrics about cell degeneration and the dead walking the earth.

3 with a bullet) Buddy Holly, the pride of Lubbock, Texas, making his first appearnce on the list. Keep an eye out for this kid...he's got a huge future ahead of him.

2) The end of baseball...while I always get a little choked up during the World Series when I realize that I am watching the last inning of baseball for five months, the silver lining is five more months before I have to hear Steve Lyons or Joe Buck say "Thanks a lot, Scooter", in reference to the backwards basbeball-hat, hip cartoon baseball who invades every Fox telecast. And of course, five more months before I will hear Tim McCarver say anything at all. McCarver got a good head start on the offseason during Game 4, when Joe Buck asked, "How do you keep your focus in this situation, with all the pressure around you?" and the expert analyst McCarver, who apparently thought this was a rhetorical question, responded with 20 seconds of stone silence.

1) Why, it's none other than our old buddy Sacramento's own Little Richard, the Georgia Peach. There just doesn't seem to be any stopping the Peach Train, does there? Unfortunately, Little Richard could not be here to accept his award, and he left neither words of thanks or a videotaped speech. Calls to Mr. Richard's house and office were not returned.

So there you have it, one more week in the books. Thanks again to everyone who entered our little contest, and better luck next week.

Elrond prepares his speech.

More Jillary wedding pictures to come.

A match made in Pedophile's Heaven.

"Everything Is Illuminated" (2005 - Director: Liev Schreiber)

Before I begin my review, I just want to say that I HAVE NOT read Johnathan Safron Foer's book, so don't anyone jump on my face if I say something that sounds ignorant. Liev Schreiber's film is all I have to go on.

Schreiber makes a fairly auspicious directorial debut with "Everything Is Illuminated", a story about a Jewish-American writer obsessed with his family's past who travels to Ukraine to find the woman who loved and sheltered his grandfather during World War II. The man is named Johnathan Safron Foer, and as played by Elijah Wood, he is an uptight automaton with barely a shred of a personality. His enormous spectacles, plain suit, and petty neuroses are all that distinguish him.

However, he also has one gigantic neurosis -- a single-minded compulsion to collect all the physical detritus of his family members -- pictures, jewelry, mementos, even hair clippings and used condoms -- which he stores in plastic baggies and hangs on his wall. If not for the tangible proof of his familial identity, he wouldn't seem to have any connection to the world at all.

His heritage tour of the Ukraine is run by a post-glasnost family headed by a grandfather who prefers to believe he is blind, both literally as well as figuratively, in the sense of being blind to his past. His grandson, Alex, serves as Johnathan's malaprop-spewing translator, a hip hop-obsessed child of capitalism who knows little about his own family's history. He is played by rock singer Eugene Hutz in the film's most engaging performance -- he clearly has a big future ahead of him, even if he is restrained somewhat by the stereotypical limitations of his character.

As the group proceeds toward the small town where Johnathan's grandfather lived, the past starts catching up with them -- however, the film only grows more wispy and obscure with each revelation. By the end, I felt more familiar with the Ukranian countryside than I did with any of the characters.

If the emotional aspects of "Everything Is Illuminated" come off cold, Schreiber at least does a nice job articulating the visual aspects of the film, including a visit to a country home surrounded by vast fields of sunflowers that looks remarkable considering the film's smallish budget. "Everything Is Illuminated" is worth a look for the journey, even if the destination leaves you unfulfilled.

Grade: B.

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For the next installment of Movie Night Week, me and Darcey are seeing the Wallace and Gromit movie tonight. Over the weekend, I'll be watching "Capote" and maybe one more.

And don't forget that tomorrow brings us the world-renowned Barnesyard Weekly Top 5. This week: The Fall of the Little Richard Empire...or is it?

Don't forget to submit in your next request for Dare Daniel...I will be picking a winner tomorrow morning, so shout it out now if you've got a good one. Some of the suggestions I've already received include "Operation Dumbo Drop", "Malibu's Most Wanted", "Grumpier Old Men", and "Blue Demon". Anyone got a topper?

Well, Mike Dub's wildest dreams came true and the Chicago White Sox have brought home the World Series championship to the entire city of Chicago and its outlying areas. Enjoy this one, Dub, because you deserved it!

The Chicago White Sox won their first title in 88 years, and it was probably the most tightly contested four-game sweep I have ever seen. You had one game decided on a walk-off homer, another that was a 1-0 victory, and another that was the longest game in World Series history. That's four games decided by a total of five runs. I was happy to see Jermaine Dye get the World Series MVP award, although I wish he had done it in an Oakland A's uniform. Dye is one of the more unfortunate cases in A's history -- he was brought over in a mid-season trade in 2000, signed to a huge contract, became the biggest RBI producer on the team, and then fouled a ball off his leg in the playoffs, fracturing the bone and sidetracking his entire career. This is the first year since 2000 that he has been consistently healthy and productive, and it's with the freakin' White Sox.

Later this afternoon, I will post the third installment of Movie Night Week, with my review of "Everything Is Illuminated". I will also post more pictures from Joel and Hillary's wedding in the coming days.

This is a logo that Darcey created for the site when I first started it about two months ago. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to get it up, because she did a great job.

An actual picture! Here's one of the Lollipop Guild in a typical scene of dignified restraint.

"Radio" (2003 - Director: Mike Tollin)

Dare Daniel is by far the most successful bit I've come up with so far for The Barnesyard. Every time I think it might be running out of steam, I always remember that nothing is more entertaining than watching someone suffer and squirm and endure pain -- that's the reason behind the success of shows like "Jackass", "Trading Spouses", "Fear Factor", and "Live With Regis and Kelly". It's that old equation: "Boring + Terrible = Borrible."

The latest assassination attempt is Mike Tollin's utterly pointless depiction of the friendship between a small-town football coach and his pet retard, a transistor-toting towel boy that the football team dubs "Radio". I will say this for Tollin's film -- as lousy as it is, it's probably the best Dare Daniel selection thus far. The fact that the other contenders have been an endless deluge of tripe and vapidity should not detract from this honor.

Honestly, I hate films that center around the nobility of the mentally challenged, because the self-importance of the premise makes you feel like a overly prickly cynic just for hating them (the films, not the mentally challenged). The problem is that you can't help but laugh at a Hollywood actor dressing down and drooling all over himself in order to deliver a "realistic" performance that "honors" the same people he is exploiting. You'd like to think that these actors have more on their mind than the image of Dustin Hoffman accepting his Oscar for "Rain Man", but it's doubtful.

Cuba Gooding, Jr., plays Radio, a quiet young man who walks the streets of his football-mad South Carolina town with his shopping cart and ubiquitous radio. He barely speaks to anyone, and is the butt of jokes and pranks by the townsfolk. Ed Harris is the steely but sensitive football coach who takes Radio under his wing after a few of his players tie him up and pelt him with footballs (the coach's brutal punishment: he makes the players run extra sprints). As the coach gets closer to Radio, at the expense of his own family, he draws him out of his shell and makes him an assistant coach...although Radio's function seems closer to that of a mascot. The team goes into an inexplicable slide after Radio starts patrolling the sidelines, and I think I know why...they essentially quit practicing and spend their entire time watching Radio's antics.

Still, "Radio" is far too eager to sidestep the tough questions. The principal says to Harris, "I'm afraid he might be more of a mascot for the team." Harris' reply: "You should know me better than that." Good enough! And it's never mentioned again. On another occasion, Harris' neglected daughter tells Harris he has succeeded in making people feel sorry for Radio. Harris' reply: "That's not why I'm doing it!" Again, this is an acceptable answer all on its own. The whole film is like this, sweet but genuinely pointless...the team accepts Radio in the first twenty minutes, and the film is pretty much over right there. Harris' coach keeps saying of his tutorship of Radio, "I don't know where this is going to lead," as though expressing the screenwriter's frustration.

That isn't to say that Tollin, Gooding, and company don't still have some howlers up their sleeve. There's the scene where Radio is arrested for no reason while trying to deliver Christmas presents...naturally, the arresting officer turns out to be new to the area, and was obviously unaware of the notorious racial tolerance of small-town South Carolinians. Then there's the scene where Harris tries to explain his obsession with Radio to his daughter, telling a long story about finding a retarded kid in a cage when he was younger. Again, the point is never articulated. He just finishes with, "I thought you'd like to know that." There now, don't you feel better that your father doesn't love you? And let's not forget the scene of Radio pantomiming a football game in the rain after he is not allowed to travel on the team bus, with only his indomitable spirit and James Horner's saccharine-glop score to protect him.

But my favorite scene involves Harris teaching Radio how to write. Radio attempts to copy down his name, and instead lays down a series of unintelligible loops and squiggles, like an "l" written in cursive over and over again. "You did it, Radio! You wrote your name!" cries Harris. Is he fucking with Radio or what? It's bizarre. But the capper is the next scene in which the cruel jock who has been punished for picking on Radio receives a make-up present: it's a new transistor radio, and attached to it is a note written by Radio in the same nonsensical handwriting, which causes the jock to tear up. This is like a scene straight out of "Strangers With Candy", except that it's also the film's emotional payoff.

Like I say, films like "Radio" make you feel like a cynic and a jerk just for hating them. I felt even worse when the film showed shots of the real-life Radio, still goofing around on the field and flashing pom-poms with the cheerleaders at the high school football games, over the end credits. Of course, the point of a biopic showing footage of the film's real-life subject is to call attention to the accuracy of the actor's portrayal, but it only made me realize what an overwrought slice of ham Gooding's bug-eyed performance really was. He should be ashamed of himself...and so should I...and so should all of you for reading this. Haven't you learned anything from Radio?

Grade: D+.

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OK, that got ugly fast. But do I yield? Never, for a little while! So start submitting your suggestions for the next installment of Dare Daniel right now! I will pick a winner by the end of the week. For those of you playing catch-up, here is a list of all of the Dare Daniel films to date:

1) Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever: D+
2) She Hate Me: D-
3) Marci X: F
4) Exit to Eden: D-
5) Radio: D+

In the interest of filling space while I write the Dare Daniel review of "Radio", here is the new list of Netflix Local Favorites for Sacramento, which I feel shows vast improvement. Remember, these are not the most popular films for Sacramento renters, but the films rented most disproportionately to other parts of the country.

1) Midnight Run
2) The Parent Trap (the original, not the Lohan)
3) One Last Dance
4) Man On the Moon
5) My Mother Likes Women
6) Futurama: Vol. 2
7) A Walk in the Clouds
8) Chasing Liberty
9) The 13th Sign
10) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Now that's more like it, Sacramento. I see my oafish berating has been paying off. Of course, there remains the typical dreck, this time involving Keanu Reeves, Mandy Moore, and Patrick Swayze, but you also have 2 legitimately great films in the top 5, one pre-1980 selection, and one foreign film ("My Mother Likes Women"), with a documentary, a Jane Austen, and Season 6 of the Simpsons farther down the top 25. You're making me proud, Sactown. I still don't see any Preminger or Orson Welles or Hal Ashby, but it's a hell of a start.

This is an experiment to see whether or not I can link other sites onto The Barnesyard.

www.yesterland.com

This site is of no immediate importance, but I think it's interesting -- it has pictures and descriptions of every ride, attraction, and restaurant that was ever part of one of the Disney theme parks. Me and Darcey went to Disneyland last August, the first trip in over a decade for both of us, so I was most interested in reading about the rides I remember from my youth that are no longer there, such as the Peoplemover, the Country Bear Jamboree, Mission to Mars, CircleVision, etc. It doesn't look like the site has been updated in several years, which leads me to believe that the caretaker may have gone to that great Yesterland in the sky.

"Domino" (2005 - Director: Tony Scott)

I will say this for Tony Scott's "Domino" -- it is a rare film that can contain an extended, mescaline-induced hallucinatory drug sequence without any discernible change in style or tone. It's really just another feverishly overwrought and jittery scene in a movie that never pauses for breath, even when it's pausing for a breath. Every single scene in "Domino" attacks you with jump cuts, quick zooms, mangled film stock, and repetitive imagery. It's like the opening credits sequence from "Seven" stretched out to feature length.

The character of Domino Harvey, a nunchuka-wielding bounty hunter who revels in violent and extreme behavior (played by the milky waif Keira Knightley), is based on a real person -- actor Laurence Harvey's daughter, who died of a drug overdose earlier this year. However, I get the feeling that Scott and screenwriter Richard Kelly (of "Donnie Darko" fame) saw the concept of a sexy young bounty hunter as the opening into some insane cinematic flights of fancy involving casual ultraviolence, reality show producers, dead goldfish, and the liberation of Afghanistan.

In a word, "Domino" is bonkers, pure and simple. The overload of nonsensical nihilism and oppressive stylization is bound to repel most viewers, but I found myself surprisingly enthralled, albeit exhausted.

After the deaths of her father and her pet goldfish, Domino rejects her mother's 90210 lifestyle and hooks up with a shaggy pair of bounty hunters -- father figure Ed Moseby, played by an increasingly engaging Mickey Rourke with his typical scuzzball tenderness, and Choco, a psycho and potential love interest. Domino figures that being a bounty hunter will allow herself to live the criminal lifestyle while staying on the right side of the law. The appealing trio attracts the attention of a reality show producer, who hires real-life 90210'ers Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green to host the show and follow them around.

The plot of "Domino" is as fevered as Scott's style, with enough convolutions, contradictions, double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses to fill eleven films. My mind was working overtime just to keep up, only to have the rug pulled out when Scott and Kelly subvert the narrative, as they often do. The bounty hunters are hired to track down the perpetrators of an armored car job, but realize that it was an inside job set up by their employer (Delroy Lindo, always good). By this time, they've attracted the attention of the FBI, mobsters, a casino exec, and Tom Waits as some sort of angel of destiny. Like I said: bonkers.

It all culminates in a deliriously overblown penthouse shootout that tries to top the one in Scott's earlier "True Romance". "Domino", with its clusterfuck structure, Hollywood setting, and beautiful nihilist heroes, is so reminiscent of "True Romance" that it serves as a reminder of how much Scott'ss style has devolved from his earlier smoke-and-mirrors faux-elegance into something completely schizophrenic and nearly unwatchable.

However, this is the first time in a decade that Scott appears to behaving fun behind the camera, after years of plodding techno-thrillers. "Domino" may not be good, but it sure is unusual...at times, it's even fun.

Grade: B-.

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Up next: Dare Daniel - my take on "Radio".

I don't know if anyone saw this in the Sacramento Bee, but the Vegas oddsmakers have listed our hometown Kings' chances of winning this year's NBA championship at 12-1. This may not sound very reassuring, but it actually puts us in the top 6 or 8 teams in the league. San Antonio is rightly considered the odds-on favorite, with a daunting 2-1 chance of winning the title, followed by Miami at 7-2. The Kings' chances were initially listed at 15-1, but were bumped up a notch after the injury to Amare Stoudemire caused the Phoenix Suns' stock to drop considerably. I personally feel that the Spurs are as solid a lock to win the NBA championship as has existed since Michael Jordan retired from the Bulls, but it is nice to know that the basketball experts still consider Sacramento to be a legitimate contender for the title.

"Good Night, and Good Luck." (2005 - Director: George Clooney)

The impetus behind Movie Night Week came with my realization that there are only two calendar months left in the year, and I have not seen a single great movie released in 2005. I can not think of a single year in the past dozen years that did not produce at least one legitimately great movie. I do not want to succumb completely to cynicism about the modern state of film -- I want to believe we can still produce at least ONE great movie. So I have been doggedly pursuing that elusive great film, tracking down every remotely possible candidate. But if Hollywood can fuck up a can't-miss premise like "Stealth", maybe there's no hope after all. Admittedly, I've missed a lot of highly regarded movies that played in theaters, but I've also caught more than my share of critic's darlings, and have been underwhelmed repeatedly

The latest casualty is George Clooney's deadly dry and impersonal film about TV journalist Edward R. Murrow's crusade against the Red-baiting tyrant Joe McCarthy in the 1950's. Murrow was the host of "See it Now" on CBS, a prime time news-interview show that he anchored with his hound-dog intensity. David Strathairn gets a rare shot at a starring role as Murrow, and he does a capable impression while never giving us a hint of the man behind the baggy eyes and cigarette smoke.

In true Murrow fashion, Clooney sticks close to the facts of the case -- Murrow's tentative baiting of McCarthy by picking up on a story of an Air Force captain discharged from the service in a fit of Communist hysteria. McCarthy and his conservative cronies fight back, the entire network is reluctantly drawn into the fray, and McCarthy's detractors become emboldened and began chipping away -- so close, in fact, that we're never personally or intellectually invested in any of the characters or events. In Clooney's vision, Murrow and his fellow reporters are simply noble, heroic, journalist-crusaders and that's that.

The closest we get to a personal story is an uninvolving and tenuously related subplot about two of Murrow's colleagues at CBS who are secretly married. We're given no clue as to why Murrow chose to pick up on the McCarthy story except for righteousness. Instead, we are merely shown TV clips from the era (to his credit, Clooney weaves them in as adroitly as he did in "Confessions of a dangerous Mind") and scenes of the characters reading press releases and newspaper articles aloud. The effect is documentary-like, especially given the smoky black-and-white cinematography, but I couldn't help feeling that an actual documentary on the subject would be far more edifying and interesting.

A documentary short would actually be preferable, since this story seems too thin and tangential to support a feature film. When the credits rolled, I couldn't help thinking, "That's all there is?" Without any insight into their personalities, the characters all seem intensely dry and officious, and the film becomes cold, uninvolving, and pedantic. In my eyes, Murrow's heroism stems from his tenacity in pursuing an unpopular story about injustice. In Clooney's eyes, Murrow is heroic because he had the guts to lecture people on right and wrong.

Towards the end of the film, a CBS executive admonishes Murrow, saying that "people want entertainment, not a civics lesson." Clooney seems to view this idea as abhorrent, and makes "Good Night, and Good Luck" into a feature-length civics lesson. I don't think that entertainment and importance need to be enemies, and I believe a film is much more effective and influential if it satisfies our need for entertainment first and education second. Unfortunately, "Good Night, and Good Luck." fails on both counts.

Grade: C.

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Undaunted, I will return to the cinema again tonight, possibly to see "Everything is Illuminated". If any of you have a suggestion for a great 2005 movie I might have missed, let me know.

I think a lot of my regular readers took the day off yesterday, so I will give you all time to catch up on the action and come back early this afternoon with Day 1 of Movie Night Week: "Good Night, and Good Luck.".

You know, it has occurred to me that we have experienced at least a solid of month of absolutely perfect weather. As other parts of the country experience unprecedented levels of natural disasters, it makes me wonder if the effects of global warming, while catastrophic for humanity, might actually have a beneficial influence on the city of Sacramento. So that puts kind of a silver lining on this whole apocalyptic, zombie-infested wasteland thing we keep hearing about...lovely, temperate weather.

Dub gave me the permission to print his psychotic rant about an article I e-mailed to him from ESPN.com. I won't link the article here because a) I don't know how; and b) The bulk of the article consists of a "Field of Dreams" satire so vapid and extended it might be dangerous to any pregnant or physically feeble readers. The gist of the article was that the suffering of the long-time White Sox and Astros fans has been relatively commensurate with that of the long-time Red Sox and Cubs fans. The main difference being that the Red Sox and Cubs are romanticized losers with enormous fan bases and the White Sox and Astros have mainly suffered in silence. I thought this was a valid point argued glibly, but Dub clearly felt otherwise. His insane rant:


Hey.

I got the article and am duly annoyed by it. I just finished writing what was to be an e-mail to you about the article. But then I thought that maybe I had better wait on it, to get a better idea of how you feel about the article. And then I thought maybe it was a joke - that you were just sending this to me to fuck with me. And now I'm thinking that I'm just going to send it to you anyway. If you were just sending this to fuck with me, or if I have misunderstood the article, please disregard the rest of this e-mail.

If not, here is my response. I'm sure it's a little defensive, but it is from a Cubs fan who knows more about the Cubs and their fans than the man who wrote the article. The difference of opinion (Caple's and mine, and possibly yours and mine) most likely come from the difference of perspective. Caple can only see the Cubs from the outside, and I can only see the Cubs from the inside.

So, what follows is an answer (a long one) to Caple's article, from the perspective of a loyal, true Cubs fan:

Question from article: "The Cubs haven't been to a World Series since 1945 and haven't won one since 1908, but really, how much worse was that than what Houston fans endured?"

Answer: Well… how about FIFTY-THREE FUCKING YEARS!!! That's how much worse than what the Houston fans have endured! The article also mentions that Houston's drought has lasted much of the lives of many of its fans. Well, two years ago, when the Cubs were in the NLCS, I remarked to my dad, "I don't believe this. They've never gotten this far in my lifetime." My dad replied, "Hey, they haven't gotten this far in MY lifetime." My dad is approximately twenty years older than the Houston Astros, and so are quite a few other Cubs fans. How many people (not Cubs fans, but people) can you find that were alive when the Cubs won their last Series in 1908? And how many can you find that were alive for the inception of the Astros, in the early 1960's?

Question: "Did [Astros fans] blame any of their losses on a fan loyally rooting for them along the left-field line?"

Answer: Cubs fans didn't blame any of their losses on a fan loyally rooting for them along the left-field line either, asshole! You know who did? Little fuck-shits who write for ESPN! And dickheads who announce nationally televised baseball games. People like, say, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Thom Brenneman, Steve Lyons, Jeanie Zelesko, the producers of Fox who dubbed 2003 the Battle of the Curses, etc. Those are the fucks who don't let go of shit like that, and those are fucks who do not represent Chicago in any way - they all announce for different home teams during the regular season, and with the exception of Brenneman (who announced for the Cubs for a few years in the early '90's), none of them have any affiliation with this city, this ball club, or the true blue Cubs fans, of which I am one. If you ask any true Cubs fan - that is to say, anyone who loves the Cubs as much now as they ever did in 2003, and are not now peppered with brand spankin' new Sox gear), which is also to say, any fan who knows anything about baseball - if you ask any Cubs fan why the Cubs lost in 2003, you will get two predominate answers, neither of which have anything to do with Bartman (it is not the Chicago sports announcers (and it was not Chip Caray and Steve Stone) who cannot stop saying Bartman Ball, Mr. Lyons), and nothing to do with a curse. The two predominant answers, and they are both correct, are: 1)Alex Gonzalez let a ball roll in between his legs with two outs on the pitch after the fan interference, blowing the late-inning lead they had; and 2) in game 7, Dusty Baker left Kerry Wood in the game too long. Those are the answers that come from people who watch the Cubs and care about them.

Comment from the article: "You want pain? Before this week, the White Sox were primarily known for three things: Throwing the 1919 World Series, Disco Demolition Night and the father-son tandem who beat up the Royals' first base coach. The most famous player in their history was permanently banned from baseball. They've played in one World Series in the past 86 years. They threatened to move to Tampa Bay. And they not only wore those god-awful pajama tops, they wore shorts one day in 1976. Talk about winning ugly."

Response: I simply don't understand the point on this one. Is he saying that the Sox deserve to go to the Series because they have lost one on purpose, nearly blown up their own stadium, and the only fans that they could draw before the middle of this season were drunken sociopaths who attacked an eighty-year old man with his back to them? I don't mean to imply that the Sox should be held back or in some way are not deserving of going to the Series - they are there because they earned it. But what kind of points to make are those? So, because the Sox are historically the second-worst team in baseball history, have bad fashion sense, and implement imbecilic promotions to draw people to the stadium because they have no fans - because of that... what?

Is that also to argue that the Cubs, who have notoriously loyal fans, who don't need to blow shit up to draw thirty thousand people a game - because of that the Sox deserve a World Series more? Again, I'm not saying either one of them DESERVES to be there, in the sense that they are somehow owed it. What I am saying, though, is that I’ve never heard any Cubs fans say anything like, “Oh, come on. It’s been almost sixty years. Just let us in.”

Also, Cubs fans have never walked around “burdened the rest of the world by constantly bitching about [our] pain.” Losing is part of our identity, and we wear that badge of honor proudly, still hoping every year that the Cubs will pull off the miracle we have all been waiting all our lives to see; and every year watching our hopes fade away with the spring as we head into summer. We are perpetually on the side of snake-eyes tossed against the side of seven (special thanks to Leonard Cohen for the words).

Even earlier today, I had a funny exchange with a Cubs fan cab driver, who asked which team I am a fan of. I told him the Cubs, and he said, “Oh. Are you an alcoholic?” It was the funniest thing I heard all week.

But back to the question of what gives off the impression that Cubs fans are “whiny.“ Why is it different when a Cubs fan says, "Man, the Cubs suck," than when someone in Milwaukee says, "The Brewers are really gonna suck." Did anyone berate Indians fans during their thirty-something-year playoff-less streak? No. You know why? Because there were no Indians fans back then. And because no matter how bad the team is doing, you will never be able to find game-day tickets for six bucks a piece at Wrigley Field, the way you can in Milwaukee. It seems to me that the reason that some people hate the Cubs so much is because there's just so goddamn many of us. And no matter what the Cubs do, we will still be there to support them. I know many people who think that that is the main problem with the organization - that there is no incentive for the team to shell out money and try to be good, because people will show up regardless, and the team will make its money no matter what their record is. It used to be a valid point, but the Cubs recently boosted their salary limit, and for the past couple of years it should be obvious to anyone that they are trying to make a move into the postseason. They just can't do it.

So is that why for all the anger, or at the very least, annoyance? Because Cubs fans don't scream and holler and (most of the time) boo at their own players while they are on the field, like they do in New York? Because we don't boo a player who has hit two home runs earlier in the game and strikes out late in the game (a story I once heard an announcer tell about Mike Schmidt in Philadelphia)? Because we go to the games, unlike at least fifteen other ball clubs around the country (I remember in the late '80's, Pittsburgh couldn't sell out a playoff game!)?

Or is it because we have fun, and enjoy the game as a game, and make fun of ourselves with T-shirt slogans that read "Wait 'til Next Year!" and laughingly (yes, all you humorless fucks out there: it's a joke!) refer to the curse of the billy goat, and we used to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with Harry Caray? Hell, two of the most recognizable refrains for Cubs fans: "Let's play two!" and "I'm a Bud man and a Cubs fan" serve rather accurately to generalize the attitude of the Cubs fan (which most are). We love baseball, we love beer, we love the Cubs, and we enjoy ourselves.

Keep in mind that I realize that not every non-Cubs fan hates the Cubs. But I deal with four people that I work with, three who are from other parts of the country, who give me the same shit all the time that Caple is slinging in his article. I am not trying to put on any face that makes is seem like we are oppressed and hated or anything like that. The Cubs are one of the most popular teams in baseball, and perhaps they are the most supported team in all of sports - one of those four that I work with suggested recently that it is not fair that the Cubs have so many fans, because they are so popular that in any given venue outside of Chicago, you can count on at least a quarter of the crowd to be rooting for the lovable losers, and therefore they never have to play a true “away game,” (some folks even go so far as to refer to Milwaukee’s County Stadium as Wrigley North).

So hate us if you want, Mr. Buck and Mr. Brenneman and Mr. Lyons and Mr. Caple, for whatever reason. And hate the Cubs too. I don't really care, and I would venture that most other Cubs fans don‘t either. I just don't want to hear this bullshit about the brilliant, divine light of the White Sox, and how the Cubs fans are always whining, and how much the Sox DESERVE this (karmically); and I certainly don’t want to hear it from some asshole who obviously has, at best, an outsider’s understanding of Chicago sports, and has a taste for some Sox dick at the moment - hey, kind of like a lot of those people who will be at Cellular Field in the coming days. They will smile and wave at the camera and hold signs that make great puns with the players’ names. And they will be donning all sorts of White Sox garb, from the shoes to the hats. If you look closely enough, you can still see the price tag.

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The Barnesyard's perfectly reasoned out and thoughtful response:

Passionately argued, Mr. Dub, and not the least bit righteous and self-glorifying. Seriously though, as the fan of a small-market team who lives over 100 miles away from their stadium and has made minimum wage for the majority of his life, I take offense to many of Dub's points. By his definition, I am a lousy fan because I don't get to go to every game despite the low ticket price. Concurrently, SF Giants fans are superior because their team is more popular in the same area. It is very easy to say that having a smaller, less fanatic fan base means that a team has terrible fans, but is popularity the only issue? If so, then the greatest fans on Earth are Yankees fans, followed by Red Sox fans, followed by the Cubs fans. However, this is the very point that the article is refuting. Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, LA Lakers, Dallas Cowboys, etc. are international brand names -- they are beloved by people with no connection to those cities. The Cubs, like the Red Sox, also have the advantage of playing in a stadium that is a legitimate historic landmark, which gives every game the feeling of an event, even if the team stinks. The White Sox stadium and fan base is poorer and located on the South Side of the city (a place I'm guessing Dub doesn't get to visit too often...perhaps the reason you haven't seen much White Sox gear this season is that you live in the posh suburb of Pallatine, my friend!), and they've always been #2 to the Cubs in Chicago. So does that mean that the loyal fans who have spent their entire lives rooting for the White Sox with nothing but humiliation to show for it (and not even bittersweet, romanticized humiliation) don't deserve a victory as much as the Red Sox did and the Cubs still do? Dub would argue that they don't, on the basis that they are fewer in numbers. If anything, Dub, it is more difficult to suffer alone than to suffer with millions, to become celebrated and deified for your suffering. And Dub, "Cubs fans didn't blame their loss" on Steve Bartman? Now you know that that is a flat-out lie. Besides the myriad comments you must have overheard from Chicagoans at the time (or are they just not "real fans" like you?), I'm pretty sure the death threats against Bartman didn't come from Florida Marlins fans. Cubs fans don't boo? Cubs fans don't whine or blame? What kind of alternate idealized universe are you living in? Does Wrigley Field hover in this fantasy of yours (next thing you know, you'll be claiming that Cubs fans don't think the entire world hates them while acknowledging that they are one of the most popular teams in the world -- nailed you)? Maybe these people aren't your idea of true fans, but I think that is Caple's point. Every team has bandwagon-jumpers and every teams has die-hard fans who feel rewarded when their team finally wins -- just not as many as the Red Sox and Cubs. Most of the people who are rooting for the Astros and White Sox have lived their entire lives rooting for a loser, just like the majority of Red Sox and Cubs fans. You want difficult? Try being a loyal Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan (they exist, even if they are few and far between), boosting a team that has a terrible stadium, no history, no legend, no heroes, no fan base, and has never even had a winning season, much less a playoff or World Series appearance. Rooting for the most popular and storied team in the National League in a great baseball-only stadium? Easy as pie. I think the essential point of Caple's article, and the reason it resonated with me, is that the Cubs and Red Sox fans don't have a monopoly on suffering, even though they act like they do. I don't think your response should change that perception any.

Now that some of the usual Barnesyard business is out of the way, I can blog a little bit about the two weddings I was lucky enough to attend yesterday. I won't go into too many details, since social affairs are generally the province of Heckasac, and my comments will surely pale in comparison. But a few notes about each won't hurt anybody:

Brian and Erin's wedding -- outstanding opulence. For those of you who don't know much about these kids or their 37-year courtship, I will only say that Brian was voted Time Magazine's Nicest Human Ever a few years back and that Erin is a tart-tongued redhead (and who isn't a sucker for that?). Regrettably, I haven't got to hang out with these two much in the last few years, but they were nice enough to invite me to their wedding. I was also quite fortunate to be seated at a table with Allen, Nicola, Nilesh, and Sandra at the reception afterwards, and we were easily the rowdiest bunch there, throwing up Table 4 gang signs and challenging every other table to arm-wrestling and eggs benedict-eating contests (the other tables, duly intimidated, declined our challenges). The wedding took place at this beautiful mansion located down the delta in Walnut Grove -- it featured winding staircases, a pool table that was twice as big as any I've ever played on, and a private screening room that was like something out of my wildest dreams (except for the absense of a remote control and refrigerator built into my chair, to say nothing of the lack of a weed humidor). The buffet was a sumptious brunch spread, with mini-eggs benedicts, french toast triangles, fresh fruits and salads, and more. The ceremony was lovingly mounted and refreshingly direct, and all the bridesmaids and groomsmen looked appropriately dapper in their finery. A smashing success. Grade: A.

Joel and Hillary's wedding -- tantalizing theatricality. An unbelievably charming, ramshackle affair, with improvised vows, a tandem-bike wedding march, and everyone in costume. My favorite costume was Franklin D. Roosevelt, but special honors go to Knock Knock as the Lollipop Guild, Michael C. as Michael J., and Oliver as the futuristic Doc from "Back to the Future". But the burning question is, Did anyone "get" my costume (me and Darcey went as Brick and Maggie from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof")? And the answer is, no one who doesn't read my blog on a regular basis. All this despite the fact that both my Southern accent and my limp became more accomplished and pronounced as the evening wore on (note to self: drinking champagne all day long turns you into a Southern dandy...use this information to your advantage). The confusion engendered by my costume can be summarized by this exchange between me and Alec, as he was leaving the bathroom and I was entering:

Dan: Pardon me, Teen Wolf.
Alec: Pardon me................Dan.

Of course, Darcey looked absolutely luminous as Maggie in white dress and black Liz Taylor bob wig, but I think most people assumed I just didn't try very hard. I didn't, of course, but that's neither here nor there. Even though I'm not much for dressing up in costume, events like this make me realize that I have an insane bounty of brilliant and creative friends. And of course, Joel and Hillary are the sweetest kids alive, so I was happy just to be there. Not to mention the food! A taco bar, nachos, and delectable pork carnitas? Someone's been reading my thoughts again. Grade: A.

There's still a lot of ground to cover, so I will take a page from my good friend and racquetball buddy Leonard "I Gave "The Terminal" 3 Stars" Maltin and recap this weekend's movie screenings in capsule form:

"Palindromes" (2005 - Director: Todd Solondz)

Nearly brilliant screenplay of personality-free preteen girl obsessed with having a baby is torpedoed by uniformly terrible acting. After her mother forces the child into a botched abortion, she takes off on a wide-ranging journey that references everything from Huckleberry Finn to religious fanatacism to pedophilia. In a bold move, the girl is played by about a dozen different performers of different races, ages, and sizes (including one shocking sequence in which she becomes an obese black woman) while the other characters never notice the difference. I assume Solondz is making a point about the extinguishing of identity or the uniformity of experiences, but everything is muddled by the incomprehensibly flat acting -- it almost seems as though Solondz intended for his actors to perform poorly, but there have been so many brilliant, searing performances in Solondz' previous films (e.g., Heather Matarazzo and Brendan Sexton in "Welcome to the Dollhouse", Selma Blair and Paul Giamatti in "Storytelling", and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Jane Addams and nearly everyone else in "Happiness") that I was left scratching my head. Too original to dismiss, but too aloof to recommend. Grade: B-.

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"Brian's Song" (1974 - Director: Buzz Kulik)

Emmy Award-winning movie of the week about the friendship between Chicago Bears teammates and unlikely friends Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo is dated by TV movie stylistic conventions (too many fast zooms and sun-drenched, slo-mo photography) and Michel LeGrand's overbearing score, but the performances of Billy Dee Williams (as the remarkably talented but socially stunted Sayers) and James Caan (as the less talented but tenacious and gregarious Southerner Piccolo) carry the material, and the themes of racism are dealt with more frankly and directly than in any modern TV movie. Clips of Sayers' on-field action are nicely interspersed into the story, and show what a special talent he really was. Williams is appropriately shy and retreating as Sayers, a million miles away from his legendary smooth-cat personae. Small and predictable, but still worthy. Grade: B.

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"The Bank Dick" (1940 - Director: Edward Cline)

Typical W.C. Fields insanity about a shiftless drunkard who unwittingly foils a bank robbery and inflates his exploits enough to be offered the position of bank detective. Many Fields fans consider this to be his best film (including New Yorker critic David Denby, who said it was the best American film of 1940, the same year that "Grapes of Wrath", "Rebecca", and other studio system classics were released). I consider the film a lesser effort, slightly more strident and conventional than "It's a Gift" or "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break" (which also has a superior car chase finale), but still an entertaining collection of non-sequiters and reprehensible behavior. The best sequence involves Fields (as Eggbert Souse, pronounced Sousay, accent over the e) taking over the production of a romantic film that he reimagines as a football picture. Grade: B.

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I am probably going to see "Good Night, and Good Luck" at the Tower tonight after football, so I will let you know all about it tomorrow morning.

I was wondering where to begin in my recap of the weekend's events when I remembered the words of my old Grandpappy: "Football first, my son...always football first." The fact that he never actually said this does not diminish the power of his words.

Since I spent all of Sunday shuttling from wedding to wedding to wedding, I didn't actually get to watch any games. However, I was unfortunate enough to return home from Walnut Grove just in time to watch the Broncos blow another huge 4th quarter lead and succumb to Eli Manning and the Giants in the final seconds. Of course, that was nothing compared to the psychic meltdown that the Cowboys suffered, with a humiliating loss to the Seahawks amplified by a sideline confrontation in which Parcells shoved one of his coaches. The enormity of the Broncos loss is offset by the fact that they are still in first place after a brutal stretch of games in the first half...but what do Cowboys fans have to look forward to, besides the inevitable slide into irrelevance and self-sabotage?

Of course, the entire weekend of football was besieged once again by the dark cloud of Jesse's (or as the wags in the press have dubbed him, "Worse Than Al Rothstein") rampant cheating in the office football pool. He didn't show up to work on Friday because he was "sick" (of losing? of inferiority? Jesse, the public demands to know!), so I was unable to make the last-minute changes of my picks that would surely have rocketed me into first place for the week. As it stands, I will finish the week just one point behind Jesse, but retain my hold on the overall lead by 2 points. Jesse, Jesse, Jesse...when will you learn that the purpose of cheating is to BEAT your opponent?

Of course, I don't want this blog to turn in to a Jesse-bashing forum (well, I do, but roll with it), so I will say that the man looked appropriately dashing in his tux as Brian's groomsman. After the wedding, shirt untucked, pounding Heinekens...eh, not so much. But at the ceremony: sharp as a laser.

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In other sports news, the White Sox took a 2-0 lead in the World Series when leadoff hitter Scott Podsednik, who hadn't hit a single home run all year long, smacked a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th to give his team the victory. Of course, Dub would claim that the Sox are just going to tank the series on purpose anyway (let's face it, they have a history!), but I think this group is for real. Dub actually e-mailed me a brilliant rant in response to an article I sent him that suggested that the woes of the White Sox and Astros are commensurate to those of the Red Sox and Cubs except with less whining and self-righteousness. I am trying to secure the rights to his rant so that I can post and respond to it on The Barnesyard.

Speaking of Dub, don't forget that the next installment of Duelling Reviews will be coming later this week, as we both review the Sam Fuller western "Forty Guns", starring Barbara Stanwyck.

In addition to all the other exciting features this week on the Barnesyard, I have also declared this to be Movie Night Week. There are a lot of new films out in the theaters that I haven't seen, so I will be watching at least one per night every day from now until Thursday. Reviews will be up on the blog the next morning. I defintely want to see "Good Night, and Good Luck" at the Tower, but does anyone have any suggestions beyond that?

Monday morning at StateNet...so little to do, but SO MUCH to blog. First of all, I have two, count'em, TWO weddings to talk about, which also means two buffet spreads to talk about. First, there was Brian and Erin's posh affair at a mansion in Walnut Grove, then there was the costume wedding of Joel and Hillary (or, as the wags at the tabloids have dubbed them, Jillary...I suggested Joellary, but was quickly shouted down) on Sunday night.

And, of course, there's football to talk about, including heartbreaking last-second losses by both the Broncos and Cowboys and all the usual Jesse-baiting.

Me and Darcey also spent Saturday visiting her sweet grandmother in San Jose -- we went to Max's to celebrate Darcey's birthday before heading back to her grandmother's for carrot cake and coffee. Darcey's grandmother is like an awesome cyborg hostess, everything is so perfect and delicate and grandmotherly.

With all of these goings-on, I couldn't possibly have had time to watch any movies, right? Au contrere, bitch! Look for capsule reviews of "Palindromes", "Brian's Song", and "The Bank Dick" later today.

All this, and I still haven't delivered the long-promised Plotz 2: Dan Gives Away "The Majestic". And don't forget that the next installment of Dare Daniel will be coming in the middle of the week, where I will conquer my fears and watch Cuba Gooding, Jr. play a retarded man who rides in a shopping cart with his magical transistor in "Radio". Ed Harris is in it, so it can't possibly be bad, right? RIGHT????!!!!

That's a lot to get done today, so I am going to go get some coffee and see if I can organize my mind a little first.

In case anyone is curious, here is the Netflix description of "Blue Demon", rated #2 on the Netflix: Local Favorites list for Sacramento:

"Shark specialists Nathan Collins (Randall Batinkoff) and his wife, Marla (Dedee Pfeiffer), are tasked with a hush-hush government project training great whites to patrol U.S. shores. When a rogue general sabotages the operation and releases the beasties into American waterways, brainiac shark Red Dog heads for San Francisco Bay on a lethal mission."

The plot description makes it sound like "Deep Blue Sea" crossed with "Stealth". In addition to Michelle Pfeiffer's significantly less-hot sister, "Blue Demon" also stars Jeff Fahey and Josh Hammond...incredibly, the film bypassed the theaters entirely and was released directly to video! Go figure.

Due to overwhelming demand, I will forgo the usual coin flip tournament and declare "Radio" to be the subject of the next Dare Daniel. It's funny, because when I first saw the preview for this movie, I said to myself, "There is no way in hell that I would ever watch that piece of shit." And now, I'm using my Netflix account to watch it in my dwindling spare time. I'll admit it: I've fallen pretty hard. But unlike "Radio", it's all for the sake of entertainment. Look for the next Dare Daniel sometime in the middle of next week.

My wrists are hurting and my manager is home sick, so I will probably take the opportunity to cut out early -- StateNet, that's poetic license...except for the sore wrists, that's gonna cost you -- and work on Plotz: The Majestic over the weekend.

I'm going to Joel and Hillary's costume wedding on Sunday -- me and Darcey are dressing up as Brick and Maggie from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", and we watched the movie last night for research. It didn't help much, since my Southern accent still sounds like a bad Michael Caine impression. I anticipate a lot of "What are you supposed to be?"'s, but I'll wearing pajamas and slugging whiskey, so I won't give much of a fuck. Richard Brooks' film is even better than I remember, with a titanic performance by Burl Ives as Big Daddy, a dying scion of a neurotic Mississippi family who have been tyrannized by his cruel, stampeding nature. Paul Newman and Liz Taylor ooze sexual frustration in the leads, and there is great character work from Jack Carson and Judith Anderson. I've never seen the Tennessee Williams play, but the conclusion feels a bit too pat for my tastes, and Brick's seeming homosexuality is glossed over almost completely. Still, there's plenty of brittle dialogue and wholehearted acting to be savored along the way. Grade: B+.

Without any ado whatsoever, the five best things that happened in the world this week...

5) The premiere of Steven Colbert's new show immediately following "The Daily Show". It is too early to tell whether the show will succeed on a regular basis or not, but it is nice to have a companion piece to John Stewart's show that doesn't involve looking at Adam Carolla's face. But didn't that Top 5 list in Colbert's first show seem a little too familiar? And what to make of his comment on Wednesday night's show about "the Colbert promise"? Did Mr. Colbert actually rip off my humble little blog on numerous occasions? Short answer: yes. Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees. But at the end of the day, isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? That, my friends, is for the lawyers to decide. Until then, a personal note to Mr. Colbert: you can have any other number you want...you want to do a Top 10 list? Top 3? Top 11? Go for it. But 5 is my baby, Mr. Colbert, and everyone knows it. Back off.

4) Whenever a great song gets inside of my head, I tend to play it over and over again to the point of insanity until the tune is exorcised from my consciousness. This week's honoree: Bob Dylan's live version of "Seven Days" from Volume 3 of the Bootleg Series. It's an intense, loping blues with religious overtones recorded on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour, and sounds like an outtake from his underrated album "Desire". Over a savage backing band and a spooked-out violin, Bob sings about waiting at a station for a woman with a "face that outshined the sun and the skies", if only they can both survive that long. Brilliant stuff.

3) God tries to get on my good side: First of all, I learn I'll be getting a bonus from work. Then I find out I'll be getting a small raise after my 1-year anniversary at StateNet on November 1. And now my car's turn signals mysteriously fix themselves? OK, God, what's the story? You're never nice to me unless you want something in return, so come on, 'fess up...are you taking a testicle?

2) I'm a man who likes my mustard, so I'm ecstatic to report that I have currently have SIX different varieties of the stuff in my refrigerator. I have the basic yellow, the spicy brown, some delicious dijon, hot German mustard, and two brands that Darcey bought for me at Apple Hill -- one sweet with hot peppers, and the other a robust and beer-flavored variety from Jack Russell Brewery (my personal favorite). Truth be told, I could eat a handful of nickels if I slathered enough mustard on them.

1) Well, good golly Miss Molly, it's the comeback kid, Sacramento's own Little Richard, the Georgia Peach! I guess plastering every radio and TV station in town with a last-minute barrage of attack ads really paid off for you, didn't it, Mr. Richard? Any words of inspiration for your legion of fans? Nothing? One word...no? Could you just nod your head slightly for us?....annnnnnnnnd there he goes out the door. Well, he hasn't spent 396 weeks in the top position for nothing, folks! He's beloved!

Thanks again to everyone who entered our little competition, and better luck next week!

********

Up next: "The Majestic" isn't really that bad, is it? Oh, it's that bad alright.

I thought it might be interesting to take another look at the Netflix Local Favorites list for Sacramento. This is a list of Netflix discs that are being rented significantly more often by Sacramentans than by other Netflix members. If you recall my earlier post on the same subject, I was disappointed by the choices of my fellow Capital City residents, and exhorted them to try harder next time. So how are they doing? Am I still surrounded by morons or can I start looking people on the street in the eye again? Without further ado, the top ten Sacramento Local Favorites.

1) Oliver and Company
2) Blue Demon
3) Against the Ropes
4) Cradle 2 the Grave
5) Rings
6) Futurama: Volume 2
7) Robin Hood (the Disney version)
8) Men of Honor
9) Just Married
10) Knockaround Guys

Let's see, there's Vin Diesel, Meg Ryan, Ashton Kutcher, DMX, Cuba Gooding, Jr., inferior cartoons...all the elements of rancid cinematic refuse. Way to freaking go, Sacramento. Where's the Nick Ray that we talked about, huh? Where's the Ozu, the Howard Hawks, the John fucking Huston? Is any of this getting through to you, Sacramento? Do you need to go to your room and think about it?

There are a few decent selections further down the list, but their impact is leavened by the presence of duds like the SAT caper film "The Perfect Score" at #11, Sandra Bullock in "The Net" at #13, and the second season of "Monk" (what is it with you and "Monk", Sactown?) at #21. I'm very, very disappointed in you, Sacramento. I want to see some improvement in this list or we might start talking about military school for you.

Dare Daniel -- "Exit to Eden" (1994 - Director: Garry Marshall)

"Exit to Eden" is a perfect example of the way that playing to every demographic only ends up making everyone unhappy. The film is based on an Anne Rice novel about an island dedicated to sadomasochistic fantasies, but in a typical fit of cowardice, the film is a goofy comedy about undercover cops and jewel thieves set on an island dedicated to very tame quasi-sadomasochistic fantasies.

So now you've offended the built-in audience of Anne Rice fans, the rampant nudity still turns off the older crowd, the total lack of sexuality (beyond awkward posing) feels too prurient for the perverts, and you've also assured that the film will be terrible by casting Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell as the cops. It reminds me of that old saying, "If it bends, it's funny...if it breaks, it isn't funny...and if it stars Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell, gouge out your eyes and stick pencils in your ears."

The plot revolves around an Australian photographer (played by Paul Mercutio of "Strictly Ballroom" in what turned out to be both his debut and swan song in American film) who accidentally takes a photo of two unfunny bumbling jewel smugglers while on his way to the sex resort of Eden, where he will roleplay as a submissive for the island's rich clientele. After Dan and Rosie foil the exchange of the diamonds in a strip club scene that simply begs you to hit the stop button, they and the escaped jewel thieves hightail it to Eden to find the photo.

"Exit to Eden" was directed by Garry Marshall, who made prostitution palatable in "Pretty Woman", but couldn't quite pull off the same for sex fantasies -- the film is essentially a 70 year-old Jewish man's idea of outre sexual behavior (although that still fails to explain the presence of a nearly nude rollerblading race). In one sequence, the island's visitors actually attend classes and sit at little desks! I know that most of my kinkiest fantasies involve lectures, seminars, and note-taking, but it's not for everyone!

Literally every scene in the film falls flat -- the comedy relief is desperately unfunny, the set design is a catastrophe, the "erotic" scenes are ridiculously tame, and every actor looks rightly embarrassed, especially prim, sweet-faced Dana Delaney as the island's dominant mistress. She actually looks tired and sad in her green leather bustier, as though she realizes what a career-killer she's got herself into.

Once Garry Marshall came onboard and the cop characters were expanded exponentially from the book, I'm surprised they even kept the hook involving the mistress and the photographer. Why even bother pretending the film is about sexual fantasies anymore? Instead, they just took out all intimations of pain, perversity, or penetration -- now the photographer is just a sweet guy who needs to be spanked in order to get over his love of spanking and settle down with a nice woman. Concurrently, the mistress' domination fetish is explained away through the daddy-didn't-love-her defense, and again it is treated as something she has to get out of her system before getting married and raising a family.

Of course, no one in the film comes off worse than Rosie O'Donnell, who is shoehorned into a stripper's wig and leather gear, and never ceases her barrage of unfathomably bad one-liners (as DP said, "Wouldn't you be bummed if you signed up for a freaky sex island and Rosie O'Donnell was there...you'd want to kill her.") The final straw was her farewell to Delaney: "He told me he wants you to remember that old Australian saying -- 'It ain't over until the fat kangaroo sings.'" At this point, I actually leapt up from my chair and started pacing the room in agitation, raving wildly and eating bugs in a Renfield-like fit of madness. Only the closing credits could calm me down at that point.

Of course, Rosie must have tested well, because she delievers the film's obviously tacked-on narration (most likely the product of a disastrous preview screening). However, the narration only explains what we're already seeing, and actually adds layers of confusion to the film. As Mercutio's character boards the boat for Eden, Rosie claims in voiceover, "He thought he was only going on a harmless photography assignment, but he had no idea what he was in for." This comes AFTER we've already watched Mercutio voluntarily sign up for the submissive job on the island. In other words, he DOESN'T think he's going on a harmless photography assignment!

The film's only saving grace is its rampant nudity, including a couple of topless scenes for Delaney, but that can only carry you so far. And at 2 hours long, "Exit to Eden" can't even qualify for a harmless trifle. It's a form of torture much kinkier and more sadistic than anything that happens on the island.

Grade: D-.

*******

Phew...barely made it through that one alive. But do I stand down? Do I waver? Is my soul bowed and trembling at the thought of another Dare Daniel assignment? Yes, it is. But let's hear your suggestions for the next Dare Daniel anyway. If you want to resubmit an earlier suggestion that was not chosen, feel free...the winner is determined through a coin flip tournament, so everyone has a chance.

And don't forget to tune in tomorrow for the always pugnacious Weekly Top 5 list, as well as Plotz 2: The Majestic.

Well, I still haven't written the Dare Daniel or the Plotz. Pathetic, I know. We didn't see the Wallace and Gromit movie last night, either. Me and Darcey were both tired as well, so we watched a disc's worth of Arrested Development and fell asleep at 9:30. I know what you're thinking, the answer is yes, I'm 72 years old.

Buuuuut...if you check back this afternoon, I promisepromisepromise that Dare Daniel: "Exit to Eden" will be up. And don't forget that tomorrow is the big day for all you fans of counting and listing, as the newest edition of the Barnesyard Top 5 will be released. I just checked the up-to-the-minute totals, and believe it or not, Little Richard is currently in EIGHTH PLACE! Looks like our old friend the Georgia Peach needs to do some serious hustling if he even wants to make the cut, much less retain his vice-grip on the top spot in the countdown. All you Little Richard fans start text-messaging in your votes now!

Has anyone else noticed that there is a particular variety of tree in our fair city whose leaves give off the unmistakably pungent odor of semen? I first noticed this several years back when I was going to Sacramento City College. I would always walk the same route to class, and whenever I passed by one spot on campus I would start checking my shorts and socks for stains. For some reason, these trees have proliferated in recent years, and now whenever I step outside of the office, it smells like a giant strolled through Midtown and came all over it. Does anyone know what type of tree this is and why it gives off such a distinctively perverse odor? Do the people who cultivate these trees even know? Do they just like the smell of jizz or what?

I much prefer the aroma of my own house right now, which reeks of weed and chocolate, as DP spent the afternoon cooking up a mixture of "special" brownies.

I apologize for teasing you all with promises of a Dare Daniel and a Plotz in the same day. DP can attest that I was up until 2 a.m. watching "Exit to Eden", but I didn't have much time today for writing. The next couple of days should be slower, so I will knock them out before the weekend. Also, me and Darcey are probably going to see the Wallace and Gromit movie tonight, so I will let you know about that one on Thursday as well. Until then, happy semen-sniffing, everyone!

Me and Jesse went to the Kings preseason game last night, where I realized that I hate almost every person connected with the team except for the players (not counting Peja, of course). From top to bottom, the entire organization has become one big game of Who's the Biggest Douche? Is it...

-Grant?
-Any or all of the Maloofs?
-Big Mike (or as I call him, Fat Douche)?
-Kozimor?
-Slamson?
-Air Slamson?
-Adelman?
-Jerry? (OK, he's not really a douche, but he qualifies by virtue of saddling Kenny Thomas with the unbearable nickname of "K-9"...hey Jerry, "K-9" is a movie with Jim Belushi and a freakin' dog, not a nickname! Jesse also reminded me that used to say "Hedo, he do!" back when Turkoglu was on the team...inexcusable)
-Bob Heinrich? (I don't know much about him except that he is the new point man on the arena deal, but he certainly looks like the mayor of Doucheville, USA)

I will let you all make up your own minds, but my personal choice for biggest douche goes to Coach T, Tom Abatemarco. Besides the fact that he is on a one-man quest to destroy the English language, he is a relentless homer who adds nothing besides homer-dom. When the Kings were destroyed by a hardly championship-caliber Seattle team in last year's playoffs, Coach T forbade criticism of the team, because in his words, "They just got beat by a better team." Yes, they did, Coach T, they got beat 4 games to 1, and the man who did the most damage averaged about 3 points a game during the regular season. How could you POSSIBLY criticize the Kings players? You must not be a REAL fan.

At any rate, the Kings lost the game against Denver last night, although they showed some good signs at the offensive end and forced a lot of turnovers on the defensive end that led to fast breaks. However, they did nothing to alleviate the concerns about their ability to rebound, since the Nuggets dominated them on the boards, even though they played without their top three rebounders (Kenyon Martin, Nene, and Marcus Camby)! On the way home, Jesse wondered what kind of rebounder Rick Adelman was in his playing days. He must have been pitiful, because he doesn't seem to mind that the Kings are routinely killed on the glass. But Coach T assured everyone on the postgame show that "that's gonna happen" and "they'll be alright". That's just gonna happen, huh? Nothing you can do to fix it? You can't, for example, TRY??

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUCHE!!!!!!!!

"Childstar" (2005 - Director: Don McKellar)

Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar made "Last Night", the unheralded masterpiece of the late 1990's, and one of the best modern films to never be released in Sacramento. It told a mosaic-like story about the last day on Earth, and examined the different ways that people chose to spend their final hours, and how that was an extension of the ways they chose to live their lives. He also wrote the screenplays for "Highway 61" and "The Red Violin", and has acted in such films as "eXistenZ" and "Exotica".

"Childstar" is a significantly lesser effort, an uneven attempt to satirize the modern world of studio filmmaking, and the way that the entertainment world chews up young talent. McKellar also stars as a pretentious independent filmmaker/professor who is moonlighting as a driver for a Hollywood production shooting in Canada. The star of the film is Tyler Brandon Burns, your typical spoiled, three-named child TV star hellion, who is shooting an astounding pile of Hollywood dross called "First Son" (it's about the son of the President battling terrorists after his old man is kidnapped).

McKellar nails a lot of the schizophrenic aspects of filmmaking -- the stage mother who is more concerned with pumping the producers for extra perks than with her child's welfare, the deal-packaging agents, the torture chamber special effects sequences, the producer who cares more about "making the day" than making a good movie. Unfortunately, the tone is all over the map, and McKellar piles on the contrivances until you wonder what the point is.

Tyler is a shallow and self-centered American celebrity, but he also realizes that his time in the spotlight may shortly be up -- his cracking voice is a ticking timebomb, yet he also feels preternatural pressure to shoulder the responsibilities of an adult (he is supporting both of his parents with his "Full House"-esque sitcom). McKellar's driver -- who is also bedding Tyler's manically irresponsible mom (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh in the film's best performance. I'll admit that I'm biased in that Leigh is my favorite actress of alltime, but her specialty is taking a ridiculous role and making it plausible, and she manages that once again here) -- gets roped into the role of on-set tutor, and finds himself playing father figure to the neurotic boy. When Tyler takes off from the set with an older girl who picked him up at a nightclub, McKellar finds that he is the only person actually concerned about Tyler's safety.

"Childstar" has a handful of dead-on scenes, but it's just too scattershot to make any effective points. I would advise you to skip it and check out McKellar's sublime apocalyptic fable "Last Night" instead.

Grade: B-.

*******

Me and Dub have decided on the next subject for our Duelling reviews -- it will be Samuel Fuller's black-and-white western "Forty Guns", starring the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck. That should be up sometime in the middle of next week. But don't forget to check back here on Wednesday for Dare Daniel 5: "Exit to Eden", AND/OR (depending on how much time I have to write) Plotz 2: Dan gives away "The Majestic".

Well, guess who was refreshing his repressed memory by watching "The Majestic" until 2:30 a.m. last night? No, it wasn't some lonely, pathetic loser...it was me! Oh, you meant me.

Yes folks, in tomorrow's episode of The Barnesyard, I will unleash the second edition of Plotz, where I will give away all the insanely gooey plot points of Jim Carrey's desperate plea for an Oscar nomination, "The Majestic", or as the wags in the press have dubbed it, "Worse Than 'The Terminal' and Most Forms of Hepatitis". I actually ventured out to a video store and paid money to rent this film, and fast-forwarded through it with the subtitles on so I could recall the gist without actually having to watch the film.

Me and Jesse are going to the Kings preseason game tonight against the Nuggets, so look for some spirited commentary on that tomorrow as well. After the game, I am heading home to watch "Exit to Eden", so look for that sometime in the next couple of days. Do you see the hell I put myself through for you people? And yet you're still going to split hairs with me just because I get the occasional "facts" wrong? Just because I claim the director of "Thumbsucker" played bass for REM without doing 5 seconds of research on the subject? For shame, ladies and gentlemen, for shame.

By the way, if there is anyone new to the blog who wants to know where me and Mike Dub stand on the entirety of film history, the first 2 posts on the blog (from August) were our top 50 lists of all time. So check the archives on that if you're interested.

"Thumbsucker" (2005 - Director: Michael Mills)

Finally! A quirky, Indiewood family drama about suburban dysfunction, middle-class shallowness, and the queer bonds of family in which every scene transfer is set to a pop song and every emotional breakthrough culminates in someone walking in slow motion. As this scenario has been played out in only about 700 movies in the last decade, "Thumbsucker" comes as a cinematic breath of fresh air.

If this assessment seems overly callow and contrived, it's because the movie gave me little more to work with than callow contrivances. At a time when even Wes Anderson, one of the kings of this mini-genre, is ripping himself off to diminishing effect, another Wes Anderson clone on the scene is about as welcome a presence as Keanu Reeves slumming for credibility by wearing another Indiewood hairshirt, as he does in "Thumbsucker".

Fresh-faced newcomer Lou Pucci stars as Justin, an identity-challenged middle-class teen who suffers from a seemingly adolescent habit of thumbsucking. He spends the entirety of the film searching for a substitute -- puppy love, medication, marijuana, familial approbation -- none of which connect in any meaningful emotional way.

Of course, nothing in "Thumbsucker" connects in any meaningful emotional way, and maybe that was the intention of director/writer Michael Mills (of REM) -- the film is just as wan and airy as its hero, and nearly as uninteresting. The problem with Justin as a character is that he's a dull cipher that we never care about -- even when Ritalin focuses his attention into a laser-like ambition that makes him the new star of the school debate team, we can barely feel his newfound thirst for achievement.

None of Justin's thorny relationships -- with his stoner girlfriend, his wandering-eye mother, his sad sack father --are developed to satisfaction. This may be because Mills is too busy reaching into the usual stylistic bag of tricks -- slow motion and pop songs to manufacture emotional resonance, surrealist sequences, etc. -- to bother developing his characters.

"Thumbsucker" features some great songs and covers by The Polyphonic Spree and Elliott Smith, but this one case where you might want to buy the soundtrack and skip the film.

Grade: C.

The comments just aren't coming today, so I decided that I may not be stroking you all enough to satisfy. So why don't you talk to me for a change? Have any of you seen any good movies lately? Got a favorite film you want to talk about? Let's hear about it. I want this to be a discourse on film, not a droning lecture, so let's hear about some of the great and terrible movies you've seen lately. The floor is open...

Darcey's birthday weekend turned out fantastic -- I haven't been to Apple Hill in over a decade, and I didn't realize how much fun it could be. I think that so many family trips there in my youth kind of worked off the excitement for a while, but it was fun to experience it all as an adult, especially since Darcey has never been. We did the whole magillah -- picked apples, fed baby goats, sampled beer, wine, and butter, and went to the High Hill Ranch for apple cake and whipped cream.

We went to Biba's on Saturday night, the first time for both of us, and it was amazing as well. I had the veal scallopini, which was wrapped in prosciutto and came with these unbelievably creamy mashed potatoes (I practically creamed my own self), and Darcey had the salmon, which came with cooked cherry tomatoes that complimented the fish surprisingly well. For an appetizer, we had this delicious gnocchi that melted in our mouths. It reminded me of an anecdote David Paul once told me that I hope he will retell on his blog -- I'm sure I can't do it justice, but the punchline of the bit is an Italian restaurant owner standing on the street and screaming, "Nobody like-a my gnocchi!"

On Sunday morning, we watched "Halloween" and ate bread with pumpkin butter at Darcey's house. I had never seen the film before, and although I already knew most of the twists, it's still a hell of a film. I like that most of the scares are created through stylishness and anticipation, as opposed to guts and gore. Jamie Lee Curtis is the prototypical virgin babysitter scream queen, and I loved how vague Michael Meyers' motivations were -- there are enough unanswered questions to make him a mysterious boogeyman-like figure instead of a ridiculous comicbook creation. The supporting cast is uniformly terrible, but it wasn't enough to sink the film. Grade: B.

Me and Darcey delivered Becky's framed Best of Sacramento honor to her this weekend, and she hung it on her door in an obvious taunt. Unfortunately, it fell off the door and broke the next day -- did my subconscious hurl it to the ground in a "Firestarter"-like pique of rage? Or was this more taunting from Becky, as though to say, "I have so many Best of Sacramento awards I can smash one of them to pieces and not even notice"? The unanswered questions abound, such as, "What's wrong with you, Daniel?" and "Seriously, what the f?"

Up next this week on the Barnesyard:

-Today: my review of "Childstar"
-Tuesday: I'm going to a movie tonight, possibly "Thumbsucker" or "Everything is Illuminated", so I will review whatever I see in this space.
-Wednesday: Dare Daniel Part 5: "Exit to Eden" -- Will the soothing balm of casual nudity be enough to make this Garry Marshall adaptation of an Anne Rice novel remotely watchable?

And all the usual petulance, paranoia, self-delusion, and Jesse-baiting that have become the Barnesyard hallmarks.

Thanks in large part to my Denver Broncos beating the defending Super Bowl champs, I overcame a difficult Sunday morning to tie Jesse for last place in the office football pool. Unfortunately, I changed my pick from Jacksonville to Pittsburgh at the last minute on Friday afternoon, but that was due to Jesse's assurances that Ben Roethlisberger would "definitely" be playing in the game. He didn't play, and the Steelers lost, just as I assumed, but Jesse's obvious cheating tainted the weekend.

I know what you're thinking...a Texan mired an insurmountable corruption? Poppycock! A Dallas Cowboys booster wantonly flouting the boundaries of sportsmanship? Ridiculous! But remember that we're talking about Jesse here, or as the wags in the press have dubbed him, "Worse Than Tom DeLay". My only consolation is that Jesse cheated and still finished in last place! Which only goes to prove that old cliche: Jesse cheated and still finished in last place.

But more important was the Broncos dominant victory over the Patriots, despite some overly conservative play towards the end that almost cost them the game. The defense has been nearly dominant in recent weeks, the running game has become an unstoppable force, and Jake Plummer hasn't thrown an interception in four games. I am not holding my breath for a Super Bowl appearance just yet -- the team has gotten off to many fast starts in recent years only to falter in the second half -- but all the elements are there to do something special.

It was especially gratifying to beat the Patriots, because I simply can not stand those goddamn golden boy motherfuckers. After watching one of the Patriots defenders level Broncos tight end Jed Putzier with a helmet-to-helmet hit that wasn't flagged, then seeing the Broncos called for two facemask penalties in which the Denver players never even touched the opposing player's head, I realized that the Patriots remind me a lot of the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980's. Not only did the 49ers have that same untouchable golden boy sheen, but they crippled opposing players as part of their game plan with vicious chop blocks and leg whips and were still held up as the paragon of virtue and leadership. In addition, the refs would never make a call that could potentially embarrass the team, like flagging them for an obvious helmet-to-helmet hit. I remember one 49ers game where Jerry Rice clearly spiked the ball before crossing the end zone line for a touchdown, but the refs refused to call it, even though the replay indicted him.

Well, my bold prediction at the beginning of the season was that the Patriots would miss the playoffs, and their 3-3 record indicates I might not have been so crazy.

******

In other sports news, the Kings apparently looked good trouncing the Warriors last night, although they still need to be tested against a good team. I know that everyone is picking the Warriors to make the playoffs or even take the division (with Amare Stoudemire out for 4 months, it certainly opens the door), but let's not forget who we're talking about here. It's the fucking Warriors! Everyone is pinning the Warriors' hopes on Baron Davis staying healthy, which is a pretty iffy proposition. They looked good at the end of last year, but I think that the Warriors are going to realize real quick that there is a big difference between playing meaningless late-season games and playing games with expectations on your shoulders. They'll win 30-something games and miss the playoffs once again.

By the way, if you ever want a laugh, just listen to a Warriors fan try to talk smack about the Kings. They will talk about how the Kings are classic chokers who could never win the big one, but this is coming from a person whose team hasn't been to the playoffs in 11 years! They've choked the overwhelming majority of their games for over a decade!

*******

In the world of baseball, Dub's prayers were answered and the White Sox are in the World Series, although we couldn't figure out if that was Black Sox ringleader Chick Gandel or opera impresario Enrico Pallazzo umpiring the games. As bad as the calls were in that series, the Angels did themselves no favors by becoming wrapped up in the officiating. From the Angels players literally shaking their fists at the umps after Game 2 to Steve Finley not running out an inning-ending double play in order to argue a call to Mike Scoscia's sullen head shaking in the dugout, the Angels let the calls get to them, and that was their undoing.

I know the calls weren't fair, but if I have learned anything by watching the Kings and the A's in recent years, it's that no matter how many bad calls go against you, that doesn't mean you won't still have the opportunity to win the game. If the referee or umpire says it happened, it happened. It's in the books and it will never be changed, so just accept it and move on. The teams that are tough enough to do that win championships, and the teams that assume that the world is against them and become mired in whining and self-pity -- like the A's and Kings did -- never do.

As Mike Dub, my good friend and emissary to the East, is no doubt wrapped up in World Series fever -- Hey, Chicago is Chicago, am I right, Dub? -- I am gratified that he was able to take the time to file this week's film review. And thanks to all our loyal readers for your patience with me. This time out, we both watched the Jonathan Demme documentary "The Agronomist", about the Haitian political rights activist Jean Dominique. Dub, why don't you take the opening slot this time? No, go on, you've earned it.

*************

We see a man with large, glaring eyes and a brilliant smile. He speaks eloquently, despite using a language not his own, and he shifts and ticks and gesticulates with such a vital energy that it is difficult to keep him in frame. He is a man who has seen the worst of anything humanity has to offer, and yet he still refuses to acquiesce into cynicism or apathy. His name is Jean Dominique, and he is the title subject of Jonathan Demme’s absorbing documentary “The Agronomist.”

The film spans forty years in the life of Dominique, who graduated from college an agronomist, but went on to become one of the most important figures in Haiti during the second half of the twentieth century, as both the head and lead reporter for Haiti’s first independent radio journalism station, and as a political activist who strongly opposed and spoke out against the dictators who reigned in his country during his lifetime. During those forty years, Dominique endured four different dictators, three revolutions, countless acts of oppression, at least two attempts on his life, in which government forces machine-gunned his radio station, two stints in exile, and several arrests - all of which Demme manages to fit into a 90-minute presentation.

Amazingly enough, Demme finds the right rhythm to unfold Dominique’s story. There’s a lot of material here to squeeze into such a short time, but even still, it feels like there’s not really anything missing from what Demme is trying to show us - the film glosses over his personal life pretty quickly, with only one two-minute interview with his daughter, and a quick side mention by his friend (and lover, I assume) about how close they became during their exile in America. But his family life is not why the movie was made. The film is about his professional and political life, and that’s what it sticks to.

Through the story of Dominique, we see a brief history of Haiti. The wars, the dictators, the meaningless aid provided by the US and UN. The rise of the peasants, and the chaos of the revolutions. Most of the time, there is a running commentary coming from Dominique, who sat down with the cameras on several occasions in the early 1990’s, while he was in exile in New York. In these interviews Dominique is enthralling with his vitality, pounding us with his own brand of eloquent speech, and attacking us with his charm.

Demme paces the movie pretty much perfectly, and adds in some creative dramatic effects, particularly in his use of repeating images - the blood stain on the ground and the bullet-riddled radio station, among others. But there is one trick he tries that doesn’t pay off: in between showing and talking about two horrible, violent episodes in Haitian history, Dominique makes mention of Ronald Reagan entering office; Demme flashes up an old studio publicity photo of Reagan dressed up as a cowboy while the William Tell Overture plays behind it. It is a cheap joke that comes at a time when it is impossible for us to be amused by it, and I felt like the emotional connection that I had with the film was suddenly snapped. I suppose it is to Demme’s credit that he manages to reign the film back in after that, but there was certainly a sour taste in my mouth for awhile after it happened.

But that’s about the only thing wrong with the film. It is a hopeful and moving film, with a lot crammed into it - ideas about free press and free speech, the US’s responsibility to foreign countries, human passion and strength, etc. But at its most basic and effective level, it is a fitting eulogy for a man who loved his country and refused to stop fighting for it.

Final Grade: A-.

**********

And now for that long-promised disagreement you've all been waiting for as Prof. Barnesyard approaches the lectern...

"The Agronomist" reminded me of Fernando Meirelles' expose of pharmaceutical companies in Africa "The Constant Gardener" -- both films are important, topical, passionate -- and not very good. In a case like this, it becomes difficult to separate my feelings about the film from my understanding that the message the film delivers is a significant and righteous one that deserves to be heard. But I feel that an important message in a boring film is less effective than an important message in an entertaining film, and it is the filmmakers' fault if they betray that.

Johnathan Demme took a break from pillaging Hollywood's past to make "The Agronomist", a personal passion project that profiles the Haitian political leader/radio personality Jean Dominique, who was killed in April of 2000. Demme's interviews with Dominique and his loyal wife began in the 1980's while he was in exile, with periodic updates throughout the years, including several occasions shooting in Haiti.

The film is about the political upheavals that have shook Haiti ever since the slave rebellion in the 1700's, but most of it is presented without context or significance. Dominique is certainly a fascinating figure, a farmer and a filmmaker, an outspoken voice against the fascist forces that occupied his country. But Demme may be too enamored of Dominique, too much the American liberal in the sway of the peasant revolutionary, to the point that the real struggles of the Haitian culture, its contradictions and controversies, are thinly sketched.

We hear about the clash between the Catholicism of the rich ruling minority, and how they frown upon the voodoo rituals and customs of the peasants. We hear about the culture wars, the censorship, the enveloping corruption, the government-sanctioned murder. It is fascinating stuff, but I kept wanting more about the Haitians and less about Dominique.

If "The Agronomist" succeeds only intermittently as a political story, it fails almost completely as a personal story. We hear a lot about Dominique's convictions, his courage, and his unabiding love for the Haitian people, but we never come close to learning what makes him tick as a human being. In his interviews, he speaks with verve and passion, raising his voice and bugging his eyes for effect, but it's mostly theatricality. He was evidently somewhat emotionally removed from his family, a bit cold to his daughter (who stayed in Haiti while he was exiled in New York, and eventually took over her father's radio station), but none of this goes any further than skin deep.

The film picks up considerably in the second half, as Dominique's life is caught in the swirl of the political events in Haiti -- from the death of the brutal leader Papa Doc, to the ineffectual rule of his son, to the brief thaw in the culture, to the American-trained military junta that displaced the democratically elected minister Aristide.

Unfortunately, Demme's filmmaking is flaccid and barely touches on important subjects like the Haitian boat people who fled to the United States, and says nothing of the person who assassinated Dominique. Everything in the film seems to be at Dominique's word -- there is a scene of his return to Haiti from exile where he claims 60,000 people came to meet him at the airport, but why do the shots of the crowd make the number seem closer to 600? I left the film convinced that the Haitian people and their political and cultural struggles deserve to memorialized in a great documentary, and that "The Agronomist" wasn't it.

Grade: C+

And Dub, just as a completely unrelated side note, I would like to say: Michael Moore. Also, Michael Moore, Michael Moore, and Michael Moore, with a little Michael Moore on the side for dipping. Thanks again for your help.

I can't wait for the weekend anymore, so I am getting the fuck out of here. My apologies to Dub, who took the time to e-mail his review of "The Agronomist". Maybe I will finish composing my review this afternoon at home...if not, look for it on Monday morning. I hope everyone has a great weekend and goes to see something entertaining and edifying.

Well, all the votes have been counted, and I want to thank all of you who took the time to text-message in your picks for number 1. But who will lay claim to the top spot this week? Will it be Buddy Holly? Carl Perkins? Chuck Berry? The Big Bopper? Or will it be that sly, old Southern gent, Sacramento's own Little Richard? Without further ado, the five best things that happened in the world this week.

5) Overhearing Katie Couric claim to a stage full of "eligible" bachelors, "We all know that metrosexual is out, and that ubersexual is totally in now." Well, I didn't know! Why didn't any of you tell me? And if you ever want to make your own skin crawl, I would suggest listening to a deranged dwarf say the word "ubersexual" at 7:30 in the morning.

4) Straight off its disastrous showing at the Toronto film Festival, the TV ads for Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" get saddled with a critic's blurb from our own KXTV-Channel 10. It's not quite as dire as using a quote from Mark S. Allen or that scarlet letter of film blurbs, the Larry King quote (So, Larry, is it better or worse than "Seabiscuit".? Just kidding, Larry, we know nothing's as good as "Seabiscuit"). Let's all band together to boycott the opening weekend of "Elizabethtown" and send the message to Mr. Crowe that we will tolerate his mix tapes no more!

3) Watching "The Terminator" for the first time in 15 years on my parents' 60-inch widescreen television. I will go out on a limb and say that all THREE Terminator movies kick butt, but the first one is still the best -- a relentless nightmare of a chase film with a perfect self-parodying performance from Schwarzenegger.

2) How about a hand for the little lady -- Ms. Darcey turns 27 years young today, and the festivities will carry on through the weekend. Tonight we are heading to the corn maze in Woodland, and tomorrow we will be spending the day at Apple Hill before driving back to Sacramento for dinner at Biba's. This will all culminate in a Sunday afternoon screening of John Carpenter's "Halloween" (believe it or not, I have never seen this film). Happy birthday, baby. However, the big day is not quite enough to take the top spot. That honor goes to...

1) Why, it's none other than the Georgia Peach, Sacramento's own Little Richard! Mr. Richard, you've had a phenomenal 395 straight weeks at the top...could you say a few inspiring words for your millions of fans in Sacramento? No? Just a word? No? Well, then could you just lift up your arm and wave a little? No? Nothing?.....He's a little shy, folks!

Thanks again to everyone who entered our competition, and better luck next week.

Phew, made it through another week of posts. Now it will be at least three more days before you all find out that I'm a total fraud. Be sure to check back again later today for the 3rd edition of Dan and Dub's Duelling ReviewS, where we finally disagree for once.

Well, I took a three-hour lunch this afternoon (Statenetters, this is poetic license) to go to Hometown Buffet at the Country Club Mall with DP. Sufficed to say, I am more gravy than man at the moment, and I look forward to spending the rest of the evening excreting a chowder-like substance.

But don't forget to check back tomorrow morning for the always in-your-face Weekly Top 5 list. We are still tabulating all the write-in votes and text-messages, but it looks like its going to be another tight finish. Can Little Richard hold on to the top spot, or is it finally Buddy Holly's time to shine? Tune in tomorrow and find out.

Reliving "The Terminal" brings up a lot of painful shit, so if I start sobbing in the middle of this, just roll with it.

Steven Spielberg's "little" film is based on a true (read: bastardized, exploited, and defiled version of a grain of truth) story about an Eastern European immigrant named Victor (played by Tom Hanks in full-on pidgin-English, SNL foreign man mode) visiting America who finds himself trapped in an airport terminal when a coup in his home country pooch-screws his visa status. His country has no official diplomatic relations with America, so Victor can't board a plane or step foot on American soil. Victor is forced to fend for himself, but through his pluck and creativity, he more than scrapes by -- he comes up with a scheme to return luggage for change, plays matchmaker to a couple of airport employees, fashions a living space out of an abandoned terminal, nurses the unseen contents of an old coffee can (more on that later), and, yes this is true, builds an enormous, intricate tile-mosaic working fountain. We are initially led to believe that Victor is a simple peasant laborer, but like all Tom Hanks characters, he is actually a simple man with superhuman abilities and attributes. So why can't he sneak his way out of a freakin' airport?

Because he is flummoxed at every turn by the worst supporting character in the history of the cinema (I'm absolutely serious), a demonic bureaucrat played by Stanely Tucci. He runs the terminal where Victor is trapped, and his character is infected with a particularly virulent strain of "movie logic", whereby he diametrically changes his opinions back and forth based on the demands of the plot. When he first learns of Victor's plight, he tells him he has no choice but to stay in the airport, despite the fact that Victor wants to leave. In the next scene, he urges Victor out the door on to American soil, but Victor now refuses to leave. Then Tucci's character orders security to tail Victor so he won't get out. Then he orders Victor to leave, and Victor again refuses. Then he threatens Victor to intimidate him into staying. Then he stares forlorn at Victor on the security monitor, loonily lamenting the presence of this thorn in his side. Then he forcibly prevents Victor from leaving. This goes back and forth for two and a half hours, culminating in a scene where Victor has finally summoned the courage to step outside the airport terminal, and Tucci's character orders his men to fire into a crowd of civilians and assassinate him! Unfortunately, the order is ignored, and Victor lives.

But why is Victor in America in the first place? The answer lies in the old, unopened coffee can. We learn earlier in the film that Victor's father died recently, so we are led to believe that the can contains his ashes, and that Victor has travelled to America to scatter them over the free American soil. This would at least make sense, but noble, Christ-like Victor can't be involved in something so auspiciously morbid, can he? Well, of course not.

The rusty old coffee can that Victor carries with him through the entire film actually contains...are you ready for this?...wait for it...it actually contains the autographs of great American jazz musicians! You know that old Esquire photograph of the great New York jazzmen sitting on the stoop in Harlem (there was an entire Oscar-nominated documentary made about the photograph, called "A Great Day in Harlem"). Victor informs us that his father saw the photograph back in 1958, fell in love with it (and, by proxy, America), and spent his entire life collecting the autographs of the men who were in the picture. Victor has tracked down one of the last remaining musicians to New York, where he will complete his father's quest by getting his autograph. You do not know how badly I wish I was making this up.

But Daniel, you insist, there must have been some foreshadowing to this ridiculous development, right? Victor talked about his love for jazz, listened to jazz, something? This wasn't just an 11th-hour rationalization pulled out of some script doctor's bunghole, right?

Wrong, wrong, and way fuckin' wrong. Not only is this twist an insult to your intelligence, but its pointlessness effects everything that has happened in the film up to this point. For instance, Kumar Pallana plays a misanthropic janitor at the airport who is softened by Victor's cuddliness and pluck. You probably remember Kumar from his performances of quirky minimalism in the first three Wes Anderson movies -- of course, there is nothing minimal about this film, and he overacts dutifully. Like Victor, his character is also a refugee in America who cannot return home -- he is wanted for a decades-old murder back in India and will be deported if he runs afoul of the law. Despite this, he sacrifices himself for Victor, running out onto tarmac and getting himself arrested in order to distract security long enough for Victor to make his escape from the airport. How do you think he felt a few hours later at the police station, preparing for his deportation to a Middle Eastern prison, when he learned that he gave up his freedom just so Victor could get some freakin' jazzbo's autograph? In light of this, Victor seems less a noble soul than a petty, selfish scumbag.

In the end, Victor gets his autograph and declares his love for this wonderful placed called Ah-mehr-reek-ka and a pretty stewardess played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. But by this time, I was busy storming out of the theater in protest.

All this, and I haven't mentioned that the film contains the most egregious use of product placement in any film since "Mac and Me". Victor befriends all of the sweet, grinning employees at the airport, who work for real-life chains like Starbucks, Sbarro, Borders, and the like, and are all lovingly framed next to their corporate logos. It reminded me of that scene from "Torque" where the girls are facing off on their motorcycles and they're framed against giant Mountain Dew billboards that engulf the entire screen, except "The Terminal" does this for the entire 150-minute running time instead of just 15 seconds. I suppose Spielberg could make the standard defense that it is more "realistic" to show actual chain stores in the film, but if it is realism that he's after, why make the rest of the film?

So there, that's everything you need to know about the worst, most self-righteous, bathetic, manipulative, cynical pile of swill to come out of Hollywood so far this decade.

*********

Unfortunately, all of my Netflix rentals are out right now, so I probably won't be able to get around to Dare Daniel 5: "Exit to Eden" until the middle of next week sometime. And I was SO looking forward to Dan Aykroyd, whips-and-chains-style.

Rosie O' Donnell and Dan Aykroyd in dominatrix leather? Jesse, you sick, sadistic son-of-a-bitch....you're our winner! Once again, I got several great suggestions for Dare Daniel (although they don't have "The Quest" on Netflix, Conway, so that was out of the running), so I decided to go to the coin flip tournament to determine the winner -- and remember, no matter who wins, I lose.

"Glitter" and "Exit to Eden" made it past the elimination round to the finals, but "Eden" made a clean sweep in the finals, and thus will be the subject of Dare Daniel 5: The Danielling.

Dub sent me his review of "The Agronomist" this morning, but unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. So in effect, Dub managed to cheat without even trying -- will those Jews ever catch a break?

Also, don't forget to check back here in an hour or two for Plotz Part I, where I will gave away the plot of "The Terminal". But I'm going to need some coffee before I trudge knee-deep into that muck.

The term "spoiler alert" has become part of the American lexicon, and it is generally employed to protect people who have not seen a particular movie or TV show from learning the secrets and twists of its plot. But what if a movie arrives in the theaters already spoiled? Wouldn't you like to know about that as well?

In other words, if I knew first-hand that the milk in your refrigerator was rancid, wouldn't you want to know about it? Or would you rather I keep it a secret and allow you to discover the spoiled milk and get sick on your own? Of course not.

This is the basic concept behind Plotz -- I will reveal all the plot twists and turns of some of Hollywood's most terrible, nee unwatchable films, so that you can save yourself from your own morbid curiosity. Think of it as my public service to society after years of taking so, so much.

The first installment will deal with the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg puke-jerker "The Terminal", my least favorite film of the decade not named "Northfork" (even attempting to explain the plot of that film is likely to cause brain hemhorrage, so we'll skip that one). Look for Plotz Part 1 in this space later this morning or early this afternoon -- there are moments in "The Terminal" that you will swear I'm fabricating for effect, but ladies and gentlemen, it's all true. And it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

In case you haven't already heard, Daniel Craig of "Layer Cake" has been cast as the new James Bond. Apparently, Craig possesses just the right combination of bad acting, homeliness, and an utter lack of charisma that the producers were looking for. A terrible choice.

I know there was a big push behind Clive Owen for the part, but I have a better casting idea: nobody! I've never been a huge Bond fan (although "Goldfinger" is still one of the great spy movies of all time), but after a quarter century of running on fumes, even die-hards have to realize how irrelevant the series has become. For mercy's sake, let it die.

Your thoughts?

Don't forget to check back here again tomorrow for the first installment of "Plotz: Daniel Gives Away the Plots of Terrible Movies", where I will reveal all the twists and turns of the Tom Hanks-Steven Spielberg douchefest "The Terminal", so that you'll never have to watch it.

"The Cowboys" (1972 - Director: Mark Rydell)

Alright, let me explain. A couple of years back, a stalwart young gent named Cody Scott was hired at the Tower Theater. The kid still had some country stuck to the bottom of his boots, but he turned out alright. Not too long after he started working there, we struck up something of a gentlemen's agreement (that's an agreement between gentlemen, Mr. Scott!) -- he would watch my favorite movie, "The Searchers", if I would watch one of his favorite John Wayne movies, "The Cowboys" (which I had never even heard of at the time). Well, it only took two years, but I have fulfilled my end of the bargain. But where's Mr. Scott in all of this, after all these years? Relaxing by the pool, smoking a fat cigar and having a big laugh, that's where. Disgraceful, Mr. Scott.

But the movie -- Cody, it's fucking great! John Wayne gives one of his most fully realized acting performances as an aging rancher who is forced to hire on children when all of his hands catch gold fever and desert him right before the annual cattle drive. Wayne's character is an old man, still tough as nails, but starting to realize that he is nearing the end and has little to show for it. Both of his sons have died, and the implication is that he drove them away from home with his overbearing and demanding behavior -- taking on the boys gives him a second chance as a father figure.

At first, the premise seems too familiar, especially since the boys are your usual movie mixed bag of types -- there's the fat kid, the Jewish runt, the hotshot outcast, the wimp with glasses -- they might as well be the Bad News Cowpunchers. But the film never dwells on its more formulaic elements -- even the obligatory training sequence is pared down considerably -- and the kids aren't made too cutesy or contrived (the only recognizable face among them is Robert Carradine, very un-nerdlike here).

Instead, the emphasis is on the characters, especially Wayne's melting tough guy and Roscoe Lee Browne's black cook, who resists condescension at every turn. Mark Rydell directs with a deft touch, and brings to the material the same outdoorsy grace and conspicuous cruelty that Anthony Mann would have brought to it two decades earlier (note: this is a very good thing).

The twist to the film is that the more Wayne's iron pants leader softens up, the more that the kids harden -- this culminates in a surprisingly savage revenge plot and a beautiful shot of the stoic boys leading the cattle into town, as we see how hardened they have become by their experiences on the range.

As good as these elements are, "The Cowboys" would be just another above-average horse opera if not for the presence of Bruce Dern, in full seething hippie mode, as the leader of a ruthless gang trailing the cattle drive. His character is known only as "Long Hair", and I'm sure Wayne viewed the film as a parable about strong leadership diverting children away from the wicked hippie lifestyle, but Dern purrs and rages with such conviction and savagery, his character transcends these era-specific limitations. An extended violent struggle between Wayne and Dern in the woods is almost terrifying in its brutality.

In all, "The Cowboys" is smartly written and acted, and looks beautiful to boot. Thanks for recommending it, Cody.

Grade: A-.

I went to the Kings-Mavericks game last night, and even though it was only a preseason matchup, the Kings defense was already in midseason suck. They trailed the entire game, and the starters were roundly dominated on the boards. Of course, you should never overanalyze a preseason game, since the outcome of the contest is meaningless. Not surprisingly, most of the new guys looked a little confused out there, so we'll withhold judgement on Bonzi Wells, Jason Hart, Francisco Garcia, Jamal Sampson, and Ronnie Price until they get more comfortable with their teammates in this new system.

The good news: Shareef Abdur-Rahim appears to be exactly the kind of versatile big man who can set up teammates and score from a variety of places on the floor that this offense demands in order to be successful. He knocked down jumpers, aggressively drove the ball to the hole, and found open teammates with regularity. The odd thing about Shareef is that most basketball fans aren't that familiar with his game, despite the fact that he's entering his 10th NBA season. He has played his entire career in feckless NBA outposts like Vancouver and Atlanta, and has never been in the playoffs. Yet he is only in his late 20's, an age when most NBA players enter their nominal prime, and is no doubt rejuvenated by the prospect of playing on a competitive team.

He should have a big year for the team, which is why I think it's ridiculous that they're pretending that there is a competition between Shareef and Kenny Thomas (who wears the number 9 jersey and thus has been saddled with the untenable nickname "K-9" by Jerry Reynolds) for the starter's minutes. Thomas is a capable scorer and rebounder, but not big and strong enough to distract the power forwards of the Western Conference like Duncan, Garnett, Amare, Troy Murphy, Carlos Boozer, Danny Fortson, and the like. This is why the Kings were dominated by Seattle in the postseason last April -- the Sonics big men did whatever they wanted inside the paint and barely had to work at the other end against the perimeter-oriented Kings.

In fact, I can't think of a single team that has ever won the NBA championship without a dominant inside presence (or Michael Jordan) -- think of all the teams that have ever won, and you have names like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlin, Bill Walton, Willis Reed, Shaq, Hakeem, Tim Duncan, Dennis Rodman, Wes Unseld, Ben Wallace, Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Mikan, and so on.

Abdur-Rahim isn't even close to the level of those guys, but he gives the Kings a potential All-Star in the middle, which makes them a factor.

**********

Up next: I fulfill a promise to Cody Scott, with my review of "The Cowboys", starring John Wayne. But what has Cody ever done for me?

Tomorrow on the Barnesyard, I will hopefully be posting the 4th edition of Dan and Dub's Duelling Reviews. Also, I will debuting a new feature on The Barnesyard called "Daniel Gives Away the Plots of Terrible Movies". First on the chopping block: "The Terminal". You do not want to miss this one, folks. Great, now I just made myself nervous.

"Stroszek" (1977 - Director: Werner Herzog)

By all accounts, Bruno S., who starred in Herzog's "The Enigma of Kasper Hauser", was not too far removed from Kasper Hauser. He was abused as a child, partially retarded, and shuttled from institution to institution, and emerged a troubled but talented musician and self-taught painter. Bruno S.'s titular starring role in "Stroszek", Herzog's twisted take on the American dream, hues even closer to his autobiography -- his character is a street musician who is being released from jail in the film's first scene, and the piano that Stroszek plays is the same one that Bruno S. bought with the money he made from "Kasper Hauser". Herzog's movies are the only two films that Bruno S. ever made -- he was apparently a terror to work with, often requiring several hours of screaming before he was able to film scenes -- yet he is a fascinating screen presence, wounded yet wise.

However, besides the stunt casting of Bruno S. in the title role (all the characters in the film are named for the actors playing them), there isn't much substance to "Stroszek". In many ways, it is typical Herzog, walking that line between exploration and exploitation, and telling a story of a small man with gigantic dreams who is at the mercy of his environment. And yet Herzog's attempt at an acrid depiction of a prefabricated America fails mainly because it says nothing that wasn't said earlier and better by American filmmakers like Hal Ashby, Arthur Penn, Francis Coppola, Robert Altman, Bob Rafelson, and even Steven Spielberg in "Close Encounters" and "The Sugarland Express". The American Dream is an exploitative myth, you say? Give me a minute to pick myself off the floor.

The film opens in Germany, where Bruno lives a meager life, nursing a timid love for a masochistic prostitute named Eva. After Eva is brutalized by her pimp and dumped on Stroszek's doorstop, they decide to move to the American heartland (she turns tricks to pay for their passage), where their lives are depressingly similar to the one's they left in Germany. Eva is prostituting herself to truckers after her first day as a waitress, and their prefabricated home is besieged by ravenous creditors almost as soon as its delivered. This all leads to one last desperate attempt to escape, and a nihilistic conclusion in the Pacific Norhtwest that is more perplexing than powerful. An interesting film, but a mere exercise.

Grade: B-.

In answer to Michelle's comment, Richard Benjamin has had a long and storied career directing unwatchable dreck. He had a brief period of popularity as an actor, debuting in "Goodbye, Columbus", and moving on to "Catch-22", "Diary of a Mad Housewife", "Westworld", "The Sunshine Boys", and so on. His first directorial effort was the laudable Peter O'Toole vehicle "My Favorite Year" (Benjamin's epitaph: "Discovered Mark-Linn Baker"), but there on it was strictly swill. Among them:

-City Heat
-The Money Pit
-My Stepmother is an Alien
-Made in America (that one with Whoopi and Danson)
-Milk Money
-Mrs. Winterbourne

Looking at that list, "Marci X" becomes something of a career capper, especially since he cast himself in one of the main roles. Incidentally, he still takes occasional acting jobs -- Woody Allen fans might remember him as one of the fictional surrogates in "Deconstructing Harry".

I can officially care about baseball again, because the Red Sox and the Yankees both tanked in the first round of the playoffs. This is what a combined $400 million in player salaries will get you -- nothing. My delight in their failure is compounded by the knowledge that big-spenders like these teams count on the extra TV and stadium revenues from playoff games to mitigate their pathological overspending, as well as the fact that the core groups of Boston and New York are falling apart through old age and free agency. These teams are dinosaurs in the modern sports world, and one can only hope this is the beginning of an extended period of failure and irrelevance for both squads. I'm guessing it will be the Angels and the Cards in the World Series, although I am rooting for the White Sox to win it all just to piss off Mike Dub, whose beloved Cubs have seen their former partners in misery (the White Sox and Red Sox) enjoy unprecedented success in the past two years. But no worries, Dub, at least you have a world-class manager in Dusty Baker (snicker snort).

I am also going to the Kings preseason game tonight against Dallas, although I was disappointed to hear that Doug Christie won't be playing. Like everyone else, I am eager to see how this new Kings team fits together. There is an avalanche of talent on the team, but there are also so many x-factors and pitfalls that I can see this season playing out in a myriad of ways -- anything from an unmitigated disaster to a triumphant success. Anyone who thinks this is a championship team is a lunatic (the Spurs could play the entire season without Tim Duncan and still win 50-60 games), but the potential for something special exists and it's up to the players and coaches who are there to realize it.

I am running a little behind in the movie reviews, but later today I will post my reviews of "Stroszek", "The Cowboys", and "The Terminator".

Also, due to the lack of mail delivery on Columbus Day, I am going to have to push back the 4th edition of Dan and Dub's Duelling Reviews until Thursday. That's right, our old buddy Christopher Columbus has committed yet another atrocity. By this point, is anyone surprised?

"Marci X" (2003 -- Director: Richard Benjamin)

Ah, Dare Daniel -- what started out as a harmless gag has devolved into a masochistic test of will that may eventually claim my life. The movies seem to be getting worse and worse, but that may be due to the fact that my brain has been rendered into lukewarm oatmeal by overdosing on abject stupidity. The entire enterprise is turning into a gigantic waste of time -- "What did you do this weekend, Daniel?" "Who, me? Oh, you know, I watched some football, had breakfast at Fox and Goose...oh, and I watched that movie where Lisa Kudrow raps about her fucking purse! How about you?" -- but I've been never been stingy about wasting my time before, so why start now?

"Marci X" stars Lisa Kudrow as the daughter of a multimedia scion (played by director Richard Benjamin) who is forced to save the family corporation when the antics of a gangster rap star named Dr. $ (Damon Wayans, in the sort of role that he parodied in "Bamboozled") incur the protests of a powerful conservative senator (cinematic fag hag Christine Baranski, proving that old showbiz adage, "If you're making a satire on the rap industry, cast Christine Baranski"). In an attempt to get Dr. $ to apologize for his violent and salacious lyrics, Marci confronts him at one of his concerts (he's supposed to be a rap icon on par with Snoop Dogg, but it looks like his show takes place at the Guild Theater) -- he brings her onstage to mock her lack of authenticity, and she breaks into an impromptu rap called "The Power in My Purse" that, naturally, brings down the house and has everyone singing along.

I know what you're thinking -- how can you possibly f up a can't-miss premise like that? Well, those damn Hollywood fatcats found a way!

The aforementioned rap number seems like it should be the climax of the film, like Steve Martin donning hiphop gear at the end of "Bringin' Down the House", but it comes only 20 minutes in! This is what is known in the industry as "blowing your wad". It also makes it quite clear that "Marci X" will be a series of unbearable production numbers, each more forced and unfunny than the next. The film was written by Paul Rudnick in his usual setup-setup-punchline format -- this is the same Paul Rudnick who conceived of the gay cowboy rodeo in "Jeffrey", but the numbers in "Marci X" are actually much worse. When will Hollywood learn that no musical number, even if its a parody, is going to work if it's poorly conceived, performed, and shot. The reason that successful satiric musical numbers like the closing sequence of "40 Year-Old Virgin" or the pulp novel number in Astaire's "The Band Wagon" work well is because they are made by talented professionals and performed with zest and enthusiasm. No such luck for "Marci X", which just goes to prove that old showbiz adage, "Nothing is good if it's terrible".

Of course, the essential fallacy of "Marci X" is that it's an attempt to parody the world of gangsta rap, a musical culture so steeped in hyperbole, excess, and nihilism it is practically beyond satire. Dr. $ is pilloried for "outlandish" songs like "The Power in My Pants" and "I Love You Because I'm High", but they are significantly less tame than the real thing. When I attended the Dr. Dre concert tour several years back, they had Dre driving a hydraulics-infused car on stage, Eminem throwing a blowup doll representing his estranged wife into the crowd for them to defile, and a giant talking skull that floated out over the stage, exhorting the crowd to smoke more marijuana. But Dr. $'s career is destroyed because he performs a song about anal sex? This just goes to prove that old showbiz adage, "Make sure your satire is MORE extreme and outre than the actual thing you're satirizing". I just read in Premiere that the real Snoop Dogg's next film will be called "Coach Snoop", and will star Snoop as himself in a story based on his experiences coaching his son's peewee football team to an undefeated championship season. Just the words "Coach Snoop" are funnier than anything in "Marci X".

Come to think of it, this film is the sort of cautionary example that proves A LOT of old showbiz adages. Chief among them: never make a film where Lisa Kudrow raps about her purse.

Last night at the Tower, Jay told me that he vaguely remembered watching "Marci X", but couldn't remember a single thing about it. He assumed that his brain had rejected the film, perhaps as too stupid, and I had to admit that I vomited several times while watching. By the end, I couldn't resist fast-forwarding past the climactic musical numbers--even at 80 minutes, the film is ruthlessly padded. Eventually, the Senator relents her stance on censorship (in a setup so contrived and belabored, it could be considered a war crime) and everyone lives happily ever after. Well, except me -- my scars may never heal. Which only goes to prove that old showbiz adage, "If someone dares you to see 'Marci X', tell them to go to hell."

Grade: F.

Can anyone do worse? I seriously doubt it, but I'll open the floor to suggestions for Dare Daniel 4 anyway. Let me have it, folks, right in the breadbasket. I'll pick a winner later this week, but remember...no matter who wins, I lose. Also, I'll post my review of Werner Herzog's "Stroszek" later this evening, so check back for that.

I assumed that this weekend's release of the McConaughey-Pacino scorcher "Two For the Money" was an omen of good luck for the football pool. I was wrong. Dead wrong. Dead, dead wrong wrong. I still have the lead in the standings, and a win by Pittsburgh tonight against what I predict will be a camera-shy Chargers team can mitigate the damage, but I was the on the wrong side of every blowout this weekend.

I think perhaps the release of "Two For the Money" -- which I refuse to see, this running bit be damned -- inspired some McConaughey-esque cockiness on my part. For example, I changed my Sunday night pick from the favored Jaguars to the underdog Bengals just because I thought it would be more fun to root for them. Not only did they lose, but flamboyant wide receiver Chad Johnson's promised debut of a new touchdown "skit" merited only a B- from me. The celebration involved Chad pretending to administer CPR to the ball -- it was an uninspired bit livened only by Johnson's gritty, emotional performance.

I'm pleased to see that more people are commenting and I hope you all keep it up. In fact, if any of you see a movie that you like or hate, new or old, feel free to use this space as a forum to either sings its praises or damn it to movie hell (aka Comcast OnDemand).

This weekend, I was reflecting back on some of my posts, and I realized that the last couple of weeks have had sort of a running theme -- last week was a tidal wave of ribaldry from the first mention of Jessica Alba's nether regions, while the prior week provided a steady stream of negativity in nearly every post. In fear that you may misinterpret this, I would just like to say that it is not my intent to provide a new theme for every week's worth of posts -- horndog ribaldry and petty bitterness will be the only running themes of this blog. That's the Barnesyard promise.

Up next: Dare Daniel Volume 3 -- the Barnesyard takes a look at "Marci X", and explains why he may have to take a little break from watching this crap.

Also, I should mention that my best friend and roommate David Paul has just started his own blog, which should consist of his trademark heresy masked as piety, and vice versa, plus some stuff about Genesis. There will probably also be some slanderous remarks about Thomas Jefferson, because apparently David Paul HATES to swivel in his chair and thinks the domestication of the tomato is a tragic historical event (don't even get him started on the dumb waiter). At any rate, it should be thought-provoking material with the power to tug at the heartstrings and fog the mind. The address is http://theophonicsymphonies.blogspot.com.

What's with the scarcity of comments, folks? C'mon, which local music scene icon do I have to trash before I start getting some action around here? Is it Grub Dog? Because I'll fuckin' do it!

As someone who doesn't leave the house that often, I feel fortunate that I can remain below the fray in this all-too-common social clique-off, and keep pushing the usual irrelevant topics of interest like Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu and Don Siegel, instead of all that hibbety-jibbety-swibbety-bibbedy.

So what's next on the Barnesyard?

MONDAY: Dare Daniel 3 -- my review of the universally derided hiphop comedy "Marci X". You'll be spitting your coffee all over the screen in shock and amazement, that's a promise.

WEDNESDAY: Duelling reviews 3 -- me and Dub review the documentary "The Agronomist".

TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND EVERY DAY AFTER: filler.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Love, Daniel

"Layer Cake" (2005 - Director: Matthew Vaughn)

What is the meaning of the title? In the final scene of the film, Michael Gambon's crime lord character explains it as a metaphor for the criminal lifestyle -- shit on top of shit on top of some more shit. It's also an apt metaphor for the film itself, which mines every cliche of the neo-gangster film without any flavor or distinction.

I would say that "Layer Cake" is the nadir of the faux-Tarantino movement of the past decade, but someone already made "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead." Daniel Craig gives an utterly charmless performance as an unnamed drug runner yearning for retirement who is forced to make...you guessed it...ONE LAST BIG SCORE. When we're bluntly informed in the opening narration that Craig's character is "getting out of the business", it's not a good sign of things to come.

The rest of it is the usual casual, detached violence and over-stylization of everything. Nothing to recommend about it except for one brief scene of Sienna Miller in lingerie. Otherwise dreadful.

Grade: C-.

Well, it's been a positive week all around -- fine weather, a full house, and Jessica Alba's caboose on the big screen -- so why not dust off that old warhorse the Top 5 to find out the 5 best things that happened in the world this week? C'mon, grab my hand, a little fairy dust, and away we goooooooooooo...

5) My new favorite film of 2005, and it never played in any theaters: it's "No Direction Home", Martin Scorsese's psychotically entertaining documentary about the life and times of Bob Dylan, centering on the period from 1961-1966. How do you rehash all the same old archival footage, photographs, and performances into something so brilliant? -- you give it to the contemporary master of film structure and allow him to spin it into a masterwork of sound and storytelling, a tale of politics, identity, and assimilation that bogs only when Joan Baez appears. "No Direction Home" is a great introduction for Dylan newbies, and a three-and-a-half hour orgasm for fanatics.

4) The look I got from the pretty young Mexican girl at the Walgreen's checkout stand when I purchased a copy of Maxim en Espanol, even though I clearly can't read or speak Spanish (although considering the inane quality of the articles in those magazines, this is a negligible point -- I just like a little bigger butt with my cheesecake). I'm pretty sure she was memorizing my face for "wanted" flyers at the post office. Little did she know I speak the international language...of perversion.

3) The Zombies "Odyssey and Oracle" Why? Because every song is brilliant and it's the only record that has been able to pull me away from my Bob Dylan obsession this week. "Brief Candles"...that song couldn't get any better if the record reached out and serviced you while you were listening to it.

2) Some good bits that you had to be there for:
-telling Jay that a homeless guy made a "sound business decision" by not spending $8.50 to see "The Thing About My Folks" at the Tower.
-Jay adding a Fonzie book that had been in the Lost and Found for several years to the James Dean exhibit at the Tower.
-writing a note to DP in the form of a poem by Bill the Tower security guard after DP flaked on a lunch meeting with Bill. I believe the text went something like:
"Sitting at Tapa's
Glass, half empty
David Paul...not coming?"

Like I say, you had to be there. If you didn't get any of these jokes, it's probably because you are not in my clique, so it may be time for you to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, "Why not? What's wrong with me? How can I get that indie edge?"

And at number 1) What can I say about this man? Sure, everyone always focuses on the bisexuality, the backstage orgies, the outlandish hair and wardrobe, the flash, the flair. But the thing I like the most about this man is that he's just a regular guy, like you and me. An average, normal, one-pants-leg-at-a-time kind of fella. Cleaning out the garage...mowing the lawn...changing the oil in the car...the occasional group sex with Buddy Holly...just a regular guy like you and me.

So, for the 392nd week in a row, I am honored to present our top prize to the man so dangerous Johnny Rocket's won't play his records...that's right, it's the Georgia Peach, our own Little Richard!

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and better luck next week!

Our emissary to the East, Mr. Michael "Dubya" Dub, has compiled some choice quotes from his college classes that I would like to share with the group, as an example of the fine work being done at our nation's universities. Remember, unless otherwise noted, everything said here is from one of the students and is apropos of absolutely fucking nothing.

-"I think Christopher Guest movies are documentaries."

-"It's about a bridge." (on the Joris Iven's documentary "The Bridge")

-Student: "He took a lot of shots of machines."
Teacher: "Yeah, he loves machines"
Student: "He totally took a lot of shots of machines."

-Teacher: "My mother didn't tell me anything about sex, and my father was usually so drunk that he just kept repeating the same thing over and over until it became comical."

-"I mean, I'm not religious...I mean, I believe in God, and I believe that there is a reason for everything, but I'm not going to go to church and be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, while the priests are molesting children."

-Teacher: "I'm a teacher, and I could have had a certain party last night, but I tell you guys not to do that."

-"Me, personally, I would rather be in Cuba."

-"John F. Kennedy was just a little skank."

-Teacher: "One of these days, a student is going to tell me to go to hell. Because I think I'm funny. Thank god that you are nice people."
Student: "I've been there, it's not great."
Teacher: "You've been where."
Student: "Hell." (laughter from the class) "No seriously, there is a Hell, Michigan. It's... it's not all it's cracked up to be."

-Teacher: "Well, some people can be celibate."
Student: "It's called tantra."

-"It's just like the Red Scare of the 1950's, except this time we are attacking our own people."

And the stupidest quote of the semester:

-"I think that Catholic priests molesting children is hypocritical."

Mr. Dub, thank you for your contributions, and we hope to hear some more of your research later on this semester.

Be sure to check back here between 9-10 a.m. for the always controversial Top 5 list.

"A History of Violence" (2005 - Director: David Cronenberg)

I will keep this review brief, because I don't want to reveal any more of the film than the preview already has. Unfortunately, there are few additional revelations in the movie, so this may be a case of a film's preview giving too much away in fear that the audience won't "get it". I'll just say that Viggo Mortensen has a well-cast blankness as Tom Stall, a small town family man who gets caught up in a case of mistaken identity when he violently foils a coffee shop robbery. Or is he really Joey Cusack, the Philadelphia gangster, living a sedate double life?

Maria Bello plays his unassuming wife, and she's good as always. Ed Harris and William Hurt do their usual solid character work as gangsters, although their characters are so outsized, they could have been played by Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell. Considering Cronenberg's previous work, the film is more conventionally violent than you might expect. In fact, if not for a couple of trademark kinky sex scenes, this script could have been directed by Don Siegel or Sam Peckinpah in the 1960's. A good film, but not a lot of meat on them bones that doesn't feel familiar.

Grade: B.

So DP is working on starting a new blog, but is having some technical difficulties with his computer. This keeps the sharks at bay for the time being. Which is just as well, because apparently DP wants to use his blog as some sort of vehicle for the defense of Judas Iscariot. Right, the same Judas that busted Christ. Oh yes...it's one of THOSE blogs. But I will still post his address when and if he gets it running. As the saying goes, the household that blogs together, does that.

Well, I got several good suggestions for Dare Daniel Volume 3, so I decided to hold a coin flip tournament with brackets and best-of-5 matchups and everything. "Juwanna Mann" swept "Moonlight and Valentino" in the first round to move to the finals, while "Marci X" barely bested "Soul Survivors" to take the second slot. In the finals, it was "Marci X" in a walk, beating "Juwanna Mann" 3-1. So who's excited about watching a hiphop-out-of-water comedy written by Paul Rudnick and starring Lisa Kudrow and Damon Wayans? No one in their right mind, of course, but I'll give it a shot.

Becky posted yesterday about her blog envy, but everyone who has perused both of our blogs knows who the real champ is...let's go to the tale of the tape:

EXPERIENCE

For Becky, several years...for me, 62 posts.

PHOTOS, LINKS, AND OTHER INTERESTING THINGS

Becky = some; Barnesyard = an endless, near-shizophrenic stream of textual blather

FONT

Becky = serif; Barnesyard = the aneurysm-inducing sans-serif (bigger font...overcompensation, Mr. Barnesyard? I think so.)

MENTIONS IN THE NEWS AND REVIEW

Becky = 417. Barnesyard = none to date, despite the fact that he's dating a staffmember's roommate.

So there you go, statistics don't lie...if this little pond has a big fish, we all know that it's Heckasac and no one else. Case closed.

Coming Attractions at the Barnesyard --

-Later today: my review of "A History of Violence".
-Tomorrow: the infamous Weekly Top 5 returns! Will your name make the list? Probably not. What did you do that's so f-ing special?
-Monday: Dare Daniel 3 ventures into the heart of darkness that is Damon Wayans with the review of "Marci X".
-Wednesday: Mike Dub returns for Duelling Reviews Part 3: The Duellening, where we'll review "The Agronomist", Johnathan Demme's documentary about slain Haitian political leader Jean Dominique. Will Dub play on the level this time? Tune in and find out.

"Into the Blue" (2005 - Director: John Stockwell)

OK, I'm not a proud man -- that shit went out in the mid 1990's. Jessica Alba's sweet can -- why the fuck else would I go see this terrible movie? After all, I'm a busy man! I've got things to do!

The aforementioned below-waist bounty stars alongside the rest of Ms. Alba and humanoid Paul Walker in this undersea travelogue masked as an action thriller. Alba (who spends the majority of the film in a bikini and wet) and Walker play beach bums in the Bahamas dreaming of buried treasure. With the arrival of Scott Caan as Walker's brother (friend? business partner? believe it or not, I didn't pay much attention to the plot or other actors) and his sleazy new girlfriend in tow, the group find a legendary sunken ship that will make them wealthy. However, they also find a crashed plane full of cocaine, but decide to ignore it until they can unearth the gold. But when their equipment fails and cash is needed fast, they attempt to make a drug deal that could put all of their lives in danger.

But who cares about that shit? The first third of the movie is decent eye-candy, with great diving scenes undermined by unnecessary CGI, while Ms. Alba's bronze skin, bottomless eyes, flared hips, and supple breasts gleam in the Caribbean sunlight. Director John Stockwell previously made "Blue Crush" and "crazy/beautiful", so he has a solid cinematic track record of both creating great undersea action shots and giving me a stiffie.

Initially, "Into the Blue" is just a watchable travelogue film, with a touch of amusing silliness -- especially during an utterly pointless waveriding sequence in which Walker and Caan do multiple backflips on their jet skis.

But soon enough, the plot takes hold, and everything falls apart under an avalanche of manufactured tension, expected doublecrosses, and unexpected (and nonsensical) character revelations. The film is quite poorly made, like one big paper bag that none of the participants could act their way out of.

Towards the end, Ms. Alba disappeared from screen for 20-30 minutes, and I almost fell asleep. There is nothing left to pass the time but Walker's sub-Keanu blankness and Caan's amusing resemblance to James Caan crossed with a hobbit.

This one is for Alba enthusiasts only, but, to paraphrase Spencer Tracy, what's there is cherce. But I tell you..the things I'll do for a beautiful woman. Oh, Angelina, Salma, Nicole, Jessicas Alba and Biel...why do you do this to me? Can't you make one movie that isn't unwatchable tripe?

Grade: C

Up next: my review of "A History of Violence" with Viggo Mortensen

Well, it looks like a neck-and-neck finish for Dare Daniel 3. The cross-dressing basketball comedy "Juwanna Mann" or Bon Jovi chick flick "Moonlight and Valentino"? Two great vehicles for mettle-testing and mental torture. If there are no other suggestions, I think we might have to go to the coin flip on this one. And remember, no matter what the outcome, I lose. I'll let you know how it turns out by tomorrow, but if anyone has a topper, let's hear it now!

Up next: My review of Jessica Alba's "Into the Blue", or as it's also known, "Bonerfest 2005".

I think that Statenet might be looking for a new regional manager (this is the same thing that I do, and if I can do it...), so if any my reasonably capable friends (do I have any of those?) need a job, now might be the time to inquire at the Net. Again, this is only my surmising of the situation, as one of the girls in my section just moved to another part of the building.

A-Max? Come on dude, we're getting the band back together! I swear, the only tussle you'll have to monitor will be between you and the candy bar machine.

"Touchez Pas au Grisbi" (1954 - Director: Jacques Becker)

Mike Dub is a cheater. There, I said it. We agree to write our next duelling reviews column on Jacques Becker's gritty French noir "Touchez Pas au Grisbi/Hands Off the Loot", and he just e-mails his column today? It was a week and a half ago that I watched the damn thing, a dangerous gap in time for someone who knocks things over as much as I do. Sure, Dub will tell you that he was busy with "school" and "work" and "life", but those in the know realize these are merely euphemisms for "screw Daniel to the wall with rusty nails." Read between the lines, people!

So what the hell was this movie about again (I was tempted to skim Dub's review before writing mine, but resisted)? Oh yeah, it's about an aging thief played by Jean Gabin who has tired of his surprisinly unglamourous criminal lifestyle. He is older and paunchier now, and unlike his more simple partner, realizes how ridiculous they have become in their old age, still chasing the same showgirls and drinking at the same underworld haunts. One gets the impression that Becker may not be a fan of the gangster genre, and he sets out to demystify and deglamorize his characters at every turn.

Gabin gives an authoritative yet world-weary performance, not unlike the older Bogart, and his bitterly tender relationship with his more impulsive partner recalls the Bogie-Claude Rains dynamic in "Casablanca". The two are sitting on the proceeds of their last heist (Gabin sees it as his retirement account), but Gabin's partner spills the beans to a poison-chiffon showgirl played by Jeanne Moreau, who lets it slip to her much more dangerous and greedy beau.

The film is slower and more observational than we might expect from a gangster film, and the motivations of the characters more obfuscated and inscrutable. When Gabin's partner is kidnapped (with the hidden loot as their ransom demand), Gabin is initially able to emotionally separate himself from the ordeal, but eventually goes against his nature and tries to make a deal. The rest of the story plays out with an intended mathematical precision undone by greed, moral obligation, and bizarre twists of fate.

Becker may be in the genre revision game, but the film's style is far from stillborn -- Becker directs his scenes of action and violence with a stark brutality reminiscent of the great American gangster filmmakers like William Wellman and Raoul Walsh and Howard Hawks. But Becker adds a level of violent masochism (especially in a torture scene involving a petty homosexual gangster that indicates "Touchez" was required viewing for the Coen Bros. before making "Miller's Crossing") that most American films wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

That said, I didn't love the film as much as I wanted -- it's a little too wispy and existential at points when I wanted more punch (pro-American snobbery, I realize). But I would watch again in a minute and am excited to discover more of Jacques Becker's films.

Grade: B+

*******

Alright, Mr. Dub, what do you have to say on the subject?

Touchez Pas au grisbi:

You know what? The French really knew what they were doing. And I’m not talking about pastries or the Revolution. I’m talking about making movies, especially in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, their Golden Age, when they began to convert an increasingly stale studio formula into French New Wave, one of the most profound and ambitious film movements that ever occurred.

Jacques Becker’s “Touchez Pas au grisbi,” released in 1954, does not quite make it into New Wave (by most accounts, New Wave officially began with Truffaut‘s “The Four Hundred Blows” in 1958, though I have read arguments that place New Wave as beginning as early as ‘55 or ‘56), but embodies many of the themes and structure of New Wave.

Certainly, it can be seen as a somewhat historical document, the tip of the turning point of French film into New Wave. On the one hand, it’s a genre picture, a gangster/noir whose story and character types are lifted directly from the catalogues of 1940’s American films of the same nature. On the other hand, the structure and pacing are beyond their years (or year, depending on how you feel about when New Wave started), showing us not only the Americanized version of the seedy side of life, but also giving us complete characters by showing them in their ordinary states. There is even a (terrific) scene in which we watch one of the characters brush his teeth before bed.

The film follows Max (played by Jean Gabin), an aging heist man who has just finished what is to be his last big score. Much to the film’s credit, the “that was my last job” bit is brought out with one line, nonchalantly, about halfway through the movie. He is well respected and well liked by the folks at the local restaurant, a diner apparently designed for neighborhood crooks. He has money and he takes care of his friends, and is either cool or creepy, in a way that perhaps only a middle aged Frenchman can be, as he gropes women and rolls off “Daddy-O” like a forty year old American teenager.

His closest friend is Riton (Rene Dary), an aging crook with whom Max has grown up. There is also Ramon (Vittorio Sanipoli), a younger man who idolizes Max, Josy (Jeanne Moreau), a stripper who is in love with Max, and Betty (Marilyn Buferd), Max’s mistress, who has a more-than-just-business relationship with Max’s uncle. Angelo (Lino Ventura) is another small timer, and he is having an affair with Riton’s girlfriend, Lola (Dora Doll - how‘s that for the greatest stage name of all time?), another stripper who works Josy.

All right. So that’s about everybody. And what makes the movie work so well is not what happens to whom or who does what, necessarily, but how we see the whole thing unfold, along with the characters. The events of the first half of the movie occur with such everyday normality, that I didn’t even feel the pace of the movie rising to such a frantic, explosive climax. That is to say that I was not manipulated or patronized. I was not made to feel suspense by seeing the bad guy explain to his underlings the exact plan that is meant to trap our hero, or any other device that treats its entire audience like fools or children.

Most of the credit goes to the director, Becker, for forming the film and letting it play out like it does. However, I would also like to mention the wonderful, classic, stoic performance by Jean Gabin, who walks around stiff and cool, hard and tough, but who plays the role in such a way that we believe in his loyalty and compassion. Someone referred to him once as the French counterpart for Spencer Tracy, but I think, especially in this film, perhaps Sterling Hayden is a better, more accurate mark.

“Touchez” is not by any means the greatest film of its kind to come out of France in the ‘50’s or ‘60’s. In fact, even the next year, in 1955, Jean-Pierre Melville released the superior crime caper/New Wave noir “Bob Le Flambeur.” But it is still terrific and full of life and energy, like the filmmakers knew that they were on to something. And even though the movement didn’t come to absolute fruition here, the film itself is still a hell of watch - especially for an acerbic middle-classer who was raised on Humphrey Bogart and Billy Wilder.

Final Grade: A-

*******

You can all see that he cheated, right? Seriously, though, another brilliant job by Mike Dub/Barnesyard East, and only the second in what I hope will be a long series. Hopefully, we can do this again next week.

OK, here we go...I am now soliciting suggestions for Dare Daniel Volume 3...does anyone have a topper for the debacle of "She Hate Me"? Start shooting them out, and I will choose a "winner" by the end of the week.

"Serenity" (2005 - Director: Joss Whedon)

Let me explain...I took a half-day at work and skipped out to the UA Arden with every intent of watching Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist", with Ben Kingsley as Fagin (the part played by Alec Guiness in the 1948 David Lean version). Unfortunately, the projector had some sort of shutter or light problem that caused the image to flash and flutter with headache-inducing intensity. It is odd that Allen left a comment about "She Hate Me" serving as penance for past wrongs, because when I complained about this to the usher, I felt like I was doing penance for every time I was ever forced to tell a customer that the myriad technical difficulties of the Tower Theater were unfixable.

At this point, I had already purchased a soda and popcorn that I was told could not be refunded (more penance! -- was I a total d in my past lives or what?), so I decided to go into another theater. The choice was between "Proof" and "Serenity", and since I refuse to watch artsy stage-to-film adaptations unless Natalie Portman spreads her thighs, "Serenity" it was!

I have never seen the short-lived TV show "Firefly" that this film is based on, but creator/director Joss Whedon (he was the creator of "Buffy" as well) packs a lot of background information in the first few minutes without bogging the film down too early. Essentially, the film is a sort of post-Civil War space western, with a ragtag team of lawless misfits drawn in to the fight against an evil government alliance. The film is set in another solar system terraformed and populated by refugees from Earth, and is divided between conformist government loyalists and denizens of uncivilized, culture-mashed (much of it subtly infiltrated by Asian slang/culture) outposts threatened by zombie-like cannibals called Reivers.

The ship is stowing a waif-like psychic who may possess secrets that the government (personified by Chiwetel Ojiofor from "Dirty Pretty Things" as a moralistic assassin) would wantonly kill for. The ship's leader, the amoral war veteran Mal (played by Nathan Fillion in what should be a springboard performance -- closer to Harrison Ford than Bill Pullman), doesn't want to get involved but finds himself drawn in, and you could pretty much write the rest from there.

"Serenity" is actually a decent sci-fi offering, and with its gruff, sardonic anti-hero and mishmashing of genres, it resembles a John Carpenter-type film (though perhaps just a touch not weird enough, especially considering the premise). There are neat twists on the sci-fi genre -- the emphasis is on hand-to-hand combat over laser battles, and daylight action over space travel. The special effects are low-thrills but well thought out, and the space battles are more sensical than anything in the new Star Wars trilogy.

However, I couldn't help feeling that someone who watches the show could glean more resonance from the film's revelations and relationships, and make more sense out of the menagerie of supporting characters (such as Mr. Universe, a techno-junkie shut-in who monitors every signal travelling through space...I think). Much of this passes by too fast and offhanded to mean much to newcomers. But that said, it's a decent offering for anyone who likes the genre, and fans of the show should probably bump my letter grade up a notch or two.

Grade: B-.

Up next: Dub finally e-mails his "Touchez Pas au Grisbi" review -- only two weeks after I watched the damn film! Will I remember a single thing about it? Tune in this afternoon to find out. And guess what everyone, you don't have to settle anymore because...BECKY'S BACK!!!

"Junebug" (2005 - Director: Phil Morrison)

Phil Morrison's film is a perceptive and quietly quirky Southern-set drama about emotional insecurities and the strange bonds of family. Perhaps the film is too quiet and dispassionate for my tastes, because most of it wafted over me without consequence.

Embeth Davidtz stars as a worldly Chicago art dealer who specializes in "outsider art" and nurses an enthusiasm for the South that may border on patronizing. She meets and marries Allesandro Nivola in whirlwind time, and 6 months later they visit his dysfunctional North Carolina family while in the area pursuing an artist for her collection.

Nivola's family is emotionally walled off, from the father whose presence is barely felt to the brother who nurses a lifelong insecurity to the more talented and handsome Nivola. The brother is married to a pregnant, childlike sparkplug played by Amy Adams, who gives the real standout performance here. Her character displays boundless empathy and enthusiasm for everything in front of her, despite the fact that her husband clearly hates his life and dreads the birth of their child.

Davidtz makes several attempts to ingratiate herself with the family of religious Southerners, but her intentions are mostly misinterpreted -- the outsider art dealer who feels like an outsider in their world. The emotional turning point comes when she chooses to pursue her sociopathic artist -- a partially retarded shut-in who paints bizarrely sexual Civil War scenes -- rather than accompany Adams to the hospital for the birth.

Morrison's film is observational and humane, never stacking the deck or forcing an emotional payoff. But it's so reserved and nonjudgemental it's barely there, not to mention a bit too deferent to the "mysterious" sociocultural ways of the South.

I don't want to make this sound like a negative review, because there is a lot to like here, especially an award-worthy supporting performance from Amy Adams and nice work by Scott Wilson and Celia Weston as the parents, and a smart script with a lot of perceptive and witty moments.

But the stylistic sterility of "Junebug" kept me at a distance -- filmmakers from Renoir to Ozu to Alexander Payne have managed to make humanist, morally relative movies without ignoring the possibilities of the cinema. Morrison seems to have been so intent to make a film without incident, without revelation, and without context, that, unfortunately, he did.

Grade: B-

Passionate rebuttal, anyone?

Up next: my review of "Serenity", and why the hell I saw it in the first place.

How else can I explain Al's Dare Daniel suggestion of "She Hate Me", Spike Lee's musket-fire satire on corporate corruption and sexual dysfunction? I thought we were cool, A-Max. Then you pull this shit.

Before I begin, let me just say this to anyone who thinks the Dare Daniel concept is merely a rubber stamp for a bad review...you don't know how much I WANTED to like this film. As one of the only people on Earth who thought "Bamboozled" was a bearable cinematic experience (although EW critic Owen Gleiberman considers it one of the most underrated films of the past decade), I hoped that "She Hate Me" would prove similarly watchable. I was not so fortunate.

"Bamboozled", for all its faults (Spike's usual lack of focus, its crushing obviousness, and a concept of satire that would make Oliver Stone shake his head), was a pertinent and chafing look at an entertainment complex that forces every talented African-American entertainer into minstrel-show sitcoms on UPN. So why follow it up with a movie that plays like an extended UPN sitcom pilot ("Homeboys in Office Space"?)?

Newcomer Anthony Mackie (hopelessly out of his league) stars as an educated and successful black executive of a fledgling pharmaceutical company who gets fired when he blows the whistle on his corrupt superiors. When his assets are frozen and other corporations refuse to hire him, his ex-girlfriend Kerry Washington shows up with her new girlfriend in tow, offering $5000 apiece in cash if he'll impregnate them both. Satisfied with the results, she starts pimping him out to other lesbian couples with similar maternal urges.

Because he is young, healthy, smart, and successful, Mackie's character is considered an amazing catch for prospective mothers unwilling to play the sperm bank lottery. Never mind that his daily speech is peppered with such jaw-droppers as "TMGDI -- too much god damn information" or "I'm gonna go postal on you" or "coffee is a beverage, latte is an experience". Apparently, none of the mothers mind their children inheriting the douchebag gene.

Watching "She Hate Me", one could reasonably assume that Spike Lee has never met a lesbian in his life (which would explain why none of them seem to mind having sex with men), but what is even more shocking is that, if one didn't know better, you might think Spike had never met a black person either. How else to explain the Lil' Kim-esque "lesbian", who spits a pornographic rap before jumping in to bed with Mackie? That sounds like something Michael Rappaport's TV exec in "Bamboozled" would suggest.

As the film charges on, Lee keeps throwing in tangential episodes and sad stabs at topicality. Since ever scene in the film is tied for the most botched, the only amusement comes in deciding which is the most pointless (the film is "Girl 6"-like in that respect). Is it Jim Brown as Mackie's diabetes-suffering father? The shots of cartoon sperm with Mackie's face on them that punctuate each sexual episode? Q-Tip as Mackie's friend getting rejected from a sperm bank? John Turturro as an inexplicable mobster who quotes liberally from "The Godfather"? Insert shots of George W. Bush's face on a three-dollar bill? All excellent choices, but I'll go with an utterly inane sequence involving Frank Mills, the Watergate security guard who discovered the break-in and eventually died penniless and alone. In a scene that renders the word satire essentially meaningless, Mills is surrounded and taunted by the convicted Nixon cabinet (capped by an actor in a plastic Nixon mask), who brag about how they will end up on top while Mills' life will be ruined. This scene might have leant perspective to Mackie's corporate scapegoating if it were played straight, and as a strident, amateurish slapstick parody it's simply baffling.

Mackie is eventually convicted on bogus insider trading charges, and the press portrays him as the most extreme example of the absentee black father stereotype. For some reason, Lee views the act of donating sperm to lesbian mothers as a disgusting act of demasculinization, but that's in keeping with the warped values of the film. In the end, Lee's message seems to be that lesbians should quit this childish infatuation with women and do what's best for the children -- compromise by engaging in a three-way sexual relationship with the father. THAT won't fuck 'em up!

I hope I have not given the impression that "She Hate Me" is so colorfully insane that it's entertaining in a backhanded way. It is loud, ugly, hateful, and stupid, not to mention insanely long (about 140 minutes worth). The tone and look of the film changes from scene to scene, and sometimes within the scene.

Jay Baker asked me a pertinent question last night: How many terrible films do you have to make before you lose your reputation as a great filmmaker? I think Spike's rep was well-tarnished even before "She Hate Me" among all but the die-hard fans, but on top of an entire decade of atrocities, this one should clinch the deal.

Is it the worst Spike Lee film ever made? No, that honor still goes to "Summer of Sam", the most hateful and sociopathic movie released in the 1990's. But it still shouldn't be watched by anyone who doesn't hate the whole of humanity.

Grade: D.

Up next (time permitting): my review of "Junebug"

I had hoped to get my reviews of "She Hate Me" and "Junebug" finished or at least started last night after work at the Tower, but while eating Carls Jr. and watching the Simpsons, I remembered that I owned a device for rolling joints, and well...the rest is history. But rest assured, they'll both be up by the end of the day. It is a slow day at the ol' Net today, and I am hoping to cut out early to see Polanski's "Oliver Twist" at 3 (poetic license), so look for everything to be up before then. But for now I will slake your thirst for knowledge and answer the question on everyone's mind. How did The Barnesyard do in the office football pool this weekend?

Genius? Visionary? Nostradamus-like? McConaughey-esque? All those words could describe my preternatural ability to visualize the outcomes of yesterday's pro football games. Friday at StateNet is the day for last-minute horse-trading, and my deadline decisions to pick Oakland and Washington strengthened my already-robust lead in the standings. Meanwhile, Jesse's last-second (and dare I say, deranged?) choice to stick with Dallas ensured him of a last-place finish for the week -- the first in what I'm sure will be a long, Cal Ripken-like streak of them.

As Big Al says in the preview for "Two For the Money", sports gambling is a two-hundred billion dollar a year business, and I'm getting my $20 slice. My prognostications are usually so dead on, I would gamble on games every week if I weren't so certain that God doesn't like me and can be a dick about it sometimes.

And congratulations are due once again to Conway, whose Bengals are 4-0 for the first time in a quarter century. My Broncos and their revamped defense rolled again to bring their record to 3-1 (hmm, got that one wrong too, Jesse...I would suggest just copying my picks every week, if you didn't have so much ground to make up) and captured the AFC West lead. I also got to play with my two month-old niece Zoe this Saturday, and then ate amazing Greek food with Darcey that night, so it was a brilliant weekend all around.

Don't forget to check back this afternoon for my "She Hate Me" review. Will I ever forgive Allen Maxwell? Tune in and find out.