The Barnesyard

"Dear Mr. Hater,

I would like to cancel my subscription to The Barnseyard and instead sign up to receive your competitor's Blog. I see that Film for Tourists is giving the summer's greatest achievement, Miami Vice, the attention that it deserves. All the while, you either ignore the film, talk about how it cost too much, or predict that it will suck ass."

-Brian, last week on the Comments page

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"Miami Vice" (2006 - Dir.: Michael Mann)

I never watched the seminal 1980's Don Johnson/Philip Michael Thomas cop show "Miami Vice", so I don't have any particular sentimentality or bias towards the material. However, I have seen the risible Michael Mann-helmed film adaptation, and I've at least got to assume that the show, no matter how dated by its sockless, pastel style, wasn't quite this boring.

Mann's film is essentially standard undercover cop potboiler trash, except longer, more bloated, and a lot more self-infatuated. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx star, barely, as a couple of deep cover anti-drug agents who find themselves drawn into the web of a slimy henchman, his mysterious boss, and the boss' sexy wife/second-in-command/obligatory love interest for Farrell. It's not that Farrell and Foxx are bad, exactly (although Farrell cements his status as the Poor Man's Mickey Rourke by once again confusing shitbagginess with method acting)...they're just barely there. They aren't interesting characters puzzling their way through an interesting story...they're just monosyllabic cyphers riding in fast cars, boats, and planes.

"Miami Vice" arrives in theaters with a hefty $150 million price tag that will never earn back in a million billion years, but Mann at least makes a concession to both the international markets and my dong by casting the luminous Chinese actress Gong Li as the love interest. Sufficed to say, the film doesn't deserve her smoldering grace, especially when Mann cruelly saddles her with multiple love scenes set to Audioslave songs.

The script to "Miami Vice" is a disaster - muddled, uninvolving, excruciatingly terse, and filled with faux-jargon gibberish (boats that go fast are repeatedly referred to as "go-fast boats"). Darcey, who hated the film even more than me, even claimed that the dialogue in "Armageddon" was better than the dialogue in "Miami Vice"...I'm not going to go that for, but "Armageddon" at least has more dialogue.

All of these deficiencies in acting, writing, and story and character development would have been forgivable if only Mann had brought some life to the party. But other than devising new and clever ways for people to get shot in the head and a handful of stunning, Lucas-ian take-off and landing shots, Mann seems completely enervated. The action is sparse, the tension (sexual or otherwise) is nonexistent, and the ballyhooed digital photography is practically a parody of pretentious filmmaking. The movie is set in modern times, but there is little in the way of trend setting here - if anything, "Miami Vice" seems several years too late to be considered stylish.

I don't see how this movie could please fans of the director, the genre, the actors, or the original show (the Miami setting is actually incidental - it could have been set in L.A. without significant changes), and by the time the nu-metal cover of "In the Air Tonight" played over the opening credits, I realized that a certain Brian and a certain FFT owed me an explanation.

GRADE: C-.

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"Scoop" (2006 - Dir.: Woody Allen)

Even fewer laguhs than "Miami Vice". Woody follows up his decent (if overrated in some circles) change-of-pace "Match Point" with yet another depressingly unfunny farce built upon a moldy narrative contrivance. This time, it's a deceased reporter whose ghost materializes with a hot tip for a struggling student journalist (Scarlet Johannson) - an at-large serial killer is actually the well-groomed son of landed gentry, which leads her to simultaneously investigate and fall for their handsome suspect (Hugh Jackman). The mystery isn't interesting (it's essentially a dull rewrite of Allen's "Manhattan Murder Mystery"), and the jokes fall flat one right after the other. Woody Allen just isn't funny anymore, and yet he won't stop making frothy gimmick comedies. I realized after watching "Scoop" that if I were to make a list of Allen's worst 5 films, 4 of them would be from this decade ("Anything Else", "Hollywood Ending", "Melinda and Melinda", and now "Scoop", with perhaps "September" rounding out the list). Of course, the only scoops that many viewers will care about belong to Ms. Johansson, but aside from one sublime swimsuit scene, it even fails on a chestgazing level. Johansson's role in "Match Point" played to her strengths as a vampish innocent and budding sexpot, but this part just doesn't suit her - it feels like it was written for a young Diane Keaton, who would have nailed the character's neurotic ambition. Bad. GRADE: D+.

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Kiefer gave a thumbs-up to the "Girl Can't Help It" review...that one should be in the paper within the next couple of weeks. This moves me and The Georgia Peach one step closer to crushing this one-horse town into a fine powder, then snorting it as prelude to a bisexual orgy. Victory!

I had another pretty good weekend predicting the box office...I got all the top 5 again, and in almost perfect order, with just the #'s 3 and 5 films reversed. Here was the actual box office standings for last weekend:

1) Miami Vice
2) Pirates 2
3) John Tucker Must Die
4) Monster House
5) The Ant Bully

So "The Ant Bully" did less than expected (cartoon overload?), and "John Tucker..." did a little better, especially considering its a goddam PG-13 teen sex comedy, which just shouldn't happen. "Miami Vice" took the #1 spot, but garnered only half of my $50 million prediction. As I stated weeks ago, it's looking like the big money pit of the summer. It's also a big piece of shit, which is why I expect apologies from both Brian and FFT. I'm waiting, gents. I'll have a review of that one and Woody Allen's "Scoop" later today.

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Beck's birthday/Nar reunion on Saturday was a blast, highlighted by some fucking intense volleyball action. I was shopping at Albertson's earlier in the day, and while I was in the checkout line, I noticed a DVD copy of the Casper Van Dien/Denise Richards beach volleyball thriller "Kill Shot" on the rack. I took this as a sign from God, and decided that my volleyball strategy would be to attempt a kill shot on EVERY SINGLE SHOT. No bump, no set...just kill shots! I'm telling you, 40 percent of the time, it worked EVERY time.

This weekend's Top 5 should look something like this:

1) "Miami Vice" (in the $50 million range, probably)
2) "Pirates 2"
3) "The Ant Bully"
4) "Monster House"
5) "John Tucker Must Die"

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Me and DP watched "Ghostbusters" at UA Arden last night. Boy, they just don't make them like that anymore. These days, it's rare to see a film that tries to hit every demographic and yet succeeds on every level. Obviously, there are no more Bill Murrays - if they made the film today, they would have cast Ashton Kutcher or Sean William Scott in the role. In addition, "Ghostbusters" is so much more focused than movies today. It doesn't waste a lot of time on bullshit - at first, you can't cross the streams, but in the end, you cross the streams to save the day. It's never explained, and it doesn't matter! If it were today, they'd spend twenty minutes explaining it and tacking on unnecessary characters and subplots. I also loved that the Rick Moranis, Harold Ramis, and Annie Potts characters are all kind of odd and pathetic. In the 1990 sequel, they were just cute.

This also reminded me that I got a mailer sent to me at StateNet several months back from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, some sort of Michigan-based neo-con think tank. The essay was titled "Great Values, Great Movies", and profiled four specific movies that DID NOT denigrate free enterprise (this is apparently the only qualification for "great values"; in author Lawrence W. Reed's words: "On the silver screen, businesspeople are frequently vilified as greedy and heartless, while statists of every stripe are depicted as selfless, romantic idealists."). "Ghostbusters" has long been a neo-con pet film because the main human villain is a slimy EPA fascist (although I'm pretty sure that the EPA doesn't have the power to arrest people on site, as they do in "Ghostbusters"), but Reed singles out Ivan Reitman's film because of the scene where Aykroyd's character expresses fear at entering the private sector after getting booted from the university: "They expect results."

The other films that Reed profiles are duds - "Cinderella Man", in which Jim J. Braddock's "heroism soars" when he pays back the welfare money he received (and presumably also for defeating that Hitler-esque human scourge, Max Baer); "The Patriot", because of the Gibson character's "poignant" anti-taxation beliefs, and the golfing film "The Greatest Game Ever Played", because it "beautifully extols the virtues that underpin a free society." Why lump "Ghostbusters" in with that bullshit? It's time we took our movie back from the neo-cons!

Reed concludes his piece by pleading, "Please, Hollywood, lose the statist bias, and make more films like these four!" Make more films like "Ghostbusters", "The Patriot", "Cinderella Man", and "The Greatest Game Ever Played"? You want to make more films about Revolutionary War-era golfers who win the heavyweight championship and catch ghosts? Gibberish!

"Lady in the Water" (2006 - Dir. M. Night Shyamalan)

It seemed that Kevin Smith would be the chief producer of anti-film critic bile last weekend. Just as his poorly received "Clerks 2" was ready to hit theaters, Smith declared jihad against film critics, barring one critic from a screening because he had panned "Jersey Girl" (hey Kev, you wanna know how to spot the people who hated "Jersey Girl"? They're the ones who've seen "Jersey Girl"!), then lambasting Joel Siegel on radio's The Opie and Anthony Show (apparently a real hotbed for cinematic analysis) for walking out on "Clerks 2".

But in the end, M. Night Shyamalan went Smith one better by making an evil film critic a crucial player in his execrable, delusional fable "Lady in the Water". Darcey has already heard me rant about this, so I won't get myself started. Sufficed to say, I felt like a jerk for ever having defended Shyamalan.

And the film? Bleh. Unlike "The Village", in which the supernatural mystery turned out to be a hoax, there is never any doubt that Bryce Dallas Howard's water being is pure magic. The real problem is that cruel, jaded cynics (i.e., film critics) refuse to believe in anything that brings people hope (i.e., M. Night Shyamalan's films). I thought that "Signs" and "The Village" were interesting attempts that were compromised by overindulgence, but "Lady in the Water" is Shyamalan's first unqualified dud.

Shyamalan forgoes casting himself in a small, boring role by casting himself in a large, boring role - he plays a budding writer who the water being (called a Narf) has come to inspire. He is informed he will be killed because of the power of his words (i.e., the critical drubbing of "The Village"), but that his writings will inspire the next great American leaders (i.e., young directors...a chilling thought, scarier than anything in Shyamalan's recent work) Not hard to read between those lines. Sickening, too.

"Lady" made me realize that while other filmmakers have an obvious visual style or thematic obsession, no other director has such a defined ACTING style as Shyamalan...not even Mamet's films are this rigid. Everyone in "Lady" speaks in that same pause-heavy, hushed awe that we've come to expect (and dread) from Shyamalan. His attempts at humanity make Spielberg seem like a man of the people, and his "humor" is essentially one vicious racial stereotype after another.

Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors, but not even he can resurrect a character as ridiculous as Cleveland Heap, a stuttering ex-doctor working incognito as a building supervisor after the murder of his wife and child (yep, Shyamalan trots out the dead loved one bit...again).

When the Narf is threatened by her natural enemies, Heap attempts to protect her by forming a team of role-players (a healer, a guardian, members of a guild, etc.) from among the apartment's quirky denizens. This dominates the second half of the film, but the problem is that we never care about any of this guild or guardian bullshit. Darcey suggested that "Lady" might have worked better as a TV show (one presumably not directed by Shyamalan), where the numerous twists and turns could have been spaced out over several episodes. Instead, Shyamalan just throws it all out there, and the result is that "Lady" is both breathless and inert.

GRADE: D+.

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Has anyone seen a film of late that they'd like to comment on? I got several recommendations for "The Proposition", but I didn't get to see it before it left The Crest. Is there anything else out there that I should check out, either in theaters or on DVD? Let me know.

"The Girl Can't Help It" (with Jayne Mansfield, Tom Ewell, and Little Richard) comes out on DVD in a couple weeks as part of a 3-disc Mansfield collection. I am trying to get Jon Kiefer let me review it for the News and Review. We'll see if he goes for it.

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Up next: MORE!!!!!!!

Should be an interesting week at the movies.

For the $5 Thursday night movies, "Ghostbusters" is showing at UA Arden, "Napoleon Dynamite" is playing in Davis, and the original "Alien" is showing in Roseville. I just found out that "Back to the Future" is going to be screened outside in the park across the street from my house, but I am going to be out of town that day.

Woody Allen's "Scoop" opens at The Tower (Woody, I love you, but I'm just seeing it for Scarlet's rack), "The War Tapes" at The Crest. At the multiplexes, you've got PG-13 raunch in "John Tucker Must Die", another celebrity-voiced cartoon with "The Ant Bully", and as Film For Tourists has been reminding us all week, the long-awaited debut of Michael Mann's "Miami Vice". I will have my official box office predictions ready tomorrow morning, but I'd be surprised if "MV" didn't open at #1 (of course, with a $150 million budget, it would have to be a blockbuster of incomprehensible size to be considered a hit).

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Up next: MORE MORE MORE

"Strangers With Candy" (2006 - Dir.: Paul Dinello) Long-delayed film adaptation of the Comedy Central cult favorite doesn't exactly expand upon the original series...if anything, it reduces it. The production values are bottom-of-the-barrel, many of the best gags are recycled from the show, and it's hard to shake the overall air of pointlessness. Still, I laughed, heartily and frequently, especially during the film's first half. Amy Sedaris (as Jerri Blank, the 40-ish, ex-junkie high school freshman) and Stephen Colbert (as her closeted, hyper-conservative science teacher, Mr. Noblet) do typically brilliant work. My favorite exchange:

MEGAWATTI: Are you thinking about entering the science fair?
JERRI: I'm thinking about pussy. The science fair's for queers.

GRADE: B-

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"The Devil Wears Prada" (2006 - Dir.: David Frankel) Adequate but uninvolving story about an ambitious, wallflower-y journalism grad who takes a job at a Vogue-like fashion magazine working as lackey for an Anna Wintour-like cutthroat. Meryl Streep's performance makes the film - she's perfectly coiffed and cruel, and will probably get some Supporting Actress buzz come Oscar time. But that's the problem - it's truly a supporting role, too small and not nearly devilish enough. Anne Hathaway is the star of the film as the morally conflicted Girl Friday, who initially resents her job, yet becomes swept up in the glamorous intensity of the fashion world. Hathaway is charming, cute as hell, and possesses remarkable cleavage, but her character isn't interesting enough to carry the film. Director Frankel is an HBO vet, including a couple episodes of "Entourage", which accounts for the presence of a thoroughly de-balled Adrian Grenier/Vinnie Chase as Hathway's boyfriend. GRADE: C+.

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The word is that Heath Ledger will be cast as The Joker in the sequel to "Batman Begins". Frankly, I don't see it (whatever else Ledger is, funny he ain't), but at least they didn't cast Robin Williams, who campaigned heartily.

There are still about two dozen movies I've seen in the last month that I haven't covered either here or in the News and Review. Here are a few of the duds:

"Sgt. Rutledge" (1960 - Dir.: John Ford) One of Ford's least heralded films, an awkward genre collision of boring western and boring courtroom drama. The great Woody Strode plays the title role, a black cavalry officer on trial for rape. Jeffrey Hunter plays his lawyer - Hunter was brilliant as Martin Pauly in "The Searchers", and remains the best filmed Christ of all time (in Nick Ray's "King of Kings"), but only an actor with some serious gravitas (Spencer Tracy, say) could sell this part. It starts OK, with some beautiful shots, but gets slower and stupider as it goes along. GRADE: C.

"Return of Frank James" (1940 - Dir.: Fritz Lang) A rare Fritz Lang dud, this sequel to the 1939 box office hit "Jesse James" never achieves a pulse. Henry Fonda plays the title role, an outlaw in hiding who resurfaces to mete out justice to his brother's killers. The setup seems ripe for Lang, who always thrived on stories of violence and moral obligation, but this one is poorly written and square. For a superior Lang western, check out "Rancho Notorious", with Marlene Dietrich. GRADE: C.

"The Tall Target" (1951 - Dir.: Anthony Mann) This one is an odd duck - a film noir set aboard a train in 1861. After he learns about a plot to assassinate the newly elected President Lincoln, a discredited detective (named John Kennedy, oddly enough) ignores superiors and attempts to intercept the would-be killers en route to Washington, D.C. It's a good setup, and based on historical fact, but the film disappoints, especially with the great noir and western director Anthony Mann at the helm. The story has too many stops and starts, and the writing isn't very smart - one crucial scene hinges on several characters being unable to read a message written backwards in large letters. Might make a decent remake. GRADE: C.

"The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (197x - Dir.: Sam Peckinpah) Uncharacteristically lugubrious and slapstick-heavy Peckinpah western, with Jason Robards doing good work as a grizzled prospector left for dead by his partners. He discovers an oasis in the desert, and exploits the situation for personal gain, setting up a ramshackle rest stop (with plates nailed to the table, so they're easier to wash) next to a stagecoach line. This could have been a sharp send-up of frontier capitalism, but Peckinpah wastes too much time and energy on broad comedy - Peckinpah's comedic "touch" is unsurprisingly heavyhanded. It should be of interest to fans of unconventional westerns. GRADE: C+.

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Up next: MORE!

I took a couple of days off there, but I'm preparing to unleash a flurry of posts over the rest of today and tomorrow, so be sure to check back here often. I figure that everyone who gives a fuck about seeing "Turd in the Water" has seen it by now, so ya'll don't mind if I ruin the whole thing for you. I'll have reviews of that, "Devil Wears Prada", and "Strangers With Candy", and the next volume of my Film Capsule reviews right after I go get some coffee.

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The "Road House" review is in today's edition of The News and Review...it's on page something or other, and then there's another one of those In the Mix reviews in my usual slot on page 3762G, sandwiched right between the porn ads and the other porn ads. I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I'll assume that they're brilliant.

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Has anyone out there seen anything interesting lately, new or old, good or bad? Let's hear about it.

My box office predictions for the weekend weren't great, but they weren't terrible either. The actual top 5 was:

1) Pirates 2
2) Monster House
3) Lady in the Water
4) You, Me and Dupree
5) Little Man

I had the top three films right, but in the wrong order, and 4 out of 5 overall ("Devil/Prada" finished ninth...wtf was I thinking with that one?). However, I did correctly predict that "Clerks 2" and "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" were non-starters - they finished 6th and 7th, respectively. "Pirates" three-week run at the top faces a definite challenge next week from "Miami Vice". However, I think the true all-star of the second half of the summer season will be "Talladega Nights" - it'll pull down $150-200 million, easy.

Speaking of "Lady in the Turdwater", I was going to write my review of it this morning, but I couldn't access Blogger from my house for some reason. I'll put up this afternoon, but in the meantime, DON'T see it. It suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.

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I also watched "Week-End" (1967 - Dir.: Jean-Luc Godard) at the French Film Festival on Saturday afternoon - many thanks to FFT for the free pass and pre-show sesh. The movie was moderately well-attended, but it was one of the more unruly crowds I've seen in a while. There were at least a dozen walkouts in the last fifteen minutes, mostly old couples, and one annoying heckler (a typical bon mot: "When is this stupid movie gonna end?"). This just proves my theory that every idiot has something stupid to say. If you haven't seen "Week-End", it's a pretty polarizing film, even for Godard. It's an apocalyptic anti-narrative about an exceedingly shallow and bilious bourgeois couple traveling through the French countryside to collect on an inheritance. For the first two-thirds, it's a great satire of barbarous human behavior, with a great eye for physical humor and savage parody...in the last third, the couple is kidnapped by nihilist cannibal revolutionaries, and gets weighed down with self-important polemics. It doesn't ruin the film for me, but I can see why some would find the last section excruciating to watch. Still, there's nothing like it. GRADE: B+.

Tough call for #1 this week. There are two new major entries - "Monster House" and "Lady in the Water", as well as "Pirates 2", which is still going strong. I think that diminishing returns from Shyamalan coupled with a star-less cast might be enough to sink "Lady", but I'm not sure how wide "Monster" is opening (ditto "Lady"). In that sense, "Pirates 2" seems like the safe pick for #1. That is a toughie. I'll go with:

1) Lady in the Water
2) Pirates 2
3) Monster House
4) Little Man
5) Devil Wears Prada

"My Super Ex-Girlfriend" also opens this weekend, but that one looks like a non-starter to me. We'll see how I do next week. In the meantime, here are a couple films you can see this weekend...

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"WORDPLAY": Entertaining crossword puzzle documentary in the "Spellbound" mode spotlights puzzlemaster Will Shortz and his annual tournament for fanatics in Stamford, Connecticut. The directors use a lot of visual tricks to make crossword puzzles seem cinematic, the tournament scenes are fairly exciting, and the contestants are appealing in their extreme nerdiness (though unlike "Spellbound", you never become involved in the human stories). The only major debit is the parade of cameos from celebrity crossword fans such as Bill Clinton, pitcher Mike Mussina, and a surprisingly unfunny Jon Stewart - these scenes are pointless and only add to an already padded running time. GRADE: B.

"A SCANNER DARKLY": The same rotoscope animation process that Linklater used in "Waking Life" is employed to bring a psychedelic visual kick to Philip K. Dick's story of near-futuristic drug addiction and police-state paranoia. As appropriately trippy as the visuals are (especially when rendering a shape-shifting "scramble suit" that Keanu's character wears in his job as an undercover informant), the quality of the performances (and the depth of Linklater's empathy with his characters) puts it over the top. It's surprising to come away from an ostensibly animated film praising the performances, but Woody, Keanu, Winona, and especially Robert Downey, Jr. do excellent work. The film made me realize that no matter how much Downey's personal demons have affected his career, he is probably one of my favorite contemporary actors when given free rein, with a series of brilliant and versatile showcase performances to his credit ("Two Girls and a Guy", "The Singing Detective", "Less Than Zero", "Natural Born Killers", and now "A Scanner Darkly"). A highly recommended film, but not for everyone. GRADE: B+.

Both films are currently playing at the Tower Theater. Don't forget about Godard's "Week-End" playing on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at the Crest. I will continue my series of film capsules on Monday. See you next week!

I've been pretty lax in reviewing the movies I've watched over the past month, so I am going to try to catch up with a series of capsule reviews a la Maltin. First, the newer stuff:

-"Tristan and Isolde" (2006 - Dir.: Kevin Reynolds) Silly but harmless costume-action flick from the director of "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (Reynolds, so far removed from the freshness and humanity of "Fandango" that it's sad) mangles the medieval romantic legend to formfit a demographic-crossing mold. Nothing particularly wrong, with decent period atmosphere and beautiful locations, but not much right about it, either. James Franco and Sophia Myles play the titular lovers, who fall in love for no other reason than they haven't got shit all over them. GRADE: C+.

-"A Prairie Home Companion" (2006 - Dir.: Robert Altman) Altman's "swansong" effort may just be his worst film to date. The Barnesyard has a special antipathy towards Garrison Keillor ever since he spent every Sunday evening of his childhood trapped in a car with NPR playing full blast, but Altman doesn't even seem to capture the flavor of the show. The fictional Lake Wobegon setting and radio skits are mostly eschewed for wall-to-wall songs, only a few of them fun. The movie would have been harmless enough if not for the inclusion of three horribly ill-conceived characters - Virginia Madsen's inane angel of death, Kevin Kline's pointless gumshoe, and Tommy Lee Jone's sleepwalking turn as a radio exec - they absolutely sink the film. A dud. GRADE: C-.

-"Dave Chappelle's Block Party" (2006 - Dir.: Dave Chappelle) Amusing documentary showcases Chappelle's efforts to stage an outdoor concert in the hear of Brooklyn. Chappelle enlists an impressive array of performers, but The Roots play backing band for every artist except The Fugees, so everyone ends up with the same thin, boring funk beat (I'm not a fan). Chappelle is on his game, but it's more of a concert documentary than a comedy show. The best scenes involve the wacked-out couple who own the building where the concert was held. GRADE: B+

-"The Devil and Daniel Johnston" (2006 - Dir.: Jeff Feuerzeig) One of the best films to play in Sacramento so far in 2006 (not that there's much competition - I couldn't even make a decent top 5 list at this point), a loving but penetrating documentary about folksinger Daniel Johnston, who made a small splash in the late 1980's/early 1990's before succumbing to the demons that drove him. Johnston fanatics would have you believe that he's a tortured artist in the Brian Wilson mode, but he seems more like a one-trick pony to me. Even if you don't leave the film wanting to hear more of Johnston's music, he remains a fascinating figure, and you can't help but admire the electric, multi-media storytelling employed by Jeff Feuerzeig. It only played in Sac. for a week or two, so look for this one on DVD soon.

-"The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" (2006 - Dir.: Justin Lin) This was one of the most anticipated releases of the summer, and I'm happy to report that it's sort of a movie. The Barnesyard's Official Poor Man's Paul Walker Lucas Black (Billy Bob connection? - he was the kid in "Sling Blade" and a football player in "Friday Night Lights"), delivering the sort of stoic, dialogue-challenged performance that would make Walker proud (if he were able to express such emotions) as a race-obsessed teen sent to live with his father in Tokyo after he nearly kills himself in a race (in which Black's character somehow upshifts his car at least a dozen times). In Tokyo, Black finds himself involved with an underground drift racing cult. Black's father forbids him from racing, but Black starts to gain a reputation as a drift racer. After a few more races, one of his friends is killed in a race, and Black needs to find a way out of the racing gang. The solution: a race! Willfully idiotic and slutty semi-sequel is more fun the first film, but can't touch the Tyrese/Cole Hauser/Eva Mendes highs of "2 Fast 2 Furious". An R rating would have helped. GRADE: C+.

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Up next: Film Capsules, Part 2

My intent was to come on this afternoon and start catching up on all my movie reviews (I'm several weeks behind), but I see that Blogger has a scheduled outage coming up quick, so f that noise. I'll work on it tonight and tomorrow, and try to get everything up to date. I would like to be able to blame work for all the holdups, but StateNet has been dead of late...I'm just using all my free time playing Fight Night Round 2 on the XBox instead of writing for the blog. Of course, I'm watching the Deluxe Edition of "Road House" tonight for a review due tomorrow morning, so I can't guarantee there will be time for Barnesyard updates.

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The Tower might be getting John Gulager's "Feast", the 3rd Project Greenlight movie, sometime this fall. The last season of Project Greenlight was the most entertaining yet, but both of the movies have been utter tripe -- bad-bad, not funny-bad. Maybe "Feast" will break that streak, maybe it won't, but one thing's for sure: it WILL be bad.

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Apparently, Michael Parks will be reprising his Sheriff Earl McGraw character from "Kill Bill" in the upcoming Tarantino/Rodriguez horror anthology "Grind House". The project sounds semi-promising (with a cast that includes Michael Biehn, thank you very much), although we shouldn't forget what happened the last time Rodriguez and Tarantino collaborated on an anthology film - the unconscionable dud "Four Rooms".

It looks The Barnesyard was down all morning, but it's republished and back on track. I'll have a bunch of movie reviews up this afternoon.

Don't forget to check out Film For Tourists for complete coverage of the Sacramento French Film Festival, which started last Friday and continues this weekend.

Nailed all 5 of them, right on the money! "Pirates" didn't drop off as much as expected, only about 50% (not bad these days). and "Little Man" fell a little below my predictions -- apparently, Americans possess only a lukewarm interest in watching Marlon Wayans playing CGI midget. Go figure. Otherwise, I was right on the money. Can you believe that assholes get paid to predict this kind of shit?

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I went to see "M. Hulot's Holiday" at the Crest on Saturday afternoon. Of course, I had no car, so I had to ride my bike from East Sac. in 105 degree heat at 3 in the afternoon. Fucking bummer. The movie was great (I've seen it before), although the print was pretty lousy. It's not a film that gains a lot from being seen on the big screen, but it was fun to watch nonetheless. It might be my favorite Tati film. I'm definitely going to try to watch Godard's "Week-End" this Saturday.

The theater was incredibly well-managed.

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Michael Mann sailed easily to a Bump. I don't think there was a single Dump on the board. I'll try to pick some one a little more controversial next time.

This is going to be a new weekly segment every Friday. The last time I tried this was a few weeks ago, the Friday that "Superman Returns" and "Devil Wears Prada" opened. I picked all of the top 5 films, but mostly in the wrong order. "Devil/Prada" did better than expected, "Superman" much worse. The bomb of the summer, until "Miami Vice" opens.

Here's my picks for this weekend:

1) "Pirates 2" (but with a sharp drop-off)
2) "Little Man" (closer than you'd expect)
3) "You, Me and Dupree"
4) "Devil Wears Prada"
5) "Superman Returns"

We'll see how I do on Monday.

The dinner last night at The Kitchen was amazing. I ate so many different types of seafood and shellfish, I think I technically qualify as a fifth ocean. At any rate, I feel about as big as an ocean. I felt practically paralyzed by the time we got home (the whole experience lasts about four to five hours). I also got to taste wild boar for the first time -- if any of you happen to keep wild boars as pets, keep them the hell away from me, because I will EAT them! One of the best meals of my life, if not the best.

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I left work early yesterday with the intention of checking out "Wordplay" at the Tower. Unfortunately, my car starting overheating on the way to the theater, and now it's going to be in the shop over the weekend. Not exactly the way I wanted to kick off my birthday, but at least it's only several hundred degrees Fahrenheit outside.

There are some good-looking films opening this weekend - "Strangers With Candy" at the Crest and "A Scanner Darkly" at the Tower. "Little Man" and "You, Me, and Dupree" are stinking up the multiplexes. And don't forget that the French Film Festival starts tonight. You can get full coverage by checking out Film For Tourists. Tell 'em The Barnesyard sent you.

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It looks like there is no opposition mounting against Michael Mann, so he should have an easy time getting Bumped. I figured there would be some haters.

As for "Heat", I haven't seen it in nearly ten years, so I would be more than willing to give it another chance. Until that happens, I stand by original assessment -- bad acting, bad writing, long and boring.

I'll see you all next week!

In honor of the upcoming "Miami Vice" film, I thought we'd put director Michael Mann to the vote. Mann was born in the great city of Chicago in 1943, went to film school in London, and got his start on TV writing for "Starsky and Hutch" before directing films and creating the seminal TV series "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story". Here's a brief filmography:

-The Jericho Mile (1979 - TV movie)
-Thief (1981)
-The Keep (1983)
-Manhunter (1986)
-L.A. Takedown (1989 - TV movie)
-The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
-Heat (1995)
-The Insider (1999)
-Ali (2001)
-Collateral (2004)
-Miami Vice (2006)

DAN'S TAKE:

THE GOOD: Manhunter; The Last of the Mohicans; The Insider

THE BAD: Heat

THE INDIFFERENT: Ali; Collateral

HAVEN'T SEEN: The Jericho Mile; Thief; The Keep; L.A. Takedown; any of his TV shows.

THE VERDICT:

"Miami Vice" hits theaters on July 28 saddled with an estimated $150 million price tag. If you believe the old saw that a film has to gross three times its budget in order to be considered a success, it's a sure bet that Mann has another money pit on his hands. I don't quite understand what Mann does with all of his money - it seems as though every film from "Heat" on has gone wildly overbudget, despite the fact that nearly every scene is shot with a handheld camera. Mann has been given the freedom to make some iconoclastic films with big budgets, but as it has come to pass with Terry Gilliam, there comes a time when the suits aren't going to back your costly indulgences anymore.

That would be shame, because Mann does have an undeniable visual panache and an urge to tell epic human stories. Yet I can't seem to shake the feeling of wasted talent that I get from Mann's filmography. He's 63 years old, but hasn't even made ten films. It seems that his attention has become increasingly monopolized by gargantuan projects of minor significance.

Still, he always holds the potential for greatness - "Manhunter" is the first Hannibal Lecter film, sleek and lived-in, but still a bit dwarfed by "Silence of the Lambs"; "The Last of the Mohicans" is a romantic historical action epic without parallel (Mann usually gets good performances from his actors, and Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe are note-perfect here); "The Insider" is Mann's best work to date, one of the few genuinely intelligent issues films to come out in the last few decades, with a searing performance from Russell Crowe.

Mann has proven to be a sucker for excess - "Ali" had everything but a point, and couldn't possibly compete with the 1999 Ali-Foreman documentary "When We Were Kings", which covered most of the same ground. "Collateral" had better-than-expected performances and a great feel for the L.A. streets, but kept getting stupider as it went along. The one giant mistep in Mann's filmography is "Heat", one of the most critically overpraised films of the 1990's. A lot of smart people with great taste love this epic about conflicted men on both sides of the law (Mann's fans tend to be extremely passionate, but all I can see is bad acting and bloat.

I haven't seen any of Mann's pre-"Manhunter" movies or any of his work on TV, so they're of no help in determining my verdict. It's a short list of movies to base a decision on, but "The Insider" and "Last of the Mohicans" justify the bump. I still feel that Mann's career is heading towards an abyss from which it may never return.

Bump it, but with reservations.

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OK, I've had my say, so I'll officially open up the ballot box to the general public. What do you say, folks -- Michael Mann, Bump It or Dump It? The polls remain open until Friday.

Darcey is taking me to The Kitchen for my birthday tomorrow night. Here's what we're having:


White Summer Corn Chowder with Italian Summer Truffles,
a Sheeps Milk Ricotta-Sardo Infused Bread Pudding
and Crispy Pernod-Dill Prawns, Tarragon
and Parma-Proscuitto

•••

The Kitchen’s ‘Bloody Mary’ Crab Louie with
Very Small Forni-Brown Lettuces, Preserved Lemon,
Baby Green Beans and Local Belgian Endive

•••

Sushi • Sashimi • Crudo

•••

Pan Seared Almond Dusted Local Halibut with
Lobster Stuffed Squash Blossoms, Crunchy Green Tea Rice
and a Kaffir Lime-Coconut Broth

•••

Grilled Three Peppercorn-Olive Oil Marinated Piedmontese
Beef Tenderloin with a Porcini Mushroom Knish,
Béarnaise and Cabernet Reduction

•••

Bittersweet Chocolate Tacos Filled with Farm Fresh
Cherries and Berries, Creamy Mascarpone,
and Chocolate-Pistachio Shortbread

***

Look upon my stomach, and despair! I'll let you know how it goes.

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I didn't see any interesting new previews before "Click", but there was one of those extended commercials for "Monster House". Every time I see a preview for that film, I think of the scene from "Big" where toy company executives are admonished for assuming that children would be entertained by a building that comes to life.

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"Pirates 2" set the new 3-day domestic box office record this weekend with $132 million, annihilating the real-life $115 million taken in by "Spider-Man", as well as the fictional $118 million raked in by Vincent Chase's "Aquaman". After the lackluster performances of "MI:3", "Cars", and "Superman Reeturns", I thought Hollywood might be in for another long slump. I guess I forgot how wildly popular the original was - it's amazing what fuckable leads will do for your grosses.

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Speaking of "Superman", I re-watched the Extended Edition of the Christopher Reeve original. Mike Dub placed it on his Top 102 List, and while I can't go that far, I've always considered it a personal favorite. Watching it again, it still succeeds in entrancing with leisurely, epic storytelling, visual gusto, and right-on casting. However, I have to admit that many scenes in the film are terribly written, most notably the exchanges on Krypton (I still love it, though) and Lois Lane's dreadful midflight thought-poem ("You can fly/in the sky"). It's odd, because so many other scenes in the film are sharply written (e.g., the snappy news room exchanges, the scene on the balcony). The film bears the mark of a tumultous shoot, with perhaps too many cooks minding the stew (Mario Puzo and Robert Benton are among those who received script credit, but Richard Donner claims principal credit belonged to Tom Manciewicz). The producers originally intended to shoot "Superman 1" and "Superman 2" back-to-back, but the shoot went way over budget, and the sequel got scrapped for a while. When "Superman: The Movie" became a blockbuster, the sequel went back into production. Donner shot a lot of the scenes that ended up in the sequel, but he was replaced by Richard Lester, who reshot most of the footage. With such a torturous route to the screen, it's amazing that it holds up so brilliantly. GRADE: A-.

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I might get to review the Deluxe Edition DVD of "Road House" for the News and Review. Biz, I'll try to do it justice.

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Up next: More movie reviews and the newest edition of Barnesyard Bump It or Dump It.

"Click" (2006 - Dir.: Frank Coraci)

I know I said that I would never go see this film, but I had a half-day at work and a free call-in (thanks to Justin...if you ever need any legislation tracked, no questions asked, I'm your man), so I gave it a shot. Besides, I recalled that there have been a handful of Adam Sandler vehicles that have been nearly sublime.

"Click" clearly wanted to be something more than the usual dumb summer comedy, but it just doesn't commit - the jokes aren't funny, and the sentiment isn't earned.

Sandler plays a squishy but hard-working family man who can't seem to juggle his commitments to work and family. In a shameful and ingenious bit of product placement, he ends up in the Beyond section of Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where a flaky scientist gives him a universal remote to control his universe.

It's actually a pretty decent set-up for a smart comedy, but Sandler and crew always go the cheapest, easiet route possible. Take the scene in which Sandler listens to his life's "Commentary" track - it's just a workplace comedy bit, with the voice of James Earl Jones explaining what we're watching. Why wouldn't Sandler's character do his own commentary track? The film passes up a great opportunity to skewer both self-analysis and the droning self-importance of DVD commentary tracks for an obvious and unfunny gag.

In the last third, Sandler loses control of the remote and finds that his life is stuck on fast-forward. He starts missing huge chunks of his life, and the film starts on piling on the sentiment. However, "Click" falls back on the hoariest gimmick in the book - the it-was-all-a-dream ending. That's bad enough, but the film telegraphs the dream structure so obviously that it's difficult to get involved in the story. Some surreal, Jerry Lewis-esque visual flair would have helped, but director Frank Coraci (who also helmed Sandler's "The Waterboy" and "The Wedding Singer") is far from up to the task. A dud.

GRADE: C-.

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I read that Bret Sommers, The Barnesyard's favorite female panelist on "The Match Game", turned 82 years old today. In case you're keeping score at home, Bret Sommers: still alive. Good for her.

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Up next: more movie reviews.

More shocking discrepancies in the "Sexiest" tabulation process were discovered this weekend.

You'll recall from last week that I exposed several scandalous errors in the rankings of the E! Network's quasi-salacious clip show. Salma Hayek and Jessica Alba went 1 and 2 in the "Sexiest Latin Lovers" show, yet Hayek ranked well below Alba in the "Sexiest Actresses" show, in which Angelina Jolie was ranked #1.

Hayek, Alba, and Jolie are all brunettes, so who won the top slot in the "Sexiest Brunettes" show? Eva Mendes! Explain that! I demand to know who is responsible for these voting errors -- I better not find your fingerprints on this one, actor/raconteur Diedrich Bader! You've screwed me over for the last time.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (Dir.: Gore Verbinski)

Right on the heels of "Superman Returns" comes another shoddily constructed big-budget franchise film that manages to fail on all levels. For all the hyped-up action scenes and hundreds of fx shots, "Pirates 2" is a surprisingly slapdash effort...perhaps we can blame the push to shoot two fx-heavy films simultaneously ("Pirates 3: At World's End" comes out next summer), especially considering there was barely enough relevant plot to justify one Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

The first "Pirates" film was just as overplotted and underdeveloped as this one, but at least it was joyously inane, anchored by Johnny Depp's showboat performance as Captain Jack Sparrow. The sequel is mirthless inanity, especially in its god-awful first half (by contrast, "Superman Returns" began intriguingly and got worse as it went along). The movie seems to begin 30 minutes in to the story, and starts rushing off in all directions like a chicken with its head cut off.

Depp's performance as Sparrow seems more shopworn and unengaged this time around, like tired schtick. Bloom is still the archetype of the bland hero. Knightley's character is all over the map, and mostly stupid. There are still too many heroes and too many villains -- superfluous main characters are as much a calling card of the modern blockbuster as CGI and grossout humor.

Speaking of which, while "Pirates" is rated PG-13, it features dozens of brutal deaths (perhaps hundreds), wall-to-wall violence, wanton animal cruelty, numerous gags involving severed digits, and frequent intimations of cannibalism. However, if Knightley's nipples appeared onscreen for 1 second, or if Depp slipped out one single fucking f-bomb, the film would get slapped with an R, no questions asked. Hollywood: leading our children down a moral sewer.

GRADE: D+

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Speaking of "Superman Returns", I went to see it again at the drive-in on Thursday. The generally positive reviews made me wonder if my affection for the first two Christopher Reeve films might have biased me against it, but it only made my contempt for the film that much stronger. What a boring fucking movie! And forget what I said before about not wanting to criticize Brandon Routh...he gives an unqualified bad performance, especially as Clark Kent. The main problem with Routh is that he plays Kent and Superman exactly the same way: they're both bland, boring, handsome kids. Luckily, it was a nice, cool night and I had a pillow, so I was able to curl up and sleep through the second half.

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Previews: a teaser for Michael Bay's "Transformers" (I shit you not); "The Hoax", a film about fraudulent author Clifford Irving, which looked interesting until I found out that Lasse Hallstrom is directing it; a film with the dream-team pairing of Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher that should need no further explanation to get your butts in the theater; "World Trade Center", which seems to confirm my worst fears about Oliver Stone's involvement.

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The French Film Festival begins this weekend -- there are a few notable screenings, including Godard's apocalyptic road film "Week-End" and my favorite Jacques Tati movie, "M. Hulot's Holiday". Catch them if you can.

Speaking of French movies, I understand there is a possibility that the Crest might get the Melville movie "Army of Shadows". Keep your fingers crossed.

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I decided to take last week off, both from work and my blog. Mostly, I watched movies, including a personal-record 6 in one day. I'll review everything I saw throughout the next few days. I also haven't done any of my regular bits in a while, so I'll cram in a few of those as well.