The Barnesyard

Due to an overwhelming avalanche of demand (OK, two people, but in the blogosphere that actually qualifies as an avalanche), I am bringing back that hoary old bit, the Dare Daniel. The idea is that you dare me to watch the shittiest piece of shit that's ever been shit, and then I watch the sucker and write a review. Some of the past Dare Daniel films have included:

-She Hate Me
-Malibu's Most Wanted
-Radio
-Dirty Love
-Uptown Girls
-Krippendorf's Tribe
-Marci X
-Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

So you get the idea. I limit my selections to movies that I've never seen, which means "Northfork" and "Breakfast of Champions" are disqualified, thank God. Post your suggestions in the Comments page and I'll pick a winner on Monday morning.

Speaking of great films, I'm going to be reviewing a movie called "Karate Dog" for an upcoming SN&R issue.

-On "Uptown Girls": "Murphy plays the insufferable trust fund daughter of a famous dead rocker -- when the money runs dry, she gets a job as a nanny for Fanning, the equally insufferable daughter of a music industry bigwig. The gag is that Murphy is an adult who acts like a child while Fanning is a child who acts too grown up, but since you'd rather see either one of them run over by a tractor than say, watch them star in a romantic comedy-drama, the tension goes a bit limp."

-On "Uptown Girls" again: "Oh, and did I mention that there are wall-to-wall songs, and that they're all terrible, folksy, AOR-lite tripe that make James Blunt look like Tom Waits?"

-On the made-for-TV movie "Little Richard": "The great rock-and-roll pioneer/scripture-quoting orgyist has his edges sanded down so severely he's pretty much an effete, piano-playing neuter...The movie was executive-produced by Little Richard, which may explain the soft bulbs in the spotlight. Over-involvement by the subject and/or their families accounts for the gentile, quasi-inspiring treatment of most modern biopics, but the idea that the story of a poor kid overcoming the odds to reach super-stardom and spiritual fulfillment is more entertaining than watching Little Richard act like a monstrously egotistical, salvation-minded lunatic-pervert for 90 minutes is a fallacy of the highest order."

-On the made-for-TV movie "Little Richard" again: "The Quasar's live shows were legendary, but Townsend shoots them with all the electric energy and excitement of a Madison, Wisconsin dinner theatre production of "Smokey Joe's Cafe". My favorite scene showed a pre-fame Little Richard scraping by as a dishwaher -- he's asked to take out the trash, and lugs what appears to be an empty can out to the curb. Apparently, the production wasn't budgeted for GARBAGE."

-On the made-for-TV movie "Little Richard" one last time: "I used to have the same complex of Richard Peddleman. Growing up I always dated taller girls. They had bigger hands promoting the appearance of a little richard. Till I met this midget chick, well she was more like a dwarf. She played a male oompa loompa when I was working as a grip on the set of a movie. It was when I let her have a grip that I let my complex go. Wrecked 'em? Dang near killed 'er." (actually, this was cribbed from a Netflix review by one Spoogy Spoog, who we can only assume is Richard Roeper's Internet nom de guerre)

-On "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction": "While promoting "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction", Sharon Stone repeatedly promised that the second film would answer all leftover questions from the first. However, the only pertinent question to this inane, boring sequel is "How low will a washed-up former A-lister sink in order to land one last huge paycheck?" I don't have any exact figures on that one, but I'm pretty sure you'd need a backhoe to get there."

-On "Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction" again: "Nothing that follows the opening scene held my interest for a moment -- "Basic Instinct 2" is essentially a made-for-Showtime movie that would show at 2:35 a.m., but with LESS sex."

-On "The Ice Harvest": "The script was by Robert Benton and Richard Russo, and it's a squirrely-cynical, character-driven noir that would have sat quite well in the late 1960's/early 1970's. However, Harold Ramis shoots "The Ice Harvest" like it's a broad comedy, playing up the slapstick and lighting the movie like a Christmas tree. It just goes to show: there are no more Don Siegels and Sam Peckinpahs out there -- hell, there aren't even any more Robert Bentons!"

-On Jesse: "I'm not sure exactly what sort of bleak dystopia would result if only Jesse voted in every election, but The Terrorists would pretty much have their run of the joint, that much I can assure you."

-On "The Da Vinci Code": "Long and boring."

-On "Cocktail": "Tom Cruise is a victim of some of the worst hair continuity in the history of film...it's never blow-dried the same way in successive shots."

-On "Memoirs of a Geisha": "The movie looks gorgeous even when it probably shouldn't -- as a director, Rob Marshall's only discernible aesthetic is "pretty". It works, to a point, but the more disturbing aspects of the story are all prettied up, too."

-On rock and roll: "My true belief about Rock 'n' Roll -- and there have been a lot of phrases attributed to me over the years -- is this: I believe this kind of music is demonic. I have seen the rock groups and the punk-rock people in this country. And some of their lyrics are demonic. They talk against God. A lot of the beats in music today are taken from voodoo, from the voodoo drums. If you study music in rhythms, like I have, you'll see that this is true. I believe that kind of music is driving people from Christ. It is contagious." (OK, that was Little Richard, but he speaks for me on this issue)

-On "Thank You For Smoking": "This is the sort of "independent", issues-driven film that is frequently referenced whenever someone is arguing against the shallow bombast of Hollywood products like "Mission: Impossible III", but Jason Reitman's "Thank You For Smoking" is infinitely more phony and glib than the average Tom Cruise smirk-and-explosion-fest. It's the sort of "cynical" satire that just isn't cynical enough to make it in this day and age."

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Up next: The Top 10 Films I've Seen For the First Time Since Starting The Barnesyard, with links to my original reviews.

What was that about?

Speaking of Biel, she's in "The Illusionist" with Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti, which opens in Sac tomorrow.

The Tower is getting "Quinceneara". At the multiplexes, there's Jason Statham in "Crank", a basketball film with Wayne Brady called "Crossover", Neil LaBute's "The Wicker Man" remake, the rom-com "Trust the Man", Elisha Cuthbert in her underwear, no doubt, in "The Quiet", and something called "Stormbreaker". You got me on that one.

"Gremlins" plays at 10pm tonight at UA Arden. Davis is showing "This is Spinal Tap", and UA Roseville has "The Fifth Element".

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....



...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!!!!

Coming up: Non-booty-based film criticism, I promise.

THE BARNESYARD...

-On "Elektra": "The most frustrating thing about “Elektra” is that any potentially interesting ideas are disposed of as soon as they’re introduced (e.g., Elektra’s red leather bustier, which makes only a cameo appearance), while the most uninteresting aspects are dwelled upon endlessly . In one scene that is particularly indicative of the film’s general insipidness, the main bad guy passes up several opportunities to kill Elektra, instead choosing to terrorize her with flying sheets."

-On "V For Vendetta": "As they fall in love, we're supposed to feel the tragic-romantic pull of "The Phantom of the Opera" or "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" -- but since, as I mentioned before, V looks like a clown wearing a Zorro costume, it's too risible to register emotionally."

-On "Dirty Love": Jenny McCarthy has provided the first powerful argument in favor of the reinstatement of public crucifixions for at least the last two millenia."

-On "Dirty Love" again: "Only one of the grossout scenes truly comes out of left field. Rebecca picks up a stranger in a cafe, and they head to his house. He gives her some drugs, leaves the room, and goes to the refrigerator. Feeling horny, she wanders into the bedroom, where she finds the man on all fours with a fish stuck halfway up his rectum, screaming, "Touch my bass!". You really don't see it coming. As I said before, I can't recall another scene of anal-fish penetration in the history of the cinema (although I understand many of D.W. Griffith's early films are lost forever, so who knows), which means we can chalk another point up for the good ol' USA. This really makes up for that World Baseball Classic bullshit."

-On "Dirty Love" yet again: "As McCarthy's body-waxer best friend, Carmen Electra wears several different hairstyles and speaks in a fake hip-hop patois -- pretty weak stuff, but considering the competition, I'm going to go ahead and count that as an acting performance."

-On "Dirty Love" one last time: "How bad is "Dirty Love"? Towards the end, the band Sum 41 shows up at a nightclub to play a song, and it's the unquestionable highlight of the film. I swear to God, it felt like Tylenol kicking in."

-On "Infernal Affairs": "The story has moments of high intensity and style, the performances feel sincere, and the whole picture is fast and shiny, but I could never figure out why everyone didn't piece the mystery together in eleven seconds. The movie sets up the fact that they're all from the same youth gang, yet the crime lord and his cop-mole never recognize the undercover cop, and vice versa. I couldn't decide whether this was a genuine plot hole, a Bunuel-ian mind fuck, or if I was just an idiot. Let me make this clear -- I do not like movies that make me feel like an idiot (I'm talking to you, Peter Greenaway!)."

-On "Elizabethtown": "Bloom is an uncomfortable fit in the role, and almost instantly unlikable -- he's a good-looking kid, but he has a flat, pallid acting style that suggests he's fit only for playing anal-retentive elves. On the plane to Elizabethtown, Drew meets Claire, a wry, flirty stewardess played by Kirsten Dunst -- Claire is essentially a steroidal version of the Kate Hudson character from "Almost Famous". Dunst is an OK actress, but she doesn't have a prayer saddled with Crowe's leaden dialogue. Claire does nothing but spout aphorisms and display cutesy tics -- she fairly assaults us charm."

-On "Happy New Year": "The film is really a showcase for Peter Falk, who spends the entire film squeezing himself in and out of layers of prosthetic makeup -- his numerous scenes in drag might make you long for the documentary-like realism of "Mrs. Doubtfire".

-On "Kuffs": "The film scores points for making its lead, who periodically talks to the camera like we're all best buds, into the smarmiest, most uncharming and contemptible human being possible, but loses points for everything else."

-On The Poor Man's Paul Walker: "It appeared that we had hit a dead end, but then Andy remembered that several years back, Paul Walker was one of the rumored finalists for the then-coveted role of Anakin Skywalker in the last two Star Wars prequels. Suddenly, the answer became crystal clear: at heart, Paul Walker is the poor man's Hayden Christiansen. When one considers the utterly unmenacing ennui that Christiansen brought to the role of Darth Vader, it's almost staggering to imagine how insanely terrible Walker would have been in the role. Andy pulled out his graphing calculator and compass, and quickly concluded that a Paul-Walker-as-Anakin-Skywalker scenario would yield a performance 3.1 times as bad as Christiansen's, a number previously considered unthinkable (experts in the field have frequently talked about the mythical "3" barrier). Needless to say, the boys got pretty excited when they heard the news; we celebrated our discovery all through the night, and the weed and mushrooms flowed like...well, like weed and mushrooms."

-On The Terrorists: "We're gonna stick a boot up your ass."

Recently, I was wondering which directors would be considered the great filmmakers of our time. That's why last week, while Dub was visiting from Chicago, we compiled our lists of the top 10 directors of the last 10 years. I don't have Dub's list with me, so hopefully he will post his picks in the comments page...his list looks a little different from mine (unlike me, he included documentary filmmakers), but we chose the same top three directors in exactly the same order.

My list was compiled using a loosely applied mathematical formula that assigns 5 points for a great film and 2 points for a good film, while penalizing directors 1/2 point for a bad movie and subtracting 1 full point for a flat-out stinker - only movies released between 1996 and 2006 were considered. After tallying the results, I used my gut and common sense to determine the final order. The mathematical formula is built on a bit of a fallacy, since certain directors get penalized for not making enough movies in the 10-year time span. For example, while Spike Jonze might just be the most talented filmmaker of the last decade, his two films were not enough to make the cut here. However, if Mr. Jonze would quit twiddling his thumbs for five seconds and make a fucking movie already, he wouldn't be in this mess. The list rewards the directors who work, and rightly so. Without further ado, my list of the top 10 directors of the last 10 years is open for debate:

1) Paul Thomas Anderson (ESPECIALLY: Magnolia; Boogie Nights; Punch-Drunk Love)

2) Alexander Payne (ESPECIALLY: About Schmidt; Election)

3) Joel Coen (ESPECIALLY: Fargo; The Big Lebowski; The Man Who Wasn't There; DESPITE: O Brother, Where Art Thou; Intolerable Cruelty)

4) Pedro Almodovar (ESPECIALLY: Live Flesh; Talk to Her; Bad Education)

5) Todd Solondz (ESPECIALLY: Welcome to the Dollhouse; Happiness; Storytelling)

6) Wes Anderson (ESPECIALLY: Rushmore; Bottle Rocket; The Royal Tenenbaums; DESPITE: the slippery slope)

7) Peter Jackson (ESPECIALLY: the one with all the hobbits; DESPITE: King Kong)

8) Quentin Tarantino (ESPECIALLY: Jackie Brown; Kill Bill, Vol. 1; DESPITE: his perpetual state of Orson Welles-esque semi-retirement)

9) Richard Linklater (ESPECIALLY: Before Sunset; School of Rock; Tape; A Scanner Darkly)

10) Christopher Nolan (ESPECIALLY: Memento; Insomnia; the great promise)

With sincerest apologies to Steven Soderbergh, Neil LaBute, David Cronenberg, Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese, Woody Allen, Altman, and all the other talented filmmakers of the past decade who didn't make the cut. Who else did I leave out?

THE BARNESYARD...

-On "Agnes of God": "The movie only grows more solemnly ridiculous as it goes along -- under hypnosis, Tilly claims that God sired her child, then admits to the baby's murder. In the next scene, she is acquitted for the crime of manslaughter. Is that a law in Canada? Kill your baby, claim it was immaculately conceived, admit to the crime...and you're off scot-free? Is that it goes down up there?"

-On "Newsies": "The lead character is a handsome orphan-wastrel with a yearning in his heart for something greater -- in this sense, "Newsies" resembles Disney's animated "Aladdin", except instead of magic lamp there's labor union strife, and instead of a genie there's pre-pubescent boys walking around with their shirts off."

-On "Newsies": "I don't why the HECK people say that this movie has a boring plot. What's boring about it? The charming newsies change the world! Well, at least their world. It's a great story." (actually, this quote was borrowed from an anonymous Netflix reviewer)

-On "Walk the Line": "At one point, a drug-addicted Cash is seen crashed out in a dingy apartment with Waylon Jennings, yet somehow this is depicted as a LOW POINT in the singer's life!"

-On "A Walk in the Clouds: "Movies like "A Walk in the Clouds" always get tagged as "old-fashioned", but I resent that label since it implies that old movies are all boring, stupid, and morally simplistic."

-On "Krippendorf's Tribe": "Krippendorf's first order of business involves faking a circumcision ritual using his 4 year-old son as bait. This "comic" sequence is so prolonged and atonally disturbing that I wished I could go back in time to assassinate D.W. Griffith and make sure that narrative film could never happen. When Krippendorf shows his circumcision footage to the public, it causes a huge sensation that has network execs clamoring at his door for more footage. It makes sense, because we all know how popular penis mutilation is with the general public these days."

-On "Krippendorf's Tribe" again: "At this point, the film took on the tone of a waking nightmare, culminating in a scene where Krippendorf (in full tribal regalia) humps Tom Poston's leg for no discernible reason."

-On "Melinda and Melinda": "Woody Allen is perhaps my favorite filmmaker of all time, so it pains me to say this, but: STOP. Woody, please, just stop making movies." (note: he didn't listen)

-On Peter Jackson's "King Kong": "Jackson's remake tells essentially the exact same story as Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack's original giant ape film, and yet that film was barely an hour and a half long. I guess Jackson could have pared his film down to a lean 90 minutes, but then he would have had to cut out all the BULLSHIT!!!"

-On Peter Jackson's "King Kong" again: "There's a reason the studio decided to show so much of the ape in the trailer -- everything else in the film is crap-lousy and boring as hell, a dawdling, shabby mess of needless characters, Lucas-ian low humor, and blank stares passing for emotional heft."

-On Peter Jackson's "King Kong" one more time: "Around this time, we are introduced to the character of Jimmy, a young sailor on the steamer. We get Jimmy's life story, watch Jimmy's courage tested, we hear about Jimmy's need for a good education, get Jimmy's thoughts on "Heart of Darkness" in an impromptu book club meeting on the tramp steamer. Jimmy this, Jimmy that, Jimmy the other. Save Jimmy, where's Jimmy?, is Jimmy alright?, blah fucking blah. All the while, I'm thinking, "Jimmy? Who gives a flying set of fucks about JIMMY? Why do they keep...talking...about...JIMMY???!!!" At one point, I leaned over to Darcey and asked, "Eventually, there's a giant monkey who runs around smashing shit, right?" Her reply: "No." For a while there, I feared she might be correct."

-On "Cliffhanger": "Indefensibly idiotic, but let's not hold that against it."

-On "Aeon Flux": "There's not much to say about this movie -- if you don't mind ogling Charlize Theron in skintight leather for 90 minutes, you'll be occasionally amused. I suppose there are worse things you could do with your time than watch "Aeon Flux" -- for example, you could be cooking up methamphetamine or committing acts of genocide."

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More of the same to come.

I apologize for the lack of posts today - yesterday was Barnesyard East correspondent Mike Dub's last night in Sacramento, so we stayed up late to see him off. Thus, I got off to a late start this morning, and found more work than I expected waiting for me at the office. There will be more Love Letters, movie reviews, and assorted goodies later tonight and tomorrow morning, so keep checking back.

In yesterday's analysis of the box office dud "How to Eat Fried Worms", I forgot to mention that Heyamoto reviewed the trailer in Monday's Scene section. The best bit about Heyamoto's movie trailer reviews, besides her general ineptitude and the fact that she's reviewing a movie preview three days after the film was released (a little late for that groundswell of publicity I needed), is that she rates the trailers by assigning a certain number of "dancing popcorn guys" (for example, the "Fried Worms" preview received "three dancing popcorn guys"). However, the Bee neglected to give Heyamoto any sort of "dancing popcorn guy" graphic (SN&R copyright infringement?), so we're just left to imagine what the dancing popcorn character must look like. That's some sub-school paper shit right there.

As an independent quasi-critic with neither accountability nor credibility, I feel qualified enough to say that mainstream American film criticism is in bad shape. There are entire major metropolitan cities whose movie critics couldn't fill a single nutsac even if they pooled all their balls together. Take The Bee's Carla Meyer (please) as an example: even if she despises a film, it's rarely rated lower than 2 1/2 stars.

Of course, the hinky grade curve is not all Carla's fault (just the sucking) - it's an example of the extent to which advertisers control the editorial content in mainstream papers (in all sections, not just entertainment, unfortunately). A rag like The Bee just isn't going to risk offending the studios that purchase ad space in their entertainment page on a daily basis by running an unqualified bad review with an appropriate grade to match.

This is why mainstream film critics, as much as they piss all over themselves with joyous superlatives when writing a good review (whatever it takes to get quoted in the TV ads, some of which have stooped low enough to include raves from Sacramento's Own Mark S. Allen), can't write a decent pan to save their lives. They tread on eggshells, and cut with a very dull knife. They love easy pickings.

Not so at The Barnesyard. With no advertisers, no ambitions, and a chip on my shoulder the size of North Dakota, The Barnesyard is allowed to eagerly pounce on any film that shows the slighest sign of weakness. I'm like a cheetah in the tall grass. Great movies deserve our undying praise, but terrible movies deserve our undying derision.

Thus, in honor of The Barnesyard's 1st anniversary, I have been compiling some of our choicest first-year snaps in a multi-part retrospective called "Love Letters". Without further ado...

THE BARNESYARD...

-On "Flightplan": "Pity poor Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean, Erika Christensen, and the other talented performers forced to sit around watching Jodie Foster's facial muscles tense up for 90 minutes."

-On "The Brown Bunny": "Boring and brainless, it is a monument to self-delusion and audience contempt. Even without the real-time blowjob scene, Vincent Gallo would still be the most repugnant screen presence to come along since Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald stopped making films."

-On "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever": "It seems to begin 20 minutes into the story, with no development, setting, or coherence, and continues as such for the rest of the film...Just saying the title out loud is believed to cause a new form of brain cancer."

-On "The Exorcism of Emily Rose": "I wanted to like "Emily Rose" more than I did, but it is doomed by terminal silliness. A demonic presence seems to be haunting Linney during the trial, and a priest warns her that the case is a lightning rod for dark forces. But all I could think was, why does the Devil care about bad publicity? Have the demons been following the trial on Court TV?"

-On "The Constant Gardener": "Another film in which evil government figures are able to rape, kill, and embezzle with impunity, right up until someone provides evidence of their evil in front of a small gathering of people."

-On "Follow Me Quietly": "The strangest gimmick of the film is the cop's frequent use of a life-size dummy to help identify the serial killer. They have only strands of evidence -- a hat, a description of height and build, a few strands of fiber -- and for some reason, the cop believes that building a big, faceless dummy out of these parts will catch the killer. He has a bizarre obsession with the dummy...It was like Joel Goulet was the chief of police - "There's a killer on the loose -- let's build a puppet!""

-On "Radio": "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."

-On "Domino": ""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's style has devolved from his earlier smoke-and-mirrors faux-elegance into something completely schizophrenic and nearly unwatchable."

-On "Exit to Eden": "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 as cops in S&M gear, gouge out your eyes and stick pencils in your ears."

-On "Exit to Eden" again: "Dana Delaney actually looks tired and sad in her green leather bustier, as though she realizes what a career-killer she's got herself into."

-On "Exit to Eden" yet again: "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."

-On "Exit to Eden", one last time: "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." (NOTE: DP actually said this, but I sure wish I had)

-On "Thumbsucker": "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."

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Anyway, you get the idea. I'll be riding this pony into the ground all week.

Up next: More Love Letters and my list of the top 10 films I've seen for the first time since starting The Barnesyard.

I once again nailed the #1 movie in America to the wall - it was Mark Wahlberg in "Invincible". Much like "Rudy", "The Rookie", and "Remember the Titans", "Invincible" is the latest inspirational underdog sports film "based on a true story" that bears only a passing resemblance to either truth or a story. It won the top spot straightaway, but it's hardly a blockbuster - it pulled down less than $20 million.

I also correctly guessed that "Little Miss Sunshine", which is shaping up to be this year's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" (God help us), would finally penetrate the top 5 as it continues to go wider. However, all of my other predictions turned to shit. My #3 pick was Outkast's "Idlewild", but audiences cared less about seeing their favorite hip-hop stars doing the jitterbug in a Depression-era setting than I ever could have imagined - it finished in ninth.

But the coup de grace of the week was the kid-lit adaptation "How to Eat Fried Worms", which I predicted would finish #2 for the week. I figured "Fried Worms" would duplicate the performance of a film like "Holes", which successfully adapted a popular adolescent novel to the screen. Also, after the out-of-left-field debut of "Step Up" two weeks ago, which flew under my radar when it wasn't advertised during the commercial breaks of any shows that I watch (someone finally told me that ABC Family Channel was pushing "Step Up" like a crack dealer), I assumed that "Fried Worms" was getting promoted during Spongebob Squarepants or some other bullshit. I was wrong...dead wrong - "Fried Worms" didn't even crack the top 10! I screwed the shit out of that pooch.

Here were the actual top 5 films in the country this weekend (with my predictions in parentheses):

1) Invincible (Invincible)
2) Talladega Nights (How to Eat Fried Worms)
3) Little Miss Sunshine (Idlewild)
4) Beerfest (Little Miss Sunshine)
5) Accepted (Talladega Nights)

So I got 3 out of the top 5, including the #1 film in America. Not bad, but I'm still going to put this weekend in my loss column. Opening on Friday: Nic Cage in Neil LaBute's remake of "The Wicker Man" and Jason Statham in the action film "Crank".

Blogger has been acting the fool all day long. I've been trying to log on to mention that yesterday I incorrectly stated that the Tower didn't have anything new this weekend. In fact, they're opening the 1970's soccer doc "Once in a Lifetime". As Jay pointed out, this release is perfectly timed, since everyone was excited about soccer two months ago, and now not even a little bit. Looks entertaining, though.

Here are my picks for the top 5 films this weekend:

1) Invincible
2) How to Eat Fried Worms
3) Idlewild
4) Little Miss Sunshine
5) Talladega Nights

Tough calls all around. We'll see how I did on Monday.

Also, don't forget that Monday kicks off the Barnesyard's 1st Anniversary celebration. There will be frequent updates all week long, so keep checking back.

There is a trio of comedies playing at the Thursday night movies tonight - "Groundhog Day" at UA Arden, "Spaceballs" in Roseville, and "Blazing Saddles" in Davis.

There are several smaller films premiering this weekend, which is going to make it difficult to predict the top 5. Will moviegoers prefer Outkast in the Depression-era musical "Idlewild" or Broken Lizard's low comedy in "Beerfest"? Which of the kiddie flick "How to Eat Fried Worms" and the inspirational sports movie "Invincible" will work its demographic magic best? They all look pretty lame (even "Idlewild" to some degree, although it certainly seems there hasn't been anything else like it at the movies this summer), but I have to say that I'm leaning towards Wahlberg in "Invincible"...it's well-timed for release just a couple weeks before the beginning of the football season. Of course, there is also the possibility that all 4 will tank, which may put a slow fader like "Talladega Nights" or a slow builder like "Little Miss Sunshine" in the top spot. I'll have my final predictions on Friday morning.

Tower doesn't have anything new this week. The Crest is opening "District B13", a futuristic French actioner that manages to deliver the goods like no American summer action film of the season without adding an ounce of intellect to the proceedings. Dumb, near-brilliant fun. GRADE: B+

I intended to catch up on my movie reviews today, but I'm a little preoccupied with work at the moment. However, I wanted to mention that next week marks the 1-year anniversary of The Barnesyard. It all started on Aug. 30, 2006, with a review of Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny", which I called "the most monstrous display of self-infatuation since Jonestown."

To commemorate the anniversary, all next week we'll be running a vast retrospective and celebration of all things Barnesyard-ian called "The Barnesyard's 1st Anniversary - A Year in Flim". Onanistic delights will abound.

It seems like Sacramento's Own The Georgia Peach has been popping up all over the place these days. First came word that a new string of live shows would have Little Richard playing in both Reno and Cache Creek in late September. If you haven't heard, The Quasar of Rock scored me some sweet second-row tickets, despite the fact that he still refuses to return my calls, never acknowledges me when we pass in the hallway, and, as per our written agreement, "is under no moral, legal, or contractual obligation to cross the street to piss on me if my hair is on fire".

The Patron Saint of Bisexual Orgies has also popped up in the Sac Bee's Names and Faces infotainment page twice this week. The first tidbit announced that Little Richard had signed up to be a judge on Simon Cowell's new show, "Celebrity Duets". It's exactly what it sounds like: C- and D-listers singing karaoke with has-been crooners. Still, a nice format for The Peach.

The second Little Richard-related item reported that the Inventor of Rock and Roll would be performing with his old rival Jerry Lee Lewis on The Killer's upcoming album of all-star duets. Again with the duet-ing, Peach? You're not a partner, you're a star!

At any rate, it appears that the 73 year-old Little Richard, after a brief absence from the public eye, is making a big push to get his face in the spotlight again. I can't help but think that I'm completely responsible for this resurgence.

As per my prediction, "Snakes On a Plane" did open at #1, but weakly. It grossed only $15 million, barely beating "Talladega Nights" in its third week. It seems that most major releases end up earning about three times their first-week gross, which means "Snakes" will likely earn less than $50 million. Did the hype peak too soon (say, six to eight months) or did everyone just decide to wait for the video? In the end, "Snakes" earnings will be seen as a huge disappointment, especially with a prime release date that gave it a two-week cushion on "Talladega Nights" and no other major competition.

As I predicted, bronze medal winner "World Trade Center" had more staying power than "Step Up", which placed fifth. My only major omission was that I once again missed the #2 debut film...I went with the Duff sisters in "Material Girls" (who placed ninth, despite sporting an endorsement from the White Dove Foundation...this begs two questions: 1) Is the White Dove Foundation's influence beginning to dwindle?; 2) What the hell is the White Dove Foundation?), but moviegoers liked "Accepted"...six of one, in my view..the history books will vindicate me. "Little Miss Sunshine" did get a boost from a wider release, but it was only good enough for seventh place. Here is the actual top 5, with my predictions in parentheses:

1) Snakes On a Plane (Snakes)
2) Talladega Nights (Talledga Nights)
3) WTC (WTC)
4) Accepted (Step Up)
5) Step Up (Material Girls)

It will be a tough call for next weekend, with the debuts of Outkast's "Idlewild", Mark Wahlberg in "Invincible", Broken Lizard's "Beerfest", and the kids' film "How to Eat Fried Worms".

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I didn't watch any movies this weekend, but after hitting the CA State Fair on Saturday and the Yolo County Fair on Sunday, I feel that I have completed enough research to write my dissertation on the link between beer gardens and shitty blues-rock (since they're always, always linked).

I also watched a little bit of "The Empire Strikes Back" last night. Defenders of the Star Wars prequels have attempted to promote a sinister legend that the original films were never about good stories, solid writing, interesting characterizations, decent acting, or anything resembling watchability, but I tell you it's not true! Cool shit is constantly happening in "Empire Strikes Back"! One of these days, I'm going to write a lengthy essay in which I list and explain every single reason why the original Star Wars movies are great and the prequels are bullshit - I plan to call it "Why the Star Wars Prequels are Bullshit and Everyone Who Likes Them is a Fucking Idiot". The #1 reason that the prequels suck, and I really can't stress this point enough, is all the candy-ass shit. It's just everywhere. The candy-ass shit is going to merit an entire section in my essay, it's that crucial to my thesis.

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Up next: Reviews of new-ish movies.

"Snakes On a Plane" is the horse to bet on this week at the box office - it's a bold attempt to manufacture a grass-roots phenomenon that has already inspired enough insipid "whatever animal" on a "whatever mode of transportation" jokes to make you sick of the whole damn thing. "Snakes" should pull down $40-50 million easy, especially with such lackluster competition: the college slacker comedy "Accepted" and the Duff sisters' "Material Girls" are the only major release competitors...they both look like non-starters to me.

The Crest is opening "Peaceful Warrior" with Nick "Goddamn Eye-talians!" Nolte...it looks terrible. The Tower is opening "Who Killed the Electric Car?", which could be interesting. The further unfurling of "Little Miss Sunshine" on a national level could scooch it in to the top 5...critics and audiences are responding to the film, but I thought it was just OK - it's basically an Indie-wood "National Lampoon's Vacation" with fewer laughs and no Christie Brinkley skinny-dipping scene.

Here are my picks for this week's Top 5 movies:

1) Snakes On a Plane
2) Talladega Nights
3) World Trade Center
4) Step Up
5) Material Girls (could be "Little Miss Sunshine" if it's playing on enough screens)

We'll see how I did next week.

First off, let me say that I was bit harsh on ol' Ron-Ron yesterday. I don't want to come off as some sort of fascist by condemning a guy just for speaking his mind. If it were up to me, the NBA wouldn't be allowed to fine and suspend people just for saying and doing stupid shit...that's downright un-American! This is a free country, and if you want to go in front of a bunch of children as a condition of your community service and claim that you were the hero of the riot you started, go right ahead! But dammit, the NBA does fine and suspend people for saying and doing stupid shit! They do it all the fucking time, and with increasing regularity. That's all I'm saying.

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"Little Miss Sunshine" (2006 - Dir.: Jonathan Dayton/Valerie Faris)

The latest quirky, would-be indie blockbuster, about a family of dysfunctional losers travelling cross-country in a rundown VW bus to a kid's beauty pageant. The actors are good (especially Greg Kinnear as a born failure trying to market himself as a motivational speaker, and Abigail Breslin as the guileless daughter and pageant contestant, so sweet she doesn't even realize what a freakhouse she's been born into), the characters are charming, it loooks good, and there are laughs. That's why I feel like such a grouch for thinking that it was trite, thin, and a little pointless, with one utterly ridiculous plot twist that almost lost me. Some will love it. GRADE: B-

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"Monster House" (2006 - Dir.: Gil Kenan)

The best major studio release of the summer: smart, scary, colorful, and bizarre, yet with an unexpected emotional pull to the story, as three preteen adolescents start to wonder whether the creepy old man across the street has been menacing them or protecting them from an evil presence in his house. The motion capture animation technique may throw some people off (the bodies and camera moves feel real, but the faces are more cartoonish, and aren't made to match the celebrity voice actors like Steve Buscemi, Kevin James, and Jason Lee), but I thought it fit the atmosphere. This one kind of got lost in the glut of animated releases this summer season, but it fell off slowly, which tells me that people generally liked it. They probably should have held the release until October, but it still has the potential to become a perennial Halloween favorite. GRADE: B+

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"Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (2006 - Dir.: Adam McKay)
Although it has performed well at the box office, I sense a general dissatisfaction with Will Ferrell's NASCAR comedy among the moviegoing public. "Talladega" is a definitely a letdown considering the expectations I had from the "Anchorman" collaborators, but I still think it's funnier than any other movie I've seen this summer. Whether that's an indictment of summer comedies or a celebration of Ferrell and McKay's achievement is anybody's guess, but "Talladega" also featured enough fantastic racing scenes to qualify as one of the better action movies of the season. Part of the problem with "Talladega" might be that they cast a lot of good actors who aren't really known for comedy. Just think what Fred Willard could have done with Michael Clarke Duncan's pit boss, or Christina Applegate with Amy Adams' character. But "Talladega" does have two aces in its hole - Ferrell himself, who still excels a peculiarly American brand of obtuseness, and Sascha Baron Cohen as Ricky Bobby's French rival. Cohen's Jean Gerard is stereotypical, underwritten, and disappears for epic stretches, yet he's always funny, with a line about designing currency for cats and dogs that made me laugh harder than anything else at the movies this year. GRADE: B

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Coming up: more reviews.

While speaking to a group of school children in Detroit today, Kings forward Ron Artest defended his actions in the 2004 brawl at The Palace in Auburn Hills that led to his 1-year suspension from the NBA. That's not so bad, until you realize that Artest was talking to the kids as part of his community service plea bargain for the incident! A choice quote: "Someone started trouble and I ended it." Actually, Ron, if memory serves, it was when you ran into the crowd indiscriminately punching every person you saw after getting hit by a plastic cup that things really got started, and they didn't end until you were escorted off the floor by police officers. Artest's words weren't exactly intelligent for a man who already has an enormous target on him. Kings fans, get ready for Ron-Ron to be spending a lot of time this season sitting out with suspensions.

In my quest to ingest all Little Richard-related media, which has led to me watch such offerings as a "Full House" episode and a made-for-cable movie starring Leon as a de-orgied Georgia Peach (while "de-orgied Georgia Peach" may be a contradiction in terms, it is quite fun to say out loud), I recently TiVo'd an episode of "The Drew Carey Show" in which The Quasar of Rock made a cameo appearance.

I'm not a fan of "The Drew Carey Show", so I flipped through the episode until I reached Little Richard's appearance, which doesn't occur until the last few minutes. The story had something to do with a huge party at Drew's house that drew some luminaries from the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland, including Little Richard and Joe Walsh. The joke was that Richard and Walsh were playing chess, which isn't really a joke and thus isn't funny.

After a few lines of awkward banter, Little Richard asks Drew if they can go "jam" in his backyard. I perked up, assuming that "backyard jam" was some sort of euphemism for a bisexual orgy, but they just went in the back of the house to play a song. I was mollified by the understanding that the show would at least end with Little Richard and Joe Walsh butchering one of the Georgia Peach's classic hits.

So which classic Quasar tune do you think they played? "Tutti Frutti"? "Good Golly Miss Molly"? How about "The Girl Can't Help It"? Maybe "Lucille"? Of course, there's always "Ready Teddy". And "Long Tall Sally" isn't too shabby either. But in the end, they decided to go with that old Little Richard chestnut..."Rocky Mountain Way".

Wait a minute, that's a goddam Joe Walsh song! Yes folks, as if simply making an appearance on "The Drew Carey Show" without a sack over your head and a gun in your back isn't humiliating enough for the inventor of rock and roll, he was forced to sing backup to Joe Walsh. Now don't get me wrong: I love Joe Walsh, and I'm always more than ready to rock out to some "Rocky Mountain Way". But the last I heard, there were no new archaelogical excavations of any tablets that proved that Joe Walsh did any of these things -

-Invented rock and roll
-Became "The Patron Saint of Bisexual Orgies"
-Did it with this woman:



Drew Carey owes an apology to Sacramento's Own The Georgia Peach for disrespecting him so severely, and to me for making me watch several minutes of his show. Little Richard sings back up to no man.

Let's face facts...it's been a terrible year for movies. I've seen about 45 films that I would categorize as 2006 films. Here are the top 5 to date:

1) The Devil and Daniel Johnston
2) United 93
3) Why We Fight
4) Hoodwinked
5) District B13

Here are the bottom 3:

1) Basic Instinct 2
2) Scoop
3) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Believe me, there were a lot more worthy candidates for the bottom 3 than there were for the top 5.

But the upcoming Oscar bait season holds a lot of promise. I thoroughly perused Entertainment Weekly's Fall Preview issue, and have compiled a list of my 10 most anticipated movies of the next few months:

-The Black Dahlia (serial murder, sexual intrigue, and a gorgeous blonde in Scarlet Johansson - De Palma, this one's right in your wheelhouse, so don't fuck it up!)

-Borat (I firmly believe that Sascha Baron Cohen is the Peter Sellers of our generation...he always makes me laugh, as evidenced by my tendency to watch "Madagascar" whenever it plays on HBO)

-The Departed (because it's Scorsese)

-For Your Consideration (the latest Christopher Guest and co. improvisation project, about the making of an overhyped independent film)

-The Fountain (FINALLY! Darren Aronofsky's eternally delayed followup to "Requiem For a Dream" is currently slated for a November 22 release)

-The Good German (Steven Soderbergh's black-and-white spy film)

-Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola's new wave historial epic could be the love-it-or-hate-it film of the year)

-The Prestige (Chris Nolan's reward for "Batman Begins". On the heels of "The Illusionist", it's another turn-of-the-century story about duelling magicians. It's got a great preview, though)

-Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell's follow-up to "Hedwig and the Angry Inch". Unrated and semi-pornographic? I'm in.)

-Volver (Pedro Almodovar's Cannes prize winner...I haven't seen a preview, but Penelope Cruz looks stunning on the poster)

ALSO INTRIGUING:

-Babel (Innaritu's followup to "21 Grams")
-Little Children (Todd Field's first movie since "In the Bedroom", adapted from a book by the same author who wrote "Election")
-Stranger Than Fiction (Will Ferrell finds his life is being narrated...supposedly Charlie Kaufman-esque)
-Children of Men (issues-driven, sci-fi actioner by Alfonso Cuaron of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" fame)
-Fast Food Nation (Linklater's narrative take on Eric Schlosser's bestseller)
-Hollywoodland (about the mysterious death of George Reeve, TV's Superman)
-The Hoax (Richard Gere as huckster-author Clifford Irving)
-Fur (whimsical take on Diane Arbus' life, with Kidman as Arbus)
-Dreamgirls (a sure bet for a Best Picture nomination)
-Blood Diamond (DiCaprio stars in Ed Zwick's film about exploitative diamond mines in Africa)
-The Good Shepherd (Robert De Niro's big-budget spy film, his first directing effort since 1993's "A Bronx Tale")
-The Painted Veil (Ed Norton in W. Somerset Maugham adaptation)
-Breaking and Entering (new Anthony Minghella movie)
-Infamous (the other Truman Capote movie)
-This Film is Not Yet Rated (Kirby Dick's expose of the ratings industry)
-The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry's fantastical film, pushed back from the summer)

FIVE I WOULDN'T TOUCH WITH A TEN FOOT POLE

-The Guardian (sort of like "Top Gun", except with Ashton Kutcher instead of Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner in place of Tom Skerrit, diving in place of flying, and fucking lame instead of cool)

-Jet Li's Fearless (you lost me at "Jet Li's")

-Man of the Year (the thought of a Robin Williams comedy in which he plays the president would be enough to drive me to drink...don't worry, Williams claims he'll be out of rehab in time to promote this tripe)

-A Good Year (Russell Crowe gets sentimental)

-The Pursuit of Happyness (ditto for Wil Smith)

REMAKES AND SEQUELS

Notable remakes include Neil Labute's "The Wicker Man", the long, long, loooong-delayed "All the King's Men" (which stars every single person who has been nominated for or won an award in the last fifteen years), Todd Phillip's "School For Scoundrels" (a remake of a 1960 British comedy), Scorsese's "The Departed" (adapting "Infernal Affairs" to America), "Black Christmas", new takes on "My Friend Flicka" and "Charlotte's Web"; and new 3-d versions of "Night of the Living Dead" and "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas")

Here are the sequels, a pretty ugly lot:

-Jackass 2
-The Grudge II
-Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (no Biel, no Barnesyard)
-Saw III
-The Santa Clause III
-49 Up (the 7th entry in Michael Apted's documentary series)
-Casino Royale (Daniel Craig's Bond debut)
-Rocky Balboa (Number six! We did it, baby!)
-Van Wilder Deux (this is not a joke, although if it were, it would no doubt be funnier than anything in "Van Wilder Deux")

I hope you all see something you like.

I had a pretty decent week predicting the U.S. box office results, with one glaring omission. I guessed correctly that "Talladega" would fend off all comers to hang on to the #1 spot. However, I didn't have a clue that the dance movie "Step Up" would barely best the weekend's other big debut, Oliver Stone's ballyhooed "World Trade Center", to steal 2nd place (although I'm fairly sure "Step Up" played on fewer screens, which makes it all the more convincing). I didn't even put "Step Up" in my top 5 for the week, mostly because I never even seen a single advertisement for it (can I assume they were promoting the movie during the commercial breaks of shows I would never watch, thus invalidating it as an artistic achievement?).

The Japanese horror remake "Pulse", which I picked to finish third, barely held on to the fifth spot, and its gross was less than half of that of "Step Up". On a brighter note, the fifth-place finish of "Pulse" means that "Pirates 2" was bumped out of the top 5 for the first time since it premiered over a month ago (the movie will inevitably top $400 million, which proves America's insatiable craving for complete crap...for another example, did you know that "Step Up" was the #2 movie in America this week? No bullshit, "Step Up"!). On a brighter note, I guessed correctly that "Zoom" was a non-starter, despite the presence of Tim Allen above the title ("The Santa Clause 3" can not come out soon enough for that guy...by the way, "The Santa Clause 3" will be hitting theaters this fall).

Anyway, here was the real top 5:

1) Talladega Nights (23 mil)
2) Step Up (21 mil)
3) World Trade Center (19 mil...terrorists, you win again)
4) Barnyard (10 mil)
5) Pulse (8.5 mil)

So I picked 4 of the 5 films, including the #1...not bad, but I've had better weeks.

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I received my Fall Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly this weekend, and sometime in the next couple of days I plan to publish my list of the 10 most anticipated movies of the fall/winter season. However, on the subject of box office grosses, there was a baffling sidebar piece in the same issue on Will Ferrell. The piece heralded Ferrell for the strong performance of "Talladega Nights", but mostly lauded him for returning to form after a series of post-"Anchorman" "flops" that "tanked" at the box office. First of all, it's an ridiculous stretch to label "The Producers" and "Curious George" as "Will Ferrell movies". Second, the two other "flops" were "Kicking and Screaming" and "Bewitched", which grossed $53 mil and $63 mil, respectively. Those grosses actually aren't too shabby, considering that "Kicking" was a formulaic kiddie-sports comedy that featured Mike Ditka as the 3rd lead, and that "Bewitched" was a shoddily made adaptation of a semi-popular TV show that had no inherent appeal beyond Ferrell's mugging and Nicole Kidman's sweet, sweet heinie. By comparison, "Miami Vice", another semi-obscure TV adaptation, cost twice as much and has grossed slightly less - whatever the criteria for defining a "flop" is these days, "Miami Vice" meets it hands down.

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Up next: Movie news, Little Richard news, and hecka reviews, including "Talladega Nights", "Monster House", and "World Trade Center".

I see a tight race for the top spot this weekend between the debut of Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" and the 2nd week of "Talladega Nights", both performing in the $20-25 million range. The other movies premiering this week are the horror film "Pulse", the dance movie "Step Up", the kiddie-fx flick "Zoom", and a wider run for "Little Miss Sunshine". My most anticipated movie for the weekend is Cedric Klapisch's "Russian Dolls", a sequel to his underrated and very charming "L'Auberge Espagnole". At any rate, here's what the top 5 should look like:

1) "Talladega Nights"
2) "World Trade Center"
3) "Pulse"
4) "Barnyard"
5) "Pirates 2"

We'll see how I did on Monday.

The Barnesyard had another solid week predicting the box office - once again, I picked all films in the top 5 (albeit in a slightly jumbled order) and the #1 film. I correctly assumed that "Talladega Nights" would run away with it, although it fell slightly below my $60 million prediction. Contrary to my predictions, the animated feature "Barnyard" bested the British horror import "The Descent" for the 2nd highest debut, but I have to assume that "Descent" was hampered by showing on far fewer screens. History is going to vindicate me on that one.

Here was the actual top 5 films in the country, with my picks in parentheses:

1) Talladega (Talladega)
2) Barnyard (The Descent)
3) Pirates 2 (Pirates 2)
4) Miami Vice (Barnyard)
5) The Descent (Miami Vice)

Not bad at all, if I do say so myself. We'll see if "Talladega" has the staying power to hold off Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center", the kiddie-fx flick "Zoom", and the horror film "Pulse" this weekend. Comedies usually fade slower than other genre films, but I get the feeling that "Talladega" is disappointing viewers, although I liked it (full review to come).

The first slap in the face came when Roger Ebert continued on TV with a duelling critic format just months after Gene Siskel's death. It got worse when Ebert selected the incomparably featherweight Richard Roeper to replace Siskel. The insult got deeper and deeper as we watched Roeper slowly supplant Ebert as "the good one". But the final and most severe slap in the face came last week, when it was announced that celebrity guest critics such as Jay Leno and Kevin Smith would be replacing Ebert during his recuperation. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, instead of filling Ebert's spot with an actual critic, the only nationally syndicated movie discussion show in America has filled his spot with industry professionals, including one man whose entire career is predicated on getting celebrities to come on his late-night talk show to promote their crap-lousy movies! Roeper and Leno - I'm predicting a thumbs-up fest.

Leno's episode aired last night, but I couldn't bring myself to watch, and can't find any information on the web about their ratings. Of course, Leno and Smith can't be much worse than Ebert has been of late. Barnesyard East correspondent Mike Dub recently pointed out that Ebert gave 3-star reviews to "Van Helsing", "Cheaper By the Dozen 2", and "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties", and that his original 1967 review of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" doled out only 2 1/2 stars. This means that Roger Ebert actually believes that "Van Helsing", "Cheaper By the Dozen 2", and "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties" are superior to "Butch Cassidy and the Fucking Sundance Kid" (let's just think about that for a moment...............wow).

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More to come, including my review of "Talladega Nights".

I have one more thing to say about "Miami Vice" before I banish it to the land of wind and shadows for eternity. Last night, I figured out a quick and easy way that Mann and co. could have saved the film, or at least made it into some decent trash.

It's so simple, I'm surprised it never occurred to anyone. Obviously, Colin Farrell, in both performance and appearance, were my biggest problem with the film - after the first half-hour, it's his film, and he's terrible. Ever since "Alexander", I've noticed that Farrell's technique for covering up his thick Irish accent is to pile on four or five other accents. In "Miami Vice", Farrell displays traces of his Irish accent, but there's also some Southern, some Mexican, and a bit of Texas in there. His ineptitude with accents rivals that of Costner.

I would like to have seen Farrell flat-out replaced, but I understand that name-brand stars who are available and willing to commit to a long and costly shoot are hard to come by. But once they had Farrell on board, why not just make his character Irish? It's a simple fix, one line of dialogue (instead of "Did you ever hear of The Allman Brothers?", have Sonny ask, "Did you ever hear of The Commitments?"). You cut his hair, shave him down to a stubble, and then Farrell just gets to be himself - he's already a bit slimy, so why make him ugly as well? His performance would be significantly less stiff, the chemistry between him and the other actors would have probably improved as well (while we're changing history, let's also replace Gong Li with Eva Mendes), and there wouldn't be so many bad accents to distract from people getting shot in the face. Ah, the movie that never was.

Now lets never speak of this again.

I was all set to write this post 5 hours ago, but real life in the form of the Michigan budget intruded. Anyway, here's what's going on in the Sacramento movie world this week:

-At the Thursday night movies, it's another Barnesyard 102 pick at UA Arden with "Reservoir Dogs"; "Office Space" plays in Davis.

-"Heart of the Game" opens at the Tower. If a low-budget documentary about girl's high school basketball doesn't save the Tower Theater, nothing can. Parker Posey in "The Oh in Ohio" debuts at the Crest. Both movies look boring, but could be alright. They'll be fast faders.

-The spelunking horror flick "The Descent" and Robin Williams' "The Night Listener" are both going to the multiplexes. Either one could crack the top 5, but I'm not sure how wide their release is.

-"The Barnyard", not based on this blog, is also opening - more cartoon overload...it'll tank. "Talladega Nights" will be your champion - a demographics wet dream. The top 5 should look something like this:

1) Talladega Nights (in the $60-70 million range)
2) The Descent
3) Pirates 2
4) Barnyard
5) Miami Vice

We'll see how I did on Monday morning.

I re-watched "Miami Vice" at the drive-in last night, and I am considering a slight raise in the grade. Perhaps not surprisingly, the film vastly improves when one-fifth of the screen is lopped off, the movie is out-of-focus, and the dialogue is completely inaudible. But that's the magic of the drive-in! Pretty much anything becomes watchable, so it's hard to gauge whether the movie improved or just the experience. I'm sure that if I were able to light up a joint, yell things at the screen, and stare at the stars for ten minutes when I first watched "Miami Vice" in the theater, it would have been a more enjoyable film.

But somehow, I feel like I got what Mann was going after better the second time around. Not hearing the dialogue actually helps clarify the story (there's actually a ton of dialogue in "Miami Vice", but it's all would-be hardboiled techno-jargon or endless, aimless chatter) - the opening half hour is actually pretty good filmmaking. Sonny and Rico are monosyllabic ciphers because their job requires it - they commit crimes in order to fight crime, they move drugs in order to stop the drug flow. The first third of the movie gives a pretty good look into this line of work - the way that the plan is continually changing, and how Sonny and Rico are forced to improvise and compromise in return.

"Miami Vice" actually goes wrong with the introduction of the Gong Li character. Up to this point, Mann had been setting up a solid genre film, but when Li comes onscreen, the movie goes into a coma. It becomes Li and Farrell's film, but the two actors deliver flat performances with zero chemistry. Farrell is flat-out terrible, but what else is new? His hair should be shot, and yet Mann incessantly fetishizes it - there are several scenes where Farrell is either putting it in or pulling it out of his double ponytail. Li, beautiful as she is, is no better than Farrell, and her lack of felicity with the English language doesn't help sell Mann's labored prose (she might even be sub-Audrey Tautou in "The Da Vinci Code" in that respect). These two characters are given no other reason for their destructive relationship than insatiable, seething love, and yet there's no spark between the two. You get the feeling that Li probably thought Farrell was a creep. They gaze at each other with a look of blank constipation that is unintentionally hilarious. Jamie Foxx is OK, but he's barely in it - Tubbs is a true sidekick here, only on hand to explain the plot to Sonny.

Like I said before, I've never seen the TV show "Miami Vice", but it seems to me that a big part of the appeal was watching cool guys driving sweet rides while listening to sweet tunes. Much of the film is a celebration of watching people driving things, be they car, boat, plane, or helicopter, and Mann gets some beautiful shots out of it (I probably underrated the cinematography in my first review). But it's the only part of the equation he nailed - the guys aren't cool and the tunes fucking suck. The Miami location is incidental, except in its proximity to other, more exotic locales...Miami is practically a ghost town here, and Mann doesn't even make use of Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade, even though everyone knows he's The Next Jordan. I still think "Miami Vice" is a boring movie, but it's not quite as unwatchable as I first thought. I'll bump it up to a solid C.

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"Clerks 2" (2006 - Dir.: Kevin Smith)

Ever since his debut film "Clerks" in 1994, Kevin Smith has been working up to a sort of competence, which he achieves with "Clerks 2". I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad thing. There are laughs, but they're not regular, and the film lacks a certain rough-hewn spark that made the first "Clerks" fun. Twelve years on, Dante and Randal are still working at the same convenience store, but after a fire demolishes the place, they take jobs at the local burger joint...somewhat amusing hijinks follow. It's typical Smith - freely offensive raunch tempered with moments of true sincerity. Some bits are funny, some come close, some go splat. As Dante, Brian O'Halloran's strained sincerity grows tiresome fast. But as Randal, Jeff Anderson actually buckles down and does some decent acting. Smith does stage one great scene, in which Rosario Dawson dances on the burger joint's rooftop to The Jackson 5's "ABC" while wearing a tank top - it's the bounciest movie moment of the summer. GRADE: C+