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Professional wrestling is such a curious phenomenon—it's loaded to the gills with testosterone, silicone and displays of loudly macho, presumably alpha-male behavior—yet it's really nothing more than masculine soap opera. Both share the same production hallmarks of hastily scripted, histrionic melodrama with lots of feuds and filler, exploiting the elements most attractive to their respective demographics.
""The Fountain"" will be released on DVD May 15. It has been one of the most talked about films of 2006, receiving both criticism and praise. Arts writers Joe Pudas and Eric R. Schmidt are here today to discuss the film.
As a concept, fate is incredibly universal, because it attempts to clarify and impose meaning on the very nature of existence. Is every minute action we take one more step toward reaching our predetermined destiny? Or, is life a completely random, chaotic series of events in which, as Sarah Connor would say, the only fate is what we make for ourselves?
Hardcore moviegoers often fall into two camps: elitists, who love the medium but typically reserve their enjoyment for the most prestigious, highbrow films, and enthusiasts, those film buffs that are hopelessly, giddily obsessed with every facet of the cinema. Grindhouse theaters in the 1970s catered to the latter category of moviegoer, serving up sleazy double, triple and sometimes quadruple features of unrestrained mayhem and carnality.
Over the years, especially the most recent ones, violence in action movies has become a lot more brutal and a lot less fun. Thanks to this decade's two most influential action-oriented narratives—the TV blockbuster ""24,"" which features Jack Bauer torturing the shit out of nefarious people for the greater good, and ""The Bourne Identity,"" which revels in nasty bouts of hand-to-hand combat—the line between ""hard R"" action and formerly neutered PG-13 action blurs more every day. In this present environment, when little differentiates an R-rated action movie from Monday night's primetime lineup, where does a meat-and-potatoes guy movie like ""Shooter"" fit in?
Thrillers based on unsolved mysteries are inherently problematic. A mystery without a payoff doesn't send anyone home happy. David Fincher largely manages to sidestep this built-in handicap with ""Zodiac,"" a sprawling, compelling drama centering on the long, inevitably fruitless search for the elusive Zodiac killer. But be forewarned, hardcore fans of ""Se7en"" and ""Fight Club"": this is not your typical Fincher film—fast-paced, breathless and ultra-violent—rather, ""Zodiac"" is meditative, subtle and mostly devoid of violence.
By Joe Pudas
There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there are movies like ""Ghost Rider,"" which is so unbelievably, inconceivably, jaw-droppingly bad that it defies categorization.
As any follower of contemporary pop culture could tell you, beauty doesn't always have a whole lot to do with acting ability, and after a while, serious actresses need to display at least some shred of talent in order to stick around in the limelight. The Academy tends to reward gorgeous celebrities that glam themselves down for edgy roles with fake noses, brave weight acquisitions, humbling makeup, you name it. Until ""Volver,"" Pedro AlmodA3var's sublimely original new dramedy, PenAclope Cruz was in a similar predicament.
Creating an original, compelling film from scratch is hard enough, but adapting a popular novel into a successful movie brings its own unique set of complications. With the exception of books by authors like Elmore Leonard, who writes terse yet vivid prose that is naturally cinematic, it's impossible to perfectly replicate material from the page to the silver screen. Then there are those pesky books that, for one reason or another are deemed unfilmable,"" like ""Naked Lunch,"" ""A Confederacy of Dunces"" or anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Thomas Pynchon. Patrick Suskind's 1985 cult novel ""Perfume: The Story of Murderer"" was considered one of them after some notable filmmakers""such as Stanley Kubrick""tried and failed to adapt it. But now ""Run Lola Run"" director Tom Tykwer has done it, and while his ""Perfume"" is a visually astounding, well-paced effort, the results are certainly mixed.
When it comes to Hollywood directors, Clint Eastwood has a fascinating anomaly of a career. We used to regard him primarily as the squinty icon that popularized characters as integral to great cinema as Josey Wales, Dirty Harry and the Man With No Name. Even though he's been directing movies since 1971, including modern classics like ""The Outlaw Josey Wales"" and ""Unforgiven,"" Eastwood has never entered a true artistic prime as a director; that is, until the last few years. With the one-two punch of ""Mystic River"" and ""Million Dollar Baby,"" Eastwood made us forget all the ""Blood Works"" and ""Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evils"" and re-established himself as one of the best contemporary American filmmakers. And now, with ""Letters From Iwo Jima,"" a focused and assured tour de force that ranks as one of the greatest war movies ever made, Eastwood has given us what is arguably his best film yet.
After his DUI arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic rage this summer, Mel Gibson eclipsed Tom Cruise as America's preeminent crazy male celebrity. It's now impossible to discuss his movies, particularly everyone's favorite religious snuff film, ""The Passion of the Christ,"" without discussing the increasingly enigmatic man behind them, especially since his latest offerings have been so personal in nature. Gibson throws himself even further out there with ""Apocalypto,"" his much-ballyhooed epic set in 16th century Mayan civilization, and while the results are certainly not for everyone, it is a flawed but furiously entertaining adrenaline rush of a movie.
When I wrote my last column, I mentioned the greatest single moment in any movie—the scene that, in varying ways, changed my life. It occurs in ""Raiders of the Lost Ark,"" when a sword-wielding assassin challenges Indiana Jones to a duel in the Cairo marketplace. The swordsman busts out a couple of menacing swipes and prepares for battle. Instead of brawling, Indiana whips out his gun and shoots the bastard, a move that would make even Dirty Harry crack a squinty grin.
A lot of people hate Michael Moore, and it's easy to see why: he's obnoxious, grandiose, occasionally belittling and relentlessly obtuse in defending his viewpoints. However, it's these traits that make him a phenomenal showman, or at the very least, a political extremist worth listening to. Billy Wilder once said, ""If you're going to tell the truth, be funny or they will kill you""—wise words to remember when making an overtly political film. Maybe you're not required to be funny, per se, but if you want to convince groups of people to listen to you and/or your actors bitch for two hours, your bitching better be entertaining. Even the legendarily stiff Al Gore pulled this off, enticing droves of people to leave their homes in order to see him lecture about global warming because he and his collaborators didn't forget how to be engaging.
It may have been the scene in 2002's ""Die Another Day"" when James Bond tried to outrun beams of solar energy, or perhaps when he eluded capture with his invisible car, that it became impossible to ignore how the venerable series was starting to rot. Few agree on the Pierce Brosnan-era of Bond flicks—some say he's the best since the Bond we measure all Bonds by, Sean Connery, while others claim he doesn't even stack up to Timothy Dalton—but they got us revved up about the franchise again. It's not that the Brosnan movies weren't fun, but after ""Goldeneye"" got our attention, they got sloppy fast, with ""Die Another Day"" approaching a level of camp unmatched since ""Moonraker."" When Bond becomes a full-blown cartoon, it's time to go back to the well, and the latest 007 adventure, ""Casino Royale,"" is a very promising step in a different, but gratifying, direction.
When ""Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"" was in theaters, Kate Winslet compared Charlie Kaufman to Shakespeare and repeatedly referred to him as the greatest writer of our generation. After only a handful of films, not only has Kaufman reinvented the meta-movie; with ""Being John Malkovich,"" ""Adaptation"" and ""Eternal Sunshine"" (ignore ""Human Nature""), he's been responsible for three of the weirdest, and best, movies ever made. If you doubt his enormous talent in the slightest, watch what happens when others try and mimic his inimitable style. First we had ""Eternal Sunshine"" director Michel Gondry's ""The Science of Sleep,"" which was equal parts eccentric and irritating, and now we've got Marc Forster's ""Stranger Than Fiction,"" a somewhat engaging existential romp that, despite a wonderful central performance from Will Ferrell, never quite manages to come together.
""Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"" sneaks in more belly laughs in its brisk 82 minutes than, well, anything in recent or distant memory. It's subversive, hyper-intelligent, fearless, merciless satire—a movie that effortlessly transcends its small-screen roots to skewer the dregs and bigotry of American society in the funniest manner imaginable.
Stephen Frears' ""The Queen"" centers around one of the most dramatic events in recent history: the media-fueled death of the much beloved Princess Diana, and the monarchy's indifferent reaction. Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren—who, although you've heard it ad nauseam already, will win Best Actress with ease) and Prince Philip (a hilarious James Cromwell) in particular did not harbor much affection for Princess Diana, whose public admiration always far exceeded theirs. The event thrusts newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, who looks a lot like Blair and a little like Mike White) into a delicate situation, as he must work to dissuade the royals from keeping the funeral service private. The family, especially the Queen, does not see why long-standing tradition should be breached for Diana, who was not technically a member of the monarchy after her divorce from Prince Charles. This entire affair has understated but potentially devastating consequences for the royals, who start to explicitly see how far removed they've become from their subjects.
By Joe Pudas