On the advice of a good friend, Lizzi and I watched Pineapple Express today.  If my math is correct, this movie marked the fourth collaboration between Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow (after 40 Year-Old Virgin, Superbad and Knocked Up).  Having taken in each of the aforementioned movies, I can make the informed statement that these guys score a big, fat mediocre in my book (2-2 to be exact).  I liked Virgin and Knocked Up but didn’t love them.  They were really funny in spots, thanks to great dialogue and perfect delivery, but comic materpieces they were not (which makes me long for the days of Dumb & Dumber).  Conversely, I found Superbad and Pineapple to be absolutely atrocious.  Both movies tried way too hard and failed miserably in the comedy department.  On top of not being funny in the slightest, Pineapple was totally random in an incoherent and haphazard kind of way.  Lots of over-the-top screaming and yelling combined with moments of gratuitous violence that would’ve been cool if Tarantino were behind the camera…but he wasn’t, so it wasn’t even remotely cool.  It almost felt like an amateur film school production where the students creating the movie couldn’t stop giggling at the thought of making a film about pot that allowed them to play with fake blood and big explosions.  Totally lame.

After a frustratingly long wait, iTunes finally made available for purchase Bill Maher’s anti-religion documentary, Religulous.  We eagerly took it in last night and, not surprisingly, quite enjoyed watching Maher view the religious world with his trademark witty sarcasm.  The show has Maher travel the world to challenge various religious practitioners as he seeks to dismantle the philosophical underpinnings of pretty much all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, and even Scientology.  On his quest, Maher visits with quite a few truly outrageous characters and he does a good job of making most of them look silly, which is easy to do whenever anyone seriously presses people to explain their religious beliefs.  There are quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, and my favorite parts were when he visited two religion-themed amusement parks – the Creation Museum (put on by the wingnuts at Answers in Genesis) and The Holy Land Experience (now owned by the shysters at Trinity Broadcasting Network).  After learning about them, these two places have earned a spot on my personal list of “Places to see before I die”.  I have no doubt they will make their respective marks on my list of funniest/most awkward moments.   

The movie is indeed funny and certainly worth watching, particularly for those of you who, like me, are skeptical when it comes to superstition.  However, that the movie is funny is actually kind of a bittersweet notion.  Ultimately, what I’m laughing at is how ridiculous our minds work sometimes; unfortunately, this can have tragic side-effects, which often manifest themselves in horrificly violent form.  It’s weird how a source for so much hatred, death and destruction in this world could also make for great comedy.  What a strange world we live in.

This is wonderful news.  Here’s hoping Weitz gets the gig.

I finally got around to watching Knocked Up last night.  Though it was a little too hyped up coming in (everyone told me I was going to love it), I’d rate it pretty high on the comedy scale.  Not the funniest thing I’ve seen but certainly worth the two-hour investment.  Some of the dialogue was first rate, including the bouncer scene  below (apologies for the poor quality…it’s clear someone shot this from the TV in their living room).  And for those with kids in the room, some words of warning – ear muffs!

I used to love Christian Bale.  Loved him in Laurel Canyon, Batman Begins, The Prestige, even Empire of the Sun.  Thought he was a mighty fine actor.  Still do, I suppose.  But the release of the audio of his meltdown on the set of Terminator takes him down a notch or ten in my book.  You can hear his berating of the film’s director of photography – who had walked into view during a shoot – by clicking here and then pressing the play button (warning: the language is coarse, to say the least).

What an ass.  You know, I’ve heard several times that working with “artists” takes a special patience since they tend to be ornery and high maintenance in a quirky sort of way.  And, of course, I’ve read about ridiculous demands that rock stars and the like make on those in their employ.  But this is just ridiculous.  Nobody should put up with this crap.  Could you imagine if people behaved like this at your place of work?  Wouldn’t fly for a second.  Yet it seems perfectly acceptable on the sets of Hollywood.  I just don’t get it.

Recently picked up the BBC documentary Planet Earth.  Described by its filmmakers as “the definitive look at diversity on our planet”, the show is an awesome tribute to our little world and the life on it.  Five years in production, over 2,000 days in the field, using 40 cameramen filming across 200 locations, shot entirely in high definition.  This is an awesome piece of work, best enjoyed on a large HD screen with surround sound. 

Below is a clip from the film that shows a great white shark chowing down on some seals.  The shot at around the 2:20 mark is breathtaking.  While I appreciate the intensity of the shot and scene, I simply view it as yet another reason to avoid the ocean!     

I posted a few days back about my desire to see Slumdog Millionaire.  Well, we were able to take it in yesterday and let me just say that this film exceeded my expectations in every way imaginable.  Wow.  What an amazing movie.  Enthralling from start to finish.  The story was unique, the acting was great, the music was spot-on, the cinematography was breathtaking, and the directing was superb (mad props to Danny Boyle, he of Trainspotting fame).  This film is up for every major award and deservedly so.  This very well may be the best film I’ve seen in years.  In fact, I’d place it among my top ten of all time after just one viewing.  Just an incredible picture that is equal parts brilliant, shocking and heart-warming. 

The film is basically a love story set in the slums of Mumbai, portraying a life of hardknocks that takes brutal honesty to whole new level as a boy from the slums tries to track down his long lost childhood love (also from the slums).  It is littered with cringeworthy moments, each designed to top the previous on the “oh my god” scale.  But the payoff is worth it, I assure you.  As the NY Times put it, Slumdog is “one of the most upbeat stories about living in hell imaginable.” 

While I couldn’t help but marvel at Boyle’s work with this film, I also couldn’t keep from appreciating the perspective the movie provides.  Throughout the viewing and after, I kept thinking to myself how lucky we are to simply be born American, and how spoiled rotten we are as a society.  I mean, let’s face it – most of us have absolutely no clue how much the rest of the world struggles to simply exist.  To paraphrase Warren Buffett, we’ve won the “ovarian lottery”, particularly given the fact that a ridiculous amount of the world is mired in a poverty most of us have never (and hopefully will never) even remotely experience firsthand.  According to the World Bank and the Population Reference Bureau, more than half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 per day and 80% of humanity lives on less than $10.  Saddest of all, children are the most affected; according to UNICEF, roughly 30,000 of them die each day due to poverty.   This movie poignantly captures their plight while cleverly delivering a Hollywood masterpiece of Bollywood proportion.  Needless to say, I cannot recommend this film enough to all who read this post.  It’s one movie that you won’t soon forget. 

I couldn’t post this without providing another sneak peek at the film, particularly since the trailer alone nearly brought me to tears!

This movie looks awesome.  I have it on good authority that it’s the real deal.  Can’t wait to see it once I’m back stateside.  We need stories that warm the heart during times like these.

What’s the most….you ever lost….on a coin toss? This question was at the center of one of the best movie scenes I have been lucky enough to experience in recent memory. No Country for Old Men was a very good movie, basically well done on every level. The acting was great (including a superb turn by Javier Bardem as a disturbingly convincing madman murderer), the writing was solid, the casting was spot-on, and the directing was perfect. Famous mostly for their work with Fargo, the Coen brothers did themselves one better with No Country. I just love the gritty texture of this film and the futility of struggle undertone. There’s a foreboding sense of inevitability that hovers over the story that I found both frightening and mesmerizing. It’s not my favorite movie of all time, but it was a joy to watch good movie-making unfold before my eyes, and I highly recommend that any true fan of movie take time out for this one. A treat indeed.