film: July 2005 Archives

Gee, when I was a kid, a kid knew his or her place in the movies. The dorks and the nerds and the dweebs and the losers stayed dorks and nerds and dweebs and losers. A movie about dorks and nerds and dweebs and losers was about them coming to terms, as individuals, with their dorkiness, their nerdiness, their dweebiness, their loserness, not banding together to save the world while simultaneously proving to the popular kids that they, too -- the dorks and the nerds and the dweebs and the losers -- were cool.

If ‘The Breakfast Club’ were, god forbid, remade today, Ally Sheedy would end up running for class president, and winning. If ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ were, heaven forfend, remade today, Alan Ruck would end up saving Chicago from nuclear terrorists.

[from my review of Sky High]

See Sky High for perhaps the most dramatic example yet of how these kids today are not like we Xers were... at least on the big screen.

Sometimes imitation is a form of flattery:

Like some gritty 70s cinema artifact that fell through a timewarp, [Rob Zombie’s] followup rings with the unholy dread of early Tobe Hooper or even -- dare I suggest it? -- Martin Scorsese: Imagine Marty had made ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,’ and you’ve got it.

[from my review of The Devil’s Rejects]

And sometimes it isn’t:

Welcome to ‘THX 11-Michael Bay’! It’s not a science fiction movie, but an incredible simulation!

Actually, it’s more like a grand tour through a galaxy of science fiction movies: Look, there’s ‘Coma’! Hey, it’s ‘The Truman Show’! Ooo, ‘The Matrix’! Wow: ‘Logan’s Run’! Cool, look, ‘Gattaca’! If Michael Bay’s movies are theme-park rides, ‘The Island’ is, in its first half, kinda like It’s a Small, Small Brave New World: just sit back and enjoy the scenery as he chugs through a history of celluloid speculation.

[from my review of The Island]

It seems that Circuit City copped on to the fact that it had been serving as an unwitting executive producer for low-budget filmmakers, with its once-generous return policy on consumer electronics. Most famously, perhaps, the makers of The Blair Witch Project shot their film on a camera purchased from Circuit City and then repacked and returned to the store after shooting wrapped.

Circuit City is no longer so beneficient, but what may be the last film made with the corp as a secret partner will be released theatrically in August. It’s a humorous documentary called My Date with Drew, and it’s all about the geeky, videocamera-flipping director’s quest to meet the actress Drew Barrymore and ask her out.

Over at FlickFilosopher.com, I’m offering all my micropatrons the opportunity to attend exclusive advance screenings in five cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Philadelphia. Sign up as a micropatron (it costs $30, and you get access to tons of exclusive giveaways, like DVD box sets, many of which are worth more than the micropatron donation), and you’ll get an invite for whichever city you want. This isn’t a contest with a few limited winners: you wanna go, you go.

For $30, you get some nice bennies and warm fuzzies for supporting independent journalism online, and I get to keep being an indie journalist. Oh, and you get a chance to support an indie filmmaker, too, by coming out for his film. It’s geeky win-win all around.