Forget trying to maneuver your way through all the mixed reactions to Watchmen crowding the interweb today. There’s only one question you need to answer, apparently, in order to make up your mind whether or not to see the highly anticipated adaptation: are you okay with a massive blue penis in an R-rated comic book movie, or will you be offended and demand an apology from the MPAA? Over at the site Movieguide, which is partnered with The Christian Film & Television Commission, organization chairman and “spokesmen” (is he multiple people?) Dr. Ted Baehr is quoted as saying Watchmen should have received an NC-17 rating for its constant display of male anatomy, and he claims the MPAA has agreed to bring the complaint to their ratings board. And finally, with the defensive against nudity being necessary to any film, Baehr says, “After all, would ‘Casablanca’ become an even better work of art if the script contained a bunch of “f” words, or if Ingrid Bergman appeared completely nude? Definitely not!”

Well, personally I wouldn’t have a problem if Bogie cursed a lot, though I agree that Bergman was always great despite always having her clothes on. As for the blue penis issue, though, I have to remind folks that blue-skinned nudity is not the same as realistic flesh-colored nudity, and that whether it’s Rebecca Romijn in the X-Men films or a digital replica of Billy Crudup in Watchmen or the eagerly awaited Smurfette shower scene in Sony’s upcoming Smurfs movie, the ratings board will likely be okay with it. As will most anyone else that doesn’t have a lame obligation to excessively puritanical groups like the CFTVC.

Sample quotes and links from those internerds who disagree with Baehr, as well as some who actually agree, after the jump:

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Because there’s nothing like waiting until the last minute to do some holiday shopping, we’ve compiled this handy-dandy shopping guide to the best DVDs of 2008 that you can use now, or wait until the dust settles and clean up with any cash that Santa or Hanukkah Harry happened to leave you. It’s broken down by the person you’ll be shopping for to make things easier, even if that person happens to be yourself.

When noted, we’ve picked the Blu-ray version over the standard definition, because we try to be all about 1080p and other technical terms whenever possible. But, the regular versions are just fine as well. Still, it’s true what they say: once you go HD you’ll never go back.

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Is romance dead? David Carr seems to think so, at least in American cinema (both Hollywood and “Indiewood,” as he inclusively clarifies). While celebrating the subway station meet-cute from the beginning of Milk, a scene he claims to be of an increasingly rare sort, Carr states that American filmmakers “can do romantic pathology and entropy, but the kind of love for the ages, a big-movie kind of love? Not so much.”

If you agree with him, blame the back-to-back Best Picture winners Titanic and Shakespeare in Love for feeding us the kind of romance that’s so cheesy it clogs our arteries and gives us a coronary. Left with a burst heart and a lack of quality Nora Ephron movies, most of us have been cynics when it comes to love stories these past ten years. Yet cynics can still be swept off their feet, and American filmmakers have adequately supplied them with new kinds of love for the ages.

Just take a look at these ten films from the past decade. They may be full of cynicism, but they’re also filled with big-movie love, in their own way. If you can’t see the romance, then the problem is with you, not the movies.

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Danny Boyle’s latest, Slumdog Millionaire, hit theaters this week. The whimsical up-tempo romance is quickly becoming a critical darling, with decent prospects for awards season. The funny thing is, we hated it. We take a look back at Boyle’s work, specifically A Life Less Ordinary. That film, far from a critical darling, has essentially the same core belief as Slumdog, that the combination of love, destiny, and tons of money will never let you down.

Karina offers more sobering commentary on the fallacies of the typical on-screen romance by comparing An Affair to Remember and When Harry Met Sally with Casablanca. She also praises a new French film with parallels to The Royal Tenenbaums, called A Christmas Tale.

As mentioned in the podcast, if you’d like to chime in on the Slumdog Millionaire debate, head to the FilmCouch Group.

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro

2:51 - Slumdog Millionaire, A Life Less Ordinary

20:09 - Karina on three classic romances, A Christmas Tale, Barackula

filmcouch-96

This may qualify as hyperbole, but Richard Schickel’s You Must Remember This––which premiered at Cannes in May, screened here at Telluride as part of a tribute to Schickel and will debut on PBS in slightly different form this fall––is maybe the most appropriately titled made-for-TV Classical Hollywood documentary directed by a working film critic I’ve seen this year.

“You must remember this,” is, of course, a lyric from “As Time Goes By,” the signature song from Warner Brothers’ Casablanca. From the opening montage of a tour through the WB backlot, set to a soundtrack of memorable lines from maybe a dozen and a half classic productions from that studio, Schickel’s film is devoted to anecdotal recall of Warner Brothers’ various signatures, from experts and witnesses who are dishy and not uncritical, but still often as sentimemtal as the song that Rick commands Sam to play again.  From silent doggie star Rin Tin Tin (who, snarked writer and eventual head of production Daryl Zanuck,  had the biggest brain on the lot) to the Busby Berkeley musicals that not so subtly told the viewer that “Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler are gonna get laid, and we’re all part of it,” to the social issue films of the 30s which carried “a vision of the world that was darker, more cynical, and more problematic than any other studio’s,” Schickel finds a surprisingly rich balance between behind-the-scenes trivia and multi-layered criticism. Access to talking heads including Molly Haskell, Neal Gabler, Jeaninne Basinger and former WB contract player Ronald Reagan certainly helps with the gravitas.

Also surprising was the slightly salty candor that ran through Schickel’s Special Medallion acceptance chat, which both the honoree and the audience seemed to find too brief. Still, Schickel managed to get out som zingers involving Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, the youth of America and John McCain. Some highlights after the jump.

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At Movie Marketing Madness, Chris Thilk points to a sample marketing presentation made by the ad agency Basement, based on this hypothesis: If all prints of Casablanca had been lost immediately after its initial premiere and had recently been found, how would you market the film today as a wide-release feature?

Chris says the pitch looks “very real,” and he would know better than me, but I have to admit: some of the slides made me laugh out loud. Like the one where Casablanca is pitched as the perfect gap bridger between Sex and the City and an “Iraq War film” (”Casablanca is a romantic option for women; while still having entertainment for men — a shared experience for Valentines day”). And also the “Valentine’s Day Romance Generator” feature on the hypothetical Casablanca website, which allegedly “takes a woman’s idea, and transforms it into a man’s idea.” And also the “contingency plan” of having a Warner Brothers-signed top R&B performer do a cover of “As Time Goes By.”

So…is this supposed to be funny, or practical? Both?