The new trailer for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Storydebuted yesterday on CNN.com, but obviously the world (including me) was too busy crapping on the Avatar trailer to notice. Even the Wolfman spot received more notice. For awhile last night I thought maybe people, even those on the left, were tired of Moore completely. But no, there has finally been some discussion of the thing today.
And the consensus appears to be that Moore isn’t making films any fresher or more groundbreaking than James Cameron is. In fact, Moore’s latest seems surprisingly dated. This is something we’ve expected, of course, given the ongoing story of the economic meltdown, but it is interesting to see so much Bush as well as a complete lack of footage that appears to have been shot since Obama was elected.
Worst of all, everyone agrees, is the use of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on the soundtrack. Even if that song hadn’t been used to death by Pineapple Expressand Slumdog Millionaireads, I would think I was watching a trailer from 2008. How about, given the current events, Moore just rereleases Sicko instead?
Check out what the rest of the film blogs are saying about the film/trailer after the jump:
The opening credits of Tony Scott’s remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 are set to a remix of Jay-Z’s masterpiece pop single, “99 Problems.” Our first extreme close-up glimpse at the face of John Travolta’s goateed growler, with diamond cross stud in right ear to immediately clue us in to his Catholicism/Achilles Heel, coincides with the first burst of the song’s chorus: “I’ve got 99 Problems but a bitch ain’t one. Hit me!” When I saw the movie, I was sitting next to an older gentleman who, at the close of that first “Hit me!”, audibly groaned. This was just the beginning of his displeasure. In the film’s final scene, there’s a joke about a local New York sports team, which, I thought, worked thanks to James Gandolfini’s delivery. I laughed - not a sustained chuckle, but a single, barked “Ha!” The guy sitting next to me turned to his friend and said, in a voice far above a whisper, “That wasn’t funny! It wasn’t even funny!”
It’s hard for me to understand how someone could get so worked up about the choices made by director Scott in his completely unnecessary remake of the 70s cult classic. Aside from that laugh and a couple of others, which came virtually as knee jerk trained responses to John Travolta’s sleepwalk through his role as a crackpot train hijacker, I felt nothing whilst watching this film. It was almost a Zen thing, a level of calm non-emotion which, I must say, I have rarely experienced at a screening of a studio action film. I’d say that the ultimate affect of Pelham is like being trapped in a loop of white noise, but that sounds sort of cool and futurist, and this film is neither of those things — it’s more like swimming laps in bowl of room-temperature oatmeal. After the screening, I was 10th in line for the ladies room, which gave me time to think about the word “pointless,” and how often it’s wasted to describe endeavors that are merely so boring that they make us resent the expenditure of time, but which actually do have a goal. By the time I’ve moved up to 3rd in line, I’ve vowed to reserve my use of the word “pointless” for experiences like The Taking of Pelham 123, which are literally pointless, in that there is no point of impact. They simply do not have a reason to exist.
The original film of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was quite representative of New York City in the mid-1970s. Tony Scott’s remake, which opens this weekend, doesn’t have that same sense of space, but even worse than its lack of local relevance is its out-of-date plot, which has John Travolta causing panic on Wall Street in order to make hundreds of millions in a stock scheme. Never mind that the economy is currently in such a state that the terrorist’s plan may be fruitless. Even before the recession this should have seemed antiquated. As David Edelstein writes in New York magazine, “Why would he need to do something so…so…1974 as hijacking a subway train to do what a lot of hedge-fund managers do before breakfast?”
The plot is also tremendously unoriginal, enough to assume Travolta’s character is a huge James Bond fan. But someone familiar with 007 villains, or any other would-be economic terrorists, would have to realize his own scheme would fail. To illustrate why it’s useless to attempt this kind of thing, we present you with ten classic films involving stock market scams, most of which are unsuccessful. …Read more
It was sold weeks in advance as the sure-thing controversy of the Tribeca Film Festival. Outrage, Kirby Dick’s follow-up to This Film Has Not Been Rated, would surely apply that documentary’s tactics of unapologetically biased filmed detective work to a far more incendiary and potentially politically relevant collusion of power: the “brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy” of secretly gay Republican politicians, “self-hating gay people” all who secretly, shamefully practice the same acts for which they seek to punish others via discriminatory policy. But as it turns out, Outrage is less a work of original, intrepid muckraking than a ride-along with a few full-time muckrakers of the blog and satellite radio spheres, one that considers arguments for and against involuntary outing on the road to defending the responsibility of the public servants to practice what they preach.
Just over two months ago, Pajamas Media blogger Roger Kimball insisted that the economic picture could not possible be as dire as those mainstream liberal media hysterics wanted us to think. Then last week, Pajamas Media announced that their blog network is going out of business. Lesson learned: he who attempts to undercut the current economic pessimism ends up ironically fucked.
That is, unless “he” is talking about Hollywood. The movie industry is thriving so undeniably in this downturn –– Hollywood just wrapped its best January ever at the box office, with theater attendance up over 16% –– that just yesterday the MPAA’s proposed tax credits were thrown out of the economic stimulus package (California senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, no doubt well aware of the longer-tail consequences of the credit crunch on film financing, voted to keep the tax credits in). With the recent successes of mindless escapist fare like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and the middling box office performance of “serious” Oscar contenders like Milk and Frost/Nixon, the pervasive meme in entertainment media coverage is that, just like during the first (and still the best!) Great Depression, audiences are flocking to the movies to forget their troubles.
Initially, The September Issue comes off as something like the Teen Vogue segments of The Hills (though her royal highness Anna Wintour is swapped in for cut-rate LA imitation Lisa Love, the MTV reality show’s masterful manner of spinning diegetic commentary out of eye rolls taken out of context is left intact), genetically blended into an alternate universe version of The Office. Except in this office, the workers actually work, and in fact are terrified not to because their boss is Michael Scott’s polar opposite: impatient, undemonstrative, and absolutely incapable of taking no for an answer.
As a portrait of Wintour the person, RJ Cutler’s documentary does little to dig under the surface of Wintour’s iconic, impassive under bangs image. But as a meditation on art vs commerce, emotion vs rationality, and the role of fantasy merchants in the recently-burst economic bubble, The September Issue is both cerebral and accessible. If it’s not as provocative as it could be, it’s definitely entertaining.
Better watch out, better not carry too much cash, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is strapped financially, too, this year, and he’s on a mugging spree. That’s David “Champ” Koechner as the bad Santa and Jessica Biel in the sexy elf (or is it a Mrs. Claus?) costume in this new FunnyorDie exclusive. But Santa doesn’t need currency, you say. He’s magic! Perhaps, but this holiday, people are likely referencing the Kinks’ song “Father Christmas” and asking him for money rather than “silly toys.”
Interestingly enough, I saw in The Hollywood Reportertoday that FunnyorDie actually just received a whole lot of money for Christmas (or Hannukah, or whatever it celebrates). That means we can look forward to a new year filled with plenty more comedy shorts, whether they be as brilliant as the Prop 8 musical or as uninspired as today’s clip (which is mostly only good to Biel’s fans). I guess it’s a given that humor prevails in bad times, but it’s also telling for our future that while many longtime industries are in need of bailouts that online video sites are netting secret investments.
Gekko’s character was written to create an engaging, charming, but deceitful and brutal being. I have nevertheless run into quite a number of younger people, who upon discovering that I co-wrote the film, wax rhapsodic about it . . . but often for the wrong reasons.
A typical example would be a business executive or a younger studio development person spouting something that goes like this: “The movie changed my life. Once I saw it I knew that I wanted to get into such and such business. I wanted to be like Gordon Gekko.”
The flattery is disarming and ego-stoking, but then neurons fire and alarm bells go off. “You have succeeded with this movie, but you’ve also failed. You gave these people hope to become greater asses than they may already be.”
While I can understand Weiser’s horror in this idolization of amoral Gekko, especially in the wake of the real Wall Street’s collapse, I also couldn’t help but think back to a column I wrote in which I dissected Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Kubrick also was sufficiently horrified by the hero-worshipping of Alex, by the copycat crimes by droog wannabes that occurred in England after the film’s release (enough to yank it from distribution in that country). But the idea that either Weiser or Kubrick would be shocked (“utterly shocked” in Weiser’s sarcastic appraisal of Gekko’s view of the financial meltdown) by this pedestal raising strikes me as either naïve or disingenuous. Put sexy actors in passionate roles and what do you think is gonna happen?
Is this the long-awaited October surprise? In an apparent effort to position opponent John McCain as fundamentally on the wrong side of the economic fight (and maybe also to direct attention away from growing buzz on his association with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers), today the Obama campaign has posted on YouTube a 13 minute documentary on the Keating Five scandal. Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Scandal has been posted on Barack Obama’s official YouTube channel, via which it’s embedded above; I found that the YouTube version took forever to load there, and watched the Quicktime version via KeatingEconomics.com.
The film, which is narrated by former federal banking regulator William Black, alleges that McCain “took much of his policy advice” from shady real estate mogul Keating in exchange for massive contributions to his senate campaign, and then failed to learn the appropriate lessons of the scandal and continued to support an economic policy based on extreme deregulation, leading to our current economic crisis. Black is the only talking head in the film, which is otherwise comprised of footage of the Senate hearings and b-roll. 13 minutes is just about enough time to explain what the Keating Five scandal was, why it was bad, and why it still matters. At the end of the film, Black says his “motivation” for participating is that he’s “sick of” McCain’s continued support for “perverse systems that allow people to lie.”
What’s most interesting about it is simply the fact that the Obama campaign is selling it as a “documentary” and not an extended campaign ad. …Read more
If the titles of the three films mentioned in the title don’t evoke a sense of anxiety about the present, I’m not sure what will. At the same time, they’re all immensely different films. Fernando Meirelles’s new film, Blindness, opens tonight. Will it replace Children of Men as our favorite recent film about societal collapse?
Karina joins us to talk about one hit and one miss from the New York Film Festival thus far. While Happy-Go-Lucky inspired homicidal thoughts, I’m Gonna Explode did not disappoint.
The financial mayhem of the day made us remember a little known documentary from 2006, In Debt We Trust (which can be viewed for free on SnagFilms.com). We call director Danny Schechter to talk about what’s been going on in the two years since his nearly prophetic film was released.
While I’m in Texas for the week, Texan filmmaker (and sometime Spout contributor) David Lowery is in New York, attending Independent Film Week to support his feature St. Nick, which is a product of IFP’s Emerging Filmmaker Labs. He’s writing about his experience for Hammer to Nail, and had some interesting observations about the health of the industry. An excerpt:
(Image: Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” via Pink Tentacle)
The latest news from Wall Street seems to indicate that a complete financial meltdown is only a few weeks away. Before you violently horde every morsel of food from your local supermarket or begin a hostile take-over of your corner gas station, there are several movies you should watch in order to prepare for life after the downfall of Western civilization. There have been plenty of films in which the world we know is nothing but a burned out shell of its former glory. Nuclear holocaust and virulent plagues are common Earth-clearing disasters, but there’s no reason to think that a global economic collapse would be any less destructive. Let’s not forget that one of history’s most common causes for war is a desperate grab for resources during tough times. So without further ado, seven lessons from the movies, essential for surviving our impending doom:
1. Hoard gasoline!
Plenty of people are already getting a jump on this one, apparently upping demand to the point where falling oil prices are not translating to the pump. If you think waiting 15 minutes in line to buy gas at $4.50 a gallon is bad, watch The Road Warrior again. From the opening sequence where Mel Gibson gingerly harvests every precious ounce of fuel from an abandoned vehicle to the final deadly battle over a tanker truck, it’s clear that in a post-apocalyptic world, gas is gold. Sure, we’re working on becoming less dependent on the stuff, but what good is a Chevy Volt going to do you if the power grid is in shambles?
I haven’t opened my RSS reader in three weeks, so it’s taking me some time to get situated this morning. Sometime over the next couple of days, I can promise you that we’re going to wrap our Toronto coverage, which will include interviews with Ari Folman and Kathryn Bigelow, and as of Wednesday I’ll be in Austin to attend this year’s Fantastic Fest.
As a side note: I woke up this morning and read the Black Monday headlines, and all I could think of was Scrooge McDuck. Do you remember that Duck Tales video game where Scrooge and his nephews compete to see who can “collect the most money” in 30 days, in order to be declared DIME Magazine’s Duck of the Year? No? Oh, that’s probably because it was terrible. But the opening narrative bit, set to digital bagpipes, is pretty great, especially when Mr. McDuck declares, “I’ll be the winner, and I’ll win!” Luckily, someone played the entire game and put it on YouTube. Entertain yourself while I weed out my pre-Sarah Palin feeds.
A California appeals court has refused to force the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to give a “retroactive Oscar” to Bob Yari for producing Crash. Yari was excluded from the film’s 2005 Best Picture win when the Academy changed qualification rules the same year, limiting a film’s eligible number of producers to three. Yari, who financed a large chunk of Paul Haggis’ “Race is hard” drama, has been in court begging for an Oscar ever since.
In news that will crush Chris’ Brolin family dreams, Elizabeth Banks is on the verge of being cast as Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush movie, which begins shooting next month.
On what planet would investors think an extraordinarily fickle, recession-panicked moviegoing public would be willing to pay $35 for a movie ticket––plus extra for “theater-friendly foods” like sushi and wine? Um…
The strike may not be legally over, but in an industry desperate to return to some sense of normalcy, this is apparently the sound of a fat lady singing: The WGA’s still needs their members to officially vote on the new AMPTP deal, but TV showrunners are nonetheless expected to return to work today, with regular writers back in the office on Wednesday. More in our frame of concern, the Oscars will go forth with writers and without picket lines.
Meanwhile, writers seem to generally think the prolonged strike, which will net them each about $1500 per streamed television episode, was “worth it,” nevermind the losses incurred by those crew members who lost their jobs, or the hit taken to the Hollywood economy as a whole. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the strike is responsible for up to $2 billion in local losses.
Fool’s Gold easily beat holdover Hannah Montanaat the box office this weekend, with a respectable $22 million. Meanwhile, the Paris Hilton-starrer The Hottie and the Nottie, which garnered some of the best bad reviews I’ve read in a while (why did they even screen it for critics?), earned a disastrous $234 on each of its 111 screens.
Berlin deals: Arthouse Films has acquired Christina Clausen’s doc The Universe of Keith Haring; the Jason Statham crime pic The Bank Jobsold release rights to various distributors in 40 territories.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Just over two months ago, Pajamas Media blogger 
A California appeals court has 
The strike may not be legally over, but in an industry desperate to return to some sense of normalcy, this is apparently the sound of a 
