What the Doug?

Maybe it's the prevalence of "Doug" in The Hangover (review coming).

Maybe it's because he was in the brilliantly cheesy 1990s slasher flick Dr. Giggles*, which was brought recently to The Film Official's homestead by a little tool called On Demand.

*Remember, the black guy always dies first.

But for some reason, I'm sitting here wondering what we're all wondering: Whatever happened to Doug E. Doug?

You know, this guy, from Cool Runnings:



Well, after careful research, apparently the answer is this:



Next investigation: Tracking the career of Soldier #267 in Saving Private Ryan.

Thank you for your time.

inding orrester

So a while back I sat down to watch the 2000 Gus Van Sant-directed Finding Forrester, because I remembered it being pretty good: A story of an urban* kid (then-newcomer Rob Brown) whose basketball passion is coupled with a love of books -- and who happens to stumble upon a reclusive old author (THE Sean Connery) living in his neighborhood.

*Hooray euphamisms!

This time, though, something struck me as the first few minutes unfolded:

Where the eff is the F-word?

It's not just that the film takes place in an inner-city* high school, where that word -- and countelss others -- are prevalent in the halls. It's that it takes place at any high school. Any one of them. "Cursing like sailors" should be changed to "cursing like students." I'm sure even schools labeled Christian have a few rebellious kids who experiment with the f-dash-dash-dash word at the lunch table.

*Another euphamism!

But not here, not in inding orrester. Sure, they certainly were targeting a PG-13 rating when omitting the most flexible of profanities, but that doesn't excuse it. Here, it's ridiculously distracting. If your movie attempts to capture any sort of dialect -- be it street-wise black, gangster Italian, bored rural high schooler, whatever -- you've got to be fully authentic to make it work. And in those above cases and many others, "authentic" starts with "F."

How this word became the standard for an R-rating is beyond me, but that's the way it is. Which is why, when scanning the list of truly, indisputably all-time-great movies (set in contemporary times, at least), a VERY small number of them carried a rating of less than R.

And no -- despite its redeeming qualities, this F-less wonder is not on the list.

Random Cinco de Mayo thoughts

*Note: This post has absolutely nothing to do with Cinco de Mayo.

Randomly, some thoughts, brought to you by the free wireless internet at FLL:

-Roman Polanski is in the news again. Idea: How about if he doesn't show up at the hearing, his Oscar (for the underwhelming The Pianist) is revoked and passed on to its rightful owner. Or at least this guy. Or even this one.
(Exclusive: The last known rendering of Polanski in the U.S.)

-From the world of music: Concept albums haven't really translated well into film -- see Tommy and Pink Floyd: The Wall -- but I'm at least a little intrigued by a supposed screenplay based on progressive rock/metal outfit Mastodon's latest epic, Crack the Skye.

(Would this make a good movie poster?)

-From the world of sports: I thought my initial thoughts on this movie were all original, then I read that ESPN writer Bill Simmons made essentially the same claim in his latest column. Damn. Still, Spike Lee's latest documentary, Kobe Doin' Work, might be less based in reality than, say, the latest P.O.S. comic book movie. If you think politicians are full of it when they speak publicly, you ain't heard much Kobe Bryant.

RT: The New York Times memos

The hit-or-miss nature of America's Most Important Newspaper* scored a big hit in this weekend's Summer Movies section with its "Memos to Hollywood" bit by critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis.

*And don't you forget it!

Granted, the critics missed on some key points, but they proved that those with a critical eye for film often think alike. Some highlights:

To: Heads of production, Sony, Universal, Paramount, Fox, Disney

Cc: Joe Swanberg, Andrew Bujalski, Greta Gerwig, Aaron Katz and all their Facebook Friends

From: A.O.S.

You all keep trying to make Rock Hudson-Doris Day-style romantic comedies with the golden guys and gals of the moment, and the results are sexless, subtextless, bland career-girl-in-search-of-Mr.-Right retreads. Meanwhile, a bunch of hungry directors with digital cameras, time on their hands and not much money are making free-form studies about tentative hookups and long conversations among actual, overeducated, undermotivated young folks.

Hollywood, it’s time to co-opt those dudes! Give them enough money for song credits and some production values and let them reinvent movie romance for this age of diffident couplings and vigorous social networking. And dudes, remember: you’re never too young or too hip to sell out.

***

To: Filmmakers, especially under 40

From: M.D.

The tripod is your friend. Few filmmakers can pull off florid handheld camerawork because most aren’t saying all that much through their visuals, handheld or not. (Also: Shaking the camera does not create realism.) Though it’s a cliché of contemporary cinema, fiction and nonfiction both, handheld camerawork that calls aggressive attention to itself tends to make empty images seem even emptier. If you want us to notice your cinematography, make sure you have something to say, like the French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (“Demonlover”), whose restlessly moving images convey a searching intelligence. He isn’t just waving the camera around; he’s saying something about the world and the people in it.

***

To: Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese

From: A.O.S.

Think small again! Your buddy Francis Ford Coppola has made his last couple of movies on a relative shoestring in Romania and Argentina. Brian De Palma shot “Redacted” on video with an unknown cast. You are fortunate to be able to do just about anything you want, and you’ve certainly earned the right to work on a large scale. But it’s also sad to think that your days of small, scrappy, personal movies are behind you. Well, maybe they aren’t. Maybe you could go scout a location or two. Work with available light, a skeleton crew and unsung actors. Fly by the seat of your pants. Just for old times’ sake.

And, in closing:

To: Hollywood

From: A.O.S. & M.D.

Yes, green is good. But there is no ecological benefit in recycling intellectual properties or in treating pop-culture treasures like so much scrap material. Let us read our comic books and watch our DVDs of old movies and television shows and try to capture our imaginations with something new. So, enough with the serial killers (unless you’re David Fincher); period dramas; movies in which children die or are endangered; (bad) literary adaptations; superhero epics; tween-pop exploitation vehicles; scenes with bubble-breasted women working the pole in strip clubs; shady ladies with hearts of gold; Google Earth-like zoom-ins of the world; sensitive Nazis; sexy Nazis; Nazis period; dysfunctional families; dysfunctional families with guns; suburban ennui; suburban ennui with guns; wisecracking teenagers; loser dudes scoring with hot women who would never give them the time of day even if they were drunk out of their minds or too young to know any better (hello, Judd Apatow!); feature films that should have been sketch comedy routines; shopping montages; makeover montages; bromances (unless the guys get it on with each other); flopping penises; spray-on tans; Kate Hudson; PG-13 horror remakes; or anything that uses any of the “classic” songs that we are sick of hearing. What’s left? We don’t know. Isn’t that your job?

Funny about the David Fincher comment ... haven't we heard that before? At least once? And the "classic songs" comment, too?

Really, the whole final memo is pretty close to perfect. But where's the complaint about sports movies?

Birthday FAIL

I was gonna wish one of my favorite channels a happy 15th ...


... until I saw the junk it's showing showing tonight in (supposed) celebration.

I know GWTW is considered great and all, but couldn't TCM have picked another one -- ANY one -- off its list of 15 Most Influential Classic Movies? It's just tough to justify spending four hours on a piece of soapy 1930s melodrama.

Ugh. This is why I don't like birthdays.

Oscar winners go to J-school

Non-journalists might not find this amusing, but I did*.

*And not in a snobby, they-don't-know-what-they're-talking-about way. It's just funny to hear actors speak seriously about something so close to you. Would make anyone go, "Well yeah, but ..."



P.S. Looks like I've been going to the wrong 4 o'clock meetings ...

Hail to the Rooster!

So they can't much fly, but there's something about roosters in the air right now. You'll see why in a moment.

(Photo credit to one of The Film Official's operatives, at a recent arts fair.)


Really, don't underestimate this male bird's significance. For, a rooster is ...

A killer (moderate pun intended) song:



A bringer of luck, at least to one character in this book I'm reading:


A player in a confounding riddle:



... and -- and, ya know, this is where the whole "film" thing comes in -- the name of a character in (reportedly) the Coen Brothers' next film*:

*Next, after this one, coming in '09.


Now, for sake of full disclosure -- and I'm hoping this doesn't prompt the revocation of my Film Nerd Card: I haven't seen the original True Grit. Just not a John Wayne* guy. Love the dude's (or, I guess, The Duke's) airport, though.

*His real name was Marion Morrison? How did I not know this?

Don't do it! It's not worth it!

So there's word out there that a near-finished version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has leaked onto the Internet or something.

Apparently, 20th Century Fox is paying attention.

Now, create a hypothetical in which you download this thing, and then the feds come to your door and bust you for ... downloading X-Men Origins: Wolverine. How hard would the agents laugh at you for going to jail over stealing that movie? It would be like that scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin where Cal discovers the poster on Andy's wall.

"You framed an Asia poster? How hard did the people at the frame store laugh when you brought this in?"



It'd be the modern-day equivalent of Jean Valjean getting jailed for swiping a loaf of bread. I mean, dude's gotta feed his family, but when that loaf's gone ... he's gotta get more, right? Eventually you're gonna get nailed, so you might as well not even try the first time.

So yeah, Wolver-ophiles, I know Hugh is really Jackmaned in his new movie. But seriously -- wait for its theatrical release. In the meantime, screenshots will have to do the trick.

Mad as hell ...

It's easy to get angry these days, with the nonsensical nature of everything going on economically. Usually we keep calm until it hits us, or hits close to us. It might hit close to me soon -- the how or why need not be mentioned in this space.

So I'm taking a brief respite from critique, and getting mad. Howard Beale's "I'm as mad as hell" rant is usually the go-to angry movie bit, and for good reason. I prefer this scene (NSFW):





It doesn't change things, this bit from Falling Down. But here's hoping it can make us feel better, at least for three minutes.