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Through being Carl

April 20, 2010

I was surprised and saddened to read earlier today that Carl Macek passed away suddenly this past weekend.

To millions of anime (that’s Japanese animation, for the benefit of the uninitiated) fans, Macek gets credit — and, judging by several of the comments I’ve read at various online tributes, a considerable amount of abuse — for helping mainstream anime into American culture, through repackaging such series as Robotech for Western audiences. He also produced several of the English-language versions of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, including the classic My Neighbor Totoro.

My unbridled affection for Miyazaki aside, I’m not a rabid partisan of anime (or “Japanimation,” as we called it back in the day) produced for television. I grew up with such early examples of the genre as Gigantor and Speed Racer, but I always preferred the Western flavor of the animators’ art. Thus, it wasn’t his work in promoting anime that earned Carl Macek his pedestal in my mind’s hall of fame. Rather, it was one of his more obscure efforts, relatively speaking — his 1981 book, The Art of Heavy Metal, The Movie.

Regular visitors here may be aware that, in addition to this humble blog, I’m also the author of the Heavy Metal online reference page on Squidoo — one of my own more obscure efforts. So, Mr. Macek and I, although we diverged in our passion for (or indifference to, depending upon which of us you’re addressing) anime, shared a fondness for this strange little gem of an animated film that didn’t originate in Japan. (In fact, many people who are familiar with Heavy Metal don’t realize that the movie was a Canadian production, and that most of its segments were animated outside the United States.)

On the DVD release of Heavy Metal, Macek’s reading from his book serves as an audio commentary to the film. As a voice actor and narrator myself, I don’t find Macek’s dry delivery all that scintillating,  but he provided a number of interesting facts about the film that proved helpful when I compiled the Heavy Metal reference page. I consider myself forever in his debt, and I regret that we never had occasion to meet so that I could express my gratitude in person.

Thanks, Uncle Carl, wherever you are.

Categories: Celebritiana, Cinemania, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Good Reads, Teleholics Anonymous

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A shaggy dog story, in a comic vein

April 6, 2010

So…

The other day, I was chatting with the award-winning cartoonist who created the Flaming Carrot and the Mystery Men, and for whom SpongeBob SquarePants was named.

The artist said to me, “You know, now that Marvel is rebooting the X-Men movie franchise, you’d be the perfect actor to play Hank McCoy.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, you’re a rather squat and stocky individual, yet quite graceful and agile,” the artist said. “You’re also intellectual and erudite, as is Hank.”

Although flattered, I demurred. “They’d never cast a little-known voice actor in such a prominent role in a big-budget, live-action property,” I said. “That’s why Kelsey Grammer got the role in X-Men: The Last Stand.”

“Nevertheless,” reiterated the cartoonist, “if I were directing the next X-Men film, I’d cast you as Hank.”

To which I could only respond…

“I’ll never be your Beast, Bob Burden.”

Thank you! I’ll be here all week!

Categories: Aimless Riffing, Celebritiana, Cinemania, SwanStuff

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On television, everything dies

March 29, 2010

As evidence of the title of this post, I offer the following three exhibits.

Last Wednesday, Robert Culp died.

Robert Culp first became a TV star in the late 1950s as the lead in a Western series entitled Trackdown. Culp played a Texas Ranger whose job involved — as the more mentally nimble among you will already have surmised — tracking down criminals and bringing them to justice. Trackdown, which ran for two seasons, is probably less well remembered than the other Western series that spun off from it: Wanted: Dead or Alive, the show that launched Steve McQueen on his road to superstardom.

Forgettable though Trackdown was, Culp’s next series would be the stuff of TV legend. I Spy featured Culp as espionage agent Kelly Robinson, who masked his real occupation under the guise of a professional tennis player. Robinson’s fellow spy, Alexander “Scotty” Scott, played by Bill Cosby, masqueraded as Kelly’s personal trainer and coach. I Spy became the first network series to share top billing between Caucasian and African-American actors, and to portray a true partnership of peers between men of different races (even though the “I” of the show’s title was presumed to be Robinson — then again, We Spy wouldn’t have made as catchy a title).

Nearly two decades later, Culp returned to weekly TV on The Greatest American Hero, as the tough-as-nails FBI man who becomes the “handler” of a hapless superhero played by William Katt. More recently, Culp had a recurring role on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, playing the father-in-law of Ray Romano’s put-upon sportswriter. In around all of the above acting roles, Culp also built a respectable career as a director and screenwriter.

Last Thursday, At the Movies — the long-running syndicated film review program — died. (Or was canceled, which is how shows die on TV.)

It’s fair to say that At the Movies had already died three deaths before Disney pulled the plug. It died first in 1999, when Gene Siskel, the Chicago Tribune critic who originally occupied the aisle seat opposite Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, passed away from cancer. Richard Roeper — who, quite frankly, I never much cared for — replaced Siskel the following year.

The show died a second time in 2006, when Ebert’s health difficulties (originating with surgery to remove a cancerous salivary gland) escalated to the point that he could no longer appear on camera. An endless stream of guest hosts — some fine, several wretched — filled in the empty chair next to Roeper over the next couple of years.

(I will presume that most of my readers — savvy bunch that you are — already know that Ebert subsequently lost both the ability to speak and the ability to intake food and drink orally due to further complications from this surgery. Uncle Roger would want you to know, however, that he is alive and alert and continuing to write prolifically — as lead critic for the Sun-Times, on his own website, and on Twitter, where he posts with prodigious frequency.)

At the Movies suffered its third death in 2008, when Ben Mankiewicz, the Vanna White of the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, and Ben Lyons, an entertainment reporter for the E! channel whose primary qualification as a film reviewer was genetic (his father, Jeffrey Lyons — along with film historian Neal Gabler — replaced Siskel and Ebert on Sneak Previews, the PBS show S&E left in 1981 to start what evolved into At the Movies), took over for the medically unavailable Ebert and the dismissed Roeper. With the two Bens occupying the storied seats, At the Movies crashed and burned like nothing had since the Hindenburg. Disney realized its error after one grotesque season, ditching the Bens in favor of the perfectly acceptable A.O. Scott (from the New York Times) and Michael Phillips (from the Chicago Tribune), but the fatal damage had been done.

At the Movies will limp on for the remainder of this final season with Scott and Phillips at the helm. By rights, the show should have been laid mercifully to rest with poor Gene Siskel.

Finally, last Friday, 24 died.

When it exploded onto American TV in 2001, 24 was unlike anything viewers had seen before: A fictional 24-hour day that unfolded in real time, over the span of 24 hour-long episodes. (Well, “real time” in TV terms. Part of the fun was noting the many events that transpired with impossible swiftness; i.e., cross-Los Angeles car trips accomplished in 10 minutes.)

The show centered around the perfect hero for the New Millennium: Jack Bauer (played to teeth-gritting perfection by Kiefer Sutherland), a rule-bending intelligence agent employed by a super-secret federal antiterrorist unit. Bauer confronted national security crises and enemies of the state and beat, shot, tortured, and shouted them to death in the space of a single revolution of the planet. In that groundbreaking first season, Bauer saved the life of Senator David Palmer, who by Season Two had become the nation’s first African-American President — foreshadowing (and in the mind of more than one social scientist, helping to facilitate) the real-life election of Barack Obama to the White House by the end of the decade.

Jack Bauer has had seven more “really bad days” since Season One, the last of which is playing out Monday nights on FOX at this writing. It was difficult for many viewers — yours truly among them — to see how the show’s novel premise would survive repetition, but for the most part, 24 has worked. If you buy into the premise, are sufficiently forgiving to overlook continuity errors the size of Martian craters, and most importantly, get into Jack Bauer and his ever-changing supporting cast (the show’s cast turns over almost completely from one season to the next, with Bauer and tech wizard Chloe O’Brian –played by Mary Lynn Rajskub, who signed on in Season Three — the only consistent mainstays), then 24‘s seat-of-the-pants thrill-ride can prove addictive.

Now, as Jack has bellowed repeatedly (and to much-lampooned effect) over the years… “We’re running out of time!”

And so, indeed, it must be. Because on TV, everything dies eventually.

Except maybe The Simpsons.

Categories: Aimless Riffing, Celebritiana, Cinemania, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Disney, Listology, Reminiscing, Ripped From the Headlines, Teleholics Anonymous, The Swan Tunes In

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The Swan Tunes In: Justified

March 24, 2010

I’m a notoriously tough hombre to convince of anything, but after a mere two episodes, I’m ready to say this straight out…

Justified is the best show on television right now.

The words “right now” are key to the above sentence, because TV’s best drama (and, not coincidentally, another FX series), Sons of Anarchy, is presently on hiatus. When Sons returns, it will give Justified a worthy challenge. Although, the nature of things being what it is, I’m guessing that FX will work it so that Justified will have completed its first season by the time Sons resurfaces for its fourth. No point in cluttering up the schedule with too much great TV.

In one key measure, Justified already surpasses Sons of Anarchy — its focus on one exceptionally conceived character. Sons, an ensemble drama with a ginormous cast, has a boatload of players and personalities to deal with each week, and its ostensible lead character, motorcycle gang leader Jackson “Jax” Teller, is rarely the most interesting element in the show. Justified has done a terrific job of populating its supporting cast, but they’re exactly that — supporting cast. Everything hinges on the man at the center of the action (and of almost every scene): Raylan Givens, Deputy United States Marshal, played to understated perfection by Timothy Olyphant.

The character of Raylan — adapted for TV from a trio of short stories by legendary thriller scribe Elmore Leonard — is a pastiche of several disparate elements. He’s one part Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (the cop whose philosophy is “Shooting’s all right, as long as the right people get shot”), one part Dennis Weaver’s McCloud (the Stetson-wearing, smarter-than-he-looks walking anachronism), and one part Tommy Lee Jones’s relentless Sam Gerard (from the films The Fugitive and U.S. Marshals). There’s also a lot in Raylan that’s pure Elmore Leonard, especially his penchant for pithy dialogue. Leonard can be a difficult author to translate to the screen, and to television in particular, but the creative team behind Justified hits all of the right notes, at least so far.

Here’s the set-up. While posted to the Marshal Service’s Miami field office (where his cowboy hat and boots make him as inconspicuous as a McDonald’s on the moon), Raylan’s latest gunning down of a suspect earns him a swift reassignment to a faraway jurisdiction — Harlan County, Kentucky, where Raylan was born and raised. (I wondered at first why the Marshals Service would maintain a presence in this hillbilly backwater. The reason became clear in the second episode: there’s a federal prison there — the U.S. Penitentiary at Big Sandy.) Raylan is less than enthused about his new station — he’d sworn when he left Harlan that he’d never return — but he accepts his medicine with wry resignation.

Moving to Harlan reunites Raylan with an old acquaintance, no-nonsense Chief Deputy Art Mullen (Nick Searcy), and provides him a pair of junior associates, former Army Ranger Tim Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) and tightly wound Rachel Brooks (Erica Tazel). The move also places Raylan in uncomfortably close proximity to his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) and his high school girlfriend Ava (Joelle Carter), who’s since married the brother of Raylan’s childhood pal Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), now a small-time thug running a white supremacist gang. Raylan’s first case in his new/old digs brings him into conflict with Boyd, who thinks he may have an edge on his former friend, but is proven wrong. (“If you make me pull, I’ll put you down,” Raylan warns Boyd, who eventually makes him pull and gets put down, albeit not fatally.)

Justified works for two reasons. First, the writing (initially by Graham Yost, who developed the series with input from Elmore Leonard) is stellar. Second, Timothy Olyphant owns the lead role, taking a character that could veer off into shallow caricature and making him multilayered, conflicted, and believably human. Olyphant’s Raylan is no superman — he’s tough, cool, and beyond competent at what he does, but he gets outmaneuvered by the bad guys at times (even though he wins in the end) and is guilty of occasional grotesque lapses in judgment (while transporting a prisoner, Raylan lets the felon drive while he surfs the ‘Net on his iPhone, resulting in predictable misfortune). Most importantly for television, Olyphant makes Raylan compelling and likable, guaranteeing that viewers will keep tuning in to see what he does next.

(And — speaking strictly from a disinterested heterosexual male perspective, mind you — I suspect that many female audience members will find Mr. Olyphant easy on the eyes.)

Clearly, two episodes do not a Hall of Fame series make. It remains to be seen whether Olyphant, Yost and company can maintain — and continue to elevate — the high level of quality they’ve established to this point. The show is going to need to flesh out its remaining characters, who at this point are little better than names, faces, and attitudes. It also needs to find ways to keep Raylan’s off-the-job life interesting once the “hometown boy returns” storyline plays out.

But I’ll say this: I can’t recall the last time I enjoyed two hours of scripted television as much as I enjoyed the first two episodes of Justified. The creators of this show have bought themselves a ton of good will with their opening salvo. Now we’ll see whether they’ll build on it, or burn it.

Justified airs on FX Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. Your Uncle Swan gives it nine tailfeathers out of a possible ten, just in case he needs a feather to fan himself with when the action gets heated. If you like tough, hard-boiled drama, you should check it out.

(Caveat: As FX’s series often do, Justified pushes the envelope of adult content — language, violence, etc. — as far as basic cable and the FCC will permit. You’ve been warned.)

Categories: Celebritiana, Cinemania, Sexiest People Alive, Teleholics Anonymous, The Swan Tunes In

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The Two Coreys: Now with 50% less Corey

March 10, 2010

The subhead on the San Francisco Chronicle‘s SF Gate home page got it wrong about Corey Haim.

According to the Chron, “The 1980s teen star of Lost Boys and Lucas struggled with drugs as an adult.”

That’s exactly backward. Corey Haim didn’t struggle with drugs. He struggled to be without drugs. Apparently, he lost.

The Associated Press obituary offers a telling quote Haim gave to the British tabloid The Sun in a 2004 interview:

I was working on Lost Boys when I smoked my first joint. I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack.

Dude… cocaine and crack are the same thing. That’s like saying, “I used to drink water, then I switched to melted ice.” No wonder you couldn’t quit.

One wishes that it were possible to say that Haim’s passing comes as a shock. Sadly, the real shock is that he survived this long. Or perhaps that the other Corey, Feldman, didn’t do himself in first. (At last check, Corey Feldman still lives. But keep watching this space, just in case.)

In the climactic scene in Haim’s best-known film, The Lost Boys, lead vampire Max (played by Edward Herrmann) tells Haim’s character, “Don’t ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.”

Corey Haim invited the vampire into his house, and in the end, it rendered him powerless.

Categories: Celebritiana, Cinemania, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Ripped From the Headlines

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What it was, was Oscar

March 8, 2010

Congratulations! We survived another Oscarcast. Observations follow.

At least it wasn’t Ray Milland and Rosey Grier: The two-headed host — Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin — turned out to be a dreadful idea. Not because either was terrible, but because they simply didn’t work smoothly and effectively together. I don’t know whether Martin and Baldwin were poorly rehearsed, or just suffering from awkward chemistry. One host or the other would have been adequate, if not especially scintillating — Martin hosted the awards solo in 2000 and 2002, in not-particularly-memorable fashion — but the combination fell flat.

The sound of one man yawning: None of the major awards turned out to be a huge surprise, unless you really thought the Academy was going to pass up a chance to stick it to notoriously unpopular James “King of the World” Cameron by honoring his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow and her magnum opus. The favorites in each of the big categories triumphed.

Double the displeasure: Expanding the Best Picture category to ten nominees was, as expected, a pointless drag on the production. No one really thought that there were more than five real contenders; namely, the films represented in the Best Director category — the victorious The Hurt Locker, Avatar, and dark horses Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air. Padding the show with twice as many introductory film clips merely took up air space.

Up with people: In a refreshing change, all four of the acting winners gave engaging, entertaining speeches. (I can’t prove it with verified test results, but I suspect that Jeff Bridges’s Dude-esque ramble may have been… what shall we say… chemically enhanced.) Equally refreshing, all four were people that most viewers would be glad to see win.

Sore loser: Quentin Tarantino, who looked as though Kathryn Bigelow had vomited in his lap when she won Best Director and he didn’t. I dig your films, QT, but your sportsmanship sucks.

Spare me the song and dance: We didn’t have to sit through performances of each of the Best Song hopefuls this year. A welcome omission, because seriously, when was the last time all five of the nominated songs were actually good? On the other hand, someone thought it made sense to stage an elaborate interpretive dance number incorporating music from the Original Score nominees. (Funny, I didn’t realize there was breakdancing in Sherlock Holmes.) Redeeming the moment, winning composer Michael Giacchino (Up) gave one of the night’s best acceptance speeches, encouraging young people to pursue their creative impulses and not allow naysayers to convince them that they’re wasting their time.

Didn’t work: The trend, continued from last year’s Oscarcast, of having each of the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees regaled with a speech by another celebrity. With the rare exception of an unexpected star turn by someone like Oprah Winfrey (who feted Gabourey Sidibe, nominated for Precious), these fawning tributes only serve to make both audience and nominees uncomfortable.

Worked, in kind of an off-kilter way: The tribute to recently deceased writer-director John Hughes, which culminated in the appearance onstage of numerous actors and actresses who became stars via Hughes’s legendary run of hit films in the 1980s. Cool to see these folks together in one place, but man… are we all getting old, or what?

Speaking of getting old: I understand why they do it, but I grow annoyed with the increasing insertion into the Oscarcast of no-talent young stars with no genuine cinematic credibility (i.e., the ubiquitous Miley Cyrus), just to draw in the teen audience. Uncle Oscar says: Get off my lawn, you meddling kids.

The death of me: I’m always curious to see who gets tagged with what I call the “Dead People Gig,” introducing the memorial segment honoring movie folks who’ve shuffled off this mortal coil since the last Oscar ceremony. This year, it was Demi Moore pulling double-death duty (she was also one of the participants in the John Hughes tribute). James Taylor performed an acoustic rendition of “In My Life” while the clips rolled. For once, there was no moment of shock generated by the appearance of someone I didn’t know had died. Interestingly, Michael Jackson — whose filmography consists basically of The Wiz — made the cut, while Farrah Fawcett — mostly known for TV work, but she did make several films, including such “classics” as Logan’s Run and Saturn 3 — missed.

Fashion forward: Oscars 2010 proved rather low-key on the sartorial front. Understated glamour was the norm this year, so there were fewer what in the name of Vera Wang was THAT? moments on the red carpet than at previous Oscarcasts. The most egregious offenders were Sarah Jessica Parker, whose strapless gown came equipped with an enormous silver breastplate that resembled a leftover centerpiece from an office Christmas party, and Charlize Theron, wearing what looked like two pink-frosted cinnamon rolls stuck to her bosom. Best-dressed of the evening included several of the usual suspects — Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, and Queen Latifah. Jennifer Lopez’s lovely pink dress would have gained high honors, if not for its ridiculous train. Likewise, Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock lost points for her garish lipstick.

The voice of choice: As she did last year, voice actress Gina Tuttle contributed a pleasant and unobtrusive announcing job. And if Gina ever gets tired of that gig, Oscar producers… I’m in the book.

Categories: Aimless Riffing, Celebritiana, Cinemania, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Listology, Ripped From the Headlines, Sexiest People Alive, Teleholics Anonymous, The Swan Tunes In

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Oscar roulette

February 2, 2010

I’m not sure yet how I feel about the expanded field of Best Picture nominees for this year’s Academy Awards.

On the one hand, I realize this is nothing new from a historical perspective. The top Oscar category was similarly sized for a dozen years in the early days of the awards, from 1931 to 1943. It wasn’t until the 17th series of honors, in 1944, that the Best Picture field was trimmed to its more familiar five. So, in a way, this year’s 10 nominated films represent a return to Oscar’s glorious past.

I also acknowledge that the larger number of nominated films permits the Academy to spotlight smaller, less-viewed pictures that merit wider appreciation, such as the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man and the Nick Hornby-scripted An Education. There’s something to be said for Oscar not making its usual schizophrenic divide between the big-budget spectacular and the more intimate arthouse picture. The rising nomination tsunami is sufficiently voluminous to lift twice as many boats.

And, thankfully, there’s no longer the ghettoization of genre films (i.e., the sci-fi allegory District 9) or animated features (i.e., Disney/Pixar’s marvelous Up, only the second animated film in 82 years to vie for Best Picture) to the technical categories. Now, these films can stand alongside the “big boys” when the year’s top motion picture achievements are saluted.

Still, however, I find myself looking at the list of nominated films in much the same vein as I review the field for the Kentucky Derby every May. In truth, there are only a handful of horses in the race with genuine winning potential. All the rest are merely there to fill out the Racing Form. No one seriously looks at the ten Oscar-nominated pictures and believes that more than three or four of them have even a prayer of hauling down the big prize. The rest are like coaches of color getting token Rooney Rule interviews for an NFL head coaching position, when the team has already decided to hire a white guy.

Some might opine that a token nomination is better than none. Maybe they’re right.

In the end, the nominees will have to puzzle that out for themselves.

Categories: Aimless Riffing, Celebritiana, Cinemania, Disney, Ripped From the Headlines

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Globetrotting

January 18, 2010

Yes, the clatter of keys you heard during last night’s Golden Globe Awards telecast was indeed yours truly typing notes. What follows represents my more cogent observations. (Lucky for you I edit out the blather.)

Ricky Gervais as host: Fail. Ye gods, man — penis jokes and endless plugs for your own DVD box set? How old are you? I usually find Gervais pretty funny, but this may have been the most excruciating awards show hosting job since David Letterman’s infamous “Oprah… Uma” turn at the Oscars. A little bit of I-don’t-give-a-fig shtick from a comic is okay, but not when said comic clearly doesn’t give a fig, for real.

Feel-good moment: Mo’Nique’s acceptance speech. Coming from someone who will probably never win another acting award in this lifetime, the happiness seemed genuine and heartfelt.

Winner who looked terrific when she usually doesn’t: Toni Collette. She should wear that same gold dress to every occasion, forever. Has anyone actually seen the show for which she won?

And the Miss Nepotism trophy goes to: Alfre Woodard’s daughter, Mavis Spencer. Every year at the Globes, the daughter (and 0n rare occasion, the son) of some well-known show biz personality gets assigned the task of handing the awards to the presenters, so they can in turn hand them to the victors. Past trophy-toters have included such future stars in their own right as Laura Dern, Joely Fisher, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Rumer Willis, who did the honors last year.

Making my daughter the Dexter fanatic giddy: Wins for Michael C. Hall and John Lithgow, from said series. Hall rocks a black knit cap, having recently lost his hair to chemotherapy.

Grizzly Adams sighting: No, wait, that’s William Hurt.

Funniest line of the night: Sir Paul McCartney, referring to himself as “that guy from Rock Band.” Good on ya, Macca. Sir Paul’s crack about animation being “not just for children, but also for adults who take drugs” was a close runner-up.

And the band played off: I love both Meryl Streep (Best Actress in a Comedy for Julie and Julia) and Pete Docter (director of Best Animated Feature winner UP!), but please, people, know when to shut up.

One ramble that worked: Robert Downey, Jr. (Best Actor in a Drama for Sherlock Holmes), who admitted that he didn’t prepare a speech because his wife “said Matt Damon would win.”

Put. The Ambien. Down.: That would be you, Harrison Ford. Are we keeping you up, grandpa? Or would just a little hint of enthusiasm kill you? By the way, your date needs a Double-Double from In-N-Out Burger on the way home.

Star whose attire came closest to a superhero costume: Drew Barrymore. Unfortunately, the superhero Drew channels is Maggott from the X-Men comics. Whose idea was it to sew gigantic leeches onto Drew’s dress? At least this year, she wore underwear.

Winner whose name will give the engraver the biggest chuckle: T-Bone Burnett (Best Original Song). I propose that every year, there should be at least one nominee named after a cut of beef.

Speaking of meat: Kevin Bacon wins.

I don’t want to be in the front row: When Gerard Butler is on stage. I’m afraid he’ll get spit all over me.

The only cat in America who can still rock velvet: Samuel L. Jackson. You go on with your bad self, Sam. Just stay off airplanes.

What is best in life: The Governator being assigned to introduce clips from a movie whose title he can’t pronounce. That “Ahbeedah” looks like a pretty good flick, though.

Winner who looked awful when she usually looks… well… awful: Chloe Sevigny. Don’t blame your escort, Chloe — given the chance, I’d have stomped on that hideous, oatmeal-hued monstrosity of a gown too. You’d have done better if you’d borrowed one of your fundie-Mormon frocks from the Big Love wardrobe department. You’re a fantastic actress, but hire a stylist.

Aw, yeah: Halle Berry. Can she just stand there for the entire show?

Lifetime Achievement Award: Martin Scorsese. I’m not a huge fan of his films — the only Scorsese pictures I really liked were After Hours and The Color of Money — but he’s a monumental directing talent who also seems like a genuinely nice man. James Cameron will never win one of these awards, because he’s an obnoxious, pompous jerk (or so I’m told by people who’ve worked on his set).

Cleans up nicely when she’s of a mind to: Jodie Foster.

Surprise of the night (at least to me): Glee wins for Best TV Comedy. Excellent show, and deserving, but not the sort of thing that usually wins awards (***cough***Mad Men***cough***).

Wondering out loud: How shallow is the nominee pool this year if Sandra Bullock wins an acting award?

The wrong guy to give an award after three hours of sitting at a table drinking: Jeff Bridges. ‘Nuff said.

The wrong guy to give an award, ever: James Cameron. And I say that as someone who, for the most part, enjoys his films — with the exception of Titanic, which apart from Kate Winslet is nearly unwatchable. Giving him honors, however, just encourages his egomania.

Oh, by the way, Jim: It’s the talented women who age well. The skeletal blondes, not so much.

Categories: Aimless Riffing, Celebritiana, Cinemania, Listology, Ripped From the Headlines, Sexiest People Alive, Teleholics Anonymous

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Ding dong, the Wolf Man’s dead

December 2, 2009

If you can tear yourselves away from the latest Tiger Woods update for just a moment, I have a real tragedy to report.

Paul Naschy has passed on.

Who’s Paul Naschy? you ask. Permit me to enlighten you, friend reader.

Paul Naschy was a cult filmmaker from Spain. (His real name was Jacinto Molina, which sounds more like a baseball player than a movie star.) For most of his lengthy career, Naschy acted in horror films, many of which he wrote or directed or both. Due to his performances as many of the classic monsters of cinema, he was nicknamed “the Spanish Lon Chaney.” And like the junior of the two American actors by that name, Naschy was most famous for portraying a werewolf on screen.

Beginning with his 1968 film The Mark of the Wolf Man (La Marca del Hombre Lobo), Naschy created his signature character, the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. (Naschy made his antihero Polish because the government cinema censors of the day would not sanction films that showed Spanish characters engaging in violent behavior.) Naschy would assume the Daninsky role a dozen times over the next 35 years, in movies that for the most part had little if anything to do with one another, save for Naschy/Daninsky himself. He finally retired the character in an American production, Tomb of the Werewolf, directed by another notorious schlockmeister, Fred Olen Ray.

In addition to his Wolf Man series, Naschy starred in dozens of other movies, almost all of them in the horror or crime genres. Unfortunately, most of Naschy’s oeuvre — at least the handful of examples I’ve seen — is pretty poor by any objective standard. In fairness, we’re talking about films that were being made on budgets smaller than our monthly cable bill. Still, it doesn’t take all that much viewing to figure out that as filmmakers go, Naschy was immeasurably closer to Ed Wood than to Orson Welles.

During my tenure as a film critic for DVD Verdict, I once landed the unfortunate assignment of reviewing a Naschy opus — 1973’s Curse of the Devil (titled El retorno de Walpurgis in its original Spanish release). I don’t know what the devil had against me that he cursed me with watching this incoherent monstrosity, but if you follow the magic link, you can share my agony. Because misery loves company.

Or is that Missouri? I forget.

Anyway…

Whatever his failings as a cinematic genius, Naschy boasted a devoted fan base that salivated over every ghastly frame of celluloid in which he appeared. The strong-stomached among you may wish to check out The Mark of Naschy, a thorough and surprisingly well-appointed shrine dedicated to the man and his legacy.

Make sure your sidearm is loaded with silver bullets.

Categories: Celebritiana, Cinemania, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, Ripped From the Headlines

Comments: 1 Comment

What’s Up With That? #83: Cap’n Jack bests Cap’n Swan… again

November 18, 2009

For the umpteenth consecutive year, the editorial staff of People Magazine has seen fit to deny me my rightful title of Sexiest Man Alive.

Instead, they picked Johnny Depp again.

This seems a rather pointless exercise. Most of the women I know already think Johnny Depp is, if not the Sexiest Man Alive, at least somewhere in the top ten. The same goes for George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who are the other two gents who’ve double-dipped People‘s loftiest honor.

Why not tell the world something they don’t yet know, People?

After all, I too can talk like a pirate.

Sigh. Maybe next year.

Categories: Aimless Riffing, Celebritiana, Cinemania, Hero of the Day, Ripped From the Headlines, Sexiest People Alive, Taking Umbrage, Talk Like a Pirate Day, What's Up With That?

Comments: 4 Comments

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