Tech geeks, Mexican mercenaries & Beat poets

Hi folks - Sorry that I neglected you last week and have taken so long to get this out this week; still recovering from the holidays, I guess. There's not much out today, so it works out that I can catch you up on last week's stuff. Happy New Year and let's dive right in.

I'll start with dramas and the big title for today is 'The Social Network', the new film from director David Fincher ('Seven', 'Zodiac') and writer Aaron Sorkin ('West Wing') about the founding of Facebook. Fascinating as that sounds and no matter how much I love David Fincher, I can't say I was all that thrilled about watching it. However, it's clear that it's going to win a million Oscars and everyone's going to ask me about it, so I bit the bullet and watched it the other day. I will admit that it's a really well-made film. It looks great, it sounds great and they somehow made a film about white collar lawsuit depositions interesting. Jesse Eisenberg ('Adventureland', 'Zombieland') really nails Facebook founder (and world's youngest billionaire) Mark Zuckerberg's mannerisms and delivery and Justin Timberlake is suitably sleazy as Napster founder Sean Parker. So it's a great film and will win loads of awards, but it still made me feel really bad afterward. The vast majority of the people portrayed in this film are really horrible to spend any time with. They're brilliant but they're too young and too socially inept to wield the power they have responsibly and consequently they just treat each other really badly (hence all the lawsuits). My business partner loves Aaron Sorkin, so he'll probably love the snappy dialogue, but to me it's like 'His Girl Friday' but without any humor. I just wanted them to please.stop.talking for.just.one.minute. It did make me glad that I didn't get into Harvard because the film makes it look like a terrible place. My boyfriend, who's a computer engineer and co-founder of an internet startup, enjoyed the film a lot more than I did as I think that he could relate to everyone a bit more. He says they got all of the technical stuff right as well as really captured the atmosphere and vocabulary of that scene. I also think that anyone under the age of 30 will love it since it'll probably speak to them more than me. Last week's biggest drama was the Alan Ginsberg biopic 'Howl' starring it-boy James Franco and directed by local documentarians Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman ('Times of Harvey Milk', 'Celluloid Closet'). I haven't seen this one yet, but one thing I do know is that Ginsberg was never as handsome as Franco. On the other hand, judging by Franco's recent literary work, he will never be as deep or poetic as Ginsberg. The critics reviews were generally favorable, but customer reviews have been less generous. The last drama of the week is 'Touching Home', a locally produced film about family and baseball. It stars Ed Harris ('Pollack'), Robert Forster ('Jackie Brown'), Brad Dourif ('Cuckoo's Nest', 'My Son, My Son...') and the Logan Brothers in their acting and directorial debut. Not sure how these twin brothers got so many stars to be in their debut film, but there must be something there. They play brothers who are trying to make it in the big leagues while managing their homeless, alcoholic father (Harris). It says that it's based on a true story.

Onto comedies and last week's 'Dinner for Schmucks' starring Steve Carrell ('The Office', '40 Year Old Virgin') and Paul Rudd ('I Love You, Man', 'Role Models') and directed by Jay Roach ('Austin Powers', 'Meet the Parents'). Rudd plays his standard 'nice guy with poor decision-making skills' character. He's a businessman who decides to play along with his boss' questionable behavior in order to win favor. The executives have a monthly dinner where they all compete with each other to invite the most pathetic/idiotic/laughable/outrageous guest so they can mock them. Despite Rudd's character's reluctance to participate in such a contemptible activity, he assents when he encounters Carrell's character, an accident-prone and socially inept IRS employee. The film is a remake of the 1998 French film 'The Dinner Game which is supposed to be hilarious. I haven't seen this one yet, so I have no idea if it lives up to that standard. The other comedy is a new stand-up concert film from Louis CK, 'Hilarious'. Thankfully, Louis CK is finally getting the attention he deserves. He was a longtime writer for Chris Rock both on his TV show and in his films. He also wrote for Conan and has starred in two TV shows ('Lucky Louie' & 'Louie'). His current show, 'Louie' is airing on FX and is a big hit, so now people are finally paying attention. He's a comedian's comedian. This concert film is sure to be filthy and disturbing and hilarious.

Onto TV and the fourth season of HBO's polygamy drama 'Big Love'. I've just started watching this show after some ambivalence and have been really enjoying it. I wouldn't put it in the class of some of the other great HBO dramas, but I think it's interesting because it seems to give a relatively non-judgmental view of the fundamentalist polygamist Mormon communities. It's really just a family soap opera - lots of sex and drama and underhanded business deals - but with multiple wives, fistfuls of Viagra and loads of children. Interestingly, one of the show's writers is Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black ('Milk') who grew up Mormon and had to deal with the consequences of being honest about his sexuality in the religion. Check it out if you haven't. HBO's 'The Ricky Gervais Show' is a real treat and relies completely on the personalities of its stars. The show is basically just an animated version of Gervais' legendary podcasts with collaborator Steven Merchant and producer Karl Pinkerton (Merchant and Gervais are responsible for 'The Office'). The podcasts in question are famous for being the most downloaded podcasts of all time and for good reason. Pinkerton is a kind of plain speaking everyman type who comes up with the most amazing, forthright and hilarious stories on any topic presented to him. He speaks in a very matter-of-fact way about things that are absolutely outrageous while Merchant and Gervais cackle in the background. In the UK, Pinkerton has a series of books dropping pearls of wisdom about life and the world. Here's your chance to sit at his knee and collect them firsthand. The animation is simplistic, basically just a representation of the three of them sitting around a table or showing Karl re-enacting the stories he tells, but the real draw here is the banter between the three. Genius.

Only one documentary this week, 'Catfish', but it's being sold as a 'Blair Witch Project' style thriller. The filmmakers decide to make a documentary about their relatively uninteresting brother who strikes up a Facebook friendship with an 8 year old aspiring artist in Michigan. She sends him paintings of his photographs and he corresponds with her in return. Soon enough he's chatting with the girl's mother and older sister who also start sending him paintings. Things get steamy with the older sister and a relationship blooms. Despite their near constant contact via Facebook, instant messaging, phone calls and photo exchanges, our hero starts to believe that the family isn't what it claims to be. The whole gang decides to get in a car and go see for themselves what's really going on. All of the promotional material for the film sells it as a there's-evil-in-them-there-woods revelation when the filmmakers arrive in Michigan, but it's really nothing of the sort. It's more 'Grey Gardens' than 'Blair Witch'. I won't spoil any surprises, but you should go into the film thinking of it as a family drama played out via social networking rather than a horror movie. I thought it was pretty unremarkable because I can't really imagine anyone being surprised in this day and age when someone isn't who they claim to be online.

Onto action and horror... My favorite of the batch (and really the only one I've seen) is Robert Rodriguez' ('Sin City', 'Spy Kids') new film 'Machete'. 'Machete' first existed as a fake film trailered on Rodriguez' entry in Tarantino's 'Grindhouse' series, 'Planet Terror'. Rodriguez always planned on developing it into a real film as a vehicle for star Danny Trejo. The film garnered some publicity and notoriety when a trailer was released for it in the Spring depicting it as "a special Cinco de Mayo message to Arizona" followed by scenes of the Mexican federale Machete mowing down supposed anti-immigration Arizonans. In truth, the film isn't really about that, takes place in Texas and Rodriguez admitted the trailer was a provocation and a joke in response to the heated rhetoric at the time in Arizona. In the real film, Trejo plays a tough-as-nails federale nicknamed Machete who is forced to flee to the US after his family is murdered by an evil drug lord (played by an aging and be-wigged Steven Seagal). Machete is then hired to kill an anti-immigration politician (Robert DeNiro enjoying himself), but he quickly learns that the whole thing is a double cross and a stunt to make Mexicans look bad. In revenge, he teams up with a local underground immigrant rights leader played by the spectacularly sexy Michelle Rodriguez ('Lost', 'Girlfight') in black leather pants, bra and eye patch and his brother the priest played by Cheech Marin.

Lots and lots and lots of people get shot, especially rednecks and evil villains and very many limbs get hacked off by Machete's various knives. I can't remember the last time I saw someone swing out a window on an intestine, but there's always a first time for everything. That should serve as a warning that this isn't for everyone, but it really is a very entertaining ride. The other action film, 'Piranha', is also a schlock-fest . If ever a film wasn't screaming out to be remade, it was 1978's 'Piranha', but with the current 3D obsession I guess they felt they should start with remaking things that were in 3D back in the day. Somehow they managed to get a nice batch of B List stars for this very C List film - Richard Dreyfuss reliving his 'Jaws' role, Ving Rhames, Elisabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd & Jerry O'Connell all fell for this siren song. You know what you're getting here - girls in bikinis getting eaten by fish. If that sounds good to you, go crazy. The two horror films of the week are 'The Last Exorcist' and 'Case 39'. 'Case 39' may represent that last dying embers of Renee Zellweger's career. I mean really, what happened Bridget Jones? Zellweger plays a social worker who saves a girl from her meanie parents only to discover that maybe the little girl was the meanie after all. Your standard evil little demon girl movie. Also has Ian McShane ('Deadwood') and Bradley Cooper ('The Hangover') in it. 'The Last Exorcism' is yet another evil little demon girl movie. This one is a fake documentary about a disillusioned exorcist who decides to participate in the film to uncover his profession's fraudulence. Unfortunately, this time they've got a live one - this little girl is pregnant with a demon's baby and he's not giving up easily. Lots of horrible things happen and people die in miserable ways. You'll have to watch it to find out if the priest or the demon wins.

The last thing to mention today is one glorious little foreign film. 'Alamar' is a beautiful Mexican film that played at SF International Film Festival this year. It's the story of a man spending the last few days with his son before he leaves the country with his mother. The father hopes to pass onto his son his love for and knowledge of the sea and fishing. It's not just skills that are being passed on but a way of life and a connection with nature. The movie was filmed on the Mexican Carribean in the Mayan fishing villages of the Banco Chinchorro (one of the largest coral reefs in the world). Director Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio is a documentarian, so the film has a real authenticity to it. The perfect antidote to a cold winter day. Please watch.

OK, that's it for this week. Apologies again for the delay. Hope there's something here to tempt you.

Posted By: Christy Colcord (Email) | January 13 2011 at 06:00 AM