The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is a really great comic book that's about to be made into an ongoing serial on AMC.

I haven't read comic books in years. When I was a kid I used to collect them religiously. There are currently boxes upon boxes of comic books stacked in my mother's garage, each comic book individually wrapped in plastic with cardboard backing. Most of the Marvel and DC comics from my childhood are essentially worthless. When my friends and I were collecting we thought that our comics would someday be worth as much as the comics from the '40s, '50s and '60s, which is to say, a lot. But, thanks to mass-mass production that will probably never be the case.

Anyway, The Walking Dead is a lot of fun. Conceptually, it's great. The dialogue is often tedious and the characterizations are sometimes one-dimensional (classic traits of comic book writing) but after a while you really get into the post-apocalyptic suffering of the characters; the pace with which the characters come and go is...strangely refreshing. Most serials seem loathe to kill off characters here or there - but to see a story line in which even the most central characters are (or could be) killed off, I find somehow entirely cathartic.

You've probably noticed that there's been a huge vampire resurgence going on for the past few years - Joss Whedon's Buffy and Alan Ball's True Blood are the most notable - but I'll take a good zombie movie/show/story any day of the week. The thing about zombie movies is that they're movies about us. I know I'm not the first to say this but zombie movies are the perfect contemporary social satire, you know, what with our mass consumer liberal democracy and all. The herd mentality. I think you know where I'm going with this. The horror of a good zombie movie is the horror of ourselves. It's a beautiful (and very funny) thing when done well.

And so to celebrate zombies, an impromptu top 4 zombie movie list (in reverse!):

4) Dawn of the Dead (original), George Romero: His best film.

3) Mean Girls, Mark Waters: This is the best zombie-movie-that's-not-a-zombie-movie I've ever seen. Brilliant!

2) 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle: Overall, this might be the best zombie movie (even though technically I think you could make the case this is a virus film and not a zombie film at all but...)...it's certainly the best movie movie of

any of them...

1) Dawn of the Dead (remake), Zack Snyder: The

first five minutes of this film are outrageously scary and

phenomenal...the most authentic representation of what the first few minutes of a zombie outbreak would really be like.

Goodbye, Michael Jackson...Hello, Miko Brando!!!

Though we've recently lost pop-sensation Michael Jackson, we have gained a new celebrity: Miko Brando. Every time I turned on the TV last week Miko Brando was on Larry King Live wearing a different colored Hawaiian shirt. I'm sort of as stunned by Miko Brando's existence as I was by Michael Jackson's death. Actually, that's not true. When my friend M called to tell me Michael Jackson died I thought, "Oh, yeah, well, that kind of makes sense." Not that I wanted Michael to die or was pleased to hear of his death but it just kind of made sense from an objective/biographical stand-point (I mean, this is a guy whose public persona had gotten so out-of-control and unpredictable that he, really, could have done anything and it would have finally seemed somewhat normal in the overall narrative of "Michael Jackson").

But, nothing could have prepared me for the emergence of Miko Brando. My first thought was: "What? This guy looks like a Pacific Islander who just returned to port from a twenty year bender at sea (and who was maybe raised by a coconut)." But, that being said, he seems like a really sweet guy. Listening to him talk about his intimate, decades-long relationship with Michael, I started thinking about the world of celebrity children who are members of the world's uber-elite thanks to their parent's immense wealth, connections etc. I mean, what has Miko Brando's life been like? I could be totally wrong but I imagined him losing his virginity at age 9 (to neighbor/family-friend Liza Minelli), drug-addiction at age 10, a garage-full of multi-colored Lamborghinis at age 11, man-slaughter charges (acquitted) involving aforementioned Lamborghinis, thanksgiving dinners with Liberace, hot air balloon day-trips with Eddie Muprhy, etc. He's so rich he can go on live feeds of CNN unshaven/wearing super-expensive beach-comber/drop-out/drug addict clothing and then, not only did no one question his character, etc., but he was the main character witness guy!!! This obviously speaks to Michael Jackson's day-to-day life and just how kooky it got. Actually, I can't think of one person who took to the airwaves to speak a word about the passing of Michael Jackson who wasn't just entirely unreal and/or entirely improbable. I mean, when Charlie Rose called Quincy Jones at his home in Brussels (!?!) he sounded as if he were on his 80,000th martini/xanax/marijuana cocktail, thank you very much.

Digression: If we start counting several weeks prior to Michael Jackson there have been a string of celebrity deaths unseen in my 33 years, completely obliterating the long-held urban myth that celebrities die in 3's. Let's make a list: David Carradine, Ed Macmahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, pitchman Billy Mayes (just two days after his appearance on Conan), Steve McNair, boxer Arturo Gatti (not a household name, I know), and just yesterday
Walter Cronkite. I have a theory: This is the new norm. We've reached a particular population density which includes a rapidly growing celebrity-to-non-celebrity ratio in which it will now become normal for a "famous" person to die every day. And soon, several celebrities will be dying each hour and then, not long after that, there will be dozens of celebrity deaths per minute making it perfectly reasonable to start up a 24-hour Celebrity Obituary Cable channel complete with up-to-the-minute scrolling celebrity deaths at the bottom of the screen, a channel (and accompanying website) dedicated entirely to looking back on all those wondrous highlights that made that person's life special (actually, this seems like a perfectly reasonable cable channel). UPDATE: As if to prove my point, these celebrities have passed away since I first wrote this post: Robert McNamara, Frank McCourt, Merce Cunningham, Budd Schulberg, John Hughes, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

In any case, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of Miko Brando in the near future. At the very least, he should release a line of Miko Brando Hawaiian shirts (I'm good for like a half-a-dozen). But perhaps the most significant shift that occured because of Michael Jackson's death and the rise of Miko Brando is that not one person has mentioned father Marlon - and may never again. Someday, kids will be saying: "Have you seen Apocolypse Now? I heard Miko Brando's dad was in that."

"Oh, God!"

This is Part 1 of what I hope is an on-going series of film reviews. You know A.O. Scott's film picks at the nytimes.com?My reviews will be kind of like those where I review whatever random film I happened to have watched that week except I'm not going to record myself on video standing awkwardly in front of a wall or red velvet curtains looking like someone was about to walk in the room and decapitate me. By the way, has anyone followed A.O. Scott's physical trajectory over the past year and a half since he started doing those nytimes video shorts? When he started out he was super white and pasty with huge black bags beneath his eyes, wearing whatever wrinkled clothes happened to be lying nearest to him on the floor that morning. But within the past year someone must have stopped him in the hall at the New York Times offices and said something. I imagine the conversation went something like this:

NY Times Colleague: Hey, A.O....
A.O.: Hey, what's up?
NYTC: Hey man, awesome film review video.
A.O.: Oh, thanks man, that's really nice of you. You really liked it?
NYTC: (Pause) Yeah...it was...uh...
A.O.: What...is there something wrong?
NYTC: Uhm...no, it's just that...(looks around)...you look like shit.

Or something like that. Anyway, credit to A.O. for getting it together. Although, I have to say, I think A.O.'s shoddy appearance probably had more to do with the New York Times underestimation (and all of the newspaper business's underestimation for that matter) of people's desire/willingness to read/watch their news online. I don't think they had any idea that their little news videos would ever become a hundredth as huge as they are today. (Newspapers...we'll miss you...sort of).

Okay, back to the film review. For my first review...(drumroll)...I'd like to do "Oh, God!" Carl Reiner's 1977 film starring George Burns, John Denver and Terri Gar. Burns plays God and Denver plays the sweet supermarket manager whom he tries to convince to spread his word. Gar plays John Denver's wife who appears wearing a different super-tight pair of shorts or pants in every scene. I think this was her function in the film. They didn't even really pretend that Terri Gar was anything more than the smiling, blond tit and ass. She just was. And boy did she look great! You know, it occurred to me while I was watching this that Lisa Kudrow is basically her generation's Terri Gar - the goofy-yet-hot tall, skinny blond. (And then later that night I put on Lawrence of Arabia and thought about how Jude Law is his generation's Peter O' Toole and then I thought about how Hollywood basically operates on physical/character types which are repeated generation after generation, occasionally expanding into new types when the opportunity arises...I'm thinking, possibly, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a type-breaker, for instance....)

At the beginning of the film you think John Denver is horrible and that's why he never did any other films (besides the Muppets special) but he's actually pretty good. He's perfect for the role of a sweet, sincere everyman (who also happens to be your average non-believer...because obviously who isn't?) But the best part about this movie is the fact that it actually takes this scenario of God-returns-to-earth-to-spread-his-word-in-contemporary-America seriously. It would have been so easy to make a total farce out of this premise but they handled it really well. I was impressed.

Also, for some reason, the whole time I was watching the film I kept thinking it would be great to do a Japanese remake of it. I don't know why.

I give this movie three "YESSIR!"s. Wait, no, that's awkward. How about: I give this movie a big FAT LIP!?

No, here it is: I give "Oh, God!" a BIG SLAP ON THE NECK!!!

The Great Pacific Northwest

I really enjoyed this recent piece in the New York Review of Books, a dual review of Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy and Jon Raymond's collection of short stories Livability:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22470

Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy is, of course, the recent indie film shot and based in and around Portland, Oregon and Raymond is an author (and co-screenwriter of the film) whose short story the film was based on.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest I always felt divorced from culture. And when I say culture I mean great artists, great works of art. When I was younger I was all-too-aware that Oregon could claim no Nietzsche's, no Michelangelo's, no Proust's, no Mark Twain's, no Hemingway's as one of its own. It seemed to me that no one of cultural import ever came from the northwest and I think, for a time, I grew up suffering from a kind of regional/cultural inferiority complex.

Needless to say, I don't feel this way anymore. As Jonathan Raban points out in his NYRB article the pacific northwest is simply new to the cultural scene. Compared to the northeast, the northwest is still a teenager. Compared to Europe, we're barely out of the womb.

Great piece!

The Brothers Solomon

I feel pretty comfortable saying this is the best stupid comedy I've ever seen. Also, it's the best film ever made about Donor Insemination (and I think I might be the first person to ever say that).


The trailer doesn't do it justice. This is a special movie. It's very dark, very smart and super well-shot. Starring Will Arnett and Will Forte (with Kristin Wiig), written by Will Forte, directed by Bob Odenkirk.

Grizzly Adams

This is the best boring TV show ever. I used to watch the re-runs on Sunday afternoons in the mid-eighties. I'd lie on the couch, a blanket pulled up over my legs. I don't remember ever making it through an episode without falling asleep. That's kind of incredible when you think about it. This show had a 100% narcotic effect on me.

Check out the intro, complete with back story and John Denver-esque folk theme song:



Anyway, I'm all for a film adaptation of this show. If I'm a studio producer, I'm green-lighting this project last year. I'd maybe want Spike Jonze to direct. I'd cast Russell Crowe as the lead. I think. Or is he too old for the part? I guess it depends on how you want to play it. He'd be the slightly older lead option. If you wanted to go younger you could go with...oh, I know...SETH ROGAN!!! That's totally it. You get Seth Rogan to play this benevolent outcast, surround him with the best in CGI forest animals, Sir Anthony Hopkins as the weird old Mountain Coot, write in some saucy love interest (like, you could have a young Hollywood starlette (played by...why not?...Lindsay Lohan) who's had enough of the rat race and runs away from it all but, of course, is followed by her evil agent, her drug dealer, her eighteen suitors...) and BANG! You've got yourself a really bizarre movie.

Are you with me?

The Rise And Fall of The Guy Who Played Barry Lyndon

Ryan O'Neal's has got to be one of the more tragic stories floating around Hollywood these days. I only think of it because Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon is one of my favorite films and I was just talking about it with a friend yesterday. I mean, O'Neal was once one of the elite, A-list actors who could do anything, anytime and who has since let his career go entirely and who has , apparently, in the past few years, taken to snorting crystal meth with his son.

I think you know where I'm going with this.

O'Neal's rise and fall mirrors Lyndon's own rise and fall. Do you think Ryan O'Neal ever sits down, alone, on some random weekday morning and throws on Barry Lyndon for a quick viewing? Or maybe the better question is: How many times has Ryan O'Neal watched Barry Lyndon in the last 34 years? The answer's either somewhere around 1,500 or zero. It's got to be one or the other. But maybe an even better question is: Did Kubrick cast Ryan O'Neal in the first place because he recognized in O'Neal that very same hubris that took Barry Lyndon to such high heights and, finally, to such low lows? (Actually, I think we know the answer to that.) OR...did playing the role of Barry Lyndon send Ryan O'Neal further down the path of tragedy that he may have not gone down had he instead taken a different role?

Tangent: Casting is entirely underrated. There should be an Oscar for Best Casting even though I know this would never happen because there are too many people and too many factors that go into deciding who gets to play what role. But, actually...who cares? There should totally be an Oscar for Best Casting. It's the single most underrated task when putting a film together. It's easily just as important as having a good writer, good director, etc. Think about all the mediocre scripts or mediocre films that were saved by an awesome cast and vice versa.