Buzz Break: Skull and Stallones
· The poster for Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables features something that looks like it should either be a mid-level enemy from Castlevania III or the genesis of an Ed Hardy fashion story. Click for bigger.
· Lionsgate has acquired the rights to the thriller Dibbuk Box. So it's like the first scene of A Serious Man, but feature-length?
· To no one's great surprise, a Final Destination 5 is coming.
· The classic novel A Wrinkle in Time is having a moment right now: Not only was it featured in this week's Lost, but Jeff Stockwell's been hired to adapt it into a feature.
· "I did not like The Hurt Locker," confesses Michael Moore. "It's a lazy way to make a movie, frankly. I could put you on the edge of your seat quite easily, and have you feel the tension for 2 hours." That's how I felt during Canadian Bacon!
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Comments
Michael Moore meant to say "toilet seat", didn't he?
That Expendables poster is aimed at its target audience with laser-sighted perfection.
If you don't like chrome skulls surrounded by M-16s and Bowie knives, you won't like The Expendables. (I'll see you there opening weekend!)
I predict that will be among the best-selling logos at Sturgis this year. I need to find a good silk-screen company, and where to buy do-rags by the gross.
If you didn't get the chance to see it in the theaters, you can now view it in the privacy of your very own home, boys and girls! On Tuesday morning Moore's latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, was released on DVD. It is his most important one to date. Buy it. Watch it. Organize a showing at your local library. Make sure that as many people as possible see this film. If enough of them come to realize how badly they're getting screwed by their elected representatives, there will be a revolution in this country. It's been seventy-seven years since the last one. We're long overdue.
In this new movie, Mike dots every i and crosses every t - or to the extent that that's possible in slightly over two hours. A comprehensive look at the shambles that is the American economy would require a film several months in length. It took thirty years to create this mess and it's not going to be cleaned up overnight. When the American electorate stupidly signed on to Ronald Reagan's moronic Supply Side, Trickle Down, Voo Doo Economics in 1980, we effectively sealed our fate. Back then, there were a few voices in the wilderness who were sounding the alarm: that Reaganomics was mathematically unfeasible and that we were committing a long and slow economic suicide. Those warnings went unheeded. After all, it was the Roaring Eighties, baby! Let the next generation clean up our mess!
The premise of Capitalism: A Love Story is going to be awfully hard for many of us to swallow. In essence the argument being made is that capitalism has failed. We're not merely talking about unregulated, out-of-control capitalism; were talking about capitalism PERIOD. And while it might have been a reasonable option once-upon-a-time - that is no longer the case. Our economic value system needs to be completely rethought if we are going to survive as a nation. And what are the odds of something that miraculous ever happening? About slightly less than zilch. Best of luck to us.
On whom would Jesus foreclose?
One of my favorite scenes in the film is where the theological argument against American plutocracy is made by a Catholic priest named father Richard Preston. He calls it by its rightful name: "Evil". In the DVD version, there is an extended interview with Father Dick in the "Special Features" section. That segment alone is worth the price of the ticket.
"Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth."
Jesus of Nazareth
Capitalism: A Love Story costs about twenty bucks. Trust me on this one, it's more-than-worth the price. On the DVD's box, Mary Corliss of Time magazine says, "This is Moore's magnum opus". I'm inclined to agree. Each film this guy produces somehow manages to top the previous one in importance. It almost makes one tremble to even contemplate what the subject of his next one will be. It is enlightening, disturbing and moving all at once....OH! And did I mention that it's funny, too? It's a scream! Even the music in the closing credits had me rolling on the floor - the worker's anthem, "The Internationale" sung by a lounge singer named Tony Babino in the swingingest, Las Vegas/Rat Pack style! Koo-Koo, baby!
This is the film that Michael Moore should have won the Academy Award for, and yet he didn't even get a nomination this time 'round. That's okay with me - I can't even remember the last time I watched the Oscars anyway. That award is meaningless. The thing to remember is that this is the film which will be remembered twenty years from today as the warning that was ignored. Michael Moore is a prophet. That fact will become more and more obvious as the years transpire. The economic cataclysm has barely begun.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen NY