From Flow to Flames, Criterion Turns It Up to 11

Wowza this month flew by -- it feels like just yesterday we were speaking upon the movies that Criterion is dropping this upcoming August and now here's their September batch now upon us! I suppose we did have the announcement of their glorious and gorgeous Wes Anderson box-set in between -- that's a September release too, landing at the end of the month on the 30th. September is loaded to the gills though -- on top of all that Anderson (which also includes individual releases for Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch) there are six more titles being unloaded. I guess they know people are starting their holiday shopping right about then? Aaaanyway let's get into it -- first up there's a Jacques Audiard movie I've yet to see, his 2001 movie Read My Lips starring Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Devos. He's an ex-con who gets hired as her assistant and who drags her into some sort of Noir-ish scheme -- I am down. I was down as sort as I saw Vincent with a mustache honestly. But speaking of sexy men in Audiard movies...

... we're also getting his 2005 movie The Beat That My Heart Skipped sdtarring prime Romain Duris as a pianist (I said pianist!) whose own shady pops is trying to drag him downward. I have seen this one and it's grand -- def recommended. You know the Emilia Perez shit aside (granted a big aside) Audiard is extremely talented and I hope he can move on to less contentious things next. It'll be nice to look upon some of these older works and remind ourselves of that.

Next up I am amusing myself by putting these two polar opposite movies beside one another -- on September 16th they're dropping Lizzie Borden's feminist punk masterpiece Born in Flames and also on September 16th they're dropping Rob Reiner's faux rockumentary classic This is Spinal Tap -- what a fucking bizarre pairing! But I love it. Watch them back to back and blow yer minds! I have to admit if forced to choose I'd choose Borden's film, which rules -- I think Spinal Tap is fine but I prefer the later Chris Guest movies if I'm being honest. Don't haze me, please! 

And finally (besides the 4K upgrade of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low which sidenote might just be my favorite Kurosawa) we have the animated masterpiece that was last year's apocalyptic kitty cat spectacle called Flow -- this movie is wonderful, transfixing, magical, and I'm shocked how often it comes up day to day in my life? I was just talking about it two nights ago. Weird how often cat-apocalypses can be worked into basic conversation. But then these are weird times!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Waiting For Guffman (1996)

UFO Expert: I've been coming to this circle for about five years, and measuring it. The diameter and the circumference are constantly changing, but the radius stays the same. Which brings me to the number 5. There are five letters in the word Blaine. Now, if you mix up the letters in the word Blaine, mix 'em around, eventually, you'll come up with Nebali. Nebali. The name of a planet in a galaxy way, way, way... way far away. And another thing. Once you go into that circle, the weather never changes. It is always 67 degrees with a 40% chance of rain.

Classified as a 1996 movie most of the time because it played some fests that year Christopher Guest's masterpiece of loving lo-fi thesp foolishness actually came out properly in 1997 -- January 31st 1997 to be exact, making today the film's 25th anniversary! Yes, if you do the math, that makes you old. Me too! Guffman isn't my favorite Guest comedy -- my favorite will always be Best in Show -- but it's my second fave and so full of deep belly laughs it should be classified as a tummy toner. I've done several "Life Lessons" post for the film over the years, see them here, but today I was struck by this WTF random David Cross scene, which I always forget about until it's happening. Good stuff! Do we think Chris Guest will ever reunite the team and make another one of these? (Please say yes.) 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Waiting For Guffman (1996)

Libby Mae: What New York really is, is it's an island,

with lots of people, lots of different people... I hope

to maybe meet some guys, some Italian guys,

and maybe watch some TV.

Happy birthday, Parker Posey!

On Stage Everybody Can Hear You Scream

I don't think it's possible to write a review of the joyously lo-fi SXSW doc Alien on Stage without name-dropping Christopher Guest's classic 1996 comedy Waiting For Guffman, and that's okay -- if you're gonna be in forced company you might as well do it with a classic. Alien on Stage is exactly what the title tells you it's gonna be -- it tells the story of a bunch of people transferring Ridley Scott's 1979 film, yes the one with Ripley and the face-huggers, to the stage. In this case the people are a bunch of small-town British bus drivers who randomly decide that instead of doing their usual goofy amateur holiday version of Robin Hood they'll tackle something slightly (and by slightly I mean ten thousand times) more ambitious. 

They don't seem to realize how much more ambitious this'll end up being though, not until they're in the middle of the ridiculous thing with walls of props and alien costumes and fishing-line chest-bursters popping through blood-pacs, but they're all having fun with it at least... until nobody shows up. Their show is a flop. They all seem prepared and resigned to move on... but then two big city folks (Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer, the co-directors of the documentary actually) suggest they try putting on the show for one night in London, which they manage to get set up, and before you know it the whole crew's packed up their detachable heads and taken the double-decker bus to the big time.

There's no false drama here, no nastiness -- these people all seem to dig each other, enjoy one another's company, and think it's a true pip coming up with ways to channel a genuine horror classic through their plastic-tube and styrofoam aesthetic; everybody's having a blast and that feeling transfers right to you, the viewer. Nerves of course start wheedling their way in the closer the big night gets -- did somebody say that they are opening up for Joan Collins??? Oh my lord! -- but the gang's all there for one another every step of the way, and since everybody's got their bus driver routine to get back to this is not do-or-die for anybody; they wanna have fun and put on a fun show, and do they ever. I was crying tears of joy at the end of this thing, just from the sheer exuberance of it all. Good show, standing ovations for all!

Alien on Stage is screening as part of SXSW right now!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from: 

Best in Show (2000)

Scott: How tall are you?

Hotel Manager: I'm 6'4".

Stefan: I thought so. I feel

like Alan Ladd at Easter Island.

Scott: Where are you from, like

Nor... Norland? Norway?

Hotel Manager: Uh, I'm Irish-German.

Stefan: Like Robert Duvall in The Godfather. 

Scott: Bratwurst and shillelaghs. Paging Dr. Freud.

Happy 20 to Christopher Guest's greatest accomplishment, says me (and I'd know!) -- okay technically there are a couple of dates we could call its 20th anniversary, as Best in Show had its premiere on September 19th 2000, a limited release on September 29th 2000, and then went into wide release on October 20th, but I think it's possible I saw the film during its limited release here in NYC (only a couple of weeks after I'd moved here!) so I'm just gonna go with that one. If y'all want to gauge it by another date start your own blogs!

Okay I need a laugh, and I need one now.
What’s your funniest movie ever made? pic.twitter.com/KPsHbsYpT6

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 31, 2020

Anyway a couple of months ago I was desperate for laughs (hello, 2020) and tweeted out asking people for their favorite comedies -- I posted about this at the time, I am being redundant. (If you missed it though I recommend click on that tweet above, there are lots of fun recommendations.) But my point is the movie I ended up watching the second it was recommended was Best in Show, because it's probably my favorite straight comedy out there -- nothing makes me forget the world and just laugh myself senseless harder than the antics of these fussy dog lovers. 

This movie's so rich that every single time I watch it it's somebody new that jumps out - this time it's John Michael Higgins as that "Proud Mary" and Shih Tzu handler Scott, who's SO RECOGNIZABLE + SPOT-ON for a type of gay we've ALL met and been embarrassed by a dick joke from pic.twitter.com/SS0VD6oa2I

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 31, 2020

What struck me re-watching BIS for the 100th time this last time was a thing that strikes me every time I re-watch it -- that I always come out of it with a new favorite performance. And yes twas John Michael Higgins who really bit into my funny bone this last go-round. I used to have a bit of a side-eye towards this performance because him and Michael McKean are after all straight men giving really stereotypical camp gay performances... but I guess in my old age I've gotten to a place where I can just appreciate them for being funny. They are both really fucking funny. With the world the way it is sometimes you just gotta cling to funny like a life-raft. 

Anyway on another day I'd name Parker Posey, or Jennifer Coolidge, or Catherine O'Hara, as my favorite performances in the film -- just the other day on a Zoom call with some of my best friends we got to quoting Christopher Guest's speech about different kinds of nuts and laughing hysterically. It's a rich film full of perfect shit! What parts do you love? Tell me in the comments!

Do You Like To Laugh

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This post's title is dedicated to those poor sods who would harass people on street corners with that question -- "Do you like to laugh?" -- in order to get them inside of Comedy Clubs here in the pre-COVID Days of NYC. This pandemic's got me down enough that I sort of miss them! Anyway true story I seem to have become nightmarishly picky when it comes to Comedy. I have lots of old stand-by favorites from my more innocent, less jaded youth that I go back to time and time again -- Soapdish! Dirty Rotten Scoundrels! -- but it's not a genre I actively seek out very often anymore.

Truth be told I can be snobbish and weird about the genre. I guess I like Smart Dumb Comedy -- I don't mind a poop joke but you've got to give me something new and exciting with your poop joke. (Side-note: you oughta read MNPP pal Michael's terrific recent piece on the art of the poop joke with regards to Bridesmaids over at TFE.) I am simply incapable of sitting down and enjoying an episode of something as braying and needy as say The Big Bang Theory. It physically pains me, that sort of thing. 

Okay I need a laugh, and I need one now.
What’s your funniest movie ever made? pic.twitter.com/KPsHbsYpT6

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 31, 2020

Of course this pandemic has really put that snobbishness to the test -- we need a good belly laugh, an emphatic guffaw, now and then amid these darkest of days. And so in a fit of want I tweeted out the above question last week, and in return I got a million and a half fun responses that I appreciated a whole bunch. Then naturally I just ended up re-watching Christopher Guest's Best in Show for the thousandth time...

... but I've got a Go-To Laugh List for when I need it now. And if anyone has any further suggestions please do give them in the comments. That said I forward all of this to say make it clear that I have actively been thinking a lot about my weird relationship with comedy -- how I'll almost always if I want to laugh put on a bad horror flick or something Campy like Showgirls before I'll even think to put on an actual trying-to-make-me-laugh Comedy Film -- when lo, behold, a trailer for a new Comedy Series should appear.



That's the trailer for Mapleworth Murders, which stars former SNL writer Paula Pell as a Murder She Wrote type Older Lady Sleuth, and which will feature cameos from lots of Smart Dumb Comedy Now people like Wanda Sykes, Chris Parnell, Nicole Byer, Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Jack McBrayer, Annie Mumolo... I have a really good friend who's a Comedy Fiend and she loves Pell -- I think a lot of Comedy Fiends do. My only interaction with Pell was in the Netflix comedy Wine Country...

... which is a good example of a recent comedy that left me totally and thoroughly cold. Except for Pell, who was its highlight I thought. But with a cast like Wine Country had -- Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph and Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer! -- I should've been in Chuckle Heaven! So I guess what I am getting at with all of this is... I am dead inside, right? I'm just dead inside. Mapleworth Murders premieres on Quibi on August 10th!

5 Off My Head: Fur Friends

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Happy National Pet Day, everybody! I don't have a pet (well we do have a fish, one that has lasted an astonishingly long time as far as fish go, but he's more the boyfriend's than he is mine) so I am just living vicariously through everybody else's love for their fur friends today. Give them a big sloppy kiss from me! 

Anyway with Lean on Pete (which is basically a dog movie, just with a horse) and Isle of Dogs (which is definitely just a dog movie) in movie theaters I've been thinking a lot about Man's Best Friend lately, so here let's take a look at this totally random list that I made off the top of my head of the first five favorite movie dogs that popped into my head. Enjoy...

My 5 Favorite Movie Dogs

Max from How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Beatrice from Best in Show

Barney from Gremlins

Zero from The Nightmare Before Christmas

The mutated wolf-dog from The Thing

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What are some of your favorite movie dogs?

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10 Off My Head: Siri Says 2000

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Time for this week's weekly installment of "Siri Says When" wherein the voice from our telephone commands us what to do by choosing a number between 1 and 100, which we then use to select a favorite batch of films from the corresponding year. Today Siri gave us one I wasn't totally sure her software allowed for - the number 100. And so we'll be looking at The Movies of 2000. While maybe not quite as good as the year before it - 1999 is one for the record books - the year 2000 is an excellent one too. 

Lots of filmmakers that I've come to worship and adore in the 17 years since were just finding their footing - people like Michael Haneke and Darren Aronofsky and Park Chan-wook and Sofia Coppola weren't necessarily making their first films but they were making films that would come to define them or give us a good look at what they were capable of. Indeed this is another instance where the year's good enough to force my hand - we're doing a Top 10.

My 10 Favorite Movies of 2000

American Psycho

(dir. Mary Harron)

-- released on Aril 14th 2000 --

Bring It On

(dir. Peyton Reed)

-- released on August 25th 2000 --
.

Shadow of the Vampire

(dir. E. Elias Merhige)

-- released on ?December 29th 2000 --

Requiem For a Dream

(dir. Darren Aronofsky)

-- released on December 15th 2000 --

Best in Show

(dir. Christopher Guest)

-- released on October 20th 2000 --

Wonder Boys

(dir. Curtis Hanson)

-- released on February 25th 2000 --

Virgin Suicides

(dir. Sofia Coppola)

-- released on May 19th 2000 --

Dancer in the Dark

(dir. Lars von Trier)

-- released on October 6th 2000 --

In the Mood For Love

(dir. Wong Kar-wai)

-- released onSeptember 29th 2000 --

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

(dir. Ang Lee)

-- released on December 8th 2000 --

----------------------------------------

Runners-up: Memento (dir. Nolan), Battle Royale (dir. Kinji Fukasaku), Unbreakable (dir. Shyamalan), Pitch Black (dir. Twohy), Final Destination (dir. James Wong),  The Gift (dir. Sam Raimi), Nurse Betty (dir. LaBute), JSA: Joint Security Area (dir. Park Chan-wook),  The Cell  (dir. Tarsem Singh)...

... What Lies Beneath (dir. Robert Zemeckis), Ginger Snaps (dir. John Fawcett), Sexy Beast (dir. Jonathan Glazer), You Can Count on Me (dir. Lonergan), Tigerland (dir. Schumacher), Scream 3 (dir. Craven), Chopper (dir. Andrew Dominik), Code Unknown (dir. Haneke), Before Night Falls (dir. Schnabel), Erin Brockovitch (dir. Soderbergh), Chicken Run (dir. Peter Lord)

Never seen: O Brother Where Art Thou? (dir. Coens), The Beach (dir. Danny Boyle), Chocolat (dir. Lasse Hallström), Amores Perros (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu), Billy Elliot (dir. Daldry)

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What are your favorite movies of 2000?

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10 Off My Head: Siri Says 1997

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It's time for our weekly (when I feel like it) extravaganza "Siri Says When" wherein I ask my phone to pick a number between 1 and 100 and then name my favorite movies of the year that corresponds to whatever that robot voice from the future tells me. Today she gave me "97" and so it's The Movies of 1997 (which are all turning 20 this year, of course) that we're talking. And per my usual schtick with the 90s I have way too many favorites and I couldn't narrow it down easily, so instead of just 5 favorites I'm expanding it to 10. I don't have to make it hard for myself if I don't want to, dammit.

But I was seeing absolutely everything that came out at this time (I was in film school and I worked at both a video-store and an art house movie theater) and a lot of it left a mark. That said some of these I also haven't seen in many years, so it could be nostalgia I'm still feeling more than a recognition of actual quality? Whatever. That's why I say "favorite" and not necessarily "best."

My 10 Favorite Movies of 1997

Boogie Nights

(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

-- released on October 31st 1997 --

Starship Troopers

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

-- released on November 7th 1997 --

My Best Friend's Wedding

(dir. PJ Hogan)

-- released on June 20th 1997 --

 Waiting For Guffman

(dir. Christopher Guest)

-- released on January 31st 1997 --

The Ice Storm

(dir. Ang Lee)

-- released on November 26th 1997 --

The Sweet Hereafter

(dir. Atom Egoyan)

-- released on November 21st 1997 --

Nowhere

(dir. Gregg Araki)

-- released on May 9th 1997 --

Lost Highway

(dir. David Lynch)

-- released on February 21st 1997 --

Jackie Brown

(dir. Quentin Tarantino)

-- released on December 25th 1997 --

Funny Games

(dir. Michael Haneke)

-- released on May 14th 1997 --

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Runners-up: L.A. Confidential (dir. Curtis Hanson), As Good As It Gets (dir. James L. Brooks), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (dir. Spielberg), Cube (dir. Vincenzo Natali), Live Flesh (dir. Pedro Almodovar), The Spanish Prisoner (dir. Mamet), Scream 2 (dir. Craven), Mimic (dir. Del Toro), Gattaca (dir. Andrew Niccol)...

... Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion (dir. David Mirkin), I Know What You Did Last Summer (dir. Jim Gillespie), Anaconda (dir. Luis Llosa), In & Out (dir. Frank Oz), Dante's Peak (dir. Roger Donaldson), Eve's Bayou (dir. Kasi Lemmons), Bent (dir. Sean Mathias), Event Horizon (dir. Paul WS Anderson), The Game (dir. Fincher), The Butcher Boy (dir. Jordan) Titanic (dir. Cameron)

Never seen: Donnie Brasco (dir. Newell), 

The Apostle (dir. Robert Duvall), SubUrbia (dir. Linklater)

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What are your favorite movies of 1997?

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