Despite the conflicting evidence on display here, I did actually see a few new movies in 2007, a few of them actually worth commenting on. (Too bad it was some of the other ones that ended up actually getting written up.) Among the few I expect to be momentarily resurrected during the impending year end critical/awards blitz is the self-fulfilling sleeper Knocked Up, a feature-and-a-half-length male weepie about the sympathetic labor pains today’s men of child-rearing age go through as they struggle to give birth to a fresh, new version of themselves — one slightly more acceptable as a paragon of parenthood than their pot-smoking, bar-hopping, video-gaming, pop culture-addicted former selves. Loosely adapted from a very special episode of Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies, Knocked Up charts (at great length) the extent to which today’s post-choice heterosexuals will go to make something lasting out of their own existence; an inopportune pregnancy is almost immediately taken as a rare moment of private triumph, a veritable immaculacy in the midst of urban enclave ennui. The latent anti-abortion subtext of the film (unpacked at great length by people far more invested in the debate than me — I’d sooner pass out before you could put enough liquor in me to result in an accidental pregnancy) doesn’t fully assert itself when you consider that the act of procreation is perhaps the only thing capable of saving some of these characters. Apatow’s talent for accurately portraying his generation at their most self-absorbed doesn’t quite go as far at justifying the script’s patchy, haphazard conflicts at it does toward explaining the film’s bloated running time (as far as the standard for comedies goes, we’re flirting with Lord of the Rings girth here). But Apatow gets off easy since the generation he’s portraying very well may be timing their own lives around the TV model of rising action. (It’s worth noting that, while “She” is portrayed as professional and responsible, and “He” is presented as a feckless schleb, both have built their respective careers around mass media … and Apatow leaves little doubt that any career built upon providing a forum for the likes of Ryan Seacrest is hardly more valiant than cross-indexing the boob shots in Carrie.) Fascination that I have with life’s cameo players, I found my time with Katharine Heigl and Seth Rogan to be a lot less rewarding than the scant few seconds I was allowed to share with, for instance, Kristen Wiig, who absolutely nails the thinly concealed hostility of being stuck in middle management. But at the end of the day, I can’t deny that Knocked Up represents a true anomaly: it’s a chick flick that heterosexual males will probably dig far more than their homo counterparts.

Movie Reviews | No Comments »

Sometimes it takes a notice for domain renewal and an unforseen debit in your checking account to give you the inspiration to finish moving over to a new blog engine and try to avoid leaving 2007 with one sole post of any value. (It’s pretty sad and telling that the YouTube videos on the other nine entries on the front page right have nearly all been removed.) So here it is, a new look (and a new RSS feed) and maybe a few new entries to follow. I’m sure there are a few blogpiles around the corner I can hitch up to.

Some months back, I grabbed a few screencaps of Walter Hill’s The Warriors after seeing a midnight show of it at the Uptown Theater. Predictably, a ton of wannabe gangs were waiting in line, a few even dressed up. (The Baseball Furies were of course the most conspicuous source of inspiration.) I was prepared for that as much as I was prepared for the movie to seem even more funky and kinetic surrounded by drunk teens while perched in the balcony of the only theater in the Cities that could conceivably pass for one of the crumbling caverns on the Deuce. What I was not ready for, however, was for the talkback to the screen to rival what I heard at a midnight showing of The Goonies for sheer inanity. At the time, I grabbed these images with the intention of writing another essay like I did for Ms. 45, attacking masculinity by way of a late-’70s Noo Yawk gutterpunk B movie … only this time attacking the second-hand testosterone today’s youth seem to leech from the cult movies of yesteryear.

But I’m not going to do that, if only because I can’t really remember what any of the points I had intended on raising were going to be. This screening did happen early last summer. Instead, I’ll just let the comments from everyone around me speak for themselves.

What really speaks for itself, though, were the moments that didn’t touch off anything other than a chorus of ball-cupping “Yeaaah!” grunts.

I may have half-grunted myself at the arrival of the Lizzies, if only to pay respect to a group with more balls than anyone I was sitting among.

La Hainerade | 2 Comments »