JolieSimons.com

Reports have surfaced that legendary actor and director Sydney Pollack has died after a nine month battle with cancer. Pollack was 73.

I remember Sydney Pollack from great films he directed like Tootsie, the Dustin Hoffman vehicle that was hilarious and touching at the same time. Pollack was also responsible for such award fodder as Out of Africa (starring Meryl Streep) and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They.

Youngsters will probably recognize Pollack not from his directing but from his acting. In his later years, Pollack became a sort of everyman character actor and appeared in many different projects ranging from Will and Grace to last year’s Michael Clayton.

There’s one moment in the new Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that really defines the new turn of Indiana and his ragtag gang that end up way over their heads, searching for ancient artifacts in remote corners of the world. Times have changed. It’s now the fifties and Indiana Jones is an older, wiser man. When we first see him, he’s been hauled out of the trunk of a car by the bad guys. Gone are the Nazi instigators in Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade. Today’s baddies are all Russian, all the time.

You can almost see the anti-red sentiment dripping from old Indy’s brow as he sneers contemptuously at the Ruskies, antiquated leather fedora on top of his head. We get the feeling, even before he says anything, that we’re looking at a man who’s down but not out. Sure Indiana Jones is older and wiser. He’s no longer the youthful, vigorous, and worldly professor he once was. However, as Indiana begins his escape from the evildoers, as he always does at the beginning of these films, we see the character reclaiming his rightful place in the world. Sure, he knows he’s old and washed up. But he also is the last of the old guard, ready to take down the Reds at every turn.

“I like Ike” he sneers after proclaiming the Red Menace the real threat to America, and we believe him. We even find this endearing, as if fifties-era conservatism is a welcomed change from today’s corporate-whore conservatives.

Without revealing too much of the plot of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we soon learn that Indiana Jones will be forced to use his knowledge to find a valuable artifact that incidentally can contribute to world domination by the Russians. It’s up to Indiana to foil the Russian’s plans. You know, the usual fare. This time, the adventure takes us to South America again, just as in the first scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact, Indiana’s old love from Raiders, Marion Ravenwood (played by an older-but-wiser Karen Allen, just as in the original), has also been captured. Indiana also gets stragglers in the form of Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), a tough-acting greaser kid who seeks out Indiana in order to find his mother and stepfather who’ve been kidnapped by the Russians.

Between the stunt-heavy fight sequences through the jungle and the seamlessness of CG animations, we learn that the significance of the Russian’s find is stranger and more wonderful than we could have imagined before. This is where the movie takes an odd turn into the surreal. Crystal Skull makes use of strange, occult ideas, just as with the other three movies, only this time the artifact isn’t part of the major world religions. The artifact in question, the Crystal Skull is actually aboriginal, dating back to pre-colonialism and the South American civilizations before they were wiped out by the Spanish.

After watching all four movies in the past four days, I can attest that Crystal Skull doesn’t live up to the charm, humor, and wisdom of The Last Crusade which is, in my opinion, the best Indiana Jones movie made so far. That being said, this movie bathes the Indiana Jones franchise in a whole new light. Today’s Indiana Jones is worn from hard years as adventurer and, we later learn, intelligence operative fighting the Reds. However Indiana is not down for the count, and it shows. The times have changed and Indiana hasn’t… much. In Crystal Skull, we can see how Indiana Jones adapts in a world that’s no longer for men like him.

All in all, Crystal Skull will be the inevitable summer blockbuster. Is it good? Yes, definitely worth a watch. Is it missing Sean Connery? Most definitely. Should you see it? Yes, and preferably on the big screen. You wouldn’t want to miss the magic of the dramatic CG climax because you’re watching on a screen that’s too small. Go see in the theaters.

Grade: B

So the folks at Paramount decided they were going to try out a little game. They already knew that Iron Man, the new film starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwenyth Paltrow would be a smokin’ hot summer release. People have been talking about this movie–at least the nerds I associate with–for months if not years. So, much like other highly-anticipated big blockbuster summer action movies, they decided to host midnight airings for the nerdy boys with disposable income. And, just to spice things up a bit and get this party started off right, they decided to allow theaters to let patrons see the movie before midnight, as early as 8 PM.

Some of us nerds have jobs in the morning, you know.

The word didn’t get out as quickly as many had hoped, but the turnout was still very good for the last minute change in start time at the theater I attended. Total sausage fest. Lots of denim and chuckling at subtle comic book jokes. But here’s the real shocker: this movie was awesome! Totally unexpected.

Iron Man tells the tale of the beginning of superhero Iron Man. Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) plays the billionaire playboy role without a lot of brooding, almost like the antithesis of Christian Bale’s dark and conflicted Bruce Wayne in the contemporary Batman series. The difference is that Stark loves to talk. He’s not so much a transparent character, but he does lay everything out on the line.

The audience instantly connects with Stark’s plight. After a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan goes south, he ends up the prisoner of a terrorist sect which orders him, at gunpoint, to build a special missile using parts from the other missiles laying around, ironically purchased from his own weapons manufacturing company. Stark decides to defy orders and spends his time building a special suit instead to not only fix his ailing heart but also make him bulletproof.

John Jon Favreau does a bangup job as director. It’s almost like he decided that Iron Man was going to be the anti-superhero movie. Cheesy one-liners are almost entirely eliminated and replaced with dialogue that’s, well, actually funny. Actors are given plenty of room to breathe and the stilted dialogue of other big action flicks–like the woman constantly screaming in fear or the constant shouting of “We’re running out of time!”–is nonexistent. In some places, Favreau gives a little homage to the late Robert Altman by even letting characters talk over each other, much like we do in real life.

Iron Man succeeds where other movies have failed. Iron Man is good to the comic book nerds who want to see some authenticity to the Tony Stark/Iron Man character. Movie goers want to see a movie that’s original and not the hackneyed affair we’re used to (ahem Spiderman 3). The laughs are steady and often. Even the emotional moments are bittersweet and surprising in a flick with this much CG.

If you see only one movie this summer… oh, wait, isn’t that the quote they always put on movie posters? How about… Go see Iron Man. It’s the big summer blockbuster that WON’T kidnap or kill you.

Grade: A -

I don’t understand why critics didn’t like Leatherheads.

Actually, I understand completely why critics didn’t warm up to Leatherheads. The comedy was much like a movie you’d see sixty years ago. The comedy was slapstick and more than a little dependent on the comedy mechanisms of yesteryear.

Renée Zellweger plays a classic ballbuster journalist, fresh from the boy’s club in red lips and well-coiffed hair. John Krasinski plays the boy fresh off the farm, so to speak, as the young college student about to essentially make the world of professional football. George plays the well-meaning yet old bad boy, ready to school the young Krasinski in the true way of the world. The movie is full of those old movie gender dynamics: the love/hate relationship, the unconventional attraction, the somewhat happy and traditional ending.

For all of that, I actually liked Leatherheads. Liking the movie was key because Clooney has now thrice proven himself to be a highly competent director. No longer considered a bad-boy bachelor of Hollywood or interpreted as his character from ER, Clooney has become a film genius. Good for him.

Watch the special features on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind to find out how hard Clooney went to prove himself as more than a pretty face. This labor of love, based on a book written by Chuck Barris, became a masterful black comedy about what would happen to a man who was a game show host by day an a CIA hitman by night.

What is most striking about Confessions, and later Good Night and Good Luck, is how good Clooney’s eye is. Clooney does what so many directors hope to do: he dreams his films in pictures. Some filmmakers do it for dialogue. Some for explosions. Some for visuals. Clooney uses good scripts and his boyish charm to make his movies, and the formula works. Confessions used low-tech camera tricks and well-framed shots to paint pictures. Good Night and Good Luck filled the screen, even in black and white. Leatherheads is soft and dreamy, much like you’d expect of a slapstick comedy set in the twenties.

Clooney is now set to make his fourth film called Suburbicon, written and produced by the Coen brothers. Details about the script and plot are sketchy, but fans of the Coens and Clooney (like myself) can’t wait for another collaboration between the two, not seen since O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

I don’t care what the critics say. George Clooney has made three great movies. Can’t wait for the fourth.

continued from yesterday…

Human Nature: Charlie Kauffman has written some outstanding movies, most notably Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich. Somewhere in between his writing successes, he wrote a great movie called Human Nature that not nearly enough people saw. Human Nature combines the talents of Michel Gondry and Kauffman, the great team that produced Eternal Sunshine. What’s different about Human Nature is how… normal it is. Well, it’s normal compared to the mind-erasing hallucinations of Eternal Sunshine and the orchid-snorting of Adaptation.

Human Nature is the story of three people who are trying to figure out what it really means to be human. Patricia Arquette plays a woman with a genetic condition that leaves here covered in hair, so she goes and lives in the wild. Rhys Ifans plays a man who has lived as an ape since he was a boy. And Tim Robbins really loves manners. Now that I think about it, this movie isn’t so normal after all. It’s bitter sweet and more than a little dystopian. I suggest everyone go see it. Also, we don’t call them pygmy chimps anymore. We call them bonobos, but whatevs.

American Psycho: I saw this movie in high school and didn’t get it, but thought I should like it because I didn’t understand what was going on. I knew, on the surface, what the real story was: an eighties-era yuppie played by Christian Bale is obsessed with killing people, especially women. He’s also a narcissistic asshole who likes to lecture prostitutes on how awesome Huey Lewis and the News is. Then the movie ends in a way that leaves you scratching your head. What, exactly, happened here? Who’s fooling who? Also, I love that this movie had a female director.

It’s Bale’s Patrick Bateman that really steals the show, not because of how well-placed he is in the scheme of things, but how misplaced he is. He is, in every sense of the word, a total dork. A homicidal dork, but a dork nonetheless. He’s obsessed with cheesy music and obsessed over New York yuppie things like getting reservations, snorting coke, and his expensive printed business cards. All this obsession is almost endearing, but ultimately funny in a very, very dark kind of way. Oh, and he kills people. Did I mention that?

Happiness: Go, right now, and see this movie. Before I even introduce you to the story, go see this movie and come back to me with a report. What did you think? My husband and I have played this game with a lot of people, and are always amused at the great reactions by people who think they’re just seeing some indie Phillip Seymour Hoffman movie. Instead they travel to the depths of the human soul, the darkest of places imaginable in the human spirit. Plus, you know, it’s kind of funny.

Happiness is one of those multiple character movies, where several different people have interacting stories as each of the characters tries to figure out what happiness really means. The aforementioned Hoffman plays a pervert who’s deathly afraid of real women but loves to call them and, well, say inappropriate things. Laura Flynn Boyle’s character could have any man she wants, but chooses the company of… Hoffman’s character. The best character is played by Dylan Baker, a child molester who battles his demons but ends up failing miserably. All in all, this movie is set on full “creep out” mode. It’s dirty. It’s provocative. You MUST see it right away.

The Big Lebowski: Apparently, this movie isn’t for children, because I recall vividly the first time I saw this movie, right after it came out of video. I didn’t like it. I hated it, in fact, but I was only barely a teenager at the time. This movie is not worth wasting on youth who won’t get it. Years later, late at night in someone’s college dorm room, I rediscovered The Big Lebowski and it changed my life. The movie is hilarious, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just the right kind of hilarious tragedy. Nothing seems to go right for The Dude: his car is stolen, then found, then crashed, then beaten, then set on fire. Thugs piss on his rug which “really tied the room together.” His friendships with Walter and Donnie are put on the line.

This movie is like Alice in Wonderland, but with pot, booze, bowling, Germans, and kidnapping. The Dude (the wonderfully red-eyed Jeff Bridges) must travel to all ends of the Earth when all he ever wanted was his rug back. The tale is really labarynthian, almost like a Greek myth set in early ’90s Los Angeles. The whole movie feels like an in-joke, the kind of joke you share with your friends that nobody else understands. You, too, can share this movie with millions of other fans, especially the ones that flock to Lebowski festivals all over the country. I kid you not. These people have conventions. That’s how good this movie is.

Grosse Pointe Blank: The year was 1997 and my parents decided to leave me at home alone all weekend while they went out of town. I was in high school, but insisted that this time alone for two short days would be good for me. However, as Saturday rolled around and there wasn’t anything good on TV anymore, I was starting to get really, really bored. We had the Internet, but we were cruising on ‘97 speed pipes, a 56K dial-up connection that tied up the phone lines. About a mile away from the house was a little strip mall with a Wal-Mart, a Movie Gallery, and a small, hometown grocery store. I stopped by the Movie Gallery to rent a movie and ended up with a sweet VHS copy of Grosse Pointe Blank in my backpack. I also brought home some snacks from the grocery store, if that’s important.

Even at my young and impressionable age, I loved Grosse Pointe Blank. The story centers around Martin Blank (Cusack) who apparently freaked out on the night of prom and ran off to join the military, only to be trained as an assassin, now working freelance gigs. He decided to return to Grosse Pointe–a suburb of Detroit–in order to attend his high school reunion. I loved the terrific yet comic violence that was spattered throughout the whole movie. In one scene, John Cusack returns from killing a an assassin sent to kill him. He’s just stabbed him with a pen. He sits down at the bar, and casually orders a drink while glistening with sweat. He thanks the man who gave him the pen. The whole scene is so tragically comic, it’s a near-perfect moment. Makes you wish John Cusack was in good movies again.

Black comedies are awesome. The first time I knew I really loved a good black comedy was when I saw Dr. Strangelove in high school. It was then that I finally realized the true meaning of both Cold War paranoia and comedy irreverence. To me, there was no greater feat than the one pulled by Kubrick in Strangelove. He managed to instill a sense of foreboding fear while, at the same time, making a movie with Slim Pickins. In fact, Dr. Strangelove is often pointed to as the granddaddy of all black comedy, the coup de grâce of bleak and funny film, the movie that made it all happen. So, without further adieu, I present to you black comedies that I have known and loved, in no particular order:

Death to Smoochy: This 2002 film was widely regarded as a failure as a movie and a total dud in the theaters. Where this movie lacked in coin, it made up for in cultish brilliance. Director Danny DeVito often called this movie a cross between Pulp Fiction and Barney which, in and of itself, makes this movie watchable if for no other reason than to see what those two genres would look like collided. Critics hated the results, but kids like myself, raised on movies like Pulp Fiction and shows like Barney and Friends, were in awe. The story is typical, about the rise and fall of a star, but the trappings are brilliant: the Irish gang, the colorful set dressing, the vengeful murder plot. Good stuff.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: George Clooney decided to direct a movie, which often sets movie critics’ faces to grimace. After all, where does some handsome-boy and former TV actor like George Clooney get off in wanting to direct a feature film? All grumbling ceased when the movie came out and was not only funny but visually stunning. Low-tech camera tricks abound, and everyone got the general sense that this Clooney kid knew what he was doing.

Confessions is the story of Chuck Barris, former host of The Gong Show and pioneer of trash TV with shows like The Newlywed Game. In an autobiography he wrote in the eighties, Barris also mentions that, in addition to being a game show host, he was also an assassin for the CIA. This visually stunning movie shows what happens when you mix the intrigue of espionage with, well, The Gong Show.

Dr. Strangelove: The granddaddy of all black comedy, Dr. Strangelove had a significant impact on me as a teenager. I’d never quite understood Cold War-era nuclear paranoia until I saw this movie. As a child of the eighties, I didn’t really have to. The Wall was already down by the time I began learning how to ride a bike, and the democratic revolution in Russia played softly in the background as I played with Barbies. When I finally saw this movie, I understood why everyone was so crazy back then. It took a black comedy about a situation that could never happen to make me realize why everyone was so afraid of a nuclear war with the USSR.

Dr. Strangelove also began my love affair with George C. Scott, one of those actors I missed out on because of my age. A year later, I saw Patton, a movie that also blew my mind. I often wondered why they didn’t make movies like that anymore. Where there any great actors anymore? Where were the George C. Scott’s of my generation who could chew through the dialogue of Dr. Strangelove, and do so with such depth and sincerity, making the movie’s hilarious premise? While I’m still waiting, I could watch this black comedy again and again.

continued tomorrow…

Seems like this movie might be coming together. Yes!

As if like a magic wand to tell us all we can breathe a sigh of relief that yes, IMDB has posted this link to the in-production Arrested Development movie.

Apparently the actors on the show have been contacted by creator Mitchell Hurwitz and show producer Ron Howard to see if they’re on board. The large cast (Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, David Cross, Ali Shawkat, Michael Cera, and Ron Howard as Narrator) will, fingers crossed, all come together for a final visitation to the Bluth family saga. Hopefully other players (Henry Winkler as the incompetent lawyer or Liza Minelli as the vertigo-suffering Lucille II) will also be able to join the cast one last time.

For those that are curious, you can watch the entire series streaming online on MSN here.

If you’re an Arrested Development fan, you may have heard possible chatter about an Arrested Development movie in the works. Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor have both talked about the possibility of brining the cult classic to the big screen.

For those that don’t know, Arrested Development ran for three seasons on Fox but was canceled due to low ratings. Unfortunately, the show’s format didn’t relate to the casual sitcom viewer, resulting in an eventual cancellation, despite brilliant guest starring roles from the likes of Charlize Theron, Carl Weathers, Judge Reinhold, and James Lipton. Stars Michael Cera and Jason Bateman have recently gained a fair bit of box office success with the release of Superbad and Juno.

To Mitch Hurwitz, creator of Arrested Development and Ron Howard, producer:

Please bring Arrested Development to the Big Screen. Your brilliant three seasons weren’t enough to satiate the appetites of those who are hungry for brilliant, satirical, and smart comedy on television. I will see your movie in the theater, I promise. I will go twice on opening weekend, just to ensure box office success.

I’ll do my best to get online buzz going for the movie. I won’t even charge a fee. I’ll make sure all the gossip blogs and websites are crowded with my pleas for an AD movie. I’ll make a viral video on YouTube, begging for this deal to go through.

In short, I will do whatever it takes to make sure this Arrested Development movie goes through. Please let me know if I can assist you further.

Jolie Simons,
your friendly, neighborhood blogger

Will Farrell, who’s been on a tour of various colleges lately, spent the night at Boston College with Will Arenett of Arrested Development fame. The verdict? The Arrested Development movie is still in the works. See for yourself:

Ask Will Anything: Boston College on FunnyOrDie.com