Tag Archives: movies

De Niro and Pacino reunite in $60M indie

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Robert De Niro and Al Pacino will team on-screen for just the second time in “Righteous Kill,” a $60 million indie production in which they play cops chasing a serial killer. The script is by Russell Gewirtz, the guy that wrote “Inside Man.” De Niro and Pacino had just two scenes together in “Heat” but will be on-screen together pretty much throughout this new flick. With that budget… and these two movie greats… I have to wonder how you could make a shitty movie. Let’s hope they don’t.

The X-Files

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The X Files Chemistry. Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn had it. Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd had it. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson had it. Who has that kind of chemistry today?

Just watched the last half of the movie and was reminded how good Scully and Mulder were together. Where are Duchovny and Anderson now? Duchovny became something of a parody of himself but I don’t recall seeing much about Anderson. Good for her.

Gillian Anderson was white hot. She was put-a-sparkler-on-your-tounge hot. She wasn’t Victoria’s Secret beautiful…but she was leave-a-note-and-run-away-from-home sexy.

Taking the Imus story to the big screen

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Aging white radio personality (Bill Murrary) gets fired for racist remark. His career appears to be over until he’s hired by the owner (Bernie Mac) of a struggling, urban (Detroit?) radio station. Seems the radio personality saved the station owner’s life in the jungles of Viet Nam.

The station manager (Queen Latifah) doesn’t like the idea at all but the program director (Jack Black) –a white man who longs to be black– sees big ratings.

The local minister/activist (Eddie Murphy) keeps the heat on to get rid of “this loud-mouthed saltine!”

The station sales manager (Regina King) sees nothing but angry advertisers but soon finds herself falling in love with the repentant Murray character.

As with all my movie ideas, I have no third act, but know Kay will come through as she always does. I guess I need a title, too. Maybe, “What’d I say?”

Zodiac: Where’ve we seen that guy?

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David Fincher’s new film, Zodiac, runs 2 hours and 40 minutes and doesn’t have a chase scene or an explosion and only a couple of moments of violence and held my attention from start to finish.

Other films by Fincher: Panic Room (good); Fight Club (I was confused); The Game (very good); Se7en (very good); Alien3 (no so good).

Throughout Zodiac, I kept whispering to Barb, “Where have we seen him/her?”

Brian Cox –the original/best Hannibal Lector played Melvin Beli; John Carroll Lynch is the Zodiac and saw him on the HBO series Carnivale. Same for Clea Duvall (if you didn’t watch Carnivale, it doesn’t matter); If you’re old enough to remember Candy Clark from American Graffiti (’73), you might have spotter her brief appearance; John Mahoney –Frasier’s dad– had a small part; and Phillip Baker Hall plays a document expert. I remember him as Lt. Bookman, the library cop on Seinfeld.

Good movie.

Apple TV: node on the iTunes peer-to-peer video network?

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I ordered one of the new Apple TV doo-dads right after they were announced. Didn’t/don’t fully understand it but it sounded like fun, so… Since then I’ve been hearing and reading all kinds of knocks on the gadget, usually from serious video-philes.

Then I came across an interesting theory about where Apple might be headed:

“Here is what I think is happening with the Apple TV hard drive. I think sometime this summer Apple will ship a firmware upgrade for the Apple TV and it will suddenly gain an important new capability. That’s when the Apple TV becomes a node on the iTunes peer-to-peer video network. ”

“Apple would have one or many content channels roughly equivalent to an HBO, Showtime, or perhaps Discovery. Yes, I think Apple will do direct content deals, buying programming that it will then either distribute to subscribers or support with Google ads, thanks to Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s position on the Apple board. Apple’s network will give you the same content with or without ads, delivered from the same servers, one of which may be underneath your TV.”

Hmmm.

The Good Shepherd

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I think a lot of movie goers will hate The Good Shepherd, a story about the early history of the Central Intelligence Agency, starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt and directed by Robert De Niro (I didn’t recognize Keir Dullea and Timothy Hutton).

I was lost and confused for much of this story. I found the plot very complicated and difficult to follow. But I really liked the movie. I came away with the sense that this is what this world is really like: you don’t know what’s really going on, whom to trust. This ain’t your standard Hollywood spy story. Skip it unless you willing work pretty hard for almost three hours.

I’m still searching for an explanation that will untangle the plot for me.

Movie computers

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Computer usability expert Jakob Nielsen has compiled a top 10 list of the most egregious mistakes made by moviemakers. My favorites are:

The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI
Break into a company — possibly in a foreign country or on an alien planet — and step up to the computer. How long does it take you to figure out the UI and use the new applications for the first time? Less than a minute if you’re a movie star.

Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates
In the show 24, Jack Bauer calls his office to get plans and schematics for various buildings. Once these files have been transferred from outside sources to the agency’s mainframe, Jack asks to have them downloaded to his PDA. And — miracle of miracles — the files are readable without any workarounds.

Remote Manipulators
In Tomorrow Never Dies, James Bond drives his BMW from the back seat with an Ericsson mobile phone that works as the car’s remote control. And 007 drives fast, while also evading bad guys.

You’ve Got Mail is Always Good News
In the movies, checking your mail is a matter of picking out the one or two messages that are important to the plot. No information pollution or swamp of spam.

“This is Unix, It’s Easy”
In the film Jurassic Park, a 12-year-old girl has to use the park’s security system to keep everyone from being eaten by dinosaurs. She walks up to the control terminal and utters the immortal words, “This is a Unix system. I know this.” And proceeds to (temporarily) save the day.

The Fog of War

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The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a documentary film directed by Errol Morris and released in December 2003.

The film depicts the life of Robert Strange McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, through the use of archival footage, White House recordings, and most prominently, an interview of McNamara at the age of 85. The subject matter spans from McNamara’s work as one of the “Whiz Kids” during World War II and at Ford to his involvement in the Vietnam War as the Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson

1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There’s something beyond one’s self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6. Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
10. Never say never.
11. You can’t change human nature.

We have learned none of McNamara’s lessons. A powerful documentary. And, please, you can’t have an opinion about this movie unless you’ve seen it. Happy to discuss with anyone that has.