Dogs and Shoes

We've Got a Winner! Sort Of

Originally posted 12 December 2000

Movies: An Even Dozen Are Reviewed

Oops!...I did it again.

I let more than two months lapse since my last review, and now I've got a dozen films to write up. To ease the strain on everyone, I'm going to give you a countdown--worst to best. Don't get confused! Last time, I did it the other way around.

12. Easily, the most wretched movie I've seen all year--possibly in all of my life--is "Dungeons & Dragons." I saw it at midnight in Boston last Friday, with my brother, Dan, and a bunch of cast members from Dan's new play. One of Dan's actors, Tori, has become a D&D convert late in life and was hot to see this flick. So that's my excuse.

The good news is, Tori is really very cool, and unlike many of the other patrons at this near-sold out, opening-night show, she did not find it imperative to dress up in Gothic garb for the event. It would have been okay if she had, though: the wacky, voluble audience made this crapfest bearable. From the first scene, in which it becomes clear that Jeremy Irons's right-hand guy, Damodar, wears light blue lipstick all the time, there's no getting away from the B-movie, "Rocky Horror" nature of "D&D." When guys in the audience sporting Viking helmets yelled at the screen, it seemed totally appropriate.

After all, "D&D" rips off major scenes from every "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" movie, but does nothing interesting of its own. The concept sucks. The acting sucks. The screenplay sucks. The costumes suck. The music sucks. The lighting sucks. It's a long way from "Brideshead Revisited," Mr. Irons.

My guess is that the producers spent $15 to make this movie. But Dan's housemate Chyld thinks the production price tag might have run as high as $1,500. I don't know. How much can a couple of flashlights and some cellophane paper cost?

Although we enjoyed trashing the movie immediately afterwards, by the next day, we couldn't remember enough of "Dungeons & Dragons" to merely mock it.

11. For a little while, before I inadvertently violated my contract, I wrote movie reviews for GirlsOn.com. The first film I endured was "Just One Time," a soggy little pre-wedding comedy made by first-time director Lane Janger. The movie had some cool gay people in it, but what comedy doesn't? Jennifer Esposito and Guillermo Diaz play the queers, and they're pretty much the only memorable elements of this trifle, along with the female lead's glasses.

10. The second film I sat through for GirlsOn was "The Weekend," which has more accomplished actors than "Just One Time," and better scenery, but is nauseatingly pretentious. I took my neighbor Amy to the screening, and she hated it. What's to like when Brooke Shields attempts a serious dramatic role?

9. The last film I saw for GirlsOn was "Non-Stop," a 1996 Japanese flick that got its first US release this fall. I took my neighbor Rich to the screening, and he hated it. True, the screenplay dragged, the acting was weak and the cinematography dull, but at least the movie was short. (Btw, in my last review, I asked whether Rich should be promoted from "neighbor" to "friend" status. The results of that poll were inconclusive, but Rich and I have since solved the problem by starting to introduce ourselves as cousins in order to disabuse people of the notion that we are a couple. The misinterpretation of our relationship happens with alarming frequency: at parties, people ask us questions like, "So where do you two live?"; at restaurants, we are invariably seated at the most romantic corner tables. Presumably, people think we're together because we're very comfortable ignoring each other in public. This cousins experiment is still fledgling (and I botched it rather spectacularly at a party on Sunday night, first introducing Rich as my cousin and later explaining to the same woman how Rich and I met in the dog run), but it has temporarily solved Rich's identity problem on these pages.)

8. I wanted to like "Bamboozled," Spike Lee's latest offering, but I didn't. I saw it in late October with Alex, a friend of Erik & Stephanie's. Jada Pinkett looks terrific in some Versace suits, and Savion Glover dances his ass off, but the movie fails to make the political point it seems to striving for. Here's what I did derive from that movie-going experience: it's probably a bad idea for me to go to the movies on a first date. After a phone call during which we picked a film together, decided on a good theater at which to see it, chose the method of ticket procurement and agreed on the time to meet, Alex and I had already expended nearly all of our first-date good-will capital. When we met up, Alex commented that I had very specific requirements in movie going--and, at that point, we hadn't even discussed my seating desires.

7. & 6. I can't decide which I found most adequate, "Best in Show" or "Quills." I saw "Best in Show," the latest from Christopher Guest ("Waiting for Guffman," "This is Spinal Tap"), by myself at the Sony Gigaplex on 68th & Broadway a few weeks ago. The film has a good attitude, and I smiled throughout it. But I didn't really laugh much, and although it's chock-a-block with dogs, most of them aren't terribly cute. "Quills," a movie about the Marquis de Sade, really isn't very good (nor is it historically accurate, if you care about that sort of thing, and one character uses the word "sadism" during the film, which strikes me as grossly anachronistic). Also, the film is unnecessarily yucky (although non-sexual). But Geoffrey Rush is a lot of fun to watch as the Marquis, and I like Kate Winslet, despite her droopy role in this.

Perhaps more revolting than the film was my experience in the theater--and I'm not talking about the other audience members. I saw "Quills" at the Lincoln Plaza theater on Broadway and 63rd, which Rich refers to as the Schlepperplex because it is patronized largely by old, unfashionable Jews who live in the area and by younger, slightly hipper people who are on their way to becoming old, unfashionable Jews. Anyway, I (being in the latter category) went by myself to the movie on a rainy Tuesday night, and it was not crowded. I settled into a seat in the fifth row center--heaven. I put my umbrella on one side and turned to put my damp coat on the other, where I was aghast to discover a large cockroach--about the size of a pecan--trooping across the seatback. Not wanting to lose my seat, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a tissue, flicked the insect to the floor and stepped on it. All without screaming or otherwise making a scene. But I spent the duration of the film freaked out. Rich has redubbed that theater the Roachplex.

5. I love Hong Kong action movies. The more kung fu, as far as I'm concerned, the better. So I was delighted a few weeks ago to go see "Martial Arts of Shaolin," one of Jet Li's early movies (1986), at Anthology Film Archives. My movie-going partner was Marc, with whom a friend of a friend had set me up. Marc has absolutely no interest in martial arts movies (so we will not be going out again), but he was a good sport about seeing this flick at a weird downtown movie house (so weird that when the film sold out, the box office kept selling tickets and the ushers just dragged chairs from the lobby into the theater for the spillover patrons). Anyway, I liked the movie, but I didn't looooove it: not enough soul.

4. Recently, I went by myself to the Film Forum to see the 1963 British comedy "Billy Liar." I had read that it was a great classic, and my expectations were high. The movie didn't deliver--I hardly laughed at all--but I really appreciated the acting and the concept (it's about a guy who can't tell the truth). Also, excellent clothes.

3. I saw a matinee of "Charlie's Angels" on opening weekend with my friend Lisa; we were the oldest people there by 15 years. But I didn't care: I was either going to love the movie or I was going to have fun hating it. I'm pleased to report that I had a great time watching Hollywood's latest regurgitation of '70's pop culture. Sure it's silly, but the babes kick some serious ass, and they really know how to wear lipstick effectively. Also, Bill Murray is a hoot (who else can play Bosley and not appear to be leering at the Angels the whole time?). It is good, campy fun with some fine action scenes. I was thoroughly entertained.

2. I saw "You Can Count on Me" on opening night about a month ago, and now I can't remember whether I saw it with Rich or with somebody else. No, wait! I saw it with Rich at the Sony Gigaplex; I remember because beforehand, in the lobby, we ran into Rich's ex-girlfriend and her sister, both of whom know I'm not Rich's cousin. Anyhoo. "You Can Count on Me" is the first directorial effort from playwright and screenwriter Ken Lonergan ("Analyze This"). It's a finely observed film about a sister and brother, now adults, whose parents were killed thirty years ago; the sister has stayed in the town where they were born, and the brother, a drifter, has come back for a visit. The story is told with restraint and humor, and the acting is spot on. If you haven't seen this film yet, do so. It's enjoyable and satisfying.

1. Admittedly, our winner today is something of a dimpled-chad candidate: because I saw "The Apartment" on video, not on a big screen, and because I'd seen it several times before, it's not a clear winner in this contest. So, depending on Supreme Court rulings, "You Can Count on Me" might be declared victorious. Still, "The Apartment" is wonderful. Dan and Mom and I rented it on Thanksgiving night, and we all stayed awake for this 1960 Billy Wilder romantic comedy. Unfortunately, my large-ish dog kept wandering in front of the set, obscuring all views of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. But we persevered--at least there were no people shouting at the screen or roaches walking across our laps--and we were richly rewarded. Rent this baby at your earliest convenience.

Backlog to Basics

Originally posted 27 September 2000

Movies: Lots and lots

Okie doke. It's been close to three months since I last opined on these pixilated pages, and the good news is: despite abysmal performances of late, the Yankees are hanging onto their division lead and are likely headed for post-season play. The bad news is: I've seen eighteen movies since my last missive, and there is no way I can give a thorough opinion of each film without burning out your eyeballs.

To get through the daunting backlog, I'm going to dispense with my normal categories of analysis and just give you the juiciest bits of judgment on each film. I am also doing away with the regular system of reviewing the movies in chronological order (of when I saw them), and am instead listing them from *best* to *worst*, starting with the most enjoyable and ending with the nearly unbearable.

Before we begin, I've just got to tell you that my dog is sacked out on the sofa right now, and he has never looked cuter.

* Our overall winner is "Gimme Shelter," the Maysles brothers' 1970 documentary about the Rolling Stones in 1969. The band's tour that year ended at Altamont, where the Hell's Angels, hired to provide security, stabbed a man to death during the concert. I had seen the movie several times before on video. But it has been revived for its 20th anniversary, and my neighbor Rich and I saw it at the Film Forum about a month ago. Big screen, big sound. Changed my life--for the better.

Not only is "Gimme Shelter" a great movie that defined the rockumentary genre, but the Stones themselves are stunning and sexy and put on a phenomenal live show (a fact that simply is not conveyed by "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!," a concert album recorded the night before Altamont; footage from the "Ya-Ya's" night is shown in the movie, and it's splendid). The movie intercuts concert footage with scenes of the planning of Altamont and its aftermath. It is mesmerizing. Bonus: attractive mutts, ridiculous shoes. "Gimme Shelter" is still playing, so run--don't mosey--to see it before it closes (this goes double if you are a musician or filmmaker).

* Our silver medalist is "Rififi," a 1955 French heist movie directed by Jules Dassin ("Topkapi," "Night and the City"). Spare, engrossing noir fare. Rich and I saw it at the Film Forum in July. We both loved it. (Rich, btw, thinks he should be upgraded from most-favored neighbor status to "friend." What do you think?)

* The pen-penultimate prize goes to "Blood Simple," which Rich and I saw the same weekend we saw "Rififi." All weekends should be so lucky. "Blood Simple" is the thrillingly taut debut from the Coen brothers ("Fargo," "Raising Arizona"), and it is widely credited with having given birth to the indie film when it was first released in 1984. It was trotted out this summer for an anniversary tour, and although American screens are these days awash in indie crap, I can't say enough good things about the plot, characters, acting, screenplay and cinematography of "Blood Simple." Warning: not a renter! This movie would translate terribly on video.

* The first movie on this list that I saw without Rich is "Chuck & Buck," which comes in fifth in the running. I saw it alone at that crummy one-screener on Broadway in the 60s. It's about a man who has carried a crush on his boyhood best friend into adulthood. It is tense and devastating and hard to watch, and I loved it. Consider it the proud child of "Blood Simple's" indie legacy.

* I also saw our runner-up to the fifth movie by myself (at the Quad). "I'm the One That I Want" is a straight-ahead film of Margaret Cho's solo stand-up show, taped earlier this year. Hilarious and over the top. Made me want to hang around with Cho and watch "Sex and the City" together.

* The number seven spot on our list is a tie! I equally enjoyed "Time Regained," a slow, meditative French movie about Proust, and "Requiem for a Dream," an intense, raucous movie about various addictions in Coney Island. Rich and I saw "Time Regained" in early July at Lincoln Plaza. It was incredibly long, and I had no idea what was going on half the time, but I really liked it anyway. I saw "Requiem for a Dream," the latest from director Darren Aronofsky ("Pi"), with my friend Chris, who writes reviews for GirlsOn. We went to a press screening, and beforehand, everyone was chatty and smiling. Afterwards, everyone was stunned and pale. "Requiem" is a toughie--don't eat before the show!--but well worth the pain.

* Coming in at eight is "Almost Famous," Cameron Crowe's most recent afterschool special. Crowe directed "Jerry Maguire" and "Singles," so you pretty much know that you're in for lots of gloss and underwhelming anguish when you buy a ticket to one of his movies. But he also directed "Say Anything," which my friend (and neighbor) Amy pointed out to me today was great when we were 17 (but hasn't stood up so well over time), and he wrote "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (which is still outstanding 18 years later). "Almost Famous," which I saw at the 19th Street Sony last Friday with Erik and Stephanie and their friend Marty, is an absolute schmaltzfest, but if you're willing to take it on its own unambitious terms, it's quite amusing. Nice acting and a surprisingly funny screenplay keep it lively. NB: The movie deals with journalistic ethics issues and is therefore highly recommended for my writer friends (Chris and Marci in particular, take note). All of you musicians out there can take it or leave it.

* A close ninth is "Nurse Betty," which Rich and I saw, along with a woman we know from the dogrun, a couple of weeks ago at the Sony gigaplex on 68th and Broadway. "Nurse Betty" is directed by Neil LaBute, whose previous movies are the dark and nasty "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends & Neighbors." Unlike LaBute's other flicks, "Nurse Betty" has a likable, sympathetic central character. Played convincingly by Renee Zellweger, Betty--in an almost Hitchcockian turn--loses her grasp on reality when she witnesses her husband's murder (which is groooosssss--I had to cover my eyes and not even peak through my fingers) and believes the doctor on her favorite soap is her forsaken finance. She goes in search of him; hijinks ensue. The slippage between TV and reality is a path well worn by Hollywood in recent years ("EdTV," "The Truman Show," "Pleasantville"), and "Nurse Betty" looks a little too familiar as a result. It also has the tritest imaginable subplot with Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock, both underused. But the movie has some refreshingly off-kilter moments, plus a lot of good acting, and I recommend it.

* Although David Denby, one of the "New Yorker's" film critics, loved "The Original Kings of Comedy" half to death, I found our tenth-place contestant to be just okay. Denby and I agree on movies less often than Olympic athletes are stripped of their medals for drug use, so it's no surprise that I wasn't overjoyed with the Spike Lee-filmed concert of four stand-up comedians (all black men), filmed last year (I think). I liked the filming itself quite a lot, but the stand-up routines didn't have me rolling in the sticky aisles. I saw the movie by myself at the Sony on 84th and Broadway on a weeknight. There were about a dozen other people in the large theater, and I suspect that if I had seen it in a packed room, I would have found it more entertaining.

* "Clouds," our number eleven placeholder, almost came in tenth. But flat cinematography bumped it down a notch. The movie follows a physicist who takes a leave of absence from his university job to work by the sea on a new cosmology. "Clouds" is an unhurried, thoughtful film, with a deliberate screenplay and self-conscious acting. It was made by Don Thompson, the CEO of nextPix.com, and I interviewed him a while back for an "AlleyCat News" story I wrote on broadband content providers. The article came out nicely, and I was invited to the premiere of "Clouds" at the Walter Reade theater. (Freelance writing--which I do for "a living"--pays approximately nothing, so I take the perks I get offered, though it should be noted that I skipped the "Clouds" after-party at Au Bar; who wants to schlep that far east on a Tuesday night?)

Before the movie, the distributor popped up on stage and explained how recently, he'd seen 50 movies in one week, and "Clouds" was the only flick he'd picked for a deal. He went on to say that "Clouds" was getting called an art-house type movie, but he didn't think that was accurate. With its themes of love, peace and truth, he felt "Clouds" to be a much more universal film. Apparently, this guy has not been to a mainstream theater lately, because a slow five-year-old could tell you that the major tropes of today's movies are hostile aliens, regrettable sexual encounters and overzealous weather.

Also before the movie, Tibetan flutist Nawang Khechog played. He created the music for "Clouds," and his live performance was phenomenal. If you like Philip Glass (read: if you are my parents), you'll love Nawang Khechog. Keep your eyes peeled for him.

* Numero twelve on this list is "Saving Grace," a cutesy British film. I saw it a few weeks ago at the Angelika with a guy I met at a party earlier this summer. I giggled a few times, and I was not unhappy afterwards. But it is utterly missable.

* Thirteen is my favorite number, but that doesn't make "The Tao of Steve" my favorite movie here. Rich and I saw it ages ago at Lincoln Plaza. It is one smidgen better than a student film and is the sort of thing that makes you wonder whence the exciting indie?

* I can't remember the name of our fourteenth-place champ. It is a Canadian movie that Rich and Matthew and I saw at the Film Forum a month or two ago. I liked a bunch of things about it, but since I have no memory of the title, there's no point in spouting on about it because you'll never be to apply my opinion.

* As we descend towards the basement, "Aimee and Jaguar" appears in fifteenth place. It's a German movie about lesbians in Berlin during WWII, and a large number of my friends adored it and said I should see it. I was bored and confused most of the movie, and I hit the Indiglo button on my watch countless times. The two main characters in this flick have no chemistry, which really undermines the premise of the whole thing. Their cool clothes and well-applied makeup do not save this dud.

* "Kiss Me Kate," our penultimate loser, and a 3-D musical extravaganza made in 1953, might be no worse than "Aimee and Jaguar." But Rich and I saw it at the Film Forum nearly three months ago, and Rich mentioned to me yesterday that he still has a headache from watching it. He fiddled with his cardboard 3-D glasses the entire movie (which included an eye-easing intermission), so I'm not sure how much was the movie and how much was Rich. Still, it sucked. The movie includes two outstanding musical numbers ("Too Darn Hot" and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"), but it is otherwise cheesy in an unpleasant way and very, very long.

* Our final, last-place, all-around loser is "Love & Sex," which Rich and I saw at the same dump on Broadway where I'd seen "Chuck & Buck." It stars Famke Jensen, who might be a fine model but happens to be a lousy actress, and Jon Favreau, whom I liked very much in "Swingers" and as Monica's boyfriend on "Friends." Unfortunately, even Favreau's charm couldn't save this washout of a film. It's cliched, plotless, dull--the worst indie America has to offer. Consider it the evil stepchild of "Blood Simple."

Weather Whatever, Feathers Forever

Originally posted 3 July 2000

Movies: The Perfect Storm, Chicken Run

Faster than a speeding "Twister"! More powerful than a sinking "Titantic"! More predictable than heat in July! Hollywood's water-and-weather blockbuster of the summer, "The Perfect Storm," hit screens on Friday. I went by myself to a late show at the Sonyplex on 68th Street. Things were off to a bad start when a woman sliding down the aisle behind me sklonked my head with her bag, which then got caught in my hair. Fortunately, the crisis was resolved without scissors or computer-generated effects.

"The Perfect Storm" is based on a nonfiction bestseller of the same name by Sebastian Junger, (which I have not read). It's the story of a sword-fishing ship that sails out of Gloucester, Massachusetts and into disastrous squall conditions. Would there have been a movie if the weather were partly sunny with highs in the mid-70s and gentle breezes? Hell, no. George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic team wouldn't have much fun cooking up a few puffy clouds and some pleasant rays. But they rock the house with gale-force winds and 100-foot waves.

Which is why you might want to see "The Perfect Storm." Although the storytelling is laborious and surprisingly unsuspenseful, and the dialogue is corny, the shots of the ocean in turmoil are pretty neat. With practically no plot, the movie has so many soggy scenes it's a miracle that you leave the theater dry.

"The Perfect Storm," directed by Wolfgang Petersen ("Air Force One," "Das Boot"), is not a disaster within the disaster genre, but it's no burst of sunshine, either. I went to see it, despite its atrocious trailers and George Clooney, because I like Marky Mark ("Boogie Nights," the Funky Bunch) and will see pretty much any crap he's in ("The Corruptor," "Three Kings"). His role in this flick is boring (nearly all of the "Storm" roles are unimaginative), but he looks kind of cute in a flannel shirt.

Here's how "The Perfect Storm" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 5. The story is more a condemnation of male bravado than a cautionary tale of the all-powerful sea. So it gets points for that attitude. It also scores for having Mary Elizabeth Mastrantoniao play a very successful fishing boat captain, albeit one who wants to quit to she can move up to Maine and raise a family. On the down side, the movie portrays a fat chick as the only woman who will even speak to a drunk, horny loser from the boat crew.

*Race: 1. There's a token black guy on the ship.

*Shoes: 2. Rubber boots, mostly.

*Dogs: 2. A Dalmation and a mutt are seen briefly at the beginning of the movie.

*Do things blow up? 5. Technically, things don't blow up in this movie--they drown. At least they do so rather spectacularly.

"The Perfect Storm" has a mildly engaging Coast Guard subplot, which, although intercut without logic or explanation, keeps the film afloat. Between that and the awesome ocean shots, the movie isn't a wash.

For much better entertainment, go see "Chicken Run," which I caught last weekend at the Sonyplex with my neighbor Rich and a few friends of his. It's a claymation feature film by Peter Lord and Nick Park, the people who created the wonderful Wallace and Gromit comedies. Although a shade less clever than the W&G movies, "Chicken Run" is a delightful movie. The story is straightforward: a group of chickens, led by the practical yet passionate hen Ginger, endeavor to escape from the Tweedy farm. Mrs. Tweedy is a perfectly nefarious human, and the chickens, who have a range of quirky personalities, face a true challenge in liberating themselves from her clutches. There are a lot of good visual jokes, and tons of fowl humor.

"Chicken Run" is a British movie, but the male lead, Rocky the Rooster, is played by (the voice of) Mel Gibson, who can actually be seen onscreen right now in "The Patriot" (which appears to be a much less amusing film). Fortunately, Rocky is an American, and Gibson doesn't have to mangle a British accent for this performance.

Here's how "Chicken Run" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 9. Ginger, the lead female character, is tough and resourceful, like Sarah Conner (from the "Terminator" series)--only a chicken. Rocky is the sort of guy John Cusack usually plays in movies--a flawed but lovable crowd pleaser. If for nothing else, see this movie because it's one of the few, especially among the G-rated crop, that has an unconventional yet wholly respectable and cool heroine.

*Race: ? I don't know if all the chickens are supposed to be the same breed or not.

*Shoes: N/A. Don't be ridiculous; chickens don't wear shoes.

*Dogs: 4. Scary guard dogs figure prominently in the chickens' escape plans.

*Do things blow up? 4. Some major machinery malfunctions, and a few feathers fly here and there.

Visually, "Chicken Run" is a little slicker than the earlier movies from Park & Lord, which often had thrillingly visible thumbprints in the characters' ears or legs. But computer assistance has not notably hurt this film. While "The Perfect Storm" had good special effects, here's the bottom line: how can you miss a film that lists among its credits a "Mouth & Beak Replacement Coordinator"? If you see only one English-language movie this summer, make it "Chicken Run."

22 - 1

Originally posted 20 June 2000

Movies: Road Trip, The Virgin Suicides, L\'Atalante, Grass, The Petite Charm of the Borgeoisie

I wasn't going to write up this SMO for a few more days, but then the Yankees whipped the Red Sox 22 - 1 earlier tonight, and I had to share my delight. It was the second-worst loss in Red Sox history. That score pretty much speaks for itself, so let's get on with the reviews.

I have no shame. My neighbor Amy is trying to finish her dissertation, which means she doesn't have a rigid schedule. I, needing a cohort to go to an afternoon flick, invited her join me two Fridays ago to see "Road Trip." She made a half-hearted attempt to get me to see "Dinosaur" instead, but I would not be swayed. I wanted to see "Road Trip," and Amy is the only person I know who would consent to go. We caught a 2:45 p.m. show at the 68th Street Sony.

In my defense, I wanted to see "Road Trip," a college-sex / gross-out movie (a classic genre, no?), because Tom Green was slightly humorous in the previews. Green has a show on MTV that I've seen bits of, and I think he's pretty funny. Will I never learn? He barely appears in the movie. He's entertaining when he does show up, but his total screen time is in the range of five minutes. The rest of the movie--how do they say on campuses?--sucked.

Anyway, there were a dozen people in the audience, and all the other patrons were teenage boys. This is disturbing, because "Road Trip" is exactly the sort of crummy, offensive movie that is probably most influential on and worst for adolescents. But none of them seemed to like it a whole lot, so I'm over it already.

Here's how "Road Trip" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: -2. Women = sex. And it's all from the supposed male point of view, which makes the men look like idiots. Neither sex really wins in this movie.

*Race: -1, I think. Here's the problem: the movie has the geeky guy lose his virginity to a fat black female student, who is shown nearly naked. I'm pretty sure the movie means to gross us out by showing this woman in the flesh, but Amy and I both thought she looked good, so it's a little hard to say what was going on. This is one of those times when my values are so far out of line with the mainstream that I can't understand the intent of something. It's very disconcerting.

*Shoes: 2. Unremarkable.

*Dogs: 6. There were a number of dogs in the movie, including one that talked like they do in pet-food commercials. Amy, who basically liked the movie, looooooved the talking dog. It was perhaps better than the food-fight scene in "Animal House" as far as she was concerned.

*Do things blow up? 4. One decent explosion.

When I saw "American Pie" last year, I thought it was good. Now, with "Road Trip" to compare it with, I'm thinking "American Pie" was downright genius.

To be fair, there was one bright spot in "Road Trip." Breckin Meyer, who plays the main character, is sweet. And he gets bonus points for having appeared and acted hilariously in "Clueless," one of my favorite movies of the '90s.

The next night, my friend Jennifer was in town, and we went to see "The Virgin Suicides" at the very same theater where "Road Trip" had been perpetrated. "The Virgin Suicides" is Sofia Coppola's directorial debut, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (which I have not yet read, but which several people have recommended to me). I don't have a whole lot to say about the film, because it lacked depth and didn't make a big impression on either Jennifer or me. Neither of us disliked it, and we both found some of the acting quite good. But neither of us was excited by the movie. Keep this in mind, however: Sofia Coppola is Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, and "The Godfather"--one of my absolutely all-time favorite movies--was his eighth effort as a director.

Here's how "The Virgin Suicides" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 7. The main characters are female, so the movie gets points for that. But the story is told by a male narrator, and the girls all seem very distant, leaving it unclear whether the movie is supposed to be more about the narrator and his friends or the girls they're observing. It would be fine with me if the emphasis was on the guys, but the lack of focus is irksome. Either way, the one character painted exceptionally well is Trip Fontaine, played by Josh Hartnett, who really, really seemed to Jennifer and me like guys we'd each known in high school. Watching him, we even felt like we were in high school again (not a pleasant sensation, but a powerful evocation).

*Race: ?. I don't remember for certain, but I think it was an all-white cast.

*Shoes: 3. Understated. The movie is set in the '70s, and I give it a lot of credit for restrained wardrobe and sets. Let it be known that I am sick to death of overdone period pieces from that era.

*Dogs: 1. There's off-screen woofing, but no dogs are seen.

*Do things blow up? 0. Go see Francis Ford Coppola's movies for that sort of spectacle.

If you need to see a movie, and you have to choose between "Road Trip" and "The Virgin Suicides," go see the latter.

Here're a few other things I've seen lately:

This past weekend, Rich and Erik and Stephanie and I saw "L'Atalante" at the Film Forum. The movie is a 1926 French film that has been revived and is well worth seeing if you have any predilection for foreign film or early cinema. A subtle story is told with little dialogue and surprisingly sophisticated camerawork, the acting is top-notch, and a few good dogs are seen. During the movie, the guy to my left put his hand on my leg, which was creepy, to put it mildly. I smacked his hand away and glared at him, but he didn't look at me. Then I noticed the woman on the other side of him shifting a lot. He left before the movie was over. Afterwards, I asked the other woman if the guy in between us had seemed a little weird to her, and she said "definitely," but she didn't want to talk about it. Despite that unpleasant interlude (which Rich did not find alarming: "Hey, you expect weirdos at the Film Forum"), I really liked the film. Rich and Erik and Stephanie and I had a nice dinner beforehand at Tibet on Houston, which isn't stellar, but it's good enough, and it's near the theater.

Also at the Film Forum is "Grass," which Matthew and I saw last week. It's a documentary about the legal and social history of marijuana in the US over the past century, narrated by bad boy Woody Harrelson. The movie has cool opening credits, but it deteriorates shortly thereafter. Some of the early history is stuff I didn't know, and it's interesting. But fifteen minutes in, the movie is trying to cover way too much territory, way too quickly, making for ineffective and disappointing coverage. No notable scores in any of the important categories of analysis. The movie's Website appears to have been programmed by people smoking a little too much.

About two weeks ago, I saw "The Petite Charm of the Bourgeoisie" at the Quad with Rich, his friend Alex and another friend of his named Sarah. The movie, directed by Luis Bunuel ("Un Chien Andalou," "Belle de Jour"), won the best foreign film Oscar in 1972. It's an exercise in surrealism, and the shoes are outstanding. There are also a couple of cute handbags.

Well, that's the report from the sticky-floored front. Stay tuned for more updates, and in the meantime, keep your eye on the box scores; the Yanks are half a game up in the standings.

The Mission Position

Originally posted 2 June 2000

Movies: Mission: Impossible 2, Small Time Crooks

Earlier this week, I had a bad cough. I spent several days inside, but there was only so long I could stare at three feet of unread newspapers and two dozen back issues of the New Yorker before I became nauseated as well as wheezy. I needed to get out. I was too weak to do anything more strenuous than walk three blocks to the Sony at 84th & Broadway; fortunately, "Mission: Impossible 2" was playing on all six screens there. I loaded up on cough drops and trooped over, figuring a bad-ass action movie would be loud enough to hide my hacking and lively enough to keep me awake.

"Mission: Impossible 2" was loud.

Okay, it was lively, too. But it wasn't dramatic. When you know the hero is going to live to see another sequel, an action movie needs to work a little to drum up some real tension and suspense. "Mission: Impossible 2" nods in that direction, but it's more interested in the pyrotechnics of prolonged action sequences than in making you care who gets killed during them. "M:I2" is less relaxed than "Shanghai Noon," but it's not nearly as funny. The end result? Tom Cruise's hair is "M:I2's" most noteworthy special effect.

Cruise makes fine, fine scenery in "Mission: Impossible 2." His body is sculpted, and his smile has serious wattage. Too bad he has to speak as well. The screenplay, written by Robert Towne ("Bonnie and Clyde," "Chinatown," "Heaven Can Wait" and zillions of others, including the first "Mission: Impossible" movie) doesn't help him out. It's corny and trite, especially with the female love interest, played by Thandie Newton ("Beloved"). During many of the scenes between her and Cruise--action or romance--the audience just laughed at the dialog. Cruise should watch it: he could wind up like Kevin Costner, former mega-draw whose trailers now get jeered wildly.

OTOH, director John Woo might take a little more care with his casting. Many of his previous films, like "Hardboiled" and "Face/Off," worked because the lead actors (Chow Yun Fat, John Travolta) have suave screen presence. Cruise still seems like the confused yet lucky teenager in "Risky Business." But who am I kidding? "Mission: Impossible 2," with its global-adventure plot, nifty gadgetry and signature theme song, is clearly gunning for the Bond territory. Before we know it, there'll be more "Mission: Impossible" movie installments than TV episodes.

Anyway, "Mission: Impossible 2" trades in the tropes of our time. Bio-warfare is threatened, and in exchange for global safety, the bad guys want stock options in a pharmaceutical company. Thank god the pursuit of peace necessitates blowing up a lot of cars and things, or the plot would read like yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Here's how "Mission: Impossible 2" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 2. There's one woman in the movie, and her role is little more than a prop. Also, Newton and Cruise have zero chemistry, and it's impossible to believe his love for her is a motivating factor in the action.

*Race: 2. Ving Rames plays the usual black sidekick.

*Shoes: 4. Newton wears so-so sandals and some boring sneakers, but towards the beginning, Cruise wears cool rock-climbing shoes. I have read that Cruise did a lot of his own stunt work for "M:I2," including the widely publicized scene in which he hangs off a rock outcropping. That's lovely, but I wonder: isn't it prohibitively expensive to insure Cruise for these scenes?

*Dogs: 0. No dogs? No problem. They'd probably just get killed anyway.

*Do things blow up? 10. The reason to see this movie. Weirdly, some of the action is filmed and shown from many angles, in slow mo, as if depicting a spectacular double play. What's next? Play-by-play announcers for high-speed chases?

"Mission: Impossible 2" is one of those movies, like "Phantom Menace," that has so much glitzy technical stuff going on, the closing credits have to be listed three across or they'll take longer to roll than the film itself. Happily, the "M:I2" credits include an "inferno artist" and a "roto supervisor" (which I am assuming does not mean Cruise plays in a rotisserie baseball league). The credits also list "Prada"--not "Miuccia Prada," mind you, who is a person, but "Prada" the high-fashion clothing and accessories label--and the word just floats up the screen, unattached to any explanation. Oh, the symbolism! "Mission: Impossible 2" is okay entertainment, but its style is without substantive context.

A few days after "M:I2," I saw the new Woody Allen movie, "Small Time Crooks," at the Village East with my friends Erik, Stephanie and Joseph. I don't have too much to say about this unambitious film, because although I recall being amused while watching it, I can hardly remember the movie at all two days later.

Allen wrote "Small Time Crooks," yet he doesn't have a deep enough sense of the characters to make them truly interesting. Some skillful performances help mask this deficiency. Elaine May, with her brilliant comic timing, is great to see, and Tracey Ullman is hammy and fun. Plus there are enough funny lines and scenes to make "Small Time Crooks" a decent watch. But this ain't no "Take the Money and Run."

Here's how "Small Time Crooks" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 5. Yet again in an Allen film, the lead female character wants the lead male character to be something he's not. That aside, Ullman and May play the movie's best characters.

*Race: 0. Allen's New York is coconut-sorbet white.

*Shoes: 2. Uninteresting.

*Dogs: 0. A pug might have worked nicely in this movie.

*Do things blow up? 0. You need to ask?

"Small Time Crooks" isn't a bad movie, it's a small-time diversion. Go in with low expectations, and you'll do just fine.

Memorialized

Originally posted 29 May 2000

Movies: Shanghai Noon, Timecode, Wings of Hope, American Psycho, Keeping the Faith

It's Memorial Day Weekend, which can only mean one thing: a lot of really bad movies are about to be released. Likely, I'll see a few of them. In the meantime, here're some reviews of the spring crop of crap.

The previews for "Shanghai Noon" looked dumb and dumber. So although I'm a fan of Hong Kong action movies and I like Jackie Chan, I was planning to skip this flick. Then my friend Chris, who reviews movies for GirlsOn, invited me to a press screening of Chan's latest Hollywood production. I'll go see nearly any movie that is 1) not a horror film, and 2) free. Thus, we saw "Shanghai Noon" last week in a screening at the UA theater on 64th & 2nd (read: I'll even schlep over to the east 60's for a gratis ticket).

Although she's amenable to sitting down front, Chris likes to sit on the aisle. I agreed to this arrangement, gracious guest that I am (read: I didn't think I was going to like the movie, so who cares if I couldn't really see it?).

"Shanghai Noon," directed by first-timer Tom Dey, is a cowyboys-and-indians-and-martial-arts-guys movie. With action genre on top of action genre, you'd think the flick would be thrilling. Unfortunately, "Shanghai Noon" is utterly lacking in tension. The bad guys are not a credible menace and Chan never seems mortally threatened. The fight scenes pop up at predictable ten-minute intervals, there's not much of plot, and the movie is lousy with cultural inaccuracies and blatant anachronisms. But if you're trying to do research on Chinese codes of honor or American Indian war-paint techniques, you should be online or at the library--not watching Jackie Chan movies and eating stale popcorn.

So why should you see "Shanghai Noon"? Because it's surprisingly funny. Owen Wilson (who co-wrote the outstanding "Rushmore") plays Chan's sidekick, and he's winning as a New Age, Old West cowboy. Also, the film makes a smart move with its action: like Chan's runaway hit "Rush Hour," "Shanghai Noon" focuses more on his martial arts prowess than on the breathtaking movie stunts for which he is known. (Chan notoriously does all of his own stunt work, and his nose has the broken-more-than-once look of a hockey player's.)

Here's how "Shanghai Noon" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 1. Lucy Liu plays a kidnapped princess. Her role is small and her character is supposedly tough, but she does very little on-screen ass kicking. Chan acquires an Indian wife during the course of events. She helps the heroes at crucial moments, but her slutty disposition makes her a Hollywood archetype of the most annoying sort. All the other women in the movie are hookers.

*Race: 3. A disaster for the Indians, who are treated with Hollywood's typical indifference towards veracity.

*Shoes: 1. Eh.

*Dogs: 0.

*Do things blow up?: 3. Not as much as one might have hoped. But the fight scenes are better than decent, which compensates.

All things considered, I enjoyed "Shanghai Noon," and I was a little sorry that I'd agreed to sit on the aisle (read: I'd recommend it, even to a paying audience).

About two weeks ago, I saw "Timecode" with my friends Erik and Stephanie at the Sony on 84th & Broadway. Throughout the 97 minutes of this film, the screen is split into quadrants, each showing a different character's story. Holly Hunter, Salma Hayek, Stellan Skarsgard, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Xander Berkeley (also in "Shanghai Noon") and a slew of other actors appear in the various, overlapping plots. From time to time, the characters become visible in each other's frames. Were the movie 98 minutes long, it would be too much. But as it stands, "Timecode," directed by Mike Figgis ("Leaving Las Vegas"), is an interesting experiment, worth seeing. (Read: it's especially worthwhile if you have a friend like Stephanie who is willing to convince the theater manager that the Sony coupons you have should be honored even if the movie does not meet the terms of the vouchers and you therefore get in for half price or free. It also helps if you go out for cheap Vietnamese food afterwards.)

Earlier in May, I hauled my ass across the East River to see "Wings of Hope" at BAM with my crony Matthew and our friends Dana and Shari. "Wings of Hope," Werner Herzog's most recent documentary, opens with this brief prologue: "In 1971, a plane with 92 passengers aboard disappeared into the Peruvian jungle without a trace. After ten days, the intensive search was abandoned. On the twelfth day, Juliane Koepcke, a seventeen year old girl, emerged. She was the sole survivor."

Herzog, filming in Peru in at the time, was bumped from the flight that crashed. "Wings of Hope" takes place 27 years later as he tracks down Koepcke, and with a small camera crew and a few Peruvian macheteros to clear the jungle, takes her back to the site of the crash. Large and startlingly recognizable sections of the fuselage, instrument panel, seats and luggage are found and unearthed while Koepcke tells her story of the flight, the crash--in which her mother died--and her tortuous path out of the tropical forest. Herzog narrates their pilgrimage.

Like "Airport '77," "Wings of Hope" will not be the in-flight movie on your next trip. But "Wings of Hope" shares more with the disaster genre than just, well, disaster. Although its story is revealed at the beginning, the movie is gripping and suspenseful. Will Koepcke, who tells her story with stoicism and emotional distance, break down while revisiting the jungle? Will she lash out at Herzog for having brought her back? How, exactly, did she survive physically and emotionally?

Here's how "Wings of Hope" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 8. The main character is female; she is tough as nails; she is incredibly smart; and, unlike me, she is not afraid of snakes (read: I spent the whole movie worried somebody would step on a serpent).

*Race: 3. The Peruvian people encountered by the filmmakers are treated a little peculiarly.

*Shoes: 7. Jungle-worthy rubber boots.

*Dogs: 9. Excellent Peruvian mutts.

*Do things blow up? 8. Not exactly, but things that blew up 30 years ago are documented in stunning detail.

"Wings of Hope" was shot on video, so it won't lose much in the translation if you rent it. Which I suggest you do very soon.

By the way, a couple of weeks after we saw "Wings of Hope" with them, Dana and Shari were married in a very nifty ceremony on a ship off the Chelsea pier. Shari wore silver shoes with five-inch heels and a dress (made partly out of feathers) that she put together herself with automotive glue. Dana lost his shoes before the event but discovered them at the last minute. The band Luna played a great set. I could not find the dessert room (read: I came home, drank a scotch and ate half a bag of chocolate chips while watching "Baseball Tonight").

A few nights before seeing "Wings of Hope," I cobbled together an Upper West Side double header: an early evening show of "American Psycho" at the Sony on 84th Street by myself and a later show of "Keeping the Faith" at the Sony on 68th Street with my neighbor Rich. This was not a night for amateurs.

When it came out in 1985, I read "Less Than Zero," Brett Easton Ellis's first novel. I thought it sucked. When Ellis's "American Psycho" was published in 1991, it was decried by some critics as misogynist and generally disgusting because the main character was a yuppie who got off on killing women, and the murders were described in glowing passages. I'm not a fan of gore, and I hadn't like "Less Than Zero," so I skipped "American Psycho," a movie version of which was released this spring. Unintrigued by the book, I thought I'd blow off the movie, too. But then the film a got a handful of good reviews, and a few friends of mine liked it, so I decided to check it out.

I should have stuck with original no-go plan. "American Psycho" is a perfect example of the fact that narrow, annoying characters make for irritating movies. The film bored me, and I found Christian Bale, the lead actor, to be too lovingly lighted. His acting isn't bad, though, and I really like Chloe Sevigny, who has a supporting role.

Here's how "American Psycho" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 5. I thought this was going to be the most misogynist flick imaginable. But it wasn't really problematic in this department at all. Sure, some women get killed, but so do some men. In fact, the women in the movie are portrayed much more sympathetically then the men. Most of the female characters seem smart and fairly realistic, while the male characters are drawn as unpleasant cartoons. The movie was directed by Mary Harron ("I Shot Andy Warhol"), and she might have treated the gender relations differently than Ellis. But any director might have. Draw what conclusions you will.

*Race: 1. There's a homeless black guy, and that's about it diversity-wise. I suspect the movie wants viewers to think the main characters' contemptible behavior has something to do with their being white, but it's a muddled notion if it even exists.

*Shoes: 1. Very disappointing. The movie is obsessed with clothing, but it's more interested in duct tape than in shoes.

*Dogs: 2. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I tell you that a lot of people are slain in this movie. A homeless dog is one of the first people to get iced.

*Do things blow up? 3. An exploding cop car pleasantly surprised me. Unfortunately the camera didn't linger at all over the flames.

"American Psycho" is set in the 1980s, and one serious anachronism bugged me all night: in a scene at a club, a bunch of models on stage act out the "Charlie's Angels" logo. Fugghedaboudit. That particular revival is happening today (a movie version of "Charlie's Angels" is being released later this year); yuppies in the 80s were not publicly nostalgic for Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith (read: I think I'm terribly clever for having noticed this). Here's what else troubled me during "American Psycho": somebody in the audience brought a toddler (!). The movie features chainsaw murders and more corpses than live actors: it's not a film for children, ill-behaved or otherwise. Actually, "American Psycho" isn't much of a flick for adults, either. If you haven't seen it yet, don't bother.

After "American Psycho," I met up with Rich, and we went to see "Keeping the Faith," Ed Norton's directorial debut. It's the Philadelphia story of two guys, played by Norton and Ben Stiller, who grow up together in Manhattan. Norton becomes a priest, Stiller a rabbi. One day, their childhood friend, played as an adult by Jenna Elfman, shows up out of the blue. She's a gritty, babe-a-licious businesswoman. They both fall in love with her. Hijinks ensue.

The first question raised by "Keeping the Faith" is, do rabbis really use so much hair gel? That one goes unanswered. But the second question--were Elfman and my brother's ex-girlfriend separated at birth?--is finally laid to rest. Elfman, when starring on the TV show "Dharma and Greg," not only acts uncannily like Dan's ex, she looks similar, too. In "Keeping the Faith," Elfman thankfully manages to seem like somebody else. In contrast, Norton is becoming one of those actors who has the same personality in every movie he's in ("The People vs. Larry Flint," "American History X"). The guy has some appealing qualities, but one has to wonder whether he can, y'know, act. Also, he doesn't possess a sharp comedic sensibility. Ben Stiller ("There's Something About Mary," "Mystery Men") is a lot funnier.

Anyway, "Keeping the Faith" is better than most romantic comedies on the silver screen these days. Which is like saying Al Gore is better than most presidential candidates this year. But unlike Al Gore, "Keeping the Faith" did keep me laughing. The movie doesn't know what to do with itself at the end, and the final twenty minutes are messy, but I enjoyed watching it.

"Keeping the Faith" is the sort of flick that gets called "a great date movie"--a term that is universally applied to romantic comedies, which I do not understand. Romantic comedies make crummy date movies because obviously, your date is not going to turn out to be nearly so charming or felicitous. What a buzz kill! Better to see something that'll get the juices flowing, like "Mission: Impossible 2." At least you'll want to have sex afterwards.

Here's how "Keeping the Faith" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 3. When it comes down to deciding which character will give up their career for love, guess who feels she's been working too hard anyway?

*Race: 5. On the one hand, the movie depicts New York as populated with a range of races and ethnicities. Nice touch. On the other hand, the movie treats the non-white characters with the subtlety and freshness of a "Seinfeld" episode--in other words, with none. Also, Rich, who is Jewish and considers living near Barney Greengrass to be high observance, found the portrayal of the Jewish congregation to be offensive. I didn't, and I've even gone to services twice in the past two years.

*Shoes: 3. Stiller has some decent footwear. Elfman wears a bunch of cute ensembles, but her shoes are not stressed so much as her cell phone.

*Dogs: 0. The Upper West Side is lousy with dogs. There was no canine action in the film, which is a very unrealistic portrayal of the neighborhood (read: I thought Robie should have had a cameo).

*Do things blow up? 0. No hellfire.

"Keeping the Faith" was filmed on my block and in a church and a synagogue around the corner. Norton was practically living with me during the filming of the movie; by the time they were done shooting, I felt that the least he could do for me was walk Robie occasionally (read: for weeks, annoying film crews prevented me from walking down the street and parking my car on the block). I only saw Stiller a couple of times. One night, he said "hi" when he passed me on the street. But I think he thought I was somebody he knew.

Anyway, I find it unbearably distracting to watch a movie that's been filmed in places in know. I spend the whole time thinking, "but when you step out of that building, you're not on 90th Street!" Or, "but that room in the church does not lead to the main sanctuary of the synagogue!" Or, "but where are all the dogs?" I was preoccupied by these things in "Keeping the Faith," but to be honest, I was a lot more vexed by the weird-smelling guy behind us and the rowdy teenagers in front of us. The kids got so noisy that at one point, I leaned forward, jerked two of their chairs back and hissed, "Shut the fuck up" like I was Charles Bronson. I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or them (read: I may be hip enough to know a misplaced "Charlie's Angels" reference when I see one, but I'm getting intolerant as I age: don't make any noise, bring any babies or smell strange if you go with me to the movies this summer).

Spring Training

Originally posted 24 April 2000

Movies: East is East, High Fidelity, a few other movies and assorted plays

O.K. It must be admitted: I have slacked on the SMO front. There are excuses (baseball season started, I have been working a lot, I had to spend a full evening last week at my neighbors' watching "Sex and the City" to see what all the fuss is about (impossible to say), there have been seders, and did I mention baseball season kicked in?). But the truth of the matter is that these Opinions have gone neglected and so too have you, my readers.

Many of you have been kind enough to send me notes about how much you miss my missives. I appreciate the gentle reminders. Thank you. Please know that although my film-going schedule has been light this spring, I am warming up for a summer of full-on movie viewing and reviewing.

Last weekend, my friend Matthew and I went to see "East is East," a British import about the conflict between a traditional Pakistani Muslim father and a strong-willed Anglo mother who bring up their seven kids in a working-class English town. It was a rainy night, and Matthew and I met at the Angelika, the lobby of which is operated like a less efficient outpost of the DMV (only with better-looking patrons). A nice movie could be made about the ebbing and tiding tension in that lobby, as ticket-holders jockey for position in the theater-entrance line; a compelling subplot would focus on the queues for the bathrooms.

Anyway, "East is East" is billed as a comedy, and it contains some deeply funny sequences. Small moments make up this movie, and the interactions between the siblings are particularly well observed, as are the scenes with the mother's best friend. The movie, however, deals with the painful subject matter of generation and culture gaps within a family. This is not especially fresh filmic fodder, and "East is East" fails to expand the genre by painting the father as a one-dimensional bad guy. Also, the film is inexplicably set in the 1970's, an era that is staler than the rice cakes I found in my kitchen yesterday.

Here's how "East is East" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 6. Questions about gender roles undergird the entire story, but never surface for full exploration. OTOH, the mother is a terrific character.

*Race: 6. Racial identity and "passing" are themes of this movie and are examined slightly more than the issues of gender. But the characters are pretty familiar and stereotypical within this.

*Shoes: 2. You'd think that with a '70's setting, you'd get some good shoes in the bargain. You'd be wrong.

*Dogs: 4. A Great Dane (or maybe it was a Dalmation?) has a couple of funny, ha-ha scenes, and I seem to recall another canine moment when a few of the siblings go to visit their older brother in the big city.

*Do things blow up? 0. A disappointment in this category.

Although "East is East" can't seem to decide if it wants to be a comedy or a comment, it's well acted and enjoyable enough to merit a couple of hours of your time. After the movie, Matthew and I had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant on Houston Street near Thompson. The service was iffy and the momos were lousy, but the rest of the food was pretty decent. If you're in that neighborhood and you cannot bear to eat at Aggies, try this place (it's about a block east of Aggies).

A couple of weeks back I went to see "High Fidelity" with Marci, a fellow student in my writing class, on a whim after class one night. The 19th Street Sony theater was pretty full when we got there, and as we were walking down the aisle, I started to slow down. We were in the middle of a conversation, and we hadn't talked beforehand about seating. I suddenly got a little panicky that Marci would want to sit in the back, on the side, and I wouldn't be able to break the stream of our conversation to explain my fifth-row-center seat needs. Here's what I like about Marci: as soon as I slowed down and said, "Uh...," she said, "What? You have issues? We can sit anywhere." Then she resumed the discussion about New York Times editors.

Marci and I settled down front for "High Fidelity," which is based on Nick Hornby's book of the same name. The novel is set in London, and I read it while there with my great aunt two years ago. Notably, our vacation coincided with the 1998 World Series, which was broadcast live on Brit t.v., and although we could watch from the comfort of our hotel room, the games didn't begin until 1am Greenwich Mean Time. I stayed awake for the games reading "High Fidelity." The Yankees swept the series, we had a great time in London, and I very much liked Hornby's book--the story of a regular guy in his 30's who owns an unsuccessful record shop and has girlfriend problems--with its Britishisms and city backdrop.

The movie re-sets "High Fidelity" in Chicago, and I was apprehensive about this change. Despite Hornby's avowed approval of the movie, the setting seemed fundamental to me, and I took the shift as a bad sign. As it turns out, I needn't have worried: the move to Chicago isn't a problem at all. Instead, the movie gets hung up having John Cusack, who plays Rob Gordon, the main character, narrate the story directly to the camera. I'm not sure how else the film could have worked out the first-person narration of the book, but there must have been a better, less self-conscious way.

"High Fidelity," directed by Stephen Frears ("Dangerous Liaisons," "The Grifters," "The Snapper"), is charming and funny enough to overcome its narration. The ensemble cast turns in very good performances. Jack Black, who has appeared in such films as "Bongwater," "Johnny Skidmarks," and, incredibly, "Waterworld," is a particularly delightful scene-stealer. He and Todd Louiso--also outstanding--play Gordon's music-geek record-store employees. A lot of their dialog is lifted directly from the book, and it works beautifully on screen. Joan Cusack, John's sister, plays a friend in this movie; although her part is small, she is delicious.

Here's how "High Fidelity" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 5. The book was a serious Guy Story, but the movie has, uh, more broad appeal.

*Race: 3. There are a couple of black characters, including a minor love interest played by Lisa Bonet (infrequently seen since "The Cosby Show" ended in 1992). Bonet's character is more complex and central in the book. To its discredit, the movie dishes out and wraps up her subplot too neatly.

*Shoes: 4. In one scene, Iben Hjejle wears a pair of stack-heeled Mary Janes that I liked, and Bonet gets away with cowboy boots. Other than that, the movie is dull in the shoe department.

*Dogs: 0. None that I remember.

*Do things blow up? 0. Nyet.

Marci and I both enjoyed the movie while we were watching it, but I found myself liking it less in the following few days. The narration really got on my nerves, and I became irked that the movie didn't reinterpret the book in any way--it just displayed it in another medium. Not that this is easy to do. But having read the book, I found the movie ultimately unsatisfying and a little gimmicky. Nonetheless, it's better than the average Hollywood rubbish, and I did have fun watching it. Plus it's got top-notch closing credits. So go see it for the music-geek scenes, and wait patiently for the film version of "About a Boy," Hornby's next novel, which has a much movie-friendlier plot.

Earlier this month, I joined my parents at BAM to see some Godfrey Reggio ("Koyaanisqatsi") films with live accompaniment by Philip Glass and assembled musicians. Over the course of two nights, we saw "Evidence" (a short), "Anima Mundi" and "Powaqqatsi." I have seen "Koyaanisqatsi" a number of times--including once with live Glass accompaniment in Philadelphia, with my father and my friend Frank--and it's Reggio's best film, by far. "Anima Mundi" (which included pretty much every species other than the canine) and "Powaqqatsi" (the opening scenes of which were filmed in the Serra Pelada mines in Brazil and are stunning) follow the same stream-of-images format, and while they both have beautiful moments, neither is very strong. Nonetheless, it's exciting to see movies set to live music, and if you have the chance to check out any of these films with Glass and players, do so.

Here are quickie reviews of three plays I've seen in the past month:

Earlier this week, I joined my friends Jonathan and Dick at Circle in the Square to see "True West," a 1980 Sam Shepard play revived with Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Magnolia," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Happiness") and John Reilly ("Magnolia," "The Thin Red Line") playing (adult) brothers who hash out their relationship. The current production has gotten incredibly positive reviews from New York critics, especially the Times's Ben Brantley, and it seemed worth spending Broadway money to see it. For this production, the two lead actors alternate roles for each performance. We saw Hoffman as the destructive brother and Reilly as the responsible brother, but I spent the entire play obsessed with what it would be like to see them in the opposing roles. The set is positively wrecked during the course of the show, and I also spent a lot of the play wondering who cleans up after each performance; I was similarly interested to know whether audience members in the first few rows ever get clonked with a flying plate, and how, exactly, the burning wastebasket works. I was not that intrigued by the play--it is dated--nor by central the performances--they're very good, but I never forgot I was watching actors. Jonathan and Dick and I all agreed that we'd enjoyed the play enough while watching it, and we all liked Celia Weston in her very small role as the mother. But none of us thought the play was magnificent or life-changing or anything. Save $62 and go see something off-Broadway, plus eat a nice dinner, for the same money.

About a month ago, I went to see "Pilgrims," a way-off-Broadway play with an ensemble cast that included M, a guy in my group-therapy group. I went with K and L from group, and L's fiancé, J. For $12, "Pilgrims" was good entertainment, plus I enjoyed hanging out with my fellow groupies. "Pilgrims" was a series of three vignettes, all based on short stories written by Elizabeth Gilbert. Shira Priven adapted the stories for the stage and directed the production. I often find it distracting to know somebody in a play or movie--it prevents me from going with the fantasy--and I found myself watching M a little too much. Also, his brother was in the cast (in one story playing M's son), and since M has talked about his brother in group, I kept thinking about their relationship. Still, M was good (as was his brother), and I liked the production enough to think about seeking out Gilbert's stories. They didn't adapt seamlessly to the stage, so I'd be curious to see another theater production by this group. (On a side note, I saw M's brother at a bar recently. I introduced myself to him as a friend of M's and told him I'd seen "Pilgrims." He was hanging out with a bunch of the cast and crew, and he introduced me to a few of them. Since I wasn't sure if M's brother knew that M goes to group, I had to glide over my connection to M. It was kind of nerve-wracking, so I retreated quickly. New York is such a small town.)

The weekend before baseball season opened, I spent a few days in Boston, home of the perennially losing Red Sox and of my brother, Dan, a very smart guy with a great personality--Bosox fandom notwithstanding. While up there, I saw "The After-Rhyme," written by Sean Graney and directed by my brother. Dan runs the Rough & Tumble theater company when he is not programming cool Web sites, and the R&T motto--"theater that doesn't suck"--was fulfilled with the absurd yet accessible and funny "After-Rhyme." Dan tends to get very good actors for his plays, and this production was no exception; without such strong acting, this play might have been Tough & Rumble. I'm pre-disposed to liking Dan's stuff, but I thought "The After-Rhyme" represented a new level of professionalism for R&T events. If you find yourself in Boston when a Rough & Tumble play is up, go see it.

As a sort of balance to giving the Boston-based R&T team such a good review, I'm going to share with you a little something that a friend faxed to me recently: 20 Major Events Since the Boston Red Sox's Last World Championship. (A special shout-out here to my brother's friend Scott, who grew up in New Jersey, lives in New York....and is a Red Sox fan. Scott is otherwise intelligent and fun to hang out with, so I can overlook this flaw.) Enjoy.

1. Radio was invented. As a result, Red Sox fans got to hear their team lose.

2. TV was invented. As a result, Red Sox fans got to see their team lose.

3. Baseball added 14 teams. As a result, Red Sox fans got to see and hear their team lose to more clubs.

4. George Burns celebrated his 20th, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th birthdays.

5. Halley's comet passed Earth...twice.

6. Babe Ruth was sold. He went on to win four World Series titles with the Yankees.

7. The NBA and NHL were formed, and Boston teams won championships in both leagues.

8. Men landed on the moon (as have several home runs given up by Red Sox pitchers).

9. Fifteen U.S. presidents were elected.

10. There were eleven amendments added to the Constitution.

11. Prohibition was created and repealed.

12. The Titanic was built, sailed, sank and was discovered. It ultimately became the subject of a major motion picture, giving hope to Red Sox fans that something that finishes on the bottom can come out on top.

13. Fenway Park was built and became the oldest park in the American League.

14. Flagpoles were erected on the Fenway Park roof to hold all of the team's future World Series pennants. Those flagpoles rusted and were taken down. [Ed note: I actually find this one a little sad.]

15. A combination of forty Summer and Winter Olympics were held.

16. Thirteen baseball players won the Triple Crown; several thanked Red Sox pitchers.

17. Bell-bottoms came in style, went out of style and came back in style. Disco did the same.

18. The Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins won the World Series.

19. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Oklahoma and New Mexico were added to the Union.

20. Two words.......Bill Buckner.

Phew, that was fun!

I'll try not to let my time following the Yankees this year prevent me from catching movies and writing up more SMOs. Stay tuned for what promises to be a great season.

Feelin' Groovy at the Movies

Originally posted 20 March 2000

Movies: Erin Brockovich, Reservoir Dogs, The Straight Story, Judy Berlin, The Long Goodbye, The Terminator

Whaddaya know? The feel-good hit of the year is about chromium poisoning!

Last night, after Korean food in midtown with my friends Mike and Kathy, I found myself at the Sonyplex on 68th Street, buying a ticket on a whim for the 11:15pm show of "Erin Brockovich." While waiting for the movie to begin, I began to regret my impulse purchase. I had seen the "Erin Brockovich" trailer six dozen times and figured I was familiar with every funny and affecting moment of the movie--and I'd just paid $9.50 to witness it all again. I had a headache, and the theater was stickier than a self-adhesive stamp. I anticipated a dreary movie experience.

"Erin Brockovich" won me over.

"Erin Brockovich" is not a Great Movie, but it is major entertainment. Julia Roberts stars the hell out of this flick; she is well-supported by Albert Finney, who plays her boss, and a lot of underwire bras. Steven Soderbergh ("Sex, Lies & Videotape," "Out of Sight") directed the movie. "Erin Brockovich" is proud to be based on the true story of the title character, a single mom with no money and no formal education who coerces her way into a job at a law firm and doggedly pursues a case against the regional water utility.

Although the movie tells its tale in obvious Big Hollywood style, replete with one-dimensional bad guys and dumbed-down hicks, it does something the silver screen hasn't seen since the "African Queen" sailed in 1951: it portrays a tough female character who creates a world around herself--and isn't penalized by the movie for her personality. Think Mae West as Tira in "I'm No Angel," Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson in "His Girl Friday" (1940) or Katherine Hepburn as Susan Vance in "Bringing Up Baby" (1938).

At the same time, "Erin Brockovich" is not a flabby "women's movie" like "Hanging Up." It is flawed and cliched in several regards, but smart dialog and unusual relationships between the main characters keep the movie from mushing out. Plus, the romantic subplot is just that--a subplot, which is rarer than steak tartare in a Hollywood flick with a central female character.

Here's how "Erin Brockovich" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 9. In 1934, six of the 10 best-paid actors in Hollywood were women. In 1994, none were women. When Julia Roberts made "Pretty Woman" in 1990, Janet Maslin said that Roberts had the star quality of post-war actresses. Last year, Molly Haskell wrote in a New York Times article that Roberts' character in "Notting Hill" recalled the leading ladies of the 1930s and 40s. I didn't agree with either of those assessments. But "Erin Brockovich" certainly hits that "peel me a grape" note, and if it spurs the creation of more such flicks, I'll be a happy moviegoer.

*Race: 2. There are a few minor Mexican and black characters.

*Shoes: 4. The movie is obsessed with Erin's clothes, but gives her shoes relatively short shrift.

*Dogs: 0. Incredibly, none of the characters in this movie has a pooch.

*Do things blow up? 0. Erin loses her temper a lot, but she doesn't torch any objects.

Erin throws a few too many tantrums and feels the pain of a few too many victims of the water board's nefarious scheme. The story values money above pretty much everything else, and the credits include a "tattoo designer"--never a good sign. But "Erin Brockovich" is still an enjoyable watch, and if you just need a couple of hours of escapist viewing, I recommend it.

On Monday night, I met my neighbor Rich at the Film Forum to see "Reservoir Dogs." I had never seen it before because I'd been afraid of getting irreparably grossed out by the notorious ear-cutting scene; I am, after all, a gore wimp. But "Reservoir Dogs" was Quentin Tarantino's 1992 directorial debut (he wrote it, too), and his work has been influential enough to make me curious about this ballyhooed film.

Rich and I bought our tickets, then went to Aggie's for dinner (he had meatloaf w/mashed potatoes and veg; I had potato pancakes and a small salad). When we settled into the Film Forum for the movie, I asked Rich to warn me when the gross parts were coming up. This turned out to be unnecessary since "Reservoir Dogs"--the story of a heist gone bad--is violent throughout, and I wound up watching most of it through my fingers without any cautioning from Rich.

Seeing "Reservoir Dogs" reminded me of my disappointment with Tarantino: he incorporates terrific dialogue and deliciously tense scenarios into dumb-ass, gun-obsessed, machismo-spouting stories. I imagine that as a kid Tarantino soaked up hours of bad t.v. and B-movies. He is now regurgitating the themes of those shows with the addition of witty repartee. The resulting movies are sadly soulless.

Fortunately, in addition to a few slick snippets of banter, "Reservoir Dogs" features some good acting. Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth are particularly notable. Also, I like Harvey Keitel, but he pretty much faxes in this bad-boy routine. Taratino is in the movie, and he's a truly lousy actor (later proven with his excruciating performance in "Pulp Fiction"). Stay behind the camera, buddy.

Here's how "Reservoir Dogs" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender & Race: 0. The movie features one black character with a small part and a handful of very minor female characters. Screen time aside, Tarantino loves to portray vitriolic sexism and racism in his characters; he also likes to throw in a fucking ridiculous amount of swearing. I wouldn't have a problem with all this if he were doing it for some purpose other than supposed cool factor, but that ain't the case. It's tired, not clever.

*Shoes: 1. There is not enough footwear in this flick.

*Dogs: 0. None--despite the name!

*Do things blow up? 0. Things get way, way shot up, but amazingly, nothing is blown up.

You've probably already seen "Reservoir Dogs." If you haven't, don't go out of your way to do so. At this point in contemporary cinema, it is profoundly not worth it.

I missed "The Matrix"--a big action, sci-fi story--when it was out, and I have regretted the loss ever since. So I was thrilled when the flick appeared on a big screen in midtown two weeks ago, apparently because it's been nominated for a bunch of Oscars. My friend Laurie F. and I decided to go see it, and to have Sri Lankan food at a restaurant near the theater. Last Friday morning, I pulled up Moviefone.com to order tickets, and before I'd even finished my coffee, I made the harsh discovery that "The Matrix" had only been playing for a week, and it was already gone. I was crushed.

Laurie and I reworked our complex dinner-and-a-movie plans and decided instead to see "The Straight Story" at the Village East and to eat at a Vietnamese place downtown. Perhaps if we had not been in the mood for "The Matrix," we would have liked "The Straight Story" somewhat more. But, as the G-rated story of an older gentleman who drives across Iowa on a John Deere lawnmower to see his ailing brother, "The Straight Story" was pretty much the opposite of "The Matrix." We were a little bored.

"The Straight Story"--based on a true tale--is mildly corny and touching, and it moves along at riding-mower pace. It is not the typical fare from director David Lynch ("Eraserhead," "Blue Velvet"), but I hesitate to think how this film would have turned out in the hands of a sentiment jockey like Steven Spielberg. Richard Farnsworth is very good in the leading role. Sissy Spacek is fine as his daughter, but she has a distracting speech impediment.

*Gender: 5. Neither bad nor good.

*Race: 0. Movies set in the Midwest rarely have any non-white characters.

*Shoes: 3. Beat up work boots, a pair of black Nikes. Like that.

*Dogs: 3. There're a few dogs scattered throughout the movie.

*Do things blow up? 0. There are some fire scenes in the movie, but no explosions.

My grandfather recently e-mailed me his and my grandmother's criteria for movies: no excessive sex, no violence of any kind ("verbal, physical or psychological") as the raison d'etre for the film, no crummy actors and no overly complicated plots. "The Straight Story" might be the only live-action movie of the 1990s that meets their conditions. If your standards match theirs, and you're looking for a decent film with pleasing scenery, check out "The Straight Story."

After the movie, Laurie and I went to Cyclo for dinner. Laurie knows how to pronounce "gewurztraminer," so were able to order a bottle, and it was just right with Vietnamese food. For a full review of Cyclo, click over to Laurie's first-rate write-up (bathrooms included!). Laurie is an equity analyst covering the stocks of U.S. food companies, and she knows her way around a kitchen, so this review is not for nothing.

Two weeks ago, I went to see "Judy Berlin" with my neighbors Amy and Ilene. Edie Falco, one of the stars on the HBO hit "The Sopranos," is in it. Amy is a big fan of "The Sopranos," so she was psyched to see the film. Ilene wanted to see "My Dog Skip." We ridiculed her into seeing "Judy Berlin" with us. We might have been better off with Ilene's pick.

"Judy Berlin" is the first movie from director/writer Eric Mendelsohn. It is set in Babylon, Long Island, and it covers a day in the life of a half-dozen people who live in the town. Some of the acting is strong, but if I never see another film-school, suburban-alienation-fest again, it'll be too soon. Also, I sat alone because Amy and Ilene like to sit in the back of the theater (I have no problem splitting up for the actual viewing), and a weird woman sat four seats away from me and stared at me a lot during the movie. I was slightly freaked out.

I'm not going to bother scoring "Judy Berlin" in my categories of analysis.

"Judy Berlin" was playing in the theater underneath the Virgin Megastore (sic) at Broadway & 45th Street. Since Times Square is now a 24-hour tourist riot scene--Disney does Tiannamen Square!--we had to battle our way in and out of the premises. None of us liked the movie too much, but a pleasant dinner at a Japanese place in the West 40s improved our evening. Summary: even if you're a serious "Sopranos" fan, you can skip "Judy Berlin" with confidence.

Two-and-a-half weeks ago, Rich and I saw "The Long Goodbye" at the Film Forum. Before the movie, we went to Aggie's for dinner (Rich had meatloaf w/mashed potatoes and veg; I had potato pancakes and a small salad). Just to be clear, Aggie's is not good.

Robert Altman ("M*A*S*H," "The Player") made "The Long Goodbye" in 1973. It's based on a Raymond Chandler novel, and it stars Elliott Gould at a high point in his career. Gould plays Philip Marlowe, a Los Angeles private eye who investigates a friend's murder. He's quirky and wisecracking and fun to watch. The movie is quite 1973, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here's how "The Long Goodbye" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 0. A sense of misogyny pervades Robert Altman's movies. "The Long Goodbye" is no exception.

*Race: 1. There's a minor goofy black character, and a couple of corrupt Mexican officials.

*Shoes: 2. For 1973, disappointing.

*Dogs: 3. A bunch of scrawny dogs are seen wandering around Tijuana.

*Do things blow up? 0. Nope.

"The Long Goodbye" was playing as part of the "Neo-noir" series at the Film Forum, and its cinematography is dark. I doubt it would translate well to video, so don't run out and rent it. If it's shown on a big screen near you, though, it's worth a few hours of your time for the sense of atmosphere. Also, Arnold Schwarzenegger has an uncredited role as a thug (and he flexes his pecs prominently).

Btw, as long as we're talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger, I caught "The Terminator" (1984) while playing Scrabble at my friend Billy's a couple of weeks ago. Even with its now-cheesy special effects, "The Terminator" rocks. Linda Hamilton has the worst haircut of all time, but she kicks ass. The story (co-written by director James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd) is great. There are dogs. And things blow up in a huge way. It's still marvelous.

Rent "The Terminator" to have your own private feel-good experience of 2000.

Stamped Out: A Cautionary Tale

Originally posted 12 March 2000

Movies: None; this is a review of an Internet service.

Stamped Out: A Cautionary Tale, and Something to Think About When You Are Considering What Kind of Stocks to Invest In.

The main New York City branch of the post office on 34th Street in a civic dream. The building is beautiful, and natural light streams through the pierced façade, filling the vaulted, marble and brass front room. The space is calm and quiet, efficient yet personal. The line is short and it moves quickly. There is a nice postal employee who walks through the lobby helping patrons. You leave a happy and proud New Yorker.

The post office in my neighborhood is a three-Advil headache. The door sticks, and it is a two-person job to open it if you are carrying packages. To see a teller, you must stand on line, under humming fluorescent lights, for a minimum of forty minutes. There is a clock in the center of the wall above the tellers so that you can learn exactly how much time you are wasting in the queue. They are always out of the stamps you want. There are stamp dispensing machines, but unlike thousands of gas pumps across the country, you cannot use a credit card at these contraptions.

I have a postal scale, and I like buying things on the Web, so I feel I am the perfect candidate to buy postage online. I have felt this for a while now: about a year ago, I tried ordering stamps from the United States Postal Service Web site. I had this fantasy that I'd be able to give them my credit card number and they'd let me print out postage onto stickers. You can imagine my disappointment when it turned out I couldn't even buy stamps at the site to have them mailed to me (although you can do that now). On Friday afternoon, with six prepared envelopes to mail and nothing but postcard stamps on hand, I clicked over to www.stamps.com to see what the Internet could do for me lately.

My initial forays into the site seemed promising. The description of the service was simple and seemed to meet my needs: print postage from a laser printer directly onto labels or envelopes. "No hardware to purchase. No sign up fees. No lease to sign. Just download our free software or request a free CD, open an account, and you can start printing postage the same day." For a 10% premium, it seemed worth the savings in Advil alone.

I downloaded the software (it took 20 minutes on my 56K modem) and went through the installation process. This took about 15 minutes--which was longer than I expected--because there were a lot of details to work out (like how much postage I anticipated using monthly). But the set-up wizard walked me through it, and the instructions were clear. I bought $10 worth of postage and got $20 free just for signing up! I was impressed and excited. Then I got to the final step of registration: contacting the USPS for my official "license." The Stamps.com system automatically emailed the USPS to make sure I was not a known mail-fraud criminal. But it would take three to ten hours to get a response (via email), and I could not print postage from Stamps.com until I received my license. So much for "printing postage the same day." I figured I'd print the postage over the weekend. I set my six envelopes aside.

On Sunday, I logged into my email program and discovered the confirmation message from Stamps.com. "Congratulations! Your official U.S. Postal Service Postage License has been approved by the U.S. Postal Service; you are now ready to start printing postage with Stamps.com." I immediately clicked over to the Stamps.com site. I couldn't figure out how to print postage. I went back to the "Welcome to Stamps.com!" email message. It turned out I was supposed to use the Stamps.com desktop icon to open the software and access the postage printing feature; the Web site only supports the actual service.

I opened up the software and clicked on the big red "Print Postage" button. A window popped up, and it looked good. There were options for a return address, a delivery address, mail type, medium for printing, weight, and mail class. I entered the relevant information, leaving the return address and delivery address blank since I'd already printed up envelopes. I stuck one of the envelopes in the print tray, clicked to print and looked expectantly at my printer. Nothing happened. I looked back at the monitor. A little window had appeared admonishing me to "select a recipient."

After a little fooling around, it became apparent that the Stamps.com system would not let me print a stamp without an address. I thought I could get around this by printing onto labels instead of envelopes. There were only two choices of labels in the "Print Postage" window, however, and not the two dozen choices of Avery Standard types I'd seen listed on the promotional side of the Stamps.com Web site. An exploration of the Customer Support area of the site revealed that most of those labels could only be used for packages. The two types of labels that can be used for letters are "not available in retail stores." Stamps.com sells the labels, but the sort appropriate for me were "temporarily out of stock." I was back to printing directly onto envelopes.

I was determined to get this mailing out, so I decided to import the addresses into Stamps.com from the Excel file where I had them stored. The Stamps.com system would only accept .CSV (comma separated values) files. I saved my Excel file as a .CSV document. The system wouldn't convert from Excel, although it gave me a list of nine contact-management programs it would have happily synched with. I checked the help files and noticed that I could do a mail merge in Word and have Stamps.com print to it. I use mail merge a lot, and the instructions were short, so that idea appealed to me.

I opened Word, tried to do a mail merge and learned that Stamps.com only recognized certain field names. I opened my Excel data file and changed the field names. I tried doing the mail merge again. I got an error message telling me that my field names were incorrect. I cross checked, tried again and began to curse. I checked the help files. They revealed nothing. I checked the Stamps.com Web site and discovered that the data source had to be in Word. I sighed, then cut my Excel sheet and pasted it into a Word table. I tried again. The merge worked. Sort of.

The Stamps.com system checked the merge against a USPS database and asked me to okay each address and to correct anything it didn't recognize. For reasons unclear, the merge had not taken the zip codes, so in addition to vetting every address, I had to enter each zip by hand. I felt lucky to be working with a six-piece mailing.

Once the system felt I had six bona fide addresses in place, it offered to print a "sample." This seemed like a good idea to me. Unfortunately, Stamps.com uses the word "sample" to mean a full run of the mailing with the word "VOID" printed in large block letters on each envelope. As my Laserjet shot out six useless, pre-printed envelopes, I looked on in dismay and felt blessed to be working with a six-piece mailing.

Here's what else I learned from the "sample": between the bar codes, the Facing Identification Mark, the digital signature and the laser printed addresses, my mailing was going to look about as personal as Business Reply envelope. I was not pleased, but I was driven. I printed out the actual mailing. While creating six envelopes, my printer jammed twice and reprinted two of the envelopes with complete addresses and postage. I feared that Stamps.com would deduct extra money from my account for these misprints, but it didn't. I was mightily relieved.

It had taken me nearly two hours to print six unattractive, first-class envelopes. I called Stamps.com to complain.

The Stamps.com voice mail system informed me that I was first in the queue, then it expressed regret that I had called at such a busy time. It offered to let me leave a message and have Stamps.com call me back. I decided to wait it out. A minute later, "Wayne" answered the phone. He sounded a little peculiar and his voice was way too loud. I turned down the receiver and explained that the Stamps.com address book wouldn't accept my Excel .CSV-saved file and that didn't seem right to me. Wayne replied in a friendly manner that it didn't seem right to him either. I waited for an explanation or solution, but he offered neither. After several minutes of conversation it became evident that Wayne had no idea what I was talking about.

I walked Wayne through the importing process as if I were the tech-support person. When we got to the .CSV part, Wayne had a prolonged, phlegmy coughing fit and declined to move the phone away from his mouth. When it was over, he said, "Wow, that was rough!" I wondered if he was working from his garage.

We finally determined that the Stamps.com software did not support my Excel import. I asked Wayne how long until he thought it would be until the company fixed that problem. "Oh, about four weeks." I asked Wayne if he understood the problem. "Uh, not really." I waited. He said, "Maybe some of my paperwork here will help." It didn't. He put me on hold. When he came back, his voice was deafeningly loud. He wanted me to re-install the Stamps.com software. I did not want to re-install the software, so I switched topics and asked about the mail merge "sample" problem. Wayne coughed and said, "Well, I think you need to re-install the program to get the Excel stuff working." I was eerily patient as I explained that we were now talking about mail merges. Wayne put me on hold. He returned, and I reported that I'd tried to print one sample of my multi-envelope mailing and it had printed the whole thing. Wayne said, "Whoa!" I told him that the software wouldn't let me highlight just one name to print out. Wayne put me on hold.

Wayne blasted back into the conversation, and I asked to speak with somebody else. He put me on hold. I wondered if there were any other employees of Stamps.com working from his garage. "Okay, uh, uh...what's your name?" "Sarah." "Right. Okay, I'm going to patch you through to Vince." Vince was calm, his voice was properly modulated and he seemed to have used the Stamps.com software himself. I asked about using Excel as a data source for a mail merge. He said the software wouldn't support that yet, but they were aware of the problem. I asked about the "Print Sample" problem. He gave me a lengthy justification for the "Print Sample" process as a means of testing a printer. I pointed out that were I running a 200- or 2,000-piece mailing, the "sample" would level a forest before it printed the actual mailing. He responded with the verbatim answer he'd given me three minutes earlier. I said that I understood the point of the test, but that it was not a sample and a true sample feature was important. He told me the test was important. I asked him if they were planning to add to the software the feature I was describing. He said he didn't know. I suggested they do so. He mumbled, "Well, I'll write it down. But I can't promise anything."

Just for fun, I described to Vince the two extra envelopes I'd created as a result of my printer's jamming. Could I just place a new label over the addresses and send the envelopes anyway? Vince said no, that to deter mail fraud the USPS required all addresses and indicia (the stamp part) to be printed out at the same time. He assured me, however, that Stamps.com was just a couple of weeks away from getting clearance from the USPS to allow customers to print indicia without addresses. I asked what would happen if I tried to send my two envelopes with new addresses. Vince hesitated. "Nothing." In that moment, a candidate for low-grade mail fraud was born.

After I hung up the phone, I ate all of the Advil in my house. Then I typed up an email message to Stamps.com in which I outlined their various failings, claimed that they were not ready for my business and promised them that I would tell all of my friends not to use Stamps.com until they improved their system and trained their support staff.

Here's how Stamps.com scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:

*Gender: 2. At least Wayne and Vince weren't condescending.

*Race: 0. I'm pretty sure everyone in this little drama was white.

*Dogs: 10. Yesterday, Robie ran his head off while were upstate visiting our friends Paul and Heidi and their giant dog, Sulley. Today, Robie endured the whole Stamps.com episode sacked out on the sofa.

*Shoes: 0. I don't really wear them around the house.

*Do things blow up? 0. There was that scene in which Wayne coughed up a lung, but he didn't actually explode.

The truth of the matter is that as soon as you can simply print a stamp onto a label (without a corresponding address), Stamps.com will be a terrifically useful service. So I'll keep you posted, as it were, on any developments in that direction. In the meantime, I am going to spend tomorrow morning at the post office and the drug store, in that order.

Thank god email doesn't require stamps.

Who Wants to Be a Moviegoer?

Originally posted 1 March 2000

Movies: Restaurant, Wonder Boys

Okie doke. Today's SMO is an experiment. Over the weekend, my neighbor Rich (Ebert) and I (Siskel) spent a night at the movies. Two days later, we hit on the idea of our each writing up independent reviews. We did not discuss between us what details we would write about. The only guideline was that I asked Rich to keep his part under 1,000 words (which he did). Read on for our scintillating opinions!

Sarah's Opinions

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get three New Yorkers to agree on a night of movie going? Not only are there the films to select, but the venues and the times as well. It is nothing less than a nightmare on 87th Street. On Friday afternoon, making full use of my voice line, my dedicated email line, my cell phone, two Web sites and the paper edition of the New York Times, I arranged for me, my friend Matthew and my neighbor Rich to go see "Restaurant" and "Wonder Boys."

Neither Rich nor Matthew had heard of "Restaurant," but I had read a couple of good things about it, and I lobbied for the 7:35pm show at Chelsea Clearview Cinemas. Since Kevin Costner isn't in the movie, Matthew and Rich both agreed to go.

Matthew and I have known each other for seven years, and we estimate that we have seen a few hundred movies together in that time. Twice in 300+ instances, I have arrived at the theater first. Friday night presented a fresh opportunity to beat Mr. Punctuality to the box office. I was running on time, and Rich and I had planned to meet on the 1/9 platform plenty early to get downtown. Rich, however, was eight minutes late (excuse proffered: forgot glasses), and we missed the train that would have gotten us to 23rd Street before Matthew. Since Matthew generally expects me to be late, and we did manage to get there before "Restaurant" began, it wasn't a full-blown tragedy. OTOH, "Restaurant" was lame, and the night might have been better if we'd been desperately late and had to skip the movie and go out for drinks instead. C'est la guerre.

"Restaurant," directed by Eric Bross, was made in 1998 and stars Adrien Brody (before "Summer of Sam") and Lauryn Hill (before the Grammies). Why this flick is getting distributed now, I have no idea. But Brody looks very young, and it's impossible to imagine that either he or Hill would make this movie today. Predictably, "Restaurant" is the non-story of a bunch of young people who work in a Hoboken, NJ eating establishment. While the movie dabbles in the intriguing subjects of interracial relationships and racial tensions, it is marred by an overlarge cast, one-dimensional characters, bland acting and flat dialog. "Restaurant," although well meaning, fails to reveal anything new under the third rock from the sun. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and jejune screenplays.

Honestly, I was too bored by "Restaurant" to score it in my categories of analysis.

After "Restaurant," Rich and I caught the train back uptown for the 11:00pm show of "Wonder Boys" at the Sonyplex on 68th Street. (Matthew had a date to see "Wonder Boys" on Saturday night and headed home to Park Slope.) We arrived with time to spare, and Rich wanted a coffee from the Starbucks behind the theater. I have never been in a Starbucks (except for one time in San Francisco to pee), and I continued my small protest against the malling of our cities by waiting on the corner while Rich went inside. I was rewarded for my stubbornness by the sight of a very cute boxer puppy sniffing its way up the block. I smiled at the dog. When I looked up, I found Kathleen Turner on the other end of the leash, smiling at me. People who go into Starbucks do not get to see these things.

Anyhoo. We were still early for "Wonder Boys," and after we agreed on seats, Rich went off to the bathroom. I settled in and eavesdropped on the cell-phone conversation of the woman behind me. "I'm at the movies with Peter. He just went to the bathroom, so I have, like, 20 minutes to talk...I can't wait to see you either. I wish it were this weekend instead of next." The conversation went on in that vein for a while, and I got a massive thrill out of discovering that this chick was having an affair. I shifted in my seat and surreptitiously turned to glance at her. She was pretty and skinny and she was wearing a delicate pink cardigan. Her conversation shifted to mundane topics such as laundry and getting the car fixed, and I began to wonder whether her lover was a man or a woman. Just as I'd decided that it was a man who was not in another relationship, Rich and Peter both came back, and the woman sighed, "Okay. Peter's here. I've gotta go, Mom." I choked on a pretzel.

I hadn't wanted to see "Wonder Boys," which was directed by Curtis Hanson and stars Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes and Robert Downey Jr. The previews failed to inspire me, and the movie got a middling review in the Times. But Rich was insistent about seeing it, and I caved. As it turned out, the first two-thirds of "Wonder Boys" was much better than I'd expected, and the final third was somewhat worse. On the whole, it did not suck.

"Wonder Boys" is based on a book of the same name, which I have not read. If you have read it, feel free to comment below on whether the movie is a successful adaptation. One obvious hint that the movie is derived from a literary original is Michael Douglas's voice-over narration--a problem. The movie could easily do without this crutch, and it weakens the picture. Douglas, however, is not bad in his role as a floundering author/professor, and this surprised me since I don't like him a whole lot. Tobey Maguire, teetering on the verge of over-exposure this year, is quite good as one of Douglas's students, and Robert Downey Jr. is very decent in his role. Frances McDormand does an excellent job with her too-small part; her portrayal of her character's toughness gives the movie dimension. Katie Holmes doesn't have what it takes to be a big-screen actress, but she knows how to bat her eyelashes and wear a ribbed undershirt effectively.

The screenplay for "Wonder Boys" is better than average, and I might have found it fresher if I hadn't seen most of the first thirty minutes of the movie in ridiculously long trailers that have been playing since November. I *hate* that Hollywood marketers don't care at all whether they ruin the movie for you with the trailers; they're just interested in AIS (asses in seats), and it's insulting. Anway, in the end, "Wonder Boys" doesn't know what to do with itself--the scene when it begins to go wrong is actually perceptible--but it's a reasonable attempt at a good movie.

Here's how "Wonder Boys" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis.

*Gender: 6. This is a movie about men. Fortunately, the guys aren't hijacking Air Force 1 and shooting up all the aliens in order to sleep with a Victoria's Secret model. Instead, they're driving around Pittsburgh in old cars, smoking dope and hitting on transvestites. It's "Dead Poets Society" meets "Flashdance."

*Race: 4. There is one black character in "Wonder Boys" and he's kind of a weird one, plus his role is small. Credit is given, however, for his having a very pregnant white wife/girlfriend and for their interesting onscreen relationship.

*Shoes: 2. Not really a focus of this movie.

*Dogs: 5. A very cute pit bull-type has a prominent role towards the beginning of the movie, and for several frames it is even seen next to a pair of stilettos. Later, a big black dog makes a brief appearance.

*Do things blow up? 0. It seemed like there was the potential for an explosion, but the film didn't deliver.

All things considered, I give "Wonder Boys" a thumb part-way up. If you see it, you'll probably be entertained. If you miss it, it'll be no loss in your life.

BTW, today I ordered DSL service. In about a month, I should have a very zippy Internet connection, at which point I will be able to coordinate 1.5 megs of movie goers while simultaneously receiving faxes and talking on the phone. Be very afraid.

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Rich's Opinions

Meeting on a subway platform usually works without fail, especially when the two parties can agree that the first car is in the front of the train. This Sarah and I did with minimal difficulty, but the night was still young and we were two control freaks with a double feature ahead of us.

Annoyed that I was three minutes late, Sarah was not amused when I tried the "had to go back to get my glasses" excuse, since I should have known by then that her Susan Sontagian requirement of sitting with her nose touching the screen obviates the need for any visual assistance. Having given up on ever again sitting on the aisle on movie dates with Sarah, I groaned in anticipation of what was to be the equivalent of a four-hour flight sitting in the center seat in coach.

Arriving a full two minutes early at what was once the Cineplex Odeon Chelsea on 23rd Street, now dubbed Clearview, probably part of some Mid-Western theatre chain controlled by Amway, we met Sarah's friend Matthew who joined us for a screening of "Restaurant." They went in to get seats while I, with startling restraint, starving that I was, refrained from the gravitational pull of the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop across the street and opted for a sandwich from the Burritoville next door. As it happens, those doughnuts would have come in handy as I had to beg the usher not to confiscate my outside food and beverage upon entering the theatre. Only after I dropped all my change in the charity box on his podium did he let me through, but not before I'd incurred the wrath of the impatient cinephiles behind me.

Eating that burrito turned out to be the most appealing thing about "Restaurant," aside perhaps from one moderately funny line about a patch that reduces the urge to masturbate. Relieved when the movie was over, the three of us agreed that it must have been released only after Adrien Brody (who was probably twelve when it was made) and Lauryn Hill had become stars.

As we left, I avoided the wrath of Milstein by throwing away my trash rather than leaving it on the floor, but only because I was afraid that the overly zealous usher might find it and try to track me down. I was raised well enough to know not to litter, chew gum, or swear in public, but I had always been led to believe that throwing trash on the floor of a movie theatre, not to mention in the stands of a ballpark, was not only acceptable, but was also an unofficial American right, a real-life version, if you will, of the free parking space in Monopoly, where, rules aside, you got to keep the pot in the middle of the board when you landed there.

Back uptown, prior to entering the Sony 68th Street, which, we both remarked, is already in need of a sprucing up after being open only a few years, I stopped into Starbucks for a pre-late-show boost of caffeine. Adamant as a conscientious objector facing a trip to Vietnam in 1968, Sarah elected to wait outside in the cold rather than pass through the wicked gates of the McDonalds of coffee bars. Indeed, there are more than a few annoying things about Starbucks, but, unlike, say, Coors, which also lost its mystique after becoming available nationally, the product, with rare exception, is the best around.

We picked up our Moviefone tickets, only to find that the 11pm showing of "Wonder Boys" was far from a sellout. Not taking any chances this time with the concession police, I hid my cup under my coat, and, ashamed about our unnecessarily anal purchase of advance tickets, we did the 777-perp walk into the theatre. After fruitless negotiation, we took our seats in the center of the sixth row where our senses were immediately assaulted by ringing cell phones and banging knees behind us. Admittedly, our vantage point was not so bad, providing for an easier suspension of disbelief and total immersion in the kooky academic world of Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, et al.

Though the movie fell apart by the third act, the characters and atmosphere of the picture were right on target, making me yearn to be back in the world of books and ideas and away from nouveau siecle New York where nobody seems to read anything but the virtual tickertape on their Palm Pilots or the menu at Nobu. Finally, though no titillating sex scenes were to be found in this movie, this was more than compensated for when the tortured, albeit face-lifted Douglas, a.k.a. Mr. Catherine Zeta-Jones, uncharacteristically rejects the advances of a rather comely, and noticeably bra-less, Katie Holmes.

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Epilogue

This is my friggin' Web site, and I can't resist a few follow-up comments on the Siskel-and-Ebert experiment. First, Rich was significantly more than three minutes late. Second, while I am deeply committed to tossing trash under the seats at ballparks, I believe a person should clean up after herself at movie theaters, and I am forever collecting Rich's garbage when the lights come up. Third, I hadn't told him about the cell-phone conversation of the woman behind me, and I was surprised to see his note about that. Fourth, just so you know, at no point did we discuss Katie Holmes's breasts. Finally, Matthew's date on Saturday went nicely, and he gives "Wonder Boys" at least one thumb up.