BilmBlog500

Silver Linings Playbook is the first movie I've seen in rather a while which I would like to see again. It is also the first time I have started to write a review during the post screening Q&A. I'm not entirely sure why. This is a funny movie, but I have seen funnier. It is a romantic movie, but I have seen more romantic. It is a dancing movie, and it isn't Dirty Dancing. It is a Philadelphia sports movie, but it isn't Rocky. And yet there is something about the interplay of these elements that fascinates me. And certainly, there is something about the amazing cast that deserves a second viewing. Bradley Cooper (the Hangover movies, and many other and sometimes better) is being sprung from the loony bin by his mom, on various conditions for what he has to do after release.  He did something he shouldn't have after seeing his wife doing something she shouldn't have. Hehas to use every ounce of his innate likability to keep you with him while he keeps doing th...

Wreck-It Ralph is a surprisingly pleasant animated movie from Disney. The lead character arises out of a video game Fix It Felix.  Ralph does the wrecking, Felix does the fixing and gets all the glory, and Ralph in his frustration soon ultimately finds himself in another game, Sugar Rush, where (no spoiler here, this is a an animated movie with hopes of getting kids) he finds his redemption. The film boasts a great and knowing script, full of sly allusion to video games from 30 years ago and to pop culture in general.  It's the rare movie where product placement works, where there's nothing at all wrong when the bad guy will "unleash the Devil Dogs" or we have NesQuick Sand instead of regular quicksand, or the fate of the world might turn on that neat party trick with Mentos and Coca Cola, which wasn't willing to sell its soul for a product placement forcing the film to use a generic cola instead. The voice talent is consistently good. The animation is as knowing ...

To my disappointment, while the newest James Bond movie Skyfall isn't a bad movie, it nonetheless bears more resemblance to this past summer's genuinely bad The Dark Knight Rises than it does to the best of the James Bond movies, which are very very good indeed. I didn't review The Dark Knight Rises when it opened, let me discuss it some now, to explain why I would say that this well-reviewed and well-received movie was (with the exception of the excellent fighting extras used in the climactic battle at City Hall)  genuinely bad. For one, it is no fun.  It is a comic book movie, but there isn't a fun thing about it.  To me, comic book movies should be at least a little bit fun. Also, it makes absolutely no sense.  Who is Bane?  What are his motivations?  What does he expect to get out of his plotting against Gotham City?  For all the laborious time spent on flashbacks, there's nothing to explain -- nothing! -- what he's up to in the forward moving stor...

This is the time of year when my membership to the Museum of the Moving Image is worth it, when the film distributors with movies they want to have in the mix for awards season get busy with screenings.  And as a general rule, if I can make it to a screening I will, it sometimes means seeing movies I wasn't interested in paying for that are screening late in their run, sometimes movies I'm not all that interested in at all, and not as often as I'd wish something I'm hugely enthusiastic to be seeing. In the "purposely missed in theatres" category, was last weekend's screening of Beasts of the Southern Wild at the Museum.  This film has had buzz dating back to Sundance in January, when the Variety review called it a "stunning debut."  Hence, I was anticipating it.  But when it actually opened, and I read more reviews, I was quite certain of the fact that there was little the movie would have to offer me. Which, essentially, turned out to be true. ...

The world is way too full of post-election pontification as well as pre-election and any other kind of election pontification, I'll add only a few quick thoughts. The Tea Party:  So, yes, the Tea Party did help the Republican wave in the US House and in local legislatures.  The Tea Party also kept Harry Reid in his job by putting some "winning" candidates on the ballot for US Senate.  Without the Tea Party, odds are very good the Republicans would have had both houses of congress in 2010, and likely still today.  The people who think Mitt Romney lost because he wasn't more like all those losing hardcore conservative senate candidates need to think on this. And just to say, more people voted for Democrats for the House than for Republicans, but I don't think we can make a big deal here.  I'm a guy who told people to stop complaining about 2000 because (a) the election was for practical purposes a tie (b) the guy who controlled the tiebreakers won.  We let po...

So it's been an interesting last ten days or so! For the first ten years of JABberwocky, I worked alone in my apartment, it's never given me cabin fever the way being forced to stay in my apartment by weather does.  It's not just a recent thing with Irene last year or Sandy this year, I remember an MLK day many years ago when there was an ice storm sort of thing and the sidewalks were too dangerous.  But Sandy might have been the worst of it, in part because of the subway flooding.  All the years I was working alone, I would go to the Post Office because I had to do it, I could stop at the library to read the paper, I did my own messenger work for a good chunk of that time and could go out laden with manuscripts and enjoy some fresh air and exercise.  But with Sandy, the office was closed last Monday and Tuesday, the subways weren't running, it was hard to do much of anything social, and there wasn't any choice.  And I had power!  Many of my Scrabble friend...

There are two really good movies for adults playing right now, Argo and Flight both of which I'd recommend, with perhaps a slight bias toward Argo. For those of you who don't know, which shouldn't be many, Argo is a new movie directed by starring Ben Affleck about an effort to "exfiltrate" from Iran six workers at the US Embassy who were able to escape and find their way to safety with the Canadian ambassador during the hostage crisis of 1979-1981.  It shouldn't work as well as it does, and certainly not from a contemporary standpoint where movies tend to be so loud and action-packed and overwrought.  But it wasn't always this way.  Before everyone spent so much money on special effects it was common to really cast a movie up and down the line.  Which Argo does, with Alan Arkin and John Goodman and Bryan Cranston all having major supporting roles  And even smaller roles filled very reliably, as an example the Canadian ambassador being played by Victor Garb...

Usually I'm very big on trying to get things back to normal as soon as possible, which may be exactly why I'm totally pissed that the city wants to run a marathon on Sunday. Because in this case, that's not "back to normal," it's indulging the marathon over the interests of a  city that can't get where it wants to go. Buses and trains from my neighborhood into Queens are totally packed.  You've got to wait and watch 'em go buy without stopping or without room to get on.  Even Thursday night, when the subway was running somewhat, the 59th St. Bridge was still being used by thousands upon thousands of people as their best route in and out of Manhattan.  Because it is.  The alternative is waiting for at least two trains or two buses, agonizingly long waits, and you can in fact walk faster.  In fact, Brady McReynolds in my office had two "commutes" yesterday that were longer than it might have taken for him to walk 9.5 miles to/from work. So ...

So back in 2010 I spoke quite excitedly about a young Polish tennis player, Jerzy Janowicz, whom I'd watched in the US Open qualifying.  "Too good for me" to be able to count on him being in qualifying for very long. And then in 2011, I was left baffled, as he was again in the qualifying and looked really not that good . Did he just have an off day in 2011?  Or was 2011 the normal, and 2010 the match of his life. Today we found out the answer.  Janowicz was just good enough in 2012 to escape the qualifying at the US Open, and he came into qualifying for this week's ATP Masters 1000 event in Paris, one of the top tier tournies right below the Grand Slams in ranking points, ranked in the high 60s.  And he beat Dmitry Tursunov, once ranked in the top 20, and Florent Serra, once ranked in the top 40, to qualify.  Then he beat the #19 ranked Philipp Kohlschreiber.  Then he beat the #16 ranked (and 13th seed) Marin Cilic.  And now he's just finished beating...