I skipped the Oscars last Sunday, choosing instead to watch the only awards show that matters—the Orson Welch Outstanding Achievements in Cinema Excellence Web Broadcast. It was a little Flash presentation I put together, with all my favorite celebrities, including Agnes Moorehead and Crispin Glover. Not the real celebrities, but amazing likenesses just off enough so as to avoid litigation. Of course, nobody won, since no impressive films were nationally released this year, but you have to admire the untouchable integrity of the awards. That aside, onto the next two weeks worth of DVD releases.


On DVD

Schindler's List
It's against the law in Germany to display Nazi articles these days, and I think out of extra guilt they also forbade negative reviews of this 1993 black-and-white guilt trip. Usually I love mopey, film noir cinema, but Spielberg uses sentiment like Cajuns cook with cayenne pepper. Gentiles who sit through it more than once are officially absolved of any wrongdoing in thousands of years of religious oppression. But giving the film credit, it is a harrowing vision of the struggle and spirit of the Jewish people, and how they needed a Catholic kraut to be the subject of a film to really tell the rest of the world their story.

Mona Lisa Smile
Apparently the cause of Mona Lisa's smile was indeed flatulence. Portraits never quite accurately capture those little facts. But this film pays that notion homage with this cinematic squirt in the pants that dredges up the Dead Poets Society genre yet again, this time packed wall to wall with the XX gender. Julia Roberts makes for the perfect film lead in the movie, except for the fact you never buy any school would certify her as a teacher. Her politically-correct way of looking at things years before they invented politically-correctness wins over the vapid student body made up of popular young actresses whose names I haven't bothered to look up. It's worth seeing, if you're writing a graduate thesis on cinema cliché. Otherwise, not on a bet.

21 Grams
Alejandro González Iñárritu is a brilliant director—not good, mind you, but brilliant. It was sheer genius to call a sloppily-edited film an artistic exercise in the use of chronological time. I can easily see how the film-illiterate would believe it. The rest of us in the know, however, smile and wink at each other while watching this nonsensical examination of the human spirit starring Oscar mantles Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro. The director pushes the boundaries of unpolished, lazy filmmaking and gets off scot-free, though I wouldn't equate that to a good movie, of course. I tip my hat to him, though I won't write his name out again because I nearly sprained a finger trying to type it the first time.


That's all our two-week session allows this week. I think you're all getting better, but I'd like to see you for a few more years to make sure your tastes don't backsliding again. There is a new Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller movie doing quite well at the box office, so apparently some people are still in need of tutelage. Good viewing, America.

2004 Oscars Madness!
Well holy hell in a hand basket, America, looks like it's time for another swing at the Oscar piñata. Doesn't it seem like we just did this? Well, that's because we did, apparently the sun is collapsing so our earth years are getting exponentially... (3/1/04)

February 23, 2004
It appears an Adam Sandler comedy is once again the number one movie in the country. Further proof U.S. intelligence is failing to prevent real disasters. Sandler works with Drew Barrymore again in this one, which at least keeps both sides of the... (2/23/04)

February 16, 2004
What up, Entertainment Police people? Roland McS is in the hizzouse. Which, for the hip-impaired, means roughly the same thing as "Lucy, I'm hoooome!" For the Latin-impaired, that means "Bitch, where my pork chops?" And for the domestic-abuse... (2/16/04)

February 9, 2004
I realize my territory is DVDs, and the theater-going tract is properly my cohort Mr. McShyster's, should he ever choose to actually go and see a movie, but I would like to save the public some more Sept. 11-level misery by begging, pleading with... (2/9/04)