The DVD Grab-Bag

Wow. Still giddy from the Congressional election/Secretarial firing. Obviously I have more thoughts on all that, but I have decided to give it a rest, at least until after the Sunday morning talk shows.

Been keeping notes on some of the stuff I’ve been watching between working, parenting and not getting enough sleep. In no particular order:

“Garden State” Natalie Portman is gorgeous, Audrey-Hepburn meets Grace Kelly beautiful, but you should definitely not waste your time on this film. It’s mostly about this slacker 20-something dude who’s made it big in Hollywood but has to go home to Jersey to deal with family shit. It just screams “Thinly-Veiled Autobiography!” Rent “The Closer” instead – Nat does a ten-minute scene as a stripper wearing a t-back and little else. No idea what the story’s about, but it’s ten times the film “Garden State” is. For less money than it took to make this movie, the filmmaker could have resolved his issues with a good shrink and saved us two hours of our lives.

“The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.” I don’t know, I thought this one would be dirty, but it was just creepy and nihilistic. Isn’t Asia Argento supposed to be a sex kitten or something? She was a mess here, and carefully avoided nudity. What the hell? Other than those prurient disappointments, all this flick is is a travelogue of one kid’s wrecked childhood. The End, roll credits. I should have known when I saw Marilyn Manson’s name on the DVD sleeve that the film would be about nothing and make me feel bad.

Saw a really cool one the other day, “Hard Candy.” I’d heard it was a pedophile revenge flick starring that chick who played Kitty Pryde in X-Men 3, Ellen Page. The less you know about this one going in the better – it’s the twists and turns that make it so compelling. Despite the subject matter, it’s done in a totally non-exploitive way. (I’m sure there will be some angry feminists out there who will disagree with me, but they disagree with me on everything already anyhow.)

This Page girl is as good as the chick from “Thirteen” (Evan Rachel Wood) and the amazing-since-forever Jena Malone. I’d love to see them do a project together. That’s an Independent Film I’d pay to go see! I betcha Meryl Streep would play a Mom for scale, just to work with the cast.

Oh, if only I ran Hollywood instead of running nothing!

The new “Justice League Unlimited” set is out, and is terrific. Ditching the bloated, multi-part storyline format of previous incarnations, this is one lean and mean cartoon comic book series. NOT done in Japanimation, thankfully, each episode delivers 22 minutes of whiz-bang writing, action and (gasp!) character development featuring practically every star of the DC Universe. It’s been like delicious candy I’ve been sneaking, and junkie that I am, I’m already worrying over the day that I’ve seen them all and don’t have any new ones to discover (till they release the next season-set).

I’m also watching season two of Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant “West Wing.” Maybe he should have set his new NBC drama at the U.N. (as in a plotline in “Studio 60…”). West Wing is so fucking good, it makes Studio 60 look like an Andy Warhol ‘interpretation’: the same elements whisked and whirled around to less satisfying results than the source material, although in fairness, so far it (the show, not Warhol’s work) has gotten better every week.

I saw “The Proposition,” what looks like a Spaghetti Western (although filmed in Australia) and written by Nick Cave, one of our favorite recording artists here at the home den. Cave wrote and performed the song (via CD) that The Missus and I danced to at our wedding. This is a GREAT western flick. Starts off a little slow, but quickly builds steam and in no time at all is separating the squeamish from the less squeamish. To say things end badly for most of the principals is not really giving too much away.

“The Tick vs Season One” Another animated show that is pure, twisted, existential genius. The live-action version had its virtues (chiefly its cast), but for my money, nothing beats the original animated series. Currently wildly overpriced, this is one to Netflix unless you want to wait for the price to come down.

Speaking of Netflix, been watching “La Femme Nikita” with Peta Wilson lately, season one. Excellent show! Like “Alias” without all the complicated “Lost”-like mythology. Every episode is self-contained, well-written and produced, and Wilson is a very charming, attractive screen presence.

Also watching the cancelled-in-no-time “Wonderfalls,” on the recommendation of The Last Boy Scout. Cute show, lazy premise, attractive cast. As the episodes progress, the lead actress is costumed in ever more revealing outfits. Too bad it only went twelve or thirteen episodes.

Another great Netflixer is the first season of “Tru Calling.” Overused premise, over made-up star, by-the-numbers sci-fi series, cancelled early in its second season. What I like about it is Eliza Dukshu (Faith, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)’s boobs, the bright, breezy production treatment, and the fact that every episode gets more interesting than the one before. It’s like the writers were figuring out the mythology on the fly. Too bad it got the axe prematurely too. Recommended with the usual Sci-Fi reservations.

There’s always something excellent on over at TCM. Just yesterday I caught a great Jimmy Stewart anti-Nazi flick from 1940 called “The Mortal Storm.” Awesome! Stewart plays a German who resists the Nazi takeover of his country and suffers the repercussions that follow. It’s fascinating; they paint a vivid portrait of National Socialism’s anti-Semitic persecution without ever mentioning the word Jew or Jewish. This must have been one of Stewart’s last film’s until the end of the war, because unlike other healthy male movie stars of the time (for example, John Wayne and Ronald Reagan), Mr. Stewart (like fellow thesp Clark Gable) was flying bombing missions over occupied Europe instead of making movies in Hollywood during WWII. They don’t come any more American than Jimmy Stewart, or Turner Classic Movies.

I also seem to recall also seeing this foreign flick called “Next Door,” where everybody looks unhealthy. Not unhealthy diseased; unhealthy like they never go outside and only eat rocks and twigs. An unhealthy pallor. That’s all I remember about it, so I probably can’t recommend it.

What I can’t seem to recall is a recent night’s decent sleep. That being the case, I’d better go grab what I can. This has already gone on self-indulgently long, and to punish myself, I’m gonna post it without proof-reading it.

Ha! I’ll show me…