#767
Creed reunites:
Five years after their highly acrimonious split, Creed are reforming for a new album and an American tour, which kicks off August 6th in Pittsburgh and runs through October 14th. “I wouldn’t call it a reunion,” says singer Scott Stapp. “It’s a renewing and a rebirth. I missed my boys and wanted to create music with them again. We’re all thrilled to have a second chance to make a first impression.”
A rebirth, ‘ey? Can we re-abort?
Thanks God. Thanks a lot.
In response to the tepid list over at Entertainment Weekly (Zack Snyder better than Paul Thomas Anderson!!!), The MDL breaks down a worthy Top 15. To be specific, the “living” list is judged on a combination of two factors:
1) Great resume (accomplishment) and 2) Excitement for work yet to come (expectations). Here we go:
15. Richard Linklater
The oft-forgotten Texan has proven surprisingly versatile over an 18-year career of the commercial (School of Rock) and the experimental (Waking Life) . But he does need to get his act together quickly (I’m looking at you Fast Food Nation!).
Best Work: Before Sunrise/Sunset
14. Danny Boyle
Pure adrenaline. Without him, Slumdog doesn’t make it out of the film festival circuit.
Best Work: Slumdog Millionaire
13. Alexander Payne
The most consistently intelligent comedic director around.
Best Work: About Schmidt
12. Darren Aronofsky
The Wrestler could have been made by Hal Ashby (think Last Detail, Coming Home) and Requiem for a Dream could have been made by David Fincher (think Fight Club). That puts him in great company.
Best Work: The Wrestler
11. Alfonso Cuaron
Might have the most potential of anyone on this list. A master with the camera.
Best Work: Children of Men
10. Judd Apatow
Perhaps nothing could justify the amount of hype the Apatow factory has gotten over the last few years, but he certainly makes a great case (and don’t forget Freaks and Geeks).
Best Work: 40-Year Old Virgin
9. Steven Spielberg
A man who should be in the top 5 slips because of the dross/dreck/abomination that was Indiana Jones and The I Want My Money Back. No more sequels please.
Best Work: Schindler’s List
8. Christopher Nolan
Made the best comic book movie ever and still finds the time for intriguing work outside the Bat franchise (see Memento, Insomnia, Prestige).
Best Work: Memento
7. Steven Soderbergh
Yes, he will fail (Full Frontal), sometimes epically (The Good German) and twice in a way that hurts your soul (Oceans 12, 13). BUT I’d take adventurous over boring any day and Soderbergh hasn’t got any quit in him. You don’t make a film like Che if you’re out of gas.
Best Work: The Limey
6. Quentin Tarantino
Invigorating. No one’s better at the “inside baseball” side of movies. Even if it’s Death Proof.
Best Work: Pulp Fiction
5. David Fincher
He’s a technical wizard who can pack a punch (unless his main character is aging backwards). It looked like he would do a certain type of movie well forever until he took the proverbial next step with Zodiac.
Best Work: Zodiac
And when it comes to CGI, he’s about the only one who demands subtlety:
4. Michael Mann
The guy is just a pro. Not many movies are as well-paced as The Insider, look as good as Heat and thrill as much as Last of the Mohicans.
Best Work: The Insider
And what more do you want out of a movie than this:
3. Martin Scorsese
As The Departed showed, he’s still got it. Unlike his contemporaries (Coppola, Lucas, De Palma), he has remained relevant after almost 40 years of work. Here’s hoping he’s one of those guys who just can’t retire.
Best Work: Raging Bull
As relayed before, the man knows his way around a tune:
2. The Coen Brothers
You never know what they’re going to do next. Everything they’ve done is worth watching, even if it misses the mark (okay, maybe not Intolerable Cruelty – but everything else).
Best Work: Fargo
Somehow, this sums up the movie (NSFW):
1. Paul Thomas Anderson
The most ambitious, vibrant and just plain talented filmmaker working today. Where others fail to take chances, Anderson presses on — frogs will fall from the sky, one way or another. But his movies aren’t simply an exercise in technique (though there’s plenty of that). Anderson never forgets the beating-heart humanity of his characters. Here is a director who feels on film. From the desperation of Dirk Diggler to the seekers of Magnolia to the stifled Barry Egan to the misanthropic Daniel Plainview, Anderson lets you in. It’s a world of “big, bright shining stars.”
As if all that wasn’t enough, the man’s achieved one of the best opening scenes in movie history (Boogie Nights) and one of the best final scenes in movie history (“I’m finished.”):
THE BEST (AND WORST) OF THE REST:
Falling (for Various Reasons): Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, Tim Burton, Cameron Crowe, David O. Russell
Work More!: James L. Brooks
You Too!: Peter Weir
Most Overrated: Peter Jackson
Most Underrated: Mike Judge
Somehow Became Boring: Oliver Stone
Meh: Ron Howard
Most Inventive: Michel Gondry
No More: Kevin Smith
Please Stop: Zack Snyder
Deserves Second Chance: Martin Brest
Still Interested Every Year: Woody Allen
Up & Comer: Martin McDonagh
In Own Universe: David Lynch
Everyone Stop Foaming at the Mouth Already: Clint Eastwood
Best Dead Director: Stanley Kubrick
“Can I have your autograph?”
This has been “Fun with Captions!”
#389
Any reason to let this already insanely lucky a-hole feel any better about his ridiculously opulent and jackpot lifestyle is a reason too many.
In the much-publicized duel, Kutcher’s Twitter account crossed the 1 million mark on Twitter about 2:13 a.m. ET Friday, narrowly beating CNN’s breaking-news feed, which had 998,239 followers at the time. CNN passed the mark at 2:42 a.m. ET.
Kutcher told Larry King that initially, Twitter was a tool to feed his ego until he realized that he could use the service to make a difference.
“At the end of the day, we all have ego, we all have some level of ego,” he said. “But if we can use our ego to actually create good charitable things in the world in some way, and use our ego — originally, I defined Twitter as an ego stream when I first saw it. But then what I realized is if we can transform that into something that’s positive that can actually effectively change the world, that can be a really valuable tool.”
Great. Now he’s pontificating.
Thanks God. Thanks a lot.
When Dave Matthews Band hit the airwaves 15 years ago(!) with “What Would You Say,” I was in their demographic sweet spot. A high-schooler who hadn’t really heard music that incorporated jazz, folk and pop elements into the jam band model. As the years went on and my taste grew ever-so-sophisticated, Dave seemed like something lost and faraway. A group that was nice once upon a time, but that eventually went out of style, like make-up on Motley Crue.
But now, after the tragic death of Leroi Moore, they’re back with Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. So, how’s the first single, on first listen?
Meh. Musically, it tries to capture the carefree summertime vibe of “Stay” while adding a dash of melancholy to the lyrics, no doubt in response to Moore’s untimely death:
Funny the way it is if you think about it
One kid walks ten miles to school, another droppin’ out
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong
A soldier’s last breath and babies being born
The problem with “Funny the Way It Is” has been the same problem since 2001’s Everyday: Overproduction. This record’s culprit is producer Rob Cavallo, who follows in the illustrious Pro-Tools line of Glen Ballard, Stephen Harris and Mark Batson. Each of these producers have tried to capture a clean quality in DMB while losing the one virtue that separated them in the first place — loose eccentricity. If “Funny the Way It Is” is any indication, it’s far past time to go back to working with Steve Lillywhite, who produced the only Dave albums worth a damn: Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash and Before These Crowded Streets.
3 out of 10
Thanks to the recently enjoyed Adventureland, we were reminded (during the ‘entering NYC’ scene) of an all-time rock and roll classic — The Replacements “Unsatisfied.” It’s a thwarted man’s night at the bar condensed into 4 aching minutes and 2 fed up seconds. Paul Westerberg turns in one of the great vocal performances of all time, going from “listen to me man” beer #3 to a 12-pack “grabbing of the lapels” to the passed-out remorse of the final drink.
From the Stones’ “Satisfaction” to the Mats’ “Unsatisfied” to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” We can’t get no satisfaction.
Click HERE and turn it up!
It’s really hard to make a sweet movie. There are only a few directors that pull if off with anything approaching consistency. Cameron Crowe is probably the best we have when it comes to depicting the romanticism of youth and the earnest striving for love. He did it first with Say Anything, a movie about that great seeker, Lloyd Dobler and his boombox-enhanced mission statement. It is in this spirit we come to Greg Mottola’s Adventureland.
In following the path of James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), we get Lloyd Dobler if he was too intellectual for his own good. The beauty of Lloyd was he could focus on a few things without muddying up the waters — Diane Court, Kickboxing and… Diane Court. James is more complex than that and tends to get in his own way. But First Love has a way of simplifying the world down to one thing and one thing only: That Girl. And That Girl, in this case, is Kristen Stewart, an actress who should be far too young to convey impenetrable, but as Em, she somehow pulls it off.
Mottola gives us characters wandering through the drift of post-college graduation, looking for something/anything to use as a launching pad. In the case of James and Em, the launching pad never really appears, so they do what you have to do in that situation: “Shit your pants and dive in and swim.” Losing the money you saved to go to New York city is beside the point. You still gotta go. And imperfect people find ways to mess up great relationships. Doesn’t matter. Buy the ticket, take the ride. It’s Adventureland.
Diane Court: Nobody thinks it will work, do they?
Lloyd Dobler: No. You just described every great success story.
The MDL Review: 4 stars out of 4.
One of the most criminally-underrated writer-directors is back, this time with the once criminally-underrated himself, Jason Bateman. Dig Extract:
Looks awesome, like everything else Judge has done. Which leads us to the most criminally-underrated chapter in Judge’s career: Idiocracy. In a showing of everlasting wisdom, 20th Century Fox buried the movie for years, then finally released it on a limited basis without any promotion whatsoever. Maybe it had something to do with the film’s anti-corporate message, in which society deteriorates so badly over the years that the energy drink Brawndo replaces water as the go-to liquid of choice, up to and including crop cultivation. And the #1 rated show on TV is “OW! My Balls!”
Do yourself (and the criminally-underrated one) a favor while we wait for Extract. Rent Idiocracy – 84 minutes of cult classic comedy.
On today’s edition of You’re Not Nearly As Cool As You Think You Are [In Fact, You're Utterly Boring and Pretentious], we take a look at the Not As Cool As He Thinks He Is [In Fact He's Utterly Boring and Pretentious] Billy Bob Thornton, who, when attention was given to his film career during a music interview, blanched at the thought of mixing his two brilliantly set up [but keep them separate dammit] worlds. You see, Billy Bob Thornton is a musician. And musicians talk about music. Only.
Everyone, heads up. It’s Billy Bob “Music is My Life” Thornton and we all need to tip-toe around the fact that he’s been in movies for the past bajillion years. Oh, and look at those bandmates dripping with charisma surrounding him. I could listen to them talk about their “lost records” for hours on end.
Listen, ass. Just because you’re rich enough [FROM YOUR MOVIE CAREER!] to install a recording studio in your basement, doesn’t mean you should actually use it. Go back to cheating on various girlfriends and filling necklace vials with blood. At least then you won’t be singing.
That’s it. I’m calling it. After only the first episode of long-awaited season 5, Rescue Me is the The New Best Show on TV. In years past, there was some heavy competition. But they’ve fallen by the wayside as Rescue Me continues to be the best mix of comedy and drama found within reasonable distance of the remote. Let’s look at the roll-call of rivals.
House is terrible, even though it could be watchable again if they continue to off the new threesome one-by-one.
Lost is perilously close to ‘jumping the shark’ if it hasn’t already. That scene in last week’s episode when Hurley, i.e. the audience, had to keep asking questions about what was happening in the middle of the show about time travel, a subject that has nearly ruined what was once the most inventive show ever, plunging the show and their characters into a weekly mess of WTF!? and if I wanted to watch a show set in 1977 I’d watch Welcome Back Kotter… ugh.
HBO can’t seem to pull their head out of their ass (I’m looking at you John from Cincinnati!). The Sopranos, The Wire and Six Feet Under are loooooooong gone, leaving Big Love as the one drama worthy of our time.
24 is back in thrilling form but doesn’t have the depth to compete.
Dexter continues to be great so long as they focus only on Dexter and no one else in the regular cast. Can Jimmy Smits come back from the dead?
Mad Men? Sorry, I’m too bored.
The Shield is over and what are we left with? Damages? Next!
The only worthy adversary this season comes from Friday Night Lights, which is essentially perfect. But if I had to pick one, I’d go with the more exciting show and that’s Rescue Me hands down.
Now, this is not to say that even if all the challengers were tip-top, Rescue Me wouldn’t be the best. Denis Leary and Peter Tolan have proven themselves worthy of the throne by writing Catch-22 dialogue for the firehouse underpinned by characters that hold onto their narcissism with every selfish bone in their body.
Unless episode 2 sucks of course.
