JamesSlusher.com

Paul Newman passed away Friday.  I make no bones in my proclamation that Cool Hand Luke is the finest bit of cinema ever produced.  That’s not my opinion, that’s pure fact.  It’s a fact like the sun comes up in the East, like the Earth is round, and like Jesus loved everything, especially the dinosaurs.

Paul Newman was a class act and anybody that makes a list of best films has to include several of his.  If you listed the best actors of all time and he wasn’t in the top 3, you should be pinched.  Hard.  The work that he did made people’s lives better.  Lord knows, I’ve spent many an hour watching his movies and forgetting my problems.

Goodbye, Paul.  You are loved and you will be missed.

I watched I Am Legend with my lovely wife the other night.  LAME.  It had the feel of a much longer and much better movie that got edited into goofiness.  I think to have done it well it would have had to have been a trilogy.  I guess Will Smith doesn’t do trilogies.

The internal inconsistencies jumped out right away and distracted me from the otherwise cool premise.  I have to admit that I have always had a thing for the “last man on Earth” style stories.  I just wish they had done a better job of this one.  The transition points, the points that the direction of the story changed, were too pat, too easy.  And the ending was teh suck.  Any time you have a character doing a voice over at the end to explain wtf just happened, the ending sucks.  If that character were narrating all along (like in 300), that’s one thing.  Any other time, LAME.

I had been anticipating seeing this movie for quite some time and had never gotten around to it.  Now I wish I hadn’t, because my anticipation was much superior to the actual thing.

Good movie, in a beautifully badass sort of way.  The visuals are absolutely stunning.  The fights are magnificent bits of violent ballet.  The evil things are either hideous to the point of making you want to avert your eyes or beautiful to the point of not being able to.

The story, well, the story is pretty simple.  Not much development on the whole political scene that leads to the 300 doing what they did.  Of course, with that included it might have been a 4 hour movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is no cinema veritae, that’s for sure.  But a good romp into the violence of Greek legends?  Oh yeah.

My lovely wife and I went out this weekend on a little date.  During said date, we went to the movies and saw Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls.

I have to admit having a few reservations about going to see a Tyler Perry movie.  If you don’t recognize the name, he is the cat with the Madea character featured in Diary of a Mad Black Woman and scores of other melodramas all written and directed and starred in by him. I also have to admit to finding the Madea character absolutely noxious.  Just as I don’t like Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma character or Eddy Murphy’s Mama Klump character.  They all end up being these big balls of stereotypes that completely turn me off.  And because they are just a jumble of stereotypes, they don’t ever achieve any real depth because they can’t get past the limitations of those stereotypes.

All that was to say that the name Tyler Perry automatically induces a cringe in me.

Daddy’s Little Girls was an excellent movie.  And Tyler Perry himself was nowhere to be seen. Well written, well acted and well directed.

A quick synopsis of the movie:  A single, lower class father is trying his best to raise 3 girls and make something of himself, despite the hardships of near poverty and the mother of his daughters being a drug dealing crazy woman. During this struggle he meets a rich, powerful woman lawyer and they fall in love.

It touches on subjects that are often ignored in mainstream media:  hardworking Black men who care for their kids, self-reliance of Black communities, and class differences in the Black community.

It is a well-constructed movie with no wasted parts that I can recall. I highly recommend it.

The 03/31/06 episode of The Chair and Automan is out. Download the MP3 directly here. Or better yet, get a podcatching client and subscribe to this podcast here. Or check out my Odeo channel.

In this episode:

I understand that I sound like I’m in a can. I’m trying to fix that.

I talk about my first attempt at a podcast on the Mac, about loving it despite a few issues, about video podcasts that I like, about HBO sucking and about the Mac helping me to become a better Ebay sniper. And I play some songs.

The links:
rx
E. Rich
Rosey
Apple
Rocketboom
Ask A Ninja
Tiki Bar TV

Audio feedback/promos are always welcome at jaslusher AT gmail DOT com.

I can’t wait until we go see the movie coming out called Something New.

Mainly because my wife is driving me nuts about it. She has already announced that it is going to be an instant classic and that it will be in her top movies of all time. This after having seen a couple of trailers.

She will soon have it built up so much that it won’t possibly be able to meet my expectations of it. I expect Sanaa Lathan to be good in it, she was great in Brown Sugar which is one of my all-time favorite movies.

But I think my wife is wishing I would look like Simon Baker. I hate to disappoint her, but it ain’t gonna happen. The only way I will ever look as good or better than him is if he dies first. And then it might be a good couple of months before I catch up.

Who am I kidding? He could get cremated and his ashes would look better than I do.

As kind of a take-off of this post by John Rogers and because I was recently discussing this topic with my wife, here are my picks of the 10 movies I would show someone to try and explain what america is. In fact here is the quote:

The challenge is:

Explain America to someone from somewhere else by giving them 10 movies to watch.

The idea is not to give them a history lesson, so you don’t have to start with The New World and end with Jarhead.

What you’re trying to do is give them a sense of who we are — your take on our dreams, our attitudes, our idioms, what we think we are, what we are afraid we are, what we really might be.

So here are my 10 movies explaining what America is (no particular order of importance):

1. Cool Hand Luke (1967)- The ultimate underdog/fighting the man story full of Christ imagery and gentleman rogue charm. Also my favorite movie of all time. And in my opinion you could probably make this entire list from Paul Newman movies.
2. Brown Sugar (2002)- A love story based on growing up as hip-hop grew up and maturing the way hip-hop needs to. This hits on all the themes that a true American child of the 80s dealt with.
3. Silverado (1985)- My favorite western of all times. Touches on redemption, racism and love. The good guys win just like they should. Brian Dennehy, as the corrupt sheriff also delivers the best western line of all time, “We’re gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging. “
4. The Breakfast Club (1985)-An alternate title could have been “High School in America”. Maybe it has changed a bunch in the last 2 decades. But that was us, all of us. I’m willing to bet it still is.
5. Eddie Murphy Raw (1987)- I know, it’s not really a movie, movie, but it changed the way lots of us viewed the world. So it’s in my list. Now shut the f*** up.
6. The Thin Man (1934)- Also one of my tops of all time. Just great detectiving by a ne’er-do-well who always does well.
7. The Big Red One (1980)- World War II. The last war we actually won. And if Lee Marvin can’t make you understand Americans, then go back where you came from, comrade.
8. Shrek (2001)- Funny, funny, funny. And in my top movies of all time, too.
9. Ruckus (1981)- Because it is my list and I like Dirk Benedict and Linda Blair. So get off my a$$.
10. Halloween II (1981)- Scared the crap outta me. And Jamie Lee Curtis is hot. Still, but then whew! When that dude got into the car and died and his head hit the horn and it started blaring and ohmygodshe’sonthedamnfloorboardsohgodgetouttatherehe’scoming!!!

That’s my ten movies. Lot of stuff woefully under-represented, very heavy on the stuff from the 1980s. But hey, it’s my list and that is what you get.

Tag, you’re it. What’s your 10?

I can’t imagine wanting to see a movie less than I want to see Hostel. It’s bad enough that most “horror” movies now run to the edge of fetish-ness (is that a word?), but lord who wants to go see a snuff film. I mean, besides the sickos out there.

All I can think of is ewwwww. I’m glad that there is a whole industry given to figuring out how to make a realistic blood splatter. It’s not like cancer needs curing or anything.

I can’t wait until people start making internet-delivered movies that have things like plot and acting in them. There are already videoblogs and video podcasts, we will eventually see it ramp up to full on movies. And I welcome them.

Today is the last day of my dreaded Suncom/AT&T contract. I would like to commemorate the moment with a few lines from the greatest movie ever, Cool Hand Luke:

Boss: Sorry, Luke. I’m just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.

Luke: Nah - calling it your job don’t make it right, Boss.

Goodbye Suncom. Good riddance.

During my time off I have watched more TV than I had in the previous four or five years, combined (excluding baseball games). And one thing stands out: it really sucks. I can’t stand most TV shows so I watch mostly movies. Even most of those are for idiots.

Another (un)interesting thing is that Jeff Bridges seems to be in most of the crappy movies.