American Remakes Rant? (Let the Right One In)
At GeekTyrant.com, MRBLACK posted about the American remake of Let The Right One In, and he’s being a bit of an ass about it. Let The Right One In was one of the best movies of 2008, and it received as much support in the US as you can reasonably expect from a subtitled Swedish vampire movie. It was overwhelmingly accepted on the festival circuit, raved over by critics and genre fans alike — even receiving an almost unheard of 96% from 26 critics in the Cream of the Crop ratings at RottenTomatoes.com — and it played in general release at sixteen theaters in the U.S. (That list doesn’t count festival shows, or even the weeks it played at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin.) For what it is, grossing $2M in the U.S. was a good show. Good enough to get the attention of U.S. studios.
MRBLACK wants you to be upset about the remake, and he refuses to support it in any fashion (beyond inflammatory blog posts which will only drive more interest in the film…) You can’t expect American audiences to suddenly become hyper-cinema-literate and start watching foreign genre films. If the remake is notable (whether it is extremely good or bad) it will attract attention to the original, just like the American remake of Japanese horror films (like The Ring) caused a rush at Blockbuster for the originals. An American remake also puts money into the pocket of the foreign studio (and writer) who owns the rights to LtROI so they can go make another great film.
Hold your judgment on the U.S. remake of LtROI until there are more details. Until then, use this opportunity to encourage the less informed to rent the movie from NetFlix. (Tell them how easy it is to stream it!)
p.s. I may just be arguing the point to argue, but MRBLACK’s attitude rubbed me wrong.
DVD New Releases – 6/30/2009
Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;)
It seems the entertainment industry is not very interested in entertaining me this week.
- The Education of Charlie Banks – The directorial debut of Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst never made it to a full theatrical release. It stars Jesse Eisenberg (who starred in indie classics Adventureland, The Squid and the Whale, and Roger Dodger), but was tepidly received by the critics.
- Eastbound & Down: The First Season – I still haven’t watched this because I was “over” Danny McBride’s schtick even sooner than I was over Will Ferrell’s, but it is the slow part of the season so I’ll watch about anything.
- Tunnel Rats – Michael Paré is not dead. He’s just starring in Uwe Boll movies.
DVD:
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Chilling in Pompano Beach
We’re attending a wedding of a friend in Pompano Beach, FL this weekend. On the plane over we found this awesome recipe in the in-flight magazine, which we promptly tore out thereby depriving the next commuter of delicious meat and alcohol pleasures.
Mike- you need to research the possibility of tomato-infused vodka. We’re relying on you to pull off this mixology feat.
Also, this is the view from our room.
Fuming at AT&T
I’m trying to be understanding about the whole thing, but every time I look more into it, the madder I become. Sure, AT&T has to be concerned about their bottom line, but I’ve been doing the math and if my bottom line is improved by kicking them to the curb then they really need to reassess where they put their bottom line.
At first, this was just about trying to get the new iPhone. I figured I would get one for me and give my wife my “old” one (that just came back new/refurb from the Genius bar two months ago). I’m willing to spend a little cash to do this, and it would give AT&T the chance to charge me another $30/month since we’d be adding an additional iPhone to our plan. I guessed it would benefit them to cut me a deal, but I’ve been rebuffed multiple times and told that I would have to pay $200 more per phone than the deal they are giving new customers.
So, I started doing the math, looking at many options including selling my current iPhone (which goes for an amazingly good price on eBay) and it turns out I could actually “make” money switching to T-Mobile, getting both of us the Google phone. (I could probably even take the money I’m “making” and buy the new T-Mobile phone when it’s released in the coming months.) Take a look at this:
| $ -360.00 | cancel AT&T |
| $ +350.00 | sell iPhone 3G on eBay |
| $ -300.00 | sign-up with T-Mobile; 3 lines; 2 G1/Android phones, 1 free phone |
| $ +492.00 | AT&T vs T-Mobile monthly ($156.00 – $115.00 = $41.00; x12 months) |
| – – – – – – | |
| $ -182.00 | savings after a year with T-Mobile |
Looking at that savings and thinking about the increased cost to upgrade Becky and I to new iPhones (over $400), plus the extra monthly cost, makes me angry enough to consider canceling my AT&T U-Verse package, too. …I should start seeing how much I could save by doing that.
f AT&T.
DVD New Release – 6/23/2009
Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;)
It’s a poor list this week. There’s definitely a dry spell for video discs right now.
- Waltz with Bashir – I didn’t see this movie in theaters because an NPR interview with the director turned me off, but it has acquired so much acclaim that I don’t think I can avoid it much longer.
- Backwoods – Coming out just 2 weeks after it’s debut on SpikeTV, there are no reviews out for this movie…ensuring that’s it is a steaming pile. However, it is a steaming pile in which Hillary Duff’s little sister, Haylie, plays one of the victims so there is a (very tiny) built-in audience somewhere out there.
- Phoebe in Wonderland – This arthouse release got lost in theaters last year, and the reviews are only slightly better than mediocre, but I can’t miss seeing a movie that includes Felicity Huffman and Patricia Clarkson, and is woven into Lewis Carroll’s fantasy world.
- Simon Says – I saw this at (the first?) Fantastic Fest and loved it. It is an extremely campy “college friends chased by an insane man in the woods” movie and it even has a really obvious “insane man is a twin” cliche. The crazy killing devices and situations are a riot, and Crispin Glover gets to go “full retard”. It was mostly shot in the filmmaker’s backyard and they were never sure it would even get finished, so I’m glad this made it out to DVD.
Blu-Ray:
DVD:
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My Father, The Musician
For most of my life, I thought of my mother as the musical parent. She played both guitar and piano, checked out albums when we made trips to the library, and was always singing. During the holidays, she was the one who went to sing and play in the folk-music circle at a friend’s house. She was the one I remember giving all the credit for my love of music. I thought of my father as the one who paid the bills. I was shaped by his dedication to his job and his steadfast obligation to provide for our family, sometimes in the face of a truly “negative work environment.” He worked in the petroleum industry as an engineer during the 70’s and 80’s and, especially now, I can empathize as I experience the exponential boom and bust of the technology sector.
As an adult, I now realize there was more nuance than I noticed as a child. My mother almost always had a side job, sometimes teaching guitar or piano in our house, or substitute teaching at our school. Recently I realized that it was my father who nearly wore out the orange plastic 8-track of Johnny Cash’s Orange Blossom Special in the old red pickup we drove out in the country where I was raised. So, I know my dad always loved music as much as my mother, just that he devoted all his time to his job, house and garden, making sure his family was fed and sheltered.
When he retired several years ago, Dad bought a bass and started learning how to play. Then he took singing lessons so he could play and sing. These days on weekends you are likely to find my parents at a campground playing and singing together with like-minded musicians in the Ozark Mountains. My mother is the one who plays multiple instruments and sings the best, but it is my father with his engineering-trained focus who impresses me the most. In a few short years he has become a masterful bass player, acquiring various styles of high quality instruments on eBay, and his deep voice is a moving addition to the circles in which he plays.
When Fresh Air played this episode on Friday about fathers, featuring an interview with Jimmie Dale Gilmore about his traditional country album dedicated to his late father, and one with Wayne and Darrell Scott about son Darrell’s release of his father Wayne’s original songs, I could only imagine my father enjoying the heck out of the music and the stories. Since I don’t know enough about basses to pick out a good one on eBay (besides the fact that my father always just buys what he wants anyway), I offer him this small gift of a post on my blog with these two audio pieces from Fresh Air that I know he’ll love.
Jimmie Dale Gilmore: In Song, A Eulogy For Dad:
Wayne And Darrell Scott: Father-Son Country
Live Music Complaint From Live Music Task Force Member
Props to the Austin American Statesman for putting the audio from the 911 call that shut down Shady Grove on their website (Austin360). The audio even includes the caller giving his name. I can empathize with Mr. Trainer since the music does seem pretty loud, but when you live just across the street, and up the hill, from one of the busiest restaurant neighborhoods maybe you should recognize you’re in the minority for not wanting to hear music in the neighborhood…particularly at 7:30pm on a Thursday.
I feel more than a little empathy for Mr Trainer’s name making it onto the interwebs since it isn’t difficult to find a person’s address these days. I won’t tell you which house it is specifically, but Scott lives inside this graphic:
In case you were wondering, this decibel level compare chart shows that the city’s 75dB limit on restaurants is just above normal conversation tones, and below telephone dial tone.
DVD New Releases – 6/16/2009
Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;)
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – How is it that Strangelove, which was Kubrick’s most controversial film on its release, is his least controversial film in retrospect? This is the only Kubrick film that can be universally recommended, although I’m not sure if it really need a Blu-ray release.
- Friday the 13th – The critics hated this Jason prequel, but the hot hip young cast means I’ll spend part of the summer TV down-time checking this out.
- Friday the 13th Parts 2 and 3 – Only for completists…but at least they’re in Blu-Ray.
- Ghostbusters – The discussion of the quality of this transfer hasn’t been clean, so take caution before you buy this disc.
- John Adams – You can’t argue with thirteen Emmys.
- Lost Seasons 1 and 2 – A show this gorgeous deserves a Blu-Ray release. This is an easy option to upgrade from DVD.
- Spaceballs – Mel Brooks funniest movie? Certainly for the geek community.
- Rifftrax – The guys who made Mystery Science Theater 3000 have a new product. From their website you can download a commentary track to accompany nearly 300 movies including E.T. and The Last Starfighter. They’re also releasing ten public domain movies this week with the soundtrack built in.
Blu-Ray:
DVD:
Rifftrax:
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Death Knell of the Live Music Capital of the World
Many Austinites have been stewing over sound ordinances, and it looks like things are coming to a full boil. The initial laws, in 1994, were written with a reasonable intent to keep noise pollution to a minimum. They were eventually tweaked to include specific rules about decibel levels, and recent changes went so far as to define the difference between a “live music venue” and a restaurant.
I tend to find the middle ground in most arguments, so I understand the people who legitimately are upset when a nearby restaurant expands to an outdoor patio and wants to have bands play in the evening. However many “restaurants” that have been playing live music for, at least, the seventeen years that I have lived in Austin are starting to be ticketed and even forced to stop active shows. Locals want to decry carpetbaggers who move into quaint parts of town, removing local color, but I suspect there are also several long-time residents who are using the police to punish popular businesses that have done a poor job of crowd control. (How would you feel if the only open parking on your block was your driveway, and it was often half-blocked by shiny new hybrid?)
Whatever the case, the Mayor and City Council need to quickly resolve these issues. My recommendation would be to establish grandfather exemptions for locations (streets, neighborhoods or specific businesses) that are established live music venues (including restaurants), and allow them to be louder for specific windows. For example, give Shady Grove a 20 decibel leniency until 10:00pm Wednesday and Thursday, and until 2:00am Friday and Saturday.
You can read more about the issues in Kevin Russell (of The Gourds)‘s letter to the Austin Chronicle, this discussion at Yelp, and this blog by Michael Corcoran’s.
Even better, you should DO SOMETHING to let the council know your opinion on the matter. I have written a letter that I’m sending to each of the upcoming council members, and the new mayor (who start their new jobs on June 20th) that I will link to below. If you feel ambitious, please print these out, fill in your name and mail them to City Hall at:
P. O. Box 1088
Austin, Texas 78767
or you can contact them from the council website. Feel free to cut/paste from my letters directly into the forms provided. Right now, you can only contact incumbents Mike Martinez, Randi Shade, Laura Morrison, Sheryl Cole, and incoming mayor (former council member) Lee Leffingwell.
My letters are available here:
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, journalist or even a very good researcher. Any legal matters discussed above are based on my scant online research, but I believe they are correct.
DVD New Releases – 6/9/2009
Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;)
- Gran Torino – After Eastwood ripped out my joy with Million Dollar Baby I didn’t feel he deserved my trust, so I’ve been holding out on seeing Gran Torino until the “this movie kills puppies” spoilers came out. I guess since no puppies have died, it is safe to see, and it did get an 80% freshness rating on RT.
- Fatal Attraction – The movie that made one night stands and stalking adulterers into Oscar nominated art. I’m almost afraid to see it again in Hi Def.
- Powder Blue – It’s hard to imagine a movie so bad that it can’t get a theatrical release even though it includes a nude stripper Jessica Biel. If this movie appeals to you, then I have to assume Blu-Ray is the only way to see it.
- Predator 2 – It’s not a bad sequel, and Danny Glover playing a hard-ass is interesting, but only a Gary Busey completest would call this a “must have”.
- Elsewhere – Can the power of Twilight sell other bad movies simply through casting? One of the secondary actresses (Anna Kendrick, who plays Jessica Stanley) from Twilight wasn’t satisfied with simply contributing to a bad movie, she was compelled to star in her own.
- Time Warp – Slow motion cinematography gets a hip/cool outfit from the nerds at Discovery Channel in this TV series out on disc tomorrow. Word on the streets is that it’s awesome.
Blu-Ray:
DVD:
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MYO Eye Chart
Screw haiku, challenge yourself to create a phrase that fits on an eye chart.
DVD New Releases – 6/2/2009 (and 5/26/2009)
Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;)
I feel bad this list is late…again, and missing a week…but I took the slow train to L.A., taking over a week to get there and back, returning Tuesday, and I have been playing catch-up…again.
- Children of Men – Alfonso Cuarón already had a place in my heart for making Harry Potter dark and scarry (with Prisoner of Azkaban), but I didn’t think he could craft something as originally masterful as this. A great story with wonderful actors, and a film that will be shown to film students who want to learn how to pull off incredibly ambitious ideas.
- Falling Down – Another dark movie that really spoke to me. Joel Schumacher’s direction of a man whose bad day gets worse also feeds my revenge story needs.
- Field of Dreams – So many Costner movies have become cliched, but almost any movie with James Earl Jones is timeless.
- Inside Man – Spike Lee’s most accessible movie is one of his best movies. The perfect crime executed by a near perfect cast, by a landmark director.
- Fletch – Chevy Chase at the top of his game. A classic 80’s comedy that doesn’t seem to get old.
- Weeds – Season 4 – I haven’t watched this season, yet, but I loved 1 through 3 (and Mary Louise Parker is hawt!) I need to catch up so I can start watching the new season that just started.
- Spring Breakdown – Is it possible that this many funny people could make a really bad movie? Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Rachel Dratch, Parker Posey and Amber Tamblyn? If I have never heard of it until this straight-to-disc release, then I probably shouldn’t buy it…but I will.
- The Graduate – Do I really need to talk about one of the best and most influential movies of all time? It’s called a classic for a reason, and I can’t wait to see the Hi Def transfer.
- Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog – If you didn’t get a copy when Amazon was the exclusive distributor…do I even know you? Well, now you can save up to $1.50 by buying it at other stores. You really need to get the DVD because the commentary track is (maybe) better than the original, and you can’t get that online.
Blu-Ray:
DVD:
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DFTBA Records Needs You
I’m pushing DFTBA Records. Trust me, all the kids doing it. It’s cool. You can start using and stop any time you want.
Seriously, July Can Not Get Here Any Quicker
Here’s the new video thingy about the Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince being released in July.
DVD New Releases – 5/19/2009
Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;)
I feel bad this list is late but I was in Vegas, returning Monday night, and I have been playing catch-up.
- A Bug’s Life – The second Pixar feature film release wasn’t as phenomenal as their first (Toy Story) and it received a little bit of criticism for not meeting the previously-set expectations, but it is a gorgeous movie with laughs and heart. A transfer to Blu-Ray is worth upgrading the DVD version.
- Eden Log – This is one of those bizarre sci-fi films that flew under the radar a couple years ago, playing mostly at festivals. I saw it at Austin Film Festival and despite it’s low budget approach, which leads to both absurd and brilliant moments, it is a film about memory loss, and bio-technology that drives contemplation/conversation and challenges some of the basics of cinematography, special effects, script and storytelling. This is a film only for the people who love challenging sci-fi and edgy film-making.
- Fanboys – This film has a long history of studio battles and IRL fanboys petitioning for the director and writer’s original version. There is an extra on the DVD that may discuss this battle and add some reality to the myth, but dedicated Star Wars fans are the only people who will love this movie. The best rule-of-thumb to decide whether this is a buy or rent is to ask yourself “Would I sit down and watch Star Wars — one of the first three released ones, none of that new crap — right now?”
- My Bloody Valentine 3-D – Beyond the technological advances in 3D photography, this isn’t a special movie but it is a really fun ride for the typical teenagers-chased-by-a-slasher story with trendy attractive young actors. You should have seen it in the theater where the projection technology is several magnitudes better than it has ever been. My guess is that viewing it at home won’t be the same (since it is impossible to reproduce the theater experience with current consumer technology) but if you have a LARGE tv (54” or more) and the clarity of Blu-Ray then this might be worth a look. I’m buying a copy.
- The Machinist – I didn’t have a compulsion to see Christian Bale suffering for his art in a film that, behind the scenes, could have been called The Masochist, but I may look for an HD online rental version.
- Valkyrie – At BNAT X this was a big hit with many, but it seems to only appeal to war movie fans. Tom Cruise is the least of the superb acting (with a tankload of Brits who really have stand out performances), but history buffs complain about the half-truth of the protagonist’s competency.
Blu-Ray:
DVD:
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