Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Our little Kevin Smith is all grown up, sort of. With Zack and Miri Make a Porno, he's finally made a movie that looks like a real movie. He has been criticized his entire career (most loudly by Smith himself) that his movies looked bad, and he mainly succeeded due to his writing abilities. I wondered at first if Smith had gotten a new Director of Photography to make the movie look so different, but I find that the DP is Dave Klein, the same one who shot Smith's Clerks (1 and 2), Mallrats, and Chasing Amy. Regardless, the movie looks good, and it most definitely still sounds like a Kevin Smith movie. It is profane as it can be, raunchier sexually than any of his movies have ever been, and full of pop culture references. It's also hilarious, quick witted, and more successfully heartfelt than any of Smith's previous movies.

Smith moves away from his beloved New Jersey to Pittsburgh, and gives us the story of Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks), best friends and strictly platonic roommates who've known each other since the 1st grade. Around the time they're attending their 10 year high school reunion, their water, heat, and electricity are turned off. Probably because they're a few months behind in paying their bills. They're a few months behind because Zack is a barista at a small coffee shop, and Miri (short for Miriam) works at a clothing store. They manage their small income poorly, buying sex toys and hockey equipment, instead of paying bills. While trying to come up with ways to make money, Miri jokingly says that it's times like those that lead people to hooking and/or making porn. Zack thinks it's a great idea ("Porn is mainstream now") and convinces Miri that it will save them from their financial troubles. Zack enlists his co-worker Delany (The Office's Craig Robinson) as producer, and through auditioning, some of which just involves asking strippers what they will and won't do, come across Stacey (real life porn star Katie Morgan), Bubbles (former porn star Traci Lords), and Lester (Smith regular Jason Mewes). Zack also recruits old high school friend Deacon (Jeff Anderson, previously one of Smith's Clerks) to shoot the movie. Essentially, hijinks ensue from there as the crew try to make their movie, and Zack and Miri contemplate the repercussions of having sex with each other for the first time.

It's not a perfect movie, it does drag in the second half, but at just over 100 minutes it's not like it's wearing out its welcome. The actors are all surprisingly good, especially considering that I'm told it's the first Smith movie where the actors had no rehearsal time prior to the start of production. This is Smith's best set of performances yet, especially by his two leads. Rogen is a known commodity by now, after Knocked Up, Superbad, and Pineapple Express, and he basically just plays his typical character here. Banks is less well known to most people (except us Scrubs fans). Both are good in their roles, with Banks in particular giving a lot of emotional weight to Miri. Zack and Miri each have internal struggles dealing with their feelings about their life-long relationship and how having sex (even if it is just "acting in a movie") changes that. Both actors portray believably intelligent, and emotionally inarticulate at the same time. Craig Robinson is hysterical throughout the movie (although the scene with his wife was unnecessary), and Jason Mewes shows that he can play more than just Jay to Smith's Silent Bob (but to be fair, he's not playing that different of a character). Some of the funniest supporting performances come from a gay couple Zack and Miri run into at their reunion, played by Justin Long (the Mac guy from the "Mac & PC" commercials) and our latest Superman, Brandon Routh. Although they're only in one scene, it's a great one as Routh's character tries to fend off Miri's advances (he was her high school crush) and Zack is fascinated to find out that Long's character is a gay porn star, giving Zack the intial do-it-yourself attitude towards porn.

Ok, about the title, I find it hysterical that Kevin Smith has run into issues with advertising this movie simply because of the word "porno". Many ads have just started calling it "Zack and Miri". To be fair, it isn't just the title, the poster pictured below was banned in the US due to its suggestiveness, but come on people, lighten up. There are worse things in the world than sex (actually come to think of it, pretty much everything in the world is worse than sex). Smith also had problems with the MPAA over the rating of the movie. It was initially given the dreaded NC-17 rating, but was lowered upon appeal. Apparently the MPAA didn't have a problem with the language so much as it was with the nudity (full frontal male and female), and the sex scenes (one of which has no nudity, the others being deliberately over the top). Thankfully Smith won his battle without having to cut anything that he didn't want to, and has delivered what is most likely his best movie yet. With his growth in the visual department, I'm now actually kind of looking forward to what he'll try to do with the sci-fi and horror movies he's long talked about doing.

When a classic, shouldn't be-The Thief of Bagdad

The Thief of Bagdad had an incredibly difficult road to the big screen, it went through a reported 6 directors (only 3 of which are credited), a shift in shooting location from England to Hollywood, much more behind the scenes fighting, and production being interrupted by World War 2 (which is what prompted the move to Hollywood). But when it was released it was a big hit, even winning 3 Oscars. It was an early special effects picture, and was of the always popular fantasy genre, but I believe that in the resulting 68 years, it has not dated very well.

The movie's plot is taken somewhat from "Arabian Nights", and it concerns King Ahmad (John Justin) finding love with a Princess (June Duprez), but being usurped in power by his advisor Jaffar (legendary German actor Conrad Veidt), who is equally smitten with the princess and throws Ahmad in jail under false pretenses. Ahmad is being prepped for execution when he is tossed a cell-mate, Abu (played by famous Indian actor Sabu, in only his 3rd screen role) the titular thief. Abu breaks them out of jail and basically the movie is a series of episodes of them trying to get back into the kingdom and save the princess. The most famous episode is probably Abu's encounter with an ancient (and annoying) genie, which explains the picture I used above. But my favorite sequence is one in which Abu is chased by seemingly every merchant in town, after he steals 2 fish from one of them.

I heard about this movie through Roger Ebert, who recently wrote a nice piece about special effects in movies and how too many filmmakers take the ease of CGI for granted, and thus incorrectly use their effects. He pointed to Iron Man as a recent example of how to do it right, and offered up The Thief of Bagdad as an historic example of how to use special effects, because although they're obviously special effects, we still believe them inside the context of the movie. I agree with him in theory, but not in this specific example. The effects were certainly groundbreaking at the time, but have not dated well, and I believe distractingly so. Normally this isn't a problem for me, as many special effects from the 40's don't hold up now. But this was a big time "EFFECTS MOVIE" that really relied on its effects to affect its audience.

It definitely has some beautiful shots, a few nice sets, and some nice effects, like the matte paintings representing the skyline of Baghdad. But overall, I think that because it relied so much on its effects, it doesn't work today like it would've in 1940. Conrad Veidt and Sabu are both good, with Sabu in particular having an infectious presence on screen. June Duprez is beautiful, but too wooden in her performance to be much more than eye candy. Sadly, John Justin is just as wooden as our leading man Ahmad, making for a fairly uninteresting love story. I'm glad I saw The Thief of Bagdad, as I'm always up for anything considered a "classic", but I don't think this one deserves its status, and I'd take Disney's Aladdin (which took much from this movie, including Anglicizing the leads in an otherwise Arabian story) as an alternative take on this type of story.

W.

I'll start off by saying that I believe George W. Bush to be the worst president that our great nation has ever seen or will ever see. I know many people feel similarly, among them film director Oliver Stone, so I was intrigued when it was announced that Stone's newest movie would be a biopic of Bush, rushed into production so that it could be out before the November elections, and Bush's final days in office. I also wasn't sure how I felt about hearing that Josh Brolin would be playing Bush. It seemed like just the type of role that could derail the rising career of a talented actor like Brolin, who had just come off of a scorching hot 2007 with his roles in No Country for Old Men, In the Valley of Elah, Planet Terror and American Gangster. I think many people, including myself, expected some sort of 129 minute diatribe against Bush and his administration. What Stone gave us instead is a movie that trys to put a human face on all the rehearsed soundbites and painful gaffes (both grammatical and strategic) that we've endured under this president. I think he succeeded admirably.

The movie doesn't follow chronological order, but basically shows us W from his days as a fraternity pledge at Yale, to around 2003 after the start of the Iraq War, but before Bush's second term. I think Stone didn't go further than that because he didn't want a 4 hour movie about Bush's entire life, but also didn't want to shortchange any of the things he wanted to show. What Stone shows us is that Bush always had the personal skills (impressing his frat brothers by quickly rattling off their names while being hazed), but he never had the political brains that some people had. People like Bush's father's political advisors Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) and Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright). He also didn't have his father's distinguished military record to get his foot in the door. All he had was his last name, a name that he at times resented, but eventually put to good use.

We follow W as he goes through his heavy drinking phase, which lasted for about 20 years in reality, but isn't overly harped on in the movie, just enough so that we get the point. W meets a smart young librarian named Laura, a few years later they're married, and a few years after that he is asked to help with his fathers presidential bid. Soon W becomes a sober born again Christian, and shrewdly helps his dad get elected. After Bush Sr.'s defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton in 1992, W decides to stand up against popular Democrat Ann Richards for the gubernatorial seat in Texas. Both of W's parents advise against it since his brother Jeb was running for Governor of Florida, and they wanted "one Bush at a time". Having felt slighted by his parents in favor of his younger brother his whole life, W runs anyway and wins, while Jeb loses. He eventually feels that God wants him to run for president, so he does, and with the kind of shrewd help he personally gave to his father (both times courtesy of Toby Jones' perfectly slimey Karl Rove) he wins.

We all remember what has happened since then, but the movie covers some of that ground as well. A particularly bone chilling sequence is one that takes place in a high level meeting of the minds about the direction of the country after 9/11. Richard Dreyfuss delivers a frighteningly logical speech about "why Iraq", the country that Colin Powell keeps wondering why everyone is harping on about when it had no known connection to 9/11 (the surprise answer: oil, and strategic placement for future oil). Jeffrey Wright is fantastic in this scene as Powell, the only real military man of the bunch (a 4-star General after all), a fact that he throws back into Cheney's face when Cheney talks down to him on military matters. But Dreyfuss is also terrifically frightening as Cheney, who doesn't have the people skills that W does, so he's content to stay behind the scenes, sometimes literally standing in the shadows (next to Rove, who stays there the whole time), convincing President Bush that war is the answer.

Nearly every one of the supporting roles is well cast, most particularly James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush. He tackles portraying a person that we all know (and have seen parodies of for nearly 20 years) and succeeds mightily. We see that his father (who was Senator Prescott Bush) never really gave him any sort of affection, the closest being a gift of a special pair of cuff links, and he transfers that behavior into his own parenting. He tries to be a good father, bailing W out of many bad situations, and pulling strings to get him into good ones. He tries to encourage his son into helping with his campaign, but plays it off that Jeb was busy so he asked W for help instead. This just adds to W's lifelong feelings of being considered the lesser son. Cromwell also has a phenomenal scene where the family watches as the news reports on '92 election night, announcing Clinton's victory. Cromwell just might've earned himself an Oscar nomination with that scene, and he'd deserve it. I don't think Thandie Newton fairs as well in her portrayal of Condoleezza Rice. Her accent seemed a little fake to me, and she seemed to not quite fit into the skin of her character. Elizabeth Banks, however, is good as Laura Bush, who is always there to support W in whatever capacity she can. She and Josh Brolin create a believably loving marriage onscreen. That brings us to Josh Brolin's central performance here as President Bush. While I don't think he looks anything like the man, Brolin captured the essence of W so well that I rarely thought about him as playing W, and just accepted him as W. Brolin portays him as arrogant, often misinformed, but a genuinely good guy who is trying to do his best.

Oliver Stone has crafted a remarkably even handed portrait of one of the most divisive figures of our times. Bush has set records with both the highest presidential approval rating (92% a month after 9/11), and the lowest (19% just last month, his second time being that low). But with the empathetic way Stone shows him, we kinda feel a little bad when everything goes south for him. It's not a perfect movie, or even a great one honestly, but it does have a lot to admire and it could even be up for some awards for a couple of the actors come Oscar season.

Tremors-An A-quality B-movie

It's always nice when you revisit a childhood favorite and find out that it holds up over the years. I recently re-watched Tremors, one of the few "monster movies" I like. I hadn't seen it in many years, but I think I might've actually liked it even more as an adult. The script is hysterical, but takes itself just seriously enough so that the suspenseful parts are actually suspenseful. The actors are nearly all terrific, and the special effects are actually quite good.

The plot concerns itself with the unexplained appearance of 4 gigantic subterranean worms that begin terrorizing the almost ghost town of Perfection, Nevada. The handful of residents in the area include survivalist nuts Burt and Heather (Michael Gross and Reba McEntire), Rhonda, a graduate student studying seismology (Finn Carter), as well as handy men Earl and Val (Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon). They fight against the monsters and, blah, blah, blah. That's not important. What is important is that this is one of the best "buddy" movies ever made. The script gives us a relationship between Val and Earl that really comes as a surprise for this kind of movie, and it's aided by the performances from Ward and Bacon. They bicker like an old married couple, but do look out for, and care about, one another. Fred Ward gets laughs just from some of the looks that he gives, and Bacon is all nervous energy and sarcasm (my favorite line in the movie being "Oh sure Earl, everybody knows about 'em, we just didn't tell you").

The script by Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson is very well written, and the movie moves along at a brisk pace. The scripting is surprising coming from the writers who brought us Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2, and would later bring us Ghost Dad and Wild Wild West, two of the notoriously worst movies ever made. But their script here is full of nicely written dialog that helps the actors create a sense of history that's needed to make a town of approximately 15 people be believable. And it's not just Ward and Bacon that are terrific, Michael Gross and Reba McEntire as the survivalists have a lot of good moments. Reba was making her acting debut, and it's a strange part for her to take, considering that she was already a famous singer. But she and Gross work wonderfully together and both have their fair share of great dialog (my favorite of theirs being after they kill a monster, Gross shouts "Broke into the wrong god damn rec wreck room didn't you you bastard!). Not all of the supporting performances are good, but none ruin anything about the movie, and are the smallest of distractions from the main characters, at worst.

Tremors is thankfully a movie that wasn't just good because I saw it when I was a kid and didn't know what good movies were yet. It's an hysterical comedy, a decent monster movie, a terrific buddy flick, and just an all around great time at the movies.

New movie I saw this week, part 2-Appaloosa

Ed Harris made his directorial debut 8 years ago with the biopic Pollock, and he's now given us his sophomore effort Appaloosa, a western based on the bestselling novel by Robert B. Parker, which Harris co-produced, co-wrote, and stars in, in addition to handling the directing duties. It holds many trademarks of the western genre, the small desert town (was there no grass west of the Mississippi River in the 1800's?), the evil cattle baron (deliciously played here by Jeremy Irons), the steel faced marshal (Ed Harris), his woman (Renee Zellwegger), and his loyal deputy/best and only friend (Viggo Mortensen). It also has the requisite shootouts, stare downs, and a few scenes of comic relief. Harris handles everything with a steady hand behind the camera, but the movie needs some paring down, as it feels longer than its 114 minutes, and isn't quite as satisfying as it probably could've been.

Harris doesn't need to prove himself as an actor, he has 4 Oscar nominations on his resume, and probably should've won the awards for his performances in Apollo 13 and Pollock, if not for The Truman Show as well. Here he's quite good as Virgil Cole, a man who doesn't always articulate his points, but is good at his job. His job is to contract himself and his partner Everett Hitch (Mortensen) to towns that are overrun with crime. They come in, temporarily become the law, and kill anyone who doesn't abide by the rules. Then they move on to the next town. The town of Apaloosa is terrorized by Jeremy Irons' cattle baron and the men who work for him, and they're happy to hire Cole and Hitch to clean up the place. Both men are expert marksmen and not afraid to show it, and Cole is a pro at diffusing the angry mobs of criminals who oppose them. Zellwegger's role is fairly well written, but she doesn't do anything here that a thousand other actresses couldn't have done. Irons is quite good as the bad guy, and Lance Henriksen is wonderful as a shady man from Virgil Cole's past.

Mortensen continues to show that he's one of the best actors around right now. The relationship between he and Ed Harris feels real, we feel a sense of history between these two men, and Mortensen's reactions to Harris' actions are priceless. Sometimes an actor will be around for a while before people really take notice. Mortensen first made his way into movies with the acclaimed Peter Weir movie Witness, playing a member of the Amish community infiltrated by Harrison Ford. He was later cast as one of the two leads in Sean Penn's directorial debut The Indian Runner, had a small role as one of Al Pacino's old gangster buddies in Carlito's Way, was the antagonistic Command Master Chief in G.I. Jane, and was Sam Loomis in Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho. For some reason, Peter Jackson really wanted to cast him as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and when the actor originally cast was fired, Jackson got his wish. The movies went on to be successes beyond anyone's imagination, and made Mortensen a star in his early 40's. He used that newfound stardom to make a pair of movies with David Cronenberg, 2005's A History of Violence, and last year's Eastern Promises (for which he was nominated as Best Actor at the Oscars, and should've won easily). Mortensen's work here isn't of the astounding quality that his work in those last two movies were, but it's still of an extremely high quality. Both his and Harris' parts are very subtle, with no big showy scenes for them to showcase their abilities. What they do instead is create a believable relationship between these two characters that we'd honestly like to spend more time with, which is always a good thing.

Appaloosa is exquisitely filmed by Australian cinematographer Dean Semler, renowned for his work on Mad Max, The Road Warrior, Dances with Wolves (for which he won an Oscar), and Apocalypto. Unfortunately I can't find a picture of my favorite shot in the movie, which was one of Mortensen in the shadows holding his gun as Zellwegger nervously walks by. But if you see the movie, you'll know which shot I mean.

Ultimately I do recommend that you see Appaloosa, because although it's not a great movie, it's definitely a good one. There are no major missteps by anyone involved, the unshakable friendship between Harris and Mortensen is terrific, and the images are worthy of mention alongside the greatest in the western genre. Seeing how wildly different this is from Pollock, it makes me quite excited to see what Harris tackles next, because he's obviously as talented behind the camera as he is in front of it.

New movie I saw this week-Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a pretty frustrating movie. It has two endlessly watchable leads who are adorable together, a nice visual look, a terrifically engaging storyline, and some fairly good laughs. So why isn't it better than it should be? I think it's because other than its wonderful title characters, it's painfully hit and miss. An entire sub-plot with Norah's best friend flats flat on its face, the side characters of Nick's best friends have a couple of good moments, but could've easily been done without. Sub-plots with both Nick and Norah's exes work, but are underdeveloped. That said, I have to recommend this movie if only on the basis of Michael Cera as Nick, and Kat Dennings as Norah.

Nick is the bass player in a band with his two gay best friends in suburban New Jersey. They have a gig tonight in New York City, and who should show up at the gig but Nick's ex-girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena), who left him heartbroken a month ago. Nick still hasn't recovered, and doesn't even notice that another girl at the gig, Norah, was eyeing him as he was onstage. Turns out that Tris is the bitch at school that Norah has to put up with, and so as not to look like she came alone, Norah asks Nick to act like her boyfriend for a few minutes in front of Tris. Nick comes out of his stupor for a bit when Norah kisses him, and Nick's best friends take it upon themselves to make sure that Nick and Norah end up together (they hated Tris). All the while, a secretive show by Nick and Norah's favorite band is happening in the city, and they go on a night-long adventure to find the show.

The best friend characters are mostly there for comic relief I guess, except they're not very funny. Norah's best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) is an alcoholic that the movie tries to pass off as some old timey "funny drunk", but it comes off more as tragedy than anything else. Except the actress isn't playing tragedy, she's playing comedy. Hence the reason it doesn't work. The gay best friends, and the beefcake they meet at the gig, aren't as worthless. There's one particular moment as one of the guys is explaining to Nick how The Beatles had everything right, that's one of the best moments in the movie (because, of course, The Beatles did have everything right). The exes, Tris and Tal (Undeclared's Jay Baruchel), are both nicely played and both have some good moments with Nick and Norah, but as character's they're not developed as anything more than "the exes".

A movie like this cannot survive if the leads aren't engaging. Some people will say that Michael Cera is playing the same character he played in Superbad and/or Juno, but those people aren't paying attention. Cera plays different notes of the "shy nice guy" persona in each movie, this one being the most grownup and realistic. Just as John Cusack often plays different shades of the same character type, so does Cera. Nick is a good guy that has had his heart broken by Tris, but all he wants is to find love, he's just looking to the wrong person. Kat Dennings, as Norah, is given one of her first lead roles, and I can safely say that she's a huge star in the making. She shows an intelligence and passion to Norah (two of the hardest traits to believably pull off for an actor, I think) that intrigues both Nick and us in the audience. She's not just "the girl" in this story, she challenges Nick and eventually wakes him from the coma that Tris had put him in. It doesn't hurt that she's also incredibly gorgeous. There are multiple occasions in the movie where characters say that Norah isn't in the same class of beautiful as Tris, but maybe it's because we're so in love with Norah at that point, but Tris looks like Ernest Borgnine in comparison. One small thing I'd like to single out, there's a moment near the end, where Nick and Norah silently give each other a little smile, that is absolutely sublime. Don't go running out to see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, but it's worth a look at least, I just wish that the movie had followed just these two characters and done away with everyone else.

Once

As a musician, I've never been able to articulate to people the sort of psychic connection that musician's have with one another when we really click. It's almost like you've found your soul mate, like they understand everything about you, even if you've just met and they don't really know anything about your life. Well, John Carney's film Once taps into that energy, shows that connection, and at least documents the high that you get from creating music. I wasn't sure if non-musicians would understand the subtext of much of the movie, but most of the people I've talked to do seem to understand, and they love it. Music is universal, but musicals are notoriously un-loved by many people (myself included, with few exceptions). Once, however, is at least 2/3rd's music, and although not universally loved (because no movie is), it has certainly made a connection with many people.

Glen Hansard is the leader of a hugely influential rock band in Ireland called The Frames. They are one of the great bands of the past couple of decades, but for some unknown reason never made it big in the US. John Carney began as the bass player for The Frames in the early 90's but slowly gravitated away into filmmaking. But when he got an idea to do a movie told mostly through music, he wanted his old bandmate to write the music for it. Irish star Cillian Murphy (he was Dr. Crane/The Scarecrow in Batman Begins) was supposed to play the lead, he was a musician prior to becoming an actor, but walked away after hearing the proposed music that he wasn't sure he could pull off. Losing a star meant that Carney wouldn't be able to get the kind of funding he would've previously been able to get. Instead of dwelling on this, Carney turned it into a positive. This meant that he could make his movie for basically no money, which meant no interference from a studio. He also re-evaluated his leading man, thinking it might be better to get a great singer who could half act, rather than a great actor who could half sing. He turned to Glen Hansard, who promptly refused, after having had bad memories of his only previous foray into acting, in Alan Parker's The Commitments. But, thankfully, Glen reconsidered and agreed to do the movie. Playing the female lead opposite Glen would be his good friend, and recent musical collaborator, Marketa Irglova, a young Czech pianist/singer whom Glen had met a few years previously. Marketa added her haunting voice and piano to Glen's songs and they became the backbone of Once.

The movie was ultimately made for very little money (just over $100,000) and looks like it. The visual quality of the film makes it clear that it was shot on cheap cameras and shot very quickly. This would be a hindrance to some movies, but actually works here. Glen's character (unnamed, but credited as The Guy) lives in a working class section of Dublin, splitting his time between working in his dad's vacuum repair shop and being a street musician. Marketa's character (The Girl, or "herself" as Glen tends to refer to her) splits her time between being a maid, and being a street vendor (roses, magazines, whatever). They meet one night as Glen is playing his own heartbreaking songs to no audience, he tells her he plays his songs at night because people only want to hear things they already know during the day, and that's how he makes money. She likes his songs, and Glen soon finds out that she plays piano. She takes him to a music shop where the owner lets her practice for an hour every day at lunch (she doesn't have a piano at home because they're too expensive). Before long they're collaborating on music, and eventually recording in a small studio.

As a musician every one of the musical sequences rings true, probably because the movie is about musicians, so it's not like the characters are just randomly breaking out into song. They're simply playing their songs the way that musicians do. There's the possibility that their relationship could lead to a romance but, despite the embarrassingly photoshopped poster showing them holding hands, it doesn't. And the movie is better off for it, because that would've been the first demand from a studio, the guy and the girl must fall in love. Well, actually they still do, but not in a traditional movie sense. There's no doubt in my mind that these characters love each other possibly more than they'll ever love anyone else, but they don't act on it. Not that they don't want to (her million-watt smile and his puppy dog eyes tell a great untold story), but it just isn't in the cards for them.

Once has more heart and soul poured into it than most movies you'll ever see in your life combined. It's a heartbreaking romance, a beautiful musical, and a deeply felt portrait of two lonely people finding each other in the world and making some terrific art out of it. It's one of the best movies of the past few years, and I've yet to meet one of the few poor heartless bastards that doesn't like it.

Paul Newman-1925-2008

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in 1958, the year they were married

"I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried -- tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out."-Paul Newman

The world lost a legend this week, as Paul Newman died of lung cancer at his home in Connecticut, he was 83. Newman was nominated for 9 acting Oscars in his career, and also had a nomination as Best Director for 1968's Rachel, Rachel. His acting, as Roger Ebert so astutely put it, was not "naturalistic" as some acting is. He was always just natural onscreen. He simply was whatever character he was playing, whether it was "Fast" Eddie Felson, Hud Bannon, Butch Cassidy, Luke Jackson, or any other character. You never saw any acting from Newman, and that's why he's one of the great actors of all time.

He was also the coolest guy to ever be in movies (sorry Steve McQueen fans, there's no comparison) and was a noted philanthropist through his Newman's Own foundation, which donated more than $250 million to charity. He had the most famous set of blue eyes in all of cinema, and once remarked that he wouldn't want his tombstone to read "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown". He will be missed, but will always be remembered for the many great things he gave us.

The Last Waltz-30 years and still the best

The Band, one of the greatest groups in the history of rock and roll, had been on the road together for 16 years when they decided to part ways in 1976. But they felt like they should have one last hurrah, and put together a concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, the location of their first gig as a band. They invited a lot of their friends to help send them off in style, and held the event on Thanksgiving Day. I say "they", but it was really only lead songwriter/guitarist Robbie Robertson that wanted to disband. He couldn't imagine continuing in their current touring lifestyles, and wanted to do something different. Drummer/singer Levon Helm was staunchly against the breakup, thinking that the group was still going strong and could continue to be relevant in the music world. Levon makes his very valid case by giving the performance of his life during The Band's final show, one they dubbed The Last Waltz.

Now, you and I don't have the same kind of friends that The Band had, to put it mildly. The "friends" that they invited out to send them off in style included people like Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Bob Dylan (whom The Band had been the backing group for when he went electric), Joni Mitchell, The Staples Singers, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Wood, Dr. John, and others. They also had a movie director friend from New York named Martin Scorsese who wanted to film The Last Waltz and make a rock documentary about it. A decade or so previously, Scorsese had worked on the team of editors editing the great Rock Doc of the time, 1970's Woodstock, the documentary of the legendary 1969 festival. Years later many people hold Scorsese's The Last Waltz (celebrating its 30th anniversary this year) as high or higher than that epic doc.

As great as all those guest stars are, the best parts of The Last Waltz are with The Band alone. Scorsese conducts interviews with all the band members, pianist/singer Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist/singer Rick Danko, but Robbie and Levon are the dominant personalities. They talk about how they got together and tell some stories of their early days, and we also see their still powerful performances during the concert segments. The movie opens up on their final encore, their definitive take on Marvin Gaye's "Don't Do It", and later they go through their hits "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" without guests, while The Staples Singers accompany the group during their other big hit "The Weight". As I said before, Levon is in rare form as both a drummer and a singer throughout the night, Robbie nicely MC's the event and plays better than ever, and many of the guests are performing at their highest capacities (especially Van Morrison and Neil Young). But I'm saddened that Richard Manuel, who had the most heartbreaking and beautiful voice in all of rock music, was so broken down through his addictions and hard life on the road that we only really see him sing a verse of the Dylan/Band classic "I Shall Be Released". This has always been Levon Helm's problem with The Last Waltz, both he and Rick Danko considered Manuel to be the lead singer, and yet he is nearly absent from the final cut of the concert we see. Robbie Robertson says that Manuel was too far gone in his addictions, and he and Scorsese did the best they could with the material they had.

There's a sadness alongside the joyousness of the music here. A type of sadness not usually seen in concert films. You can see that the guys love playing music together, and with their friends, but there's a sort of knowing wistfulness in everyones eyes, particularly Robbie's. The Last Waltz was a wonderful celebration of one of the great bands of all time, but also a melancholic goodbye to the music that they made together. The Last Waltz is the greatest of rock docs, about one of the greatest of bands, and even now in its 30th year, there are still amazing sights and sounds to behold.

First non-movie topic: Melody Gardot

Melody Gardot is a jazz singer from Philadelphia, who at 19 was hit by a car while riding her bicycle home. Her extensive rehab period actually continues to this day, 4 years later, as she is both light and sound sensitive and needs the assistance of a cane (which she has dubbed "Citizen Cane") for stability and balance. She was encouraged by her doctors to write songs, as it had been helpful in aiding other patients brain functions recover and develop. She ultimately released the EP "Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions", which she recorded while still in the hospital, microphones next to the bed, medical equipment sharing space with a guitar, a piano, and an 8-track recorder. She eventually left the hospital and recorded her full-length follow up "Worrisome Heart", which came to my attention a few months ago when the title song was the Single of the Week on iTunes. I was seduced by this incredibly expressive voice and sensual atmosphere, and bought the entire album immediately without knowing her backstory. I was not disappointed, as every song is strong enough to stand on its own, especially "Sweet Memory" "Good Night" and "Some Lessons" the song she wrote about her accident.

If you want to check her out as well, you can get her album on iTunes, or go to her myspace page (www.myspace.com/melody), or her website (www.melodygardot.com). I hope you do.