Moonlighting

The series is actually better than you remember it.

Watching this, you can remember why Cybill Shepherd was a star and Bruce Willis was about to become one.

Glen Gordon Caron had a three-series deal with the network, and his first two ideas had flopped. The network told him to make number three a boy-girl detective show, but Caron had no interest in doing a detective show-- so he made this, instead.

Now, technically it is a detective show. And many of the detective stories are quite good-- the show was especially good at creating moody, intriguing set-ups that played in the beginning of the show before our main characters even showed up. Usually the mystery was a device for provoking discussion of the week's theme. But once the relationship between David and Maddy found traction, the show could often dispense with any pretense at detecting entirely.

That was fine. The banter, the overlapping dialogue, the patented three-times delivery of the same line-- all gave the show a panache and rhythm that just make it fun to watch. And in the middle of the second season, the show began to erode the fourth wall, becoming hilariously self-referential, until in the season 2 finale, the chase sequence (they had many great chase sequences) goes off the set and the villainous Judd Nelson is foiled in the end because a grip collects his prop gun. Dave and Maddy say good-bye for the summer, get in their cars, and drive off the lot.

By the third season, the show had hit its stride in everything but meeting a production schedule, but even the frequent reruns that greeted viewers are addressed directly in the show itself. It's the third season that plays so much better on dvd, because we can finally watch, for instance, the David-Maddy-Sam episodes back to back. We also get "Big Man on Mulberry Street"-- complete with Billy Joel song and Stanley Donen dance sequence, plus the mega-costly-for-the-time "Taming of the Shrew" episode.

Other features? Though Moonlighting was a hot ticket, you won't see that many amazing guest stars. Mark Harmon, Whoopie Goldberg, Robert Wuhl (very briefly), Donna Dixon, and a whole lot of eighties tv actors who will make you go, "Hey, it's that guy!"

And it is eighties to the max. The hair, the outfits, the shoulder pads, the music-- it is like a time capsule for 1986-87.

Extras? Some great new documentaries which manage to get Caron, Willis and Shepherd in the same room (though they still don't look entirely happy about it) that produce some great reminiscences.

By season four the show had not exactly jumped the shark, but the lightning was starting to leak out of the bottle. But the first three seasons are absolutely worth watching.

Up

You may be like me. Some of your most favorite movies some from Pixar, but other Pixar offerings leave you cold.

So even though Pixar doesn't need one more recommendation to fuel its giant juggernaut, let me offer a recommendation to those of you who, like me, don't always feel the Pixar love.

I love Wall-E. Finding Nemo just kind of alternately bores and irritates me. I thinks Monsters Inc is genius, but the trailers for Cars actually turn me off. So what about Up?

Up is a giant heaping pile of awesome. Like Wall-E, the movie that was promoted is only the first third of the film, and like Wall-E, that third is genius all by itself. But then, once you throw in South America and talking dogs and giant exotic birds and some breath-taking chase sequences, it moves into the realm of hilarious adventure.

There is a strange dreamlike quality to Up, an odd bending of time and space that is notable even in a movie about a man who travels in a house suspended from balloons, and some may find that particular quality distracting. I did not. All of the characters have learned Chaplin's business of wrapping the Funny around a somber center of real human sadness, and some people may find that distracting (if you have anyone in your house who is even sort of a cryer, tears will be shed during this movie). I just found that it gave the wild fantasy a solid root in emotional reality.

And after the lead-faced animatronics of films like Beowulf and the new Christmas Carol, it's particular stunning to see how well these cgi characters act. Unlike other studios that insist that all information be delivered by script, Pixar is once again unafraid to let their characters' acting tell the tale.

Many folks have been scared off this film because of the repeated critic references to its emotional heft. Don't worry about that. This is a funny, funny film-- wildly original and unexpected in many good ways. You will quote it for weeks afterwards ("I was hiding under your porch, because I love you") and re-view it many times. Highly recommended!

Josie and the Pussycats

Yes, seriously. This movie is way smarter and considerably funnier than it has any right to be.

There is insanely over-the-top product placement. The boy band Du Jour (played by the uncredited Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, and Donald Faison) is a mini-Spinal Tap for turn-of-century pop music.

The plot is pure comic book (pop music is being used to turn American teens into consuming drones) but played with such drive and fun that it works.

And the music itself is as good as anything that was around at the time. The Pussycats are somewhere in Avril Levigne territory, but without the ridiculous self-importance.

Silly, smart, fun, and energetic-- better than a live-action cartoon and with a subtly sharp satirical edge for good measure.

Seriously, watch this.

To Have and Have Not

Howard Hawks introduces the world to Lauren Bacall. William Faulkner makes a screenplay out of an Ernest Hemmingway work (well, sort of). Hoagy Carmichael sings and plays. Humphrey Bogart plays an amoral expat far from home trying to decide whether or not to help the free French. What's not to love?

The performances just leap off the screen, and the dialogue is sharp as all get out ("You know how to whistle") with a typical Hawksian love story featuring a typical Hawksian womanj-- tough, bruised, open-hearted and willing to lay it all on the line for the right man.

The story matters a little, but not all that much. The music gets a surprisingly large amount of screen time. I pooh-poohed the usually blurbs as wishful fluff, but damned if you can't really see Bogart and Bacall fall in love right on screen. Either that or they are the best actors ever.

Yes, the ending's a tad weak, and the supporting cast is unfamiliar yet reminiscent of other casts so that you find yourself recasting it (That should be Peter Lorre. Oh, Sidney Greenstreet, where were you?)

It has the humor, moral suspense, action and romance of Casablanca, but it is, particularly in its love story, more audacious and funny. And the music's better. It is, in the end, not as wholly awesome as its African cousin, but it is still a heaping plate of full-bodied awesomeness, not to be missed.

Lake Placid

This under-appreciated gem takes the trademark banter and wit of David E. Kelley (Ally McBeal, The Practice) and transplants it into a classic Giant Scary Animal plotline.

Bridget Fonda is a museum researcher impulsively escaping a bad dumping, Bill Pullman a straight-laced state fish and game ranger, and Brendan Gleeson the local law enforcement who wishes all these out-of-towners would get out. Throw in Oliver Platt as an over-the-top rich science dabbler plus Betty White in one of her very best cranky old broad roles and you get a monster film in which you're almost sorry to have the monster interrupt the live humans.

For monster film fans, that will be the disappointment. The giant croc is well-handled, but Kelley is interested in making a curious little hybrid here, and it works quite well. Like Tremors, it's a sort of mutated descendant of Ghostbusters. Sharp, funny, never exactly inspiring terror or horror, but still possessing a bit of a kick. The star here is not the monster, but a well crafted script delivered by a crackerjack cast.

O Brother, Where Art Thou

Now that a few years have gone by, we can set aside some of the fuss and hype this generated when new and just appreciate it for the wonderful movie that it is.

The fuss, at the time, was mostly about the soundtrack, a collection of "old timey" folk/country music that was enough of a big deal to merit its own tour. The music is certainly fine and authentic and unlike most of what we ever hear, but I suspect that people were mostly responding to how completely woven into the film it was. The Coen Brothers have created a completely different type of movie musical here-- not the transplanted Broadway musical of a Disney nor the movie-length music video of a Top Gun, but a movie in which the music helps to tell the story while revealing its heart.

Not that this is a movie that is deep or serious. The Coen's have moved the Odyssey into Depression-era South and turned Odysseus (Ulysses) into an escaped convict. The result is rollicking, free-wheeling, hearty story-telling.

Casting is pitch-perfect. George Clooney is at his absolute best, a performance of a dim-witted con artist that is so great that he and the Coen's have since made two efforts to reproduce the magic (they failed both times, so do not pre-judge this movie based on those). The movie is heart-achingly beautiful, laugh-out-loud funny, and eminently quotable ("it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart").

One of my most favorite films ever, and one which really has no peer. A truly unique movie.

Nanking

Much has been written and filmed about the Rape of Nanking, one horrifying episode in the long strong of horrifying episodes that was WWII. But whether you are familiar with the history or not, this documentary is worth a look.

The contemporary actors that you see listed play the parts of historical figures in "talking head" presentations of those peoples' words captured in letters and journals. These "interviews" are interspersed with interviews with real survivors from both sides of events.

There are aspects of the situation that are strikingly heroic. When the Japanese descend upon Nanking, thousands of residents are gathered into a safety zone created by a coalition of American missionaries and German businessmen (how jarring to see one man try to save Chinese by putting them under a swastica)

The agonizing daily struggles, the suffering, the death, the torture-- the horror of these events is almost unimaginable, and the aftermath is heartbreaking. This is a moving and effective piece of work, an important film that is not easy to watch (the bits of the actual footage smuggled out of the city is almost unbearable), but which is necessary to see.

The Fifth Element

One of those films that ultimately found its feet on dvd, The Fifth Element had the misfortune to come out in the same year as Titanic, thereby causing it to sink without a trace.

Not that it's an easy film to find an audience for. The film is stylish, cool to look at, but not in a fanboy eye candy manner. The cast is large and strong. Some great Gary Oldman scene-chewing, Bruce Willis in a restrained few-worded man-of-action mode, and a host of "Hey, don't I know that guy from somewhere" character actors. Chris Tucker is admittedly as loud and obnoxious as ever, but he's not on screen for most of the film, and his shtick kind of works here.

There is action and adventure, slick fast-paced filmmaking, and a fun story with a bit of depth to it. Often overlooked, but well worth a viewing.

Bigger Stronger Faster

Nominally about the use of steroids, this documentary ends up addressing far larger ideas.

The personal focus here comes from the filmmaker's attention to his own story and that of his two brothers. All three had dreams of becoming the next Stallone or Hulk Hogan. His brothers went the steroid route; filmmaker Chris Bell did not.

Bell's boldest move in the film is to present the argument for steroids and allow steroid supporters to address the commonly-held, but largely unsupported, views of steroid's dangers. In doing so, he highlights a larger and deeper conflict, because even as Bell presents these arguments, the person who remains unconvinced is Bell himself.

And so the film moves on to the question of why steroids "just seem really wrong." What is it in our culture that embraces some enhancements and demonizes others? What does it say about us that so many of our heroes "cheated" to achieve the success for which we admire them?

Bell is particularly hard on Arnold Schwarznegger and his message of "work hard, eat your vegetables, say your prayers, and in America, you can become anything," noting repeatedly that Arnold's entire career is based on success that he achieved through using steroids.

Ultimately Bell portrays steroid use not as a problem, but as a symptom of something sad and difficult in the American character, the drive to do whatever it takes to get the dream, even if that means potential self-destruction. And Bell's brothers underline that, because they are ultimately sad figures who take all those steps, and still end up ordinary men far short of any sort of greatness or success. Saddest of all is his older brother, who appears to be throwing away the quieter success of a solid father, husband and provider in vain pursuit of a glory that he believes is his destiny, but which he will clearly never achieve.

Ultimately this far-ranging documentary (as the film proceeds, Bell's "gets" for interviews are increasingly impressive and varied) is funny, sad, thought-provoking, and as much about the American dream and celebrity as it is about steroids. Highly recommended.

Saturday Night Fever

If you think you know why you don't want to actually see this little filmic icon, let me explain to you why you're wrong.

Here's the thing. An awful lot of what you think you know about the seventies is not exactly correct. If the sex-drugs-rock sixties were a retread of the sex-gin-jazz twenties, then the seventies were an echo of the thirties.

The seventies are remembered, if at all (and no, That Seventies Show, doesn't count-- Happy Days does a better job of recreating the fifties, for God's sake), they're remembered as a happy romanticized cheesefest. But the seventies were deeply conflicted-- hoping for that happy polyester world on the one hand, and suspecting and fearing something darker and uglier at the same time.

Saturday Night Fever is completely in touch with that. If you think you know what the film is going to be like because you know the bright chirpy soundtrack, you're wrong. Things about the film that you don't expect:

This is a film that really earns its R rating. Travolta and his friends are not nice people. They are rough and nasty and not in a stylized Hollywood cute way. They treat women like crap, and not in a cute Apatow warm-fuzzy-misogyny way; the film includes at least two rape scenes and some brutal use of the C-word.

These are characters who love the disco floor because it is the only bright and pleasant thing in their dark, sad lives.

This is not a chirpy movie. Eight Mile is a brighter, more pleasant film. For modern audiences who are used to stylized comfortable language and ugliness, some of this is a bit discomforting. Which is part of the point. It made Travolta a star not just because he dances the hell out of it, and certainly not because he's just playing Vinnie Barbarino (because he's not, at all), but because he manages to give charm and charisma to a character who is really not a nice guy.

It's not a popcorn movie, a date movie, or a piece of light-weight fantasy. It's a reminder that disco dancing started out as an urban phenom (just starting to die as this movie hit and convinced a bunch of rich white suburban kids that they'd like to dress up and act badass, too, at least a little). This is a largely serious film about a character trapped in poverty, a dysfunctional family, and a life so bad it even makes a priest give up. Well, and there's some serious dancing, too.

Gritty, tough, and very much an artifact of its times. Not cheesy plastic. Actually worth a couple of hours of your time.

Wall-E

I have just run into yet another person who has not yet seen this film. I'm amazed.

It's simple. Every sentient being on Earth ought to see this. Not because it has some Important Message or because of the stunning cgi rendering or the brilliance of sound maestro Ben Burtt, though all those things are certainly nice.

This is simply a pitch-perfect piece of story-telling-- hilarious, sweet, human, exciting. It is one of the best films, of any sort, made in a long time.

For those of you afraid that this is more lefty enviro-preaching, the save-the-earth message is balanced nicely with a call for personal responsibility. And while the characters are remarkably well-drawn and moving, this is also some of the most hilarious slapstick put on film since the twenties.l

It's just a really great movie, and while I didn't think I'd veer spend blog space on films that are already wildly successful, apparently some of you out there have still not caught up with this one, and you really should.

Repo: The Genetic Opera

First, let it be noted that this is not for just any taste.

The basic set-up is pretty clever. In the future, a wave of disease has made a market for organ transplants, but since not everyone can afford them, the giant corporation that's making a mint from them provides financing. But if you fall behind on your payments... well, ewwwww.

The Ewwww factor may be your first stumbling block. Granted, I am not a fan of gory horror fare, but still-- I believe a few tanker trucks of blood were used in the making of this film. The best thing I can say about the blood and guts and gore is that they are so omnipresent and over-the-top in this film that they cease to be excessively appalling.

The next stumbling block is that, well, it's an opera. Nothing but singing and a plot (generational guilt, dark secrets, wicked politicking) that is truly operatic. Much of the music is catchy as all get-out and while it is largely industrial-flavored, the composers have covered a wide range from sweeping orchestral to pop to funk to the best faux-punk I've heard in decades. The singers are all capable-- Sarah Brightman of course has chops, but who knew that Paul Sorvino could belt out opera. And Paris Hilton doesn't suck. But yes-- in the operatic tradition, while the music is catchy, there isn't a memorable lyric in the whole thing.

The strongest feature of the film is also its other big stumbling point. It is clearly a labor of love. Its creators have been nursing it along for years, since its genesis as a little ten minute mini-play, and it perhaps could have used some hard but necessary trimming. It's not too long, but it doubles back and meanders through the same territory. Most egregiously-- and this is NOT a mark of love-- somebody decided to add little narrative inserts which add nothing not already contained in the lyrics, but destroy some of the story's revelations.

But clearly everyone loves this. The director, who used his paychecks from some Saw films to bankroll it. The creators, the performers. Everyone obviously really wants to make this film happen.

Cetainly not for every taste, this wants to be a cult hit. It's most often compared to Rocky Horror, but while it is just as socially unacceptable, it doesn't match Rocky's sense of campy fun. On the other hand, it's far more ambitious and grand.

There really isn't anything else like this out there. It's a unique experience and worth seeing at least once, though if you have limited stomach for disembowelings, spurting veinage, and effects like Ms. Brightman clawing out her own eyeballs, you may want to skip the film and go straight to the soundtrack.

Walk Hard

I took a complete netflix flyer on this one. I am not always a fan of the Apatow ouevre (Superbad? Sorry-- the awesomeness completely escapes me). But this is not really one of his typical products.

It doesn't depend on stupid penis jokes (though it does feature some gratuitous nude male junk), doesn't try to make us fall in love with an adorable ass, and doesn't even always go for the obvious dumb jokes. It has all of these things in moderation, but they aren't the point.

The point is a dead-on lampoon of musician biopics. Most of the ridiculous standard tropes are there. John C. Reilly trying to play Cox at the age of 14 (and his bride-to-be playing age 12). Incredibly awkward and heavy-handed expository speeches. Hamfisted appearances of music greats, handled with complete obviousness (backstage at a show, Cox turns to another performer and says, "Gosh, Buddy Holly, I am nervous" and the script works Holly's full name in another half-dozen times). Plus the Famous Artists are played poorly by bad matches (Jack Black as Paul McCartney).

The movie is such a tightly-written mockery of its source material that the occasional moments of improv are out of place, not funny.

And the movie is such a great imitation of a bad movie that, in many ways, it is itself a bad movie.

The music itself is hilarious in a Spinal Tap/Mighty Wind kind of way, and Reilly sounds on a completely different singer on each one. The movie ends up being an actually pretty good survey of pop culture in music from the fifties to the present.

It['s easy to see why this didn't do well in theaters-- it's way smarter than the usual fare from Apatow and company, and it aims at a somewhat specialized niche. This is a movie movie, not an extended skit (and it throws in some great movie touches, like obvious body doubles and a great spoof of the classic tentative-timid kiss move). With any luck, it will find its audience in dvd-land.

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

There are plenty of reasons to be leery of this film (and judging by its box office, many people listened to their hearts). A replaced leading lady and a switch to a completely different setting top the list; like the fourth Indiana Jones and the fourth Die Hard, one immediately wonders whether the franchise has been "freshened" to death.

But this film isn't all suck. Brendan Fraser is still kind of fun. Michelle Yeoh is a goddess, and here she is, still being a hot butt-kicking babe. The introduction of the new Evey is the most audaciously charming reveal line anyone has ever used in this situation.

There's lots of spectacle, plenty of action, and an apparent honest attempt not to play fast and loose with Chinese history.

Still. Jet Li is kind of wasted in a slightly glorified cgi-fueled cameo; his character is there plenty, but he isn't inhabiting it all that often. The effects are fine, but all pretty reminiscent of things we've seen before.

Not a lot of emotional depth or resonance, and in most of the ways that matter, completely divorced from the world of the first two films; even though it's set in 1946, it lacks the period tang of the previous outings. But if you can set your expectations aside, it has its charms.

In the end I expect it depends on which elements you favor how you feel about the flick. Not a top-notch actioner, but not a waste of two hours of your life, either. At my house, this is exactly the sort of movie that Netflix was meant for.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension

A movie that really lives in an odd little world of its own and begs to be watched and rewatched; you never get past the feeling that you're seeing just the tip of the iceberg.

Buckaroo Bonzai is a modern (well, 1984) brand of pulp hero. Highly accomplished himself (physicist, surgeon and rock star) he is surrounded by a host of colorful support characters who save the world, apparently, on a regular basis.

The plot is slightly beyond description: John Lithgow is crazy from sticking his head through a dimensional portal; Christopher Lloyd and Dan Hedaya (and that other guy with the funny-looking head that you've seen dozens of time) are aliens; Jeff Goldblum is dressed in a ridiculous cowboy suit; Ellen Barkin is the spit and image of Buckaroo's dead true love; there's a watermelon on a work bench for no apparent reason.

Like an old Mad magazine cartoon by Bill Elder, much of the fun here is in the detail (all of the aliens on Earth have aliases with the first name "John"). The director's cut leaves you feeling less like you've come in in the middle of the film (and adds a Jamie Lee Curtis cameo), and there is plenty of action and adventure in a straight-faced fun-and-games cheese-fest kind of way. Clearly this could have been a franchise, had it not been one of those films destined not to find its audience until dvd release.

One caveat: though I love this flick, it will take only about thirty seconds of sound-track to identify this as a mid-eighties movie. Maybe if you just squint your ears a little...

NCIS

NCIS has built it's cachet by being a procedural that does stand-alone episodes, so it may come as a surprise to discover that it's one of those shows that becomes richer when viewed in order over the course of its entire run.

The ensemble is nicely character-driven, with strong and interesting individuals, and while it is nominally set in the Navy's criminal investigation division, the military is not always a prominent feature. The mysteries themselves cover a nice range of settings and puzzles.

There is some fiddling to do in the first season: Tony, whose shtick would eventually become encyclopedic film knowledge is actually film-ignorant at the beginning of the series. And as you watch the entire run, there are some items that don't stay quite in focus (Have McGee and Abby slept together? The evidence about their relationship is decidedly mixed over the seasons)

But Mark Harmon in particular builds a strong and convincing character over the course of the series. And while the series is often touted for its use of humor, it can present dark and downbeat episodes as good as anything out there. This is one of the reasons to watch the series sequentially-- the show runners have an excellent sense of seasonal pace, keeping the mood from staying too dark or too silly for too long.

Additionally, there are lots of little moments for tv fans (someone asks what David McCallum's Ducky looked like when he was younger; Harmon replies, "Illya Kyriakin.") You may not want to own the series, but it's a great example of a series that grows whole new layers of interest when you netflix your way through it.

Helvetica

Yes, it's a documentary about one of the modern world's most ubiquitous font. You need to see it.

First, by tracing the history of this font, we also get another way to view the whole post-WWII ebb and flow of popular culture through the window of design.

Second, it is amazing to see how passionate and completely into it all of the designers who are interviewed can be. Not sports fans, historical figures. professional performers, famous writers-- nobody you've ever seen is any more poetic, passionate, articulate and completely committed to their craft.

Very cool, and very worth a view.