I just watched Lovely and Amazing, with Catherine Keener, Emily Mortimer, Brenda Blethyn, and a bunch of other good actors. Great characters--you don't always like them or sympathize with everything they do, but you feel like you really understand them by the end. Definitely recommended.

I loved that movie. It was the good kind of depressing small indie film.

Hello, all. The Times hasn't made everything subscription-only, and they did a great profile of David Cronenberg over the weekend. Go, read: [link]

I enjoy Cronenberg's quest-y intelligence almost as much as I enjoy his yucky-artistic sensibilities.

I enjoy Cronenberg's quest-y intelligence almost as much as I enjoy his yucky-artistic sensibilities.

Whee, thanks for posting that, Nutty!

He's one of the most thoughtful interviews I've ever read on the subject of his own films, and if he's not my favorite director, he's damn near close too it.

I'm really looking forward to A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. From everything I've read, it's ostensibly one of his most mainstream, and at the same time most subversive, movies.

Actually, it's been/going to be quite a Fall for movies - two Tim Burton's (dammit! I need to get to CHARLIE), a Terry Gilliam (ibid BROS. GRIMM) with another already playing festivals, MIRRORMASK, SERENITY and a new Cronenberg. Of living directors, only a new David Lynch could make it any better.

Of living directors, only a new David Lynch could make it any better.

What? No love for the Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson?

What? No love for the Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson?

In my personal second tier. Anderson's still earning his stripes, and the last few Coen's have been pretty weak. Scorcese comes close too, but, again, his last two have been more interesting than good (although I was psyched to pick up the new Dylan doc).

Part of my grit-soiled heart will always belong to Marty Scorsese, even if "Gangs of New York" was kind of an "It happens to every guy, honey," kind of experience.(Cameron Diaz as a streetwalker. Feh.) I thought the Coens "Intolerable Cruelty" was funny as hell.

An article that's very slightly spoilery for Serenity, but it's barely mentioned, so I thought I'd put it in here instead. Excuse me while I go do my make-up.

[link]

I'd like to discuss two excerpts from that article:

Even Jennifer Lopez, popular in romantic comedy roles, achieved two of her biggest disasters with films in which she impersonated brutal killers: an avenging, battered wife, who masters martial arts in Enough, and a ruthless, amoral hit woman in the reviled Gigli.

Pause for a moment and consider one of her most critically acclaimed roles -- Jennifer Sisco in Out Of Sight. No, she wasn't a brutal killer (wasn't really one in Enough either), but she was badassed and hardassed and physical.

Even more improbably, the embarrassing Stealth features 22-year-old Jessica Biel (best known as the sweet, girl-next-door star of TV's 7th Heaven) as a crack Navy aviator shot down over North Korea, single-handedly battling Kim Jong Il's entire army to a standstill.

Didn't see the movie, don't know what she fought her way out of. However, if it's a crap action movie, putting a guy in that role wouldn't make it significantly closer to reality -- it's a matter of what we're willing to suspend our disbelief for, not what we can actually believe.

Not to mention that whole thing where she shot out the camera lens during Blade: Trinity. It's not like she's inherently useless.

Oh, jeez. Medved is blathering on even more than usual (I used to actually like his reviews when he cohosted the PBS movie-review show with Jeffrey Lyon, but not anymore).

Yes, all of Hollywood's ills are due to tough female characters, not something as paltry as good writing!! Right wing chauvinist pig...

Ah. I take it he's known for this kind of thing, then?