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?

I'm pretty sure the Ned Flanders character on The Simpsons is based on him, with some added humanizing touches.

This sentence, about Mr. and Mrs. Smith, made my brain hurt:

With her luminous eyes and luscious lips, Jolie is always riveting to watch, but her buxom, waiflike form and skinny arms make it wildly improbable that she could hold her own against the brazenly buff Mr. Pitt.

(a) I had no idea that it was physically possible for the same human form to be both buxom and waiflike; and (b) skinny arms, wha-huh? Jolie has always struck me as rather brazenly buff herself; Michael Medved is the first person I've ever heard, ever, EVAR, expressing any degree of disbelief that she could not only take Brad Pitt down if she really wanted to, but reduce him to a featureless pulpy mass with one hand tied behind her back without breaking a sweat.

Michael Medved is the first person I've ever heard, ever, EVAR, expressing any degree of disbelief that she could not only take Brad Pitt down if she really wanted to, but reduce him to a featureless pulpy mass with one hand tied behind her back without breaking a sweat.

You didn't ask me. She was not buff in the movie. She was scrawny as hell. Not buff. I disagree with most of his points, but the weakest part (well, the whole no-plot thing was an issue too) of a movie I really enjoyed was how one of the equal physical protagonists looked like a lollipop with breasts. And Mrs. Smith wasn't as crazy as Jolie can seem, which is what I'd chalk up as Angelina's main equaliser.