Movie Of The Week: DEFENDING YOUR LIFE

Movie of the Week: Because my Top 10 films of 2023 includes Rob Reiner’s funny, warm biodoc, ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE, today I am blurbing about the movie that inspired its title, Brook’s 1991 comedy, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, which is one of my favorite films ever. It’s a charmer that’s a parody of purgatory with Brooks’ character having to stand trial for the mistakes he made during his glib, yuppie life. Rip Torn, in a role that led to his stint on The Larry Sanders Show, gruffly plays his defender, with Lee Grant as his rival prosecutor, and there's a brief but amusing turn by Buck Henry too. It’s also the best Meryl Streep rom com ever.

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Finally, Film Babble Blog’s Favorite Films Of 2023!

As s it’s almost February, and the Oscar noms have been announced (and I finally got around to watching PLEASE DON’T DESTROY: THE TREASURE OF FOGGY MOUNTAIN), I’m finally posting my 10 Top movies (and some spillover) from 2023.

This has been a much better year for film than any of the last several, since before the Pandemic actually, so it was an easier time making these picks. Like a number of my choices, the first one was a movie that surprised me with how much I liked it. 

 

1. DREAM SCENARIO (Dir. Kristoffer Borgli) Nicholas Cage’s 11,875th film is one of his best, featuring an timely, inventive premise in which Cage’s schlubby college professor starts showing up in many people’s dreams, giving a new layer to going viral. It’s a profoundly cringy experience that I bet will stay with me longer than most of the other movies on this list. Read my review: When Nicholas Cage Dreams Become Nicholas Cage Nightmares (11/30/23).

2 KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Dir. Martin Scorsese) 

Master movie-maker Marty made a corker of a three and a half-hour thriller about the Osage Reign of Terror in early 1920’s Oklahoma set to the late, great Robbie Robertson’s superbly subtle, bluesy score, which should get him a posthumous Oscar (I'm not going to predict anything yet though). And the powerful film features a career best Leonardo DiCaprio, and a more invested than he has been lately, Robert De Niro together again, for the very first time (they worked together before in A BOY’S LIFE, but this is their first film under Scorsese’s direction together (DiCaprio has been in six Scorsese films; De Niro’s tally is 10). Read the Film Blog Review (10/19/23).

 

3. OPPENHEIMER (Dir. David Nolan)

Nolan’s epic biopic of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, wowed the world in the wake of the crazy BARBENHEIMER movement by being a three-hour biopic about a scientist that grossed $955 million. Robert Downey Jr. is a lock for his portrayal of a political rival of our rail thin lead is a lock for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, but with 13 noms, this film has a good chance of sweeping. Read my review: Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER Is Kind Of A Big Deal (7/19/23)

 

4. THE HOLDOVERS (Dir. Alexander Payne)

Payne rebounds from the disappointing DOWNSIZING, with this charming, and very amusing early ‘70s-set dramedy with Paul Giamatti (for his second collaboration with Paybe after the superb SIDEWAYS) as a classics professor at a New England boarding school that has to baby-sit a few students (mostly the talented newcomer Dominic Sessa) who are stuck on campus during the holidays. Da’vine Joy Randolph definitely deserves her Supporting Actress nom for work here as school’s head cook, who’s grieving over son who just died in Vietnam, and the other four noms are worthy too, so this is one I hope more people seek out.

 

5. ANATOMY OF A FALL (Dir. Justine Triet)

The DVD screener of the first film I watched on New Year's Day, 2024

Oscar Best Acrtress nominee Sandra Hüller did double duty this last year in two majorly recognized films as she’s in this French courtroom drama, and Jonathan Glazer’s excellent THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Here she nails her role as a stressed writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death, and the screenplay by Triet, and Arthur Harari keeps us guessing as it goes through gripping court proceedings. Like #4, this also got five Oscar noms, and shouldn’t be missed.

 

6. GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

Now this was a complete surprise as another Godzilla movie was not the most enticing prospect, but the 37th entry in the series that started 70 years ago, is an amazing, gripping action adventure motion picture that won me over early on with its engaging drama about Japan recovering from World War II, and having to band together to fight this nuclear-radiation created reptilian monster that is more convincingly depicted (thanks to state-of-the-art CGI) than ever before. I certainly agree with Keven Smith that it’s the best Godzilla movie ever. 

7. MAY DECEMBER (Dir. Todd Haynes)

This immaculately-made duel of a drama between Julianne Moore, as a woman who did time for the second-degree rape of a 13-year old, but 20 years later is married to the man who was that boy; and Natalie Portman as an actress who is visiting the couple at their lavish Savannah, Georgia home, for research for a film where she’ll play Moore’s character. The compelling narrative, with its tasty twists and all, helps it stand with Haynes finest work including VELVERT GOLDMINE, I’M NOT THERE, and CAROL.

8. PAST LIVES (Dir. Celine Song)

Another surprise here as a Oscar Best Picture contender, and as a movie that I liked enough to make the list, as this a small movie about a relationship between two childhood friends from South Korean who contain their spark, mostly online as they live far away from each other into adulthood. It’s a of unrequited love with naturalistic performances by Greta Lee, and Teo Yoo, with John Magaro putting in a nicely sensitive side character to the couple as Lee’s understanding husband. However, I doubt this will win anything Oscar-wise other than many viewers hearts.

 

9. BEAU IS AFRAID (Dir. Ari Aster) 

My placing of this weird ass A24 surrealist tragicomedy horror film (that’s what Wikipedia’s calling it so let’s go with that) shouldn’t be read as a recommendation or a warning or well, anything but that I couldn’t deny its hold on my troubled soul. It’s a grotesque, stressful, and just plain f-ed up story about Joaquinn Phoenix of a man living a hellish existence, who is going on a trip to his mother’s, but chaotic circumstances make his journey a nightmare. If you’re only going to see one Joaquin Phoenix 2023 movie, make sure it’s this and not NAPOLEON.

 

10. ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE (Dir. Rob Reiner) 

The life, and career of one of my all-time comedians, Albert Brooks, is explored over lunch with his best friend, Rob Reiner in this HBO biodoc that is so packed with great footage of Brooks’ legendary variety, and talk show appearances from the late ‘60s-‘70s that it should be mandatory viewing for aspiring comics. Brook’s classic comedies (like REAL LIFE, MODERN ROMANCE, and LOST IN AMERICA) are insightfully given discussion, with one of its best segments being about the film that inspired this film’s title, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE . A stand out moment, is when Brook's wife since 1997, Kimberly, says of her first wanting to meet him because of that movie, “This man, wrote, directed, and starred in this? That’s the kid of guy I want to marry. I swear to God I said that.” Touching stuff indeed.

Spillover:

THE ZONE OF INTEREST (Dir. Jonathan Glaser)

AMERICAN FICTION (Dir. Cord Jefferson)

TALK TO ME (Dirs. Danny and Michael Philippou)

Some franchise films I thought were better than okay:

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (Dirs. Joaquim Dos Santos,Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson)

JOHN WICK 4 (Dir. Chad Stahelski) 

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie) This film's title really needs a colon.

And finally, yes, it’s far from a great movie, but it’s still one of the most notable, and memorable films of 2023:

BARBIE (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

Okay, I’m done. 

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2 Summer Sequels: FINDING DORY & INDEPENDENCE DAY 2 – Guess Which One Doesn’t Suck

Film Babble Blog is back! I have returned from my summer vacation, a wonderful trip to Iceland with my wife and her parents, and am refreshed and ready to tackle a couple of the latest movie offerings. And it’s a couple of summer sequels which I caught up with at the Mission Valley Cinema multiplex in Raleigh over the last weekend.

First up, there’s Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane’s FINDING DORY, the long awaited follow-up to one of Pixar’s most beloved (and profitable) productions, 2003’s FINDING NEMO.

Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres wonderfully reprise their roles as the voices of Marlin and Dory, an orange over-protective clownfish and a regal blue tang fish, while 11 year old Hayden Rolence takes over the role of Nemo, as the original’s Alexander Gould is too old to voice the part (he does get a cameo though).

As one can guess from the title, this time Dory goes missing when she’s captured by pesky humans and taken to the Monterey Marine Life Institute.

This is after we learn Dory’s sad back story – how she got lost from her parents (voiced by Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton), and searched the cold, dark depths of the ocean. looking for them as she grew from being voiced by Sloane Murray, the 7-year old daughter of producer Lindsey Collins into DeGeneres’ distinctive Dory diction.

Marlin, and Nemo, with the help from a couple of cockney sea lions voiced by Idris Elba and Dominic West (a mini-The Wire reunion!), a whale shark (Kaitlin Olson), and a beluga whale (Ty Burrell), along with various other aquatic characters, attempt to rescue Dory, while she makes a deal with a cranky seven-armed red octopus, voiced by Ed O’Neil, that he’ll help her get out of the institute so she can go find her parents if she’ll give him her ID tag so he gets to go to Cleveland in her place.

Of course, you gotta expect themes about family, and being in the moment like Dory - “be like Dory” becomes Marlin's mantra at a crucial moment. Everyone needs to find their inner Dory, the film appears to advise.

FINDING DORY is a solid sequel, gorgeously animated (the Open Ocean Exhibit sequence particularly pops), with countless gags that land (love the Sigourney Weaver running gag that I won’t spoil), and all the right kind of emotional feels. Sure, there’s still a predictable formula at play, but the formula works because they truly take the fish out of the water. 

With a lot of the action happening on land, director/co-screenwriter Andrew Stanton and the creative crew here came up with tons of clever ways to keep the fish alive by jumping from buckets to cups or going from spouting geyser to geyser, right up until the crazy climax that involves ducks, a stolen truck, and a police blockade.

Of course, it’s not as fresh as the first time around, and with Pixar’s upcoming calendar being clogged with sequels (THE INCREDIBLES 2, CARS 3, TOY STORY 4) it’s easy to be cynical about yet another franchise, but if the quality control is as high as it here, I’m not going to scoff at the idea of a third FINDING film.

If only that were the case with Roland Emmerich’s INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE, the 20 years in the making follow-up to the highest grossing film of 1996, INDEPENDENCE DAY, that takes the term “unnecessary sequel” to staggeringly new lows. The difference between this and FINDING DORY is that with DORY people actually liked the original; I don't know a single person who's a truly, unironically, a fan of the first ID4 (such a stupid acronym).

Anyway, Will Smith’s character was killed off between films, but Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, and Brett Spiner are back for the second invasion by the aliens who come now in a spaceship that’s 30,000 miles wide. That’s what director Emmerich and the four other screenwriters, including James Vanderbilt (ZODIAC – yay! THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN movies – boo!) took away from such sequels as JURASSIC WORLD, which had the biggest dinosaur ever, and STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, which had a Death Star that was 10 times bigger than the original – that is, make the threat BIGGER.

The plot is exactly what you think it is – aliens attack, we fight back and win. So we’ve got a bunch of incoherently shot and edited dogfights in the second half with series newcomers, Liam Hemsworth and Jessie T. Usher (playing the son of Will Smith’s character) as badass fighter pilots attacking the massive mothership, while the rest of the cast is running around below trying to find out if the new alien spaceship is compatible with the new Apple MacBook Pro.

ID4 2 (is that the right acronym?) is a dreadful, boring experience, made worse by unconvincing CGI and horribly written and acted dialogue.  The only memorable line is spoken by Goldblum: “they like to get the landmarks.” 

The first one was bad but at least it had some semblance of character developement and plotting. This one doesn't even try for either - it just wants big thrills and fails at that.

I saw this POS for free and still felt ripped off. Here’s hoping it doesn’t gross enough to justify a sequel – the plugging of which at the end of this is one of the most cringe worthy movie moments of the year.

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A MOST VIOLENT YEAR: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now playing at an indie art house near me (and a few multiplexes):

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

(Dir. J.C. Chandor, 2014)

The poster picture for this movie lists actors Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in succession with the description “New York City, 1981.” That seems to suggest that New York City, circa ’81 is as much a star of the movie of those two leads. But really it’s just the NYC skyline, with the World Trade Center’s twin towers present in many shots, that counts as a principle player here.

Isaac commands the screen with cool, cunning confidence as Abel Morales, a Columbian immigrant who’s looking to close a major waterfront land deal (that happens to have an amazing view of Manhattan) so he can expand his heating oil company. 

With his delicately coiffed hair, Armani suits, cashmere camel coat, and cultivated demeanor, Isaac channels GODFATHER PART II-era Al Pacino. Close-ups of Isaac even brought to my mind Mort Drucker’s caricatures of Pacino in old ‘70s issues of Mad Magazine.

But Isaac’s Abel is like if Pacino’s Michael Corleone actually meant it when he told his wife he wanted the family business to be completely legitimate. “I've spent my whole life trying not to become a gangster,” Abel tells his wife Anna, sharply played by Jessica Chastain, dressed in chic ‘80s fashions.

Abel believes in the American dream, but Anna, the daughter of a local mob boss, has a more lived-in cynical perspective, especially since recent events involving their trucks getting hijacked by unknown rivals, and a smooth district attorney (David Oyelowo, in quite a distinctly different persona than MLK Jr. in SELMA) building a case to charge them for white-collar tax fraud, have placed their deal in jeopardy.

Because of the violent hijackings, one of which put a young driver (Elyes Gabel) in the hospital, a Teamster rep (Peter Gerety) tells Abel to arm his employees but he refuses, saying that it “would be the end of everything we worked for. If one of these guys shoots someone, they will bring me down for it.”

Abel also refuses to live in a fortress with guards, even after he chases off a man with a gun lurking outside his new palatial mansion in the suburbs of Westchester.

Albert Brooks, who, like in his Oscar-nominated part in DRIVE (which also featured Isaac), is again playing against type, this time with a wig of thin blonde hair as Abel’s wise lawyer and confidant. Except for a couple of well-worded scenes, notably one in which he asks Isaac: “Why do you want this so badly?”, Brooks isn’t given a lot to do, but his presence is still seriously appreciated.

The pressure is on as time is running out for Abel to raise the needed cash, and find out who’s behind the hijackings, but Abel keeps his cool. That is until he personally involves himself, chasing down one of the hijacking thugs and trying to beat out of them who they work for.

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, which is only intermittently violent, doesn’t much resemble writer/director J.C. Chandor’s previous films - the financial cliffhanger MARGIN CALL, and the Robert Redford lost at sea drama ALL IS LOST - except in being about practical-minded people trying to survive. Just three films in, Chandor is already building an impressive filmography, one that’s steeped in styles learned from the masters, yet tempered by his own edgy vision.

While Chandor layers his film with echoes of Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Sidney Lumet, and Martin Scorsese, the cinematography of Bradford Young, who also shot SELMA, brings to mind the darkness of the late, great Gordon Willis’ camerawork. The spare lighting adds shadowy nuance to the proceedings, particularly in a scene involving the meeting of the oil company heads around a table in the back of an Italian restaurant (yes, another GODFATHER-ish bit).

Sadly this excellent, moody, impeccably acted film was overlooked Oscar nomination-wise. For her tough, take-no-shit, New Jersey-accented performance, I thought Chastain would get one for sure. When she takes charge, like when she shoots a deer that they hit with their car because Isaac was hesitating to kill it with a crowbar or when she calls her husband a “pussy,” she’s completely convincing as a woman who’s been around and knows the real stakes.

But Isaac is the true owner of the film. A simple closing of his eyes in disappointment conveys volumes, and his determination to gain more power and control (witness the aforementioned war council scene) without losing his dignity provides the foundation for Isaac’s finest acting yet. Despite his headlining the Coen brothers’ INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS and a bunch of other choice roles, Isaac isn’t a household name yet, but while roles in STAR WARS and X-MEN sequels may change that in the next year, this film is the one that really deserves to be his breakthrough.

The film strains to emphasize that this guy is a better, more moral minded man than Michael Corleone, but as much as he feels that he’s immune from corruption, it’s a necessary evil with which he must compromise.

So many New York movies set in the same period shy away from showing the WTC towers in the skyline, but here they are always present – often out of focus, way off in the background, but always present. Chandor’s film doesn’t have to spell out what they represent in Abel’s quest for success in a harsh, dangerous economy; one can feel it every time they are glimpsed.

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Holiday Season Cinema Roundup 2012 Part 2

Continuing Film Babble Blog's end of the year roundup (check out Part 1 here), we now take a look at several more movies currently playing this holiday season:

LES MISÉRABLES (Dir. Tom Hooper) 

I was surprised at how many of the songs that I was familiar with in this adaptation of the wildly popular musical based on the 1862 Victor Hugo novel. I had forgotten that a long time ago an ex-girlfriend had the CD set of the Original Broadway Cast Recording from the late '80s, so much of it came flooding back as the film unfolded on the screen.

As my memories and the movie coalesced, I took in this French revolution era tale about Hugh Jackman as an escaped convict, who after becoming mayor of a small town, agrees to take care of deceased factory worker Anne Hathaway’s daughter (played by Isabelle Allen as a child; Amanda Seyfried as an adult). As sleazy innkeepers, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen bring on the bawdy and steal the movie whenever they appear.

Jackman, Hathaway, and Seyfried, who all sing their parts live, are in fine voice, but Russell Crowe, as a ruthless policeman who’s hunting Jackman, has a rough warble that can be painful to endure - especially when the songs go on and on, which they often do. Hooper’s epic production, which clocks in at 157 minutes, wonderfully wallows in the muck of its dark, grotesque imagery, but its messiness can be overwhelming at times. Folks who aren’t fans of the musical, or musicals in general, will find it hard to take, but for the most part, I took it just fine.

JACK REACHER (Dir. Christopher McQuarrie) 

Looks like Tom Cruise wants another franchise as this is an adaptation of one of seventeen in a series of novels by Lee Child. This action thriller formula is competently constructed, but its story - Cruise as an ex-army military police investigator tries to get to the bottom of a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random people - isn't very compelling. 

Some excitement is there in a few set-pieces, but its climax containing a shoot-out at a construction site, only hammers home how routine a genre exercise it is. Still, Cruise fans should love it as he makes a convincing unshakable badass, and Werner Herzog makes a great villain. Read my full review here.

THIS IS 40 (Dir. Judd Apatow)

Judd Apatow’s glorified home movie is his third film to feature his wife (Leslie Mann) and kids (daughters Maude and Iris), so you know he thinks they’re funny. To his credit, for a lot of its running time (another long one at 134 min) they are funny, but this is a big sloppy comic drama with too many storylines that never really get resolved. Paul Rudd and Mann, reprising their married couple roles from KNOCKED UP, have good chemistry together, and Albert Brooks, as Rudd’s father dealing with new triplets, is highly amusing, so there’s enough here to satisfy most comedy fans. Folks who aren’t fans of heavy amounts of profanity, or Apatow’s brand of man-boy humor in general may want to skip it however. Read my full review.

ANNA KARENINA 
(Dir. Joe Wright) 

Leo Tolstoy's 1868 novel has been adapted many many times, but Wright, in the third of his “literary trilogy” with Keira Knightly, has a meta take on the material involving setting the late 19th-century Russian story in a lavish old theater that evolves within the production into whatever backdrop is needed. Knightly, as the title character, works around the ropes, pulleys, curtains, footlights, and appropriate props, to portray a virtuous woman in a loveless marriage to an imperial minister (a balding, bearded, and quite boring Jude Law) who has an affair with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a dashing cavalry officer. It can get a bit strained at times in its second half, but Wright's inventive reworking of the well worn material makes it recommendable. Read my full review here.

Well, that's it for this not bad Holiday season. By the way, I appeared on a Special Christmas Edition of fellow Raleigh, N.C. based critic Craig D. Lindsey's podcast Muhf***as I Know last week. We recorded a commentary (of sorts) for what Craig calls “one of the shittiest sex comedies ever made: THE HAPPY HOOKER GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1980). The movie is available on Netflix Instant, so queue it up, go here, and listen to us babble all over it.

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THIS IS 40 Is Funny But Enough With Your Family, Apatow!

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

THIS IS 40 (Dir. Judd Apatow, 2012) 

Although it’s being billed as “the sort-of sequel to KNOCKED UP,” I’m considering Judd Apatow’s newest to be the third in the Apatow family trilogy. 

We were introduced to married couple Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife of 15 years) and their two daughters Maude and Iris Apatow in KNOCKED UP in 2007, sans Rudd they appeared as different characters in Apatow’s 2009 comedy drama FUNNY PEOPLE, and now they revert back to their original incarnations to take center stage in THIS IS 40.

Set during a week that both Rudd and Mann turn the big Four-O, Apatow’s glorified 134 minute home movie juggles a bunch of fussy threads.

Let’s see, there’s the thread in which Mann is lying about her age - she’s even tells her doctor she’s only 38.

There’s Rudd’s fledging record label thread, staffed with Lena Dunham (HBO’s Girls), and Chris O’Dowd (BRIDESMAIDS), in which he’s trying to revive the career of British rocker Graham Parker (appearing as himself reunited with his great old band the Rumour).

There’s the story-line about the oldest daughter, 13 year old Maude Apatow, getting put on a Facebook “not hot” list by a boy at school, which results in a confrontation with the boy’s mother (Melissa McCarthy).

There’s the subplot about Rudd’s father, the always welcome Albert Brooks, continually borrowing money to take care of his young blonde triplets.

There’s the Mann’s clothing store thread, in which Mann frets over which one of her two employees (Megan Fox and Charlyne Yi) stole $12,000.

There’s the story-line about Mann trying to reconnect with her emotionally distant father (John Lithgow).

In the mix as well is Jason Segel as Mann’s overconfident trainer (returning from KNOCKED UP), Robert Smigel as Rudd’s best friend, and cameos by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and North Carolina native singer-songwriter Ryan Adams.

Whew! It’s a good thing that KNOCKED UP’s Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl don’t put in appearances – there wouldn’t be room for them.

THIS IS 40 is Apatow’s most indulgent movie, but it’s packed with enough laughs to make it worthwhile for comedy fans. It’s funnier than FUNNY PEOPLE, maybe about equal to KNOCKED UP and 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, and the leads’ likability goes a long way.

Language-wise, it’s a hard R. It may actually be as profane as DJANGO UNCHAINED, albeit in a very different context. A scene with Melissa McCarthy (put her in and consider the scene stolen), maybe contains the most amusing usage of profanity in a comedy this year (stay through the end credits to see an extended version of this scene in which Rudd and Mann are about to lose it).

I hope with this movie, Apatow’s family trilogy is complete. Three movies featuring his wife and kids is enough. With this movie, and the inevitable tons of bonus footage that will surely be on its later Blu ray/DVD release, I really hope he can get all the humor derived from his household out of his system, and find the funny in other things.

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Obligatory Road-Trip Vegas Scene #1: LOST IN AMERICA

As I said at the start of this 5-part series, there are tons of movies that are completely set in Las Vegas, but here, inspired by wife's trip to Vegas this week, I’m talking about those scenes in cross-country road-trip movies in which the Nevada gambling mecca makes a brief cameo appearance.

We're now down to #1 on the list of Obligatory Road-Trip Vegas Scenes and it's a doozy:

LOST IN AMERICA (Dir. Albert Brooks, 1985)

Now this is the opposite of those scenes (like in STARMAN and RAIN MAN) where the characters breeze into town and win big. In this should be comedy classic, married couple Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty decide to quit their jobs and hit the road in a Winnebago. An excited Brooks tells Hagerty: “This is just like in ‘Easy Rider,’ only now it’s our turn!”

But Brooks doesn't know his wife has a gambling problem when they roll into Vegas and get a suite at the Desert Inn. Their plan was to get re-married the next morning, but Brooks wakes up to find that Hagerty has left the room. He finds her frantically gambling in the casino repeating “come on back to me, 22, 22, 22…”

The Desert Inn Casino Manager (a great cameo by Garry Marshall) takes Brooks aside: “She’s been here all night; she’s not on a lucky streak. I think you should talk to her.” 

Check out the scene here:

An equally amusing scene follows in which Brooks tries to get Marshall to give them back their money, which Brooks calls their “nest-egg,” by trying to sell them an advertising slogan: “The Desert Inn has heart.”

Like many other movies road-trip movies that have a Vegas detour, there's a scene at the Hoover Dam after Brooks and Hagerty leave town.

LOST IN AMERICA is available on DVD.

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The Film Babble Blog Top 10 Movies Of 2011

2011 was a pretty unremarkable year for movies.

I saw over 130 films on the big screen and the vast majority of them sucked. Few films caught on at the art houses, and the multiplexes were dominated by super hero movies and sequels - 9 out of the top 10 grossing films were sequels, and the only one that wasn't was THE SMURFS which should really tell you something about how sucky the year was.

However, there were a handful of excellent films, so here's my top 10 favorites:

1. THE TREE OF LIFE (Dir. Terrence Malick)
 

The reaction to this film has been extremely divisive (my wife hated it for example), but no other film this last year made a bigger dent into my cinematic pysche. In my review last summer, I wrote that “the visual thrust is stupefying; it’s like Malick is actually trying to capture God on film.” Read my review here.

2. HUGO (Dir. Martin Scorsese)

Scorsese's first film in 3D is very personal tribute to the magic of filmmaking, focusing on a young French boy (Asa Butterfield) who discovers the toy shop owner at the train station is the legendary Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), who has been called the world's first Cinemagician. It's a stunning and touching piece of work that is an amazing addition to Scorsese's incredible canon. Read my review here.

3. DRIVE (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

Ryan Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver in this moody, stylish thriller that has a '80s retro feel. Winding Refn brings out standout performances from Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, and especially Albert Brooks, who should really get an Academy Award nomination for his turn as a murderous mobster.

4. THE ARTIST (Dir. Michel Hazanavicius)

When "talkies" start taking over cinema in the late '20s, a silent film star (Jean Dujardin) finds his fame fading while an actress dancer (Bérénice Bejo) he helped get into show business becomes a big star. It's a beautifully shot black and white (and actually silent) homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and I savored every second of it. Read my review here.

5. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Dir. Woody Allen)

This charming comedy, which features Owen Wilson as a writer who is somehow transported to Paris in the '20s, is Woody Allen's highest grossing film ever, and it's his best film since VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA. Read my review here.

For my full reviews of the rest – please click on the highlighted titles:

6. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Dir. Sean Durkin)

7. PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES (Dir. Andrew Rossi)

8. 50/50 (Dir. Jonathan Levine)

9. BRIDESMAIDS (Dir. Paul Feig)

10. RED STATE (Dir. Kevin Smith)

Man, I hope 2012 is a better year for movies.

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The Alphabet Meme

I was tagged by Ibetolis from the great blog Film For The Soul to take part in the Alphabet Meme that has been going around started by Fletch at Blog Cabbins. The basic idea is pretty self explanatory but rules are below anyways.


Here goes:


A is for ABOUT SCHMIDT (Dir. Alexander Payne, 2002)

Just watched it again a few days ago and still love every second. A career best for Jack Nicholson.
B is for BARFLY (Dir. Barbet Schroeder. 1987)


C is for COOLER, THE (Dir. Wayne Kramer, 2003)


D is for DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (Dir. Albert Brooks, 1991)


 E is for ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Dir. Michel Gondry, 2004)


  F is for FLETCH (Dir. Michael Ritchie, 1985)

G is for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (James Foley, 1992)

Speaking of a career best, in an incredible cameo Alec Baldwin offers an “alphabet meme” of his own.


H is for HEAD (Dir. Bob Rafelson, 1968)


 I is for I’M NOT THERE (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2007)


 J is for JFK (Dir. Oliver Stone, 1991)


K is for KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMEN (Dir. Hectoer Babenco, 1985)


 L is for LADY FROM SHANGHAI, THE (Dir. Orson Welles, 1947)


M is for MAGNOLIA (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)


N is for NETWORK (Dir. Sydney Lumet, 1976)

“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!” - Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) Guess I'm all about the powerful cameo speeches, huh?


O is for OH, GOD! (Dir. Carl Reiner, 1977) See 10 Reasons The 30th Anniversary Of OH, GOD! Should Be Celebrated (Oct. 3, 2007)

P is for PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (Dir. Woody Allen, 1986)


Q is for QUADROPHENIA (Dir. Franc Roddam, 1979)


R is for ROMEO IS BLEEDING (Dir. Peter Medak, 1993)


S is for SMOKE (Dir. Wayne Wang, 1995)


T is for TIME AFTER TIME (Dir. Nicholas Meyer, 1979)


U is for UNREASONABLE MAN, AN (Dirs. Henriette Mantel & Steve Skrovan, 2006)


V is for VISITOR, THE (Dir. Thomas McCarthy, 2008) See A Marvelous Minimalist Movie Before The Blockbuster Bombast Begins May 2, 2008).


W is for WAKING LIFE (Dir. Richard Linklater, 2001)X is for X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE (Dir. Rob Bowman, 1998) Actually this is far from one of my favorite movies, but as X movies go I like it better than X-MEN and XXX.


Y is for YELLOW SUBMARINE (Dir. George Dunning, 1968)


 Z is for ZOOLANDER (Dir. Ben Stiller, 2001)


That's right. Take that ZELIG! Now here are the rules for this “Alphabet Meme”:


1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord Of The Rings series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

So, these are the folks I'm tagging: TheSophomoreCritic Sara Forbes at SARANOMICS Dean Treadway at filmicability ::: The Playlist ::: * TLA ATTACKS THE MOVIES Moviedearest Hope they play along. * D'oh! ::: The Playlist ::: already made their meme - check it out here.

More later...