PICKPOCKET

Pierce Hammerstein.

Criterion spotlights another personal favorite.This one is Robert Bressons 1959 highbrow take on the ways of pick-pocketing. The main character Michel, looks more  churchgoer than ready grifter,his doe-eyed girlfriend Jeanne(Marika Green who for all the world looks EXACTLY like Natalie Portman here)who tries to look the other way.

The sleeper pace and deadpan tone make you wonder if this is truly the first indie film made(at least in spirit.). Leonce-Henri Burel's cause-and-effect cinematography is absolutely beautiful, and the pickpocketing scenes themselves are about as nerve-racking as you could ask.

9.0

PAULY SHORE 2.0

PIERCE HAMMERSTEIN



-London England

At a press conference today, scientists made the exciting announcement of their newest model of Pauly Shore which until now was considered by most outdated and totally obsolete.
"We asure you despite the updates, which include a british accent and new attire this new model will be as more talentless and annoying than ever. Scientists went on to add they installed some state-of-the-art features that will certainly grate even the most passive viewers; among them are eyeliner, fake sibilant s' and unbuttoned shirts.
This new model called the Russell Brand (named lovingly after founding researcher Joseph Brand) has already been installed in MTV television shows, commercials and i in several Romantic comedies.
"We were concerned at first" one scientist admits, "We had to cut an interview short with the Late Late show when our Beta Russell brand made a joke, by accident. We've made the proper adjustments since and after featuring him on both the MTV awards and David Letterman we can safely assert that this model is-if anything- less amusing and less watchable than his 1980's predecessor." Russell's company stocks finally hit an all time high after suffering a crippling blow in 2007 by Perez Hilton Industries.

The reporters at We Watch maintain total ambivalence on these type entertainment products,
decide for yourself with an official demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQlvqWW3tGc

SNL/MICE AND MEN

PIERCE HAMMERSTEIN





SNLs "Alternate Ending" to of Mice and Men.
Not bad.

Watch Dexter and Californication

ZACH THAT:

Showtime is great. Not only do they host two of my favorite shows, Dexter and Californication, they are allowing everyone to watch them free online. On top of that, you can watch it right now instead of waiting until Sept 28th when they actually premiere. Enjoy.

VIP INSIDER

*the password is Lady Killer

True Blood Review

KRISTIN PARKER-STONE:

I admit it.

That show about the liar/murderer/drug-dealer/mob boss/total douche-monkey who is inexplicably likable?

I love that shit. I eat that shit up. I like my male protagonists felonious and cruel, like the escapist version of that asshole boyfriend you know better then to have in real life, even though he's dangerous and manipulative and exciting.

And Alan Ball's True Blood promised a world full of people who by their very nature (undead) are the types your psychiatrist strongly suggests keeping a safe distance from.

So it's really too bad that most of them are unlikable.

True Blood takes place in an alternative version of New Orleans, two years after the world's Vampires have decided to "come out of the coffin" and just start hanging out in bars and shit like it’s no big thing. The action mostly revolves around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), an unfortunately named waitress who also happens to be telepathic, and the events surrounding her first encounter with a Vampire, Bill Compton (Stephan Moyer, of Fuck, Where Do I Know That Guy From? Fame). The series is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, and while I respect Alan Ball's intention to remain true to the source material, I respectfully assert that that was a big fucking mistake.

For a few months prior to True Blood's premiere, HBO aired a clever little advertising segment: a fictional broadcast news investigation of the events surrounding the initial emergence of the Vampires into the Human World. And it was a fascinating cross section: a Dana Perino-type Vampire rights lobbyist who remains reasonable, charming, and logic-bound in the face of her monstrous condition, a misguided young woman who expounds on the joys of sex with the undead, as well as the Japanese scientist responsible for accidentally inventing “TruBlood”, the blood replacement beverage responsible for bringing Vampires out of the shadows. And while these personalities were interesting, it was the tone that strung them together cohesively: This is the world we live in. Everything is the same, except that now, we have vampires. The Call Is Coming From Inside the House!

And I strongly believe that would have been the magic formula: give us interesting people from various places within the world we know, and make them potentially horrifically dangerous sometime in the near future. And they were so close.

Instead, none of the characters from this promo are significantly used, if used at all. True to the source material, we are stuck in a bayou world so insular, you wonder which door at the bar where Sookie works might turn out to be one of the sound stage’s exits. Anna Paquin’s accent is about as subtle as being fisted by a panda, and she is one of the better performances. The gay people are really gay. The red necks are racist and ignorant. Even Sookie’s sweet elderly grandmother, Adele, (Lois Smith) while charming in an ‘Oh, Old People!’ kind of way, seems detached from the vampire situation in a way that makes me wonder if she’s doing double duty on the Oxycontin.

As a result, what we have is a very limited and truly inaccessible view of this world. We have mountains of bad character behavior (including one successful murder, and another decent attempt), but it's random and thoughtless; the antagonists have all the depth of a Koopa Trooper. And the clincher is that Vampires are not responsible for ANY of violence that occurs in the pilot.

Despite all this, I’ll give it another shot on Sunday. There’s enough camp here where it makes me think they might just take the plunge and go for the humor, full out Ann Rice style, and True Blood could benefit from not taking itself so seriously. Anna Paquin, despite not being very good as Sookie, is strangely interesting playing herself. And despite dialogue that makes me close my eyes in embarrassment at points, I’m very interested to see where they take Stephen Moyer’s vampire, who is, despite a very crowded cast, the only vampire we have yet to meet. Albeit underused, he’s darkly charming in a way that makes me not want to blame him for the source material just yet. 

And also, it’s Alan Ball. There’s something to be said for brand loyalty, even if it means sitting through vampires randomly moving in double-time for no apparent reason.

Provisional Grade: C

True Blood airs on HBO on Sunday at 9/8 CST, and re-run throughout the week. Did not premiere as well as John from Cincinnati, and we all know how that went, so catch it now while you can.

JACK WHITE/ BOND THEME

PIERCE HAMMERSTEIN.

Here she is. That crazy Jack White Alicia Keys Bond theme lovechild I mentioned a ways back. This Coke Zero ad just popped up(even weirder) and it features the track, which-strangly-I feel puts Jack White in no cred jeopardy whatsoever. The song is full on J.W soundly almost inseparables from his signature messy rock territory(not counting the Bond horns in there.) I'm sure if he sings in this, or if its just Alicia.

100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

PIERCE HAMMERSTEIN

WES ANDERSON

PIERCE HAMMERSTEIN.


Whoa.
Wes Anderson,known for having a "does everything himself" kind of style is apparently about to kick it fast and loose as screenwriter for someone elses movie. Though its actually been said he may end up directing it, there are a few things I'm already leary of.
1. Wes' script may not play as well without his aestethic bleeding into the whole production. His scripts are excellent,but theres a distinct visual narrative that has always fleshed out the minimalism of his dialogue.
2.Even if he chooses to direct, he;s still in a strange place. He's made a style out of cobbling various french and american film influences together and creates something completly unique in spite of it(note tongue in cheek Truffaut shoutout for Amex.) But as far coming into direct contact with remake territory seems odd.
3.Brian Grazer. Yeah, the guy who brought the world Austin Powers, Love Guru and that abonination of a Cat in the Hat film.He also looks like the free money guys brother...
But no matter what happens he's staying attached as producer.

No matter what happens it sounds like a major sea-change for Anderson. It might even signal some sort of style change, or at least "mode" change. Woody Allens been doing it for decades now and I'm not sure if that's an indicator of a good or bad thing ultamatly.

FOX's Fringe - Unexpect the Expected

RYAN:

Close your eyes for a second, and think back to the beginning of Lost. Sure, it looked cool, and sure, J.J. Abrams had a built-in Alias fan base, but was there really any hype? Did anyone have a clue of what to expect from such a risky, high concept show?

Of course not. ABC was rolling the dice, in desperate need of a new pair of shoes. Lucky for them, Lost came through big time, cleaning up with viewers and critics alike, taking home the Emmy for best drama, and changing the very landscape of television.

Now, fast-forward four years to Fringe. It’s FOX’s turn at the table, only this time, they’re convinced that J.J.’s dice are loaded, that there’s no way they can lose.

This is exactly what Fringe has going against it.

Nobody expected Lost to be the next big thing, but everyone’s expecting Fringe to be the next Lost. Viewers of Lost were set up for a pleasant surprise – viewers of Fringe, for disappointment.

That said, it’s not nearly as disappointing as it should be. In fact, it’s pretty good. Without all of the billboards and buildup, without the ninety-minute spectacle of a premiere, it might have sneaked up on us, and been one of this year’s pleasant surprises. But there’s nothing surprising about J.J. Abrams these days, not even how good he is, or how much he likes surprising us (or trying to, anyway – the show starts off with an in-flight disaster….sound familiar?)

Regardless, the show itself is decent, and certainly worth watching. It dives into the world of the paranormal with just as much spooky, icky glee as The X-Files, but still manages to root the weird stuff in enough psuedo-science and modern technology to keep you from rolling your eyes. The story has a few nice twists, and leaves the door wide open for die-hard fans to start crafting their own elaborate hypotheses as to who’s good, who’s bad, and what the hell "the pattern" is. It’s fun, which is a lot more than 90% of television programming can say.

But fun isn’t everything. The characters aren’t nearly as captivating as they could be, certainly not as much so as on Alias, or Lost. Anna Torv, for instance, who plays our heroine, is a little wooden at first (the material is more to blame than her performance.) Thankfully, by the end of the episode, with a couple of twists under her belt, we get the sense that she has enough to work with to take her character to new, more interesting levels. I only wish I could say the same for Joshua Jackson, who has all of the subtlety and nuance of, well, Joshua Jackson.

On the other side of the coin, though, there’s Lance Reddick, who fans of The Wire will be happy to watch in any role, as well as a near perfect turn by John Noble as a brilliant, mumbling, quite likely insane fringe scientist, a character who serves as the show’s much-needed sci-fi anchor.

All in all, Fringe is well-crafted entertainment, a dark, glossy, sci-fi serial that will leave you curious about where the hell it’s headed, which, in science fiction, is way more than half the battle. Try not to hold all of the hype against it, and you’ll enjoy it.

Grade: B

Fringe airs Tuesday nights at 8/7c on FOX, with an encore presentation of the pilot scheduled for this Sunday, September 14th at 8/7c.

Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox

ZACH:

The twice delayed Wes Anderson stop motion feature, The Fantastic Mr. Fox has officially hit post-production, which means it's finally on the slate for 2009. Here is what I know about the project.

Anderson teamed up again with one of my least favorite writers, Noah Baumbach, to pen the screenplay to Roald Dahl's novel. The synopsis goes a little something like this:

"Boggis and Bunce and Bean, One short, one fat, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean."

Mr. Fox, Mrs. Fox, and all their fox babies live under a hill under a tree, along with Badger, Rabbit, Weasel, and all of their families. To make ends meet, every night, Mr. Fox steals a meal from one of the three crooked farmers--Boggis, a chicken farmer, Bunce, who has a little bit of everything but only eats duck liver, and Bean, who farms turkeys and apples and subsists solely on apple cider. With his keen sense of smell, and the farmers' distinctive diets, Mr. Fox has no problem evading them.

After so much treatment, the greedy farmers band together to end Mr. Fox. They ambush him at the base of his hole in the hill, and while Mr. Fox survives, his tail does not. Thus begins an obsession on the part of the farmers. They first try to dig the foxes out, but they are outdug by eight sets of paws. Then, they move to starving them out. This is unfortunate, as no other creatures living under the hill (though now more of a valley; a bulldozer was involved at one point) can get out, either. Mr. Fox is not a very popular figure until he chances across the idea of digging under the farmhouses...

George Clooney and Cate Blanchett star as Mr. and Mrs. Fox and Anderson pulled out his reserves Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Anjelica Huston. This will officially be the first film that sees no mark of Owen Wilson anywhere behind or in front of the screen. Tear.

The film also sees the departure between Anderson and soul mate Robert Yeoman, who worked as the cinematographer for all of his films. Yeoman will be replaced by Tristan Oliver.

The up in the air release date is set right now for November 2009.

Look forward to updating this story as I learn more. Keep reading.

Diego Gravinese

"The Offering"
Oil on canvas, 1.40 x 1.10 mts, , 2008.

"Coloso"
Oil on canvas, 1.40 x 1.80 mts, 2008

















"Dyptich"

20 X 20 and 15 X 15 cms. oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas. 2005

Flickr.

David Mamet Opines. I mean Self-Promotes. I mean Opines

HANK:

David Mamet's got two revivals opening on Broadway this fall: Speed-the-Plow (staring Entourage's Jeremy Piven, famous for playing a Hollywood agent playing a Hollywood Agent) and American Buffalo (starring Cedric the Entertainer, John Leguizamo, and Haley Joel Osment). They're classic works from Mamet's theatrical hayday. Probing the questionable world of men and business, crooks and crooks with suits. Both plays are stark portraits of American greed, avarice, and unbridled lust (and possible mysogony). I've always been a big fan of Mamet. Less so the films than the plays. I like Spanish Prisoner and Wag the Dog. But, don't understand the fuss over State and Main. Compared to his plays, that movie in particular seems surfacy, one-note, and clever without being anything more than that.

But let's face it, there's not a stronger force in the theater-to-Hollywood biz (well, possibly Mel Brooks) than Mamet. He's always been crafty and knew when to drop starpower into his scripts - Madonna originated the role of "Karen" in Speed the Plow (we're left only with the one name, no doubt aiding those who accuse Mamet of mysogony given that both men in the play have first and last names). Given Mamet's prestige, it's no wonder that the New York Times gave Mamet a quarter page today to opine about democracy, capitalism, and the dilemma of putting butts in seats. And despite how much I love a lot of Mamet's writing, his piece in the paper was, well, vintage Mamet. Here's a taste:

" I wrote the play some 20 years ago, when I knew little of Hollywood. I lived in the East and would go out three times a year for a day or two, and sit in Hollywood with some director or producer or studio head, and talk about some project we would make or not make, and the thing was pretty clear: the movies were an industry, staffed by craven business types interested only in making a buck.

So I went home, back East, and wrote my play. Six years ago I moved to Hollywood. I spent and spend a larger amount of my time in the Councils of the Great, both looking for backing and mucking around with some of the folks with whom I have become friends. And I found that the movies (and television) are an industry, staffed by craven business types interested only in making a buck.

And I found further a) that I am one of them; and b) that it’s a grand idea that the industry is such.

But why such heresy? Well, if I want to write a play or a book, I, as an American, am free to do so, and I’ll do so, and neither I (nor you) need anyone’s support to do so. If, however, I want to have access to an industry capable of both producing and (theoretically) distributing my work to a worldwide market, I’m going to have to go into the world of those who (by whatever means) have got the corner office and convince them why it is a good idea to part with their organization’s bucks.

Is this a bad half-hour? You bet. The alternative, however, is public financing, Public Broadcasting, and after a lifetime of experience as a viewer and 40 years as a supplicant, I swear to you I’d rather deal with Commerce (Tool of Greed) than with Public Benevolence (Tool of the State).

Here’s why: There is a limit on greed. There is no limit on the hunger for power."

Mamet's always been an unabaseded capitalist. Even while chronicalling the darkness behind a buisinessman in Glengarry Glen Ross, there is a sort of respect and awe that Mamet crafts Roma and Shelly with. And he has a point about the artistic drought on PBS. But I can't help but feel that the reason that he can utilize the best of the capitalistic system is because he is DAVID FUCKING MAMET. And I'm sure that he would argue back that were I as crafty and wily as he is I could manipulate it to my advantage as well. After all, he takes a quarter page in the New York Times to essentially promote his own work.

"But what about High Art? I, personally, don’t think it is the lookout of drama. I believe that the business of America is business, and the aim of drama is to put tushies in the seats; and that the best way to do that is to write a ripping yarn, with a bunch of sex, some nifty plot twists and a lot of snappy dialogue.

If you are looking for such, I suggest 'Speed-the-Plow.'"

So what shall we do now? Read his plays as buisness not as art or High Art? I must say that as much as I admire Mamet's writing one thing that I don't enjoy is Mamet writing about his writing.

Here's the article.