If you’re talking about Charlie Wilson’s War, then yes, I think you can. I saw C Dubs Dubs last night and came away pretty thoroughly entertained. I wouldn’t say that it knocked me on my back, floored me one might say, but I was most definitely entertained. The New York Times Review got part of it right in saying that despite the seriousness surrounding the subject of the movie (not Wilson himself but escalation of covert operations in Afghanistan), the movie succeeds in being quite humorous and lighthearted. Sure, it shows the atrocities of the refugee camps and of the war itself, but they’re bookended by cocktail parties and hordes of pretty secretaries.

So in the end, you basically have a movie with a simple plot (SHOOT DOWN HELICOPTERS - this is repeated endlessly I think for the sole purpose of reminding you there actually is a simpler goal other than END THE COLD WAR and not as endless as KILL RUSSIANS) held together by the power and momentum of some fabulous scenes. Fill Up See More Hoff Man kills it as usual and his dynamic with Tom Hanks is incredible (punctuated by the scene where the two initially meet). Those two pretty much make the movie along with aforementioned hot secretaries. Julia Roberts is also in this film, but her role is sort of minor and she didn’t really do it for me (here, I disagree with the Times - “Julia Roberts, as golden as an Oscar statue, incarnates Ms. Herring as if paying tribute at once to Barbara Stanwyck and to the legions of anonymous Julia Roberts impersonators toiling in drag clubs across the land. I mean this entirely as praise: Not many movie stars have the wit or the moxie to embrace the camp elements of their own personas, and the character is clearly something of a performer in her own right.” Yeah, didn’t really see it that way). This is not to say that she doesn’t do a good job. I think she does a perfectly serviceable job, but I think it was somewhat hard for her to shine when she was following up the intensity and insanity purveyed by Hoffman and Hanks in the other scenes. She does well as a sort of foil for Hanks and Hoffman, the straight woman with an evangelical, alcoholic twist, but the two men seemed to embody their parts like no one else could while I could have seen other actresses in Roberts role (unlike say, her role in Mystic Pizza, or Erin Broccoli). Maybe this speaks to the specific scenes given to Hoffman and Hanks as well as their real-life rolls in the actual events portrayed in the film. Either way in the end, she does a fine job, Hoffman and Hanks steal the show, and I felt good for spending $11.75 on a 97 minute film.

The Good: I caught Juno this weekend and I thought it was a really great movie. Besides being simple broad characteristics such as sweet and funny, it was also an incredibly well put together movie with great dialogue. This movie must have been somewhat golden from the get go because you can tell from watching it that the screenplay must have been great. Diablo Cody wrote it (here’s a little Jezebel information on her - and of course you can find out what you can about her from imdb), and it’s really really good especially considering it was her first screenplay. It’s not just the dialogue, which I’ve already mentioned as great, but the story itself is well rounded. It does a good job of completing the circle of these people’s lives. There were some problems I had with Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman’s story arch (mostly pointed to me by my mother), but it wasn’t anything major that I thought detracted from the movie as a whole, especially when Cody does such a good job of juxtaposing the conclusion of their relationship with our general feelings towards the characters throughout the piece. So good job. Thumbs up. Go see it.

The Bad: The New York fucking Knicks. Not only did the Knicks lose back to back games to the Sixers (THE SIXERS - one of a select few (I believe its only 2-3) teams with a worse record than the Knicks), but James Dolan is standing behind Isiah with his full support. WHAT?!?!?! How does that make any sense? Only one team is worse than the Knicks in the entire Eastern Conference after this weekend. Only three teams in the whole league are worse! And two of those teams are in the midst of intense rebuilding overhauls (Seattle, Minnesota). Uch. Ugh. Mlech. There are no words. Just disgusted sounds.

I came across this somewhat interesting article on The Golden Compass on CNN today, a movie I had no plan on seeing but now am considering reading the books it was based on of course not knowing earlier that it was based on books (the more you know!). Apparently the author of the books, Phillip Pullman, is decidedly “Anti-God” and well, good for him. And not only is he anti-god, but writes subversive fiction aimed at children. Again, good for him.

I don’t praise him specifically because he’s attacking the church or the belief systems it sets up or all sorts of other stuff that I could praise him for because they are in line with my own beliefs (my own beliefs being to put it simply that I don’t have big b Belief), but more because it gives another angle to religion for young people. While the Church (or churches) may argue that Pullman is being subversive in writing this book and allowing it to be made into a movie for children, I could right back and say that the Church is being subversive in preaching the bible and making animated movies about vegetables on religious adventures. It all amounts to the say thing. One group pushing its agenda against another. The bigger problem as I see it is that the more conservative religious icons or groups get to attack Pullman as evil, in essence, while in the end he seems to just be promoting a questioning of absolutes (again, haven’t read books or seen movie, I just enjoy making blanket statements about things I do not understand - Donny, you’re out of you’re element!).

And there I can agree with him. I have no problem with Faith or Belief or any of the various religions out there, but I do have a problem with the absoluteness of it. Perhaps this is why I enjoyed the character of Pi in The Life of Pi. He choses to embrace three different religions because the most essential part of them all is that you have faith (which he has in abundance) and that you love life (which he does in abundance) and that you love god (which again he does in abundance). This is against a large portion of the principles of each religion as each, of course, preaches that it is the one sole religion with the one true god(s). The point of this literary aside (other than to prove how smart I am) is that religions shouldn’t exist in these absolutes. That they are the one true with the one true is bullshit to me The one true to you with the one true to you is fine with me. Keep it individualistic or community oriented. There is no need to talk in absolutes. And that, I think is what Pullman is trying to undermine more than anything (more unsubstantiated blanket statements - yay!) - that this indoctrination (admittedly strong word) of religion should be questioned. Good can be evil. Roles can be reversed.

Just ask the transgender community.

On TrueHoop this morning, I saw an interesting little bit on an apparent feud between Mark Cuban and Bill O’Reilly over Cuban’s financing of the film Redacted (which I don’t know a lot about). I suppose there isn’t much new here. O’Reilly is over the top, unfounded, and all that type of stuff, but I thought there was a good breakdown of it all on the blog and also on Cuban’s blog and Olbermann or however you spell his name (fact check be damned!) does a good job ripping it too. Like I said, nothing really new, but its nice to see Cuban’s response because he understands media and advertising so well that he’s able to thank O’Reilly essentially because he knows that O’Reilly ripping it will probably prompt more people to go see it. Fun.

I had a long discussion this weekend about continuity in films and on TV.  Basically, I was venting that it pisses me off so much when they fuck it up.  For example, on the new NBC show Life (good show by the way), there was a scene where this guy who was in a car accident and had now recovered but still had a band-aid on his forehead mystically had the band-aid change sides on his forehead between shots.  Now this is bad on its own, but in the next shot, IT CHANGED BACK.  Now, sometimes I think I notice things that other people might miss (for example, in Dirty Sexy Money I noticed a character changed grips on his wine glass from shot to shot) but this one just seemed so blatant.  The character’s head was in the center of the screen and this big band-aid switches sides.  Twice!

I could really go on about this forever, but I’ll spare you and jump to the point.  This pisses me off because it means that either the companies producing these shows figure the viewers are too stupid and absent minded to notice or be bothered by such things (which, honestly, they’re probably right about) or it means that an entire department (the continuity department) is slacking on their jobs.  They pay people so that this type of thing doesn’t happen.  So does that mean that these professional continuity people are worse at noticing these things than a common watcher who rarely sleeps?  Yikes.

Mainly though, I just want someone to hire me as a continuity expert.

As evidenced here at TMZ. Okay, maybe it’s not investigative journalism and anyone could do it if they were given those three shots and hell it could also all just be made up (in tabloids!?!? NEVER), but I found in interesting/funny nonetheless though not all that shocking. Hollywood can’t get continuity right in their films, why would they in real life?

Film’s losing out on some great directors. Antonioni on the same day as Bergman.

Well, that’s sports terminology, and this doesn’t apply to sports, but is nonetheless amazing. Scarlett Johansson is going to play Jenna Jameson. While I would prefer Jenna to play Jenna because Jenna=Goddess, I am also happy for Scarlett who apparently was good friend with a friend of mine back in the day and who I may or may not have partied with (I do not know, I was probably drunk). Don’t you love obscure references to obscure connections like that? Anyway, start the countdown.

UPDATE: Here’s a little bit more on it.

UPDATED UPDATE: Blasphemy! It was all a lie!

I don’t have much to personally say on the issue, only what the obvious is, but here’s Ingmar Bergman’s eulogy. He did a lot for film that I can’t even think of, nor do I know enough about the man or his films to really speak on the subject, which of course means it’s time for a Bergman film festival in the Shane household.

I know I’m not really informing you of things today so I apologize for that, but this is pretty freaking awesome.