Way Down In The Hole

Last night I had nothing better to do so I decided to finally watch “American Gangster”. Though by no means a horrible film, I could not help but compare it to a far superior piece of filmed drama -

Like many people out there, I discovered “The Wire” on DVD. Though I’m sure the show was just as great when broadcast, I feel DVD is the ideal way to experience this epic. When compressed into a few weeks of multi-hour chunks the show ceases to be amazing television and starts becoming Cinema with a capital C.

Though each season is a complete unit in itself, the true beauty lies in watching the overall story develop. While the human drama is absolutely riveting the real star of the show is Baltimore Maryland as herself. Other characters come and go but she remains.

Though some might mock me for this statement I would like to go on record having said:

I think “The Wire” is a work that will endure the test of time.

Movies like “American Gangster” attempt to compress way too much information into an "acceptable" runtime. They're like a frantic marathon runner who kills himself trying to make it to the finish line. "The Wire" on the other hand, is in no hurry. It has all the time it needs and until movie theaters start showing 60 hour films, it will be always be able to defeat any and all comers. This is the pure shit. Uncut.

Now update your Netflix® cue and start watching!

Che Follow-Up & Other Stuff

A week or so ago I blogged about the ambiguous status of Stephen Soderbergh's Che Guevara film. At the time of that writing there was no US distributor and it seemed as though the only US screening would be at the New York Film Festival.

I am now proud to announce that the film has been picked up by IFC Films (not Magnolia Films as originally rumored). The film will be shown in full (both parts with an intermission) in both LA and New York so as to qualify it for the Academy then in 2009 we will get it as two separate films in select theaters.

Source: http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2008/09/toronto-watch-c.html?referrer=sharethis

In somewhat related news...

Another highly anticipated film has been picked up by an American distributor. "The Wrestler" staring Mickey Rourke and directed by Darren Aronofsky was picked up by Fox Searchlight after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and garnering strong word of mouth at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Source: http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=story&id=1061&articleid=VR1117991826&cs=1

Both "Che" and "The Wrestler" could really shake up this year's award season. Many magazines and Newspapers have already done their "Fall Sneaks" editions and hypothesized on possible contenders. Both of these films seem to have strong Best Actor vibes.

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

I Hate John McCain

Throughout this current presidential campaign, my only thought on John McCain has been:

"Look at this poor man who once might have been able to call himself a maverick having to play super-conservative so that he can get elected"

So what is it that has changed my pity to downright loathing?

Two recent campaign ads which lie in extremely big ways.

First there is the "lipstick" ad which I can no longer link you to because it has been pulled from Youtube for a very valid reason. The ad is very simple. It starts with Sarah Palin and her infamous quote about pit bulls, hockey moms and lipstick. Then it shows footage of Obama where he says something to the effect of, 'if you put lipstick on a pig it's still a pig'.

OK now that alone would have been a fairly standard ad. Sure it takes Obama's statement which was in reference to McCain's policies out of context and makes it seem as thought it was a straight shot at Mrs. Palin but oh well that's par for the Republican course. The real problem is the third clip they show. In this clip CBS anchor Katie Couric says:

"One of the continued lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life."

The ad makes it seem as though she is speaking about Obama's campaign. It makes you think that Couric thinks that sexism is a major part about the Obama campaign. Sadly that is not the case. Here's where the quote actually comes from:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/couric-on-the-media-and-clinton/

Yep that's right, she was talking about Hillary Clinton's campaign and how it was continually attacked on sexist grounds.

Where does the Republican Party get off? They were responsible for SO many of the sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton and now all of a sudden THEY are crying foul because this time it's about THEIR candidate? Fuck you Republican Party!

And now onto the second odious ad.

This ad implies that Obama is in favor of "comprehensive sex education" for Kindergartners then follows up with, "Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family."

A bald face lie.

"But the legislation allowed local school boards to teach "age-appropriate" sex education, not comprehensive lessons to kindergartners, and it gave schools the ability to warn young children about inappropriate touching and sexual predators.

"Republican Alan Keyes tried to use Obama's vote against him in the 2004 U.S. Senate race. At the time, Obama spoke about wanting to protect young children from abuse. He made clear then that he was not supporting teaching kindergartners about explicit details of sex.

"Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Tuesday of McCain's ad: "It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls.""

Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/staff/margaret_talev/story/52169.html

Please, please, please vote for Barack Obama this November. We cannot allow such Bush/Rove scum to continue to pollute the White House for another four years. If you cannot bring yourself to vote for Obama that is fine, vote for Ron Paul or Bob Barr.

Anyone is better than John McCain.

I'm Craig Duffy and I approve this message.

Half Decent

In the past week I’ve watched two classic films thanks to TCM and my old DVR pal MOXI.

First I watched the film noir classic “Detour”


For years I have heard this film spoken about in hushed tones. For noir fanatics this is one of the greats. The first half of the film left me wondering what all those noir aficionados were smoking. The dialogue is clunky and I repeatedly felt like I was watching a film noir parody. The only thing that kept me hanging in there were the beautiful camera moves that director Edgar G. Ulmer was able to orchestrate on such a small budget. Finally at about the half way mark I discovered why people love this film – Ann “motherfucking” Savage!

Noir is a very specific genre and you need to be in the proper mood for it. Ann’s performance is soooooooooooo over the top that it MAKES you forgive everything and get in the mood. She plays a bitch like no other and brings out great things in fellow lead Tom Neal. If only they could have worked her into more of the film.

The second film I watched was the Peter Sellers/Blake Edwards collaboration “The Party”

Like “Detour” I was not very fond of the first half of the film. The difference here is that while “Detour” is 75 min long, “The Party” is 120 min long – which makes for a much longer journey to the half way mark. “The Party” centers around Sellers as Hrundi V. Bakshi a bumbling Indian actor (yes there is brown face) who is accidentally invited to a classy Hollywood party and hilarity ensues.

There isn’t very much for you to hang on to in that first half. Now mind you, Sellers is brilliant as always in his odd physical comedy but why should we care? Where is this going? If it weren’t for the beautiful beautiful mid-century décor of the house I would have quit the movie after about a half-hour. I cannot for the life of me understand how a major Hollywood studio let this go out as is. Fortunately I stayed in the game.

The second half of the film is wonderful. There are elephants and bubbles and most importantly a love story that, while brief, has real feeling. As the film ended I found myself wondering how it had arrived at this point and I’m still not very sure, but I liked what I saw. You just have to learn to stop worrying and dig “The Party”.

Funny Shit

The other night my special lady friend and I were bored and cruising the internet. We came across some guy who had compiled a list of his favorite comedians. There were some pretty good people on there but there was also - Dane Cook (among others) she and I then began compiling our own lists. You can check her's out over at http://perfectlyswell.blogspot.com/

These are not really in any sort of order and I couldn't limit myself to 10 so mine goes up to 11 (hee hee me so funny)

George Carlin RIP


Patton Oswalt


Eddie Izzard


Woody Allen


Maria Bamford


Richard Pryor RIP


Zach Galifianakis


Sarah Silverman


Mitch Hedberg RIP


Eugene Mirman


Jim Gaffigan

Check THIS Out

Does anyone else remember the California Raisins?

To this day I cannot have someone tell me to check something out without this little ditty popping into my head:

Weapon of Choice

Sarah Palin scares the shit out of me and it has nothing to do with the gun she’s wielding in the above photo. I fear Mrs. Palin because she wields a far more dangerous than any gun. The heat she’s packin’ is the religious right.

The Evangelical Christian movement is the bluntest blunt instrument any politician can possess. If they favor you they will sing your praises to the heavens each and every Sunday at their mega-churches. Lord help you if you are on their bad side.

In the past, John McCain's relationship with Bible-thumpers has been rather rocky. During his 2000 Presidential Run, McCain referred to people like the late Rev. Jerry Falwell as, “agents of intolerance”. But now that the oval office is within reach, the once “maverick” Senator has tacked hard, hard right and picked a conservative’s wet dream as his running mate.

The silver lining here is that perhaps her hard-line religious views will frighten off some of the less religiously inclined conservatives. While I doubt they'd vote for Obama, they might vote for a Libertarian. Either way - less votes for McCain. Hope hope, pray pray. Yeah. You heard that right. Pray. I believe in God. Deal with it.

In somewhat related news…

The trailer for Gus Van Sants film “Milk” about the life of Harvey Milk (the first openly gay elected official) hit the internet today. Though by no means related to our current election, the trailer alone illustrates precisely why we cannot let the White House fall into the hands of such “agents of intolerance”.



VOTE OBAMA/BIDEN 08!

In news somewhat related “Milk” but in no way related to the whole Sarah Palin thing…

The trailer for Kevin Smith’s new film “Zack & Miri Make A Porno” was unveiled the other day and it is really awesome. Beware! There are some pretty dirty words.



And lastly…

The trailer for “The Brothers Bloom” Rian Johnson’s follow-up to “Brick” looks AMAZING. It was already on my “to see list” but this trailer rocketed it to near the top.



OK. That’s enough from me.

Mahalo.