My problem with 3-D, and a fantastic film opportunity in Macon

Just in case you thought there might be some end in sight to the 3-D wave of animation (and eventually, I fear, nearly everything else), there was an odd story this morning that shows just how much it's taken over just about the entire world.

It seems that even Frenchies like Patrice Leconte, director of one of my favorite froggy mind-benders in "The Man on the Train" and many other flicks, is getting into the 3-D animated game. Granted, he's making something called "Le Magasin des Suicides" (literally, "The Suicide Store"), a "dark comedy" about a family-owned shop that sells suicide tools to a depressed and suicidal world.

At least the story sounds interesting enough, but as much as I've tried, I just can't get into 3-D animation as anything more so far than a gimmick. I thought Pixar's "Up" would be the movie that finally gets me on board, but I think I can now officially count myself as someone who just doesn't believe the hype.

Now, there was one movie so far that I thought really made fantastic use of the technology, Henry Selick's "Coraline," but that's really it. Every other time I've seen a 3-D movie (and there's been at least "Up," "Monsters Vs. Aliens" and "Nightmare Before Christmas"), the supposed thrill just left me cold, and I think I've finally figured out (after discussing it with my fellow cubicle slave Randy Waters) why.

It's those glasses, which to me just make the whole screen muddy. A big part of the thrill in animated movies for me is to see the vibrant colors used to create something as beautiful as a painting. Think back to when Remy the rat first beheld the cityscape of Paris in "Ratatouille" or when Kiki was flying over Mediterranean Europe in Hayao Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service." I just can't imagine those unforgettable images would be as magical if they had been run through the 3-D machine.

And beyond the muddiness of the images, I just feel like it removes me from the experience by a level or two, putting this filter between me and the screen that just creates a remoteness that limits my engagement with the movie.

Now, even if I am an increasingly old curmudgeon about this and other things (I listened to the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" the other day to see if I could get into it, but I can't ... I love hip-hop and always will [listening to Dead Prez right now], but I just can't stand that vodaphone crap, another gimmick that just distorts the beauty that is rap music), I am sane enough to realize there's really nothing I can do about it. I was tempted to go back and watch "Up" in 2-D to see if I would enjoy it more, but decided to save my money instead.

But before I go any further on in that longer-than-expected tangent, this was supposed to be a plug for the Macon Film Guild, which is showing what I expect to be a truly great flick this Sunday in "Sugar."

It's been forever since I've seen a great baseball flick in a movie theater, so I was hoping that this one from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck would get a proper run, but it never materialized. I was bit underwhelmed by "Half Nelson," mostly because by the time I finally managed to see it the flick had been hyped so much that I was just expecting more, I guess.

With "Sugar," however, you can count me as thoroughly amped. The flick tells the story of Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a Dominican teenager who gets scouted as a pitcher and at 19 enters the U.S. minor league system with hopes of hitting it big.

The Macon Film Guild, which consistently shows quality flicks that should find more of an audience, is showing this one at 2, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Douglass Theatre in Macon, so if you're anywhere in the Middle Georgia area, come out and check it out, because it deserves a big crowd. If you're at the 2 p.m. show, I'll see you there.

And I'll leave you today with the first trailer I've seen for Martin Scorsese's next flick, "Shutter Island," which looks, thankfully, like it will be even crazier than I was hoping. Based on a Dennis Lehane novel, it of course stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. marshall who uncovers a nasty secret at a hospital for the criminally insane. It really looks like Scorsese making a B-movie, and almost a horror flick, and I can't possibly see anything wrong with that. Peace out.

A busy day of news (and a beef about 3D)

"It's so similar to the toilet scene in 'Trainspotting.' "
- Danny Boyle, with feces on his mind in Variety

There's quite a bit of news out there today, but since I like to stand in the way of speeding trains and enjoy my favorite TV shows without getting a headache, can I please first make a plea for an end to 3D gimmicks on TV?

Last night's episode of "Chuck" would have been perfectly enjoyable in the 2D format, but since I was watching it with just my old-fashioned specs on, it did indeed get more than a little on my nerves by the finish. Did anyone actually watch this with the 3D glasses on, and, if so, was there really any reason for this beyond NBC clearly being in constant need of attention?

OK, enough of that. The best thing I could find out there this morning is that Martin Scorsese is finally getting back to making another religious movie, and bringing some big names along to do it. "Kundun" has lasted as my second favorite Scorsese movie (after only the sublimely silly "After Hours"), so this is certainly good news.

"Silence," which will be his next feature film, takes place in 17th century Japan and follows the tale of two Jesuit priests who travel there and face violence and persecution on their mission. Even better, as best as I can tell, Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio Del Toro will play the two priests, and Gael Garcia Bernal will also be along for the ride.

That all sounds well and good, but Mr. Scorsese will of course have another movie coming out well before this, the recently wrapped "Shutter Island," which should just be a heck of a lot of fun next October. In that one, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, Leo DiCaprio plays a U.S. Marshal who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote isle. Very cool.

Finally, a movie about the war on terror I might actually enjoy?

Actually, Kimberly Pierce's "Stop-Loss" was pretty good, but since that was about the Iraq war I guess it's at least a slightly different subject.

Now, however, no less than Aaron Sorkin is returning to the military courtroom to pen "The Challenge," which takes on the topic of the prison at Gitmo (and, if Barack Obama actually gets his way, this might oddly enough come out right about the time the Guantanamo Bay prison closes.)

George Clooney is producing, may direct and wants to star in the flick as Navy lawyer Charles Swift, who led the drive to ensure a fair trial for Osama Bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, who had been held at Gitmo for five years.

Captured in 2001 in Afghanistan while transporting two missiles in a car, Hamdan was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 5 1/2 years by a military commission for providing material support to Al-Qaeda. He was cleared of the terrorism conspiracy charges that would have drawn a much longer sentence.

Any news about Aaron Sorkin writing (and not for television!) is good news in this corner. If you haven't seen "Charlie Wilson's War," you're missing out on a sharp satire, so rent it already. And Sorkin is thankfully keeping very busy nowadays, having already penned "The Trial of the Chicago 7," which Ben Stiller (!?!?) is directing for Dreamworks, and is now also working on a flick about the formation of Facebook, which I am somehow on even though I don't yet even have a cell phone.

Woody's returning to New York, and I might even get to see it

Purely by coincidence, I was watching that great "Seinfeld" episode recently in which Kramer manages to get a line ("these pretzels are making me thirsty!") in a Woody Allen flick before getting fired from the set.

In a case of art imitating reality and coming back around to art, "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David is starring in Woody Allen's next flick, "Whatever Works," which Sony Pictures Classics has now picked up and will hopefully distribute wide enough to reach my little corner of the world when this comes out later this year.

In Woody's return to Manhattan (finally!), here (according to Wikipedia, at least) is what the flick starring Mr. David, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Begley Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Kristen Johnston and Michael McKean is about: "The film is a dark comedy starring Larry David as an eccentric man from Greenwich Village who gets caught up in a series of love stories which get him tangled up with a young girl from the South (Evan Rachel Wood) and her parents."

Well, I guess Woody casting someone else as the dirty old man rather than himself is some kind of progress, and Larry David is just an extremely funny guy, so I can only say bring it on.

Tidbits

OK, I have to get ready for work soon, so two quick hits and then I'll go. Did you know that Spike Lee unveiled a documentary this year at Sundance? I didn't, until this morning. Called "Pushing Strange," it focused Lee's camera on the final three performances of the Broadway musical of the same name. The show is about a young black musician growing up in Los Angeles in the 1970s and his quest to find "the real." As cheesy as that might sound, I'm betting this will be nothing but cool if I ever get to see it. Besides, with "When the Levees Broke," "The Original Kings of Comedy" and my favorite, "Four Little Girls," on his resume, I'd say Mr. Lee knows a thing or two about making compelling documentaries.

And, finally, Julian Schnabel has tapped Hiam Abbas to star in "Miral," a movie he's making about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Schnabel will write and direct the adaptation of Italo-Palestinian Rula Jebreal's book about the real-life Palestinian woman Hind Husseini, who started the Dar Al-Tifl orphanage in Jerusalem in the wake of the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. And, best of all, Abbas, who starred in one of my favorite flicks of 2008 in "The Visitor," will presumable play the lead role, so definitely keep your eyes on this one. Peace, appropriately enough, out.

Actually, to make hopefully any Tuesday a little better, here's that "These pretzels are making me thirsty" clip, still one of my favorite "Seinfeld" bits. Enjoy!

Can Martin Scorsese save Robert De Niro?

First thing first: Last night's "Pushing Daisies," after a rather disastrously long bit of opening exposition to catch everyone up, was just as funny and whimsical as ever, and will hopefully lead ABC to announce later today that the show has received a full season-two order (so far it just has 13 new episodes coming.)

And, in reference to my headline question, does Robert De Niro really need saving? Well, I'm sure his life in NYC is still a whole lot more fabulous than mine down here in Macon, GA, but if its from mediocre movies I'd say the answer is surely an emphatic yes.

I had to go back to 2006's "The Good Shepherd" to find a De Niro movie I really liked unconditionally and much further back to 2000's "Meet the Parents" to find another one (and the second one gets an asterisk in the "like" column because Mr. De Niro isn't nearly as funny as he seems to think he is nowadays).

So, what could bring this formerly great man back to his glory days, to roles in movies such as "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas," or even in John Frankenheimer's rather severely underrated "Ronin"? Well, either reteaming with Martin Scorses or doing a great movie about the mob would probably do the trick, so throw in both and you'd seem to have just about the perfect project.

Indeed, word comes today that Mr. Scorsese is attached to direct and Mr. De Niro to star in "I Heard You Paint Houses," based on the book about the mob assassin who many believe was involved in the death of Jimmy Hoffa. (And despite my rather heavy diet of mob movies and TV through the years, I had no idea that "paint houses" was mob slang for a contract killing ... yet another rather useless bit of trivia to clutter my brain!)

De Niro will play Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, who is reputed to have carried out more than 25 mob murders and confessed to "Paint Houses" author Charles Brandt that he also carried out the killing and dismemberment of Hoffa on orders from mob boss Russell Bufalino. On top of my love for mob movies, I also like flicks like "Confession of a Dangerous Mind" in which our "protagonist" makes an outlandish claim that stays in doubt throughout the entire movie, so this should be ideal.

Steven Zaillian, who crafted the crisp script for "American Gangster" but also the rather uneven screenplay for Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" too, will adapt Brandt's book for the big screen.

And Scorsese, I predict, will have one of both the biggest critical and box office successes next year with "Shutter Island," starring Leo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo in his take on Dennis Lehane's novel about the mysterious happenings at a mental hospital on the titular remote island.

And now, since I have no other news to report, I have to get ready for the job that still somehow pays my rent. Peace out.

Stone V. Bush? Absolutely

It pains me to be too hard on a movie as well-intentioned as "Honeydripper" on MLK Day or, for that matter, any other, so I'll try to get that portion of this report out of the way quickly.

"Honeydripper" was, in short, just a tremendous disappointment to me. It's truly lethargic film making, filled with corny, often unbelievable stories and dialogue that's even worse (yes, within the first 10 minutes or so you will get to see a bar patron actually utter the words "grits ain't groceries.")

Much like OutKast's "Idlewild," this was a movie supposedly about music that really only featured any at its very beginning and end, the only times the movie really surged with any life. The ending, when young Gary Clark Jr. finally plugs in his axe at the Honeydripper, really is electric, but still not enough of a payoff to justify all the emptiness that came before it.

Which is a real shame, because this is a flick just packed with people I like who we don't get to see nearly often enough on the big screen, most notably Charles S. "Roc" Dutton, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Vondie Curtis Hall.

But enough of that ... on to some good news.

Stone and Brolin to take on Bush

How fitting that, on the day that President Clinton himself will be in Macon (and I'll be there, though my time and support are solidly behind Barack Obama), the news comes that Oliver Stone is about to jump at least indirectly into the fray.

Even if he's not returning to Vietnam, Stone is definitely about to get back in "the shit," this time with his sights directly on George Bush.

Stone has announced his next directing project will indeed be "Bush," focusing on the life of W. and, even better, set to star Josh Brolin. With his work in "No Country for Old Men," "In the Valley of Elah" "American Gangster" and "Planet Terror," 2007 was a banner year for the younger Mr. Brolin, and things don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Either before or after "Bush," which with a pre-WGA strike script already done by "Wall Street" co-writer Stanley Weiser could begin shooting as early as April for a Fall release, he'll play Dan White, the man who assassinated Harvey Milk, in Gus Van Sant's "Milk."

And though Stone has been extremely critical of Bush in the past, he's promising to take a broad look at the man's life, with his own view sheathed as much as possible.

"It's a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to 'Nixon,' to give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin," Stone told Daily Variety. "I'm a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great."

Perhaps, but what he had to say next shows he's indeed taking some preformed ideas about W. into this project.

"How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world? It's like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I'll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from. It includes his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States, and his coming into his own with the stunning, preemptive attack on Iraq. It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors."

He also took a parting shot at Tom Cruise's United Artists, who used the pretense of the writers' strike to kill Stone's return to Vietnam, "Pinkville." As Stone revealed to Variety, he definitely thinks there were other factors (chiefly the tanking of UA's "Lions for Lambs") that diminished hunger for the project:

"On 'Pinkville,' I had a great script and one of the best casts on any of my films, with 40 young actors and Bruce Willis," Stone said. "It's a shame they lost faith in the film, and that they unemployed 500 people right before Christmas. We were three weeks from shooting."

A shame indeed, but with this news one can only hope the real muckraking Oliver Stone will now be back in a big way.

What's next on "The Wire"?

I know from talking to fellow fans of "The Wire" that the admittedly bizarre downward trajectory of McNulty from beat cop to renegade vigilante has been a bit much for many fans to take, but I've loved every minute of it so far.

Along with that, the newsroom scenes through last night's episode 3 have rung true for me as an employee of a newspaper which has undergone its own share of belt-tightening and in fact had its own serial plagiarist to deal with. And, as this rapidly boiling story comes to a close, we should get to see more of Amy Ryan as McNulty's latest enabler-in-chief, which is always good news to me.

Here's a look at what's to come in the next five episodes, which will include scripts from semi-regular "Wire" contributors Richard Price and Dennis Lehane, plus the return of Agnieszka Holland as director.

Episode #54: "Transitions"
Campbell (Marlyne Afflack) tries to smooth out the transitions in the police department. The newspaper scrambles to confirm surprising news from City Hall, but lose out to the TV media in scooping a high-profile grand jury appearance. As Marlo tries to win favor with the Greeks, Proposition Joe pays his last respects to a fallen colleague and prepares to make himself scarce in anticipation of a showdown. Freamon enlists the help of a past partner to help with the investigation. Teleplay by Ed Burns; story by David Simon & Ed Burns; directed by Dan Attias.

Episode #55: "React Quotes"
Marlo (Jamie Hector) forges an alliance with a drug connect, who shows him a new communications trick. McNulty's (Dominic West) case gets increased attention from the newspaper, in large part thanks to the addition of Templeton (Tom McCarthy) to the reporting team. Dukie (Jermaine Crawford) turns to Cutty (Chad L. Coleman) and Michael (Tristan Wilds) to hone his self-defense skills; Clay Davis (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) finds a new ally; Bond (Dion Graham) raises his public profile; Levy (Michael Kostroff) and Herc (Domenick Lombardozzi) prepare for litigation; Elena (Callie Thorne) confronts McNulty about his behavior; Bubbles (Andre Royo) fears new opportunities; Greggs (Sonja Sohn) gets some overtime work. Omar (Michael Kenneth Williams) shows patience as Marlo throws out his bait. Teleplay by David Mills; story by David Simon & David Mills; directed by Agnieszka Holland.

Episode #56: "The Dickensian Aspect"
Mystified by Omar's disappearance, Marlo and Chris (Gbenga Akinnagbe) ramp up their efforts to locate their nemesis. After attending a sparsely attended waterfront ceremony, Carcetti (Aidan Gillen) fires away at a larger press event - and recasts himself as a champion for the homeless. Bunk (Wendell Pierce) revisits some old leads in the rowhouse cases, but is frustrated in his attempts to get bloodwork from the crime lab. Templeton looks for a perfect follow-up to his latest, nationally covered story, which has replaced the city's educational crisis on the paper's priority list. After the detail gets more manpower, Freamon (Clarke Peters) presses McNulty to get new surveillance equipment, but the resources aren't as deep as both hoped. Pearlman (Deirdre Lovejoy) discovers new clues pointing to corruption in City Hall; Marlo makes new appointments at the latest co-op meeting; McNulty takes a peculiar interest in a homeless man.Teleplay by Ed Burns; story by David Simon & Ed Burns; directed by Seith Mann.

Episode #57: "Took"
An unexpected call puts Templeton back in the spotlight - and gets McNulty more attention than he expected. Bunk bucks at Landsman (Delaney Williams) when ordered to help with the force's most recent red ball. Omar sends Marlo a message; Carcetti proves he's still an adept fund-raiser; Carver (Seth Gilliam) gift-wraps a witness for Bunk; Bubbles shows a reporter the ropes; Freamon tries to crack a clock code; Greggs prepares for a visit from her son; Michael has a close call; Haynes (Clark Johnson) can't shake his suspicions about Templeton; assisted by the top-drawer lawyer Billy Murphy (Billy Murphy), "cash and carry" Davis makes his day in court a memorable one. Teleplay by Richard Price; story by David Simon & Richard Price; directed by Dominic West.

Episode #58: "Clarifications"
Baltimore's renewed police commitment brings fresh recruits to Daniels (Lance Reddick) and McNulty, starting with Carver. Facing a new political challenge, Carcetti is forced to make dangerous political deals. As the Pulitzer season winds down, Haynes approaches Templeton about his sources. Bunk returns a McNulty favor; little Kenard (Thuliso Dingwall) makes a big score; Dukie finds work; Fletcher (Brandon Young) continues his interview with Bubbles; Freamon presents his latest plan to a prosecutor; Sydnor (Corey Parker Robinson) uncovers the missing piece to a puzzle; McNulty comes clean. Teleplay by Dennis Lehane; story by David Simon & Dennis Lehane; directed by Joe Chappelle.

So, if you're keeping track, that makes eight episodes of the final season of "The Wire," a k a the greatest show in the history of television. That means either only four or five left after this latest batch, and it will be truly sad to see it go, even if it will be exiting on top of its game. Peace out.