Older fans of Matthew McConaughey’s spate of ’90s romantic comedies may be in for a shock when they walk into Dallas Buyers Club and see him playing Christian Bale’s character from The Machinist. He and costar Jared Leto (both radically transformed and up for Oscars this year) underwent severe weight loss for their roles in this based-on-a-true-story underdog drama that’s one part can’t-we-all-just-get-along and four parts sticking-it-to-The-MAN.
Author Archives: Randall A. Golden
Because Not Every Movie Should Be Turned into Joyless Homework
Movies are fun to look at, even when they’re boxed up and stacked on shelves. I enjoy writing down my thoughts about them — whether inspired or incredulous, amazed or aggravated — before too much time passes and the details vanish (if not the entire movie, in some cases). But I’ve grown to despise my self-imposed assignments of constructing an English-class essay every time I come home from the theater.
When something that’s supposed to be fun isn’t, then something needs to be done differently to rediscover the fun in it.
21 Movie Headlines That Don’t Belong on a Front Page
Fun trivia: Googling “Joe Don Baker Mitchell remake” yields negative-3,000 results.
I can think of numerous examples off the top of my head for most steps of the filmmaking process and marketing campaign. To illustrate my apathy, let me walk you through the vantage point of internet news outlets — not official sources such as The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, or Nikki Finke, but the other guys. Pretty much all the other guys.
For the sake of argument, let’s pretend the following examples revolve around a remake of the 1975 police drama Mitchell, which starred Joe Don Baker as Oscar Madison from The Odd Couple, plus a gun, minus friends. Let’s pretend we’re in a near-future dystopia in which Hollywood used up its first 5,000 ideas and the only things standing between us and the bottom of the barrel are Mitchell and The Snorks. And James Cameron already has plans for the Snorks.
“Revolution” 1/22/2014 (spoilers): It’s Not Lupus
One of the tense researching scenes from tonight’s CSI: Willoughby.
I’d much rather rattle on about that etymology chain than cover tonight’s main story about the town of Willoughby suffering from the heartbreak of widespread typhus. As I previously complained when it was Sleepy Hollow‘s turn to use the epidemic plot device back in October, “Diseases can be a really dull antagonist.”
Empty Nest Update #3: Handling Our First School Shooting
For Andrew Boldt and family. Our prayers and thoughts are with them tonight.
Today during the course of one of our usual workday back-‘n’-forth email volleys, I thought it odd when my wife sent me another, separate email with a new title: “Purdue Shooting”. She knew she’d have my full attention.
Within the same minute that I opened her email, my son the Purdue freshman texted me. In case I heard about a shooting at Purdue, he wrote, he wanted me to know he was fine, even though he’d been in the same building where and when the shooting occurred.
That disrupted my concentration for a while.
“Sleepy Hollow” 1/20/2014 (spoilers): All Roads Lead to War
As soon as the finale was over, rest assured Jenny Mills was on the internet within minutes, registering her incredulity throughout the world.
2013 Road Trip Photos #26: the House That Vitameatavegamin Built
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
We spent the late afternoon some 220 miles westward in Jamestown, birthplace of a certain funny redhead that brightened your grandparents’ lives. She used to be in all the papers.
The centerpiece of Lucy tourism is kept downtown in a dual storefront. One half recalls the production company Lucy created with her first husband, actor/musician/bandleader Desi Arnaz..
…and the other half of that storefront is the Lucy Desi Museum, devoted to souvenirs from the lives of TV’s original wacky couple, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Inside these walls lies a veritable cavalcade of whimsy and wonder and all the Lucy gift-shop merchandise you can carry home in your long, long trailer.
Like a Bubble in a Snowstorm
Photo by my wife, who was nice enough not to call me crazy to my face during our windblown photo shoot.
With the right combination of persistence and timing, your Sisyphean efforts will produce a few shimmering, fragile globes, floating in the narrow space between obstacles. For scant seconds, you can enjoy your tiny, beautiful creation and derive a little joy from it.
The 86th Oscars Nominations: Initial Random Thoughts
If you’re online much, you’re already aware this year’s Academy Awards nominations were announced today. If you follow either The Hollywood Reporter or The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Twitter, you had the opportunity to see the categories live-tweeted one at a time early this morning. If you shared my mistake of following both entities, you were treated to a double-barrel Oscar-nom redundancy blast that turned Twitter to sludge for fifteen minutes. Homework question: how many live-tweeters does any given event really need?
I’ll not waste your bandwidth copying-‘n’-pasting the full list of nominees that’s readily available on a million other news sites. Several thoughts popped into my head throughout the day while mulling over the results:
* As discussed in the past, since 1997 I’ve made a point every year of seeing every Best Picture nominee as soon as possible. This year I’m facing quite the obstacle course, as I’ve only seen one of the nine nominees so far (hint: the one with the spaceship). In my defense, six of the nine only opened here in Indianapolis within the last month, a few of which were packed exclusively into the single art-house theater on the other side of the city. Late December and early January are never the best time of year for leisure travel. Unless they’re each gifted with a wider re-release in the nearer gen-pop theaters, I’m seeing a lot of mileage in my immediate future.
“Revolution” 1/15/2014 (spoilers): The Passion of the Bass
Welcome to “NBC Team-Up” starring Bass and Kid Bass!
Best CDs of 2013, According to an Old Guy Who Bought Seven
This man deserves to be selling zillions more albums. Someone see to it.
The following, then, comprises every CD I acquired in 2013 that was also released in 2013. Back-catalog materials are forbidden from inclusion, though allow me to express in this singular clause that I wish I’d gotten Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ Live at Hollywood High much, much sooner.
On with the countdown, then — from least best to surprising favorite:
7. Childish Gambino, Because the Internet. The only other rap album I bought in the last five years was Donald Glover’s 2011 pseudonymous debut Camp — a killer mix of scathing satire and autobiography, laced with pop-culture references as cutting descriptors rather than random gags. Harsh language isn’t my thing anymore, but the Community-clever snark and wounded candor rose above. His sophomore effort, on the other hand, is a hodgepodge of half-finished tracks, electronic hooks in search of lyrics to stick to, verses that lead nowhere, Bone Thugs speed-rap for listeners who love rhyming words but hate complete sentences, and a general impenetrability that strings a velvet rope in front of us intruders who don’t Get It.
Sample track: The obligatory NSFW single “3005“, in which he sounds defensive about his insecurities and comforts himself with in-jokes. Or something. But it’s more or less a complete song in music-class terms. Points for English class completeness, I suppose.
“Sleepy Hollow” 1/13/2014 (spoilers): the Power of Salt and Vintage Ghost Traps
You think your sister has issues…
For those who missed out, my attempt to streamline the basic events follows after this courtesy spoiler alert for the sake of time-shifted viewers.
21st Century Digital Fogey
Welcome to the newest addition to our family.
Another one of those shifts was implemented this past weekend. I’m never excited when they come to pass, but circumstances warranted it, the money was available, the price was unbeatable, and so far the performance is competent.
…
One Good Thing to Come Out of the “Bridgegate” Scandal
For those just catching up on the week in headline news: Republican politician Chris Christie, currently governor of New Jersey but intermittently mentioned in hushed tones among optimistic rank-‘n’-file as a possible party savior in the 2016 Presidential race, has been accused of directing his subordinates to pull transportation strings and create a four-day traffic snarl where the George Washington Bridge connects Manhattan to the New Jersey town of Fort Lee, allegedly because its mayor hadn’t fallen in lockstep with his party colleagues and publicly endorsed Christie’s future endeavors.
Or something like that. I’ve missed some finer details. Political stories don’t stick with me for long. (When I first began noticing heated debates in my circles about Benghazi, my only reaction was, “Is that Ian MacKaye’s new band?”) Bridgegate was unusual enough and filled with enough bipartisan hot-button issues — political extortion, abuse of power, petty vengeance — that I finally relented and read an article or two about it. At this point it’s now all about denials, apologies, firings, and now I’m seeing the word “subpoena” creeping onto the battlefield. I imagine this brouhaha is only in its infancy and in no danger of falling off the main page anytime soon.
I am grateful for one noticeable change that’s a direct result of Bridgegate: over the past two days, whenever internet users were overwhelmed with the urge to take potshots at Christie, the jokes were no longer about his weight.
2013 Road Trip Photos #25: Paying Respects to Lucille Ball
Day Seven of our road trip was divided between two different towns in upstate New York, each boasting a hometown hero who left home to become a classic TV trailblazer. We spent the morning in Binghamton, where Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling spent his formative years learning how to write, narrate, and remain invisible to everyone around him.
We spent the late afternoon some 220 miles westward in Jamestown, birthplace of a certain funny redhead that brightened your grandparents’ lives. She used to be in all the papers.
My 2013 at the Movies, Part 2 of 2: the Year’s Least Worst
The Bourne Upgrade. District 18. Green Zone 3000. Good Will Exploding. And so on, and so on.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Once again January is National List Month, that magical time of year when everyone’s last twelve months of existence must be dehydrated, crammed into enumerated little packets, and lined up on the shelf in subjective order for re-inspection. The final tabulations reveal I saw twenty-five films in theaters in 2013 and one via On Demand while it was still in limited art-house release…
And now, the countdown concludes:
13. Elysium. Some say the 99%-vs.-1% feud will end in negotiations; some say in explosions. Neill Blomkamp’s sophomore extrapolation of the effect of humanity’s self-hatred on its own future stops asking questions halfway through and solves nearly everything with chases and showdowns between Matt Damon’s everyman underdog imperfect sinner Average Joe antihero and Sharlto Copley’s cyborg Snidely Whiplash. In some respects this deserved to be ranked a lot lower, but something about Blomkamp’s vivid underclass aesthetic and leftover District 9 effects cachet boosted it a tad unfairly over the other popcorn-film competition.
“Revolution” 1/8/2014 (spoilers): Everyone Loves Li’l Sebastian
Sebastian Monroe, voted Father of the Year by no one ever.
My 2013 at the Movies, Part 1 of 2: the Year’s Least Best
John McClane and the Scorpion King: sequel survivors perpetuating the vicious circle of lame.
The final tabulations reveal I saw twenty-five films in theaters in 2013 and one via On Demand while it was still in limited art-house release. This count doesn’t include five 2012 films I attended in 2013 for Oscar-chasing purposes, or any old films I watched on home video. Because lists such as this one must have rules.
Links to past reviews and musings are provided for historical reference. On with the reverse countdown, then:
26. GI Joe: Retaliation. Once again Hollywood forgets the lessons learned from Halloween 3 and Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift — i.e., if you dump too much of the original cast, why even bother with a theatrical release? While Ray Park is good for a few minutes of aerial man’s-man ballet, Bruce Willis and the Rock are called in as scabs from other macho action series to shoulder the rest of this silly, overlong commercial for military weaponry and boys’ toys, in that order.
Early Scenes from Snowpocalypse 2014, Indianapolis Division
Yep, snow’s here. The above photo was taken just four hours into it, so you can still glimpse asphalt peeking through the tire tracks. Two hours later and safely at home, I’m guessing the coverage is thicker by now.
I expected worse, to be honest, but the great and powerful snowstorm of January 2014, which should be trending shortly on Twitter as #snowpocalypse2014 unless anyone has a clever idea, launched six hours behind schedule in our vicinity. “Better late than never!” said no one I’m ever speaking to again.
2013 Road Trip Photos #24: Rod Serling and His Hometown All-Stars
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our first stop on Day Seven was Binghamton, New York, childhood home of Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. The celebrated sci-fi writer isn’t the only well-known personality with roots there, but he certainly has more markers than any of the rest.
What you saw in the previous entry wasn’t the whole story. Also marked for historical significance: Binghamton High School, Serling’s old alma mater and home of the Binghamton Patriots. Their athletics program totally missed a merchandising opportunity in not naming themselves the Binghamton Venusians, the Binghamton Invaders, the Binghamton Beholders, or the Binghamton Characters in Search of an Exit.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 