I was making some hamburgers on the mighty cue this evening and I noticed that for the first time this year, I have actually been able to see what I was cooking. I took this to be a sure sign of spring. That and the fact that I was standing in my shorts and a T shirt looking at the aforementioned burgers. This means that I am a much happier camper than I was back last week when it was still winter. I don’t know about you, but, there’s playoff hockey and Masters gold and an impending visit from the Easter bunny coming right up. It doesn’t get any better that. Happy Easter/Passover/Whatever everybody.

HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG (2 SPUDS)

One of the weirdest things about artsy dramatic movies is that if you have a powerhouse cast and a great director, the story itself doesn’t necessarily have to make a whole lot of sense in order to keep you riveted to it. That’s exactly how I feel about this movie. It’s directed by a guy named Vadim Perelman and it looks to be his first film. Its powerhouse cast includes Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo and Ron Eldard, all of whom do an outstanding job. The story itself is where I had the problem.

In this movie, Jennifer plays a recovering boozehound who is rehabbing in the house
her father left her, when she is evicted for non-payment of back taxes which was
actually her ex-husband’s responsibility. Ben plays this ex-Iranian military big shot
who has emigrated to America after the Shah is deposed and buys the house from
the county at auction, moves his family in and gets ready to flip the house for a huge
profit so they can buy a bigger one yadda, yadda. The good old American real estate
dream.

The conflict which ensues is the meat of the story and frankly, some of the stuff that
goes on just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to this Spud. But I won’t go into it
because in spite of any plot pimples this film has it’s still worth seeing. What this
movie has going for it is an extremely compelling cast, a look as beautiful as
anything you’re likely to see on film this year (It reminded me a bit of Snow Falling
on Cedars, without the snow and well, the cedars too) and the absolutely captivating presence of Ben Kingsley, arguably one of the best actors out there. Ben is like a Pit Bull with bone in this film. So much of his dream of recreating the life he had in Iran is tied up in this little bungalow that you just feel that he’s not going to let it go without some sort of serious resistance. Jennifer, although considerably less powerful, is determined to get her house back at any cost. And so you have an amazing conflict.

Unfortunately, this movie is a relentless downer, but it still gets two spuds because
it seems like most of the good acting you get to see these days is done in downer
movies. However, this is one of the more exquisitely crafted downers I’ve ever seen.
In a way, I’m puzzled by the mechanics of how a movie like this gets made in the first
place. Because it’s a downer, it’s only going to attract the hard core and frankly
that’s really not enough to sustain the kind of moolah that they have to shell out for
talent like Ben and Jen. I guess the fact that both Ben Kingsley and Shohreh
Aghdashloo got nominated for (but didn’t win) Oscars adds a certain amount of
appeal. But the fact of the matter is a downer is still a downer no matter how you
slice it.

SPUD CENTRAL MOVIE NIGHT #2 –THE GODFATHER

(Jane and Scott, our crackerjack real estate agents and pals, joined us for this
evening in the Spud Central Subterranean Movie Bunker.)

Maybe it’s just the sad state of things going on out there in movieland these days,
but I’ve started hankering for some good old fashioned classis storytelling and some
great acting too. One of the movies that epitomizes both of these movie qualities is
The Godfather. Made by a buncha Coppolas led by Francis Ford Coppola, this is and
remains for me, the quintessential modern day mobster picture.

It had been a long time since I had seen the Godfather movies, maybe 20 years. And
even though it was more than 25 years old, this film looked and sounded as good as
anything that you’d want to compare it to today. I was also struck by how much of
the movie I remembered and how exquisitely well photographed and art directed it
was. Every scene had this oil painting quality to it, that only comes from messing
around with the lighting for a long time or really knowing what the hell you are
doing. It’s not surprising that Gordon Willis (a long time collaborator of Woody
Allen) was the cinematographer.

This Godfather achieves greatness on just about every level and without it, I’m
convinced that shows like the Sopranos would never have come into existence. The
Godfather, in fact, paved the way for a number of outstanding gangster flicks
(Mugsy, Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Road To Perdition, Miller’s Crossing etc) as well
as the careers of James Caan, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and Robert Di Niro, not to
mention Abe Vagoda.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the Godfather trilogy in a while. Go out and get it. I’m
not gonna tell you they don’t make movies like this anymore, cause, thanks in great
part to it, they still do.

PS For those who are keeping track, the first Spud Central Movie Night movie was
The Horse Whisperer. # 2 was Spellbound.

LOONEY TUNES – BACK IN ACTION (2 SPUDS)

As I walked int The Crappy Little Video Store around the corner from Spud Central,
the Elderly Chinese Gentleman greeted me with a nod and pointed to a section of
shelf by the door. “New movie all in one place. You look.” He said maxing out his
limited vocabulary of English in two seconds flat. I looked and sure enough there
they were. He appeared to be beaming with pride at this video retailing innovation
that he had come up with. Unfortunately I had seen most of what he considered to
be ‘new movie”, except for one. It was called Looney Tunes – Back In Action. (LTBIA)
--one of those hybrid live action/animation movies that show up every so often
when Warner Brothers wants to jack up interest in the cartoon side of their business.

I’m not big one these kinds of movies but I noticed that this one was directed by Joe
Dante who is one of the few directors in the world who really gets what kids are
about. His Goonies is a movie that’s loved and viewed often here at Spud Central.

Like Roger Rabbit and Space Jam, the last two movies in this genre to make any real
noise, the plot of this film is nowhere near as important as the physical gags that
happen and the interaction between the animated live characters, mainly Brendan
Fraser, Jenna Elfman, Joan Cusak and Steve Martin, whose character actually
straddles the line between live action and cartoon, which is to say, it’s pretty
amazing.

This movie has a frenetic pace and manages to incorporate a great deal of visual
imagination and just about every major Looney Tunes character. But the real star of
this film is Daffy Duck, who I always considered to be the most manic of all the
Looney Tooners.

You don’t have to be a kid to appreciate the high levels of craft that went into this,
or a lot of the humour, which is inter-dimensional, or Steve Martin’s amazing
performance as the head baddie and honcho of the Acme Corporation, who is on a
mission to turn the human race into monkeys, so that they can be trained to make all
kinds of great ACME products, then turn them back into humans to they can buy the
products. This is what’s known in the business as inspired lunacy.

I’m not heavy enough into animation to call this film a masterpiece, but I guess, on a
number of levels, it could be considered one. Unfortunately it’s in a genre that most
adults tend to shy away from and it’s too much wholesome Hollywoodmanufactured
fun to appeal to the more macabre appetites for murder, mayhem and streetwise hip-hopping jive that most kids are into. But I thought it was pretty cool.

SPUDITORIAL -- THE WEST WING FINALLY DROPS THE BALL

Tonight, after watching the now ludicrously unbelievable 24, and about 15 minutes
of the completely lackluster Toronto Raptors, who couldn’t even muster enough
energy to beat the Golden State Warriors, I was ready for the good old fashioned
gabfest of the The West Wing. What kind of real life American socio-political high concept would they be laying at my feet tonight, I wondered? A hostage situation in
Iraq, a terrorist threat in downtown DC, something outrageous from the good old
North Koreans perhaps. Well much to my chagrin, they chose, this week, to drop the
ball completely and do one of those totally clichéd and highly irritating “Day In The
Life” mockumentaries. This one focused on the Allison Janney character, CJ Cregg.
I don’t know where these concepts come from, but at least once in the life of just
about every notable series, there’s one episode where somebody’s making a
documentary. It must be one of those weird Hollywood things, like everybody’s
phone number being 555-something.

What I like about the West Wing is that, as the viewer, I am the fly on the wall
overhearing all this cool inside stuff from the collection of characters who make up
the President’s Inner Circle. Then, all of a sudden a concept like this comes along
and I’m no longer a fly on the wall, which was what turned me on about the way the
series was structured. I’m one step removed. I’m now a fly on some documentary
filmmaker’s camera lens. And frankly I’m pissed off about that, because I’m being
denied the full bore dramatic experience and being forced to settle for something I
know is just giving the writers a break from the drudgery of the brilliant stuff they
have to produce week in and week out. But I’m an old fart and I don’t care about
stuff like that. Just give me the goddam show the way you’ve been giving it to me
every week. I know this isn’t a documentary. They’re fictional characters for
Chrissake! It’s all as phony as a three dollar bill as far as I’m concerned.

In addition to being something I call a hack idea, it’s also extremely irritating
because the West Wing is filled with TV monitors showing all the news that’s fit for
consumption. Whenever the camera tracks by one or focuses in on one to further the
story, you get this really annoying blinking from the difference between the speed of
the video camera and the projection speed of a cathode ray tube. All in all, I
considered this to be an hour that I’ll never get back and something I’m absolutely
certain that series creator Aaron Sorkin would never have had to resort to.

Now I’m only an old fart about certain things. I like change as much as the next
Spud. In fact, I’m really looking forward to the day when cherries are grown without
pits. Plums too for that matter. But they’re not one of my favourite TV shows. I guess
I just get all grumpy when somebody tries to mess with that, being as there’s just so
little choice on the tube anymore anyway. Between the decorating shows and the
idol shows and the ugly guy gets beautiful girl shows and the ugly girls allowing
themselves to be mutilated and WWF wrestling and old rockumentaries…but then
that’s a rant for another time. You know what I’d like to see, a makeover show where
somebody gets a brain and is shown step by step how to use it.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Pat Quinn, coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, is known to come up with one or two
every so often. I got a chuckle out of this one. During a game a few weeks ago,
referee Dino Scallabrini was skating by the Leaf bench when Quinn suddenly
shouted out to him. “You know what your problem is, Scallabrini?…You don’t care
who wins the game.”