EXPRESS YOURSELF

And just because that last post got me in the mood...


NWA - Express Yourself
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BEATS, RHYMES AND LIFE

I may not be the biggest hip hop fan on the planet anymore but that has more to do with the state of rap today than anything else. Ringtones ruined the hip-hop genre and now so much of it sounds exactly the same that I don't know who's who or what's what. It's kind of a bummer, but I'm doing fine without having ever heard the kid from Degrassi rap.

The majority of the rap that I like and still listen to is the stuff from the early to mid-90s. The likes of N.W.A., Biggie, The Pharcyde every so often, De La Soul, Wu Tang Clan and that kind of thing. Right up there towards the top for me during that time was A Tribe Called Quest. They were always a staple of the hip-hop/punk mixes I used to make for people in high school (there might be one floating around my parents house still. If I can find it, I'll go through it like I did this one) and while I haven't listened to them in a while, they are still one of my favorites.

Michael Rapaport (character actor from awesome stuff like BOSTON PUBLIC) followed them around for a couple of years and brought a documentary about them to Sundance called BEATS, RHYMES AND LIFE that I saw the other night. It was a solid movie that stalled a little in the middle, but picked up at the end again. The most interesting parts were how they came together originally and how their first comeback tour (on Rock The Bells 2008) fell apart because of Fife's trouble with diabetes and his already strained relationship with Q-Tip.

It soared when Rapaport looked at the rise of the New York art hip-hop scene which was trying to be decidedly different from what N.W.A. was doing out in California. I didn't care much for the later albums by the group, which is where the movie gets a little slow and boring, but when Q-Tip and Fife get into an argument backstage at Rock the Bells in SF (which Rapaport was present for with cameras), it got really good again. I think my favorite part of the movie was when Rapaport asked the guys from De La Soul (also on that tour at the time) if that would be the last ATCQ show and he answered bluntly, "I hope so," and went off about how Tribe had always been about love and respect for each other, and if it wasn't true anymore then they shouldn't be up on stage pretending that it was.

The doc had to walk a fine line since Rapaport is also an enormous Tribe fan, and he didn't want it to come across as a home made fan film. It worked out really well and I was glad I caught it (I even got in a couple of questions during the panel after the movie).

2011 SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE

Seven or eight years ago, we started a tradition of the Sunday Night Movie, which is exactly what it sounds like. Each Sunday a bunch of us would get together and see a movie. We did this every week and we did it consistently for a really long time. Sometimes there wasn't anything really good out, but we didn't want to break tradition, so we saw whatever was out. Seriously. We sat through garbage like THE BIG BOUNCE, SECRET WINDOW and FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (which I'd probably still watch if it was playing on TNT some night) because that's what we did on Sunday night.

We fell off for a few years, but since the summer, the Sunday Night Movie has been back pretty strongly. Since January and February are usually pretty slow months at the theater (it's when studios dump all the movies that weren't quite summer blockbusters and nowhere near good enough for the fall awards release) I started looking through to see what was coming up. And that turned into a 'MOVIES I'M EXCITED FOR AND/OR CURIOUS ABOUT IN 2011' post. Because that's something I've always done in my head and I read the Entertainment Weekly Summer and Fall preview issues every year. So I figured why not make my own?

*EDITED TO ADD - I'm going to come back to this list in December and go through which ones I actually saw and which ones got such bad word of mouth that I stayed away altogether.

Also, these are all the bigger studio movies that had release dates in place long ago. There will definitely be smaller, indie movies that aren't on the list because they don't have a definite SLC release date yet. Don't judge me.

January

THE MECHANIC - Ben Foster, Jason Statham in a shitty action movie? Of course I'll see it.

February

CEDAR RAPIDS - Because I think Ed Helms is hilarious.
GNOMEO & JULIET - Doesn't look great, but probably has some funny moments. And I'm a sucker for animation.

March

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU - Matt Damon is great, Emily Blunt is pretty and Philip K. Dick was awesome.
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES - Could be awesome, could be a laughable train wreck. Either way, it's a way to spend my Sunday night.
PAUL - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost haven't disappointed me yet and I doubt they will.
SUCKER PUNCH - Just to see if Zack Snyder is who I thought he was. Plus over the top action, way too much slow motion and out of nowhere sex scenes? It can't be all bad.

April

SOURCE CODE - I loved MOON, I don't care for Jake Gyllenhaal. Toss up.

THE BEAVER - Say what you will about Mel Gibson, I'm looking forward to this.

YOUR HIGHNESS - It's either going to be hilarious or it's going to miss on every level, but the trailer gives me a little hope.

SCREAM 4 - Curious to see whether they can make something good or if they should have just left it alone.

May

THOR - I have faith in Kenneth Branagh.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES - It has to be better than the last two, right?

THE HANGOVER: PT. II - This movie will be so overhyped that there's no possible way for it to live up to the expectations. It'll still have one or two really funny parts.

June

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS - Matthew Vaughn hasn't made a bad movie yet.

SUPER 8 - Neither has JJ Abrams.

GREEN LANTERN - It looks FANTASTIC FOUR campy from the trailer, but there might be hope.

CARS 2 - Pixar doesn't make bad movies. They just don't.

July

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PT. 2 - Still haven't seen Part 1, but I'm glad this is going to be the end.

CAPTAIN AMERICA - I don't have faith in Joe Johnston, but I'm hoping he surprises me.

COWBOYS & ALIENS - Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford together will get me into the theater to see just about anything.

August

30 MINUTES OR LESS - Reuben Fleischer (ZOMBIELAND) alone will get me in to the theater just to see if he can give me another fun hour and a half.

September

DRIVE- Nicolas Winding Refn tells a story of a Hollywood stunt driver. I already bought a ticket for this.

MONEYBALL - I love baseball movies and this seems like it has potential.

October

CONTAGION - Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damn. Don't need to know anything else.

NOW - Andrew Niccol with another Sci-Fi movie. Worth checking out at least.

November

IMMORTALS - Used to be called DAWN OF WAR and WAR OF THE GODS before that. Tarsem Singh, who directed THE CELL is making it, so it will at least look awesome.

THE MUPPETS - Jason Segel was handed the reins of the Muppets franchise based off Dracula The Musical in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Absolutely nothing can go wrong. Right?

RISE OF THE APES - James Franco and John Lithgow battling super intelligent monkeys?  Sold.

December

HUGO CABARET - Martin Scorsese. Enough said.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL - Brad Bird (THE SIMPSON'S, THE INCREDIBLES, IRON GIANT) makes his first live-action feature. Cautiously optimistic.

SHERLOCK HOLMES 2 - Better get an amazing 'AND THE CASE OF' subtitle instead of a boring 2.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - David Fincher. Enough said. Plus Daniel Craig. And Rooney Mara looks great.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN - Because it's the only movie anyone will be talking about come December. "Spielberg and Jackson working together?!?!?! I HAVE TO SEE IT NOW!!!!!"

WE BOUGHT A ZOO - Cameron Crowe. Enough said.

WAR HORSE - Spielberg and war are usually pretty solid. But Spielberg and little kids irritate the shit out of me. Toss up.

What do you think? Which ones are you excited for?

LIVE ACTION 'UP'

I get a kick when people do things like this. This guy made a fake trailer for Pixar's UP as it would have looked as a live-action Disney movie from the 60's and it's pretty spot on. I tip my hat to him.

BLACKBEARD

I always forget that pirates were actually around a few hundred years ago (like cowboys of the water!) but that there wasn't any magic involved like in the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies. Which, by the way, I think the first one is a fantastic adventure movie and the second and third both kind of suck. Don't even care about the new one, though I'm sure I'll see it.

But anyway, back to what I was writing a few seconds ago. The Queen Anne's Revenge wrecked on the shores of North Carolina a long time ago and archaeologists have been excavating it since about 1997. A few weeks ago, they revealed what might have been Blackbeard's sword. And yes, for all the tales you hear, Blackbeard actually was a real pirate. And for being a feared pirate for only two years, he built himself up quite a reputation.

But the thing about this sword is that it might (and probably) didn't belong to Blackbeard at all. When Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground in 1718, it was abandoned partly above water for nearly a year before it fell apart and disintegrated. Scavengers came and went snatching up what they could and though not likely, it's possible that this sword was unreachable or hidden until it was uncovered not long ago.

On another note, how awesome would that have been to be walking along the beach and see a giant, abandoned ship just ripe for the picking? I probably would have been scared shitless to go searching through it because of the ghosts and all the unstable dynamite lying around, but still.

National Geographic has a little bit more on the discovery (and a few more pictures) at their website if you're interested.

TOP 5 ANYTHINGS - 2010 - PART 1

Off and running. These probably won't be interesting for anyone other than the people in these videos (and their wives, girlfriends and moms who most definitely read this site, right?) but here they are.

I might do one or two a week for the next little while, and I'm still trying to get some ladies to agree to it so it's not just a boys club thing. But anyway, here's the first one with DP, Josh (Spidey) and Brook counting down (sometimes up, sometimes both) their Top 5 Anything of 2010.

HEARTLESS BASTARDS

Playing SLC on March 1. Pretty excited about it.


Heartless Bastards- Out at Sea from James Sullivan on Vimeo.


P.S. I cheated on the tag. I didn't post a video yesterday (or last Monday or the Monday before that) so I'm playing catch up.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF INDIE FILM?

I wrote this for the SLCFF blog a little while ago and figured I'd repost it here, in case anyone that reads this site didn't know I also do a lot of stuff over there.

SLCFF.com -- Everyone has to have heard about Kevin Smith Vs. The World by now, right?

If not, I’ll fill you in quickly: Kevin Smith (CLERKS, CHASING AMY) was at Sundance with his new horror movie RED STATE. When the film was first accepted, he said on Twitter that he planned to pick a distributor right there in the room after the screening. Everyone (including me) thought that meant he’d auction it off to the highest bidder without taking all those film festival meetings you hear about (or see on ENTOURAGE). When the “auction” started, Smith bid $20 for the distribution rights and won immediately. He then announced that self-distribution had been the plan all along. He’s taking RED STATE on a city by city tour in March, followed in October by distribution through is own SModcast Pictures (You can read his version at his blog).

This has probably (and unfortunately) been the biggest story coming out of the Sundance Film Festival so far and the reactions are all over the place. There are a lot of people on his side (fans mostly, but some in the film industry also) and a lot of people that hate him more now than they did before Sunday night (film critics and bloggers mostly).

I’ve spent the last few hours reading up on it and there are people like music video director Ryan Mackfall who support and love his decision and then there are people like Devin Faraci, Editor of Badass Digest (the film and culture blog started by the guys that run Alamo Drafthouse) who absolutely hate the idea and feel Smith is actually making things harder for independent filmmakers.

Having spent a great deal of time touring the country playing music (as have quite a few of the people involved in the SLCFF, which is kind of where we honed our DIY, grassroots style) I’ve always wondered why more people didn’t take their indie film on the road. It could be a pricey venture for some, but it’s what they did in the old days (it was called ‘four-walling’) and it just might work again.

Some people might feel that an On Demand type release is the future of indie movies, but that’s kind of sad to think about. I’ll always love going to a theater, ordering popcorn and sitting in a seat to see the film with an audience (even if there is that one lady that laughs really loudly at everything even remotely funny).

That’s one of the reasons we started the Salt Lake City Film Festival in the first place. We love films and we love giving people an opportunity to show them to audiences. It makes us happy when we see a director or writer beaming after their film has just wowed everyone in the theater, and we’ll keep doing it as long as there are filmmakers out there willing to put their heart on their sleeve and share their stories with the world.

But what about you? What do you think of Smith’s plan? Is it a bold new move, Indie Film 2.0, as he calls it or is it a slap in the face across the industry?

'IT'S BALTIMORE GENTLEMEN, THE GODS WILL NOT SAVE YOU'

The Baltimore Sun has been posting articles on the back and forth between Baltimore police commissioner Frederick Bealefeld and THE WIRE creator David Simon.

Bealefeld said at a January 8, 2011 event that the show was the "most unfair use of literary license that we've borne witness to" and that it's a "smear that will take decades to overcome." You can read most of what he said (with a video, even) over at the Baltimore Sun Blog.

Simon took issue with that and responded very quickly. You can read that one here.

I'm not from Baltimore and have only ever been there one time. That one time I parked my rental car and as I got out, a guy standing on a corner said to me, "You shouldn't park here. Go down a few more blocks in case you're still out when it gets a little darker."

I don't know if he was serious or not, but I moved my car. I looked at him in my mirror as I drove away and he didn't start laughing like he pulled a fast one on me. He simply stood where he was and finished his cigarette. That made me believe that Baltimore wasn't the nicest place and when I saw The Wire, I kept thinking back to that moment and how similar that area looked to the dangerous parts portrayed on the show.

Everyone I've ever met from that city said the show was depressingly realistic and there weren't a lot of shows that can say that—especially cop shows. I'm not in any position to say how real it is or isn't, but from everything I've seen, heard and read about that show and the fact that David Simon is a former Baltimore crime reporter and his co-producer Edward Burns is a former Baltimore detective, I'd say it's a pretty good chance.

But again, I don't know. I live in Salt Lake City. Our two biggest problems are deciding where to build a shiny new police headquarters and overeager Highway Patrolmen with tasers and an itchy trigger finger. Neither of those are anything close to the problems of Baltimore and never will be. That's something I'm grateful for and another reason I like living here.

But it does seem to me that where there's smoke there is fire and police commissioner Bealefeld is just trying to focus attention on something else while he figures out a way to curb what has (seemingly) been a problem in his city for nearly two decades.

Of course, I have a biased opinion in this. Not only is THE WIRE one of my favorite shows of all time, but I will trust a journalist over a cop any day of the week. And unfortunately for everyone, that's probably not a good thing.

--

Here's an Esquire article Simon wrote a few years back that's one of my favorite things he's done. Check it out if you've got a minute.

And if you ever plan on watching THE WIRE, don't watch this video. It spoils too much. But if you've seen it, these are some of the best quotes from all 60 episodes.

THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA

Did NO ONE learn anything from PIRANHA 3D? No good can come from this. Things like this that remind me of something Patton Oswalt said once, and I'm paraphrasing here: "Sometimes science is fucking wrong and gives us shit we don't need... they might as well go, 'Hey, we made cancer airborne and contagious! You're welcome! We're science: we're all about coulda, not shoulda.'"

Wired Science -- Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit.

The lake, which lies 2.5 miles below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it’s been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It’s also oligotropic, meaning that it’s supersaturated with oxygen: Levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes.

Since 1990, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg in Russia has been drilling through the ice to reach the lake, but fears of contamination of the ecosystem in the lake have stopped the process multiple times, most notably in 1998 when the drills were turned off for almost eight years.

Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent’s environment, that it’s come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. Valery Lukin told New Scientist: “Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again.” The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.

The drill bit currently sits less than 328 feet above the lake. Once it reaches 65 to 98 feet, the mechanical drill bit will be replaced with a thermal lance that’s equipped with a camera.

Time is short, however. It’s possible that the drillers won’t be able to reach the water before the end of the current Antarctic summer, and they’ll need to wait another year before the process can continue.

When the sample can be recovered, however, it’s hoped that it’ll shed light on extremophiles — lifeforms that survive in extreme environments. Life in Lake Vostok would need adaptions to the oxygen-rich environment, which could include high concentrations of protective enzymes. The conditions in Lake Vostok are very similar to the conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, so the new data could also strengthen the case for extraterrestrial life.

Finally, anything living in the lake will have evolved in relative isolation for about 14 million years, so it could offer a snapshot of conditions on Earth long before humans evolved.

127 HOURS - A LUKE PERRY FILM

Oscar nominations were announced this morning. I don't follow the Oscar race too closely, but I was pretty satisfied with what got nominated—with the exception of Helena Bonham Carter in THE KING'S SPEECH, because that's just dumb.

But since 127 HOURS was nominated for a bunch of awards, I wanted to pull the curtain back on what that movie could have been if Danny Boyle didn't have the clout to get anything he wanted after winning for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

The A.V. Club -- Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours may have been one of the most critically lauded films of the year, and yes, much of that had to do with the performance of James Franco as trapped hiker Aron Ralston. (It was all part of a new media experiment Franco’s working on called “Disbelief In Phases,” a project that has some mysterious parallel to Franco’s staged puppet-show versions of Goethe for the homeless, and which will only be revealed by time capsule some 100 years hence.) But just so you know, former 90210 star Luke Perry thought of doing Ralston’s story first, trying unsuccessfully to secure the rights as a vehicle for his former little rapping DJ buddy Brian Austin Green: “Brian's a great actor," Perry told Access Hollywood while promoting his Jason Priestly-starring Hallmark Movie Channel feature Goodnight For Justice. "I thought he'd be great in that part, but Danny Boyle, he got it.” Yeah, thanks a lot, Danny Boyle.

DETROIT

On the flight back from Florida (that I mentioned earlier) I have a layover in Detroit (a little weird and out of the way, I thought). I've never been there but I've always wanted to, mainly because of ROBOCOP, but also because I've become kind of fascinated by the city over the past few years. The economic downturn seems to have hit Detroit the hardest and it's really kind of heartbreaking to see what was once such a prominent U.S. city fall on such hard times.

This Sports Illustrated article on the Detroit Tigers and its fans at the end of last years season kind of kicked things off for me and it carried on from there.

One thing that has been grabbing my attention the most (as well as numerous others, judging by how many there are) has been photo sets of the city popping up all over the Internet. One of the saddest and best in these series is one called '100 Abandoned Houses' by Kevin Bauman that's gone way over 100.

A lot more have been popping up lately, too. But my favorite of the ones I've seen has to be by Jim Griffioen on his blog Sweet Juniper. His son wanted to be a robot for Halloween, so he made a Robocop costume out of things he found in his basement. Then he took his son around the city and took his camera along to document it. The pictures turned out fantastic and it made me want to explore Detroit even more.

My layover is only an hour and I'll probably be itching to get home by then anyway, but right now, I wish it were a couple of hours and I could take a look around that city myself.

MISERABLE.

The older I get, the more I hate winter. Today is my Saturday, so when I woke up to more snow I was pissed. The last few days have been almost spring-like (in Salt Lake, anyway) and I did everything I could to keep my hopes down. I knew it was only a matter of time before winter came back again and crushed my dreams of not dreading leaving my house, sitting outside at night and riding my bike around town.

To make matters worse, I just bought my plane ticket to a wedding in Florida in a couple of months. Granted, by the time the wedding rolls around, the snow will be long gone and Spring will be taking shape, but still. I've been looking at the pictures of the resort for the past hour and getting really excited. Then I remember that it's three months away and I have a lot more of this ahead of me:

Either I turn into my Grandpa (who bails for Arizona every September and stays away until May) or I suck it up and get really good at snowboarding so I can use bullshit phrases like "shredding the fresh pow" and sound like an idiot, or I can get the fuck out.

But you know what? I'm doing neither. I'll keep living here and bitching about it on the Internet. Because that's what it's for.

And I'll just keep looking at these pictures to tide me over until April. So thanks Dan and Kristin, but I do secretly wish your wedding was sooner.

THE DETAILS

My first (and probably only) Sundance screening of 2011 was a dark comedy/drama called THE DETAILS. Tobey Maguire was the star and if I'm being honest, it's going to take a few more movies before I stop expecting him to rip off his shirt and reveal a SPIDER-MAN costume underneath. He'll get there eventually, but not quite yet.

I've got mixed feelings on this one. It had a few great moments, but it also had a lot of moments that the writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes just seemed to throw in. He described it afterwards as an 'impulsive writing exercise' and it definitely showed. The tone shifted back and forth almost on a whim and the movie never quite found a rhythm.

In lesser hands, a script that lacks balance could have been a complete disaster, but luckily for THE DETAILS, the cast stepped up and kept it from ever going off the rails. Ray Liotta (always Henry Hill, Dennis Haysbert (forever Pedro Cerrano, eat your heart out President Palmer), Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney and Kerry Washington took what could have easily been mistaken for a script in someone's college screenwriting class and took it to another level.

Again, not without its flaws, but a solidly entertaining movie that fit the bill of a typical 'Sundance movie.'

The Q&A afterwards was lackluster though, with Estes seeming bored and disinterested, which is surprising considering that was the first showing of the film. It just felt like there was a million places he'd rather be than up there talking about his movie.

I've never made a film, but I think I'd be excited and show a little more enthusiasm after it played well (but didn't go over like gangbusters) at a festival like Sundance. That's just me though. I was kind of disappointed with his answers and demeanor as a whole.

My guess is that there are too many stars in THE DETAILS for it not to get picked up for limited distribution, but it didn't knock my socks off, which sadly, has become the norm for Sundance premieres.

CARMELITA