It only took one viewing of “Raising Arizona” for me to become a Coen Brothers fan for life. Think about it, how many times have they done you wrong? Not often buddy. “The Ladykillers”? A bit underrated if you ask me. “The Man Who Wasn’t There”? Methodical, not boring. “Intolerable Cruelty”? Well…that one’s pretty awful but one bad apple out of seventeen is pretty damn amazing.
Since everyone loves the Coens, Total Film created their 25 Best Coen Brothers Moments list. Of the 25, five heavily feature Coen favorite John Turturro. Their first choice is from “Barton Fink”, which is fantastic…but I have to go with either the diaper heist from “Raising Arizona” or Brad Pitt’s hilarious phone convo with John Malkovich from “Burn After Reading” as my numero uno.
ABC aired the first official “Lost” promo during “FlashForward” last night. I didn’t see it as I was watching the Yankees beat my Phillies, thus sending me spiraling into a depressive funk.
The promo doesn’t have one second of new footage in it, which doesn’t help me out of my almost comatose behavior this morning. We should all get used to it because the word out of “Lost” world is there will be zero, none, nada information in any promotions. They just don’t want to spoil anything in a commercial…and I am 100% a-okay with that.
In an effort to become the first classic indie rocker, Peter Gabriel will record and release an album full of covers in 2010. It’s called “Scratch My Back” and it will allegedly feature songs by noted indie rockers Bon Iver, Magnetic Fields, Radiohead, and the Arcade Fire.
I’m mildly interested in hearing Gabriel’s version of Bon Iver’s “Flume” and Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage”. I’m much more interested in watching Gabriel freak out a bunch of monkeys and wear strange facepaint.
It’s hard to believe it but Fox has managed to put together eight years of “24″. Since I’m a Day One Fan of the show, I’ve seen the highs (seasons two and four) and lows (season six, ugh…). This year doesn’t look much different from the others. Jack yells, runs, shoots, and, of course, tortures a guy. It’s so barbarically genius that I can’t even stand it. Is there a more masculine show on television?
The bad news is that it looks like Elisha Cuthbert is coming back for good as Jack’s perma-kidnapped daughter Kim. Of course, she’ll be joined by Mary Lynn Rajskub’s Chloe, who unfortunately may be known in my household as Gail The Snail from now on.
Matt Damon apparently is in every movie this winter. Instead of fighting racism with rugby (cheap reduction), Damon is hooked back up with his Jason Bourne director Paul Greengrass in the very actiony looking “Green Zone”. The Green Zone is the area in Baghdad that is known as The International Zone and this film is based on events that happened while the CIA searched for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and is based on the book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City”.
It sure seems like Matt Damon is poised to have a huge winter huh?
There are certain undeniable truths in life. I’m beginning to believe that one of those is an amazing Clint Eastwood-directed movie every December. The first trailer for “Invictus” doesn’t change my mind. If you want to talk Oscar worthy, then look no further than this one.
If you’re like me (to which I would like to say, I’m sorry), then you are having a busy morning and you may want to hear something peppy that will keep you awake for an hour or so. My suggestion today would be “You Forgot It In People” by Broken Social Scene.
Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie pop band with about 3.2 million members. The most well-known of them would be Leslie Feist, who has a hit solo record and was in all those Apple commercials with the song “1234″. She does some singing on “You Forgot It In People”, along with dozens of others.
Cinematically Correct note: Yes, I used the word “peppy” earlier.
If you had any doubts about the casting of Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, or Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in “The A-Team” movie…well, chuck ‘em. This may be a bit too fanboyishy but this first shot makes my Murdock lovin’ pants go crazy.
Finally…a movie remake that I actually want to see. Here’s hoping that director Joe Carnahan doesn’t drop the ball on this one.
Since I spent a few hours on Saturday night getting rocked by the Drive By Truckers, I decided to start off a bit slow today and take it easy. What better way to do so than listen to an hour long concept album about the state of Michigan?
Sufjan Stevens’ “Michigan” is the first of his alleged fifty states project. You guessed it, Sufjan wants to make an album about each state. He better get cracking since he has two on wax (industry talk) and hasn’t released one since “Illinois” in 2005. At this rate, it will take him about one hundred years to get finished and unless he is extremely fit, it ain’t gonna happen.
“Michigan” isn’t quite as good as “Illinois”. Each of them follows a pattern of six to eight minute songs with one to two minute instrumentals in between, which can be kind of exhausting if you aren’t into listening to albums in entirety. Being an obscenely snobby music fan, I feel that music should only be listened to in album form so Sufjan is right in my wheelhouse.
Oh, if you are put off Christian-themed music, don’t bother with Sufjan. He’s not making cheesy Christian rock or anything like that…but he’s definitely a spiritual artist. He’s recorded one full-out religious album (“Seven Swans”) and he’s a big fan of Christmas albums. And the banjo.
The latest trailer for James Cameron’s “Avatar” was posted on SpoilerTV today, but alas, it has since been pulled. If you hurry, it may still be embedded on AintItCool. The problem is that it’s all dark and ugly looking because it’s not an officially released trailer. That won’t happen online until October 29th.
The good news for Cameron is that this trailer is heads and tails better than the first one, which simply looked like a fancy cartoon. This trailer focuses much more on actual human beings, which is good since most movies work better when there are, you know, people in them…right Mr. Lucas? Ahem.
In addition to seeing the film’s other stars like Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver, it shows some of the action and it looks fairly intense. I normally don’t geek out over that stuff (especially when it involves blue elves) but this looks damn slick.
If you’re like me (to which I would like to say, I’m sorry), then you are having a busy morning and you may want to hear something peppy that will keep you awake for an hour or so. My suggestion today would be “You Forgot It In People” by Broken Social Scene. 
"Deep Thoughts", By You