'Citizen Kane'

Roger Ebert's review of "Citizen Kane" is fascinating. How much fun would it be to analyze that, shot-by-shot, with him? He says he's done it 30 times with different groups.

Save us, Predator!

Can the slime-dripping, dreadlock-wearing Predator save this summer movie season?

All thumbs down

There are some great negative reviews of the new "Transformers" movie out there, but as always, Roger Ebert delivers.

""Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

The plot is incomprehensible. The dialog of the Autobots®, Decepticons® and Otherbots® is meaningless word flap. Their accents are Brooklyese, British and hip-hop, as befits a race from the distant stars. Their appearance looks like junkyard throw-up. They are dumb as a rock. They share the film with human characters who are much more interesting, and that is very faint praise indeed."

And his ending is magnificent: " The first American review, Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical, reported that Bay's "ambition runs a mile long and an inch deep," but, in a spirited defense, says "this must be the most movie I have ever experienced." He is bullish on the box office: it "feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time." It’s certainly the biggest something of all time."

Good as gold

I've complained before about how much I hate awards shows, but that's beyond the point.

I still used Defective Yeti's cool make-your-own-Oscar-pool thingie, and you're welcome to participate if you like.

I left out the categories like cinematography and sound mixing because I know so little about them that it's kind of like voting for random judges (TM Dan!).

Make your picks here, and good luck!

Climbing The Stair Case

You know how you find something that you loved and had kind of forgotten about for years, and then you remember how great it was?

I just rediscovered the amazing documentary "The Stair Case," about the Michael Peterson murder case in North Carolina. Man, is it riveting. I can watch it over and over.

Peterson was an author of Vietnam novels with some shady things in his own past...he'd lied about war medals and injuries, apparently, and he and his second wife seemed to be monetarily overextended, and he was e-mailing male escorts for sex. Then his wife was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their Durham mansion with blood everywhere.

Her death seemed somewhat similar to another death 18 years ago of a friend of Michael Peterson's...another woman who died at the foot of a staircase, this time in Germany. After her death, he had taken in her two baby daughters. At the time of the second murder, they were young adults who completely defended their father, believing he had nothing to do with either the death of their birth mother while they slept upstairs in Germany, or the death of his second wife, the woman they had called "Mom" for years.

The coverage of the case, by a French documentary team, is firmly on the Peterson side, but that doesn't make the documentary any less riveting. And each different bit of evidence makes you swing your opinion as to what really happened.

I find myself wanting Michael Peterson not to be guilty, if not for him for the two daughters who had already lost one mother before this one. But there is just so much blood. If I had been on the jury, I do not think I could have gotten past that. Maybe I would have needed David Rudolf, his defense attorney, to bring in expert after expert to show me pictures of accidental falls with that much blood and that many vicious head wounds, because in 2007, my father fell down a staircase carrying a bookcase and suffered brain damage, and I do not think there was blood like this.

If you don't want to buy or rent "The Stair Case" on DVD, they are currently showing it on Sundance Channel, though I believe they are more than halfway through the series.

Johnny Utah lives!

I have a soft spot in my heart for the movie "Point Break." (KEANU: "I am totally an Eff Bee Eye agent, dude!")

So I was highly enertained to read on Deadspin that there is a humorous (could there be any other kind?) stage musical version. Complete with skydiving!

And the best part: "Best of all, you could be the next Johnny Utah... the starring role of Keanu will be selected at random from the audience each night, and will read their entire script off of cue-cards. This method manages to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance, even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting."

How perfect. You'll at least have as much skill in the role as Keanu.

No 'Vacancy'

I went to the "Reno 911" movie with Rob and Dan today. They're both huge fans of the show, but I'd never seen an entire episode. I was prepared for uber-stupid, but instead, it was pretty innocuous slapstick. They informed me that they were both horribly disappointed and the TV show is a hundred times better.

Anyway, one of the previews shown before the film was for a spooky-looking horror movie called "Vacancy." Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale get stuck in a run-down motel and discover a videotape in their room showing a snuff film made in that very room. They realize the cameras are still there and that they are the next planned victims.

The preview made the film look deliciously creepy, but it was one of those movies where you get the feeling you saw all the best parts in the preview, and the rest of the film is just an excuse for stupid violence.