Out of Focus

I’m fluctuating right now as to whether or not I should go, as planned, to the Ted Leo show at the South Street Seaport this evening and brave the humidity and expected scattered thunderstorms. I’ve been looking forward to this show for a couple weeks, but I just don’t think I can handle being wet and uncomfortable for four or five hours today. DEVELOPING … (like you care …)

If it does rain, that double-feature Friday bill of White Chicks and The Chronicles of Riddick is looking strangely appealing, especially since I think I can see both without contributing to either box-office gross!

Meanwhile, my prognostication is that White Chicks will top the box-office this weekend and both Dodgeball and The Terminal will suffer somewhere around 50% drops in weekend gross. Dodgeball has been experiencing pretty good word of mouth, so it may sustain a bit better, but with a similar audience checking-out White Chicks this weekend, expecting more than $15-M would be difficult. And what about Fahrenheit 9/11, you ask? It will probably shatter most individual theater records (as it did at both NYC venues on Wednesday), and it should be a landslide winner of per screen average. But with only 865 screens, it might have a hard time breaking the Top 5. The “experts” are predicting about a $10-15 Million opening weekend.

I’ve stayed away from discussing this week’s Senate passage of ridiculous fine hikes for broadcasters who air what five political appointees (a/k/a the FCC) determine to be “indecent” or “racy” content. The whole subject is just too aggravating. This new bill indirectly amounts to government censorship, and the only senator who shouldn’t be completely ashamed of himself is Louisiana Democrat John Breaux who had the balls to vote against the bill. You see, the fine hikes were attached to a Defense Dept. authorization bill which basically had to be passed. Of course, the relatively conservative Breaux is also the guy who sponsored legislation to get the indecency rules expanded to cover broadcast and satellite, i.e., privately owned entity that should under no circumstances have to face the same restrictions deemed necessary for the “public airwaves.”

There’s better news from Washington today, though, as .a federal court put a stay on the new rules created by the FCC to relax restrictions on media ownership consolidation. Apparently, the three-judge panel didn’t think that Michael Powell and the FCC provided enough explanation as to why this rule change was not only necessary but also beneficial to the media world. With companies like Clear Channel gobbling-up entire media sectors whenever possible and the co-president of Viacom (then-CBS head) censoring Super Bowl ads, it really is helpful to put some kind of restrictions on what Powell and the Bush Administrations cronies are allowed to buy and control. I’m fascinated to eventually read the FCC’s spin as to how allowing any company to own 4 out-of-ten major media outlets in any market is good for diversity of opinion and independent voices. (Sorry … rant over.)

With 2004’s midpoint arriving next week, Variety has an interesting story today examining the potential Oscar race … so far (via Yahoo!). Much of the piece deals with the potential of this year’s two hugely controversial films, The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11, receiving Best Picture nominations. I have yet to see Fahrenheit 9/11, but there is no way Passion deserves a best pic nod. Staying away from anything political or religious or controversial and just looking at its qualities as a movie, the film just is not that good. The technical aspects are superb (especially Caleb Deschanel‘s camerawork), but the movie is boring, heavy-handed, pretentious and overdone in every way. Personally, my pick for best of the year remains Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

And finally, as we head off into this sticky Friday afternoon (and no, still no decisions on my part), there are plenty of interesting bits of tid regarding casting and production. For example:

• “Fox 2000 is remaking the Irwin Allen-created Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” Because we definitely need more big-budget, special-effects laden remakes. Bright point: the script is being written by Justin Haythe who also wrote this summer’s The Clearing, starring Robert Redford, Helen Mirren and Willem Dafoe. Maybe it won’t be any good, but for a movie to attract that kind of cast, there had to be something interesting in the script. And as Spider-Man 2 seems to be proving according to early reviews, having a real writer script an action movie isn’t necessarily such a bad idea.
• Vince Vaughn plans to produce and co-star as Racer X in the long-in-the-works live-action Speed Racer film. EXCELLENT! On so many levels.
• Jason Schwartzman will join Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman in the big screen adaptation of Bewitched. I’m not one to think that there really needs to be a screen adaptation of the great but corny ’60s sitcom, but at least they’re casting the shit out of it. Kidman is a fine choice for Samantha, and Ferrell is an inspired selection as Darrin Stephens. I can’t think of anybody who could be better than Shirley MacLaine as Endora, and both Michael Caine and Kristen Chenoweth are set as well. Schwartzman plays Darrin’s agent. Agent you ask? Well apparently, the Ephron sisters have changed things up a bit. According to an IMDb plot summary, Ferrell plays an actor looking for a career-comeback by playing Darrin in a Bewitched adaptation. His costar is Kidman, who’s non Samantha character actually happens to be a witch. And hilarity ensues. I think Nora Ephron is a much better writer than director, and sadly, she is helming this pic. I guess we’ll see next summer how over-the-top it is.
• Continuing their trend of coming up with brilliantly creative names such as Coco for their newborn daughter, Courteney Cox and David Arquette have announced the name of their new production company: Coquette! I look forward to the remainder of their clever, imaginative and ground-breaking productions.

And SCENE! Have a great weekend everyone.

So I don’t spend a lot any time blogging here about sports, but the fact is that I’m a pretty big fan, particularly of football and baseball, and especially of my San Francisco 49ers and San Francisco Giants. During football season, you can usually catch me going to a sports bar to watch every Niners game, no matter how crappy they’re getting, and during Spring and Summer (and hopefully early Fall!), I’m often watching Giants games on my TV or computer. (Thank you modern technology!) I think I’ve become even more of a fan since moving to New York because following the teams makes me feel closer to San Francisco, the city where I was born and lived until I left for college over (sigh) a decade-and-a-half ago.

So why do I bring this up tonight? Well, next to the Giants winning the World Series (so close … so damn close … one day please!), and the Niners winning the Super Bowl (old hat, but it’s been so long now and I fear the current drought will continue for some time), and the Warriors winning the NBA Championship (hahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahaha), the thing I love the most in all of sports is watching the Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers – they’re just evil, you know? (Yeah yeah, LA lovers. We all know you’re sick, so your comments are worthless here.) The Dodgers losing is often good enough, but watching the Giants beat them is better. Watching the Giants sweep them in a four game series in San Francisco for the first time since 1975 while taking a 2.5 game lead in the division and cementing that sweep with a dominating 9-3 trouncing while not having the best (and only dependable) starter appear in the series is better than I could have ever imagined.

Here in New York, nobody can see beyond Yankees-Red Sox or maybe Yankees-Mets. But out West, Giants-Dodgers carries some weight, far more than the local Giants-A’s rivalry does. (Although I should note that even rabid Giants fans don’t chant “Beat LA” when the team is playing someone else like I witnessed the Fenway fans doing for no apparent reason while I was at a game there … against the Tigers.) I don’t think this Giants team is going very far this year, at least not without the team making some major moves, but I’ll be following until the bitter end, and no matter what happens, this little four-game series will remain a bright spot for the entire season.

GO GIANTS!

We hare most definitely falling down the rabbit hole. Item 1 is terrifying; the rest belongs in the “Completely Unnecessary” files:

• I would say “They’ve got to be kidding,” but sadly I know they’re not. “A conservative group asked federal election officials on Thursday to investigate whether television ads for director Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11″ violate campaign finance law regulating when commercials may feature a presidential candidate.” As the right-wing seems to prefer these days, if you disagree with someone, the best course of action is to try to silence them or get them fined.
• For instance, Miramax Books has bought up the U.S. publishing rights to the first two books in a new adventure series about the teenage James Bond. You know, the regular aged James Bond books kind of lost something when Ian Fleming died, such as their true voice. The films definitely lost something when the original Fleming source material began to dwindle. We really don’t need the entire mythology of James Bond to be ruined by teenage escapades. And while film rights were not included in the deal, you know the Weinsteins have at least a “Young James Bond Chronicles” in the back of their head. The premise for the series involves the adventures of “the 13-year-old James Bond as he starts his school days at Eton College.” Of course, maybe the first version will be so original that my fears are for naught. “First book, which will be published in spring 2005, finds the young Bond at a Scottish Castle where he discovers that the owner is conducting ominous experiments in a secret lab.” Ouch! My head.
• As Jason Productshop mentioned yesterday, Chuck Palahnuik is apparently telling people that his 1996 novel “Fight Club” isn’t happy simply existing as a somewhat admired David Fincher film starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. He claims there are now plans to adapt it for the stage. As a musical. With Fincher’s help. I just wonder how they’ll insert the single frame porn shot of a giant penis.

• Oh, you want more film to stage musical adaptation news? Apparently, composer Alan Menkin (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) is finally getting his big Broadway break. He’s going to be writing a stage musical version of Leap of Faith! Leap of Faith. You know. Leap of Faith? Steve Martin? Liam Neeson? Debra Winger? Lolita Davidovich?
  No, Davidovich. Lolita … never mind. Martin plays a traveling evangelist? Remember now? Except, he’s really a con man. No, really. But when stranded in a small town, his cold conniving heart is warmed and cockles melted? Don’t remember? Hmmm … but it was so good. Or … no … actually, it was incredibly mediocre. Well, anyway … it’s going to be a musical.

• On the other hand and possibly even not unnecessary, the long in the works musical adaptation of Billy Elliott, featuring songs by Elton John, will open in London in April of next year. The film was one of my favorites from 2000, and if one has a choose a movie to adapt into a stage musical, it seems like a fairly natural choice since it already involves music and dancing. Interestingly enough, director Stephen Daldry and writer Lee Hall are revising their respective roles for this undertaking. Here’s hoping for a successful translation.

Ads before the previews at the movies have become ridiculous. With 10-15 minutes of coming attractions already playing before the film you actually paid to see, 5-10 minutes of TV-style commercials seem to do nothing but annoy audiences anymore. I know that I have decided to try to specifically not purchase anything sold to me incessantly. (So, Est&#233e Lauder, screw you!) And the problem is, if you go to any movie theater regularly, you will see the same ads over-and-over-and-over again. You must now decide to balance getting there early enough to get the desired seat against walking in right around the scheduled start time (since most theaters seem to try to start the ads a few minutes before) just to miss that funny-once-not-twice AMEX Blue “The world is filled with beautiful things” spot or the never-funny-and-always-irritating Fanta commercial. (Yeah, I’m focusing on you Loews, but don’t feel to comfortable Regal or AMC. You’re just as bad.)

While I would tend to agree with the Movie Marketing Blog that these people have come a bit too late, apparently an organization (or at least a web site) calling itself The Captive Motion Picture Audience of America (or CMPAA because even if initials don’t provide for proper acronyms, they still, you know … lend legitimacy, even when mimicking illegitimate organizations) has decided to fight the power and attempt to convince the major theater owners to stop showing these commercials before the other commercials, i.e., previews. (Thanks Cinema Minima!)

Of course, this will never happen. Theater owners don’t make their money from box office sales; they make it from concessions and now the very lucrative revenue stream of TV-style commercials ranging from makeup to soft-drinks to specials on cable channels that may have already aired but obviously had to be booked for the whole month. Generally, a distributor will retain 75-80% of a film’s box office take (sometimes more) for the opening week(s), and the theater itself keeps the rest. The longer a film plays, the greater the percentage of ticket sales go to the theaters, but especially in today’s marketplace, the chance of a theater getting to even a 50-50 split on the take of a particular film are slim because the scale doesn’t reach that point for weeks or months, and by the time it does, the grosses aren’t that high anyway. With a film like Spider-Man 2, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony Pictures struck a deal to keep 90% of all ticket sales, meaning even with the exorbitant $10+ ticket prices in Manhattan, your local Loews is actually only keeping $1 and change. That’s why your concessions snack is $25!

So more power to you CMPAA, but don’t expend too much energy because unless you decide to boycott movies altogether and convince the rest of this blockbuster-loving public to do so, nothing’s going to change. But while you’re at it, do you think you could turn your attention to the studios and convince them that overexposure of film trailers is counterproductive. There comes a point when I can’t wait for a film to open, not because I’m excited to see it, but because I can’t take seeing the damn trailer anymore regardless of how excited I may be for the actual movie. Spider-Man 2 is the exception: the preview running now is exceptional, and regardless of how the movie is, I never tire of it. But The Stepford Wives preview killed me. And I can’t go to a movie now without seeing a bunch of CGI chase Will Smith in I, Robot, a trailer which has already been running for what seems like months, and the movie is still three weeks away. Paramount has already started to bombard us with previews for Jonathan Demme‘s new treatment of The Manchurian Candidate . Great director, great cast, and it looks like an interesting post-Cold War re-imagination of the story with major differences from John Frankenheimer‘s brilliant 1962 original. But it doesn’t open for over a month (July 30), and I’ve already been seeing teasers and now a full trailer for a while. So leave us alone … just a little bit. I know Paramount needs a hit and all, but do they have to place the preview before everything? Yeah, I understand the concept of advertising, but tease us, don’t torture us. That’s what the Fanta girls are for.

Not that Maxim or Stuff actually encourage reading, but they are printed matter and do include words. Now I’m not knocking Dennis Publishing; they also publish the great music mag Blender as well as my favorite weekly news and media digest, The Week. But I get the feeling that their new film shingle, as reported by both Variety (via Yahoo!) and the far more reputable Defamer,will be influenced more by the lad-mag duo.

Nothing wrong with that. And if they move quickly, maybe they can try to get in on Howard Stern’s planned remakes of Porky’s and Rock ‘N Roll High School. But what I find curious is the name of the new film division: Moving Pictures, DPI. I mean, maybe they consider Demi Moore too old to ever be on the covers of either Maxim or Stuff, but why piss her off by stealing the name of her production company? And that’s the company at least slightly responsible for all three Austin Powers movies, although her former producing partners, the Todd sisters, are probably more responsible for that. Yeah, so Moving Pictures (the Demi Moore version) has taken a back seat to being a mom and loving Ashton, but couldn’t Dennis Publishing think up something more original? And tagging the company initials to the end doesn’t count. Hey Variety! Where’s the investigative journalism with this scandal here, huh?

It may be Fahrenheit 9/11 day here in New York, but the most interesting news on the front page of Variety (sub req’d) has to be that HBO Films plans to produce “an original period tuner starring OutKast’s Andre 3000 and Big Boi.” For the Variety-lingo-challenged out there, that basically means a full-on singin’-n-dancin’ musical, and apparently it will be set in the South in the 1930s (that’s the “period” part) during Prohibition, although the music — which Outkast will write — will be of a contemporary bent. According to the article, “Andre 3000 is the house piano player (at a Speakeasy), while Big Boi will play the lead performer and manager, who’s trying to stave off gangsters who want to get their hooks into the place.” Hopefully the story will develop into something more original and interesting, but it sounds like a creative production that could help advance the film musical genre, as long as it doesn’t turn out like this. Thankfully, I have faith that HBO Films wouldn’t let that happen. And even more important to those of you sans cable, the film will be released theatrically before appearing and the pay cable net.

On a slightly related note, this Saturday night on HBO is the premiere of Jim McKay’s latest film Everyday People which premiered earlier this year at the New Directors/New Films festival cosponsored by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. I saw the film at ND/NF, and while it’s worth watching, it left me kind of saying “meh.” I didn’t find it as compelling as McKay’s earlier film Our Song. But I don’t need to repeat myself.

It looks like the kids won’t get to see Fahrenheit 9/11 without some adult supervision. Backers of documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 failed to overturn its R rating on Tuesday, restricting young American moviegoers from seeing its critical look at President Bush and horrific images of the war in Iraq. I don’t need to rant on this again, so I’m just going to make a suggestion: why doesn’t everyone of majority age go find a little tyke in the 13-16 range and buy him/her a ticket. That should take care of this little problem just fine. You won’t even need to escort the wee pup into the theater. It’s the purchase point where there’s a problem. After that, “my mommy’s inside already,” or, “Daddy is parking the car and asked me to get seats. Daddy gets very angry if he doesn’t get his seat, and you don’t want to see Daddy angry!” should work just fine.

And while I’m on the subject of today’s hot pic, I know I’ve been ranting about A.O. Scott a bit recently (and will continue to do so until he writes something valid or interesting), but I want my faithful reader to know that I do not have a fixation on Scott alone. For instance, don’t get me started on EW‘s Owen Gleiberman or the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Mick LaSalle.

However, I also don’t hate everyone. Really, I don’t. And I will absolutely give credit where it’s due. In fact, I love Charlie Suisman’s Manhattan User’s Guide and the MUG article on critics a while back was great, but like Karen Cinecultist expressed yesterday, I was taken aback by MUG’s praise for Scott’s The Terminal review (scroll down to “On the Radar”). If MUG wants to read a wide-ranging and insightful film critique with no filler, he should check-out David Denby’s critique of Michael Moore’s doc in this week’s New Yorker. I’m not a huge fan of Denby, and I definitely don’t always agree with his reviews, but I can tolerate him. His review of Fahrenheit 9/11 reads as a very balanced and insightful examination of what is most likely a movie with a singular point-of-view. Moore has never been a director who tries to show multiple sides of any issue; he wants to give you his argument and pound it home. The “other side” is shown only as the butt of the joke, and any validity an opposite argument may have is usually left out. (And mind you, I say this as someone who agrees with virtually all of what Moore has to say.)

I haven’t seen Fahrenheit 9/11 yet (and I may not be able to until early next week), and maybe I’ll disagree with the overall take in Denby’s piece, but it doesn’t take this one movie to know that Denby is correct when he writes, “Michael Moore has become a sensational entertainer of the already converted, but his enduring problem as a political artist is that he has never known how to change anyone’s politics.” In today’s America where at least 80% of us view everything through the filter of our political beliefs and convictions and where most people seem to get their news from 30 second sound bites, preaching to the converted seems to be all that’s left. The predictable criticisms and defenses from pundits (as opposed to book reviewers) on both sides of the fence this past week over Bill Clinton’s new bestseller simply cements that point.

Deeply buried (if mentioned at all) in all the stories focusing on Dodgeball‘s trouncing of The Terminal in the weekend box office race was the even more delightful news that The Passion of the Christ can no longer claim to be the top grossing movie of 2004. It just so happens that our big green friend’s movie Shrek 2 grossed nearly $14-Million to push it’s overall haul to $378,623,263, therefore also passing Mel’s $370,111,518. I know, it’s a small pleasure, but I’ll take it nonetheless. Even more impressive to me is that while I haven’t seen the numbers, I’m sure the actual ticket sales far surpasses those of Nightmare on the Via Dolorosa since (hopefully at least) far more kids attended Shrek 2. That would also (again, hopefully) indicate that more parents chose to bring their kids to watch a wise-cracking donkey rather than a literally gut-busting crucifixion scene. Keep in mind, Shrek 2 was the number 3 movie this weekend, and even with more competition on the horizon, it should relatively easily get past the $400-Million.

Also of note, Variety reports that Turner Classic Movies has signed a deal with InDemand to create a video-on-demand service. To this TCM-worshipper, that is just awesome news. Apparently, TCM will supply approximately 20 classic films per month to show on a VOD platform, much like HBO OnDemand, Showtime OnDemand and Cinemax OnDemand. Of course, who knows when it will be available on most cable systems. Time Warner cable in New York is pretty good about putting most things on the digital tiers (and yeah, we pay for it!), but they haven’t yet added IFC Films On Demand, which I have been waiting for patiently. The great things about the premium OnDemand services is that depending on your cable package, they cost nothing extra and just give you way more flexibility to watch what you want when you want to. How much TCMOnDemand might be, who knows? Probably a couple dollars per month. But it would be worth it! The first month will apparently include The Dirty Dozen, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Arsenic & Old Lace, and one of my all-time favorite movies as well as probably the best movie musical ever, Singin’ in the Rain.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the distribution trinity behind Fahrenheit 9/11 — of Lions Gate, IFC Films, and the Weinstein Brothers’ FAG — has been battling with the MPAA over the rating given to Michael Moore’s film. The MPAA, in its conservative “wisdom”, has bestowed an R upon Fahrenheit 9/11, and the distributors believe it should be a PG-13. The distribs recruited former NY Gov. Mario Cuomo to help argue the appeal, but the MPAA has won’t allow him to appear before their appeals board because he does not have any direct involvement with the film. According to today’s Variety story (sub req’d), “The biggest sticking point in the ratings flap appears to be the use of the word ‘motherfucker’ several times by an American soldier in Iraq. In the single scene, young tank crew members explain how they play a heavy-metal version of ‘The Roof Is on Fire’ when they go into combat. Repeating the lyrics of the song, one soldier uses the expletive several times.” Apparently, the MPAA’s guidelines state that one “motherfucker” would be OK, but when you stick a bunch of “motherfucker”s in a room, people under the age of 17 die. Or something like that. The MPAA also has problems with “some graphic footage of Iraqi civilian casualties, including bodies piled in the back of a pickup truck and children with severe wounds,” footage which one obviously would never see on Fox News. I think we all should applaud the MPAA for standing up to motherfuckers everywhere. Why should a 13 year old be allowed to go see a movie he or she might learn from when the PG-13 rated The Chronicles of Riddick is available next door?

And finally, the biggest news of the day, Liv Tyler is preggers. I hope she’s not too disappointed that Apple and Coco have recently been taken, and Esther has been receiving too much publicity lately. Luckily, Liv and her husband and Spacehog frontman Royston Langdon still have a variety of names to choose from in order to make the rest of the world drop jaw in awe. Might I suggest Pomegranate? The juice is all the rage these days, even though it’s usually upwards of $4 per bottle. And just think: Pomegranate Tyler Langdon. It has a little ring to it. Either that or she better use Arwen if she doesn’t want the hobbits to get all up in her grill. That one could even be used for a boy. Congrats Liver.

I read two different sequel-related reports today (one which I had heard weeks if not months ago, but apparently it’s news again). In the best-case scenarios, they could both be phenomenal films. Thinking more realistically, they’ll suck and simply lessen how people think of the originals, much as has happened in some sense to The Matrix thanks to the unnecessary Reloaded and just-plain-annoying Revolutions.

First, apparently the zombies aren’t quite dead. “Fox Searchlight is putting together a sequel to 28 Days Later, the stylish Danny Boyle-directed horror film that became a sleeper fall hit in 2002.” If there’s anyone reading this who somehow doesn’t know, Danny Boyle is the director who before 28 Days Later… was best known for Trainspotting. He can also boast about the creepy cool thriller Shallow Grave, as well as the meh-misfires A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach. Why am I listing his resume? Because it’s easy to see that Boyle is very much a creative visionary unafraid to tackle all different types of subject-matter, and even when the end result doesn’t work, he tries to make films that take risks and have some degree of originality. That certainly was true with 28 Days Later …. But according to this story, although he and writer Alex Garland, along with Boyle’s regular producer, Andrew MacDonald, will supposedly produce the film (i.e., collect a paycheck for allowing the sequel to be made), 28 Weeks Later … (oooh … clever) will neither be directed by Boyle nor written by Garland. Scripting chores are going to Rowan Joffe, Roland‘s son with two writing credits to his name.

Of course, as exciting as 28 Weeks Later … could be, does it hold a candle to the prospect of Kill Bill, Vol. 3? Yeah, yeah … this is old news, but with QT doing promotion in Spain for the opening of Vol. 2, AP seems to want to run again with the story that “Tarantino Wants Third ‘Bill’ in 15 Years.”

His idea actually isn’t that bad: little “Nikki” watched Uma kill her mother Vivica A. Fox and 15 years later goes seeking revenge. That whole circle of revenge thing just keeps turning, you know. I had previously read that he wanted to shoot some of it now with Ambrosia Kelley while she’s still a little girl and then come back to her somewhere around 2020 to finish the movie when both she and Uma have aged. (Uma age? NOOOOOOOOO!)

But the most interesting part of this article is how QT explicitly reveals what I consider the main problem with these movies and potentially his biggest flaw as a filmmaker: “I was doing the movie to do some of the greatest action scenes ever made.” A-ha! Well, in some cases you succeeded. The action scenes were pretty great; very well choreographed. Too bad you weren’t trying to make some of the “greatest action scenes ever made” in support of a more compelling story and overall well-rounded film(s). There isn’t really a good reason that Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 needed to be separated other than to make some of the action scenes even longer in order to incorporate more how-cool-does-that-look shots. In fact, all of Vol. 1 could probably have been cut down to less than 45 minutes, and the much stronger Vol. 2 down to maybe an hour-forty-five. Smush (or fuse … whatever) them together and you’ve got a fast-paced, action-packed 2-1/2 hours of potentially brilliant revenge-drama and kick-ass fighting.

At least Kill Bill, Vol. 3, if it is ever made, would actually be a sequel. Go to it, QT … but feel free to take your time.

I can rant on-and-on about A.O. Scott’s pathetic writing and never encapsulate how poor a critic he actually is as well as TMFTML does right here. Oh no … he doesn’t need my blogfucking, but it’s worth clicking the link. Using the beginning of Scott’s review of The Terminal, he succinctly proves what I’ve been trying to say for a long time.