It’s that time of year again, when my allergies are sorely put to the test. I am walking around all the time with dull sinus headaches and congestion and feeling generally crummy. You-know-what is in the air, and I just can’t tolerate very much of it.
No, I don’t mean pollen. I mean dumb movie remakes. Why do we need another version of The Amityville Horror? My sinuses are throbbing in protest.
Get ready for a summer full of dumb remakes. So far I have heard about House of Wax, The Longest Yard, War of the Worlds, The Bad News Bears (okay, that one’s Linklater, but still), The Pink Panther, and probably others that I would be happier not to know about.
I am also allergic to movies adapted from TV shows and I know I am going to be afflicted with a bout of those, including The Dukes of Hazzard (urrrrgh), Bewitched (it’s the Ephrons, but still), and even The Honeymooners.
Does anyone else notice that remakes of old movies and adaptations of old TV series provide filmmakers with an excellent excuse for showing women in stereotypical, subservient roles? I can’t wait for a summer of seeing women as housewives, bimbos in halters and shorty shorts, and gruesome horror-movie victims.
I don’t think the doctor is going to be able to prescribe anything to cure these allergies, sadly. I’m going to put an ice pack on my head and watch Holiday again. Someone come find me when a Terry Gilliam movie opens.
And don’t even talk to me about horrible sequels/prequels being released this summer, or I may require emergency care.
Category: film rants
movies this week: cinespamia
So last weekend, my parents and my boyfriend and I all went to Spamarama. Spamarama is a longtime (29 years) Austin festival devoted not to unwanted email, but to the potted meat product. I hadn’t been to Spamarama before. We stayed long enough to watch the Spam relay and scarier still, the Spam toss.
The highlight of Spamarama is the big tent of people participating in the Spam cooking contest and offering samples to everyone. There was a long line of people waiting to get into the Spam sample tent. I am not quite sure what this says about Austinites. Are they brave, innovative, weird, or not very bright? We were in line with everyone else, so it’s hard for me to judge.
What I learned is that anything that tastes remotely edible with Spam in it probably tastes even better without Spam in it. (Very similar to Rachel’s insight about capers in Nora Ephron’s Heartburn.) The (relatively) tastiest dishes were so heavily spiced that any potential Spam flavor was masked: chili, jambalaya, and sauteed Spam in a mushroom wine sauce.
But I knew that deep down, it was Spam. And later on, I regretted it and had to clear my palate with some fudge pie a la mode from Scholz’s.
This week’s movies tend to make me think of Spam that has been heavily disguised with all kinds of trimmings. But at its heart … potted pork. Yum.
movies this week: abbreviated in Austin
I realized this morning that some cool movies are playing in Austin this week, and I missed telling everyone about them because I was too busy playing Ask Jette. (You can still email me questions, you know. I am seriously considering doing it again if I get enough good questions.)
I am not going to list the movies that opened over the weekend because you probably already know about Sin City and Beauty Shop, and if you’re enough of a Woody Allen fan to care, you also know that Melinda and Melinda opened in Austin.
But here are a few gems you might have overlooked:
introducing … Ask Jette!
I decided that I have had just about enough of digging up information on all the movies opening in Austin this week, and then thinking of semi-clever things to write about them. Who am I to presume to write about movies I haven’t even seen yet?
I would rather presume to write about people I don’t know and situations that aren’t mine. So I have decided that instead of Movies This Week, I will institute a weekly advice column. Some people (hi Iain!) have been saying for years that I should be dispensing etiquette advice, and while I prefer to leave that to Miss Manners, I have found my own niche: the movies.
No, this isn’t going to be anything like Roger Ebert’s Movie Answer Man. Think of it more as being like Dear Abby for film geeks and the people who love them.
Feel free to email me with your film-related personal problems and I will address the most interesting ones here. Ask Jette! I reserve the right to decide not to answer any or all questions I receive if I get bored with this.
sin, Sesame, and Scarlett, dude
I have about a million and one links I would like to share. It would help if I would do this every few days or every week. But nooooo, I keep forgetting or doing other things like laundry or watching TV. My Bloglines “film” folder is glutted with all kinds of movie-related Web fun.
This is all good stuff. Go take a look.
movies this week: what would Mom and Dad think?
My parents are visiting Austin next week. We don’t usually watch movies together. They go to the outlet mall while I’m at work. We sit around on the sofa with a golf game on the TV and talk about what we might want to do (and rarely do any of it except nap). Sometimes we sit on the patio and drink beer and tell very funny family stories. (My dad pulls me aside to tell me the ones my mom hates to hear, like anything to do with my grandparents.)
We might go to the Wildflower Center, but I’m not sure my dad will like it. He likes to go places where he can get snacks at regular intervals. (His favorite Austin restaurant is Taco Cabana. Don’t ask me why.) So perhaps we might go see the new Whole Foods, because that seems like a great place for him to procure snacks while we watch the chocolate enrobing station. We could go to the Westlake Farmers Market. We could walk to the Dairy Queen, or hang out with the cows at Amy’s Ice Cream. Who knows?
But we are probably not going to see any movies, especially not in movie theaters. My mom doesn’t like anything with crude language or even hints of non-marital sex. My dad loves movies with fart jokes or any kind of physical humor. (He would have felt right at home seeing those movies with the Fiji audience in Reel Paradise.) Usually he pretends to pacify my mom, or whomever else is in the room, by shouting, “That’s disgusting! What kind of filth is that?” and then laughing his ass off.
I will illustrate the difficulties in seeing movies with my parents by sharing my estimate of my parents’ reactions to some of the movies opening in Austin this week. I will leave you to guess which parent would say what.
Continue reading movies this week: what would Mom and Dad think?
SXSW: the last entry, I swear
I realize I had a very movie-watching-focused experience at SXSW. A lot of people go to the film conference and attend panels, network with filmmakers and industry people, and get into all kinds of fabulous parties. All I did was watch movies. A lot of movies, for me (14 feature-feature-length plus 90 minutes of short animated films), although not nearly as many as I’d originally hoped:
The Chumscrubber, The Aggressives, Stagedoor, Tell Them Who You Are, The Puffy Chair, Kissing on the Mouth, A Hole in My Heart, Troop 1500, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, The Education of Shelby Knox, The Last Mogul, The Fearless Freaks, Reel Paradise, and Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party.
I’d like to write an in-depth review for every one of those films, but realistically I suspect I am not going to have time.
SXSW: last day
Saturday was the last day of the SXSW film festival. It started out as a simply gorgeous day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the cat was running around the house hiding my socks.
I didn’t have any movies scheduled until late in the afternoon. My boyfriend and I had a leisurely and very yummy lunch at Gene’s. I had a roast beef po-boy with some fries to help soak up all the delicious roast beef gravy. My boyfriend had smothered chicken and green beans and potato salad and his plate practically gleamed when he was done. I love Gene’s and I only wish the place was open later for dinner, although then I would have even more trouble buying clothes than I do now. (I am dying to try the smothered pork chops, but that means getting downtown for a Thursday lunch, which is not easy for me to do.)
The only problem with going to Gene’s for lunch was that I got home and accidentally fell asleep and nearly missed the movie. I blame the cat, because he snuggled up by me while I was reading and that added to my sleepiness. I woke up, realized how late I was, grabbed my notebook and purse, and dashed out of there in a rush to get to Alamo Downtown, and park, and walk to the theater in time to see Reel Paradise.
SXSW: Thursday/Friday
Two excellent music-related documentaries that I can’t recommend enough:
- The Devil and Daniel Johnston
- The Fearless Freaks
Thursday was mostly a work day. I had to catch up on some projects in the office. Well, I tried to catch up, anyway. I found out that I would have to work on Sunday afternoon, which was disappointing but made good sense (it would keep me from stressing out about my workload on Monday).
Finally, finally around 3 pm I got to leave the office and headed to ACC to see The Devil and Daniel Johnston. I found a fabulous metered parking place right at Third and Red River. I fed it a bunch of quarters (which I had stolen earlier in the day from my boyfriend’s former Laundry Quarter Ashtray) and was just about to walk away when I noticed a peeling and faded sticker on the pole of the meter. At 5:30, the parking spot would be used for valet parking and my car would be towed. Can’t they post a sign for that, or something I could actually read? Arrgh. Fortunately, a non-valet metered space across the street opened up and I moved the car. I had just enough change to fill the second meter.
movies this week: return to normalcy
I would like to do something fun that is not related to movies this weekend. I have seen plenty of movies recently during the SXSW film festival. It looks like I need to catch up at the office on Sunday, or else I would want to do something outdoors (weather permitting). Even yard work might be welcome … well, okay, that’s going a little too far.
Now that SXSW is drawing to a close, local theaters have scheduled a good lineup of interesting movies and movie-related events. Check the Alamo and Paramount listings for full details.
Oh, yeah, there are also new current releases in Austin. Some look quite good, depending on your taste: Born into Brothels for the documentary fans, Steamboy for the anime fans, Ice Princess for … um … figure-skating fans, I guess.