When compiling this week’s compendium of choices, a single theme kept sticking out – “Award Winning”. In fact, looking over the list, over half the films and/or filmmakers represented have Oscar, or something similar, sitting on their inner sanctum shelves. This either argues for the Academy’s broadening acceptance of fare outside the studio system mainstream, or just a freak coincidence of programming proportions. In both cases, it makes for an interesting beginning to what promises to be an equally odd month. With school starting back, the Summer season officially finished, and families falling into their familiar routines, TV reasserts its importance as a communal comfort and fixture. So don’t be surprised to see the major pay channels rest on those laurels, at least for the time being. For SE&L’s part, we will continue to seek out the more unusual offerings to challenge your motion picture palette, including our stand up suggestion, an insane satire we felt was one of 2006’s best:
Premiere Pick
Idiocracy
It’s the best movie of 2006 that no one saw – and that was on purpose. Fox, feeling let down once again by Mike Judge’s slanted satirical eye, relegated this 2004 futuristic farce to a high shelf in their direct to DVD release schedule. Then, feeling considerable pressure from the filmmaker, dumped it in a few theaters during the end of Summer 2006, signaling their overall contempt for the title. While no one deserves to be treated so, especially not the man who made Office Space and brought Beavis and Butthead into the world, Fox’s reaction makes sense…especially once you’ve seen the film. The very demographic the studio was banking on to fill Cineplex seats were the very target of Judge’s derisive skewering. A movie that makes the bold prediction that our country is getting stupider every year, here’s hoping it finds a knowing audience on home video. (01 September, Cinemax, 10PM EST)
Additional Choices
X-Men: The Last Stand
Brett Ratner has nothing to be ashamed of. His installment of the famous comic book franchise was imminently watchable. If anything, he proved once and for all that Bryan Singer is one of the most overrated auteurs in all of cinema. What has he really done to warrant such praise? The geek fiefdoms opinion aside, Ratner’s adaptation of the material results in a solid action flick.(01 September, HBO, 8PM EST)
The Queen
The death of Princess Diana divided Britain into two long simmering camps. The first were glad to get rid of the globe trotting, royalty ruining tabloid subject. The vast majority mourned the first real perceived “person” in Buckingham Palace. This fictionalized recreation of the events directly following her passing remains a stellar motion picture. Helen Mirrem’s much predicted Oscar was very well deserved indeed. (01 September, Starz, 9PM EST)
Akeelah and the Bee
2006 ended up being the year of the spelling bee, what with this film and Bee Season following up the discovery of the fascinating documentary from 2002, Spellbound. This time out, a young girl from South Central Los Angeles is taken in by a mentor and prepared for Nationals. It has all the standard feel good facets, but thanks to gritty portrayals from Keke Palmer and Laurence Fishburne, it transcends its trite trappings. (01 September, Showtime, 8PM EST)
Indie Pick
The Blues Brothers
There’s no real reason to go into the relative merits of this overdone SNL skit. It does represent the excess of the late ‘70s piled into the mythos created by the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. It does have the late great John Belushi in what was probably his best role. And the cameos and reliance on good old fashioned R&B for its musical numbers definitely made it an aesthetic rarity. No, the really interesting element of this movie is the massive revisionist history that has gone on over the last quarter century. This movie was a FLOP when it first hit theaters, an expensive vanity project viewed as a reason to relegate all the participants, including director John Landis, to the back of the commercial bus. It made money, but barely covered its elephantine budget. Now, in our post-millennial/messageboard mentality, it’s a comedy classic. What a difference a few years, and a million showings on cable TV, can make. (05 September, Sundance Channel, 10PM EST)
Additional Choices
Sling Blade
The world first discovered the oddball pleasures of Karl Childers and his creator, writer/director/actor Billy Bob Thorton in this brilliant Deep South drama. Playing a mentally challenged man who was institutionalized after killing someone, his impending release has the head of the hospital worried. Karl is not prepared to meet the pressures of the real world. Those fears, oddly enough, are proven all too true. (01 September, IFC, 9PM EST)
Far from Heaven
Hoping to channel the spirit of such Tinsel Town kitsch masters as King Vidor and Douglas Sirk, Todd Haynes took his throwback retro revisionism and applied it to a scintillating melodrama dealing with interracial romance and gay love. Quite a controversial jolt for its ‘50s suburban setting. Celebrated with several Oscar nods, it remains a work of exquisite beauty and seismic social themes. (04 September, IFC, 9PM EST)
Waterland
Jeremy Irons was probably hoping that this adaptation of Graham Swift’s novel would land him right back on top of the Awards season heap. Only two years after his 1990 win for Reversal of Fortune, this tale of a timid schoolteacher who uses his classroom as a confessional had all the earmarks of another strong cinematic statement. Sadly, it failed to fulfill much of its potential promise. In retrospect, it’s a decent little drama. (04 September, Sundance Channel, 11:30PM EST)
Outsider Option
Dead Alive, a.k.a. Braindead
Peter Jackson wasn’t always into CGI spectacle and retelling Tolkein’s literary triptych. When he started, he was a good old fashioned horror geek, and he translated his love of all things splatter into a pair of seminal scarefests – 1987’s Bad Taste and this demented zombie stomp. Beginning with a pair of star-crossed lovers, a mean spirited mother bitten by a Sumatran Rat Monkey, and a town’s eventual transformation into a slapstick selection of the living dead, the future Oscar winner (that has such an amazing sound to it) went all out for this blood soaked bonanza. As influential in the world of whacked out horror comedy as Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 or the entire Troma catalog, the combination of gore and goofiness went over like gangbusters with fright freaks. It established the filmmaker’s ability to successfully mix genres, making him the perfect choice to bring the still amazing Lord of the Rings trilogy to life. If you want to see greatness, even in its indie embryonic stage, this is the place to start. (02 September, HD Movies, 12:15AM EST)
Additional Choices
Dementia 13/Homicidal
After a month spent celebrating the amazing movie stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age, Turner Classic Movies is back with its Underground series, and the selection this time out represents a bit of program padding. Both films have been shown before, Dementia as part of a Corman cock-up, Homicidal as a William Castle salute. Worth seeing, but not necessarily viable a second time around. (07 September, Turner Classic Movies, 2AM EST)
Three Stooges Film Marathon
No, this is not a festival of their amazing shorts. Instead, these are the kid vid vehicles the aging slapstick stars helmed once TV established their rerun relevancy. Our twisted trio meets Hercules, heads off into orbit, and goes around the world in a daze. There are only three words you need to know in judging the quality of this collection of comedies – Curly Joe DeRita. That’s all. (02 September, Drive In Classics Canada, 9PM to 1AM EST)
The Sugarland Express
During his days as a wunderkind discovery working at Universal Studios, Steven Spielberg dreamed of being a serious dramatist. Before finding himself detouring into blockbuster territory with Jaws, he delivered this action-oriented stand off between Goldie Hawn, William Atherton, and the Texas State Police. Not so much an anomaly in the proud popcorn movie papa’s canon as a sign of his amazing range and inherent directorial designs. (06 September, Indieplex, 9PM EST)