Will the real Jennifer Aniston please stand up?

The Good Girl is the kind of movie that doesn't get made often enough, yet given the crap that fills the shelves of the video rental stores, it's amazing that these films get made at all. The actress we know as Jennifer Aniston, who must be an entirely separate yet physically identical person to the Jennifer Aniston on Friends, reappears in a story about boredom and loneliness, and the things people do when they become desperate. It would be unfair to compare it to the films of the Coen Brothers, but some of the same feelings are stirred here as in The Man Who Wasn't There and in the more thoughtful moments of Raising Arizona. I swear, though, if I see John C. Reilly play another cuckolded husband I'm turning off the tube. (Tim Blake Nelson was fabulous as best bud Bubba, though.)

Good stuff

Not a lot of time to go into details on these, but Scott and I spent yesterday glued to the tube.

Infernal Affairs won a ton of awards in Hong Kong last year, and it's not tough to see why. HK cop dramas tend to be pretty excellent to begin with, but this one was outstanding.

Groom Lake wasn't great, but for a Shatner-directed effort it was suprisingly entertaining. Amy Acker managed to take an incredibly hackneyed character and make her believeable.

An Evening With Kevin Smith - didn't get to see all of this, but Smith makes me laugh and he is amazingly candid in front of thousands of people.

The Matrix - gotta have it fresh in my mind when the sequel comes out. I can't believe they're holding the video game until the movie comes out on the 15th.

"Watch this, Lise. You can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half."

- Bart Simpson, referring to Ralph Wiggum

A friend mentioned that watching the last episode of Married in America was just like the quote above, and I have to say the same about watching Lost in La Mancha, the documentary that chronicles the almost-making of Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam (former Monty Python member and director of The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys) secured funding from European backers and gathered a talented cast and crew, but in six days of shooting the production fell apart. Inclement weather destroyed equipment, difficult agent relations limited access to cast members, and the star of the film (Jean Rochefort) fell victim to back injuries which prohibited him from playing the part of Quixote.

When Gilliam's first assistant director drops the bomb on him -- that the film simply cannot go forward -- it's almost a shock. The entire crew have been dancing around the inevitable, none of them speaking the obvious, because once it has been spoken, it can't help but come true. You can actually pinpoint the second when Gilliam's heart rips in half.

Gilliam is reportedly trying to buy back the rights to his script from the insurance company that bailed out the production.

Clone Wars vs. Rogue Leader

My favorite time wasting activity of late has been getting to know my new Nintendo GameCube. I don't really have time for long and involved games like RPGs any more; I tend to play games that have finite missions, or that can be saved at any point in the game. Basically, I like to be able to pick up a game, play it for thirty minutes or an hour, and then move on to something else.

Games like Super Monkey Ball 2 or Simpsons Road Rage are great for this, but I find myself playing the two Star Wars games in my collection an awful lot.

Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II is what the original (Nintendo 64-based) Rogue Squadron should have been, and I think its creators know that, as they allow you to play several of the scenarios from the older game with the new graphics and better flight control. Other than that, it's pretty much the same: task-based missions that involve hopping into various Star Wars universe vehicles. I'm happy to say that wrapping tow cables around the legs of AT-AT walkers is much more do-able in this version than in the last, where it was practically impossible. A fun game, but after a few missions it really starts to get hard. I rely a lot on the targeting computer to spot mission objectives and to make sure I'm shooting down the important TIE fighters, not just the ones that are there to try and kill me.

Clone Wars is similar to Rogue Leader in its basic game construction, but the mechanics of the flight and combat control are substantially different. For one thing, you don't have to have pixel-perfect aim in Clone Wars; just sort of point your crosshairs in the right direction and you'll hit the target. The game makes up for this extra help by throwing more enemies your way, but it's a much more satisfying way to shoot things. Another wrinkle comes in the form of Force powers. Since you play one Jedi or another for most of the game, it only makes sense that you should be able to use the Force to enhance your performance. To keep things from being too easy, though, you have a limited allotment of Force power to use, which must regenerate over time.

Overall I prefer Clone Wars; the more forgiving game controls make for a more enjoyable experience, and once things really get going it can be just as challenging as Rogue Leader without the frustrating "why is this so hard" aspects of the older game. The occasional jaunt outside of the vehicles in Clone Wars (say, as a standalone Jedi with lightsaber, or riding atop a lizard-thing with mounted guns) provides additional entertainment. But I wish they would apply this game design to the classic Star Wars movies scenarios. Wouldn't it be cool to use your Force powers to make that TIE fighter sit still an extra second in your crosshairs, or to run around the Death Star as the elderly Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Help me Lucas Arts -- you're my only hope.

New comments system

I've gone over to a PHP comments system called "PosterChild" for the comments here. The old one kept breaking every time I changed the template, or looked at the blog funny. Hopefully this one will be more stable.

Michael Jackson, next on Fox (again!)

Michael Jackson is a glutton for punishment. And attention. He's set up for another special on Fox, this time with the working title "Michael Jackson's Private Home Movies." Do I hear the ghost of Nero playing the violin?

Use the Force, Mario

New projects like Giant Monster Movies are taking up a lot of my watching and blogging time right now. Last night's Angel was at least a break from the soap opera feel that has plagued the series this season. It's not a return to the old Batman-type detective show that it once was, but it was supremely creepy, in a good way. Can't wait to see what they do next, which is a big change from my "why am I watching this?" attitude from a few weeks ago.

In other news, I must say that Clone Wars is easily the best Star Wars game ever made for a TV console. It's no Tie Fighter in terms of "realism" (if such a term can even apply to a science fiction game), but it's one heckuva shooter. If you dig the Star Wars universe and need a fix between last summer's movie and the next one, I advise you to give this a play-through on the current game console of your choice.

Sleep Better with Bionics

Have you seen these commercials? The Bionic Woman wants to sell me a Sleep Number Bed. I dunno, I always thought she just plugged in at night or something like that. Good to know that her downtime requires a secret code, at least.

Death to Smoochy

Why does Jon Stewart keep apologizing to the world for his participation in Death to Smoochy? Reports of its suckitude have been greatly exaggerated. The film, which depicts the rise and fall of kid-TV show host Sheldon "Smoochy the Rhino" Mopes (Ed Norton), is certainly not the stinker that it has been touted to be. Roger Ebert wrote that, "In all the annals of the movies, few films have been this odd, inexplicable, and unpleasant." I'd like to sit Mr. Ebert down in front of Sizzle Beach U.S.A. or Nukie. He'd beg for Death to Smoochy.

As a comedy Smoochy ranks somewhere above Girls Just Want to Have Fun and somewhere below Hairspray, but it is regularly funny and Ed Norton is always a pleasure to watch in action. Robin Williams' shtick gets angrier every time I see him, but Rainbow Randolph (Williams' character, who is ousted when the FBI busts him for taking bribes to get kids onto his show) is a pretty angry character. Catherine Keener, who is regularly the best thing about the movies in which she appears, could not have been cast more perfectly.

I'm glad I didn't see this in the theater -- it's hardly worth fifteen bucks plus popcorn money -- but I don't think it deserves of the abuse it took in the press, either.