Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner the story of a mixed race couple having their ostensibly liberal parents come to terms with their relationship over the course of one evening in the ‘60s. It’s dated, for sure, but it’s iconic all the same.

None of the characters could be characterized as racist in 1967, except Hattie who gets an earful from Hepburn in the clip below. Every one of the characters, except for the couple, would be characterized as racist in 2010.

My immediate thought was that someone should do a remake where the kid brings home a gay partner, and watch the fighting liberal parents come to terms with it.

But there are two problems with that:

1. In 2010, it’s hard to play the theme as serious drama. Probably why the Kutcher/Bernie-Mac remake Guess Who is a comedy.


2. I just remembered- somebody already made that movie, and it’s fantastic. It’s Birdcage.

∞

I could talk about how you should see this movie, but you can figure that out for yourself. I wanted to focus on two of the three scenes that define the movie for me.

First, we have Katherine Hepburn, in one of the most epic telling-offs in cinema (the good part starts at about 0:50s):

And then we have a positively ShahRukhian scene from Sidney Poitier. The range of acting in this scene is more than most actors display in a life time (the good part starts at 1:30s):

And I mean ShahRukhian as a compliment.

One, two or three.

Would you get goosebumps? If so, you really need to watch the Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) documentary, It Might Get Loud. He uses a meeting of the three great guitarists, Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White as an homage to the guitar. The movie is like comfort food for music fans. [trailer]

Opening night is tomorrow—Kevin Kline is in town, there’s a capella and a theremin player.

AICN = Ain’t It Cool News, the rambling movie news site that rises like Mothra out of the great city of Austin, TX.

BNAT = Butt Numb-a-thon, the annual, 24 hour movie extravaganza hosted by AICN in the great city of Austin, where they manage to pull off amazing early screenings like Return of the King with Peter Jackson in attendance and Passion of the Christ with Gibson.

Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find “Kick-Ass” morally reprehensible and will I appear to have missed the point? Let’s say you’re a big fan of the original comic book, and you think the movie does it justice. You know what? You inhabit a world I am so very not interested in. A movie camera makes a record of whatever is placed in front of it, and in this case, it shows deadly carnage dished out by an 11-year-old girl, after which an adult man brutally hammers her to within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere. Now tell me all about the context.

Roger states at the beginning of his review that he feels he’s going to hopeless square for his feelings about the morality of KICK ASS.

At a base level it is a film about taking a stand, to protect the innocent and uphold justice… in a pretty fascist as kicking manner. I am not upset at Roger for his point of view… I understand, it is a lot to take.

But I remind you that there was a time, when Martin Scorsese was under fire for having a 13 year old Jodie Foster play a whore in TAXI DRIVER - which is more or less about a man that in the end is a hero for taking violent action to protect that girl.

At that time there were critics that wanted to hang Marty. You were not one of them. I remember that time because as a 6 year old I can remember watching you and Gene defend Scorsese and you were my heroes.

I have to say it is a little sad to see you go the route you did in your KICK ASS review. And don’t worry, while I suppose you’ll never really just get KICK-ASS… You’re no square in my book. But you may be in danger of being a ‘grown up’.

Do read the whole thing; it’s write-ups like this that have made me come back to AICN for more than a decade. It’s written by people with a human voice; not people playing at being journalists.

Go see it.

That’s all.

1. The feeling when you are randomly flipping channels and accidentally discover that one of your favorite movies is playing on a channel you never watch.


2. The feeling when you discover that an artist you love has put out work (e.g. music) that you didn’t know existed.

I came up with a word for the first one: Serendipiteevee. It’s what I felt when I just discovered A Hard Day’s Night was playing on a channel called Palladia. That such a channel exists is proof of a benevolent God; because how else could a channel no one has heard of even survive?

I don’t have a word for the second feeling—discovering new music by a favorite artist. But that just happened when I found that Beirut put out a delightful song called Mimizan for the  charity compilation album Dark Was the Night. Watch it below (or here); how can you not smile while listening to this [video]:

1. The Invention of Lying: The story of a parallel universe where no one lies, and one man (Ricky Gervais) discovers that he can. It takes its premise to its logical conclusion, which is usually funny. Especially funny if you like Ricky Gervais. Also, half-way through the movie, it reinvents itself as the invention of religion, which helps the premise remain funny until the end. Oh, and most of the movie was shot here in Lowell, Mass.
   The number of really top notch cameos in this movie is staggering—Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman,  Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Tina Fey, John Hodgman. And, obviously, Stephen Merchant.


2. Hot Tube Time Machine: A little bit of funny and a little bit of nostalgia. Movies about the ‘80s are probably better than the real thing. Part super gross out comedy, part male bonding comedy, and part nostalgia, which makes it Back to the Future crossed with The Hangover. And the Back to the Future connection is acknowledged- Crispin Glover shows up in the past and the present. And the recurring joke with his hand is inspired.


3. I Love You, Man: Paul Rudd and Jason Segel star as really, really good friends. The movie is fine in general, but the writers have a very keen sense of the weird rituals of adult men trying to become friends. Especially the non-bar/sports men of this world. And there are many of us.

So there you have it. Three comedies, all good, none great. All worth the price of admission.

It’s been a couple of months since the last episode. This one took a lot more research, a lot more video clips, and a lot more writing. But I think I am more satisfied with it as a short documentary than I was with the previous two.

[You can find more from this series in the Bollywood Roots section. Also, you can subscribe to my channel on YouTube.]

I can also say that we held video tests with several potential hosts two weeks ago in Los Angeles, and know who we will use. We also know we will have a strong web presence. We will go full-tilt New Media: Television, net streaming, cell phone apps, Facebook, Twitter, iPad, the whole enchilada. The disintegration of the old model creates an opening for us. I’m more excited than I would be if we were trying to do the same old same old. I’ve grown up with the internet. I came aboard back when MCI Mail was the e-mail of choice. I had a forum on CompuServe when it ruled the web. My web site and blog at the Sun-Times site have changed the way I work, and even the way I think. When I lost my speech, I speeded up instead of slowing down.

We’ll also go New Cinema. Not just the One Weekend Wonders, although you gotta have ‘em, but indie films, foreign films, documentaries, restored classics, the new Herzog, the new Bahrani, the new Almodovar. What’s new on Instant Streaming. What great movies should everyone see? Hey, Paramount just announced $1 million for ten $100,000 movies. Those kinds of films. What kind of a real movie lover cares who has the “exclusive” first trailer in the newest extrusion of the “Transformer” franchise? It’s time to smarten up.

Here are a few of my favorite passages from his writings. These are not his “best” in any literary sense, but they come to mind when talking or thinking about movies. And for anyone who’s read his work, you know he’s at his best when reviewing the worst movies:

On “Not Another Teen Movie“:

I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are “plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.” Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America’s hard-working film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average.

So, anyway, younger girls won’t like this movie, unless they know what happens under an automobile hood. Younger boys won’t like it because the only thing that’s possibly going to blow up real good is the sun. But science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there’s a lot going on up there, and we can’t even define precisely what a soliton is.

This all began for me in about 1969, when I started teaching a film class in the University of Chicago’s Fine Arts program. I knew a Chicago film critic, teacher and booker named John West, who lived in a wondrous apartment filled with film prints, projectors, books, posters and stills. “You know how football coaches use a stop-action 16mm projector to study game films?” he asked me. “You can use that approach to study films. Just pause the film and think about what you see. You ought to try it with your film class.”

Full disclosure. I lifted the words “San Francisco to conservative suburbia with her lesbian mothers” straight from the plot summary on IMDb.com, because I stopped watching the movie at the 00:08.05 point. IMDb is also where I found out about Bruce Vilanch’s dual role. I never did see the lesbian mothers or my friend Bruce. For “Tru Loved,” the handwriting was on the wall. The returns were in. The case was closed. You know I’m right. Or tell me I’m wrong.

Q. How can you give a one-star rating to a movie you didn’t sit through?

A. The rating only applies to the first eight minutes. After that, you’re on your own.

I was informed that my entry was “typical liberalism.” This is correct. I am a liberal. If you are a conservative, this appears to be a difference between us: I think you should have guaranteed health insurance.

The director, whose name is “Pitof,” was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project.—Catwoman

I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.—Response to Vincent Gallo’s hex to give me colon cancer

I am informed that 5,000 cockroaches were used in the filming of “Joe’s Apartment.” That depresses me, but not as much as the news that none of them were harmed during the production.

These days he’s on a roll on Twitter and on his journal, day and night. It’s like he never sleeps.