THE COUCH POTATO REPORT - August 18th, 2007
This week The Couch Potato Report peels a Manitoba made lookout, some wild hogs and Welcome Home!
Up first this week is a great little thriller called THE LOOKOUT
In THE LOOKOUT Joseph Gordon-Levitt - who played the kid, Tommy, on the TV show THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN is Chris, a star high school hockey player with a bright future and a gorgeous girlfriend.
One night, on a back country road, everything changes.
An accident leaves him with a brain injury, and he now needs notes to remind him to do simple things, like to grind the coffee beans before trying to make a pot of coffee, to take a shower when he wakes up, and such.
The film primarily focusses on the time four years after the accident, when Chris is as recovered as he is likely to be.
All he wants is to lead a normal life, but he has no girlfriend, he works as a night janitor in a bank, and his only real buddy is his blind, older roommate, Lewis.
Then, one day at a bar, he meets Gary and the two become friends.
They two hang out and play pool together, Gary introduces him to a woman, and everything appears to be going well ...until the day that Gary asks for Chris's help....to rob the bank.
And that is about all I am going to tell you about this film, because any more details might ruin it for you, and I do not want to do that. I want you to see it!
Screenwriter Scott Frank - who gave us LITTLE MAN TATE, MALICE, OUT OF SIGHT and GET SHORTY has given us another well-written film with real-life characters.
He also makes his directorial debut with THE LOOKOUT...a film shot in and around Winnipeg.
THE LOOKOUT is one of those films that most people would probably skip over at the store, it was bypassed by almost everyone it when it played in theatres back in March, but you should not miss this film.
It is full of grit, has a great deal of tension, and is always interesting.
THE LOOKOUT is a film I highly recommend.
Now...on the other side of that coin, the polar opposite if you will, is our next film this week.
A film I disliked, dispised...actually, let me be blunt...this next title is a film that I absolutely hated!
That film is WILD HOGS, and it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
Four actors I really like, respect, and usually enjoy star in WILD HOGS - John Travolta, Tim Allen, William H. Macy and Martin Lawrence.
They play four middle aged men who ride their motorcycles after work and on weekends.
It is something they do as a group for fun and relaxation, but then one day they decide to take it to the next level.
They plan to take a road trip from their home in Cincinnati to the Pacific, in order to get away from their lives which - they feel - are leading them nowhere.
Now let me stop there and remind you of the plot of the 1991 film CITY SLICKERS - Mitch and his friends Ed and Phil are having mid-life crisis. They decide to go on a two week holiday in the wild west driving cattle from New Mexico to Colorado. There they become real cowboys, and find out one or two other things about life in the open air of the west.
Sound familiar? Well it is...but that is where the similarities end. CITY SLICKERS is a classic, WILD HOGS is awful!!
The main problems I have with WILD HOGS is that it doesn't seem to give any respect to the very talented actors it has playing the leads.
The script never allows them to act, and thus, inhabit their characters.
Had they done that, this could have been a pretty good movie.
Now, I usually don't sit here and tell you how a movie could have been better, but this week I will make an exception.
Had WILD HOGS followed it's premise of just sending their characters on a road trip, and let time, the guys' egos, the elements and the things that actually happen along the road take their course, this could have been a great film.
But instead of letting life be the antagonist, the filmmakers had to include a biker gang as the Wild Hogs' enemies.
The minute we meet this gang is when the film loses any momentum it had built up, and instead of being entertained, we get Ray Liotta - as the lead bad guy - yelling.
And then he yells some more.
Now I know my dislike and disdain for WILD HOGS isn't shared by the majority of people who have seen it.
After all, it made over 168 million dollars at the box office since it debuted last March, and within a few days an announcement will come that it is the best selling DVD of the past week in North America.
So the film has found an audience...but I don't know why...this movie just doesn't work.
The screenplay isn't funny, the actors spend so much time trying to outdo each other on screen that they aren't believable as friends, much less comrades, and...I...can't be bothered talking about this movie anymore.
If you decide to see it, go ahead, maybe you will like it better than I did.
But to be clear, I did not like WILD HOGS at all.
It is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.
Ever!!
Okay, from the awful, lets get back to some good.
And we will cleanse ourselves from the stench of WILD HOGS with Jim Henson's classic television program THE MUPPET SHOW, because SEASON TWO of the show is now available on DVD!!
All 24 episodes from the show's second season are included on this digitally remastered and restored 4-disc DVD set.
The set also includes THE MUPPETS VALENTINE SPECIAL, rare archival footage and more.
But mostly, it features the classic characters we grew up with, doing what we best remember them for.
SEASON TWO of the show saw Jim Henson and crew win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy-Variety or Music Program, and the guest stars included Steve Martin, Peter Sellers, Elton John, Julie Andrews, Don Knotts, Bernadette Peters, George Burns, John Cleese, Bob Hope, and many others.
I loved THE MUPPET SHOW when I watched it as a kid and a teenager, and I also enjoy watching it now on DVD, as an adult. I think you will too!!
Finally this week, our FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD continues with the very entertaining Spanish Film WELCOME HOME.
Out of all of the foreign films I have told you about this summer, this is one of my favourites!
WELCOME HOME is about Samuel and Eva, a young couple, who move to Madrid after she is hired to play viola in the orchestra.
The two have been dating for a while, but had been living apart, and now Samuel is very nervous because they are moving in together.
However, Eva has an even bigger bit of news for him. News that will worry him even more...and make him reconsider everything he thinks he knows...she is pregnant.
In addition to the relationship side of WELCOME HOME, we meet the interesting people that Samuel works with and runs in to, including a movie critic who is blind, and an old friend who never got over the crush she had on him.
WELCOME HOME isn't spectacular, in fact it isn't really even all that unique a relationship movie.
But Pilar López de Ayala - the actress who plays Eva - and Alejo Sauras - who is Samuel - are just so believeable as these people, that the film works, perhaps in spite of itself.
It is an enjoyable way to spend two hours, and it is the third last selection in the FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD.
The very enjoyable WELCOME HOME, SEASON TWO of the classic televison program THE MUPPET SHOW, the absolutely awful WILD HOGS, and the made-in-Manitoba thriller THE LOOKOUT are all available now on DVD.
Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report
Canadian Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling takes on manipulative criminal Anthony Hopkins in FRACTURE; and GOD GREW TIRED OF US is an utterly fascinating documentary about a group of Sudanese refugees granted asylum into the USA after wandering around Africa for years having been displaced by the wars in the 1990s.
Also next week, THE EX is an awful film about a slacker who is forced to work for his father-in-law; SEASON THREE of the superb TV series HOUSE debuts on DVD and our FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD continues with the British film I FOR INDIA.
I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!
'Conchords,' 'Entourage' Keep Flying
HBO has renewed its comedies "Entourage" and "Flight of the Conchords," lending a measure of stability to a lineup that's in a little bit of flux.
The two shows, which air back-to-back on Sunday nights, are poised to end their current seasons -- the fourth for "Entourage" and the first for "Conchords" -- on Sept. 2. HBO says they'll be back with new episodes sometime next year.
"'Entourage' is a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, and 'Flight of the Conchords' has quickly become a show to watch," HBO Entertainment president Carolyn Strauss says. "I'm delighted that we'll be bringing new seasons of these distinctive series to our subscribers."
An Emmy nominee for best comedy series, "Entourage" has seen its ratings grow steadily over the course of its life. Debut airings now average about 3 million viewers a week (encores and on-demand viewing push that number up).
The season's remaining episodes will deal with Eric (Kevin Connolly), Vince (Adrian Grenier) et al taking their movie "Medellin" to Cannes and trying to get a new project off the ground with impossibly difficult director Billy Walsh (Rhys Coiro).
"Flight of the Conchords," which stars Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement as a New Zealand folk-rock band taking New York not especially by storm, has become a cult show this summer. Though it draws only a million or so viewers on its initial airing, it's earned a lot of critical praise, and clips from the show and the duo's live performances are big draws on YouTube.
Sub Pop records released a Conchords EP titled "The Distant Future" earlier this month and will follow up with a full-length album in January.
Paul Anka does 'Classics' his way
Age has apparently mellowed Paul Anka. With his last CD, 2005's Rock Swings, the 66-year-old pop veteran raised eyebrows by performing tunes made famous by Nirvana, Soundgarden and Van Halen. But his latest project covers the softer turf of Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell and, well, Anka himself.
"I obviously didn't want to do Rock Swings II," says Anka.
So for Classic Songs, My Way, out Aug. 28, the former teen idol, whose own songwriting credits include one of Frank Sinatra's signature tunes and the theme for The Tonight Show, decided to "expand things a little. I wanted to take songs from different genres that I could turn into ballads."
The result is a collection that swings — literally — from Joel's I Go to Extremes and Mitchell's Both Sides Now to ditties introduced by Cyndi Lauper (Time After Time), Duran Duran (Ordinary World), Daniel Powter (Bad Day) and, for edgy good measure, The Killers (Mr. Brightside).
There are also new renditions of vintage Anka material. My Way, adapted from a French song, "became especially important, because of my anniversary," says Anka, who is commemorating his 50th year in the music business. The Sinatra staple is featured as a duet with Jon Bon Jovi, while You Are My Destiny, a hit for Anka back in 1958, pairs him with latter-day crooner and fellow Canadian Michael Bublé.
Anka traces the more contemporary direction he began pursuing on Rock Swings to his enthusiasm for Bublé's first album, which he supported in the song selection and arranging stages.
"I saw there was a window for swing, and thought that Michael had the instrument for it, and this wonderful young energy that could put it back out there," Anka says.
Conversely, Anka realized "there's this pool of songs from the '80s and '90s that are today's standards, which brought me to Rock Swings. It was paramount to keep the integrity of the music, because anybody's reaction could have been, 'Anka, doing Teen Spirit? What is this, Pat Boone all over again?' "
(He's referring to Boone's 1997 camp classic, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. "A novelty record, I'd say — though Pat is a wonderful artist and an old friend.")
For Classic Songs, too, Anka chose songs "out of respect for the artists and the music. Many are songs that I wish I had written. The credibility I bring to them, perhaps, is that as a writer and musician myself, I can see and hear the songs in another way."
Anka stresses that he draws on different experiences than the younger artists whose repertoires he tapped. "When I started out, all you did was write and record something and give it to the record company. Then you went out and lived rock 'n' roll. Now you have to run a business and do a lot of other things."
Touring has changed as well, Anka observes.
"I started on a bus, and I'm not talking about a bus in today's terms, with beds and bathrooms and catering. These were buses that barely made it. And I was in some cases the only white kid, working my way through parts of the country where my friends couldn't get off to go to the bathroom or get something to eat."
Insecurity about his career was also an issue, even after writing chart-toppers such as Diana and (You're) Having My Baby and hits for Tom Jones and others. Anka recalls "not having the confidence to sing My Way, even though I was embraced by the Rat Pack."
Such travails will likely be explored in greater depth in an autobiography that Anka began planning after an interview on Howard Stern's Sirius satellite radio program last summer.
"I just told it like it was, talking about Sinatra, the Kennedys, the Mafia, everything that had been around me. People started calling in, asking when I was going to write a book."
Now signed to St. Martin's Press, Anka, who once flirted with a career in journalism, is "going through my archives with a writer who will work with me, because I don't have the time." He hopes to finish the book by late 2008.
In addition to promoting Classic Songs, he's already plotting his next album, which may contain original material, "though I can't commit yet."
Having recently returned from a European tour, Anka also is eager to launch a series of American dates in September — past misgivings about life on the road notwithstanding.
"Today I love it, because I survived to become part of something ongoing," he says. "With every song, you see a different look in people's eyes or a different rush to the stage. By the time you get to My Way, they're reaching up, some of them crying.
"That's the part you work your whole life for."
Best-of albums worst of choices for some
NEW YORK - A side-effect to today's fractured, tumultuous music industry is the fluctuating meaning of the greatest-hits album.
On one hand, it remains a giant moneymaker for labels, which are urging their artists to make best-of compilations increasingly earlier in their careers. On the other, iTunes has made greatest-hits albums redundant. If you want an act's highlights, you can assemble them yourself.
This dichotomy has, for some bands, made the decision to make a best-of album an increasingly difficult, sometimes contentious one. Some view greatest-hits albums as a blatant money grab that disrespects the integrity of the album. Pressure from labels can also come sooner than expected.
The Sacramento, Calif., band Cake (its hits include "The Distance" and "Short Skirt, Long Jacket") was requested by its former label, Columbia Records to make a greatest-hits album. With only a handful of well-known albums to its name, the band judged a best-of disc to be premature. They refused, prompting a legal fight between Cake and Columbia.
In the end, Cake left to form its own label, Upbeat Records, and will instead release "B-sides and Rarities" on Oct. 2, with a live disc to follow this fall.
"I have mixed feelings about greatest-hits albums," said Cake lead singer and guitarist John McCrea. "They're a force that can be used for good or evil."
"For us at that point, we felt like it wasn't the appropriate moment — that we hadn't existed long enough to warrant some sort of wistful retrospection. It kind of reeked of desperation."
In recent years, a number of acts have released greatest-hits albums early in their careers, including Britney Spears, Hilary Duff and Sugar Ray.
Though the advent of iTunes (not to mention illegal downloading and MySpace) has meant a band's most-popular songs can be instantly sampled or bought, greatest-hits discs remain lucrative to labels. In recent Nielsen SoundScan sales charts, at least half of the top 50 top-selling catalog albums typically are compilations.
Labels often add rare unreleased material or unique packaging to these albums to entice die-hard fans. They are also viewed as a way to introduce audiences to an act with whom they may be unfamiliar.
Still, there are several notable holdouts, including AC/DC, Radiohead, Phish and Metallica. Many artists feel greatest-hits discs corrupt the integrity of their prior albums. For the same reason, Radiohead and AC/DC have thus far resisted putting their music on iTunes, where albums are chopped into single tracks.
It's a stance Chris Lombardi, founder of independent label Matador Records, often encounters.
"I've been trying to encourage some of our bands to do greatest-hits records, but I think artistically they have a real difficult time taking away the identity of the album as it stands alone," said Lombardi.
Many of the artists on Matador's roster haven't had hits in the conventional sense, but could benefit from having highlights assembled to make it easier for the more passive music fan. In 2003, Matador released "The Best of Guided by Voices: Human Amusements at Hourly Rates" — a sensible collection for Guided by Voices, whose prodigious output included 16 full-length albums.
"I felt the output was so huge for that band that to narrow it down would be helpful," said Lombardi. "Somebody might be intimidated by the size of the catalog."
Whether a label needs the consent of an act to issue a compilation varies from contract to contract. Catalog sales account for approximately 40-50 percent of a label's annual gross, so rereleasing and repackaging old material is far more than an afterthought.
"If an artist has a say in these kind of things, you'd think that they'd want a greatest-hits record to be an intro to the band as a way to guide you into buying the rest of the records as opposed to being a substitute," said Steve Kandell, deputy editor of Spin magazine.
Some greatest-hits records take on a life of their own — like the Eagles' "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)," which is the best-selling album ever in the U.S. Similarly, Bob Marley's "Legend" was (and still is) a sensation. At one point, it spent 106 straight weeks atop the Nielsen SoundScan catalog chart.
Other bands like U2 and Aerosmith have been criticized for their seemingly unceasing parade of greatest-hits albums. U2 followed 1998's "The Best of 1980-1990" and 2002's "The Best of 1990-2000" with 2006's "U218 Singles." Last year's "Devil's Got a New Disguise: The Very Best of Aerosmith" was the band's eighth compilation over the course of their 27-year career.
"There's a reason why it doesn't seem very artistic: it's not. It's a commercial ploy," says McCrea. "That said, there are some terrific greatest-hits albums."