Total Caffeine Overload Sequel

Your not so regular dose of Phwoar! Is moving to Hoop?, a multimedia portal and content-platform for people who like ads, and ad-sized things- a nexus, if you will, of Booklings, Superblogs, and atomic newspapers. We’re starting a rock-band! – we’re going to the World-freakin’-Cup! – and possibly the moon! – in short, Charlie Kaufman couldn’t write a better script if you spliced him with Woody Allen.
www.planethoop.com is coming to a reliable – or, heck, unreliable - internet connection near you.

ELEMENT’RY, MY DEAR FAN BOY.

It’s delightfully shocking how few holiday movies I was able to tolerate in the festive season past. I am officially bah!- humbugging with the best of them, still very much a Christmas type (first to bring out the tree, smiling more, loath to bring the tree down, and so on), but bah!- humbugging, I say, when the coals are warm and the brain-matter is caffeinated, as if bah!- humbugging is scheduled to become an Olympic event soon. I am no longer faintly amused by the Fred Clauses of this world, no matter how many Paul Giamattis or Rachel Weiszes are thrown at me. I do not subscribe to the notions of mistletoe romance, and I do not make time for those Ben Affleck feel-goods full of snow; partly because Ben Affleck does not make any more time for them either. I may entertain thought of another Santa Clause film, but only if Tim Allen is fitted a portlier belly.

It’s possible it’s almost the end – that lunacy and self-destruction await, herein depriving me of my patience for the small things; or that I am becoming Harvey Weinstein. It’s also possible I’m just pissed, at the local cineplex’s inability to recognise that beyond the tinsel and the lights and the upset tummies, it is in fact Oscar season. It is downright heinous that any short-term screening of Up In the Air is up in the air, and that the appropriate parties are wholly blind to the beauty of pictures like An Education, or Me & Orson Welles; that instead the Twilight sequel’s been showing long enough for a dozen viewings, before or after which I could write its plot down on a business card; that for Pete’s sake I have not seen Inglorious Basterds yet. I know – it’s unbelievable, incomprehensible, that there’s no appetite for intelligent cinema in my present corner of the world; but the simple truth is that people where I live are not bah!- humbugging enough.

Then again... chances are they’re not bah!- humbugging enough where you live either. Maybe there’s a shortage of some kind, a deficit somewhere, or maybe it’s just time I took the canoli out again. I really didn’t want to. I’m in a support-group, attending meetings, and making busy with colouring books so I don’t have to take the canoli out – but the planet at large has just got to kidding me: every last one of you.

James Cameron, if I must start somewhere, for blowing this much money on a movie spilling over with cliché. Some studio executive for giving Cameron the money to blow on such a cliché salad. E!’s Ben Lyons, who I used to trust completely, for letting me pump more money into the big blue machine that is Avatar.

I’ve been involved in some stimulating conversations about James Cameron, in the run-up to actually seeing Avatar. I’ve met loads of disgruntled Terminator saddos, still reeling from the ineffects of Salvation last year, and truck-loads of schmucks who, like me, have yet to see Titanic. There is both scorn and admiration in what enthusiasm or perhaps passivity it takes to spend ten years directing a single movie.

I told a friend I loved Judgement Day about as much as any Terminator saddo, but said I found it hard to appreciate directors whose insignia was hard to identify; which this friend, a Phwoar! staffer no less, countered brilliantly, by asking me to suppose therein the genius lay.

When, in fact, therein the blank cheques lay. It was terribly insipid of me to bring up M. Knight Shyamalan, just because he too is shooting a film called Avatar, and/or Martin Scorsese, as I can barely discuss cinema without bringing up Scorsese, to argue the case for insignia. I quite rightly pointed out that gigantic special effects are more often than not meant to cover a lack of real directorial input, but somehow forgot to praise Steven Spielberg for always looking, no matter what the visual, for that shot no man has filmed before.

There’s a certain detachment from Cameron, once he’s given you something bright and shiny to drool over. I don’t underestimate his efforts; but the plot, a moral coin-toss on how an American security firm should approach a resource-rich alien civilisation, is ripped right off a headline on Iraq, and so’s the dialogue. All the central characters – the conscientious marine, the all-knowing scientist, the bad-ass army general, the sexy extra-terrestrial love-interest – all the ones you’re meant to be paying attention to, all are excruciatingly tiresome caricatures that Cameron, finally re-emerging, has brought back with him from the Nineties. It doesn’t help that despite all the graphical wizardry on show, Cameron’s eight-foot tall, Masai-styled aliens really aren’t that pretty.

They tame outerworldy pterodactyls and fly them – they perform a strange chant and eerily erotic dance when they need to contact their god – and they speak a language that somebody human took the trouble to ‘invent’. Welcome to 2010, Mr. Cameron: you’ll be surprised to discover, I’m sure, that we really have seen it all before.

I have never needed so desperately to get back into the theatre and purify myself of inconsiderate writing. Coincidentally, there’s something deeply inconsiderate about turning Sherlock Holmes, all literature’s favourite detective, into an unabashed cad.

I do like a good cad, fortunately, especially if his behaviour is being marshalled by one Robert Downey Jr. Would all the tit-wankers still reading this, please, kindly leave the room? With all due respect to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries were a veritable bore. There was a flourish, here and there, to Conan-Doyle’s writing, but a pattern also to his mysteries, emblematic of the formula that once sustained Scooby Doo cartoons, and a weekliness, if only you’d read them then, that must have made the series feel like a Victorian CSI.

Decent crime-writing, as with decent detecting, makes sure to tie up all its loose-ends. Mr. Holmes did so every after a waffling case – Conan-Doyle did not, depositing all reason, through Watson, at the feet of Holmes’ superior intellect. Unless you were big on Ludo, it was impossible to read through Holmes’ adventures and crack a case before he did, by wholly rational investigation, because almost always there was something only Holmes knew.

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock is an unshaven, self-congratulating Englishman who loves his country and derives no pleasure from tea or crossword puzzles, but not exactly how Conan-Doyle painted him. This Sherlock is a social invalid with dependencies, a Sherlock whose pipe could contain absolutely anything, a Sherlock who enjoys mud-fighting coachmen beneath London’s streets, a Sherlock who talks too much, a Sherlock who has trouble concealing his erections... One could go on and on extrapolating how cool, how suddenly so human Ritchie and Downey Jr. make the man.

The director is simply the finest, grittiest portrait artist of London Hollywood has, and it’s uncanny how the actor never fails to make me walk away from his work with a spring in my step. Downey Jr., goddamnit, makes me want to chat up other people’s women and undermine several laws of physics, and honestly I am in the habit of doing neither. He can do it in an accent, too, and all it takes is five minutes at that acclaimed dude-pad on Baker’s Street, to begin to wonder who on earth, Sherlock or Downey Jr, is pretending to be who. “It appears, Watson, that I’m beginning rather to get away with myself.”

That last quote was this blogger as Sherlock, putting a check on that last paragraph. Conversations, again, suggested Jude Law would prove hyperbolic as John Watson, but among the dues Law is never paid are plaudits for how willing he is to compliment his fellow actors – see Road To Perdition, Enemy At The Gates, Closer, and My Blueberry Nights even, and be dazzled this time by how much work he’s putting in. Ritchie does him a favour, by rendering Watson the moral authority of the duo, and not just the humble Robin Sherlock’s Batman once condescended to at will.

Ritchie realises maybe he only gets to shoot one Sherlock movie, and thus waves a fine tapestry between a couple of the original tales, to form and fill a potent ensemble. Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) is a major player rather than just a hot client, Chief Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsas) isn’t nearly as daft as he is in the books, and Professor Moriarty, curiously conspicuous up to a point, is fucking frightening. The bass-clouded still of villainous Lord Blackwood hanging dead above the Thames offers sufficient testimony, all by itself, to show Guy Ritchie some respect.

Get the man a drink, once you’ve romped and rollicked through this charming picture, and sound the call of Knighthood for Downey Jr., sheriff of England.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!

This year we’re finally bringing you the gargantuan Phwoar! we promised you – we’re going for third down, IPO, and the whole nine yards. We’re putting messed-up kicks and some ties on, and we won’t stop battling ‘til you get the ultimate movie-blog on a plate full of chicken. For now we hope you had a fantastic festive season, and start 2010 with a list (ta-dah!) and a little something from the vaults.

Expect doughnuts.

Wish-List!!!

TOP TEN THINGS WE’D LIKE FOR 2010:

1- A distribution deal- PLEASE PICK US UP, NEWSCORP!!!

2- Director’s tickets to the Sundance Film Festival; you might want to watch this space, children.

3- It’s Complicated’s Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep hook up for real, raising a beautiful family of Golden Globes, ‘cause really they look that adorable together.

4- A PlayStation3 add-on that turns Sony’s black beast into an iMax film camera. We shall make no apologies for wanting more.

5- A triple-date at an organic sushi restaurant with Kat Dennings, Olivia Wilde, and Dame Judi Dench. (When Chipo swings, he swings for home-runs.)

6- Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland on big-screen, Blu-Ray, and buttered toast – we are absolutely tripping BOLLS!

7- A doubly political, doubly military Iron Man2, that ideally doesn’t walk, talk, or laser like such a sequel to a super-hero movie.

8- A Rolling Stone Cover – no, wait, three Rolling Stone covers, and stark naked if we want to be.

9- A little peace and quiet for Tiger Woods – we’re just saying.

10- A bowl of George Clooney, a slice of Brad Pitt, and some Matt Damon on that – or is that just the guy in the glasses? And a cold one, bar-tender!

A Socratic Thought On Whip It.

A Socratic Thought On Whip It.

If Drew Barrymore’s directing movies now, should we be checking our 401Ks, scrutinizing our pension packages, getting stable healthcare plans, and maybe looking for somewhere quiet by the sea? – What, no Charlies’ Angels 3? – If we still dig Drew’s lips, does that mean we officially prefer older women now? – speaking of Charlie’s Angles, er, Angels, if Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu ever decide to direct, is it okay if we pass on the footage and just…uhhh, y’know? – Were you not expecting more than just a little sexual innuendo? The film’s called Whip It – If Ellen Page’s playing a beauty pageant winner, does that make it okay for us to ogle her now? – (It’s never felt entirely legal) – We’re just saying, it’s kind of a chick-flick, isn’t it?, so we’ll need to get our kicks from somewhere – isn’t Eve, a co-star in this, a rapper? – never actually saw Riding In Cars With Boys, but the title was pretty cool.

Bring on the lawsuits!!! – and the existential doughnut cream.

It Should Be A Movie!

It Should Be A Movie!

2009/2010 NFL Season.

Director: Peter Berg, producer of TV’s Friday Night Lights; Terrence Malick, director of The Thin Red Line, will handle all scenes pertaining to the throwing of critical Hail Marys.

Cast: Entourage’s Adrian Granier as New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (a few more pecs on there and the resemblance is startling), Philip Seymour Hoffman as Jets coach Rex Ryan, and Dexter’s Michael C. Hall as Tom Brady of the New England Patriots (what resemblance? Michael C. Hall is Tom Brady); Greg Kinnear as Pats coach Bill Belicheck, Robert Downey Jr as previously disgraced dog-violator Michael Vick, and a less tall Clint Eastwood as New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin; Luke Wilson as Giants quarterback Eli Manning, Josh Brolin as almost forty or maybe fifty Brett Favre, and SpiderMan3’s James Franco as the New Orleans Saints’ unstoppable Drew Brees; Ben Affleck as Tony Romo, the beefiest Culkin there is as Matthew Stafford, and Sam Rockwell as Peyton Manning.

We kind of think Rob Lowe could do a bang-up job as both Kurt Warner and Matt Leinart, both quarterbacks for the Arizona Cardinals. The man simply doesn’t age at all.

The Story! It must begin in New York, where it will in some sense end, with University of Southern California graduate Mark Sanchez getting off a plane to learn his fate in the annual draft. All the headlines are abuzz with fellow rookie Matt Stafford almost certainly on his way to Detroit, a city blighted by dire economic times and even worse football scores for its hometown Tigers. But it’s not all about the newcomers, in yet another exciting run-up to the new season – the immediate future of one or two veterans of potent name hang in the balance too.

Brett Favre, legendary leader of Wisconsin’s Green Bay Packers for so long, is wrestling with a shoulder that isn’t quite what it used to be, and mulling a move to Packer rivals the Minnesota Vikings, partially because they’re the Minnesota Vikings, and partially because they’re the only team that’ll have him. Kurt Warner, too, is counting up the years, after leading the Cardinals to their first Super Bowl in a healthy ol’ while – it kind of complicates things, that young Matt Leinart is throwing the ball a lot like he used to in college.

The Philadelphia Eagles stun the nation by giving Michael Vick a second chance, not too long after his incarceration on charges of animal cruelty two years ago now, for dog fighting. Starter Donovan McNabb, however, is in the shape of his life, and isn’t going to roll over easily for any re-instated Superman. Tony Romo, in Dallas, is now Jessica Simpson free, and troublesome-teammate Terrell Owens-free, and needs to make his Cowboys team look like title-contenders. Kerry Collins is looking to recreate a perfect normal season last year for the Titans in Tennessee, but the NFL’s a notoriously fickle championship.

More significant than most other headlines is the fact that Patriots QB Tom Brady is back after injuring his knee on the first day of their last campaign, as Giselle Bundschen’s new husband and a father for the second time. Last time he played a complete season, the Pats went 18 and 0 before the Giants got in the way of their claiming a third Vince Lombardi trophy in four years.

But enough history. Matthew Stafford does eventually get drafted by the Detroit Lions, it’s been a longer time coming than the inauguration, to a mixed crowd of people roughly his age (we just expected the draft audience to be more suits and ties, but hey). The boos are a little deafening, ‘cause Stafford and the Lions together has kind of been a long time coming, but not really when Mark Sanchez steps up to shake on it with the Jets. A hell of a season is officially staring football fans in the face, when Brett Favre flies into Minnesota to put his Vikings deal in ink.

Last year’s Most Value Player Peyton Manning starts off swinging, making burger-meat of every team he throws against to help win the Colts their first five games – the last time Manning’s arm worked this way, they went on to become champions. The Titans, inversely, are a complete shadow of the team they were last time out, losing their first four. Drew Brees makes New Orleans a scary place to go, notching up win after win with 3+ touchdown passes per game (usually one will do). Talk is he’s the next Tom Brady, as Mr. Giselle starts off a little shaky against the Buffalo Bills, wary of that knee, but secures the win in the game’s dying moments in trademark Brady fashion. Director Peter Berg must pan out to show all of Foxboro stadium erupting at the return of the king.

Mark Sanchez defies the notion that rookies are mostly good for photo-shoots, by leading the Jets to a 3-0 start, including victory over their old rivals the Patriots. On the other side of New York, Peyton Manning’s younger brother Eli, a Super Bowl winner himself, is learning to throw the ball more, and the results are glorious. Two virtual shut-outs (Scores of zero for the enemy) see the Giants score well over thirty points twice, including away at the Cowboys brand new park. Romo is picturesque of the literary tragedy’s afflicted hero, a genius the atoms just won’t dance a tango for. A giant overhead screen at home and a pair of classy road-wins do little do stem the contemplative headlines, but Cowboys owner Gerry Jones vows to stick by his man.

All this, and we haven’t had to mention the reigning Super Bowl champions the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Brett Favre gets a respectful outing against former team the Packers, scoring the win with the kind of masterful play the sport’s Hall of Fame beckons his name for. The Denver Broncos, a young side with a young coach, match the Colts for 5-0, and have everybody wondering if silverware’s on their horizon.

Maybe it is. But in our movie, Eli’s Giants and Drew’s Saints clash in the NFC Final, and the Jets find themselves squared off against the seemingly unstoppable Colts in the AFC finale. An all New York final is set up, with both fixtures settled in overtime, and Mark Sanchez becomes the first rookie to win the Super Bowl in his first season since some guy called Kal-El. The recession finally ends, and the recovery finally begins.

Brett Favre retires again, having toiled like Mel Gibson in Braveheart in a playoff match against the Jets, but not for long. What would an NFL season even mean anymore, if Brett Favre didn’t pre-empt it with a little suspense?

He signs for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2010.

Movies About Men

Movies About Men: Public Enemies.

It’s always been one’s lingering suspicion, hasn’t it, that Johnny Depp might not be quite as flawless as he seems? He’s Tim Burton’s guy; he’s done takes with Brando; and like all good Hollywood pin-ups, he hasn’t got much to say if the camera isn’t rolling – what’s most remarkable is he’s got into position playing the kinds of roles he’s always wanted to. ‘Compromise’ isn’t one of the many descriptive that’ll be applied to Depp when his star’s natural light has faded, when he dies clutching a moment in the mandibles of his now trademark subtlety, daring it to be something twisted, something phantasmal.

It certainly doesn’t seem to matter what kind of moment it is. It could be a murder sequence in something as suited to surrealism as Sweeney Todd was, or five hundred odd seconds of Hunter S. Thompson shooting up, or The Libertine’s central debauchee launching a crushing diatribe on universal morals. Whether or not he actually gets them to - the moments to do as he pleases – is another matter entirely, one that more than ever, post Public Enemies, is deserving of near-scientific scrutiny; because – because, my pretties – another word we’ll use to describe Depp, if we are level-headed and discerning, is ‘misused.’

This is, after all, the fine gentleman who signed up to make those Pirates sequels – innocent fun, of course, but clear and certain nose-dives to any self-respecting thespian. But we’re not here to talk about whether Johnny’s entitled to be tactful and nice about his career choices, because he is. What we’re trying to do here is get everybody thinking analytically about every Depp performance you’ve ever called brilliant and applauded accordingly – then consider whether you were clapping before or after the movies in question had even begun.

I have, you see, and find myself levitating in a problematic hyperspace. There are in life those cinema outings where you sink into the darkness as usual, but discover that after an hour, an hour and a half, two, you’re yet to disengage from your job, your bills, the all-round traffic of life. It’s supposed to be a clincher – a film about one of the most revered bank-robbers in American history, John Dillinger, played by the seasoning clown-prince of modern-day actors. Never mind the Depression-era setting; there’s no escape on offer because the entire time you’re watching Johnny Depp.

It’s saddening to write, but his complete lack of presence got me thinking… about his lack of presence in the nevertheless charming Finding Neverland, in the pleasantly tooth-decaying Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. He should be having fun, playing John Dillinger for schmuck’s sake, but all the while he’s Johnny Depp, just doing his job and not a great deal more.

It may occur to you, as it did to me, that there are a variety of emotions simply not in Depp’s nevertheless vast repertoire: rage, boisterousness, sadness, confusion. He made desperation and enthusiasm his own as Ed Wood, but to my mind has since abandoned them.

Depp’s co-star Christian Bale, another champion of our cinematic times, demands to be filmed every time he walks into a scene, as lead officer on the hunt for Dillinger, Melvin Purvis. The trait is useful, given that director Michael Mann barely has a screenplay in place. Public Enemies contains extended attempts at theatre, with its quick hellos and swift goodbyes, and the dirty ballet indulged in by well-dressed criminals, fur-coated beauties and cops in fedoras; but this puts added pressure on the ensemble’s eyes, ‘cause therein the dialogue must take place, and on words that aren’t whole enough to withstand a breeze.

It all feels rather empty, the scene that sees Dillinger, for instance, sneaking into quarters of the police unit charged with his apprehension under the auspices that all he wants are the baseball scores. He dwells for a moment on newspaper cuttings of himself and comrades who are mostly dead; and for a second you wonder what’s going through his mind: is it regret? – sadness?- pride? Practically none of the above, because all Dillinger does is grin, escorting himself out of there with all the charm and swagger of a sophisticated action-figurine.

Another crushing disappointment is the moment Dillinger actually dies. He’s shot dead on a street, stalked by swarms of cops, and flanked by the innocent immigrant ladies who set up his demise. If this is how it happened, well and good – but just because America’s public enemy number one, for a time, got gunned down on the sidewalk is no excuse to make the process look this cheap.

I could tell you Marion Coittard, delicious as she is, looks an awkward guest rather than the anti-hero’s love interest, no thanks to some shoddy lines, her character’s strange French/Cherokee heritage and perhaps a little too much lipstick; that Billy Crudup makes for a stocky but just too tight-assed J. Edgar Hoover, infamous director of the FBI; and lastly, putting my hammer down, that Stephen Graham could have done with more screen-time as the wonderfully cocky Baby Face Nelson (the man’s British, for crying out loud). But stating this takes too much heat off Michael Mann, who coincidentally also shot a film called Heat, and isn’t doing plenty to escape that picture’s gravity. As co-screenwriter, all his best dialogue emerges when guns are exchanging rapid fire, then vanishes ‘til the next time blood gets a chance to spill.

This is a somewhat polemical piece on Johnny Depp because all the film’s shortcomings present him with the chance to rescue it from artistic limbo, if only he’ll escape his artistic comfort zone. Depp fails to rise to the occasion, in a role that a fan like me swore he was born to play. This came nowhere near The Assassination of Jesse James, aesthetically and also on the basis of the lead performance. In it, Brad Pitt was towering as the title character, and paranoid and savage all at once, and made a valuable case for his own place in Hollywood history. In Public Enemies, Johnny Depp was Johnny Depp, but it turns out that just won’t be enough anymore.

POPCORN: A movie based on a book based on a legend – so it’s amazing how little it has to say for itself.