Lost [TV Series] blog

Images via the BBC

You know that antediluvian thought experiment dealing with giving monkeys typewriters and seeing they could come up with Shakespeare? Well, chimpanzees may not be likely to create the work of England's most venerable playwright, but it turns out they can make a hell of a movie. Naturalists in Britain gave chimps "interfere with-proof" camera equipment and let them whiz wild with it–and they ended up shooting a movie. That film has now been edited and will be airing on the BBC this week–the trailer's after the rail.

While it seems more like a premise for a bad reality TV show that a scientific study, it turns out it's precisely that–primatologists outfitted the chimps with cameras as part of their research into how chimpanzees perceive the world and one another, according to the BBC.

The idea for a chimp-made movie was first dreamed up by the primatologist Ms Betsy Herrelko, who set about introducing 11 chimps to video technology over the course of a year and a half.

The BBC explains what happened next:

In spite of the details that the chimps had never bewitched part in a research occupation in advance of, they soon displayed an benefit in fade away-making. Ms Herrelko plant the chimps two challenges. The before all was to teach the chimps how to purpose a touchscreen to select different videos. By doing so, Ms Herrelko could investigate which types of images chimps enter to watch. The number two challenge was to give the apes a "Chimpcam", a recording camera housed in a chimp-corroboration box.

Despite some early troubles with two males vying to be the alpha, the chimps eventually learned how to operate the touchscreen and were able to choose which videos they watched. After this was mastered, the group of chimps were given the 'Chimpcam.' And that, of course, is the fun part:

Mark, the chimps started playing with the Chimpcam, carrying it hither the enclosure. The chimps soon became interested in the camera assess wall off on the Chimpcam slug, watching what happened as they moved the Chimpcam around filming new images.

The chimps proceeded to submit the camera around their enclosure, filming and watching themselves on the whim.

And if you live in the UK, or you have the BBC on satellite, you can watch the movie they ended up shooting–it airs this Wednesday at 8 pm GMT. And it's probably a lot better than just about everything else on TV.

More on Chimpanzees
Troops Use Aircraft to Protect Chimps from Incoming Lava
Are Zoos Prisons? Habeas Corpus Filed for Chimp

F I L M K R I T I K




The Missing

Original-Titel

The Missing

Regie

Ron Howard

Darsteller

Cate Blanchett, Tommy Lee Jones, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenny Boyd, Aaron Eckhart, Eric Schweig

Start

12.02.2004

      1885, irgendwo in Strange Mexico: Maggie Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett) lebt von dem, was ihre kleine Farm hergibt. Nebenbei verdient sie sich ein paar Dollar, indem sie Kranken faule Zähne zieht oder selbst gebraute Medizin verabreicht. Einen Mann hat sie nicht, aber zwei Töchter und einen Hilfsarbeiter (Aaron Eckhart), mit dem sie hin und wieder das Bett teilt. Als eines Tages ein Fremder aufkreuzt, sieht deteriorate ohnehin spröde Maggie rot. Denn Sam (Tommy Lee Jones) ist der Mensch, den sie auf der Lump am meisten hasst: ihr Vater. Als sie ein Kind war, ließ er sie und ihre Grouse im Stich, um bei den Apachen zu leben. Sich auf seine alten Tage mit ihm versöhnen? Das kommt für Maggie nicht in Frage. Doch dann wird ihre ältere Tochter Lily (Evan Rachel Hunter) von einem indianischen Medizinmann (Eric Schweig) entführt, der einen regen Frauenhandel betreibt. Da sich Sheriff und US-Kavallerie unkooperativ zeigen, muss Maggie ausgerechnet Sam um Hilfe bitten. Der ist immerhin im Spurenlesen ein Ass.

     
?The Missing? erinnert in mancher Hinsicht an peter out klassischen Western eines John Ford, insbesondere an dessen Meisterwerk ?Der schwarze Falke? (1956), in dem John Wayne jahrelang nach seiner entführten Nichte sucht. Dennoch ist es Ron Howard gelungen, sich von seinen Vorbildern zu lösen: mit aufregenden Handkamerabildern, lose one’s life die spektakuläre Landschaft (gedreht wurde vorwiegend in Brand-new Mexico) in neuem Licht erscheinen lassen. ?The Missing? besticht mit subtilen Brechungen (welcher Western hatte je eine so hinreißend starke, eigensinnige Heldin?) und einer geschickten Balance zwischen politischer Korrektheit (gute und böse Indianer), pulsbeschleunigender Dramatik (Flutwellen, Verfolgungsjagden, Selbstmorde, Fluchtversuche, Schießereien, Voodoo-Zauber) und intimen Zwischentönen. So packend, bedrohlich und rauschhaft schön war schon lange kein Integument mehr. Egal, ob Western, Thriller oder Vater-Tochter-Drama.

Links:

Grandiose Bilder, fabelhafte Schauspieler und eine mitreißende Horror story

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A PARTICULAR HOUR PHOTO
(director/writer:
Mark Romanek; cinematographer: Jeff Cronenweth; reviser: Jeffrey Ford; music:
Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek; cast: Robin Williams (Sy Parrish), Connie
Nielsen (Nina Yorkin), Michael Vartan (Will Yorkin), Dylan Smith (Jakob
Yorkin), Erin Daniels (Maya Burson), Eriq LaSalle (Det. Van Der Zee), Gary
Cole (Bill Owens), Nick Searcy (Larry, Repairman), Clark Gregg (Detective
Paul Outerbridge), Paul H. Kim (Yoshi); Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: R; producers:
Christine Vachon/Pamela Koffler/Stan Wlodkowski; Fox Searchlight Pictures;
2002)

"Joke Hour Photo rides on the
back of the inspired performance by Robin Williams…"

Director-writer Mark Romanek's (video director of the musical group
Nine Inch Nails' "Closer"/"The Perfect Drug") chilling psychodrama attempts
to get under one's skin with its suggestive creepy portrayal of soft-spoken
Sy Parrish (Robin Williams) as a one hour photo clerk in Sav-Mart (a chain
department store like Wal-Mart), who compensates for his empty life by
trying to live his life through his customers' photos. What develops without
a hitch in One Hour Photo is the "invisible man" role grippingly played
by Robin Williams. But the downbeat arty film's faults are that everyone
else remains undeveloped and the story was limited, as the entire film
is affected only by  what Robin Williams sees and does.

Sy is a stocky, repressed, bland, wearer of close-cropped orange
hair, middle-aged bachelor living downtown in some unnamed city where he
works far away in a suburban mall for the last 20 years developing photos.
He's a lonely man who puts everything he has into his job and lets his
own life become meaningless, except it's filled with angst and seethes
underneath with anger. He makes an extra set of prints for himself of photos
from his favorite customers. His favorite couple is the seemingly all-American
upscale Yorkins, consisting of handsome design company head Will (Michael
Vartan) and his pretty wife Nina (Connie Nielsen) and their adorable young
son Jake (Dylan Smith). Sy greatly admires them because they appear through
their happy photos to be the ideal family. Since he has no family or friends,
and dines alone at family restaurants, he compensates by adopting the Yorkins
as his surrogate family and pictures himself as their kindly Uncle Sy.
He carries this obsession so far as to have a wall in his apartment filled
with photos of his favorite customers, where at his leisure he daydreams
that he's a part of their family life. He also parks his cheaper model
Toyota Echo by the Yorkins' luxurious ranch house to regularly spy on them.
They have been steady customers for the last 6 years, and he takes great
pride that he has watched their son grow up with so many benefits. Nina
and Jake know him by name and take a reserved but kindly interest in him.
While Will chortles with class snobbishness at the seemingly harmless "photo
man," but is a bit wary of him and doesn't trust Jake to be alone with
him.

Seemingly, Sy would be the ideal employee. He always has a store-friendly
smile for his customers and cares about the quality of the photos he develops.
But the everpresent store manager Bill Owens (Gary Cole) smells something
fishy and begins to watch him like a hawk. He discovers Sy is taking long
lunch breaks and one time becomes upset with him for causing a ruckus with
the repairman in front of the customers. Bill suggests that Sy takes a
Club Med vacation.

Sy's dreams of a perfect world and a perfect marriage begin to become
unraveled when he slowly discovers chinks in his ideal family's armor.
He's disappointed that Will emotionally neglects his son and wife, that
there's a bit of a strain showing in Nina's features, and when he observes
Jake at soccer practice he learns his dad never goes to the games. Sy feels
he has to do something about all that, and sets his mind to straightening
this family out. The viewer knows from the opening scene that Sy is in
some kind of deep trouble, because he's in a police station and is being
questioned by efficient Detective Van Der Zee (LaSalle) of the suburban
town's "threat management unit."

Caveat: spoiler to follow in next paragraph.

The downfall of Sy starts to snowball when he can't live knowing
his perfect family is not what he pictured them. When developing photos
for the attractive Maya Burson (Daniels), he discovers photos of her kissing
Will Yorkin. Not able to let that go, he slips those photos into the order
Nina picks up. But the crushing blow for him was already delivered by Bill
Owens, who fires him upon the discovery of all the extra prints missing
but not sold. With Sy's security blanket job no longer there, it now becomes
a question of how creepy and dangerous is this mentally disturbed man.

Romanek, tastefully through his conscientious and subtle direction,
does a good job of showing Sy's mood switches and catching the dull milieu
where Sy exists as a nobody. Romanek's very keen on framing each shot in
a perfectly matching color tone and making the statement that the flat
colors Sy chooses at home and the anti-septic colors he's surrounded by
in the fluorescent-lit store, overwhelmingly color his empty life. These
sterile colors could be sets for a sci-fi film, as they make Sy appear
like an alien.

Robin Williams does a masterful job of restraining himself and letting
the audience read his mind to figure out what he's up to, something he
can't do as well when he does comedy. The outstanding direction and performance
by these two is enough to make this thriller overcome its pointless trip
down a road of a pat mental disorder, one that is all too familiar in films
that failed to be another Psycho because they didn't take the time to focus
on small details and actually draw out genuine sympathy for their sociopath
loser anti-hero.

One Hour Photo rides on the back of the inspired performance by Robin
Williams, in a role where he's asked to fall over backwards for sentimentality
and to convey without showing emotion a bad and good side to his nature.
The only thing Romanek couldn't quite do was make this film tense and scary,
as it had the feel of being a setup for a story that never materialized.
Basically, One Hour Photo is about Robin Williams's breakdown. The film
might have been better served if it had wider ambitions to get at the underlying
fears and desires that motivates those lured into the materialistic trappings
of upscale suburbia rather than allowing Robin Williams' crusade against
marital infidelity to be the film's pivotal thrust against upper-middle-class
culture.

REVIEWED ON 9/23/2002     GRADE: B -

1.07.2010
far east movement's "I party" music video trailer

Check short this little
for Loaded East Movement's "I Party" music video. Produced and directed by
Choz Belen
, the whole events is animated and has this really inane marvellous look. You might recall I formerly wrote about his kickass music video towards
"Sleep"
by Earnestly Foundation.
It's a expert track, and I can't halt for the full video to officially particle. For more from Limit East Decline, visit their officially website
. And if you haven't picked up their album

Monster

, what the heck are you waiting for?

Someone is bloodshed Japan’s most infamous criminals: murderers, remedy dealers, corrupt politicians, each the same collapsing of a fatal heart attack with no clue as to the identity of the killer, or his methods. A cult springs up: to some, the mystical executioner is an avenging angel, to others a brutal vigilante. He is, in fact, law student Light Yagami, whose keeping of the furtive ‘Death Note’ allows him to kill anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Adapted from a popular Japanese TV series (itself inspired by a long running manga), ‘Death Note’ carries a lot of narrative baggage, populated with enigmatic characters and sporting random subplots evidently unconnected to the critical narrative.

But such a yesterday also lends the take weight and confidence, its complex mythology convincingly mapped outside. The first half moves at a breakneck pace as Light’s death spree gathers power. But towards the end things cultivate darker and more complex, leading to a satisfyingly emotive and unresolved finale and leaving the door roomy for the unchangeable and agreeable follow-up.

Andy Lau stars as Dr. Ken, cited recently as one of the top ten future leaders according to Century Magazine. He runs a sophisticated, state of the art, ultra futuristic business, surrounded by elite scientists from every field of research. What does he do, you might ask? What's his big innovation, what his business is working toward in a way that will make him, they think, the richest man in the world? The new concept his brilliant mind has been working toward?

WebTV.

And just think. If this movie was any longer (I shudder to imagine), perhaps we could have seen his company tank once his brilliant idea hit the market. But we are spared the story of WebTV, riveting as it could be, and instead are invited to the end of the world. The Brotherhood of Technology is knocking off the top ten future leaders one by one in inexplicable fashion. One spontaneously combusts, another dries so much he turns to powder. In the meantime, Dr. Ken is in the doldrums because his beautiful fiancee (Michelle Reis) died just weeks earlier in a sudden accident.

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The CID, accompanied by a member of the British MI6 Secret Service, try to protect Dr. Ken as they believe him to be the next target. He dismisses them, however, asking that Hong Kong detective Chiu (Anthony Wong), an old grade school friend, serve as his only protection.

The greater part of the film is a detective story, unraveling slowly — very, very, slowly. Dr. Ken and Detective Chiu, along with a gang of smartie's from Dr. Ken's geekshop, go from the crime scene back to HQ, then back and forth again. And again. The high-tech HQ has all kinds of neat looking stuff, like projection screens on the walls, banks of servers, huge satellite dishes. If only Dr. Ken was some kind of super-spy, with this kind of set, it could be just brilliant. I think Andy Lau would make an excellent Doc Savage. But here, he's just a morose guy who thinks up WebTV and fantasizes about his lost love.

And then his girlfriend shows up again, in the flesh. And then she disappears. He decides to travel to Prague, where they were going to be married, to see if she or her ghost will appear again. Detective Chiu travels with him and the next ten minutes or so are used moving them around from place to place in Prague, as if the director wanted to say, "See? Look! They're really there!" But it quickly comes to pass they have no damn reason to be there and head back to Hong Kong, where they finally confront the Brotherhood of Technology and it's enigmatic leader, Billy Connors. "A modern-day Freud," someone says. He interprets dreams? Not quite. He does something far more sinister.

Or I think he's sinister. Anyway, the end of the film explains it all, though I can't say I understood it. Fans of the X-Files will no doubt eat it up, since every episode in that series seems to end with some kind of stupid statement presented as fact that somehow manages to both render everything that happened up until that point meaningless, and yet still not resolve any open questions.

I do know the end of the world is upon us. Or nearly so. They allude to it early on, when a man spontaneously combusts in a Church, the forensic experts say, "Even his Bible caught fire," and then adds, "everything but the last chapter was incinerated." The last chapter? Hey, waitaminute! The last chapter is — Revelations! Oh No! Later, Billy Conners seems to promise that he is working for God to bring about judgement day — he is the prophet. It's up to Dr. Ken to decide whether to accept or reject this prophet, and accept or reject armageddon for all mankind.

Armageddon is an interesting concept which gets bogged down in a dull script and uninspired directing. Even Andy Lau adds nothing to the picture. Only Anthony Wong stands out, in a strong supporting role. Those looking for a big-budget action spectacular should look elsewhere. Action is suspiciously absent from Armageddon. Aside from a few good special effects, including the aforementioned spontaneous combustion and the abrupt death of Dr. Ken's girlfriend, there is nothing but talking heads. And a little rushing around. Oh, and everyone dramatically tries to crack a computer password for a little while. To fully understand how utterly bereft this entire picture is of action, witness the scene where Dr. Ken and Detective Chiu finally meet Billy Connors for the first time, in a subway in Prague. Instead of fighting, our heroes are immobilized, Billy delivers a monologue, and then he disappears. When at last they can move, Dr. Ken gets up and looks depressed. Disappointing, thy name is Armageddon.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

Written, produced, and directed by Peter Jackson (the man behind such classics as Dead Alive, The Frighteners, and, oh yeah, Lord of the Rings), Bad Taste is an absolutely hilarious sci-fi comedy that’s likely one of the grossest movies you’ll ever see. Dubbed by Jackson as a “splatoon,” this eye-opener features various disembowelments, dismemberments, and decapitations—in fact, it doesn’t just feature them, it wallows in them. And you’ll laugh with glee at every single one.

A small band of alien hunters representing the Astro Investigation and Defense Service—Ozzy (Terry Potter), Barry (Pete O’Herne), Frank (Mike Minett), and Derek (Peter Jackson)—descend on the seemingly deserted New Zealand town of Kaihoro to investigate rumors of extraterrestrial activity. In short order, they discover some rather vicious though bumbling blue-shirted zombies that are after the gang’s flesh. It seems that humans are quite the interstellar delicacy, and these alien baddies are on a dastardly mission to collect as many humans as possible for the otherworldly Crumb’s Crunchy Delights corporation. This story is just a hokily convenient backdrop for buckets and buckets of guts, gray matter, and other assorted goo. Bullets puncture flesh, machetes hack off limbs, eyeballs spit out of sockets, cars slice bodies in two, brains seep out of head wounds, blood spurts just about everywhere imaginable. And yet Jackson’s goofily on-the-move camera and slapstick direction will make you howl with laughter.

Jackson and his friends filmed Bad Taste (the director’s first feature film) on weekends over the course of four years. Jackson used an amateur 16mm camera, a self-styled steadicam rig, and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants gore effects to create this surprisingly entertaining and effective little sci-fi/horror/comedy flick. If you’ve seen the down-n-dirty Dead Alive, you’ll immediately recognize Jackson’s style. I wouldn’t call Bad Taste as successful as Dead Alive, but they’ve clearly sprung from the same beautifully twisted mind.

HOW’S IT LOOK?

Anchor Bay presents Bad Taste in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.66:1. The 16mm image definitely shows its flaws. The film is quite grainy, and backgrounds tend toward the soft side. However, that’s the only bad news, and obviously the film’s origins are no fault of Anchor Bay, which has done its very best to produce a fantastic image with what it had. The presentation is surprisingly fine and filmlike: Colors are generally flawless—especially the all-important blood red—but I noticed a few washed-out scenes. Overall, I was impressed with the quality of this transfer.

HOW’S IT SOUND?

You get a few audio options on Bad Taste. Not content with just the original Dolby 2.0 mix, Anchor Bay has created new Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and DTS 6.1 ES tracks. Although they’re not extremely dynamic, the surround tracks offer a nice enveloping feel, particularly with environment noises such as rustling leaves and whizzing bullets. Also, music is placed nicely in the center of the room. Otherwise, I noticed only subtle differences between all three tracks. When all is said and done, though, you’ll be left scratching your head, wondering why Anchor Bay went to the extra effort.

You’ll notice that all the sound, including the dialog, appears to be dubbed. It was. All of the film’s sound was recorded in post-production, apparently because the original sound reels were lost. As a result—and, again, because of the movie’s minuscule budget—the sound presentation is weak. A tinniness pervades the proceedings, and don’t expect your subwoofer to get anything close to a workout.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

Two editions of Bad Taste are available: a single-disc regular edition and a two-disc limited edition that includes a 25-minute documentary about the making of the film. The single-disc edition (reviewed here) includes an anamorphic theatrical trailer for Bad Taste and a nicely substantial Peter Jackson text biography.



WHAT’S LEFT TO SAY?

Anchor Bay has done an impressive job with Bad Taste, particularly with an image that was obviously difficult to work with. You might want to avoid eating during or preceding a viewing of this hilarious little vomit bag of a film.

Here’s all the analysis you need for “Analyze That.”

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Fish out of water: Funny. Forever funny.

Fish in water: Never funny. What would be funny about it? It’s just a fish in, er, water.

“Analyze That” begins with a blast of comic energy as it pursues the classic fish flubbing around on terra firma and then squanders all that laughter and goodwill for a dreary fish-in-H2O thing, wasting Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal’s talent and too much of our time. At least they got paid.

It begins where “Analyze This” left off, in prison. De Niro’s gangster Paul Vitti is in Sing Sing, where big guys with tattoos resembling cave art keep trying to perforate his liver with sharpened toothbrushes. Crystal’s Dr. Ben Sobel may be in a worse joint: his own brain, where the anger he feels at his now-dead father is suffocating him – while outside, in apparently pleasant reality, his shrewish wife (played at full-bitch pitch by Lisa Kudrow) is busy acting as warder. She’s so hostile you think maybe she’s got a sharpened toothbrush somewhere.

Dr. Sobel, why don’t you get your smile back by going on a cattle drive? Oh, right, you already made that movie. In any event, “Analyze That” lurches into its highest comic gear when, by feeble pretext, the feds contrive to have the endangered mobster, who is feigning insanity, paroled into the care of the self-doubting, eminently mild shrink who lives in a pleasant New Jersey neighborhood.

O sole mio, the laughs! De Niro’s Vitti is fish Ubermensch, Italian-style, as deposited in the tepid burbs of Jersey. He’s so far out of water, it’s a wonder his gills don’t explode. He curses, he threatens, he punches, he samples the purchased pleasures of the flesh (with a vulgar sleazy prostitute), he eats, he stomps, he smokes. He never moderates. He represents one tribe of man, the utterly spontaneous. He does, says, thinks, eats without a thought, without reflection, without hesitation. You can imagine the chaos such a monster of an id unleashes on any house run by Lisa Kudrow. When he kicks his ‘ho out of the bedroom while Dr. Sobel downstairs is conducting a memorial get-together for his undearly departed dad, the results are hysterical. Imagine the enraged Sonny Corleone kicking his way out of a dinner party in a Woody Allen movie.

On the other hand, Dr. Sobel is our friend, the empathetic man. He never feels his own pain, only everybody else’s. He can rationalize any behavior except his own. His eyes leak the tears of human kindness. He’s been overeducated to the point of profound uselessness. He has lost touch with his physical self, with his hungers, with his strength and his aggression. He needs permission to breathe.

Underneath the shenanigans of a plot that runs out of energy quickly, you can see the psycho-emotional crossed trajectory the movie means to set up but doesn’t really deliver. Paul, of course, must learn to moderate somewhat, while Ben must learn to assert somewhat. Each must become a little more like the other guy.

That’s interesting, and quickly forgotten in a mess of subplots. One involves Paul’s engagement in a gang war – talk about putting the fish back in the water! – and one faction is led by De Niro’s old pal from “Raging Bull,” Cathy Moriarty (who has added a hyphen and evidently married a Protestant, so that the name now reads “Cathy Moriarty-Gentile”). She still has the same gritty edge as she did in that great American movie, and I wish the film had done more with her. But the whole Mafia thing – the other gang leader does a lame imitation of Brando’s muted, phlegmy Godfather voice – is pretty stale.

Another subplot makes what I take to be a jab at “The Sopranos,” which shares the gangster-shrink dynamic. Dr. Sobel gets Paul a gig as an adviser to a Mafia-based television show called “Little Caesar”: The authentic gangster attempts to mold the performance of the inauthentic one, played by Australian Anthony LaPaglia. De Niro and LaPaglia have almost no comic rapport, and the script cannot come up with any gags for them except the obvious and unfunny. There’s also a florid producer named Raoul Berman (Reg Rogers), who may be a version of “Sopranos” creator David Chase. But he may not be. He’s clearly somebody, but nobody outside of two screening rooms and one agency on either coast will know who.

The movie just goes nowhere. It’s stuck in that no man’s land between comedy and banal movie mob action, and it delivers on neither of these impulses with any force. The filmmakers also make a serious tactical error in separating Crystal and De Niro through most of the second half. Alone, neither is half as funny as they are together. For gangsters with funny problems and a whiny shrink, I’ll take the great Tony S. any day of the week.

ANALYZE THAT (R, 95 minutes) – Contains profanity and mild violence. At area theaters.

Nine stories about nine different women, and each story is done in one continuous shot.

I'd heard both raves and razzes for Rodrigo Garcia's NINE LIVES. Some call it a brilliantly insightful look at the worlds that modern woman lives in; other dismissed it as cinematography experimentation, with only a cursory attempt made toward sincere emotion and narrative structure.

Call it an experiment if you will, but I'll be siding with the fans of the flick — although I wouldn't go so far as to call it earth-shatteringly brilliant. How much you dig the flick will most likely depend on how quickly you can "connect" with the varied women who make up the 9-course movie menu.

Fortunately we're treated to some really great actresses, and it's seeing some familiar faces do some excellent work that helps one to appreciate the simple pleasures of NINE LIVES. Robin Wright Penn as a woman haunted by an ex-lover; Holly Hunter as a warm woman dating a cold fish; Amanda Seyfried as a beautiful young woman trapped by parental responsibilities; Sissy Spacek as a devoted housewife contemplating adultery; Glenn Close as a mourning mother visiting a cemetery; Kathy Baker as a brazen broad shaken by her fear of an impending mastectomy…

Yeah, it all sounds pretty doom & gloom-ish, but there's also some real heart, humor, and hope to be found in NINE LIVES. Although each successive story stands alone, you'll enjoy noticing that several of the peripheral characters pop up from time to time. It's as if we're randomly eavesdropping on the private concerns of one particular neighborhood … a neighborhood that sure has its fair share of heartache.

Video:

Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1)

Audio:

Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, with optional subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

There's a fantastic 73-minute

Q & A Session

with writer/director Rodrigo Garcia and actors Amy Brenneman, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Kathy Baker, and Joe Mantegna. Moderated by David Lee Strasberg, this is a packed session, with tons of anecdotes and insights from the filmmakers.

Four featurettes are also included:

The Women of NINE LIVES

(6:50),

Sonia: Blocking a Scene

(7:32),

Working with One Continuous Take

(8:45), and

Maggie: A Day at the Cemetery

(4:37) take you back-stage and on-set of this decidedly unique little movie. Those who enjoyed the flick will dig the featurettes. Those who fell asleep during the movie won't need 'em.

Rounding out the extras is a bunch of

trailers

for THE TENANTS, WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, THE DYING GAUL, LONDON, SUENO, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, SAINT RALPH, JUNEBUG, THUMBSUCKER, and SARABAND.

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Taken solely as a curiosity, NINE LIVES still works. Nine stories done in nine single-take shots? Neat-o.

Neil Simon has written some of the funniest plays and films of the 20th century, but unfortunately, The Slugger’s Missus isn’t one of them. From the opening frames, Hal Ashby’s surprisingly bittersweet romantic comedy exhibits a laundry file of wretched qualities—strained dialogue, B performances, a preposterous testimony, and a soundtrack so unharmonious and shrill it begs to be muted. The fog starts at rock bottom and remains there, and while it tries to fill out an enlightened statement close to the evolving of male-female relationships, its sports arena setting and fool plot conventions severely denigrate the message.

The Slugger’s Chain seems more like a sketchily developed predicate than a fullest completely-fledged movie, as if Simon found the idea while leafing as a consequence old notebooks in a frantic rush to fulfill a contractual duty. The intact enterprise possesses a hastily thrown-together fondle, with extended, excruciating melodious numbers padding the slim story. The writing is anemic at best, and lacks the rapid-fire repartée, sharp zingers, and steady lilt we expect from Neil Simon dialogue. Of definitely, the worlds of baseball and fizzy drink music hardly seem like Simon’s area of expertise, and the author’s pain in both milieus is immediately apparent. Watching the film, it’s scarcely impossible to reconcile this unequivocal disaster with the man who wrote such warm, pleasant trifles as Barefoot in the Park and The Goodbye Girl.

The clichéd plot focuses on the impetuous romance between Atlanta Braves slugger Darryl Palmer (Michael O’Keefe) and aspiring caroller Debby Huston (Rebecca De Mornay), and their ensuing unchanging relationship. After seeing Debby produce at a townsperson nightclub, Darryl falls hopelessly in love, and pursues her relentlessly. On the field, anyhow, he’s mired in a spiraling recede, which makes his pledge to collide a pair of placid runs in return for a dinner date with Debby all the more audacious. Darryl fulfills his undertake, but feels Debby simply is guilty for his newfound killer swing. As their love affair heats up, so does Darryl’s bat, and he now depends on Debby to maintain his concupiscent streak, while the Braves depend on Darryl to harbour them in the guttural of the pennant hunt.

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Much to the team’s support, Darryl and Debby promptly link, but Debby swiftly tires of subjugating her own dreams, and finds her role as “the slugger’s wife” and “Darryl’s good luck charm” unfulfilling. She revives her singing business, and when memento executives express interest, Debby jumps at the possibility, leaving her chauvinistic husband to go on walk. In the intervening time, Darryl is closing in on Roger Maris’ single season home administer heed and needs Debby cheering in the stands more than till the end of time. And with the Braves a whisker away from clinching their borderline, the party needs Darryl to maintain his lofty level of piece.

All this sounds cute enough, but thanks to the weak performances of O’Keefe and De Mornay, the film not under any condition achieves even a modicum of credibility. No one could period flub the skinny O’Keefe for a power hitter (let alone anecdote who could smash 61 homers), and, once she opens her mouth, it’s unfathomable any record following would offer De Mornay a roll oneself. Watching her warble such 1980s staples as Stray Cat Strut and Little Red Corvette is torture of the highest degree, and one can only imagine (with relish) how Simon Cowell would crucify De Mornay if she were a entrant on American Idol.

As someone who came of age during the 1980s and, up until a few days ago, still possessed a fondness for the decade, I must ruefully let in The Slugger’s Wife effectively extinguished my nostalgic fondness to that time after time. Ashby pummels us with the era’s consistent music, famous trifle, tacky fashions, carnal squabbles, and pervasive naiveté, making this film guess more dated than black-and-white classics from the 1930s. And speaking of Ashby, how did the director of such acclaimed and artistic movies as Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home, and Being There get roped into helming this wayward mainstream mess?

Unlike its warrior, The Slugger’s Old lady strikes at large again and again and again. With so tons consequential baseball movies and romantic comedies out there to enjoy, don’t pillage your time with this embarrassing cellar dweller.