WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Astronaut Farmer," "Ghost Rider," "The Number 23"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "The Astronaut Farmer," "Ghost Rider," "The Number 23"
Co-hosted, produced & directed by John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, February 23, 2007
Streaming live on the web and on-demand at http://www.wcbe.org .

Clay

"The Astronaut Farmer" is "Apollo 13" on horseback . . .

John

"Ghost Rider" blazes with banality. . .

Clay

"The Number 23" adds to the dross of this pre-Oscar season . . .

HIT THEME MUSIC

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("The Astronaut Farmer")

Clay, as I asked last week about Breach, how do you take an inherentlyinteresting true story, this time about a former astronaut drop out who launches himself into orbit, and make that story slow, dull, and corny?

Clay

I still don't know.

John

The Astronaut Farmer reaches that state.

Charles Farmer (Billie Bob Thornton) is determined to achieve his quixotic goal at the risk of jettisoning his family and close friends by losing his too-well-ordered farm and his loving, dutiful, and way too accepting wife, Audrey (Virginia Madsen), a clichéd part like all the others.

Everyone is a caricature, as the film itself is almost a parody of the American dream: It relies on the American tradition of individualism, even at the expense of those closest to the dreamer.

Clay ("The Astronaut Farmer")

Folks, "The Astronaut Farmer" IS as caricature of  weird-geek heroes.  If you've seen the Polish brothers even weirder "Northfork," you'd get the picture even better.

So, they do get the weird part right, but their heroes come off as being so self-satisfied that you find yourself, finally, not caring what happens to them.

John

Hey, that’s ME!

Clay

Billy Bob Thornton made us love him in his own written and directed film, "Sling Blade."  And Sam Raimi extracted an even more subtle performance out of Thornton in the wonderful movie "A Simple Plan."

John

Right!

Clay

But three weirdos do not make a right, and the Polish brothers plus Billy Bob transform this movie's would-be Don Quixote into Sancho Panza. 

Thank god for Virginia Madsen's accepting wife, John, she would have made a fine Dulcinea.

John ("Ghost Rider")

She’s DULLINEA to me.

Clay

Too bad.

John

How about some more space-out junk? Ghost Rider is a forgettable comic book adaptation.

Clay

Too many of them are . . .

John

Nicholas Cage plays Johnny Blaze, who sells his soul to Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda—who else would be peddling chopped bikes?). Now Blaze rides his cycle at night, skeleton head ablaze, protecting the innocent and being very bad about bad boys.

Cage is miscast with abs that must have been digitized (he couldn't be in all these second-rate films and develop a six pack like that). As for the cleavage of his girlfriend played by Eva Mendes, that looked real to me, a typical comic book TITillation.

Clay

John, it's time somebody weaned you.

John

(Laughs, then goes on.)

The computer graphics of ghosts and wrecks is just fun enough for comic book geeks to enjoy and regular geeks like me to think I should read the comic to get really in on the action.

Clay ("The Number 23")

John, if it's action on the biker circuit you want, then skip "The Number 23" and hold out for next week's "Wild Hogs."  Now that's a movie that going to be a hot entertainment.   But, unfortunately, "The Number 23" fails to add up, no matter how you tally the figures.

And that's all Jim Carrey does in "The Number 23. " He is incessantly obsessed with that number, and spends the rest of the movie trying to extract the meaning of his life from that particular numerary.

The only thing this movie shares with the far more creative  "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is its lead character and dark shadows.  And nobody does dark shadows darker than "Number 23's" director, Joel (Batman Forever) Schumacher.

John

That's dark.

Clay 

Trust me. It's an inexplicable downer. 

But enough of space-suited Quixotes, blazing bikesters, and misguided numerologists, John, because it's grading time.

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER FOR

John

Holy Hot Honda, Hooray!

"The Astronaut Farmer" earns a C for its CATATONIC pace . . .

Clay

"The Astronaut Farmer" gets a "C" because Mark Polish is no CERVANTES . . .

John

"Ghost Rider" earns a C for its faux COMIC book  CANdescence. . .

Clay

"The Number 23" gets a "D" because its DARKNESS DOES not become it . . .

TAKE DRUMS UNDER, THEN OUT

Clay (continues)

But one quick note, John, before we leave.  Check out the DREXEL Gateway's Oscar Party this Sunday night.  And double check out its talented MC, our Wild Hog buddy, Johnny DiLoretto.

John

Clay--I’ve ridden motorcycles for over 30 years, and I dare say the ladies thought I blazed.  I’m outta here.

Clay

Wrong again, John, they said you're flamed out.  Shazaam!

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT CLOSING MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay
Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio

Copyright 2007 John DeSando & Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Breach," "Children of Men"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "Breach," "Children of Men"
Co-hosted, produced & directed by John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, February 16, 2007
Streaming live on the web and on-demand at http://www.wcbe.org .

Clay

"Breach" is based on the true story of a religious zealot turned traitor . .

John

"Children of Men" is the Central Ohio Film Critics Association pick for best picture of 2006

HIT THEME MUSIC

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("Breach")

Clay--go figure: FBI agent Robert Hanssen was the most notorious spy in American history. How could you make a dull movie out of this setup? Director Billy Ray has achieved the impossible:  Robert Hanssen’s capture in Breach is less interesting than Paris Hilton partying with Britney Spears, even with panties.

Clay

I prefer my LAMBCHOPS with panties.

John

Breach provides little character motivation or excitement.  If you consider getting Hanssen’s palm pilot contents or electronically sweeping his car exciting, then you haven’t seen Casino Royale or even The Good Shepherd, a slow thriller but a veritable potboiler by comparison.

Breach does succeed in depicting a depressing world of lies, failures, and conversations centering around whether or not an FBI career is worth it.  I suppose “Yes” if your job is going through X Files.  Otherwise, drive a truck.

Clay ("Breach")

Depressing world of lies and failures, John?  Well, of course - the movie's set in Washington.

But instead of being another political thriller about betrayal in high places - think this year's [2006 ?] The Sentinel with Michael
Douglas.  "Breach" is a colorless rendition of  Hanssen's real-life story of misplaced trust.

Fault not Chris Cooper, however, for failing to get a handle on what it was that made Agent Hanssen tick.  Fault the movie's writers instead. And fault the director who turns this intriguing tale into something dullish and bland.  Unfortunately, the movie's visual ambiance is also as dull and lifeless as  is the movie's narrative.

However, Ryan Phillipe is quite good as the young agent who outfoxes the fox.

John

And you—he’s as dull as the movie itself.

Clay (continues)

You're wrong . . .

And, Laura Linney turns in an impressive (ouch) imitation of Jodie Foster's character in Silence of the Lambs.

John ("Children of Men")

In 2027, women have been infertile for 18 years.

Clay

Someone fell asleep at the wheel.

John

An excellent addition to the sci-fi canon, Children of Men shows how everyone is out for  numero uno, except former British freedom fighter, Theo (Clive Owen), who tries to save the only surviving pregnant woman.

As always, it seems only one man can bring salvation, a scenario getting a bit worn by now.  Children of Men opened, after all, on Christmas day.

Director Alfonso Cuaron’s bleak visual design is inspired by Mad Max and Blade Runner; it is also the work of production designers keeping Theo in garbage, battered buildings, and burned-out vehicles.

Children of Men doesn’t nurture the big themes as much as I’d like because of the emphasis on visual design and sparse substantive dialogue.

Clay ("Children of Men")

Well, folks, director Curon, who also brought us Harry Potter and the Prisoner of  Azkahban, has turned his "Children of Men" into an equally fabulist film.  What a year this has been for the Mexican magical-realists - think also Pan's Labyrinth and Babel.

So, though set in and around London in environs that echo the earlier worlds of Dicken's Oliver Twist, Children of Men's real setting is in an imaginary world of darkling plains where human beings act out their final scene.

Clive Owens is brilliant as the movie's hero/anti-hero.  Michael Caine is superb as the hobitt-like wiseman whose forest retreat is the only sane place left in the world.

And special praise to Claire-Hope Ashitey, whose character carries within her womb the last great hope for humankind's survival.

But enough of gray walled FBI offices and end-of-the-world-scenarios, John, because it's grading time.

John

Holy Jalapenos,  Hooray.

"Breach" earns a C for not CARING about DRAMATIC intrigue . . .

Clay

"Breach" gets a "C"  because we never find out why COOPER's CHARACTER betrayed his COUNTRY . . .

John

"Children of Men" earns an A for ASTONISHING APOCALYPSE . . .

Clay

"Children of Men" gets an "A" because there ARE moviemakers who care . .

John

Clay, Hanssen’s doing 23 hours a day in solitary.   I doubt if ANYONE in the current Bush administration will do an hour of solitary for the BREACH in the Libby case.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends.”

I’m outta here.

Clay

Solitary would be too good for them, John. They should be forced to share one cell, and one bar of soap.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

HiT MUSIC, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright 2007 John DeSando & Clay Lowe

FRONTLINE (PBS): News Wars (Four Part Series)

FRONTLINE (PBS)
Excellent four part series on media, government, and the news

Parts I & II: Secrets, Sources & Spin (February 13, 2007)
Extensive look at the issues involved in the "Valerie Plame" CIA leak case.

Part III: What's Happening to the News (February 27, 2007)

Part IV: Stories From a Small Planet (March 27, 2007)

All programs are available for download or can be ordered on DVD.

For more information see:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/

SEE ALSO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Because I Said So," "Chinatown," "Harold and Maude"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "Because I Said So," "Chinatown," "Harold and Maude"
Written, produced, and directed by John DeSando and Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, February 9, 2007
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org
Download at http://www.wcbe.org ("arts")

John

"Because I Said So" is a comedy no one should SAY is good . . .

Clay

"Chinatown" is a film noir masterpiece in full color . . .

John

"Harold and Maude" is a comedy I SAY is better than most  . . .

HIT THEME MUSIC (STAR WARS)

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("Because I Said So")

Clay, Diane Keaton in Because I Said So plays an obsessed mom on a campaign to marry off a daughter, Mandy Moore, whose catering business has become her love rather than an eligible man.

Clay

You mean she's not happy catering to men?

John

The only way to save this lame romantic comedy, which exists to showcase the aging Keaton’s remarkable body and lingering Annie-Hall flourishes, is to include enough pratfalls, cakes in the face, and other comic clichés to hope that the pre-Oscar audience, hungry for even a whiff of entertainment, will ignore the stupidity of the script and Keaton’s forced performance, surely signs that this actress knew it all was weak from the get-go.I was embarrassed for Moore, who deserves much better material.

Clay

Boy, you hate this movie.

John

Avoid Because I Said So because I said so.

Clay ("Chinatown")

Well, folks, I SAY, if you're listening to our three o'clock show you'll be able to catch "Chinatown" (1974) tonight at the Wex. But if you're listening at eight, best settle for a rental because it's booked only for a one night stand.

In a mood, thicker than evil, director Roman Polanski goes for substance rather than show.  Steven Soderberg should have taken his lessons from him on how to really capture the spirit of film noir. 

John

I presume you’re referring to the not so Good German.

Clay

Jawol! (quick pause, then)

Go for the acting: Polanski centers on Jack Nicholson, the personification of the busted-cop turned private private eye.

Go for the dialogue: Robert Towne's tailored his script to match the cynicism of Nicholson's persona.

And, finally, go for the heart: let Jerry Goldsmith's steamy music drive home the mood. 

HIT MUSIC (CAT STEVENS), THEN UNDER FOR NEXT TWO REVIEWS

John ("Harold and Maude")

Oh, those steamy ‘70’s. Here’s another one:

Last week, we saw Peter O’Toole’s ancient Maurice courting a woman more than
60 years younger. This week at Studio 35 we study Ruth Gordon’s 79 year old Maude courting 20 year old Harold in the splendid 1971 comedy Harold and Maude.

Clay

Must be something in the water.

John

My screenwriting daughter calls it an inspiration for her writing career. I count it a hilarious affirmation of the bond between the young and the old, and the living and the dead, Joyce’s melancholy unity.

Clay

More like the quick and the dead . . .

John

Mmm . . .  a younger Sharon Stone in leather . . .

Harold and Maude has a carpe diem motif best described by Maude: “We have only now. We own nothing else.”

Maude also counsels Harold to “go out and love some more.” If that doesn’t catch the spirit of the free-love seventies, then you, Dr., are not the hermaphrodite of love, the embodiment of O’Toole and Gordon.

Clay ("Harold and Maude")

Well, folks, the high cliffs and rolling hills of California's Big Sur have always embodied the sense of place for wounded souls.

Think the poet Robinson Jeffers. Think photographer EdwardWeston.  And think prose writers: Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller.  Something there in those barren landscapes that attracts free spirits.

So what better place could Harold retreat to when he needed to mourn his loss of Maude.  I know, John, it's a spoiler, but come on she was even older than we are.

John

IMDB didn’t forgive you for spoiling and I won’t either.

Clay (continues)

One of those genuinely sweet movies (that don't torture your teeth), Harold and Maude counters its inherent over-the-top romanticism with it use of equally over-the-top black humor.

Score one for the hippies, and one more for the music of Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

But enough of reincarnated Annie Halls, slit-nosed detectives, and sagging bodies, John, because it’s grading time.

John

Holy Has-Been Hippies, Hooray.

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER

John (Cont)

"Because I Said So" earns a D for DAMAGING DIANE’S career . . .

Clay

"Chinatown" gets an "A" because good writing and good directing ALWAYS
triumph over time . . .

John

"Harold and Maude" earns an A for AUDACIOUS AMOUR . . .

Clay

"Harold and Maude" gets a "B" because even singing troubadours have to move on . . .

John

Clay, we’ve had incest and incontinent lust today. “Who knows the secrets
of the human heart?”

I'm outta here.

Clay

Elementary, dear doctor, our vice-president knows, but he's not talking. 

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC (CAT STEVENS "IF YOU WANT TO SING OUT"), THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright John DeSando & Clay Lowe 2007

WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Good German," "Venus"

WCBE 90.5 FM
It's Movie Time: "The Good German," "Venus"
Co-hosted, produced & directed by John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, February 2, 2007
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org
To listen to this show, cut and paste here:
http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/.artsmain/article/13/22/1034740/It's.Movie.Time.On-Demand/It's.Movie.Time,.February.2,.2007.On-Demand/

John

"The Good German" is good technique but bad film . . .

Clay

"Venus" is a tongue-in-the-cheek to eccentric old men . . .

HIT THEME MUSIC

Richelle:

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe. .

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("The Good German")

"Look at these sleeves, all this ruching! Nobody ever wears anything like
this anymore!"

Clay

Whatever that is.

John

That’s Cate Blanchett’s survivor in 1945, using her body to get out of Berlin in The Good German, a kind of film they don’t make anymore either. George Clooney tries to help his former lover. It is difficult to find dialogue that can recreate the idealism and world weariness Bogey and Bergman easily projected.

Steven Soderberg recreates the look of Casablanca: Lenses are fixed, CGI takes a vacation, process shots are obvious, and booms might show anytime without wireless recording.

It’s all style, 40’s style, and the actors force their characters into the same style, awkwardly and artificially.

They don’t make films like this anymore, they never did, and they shouldn’t.

Clay ("The Good German")

Well, folks, though the black and white visual look of "The Good German" IS scrupulously authentic,  it seems to have been achieved at the expense of his cast.  So, while Soderberg was running around setting the lights and running the camera, who was left to work with the actors?

John

I don't know.

Clay (laughs)

No one.

Sure, George Clooney looks great in uniform, but he's never acted so wooden and blank-faced on-screen.  And that's too bad, because it's impossible to believe in the passion he's supposed to have for his former lover, played equally distanced, by his Garbo-like co-star, Cate Blanchett. 

Worst of all, Toby McGuire's character is so obnoxious that you can't wait for him to get blown away.

But, fair enough, if Van Sant can muddle "Psycho," then Soderberg should be able to bumble "Casablanca."

John ("Venus")

Let me play this quote again, Sam:


“Do no let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly . . . .”

That's T. S. Eliot

Clay

Oh, I thought it was DeSando.

John (goes on)

In Venus, Maurice (Peter O’Toole) is an aging thespian who meets a buddy’s young housekeeper and forms a friendship built on his impotent, prurient interest in her as the embodiment of Velazquez’s Venus and in her sassiness and openness.


Although O’Toole plays Maurice too infirm for me, he is as always a delight. As good as Maurice and Jessie are at sparring, he and his ex-wife Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave) are a better match with a low-key sentimentality characteristic of this enjoyable film, in which old age is infirm but indomitable.

O’Toole again in a leading role shows greatness that endures beyond the physical fading to black.

Clay ("Venus")

Folks, you can almost feel the London damp and smell the camphor in Maurice's small apartment filled with the persona of a shaggy, shaggy Peter O'Toole playing his character as though he were ten years older than he is.

Nevertheless, O'Toole, even playing an ancient, is able to keep it bright and light because he has never lost the evanescent twinkle of his ever so clear and blue eyes.

The wonderful, and quite naughty message of "Venus" is what clever old men have come to learn over the passage of time namely, that the way to sing a young woman's body-electric is to plug your charm into her mind. 

John

“Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.”

 Clay

Seeds in a pod. Tick. Tick. Tick. (continues)

O'Toole's performance may not win him his Oscar, but it does further endear him to our hearts.

But enough of  neo-realists, failed Nazis, and wicked old men, John, because it's grading time.

John

Holy Gerontion, Hooray.

HIT DRUMS, THEN UNDER

John (continues)

"The Good German" earns a “C” because noir needs CHARACTER as well as CINEMATOGRAPHY . . .

Clay

"The Good German" gets a "D" because good DIRECTORS DON'T hang their actors out to DRY. . .

John

"Venus" earns a “B” for BARELY BARING O’Toole’s talent . . .

Clay

"Venus" gets a "B" because Peter O'Toole has still not lost that BULGE in his BREECHES . . .

John

Clay, I’d say you’ve experienced a few Venuses in your time. “Chaste and from afar,” isn’t that how you’ve described it all to me, Don Quixote? Oh, yeah!

I'm outta here.

Clay

Well, John, my own image of Venus long hung over my piano; and I loved, even her, pure and chaste from afar.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

The Award-Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM,WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

HIT THEME CLOSING THEME MUSIC: THE FRENCH NATIONAL ANTHEM FROM "CASABLANCA"

Copyright 2007 John DeSando & Clay Lowe