My mind, she is blown.

For serious, though.

When I first saw the trailer for this, I wet myself ever so slightly. It looked GOOD. I couldn’t wait to see it.

And then the reviews came out: looks GREAT, but really sucks.

So somehow I missed out on it, having once again forgotten the Golden Rule: Film critics don’t know a god-damned thing.

I cannot urge you strongly enough to rent this thing. It is unbelievably awesometown.

On a visual level alone the rental is justified. Critics called the story unintelligible and random, which I categorically disagree with.

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This article is about “first jobs”. Do you remember yours? Did you get fired? I’ll admit it if you admit it. You probably did. Ok, I did…but not because I wasn’t doing my job.

My very first job was as an usher at the world famous Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. Yes, that Chinese Theatre! And yes, that Hollywood! I got the job in the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. My friend Jaime got me the job. He started working there just a couple of months before I did. He convinced me to apply after telling me that he escorted Prince to his seat during the Purple Rain premier. Yes, that Prince, and yes, that movie! It was 1984, and I remember it like it was yesterday…

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I’d always heard about the silent movie theater on Fairfax, but had never gone, and I remember it’s future being uncertain after the owner and operator were unceremoniously gunned down right outside of it.

What I didn’t know is that it’s been lovingly taken over by “The Cinefamily,” a collection of film lovers who put on all sorts of bizarre and fascinating little film events. Things like the “Holy Fucking Kidshit” series, where they play freakishly inappropriate kid films, or the “Stephen Chow: King of Comedy” series. And let’s not forget plenty of Found Film events, and the obligatory Silent Wednesdays.

All told, it’s an arthouse, a revival house and a concert space (they have weekly music events), all rolled into one.

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Ooooooh. What could they be looking at? The Crystal Skull? The Ark? Michael Bay’s tomb? We’ll find out soon enough. I hope this one’s going to be good. I hope I hope I hope I hope. I have a couple more pics that top that one… Indy with his gun and whip. And for Louis, Indy being admired by a Latin hottie. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that the fourth Indy will be no Die Hard 4.

• If you didn’t know, Seth Rogan has been preparing to star in the adaptation of The Green Hornet, he and co-writer Evan Goldberg (Superbad) are writing it together. I wonder how that will turn out…
• The Incredible Hulk director, Lous Leterrier, tells Wizard that the new Hulk movie will have a villain that can actually “threaten the Hulk.” What? I thought Ang Lee already did that all by himself. (Tim Roth plays the villain, Abomination, in the film)
• New picture of Heath Ledger as The Joker on the cover of Empire magazine.
• The boys over at Aint It Cool think the strike may be ending before Christmas.
• Jake Gyllenhaal has been confirmed to play football legend Joe Namath.

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The first 2 films are with people on hospital beds whose minds are alert while their bodies are not… And in the 3rd film someone is dying… Sound fun?

Awake, with Hayden Christensen, Jessican Alba, and Terrence Howard. A rich guy is AWAKE on a surgery table and hears them plotting his demise. Slight rip off of a Hitchcock film. Looks like it has promise, but if it all ends up all being a dream I may have to hurt a small animal.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre el le Papillon) with Mathiey Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Corze, and Anne Consigny. Srceenplay by Ronald Harwood, the writer of Pianist, Being Julia and many others. After an accident, a man who trapped in his own body, sets his mind free- Sure to leave you crying- possibly with joy.

Savages- Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman it what looks like a good light-hearted comedy about having to grow up and take care of their sick father…need I say more?

And that’s it for what is new this week! Check in next week for your weekend movies!

Damn them. The Coen brothers, that is. After a couple of movies that failed to live up to their earlier promise, I thought it was OK to write them off as good, but not great filmmakers. Then they go and make a movie that not only fully entertains, but also remains with you and haunts you, long after you’ve seen it. No Country for Old Men is adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name and it is a modern day version, or, perhaps, death, of the classic western. It contains all the necessary aspects of a western: money, morals, and a really pissed off guy, but with more substance. While there is a focus placed on money, the money primarily serves as a vehicle to present the films compelling characters.

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For the past couple of years Hollywood has been awash with single descriptive word horror films. Movies like The Cave, Saw, & The Descent have been stamped by “tinsel town” as sure-fire moneymaker, popcorn films, that are relatively cheap to make and put butts in seats. When I first got a look at the poster and title of The Mist, I was very apprehensive about the films prospects. Nevertheless I was seduced by the possibility of being scared, something that so rarely happens now days, and went to check it out.

Boy did I end up with egg on my face. I went in with low expectations and was blown out of my seat. The Mist is everything traditional one word horror flicks are not. It has a very complex story with incredibly three-dimensional characters. The theme of the movie is deeper and richer than just about any horror/suspense film made for as long as I can remember, perhaps since The Exorcist.

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It’s 2:00pm and I’m at the ArcLight in Hollywood, I’ve just purchased my ticket to see the new Dylan biopic. Looking around the lobby as I go, I’m struck by the lack of patrons. Especially for this movie, I would’ve thought that a Dylan flick would be the exact kind of “hip” LA. I don’t really care if no one is going to see this film, at least not today; that’s more Zimmerman for me. The room goes black and that beautiful screen comes alive, I scrunch myself down into my seat and prepare to have my ass kicked, and my friend, that’s exactly what happened.

This is the best movie I’ve seen all year. Now, so you don’t think that’s just a comment made on a whim, I’ve seen at least 40 movies this year, everything from Grindhouse to The Assassination of Jesse James and as brilliant as Jesse James was, I’m Not There matches it and then some.

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It is the season for movies with substance. We made it passed an excruciating summer, putting up with garbage like Transformers. Now get ready for the real directors of big budget Hollywood that use money on talent, not effects. What to see? Lions for Lambs, Robert Redford’s first film since The Legend of Bagger Vance. A good flick I thought, but I’m bias, I golf. It was definitely no Quiz Show. Not since then, has Redford given us a must see film.

I knew nothing about it, other than, it’s Redford’s film starring Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep. A political drama I think. Good enough for me. Cruise plays a Senator, who has a plan to win the war on terror. Streep, is a reporter, who gets an exclusive interview with the Senator, and will be the first to tell the nation about this new plan. Meanwhile, Redford, who plays a college professor, is trying to convince his most promising student, why he should care about his Political Science class. He uses the lives of two former students, who chose to go to Afghanistan, as examples of how diverse and complicated the system all is, of which the young pupil thinks he has all figured out. These two soldiers are ironically at the head of Cruises military proposal.

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