rants

The Wachowskis Still in Hiding as 'Speed Racer' Circles the Drain

For all its confectionery imagery, Christina Ricci scene-stealing and the few other things Speed Racer gets right, it still faces a box-office false start that could make Leatherheads look like a hit in comparison. We sketched a few of the hurdles here yesterday (number one being its own studio's resignation to its underachievement), but at this point there's only one that counts: Larry and Andy Wachowski need to climb out of their hole.

It might be self-serving of us to suggest they publicize their films, and in a way, we empathize with their reclusion; Larry Wachowski has been the subject of sex-change and dominatrix-dating speculation since a feminized version of himself — earrings, plucked eyebrows, manicure — showed up on the Matrix Revolutions red carpet in Cannes five years ago with mistress Ilsa Strix (née Karen Winslow) on his arm. The siblings later sneaked into the New York premiere of V For Vendetta (which they wrote and co-produced), and last week in Los Angeles they went positively presidential with subterfuge at the debut of Speed Racer. "They did not do the red-carpet press line at the Nokia Theatre on Saturday, and were well-camouflaged during the after-party," wrote Borys Kit in The Hollywood Reporter. "Photographers were sworn to secrecy as to their whereabouts, and Warner Bros. assigned handlers the mission of keeping journalists off the scent."

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rants

Teenagers Fuck (And Other Lessons From The Miley Cyrus Debacle)

We're so confused. An extra day's digestion of the Miley Cyrus/Vanity Fair photo "scandal" hasn't cleared much up for us in the way of morals, betrayals, exploitations and career management of the young Hannah Montana star, but the public meltdown has alerted us to a more basic truth that is helping guide us through the fog of outrage. This isn't about Miley Cyrus without a shirt on or if she's been seen somewhere in her lingerie, or if her father dropped the ball.

It's simpler than any of that; this whole thing comes down to a picture of a 15-year-old looking like she just got the shit fucked out of her. And if there's anything America loves more than a war, it's teenagers fucking.

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rants

An Open Letter to P.T. Anderson on the Occasion of 'There Will Be Blood''s Miserable DVD Release

Dear Paul Thomas Anderson,

You know we love you. We've seen everything you've done multiple times, once even all in the same day. Our hearts soared when Daniel Day-Lewis credited your "mad, beautiful head" for his Oscar triumph this year; his appreciation spoke for us as well. Sure, we have issues with Magnolia (OK, we hate it), but at least when the DVD came around we were able to make a little more sense of your passion and indulgence. That behind-the-scenes doc by Mark Rance? Fantastic. We'd have preferred the commentaries like those in Boogie Nights and Sydney (a/k/a Hard Eight), but hey. If you're going to charge us for two discs, you'd better make the second one worth our dime.

Which gets us to this new two-disc "collector's edition" of There Will Be Blood, which Paramount Vantage released April 8. Pardon us, but what the fuck is this?

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rants

100 Seconds That Symbolize Just How Far The 'Real World' Has Fallen

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment at which The Real World lost its cultural relevance, but if you were to press us for an answer, we'd have to say it was when the greedy producers at MTV killed their golden goose by launching Real World: Philadelphia less than six weeks after the finale of Real World: San Diego aired. In retrospect, the grand successes of the last truly great RW season were a unfortunate harbinger of things to come for the series as a whole; while the arrests of Brad and Robin made for undeniably great television, it also established a dangerous precedent for the series by making the act of running afoul of the law something for future housemates to aspire to. But we digress — we could talk about this for hours, but we won't. Our point was mainly to say that we haven't watched the Real World in years, and while The Reunion Special / Roast that aired last night had its moments, there was a moment that occured just minutes into the show that, for us, symbolized the de-evolution of the series from a (dare we say) noble social experiment into something that more closely resembles a frat party for community college dropouts. More »

rants

Why Are Network News Divisions Dragging Their Heels On Converting To HD Programming?

While most of you heathens were watching The Hills and/or The New Adventures Of Two And A Half Men Who Met Your Mother on Monday night, your Uncle Grambo was plowing through the first two and a half hours of the new Frontline documentary, Bush's War. On an emotional level, it was a thoroughly exhausting experience — reliving those nightmarish days of September 2001 and the resulting six-plus years of what can only be described as another long national nightmare had precisely the opposite effect on my sleep patterns as a fistful of Ambien. That said, it deserves classification as essential viewing, regardless of your party affiliation. That said, this post is not about George Bush or politics, nor does it have anything to do with the subject matter of the two-part series that Variety describes as a "great historical drama." Rather, it's about how glorious it was to watch a news documentary that was specifically tailored to HDTV and why we're considering boycotting 60 Minutes until they make the switchover to hi-def programming.

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