To Thine Known Self Be True

What Do You Know (2010)

Starring: Gabrielle Reece, Paula Rugg, Jack Nicholson, Stubby Shavers Directed by: Jim Brooks Rating: PG-13 Genre: Tragedy Other

Review Once a year a fish known as a "grunion" beaches itself by the millions in the wet sands of San Diego in order to bring forth the next generation. And just as regularly "Jim" Brooks beaches himself on the boards of Hollywood to produce a film that will spawn a million imitations by never-shall-be's like Judge Apatown and "Jim" Jarmusch. "What Do You Know" (a subtle but appreciative nod to Dante's "Milton Lost") concerns a number of attractive people and Jack Nicholson doing what they do best - being the kind of people you know and that you are. And Jack Nicholson.  Like the piscatorial connoisseur, reap this little harvest of joy before Mr. Brooks shuffles off this little blue coil. You won't be disappointed. Note to Arwen - No, Ms. Witherspoon is clean-shaven.

Woolly Thinking

The Mammoth (2009)

Starring: Gael Maria von Sayers, Michelle Williams, Krull Directed by: Lucas Tannerson Rating: NR Genre: Serial Drama Other

Review Like the temptation just before the last temptation of Jesus, I so wanted that tingly, ants-in-your-pants falling-in-love feeling from Lucas Tannerson's latest. Instead I left the theater feeling like I once felt after a dream where I was wearing my sister's underwear, and she was still in it. Tannerson ("Show Me Yours", "Fingerlings") manages to weave 345 completely separate and totally distinct storylines into a coherent whole that slowly, then suddenly reveals what God meant when he invented the platypus. Gael Maria von Sayers ("Loving Me a Dead Woman", "Los Dos Novias de Los Dos Hermanos Sacerdotes") is excellent as an absent-minded archaeologist who, while in the midst of reconstructing an ancient Giant Cowasaurus, remembers that he's left his daughter with Michelle Williams. The ensuing tragedy seems just a little off, like a bar of cream cheese with a small patch of blue-green fuzz. Not inedable, but not really appetizing. Tannerson is a skeeballer who valiantly tries for the 50 hole, but ends up with a fistful of nothing. That said, it's great to see the fabulous Charles Ruggles again, even if only as a bearskin rug.

City of Ludd

Paris! (2009)

Starring: Gerard Depardieud, Audrey Tattoo Directed by: Cedric Kapstick Rating: R Genre: Foreign Other

Review in this worst of all worlds, Megatherian French blowhard Gerard Depardieud ("Asterix Reinflated", "Two Goats and A Baby") stars in a series of "moral tales" about giant frenchmen driving around the cigarette capital of the word in a tiny, tiny car. Forgive my ignorance, but didn't Mr. Bill Daniels ("Blue Lagoon")  do a little thing in the seventies called "St. Elsewhere" which followed the activities of a motley group of fools through their daily lives? Pardon me, Mr. Kapstick, but just because they're speaking "La Francaise" does not give you carte blanche. It may be called "un homage" where you come from, but better men than you have been hung on barbed wire for much less here in the U.S. of A. That said, Audrey Tattoo is a revelation as a waifish cop with a smile, a lisp and a knife up the boot. Look for more from this fresh-faced vixen!

Bland On the Run

Nashville(1975)

Starring: Robert Alterman Directed by: Lilly Taylor, Karol Kane, Ned Beatty, Waldo Carradine, Sissy Lu Spacey Rating: R Genre: Comedy/Drama Other: Music

Review "Blue Velvet" meets "The Ugly Coal Miner's Ugly Daughter" is this oddball concoction by director's director Alterman ("The Birdman of the Astrodome", "Hudson Goshawk Park"). The ensemble cast includes  Lilly Taylor ("Kill All The Men, All The Time"), Karol Kane ("My Tiny Sister's Tiny Hands"), Waldo Carradine ("Death Race 2012: L.A. or Bust") and Sissy Lu Spacey ("Carrie", "Walking Tall: The Minnie Pearl Story") as a Hootenany band invited to open at Woodstalk for Jimi Hendrix by drug-addled impresario Ned Beatty ("Crawling and Squealing") under the impression that they are helium-voiced blues yodelers "Canned Heat." What appears to be real concert footage alternates with handheld camera sequences during which each member in turn flashes back to the Esalen weekend where the group met for the first time around the rotting remains of an enormous sea elephant. Alterman seems to be saying that some actors can sing, and are sometimes depressed and that the very act of "acting" can be both boring and cathartic. My own experience as a thespian (an admittedly small part as the pimp "Diggety-Dog" on a early episode of "Baretta") confirms the insight (I spent three months curled inside of an empty hot tub abandoned in a vacant lot next to Jack Nicholson's place). Not for everyone, or maybe anyone, but this someone says "check it out."

I'm Going To Watch Forever

Fame (2009)

Starring: Judd Hirsch, Einstein Serious Directed by: Kevin Bacon Rating: PG-13 Genre: Drama Other: Dancing

Review Uplifting remake of Travolta 80's masterpiece "Stayin' Alive". Judd Hirsch ("King of the Gypsies", "King of the Gypsies 2: Gippin'") stars as curdmudeonly dancemaster with a wooden leg for tapping out the beats and a glass eye for spotting talent. Actor/Director Bacon brings home the bacon for mama here with a big old-fashioned barn-dance of a flick repleat with a dorky nerd who invents the boom box (Aussie stick-insect Einstein Serious), a beautiful girl with voice like an angel and a terrible secret (spoiler alert! the tiny, shriveled remains of her dead sister are still very "attached") played by oddly bulbous vixen Maria Carrey and voiced by her brother Tim, and a hot-blooded latina cello player with a liking for Mr. Jack Daniels. Corny? By all means! Cliched? Yessirreebob! But a delight nonetheless. Don't miss the big finale where the entire cast dances their way through every orifice of a butchered Right Whale being towed out to sea by none other than tugboat captain Kareem Abdul Jabbar!