Green Lantern

Entertainment Weekly, showcasing the Hollywood elements of next week's San Diego Comic-Con (nope, not going...already sold out...too many people (with no parking and overpriced concessions)...too much Hollywood hype and hoopla...many less annoying things to do here in our fair city) with Ryan Reynolds all ringed up and ready to use his might as Green Lantern in the upcoming movie.

First impression is that it's okay (the mask is kinda funky but it's hard to make a mask like that work on real people however cool they might look in the comics)...I'll have to see it more fully...and in action...before I give my full fanboy pontification on it :-)

Pixar's Hit Parade

Pixar has been on a creative roll since they hit the scene. There has yet to be a bad Pixar movie...some are better than others (I'm not a big fan of Cars, for example, though I still find a lot of it entertaining.)

Toy Story 3...which I had sequel-wary concerns about...proved to be another gem...touching, funny, even a bit intense, and utterly charming (though, that said, I hope they don't push their luck by trying to make Toy Story 4...let it go and move on.)

Entertainment Weekly recently ranked Pixar's offerings...my list is different (see below)...yours will most probably be different too. It's all good...like I said there are no bad Pixar movies.

The Neverending Rainbow rankings:

1) Finding Nemo ("...fish are friends not food...")
2) The Incredibles
3) Up
4) Toy Story
5) Monsters, Inc.
6) Toy Story 3
7) Wall-E
8) Ratatouille
9) Toy Story 2
10) A Bug's Life
11) Cars

Next year's movie is scheduled to be Cars 2.

5 "Must See" Christmas Entertainments

And just like that it’s Christmastime again. Okay it took a year since the last time…but it doesn’t seem that long, does it? The season is a celebration…of the Christ child’s birth…of the wondrous bonds of love and friendship that inform our lives…of gifts given freely and accepted gratefully…of food and drink…of music (the subject of an upcoming entry)…and, in those rare down moments, of enjoying some of the classic entertainment of the season.

Now personally I don’t need to see yet another adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (if you’re so inclined pick one of the dozens of movies, plays, or “very special episodes” of TV shows and have at it.) I don’t need to sit through It’s a Wonderful Life again either (it’s a fine movie…probably a wee bit darker than you remember if you haven’t seen it in a while…but I’ve had that particular experience enough for the time being.)

There are Christmas entertainments that I can…and do…watch happily every year.

The five "must see" Xmas entertainments:

1) A Charlie Brown Christmas: still the gold standard of animated Christmas specials even after 40+ years.

2) Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas: not that over-stuffed movie from 2000 but the magical animated special with the voice of Boris Karloff and the unforgettable singing of Thurl Ravencroft (see the classic "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" below.)

3) A Christmas Story: the endearing and delightful trip down nostalgia lane with Ralphie and his quest for the best Xmas present in the whole wide world (a Red Ryder bb gun, natcherly :-)

4) Miracle on 34^th Street: the 1947 version with Edmund Gwenn and young Natalie Wood (the 1994 version is okay but it’s overlaid with a bit too much seriousness and cynicism when compared to the ’47 winner.) Avoid the colorized version this movie looks grand in black and white.

5) A Wish for Wings That Work: a personal favorite that wasn’t an especially big hit featuring Opus (the penguin from the great Bloom County comic strip) and his quest to be able to fly (with “help” from the ever-addled Bill the Cat.)

Those are 5 great ways to make you smile after a hard day of Christmas shopping (or while sitting around after that last slice of pumpkin pie has made walking not something you have much interest in…)

Astro Boy

When I was a youngster, Astro Boy was one of my favorite cartoons...every weekday afternoon I would come home from school (Menlo Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles) and watch it with rapt attention and glee. When I heard they were making a new movie I wasn't that interested (these things go so wrong so often) but after watching this clip I'm totally down with it (yeah, I know it's geeky but "the little child inside the man" (thanks, John) doesn't care about that one little bit...cool is cool :-)

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The day started off gray…outside (the clouds would not give way to the hazy sunshine until late morning) and in (I was feeling out of sorts for no reason I could put my finger on from the moment I woke up)…and it seemed like that was going to be the way the day would unfold (sunshine or no sunshine.)

I had chores and other work aplenty but I couldn’t shake my ennui. I needed the help of somebody who didn’t know that kind of lethargy…someone so supremely and so delightfully self-confident that it was incredibly improbable that he would ever have a gray day.

And I found him. His name? Bueller. Ferris Bueller.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a product of the eighties…just check out the padded shoulders, Ferris’ massive, 5” floppy disc driven computer…but it is, at the same time, wonderfully timeless in its audaciously positive vibe.

And it’s charming and funny as all get out.

Matthew Broderick’s engaging performance as the impish Ferris is still a wonder of delicious comic timing combined with the wit and wisdom of the late John Hughes’ words and direction.

It’s a totally preposterous tale and that’s the unbridled joy of it…as we watch Ferris hoodwink his clueless parents, enrage his jealous sister, give his neurotic best friend the best day of his life, pledge his love for his bemused but patient and adoring girlfriend, and almost effortlessly thwart the hapless Mr. Rooney’s efforts to bust him, we happily go for the ride (nothing Ferris does is out of malice…he’s a free spirit enjoying life on his own terms and he wants his friends…and all of us…to enjoy life with him.)

A lot of movies from the eighties have not and will not stand the test of time (Flashdance looks pretty silly now, for example…though truth to be told I thought it looked pretty silly when it first came out so that might not be a fair example…) but Ferris Bueller’s Day Off continues to delight…and to bring grumpy old bears out of their funks…all these years later. Made me smile anyway :-)

Robert Downey, Jr. - Smile

Robert Downey, Jr. with an interesting...and cool...take on Charlie Chaplin's classic song "Smile" (from the soundtrack of Chaplin.)

Monsters Vs. Aliens

Plot? Well, the title pretty much sums it up (I guess you could read some tolerance stuff in the subtext...but this isn't really a "subtext" kinda movie.) But that doesn't matter...Monsters Vs. Aliens is fast paced and beautifully rendered with enough slapstick and high-jinks to keep the kids happy and just enough jokes that will sail over the heads of the youngsters to keep the adults engaged (and stuff blows up...who doesn't like that? :-)

Keifer Sutherland is a hoot (and all but unrecognizable) voicing the the hard-bitten General W.R. Monger who has been keep the existence of monsters away from the public for 50 years, Stephen Colbert has a daffy turn as the clueless President, and Reese Witherspoon is at turns winsome, befuddled, and determined as Susan who is turned into a 50-foot woman ("Gigantica") after being exposed to a meteorite on her wedding day.

Hugh Laurie is grand as Dr. Cockroach, a mad scientist who turned himself into...well...a giant cockroach, Will Arnett is fine as the stalwart and prideful Missing Link, and Seth Rogen steals the show as the affable but brainless gelantious blob named Bob.

The movie wears its influences on its proverbial sleeve unabashedly...I saw winks to Star Wars, Men in Black, Independence Day, The Day the Earth Stood Still...and, of course, The Fly, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Blob... among others...but it does so with such charm, verve, cheekiness, and good nature that you just go with it.

In the vein of full disclosure I eschewed the 3-D version in favor of a regular 2-D showing...eyes as old as mine weren't meant to try to cope with 3-D for an hour and half...but I could see many of the shots that probably really popped in three dimensions.

Is this a great movie? Nah. But it's a heckuva lot of fun and what more do you want from a cartoon?

2009 Academy Award Nominations

The Dark Knight didn’t make the cut in the “big” Academy Award categories…save for the totally expected (and deserved) Best Supporting Actor nod for the late Heath Ledger…and neither did Clint Eastwood (I haven’t seen Gran Torino but a lot of critical buzz seemed to have it anointed to pick up Best Picture, Actor, and Director nominations) but Brad Pitt and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button scored big with 13 nominations.

Joining Benjamin Button in the Best Picture sweepstakes are Frost/Nixon (featuring Best Actor nominee Frank Langella), Milk (with Best Actor nominee Sean Penn), The Reader (starring Best Actress contender Kate Winslett), and the little-engine-that-could Slumdog Millionaire. The directors for these five films…David Fincher, Ron Howard, Gus Van Sant, Stephen Daldry, and Danny Boyle…are vying for Best Director honors.

Star power should be in abundance at the Oscar ceremony as the four acting categories features the likes of Meryl Streep (her 15^th nomination for her role in Doubt), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and this movie season’s comeback kid Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) and his co-star Oscar winner Marisa Tomei.

Bruce Springsteen won the Best Song category at the Golden Globes with his song from The Wrestler but he failed to pick up an Academy Award nomination in a Best Original Song category that, for some reason, features only three candidates: “Down to Earth” from Wall-E and two songs from Slumdog.

Pixar’s charming Wall-E seems to be the one to beat in the Best Animated Feature category that also features Bolt and Kung Fu Panda.

As none of the Best Picture nominees are real blockbusters I would guess that the ratings for the Academy Awards broadcast (on Sunday February 22^nd) won’t be significantly reversing the downward trend they’ve been on of late…but hey I’ll be watching :-)

10 for '08...

…being a semi-random (well it is in alphabetical order…more or less… so it’s not as random as it might otherwise be) list of 10 pop culture people and things that warmed the cockles of Neverending Rainbow’s jaded heart in 2008.

CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

The original…and still the best…CSI was firing on all cylinders from the tragic death of Warrick that opened the season to the inexorable feeling of loss as Gil Grissom prepared to take his leave.

GEOFF JOHNS

This super-hero comic book fan’s hero was a writer…a writer who brought amazing, utterly engaging life to some of my favorite four-color adolescent power fantasies :-)

JON STEWART & STEPHEN COLBERT

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were consistently entertaining and insightful companions throughout the seemingly endless political campaigns that informed life here in the States

NEW MUSIC FROM SOME OF MY FAVORITE FOLKS

Any year that features great new music from music making folks I unabashedly adore…Cassandra Wilson (the sublime Loverly), Emmylou Harris (the beautifully-realized All I Intended to Be), Tracy Chapman (the charming Our Bright Future...see below), and Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis (the accomplished and delightful Two Men with the Blues)…is more than all right in my book.

PUSHING DAISIES

I’m not really surprised that this quirky and whimsical show didn’t find a large enough audience to survive…it was, probably, one of those shows that either you liked or you didn’t with very few people in-between…but I am happy that it got a chance to exist at all.

SUPER-HERO MOVIES

A good year for the fanboys with the grim but amazing Dark Knight and the slam-bam wizardry of Iron Man heating up the box office in such a big way. Kudos as well to flawed by still sometimes very interesting offerings such as Hancock, Wanted, and Incredible Hulk (and we shall let things like Punisher War Journal and The Spirit slip into obscurity without comment.)

THE SOUP

The Soup is perhaps the one good reason for the E Network to exist. Joel McHale and his merry pranksters take a biting and often hilarious blowtorch to all of the silliness of pop culture in a fast-paced weekly half-hour.

THE WIRE

Yeah, I’m late to the party but thanks to the good folks at Netflix I’ve gotten completely caught up in the gritty streets of Baltimore as explored on this amazing show (a crime drama worthy of being brought into the conversation alongside classics like Homicide, Hill Street Blues, and The Sopranos.) Santa didn’t hook me up with the complete series box set (admittedly I was THAT good this year :-) but I’ll keep pestering him.

TINA FEY

Tina Fey’s dead-on impersonation of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was a godsend to Saturday Night Live…and to all of the rest of us as well. Combine that with the fact that her sitcom 30 Rock has become a consistently funny shows on network TV and we just have to take off our hats to the remarkable Ms. Fey.

YOUNG SOUL SINGERS FROM THE UK

Amy Winehouse spent most of the year in tabloid hell but the baton of great soul music…retro but not in a navel-gazing, nostalgia-worshipping way…from enormously talented young women from the United Kingdom was ably picked up by Duffy (with the stunning Rockferry) and Adele (the powerful and passionate 19) and it was a good thing indeed.

* * * * *

Here's hoping your 2009 is filled with an abundance of love, light, and laughter.

This is Tracy Chapman's simply charming "Sing for You":

The Dark Knight

(Fanboy mode on) WOW! (Fanboy mode off :-)

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is amazing. It balances the requisite action-adventure set pieces with a script that delves into the thin lines between heroism and villainy, between chaos and order, between the evil that men do because they can and the evil that men might do in the name of justice or for the sake of survival.

It’s atmospheric (it’s Gotham City after all), explosive and kinetic, fast-paced (despite its 2+ hour running time), brooding, brutal, and, yes, unabashedly over-the-top (we’ve had the discussion about the inherent preposterous in super-hero movies in this space before so I won’t bore you with it again.)

Christian Bale’s Batman is much more seasoned than he was in Batman Begins…he’s also more conflicted as his caped alter ego threatens to subsume his life; he’s also afraid that Batman may be the catalyst for as much madness as he is for goodness. Bale is great (especially when he puts on the Batman “growl” when he’s in the cape and cowl.)

The late Heath Ledger gives a bravura performance as the Joker. Where Jack Nicholson’s Joker did crazy with an impish wink, Ledger’s Joker is a full-on nihilist, a rampaging id bent on nothing less than creating as much chaos as possible. Ledger’s Joker is frightening, unpredictable, wily, disturbing, and mysterious (he gives a couple of different explanations of his origin along the way.)

Gary Oldman has some really nice moments as the conflicted Police Lt. Gordon and the other returning old pros…Michael Caine as the acerbic Alfred and Morgan Freeman as the wise Lucius Fox…also shine in their moments. Aaron Eckhart gets to display a wide range of emotions in his role of crusading District Attorney Harvey Dent (comic book fans will probably know where he’s headed and the movie goes there full on) and Maggie Gyllenhaal steps ably into the role of assistant DA Rachel Dawes (taking over the role from Katie Holmes who played the character in Begins.)

The Dark Knight tickled this fanboy’s jaded heart with an ending that, almost as a matter of course, leaves the door wide open for yet another sequel. Bring it on.

Hancock

Hancock requires a lot of leaps of faith…it is a super-hero movie after all. I’ve read comic books most of my life so I didn’t have a problem suspending disbelief where and when necessary while enjoying the movie. And enjoy it I did…Hancock is a kinetic, funny, violent, occasionally quite touching action-adventure thrill ride of a movie.

Hancock, as played by Will Smith (in fine form), is a hard-drinking, disagreeable, amnesiac superman who causes millions of dollars of damage as he fights crime and saves lives in Los Angeles. The people of Los Angeles revile the unkempt, foul-tempered super-hero until he’s taken under the wing of Ray, an idealistic PR man (Jason Bateman, whose solid performance gives us the emotional anchor of the film.) Ray’s wife (Charlize Theron, both radiant and mysterious) is wary of her husband’s involvement with Hancock for reasons that become clear as the movie unfolds.

The early lighter hearted scenes are starkly contrasted with the darker tone the movie shifts into during the second half. There is, speaking of suspending disbelief, a plot twist about two-thirds of the way through that will test the patience of some (I’ve read some reviews griping about it) but I didn’t have a problem with it at all (there’s that super-hero comic book experience coming into play again :-)

Hancock (see trailer below) is a briskly paced (it runs a pretty taut hour and a half or so), exciting, emotionally-engaging and occasionally preposterous (what super-hero movie isn’t?) entertainment that holds your attention (most thanks to the performances of the three leads) from its jokey beginning to its brutal (but still hopeful) climax. Simply said, it’s fun.

Wall-E

All Pixar movies are not created equal…some are better than others…but they all have been engaging, wonderfully crafted entertainments. Everyone who is a fan of their remarkable output will have their own personal favorites (I’m especially fond of Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Monsters Inc., for example.)

Wall-E, the newest Pixar gem, doesn’t rank up with the best of their movies but it is a charmer nevertheless. In the future Earth is such a garbage dump that the people have long since abandoned it for generations of pampered life about gigantic space luxury liners leaving robots to clean up the mess. 700 years later only one intrepid little robot, Wall-E (“Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class”), is dutifully working on the daunting task with a seeming indestructible cockroach as his only companion and a treasured videotape of the musical Hello Dolly as his favorite entertainment.

Wall-E’s routine…collecting and compacting garbage into cubes and collecting bits of stuff he finds interesting…is turned upside down by the arrival of Eve (“Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator”), a sleek robot from the Axiom, one of the aforementioned luxury liners, tasked with looking for signs of life on Earth. Wall-E has indeed found such a sign and the action shifts to outer space as he tags along with the ship taking Eve back to the Axiom (which is run by robots and computers leaving the humans as pudgy, pampered people who don’t think, walk, or do much of anything for themselves.)

The visuals are, as is par for the course with Pixar offerings, dazzling and the story…romance and action with a dose of fairly heavy-handed social commentary (the mega-corporation which left trash all over the Earth and which runs the luxury liners is a not so subtle allusion to Wal-Mart)…zips along nicely.

Wall-E and Eve have limited vocabularies and there is almost no dialogue in the first half-hour or so but it is still very easy to follow the story; in the Sunday morning showing I went to there were a lot of small children and none of them got bored or restless watching the movie.

Wall-E is a grand little entertainment as is Presto, the hilarious short (a Bugs Bunny-esque battle of wills between a magician and his rabbit) that precedes the main feature…all in all, yet another winner for Pixar.

Iron Man

Simply put Iron Man rocks. This is a fun, fast-paced, dazzling, witty, rousing adventure ride…everything a great summer popcorn movie should be. This one ranks up there in the pantheon of cool super-hero movies alongside excellent celluloid super-romps such as Spider-Man I, Superman II, and Batman Begins. It’s a blast (quite literally sometimes) from beginning to end.

Robert Downey, Jr. is in fine form throughout capturing both the sardonic wit and the overriding sense of responsibility of genius Tony Stark and the gung ho bravado of his armored alter ego. Watching the arc of his character…from seemingly carefree millionaire munitions inventor to stalwart super-hero, all the while dealing with a life-threatening injury and the full flowering of his conscience…is a lovely thing to behold.

Gwyneth Paltrow…as Pepper Potts, Stark’s assistant and possible love interest…and Terrence Howard…as Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Stark’s friend…aren’t given a lot to do but they both make the most of what they do have.

Jeff Bridges gets to chew some scenery as Stark’s mentor Obadiah Stane and he seems to be having deliciously malevolent fun doing so.

The story is both delightfully preposterous and wonderfully thrilling, just like the story in any good super-hero movie should be, and the special effects are quite dazzling (you will believe an armored man can fly…) Director Jon Favreau kept the proceedings light and engaging with just the right amount of explosive bombast to keep things moving along nicely.

Iron Man works even if you’ve never read one of the comic books it was based on but there still are enough insider asides (from "Jarvis" to the Stan Lee cameo to a bit of sly foreshadowing by Howard) to bring a smile to the faces of fanboys like myself. Yeah, it’s very cool.

(And it’s worth sitting through the interminable credits to get to one last clever bit of business.)

One from the Heart

Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle singing the bluesy "This One's from the Heart" over an evocative clip from Francis Ford Coppola's under-appreciated movie One from the Heart featuring Frederick Forest. I really like the movie and I LOVE the soundtrack.

The 80th Annual Academy Awards

A big night for the Coen brothers…three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director(s), Best Adapted Screenplay)…and their movie, No Country for Old Men, on a sedate, kind of uninspired Academy Awards night.

The show itself was okay…Jon Stewart was pretty good (not great but he had a few nice moments) as the host…with decent enough musical numbers, relatively brief acceptance speeches, and perhaps a few too many montages (I’m guessing they put them together in case the writers’ strike was still going on and they needed to fill a lot of time and decided to go on and use them anyway.)

Everything about the 80^th Academy Awards show was…okay…nothing particularly memorable but nothing especially bad either. And hey they got it done in less than 3 ½ hours…gotta give ‘em credit for that :-)

Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old Australian actor perhaps best known for his star-making turn in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, has died in Manhattan. He was found dead in his apartment (some reports cite possible drug causes.) Ledger is going to be seen as The Joker in the upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight (see below).

Superbad/Hot Fuzz

As the holiday season wound down, the packages were wrapped and mailed, the cards were sent and received, and a bit of melancholy (for reasons I won’t bore you with here) was coming upon me and so, of course, comedy was in order.

My good friends at Netflix delivered two movies which had received great notices so I looked forward to just sitting back and being mightily entertained. And even though neither movie was as consistently knee-slapping hilarious as had often been reported both provided some cathartic laughter.

Superbad is both crudely raunchy and sincerely sweet…the young actors (Michael Cera and Jonah Hill) at the center of the story are consistently amusing with an easy rapport (that they are too profane by half is a personal quibble…I’m not adverse to swearing but the sheer amount of profanity in the movie is more tiresome than funny after awhile.) Scenes are consistently stolen by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who makes his film debut as the nerd-tastic “McLovin”, and Bill Hader and Seth Rogen as the world’s most irresponsible cops.

Superbad, for all of its seeming preoccupation with sex and drinking and partying, is at its heart a story of the bond between two friends on the brink of adulthood and that reveals a tender heart underneath the crass shenanigans of the movie.

Hot Fuzz, on the other hand, has no such tender heart but it is briskly funny in an acerbic way…presenting the story of straight-laced, ultra-effective supercop (Simon Pegg) who was “promoted” from the London police department to a seemingly bucolic village…at least until the final reel when the spoof of American action movies (with pointed, affectionate references to Bad Boys 2 and Point Break and sly winks to other films such as Chinatown) becomes what it was spoofing, an over-the-top, violent action cartoon shoot-‘em-up (if this was supposed to be ironic, the irony was lost on me…it just got louder and sillier as the climax rolled on…and on...and on…)

Neither of these movies would be on my list of all-time favorite comedies but both had just enough laughs to make me smile and when it came to curing some Christmas blues that was just what the doctor ordered :-)

A Christmas Story

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (with James Stewart and Donna Reed) is, by according to many, THE classic Christmas movie. There were times when the movie, which fell into public domain, seemed to being shown almost constantly between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And yes it’s a fine movie…kind of dark along the way (Stewart’s George Bailey is seconds away from committing suicide at one point after all) and a bit saccharine at the end but fine…but for my money there are two Christmas themed motion pictures that are much better. One is the 1947 version of Miracle on 34^th Street (filmed in glorious black and white) with the incomparable Edmund Gwenn in his Oscar winning turn as Kris Kringle and the young Natalie Wood as Susan, a girl who rediscovers the wonders of childhood (the 1994 color version…with Richard Attenborough and Mara Wilson…is okay I guess but it pales by comparison to the original.)

But for my money the most engaging Christmas movie is 1983’s A Christmas Story…the whimsical (and sweetly comical), sardonic (but not snarky), nostalgic (but not overly sentimental) tale of Ralphie (played with guileless spunk by Peter Billingsley), his earnest quest to get a bb gun for Christmas (the story is set in the 40’s when bb guns were an uncontroversial present for a boy), and his interaction with his somewhat dysfunctional parents (his blustery father played with manic aplomb by Darren McGavin and his fluttery mother played with ditzy grace by Melinda Dillon.) The story is tied together and moved along by the breathlessly arch narration by Jean Shepard, the author of the semi-autobiographical story.

It’s not a deep or complicated story but it is charming and funny and touching (with just enough slapstick to keep things lively) and it never fails to make me smile. What more could you want from a Christmas movie? :-)

(The original theatrical trailer is below.)

The Hoax

I haven’t been moved to go to the movie theater much this year and even my Netflix queue has been quiet for a while but as the year winds to a close I’m endeavoring to get caught up on some movies that I’ve missed this year. Case in point: Lasse Hallstrom’s interesting character piece, The Hoax, which came out to generally good reviews earlier this year.

The movie chronicles the audacious 1970s hoax perpetrated by Clifford Irving involving a supposed autobiography of the famously reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Irving scammed more than a million dollars from McGraw-Hill and Life Magazine and was well on his way to getting away with it before Hughes surfaced (in a news conference held via speakerphone) to scuttle his play.

The Hoax, with a screenplay based on Irving’s own book about the whole affair, juxtaposes the unfolding of Irving’s elaborate…and frankly bold…scheme against the events of the times (the Vietnam War and the protests against same, the Nixon Administration, etc.) to intriguing effect. It also strongly suggests that Irving’s plot was allowed to go forth due to a double dealing conspiracy between Hughes and his people and Nixon and his people.

I don’t know about that last bit but I do know that at the heart of this movie…which itself is briskly paced, engaging, and witty…is a bravura performance by Richard Gere that captures the charm, the intelligence, the deviousness, the callousness, and, eventually, the paranoid fantasies of Irving. Gere is amazing and so is Alfred Molina, playing Dick Suskind, Irving’s conflicted partner in crime; they play off each other with such fierce chemistry that they make the movie soar.

The rest of the cast…including Marcia Gay Harden, Stanley Tucci, and Hope Davis…are fine enough in underwritten supporting roles.

Clifford Irving is a charming rogue (something testified to by venerated CBS newsman Mike Wallace in one of the DVD’s bonus features) and this movie, however true it is itself (it’s based on Irving’s book so it’s skewed towards romanticizing his actions to some extent), has a real charm of its own.

I'm Not There

Bob Dylan is such a distinctive singer and songwriter that it can be problematical trying to cover his songs. Of course, this doesn’t stop people from trying (the songs are too magnetic and powerful for that)…I must have at least a dozen CDs of Dylan covers (with Dylan songs sprinkled liberally amongst many, many other discs) in my personal collection. More than perhaps with any other singer-songwriter, those attempting to cover Dylan need to dig in and find their own way of coming at the songs or else they probably shouldn’t bother.

This collection…the soundtrack to Todd Haynes’ upcoming movie where 5 different actors (including Cate Blanchett) play Dylan…is a slightly mixed bag but there are more than enough highlights to make it a very worthwhile listening experience. The set gets off to a worrisome start with the epic “All Along the Watchtower”…the music (by the Million Dollar Bashers, a group that backs several performers over the course of the 2-disc set) is biting and fierce but Eddie Vedder’s vocal is strangely distant, as if he was afraid to really try to connect to the words. But then things pick up with Sonic Youth’s muscular take on the title track and then My Morning Jacket's Jim James (backed by Calexico, who also back up several artists on the set) takes a fine turn on “Goin’ to Acapulco”. The great Richie Havens inhabits “Tombstone Blues” with vigor.

Stephen Malkmus (backed the Million Dollar Bashers) threatens to get close to getting caught up in doing a parody of Dylan’s idiosyncratic phrasing on “Ballad of a Thin Man” but in the end he manages to avoid that trap for the most part. He also covers “Can’t Leave Her Behind” in a clipped, singsong way that is plaintive enough to suffice. Malkmus also sings “Maggie’s Farm” but his wan vocals are not up to the level of the killer rock-steady backing that the Million Dollar Bashers give him.

The amazing Cat Power kills on a throbbing, horn-driven romp through “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” while John Doe is equally impressive on the soulful gospel of “Pressing On” (Doe later also sings “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” with soulful conviction) and Yo La Tengo offers up a delicate, lilting version of “Fourth Time Around” (they kick it up into higher gear later on a rollicking version of “I Wanna Be Your Lover”.)

Calexico appears several times: backing up Iron & Wine on an atmospheric version of “Dark Eyes”, offering up sweet Latin flavored support (including some sublime horn and string work) to Roger McGuinn’s lovely “One More Cup of Coffee”, providing supple support to Willie Nelson’s potent cover of “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” (which features a powerful Spanish verse sung by Salvador Duran), and effectively underscoring Charlotte Gainsbourg’s ethereal, whispery reading of “Just Like a Woman”.

The Million Dollar Bashers (featuring Tom Verlaine on guitars, John Medeski on keyboards, Wilco's Nels Cline on guitar, and Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on drums) also a couple of other appearances: providing stellar support on Karen O’s feisty cover of “Highway 61 Revisited” and presenting an appropriately dense and spooky version of “Cold Irons Bound (with Verlaine on vocals).

Mason Jennings’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (accompanied only by his acoustic guitar) is well-intentioned but it lacks bite and therefore comes off a pale imitation of the brutally acerbic original (he fares a little bit better later on “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.) Los Lobos’ gently-driving take on “Billy 1”, on the other hand, is a full-bodied gem. Jeff Tweedy, accompanied by drums, bass, and fiddle, takes on Dylan’s phrasing to good effect on “Simple Twist of Fate” while Mark Lanegan is deliciously foreboding on the ominous “Man in the Long Black Coat”.

Mira Billotte is a wonder of vocal economy on her quietly shimmering “As I Went Out One Morning” and Sufjan Stevens turns Dylan’s gospel dirge “Ring Them Bells” into an almost baroque fantasia (complete with a soaring horn section) that works wondrously when you imagine that it shouldn’t at all. Jack Jackson is his soothingly laconic self on “Mama, You’ve Been on my Mind/A Fraction of Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” which features some of the best acoustic guitar playing on the CD.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (of the Swell Season) play a fine acoustic (guitar, harmonica, banjo, bass) version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” while The Hold Steady rock out on a potent take of “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott offers up a ragged but heartfelt “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”. The Black Keys rock a thick, bluesy “Wicked Messenger” while Marcus Carl Franklin (the youngest of the actors playing Dylan in the film) is surprisingly assured on “When the Ship Comes In” and Antony and the Johnsons are subdued (to haunting effect) on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.

Dylan and The Band tie up the CD with “I’m Not There”, recorded during the fabled Basement Tapes sessions.

Dylan afficianad0s may argue the merits of these covers but there is, as I said before, much to be enjoyed on this soundtrack.