Cinema Season

I'm always compelled to see more films this time of year -- mostly in an effort to catch all of the Best Picture nominees before Oscar Night so that I have a favorite to fight for. But I'm really behind this year! As I lamented in an earlier post, I hadn't seen ANY of the nominated films when they were announced last month, and over the past few weeks I've only gotten to ATTONEMENT and JUNO -- two very fine, very different pictures. But I didn't get that Best Picture tingling sensation out of either one of them. So next up, possibly in this order, are: MICHAEL CLAYTON, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

Meanwhile, I've been reacquainted with some of my favorite older flicks lately, which, according to my facebook page, include Star Wars, Fargo, Some Like It Hot, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Star Wars is in the news again today, as Lucasfilm has announced that not only are they creating an animated series, "The Clone Wars," which takes place chronologically between Episodes II and III. And since the Cartoon Network isn't enough for those of us guys in our late 30s who still want a little force in our modern daily lives, they're actually going to kick off the Clone Wars story with a full-length animated feature that will play in theaters in August.

I've been a little nervous to see No Country for Old Men because of the reported gore, but I haven't been able to figure out why the grotesquer moments of Fargo never phased me. I've also never seen a Cohen Brothers movie that I enjoyed nearly as much, so I just hate to be disappointed that way. BUT news today that the Cohens are building a screenplay around Michael Chabon's Yiddish -- that's kinda got me excited. Chabon's story about the U.S. government giving the boot to Jewish immigrants who settled in Alaska includes a murder mystery plotline that's perfect fodder for the Cohens. I also hear that someone's doing a movie of the The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, another great Chabon novel. (No, I didn't care so much for The Wonder Boys.)

There's nothing really new to report about Some Like It Hot except that I stumbled across the original cast recording of Sugar on I-Tunes the other day. Yes, Sugar as in Sugar Kane, the lead character in both Some Like It Hot and the 1972 Broadway musical based on it. And I'm very familiar with that show-- I played a tap-dancing gangster and a member of the dirty old Miami millionaire chorus in our Aloha High School spring musical production of Sugar in 1986. Pretty funny listening to those songs again after all these years!

And for a few days now I've been meaning to look up the release date for the new Indiana Jones movie, yeehaw. The Kindgdom of the Crystal Skull opens May 22. I'm not in the same camp as all these people who say that Harrison Ford is too old for this. Hey, if Sean Connery can be an action hero in his older age (both as Bond and as Indiana Jones' father) , this guy certainly can too!