Tod Goldberg

Your God Can't Help You Now

A month or so ago, I wrote about my great love for The Manitou, a film I remember more in concept than reality...or, that was the case until approximately 49 minutes ago. I was sitting in bed, flipping though the channels, absently reading student work when I heard the words that defined a generation of film making, as spoken by a Syrian actor portraying a present day (circa 1976) Native American witch doctor in response to Tony Curtis begging him for help in re: the historic Native American witch doctor growing on a woman's back:

John Singing Rock: "Normally I wait three risings of the sun before I take on a job. My fee will be $100,000 to the Indian Educational Foundation."

Tony Curtis: "And you?"

John Singing Rock: "Well, I need some tobacco. I'm running a little low."

And later, when faced with said woman and festering manitou:

John Singing Rock: "Hope is for saints and fools. I'm just a South Dakota Indian with a bag of tricks."

And when things look really bleak, after the manitou has busted out of the woman's back and begins chanting?

John Singing Rock: "He's summoning an Indian demon. One of the ancient ones. I don't know which one."

It turns out the ancient demon in question is a transparent alligator, naturally.

The only thing that can stop the manitou? Well, it looks like a series of super computers -- likely the power of a decent Atari 2600 -- when turned on all at once might do it. But, then, John Singing Rock realizes something truly awful:

John Singing Rock: "It might work. It might work. But there's only one thing: the machine's manitou might turn against us!"

It's now just about 2am. Tony Curtis and John Singing Rock have banished the manitou, but, as they stand on the streets of San Francisco, after a warm soul-handshake, there's a real sense that the manitou just might return...if only the movie were a hit. All I know for certain, after watching the last hour and a half of the Manitou in all of its glory is this: There might not be a worse movie ever made. And it's airing on Showtime all month. And in letterbox. Fuck yeah.

That's Not A Mole, That's An Ancient Indian Shaman!

The other day, I attempted to explain the plot of The Manitou to a room full of people who simply did not believe such a movie could have been made.  It went like this:

Me: So, okay, Tony Curtis is a disco-dancing fortune teller who encounters...somehow...a woman played by an occasionally topless Susan Strasberg who happens to have a tumor growing on her neck which, it turns out, is really the reincarnation of an ancient Indian Shaman. At some point, an Indian named something like John Singing Rain Dance joins up with Tony Curtis and, uh, an entire hospital freezes and turns into outer space and then, uh, I think the John Singing Rain Dance does...something...with a bunch of huge computers to kill the shaman but, ultimately, needs Susan Strasberg to take off her shirt and shoot lazers at, uh, something, and then, yeah, Tony Curtis says something funny and the movie ends.

People: Uh-huh.

Fortunately, YouTube has the earnest and important trailer for The Manitou, which confirms some of my memories:

What I did not know is that before The Manitou was the greatest movie ever made, it was first a novel by Graham Masterton.

I Wonder Why Bea Arthur Didn't Make It Into The New Star Wars Movies?

I vaguely recall watching the Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978 and thinking, at age 7, that what the special needed was specifically more Bea Arthur, more Jefferson Starship and, absolutely, more Art Carney. Through the magic of YouTube, however, all of their appearances have been broken down into a helpful 5 minute burst of utter craptasticness that includes Carrie Fisher singing a closing number.

This is, without a doubt, the most incredible thing I've ever seen and I have to believe that when I saw it originally, I probably thought it was awesome.

David Morrell Must Look At This And Think: Uh, That's Not What I Had Planned

I remember reading First Blood after I saw the movie -- I was, what, 13? 12? -- and thinking, Huh. This is actually really good. (As I recall, the book was actually more violent than the movie, which probably seems implausible now.) Now, upon seeing this trailer for the new Rambo movie, I've gotta think that it's probably not how David imagined things would play out. This looks...bad. Really, really bad.

Some Kind Of Wonderful

For those of you inhabiting the low desert (and those of you willing to brave the purported snow flurries in Banning if you don't live in the low desert) Saturday is filled with opportunities to be entertained.

My man Rob Roberge is performing with two of his, I believe, 11 bands (in this case, he's playing with The Chairs of Perception and The Danbury Shakes) at the Buck-A-Band Day of Music in the lovely Wonder Valley (which, actually, is in the high desert, but you gotta drive through the low one to get to the high one):

The Buck-a-Band Hi-Desert Day of Music
Come out for an all-day celebration of music at The Palms!
A 10-band (give or take) day of music to be held at The Palms (15 miles East of 29 Palms).
January, 13 2007 at THE PALMS 760-361-2810
83131 Amboy Rd., Wonder Valley, California 92277

Cost: 10 bucks

LINEUP and TIMES:

3PM: The Chairs of Perception (a VERY mini-set…a few tunes to get us rolling…cause no one wants to go first)
3:30: Reform School Girls
4:15: King Thick
5:00: The Pachinky Sisters (Jen Sincero & Mick Kubiak)
5:45: Motorcycle Black Madonnas
6:30: The Danbury Shakes
7:15: The Sibleys
8PM: The Human Hearts (feat. Franklin Bruno)
8:45: The Chairs of Perception
9:30: Backbiter
(AFTER PARTY!)


At THE PALMS RESTAURANT (760)361-2810
83131 Amboy Road - 29 Palms, CA 92277


FREE CAMPING ON-SITE..w Fire Pit!
Music starts at 3:00pm - ??


DIRECTIONS TO THE PALMS (FROM LA):
• Take 10 EAST - Follow for approx. 110 miles
• Exit at ROUTE 62 for 29 Palms (2nd exit after ROUTE 111/Palm Springs exit)
• Follow ROUTE 62 up into hi desert to town of 29 Palms (approx. 40 miles)
• Stop and gas up (last chance)
• Left on Adobe Road (7-11 / Denny's)
• Follow 2.5 miles to Amboy Road
• Right on Amboy Road
• Approx. 12 miles on right
• • CANT MISS IT! - ONLY BAR IN THE AREA! • •

Then, that evening, my man Chuck Evered interviews actor Eric Stoltz at the UCR-Palm Desert campus as part of the MFA program's Nuts & Bolts series. Admission is free.

Saturday, January 13, 2007
  6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Location: B100, UCR Palm Desert
Category: Campus Activity

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Description: Actor, Producer and Director Eric Stoltz joins Prof. Charles Evered for the first in the "Nuts and Bolts of the Entertainment Industry" series of 2007. The star of "Waterdance," "Memphis Belle," "Mask" and many Broadway and television productions will discuss his career and experiences working with writers. Reservations are appreciated at 760-834-0597 or to palmdesert@ucr.edu.

Children Of Men; Or, Why Does Everyone Love This Movie?

First, if you're planning on seeing Children Of Men, this post might not be for you. It will contain spoilers. It will contain an in-depth discussion of heroes, anti-heroes, the use of shaky cinematography and possible digressions into the body of work of Julianne Moore who, it should be noted, simply cannot act and I can't figure out why people think she can (except in Boogie Nights...she was good in that...and there's also the fact that she sorta reminds me of my Auntie Britt, which is a good thing, but, still, my feeling is she can't really act.)

So. You've been warned.

Wendy and I went and saw Children of Men yesterday and, as we walked out, and as I knew I'd be forbidden from choosing films for about a month, several thoughts crossed my mind:

1. Does the book make sense?

2. Does the book explain why people can't get pregnant?

3. Why do all the critics seem to love this film? (Admittedly, I should have loved it as well as it has all the facets of films and books I like: Anti-hero everyman, a ThunderDome-setting, suave British people, gun play, motorcycle gun play, naked pregnant ladies, people getting hit in the head with heavy objects, an anti-hero who dies at the end, total improbability, immigrant prison camps (oh, no, sorry, that's Michelle Malkin who likes those), that British actor who always plays assholes and played an asshole in The Constant Gardener, too, Clive Owen, anti-Bush rhetoric.)

4. Uhm, what the fuck was going on? I pretty much got lost during the first hour and then was just bored during the second hour. I'm pretty good at movies. I tend to pay attention. I like to think of myself as somewhat literate in these concerns, but for the first 40 minutes I swear I didn't know what the fuck was going on. And by the end, I thought, okay, so, Clive Owen is dead and this boat is about to rescue this girl and her baby and take them...where? And then what happens when they get there? Is it The Others from Lost on that boat? It could be. Hell, it could be fucking the Millionaire and his wife.

5. I like serious films; I do. But do they have to be so message heavy? The Constant Gardener is good example of a Serious Movie where the politics of it all didn't overwhelm the human consequence of it. It was, finally, a story of a man and a woman who loved each other. And AIDS in Africa.

6, What is up with Julianne Moore? Why can't she act? She was really quite good in Boogie Nights, and she does sort of look like an un-Norwegian Auntie Britt in a way, and I guess she was pretty good in The Hours and The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio and I guess I do end up seeing quite a few films that she's in, but, yeah, she just ghostwalked through this one. And then she got shot in the face, so that ruined any chance she might end up having sex with Dirk Diggler in act 4.

7. Clive Owen would have made a pretty good Bond, but I think Daniel Craig ultimately was the right choice. Clive is more Brosnan while Craig is more Connery.

8. Movies with shaky single camera shots sort of make nauseated. I bought one of those WWII games, Medal of Honor I believe it was, and it was sort of the same experience where I just had to keep opening and closing my eyes to keep myself from puking while watching the film. Damn those old Dockers commercials!

9. Michael Caine is always pretty good, even when he's so cliched as to be laughable, as he was in this.

10. The movie did have a good soundtrack, so that's nice.

I Am Superman And I Can Do Anything

Because I am nothing if not an American Patriot, I went and saw Superman when it opened up a few days ago. It was an exceptionally long movie considering the end was a foregone conclusion (No spoiler here -- Everyone knows Superman ends up dying tragically but then crawls from his grave three days later and a great international holiday in his honor is created where we are all told to love and cherish this reborn undead hero by making sex on Ann Coulter's face and eating marshmallow peeps), but, well, it was 116 the day it played at our local multiplex here in the desert, so three hours under someone else's air conditioning is fine by me.

However, I didn't entirely love the movie and have spent some time pondering what could have made it better. I've come up with 10 things Bryan Singer can do for the sequel:

1. Encourage people to line up in front of the wrong theater for several months in advance of the movie's opening, thus obscuring the fact that in all likelihood, you've hired Chris Tucker to reprise Richard Pryor's role from Superman 3.

2. Two words: General Zod.

3. Look, let's just call a spade a spade here: it's a little freaky that the guy they found to play Superman looks exactly like Christopher Reeve and seems to be doing an impression of Reeve vs. playing Superman. My understanding is that Margot Kidder's teeth fell out when she saw the new movie and that she ran out screaming in fear, only to be found in someone's backyard, toothless and muttering obscenities. (But let me be clear: if this doppelganger kid wants to star in a remake of my all time favorite guilty pleasure Somewhere In Time, he has my total support). So, for the next one, how about making everyone happy by hiring Neil Diamond to play the role. He was transcendent in the Jazz Singer. He would be positively captivating as the Man of Steel.

4. A simple requirement: If you're making a movie that is three hours long, it must include at least one of these elements:

1. Elves.

2. A nice German fellow who saves a lot of Jews.

3. Enormous sinking cruise liners that kill Leonardo DiCaprio.

4. Some girl-on-girl action. Preferably hot girl-on-girl action.

5. Sophia Coppola should be allowed to direct the next installment and, at the end, Superman should whisper something into Lois Lane's ear just as the Jesus and Mary Chain begin banging out the opening chords of Just Like Honey.

6. Um, yeah: Knife blades that shoot out of Superman's hands would be cool.

7. Look, I understand that at one time Marlon Brando was America's most treasured actor, but whenever I see him in that preposterous silver/white suite, with that mane of hair, I always think the same thing: Disco!

8. Okay, this is a spoiler, so don't read it if you're really invested in the new movie...Get rid of that Cousin Oliver kid of Lois Lane's! Oh my god, he has powers! I'm stunned! Not since Meeno Peluce graced our tv screens alongside Jon Eric Hexum has a child with such god fucking awful hair and weird psycho eyes been afforded such screen exposure. And, yeah, if a child happens to kill an adult with a piano, as young master Lane does, that kid is going to need some therapy. Who pays for that? No more adorable moppets who kill.

9. Kate Bosworth should surf in the next movie. She's a better surfer than she is a reporter. I mean, you win a Pulitzer and you can't fathom that the bulky guy with glasses could be Superman? What kind of fucktard wears a disguise that consists only of glasses? And what kind of fucktard is fooled by it? What is wrong with you people! There's a space alien wearing glasses working at the Daily Planet!

10. Let's see some of Clark Kent's prose. The guy has been working at the Daily Planet for 50 years and has never turned in a story. Let's see if the kid has some chops.

Whatever Happened To The Prize Winner?

Peter Handel (who, for the authors in the crowd, is a great independent book publicist I've used a number of times) talks about the odd happenings surrounding the movie version of The Prize Winner Of Defiance, Ohio. The book was a bestseller and the trailer for the film seemed to show up in front of every film I saw this summer. I remember the film met solid reviews and that Julianne Moore was been bandied about for Oscar contention. I even remember thinking that of all the chick movies I was likely to be dragged to, this one seemed most likely to engage me (though, admittedly, I did sorta want to see that movie where Mark Ruffalo is haunted by the ghost of Reese Witherspoon and then, like, has a bunch of ghost kids with her who go on to kill humans and eat their brains...or something like that) and then I remember that...it never showed up in my town. Apparently, it didn't show up anywhere...but Kansas City.

Books to film, I've learned, are never an easy proposition. For all the success stories based on bestsellers, there are a dozen other adaptations that end up starring Ethan Hawke. A few years ago I wrote an article for a now defunct movie magazine about this very issue. I talked about how an acclaimed novel rarely makes for an acclaimed movie. I spoke with David Guterson about the film version of Snow Falling On Cedars. I talked to several prominent film agents, including my own. I talked to my friend Scott about the serpentine process under taken to get his book The Ice Harvest made (and at that time, it had just been greenlit, if memory serves). I talked to David Benioff about the making of the 25th Hour, about writing Troy, about adapting other books, including the work he was doing at the time on a popular George Pelecanos novel. I spoke to something like 800 novelists, producers, agents, publishers and even added my own Fake Liar Cheat process into it. The article never ran. I was paid for it, which was nice, but in the end it was deemed too...literary. Hollywood just didn't care about the books. The movies? Yes. But the books, no. I can count on my hands the number of literary novels which have become great films in the last five years or so, but very few have gone on to blockbuster status (save for those elf and magician books), which simply makes me wonder: why do successful books so rarely become successful (financially and creatively) movies?

BSPP: Blatant Scott Phillips Promotion

One of my favorite books of the last ten years is Scott Phillips' novel The Ice Harvest (two of my other favorite books of the last ten years would be The Walkaway and Cottonwood, also by Scott) so, in celebration of the release of the movie version of his fantastic novel, and because he's been such a good and loyal friend, and because I'm so excited about seeing the movie (which was adapted for the screen by Richard Russo) and because if you're not reading his books you're missing out on some of the best American fiction, period, today I devote this space to stuff about his movie:

A review of the movie.

Reviews of the book.

Listen to an interview with Scott.

Buy his damn books.

The Moviegoer

I don't see as many movies in theaters as I used to -- part of it is an issue of cost vs. quality, which is to say that while I sort of want to see The 40 Year Old Virgin because it looks like a genuine amount of stupid fun, another part of me thinks, Yeah, but it could very well just be stupid, and stupid isn't always fun, sometimes it's just annoying and bothersome and midway through the film I begin to think that perhaps the twenty dollars I just spent for two hours of quality time in the dark with Wendy might have been better spent purchasing a very cheap hooker who, at least, probably wouldn't talk through the good parts and then both Wendy and I would at least have an interesting anecdote for our grandchildren. Another issue is that many movies simply don't look all that appealing to me. For instance,  I initially wanted to see War of The Worlds but then could never muster enough gumption to actually, you know, go. I took that as a sign.

All that said, I went to the movies today to see The Constant Gardener and thought that it was well worth it. Human toil. Murder. Ralph Fiennes looking deeply troubled. It was actual adult entertainment, which I appreciated, and nothing was CGI as best as I could tell. Wendy and I had the same basic conversation we often have after movies like this:

Me: So, did you like it?

Wendy: Not really.

Me: What do you mean? Wasn't it sad, that bit where he goes back to her flat and starts pulling out all the weeds? And then that bit at the end? I mean, god, heartbreaking. You didn't like that?

Wendy: It was depressing. It's hard to really like something really depressing. I can just read your books if I want that. And besides, I already saw this movie where Ralph goes all crazy for a dead woman, except that one was good.

Me: Ralph Fiennes always plays that guy, except for that movie where he fucks the maid and it turns out to be J. Lo.

Wendy: Maid In Manhattan?

Me: Yeah, yeah, terrible movie. I've seen it about 5 times on HBO when you've been sleeping. It would have been better if J. Lo were thrown off the roof of the hotel and then Ralph spent the whole movie sort of pining for her, until he throws himself off of the hotel, too. That would have been good.

Wendy: You've seen it 5 times? What other films do you watch when I'm asleep?

Me: Tuck Everlasting. Event Horizon. Love Actually -- I watch that one a lot. Tivo'd episodes of The Real OC: Laguna Beach from MTV. The English Patient, but that's usually too depressing to watch when you're asleep because then I imagine that you're dead and I think about whether or not I'd be able to, you know, carry your shit across the desert if you'd been dead a really long time.

Wendy: (silence)

Me: Well, anyway, I really liked that movie. I thought it was good.

Wendy: (silence)

Me: Where do you want to eat? I'm starving and I really have to pee.

Wendy: You're an idiot.

(The one thing we both agreed upon, however, was that it was incredibly cool to see a trailer for The Ice Harvest, based on the novel by our friend Scott Phillips, and that it looks incredibly good.)