The McBournie Minute: Candidates for the next pope

Take this job and shove it. Pope Benedict XVI didn’t exactly quote Johnny Paycheck, but that’s the gist of it. The pope is resigning from his job, one that you typically only leave when they carry you out in a casket. But, citing ill health, the soon-to-be former Pope Benedict announced he was stepping down, which is apparently something you can do. It’s like being on the U.S. Supreme Court, only with fewer pro-lifers protesting outside your building.

The world hasn’t seen the resignation of a pope since Gregory XII in 1415, but that was under completely different circumstances. At that time, there were three different claimants to the papal hat, and three different sets of cardinals that elected them. Gregory’s resignation helped to end the Western Schism, which is likely also the name of a band that opened for Radiohead. This time, the pope, 85, just wants to live out the rest of his days without all the robes.

Benedict’s resignation means that we will have a new pope by Easter. Who will be the next pope? Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Candidates for the next pope

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’

Wes Anderson’s latest film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic novel of the same name. Dahl’s novels, which have helped usher many a disgruntled kid through childhood, don’t condescend to the young, but there’s an element of whimsy that makes readers want to live in his world. Wes Anderson’s movies, on the other hand, can be hit-or-miss for most people, though if you’ve read the past few weeks for me, you know that they’re hits with me. His films tend toward the pretentious, with hints of the war of mid-life crisis and he uses a broad cast of actors repeatedly in his movies. Understated line delivery, artfully composed shots, and a focus on dysfunction alienate some viewers while drawing ardent fans from the other end of the spectrum. Nonetheless, the combination of Dahl and Anderson proves a winner in this film, with Dahl’s fanciful novel providing a great backdrop for Anderson’s regimented directorial style. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou’

On the face of it, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, is an adventure tale about a Jacques Cousteau-on-the-skids-type who decides to pull an Ahab on the shark that ate his buddy. But mostly, like all Wes Anderson movies, it’s about being 11 1/2 sometime around the late ’70s, an age-era axis favored by Anderson and at least partly attributable to his current age of 35.

But Anderson doesn’t make nostalgic movies, exactly. He makes movies about the way nostalgia works on people — which is different. All of his characters have longed for something weirdly ineffable, like the present, or the adult lives they imagined as kids. Oceanographer, documentarian and hubristic tragic hero Steve Zissou longs for all of the above—plus a legacy; a son-figure; the reporter who has come to write a profile on him; a puff piece to get his career back on track; some money; a little consideration; a little understanding and revenge on a shark. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Rushmore’

I’m going to let you in on a secret, an answer to a question that is heard more and more frequently these days: Why do the tastes of film critics and the filmgoing audience differ so much? After all, something so critically lambasted as Armageddon can end up as the top grosser of the year, while something like A Simple Plan can garner glowing reviews and still face an uphill climb to profitability. Of course, exceptions like Titanic happen as well, but usually the critics’ judgment is unrelated to popular appeal.

The answer is the dreaded predictability of most films in this day and age. An average viewer, who goes to the movies once a month or even less frequently might face a standard specimen of any of Hollywood’s standard genres (romantic comedy, action, special effects extravaganza) rarely enough that the redundancy of these films goes unnoticed. For an average film critic, even one as lackadaisical as your faithful servant, watching more than a movie per week can get really boring really fast especially if these movies feel like they were all xeroxed off When Harry Met Sally, Die Hard, or Jurassic Park, all movies that weren’t marvels of originality to begin with.

That’s why the arrival of something like Rushmore feels like a proverbial breath or make it blast of fresh air. Rushmore is an offbeat comedy, an offbeat buddy film, an offbeat romance, and an offbeat revenge story. Or none of these things. Mix up some wildly varying comic elements, combine them with some of most deliciously deadpan acting in recent memory, add highly imaginative and inventive usage of the widescreen format, and get Rushmore, which is just about the least conventional and yet solidly enjoyable movie to come out in the past decade. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Rushmore’

Eat My Sports: Popcorn links all

As you’ve seen by now, Bryan Schools is taking a much needed marriage-based vacation (we currently believe he’s desecrating Rome as you read this very sentence). That’s why we’re all taking turns at his column.

Wait, hold up, come back. I know that being the movie guy on this site, I might not be the first guy you think of to write about sports. “He writes about movies! His news posts involve video games and cooking and aliens spore pods and Angelina Jolie’s hiney!”

Heh. You just said hiney.

And yet. If I must validate myself, my credentials include this: 4 years of high school football (one year in which my team went undefeated and won a state championship), 4 years of high school basketball, around 2 decades of being a consistent season ticket attendee of UVa football games (vainglorious in defeat!) and a better ability to discuss both the management and player sides of the NFL, NBA and NCAA than most meatheads. There, I have now swung my manly e-penis.

But you know what? All of that doesn’t really matter to me that much, and it shouldn’t matter to you all that much either. Why? Because we’re going to talk about movies. You see, movies permeate our existence-that is fact. It’s debatable whether books or movies give us a deeper look at the inner thoughts of a person, but seeing as how I’m a visual type of guy, I think you can figure out my choice. So yes, movies, are awesome-especially sports movies. Even if you’ve never been a member of a sports team, sports movies allow us to get a glimpse at how those things work. Can we be “the I in team” and still win, or do we need to function as one cohesive unit? Is it easy being a star athlete or are they as foible as you and I?

That’s why we’re going to take a quick glimpse at the 5 Best Sports Movies. Hit the jump to see them. Continue reading Eat My Sports: Popcorn links all

Robo groundhog is here to destroy us all

Today is Groundhog Day, the only real American holiday that is about humiliating an animal. Earlier this morning, somewhere in Pennsylvania, people pulled a groundhog out of its hole and displayed it for all to see, then they attempted to scare the crap out of it by showing the animal its shadow. (Six more weeks of winter.) Good fun!

But some people want to spoil that fun. Not surprisingly, those people are animal activists. The activists say the holiday is harmful to the groundhog and act as if we care. It’s some mumbo-jumbo about their heart rates during hibernation, we know they just love the enemy.

PETA has even gone so far as to suggest that the groundhog be replaced with a robotic stand-in. Yeah right, and if they got their way, that groundhog would have laser eyes and shoot missiles from its mouth.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Scrooged’

Would Charles Dickens have written the movie Scrooge? No. Would he have written The Muppet Christmas Carol? Good lord no, and stab your eyes for even suggesting as such. Truth told, he probably would have written something like Scrooged, an 80s, greed-isn’t-good update of the Dickens classic. The wittiest satire of television since Network, Scrooged gives us Frank Cross, the “youngest president in the history of television,” a man who also happens to be the completely maniacal head of the IBC TV network. IBC’s holiday programming runs toward action flicks like The Night the Reindeer Died and cheesy variety shows like Bob Goulet’s Old-Fashioned Cajun Christmas. But Frank’s pièce de résistance is Scrooge, a live-from-around-the-world Christmas Eve special, featuring Buddy Hackett as the old skinflint, Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim, and a bevy of scantily clad, oh-so 80s Solid Gold Dancers.

“We’ll own Christmas,” Frank announces gleefully.

But will it own your heart? Hit the cut, true believers, to find out the answer to that question, along with why it’s the second of three traditional Christmas-time movies for me. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Scrooged’

David Carradine wins the ‘beloved actor’ game

Fame is a fickle mistress, much like the sea, only not as wet and the boats are soundstages.

In Hollywood, you can be famous for the roles you’ve played or famous for an astounding number of anti-semitic comments during your DUI arrest, and neither of those mean people care about you. The real testament to true fame and being beloved is how the public responds to your death.

David Carradine is dead and twitter mourns. People genuinely liked him and are affected by his loss.

It makes you wonder who else will inspire posts like this?

  • David Schwimmer? Unlikely.
  • Ted Danson? Only if he takes Guttenberg and Selleck down with him.
  • Andie MacDowell? Depends on how Groundhog Day holds up (so, if Bill Murray keeps his nose clean, then yes).

Only time will tell. In the meantime, goodnight, Mr. Carradine, you prince of not-being-Bruce-Lee.