First of all, the first 30 minutes of the film was basically a home video of some smarmy San Diego couple Micah and Katie being all couply with Micah being a gadget freak while Katie tolerates it because as she meticulously explains (and I’m paraphrasing here) he’s so cute. After about 30 minutes, I was really hoping one of them would die a grisly death. Then we see footage of them while they’re asleep (which even when time-lapsed seems way too fucking long). What do we get? Strange noises. Then the next morning we get more couple-time. Then more sleep time. This time a door moves. Oooooohhhh! Repeat with each iteration being more bizarre and unbelievable. And I’m referring to the couple time: “Oh, Micah, even though you’ve done everything I’ve expressly told you not to do, I’m going to tolerate you anyway because you’re oh so cute.” By the end, some weird shit happens and then it ends. Fuck me and the $11 I spent.

So Paranormal Activity represents the latest incarnation of shockumentary style horror films including Blair Witch Project. Basically, they’re meant to seem more realistic and thus scarier, but in reality they’re just low-budget movies wrapped in big-budget marketing. If anything, the insane profit margin is what’s scary. But for the most part, they go use realistic tactics to get under your skin: weird noises, unexplainable movements, fuzzy shots. They attempt to poke at our primal defenses…imagine Homo habilis sitting alone in the woods filled with wild animals.

But going back to horror films in general, you have to sort of laugh. I remember watching Candyman when I was a kid and wondering how much fake blood was wasted for this production. When you think about it, most horror films are based on a premise that you have to accept as scary. When you don’t, they lose all their power.

• The Exorcist was basically about a little girl that said a lot of mean things.
• The Shining was about when boredom and alcoholism are mixed.
• Friday the 13th is about how stupid teenage girls are.
• Carrie is about how stupid teenage girls are.
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre taught us that only nutjobs live in Texas (as well as the last administration — ZING!).
• The Omen was about how creepy young boys can be.
• Jaws was about shark attacks — SHARK ATTACKS!
• The Ring taught us all that plot holes can be scary too.

I could go on, but I won’t. Really at the end you just have to say to yourself: It’s only a movie — a really, really stupid movie.

I actually sprained my eyeballs with all the eye rolling I was doing during the program. First off, Hugh Jackman does a tribute to musicals. Then, for each Best Actor/Supporting Actor category, they nixed the usual playing of a clip from the movie they are nominated for and in its place they invited previous winners in those categories to give a schmaltzy soliloquy of positive remarks for each nominee. My favorite was when Adrian Brody talks about Richard Jenkins and you know he has no idea what to talk about when he mentions googling the guy! As if the academy awards weren’t self-congratulatory enough, everyone congratulates themselves. Bring back the movie clips.

Besides the Oscars are kind of a joke. It’s so gamed now. First, only movies that come out in the fall end up being considered. There’s nothing nefarious about it, just short memories. It seems that the studios use this to their advantage doling out the crap films in January and February and hold the really good ones until November and December. And then there are the summer movies, which are intended for the kiddies who froth at the mouth at dumb ass films like Kangaroo Jack or Jack Ass 2. Well, anything with “Jack” in the title. Second, the movies that are submitted for consideration tend to be on the schmaltzy side. Easy emotions always win. Third, most of the people voting seldom see the movies they’re voting on. Fourth, politics are a huge factor. A best actor nominee who is seemingly a lock on the Oscar can blow it by blowing his temper or getting some bad press (qed Russell Crowe). The Oscars are handed out by peers and so it stands to reason that those relationships come into play. It’s more a popularity contest than a qualitative assessment of the films of the past year.

Anyway, the Oscar went to Slumdog Millionaire. I had been saying that for months, so time for me to gloat. I need to, my eyes are shot at the moment.

If it weren’t bad enough that googling “Beethoven” got you a mix of results including references to the series of dog films starring Charles Grodin, googling “Napoleon” will do the same. My only question is why. Why the assault on famous personages from the early 19th century? Who’s next? Will I see a trailer with a puppy scampering about with someone yelling “Ralph Waldo Emerson” behind? Or one where someone is talking down to a chocolate Lab saying, “Jane Austen, did you poop on the rug again?”

Stay tuned.

Let me first say that I like Bill Maher. I used to watch his show Politically Incorrect on Comedy Central and ABC, and now watch his show on HBO called Real Time. I don’t always agree with him, but I laud him for bringing myriad questions for open and honest debate. You don’t see that very often anymore. Anyway, back to Religulous: I was all set to watch this movie. I expected mixed in with a few nutjobs from the Holy Land Experience and evangelicals, there would be some serious moments with religious thinkers like Vatican scholars, Hindu gurus, Jewish priests. Perhaps the Dalai Lama would make an appearance. But there weren’t and that’s what I thought the downfall of this film was. It purported to be a quasi-serious film, an open and honest attempt to understand faith. Instead it was all nutjobs. It was an open and honest mockery of faith.

And in the end, he takes the whole movie off the deep end by linking religion to the end of the world. Were I too look at this film with a critical eye, I would tear it apart. But it behooves me and everyone else to keep in mind that this is Bill Maher. Do I expect him to make a movie about religion and not mock it? No. If you toss aside the “serious documentary” veneer that this movie purports, you get what basically amounts to a Borat. But that’s okay. Because the film entertains. And ultimately that’s the point.

Now the reason why I’m so impressed. Hollywood is crazy. Hollywood is full of nutjobs. Matt Stone even talks in a 60 Minutes interview about how Hollywood actors think they’re so important when in fact it’s just plain silly how they talk. I agree…Hollywood is completely out of touch with America and reality to some respect. Scientology commands a great deal of respect in Hollywood. Some of your favorite stars are Scientologists, or into Kabbala. In fact, you could say saying anything against Scientology in Hollywood is akin to career suicide. But when you’re Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it becomes a dare. And it’s a dare they’ve taken. And not without support…fans of South Park are boycotting MI3 in protest over the censorship of the imfanous episode that started all this. I agree on two grounds: 1) it’s about time somebody took on those Scientology bastards and 2) I think it’s reprehensible how the Mission:Impossible television show was morphed into this Tom Cruise ego-fest that has nothing to do with the original series. It’s just another BAD remake. Worse…it’s a sequel to a sequel to a BAD remake.

The second film was The Man Who Copied. It’s playing in select theaters now and well worth seeing. Since I saw City of God – another great film — a couple of years ago, I felt compelled to see this as it seems that a lot of great films have come out of Brazil in the last few years. It’s about a guy who operates a copy machine in a little shop, a guy that earns peanuts and spends his time spying on a girl through her window with his binoculars. He eventually falls in love and tries to pursue her. That’s where I’m leaving off…trust me, it’s a great film. And very smart.

It’s about a photojournalist who goes into the red light distict in Calcutta to shoot photos of the lives of the prostitutes there and in so doing meets a group of curious wide-eyed kids. Giving them cameras and teaching them how to take pictures, she discovers what these children who’ve been virtually discarded by society are really capable of. So she decides to find schools that will take them and takes their photos and exhibits them to raise money to save them from a fate of crime and prostitution.

But I haven’t done it justice at all. The film is really about the kids. It lets them tell their own stories…through their own words, their own art, and their own experiences. It lets them tell us about their fears, their hopes, their aspirations. And that’s the magic of this documentary.

Check out Kids with Cameras, the organization launched by Zana Briski, who made this film, to realize her vision of uplifting marginalized children through art.

I for one try to be a man of the people, and in this case I feel that I very much am. I LOVED this film. Well, “love” is a strong word. I can’t say I loved this film really because it’s not exactly a film to be loved. It’s a film to be admired. It’s a film that reaches out to you and grabs you at a gut level.

To put it in a nutshell, it’s about the atrocities that occurred in Rwanda during the Hutu-Tutsi clashes in 1994. Over a million Tutsi were killed in the massacre and the world simply looked away. But it’s really about a particular individual who experienced it: Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager thrust into an unthinkable situation and who struggled to save all the people he could. And this is precisely where many of the critics find fault…that the movie itself looks away from the atrocities and rather focuses and the lives of few interesting individuals. But I beg to differ…sure, it doesn’t give an account in graphic detail of the slaughtering of thousands…it does gives the account through the eyes of Rusesabagina. And that precisely is what makes it so moving…because we can inject ourselves in our own small way into his situation. We can — through his eyes — see what went on. He puts us there in a much more real way than an impersonal camera lens.

I for one consider it a wise choice that the movie commits itself to telling this story in this way. I also admire Don Cheadle’s commitment to the character…a performance he deserves high honors for. It’s so in keeping with the movie itself…doing whatever one can to hold on, to struggle forth when the entire world is crashing down around you. In spite of sundry lackluster reviews, this movie WILL survive.