Smile Politely. Speak Directly. Champaign-Urbana's Alternative Daily

There was once a video game known as Captain America and the Avengers for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Game Systems. Playing the game as a child, I always chose the stalwart Avenger Iron Man and despite my professed dorkiness, this was the extent of my experience with the character of Tony Stark/Iron Man before I saw Jon Favreau's Iron Man. So, unlike most of my analyses of superhero media, my perspective on Iron Man was rather neutral: I was, for once, a normal moviegoer, an unbiased observer. And I have to say, I didn't like it that much.

The riskiest move where films are concerned these days is to attempt to make a movie that relies on charm or romantic ideals. Swing Vote dared to do this by reviving the formula that made director Frank Capra a household name and withered at the box office. It appears that a similar fate awaits David Koepp’s Ghost Town, an unabashedly sweet work that not only provides a showcase for one of the most talented comedic actors working today but also stands as a throwback to the era of the 30s and 40s, when lighthearted but genuine films of this sort were commonplace.

Have you ever been to a party and hovered awkwardly around a group of the party-goers, trying to engage in the conversation but feeling completely left behind, without anything resembling a frame of reference by which to understand the particulars of language, gestures, euphemisms, and the very subjects of their talk? That's what Sex and the City: The Movie was for me. While watching it, I felt excluded, like I was standing at a party to which I was not invited: not bored, really, just uncomfortable.

Abortion has once again become a hot topic, with the upcoming election possibly changing decades of social policy on the issue. As such, the Independent Media Center is providing more fuel to the fire by screening two groundbreaking documentaries by filmmakers Sarah Diehl and Angie Young: Abortion Democracy: Poland/South Africa and The Coat Hanger Project. The first, Abortion Democracy by Diehl is a Berlin-based film which compares and contrasts the differences in policies in South Africa and Poland regarding abortion and their impact on the lives of women, arguing for a liberalization of abortion laws. Young's The Coat Hanger Project focuses on the current state of the Unites States' pro-choice/reproductive movement 35 years after Roe v. Wade and specifically targets the post-1973 generation.

Filmmakers Diehl and Young will be at the IMC to participate in a Q&A after the screenings and artwork by Heather Ault will also be on display — she describes her work as, "...the history of contraception and abortion through visual narratives as a way to reframe how the public understand women's reproductive health care."

The event begins tonight at 7 p.m. and both films are free. The Independent Media Center is located at 202 S. Broadway St. in Urbana.

It has often occurred to me that there existed a time as recently as my early adolescence when television shows were not regularly released in DVD box sets. I wonder how people survived in the days before you could sit down for five or six hours with your favorite TV show without commercial breaks and before you were able to skip the intro you've seen a million times — back when you had to start watching your show at precisely the same time each week.

Half the suspense of a Coen brothers film comes from the fact that these directors cannot be trusted in keeping their characters safe. Preparing to engage oneself in a romp with the Coens should be likened to heading out on the road with your legally blind 90-year old grandmother at the wheel. Dig your fingers into the nearest hunk of upholstery and expect some wild times ahead. So if you haven’t learned your lesson by now, take warning: these directors could care less if you like their film; they just want to make a good movie.

On Saturday night, The Highdive hosted two excellent Chicago bands: Pinebender and Dianogah. Both have been making music for over decade and this weekend's show highlighted this fact — each band put on an excellent show. It also helped that the sound in The Highdive was stellar both in the audience and up on stage (as pointed out by Chris from Pinebender many, many times while they played). People trickled in during Pinebender's set until there was a modest crowd by the start of Dianogah.

Click the jump to read about Dianogah's set.

In a 2004 article, David Foster Wallace wrote, “Still, after all the intellection, there remain the facts of the frantically clanking lid, the pathetic clinging to the edge of the pot.”

The sentence comes toward the end of an essay called, “Consider the Lobster,” a reflection on the Maine Lobster Festival that, to my mind, represents quintessential Wallace: thoughtful and cerebral and satirical and meandering and overrun with footnotes and, in the end, gratifyingly complex.

Some movies come from out of nowhere to surprise and delight you, as well as re-instill a degree of hope for the medium as well. Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges did that for me when I saw it earlier this year in Chicago and I eagerly awaited its release here so that I might spread the word about the discovery I had made. But alas, the film was never released locally, part of a blundering campaign from Universal Studios who obviously didn’t know how to market this existential gem disguised as farce. (When I mentioned the film to a colleague of mine recently she said she thought it looked “slapsticky” from the trailer.) One of the reasons the publicity arm at Universal didn’t know what to do with the film is because it’s uncommonly smart. That’s probably why it bombed in its limited run as well, as it is common knowledge audiences don’t want to think when they go to the movies. Cinema managers hate it as well because then they have to deal with patrons moaning, “Brain hurts!” like the Frankenstein monster as they wander out of the theater.

Bigger releases (i.e. films that you remember being in the theaters) this week include Tina Fey's venture into movie stardom, Baby Mama, and Jackie Chan and Jet Li's collaboration The Forbidden Kingdom. The consistently disappointing and yet never-ending Smallville sees its seventh season come out today, along with David Caruso's latest operatic television masterpiece CSI: Miami, which has also somehow made it to a seventh season and beyond.

Assuming you're not into CSI (and all apologies if you are), this week offers a couple choices for the discerning video renter. First up is The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh, one of the many people with only one name who seem to be drawn to the arts. As Tarsem explains in the rather terrible making-of feature on the disc, he doesn't care if his movie is "the biggest piece of shit you've ever seen," as long as he and his crew have fun making it. Whether or not this is a healthy attitude for a filmmaker to have doesn't seem to have bothered directors David Fincher or Spike Jonze, who "present" The Fall which assumedly means they footed a lot of the bill for it.

Since 1998, the American Film Institute has been issuing lists touting a wide variety of “great” features present in homegrown movies. Not content to rest on its laurels with its 100 best American movies, the 100 greatest movie stars, the 100 best comedies, the 100 best thrillers, the 100 best romances, these rosters have often focused on such minutiae as the 100 best quotes and songs, while revisiting its first list of 100 best movies in order to revise it.

While the AFI continues to make a mockery of itself acting like nothing more than Blockbuster Video’s government sponsor, as promotions for the movies on these lists are prominently featured at the chain’s stores, the British Film Institute has quietly embarked on an ambitious, long term project that will ensure the preservation of key films in world cinema. Known as the 360 Classic Feature Films project, this massive undertaking began in 1982 the brainchild of BFI film archivist David Meeker.

NARRATOR: Vicky sat with Cristina and Juan in a romantic Spanish restaurant drinking red wine. Juan had randomly approached and convinced both Vicky and Cristina to travel with him to his vacation home for the weekend. Vicky, who is more conservative than Cristina, doesn’t appreciate Juan’s aggressive Spanish sensuality. So, with her second or third drink, she speaks her mind.

VICKY: When I drink, I become frank…

While this is not an exact replication of an excerpt from the Vicky Cristina Barcelona script, it is the outline of a scene that well-encompasses the objective for Woody Allen’s most recent story of love.

Barcelona is a slightly drunk drama, by nature, that capitalizes on both Allen’s storytelling creativity along with its unsettling frankness.

Hamlet 2, director Andrew Fleming's hilariously quirky and unpredictable film stars Steve Coogan as Dana Marschz — a failed actor who decides to try his luck as a high school drama teacher, "where dreams go to die," in Tucson, Ariz. His drama department consists of only two students, who put on dismal adaptations of Hollywood hits such as Erin Brockovich that are largely ignored. He is harassed by everyone from a lisping ninth grader who writes scathing reviews of his plays in the school newspaper, a tyrannical principal who sees no value in the arts, and his wife, Brie (Catherine Keener) who is more than a little bitter about their low income and Dana's low sperm count.

All of my classes are on the south side of campus and it's hard not to notice the gigantic concrete structure on the South Quad. Don't be mistaken. It's not an advertisement for vodka. It's a new carillon bell tower: Macfarland Memorial.

Steve Coogan’s road to fame in Hollywood has been a rocky one. But one gets the impression that such a thing doesn’t matter to him, having established himself already as one of the premiere British comics of his generation, having conquered the world of television across the pond, most particularly with his character Alan Partridge, a dimwitted TV personality that the actor invented while mocking a reporter while he was being interviewed.

Click the jump to read Chuck's interview with Steve Coogan.

In autumn, Tuesdays are exciting as summer blockbusters, Cannes and Sundance films, and straight-to-video horror titles all find their way to DVD. But autumn is still a few weeks away and some weeks, like this one, are pretty dry. Sure, Season Four of The Office is out today, but as much as I'd like NBC to convince me that Jim and Pam aren't just the Ross and Rachel of the 00s, my busy schedule doesn't allow for the dedication a TV show requires. Besides, I'm in the middle of The Wire and Battlestar Galactica.

So if you're not waiting for something to break up Jim and Pam (it's going to happen, trust me, and I will hate them for doing it), this may be the week you catch up on the Criterion Collection. If you're not familiar with the Criterion Collection, you are clearly not a cinephile. A self-dubbed "continuing series of important classic and contemporary films on DVD," Criterion lives up to all of its proclaimed adjectives and modifiers, releasing multiple beautifully transferred discs of excellent and important films each month.