Collector's Edition 3rd Year Anniversary issue

To quote Staind: 'It's Been Awhile'. I had one good column ready to roll when the world changed on September 11th. I still have trouble expressing myself about the events. It literally turned my world upside down. The consequences of the attacks were disastrous for the tourism industry. It was a direct blow to the company I work for. For the first time in my life there was a strong possibility that I might lose my job. Add that situation to the shock and grief of the attacks, my passion for writing about movies was shattered. Still I had to write something for my third year anniversary as a columnist. Patrick Sauriol gave in to my constant and annoying requests and finally gave me my own column three years ago at Corona's Coming Attractions. I'm extremely thankful to him for doing that and of course kicking my ass to the curb last year. His decision made me discover my true online home: TNMC. For the past year, my writing has hit a personal all-time high. All Thanks to John Shea, who's been making me feel right at home here. I need to thank my collaborators: Hollyfeld, you're like a brother, keep doing what you're doing. Special thanks to Agent Payne, Q-Brick and Tyler Durden for a very good year. Hope you will all comeback down the road on a more permanent basis. To another year of great scoops and many amazing script reviews...

About Schmidt Script Review

Searching for the right script review for this special issue was problematic. How about Star Trek: Nemesis? Ali Shooting script? It suddenly became clear: I'll review the best script I have read in the past six months. One script came instantaneously to mind: About Schmidt. It's written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, the duo behind Election. They have done it again, an outstanding comedy with very profound dramatic roots.

Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), has just retired from the Mutual of Omaha at the age of 66. We watch him through the first few months of his retirement. His adaptation to retired life is already challenging when his wife Helen dies. Soon after, he decides to take a road trip across Midwest America enroute to his daughter's wedding. We witness his trip thanks to his out of the ordinary correspondence/friendship with an African boy through World Children's Crusade.

Unquestionably, an Academy Award nominated script for this year or the next. This story will blow your socks off. It features a superb narrative structure by Payne and Taylor. I don't know how much was taken from Louis Begley's novel but it is remarkably refreshing. It's not unbalanced like a Charlie Kaufman script but it has very edgy material.

     WARREN
When I was a kid I used to think that maybe I was special, that somehow destiny had tapped me to be a great man - not like Churchill or Walt Disney or somebody like that. But somebody, you know, at least semi-important.

Warren Schmidt was custom-built for Jack Nicholson. I have not seen a more rewarding part for Jack since As Good As It Gets. It's an older role for him and we haven't really seen him play a retired person (except for The Pledge.) We see him go through all sorts of emotions. The character of Warren is a stunning success by the writers. It does not get any better then this. One of my favorite scene involves him at a frat party at his alma-mater. We see his melancholy through his exaggerated drunken state:

     WARREN
I can't get over you guys. No drinking, no carousing, no carrying on at all. I thought you college kids - let me tell you something, and I want you to listen very hard. That test tomorrow is meaningless. The senselessness of it all is going to hit you someday like a ton of bricks.

There's a few interesting people Warren meets along the way. One of the most bizarre scenes of the script deals with Roberta (Kathy Bates), his daughter's future mother-in-law, trying to seduce him. How? She goes totally nude into the hot tub where he's s relaxing. Who really wants to see Kathy Bates naked? Warren's reaction to this is sudden terror. Now, imagine the audience...

The best way I could describe this script is what American Beauty did for the mid-life crisis, this will do for retirement. A beautiful tale of one man searching for answers and trying to see why he chose the path he did years ago. The best darn script of the year if you ask me...

Mulholland Drive Review

Should have posted this review a while ago. Here's Hollyfeld thoughts on the limited release film:

"Hollyfeld, here. I actually had the pleasure of seeing Mulholland Drive a few weeks ago, but never got around to reviewing it until now. The reason? Laziness, mostly, but contributing to that is the fact that Mulholland Drive is possibly the most unusual film in David Lynch's filmography, a filmography that already includes such delusional masterpieces as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild At Heart, and Lost Highway. Although certainly not as successful as most of his previous work, Mulholland Drive deserves its place in the David Lynch pantheon for the undeniable genius it contains, as well as the potential for what could have been.

Mulholland Drive began as a pilot for ABC, a network that was no doubt hoping that Lynch would come up with another Twin Peaks, a demented murder mystery show who's only real plotline, "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" managed to invade the country's pop culture conscious during it's decidedly short run in the early 90s. Instead David Lynch created an even more unusual entity - a series about the quirkiness and horrors underlying the Hollywood mainstream, where the local eatery is a place of unspeakable evil, and Gene Autry look-alikes can mysteriously ruin your directing career. It was a decidedly unusual, if undeniably mesmerizing pilot episode that ABC, possibly very rightly, decided would not have the potential to become a popular television series. After sitting on the shelf for some time, Lynch bought the pilot back and shot forty minutes of new footage in order to turn it into a feature film. The result is a confusing masterpiece of audience manipulation - although Mulholland Drive is far from perfect (indeed, it is almost certainly one of the lesser films in the director's profile), it is easy to understand how it won the filmmaker the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

To describe the plot would be pointless for several reasons, most primarily the fact that in the more metaphysical of David Lynch's films, plot is always of secondary importance to the effect made on the audience, and the fact that the film's storyline was originally intended to be drawn out over dozens, even upwards of a hundred episodes. So the fact that some characters and subplots appear and disappear is, somewhat, forgivable, if for no other reason than because they were going to be elaborated upon eventually in such a manner that it would take several films to tell their stories completely. The bulk of the film, however, deals with the lives of three characters: Rita (Laura Harring), an amnesiac who may be a movie star or may be a movie star's lover, Betty (Naomi Watts), a bright-eyed actress just moved to LA from the sticks, and Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), a director of a hot new Hollywood film who is having troubles with an increasingly creepy production company. Together, Betty and Rita work to uncover the latter woman's past, while at the same time trying to break Betty into the business. Adam is simply concerned about the fact that, after denying the actress two mysterious executives wanted cast as the lead in his film, his credit cards have mysteriously been maxed out, his wife has left him, and he has been scheduled to meet the mysterious 'Cowboy' (Monty Montgomery). Their respective adventures lead them to the dark underworlds of Hollywood, where mysterious performance artists spellbind and die onstage, where men dream of seeing unspeakable terrors at family restaurants and where Wiseguys fail miserably at their job at all times.

In short, don't try to understand it. Although Lynch attempts to, at least in some fashion, tie up the plot in the film's last act (if you can call it that), what really seems to result is a mishmash of changing identities, revealed (or congealed) relationships and visions/realities that don't hold up to close scrutiny. What really matters, however, is that all these perplexing images, endless plot threads and confusing character work are ingenious in the manner in which they manipulate the audience. No matter what we feel about what is occurring on that screen, be it genuine fear (Mulholland Drive contains a five-minute sequence that belongs among the most frightening scenes ever filmed), zany comedy or just utter confusion, it is clearly exactly what the director wants us to feel. (Credit for this achievement must also go to Director of Photography Peter Deming, who is an early favorite of mine for a Best Cinematography nomination at this years Academy Awards.)

Regardless of the effectiveness of his presentation, unfortunately, there is no denying the ultimate disappointment inherent in Mulholland Drive. The ending, though fascinating to watch, can only be a let down, tacked on as it is to what was meant to be a serialized story. Imagine, if you will, that Chris Carter had had to explain the entire conspiracy behind The X-Files in an addendum to his pilot episode. Although it would almost certainly have been interesting, there is no substitute for the ongoing series that would have come after. It feels like an unfinished masterpiece, in a way more tragic than Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, due to the undeniable potential future storylines could have contained. Though a must-see to David Lynch fans and a true testament to this master of the art form, Mulholland Drive comes across as a failed experiment - a first draft of a work of genius that will never be finished."

(Review submitted by 'Hollyfeld.')

Stay tuned...

That's all folks...

Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)

Questions, comments, praises etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org

SEND ME A SCOOP!!

Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in such major websites as Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.