Craig's MovieBlog

Bill Simmons Agrees With Me

Thank goodness... I thought it was just me:

"By the way, if somebody has a good explanation for the last 25 minutes of [No Country for Old Men], I'd love to hear it. Everyone at my theater applauded when it was over, like something special had just happened. Meanwhile, I was sitting there going, "Wait, it's over? What the hell just happened?" Without spoiling it, from the moment we see a hotel pool for the first time, the wheels come off so fast that it's like Norv Turner took over for the Coen Brothers. So frustrating. If you see one movie this year, go see Michael Clayton, George Clooney's movie about a second-year NFL receiver who kills more than 200,000 fantasy teams. Just kidding. It's fantastic."

Yes, Anyone Really Can Make a Movie

This is not just the best fight scene ever, but also the best dialog ever.

"We'll keep an eye out for you, Stingray. "

"Yeah, see ya. "

As Bill Simmons would say, this is off the charts on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.

Sports Guy Interviews "The Guys Who Wrote Rounders"

If you loved Rounders, and have seen it 26 times on cable like I have, this is required reading:

• Part One
• Part Two

And if you need to know the depth of Bill Simmons' insanity, read his pitch for Rounders 2.  I hope for his sake he was kidding:

Here's my pitch: Mike McD (two-time runner-up in the World Series of Poker in 1999 and 2003) is living at the Palms Casino in Vegas and making a living playing in televised tournaments, running his own online Web site and ripping off celebrities and athletes whenever they come into town. He's a multi-millionaire, a success by any measure; he even hangs out with the Maloofs and Ron Artest, owns a 5 percent stake in the Kings, and dates a former actress (played by Heather Graham) who gets naked with him in a torrid sex scene in the first 10 minutes. And just when he's preparing for the 2007 World Series of Poker, Worm shows up in his life again, along with Worm's brother, Gerbil (played by Ben Affleck, who was available). They're in some deep trouble, the Russian mob is after them for stealing a suitcase of heroin or something.

Being the loyal friend that he is, Mike McD gets dragged into the situation and ends up having sex with Famke Janssen and her sister, played by Anna Kournikova (in a torrid three-way in a hot tub at the "Real World" suite in the Palms) to convince Famke to call off the Russian mob. But Famke slips him the date-rape drug, and before Mike McD wakes up, she's transferred $3 million of his money from his computer to Teddy KGB. Plus, Heather Graham walked in during the three-way (unbeknownst to Mike McD) and decided to move out. Now he's broke and single. When he wakes up, Teddy KGB calls to tell him, "I have your three million, you have to play me for it, I want revenge for the last time we played."

But Mike McD says, "You know what, I'm not playing this game. I don't care about my $3 million any more, and I don't care about Worm or Gerbil -- kill them both, they were crummy friends, anyway. I'm winning my three million back in the World Series of Poker, and then some. But first, I have to go to Cheetahs for the next 20 hours and spend my last $5,000 on lap dances."

So that's the next 15 minutes of the movie -- Mike getting lap dances and drinking Rolling Rocks in the Cheetah's champagne room, followed by the shocking revelation that Gretchen Mol is working there after getting fired from her law firm. He gets her number, but not before she gives him the obligatory, "You're wasting your life" speech. From there, Mike McD goes right to the World Series of Poker, where he ends up at the final table facing Phil Ivey (played by Tiger Woods), Ron Artest (played by O.J. Simpson), Teddy KGB (Malkovich), Worm (Norton), Gerbil (Affleck), Johnny Chan (playing himself) and the Cinderella story of the tournament, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons (played by George Clooney in an unbilled cameo).

And Mike McD gradually knocks everyone out until it's just him and Gerbil, setting up the Damon-Affleck scenario that everyone has been waiting for ... and even though the script calls for Mike McD to win, Damon ends up ad-libbing from the script and letting Affleck win because he feels bad about everything that's happened to Affleck since Armageddon. But he still made enough second place money ($3 million) to replace what he lost, so he's happy, and the movie ends with a torrid sex scene with Mike McD and Gretchen Mol, followed by him breaking up with her and telling her that he never liked her in the first place. The end.

Oscar Recap: What Everyone Else Thought

Before I get to my thoughts, here are a few links I've enjoyed since the end of the show last night.

• David Poland: I disagreed with him about Brokeback Mountain from the get-go, but his post-mortem is excellent today.  I also was thankful for his plea for "civil disagreement."  It's sad that on the internet, and through its anonymity, the hateful vituperation has hit an all time high.
• Jeffrey Wells does a play-by-play: I'm looking for more depth from him later.
• Time Magazine and Richard Corliss cover it as well, although he's ready to nominate George Clooney for President.
• A blistering, incendiary column from Ken Turan and the LA Times.  Wow - a must read.
• Can't go without Bill Simmons...  "Part of me still thinks Jack Nicholson saw "Brokeback Mountain on the winner card, took a deep breath, said to himself, 'Screw it, I hated that movie,' called an audible and said, 'And the Oscar goes to ... Crash!'"
• Box Office Prophets did a live blog, but you currently have to start at the bottom and read up.
• Better Than Fudge wrote a tremendously snarky photo blog with captions.  I'm loving this site more and more every day.

Notes for trivia dorks like me:

• Paul Haggis became the first person to write two consecutive Best Pictures (Million Dollar Baby and Crash).
• For the first time ever, the top 6 awards went to 6 different films.  (Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Walk the Line, Good Night and Good Luck, The Constant Gardener).

Aaron Sorkin's Return to Television

I don't care what anyone says - ANYONE!  The West Wing of today is a pale comparison of what it was when Aaron Sorkin was in charge.  Go back to the shows on Bravo or A&E or whatever channel it's syndicated on, and I dare you to peel your eyes and ears away from the set.  It's electric, it's hypnotic, it was the best show on TV bar none.  It wasn't even close.  It's not an opinion... there are scientific facts in a laboratory somewhere to back this up.

Anyway, Bill Simmons dropped this bomb on his blog today, and I haven't stopped salivating since.

I received a copy of Aaron Sorkin's spec script, Studio 7 -- his secret project that caused near-chaos in Hollywood when he suddenly started shopping it a few weeks ago. Everyone loved it, everyone said great things, and after reading it ... I couldn't agree more. It's already my new favorite show even though they haven't started casting it yet -- like Larry Sanders, only if it was about SNL. In a viciously clever way, Sorkin's pilot script pretty much obliterates SNL and everything that happened to the show over the past few years, as well as TV networks and the post-Janet Jackson/FCC Era in general. It's a masterpiece. It's perfect. I can't say enough about it. When this show debuts next year (or whenever), it will be impossible to take SNL seriously anymore. I'm telling you.

Good god - just reading this again I'm freaking out in anticipation, but maybe that's because I'm losing my love for Lost and Alias this year.

Kanye West and Mike Myers Reunite on SNL

The only time Mike Myers has ever been funnier than this, was during the actual telethon, where (as Bill Simmons would say) his "deer in headlights" face made the Pantheon of Best Expressions Ever.