Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Catching up...one movie at a time

(Belated) Review of TRANSSIBERIAN below:

But first! I found it amusing during Sunday night's dreadful Emmy Awards telecast that the two actors I called out in a previous post for being undeserving -- BOTH WON! (Dianne Wiest and Paul Giamatti). What was NOT amusing was the Emmy choice for Best Director of a Musical/Variety Program : the same guy who was the victim of my wrath in that same post -- Academy Award show director Louis J. Horvitz (bastard!) -- the man who has now ruined 2 awards shows in one year (because, purely coincidentally, he directed the G*d-awful Emmys!) He gave himself all the time in the world to accept, then later he cut-off the winning writer of the John Adams miniseries (someone who actually had something intelligent to say). Bastard!

Laura Linney gave the best acceptance speech of the night (thanking "the community organizers who formed this country" -- take THAT, Sarah Palin!!) My personal preference would have seen either Gabriel Byrne or Michael C. Hall and the lovely Christina Applegate win ... but the Emmy's exist to disappoint people who value quality television (Grey's Anatomy won one year, remember?)

Transsiberian

I fear my review comes too late to for you to see this exciting thriller in a theater, which is a shame, because it is clearly ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR!! Director Brad Anderson (of the shamefully-overlooked The Machinist) has crafted another mysterious and scary Hitchcockian world -- on a train, no less! -- lumbering across Siberian Russia with an international assortment of heroes and villains and a climax that is a touch more riveting (and gruesome!) than The Lady Vanishes (1938). Comparing Transs. to that classic is high praise from me: Anderson effectively updates the genre by showing the claustrophobia and discomfort of train travel that movies tend to smoothe over. The cast is excellent, top to bottom. I won't reveal the plot so you can be surprised by its ingenuity ... like me!



Emmy pics


The aforementioned Ms. Applegate:








I know I didn't mention Mary-Louise Parker this time (I don't even watch her show!) but you have to admit, she is a raven-haired beauty!

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