Bloodline, the forthcoming documentary from Bruce Burgess that examines one of the theories promulgated by The Da Vinci Code, that Jesus Christ had a decidedly Earthly relationship with Mary Magdalene, and bore human offspring, is still a few weeks off from release, but having seen it I thought I’d touch on a few quick thoughts. As an academic inquisition it starts out fairly interesting, and then becomes progressively less so. Part of this is because Burgess casts his lot with one curious amateur explorer — Ben Hammott, whose web site is currently shut down — and seems to stop asking (or at least including here) questions both tough and obvious. But there’s also just bad scientific method and intellectual judgment. I’ll get into this a bit more in a proper, full-length review, but I was astonished when, at one point late in the movie, Burgess uses a piece of evidence obtained from Hammott to theoretically validate/confirm… another piece of evidence from Hammott. It’s that sort of thing that makes even agnostics and open-minded people of faith not take this matter seriously.

The fact that Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies) is directing gives me some pause, and hope, but if I were fishing for irksome independent-flavored summer product, then Henry Poole is Here, a character ensemble being billed as “a modern day fable about the unexpected wonders of the everyday,” looks like it might fit the bill handsomely, perhaps largely because of the presence of Luke Wilson, and the visions of his well-worn, rumpled shtick that photos like the one below conjures up.

Starring Wilson, Radha Mitchell and Adriana Barraza (an Academy Award nominee for Babel), the film, opening in limited fashion on July 25 from Overture Films*, is described as being about a disillusioned man who, shattered by circumstances beyond his control, attempts to hide from life in a rundown, suburban tract home, only to discover he cannot escape “the forces of hope.” Those, one supposes, are embodied not by Barack Obama, but instead by Barraza’s well-meaning busybody neighbor, Esperanza — who drops by with a plate of homemade tamales and discovers a mysterious stain on Henry’s stucco wall that is seen to have miraculous powers — and Dawn (Mitchell), the beautiful young divorcée and single mom living next door, with an 8-year-old daughter who hasn’t spoken a word since her parents’ break-up.

This sounds very much like the sort of thing adapted from a novel, and yet the fact that’s actually not (debut screenwriter Albert Torres gets the credit) makes me feel as though it was written as a “statement” by a frustrated and/or unpublished novelist, and thus downgrade it accordingly. Does that make me cynical bastard? Perhaps. And yet, if I’m going to spend 90-120 minutes watching someone who’s threatening to sink in on themselves, and either drink themselves to death (e.g., Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas) or withdraw depressively from society, then it should be someone with some glimmer of an outwardly manifested engaging personality, the better to starkly highlight the snuffed flame. In short, it shouldn’t be Luke Wilson.

* UPDATE, 4/14: Henry Poole is Here is now scheduled to open August 15, 2008.

Richard Horgan, over at FilmStew, chews over a bunch of recent news regarding the demise of both print newspapers and professional film criticism, and arrives at an interesting place when he writes, in conclusion:

“In a sense, the Internet has turned the entire world into one big test screening audience. Scraps, rumors, planted AICN items and more are fomented to determine which way the hoi polloi
compass is pointing. And if you think it’s crazy now, just wait until
the studios can point, via secure and super-fast broadband download,
specifically requested movies to specific individual citizen critics — customized to their articulated likes and dislikes, this transom will
constitute the final dagger in the heart of professional film criticism.”

I’ve written about this before, because it’s already going on to a certain extent in the manner in which some studios are playing coy, and keep-away, with genre product, crafting selective invite lists apparently based solely on whom they feel will be most receptive to (read: non-critical of) their movies. But Horgan is right — once the ability and technology of targeted download is upon us, print publications will be mortally wounded as far as arts coverage. The bigger point here, though, is that most Hollywood studio PR machines regard the Internet as inherently more corruptible, susceptible to back-slapping and favor-trading.

The old media hits just keep coming. A couple days after the Newspaper Association of America reported that print newspaper advertising revenue was down 10 percent from last year, the worst drop in half a century, comes word, per Anne Thompson, Radar‘s online site and others, that Newsweek‘s David Ansen is the latest veteran film critic to soon find himself without a home, accepting an effective-at-year’s-end buyout along with more than 100 other staffers.

“Obviously the climate at newsmagazines is not great — more cost-cutting, more trimming,” both cited pieces above quoted Ansen as saying. Ansen looks forward to writing
books, teaching and “not going out to screenings every night. I want to watch DVDs of movies I might actually like, and read a
book or two. Face it, a lot of movies are not that interesting to write
about these days.”

I’ve noted this past week just how bad Doomsday is (a couple times, actually) but previously failed to mention that one of the more unusual and curious elements of its failure is the sound design, which is mixed too high only, and notably, in non-action scenes. Composer Tyler Bates‘ cheesy instrumentation notwithstanding (he dabbles all over the map, to poor effect), Doomsday‘s sound mix masks simple dialogue and (arguably) crucial expository set-up, which is usually a sign of a director not trusting his or her script. The rub? Director Neil Marshall wrote the screenplay here as well, raising the crucial question: is a somewhat self-aware hack better than a hack who doesn’t know they’re a hack?

A full review will follow soon — definitely tomorrow, maybe sooner — but Doomsday is stupid bad, just one of those theatrical experiences that leaves you cross. It’s poorly written, sure, but it doesn’t even succeed as a throwaway apocalyptic romp, mainly because writer-director Neil Marshall can’t make sense of even the simplest of spaces. A lot of times… well, OK, sometimes, studios miscalculate when they don’t screen movies, thinking critics aren’t going to give a fair shake to a certain genre (or toxic actor or actress, perhaps). This time they had it right, though; Doomsday is just a stupid, steaming pile of crap.

This paragraph, fronted by a comment from publicity consultant Steve Sugarman, from a longer piece from L.A. Weekly about Santa Barbara News-Press publisher Wendy McCaw and her predilection for outlandish litigation stemming from reportage on a massive editorial board shake-up at her paper, caught my eye:

“’Though the tactics of McCaw seem unusual as to all the litigation
she’s thrown out, unless you know the business objective of McCaw, it
is not fair to comment on the tactics of a crisis PR consultant,’
Sugerman said. Her tactics might make sense if her goals are to push
out her former editor to cut costs, keep a high-powered union out of a
small paper and produce a cheaper product that advertisers must
advertise in because it’s the only daily in a wealthy community.”

Funny, I thought. And kind of telling. As a former defendant in a $19 million lawsuit of harassment filed by the idiot ex-publisher of my one-time employer, the now-defunct Entertainment Today, I know all too well how aggrieved simpletons deal with falls from grace and/or challenges to their (frequently inherited) power.

Of course, I don’t know McCaw, so let me be clear that I am in no way commenting on what some have deemed her ongoing war against journalists and the first amendment, otherwise impugning her credibility or doing anything other than linking to this story as an act of bemused recollection. I am sure McCaw is a wonderful, intelligent woman who smells like fresh tulips and sweats Clive Christian’s #1. Of course my comments are borne of personal experience, refer solely to such, and are in no way, shape or form comparative to the L.A. Weekly piece. There… that should take care of things.

But get ready to be sued, Ross Johnson. If only because those that can sue do, even (maybe especially) when there’s nothing but noise, fury and a lingering inferiority complex on their side…

From today’s “Holy crap!” files… they’re actually making a Dragonball movie? And it’s directed by James Wong, who’s helmed Willard, Final Destination 3 and the recent remake of 1974’s Black Christmas? And it’s starring the heretofore entirely respectable Justin Chatwin, who’s actually shown great promise and screen presence — whatever one thinks of the movies, respectively —  in War of the Worlds, The Chumscrubber and The Invisible? And it’s costarring the much-derided Emmy Rossum and… Chow Yun-Fat? This all seems wrong in ways that stretch beyond three dimensions and bend time and space. When I just read about “a young boy named Goku seeking out [sic] upon his grandfather’s dying request for the great Master Roshi,” I want to start punching myself in the face. A bad move for all involved, no matter the payday…