A Fascinating Director's Roundtable Discussion

The Hollywood Reporter has put together this absolutely fascinating discussion between Quentin Tarantino, Ben Affleck, Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, David O. Russell, and Gus van Sant about the art of directing. Each filmmaker has a prestigious film that has either been released this year or will soon come out. It's really a great way to spend an hour if the craft of filmmaking interests you.

The Show is Cancelled Tonight, Sorry Everyone!

Guilty Pleasures Radio is cancelled for tonight, sorry everyone. A last minute scheduling mixup has prevented one of the hosts from being there so we will not be able to perform the show tonight. We should be back and running for our premiere next week. We'll keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers/fans of the show. We really appreciate all your support and hope you have a wonderful holiday. For all our international readers, well, I'll feel bad now if I don't post something on some foreign holidays so you'll get some recognition, too.

Anyway, be sure to tune into our podcast when it returns next Tuesday as well as the return of Guilty Pleasures on KVNO really soon. I promise the official start date will get announced any day now.

Have a great day, everyone!

Sex Toys and Dolphins

Living in a household of phenomenally empowered and progressive women is a life experience everyone should have. In every discussion, from politics to religion, you get insights into the roles of gender, specifically women, as well as sex’s position in the issue. Whether it was during the presidential campaigns or a more recent trip to a sex shop, larger issues are always available upon which my roommates jump to elaborate and inform. While searching for bachelorette party gear at this particular store, we had the opportunity to engage in some particularly stimulating conversation. (And for fear of this whole entry becoming a succession of sexual puns, I will henceforth disengage from such colorful vocabulary… or at least try to.)

Lincoln (Or, Spielberg's Middle School History Lesson)

What do you know about Abraham Lincoln? In America, at least, middle school and high school tend to give off this mythical impression of the president that ended the Civil War and freed the slaves. There's generally some attention directed to the importance of the thirteenth amendment, as well as a basic understanding of the key players in the war. You know the generals, you know some of the politicians, and you know the political implications of Lincoln's actions. So, when Steven Spielberg announces he's making an Abraham Lincoln biopic starring Daniel Day-Lewis and a million other great actors, you're incredibly excited to see what the director of such biting true story films like Schindler's List or Amistad will bring to the table. At least, that was my reaction. This movie could teach me so much more about the depth of these incidents I've been learning about my whole life, right? Well, walking out of Lincoln, I honestly can't say I learned anything at all.

Does this mean Spielberg has failed to make a compelling film? Well, no, not really. In fact, there are parts of Lincoln that left me far more moved than I thought I would be and overall it does have a certain compelling quality to these historical scenes that are predictable, simplified, and ultimately tell you nothing new. The vast majority of the film details the courtroom drama of passing the thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery as the Civil War is moving towards closure. Spielberg introduces you to a wide variety of characters played by the likes of Hal Holbrook, David Strathairn, Sally Field, James Spader, and an absolutely wonderful Tommy Lee Jones. Each actor brings a great energy to their respective historical roles and helps bring them to life. The acting is often powerful and sucks your heart into the scenes that your brain is assuring you are silly in their overdramatization or oversimplification. Such is an issue I had many times throughout the two hour run time.

As far as the performances go, most are applauding Daniel Day Lewis for his effort, but I have to say this was one of the least impressive performances I've seen from him. Let me of course make the important distinction here that a not-as-impressive Daniel Day Lewis performance is still likely to be among the top ten performances anyone will see all year. What I took issue with was this high pitched voice Day Lewis affected for the role. In historical accounts, Lincoln was documented as speaking in a more shrill, high pitch, which Day Lewis does his best to create. It works for the most part, but his high voice never changes pitch and is never really able to capture emotion outside of inflection. Not everyone speaks at the exact same pitch at every moment with only volume and speed fluctuating, and every other actor demonstrates a wider vocal range than our title character. This certainly was a character, for its performance and the screenplay aren't interested in painting a flawed man. This is undoubtedly that mythical figure you've heard about since you were a child.

Who am I to say that Abraham Lincoln wasn't this fable-spewing social genius at all times? Well, I'm not to say that at all, but let me just say it didn't feel all too real. I'm not here to argue the history when something simply doesn't work in the film. These characters do their best to seem genuine when Tony Kushner's screenplay paints so many of them as simple caricatures. If you're a good guy, you show some mild range of emotions, are a Republican, and hate slavery with a burning passion. If you're a bad guy, you're a close minded Democrat who hates blacks. Lazy expositional writing keeps you constantly aware that you are, in fact, watching a scripted version of events that were probably not so conveniently constructed. If Lincoln was a play, its cinematic shortcomings might feel a lot more at home, but unfortunately, this is a freaking Steven Spielberg movie.

Where is the sense of shock at the depth of characters impacting history singlehandedly we were so wonderfully exposed to in Schindler's List and Amistad? Where is the bite this once great director was so famous for? Are we forever going to be stuck with these long, overly sentimental dramas like War Horse? What bothers me even more than just how safe Lincoln is was the moments where you can really sense Spielberg waking up and beautifully directing a scene to a well deserved impact. There are these great little moments in Lincoln that make you wish there was more to talk about, either historically or just in terms of his wide cast of characters. This should have been a thought provoking movie, but instead we are left with a simple middle school history lesson that would certainly bore the hell out of middle schoolers.

6/10

Skyfall: Bond Goes Wrath of Khan

There are the occasional mainstream franchises that I absolutely adore. In most of those cases, I don't adore them by the time studios are finished with them, but there's some amount of love associated with the basic mythology and characters that carries into each new opus. Then, there are far more franchises I am either indifferent to or actively despise. The 007 series has been hanging around cinemas for 50 years now and I must confess I'm rather indifferent to the lot of them. I've seen a handful and yet none of them really left much of an impression. Most of them fell into the average category, with the only exception being Quantum of Solace, an embarrassment to all involved. That being said, Daniel Craig's more serious and realistic James Bond has always had a lot of promise to it and I went into Skyfall with the hope that the payoff I'd been hoping for since Casino Royale finally existed.

Skyfall is one of those movies that would no doubt play best to one who knew absolutely nothing about it, but for the sake of writing a review, I can't leave out all plot details. So here's my abbreviated paragraph giving you a small taste. MI6 is in trouble. A flash drive containing the names of every agent embedded in terrorist organizations around the world is stolen and released. Bombings target M (Judi Dench), the leader of MI6. James Bond (Daniel Craig), now the oldest agent in the organization is faced with the question: in the age of advanced technology, are field agents even necessary anymore when all this destruction can be caused with the use of a computer? Faced with a foe (Javier Bardem) unlike any of the traditional Bond villains with a personal vendetta and no grand conspiracy, and no fear of failure. This is truly a worthy adversary because, to use the old adage, this time, it's personal.

Spike TV Offers $10 Million for Proof of Bigfoot

Oh, you all know how much I love Bigfoot. As someone who is very (VERY) open to the strange mysteries of the world we live in, Bigfoot has gone from a subject of interest to something I ridicule after my show has gotten multiple fake scoops about the alleged revelation of proof of the Sasquatch race. Not only that, but even some of my friends working at similarly paranormal themed shows/sites have gotten pranked in the same way only to find that, like we all thought, there is no such announcement. This, naturally, means that we'll probably never be interviewing another member of those Bigfoot organizations, though you can listen to one on our Show Archive page. Spike TV is doing something to pique my interest in the subject, as it turns out, however.

The big question here is: how far would you go to prove Bigfoot's existence? If you look over to Animal Planet, they're currently airing season 3 of Finding Bigfoot, which offers more of the same ambiguous, sometimes laughable evidence brought up for the creature. Spike's bringing things to a whole new level with its new series 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, which will air as 10 hourlong episodes intending to attract "the best scientists, zoologists, trackers, and Bigfoot hunters in the world in an attempt to prove or disprove its existence." Believe it or not, Spike TV just did something more logical than the Animal Planet.

The show is scheduled to launch next fall, and to bring even more common sense to a fairly nonsensical topic, Spike executives told the Huffington Post that their hope is that the show doesn't last more than its 10 episode first season. If your jaw didn't drop there, you must be an embarrassed BFRO member. Tim Duffy, Senior Vice President of Original Series for Spike even went further to emphasize an interest in bringing legitimate arguments to the table rather than prolonging what has already been disputed for years to come: "Nobody wants to watch another series of 10 or 13 episodes of television where nothing happens."

Take that, Animal Planet. Of course, should Bigfoot get proven real and humans go on to domesticate him, I'll totally sit down for an hour of My Bigfoot from Hell where Jackson Galaxy saves the day. Until then, we have Spike TV giving away the largest cash prize in television. This either means someone really believes in Bigfoot or really doesn't. Either way, hopefully this means there'll be no more false positives and this whole subject can get some much needed clarity.

As to whether there will ever be clarity, I really think this will provide some interesting and legitimate perspectives. Stunts like this would put the driving force behind Guilty Pleasures Radio out of business, but at least they'll be sufficiently informative. I think that's worth it in the end, don't you? I don't know if I'll sit down to watch every episode, but this can't be any worse than every other Bigfoot special, right? Will you be watching?