One of my family’s many home movies depicts a very grave injustice. My elder brother, probably five or six at the time, is participating in Sports Day at his primary school (here you do sports at school every day, I think, but in Scotland it’s an annual event). In any case, my dad was there with his video camera to capture my brother’s victory. Taller than the other portly little kids in the pack, he breaks free and emerges the clear front runner in the 50 meter sprint. Then, inexplicably, the teacher strides over, randomly selects the nearest kid, and lifting his fist in the air proclaims him the winner.

I’m sure there was nothing malicious about it, just an artless teacher deciding it didn’t really matter who won, because these were only five-year-olds after all. But the camera catches my brother standing there looking perplexed and gutted as everyone else moves on to the egg and spoon race. I know, I know, life’s a bitch. Shit happens. These things make you tougher. But maybe as a result of that tape, I’ve always been a champion of the underdog, hoping for once that the person in charge will call time out, review the play, and make the right call. It doesn’t matter if it’s a World Cup qualifier or world politics, fair is fair. But it never happens.

Until last night. Daily Show host Jon Stewart actually had the balls to call out that epitome of fascism that is the conductor of the Academy Awards orchestra! Year after year, using repressive methods that could even make Amtrak trains run on time, that quintessentially tyrannical orchestra keeps the ceremony moving at its characteristically idle pace, leaving terrorized and silenced celebrities quaking in its wake. For every maudlin montage of “great” movie moments they find time to subject us to, more time is trimmed off the acceptance speeches we’ve actually tuned in to see.

It has long been falsely assumed that everyone gets thirty seconds to speak, and then the music drowns them out. In fact, a much more complex formula is used: they begin by taking the significance of the award being given (is it Best Picture, or merely Best Sound Mixing in a Short Animated Feature?), and then multiply that number by the status of the winner (Clooney or that Ratatouille dude?). After that, time left on this earth is taken into consideration. If the recipient is an octogenarian, an extra thirty seconds is awarded, and anyone in their nineties gets a whole additional minute (conversely, someone young like Ellen Page would have time subtracted in the assumption that she has plenty of time to win more awards, and give more speeches). Finally, there are all sorts of tiny specifications taken into account, such as: Is the recipient going to mention the war? (Turn the music up! Turn the music up!) Is the recipient Sean Penn? (Fade him out NOW!) And is the recipient female? Automatic fifteen second deduction, ladies.

Last night, the autocrats truly outdid themselves by deducing that Marketa Irglova had earned exactly zero seconds of talk time. Culminating what has been a momentous year for the musician and her partner Glen Hansard, their song “Falling Slowly” from their movie Once was awarded Best Song. Something I had strongly wished for — but highly doubted would actually happen — a sentiment Hansard concurred with when he noted the film had been made in three weeks using two hand-helds. He gave his brief (ten second?) acceptance speech, and then as Irglova was stepping up to the mic, the music muscled its way in. Perhaps the equation showed that her lack of notoriety plus gender eclipsed completely the fact that she co-wrote the song, co-starred in the film, and had co-performed it only a few minutes previously? Who knows? Anyway, same old story.

But in a classy move, Oscar producer Gil Cates immediately caught the error and asked Jon Stewart to go backstage and ask Marketa to come back out and make her speech. It was a first for the stuffy old awards show. Coming back after the break, Stewart announced that it was unfair that the last awardee hadn’t been able to make her speech, and brought her back out. Someone actually called time out, reviewed the play, and made the right call! And did Irglova waste our time thanking her mother and the Academy and God? She did not. She dedicated her award, concisely, to all independent musicians everywhere, something close to my heart that so rarely gets the attention deserved.

And nobody died from the extra, unaccounted for, fifteen seconds it took! No celebrities expired from that additional time suffering a duct taped cleavage (as far as we know), the tuba player didn’t topple over from fatigue after holding up a fifty pound brass instrument too long, and the folks at home didn’t develop gangrene as a result of circulation problems from sitting on the couch an extra quarter minute. And the Oscar goes to… the underdog.

–Julia Clarke

American Gangster lives up to its name, but that’s not necessarily setting the bar very high. If you were to leave the cinema ten minutes before the film’s end, you’d come away with the sense that you’d just watched some outstanding performances in a well-executed piece that reeks of 1970s nostalgia. When you watch it to the end though, you walk out with the impression that both the screenwriter Steve Zaillian and director Ridley Scott missed a huge opportunity to make a much greater movie. Though there are far worse ways to pass two hours and forty minutes, the lack of originality of the premise results in a film that’s not terribly inventive.

(**Warning: Some minor spoilers are contained below.)

At its most basic level, this movie contains two tales. One details the rise of Frank Lucas (powerfully portrayed here by Denzel Washington) from Southern boy to Harlem drug kingpin, followed by his inevitable downfall. The other narrative trails Russell Crowe as Detective Richie Roberts, who sets out to catch Lucas, and ultimately blows apart a ring of widespread corruption within the NYPD.

The plot misses the mark several times, failing to explore what would seem to be the most compelling aspects of this true story. The tale of a drug dealer climbing to the top in a poverty stricken neighborhood is not novel, nor is chronicling it in film. But there are some things that we learn only at the very end of the film, bullet-points style, that could seemingly have made a much more intriguing focus for this movie. In addition, here’s a pretty stunning argument that’s just barely made by the film: Lucas’ success in smuggling copious amounts of heroin into the U.S. from Vietnam and amassing a fortune selling it on the streets of Harlem had less to do with his ability to outsmart the law, and more do with the fact that white cops in the late ’60s simply could not believe an African American could be this clever. Therefore, what could’ve been a springboard to examine the greater race-relations issue is instead left to a few passing remarks. By failing to explore the shortsightedness of the police, Lucas’ accomplishments are unnecessarily glorified. But, haven’t enough movies about crime splendor already been made?

Alas, while two and a half hours of this film are devoted to showing how Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country, started a business, and spent the proceeds, the account of Lucas and Roberts’ eventual collaboration is assigned a half-hearted ten minute montage to close the film. The two phenomenal lead actors deliver stunning performances, but their characters are never in the same room until the final minutes of the movie. That’s a real shame, because what passes between them in a few brief scenes is some of the finest acting seen onscreen in the last decade.

Perhaps Zaillian and Scott were just setting out to present Lucas the Drug Dealer, and if so they succeed, but there’s a much more interesting story here that remains untold. Everything but the last ten minutes of this movie has been done before. It was called Scarface, and it was a better film.

–Julia Clarke

“It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that. I know. But lately I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”–Tony Soprano, The Sopranos, Episode 1

Nine years have passed since we first watched Dr. Melfi nod sagely as Tony Soprano lamented the glory days of a bygone era. You didn’t have to be a mobster to know how he felt. My generation grew up hearing that everything was better in the ‘60s: drugs were healthier, rock ‘n roll was louder, love was free. And we missed it. We’ve all heard that Granny Smith apples don’t taste the way they used to. I like to think that none of this is really true, and prefer to call it “nostalgic depression.” But, this notion pervades many aspects of our culture, including our professional lives.

Take the music industry. It’s pretty tough to talk to anyone who’s been in the business for a few years without coming ‘round to a story about the golden days. Which, of course, I missed. It seems the music industry actually has a lot more in common with our favorite mob boss than you might imagine.
No, Mr. Spitzer, I’m not talking about whacking programmers who don’t play our records. It’s just the buzz these days is that it’s over for us. You can’t pick up a trade anymore without reading that the dearth of new music technology is going to obliterate the traditional music industry structure. Labels and terrestrial radio are made to sound antiquated and tragically ridiculous, as though it might be okay to laugh if they were accidentally shot on a quail hunting trip. If you believe what you read anyway, the music industry might as well be a balding middle-aged man, standing barefoot in his robe as he watches his beloved flock of ducks flying away from him, wondering: “What the hell happened?”

I won’t deny that there are big changes afoot in our musical bubble. Tower Records is gone. Eliot Spitzer won’t go away. Satellite radio happened. iPods came into our lives. MySpace introduced a new way to check out music. It’s enough to make you go and lie on Dr Melfi’s couch. Or maybe even smash her glass coffee table.

Maybe it is the end of the industry as we know it, but as Michael Stipe once said, I feel fine. Mostly because I don’t believe that the best is ever past. Just as Tony is the glue that holds everything together in his world, music is our glue. With more music out there than ever before, and more ways to access it, we should be celebrating the ever-multiplying possibilities that lie before us. There are issues to tackle, but that’s only a real problem if we run out of ideas. Fortunately for us, ideas and innovations are all around us, if we’re willing to pay attention. And to change. So don’t tell your kids and your younger peers that things were better in the old days. Instead, ask them what would be better if their generations were in charge now. Then steal their ideas!

Of course, had Dr. Melfi told Tony all of this, we wouldn’t have had nine years of some of the best television in history. We have seven episodes left to look forward to. Clear your Sunday night schedule. Stock up on red wine and Havanas. Place your bets on who’ll sleep with the fishes, and whether Tony will sleep with Dr Melfi.

When it’s all over, we can sigh and shake our heads and say: “They don’t make television like that anymore.”

–Julia Clarke

I had a chance to see Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration this weekend. Fans of his past films (Best in Show, A Mighty Wind) know that he and his gifted casts of improvisers tackle institutions that are so much a part of our pop culture that we tend not to notice their bizarre cult-like tendencies. This time out he pokes fun at the weasels in the film biz. Guest does not let us down with his dry sense of humor; my belly ached at the end of the movie.

The story line features a group of “B” list actors filming the production of Home For Purim. (Take your Yiddish dictionary to the theater!) Their acting is over-the-top bad, but a blogger on the set’s sidelines writes a brilliant review of the resulting movie and cites one of the stars, Marilyn Hack (Catherine O’Hara), as Oscar-worthy. Before you know it, the buzz starts, and the cast ends up on all the heavy-hitting entertainment shows. (One host is played by an overtanned and hilarious Fred Willard.) All the actors get caught up in the award-show frenzy and go to strange lengths to win.

If you don’t see this movie, you are meshugeh ahf toi’t!

–Leslie Rouffe

This past weekend, I did the inevitable. I forked over $11.25 to go see Snakes on a Plane. At midnight. Let me assure you, in case you had any doubt: this movie delivers on every level that you hope it will. Yes, it’s horrible–but in all the ways that B movies are supposed to be horrible. The plot is hokey, and so simple that it could’ve been written by a 5th grader. Nearly all of the secondary characters are throwaway stereotypes. There’s a gratuitous sex scene. And there’s more corny horror-style violence than you can shake a stick at. But that’s what you paid for, right?

The best part is, you get a little more than you bargained for. Samuel L. Jackson really anchors the film, with both his toughness and his sense of comic timing. He makes you believe that he’s in command of this ridiculous situation, and in so doing, makes it all seem a little less ridiculous. There are some genuinely hilarious lines, and there’s some real suspense. Jackson also gets surprisingly good support from Julianna Marguiles (as Claire, the flight attendant with a heart of gold), pilot David Koechner, who you will recognize as the cowboy hat-wearing sportscaster from Anchorman, and the underappreciated Todd Louiso, who played the shy record store geek in all of us in High Fidelity.
I could wax poetic about some of the unexpected places snakes will show up on this plane, but that would only spoil some delightful moments of squealing for you. Do you need to see this movie? Probably not. It’s an in-joke, and you’re already in on it. But if you want to practice a little escapism this weekend, go for it. You should see it in a packed theater, where the collective excitement of the audience will only add to your enjoyment. For once, you won’t have to care about the rowdy people yelling at the screen. Heck–you might even be one of them.

–Melanie Shrawder

See Samuel L. Jackson talking to Jon Stewart about Snakes on a Plane on The Daily Show. His unadulterated joy is infectious.

Check out Slate’s review of Snakes on a Plane, which takes the bold slant that it’s allegory for attitudes toward terrorism and air travel in a post-9/11 world.

I really enjoyed this movie with Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear and a terrific ensemble cast. Best of all is Alan Arkin as the crazy grandfather who is forced on a cross country trip with the rest of his nutty, dysfunctional family. It’s not giving away too much to say that they are heading to a beauty/talent contest for the young daughter, Olive (Abigail Breslin). Recent news reports have brought back the story of JonBenet Ramsey and, in the final scenes of Little Miss Sunshine, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the photo of that poor child made up to look like a sexy, adult woman. At the time, it looked like child abuse to me, and it surely contributed to her parents being prime suspects in the minds of many. Of course, nowadays, what family doesn’t score moderately well on the dysfunction meter? It’s this realization that makes the performances in this movie so funny, poignant, maddening and ultimately delicious.

–Sean Coakley