Another weak month, volume-wise, right? Well sor-REE. I’ve been busy, okay? Really busy. Really really very busy. But that should be coming to an end soon. In the meantime – here’s the junk I’ve watched.

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (1967) – As 60s movie musicals go, this one is pretty bizarre. Sure, its cast is pretty much a predictable musical cast, but there’s a subplot with girls being drugged and sold into white slavery and then there’s Millie’s goal to be a man’s equal by getting a job and then marrying her rich boss. It all kind of fits and doesn’t fit together. And George Roy Hill must’ve known this, so he made it even nuttier by playing up the vaguely racist Asian characters (Pat Morita!) and then there’s also Carol Channing. And then there’s Mary Tyler Moore and… gosh she was pretty. But… man, that vaguely racist Asian bit and Millie’s regressive “victory” at the end, as well as the overall corn factor, makes this one hard to stick with through to the end. Which makes it worse than…

THE CRAZIES (2010) – Romero’s original, while clearly a force to be reckoned with in terms of cult status, really never put its best foot forward on the acting or effects front. Or the general pacing or believability front. It’s best front was its idea and how fervently Romero pushed that idea. Breck Eisner’s update loses a lot of the idea-ness of the movie, but makes up for it with good ol’ visceral action and gore. This one’s a lot of fun to watch, though it’s ending depends somewhat on a wholely contrived decision that is completely illogical. Which makes it worse than…

THE GHOST WRITER (2010) – Man, I sure wish Polanski hadn’t raped that girl. It would make it much easier to think about his movies. This one here is a solid, straightforward murder mystery/paranoid thriller. It won’t knock Chinatown off its perch as the best thing Polanski ever did, but it will pull you in. Everyone is acting like crazy – Kim Cattrall gets to not play someone slutty (sort of)! – and the tension quietly builds throughout. Nothing especially twisty or really unbelievable about it, except maybe that very last bit when he looks over the manuscript in the store room. That felt pretty contrived. And, ya know, rape. Which makes it worse than…

INCEPTION (2010) – Nolan’s $160m indie thriller has no such problem with logic. There’s a lot of elegant preciseness, and Nolan is best at that. The last 30 to 45min of the movie will grip the crap out of you. When he needs to present chaos and cut loose, though, is when things feel weakest – his action bits are still just blurs and random cuts. And despite Marion Cotillard acting her dick off, there’s not a whole lot of emotion to get caught up in. Still, I like the fact that this is the guy Hollywood can’t say no to right now. No matter what, he’s challenging. And so that makes it the best thing I saw this month.

So – good friend Tom works for a place called HalloweenCostumes.com and sent along this video, advertising a werewolf mask with an animated jaw. Man, I wish they’d had junk like this back when I was a kid. Best I could do was wrap my face in an ace bandage and pretend… man, I don’t even know what I was pretending.

Anyway – check it out:

Here are a couple versions of a trailer I edited for Susan Useem’s ‘Which Way To The War?‘.

The first is an early version that ended up a bit too bloody:

‘Which Way To The War?’ Trailer – Early Version from Craig Moorhead on Vimeo.

And now here is the final version of the trailer, all spiffed up with motion graphics by yours truly:

Which Way to the War? Trailer–Documentary from Spotted Frog Productions on Vimeo.

Workspace from Craig Moorhead on Vimeo.

Stupid power is stupid out on stupid day I need to stupid turn in this stupid rough cut. #dumb

Man – I didn’t get much watched this month at all. Crazy busy this month and I also watched two seasons of Party Down and one of True Blood. So… still – I didn’t see much that was really really great, sadly. Here we go.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010) – We’re going to have to travel some distance for this movie not to be the worst I saw this month. It’s a shame, too, considering the obvious work that went into costumes, FX, sound design, etc. This movie looks great. And if you only saw a couple of scenes, especially toward the end, you might think “Whoa! I didn’t realize this was such an epic movie!” But it’s not, until the scenes toward the end. And as adventuresome as the movie seems most of the time, a lot of the situations Alice finds herself in are easily remedied by, say, a floating magical cat. Lots of deus ex machines here, it feels like, which doesn’t leave much to like. Which makes it worse than…

THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL – NEW ORLEANS (2009) – Seriously, what kind of batshit half-assed crazy idea was it to remake Abel Ferrara’s ‘Bad Lieutenant’? It’s not such a bold move that people would say “Wow – only Herzog, am I right?” It feels like more of a lazy studio move, except for the fact that no studio would bank on the audience’s familiarity with the original movie. What gives? Well, beyond that – beyond the fact that neither movie has much in common with the other except that, in both, the main character is a cop with… and wait – ‘Bad Lieutenant’? It was kinda of funny when Ferrara used that title. Like calling Road to Perdition “Good Hitman”. But to use it again? Anyway – there are some truly sublime moments up in this movie. “His soul is still dancing” will remain in my heart for a very long time. But there is also some awful junk. And sadly, this is the best thing I saw all month.

DIARY :: Saturday, June 12, 2010 :: A Fine, Fine Start http://is.gd/dVfvy (via @dustinharbin) – Awwwww.

The catering begins early.

We start shooting a new short film this very weekend at a local D.C. hotel. Expect twitpics.

Although the weakest part of True Blood continues to be the two leads. Great stuff going on around them, but I dread their scenes together.

Man – True Blood’s season 2 was amazing up until that last hour, which felt like a set up for season 3. Still – season 2? Pretty strong.

Gotta love Struzan, right?

Gracious! The 2nd season of True Blood is about to set my TV on fire. Such an improvement on season 1.

Logging a few last tapes today – gnus and zebras, zebras and gnus.

Person: “The earth just quaked. What was that?!?” 911 Operator: “Um… an earthquake?” #’10MDquake