Audio Bijou Show Notes 4/17/07

Song: (1)

Carter Burwell/ Way Out There/ Raising Arizona 1:55

Theme: (2)

Box Office Round Up: (3)

Disturbia isn't just a wrong answer on your Geography test anymore, it's America's number 1 movie!

The Score: (4)

The Richard Gere film The Hoax opened on another 700 screens this past weekend. It wasn't enough for it to crack the top ten, but it was enough to get us to devote a show to the film's composer, Carter Burwell. Most famously known for his long and prolific collaboration with the Coen Brothers on virtually every one of their films from Blood Simple to their newest, No Country for Old Men currently in post production. He's had a wide ranging career outside his relationship with the Coens also, working in every genre of film scoring. His style typically has a characteristic dry wit to it that invites repeated listenings to fully appreciate. He's been known to tone down the irony and play it straight when he has to though, and tonight we're going to listen to a mix from a wide range of the films he's worked on.

Screen Test Trivia Question: (5)

Notes on a Scandal, one of the best films of 2006, arrives on DVD today and stars Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench as two school teachers who become wrapped up in a sex scandal with a student. Dench was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as the secretly sapphic schoolmarm with sinister intentions, as was Blanchett for her role as the art teacher who's fit but my gosh don't she just know it.

Back in 1998 both of these actresses played the same role in two different films. They were both nominated for an Academy Award for their performances, but only one of them won. What was the role, what films were they in, and which one of them won the Oscar?

Song: (6)

Carter Burwell/ Overture/ Conspiracy Theory 4:21

New to Theaters (wide release):

Hot Fuzz (7)

Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost. 'Nuff said. No? Well these guys made Shaun of the Dead and now they're sending up action movies. Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is the top cop in London with an arrest record 400% better than anyone else. He's so good that he's making everyone else look bad, so he gets a promotion to sergeant- in the tiny rural village of Sandford. Now he's stuck with hapless partner Danny Butterman(Frost), menial tasks, and an eccentric populace. But all is not as it seems in the quiet shire of Sandford, as an investigation into the town's unusually high accident rate reveals a full fledged criminal conspiracy that may just require firing two guns whilst jumping through the air. Hot Fuzz also costars Timothy Dalton, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Merchant, Cate Blanchett and even Peter Jackson, among others. Rated R.

Fracture (8)

Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling match wits a la Lecter and Starling in this crime thriller. When a successful architect (Hopkins) calls the police to confess to the shooting of his adulterous wife, it seems like an open and shut case for hot shot young prosecutor Willy Beachum (Gosling), but things get more complicated when the accused defends himself in court and none of the evidence actually points to him or the crime. Now its a battle of intellect between the crusading district attorney who hates to lose and the meticulous criminal who's manipulated every angle. Jason Stathairn and Rosamund Pike costar in what may be the most Academy Award nominee filled Law and Order episode ever. Rated PG-13.

Vacancy (9)

Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale star in this horror movie of the week as a young married couple who's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, stranding them at the remote and run down Pinewood Motel. The only entertainment to be found in their room is a series of grizzly snuff films which are- duh duh duuuh! filmed in their room. Could they be next? They find video cameras everywhere and their escape blocked at every turn, until of course Ashton Kutcher reveals that they have been Punk'd, and everyone has a good laugh. Rated R.

Song: (10)

Carter Burwell/ Opening Titles/ Miller's Crossing 1:53

New to Theaters (limited release):

In the Land of Women (11)

After a bad breakup, a young television writer, played by the O.C.'s Adam Brody, travels to Michigan and moves in with his sick old grandmother, played by Olympia Dukkakis. In his attempts to get his life back together he winds up involved with the family next door, including wacky mom Meg Ryan and barely legal daughter Kristen Stewart (that little girl from Panic Room all growed up). It's the first film from writer/director Jon Kasdan, aka Lawrence Kasdan's kid. Wait a sec, the land of women is Michigan? Hey, Mr. Jon “I got a movie made because of my successful and talented daddy” Kasdan, just because we have a lady governor and are shaped like a mitten doesn't mean we aren't just as butch as any other state. Rated PG-13.

The Valet (12)

This French romcom is the story of a loser valet who hits the jackpot when he accidentally winds up the third person in a paparazzi photo of a prominent business tycoon and his supermodel mistress. Now, to fool the paparazzi and more importantly his wife, the tycoon sets up the valet with the model on a series of fake dates. As the model gets to know the valet though, things become less and less a matter of pretending. This movie also solves the question of whatever happened to Kristin Scott Thomas- apparently she learned French and started taking thankless roles as the wife in French sex farces. If you don't like the French or subtitles (and who does?) an English language remake is on the way. Rated PG-13

The Tripper (13)

David Arquette is a weird fellow. Exhibit A: The Tripper, the low budget horror film he wrote and directed about a serial (or should that be surreal?) killer who dresses up as Ronald Reagan and attacks a weekend long love in concert full of pot smoking hippies. First The Gipper robs banks in Point Break, now this. The Tripper stars David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Lukas Haas, Tom Jane, Jaime King, Jason Mewes, and Paul Reubens. Rated R.

Song: (14)

Carter Burwell/ Frankenwhale/ Gods and Monsters 1:56

Screen Test Trivia Question: (15)

Song: (16)

Carter Burwell/ Norville Suite/ Hudsucker Proxy 3:54

New to DVD: (17)

Smokin' Aces

The Last King of Scotland

Freedom Writers

Notes on a Scandal

History Boys

Off the Black Sundance movie where Nick Nolte plays a disillusioned alcoholic. It's great how he's always willing to stretch himself as an actor and go into unfamiliar territory.

The Marsh Supernatural horror with a pre-Academy Award winning Forrest Whitaker

Direct to DVD:

Spongebob: Friend or Foe

National Lampoon's Pucked

Classic/Reissue DVD:

Spider-man 2.1

La Haine (Criterion) 1995 French crime drama

TV on DVD:

Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show

Happy Days S2

Laverne and Shirley S2

Mork and Mindy S2

The George Lopez Show S1&2

Shadow Warriors S1

Ghostbusters CS- Not the real Ghostbusters and not even the junky other cartoon- it's the flash in the pan live action show that started the lawsuit that forced the Real Ghostbusters to call themselves the Real Ghostbusters and spawned that junky other cartoon.

Song: (18)

Carter Burwell/ The Gold/ Three Kings 2:15

Movie News: (19)

Shia LaBeouf has been confirmed for Indy IV and Danny Boyle, while promoting Sunshine, has announced that Ewan McGregor has finally agreed to make Porno, Irvine Welsh's 2002 sequel to Trainspotting reuniting Sick Boy, Renton, Begbie, and Spud. We discuss these long awaiting sequels.

Song: (20)

Carter Burwell/ Brainerd Minnesota/ Fargo 2:39

Cinema Critique of the Week: (21)

Disturbia

The Beuof is Loose

costars David Morse and Carrie Anne Moss

To anyone who's seen the trailer for Disturbia, the thriller about a juvenile delinquent under house arrest who begins to suspect that his neighbor is a killer, the comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1955 Rear Window starring Jimmy Stewart as a house ridden photographer who begins to suspect his neighbor is a killer are obvious. Watching though, another more contemporary comparison came to mind- the recent heist thriller The Lookout. Both begin with a life changing car crash with their protagonists at the wheel, both of whom are young men with questionable decision making skills. Where one deals with its hero's failings in a nuanced, thoughtful way that wrings true suspense from a well worn format, the other is called Disturbia.

Shortly after the opening car wreck we meet Kale, played by Shia Labeouf, a year later, turned surly and disobedient in the wake of his loss. In a confrontation with teacher who wants him to stay awake in class and maybe even do his homework he belts the hapless educator square in the face. Letting the audience know how Kale found himself under house arrest isn't really important, just as in Rear Window we don't need to see Jimmy Stewart break his leg to know that it happened. Since Disturbia is so intent on displaying it though it begs the question of why. The incident is never addressed beyond setting up the movie's premise, something which, as the movie progresses seems not only a poor choice in its structure, but wholly irresponsible. A student's violent, unjustifiable, and unprovoked punching of a teacher is not something that should go unnoticed. Rather than addressing the issue of its hero's tendency for irrepressible, irresponsible violence it becomes rewarded in Disturbia. The film's climax, where Kale faces off against the killer neighbor, is a disgusting celebration of vengeful, guilt free violence disguised as heroism. And not in the good way.

Deplorable characters are nothing new to horror or suspense films, and indeed a recent trend has been the torture porn subgenre, where the formula is inverted so much that the audience cheers as the villain punishes the stupid and annoying. It's the modern ultraviolent version of rooting for Godzilla. Disturbia is never that clever (if clever is really the appropriate term). Its characters plod through their screen time prattling on, sadly never being justly gutted for their idiocy. Beyond Labeouf as the sulky but snarky jeuvenile jackass, there is his friend Ronnie, the token Asian, whose corny hornball act belongs in a direct to video American Pie sequel. Former teen model Sarah Roemer meanwhile plays the hottie next door with all the complexity of an Axe deodorant commercial bimbo.

Even worse is than any of these stock teen movie cliches though is a villain who is equally as vapid.

Played by David Morse, he's a serial killer hiding the bodies of the young girls he's butchered in his crawl space, but he never seems to own the actions the movie puts him to. Morse is generally a reliable film heavy, but he's out of his element as the killer next door. Serial killers are a film staple going back to, once again, Hitchcock. Even in those primitive pre-MySpace and texting days of black and white movies it was well known that serial killers aren't the intimidating bruisers like Morse, but the timid ambush predators. A quiet, stuttering Norman Bates musters more scares with two murders than Disturbia's killer does with a cellar full of corpses. For that matter so does Raymond Burr, who barely utters a word, never receives a close up, and doesn't even kill anybody onscreen in Rear Window.

It is perhaps unjust to compare a silly PG-13 teen slasher film to the greatest suspense filmmaker ever, but so blatantly ripping off Rear Window does beg the comparison. Worse than its cliches, miscasting, and questionable morality is its waste of Rear Window's simple but incredible premise of voyeurism. It was an enticing temptation fifty years ago when the best a prying snoop could hope for was a pair of binoculars or a trip to the cinema. Today it's virtually our way of life. Any celebrity who doesn't have their privacy violated by a tabloid is voluntarily sacrificing it on reality television. Even average people freely give glimpses into their lives all over the internet with webcams and blogs. Cameras are so omnipresent that the news is reported by footage captured on personal cell phones. Privacy is at a premium and meanwhile people have become more and more insular, retreating into self contained bubbles where everything from eating to interacting can be done through a home computer. Everything that made Rear Window observant about contemporary life has evolved to the Nth degree and yet Disturbia overlooks it in favor of hormonal oggling and senseless, suspenseless violence.

One Thumb Up

Song: (22)

Carter Burwell/ Jackal's Theme/ The Jackal 1:00

Wrap Up/Trivia Answer: (23)

They both played Queen Elizabeth I, with Cate Blanchett tackling the titular role in Elizabeth, about the Queen's rise to power, and Judi Dench playing a much older version in Shakespeare in Love. Blanchett was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Shakespeare in Love's Gwyneth Paltrow. Dench was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and despite the incredibly brief screen time she had in the film took home the Oscar. Interestingly enough both films also share actors Geoffrey Rush and Joseph Feinnes..

Song: (24)

Carter Burwell/ Goofing Off Suite/ Raising Arizona 3:12