Sisterhood of the Traveling Stretchy Pants

The first Traveling Pants movie brought out my inner girl, creating a fantasy that didn't stop with jeans that could perfectly fit America Ferrara and Alexis Bledel. I liked the idea of four clean-cut teenage friends going to exotic locales separately for puppy love then reuniting to share the feelings.

Call me old-fashioned but I'm impressed when any movie treats teenagers, especially girls, as something I'd want my daughter to grow up to be. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants had humor, heart and neat messages about loyalty and loving yourself no matter what others think.

Now there's a sequel but it doesn't seem like the same girls. Don't get me wrong: they're not wilding or raving or anything like that. But our little girls are growing up, and I'm concerned that those traveling pants will be around their ankles before long. Those pants may need a stretchy maternity waistline sewn in.

Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) already thinks she's preggers, with the Juno outlook to prove it, donning those jeans in hopes of a menstrual miracle. Lena (Bledel) gets dumped by the Greek fishing boy she landed in part 1, because he's marrying the local girl he knocked up. Maybe the nude model (Jesse Williams) making dreamy eyes at her during art class will take Lena's mind off her problems.

Bridget (Blake Lively) is spending the summer at an archeological dig. (Can’t we set her up with Indiana Jones’ or the Mummy guy’s son?) After she disrupts a tomb, the lead digger consoles her with X-rays of the female corpse inside, a 34-year-old woman. Bridget’s mother was 34 when she committed suicide, so it doesn’t help.

Only Carmen (Ferrara) acts her age, or what a responsible parent might consider proper for her age. She's working for a theater company staging The Winter's Tale. The star with the dreamy British accent pushes her into auditioning for a lead role. Kyle MacLachlan plays the director, and he shouldn't take such backstage roles anymore until everyone who saw Showgirls is dead.

The pants don't figure into the plot as much. There isn't even much traveling done this time, except a late detour to Greece's seaside so the title is justified. I kept waiting for Meryl Streep to pop out of a window singing ABBA.

Right Side of the Tracks with the Greg Billings Band

I used to be Sean Daly in a previous life but wouldn't swap it for now.

I used to write about what was then pop music, spending more hours than anyone except talent and roadies backstage, and in stadium seats (or behind Alex Van Halen's drum kit) than most folks who'd camp in line for tickets before the "Internets" made wussies of us all.

Way back before emo, techno and Corbin Bufo, pop music was rock'n'roll, played from the crotch in dive bars that never knew what Vivanno is, and wouldn't have the ingredients to mix one if you explained it. Back when you could wave a flaming lighter at a show without thinking it's cliche', or being factitious.

Kind of like tonight's (or last night's; don't check this post's timecode) CD debut party for the Greg Billings Band's new release, at one of the most elegant dives I've visited in a while, Cuso's Club and Cantina in Indian Rocks Beach. The kind of place where you belly up to the bar and the last one puking is the winner.

Anyway, Greg Billings once fronted the possibly greatest rock'n'roll band Tampa Bay ever produced: Stranger (that's him on the far-out right), and later Damn the Torpedoes. Greg has much less hair these days but still has a lot of die-hard fans and friends packing the place, including Tampa Bay Bucs great Mike Alstott, who looked quite at ease at Cuso's.

Stranger put out five kickass LPs -- yes, vinyl -- in the 1980's, defying the Flock of Seagulls mentality of folks who couldn't keep up. I first met Greg at a raucous Stranger LP release party at some downtown Tampa joint that later became a yuppie fern bar and now is thankfully deserted. I remember the groupies and not much else.

But I do remember that time around Tampa Bay, when bands like Deloris Telescope, Savatage (RIP, Criss Oliva) and Men from Earth, plus the occasional soloist like Schascle, had us looking like the next Athens (Ga., not Greece), with record deals and glowing Kerrang, Spin or Rolling Stone reviews, even Johnny G. Lyon sporting a movie soundtrack tune. Possibly those other bands possessed more artistry than Stranger, but none would get a party started quicker, sustained and cleaned-up later than Stranger.

Greg and his eponymous band literally bring back that feeling with the new CD (although he occasionally slipped Tuesday and called it a "record"), Do-Overs. The title hints what happens: Greg and the guys rework some of Stranger and DTT's' greatest hits -- Wrong Side of the Tracks, Lightnin' in My Pocket, Okechobee Whisky among them -- plus covers of In the Midnight Hour, Walkin' Shoes and Rock and Roll to create a heckuva party disc, nostalgic or not.

The band zipped through most of the tracks (at least that I could tell between fresh-air breaks). And for a while I was back at the old Rock-It Club on Dale Mabry again, watching shady ladies and shadier gentlemen copping feels on the dance floor, full of the drink and the hour and the music. I'm not saying that generation does it any better than today's but I hope the kids do it as sincerely.

Bedtime now. Gotta see Woody Allen's new movie at 10 a.m. then The Sisterhood of the Unhemmed Pants or something like that.

Could be worse. I could've spent tonight watching Brideshead Revisited.

The Mummy 3: Not keeping up with the Joneses

Isn't it a bit early for another Indiana Jones sequel? Not that Brendan Fraser can hold a bullwhip to Harrison Ford, or Maria Bello to Karen Allen, but whatever The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor has going for it probably has already been done.

In Rob Cohen's movie we learn that once you've seen one sand-buried sarcophagus temple, you've pretty much seen them all. What's outside makes a nice difference, though, with China settings -- this is reportedly the largest Western production ever allowed access to the country -- that beg comparison to Yimou Zhang's best historical epics. Cohen has a way with Chinese culture, as his underrated Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story proved 15 years ago.

And it's a relief to get intrepid archaeologist Indiana... oops.. Rick O'Connell out of the Egyptian desert where the first two neo-Mummy flicks existed. That Imhotep guy was getting old, and not in a chronological way.

Jet Li steps in as the suddenly immortal Emperor Han, awakened by Chinese nationalists for nefarious purposes. Rick delivered the gem that led to the Pool of Eternal Life which, coupled with his son Alex's discovery of Han's tomb, leads to trouble.

I like the way Han and his hordes transform into terra cotta Chia Pets for centuries of repose, and the way they crack those shells to raise hell. I like watching Li  kick butt anytime, and especially when his foe is Michelle Yeoh, probably the baddest  female martial arts star ever. I like John Hannah's squirrelly sidekick and Cohen's wild ride through Shanghai, complete with fireworks bazookas. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor -- and yes, he does become a dragon, not often or long enough -- is standard stuff presented with flair and the proper whiff of cheese.

But I love the Yetis.

What I don't like is Fraser's stiff heroics, like an action figure doll that can speak. I don't like the fact that at age 39 he doesn't look or behave mature enough to sire a college-age son (Luke Ford). Spreading the Mummy motif from 1923 to 1946 over three movies with a 21-year-old son to boot is a huge stretch for such a youth-goofy actor. Rick and Alex look and bicker like brothers. But who would've believed the franchise would endure long enough to make age logic into a factor?

 

Bottle Shock 2 starring Bill Pullman

Actually, the movie I saw this morning starring Bill Pullman is titled Bottle Shock, and isn't a sequel. Seeing him in a good movie again was nice, and this light comedy based on the true story of a 1976 competition between the snobbish French wine industry and the upstart Napa Valley wineries will please a lot of folks when it arrives Aug. 15, I'm sure.

I have a soft spot in my heart and liver for Pullman, after our own "bottle shock" a few years ago at Universal Studios Florida, slamming tekillya (or tequila, as some call it) and singing karaoke. Pullman was there doing the media tour for Casper, and it was the second time I'd interviewed him within weeks, so we knew each other a little.

Universal closed up the park early Saturday night after the print interviews, except for the Irish pub and the Beetlejuice attraction, so everybody was letting their hair down. Princess Di and I were ready to leave after singing ABBA tunes with some foreign press members. We thought we'd check out the Beetlejuice thing on the way out.

A few steps down the street, we see Pullman approaching. "Steve!," he says. "Where're you goin'?" Told him we were heading to the Beetlejuice show.

He puts his arm around my shoulder and I detect a whiff of some intoxicant. "Listen," he says, "I turned down Beetlejuice to do Serpent and the Rainbow, so who made the better decision: me or Alec Baldwin?"

"I guess you did, Big Bill."

With that, we spun around and headed back to the bar. Stayed way too long, and only left when security was kicking us out. The Casper cast had television interviews to do the next morning. Bill wasn't ready to go home.

"Where're we goin' now?" he says. Di and I had our car there, so I told him anywhere he wanted and we knew Orlando a bit. We're heading for the park exit when an alert publicist swoops in to keep Pullman from going. We paused for some pictures, and I remember when Dianne was taking one of us, Pullman whispers in my ear: "How did you ever find a woman like her?" I told him I'm just lucky, I guess.

A few weeks later, I'm at the Independence Day media tour in New York. Pullman sees me and hollers: "Hey, wild man." We made plans to met at the Bubble Room that night but President Clinton requested a screening of ID4, so the tekillya sequel was canceled.

A few weeks later, Pullman mailed me copies of photos taken during the Casper night. Soon after, Universal (and every other studio) changed their interview timetable, doing TV interviews on Saturday before the talent gets drunk that night and looks bleary on camera. Now they're hungover talking to print reporters on Sundays. Just Princess Di's and my contribution to shaping the movie industry.

The X-Files: I'm a believer

Never watched The X-Files. I usually make a point of avoiding TV shows taken too seriously by the Comicon crowd, from Star Trek to Lost. My skin crawls while thinking what kind of reactions that confession may bring, the devotion of such fanboyz (and girlz) is that intense and frankly, creepy.

Anyway, I figure that puts me in pretty good shape to assess The X-Files: I Want to Believe as a film experience and not merely a reunion among old friends predisposed to leniency about its shortcomings.

I'm happy to admit that I don't find many. The movie isn't so "inside" as to confuse newbies, or outlandish enough to turn off people like me who prefer more grounded entertainment. In fact, it's a crackerjack mystery involving disappearances, questions of religious faith and ethical responsibility, weirdly gruesome science, and even a 2-headed dog.

Cast and name the characters anything else besides Mulder, Scully, etc. and XFIWTB (don't you love these Web acronyms?) would still be a satisfyingly eerie crime drama.

I won't spoil anything since creator Chris Carter has gone through so much trouble to keep things hush-hush. But I'll praise David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson for making characters I thought I knew too well from previous hype into easy folks to follow through the maze. I'm also impressed with Billy Connolly, normally a comedian, offering a fine dramatic turn as an excommunicated priest who may have psychic powers to help the investigation.

I'll also note that Carter and co-writer Frank Spotznick do a nifty job of weaving their prejudices into the plot, including support of stem cell research and a lack thereof for President Bush (one scene using the X-Files theme song in that regard is hilarious).

Overall, a pleasing matinee for someone like me who never drank the Kool-Ade.

You'll find a full review online Thursday, and in print Friday on page 2B.

American Teen: It's all down-"Hills" from here

"Fake" is the worst word that can come to mind when viewing a documentary. Yet that word kept popping into my head last night at a screening of American Teen, a pseudo-cinema verite offering from director-screenwriter  Nanette Burstein.

That's right: screenwriter, although American Teen doesn't contain a single line of narration, which is the only thing that should be authored in a true documentary. Even Michael Moore isn't as transparent about fudging facts, editing out of context and putting words in people's mouths as Burstein is here.

As you can guess from the poster art's Breakfast Club rip-off, American Teen focuses upon teen stereotypes -- the jock, rebel, geek, princess and one who could go any way -- during senior year at an Indiana high school. Fair enough. But it's the way these teens' individual (although not unique) crises are revealed that smacks of Burstein slipping notes to parents, rivals and school administrators, urging them to do or say things that'll make interesting viewing, not truth.

The jock (basketball star Colin Clemens) is told by his Elvis-impersonating father that he needs to pull down 12 rebounds in the next big game or else he won't get a college scholarship. The only alternative is joining the Army (followed by shots of trophy case memorials to graduates who died in combat). Even if the family's financial strain is that great, the father's words sound like an abridgment of several conversations, not a spontaneous moment.

The princess (Megan Krizmanich) has the same fatherly pressure to be accepted to Notre Dame because he went there and so did her siblings. No threats of military enlistment but this rhymes-with-witch could use the discipline. Burstein glosses over her attitude toward an emotionally disturbed sister that may have caused her suicide. Megan's tears when the Notre Dame letter arrives were met with the loudest laughs at the screening.

The geek (Jake Haase) is amusing in a just-emerged-form-the-locker-he-was-stuffed-into kind of way. When he begins to develop a hint of backbone, Burstein turns away. He doesn't suit her purpose anymore.

The only student with any appeal -- and that's only if you loved Juno -- is Hannah Bailey, the kind of kid capable of fitting in anywhere, which is why she can't feel comfortable in high school's "total caste system." She gets her heart broken a couple times, emerges stronger for it, and gives the movie its closest thing to a sense of completion when she breaks away from Indiana.

Burstein helped create the terrific Hollywood documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture a few years ago. In that film, she had s solid story, hours of film footage to assemble, took time to interview subjects (rather than just turning on the camera and letting folks ramble). Here, she's starting from scratch and barely advances. American Teen is as annoying and unreal as the best episode of The Hills, which looks like Leni Riefenstahl's work by comparison.

Stop back later today for my first impressions of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I have a feeling it'll be more credible than American Teen.   

Ghosts of Ybor: Charlie Wall

Had a nice time Sunday at the fabled Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City, where the architecture is nearly as mouth-watering as the food. The occasion was a screening of Ghosts of Ybor: Charlie Wall, a fascinating documentary created by Pete and Paul Guzzo, two of this storied district's brightest filmmaking talents. Charlie's story is their second film set in Ybor, after the short The End is Blossoming made waves at various film festivals.

I didn't know who Charlie Wall was, and now know I wouldn't want to cross him during Ybor's mob era in the mid-20th century. The black sheep of a prominent family, Wall was known as "the White Shadow" to the Cuban-American community who appreciated his protection of their culture, showing loyalty by sheltering his drugs, prostitution and gambling endeavors. The Guzzo brothers' movie confidently illuminates a shady character in 60 brisk minutes.

Sunday's event wasn't just a chance for the Guzzos to show off a movie they'll be shopping to film festivals in the coming months. They're also seeking financial backing for their next project, a feature-length fictionalized drama titled Ybor City. They described it as a love triangle involving two nightclub musicians and a mobster. More than that, it sounds like a cinematic valentine to a community the Guzzos obviously have deep affection for.

So much affection that they're trying to avoid relying upon interested out-of-state backers preferring to move the production to Louisiana or New Mexico, or anywhere with better production incentives than Florida (which isn't hard to find after recent state budget cuts, as you'll read about later this week). They also don't like those outside backers' demands to juice up the drama with more violence, at the expense of historical authenticity. They want to tell an Ybor story, not a Hollywood story under Ybor's name.

Sunday's audience included former Tampa mayor Dick Greco -- that guy is still a masterful crowd-worker -- and the city's official poet laureate James E. Tokley, Sr., who remembered our collaboration on a story a decade ago regarding John Travolta's race relations fantasy, White Man's Burden. I ran into representatives of the Gasparilla and Sunscreen film festivals, who each said Ghost of Ybor: Charlie Wall would snugly fit into their lineups.

I'll keep you posted as things develop.   

Did you know...

...that if you're sitting with a buddy in a golf cart alongside a winding road following the Cotee River's trail, next to a large sign promoting a sheriff's re-election, and you're wearing wraparound sunglasses, holding a bottle of water in a black coozie at just the right angle with a stern look on your face, that drivers think you're pointing a radar gun at them in some sort of plainclothes speeding sting?

It works.

Wicked 'Step Brothers' and 'The Wackness'

It has been a pretty funny week at the movies, and fun when it wasn't.

I'm sure that by 6 a.m. this morning someone somewhere canceled my temporary bragging rights of having seen The Dark Knight twice. Those sold-out midnight shows were backed up with 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. screenings in some markets (not ours that I'm aware of, but enlighten me, please).

It's nice to see such fervor for an excellent movie, as opposed to the similar rushes for Pirates 3: Dead Man's Chest and Spider-man 3. I'm hoping TDK takes away Spidey's opening weekend record of $151-million, just to again prove art, commerce and mainstream moviegoers truly can co-exist.

Those two TDK screenings were followed by three others. You can read about Pineapple Express elsewhere on this blog.

The stoner humor in PE plus the stoner dramedy of this morning's show, The Wackness, means Princess Di should've stashed more potato chips and Fruit Roll-Ups for me while she's in Fort Myers fishing with her girlfriends (at least, that's the story she tells me). This is the first week I've ever gotten cotton-mouth from sitting in theaters.

The Wackness features three terrific performances by Ben Kingsley (of course), Olivia Thirlby (which I might have guessed after Juno) and Josh Peck (who woulda thunk it, except Daly since he watches Nickelodeon).

Peck plays a just-graduated teen in 1994 Manhattan who supports his struggling, argumentative family by selling pot out of an ice cream cart. One of the best customers is his shrink (Kingsley), an old hippie with his own family problems. Thirlby his the doc's stepdaughter, whom Peck crushes on and she appreciates the gesture.

Writer-director Jonathan Levine re-creates Guliani-era New York with great skill and a dynamite soundtrack spotlighting Notorious B.I.G. and A Tribe Called Quest for Peck's character, and David Bowie and Donovan for Kingsley's. The movie drags a bit in the second half but has a Garden State/The Graduate coming-of-age vibe that I enjoyed. The Wackness opens Aug. 1, and it's mostly dopeness.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly could use some the mind-altering substances used in The Wackness because those boys just ain't right in their heads. Their second collaboration after Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, confirms they're two peas in the same twisted pod.

Step Brothers is a one-joke comedy that somehow sustains itself for almost two hours. Ferrell and Reilly play 40-year-olds still living with their respective single parents, forced to co-exist when the parents (Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins) get hitched. Not many comedians could carry off acting like spoiled 12-year-olds, and these guys almost don't.

When the angle starts getting stale, Ferrell and Reilly are capable of saying or doing anything obscene to hold your attention. Step Brothers opens July 25.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready to tape something for the 11 p.m. news on Ch. 10 regarding the Dark Knight phenomenon occurring. Then I'm hightailing it to New Port Richey to meet T-Bone, who invited me to help park cars at the 30th reunion of a Gulf High class that graduated four years after me.

Not a hard job; we're sitting in a golf cart for an hour or two, drinking beer and waving at cars. Then we'll hit the party inside, at the riverfront home of a guy who was an usher at my first wedding, something that neither of us bring up anymore. Nice warmup for Saturday night's Rays game at the Trop, followed by an M.C. Hammer concert, then Sunday by an Ybor City shindig at Columbia Restaurant for a local film production I'll tell you about later.

You know, you really can't touch this.

Pleading the Fifth on Pineapple Express

I refuse to testify how hilarious Pineapple Express often can be, on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.

Well, not me but everyone I've witnessed smoking copious amounts of hi-grade marijuana at rock concerts, family reunions and piano recitals. Those folks will think Pineapple Express is a documentary.

Seth Rogen's reefer madness movie doesn't open until Aug. 8. Columbia Pictures provided an early screening last night, probably expecting short-term memories to lapse so people who attended will buy tickets later.

Even if you've never partaken of heathen weed, Pineapple Express can provide a contact high. Rogen plays Dale Denton, a usually-stoned process server who dates a high school student and witnesses a murder committed by a police officer (Rosie Perez) and a drug dealer (Gary Cole). Frightened for his life, Dale seeks pot, protection and munchies from his cannabis contact, Saul Silver (scary funny James Franco). Things get messy, with a third wheel (Danny McBride, The Foot Fist Way). breaking out big guns and bad attitude.

Pineapple Express -- the title refers to a potent strain of Hawaiian pot -- is basically Cheech & Chong & Brad Pitt's True Romance character meet Lethal Weapon, oh, let's say 3. It's entirely based on shock comedy, from explicit language to ears being shot off. It gets a bit tiring in the second half; the stream-of-consciousness humor goes from stoned inspiration to those mumbles just before someone nods off.

But you can count on its core audience embracing Pineapple Express, and imitating its crudest gags, like constructing a crucifix-shaped joint, or hitchhiking with one's thumb suggestively protruding from a pants zipper, or... hey, man, does that popcorn have butter on it?
 

48 Hour Film Project returns

This weekend, dozens of Tampa Bay's ambitious filmmakers -- and you know who you are -- will partake in a terrific creativity exercise, and maybe jump-start a career or two.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a national contest allowing teams of filmmakers to create a short film in randomly selected categories... with a 48-hour deadline. I wrote about the marathon endeavor and some of the participants last year. Some excerpts from the news release:

"Before the contest begins, each team will get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in their movie. The winning team will be invited to attend the Filmapalooza Awards weekend, held in March (in a city to be announced) and will go on to participate in the second round competition. The contest concludes with a big-screen debut at Channelside Cinemas (on Wednesday, July 23)

"Teams will meet at Limey’s Pub, 1492 4th Street N. in St. Petersburg, before the 48 Hour Film Project begins. Filmmakers will then hit the streets of Tampa Bay to begin filming."

Fun time, fun people, and a fascinating endurance test. Check out my story from last year for a taste.

The Dark Knight: Superheroic Shakespeare

I'm pleased to announce that everything extraordinary you're heard, read, speculated and prayed for regarding The Dark Knight is absolutely true. This isn't only the greatest comic book movie ever, and one of the top-10 or so action flicks, it's the Academy Awards' ticket to engaging a moviegoing public believing the Oscars don't speak for their tastes, and caring less about the show each year.

That's right. I'm guessing The Dark Knight will be a best picture finalist next spring. And academy voters don't need to worry about compromising their high-falutin' standards. Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan crafted a ruthless epic of adrenaline -- which the academy typically stashes in technical categories -- and labyrinthine morality and ethics no less complex and compelling as The Departed and No Country for Old Men. The Dark Knight deserves mention in such Oscar-winning company.

A more mature take on a pop culture fantasy is impossible, unless you get bogged down in the hero's psychology, as Nolan did in Batman Begins. Now that the origins stuff is handled (again), The Dark Knight begins with a diabolically timed bank heist, popping the seal on a 24-pack of whoopass to come. The action is mostly hand-to-hand (or club or whatever's handy), except for a few vehicular assaults that are obviously old-school destruction, not that CG stuff.

Characters who are familiar now get right down to business: Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) with his Hamlet angst, divided between his bruising alter ego, a romance blocked by a worthy rival (with a delicious subtext possibly making its completion the end of the Caped Crusader), and empty starlet-hopping to keep up appearances.

Meanwhile, a maze of money laundering crooks, corrupt law officials and Gotham Cityites who aren't sure if Batman's needed anymore create opportunities for cold-blooded double crosses, copycat Batmen, a cameo by an old Bat-nemesis and a few more of those wonderful toys.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part.

The Joker is, indeed, wild in The Dark Knight, embodied by a truly terrifying performance by the late Heath Ledger. A self-described "agent of chaos," this Joker is a supersonic psycho making Javier Bardem's killer in No Country for Old Men seem like a rational kind of guy. Ledger goes all the way with catastrophic malevolence,  with none of the clownish aspects Jack Nicholson previously brought to the role.

His jokes -- like a disappearing pencil trick you won't believe and won't want to try -- are deadly serious.

"Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger," Joker says early on. Ledger's death in January of an accidental prescription drug overdose makes his delivery of lines like that even eerier. But not in an exploitative way. His demise informs the role of a criminal with no regard for anyone's life, especially his own. Ledger's death simply makes the Joker stranger.

I fully expect him to get a posthumous Oscar nomination for this, and it won't be a sympathy thing. Along with Bardem's Chigurh, Robert De Niro's Max Cady and Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, we now have one helluva Mount Rushmore of mayhem.

Andy Kaufman meets WALL-E

I'm so happy that I didn't have this job in 1981 when Heartbeeps was released (or escaped, as the old joke goes). I might not have the will to go on.

Heartbeeps is one of those scorching Hollywood mistakes that I'd never seen, until it popped up on the TV program guide and I figured that's why God created TiVo. I always loved Andy Kaufman's dada humor, and Bernadette Peters was always a kewpie-doll fantasy. Watching them play futuristic (actually 2005, but that was the future back then) robots in love can't be too bad, right?

Wrong. Heartbeeps is as inept as filmmaking gets, with static direction, pointless "jokes," saccharine allegories to marriage, and special effects too cheesy for a movie costing $10-million a generation ago (probably five times that much in today's money).  So bad that it actually opened at Christmas -- traditionally one of the busiest times at theaters -- and only sold a half-million dollars in tickets opening weekend. After $2-million in sales, Heartbeeps was mercifully put to sleep.

But there are a few things about Heartbeeps making it must-see junk, many involving "Philco," a baby robot built by Kaufman and Peters.

Look at this photo of Philco and notice the resemblance to WALL-E, currently boring children in theaters nationwide. The resemblance is even stronger when Philco is clanking through a massive junkyard that also could've "inspired" Pixar's animation crew. I know it's fashionable to say WALL-E is a dead ringer for Number Five from Short Circuit, but the physical and aural similarities (not to mention the lagging fun factor) shared with Philco are remarkable.

Hmmmm...

Even more jaw-dropping: the voice (actually just beeps and boops) for Philco was provided by... get this!... the late Jerry Garcia, guitarist and lead head for the Grateful Dead. You can look it up.

Furthermore, the musical score was composed by none other than John Williams, and the late Stan Winston (Jurassic Park, Aliens) earned his first Oscar nomination for making Kaufman and Peters look like the Eveready family a decade before the battery commercials.

Toss in an embarrassing role for former Oscar nominee Randy Quaid, a smart part in a dumb orange jumpsuit for a young Christopher Guest and Borscht Belt comedian Jack Carter voicing a creepy robot named Catskill, and you have a lot of talent floundering for your non-pleasure. I think the movie can only be found in the fine print of their resumes.

Check it out, if you dare. Now I'm getting ready to (hopefully, probably) rinse the bad taste from my mouth and the sting from my eyes with a screening of The Dark Knight. Check back later today for some first impressions.

Mamma Mia! Is there anything Meryl Streep can't do?

Never liked ABBA that much, except for Dancing Queen and that was because of this Greenwich, Conn. deb I was dating at a Kansas college. She was one of only two females in the place who didn't look like goat herders. The other was from California, dating a football teammate who later became one of the goons cornering Crocodile Dundee in an alley, learning what a real knife looks like.

But that's another story.

Thought of that deb tonight while watching Mamma Mia! (but don't tell Princess Di). The movie was more fun, in an Across the Universe kind of scatter-shot way. The Broadway musical, and now the movie, isn't an organically conceived musical, like Sweeney Todd or Chicago, with songs created to serve a story planned before the first note was struck.

Like last year's Beatles cine-jukebox, Mamma Mia! strings together pop hits in whatever order a simplistic plot demands. Meryl Streep's daughter is getting married and wants to meet her father. But Meryl was a bit of a slut -- her word, not mine -- in days and nights gone by. Any of three men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard) could be the father. The daughter secretly invites them all to the Greek island where she lives with Mom.

Harmonies ensue.

Practically against your will, ABBA's impossibly peppy melodies, ravishing locales and a cast who can mostly sing but are interesting when they can't (I'm looking at you, 007), Mamma Mia turns out to be a lot of fun. The string-along structure isn't as much of a deficit as one might think, with a few clever assignments of puppy love ditties to mature women.

Mix Grease with Sex and the City (with a dash of Under the Tuscan Sun) and you have Mamma Mia!

The key is Streep, who I knew as an exemplary singer from A Prairie Home Companion. Those were live performances by characters who performed. Mamma Mia! is lip-synched, which Streep precisely achieves (like everything else in her career) yet convincingly spontaneous in appearance. Unlike the divas in Dreamgirls, she pushes her performance beyond the recording studio.

Just one number -- a late rendition of the achingly romantic The Winner Takes It All -- now rates among my favorite musical scenes, if only for Streep's closing hand gesture, something so simple and casual that it could be a reflex, yet so perfect that she must have concentrated to make it so. I'm not sure if there's anything she can't do on screen. But I know nobody could do it better.

Free passes to see The Dark Knight

Got your attention, didn't I?

Well, kiddies, in the immortal words of Lili Von Schtupp: "It's twue, it's twue!"

If you want to see The Dark Knight for freesies -- in IMAX, no less -- meet the nice folks from tbt* in front of Lucky Dill restaurant, corner of Central Avenue and Third Street in downtown St. Pete on Monday, July 14, at 11 a.m. They will be handing out passes good for two admissions to a Tuesday July 15 night screening at Muvico Baywalk 20.

Don't be greedy. We're doing you a favor here, in gratitude for your devotion to all things Times.

Don't get there early and jam up the sidewalk during lunch rush. No purchase necessary to get a pass, but those Lucky Dill sandwiches are pretty darn good.

Standing up for Red Dawn

You guys know I've always stuck it (in the 80's) to Steve Spears for his boundless admiration for the 1984 movie Red Dawn.

Now comes an intruder to the party who can't hold a candle to psycho-Soviet troops yet demands to be addressed with swift retaliation.

Today's page 2A had a Red Dawn-related item from our gossipy The Jizz -- oops -- The Juice. (Sorry, I was thinking about Max Rebo's brand of Star Wars swing music, or perhaps a birding technique, or maybe a characteristic impression left by an animal or plant. Where's your head at?)

Anyway, The Juice reported a remake is in the works. While I'll agree that's a bad idea, I take exception to the description of Red Dawn's original cast (Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey) as "an unbelievably amazing cast of unfulfilled promises." (The Juice did give Patrick Swayze a backhanded compliment, though. I expected some kind of cancer gag.)

I submit that collectively starring in some of Hollywood's most memorable movies (Platoon, Wall Street, Back to the Future, Dirty Dancing, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Outsiders and E.T.) not to mention, in Sheen's case, headlining the top TV comedy today, is more than most actors can brag about. Definitely more than any gossip blogger.

Can't wait for Spears' response to this cyber-sacrilege of his favorite flick. But I've got his back.

WOLVERINES!

Meet Dave and say 'bye to Eddie

I'm not sure why Eddie Murphy went wrong. I can pin down the when (Another 48 Hrs.), the where (Santa Monica Blvd. where he picked up that tranny hooker) and the how (easy money).

But there should be more to tearing down a legacy than greed, sex and falling back on good will from other movies. Especially when you start out so unique, so much of the past and present that you look like a lock for the future. That's what Murphy was, when he created comedy as if he were the second coming of Richard Pryor before Pryor was dead.

Murphy was a stand-up storyteller whose routines on race, sexual relations and backyard barbeques gone bad (among other universal catastrophes) were carefully crafted with intense intent to make audiences laugh, of course, but also to make them think a bit while they caught their breath. A switch to movies was inevitable with his energetic charisma but, hey, even Robin Williams still tries now and then.

Thinking has nothing to do with Meet Dave, which could be a sequel to The Adventures of Pluto Nash. We all know what that means, even those who haven't seen it. To those readers: Your corneas thank you.

Meet Dave confirms Murphy's supposed artistic (as opposed to financial) comeback with Dreamgirls as a fluke. The ink wasn't dry on his framed Academy Award nomination certificate before Norbit showed up to worry anyone pulling for him to win. That could be chalked up to bad timing, a paycheck long ago cashed.

Walking out of the Kodak Theater shortly after Alan Arkin's name was pulled from the envelope wasn't a good move but Meet Dave is worse. It's a comedy so lazy that Murphy doesn't bother slathering on the latex makeup or fat suit. He only plays two roles, who both look the same although one is slightly more interested in the proceedings than the other.

Murphy plays a spaceship. Read that again and tell me if you think anything after that opening pitch will be good. He does silly walks, silly voices and silly seriousness when called upon. There is nothing in Meet Dave reminding me of the Eddie Murphy I loved years ago, except his face.

I heard Murphy say on the Today show that he's thinking about giving up movies. After Beverly Hills Cop 4, of course. And a remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man, which is an interesting title under the circumstances. And maybe anything else he can be coaxed into being paid for. Then he'll go back to the stage, but by then I wonder if he'll just be another Joe Piscopo.

Journey to the Center of Princess Di's Mind

So, I'm sitting with Princess Di, looking at the garden I gave her because she went to Italy without me (long story, but I'm dealing with it).

For some reason we're discussing Journey to the Center of the Earth, which we saw last night in 3-D and apparently can't leave behind.

So, we started with the yo-yo that Brendan Fraser passes on to his snotty nephew because the kid brought it with a box of stuff that causes the movie. The kid lays down his PSP to try this quaint toy, and Fraser informs him that yo-yos were once used as weapons. The kid flicks it into the lens a few times to make wearing those nerdy 3-D glasses -- some tech geek's revenge for a locker-stuffing -- somewhat worthwhile.

"Where was the yo-yo scene," Princess Di asks, "when the kid uses the yo-yo to bonk the dinosaur, or something?"

Of course it isn't there. Neither is a follow-up scene to several things that get attention and don't mean anything later. The obligatory chick, who's a mountain guide by trade, mentions two energy bars she packed but nobody eats them and the kid eats some kind of prehistoric gruel when he's starving.

Di wants to know why she didn't get caught with crumbs on her lips, a lesson for two dudes who took dibs on her affections on first sight.

Then Di mentions the dinosaur, who apparently had roughage before dripping lime-green goo on the kid's head, while chasing him for a meal.

"What is this creature eating?  Guacamole?," Di says, with foolproof logic for an illogical movie ostensibly based on science.

"How does he know he'll like the kid's taste? No humans have been down there in centuries except the one who got away in the prologue, so how does he know they taste good?"

I won't even get into her comments about the vaginal-looking plants that are man-eaters (get it?) or the weird father-brother-son-daughter vibe throughout.

But that's why Di is the right side of my brain. And why I wish she could be available for discussions before deadline.

Dinosaur loogies and a Ray of hopelessness

My declaration of independence from blogging has ended. That long Fourth of July weekend was just too tempting to type. Even stretched it an extra day Monday since everything was caught up with a morning rush of "creativity" then an impromptu plan to catch the smokin' hot Tampa Bay Rays in an afternoon tilt with the Kansas City Royals, allowing a break before last night's screening of Journey to the Center of the Earth in the only local theater rigged for Real 3-D.

Both events turned out very disappointing.

Got to Tropicana Field expecting the usual short line for walk-up tickets, especially for an afternoon game against a bland opponent. Instead, there were hundreds of fans waiting in the sizzling sun and the National Anthem was already playing inside. Rather than waiting an hour by my estimation, I strolled over to Ferg's for hot chicken wings, a beer and the added disappointment of no Rays game on TV.

It's wonderful that we finally have a winning team, and encouraging that so many folks wanted to see the game. Now we just need Rays management to figure out some way of handing a walk-up rush they've never had to deal with before, at least with afternoon games when 8,000 people in the seats previously would be considered a success.

Oh, and the Rays losing didn't help my afternoon.

But it was better than the evening, when Journey to the Center of the Earth showed how flat a 3-D movie can be.  This juvenile template for an amusement park ride was only two D's: dumb and dull.

Oh, there are a few times when the optical effects pay off, mostly in the final half-hour. An attack by giant piranhas, soon gobbled up by sea serpents in an underworld ocean was pretty cool. The T-rex looked good in close-ups, and like a cheap Sci-Fi channel movie otherwise. Mostly, the 3-D technology is employed with silly stunts: an extended tape measure, a spinning yo-yo, and two spit takes toward the camera (three, if you count the dinosaur hawking a loogie at the lens).

The problem is that the inside of Earth is too dark and nondescript for much of the running time, with only that ocean and a paradise core (with carnivorous plants)  offering anything close to majestic.  And there was this one slab of inanimate rock that always got in the way of the action.

Oops, sorry. That was Brendan Fraser.

Baseball, hot dogs and Ray Charles on the 4th

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. I've been laying low since that paranormal investigation thing I wasn't joking about last post. Met a spirit named Margie still hanging around the storage area of Dave's Aqua Lounge in St. Pete, thanks to a group of ghost hunters I'll be writing about soon.

Margie doesn't agree with me on The Blair Witch Project, either.

Anyway, while I'm waiting to see if Joey Chestnut can hold off Kobayashi two years in a row at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island -- bless you, ESPN -- I wanted to share something.

Last year, Spears and I had a Fourth of July blog battle about the most patriotic 80's movies (he really IS stuck, isn't he?). I picked The Right Stuff and he chose, ahem, Red Dawn. Needless to say, we didn't discuss any rematch this year.

So, I thought I'd present my favorite patriotic movie scene to honor the occasion. Enjoy.

Dewayne Staats is a very funny guy

Sorry, I confused the Tampa Bay Rays broadcaster with Rainn Wilson, who I had planned to see tonight in The Rocker, which looks like This is Spinal Tap crossed with School of Rock and Dwight Shrute's deadpan dumb.

A few funny things happened on the way to walking out of the theater.

I'm home watching the Rays leading the Dead Sox now, which is where I'd prefer to be. If The Rocker were opening soon, and if the p.r. guy hadn't told me there will be plenty of screenings between now and whenever it does, I'd still be in the theater now instead of hearing Staats' rimshot humor.

(Big thanks to Worth1000.com for the image from Yahoo)

The theater tonight was in a different place that isn't used to hosting advance screenings. I should've known better when the usual studio monitor for such screenings dished it off to someone else.

He and his helpers honestly did a fine job -- and regular readers know that I don't mind complaining when they don't -- but something just told me that watching the Rays would be a better use of my time. Then I told Princess Di and she, of course, agreed. I like that in a wife.

Anyway, we were convinced when latecomers wondering why some seats were reserved for, oh, media types, screening sponsors, you know, the folks who are the reason why anyone is getting a free movie. I've said as much at screenings before but tonight it would've felt like kicking a puppy.

Nice folks, I'm sure. And maybe it's the fact that Di and I were the only two people in a prime section of seats roped off for 40 or so rumps that made me a bit self-conscious.

After listening to people scared of walking into a packed theater, and pronouncing "reserved" phonetically from signs, and loudly announcing after a cell phone call that the folks they're saving seats for are still at Home Depot, and watching people leave because they were only there for the t-shirts they didn't get, and the baby toted to an R-rated comedy, and the eyeballs aimed at those 38 or so vacant seats, plus a few more tips, I figured we'd catch The Rocker another time.

Besides, I have a paranormal investigation at my favorite dive bar tomorrow night until Dunkin Donuts baking time Thursday. I need my rest.

Does this mean no Cop and a Half 2?

You probably heard that a bunch of new laws went into effect today: motorcycle safety courses for license applicants, higher parking ticket fines, the one declaring Fridays as wet t-shirt optional work days.

I made up that last one.

Anyway, one I'm writing about is the cutbacks in Florida's incentive program that helps to entice film, TV and commercial production in the Sunshine State. Last year's kitty of $25-million were divided among such productions as Marley and Me starring Jennifer Aniston, the USA network series Burn Notice, the comedy Misconceptions filmed in Pinellas County, etc.

Now that fund has been slashed to $5-million for the 2008-2009 fiscal calendar. Suddenly Florida won't seem like such an attractive location for productions that can go elsewhere -- Georgia and Louisiana are growing players -- and save more money.

Don't think that the state film office is just handing out free money. Productions earn rebates of up to 22 percent for their in-state spending; hiring local talent before and behind the cameras, taking rooms at hotels, eating at restaurants, etc.  St. Petersburg/Clearwater film commissioner Jennifer Parramore says the paperwork proves that whatever the fund rebates is earned back by Floridians at a 7-to-1 ratio.

So, last year's $25-million incentives fund put $175-million into Floridians' pockets. That's a lot of income to lose in these tough times.

The cut in funding is due to the same reasons why you're probably not spending as much these days. Thanks to Florida's balanced budget requirements, such cuts have been necessary nearly from top to bottom. But that also means that if/when the economy bounces back, the film/TV subsidies program should quickly bounce back with it.

At least that's what the state film commissioner and Gov. Charlie Crist's deputy press secretary told me. I'll let you know when the story's ready for publication online and in the Times.