WHAT HAPPENED TO M. NIGHT?

Oh, man. Just wasted two hours of my life giving M. Night one more chance with THE HAPPENING. Never have I seen someone fall so far so quick. And I'm not talking just popular reaction to the man's work. Who cares if a film tanks if it's great? What's weird with M. Night, is I'm sitting there watching a major film that feels just absolutely amateurish. The dialogue is awful, the staging of scenes feels arbitrary and rushed. An example: At one point, our heroes are stuck in a small town -- the train they were taking stopped, so there's a bunch of stranded city folk in this really small town. So the diner is suddenly full of all these stranded train passengers, right? They get news about "the happening" and everyone panics and runs out to get to safety. So the entire diner clears out and everyone jumps in cars and drives off, leaving our three heroes in the empty parking lot looking for a ride. What? Where are all the other train passengers? How did they get cars? On and on. Make no mistake: The Happening has a great idea at its core, but man, M. Nights touch has gone so cold you don't even see traces of his old talent.

THE BASKETBALL DIARIES

Yo! My adaption of Jim Carroll's epic THE BASKETBALL DIARIES opens in NY at 59E59, directed by Joe Tantalo and produced by GODLIGHT THEATRE...if you're in the city between July 15 and 27, check it out. Runs Tuesday thru Sunday. More details to come.

MUSICALS I'D PAY TO SEE

Musicals that could be boss:

COBRA, based on Stallone's homo-erotic cop vs. serial killer opus from 1980-something. I can see the serial killer army in the sewer singing a soaring "Death to Cobra" song while doing a dance routine with their pointy weapons.

SCARFACE - a natural with so many built-in song titles it's scary:

You Got a Look In Your Eye (Like You Haven't Been Fucked in a Year)
Say Hello To My Little Friend
You Fuck With Me (You Fuckin' With The Best) aka "Tony's Theme"
Where Did You Get That Scar (Eating Pussy?)
Don't Ever Fuck Me Tony
Fuck Me Tony
Who Said You Were A Cop?
I Kill A Communist (For Free)
The World Is Yours

New stuff at BLUNTFORCEDRAMA.org

And more posts coming soon!

WHY JOHN McTIERNAN DESERVES JAIL TIME

Johnny McT is facing jail time for the Pelicano trial. But is lying to a grand jury really his biggest crime? Of course not. Anyone who could fuck up remaking the 70s sci-fi sports opus ROLLERBALL deserves incarceration. ROLLERBALL was even a ripe subject for revisiting in our corporate suck-up culture. If you haven't seen this flick yet (shame on you) briefly, James Caan, in full "James Caan" form, plays Jonathan, the best player in all of Rollerball, which is sort of like roller derby with a huge metal ball. The world is dominated by corporations and the individual is crushed. Caan refuses to retire and the corporate scum are worried about his popularity, so to get him to quit, they make the game more and more dangerous, until by the end, there's no time limit and no rules. All the scenes of the game are perfect and hold up great. All the stuff in-between was pretty slow, and THAT could have been amped in a remake. But the plot needed only some embellishing, not a whole sale Hollywood Hack Gangbang (HHG) Anyway, how that epic film could turn into a toothless LL Cool J vehicle is a disgrace. Like the new HULK coming out, they should just admit the last remake was a mistake and do it again. Imagine what David Fincher could do with Rollerball. Hell Pitt would be a good Jonathan too.

Yes, Oliver Stone = Shakespeare

I said it. I mean it. It seems so obvious that I'm sure I'm not the first. But if Shakespeare was around today (yes, I know, he'd be a screenwriter) but further, he'd be Oliver Stone. Nixon? JFK. W? Platoon? Wall Street? Even Natural Born Killers. Juicy, dramatic, big canvas ,big statement, political, great characters, memorable lines... Never afraid to spike the big moment (Greed is Good, Elias betrayed and shot in slow mo, Charlie Fox crying as he's arrested in the office, any scene from Scarface...) And on and on. Put his filmography up against an Entertainster like Spielberg and you understand the difference between man and boy.

The Ignored Genius of Marylin Manson

Look -- I know Marilyn Manson isn't on any hip lists these days, and he's easy to write-off as a Alice Cooper re-hash, and further: Everything he did before MECHANICAL ANIMALS except for a few epic tracks and covers, was forgettable.

However...

From Mechanical Animals through his latest alienation manifesto EAT ME DRINK ME, the man has delivered BIG SOUND albums that scorch. Holy Wood is a rock opera companion to that David Lynch flick with the blond babe -- I'm forgetting the name -- but anyway, do yourself a favor and pick up HOLY WOOD -- I just bought the damn thing and can't turn it off.