The Lint Screen

After shelling out big bucks to see well over a couple dozen movies this past year, it finally struck me–– the big screen is getting trumped by the little one.

The creative output on broadcast television far exceeds the re-hashed plotlines, remakes, kiddie pablum, cookie cutter sequels, artsy-fartsy borefests and special effects-driven mindless fare Hollywood keeps churning out.

Here are 23 great shows you can see on air. Some are subscription based, but many are free, and almost all are available on Netflix or on demand. It’s a feast of storytelling and rich, complex character development.

Get a load of these:
Justified, Falling Skies, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Luther, Downton Abbey, Weeds, Hell on Wheels, Boardwalk Empire, The Daily Show, Game of Thrones, Louie, Portlandia, Dexter, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Homeland, The Colbert Report, Modern Family, Breaking Bad, The Middle, Treme, Californication and The Walking Dead.

That’s 23 terrific shows, everything from period pieces to fantasy to gritty drama to sharp political satire and commentary to gripping psychological character studies to absurdist humor to family friendly comedy to rich explorations into the human condition.

It’s no wonder some of the sharpest talent in entertainment has gone from the big screen to the smaller one. There is more freedom to create, to develop, to take risks, to tell truly interesting stories and to succeed.

In short, contrary to what our parents always told us, we should all be watching more TV.

Contagion is a very frightening movie. Steven Soderbergh film of a Scott Z. Burns screenplay has a galaxy of stars–– Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Bryan Cranston and Kate Winslet–– without any big special effects or CGI aliens, monsters or exploding cities.

Yet, the film is gripping and terrifying because the simple story is so plausible, believable and frankly expected that this is certainly how the world will react when we get our next great pandemic.

It ain’t going to be pretty, people.

This is an adult movie studded with great performances, interesting camerawork, an innovative soundtrack and some surprising twists. It also has this gem of a line: “Blogging? That’s just graffiti with punctuation.”

Contagion is hardly a feel-good movie, but it’s certainly a movie worth seeing. If you do, please try to refrain from coughing. It will only scare others.

Our Idiot Brother may be the most disappointing movie of the year. It’s chocked with talented, interesting performers– Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Steve Coogan, Emily Mortimer, Rashida Jones and more– yet it muddles around aimlessly trying to decide if it’s shooting for comedy, drama, dramedy, comedrama, morality tale, what exactly?

In the end, it’s an aggravation. The message is that the brother, Ned (Paul Rudd), is too trusting, naive and innocent in this world and that makes him an idiot. Or does it? Hey, maybe the sisters and others who are scrambling so hard to succeed, playacting their way through keeping a happy face, doing whatever needs to be done to get ahead and get their selfish ways… hey, maybe they’re the idiots!

It’s not a bad message, it’s just a story told with no focus and no clear point of view. Blame writers David Schisgall and Evgenia Peretz. Adding to the disappointment, it’s well-shot with good production values. Credit director Jesse Peretz. This film’s a turd that’s been varnished to a fine shine.

How bad is this film? Well, you know how many comedies have bloopers or outtakes at the end rolling during the credits? This film does that trick, but not even the outtakes are funny.

It’s a pity this film ever got made.

Oh, Hollywood, how many times have you tried to throw star power at a project, locked in a grade-A director and spent the GDP of a small country on special effects only to end up with a celluloid turd that’s DOA?

The answer is way too many times. The problem is black and white: the script sucked.

If it’s not on the page, it can’t be on the screen. Poorly developed one-dimensional characters will be just that no matter what mega-watt stars play them.

Case in point– Cowboys & Aliens. We’ve got star power out the wazoo. James Bond and Indiana Jones, for crying out loud– Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. Toss in some sex appeal with Olivia Wilde and terrific actors Sam Rockwell and Paul Dano, all directed by Jon Favreau, and you should have a blockbuster. Nope. Instead it’s a dud. A movie that clocks in at just under two hours and could have easily lost thirty minutes and would have been better if for no other reason than it would have put itself out of its misery sooner.

I won’t bore you with the alleged plot. Suffice to say, like Snakes On A Plane the title is the plot. There’s a gaggle of screenwriters and producers listed in the credits and they all should be ashamed to have wasted so much talent on such a futile fart-in-the-bathtub kind of film.

Next time, maybe start on the page before you blow a bundle bringing it to the screen.

If you’ve ever been to the zoo, you’ve probably seen apes do some amazing things like fling their poo or eat their own vomit. Do not be mislead. Although they may act like drunk frat pledges, they’re actually crafty critters– especially when you give them some drugs that turbo-goose their intellect.

Rise of The Planet of The Apes is a pretty terrific film; one of the better popcorn munchers of the summer. It’s a prequel, and like many of the prequels of the past few years, one of the better films in the franchise.

It stars James Franco as a brilliant pharmaceutical scientist working on a drug to battle Alzheimer’s disease, which his pappy has Pops is played by John Lithgow. Franco tests his experimental drug on apes. The apes get wicked smart and quite agitated. Do you see a bad moon rising?

I’m not much of a James Franco fan. He’s fine in this role, but is pretty vanilla overall. That isn’t so bad though since he’s playing support to some terrific computer generated ape actors and the phenomenal Andy Serkis who plays the hero ape, Caesar. Serkis brings this ape to wonderful human-like life. He’s the same guy who played Gollum in the Lord of The Rings flicks.

But the real stars here are the special effects and some slick direction by Rupert Wyatt from a smart screenplay by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The score by Patrick Doyle is well done and pitch perfect for the action and emotion.

You also get to hear the famous command, “Get your filthy hands off me you damn dirty ape!” just not in Chick Heston’s golden baritone. Be on the lookout for Mr. Heston who does appear in this movie. Good stuff.

This is one fine film and a fun ride. Give it a go and chances are you’ll like it so much that you won’t fling poo at the screen.

Some film guru once stated that there are two types of movies: those stories about the human condition (timeless tales), and those that show you something you could never see otherwise (special effects extravaganzas).

Right now, you can see two prime examples of these movie types, each a standout in its particular weight class. For the human condition genre, we have the always scrappy Woody Allen weighing in with one of his best films of the past few decades: Midnight in Paris. And in the opposite corner, representing state of the art heavyweight special effects and 3-D whizbangery, Mr. over-the-top perennial heavyweight Michael Bay and his Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Both are worth seeing for different reasons.

I am a fan of the timeless tale human condition genre, and the simple premise of Midnight in Paris is one with real sticking power. Owen Wilson plays Gil, a successful Hollywood screenwriter who is miserable with his lot in life. He loves Paris, rainy nights and the romantic dream of writing the great novel. He yearns to be like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cole Porter and the posse of 1920′s artistic ex-pats who made Paris their home and playground. Gil is engaged to Inez, played by Rachel McAdams, a woman who was born into the finer things of life. Her parents are in Paris to help the couple make their wedding plans. Inez and her folks represent conformity, pragmatism, be-happy-with-what-you’ve-got-and-get-your-head-outta-the-cloudsism. They are the cold boot of reality kicking upside Gil’s silly romantic notions-filled head.

One night, Gil is alone on a contemplative stroll through the Paris streets. A clock strikes midnight, and a 1920′s auto rolls up and stops. The back door opens and Gil sees people in 1920′s dress slurping cocktails and laughing gayly. They invite him to join, and he does.

Off Gil goes to live it up with his heroes: Ernest, F. Scott, Zelda, Cole, Gertrude, Salvador, Pablo and more. He lives magically in his ideal period, the man out of time who finally finds his time. After a wild night, he is back to modern times and his modern life and modern problems. Like a junkie, once he’s had a taste of his pleasure-filled escape, he returns again and again to his midnight strolls that transport him back to his romanticized time.

Along the way, he falls in love– never a good idea for time travelers. And the happy couple have their own physics bending adventure with ironic and illuminating outcomes.

I’ll say no more than this is a charming, magical and lasting movie that uses imagination and the human condition as special effects to make a simple, yet profound point. And Owen Wilson is certainly not the Owen Wilson we saw in Marley & Me. Thank God.

Chalk one up for the Woodman and the human condition timeless tale with a dash of magic thrown in for good measure. This is a terrific film.

Which brings us to Transformers: Dark of the Moon. But before I get started, let me disclose my prejudices right up front.
1. I’m not a Michael Bay fan. His commercial work was great, his features work overblown.
2. I’m not a fan of big stupid special effects movies. For the most part, the stories are lame and the effects don’t stick in my memory banks.
3. I’m not a big fan of Shia LaBeouf. The guy doesn’t have much gravitas, soul, screen presence. He can act, but he’s like diluted vanilla.
4. Don’t much care for Transformers. This could be a result of having stepped on too many of the damn things when our kids played with them– a time when Transformers littered our house ready to transform from toys into implements of painful death.
5. I think most 3-D movies are gimmicks not worthy of the upcharge for the silly glasses required to view them

All these prejudices aside, I’m glad I saw this film. It was the coolest 3-D movie I’ve ever seen, and Michael Bay has some amazing camerawork. In a weird way, what makes Bay obnoxious in two dimensions makes him pretty spectacular in three. It’s like icing on top of frosting that somehow works for a visual feast worth attending.

The plot? Well, yeah, there’s a plot: an alien spacecraft crashes on the moon, N.A.S.A. alerts the White House and the next thing you know, J.F.K. initiates the space program to get a man on the moon to investigate before the Ruskies do. We all thought the moon mission was for pride, but it was to investigate the crashed alien spacecraft– why must our leaders always deceive us?

Yada blah blah yada and here we are in the present or near future and Autobots are helping our government and evil Decepticons (nasty Transformers who need a good talking to so that they’ll maybe straighten up and fly right!) want to take over our planet and the key to the whole shebang are some special rods that were on that spacecraft that crashed into the moon and well, Yada blah blah yada.

Yeah, there’s a plot and there’s some talented actors trapped in the plot: John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Dr. McDreamy himself. Shia LeBeouf has him a hot new girlfriend, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and Michael Bay is more than happy to show us why she’s a star in the Victoria’s Secret catalog. The script does not develop her character any further than commentary from all perspectives that she’s a hottie. It doesn’t really matter, the humans serve only one purpose in this film: give some puny scale against which the mighty Transformers might dominate and intimidate.

And that’s where this film shines. The effects work is stunning. The 3-D shot composition, especially in master shots with tiny humans in foreground and massive Transformer and breathtaking vistas in background are what make this film worth forking over the extra bucks for the glasses.

If you cheap out and see the film in 2-D, be warned– you’ll only be magnifying the silliness of this affair.

The movie clocks in at over two and a half hours. It could have easily lost a half hour or forty-five minutes, but when you’re guorging yourself, what’s some extra cheese?

All in all, this film is worth sitting through for the amusement park adventure of the spectacular destruction of Chicago and some famous landmarks. Don’t expect much more than that, and you’ll enjoy your long, noisy ride.