Dan in Real Life
Directed by Peter Hedges
Starring Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, John Mahoney, Dianne Wiest
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Release date: March 11, 2008

One need know me for roughly five minutes before they know full well my attitudes toward Dane Cook. Beyond mere distaste, I have a manic and psychotic hatred of him, sworn in blood and pain, that will no doubt span continents and generations and will cost more than its fair share of lives. I have alienated family members, ended friendships, and even had a girl walk out on me because of my raw and visceral loathing of the man and everything he stands for.

And I regret nothing!

I cannot be blamed for regarding Dan in Real Life as a weird sort of curiosity. On one hand you have Cook, who oozes annoyance and insincerity from every pore in his body. On the other hand, you have Steve Carell, a man who is the very embodiment of low-key likeability. That there is a finished product of film that is now on DVD, and that we are all still alive, is the evidence that the universe did not implode from matter meeting anti-matter.

Dan in Real Life, when the score is tallied, is a good film, though I don’t know how I feel about that. Should I be happy that my ninety minutes was well-spent and the good guys won? Or should I be disheartened because for the first (and quite possibly the last) time, I have to say nice things about DANE COOK?

“Art has never been made while thinking of art.”
– Niko Stumpo

“I shit on the chest of Fun.”
– Hunter S. Thompson

Leave it to Roger Ebert to make THIS film critic write about video games. I’m sure anyone who would click on an article that has “Ubisoft” in the title has read about Ebert and his decree that video games are not art. There has been ranting, raving, pissing, and moaning to the contrary from everyone under the age of thirty who hasn’t seen the sun since the PS2 came out.

Art, after all, is subjective. What do I think art is? I think art is whatever the hell you think it is. Seriously, after you get past the age of twenty-one, you have better things to do than mull over the sophomore-in-high-school bullshit like “What is art?” Like what you like and act your age. Personally, I like stuff that can wring your emotions and overheat your brain. Or at the very least take you on a ride. Would I call it art? If I like it, does it even fucking matter?

“Art” is the word you use so you can hold the illusion of good taste over someone you feel superior to. Because if you know what “art” is, than you know what “isn’t art.” It’s a tool for snobbery, not an abstract ideal.

But in my years as a film critic even though I have often been hesitant to use the word “art,” I have become well-acquainted with entertainment that are more than willing to hoist the title FOR me. Basically screaming that they are indeed “the thinking person’s film/television show/novel/album/video game/velvet Elvis painting.” And a whole bunch of them are completely insufferable. They don’t come off as life-changing or great. No, they just come off as really fucking smug. I may not know art, but I know a Goddamn poseur when I see one.

Which is why, as I’ve said, I think I’m qualified as a film critic to talk about video games. Or at least one in particular. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Assassin’s Creed.

*The opinions expressed by Dr. Royce Clemens in his Doom Dispatch column do not necessarily reflect the views of Geeks of Doom.

This is the first piece in my series of op-ed columns*, and I was supposed to cover Sunday night’s Oscars. But watching it, attempting to take notes and watching deserving nominee after deserving nominee actually win free of politics or social pressure, something occurred to me.

It’s no fun recapping a fair fight. So I figure I’ll write about what I was gonna write about next week.

El Cid
Unrated 2-Disc Box Set
Directed by Anthony Mann
Starring Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren
Available Jan. 29, 2008

The sixties were a funny time”¦ You know, for EVEN MORE than the obvious reasons. It was the decade that the studio system in Hollywood finally fell to corporate ownership. The debate rages to this day on whether or not this was a development for the better.

As Martin Scorsese notes in his liner-note introduction for today’s film, Anthony Mann‘s El Cid “is a picture that marks the passing of an era in American moviemaking.” Quite possibly the last huge epic before corporations. Before Kubrick. Before Hippies. Before Altman.

Watching El Cid in this, its first-ever American DVD release, I was struck by something I was never able to articulate before. Why the hell do these old-school De Mille-style epics seem so much”¦ BIGGER than the epics we make today? Is it the lack of computers? Is it the fact that movie stars were “movie stars” back then and not models with delusions of grandeur? Is it that they were all shot in 70 millimeter while we’re slowly but sure converting to George Lucas’ Godawful digital video in the present? Or is it just that Anthony Mann rules all?

Because El Cid is big with a capital “BIG.” And if there’s anyone who loves them a big-assed movie, it’s me. I’m all for subtlety and character development and all that other horsecrap, but for Christ’s sake, this is the MOVIES! Go big or go home.

Charlton Heston plays Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar in 11th-century Spain. He is dubbed “El Cid” by a Muslim man working to tear-ass in conquest through Europe. He is captured by Rodrigo, but spared. This act of mercy by Rodrigo on behalf of the Muslims gets Rodrigo a treason charge and imperils his marriage to the lovely Jimena (Sophia Loren).

The Hunting Party
Directed by Richard Shepard
Starring Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg
Genius Products/The Weinstein Company
Available Jan. 22, 2008

There are a few ways to tell a director of a film is too cool for the room. As you can see, accompanying this review is the DVD art for The Hunting Party. Also, I asked if the DVD art for Richard Shepard‘s previous film, 2005’s The Matador, could also be displayed. Now both are wonderful films, dark comedies of the highest order. But you couldn’t tell that just from looking at these two pieces of advertisement. They kinda look like they went to SpikeTV before they went to video, don’t they? There is nothing evident on either of these DVD cases of the movies contained therein.

The moral of the story? If even the studio doesn’t know how to sell your movie, and has to resort to crosshairs and explosions to promote it, then you are doing something right. It means it takes more than two sentences to describe the plot.

And Richard Shepard HAS done something right. TWICE. Before 2005, he was best known for a DTV serial killer flick called Oxygen with Maura Tierney and Adrien Brody before he won an Oscar and made a good case for having it revoked with The Village. Then Shepard made The Matador, star Pierce Brosnan got a Golden Globe nomination for it and he made a name for himself.

If I had to use base terms to describe Shepard’s follow-up, The Hunting Party, imagine those preachy, do-gooder Oscar-humpers about strife in countries a hemisphere away. Then lacquer with fifty coats of merry cynicism. Serve cold.