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86 the thing
by Michael Bergeron

That tried and true speech about talking and walking strolled in a couple of films recently. In Hustle & Flo, one of the best stories to be released this year, struggling music producer Key (Anthony Anderson) tells his protégé DJay (Terrence Howard) that there are "Two kinds of people in this world. Those who talk the talk and those who walk the walk." And he means it too. But wait, the same speech albeit in different words pops out of the mouth of The Thing, Ben Grimm in Fantastic Four. As Grimm explains, "He talks the talk," referring to Reed Richards or Mr. Fantastic, "And I walk the walk."
There is a point. Both speeches say the same thing and propel the character in the same direction, yet these similar motivations are in films as contrary as cat and dog, or different as ketchup and olive oil. As diametrically opposed as "That was an amazing film" and "I can't believe how they totally fucked up a sure thing." A person would have to be a crabby appleton without schizzle to be unaffected by the emotional arc of Hustle & Flo, likewise, they would have to be pre-pubescent to think the misguided Fantastic Four rocks.
You know all those stories in the media about film attendance being down over last year? Of course that's true statistically and has been since the late-40s. The real story concerns how expensive movie theaters have become versus the rental experience ($1 to $3), or unlimited movies via Netflix ($20 a month), or just throwing down half-a-sawbuck to own the DVD a few months after it plays at the local megaplex. The other night at a screening one lad was carrying three large bottles of water back from the concession stand. I jokingly asked how much that cost but my jaw dropped when he replied $15.75.
So say you've got the kind of family like in that cute Burger Sling commercial where the daughter reminds the daddy to buy tickets online for Fantastic Four. I'm about to save you approximately $60, including concessions, for a family of four. Fantastic Four should have been like a Batman or Spiderman or X-Men movie, instead it gets the kid glove treatment that makes it less interesting than even Dare Devil or Electra. One scene that takes place at an indoor motocross contest bordered on Charlie's Angels territory with its excessive loudness.
Fantastic Four wastes over two-thirds of the film dealing with the superheroes becoming aware of their powers. The comic book Fantastic Four cosmology includes a startling gallery of villains, oddballs like the Silver Surfer, along with the FF periodically saving the known universe from destruction. None of that is on display here. For Fantastic Four the filmmakers re-imagine Dr. Doom as a baddie with super powers and flog the audience with CGI battles that were done better in previous films. Despite the film opening big, 20th Century Fox has just blown this franchise, even more so than when New Line re-imagined Lost in Space.

By contrast Hustle & Flo offers audiences a sympathetic if not totally law abiding lead character in a tightly knit story with a good ending. The low rent digs where pimp DJay lives with his stable of girls never glamorizes their lifestyle so much as it establishes a realistic environment that matches Hustle & Flo's emotional tone. The film mixes music, comedy and drama with ease: you could label Hustle & Flo with any of those terms. At times the movie feels like a hybrid of a 70s blaxploitation film with a dash of urban social realism and layered with art house swagger.
DJay, the most developed character in the film, feeling the weariness of being a two-bit pimp, wants to portray the music in his soul and recruits an old friend to help him lay down some tracks. The scenes where the film's main songs are rehearsed and fleshed out into full fledged hits stay with the viewer long after the film's earnest yet moral ending.

Somewhat on the randy side The Wedding Crashers will be a sure comic hit. It's as if the filmmakers were able to bottle the raunchy nature of films like American Pie, but to contain that raunch within the confines of some great screwball dialogue and the comic persistence of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn.
Wedding Crashers is off in a few scenes, particularly one with the lame cameo of the actor who shall not be named, but the jewels of the film, like the dinner scene, are laugh out loud funny.

The athletes on display in the docu Murderball definitely march to the beat of a different, ah, penguin. These contestants are paraplegics with souped up (they cost 3-grand) wheelchairs specially designed for ramming each other on the court where the game, which has teams worldwide, unfolds. These guys are in-your-face macho and you're likely to learn more from this film about what exactly a handicapped person can and cannot do than the rules and regulations of Murderball.
The action spans a couple of years and focuses on a several players and their lives. The most interesting storyline follows one guy in particular as he gets benched from the American team due to age and accepts a job coaching the Canadian Murderball team. Revenge is sweet in Murderball.

As a time capsule or as politically incorrect entertainment Sam Kinison: Outlaws of Comedy, the DVD release of an early 1990s concert in San Francisco, shows that the late comedian was one of a kind. No one bellows like Kinison - most people would hyperventilate trying to scream-talk like Kinison.
The concert lasts just over 45-minutes, the sound is choppy at times (part of that is Kinison's loud then soft style of delivery), and the DVD extras are skimpy (just pictures and a text bio). The concert closes with Sam making a telephone call with a malodorous message (the telephone, a land line, keeps getting no dial tone, another indication of the technology of the date).
Kinison's routine comes across as inspired, even evangelical, due no doubt to his own stint as a youth minister. But the material is hardcore sex and drugs; you don't see today's comics veering into such areas to the degree Kinison probes. At one point after telling a certain really obscene joke he asks the audience if that was the nastiest, grossest thing they ever heard. Don't worry, he tells everyone, I can top that.

The MFA unreels Au Hasard Balthazar from Robert Bresson, July 29th and 30th at 7 p.m. Even though Bresson is not really of the generation of French new wave directors (the MFA is also showing two films from Jean-Luc Godard this month) Balthazar remains one of the enduring cinema classics from the 1960s.

The Aurora Pictures Show celebrates its seventh year in operation and unwinds the 8th annual Extreme Shorts Three Minutes and Under Festival on July 16th and 17th. The Sunday show includes an outside picnic on the Aurora grounds. Check out their website for additional info: http://www.aurorapictureshow.org/