Year: 2004

Made in Tehran by an Iranian director, Crimson Gold remains unseen in that country because the director refuses to submit to government editing. And that director, Jafar Panahi, has refused to attend U.S. film-festival screenings of Gold in protest of the requirement of the American government that Iranians entering U.S. be fingerprinted. As his deeply, … more…

*Made-Up,* the directorial debut of god-among-actors Tony Shalhoub, is everything you’d expect from a man who’s managed to buck the Hollywood system, where casting so often comes down to ethnic stereotyping, to create a panoply of memorably warm, funny, weird, human characters. And it’s nothing you could expect, because *Made-Up* isn’t quite like anything I’ve seen before. Mockumentaries aren’t hard to come by, of course, but none of them have ever turned back on themselves like this one does.

Remember when Ben Stiller was a human being, and not a punching bag for filmmakers? Remember *The Ben Stiller Show,* which was intelligent and witty and dangerous and bitingly satirical? Only about four people watched it, of course, which is why it didn’t last more than a handful of episodes, but it was enough to let you know that Stiller — a writer and director for the show, an instigator, one might call him — is way better, way smarter than the idiotic crap he’s been debasing himself in lately.

Oh. Mygod. This is so totally like this trip that my best friend Tiffany and I are planning? For when we so totally turn 18? We’re gonna, like, so totally go to Europe for like six months and bum around and go to all those cute cities that have cobblestone streets and colorful money and meet totally hot Europe-ish guys with amazing accents and get into totally hot clubs and hear awesome bands and not even have to use fake IDs cuz you can drink when you’re 18 there, god that’s so, like, civilized, and shop and shop and shop (with Daddy’s credit cards, of course).

It’s idiots on parade as three lifelong pals — played by Undercover Brother Eddie Griffin, The Sopranos‘s Michael Imperioli, and Kangaroo Jack‘s Anthony Anderson, whose mere presence in a film has come to be a harbinger of doom — all knock up their girlfriends at the same time and Just Can’t Cope with fatherhood or … more…

Well, it’s official. All you aspiring actresses coming on the bus to Movieland from Iowa or Kansas? You might as well turn around right now and go home. Unless you look like a supermodel, of course. Cuz The Movie’s ‘No Fat Chicks/No Ugly Chicks’ sign has been given a new spit-and-polish. Oh, it’s not that they won’t make the odd film about fat or ugly chicks, or even just ordinary-looking chicks without supernatural cheekbones and with enough body fat to actually menstruate, it’s just that they’ll hire gorgeous, statuesque, rail-thin blondes who’ll gain artistic weight and sit for three hours of makeup in order to look like a mere mortal, like the way the rest of us look all the time.

Some people claim to have strong, precise memories from their very earliest childhood. Me, it’s all a jumble. Am I really remembering an event, or am I remembering stories of it from long after? Or am I remembering photos of it? Often, that’s the most likely explanation, to my mind. My memories all seem to have that gauzy quality…

I love Tim Burton’s films, even when they’re not great. I love his unflinching weirdness. I love that he’ll take a chance and go the extra mile of excessiveness even if he fails half the time to take us along, because when he succeeds, it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. I love all the baroque curlicues — visual and intellectual and humorous — of his vision.