LOWBROW ENTERTAINMENT

Read my review of The Croods here, on Jabcat on Movies.

Then check out my Top Ten pop-culture cavemen here, on Topless Robot.

BALLOT POINTS

Playing through November 6 at FilmBar in Phoenix is Electoral Dysfunction. It’s a light, humorous documentary about a serious, daunting subject—the undemocratic, unnecessary yet seemingly unshakable weirdness of the voting system in America, especially the Electoral College.

Directed by Leslie D. Farrell, Bennett Singer and David Deschamps in the style of a human-interest TV news story, with Mo Rocca as quipping host and interviewer, and buttressed with amusing Schoolhouse-Rock-style animation, the film is lively and funny and informative. Much of it follows Rocca as he follows the 2008 election from the perspective of poll workers and canvassers in Indiana’s Jennings and Ripley counties, and the unembarrassed, energetic, civic-minded spirit of the people he shows us is heartening, and, I must admit, more than a little surprising.

Because of its droll approach, I enjoyed Electoral Dysfunction. No small achievement this, as the subject is one of nerve-jangling irritation to me, in light both of the ongoing annoyance of the baroque, archaic Electoral College and the distortions it creates in Presidential politics, and also of the vile attempts, in recent years, to block voting in a baldly partisan way in parts of the U.S.

I know it speaks poorly of me, but most news stories on voting rights and voting access abuses send me channel-surfing or fleeing the room, because there’s something about that kind of bad-faith politics that makes me feel helpless. The (mostly) honorable people Rocca chronicles—on both sides—made me ashamed of feeling this way.

A couple of odds and ends: Adults ONLY check out this knavish comic written by Barry Graham and illustrated by Vince LaRue.

The website JabCat on Movies, to which I’m proud to be a contributor, has recently launched a state-by-state guide to art house theatres in the U.S. Check it out here.

Finally, a consumer note: Today I drank a Lime-Cucumber Gatorade. I love lime. I love cucumbers. I love Gatorade. But the three do not, in my ever-humble opinion, go together well. Caveat emptor.

HE'S ONLY JUST BEGUN

The Wife, The Kid and Your Humble Narrator are deep into Olympic mania. Indeed, I even liked Danny Boyle’s unhinged Opening Ceremony spectacle.

The Wife and I did, however, take time out this past weekend to go to the Valley Art for the documentary Paul Williams: Still Alive…

I highly recommend this one, which plays there through at least Thursday; it’s worth the difficult pilgrimage to downtown Tempe. You can read my review of it here, at Jabcat on Movies.

If you have a few million dollars lying around, you should check out my story in the August edition of Phoenix Magazine, about a strange investment opportunity involving the movie business and the treasure of a Spanish conquistador. It’s on pages 33-34, or you can read it here.

RIP to Lupe Ontiveros, who played innumerable maids—perhaps most memorably in As Good As It Gets—as well as the murderess of the title character in Selena, passed on at 69. RIP also to French experimental filmmaker Chris Marker, of A Grin Without a Cat, Sans Soliel and the masterly, chilling photonovela short La jetee, passed on at 91.

EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SECTS

After the screening of Martha Marcy May Marlene, I had the opportunity to participate in a brief roundtable interview with the director, Sean Durkin. You can read my very short Q&A piece here, on JabCat on Movies.

The star, Elizabeth Olsen, was also there; she told me her influences included “Sinatra musicals,” & that her acting idols were Annette Bening, Diane Keaton, Kate Winslet & Michelle Pfeiffer.

By the way, Beavis and Butt-head are back on MTV, with new adventures—like the Peanuts gang, or Bart Simpson, they’ve done an admirable job of staying young since we last saw them, in 1997. My friends know I’m a great fan of the lads & their creator, the estimable Mike Judge, but even so I was willing to glumly admit it if it seemed to me that the world had moved on & the new shows just weren’t the same.

Well, I’ve watched several episodes now, & apparently imbecility is always in style, at least for me. The new shows convulsed me just like the old ones did. For all the excellence & subtlety of King of the Hill & Office Space & Idiocracy, I think that B&B is Judge’s true masterpiece.

RIP to commentator Andy Rooney, departed at 92, screenwriter Hal Kanter, departed at 92, & heavyweight great Joe Frazier, departed at 67.