Podcast: 'Meek's Cutoff,' 'Water for Elepants' and more

This is craziness. With my mad schedule sucking up every nanosecond of my time, and Blogger being down for extensive repairs (wasn't that awful?), I haven't even bothered to post a link to my first-ever podcast!

Last week, I had a fun conference call with Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience, Michael Cusumano of Serious Film, and Robert, who does the excellent "Distant Relatives" series at Nathaniel's site. This was a new and terrific experience, and I'm itching to do it again. The four of us chatted about growing up movie-obsessed, sharing film love with our loved ones and two movies I loved and loathed with equal vigor: "Meek's Cutoff" and "Water for Elephants."

The conversation is posted over at The Film Experience. CLICK HERE to give it a listen.

'Water for Elephants' Review

In my review of "Water for Elephants," a film so bad you almost miss its technical beauty, I name-dropped art director David Crank (among others), but failed to mention production designer Jack Fisk, the industry whiz behind "There Will Be Blood," "Mulholland Dr." and Terrence Malick's most recent projects (including "The Tree of Life"). Alas, not even Fisk's good deeds go unpunished in a production that lumbers like a 9,000-pound...well, you know.

Want more wrath? Read my full review of "Water for Elephants," now online at SouthPhillyReview.com. CLICK HERE. (I wanted to adore it, cross my heart.)

Linking 'Batman' and 'Tomb Raider'

I did double duty over at The Film Experience last Friday, offering both an "April Showers" post and a circus-themed post, the latter to mark the arrival of "Water for Elephants" (which, ahem, we'll get to later this week). The "April Showers" article brought us into the private washroom of Ms. Lara Croft, whom Angelina Jolie so fully embodied in "Tomb Raider." The piece points out the delicious excess of Croft's post-training shower scene, complete with visual aides to highlight its best assets. TAKE A LOOK.

Then came the big-top Batman piece, which dissects the gaudy, Robin-birthing circus scene in "Batman Forever," Joel Schumacher's beginning-of-the-end comic book threequel. A major movie of my youth (for better of worse), "Forever" proved quite generous in terms of screen grabs, serving sideshow and close-up realness (okay, "realness" is nowhere in sight, but shut up -- I'm in a "Drag Race" state of mind). For all the Bat-trapeze action, CLICK HERE.