It’s easy to say you grew up in Washington, D.C. It connotes you served time in a city that used to be rough, despite being the central hub of power for the United States. Maybe you lived in the posh Northwest, venturing every so often into Adams Morgan for a night of drunken debauchery and running from panhandlers to catch the last train at midnight. Maybe you were from Northeast, not as nice but filled with charm and proof you were probably working for the government. Or maybe you lived in Southeast/Southwest You probably didn’t, but let’s move on.

If you want to be sure the person you’re talking to grew up inside the 4×4 confines of actual D.C., there’s a simple thing to ask: “Proper or Metro?”

It’s like being wrapped with Wonder Woman’s lasso, injected with sodium pentathol and having your mother stare you down to six inches all rolled into a three-word question. If they hesitate for even a second, the person is a Metro DC native. This isn’t to say they’re not from D.C., but they’re not from inside the District. They likely grew up in the suburbs of Virginia (Alexandria, Arlington, Reston) or Maryland (Bethesda, Silver Spring, Waldorf). A true resident of the District can say without hesitation, “Proper.”

It’s easy to confuse and mislead folks when you say you’re opening soon in D.C. For example, the Alamo Drafthouse, a theater chain mainly based around Texas and known for their eclectic screenings, announced they’re opening a new theater in D.C.*!

*DC meaning McLean, VA!

Per the press release:

One Loudoun Holdings, LLC, a joint venture of Miller and Smith and NORTH AMERICA SEKISUI HOUSE, LLC (NASH) and its retail development partner, Potomac Development Group, LLC, announce today that Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will open a new location at One Loudoun in Loudoun County, Virginia. The 34,000 square foot Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will be the first in the Washington, DC market area. Construction will commence in spring 2012 with a projected opening in spring 2013.

That’s fantastic news, except for the tiny white lie about “the first in Washington, DC market area.” The Alamo Drafthouse has a spot just a half hour from Loudoun in Winchester, VA. This is, of course, splitting hairs about location and the Metro/Proper terminology when there’s no way to get to the Wincester spot by car. At the very least, folks in NOVA can finally say “Loudoun Proper or Metro” to us DC ex-pats when we shamefully enter their theater.

Let’s make this  short and sweet. Consider this an Idiot’s version of the Skandies if the Skandies had a brow lower than the common denominator.

BEST MONOLOGUE: Donal Logue, Shark Night 3D

BEST SEX SCENE: Nicholas Cage/Charlotte Ross, Drive Angry 3D

BEST OPENING: The Loneliest Planet

BEST END OF THE WORLD: Melancholia

BEST USE OF JASON STATHAM: The Mechanic

WORST USE OF JASON STATHAM: 13

BEST PROMOTIONAL SHORT FILMS: Bellflower

BEST FUCKING AROUND THE BUSH: The Student

BEST SHORT: Gumbel

BEST LONGEST RUN AT A THEATER: Tree of Life

BEST SHORTEST RUN ANYWHERE: The Undefeated

BEST POPCORN-NY: Lincoln Center’s. Sorry, Film Forum.

BEST POPCORN-LA: Even not living there, ArcLight caramel corn 4 lyfe.

BEST POPCORN-DC: No winner.

BEST THING EVER: VOD being adopted by more folks so I can quietly rent Fast Five without anyone knowing my secret shame.

BEST REGRET: See above.

BEST POLITICAL COMMERCIAL 2010: See above. Watch it all.

BEST BODY HORROR/PSYCHOSEXUAL FILM BY DAVID CRONENBERG: A Dangerous Method

BEST FINAL SHOT: 

For folks who don’t know the difference between Beltway Politics and Inner/Outer Loops, it really is an easy mistake. Especially if you’re supposed to be covering entertainment news with a political tint for a major national magazine known for its political coverage.

Louis C.K., the man of the month when it comes to releasing his Beacon Theater performance for $5 and leaping into Reddit, was announced as the host for 2012′s Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, DC. The point? “It gives the dinner a bit of an edge,” 2012 RTCA chairman Jay McMichael told Politico. An ‘edge’ has been cautious in DC since the incredibly awesome-awkward hosting performance by Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner where the bookers didn’t realize Dr. Colbert was a persona until he opened his mouth.

That said, the RTCA isn’t the WHCA; or to spell it out further, the Radio and Television Correspondents Association is not the White House Correspondents Association. They’re not connected, not affiliated and the only trait they share is the number of words used to describe each other, if we omit the “and.” This is where Rolling Stone scribe James Sullivan broke the news that Louis C.K. was going to headline the White House Correspondents Dinner! (Except not!)

The original with optional red lines

The original post kinda sorta confused the two associations, which as a simple search into the Google provides this (with added emphasis:)

See! It’s easy to confuse the two! Thankfully, RS managed to correct the error and pretend no one saw anything–they didn’t even have to change the quotes from the RTCA press release! A Christmas miracle if there ever was one.

If nothing says “post-apocalypse” better than an undead monkey’s uncle, then dagnabbit there’s something there to this whole zombies metaphor. Especially when it comes to the explosion of the theme in gaming over the last decade, from the sandbox comic-horror of the Dead Rising franchise to the survival-horror that evolved into Bruckheimer-horror of Resident Evil.

And then came the teaser for Dead Island:

So, why is The Last of Us so gosh-darn different?

The partnership element is something that outbreak/end-of-world genre always toys with–from psychic dogs to sentient computers. It takes the RPG “party” concept and pares it down further from the first-person “squad” element that Left 4 Dead/Left 4 Dead 2 championed.

Game Informer released a “What We Know So Far” that has some interesting plot points (tl;dr it’s The Happening meets too many stoned nights with Nature) that boil down to a symbiotic relationship when dealing with an end.

There’s no father-daughter relationship to explore, but something that tackles The Road if there were worse things than wandering cannibals lurking through the cities. No clue about the actual play style, but the shift over the years from run-’n-gun to survival horror to straight-up survival has been weird to watch for games. In fact, the appeal for something more than going from Point A to Point B and juggling multiple scenarios is something that the Dead Rising franchise handles incredibly well to a frustrating degree. Imagine if Groundhog’s Day revolved around a zombie outbreak and treated zombie fighting with the Bill Murray deadpan and you’d have the core gameplay behind Rising. It tries to be serious (global conspiracy! military! killer post office employees!) but works best when embracing the insanity of a world with zombies–the sequel comes years later and a pay-per-view event, “Terror is Reality,” is basically American Gladiators with zombies as opponents. It still relies heavily on humor and goofball antics to keep players immersed. Us could–and I hope does–change this line-up.

An adult horror story, in the realm of Dead Space, could make for an awesome game. Especially if it kept the option to continue playing if your partner dies and how difficult that world becomes when you’re alone with plant-zombies.

Doing it wrong, Magnolia style!

It was bound to happen. Takeshi Kitano’s latest trip back to the world of shark skin suits, lobbed pinkies and embracing other men the only way Yakuza know how (hint: a shank) opened in New York and Los Angeles last Friday. Well, except it didn’t in New York if you checked Google.

In a twist of inappropriate fate, if you live in New York and search for for Outrage you find this fun, no-star review of Outrage, the 2009 documentary by Kirby Dick about closeted conservative politicians and media personalities playing. Click the trailer link and you’re brought to Kitano’s film about aging Yakuza dealing with the loss of the “ideal” Yakuza.

Check in LA?

Doin' it right, Magnolia style!

Hoo ray! Don’t fret, even if you live in New York and assume you’re about to watch the doc, you can just rent/buy Outrage…er…no, the other Outrage…oh whatever. You can find them both as video-on-demand.

Found while browsing Reddit, like anything worth while. But I’d like to present this special selection of IMDB thanks to the users, who felt the need to craft a guide for parents to ensure their children’s Muppet experience isn’t like the bawdy pun-filled childhood they once experienced.

Some standouts include:

• A muppet swings his arm around, about to throw a bowling ball at the head of a man, who is tied to a chair with a bowling pin on his head, the muppet shouts that his hand is stuck and we see him continue to swing his arm around throughout the movie, until he releases the bowling ball into a man’s stomach; the man falls over and gets up moments later, dazed.
• A man wearing a figure-hugging CGI motion-tracking suit covered with small sensor balls is heard saying, “I’m not done with my balls.”
• A male muppet kisses a chicken muppet.
• A man crushes a can in his hands, angrily.

Junket Questions, though, are another beast entirely. These are the best that the brightest from People, Teen People, Seventeen, Tiger Beat, TV Guide, and other illustrious print/online sites that cover media purely for the SEO dollars. They ask the hard hitting questions for their allotted 45-minute press conference or 25-minute roundtable interview with five other people and the selected talent.

Don’t think it’s real? Look no further than the profile on Cillian Murphy in the Times:

As seriously as Mr. Murphy takes all of his parts, it is hard to imagine how he manages to get through even one of the press junkets that these movies require. When asked to discuss an admittedly inane Timberlake-related point, his eyes clouded over. “That is a junket question,” he said.

Topic dismissed.

When you’re opening your one-man show (Misterman) you may want to focus on that rather than what recently was vomited into theaters (In Time) or whether you’ll don a burlap sack to make a cameo in The Dark Knight Rises.  And it’s not just related to In Time–way back when I was a college kid I was the film editor of the student paper. During the junket for The Wind That Shakes The Barley, I had my pre-arranged time to show up in a conference room at some hotel on Fashion Avenue. There were only five of us:

• Well-Known Junketeer
• Russian Correspondent
• Other Foreign Correspondent
• Some Other Guy Who I Forgot As The Years Went On
• Me

First we had the director, Ken Loach, whom I’d later find out all sorts of fun stories about how he abuses certain British film standards for cash–but that’s a story for another time. Prior to Murphy coming in, the PR rep entered the room and told us, “Hey. So this is a very personal film to Cillian and he would really respect if you didn’t ask any questions about Batman. He can’t say anything and can’t confirm anything. Thanks.”

Translation: Please don’t be a dick. None of you are important enough to break that news. Eat your free pastry and drink your coffee. Thanks.

In walks Cillian Murphy, slips into the chair at the head of this conference room and so begins one of the shortest interviews I’ve ever seen.

“So, in movie, you play serial killer. How you feel?”

Read the above with the Russian accent Mickey Rourke perfected for Iron Man 2. Now repeat it in your head. That’s what everyone in the room, I believe, did as soon as they heard it.

“Excuse me,” Murphy replied. The Russian Correspondent for god knows what looked him dead in the eye and repeated the same question.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“In movie. You play serial killer. You kill lot of people. Red Eye. Cold Mountain. Breakfast on Pluto. Batman. This film. You kill people a lot. How you do?”

After we got through that minor hiccup with a Method response, then came the clincher: “So, how is Batman movie? Going well?”

I’d tell you that he left right there, but instead remained there to stare at the Russian Correspondent, briefly discussed how he enjoyed making this film and then thanked us. I’m proud to say I asked nothing, but instead watched in a stunned silence by the thing that happened before my eyes. Like a car wreck with words, it was a horrifying event but noteworthy for a basic reason:

don’t ever ask junket questions.

This. Only this.

Gumbel pretty much remains the only thing out of this entire year that makes me consistently smile and that I want to rematch, next to Bellflower and Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

So, go eat turkey and drink wine and sleep it off.

Michael Fassbender feeling shame--an all too common issue this year.

The exact point when “body horror” became one of the defining critical tropes around David Cronenberg’s work is hard to place. Ok, it isn’t (Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Shivers etc) but it’s a welcome shift in A Dangerous Method that the horror is kept in a subdued tone compared to, say, if Carl Jung’s dreams were brought to life on screen.

Ok, maybe it isn’t that subdued. Paralleled by carriage rides, Method opens on a hysteric Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) being signed into  Burghölzli hospital where she picques the interest of Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) into trying out the fabled “talking cure” of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Jung struggles between his dislike of the military (“I just look at cocks all day!”) to analyzing his dreams as he takes Sabina under his wing as an assistant while coaxing out the nature of her “humiliation.”

At around this point, it becomes necessary to mention this: it’s sex. Cronenberg lays it out during the breakthrough between Jung and Spielrein when she admits she enjoys being punished and was turned on when, during a walk, he beat the dirt off her jacket.  From here it becomes the Freud show, as we shift into the psychosexual part of what would become psychiatry. What a fun world it is, jumping ahead and showcasing the budding relationship between Freud and Jung, along with the constant underpinning of their rivalry. Cronenberg presents Method as a mix of admiration from Jung to Freud and then yearning from Freud to Jung for someone to legitimize a legacy steeped in mockery and second guessing.  This emotional volleying works between Fassbender and Mortensen since Cronenberg cuts nearly every time a mouth opens to let out retorts and reprimands that come across as a higher brow “No, YOU shut the fuck up, Cockmongler!” But this comes from a interesting bait and switch in that Freud isn’t the main subject of this story–if anything, he’s more of a background figure that Jung searches for acceptance and ultimately gets as tired of the metaphorical cocks as he does the actual ones. Fassbender’s Jung thrives more with Knightley, who literally mugs her way into our hearts and speaks with an accent that sounds like it came from a bowl of Borscht.

The Muggening.

As a foil, Spielrein allows Cronenberg to tap into the kinky sex (whipping! spanking! coat dusting!) that became his trademark. Except this feels like a red herring when dealing with the cigar-and-sex obsessed Freud, especially when discussing how most of his patients fascinated with their anus are neat and orderly.  She exists here to provide Jung with a literal super-ego through his own concepts and her emerging thesis, while Vincent Cassel struts onto the scene to steal his entire arc as Otto Gross, as the Id that convinces Jung to live it up with his nubile S&M patient/assistant.

A friend called this the metatextual Cronenberg film, as it takes all the usual horror, sex and fear and stripped away the make-up and soundtrack, which barely exists in A Dangerous Method. Cronenberg is forcing us to watch the uncomfortable glances of Fassbender from avoiding his wife to overshadowing Freud.

If you choose to ignore that, then accept this second point: you will be making this face for days, if not weeks, to come.

all images lovingly skitch‘d from Apple.