YARR, THIS MOVIE BE BOOTYLICIOUS: I swear Elvis Mitchell makes me dizzy sometimes. In his Pirates of the Caribbean review, the pop culture referencing gets ridiculous (but in a good way, I think):

Gargling his consonants before spitting them out, Mr. Depp's pirate suggests a man who has spent either a great deal of time with Keith Richards after a tour of the Rebel Yell factory, or a man who has spent a great deal of time watching Mike Myers do his Keith Richards impression. Either way, festooned with dreadlocks and braids in his hair and beard, and wearing enough industrial-strength mascara to indicate that Captain Jack was probably influenced by another King of the Wild Frontier — Adam Ant — Mr. Depp offers a ratty, bedeviled turn that keeps the picture in motion during that extended period when there's not much plot involved.

But when this protracted state of narrative lassitude suddenly shifts, "Pirates" brings in enough story line for several movies. And in the words of Bart Simpson, it takes a knife-wielding maniac to show us the way.

Seriously, is Elvis taking Dennis Miller's medication? Maureen Dowd's? Did he really reference both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and "what Nicole Kidman might be like if she didn't spend so much time coughing tragically into handkerchiefs in an equally tragic pursuit of important roles" in writing this?

I am an Elvis Mitchell fan. Duh. I mean, how can you not love a critic who takes time out from his 'Pootie Tang' review to compare Bob Costas' relative merit in that movie and 'Baseketball'?

YOU COULD BE A PART-TIME MODEL: Matt's right -- Entourage is just going through the success-porn motions right now, with even lovable loser Johnny Drama's TV success cresting and Vince's career seemingly, inexplicably, off of fraud hold (though Matt gives too much credit to the Elvis Mitchell cameo, since the show didn't convey any sense that it knows why Elvis Mitchell is so cool; the Brian Grazer cameo outside the Grill was much more knowing). John from Cincinnati, which I fought everybody on this blog to claim as my own, has packed about an episode's worth of plot twists into six or seven episodes, but has counterbalanced that by packing six or seven episodes' worth of totally random screaming and wooden acting into each episode. Big Love, and I know I'll get some dissent here, just seems like it's content to be a mediocre show, taking its cues from its fervently beige leading family and moderating both its humor and its conflict so that it is only pleasantly subversive.

To me, there is no doubt that the best show on HBO right now is Flight of the Conchords. Yes, I find it annoying that so much of the material comes straight from the duo's stand-up, but the deeper they get into the season -- and the further from being able to sketch literally around the songs -- the better the show becomes, I think. I find myself repeatedly chuckling at the exaggerated cultural differences (the Americans mistaking "dead" for "did" and "Brett" for "Britt"; the Heger-like awe and hatred of Australians), the reversal of the characters' expected roles (lumbering band-leader Jemaine, who looks like what you'd get if you spliced together the genes of Mick Jagger and Eric Bogosian, is flighty and passive-aggressive; frail Brett is sensible and aloof), and just the dumb exchanges between the leads and the supporting cast (especially Mal, or perhaps Mel, the band's lone fan). The show is not brilliant, but it's consistently amusing and it may be the only reason not to cancel HBO until Curb returns.

JOIN HANDS AND HEARTS AND VOICES; VOICES, HEARTS AND HANDS: Nobody puts Elvis Mitchell in a corner: today's Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights review is one of his best.

Once again, Mitchell invokes the glory that is Showgirls.

POOTIE TANG MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN MENTIONED THREE TIMES: Well, it looks like Prof. Elvis Mitchell -- whom we've always loved here -- is not appreciated by the hoitie-toities at Fair Hahvahd, where he's teaching two once-a-week courses on Thursdays this semester -- one where you have to watch Bill Cosby's films and one "designed to acquaint those daring enough to immerse themselves in the discipline of film criticism" -- in other words, Intro To Elvis.

Well, at least he now has another job to fall back on. And his Kiehl's product.

MEET THE NEW GIRL: The NYT, having nudged Elvis Mitchell out the door, today welcomes the Manohla Dargis from the LA Times with this rave on Collateral. If nothing else, it appears, Dargis is going to be giving us a healthy portion of context with each review.

Also noteworthy in the reviews: apparently, it's possible to have a movie with Kathy Bates and Holly Hunter that, nevertheless, still sucks.

And one last note: while no longer listed on the site, Elvis' archive is still available.

HALL OF FAVES: As Adam mentioned below, Michael Wilbon's election to "ALOTT5MA fave" status went down yesterday, marking the first time in history a person, thing, or abstraction was nominated but failed to take the honor (though it's going to be touch-and-go when "ennui" comes up later this year). This is largely because until Adam thought to ask the staff about Wilbon yesterday, the enshrinement process went: (1) fiat; (2) buyer's remorse. Let's face it, "ALOTT5MA Fave" status is a dubious honor bestowed, with rare exceptions, upon people or things that aren't really anybody's favorite anything. I dare you to come up with a less-impressive or more haphazard Hall of Fame than this roster of everyone that any of us has ever called an "ALOTT5MA fave":

Filmed Entertainment:
JJ Abrams
Amy Adams
Naveen Andrews
Kristen Chenoweth
Cruel Intentions
Anna Faris
Will Ferrell
Victor Garber
Jennifer Garner
Neil Patrick Harris
Shonda Rhimes
Aaron Sorkin
James Spader
Aimee Teegarden

Haberdashery:
Tim Gunn
Kara Saun

Games of Skill or Chance:
Bobby Abreu
Pat Burrell
Shaquille O'Neal
Stephanie Rosenthal

Ingestion:
Mark Bittman
Anthony Bourdain
Chik-Fil-A

Commentariat:
Jim DeRogatis
Roger Ebert
Tony Kornheiser
Elvis Mitchell
Kelefeh Sanneh

Childhood:
Kavya Shivashankar

Tonal Pleasantry:
Frenchie Davis
Kathleen Edwards
Verdine "Sexual Chocolate" White

And while we're clearing up administrative matters, you have probably heard us refer to this department or that bureau, and wondered, "where can I get an ALOTT5MA internal directory?" The answer is here, right now, with the following list of organizational responsibilities or expertises adopted, appropriated, or assigned:

Chicago Bureau Chief: Alex
Pre-1990s Heavy Metal Bureau Chief: Isaac
Japanese Monomania Desk: The Pathetic Earthling
Personal Health/Exotic Disease Desk: Isaac
Repressive Regimes Desk: All
Urophilia Desk: Adam
Dead Wrestler Series Editor: Adam
Halls of Fame Series Editor: Alex
Muktuk Series Editor: Adam
Things that Are Not Suitable for TV Expert: The Pathetic Earthling
19 Entertainment Modus Operandi Expert: KCosmo
Astronomy Bug: The Pathetic Earthling

ETA: Just to be clear, all faves and titles are culled from our recorded archives. Not making any editorial decisions here; just collating pre-existing data.

MORE GIANT THAN THE REST: The blogosphere is saddened today -- well, I am -- that our colleague in the online world David Mills has closed down his Undercover Black Man blog to focus on his tv writing career, which already has included creating Kingpin and serving as a writer for NYPD Blue, The Wire, The Corner, Homicide: Life on the Streets and creating the character of Rocket Romano on ER.

Among the best aspects of his blog were his pieces on race and society, whether his series on Giant Negroes in the Media or Misidentified Black People or his from-back-in-the-day interviews with Chris Rock, Oprah Winfrey, Elvis Mitchell and others. [Thing I didn't know until looking at his Wiki page: David did the interview with Sister Souljah that brought her to Bill Clinton's attention.] The Giant Negroes series was typical of the solid cultural/historical understanding he brought to the table -- see The Vice President and His Mulatto, or his roundtable on the N-word, for example.

[His Vox blog is a remarkable resource, including the Dratch-Fey "Wicked" skit from their Second City days.]

Alan Sepinwall has more. David has commented here in the past, and he will always be welcome. In the meantime, we all look forward to Treme, the New Orleans-based series he and David Simon are hoping to present on HBO in 2010 ...

SUITS SUCK: Just when Entourage comes close to losing me (between the "Dude Looks Like A Lady" plot last week and this week's interminable "Johnny and Turtle's Quest For Weed" plot, darn close to the edge), and starts to be repeating itself (yes, Billy's a loon, we get it already), it manages to score big points with a cameo from ALOTT5MA fave Elvis Mitchell, who really ought to find something better to do than appear on Entourage.

IT TAKES A KNIFE-WIELDING MANIAC TO SHOW US THE WAY: David Mills, the Undercover Black Man and television writer/producer of much repute himself, interviews ALOTT5MA fave, former NYT film critic Elvis Mitchell, in which he discusses Pauline Kael, why he didn't write for SNL, and when he knew that writing for the New York Times gave him a real opportunity to shape the culture:

You know how I became aware of that? I was working on a CNN show, “Entertainment Weekly,” and there were things I wanted to try to do. Like I wanted to do a piece on how there were no black dramatic hour-long shows. And I remember getting into an argument with the producer of the show. “What about ‘Homicide’?” “[That’s] a couple of guys amongst a mostly white cast.” “What about ‘NYPD Blue’? What about ‘ER’?” “It’s the same thing.”

But when you say something like that in the New York Times, the entire journalistic world pays attention to it. Nothing ever goes away once you write it. It becomes sort of a constant part of that cultural conversation. So I was aware of that as an African American at the New York Times – there’s an impact that I could have.

That “Amores Perros” review – One of the things I’ve always wanted to do in any review I write is try to convey my feelings, especially when there’s a real excitement about a new talent.** That was a great year, 2000. That was the year of “Amores Perros,” that was the year of “In the Mood for Love,” that was the year of “George Washington.” That was a great year to have as my first year as a film critic at the Times. I just happened to be there when the wheel went ’round, really. I was so thrilled to get to write about that movie.

Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview.

** "'Amores' feels like the first classic of the new decade, with sequences that will probably make their way into history . . . In his very first film Mr. Gonzalez Inarritu makes the kind of journey some directors don't, or can't, travel in an entire career."

JOHNNY, ARE YOU NERVOUS YET? Voting is still open in the first annual B.S. Report Awards for the best performances in Bill Simmons' quite excellent podcasts. Even for the non-sports fans out there, episodes like the recent visit of SNL head writer Seth Meyers are well worth your time, and I am so happy that John "JackO" O'Connell (Complex Litigation) is kicking Cousin Sal's ass in the voting.

(All shows available for free via iTunes, and most recent shows via this link.)

Right now, I'm subscribed to that, This American Life, the New Yorker's Campaign Trail, Sound Opinions and KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell. Y'all?

ELVIS MITCHELL, WHERE ARE YOU? In the midst of a pretty rave-worthy Miami Vice review, the NYT's Tony Scott unleashes one hell of an odd analogy:

[Colin] Farrell, however, is a movie star only in the sense that Richard Gephardt is president of the United States. He's always looked good on paper, and he's picked up some endorsements along the way -- from Oliver Stone, Joel Schumacher and Terrence Malick, among others -- but somehow it has never quite happened. Here he squints and twitches to suggest emotion and slackens his lower lip to suggest lust, concern or deep contemplation, but despite his good looks he lacks that mysterious quality we call presence.

If you have a chance to see a movie this weekend, what will it be? (Alternately, fill out the 2004-8 Democratic presidential contenders' Hollywood doppelgänger list.)

I BELIEVE THAT ALSO PUTS IT AHEAD OF JAMES CAMERON'S AQUAMAN: Box office estimates have Pirates of the Caribbean II: YARR! setting a new record of $132 million over the first three days, smashing Spidey's $114M.

To me, the reason is simple: unlike The Da Vinci Code, Superman Returns and even X^3, this movie promised to just be fun, with no pretense to Deep Meaning or metaphorical significance. (And, according to the reviews, it mostly delivers.) And unlike Tom Cruise in MI3, Johnny Depp is creepy in a good way.

You can read my review of the original film via this link, and Elvis Mitchell's boffo rave here ("in the words of Bart Simpson, it takes a knife-wielding maniac to show us the way.") Matt has some thoughts on Pirates II just a little bit below this post.

YES, WE STILL MISS ELVIS MITCHELL: But in the meantime, Tony Scott and Manohla Dargis are blogging from Cannes.

HERO TO MOST: Variety is reporting today that NYT film critic A.O. Scott, a book critic just a few years ago (and whose audition for the NYT job mostly consisted of this Scorsese essay on Slate.com), is about to be named the Times' first Chief Movie Critic since Janet Maslin.

I've got no quarrel with Tony, but the cumulative fallout is devastating: apparently, our hero, Elvis Mitchell, is leaving the building as a result.

No one references quite like him, and a wise newspaper would snatch him up swiftly.

A REVIEW OF A MOVIE I VAGUELY REMEMBER: There are places all over the web, like here and here, where you can read reviews of movies the reviewers haven’t seen. Adam, however, frowns on such shoddy journalism. Accordingly, since – with the Eszterhas book and the Elvis Mitchell reference below – Showgirls is in the news again, I give you this Review of a Movie I Vaguely Remember: Showgirls.

Showgirls, which I believe I saw in 1993 or maybe 1995, was directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, the message of this sentence being “beware of joint Dutch-Hungarian art.” Their thesis was that in Las Vegas, there is a three-tiered hierarchy for women: (3) Stripper; (2) Topless Chorus Girl; and (1) Nearly-Topless Featured Revue Dancer. Actually, their thesis is that there is a fourth tier (hooker), and that each of the other three tiers is just a variant of the fourth, with the difference being the quality of the clientele and the subtlety of the commercial transaction. Clearly Eszterhoeven has forgotten about Tier 5: Korean Blackjack Dealer.

Anyway, our heroine, Jessie (Elizabeth Berkeley), is a doe-eyed dancer with big hair and acid-wash who gets dumped in Vegas by some cad, but that’s okay, because she’s on her way to the top. Some (ahem) big-hearted stripper takes her in. Jessie herself becomes a stripper, which is how her path first crosses with Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), a mogul with an infinity pool, and his doll Gina (Gina Gershon), Las Vegas’s most celebrated dancer. Really, is there such thing? It’s not like they’re Danny Gans or anything. Gina buys Agent Cooper a lapdance from Jessie, and let’s say it goes very well, according to MacLachlan’s law-school-musical facial expressions.

At this point in the movie, I killed myself.

Jessie, of course, dances her way to the top while possibly compromising her principles on the way. She catches a lot of flack for dancing like a stripper, and I believe she makes out with Gina. Gina may be wearing a top hat at the time. I’m a little foggy on this, because, remember, already I killed myself. At some point in the movie, Eszterhas – or is it Renny Harlin? Or Gregg Allman? – shows up at a party and beats up Jessie’s stripper friend. In the end Jessie zzz snore wha? Is it over?

Listen, I love a good bad movie. I think Cruel Intentions is just about the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. But I had two serious problems with Showgirls. First, I was never sure if it was over and was going to fade to credits. Damn you, Joe Eszterhas! Second, the casting was just wrong. Berkeley can play naked but she can’t play sexy, and I realize I’m in the minority on this but I think Gershon has a cleft palate. And MacLachlan was just distracting – I kept thinking “isn’t he gay?” I’m not saying the movie is not a pleasant enough diversion if you’re drunk and it’s on AMC, but just don’t spend any money on this one.

MOM, PULL OVER. TELL HIM THE TRUTH. TELL HIM HOW OLD HE IS: Does NYT film critic Elvis Mitchell, lover of obscure music and massive simile pileups, have a crush on eternally-emerging actress Zooey Deschanel of Almost Famous/The Good Girl fame?

Low Culture investigates.

(P.S. Is there an easy way to remember which one is Zooey Deschanel and which one is Maggie Gyllenhaal?)

BOYCOTT CUBA: And the laughs just keep on coming. Not from Boat Trip; from the reviews of Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr's latest.

From Roger Ebert:

"Boat Trip" arrives preceded by publicity saying many homosexuals have been outraged by the film. Now that it's in theaters, everybody else has a chance to join them. Not that the film is outrageous. That would be asking too much. It is dim-witted, unfunny, too shallow to be offensive, and way too conventional to use all of those people standing around in the background wearing leather and chains and waiting hopefully for their cues. This is a movie made for nobody, about nothing.

Elvis Mitchell:

"Boat Trip," which opens nationwide today, is a series of flashing semaphores that signal its dreariness. It has the most exhausted collection of song clichés this side of a Time-Life oldies collection, from James Brown's "I Feel Good" all the way to the eventual cover of "I Will Survive." What's missing from this motley medley is a tune by Cuba Gooding Sr.: "Everybody Plays the Fool."

The junior Gooding has shown himself to be a game actor, and he is fearless at throwing his entire being into pictures that seem to exist to prove that he can be in something worse than the last movie you saw him in. If "Boat Trip" were screened on a cruise ship, most of the passengers would be dog-paddling back to shore.

"Boat Trip" is more tiresome and dumb than actually bad.

The Orange County Register:

OK, Mort Nathan, wherever you are, here's the deal: I have about $2,000 in checking, a couple of long-term, high-yield CDs and a brutalized 401k account with roughly the same net worth as Tom Cruise's haircut. It's all yours if you promise never, EVER to step behind a movie camera again.

Then again, maybe I have nothing to worry about. The work offers won't exactly be pouring in once the general public sees what a lowbrow, oversexed, witless bore you've made of "Boat Trip," starring Cuba Gooding Jr. The things you do with the double entrendre are just appalling, pal. If I ever a hear woman tell her masseuse, "I want you to go really deep this time" again, please kill me.

Says the Washington Times:

If Oscar statues were animate, the one belonging to Cuba Gooding Jr. would have jumped off its mantel perch and gone AWOL a long time ago.

Just take a quick look at the guy's post-"Jerry Maguire" resume: the unintentionally funny "Instinct," the maudlin "Men of Honor," the preposterous "Chill Factor." And Disney's "Snow Dogs" — you forgot about that turkey, didn't you?

Enter "Boat Trip," Mr. Gooding's latest vehicle.

The time for diplomacy has passed. The time for action has come.

Someone needs to go on a mission of mercy. Someone needs to stage an intervention and rescue that supporting-actor trophy from a lifetime of shame and ill repute.

As far as View From The Top is concerned . . . well, let The Oregonian's Shawn Levy preview what's to come later today:

If the new I-wanna-be-a-stewardess picture "View From the Top" were an airplane, it would blow up on takeoff. If it were an airline meal, it would infect you with E. coli. If it were a parachute, it would be riddled with holes.

I'm not here to tell you that "View From the Top" is moviemaking at its absolute worst. Any veteran critic knows that there's always a bottom beneath the bottom you think you've hit. But I am here to tell you that this picture comes so close to the absolute worst that I could swear I could feel the bottom with the tip of my big toe while watching it.

STRAIGHT. TRIPPIN'. BOO! Before continuing this blog's review of the critical digs Bringing Down the House is receiving, candor and my internal sense of objectivity compels me to first note that not all the reviews are negative.

Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, whose opinions I respect a great deal, says the movie plays with stereotypes without reinforcing them, and calls the movie "a gut-busting, stereotype-busting slapstick comedy, returning Martin to the antic highs of All of Me and The Man With Two Brains and elevating Latifah to goddess status, that is, if we all agree that goddess outranks queen." There are other positive reviews out there, for sure, and let's be clear: Steve Martin is still funny --

-- in general, that is. Just not here. Let's start in our nation's capital, where Rita Kempley of the Washington Post says:

It is the rare film that is capable of offending both Trent Lott and Al Sharpton, but Bringing Down the House gets the job done, and how. An embarrassment for all concerned, this witless, odd-couple comedy slings separate but equal gibes at blacks and whites . . . and still manages to ridicule gays and Hispanics. Why was this picture made?

And what to make of Queen Latifah's involvement in this sorry debacle? Since she has acknowledged cleaning up the crude script, she clearly read the thing and agreed to play a hip-hop Aunt Jemima anyway.

Over to Salon.com, where you'll have to sit through a brief ad to read Charles Taylor write:

Bringing Down the House is for everyone who finds the idea of a white person saying "bitchslapped" hilarious. The movie appears to have been made for an audience that considers the idea of black people terribly exotic. And just who, nowadays, is that, some 30 years after the birth of rap and with hip-hop style everywhere in pop culture? Bringing Down the House seems to be aimed at people who want to consider black style in dress or speech or music some sort of passing fad -- you know, one of those crazy things the kids do before they settle down and start wearing Dockers and listening to Dave Matthews.

Says the Orange County Register:

It's the kind of sitcom-caliber trifle that's designed with only the squarest segments of society in mind - for example, folks who still get a kick out of seeing a middle-age white actor don high-tops and jive like Curtis Blow. . . . The single most astounding thing about Bringing Down the House is that Tim Allen didn't snag this role first.

Michael Medved, of all people, gets all worked up:

Bringing Down the House tries for laughs rather than social commentary, but still unleashes an avalanche of controversial messages, all of them bad. The most offensive aspect of this lame excuse for a comedy involves the most one-dimensional racial stereotyping this side of Birth of a Nation. All black characters happen to be emotional, uneducated, over-sexed, violent, warm-hearted, hip, cool and connected to the criminal underclass. All white characters are uptight, repressed, clumsy, materialistic, shallow, cruel and incurably racist.

To the Las Vegas Mercury:

When the two get together, there's enough bad, sitcomy racial humor to fill 20 seasons of "What's Happening," the difference here being that even Roger and Rerun could generate more laughter than this groaner. . . . It's sort of Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets You've Got Mail meets Sinbad's Houseguest meets dog shit.

The San Francisco Chronicle:

[T]his is strictly formula stuff, made worse by an utterly careless depiction of the characters, whose road to friendship is neither believable nor remotely accounted for. Most of the jokes turn on racial stereotypes, which the movie presents without wit -- and certainly without truth. . . . .. In some early scenes, Charlene [Latifah] is presented as a kind of vulgar beast whose mere presence is considered appalling. The film's pretense may be that it's reproaching white racism, but there are moments here that seem to cross the line -- where Latifah's bigness and blackness are presented as inherently monstrous.

Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times calls the movie "You've Got Bail" and, while loving Queen Latifah's "charisma, wit and independence", notes with regret:

Like the film Housesitter, which also starred Mr. Martin, Bringing Down the House doesn't have the nerve to follow through on what seems like its romantic-comedy setup. Instead, Peter is hung up on his ex-wife, Kate (Jean Smart). In one scene Charlene teaches a drunken Peter to be more of a man — find his inner Treach — and get his ex-wife back. She puts his hand on her breast and the picture becomes a sexual version of a minstrel show. This makes no sense. The movie gropes toward a cheap laugh to shore up its lack of courage.

Finally, AICN really brings down the house here, pleading:

“WHY?” Why Queen Latifah, why?

Sure, Steve Martin I can understand. With his recent string of bad movies it’s obvious that the Three Amigos curse has finally caught up to him as it did Martin Short and Chevy Chase long ago. . . .

But Queen Latifah . . . you?!

Your name means something. You represent strong black women everywhere. Like Ice Cube, you’re much less a good actor as you are a charismatic personality . . . and what a personality, indeed! It garnered you a much-deserved Oscar nomination for your outstanding work in Chicago. Girl, you have arrived!

Which makes this situation all the more baffling. Frankly, Bringing Down the House is a movie I’d be disappointed to know you rented, let alone starred in and executive produced(!!).

I think. . . .that maybe. . . . I don’t really want to know the answer. *sigh*

Considering that there was a Civil War movie with Robert E. Lee as the hero (Gods & Generals) released during Black History Month, I think I might have an answer as to reason Bringing Down the House was released after…

Mercy.

And on that note, let's move on. After all, Gwyneth Paltrow's View From The Top, which finished filming in March 2001 (before Paltrow filmed The Royal Tenenbaums) and was first scheduled for release on April 19, 2002 (then October 2002, then January 2003), is now only weeks away. . . .