From Jezebel comes the heartwarming story of how actor Justin Long headed off an internet flame war with one of the sweetest internet comments left for a movie critic by an actor, possibly ever. Short version: Michelle Orange wrote a review of Going the Distance for Movieline and had some not nice things to say about Justin Long’s looks, saying:

How a milky, affectless mook with half-formed features and a first day of kindergarten haircut might punch several classes above his weight is a mystery…we are increasingly asked to accept on screen. 

Long read the review and quoted it word for word on national television. Orange was mortified and wrote a response to the events. Long commented on the latter piece, saying:

Michelle, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d get to be in one movie, let alone several over the course of the last ten years – never had any delusions of grandeur. I always wanted to be a theatre actor like my mom, always assuming the movie roles were relegated to the good looking people…Then I started idolizing guys like Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Sam Rockwell, Woody Allen, and Philip Seymour Hoffman – I found myself relating (I hope you’re not wincing at my use of that word now) to them and formulating some wild fantasy of one day pursuing a career in movie acting – if guys that looked like that could do it, I thought, maybe this milky mook could role the dice. So while there’s no defense for my performance in the movie (everyone is obviously entitled to their opinion), I have to say, I’m surprised by the amount of stock you seem to invest in my looks. I absolutely agree with you too, I’d be hard-pressed to hold a candle to even a fraction of Drew’s beauty – in my humble opinion, she’s the most beautiful girl in the world…Maybe you’re frustrated because it so rarely works the other way – I don’t remember the last time I was asked to accept a female romantic lead who was “punching above her weight class” – though it does happen (I just don’t want to name names at the risk of offending – I leave that to the experts)…Regardless, I really meant what I said about your writing – I love film too and I love reading about it – so keep up the good work and I’ll try to pick better projects…Take care and hopefully one day our paths will cross so I can compliment you in person. Until then, best wishes and be proud and confident in your role as a film critic – you’re a damn good one.
-Justin Long

ps I swear to god it’s me and I swear (as emphatically) that I’m not being sarcastic.

You win this battle, Justin. And the battle of life too.

[Side note: I don’t understand writers’ occasional withering fixation on people’s God-given looks. I was reading GQ’s profile of Robert Gibbs’ this weekend which described him as follows: “His 39-year-old face is more like a shield, with an immense forehead and tiny eyes that scarcely radiate. The smile, affable and empty, could be that of a small-town gas-station attendant or a hired assassin.” I wonder how the writer would enjoy being described in similar fashion.]

[NOTE: This article is highly speculative, for entertainment purposes only, and not meant to be taken seriously by anyone]

This year, a major movie studio released a big-budget film starring mostly-unknown actors into theaters everywhere. Based on an already-existing property, the film was visually dazzling and went onto gross over $100 million, but was absolutely obliterated by film critics. One of its biggest problems? A male lead who couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. Of course, I’m describing The Last Airbender, but I fear I may soon also be describing Disney’s upcoming Tron Legacy.

Last night on Twitter I put out the call for responses from people who’d attended Tron Night, a special marketing event in theaters all across the country meant to give people a sneak peak at the film. Jason Seaver linked me to Brian Orndorf’s review of the evening. While Orndorf was mostly dazzled by the proceedings, he did have some choice words to say about the film’s lead actor, Garrett Hedlund:

It’s true that Garrett Hedlund is an enormously limited actor (he’s yet to give a worthwhile performance in anything he’s appeared in), and the footage here reinforces his lack of skill, but the scale of the production is mesmerizing, glazed with a deliriously fitting electro score from Daft Punk.

This jives with other reports I’ve also heard about Hedlund being an absolutely terrible actor. It also jives with my irrationally judgmental take on his acting that I am able to arrive at based on a) his 20-seconds of “acting” in the teaser trailer for Tron Legacy, and b) a brief clip from Tron that was released after Tron Night.

I mean just look at these:

 
In the teaser (screencapped at the head of this post), at the moment he gets tossed the keys, Hedlund has this amateurish puppy dog look of disappointment in his eyes that recalls the skill and tone of my 7th grade performance as Lazar Wolf in our middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof. Likewise, in the Tron footage with Quora, Hedlund looks as though he’s channeling Keanu Reeves from his worst moments in The Matrix…while on speed.

Like Sam Worthington before him, Hedlund was plucked from obscurity and asked to carry a major motion picture costing in excess of $200 million. But whereas Worthington at least has the rugged screen presence to carry him through each major production he manages to get involved with, Hedlund barely registers, and when he does, it’s as the teenage version of Donnie from The Big Lebowski, a child who’s literally wandered into the middle of a movie and wants to know what’s happening, only with none of the kindness sympathy that Buscemi evokes.

Can a movie succeed with a lead that’s completely wooden and unconvincing? I think Disney will do good business, but it’ll be more for the stunning visuals than for a decent story or compelling lead performance. And like any insubstantial meal, Tron Legacy will leave film reviewers like myself feeling temporarily sated but totally empty inside.

Dave Chappelle’s For What It’s Worth is available for FREE in its entirety on Google Video. I re-watched it the other night and still found it incisive and hilarious. While it doesn’t possess the bombast of Dave’s first big special, Killing Them Softly, Chappelle is wizened and more trenchant in his cultural criticisms. It takes awhile to get going and the pop cultural references are woefully outdated, but the latter half is sheer comedic brilliance. Check it out.

Steve Safran has a marvelous takedown of all the hand-wringing over Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity:

Within minutes of the conclusion of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, the articles were flying. Most simply reported on the event. Others decided the way to go was to focus on the numbers in attendance, the audience being too liberal, or how the rally “won’t really change anything at all.” In any case, we get some excellent examples of the usual ways critics go about their jobs. After a rally that criticized the media for creating fear and artifice, some journalists apparently decided to help Jon Stewart prove his point. So there are lots of attempts at trying to pigeonhole the show. And if there’s one thing some journalists can’t stand, it’s ambiguity.

My respect for Dustin Rowles, who created the film site Pajiba, went up tenfold when I met him at IFFBoston this year, then another tenfold when I read his recent reviews for Jackass 3D and Saw 3D. From his Jackass 3D review:

Approximately mid-way through Jeff Tremaine’s chef d’oeuvre, Jackass 3D, a severely obese man dressed in only clear plastic wrap saddled an elliptical machine and began an ordinary exercise routine. As the minutes passed, however, this beached-whale of a gentleman began to perspire. Soon, his diaphoresis was collected in a small plastic container, and another man who goes by the name of Steve O retrieved a Bounty paper towel and wiped this corpulent man down, careful to sweep the towel between the many folds of adipose before, finally, collecting the wetty excretions that had amasssed in between this man’s buttocks during his exertion. Afterwards, Mr. O carefully wrung the contents of the paper towel into the container and imbibed in this man’s fecal-flecked perspiration, only to be so overcome by the putrid savoriness of the man’s sudor that he expelled the contents of his stomach, triggering others in the room to regurgitate the morning’s buffet of eggs and Hollandaise sauce. As this took place, I sat rapt with attention, choking back my own dry heaves, applauding the bravery of the young man so dedicated to his craft that he would drink another man’s excretions.This is a new world order, and Jackass is our master.

From his Saw 3D review, aptly titled “A Series of Understatements“:

Another thing: After he was diagnosed with cancer, Mr. Kramer might’ve been better served in fulfilling his bucket list instead of meddling in the lives of others. With the proper diet and self-care, he probably could’ve extended his life for a few months, or even years, instead of meeting his untimely death. A power saw is such an unfortunate way to go out. Nevertheless, that Mr. Kramer would leave a tape recording in his stomach providing instructions to his accomplices, in addition to a series of tapes and envelopes he left to both an accomplice and his ex-wife, leads one to imagine that Mr. Kramer perhaps had too much time on his hands. Who thinks of all these things? Mr. Kramer must have had a very skilled trusts and estates lawyer to assist him in these matters.

 Update: Beth Perkins also directs me to Pajiba’s review of A Serbian Film:

This is it. This is the limit that a film can go. It will fucking break you. And the strangest part is … it’s brilliant. It takes torture porn to places it never, ever should go. It’s the ultimate torture porn — to the nth degree. It punts torture porn into Friday of next week. It eats Irish torture porn babies like cubesteak. And by pushing things that far, it completely and utterly eradicates the genre. Torture porn is dead, and A Serbian Film raped its corpse. 

The New York Times (via John Gruber) has an article about the therapeutic potential that the iPad holds for disabled people. The accompanying video is a must-watch.

This short, simple field report, with its sharp editing and plaintive piano score, was transcendent. For some reason, watching this boy unlock an iPad for the very first time…well, you’ll see. It got pretty dusty for me.

Despite my occasional disagreements with Jace Lacob, I think he’s one of the finest TV writers working today. He’s just written a new piece for the Daily Beast chronicling the AMC’s rise, beginning with the premiere of Broken Trail in 2006. The article is notable for including quotes from interviews with AMC President Charlie Collier and Senior VP of Programming Joel Stillerman:

“The greatest challenge for us comes with managing change,” Collier said. “Because once you have success, the drug is to replicate and continue to do the same thing.”

“The amazing benefit of having Mad Men and Breaking Bad is pretty evident,” added Stillerman. “The only downside, to the extent that there is one, is where do you go from there? You have to make sure that we are not the channel that used to have Mad Men and Breaking Bad…”