Complete the Debate Sentence

The debate tonight was so __________________ that I should have been watching _____________ instead. 

NYFF: "The Bay" An Eco-conscious 'Slither'

Michael C. here, returned from having my skin properly crawled at the NYFF’s Midnight Movie series.

Barry Levinson's The Bay is the type of movie you would get if Al Gore decided to forget the whole PowerPoint documentary thing and made a movie where global warming boils everyone’s brain and brings on a zombie apocalypse. Levinson says he was first approached to make a documentary about industrial pollution killing Chesapeake Bay, but opted to direct The Bay instead. The premise involves a breed of sea lice - which look like those bed bugs you always see magnified in pest control ads - mutating into a creepy crawly menace after they find their way into the toxic chemical soup that is currently the Chesapeake.

Levinson says he and screenwriter Michael Wallach worked hard to keep the story grounded in reality. “85% based on fact” is the figure he used. Considering the majority of the film concerns itself with mutated ocean parasites eating Marylanders from the inside out that is not a comforting figure. At one point during the film a CDC official is presented with the image of one of these isopods grown to the size of a Doberman Pinscher. The CDC official can’t believe his eyes. “Tell me that’s Photoshopped!” It was found “trying to chew its way through the side of a submarine,” he is informed.  

“That’s a real picture,” Levinson helpfully explained during the Q & A following the movie. The story about the sub? Also true. It was as if Danny Boyle came out on stage following a screening of 28 Days Later and said, “Oh, yeah. Scientists are totally working on a rage virus,” and then produced on stage an infected monkey, straining on its leash trying to bite audience members.

So, yeah. Disturbing.

Beyond its unsettling basis in fact, The Bay is a modest, well-crafted creature feature that breathes new life into the found footage device. Levinson describes his technique as “an archeological dig” which culls video from every available source to reconstruct the timeline of the outbreak. In classic disaster movie fashion we follow the stories of several characters over the course of the day, and Levinson and the cast of unknowns do a first-rate job simulating amateur footage without calling attention to the gimmick.

The Bay may disappoint casual viewers who wander in looking for the usual horror movie thrills. The trailer sells it as a sort of zombie movie, but the infected do little more than moan and beg for medical attention. The sea lice could potentially make for terrific movie monsters, but Levinson refuses to crank up the gross-out moments to Fangoria levels. By keeping it all on a more plausible scale The Bay prevents us retreating behind the comfort of familiar movie beats to avoid the story's implications. As a horror film The Bay is a solid entry. A scrappy low budget Contagion with sea lice instead of germs. As a piece of subversive environmental agitprop, on the other hand, it is scary effective. B

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Barbara Cold War Slow Burn
Our Children's Death March 
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The Edge of Linky

Geekologie What if Disney villains had won? Fun illustrations of our favorites including Ursula & Maleficent 
Pajiba reads my mind on the Olivia Newton-John / John Travolta Christmas Album !!! Well they read my mind except the part where the article is all obsessed about John Travolta's fake hair instead of Sandy & Danny reunited again! 
Film Dr 10 Notes on Looper and the reciprocal nature of violence
Fleshbot *NSFW* Daniel Radcliffe gets naked for The F Word and Kill Your Darlings. After this and Equus... maybe he's telling us he's a naturist? 

Gawker Liam Neeson does his naked part for charity on "Ellen"
Badass Digest interesting piece on the splintering of pop culture. Film may no longer rule, but neither does anything else.
Playbill Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, the musically inclined feature that starred Frances McDormand, Amy Adams and Lee Pace may be headed for the Broadway musical stage 
In Contention Beasts of the Southern Wild won't be honored at the SAG Awards who have ruled it ineligible. This could put a dent in Quvenzhané Wallis Best Actress hopes if you ask me since SAG has historically liked little girl performances even more than Oscar.

Team Experience
Pop Elegantarium Alexa loves Looper and Looper paintings by the director's brother
Stale Popcorn Glenn kicks off a miniseries 31 Horrors with Cat People (1982)
MNPP JA loves Barry Levinson's The Bay 
Serious Film Michael survives ocean storms with The Life of Pi 

Exit Music
The hilarious Rebel Wilson sang from her "breast voice" for her Pitch Perfect audition

Secret Messages: You Forgot Something

Secret Messages From the Movies Returns for Season 2

Can you guess the movie? Bonus points if you know what was forgotten.

"Into the Woods" Seeks Investors & Very Famous Witch

This happened Monday. (Thanks to Julia for alerting.) How crazy is that?

A live reading of Stephen Sondheim's wondrous "Into the Woods" shortly after its Shakespeare in the Park summer (with only Donna Murphy as The Witch transferring from Central Park) to raise interest/funding for Rob Marshall's film version. He's surely hoping to redeem himself post-Nine which angered critics and lost a ton of money at the box office and return to his Chicago heyday. But I swear to god if he makes up some stupid framing device where it's all a dream/fantasy...

I don't know about you but the idea of Patrick Wilson & Cheyenne Jackson as the eternally unsatisfied but self-satisfied Princes is to die for. The other names that most excite me here are Nina Arianda, Victoria Clark, Christine Baranski,  Anna Kendrick, Megan Hilty,... oh wait, I'd just type up every name! 

How do you read "Into the Woods" -- Did they talk/sing through their table read, stand beside the piano for Hollywood moneybags or was it very very short? Broadway.com confirms that this reading did happen as planned though the film version would obviously *sniffle* get an entirely new cast. (We once had a very robust discussion of who should play whom right here at The Film Experience.) Many of those names listed above are famous and accomplished and have golden statues of some sort and are amazing vocalists but you know they'll be thrown over in a second for bigger names with weaker chops.

Streep will probably get the role made famous by Bernadette Peters, and later played by Vanessa Williams and Donna Murphy

Meryl Streep is already reportedly in talks about the most coveted role in any production: The Witch (who raises Rapunzel as her daughter and sings "The Last Midnight" and the show's thematic anthem "Children Will Listen"). That sucks for the great great Broadway diva Donna Murphy who, to date, has only ever had one movie role worthy of her (The Witch... who coincidentally raises Rapunzel!... in Tangled) though she gets frequent tiny roles. But that's how it works for stage-to-film transfers. And Meryl does have a wondrous vocal instrument; I can and have listened to her tracks from Postcards from the Edge, Prairie Home Companion and Death Becomes Her on loop (Mamma Mia not so much). If rumors that Marshall originally wanted Toni Collette for Roxy in Chicago are true -- and why wouldn't they be cuz damn if she isn't great in musicals -- can't we throw her in this movie somewhere?