Movie Reviews and Whatnot...

The Year In Armond White

2011-01-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

Oh Armond White, you petulant, arrogant, sniveling, self-absorbed ball of film criticism and vitriol--where would we be without you? No wonder The New York Press keeps you around: you're a maverick, one of the few clearheaded minds in a world populated by mainstream "shill-critics" and a brainwashed mob of illiterate adults and their unthinking, consumerist children. Keep dropping those truth-bombs on us, man. You're the Glenn Beck to Comedy Central's Jon Stewart; the Rush Limbaugh to NPR; the Michael Bay to Chris Nolan; the Nickelback to Radiohead. I'd be willing to bet that there's a placard on your wall that says "I Received my Master of Fine Arts from Columbia U., bitch. Roger Ebert can go suck it. Long live Pauline Kael!", and you'd be totally justified for having one. Man, you're telling it like it IS, just like Pauline did (except without the prose or the talent), railing against that pompous face of populist film criticism, Roger Ebert (again, without the prose or the talent).

Selected reviews from 2010

White compares Aronofsky's 'Black Swan' to...Kanye West's 'Runaway'?: According to our man Armond, Aronofsky's got "ethnic denial" because he deigned not to provide a racial background for his main character, but audiences won't care and will love "Black Swan" because they're white and insipid. Kanye West is the real filmmaker though--his music videos approach the genius of R. Kelly's "Trapped in a Closet." He doesn't use ballet as the background for a genre movie, he uses ballet to visualize his lyrics. He "dares offer proof that black artists...indeed have an unconscious in which dreams and nightmares intermix". Would that more writers were as deep as Armond White...
White compares 'Never Let Me Go' to 'Easy A' (I think he's trying to be David Edelstein): Short version: 'Never Let Me Go,' a story about clones being raised only to be killed off and used as organ donors, sucks because it is depressing and totally not fun or full of excitement. 'Easy A,' in which a high school girl learns that lying for popularity can ruin not only her reputation but other peoples' as well, celebrates "the screwed-up identity politics that make high school torturous." White writes with so many contradictions, he must be brilliant! It's like he can understand all sides of an issue. Or something.
White reviews 'Let Me In,' ironically only managing to grasp the "on-the-surface message" while completely missing the actual ideas being presented: Summary: 'Let Me In' is f'd up and unsettling because of the moral ambiguity present in the characters and their decisions---the Armond White conclusion--->despite all the themes and ideas present and considered, White says Matt Reeves (because he is an inferior director whose last film was that "ludicrous neo-Godzilla movie 'Cloverfield'") couldn't possibly have understood his characters or the immorality present in his movie, so therefore he must be merely focused on glorifying lurid violence and adolescent self-pity. Other gems: White randomly starts comparing 'Let Me In' to De Palma's classic, 'Carrie,' for no other discernible reason other than because White looooooves Brian De Palma; White says a key scene near the end of the movie was too dark and obviously representative of the "devolution of the [horror] genre." And finally, he ends with the baffling pronouncement that children should not be exposed to such a film, just in case no one understood what 'R' meant in the MPAA's standard ratings system.
White likes 'Red': Unlike 'Black Swan,' which is unabashedly absurd but spectacularly filmed and acted (thus in Armond's eyes making it a terrible picture), 'Red' has a ridiculous story that relies on the "novelty" of watching aging actors using military-grade weaponry, but because Jon Malkovich can play a crazy person it's a halfway decent movie.
I was with him until he called Zack Snyder's '300' "fascinating"
White thinks the director and cast of 'Blue Valentine' are naive and insipid: Summary: it's readable--annoyingly pretentious, perhaps (he brings up 'Last Tango in Paris' as comparison to prove how awful 'Blue Valentine' is), but readable nonetheless. And then he suggests that Ronnie on 'Jersey Shore' projects macho ignorance more purely than Ryan Gosling, and tops it all off by saying Gosling couldn't reach Brando-esque heights because he's too busy sucking at acting like Ed Norton.
White is appalled that someone dared to make a change to a Shakespeare film adaptation: Short version: Julie Taymor's version of 'The Tempest' is terrible because, surprise surprise, she made the "drastic error" and "genuine act of hubris" of recasting the character of Prospero as a woman. (I can't imagine what he thinks of Ethan Hawke's Hamlet...) Why is this change so awful? Armond cleverly doesn't say, aside from grand, nebulous statements about the play's "expression of the dangers and risks of ambition in Western civilization" being completely lost, and digs at Taymor herself (apparently Helen Mirren is her film alter-ego) and Helen Mirren for being "leathery" and lacking the "stature" and "commanding" presence of someone like, oh, Vanessa Redgrave. Because those two Dames are like apples and oranges, fer sher. Other gems: White says Zack Snyder's entirely animated movie, 'The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole' totally had better CGI than 'The Tempest,' and the character of Caliban is "usually unplayable." He ends with praise for Djimon Housou for allowing himself to be covered in mud...and evoking the African slave trade...?
White says 'The King's Speech' dares to show royalty as flawed. So deep, bro, so deep.: He calls it a "new piece of hagiography." Need I say more?
White insists he understands Sofia Coppola: Apparently she has DADDY-ISSUES.
White ruins a decent review by insulting those inferior fans of the Coen Bros. who don't understand the movies like he does:
White misunderstands everything about 'The Social Network': There's too much to say here.
Annnnnnd, the only reasonable review he's ever written: Shockingly, White understands Scott Pilgrim better than half the people who insisted on not seeing it.

Slant Magazine, generally the mecca for pretentious film criticism, takes the time out to explain why Armond White isn't worth his paycheck-->http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/07/hating-the-player-losing-the-game-the-armond-white-meta-review/

Armond White, everybody, professional troll. It's time to stop taking the stuff he blathers about seriously, and just respond with the laughter and contempt he deserves.

G.I. Joe: The One Sentence Review

2010-08-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans pretend to act, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt hams shamelessly, and director Stephen Sommers rips off better sci-fi/action movies...and somehow it's all still better than 'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen."

* out of ****

Chris Nolan and His "Resilient Parasites"

2010-08-03T17:25:00.001-07:00

Every year there is a metric ton of dreck and idiocy put forth by Hollywood, and nearly every other year since 2000, Christopher Nolan has made a compelling, critically acclaimed genre picture. After ten years and only six movies, he has created a definitive body of work. He is a genuine filmmaker, a rarity in this new generation of directors.

Christopher Nolan's films have never been and probably never will be considered great cinema, but that's OK, because they are very often grand and operatic pieces of pop entertainment. Mr. Nolan is the current master and high king of thrillers. His accomplishment lies in the way his films challenge the film-goer to think and consider the events played out on the screen, to analyze without really knowing that they're analyzing, and to enjoy intelligent entertainment without becoming lost in the shuffle.

Certain themes and styles are similar in all his works: protagonists struggling with identity, the difference between reality and dreams, obsessions and secrets. 'Memento' was about a man with short-term memory loss searching for his wife's killer; his remake of 'Insomnia' had Al Pacino's detective suffering from sleep deprivation and deteriorating mental abilities; 'Batman Begins' and 'The Dark Knight' tried to explain why a billionaire playboy would spend his nights as a vigilante running around dressed as a bat; 'The Prestige' tells a story of two men violently obsessed with one another.

Nolan's latest movie, 'Inception,' is perhaps his best film to date--certainly, it is the most complex. 'Inception' is about dreams and reality, and how the subconscious views and distinguishes between them. It's science fiction in much the same way as 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. Both deal with the effects of new technology on culture and society, and both view the subconscious as something that can be controlled and invaded.

In the not-so-distant future of 'Inception,' mankind has figured out how to create dreams. People can hook up to a machine, go to sleep, and enter a pre-constructed dreamworld. Some do it for relaxation and recreation, some are addicted to the rush, and some--like the movie's protagonists--use the technology to steal. What could they possibly steal from dreams? Ideas, secrets, plans--things more valuable than just money, particularly in the world of corporate sabotage.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are two such criminals. They are approached by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a wealthy businessman who wants a rival corporation out of the competition. His proposition: inception, or, the implantation of an idea in a person's mind, rather than the theft of one. Problem is, inception is supposed to be impossible. "The mind always knows where the idea originated," the audience is told. But Cobb claims to have done it before; all he needs is to be able to plant the idea deep enough in the subconscious. Needless to say, he takes the job, because more than money is on the line. It's a one last job scenario, if you will. From here, 'Inception' turns into a heist picture. Cobb gathers his team and concocts a complex, layered plan to ensnare their mark (Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), poised to be the next CEO of his father's company).

The team is comprised of versions of the traditional caper group--you've got the right-hand man, the con artist, the heavy, etc--but only one member, the 'architect,' is unique to the plot. The architect is Ariadne (Ellen Page), a college student. It is her job to design the dream worlds Cobb and the team will use--to say more would ruin the fantastic scene where she first experiments with the dream-scape. Suffice to say it's not only visually stunning, but the way it unfolds is consciously intelligent, aware that it's causing the happy 'light bulb turning on' feeling in the viewer's head when he realizes what's happening.

All of Mr. Nolan's films carefully unfold in this fashion, revealing ever so slowly what is happening, sometimes only obliquely. It's one of his trademarks as a filmmaker; to reveal elements of 'Inception' beyond the initial stages would be a great disservice to both the film itself and the experience of watching it, so the summary ends here.

Now, to the acting. This is an area that is never poor in Nolan's films; he attracts excellent actors. 'Inception', with its cast of low-key character actors, is no exception. Mr. Gordon-Levitt's Arthur is staunch, dry, and reliable; Tom Hardy plays Eames, the 'forger' and affable rogue; Mr. Watanabe, who worked with Nolan previously on 'Batman Begins,' turns in another one of his consistently solid supporting roles; and Ms. Page is excellent, despite a role that requires more than a bit of expository dialog.

Apart from the stand-out, whirlwind performance that was Heath Ledger's Joker in 'The Dark Knight,' showboating doesn't exist in Chris Nolan movies, which makes it hard for the audience to tell that there's any acting going on at all. But there is; otherwise the stoic, desperate men that so often appear in his film wouldn't work so well. Thus, Mr. DiCaprio is a natural fit--he seems to be making a career out of playing desperate men. Here he's more self-contained, a calm version of his wild and paranoid character from 'Shutter Island,' with hints of possible madness peek through every once in a while.

Those hints appear most often when Mal does. Mal is Cobb's wife, and she's played by Marion Cotillard with the same verve and complexity that she's brought to every one of her roles. Her Mal, though a version of the femme fatale archetype, is nonetheless a three-dimensional creation, alternating between reflective tenderness and astonishing cruelty. She has very little screen-time, but her scenes are powerful enough to keep the viewer wondering when she'll come back again.

And come back she does, like déjà vu. In 'Inception,' however, dreams tend to be within other dreams, not recurring visions--the complications arise from trying to figure out how thick the illusions are. Are Cobb and company still in dreamland? If so, how will they get out? What happens if their mark figures out what's going on? Those who saw 'Shutter Island' will invariably draw unavoidable parallels with 'Inception'--certainly the 'sanity vs. insanity,' 'reality vs. dreams,' ideas are highly similar (not to mention their casting of DiCaprio and the use of his ex-wife as the catalyst). But where 'Shutter Island' is ultimately frustrating and confusing, 'Inception' inspires repeat viewings and avid, heated discussions on the car ride home. The movie seems like a spectacular piece of origami; at one point there are four interlocking plot threads going on simultaneously. But, it never gets too confusing, possibly because of the intricate and detailed nature of the film: the viewer becomes hyper-aware of the events and dialog, making keeping track of everything actually doable.

Of course, all this effort eventually leads to the obvious question: what does it all mean? 'Shutter Island' and 'Inception' both seem like exceptionally well-made genre exercises, and at the end of the former, that's all it appears to be. 'Inception' feels like there are grand statements being made about how dreams can shape one's reality or even become reality, and maybe that's all Nolan wanted to say (though said statements are certainly not grand in any sense).

More likely, however, is that it's actually about the nature of film and film-making. There's a scene early in the movie where Cobb goes to a dream center, where people plug into a dream en masse, staying there for hours, even days at a time. They do it because, as Cobb says, "It's the only way they can dream now." They do it to escape the drudgery of real life, the same reason most people go to the movie theater. People enter and exit different dreams in 'Inception' much like films transition from scene to scene--without pause, explanation, and usually, without question. The viewer, or dreamer, has to take a "leap of faith," a line oft repeated in the movie. Many films have used film editing to suggest warping reality or dream-states--not till now have they so mixed the two until it's nigh impossible to tell what is the mise-en-scène and what is illusion. Of course, the urge to figure it out is irresistible, and naturally this leads to repeat viewings. Chris Nolan is a genius.

But, the question still hasn't been answered. Is it all worth it? Depends. 'Inception' is not mindless entertainment--the mind behind the concepts and execution is far too advanced--but nor is it the second-coming of thoughtful, brilliant cinema. The most cynical interpretation would be that 'Inception' is a film about how films can illicit a psychological response from its audience, only stripping the illusion away after two hours and leaving the viewer with a feeling of loss, or conversely, with an idea born of false truths. With that reading, the viewer stand-in is not Cobb, but Robert Fischer, the hapless mark, accepting all that happens to him and taking leaps of faith on a whim, because he knows it's all a dream. If that's the case, then the only inception that occurred is the one the audience leaves with: that 'Inception' meant something.

Alternatively, those analyses could be completely wrong. 'Inception' might indeed be what it appears to be on the surface--a highly entertaining sci-fi/heist picture. The ending is conclusive, and all the clues are hidden away in the dialog, design, and events. All that is required is to watch it again....oh, damn.

Whatever the final verdict, the very fact that 'Inception' inspires such divided and detailed interpretations is proof that it is worth seeing--whatever one does afterwards is inconsequential. There are visual wonders to behold: Ariadne causing the city of Paris to fold over itself; Arthur engaging in the coolest, and possibly only up till now, zero-g fight scene in a hotel hallway; Marion Cotillard's face, streaked with tears, eyes glowing with rage. Only time will tell how 'Inception' will be viewed by film historians, whether as a milestone or just another entry in the books. But in case it's the latter...take a leap of faith. Go see it.

**** out of ****

The New Slew

2010-08-01T08:08:00.001-07:00

OK, my reviews are stagnant right now--I have writer's block, and there are too many distractions around me at the moment. Let's just see what the rest of 2010 and the new year are promising.

-Get Low

This is actually opening this week. I'm excited for this mostly 'cause Bill Murray and Robert Duvall are in it--who wouldn't be? But it also looks just quirky enough to be interesting, not so much that it's too indie/hipster.

-The Concert

France already had this released, but it still has no official theater-wide release date in the States yet, probably because it's foreign AND French and the general public hates those two things. Whatever. It has Melanie Laurent, the soul of Tarantino's glib "Inglourious Basterds,"and the plot looks to be screwball dramedy.

-Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

No explanation needed here. Just watch the trailer. (August 13th, 2010)

-Centurion

Apparently this is only getting a limited release at the end of August-no news on why, though. Perhaps the execs thought it wouldn't do well at the box office, which doesn't make sense. 'Centurion' looks like the second-coming of 'Gladiator,' only instead of focusing on some political nonsense it's that first awesome battle sequence extended into two hours. Michael Fassbender as a Roman centurion, Olga Kurylenko as a mute Pict tracker--plus, the story is based on a Roman legend about the 9th Legion that went missing. This could be the period piece that 'Robin Hood' wanted to be.

-You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Woody Allen's new film, with the usual tales of neurotic city-folk and their infidelities. It's got a great cast, though (Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Anthony Hopkins, Freida Pinto, Antonio Banderas), so it'll probably be enjoyable. (September 22nd, 2010)

-Never Let Me Go

British coming-of-age tale, but with some strange boarding school subplot. It's by the guy who made 'The Remains of the Day,' so expect pent-up emotions everywhere. Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield (the new Spider-man/Peter Parker) star.

-Let Me In

American remakes of foreign movies are generally awful--plot subtlety and character development is often discarded for generalized storylines and happy endings. Given this trend, the adverse reaction to the news that a remake of the chilling Swedish vampire tale, 'Let the Right One In,' is rather understandable. Two trailers have been released, however, and the remake, directed by "Cloverfield's" Matt Reeves, actually appears to be faithful to the disturbed spirit of the original. Oh, and it has Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz). (October 1st, 2010)

-Due Date

Robert Downey Jr. in a comedy!? It doesn't get better than that. Plus, Zach Whathisbeard!

-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part one)

No explanation needed. Just watch the rather incredible trailer. (November 19th, 2010)

-TRON: Legacy

I've never seen the original, which I'm sure is some kind of capital crime in nerd-dom, but I'll take my chances. 'Legacy' is a direct sequel to the 1980's film, Jeff Bridges reprises his role as Flynn, and his son is introduced as the new protagonist. Needless to say, the updated designs looks A-MAZING. I'm very excited for this. (December 17th, 2010)

-Somewhere

I will watch anything Sofia Coppola makes, period. 'Somewhere' looks like it'll be another quietly beautiful picture about the disenchanted rich and famous, and their slow discovery of life and meaning. And I'm pretty sure I just made it sound pretentious and hipster-y, but whatever. If you didn't like 'Lost in Translation,' chances are you probably won't like this either. Plus, it might revive Stephen Dorff's career.

-Sucker Punch

Not sure how I feel about Zack Snyder's latest effort. It looks like the feverish imaginings of a 14 year-old put on celluloid, so it'll either be worth the spectacle, or it'll just be irritating. Either way, it is sure to be utterly ridiculous. (March 25th, 2011)

-Hanna

No trailer for this movie yet, only one publicity still. But the fantastic Saoirse Ronan ('Atonement') as a child assassin, a la Mathilda ('The Professional') and Hit-Girl ('Kick Ass')? I am so there. (April 28th, 2011)

-Thor

There was a trailer for 'Thor' at the San Diego Comic Con this year--a glorious five minute trailer--and it was leaked all over the internet for a few days, but it has since been pulled down by the powers that be. So settle for this sweet shot of Thor in his armor: (May 6th, 2011)

-Captain America: The First Avenger

Only early design images for this one--I have faith it'll be awesome, though. The superhero nerd in me says it has to be. :D (July 11th, 2011)

Minute by minute review of 'The Happening'

2010-07-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

I swear this isn't some masochistic stunt--I just wanna have fun ~~shredding~~ reviewing a Shyamalan movie, and to do that I have to actually subject myself to one, soooo....Anyway, I'm sure it'll be less painful than watching him butcher "The Last Airbender." Here goes..

-Opening credits: Sinister music, time-lapse clouds. OK. Wait! Argh, the killer phrase--'written, produced, and directed by M Night Shyamalan.'

-Huh. People are killing themselves in Central Park for some reason. Jumping off buildings, stabbing themselves and such. It's a lot less creepy than it sounds, for some reason.

-Mark Wahlberg and John Leguizamo as high school teachers? OK, I'll buy it. Cameron (Alan Ruck from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") as a high school principal? Yeah, no.

-Oh Zooey. Why are you in this movie? You and your big beautiful blue eyes don't deserve this nonsense....and you certainly don't deserve lines like, "It makes you kill yourself! Just when you thought there couldn't be any more evil that could be invented!"

-So media's saying it's a biochemical terrorist attack that screws with your brain function...fair enough. NYC is being evacuated. And Zooey and Mark are having marital problems. Whatever.

-People are now killing themselves in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Park. This continues not to be scary for some reason. Oops, and now Boston.

-Some dude keeps calling Zooey. Wahlberg's got a perpetual worried expression on his face.

-The train everyone was on just stopped now. NYC evacuees are stuck in some podunk PA town. Guy on TV says it's not really a terrorist attack. Leguizamo leaves his daughter with Mark and Zooey so he can go find his wife in Princeton. It's supposed to dramatic, but up until this point there have been no interactions between these characters that make us care about them at all. And that's the problem with the suicides, too. There's been no suspenseful buildup, so there's no feeling of dread or horror. I've just shrugged at everything that's happened so far. There aren't many directors that can desensitize an audience with the first murder of the movie.

-WHAT THE HECK. The prevailing theory here is that plants are actually causing the biochemical reactions that are making people kill themselves. Plants. As in trees and bushes and whatnot. Dude, that's just lame.

-Well now we know why there have been all those shots of wind blowing through the trees.

-"Let's just stay ahead of the wind." How the hell do you...oh. They are running from the wind. People are RUNNING FROM THE WIND. Damn.

-"Nothing happened....could this really be happening?" He said the title of the movie twice!

-"It could've been a terrorist booby trap, and someone stepped on it out in the field!" God they made Zooey stupid in this movie.

-OMG Mark Wahlberg is talking positively to a plant. This movie is awesome.

-"Why is this happening??" THEY SAID IT AGAIN!

-Oh please. Some dude just lay down in front of a lawn mower. This is like suicide porn. Guns have been used twice; we've seen jumpers and stabbers. Leguizamo used glass on his wrist. Geez.

-Mark Wahlberg just made a really bad joke about infidelity. It wasn't even crude, it was just...unfunny.

-What the hell, two kids just got shot for no reason. With shotguns. Come on.

-Wow, crazy cat lady without the cats.

-Crazy lady: "Why are you whispering? Plan on stealing my stuff"

Wahlberg: "No, no, of course not!"

Crazy lady: "Plan on murdering me in my sleep?!"

Wahlberg: "What?! No, no, no!"

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

-Mark and Zooey are having a dramatic conversation involving a mood ring.

-WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. That's it? The plants just quit their human genocide like that? Now we've cut to a "Three Months Later" clip. Gimme a break.

-The explanation is: "This an act of nature, and we'll never fully understand it." Skeptics still think it was the government. Oh and now it's happening in France or wherever.

-A Film By M Night Shyamalan. And that says it all. Damn but that was awful.

* out of **** for that one conversation between Wahlberg and the crazy lady.

A Quick Two-hour Descent Into Hell, Shall We?

2010-06-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

I re-watched Jim Cameron's "Aliens" recently, and was once again impressed with the level of draining intensity the film achieves. It's not particularly frightening--leave that to Ridley Scott's original, "Alien"--but its high-octane action sequences never let up, bringing you to the edge of your seat and then some. Few films since (that weren't made by Cameron) have come close to replicating such an experience. 2005's "The Descent," directed by Neil Marshall, is one such movie.

Like most horror pictures, "The Descent" opens with a shock scare, but the sense of unease that it generates (it's a truly unsettling scene) never quite goes away, even when the real action hits. One year later, six adrenaline-junkie women (they run the gamut from spelunking to base jumping) go on a caving expedition in North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains that takes the quick road to hell. They get trapped underground with no food or map, no way out, and only their rising tensions to keep them company. And, true to horror movie form, when things can't get any worse, they realize they're not alone.

But the inevitable monsters only make their nasty appearance after 45 minutes. First the six women (and the audience) must deal with all the natural terrors a caving expedition can bring: claustrophobia and tight spaces, rockfalls and blocked exits, mistakes and broken bones. There's a breathtaking bit where one of the veteran cavers clings to her fingertips over a black pit, threading a climbing rope through cantilevers, crying out with the exertion and stress. All the viewer can do is sit on the edge of their seat, wondering how on earth a person could accomplish such a feat.

Thankfully, the women are for the most part calm professionals, contrary to the usual crowd of horror movie victims. They don't really panic until the vicious uglies (they look like stronger, less verbal versions of Gollum) show up, and even after the initial shock they behave with reason and intelligence. The tougher, more hardcore members of the group fight back, too. The impetuous Juno (Natalie Mendoza), the closest thing the cavers have to a leader, is the first to put a climbing pick through the skull of a monster. Quiet Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), on the other hand, is the closest the film has to a protagonist. She's involved in the horrific scene at the beginning of the movie, and is only now starting to get over her grief and PTSD. The onset of the monsters and the vicious deaths of her friends throws her well past grief and into full-on survival instinct. One gets the sense that her quick slide into primal behavior, and later, madness, is the actual 'descent' of the title, rather than a literal reference to the cave.

Sarah also provides some stunning visuals. Director Marshall knows his film history, and the homages and inspirations run the gamut from "Aliens" to "Blair Witch" to "Carrie." The latter in particular is used to stunning effect: after killing three of the monsters by herself, Sarah stands on a rock, drenched in blood and fetid water, the torch she carries casting an eerie red glow and looking for all the world like a woman possessed. It's the only badass shot in the whole movie, and it sticks with you. Later we get a close-up of her face, and it's just a shades of red with two angry blue eyes peeking out.

"The Descent" is also one of the first movies to utilize the grainy hand-cam shot to creepy and non-nauseating effect, rather than just as a cheap method of generating a sense of false realism. Other color schemes arise--the sickly green of a glow stick, the aforementioned red generated by a torch, and, most appropriately, the pitch black of complete darkness.

After all the jump scares "The Descent" has to offer, that final color scheme, the utter absence of light, is really the scariest thing the movie could portray. Which is saying something, since there is much to frightened of in this film. The monster attacks are filmed like rape attempts with full body scuffling and ripping and tearing, and the cave feels like an endless, hopeless tomb (which is made even more remarkable given that the whole thing was built in a soundstage). And those are just the obvious ones. Like many horror films, "The Descent's" final message is that mankind is its own worst enemy. All it takes is a little push. Or a caving expedition gone wrong.

**** out of ****

Note: Do not see the American cut of the film, stick with the original British version. For some reason the US movie execs or producers saw fit to remove the last minute of the original ending, presumably to provide a more ambiguously hopeful picture.

Rip, Splat, Tear, Drip, Snore.

2010-06-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

"Alien Resurrection" (1997) is a big, gooey, turgid, slogging mess of a movie, an attempt to scrape some more cash from the bottom of a barrel that was supposed to have been emptied with 1992's "Alien 3." For those who didn't see that last entry in the 'Alien' series, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) gets marooned on a prison planet with only an alien and scores of horny, murderous inmates to keep her company. Upon learning she has an alien queen larva in her chest, she kills herself by jumping in a pit of lava. Or something like that. Point is she died. Irrevocably. And it should've stayed that way. "Alien 3" was a mediocre picture, plagued by production issues and script rewrites, but at least it had a certain dedication to creating a certain atmosphere to make up for the flaws. "Resurrection" is nearly all retread and uninteresting characters, and not even the sporadic bursts of the grotesque and Ms. Weaver's bad-ass performance can save it from itself.

"Resurrection" begins the conceit that military scientists were able to clone Ellen Ripley's body from blood she left on the prison planet, and that through this process not only were her memories preserved, but also the alien queen larva in her chest. Ludicrous, but halfway acceptable in Hollywood sci-fi terms. Fine. So, the scientists surgically remove the larva for the sole purpose of growing it and using it to breed adult alien specimens to 'study.' Stupid, stupid, but OK, movie scientists are always arrogant like that. Dunno how one expects to keep a creature that has metal-melting acid for blood contained in a metal cage for long, but whatever. They escape, as the audience knows they will, and start killing and generally wreaking havoc.

Their victims this time around are a scrappy crew of smugglers and mercenaries, led by Ripley, who has been genetically combined with the alien queen through the cloning process (don't ask). The set-up is basically a retread of the first two Alien movies, and that unfortunately also leads to the same 'surprises' and jump-scares. Only two scenes stand out from the dreck.

The first is a suitably horrifying sequence where Ripley discovers the room where all the failed clones of her are kept. The design team and make-up guys went to town here, slapping human and alien parts together seemingly at random, but it all comes out looking frighteningly like the images of children born with deformities and mutated frogs one sees in issues of National Geographic. The second involves Ripley's second meeting with the alien queen as it gives birth to a human/alien monstrosity. Unfortunately, these are the only two moments where the director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, is really able to display the visual talent so on display in his previous picture, "City of Lost Children." For the rest of the film, he has to settle with making everything from the aliens to Winona Ryder drip with goo or bodily fluids.

The acting is similarly boring. Only Sigourney Weaver, who brings a suitable measure of pathos and talent to her portrayal of a tougher, alien-blood enhanced Ripley, and the great Ron Perlman as a wisecracking, amoral soldier of fortune, create realistic characters. Brad Dourif has a small role as a creepy scientist, something he could do in his sleep. The rest of the crew remain nameless and faceless by the of the movie, save for Winona Ryder, but only by virtue of her extended screentime. Ms. Ryder, so good in "Girl, Interrupted" and "Beetlejuice," is out of her league here and vastly outperformed by her co-stars. Even the leering, distasteful, and quickly killed-off captain of the smugglers crew leaves more of a lasting impression, thanks to his description of her as being "severely fuckable," echoing the thoughts of every male member of the audience.

And that's it, really. A forgettable film for a dead series. "Alien Resurrection," after much spilling of blood and splattering of viscera, ends with an open bid for a sequel, something that hasn't happened in the past twelve years, and will hopefully not happen in the future. The "Predator" sequel, however.....

*1/2 out of ****

Why DON'T People Try to be Superheroes??

2010-05-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

The problem with "Kick Ass" is not the splattery gore, the swearing, the lack of obvious morals, or even the little girl who commits most of these offenses with an efficiency and glee that would impress Mickey and Mallory. It's the film's schizophrenic approach to the material. Director Matthew Vaughn doesn't know if he wants to make a darkly comedic and satirical look at superheroes and the nerds that idolize them, or an over-the-top, trashy, roller-coaster ride of blood, bullets and snapped bones. Ideally, one would mesh the two together (see "Shaun of the Dead"), but "Kick Ass" presents itself as satire in its first half and ridiculous action picture in its second, when it should have combined the two by using the outrageous action to satirize the genre.

This tonal problem can be blamed partially on the movie's development--Mark Millar's comic, from which "Kick Ass" takes its name and general plot outline had actually only finished its first couple issues when the film was in production. Naturally, and unfortunately, the film's screenplay diverges from the character and plot development of the later issues.

The first half of "Kick Ass" is the cleverest. Vaughn and Goldman's script is smart and self-aware, peppered with superhero and comic book in-jokes and references. Opening with voice-over narration and a high school setting, it clearly parodies the "Spider-man" films. The main character, Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson, trying his best and failing to not look handsome), has no lovable quirks like Peter Parker's nerdiness, intelligence and hopeless crush on MJ. He's just a comic book nerd and a chronic masturbater, so basically he's a regular teenager.

One day Dave decides that more people should try vigilantism, and so, despite his lack of discernible muscular structure, monetary benefits, or uncommon intelligence, he buys a stupid-looking wet suit off the internet and parades off to fight some crime under the moniker Kick-Ass. This goes about as bad as could have been expected--to spoil the results would be to ruin the sick laugh to be had at Dave's expense--and he ends up in the hospital. His experience, instead of warning him off the streets, has the opposite effect of emboldening him, and this time his efforts land him a viral video on Youtube of his intervention in a gang brawl. Meanwhile, a vigilante father and daughter pair, Damon and Mindy MacCready, are inspired by Dave's antics to put on don costumes in their small-scale war against local drug kingpin, Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong, Britain's new go-to bad guy).

The decision to make Damon (Nicolas Cage) an ex-cop with a grudge against D'Amico (he killed Damon's wife as a warning) is the other major departure from the comic's character development. In the comic, Damon is revealed to be just another shallow comic book nerd who attacked the mobsters because he wanted their lives to be more fun. He also ruins his daughter's childhood by lying to her and turning her into a mini-death machine, but the movie gives him a reason for doing so. It's up to the viewer to decide how much the decision affects the satire and humor of the film--and whether or not an opportunity was missed.

Despite the shaky backstory, Damon and Mindy, or, as they call themselves, Big Daddy and Hit Girl, are the funniest thing in the movie, mostly due to Nic Cage's splendidly off-kilter performance as the doting, murderous father, his staccato diction and awkward chuckle clear homages to Adam West-era Batman. Their first scene together has him training Mindy (Chloe Moretz) to take point-blank shots to the chest by having her wear a Kevlar vest...and then shooting her, at point blank range, in the chest. And it's hilarious.

But as good as Mr. Cage is, this is Hit Girl and Chloe Moretz's show. Ms. Moretz, only 13, upstages all of her costars as a whirlin', cussin', katana-totin' pint-sized bringer of mayhem. She doesn't exactly bring heart to the movie, but she does breathe wild life into the picture when it starts to get a little redundant. She also brings improbable and slightly out-of-place action sequences (there's a total of three just for her), but that's forgivable, 'cause it makes prudes wet their hypocritical underpants over violence and little girls swearing. (They didn't make a sound when a 10 year-old black kid dropped F-bombs, jacked a car, and talked about "big ol'titties" in "Role Models"....oh wait, maybe they just expected it).

Hit Girl works because Vaughn and his screenwriting partner, Jane Goldman, essentially don't take themselves seriously with her character. But in doing so, they miss opportunities for relevance and a cleverer statement about the superhero genre. By sacrificing the black humor and harsh satire present in the last half of the comic for cliche movie conventions--vengeance is brought down with furious anger; the nerdy boy gets the improbably hot girl despite all obstacles; everything the characters have done fails to affect them--they provide everything needed to pander to an audience of teenage boys who want to be thrilled by ultra-violence and not worry about the consequences. The "Kick Ass" comic provided gore and wicked violence, and then dared to criticize its readers for being excited by it all. It splashed cold water in the face of every nerd's superhero dreams by making the characters shallow and immature. The movie ignores the fact that there are deadly consequences for sick or stupid actions, and instead buys directly into the fantasy it seemed to be on route to subverting when it started.

That isn't to say "Kick Ass" isn't fun to watch. There's a curious sense of wicked glee you'll feel while watching Hit Girl play with her butterfly knives or Big Daddy demolish an entire warehouse full of mobsters, and choosing John Murphy's Adagio in D minor (The Surface of the Sun) from the movie "Sunshine" as the soundtrack to a fantastically photographed gun fight was a tiny stroke of brilliance. The film's best scene involves Kick Ass and another teenage superhero, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, getting better with each role), as they jam to 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley while cruising down the city streets. Their fun ends when they come across a building in flames, and Kick Ass, slack jawed, suggests they call the fire department. That scene alone gets to the bottom of what "Kick Ass" should've been about: kids trying to have be cool and have fun, and letting their ambitions get them into way more trouble than they could have imagined.

*** out of ****

Dooly Ahppointed Feduhrahl Mahhshalls Loosin Theyah Minds.

2010-03-19T19:23:00.001-07:00

Martin Scorcese's "Shutter Island" belongs in a small genre of movies that are made solely to mess with the viewer's mind. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, since at the very least it keeps the audience on the edges of their seats. But there needs to be some point to it all, some metaphor or allegory to all the reality-warping and double-crosses and illusions, otherwise the audience feels as though the challenges presented to them weren't actually worth anything, and their interest turns to frustration. "Shutter Island" begins as one movie, turns into another, and finally gets the whole premise turned on its head, but in the end it's only a remarkably simple story about one man, no symbolism, no point.

Is this lack of message refreshing in an age where "big dramatic movies" have to be either sordid allegories for the human condition or actor-driven Oscar-bait? Yes, yes, it is. Is it aggravating to sit through two hours and twenty minutes of twisting, suspenseful psychological drama, only to have a twist in the last fifteen minutes turn all the revelations of the plot beforehand to, well, nothing? Again, yes. But if one knows that going into the movie, more time and attention can be spent on observing director Martin Scorcese's master hand at work.

"Shutter Island," like the recent "Gone Baby Gone" and "Mystic River," is based on a Dennis Lehane novel, but it has more in common with paranoid film noir and classic detective tales. It begins and ends as a whodunit, but Scorcese will do his best to convince the viewer otherwise, and most of the time he'll succeed. The film begins as US Federal Marshalls Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio, Scorcese's current muse) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) arrive on Shutter Island, an offshore mental institution, to investigate an inmate escape. They meet the requisite characters: the creepy head-doctors (Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow), the sinister warden (Ted Levine), and the various disturbed and dangerous patients. Naturally, things aren't quite what they seem. Teddy could have his own reasons for taking on the case--his wife's killer is supposedly imprisoned somewhere on the island--and the suspicion of human experimentation begins to loom overhead.

But Teddy's also having hallucinatory dreams. His wife (Michelle Williams) is in them, ghost-like, talking to him and telling him to run. He sees bleeding children, falling ash, and flames. He flashes back to his service in WWII, liberating a concentration camp and looking at piles of bodies, frozen and purple. Teddy is not a happy man, and he's losing his grip on reality. He doesn't know who to trust, he doesn't know what to believe, and he's starting to think that he might not be in complete control of himself anymore (if he ever was).

This gradual descent into madness is a little too gradual, though; it makes "Shutter Island" at least a half-hour longer than it needs to be, which is aggravating given the ultimately futile nature of the story. And, to be honest, a half-hour less of watching Mr. DiCaprio perform his "nervous breakdown guy" shtick would be a heck of a good thing. He already perfected it in "The Departed," no need to keep doing it over and over again.

What the madness does allow for is Scorcese to get creative cinematically. Everything about "Shutter Island" is meant to reflect Teddy's shifting and paranoid mental state. The music is often overtly ominous, and there's a hurricane passing through that's pummeling the island with rain and gales. Teddy's hallucinations are some of the most vivid scenes in the movie. And there's a great sequence during an asylum lockdown where Teddy wanders the dank, shadowy and dripping corridors of the maximum security section, while raving lunatics scream and pant off in the distance and his matches keep going out. Even after all these years of horror movies and video games this type of setting is still creepy, and with Scorcese's talent, the suspense just ratchets, climaxing with Jackie Earle Haley's depraved inmate, spitting out threats and prophetic statements.

Really though, it's just nice to see the detective/asylum subgenre done this well. You can see the twist coming a mile away, mostly because you just expect it and not because the film nudges you in the arm and winks incessantly like lesser movies do. Other films just throw the twist out of left field, with nothing to back it up, but with "Shutter Island," the viewer can think back and notice clues that weren't obvious earlier, because this is the type of movie that begs to be discussed and thought about for a while after walking out of the theater. How many of Hollywood's offerings do that nowadays?

Scorcese isn't just interested in providing a fun ride, though. He and his actors work to create some very affecting moments in "Shutter Island." Ted Levine gets a lovely monologue about the nature of violence in man that proves he's still a wonderful creep even when not playing Buffalo Bill, and the penultimate scene is an agonizing flashback that reveals the source of all of Teddy's nightmares,. To say more would ruin it, but know that it involves Mr. DiCaprio and Michelle Williams, and she's so good it underscores the need for her to be in more movies.

There need to be more movies like this in general. It shouldn't be so rare to find a genre flick that's made so well, with talented acting and perfect cinematography, that its predictability is forgivable. Movies don't have to have a point or a message, and they don't need to be Oscar vehicles; but they also don't need have a lack of intelligence or diligence. If originality is what Hollywood lacks in this cinematic age, then there should at least be ability and talent, and that is what makes "Shutter Island," despite its flaws, superior entertainment.

*** out of ****

Oscars........

2010-03-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

-Skipped the Red Carpet, mostly on principle, but also because we were trying to fix the damn digital converter box--it's an ungodly piece of fragile machinery. Failed in all of our attempts, had to use my parents tiny television.

-Neal Patrick Harris, what happened to your voice?? You, sir, sound slightly sick.

-Baldwin & Martin->nice opening dialogue, good-natured ribbing of all the nominees, everyone's happy.

-Best Supporting Actor->Go Christoph Waltz! Very elegant speech (an actual speech, not a list of thank yous), very gracious acceptance of the award. Someone give this guy a dozen more roles, please.

-Best Animated Picture--"Up," obviously. Pete Doctor looks goofy, but he's a pretty awesome guy so it's OK. Still kinda wished "Fantastic Mr. Fox" got the win, though.

-Best Original Song--Ryan Bingham and T BONE BURNETT for "The Weary Kind" in "Crazy Heart." T Bone looks too cool with those sunglasses....wait, he's not gonna speak?! Hold on, Ryan, you're a nobody, stop hogging the mike and let the way cooler dude talk! ARGH. Oh, whatever. Nuts.

-Best Original Screenplay--Presented by Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr.!! They're doing a skit on the different views of screenwriters and actors on the movie-making process. Fey: "The quality we writers prize most in actors is memorization..." Downey Jr.: "It's a collaboration between beautiful, talented people like us, and sickly little mole people." Mark Boal wins for "The Hurt Locker." Good stuff.

-Oh, a John Hughes tribute, presented by Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Macaulay Culkin, Judd Nelson, etc. Bit long, but a nice nod to a popular director and all-around good guy.

-Best Animated Short, Documentary Short, Live-Action Short--BOOOOORRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGG. Except for the Kanye-moment during the acceptance speech of the winner of Documentary Short--who WAS that obnoxious woman??

-Best Makeup--Ben Stiller in Na'vi blue-face presenting?? Niiice. "Star Trek" wins, go nerds!

-Best Adapted Screenplay--Wait, no "Up in the Air"? They're getting snubbed, aren't they? Yeesh. Whatever. Geoffrey Fletcher wins for "Precious." Clearly he didn't expect to win, but he's trying to hold it together. Most emotional speech so far, and quite touching.

-Governor's Awards--Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman. Weird moment where everyone stands up and the camera stops looking at the winners, who aren't even allowed to speak. OK.

-Best Supporting Actress--Mo'nique, no surprises here. Her speech seemed kind of arrogant at first, but I later found out her statement about the Academy "caring about the performance, rather than the politics" was aimed at early remarks about her refusal to do any publicity engagements to promote herself (preferring to let her performance speak for itself). She also thanked Hattie McDaniel in her speech. Cool.

-Outstanding Set Direction--"Avatar." Sigourney Weaver, who presented the award, was super-excited. OK.

-Best Costume Design--"The Young Victoria," because it's a period-piece with big dresses and whatnot, and the Academy likes to think that means the costuming was really good. Sandy Powell accepted the award, seemed incredibly arrogant (she's already won twice), and gave a speech that sounded incredibly arrogant, except for her little shout-out to the designers who do contemporary films.

-A tribute to Horror films?? Introduced by Taylor "I look like a jacked-up 12 year-old" Lautner and Kristen "I always look so out of place and nervous" Stewart, two of the three stars of "Twilight," a most un-scary movie? You have got to be kidding. Boring.

-Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing--Some really pale, white-blond dude with long hair wins for "The Hurt Locker." Morgan Freeman narrates the little clip explaining what it is that this guy actually does.

-Best Cinematography--"Avatar"?? 90% of the movie is CGI guys....how about "Harry Potter"? That actually had interesting camera-work and shots...

-Best Score--"Up". Yeah, it deserves it.

-Outstanding Visual Effects--"Avatar," duh.

-Nobody cares about the Best Documentary Award this late into the ceremony.

-Best Film Editing--"The Hurt Locker," as it rightly should. Paul Greengrass and Michael Mann need to take notes on this movie, I think.

-Best Foreign Language Film--The Academy snubs Pedro Almodovar but tries to make up for it by making him co-presenter with...Quentin Tarantino. Some Argentinian movie wins.

-Best Actor--Finally! The Dude wins, naturally, and he's appropriately awed, happy, and proud. Thanks pretty much everyone in the room and in his life. Nobody cares how long he's up there 'cause he's Jeff Bridges and he's just won his first Oscar. Yeah.

-Best Actress--Sandra Bullock? Oookay. I'm tempted to be mad, but she's funny and likable and everyone gave her a standing ovation. Aw, she's crying.

-Best Director--Kathryn Bigelow, oh yes. Deserves it. She's also really really hot. Jim Cam was a lucky guy.

-Best Film--TomHanksrunsoutandannouncesthewinnerreallyquicklyandunexpectedlykindalikethisthewinnerisTheHurtLockerhellyeah.

So, all in all, a mostly unsurprising Oscars. Everyone who won was pretty much expected to win, no big surprises, and the big budget film didn't beat out the critic-favorite. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were a delightful team together, but I still think they should bring Chris Rock back. We need an edgy Oscars. :-P

Oscar Nominations

2010-02-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

Complete list here: http://www.imdb.com/features/rto/2010/oscars

OK. The newly expanded Best Picture category has allowed more room for excellent and generally overlooked films to be recognized, as well as bringing an animated film into the mix for the first time since "The Beauty and the Beast." This is great--the Academy is finally recognizing more than just the serious dramas and shameless tearjerkers. All the major film genres get some kind of representation, and for once it seems more like a fair collection of nominees. Lesser known films like "The Hurt Locker," "A Serious Man" and "An Education" are going to get exposure to the general public, next to the huge crowd-pleasers like "Avatar" and "Inglourious Basterds," and "District 9." Straight-up comedies are still largely overlooked ("Up in the Air" has a light tone despite its dark subject matter), and the Academy still adores movies that make people cry ("Precious"), but at least they're making an effort to not seem too biased. The presence of "The Blind Side" on the list is the only misstep, really. The weight of that film is based solely on Sandra Bullock's "strong" performance (the Academy probably just wants to give her something for, I dunno, dedication. Whatever), and should not be anywhere near this batch of movies.

Probable winners: "Avatar," (I will KICK A DOG if this wins) "Up in the Air," "Up" or "The Hurt Locker."
Surprise winners: "Precious" or "District 9."
My pick: I'd like to see "The Hurt Locker" or "Up in the Air" get the big prize. "Up" wouldn't be bad, either.

Best Actor: These nominees were all pretty much expected. Morgan Freeman is like Meryl Streep--if he was in a movie that a decent amount of people saw playing a person most people know about, he's bound to be nominated. Colin Firth and Jeremy Renner are the underdogs here--Firth having never won before, and Renner being a first-time nominee. I haven't seen Firth's performance, but given his talent I'm sure it's equal to Renner's.

Probable winner: Jeff Bridges. He's on a roll (a Golden Globe, a SAG, a Critic's Choice), and everybody loves him. He gives what amounts to a comeback performance, and he (apparently, since I haven't seen "Crazy Heart" yet) is great.
Surprise Winner: Jeremy Renner? This would be a huge surprise, honestly.
My pick: Ah, Jeff Bridges. Renner's an up and coming star, Firth will get his due someday, Freeman's already won twice (I think), and Clooney was better in "Syriana." And Jeff Bridges is cooler than all of them.

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock should never be nominated for an Oscar again, only because her presence makes the event of the award going to someone far more deserving that much less certain. Meryl Streep's name on this list has become like a tradition--every year she gets at least one, sometimes two. Helen Mirren is like Meryl Streep in 15 years or so--every performance she gives is worthy of an Oscar, so nominating her every year is the least you can do. Carey Mulligan was wonderful in "An Education," but her spot is the annual "young breakout star who won't win the Oscar." She's got a big career ahead of her, though (she's in Oliver Stone's sequel to "Wall Street," acting alongside The Beef and Michael Douglas), so her time will come eventually.

Probable winner: Gabourey Sidibe. Hers and Mo'nique's performances were what elevated "Precious," and one of the two of them is bound to win. If either Bullock or Streep win I will decapitate a cat.
Surprise winner: Either Mirren or Mulligan.
My pick: I honestly can't decide. Either Carey Mulligan or Gabourey Sidibe I would be fine with.

Best Supporting Actor: There's not much I can say about this list. Matt Damon being nominated is just the Academy's way of making up for not nominating him for "The Informant!" in the Best Actor category. Christopher Plummer is in Helen Mirren's position, i.e., having been in a movie that nobody saw and nobody heard about but he's nominated because he's, well, Christopher Plummer. Stanley Tucci, apparently, was the best thing about Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones," even though he played a serial rapist. Something about making a monster seem somewhat human...eh.

Probable winner: Christoph Waltz. He's pretty much got this in the bag--every award ceremony's given this award to him, and it's deserved.
Surprise winner: Woody Harrelson could come from behind to win, though it's a long shot. It wouldn't be undeserved, though. His performance in "The Messengers" was highly praised across the board.
My pick: Christoph Waltz. He was the main reason to see "Inglourious Basterds." Every time he was on screen he was delightful, and whenever he wasn't the viewer yearned for him to come back.

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz is becoming a regular fixture in this list, and that isn't a bad thing. However, her performance in "Nine" as Daniel Day-Lewis's sex-on-legs mistress, when compared to the rest of the group, is at the bottom of the list. All of the remaining four--Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick for "Up in the Air," Maggie Gyllenhaal for "Crazy Heart," and Mo'nique for "Precious"--all deserve to win for their performances.

Probable winner: Mo'nique, in all likelihood. Her performance in "Precious" surprised everyone, a powerhouse of rage, jealousy, spite and venom, almost balanced out by a shockingly good monologue at the end of the movie.
Surprise winner: Farmiga, Kendrick, or Gyllenhaal. All three have never won an Oscar, and Farmiga and Kendrick are largely unknown (Kendrick has a minor role in the "Twilight" films).
My pick: Any of the nominees except Cruz (I love her performances, but she won last year for a better written role). Gyllenhaal, if I had to pick one. She's been overlooked for a long time. At any rate, though, it's a good year for this category, and all of the nominees should go on to great careers.

Best Director: If there is any semblance of justice in the world, Jim Cameron won't win. "Avatar" needs to win for technical achievements, nothing more. Tarantino is really pushing for it, I think, but that's why he probably won't either. Lee Daniels would be the true surprise winner in this category--"Precious" was really only held up by the performance of its two leads.

Probable winner: Kathryn Bigelow. I think the Globe going to Cameron was like Sandra Bullock winning--condolences before the Oscar's roll around.
Surprise winner: Jim Cameron, Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air," or Quentin Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds."
My pick: Bigelow. She's a female director making male movies and doing it better than all of them. Reitman will get his due someday.

Best Original Screenplay: All great screenplays this year, but the race is probably down to Mark Boal for "The Hurt Locker" and Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds." "The Messenger" and "A Serious Man" were both unseen and only minimally advertised. "Up," however, might pull off a win if it doesn't get the Best Picture win.

Probable winner: Either Boal or Tarantino. Too close to call here.
Surprise winner: Bob Peterson, Pete Docter and Thomas McCarthy for "Up," or the Coen brothers for "A Serious Man."
My pick: Here I wouldn't mind if any of these won, honestly. Tarantino, if I had to pick, mostly for his audacity and marvelous ability to create unbearable suspense merely with dialogue.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner ("Up in the Air") seem to be the shoe-ins for this one. Blomkamp did a good job with District 9, though, and the writers of "In the Loop" might almost deserve to win for inventing some of the most creative profanity in the history of language.

Probable winner: Reitman and Turner.
Surprise winner: Nick Hornby for "An Education," or Geoffrey Fletcher for "Precious."
My pick: I'm kind of doubting "Up in the Air" will get anything in the previous categories, so I'd like for it to get some kind of recognition.

Achievements in Cinematography, Editing, Visual Effects, Art Direction, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing:
It's almost a given that "Avatar" will win nearly all of these, particularly Visual Effects, which it certainly deserves to win, and Art Direction. I'm tickled that "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is in there though--if that comes from behind to win (it was the first "Potter" film since the third installment to have really spectacular film-work) that'd be awesome. But, if "Avatar" doesn't win it'll most probably be "The Hurt Locker" that takes it.
For the rest of the awards...eh, who really cares, at this point? As long as "Transformers" doesn't win for Sound Mixing and "The Hurt Locker" wins for Editing, I'm OK.

Best Animated Film: Generally, Pixar's annual film is the automatic winner in this category because the rest of the nominees are mediocre fare only nominated because there was nothing else to fill their spots. But this year Pixar's "Up" has competition from three different movies: Henry Selick's creepy-wonderful "Coraline," Wes Anderson's joyfully alive "Fantastic Mr. Fox," and Disney's return to hand-drawn animation, "The Princess and the Frog."

Probable winner: "Up" stands a good chance of getting this if it doesn't win Best Picture...but....
Surprise winner: "Fantastic Mr. Fox" was well-received enough to be the upset winner.
My pick: "Fantastic Mr. Fox." As much as I liked "Up," it'd be good to see something just as deserving win besides a Pixar movie.

So there they are. Now we just wait until March 7th......

They're All Flyin' High.....as Kites. Or Something. I dunno, it was supposed to be a drug joke...

2010-01-25T10:18:00.000-08:00

There is an entire sub-genre of movies about middle-aged men "finding" themselves and realizing there is more to life than they thought. A woman is usually involved in this self-discovery, and sometimes it's a life-changing experience or brush with death. And, interestingly enough, these movies are almost always some kind of comedy. "The Apartment" is an early example, a biting satire of the 60's workplace environment with Jack Lemmon. More recent examples include "Stranger than Fiction," "American Beauty," and "About a Boy." Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air" is the latest entry into the genre. It's also one of the darkest.

It's hard to tell, though. Mr. Reitman made a clever casting choice in George Clooney as the film's narrator and protagonist. Mr. Clooney is always and effortlessly charming--his on-screen persona is nearly indistinguishable from his real-life persona because he's carved out a niche of roles where he just seems to playing versions of himself (barring "Syriana," "Good Night and Good Luck," and "Michael Clayton"), and they're all likable even when they're disreputable characters. In the "Ocean's" movies, he's a professional thief and con man who, with the help of Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh's glitzy filmmaking, manages to make gambling, swindling and pulling off heists of enormous sums of money look glamorous and sexy. In "Intolerable Cruelty," he's a womanizing lawyer; in "Three Kings," a soldier of fortune. He also plays idiots remarkably well: see "O Brother, Where Art Thou," "Burn After Reading," and "Leatherheads."

Mr. Clooney's character in "Up in the Air" is like a combination of Danny Ocean and the tired corporate lawyer Michael Clayton: a charming fixer who enjoys his job. He plays Ryan Bingham, a man hired by companies to sit down and fire people for bosses who "don't have the balls to sack their employees." Ryan is a mostly cold-blooded, isolated individual, content with the mystic "road warrior" lifestyle of hotel rooms, smiling receptionists, frequent-flier miles and cheap sushi ("They're all reminders that I'm home"). His only goal in life is to reach the ten-million miles mark and receive lifetime executive status with American Airlines. Personal connections are unnecessary in his philosophy--he gives occasional "motivational" speeches about how to empty one's backpack of life and remove such petty restraints as human relationships and material possessions. "The slower we move the faster we die," he says, and he thinks he believes it.

Bingham's wake-up call begins when he meets two different women. The first is Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), newly hired by Ryan's company. She has big ideas; she wants to move the business into the digital age by implementing a video chat system for firing people, eliminating the need for flying people like Ryan all over the country. Naturally, the very idea offends Ryan's sensibilities. He finds his job to have some kind of dignity and humanity because the firing is done in-person--to do it through a computer screen merely exposes the business's innate coldness and brutality, and he won't have it. Plus, and perhaps more importantly, the video chat system threatens his comfortable lifestyle of untethered flying around. His slimy boss (the wonderful Jason Batemen) thinks it's a great idea (it reduces the budget!), but he wants Natalie to get some experience firing people, so he sends her off to learn on the job from Ryan. The resulting road-trip (air-trip?) is both hilarious, poignant, and bittersweet.

The other catalyst that begins Ryan's "change" is Alex (Vera Farmiga), another like-minded, frequent-flying working professional. They meet in a hotel bar on one of Ryan's trips, have wild hotel room sex, and become casual friends with extra benefits. It's all good. But then she runs into Ryan and Natalie, and Ryan realizes he might like her a little more than just as a screw buddy.

The relationship between Ryan, Natalie, and Alex, is the center of "Up in the Air," and the solid performances from the three leads is what makes the movie wonderful to watch. George Clooney is as classy as always, but as the movie glides towards its end, his eyes get darker and darker--the final shot of his face is of him looking up at an announcement board of arrivals and departures, every line in his face clear and present, his eyes dead.

Alex is perhaps more of a tragedy than Ryan Bingham is, but since she's played by Vera Farmiga, the audience doesn't realize it until they're meant to. Ms. Farmiga, previously only seen in small roles ("The Departed" was probably her biggest), is fantastic here. Her Alex is mature, witty, and sexy; she's every bit Ryan's counterpart, even down to the philosophy. Watching the two of them flirt (they compare credit cards and discuss the merits of Hertz Rental Cars), dance, or just plain talk makes the movie. Clooney's been compared to a modern-day Cary Grant? Well, Ms. Farmiga might be his Rosalind Russell. The audience invests in their relationship, and that makes the ending all the more devastating.

Anna Kendrick is the break-out star, though. She's actually had a great role before, in 2007's indie flick "Rocket Science," where she played a whip-smart and morally dubious member of a high school debate team, but she's unfortunately more well-known for her bit part in the "Twilight" films. Her Natalie feels like what her character in "Rocket Science" might've become after graduating from college, though perhaps a little less callous towards other human beings. She initially comes across as what Manohla Dargis from NYTimes calls "a monster for our time," an ambitious Generation Y'er with textbook approaches to business models and a digital preference to real human interaction. But she grows throughout the movie, and her character arc turns into the one optimistic aspect of "Up in the Air." Ms. Kendrick sells her character perfectly: precise, tightly-wound sentences and body language in the beginning; and then a slow, frightened unraveling of her composure as her spirit is crushed by the coldness of a job where she has to tell people some of the worst news they're going to hear in their lives; watch impassively as they demand answers, scream obscenities, hold up pictures of their children, or crumple into hopeless tears; and then feed them hollow comforts to keep them upright and sane--at least until they can pack their things and walk out of the office. Natalie Keener is Ryan Bingham before he became a self-deceiving shell of a human being, and by golly if she doesn't start to slowly realize it.

For the people fired in the movie, Jason Reitman actually went out and found non-actors who had been recently fired from their jobs to play some of them (J.K. Simmons and Zach Galifianakis are two of the few professional actors in a downsized employee role). He asked them to improvise their lines as best as they could remember from their own experiences. Unsurprisingly, their scenes are the most emotionally raw and vivid. Mr. Reitman also bookends "Up in the Air" with a series of clips of these same people answering questions about their experience--the opener about how they felt about being fired, and the closer about how they dealt with the experience. Both scenes are affecting, and underscore the respective tragedies and triumphs of the main characters.

"Up in the Air" could be seen as a film for the financial crisis era--a commentary on the soaring unemployment rate and its effects on people, so to speak--and it comes close. There's a quick scene around the halfway mark where Ryan and Natalie visit a company where so many employees have been let go that almost an entire floor is devoid of people. It looks like the wreckage surrounding a sinking ship, and the effect is jolting and horrifying. But this isn't the focus of the movie. "Up in the Air" is concerned, in the end, with the epiphany of its protagonist--the devastated lives of the numerous downsized are there only to provide juxtaposition with Ryan Bingham's loss of human connection. "Life is better with company," Ryan realizes near the end of the movie. He just realizes it far too late.
**** out of ****

Not Quite Elementary, But That's Mostly OK.

2010-01-22T15:55:00.000-08:00

I love Robert Downey Jr. Really, I do, I adore that man. Every movie he's done has been improved by his presence, and I would watch any movie with him in any role. Usually, he plays a fast-talking, jittery wise-guy, but in "Sherlock Holmes," he also comes equipped with the Holmes-ian characteristics of superb intellect, twitchy neuroses, and a rather good British accent. Honestly, if there's any reason to watch "Sherlock Holmes," it's to see Robert Downey Jr. do his thing, i.e., steal every scene he's in, which is almost all of them.

This might be the first Guy Ritchie film that doesn't have an ensemble cast of characters all intertwined in some enormously complex plot that rambles on and goes nowhere, and for that, everyone ought to be thankful. He's still concerned with his movie and characters looking cool, though, and I suppose that isn't a bad thing.

His Holmes and Watson are decked out fashionably: corduroy and tweeds, bowlers, trilbies, and top hats, all worn with the knowledge that they look damn good and even sometimes with that rakish cock to one side. The famous deerstalker cap is absent, mostly because it would look silly in the Victorian-era-slash-steam punk London of the film, but also because Holmes only wears something like it once in the books. The idea that he wore all the time is an invention of the artists and the movies, just like the oft quoted line, "Elementary, my dear Watson."

In keeping with the requisite cool factor, Ritchie brings the fisticuffs and minor scuffles, normally delegated to out-of-sight references or brief description in the books, to full light and bone-snapping realization. These fights are, for the most part, acceptable for a Holmes tale (he really was proficient in the martial arts, Asian and Western), but they occasionally veer wildly off into outrageous Hollywood-style altercations (all of which are unfortunately advertised in the trailer). Ritchie also proposes another use of Holmes's considerable intellect: planning in his mind each punch, kick and jab to effectively disable his opponent. Unconventional, perhaps, but certainly plausible.

Anyway. The un-cool aspects of "Sherlock Holmes" are, unsurprisingly, the plot, the length, and the character of Irene Adler. The plot involves some supernatural hooey: a Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), sentenced to death for five murders and practicing witchcraft, seemingly comes back to life after being hung and pronounced dead. The concept of a supernatural enemy is not unfamiliar to Conan Doyle's tales (The Hound of the Baskervilles is the most obvious example), but it is generally rare. The problem arises in the script's invention (I assume?) of an underground society comprised of high-ranking government members of the world's major powers who all believe in the existence of magic. Besides being a stupid idea, it is just too far-out there for a Sherlock Holmes story. The secret society subplot also pads the running time of the movie--at two hours and change, it's far too long.

The character of Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) appears only in one Holmes tale, A Scandal in Bohemia. In all of the stories, she has the distinction of being one of the only people who ever outwitted Holmes and got away with it. The inclusion of her character is, presumably, to provide some kind of female foil to Holmes (and more cynically, perhaps, to attract female viewers). Ritchie's three screenwriters rewrite her as a professional thief and a possible past lover of Sherlock Holmes. Besides the fact that Holmes has never had any romantic inclinations in any of the four novels and fifty-six short stories he appears in, the Adler character also has the problem of being a women in a Guy Ritchie film. None of his movies have ever had a women as one of the main characters, and all female characters, when they do appear, are relegated to strippers, girlfriends, or femme fatales. Adler comes across as a soft version of the third option, a highly intelligent thief that still ends up falling for Holmes and being manipulated by a greater evil (Holmes's arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty). Despite Ms. McAdams's performance, which isn't bad, the character brings little to the table.

On the other hand, the all-important Holmes and Watson interaction is fully intact and well-written. Jude Law brings vigor and wit to his Dr. Watson, a welcome change to the cliche and incorrect portrayals of the good Doctor as a bumbler and an idiot. Mr. Law's scenes with Mr. Downey Jr., when they're merely conversing like an old married couple, are the best parts of the movie (apart from watching Downey Jr. deduct) and worth the price of admission. And I don't think Sir Arthur will be rolling too much in his grave. Why, what more could you ask for?
*** out of ****

What kind of name is McG anyway??

2010-01-19T17:39:00.000-08:00

Christian Bale does so much shouting in "Terminator Salvation" that I'm beginning to think he was merely in character when he exploded in that infamous audio clip leaked last year. His John Connor is a desperate, raging individual, filled only with hatred for machines and fueled by the same. Unfortunately, this leaves no room for nuances in his character, or even the movie.

Does a Terminator movie need nuances, you ask? Of course it does, silly. That's what made the originals (and particularly, the first sequel) rise above sci-fi/action to become something more. The first Terminator had an air of mystery, of uncertainty. Guy from the future comes back in time to protect a women he doesn't know from an unstoppable killing machine, also from the future. Her son will be the chosen one, he tells her. Cue gritty action scene. If that isn't a plot hook, I don't know what is

The second Terminator film (also directed by James Cameron), was bigger, louder, and deeper than its predecessor. It is known now as a landmark for CG special effects and action movies, but it also had a quietly touching subplot about a boy (young John Connor, played by Edward Furlong) and his cyborg protector (Ahnuld), whom he regards as a father figure and friend and teaches to understand human behavior. When Schwarzenegger says "I understand now, why you cry," before lowering himself into a pit of molten metal, it's both sentimental and downright tear-jerking. You cared about him, not to mention Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and her son.

Even the third movie in the series, though received rather tepidly at the box office and by fans, was a solid trilogy-capper. The ending was appropriately downbeat and open-ended, and it offered, again, Arnold's Terminator as the emotional center of the film.

The first problem with "Terminator Salvation" is its lack of this emotional center. Director McG and his writers think it's Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright, a convicted murderer who gave his body to science and wakes up from cryogenic sleep conveniently in the future. He soon finds out that he is mostly machine, a type of Terminator designed to infiltrate the human resistance and kill John Connor. The emotional conundrum here obviously involves Marcus's human desires and morality conflicting with his programming, but he is so blandly played by Mr. Worthington, who confuses internal turmoil with tensing him facial muscles and narrowing his eyes, that the viewer feels nothing for his final acts of redemption.

"Salvation" also lacks a main character--it oscillates between following Marcus, as he befriends Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, passable), who will become John Connor's father in the future, and focusing on John Connor, hero and legend to the resistance and the rest of the survivors scattered across the country. Unfortunately, neither of the ostensible protagonists provide anything more than bland, dull, one-note portrayals of their characters. Bale, dedicated actor that he is, no doubt went deep into character as John Connor, but all that comes out is hoarse shouting and gravelly, grave mutters about death, his mother, and Skynet. He isn't likable or remotely interesting, and "Salvation" suffers for it.

The plot is similarly lost. At times you think it's about Marcus's journey towards self-discovery and redemption for past deeds, and other times it looks to be about the resistance army's last-ditch effort to destroy Skynet. Really, though, it's just aimless. There's no real motivation for any of the events that occur. In the previous movies, there was always something clearly causing the action, the chases, the explosions, etc. The viewer understood enough to care. In "Salvation," the viewer is expected to already be caring; the story is treated like just one chapter in an ongoing saga, one that can be allowed to peter out in the end to set up for a sequel, rather than have exciting and satisfying conclusion.

"Terminator Salvation" has no heart. It has no heart, no soul, and no understanding of "what makes us human," no matter how many times Sam Worthington says the phrase in the voice-over narration. "Terminator Salvation" has no imagination, save what can be found in the creation of the Terminators, the machines whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill human beings. "Terminator Salvation" has no cinematic talent--it's Michael Bay filmmaking without the fetishism, in the cliche drab, bleached out rubble world of the future. "Terminator Salvation" is the latest entry in a series that had already concluded. "Terminator Salvation" should never have been made.
* out of ****

Movies of the Decade

2010-01-16T10:49:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know I was all "THE DECADE ISN'T OVER YET PEOPLES HONESTLY," but I can't resist doing a list. I'm like those guys in "High Fidelity" who define themselves by making Top 5's of everything (although I definitely have more than 5 from the past ten years).

In no particular order of importance, my favorite movies from 2000 - 2009:

Lost in Translation
Bill Murray's best performance in years, Scarlett Johansson's best performance period, and dreamy cinematography in the neon lights of Tokyo. What's not to love? Sofia Coppola's sophomore effort is about emotionally lost adults meeting and cultivating a relationship so deep that when they finally part ways, their last words are kept secret from the audience, left only to the imagination. It's kinda beautiful.

Casino Royale
Not only does Daniel Craig proves the haters wrong as the best Bond since Sean Connery, but "Casino Royale" accomplishes the dual task of updating Bond for a new generation and still keeping the series fresh. It also has more heart than any Bond movie, barring "Her Majesty's Secret Service," and finally makes a point about what double-O status actually entails (i.e., killing people, sometimes brutally). The new Bond fights terrorists with his cell phone, gets tortured where it hurts, and falls in love and has his heart broken. He's just a devastated, shell of a man by the end of the movie. It's frightening.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Tolkien gets brought to life on screen, finally, in what is probably the greatest movie trilogy of all time. Purists will tell you it's a bastardization of the books, and much of what they say is true, but Peter Jackson achieves enough moments of pure joy and raw emotion, and the scope of the movies is so epic, that it is enough to forgive any changes to original story.

Ratatouille
A movie about a rat who wants to be a chef in Paris? Believe it. Pixar achieves greatness again, delivering a story about following your dreams that doesn't seem at all cloying, while still finding time to include a bit of commentary on the nature and role of critics in society. It looks great, too.

El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)
Beautifully imaginative and brutally alive, Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth is a fairy tale like they were written originally. Ofana Baquero is wonderful as a girl just trying escape the nightmare world she inhabits, a world where her mother is pregnant and ill and her step-father is a monster in every sense of the word. But, the fantasy she runs to is not much better than real life. This ain't Disney--here there are no happy endings.

Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi's acclaimed graphic novel brought to the silver screen, and it loses none of its power. The stark black and white color scheme, the moments of unbridled joy and the unsentimental outlook on life--it's all there. Most inescapable is the seething undercurrent of rage and confusion of the author, and the film's ending offers no answers.

The Jason Bourne trilogy
They reinvented the spy movie genre and brought it back into vogue, made Matt Damon into a huge star, and is almost solely responsible for the look and feel of "Casino Royale." They're also marvelously entertaining, and they accomplish what only "The Lord of the Rings" couldo, which is a franchise with sequels as good as the original. I also can't look at a ballpoint pen now without thinking of that scene in "Identity."

Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight and The Incredibles
The 00's was a decade for the superhero movie. These three are the best of the bunch. "Spider-Man 2" is the purest film adaptation of a comic book hero--certainly Peter Parker's character arc is pathos-filled and satisfying, but it is Alfred Molina's Doc Ock who adds a final measure of poignancy to the story.
"The Dark Knight" brought the superhero movie as close to real life as it probably ever will. It is unrelentingly dark, it's sole bright light the frighteningly unhinged performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Brad Bird invented his own family of superheroes, and the result is one of the most exhilarating and warm movies in the genre, not to mention the year. "The Incredibles" has more insights into family-ties and middle age than most movies (certainly more than any Disney picture has).

The Queen
Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. Michael Sheen as former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Just watch it.

Stranger than Fiction
To date, this is Will Ferrell's one and only dramatic role, and consequently the movie is even funnier. It is also a poignant and quietly beautiful ode to one man's quest to experience life and love as he has never known it.

Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz
Humor done Britishfully and wickedly. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright team up twice to give the world their loving homage/spoofs to zombie and action flicks, respectively, and the results are hilarious.

Lat Den Ratte Komma In (Let the Right One In)
This movie will haunt and thoroughly disturb you. Apparently, everyone else in the world remembers that vampires are scary creatures. Only in America do we think they sparkle.

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)
Miyazaki masterpiece. Nothing else need to be said.

Donnie Darko
Twisted, confusing, haunting. "Donnie Darko" inspired a cult following and made Jake Gyllenhaal a star, but it's true power lies in how it leaves itself open to several different interpretations, each one as interesting as the next.

Artificial Intelligence: AI
Asimov-esque plot imagined by Stanley Kubrick and finished by Steven Spielberg. The tone of the movie shifts from one scene to the next, at times cold and clinical, at others haunting and emotionally powerful. Many said the ending was pure Spielberg sentimental nonsense, but they didn't understand how disturbing the final scene actually was. Haley Joel Osment's last great role before he disappeared into obscurity and DUI's.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson's best movie since "The Royal Tenenbaums," "Fox" expands slightly on Roald Dahl's popular story, but it retains the subtle adult themes that characterized his books while adding, with great effect, common Anderson themes of familial strife and existentialism. Did I mention it's also in stop-action?

Tropic Thunder
Kirk: "Everybody knows you never go full retard."
Tugg: "What do you mean?"
Kirk: "Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, 'Rain Man,' look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, 'Forrest Gump.' Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, "Being There." Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, "I Am Sam." Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed..."

That pretty much sums up "Tropic Thunder." Literally non-stop hilarity all the way through--Hollywood satirizes itself.

So there you have it. The movies that meant most to me in the last ten years. I laughed, I cried--they moved me, Bob.

Real Modern Warfare

2010-01-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

"The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug."
~Chris Hedges

"The Hurt Locker" opens with that quote from journalist Chris Hedges, and then proceeds to deliver one of the most visceral cinematic experiences of 2009. It's a war movie, but it's un-exploitative, straightforward, and still entirely gripping.

Director Kathryn Bigelow's previous works consisted almost entirely of large-scale, Hollywood-style action thrillers ("Point Break," "K-19: The Widowmaker," "Strange Days"), but here she dials down the special effects and high-profile actor showboating. Gone also is the traditional thriller plotline, leaving only her skills as a filmmaker (particularly her ability to ratchet up a scene's suspense level to near breaking point), which are considerable, the perfect simplicity of the story, and the talents of her actors to hold up the movie. All three are more than capable.

The plot is simplistic in that there isn't one; there's no set narrative, no defined villains or plot twists, just a collection of violent or tense encounters connected by moments of quiet character development. War movies tend to come in a few different flavors. Some use war merely as a backdrop to stage wild and impressive action sequences, like the "Rambo" movies and the recent "The Kingdom." Others use some kind of mission to drive the narrative ("Apocalypse Now," "Saving Private Ryan"), and still others are used as political criticism or propaganda ("The Deer Hunter," "Sergeant York," "Casualties of War"). There is one other broad category, and that is the honest war movie. These films do not attempt to sermonize, to thrill and entertain, or even to provide an old fashioned story. They merely follow a group of soldiers as they experience war. "Full Metal Jacket" and "The Big Red One" are two fine examples in this small list. "The Hurt Locker" is the newest addition.

Most viewers are so used to the smallest details being used as plot devices or to explain complicated denouements in thriller movies that a movie like "The Hurt Locker" might be disconcerting at first. Set during the present-day Iraq War, "Locker" follows a US bomb disposal squad in the last days of their term, going on mission after mission, getting the job done while trying not to get killed. Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is the squad's leader and bomb expert, the one who goes in and defuses the IDE or car-bomb before the rest of the troops roll on through, and his backup and protection while he's engrossed in wiring are Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).

James is the focus of the movie, as his job, the most dangerous and important, provides nearly all of the dramatic thrust. Bombs in movies are traditionally used to create suspense, but they usually only cause fright or anxiety when the characters on the screen don't actually know that there is a bomb. Here, the bombs are almost always found--the suspense is created through the lack of any knowledge about the bomb. Is it remote controlled? Are there pressure sensors? And, when James brings the wire cutters and pliers out, will he make a mistake and blow himself to kingdom come? Even when the viewer isn't worried about James, Sanborn and Eldridge are in constant danger, and their paranoia carries over into the audience anyway.

Bigelow's cinematography is as responsible for the suspense-level of the movie as the subject matter. In an age where the hand-cam has become a cliche and cheap way to achieve a sense of immediacy ("Cloverfield," "Blair Witch Project"), "The Hurt Locker" is something of a rarity, because it doesn't seem to be imitating home-made tapes like the aforementioned parenthesized films. Bigelow uses a hand-held like a professional; nothing is lost to the viewer, and, through her fast cuts between close-ups of a character's face and bird's eye shots, she achieves a realistic immediacy, a documentary feel without the self-consciousness. This lends not only credibility to the proceedings, but also unpredictability. Things just happen, or don't happen, in this movie, but whatever plays out isn't expected, except the viewer's frayed nerves. And people die--often characters just introduced into the movie--suddenly and brutally, without any last-words or comforts.

Also interesting is the way the Bigelow hints that each time a bomb is being defused, the maker is somewhere out in the crowd, watching, as eager to see how his bomb is faring against the man trying to disarm it. A face is almost never put on any of the bomb makers, however, reflecting the common situation in real life.

Acting is uniformly excellent. Bigelow cast unknowns as the three leads to heighten the sense of reality, and it works. Each of the actors succeeds in creating a unique, living and relate-able character. Geraghty's Eldridge is young, afraid and unused to combat. He freezes up during critical moments, fumbles even when it looks like a sure shot. But he's not useless, and he's not stupid. He's just trying to come to terms with the fact he can die at any time on any day from anything, bullet, bomb, or accident, and to stay alive he must take initiative and kill before the same is done to him. All this is expressed in his body language and particularly his voice, which tends to waver as his sanity oscillates near breaking point.

Mackie brings real humanity, especially in his final scene, to a role that's generally all professionalism--he's the guy the audience really hopes makes it out alive, because in the end he's the guy everyone can identify with. He even grows to like James, if only a little bit.

But Jeremy Renner is the star of the show. This guy needs an Oscar nomination. Everything he does is highly compelling--partly he's a bit of a cipher to the audience--but as the movie progresses, different layers of James are revealed, none of which contradict the first impression. Instead they build on his character, providing the viewer with a far more realistic and three-dimensional human being.

The initial impression of his character to Sanborn and Eldridge is an adrenaline junkie who takes unnecessary risks, both with his team's lives as well as his own, by insisting on disarming bombs by hand rather than using a robot. It's undeniable, of course, how good he is at his job, but it grows increasingly clear that he is addicted to the work. Each IED, car bomb, body bomb--they're all personal challenges between him and the bombmaker, wit and intelligence against wicked cleverness.

He's not an unfeeling machine, though. See how he treats the Iraqi boy who sells DVD's on the base, or how he coaches Eldridge through a tense moment in the middle of battle. His relationship with Sanborn ranges from open dislike to nigh homoerotic. James can also be callous in expressing his opinion about his fellow soldiers, but it is clear that what he says is true, and all he's doing is being honest.

Kathyrn Bigelow and the cast and crew have made the Iraq war movie that so many tried and failed to make previously (see "Lions for Lambs"). "The Hurt Locker" is neither heavy-handed nor preachy, exploitive nor sentimental. It simply does what all the other films could not, and that is tell it like it is. There's no political propaganda thrown about, and the "good guys" most certainly do not win all of the time. And most importantly, "The Hurt Locker" brings to light what most war movies do not, and that is warfare's addictive rush. Some men, like Renner's Sgt. James, are battle-junkies, brilliant and flawed. His final scenes are all the more devastating because of this.
**** out of ****

A New Moon is on the Horizon, and it Ain't the Planetary Kind..

2010-01-06T22:41:00.000-08:00

The moment Robert Pattinson appeared on screen, striding in slow motion across a parking lot in all his pale, sparkly, coiffed glory, I knew "New Moon" was going to be as pathetically overwrought and stupefyingly tepid as its predecessor. I say this not because I have a personal vendetta against the ludicrously popular series (because that would make me even more trivial than I already am), or because I hate Rob Pattinson (I don't; I've seen him in interviews, and he still looks shellshocked by what he's gotten himself into, poor bloke), or even because I hate Stephanie Meyer (I do; I hate her as much as anyone can hate a fat, ugly, Mormon woman who makes more money than most people ever will by writing tweener versions of those romance rag novels that crowd library paperback fiction shelves). No, I knew "New Moon" was gonna suck because it gave the audience that slo-mo scene in complete and utter seriousness, not a wink or a nudge in sight. Something this campy deserves the tongue-in-cheek treatment, but it won't get it. Summit Entertainment won't risk alienating its fanbase by changing any aspect of the story, even the sparkle stuff. The Twilight phenom is here to stay, it seems, because it's makes so much damn cash. This is materialism and cynicism at its worst, and, not surprisingly, filmmaking and acting at its worst.

What is Twilight, you ask? (I'm assuming you've just returned from a five year hermitage out in the boondocks or something.) Why, it depends on who you ask, really. Pose this query to the nearest 12 year old girl, and she'll tell you it's the totally romantic love story between that dreamy vampire Edward Cullen and that totally awesome normal girl Bella Swan. Ask the critics, and you'll get a mixed response, comprising of half-concealed orgasmic reactions from female reviewers, utterly bemused or disgusted shrugs from normal, sane people, blasphemous comparisons ranging from Bronte to Shakespeare from idiots like Armond White, and a stupendous lack of vision from Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman. In actuality, the series is just one giant ode to trashy romance novels, packaged up nice and chaste for the legions of 13 year old girls and their moms, who, inexplicably, find it all so very engaging.

The feeling I felt most while watching "New Moon" was that of utter boredom. Pain, too, and sometimes inadvertent hilarity. But mostly boredom. Now I know how non-HP fans felt watching "Half-Blood Prince." Oh, those teenagers and their angsty angst and their relationship problems...never gets old, does it? Actually, yea, it does, because, neither the Harry Potter or Twilight characters are entirely accessible if the viewer isn't already a fan, so watching everyone run around with such seriousness is torturous. At least Ms. Rowling had the grace and maturity to understand that teenage love is a usually futile, always funny, and occasionally rather heartbreaking affair, and the film adaptations reflect this aspect of her writing. In SMeyer's world, everything is glum. Teenagers are mopey, more than slightly dumb romantics, content to obsess over their low self-esteem, fall in love with dangerous supernatural creatures, and to read Romeo and Juliet like it's a model for proper behavior in relationships (which it isn't).

"New Moon," the second book in series, naturally begins with this gloomy melodrama. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), it seems, is one of those people who cannot be happy content. She's just gotta be moping and brooding about something. I mean, I guess if I was dating a man 91 years older than me, I'd be depressed, too, but what she's angsting over is just silly. Today is her birthday; she turns 18, which is horrifying to her because it's older than the pretend age of her immortal boyfriend, Edward (Robert Pattinson), and all she can think about is how old and ugly she'll be years from now (that's right, Bella, people age), and how "beautiful" (read: sparkly) and "like an avenging angel" (read: pale) he will still be. Most normal people would find this silly, and even Ed thinks she's overreacting, but no, this concept is so distressing to her that she can't even enjoy her own birthday, even when Ed's family invites her over for a little party and presents. What at great main character, and role model for those tweeners. Bella totally has a super awesome thing going on with that sexy, studly, vampire dude (on the count of three, all the ladies go SQUEE), whose family adores her and throws her a party and she's so self-absorbed that she can't even be grateful.

Luckily, disaster slaps her before the audience can--or rather, Eddie does. Bella cuts her finger on wrapping paper (I'm sorry, but who the hell does that? Is that even possible??), dripping an obscene amount of blood around and unleashing the bloodlust of one of Eddie's more badass brothers, who promptly tries to rip her throat out. Eddie does what anyone would do in this situation and throws Bella across the room, through some glass vases and into the wall, making her bleed some more. This all actually happens.

After this episode, Edward decides he and his family are too dangerous for Bella, so he breaks up with her by leading her into the middle of the woods, telling her she's not good for him, and disappearing. In the middle of the woods. No, not in her house, or in his house, or in her room, or in front of her house, or ANYWHERE NORMAL. Bella, naturally, like that lovably stupid klutz that she is, runs around the forest looking for Eddie until she's hopelessly lost and it's pitch black out. Then she trips and knocks herself unconscious. The upshot of the whole sequence is that Edward tells her not to do anything stupid before he leaves, her being Bella Swan, the clumsiest, dumbest heroine since...well, ever, I guess. That she becomes an adrenaline junky prone to riding motorcycles and cliff jumping is as stupid as it is predictable.This all actually happens.

In the absence of Eddiekins, local hunk Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) starts hitting on Bella. She takes like any good girl should: by jerking him around and basically being a giant cocktease. Of course, it's not like she isn't attracted to him. Jake spends half the movie topless, and whenever he's around Bella she just can't keep her hands off his abs. Oh, and by the way, he's a werewolf. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone, given Bella's strange obsession with supernatural bad boys who could kill her.

Now, SMeyer intends for the Jacob/Edward dilemma as a metaphor (she just loves them allegorical thangs) for the types of "guys" that girls supposedly go for. Ed and vampy's represent the emo, pale, scrawny poet-types (plus 500 points if they can recite Romeo's last lines), and Jake and the wolves are the buff, hot-blooded jocks. Weitz and his writer don't emphasize this any more than they have to, maybe because they realized how shallow a metaphor it is.

The director and writer don't provide too much help beyond that, though. "New Moon" is hampered not only by its pacing and poor story, but by its dialogue and acting. Granted, the dialogue is SMeyer's, but if the screenwriter had any balls he would've made the dumb ones a little smarter. The acting, on the other hand, ranges from constipated angst (Pattinson), to lip-biting dullness (Stewart), to almost likable (Taylor). Less can be said for the side characters, all of whom have atrocious lines and nearly all have bad delivery.

"New Moon," like its predecessor, also tries to spice things up with a little action sequence at the end, but seeing Ed get smashed around really isn't enough to make up for the rest of the movie. Nor is watching little Dakota Fanning with red eyes, or Brit thesp Michael Sheen c(v)amp it up as some Italian mafia vampire something-or-other. At least he seemed to be enjoying himself, and that's more than you can say about anyone else in the picture.

* out of ****

P.S. My final gripe is with the movie's soundtrack--it's good. Someone needs to be held accountable for introducing Muse, Radiohead, and Death Cab for Cutie to a bunch of effing tweeners. I think we all liked it better when they listened to Green Day and Fall Out Boy, don't you agree?

P.P.S. I almost forgot to leave you with these glorious additions to the hilarious battle against the Twifans.

Microsuede reviews New Moon with Lolcats and gets to the heart of it all far better than I do.
NYMag does a slideshow about Twilight
Blogger Kellen Rice gives tips on how to write a bestselling series, SMeyer-style
otahyoni on LJ discovers that Twilight sucks
THE funniest IM conversation on LJ about Ed Cullen ever.
Cleolinda on LJ reads Breaking Dawn, with comments in REAL TIME!
These gals are doing the same thing-->it's just as funny

Don't Die Blue Frank!!

2010-01-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

James Cameron returns, and it's big. But that's to be expected. He hasn't released a film in 12 years because he's been working on this, "Avatar," the movie experience of the decade, or so he proclaims. Mr. Cameron also says "Avatar" will revolutionize film-making, particularly in the realm of 3-D entertainment. Regardless of either statement, "Avatar" was destined to be a box office smash, given Mr. Cameron's past work and the hype surrounding it for months. For the JC fanboys, the action and sci-fi nerds, and the bloggers, though, first glimpses of the film were disappointing.

I admit I had far different aspirations for "Avatar," ones that in hindsight were not realistic in the least, but when the first trailer was released, I, along with the rest of the internet, was slightly disappointed. As one blogger put it, it looked like "Captain Planet with cats." When the plot summary was released, people were even more annoyed; it read like "Dances with Wolves" by way of "Pocahontas," but in space and with a environmentalist message. Well. They were right, it is. But "Avatar" is also the most visually spectacular film since Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movies, and indeed, it shares with them their epic scope and grand ideals. To dismiss it for its less than inventive story is to dismiss a marvelous piece of entertainment. This picture moves, ladies and gentlemen, like films were meant to.

Which makes sense. James Cameron has always been fantastic at filming action sequences, usually with enough skill and intensity to get you slack-jacked (and to make you forget that the ideas behind it all are pretty thin). The "Terminator" movies were landmarks for sci-fi and special effects, respectively. "Aliens" was full-blooded monster action, fueled by Sigourney Weaver kicking ass and taking alien names, and the relentless assault of terror and gun blasts. "The Abyss" is one of his quieter movies, and it works, surprisingly, most of the time. "True Lies" is sheer nonsensical Bond-esque secret agent stuff, a la Ahnuld. "Avatar" brings the action of his previous work, but this time it's supplemented with 3-D and special effects that are, if not something entirely new, at least fully realized and without mistake.

"Avatar" is set on Pandora, a habitable moon of some gas giant in a distant solar system, in the year 2154. Mankind has stretched out its fingers in search of resources, now that Earth has been stripped bare, and what it has found is a mineral that must be important because it's called "unobtanium" (not kidding) and sells for "twenty million a kilo." We're never actually told what it can do, but the industrialists really want it, so much so that they hire ex-marines as mercenaries (think Blackwater working for General Electric, or something) to aid them in the process of ousting the Pandoran natives, the ten foot tall blue Na'vi, while they strip mine the land.
But, the company heads back home don't want too much mess (killing defenseless aliens would make for bad PR, after all), so negotiations are attempted before military force. Using "avatars," Na'vi bodies cloned from combined human and Na'vi DNA and controlled by a person kept in a sleep-state back at the lab, a bio-geneticist team headed by Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) does its best to reason with and befriend the Pandorans. It goes without saying that their efforts are mostly in vain, but that's where the hero, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), comes in. He's a paraplegic ex-marine who's brought in as a bodyguard for the scientists, but when he encounters the Na'vi and is inexplicably accepted by them, he becomes a far greater asset, both to the mercenaries and the corporation, and the scientists who wish to learn more about the Na'vi culture.

That Jake begins to love the Na'vi way of life and eventually turn against his own people should come as no surprise to anyone. This story has been done time and time again, in different settings with different characters. The most recent example is this past summer's "District 9." A decidedly more brutal picture, it is just as pessimistic about human nature in the face of extraterrestrial life, technology and resources. Both films postulate that mankind's greed and prejudice will lead industrialists (using mercenary ex-military forces) to mistreat alien life--"District 9" centers around an international corporation's attempts to acquire and use alien weaponry, and "Avatar" around a mining company on another planet--and both have simple-minded one note villians. But where "District 9" imagined an extraterrestrial race not much better than our own in terms of decency or intelligence, "Avatar" is firmly on the side of the Na'vi, whose Native American-esque lifestyle of communing with nature, coexisting with the wildlife, and worshiping their god, Eywa, by having mass swaying yoga sessions, are shown as far superior to those silly Earthling ways of life.

Of course, the "environmentalists vs. industrialists" conflict has been done many times before, often far more objectively and intelligently ("Princess Mononoke" comes to mind, as well as "Dances with Wolves"). On screen, it's been done most recently in "Battle for Terra," a mostly unseen animated movie that just happens to have an almost identical plot outline to "Avatar." Cameron's problem here is not that his story retreads old material, but that it is done so poorly. Every twist and turn of the narrative is seen coming by the audience, and it is only the sense of wonder provided by the strength of the visuals that keeps them from becoming bored (or realizing that they know what's coming next).

What makes "Avatar"so good at holding the viewer's attention and empathy is the fact that what is seen on screen is so overwhelmingly real and alien and familiar, all at the same time, that the movie would've been wonderful just to look at without dialogue. And sometimes, "Avatar" manages to reach heights of pure, cinematic joy that most movies couldn't hope to accomplish. The scene where Jake Sully, in his Na'vi avatar, tames and flies a dragon-like beast through the clouds and between the floating mountains of Pandora is one example--I can't remember any recent films that had scenes that made me feel such elation or want to fly so much.

I suppose that's all you really need for this kind of movie. Epic sweep and spectacle can overshadow less than intricate (read: less than original) plotting, but only a few filmmakers can actually accomplish this and make the audience feel good about it afterward. James Cameron is one of them. He's mastered the filmmaker's skill of making high-end entertainment, eye candy to make the masses happy to spend 20 bucks on tickets and popcorn at the movie theater. If the story reads like a 'white guilt' film written by a tree-hugging 14 year-old who thought it would be awesome to combine "Dances with Wolves" with "Pocahantas" by way of "The Matrix" then so be it. Each individual viewer can decide how much he or she would like to read into that. "Avatar" looks beautiful, and it breaks enough ground in film to get a place in cinematic history. Cameron has said that "Avatar" is the movie he wanted to see when he was 14, and I admit, if I had seen this at 14, it would've blown my mind. But is that the criteria for a great film? You decide.

With that said, is there anything else that's actually good about "Avatar" besides the stunning computer graphics? Yes. Zoe Saldana's performance as Neytiri, the female Na'vi who befriends Jake and with whom he--you guessed it--falls in love. Remember when you saw Andy Serkis's performance as Gollum in "The Two Towers" and realized you had just witnessed an actor's every emotion expressed so well that it actually shone through the CGI character? Ms. Saldana replicates this feat and makes it her own. She brings acting cred to the whole movie, more than Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney and especially Sam "Stone Face" Worthington can accomplish together. Stephen Lang, as Col. Quaritch, the ultimate hardass of movie military hardasses, doesn't even come close. Zoe Saldana gives us the feral, beating heart of "Avatar." Even if she does look like a giant blue talking cat.
*** out of ****

P.S. Failblog on Avatar's plot.

Sickest, Most Awesome Remixes/Mash-ups on teh Interwebz.

2010-01-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

Sooooo, this is just for fun. If you know some songs that should be added to the list, link me in the comments. :-)

Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up -- Nirvana and Rick Astley

Song and Cry -- Jay-Z and Radiohead

London Bridge -- Bowling for Soup and Fergie

Fat Lip -- Cobus and Sum 41

Gunshots by Computer -- Nine Inch Nails and Saul Williams

Love and Trolls -- Ratatat and Boxxybabee

99 Problems/Points of Authority -- Linkin Park and Jay-Z

Pokerface Kids -- Weezer, MGMT and Lady Gaga

Yeah!

2010-01-01T09:59:00.001-08:00

Saw Avatar, New Moon and The Hurt Locker. Crazy mix, I know. Reviews for all three hopefully pending.

Three Awesome Webseries For You Geeks to Watch...

2009-12-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

First up is Legend of Neil, a comedy series about some schlubby dude named Neil who gets sucked into the Legend of Zelda 8-bit NES game. I can't say how this happens (it's explained in the theme song, which will haunt you), but know that this show is written by dudes (Sandeep Parikh and Tony Janning), so it's full of as much filthy language and frat-party debauchery as you can stand (or maybe can't, so be warned). It's also hilariously funny,especially for those who are amused by video game in-jokes (Neil has to carry all of his inventory items around on him in one episode) or riffs on some of the inconsistencies in role-playing games. There's even a musical episode, a nod to Joss Whedon's Emmy-winning Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. And the internet's nerd goddess, Felicia Day, plays the raunchiest fairy in anything filmed ever. Go watch it.
Seasons one and two are available for viewing in above link--season three is still in the works.
Bonus-Webchat with the cast and crew

Next up is The Guild.

Written by Felicia Day in the aftermath of her two-year World of Warcraft addiction, it tells the ongoing tale of Cyd Sherman (aka, Codex), healer in her online gaming guild, as she tries to deal with real life and kick her gaming addiction. Each episode opens with a quick clip of Codex talking into a webcam as she recounts some of the day's events or muses on the difficulty of dealing with real people without the shield of the computer screen. These moments are the most charming, because they showcase Felicia Day's deadpan sarcasm and goofy nerdiness. What makes The Guild brilliant (besides Ms. Day's mastery of the webisode medium) is how it develops characters the viewer actually cares about, and the way its jokes, while still being funny, are also insightful about gamer-geek culture and the effects MMO gaming has on people. The show has been a hit on YouTube, and the first two seasons were funded solely through viewer donations, an achievement in itself. Recently they teamed up with XBox Live, and Season Three has been released through MSN video. I really can't say much more about The Guild without spoiling plot details, so please, watch this show. It's wonderful, truly.

Finally, we have There Will Be Brawl.

This is not a comedy like the other two, although it can be inadvertently funny. "Brawl" is straight-up dark drama, a neo-noir parody of the Super Smash Bros. video game, set in a dystopian police-state city. A serial killer is on the loose, gang war might be about to break out, and the government seems to be getting more corrupt every night. Only one man cares enough to figure out what's going on--Luigi, private eye. Most of the fun you get from watching this show is seeing those beloved game characters cast as lowlifes and criminals. Ganondorf, Bowser, King Dedede and Mewtwo are all ganglords, Link and Zelda run the police force, Wario deals drugs (shrooms), and Mario sometimes does, too. Princess Peach sleeps with both Super Mario brothers, and Samus works as an exotic dancer. There are full-out brawls, with blood splattering and knives stabbing, and the serial killer likes to leave his victims as a pile of entrails. It's not a happy story, but the over-the-top seriousness combined with seeing these characters act like people in a B-movie is more cause to laugh than ever. Laugh with a kind of evil glee, I mean, because if there's something geeks love more than their games/toys/TV shows/movies, it's seeing these things subverted and parodied.

The link at the beginning of the paragraph is to the official site--9 episodes are currently available for viewing.

So there you have it, three awesome webisodes to watch. First and last are definitely R-rated, so they ain't safe for work or anyplace where little kids might wander in, but The Guild is pretty mild. Definitely check these shows out, and maybe join in the support to keep them going. :D

Murder Most Foul.....

2009-12-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

"Se7en" is a complete gut-punch of a horror/thriller, a blackly cynical entry into the serial killer genre that laughs viciously at its audience as they're kept spellbound, unable to look away. This is a horror movie like "Silence of the Lambs" was a horror movie: most things gory and horrible are kept off-screen, the terror's all in the mind. It's for people who don't mind being made to think while being disturbed outta their minds. "Se7en" has it all—acting, script, art direction, dialogue, genuine scares, and a shattering conclusion to boot.

The case: a morbidly obese man is found dead (joke!) in his apartment, apparently from having been forced to eat himself to death. Detectives Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) are called in to investigate. Mill's new to the force in Chicago and has just been teamed up with Somerset, who is about to retire at the end of the week. Mills thinks the dead guy in the apartment is just a homocide. Somerset, however, has the feeling that it's only the beginning of what will probably be a string of murders. An autopsy and another search of the apartment confirms his suspicions, and one by one, dead people start popping up around the city, killed in increasingly gruesome and bizarre ways. The serial killer, Somerset realizes, is using the Seven Deadly Sins (Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Envy, and Wrath) as his modus operandi.

The characters: Somerset's a veteran cop. He's seen it all—murder, rape, kidnapping, corruption—and is just tired of it all. Somerset is the passive type of cop, content to meticulously gather evidence rather than rush around willy-nilly. Mills is young, brash, arrogant, all brawn, not enough brains. Most of the time Somerset is annoyed at Mills' style, but together they complement each other and make an excellent team, enough to almost get the upper hand on the killer.

Almost, that is, because this killer is always a step ahead of the police. This isn't one of those movies where the bad guy is caught because of a stupid mistake. The killer in "Se7en" is highly intelligent and has everything planned to the letter. He's played by Kevin Spacey, and that's not giving anything away because he's only seen in the movie when he wants to be seen. He respects Mills and Somerset for doggedly chasing him and getting as close to catching him as they did, but he's still smarter than the two of them put together.

"Se7en" is shot with the appropriate palette for the genre--grays, browns, blacks--but it isn't cliched. Rather, Director David Fincher uses shadows artistically in his night sequences, with light appearing only as the negative space in the dark backdrop. Eerie reds and decaying oranges appear in crucial moments when their appearance will only heighten the impact the scene has on the viewer.

Not that anything extra is really needed when faced with the murders in this movie. They are, by far, the grisliest and most gruesome murders ever to happen off-screen in a movie. All but one murder is seen only in aftermath, and the one that is seen is standard.

This movie is not for the faint of heart. Kevin Spacey's psychopath is a movie serial killer for the ages, one who is, like his compatriot Hannibal Lecter, surprisingly and frighteningly intelligent and persuasive, and who, in the end really has no mercy for those he deems worthy of death. And sometimes, even for those who are innocent. The final scene of "Se7en"--its dialogue, the surprise in the box--will stick in the mind for a long time after watching. Be prepared.

Illuminati, pontificati, and all sorts of hooey

2009-12-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

“Angels and Demons” is, to borrow the appropriate phrase from Roger Ebert, sublimely silly. Its very ridiculousness is its saving grace—I can't find it in me to be to harsh to this movie, as sub-par as it is (much like the writer of the book it is based on). This is Dan Brown's first book, apparently, but it is set after the events in “The Da Vinci Code,” that scandalous book that had the Catholic Church and all the lemmings in the Christian world up in arms over something. Rest assured, oh ye who profess great faith, that Ron Howard and his cast and screenwriter did not take something as trite and harmless as fictional Biblical history and use it as anything more than a plot device. No, “Angels and Demons” involves the Catholic Church's history with the Illuminati, a secret society of scientists and thinkers who were at odds with the Church in its early days of the Byzantine Empire. I think. I got my history lesson from Robert Langdon himself, as he sat in a plane in an early scene, so those of you who are more learned, please forgive the flippancy. It matters not, in the end, who the Illuminati are, really. In this movie, they are nothing more than a plot device, and an effective one at that, meant to keep the ball rolling.

The movie begins with, of all things, the operation of the Large Hadron Collider to create anti-matter, that elusive particle of modern physics. If one knows anything about the Large Hadron Collider, it's obvious how implausible this first scene is (and if the viewer doesn't, he's the right audience, I suppose). It's a rather brilliant introduction, really. Now nothing that comes after this seems implausible, because how could it? The fabric of believability has been torn clean in two, and all that the viewer must do is sit back, relax, and enjoy the events as they rush forth on the screen. Which is exactly what I did, and I enjoyed myself.

Back to the plot: No sooner is the anti-matter gathered then is an important scientist murdered in gruesome fashion and the container holding it stolen. Left on the scene, besides the victim's removed eyeball, is a piece of paper with an Illuminati symbol. SYMBOL!? Could this be related to the recent death of the pope and the kidnapping of the four cardinals in running? Call Robert Langdon, the Vatican says, because it's gonna take a symbologist to get us out of this one.
Turns out the anti-matter is being used as a bomb (my rational, science-y brain roars with laughter) and it's hidden somewhere in Vatican City. Set to go off at midnight, it's powerful enough to wipe out the entire city. Thus is the movie set in non-stop motion, with Langdon rushing around the Vatican for five hours or so trying to find the kidnapped cardinals and stop the bomb while uttering such intellectual gems as ““An obelisk! A kind of pyramid adopted by the Illuminati! If he’s going to kill, he’ll do it here,” and “Wait a minute, that symbol is upside down!”

Jogging alongside him is Vittoria (Israeli movie star Ayelet Zurer), dark-haired brainy beauty (are smart girls allowed to be blond in Hollywood?) and daughter to the murdered CERN scientist. According to the plot, she's there because she's the only one who can disable the bomb, but her real purpose is to provide someone for Langdon to explain things to—although one suspects he would state his every terse, symbol-jargon thoughts to the empty air, so bitten by the explanation-bug is the screenplay. Sometimes Vittoria even finds herself doing it, too: “Oh my god, the Book of Knowledge!” she exclaims after Langdon unveils an ancient Galileo text, before ripping a page out (my rational, science-y brain roars with indignation).

I think I wondered at one point why the bad guys would kill the cardinals in places whose locations could be deciphered by a clever symbologist, or how the Illuminati remained “hidden” for so long if the clues were so obvious, but then I lost interest and went on enjoying the spectacular scenery. St. Peter's Square, the Sistine Chapel, Castle Saint Angelo, the Pantheon and the Fountain of something or other are all filmed with great detail and skill, so well, that you might miss plot points while admiring some piece of architecture or marble statue. Not that it matters.

You also get to watch good actors try and break out of their stock character roles. The supporting cast is ripe with talent: Ewan McGregor is the wide-eyed and devout Camerlengo, adopted son of the dead pope, and Stellan Skarsgaard, as the Commander of the Swiss Guard, and Armin Mueller-Stahl, as Grand Elector Cardinal Strauss, play the characters who look like bad guys from the outset. The movie rules of who will be revealed as the final villain are abided by religiously. Tom Hanks, of course, reprises his role as Mr. Langdon, his hair far shorter but his all-purpose puzzled expression still intact. Eh. He probably phoned the performance in, but who can blame him.

"Angels and Demons" actually almost has a fine ending--there's a huge explosion with lotsa colors, and a heavenly choir croons heavenly Latin phrases on the soundtrack (Hans Zimmer's score rises and swells to make each discovered clue a momentous enough occasion to make the angels sing). It's all very satisfying, until a final twist is thrown at the audience and it goes no where, and the final shot is a disappointingly obvious pan over a cheering CG crowd in St. Peter's Square. Meh.

With all the rushing around, poor plotting, cardboard characters and missed opportunities mixed up in this movie, I was surprised to find a bit of interesting and thoughtful conversation, even if it only lasted for less than a minute. The Camerlengo, while trying to decide if he should let Langdon into the Vatican archives, asks him:

"Do you believe in God, sir?"
Langdon: "Father, I simply believe that religion..."
Camerlengo: "I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believe in God."
Langdon: "I'm an academic. My mind tells me I will never understand God."
Camerlengo: "And your heart?"
Langdon: "Tells me I'm not meant to. Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive."

Now those are rather honest responses, I thought, how did that sneak into the screenplay? I don't know if Dan Brown wrote them, but they are far more insightful than any of the cliched dreck spoken later about religion and science working together. But, true to its nature, "Angels and Demons" does not pause to reflect on Langdon's answers, nor does it bother to bring up the topic again later. Instead, it rushes on to the next clue, not in the name of science or of God, or of even Ron Howard, but of the box office, of the audience's attention span, and Hollywood.
** out of ****

Back in business?

2009-11-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

New review for Angels and Demons being worked on. Maybe Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2 as well.

Vampires Don't Sparkle

2009-11-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

If only......

So. I finally dragged myself to watch the inexplicable cultural phenom that is "Twilight." Final verdict? Yeah, it was as juvenile as I thought it would be. Fitfully entertaining, mostly boring, and occasionally laugh-out-loud ridiculous, "Twilight" is the product of a repressed and immature imagination, made only halfway watchable by the talented director, Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen," "Lords of Dogtown").

I haven't read the book the movie is based all the way through (the prose is horrendous, and I was beginning to question my already questionable manhood), but from what I can tell "Twilight" is mostly faithful to the source material, and this is its main problem. With a story this off kilter, the only thing a director or screenwriter should do is attempt to make it better by changing something, whether it be characterizations, plot details, or even dialogue. Unfortunately, what the audience (not the Twi-fan audience, just the rest of the world) gets is angst-filled characters, a meandering and frankly boring plot, and laughable dialogue.

Twilight is written in the first person, and not well. The reader is treated to every mundane aspect of the narrator's (Bella Swan) boring life, and in her movie adaptation, Hardwicke retains the voice-over narration, but wisely keeps it to a minimum and uses only select lines that aren't inherently unintelligent. Bella is moving from Phoenix, Arizona to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father, I think because her mother is currently traveling a lot with her new boyfriend. She's not unduly upset over this move, but she's not excited either. In fact, Bella, as she's played by a very bored-looking Kristen Stewart (who deserves far better material), spends almost the entire movie not being excited or actually showing any real emotion at all, even when she finally "falls in love." One would think at least she'd be slightly happy with how well she avoided the "social outcast at new school" trope--on her first day every guy she meets fawns over her, and every girl is half jealous, half BFF. To further cement her awesomeness, every piece of "advice" Bella dishes out to her new friends results in something extraordinary (as it turns out, she's a remarkable matchmaker), no matter how cliched or unimaginative the advice happens to be. "Twilight" could've done without these scenes, and even without these secondary "characters," if all they were going to be used for is to drool over the main character.

Unfortunately, the main plot of the movie, that forbidden romance between a teenager and a hundred year old vampire (Seriously? No one finds that even the slightest bit creepy?), is as inane as the various subplots. Bella first sees the undead man of her dreams in the school cafeteria; they share a smoldering glance across the room. Or at least, his glance is smoldering (or perhaps brooding, he uses the same facial expression for both). Bella's stare is the same as her normal appearance: blank and slightly dumbfounded. He, she learns, is Edward Cullen, gorgeous single guy, who's never dated any girl ever and who is played by Robert Pattinson, his hair in a gravity-defying coif that must take hours to get right every morning. The others sitting as his table are his siblings who were all adopted or something, which is used as the explanation for why they're allowed to be romantically paired with one another. (No one finds this unduly disturbing, and only girl says it's weird, "'cause they like, live together.")

Even Bella, who, as the movie progresses, the audience learns is remarkably dumb, probably could've figured out they were all siblings or related somehow. All five ( six?) of the Cullens are covered in ludicrously white makeup that would shame a circus clown. One would suppose (if one were as stupid as the people in Forks, Washington) that the Cullens are so pale and pasty because the sun hardly ever shines in such a foggy, dreary place like Forks, Washington, but really, dun dun dun, they're vampires. The fact that they're supernatural is made so obvious that when their secret identities are revealed, it isn't a surprise. Yes, I realize that everyone knows that Edward Cullen is a vampire, but robbing the story of any sort of suspense doesn't speed things up, it just makes every moment where Bella acts dumbfounded about Edward's mysterious abilities or attempts to do some research (using Google, OMG) drag on and on.

When Bella finally does figure out what he is, she is, contrary to the common sense inherent in all animals to run from dangerous predators, not frightened at all. Nor does she try to avoid said potential bloodsucking fiend like the plague, like any normal person would (except Buffy, who would try and stake the bastard through heart then and there). Well, she's a lucky one. Turns out that the Cullen family are unusual among vampires in that they shun the drinking of human blood, preferring animal blood instead. "We're kind of vegetarians, " says Edward, with a smirk, possibly because the line is so silly he couldn't help but smile a little. However, and here's where the angst comes in. Despite his no-human blood pact, Edward happens to find the scent of Bella's blood to be soooo tasty, that he's pretty sure that if he were to ever lose control, he might just suck the life out of her. Allow yourself a moment, reader, to bask in those sexual metaphors. Aren't they just revelatory?

The knowledge that he finds her incredibly tasty and could possibly lose control and basically eat her doesn't faze Bella at all, because she knows that, "I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Edward Cullen." Her infatuation is not well explained--up to that point in the movie Edward has: brooded a dozen times, been rude to her, saved her from certain death, been rude to her again, angsted over his existence, saved her again, angsted some more, and shown her his sparkly skin (she tells him he's beautiful).

Oh yeah. I forgot about the sparkle stuff. Stephanie Meyer decided her vampires needed new rules, so she threw out everything about vampires that gave them flaws or weaknesses (death by stake, sunlight, garlic or holy water--you know, the stuff that vampire lore is built on?), while preserving all the good stuff (super strength, speed, night vision) and adding some of her own (they just glitter in the sun, and some have the ability to read minds or see the future). Because they don't fit her perfect man expectations, Meyer just rewrites the rules in her favor.

Hardwicke unfortunately does not remove the Meyer vampire attributes--in fact she makes them all the more ludicrous with cheesy super-fast running F/X and the aforementioned glitter skin scene. Perhaps this was her intention, but I can't be sure.

What I can be sure of is that there are elements of "Twilight" that make the intensity of its fandom slightly disturbing. Why is the romance so popular, for instance? It is, in reality, a love story between a hundred year old animated corpse and a 17 year old girl, after all. Necrophiliac aspects aside, a good romance should also have interesting characters; the audience should like them and understand why they're attracted to each other. Bella is nowhere near a two dimensional character--she has no quirks, no personality to speak of, except the flaw of being the kind of girl who would fall in lust with a bloodsucking monster just because he looks like "an avenging angel." Oh, and she's horribly mean to her father.

Edward is less boring as a character, but he also has no reason to like Bella other than because she's pretty, and his angst over his innate predatory nature, while at first a breath of characterization in a lifeless story, eventually becomes constant enough to be annoying. Plus, he has these creepy stalker tendencies to follow Bella around and sneak into her room at night to watch her sleep (she finds this endearing). Props go to Robert Pattinson for at least being willing to bring some level of acting to the role and not trying to make Edward anything more than a morbid, obsessed stalker. Less can be said for Ms. Stewart, who blinks and bites her lip constantly; it's lazy acting, but who came blame her.

So, is there anything good about the movie at all? Not really. Hardwicke films the movie with some level of cinematic style, but she can't do much when her source material requires that the palette of drab grays and fog. Fans of high-camp and "so bad they're almost good" movies will have fun with this (the dialogue alone would make an excellent drinking game)--most other people will just be bored. The film drags because it has no real plot, and the only action occurs the end, where there's a vampire fight scene with shoddy wire-work and no real suspense. But it's violent and serves to wake up any sleepers in the audience so they'll be ready to leave once the credits roll. It's over quickly, though, and any bloodsucking, which one usually expects in a vampire movie, occurs only to save someone's life, not to feed or kill.

Usually if the first movie in a planned series is this bad, the production studio won't allow a sequel to be made. In the "Twilight" case, the ever-growing and highly rabid fanbase gives them reason to sign the actors on for multiple (MORE THAN ONE) sequels, which, if Ms. Meyer doesn't stop churning out her door-stoppers, means the rest of sane world will have to endure the horror of having Harry Potter-like movie events throughout the next ten years. 2012, anyone?

* out of ****

It's us against the aliens, and we're winning.

2009-09-07T18:26:00.001-07:00

"District 9," while not the most original science-fiction movie ever made, is at least not afraid to take risks in its design and story-telling, and that is what makes this movie so refreshing and fun to watch. It is not as hardcore a science fiction film as say, "Moon," but neither is it an action extravaganza, a la "Transformers" or "G.I. Joe." The makers of "District 9" understand that really good science fiction uses the futuristic settings or aliens to illustrate some point about human nature, society, etc, not just as a backdrop to extravagant action scenes.
Director Neill Blomkamp doesn't just want to make a point to the audience, though. He also wants to make an action movie, and while the combination might be difficult to deal with for the average viewer, it's a refreshing break from the traditional, churned-out, loud and obnoxious summer blockbuster.
The premise is smart, too. It puts a twist on the common, "what if aliens came to Earth," plotline, asking not what would they do to us, but rather, what would we do to them? The answer, according to Blomkamp, is not pretty, and consists of basically everything we, the human race, has ever done to each other. The nasty stuff, of course. Think apartheid combined with facist rules and unrestrained greed.
The apartheid reference is entirely appropriate because the movie is set in South Africa (also Blomkamp's home). A giant alien mothership stalls in the sky not over New York City or Washington DC or Tokyo, as all other similar movies have, but over Johannesberg. The aliens found inside are not glowing green or blue, and they don't have beautific features or seem cute. They're darn ugly, with insectoid exoskeletons and mouth tentacles, and humans derisively call them Prawns.
They are also not fully prepared and ready to kill us when they finally make contact. Instead, they are starving, packed together in horrific conditions, crawling through their own waste. Although, after seeing what mankind does to them throughout the course of the movie, the viewer might be able to understand why they would want to start a war.
Not that humans didn't give kindness a try at first. To be fair, the first thing the South African government did was to provide aid and shelter, moving thousands to live on the outskirts of the city. Difficulties erupt quickly, however. Originally housed among the human inhabitants of Johannesberg, the Prawns did not get along with their South African neighbors—their sense of fun (tipping trucks, robbing people), combined with their ugly and frightening appearance, wore out their welcome quickly. The Prawns were placed in a giant, barbed-wire enclosed slum dubbed District 9 (a reference to a similarly named camp during the South African apartheid, District 6), and sinister mega-corporation MultiNational United (MNU) took over management and law enforcement of the alien survivors in the camp.
Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is an employee of MNU, a middle management suck-up and an all-around callous and slimy guy. He's also married to his boss's daughter, and has just been promoted to an inspection chief of some sort. He is also the hero of "District 9."
When we meet Wikus, he is on his way to his first day at the new job, i.e., evicting Prawns from their pathetic little wooden shacks so they can be relocated to a new camp, one with even smaller tents. He's at turns cowardly (when a Prawn decides to fight back and has to be beaten down or shot by the MNU soldiers) and gleeful (he disovers a shack full of Prawn eggs, which he has torched—"You hear that?? That's the sound of the eggs and the, uh, the little Prawns popping, eh? Sounds like popcorn, doesn't it, eh?"), until he accidentally sprays himself in the face with canister with some alien liquid in it. That's where his transformation from white-collar slime to a man with purpose and heroism begins, and it's a horrifically difficult one indeed.
To say anymore would be to spoil a neat little plot twist, so instead attention shall be paid to the art direction in this film, which is quite excellent. About a good third of "District 9" is filmed in a fake documentary style, some of it as interviews with sociologists as they discuss the events of the movie after they've already happened, and other parts as a camera follows Wikus around on his job assignment. The other thirds of the movie are filmed with a remarkably steady handcam that, far from being annoying, does the job of making the frantic and frequently intense action on the screen all the more immersive and real. (Why couldn't Blomkamp have done "Cloverfield"?)
On the more human-end of the film, it is the first-time actor Sharlto Copley that really carries the movie to its finish, because he's absolutely fantastic. His character begins as repulsive and annoying, and gradually morphs, ever so slowly, through desperation, greed, reckless abandon, defiance, heroism, and finally, nobility. In his final moments, even with only one human eye, he is transcendent. His mental and physical transformation makes him even more human than the people around him.
"District 9" ends with a very disturbing opening for a sequel, one that would not be at all surprising if it had "Independence Day" overtones. Only this time, Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith aren't around to save the day. And would anyone want them to, is the question Blomkamp, who co-wrote the script, seems to ask. Seeing the barbarism mankind is capable of, not just against each other, but on a stranded alien race, is not necessarily surprisingly, yet it works because it's so vicious and remorseless. Part of that has to do with the visuals and violence of the movie—dead Prawn bodies are treated with less care and respect than even a mad scientist would, and the alien weapons shoot beams that make people explode in a shower of entrails and blood—and part of it has to do with how "human" the Prawns are. They too are violent or disgusting, but they are also capable of respect and love and kindness, exemplified by the two Prawns the audience gets to know in the movie, known only as Christopher Johnson and his son. If there is any sense of hope at the end of "District 9" it is because of Johnson, that perhaps he, even if no one else will, can understand that humans can change just as Wikus did. Man isn't all scum, right? Eh.
**** out of ****

2009-08-25T06:27:00.001-07:00

Working on reviews of "Se7en," "Inglourious Basterds," and "Knocked Up." :D

G-men and Gangsters, on screen, again.

2009-08-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

“Public Enemies” is not a biopic. Director Michael Mann is not concerned with complete historical accuracy, and nor does he much care about his main character's childhood. That's not to say he's made a movie that doesn't focus on his character's life—far from it. After all, John Dillinger only lived a mere 30 odd years, and only a few of those thirty were actually spent robbing banks and becoming public enemy number one. What Mr. Mann cares about is the myth of the man, about his obsession with freedom and sticking it to the man, his love, and his final, ironic, violent death. Most of the time, he succeeds in portraying this Dillinger.

He's helped tremendously by Johnny Depp's performance as Dillinger, which the ads have been describing as “towering,” and while that's probably not the right superlative, the sentiment is correct. Depp, who usually plays weird or quirky characters, is fantastic here. A lesser actor would've played up the role of a famous criminal, hamming and chewing scenery, and it would've been insufferable. Depp brings such conviction and subtlety to his performance that he all but becomes the character.

The Dillinger that Depp and Mann create is probably pretty close to the one that existed: a man who robbed banks for fun and actually made it his raison d'etre, his method of survival in the Great Depression. Robbing banks and escaping from prisons was a visceral thrill, sure, but it also gave him a sense of pure freedom to absolutely anything he wanted. Depp imbues his Dillinger just the right amount of flair and overwhelming confidence to pull off any stunt, any challenge. There's an audacious scene near the end of the movie where Dillinger strolls into a police station to have a look at their case files on him. He wanders through the room, smirking every once in a while at the pictures or news reports of him, and then saunters out again. Realistic? Who knows, except that the way “Public Enemies” Dillinger is portrayed, it's believable.

It may be tempting for the viewer to dismiss those more “showy” moments of Depp's characterization as him hamming it up, capitalizing on his movie-star good looks and charm (whether or not the real Dillinger was that witty is up to the historians). But a discerning viewer will realize that that is exactly the point. Gangsters in that era (and particularly John Dillinger), learned much of their lingo and behavior from, of all things, the movies. John Dillinger is the ham, acting unconcerned about being imprisoned, extradited, and threatened with death, and pretending to be like the gangsters played by Jimmy Cagney and others in the moving pictures. Only he wasn't pretending, because he really was robbing banks and shooting cops. And just like in the movies, there'd be only two ways he'd go out, killed in that electric chair, or shot down on the streets. But, as he says in the movie, “We're too busy having a good time, we're not thinking about tomorrow.”

Dillinger was also no doubt disillusioned about his position as a criminal. His actions against the banks and the government, both of which he hated, simply endeared him to the impoverished public, because they hated them, too . There's a scene where, after he's been captured by the police, he's interviewed by numerous reporters who treat him like a celebrity rather than a base criminal. Later in the movie, he's in a movie theater, and the ads before the showing flash up a WANTED picture of Dillinger and the narrator tells everyone to look around at their row neighbors. Only Dillinger remains still, a smug, confident smile stretched on his face.

His Robin Hood-esque legend didn't change what he was, though, and “Public Enemies” doesn't gloss over his interior nature, which was a thug. An intelligent or very lucky one, perhaps, but still just another violent man who led other violent men through their short, brutal lives to their quick, brutal deaths. Lots of people die in this movie, most of them from Dillinger's gang. Most of their faces blur and are ignored, bar two: Dillinger's friend Red, who may be an amalgam of several real people, and George 'Baby Face' Nelson (Stephen Graham). Nelson, true to his psychotic nature (most people didn't like working with him at all), goes out in a blaze of wicked glory, riddled with bullets Bonnie & Clyde style. Red dies much less dramatically and far more graphically, slowly bleeding to death in the back of a car, red liquid seeping through Dillinger's fingers.

Besides bloody, these battles are also incredibly loud. The noisiest is an 11 minute shoot-out between the FBI's G-men and Dillinger's crew in the middle of the forest (which was actually shot on location in Wisconsin at the Little Bohemian Lodge). It's sort of a triumph for the sound techs: the mini-explosions of the semi-automatics combine with the shattering of windows and liquor bottles mix with the shouts and screams, while a shotgun thumps away, and everything is occasionally punctuated by the very real thud of a bullet smacking into a tree trunk.

Something must be said about Mr. Mann's cinematography. Watching “Public Enemies” without knowing what it was filmed in is an almost disconcerting experience, because the viewer knows that there's more depth and detail than there really ought to be, but he has no idea why. Mr. Mann now films exclusively in digital film, and the result is a total immersion into the world on the screen. It looks strange precisely because it looks so real. There's no color scheme as many filmmakers use today, no washing over with steel blues, cool grays, grimy browns or nostalgic beige and orange. Any hint of that would defeat Mr. Mann's attempt to portray Dillinger and his world as fact and truth.

There's also been much talk about how similar “Public Enemies” is to Michael Mann's earlier hit, “Heat.” Both star the two biggest male actors of their generations—“Heat” had Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, “Public Enemies” has Johnny Depp and Christian Bale—and both have themes about the similarities between criminals and police officers, an idea that obviously fascinates Mr. Mann. The only difference is that “Heat” was truly about the criminal and the policeman after him; it spent equal amounts of screen-time developing both characters. Bale's character in “Public Enemies,” young FBI star Melvin Purvis, doesn't become much more than a driven lawman who becomes conflicted about his job and his boss, J. Edgar Hoover, played by a creepy Billy Crudup. (Indeed, the real Purvis quit the FBI soon afterwards and committed suicide.) There could've much more to his character, but it's clear that the focus of the movie is John Dillinger, and only John Dillinger. This makes the title a little misleading; perhaps it should've been “Public Enemy.”

Mr. Mann allows John Dillinger one other thing he should've tried to live for in “Public Enemies” besides tomorrow, and that's his girlfriend, Billie Frechette. Billie is played by the luminous and very talented Marion Cotillard (last seen as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose”), and she is fantastic. Frechette is just a coat-check girl, but Dillinger quickly and effectively sweeps her off her feet, and while she never becomes an accomplice in his crimes (at least, in the movie), she willingly travels with the gang. She also falls in love with him, and vice versa. How this quite happens is not exactly developed, but again, that's not Mr. Mann's focus. He cares about the result of their love, what they will go through and attempt to do for each other. It is their relationship almost seems to allow the movie to sigh, to take a breath and express some tiny occasions of humanity and pathos amid all the mayhem and overconfidence and desperation of the participators.

Or rather, it is the result of her love that the movie cares about. Dillinger seems more in love with his role as her protector, the man who rescues and carries her away, than in love with her. When she is tortured and interrogated by police, she gives them nothing but spit and fire and rage, but it is Dillinger's own nemesis, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) who comes to her rescue. John Dillinger does not die on the street for her, although he might have mentioned her in his last breath. The last shot of the movie is of her face, streaked with tears after having been given the news of his death, her eyes showing nothing but utter defiance and complete heartbreak.

Most people know how John Dillinger was finally taken down by police (those of you who do not and who would rather not be spoiled, stop reading NOW), betrayed by a woman outside a movie theater. Irony? Yes. But even more appropriate is the movie he was watching: “Manhattan Melodrama,” a gangster flick with Clark Gable. That too starred one of the biggest actors of his day in a role where he flashes a gun and struts about, all panache and charm hiding a killer interior, but watch—and these are the best scenes in the movie—as John Dillinger smiles at the man on the screen. Is he smirking in contempt at the Hollywood version of the criminal life, or is he laughing in recognition and comradeship? With a man like John Dillinger, who can know? And does it matter, because any way you look at it, he ends up with a bullet hole in his face, bleeding to death on the sidewalk.

***1/2 out of ****

Moar Updates

2009-08-04T18:24:00.001-07:00

"Public Enemies" review is finished, just going over edits and checking mistakes.

"Se7en" review in the works.

Does this need a title, really?

2009-07-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

Revised edition, for those of you who read it yesterday...

It's that time of the year again—Harry Potter has come to movie theaters to make millions at the box office. For those of you not keeping track, this is the sixth installment of the wildly popular and lucrative series of movie adaptations of J.K. Rowling's wildly popular and lucrative series of fantasy books. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is the second movie to be directed by the British David Yates, and it's one of the most beautiful and professional of the bunch (second only to Alfonso Cuaron's atmospherically melancholy “Prisoner of Azkaban”). “Half-Blood Prince” also wins the award for funniest Potter movie of all time, but it somehow hits pretty high on the grim-o-meter at the same time—Mr. Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves, returning after a hiatus on the last movie, get props for managing to flow seamlessly between the highs and lows of romantic comedy and stark horror. Most of all, though, they and the myriad actors do an excellent job of preserving the spirit and emotion of Ms. Rowling's book, if not as an adaptation, then as a movie.

From the opening shot—a close-up of Harry's bruised and bloody face from the end of “Order of the Phoenix”—it's clear that “Prince” is not going to be pulling its punches. The flashback is silent, apart from the explosions and poofs from cameras and the buzz from the magical paparazzi and journalists. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), whom the newspapers dub “The Chosen One,” is led away by Dumbledore, hand around the shoulder. Back to the present, Harry's in a subway-side coffee shop, attempting to chat up a waitress, which sounds a lot cheesier than it was (in all fairness to Harry, she was cute). Unfortunately, he has to leave her waiting on the platform because Dumbledore shows up (he “teleports” in under the “Divine Magic” perfume ad) and whisks him away. Dumbledore needs Harry's help in recruiting a new staff member, the nebbish and plummy Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent). It is vitally important that Slughorn come to Hogwarts, because he has a memory from Voldemort's school days that could hold the secret to killing him once and for all.

They succeed, naturally, and Harry arrives back at Hogwarts with his erstwhile friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) for another school year. There isn't much screen time dedicated to classes, however, save the obligatory one with the new Professor. Plot in “The Half-Blood Prince” is centered to Harry and Dumbledore's search for a weakness in Voldemort's magical defenses, mostly through Dumbledore's Pensieve (a flashback/memory viewer), but the climax takes them out of Hogwarts into a cave of intense terrors.

Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) are both up to more than usual. Draco's sneers are bleaker and far more sinister this year—he's spending much of his time out of class brooding gloomily or hiding away in the Room of Requirement working on a mysterious cabinet. Snape, ambiguous as always, has made a magical vow with Draco's conniving mother (Helen McCrory) to protect and assist her son, but at what cost? And who is he really working for, Dumbledore or Voldemort? Can he have managed to fool one, or perhaps even both of them? Even by the end of the movie when his allegiance is supposedly decided, Rickman still manages to imbue his character with shades of gray uncertainty.

The rest of the movie is filled with...everything. Subplots abound, mix, disappear, and contrast in their moods. One deals mostly with the romantic entanglements of the trio and their friends. Hermione's (Emma Watson) finally come to terms with her crush on Ron (Rupert Grint), who's still mostly clueless, but she's got cloying competition in the fanatically infatuated Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave). Meanwhile, Harry and Ron's little sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright) are giving each other earnest yet wary looks, but she's already dating one of Harry's classmates. Plus, Harry's got girls trying to ambush him all over the place with love potions. What's a teenager to do???

Yes, lust makes for great humor, but it tends to be overused and crudely done in teen movies. Here Yates and Kloves take what could've been awful gags and turn them into bite-size moments of actual comedy. As everyone knows, though, there's a flip side to teen romance, where lust is mistaken for true love and jealousy rips apart insides. Hearts are broken easily at this age, and Yates shows his respect and compassion for the (sometimes very strong) feelings of the characters. There's a scene where Harry comforts a devastated Hermione after she witnesses Ron making out with Lavender that is perfect in its execution, dialogue, and relatability.

That the three kids (who aren't really kids anymore) are improving helps, of course. Radcliffe perhaps still can't always draw out the deep emotions needed for a dramatic scene, but there are no doubts that he can carry a movie on his shoulders. He also seems to have a natural gift for comedy—he, Broadbent and Coltrane have a hilarious scene together at a funeral, and his timing is impeccable. Rupert Grint's timing remains unquestionable, though, and he's given much more screen time than usual. The same doesn't go for Emma Watson, but at least she's not as overtly dramatic as she used to be, and she handles herself well in the scenes that require a steady performance.

Felton is surprisingly good, as well. His work in the last five movies has been limited to over-the-top bullying, with much mentions of “wait 'til my father hears about this” and ridiculous facial contortions. Now it is obvious that his poor showing was only the result of the previous scripts' lack of a role for his character. Here he excels, whether viciously spitting out threats at Harry or fighting with fists and magic, and in his last scene he manages to convey all the pathetic bravery of a driven and extremely frightened person.

The other veteran actors all contribute in small but vital bits throughout the movie: Julie Walters and Mark Williams are old stalwarts as Ron's parents; David Thewlis as Remus Lupin, part-time werewolf and one of Harry's mentors, walks on and off the picture with quiet grace; Helena Bonham-Carter is once again hilariously insane and violent as one of Voldemort's servants; and Maggie Smith embodies the grandmotherly Prof. McGonagall with strength and charm as she always does. Alan Rickman, in his few but crucial scenes in “Half-Blood Prince” is hard to describe perfectly, except to say that listening to his fabulous talent for cutting. his. sentences. into. vicious. little. pieces. while verbally eviscerating someone is something akin to a guilty pleasure.

Who's left out? Sirius Black died at the end of the last movie, so Gary Oldman is unfortunately absent. Ralph Fiennes' Voldemort is also nowhere to be seen, and is instead replaced by two younger incarnations of You-Know-Who in Dumbledore's memory viewer. One is played by Fiennes own nephew, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, and the other by Frank Dillane. Both, needless to say, are rather creepy.

Jim Broadbent must be mentioned also, for his effortless portrayal of a complex character. His Slughorn comes across as a kindly old man, but he's a collector of a professor, making friends with talented or famous students to has his secrets and his vices. All is forgiven, though, in a slightly sloshed speech about a piece of gorgeous magic he once saw. He describes it in vivid detail, but with an actor like Broadbent saying the lines, you don't need to show the audience what he's talking about, they'll see it in his eyes. It's not until the end of speech, however, that he reveals who the magic was performed by.

“Half-Blood Prince,” like its last few predecessors, also benefits from not having a John Williams score to determine its mood. Yates and his cinematographer, Bruno Delbonnel (“Amelie,” “A Very Long Engagement”), do a perfectly fine job of that themselves. Indeed, this might actually be the first Potter movie since “Prisoner of Azkaban” that can be appreciated on a pure cinematic level—the camera work is really quite beautiful at times, and the washed out blues, grays, and soft browns work wonderfully.

Mr. Delbonnel can shoot a fight scene, too. There's a cool moment where Harry and a friend dash through a wet field of very tall grass while being stalked by Voldemort's Death Eaters, the soundtrack filled with nothing but the whack of dry stalks and frantic panting. The best, however, is a long-coming one-on-one fight between Harry and Draco in a bathroom, and it's actually suspenseful as they hide behind stalls and inch around tiled walls. Replace their wands with guns, and you'd have an action movie moment.

Of course, “Half-Blood Prince” is not without its flaws. Most are with the script, which leaves a good number of subplots or characters hanging without with introductions or proper endings; Mr. Kloves omitted or changed far too much from the previous books and is being forced to make up for it now by jamming everything into his screenplay, which still manages to leave crucial or dramatic moments out. The latter there is mostly a fan of the book's complaint, but Mr. Kloves' style tends to be a bit choppy—scenes or motives are sometimes only held together on the slightest of threads which are only noticeable when the viewer thinks back hard. The movie also retains its “middle chapter” feel, which is necessary and unavoidable but still unfortunate.

That's it, though, really. Mr. Yates has done a great job of making a movie with his mark on it, just as Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell did before him. This is a Potter film that cares not only about the plot, but about being a film, about how it looks. It'll be hard to find a piece of blockbuster, mass-entertainment this summer with the same aspirations and emotional levels. And out of all the “battle aftermath” fade in/out shots in movies today, the one at the end of “Half-Blood Prince” tops them all. There's no sappy music, no dead bodies, no staggering wounded. Just a silent fade-in, a pan over the destruction of the one place that Harry and his friends could feel safe in, and then a fade-out. That's what great about the movie adaptation of a book. Sometimes, you can say more with one shot than with a whole page. That is what the makers of the Potter have finally understood, and it's what the series deserves.

***1/2 out of ****

2009-07-17T14:43:00.001-07:00

Heck yeah, reviews of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," "Public Enemies," and "The Savages." Tune in soon!

The blockbuster to end all blockbusters. Hopefully.

2009-07-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

OK, look. I want to believe Michael Bay has the potential and will and skill to someday make real movies again. Really, I do. There's something about his passion for blowing crap up that makes me think he could create something good, if he would just stop channeling that love into a George Lucas-esque F/X extravaganza. Bay's made a decent movie in the past ("The Rock"), and even a halfway tolerable one ("Bad Boys"), so I know it can be done. But, by golly, "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen" just does not cut it. Not at all.

Mostly, "T2" just sideswipes the criteria for a decent movie on its way to go explode some more buildings for no reason, and by the end, it's stomped the criteria into the dust. the original "Transformers" was fun I'll admit, because it was plainly ridiculous, almost knew that it was, and had great special effects. (I'll forgive the lapses in plot construction or character design.) But more importantly, it also grossed over 700 MILLION DOLLARS. Naturally, Bay's biggest challenge for "T2" was not a better story or smarter dialog or more inventive action scenes, but, you guessed it, how to top that $700M. As if he didn't have enough money already.
I guess you have to give him credit for consistency. Bay went about tackling this challenge with all the wit, charm, and gusto of one of his own movies. That is, he blew it all to hell. Bay worked with three screenwriters--Ehren Kruger, whose credits include both "Ring" movies and "Scream 3", Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, both of whom worked on the last "T1," Bay's "The Island," and the latest "Star Trek"--all of whom put their minds to the task of how to get all those fanboys and action junkies back into the theater on opening day. Their collective conclusion was to--get this--take everything that worked in the last movie---robot action, robot F/X, Shia Labeouf's motormouth, stupid dialog, military hardware, Megan Fox's body---and everything that didn't---stupid soundtrack, stupid dialog, annoying characters, Megan Fox's acting ability, Bay's directing style, the plot---and make them all SUPERSIZED. Imagine the time and effort that ook, and appreciate the genii that those four men must be to even collectively decide on that. Yeah. The result is a two-and-half hour long, numbing assault to the senses, and an insult to the mind and intelligence of the viewer.

I'd start with the movie's most obvious problem (the plot), but I'd have to ask a question first: WHAT WAS IT? Where "T1" had the All-Spark Cube MacGuffin thing as an excuse to stage action scenes, Bay and his writers just make stuff up as they go; the whole movie is just one boring fight/chase/explosion after another, until 40 minutes from the end, where they decide to introduce an actual conflict and pretend it was there all along. Of course, since the conflict itself is incredibly shoddily designed and makes little to no sense (it involves blowing up the sun), it's probably safe to assume that they came up with it in about five minutes. At any rate, I didn't care.

I didn't care because the tag-team assault of the F/X, dialog, and music had left me in an emotionally numbing shock. CGI robots transform and leap and twirl through the air in loving slow-mo, as if we were all like Michael Bay and think it's still the coolest thing ever. But it's not, it really isn't. Seeing hundreds of little moving metal parts wasn't cool the first time either, but it was impressive, in an accomplishment kinda way. Now watching them click and grind away in no discernable fashion is just nonsensical and friggin' boring, and all it does is prove that the CGI team is patient enough to animate and color every little piece. Mike? We. Get. It. Enough with the Transformer transforming shots, because, uh, that's what they do. It should be natural. And it's no excuse for not focusing your movie's story on its titular characters but on a loser kid with a dumb name.

Not that I cared about Shia Labeouf...I mean, Sam Witwicky, either. Or any of the various and extraneous human and robot characters, because they weren't characters, but caricatures. It's as if Bay and his writers used cardboard pop-outs with titles underneath like: Random Bad Guy, Comic Relief Robot 1, Comic Relief Robot 2, Dumb Parents 1 and 2, Fast-Talking Kid, Hot Girl, Slutty Girl, Robot Extra, etc, etc, etc, etc, through all the movie cliches you can think of. Bay cares so little for his characters that his apathy is passed directly on to the audience. The only real emotion I felt was annoyance. Annoyance at the constant jabberjabberjabber of Sam's stupid roommate; annoyance at the constant idiocy of Sam's mom, who is too dumb to be even halfway believable; annoyance at Sam and Mikaela's pathetic ongoing argument over who should say "I love you" first (Bay took romance writing lessons from George Lucas, apparently); annoyance at Shia Labeouf for being wasted in such a movie; annoyance and horror at the mistreatment and humilation of John Turturro appearing in a man-thong close-up (I so hope he got paid a LOT); and finally, annoyance, at the Twins, Autobots who are the most stupidly obvious racial stereotypes since I don't know when. I'm serious. The animators gave these two robots gold buck teeth, huge monkey ears, and cross-eyes. They're illiterate in their own language, and they constantly speak in a white-person's idea of ghetto slang (lots of "pop a cap in yo'ass"). They're irritating, offensive, and they provide further proof that the MPAA is a bunch of morons.

They're also all closet pervs. This movie has so much Megan Fox that I'm pretty sure Michael Bay has as almost as big a hard-on for her as he does military hardware. Her first scene opens on a zoom-in of her behind, which is encased in tiny shorts and pointed to the sky. (Irony alert: she's bent over a motorcycle in a pin-up pose while spray-painting a pin-up!) Yeah, she's the hottest thing on earth right now, but it's kinda creepy when Bay has films her running in slow-mo from the front that many times. And when he has that little R/C Decepticon hump her leg for no reason. Of course, I suppose that's the only thing you can do with someone who, in the words of the Topless Robot guy, "looks like a porn star and acts like one too," and who is outperformed by a slutty Decepticon girl, but still, something that exploitive belongs in a movie that actually knows it's being exploitive, not this pile of dumb film reel disguised as entertainment.

While I'm on the topic of being annoyed, allow me to say that whoever wrote the soundtrack should be fired and never allowed to work on movies again. You could call his score, "Variations On the Theme, DUN DUN, DUN DUN, DUN DUN, With Sappy Strings and Random Rock Guitar Interspersed Throughout, Not Always In a Scene Where It Makes Sense." The volume is obnoxiously loud and constant. "21 Guns" by Green Day is played over and over again, inexplicably and inappropriately, and the movie ends with another boring and derivative Linkin Park single. I don't think Bay or his composer actually knew the words to any of the songs they chose for the soundtrack, they just knew they sounded "cool." Or maybe it's all part of a secret plot to pound your brain to mush so you won't care about the rest of the movie, or the 11 dollars you wasted on it.

Yes, go ahead, say I'm whining. Say "This is a dumb action movie, check your brain at the door, you're not supposed to think about this stuff in-depth. What did you expect? You're just a hater, a film-elitist, yadda yadda yadda." Yeah, I am a hater and an elitist. But I'm not thinking in-depth, this movie's too stupid for that. In-depth translates to "How many explosions can I layer in this one slow-mo shot at once?" in Michael Bay's mind. I say you can keep your brain at a good dumb action picture, because half the fun is knowing what you're watching.

For example, "Shoot'em Up" was as stupid as shoot'em up movies come, but it was tirelessly and relentlessly inventive with its fight scenes, and where it wasn't it payed homage to the genre's predecessors and creators, like John Woo. There were a couple landmark action moments (the carrot killings), and the acting was actually decent. Plus, it had Monica Belluci (and I still don't know how they get her breasts to do that). Last year's "Wanted" was the same kind of movie, inventive and exciting enough to be interesting, while populated with good actors. Dumb action movies CAN be good movies too, or t least be fun to watch.

We the audience don't have to be insulted by pathetic attempts to disguise a lack of plot or clever ideas. Mr. Bay, you don't have to use every movie you make a platform to make things blow up and have boring shots of jets and tanks and planes and guns and battleships. Please. Give us something we can enjoy, not something to satisfy your own little fantasies. And the very fact that you understand that the masses won't give a damn and exploit it is even sadder than your blatant commericialism, materialism, and absolute lack of talent as a filmmaker. I can only hope that this spectacle is never repeated again.
1/2 * out of ****

2009-06-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

“Chungking Express” is one of those films that's loved both by the people who enjoy the art and process of film-making and the people who don't, and it didn't even start out that way. As movie legend would have it, it was made as a kind of “film therapy” for director Wong Kar-Wai, who, worn out from editing his martial arts epic, “Ashes of Time,” felt the need to clear his head. In order to get his creative juices flowing again, Kar-Wai took a break and did what anyone would: made another film. Shot in 23 days on a tiny budget, and intended as a quick box office attraction, “Chungking Express” was slapped together and completed in three months, and Kar-Wai went back to work reinvigorated.
The film did remarkably well at the Asian box office (it won a slew of awards at the Hong Kong film awards), but it did poorly in the United States, despite Quentin Tarantino's enthusiastic promotion and distribution by his company, Rolling Thunder and Miramax. Cineastes around the world knew what they were watching, though, and Kar-Wai was hailed as the new Godard. The comparison was and still is appropriate—Jean-Luc Godard's films, part of the French New Wave of the 60's, were pop-culturally aware but still cinematically artsy, mixing genres and breaking rules; “Chungking Express,” with its tales of young people drifting through crime and love, has very similar aspects and ideas.
There are two separate stories in “Chungking Express,” each following two characters whose lives connect in strange or interesting ways. The first one is a noir-ish, high voltage nod to the gangster flick, loaded with chases, gunshots, drugs, and late nights. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays plainclothes cop He Qiwu, and Brigette Lin, decked out in a garish blond wig and tan trenchcoat, eyes hidden behind red sunglasses, plays a drug runner. Both are down in spirits—Qiwu because his girl May has ditched him, Lin because her latest shipment disappeared on her watch and her boss has threatened her life unless she gets it back—and both are trying desperately to turn things around for themselves. They meet by chance in a bar, late at night.
The second story, an adorably offbeat romantic comedy, follows the attempts of waitress Faye (Hong Kong pop star Faye Wong, waif-like and elfin) to win the attentions of a beat cop known only by his badge number, 663 (Kar-Wai favorite Tony Leung). He's a melancholy type (just got jilted by his girlfriend, too), so Faye takes to breaking into his apartment and rearranging and replacing items and house cleaning to shake up his routine.
As has become traditional with indie films nowadays, the two tales in “Chungking Express” are about love—finding it, losing it, getting over it, and falling into it again—but unlike some of those indie films, Kar-Wai deals with that subject with a delicate balance between realism and idealism. Of course the idea of a girl breaking into another guy's apartment to express her adoration is out of the ordinary, but it could happen. Meeting the garishly attired drug runner lady is a little more fantastical, perhaps, but He Qiwu's musings on love and relationships and canned pineapple are suitably honest and nearly philosophical enough (“When did everything start having an expiration date?”) to be relatable.
All four leads are uniformly excellent. Kaneshiro is alternately naïve and touching, but always relatable and entirely young. He's funny, too—many of his scenes involve talking to an unheard person on the other end of a phone, and watching him eat, stuffing his face nonstop like a young man because he is one, is great comedy.
Tony Leung's No. 663 is older, seeming to accept a breakup as an indication that he had a failing somewhere, not the girl. But, he's more depressed and lonely than Kaneshiro's Qiwu, who just keeps on trying his darndest and bounces up after every fall and rejection. No. 663 is so lonely he's taken to talking to inanimate objects in his apartment, and so detached that he doesn't even notice when things begin to shift place or become replaced by new things.
Brigette Lin has the hardest acting job, emoting underneath the wig, coat and sunglasses (the latter two of which she never takes off, even when sleeping), but she pulls it off effortlessly, expressing cool competence, annoyance, rage, despair, and finally, acceptance. The shot of her, blond and hidden behind those sunglasses, pointing a gun, is one of the defining images of the movie.
There's a whole genre devoted to the movie trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, that quirky and often crazy female character designed to lift the male lead out of his depression or mental block (examples include Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany's,” Natalie Portman in “Garden State,” Kirsten Dunst in “Elizabethtown, and any movie with Meg Ryan or Melanie Griffith in a supporting role). Some are annoyingly manic, like Portman and Dunst (or again, Meg Ryan), and some are exposed as being deeper than just a character insert, like Shirley MacLaine in “The Apartment.” And some, like Audrey Tautou in “Amelie,” are strange and adorable, and still compelling and wonderful to watch. Faye Wong belongs in this last category; she's the other defining aspect of “Chungking Express,” a gloriously fun performance. It's almost impossible not to have a crush on Faye Wong after watching do her little dance to the Mama and Papa's California Dreamin' while serving customers at The Midnight Express, or when she swirls around in that delirious apartment-cleaning scene to her own cover of The Cranberries “Dreams.” Music is very important to Faye the waitress: “It keeps me from thinking too much,” she says at one point.
Thinking is all I did while watching this movie, though. I have never seen one shot like “Chungking Express.” It's arty, but not pretentious like so many intentionally stylistic films, with an overwhelming and annoying awareness of their own cleverness and talent. Instead, its very virtue is in the lack of obvious preparation—there's no professional lighting or staging. Everything was shot on location in crowded Hong Kong, making cinematographer Christopher Doyle's hand-held camera all the more impressive, as it zooms through the masses of people, following them into packed buildings and narrow corridors and alleys.
The chase scenes are interesting, too. Since they were shot with a hand-cam everything is shaky, but Kar-Wai edited the film in a strange and unique way, allowing the person running to caught in motion for a split second, while the backgrounds and people around blur into great swathes of colors like a n Impressionist painting. Actually, most of what makes “Chungking Express” so good is Kar-Wai's editing, which propels the movie forward and surprises or thrills the audience; it literally makes the film interesting just to look at, never mind what's going on in the different stories.
Not that the editing doesn't effect the stories, too. In fact, they only exist in a coherent form because of the editing. Kar-Wai shot everything out of order and without a script, and it's the resulting free-wheeling spontaneity that has become Kar-Wai's trademark.
Though Doyle's electrifying camera-work and Kar-Wai's sense of style and talent would be seen and well-received in his later movies (see “Ashes of Time,” “In the Mood for Love,” “2046”), it is “ChungKing Express” that remains the quintessential Wong Kar-Wai film. It would also be milestone for film and a whole generation of young cinephiles for its immediate and indelible imagery—Brigette Lin's blond wig; Takeshi Kaneshiro, frozen in mid-stride, dashing through a crowd; Tony Leung chasing his girlfriend around the apartment; Faye Wong and her huge eyes, peering out from behind the drink containers. Love, to these characters, may be fleeting, but “Chungking Express” as a film will stand the test of time.

**** out of ****

2009-05-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Critics Log 19:46 hrs: Arrive at the theater, meet Nosredna and his dad outside. We go in to get tickets, talking sci-fi and Star Trek and Terminator stuff. Attempted to get a student discount on AMC Loews's bull---- ticket price of $10.50. Failed. Only on Thursdays, she said. I think she may have lied. At any rate, this information is noted in the log. 'Twill be useful in the future. We get seats in the middle of the penultimate row, up high for the best, full, view.

Critics Log 20:15 hrs: Can't the theaters just stream-in live television news channels from the projection room instead of the inane looped trivia and nonsense they always play? Maybe that'll cost more. Junderland and noir finally showed up, though. noir took seats at the bottom right of the theater. Can't for the life of me figure out why. Maybe his neck doesn't get a crick as easily as mine would. Junderland, Nosredna and I talk movies (naturally). Previews starting.

Critics Log 20:35 hrs: WTF. The trailer reel takes far too long these days. 20 minutes, seriously?? Sacrilege and blasphemy, I say. Most of them are lame (that means you, “Land of the Lost.” And you, “G.I. Joe”), too, except for Pixar's “UP” and “Year One,” the latter of which only because it was marginally funny. Question: can Michael Cera only play awkward, geeky losers? Who knows. Probably not, I suppose. Anyway, the movie is finally starting, so I will now be quiet and enjoy the film. Toomin out.

The Review

Get ready to hit summer-fun warp speed with J.J. Abrams' “Star Trek.” This reboot takes the series back to when Kirk first met Spock and the rest of the crew, before he was famous for saving the known universe and exploring infinity and beyond in the good ship Enterprise. There are references and in-jokes to please the old fans, and it's fast and funny and cool enough to snag new ones (like me). Most importantly, the movie has a freshness that both distinguishes it from the aging series and induces a sense of nostalgia for the show in its heyday.
The movie opens with the birth of James T. Kirk on an escape shuttle launched from a crippled star ship captained by his father. It's an intense sequence—a Romulan surprise attack on Federation ships seemingly without provocation—what with the missiles flying around and the phasers blazing across the screen, while in the little shuttle Mrs. Kirk, in labor, watches her husband go down with the ship; and it sets the tone for the rest of the movie. The villain, an angsty, violent Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana, pretty good in the rare evil role), is annoyed at Star Fleet for something, but he disappears after this first battle for a good 25 years, returning just in time for Kirk to save the day and thwart his plans of revenge and multiple planetary destruction (Earth is next on the list, naturally). This is a more action-y Star Trek, with emphasis on the propulsion, rather than the comprehension or mechanics, of the plot. Nothing wrong with that, since the movie is about the origins of the Enterprise crew, and most especially, the relationship between Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto).
Naturally, they hate each other at first sight, but that's half the fun. Spock's emotional infallibility is broken quite a few times with Kirk around—who knew he was so good at hand-to-hand combat?! They both have natural intellect, but while Spock is coldly logical and precise, Kirk is unpredictable, making guesses and acting on hunches. Constantly on-upping each other, the possibility of a friendship seems little to none, but with a little help from a future Spock (Leonard Nimoy, of course), they gradually grow to like and respect each other.
Abrams does make changes from the original canon to the various back-stories of the characters and to the time-line, but obviously this is a good thing, because otherwise the coming sequels would be boring. (And he does have it all explained as being an alternate reality, due to some glorious nonsense involving time travel and “red matter,” but that's not so important.) What's important is that the characters' traits and personalities are preserved, as well as their various relationships with each other.
Which they are, thanks to some smart casting and good acting. Pine and Quinto have the hardest tasks, playing such iconic characters, but both do more than adequately. Pine doesn't mimic Shatner, but instead suggests his mannerisms, while retaining the broad strokes of a young Captain Kirk's character (the frat-boyishness, the bed-hopping, the raw commanding skill). He's got the fisticuffs down, too—his first scene is in a bar, pummeling and getting pummeled by some Star Fleet cadets.
Quinto, better known as the villain Sylar from “Heroes,” thoroughly owns his role. His Spock has not yet entirely mastered the Vulcan art of masking emotions perfectly; little flickers of emotion reveal themselves in his eyes, his body language. When he snaps, he's capable of taking even Kirk down and putting the choke hold on him. And when he says “Live long and prosper” to the Vulcan high council after they insult him, it's like the ultimate kiss-off, a giant (in Vulcan terms) middle finger to the establishment that mocks his human heritage. In the course of the movie, Spock not only learns to like Cap. Kirk, he learns to accept and use his human characteristics.
The rest of the crew don't have as screen time or focus, but each provide a hint at their characters and performances to come, most especially Zoe Saldana's Lt. Uhura, the xeno-linguist, a tough little thing, even while she's getting smoochy with a pointy-eared someone; and Karl Urban's Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the ship's doctor, who's perpetually p.o'd about something or another, even when the good guys are winning. John Cho, Anton Yelchin, and Simon Pegg as pilot Sulu, navigator Chekov, and engineer Scotty, respectively, get even less to do, but Pegg stands out for being absolutely hilarious and nearly stealing every scene he's in (pity he only shows up after the halfway marker).
Stephanie Zacherek on Salon.com begins her review by saying, “There's so much that could have gone wrong with J.J. Abrams' 'Star Trek,'" and she's right. The remarkable thing is that almost nothing does. Abrams has made a series beginning that both opens up the new world of Star Trek, and bids a fond farewell to the old one, complete with Leonard Nimoy bestowing his blessing on the whole deal at the end of the movie. His appearance is like a love letter to the fans, and when he says to a bewildered Kirk, “I am, and always will be, your friend,” you can almost taste the nostalgia. Live long and prosper, J.J., 'cause we want to “explore strange new worlds.”
***1/2 out of ****

2009-05-20T06:21:00.000-07:00

Review for Star Trek pending.

Saw Fight Club, Godfather Parts I and II, The Wrestler, House of Flying Daggers, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Reviews of any of these possible.

2009-05-17T17:13:00.001-07:00

When I heard they were making a movie out of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, I thought, "The worst thing they can possibly do is dumb it down and censor it to fit the PG-13 rating." Well, heck, they did it anyway to capture an audience that would've read the book (with all of its honest, realistic conversation--albeit profane--and a surprising lack of soap-opera/teen story drama) anyway. But whatever, right? I kept my hopes up, since Peter Sollett, director of the excellent "Raising Victor Vargas," was doing the movie, assuming he'd at least provide some heart and class. To his credit, he and the unfortunate rating manage to make bits of the movie worth watching, but the rest is filled with those idiotic subplots and gags that plague teen movies.
Like the young adult novel (by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan), "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" is about two bridge-and-tunnel kids--Nick from Hoboken and Norah from Englewood--who meet by chance in New York where Nick is playing with his queercore band. They spend a night together hopping through Manhattan's clubs and subways, having small misadventures and just plain getting to know each other. Think "Before Sunrise" for the iPod generation, except it's the book that deserves that comparison. The movie dumbs the concept of "boy meets girl and they hang out all night" down to meet the uneccessary goals of entertaining the types of teenagers who are amused by gags involving gum that gets passed around and chewed unwittingly by several people after being dropped in a vomit-filled toilet (seriously, who shares gum anyway?), gay stereotypes, and a subplot following a girl so drunk she practically gets lost in the ladies room.
And speaking of stereotypes, why did they turn Nick's ex-girlfriend into an evil uber-bitch? She appears that way at first in the book, yes, but she actually shows three-dimensionality later on. She explains why she dumped Nick, and she does her best to help Norah get together with him. The movie just has her treat Nick like a piece of trash the whole way, and it's boring as hell.
Nick's bandmates--Dev and Thom--are also turned into stock characters. Granted, their inclusion marks Hollywood's acceptance of gay characters with decent supporting roles in teen movies now, but they're still not comfortable with making them actual people, leaving them in the comedic roles, or, as they're used in "Nick and Norah," fairy godfathers. Aaron Yoo and Ravi Gavron, as Thom and Dev respectively, do almost succeed in rounding their characters, though. They're likable enough, at any rate.
I'm honestly not sure who's responsible for the retardation of the story or characters, whether screenwriter or the studio execs. Certainly not director Peter Sollett, whose work is obvious in the few scenes that are actually interesting. These happen to be the scenes with just Nick and Norah in conversation with each other, which unfortunately only really come late in the movie (even though their tete-a-tete's fill the entire book). Will the audience care by the time the movie finally gets to these moments? If they're as shallow as they're expected to be, then probably no. I sorta did though. Cera and Dennings are adorable together and they're excellent at what they do--Cera, with his natural ability for awkward silences and deadpanning his own deadpan, and Dennings, with her heavy-lidded eyes and sheer force of personality and wit--but they're still not enough to distract from the rest of the background idiocy. If "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" had actually given all its focus to its title characters, it would've been a far better and more likable movie.
**1/2 out of ****

2009-04-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

Who knew a musical about revenge, throat-slitting, cannibalism, lechery, and buckets of blood could be so much fun? Well, a macabre fun, to be sure, but it still boggles the mind how engaging Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is, given the black cynicism, deathly palette and spraying gore put forth on the screen. Maybe it’s the dark humor (usually after someone’s been messily murdered), or maybe it’s the marvelous performances from the three leads, or maybe, and this is the most probable, it’s Steven Sondheim’s score, which is sublime. But, I suspect that the answer is all three.
The story is relatively well-known, and Mr. Burton stays true to it: young barber Benjamin Barker, arrested and sent to Australia on trumped-up charges by corrupt Judge Turpin, returns to London years later looking for revenge as Sweeney Todd. Looking for lodgings, he finds his former landlady, Mrs. Lovett, still running her pie shop, and moves into the flat above. Mrs. Lovett is only too happy to let him back in—she’s held a torch for him all these years—and she breaks the bad news to him: Turpin ravaged his wife, Lucy (who then poisoned herself with arsenic), and adopted the daughter, Joanna. Todd, mad with rage and hate and disgust for the filth of the world, convinces himself that Turpin is not the only scumbag walking London’s streets who “deserves to die,” re-opens his barbershop and begins slaughtering criminals who come in for a quick shave. Mrs. Lovett, ever the opportunist, decides to boost her shop’s productivity by baking the dead bodies into truly the “worst pies in London.”
Such a tale would be grounds for horror picture, and in a way “Sweeney Todd” is, but the more graphic elements of the story are told either with dark humor or cinematic artistry, making scenes like when Todd and Mrs. Lovett sing a duet about her “delightful idea,” or the gory montage of Todd slashing throats while blood sprays and flows in wide arcs, simultaneously funny or interesting and absolutely terrifying.
Sweeney Todd is played by Burton-regular, Johnny Depp, and Mrs. Lovett by Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter. Both are made-up to look “slightly” unlike everyone else, with artfully wild hair, paler-than-pale skin, and dark sleep rings under their eyes, all representing their uniqueness in their depravity.
Depp’s Todd is like a mash of all his other Burton roles (Scissorhands pokes out when he’s extra gloomy, Ed Wood almost makes an appearance, Willy Wonka appears when he needs to charm people) colored another shade of black, plus an excellent English accent with hints of Jack Sparrow. He gets to the haunted, obsessed, and tragically black soul of the Demon Barber. It’s almost Shakespearean.
Ms. Carter is perfect as Sweeney Todd’s accomplice, who’s even more diabolical than he is—baking the victims into meat pies was her idea, remember—and she has some of the best lines:
“Are you mad, killing a man what done you no wrong!?”
“He threatened to blackmail me, half me earnings.”
“Oh. Well, that’s all right then.”
She also gets to the far more complex center of her character, who is at once tender (she takes in a young waif called Toby), scheming, vicious, and, in the end, sorry about the way of life she and Todd created.
The always understated and under-appreciated Alan Rickman, as the lecherous Judge Turpin, is similarly good, though he doesn’t receive the screen time Depp or Carter have. It’s enough, though, for him to bring his “Severus Snape act” up to a level that couldn’t be done in a kid’s movie.
All of the major characters from the original play are in the movie, and almost all of the songs. Tim Burton’s only embellishments, and rightly so, are in the visual aspects of the story. “Sweeney Todd” is shot in drab grays and blacks, with copious splashes of red and a moment of blue (Sacha Baron Cohen’s short-lived but flamboyently dressed street mountebank), all except for the scene where Mrs. Lovett daydreams a life of ease and peaceful visits to the sunny seaside with “Mr. T.” Burton shoots this scene in an unusually (at least, it seems that way after so much dark) bright palette, and it’s as hilarious as it is visually striking.
All of the actors can sing, too, which is a plus. Rickman is a given, certainly, being a stage actor, but for those who don’t know Johnny Depp trivia (he’s in a band), hearing him croon for the first time might be surprising. He brings a kind of rock n’roll urgency and emotion to his delivery—it’s not operatic, but it’s clear, and more importantly, filled with the emotion of the character. Helena Bonham Carter actually had to learn to sing for the role, but she’s not given any songs where she has to stretch the pipes unduly so one can’t really tell.
By the time “Sweeney Todd” reaches its blood-drenched, hideous conclusion, every bit of humor has been cut out, every stirring song stopped by the slit throats. Entertainment has no more place in the movie, just blackness and despair, simple and filthy. It’s a bleak, bruising ending. Even the two “innocent” lovebirds, Todd’s daughter Joanna and the young sailor Anthony, are swallowed up by the darkness.
“Safe? So we run away and then all our dreams come true?”
“I hope so.”
“I've never had dreams. Only nightmares.”
“Johanna... when we're free of this place, all the ghosts will go away.”
“No, Anthony. They never go away.”

**** out of ****

2009-04-17T07:31:00.000-07:00

The important thing to understand about “Quantum of Solace” (besides what it means) is that it’s not a real James Bond movie. It has a half-hearted attempt at a self-contained, “proper” Bond tale (villain with a grandiose plan, sexy ladies for James to “interact” with, Judi Dench acting irate, sensational action sequences), but it’s really just a direct sequel, and not a very good one at that, to 2006’s “Casino Royale.”
(Those who haven’t seen either movie yet might as well stop reading now, unless being spoiled on plot elements from the first movie is not a concern.)
“Quantum” opens with an incomprehensible and ridiculous car chase, 007 being pursued by henchman types firing wildly and indiscriminately with submachine guns. Marc Foster, a talented director known for his arthouse pictures (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), is unfortunately a tad out-of-his-element here. Simply put, he has no idea how to edit an action scene. Instead of going the straight route (that is, the easy and comprehensible method), he attempts a Paul Greengrass-style sequence (as if he couldn’t make the obvious influence Bourne has had on the Bond series reboot any clearer) with a shaky hand-cam zoomed in on the driver’s face and lightning quick jump-cuts, and overdoes it massively. The shaky cam is practically an earthquake simulation, and the scene cuts, lasting no more than half a second each, could probably give unprepared eyeballs whiplash. The viewer has absolutely no sense of where everyone is, how many pursuers are on Bond’s tail, or even what’s going on.
Fortunately, it’s the only car chase in the movie, and it’s almost immediately followed up by a slightly better-done foot chase over the rooftops of what was probably a city in Italy (could even have been Rome), but could just have easily been someplace in Spain. Doesn’t matter. Locale changes so frequently in spy movies these days it’s like a requirement for the viewer to feel like he’s browsing the travel magazines. “Quantum,” which spends a lot of time in the Bolivian desert and possibly goes to the UK, Austria and Russia as well, makes the viewer feel like he skimmed too fast looking through the pictures, so now he can’t remember what countries they were.
Bond is racking up the frequent-flyer miles because he’s on the trail of the people who blackmailed and killed his lady-love, Vesper, in the previous movie. Apparently, they’re all a part of this super-secret (so secret that even MI6 and the CIA didn’t know it existed! Is that even possible?) world-wide organization called Quantum. Their motives are murky but oh-so-sinister, and they’re headed by Frenchman Dominic Greene, who, in true un-Bond-ish fashion, does not have a secret base or an identifying personality quirk besides being damn reptilian.
Actually, Greene highlights one of the biggest problems with the movie—it lacks a decent bad guy. An action movie, not to mention a Bond movie, is typically only as good as its villain. “Goldfinger” had the fat, greedy Goldfinger, and the sinister voice Ernst Blofield was the antagonist for at least three movies, including “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” Dominic Greene matches up to none of these baddies (through no fault of Mathieu Almaric’s performance, which in another movie would be perfect), though he does manage to put up more of a fight (his final battle with Bond involves an ax). And the closest “Quantum” comes to having a good henchman (Oddjob, Jaws, etc) is the fat, ugly, rapist, military warlord hack Bolivian general. Bah.
Along the way, Bond meets up with Camille, who is thin and sexy, has perfect skin, pouty lips, gun skills, driving skills, and combat skills. Apparently, those latter qualities are the result of her being in the Bolivian Secret Service, or something. Whatever. Camille is played by Olga Kurylenko, which is a good thing since Ms. Kurylenko has had much practice playing the female tag-along to murderous superdudes (“Hitman” and “Max Payne”). She doesn’t sleep with him, though. (The role of easy conquest goes to Agent Strawberry Fields, who appears for maybe 4 minutes.) No, Camille is intended as a foil for Bond, as she has an all-consuming personal vendetta of her own. Her target is a corrupt Bolivian general who murdered her family and who is also currently doing business with Greene (there’s something about oil and the water supply in the country, and the Americans are involved of course). Since they have common enemy, she and Bond team up, with much explosions, blastings, and killings resulting.
Kurylenko isn’t anything spectacular (being blankly vengeful doesn’t lend itself to dramatic acting), but then it’s kind of hard to hold one’s own next to the force of nature that is Daniel Craig’s 007. Face set in hard, determined lines, ice-blue eyes radiating inconsolable rage and grief, Craig is the angriest, scariest, and most compelling Bond yet. Unfortunately, he’s a little one-note here, but it works well when one looks at character arc as it’s been set up from the previous movie, and Bond appears in later adventures (i.e., as a misogynistic, cynical, killing-machine).
And hopefully, that’s what will happen in the next movie. Bond’s getting reboot, sure, but that doesn’t mean he has to become a Jason Bourne clone (Matt Damon would blow a blood vessel anyway). He can still have the sly innuendo and dry wit, the shaken not stirred martinis, the cynical sexual conquests, etc. That’s what “Casino Royale” was aiming for, or it sure seemed like it. Craig has shown enough teasing evidence in his performance that, if given the chance, he can be the best Bond ever in the best Bond film ever. Let him have that chance, guys. He gets his vengeance in “Quantum,” now return him to the way he was. Saving the world and being suave about it. Thank you.
**1/2 out of ****

2009-04-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

Greg Mottola is really a romantic at heart. There were hints at it in his 2007 debut, “Superbad,” where the non-stop crudity, lewdity, and obscenity was a disguise for a kind of touching story of a couple of idiotic, bumbling teenagers trying desperately to hold onto their friendship—while trying to get laid—and worrying about life after high school. In “Adventureland,” however, Mr. Mottola opts for a far more laid-back, drifting, and emotionally aware picture. The laughs aren’t a mile-a-minute (they’re more chuckles, really), the characters are 20-somethings, and the issues at hand are more real, more adult. The young-sorta-nerdy-man-coming-of-age-with-the-help-of-a-more-experienced-and-usually-sexy-girl-who-would-really-never-actually-look-twice-at-a-guy-like-him-in-real-life story is pretty much a stock movie plot these days, but thanks to some strong performances, a few sparks of originality in the screenplay, and the careful attention and respect Mr. Mottola pays to the young (sometimes very young) people on the screen, “Adventureland” rises above the formula.
The movie is set in 1987 for no other reason other than Greg Mottola wrote the screenplay and he would’ve been around the same age as his characters in that year. James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg, the older son from “The Squid and the Whale”) has just graduated with a Bachelor’s in Comparative Literature and Renaissance Studies (or something like that), and he’s about to go to Columbia for grad school. Or so he thinks. Dad gets demoted at work, and suddenly his parents can’t quite afford to pay tuition and board. He’s broke, too, so the only thing left to do is get a job. Needless to say, a degree in Comp. Lit. isn’t exactly resume material, and James soon discovers he’s pretty much unfit for everything, including manual labor (“No, I’ve never driven a cement mixer per se, but I did drive my friend’s van halfway to Wisconsin, if that counts…”). Everything, that is, except working at the local cheap amusement park, Adventureland, where the rides are rickety, the games are all rigged, and no one is ever supposed to win a Giant Ass (stuffed) Panda. Ever. James gets the job in a heartbeat, and, much to his bemusement, gets put on running games because "he looks like a game guy."
James meets an eclectic set of people who work at the park. Among the various losers, stoners, and no-counts, there’s nebbishy Joel (Martin Starr), who’s also a lit major like James and has a Dutch-boy haircut and giant-rimmed glasses; Lisa P (Margarita Levieva), the park's hottie and object of every guy's lust (her shirt, naturally, advertises "Rides Rides Rides"); Mike Connell, the park's mechanic, who apparently "jammed with Lou Reed" and who also goes around with other women despite his wedding ring; and Emily (Kristen Stewart), who is quiet and mysterious. Naturally, this attracts James immediately, and soon the two of them have a relationship going.
Thankfully, the chemistry between the two leads is entirely believable, otherwise the movie would just fall apart. Unlike in “Twilight,” where she’s kinda bland (but that was the fault of her character), Kristen Stewart is excellent. Her Em is cool (Eno and Lou Reed feature prominently in her record collection), experienced, and darn pretty; it’s obvious why James would be smitten with her. But she also brings out the dark, wounded side of her character just as carefully and subtly. Jesse Eisenberg is a male lead in the Michael Cera-mold—awkwardly young, adorably unsure and devoted, drily funny in a self-deprecating way—except that he’s older and relies less on his dorky charm than on his utter relatability to win the audience over.
Mike Connell, being the ladies’ man, is the closest thing the movie has to a “bad guy,” but Mottola’s script makes sure to keep him human as well, and Ryan Reynolds plays him well enough to gain a small amount of the audience’s sympathy.
That’s what makes this movie better than the average coming-of-age tale—its characters and situations are so real. Everyone’s met someone a Mike, or a Lisa P, or even one of those Rush-obsessed drummer dudes (he's called Munch in this movie) . All the characters have shades of gray—no one’s really good, or bad. And when they screw up royally (both James and Em have their share of mistakes—usually in these movies it’s just one or the other), there’s no magical event to fix everything. There’re no wild or action-packed set pieces either, no rushes to get to the girl “before it’s too late.” Scenes just drift along, one by one, kinda like summer, people stave off boredom by smoking pot on the job and going to the club at night. When James and Em make out, Mottola doesn’t fill the scenes with crass humor or with obvious exploitation (all sex scenes are off screen in this movie), and he films them with nostalgia and reverence. Important stuff happening here, pay attention.
And don’t go to this movie expecting a laugh-riot—the comedy is dry and sparse, most of it coming from Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig’s oblivious yet understanding park owners, and James’s buddy Tommy (Matt Bush), who likes to greet him with a “sack whack.” In a lesser movie this guy would be unbearable—here, he’s damn near endearing—and Hader and Wiig’s characters would be crazy and ridiculous.
The ending of “Adventureland” is the only part where it makes a slight jump to wish-fulfillment, but that’s OK, partially because it’s almost believable, and partially because, well, heck, that’s what the audience wants to see. If Mottola wanted to be truly honest, he would’ve ended the film right before that. But no matter. “Adventureland” is a still a solid entry in the bildungsroman genre, one that knows and respects the material. So go watch it. If you're young, it's a good date movie. If you're "old" (like, 40-something), watch it and remember.
*** out of ****

2009-03-31T04:52:00.000-07:00

My paper on Andrew Jackson is devouring me. Dual reviews of "Sweeney" and "Quantum" at some point. ^_^|||

2009-03-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Updates:

Review for "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" pending.
Saw "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," review may or may not be pending.
Watching "Quantum of Solace" at the moment.

2009-03-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

For all of those people out there who can’t stand the idea of a vampire romance and who are dying inside because “Twilight” was finally made into a movie and tweenies are squeeing over it: it can be done right, guys, and it’s called “Let the Right One In” (or, as it’s known in Sweden, “Låt den Rätte Komma In”). A vampire movie with kids but definitely not for them, with much blood and gusto, atmosphere and snow, it’s got everything a horror picture should have and more, including actual performances and an actual focus on relationships between.
Deathly pale and skinny (he could almost be a vampire himself), twelve year-old Oskar is one of those quiet, wimpy kids who gets bullied at school and takes it like a coward because it’s the path of least resistance. His parents are divorced and for the most part, negligent, and he has no friends until a girl named Eli, who looks about his age, moves into the apartment next door. She’s a strange one—lives with a creepy old man (the movie doesn’t make it clear whether he’s her caretaker or slave), only comes out at night, unaffected by cold, and she smells like death and decay. But she solves his Rubik’s Cube, and she doesn’t treat him like dirt the way everyone else does, so Oskar decides he likes her.
To say anymore would be to spoil the surprises (some of them nasty) set upon you while watching Oskar and Eli in the dark, violent, adult world they inhabit. Unlike some vampires stories, all the rules of vampire lore apply here, including aversion to sunlight and super-strength. (The title itself is a reference to the rule that vampires must be invited into a home before entering.) Needless to say, this is one dark tale. Few truly happy moments occur, and where the main characters do triumph, violence—stark and bloody—is almost always involved.
The vampirism is not the focus, though. What’s compelling about the film is how it develops the relationship between its two leads, lonely children trying desperately to find strength and love and friendship, and how realistically and unflinchingly it’s portrayed. The viewer has to deal with wanting to care about the characters and at the same time feeling repulsed by them. Watch Oskar give Eli a hug. It’s the clumsiest, cutest thing. Then watch him on the ice holding the iron pole when the bullies come after him again, and in the backyard stabbing a tree with a kitchen knife. And you’ll never believe their first kiss.
The two leads are both quite good in their roles. Kåre Hedebrant is convincingly awkward and unsettling as Oskar (he seems slightly twisted sometimes), even more so than his vampire girlfriend, because he’s not a supernatural being, just pure, home-grown human.
Eli is played by Lina Leandersson, who’s absolutely wonderful. She duplicates Kirsten Dunst’s adult-child creature in “Interview With the Vampire,” but makes it better, scarier, softer, bloodier, and far creepier. And it’s even more of a feat when you consider that she was only twelve herself when the movie was filmed.
Director Tomas Alfredson utilizes the stark, white, and cold landscape of Sweden in winter to maximum effect, filming with wide lenses for outdoor shots and keeping the soundtrack to a minimum. Outdoor lighting is limited to whatever flat brightness the sun can provide that manages to get through the clouds, and indoors, when the lights aren’t off completely, the rooms are lit with the artificial yellow of lamps and bare bulbs.
Based on the (much longer) book by John Ajvide Lindqvist (who also wrote the screenplay), “Let the Right One In” also serves as a decent adaptation. Various subplots are pruned (except one involving a friend of one of Eli’s victims, which is less well explained than it should be), as well as the details of Eli’s past and her relationship with the old man she travels with, Hakan. But all of that is negligible compared to what Alfredson has captured, and that is the soul of the story. “Let the Right One In” deserves to sit next to Del Toro’s masterpiece of adult fantasy, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” on the DVD shelf. Go watch it before, like Peter Travers prophetically wrote, Hollywood finishes the remake.
**** out of ****

2009-03-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.themediajunkyard.com/2009/03/17/ep-43-challenge-a-thon/
Link to the podcast with audio my good buddy Jordan and I recorded as a before-after thing when we saw Watchmen at midnight. Our stuff begins about 40 minutes in or so. :D

ALSO: Reviews of "Let the Right One In" and "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" pending, as well as a possible couple album reviews.

2009-03-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

And here's the fan review of "Watchmen."(And I apologize if it's rambly, I wrote it without any sort of planning at all...)

First, the Refutation.

They (those haters and the other sheep) say (and I agree) "Watchmen" ain't a great movie. Screw it. It's an awesome adaptation. It's made with love and dedication and spirit and talent and such attention to detail it practically begs to be watched over and over.

So "Watchmen" is way too long for the average viewer. To heck with the average viewer. If they don't want have to pay attention and actually think at a superhero movie, then that's too bad. That's part of the charm.

I offer a big “Shut up” to all those pseudo-intellectuals who see the movie and think,
“Damn but this movie is dumb. Its philosophic and psychological leanings are utterly shallow and completely immature. It’s like, Nieztche and Freud 101! And how can I take a movie with a blue superhero who walks around naked seriously? Why can’t superheroes just save the friggin’ world like Superman? What a waste of my two and half hours.”
Shut up, because you don’t understand. Shut up, because you’re too superior, you think you’re above comic book movies. Shut up, because you’re lost trying to get your stupid PhD and writing that thesis. Shut up, because you’ve forgotten how to have fun. And shut up, because you probably hated “The Dark Knight,” too.

How can anyone fault a movie for trying to overcome its own genre’s limitations??? How can anyone fault a movie for attempting to make its audience think while they watch, instead of just passively taking in images? How? You can’t.

And also, enough from you freaking purists, you self-proclaimed experts on the book, who set expectations for the movie so high you knew it would fail, just so you could rant and rail when it did. Silence, all of you. Because you know you’re wrong and you did it on purpose.

This is the only film adaptation of the book that could work and that did work. This is the only film adaptation we the fanboys need. So what if it doesn’t have the giant squid? That was stupid anyway. The re-write makes more sense, has more relevance with the nuclear holocaust threat, even if it doesn’t quite stick to the idea of ridiculous Deus Ex Machina solutions in comic books.
So what if it doesn’t have the newsstand guy and his scenes? Those coincided with Tales from the Black Freighter comic-within-the-comic stuff, which we all know wouldn’t work in a movie format.

So what if Ozymandias looks “effete” (he looks like an arrogant Aryan dude, and that’s all ya need), or if his suit has Schumacher nipples (the stupid-looking costumes was the most identifiable part of the deconstruction in the novel—plus, that was Snyder’s rebuke to Joel and his madness) or if Dr. M’s entire speech on Mars wasn’t included (the whole thing isn’t needed to outline his philosophy)?

And so what if there’s a cover of a Bob Dylan song by My Chemical Romance in the end credits? Don’t hate on a band because of its fanbase. That’s shallow. And it’s supposed to be fast and loud and punky and rockin’. It’s a cover. Deal. With. It.

OK, now that I’ve got all that off of my chest, into the actual reviewing.

Opening Credits: The best and most original part of the film. Love how Snyder condensed the history of the 1940's Minutemen and the beginnings of the 1980's Crime Busters (in the movie, Watchmen). It's clever, inventive (JFK assassination, Silhouette kissing the nurse, etc), and set to the great (remixed) tune of "The Times They are a'Changing" by Bob Dylan.

Music: Apart from the choice of Leonard Cohen's version of "Hallelujah" and the random placement of Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower," the 60's to 80's soundtrack in this movie works fine. Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" fits particularly well with the Comedian's funeral scene, and Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" playing over Blake being beaten to a pulp and "The Ride of the Valkyries" as Dr. M strolls over the horizon in Nam provide moments of musical irony.

Comedian/Edward Blake: Jeffrey Dean Morgan captures his character, in all his sociopathic, depraved glory, perfectly. He’s also quite good, although in a scary and disgusting way. You can’t identify with this man. He’s off the moral deep end.

Rorshach/Walter Kovachs: Jackie Earle Haley. Is. Amazing. Of all the characters in the book, he’s the one you remember long after you’ve finished reading, the one you’re still quoting days afterwards. It’s the same with the movie. Haley’s got it down. The dark, flat humor, the Clint Eastwood growl and squint, the blind justice in his eyes, and even the “hurms”; he's Dirty Harry from Hell. And even though he’s clearly mentally unstable and his sense of “justice” is decidedly questionable, you can still identify with him. Watch him at the end of the movie, when he finally takes his mask off voluntarily and screams at Dr. M to kill him. He’s accepted his death—that’s not why he’s crying. He's crying because his entire philosophy has come crashing down around him, and he knows it's the right thing.

Dr. Manhattan/Jon Osterman: Billy Crudup's quite good as our favorite naked omnipotent blue guy, something that I wasn't quite expecting (not having the greatest opinion of Crudup, seeing as I've seen him only in "Big Fish," which I didn't finish, and hearing his passable voice work in "Princess Mononoke") but was pleasantly surprised to find out. He's got the distant, emotionally detached voice down pat, and the motion capture does wonders for the minute facial expressions he gives Dr. M (since Dr. M's mostly forgotten how to do them). And yes, you do see his big, blue appendage. And it is kinda big. Anyway.

Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg: Patrick Wilson is appropriately shlubby and nebbish, and he's good enough to bring a wide range of emotions in his limited screen time. Dan was kinda neglected in the novel as well, but he is given some kind of character arc (the only person besides Dr. M to get one), and Wilson pulls it off well.

Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt: I'm indifferent about Matthew Goode's portrayal of Ozy. There have been reports that the way he played it made it obvious that he was the villain--I couldn't say, seeing as I'd already read the book....I think he was as melodramatic and obsessed as in the book, and you can't ask for much more than that. Except maybe that he be slightly more muscular. Seriously.

Silk Spectre II/Laurie Jupiter: Can't say much about Malin Ackerman's portrayal of Laurie either....she was pretty bland, but she was also pretty pretty, so it kinda balanced out. She made Laurie less annoying than she was in the book though, which is a good thing. Too bad they gave some clunky dialogue that should've been cut.

Silk Spectre I/Sally Jupiter: Carla Gugino was kinda not so great here, which is unfortunate since she's the hottest "old lady" in comic book adaptations these days. She had all these nonsensical speeches and her delivery was just campy to excess.

Little things: This movie was sickeningly violent. So was the comic book, but I think I agree with the idea that you don't always have to show things to the point across. People use their imaginations extremely well when it comes to gruesome actions. I didn't really need to see the knife go through that Knot Top's neck, or the fat guy's arms get power sawed off (even though it works better than slashing his throat to get him out of the way of the door). T'ain't necessary. That's where Snyder comes close to commercializing his picture, which is ironic given the source material.
Speaking of Snyder and commercializing, his filming style is also kinda repetitive. He does this slow-mo, frozen-in-time shot frequently and films his fight scenes with a fast-slow-fast combination that works perfectly for music videos, but not great for feature films.
All the violence and the music vid style only serve to pick up fans from the 17 - 25 male audience who'll think the movie's awesome for most of the wrong reasons. But it's a small price to pay for the seeing such a brilliant story brought to life and the silver screen.

***1/2 out of ****

2009-03-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

OK, here's the review that should appear in the paper, although they'll probably edit it. I'll get the more buttoned-down, written-as-a-fanboy version out later (hint: it'll have 3 1/2 stars, methinks).

23 years ago, in 1986, DC Comics began publishing issues of a superhero series by writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons. The series was called Watchmen, became wildly popular among comic book fans, and, when finally collected into a single volume, was highly praised by book critics, eventually even winning the Hugo Award (the only graphic novel ever to do so).
Since then there have been numerous failed attempts at turning it into a movie. Various directors and screenwriters were brought on to the project and then dropped (including such talents as Terry Gilliam, Paul Greengrass, and Darren Aronofsky). All, including the reclusive Mr. Moore, claimed the novel, with its dense, convoluted intertwining plotlines, was “unfilmable.” Turns out they were almost wrong. The result is a convoluted, flawed, giant of a movie that, while occasionally having its moments of brilliance, suffers from director Zack Snyder’s (“300”) inability or reluctance to prune scenes to make a more streamlined picture and is for the most part still aimed solely at its fanbase.
The film, “Watchmen,” like the novel, is set in an alternate 1980’s America, and opens with a spectacular opening credits sequence (one of the aforementioned moments of brilliance). Set to “The Times They Are A’Changing” by Bob Dylan, it’s almost a slideshow of photograph-like shots of people and events, frozen in time like wax-works, or moving in slow-motion. Outrageously inventive—several famous scenes in American history are re-written—it also serves to bring the viewer up to speed on the world of the Watchmen: Nixon (who appears in the movie as an unnecessary and lame caricature) is in a fifth term, the US actually won the war in Vietnam, and an all-out nuclear holocaust is now looming with the USSR; all thanks to the existence of costumed heroes, who, once numerous, have now been outlawed.
The movie starts off at first glance to be a murder mystery, what with the brutal killing of one of these “heroes,” the Comedian (Jefferey Dean Morgan), beaten to a pulp and thrown through the window of his high-rise apartment. No one really misses him or even cares, except the paranoid Rorshach (Jackie Earle Haley)—the only superhero ignoring the laws against vigilantism—who believes “someone’s gunning for masks” and moves to warn his former colleagues, who are a kind of demented mash-up between DC’s Justice League of America and Marvel’s Avengers. Some even resemble their real-comic counterparts: Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) is a mixture of Batman and Iron Man, but his alter-ego Dan Dreiberg is nebbish, worried, and impotent, scared of how much he needs his suit to feel powerful; the Comedian almost resembles Captain America, except he’s a murderous, sociopathic rapist, representing the sick joke of humanity’s depravity; Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman) represents every annoying, oversexed female superhero ever created, and was forced into costumed vigilantism in her teens by her mother, the original Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino). Another, Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), retired and was egotistical and brilliant enough to make billions marketing an action figure line of himself.
Only one of this motley crew, the electric blue and mostly naked Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), actually has any powers, given to him, in true comic book fashion, in a physics lab mishap. He can do basically anything (“God exists, and he’s American”), including teleport to Mars and vaporize human beings, leaving nothing but a smear of red and a pile of gore, bloody bones, and entrails, but he cares nothing for the human race and is tired of being used in their wars and politics (he’s the reason the US won in ‘Nam). His character arc has the most intriguing climax and resolution.
Naturally, with such a large cast, the first third of “Watchmen” gets slightly bogged down in establishing its characters, and this is where most of the problems with the film are. The exposition is maddeningly slow for the non-initiated viewer, and flashbacks abound, particularly of the Comedian, as various individuals relive their memories of him at his funeral, and of Dr. Manhattan’s origins, as the audience gets a glimpse into his omnipresent view of his life (he sees past, present, and future all at once). The former’s scenes could’ve been edited more, perhaps, simply because he’s less interesting (not to mention less disgusting) than Dr. Manhattan.
The movie does start to pick up when the action gets going, as it becomes clear that there’s a deeper conspiracy behind the Comedian’s murder and when the superheroes put on their capes and latex suits to go out and save the day. But remember, the graphic novel, besides being a deconstruction of superheroes in general, was also an exercise in nihilism. Let’s just say happy endings are not in store…and the villain may not be quite the monster he seems. Oh, and the violence is quite graphic and excessive—bones are snapped, heads cleaved, faces battered, and bodies are stabbed, burned and electrocuted.
The cast’s performances are also unbalanced due to their large number, but for the most part it’s understandable. One, because that’s how they were written in the book, and two, because the characters that do get all the attention are the most interesting ones.
Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino are the sole female superheroes, but unfortunately neither does much to stand out. Ms. Ackerman fails to rise much above the limitations placed on her already one-note character, coming across most of the time as just bland. Ms. Gugino’s portrayal is far less complex and much more campy than her character deserves. Neither is helped by the clunky dialogue they're sometimes given.
Matthew Goode as Ozymandias is also disappointingly one-note, but it's more due to his lack of screen time than lack of talent, and he does provide some class to the proceedings. Patrick Wilson thankfully brings a little more subtlety and pathos to Nite Owl, although he has the misfortune to take part in an unintentionally hilarious sex scene .
As the god-like Dr. Manhattan, Billy Crudup manages, even under the CGI, to portray an otherworldly and detached being through his unsettlingly calm voice and minute facial expressions (created with the same motion capture techniques used with Gollum in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings”), and he holds his own quite well in his solitary sequences.
Jackie Earle Haley as Rorshach is the true stand-out performance. His gravelly voice rasping out hard boiled crime noir lines from his journal (“This city’s afraid of me. I have seen its true face.”), whole head hidden underneath his black-and-white shifting inkblot mask, he completely embodies Rorshach and his twisted sense of absolute justice, his radical right-wing opinions, his anti-communist paranoia, his hatred of criminals and “soft liberals.” And when the mask comes off, which is rare and in only a few key scenes, he’s even more compelling and frightening. But, long before the end of the film and his entire philosophy and will is shattered, the viewer begins to identify, or at least to pity him, and that’s the scariest thing of all.
With all that to work with, “Watchmen” has the makings of an incredible movie, but it isn’t. The film is hampered by its twisting storyline and slow exposition, not to mention a few unnecessary fight scenes and flashbacks, which, while they may please the fanboys, just add to the two-hour-and-forty-minute running time. It does have a few great scenes (the opening credits, Dr. Manhattan’s exile on Mars, Rorshach’s final scene), some great dialogue (Dr. Manhattan’s revelation about the miracle of life and genetics, Rorshach and his made-for-quoting lines) and a marvelous attention to detail (Mr. Snyder spared no expense in getting the look down—every scene oozes 80’s, from the soundtrack to the bad hair on the newscasters), and the ending is quite the moral conundrum, sure to divide the non-fanbase audiences and force them to ask questions about themselves and the world. But they have to get there first, and they have to care, and with this movie, neither is guaranteed.
*** out of ****

:D

2009-03-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I saw "Watchmen" last night at the midnight showing, and it was awesome. Review pending, hopefully done by tonight. Keep ya posted.

~Tooms

2009-03-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

“Slumdog Millionaire” is a triumphant piece of filmmaking. It’s a Dickensian story of epic and thrilling proportions, filmed at a breakneck, no-holds-barred, whirlwind pace, about an Oliver Twist ragmuffin’s escape from the slums of India onto the nationally televised “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” show thanks to his quick wit and unbreakable spirit. The slumdog, named Jamal (Dev Patel), never quits because he is an idealist who never becomes too jaded by the world he lives in; he is already so low in that world that the only direction for him to go is up. He’s also in love with “the most beautiful girl in the whole world.” Oh, yes. There’s a girl. There’s always a girl. And she is beautiful. And his love is pure and right. They are destined. That’s all I can say, really. This movie is unpredictable enough that none of the plot should be explained—watching it is a joy unto itself. Know that the cast is excellent, the direction is flawless (Danny Boyle proves once again he is one of the most versatile directors today), and the soundtrack, with its clash of Bollywood drum beats, Western rock, and hip-hop courtesy of M.I.A., is propulsive and heart-pumping (much praise must go to composer R.A. Rahman). You must see this movie. You will love it. It is written.
**** out of ****

2009-03-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

After watching “Gone Baby Gone,” I was able to conclude two things, and they both had to do with Ben Affleck’s acting abilities. One, he’s a better director than actor, because two, his little bro Casey got all the talent. Casey Affleck is so good you wonder how he has stayed hidden for so long, until you realize that his whole style is understated and subtle, suitable for the character and supporting roles he’s been playing. It’s only because he’s the lead that you can tell how talented he is
Based on the book by Dennis Lehane (who also penned Mystic River, which was made into a movie a few years ago), “Gone Baby Gone” is modern crime/noir tale set in the dirty, slummy side of Boston, the part you don’t hear about, where the small time gangsters, the crackheads, the white trash, the prostitutes, the pimps, and the crooked cops reside. It’s also where private investigator Patrick Kinsey (Casey Affleck) and his partner/girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan) live and run their (relatively new) detective business. They get their first big job when they’re hired by the sister-in-law of a woman whose 4 year-old daughter was kidnapped three days ago. They soon find out the plot goes far deeper than they could’ve guessed (of course), and that no one (almost) is what they at first seem to be.
As with everything else, the acting is quite solid in “Gone.” Casey Affleck, as mentioned before, carries the movie on his slight shoulders. Because he does not look like a hard-boiled detective, able to fight his way out of anything, it’s all the more surprising when the lid pops open and out comes Patrick the Tough Guy, the guy carrying a piece in his waistband, who knows everyone in the neighborhood and who talk trash like they do. Consider the scene where he intimidates his way out of a potential bar room brawl, shouting obscenities and waving his handgun like a hood, and watch his face just as he steps outside and the scene begins to fade out. He smirks and shakes his head—he shocked himself with his own bravado—and then he sighs, exasperated with the incooperation and belligerence of the bar denizens. All that in the two seconds between a scene change.
Michelle Monaghan also provides a solid performance—she’s been delegated to smalle side roles in most of her movies, and it’s good to see her come through when given a larger part.
Ed Harris, playing a police detective, and Morgan Freeman as the police captain provide the veteran star power, but as good the performances are, they’re slightly marred by the fact that they’re huge stars. The audience sees Morgan Freeman first, not the police captain. At least Ed Harris had the disguising beard and mustache.
The biggest surprise in the acting category is Helene, the missing girl’s mother. Played by Amy Ryan, she at first comes across to the viewer as an unrepentant, resentful, sleazy piece of white trash. Later, when the layers start to peel away, she’s still a piece of white trash, and she’s still sleazy, but she’s not heartless or unrepentant, and nor does she resent the people who are doing their best to find her daughter. Ryan plays a person who, for all accounts, shouldn’t be sympathized with too much, but who then makes us sympathize with her anyway without changing one aspect of her character. Her last scene exemplifies this perfectly.
To give away any more would be to spoil the fun in watching the events unfold and looking for clues. This is a classic detective story, so all the clichés are game here. But where “Gone Baby Gone” separates itself from the crowd is in the unsettling moral questions the characters (and the audience) find themselves asking (“Is it OK to kill a child murderer? How far will you go to uphold the law? How far should you [i]bend[/i] the law?”). Even by the end of the movie, the viewer is still unsure what was the right choice to make in that situation, and, to an extent, so is Patrick Kinsey.
***1/2 out of ****

2009-03-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

Maybe it’s because I had read the book already, but I sure didn’t understand why the ads for “Atonement” were calling it a “ravishing romance,” a “stunning story of love,” and a “big, lush, exhilarating movie.” It seems rather cruel to lure people under false pretenses to this depressing movie, no matter how good it is. Sure, there’s romance in the movie, but it’s not the focus of the movie, and it sure ain’t ravishing, lush, or stunning.
No, Atonement is British novelist Ian McEwan’s dissection of the myriad and devastating consequences of sin, and yes, man’s futile attempts at forgiveness. Naturally, it is a dense book: character thoughts take up paragraphs, sensory images abound, etc, but to his credit, director Joe Wright translates it well to the screen, employing visual clues and repetition of images to help the viewer understand the thoughts of the characters and speeding up parts to keep the audience engaged (enormously helped by the ominous clacking of a typewriter in the score).
Told in three parts, “Atonement” begins in Great Britain, on the brink of World War II, in the aristocratic home of the Tallis family, where there’s a quiet reunion party going on. Cecelia (Keira Knightley) and Leon Tallis, brother and sister, are home on break from college, as is Robby (James McAvoy), the servant’s son who the late Mr. Tallis put through school. Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), who is 13 and the youngest, is a budding writer with a wild imagination. In the afternoon before the party, she witnesses an event that exposes the beginning of relationship between Robby and Cecelia but that she doesn’t understand and construes it as wrong. Later, through a combination of naivety, over-protectiveness and jealousy, she tells a lie that destroys, not only the lives of her sister and Robby, but her own as well.
Adaptation of a novel to film is always a very difficult thing to do, because the screenwriter must decide how much to cut and/or to add and still preserve the meaning and dialogue, and the director must decide how to express the book’s atmosphere with his or her own particular style (not to mention the actors must embody the characters completely). “Atonement” hits three out of those three.
Script-wise, it’s perfect. Scenes from the book are brought to vivid life, the dialogue is as cutting, as halting, as layered, and as painfully emotional as in the book. Some of the themes (the ones with purely literary significance) obviously couldn’t be translated to film, but they’re at least alluded to.
The acting is also superb. James McAvoy has the most screen time out of everyone, and his transformation is gripping; you can’t look away, even when his eyes are at their most haunted, or when he finally explodes with a vitriolic, righteous rage.
It’s the character of Briony Tallis that actually has the most screen time, but she’s played by three different actresses: Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave, with Ms. Ronan and Ms. Redgrave (who of course does marvelous work once again) standing out particularly. This is not a slight on Ms. Garai, who is perfectly adequate, but she is slightly hampered by less juicy material to work with in her scenes, not to mention the fact that she doesn’t much look like the other two actresses.
Saoirse Ronan, though, is quite the find. She has the difficult task of playing a character that is quite unsympathetic at times, and yet, even with her character’s childish jealousy and ignorance she manages to capture the audience’s empathy (if not their sympathy). Only 14, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, and it’s quite deserved.
Keira Knightley and her character have the smallest amount of screen time, but her interactions with the other two have more than enough crackling energy to make up for it. Watch her deal cutting verbal blows the way only the British can in an argument. And then watch her, in a scene near the end, become the instant voice of soothing calm and love that stays Robby’s furious anger.
His previous film also being a book adaptation (“Pride and Prejudice”), director Joe Wright’s experience serves him well with “Atonement,” although it’s slightly more difficult. He captures the lush senses and description in the first part of the book well, but he has a tougher time with the last two parts as they lack the dense, subtle interplay and conversation between the characters and thus have the potential for dragging and boring the audience. So, Wright turns to some stylish cinematography to keep the audience interested, and, particularly excellent, still manages to imitate the passages in the book.
The standout piece is of course the five minute unbroken (I assume) take on Dunkirk beach, which seems stylistic for its own sake until you realize how the camera is imitating the wandering, lost soldiers it’s watching; staggering past wounded men; pausing to listen to the military choir trying to keep everyone’s hopes up; gliding hurriedly by the horses being shot in the head because they’ll take up too much space on the ferries; back to Robby and his two mates; up the stairs to the pub; nudging by the young man vomiting over the railing; and finally, gazing out to the sunset and the ocean and England, so close and so far in so many ways.
To say much more would be to ruin the experience of watching such a movie—rest assured it is quite the emotional ride, but it isn’t exactly the happiest one. Its conclusion about the human condition is correct, as well. And sometimes, a lie can be the only truth you really need to know. You can't look away, even when it's staring you in the face.
**** out of ****

2009-02-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

I don’t know why the MPAA tries to block young people from seeing movies they really ought to watch. The MPAA gets uncomfortable when a movie portrays people in uncompromising, unglamorous or, dare I say it, realistic situations. They prefer the gloss and fantasy of the usual Hollywood sludge that comes out, I suppose, because they still cling to the idea that movies must provide an escape from the boredom and gloom of real life. I must also assume they are a tad out of touch with the horrifying aspects of real life, and are thus disturbed and frightened when some daring young filmmaker makes a movie about increasingly sick and real people doing increasingly sick and real things to survive.
The MPAA threatened “Requiem for a Dream” with the NC-17 (no one under the age of 17 shall be admitted—it was eventually released Unrated) rating for its incredibly graphic look at the effects of drugs on people, and the depths they will go to sustain their addictions. But, that is the very reason why sophomores, juniors and seniors in high school should be admitted. No one, after watching this movie, will feel anything but disgust at the idea of taking drugs.
“Requiem” tells the intertwining stories of four drug addicts in New York City. Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is an elderly widow who becomes the victim of a phone scam. Her addiction is to television, but she soon becomes hooked on diet pills prescribed to her by a shady doctor. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto), pawns her possessions (which she then buys back from the salesman, an apparent long-running routine) for cash to fuel his already present addiction to cocaine and heroin. He lives with his girlfriend, Marion (Jennifer Connolly), who is also an addict but who dreams of doing something more with her life, and hangs out with his best friend and partner in drug peddling, Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). Tyrone takes drugs too, but he’s not as addicted as the other two yet, not at the point where he shoots up multiple times a day.
All of the characters are deluded in some way. Sara believes she’ll be on television (a result of the phone scam), believes her son is trying to get clean, believes the diet pills she’s taking aren’t causing her to hallucinate (“The refrigerator’s tyring to attack me!”). Harry talks constantly about getting “our big break” to Marion, who in turn believes him. Only Tyrone doesn’t completely share Harry’s enthusiasm, partly because he’s not as drugged out of his mind (yet), partly because deep down he knows what they’re all doing is wrong and dangerous, but they’re in too deep to ever pull out again.
Director Darren Arronofsky films “Requiem,” his second movie, with a kinetic and stimulating camera style, full of quick cuts, split screens, sped-up scenes, distorted wide angles, security camera shots, and swirling, spiraling, long takes. The cinematography, combined with the slowly decaying color shading—sunny yellow, cold blue, and finally, sickly green—works to mimic the experience of being under a drug addiction. And, the final ten minutes of the film are an absolute triumph of editing, suspense, and horror, as the fates of all four characters are shown at the same time.
Arronofsky’s focus is also unique. The actual taking of the drugs is almost never shown (instead the audience is provided with a flurry of rattling pills, gulping sounds, draining hypodermics, moans, and sniffs), because it’s not the act that concerns him, it's the aftermath. Even the scenes where his characters are high or stoned, not much is shown—the film is sped up. Everything about the movie does its best to reflect the initial hedonism, the later blur, sickening realization, and the final scramble to crawl out of addiction.
The cast is uniformly excellent, which is essential, because anything less would’ve ruined the movie. Jared Leto and Jennifer Connolly create a believable young couple whose hopes and dreams are forever stunted and unreal thanks to their addiction. I’ve read some shallow and idiotic criticisms that both Leto and Connolly are so good looking that they make addiction look “glamorous,” but if anything, the fact that they’re young and beautiful makes their emaciated, mutilated, and desecrated appearances, their wasted potential, at the end of the movie all the more tragic.
Marlon Wayans, normally the comic relief in movies, plays it entirely straight here, and he’s great. His fate at the end of the movie is the most relatable and perhaps even the most emotionally painful.
It is Elizabeth Burstyn, however, who has the stand-out performance. Her Sara is pathetic and shallow, but she’s also naïve and lonely and sad, which is why the audience pities her when she self-destructs unwittingly.
For all the cinematic brilliance and stellar acting performances, I’d still have a difficult time actually recommending “Requiem for a Dream” to just anyone. It is not in any way an easy movie to watch. Witnessing people wreck their lives in such a manner and not being able to do anything about it is incredibly painful, and at the end of it all, you’re utterly drained. And you’ll never want to touch drugs ever. Or again.
**** out of ****

2009-02-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

Producer J.J. Abrams (the man behind “Lost”) apparently came up with the idea of a monster attack movie because he realized that America didn’t have a city-stomping icon like Japan’s Godzilla (and perhaps because he realized that New York City has some great canyon-like streets in which to shoot battles). At some point, he, director Matt Reeves, and screenwriter Drew Goddard must have realized that for all the celebrity status given to Godzilla, his movies were really just campy strokes of low-budget cinematic genius and unintentional hilarity, which really would not have worked with today’s audience. So, to catch their target viewing populace (action/horror hungry teenagers), they decided to stay relevant and make it an ode to generation Y, the Youtubers and bloggers of the future, who can’t help but record everything, filming the movie “Blair Witch” style, with a handheld camera. This allows for maximum edge-of-your-seat potential, placing the viewer in the middle of all the mayhem and terror. (Truth be told, the shaky cam is a bit of a gimmick now, but in this situation it makes for a surprisingly good piece of entertainment, providing you don’t get motion sickness of course!)
The first 20 minutes or so are the movie’s weakest scenes. Beginning with an early morning scene of a couple filming each other after their first night together, everything jumps a month later to a good-bye party for the male half of the now split couple, Rob (Michael Stahl-David). The party is being recorded by Rob’s best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller)—oh, the irony—who is kinda hapless and slightly annoying (but only to the people he’s shoving his camera at), and who is also accidentally recording over Rob’s tape of his day with Beth, the female half of the ex-couple. (This allows for random insertions of tiny clips from that tape as the camera is turned off or banged around and the tape slightly adjusted in the middle of all the action.) These scenes aren’t weak because the characters are boring (although many of them are—this is also the reason home movies are always absolutely painful to watch for outsiders), they’re weak because the whole sequence drags on for far too long than is appropriate for the ensuing non-existent character development in the rest of the movie. The audience already isn’t going to care that much about them—they want to get to the action and the monster (and the Statue of Liberty head), so why spend so much time worrying about the “complicated” relationship troubles between Rob and Beth? And if anything, Hud’s crush on Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) is funnier and more relatable. At least the filmmakers were smart enough to cast unknowns as their characters. Stars would’ve ruined the “realistic” feel of the whole picture.
Anyway, the monster soons arrives, the power starts to flicker, the Statue of Liberty’s head goes bouncing down the street (even when terrified, people still stop to snap pictures and take video with their phones), and all hell breaks loose. Rob, Hud (still filming), Marlena, Rob’s brother Jason and his girlfriend Lily try to find their way out of Manhattan, as the military tries to kill the huge monster, with increasing failure.
Reeves and Goddard take a page out of Steven Spielberg’s book on “Jaws,” allowing the monster to be seen only in infuriatingly brief glimpses with Hud’s camera and providing it with no backstory or explanation. Much later there is a full shot of the monster in all its ugly glory, but for most of the movie all the viewer knows is that it’s incredibly large, has numerous strangely jointed legs and tentacles, and creepy spider-like things (Abrams calls them parasites) that drop off of its back onto the street to attack people. The parasites allow for the best creature-attack scenes in the movie, where the shaky cam makes everything more frightening than it really is.
For all the fun, however, there are a couple more inherent flaws with the movie. Firstly, the very idea of someone keeping the camera on and filming everything that happens is as skeptical one. The filmmakers try to explain it by having Hud say “people would want to know how it all went down,” but that statement seems rather weak when the camera stays on and filming even when the group is attacked, indicating that Hud just stood by, or when the camera-man has to do something that could very well require a steady concenntration. Not to mention the camera’s possibly unrealistic sturdyness—it’s dropped on numerous occasions—and possibly impossible battery life (though, looking back, there were times when a scene would “skip,” suggesting the camera may have been turned off for a period).
Second is the unavoidable abundance of 9/11 imagery: a dust cloud rolls down the street towards a crowd after a building is knocked over, Rob’s mom calls him to ask if he’s OK, etc. Certainly these scenes are not meant to be exploitive, but they can construed as such by audience members, who may or may not be ready to deal with the Hollywood response to the event.
These flaws only truly present themselves in the after thought, however; while the movie is playing it’s a heck of a ride. The viewer comes out feeling a little dazed, and perhaps a little angry (given the cliffhanger ending), slightly exhilirated, and also rather anxious for a sequel, which Abrams is apparently putting together right now. As a cinematic achievement, “Cloverfield” doesn’t hit any of the categories, but it is excellent entertainment. Perhaps someday Abrams will get his wish, and his beast will be an icon to outshine even Godzilla.
*** out of ****

2009-02-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

This is what should have been in "Superman Returns."

Imagine That.

Disclaimer: Don't ask how I came across that.

2009-02-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

I never liked Superman. He was too invincible, too unstoppable, too unconquerable. He has no equal on Earth—there are no supervillains powerful enough to challenge him, save his archnemesis, Lex Luthor, and even he is a mere human and would lose mano-y-mano. There’s no suspense with him. Train derailing on a cliff over the ocean? Don’t worry. Superman will stop it before it goes over. Plane falling from the sky? Superman will catch it and place it carefully on the ground without rattling anybody inside. There’s nothing too “super” for Superman to accomplish. He can travel into space, fly faster than a bullet, leap tall buildings. He can see through walls, fry things with his eyes, and blow cold winds with his breath. His only weakness is kryptonite, a crystal. This is wrong (although I suppose there is some poetic irony in the fact that the only thing that can kill the Adonis of superheroes is a ROCK).
I would forgive the Superman shortcomings because, in essence, it’s just a cartoon, meant to thrill the kids on Saturday morning. But where similar “cartoons” like Spider-man and Batman can rise above their comic book beginnings and become something more meaningful (meditations on society, like in “The Dark Knight,” or the sacrifices and responsibilities of being an icon and a hero, as in “Spider-man 2”), Superman, at least in the movies, stays as perfect and as unreal as he has ever been. Director Bryan Singer attempts (to his credit) this kind of elevation in “Superman Returns,” but it fails to connect to the audience, and he soon returns to the cartoon-like aspects of the story.
While “Superman Returns” is technically a sequel to the previous four movies, Singer has said he wanted it to be an introduction to the story for a new generation as well. He may have tried a little too hard. The plot of “Returns” greatly resembles the first Superman movie, even down to the little details like Lois fainting after seeing Superman, and Lex Luthor’s evil plan. To older viewers, it’s like déjà vu.
When the movie begins, Superman (Brandon Routh) has returned to Earth after a five year trip to find his home planet, Krypton. Not much has changed: people still kill each other and rip each other off and starve and die. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out of prison and hatching another evil scheme. Only his old flame, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), has moved on. Peeved that The Man of Steel didn’t even say ‘good-bye,” she’s now got a fiancee (James Marsden) , a child, and Pulitzer for her article, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” This seems like it would be a good read, but we never a get a taste of it.
After crash-landing in his adoptive family’s corn field, Clark Kent makes his comeback as Superman to the world in his usual spectacular fashion and for his usual noble reasons: he catches a jumbo jet (which just so happens to have Lois inside) that is spiralling uncontrollably to the ground, and sets it down in the middle of a baseball stadium. Clark then gets his old job back at The Daily Planet, where he catches up with Lois and meets her quiet and sickly son. Hint. Hint. At the same time, Luthor sets in motion a new plan that involves the deaths of lots and lots of people and eventual world domination, and of course, he kidnaps Lois at some point. Oh, and he also acquires kryptonite, too. Huge surprise, I know.
To go on about the plot would be pointless, I think. It’s decidedly uncheery and overly serious, and there is no sense of the fun that a Superman movie should have. Even the actors don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. Brandon Routh, while looking remarkably like Christopher Reeves, is rather bland and unemotional, even for the Man of Steel. Kate Bosworth is thoroughly depressing; she doesn’t smile once throughout the whole movie, even when Superman takes her on a nightime fly-over of the city. Why Clark likes her is beyond me. Poor James Marsden is once again delegated to the thankless role of the husband/boyfriend oblivious to what’s going on between his wife/girlfriend and another guy. Kevin Spacey is the only one who approaches any sort of real acting; when he’s not hamming it up dealing with his hapless henchman and ditzy moll, Kitty (Parker Posey, mistress of the deadpan), his Lex Luthor is sadistic, violent, and in an insane way, almost charismatic.
To be honest, I’m not sure what Singer was trying to say by having Lois Lane insist that the world doesn’t need Superman. Yes, the world does need a hero? A savior? Is that the reason for the abundance of Christ-like sacrificial imagery—Superman getting beaten ruthlessly by his enemies, Superman falling from the sky in a crucifix-pose after saving the world yet again? Did he forget that “Spider-man 2” already did that to much better effect? Did he forget that “Spider-man 2” made the audience care about the superhero by making him have all the same problems that regular people do, by giving him all the same hurts and fears and doubts? Did he not realize that he was going to have to do the same thing to Superman, to humanize him, if he was going to have the audience care at all?
I dunno. I do know, though, that “Superman Returns,” while being a midly entertaining bit of summer action, is also emotionally un-fun where it should be joyous. Every aspect of the movie is depressing and reflecting of the times, when they should be carefree and escapist. No one goes to see Superman to watch a dark and violent tale, like they do with Batman, they go to have fun. “Superman Returns” fails to deliver this.
** out of ****

Here 'tis!

2009-02-10T06:11:00.000-08:00

Remember watching the original “Star Wars” movies? If you were like me, your two favorite characters were probably the masked Boba Fett, the “best bounty hunter in the galaxy,” and the roguish Han Solo, smuggler and pilot of the Millenium Falcon (this is before Princess Leia’s debut in the gold bikini in “Return of the Jedi,” obviously). But these guys weren’t cool because they had guns or fast ships, they were cool because they had personality; they didn’t listen to nobody, and they were free and dangerous and wild. Luke and Leia were squares, stormtroopers couldn’t shoot for squat, and Darth Vader, despite having extremely cool black armor, was basically The Emperor’s lapdog. No kid could play at being Rebels or Imperials, the good guys and bad guys. The anti-heroes, the outlaws and outcasts, the guys just trying to make it in the wild assortment of planets in Lucas’s galaxy and selling their services to the highest bidder, they were the ones who had adventures. Best of all, they also had trusty spaceships that were battered and scarred from countless battles and scrapes, outfitted with hidden compartments and weapons and christened with flashy and intimidating names (Slave I, Millennium Falcon, Hound’s Tooth).
Joss Whedon’s (creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) short-lived TV show, “Firefly,” understood this fascination with the Han Solo-type space outlaw and utilized it to great effect, removing aliens and adding elements of dystopian sci-fi flicks like “Blade Runner” and classic Westerns to create a mad, crazy piece of space-opera genius.
The show followed the adventures of Captain Malcolm (Nathan Fillion) and his crew of mercenaries and fugitives in the good ship Serenity, as they wandered the ‘verse (“universe” in the strangely archaic future lingo spoken by most of the characters) doing odd jobs and trying to keep out of way of the (evil) Alliance.
The series was taken off the air far too quickly, however, and its fans have been in withdrawal ever since. Thankfully, Whedon has revived his show with, “Serenity,” a feature length movie set after the end of the series.
As the movie begins, Captain Mal and his crew—pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite), mercenary Jane (Adam Baldwin), doctor Simon (Sean Maher), Wash’s wife and Mal’s second-in-command Zoe (Gina Torres) and Simon’s little sister, River (Summer Glau)—are still wandering in space, but they’re a little broker than usual, and a little more desperate. The Alliance is in hot pursuit of young River because as a psychic and former test subject of the Alliance, she may know secrets they cannot allow to get out. The Operative (Chiwetal Ejiofor) is assigned to find and bring her back with any means necessary, which he proceeds to do with cold and brutal efficiency. Meanwhile, River becomes increasingly unbalanced and dangerous, and the crew of the Serenity must decide whether to keep her on board or to try and find out what secret she could possibly know that would force an interplanetary government to such lengths to get her.
Needless to say, they opt to find out what the secret is, and lemme tell ya, it’s a doozy. Sure, it’s probably not the most original idea in science fiction, but it’s miles more thought-provoking than any piece of entertainment that came out the same year, or even this year for that matter. Lots of action and violence is involved along the way, mostly against the mysterious zombie-raiders known as Reavers, who roam the interplanetary spaceroutes, destroying, and killing and eating people.
Thanks no doubt to Whedon’s larger budget, “Serenity” also looks great. The special F/X are adequate for a movie like this, but they aren’t overwhelming or obvious either (except in the dizzying and frenetic space battle near the end, and even that has its moments—watch for the way-cool Reaver ship that has a claw to grab enemy fighters). Everything looks gritty and battered and lived-in. Stuff even falls off of Mal’s ship when he enters a planet’s atmosphere at the beginning of the movie. Remind you of anyone?
The acting is uniformly excellent as well, with every actor completely inhabiting their characters, no doubt because most of them have been cultivating them since the TV series days. This level of comfort also extends to how they interact with each other, which is pretty much seemlessly. Nathan Fillion and Chiwetal Ejiofor stand out in particular. Fillion as Mal has the asymmetric Solo-smirk down pat, but with it he also carries the swagger and pathos needed for an ex-soldier, and when he gets mad things break. But where Fillion is all wounded, righteous rage, Ejiofor, as the unstoppable Operative, is measured, calm, and evil. He turns, in one scene, what could’ve been a stock villain into an almost three-dimensional “monster,” a True Believer who knows he is damned but keeps going for the greater good.
For those uninitiated masses, “Serenity” represents not only a taster for the TV series it’s based on, but also an excellent piece of science-fiction. It has above average acting and an above average plot, with humor and drama in equal measure, and it fully imagines a future where these events could all be possible. I really hope Joss Whedon and company get together and make a sequel. The world needs more imaginative and fun movies like this. They keep the kid alive in me, and hopefully, in you. I still wish I was Han Solo. But I also kinda wish I was Captain Mal.
***1/2 out of ****

Upcoming movies..

2009-02-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

Time for a little preview of the movies that are coming out that I'm rather interested in. :D

First and foremost is Watchmen. To quote the person who uploaded this trailer to Youtube, I am so very excited. I'm lost for words. Actually, I'm not, since that would defeat the purpose of putting this on my blog. But anyway.
The movie is based on the awesome and brilliant graphic novel by Alan Moore (author of "V for Vendetta" and "From Hell"), and it's been in production limbo for ages now. Every director and screenwriter that has come across it has said it's unfilmable, that it's too complex and long to possibly condense into a feature length movie. Well, no longer. Zack Snyder, director of comic book adaptation 300, was signed on, and he's somehow, against all odds, managed to put together what seems to be a perfectly adequate adaptation. Actually, perhaps even more than adequate, judging by the number of "panel-to-screen" shots in the trailers and promo pics, and the fake 1970's newscasts (here and here) Snyder's been releasing as part of the brilliant marketing campaign. This movie is going to be great. I can feel it. I believe it.

Next up is the Star Trek reboot from J. J. Abrahms. I had my doubts, but the new trailer looks like it has promise, even to a non-Trekkie such as myself. Chris Pine resembles Shatner to a degree, and my geek sensibilities agree with the casting of Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) as Scotty and Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes) as Spock.

I was worried about the fourth Terminator movie, Terminator Salvation, too. No Ahnold, no Cameron, and it's been, what, 5 or 6 years since the last one? But then I heard Christian Bale had been cast as John Conner. Well, he'll elevate it somewhat, I thought. The new trailer says he has. No idea as to what the plot is yet, but the art design looks great, and Bale is awesome being conflicted, tortured and obsessed as usual.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine looks freakin' amazing. I'm sorry. I'm almost as excited for this as I am for Watchmen. Gambit, Deadpool, Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Blob all in the same movie?! Plus Danny Huston, slimiest of the slimy character actors, as William Stryker?? *@#(! I don't care if the plot turns out to be stupid. It's too cool to miss. And I hear Fox is using the money it won from their (incredibly stupid and greedy) lawsuit with WB over the rights to Watchmen to reshoot some scenes for Wolverine, so that can only mean it'll be even better.

WB's late and rushed decision to move the release date of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from last fall to this July had the legions of fans in a near riot and uproar, but the steady release of pictures and trailers has quieted them down a bit. I was honestly excited for the movie, but it's been announced that it's been rated PG, which is totally not appropriate for the violent stuff in the book, and can only mean that said violent content will be edited for the kiddies. This is wrong. The last two were rated PG-13 for minimal violence, how can this one, which is supposed to have large amounts of blood, be rated lower than that? I don't understand. But, I will hope against hope that it will be good.

I liked Michael Bay's Transformers because it was big and dumb and goofy, and lots of stuff blew up and the FX were awesome. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which had its first TV spot during the SuperBowl, looks like it'll be even bigger, even more explosive, and, if I'm not mistaken maybe a bit less dumb and goofy. It certainly seems darker, although I won't hold it to anything, seeing as Bay's track record with darkly themed movies and character development are pretty much nil. It'll definitely be good entertainment though, that's almost guaranteed.

So, those are the movies I'm looking forward to.

Here are the movies that are looking extra dumb:
GI Joe
Monsters vs. Aliens
Angels and Demons
2012
These better not make any money.

Sorry! ^_^|||

2009-02-08T06:12:00.000-08:00

I know, I've been a little lax......reviews of Serenity and Superman Returns coming up!

Great speech #2

2009-02-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

Colonel Nicholson's final thoughts before the end - The Bridge on the River Kwai

This monologue occurs in the last quarter of the movie, after the bridge over the River Kwai has finally been completed by the British POWs. Colonel Nicholson, played magnificently by the great Sir Alec Guinness, has spent most of the movie in a battle of wills with the Japanese prison camp's commander, Colonel Saito, but now they're on almost peaceful terms. Nicholson has finally agreed to help Saito build a bridge across the river, in his mind to prove the skill and discipline of the British army, but in doing so he's also assisting the Japanese in their conquest of Burma. Blinded by his own sense of personal duty, he falls in love with the idea of that the bridge will be a lasting tribute to British (and his) ingenuity and ability. Here he leans against the railing, looking down at the water below, reflecting on his life as a soldier while an Allied demolition special ops team creeps up to lay explosives and destroy the bridge.

"I've been thinking. Tomorrow it will be twenty-eight years to the day that I've been in the service. Twenty-eight years in peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than ten months in all that time. Still, it's been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. Hardly made any difference at all, really, particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy; but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time. But tonight... tonight! "

Those who have seen the ending will understand the utter irony of the situation.

2009-01-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

Books I Read in the Past Year

Grendel by John Gardner: I actually re-read Grendel this year; I’d first read it several years ago, but I wanted to read it again to try and gain greater insight into the story. I know the story of Beowulf well enough (although I confess I haven’t read the full epic poem—I wish I had, because apparently Gardner inserts many references to it) and it was quite interesting to see how Gardner kept quite close to the original story line, deviating only to expand and develop his incredible and thoroughly pitiful re-visioning of Grendel, whose descent into madness and nihilism (“Nihil ex Nihilo, I always say.”) is both gruesome and profound. A few scenes stood out to me: Grendel’s meeting with the “all-knowing” dragon, where the first seeds of nothingness are planted in his consciousness, his first encounter with music and love while listening to the entertainer in Hrothgar’s hall, and his “battle” with Unferth, where he cruelly tears down Unferth’s notions of and attempts at heroism, leaving him a broken and worthless shell of a man. Powerful stuff.
The Wreckage of Agathon by John Gardner: An earlier Gardner book, The Wreckage of Agathon contains the discussions of life (love, war, and politics) between a Socrates-like old seer and his apprentice, while imprisoned in a Spartan jail cell. Gardner’s Sparta is totalitarian, socialistic, and oppressive, even though its king, Lykurgas, truly desires perfection and utopia. Agathon is thrown in jail for making one too many public denouncements of Lykurgas’s practices, but the book (narrated in turns by Agathon and his apprentice, Peeker) is as concerned with Agathon’s early days as a radical and his opinions on love and life, as it is concerned with criticizing the idea of communism. At least, I think so. All the philosophically meandering conversations and events made it difficult to always determine what exactly Gardner’s point was, or even where the story was headed, but Agathon’s life was interesting enough to keep me going. I’ll need to read it again to really get it, though.
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck: The Good Earth reminded me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, in the way it presented a character in a particular time period and followed him or her throughout their life (except “The Good Earth” follows its protagonist to his death). Peasant Wang Lung’s literal “rags-to-riches” tale in turn-of-the-century China is told by Buck in a detached, stark prose that does not attempt to sympathize with its characters: she simply tells the story in an old-fashioned manner, and it made it easier to view each character in all their flawed and very human glory (which also made it all the more enthralling for me). It’s also a very good “slice-of-life” story for that time period. I’m partway through the sequel, “Sons,” right now.
Atonement by Ian McEwan: I admit I only became aware of this book after the movie adaptation came out, but I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I think my literary honor is still intact. I also have never read anything by Mr. McEwan, but after this one, I think I shall. Atonement tells what appears to be a relatively simple story of doomed romance and childish, misguided malice, but slowly becomes, especially in the revealing and utterly depressing last chapter, a powerful and crushing moral tale of the sometimes far-reaching and horrible consequences of sin, and how man can never truly atone. I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t read it, but I will say that not only does it tell the full truth to the reader, but it provides a new insight on purely a literary level for all the previous chapters. I really must see the movie now.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire: I’d been wanting to read Mr. Maguire’s retelling of the Wizard of Oz for a while, but I found the book to be a slight disappointment. It’s not that it wasn’t interesting (the Wicked Witch’s college days were full of excitement, to say the least) or well-written (most of the time it was, aside from the sometimes-plodding prose), but it felt too clever, too intent on really making a complete revision to Frank Baum’s classic books (why, I’m not sure—they were already good). The book’s big theme is the nature of evil, and how one tells who or what it is, and it’s all fine and well done, but the re-imagining of Oz as a fascist police-state rife with species (read: racial) tension (not really original), the Wizard as a greedy, racist sadist (he was already a nasty fraud in the original books) and the Witch as a young revolutionary and “good” terrorist (really not that original) I felt was unnecessary and derivative. Not that I know that much about literature, of course. Wicked was a page turner, though, and for an entertaining, part-way intellectual read, it does rather well. I may well check out the sequels myself, if only to see what Mr. Maguire does with his characters and world, although I think I’ll read Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead first.

2009-01-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

In the science fiction movie hierarchy, “Sunshine” falls somewhere in the middle: just below Epic Classics like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and far above Derivative Knock-offs like “Lost in Space.” Its general plot outline (the sun is dying) has its roots in “traditional” sci-fi—i.e., it’s about problems in the future with society, technology and the like, rather than about aliens and star wars—even if the actual premise (man must re-ignite the sun) is, when you think about it, kind of silly. The movie takes itself quite seriously, however, and the cinematography, the acting, and the emotional gravitas of the story win over the audience long before director Danny Boyle and his screen writer step (wrongly so) into “Alien” territory.
“Sunshine” takes place 50 years in the future. The sun is going out prematurely, and mankind is desperately trying to reignite it. One mission has already failed, and a last attempt is being made. The ship, dubiously and fatalistically named the Icarus II, is manned by a cosmopolitan crew (seemingly, anyways—they all speak with American accents) whose job it is to detonate a bomb of sorts within the sun to restart the fission reactions. Or something like that. The actual science involved is not one the movie’s strong points. During their long trip to the center of the solar system, they encounter, after several accidents and equipment failures, a distress beacon, undoubtedly emanating from the lost ship. They of course choose to follow the distress beacon instead of finishing the mission, although the manner in which they decide to do this is not what has come to be expected from a Hollywood thriller (i.e., they discuss things rationally instead of doing things for love, freedom, and the American Way).
An ensemble cast, as befitting its nature, shouldn’t have a clear-cut main character. “Sunshine” breaks this rule, but to their credit, Boyle and his screenwriter allow science officer Capa (Cillian Murphy), the only man who can operate the bomb (and thus the most important crew member), to become the “protagonist” slowly, through unfortunate chance and circumstance. However, they subtly give away their intentions with an early scene where, camera fixed on his face, Capa sends a message home to his family before the ship passes out of radio distance.
Murphy, who also starred in Boyle’s previous “28 Days Later,” plays Capa much like he plays his other characters: with carefully guarded emotion, expressed only in short bursts with his dialogue, and mostly through his large, gray eyes. The other actors and actresses hold their own as well—Michelle Yeoh as the steady Corazon; Cliff Curtis as the ship’s psychologist, Searle, who has a strange obsession with the looking at the sun; and Chris Evan as the outspoken Mace stand out in particular. Everyone acts realistically, whether they’re holding ethical discussions (such as whether or not to kill a crew member to conserve oxygen) or reacting to various crises.
Boyle has always been quite expressive with his camera, and in “Sunshine” he does great work, managing to capture the beauty, terror, and emptiness of space. As the principal antagonist of the movie, the sun is featured in many shots, behind protective screens and as a halo around the shield end of the umbrella-shaped spaceship the main characters pilot, and, most powerfully, as an immense, blinding, enveloping, white-hot light.
As in “28 Days Later,” “Sunshine” also ends with an action sequence that is perhaps symbolic of a theme in the movie, but is slightly too incoherent and reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” (unknown entity stalks and kills crew members on a ship) to be really appreciated.
“Sunshine” is also reminiscent of “Apollo 13,” in that the problems that arise on and off-board the ship seem real and possible, except worse because it’s just crew members scrambling to find a solution before they die or worse, the mission becomes endangered—Houston is out of radio distance. And, really, that’s what makes the movie as entertaining as it is. It’s a good, solid, old-fashioned science fiction picture that will make the audience think and care along with the people on the screen, and maybe even afterwords, when they walk out into the sunlight and thank God (and the movies) that it’s still there.
***1/2 out of ****

2009-01-04T06:14:00.000-08:00

And............I'm finished!!!!!! All seven, all done. Three days before the deadline, even! It's a my-rackel.

I'm going to start posting reviews and everything again soon. Might even post a college essay or two. ^_^

Belated: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

News from the college app. front

2008-12-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally got some sleep back last night. After a two nights straight of staying up til 3 in the morning writing, plus a mock trial scrimmage, one needs a bit of rest.
Only four essays left, and MIT's app is pretty much finished, just going through the final stages of editing and whatnot. January SAT II's have to be registered for by Friday, and I really can't forget. Sigh. Well, nothing to do but press on. Need to finish by Saturday......need to finish.

2008-12-21T08:19:00.000-08:00

Working on a review of "Sunshine" right now, so how about I take up some space with memorable movie speeches? I'll start with a movie I was just thinking before I got up this morning: Syriana.

The scene is in Washington, and Tim Blake Nelson's Danny Dalton, a Texas oilman, is being confronted by Jefferey Wright's Bennett Holiday, a lawyer on charges of corruption. Danny responds:

"Some trust fund prosecutor, got off-message at Brown, thinks he’s
gonna run this up the flag pole, make a name for himself, maybe get elected some two-bit, no-name congressman from nowhere, with the result that Russia or China can suddenly start having, at our expense, all the advantages we enjoy here. No, I tell you. No, sir. (mimics prosecutor) “But, Danny, these are sovereign nations.” Sovereign nations! What is a sovereign nation, but a collective of greed run by one individual? “But, Danny, they’re codified by the U.N. charter!” Legitimized gangsterism on a global basis that has no more validity than an agreement between the Crips and the Bloods!
(beat) ...Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain’t nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That’s Milton Friedman. He got a g------- Nobel prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around here instead of
fighting each other for scraps of meat out in the streets. (beat)
Corruption... is how we win."

It's a brilliant defense of corporate and political corruption, and, like all great defense speeches, it makes you think about the whole subject in a far different and more disturbing manner than you had before. It also sums up the entire conundrum of the movie without preaching or ringing false. This is great dialogue, and great screenwriting.

Since I can't see "Slumdog Millionaire" just yet...

2008-12-17T06:49:00.000-08:00

Imagine, if you will, waking up naked in a hospital bed to a completely empty hospital. In an utterly deserted city. Imagine then, that when you do find signs of “life,” that they are zombies who want to eat your flesh. Imagine that these zombies, instead of shuffling around and moaning, can run as fast as you can, and sometimes faster. Imagine that these “zombies” are not really zombies at all, but people—yes, even people you know—infected with a virus that sends them into a mad, uncontrollable rage. And they still desire your flesh. Finally, if you have the misfortune to somehow get infected with this virus, you’ll have about 20 seconds, give or take a few, to say good-bye to your loved ones and ask them to kill you right now.

That is the premise of Danny Boyle’s movie, “28 Days Later,” which combines the zombie horror flick with the apocalyptic road picture in a very real and sometimes very scary way. Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up naked in an empty hospital, having been in a coma for the past month. As it turns out, he has excellent timing, just missing the “Rage” virus epidemic that spread throughout the country of Britain, and into the US and others, like wildfire. London is deserted, Manchester is burning, and the infected are everywhere. Meanwhile, wandering London’s empty streets (a very disturbing set of shots), he accidentally comes across a group of infected and is saved from dismemberment by two other survivors, one of whom is promptly killed. Jim and his surviving rescuer, Selena (Naomie Harris) hide and get chased until they meet two more survivors: big genial Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his quiet daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns). Frank has a radio, and he’s come across a recorded message left by the British military giving the location of a safe, protected base, as well as “the answer to infection.” Ridiculous, Selena says. Well, they all pile into Frank’s car anyway, and off they go, because if you’re going to die anyway, you might as well do it with friends and while trying to do something.

The first half of the movie is the best bit. The cinematography is top-notch, and Boyle inserts moments of lightheartedness in between the nerve-racking tension—one scene in particular, which has the party trying to fix a flat in a tunnel, while a horde of infected rush towards them, their shadows stretching ghoulishly out of proportion on the walls, and their frenzied pants mixing with the party’s frantic pleading and panicked curses and everything rising in a crescendo, all the while rats flee underfoot—and the stark, brutal violence. The obligatory romance, often the worst part of similar movies, is handled with much grace and not much focus at all, coming out more as desperate passion rather than twoo wuv.

The second half, however, is where the movie, to an extent, comes apart. The revealing of the radio message as just being a lure doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, and the reasons behind it are just as easy to figure out. But, they’re believable, and they support the movie’s rather loose theme, which is that man isn’t fundamentally good, man is fundamentally bad, and when the chips are down, we will revert to barbarism and savagery. The infected of “28 Days Later” are an externalized metaphor for our own “true nature.” This has always been the focus, or at least a major aspect, of apocalyptic or dystopian films and stories, and everything would’ve been fine and well had Boyle not allowed the film to degenerate into another implausible, and horribly violent, action sequence. Credit must go to him, however, since his theme is still apparent, even in the action.

As apocalyptic thrillers go, though, this one is still above average, mostly due to its filmmaking and acting quality. All of the actors give fine performances: Cillian Murphy uses his large and intensely creepy eyes to convey his fear, loathing, and finally, partial descent into madness; Naomie Harris brings spunk and fire to Selena while at the same time exposing her playful side; Christopher Eccleston is truly scary as the commanding officer at the military base, and it’s only because he says such evil things with a calm and soothing voice; and Brendan Gleeson provides a tough and comforting paternal presence, not to mention veteran actor class, in his scenes. Just don’t watch this movie if you’re looking for pure, fun entertainment; it’s a real downer.

***1/2 out of ****

P.S. Boyle also plays a slight homage to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead with a supermarket sequence. It does not involve zombies, however. Romero also had a sense of humor and satire to his movies, something that Boyle’s movie lacks.

Caution: unedited and negative review coming up!

2008-12-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

If Uwe Boll understood tongue-in-cheek and satire, his movies would deserve more than one or two stars. That said, of course, he has no concept of either, and instead unwittingly (or intentionally) aspires to be the Generation Y version of Ed Wood Jr, completely unaware of his lack of talent.
One of his most recent movies (I say this only very loosely, as he makes movies by the basketfull--2 in 2008 already, 5 coming in 2009, and 4 last year) is another "bad game-to-even worse movie" adaptation, something he specializes in. It's called In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, and if that doesn't tip you off that it's silly, I dunno what will. If you're familiar with games, you'll know it's based off of the lame classic video game, Dungeon Siege. Why anyone would choose this game, of all games, to adapt into a movie is beyond me. The result is a movie so derivative, so ridiculous, so awful and bad that, if you possess any sense of humor at all, you'll laugh your head off.
The story takes place in the fantasy country of Eb (that's the BEST they could come up with), where a humble farmer, wittily named Farmer, lives in a humble village with his humble neighbors, his busty-but-not-really-pretty wife and cute-but-without-any-semblance-of-character son, neither being wittily named Wife or Son. Farmer, who is the hero of this sordid tale (so it should not surprise you that he is also the king's long-lost son), is played by B action-movie staple Jason Statham (Transporter), who plays it safe by playing it straight. So straight, in fact, that a block of wood carved into his likeness would probably have more emotion. Perhaps he got used to not laughing when people said his name in a serious sentence ("Don't worry. Farmer will come," "Oh, Farmer, tell me you love me!" "I can't read you, Farmer! I can read most men, but you are a mystery!").

The movie's villain is an evil sorceror played by Ray Liotta, who proves that even a good actor can be absolutely terrible at hamming it up. Every line Mr. Liotta utters is laugh-inducing due to the unholy combination of his jarring New York accent, his ridiculous facial expressions, and the horrendous dialogue. Liotta's sorceror has taken control of the half-man, half-beast Krugs, whose name inspires no end of fear in the denizens of the country and no end of amusement in the audience every time it's uttered, and has made them his army to take over the kingdom. Why? Who knows. When he's not controlling a Krug through sorcery, he's teleporting around and deflowering the king's daughter. Ooh, nasty dude. Clearly, we're meant to dislike him.
Anyway, the Sorceror's Krugs (hahahahahahaha) start rampaging around and attack Farmer's humble village. His wife gets killed in the process (so he thinks---whoops, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT), and so does his lil' son. Farmer is devastated. You can tell, because this amazing furrow appears between Mr. Statham's eyebrows that's shaped like an upside down "U." I tell ya, that was probably the best special effect in the whole movie. He oughta use it more often. Understandably, he wants revenge, so Farmer enlists his two humble farmer buddies, Disguised!Hellboy (Ron Perlman, doing his best not to laugh) and Wannabe!Legolas. Their adventure is remarkably without scope or length, and they're quickly caught, and in Farmer's case, hung. Farmer, however, utlizing the inexplicable martial arts and sword fighting skills bestown upon him (how he can fight better than any man in the kingdom is not explained nor remarked on), easily escapes. Being strangled for two seconds pained him considerably however (even though he took a club to the head earlier and hopped back like it was rubber), and he lies half-dead by the bank of a river in the first of a whole slew of scenes that shamelessly rip off Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. I'm quite serious here. The level of plagarism apparent in Boll's scene-staging and cinematography is near blasphemy. This was the only part of the movie that actually outraged me--bad dialogue and acting I can forgive, it's stealing from LOTR that I can't.
Annnnyway, the adventure drags on and on--Farmer gains allies in an all-female band of tree-hopping, leather-and-leaf wearing non-elves, led by Kristanna Lokan (with even less expression than in Terminator 3), who controls magic vine tendrils created with poor CGI. He meets the king (Burt Reynolds, looking like he's really not sure why he's there), the king's mage (John Rhys-Davies, bringing a sole measure of class and propriety to the proceedings), the king's daughter (Leelee Sobieski, looking like she fell off the cover of Vogue, and acting like it too) and the king's annoying, whining, ingratiating nephew (an annoying, whining, ingratiating and thoroughly hammy Matthew Lillard). There are lots of pointless, boring, and horribly filmed battle sequences where the camera is low down and in the thick of things, so as to hide the fact that there are only a few extras. There's also no blood whatsoever in this movie. I fail to understand why the MPAA gave the movie a PG-13 Rating (parents strong cautioned!), the same rating as the brutally violent The Dark Knight, but maybe they wanted to protect children from experiencing terribly made cinema. But, I doubt it.
The movie ends predictably and stupidly, the clunky, horribly overbearing score whining over the soundtrack, with a pathetic and boring battle between, you guessed it, Farmer and the sorceror. I would not recommend In the Name of the King to anyone for anything except its unintentional and spontaneous hilarity. Do not, under any circumstances, however, see this movie for anything more than free. The world film will be better off once Uwe Boll stops making movies. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

* out of ****

Finally.

2008-12-06T10:50:00.000-08:00

The Real Bill Ayers speaks.

The sad thing is that the people who need to read it won't. Propaganda and the politics of fear and hate for the win, now and forever.
Thank you, Lee Atwater. Thank you, Karl Rove. Thank you, Steve Schmidt. Thank you, Thomas Jefferson.

Birthday stuff.

2008-12-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

Since I'm out of movie reviews at the moment (gasp, I know!), I'll just take up space by posting some pics of some books I got for my birthday a few weeks ago.

That was one of them. It's my favorite so far, second only to this giant poster of guitar chords:

This really awesome book:

This other awesome book:

And finally, the latest edition of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly! XD

Good stuff, no?

2008-11-29T11:41:00.000-08:00

Philip K. Dick, the prolific science fiction author, went through a period of his life where he was constantly using methamphetamines. When he later cleaned up, he took note of both his own drug experience and of his friends’ and wrote “A Scanner Darkly.”
Richard Linklater’s (“School of Rock,” “Waking Life,” “Dazed and Confused”) adaptation and interpretation of “A Scanner Darkly” is probably one of the best movies based on a Dick novel, and one of the most faithful (in spirit) as well. Set in a very near future (seven years from “now”), the U.S. has become addicted to Substance D (for dumbness, despair, desertion and death), a deadly drug that is incredibly addictive and damaging. “You’re either on Substance D, or you haven’t tried it,” says one character. Undercover cops abound, and the government, already at war with another country, seems to stop at nothing to take down the dealers and halt the epidemic.
Keanu Reeves plays the main character, and he’s perfect in the role because he always looks and sounds like he’s stoned, and the undercover he plays is quite literally stoned all the time. Reeves’s character is an undercover cop, and the audience is never sure what his name really is, partly because he doesn’t really know himself anymore. Is Bob Arctor, the alias chosen for the drug dealer he’s pretending to be, his real name? Or is it Agent Fred, the name that his superior, Hank (is that really his name? Is he really a he?), at the police station calls him? Fred/Bob is running out of people to trust, including his own mind, the thing that most people trust above everything else. Leading a double life is difficult for him, especially since he’s addicted to the very drug he’s trying to stop and in love with the woman dealer he’s using to get to the higher-ups in the drug network. To make matters increasingly complicated, he’s assigned to spy on Bob Arctor. Thus begins the meltdown.
Every scene in “A Scanner Darkly” has been filmed live-action and then animated using rotoscoping (each shot of film has been hand drawn), purportedly to better suggest the drug-induced hallucinations. It allows for some inventive and stylistic effects (like thought-bubbles for characters), but by the end of the film, the audience may wish they were watching the real actors because it keeps them from projecting subtle emotions through facial expressions. The best effect achieved by rotoscoping, besides the skin-crawling insect hallucination opening sequence, is the scramble suit, which all the undercover cops wear at the station to protect their identities. A full body suit, it projects a confounding collection of faces, clothes, and genders, all shifting, melting, and swirling together, the perfect metaphor for Fred/Bob’s deteriorating mental state.
The supporting characters in the film all consist of Fred/Bob’s drugged out and drifting housemates, each with their own distinct personalities and quirks, and the performances by their respective actors are excellent. Winona Ryder is ambiguous and beguiling as Donna Hawthorne, the cocaine-using Substance D dealer Fred/Bob is trying to bust. Woody Harrelson is Ernie Luckman, all shaggy hair and flannel shirts, a mostly quiet and drawling speaker, but prone to sudden fits of almost childish rage. Rory Cochrane is the pathetic, pitiful Charles Freck, a man so deep in his Substance D addiction that he hallucinates constantly and can no longer function properly. Robert Downey Jr. is the one who almost steals the show, though. His Jim Barris doesn’t get contemplative or solemn when he’s on drugs, but hyper and extra-attentive. (Of course, that may just be the character’s normal personality, but thanks to Downey Jr.’s performance, that’s entirely up to the audience.) There are great chunks of his dialogue where he delivers lines with such manic, rapid-fire intensity and energy that one has to wonder how much of it was actually in the script and how much was improvised.
“A Scanner Darkly,” as many dystopian science fiction stories, ends on a depressing note, with a cynical look at the government, rehabilitation clinics, and happy endings in general. What the viewer is left with is a sad picture of man and those around him destroyed by drugs and betrayed by society. Dick’s book ends with a list of people he knew who were permanently damaged or killed by drug use (including himself), and that is how the movie closes as well, right before the credits. These people were “punished entirely too much for what they did,” Philip says. It’s a sobering thought.

**** out of ****

2008-11-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

After seeing “Juno”, one has to wonder whether comedies would be funnier these days if they were written by ex-strippers. Of course, said ex-strippers would have to have talents for story telling, ears for witty dialog, and most importantly, a sense of humor, and thankfully, Diablo Cody, writer of “Juno,” has it all. Thanks to its wonderfully clever script (which is overtly snarky only for the first 15 minutes), excellent direction and flawless acting, “Juno” enters the upper echelon of intelligent teen comedies; those that retain both wit and soul and that don’t pander to its audience or fall for cliché.
Juno (Ellen Page) is pregnant. That kind of thing happens when you get bored and have unprotected sex with your best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), but Juno figures she’ll just give it up for abortion. The clinic gives her a bad vibe, though, so she decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption. Aided by her best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), she picks Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman), a successful yuppie couple whose ad they found in the penny saver.
Every performance in “Juno,” even those of the supporting characters and cameos, is excellent. Juno’s parents, played by J.K. Simmons and Alison Janey, are both fully realized, three-dimensional characters, instead of the traditional clueless but loving (or abusive and loud) teen parents. Juno can talk to her parents, and they can give her advice and love back while retaining their wit and intelligence. When Juno tells her parents she’s pregnant, they don’t “freak out” and start screaming or crying, but take the information reasonably (and when she tells them who the father is, her dad gets one of the best lines of the movie). Some people might criticize the scene and the parents’ reactions for being unrealistic, but it’s really a refreshing break from the cliché of the furious parents. And, look at Juno’s face when her father says, “I just thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say ‘when.’” Right there, the audience realizes that Juno’s not as cavalier, not as relaxed about her problem as she would have everyone believe.
It’s Ellen Page and her performance who holds this movie up on her small shoulders, though. Juno would just be another quirky, sarcastic indie movie teenager if not for the careful nuances and subtle emotional cues she puts into each scene. Even if the audience doesn’t like her in the beginning, they love her by the end, because just as Juno’s sarcastic quips are starting to become annoying, the audience realizes that she’s just doing it because she’s scared and insecure (watch her act extra flippant when she first goes to meet Mark and Vanessa). When she tells her parents that she’s not keeping the baby, that everything’ll be OK, that she’s giving it up for adoption and “…we can pretend like it never happened,” she’s as much reassuring herself as she is her parents. Her best scenes are when her irreverent mask cracks, when it’s clear she understands that she’s in way over her head—and that it’s entirely her fault.
Michael Cera, though he doesn’t get that many scenes, is similarly subtle. His timid, quiet Paulie Bleeker is clearly madly in love with Juno (and she with him, even though she won’t admit it), but the hurt he feels when she casually rejects him is expressed only in his eyes and body language. He’s not so meek that he won’t stand up to her, though. When she throws a jealous hissy fit, he’s the one who tells her she’s being immature.
Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, as the prospective adoptive parents, do some of their best work ever. Bateman is genuinely creepy and pathetic as a guy who may not be ready for being a father, much less adulthood. Garner’s Vanessa is a woman who desperately wants a child, but her obsession is revealed as something beautifully touching as the film progresses.
Although “Juno” is a comedy, it isn’t a laugh-a-minute riot like a “Mr. Bean” or “Pink Panther” film, and it doesn’t go for cheap, gross-out gags like the “Scary Movie “ flicks and their numerous "teen comedy" offspring. It finds humor in its quirky dialog and the actors' delivery, in a subtle, quiet fashion that mostly causes chuckles but occasionally brings a true laugh out of the audience.
All comedies need dramatic scenes, as well, but it’s difficult to merge serious drama with the overall humorous feel of the film. The best comedies have dramatic scenes that segue into the comedy smoothly, without becoming too sobering or depressing. Rather, they should cause the viewer to care more about the character or characters. “Juno” accomplishes this requirement very well. Some of them, like when Vanessa talks to the baby in Juno’s stomach add extra depth to a character, and others, such as the scene where Juno realizes that her plan isn’t so perfect after all, remind the viewer of how serious the subject matter really is.
Actually, that’s the best thing about “Juno”: its take on the subject. It presents a premature loss of innocence, and while it does not try to glaze over problems, it does not sink into melodrama (which is what a lesser director and/or screenwriter would’ve done). The audience gets to meet a flawed main character who makes dumb, immature mistakes, and sometime along the way, while she grows up and tries to make adult decisions, they manage to identify and care about Juno and her future. “Juno” definitely deserved its Oscar nom, and Diablo deserved her Oscar win.

**** out of ****

2008-11-28T07:31:00.000-08:00

I’d like to apologize for the old, unedited movie reviews, readers. Honestly, they’re really not so good, and I wanna try writing in a new style. I tend to follow some sort of formula for the reviews, and it’s much too obvious sometimes (especially in the ones I didn’t proofread too well). The last few times Mom critiqued one of them she gave a few suggestions, including toning down the detailed summaries and providing the reader with more of my opinion on good or bad scenes, that I rather liked (though, true to form, I didn’t mention it that to her), so I tried to do that with my Dark Knight and Juno reviews (the latter I’ll post shortly). Anyway, I’ve got an inkling of an idea for a review/critique of 28 Days Later, which I recently bought and Mom confiscated because she thought it’d distract me from work (really, I think she’s just disturbed at the R-rating), and perhaps also for a book review (I read Atonement and Breakfast at Tiffany’s recently), though that’s a little more daunting, but it’s all gonna have to wait until I finish my college application essays. They’re eating my life away at the moment, but maybehopefullyprayonhandsandkneestoGod they’ll pay off. Until next time, XD !

Don't be a turkey, eat the turkey.

2008-11-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL YA'LL!

2008-11-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

It’s been twenty years, but Indiana Jones is finally back, not with a vengeance, but with a wink and a nudge, and a whole lot of action. “Kingdom” isn’t the best Indy film yet, but it gets the job done without being too preposterous or trying too hard, and it’s refreshing, especially in this age of loud, nonsensical action pictures.
Without giving away too much of the plot, which should feel very familiar to fans of the series, Indiana (Harrison Ford, reprising his role) is searching for the famous Crystal Skull of Akator, said to be only a legend. On his trail is Agent Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) of the Soviet Union (it’s 1957), who may be looking for something much more sinister. Traveling with him or encountered on the way are former colleagues Mac (Ray Winstone) and Oxley (John Hurt), a young greaser named Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), and Indy’s old flame, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, reprising her role from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”). Of course, all manner of wonderfully outlandish, ridiculous, and thoroughly fun chases, fights, escapes and adventures ensue. There are giant ant attacks, falls down triple waterfalls, absurdly labyrinthine underground cemeteries, riddles written in dead languages, chasms with spikes at the bottom, hidden buttons set in stone, etc, etc. In short, everything that has come to be expected of an Indiana Jones movie is there.
Ford is quite at ease in one of his most signature roles, acting (in mannerisms) his age (60-ish?) while still cracking wise, flicking the bullwhip, jumping chasms, and dodging spear-hurling natives, never mind the fact that at that age he probably shouldn’t be able to. Actually, that was one of the only problems with the movie: Indy seemed like he was 30 again, able to trade bone-breaking punches to the head with 6-and-a-half-foot tall bruisers—and stand upright afterwards. It might’ve been a better idea to show him not being such an invincible superhero, to expose some his vulnerability. That’s what makes audiences root for the hero, after all, that sense that the hero is more like them.
“Kingdom’s” one-note villain is the other problem with the movie—Agent Spalko is nowhere near as memorable or as evil as she could’ve been. Cate Blanchett makes the most of it, though, giving her role some venom and kick, even in the “Prince Valiant” haircut. (It also helps that she fights better than anyone in the movie.) Shia LaBeouf holds his own with his veteran co-stars, although he’s not as fun a sidekick as Short Round from “Temple of Doom” or Indy’s father in “Last Crusade.” Karen Allen and John Hurt also have slightly limited roles—Allen’s character doesn’t do much more than smile and look adoringly at Indy, Hurt’s is crazy for most of the movie—but both veteran actors do their best with what was given to them.
Is “Kingdom” as good as its predecessors? Well, no. It isn’t as fresh or awe-inspiring as “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” nor is it as dark and exciting as “Temple of Doom.” It feels more like “The Last Crusade”: slightly tired, not as original, but always up for another adventure should one come along. This isn’t the fault of the storyline or the execution, but merely because today’s audience has seen similar stunts or plots before in the previous Indy movies or in inferior fare such as “National Treasure” or “The Mummy.” Purists (who still have visions of “Raiders” dancing in their heads) will hate “Kingdom,” and people who never liked Indy to begin with won’t care to watch, but for those who want to have a nostalgic good time at the movies watching a familiar face, this is the film. It isn’t the best of Indiana Jones, but it’s Indy through and through, and that will suffice.
***1/2 out of **** or **** out of *****

My first epic-ly long post!

2008-11-21T08:42:00.000-08:00

I saw Ken Mattingly Tuesday night. Name not ringing any bells? Well, click on the link I provided. Since you’re probably lazy like me though, it’ll probably be too much work for you to read through all of that, so I’ll just give you the condensed version. Remember the movie Apollo 13? He’s the Gary Sinise character. Oho, you’re thinking, now that’s kinda cool! Yes, it most definitely was. Maybe even cooler than meeting Gary Sinise, but that’s because Rear Admiral Mattingly was the real deal, in the flesh-and-blood. This was a guy who had witnessed the whole thing first hand and who had helped Ground Control save the men in space. Yes, seeing him was even more awesome than I expected. He was also a little shorter than I thought he’d be, but famous people almost always are, and it’s to be expected when you’re 72 years old).
So how did this historic meeting come about? Well, I recently acquired a new job as a student worker for the NASA program at BCC. BCC’s been receiving grants from NASA for science, math, and technology programs and events for the general public, and somehow they managed to schedule an evening for Ken Mattingly to give a speech. This being a Big Deal, my boss, Fran, made sure all of us student workers were going to be at the event to help. We were promised special NASA T-shirts and pizza, so of course everyone showed up when they were told to, which was at 5:00. The door didn’t open for seating until 6:00, so we were stuck in the auditorium (for those of you who have been to the Mt. Laurel campus, we were in the Enterprise Center, which is the other wing of the building that houses the Science Building—students normally aren’t allowed inside, so this was a Big Deal) for an hour watching an endless slideshow loop while stirring yet soothing music played.
I, along with 5 or 6 other people, was given the glamorous job of an usher. I lost count of how many times I said, “Hello there, welcome! If you’ll just walk down to the right here, Josh will give you some seats!” and “The restrooms are straight out this door and down the circular hallway” (not that I was actually counting, mind you). My dad and four of my little brothers were supposed come to see Mattingly, so I kept an eye out, they weren’t early enough to make it to ground floor auditorium (where I was an usher) before it filled, and as far as I could tell, they hadn’t made it in time before the balcony seats were filled. It was a minute to 7:00, as I was coming back from the water fountain, when they finally stumbled in and were seated in the side room, where they could watch a TV screen. Sigh. Bad time for the just-in-time-at-the-very-last-minute family trait to be extra dominant, guys. There’s always next time, I suppose. Oh wait, never mind.
Anyway, everyone took seats and quieted down at 2 minutes past 7. A mini-slideshow played, while someone who sounded like Announcer Guy narrated, giving a brief-brief history of Mattingly’s life up until Apollo 13, and just as he was saying “And now, it is our pleasure to introduce…,” the audio died, and “Rear Admiral Ken Mattingly” was barely heard. Everyone laughed. Then the president, Robert Messina, took the stage. I mentally groaned. His speech was mercifully short, even though it was still boring as hell. Whatever else his talents may be, the man cannot give a riveting speech. Finally, he introduced the speaker and –poof- he appeared from behind the curtain on the stage to rather thunderous applause. (I wasn’t expecting that.) And then he started to speak. And everyone shut up. You know why? Because he was truly a good speaker; his speech was truly riveting. He was funny. He was eloquent. He was polite. And most of all, he gave us details about experiences that no ordinary person could have ever known about or gone through in their entire lives. He spoke of blasting off through the atmosphere, the G-force crushing you in your seat, the whole thing shaking and rattling and rumbling. He explained how the rocket is compressed somewhat during takeoff, so when it reaches its peak all the metal expands again, and you’re thrown forwards, whacking your helmet on the dashboard and controls in front of you. He described being in orbit; watching the sun rise and set every 90 minutes, accompanied with brilliant flashes of color that would appear at the horizon as the sun’s rays reflected off of particles in the atmosphere; peering down at each country, identifying major cities as they sparkled and glittered; noticing little pinpricks of light that marked a nomad’s camp in Africa, or Australia. It made me think, he said, about how here we are in space, orbiting the planet, and “down there there’s some cat just trying to survive.” (He actually used the word “cat” like we use “dude” today. How awesome is that?)
When he spoke of the accident, there was no mention of anything he did. It was all about the efforts of teams and the people leading those teams. He was the picture of modesty. The only time Mattingly talked about himself was right before the accident, where, sitting on the steps in Mission Control, watching people work, he looked so depressed that someone offered him a pick-me-up. Right then the explosion occurred, and he “never did get that beer.” He even explained how his character in the movie was used as the “face” of the combined efforts of many different people; the character Sinise plays represented everybody else behind-the-scenes in real life.
Mr. Mattingly’s themes in his speech (which went on for a half-an-hour overtime, but no one seemed to mind) were mostly of teamwork and innovation. It was dedicated groups of people, working day and night those few days the crisis lasted, led by smart and steady leaders, who figured out how bring Apollo 13 home. They are all, mostly, unknown to the public. They are just some of the faceless thousands of people who, throughout history, have gotten things done, and they did it because no one wanted or needed to take the glory. No one needed to be credited for The Answer, because all they focused on doing was getting the job done right, and saving those three astronauts. This is something worth remembering, especially as I prepare to go out and make my mark on the world (as another cog in the machine!).
This speech transfixed me throughout. I hung on every word. He made me want to be an astronaut. (At least, he made me want to work for NASA.) Space truly is the final frontier, and the only we’re getting there is to work together. Maybe I can be a part of it. I certainly would like to.
Oh, and afterwards? The student workers got a picture with him. And I got to shake his hand.

2008-11-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

HULK SMASH! Marvel attempts to revive the franchise begun in 2003 with “The Incredible Hulk” (not to be confused with director Ang Lee’s unfairly derided “Hulk”), and while it’s not better than the first movie, it’s not that much worse either. Lee’s film suffered from poor CGI, and deviations from comic book canon (and for comic fans, a lack of a powerful antagonist), but it made up for those flaws by taking a psychological look at the superhero’s mental state as it is affected by his new powers. The new “Hulk” is just the opposite of Lee’s. It has fights, explosions, smashing and pummeling galore, and unfortunately, rarely quiets down. The movie lacks the character development and dialogue that could’ve given it more heart and soul, and maybe even some wit.

The scene after an opening credit montage, which instructs the audience in Bruce Banner’s (Edward Norton) back-story and transformation, is a spectacular climbing shot of a Brazilian mountainside slum that is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of tightly packed one-room houses, stacked one on the other and balanced precariously. It's the best shot in the movie. For the first 20 minutes or so, while Banner is still in South America, the film is entirely enjoyable and engaging. Banner spends his days working at a bottling plant, taking anger-management and martial arts classes, counting the days he hasn’t gone on a rampage, and trying to find a cure for his “condition.” Still searching for him is General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) who is stubborn as mule and about as caring as one (he throws soldiers into the path of the rampaging Hulk like they’re a dime a dozen). He wants to find Banner not because, as he constantly says, “his whole body’s the property of the U.S. government,” but because he wants to use Banner’s condition to create “super soldiers.” When the Army gets Intel as to Banner’s whereabouts, Ross recruits Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) from the British Royal Marines, a combat veteran, to lead a special Ops team in to bring him in. All Hulk breaks loose, and soon Banner is on the run in the U.S. with his old girlfriend, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).

All of the noisy CG fights and brawls looked very realistic, and they didn’t overpower the real actors in the same scenes. The CGI, done in motion capture, for the most part, is actually one of the movie’s pluses—the Hulk is fully believable on screen and in his interaction with the people on screen, and it’s thanks to the efforts of the special effects team that the numerous “King Kong”-like scenes between Betty and the Hulk work—without decent CG, the movie falls apart.

Without good performances, the movie would also fail, and “Hulk,” thankfull, almost has them. Edward Norton delivers a solid, if perhaps slightly two-dimensional, performance as the main character that is tortured by the fact that his body can become a machine of destruction and who would like nothing more than to be rid of it. It’s thanks to his likability that the audience cares about what happens to him. Norton also shows signs of wanting to go further with his character (he even rewrote parts of the script by Zak Penn that never made it into the movie), and one wishes that the final cut of the movie was less action oriented. All the supporting actors are reliably decent, if disappointingly one-note, but once again, that’s the fault of the script. Only Tim Blake Nelson’s over-the-top performance as a cellular biologist who’s one step a way from becoming a mad scientist is anything but predictable. Hurt’s general is easy to dislike, and he even puts a little bit of internal struggle into the character, but the script doesn’t allow for much more than some conflicting emotions in his eyes. Tim Roth is marginally interesting as Blonsky, but he’s wasted by bad dialogue (“This is a whole new level of weird!”) and a lack of motivation for his evil deeds. Liv Tyler, a perfectly good actress in her own right, doesn’t get to much more than worry about Bruce and look gorgeous (which of course, she does fiiiine).

“The Incredible Hulk” ends more than a little abruptly and with almost no closure, and there’s another quick scene tacked on before the credits advertising the upcoming “Avengers” film. The last scene of the actual is strange, seeming to be at odds with Bruce Banner’s character up to that point. The ending battle is also a let down. Like the final fight in “Iron Man,” the protagonist has to battle an evil doppelganger, but where “Iron Man” had two adversaries who knew each other and were fighting for a reason, “Hulk” has what is just another numbing, dumbing action face-off. Overall, “Hulk” isn’t a bad film, but it just isn’t up to the level that “Spider-man 2,” “Batman Begins,” “X-Men 2” and “Iron Man” all achieved. It’s closer to “Daredevil” in the way it makes the audience want to love it, but can’t quite manage to. Save the money for “Hellboy 2” and “The Dark Knight.”
**1/2 out of ****

2008-11-18T07:03:00.000-08:00

The dysfunctional-family-goes-on-a-long-drive-and-learn-to-love-each-other screenplay has been used before, but not like this. “Little Miss Sunshine” pulls something new out an old hat, starting with a simple premise and evolving into a genuinely affecting story populated with characters the audience cares about.
The film’s premise—a family travels to California so that their daughter can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant—is just an excuse for the supremely dysfunctional Hoover family to get stuck in a car together for a few days. Actually, they’re not that dysfunctional, just heavily quirky, even more so than a Wes Anderson cast. Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear), the pater familias, is nice enough—until he gets started on his Nine Step Formula on Winning. Then he’s grating. His mantra is to never be a loser, because losers never get anywhere. Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) is sort of the glue that holds the family together—she’s the most normal, if that word can be applied here. Her brother, Frank (Steve Carell), is happy and recovering from a suicide attempt, the reason for which is better left to the viewer to see on screen. Dwayne (Paul Dano), the Nietzche-reading, anti-social son, has taken a vow of silence until he gets into flight school. Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is as warm and cuddly as he is crotchety, profane, and annoying. He also snorts heroin. Finally there’s Olive, played adorably by Abigail Breslin, who watches Miss America tapes and dreams of winning the crown someday. When a beauty pageant contestant drops out, she, the runner-up, gets a chance to compete. What follows is a slew of obstacles, adventures, and character building and bonding experiences.
Those adventures are part of why “Little Miss Sunshine” is so good; they’re original, interesting, and unusual. One has the clutch on the van giving up the ghost, forcing the family to get the car started on the road by pushing it from behind, and then, when it picks up enough speed, dashing to the side door to jump in. Another follows a subplot involving Richard’s attempts to hit it big with his Nine Steps. And the pageant sequence at the end of the movie does not follow the usual resolution that would occur in a more mainstream Hollywood film either. It also, among other things, is a savage lash out at the shallow materialism of child pageants; the under-ten contestants are smothered in caked makeup, decorated with piles of jewelry and inserted into (already) tiny versions of adult bathing suits and dresses. Even worse is the audience and judges’ horrified and hypocritical reaction to Olive’s performance.
The dialogue is not as quirky as the adventures, but it certainly is as funny. When Grandpa Hoover decides to give Dwayne some advice as a grandparent, what follows is terribly un-PC, hysterically funny, and one of the best lines in the whole movie. Later, he gets some better advice from Frank that is both funny and poignant.
The acting by the ensemble cast is uniformly excellent as well. Veteran Alan Arkin is the most fun; he gets to be as scatological and sacrilegious as possible. Abigail Breslin, in the role usually designated for the bratty kid, turns in a more cute, lovable and ultimately real performance. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette both quite solid—Collette especially in the maternal role she often plays—and the aforementioned Paul Dano, as the mostly mute Dwayne, manages to grip the audience’s attention without uttering a single word.
“Little Miss Sunshine” is not a great move, but it is a very good one. It has interesting characters that the audience likes and wants to see happy, and a constantly moving plot that keeps the audience engaged. Naysayers will complain that it isn’t realistic enough, or that the family members are unbelievable in their characteristics, but they’re wrong, because all they see are the quirky idiosyncrasies of each character, not their all too real and human feelings. More movies like this should be made, and often.

***1/2 out of ****