Not sure what to think about this ... Sam Raimi has revealed that the villain in 2011's Spider-Man 4 will be a new villain made by combining Venom and Sandman, the bad guys from the last film.

Concept art has been revealed on YouTube:

Labels: Blogs, Movies, You Tube

Because you won't enjoy them as much after you die.

Yahoo! has put together one of those lists. I've seen 65 of their 100.

It's a source of great shame for me that I still haven't watched Lawrence Of Arabia. My buddy Otis gave it to me for Christmas five or six years ago and I still haven't watched it. Because I suck.

HT for the link: My friend, Kelley, who doesn't keep a blog but does have a Myspace page. Kelley's a huge movie buff, too ... but he and I never like the same movies.

Wait, I take that back, we both liked Training Day quite a bit. Other than that, if we agree on any given movie, it's usually because we both think it stinks.

Kelley even found some good things to say about Rob Zombie's Halloween, a movie I hated. Deep down I think he's only doing that to mess with my head. ;)

Labels: Links, Movies, Trivial Matters

I'm not reviewing this movie. I haven't seen the movie; I haven't even seen the trailer. What I'm doing here is reviewing this movie's poster ... and from what I can tell just from the poster, this is probably the greatest movie ever made.

For starters, you've got Steve Guttenberg as the star. And if anyone can carry an intense action/thriller, it's Steve Guttenberg. I can't even imagine some of my favorite intense action/thrillers, like 3 Men And A Baby and PS, Your Cat Is Dead, without Guttenberg's intense, action-packed, thrilling presence.

Then there's the name of the movie itself: Fatal Rescue. Movie studios have a sacred bond with audiences when it comes to the word fatal. Simply put, the studios only put the word fatal in a movie's title if the movie is an artistic triumph. Consider watershed efforts such as Fatal Error, Fatal Justice, Fatal Memories (With the great Shelley Long), Fatal Judgement, and Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle.

It's the same thing with the word Deadly. The studios have agreed, by the way, that they're reserving the title Deadly Fatality for the final and best movie ever to be made. (Vin Diesel is in talks to star.)

But back to the film at hand. Of course, I'm extremely intrigued by the concept of a rescue that is fatal. I can't imagine how you can both kill and rescue anyone. This movie probably involves an ingenuous plot twist. Maybe Guttenberg is rescuing someone from being alive?

The poster's final selling point is the intense focus on the faces of all the actors pictured. It isn't clear what they're looking at, but whatever it is has them gravely concerned. Just look at the way Guttenberg is channeling all of his intensity with his eyebrows and his slightly open mouth (great actors can do that). His face clearly says "I'm gravely concerned." Aren't you just dying to know what he sees?

Of course I'll be reviewing Fatal Rescue just as soon as I get a chance to go buy the deluxe, three-disc collector's edition DVD (I assume there is one). Boy, I just can't wait.

UPDATE: Scott at Good News Film Reviews looks at the trailer for Fatal Rescue.

Labels: Humor, Movies

I've geeked out on Watchmen for too long now and I'm sure my handful of readers are sick of indulging me. I'll try to make this the last post on the subject.

I got the book back out tonight and looked through it again. It's really even better than I remembered. Seeing those panels and reading those words again really brought back how much I enjoyed that book the first time I read it a few years ago.

With all this focus on Alan Moore, I hadn't thought about the art of Dave Gibbons and how important it is to the impact of the book. Flipping through the book tonight I was struck by so many things I'd forgotten, like all the symmetry in the panels of the issue that focuses on Rorschach's origins. And how good Tales of the Black Freighter is. And I'd forgotten that, in the comic, Ozymandias seems like an authority figure instead of a nerd. Matthew Goode was all wrong for the role. They may as well have cast Macaulay Culkin as to case Goode.

While watching the film I'd had this vague impression that Rorschach's origins had been toned down and cleaned up for mass consumption, but I couldn't really put my finger on what was missing. I found it tonight. It's this speech, Rorschach's summary of his world view:

"The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reasons later. Born from oblivion, bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. Existence is random. Has no pattern, save what we imagine after staring ait it for too long. No meaning, save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children, not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It's us. Only us."

Yeah, that Rorschach ... always clowning around. God (or whatever) bless him. As bleak as he was in the movie, the real thing is so much bleaker. Gotta love it. And I gotta give Alan Moore his propers, too. Maybe he is a putz who takes himself too seriously and rains on everyone's parade ... but Watchmen really is absorbing and intense.

Labels: Books, Movies, Watchmen

I saw Watchmen today. I think I had the worst possible reaction: I thought it was OK.

If I'd thought it was great I'd have had a good time writing the review. If I'd thought it was terrible I'd probably had even more fun writing the review. But it was neither great, nor terrible. It was only OK.

It's really hard to motivate myself to write a review for a movie that was just OK ... but I'll try to write something at some point this weekend.

Labels: Movies, Watchmen

I gotta make this one quick because I took my nighttime pill combo a little bit ago and it's gonna kick in soon, and soon I'll either stop typing or I'll be typing gibberish. I hate, hate, HATE waking up the next day, seeing something I've posted, thinking "WTF is WRONG with ME??" and frantically deleting and/or editing the post.

Anyway, just some recent stuff from the inbox and/or Google Reader...

• At my YouTube account I got a note from a kid named JC Van Luyn, asking me to check out his music and comment on it. I might have been a bit reluctant at first, but the note really charmed me:

  Hope the day/night is finding you well, just to let you know, I apologize in advance if I took your time in some way by you reading this message. Don't hesitate to press the delete button if it does....

  He goes on from there to talk about his music, etc, but ya know what? When's the last time someone solicited you to check out their website and preceded their remarks by saying that, yeah, it's quite possible you actually do have a life and something better to do?
  
  So I checked out his stuff, which consists of some interesting covers and original songs. I found one original that I particularly enjoyed ... but what really won me over was JC's cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya." I'm sure you remember that song, it was a huge hit a few years ago and even though I really liked it, the over exposure eventually ruined the song for me. Well, JC's solo acoustic arrangement brought the track back to life for me and, damn! I'm diggin' this:




• Speaking of YouTube, most of the time when I load that page it's to check for updates from The Mighty Zo, like this one:

  I been saying for months that this guy was going to move on to bigger n' better stuff. Looks like Pajamas Media is the first step.
  
  One day we'll all be saying "Remember back in the day when Zo Rachel was just another guy with a YouTube account??"




• Another semi-daily check for me is the What's New page at Snopes, where you can learn fascinating things, like the latest web scuttlebutt about the history of the French Dip Sandwich.
  
  The French Dip, of course, is a sandwich made of thinly sliced beef, served on a hard French role, and often served au jus. Au jus is a French term that is pronounced Ah JHOOOO and means "sneezed on."
  
  Probably sneezed on by that beret-wearing asshole who resented having to wait your table in the first place, you American capitalist dog vit no ah-prishy-a-SHAUN of cul-CHA vaut zo eveh.
  
  Well, no ... not all Frenchmen behave like characters in Merry Melodies cartoons from the 50's. Some of them are much worse. But, I think my point is, you can get the real scoop on the sandwich at Snopes.



• Instapundit has posted a link to a story about twenty celebs who've aged badly.
  
  I thought the story was a bit hard on some of these folks:
  

  

  
  OK, so Diamond Dave doesn't look like a rock star anymore. He kinda looks more like a shop teacher now. But what's wrong with looking like a shop teacher? What's wrong with being a shop teacher? Someone has to be held accountable when a 14 year old kid bandsaws off two or three of his favorite fingers.
  
  But then I saw this picture and yet another small part of my childhood died inside of me:
  

  

  
  How will we ever convince the younger generation that those two women are the same woman? And that Kathleen Turner used to be one of the hottest actresses in the business?
  
  But then I noticed something:
  

  

  
  They only seem weird when you stick them out there by themselves and compare them to their bygone youth. Youth is bygone for all of us, dammit, and comparing today to '85 is always a bad idea. But if you saw that couple, the two people in the third picture combo right above ... if you saw them pushing a cart together at Wal-Mart, contemplating the best kind of detergent to buy or looking through the bargain DVDs, you wouldn't think anything of it. Nice enough looking older couple, right? Maybe she works at a law-firm and can help Shop Teacher Dave save his job when that damn kid finally gets sloppy with that bandsaw.
  
  So here's to the celebrities that grow old ... if not gracefully than at least naturally. Maybe even fearlessly. Is there any other way to do it? Screw the Botox and plastic surgery. Screw running from aging. Aging beats the alternative, right? Get old and enjoy it. It seems to be working for that nice couple, the Roths; Kathleen and Dave.

Labels: Links, Movies, Music, Politics, You Tube, Zo

I'm really narrowing my scope with this. To give a crap about this item you'll have to be:

• A comic book geek in general


• A Watchmen fan in specific


• A political junkie


• A non-leftist (libertarian, conservative, whatever)

Yesterday I called Rorschach a hard right-winger. Today I found an article by Brian Doherty written for Reason Online that argues that Rorschach is really an objectivist.

Doherty sees Rorschach the same way I do, but argues that the character is more politically inclined to the Ayn Rand point of view:

Rorschach would deliver (justice) as a personal, individual judgment; breaking what bones needed to be broken with his own hands, not from a world away with indiscriminate techno-gimmicks and no sense of actual individual guilt. The opposition between Rorschach and the villain is easy to read as that of individual, true justice versus the state's collectivist version. In every single war ever waged, governments make the kind of moral judgment that Watchmen's villain does, and the movie and comic, with Rorschach's help, make us wonder whether those decisions that governments and superheroes often make really are tolerable. Rand would have been proud.

It's a good read. Go check it out.

Labels: Movies, Politics, Watchmen

The more I anticipate an upcoming movie, the more likely it is that I'll be working the 3-11 shift when it comes out, making it basically impossible for me to see the movie in it's first week of release.

That's the case with Watchmen, a movie I've looked forward to for a long time and probably won't see before the end of the week or beginning of next week.

I've read some reviews, including a couple by favorite bloggers, and based on what I know about these guys I feel certain that I'll react to the movie in much the same way that they have.

My big concern ... the thing that will make or break the movie for me, is whether or not Zack Snyder's production get the characters right.

Since I'm gonna talk about my take on the characters, be advised that there may be spoilers below.

The movie's source material, of course, is a comic book. And like most or all comics, the story involves some broad charactures of classic personality types. But since Watchmen is a comic book for grownups, the archetypes aren't the usual kind. Watchmen is about the kinds of people that comic book readers grow up to be. Scott Nehring dismisses the source material as "another leftist whine fest about how sucky the world is," and I certainly see where he's coming from, but I don't quite agree. I don't think the story itself necessarily shares the perspective of it's characters. The story is colder than that, and told more clinically, and it keeps a certain distance from these characters. None of them are really portrayed in a particularly sympathetic light. I get the impression that Alan Moore wasn't really trying to advance any given political agenda so much as simply comment on those of us who are motivated to action (or inaction) by our own world views.

Of course, everyone has a different take on the story, and your perspective is as valid as mine.


My take, based on my own perspective and my own attitudes, is that Ozymandias is the villain of the story, and one of the worst villains in all of comics, given his typically liberal world view. Ozymandias sees humanity only as a whole. Individuals and the rights of the individual never enter the picture. Consequentially, Ozymandias is willing to sacrifice human life on a large scale in order to move the world toward what he sees as a higher plain of existence. He simply sees himself as someone who knows what's best for the world. Individual people, superheroic or otherwise, are nothing more than pawns he can enlist, manipulate and/or kill in order to advance his own cause. Ozymandias sees people as a hive and himself as the beekeeper. It's a perspective he shares with people like Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Rorschack, a characture of the extreme-right-wing point of view. Rorschack believes in one thing and one thing only: his code. In many ways he's very much like Ozymandias. Both of them deem themselves fit to determine who should live and who should die. Both of them look down on the huddled masses around them. The difference (and it's a huge one) between Rorschack and Ozymandias is that Rorschack is focused exclusively on the individual and not at all concerned about what's best for the whole. Rorschack hunts down the bad guys one at a time and kills them, dishing out his own brand of justice as it fits his code. His absolute refusal to compromise is both his Achilles heel and the source of his strength.

What makes Rorschach more sympathetic than Ozymandias is that Watchmen gives us a great deal more of Rorschach's back story. His cynicism and inability to relate to people were formed in a terrible childhood full of abuse and neglect. Whereas Ozymandias sees himself as moving toward perfection (and nearly there), Rorschach lacks even the simplest ability to assess himself and his behavior. Rorschach is who he is because he never had a choice.

The dynamic between these two characters is the heart of the story, especially with regard to Rorschach, the only character who's given any emotional resonance. If Zack Snyder screwed up that element, all the CGI and slo-mo action sequences in the world won't save the movie. And if he got it right, the movie might just be something special.

Standing above and beyond these two extremes is Dr. Manhattan, the movie's God figure. Having become omnipotent because of a science experiment gone awry (this is a comic book, after all, and comic book conceits are part of the story), Dr. Manhattan feels removed and separate from humanity. This God of the world of Watchmen possesses all knowledge; he knows when the world will end and how, and the weight of that has driven him into an almost catatonic apathy. If Watchmen is making a statement about God, it is not that God has stopped caring about humanity because of our sinfulness and selfishness. Rather, the theology of Watchmen might simply be that God doesn't care because it isn't in God's nature to care. Genuine concern about the people around us is a product of hope, and hope comes from uncertainty. Therefore, real certainty destroys hope and makes altruism utterly meaningless. Watchmen seems to be a story in praise of doubt, the great motivator.

The other characters in Watchmen are more disposable, in my view. Night Owl II and Silk Spectre II both inherited their status as superheroes and neither of them are particularly happy about their lives. Neither of them are particularly sympathetic, either. If there are two characters in the novel who really qualify as liberals who whine about how much the world sucks, it's these two. Especially the second Silk Spectre, the most poorly realized character in the story. She's a simple parody of every self-obsessed Jerry Springer guest who spends every hour obsessing over parent issues and excusing herself from honoring her commitments. Silk Spectre II isn't the villain of the piece, but she is far and away the hardest to give a damn about.

And then there's The Comedian, the anarchist of the group. The Comedian is sometimes interpreted as the right-wing opposite of Ozymandias, but in my view that's incorrect. The Comedian isn't a right winger, he's simply an opportunist and a nihilist. Whereas Rorschach and Ozymandias both adhere to specific belief systems, the Comedian adheres to nothing. The book gives him one and only one moment of genuine humanity; when confronted by Silk Spectre II about his attempted rape of the original Silk Spectre, The Comedian expresses genuine regret. It's a brief but important moment in the character's development, and it's the only thing that keeps him from becoming a totally stereotypical comic book villain. Still, even with that single moment of clarity, the Comedian never becomes a compelling character and really represents little more than a destructive force of nature that the other characters must respond to.

If the movie gets these character complexities right, it ought to be enjoyable. I'm not sure, though, that it will find the kind of audience that movies like Iron Man and The Dark Knight enjoy. Most comic books are about larger-than-life heroes and tales of daring-do. Watchmen offers comic readers something different. If you've read so many comics that you're a bit tired of heroes who are always heroic and villains who actually see themselves as evil, Watchmen is a breath of fresh air.

My hope is that the movie will provide that same paradigm shift for fans of comic book based films.

Labels: Books, Movies, Watchmen

Synopsis

Ben (Robert De Niro) is one of the thirty most powerful movie producers in Hollywood ... but he's rapidly falling off that list. His latest film infuriates test audiences and his next picture may be shut down if the star (Bruce Willis) refuses to shave his beard. Ben's personal life is in a shambles, too, as he struggles to reconcile with his ex-wife and relate to his teenage daughter.

Pros:

• Some good performances, including De Niro and especially Michael Wincott.


• A couple of mild laughs.

Cons:

• It's not very funny.


• It's occasionally outright boring.


• The movie never seems to quite find it's focus.

Generally:

2 on a scale of one to five. Wasted potential.

Extended Review:

There's an air of pretension about movie makers who make movies about the process of making movies. The end result sometimes seems contrived and disingenuous. Especially when the movie aims to mock Hollywood for it's hypocrisy, it's phoniness, and it's laser-beam focus on the bottom line. It's as though the people involved in the movie are saying "We're part of this industry, but we're somehow above it."

I think it's the same elitist attitude that allows Hollywood liberals to mock their own country.

Still, a good satire is a good satire, and who knows the movie industry better than movie industry insiders? So we see these movies so we can feel like we're "in on the joke." Especially movie geeks like me, who spend an inordinate amount of our free time obsessing about movies anyway.

Barry Levinson's What Just Happened is one more case of a big-named director and some huge stars biting the hands that feed them, and I'd imagine that everyone involved thinks they've turned out something subtle, smart and funny. But they haven't. What Just Happened never seems insightful, in fact it never even seems to want to offer insight. Worse still, it's just not very funny. A satire that's neither funny nor penetrating isn't much of a satire at all.

Not that What Just Happened is a terrible film. It has it's charms. Robert De Niro has a real affinity for dry comedy (see Levinson's Wag The Dog) and it's nice to see him get to play something other than a cop, a grizzled cop, a psycho or a psycho cop. I'd like to see him get more roles like this. Most of what does work in this movie hinges on his sympathetic, relatable performance. Other talented character actors (Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Catherine Keener) have less to do with smaller parts and sometimes seem to be playing it a bit too low key. Comedy doesn't have to be broad or physical, but it should at least be apparent.

The highlight of the movie is Michael Wincott as a moody, drug-addled director; sort of a cross between Keith Richards and Jim Jarmusch. Wincott seems to be the only performer in the whole movie who's having any fun, and he really makes his character pop with a physical, high-tension performance. In fact, Wincott steals all of his scenes and ends up the film's MVP. This isn't the first time I've noticed that Wincott's work was the best in a film (The Crow, Dead Man, Before Night Falls), and it's a shame that he always ends up in second-tier roles. Michael Wincott is a talented actor with skills in comedy, drama, even action. It's long-past time somebody gave him a starring vehicle.

Other characters in the movie are broad parodies of real people. Bruce Willis plays himself via Christian Bale, trashing sets and threatening co-workers and pouting and preening. Sean Penn, as an artsy-fartsy Hollywood darling named Sean Penn, is just right for his role. But neither of them bring much more to the film than a certain brief novelty, and that novelty wears off long before the movie is over.

And the the best parts of the movie are the parts that seem incidental and unrelated to the plot. Satiric jabs at the trappings of modern life provide the movie's best moments. The Wincott character says about the mood stabilizers prescribed to him that they're so powerful you could "watch your own mother get gang raped in broad daylight and still appreciate the weather." De Niro and his ex-wife attend former couple's counseling with the absurd goal of becoming so happy with their divorce that they never want to get back together. After a one-night stand, a self-conscious De Niro uses Just For Men hair dye ... and he uses it everywhere.

Given the tremendous talent behind it, What Just Happened could have been a much better movie than it actually is. It's a shame that Levinson and company seem to have been more interested in turning out 104 minutes of precious navel-gazing and dialed the satire back to 0.5 instead of turning it up to eleven.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

...because, granted, I've been thinking about Watchmen lately:

Maybe Dr. Manhattan is a monkey?

(Rimshot.)

Labels: Humor, Movies

Synopsis

Bill Maher is an atheist/agnostic. This film chronicles his travels and interviews with a number of people who adhere to various religions, and the film aims to present the subject matter humorously.

Pros:

• Maher behaves better than I thought he would for at least half of the movie.


• Several big laughs.

Cons:

• Maher behaves every bit as badly as I thought he would for half of the movie.


• The subject matter is dumbed down to get those big laughs.


• Some gratuitous nudity and language.

Generally:

3 on a scale of one to five. Keep it in context and it's not bad.

Extended Review:

Bill Maher's Religulous is a better movie than I thought it would be, which is to say that I was able to watch it without getting viscerally angry... and that I don't dislike Maher any more after watching it than I did before.

It isn't a great movie, either ... but it's actually pretty good if you take it for what it is. This isn't serious theology, nor is it a real documentary. It's a documentary only in the Michael Moore sense. The movie consists of scenes wherein Maher travels from place to place interviewing mostly earnest, simple people, and setting them up so he can make them look silly with clever editing, subtitles and (occasionally) quick rejoinders.

The danger of a movie like this is that other simple people (or young people) will see it and take it for more than it is. Maher doesn't really prove anything here beyond the strength of his own convictions. But he does so with enough humor and style to make his perspective easy to adopt. I don't think Maher would disagree with me that it's incumbent on each of us to reach our own conclusions about life, the universe and everything. It's unfortunate that he doesn't do enough to encourage his viewers to do the kind of intense thinking and soul-searching that he has apparently done himself.

For the most part, Maher spends the majority of the movie tilting at straw men. Most of the people he goes after in the movie are easy targets, and many of them really deserve his attacks. People who twist religion so that it justifies a political agenda, or so that it defends hatred, or so that it can be used to dupe people out of money. Those kinds of people are clearly vile. Beyond that, those people do a terrible disservice to the many, many kind, honest, decent religious people in the world. Maher spends his time interviewing the wackos who make up a very small minority of the world's faithful. He talks to people like Fred Phelps followers, the proprietors of the Creationism Museum, and a Jewish "Rabbi" who denies the Holocaust and aligns himself with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Clearly none of these people are fair representatives of their various faiths.

But this is, of course, a movie. And a comedy at that. So Maher had to talk to people who could generate laughs. Maher didn't talk to normal, sane religious people for his film because they'd have been boring. So that's the context, and a viewer would do well to keep that in mind. This isn't really a movie about religion. It's a movie about weirdos. This is like interviewing Michael Jackson and implying that he's a fair representation of all musicians.

Still, I have to give Maher credit for a couple of things: For one, he really went after Islam with the same zeal he had for Christianity and Judiasm. I didn't think he'd have the balls for that. And there were a few scenes wherein he seemed to go out of his way to return the kindness and courtesy he has received. One exchange in particular, involving congregants at the Truck Driver's Church (of all things), seemed mutually warm and friendly.

I enjoyed Religulous to some degree, and given my own doubts about God and religion I found myself mostly sympathetic to Maher's point of view. I was sometimes aggravated by his arrogance and his over-simplification, but I went into the film expecting Maher to get on my nerves and he didn't disappoint.

Maher hardly comes off as the smartest or most reasonable person in his own film. No, the most reasonable and interesting person in Religulous is Father George Coyne, the former Vatican Observatory director who lost his job because of his strong defense of Darwinian Evolutionary Theory. Coyne points out (rightly, I think) that religious fundamentalism of all kinds is "a plague." It doesn't matter if you're a Muslim fundamentalist, a Christian fundamentalist, whatever. Once you get so devoted to a doctrine that you stop using the Brain God gave you, you might end up doing more harm than good. Fundamentalism is the real cancer that Maher is railing against. He makes that point with a heavy hand in the closing scenes. And that's fine. But it's a shame that he's painting all religious people with one brush. Or, if you'll allow me to mix metaphors, Bill Maher is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Before I write anything about the Oscars I should come clean and admit that I don't really give a rip about the Oscars. So you should know that. And you should also know that there are a lot of other places you can go to read better, more thoughtful, more insightful Oscars posts than this one here. For instance:

• Rhodester, the only show-business insider in my blogroll, always has a unique perspective.


• Rey has a clip of Hugh Jackman's opening salvo.


• Bob Parks offers a few thoughts on the political nature of Sean Penn's Oscar.


• Scott Nehring sums it all up very economically.


• RC really delves in and tries to make sense of it all.


• Kevin Williamson at NRO has a couple of interesting observations about the Oscars ceremony as per Anthony Hopkins.


• There's a story at Newsbusters about about the Oscars and CBS's Harry Smith, who is apparently a giant, weepy, PC douchebag.


• Armchair Commentary breaks down the show with a best moments/worst moments thing.


• I Watch Stuff live-blogged the show with a collection of quips so funny that it (almost) made the ceremony tolerable to watch.


• The Onion found a laugh in the program's budget.

As for me, I don't have anything really worthwhile to say. I'll just stick to my usual formula; mocking things I don't understand and generally behaving regrettably.

This year I saw an all-time high of four out of five movies nominated for best picture. I didn't see Milk, I can smell a posturing PC screed a mile away and you couldn't pay me to see Milk. I did see the winning film, Slumdog Millionare, and I thought it was only OK, not even remotely the best movie of the year. Frost/Nixon, on the other hand, really was a very good film and deserved to be nominated. And I thought that The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button was a well-polished turd of a movie; lots of obviously expensive special effects but no story worth sitting through.

As far as I was concerned, the best movie of 2008 was The Reader, which I saw only recently and reviewed at this blog over the weekend. The Reader, in fact, is one of the best movies I've seen in a long while. If the Academy had any integrity the award for best picture would have gone to that challenging, thoughtful film instead of the showy, flashy, and ultimately empty Slumdog.

I knew the minute that I heard about the movie Milk that Sean Penn would win the Best Actor Oscar. Hollywood simply had to come up with a way to thumb it's nose at Prop 8. Besides, playing a gay guy is a very safe way to get an Oscar, or at least a nomination. (See Capote, Philadelphia, Brokeback Mountain, Before Night Falls, and Gods And Monsters for examples from just the past ten years.)

Of course, playing a retarded or derranged guy is almost as sure a bet to win an Oscar as playing a gay guy. The Academy sure does love those homos and wackos. Along with his Philadelphia Oscar, Tom Hanks won for Forrest Gump, and last night's winner was also nominated for playing a retarded dude in I Am Sam back in 2001 ... the same year that Russell Crowe was nominated for playing a nutball mathematician in A Beautiful Mind.

Johnny Depp has been nominated a number of times but never won an Oscar. One of these days he's going to have to commission a script called That Crazy C--ksucker and star in the film as a guy who's both gay and deranged. Maybe do it as a biopic about Larry Craig with an angle about how his homophobic self hatred drove him crazy in an airport men's room. End it with a fantasy dance number wherein Craig comes out of the closet and/or stall and denounces the GOP. The Academy will send a guy out to the shoot to give Depp the Oscar before the film is even finished.

I hope it's clear that I'm mocking the affectations and the politics of the Motion Picture Academy, here. I'm not mocking crazy guys or homos. Crazy guys and homos are just fine in my book. It's the way the Motion Picture Academy patronizes them that I find contemptible.

Or, more specifically, the way the Academy seems to expect us all to patronize them.

Kate Winslet won the Best Actress Oscar for The Reader and I think that's pretty cool. She was very good in the movie and I hope she enjoyed receiving the recognition of her peers.

And Danny Boyle won for Slumdog..., which seems kind of weird since he only co-directed that film. I didn't stay up long enough to see the whole ceremony because, as I've said, I don't care ... and I haven't really looked around the net to find out yet ... but I have to wonder what Boyle's co-director, Loveleen Tandan, thinks about all of this.

Maybe the message the Academy was trying to send was "Those scenes from Slumdog that Danny Boyle directed were top-knotch. Loveleen Tandan's scenes totally sucked, but Boyle's scenes were good enough to make up for it."

And that's all I have to say about the Oscars. I have the feeling I've already said far too much.

Labels: Movies, News, Politics

Synopsis

Polly and Seth are a yuppie couple who are on a camping trip. Before long they're kidnapped by Dennis and Lacey, a couple of criminals on the lam. Tensions between the two couples are just starting to rise when they end up trapped in a gas station, trying to survive an attack by a horrific, unknown parasite that eats people and uses them like puppets.

Pros:

• It's not stupid.


• Fun, taught, short and to-the-point. A decent little b-movie.

Cons:

• Buckets o' gore. If gore bothers you, rent something else.

Generally:

3 or maybe 3.5 on a five scale, with that scale curved to allow for the genre. This movie is good fun for horror fans.

Extended Review:


Splinter is a smart little horror movie. By that I mean that it's smart enough not to try to be smart. Too many horror movies try to justify their scares and gore with attempts at metaphor, deeper messages, subtle commentary on politics and society, etc. That's almost always a bad idea. A movie shouldn't get out of it's own depth. Splinter is a B-movie and seems damn proud to be one. It's scares and gross-outs are what they are, and as such, they work just fine. This movie is a quick, satisfying little jolt of adrenalin that pulled me in and delivered the goods. Genre fans will love it.

At the same time, Splinter is all about story, and the story is pretty good. It's not gratuitous or pointless, and it's not insultingly juvenile. Yeah, this movie does what it does within the classic b-movie template ... but it does it quite well.

And, I have to give Splinter credit for some originality. The source of the horror is a parasitic, alien force that attacks people, kills them, takes over their bodies, etc. Think The Thing and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and any basic zombie movie. What makes the parasitic monster in Splinter a little different is that the invaders in those other movies required a complete human body to use as a host. Not so in Splinter. The parasite in this movie only needs some of the body of a host. In other words, if you manage to severe the arm of an attacking infected body, you'll end up with two attackers: The body and the arm will keep coming at you. This results in a clever mix of scares, black humor and some really nerve-wracking creepiness.


The characters in Splinter are template standards. You've got your science geek who's more fascinated by the monster than scared of it. You've got your surprisingly resourceful babe (Jill Wagner from the ultra-goofy gauntlet TV game show Wipeout! ... and she's actually pretty good here). And you've got your rough-n-ready bad-guy who really wants to change his evil ways. Etc, etc. Splinter isn't trying to reinvent the wheel with regard to horror movie characters. And it doesn't need to. Putting tried-and-true genre standards up against a creepy new variation on a classic monster is justification enough for this tight, 80 minute thrill ride.

If you like horror films and want something you can enjoy without too much thought, Splinter is a safe pick. It's neither dumb nor pretentious, just a straight forward little monster movie, and entirely enjoyable on those terms.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Synopsis

Michael Berg is a professionally successful but personally unhappy lawyer in modern Germany. When he was 15 years old, he had a brief affair with a 36 year old woman (Hanna Schmitz) who'd liked to hear him read aloud. Later in life, Michael found out that the Hanna had once been a Nazi SS camp guard. The long-term effects of their affair and the secrets that they share are the focus of the film.

Pros:

• Kate Winslet is outstanding.


• The pacing, story, direction and performances are all top-knotch.

Cons:

• I can't think of any. I thought this film was a complete success.

Generally:

5 on a 1 to 5 scale. One of the very best movies I've seen in a long time.

Extended Review:

Very few films try to say something serious about human beings and the things that bind us to one and other. Most of the ones that do try end up failing. I suppose it's hard to sustain genuine emotional intensity in a film without stumbling into melodrama or unintentional parody.

The Reader is one of those rare films that tries to convey something meaningful and manages to actually do so without collapsing under the weight of it's own ideas. This movie walks a very fine line. Any film dedicated to this subject matter could have become unintentionally silly, falsely sentimental, self-important or just plain insulting. The Reader never stumbles. This is a fine, strong film and I recommend it enthusiastically to mature viewers who're in the mood for something demanding.

Kate Winslet has been nominated for a number of awards for her work here, and she deserves to win them. Winslet has turned in good performances in movies as divergent as Heavenly Creatures and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, but she's never been as strong as she is here. It's really a demanding role; she has to play a statutory rapist and former concentration camp guard and make it possible for an audience to feel some empathy for her character. It's remarkable that Winslet pulled it off. Finding humanity in a character like that and actually making that humanity palpable isn't the kind of thing I typically buy into. The very idea seems too uncomfortably close to a kind of moral relativism for me. It is to Kate Winslet's tremendous credit that I found her performance compelling, believable, and, yes, human.

A few thoughts on that subject; the idea of feeling empathy for a Nazi: There are people who feel understandable outrage about the idea of a film with a sympathetic central character who is a former SS guard. But I never got the impression that The Reader intended to send a message as simple and repugnant as "Nazi's are people, too." The movie never asks the viewer to shed tears for Hanna Schmitz. Instead, this movie seems to want the audience to consider important questions. Is it possible, for instance, to do something genuinely awful without even really thinking about your actions? How often do any of us stop to really examine our own moral imperatives? Most provocatively, the movie poses this question: If you possess information that might generate sympathy for someone who is clearly guilty of horrible crimes, are you morally bound to reveal that information?

I like that this movie neither attempts to offer simple answers to those questions, nor seems to posit that the questions are unanswerable.

The Reader seems to want it's audience to genuinely consider those issues, and I think it's possible that some worthwhile conversation and debate might be generated in the process. Even so, none of that is what really impresses me about this film. What impresses me about this movie is how smart and honest it is about the negative things that can play roles in the forming of our lifetime bonds. Things like forgiveness or the unwillingness to offer forgiveness. Things like desperation and anger. Things like the commitments we might make more out of shame than love.

And yet the movie finds it's way to a genuinely positive ending. The Reader is a movie about secrets, shame and guilt. But it never glamorizes those things. Instead, the movie ends with a message about the importance of avoiding a life shrouded in secret. So, yes, the end of this movie is positive, but it isn't false or sentimental. Maybe love doesn't conquer all, The Reader seems to say ... but love is the only thing that enables any of us to ever conquer anything.

Trailer

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

I'm an unapologetic Tarantino fan. He makes loud, stupid, bloody cartoons with no redeeming value whatsoever. I dig 'em.

The trailer for his latest, a WWII film called Inglorious Bastards, tells us that "you haven't seen war until you've seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino."

I have two words in response: John Ford.

This looks like a loud, stupid, bloody cartoon ... the kind of film that appeals to our base instincts ... a series of cheap thrills wherein the bloodlust of the audience is placated with mutalated Nazi corpses.

I can't wait.

Labels: Movies, You Tube

Scott at Good News Film Reviews has been posting some excellent movie quotes lately and it's got me thinking about some of my favorites.

Here are some of the ones that have popped into my head. Some will be very easy to recognize, some are obscure, and many of them won't make any sense at all if you aren't familiar with the context. I'm not saying these are the best movie quotes of all time, I'm just saying that they've popped into my head lately. You can click the quote itself to see the source. Think of this as a little trivia quiz.

Have I done this before? Probably. Heck, I've probably even used these same quotes before. Anyway ...

• "Seriously. Last night, man, I was so drunk, I was calling Morocco, man. Calling, trying to get to the Hotel Hilton at Tangiers in Casablanca, man. That's, I mean, that's, that's pathetic, man! Is that what you wanna do with your life? Suck down Peppermint Schnapps and try to call Morocco at two in the morning?"



• We'd better get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night. Mostly.



• "He keeps putting his testicles all over me... You know? Like octopus?"



• "'Deserve' has got nothin' to do with it."



• "I always figured when I got older, God would sorta come into my life somehow. And he didn't, and I don't blame him. If I was him I would have the same opinion of me that he does."



• "Ah yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it."



• "Can the imaginary training of fifteen years be put to use? Apparently not."



• "You know how I know you're gay? ... You like Coldplay."



• "The great state of Vermont will not apologize for it's cheese."



• "I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the center of attention. I wanted the glory, I wanted the fame. I wanted the pretty girls to come up and say, 'Hi, I see that you're good at Centipede.'"

Hope that provided somebody with some shits n' giggles.

Labels: Links, Movies, Trivial Matters

I made fun of Christian Bale the other day for his infamous tantrum. Well, the guy has publicly expressed regret and contrition. Good for him. He manned up. Everybody behaves regrettably from time to time, God knows I do, and Bale's apology is a good example for all of us.

Good job, Batman.

Labels: Links, Movies, News

Typically I don't post this kind of stuff, but this is really, really funny and extremely unsafe to play at work. EXTREME language warning. Like five-thousand F-bombs.

First, the setup: You've probably heard by now that Christian Bale apparently had a melt-down on the set of Terminator: Salvaton last summer and ended up cursing and verbally abusing the director of photography.

For that full story, click here. Audio is embedded at that link; if you want you can listen to a recording of Bale's rant. But, again, remember that the language is extreme and isn't safe to play at work ... unless you work in a crack-house or on a tuna boat.

OK, so that's the set-up, here's the inevitable payoff: Somebody chopped up the recording of the rant, added clips of the infamous Barbra Streisand on-stage rant from a year or two ago, and came up with a techno dance song that has me laughing like crazy:

Yeah, it's chidish and vulgar, but so am I. In my defense, what cracks me up is the way the remix really highlights the total absurdity of Bale's rant:

"It's f------ distracting, oooooooh good!
It's f------ distracting, oooooooh good!"

I'll hum that all day.

And for the record, although it might be a stretch, I'll give Bale the benefit of the doubt. This might be the worst he's ever behaved on the set of a film and might not be an indication of what it's like to work with him normally.

Yeah, it's a real stretch, but maybe.

Labels: Humor, Movies, News, You Tube

Synopsis

A dirt poor "slumdog" in Mumbai, India competes on his country's version of the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire TV game show. His chances of winning the jackpot are slim. His real goal is to attract the attention and win the heart of the girl he's loved since childhood. Those chances are slim, too. But sometimes "destiny" has plans of it's own.

Pros:

• Good performances from the cast of mostly unknown actors.


• Good direction from Danny Boyle. His typically showy style. Nothing wrong with that.

Cons:

• The movie never really got my attention.

Generally:

3 on a five scale. It's OK.

Extended Review:

Danny Boyle has a history of turning out very good movies that I just haven't enjoyed much. His cautionary tale, Trainspotting is visually bold, aggressive, even brilliant in some ways. But it didn't do anything for me. Boyle's take on the horror/zombie genre, 28 Days Later, didn't even phase me in the theater. I didn't appreciate 28... at all, in fact, until a reluctant second viewing on DVD. And Boyle's version of a family film, Millions, is smart, funny, winning and warm ... and yet, for whatever reason, it nearly bored me to sleep.

It's as though Danny Boyle and I don't speak the same language. He makes fine films, I realize that. I appreciate his movies in a sterile, emotionless way. For whatever reason, the real heart and soul of his films is seemingly always lost on me.

Take, for instance, his latest: Slumdog Millionare. I realize that I should have enjoyed it very much. All the elements were there: The acting was good, the story and characters were engaging and appealing, the direction was suburb. And yet, once it was over, I essentially duplicated the experience of walking out of the theater after 28 Days Later, Trainspotting and Millions. The people around me were very happy. They'd just seen a movie they'd loved. I was happy for them ... but I was bored and utterly indifferent.

Slumdog... has been marketed as a feel-good movie, and I think that's somewhat disingenuous. I'm not saying that just because the movie failed to make me feel good. I'm saying that because there is a surprising amount of violent and disturbing content in the movie. There is gun violence, a scene involving torture with a car battery, another scene involving the torture of a child, and a fair amount of knives, blood and death. None of that detracts from the story's essential love-conquers-all message. After all, love has to have some nasty things to conquer, right? But I didn't expect so much of the nastiness to be on screen, and it's the kind of thing that might ruin the movie for some people. This isn't a feel-good movie along the lines of Love, Actually. This movie is grittier than that, and it earns it's R-rating several times over.

The performances are good all around. Especially Dev Patel as the main character, the "slumdog" the movie is named for. He's sufficiently convincing as a simple, wide-eyed boy who still carries a torch for the girl he's loved since childhood. In fact, his performance is the main reason that the movie works when it does work. A lot of the story is totally implausible. Serendipity comes into play time and time again, and Patel's good-natured acceptance of the things that happen to him and around him is key to the selling of this tale.

Without getting all spoilery, I will say that the things you expect to happen going into the movie all happen in a more-or-less believable way. Will the poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks get the girl and win the money? What do you think? Boyle isn't trying to retell Rocky here, and the concept of winning just by doing your best never enters the picture. That may be part of the reason I was essentially disappointed in the film. I was hoping for some surprises. Other than the unexpected violence, there weren't any surprises to be found.

So, like I said, Slumdog Millionare is a perfectly good movie. To my knowledge, Danny Boyle hasn't really made any bad movies. And as I said earlier, he hasn't really made any movies that have really won me over, either. Slumdog continues that tradition. A lot of people have seen it and loved it. Once again, I'm happy for them.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Synopsis

In 1977, disgraced former President Richard Nixon sat for a series of interviewers with British TV personality David Frost. This movie tells a story about the events that lead up to those interviews and the impact that the interviews had on the lives of everyone involved.

Pros:

• Good performances from a talented cast.


• A story about people, not so much about politics.

Cons:

• Lots of talk, little action. If you aren't already interested in these people and these events, I suppose you might get bored.


• One or two of the dramatized events seem very unlikely.

Generally:

3.5 on a five scale. A good show.

Extended Review:


Having been born in 1968, I have two clear childhood memories of important events on television. One of them was Hank Aaron's record-breaking home run in the spring of 1974. The other was Richard Nixon's historic resignation of the office of the President in August of that same year.

I suppose Aaron's achievement would have played a role in shaping my life if I'd been a particularly athletic child. But I wasn't. Instead, I had an interest in things like history, drama and politics. Nixon's resignation had plenty of all three, so it's probably not surprising that the broadcast effected me very much. Throughout my childhood, and to this very day, I've always been fascinated by Nixon and Watergate. I wrote enumerable papers on the man and the scandal in high school and college, and I've watched more movies, read more books, and video-taped more TV specials related to the topic than I can remember.

Because I've studied Watergate closely over the years, I've learned that one has to approach movies like Frost/Nixon with very specific expectations. Frost/Nixon is ostensibly about the series of interviews that Nixon gave interviewer David Frost in 1977. But movies about history are usually inaccurate by degrees, and Frost/Nixon really presents a version of Richard Nixon, a version of David Frost, and a version of their famous exchanges. To really be fair to the movie, it's best to set aside what one might know (or might think one knows) about the real men and the real events and try to simply watch the film as though it were an entirely fictional work.

Of course, that's impossible. But you gotta try. You have to try to remember that this is just a story, with a beginning, middle and end ... and that the movie hopes to establish it's own morals, it's own conclusions, and it's own deeper meanings.

With that in mind, I have to say that I really enjoyed Frost/Nixon. Removed from it's historical context, this is a story about two skilled spin doctors, each trying to use their televised exchanges as a means toward his own end. Both of them are politicians of a sort, and each of them hopes to leave the experience having secured a political goal. The older of the two men wants a chance to reframe his public persona. The younger wants to establish a reputation as a smart journalist and effective interviewer. Each of them attempts to manipulate their shared situation and each also tries to manipulate the other. Essentially, Frost and Nixon are presented here as opponents, playing a kind of game of chess with words. A game that only one of them can really win.

As Nixon, Frank Langella is really very good. In fact, he presents the best screen-version of Nixon that I've seen. It's certainly better than Anthony Hopkins's manic turn in Oliver Stone's '95 film. And I think that Nixon supporters would probably feel that the movie treats Nixon fairly. The Richard Nixon in this film is clearly very smart, somewhat paranoid, and, by 1977, utterly exhausted. He hopes at the beginning of the movie to somehow restore his reputation and find a way back into the political life again. At a critical point in the movie, Nixon realizes that the life he's been tolerating since he left the White House, the life of a famous but unimportant curiosity, is really the only life he's going to have from then on. It's a moving and important moment in the film, and Langella is especially impressive in that scene.

Michael Sheen, who plays David Frost here, is very good, too. The David Frost in this movie is personally invested in this series of interviews in every way possible. He's put himself in a make-or-break situation and the pressure to deliver is enormous. Sheen is especially good in early interview segments when Frost realizes that he's utterly outmatched by the old, skilled politician. As the story comes to a head, Sheen's Frost manages to convey mingled panic and focus in a very convincing way. I found myself feeling as involved in this story from his point of view as I was from the perspective of the former President.


How historically accurate is the movie? Well, it doesn't matter. There are real lines from the real interviews interjected into the movie's recreations, but I actually found that to be a trivial distraction. I was more interested in the way the two men were at odds with each other, each trying to steer the conversation, control the pace, tone and subject matter, all the while seeming congenial. The performances were very good when it came to that, and that's really what the movie was about. Since that's what the movie was really about, looking for discrepancies in the story's recreation of the public record would be splitting hairs. As I said earlier, this movie presents a version of the Frost/Nixon interviews. And it presents it's own version very well.

There are moments along the way that might be twisted by viewers, I suppose, into some sort of half-assed metaphorical commentary on the George W. Bush Presidency, the war in Iraq, and the most recent political scandals. Some people are always going to look for that kind of meaning "between the lines." But I think it's a ridiculous stretch to find anything like that in Frost/Nixon. This movie isn't about modern events, it isn't even really about events from the 70's. This is a character study, and a good one. And that's all it is.

Speaking of the 1970's, to me Frank Langella will always be Dracula. To a number of people, Richard Nixon will always be Darth Vader. And to a lot of people, David Frost might always be remembered as the David who slew Goliath in the interviews reenacted here. But, really, that's dumbing this movie down to something less than it is. Frost/Nixon is a movie about manipulation, language, and the power of strong personalities. It is it's own unique story, regardless of the historic events that it proposes to dramatize. And purely concerning story and acting, Frost/Nixon is a success on it's own terms.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Synopsis

Oskar, a twelve-year-old Swedish boy, is bullied, neglected and miserable. His new neighbor, Eli, appears to be a twelve year old girl. But Eli feeds on human blood, and as she and Oskar grow closer, the boy discovers elements of his personality that he didn't know were there.

Pros:

• Genuinely freaky. It isn't often that a horror movie makes me stir uneasily in my seat.


• Outstanding performances from the two young actors in the lead roles.

Cons:

• A couple of smallish plot holes.


• A few slow passages that drag a bit.

Generally:

4 on a five scale. A smart, unsettling, extra creepy horror film. I point to movies like this when I defend the horror genre. If you like 'em smart and scary, this is a must-see.

Extended Review:

Put this one on the short list with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Descent, The Devil's Backbone and Signs. Wow. Let The Right One In really is that good, that scary, that smart and that inventive. This one's a keeper. This is Carrie for the modern age.

This decade has seen scads of horror films churned out by the big studios. There have been franchise gore fests and Hollywood lame-downs of decent Japanese horror films and there have been more stupid, pointless remakes than I can count ... but there have been very, very precious few genuinely good horror films.

It's no surprise, I guess, that you have to look to an independent Swedish production for the scariest and best horror film of the past year.

Let The Right One In really is what the recent Twilight proposes to be. It's a movie that examines the turbulence of adolescence through the eyes of a vampire, and finds much to be afraid of. Yes, this is a horror film, but it is not mindless escapism. I thought about things like Columbine and teen suicide while watching this film, and I was very impressed with the movie's artful approach to very real subject matter. Let The Right One In treats desperation and loneliness very seriously and the movie is very insightful with regard to those topics. I think it's a safe bet that Twilight's version of Sweet Valley Vampire High didn't get anywhere near these heights.

As the two principle youngsters in the film, Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson are both outstanding. Especially Leandersson, who's performance as the vampire Eli often genuinely scared the hell out of me. Let The Right One In doesn't rely on make-up or special effects for it's scares. The terror all hinges on Leandersson's performance. I had no doubt that her character could and would kill without remorse, and this kid made me actually shudder a number of times.

As Oskar, the abused and lonely boy, Hedebrant is very good, too. In fact, it's probably fair to say that he's exceptional, since his was probably the more difficult role. For the movie to work, a viewer has to care what happens to Oskar. And this is a character with very real, very upsetting problems from the get-go. Even before he develops a relationship with a vampire, it's clear that this kid is headed for an unpleasant future. He's bullied brutally at school and doesn't have any resources to help him productively deal with that treatment. Instead, he clips newspaper stories about murders and he tortures pretend victims with his pocket knife. Oskar just oozes with detachment and suppressed rage throughout the film.

Eli's vampirism is introduced almost immediately in the film, and it's presented with a great deal of gore and blood. She isn't a sterile, Hollywood vampire who leaves two small fang-holes in her victims' necks. Eli rips out jugular veins, spewing great fountains of blood when she feeds. The violence in the film may be upsetting to many, but I found it to be an organic and necessary element of this particular story. It was the physical manifestation of what was going on in the lives of the characters. Vampirism in this movie's world isn't gothic or romantic. Like much else here, it's about violence and survival.

Director Tomas Alfredson made some interesting choices, too, that I thought fit the movie very well. His visual pallet in this film is dominated by white (block walls, tiled floors, endless snow outside) and bursts of red (a bright red sweater, a solid-red toy Indian warrior, and, of course, blood). The motif conjures up a pervasive coldess and the potential for sudden violence that establish the context of even the quiet scenes. And as with all of the better vampire tales, the blood exchange is an obvious sexual metaphor; this time a commentary on the tumult and upheaval that comes with puberty. Very few modern horror movies even bother with subtext. Alfredson was very smart, I think, to treat Let The Right One In as a straight story wherein one of the major characters happened to be a vampire.

Most people don't see horror movies because they're looking for a genuinely upsetting experience. People see horror movies to laugh, to get off on gore-porn, to see just how far the studios take the carnage this time. So people who like those movies probably won't find much to please them in this film. But if you're up for a smart and crafty treatise on the very real pains and fears of adolescence, then Let The Right One In is for you. Early in this review I listed a few very good horror films and said that this movie is in their league. But this movie didn't remind me of those films. It reminded me of movies like Kids and Alpha Dog and Undertow, and of books like William Golding's Lord Of The Flies. Like those works, Let The Right One In is really a story about adolescents in terrible danger. The closing credits found me with my thoughts racing, more than a little unsettled. If that doesn't sound like your kind of thing, maybe you enjoy Twilight instead.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

I'm looking forward to Watchmen probably more than any other movie in 2009. The advance marketing gives me the idea that the movie will faithfully convey the comic book's themes and atmosphere, and I just can't wait to see it.

Hat tip to Scott at Good News Film Reviews for tipping me off to the new marketing website for the movie, a website that features profiles of the movie's key characters, including the masked vigilante Rorschak:

the twelve issues of Watchmen are full of fascinating, fully realized characters, and my favorite by far is Rorschach. Now that's not to say that I identify with Rorschach, just that I think the character is compelling and that he steals the story.

Rorschach is a vigilante with serious emotional issues related to his godawful childhood and his loveless way of life. This "superhero" is more Travis Bickle than Batman, and he represents as much potential danger as the criminals he hunts and kills.

What separates Rorschach from other fictional madmen like Bickle is that Rorschach sticks to an iron code of right and wrong and he won't compromise or yield. His madness is stoic, not manic... and Alan Moore developed Rorschach so well that the character's perspective is accessible and sometimes even sympathetic. For me, the real test of Zack Snyder's movie will be how well he brings Rorschach to the screen.

Labels: Books, Movies, Watchmen

Synopsis

Walter Kowalski is elderly, bitter, widowed and alone. His new neighbors, immigrants from Southeast Asia, seem like the last people he's likely to befriend. But a series of sudden, violent events leads to Walt reluctantly taking the neighbor's teenage son under his wing. As the old man and the young man get to know each other, a genuine friendship develops. Meanwhile, members of a local ethnic street gang have nefarious plans for the both of them.

Pros:

• A great performance from Eastwood.


• A tight story that never drags.


• This is a movie that's genuinely concerned with the important things in life ... things like family, courage and friendship.


• The movie addresses racism in a surprisingly honest way.

Cons:

• A couple of fairly weak performances in major roles.

Generally:

Three and a half or maybe four on a five scale. Eastwood's own resume gives this movie a lot to live up to, but on general terms it's a fine film.

Extended Review:

Clint Eastwood has implied that Gran Torino will be his final effort as an actor. If so, there are certainly worse ways that he could have ended his on-screen career. Gran Torino is a compact and efficient little story that hinges on a classic Eastwood performance and a lean script from screenwriter Nick Schenk. It won't be remembered as Eastwood's best movie, neither as an actor nor as a director, but this is a film he can be proud of.

Clint Eastwood will turn 79 this May. His character in Gran Torino (Walt Kowalski) turns 80 during the course of the movie, and for the first time on screen, Eastwood really looks his age. Walt wears his pants up around his mid-torso, lights cigarettes with a Zippo, and spends a lot of time reading on his front porch. Walt Kowalski is a grouchy old fart, and Eastwood plays it real, warts and all.

The best thing about the character is that he's not just a harmless movie-version of a grouchy old fart. For most of the movie's two hours, Walt is a very unpleasant man. So much so, in fact, that this character might alienate himself from the audience as thoroughly as he seems to have alienated himself from his family and neighbors. Walt is a racist and a sexist who constantly uses racial slurs, mocks the religious faith of his loved ones, and is generally cruel to everyone except his dog.

In fact, Kowalski's constant racist epithets might really offend the most sensitive moviegoers. Personally, I thought that the characters racism was one of the many things that made Eastwood's performance so genuine. Look, it's this simple: many (maybe most) of the old men I know are racist to one degree or another. Old white men, old black men, old men of every color and creed are pretty often cantankerous in every way possible. To have made Walter Kowalski politically correct would have been disingenuous. The old bastard just doesn't care what he says or in who's presence he says it. I know old men like that and I totally believed this character.

Best of all, this is a movie that proposes that there are things that are actually worse than racism. Imagine that! We live in a society that embraces nutty concepts like "hate crimes," the idea that some murders might be worse than others, depending on the motives involved. (Aren't all murders crimes of hate?) Gran Torino is, in at least one way, a very bold movie. It suggests that, with some people, racism might be a hundred miles wide ... but only an inch deep. No wonder the same Motion Picture Academy that piled Oscars on Crash a few years ago didn't quite know what to think of this film. Walter Kowalski is an unabashed racist, but he's not beyond redemption. That's not exactly the clean, neat, acceptable way to present a racist character, even if it is honest.


As a matter of fact, the politically incorrect dialogue in the movie is used to tremendous effect in one scene in particular: This movie is essentially the story of Walter begrudgingly becoming friends with a young Asian man in his neighborhood. Early in the film, before he develops affection for the young man, Walter constantly peppers him with racial slurs out of genuine disrespect. But as he develops regard for the young man he wants to make it clear to him that he likes him. Lacking the ability to simply say "Hey, I like ya, kid," Walt instead takes him to his local barber shop so that he can hear the way that he and the Italian barber trade ethnic jabs as a way of horsing around. Walt even attempts to instruct his young Asian friend on the proper way to "talk like a fella." The scene works for two reasons... one, it makes it clear that at this point in the story Walt's slurs toward his young Asian friend are the old man's dysfunctional way of expressing affection. It's really all he knows. And, two, that scene ends with the young man delivering the funniest punchline I've heard in any movie in a long time.

Like my all time favorite film, Eastwood's masterful Unforgiven, Gran Torino revisits the themes that have defined the actor/director's best work. Forgiveness and redemption and sacrifice are the keynotes, here. This movie's dramatic apex is sort of an alternate version of the climactic scene in Unforgiven, with selflessness substituted for revenge to tremendous effect. It isn't necessarily a realistic way for the story to end, but viewed through the prism of Eastwood's career, it's meaningful and quite moving.

Gran Torino doesn't quite reach Unforgiven's artistic heights, but it certainly doesn't fail, either. Eastwood fans will find a lot to enjoy in Gran Torino, as will fans of good movies in general.

The trailer for Gran Torino

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

I don't often mention "celebrity news" at this blog, I just don't care about celebrity gossip. But I had to mention this Joaquin Phoenix story because ... damn.

Man, he looks rough. He looks like he he's recently been shooting up in a culvert somewhere.

He looks like Zach Galifianakis after a three-night bender.

He looks like Jim Morrison circa 1971, minus the bathtub.

Only a few years ago Phoenix was turning in exemplary work and now he says he's done with acting, he's going to be a rapper, and his rap album is going to be produced by Diddy.

His debut performance at a Las Vegas club ended with him falling off the stage after one song. The shenanigans were taped for inclusion in a documentary ... which makes me wonder if this is some elaborate Borat-style prank. I hope so. I'd hate to think the guy has gone 'round the bend.

Labels: Movies, News, You Tube

This is the story of Star Wars, as told by someone who's never seen the movies:

"I'm going over to, like, the Dark Side, or whatever."

"Keep the faith, the force is strong, or whatever."

Obviously she really hasn't seen the movies. Her version of the dialogue is much better than what Lucas actually came up with.

Labels: Humor, Movies, You Tube

I've had a YouTube account for ages. I mostly use it to post short clips of family video and occasional funny montages, etc. I only recently started clicking the "subscribe" button so I'd get updated when some of my favorite "vloggers" post new stuff.

I'm glad I finally did. I enjoy seeing the updates and watching these videos. None of these are anything special visually, these are just monologues from smart guys with interesting ideas. I suppose they could have been written and posted at regular blogs, but hearing and seeing these fellas express themselves makes it all the more personal, immediate and interesting. Here are a few recent examples...

Penn Jillette, as a rule, doesn't do reviews. Here, he breaks that rule to offer his thoughts on The Wrestler, a movie that I loved. You can watch Penn's video without worrying about plot spoilers. If anything, this clip may simply make you want to see the movie more than you already might:

I love the way Penn feels forced to describe what's so wonderful about the movie with such simple terms: "very real," for instance. And I like the way Penn often simply shakes his head, unable to come up with words. The Wrestler is really that kind of movie.

This next one is from my favorite vlogger, Zo Rachel. Here, Zo takes on global warming, Hollywood, and race, as per: politics:

Drinking With Bob is another YouTube vlog I watch from time to time. Bob usually cracks me up with his manic urgency. And I usually agree with his core points. Here, he talks about the Blago scandle:

Labels: Entertainment, Movies, Politics, You Tube, Zo

Synopsis

Randy The Ram is a washed up professional wrestler who's twenty years past his prime. After suffering a major medical setback, Randy is forced to consider his place in the world, the relationships that he's lost along the way, and his possibilities for a future.

Pros:

• Micky Rourke is really outstanding.


• So is Marisa Tomei.

Cons:

• The film is honestly painful to watch.


• A lot of people aren't going to like the ending.

Generally:

At least four on a five scale. A remarkable movie if you can handle all the open wounds, both literal and figurative.

Extended Review:

Writer and director Darren Aronofsky usually makes movies on a huge scale. He's good at it. His 2000 release Requiem for a Dream is surely one of the best films of the past ten years. With his latest movie, The Wrestler, Aronofsky has dialed back the high-concept and flashy visuals and produced a small, quiet character study. As it turns out, he's good at that, too.

Micky Rourke, as Randy "The Ram" Robinson (the wrestler the movie is named for) will probably win all kinds of awards for his work here. He really ought to, anyway. This is the kind of movie that requires it's star to carry a world on his back. Rourke is suburb here. I don't suppose I've ever seen him turn in a performance anywhere near this good before. Randy is a guy suffocating in regret, loneliness and physical pain. It's a credit to Rourke as an actor that his performance never became tedious or overwrought in the movie's 115 minutes.

The Wrestler also features Marisa Tomei as a stripper named Cassidy who infatuates Randy. A number of Tomei's scenes feature the actress nude or nearly nude. Tomei's been doing a lot of nudity in her recent movies, possibly because she's proud that she still has the body of a twenty year old even though she'll turn forty-five at the end of this year. Still, Tomei's physical form (as lovely as it is) isn't the best thing she brings to this movie. Her performance is the equal of Rourke's, and may garner supporting actress awards for her as well. In fact, Tomei is so good here that I'd expect her to win top awards for females in lead roles if she only had more screen time.

The connection between Rourke's wrestler and Tomei's stripper is obvious, but never made overt or acknowledged in any way. Both of them have chosen paths wherein they sell themselves, physically, to paying audiences. One traffics in sex; the other, violence. Both of them need the attention and the money, and neither of them seem to have many other options. But unlike Randy, Tomei's character dreams of another life. She has a family in the form of her son ... unlike Randy, who has driven away his adult daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) with years of negligence and broken promises. To Cassidy, stripping is just a means to an end. To Randy, wrestling is everything. Ultimately, one of them just can't stand to be in the other one's audience.

It's painful to watch the two characters interact as one hopes to begin a new life and the other waits for his life to end. There's a rawness about their scenes together that's really exceptional in it's honesty. It's funny that we live in a world full of "reality TV" that is nothing like reality, and here's a scripted movie featuring an actor and an actress who speak volumes of truth about desperation and sadness.

I can't recommend The Wrestler to every movie fan, but I think you'll enjoy it if you're the kind of viewer who enjoys films like, for instance, No Country For Old Men. The Wrestler is subtle, unconventional, and extremely understated. That's ironic, considering that professional wrestling itself is the bombastic polar opposite of this film. I expect that a large number of wrestling fans will see this movie and leave the theater unhappy.

At times, The Wrestler reminded me of Ray, Raging Bull, Saturday Night Fever, even Citizen Kane in some ways. Those are all fine films about men who are addicted to fame and pain. Men who punish themselves in spite of the glory they seek. Each of those films features remarkable lead performances. Each of them was directed beautifully. If I have a complaint with each of those five films, it's that they are all painfully direct. This is the kind of movie that might force anyone to contemplate whatever is hollow inside of them.

The Wrestler rubs shoulders with greats in terms of it's impact, it's integrity, and the power of it's story. This is one of the finest movies I've seen in the past twelve months.

Trailer for The Wrestler:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies, You Tube

Synopsis

Benjamin Button is born with the physiology of a man in his late 80's. As he ages, his body grows in reverse, so that by the time he's really in his late '80's, he has the body of a baby. This is the story of his adventures, his loves and his loses, his tragedies and triumphs.

Pros:

• The special effects and make-up look great on a big screen.


• Brad Pitt is very good in the title role.


• in spite of it's odd conceit, this is a perfectly standard, sentimental, holiday-time feel-good movie.

Cons:

• Meandering story.


• Too little humor or surprises to sustain the movie's two hours and forty-five minutes. I had plenty of time to get bored.

Generally:

2.5 or 3 on a five scale. Eeeh.

Extended Review:

Ah, man. What can you say about a movie like The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button? You know going into it that you're supposed to like it. And you know, two-thirds of the way through, that if you find yourself bored and unimpressed, people are going to condemn you as an incorrigible grouch. Generally I was bored with ...Benjamin Button, I felt like I'd seen it all before. There's nothing new here, and that's especially disappointing, considering that director David Fincher usually has something original to offer, even in his lesser films.

And, just for the record, I went into Benjamin Button totally prepared to enjoy it. My expectations were appropriately low. I'd set my phazers on stun with visual effects, and I was ready to allow myself to be pulled into the Hallmark Card sentimentality that I expected from the film. If you go into these kinds of big, showy movies, you can enjoy them. I'd remembered the lesson of Forrest Gump, a movie I'd hated because I'd expected too much out of it. I was prepared for a Titanic style experience. (I actually saw Titanic in the theater several times and I'd really enjoyed it because I'd turned off my quality filter and just enjoyed looking at the big, pretty boat and all the pretty people drowning in the cold, cold water.)

I'm not sure what went wrong along the way, but I have to fault the movie more than myself. I was enjoying the special effects, the way the movie presented a Brad Pitt who really did look both 85 years old and four feet tall. And for a while I enjoyed the cookie-cutter characters, too. Most of them were based on tried-and-true movie character templates ... but admirable templates, like the loving adoptive mother, the dancer with a heart of gold, and the friendly, mysterious foreigner who opens up the world for the young protagonist. And lets not forget the young protagonist himself. I gotta give it to Brad Pitt; there must be a special challenge in wearing tons of prosthetic devices and makeup and acting believably as a ten year old boy in an octogenarian's body. Generally speaking, Pitt pulled it off.

But after the first hour or 75 minutes or so the movie began to meander and never really got back on course. I got bored and found myself with time to draw parallels between Benjamin Button and all the movies like it that have come before. For instance, Forrest Gump had a commissioned officer in the military who later became his captain on a private commercial boat. Working backwards, appropriately, Benjamin Button had a captain on a private commercial boat who later became his commissioned naval superior.

Forrest Gump lost a beloved, secondary friend in war. So did Benjamin. Forrest kept drifting in and out of the life of his one true love. So did Benjamin. Oh, and for Titanic fans, there's even the death of close friends after a tragedy in icy ocean waters.

Once the movie began to bore me I never got interested again. The last hour of this movie dragged on and on and on like few movies I've seen before. I'd honestly have walked out if it weren't for the fact that my wife was enjoying the movie and did want to see how it ended. She did a better job than I did of suspending the critical eye of a serious movie fan. It was my loss.

When all was said and done I was thrilled to see the closing credits. Several people in the theater were wiping tears from their faces. They'd really enjoyed the movie. I was jealous of them. I was sure then, and I'm sure now, that if I'd managed to stay in the right frame of mind I'd have somehow enjoyed this movie. It was not a life-changer, this wasn't Ikiru or Schindler's List ... and it hadn't meant to be. This was the cinematic equivalent of a get-well card and a box of candy. It's what I think of as a "housewife movie," like Big Fish or The Notebook. There's nothing wrong with that. If you're in the right mood. I guess I just wasn't.

On our way into the theater, I had found myself standing in line behind an older fellow who was talking to a friend of his whom he'd met up with by chance at the theater. One friend asked the other what movie he was here to see, and the other had responded "Oh, uh ... it's The Lifestyle Of Benjamin Franklin." I had a quiet little laugh at the old guy's expense. But in the end, the laugh was on me. A movie about the supposedly outrageous habits of Ben Franklin would have surely been more entertaining than this one was. Shorter, too.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

A look back at the year as it closes ... each of the thumbnail pictures below is clickable. Click one and it'll take you to the relevant post.

This is 2008 as I followed it at the blog. The political, the cultural, the personal and the trivial. Mostly the trivial.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Links, Movies, Music, Personal, Politics

Synopsis

The late Domino Harvey lead a life that might make Buckaroo Bonzai look like Walter Mitty. She was a fashion model, a bounty hunter, a drug addict and a television star. This is her story, told in a hyperactive, violent style with lots of flash, blood, color and volume.

Pros:

• Christopher Walken.


• Tom Waits music in the soundtrack.


• The DVD only cost me two bucks.

Cons:

• For all it's bang and sizzle, it's boring.


• The story makes no sense.


• The characters aren't interesting.


• Hardees has a decent burger I could have bought with that two bucks.

Generally:

One star, maybe one and a half on a five scale. A well made piece of crap.

Extended Review:

Director Tony Scott has turned out quite a few films that I've really enjoyed. Some of them (Man On Fire, Days of Thunder) are slightly guilty pleasures. Others (Enemy of the State, True Romance, Crimson Tide) are as good as action movies get.

Last Black Friday, Wal-Mart had a number of DVDs on sale for two bucks, and one of them was Tony Scott's Domino. I figured it was just bound to be worth two bucks. The Tony Scott brand-name alone was worth two bucks, right? Plus, the movie featured Mickey Rourke, and was one of the movies he's made since his mostly praiseworthy comeback. Christopher Walken was in there, too. He's always entertaining. I figured it was a no-brainer. I mean, geez, you can't even rent a movie for two bucks these days.

Well, I've just finished watching Domino and, yeah, I guess it was worth my two bucks ... but not a dime more than that. I don't see me ever watching it again, it's just gonna gather dust on our DVD shelf from now on. This isn't the worst movie Tony Scott has ever turned out (that would be Top Gun), but there is very little to recommend it. I'd kinda like to be able to take it back and retrieve my two bucks.

Domino is loosely based on the true story of Domino Harvey, who was a bounty hunter and may have also been a fashion model. She certainly had the looks to be, as does Keira Knightley, who portrays her in this film to the best of her limited acting abilities. If I'm honest, though, even an actress with the talents of Emma Thompson would have had a difficult time creating a memorable performance in this loud, bombastic mess of a film. Tony Scott gambled this movie's potential on a heap of jumbled edits, odd camera angles, bizarre narration, nonsensical subtitles and unhinged imagery that makes Fight Club look like Gosford Park.

Sometimes a big, kinetic, messy movie can be entertaining in it's own right. See Oliver Stone's demented morality tale U-Turn for a mostly successful example. And sometimes a director can emphasize style over substance and still manage to convey something meaningful about the human condition. For instance, I think that Danny Boyle's Trainspotting succeeds as a cautionary tale because that movie's hallucinogenic blur is an organic element of the story.

Now and then (very rarely, but occasionally), a movie can get by just on the strength of it's visuals. The Matrix, for example, and Tarsem Singh's The Cell both entertained me, and neither had much more to offer than their distinctly rich visual pallets.

And then there's Domino, a movie with nothing to offer but style and nothing new to offer even in those terms. Tony Scott is just rehashing his own body of work here, and borrowing from Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, and others.

Domino features one of the most incoherent stories I've ever seen in a movie. It may be full of plot-holes, too. I don't know, though, because I found the story impossible to follow. None of the characters were interesting or appealing enough to make me want to follow the story. And the movie's satirical subtext, about the emptiness of so-called "reality TV" and our culture's fascination with the cult of celebrity, is a little bit tired.

But I have to admit that Rourke and Walken both got about as much as anyone could have out of their cheesy characters. And seeing Tom Waits turn up late in the film in a small, unbilled role put a smile on my face. (That's a surprise I suppose I've just ruined for you. Sorry 'bout that.) And I have to admit that I enjoyed the soundtrack, including a number of Waits songs. They gave me something fun to at least listen to while the movie as a whole was failing to entertain me.

The worst movie I've seen in years and years was Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. Domino was nowhere near that bad. Then again, a 200 degree vodka enema wouldn't have been as bad as watching Zombie's awful movie.

Still, it doesn't speak well for Domino that the best thing I can say about it is that it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen. the cardinal sin for loud, flashy, violent, bloody, offensive movies is if they're also boring. This movie commits that sin. I think it's safe to say that everyone involved in this film will do better work than they turned in here.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Just some things that caught my eye:

• Smashing Pumpkins don't intend to release another album:

  According to The Pulse of Radio, SMASHING PUMPKINS frontman Billy Corgan says the band will not release any more new albums, citing the lack of enthusiasm for their 2007 comeback effort, "Zeitgeist", as one of the reasons.

  Rock fans reacted to the news with shock and horror, exclaiming "Smashing Pumpkins released an album in 2007?! Why??"


• It looks like UAW greed and hubris have killed the auto company bailout for now. Good. Modern labor unions can keep their heads in the sand if they want, but they shouldn't be able to drag the tax payer down with them.
  
  Then again, maybe it's not willful obstinance on the parts of the labor unions. I've spent enough time with union types to tell you that they really might just be that stupid.


• Speaking of the auto bailout, here's an awesome graphic that's making the rounds. I saw it at Fairly Conservative:

  

  
  It's funny because it's true. Throw in the entitlement attitude of the UAW and you've got a pretty strong batch of socialist BS brewing up, there.
  
  I'd really like to see lawmakers come up with the balls to shut this bailout down FOR GOOD. Make the big three file for bankruptcy and force the average UAW lunch-bucket member to wake up and smell the coffee. Maybe they'll ask themselves if big labor has been screwing us all for years now. Maybe? Nah, couldn't be. Those guys are watching out for the little guy, right?
  
  Sure they are, dumbass. Keep paying your monthly dues, no need to use the brain God gave you.



• The Ol' Broad had a fairly cute Obama-inspired reworking of The Twelve Days Of Christmas. You can click here to watch the whole thing, or just watch the truncated video below if you only want to hear the twelfth and final, complete verse:



• I don't agree with Scott at Good News Film Reviews about the movie The Dark Knight. I enjoyed the movie, Scott didn't enjoy the Batman Begins sequel very much at all. And, I have to admit, he makes a really strong case against the film. I'd hate to be the guy who has to go up against Scott in a formal debate.


• Bob Parks has the details on the body of a child found near the home of Casey Anthony. It's unfortunate ... tragic, really ... but if this turns out to be the body of little Caylee Anthony, at least there'll be some closure.
  
  And I'll just say this about that: Casey Anthony appears to be a self-centered, lying, down-right-evil bitch. It looks like her parents have enabled her and coddled her for her entire life. They never made her be accountable for her actions and they never made her stand on her own two feet. Of course, that doesn't always lead to murder, but no good ever comes of it.



• Dennis Miller says that if Obama really claims that he worked his way through the Chicago political machine without ever touching corruption, he's either "oblivious or disingenuous." It's darned hard to argue with that.
  
  It reminds me of my own former Senator, Chuck Robb, who once went to a hotel room with the woman on the Playboy magazine cover to the right. Robb admitted that he got naked in that room with that woman, and that she gave him a massage ... but that nothing else happened.
  
  This was Chuck Robb's way of saying "I believe that everyone within the sound of my voice is a f----ng idiot."
  
  Either that, or he's telling the truth and he's some sort of animate vegetable-alien thing from the planet Lethargis.
  
  And get this: Chuck Robb got re-elected. Which means that I can't say too much about the people who do the voting in Chicago.

Labels: Movies, Music, News, Politics, You Tube

I gave the movie five stars when I reviewed it this past summer. I can't rate the two-disc special edition DVD as high.

The two-disc DVD is something of a disappointment. Wendy and I went ahead and splurged on it as an early Christmas present for ourselves yesterday, and watching the extra features today left me feeling a bit let down.

Director Chris Nolan has said that he intentionally avoids including cut scenes and blooper reels on his DVDs out of respect for his actors. He feels that actors might not be as willing to take chances with their performances if they worry that their every misstep or mistake is going to end up on the DVD. I see his point.

Still, the untimely death of Heath Ledger, combined with the incredibly enthusiastic reception of his wonderful performance as the Joker, almost mandates a special look at his work on the DVD. It would have been nice to see even a fifteen-minute tribute reel. Have Nolan talk about collaborating on the character with Ledger, have the other actors talk about the experience of working with him. I've seen those kinds of things on TV, I've heard the actors talk about how much they enjoyed working with Ledger. It should have been easy to at least throw something together for the DVD.

Even the inclusion of the content generated for the movie's viral internet marketing campaign would have been an upgrade from what's actually included on the second disc.

Compared to the Batman Begins two-disc DVD set, which was loaded with extras, The Dark Knight special edition DVD is far less than it might have been.

I noticed in the product specs at Amazon that the blu-ray version has a couple of extra features that aren't on the standard DVD set. So that's how they're gonna play it, huh? I guess we're all going to have to buy blu-ray players in the next few years.

Still, the reason to buy any DVD set is for the movie itself. And The Dark Knight holds it's own on the small screen. Yeah, it's a big-budget summer blockbuster ... but it's also a character study and a dark, brooding piece of comic book film noir. The 5.1 surround sound mix sounds great and the digital transfer is beautiful to look at.

Buy The Dark Knight on DVD for the movie itself. The special features on the two-disc set are a let-down. There's better Dark Knight related non-movie footage available for free on YouTube. With that in mind, there's no need to spend an extra five bucks on the special edition. Regular DVD owners should get the single disc movie-only DVD and enjoy another psychotic joy-ride through Gotham in the comfort of their own homes.

Labels: Movies

Sometimes it's annoying when popular rock and pop songs are used as the soundtrack for a movie. It's often just one more symptom of a movie maker's absolute lack of creativity, originality and focus.

But, sometimes, a pop song is worked into a movie with real creativity and with real dramatic impact. When a pop song is used well in a movie, both the song and the movie benefit from the mix. Sometimes, in fact, a pop song is used so well in a movie that I can't help but associate the song and the movie forever after. It's a tribute to the skills of the director and/or writer when, working completely independent of the song writer, he or she is able to turn a pop song into an important element of a good movie. Put simply, when it's done right, it's awesome.

Some directors are particularly good at pulling it off. Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino come to mind. Other directors try it rarely, but sometimes to great effect.

This is a list of some of my favorite examples of doing it right.

But first, some rules:

• The song must be arguably popular before it's inclusion in the movie. Unknown songs included to quirky effect on movie soundtracks don't count. Sorry, Garden State.



• The song must be the original recording by the artist that made the song popular. Songs re-recorded for a movie aren't up for consideration. So forget about Guns N' Roses and their unfortunate remake of Sympathy for the Devil from Interview With The Vampire.



• The song can't be something written specifically for the movie. It must be something that the director and/or writer included in the film without the direct contribution of the song's writer. Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On will forever be associated with Titanic, but it doesn't count.
  
  
• The song must be a plot element, not not movie background music. In other words, the characters must be aware of the song. Maybe it's playing in the bar or at the house where they are during a given scene. Maybe they're singing along with the song. But it can't simply be part of the soundtrack. As much as I enjoy the music used in Goodfellas, it doesn't count.



• The song can't be a plot element because it's being performed live in the movie. That rules out nearly every musician biopic ever made. For the song to qualify, it has to be played on a radio, a jukebox, or from some other recorded source. It's importance in the scene should seem almost accidental.

And now ... the movies and the music (eleven songs, ten films), in no particular order.

• The Song: American Girl by Tom Petty & The Hearbreakers
  The Movie: The Silence Of The Lambs
  
  Brooke Smith (Grey's Anatomy) is one of the best unsung elements of Jonathan Demme's suspense masterpiece. As Catherine Martin, a prisoner and potential victim of serial killer "Buffalo Bill," Smith manages to convey both extreme vulnerability and surprising resourcefulness. In her first scene in the film, Catherine is driving home, singing along with the radio, utterly unaware of the maniac waiting in the darkness. I can't hear this song without picturing her singing along:





• The Song: You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry
  The Movie: Pulp Fiction
  
  The unspoken attraction between John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction is what makes the movie's first third work so well. That connection culminates (you might even say it's consummated) when the two characters enter a dance competition at a 50's themed club:




• The Songs: Sister Christian by Night Ranger and Jesse's Girl by Rick Springfield
  The Movie: Boogie Nights
  
  The primary characters in Boogie Nights are caught in a terrible downward spiral. Late in the film, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly and Thomas Jayne attempt to rob Alfred Molina's whacked out, music obsessed drug dealer. Molina blasts Night Ranger and Rick Springfield on his stereo while his "pool boy" walks around letting off fire crackers ... and the tension builds to tremendous heights. The moment when the tape stops and flips to the other side is particularly jarring:




• The Song: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
  The Movie: Wayne's World
  
  It's silly, it's trivial, it's infectious fun:




• The Song: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
  The Movie: The Big Lebowski
  
  I considered the possibility that this scene violated my "character cognizance" rule, since it's an elaborate dream sequence. But I decided that the scene's inclusion was valid since the Dude is clearly aware of the song. He even choreographs his dream to the music. Besides, it's an intrinsic element of who Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski is. "Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man."




• The Song: Old Time Rock And Roll by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
  The Movie: Risky Business
  
  Enough said:




• The Song: The Logical Song by Supertramp
  The Movie: Magnolia
  
  Frankly, I'm surprised at how much luck I've had finding YouTube clips for the scenes in my list. This is the only one I ran into where my luck ran out completely. No YouTube clip for the scene I'm thinking about apparently exists.
  
  That's unfortunate, because it's a great scene from a wonderful film. And it's a film that uses music inventively and to great effect. Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia utilizes the music in it's soundtrack better than just about any film I can think of. Several of the songs are original compositions by Aimee Mann, written specifically for the film. The scene that revolves around her song Wise Up is particularly well done.
  
  But the scene I'm thinking about involves a horribly sad emotional breakdown by William H. Macy's character. His character is a closeted gay man and former child star with a crush on a bartender at a local bar. As his character confesses his feelings and argues with other bar patrons, Supertramp's Logical Song plays on the jukebox and heightens the drama. I wish I could have found that scene, it's remarkably well constructed.
  
  Lacking that scene, here's a trailer for Anderson's outstanding movie:




• The Song: Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealer's Wheel
  The Movie: Reservoir Dogs
  
  It's a horribly violent, gory scene ... so don't watch this clip without a strong stomach.
  
  It's also one of the most suspenseful, gripping scene's that Quentin Tarantino has ever directed. It might be his finest sequence ever. Like the scene in Boogie Nights with the flipping cassette tape, Tarantino uses the music's absence powerfully. Mr. Blonde begins torturing Marvin the cop, blasting Stealer's Wheel on the radio. Then he walks out to his car to get a can of gasoline, and we follow him, leaving the music behind. When he returns to the warehouse, the very second that I hear the song begin again, my gut clinches up with dread. And that happens every time I see the film. I've probably seen it six or eight times.




• The Song: Tu Es Partout by Edith Piaf
  The Movie: Saving Private Ryan
  
  This song probably isn't something you're going to hear on the radio today, but going by the strictest understanding of my rules, it qualifies.
  
  Shortly before the climactic battle in Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks and Matt Damon pause and listen to Edith Piaf on a record player. Hanks translates the lyrics for Damon, and they talk about their families and the lives they've left behind to go to war. The tension is unspoken, but palpable. Both men know that a battle looms and that they are terribly outgunned, and that neither of them are likely to survive. The song provides both soldiers a moment of respite that's both poignant and profound.
  
  And, of course, there's no YouTube clip for this one, either.
  
  But I did find the song, uploaded to YouTube, by someone else who apparently associates it indelibly with Saving Private Ryan:




• The Song: In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel
  The Movie: Say Anything
  
  It's overt. There's nothing subtle about this scene. You could even call it ham-fisted. But there's no denying that it works exactly like it's supposed to:

This is only a partial list of many good examples of movie scenes that utilize pop music organically and artistically. I'm sure you may have a favorite that I didn't include on the list. I'd love to hear about other scenes I may have forgotten ... or may have never seen!

Labels: Movies, Music, You Tube

• Just a reminder that I really do believe that, nowadays, the best reason to visit this blog is to see the awesome stuff I share from my Google Reader. The box o' links is at the top of the column to the left.



• Keith Roy Weatherley was sitting in his car when the police tried to arrest him.
  
  He was pleasuring himself with a jar of spaghetti sauce.
  
  It took four officers to remove him from his car. While wrestling with those officers, Weatherley continued trying to pleasure himself.
  
  Afterwards, when the police searched his car, they found pornography, a home-made sex aid, women's stockings and a Jack Russell terrier.
  
  I DID NOT make any of that up.
  
  You know, I think that the best thing about having a physical relationship with spaghetti sauce is that you can't get it PREGO! HA!
  
  I also want to say that it's high time these simple, small-minded Republican bigots stop preventing marriages between people and pasta toppings.



• Yep, that's about it:

  

  HT: The Ol' Broad.




• It's turkey! It's food! Darn near all of you will be eating turkey next week, and that turkey will have been slaughtered in the exact same way! Get over it, geeeez, ya friggin' crybabies!



• The movie I now officially want to see more than any other movie is Darren Aronofsky's Mickey Rourke vehicle, The Wrestler:




• Hey, whattaya know! George Dubya ChimpHitler somehow managed during his administration to end global warming! Now, I know that it would just be FAAAAR too much to ask for you leftists to give him credit for his amazing feat, but can you at least quell the alarmist crap for now?
  
  HT: Instapundit.



• My non-blogging friend The Governor brought my attention to the following:
  

  Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif,), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee strategic forces subcommittee, with oversight of missile defense programs, said missile defense programs will receive hard and long scrutiny next year.
  
  No rogue nations have been dissuaded by formation of the U.S. missile defense shield from continuing to develop long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, she commented.
  
  "The truth is, is that it hasn't caused anybody to stop doing what they're doing," she said. "And if it hasn't done that, then holy moly, what's the point" of developing missile defenses?"

  
  Rogue nations are still developing long range missiles and nuclear weapons ... therefore, US missile defense programs are useless. Yep, makes PERFECT F&%$%NG SENSE to me.

Labels: Blogs, Links, Media, Movies, News, Obama Watch, Politics

This looks like American Movie by way of This Is Spinal Tap. And it's a real documentary about a real band. (I vaguely remember Anvil from the '80's.)

I think this has the potential to be very funny and sad at the same time, just like American Movie. I look forward to seeing it. There isn't a proper trailer for the film, apparently, and the clip above is the best clip I could find at YouTube. Click here to see a shorter, better one (although not an embeddable one) at RollingStone.com. There are also several clips at IMDB.

Labels: Humor, Movies, Music, You Tube

Synopsis

A pothead and his pot dealer get caught up in a murder, along with the dealer's dealer. But this is a comedy, so nobody is particularly good at what they're doing. Not the perpetually stoned pothead and his dealer, not the maladroit trafficker who wants them all dead, not the two bumbling hitmen who are working out their own jealousy issues, and not the competing Asian drug cartel which starts a drug-war just as all of this goes down. Understand? I didn't, either.

Pros:

• Seth Rogan is still likable and funny as his usual stoned, dirty Winnie-The-Pooh character.


• James Franko and Danny McBride are fairly funny, too, as half-assed pot pushers.

Cons:

• A lot of violence that doesn't fit with the rest of the movie.


• More "roll your eyes" moments than I can remember.


• A few long, dry passages without any laughs.


• Some cameos were distractions. I should not miss key dialogue because I'm thinking "Is that Ed Begley, Jr? I think that's Ed Begley, Jr. Hey, I think that's the first time I ever heard him drop the f-bomb." Etc.


• They even brought in Kevin Corrigan, a legit dramatic actor who's played criminal types in American Gangster and The Departed and even True Romance. I scratched my head for an hour trying to figure out where I'd seen him before. When I finally figured it out I felt tricked. I'd have recognized him a mile away in a crime drama. But in an Apatow movie? Geesh.

Generally:

1.5 on a five scale. And it wouldn't score that high if I just didn't flat out like Seth Rogan.

Extended Review:

Pineapple Express is the latest, and the least, in the string of commercially successful comedies from Judd Apatow's cinematic cabal. Like the superior comedies that preceded it, this movie has been brought to the screen by a pack of producer/writer/actor types, including Apatow, Seth Rogan, Danny McBride, Evan Goldberg ... and this time directed by David Gordon Green (of all people), the indie darling behind All The Real Girls and Undertow.

There are a number of possible reasons to explain why Pineapple Express falls short. Maybe it was that the director's "artistic" sensibilities conflicted with the slapstick anything-for-a-laugh approach that Apatow's productions employ.

Maybe it was that Apatow and crew were a little giddy about their first chance to make a movie with guns, squibs, explosions and fake blood. They sure throw the violence around everywhere in this film without ever really establishing a "motif" for the violent content. Movies like Kill Bill take the violence to a ridiculous extreme to establish that the story takes place in it's own world, not the real world. Other films, such as Blackhawk Down, use violence to establish a gritty realism. Then there are movies like Shoot 'Em Up, where stylized, bloody violence is played entirely for laughs, like a mock Looney Tunes cartoon.

Pineapple Express seems to want the violence to do all of that, and then some. So there's no real context for it. One character is shot something like seven times over the course of the film and brushes it off. His bullet wounds become a running gag ("Am I really stoned or have I just lost that much blood?") Other characters are shot in the head with bloody, violent, sudden realism. There's a huge fight between three men who trash a house (ala The Three Stooges) and try in vain to hurt each other. That bit is funny, but the bigger fight toward the end, involving the destruction of a barn, is just a bloody mess.

I don't mind violence in a movie if it makes sense. If it establishes and adheres to it's own context. If it doesn't, violent content can become a distraction. Too much of it can ruin a movie. Maybe it was all the gunfire and blood that ultimately drove the Pineapple Express off the rails.

Other elements of the film were, I admit, pretty good. If you enjoy Seth Rogan's modern slacker stoned-Albert-Brooks routine, you'll probably enjoy his performance here. I happen to like the guy and I did enjoy watching him schlub his way through this series of misadventures. His characer had, as he always does in these films, his big "come to Jesus" moment when he realized that he needed to change his life. But it seemed tacked on here rather than part of the larger theme.

And that's another complaint with Pineapple Express: The absolute absence of a larger theme. Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The 40 Year Old Virgin, are all vulgar comedies built on timeless coming-of-age templates. The characters have actual arcs, the stories have clear beginnings, middles and ends, and when the film is over we feel like we've had a ... well, an experience ... by watching the movie.

Not so with Pineapple Express. This time we've just watch Rogen bumble his way through a great deal of violence. There are laughs along the way. A gag involving a car chase with the driver's foot through the window was a hoot. James Franco and Danny McBride both get a couple of big laughs with their understated delivery of a couple of classic one-liners. Best of all, Pineapple Express contains the funniest non sequitur Jude Law reference that I've ever heard. That one joke is almost enough to justify the mess you have to wade through to get to it.

But not quite.

I can't recommend Pineapple Express to fans of the Rogan-Goldberg-Apataw comedy formula. That formula itself is probably still a great receipe for guffaws and wet-snort laughter and, gosh darn it, a good lesson learned along the way.

This time, though, they messed with the formula, added violence and lots of blood and references to talk radio and villians played by the oddly out of place Gary Cole and Rosie Perez. This ain't a good mix.

I don't know, maybe throwing Jonah Hill in there somewhere would have brought balance to the force. I doubt it, though. They'd have probably cast him as another gun-crazy thug.

Hopefully they'll get back to the good stuff with the next film, the Apatow directed Funny People. I can't wait to find out. After all, it's gonna take more than one rotten pineapple to totally stop the Apatow/Rogan comedy express.

Trailer (Explicit language)

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

The latest edition of The Carnival of Cinema is up at Good News Film Reviews. Plenty of good reading, as always.

Labels: Blogs, Links, Movies

Synopsis

A child-killer stalks a German city in the early 30's. As families panic and the police prove incapable of catching the maniac, the city's criminal underworld enacts a plan of it's own.

Pros:

• A classic. The movie's impact on eighty years of cinema is on display in every frame.


• The actors are all outstanding; each seems to honestly be the character he or she portrays.


• Tremendous insight into the "human condition."

Cons:

• A black and white, German subtitled film with long passages of absolute silence is not an easy sell in 2008.

Generally:

5 on a five scale. A must-see for students of film, serious and casual alike.

Extended Review:

Some classic films are easier to admire than enjoy. The 1933 King Kong, for example, is a movie that I appreciate on a clinical level ... even if the movie never really draws me in. Citizen Kane is another one: I watch it and I marvel at the genius of Orson Welles, but I never feel personally involved in the story.

Then there are classic pictures that effect me emotionally. Boris Karloff stumbles painfully through Frankenstein and my heart goes out to a monster who never asked to be born. And I get so emotionally involved in Atticus Finch's closing arguments during the trial in To Kill A Mockingbird that I'm absolutely convinced that no jury could convict.

Fritz Lang's 1931 classic M works on me in both ways. For the first half of the movie I find myself admiring shots and sequences that might be hard to film even with today's technology. Sometimes I'm distracted from the story by a sense of wonder: "How on earth did they do that with a camera in 1931?"

By the powerful final act of M, however, my investment in the movie is entirely emotional. Until the final act, Peter Lorre, as the story's heinous child-murderer, is basically an evil, one-dimensional cartoon. Then, seemingly at odds with the rest of the movie, Lorre delivers a surprisingly moving monologue about his inability to suppress his urge to kill. Cowering at the feet of the city's assembled criminals and gangsters, Lorre begs for the mercy of a crowd intent on killing him. It makes for demanding viewing.

M is a German movie made during the rise of the Nazi party, so it's probably not surprising that the movie is concerned with themes of power and corruption. The comfort of the crowd is a major theme; the ability one might have to do things as part of a mob that one would never do alone. Paranoia and the power of false accusations are major elements here, too.

During the last hour, when Lorre is literally marked to ensure that he can be identified publicly, it's almost impossible not to see the apparent message in Lang's dramatic symbolism.

What's surprising about M is that the guilt of Lorre's character is never a matter of question. He's guilty, we see that clearly, and the audience hopes along with the city he torments that he'll be captured. Lang never intended to make a statement about an innocent man falling prey to a city's fear.

It seems to me that Lang's greater theme was simply about the power of an angry mob. Not only it's power to fall upon a victim ... but it's power to rob each individual involved of his or her own humanity. Mob mentality can deprive any or all of us of our souls. It can turn a just cause into an excuse for barbarism. Lang seems to be saying that there's the potential for horrible violence in each of us, given the security of a gathering crowd. Given the opportunity, any one of us might find something inside himself that he didn't know was there. Even if it's only the willingness to go along with the group.

No wonder that the movie was banned in Nazi Germany.

M is sometimes difficult to watch, but it's rewards are many fold. In terms of cinematography, history, and moral clarity, M is truly one of the great films.

Sort of a trailer, a montage from M:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

The legendary actor, one of my favorites, has passed away at the age of 83.

"He was smiling... That's right. You know, that, that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it 'fore, they could tell right then that they weren't a-gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Ol' Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he's a natural-born world-shaker."

- From Cool Hand Luke.

Labels: Movies, News

(Note: I promise, the brief political bit here is played entirely for laughs. I'm laying off politics for a while in a desperate, flagrant, obvious attempt to get my four-or-so readers back.)

David Blaine is probably the world's greatest magician. Well, maybe he's really more an alchemist than a magician. He's figured out a way to turn nothing interesting at all into money, power and fame. And that's real magic.

In 2005, Forbes called Blaine the the 98th most powerful celebrity in the world. That's not quite as powerful as that Malcolm in the Middle kid, but clearly more powerful than Amanda Bynes.

David's most recent spectacle involved hanging upside down for a long time and then pretending to drop. Apparently, most people who saw the trick responded with boos/yawns. Something must have went wrong, and David Blaine says that it's all Dubya's fault. The emphasis below is mine.

Magician David Blaine pulled a string of excuses out of his sleeve to explain why his latest high-profile stunt went wrong - even blaming President Bush's Wednesday night prime-time speech.

A day after finishing his latest "trick" - hanging upside down over Central Park for 60 hours before taking a "Dive of Death" from a 44-foot-high platform, a TMZ.com cameraman asked Blaine why the stunt went awry...

"...because of the president's speech, my show was delayed 15 minutes and all of the wind picked up," he said.

The (hanging like a) bat thing lost some luster when Blaine started taking breaks every hour to stand on his own two feet.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Blaine nodded and smiled to hundreds of fans watching the stunt as they screamed, "Jump! Jump!" and, "Do it!"

The screams for Blaine to "Jump! Do it!" might not have been related to the trick.

I've really got to say, this is the last straw with Dubya, as far as I'm concerned.

First he stole the 2000 election, probably by dropping in on a wire like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible ...

... then he started a fictitionous war in the desert paradise of Iraq by telling a bunch of vicious lies ...

... then he borrowed the Sorcerer's hat and conjured up Hurricane Katrina ...

... and I've always suspected that Dubya kidnapped the Lindburgh baby.

But now he's gone too far. Ordering his cabal of fascist Neocon cronies to sabotage David Blaine is just beyond the pale. Dubya MUST be impeached. Impeached, severely scolded, hosed down with cold water and beaten with a rake.

Of course, Dubya is far too stupid to have pulled it off by himself. This smells like Dick. Dick Cheney, of course, must be responsible.

Blaine's magic is amazing. I'm not even sure how to describe some of his acomplishments. But I'll try.

David Blaine has:

• Laid in a box for a long time.


• Stood on top of a pole for a long time.


• Sat inside of a box without eating. As Chris Rock said, "That's not magic. That's life in the projects."


• Stood inside of a container of water and breathed through a tube for a long time.

Future stunts he's considering include

• Not changing his underwear for six days.


• Sitting on a couch and watching all 48 Hours of Nick-At-Night's Car 54 Where Are You? Marathon, sustained by nothing but root beer and Fritos. (I've tried this and it's very hard to do. Without dozing off.)


• Sitting in his car, in his driveway, and listening to all 100 songs of WXLZ 104 FM'S "100 Greatest Rock Songs Of The 70's". And get this ... he's considering singing along with Stairway To Heaven. So don't miss the final ten minutes.


• Playing Halo 2 nonstop for six hours without a bathroom break.


• Watching all 172 minutes of Beloved* without once rolling his eyes. Not even during the scene where Oprah pees in the backyard.

Personally, I can't wait. If anyone is capable of actually doing all of this nothing and getting paid for it, it's gotta be Blaine.

---

*Totally unrelated, extremely obscure sidenote about Beloved... next time you go to the fridge and find nothing to pour on your cereal, the best way to react is to put on a huge frowny-face and say, in your mopiest voice, "They took my milk. Them boys, they took my milk."

HT to Rey, although he might prefer to be unacknowledged, for getting me thinking about the ridiculousness of Beloved. I hope I've tied the topic into this post in a spurious and confusing way, as is befitting that particular movie.

Labels: Blogs, Entertainment, Humor, Links, Movies, News

In response to a question from MCF, I recently said that I expect to see a number of people dressed as The Joker this Halloween. Specifically, Chris Nolan's vision of Batman's arch-nemesis, as memorably portrayed by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

And, really, this is the costume that goth kids have been waiting for. All the elements are there:

• The character himself is the ultimate outcast


• The distinctive makeup with it's dark eyes and blood-red mouth is a goth classic. It's Robert Smith on steroids


• The morbid, carved rictus grin takes the look up another notch.


• The trench coat is a goth staple.


• The tragic death of the actor who immortalized the role adds all the gravitas any goth kid could want.

Do a Google Image search for "Joker Costume" and you'll find a ton of images. And you gotta love the irony of someone disguising his or her identity, only to tell us volumes about his or her real life. Here are a few of my favorites:

Is there anything sadder than a goth kid, all alone, in heavy makeup, taking his own picture in the bathroom? Yes. A goth kid, all alone, in heavy makeup, taking his own picture in the bathroom with mom's pink camera.

---

This guy basically gets it right, I gotta admit. The whacked-out expression, the slap-dash makeup, the dirty hair. This kid probably does have issues.

---

Well, the makeup isn't right for starters. The Joker in the movie had a more disheveled look, his makeup was usually pretty worn, sometimes barely there, and looked like he'd had it on for days. This kid looks like he's just applied about six pounds of makeup. Not to mention the "doe in the headlights" look really detracts from the menace of the Joker's look. the wig is a bit much, too. And posing in front of all those snapshots of that adorable baby ... man, that's the last straw right there. Sorry, Joker, the aesthetic is all wrong.

---

I call this one Joker! At The Disco.

---

Pretty cool; a sort of hybrid between Bob Kane's original concept and the new Joker look. This guy is probably more comics geek than goth kid. Kudos.

---

Oh, come on, dude. You gotta belong to it. The facial hair has got to go. You can grow back your awesome goatee in a week. Shave or don't bother. Otherwise, you're just a reminder of the lamest Joker ever, Caesar Romero, who didn't bother to shave his mustache. Pick a look, Junior. You can't be both The Joker and the drummer in Cold.

---

Is he dozing off? This guy apparently sleeps in his joker make-up. And he apparently sleeps in a chair because he's too lazy to clean that junk off his bed.

---

What, you couldn't afford the makeup to do the costume right? Spend all your money on Linkin Park posters? And why do I get the feeling that the white box on the futon contained that mail-order purple coat?

---

Oh, where do I begin. The posture is all wrong. If someone's gonna take your picture in your Joker costume, don't sit like you're one of fifteen kids waiting for the librarian to read The Brave Little Toaster. Secondly, if your hair isn't right, you should accept that you can't pull off the Joker's look. this guy looks more like Obama than Batman's enemy. A Joker we can believe in?

---

I'm not sure what's supposed to be going on here, but it probably involves Ecstasy.

---

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong. The whole point of the Joker's look is MAKEUP, not a mask. Wear MAKEUP if you're gonna dress like the Joker. Otherwise, what's the point? Can't decide who you like more, The Joker or Slipknot? Go home, dummy.

---

This last one isn't Joker related, it's just a bonus:

"Look, Magneto, I've had a long day. Don't make me get out of this chair."

Labels: Humor, Links, Movies

Scott tagged me:

1. Which actor do you think hasn't gotten the attention he/she deserves?

I'll give you three for the price of one:

David Morse has been very good in everything I've seen him in.

Andre Braugher was so good on Homicide: Life On The Street that I was convinced that he'd be a huge movie star. How'd THAT not happen?

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is an amazing actress.

2. What is your favorite movie line?

Oh, man. So many. Not necessarily lines I agree with, but instances where dialogue stuck out in a major way. Here are a few that pop into my head just now ... and how I remember reacting:

"They're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls." -- That line hit me like a kick in the gut. I'll never forget the coldness with which Louis Guss delevered it.

"Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man." -- I laughed and laughed and laughed. So many great lines in this movie, but this one stays with me.

"That'll do, pig. That'll do." -- Every time I see this movie I tell myself I won't cry when this last line is delivered. I've never pulled it off once.

"Who's the fellow owns this shithole?" -- With that one line the emotional tide of my all time favorite movie changed dramatically. I could write pages and pages and pages about the importance of that line alone, the choice to use profanity, the clinical, even delivery, the resonance .... man, what a line.

"You hear me talking, hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'm gonna get medieval on your ass." -- What can I say. Great line.

"Your mother's in here, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it." -- I just got a chill even THINKING about that line.

3. What is the absolute worst movies you've ever seen?

I won't bother linking to them. Why provide them any publicity? The first three that come to mind are:

The Village, with which M. Night Shyamalan first used his considerable powers for evil in an expression of contempt for this fans.

The Contender, which isn't a movie. It's a screed.

Dead Poet's Society, a movie that sends the totally wrong message about what a teacher is supposed to do. Just teach, teachers. You're familiar with the concept of teaching, right? Get down off your desk and teach. Dummy.

4. Is there a movie you hated when you first saw it and then later had to admit you were wrong?

I was actually angry after I saw 28 Days Later because the marketing promised that the movie would scare me into therapy. It didn't scare me at all and I felt ripped off.

Afterwards, upon a second viewing, I came to the conclusion that it's actually a pretty darn good b-movie.

5. What is your biggest guilty pleasure movie - the one you're ashamed you enjoy?

Three come to mind:

Titanic. I saw it in the theater seven times. Sue me.

Wyatt Earp. Hey, I think it's a good movie, but nobody else does, so I keep my mouth shut about it.

Borat. It might be the most vulgar 90 (or so) minutes ever committed to film without the word "Mondo" in the title. But it made me laugh so hard, and for so long.

If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. Scott asked that we specifically tag three people, and Unseen, MCF and Lorna came to mind.

Labels: Blogs, Links, Movies

Synopsis

A college student returns to his hometown to attend to his ill father. One day he makes a grisly discovery in an abandoned lot and soon finds himself neck deep in the town's hidden underworld of violence, drugs, perversion and corruption.

Pros:

• It's a trendsetter. You may have never seen Blue Velvet, but you've probably seen movies made by people who love this film.


• Dennis Hopper is one of the best when it comes to playing psychos. This movie might be his personal apex in that regard.


• If you like weird you'll find plenty to like here.

Cons:

• If you don't like weird this movie will annoy and/or upset you.


• The closing scenes are weak and feel contrived. I think director David Lynch may have been forced into an ending that just doesn't fit the film.


• You might feel the need to take a hot shower and scrub yourself with Ajax after watching Blue Velvet.

Generally:

3.5 on a five scale. David Lynch fans often call this his masterpiece. If oddball cinema is your thing, this one is a must-see ... genre fans will, I'm sure, rate this movie far higher than I do.

Extended Review:

I first saw Blue Velvet twenty years ago and I saw it again tonight. I liked it both times, but for different reasons. The first time I saw it I was just amazed by the balls-to-the-wall weirdness of the story and characters. This time I found myself entertained on kind of an academic level. I got a big kick out of the way director David Lynch and his cast seem to gleefully break all the rules of "good cinema."

There's symbolism in the movie, but it's overt and ham-fisted. Symbolic imagery is usually done with some subtlety. Symbols work best on a subconscious level. But in Blue Velvet, Lynch wanted everything in your face. So he cue's the audience that Blue Velvet is set in an idyllic little town with close-ups of flower-beds, white picket fences, and smiling fire-men, waving from the back of parade-ready fire-trucks.

Under the surface of Small Town USA there's an unseen criminal element that's just teeming with destruction and evil. Lynch lets us in on that early on in the film with yet another obvious symbol as his camera takes the viewers literally underground to see worms and bugs engaged in a chaotic death match.

Disjointed shots of a candle being blown out, relative to absolutely nothing in the story, sporadically signal the audience that some dark stuff is about to go down.

Kyle McLachlan's performance is, I think, deliberately wooden. He isn't playing a character here so much as satirizing an archetype. His character is Jeffery (not Jeff) who's so button-down and straight laced that he comes across like a mannequin, only not as hyperactive. As his reliable, respectable girl, Laura Dern is only missing the poodle skirt and bobby socks.

Kyle and Laura find themselves drawn into their town's dark side when they set out, Nancy Drew style, to solve a really neato mystery. But the underground in this town isn't an Eddie Haskel kind of scene. These bad guys are rapists, murderers, corrupt cops, perverts and drug pushers. Blue Velvet's bad guys aren't just bad ... they're evil.

As the damsel in distress ... a damsel who seems to relish her particular form of distress ... Isabella Rossellini is occasionally heartbreaking and often horrifying. If there's any subtlety in the movie, it's to be found in Rossellini's eyes. One important, late scene concerns Rossellini interacting with a child. She hugs the boy maternally, but her eyes briefly widen with a kind of numb horror ... and then the look is gone. Rossellini makes her character haunted and haunting, even in an ending that's far too upbeat for a movie filled with so much doom.

And then there's Dennis Hopper as a villain, Frank, with the strangest fetishes, addictions, habits, hobbies and motives of any movie bad guy in the last 50 years of cinema. This character is the psychotic leader of a psychotic gang, but maybe psychotic isn't the word. Maybe "psychotic" would be a step toward sanity for Frank. This guy physically attacks, verbally bludgeons, torments, tortures and kills. But that's not enough for Lynch. He wants to make sure that you know without a doubt that the Hopper character is waaaayyyy worse than anyone else in the movie. So Hopper's character is the only one in the entire movie that swears, and he slips the f-word into just about every one of his utterances. And then to put the icing on the cake, Frank seems to be playing it all for laughs. This is the creepiest of all of Hopper's creepy performances.

If this were another movie from another time, Blue Velvet's "evil under the rug of small town America" theme might play like a political statement. But there's just nothing political here. Lynch isn't interested in grand statements. In spite of all the bluster and bombast ... or maybe because of it ... Blue Velvet is really a movie about the quietest feelings, the ones we keep to ourselves. Paranoia. Dread. Grief. Loneliness.

Blue Velvet works as both a satire of and a tribute to a small town lifestyle that probably only ever existed in the movies and TV shows of the fifties and sixties. And it works, too, as a suspense film and a horror movie. It works in the same way that the best comic books work ... with a sort of earnest superficiality that's both compelling and cartoonish. The movie is obvious, outlandish and outrageous. It's also deeply sincere and sometimes very moving. You'll probably either hate it by the end of the first half hour or love it by the time the credits roll.

My personal favorite David Lynch film is The Straight Story, a low-key anomaly among his usually bizarre films. Some of his work has left me shaking my head, sometimes in confusion, sometimes with contempt. Blue Velvet is a weird film, to be sure. But when it comes to getting his weird on, Lynch never did it better than he did here.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

A review of Soylent Green at Good News Film Reviews started me thinking about films set in a dystopian reality. There have been quite a few, and the ones I've seen have ranged from brilliant to absolute crap.

Merriam-Webster defines a dystopia as "an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives." Dystopian stories are often set in an imagined future of our own world. The story-teller often wants to send a message about the type of future we might be headed for if we don't change our ways.

Is there a firm set of rules for how to make a great dystopian movie? Probably not. But I'll offer a few suggestions, anyway. For what it's worth...

• Make sure your story makes at least some sense...
  

  Terry Gilliam got so caught up in his futuristic vision while making his early film, Brazil, that he forgot to write a story. Brazil is a mess, full of bold visuals that don't have much impact because they're practically devoid of context. The film does hint at the talent Gilliam would display later (and futher down this list), but it was ultimately a meaningless, frustrating mess.




• ... but, then again, pure eye-candy can work, too.
  

  The Matrix doesn't have much to offer philosophically. It's nominal at best in terms of story. The plot has something to do with a world where machines use humans as batteries. The reality we experience every day is an illusion created by those machines. Whatever. The reason The Matrix works is because the special effects are amazing. The Wachowski's sent a clear signal about the film the minute they cast Keanu Reeves. This isn't a movie about story, character or acting. It's just a big cinematic theme-park with enough on the screen to hold any viewer's attention. In later sequels the Wachowski's made the mistake of trying to convey actual ideas. Turned out that they didn't have any.




• Don't stray too far from your acclaimed source material.
  

  In 1992, P.D. James published a wonderful science fiction novel entitled Children Of Men. The novel is both immensely entertaining and deeply thoughtful; full of interesting riffs on science, theology and the human condition. Unfortunately, Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 film adaptation scrapped the novel almost completely, disregarding all the major themes and even 75% of the story. Not surprisingly, the movie was a flop.
  
  By contrast, Zack Snyder's upcoming movie version of the popular Watchmen comic books is generating a tremendous buzz because it is said to stick to the source material in both style and substance.
  
  Both Watchmen and Children Of Men are distopian stories that hinge on an alternate version of our own recent past. And both books were successful because they were very well crafted. So why would a studio "option" one of these books and then almost entirely disregard it? How does it make sense to abandon nearly every element of the very material that drew the attention of the film-makers to begin with? It doesn't make sense. The movie makers behind Watchmen apparently knew that. Too bad about Children Of Men




• Cast Charlton Heston as the lead.
  

  OK, so maybe that's not practical. But movies set in a dystopian future were a specialty of Heston's. Some of the dystopian tales that featured Heston were very good. Well, at least one of them was; the first Planet of the Apes is as smart and fun now as it ever was. Soylent Green (mentioned above) retains a certain worthwhile quality in spite of the fact that, in retrospect, a lot of it is just cheesy. And then there's Omega Man, which really wasn't any good but did inspire a successful big-budget remake. So working with Heston, at the very least, did lead to reinterpretation.




• Character first.
  

  What's the point in telling a story about society gone bad if the story isn't relative to it's audience? Terry Gilliam recovered from Brazil with 12 Monkeys, a dystopian story that kept it's focus on it's characters. If you really sit down and examine this story about time travel, deadly viruses and underground revolutionaries, it falls apart. The reason 12 Monkeys doesn't fall apart ... the reason it is, in fact, very good ... is because the story is primarily concerned about the relationship between Bruce Willis as a man who says he's from the future and Madeleine Stowe as his psychiatrist (and eventual lover). Willis manages to give one of his best performances here, in fact. The movie's conclusion is highly improbable, but also highly emotional. Only well after the closing credits do you have time to reflect that the story didn't really make sense. But it doesn't matter then: You've already enjoyed the movie.




• When in doubt, animate.
  

  For years there's been speculation about a possible live-action remake of Katsuhiro Otomo's animated masterpiece, Akira. Sony, in fact, is said to have scrapped a planned live action version of the film only after the budget topped $300 million.
  
  Personally, I don't see any reason to make a live action version of Akira. In fact, I think it's a bad idea. Part of the reason that Akira is such a good film is because of it's brilliantly surreal imagery. A good film-maker can put all kinds of strange images in an animated film and convey exactly what he has in mind. Over the course of Akira's two-hour running time there are giant, menacing teddy bears, mysterious, floating telepathic children, and a character who's mutating arm seems to be on the verge of actually absorbing the whole universe. It's compelling stuff in Otomo's animated world. But those same images in a "real world" setting would probably seem perverse ... or random ... or, worst of all, silly.




• Bring the funny.
  
  

  Dystopian tales don't have to be all gloom and doom. The idea of a reality that darkly parallels our own can make for great satire. Mike Judge knows that, and his 2006 film Idiocracy is a smart, brazen laugh riot. Idiocracy imagines a future of diminishing returns, where the stupid people have simply outbred the smart ones, and everyone on earth is an absolute moron. It seems implausible, but Judge's points are sharp and resonant. After all, it isn't that big a leap to go from "Thank you for shopping, have a nice day" to "Welcome to Costco, I love you." And is it that hard to believe that a society that could put a living action figure in California's Governor's mansion might eventually put an American Gladiator in the White House? Not at all. Idiocracy laughs in the face our our unavoidable, stupid doom.




• The Lucas Factor.
  
  

  A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, George Lucas made a series of films about wars, rebellions and republics. The films are set in a world that is comparable to our own in many ways. There are six movies in the series. Only one of them is worth watching at all. That one was directed by someone other than Lucas.
  
  You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Labels: Movies, Watchmen

I'm the worst kind of gamer. I'm not sure what kind of nickname the hardcore gamers have for guys like me, but it's probably something like "lame old fart."

For starters, I prefer to play games on consoles, not PCs. I do play a few PC games, but I'm a product of the Atari generation and I believe deep down that if I'm not holding a controller in my hand, I'm not playing a game. Keyboards and Mouses (Mice? Mices?) are for work. Hand-held controllers are for gaming.

Probably my biggest sin as a pseudo gamer is that I'm stingy. I can't justify buying games for fifty and sixty bucks. It just seems like an outrageous price to me. So I wait for the prices to go down and by the time I get games, they're old.

And what's worse, by the time I spend five or eight bucks on an old game I typically put it in the console once for ten minutes and then take it out and never play it again.

And I'm really only loyal to a couple of franchises. I love the Halo games and I love the Splinter Cell games. But I love both of them for their stellar single-player games, not for the popular online multiplayer. See, I'm too cheap to spend the fifty bucks to get Xbox360 Live. So I've only ever played Halo 2 on line once and I've never played my favorite franchise, Splinter Cell, on line at all.

Splinter Cell, by the way, is the greatest video game series of all time.

But, yeah, I do see used copies of well-reviewed games for a couple of bucks on clearance now and then. And I've bought a couple of them. And this summer, thanks to two immobile months spent recovering from bladder cancer, I did have time to play a few of those untouched "classic" games that had been gathering dust on a shelf here. Thankfully, they were backward-compatible and would run on our 360 ... and, thankfully, the were still as good as their long-ago raving reviews indicated.

---

XIII (pronounced "Thirteen") is a first person shooter that's based on a comic book and it actually incorporates comic book style story-boarding and graphics into it's action and story. It's a first-person shooter with a little more than the basic "run and gun" repetition that makes games like Doom get old quickly. Some of the challenges are the usual kind, shoot the bad guys, protect the innocent, keep alive til the end of the game. But other elements of the game reminded me of Half Life in that you sometimes had to solve puzzles and gather information before you could advance.

The story of XIII is good enough that it kept me genuinely interested in which pieces of the puzzle would be revealed and what new twists would take place in each new level. The conceit is that you're a Jason Bourne type secret agent. You have amnesia, but pieces of your memory come back to you with each level you complete. So the story's forward motion and the character's backstory develop at the same time. And the game boasts some surprising big names in the voice-over rolls. Actors like David Duchovny, Adam West and rapper/actress Eve.

The games visuals are very steeped in comic book tradition, and if you don't like comics, you might find the game annoying. Panels pop up to show action, words are conveyed in speech balloons, and there are even visual representations of sound effects: THWK! Wham! TAP TAP Tap tap... I enjoyed XII. As of now I'm at about the half-way point and will probably go back to see the story through.

One complaint is that when I play XIII on our 360, I can't load my saved games from the saved games menu. Every time I try it takes me back to the beginning of the level. It's a pain in the butt, especially if in your saved game you'd made a lot of progress. I think this is a 360 glitch with this specific game, but I haven't found anything on the Interworld Wide Web-nets.

By the way, XIII has been turned into a TV miniseries with Stephen Dorff and Val Kilmer, and it'll hit the tube some time next year.

---

Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time provides a next-gen update of the original Prince Of Persia from the late '80's. This is a third person game that requires that you control the main character with some stealth, ingenuity and creativity. As a Splinter Cell fan, there was a lot here to appeal to me.

Basically, in Prince of Persia you spend half of your time fighting off hordes of badguys (sand monsters) and the other half of your time solving puzzles wherein you figure out how to navigate a room full of traps, perils and blind corners. The puzzle solving part of the game was what really hooked me. The battles, on the other hand, eventually began to feel repetitive. If it weren't for the fact that succeeding in battle is one way to level up, I'd have seen the battles as as an annoyance.

Another complaint I had with ...Sands Of Time is that the camera control is buggy. If you've played Splinter Cell, you probably know that a Splinter Cell addict like me is used to having total control of the game camera. I twirl the right thumbstick to where I want it and I see what I want to see and the view never changes on it's own, no matter what I do with the character. That's not the case in ...Sands of Time. Sometimes the camera movies to certain preset positions whether you want it to or not. This can really screw up your ability to execute the intricate button/joystick combos that are necessary to make certain moves and reach certain areas.

But then again, this is 2003 game with at least two sequels ... and I bet that camera control is better in the later titles. Just like XIII, it turns out that Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time is being adapted for the screen. It features Ben Kingsley and Donnie Darko and should hit theaters in May of 2010.

---

Armed And Dangerous is one of those games that tries to combine run and gun gameplay with humorous dialogue, madcap characters and silly situations. That's usually a bad idea. Games like that usually get old quick, the jokes wear out through repetition and the game play is usually bland enough to indicate that game design took a backseat to the writing of the jokes.

I'm happy to say, though, that Armed And Dangerous gets it right. The gameplay is engrossing and challenging, with enough variety and creativity to keep you wondering what the next level will hold. And the silly characters and funny story are, for the most part, actually funny.

Most of the humor comes across in cut-scenes, and if you're like me, most of the time you're only willing to sit through so much of a cut-scene before you're jabbing the A button, ready to move on. Nonetheless, I found the cut-scenes in Armed And Dangerous to be funny and interesting enough to actually watch. There's a heavy Monty Python influence on the creative team behind the story, and it shows. Some of their Pythonesque gags are actually fairly fresh and funny.

And some of the gameplay is funny, too. Weapons like the Shark Bazooka add a great twist to combat. What could be more fun than launching a shark into the earth, watching it's dorsal fin break the surface as it makes a b-line for the bad guy, finally to launch up Jaws-style and devour your nemesis?? Forgetaboutit. It's a riot.

Unlike XIII and Prince of Persia, Armed and Dangerous is not currently being adapted for the screen. And it's just as well. Any such adaptation would live forever in the shadow of John Candy's masterpiece.

---

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, long have you ruled. I've never played a better game. So with the next chapter in the Splinter Cell franchise pushed back until the second quarter of 2009 at the soonest, I decided to replay the game that I've enjoyed more than any other.

It might have been a mistake. I didn't enjoy Chaos Theory near as much the second time through as I did when I first played it a few years ago. Part of the problem was that I kept surprising myself with how much I remembered. I'd find myself thinking "Oh, yeah, that door is gonna burst open and five bad guys are gonna fly out ... let me get back here in the shadows and roll a grenade that way." On one hand it's kinda cool to have one up on the badguys that way, but on the other hand it totally lacks the surprise and excitement from the first runthrough.

I remember thinking the first time I played Chaos Theory that the Seoul level was extremely hard. This time it was just pure fun and I went through it twice on the harder settings. And I remember thinking after my first Chaos Theory trip that the final level had been far easier than I'd expected. This time, beating the last barrage of badguys was like shooting fish in a barrel. One smoke-grenade and it's a whole new world.

By the way there is still the prospect of a Splinter Cell movie, but it's in development hell and will probably never happen.

And that's just as well. What's the point in turning good video games into bad movies? Some "art" should be left in the medium it was created in. Reinterpretation in another medium is just unnecessary.

Still, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory remains my favorite game. Only time will tell if the next iteration in the Splinter Cell series will claim the crown. And, unfortunately, that length of time just seems to keep getting longer.

Labels: Movies, Trivial Matters, Video Games

Synopsis

This satirical look at big-studio Hollywood tells the story of the disastrous production of a Vietnam war movie. In an attempt to get the actors to work together, the director inadvertently draws the attention of a Southeast Asian drug ring. The actors and crew must then go to war for real to save their lives.

Pros:

• Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance is great fun.


• There are a hand full of laughs at Hollywood's expense along the way.

Cons:

• Director Ben Stiller can't decide if this is a parody of big-budget action movies ... or if it is just another big-budget action movie.


• Jack Black is as tedious here as he's been in everything he's done since High Fidelity.


• Ultimately, this movie just reminded me of how disappointed I was in Chris Guest's For Your Consideration.

Generally:

Two, maybe two-and-a-half on a five scale. There are three or four decent jokes, and Downey is awesome, but that's not enough to save the picture from it's director.

Extended Review:

I had reasonably high hopes for Tropic Thunder. I am, after all, smack-dab in the middle of the movie's target audience. Movies about the movie industry itself (From The Player to Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back) are usually aimed at devoted movie geeks, like me. If you write about movies at your blog ... or if you visit Ain't It Cool news daily for movie news ... or, if you no longer visit Aint It Cool because now you read a newer, hipper, more underground film site, then Dreamworks made Tropic Thunder for you.

And the whole time I was watching Tropic Tunder I was thinking about For Your Consideration, Chris Guest's awful attempt to essentially cover the same ground. Christopher Guest and his reliable cast of improvisational actors do this kind of satire better than anyone else. But their take on their own industry was an unwatchable mess. So I shouldn't have been surprised that the relatively insubstantial Ben Stiller can't really walk this line, either.

There's an unfortunate quality of restraint about these movies. Maybe the film industry itself is just too close to the heart for Hollywood types to really skewer it. Maybe it's like making fun of your own mother; you might kid and joke with your mom from time to time, but in the end you're going to pull your punches. Of course you are, it's your mom.

So instead of really going for the throat, Stiller has handed in a by-the-numbers light action movie with a few decent "insider" jokes.

Tropic Thunder has come under fire for scenes that may or may not be insulting to mentally handicapped people. My take on the controversy was that the protesters had missed the point. Based on the previews, the movie seemed to lampoon the vacuous Hollywood types who really do exploit the mentally handicapped with heavy-handed movies like I Am Sam and The Other Sister. How is it not insulting when Sean Penn plays a mentally handicapped person and gets an Oscar nomination because he just seemed so retarded? I thought that Tropic Thunder probably aimed to mock that kind of Hollywood hubris.

Now that I've seen the movie I'm fairly surprised to realize that the only minority this movie really does make fun of is Asians. The Asian characters here are straight out of a 1940's Merrie Melodies cartoon. I have to wonder why Asian Americans haven't been protesting the film. Maybe it's because the majority of Asian Americans realize that a mediocre Ben Stiller movie isn't worth protesting.

Still, Tropic Thunder isn't a total washout. There are a few good jokes along the way. Best of all, Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as a "high art" white Australian actor who has "pigmentation surgery" in order to play a black American is absolutely dead-on. This character is one of those "method actors" who refused to come out of character until it was time to record the DVD commentary track. What Downey is doing here is really remarkable. He's satirizing high-concept, "total immersion" acting ... but he's handing in a high concept, "total immersion" performance himself. His character is so full of BS that it's practically seeping out his ears. He thinks he's somehow channeling his "inner blackness," and he can't figure out why the one real black person on the set can't stand him. This is the kind of straight-faced, irony-free performance that makes for good satire. It's very funny, because Downey really is a great actor, but also because the material written for Downey is the best material in the script. Stiller and his co-writers were on target with this character, and Downey plays it right down the middle with remarkable comic success. It's a shame that it's really the only element of the film that works.

There's also a performance by Tom Cruise as a creepy, manic studio head. Ultimately, though, that performance is just a reminder that in real life, Tom Cruise really is kinda creepy and manic. Stiller's performance is very Stilleresque, which is another way of saying that it's totally forgettable. And Matthew McConaughey as an actor's agent is stuck with the role that Owen Wilson was probably supposed to play. Apparently McConaughey and Wilson are interchangeably bland.

And then there's Jack Black. Why does this overrated pantload keep getting staring roles?

Tropic Thunder is a frustrating movie, especially if you're the kind of movie geek that would want to see it in the first place. There was potential here for a very funny, smart, topical film. It just doesn't seem like anyone here really wanted to make that film. Instead, we're left with an uneven action comedy. Been there, done that, lost interest a long time ago.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Lots of big, scary news today.

Man, I'll be glad when I go back to work (this coming Monday, God willing) for a number of reasons. One of them, the reason that's on my mind right now, is that when I go back to work I won't be sitting here all day and night watching the cable-news talking heads and clicking every link at Google News and getting the living crud scared out of me.

Today there's all kinds of bad news. I think we can all agree that the world will probably come to an end by about 6:00 PM this evening. I just hope there's time to finish dinner first.

Here's some of the news stories that I'm freaking out about:

• Russia is acting a fool
  
  This is no joke, man. This is real, this is scary crap.
  

  A roll of explosions at a Russian-occupied military base this week sent a clear Kremlin message to Georgia about the frailty of its infant military and its prospects for NATO membership.
  
  The Russian army destroyed a hoard of Georgian arms and ammunition captured in a brief war that saw Georgian forces scattered, their bases seized and equipment carried off.

  
  I really thought the days of Russia just rolling over little neighboring countries was over. Maybe the whole world thought those days were over and that's why nobody seems willing or able to respond. And I don't blame 'em; I'd hate to be the guy in charge who had to make the decision to attack the Russian army, even if they are on another country's soil.
  
  And then there's the Poland thing:
  

  Russia issued a harsh response on Wednesday to the announcement of a deal between Poland and the United States to base part of a U.S. missile defense system on Polish soil.
  
  "Russia in this case will have to react and not only through diplomatic protests," Russia's Foreign Ministry said...
  
  (Russia) scorned the decision to base a battery of U.S. Patriot missiles in Poland, saying it would provide no protection against any "imaginary Iranian danger".

  
  Holy friggin' crap. "Imaginary Iranian danger?" NATO is on board with this missile defense system, this isn't some kind of shady deal between the US and Poland. Man! It doesn't seem very long ago that the common enemy of Islamic terrorism was going to strengthen the relationship between the US and Russia.
  
  Thankfully, the memory of oppression by the USSR seems to be pretty strong in Poland:
  

  In a clear swipe at Russia, Poland's President Lech Kaczynski on Tuesday said his country would not give in to threats over its deal with Washington to deploy US missile silos on Polish soil.
  
  "No-one can dictate to Poland what it should do. That's in the past," Kaczynski said...
  
  "No-one should be afraid of this (missile plan), if they have good intentions towards us or the rest of the West," Kaczynski said.

  
  It's good to see that Poland is willing to poke back a little bit.
  
  This is bound to be part of the reason that McCain is actually polling ahead of Obama. Americans know McCain and know that he's had Putin and Russia figured out all along:




• But McCain shouldn't get too comfortable
  
  There's increasing noise about McCain picking Joe Lieberman as his running mate.
  
  Look, I like Joe Lieberman. I really do. He's a "hawkish" liberal, one of the last of his kind. It's nice to see that there are still a few realistic liberals out there. Heck, to tell the truth, I toyed with the idea of supporting Lieberman's presidential bid in 2004. But when push comes to shove, there's still one issue that rules the day: Joe Lieberman supports abortion on demand and I won't vote for a pro-abortion-on-demand ticket. Even a partially pro-abortion ticket.
  
  If McCain picks Lieberman, I'll stay home in November. I won't vote at all. I hope that other pro-life conservatives will sit this one out, too. If the GOP softens on abortion, we will need to send a strong message. Betray the pro-life contingent and you lose our vote. And you can't win without us.
  
  I'd rather skip the election and feel like I'm letting Obama win then vote against my deepest beliefs. Abortion-on-demand is the moral scandal of our time. There can't be any compromise on this issue.



• The Watchmen debacle
  
  There's some sort of power-struggle going on between 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers about who actually owns the rights to make a movie based on Watchmen.
  
  What this means, in a nutshell, is that Zack Snyder's potentially worthwhile film adaptation of "the greatest comic book of all time" might be delayed from release:
  

  Twentieth Century Fox’s war with Warner Bros. over rights to Watchmen has sparked fan outrage across the Web following a published report that Fox is seeking to prevent Zack Snyder’s $100 million-plus comic book adaptation from ever being released...

  
  Of course, this isn't going to cause Snyder's movie to be shelved forever. There's too much money to be made from it. The studios will figure out a way to fix things so that all the invested parties get a slice of the pie. Even the article I linked to acknowledged that.
  
  But you know how things go when the Lawyers get involved. The Watchmen movie might not be released in March, as originally planned. We might have a year to wait, maybe even longer.
  
  Hey, it's small potatoes compared to Russia, Georgia and Poland. But it still sucks.



• DMB sax player LeRoi Moore dies
  
  I enjoy the Dave Matthews Band's music, and LeRoi Moore has done some sax solos that were, in my opinion, the best thing about some of their songs. I didn't even know that the guy had been severely injured in June in an ATV accident. And now he's died:
  

  The band went ahead with a scheduled concert in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening and dedicated the performance to Moore...
  
  Hours after Moore's death, Dave Matthews told the audience at Tuesday's concert that his bandmate "gave up his ghost today," adding: "and we will miss him forever," according to the Orange County Register newspaper.

  
  That just sucks. And that's all I can think of to say about it.



• Big, scary tower
  
  This photo of the giant skyscraper they're building in Dubai probably isn't scary to most people ... but in my current frame of mind I can't look at it without seeing the Eye of Sauron on top of it:

  

  Found this at Geekologie.





• The Mojave marketing trickery
  
  Microsoft has launched a big campaign to try to ease consumer fears about Vista and get people to buy their latest floundering OS.
  
  Don't believe a word of it. Vista sucks. Sure, you could take a bunch of people who've never seen Vista and let them spend twenty minutes pointing and clicking on a Vista-installed notebook and convince them that the OS is top notch. But that's not proof of anything and it's not intellectual honesty. It's salesmanship. It's the same thing that enables used car salesmen to get people to drive lemons off the lot.
  
  I'm writing this from a Dell PC that runs Vista. I've been an unhappy Vista user for months now. Vista crashes all the time. Programs lock up, fail to load, and don't run properly in Vista every day. I have constant networking problems with Vista; it's pure hell keeping my LAN and Internet connections working from this computer. Vista has lots of bells and whistles, and it comes with a really cool looking Mahjong game. But other than that It's a total lemon compared to the previous, vastly superior Microsoft XP operating system.

Labels: Microsoft, Movies, Music, News, Politics, Watchmen

This is kinda neat, and it gives me an opportunity to borrow a page from Rhodester:

The movie Sommersby was neither a commercial blockbuster, nor a big critical success. It was a post-civil war story about a returning soldier who might not have been who he claimed to be. It stared Jodie Foster and Richard Gere, but apparently star-power alone isn't enough to turn a movie into a masterpiece.

I kinda like the film, but I'm biased. It was filmed in and around the part of Virginia where I live, and the summer of it's production brought a lot of excitement to the area.

A number of local people got to be extras in the movie. That's kinda cool. It's a bit of a distraction, though, when you're watching a movie set around the Civil War and find yourself saying things like "Hey, that's the guy who works the window at McDonnalds!"

After the filming I visited Warwickton, the period mansion where much of the movie was shot, and took a few pictures.

I took these pictures with an extremely cheap 35mm camera. And I scanned them with the first scanner I ever owned, which was about the size of a VW bus. I don't know why I saved such small scans, but these are the only ones I have. I came across them tonight while looking through some old media and deciding what to throw away and what to keep.

Above is the mansion itself, looking exactly like it does in the movie.

The slave quarters weren't authentic. In fact, if I remember what I was told correctly, the actual original owners of Warwickton weren't slave-owners. But some of the people in the story of Sommersby were slave-owners, so period-authentic slave quarters were built and they're still there.

I took this picture from the porch of Warwickton, looking toward the slave quarters.

During the filming of the movie Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford supposedly came into town and saw Sister Act at our local tiny little theater. That's far out, man.

Labels: Movies, Personal, Trivial Matters

• Updated: Possumfoot stalks the forests of Georgia ...
  
  That so-called Bigfoot corpse I mentioned earlier this week, the one supposedly found by two hikers in Georgia? I know this will be a big shock, but it's all a hoax:
  

  This was no hoax, (the two hikers) insisted, despite the fake video interview they did with Whitton's brother - or as they pretended on YouTube, taxonomist Dr. Paul Van Buren...
  
  In an interview with Scientific American, Jeffrey Meldrum, a Bigfoot researcher and Idaho State University professor, dismissed the photos. "It just looks like a costume with some fake guts thrown on top for effect," he said...
  
  As for the DNA evidence, the men presented an e-mail from the University of Minnesota reporting that of the three distinct DNA sequences that showed up, one was inconclusive, one was human and the third was from a possum.




• This is what happens when an unstoppable idiot meets and immovable moron:

  
  Ah, yes, the unfathomable value of a formal education. The screaming harpy in the clip above is Shanara R. Reid-Brinkley and the flailing douchebag is Bill Shanahan ... and both of them are college debate coaches. Really. And this is how they demonstrate for their students the proper way for grown-ups to engage in civil discourse.




• She's here to stay.
  
  Actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (you might have seen her in House of Sand and Fog or The Exorcism of Emily Rose) has decided to stay in America and never return to her native Iran:
  

  Aghdashloo insists she and her family have no plans to return after having embraced American culture - because she says Iranians resent her success in Hollywood.
  
  She says, "Their repressed Muslim government hates the fact that I am an actress. But they still all see my movies, even though my films are not allowed to be shown there."

  
  Welcome home, Miss Aghdashloo.



• Tropical boycott:
  
  Ben Stiller's latest film is stirring up controversy because of references in the film to mentally handicapped people:
  

  Paramount and its DreamWorks unit showed the film to advocates for the disabled, many of whom had expressed outrage at marketing materials that showed Ben Stiller, the movie’s star and director, portraying a weak-minded character named Simple Jack.
  
  “I saw the film this morning,” said Andrew J. Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, one group calling for the boycott. “It was even worse than the hateful stuff they used in promoting it.”

  
  Well, I've always said that boycotts are for retards.
  
  OK, OK, I apologize. I couldn't resist. But I do think that boycotts are usually nothing more than a pitiful attempt to attract attention ... and that goes for groups I'm peripherally part of, such as when some Christians called for a boycott of The Last Temptation of Christ.
  
  By the way, I recommend skipping The Last Temptation ... it's the only genuinely crappy film that Martin Scorsese has ever made.
  
  Anyway, back to Tropic Thunder. Here's a clip of the offending subject matter:

  
  Oh, I don't know. I think the movie really aims to mock the way that Hollywood types are superficial, full of themselves and stupid. I don't think that people with mental disabilities are really the target at all. The point here is to show us that, for all their Oscar-speech pontifications and cause celeb rantings, movie stars are really vacuous and dumb.
  
  But that's just my take. You can read more about it at Good News Film Reviews, where I found the clip I embedded above.




• Tim Fluffer...
  
  Virginia's thoroughly indistinguishable Governor, Tim Kaine, wants to be Vice President so bad that he's appointed himself Barak Obama's fluffer:

  
  Read that quote so you can really consider it:
  

  "It was a bad crisis for the world. It required tough words but also a smart approach to call on the international community to step in. And I’m very, very happy that the Senator’s request for a ceasefire has been complied with by President Medvedev."

  
  
  That's right, Obama waved his hand and parted the sea of discontentment in Georgia.
  
  Hat tip for that to Unseen, who mentioned Kaine's understanding of what's happening in Georgia in a comment here.
  
  It's really going to be funny around this time next year when President Obama has shown his supporters that, SURPRISE! He really CAN'T make things all better. They'll be turning on him like rabid rats and I'll just sit here and laaaaaaaugh.....

Labels: Humor, Links, Movies, News, Politics, You Tube

Synopsis

Wesley Gibson is an unhappy cubical worker who hates basically every element of his life. One day he's kidnapped by a beautiful, dangerous woman who tells him that he is the son of one of the world's greatest assassins, and that he possesses his father's amazing killing abilities. Wesley learns about his father and the fraternity of assassins he worked for while fending off attacks from a rogue agent.

Pros:

• Great looking special effects.


• Plenty of gallows humor (if you're into that sort of thing).


• Bloody fun escapism for adults ... and adults only.

Cons:

• Ultra violence ... a "con" for many people.


• The movie feels fifteen minutes too long. Or thereabouts.

Generally:

I guess I'll say three on a five scale. This is an extremely violent movie, but not irredeemably so, and not without it's charms.


Extended Review:

It's been a good summer for comic book fans. Batman, the Hulk and Iron Man were all brought to the screen in big blockbuster movies, and there wasn't a dud in the bunch. Wanted is an adaptation of a limited run comic book series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones. The movie apparently takes more liberties with the source material than the other movies I mentioned, but maintains the title's "adults only" core. It's probably the weakest comic book based movie of the summer, but it's still a decent movie of a kind. Just don't assume that the "R" rating is a fluke. Wanted is a "hard R" film. This is stylized comic-book fun for grown-ups only.

If you want to make a movie like Wanted, I can give you a "can't miss" recipe:

Ingredients:

• A generous helping of the gleeful, gory violence of 300


• A handful of the remorseless anti-hero character types from Sin City


• A dollop of the cinematography, "bullet time" effects and impossible physics of The Matrix


• The dangerous, underground "secret society" themes from Fight Club ... and while you're at it, get a pinch of that film's oedipus complex motif, too. And borow Fight Club's anti-materialism themes. In fact, the more Fight Club you throw in, the better.

Throw those ingredients together and season with two or three big-name Hollywood stars (Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, a few other faces you might recognize). The recipe feeds a theater full of people, as long as they have strong stomachs and don't mind a little acid reflux.

There's nothing terribly original here. But if you're in the right mood, it's amusing fluff. Just go in expecting to be entertained entirely (and only) by the movie's special effects and slick black humor. There's not much here in the way of story, subtext, or ideas. There's no real character development, just the same tired old Walter Mitty act that the big studios have recycled for years. The plot is fairly predictable and the ending is a cliche. Oh, it's one of the better cliches, one of my favorites, but a cliche nonetheless.

Instead of originality or ideas, Wanted offers up a stream of words and images that seem designed to offend. But the movie is just barely smart enough for me to call it satire instead of garbage. Over the course of Wanted's running time you'll see people slaughtered by the dozens. That might have offended me, actually, if the movie had seemed to take itself seriously at all. But it doesn't. The is the cinematic equivalent of a bunch of kids with toy guns running around yelling "Bang! Bang! You're dead!" Silly, sure. Pointless? You bet. Fun? Yep.

What else does Wanted offer? Well, there are car chases that make Transporter 2 look plausible. There are exploding rats, specially designed to please the PETA crowd. Oh, and you get to hear Morgan Freeman drop the MF bomb. His character in Wanted ain't about to drive Miss Daisy anywhere.

Now that Wanted is playing in second-run theaters it's probably a reasonable bargain. You could do worse than to spend a couple of bucks on this movie. Or you might want to just wait and rent it on DVD in a couple of months. The film got me to laugh a a few times and a few of the special effects really did look damn cool. This ain't Schindler's List ... this ain't even The Dark Knight. But it doesn't aim to be. Wanted is designed to be a cool looking, outrageous mess with nothing serious to say at all. And it is.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Synopsis

The true story of novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas who came of age in his native Cuba as Castro's dictatorship took control of the island. A homosexual, Arenas is persecuted by Castro's Communist regime and eventually finds his way to America.

Pros:

• Javier Bardem is excellent (mostly) in the main role.


• The movie doesn't flinch with it's honest portrayal of Castro's government.

Cons:

• The story is hard to follow and sometimes seems disjointed.


• Cameos from Sean Penn and Johnny Depp provide absolutely nothing other than distractions from the film itself.


• The movie is too long, and yet it spends too little time with the most fascinating elements of it's story.

Generally:

Two and a half, maybe three, on a five scale. The potential for a five-star movie is here ... but it seems to have slipped between the cracks.

Extended Review:

Julian Schnabel's 2000 film Before Night Falls is a frustrating movie. The film is sometimes brilliant but it's often condescending. It's too long in cinematic terms, and yet it feels short on story. The whole is less than the sum of it's scenes and performances. I can't imagine any audience or any film fan who'll see it without registering at least a few major complaints ... and yet there are elements here that are profound and beautiful enough to touch the heart of the most jaded moviegoer.

Javier Bardem turned in my favorite performance in my favorite movie from 2007, No Country For Old Men, and I've been intent on seeing his earlier work ever since. If for no other reason than to get an idea of Bardem's range, No Country... fans might want to check out Before Night Falls. As Reinaldo Arenas, the deeply troubled but talented focus of this movie, Bardem is the polar opposite of No Country's brutal assassin. Here, Bardem plays a gay poet, and at times his performance is way over the top. He stops shy of RuPaul-type shenanigans ... but he gets close enough to justify the mention of RuPaul's name in this review.

Then again, that seems to be the kind of performance the movie wants from him. At least in the first half. For the first hour or so, Before Night Falls is an extremely flamboyant movie. I can't help but wonder, when I see movies like this, what gay people must think of what's on the screen. Some of the performances here drift into what must be crude stereotype. At times, it seems that Before Night Falls wants to send the message that homosexual men are defined by their homosexuality ... and that they're all flirtatious, promiscuous, and overt. Let me be clear; for the first hour, Before Night Falls makes Brokeback Mountain seem like The Searchers.

But at about the half-way point the movie changes direction radically and becomes a story about a man who's made a political prisoner in a country ruled by a brutal communist dictator. I'm a political conservative, so it was at this point that I became more comfortable with the movie. As you'd expect. But it was also at this point that the main character became far more interesting.

In the second half of the movie, Arenas is falsely accused of molesting a pair of teenagers and spends some time on the run, trying to evade capture by Castro's thugs. When he finally is captured and thrown in jail he finds, much to his surprise, that his talent as a writer is cherished by his fellow prisoners. Arenas writes letters home for his cell mates, crafting minor masterpieces that they'd never be able to write on their own. And he spends some time doing his own writing and daydreaming; escaping the prison's walls and into worlds constructed within his mind. Some of these sequences are the movie's strongest, and I wish that the film had allowed us more time with Arenas during his incarceration. It was then that the character was most sympathetic, most likable, and most interesting.

Eventually Arenas is released with relative ease, and I found myself scratching my head over the circumstances of his new found freedom. And this wasn't the only time the movie confused me. There were sequences that seemed to intermingle Arenas's fanciful poetry with his biography, and I was fine with that. I can recognize poetic license when I see it on the screen, and I enjoy it when it's done well. Some of those scenes were done very well and I did enjoy them.

But I didn't enjoy the way the movie would sometimes pick up and/or lose seemingly major characters without explanation. Sometimes a character would have worked his or her way into major elements of the story ... and I'd still not be sure who he or she was supposed to be. And I was especially perplexed by Schnabel's decision to cast Johnny Depp and Sean Penn in roles that amounted to nothing more than glorified cameos. The presence of these two Caucasians, putting on bad fake Spanish accents and chewing on the scenery, totally brought me "out of the movie," so to speak. Depp was especially distracting; he played not one but two minor roles here, and one of them was in a scene that should have been a major showcase for Bardem. Honestly, I couldn't have been more distracted and puzzled if Bugs Bunny had been put on the screen.

SPOILERS FOLLOW: The movie drags on, too, with an oddly violent ending that seemed tacked on as an afterthought. I found that especially irritating, given that shortly before that strange coda there had been a beautiful monologue by Bardem about the joy and wonder of writing. That passage, that dialogue, seemed very final. Closing credits should have appeared with Bardem's last words in that passage. Instead the movie lumbers into a long sequence that suggests that the very ill Arenas's death was at the hands of a friend. That isn't true, the real Arenas died of suicide by overdose. In his suicide letter, Arenas went out of his way to make sure that no other person was blamed for his death. Knowing that makes the end of Before Night Falls seem very strange.

I can sorta recommend Before Night Falls, but with a number of qualifiers: It's strictly for fans of Javier Bardem, that's one qualifier. For another, I'd suggest it as a good movie for film students who want a film to pick apart, discuss, dissect and debate. I won't recommend it, though, for anyone simply looking for two enjoyable hours of cinema. Before Night Falls is a mixed bag ... a few diamonds and a big helping of junk.

Trailer:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

...I nearly peed myself.

Now, granted, I am still recovering from two recent bladder surgeries; so at this point a laugh or a sneeze or even an enthusiastically arched eyebrow can bring the threat of pants-wetting.

Still, this is really, really, really, really funny ... and it did necessitate a dash for the bathroom here. Check it out:

I have no problem with Christian Bale's vocal performance, by the way. I get what he's doing. But still, but still .... this is just so damn funny.

Update - OK, I'm a very, very simple man. If something amuses me, I can watch it over and over again. I've watched this thing, like, five times now ... and every time I am in trembling, braying, crying, pants-peeing hysterics. This officially replaces Yellow Ledbetter as my all time favorite YouTube video.

Labels: Humor, Movies, You Tube

"It's not about the money. It's about sending a message."

So says the Joker in the latest Batman movie. But what exactly is his message, and to whom is he sending it?

If you've seen The Dark Knight you might agree with me that the movie is complex and smart enough to work on a number of levels. Sure, it's good fun as a comic-book action movie ... but director Chris Nolan and his cast have crafted a film with a serious philosophical subtext. Especially with regard to the Joker. The film's villain, brilliantly portrayed by the late Heath Ledger (and yes, I've come to enjoy the taste of crow) is just as thought-provoking and challenging as you might want him to be. There's a lot to think about. And there's a lot to discuss, if you're of a mind to do so.

A number of bloggers and writers are up to the task:

• RC at Strange Culture draws parallels between The Joker and the Anthrax killer, Bruce Ivins:

  There is a significant amount of circumstantial evidence of Ivins' craziness, including his obsession with a sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and his poem version of I'm a Little Teapot.
  
  This mentally unstable poetry to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nature sounds like it could totally come out of a Super Villain movie:
  
  "I'm a little dream-self, short and stout.
  I'm the other half of Bruce-when he lets me out.
  When I get all steamed up, I don't pout.
  I push Bruce aside, then I'm free to run about!"
  
  And I find myself drawing this correlation, and wonder if anyone else does?

  I think that correlation is unavoidable. I mean, that twisted nursery rhyme sounds exactly like the kind of thing the Joker might gleefully sing while carrying out one of his crimes.



• Jason Lee Steorts, writing for the National Review, looks at the Joker through the prism of Frederick Nietzsche:
  

  ...the Joker doesn’t do just anything. What he does is destroy. He is not chance, for chance might treat you well. He is, rather, a vandal. Why he wants to vandalize is not clear. Beyond question is that he thinks there is no such thing as right or wrong...
  
  ...“moral relativism” is the regnant doctrine among the most important shapers of popular opinion: Hollywood, the music industry, the media, and the otherwise übercool...
  
  ...In these parts, people like to kick (Nietzsche). Some kick him because he wrote in metaphors, a few of which sound anti-Semitic or bellicose when taken literally. A whole lot of us kick him for three little words he wrote about God. But we rarely bother to look at the pictures that went with those words. We get so carried away in the kicking that we ignore the answer he gave to the problem of God’s death (and it was, for him, a problem). That answer was roughly: “Yes, all is permitted; now go make something beautiful.”

  
  Read the whole article, it's very good.



• Mark D. White and Robert Arp think about the Joker in terms of terrorists and torture at Boston.com:
  

  ...if we say that Batman should kill the Joker, doesn't that imply that we should torture terror suspects if there's a chance of getting information that could save innocent lives? Of course, terror is all too present in the real world, and Batman only exists in the comics and movies. So maybe we're just too detached from the Dark Knight and the problems of Gotham City, so we can say "go ahead, kill him." But, if anything, that detachment implies that there's more at stake in the real world - so why aren't we tougher on actual terrorists than we are on the make-believe Joker?




• There are a number of people you might compare the Joker to ... but Ghandi? Well, before you dismiss the idea, consider what the blogger at A Layman's Philosophy has to say. For all his violence and insanity, the Joker does believe, deep down in his broken mind, that he's making the world a better place:
  

  To the Joker, his scars are important because they remind him of his ideals. He is an anarchist. He doesn’t believe in the conventions of the world, only the conventions that will distract people from the illusions of the world. The joker, despite his trickery, at least makes an attempt to change the world for the better...
  
  If the Joker could find a different way to make the changes he desired in the world, perhaps he would have been likened to Gandhi instead of an insane criminal with issues. The Joker sees the illusion of polarity in the world, he simply tries too hard to help others and not himself. The outcome is violence, torture, pain, and suffering.

  I'm not going to lie to you, I don't share this perspective about the Joker at all. But I was happy to stumble across this blog and find an utterly unexpected idea about the movie.



• I enjoyed what Father Raymond J. De Souza had to say about the Joker and his ideas about good and evil:
  

  “I choose chaos,” the Joker confesses. There is no order built into human nature, no moral law written on the heart. There are rules of common agreement. But they are only manufactured rules, entirely arbitrary, without enduring value. They do not correspond to any truth — and they cannot, for there is no order or design at the heart of reality. There is only chaos, and the Joker embraces it...
  
  Richard Dawkins, call your agent: As a sworn enemy of Godly design, you should be getting royalties...

  
  The only problem with that is that Richard Dawkins is utterly humorless. Whereas the Joker enjoys a good chuckle. Come on, Richie ... let's put a smile on that face!

Personally, I see The Dark Knight's Joker as sort of a Jim Jones figure. The Joker and Jones both used a certain dark charisma to captivate both their followers and those who oppose them. Both of them are nihilists. Both Jim Jones and the Joker are flashy attention-hounds. Both of them pervert innocent symbols to convey their own warped world view: The Joker dresses up as a clown to mock his victims, Jim Jones employed a demented version of Christianity to control his followers. Both of them prey on the weak and emotionally unstable. And both of them are egomaniacs.

Oh, and both of them have high-pitched, odd-sounding voices.

The Dark Knight is an outstanding film; much better, I think, than any of us expected it to be. And how cool is it that a movie this big and loud and gaudy and flat-out entertaining also has interesting, considerable ideas at it's core? Each of us who enjoyed it ought to make an effort to see it in the theater again. Movies like this, with this much to offer, come along maybe once every twenty years.

Labels: Entertainment, Faith, Movies

I'm still losing sleep, but hopefully actually healing post-surgery. So when I lay awake at night letting my thoughts race and compete with each other, I end up mulling over some odd things.

If you've read this blog before, you know that two of the topics that I tend to obsess over are, a) politics and b) movies. So it's natural, I guess, that the two would eventually merge into one in my brain.

So thanks to a long, sleepless night and the general machinations of my soul, I'm proud to present:

The Official SouthCon List Of The Top Ten
Conservative Movies of the Past Ten Years*

10:...The Incredibles

Helen: I can't believe you don't want to go to your own son's graduation.
Bob: It's not a graduation. He is moving from the 4th grade to the 5th grade.
Helen: It's a ceremony!
Bob: It's psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity!

I really enjoyed The Incredibles, especially it's Harrison-Bergeron-like elements. In the future conceived by the story, those with above average abilities will be forced to hold back, to reign themselves in, so that nobody will be made to feel unexceptional. But if everyone is exceptional, then nobody is. The resolution: Give it 100%, do the best you can do, and don't hold back. The other guy's inability isn't your problem.

---

09:...Knocked Up

When you get past the vulgarity (and there's a lot of it), when you get past the swearing and the sex jokes (by the tons), two things about Knocked Up are inescapable. It's really, really, really funny ... and it's a story about doing the right thing. Ben and Alison don't love each other when they conceive a baby together. They hardly know each other, in fact. But they decide to try to get together for the sake of the child they've conceived.

The question of abortion is presented as a horrible alternative when Alison's mother tells her that she should abort her child, focus on here career, and later on have a "real baby, when the time is right." Meanwhile, Ben and Alison, who seem to have no common ground to build a relationship on, end up becoming a loving couple and devoted parents. Turns out, whatta ya know, the most important common ground of all is that they share the same priorities when it comes to family and pregnancy. Ben leaves his slacker lifestyle behind and Alison puts her career on the back burner. Knocked Up made me laugh like crazy, and made me happy with it's message.

---

08:...World Trade Center

I'd call it a minor miracle. Oliver Stone, a left-wing director known for his obsessions with conspiracy theories, somehow managed to turn out a movie about all that's good about America.

I was worried when I heard that Stone was directing World Trade Center. I anticipated a "truther" movie; some ridiculous fable about George W. Bush, Haliburton and Isreal plotting together to destroy the Twin Towers and start a rich man's war. Wonderfully, that wasn't the case. World Trade Center is really the true story of two Port Authority policemen who're trapped in the rubble of one of the fallen towers on 9/11, and it's about the efforts of their rescuers to save their lives. The movie celebrates the selflessness, strength and love of the principle characters ... and of Americans in general. Whether you consider yourself a Ronald Reagan conservative (hand up, here) or a Howard Dean liberal, or anything in between, World Trade Center is poignant, beautiful reminder of what it means to be an American.

---

07:...The Exorcism Of Emily Rose

In the worst case scenario, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose could have been a movie that exploited religious faith or simply mocked it. Thankfully, ...Emily Rose turned out to be a best case scenario; a movie that that seriously, carefully compared and contrasted the religious perspective and the scientific perspective of a young woman's controversial death. The scientific perspective is treated here with cold logic. Thankfully, the religious point of view is handled with sensitivity and profound thoughtfulness.

...Emily Rose was loosely based on the true story of a young woman who believed she was under attack by demons. When medical treatment didn't provide her relief, her family brought her home, where she eventually died. The central question of the movie was this: was her devout Catholic family responsible through negligence for their Emily's death, or had they really done all they could do? There are no easy answers, and thankfully, the movie doesn't settle for an easy ending. It's up to you, the viewer, to reach your own conclusions. What a wonderful rarity; a movie primarily focused on Christian faith that expects it's audience to think for themselves.

By the way, the German feature Requiem is a subtler, quieter film that's based even more directly on the true story of Anneliese Michel. The two films (...Emily Rose and Requiem) compliment each other nicely, showing two different approaches to the story, one done at a higher level of suspenseful drama and the other done as a quiet character study. I'd say that both movies succeed on their own terms and I'd recommend Requiem to fans of ...Emily Rose. You can see the trailer for Requiem by clicking here. If you're stout of heart and would like to hear and see real images and sounds from the real exorcisms of Anneliese Michael, you can click here for part 1 and for part 2. Further episodes are available on YouTube. But I'll warn you, some of this is somewhat upsetting.

---

06:...Saving Private Ryan

Stephen Spielberg is an amazing film maker, but he's not known as a particularly conservative one. When he produced a movie about World War II, he could have turned out a revisionist mess. He didn't. Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan is a wide-eyed, reverent, profoundly grateful tribute to those who've sacrificed all in service to their country. And it begins and ends with solemn, beautiful shots of Old Glory, giving the flag appropriate weight and meaning. Saving Private Ryan is often difficult to watch, but it's a film that every American should see.

---

05:...Signs

What an anomaly; a major motion picture, with big-name stars, from a major director and a major studio, that celebrates and glorifies the power of religious faith.

As of now, Signs was the last genuinely good movie that M. Night Shyamalan has turned out. And it's one of his best. This science fiction account of an alien invasion of the Earth is scary, bordering on terrifying at times, and just on the surface it succeeds simply as a thriller.

But there's more to Signs than what's on the surface. This is the story of a clergyman who, due to tragedy, has lost his religious faith. Then, events take place that seem to be counter to everything we know about our existence, and everyone involved is forced to examine themselves at the core and find the source of their resolve. Mel Gibson, as the lapsed pastor, finds that the core of his being is rooted in a faith that he can't really cast aside. The movie's final scene, involving a roman collar and a crucifix, is one of the most unapologeticly pro-Christian moments in recent cinema. It might make you a little verklempt. It certainly got to me, anyway.

---

04:...Team America: World Police

Nobody in today's world of entertainment does a better job of mocking liberalism and all of it's silly conceits than South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. So it's no surprise that Team America: World Police, the duo's obscene puppet show, skewers liberalism with gleeful abandon.

Team America doesn't hold back, naming Hollywood's worst liberal elites by name. I laughed so much at this movie, allowing it's running jokes to brand themselves on my psyche, and to this day I can't see Matt Damon without saying "MATT DAMON!" in my deepest, dumbest voice. The movie ends with a speech about the necessity of (occasional) war that rings true and is yet the most vulgar, politically incorrect monologue you'll ever hear. (" If you don't let us ____ this _______, we're going to have our _____ and _______ all covered in ____!") And best of all, Team America even lampoons all that's bad about our country, taking a "warts and all" approach to patriotism. America! Eff Yeah!

Language Warning For This Clip

---

03:...The Dark Knight

In my full review of The Dark Knight, I referred to Batman as "the ultimate Republican." And I can't think of a better way to describe the caped crusader. After all, he's an unapologetic millionaire and successful businessman. Plus, he's a self-appointed citizen soldier who goes after corruption and crime with unrestrained zeal. Batman is willing to do what it takes to stop the bad guys, even creating his own "patriot act" style surveillance system, allowing him to monitor every cell-phone in Gotham city.

Unethical? Maybe. Batman doesn't attempt to argue with his invaluable friend and supporter Lucius Fox, who promises to leave if the machine isn't destroyed. And in the end, the machine does appear to self destruct. But Batman has no qualms about using it for what he sees as the common good when he's stuck between a makeup wearing terrorist (The Joker) and a rigid, crusading politician (Harvey "Two Face" Dent). Batman does what he must to stop the bad guys. Let the chips fall where they may.

---

02:...The Passion Of The Christ

Mel Gibson may be the only person in Hollywood with both the interest in making a major motion picture about the crucifixion of Christ and the power to get the movie made and distributed. And Christians around the world responded with a record turnout for The Passion Of The Christ.

Now, movies about Christ have been made in the past. But they usually focus on revisionism, such as the utterly unwatchable Da Vinci Code ... or muddled, perverse symbolism, like The Last Temptation Of Christ ... or satire, like Monty Python's Life Of Brian. The Passion is one of a kind: An unflinching, visceral look at the crucifixion of Christ that draws from the Bible and 2000 years of Christian Tradition as it's source and inspiration. Wow. What are chances of Hollywood turning out that kind of movie?

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01:...The Lives Of Others

You can't swing a hammer and sickle in Hollywood without hitting a pro-communism movie. At least two movies praising the murdering thug Che Guevara have been recently produced, for instance. Michael Moore's latest pile of refuse (I won't link to it, sorry) glorified Cuba. It's no surprise that if you want to see a movie that shows communism for what it is, you have to look outside of the American movie industry.

In fact, you have to look to movie makers who actually lived under Communism and can show it for what it is.

The Lives Of Others greatly effected me when I saw it, and I've thought about it occasionally ever since. And make no mistake, for all the twisted connections that some critics would like to make to the Patriot Act, The Lives Of Others is about, very specifically, life in Communist East Germany in the 80's. It's a dark, honest, evocative film, and one everyone should see.

The movie features a remarkable performance from Ulrich Muhe as an East German secret agent who becomes more humane and less Soviet as his surveillance of a young couple begins to touch his heart and soul. The progression of his character, along with the relationship between the man and woman under his surveillance, make for gripping, compelling story-telling. And the movie ends with a post-script that's touching and beautiful. Don't miss The Lives Of Others. It tells a story about life, love, and the evil of repressive government that you'll never forget.

---

*Could anyone build a good argument that only some or maybe none of these movies really qualify as "conservative?" Could someone, in fact, build a case for the "liberalism" of any or all of these films? Well, of course. So don't take this too seriously. This list really tells you more about me, and about my perspective, than it does about the movies themselves.

Labels: Faith, Movies, Politics

I'm not just a Morgan Freeman fan, I'm a Morgan Freeman admirer. I hope you get the distinction I'm trying to make: I don't just enjoy his work as an actor, I think of him as the kind of guy I'd like to emulate. So I'm upset and worried to hear that he's been seriously injured in a car accident.

I hope I'm not coming off like some kind of creepy stalker type guy, here. I'm not ready to sit in the bushes across from the Freeman home with a pair of binoculars. But I will say a prayer tonight for his full recovery, and I hope you will, too.

And by the way, I'm fully aware that Morgan Freeman supports Obama. For the record, I don't have to agree with a person on every subject in order to admire them a great deal.

One more thing I'm gonna say and then I'm gonna shut up before I get accused of having a "crush" on Morgan Freeman. I haven't seen Bruce Almighty; I did see Evan Almighty and I didn't much like it. Having said that, how cool is it that they cast Morgan Freeman to play God in those movies? I'd call it inspired casting, but it's not really "inspired," it's just obvious. Morgan freeman exudes wisdom, kindness, authority and morality. If somehow in the next life I get an audience with The Lord God and he decides to put on a familiar facade to make me more comfortable, I'd specifically request the Morgan Freeman look.

Labels: Movies, News

Synopsis

The actors and film-makers involved in the production of a small B-movie have their lives turned upside down when their production begins to generate an Oscar buzz.

Pros:

• Nothing. Just nothing.


• Really, nothing at all.


• The movie has a cast of improvisational actors I've grown to love, but seeing good actors turn out a terrible film is not really a pro, is it? So, really, I got nothing.

Cons:

• This movie is supposed to be a comedy, but it IS NOT funny.


• No, it's not funny ... but it IS tedious, smug, ugly, slow, uninspired and downright mean.


• I actually think my life is a little worse for having seen this film.

Generally:

Zero stars. I considered giving it half a star because Ricky Gervais has one line that made me laugh, but that brief chortle just served to magnify how awful the rest of this movie is.

Extended Review:

Is there anything worse than hating a movie you hoped to really enjoy?

Last night Wendy and I watched Christopher Guest's most recent film, For Your Consideration. Wendy and I are both big fans of Guest and his movies. We both loved Best In Show and enjoyed Waiting for Guffman very much. Neither of us swooned over A Mighty Wind, but it wasn't a bad movie. So we thought we had every reason to expect For Your Consideration to be fair-to-excellent.

Guest has quite a track-record, and he's done a lot to deserve my admiration. He is one of the writers and actors behind This Is Spinal Tap, which I've called the second funniest movie of all time, right behind Blazing Saddles. And his outings as a director (the films listed above) have been mostly impressive. Guest works with a faithful cabal of improv specialists, and doesn't really script his movies. Instead he comes up with a story outline and allows his actors to improvise their lines and actions. This has resulted in some very funny films ... and, now, it's resulted in one terrible one.

...Consideration is a movie about a group of Hollywood has-beens and also-rans who begin to believe the hype surrounding their latest production. The word among industry insiders is that the movie and several of the actors are being considered for Academy Award nominations. As the hype grows, we see the characters morph into really desperate, superficial, delusional people. I guess Guest and his crew thought this was all good fun, but it was just depressing. As the actors become more and more obsessed with the idea of finally getting that long-denied recognition, they become phonier and harder to like. What's worse, they start out unfunny and become even more so. And that's the kiss of death for a comedy.

The gags are flat, predictable, tired and annoying ... and this movie hammers them into the ground mercilessly. Unfunny joke after unfunny joke reminds us that the characters in this movie are past their prime ... and that they don't understand the internet ... that their dreams have largely been frustrated ... and that they can't even interact in any meaningful way with each other. Then the "Oscar buzz" gets their attention and we see them get Botox injections ... and go on MTV style television programs ... and appear on talk shows wearing dresses cut low enough to make Mariah Carey blush.

Then, of course, their Oscar dreams are dashed. The Oscar nods go to other actors, and we get to see the principle characters cry ... and do local infomercials ... and put on terrible "performance art" in the aftermath of their perceived failure.

Look, dark stuff CAN make for funny films. I've seen and loved a number of really dark comedies (Fight Club, anyone?) But please don't get the wrong idea about ...Consideration. This is not a dark comedy. It's just a bad one.

It's as though Christopher Guest hated the characters in his own movie and wanted to make them suffer.

Which is fine. It's his movie, he can do what he wants. But I wish he'd warned me. See, I thought that we were renting a movie that would make us laugh.

What else? While I'm venting, I might as well get it all out. So here goes:

Why does Christopher Guest give Fred Willard open license to do any damn fool thing he wants to do in his movies? Fred Willard isn't really that funny. He's never been very funny. More often than not he's grating. Tedious. As annoying as a paper cut on a hemorrhoid. For Your Consideration is a little less than an hour and a half long ... but by the time it was over I felt like I'd spent about a week with Fred Willard. And I wanted to PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE.

And Eugene Levy isn't funny, either. In fact, the only actor I'd say is more annoying than Eugene Levy and Fred Willard is that moron David Allen Grier. But you know going into a Chris Guest movie that you're going to have to put up with Willard and Levy, and until now it's always been worth it. Not this time, though. No, no, no, no, boy, no, not at all. Watching this movie was like taking a long car ride sandwiched between Eugene Levy and Fred Willard ... and then an hour and a half into the trip they stop the car and let you out and you don't know where the hell you are or why you ever got in that damn car in the first place. And it's raining.

Even the people I generally enjoy most in Christopher Guest's movies were middlin' to bad in this film. I've been a Parker Posey fan for years now, but she was just blah here. Jane Lynch has been the best thing in a number of comedies, but in this movie all she does is a Mary Hart impression ... and you don't need Jane Lynch for that. You just need a mannequin. John Michael Higgins can usually make me laugh just by moving his eyebrows, but all he did in ...Consideration was wear a red wig and keep talking about his "Choctaw ancestors." And he was never ONCE funny. And Guest himself, the actor behind such memorably hillarious roles as Nigel Tufnel and Corky St. Clair, just phones in a half-ass Mel Brooks impression in this movie. It's just awful. Painful. Really, it's all painful to watch.

Even Jennifer Coolidge, for Pete's sake, never made me laugh in this movie.

Wendy and I had felt bad about putting off a Chris Guest movie for so long. This one had been on the shelves at our local video store for nearly two years before we finally picked it up tonight.

I wish we'd just left it there. We'd have been better off with anything else. A Vin Diesel movie, even. Anything other than this godawful waste of film and time. Chris Guest is officially in the same boat as M. Night Shyamalan, as far as I'm concerned. We trusted him, we sang his praises, we came to love him ... and he hath betrayed us. For Your Consideration is a miserable movie.

Trailer:

(PS - If you're curious, Wendy hated it, too.)

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

Scott at Good News Film Reviews has been reviewing film trailers, and I've enjoyed that. I've enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I'm just going to shamelessly rip it off and review the trailers for some of the movies that I'm interested in.

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Choke

Choke is one of my favorite Chuck Palahniuk novels, simply because the book made me laugh out loud, frequently, and so hard that my sides literally hurt. Having said that, Choke isn't for everyone. The novel is extremely obscene, totally profane, blasphemous, and insensitive to the differently abled. I can not believe that someone made a movie out of this novel. But judging by the preview, it looks like they stuck to the book very well. I'll be catching this in the theater this October. If it even provides a glimpse of the warped world that Palahniuk conjured up in his novel, it oughta be a hoot.

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Watchmen

For a long time I was totally opposed to the idea of adapting Watchmen for the screen. Watchmen is probably the finest example of everything that's great about the comic-book medium. Besides, Watchmen is ultimately a 12-issue comic book title about comics themselves. You just can't translate that to the screen. Having said all that, the preview looks pretty good. I'm glad that Zack Snyder directed this thing. 300 made Snyder the go-to guy for movies based on "unfilmable" graphic novels. If this movie conveys even a little bit of what's so damn awesome about the source material, Snyder will probably become a demigod to fanboys (like me) everywhere.

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Man On Wire

OK, here's the thing: I bet you that Man On Wire is a really good movie. I love documentaries, and this looks like one of the most compelling, remarkable, interesting ones of the decade. But while I sat here watching this preview I was HOLDING MY BREATH AND GRIPPING THE ARMS OF MY CHAIR IN ABSOLUTE TERROR. So, yes, I think that Man On Wire will be a good movie. I don't plan to get anywhere near this film. I just couldn't watch it if I had to.

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The Rocker

The Rocker is from director Peter Cattaneo, who's 1997 film The Full Monty was funny, warm and totally enjoyable. The Rocker stars Rainn Wilson, and I think he's a total riot as Dwight on The Office. But, judging from the preview, this looks like a huge, pointless turd of a movie and I don't plan to sit through another second of it.

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Burn After Reading
(Red Band trailer, language warning)

Last October I posted the trailer for No Country For Old Men and said that I hoped it represented a return to form for the Coens. Well, No Country... was the best movie I saw in 2007, and it might be the best movie that Joel and Ethan have ever done. A year after that masterpiece the Coens have readied Burn After Reading. Judging from the previews, the new film looks to be a farce in the Big Lebowski, Oh Brother... tradition. I enjoyed Oh Brother and Lebowski is my third funniest film of all time*. So my hopes are high for Burn After Reading.

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*That "fifteen funniest films of all time" list was put together for film geeks before Borat, a movie that easily goes in my top five somewhere.

Labels: Movies, Watchmen, You Tube

Synopsis

Batman is caught between the Joker, a villain who wants to bring anarchy to Gotham, and Harvey Dent, an ambitious DA who's sense of justice is matched by his sense of self-worth.

Pros:

• The story, acting and directing are all first rate.


• Fun, exciting special effects.


• Fans of the comic book (especially when the title is handled by Frank Miller) might see this as the first true Batman movie.

Cons:

• It's long, nearly two and a half hours.


• The violence and gore are arguably better suited for R-rated material.


• A couple of plot-holes distracted me a bit.

Generally:

Oh, easily a five on a five scale. It delivers more bang for your buck than any other 2008 summer movie (I'd imagine).

Extended Review:

Scott Nehring is one of the few who didn't enjoy The Dark Knight, and his analysis of the film (warning: spoilers) forced me to examine my own reaction to the latest installment of the Batman saga.

So, OK, here's the truth: I'm a fanboy. I'm a Batman nut who went into the theater prepared to have a great time. That much is true. Consider that qualifier before you take anything I have to say about the movie to heart.

In my defense, though, I don't think that the mere presence of the cape-and-cowl is enough to make me enjoy a movie. I despised Joel Schumacher's two campy, day-glo Batman farces from the '90's. They were too much like the kitschy mid '60's TV show. The Batman in the comics I've enjoyed is not a doofus. I like my Batman like I like my coffee: Dark. Bitter. A bit crazy. (It's tricky to brew crazy coffee, by the way.)

The Dark Knight features the kind of Batman I enjoy. Played by Christian Bale, Chris Nolan's version of Batman is the ultimate Republican: By day he's a jet-setting millionaire; a king-maker and power-broker with more money than God and AT&T combined. By night he's a crime fighter who lives by his own strict scruples (no moral relativity here, thank you) and is willing to go to war regardless of the repercussions if he thinks it's the right thing to do. He's even willing to assume the role of the bad guy in the eyes of the public as long as he's convinced that his actions really do promote the common good. Chris Nolan's Batman is basically Dick Cheney, forty years younger, in a black ninja suit. How cool is that?

Nolan's previous Batman film, Batman Begins, was the first Batman movie to really focus on the main character himself instead of the movie's villains. Having given the caped crusader his long-overdue day in the sun, Nolan must have felt comfortable focusing more on Batman's rivals in the new film. And the Joker (Heath Ledger) and Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart) of The Dark Knight are both just what they should be. Both of these villains are compelling and endlessly fascinating because both actors play their roles with totally straight faces. There's no winking at the camera (see Jack Nicholson's Joker from 1987's Batman) and there's no manic scenery-chewing (as in Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face in 1995's Batman Forever).

Bale and Eckhart are both good in their roles, but the late Heath Ledger steals this movie from both of them. His version of the Clown Prince Of Crime puts the emphasis on crime rather than on clown, and the performance is creepy, fun, and totally original. One of my few complaints with the movie is that I'd sit and look forward to the Joker's next scene whenever he wasn't on screen. And to think, I initially opposed the casting of Ledger in the role. Just goes to show you that I don't know nothin'. I enjoyed every element of Ledger's performance ... even his Crispin-Glover-channeling vocal work.

The most surprising thing about The Dark Knight, though, is that it works not only as a comic-book movie but also as a crime drama. The Joker, as portrayed by Ledger, is as enigmatic and as scary as any real-life terrorist I've ever seen portrayed in a film. Harvey "Two-Face" Dent pursues the Joker and the Gotham mafia with an obsessive determination that reminded me of Popeye Doyle and Eliot Ness. And Christian Bale's Batman is as focused and as volatile as Travis Bickle ... though maybe a bit better mannered. So, yes, this is a comic book movie, but on another level it's just a crime drama with a twist: all three of the principle characters happen to be completely insane.

The Dark Knight delivers everything a fan of Batman Begins could have hoped for. There's lots of great action and plenty of intensity, there's a story that never (in my opinion) became predictable or directionless, and there's some great acting in fascinating roles. If Nolan and company turn out a third Batman movie this good, it'll be a first in the history of trilogies.

Trailer

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies

There's an interesting article in USA Today about the importance of the vocal performance of an actor playing a villain:

Three weeks before shooting began on The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger called director Christopher Nolan to discuss an epiphany he had about his character, The Joker.

The key to the demented killer, Ledger said, was his voice. Without a menacing hiss, it would be a retread of Jack Nicholson's satirical turn when he played the character in 1989...

"He wouldn't even really rehearse with the voice," says Christian Bale, who plays Batman. "He held it back a little, waiting for the cameras to roll. But when they did, we knew he was on to something special."

The article goes on to include interview snippets with Sam Raimi about his favorite villainous voices ... and with Javier Bardem about the strange cadence of his hitman in No Country For Old Men ... and with James Earl Jones about Darth Vader's iconic snarl.

The whole article is interesting and worth reading.

Labels: Movies, News

Synopsis

This is the story of the relationship between a drug addicted inner-city teacher and one of his students. Ryan Gosling plays Dan Dunne, a history teacher and cocaine addict who's downward spiral is rapidly reaching bottom. Shareeka Epps is Drey, his exceptional but troubled thirteen year old student.

Pros:

• Shareeka Epps gives the best debut performance I've seen in twelve or fifteen years.


• Ryan Gosling and Anthony Mackie (as a drug dealer) turn in equally remarkable performances.


• One of the most honest, unflinching scripts about drug abuse and loneliness that I've ever seen filmed.

Cons:

• A jerky, hand-held camera style that got on my nerves throughout.


• The movie's intensity might be too much for many viewers. This movie will haunt you.

Generally:

Four on a five scale. Only the haphazard cinematography kept me from being totally absorbed by this movie.


When's the last time you saw a movie that made you want to run out into the street, grab people passing by, and tell them "Come with me, you've GOT to see this movie"? I've just finished watching such a movie, Half Nelson, a film that boasts some of the most enthralling acting I think I've ever seen. And if superb acting weren't enough, this movie's story never makes one false move. It's believable and absorbing all the way through, with an honest and powerful ending that makes no compromises.

This is the kind of movie that I hope to see every time I watch a drama.

The subject-matter in Half-Nelson is, I admit, a bit off-putting. Wendy had to beg, borrow and threaten to get me to sit down and watch a movie about a crack-addicted teacher and a troubled student. It sounded like a total downer of a movie. And in some ways, it is. This isn't a "feel-good" film by any stretch. It's demanding, but rewarding. It's often unpleasant, but it's thoroughly genuine. And the characters, far from cliches, are richly embodied. I found myself feeling involved with the lives of these characters, caring about their decisions and their futures, and emotionally invested in the story.

As Drey, the thirteen year old girl, Shareeka Epps absolutely steals this movie. Her performance crackles with pent-up energy and desperation. With a brother in jail, an absentee father who simply doesn't care about his kids, and a mother who has to work double shifts to support her family, Drey is in dire need of a role model, a father figure. There are two men in her life who are the likely candidates for that role.

One is her history teacher, Mr. Dunne. During the course of the movie, there is evidence to indicate that at one point, Mr. Dunne was an inspiring and important teacher for a number of students. But when the story begins, Dan Dunne is at the end of his rope. A long-time addiction to cocaine has given way to a burgeoning new crack habit, and Dunne can barely keep it together. His dedication to his students, especially those (like Drey) who he coaches in basketball, is apparent. But Dunne has lost the ability to steer his life. As the teacher, Ryan Gosling is really outstanding. This is one of those performances wherein the character's behavior just gets worse and worse. Nonetheless, the acting is such that, as a viewer, I remained concerned and captivated.

Drey's other potential father figure is Frank, a shady guy who has apparently played a role in the arrest and incarceration of Drey's brother. Frank shows an interest in Drey and her family early in the film, but it's obvious that he's not the guardian angel that he'd have the girl believe he is. Frank is a drug dealer, and he's always on the look-out for new blood to keep his product on the street. Drey's brother Mike was loyal and effective for Frank. Maybe Drey will be, too. Anthony Mackie plays Frank with such conviction and complexity that he manages to make the character human, even somewhat likable. His performance, like those by Gosling and Epps, is something to behold.

Still, this movie belongs to Shareeka Epps. Every little nuance she brings to her performance is powerful and very, very real. It's in the way she speaks volumes with her eyes and her posture. The way she hold back smiles, as though she's learned to mistrust happiness. The way she packs two or three word lines with intensity and emotion. Her work in this movie is flat-out astounding.

Half Nelson hinges on these three strong performances, but the story itself is top-notch, too. The movie never ceased to surprise me with it's honesty. In one scene we meet Dan Dunne's family, people who appear to be model versions of upper-middle-class white liberals. They wear their politics on their sleeves, but like Dan himself, they're both more and less than they seem. There are a number of ugly flaws beneath their glossy progressive interior, including emotional disconnection, alcoholism ... even racism. When the family characters were first introduced, I became uneasy. I thought the movie was going to become preachy, showing us examples of the successful, informed liberals that Dan might have been, were it not for drugs. Not so. Dan's family, for all their pontifications and pronouncements, are clearly the same damaged stock that turned out this damaged history teacher.

I don't want to say too much about the story, the plot progressions, and the powerful ending. I will say, though, that the movie ends with small signs of hope. But it's an honest hope, not a miracle 180 degree turn-around. That's important in terms of the movie's truth and realism. This movie is too candid for a sugar-coated conclusion. And I'm glad for that. A character like Drey, as portrayed by the remarkable Shareeka Epps, deserves both hope and honesty. Half-Nelson delivers both ... for Drey and for the audience alike.

The trailer for Half Nelson:

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies, You Tube

Just a quick note; I'm still alive, still waiting for my bladder to heal post-surgery, still dashing to the bathroom every seven seconds (or so it seems).

Here's a quick list of the distractions that have been preoccupying me for the last few days. Consider these the reasons I haven't been blogging much.

• My doctor changed my medication with the hope that stronger stuff would help me sleep and have less pain. Success! My sleep is still sporadic, but I'm glad to be getting any sleep at all, so I'll take it when I can get it.



• I rented Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and it might be the greatest first-person-shooter of all time. It's just about the best I've ever played, at least. A few minutes ago I shot down a helicopter with a sidewinder missle! Take that, terrorist scum! Booo-yah!



• Into The Wild, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Unleashed: Danny The Dog are all OK-to-good movies and all worth reviewing. And In Bruges is an outstanding movie. All of them are worth reviewing and I ought to write reviews of all of 'em.



• Deep Banana Blackout and Umphrey's McGee are both awesome jam bands that I've just discovered. If you're into Phish, Gov't Mule, etc, you should check these bands out, too.



• The kids are all with their other parents this week, so Wendy and I have had a lot of time to catch up on movies that aren't rated G or PG (see list of movies above) and TV shows we wouldn't watch with the kids around. And speaking of TV...



• The Sci-Fi Channel is running an all-day Twilight Zone marathon today and tomorrow. This is the original 1959-1964 series, which I used to watch in reruns growing up, and I just can't get enough of this stuff. I don't think my all-time favorite episode, titled Spur Of The Moment, is scheduled to run, though.

Hope everybody has a good 4th! I'll blog more when I have fewer distractions.

Labels: Bladder Cancer, Movies, Music, Personal, Trivial Matters, Video Games

Labels: Movies, Music, You Tube

Synopsis

Michael Clayton is a lawyer who specializes in loop holes. His firm calls him in when a client needs to get out of trouble in any way possible. In this movie we meet him at a cross-roads, as he's begun to ask himself some difficult questions about his life. Then a colleague suffers an emotional collapse that jeopardizes a big-money corporate law suit, and Clayton finds himself playing an important role in a series of startling events that he can't control.

Pros:

• Great direction and a stellar script.


• All the performances are strong.


• A believable, powerful conclusion.

Cons:

• You have GOT to pay attention to this film. That's not really a "con" at all, but some viewers might find the movie frustrating.


• One or two scenes were a bit too conventional for an otherwise original film.

Generally:

4 on a 5 scale. Much, much better than I had expected.

Extended Review:

I simply had no intentions of seeing Michael Clayton. A number of things sent up red flags for me about the movie. All the big-time Hollywood critics loved it, and it's often a bad sign when they fawn over a movie using keywords such as "corporate America," "crisis of conscience" and "George Clooney."

I've been inoculated to seeing flimsy movies that are really little more than thinly veiled left-wing sermons. You see, In the past I've let liberal film critics lead me astray on more than one occasion. I've sat through holier-than-thou, high minded leftist crap such as The Contender and The Dead Poet's Society and Brokeback Mountain. The critics praised 'em, I watched 'em, and then I felt robbed of money and time. Those aren't movies, they're left-wing screeds with sloppy, pseudo-narratives thrown in to justify their existence.*

So I've learned the signs and memorized the red-flag words, and it was a safe bet that Michael Clayton was just this year's Syriana. That is to say, a piece of hollow propaganda with no redeeming qualities.

But then a film-reviewer who's opinion I've come to value praised the film, and I gave it a second thought. Tonight, after having actually watched Michael Clayton, I find myself ready to admit that it's a fine, smart, worthwhile piece of cinema. It's a movie ... an honest-to-goodness movie ... heck, it's even one of the better ones from last year ... and it's well worth your time.

There is much to recommend Michael Clayton. The screenplay and direction (both by Tony Gilroy) are tight as a drum. There's hardly a wasted scene, there isn't one dead-end development, there's not a single superfluous line of dialogue. As a matter of fact, if you (like me) have gotten lazy because of movies that hand every story progression to you on a silver platter, consider yourself warned: This movie demands that you pay attention. Be sure and hit the pause button if you dash to the kitchen for a Coke.

Thankfully, Gilroy's actors rise to the challenges of his script. George Clooney, in the title role, gives one of his typical Clooney-esque performances. But this is a role that calls for a Clooney-esque performance. Clayton is a guy who has gone about as far as good looks and charm can take him, and is now just beginning to realize that somewhere along the way he forgot to do anything substantial with his life. One scene in particular, involving a conversation between Clayton and his young son about Clayton's layabout brother, might be the best single scene in Clooney's career.

Tilda Swinton and Sydney Pollack are good, too. But Tom Wilkinson nearly steals the entire movie from all of them as Arthur Edens, a bi-polar corporate lawyer who experiences a moment of clarity so sharp and painful that it causes him a nervous breakdown. Tom Wilkinson has been very good in everything he's done this decade ... from In The Bedroom to Batman Begins to The Exorcism Of Emily Rose. With Michael Clayton he's really solidified my opinion of him as one of the best actors working today.

There are a couple of predictable moments. I saw a certain "bet you're surprised to see me alive" scene coming a mile away, and a couple of scenes involving two hired guns seemed a little implausible to me. But even those elements are slight complaints compared to how much Michael Clayton does well. I brushed the mild flaws off and the movie made them up to me readily.

Over the last few years there has been a flood of liberal movies. I've learned to sniff 'em out, and I stayed away from films like Lions For Lambs and and Rendition and Good Night And Good Luck and on and on and on. Those movies tanked at the box office and I felt validated. But I blew the call with Michael Clayton. This isn't a screed, this is a tight, smart, thoughtful film. If you appreciate that kind of thing, you'll enjoy this movie.

Trailer:

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* - I'm not opposed to movies with liberal messages on principle. I can name a number of liberal films that I've loved, including Dr. Strangelove, Dead Man Walking, Norma Rae, Apocalypse Now, and Dances With Wolves. But when a movie has an insultingly bad plot and clearly exists just to advance a political position, I always feel ripped off. I'd feel the same way about preachy conservative films ... if there were such a thing.

Labels: Movie Reviews, Movies, Politics

I've been saying for a long time ... and for four years in blog form ... that Spike Lee is an asshole. And it isn't really necessary for me to make that point, since Lee makes it himself constantly.

Here's the scoop on Spike's latest blather-fest...

It seems that Spike has issues with the two movies that Clint Eastwood has made about The Battle of Iwo Jima. And ... brace yourself, this is gonna be a huge shock ... Spike's issues with the movies revolve around race. According to Spike

"There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint.... That was his version: the negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version.

"It's not like [Eastwood] could say he didn't know. It was a conscious decision not to have any black people."

Eastwood, as I've noted a number of times here at the blog, is a hero of mine. And not just because he makes good movies. Eastwood is a pretty damn smart guy:

Speaking about black troops on Iwo Jima, Eastwood said, "But they didn't raise the flag. The story [was] ... the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, ‘This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate. ... When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like Bird, I use 90% black people.

"A guy like [Lee] should shut his face."

BOO-YAH! You gotta love a guy who makes a lifetime of great movies, threatens to kill Michael Moore and tells that idiot Spike Lee to shut his face.

Of course, Lee has continued to twist words and history, still insisting that there should have been black actors in a story about people who weren't black, but Eastwood is adamant that historical accuracy trumps political correctness in his films:

"What are you going to do, you gonna tell a f***ing story about that?" Eastwood ranted. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is."

At first, Lee said he'd take "the Obama high road" and not respond with anger. ("The Obama high road?" That alone is worth a laugh.) But, of course, a guy like Lee can't hold back his spite for long. So he let loose:

"First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," (Lee) told ABCNEWS.com. "He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like 'a guy like that should shut his face' -- come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."

Ah, damn. Where do I begin?

• Spike, not everybody who tells you to shut your face is trying to put you on the plantation. Clint didn't say "Shut up, boy" or anything like that. Quit looking for racism in your bellybutton, you f***ing imbecile.



• And what do you mean "on the plantation?" Unless you're 170 years old or so, you've never been on a plantation. What the hell do YOU know about plantations? Quit co-opting the experiences of people who've been dead for decades and decades. No matter how hard you might have had it, you've never had it as hard as someone who was forced into slavery. You f***ing imbecile.



• You're damn right Clint came off like an angry old man. He's 78, so, yep, he's an old man. And he was angry because a f***ing imbecile named Spike Lee criticized him without having any understanding of the issues at hand.



• Spike you've made two ... exactly two ... movies that qualify as great. Eastwood has made more genuinely great films than I can begin to count. So once you actually shut your face you should open your ears and your mind and try to learn something from Eastwood. There are too many crap movies like Inside Man, She Hate Me and Girl 6 on your resume for you to be critiquing Eastwood. You. F***ing. Imbecile.

I guess that about does it.

See, I just gotta rant about these things from time to time. I'm glad I rediscovered blogging!

Labels: Media, Movies, News, Politics

Synopsis

Random, frequently vulgar sketch comedy that satirizes the news, the media, and American culture.

Pros:

• Much of the same smart irreverence that makes The Onion the funniest site on the internet.


• Several big, BIG laughs.

Cons:

• A number of sketches fall flat.

Generally:

Two and a half or maybe three stars on a five scale. Fans of the website will enjoy much of it.

Extended Review:

As I recently mentioned in a comment to Rhodester, I can't imagine going back to life without the internet if only for two reasons: my addictions to the IMDb and The Onion. The IMDb, of course, is the Internet Movie Database, a film-lovers invaluable resource. The Onion, a news-parody website, is consistently the funniest, best written humor site on the internet.

In 2003, the good folks behind The Onion website made The Onion Movie, a sketch comedy film in the meandering, crude tradition of films like The Kentucky Fried Movie or the mid-80's cult hit, Amazon Women On The Moon. Like those movies, The Onion Movie is extremely adult fare, with most of the sketches involving crude language and/or visual gags. And, like those two older films, The Onion Movie doesn't have quite enough good material to stay consistent for it's entire running time. It's a little better than either of those films, though, because the parts that are funny are howling, knee-slapping, tears-streaming funny. Credit the writers who make the website such a consistent joy.

The film sat on a shelf from 2003 until earlier this year (when it was released on DVD), apparently because it's distributors had no idea what to do with it. The movie is said to have offended a number of test audiences, and I'm not surprised by that. Much of the humor here is intended to fly in the face of political correctness. Gags involving minorities, women, terrorism, religion and even the handicapped are here by the ton.

Like 2006's Borat, another crass and random comedy that I loved, The Onion Movie holds nothing sacred. Anything and everything is plucked for parody, especially those people and institutions that take themselves very seriously. The Onion Movie doesn't deliver as much yuck-for-the-buck as Borat, but when this movie made me laugh, it made me laugh really, really hard.

Some of the sketches are dead-on. One of my favorites involve an armed gunman who goes into a bank to steal a job. Then there's a young pseudo-urban white guy who wants to come off black, until he's actually mistaken for a black man. I laughed at a parody of Stephen Seagal films (staring Seagal himself). Best of all, a running segment during which film critics dissect the movie itself while it's in progress really takes the vinegar out of movie critics. Even amateur ones like me.

Other sketches don't really work. A Britney Spears send-up is soooo ten minutes ago. A sketch about home computers just seems as outdated as the older PCs it mocks. A running gag wherein the Onion's TV news anchor does battle with his parent company, ala Network, is just a reminder that the classic Network is a MUCH smarter, MUCH funnier film. And, to be honest, even that funny Steven Seagal sketch is revisited a few too many times.

The movie's big ending, an attempt to tie all the disparate elements together into something that makes sense, doesn't work very well either. But the film's brief running time (about 80 minutes) didn't give me time to really get bored, and the brilliant sketches are spaced fairly evenly, insuring a big laugh every ten minutes or so. If you're a fan of the brilliant Onion website, this one is worth a rental. It's not as good as the Onion website at it's best, but it's probably better than whatever sitcom you might otherwise watch tonight.

Trailer:

Labels: Media, Movie Reviews, Movies

Judging from a few notes in my inbox, I think yesterday's April Fools' Day prank was a bit too obtuse. But then, my sense of humor often is. If you tried to visit the SouthCon main page today, you ended up here instead. Har har har.

Then again, nothing I came up with for an April Fools Day post would have been anywhere near as cool as this turned out to be. Especially for the lucky few who actually got hold of the Joker's balls.

Click here to read a summary of what I'm rambling about.

Labels: Movies, Trivial Matters

Synopsis

A bad storm brings a super-spooky mist across the lake. The residents of Anytown, USA end up trapped in a grocery store as unspeakable, huge monsters come out of the mist, looking for people to eat.

Pros:

• Thomas Jane and Andre Braugher are both decent in roles that don't ask much of them.


• Cool mutant spider thing.

Cons:

• Corny, cliched characters.


• Predictable plot developments.


• Bad ending.

Generally:

two on a five scale. Just watch Shawshank again.

Extended Review:

The Mist is the kind of loose, undemanding b-movie that allows your mind plenty of time to wander while you're watching it. My mind wandered, and I ended up asking myself questions like, for instance, why is it that when a guy catches on fire in a movie, he'll always run around, flailing his arms, setting other things on fire as he goes? Doesn't anybody stop, drop and roll like they taught us in school?

And why is it that when nefarious government scientists open a portal to another world, it's always a far worse world than ours? Why can't our world be the worse one for a change? Why can't the other world be a lovely, blissful Eden full of beautiful creatures that come into our world and teach us how to cure cancer, play piano and make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich?

I even had time to wonder about the physics that allow an insect to walk on a glass window. How would that process be effected if the insect were twenty-five pounds or so? Would the sheet of glass have to be extraordinarily thick for it to work?

I read the short Stephen King novel that The Mist is based on some twenty years ago, and I remember enjoying it. I remember thinking that it was like a comic book without graphic art. It wasn't "literature," it was bubblegum for the brain, and pretty good bubblegum at that. The movie isn't nearly as good as the source material, and that's a shame since it comes with a pretty good pedigree.

This film stars Thomas Jane and Andre Braugher, actors who've done work I've enjoyed in the past. Then there's Marcia Gay Harden, who's been nominated for two Oscars and won one of them. Frank Darabont scripted and directed The Mist, and he's done great work bringing Stephen King to the screen in the past. The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are both wonderful films and each of them rises above the sum of it's parts. Unfortunately, this time out, the movie gets bogged down by it's own lesser elements.

Sometimes b-grade sci-fi can transcend the genre and end up fun and thoughtful. This isn't one of those instances. The Mist is stocked full of standard b-movie devices; characters that are clichés, predictable plot elements and special effects that don't quite deliver the chills they aim for. The actors all perform as well as the script will allow and the direction is fine, it's just that this movie never quite got going and ended up taking two hours to not go much of anywhere.

A bit more about those cliched characters: I was really surprised to realize that Marcia Gay Harden was in this movie. Doesn't she usually do headier stuff, movies designed to provoke critics into using words like "lyrical" and "atmospheric?" Yeah, she does. So how'd she end up in a sci-fi b-movie? Well, turns out that her character is one of those cartoon Christians. The kind that Hollywood loves to shove down our throat as examples of what they think all Christians are. As though everyone who doesn't embrace abortion on demand is a Westboro Baptist congregant. By the time the movie was over I'd become convinced that Harden took the part so she could get paid to show her contempt for religion in general.

You know, now that I think about it, King might have some kind of fixation on religious women. Carrie's mom was a self-righteous nutball, too. So was the mother of Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone. Maybe King had one hell of a mean Sunday School teacher when he was a kid.

The worst thing about The Mist, though, is it's ending. King's original story had a real humdinger of an ending, sorta like the end of The Birds, but to the tenth power, scale-wise. This version of the story, however, continues past the point where King ended his version. Now we're handed an ending that's supposed to be ironic and powerful but simply comes off like a vulgar joke. I call BS on that.

No, The Mist isn't a terrible film, and Jane and Braugher were both fine in their roles. Some of the special effects were OK, although most fell flat, and I did have a couple of genuine jumps during scarier scenes. But ultimately this mist evaporated, leaving nothing behind but a disappointing residue.

Trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Again, like last night, I logged on with the intentions of writing a movie review ... and, again, it ain't gonna happen.

Tonight we watched Volver, and I enjoyed it. It was quite unlike anything I've seen before. Penelope Cruz did some great work in the main role, and she was beautiful, besides. Click here and check out her visage on the movie's official poster and packaging ... like a young Sophia Loren, only prettier. She really was outstanding in the film.

But my enjoyment of this Spanish-language film was hampered, even ruined at times, by some odd subtitles. Did I write odd? Downright friggin' weird is probably a better way to describe it. And the fact that the story itself is pretty weird only heightened my confusion.

For instance, at one point, Penelope Cruz's character sings a song that is apparently called Volver. The lyrics to which oughta give the viewer an idea of the significance of the movie's title. But for some reason, the words of the song weren't included in the subtitles. It was a nice song, it sounded pretty, it clearly included the word "Volver," and I'd have liked to know what it was all about. So I was distracted and a little frustrated by that.

So rather than write the movie review I'd wanted to write, I've been fruitlessly looking around the net for a translation of the lyrics, although I can't be sure what the song is called in Spanish. A guy ought not have to do this kind of thing after the fact in order to better feel that he enjoyed a movie.

I've put the disc in the PC to show you some of what I'm talking about ...At another point in the movie, Penelope's character (who is running a restaurant) complements her barmaid on her drink-mixing skills:

To which the barmaid responds:

I, uh... well, OK. I think I know what you mean, and I might even agree, but ... uh ... what?

I don't think that's technically incorrect translating ... but it sure is a bit odd.

It's not as odd, of course, as the infamous Chinese bootleg subtitles for Star Wars:

But it was a bit off-putting, nonetheless.

Anyway, once I got past the subtitle issue and just tried to enjoy the movie, I did enjoy it. Now, it is an odd movie. It's very strange. The story involves attempted rape and murder and someone who may or may not be a ghost. And it's one of those movies that features a number of heroic and/or sympathetic female characters and a pack of lecherous, disgusting male characters. And I think I mentioned the subtitle issue.

But, in spite of all that, the movie is more good than bad. Cinematically, it's really very good. All the critics I had heard were right about two things: Penelope Cruz turns in an outstanding performance, and the movie's visual pallet is beautiful.

And Penelope makes for some dang nice eye-candy, besides.

So see Volver if you're in the mood for something a bit odd with no likable male characters and some weird subtitles. If I were gonna write a full-on review, I'd probably give it three out of four stars.

Trailer for Volver:

Labels: Humor, Movie Reviews, Movies

I've just watched The Last King Of Scotland and thought it was very good. My intentions when I logged on were to write a review of the film, but first I decided to read about Amin a bit and I ended up finding a short documentary on YouTube that captivating me.

So, in short, I won't be reviewing The Last King Of Scotland just now, other than to say that the movie was a bit too long and I found some of the violence to be very hard to watch, but I felt that Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy both gave performances that were strong and compelling. I suppose I'd give the movie three and a half out of four possible stars and recommend it to film-buffs, modern-history-buffs and Forest Whitaker fans ... with that qualifier that, yes, it is a bit long and, yes, it has some disturbing violence.

Anyway, the three YouTube clips that make up the short documentary that I enjoyed:

On a personal note: I'm a huge fan of imported gourmet coffee. Kenyan coffee, for instance, is a favorite of mine. I enjoy Tanzanian Peabery, too. During the documentary, when the narrative mentioned Amin's control of the Ugandan coffee trade, I thought about my taste in coffee and the imported beans I buy. By buying the coffee, am I doing more good than bad or more bad than good? I can't help but wonder about the role my purchases play in African economies and lives. I looked around on the net and read a bit more specifically about that topic, but you know how it is. Every bit of information you find is spun one way or another by someone with an agenda.

Typically, the word "boycott" never crosses my lips. I think boycotts are silly. I will occasionally make an effort, though, to avoid certain purchases for moral reasons. I've become aware, for instance, of the role that gum arabic plays in the stability of a murderous regime in Darfur. (Read this) No, I'm not suggesting a boycott. But I will admit that I've lost my taste for Coca Cola lately.

Of course, gum arabic is in everything for soft drinks to shoes ... sigh. It's complicated.

So, anyway, what I'm saying is that I really hope I don't stumble across a reason to stop drinking my African coffee!

Labels: Entertainment, Media, Movies, News, Politics, You Tube

• What's Up With Hillary Clinton's apology extravaganza?
  
  Hillary Clinton isn't known for apologizing for anything ... so I suppose that her current whirlwind apology tour is a sign of just how desperate she is to hold on to whatever chance she might have of being the Democratic Party's nominee in November. Hilary has apologized for remarks made by Geraldine Ferraro and then apologized for remarks her husband made in South Carolina. She'd do well to apologize for her husband's hideously irresponsible eight years in the White House, but I don't see that happening.
  
  Look, I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton. I've made that clear. But the more I learn about Barack Obama, the more I realize that I was foolish to think of him as a slightly better choice than Hillary. I guess here's where I stand on the two of them now: We're going to have to deal with Obama as a presidential contender at some point. There's no getting around it. The guy has a huge fanbase among the many, many people who don't really understand anything, and it's probably enough to get him elected. So I hope he goes ahead and gets the nomination and effectively ends the Clinton-era of national politics forever. I hope he doesn't win the Presidency, but I really think he's going to be President eventually, so maybe the sooner we get his term in office over with, the better.



• What's up with the upcoming Metallica album?
  
  The band has been pushing the release of this album further and further back, and now it's tentatively scheduled for release in September. Metallica doesn't have a title for the album yet. I call it Chinese Democracy 2 because I'm starting to doubt that it actually exists. And I'm kinda dreading it's release. I can't wait to hear it, I'll get it the day it comes out, and I'm sure I'll be totally disappointed in it for one reason or another. I've said before that for the past few years I've come to feel like Metallica's battered wife. They mistreat me, they never live up to their promises, but I stick with them because they used to be soooooo good to me! If you could only see what they're like when nobody else is around! Really, they're not who you think they are. Besides, we've been in therapy.



• What's up with Eliot Spitzer's call-girl?
  
  Hey, not for nothing, but the girl really isn't all that hot. And I wouldn't make mention of it, except that in her role as a call-girl I'd say that her looks were entirely relevant. It's not that she was ugly, it's just that she kinda reminds me of a poor man's Daisy Fuentes. And that can't have been worth it. If I'm the Governor of New York and I'm gonna risk losing everything and spend ... what was it? $5,000? On one night with a call-girl? Come on. She's gonna look a whole hell of a lot like Rhianna or Katharine McPhee and not a little bit like some washed-up former VJ from the '80's. (Preferably Rhianna ... 'cause ... damn.) This is gonna have to be a memory that'll last a life-time for my five-large. You know what I'm sayin'?



• What's up with the fruity-looking new five-dollar bill?
  
  OK, call me old-fashioned. Call me a troglodyte. (Please ... I like being called names.) Call me a curmudgeon .... but I like my five-dollar bills the way they were when I was a kid. Ugly. Green and wrinkled and marked with that simple, thumb-sized picture of Abe Lincoln's ugly mug.
  
  Ever since the government started messing with the money ten or twelve years ago I've had this vague feeling that we're all walking around with wallets full of pretend currency. And the newest version of the five dollar bill is the worst offender yet. It has purple on it. PURPLE! What is that all about? Can we please go back to real money and come up with a better way to discourage counterfeiting? Like maybe the weekly televised beating of counterfeiters. I personally would volunteer to beat a counterfeiter with a rake for ten minutes every week. Or maybe we just catch them and force them to wear purple.
  
  You know, if we all did our parts, we could probably get the government to go back to printing real money. Call or write to your congressman now and say "Yes! I'll beat a counterfeiter with a rake!" Tell them Darrell at SouthCon sent you.



• What's up with Edward Norton and Marvel?
  
  The promotion of ... and possibly the release of ... the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie is being pushed back because of Edward Norton feuding with Marvel over the final cut of the movie. Partly, I blame Marvel. Norton has had a reputation as a real S.O.B. for years ... and as the old Indian story goes, they knew he was a snake when they picked him up. (I'm assuming that Somebody at Marvel had final approval of the cast.) Either way, Norton is a brilliant actor when he gets it right, but Keeping The Faith indicated that, behind the camera, he ain't no Stanley Kubrick. My two cents: Norton needs to shut up and back out. He's done his job, now let those who handle the movie from here do their jobs.



• What's up with black political figures throwing the n-word around?
  
  Two recent instances, one right after the other, really jarred me. One instance involved Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who's being investigated for corruption and lying under oath. Now, to fend off the charges against him, Mayor Kilpatrick has dropped the N-Bomb and started talking about lynch mobs:
  

  
  Woah! Hey, hold on there a minute, pal! Who's been launching racist attacks on your family? Should't those people be prosecuted for making threats and/or for harassment? And what's that got to do with the charges against you, Mayor Kilpatrick?
  
  And then, right on the heels of that, there's this from Barack Obama's minister:
  

  Hey, wait, woah, WHAT?
  
  If I started listing things that are wrong with that I'd have to write for another three hours. And that's only the beginning of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's recent wacky remarks. And, make no mistake, this guy is an official member of Obama's campaign.
  
  Let me specifically mention the use of the n-word by these guys. Can we just stop with that? Please? For ages and ages that word was used by arrogant, ignorant white people as a way to keep black people down. Now we're having instances of certain black guys throwing that word up as a way to shut up scaredy-cat whites, to avoid the real issues, and to cancel all debate. What good does that do? Who benefits from that? Can we please grow the f*&# up, maybe? It's 2008, fer Pete's sake. When white-on-black racism is the actual topic, let's deal with it. But let's not use it as a way to avoid dealing with anything else. Not for nothin', but too many good, honest black people have really been victimized by racists for their struggles to be trivialized as a political bargaining chip.




• What's up with Spitball Politics?
  
  Well, I'll tell ya what's up with it. Spitball Politics is a new political blog that features the writing of (among others) Scott, the Spiritual Tramp in my blogroll. Stop by, check 'em out, leave a comment or two.

Labels: Entertainment, Media, Metallica, Movies, Music, News, Politics, Trivial Matters, You Tube

Stallone is already thinking about the next Rambo movie. But he tells a Swedish newspaper that, for the next film, Rambo will find himself in a new film genre:

"I would like to take Rambo to another genre, experiment a little with the character. It would definitely not be another war movie.

"I can't go any further with that than what I've already done. What it's going to be like, I'm not going to reveal at this point. But I'm already halfway though writing the manuscript."

Wow! What an idea! Take the survivalist warrior and force him to hack, kill and slash his way through a totally foreign film landscape! I like the concept. And I have a few ideas about exactly what Stallone might have in mind for the next Rambo film.

Comic Buddy Movie

Pair Rambo up with Ben Stiller, have them forced to run some kind of business together; lovable, goofy underdogs who succeed in spite of being total opposites who're always at each other's throats. Maybe the justification would be that John Rambo has to come back to America to take care of his long-lost cousin, Eugene Rambo. So he reluctantly leaves his mud hut and boards a plane for America. Stiller could play Eugene, the sickly, nerdy owner of ... say, a struggling bakery. Just imagine the hijinks with Stallone and Stiller in the kitchen together, baking donuts or biscuits or something. It would be the kind of thing that Lucy and Ethel used to get into ... only funnier because it involves Rambo! And Ben Stiller! I see in my head a madcap scene that ends with both of them covered with flour and Stallone holding a machete to Stiller's throat. HA HA! Then at the end a big company offers to buy Rambo's recipe for Jungle Buns (or something) and they end up with enough money to save the bakery. Yay!

Ethnic Chick Flick

OK, how about this ... Angela Bassett plays an independent, strong, successful woman who gets tired of all the irresponsible, weak, unsuccessful men in the ethnic dating pool. So she goes to Africa and, surprisingly, meets an American male who's living alone and reclusive in the jungle. As Angela and Rambo get to know each other, a real friendship blossoms ... but Angela can't live in the mud with Rambo, so he returns to metropolitan New York with Angela. Rambo gets in touch with his ethnic feminine side as he meets Angela's sassy, ethnic female friends and learns about their trials and tribulations, heartaches, relationships, loves and laughs, etc. There'll be a scene shot with steady-cam ... slow, turning shots around the faces of the principles ... wherein all the characters sit around in their pajamas in the living room and tell stories while an Al Green song plays in the background. Then Rambo hunts down and kills each of the men who's broken the hearts of his newfound friends.

Legal Thriller

Rambo gets sued by the villages near the jungle where he lives ... because he's been peeing in the nearby stream and polluted the local water supply. So he hires a crackerjack attorney, played by George Clooney, to represent him. Clooney's character takes the case for fame, but has a significant personal change as he comes to believe that his client really is innocent. The lawyer character displays his dedication to the case in scenes wherein he writes case notes and reads legal briefs in his underwear, covered with mud in the jungle. An unexpected plot twist reveals that the only reason that Rambo's pee was toxic is because of the toxic fruit he'd been eating from local trees ... fruit that had been poisoned by an irresponsible corporation co-owned by the Vatican and the President of the United States. One centerpiece action scene involves Rambo successfully busting into the Vatican with Clooney so that his attorney can get a deposition from the Pope. Clooney is killed in the process, forcing Rambo to represent himself at the trial. The movie ends with a tense, dramatic scene as Rambo cross-examines the President of the United States from the witness stand.

Romantic Comedy

He's a rugged, isolated survivalist who lives alone in the jungle. She's the spoiled big-city reporter who's sent by her newspaper to interview him. She's also Meg Ryan. Meg's reporter character travels to the jungles of (far away place) to get her interview, only to get abandoned in the mud by crooked locals who promise to take her to meet Rambo and then steal her money and sneak away. In one tense scene, Meg is crying in the rain under a tree when a menacing figure approaches from the shadows. Dramatic music builds, but then the dark figure turns out to be Rambo, the very man Meg has been looking for. He rescues her but refuses to grant her an interview, instead insisting he'll take her to the nearest metro area so she can go home. But as they trek through the jungle, Meg discovers resolve that she never knew she had and Rambo gets in touch with feelings he'd forgotten. Along the way there are comic misadventures involving poison ivy and a group of mischievous monkeys. The tables are turned during another tense scene wherein Meg saves Rambo's life from a huge (some kind of animal). Neither of them reveals their feelings to the other, although it's obvious to the audience that they've fallen in love. When they get to the metro area Meg appears to get on the plane home and Rambo retreats to the bar to drown his sorrows ... but as the plane pulls out it reveals Meg still standing there on the tarmac. They rush together and embrace, the music swells, one of the monkeys steals Rambo's survival knife out of his back pocket, fade to black.

You know, as stupid as those ideas are, I really probably should copyright them.

Labels: Humor, Movies, News

Synopsis

In a nutshell, this is The Blair Witch Godzilla: A giant monster attacks New York. The audience point-of-view is through the lense of a hand-held video camera as a group of survivors try to escape, all the while video-taping the events.

Pros:

• Short, sweet, pure fun.


• The movie doesn't try to justify it's thrills with high-minded sermons or science lessons. This is a good old fashioned b-movie.


• Great special effects and a pay-off that pays off.

Cons:

• A few images momentarily ruined my fun because they were so reminiscent of 9/11.


• This movie should have gotten an R-rating. Blood, intensity and swear-words abound.

Generally:

3.5 on a five scale. Good fun for grown-up action/horror movie fans.

Extended Review:

The first I heard about Cloverfield came in the form of an untitled, mysterious preview that played before last summer's Transformers. Frankly, I wasn't moved at all. It looked like one more big-budget action film, although one with the Blair Witch conceit of pseudo-documentary. That is to say, it proposed to be an artifact; a piece of video shot by the survivors of some sort of an attack on New York.

My immediate gut reaction was that the movie was probably in bad taste. Images of New York under attack seemed a little exploitive with 9/11 still a fairly fresh memory … and, besides, how many more big-budget end-of-the-world dog-and-pony-shows did Hollywood expect me to buy into?

Even the movie's eventual poster, featuring a beheaded Statute of Liberty, seemed just a little crass to me. It took Cube pointing out that the Statue of Liberty has provided an iconic centerpiece for years and years of science fiction for me to put it in the right context.

Finally, the movie's January release date came around and I was shocked to find out that most people seemed to agree that Cloverfield was actually pretty good. Both professional critcs and real people were generally happy with the film, so Wendy and I decided to give it a shot.

We saw it this evening, and I really wouldn't mind seeing it again. Cloverfield is a blessedly short, utterly light, totally enjoyable little action/horror movie. It's fun. Total fun. It has cringes, a few laughs, and some really good special effects. And it doesn't propose to be anything more than exactly what it is. This is a b-movie that knows it's limits and performs above expectations within them.

There are no proposed lessons here about science-gone-awry. There are no sermons about the environment or animal rights or nuclear testing. There is nothing here except a big city, a big monster, and a lot of running and yelling. While watching it, you might find yourself struggling to suppress the urge to yell "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

Even the movie's Blair Witch device … the hand-held perspective … didn't grow tiresome. Mostly because the cast was likable and the script was tight. Ever notice that the three actors in The Blair Witch Project never went on to do anything? That's because everybody (even those of us who liked the film) friggin' hated them by the time Blair Witch was over. That's not an issue here. The cast is full of young, pretty people who seem smart enough to realize that none of them is the real star here. No hamming it up, no scenery chewing … just a lot of running and screaming. "Wheeeeeee!!"

Now, I have to admit, a few early shots did remind me uncomfortably of 9/11 news coverage. Smoke and ash and free-floating sheets of paper on New York streets are a very "real" image to me after that awful day. Nonetheless, once the monster (this movie's real star) begins to reveal itself, Cloverfield turns into total escapism. A few glimpses of Godzilla circa 2008 and I was comfortably in Hollywood La-La Land.

I'm reluctant to tell you too much about the monster itself. It really is best to go into this movie cold. The less you know the more you'll be swept away. But if you're the kind of person who just has to peek, you can peek to three different varying degrees below:

• Click here to see my own "artistic interpretation" of what the Cloverfield Monster looks like.


• Click here to see a more legit, fairly accurate artistic rendering of the Cloverfield Monster.


• And click here to read about the literary archetype that the Monster represents … and if you're familiar with this particular thing, I'm sure you'll agree that it was about time someone tried to represent it on the silver screen.

My complaints with Cloverfield are few, but I do see this movie as yet another example of MPAA incompetence. Cloverfield is rated PG-13, but there is enough blood and gore, intensity and harsh language to easily justify an R rating. We take our kids to PG-13 rated movies fairly frequently. I'm glad we didn't take them to this one. This movie was a lot of fun, but in my opinion it's for adults only.

And the pay-off? Forget about it. Cloverfield features the best new vision of menace since Ridley Scott's original alien, combined with Godzilla's size, King Kong's power and Hillary's breath. This thing is hideous. I loved it.

Trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

Synopsis

In Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic, serial killer Michael Myers escapes from confinement to bring murder and terror to his hometown.

Pros:

• Uh… let me think…


• …Ummm… there has to be something positive...


• This remake really makes you appreciate the original film. That's all I got.

Cons:

• This movie isn't scary.


• Slow. Boring. Predictable. Completely goofy. An utter and complete waste of time. This movie is crap.

Generally:

0 on a five scale. As lame and pointless a remake as I've ever seen.

Extended Review:

If Rob Zombie is the master of modern horror, then horror is dead. I haven't seen Zombie's first movie, House Of A Thousand Cliches, but I thought his second film, The Devil's Rejects, was tedious, tiresome, and utterly uninspired. Now, with his remake of John Carpenter's classic Halloween, Zombie seems hell-bent on making it extremely hard for his fans to justify his career as a director. I've seen some bad remakes, and I've seen a great many stupid, insulting horror films … but it's rare that I see a bad remake that's this stupid and insulting. Rob Zombie's Halloween absolutely sucks.

There isn't much to say beyond that. I guess I could give some specifics; cite specific reasons that this film is so bad. How about some of the following:

• John Carpenter knew how to make his boogeyman scary. The Michael Myers of the original film was an enigma. We knew next to nothing about him, only that he was brutal and murderous and seemingly unstoppable. Zombie, however, apparently thought that the thing to do was give us a ton of Michael Myers back-story. It takes Zombie 45 minutes to establish the same back-story that Carpenter established in fewer than ten minutes. In the process, Zombie manages to make Michael Myers so mundane that he got on my nerves rather than scared me.



• In Rob Zombie's world, there is apparently a large butcher's knife within reach at least every ten feet. I've never seen this much cutlery on the Home Shopping Network.



• Everyone in the movie … everyone … uses the f-word. Kids. Parents. Old people. Doctors. Cops. I don't remember any nuns in the movie, but if there had been any, I'm sure Zombie would have had them interjecting the f-word into the prayers of the Rosary. I'm no linguistic prude, but come on! There are people who don't drop the f-bomb every seven words!



• As an apparent homage, Zombie retains in his film a number of elements of the original. The trademark Michael Myers mask, the theme music, a number of leitmotifs. These "homages" only served as constant reminders that the original film was much better.



• Zombie seems intent on casting his wife in every film he does, in a major role, no matter how inappropriate. In Halloween, Sheri Moon Zombie plays the killer's mother … and just to remind us how hot Zombie thinks his wife is, his version of the killer's mother is a stripper. And, yes, the movie includes the prerequisite workin'-the-pole dance scene. Nothing ruins a movie like these kinds of superfluous "Oh, come ON!" moments.

I watched Zombie's Halloween remake purely out of curiosity, even though most of the movie critics in the world tried to warn me that it was a waste of time. I swear, I will never waste another second of my life on another Rob Zombie project. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The first Halloween was a genuinely scary thrillride. This one is a boring, childish, consistently bad pile of garbage. Zombie should be forced to watch this film over and over again until he says "Oh, I get it. This is really lame." And then promises to never make another movie again.

Don't make the mistake I made. Don't waste 109 minutes of of your life on Rob Zombie's Halloween.

Don't even waste time on the trailer:

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies

I really do want to write something, but the write-stuff-thingy in my head hasn't been working lately.

I have a few ideas for blog posts pop into my head from time to time, but none of them pan out. Some of the ideas I've thought about include:

• We need more celebrities with nicknames in quotation marks in the middle of their real names. I like that trend. We need more celebrities like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Billy "Crash" Craddock and John "Cougar" Mellencamp and Andrew "Lloyd" Webber.



• Last night when we took the kids trick-or-treating, I saw a kid dressed as Sanjaya. I'm sure the kid was every bit as good a singer as the real thing.



• My knee-jerk reaction to John McCain's health care plan: Sounds pretty good to me.



• My knee-jerk reaction to the Barack Obama National Anthem flap: who cares. It was a brain-fart on Obama's part. It HAD to be. No presidential candidate in his right mind is gonna do that on purpose. There are a thousand better reasons to attack Obama's campaign. Lets focus on the real reasons he's a bad candidate.



• Wendy and I recently saw two movies that I enjoyed a lot and want to review: Men Of Honor and World Trade Center are both good and worth your time.

Someday I'll come up with the words to blog about some of this stuff.

Labels: Entertainment, Movies, News, Personal, Politics

It's been ages ... ages ... since the Coen brothers did a film I wanted to see. After The Man Who Wasn't There they made a string of movies that just looked awful. I began to wonder if they'd ever do another good film.

Looks like they're back, with a western-noir feature that might mark a return to form for the Joel and Ethan. Judging from the trailer, it looks a little reminiscent of their debut, Blood Simple. No Country For Old Men seems like the kind of movie about which I can justifiably get my hopes up:

Labels: Entertainment, Movies, You Tube

Synopsis

In East Germany in the 1980’s, a communist government surveillance expert studies a playwright who’s suspected of subversive, anti-socialist intentions. The government spy gets caught up in the playwright’s life in a surprising way that changes both his own motives and his own life, and ultimately has a tremendous effect on the lives of the playwright and those in his inner circle. (German; subtitled)

Pros:

• Solid direction, engrossing story.


• Strong performances.


• Smart, thoughtful. This film is something special.

Cons:

• A moment of violence toward the end of the film that seemed jarring and out of place.

Generally:

4 and a half out of five stars. Great film.

Extended Review:

In 1974, between installments of the Godfather series, Francis Ford Coppola released a relatively subdued, small film called The Conversation. Featuring one of Gene Hackman’s finest performances in the lead roll, The Conversation is my favorite of Coppola’s films, mostly for the same reasons that make it seem an anomaly among his work. The Conversation is character driven and hinges on the quiet power of Hackman’s acting. Given the nature of most of Coppola’s other films, this small movie seems almost out of place.

It was impossible for me to watch The Lives Of Others without thinking about The Conversation. Both films are stories about surveillance experts who get drawn into the lives of the people they’re spying on; drawn in to the point of becoming participants in the events they’re supposed to simply observe. Both movies work primarily because of strong performances by their lead actors. But The Lives Of Others is an even less conventional film than The Conversation. It more honestly considers the ambiguities and the gray areas between right and wrong than Coppola’s film. I still prefer The Conversation to The Lives Of Others if only because the older movie is punchier, more “economical.” But, if I’m completely honest, I’d have to say that I believe that The Lives Of Others is more resonant, and probably has more to say about the conflicts within the human soul than The Conversation does. More than most other films do, for that matter.

Much has been written by a number of self-congratulatory critics who’ve jumped at the chance to draw parallels between 1980’s East Germany, as depicted in The Lives Of Others, and Patriot-Act-era America. Don’t believe the hype. Any thread that might exist between modern American politics and this story is tenuous at best, and any reasonable viewer would surely note the differences between communist oppression and American liberty. In a DVD extra interview, writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck makes it clear that his story isn’t intended as metaphor for the modern world. It’s instead a commentary on the inhumane policies of Soviet style communism and the way that a genuine love for mankind might have changed men like Lenin for the better. Ultimately, though, politics are a secondary element in The Lives Of Others. At it’s heart, this is simply a story about loneliness and desperation, and about the human need to trust and be trusted. Von Donnersmarck isn’t as concerned here about political matters as he is about matters of the heart. To the extent that communism is a factor here, it simply serves as the source of ubiquitous dread that haunts the characters.

As Wiesler, the government man, Ulrich Mühe gives a performance that reminded me quite a bit of a young Kevin Spacey. I mean that as a serious compliment. I’m talking here about the Kevin Spacey of movies like Glengarry Glen Ross, not the guy who makes films like K-Pax. I’m talking about Kevin Spacey in his prime. Mühe reaches that level of acting in The Lives Of Others, and his performance carries the film. The role calls for subtle character development, and Mühe never plays his whole hand. I sometimes found myself surprised by the character's