Enter the Movies

The Artist

2012-02-12T14:54:00.006-06:00

If you had told me last year that the front-runner for Best Picture at this year's Oscars was a silent movie from France, I would have told you you were crazy. But director Michel Hazanavicius has crafted just such a movie, in a wonderful little movie called The Artist. It takes place, as Singin' in the Rain did, at that moment where sound came in to destroy the reign of silent movies. "The French George Clooney" Jean Dujardin is our hero, George Valentin, a Hollywood superstar who crosses paths with Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) on her rise to fame. Not strictly silent, and not strictly French (Americans John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle, and Penelope Ann Miller also star), The Artist pays tribute to old silent comedies and melodramas, combining both beautifully to make one of the best movies of 2011.

We follow George Valentin as he starts on top of the movie business, only to be knocked down when talkies come around, because "nobody wants to hear me speak". His marriage is falling apart, and he meets young Peppy Miller, whom he takes under his wing a bit, as she goes from extra in his spy action pictures, to full on super stardom of her own, going from "it girl" to THE big name in Hollywood. As Peppy's star grows with her success in the talkies, George's fame falls hard, as audiences begin rejecting silent pictures altogether. It's a classic (i.e. cliche) storyline that we've seen a million times before, but like all cliches, when it's done right it still works, and it is most certainly done right here.

The movie has many wonderful little scenes, when George and Peppy have a little dance off, only seeing each others legs. Another where they literally cross paths as George is leaving the studio after being fired/quitting, and Peppy comes in, excited about finally having a studio contract. Hazanavicius frames this scene in a wonderful set of shots on the studio stairwell, with George on bottom, looking up to the future star Peppy. My favorite scene though, is when George gets Peppy a job as a ballroom dancing extra in his current movie, and we see take after take of George messing up the scene as he gets distracted by this beautiful young woman who's found her way into his life. It's terrifically romantic, and really sets up the melodrama of George's fall from grace much more powerfully than I would've expected.

I have no idea whether The Artist will win Best Picture at the Oscars, but I know that I will definitely be rooting for it. Dujardin is wonderful in the lead role, certainly deserving of a Best Actor Oscar if he ends up winning. And although Bejo (Mrs. Hazanavicius, by the way) is nominated as Supporting Actress for who know what reason (it's obviously a lead role), she'd deserve the award if she won too. Hazanavicius controls everything in a way that really works well for the movie, and it takes a certain kind of filmmaker to pull this kind of trick off. Modern silents are not unheard of (acclaimed Canadian auteur Guy Maddin has made three), but Hazanavicius's ability to pay homage to an era and a way of filmmaking while also crafting a terrific crowd pleaser like this should not go unnoticed.

The worst movie of 2011 - Mars Needs Moms

2012-01-01T12:15:00.002-06:00

The worst movie of 2011, and one of the worst I've ever seen, Mars Needs Moms is just as good as its title would lead you to believe. Shot in the same motion capture style the works for The Adventures of Tintin, this movie is dark, dull, depressing, and terrible in every conceivable way. I don't wish to inflict this movie on anyone, nor do I wish to write any more about than I need to, suffice to say that this even is up there with Southland Tales, Moulin Rouge!, Law Abiding Citizen, and xXx as the worst movies of the 2000's.

#5 - The Muppets

2012-01-01T12:04:00.002-06:00

5. The Muppets
One I'm already wondering if I placed too low on the list, this newest Muppets adventure gets everything right that you could want, the songs, the humor, the just plain lovableness of the whole crew, there's not really a lot to complain about here. Jason Segel, after the success of the wonderful Forgetting Sarah Marshall, got the chance to write and star in his dream project, another Muppets movie. He created one in the old Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney tradition of "let's put on a show to save the ________" and the lack of trying to "update" the Muppets is exactly what works so well here. People love the Muppets, have a childhood connection to them (if you're of my-ish generation) and don't want them to be "rebooted" or "reimagined", we just want more. That's exactly what we get. Nothing revolutionary, just sensational Muppet-y wonderfulness. With assured direction from James Bobin, and great music from Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie, The Muppets is a great kids movie and one that I hope we'll be getting a sequel to soon. I could use some more Swedish Chef in my life, that's for sure.

#4 - The Adventures of Tintin

2012-01-01T11:47:00.004-06:00

4. The Adventures of Tintin

I remember Tintin from the animated show that I used to watch on HBO when I was a kid. I loved the stories, but didn't remember much about them other than what Tintin looked like, and his little dog Snowy always at his side. I didn't understand why none of my friends ever understood what I was talking about, until a few years ago when I heard Steven Spielberg was looking to make a Tintin movie, and I started researching. Finding out that the Tintin stories (comic books from Belgian creator Herge, who gave Spielberg his blessing to make a Tintin movie before his death in 1983) were a worldwide phenomenon everywhere but here in the US, it finely made sense why none of my friends knew what I was talking about. Teaming with Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson, Spielberg gives us our first big screen Tintin adventure. Sadly, I read that Spielberg was intent on doing the movie in motion capture animation the way that Robert Zemeckis had done The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. I'm not a fan of the style, so I was understandably disappointed when I found that out.

Thankfully, Spielberg handles is perfectly! The animation is astoundingly gorgeous, and the movie runs through its 107 minutes wonderfully. There's a bit too many action scenes, one involving cranes should've been cut if you ask me, everything is fun and adventurous and really comes off like an animated Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a tremendous thrill ride, it's funny, it's exciting, and I want more. It's already doubled its budget at the worldwide box office, so I hope that since Peter Jackson is supposed to do the next installment that he'll get right to it after he finishes The Hobbit. I can't wait for more Tintin-y goodness.

#3 - Moneyball

2012-01-01T11:30:00.003-06:00

3. Moneyball

Director Bennett Miller's previous movie, Capote, was one of the best movies of its year, so it's not too surprising to find that Moneyball is one of the best of 2011. Built around a phenomenal performance by Brad Pitt, Moneyball tells the story of Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane, and his quest to put together a team that will compete with the New York Yankees every year, on about a quarter of the budget. Beane realizes that he can't do that by approaching the same way the Yankees do, he's gotta find a new way of thinking. He stumbles upon Peter Brand (wonderfully played by Jonah Hill), a Yale economics graduate who has startling fresh ways of evaluating players. Almost no one but Billy and Peter believe in their approach, as baseball is an old game and its thinking highly ingrained in those involved. A's manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, terrific, but sadly wasted in a small role) is the personification of that old baseball thinking that Billy has to fight against, he doesn't understand (or care) how wildly inventive what Billy is trying to do is, and takes the players Billy gives him and plays them according to his own approach to the game.

One need not know about baseball to follow the movie, it may add some depth, but the movie isn't really a sports movie so much as it is about this guy trying to change the way people think, while having his livelihood on the line if it doesn't work out. Wonderfully handled by Miller as the director, and carried by the performances of Hill and especially Pitt, who is right up there with George Clooney and Matt Damon when it comes to getting consistently great performances from our biggest stars. A really terrific movie.

#2 - Midnight in Paris

2012-01-01T11:21:00.003-06:00

2. Midnight in Paris

I've written about this one before (back in June), so I'll just say that it hasn't diminished in my mind, and I was happily surprised to see that it became Woody Allen's most financially successful movie of his career. It's a wonderful little romance movie, and my #2 of 2011.

The best movie of 2011 - 50/50

2012-01-01T10:42:00.005-06:00

So, 2011 was not a great year for me writing wise. I only had 31 entries on this blog, less than half of previous years, but it was because life happens and I didn't always have the time to write. Now that I have the time, I'm trying to get back into it, and I might as well offer up my summation of 2011.

Now, I only saw 19 movies in the theater this year. I'm trying to catch up with as many 2011 movies as possible through Netflix, but it'll take awhile before all of the movies I want to see come out on DVD. So with that in mind, I'm only going to present a top 5, and a bottom 1 for 2011 until I can better judge the year (whenever that may be, there are still 2010 movies I wanna see but haven't caught up with yet):

1. 50/50

The only movie this past year that I'd classify as a masterpiece, 50/50 kinda came outta nowhere at me. I love all of the actors that are in it, but had never heard of the writer Will Reiser, nor the director Jonathan Levine. So I was taken aback while sitting in my theater seat, watching the directorial command of tone and storytelling, and the wonderful evocation of a multitude of emotions from the writing.

It tells the story of Adam, a 27-year-old radio journalist who finds out he has a rare cancerous tumor on his spine. He's told his chances of survival are only 50/50, and his best friend Kyle's remark that "50/50? If you were a casino game you'd have the best odds. You're gonna be fine." doesn't help. He's sent to a therapist, Katherine, to help him cope with his life changes, but he's only her third patient, and ends up helping her grow as much as she helps him. Adam also has to deal with his overbearing mother, and his inconsistent girlfriend, while his whole life is turned upside down with cancer.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt proves again that he's our finest young actor (not that we needed reminding after movies like Mysterious Skin, 500 Days of Summer, Brick, and The Lookout), and this is among his best work. His journey as he goes through the few highs and many lows of cancer treatment is rendered with such honesty and heart from Gordon-Levitt that I hope he's not forgotten when Oscar time comes around, it's the best performance I saw this year. Not to be out done, the supporting cast is flawless, especially Angelica Huston as the mother. Her love for her son, while also caring for her Alzheimer stricken husband, is palpable and Huston's subtlety in the performance is heart wrenching in some scenes, it's another award worthy piece of work from her. While Anna Kendrick is very good as the therapist, it's not all that different from her work in Up in the Air as George Clooney's young tag along. The real surprise for me was in Seth Rogen as best friend Kyle. He brings a ton of humor, and a real dramatic weight to his character.

But the best thing about this movie is that it's a movie about a young man getting cancer, it's very heavy in some moments, but it is extremely funny. While I would categorize Rogen as the "comic relief" the movie really doesn't need it as writer Will Reiser finds the humor in most situations without cheapening them. One of the best examples is that of Adam chemotherapy friends, who convince him (after he initially declines) that eating their weed-infused brownies is about the only way to get through something like chemo.

It ends quite perfectly, and there wasn't a single second of this movie that rang false for me, easily the best movie I've seen of 2011.

Bad Lip Reading

2011-11-22T17:02:00.003-06:00

The genius of the Bad Lip Reading videos is something not enough people have been exposed to yet. A man, still managing to remain anonymous, has taken videos of political candidates and overdubbed his own audio, using something called the "McGurk effect", that makes them say nonsensical things like "Save a pretzel for the gas jets" and "We could shoot a Russian unicorn". He tries to match the mouth movements, leading to some of those random bits of hilarity that have had me laughing for days now. Michael Buble (whose song "Haven't Met You Yet" is turned into "Russian Unicorn") is a fan, and has been telling people to check it out on YouTube. I agree with him, and these are my favorite three BLR videos so far.

Herman Cain, my favorite:

Michael Buble's "Russian Unicorn":

The wonderful Rick Perry video:

Spotlight: Brett Dennen

2011-08-18T21:21:00.006-05:00

So I came across a new (to me) artist a few days ago while surfing around iTunes. Brett Dennen has been on Rolling Stone's "Artists to Watch" list, on Entertainment Weekly's "Guys on the Rise", and reviews have compared him to everyone from Dave Matthews, Tracy Chapman, Jason Mraz, and Nick Drake to (most oddly, I think) Billie Holliday and Bob Dylan. Dennen has been around a couple of years, his first album came out in 2005, and although I've only listened extensively to his newest album, Loverboy, I'd say he sounds more like an amalgamation of Jack Johnson, Paul Simon, Loudin Wainwright III, a bit of My Morning Jacket's Jim James, and a touch of the soulfulness of Van Morrison. He even name checks Simon's album Graceland (as well as Joni Mitchell's Blue) on the wonderful "Make You Fall in Love with Me".

He's an artist I've only just discovered and will continue to explore, but he's got a goofy charm (where I get the Wainwright comparison) and enough catchy melodies and grooves to keep me coming back. The first three songs in particular, "Surprise Surprise" "Dancing at a Funeral" and "Comeback Kid (That's My Dog)" are ones I've had on repeat for days now. If you like what you hear, check him out like I did, maybe it'll be something new.

"Surprise Surprise" from this year's SXSW festival

"Dancing at a Funeral" album version

"Comeback Kid (That's My Dog)" official video

Cowboys and Aliens

2011-08-07T09:58:00.004-05:00

Now, I love westerns and I love science-fiction, but I would've never thought to combine the two. Scott Mitchell Rosenberg did just that in his 2006 graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens. Now director Jon Favreau, producers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, and executive producer Steven Spielberg bring the comic to life with a tremendous cast including James Bond and Han Solo. Seeing the first previews many months ago, I thought "Well that looks stupid. Those genres will never go together." Thankfully, I was proven wrong.

Cowboys and Aliens, beautifully shot by Oscar nominated cinematographer Matthew Libatique, has both the fun humor and the tremendous action that it needs. Favreau meshes the genres together onscreen, and gets his cast to give the ridiculousness a certain character grounding and believability that helps us in the audience accept it despite its fantastical happenings. Leading the cast, Daniel Craig doesn't exactly have a difficult role to pull off, he's the typical monosyllabic action hero we've come to expect from movies, but he's as great as he can be in the role. Harrison Ford plays a bit of a bad guy, which I didn't quite believe at first, but came to accept as his performance grew on me. Best of all, as expected when I saw the cast, are the performances of Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, and Keith Carradine. All are amazingly under-appreciated actors, with Rockwell in particular proving he's among the handful of best actors we have right now.

Surprisingly, Cowboys and Aliens hasn't made much money and didn't receive the best reviews from critics. I say it's surprising not because it's an amazing movie, but because it's a good one, and at least ambitious when it comes to the action genre. I was pleased to see something different, happy that the seemingly opposite genres worked together, and entertained as best as I could've hoped to be. It's not a great movie or one we'll be referring back to over the years, but it's certainly worth watching. In these days of the continual dumbing down of the box office, we really expect anything more from a big summer blockbuster?

The Stooges - Raw Power

2011-07-13T13:53:00.005-05:00

I recently came across some CD's that a friend had given me that I didn't have burned into my iTunes yet. Among the music I found was the first three albums by The Stooges (or Iggy and the Stooges as they would come to be known): The Stooges, Fun House, and Raw Power. The first album certainly has its moments, but is brought to a screeching halt by the 10-minute drone fest "We Will Fall" that takes the rest of the album to recover from. Fun House is among the greatest "punk" albums ever made and is something I would recommend to anyone with an interest in such a type of music. Their third album, Raw Power, however, is among the greatest albums of all time, "punk" or otherwise. I say "punk" because that term didn't really exist in our minds when The Stooges were initially together. Their albums came out in 1969, '70, and '73, long before The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and others burst along in the late 70's with what we call punk today. As such, The Stooges can kinda get lost, I feel, as they're not really classic rock, but were ahead of their time as far as punk is concerned (they're lumped into a small sub-genre called protopunk, alongside groups like MC5, The Velvet Underground, and others). I personally decided to lump them in with those they influenced, I hate having too many categories and normally call nearly everyone just a rock band, but for my money only The Ramones' Rocket to Russia can compare to the greatness of Raw Power for the title of "Best Punk Album Ever".

Original guitarist Ron Asheton switched to bass for the album, and he and brother Scott make for one hell of a rhythm section. The brothers' former high school buddy James Williamson had joined the band as guitarist, and thanks to him I'd name Raw Power as one of my favorite guitar albums. The opener "Search and Destroy" is already one of those songs that I had to learn once I'd heard it (I'd heard it before, it's a classic song, but I had no idea what or who it was). But the real star, as it is for most people, is singer Iggy Pop. Part Mick Jagger, part Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop is one of the great front men in all of rock music. His unpredictability onstage is legendary, but has overshadowed what a great singer he was as well. He has a tremendous snarl and rasp throughout The Stooges and Fun House, but the mix on Raw Power (expertly done in just a day by David Bowie) lets his vocals shine through much more clearly and reveal a guy who had more dimension to his voice than he's ever given credit for.

So I'm really geeking out on an album that came out 10 years before I was even born, that just goes to show that great music is timeless, and The Stooges most definitely made great music.

My 10 favorite cartoon characters

2011-07-08T12:19:00.018-05:00

Anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) knows that I love animation and watch quite a bit of it. Naturally I've run across many animated characters in my time, and I thought I'd cobble together a list of my favorite animated characters. I know I'll have left out someone that when it's brought to my attention I'll think "How the hell did I forget them?!" but still, here we go:

10. Jake Morgendorffer, from Daria

Jake is one of those great supporting characters that always liven up a show when they come around. Some characters, animated in particular, get lodged into your mind with a certain catch phrase. Jake doesn't exactly have a catch phrase, but it seems like he says "Dammit!" at least once in every episode. He's by turns sweetly innocent, wildly self conscious, and hilariously angry, often at the most mundane things. One of my favorite scenes is when Jake and his wife Helen are having problems and are talking with a therapist. He says she doesn't let him drink milk anymore because it makes him all riled up. This, of course, riles him up even more since milk is his comfort food "Got milk? Not Jakey, dammit!"

Another great Jake moment

9. Daffy Duck
I don't know why Bugs Bunny became the face of Looney Tunes, Daffy was always the best and most interesting character. Besides being the star of the best of the Looney Tunes output (the classics Duck Amuck and Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 century), Daffy was also the funniest of the gang, especially when he had someone to play off of like Marvin the Martian or the animator in Duck Amuck. There are so many great Looney Tunes characters, but Daffy stands head and shoulders above everyone else.

The great Duck Amuck

8. Totoro
The most lasting image from the resume of Hayao Miyazaki, the silent Totoro helps the young heroes of My Neighbor Totoro through their new surroundings and helps them deal with the sickness of their mother. Amazing in his ability to be cuddly and mysteriously powerful at the same time, Totoro has a remarkable complexity despite not uttering a single word. Miyazaki allows so much space for us to project onto Totoro that even though he's not in the movie a whole lot, he is the defining creation of the master's entire career.

This is my favorite scene from the movie, as Totoro watches over the girls while they wait for their fathers bus (which is very late), it's one of the sweetest moments in all animated film, I think.

7. Wall-E
Man, has there ever been a more loveable character than Wall-E (yes, actually, and he's coming up next)? He's so pure, so admirable, so curious, and so in love with EVE that he hitches a ride on the outside of a ship and travels through untold amounts of space just to be near her. Not only is Wall-E a great character, but he's about the only robot you actually wanna pick up and hug. That's quite an accomplishment!

6. Winnie the Pooh
I wrote about Pooh a while back, and I'm very excited to see what Disney does with the upcoming Winnie the Pooh movie. Pooh is just the most adorable and loveable character ever created, though he is a teddy bear, so that's not too surprising. I can't really think of much to say about him, he's just so wonderful I'll let him speak for himself

5. Mickey Mouse

If there were a President of Animated Characters, Mickey would be it. He's been the face of the biggest animation company in America for longer than most of us have been around. Sadly, I think his starring role in some of the great animated shorts of all time has been diminished due to his iconic nature. But, a person needs only go back and watch Brave Little Tailor, The Band Concert, or my favorite Lonesome Ghosts, to see why Micky became the legend that he is.

4. Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz
The most surprising addition to the list, for many, I know, Dr. Doofensmhirtz is the antagonist on the best kids show on TV, Phineas and Ferb. The show itself is consistently hysterical, smartly written and not condescending to its audience. It has none of the wink wink to the parents bullshit that so much stuff written for kids has, and if it does, it's incorporated into the show and not just a wink wink. Anyway, Dr. Doofenshmirtz is the best character and usually the reason for the biggest laughs. His increasingly pathetic childhood (it seems to get worse with every flashback) and love life, and of course his relationship to his arch-nemesis Perry the Platypus, combine with the often hilarious evil inventions, make him the funniest evil villain we've ever known.

3. Dr. John Zoidberg
I could've easily chosen Bender, Fry, The Professor, Zapp Brannigan, Scruffy, or any number of amazing characters in the Futurama universe, but it's gotta be Dr. Zoidberg. He's the most hysterically pathetic character in the history of animation, and the voice that genius actor Billy West uses for him may be my favorite voice ever. Like many other great characters, he's best as a support, but when he's used, it's usually the best part of this incredible show.

2. Eric Cartman
Now, I called Dr. Doofenshmirtz "the funniest evil villain we've ever known" only because Cartman is not technically the villain of South Park. He is, after all, still in elementary school. From his many attempts at getting rich through the most awful ways (a Christian rock band, having crack babies fight each other and filming it, and so many others), to his repeated schemes against not just his Jewish "friend" Kyle, but the Jews as a whole, Cartman is without a doubt the most awful character ever created. Thankfully, he's also one of the funniest. There's something about Cartman's unfailingly evil nature that we just can't get enough of. Although South Park has noticeably faltered the last few seasons, Cartman's greatness cannot be tainted.

1. Homer Simpson
No big surprise at the top of the list, Homer has been the best animated character for a long time now. The Simpsons has been on forever, and Homer has nearly always been the biggest star (Bart went through his moments in the early 90's, but then took his rightful place behind Homer). Because of the show being on for so long, Homer has been able to show so many sides of his character. He's best when trying to be a good father, I think. Many of my favorite episodes either revolve around his relationship to Marge or his children. He's not always great (or even decent) at either job, but even then it's to humorous effect. Not only do I simply never tire of Homer, he's always supremely fun and interesting to watch, and after 20+ years and many hundreds of episodes, that's quite a feat.

Great characters that I thought of but didn't make the list:

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty
Doug from Doug
Ioz from Pirates of Dark Water
Tommy Pickles from Rugrats
Darkwing Duck from Darkwing Duck
Scooby and Shaggy from Scooby Doo
Batman from Batman the Animated Series
Goliath from Gargoyles
So many of the great Pixar characters
And you know, I love Snoopy (and all Snoopy memorabilia), but he's really just not that interesting of a character the more I look back on him. Charlie and Linus are the greater characters in the Peanuts universe.

Edit: Somehow, I forgot the character(s) that initially inspired me to do this list. Wallace and Gromit (because to me they're inseparable and must be listed as a team) must be on the list, but since I've already made the list and don't want to kick anyone out or rearrange, they will get a special unnumbered entry all to themselves.

Midnight in Paris

2011-06-26T01:16:00.005-05:00

I have a soft spot for Woody Allen movies. Even supposedly terrible ones like Scoop are films I can enjoy a great deal. Granted I've only seen about half of his movies, but there hasn't been even one that I downright disliked, simply a couple I haven't cared for as much. This year's offering (I say "this years" because Allen works so regularly that 1991 was the last year he didn't have a movie, and he still released 11 movies in the 90's) is the charming romantic comedy Midnight in Paris. It's not as deep or as impressive as Allen's best work, but damn if it isn't romantic, funny, and highly enjoyable.

Owen Wilson takes on the lead role here, that of hack screenwriter Gil Pender. He churns out crappy Hollywood movies but yearns to write a book and be important and worthy like his literary heroes. He's in Paris on vacation with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams), they tagged along with her parents who're there on business. He's a romantic who wants to roam the streets and stop in cafes, drink wine and walk in the rain. He's the only one in the group who even likes being in France until he and Inez meet up with Paul and Carol (Michael Sheen and Nina Arianda) who want to take them to Versailles and drone on in pseudo-intellectual talk about French history and art. Gil just wants his simple pleasures (and to be out of the presence of the insufferably pompous Paul) and Inez is happy to get rid of him, so she lets him go.

While the clock strikes midnight one night, a car pulls up and a jovial group of people pull Gil in with them and take him to a party. At the party he sees a guy who looks mysteriously like Cole Porter singing songs to adoring listeners, and meet a couple who introduce themselves as the Fitzgerald's, F. Scott and Zelda. Scott takes a liking to Gil and offers to take him along to a bar they're going to to meet up with Hemingway. Gil finds himself magically drawn into the world of 1920's artistic Paris, a time and place he'd dreamt of his whole life. He runs across Dali, Bunuel, Man Ray, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Matisse, and TS Elliot, among others during his few extraordinary nights. He also happens to run across the beautiful Adriana (Oscar winner Marion Cotillard), who has Picasso, Hemingway, and legendary bullfighter Juan Belmonte fighting for her affections. Gil falls for her just like the others do as he dreads the inevitable end of his miraculous journey through 1920's Paris.

Owen Wilson is one of the better actors when it comes to playing the traditional "Woody" role. He has a bit of Allen neurosis, while also keeping his strangely laid back charm, and some shades we've not seen from him before. His ability to portray Gil's hopeless romanticism, while those around him try to destroy it, is essential to making the movie work. Wilson's Wedding Crashers love interest McAdams is pitch perfectly hateable as Gil's relentlessly unsupportive fiancee, so obviously crushing on Michael Sheen's pedantic Paul while Gil is too busy being annoyed by him to notice. Marion Cotillard is as luminous as Paris itself, making it unsurprising that so many of the artists are using her as their muse.

The script is Allen's strongest since Sweet and Lowdown, the sweetness and romance fully coming through without being forced in the slightest. The gorgeous photography by ace cinematographer Darius Khondji brings an extra amount of warmth to the movie that fits in nicely with the unassuming romanticism Allen's going for. I also like Allen's comments on coming to terms with the times you live in and not getting bogged down in the nostalgia of the past, because the people in that time probably didn't think everything was so great and idealized a previous era too. Even with a little bit of intellectual comments on nostalgia, it's still hard not to think of this movie as simply one of the sweetest love stories I've seen in a long time, and glad to see one of my favorite filmmakers working at such a high level.

The Best and "Worst" of Pixar

2011-06-23T01:18:00.017-05:00

In honor of this weekend's release of Cars 2, I've decided to take a look back at the features Pixar Studios has given us so far. I love what are generally termed "kids movies", although I don't judge them any less harshly because they're "just kids movies." Every movie should be held to a high standard, and since these are what we're feeding to our kids developing minds, I'd hope people would actually hold them to a higher standard, but I could rant on that subject all day.

As I've written before, with their track record and the consistency they've shown with their 11 movies over the last 16 years, I'd put Pixar on equal (if not higher) ground as classic Disney and Japan's Studio Ghibli. They've simply given us amazing movie after amazing movie, with barely a misstep anywhere in sight. That said, let's get to the list. I've watched every one of these multiple times, so none of my comments are coming from memories recalled from long ago.

11. Cars

The least ambitious and least interesting of any of the Pixar features, Cars is not a bad film. It's simply a nice, sweet little picture that can't hold a candle to any of the other movies the studio has put out. The story of "big city hotshot who learns to appreciate small town life" has been done 1,001 times before, and Director (and Pixar Chief Creative Officer) John Lasseter does nothing to dress it up in the slightest way. Cars is a straight forward and fun movie, but without any desire to be more, it really just kinda sits there at the bottom of the heap as obviously Pixar's weakest moment.

10. Toy Story 2

This one has bothered me for the past dozen years. As soon as it came out, Toy Story 2 was hailed as superior to the groundbreaking original, and one of the great sequels of all time. While I was sitting in the theater, I couldn't help but feel like it was good, but it wasn't really special. There's nothing wrong with it necessarily, but there's nothing that keeps me wanting to come back over and over again. Jesse's heartbreaking past notwithstanding, there isn't anything here on a story level as magical as the simplistic first movie, and eventually the third explored the idea of "lost" toys and kids growing up much better than it's done here. So I kinda have a tough time with Toy Story 2, I can't find many flaws (you can always nit pick at something, but I mean real flaws) other than I just don't find it that interesting or enchanting or memorable.

9. A Bug's Life

Ok, now, only the third from the bottom, but I'll just say this: I love this movie! I've always had a fascination with what the world looks like through different eyes, and Pixar's cute-ification of the tiny world of insects is lovingly realized. It's one of their less complex movies (only their second time out of the gates, I'll cut them a bit of slack for growing pains), and basically juts a crossing of Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai and Aesop's The Ant and the Grasshopper, A Bug's Life kinda got lost in the shuffle when it was released. Although made concurrently, and pitched to its studio after A Bug's Life had begun production, Dreamworks Studio's Antz was released a month prior, giving people two bug-central, ant starring movies withing a few weeks of each other. Antz was rushed through production to make it out first, and time has not been nearly as kind as it has been to Pixar's release. While A Bug's Life is bright and colorful and fun, Antz's CGI animation has dated badly, and the story is not handled nearly as expertly. A Bug's Life is not one of Pixar's greats, but it's deserving of a better reputation than it currently has, I think.

8. Finding Nemo

The release of Finding Nemo seemed to be when critics and audiences first started seriously looking at Pixar as more important than just "kids movies". It received unheard of critical acclaim (Roger Ebert named it the 4th best movie of 2003), and made boatloads of money. I've watched it many times, and the story of a dedicated but overprotective father searching out for his kidnapped son certainly pulls the heart strings in a way that may affect me more with my impending fatherhood coming some months away. As for now, I can't help but just look at the breathtaking underwater animation, so lovingly realized that I forget about the story sometimes and simply watch the sides of the screen for those beautiful little touches Pixar does so well. The chemistry between Albert Brooks and Ellen Degeneres is hard to not get caught up in, and even if the actual Nemo storyline, and that of the sharks, isn't quite as great, they're certainly good and don't bring anything down. Finding Nemo is a great movie, and further proof of Pixar's genius that it's only their 8th best movie.

7. Up

Again, a movie I'd give 4 stars only lands in 7th place, you just can't beat that kind of quality. I wrote a full review of Up when it came out (here), and it was released to a great amount of critical acclaim, even snagging a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars (when their 10 nominee experiment took place). The thing that Up has going for it the most is that it has the single best piece of film in Pixar's catalog: the "life" montage near the beginning of the picture. It's one of the greatest achievements in all of animation, I think, for its wordless telling of an incredibly emotional story, proving once again that you don't need dialog to further your story. I cannot praise that sequence enough, even if I watch it removed from the context of the movie as a whole, I still tear up. Sadly, the rest of the movie simply can't live up to such an amazing creation and even though it's a lot of fun (though the talking dogs are a bit hard to stomach sometimes) and has a lot of heart, I simply can't have it any higher than this.

6. Toy Story 3

I've also written about this one since I've had this blog (here), and named it as my best movie of 2010. The issues it explores of Andy (and other children that toys belong to) growing up and moving on is handled with a tremendous amount of depth and care. I knew Pixar had the creative balls to end on a down note, so I was completely engaged in the trash sequence, but I'm also glad that they ended on a different and much more emotionally satisfying moment. One of the most grown up of American animated movies.

5. Monsters, Inc.

No Pixar movie has benefited from re-watches more than Monsters, Inc. I liked it ok when I originally saw it, but didn't find the magic that I'd been hoping for. Over time, as I've revisited it, it grows and grows in my mind and I love it more every time I see it. Billy Crystal and John Goodman are so incredibly good together that even though their voices are so distinctively their own, I always felt like I was watching Mike and Sully, and not actors voicing a character (this is a particularly excellent recurring theme for Pixar movies). There is so much invention going on in Monsters, Inc. that just got lost on me the first go 'round, I suppose. Around every corner, in the sides of the frame, in the boundless references from Ray Harryhausen to yellow snow, this movie has so much life in it! In addition to that, the bright, fun colors and sets, the easily hateable villain in Randall (voiced to perfection by Steve Buscemi), and the wonderful door chase scene keep me coming back again and again. I also think it may have Pixar's most sweetly perfect ending.

4. Toy Story

Ah, the one that started it all. I remember sitting in the theater watching Toy Story and not caring in the slightest about all the technical innovations, no idea of the watershed moment I was witnessing with the dawn of the CGI animation era, I was simply excited and enthralled with a wonderful, wonderful movie. Although we can go back now and see that the animation is noticeably inferior to the other movies in the Pixar catalog, it's not bad and it gets the job done. What we care about when we watch Toy Story are the exquisitely drawn characters, pitch perfect voice acting, and engagingly simple story. The recurring theme of the Toy Story movies, the theme of getting replaced and children growing older and moving on, is put all on Woody's shoulders in the first movie. It's only Woody that's being tossed aside, not everyone. Woody is the one who has to deal with Andy finding a new favorite toy, and he doesn't always handle it well. Tom Hanks brings such life and nuance and depth to Woody that it's impossible to think of another voice emanating from that characters mouth. And Tim Allen is so terrifically pompous and arrogant and clueless that I still identify with Woody's hatred and eventual acceptance of him. It's certainly the simplest (and shortest) movie in the group, but there is not one single thing about it that I would change.

3. The Incredibles

This is the best and most thrilling action movie ever made, if you ask me (which by reading this blog, you're kinda doing). I also think that with the issues of marriage and family and trying to find yourself when you don't know who you are anymore, The Incredibles is Pixar's most adult movie, most thematically complex, even though it's disguised as a bright colorful action movie for kids. Each character is created with a distinct personality, each speaks differently about their feelings and actions (you'd be surprised how little this happens in movies once you start paying attention to it), and the voice acting brings that last little bit to make these truly remarkable characters. All of that said, it's also just a mind blowingly amazing action movie, with set pieces that put Bond and Bourne to shame. The attack on the plane is my personal favorite, as the mounting fear in Helen's voice, and the parental actions she takes to possibly sacrifice herself for her children are a rare action sequence that makes me tear up with its dramatic implications. Then there's also the "discovering the joys of your abilities" quality of Dash vs. the flying machines. When Dash starts running (with unexpected success) on the water of the ocean, he lets out a little "oh man, that's so awesome I can do this" kinda giggle that lights my face up every time I watch it.

2. Ratatouille

So just like Big Night, I think Ratatouille ranks so high on my list of favorites if only because of its shared passion for food. The characters and story are flawless, the animation is beyond gorgeous, and the music is my favorite in any Pixar movie. But Remy's love of food strikes a nerve with me because I have that love as well. I think, honestly, Pixar's biggest achievement with Ratatouille might be making a story about a rat being in a kitchen cooking completely undisgusting and wonderful. I would've initially assumed impossible the feat of making me not be revolted by rats in the kitchen, even if both are animated. I think it starts a bit slow, but once Remy gets to the big city and starts on his true journey, I don't think it has a weak moment. And I must say that the scene of Anton Ego remembering a childhood moment when his mom was there to comfort him when he was upset (just crashed his bike, from the looks of its misshapen spinning wheel), is such a perfect moment that I can't even quite describe how it makes me feel.

1. Wall-E

The lonely, lovely, inspiring, inspired, and brilliant magnum opus of Pixar is Wall-E. There's no more loveable character they've created, no more fascinating world than Wall-E's solitary journey through the endless trash, and no sweeter love story than that of Wall-E and EVE (or EE-vuh, as he so endearingly puts it). It's so simple and perfect that you almost don't want them to go to the ship were the humans are. It goes anyway and even through its environmental preachiness, Wall-E never loses its hopelessly romantic heart, and makes me hope I never lose mine. It's simply one of the 5 or so greatest animated features we've ever been given, and quite easily Pixar's masterpiece.

Who knows where Cars 2, next years Brave, or the following year's prequel Monsters University will end up on an updated version of this list. Surely a sequel to the bottom movie on my list feels totally unnecessary, especially seeing as Cars is also the least critically acclaimed movie in the Pixar catalog, but with supposed Cars merchandise sales of $5 billion, it's not surprising that we're getting another go round with those characters. I'll go in with an open mind, seeing as Pixar hasn't yet let me down and always surprises me, and I'm sure I'll give Cars 2 a write up when I finally see it.

We've lost the Big Man

2011-06-18T22:40:00.007-05:00

Clarence Clemmons 1942 - 2011

The Big Man, sax player for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, has passed away after complications from a stroke suffered earlier this week. His tenor sax additions to Springsteen's sound are among the greatest sideman additions in the history of rock and roll. His legendary outro solo on the Born to Run closer "Jungleland" famously took 16 hours to record, before both were happy with it, and was worth the time. Only the Rolling Stones ever used sax as well as Clemmons and Springsteen integrated it into their sound. A 6'4" former football player, Clemmons towered over his bandmates onstage and was a longtime fan favorite for the Springsteen diehards. Clemmons contributions and the many solos and melodies he added will be missed immensely and it's safe to say that the E Street Band will never be whole again. R.I.P. Big Man

The Film I Always Go Back To: "Big Night"

2011-04-10T00:55:00.008-05:00

To join in a little blogathon that Kid in the Front Row started over at his blog (check out his entry if you want), I'll make my entry into the subject of the movie I go back to again and again, like the movie version of comfort food. Well, Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott's Big Night is my mac and cheese (or meatloaf and mashed potatoes or lasagna or whatever your comfort food favorite is). I've written about it twice before (in 2008 when I first saw it, and again when recounting my favorite movies, where it has since risen a few places), and I went back and revisited just a couple of weeks ago when I was feeling a little down.

The movie came about when Stanley Tucci was working on a movie he didn't enjoy and complaining about how there were no good projects for him to work on. So, he decided to create his own project. As co-writer, co-director, and star of the picture, Tucci is even more flawless than ever in his portrayal of Secondo, an Italian immigrant trying to find love, peace, and financial success alongside his brother Primo (Tony Shalhoub). They look for love in their respective women (Minnie Driver and Allison Janney) and look for some way to make it in a land where a restaurant like Pascal's (Ian Holm) can be packed every night when they serve such abominations to Italian food, or as Primo says "RAPE! RAPE! That's what that man serves every night, the rape of cuisine!" Made even harder by the customers they actually do get, making for scenes like this one:

Spaghetti is its own dish, meatballs are their own dish, each plate should have a starch, but not multiple starches. And Seco is repeatedly disheartened by Primo's refusal to compromise anything with his food. Pascal, on the other hand, tells Seco "The customer doesn't wanna look down at his food and think 'what the fuck is this?' he wants to look down and think 'it's steak... I LIKE steak.' Give them what they want, and then you can start giving them what you want."

What's amazing about the movie is the care given to each and every character. Pascal, who would seem the villain in a normal movie, is given dimension not only by Holm's terrifically over-the-top portrayal, but by the script as well. He's given motivations for how he treats Seco and Primo, continually asking Seco to come work for him (and there are multiple motivations for that as well) and for how he runs his restaurant and his relationship with Gabriella (Isabella Rossellini). He's not even the second lead in the movie, but he's treated with the care that many movies don't treat their star role with. No one is given short shrift, but I think I keep coming back to the movie for its sibling relationship that hits home to me even though my brother and I don't have the same type of relationship as Primo and Seco, nor are we Italian, nor are we business partners. It's just that indefinable something about the connection they have that is 100% authentic. There are also small moments like this one that the movie lets play out that crack me up every time:

The emotionally affecting, and mostly silent, final scene of Seco making an omelet (high heat, of course, that's how Italians do eggs) the morning after the "big night" of the title, is my very favorite closing scene to a movie for how it answers so many questions without really addressing any of them overtly. I've gone back to this movie over and over again, and I will continue to for a long time. It's a rare creation of deceptive depth and power, and it is most definitely my comfort movie.

Spotlight of the week: The Civil Wars

2011-04-09T15:32:00.004-05:00

The Civil Wars are a band I just came across this past week, so they're perfect for a Spotlight. A collaboration between singer/songwriters John Paul White and Joy Williams, the duo's indie/folk/blues sound grabbed me right off. Though not a romantic couple (both are married), their voices intertwine in a way rarely seen outside of siblings or longtime partners. The way they sing over and under and alongside each other weaves a stunning web of vocal harmonies and Southern Gothic atmosphere. Generally just White's guitar, with occasional accompaniment from Williams' piano, the group keeps a down home vibe that conjures up images of late night living room jam sessions, or lonely field recordings.

I've found wonderful videos on YouTube of the group performing covers of songs like Michael Jackon's "Billie Jean" Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" and The Smashing Pumpkins' "Disarm" (when Williams says "you might recognize this one", White counters with "and if not, then we wrote it"). They show they have a rare musical connection and a sense of humor as well as some varied tastes. All of that just makes me want to see more from them. They'll definitely be a group I'll follow for years to come.

Sidney Lumet - 1924 - 2011

2011-04-09T14:37:00.003-05:00

The world of cinema lost one of its great giants today in American director Sidney Lumet. Lumet has been a personal favorite of mine since I was a teenager going through an Al Pacino phase, coming across Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, and noticing the same directors name in the credits. Like many of his films, both were New York set, with the city becoming almost a character unto itself. He has often been called one of the directors most associated with the city, even though he was originally from Philadelphia. Lumet's films were nominated for a total of 46 Oscars, including 5 for Lumet himself (one for co-writing 1981's influential cop drama Prince of the City, the others for directing 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict), and he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2005. His last movie, 2007's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, was one of the first I reviewed on this blog, and is among my favorite movies of the past decade.

Known for his ability to work with actors (17 Oscar nominations and 4 wins under his direction), Lumet also had a reputation as an almost invisible director. He often spoke against any directorial flourishes that would draw attention to the camera placement, or things that looked too unnatural or self-consciously pretty. He is too often overlooked by film fans and scholars due to this, being unable to recognize a distinctive "Lumet" style the way you can identify a Hitchcock or Scorsese or Coen Brothers movie. Lumet felt the directorial style should be dictated by the script and what the story needs, that form should always follow function and not the other way around. Also, due to his preparation and his insistence on weeks of rehearsal before shooting, Lumet was famously able to work quickly and efficiently in regards to his shooting schedule and budget. On his dislike of more than a few takes before moving on to shooting the next scene, his The Verdict star Paul Newman said ""I call him Speedy Gonzales, the only man I know who'll double-park in front of a whorehouse." As evidence of his swift style, Lumet released two movies in one year 9 different times.

With such an extensive filmography, one could be overwhelmed if looking to delve into Lumet's 50+ years of work. But if I were to pick a group of his most essential films, I'd list Dog Day Afternoon, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Pawnbroker, Network, Prince of the City and The Verdict. He has many others worth checking out, but those are all terrific movies, and a couple of them all out masterpieces. I'd been looking forward to where Lumet would go next, but he had a long and fruitful career and we'll just have to go on appreciating what he gave us. R.I.P.

I'm sorry, but Radiohead is not a good band

2011-04-06T19:08:00.006-05:00

I've tried and tried to see what is so great about them, and there's not anything there. They have occasional flashes of great rock song craft and melodic brilliance, on songs like "Creep" "True Love Waits" and "Karma Police", yet they mostly just seem to dabble in creating clusters of uninspiring noise which critics sycophantically praise.

Now, many a Radiohead fan has told me that Thom Yorke's lyrics are what keep them coming back to the band. Fair enough. I'm not a lyrics person, it's the very last thing that I pay attention to from an artist after I've gone through each instrument and how they relate to each other. I've skimmed through some of the lyrics Yorke has churned out over the years and although not finding anything I thought was brilliant, they don't suck either.

As a musician, I need something I can grab onto. It could be a vocal melody, a drum beat, a subtle bass line, guitar lick or whatever, but I need something. This is where Radiohead fails me the most. I've listened to all of their albums (save the one that came out this year) as a whole and as playlists jumbling the songs haphazardly together, and I've come away unimpressed on nearly every aural level. I occasionally enjoy the melodies that Yorke sings, and although I don't expect technical virtuosity from each band member (Radiohead doesn't strike me as a "look what I can do on my instrument" kind of band), I would like something that grabs me as a listener and makes me want to come back for more.

I think a lot of this comes down to my general boredom with the "avante-gard" or "experimental", or whatever you want to call it, genre. It could simply be down to a matter of taste in that they live in places that, musically, I don't give a shit about. Still, when a band is praised as high and as often as Radiohead is, you at least want to give them a chance and see if they're for you. I've tried many times over the years and have come up with the same conclusion each time: I just don't think they're a good band.

Spotlight of the week: Hanson's "Shout It Out"

2011-04-03T21:42:00.005-05:00

My wife told me early into our relationship that she was a huge Hanson fan. I overlooked such a lapse in judgment because of the fact that Hanson at least always played their own instruments and wrote their own songs and since she would've been one of those 10-year-old girls screaming at the band when they first became famous, naturally she would have some nostalgic attachment to them. She showed me a couple of their "grown up" songs, and I was happily surprised at their lack of suckiness, so her sense of taste may not have been totally misplaced. Then she told me that Hanson had come out with a new album and I absolutely had to buy it for her. Begrudgingly, I did, and what I ended up finding was an incredibly catchy and enjoyable album.

Shout It Out is Hanson giving a big injection of r&b and soul into their immaculately crafted pop sound. Horns, B-3 organs, and soulful guitars abound on the album, and the songs truly shine with the combination. Lead singer Taylor's voice has grown up, there's no trace of the kids who infected us with "Mmmbop" all those years ago. Of course, when Hanson was on tour for this album and came through their hometown of Tulsa, my wife insisted we go. So, still begrudgingly, I took her and I was totally blown away. They had the tightest vocal harmonies I'd ever heard in concert, and I've heard a lot of live vocals over the years. Youngest brother Zac has turned into the best musician of the group, laying down some juicy beats and tasty fills. Guitar playing Isaac looks the most grown up of the three (not surprising, being the oldest), and his restrained playing adds a lot of backbone to Taylor's deliciously hammy frontman tendencies.

I've seen two of the songs from the album on VH1, lead single "Thinking 'Bout Somethin'" a few months ago (the video's a parody of the Ray Charles section of The Blues Brothers, watch for Weird Al Yankovic cameo-ing as the tambourine player), and just this past week the dance inducing "Give A Little". Who knows, maybe the boys will stick around a while longer, and if they continue to grow like this, I'll not doubt my wife's tastes anymore. I've had Shout It Out on heavy rotation on my iPod for a while now and it doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

"Thinking 'Bout Somethin'"

"Give a Little"

Spotlight of the week

2011-04-03T21:37:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I took it upon myself to do the whole "Song of the Week" thing thinking it would force me to write more often (which I want to do, but don't always make time for), and because I seem to always be stuck on a song for about a week, so it'd be a beautiful marriage. Instead, I've slacked off and come up with blanks when trying to think of songs to feature. So, I'll try something else and start simply doing a "Spotlight of the Week" on either a song, or an album, or an actor, or whatever. Hopefully, this will help me achieve my goal of writing more often.

Top 100 British films

2011-03-09T22:27:00.005-06:00

TimeOut recently polled many critics, actors, directors, producers, and journalists to compile a list of the top 100 British movies ever made. Surprising to me, as I like to think of myself as a film buff, I've only seen just over 1/5th of the list. I've at least heard of the majority of them, but even then there were more than I expected where my reaction was "What the hell is that? I've never even heard of it." The list shows the growing reputations of Nicholas Roeg, and the continued legendary status of Mike Leigh, and the revered legendary status of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Of what I've seen, nearly all of them deserve to be there, and the #1 on the list is a personal favorite of mine, so I was pleasantly surprised to see it. But really, what lists like this tend to do is give people recommendations and hopefully spur them into seeing some great movies. I know this's done that for me, many of the movies that would not previously have been on my radar now are, and I hope to get a chance to see as many of them as I can.

The top ten ended up looking like this, with comments on the ones I've seen:

1. Don’t Look Now (1973), directed by Nicholas Roeg

I've seen this movie a couple of times, and it's a brilliant psychological nightmarish horror movie. Like all great horror movies, there isn't much in the way of gore or onscreen carnage, but Don't Look Now drips with atmosphere. There's also a legendary sex scene between the lead characters (played flawlessly by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) that is the reason many people know the movie.

2. The Third Man (1949) directed by Carol Reed

Famous for its cinematography, the first appearance of Orson Welles' character, and a speech he eventually makes on a ferris wheel, The Third Man was a movie that, I felt, didn't live up to its reputation. It's a very good movie, highly recommended, but hardly #2 of all-time deserving.

3. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) directed by Terence Davies
4. Kes (1969) directed by Ken Loach
5. The Red Shoes (1948) directed by Powell and Pressburger
6. A Matter of Life and Death (1946) directed by Powell and Pressburger
7. Performance (1970) directed by Nicholas Roeg
8. Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) directed by Robert Hamer

Supposedly a brilliant black comedy, I simply found it boring. Alec Guinness is absolutely wonderful in his multiple roles, but other than that I couldn't find a single thing I cared about in the movie. I seem to be in the vast minority though.

9. If… (1968) directed by Lindsay Anderson
10. Trainspotting (1996) directed by Danny Boyle

I thought perhaps that I simply didn't "get" Trainspotting the times that I watched it, but from Danny Boyle's career since this movie, it seems I simply don't like him as a filmmaker. Again though, I seem to be in the minority.

You can see the rest of the list, including TimeOut's writeups on each movie, here: http://www.timeout.com/london/bestbritishfilms/

Should 'based on a true story' movies have an obligation to facts?

2011-03-09T22:21:00.001-06:00

My wife and I got into an argument on this subject recently. After watching The Social Network and looking into what the real people depicted in the movie thought of the movie, one of them described it as "about 40% accurate." This really upset my wife, because although she didn't love the movie like I did, she felt that the filmmakers had an obligation to not make up what are essentially "lies" about the actual people they were portraying onscreen.

I have always felt that a filmmaker has only an obligation to the audience in the form of making a good movie. The truest of "based on a true story" movies is still a fiction film, so I don't take any scene in the movie as "what actually happened" anyway and only take it on the value of what it means to the movie. My wife contends that a majority of filmgoers believe any "based on a true story" movie wholeheartedly, so if a film is making up 60% of the story (especially when it portrays its lead character as a douchbag), it's a form of slander against the real people.

I agree that your average moviegoer believes "true story" movies without question, but I don't see why that is the problem of the filmmakers. Roger Ebert once said "Artists cannot hold themselves hostage to the possibility that defectives might misuse their work." He was talking about even negative portrayals of the KKK possibly seeming cool to Joe Idiot out there, but the point can be used across the board, I think. Then again, writer Paul Schrader has said he felt a certain responsibility for Taxi Driver supposedly inciting John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempted assassination of President Reagan.

So where does a filmmakers obligation lay when it comes to telling the truth in "based on a true story" film? And do filmmakers have a responsibility in regards to audience response to their work, positive or negative or blissfully ignorant of facts? I don't think so, what do you think?

Oscar Bait

2011-03-09T22:20:00.002-06:00

This is a term thrown around a lot when it comes to this time of year. Recently crowned Best Picture The King’s Speech had been called “Oscar Bait” by many people, accused of playing to the Academy’s penchant for royalty, movies based on a true story, triumph over adversity, and of course Britishness. But I wonder when the term started coming into vogue. When Robert De Niro was banging his head against a concrete wall in Raging Bull, were there some people in the audience thinking “Oh, this is Oscar bait” or were they just thinking people were trying to make a good movie? I guess that’s my biggest problem with the term Oscar bait, because I feel that it negatively applies to filmmakers trying to make serious attempts at storytelling.

Moviefone.com wrote an article back in October called “2010’s Most Transparent Oscar Bait”, which included 5 of the 10 movies eventually nominated for Best Picture. They had criticisms like “The Fighter has Oscar bait written all over it. Just look at all of its Oscar-friendly traits: It's a Paramount Vantage flick, Christian Bale lost a ton of weight for it, and it's based on a true story. Not to mention it's a boxing movie, which have been Academy attention magnets for films like Million Dollar Baby and Ali” Couldn’t it be possible that the filmmakers were just trying to make an interesting movie? That notorious weight fluctuater Christian Bale simply was at his old tricks again (none of which had previously nabbed him an Oscar nomination)? I guess it’s the cynical view of artists making art for money or awards rather than for the sake of creating art that bothers me. Call it naiveté, but I sincerely believe that these folks were just trying to make a good movie. Now, I’m not naïve enough to think that there aren’t filmmakers out there who maybe tailor some things to awards voting trends, but I have rarely seen a movie that made me actually think it was made solely for awards contention.

So, why do some people use the term “Oscar bait” when referring to the serious movies we’re treated to at the end of the year? Is it simply to disrespect the movies, or is it because they actually think the movie was created simply for awards consideration?

Song of the week: Paolo Nutini's "Coming Up Easy"

2011-02-12T22:27:00.002-06:00

I bought Scottish singer/songwriter Paolo Nutini's first album, These Streets, back in 2006, on the strength of its singles "New Shoes" and "Last Request" and discovered the eventual single "Jenny Don't Be Hasty" as a highlight afterward. Sadly, nothing much else on the album stuck out to me. There was nothing unpleasant, but nothing exceptional either. I was at a CVS Pharmacy a month or two ago when I heard this great soul song on the radio. I wrote down a few of the lyrics in my phone and made sure to look up what the song was when I got home. I found out it was Paolo Nutini's single "Coming Up Easy", off of his new album, Sunny Side Up. I was a bit hesitant to buy the album, afraid I'd only get 3 good singles and some filler again, but I went ahead and took the plunge. Well, the album is a wonder, miles beyond what was on These Streets. Full of passion and nuance and a certain amount of unassuming ambition. At just 24-years-old, Nutini has made something of a masterwork. At the very least he's made the statement that he's a true blue artist and someone worth listening to, not just a guy who can write a couple of goods songs on an album, throw some listenable pap in there and call it good. But "Coming Up Easy" is still the song that lights me up the most.

It starts off in a relaxed sorta groove, B-3 in the background and a few horns giving a sense of soul. Nutini lets his accent shine through a bit, which is nice. Too many singers try to lose their accent, losing a bit of distinctiveness in the process I think, but that's another topic for another day. Nutini sings of a guy wavering on breaking up with his girl. His friends tell him he should, she tells him to remember the good times they've had, watching the sun coming up or laying out in the rain. But when the break comes is where my interest truly piques. The line that struck me while I was standing there in the pharmacy was "It was in love I was created, and in love is how I hope I'll die." The drums start building, the horns start blaring, and Nutini repeatedly and jubilantly belts out the line like he's Otis Redding. That last 90 seconds or so of the song are what drew me in, it's what keeps me coming back, and really it's the reason I picked this song as my song of the week. It's a great bit of a young artist nodding to one of his influences and yet making it his own. It sounds easy, but it can actually be very difficult to show your influences without simply stealing from them, but Paolo if flawless in his execution, I think.

I want to reiterate how tremendous his new album is overall though. And "Coming Up Easy" is not the only Otis Redding tribute on Sunny Side Up, the song "No Other Way" is an even more overt attempt at a Stax Records sound (and it's a great attempt). But Nutini covers a lot of ground, does it well, and gets me excited for his next album. I really recommend picking it up if you get a chance.

Song of the week: Cee Lo's "Fuck You!"

2011-02-06T22:57:00.005-06:00

One of the few times I regret not keeping up more with pop culture is when a worthy part of it slips through the cracks and I don't discover it until later. Cee Lo's "Fuck You" came out in late summer 2010, was named as the best song of the year by Time magazine, and is up 4 Grammy's including Song of the Year and Record of the Year. It's even, apparently, been covered on the hit TV show Glee, although naturally in its censored form "Forget You!". I only heard "Fuck You!" a few days ago, and I have to say that it's the best song I've heard in a long time. Of course the title grabs the attention, but getting past it I found one of the best Motown songs Motown never made. Pumping with tremendous R&B bass and percussion, and skanking along with classic funk guitar, Cee Lo's amazingly distinct voice shines through, the rasp, the falsetto, and his humor perfectly in tact. Going into a song called "Fuck You!" one doesn't really expect lyrical complexity, and Cee Lo doesn't disappoint. Nothing groundbreaking here in subject, just a wronged guy giving the middle finger to his ex and the new guy she's going out with. But we're shown yet again why something doesn't have to be new to be great. We're treated to an absolutely perfect pop/soul song, an instant classic that'll be around for a long time to come. I won't write any more, since I'm on the late shift getting onto the bandwagon, the original video has over 42 million hits on YouTube, the clean version hasn't hit 3 million yet, I thought that was funny. But if you're even further behind the 8 ball than I am, here you go.

Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control

2011-02-06T21:57:00.002-06:00

Possibly my favorite doc we watched, documentary genius Errol Morris's portrait of extremely specialized knowledge and dedication in 4 very different fields had me glued to the screen from opening to closing credits. A wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot designer and an expert on the naked mole rat are our studies, and although each is fascinating in his own right, the way that their feelings and thoughts overlap one another in such different fields adds another layer to the intrigue. It's difficult to describe, but when Roger Ebert described Morris's narrative as more like music than a standard documentary, that felt right. When we're listening to one of the guys talk, we're not just staring at their talking head, and I'm not always sure why Morris is showing us the images he is over the speech we're listening to, it always felt right. Another one that still has me thinking today, Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control will likely have me ruminating for a while.

Blood into Wine

2011-02-06T21:53:00.003-06:00

An interesting doc detailing the obsession that Maynard James Keenan has with wine. For those that don't know, Maynard is the lead singer for the bands Tool and A Perfect Circle and is just about the last person I would've ever thought about sitting around with comedian Patton Oswald and talking about the tannins in red wine. Knowing Tool's lyrics, I knew that Maynard was an intelligent and interesting person, but his journey into wine maker is a really fascinating one. Little bits on a fake talk with belligerent hosts, supposed to be comedic, falls flat, but almost everything else was interesting to me. It's certainly recommendable to anyone with an interest in wine and finding out a little more about what goes into the making of wine and the setting up of a vineyard.

Jesus Camp

2011-02-06T21:49:00.003-06:00

A movie that would've been disturbing to me if I didn't know that these people already existed, and have had too many exchanges with them already. Jesus Camp instead just became boring to me and we eventually turned it off. I normally hate doing that, but the filmmakers were making every attempt to not judge the people on screen, and their seeming indifference to the goings on just left me not caring in the slightest whether I finished the movie or not.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

2011-02-06T21:42:00.002-06:00

The one I'd most looked forward to, as I'd heard nothing but the highest praise, I'm still thinking on this. It's extremely entertaining, as street art legend Banksy takes the reins for the first time as a film director and leads us through the bizarre world surrounding Thierry Guetta. Guetta is a strangely hypnotically fascinating character, and his worship of street artists and his eventual becoming of one makes for a nice narrative. Banksy's insistence on keeping his identity secret is a little annoying, but I expected that going in. The community turning on Guetta once he "creates" his own art and has an exhibition was slightly surprising and I'm still not quite sure where everyone was coming from on that front, but Exit Through the Gift Shop is certainly a wonderful ride to take and one that still has me thinking a couple of days later.

How to Cook Your Life

2011-02-06T21:38:00.003-06:00

I went through moments of zoning out while watching this one, I was tired and I was actually kind of annoyed by "Zen Chef" Edward Brown. Much of the food on display was delicious looking, I'm always a sucker for homemade bread (his apparent specialty), but a lot of Brown's babbling just became monotonous white noise after a while. Nice enough for a lazy afternoon, but not one I'll be going back to anytime soon.

Babies

2011-02-06T21:33:00.002-06:00

This one was absolutely delightful! I was happily surprised to find that there is no distinct narrative, and no narration, to the story of about a year in the lives of four babies around the world. Instead, we're treated to just under 80 minutes of these adorable babies getting into all kinds of entertaining situations, and just being all around cute. It was a nice break from the seriousness of watching Lost, which my wife and I also started watching over break (more on that when I get further into it).

Super High Me

2011-02-06T21:28:00.003-06:00

This one was really disappointing to me. It was a pleasant watch, and Doug Benson is a good comedian who carries us through the movie, but it doesn't really dig for anything. I was hoping for an intelligent and informed defense of the effects of marijuana on the system, and the case for its legalization in the US. I have long been a proponent of its legalization if only for the tax dollars it would bring into our economy. I don't smoke it, and have no interest in using it, but its continued illegality has baffled me for years. All I really got instead was seeing Doug Benson not be able to explain why he likes smoking weed, then not smoke it for 30 days, then smoke it almost every waking hour for the next 30 days. It was easy to watch, but I was hoping for something more substantial.

The Buddha

2011-02-06T21:24:00.002-06:00

A nice little PBS doc, narrated by Richard Gere, about the life and philosophy of Buddha. Being that I live in central Oklahoma, I don't get much exposure to Buddhism, and I gotta say that it's very interesting and a wonderful alternative to the dogma crazy religions we're surrounded by on a daily basis. Nothing special from an artistic standpoint, but well worth watching for anyone searching for spiritual answers in their life.

This Film is Not Yet Rated

2011-02-06T21:04:00.003-06:00

Award winning documentarian Kirby Dick takes on the Motion Picture Association of America (the MPAA), the board that hands out the ratings for the movies we watch. Dick angrily and humorously examines the double standards the board has for male and female pleasure, straight and gay sex, and violence and sex in general. Dick shows side by side comparisons of scenes in which the straight sex or male pleasure got an R rating, where the gay sex or female orgasm received the dreaded NC-17. The NC-17 is supposed to be a workable rating for non-pornographic adult movies, yet most theater chains won't show the movie, most newspapers won't carry ads for it. And the same newspapers and theaters still won't carry anything for an Unrated movie if the filmmakers tried to release the film to the public without a rating, even though the ratings are technically optional.

Dick also shows the shadowy nature of the board and how none of its members' identities are released to the public, so he hires a Private Investigator to find out who they are. This section of the movie is fairly interesting, but I would've love if the whole movie were dedicated to examining the ratings themselves and the politics behind them and less on the "gotcha" kind of moments that this part focuses on. Still, it's a terrific movie and highly recommended to those of us who have been angered so many times over the years by the many idiotic decisions the MPAA has made.

Pressure Cooker

2011-02-06T20:44:00.003-06:00

One of the better docs, Pressure Cooker focuses on Wilma Stephenson, a Culinary Arts teacher in Philadelphia. A no nonsense fireball with a heart of gold, Ms. Stephenson pushes her inner city kids to compete in a city-wide cooking competition where winners are awarded scholarships to Arts colleges around the country. The year previous to the documentary, her students were awarded over $750,000, and we follow three of her students as they navigate their difficult lives and grasp for the hope of something better. To see the pressure as the students are being evaluated by real cooking professionals (including Philadelphia based Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, intimidatingly silent as he watches), you really feel for the kids in their quest to make a better life for themselves. The hope filled ending had me nearly tearing up as we watch the scholarship ceremony taking place. I highly recommend this one, and if you have Netflix, it's an easy find.

Doc crazy!

2011-02-06T20:42:00.003-06:00

So, snowed in for the last week, my wife and I watched quite a few movies. We were in a documentary mood and really went through quite a few that we had on our Netflix Instant Watch queue. So here's a rundown of them.

Song of the week: Regina Spektor's "Two Birds"

2011-01-26T21:39:00.003-06:00

Ok, so I stopped doing this because of Christmas, then because of New Year's, and then I just got busy and stopped writing altogether, but now I'm back at it. I'm gonna start putting the video up top so that maybe you can listen to the song while I talk about it.

Regina Spektor is one of the most interesting artists around these days. Her incredibly powerful and yet delicately nimble voice coupled with her piano skills and effortless quirkiness make her at the very least interesting to listen to. On her last studio album, Far, she wrote about a wide range of topics, from people's belief in God depending on their place in life, to the color blue, and a song called "Dance Anthem of the 80's" as well. But the one that has really stayed in my memory is the possible love song "Two Birds".

Now, because of the way Spektor writes the lyrics, you could take the song as a triumph of love, or being about fear and lack of change.:

Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly away, and the other
watches him close from that wire
He says he wants to as well
But he is a liar

Here's she's setting up our characters and their situation. I'll call them the male and female, I get the feeling that the male bird is afraid to leave the comfort of the wire for the possibility of something new, i.e. whatever the female bird leads him to once they leave. He says he wants to leave, but is giving her some reason as to why he won't. She thinks he's lying, and in the next part she reassures him:

I'll believe it all
There's nothing I won't understand

I'll believe it all
I won't let go of your hand

This is the part that really touches me. I think this is what love is all about. She's telling him that whatever his reason is for not leaving the wire, she won't judge him, she'll support him, she'll still be there for him emotionally and physically. She won't even let go of his hand, even after he's taken that initial leap off of the wire.

Two birds on a wire
One says c'mon and the other says "I'm tired"
The sky is overcast and I'm sorry
One more or one less
Nobody's worried

So he's just making more excuses, but she's not giving up...

I'll believe it all
There's nothing I won't understand

I'll believe it all
I won't let go of your hand

"You're safe with me, no matter what. Please take this journey with me." is what she's trying to get him to understand. It could be a metaphor for the journey of marriage, or it could simply be a physical journey off of the wire.

Two birds of a feather
Say that they're always gonna stay together
But one's never going to let go of that wire
He says that he will
But he's just a liar

Two birds on a wire
One tries to fly away and the other
Watches him close from that wire
He says he wants to as well, but he is a liar

So she's continuing to try and get him off that wire, but he hasn't budged yet.

Two birds on a wire
Once tries to fly away and the other...

Now, one could easily take Spektor's ending the song this way to be a kind of sadness that he never will get off that wire and she doesn't even need to finish that refrain. But for a hopeful romantic like myself, I think she doesn't finish that line because just as she thinks he's not going to get off that wire and she's lamenting the fact again, he jumps. I would definitely understand an opposite interpretation to mine, since it's left deliberately ambiguous, but that's my take on it.

It's a brilliant song, of which Spektor has a few, and one I can listen to over and over again. I love the way she builds and builds and then has the release type moments back into the near silence. She plays with dynamics in a wonderfully fascinating way. I wish more artists put that kind of work and thought and care into their music. I guess that's why she's one of the bright lights out there in the music world.

My top ten of 2010

2010-12-31T20:38:00.013-06:00

I only saw 24 movies released in 2010. So when it came time to come up with the traditional "Best of the Year" list, I had slim pickins. It was a great year for kids movies, but too many other "prestige" kinda movies I've not seen to tell what I think about the year overall. Every year gives us wonderful movies though, and 2010 was no exception. I've written full reviews of seven of the movies, so their entries are a little smaller. Still, it is tradition, so here it goes:

1. Toy Story 3

The fact that I don't think Toy Story 3 is Pixar's masterpiece really speaks to the quality of work they've put out over the past 15 years. The culmination of the story of Woody and Buzz and the gang is as good as their original tale, and much better than the lackluster second entry. I wrote about it back in August, and re-watching it on DVD recently only affirmed those feelings. I didn't think I would've put it as my #1 of the year, but when it came to putting together this list, it was the movie that I would've taken over any of the others.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1

Now, I wrote about this one just last month, and without a re-watch I can't think of anything new to wrote about it, so if you wanna know my feelings on it, just look back at last month's write up.
3. Leaves of Grass

Another that I just wrote about last month, Leaves of Grass was a movie I needed to watch a couple of times before its rough edges got smoothed over for me and I could stand back and admire its brilliance. Some websites have it listed as a 2009 release because of its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last year, but it wasn't released in theaters (for about 15 minutes) or on DVD until this year, so I'm counting it that way.

4. Inception

I haven't had a chance yet to check out Chris Nolan's newest blockbuster again now that it's out on DVD, but I will soon. I've seen all of his movies multiple times, and don't expect Inception to be any different.

5. Shutter Island

DiCaprio entry #2 on the list, and marking his fourth collaboration with the legendary Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island is a sad, thrilling, slightly off kilter (in an intentional way) movie that I loved every minute of. It's fun to see Scorsese making big Hollywood movies after most of his career making smaller, more character driven, independent type films. Many people complain about that very thing, wishing he'd go back to the way he used to do it. But I think, he's already done that, let the man try a different way of filmmaking, he's earned it by now. Although it was supposed to be released around this time last year, for awards consideration, and eventually released in February, I wouldn't be too surprised if it still hung in the minds of some awards voters and made it into a few of the categories. Here's hoping.

6. Despicable Me

The concept of a villain being the hero of a story is a good one, especially in this movie's case, where Gru (Steve Carrell) is disappointed that another villain has stolen one of the Pyramid's of Giza, thereby making all other villains, including Gru, look lame. Gru goes on a wacky adventure involving his innumerable minions, 3 orphan girls, a man eating shark, a freeze ray, ballet recitals, his discouraging mother, a shrinking ray, and the Moon and brings us along for the ride. It doesn't quite explore the villain-as-hero thing as much as it probably could have, but it's a wonderfully enjoyable movie with a terrific voice cast all doing voices! As in, not just recording their own voices speaking lines, but actually creating characters and coming up with new voices for them (Carrell says he based Gru's voice on a cross between Ricardo Montalbon and Bela Lugosi, and yes it does sound as delightful as that combination would lead you to believe). Thankfully, it was a big hit, so we should be seeing more of Gru on the big screen in the future.

7. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

What an odd, terrific, and insane movie this is. Director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) brought the creation to life from the comic book series Scott Pilgrim, and it's just unlike any other movie I've ever seen. It takes some inspiration from the world of video games, but in a very literalistic way that was hysterical to me (when a bad guy is dispensed by our hero, for instance, he turns into coins, just like in the more innocent video games of my youth). I thought it had a lot of imagination, humor, and I think its failure at the box office could be attributed to its weirdness. I thought it was a lovable little oddity though.

8. Tangled

Again, wrote about this one not long ago and haven't seen it again so I doubt my feelings have changed any about this movie. See it!

9. How to Train Your Dragon

I recently re-watched my #9, and although I didn't quite love it as much as on the first go round, I still thought it was a terrific movie, beautifully animated, well written, and a rousing adventure story executed at a very high level.

10. Easy A

Easy A is a "teen movie", sure, but it is one that's done with the care and intelligence any movie should be made with. Emma Stone gives wit, charm, and a wonderful chemistry with her parents (the infallible Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) to Olive, our heroine, who tells a tiny little lie to make her friend leave her alone, which rumors its way around high school (as these things do) until Olive is the harlot of her small California town, with comical and not so comical results for her and her loved ones. Stone's is so comfortable in her performance, and the movie itself acknowledges John Hughes and his influence, that I was reminded of Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I think it's a star making performance and we'll be seeing this delightful actress in many more movies in the years to come. And I'll be happy to see her.

There are still a bunch of movies I've yet to see that I think would have a possibility of making it on the list:

The American
Blue Valentine
The Illusionist
True Grit
The Social Network
The Town
Biutiful
The Tempest
Somewhere
The Fighter
Black Swan
I Love You Phillip Morris
The King's Speech
Hereafter
Carlos
Winter's Bone
Let Me In
Never Let Me Go
I Am Love

So as usual I still have a lot to catch up with, but this is where my list stands for now. To be continued...

Song of the week: Pearl Jam's "Come Back"

2010-12-18T09:05:00.002-06:00

Pearl Jam has been one of my two favorite bands for a while. I put their 8th studio release, a self-titled album, as my #1 album of the decade last year. Pearl Jam has some of the bands best material, especially when it comes to the rockers. Eddie Vedder was writing with the memory of his recently departed friend Johnny Ramone in his head and the thought of the world he's bringing his newborn daughter into, and the first half of the album really has an almost breathless sense of punk and rock energy. Tighter as a band than ever, they go through weightier songs about the War in Iraq ("World Wide Suicide" and "Army Reserve") and religion ("Marker in the Sand"), but also don't forget to have fun, since they also include "Big Wave", Vedder's tribute to his favorite past time, surfing. To me it's unquestionably their best album, and I still stand by its #1 ranking on my top ten list of the decade.

But my favorite song on the album is the emotional plea "Come Back", a very basic song about a guy who's lost someone, I get the feeling from death, and just wants them back. The ballads on Pearl Jam's albums are often their best material, giving Eddie's voice a chance to show it has more than just rock power, it has a striking vulnerability when he wants to show it. When he says "Please say that if you hadn't have gone, I wouldn't have lost you another way. From wherever you are, come back" you can feel his hurt and loss and when he ends with "Come back, I'll be here" in that great booming voice, I can't help but be moved by the desperate begging in his voice. It's their most emotional song, and one of their best. And I think it's a great song to show to people who only have an idea of Pearl Jam from "Jeremy" or "Alive" or "Last Kiss" or whatever of their hits.

The Secret of Kells

2010-12-16T20:41:00.006-06:00

The Secret of Kells is a beautiful movie to look at, and full of enough mysticism, intrigue, adventure, and action to keep pretty much anyone happy. If it kinda loses its way in its last third, that's ok, since it never lets us down in its tremendous artwork. The art is obviously inspired by the Book of Kells, a legendary Irish manuscript of the four Gospels (it's been housed at Trinity College in Dublin since the 1661). But despite its Middle Ages monastery setting, the movie seems to want to sidestep the super religiousness of the actual Book of Kells in favor of a coming-of-age/adventure with quite a bit of Celtic mythology thrown in. That's fine by me, but the story does lose a little of its resonance when they won't address why it's so important our young hero finishes his work on the book.

It's the story of a young monk named Brendan, mesmerized by the mythic story of Brother Aidan, who's writing a book so good that sinners are blinded when they look at it. Brendan's uncle Cellach, the Abbot or head of the monastery, is obsessed with building a giant wall around the city of Kells, which will keep out marauding Vikings. Cellach is also adamant that Brendan not leave the walls of Kells, for the outside world is far too dangerous for him to handle. When the real Brother Aidan shows up unannounced one day, bringing with him his legendary book, Brendan finds a kindred soul who'll help him become a man. Naturally, one of Aidan's firsts requests of Brendan is to travel to the forest outside of Kells and bring back certain berries which he'll use to make ink for his book. While in the forest, Brendan meets the fairy Aisling (although it sure sounds like Ashley when they pronounce it in the movie), who helps him along his way.

However, the thing most people will wake away from this movie is the tremendous animation style. Detailed and basic at the same time, influenced by the style of the illustrations in the Book of Kells, it's traditional 2-d hand drawn animation as I don't remember ever seeing it before. It's very distinctive, I could watch it with the sound off and still be enthralled by the images onscreen. It's simply one of the most visually memorable movies I've seen in the past few years.

I always admire movies that can make their point efficiently, and with the movie being under 80 minutes long, The Secret of Kells certainly does that. With its short run time, involving story, terrific voice acting, and amazing animation, I don't find too much of a reason to not recommend The Secret of Kells.

Song of the week: Ben Kweller's "I Gotta Move"

2010-12-10T21:04:00.002-06:00

Acting as his sort of "Born to Run", Ben Kweller puts his impeccably melodic songwriting abilities to good use in his 60's inspired bouncy pop masterpiece "I Gotta Move". Kweller has been around a while now, releasing his first independent album at the ripe old age of 13 with his band Radish, before eventually going solo. His voice still boyish even though he'll finally hit 30 next year, Kweller's music is the kind of pop music that speaks to me on a very instinctual level. He has a certain way with melodies that embed themselves into my mind and won't leave, not that I ever ask them to. And Ben doesn't overstay his welcome, from what I can tell he's only released 2 songs over 5 minutes in length.

Being the perfectionist that he apparently is, what he decided to do for his third album, the self-titled Ben Kweller, was play all of the instruments himself, in the great Paul McCartney/Prince/Stevie Wonder mold. Now I know I love the album (it was my #5 of the decade, in fact), but going in I expected Ben Kweller to be a very introspective release due to having only himself to play off of, which could've also been great, but one of the things I love the most about the album is that there is a ton of life and energy to it, best represented, I think, with "I Gotta Move".

It's a classic kinda concept now, the rock star writing about the days when he just wanted to get out of his town and make something of himself, but Kweller makes it seem fresh and infectious. The chorus is just that great basic pop songwriting (and the song clocks in at the classic 3-minute mark). And when he talks about life in his hometown and how he's gotta get away from it:

I just can't sit still, in this small town,
There's nothing more here, I hit the ceiling,
So in the morning I'll hit the highway.
Oh, I just can't stay

I like the straightforward and unpretentious way he goes about it, and when he follows in the next verse with:

Its time I broke out into the open,
You know I'll settle down again some day,
I need some new land, and form a rock band.
Oh, I just can't stay

It's less about home being a negative place that's dragging him down, the way Springsteen seemed to feel in "Born to Run" and others, and more about how it's given him all he's going to get and he just needs to move on. And, as with the best pop music, the song works whether you want to peruse the lyrics or not. It's got a wonderful hook of a chorus, chugs along at a great pace, and doesn't hang around too long. He's written more meaningful songs (he's described "Thirteen", detailing his relationship with his high school sweetheart, and now wife, Lizzy, as his best song, and he's probably right) but for sheer fun and exuberance, I go back to "I Gotta Move" more than any other song he's written.

Tangled

2010-12-05T10:41:00.005-06:00

Disney's 50th animated feature, Tangled, will probably not be counted by most people as one of their classics, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to seeing the movie again. The classic fairy tale Rapunzel, Disneyfied of course, is the basis we start from. Reportedly costing an absurd $260 million, due to a restart late in the project where all they supposedly kept was "the hair, the tower, and Rapunzel." Add in some wonderful animation (the best in the short history of Disney 3-D), terrific voice work, humorous supporting characters, and solid (if mostly unmemorable) songs, and we have all the makings of a great movie in the classic Disney mold.

Rapunzel, voiced to sweet perfection by Mandy Moore in all her adorable glory, spends the days in her tower painting and cooking and generally just wasting her time until her mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) comes to the tower "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." By the age of 18, Rapunzel has grown extremely restless and wants to leave her tower. She's aided by the appearance of Flynn (Zachary Levi), a thief who can lead her to see the floating lanterns she wants to see. The lanterns are sent into the sky every year on her birthday, and she wants to know why and to be able to see them in person. Fairy taleness ensues in a pretty straightforward way.

The animation has a lot of care in it. The animators used classical paintings as reference in trying to give the movie the lushness and character of a traditionally animated fairy tale, just animated in 3-D. Speaking of, the screening I went to was mercifully projected in 3-D, so you won't have to hear me denigrating the worthlessness of 3-D again. The lighting and detail in the movie is tremendous. We're able to see the fiber threads in a carpet when Rapunzel's little sidekick is laying on a rug. The faces of the characters have a lot more movement and make the characters jump to life a lot easier than in other movies, but in a subtle way that some people may not notice. The songs are a bit of a weak point in the movie, but while there definitely isn't a "Be Our Guest" "A Whole New World" or "Hakuna Matata" in the bunch, I didn't really feel like any of them were bad either. They further along the characters and the story, and if they're not the greatest songs, at least they don't detract. I did really like the "dreams" song they sing in the bar. Very reminiscent of the "Gaston" sequence from Beauty and the Beast, but well done and a lot of fun.

So while many may not consider it an instant classic, I think it's perfectly enjoyable and has quite a bit of greatness in it. When Rapunzel finally gets to see the floating lanterns lit, the sequence bursts with light and shadow, and I loved the shot tracking down from the castle throughout the town as everyone lit their lights and sent them into the sky. It's a terrific sequence, my favorite in the movie, and with the enjoyability of the lead actors and the wonderful attention to details in the animation, there wasn't a whole lot about Tangled that I didn't like.

Song of the week: Melody Gardot's "Baby I'm a Fool"

2010-12-04T10:31:00.002-06:00

I've been following Melody Gardot for a few years now. I first ran into her music when her song "Worrisome Heart" was an iTunes single of the week. I downloaded it, loved it, and subsequently downloaded the whole album, also called Worrisome Heart. I found out about an EP, The Bedroom Sessions, she had done while laying in a hospital bed for a year recovering from a vicious hit-and-run accident. Later came another EP, Live from Soho, which I downloaded the second I found out about it. Its opening song, which became the second single off of her second album My One and Only Thrill, was "Baby I'm a Fool" which mesmerized me immediately.

Gardot has said of this song, "'Baby I'm a Fool' is about two coquettish people who are very much afraid to admit they could possibly even fall in love and there is a secret between them both, so you have two Don Juans dancing around each other with the undertow that they are actually in love but never admitting it" Gardot is a bit different than many young jazz artists in that she mostly writes her own songs. Most jazz singers are not writers as well, or at least are not musicians and only write lyrics. Gardot, on the other hand, has released only 3 songs that she didn't write the words and music to, still co-writing two of them, and the other being her cover of "Over the Rainbow".

Her music isn't the most complex in the world, but starting out as a piano player from the age of 9, and now mostly switched to guitar, she implores many odd chords and progressions in her writing. Her lyrics range from sweet to sultry to achingly autobiographical. Her song "Some Lessons" recalls some of the details of the accident that left her with sensitivities to light and sound, memory and movement, and neural pathways in her brain that were treated with the musical therapy that brought her to where she is today. And still she refuses to be a downer, giving us the feeling that the song is about appreciating life, not holding a grudge against those who've wronged us. And in this song, "Baby I'm a Fool", even though she has these "two Don Juans dancing around each other", she still doesn't deprive them of the possibility of love, or of a happy ending. It's a wonderful song from a wonderful artist, one whom I will always look forward to watching in the years to come.

Tragedy vs. Comedy

2010-12-02T20:53:00.007-06:00

I use the terms in the title of this post a little loosely. It should really be titled something like "seriousness vs. light heartedness" or "endings where the guy and the girl don't get together vs. endings where they do get together" but I thought being more succinct would be a good thing. A recent conversation with my wife prompted me to start thinking about why we as viewers react a certain way to movies. She claims that I only like movies where The Guy and The Girl don't get together, and I claim that she dismisses any movie where they don't as being not worth the time. I certainly don't have anything against happy or "fairy tale" endings, when I think they work within the context of the movie. In fact, when I think it works, I love it just as much as anything.

But I also love when there's some ambiguity in the ending. At the end of the great romance movie Before Sunrise, for instance, Jesse and Celine don't have a fairy tale ending, but they also don't have one where they necessarily don't end up together. I love the scene in the sequel, Before Sunset, where Jesse talks about the scenario (via the book he wrote about the first movie's happenings), where the two lovers part but pledge to meet again in the same spot 6 months from then. He says essentially that we fill in the blanks with whatever type of person we are, a romantic will believe they got together again (as I believed before seeing Sunset), a cynic will think that they don't, and someone in between will simply not be sure. And in my recent viewing of 5 Centimeters Per Second, there's the grayness of the ending where you think about why he stops to try and see her again, and why she walks away. I loved that ending, but it wasn't because "they don't end up together", it was because of the character motivations and what it meant to each of them to see the other one again after so long. Alvy doesn't end up with Annie Hall, but they don't have to. Alvy appreciates the time in his life that Annie occupied and has moved on, and so should we.

Some movies like that just leave us with a piece, or a taste, of love. In Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Three Times, the first section ends up with the two young loves holding hands with nervous smiles on their faces. It was a perfect piece of cinema. Cameron Crowe's great Say Anything ends with John Cusack putting his arm around Ione Skye as they apprehensively wait for whatever they'll face in their new life of love together (a remarkably mature ending for a debut from Crowe, as is the whole movie). In Casablanca, everyone knows Rick and Ilsa don't end up with one another (the movie's so famous, most people can quote the scenes even if they've never seen the movie before), but that doesn't tarnish the great lost romance that they had, or Rick's noble sacrifice in the end. What happened after Harry met Sally? Well, they had an iconic New Years Eve, to the delight of romantics like me. James and Emily in Adventureland have a wonderfully romantic (and funny and heartfelt) culmination of their relationship at the end of my favorite film of last year. These are incredibly romantic movies, I think, and some of my favorite romance movies.

But then we have the chick flicks. The leads always end up together after some bullshit incident that threatens to derail their romance in the third act. These movies are safe and comforting for many people, and can be perfectly enjoyable when done right. But since they're simply formulas made over and over again with mostly interchangeable lead actors, I don't really think of them as romantic or as "romance" movies, and they rarely evoke any sort of passion out of me as a viewer. I understand their value in the same way I understand the value of McDonald's, you go in each time knowing precisely what you're gonna get and it doesn't matter who the lead actor (or Mickey D's location) is, you're gonna get exactly what you've already had in the past, that's why you're coming back for more. But as art, they nearly always fail to move me in any significant way. And that's what I'm looking for, some artistic payoff for my emotional investment.

It's been a little difficult for me to answer some of my wife's questions about why I react the way I do to certain movies, simply because I never really thought extensively about how we all respond to the art that we expose ourselves to. I think a lot about what our responses are, and whether I agree or disagree with your response and what our interpretation are, etc. But I don't think much about why I instinctively am drawn to things more serious minded than not. But I think that last line of the previous paragraph is the heart of it. I need to feel that payoff, it just doesn't have to be in the form of a happy ending.

Black Swan posters

2010-12-01T22:35:00.010-06:00

Now, I haven't seen Darren Aronofsky's movie Black Swan (seeing as it hasn't opened yet) but I gotta say that I'm really loving the posters they've drawn up for his ballet/mental breakdown followup to The Wrestler. The movie, which has been getting Oscar buzz for its leading lady Natalie Portman, and also contains a much hyped lesbian sex scene between Portman and co-star Mila Kunis, won't be coming out here in a couple of weeks (or maybe even months) more than likely, but I still wanted to share its posters, a thing which I think is becoming a lost art when it comes to movie advertising.

And two of its more traditional posters, ones that I still like anyway:

If you look back on movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Back to the Future (or anything else by famed poster artist Drew Struzan) there used to be a lot of love put into this kind of marketing that I think helped make so many of these movies iconic. These aren't in Struzan's style (just Google his name if you wanna check out some of the cool posters he's done), but they have the same kind of care put into them that really is nice to see. Makes me want to watch a movie that I was kinda on the fence about to begin with. And isn't that the point of a poster?

Song of the week: The Black Keys' "Meet Me in the City"

2010-11-27T10:30:00.004-06:00

So, this song coming a little later in the week (because of Thanksgiving), I'm gonna go with The Black Keys song "Meet Me in the City". Originally an old blues song by the great Junior Kimbrough, The Black Keys covered it on their tribute EP Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough. The Keys had been greatly influenced by Kimbrough and had actually already covered his songs on their first two albums, and eventually decided to just do the Chulahoma EP in 2005, strangely not containing either of the songs they'd covered on their first two albums. Kimbrough's songs had a raw, hypnotic way about them that could remind someone of John Lee Hooker or RL Burnside without too much effort. He was a great artist, and I included his version of the song underneath the Keys' down below.

But this is about the cover version. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney make up The Black Keys, and you really never miss any instrumentation in their music, even when it's just stripped down to Auerbach's voice and guitar and Carney's drums. They're a force to listen to, raw and dynamic and beautiful and inspiring to me as a fellow musician (last May, when I did my top ten albums of the decade, their Attack and Release ended up at #7). "Meet Me in the City" was one of the first songs of theirs that I heard, and it really grabbed me by the throat on the first listen, but it was because of its tenderness and not because of its energy. The painful love Auerbach has in his voice just killed me after the kind sleepy groove drew me into the opening of the song. The lyrics are simple:

"Meet me, oh momma, in the city
And see everything is so fine
We'll get together now, darlin'
Oh yes we will
We'll make everything alright
Now honey don't
Oh honey don't

Please, please don't leave me right now, baby
Right now, right now
Oh no no no

You got me, baby
You got me, darlin'
You got me where you want me, baby
Girl, I know you are satisfied
Still begging you, baby
Don't leave me here

Please, please don't leave me
Right now baby, right now, right now
Oh no no no"

But the way Auerbach infuses them with so much yearning and hope and pain is astounding. Sometimes the simplest things can evoke our most basic human emotions better than anything else can. It's songs like "Meet Me in the City" that typify the blues as a genre of all of our essential humanity. And when it can be delivered to us by artists as great as Junior Kimbrough or The Black Keys, it makes all that deeper of an impact.

The Black Keys' version

Junior Kimbrough's original

5 Centimeters Per Second

2010-11-21T19:49:00.006-06:00

The Japanese anime 5 Centimeters Per Second is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, in both a visual and thematic way. It's the story of two people who're inseparable as kids (both entranced by the falling cherry blossoms, which allegedly fall at 5 centimeters per second) but are split apart by their families moving, yet they are determined to meet up again, they do and fall in love as teenagers, only to be split apart again, before becoming adults who still think of each other but have moved on with their lives (or are trying to learn how to). It's breathtakingly animated. Writer/director Makoto Shinkai allows so many shots of lonely looking objects to linger a bit longer than most would let them, underscoring the longing our characters feel for each other. The score by Tenmon, who's scored all of Shinkai's work, is an empty piano score which even further enhances the feelings of our main characters. At just 63 minutes, 5 Centimeters doesn't outstay its welcome, but Shinkai takes his time unfolding his story in a way that makes sure it doesn't feel truncated either.

The story reminded me forcibly of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's great Three Times, another love story set against 3 separate time periods (and was in my top ten of the decade). Of course, Hou set the stories apart by having the same actors playing different characters in different time periods and then watched how they play out their love scenarios. Shinkai simply gives us three segments from the same characters, as they grow older. The first segments are strikingly similar, as the man (boy in 5 Centimeters case) seeks out the woman (girl) before eventually meeting and sharing a simple expression of affection, although Shinkai's ending is as achingly beautiful as Hou's, it's in a different way, since 5 Centimeters follows the same characters throughout its 3 stories, we don't leave our characters at the end of the segment. So there isn't the ending note of love, since we will catch up with Shinkai's characters (and his first segment ends on a less fully romantic note, there's some mixed feelings there). The unreciprocated feelings in the second story are interesting and worthwhile as a story, but don't have quite the same emotional weight as the opening segment.

The final segment, though marred a bit by a too on-the-nose power ballad that stands at complete odds to the sparseness of the rest of the soundtrack, is the ambiguous end to the story that maybe isn't so ambiguous once you think about it. Our hero is haunted by the lost love that never got to see its fruition, while the heroine still occasionally thinks back on those days gone by, even as she has moved on. The chance meeting that the hero has longed for finally happens, but how you feel about the outcome will ultimately depend on each viewers interpretation of the characters feelings at that point in their life.

I think it's a beautifully mature ending to a gorgeous movie, one of the best I've ever seen. Sadly, and for a reason unknown to me, 5 Centimeters Per Second is unavailable on US DVD, as far as I know. However, it is easily viewed through Google Video, which is how I got ahold of it. It is a truly remarkable movie from a filmmaker I need to see more from. Makoto Shinkai has been labeled as "the new Miyazaki", although the thought wouldn't have come to my mind from this movie due to its lack of action or adventure or many of the ecological or aeronautical themes that Miyazaki returns to time and again. What Shinkai does have in common with Miyazaki is that he has made a beautifully animated movie, one that I will return to many times over the years. I wouldn't call him "the new Miyazaki", because really he's "the current Makoto Shinkai".

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

2010-11-20T15:35:00.008-06:00

Here we have the beginning of the end of the most lucrative franchise in cinema history. We first met these characters on the big screen in 2001, and have seen the actors and the films themselves grow since then. I have a deep, personal love of J.K. Rowling's books, and haven't always been completely pleased with their adaptations to the silver screen. Last years Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was the first one that in my mind really captured so much of the magic of the books into the movies, but even it had so much that was cut from the novel. Splitting the mammoth final book into two parts was a good idea here, as even though many things were cut out, few of them are truly missed. Although Deathly Hallows, Part 1 certainly feels like the first half of a story, it also succeeds admirably as a movie.

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as the three leads have truly grown a lot since their first forays into our lives. Radcliffe had, in my mind, more than a few awkward line readings and uncomfortable times in the series, but as he has become a man he has also become a better actor. He gives Harry weight and depth as a character, and not in just a "good for a kid actor" sort of way. Grint, who's buffed up in the past couple of years in addition to his normal growth, keeps Ron's role as the comic relief of the trio, but also adds some layers to Ron, the love and anger and friendship that the role needs. Emma Watson, whom I've thought was the star of the group since the fourth movie or so, again soars here. There's a scene in the first few minutes of the movie, when Hermione wipes herself from her parents memories, when Watson conveys all of Hermione's psychological conflict in just a look, and director David Yates gives us a great shot of Hermione walking away from her house, and maybe her family, forever.

Yates, returning for the 7th and final movie after also helming numbers 5 and 6, again gets things right as far as the balance of character and action, giving us some of the same small moments that make Rowling's books so delightful to return to, as well as the big action scenes that a blockbuster of this type requires. I've heard some rumblings from some people that the movie moves too slowly, but I didn't feel that way in the slightest. I thought the 146 minutes flew by wonderfully, with only some of Dumbledore's backstory that I can think of that I really missed seeing. Yates and his cinematographer Eduardo Serra do maybe go a little too heavy on the handheld sometimes. I'm thinking mostly of the chase with the Snatchers, which felt very Paul Greengrass-y (like his terrible handheld work on the last two Bourne movies), but mostly the movie is gorgeously shot, whether in the forest, on the beach, or in the Ministry of Magic, the movie looks terrific, surely to get Serra his third Oscar nomination. My favorite part of the movie though, had to have been the animated sequence detailing the "Tale of the Three Brothers", done in an updated take on the animation of the legendary Lotte Reiniger's paper cutouts. Such a beautifully done piece.

So we get what I feel is the best Harry Potter movie yet, and with next years conclusion to the series again coming from David Yates, I feel in good spirits about the final adaptation of some of my favorite books. From my remembrance of the novels, there will certainly be a huge amount of action for those that feel this was a little light on conflict. I feel like this is the movie event I was missing this summer, when it felt like the only greats we had were Inception and Toy Story 3. A wonderful piece of entertainment, with some very good performances and wonderful visuals, I loved Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, and can't wait for Part 2.

Song of the week: The Beatles "Twist and Shout"

2010-11-17T19:42:00.003-06:00

Debut of a new thing I wanna do. I love looking at albums and artists as a whole, but sometimes individual songs need their due as well. And so to start off this foray into spotlighting a song a week, I'll begin with the song I'm obsessed with right now, The Beatles' cover of "Twist and Shout".

Originally written Phil Medley and Bert Berns (whose other compositions include "Hang on Sloopy" and "Piece of My Heart") and recorded by the Top Notes, produced by Phil Spector and released in 1961. It was covered just the next year by The Isley Brothers, produced by Bert Berns himself, after he felt that Spector had screwed up the original recording and wanted to show him how it should be done. The song was a hit for the Isley's, and became a popular song for R&B groups to cover. The Beatles version appeared as the closing song on their debut album Please Please Me in 1963, and issued as a single in '64 (it would be the only top 10 song the band had that wasn't an original). It was the final song recorded during the marathon session Please Please Me was recorded in, the 11th song in 10 hours. Producer George Martin knew that the song would be tough on John Lennon's voice and so saved it for last. He'd intended to record it as many times as it took to get it right, but Lennon was only good for one take before "John's voice had gone" as Martin put it.

Lennon's voice is obviously shredded, and you can hear it on the recording. Thankfully, he finished the take and gave us one of the great vocal performances in rock music. The rasp was on his voice in full force, and Lennon sounds drained but forcing himself through. Paul and George's backing vocals sound as sweet as the Isley's did, but John's demolished vocal chords are what makes the song special. During the "Shake it, shake it, shake it baby now" part towards the end, you can hear the weariness in the band, but with smiles on their faces in a way that's infectious even to just listen to. I can imagine Lennon must've collapsed in exhaustion just after the tape ran out. "Twist and Shout" was the first Beatles song I remember ever hearing, I must've only been about 3 or 4 at the time, and it transfixed me as I listened to the cassette over and over again. Some things you just don't grow out of as an adult, and I still can't listen to "Twist and Shout" without a big smile on my face, convulsing like Paul McCartney does when John tells us to "shake it, shake it, shake it". It's one of the great songs by the greatest of bands, and a perfectly fine choice to open my new series of blog posts.

Elevator to the Gallows

2010-11-13T12:00:00.008-06:00

Legendary French director Louis Malle made one of the great debut movies in cinema history with his 1958 masterpiece Elevator to the Gallows. Starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as Florence and Julien, secret lovers planning the murder of her powerful husband (his boss), only to have their perfect plan slowly unravel over the course of the movie's 91 powerfully tense minutes. A haunting, lonely score improvised by Miles Davis sets the backdrop of inevitable tragedy in the lives of our characters. Moreau, who didn't do anything for me in Truffaut's Jules and Jim, here uses her strangely attractive features in a wonderful performance of a woman hoping and searching and afraid for the safety and whereabouts of the lover she can't find, almost going mad with worry. Because, after the murder of her husband, Julien spends the night trapped in the elevator of the building in which he'd just committed the crime.

Elevator to the Gallows has the same trajectory and tone as many of the American noirs of the 40's and 50's that I've been watching lately. It has the same kind of inescapable sense of doom that hangs over so much of the characters actions. I wasn't sure how things would turn out, being that it was a French take on the genre, but I was gripped to my seat like almost no other noir has gotten me. Gorgeously shot in stark black-and-white by cinematographer Henri Dacae, we get a lot of classic noir shots of dark streets, interrogation rooms, and rainy nights. Malle, only 24 when he made the movie, directs with a tight hand. There's nothing wasted in the hour and a half that we spend in this world. We see Julien struggling to get out of the elevator, Florence wandering Paris looking for him, and the young couple who steal Julien's car and go on their own tragic journey through the night.

I'm always happy to have made another successful venture out into world cinema, with this being probably only second to the great heist movie Rififi as my favorite French movie. I liked this much better than my previous Malle movie, Atlantic City, and put it high on my list of favorite noirs. I'll always remember Jeanne Moreau's haunting face and Miles Davis's equally effective score. I'll also be looking forward to my next foray into Louis Malle's catalog, and French film in general.

Leaves of Grass - an Oklahoma dose of greatness

2010-11-09T21:37:00.002-06:00

Leaves of Grass has a lot of autobiography from its writer/director Tim Blake Nelson. Not so much in Ed Norton's twin Kincaid brothers, the marijuana dealing, or the violence, but in many of the little details contained in this wacky ride through my beloved home state. Nelson (probably most famous as Delmar from the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?) is one of the finest character actors around, stealing scenes in all kinds of movies from big budget to tiny independents. Although from humble Tulsa beginnings, Nelson is an Ivy League (Brown University) educated Classics major, a Julliard graduate, an accomplished playwright, and an experienced filmmaker, Leaves of Grass marking his 4th major work as director. About half of that description applies to Bill, one of the twin brothers played by Ed Norton (who also serves as a producer on the film).

Bill is Professor of Classical Philosophy at Brown, a hot young name in academia being courted by Harvard to start up his own program there. The movie opens with a great monologue by Bill dealing with the teaching of the ancient Greeks, and it's a testament to Nelson's faith in his script that he doesn't turn it into simply a montage of Bill lecturing to students, but a fully formed monologue, much of which foreshadows the intellectual themes of the rest of the movie. Soon after, we meet Brady, a genius pot grower in the Southeastern Oklahoma town of Idabel. He and his best friend Bolger (Nelson) are running into problems with a Tulsa based Jewish drug kingpin (deliciously played by Richard Dreyfuss) who wants payback, Brady and Bill's hippie mom (Susan Sarandon) who's checked herself into a retirement home, and with Brady's pregnant girlfriend Colleen (Melanie Lynskey) who wants Brady to stop selling, stop growing, and stop smoking his beloved mary jane.

Blackly comedic hijinks ensue as everybody crosses paths and we get faked deaths, real deaths, obvious comedy, subtle comedy, uncomfortable comedy (thanks to Josh Pais's unbelievably great performance), philosophical discussions on poetry and the existence of God. Brady has an interesting theory about why he does believe in a higher power, I would've never thought about explaining God's possible existence with parallel lines, but it makes a lot of sense when Nelson gives his characters the time to talk about things and ideas the way that few movies ever do. It's intoxicating to find a movie that allows the ridiculousness of legendary singer/songwriter Steve Earle angrily shooting a crossbow (with his bluetooth headset in his ear) to exist in the same realm with Keri Russell reciting Whitman while she guts a catfish. It's a wonderful feeling, even if Nelson doesn't quite have the directorial flair to be able to pull it off without a hitch. There aren't many problems with the movie, but maybe those things can't go flawlessly into a movie in the first place. I'm still really glad he tried.

Now, I've not been a huge fan of Edward Norton over the years. I was never one of the people praising his work to the heavens and declaring him the best actor of his generation. I think he's a solid actor whose performances tend to all feel the same to me. Not, however, in Leaves of Grass. Bill is intelligent and logical, but increasingly reaching the end of his rope, often due to Brady. And Brady is a brilliant mind who doesn't always put his smarts to use in a constructive manner. Although I thought at first the "hick" accent that Norton uses for Brady was too over-the-top, either he or I grew into it, and I was okay with it. Norton creates these two characters with a wonderfully subtle bag of tricks, and the illusion of the twins is handled wonderfully by Nelson and his bag of directorial tricks. I knew, of course, that Norton wasn't acting opposite himself, Nelson made pains to include many shots of Bill and Brady together, and Norton's timing and amazing ability to play off of himself seals the deal so that we never don't believe that we're watching two brothers.

So, in short, Leaves of Grass is a masterwork by a proud Okie. It contains too many wonderful things to let the small stuff bother me, most notably brilliant performances by Ed Norton (the best work he's done, I think). It's certainly one of my favorite movies of recent times.

Winnie-the-Pooh

2010-11-04T22:43:00.008-05:00

I was taken way back to the days of my childhood again recently, when my wife and I watched The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh. I loved Pooh as a kid. I loved his simple nature, his direct way of seeing things, his naivete, and his good hearted love of honey. I love the amiable way Pooh goes around wishing everyone a "happy winds-day" during the tempestuous weather. And his innocence in trying to trick the bees into thinking he's a harmless rain cloud so that he can steal their honey. He's really just one of the most heartwarming characters I've ever seen. And his compatriots in the Hundred Acre Wood are only slightly less charming. Piglet is all nervous, tuttering energy. Rabbit, fastiduous and annoyingly whiny. Owl, long-winded and pompous, but also blessed with a good heart. Kanga and Roo the sweet mother/son team. And, of course, my two favorites as a child: depressive Eeyore, and bombastically energetic Tigger.

The movie is really just three short films put together into one movie, a process they used to refer to as "package films". Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree from 1966, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day from 1968, and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too! from 1974, all put together and released as a full length movie in 1977. One of my favorite parts about the movie is that Disney translated the stories to the screen as though they were actually stories being told to us by the movie's narrator (perfectly voiced by Sebastian Cabot). Occasionally the characters themselves even interact with the narrator reading the stories that play out their lives.

Well, "lives" may be stretching it, considering that the whole concept of Pooh is that the characters are stuffed animals brought to life through the imagination of their owner, the young Christopher Robin. That's actually another great little detail of the animation, the way that the animators gave the characters the weight and feeling of stuffed animals brought to life and not like real animals. They took much inspiration from the terrific book illustrations by EH Shepard, but gave the characters movement and really brought them to life for all of us to enjoy. In combination with the animators, there's the tremendous voice work, most especially Sterling Holloway's work as Pooh, and Paul Winchell's famous voicing of Tigger. All the actors really help the characters jump off screen, but those two are special.

There is apparently a new Pooh movie Disney has scheduled to come out next summer, just called Winnie the Pooh. It's supposed to take the same inspiration from Shepard's original illustrations, and has great voice work lined up from Jim Cummings (who's done so much amazing voice work I wouldn't even know where to start listing it from), John Cleese as the narrator, and a theme song sung by Zooey Deschanel. But I'm leery of anything that might infringe on my affections for Pooh bear and the gang, one of the many reasons I've stayed away from the innumerable direct-to-video stuff that's been released over the last decade or so. But hopefully it can capture some of the magic that The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh did all those years ago. Watching it made me feel like a kid again, in the best possible way.

The Red Balloon

2010-10-26T20:56:00.006-05:00

I remember as a child being fascinated by silent passages in movies. I am still to this day intrigued by completely visual film making. I think this all started with French director Albert Lamorisse's sweet 1956 masterpiece The Red Balloon. It was shown throughout American elementary schools from the 60's to the early 90's (and should still be shown to kids today, if you ask me), and I was one of the many children that the movie made a huge impression on. It's the story of a young kid, played by the director's son Pascal, who finds a balloon caught on a light post on his walk to school. He frees it and soon finds out the balloon has a mind of its own, which it uses to follow him to school and play games with him and be the friend that he so desperately needs.
Of course, one of the calling cards of the movie is its script. It won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, despite having lines of dialog in the single digits. It's nearly silent (and could've been completely had Lamorisse wanted to do so), and is all the more magical for it. It's a simple movie, but one that plays to our recollections of childhood and the feelings of finding a new friend. My favorite sequence is the one in which Pascal and the balloon walk past a little girl carrying a blue balloon, causing the balloon to do its version of a double take, getting a little crush on the pretty blue balloon. However, the movie also doesn't let us forget that bullies exist in our world, as Pascal runs through the streets of Paris with the balloon as a big group of jealous kids seek to take it away from him. But a perfectly wonderful and uplifting ending gives us hope and a childlike glee in our hearts.
So, The Red Balloon is one of the great gifts of cinema. I've been meaning to revisit it for a while, ever since I saw Hou Hsiao-Hsien's homage The Flight of the Red Balloon with Juliette Binoche, about a year ago. I finally made it back to the original, and am glad I did. Its magic realism and understated brilliance will keep me coming back to it over and over again through the years. It gives me that wonderful fuzzy feeling inside that you just get from so few movies. Or, as critic Owen Gleiberman so wonderfully put it, "More than any other children's film, The Red Balloon turns me into a kid again whenever I see it...to see The Red Balloon is to laugh, and cry, at the impossible joy of being a child again."

How to Train Your Dragon

2010-10-16T22:05:00.005-05:00

Dreamworks animation has had a spotty career. It started out decently with Antz in 1998, which was overshadowed by Pixar's vastly superior A Bug's Life, they found huge success with the Shrek series, then again with Madagascar, again with Over the Hedge (which I actually liked a lot), but didn't really hit a home run artistically, I think, until 2008's Kung Fu Panda. Then came '09's delightful Monsters vs. Aliens, and 2010 gives us their magnum opus, How to Train Your Dragon. It's a wonderful movie with astounding animation, terrific characters, and a good (if predictable) story. They create a world of Vikings and dragons and ships and battles, and imbue it with heart, artistry, and the kind of soul we're used to seeing from Pixar and Studio Ghibli. Maybe we can start expecting that from Dreamworks now too, as Kung Fu Panda had the same kind of care given to it.

The story is the cliche of a kid not living up to the expectations given to him by his dad and the society they live in. He's different and hasn't found his place, although we know he will, otherwise it's unlikely he'd be the hero of the story. Director Chris Sanders had previously directed Lilo and Stitch, which was a surprisingly good modern Disney movie. He'd also done work on a quirkily ambitious project called American Dog, though he was later removed from the project, which was eventually heavily reworked into Bolt. I like Bolt a lot, but after seeing some American Dog concept photos, and seeing what Sanders (and his co-writer/director on all three projects, Dean DeBlois) did with this movie, I'd love to have seen what American Dog would've turned out like.

But back to How to Train Your Dragon, the animators really created some extraordinary shots and sequences in the movie. Apparently the filmmakers hired cinematographer Roger Deakins to advise on lighting the movie to give things more weight and to add a live-action feel. Deakins, responsible as regular director of photography for the Coen Brothers for some of the most interestingly shot movies of recent years, and an 8 time Oscar nominee, must've worked some good magic. The animation is tremendous, beautiful in many cases, and would alone make the movie worth watching. But the voice cast adds some nice work as well, especially lead Jay Baruchel (a favorite of mine dating back to Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared), with his inherent awkwardness extending to our outcast hero.

I hadn't expected to love How to Train Your Dragon, despite 98% positive reviews from critics, and being liked enough by audiences to rake in nearly $500 million. But it really is a terrific movie, one of the best of the year, even if I can't quite figure out why the Vikings have Scottish accents. I'm glad I finally got around to checking it out, and I'm sure I'll end up shelling out the cash to add it to my permanent collection.

Noir, round 3

2010-10-05T23:51:00.005-05:00

#9 Clash by Night (directed by Fritz Lang)
So, this was supposed to be an entry into the noir quest. It was in one of my noir box sets, and "directed by Fritz Lang" got me excited (since he directed the all-time classics Metropolis and M), seeing that it was based on a play by Clifford Odets piqued my interest, and after seeing the cast of Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Paul Douglas, and Marilyn Monroe, I was sold. But what the hell?!? This isn't a noir, it's just a bullsh-t relationship melodrama (and not a very good one in my eyes) with some occasionally noir-ish lighting. Lame.

#10 Act of Violence (directed by Fred Zinnemann)
So, I'll go ahead and count this as #10 in the series. And we're back on track with some serious noir. Actually, some interestingly serious noir. Act of Violence concerns itself with the guilt and anger felt by two soldiers who survived the horror of a Nazi P.O.W. camp. One of the soldiers, Van Heflin's Frank, was the leader of the group that'd been shot down by the Germans. Robert Ryan plays Joe, the only other man to make it out of the camp alive. Joe blames Frank for the deaths of the other men, and has tracked him down relentlessly in a bid to right the thing he feels has been wronged. Frank moved his family from Syracuse, New York all the way to southern California just to get away from Joe's vengeful quest, assuring himself that Joe won't continue following.

Frank's survivor's guilt must've been mirrored by that of legendary director Fred Zinnemann, who'd escaped the dangers of WWII with his brother just 10 years previous to Act of Violence, but lost both of his parents in concentration camps. Van Heflin's wonderfully layered performance carries the movie, especially in the scene where he explains to his wife Edith (Janet Leigh, in her first role of significance) exactly why Joe blames him for the soldiers' deaths, and what he's been carrying around with him since then. Robert Ryan is creepily effective as Joe, single minded in his pursuit, to the point that he tells his girlfriend he just doesn't love her enough to care what she thinks about his intent of violence retribution.

We're blessed again with some terrific cinematography (probably the biggest reason I love noir), this time courtesy of 16 time Oscar nominee Robert Surtees. Heflin is often bathed in shadow, with only a single ray of light across his eyes or face. The scene of he and Janet Leigh in the hotel, where he painfully explains his actions, is a masterfully shot bit of noir, with shadows and light playing off one another in many different ways. Another beautifully done sequence in when Frank contemplates suicide by standing in front of a train, Helfin's pain playing out on his face, Zinnemann ratcheting up the tension, and Surtees shining the light from the front of the train in contrast to the oppressive darkness all around. It's not the brilliant grittier photography of He Walked by Night, but it's very noir, and terrifically done.

#11 On Dangerous Ground (directed by Nicholas Ray)
After a nice round 10 movies, I returned to the first director on the list, Nicholas Ray, and his movie On Dangerous Ground. It stars Robert Ryan (of course it has Robert Ryan in it, it's a noir!) as Jim Wilson, a cop on the edge of losing his job after he continually gets too rough with suspects. He gets results, as he's quick to point out, but is also anti-social with his fellow policemen, insubordinate to his Chief, and decaying on the inside as a person. "Garbage, that's all we handle, garbage!" he shouts to another cop. He's sent away from the city into the wintry countryside to help investigate a murder and meets Mary, a blind woman played by Ida Lupino. Mary becomes a kind of beacon of salvation for Jim, but the situation may not play out in a way that allows him to have his redemption.

Ryan gives one of his better performances, giving Jim the nasty underbelly, but also believably paying out the quest for rebirth for his disillusioned cop. Ida Lupino is terrific as the blind woman, tenderly offering much needed hope, and not just for Jim. Ward Bond as the father of the country victim is a little too over-the-top and obnoxious, but I think that's kind of the point for his character.

The photography, by noir veteran George E. Diskant, isn't as iconic as some of the other noirs I've been watching. But I got a nice Fargo-esque vibe from the snowy countryside setting, and some decent city work as well. The hand-held work, however, is far inferior to the tremendous job Diskant did on The Narrow Margin, released the same year (also filmed the same year, although that was 2 years prior to its release). Ray's handling of the angsty storyline of looking for redemption through possible romance is handled with typical aplomb, even if it doesn't have the more noirish ending he originally intended. The change in setting, which some have apparently felt jarring, I felt Ray managed perfectly. We have to have our protagonist set up before we can care what happens to him. Ray is much more interested in his characters than in having a more narrow or traditional plot structure, and the movie is better off for it.

The ten most beautiful actresses of all time

2010-10-02T23:12:00.026-05:00

So, fellow blogger Iza Larize inspired this post. You can check out her list here: http://depthsofcinema.blogspot.com/2010/10/most-beautiful-actresses-of-all-timeso.html, she is somehow always able to find some tremendous photos. We share a couple of actresses in our entry, but not too many. Although the women on the list have many distinctions from each other in their shared beauty, all have in common that their eyes are my favorite feature. I have always been drawn to dark eyes, and it seems that only two of the women has a lighter eye color. Anyway, without further delay, here we go, in no particular order, and this is based solely on beauty and not acting ability, that'd be a different list:

Salma Hayek

Salma starts off the list, because she's the most attractive actress of all time, in my book. Now, I don't necessarily think she's the most beautiful, just the most attractive. But still, this is a "most beautiful" list so she wouldn't be on here if I didn't think she was pretty. She has the same dark features that many women of her heritage (Spanish and Lebanese, although she is actually from Mexico) have, in the best way possible. Her severe eyebrows and dark eyes offset wonderfully against a smile that lights up her whole face. I think it's this contrast that has always attracted her to me.

Audrey Hepburn

Now, here is Salma Hayek's opposite. To me, Audrey Hepburn is the most beautiful actress I've ever seen, but would not be anywhere near a "most attractive" top ten list, simply because she doesn't have anything in the way of sensuality. Still, her smile could lighten even the darkest of hearts, and you could get lost in her eyes. Her almost impossible beauty couldn't not be on this list.

Aishwarya Rai

Ahh, Aishwarya Rai. She has the qualities that both Hayek and Hepburn have, but at the same time. Like Hayek, she bears the features of her heritage (Indian), namely in her prominent nose. However, her nose fits her face perfectly, and her smile, her eyes, her lips, she has beauty everywhere I look.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry may have the best smile in all of Hollywood. She has perfect teeth and impeccable cheekbones. She's also one of the few actresses that I will ever prefer with short hair.

Ingrid Bergman

Now, Bergman would certainly end up on a list of my top ten actresses, but she deserves a place on my most beautiful list as well. Although she had a severe nose, she had a luminous smile and incredibly contemplative eyes that I have loved watching on screen over and over again.

Rachel Weisz

When I first saw Rachel Weisz in The Mummy many years ago, her beauty hit me like a ton of bricks. Her eyes, her lips, her smile, she was amazing in her every feature. I'm still captivated whenever I see her, and it doesn't hurt either that she turned out to be a tremendous talent.

Gong Li

Gong Li was another one that bowled me over, this time when seeing the Zhang Yimou movie Raise the Red Lantern. That was in 1991 (when the movie was made, not when I saw it), and yet when I see things like Memoirs of a Geisha, Gong still out beauties her co-stars well into her 40's. There are many beautiful Asian women, but to me it doesn't get any better than Gong Li.

Claudia Cardinale

Continuing the theme, when I saw Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther, she ruined the movie for me. Every time the storyline went away from her, I stopped caring because it was going away from one of the most fascinatingly gorgeous women I'd ever seen in a movie. I found out later that the actresses Italian accent was so thick that they had to overdub her voice, but that didn't matter to me. Her dark eyes and perfect nose and mouth were all I wanted to see.

Marisa Tomei

Marisa Tomei, a strange case in that if I was making this list 15 years ago she wouldn't be on here. She has grown more attractive and more beautiful as she's gotten older, to where she is now easily one of the 5 sexiest actresses working today. I don't know how she does it, but she improves with age like wine. Her smile and her eyes pull me into her and are what help make her such a terrific actress. But they're also what get her onto this list of the most beautiful actresses.

Elizabeth Taylor

And finishing the theme of the list, Elizabeth Taylor's eyes are the most famous on the list. I have to admit that I'm not immune from the spell that they cast on so many others. I think, for me, it's not just the eyes, but the dark beauty that surrounds them (you'll notice no blondes on the list, although a couple just missed out).

Of course, there will be some arguments with my list "Where's Grace Kelly?" "Where's Catherine Deneuve?" and all that, but they always struck me very cold. They never really did anything for me. There are plenty of actresses who're beautiful enough to have been on the list, but just missed out. But you want Grace Kelly on there, make your damn own list. This is mine.

Noir, round 2

2010-09-16T19:22:00.011-05:00

I decided not to wait for another 5, since I've written more than usual about these three.

#6 Key Largo (directed by John Huston)
So after a week off, I continued with my noir quest tonight with the less famous of the John Huston/Humphrey Bogart noir collaborations, Key Largo. Bogie has long been one of my favorite actors, and this is one of his best performances. He had one of the most emotionally expressive faces I've seen, and we see so much play out in his eyes and his facial "body language" as his disillusioned WWII vet Maj. Frank McCloud struggles with discovering a reason to fight, in this case against famous gangster Johnny Rocco, deliciously played by Edward G. Robinson, who is keeping a small hotel full of people hostage as a small hurricane passes through.

Playing as a sort of oppositely cast version of The Petrified Forest (an underrated sort of pre-noir which served as Bogie's big break as the gangster holding people hostage, it was also the movie that made me fall in love with Bette Davis), Key Largo plays out more fascinatingly with Bogart and Robinson playing a sort of cat-and-mouse/battle of wits game that plays out with about as high a body count as a claustrophobic movie like this can manage.

An all-star cast that also includes Lionel Barrymore and Lauren Bacall (in her last screen pairing with her husband), it's "Queen of noir" Claire Trevor who deservedly won an Oscar for her role as Robinson's abused and alcoholic former love Gaye Dawn. In a powerful scene where Robinson forces Gaye to sing a song like she used to in the club in exchange for a drink, Trevor is able to gain the audiences sympathy, as well as Bogart's, by singing a few lines of a song about an abused woman's continuing love for her man. There is not a shred of the same "Iceberg of a woman" Trevor played in entry #5 Born to Kill where she was a woman slowly descending into moral wasteland, here she is a broken woman who finds the smallest shred of self-worth, and using it to help the oppressed group escape from Johnny Rocco's grasp.

Key Largo is the best movie yet on the quest, and gears me up to continue on. Also, Key Largo contains what is, so far, the single best shot in any of the movies, the penultimate shot with Lauren Bacall throwing open the shutters to see light pouring into the dark hotel. Sadly, I couldn't find a screen cap of it on a quick search.

#7 Crossfire (directed by Edward Dmytryk)

So here we have a message film disguised as a b-movie noir thriller, one that managed to get nominated for 5 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Crossfire's message is about anti-Semitism, especially in the aftermath of WWII. It stars three Robert's - Mitchum, Ryan, and Young, all of whom are good. Mitchum, as is too often the case, doesn't have enough screen time, but that's more of a personal complaint, since I can't get enough of the guy. The movie, although getting a little didactic towards the end, carefully wraps its message up in the procedural of finding out what happened (from the different sources) the night a Jewish man was murdered after meeting 4 soldiers in a bar. The "whodunnit" aspect is fairly benign, since it's obvious from the first few minutes who the killer is, but Dmytryk still plays things close to the vest storytelling wise, thankfully without ever feeling like he's trying act like we don't know the killers identity.

Robert Ryan, whom I've seen in a bunch of movies but still only think about The Wild Bunch when I see him, is effective as the racist killer. He's just civil enough to have us believe he wouldn't be the immediate suspect if the evidence didn't point to him (which it doesn't). Mitchum is, well, Mitchum. Wish he'd been the inspector played by Robert Young, but Young is good in the role too, expertly delivering the least subtle aspect of the movie in the customary "summing up the theme of the movie" speech just before the climax.

I don't know that I would've looked at this movie and thought "Oscar material", but it did effectively deal with the issue of anti-Semitism, and about 5 months before the more famous Gentleman's Agreement. Overall, it was quite good, and the cinematography nicely noirish, but I would just call it solidly good rather than exceptional. Not that that's a bad thing. I'm 7 movies into this quest and have yet to have a stinker, so I'm just glad for what I've got.

NOTE: After some thinking I've come to the conclusion that my opening sentence is incorrect. The movie never really engages with the anti-Semitism theme, and doesn't really give us anything more than a "racism is bad" kind of treatment. So it's really not a message movie disguised as a noir, but a noir disguised as a message movie.

#8 He Walked by Night (directed by Alfred L. Werker, uncredited direction by Anthony Mann)

Now here's some noir! Serving as the blueprint for Dragnet's use of real police files, and having that shows creator and star Jack Webb in a small role, He Walked by Night is a fascinating police procedural noir with some striking cinematography, terrific performances, and a tightly wound script that never lets up, even if it only lasts 79 minutes.

Richard Basehart stars as a killer whom the LAPD are frustratingly searching for, more feverishly after he kills a couple of cops. Basehart had several notable roles throughout his career, including The Fool in Fellini's La Strada and Ishmael in John Huston's Moby Dick, both unseen by me, and he's fantastic in the cold role of Roy, confounding the police at every turn with his sophisticated tactics, and his ability to stay always one step ahead of them. He's matched by the quiet determination given to the cops coming after him, notably Scott Brady's Sgt. Brennan, and Roy Roberts' Capt. Breen, both men of action who're being kept in the dark by the ingenious criminal, but working harder every day to bring him down.

Credited to journeyman filmmaker Alfred L. Werker, but directed at least in part by the legendary Anthony Mann (reports conflict on how much), the calling card of the movie has to be its finale, a flashlight lit chase through the L.A. storm drain system that shames the more famous, and very similar, chase at the end of The Third Man, released the following year. The wonderful suspense of the chase is heightened by what we already know of the killer's knowledge of the underground system, and his preparation of just such a scenario. The little details adding up into a tremendous sequence that's the best I've run across in my quest. The photography of the picture overall should be commended as well, shot by master cinematographer John Alton (An American in Paris, The Big Combo, the movie I took the top screenshot from in my first noir entry, by the way), the finale is not the only memorably photographed sequence (although I can't impress upon you how much I loved that finale), we get many great shots of faces lit by the light shining through the blinds, lonely intersections broken only by a single street lamp, and many more.

I didn't really know what to expect going into He Walked by Night, although the quote on the back of the DVD case from genius filmmaker Errol Morris calling it "a gritty masterpiece" certainly piqued my interest. What I got was quite easily my favorite movie of the quest to this point, and one of my new favorite movies of the 1940's (a marvelous decade for cinema). This is definitely one I'll be returning to many times in the years to come, for its story and performances, and obviously for its remarkable photography which absolutely epitomizes noir.

Noir, round 1

2010-09-05T23:51:00.008-05:00

I've long had a fascination with crime and noir movies. I have a few noir boxsets that a friend of mine gave me and decided to watch one of the movies, which led me to watch another one, which made me decide to make a little movie quest out of it. So these are the first 5 noirs that I've seen on my new found quest.

#1 They Live by Night (directed by Nicholas Ray)

A great little noir with Farley Granger, directed by Rebel Without a Cause's Nicholas Ray. I liked the awkward innocence of the central couple, and how they try to get away from his criminal past. The ending is heartbreaking and one of the best in all of noir, I think. It's a terrific movie with some good photography and performances. Especially not bad for supposedly being Ray's debut (although the Internet Movie Database lists other credits previous). Sadly, I don't think he ever topped it.

#2 Crime Wave (directed by Andre de Toth)

It’s an exquisitely shot, terrifically acted, tightly wound noir that is told with an astonishing economy of storytelling. It’s only 73 minutes long! How many directors these days could say everything they needed to say in a movie under 80 minutes? Seems like more than ever no one can tell their story in under 2 hours. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. Sterling Hayden and Gene Nelson are wonderful in the leading roles, with some really great supporting work from Charles Buchinsky (who would later change his last name to Bronson), Phyllis Kirk, Timothy Carey (in a tiny role) and especially Jay Novello as the misanthropic animal lover Dr. Hessler.

But, to me, the star of the movie was the gorgeous cinematography from the too little talked about Bert Glennon, who’d worked with De Toth before on House of Wax, as well as shooting legendary movies like John Ford’s Stagecoach, Rio Grande, and Young Mr. Lincoln (among others), Raoul Walsh’s They Died with Their Boots On, Joseph von Sternberg’s The Scarlett Empress, Michael Curtiz’s The Dive Bombers, and Cecil B. DeMille’s original take on The Ten Commandments.

#3 The Big Steal (directed by Don Siegel)

In what is the lightest toned noir I’ve ever seen, last night’s entry into the quest was The Big Steal. Robert Mitchum as Duke is his typically wonderful self, funny, charming, and pretty much just one of the coolest guys ever. Jane Greer, re-teaming with Mitchum two years after their classic Out of the Past, is also very good as Duke’s Spanish speaking foil Joan. Both have been wronged by Patric Knowles’ Fiske, and they’re chasing after him, while Duke is being pursued by his military superior (William Bendix’s Capt. Blake). All are being watched by Inspector General Ortega (deliciously played by Ramon Novarro).

I expected some twists and turns to the plot, (like maybe Fiske didn’t steal the money after all, but someone else did!) but it’s fairly straightforward save for a tiny twist near the end. Mitchum and Greer have some nice chemistry and are really what carries the movie through its short 71-minute run time. Siegel (Clint Eastwood's directorial mentor) doesn’t really do much of interest, although there’s nothing really wrong with the movie, there’s not much that’s great about it. It even ends sunnily! Crime Wave had a happy ending as far as noir was concerned, but The Big Steal is a traditional Hollywood ending. Not that there’s inherently anything wrong with that, but to go in expecting noir, and be presented with a straightforward crime/comedy was a little disappointing. Still, it is a good movie, just not particularly noir.

#4 The Narrow Margin (directed by Robert Fleischer)

Another pleasant surprise, The Narrow Margin is a tautly directed gem with some nice work from all of its actors. Its Oscar-nominated script is superbly written noir, with great character driven suspense, and plenty of little twists and turns to keep us on our toes. The Hitchcockian game of cat-and-mouse is perfectly played out through the long train ride to L.A., and we're not the only ones who are kept in the dark. Just a couple of years before he made 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Richard Fleischer makes tremendous use of hand held camerawork to make the train ride seem both an endurance test for our characters, and a claustrophobic nightmare for our hero's nerves.

After looking over his resume, Charles McGraw has been in some movies I've seen, but I didn't remember him. So I was happily surprised by his terrifically noir leading role. His hardened face and gruff voice suit the genre perfectly, and the way he pulls off the films terrifically confined fight scene was delightful. Jacqueline White was another actor I didn't remember ever seeing, but her Ann Sinclair was a nice performance, ably countering McGraw's. "Queen of the B's" Marie Windsor was a more familiar face, and she also does some good work bringing to life her irritating character and causing quite a bit of tension due to her characters seeming lack of emotion.

So, another good watch, and another quick one (only 71 minutes) that was expertly put together with its economical storytelling and confining camerawork.

#5 Born to Kill (directed by Robert Wise)

Laurence Tierney wasn't exactly known for his lightness of tone, and never was that more on display than in Robert Wise's black as coal noir Born to Kill. Wise, his days as a Val Lewton director still fresh, gives the picture a wonderfully dark look, a scene with Tierney walking up a shadowy staircase given as much care as a late night showdown in the sand. Claire Trevor, no stranger to noir, is terrific as Helen, our slowly conscience-losing female lead. "An iceberg of a woman" as one character describes her. And Elisha Cook, Jr. (who sadly meets the end here that his characters typically met) does some very good work, maybe the best of his career, especially working alongside Tierney's out of control murderer, Sam.

And it is Tierney that I'll most remember from Born to Kill. His killer is overly confident, overly jealous, and overly violent, with a small streak of pride that tends to be the starting point of his outbursts. Within the captivating first 10 minutes, he's charmed Trevor's Helen without saying a word, been wronged by the beautiful Audrey Long's Georgia, and subsequently beaten Georgia and her date to death with his bare hands. It's a dark opening to a dark movie, one that yet again shows that Robert Wise had a ton of versatility, and enough talent to create great movies in a bunch of genres. He not only has The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music, The Haunting (easily one of my 10 favorite horror movies), West Side Story, The Sand Pebbles, and Somebody Up There Likes Me, but now I also know about that Born to Kill in his back pocket as an example of his tremendous talents (he was also nominated for an Oscar for his work as editor on a little picture called Citizen Kane).

So far, Crime Wave is the best of the bunch, quickly becoming one of my very favorite crime dramas. I'm very excited by this quest, as it's giving me a reason to check out a lot of noirs both famous and not so much.

Sweet Land

2010-08-23T20:50:00.005-05:00

Sweet Land is a movie that caught me completely by surprise. My wife had watched it while I was away, and insisted that I watch it too, as it was one of her new favorite movies. She has good taste, so I assumed it would be good, but I didn't expect to love the movie as much as I did. It's an affectionate look at the courtship of two farm working immigrants in Minnesota, just after WWI. He, Olaf, is Norwegian and has lived in the States for many years. She, Inge, is German, speaks no English whatsoever, and is actually Olaf's mail order bride. Many in the community give her a cold welcome, seeing as we'd just been fighting the Germans, and Olaf begins by protecting her from the acidic response she receives from some folks in town. They slowly, throughout the movie, begin a more proper courtship, which includes her doing such blasphemic things as dancing with Olaf on their porch, in broad daylight, which totally distresses the God-fearing little Lutheran hamlet.
Not only is Sweet Land a lovably thoughtful love story, it's also one of the most strikingly beautiful movies I've ever seen. It's wonderful to watch a film take the time to pay attention to the little things that add up in a relationship. The fleeting looks across the dinner table, the body language from two people trying to find a certain calm in the storm surrounding their lives, the helplessness and even the humor inherent in not speaking the same language as those around you. But to set all that against such breathtaking artistry just makes the movie that much more special. Writer/director Ali Selim's background is in commercials and advertising, which would normally signal the exact opposite of this type of movie, but he takes the care to give us the understated sweetness of the movie. He actually must've used his background to help manipulate the film in a way that gives us the almost unnatural beauty of this movie.
I love the heart of this movie, I love the silent film-like approach to the love story. So many movies these days don't have any clue how to visually tell their story, so it's wonderful to see a movie so intent on giving us so much to visually engage us with. And to engage us with a movie that's not all pretentious art house bullshit, but sweet, lovable romance in an early 20th century setting. It's a movie I wish would have a bigger audience, and one I'd recommend to anyone looking for something gorgeous, good hearted, and completely lovable. Sweet Land is it!

David Gordon Green and George Washington

2010-08-23T20:09:00.006-05:00

David Gordon Green is one of the best and most talented directors working right now. The film your average moviegoer would know of Green's is 2008's Pineapple Express, but your average cinephile knows Green as the director of the low key indie movies All the Real Girls, Undertow, and Snow Angels. I wrote previously about Snow Angels in December of '08, but I just recently watched Green's debut movie George Washington and felt the need to write a bit about it as well. Working with a budget under $50,000, Green and his most essential collaborator, cinematographer Tim Orr, created a movie of understated beauty and feeling.
Working with a cast of mostly non-actors, Green gives us a sort of rural, quiet coming of age story. A group of kids hang out, play, talk, and sometimes just look at the unexpected elegance of their bucolic surroundings. A tragedy befalls the group, and each child deals with it in a different way. The quiet, odd George, who due to the plates in his head not fusing correctly isn't supposed to get his head wet, saves a kid from drowning in the local pool. Both kids survive, with George branded a community hero, a badge he may wear a little too seriously as he begins dressing up as a superhero and trying to do good deeds around town. But none of Green's movies are about plot. They're about feeling, sometimes articulated, and sometimes not. Also, a little nostalgia. This is one of those summers that changes everything for these kids, they're becoming teenagers and this is really their last moments of childhood, cut even shorter by the startling accident.
This would actually be the movie I would only recommend to someone who's seen Green's other movies and liked them. His brilliant All the Real Girls is a bit more accessible, as a story of teenage romance, even if it doesn't deal with it in the same light we usually see from teen romance movies. They have a lot in common, as they're about a certain loss of innocence. About moving on and growing up, even if you don't think you're ready for it. Green's most easily watchable is certainly Undertow, with Josh Lucas's crazy uncle chasing after the fortune he believes his nephews have run away with. It's a terrific movie, as usual for Green it's gorgeously filmed, and is his most conventional movie. Actually, strike that. Pineapple Express, even though a bigger budgeted "mainstream" movie is still quite unconventional, though is certainly more accessible to your average moviegoer. His next project is called Your Highness and is a fantasy/comedy starring Zooey Deschanel (his leading lady from All the Real Girls), Danny McBride (his friend from college who was in Real Girls, as well as Pineapple), James Franco (who did the best work of his career in Pineapple), and Natalie Portman (working with Green for the first time). So he's branching out and trying new things, which I think should always be admired in the world of cinema where it seems a quest just to find new things. I think Green is a director I will continue to admire for a long time to come, and one whose new movie will always be anticipated by me.

Let the Right One In

2010-08-18T22:16:00.002-05:00

As a fan of international cinema, I've heard a lot about the Swedish romantic-horror movie Let the Right One In over the last couple of years. I've heard it was "the best movie of the year" "the best vampire movie ever" and many other things, but I gotta say, I didn't find it to be any of those things. I purposefully let the hype settle down on it before I checked it out, so that I wouldn't be swayed even a little bit by anything but the movie. Well, the two young leads are good enough, but the movie as a whole just kinda lays there like a bump on a log. I'm all for slow moving movies (Hou Hsiao-Hsien is one of my favorite filmmakers), but this one was just flat out boring.

It's a vampire movie, but with enough different about it to add some interest. Our androgynous vampire and "her" friend lead us through this slog of a story where essentially nothing that we couldn't see coming a mile away happens. I thought in the first 30 minutes or so that we're being set up for a slow moving movie, with some decent atmosphere. After 30 more minutes of nothing of interest coming onto my screen, I actually considered shutting it off. Glad I didn't, since the final 30 minutes or so are actually quite good. The poetic finale especially is well done, but it comes as too little too late. There are plenty of great foreign films out there, and this has been a great decade for foreign cinema making into the US, but I would not recommend Let the Right One In as a shining example of that fact.

Toy Story 3

2010-08-07T14:28:00.008-05:00

Okay, to begin with, 3-D sucks and sucks bad. We all know it, they're gonna keep forcing it on us until the fad has run its course again, and I won't devote any more time to it here. It's used as well here as it has ever been used, and it still added absolutely nothing to the experience of watching the movie, except for adding the annoyance of having to wear those damn glasses again. Thankfully, nothing about it ruins anything inside the gorgeously animated new masterpiece from Pixar, Toy Story 3. We get back to Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Rex, Potato Head and the whole gang yet again, and although I think the second entry in the series is among Pixar's weakest efforts, the third time is certainly a charm.
Andy is now 17-years-old and getting ready for college. His beloved toys lay in his toy chest, unplayed with for years. Misunderstandings ensue, and the toys are donated to the Sunnyside Daycare. There they meet a host of other toys lead by the fluffy, strawberry scented, Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear (voiced by Ned Beatty), and Ken (Michael Keaton), who immediately falls for the Barbie doll that Andy's sister had donated. They're told that Sunnyside is an ideal place for toys. They're played with all day, 5 days a week. But after one day in the "caterpillar" room, with the youngest kids (or, "not age appropriate" as Buzz says), they begin to doubt the sincerity of Lots-O and the other toys. Meanwhile, Woody has been snatched up by a sweet little girl named Bonnie and taken to her home where he meets another set of lovable toys, but he's determined to get back to his friends and to Andy.
There was something about Toy Story 2 that didn't connect with me. It didn't have the simple magic that the first Toy Story had, but didn't have its own magic to ride on either. Toy Story 3, on the other hand, has that magic. There's an amazing amount of heart poured into this movie, the characters and relationships (both positive and negative) drawn with more care and developing in much more interesting ways. I was afraid at one point that it would simply be a case of "heroes triumph over villain" and I'd have to leave the theater telling myself "Yeah, it was good. I just wish it had been more than that." Thankfully, I didn't. I even found Lots-O's backstory fascinating on its own in how it shaped the toy we see. There's also a wonderful development between Jessie and Buzz, made most hysterical when Buzz gets accidentally switched to Spanish mode, taking on the over-the-top poetic lover mode of a Spanish hero.
So, unsurprisingly, Pixar has delivered us another masterpiece, with the best ending since the perfection of Monsters, Inc's. Pixar has to mess up eventually, they can't keep up with this kind of excellence forever. Sadly, I have a feeling that next summers Cars 2 will be that slip up. We don't need a sequel to their worst movie. A movie I still liked, sure, but their weakest movie by a wide margin. Regardless, this time they've given us another movie to stand alongside their best. I've previously given 4 Pixar movies my highest rating (4 stars, 10/10, or whatever you want to quantify it as), and Toy Story 3 will join them. It may not reach the poetic brilliance that Wall-E did, or cut straight to my heart like Remy's love of food in Ratatouille did, but Toy Story 3 easily sits next to the family saga/action bonanza of The Incredibles and the unadorned majesty of the original Toy Story as not only Pixar's best work, but among the great gifts the art of animated cinema has ever given us.

Inception

2010-07-31T21:45:00.009-05:00

The business of dreams is tricky when it comes to cinema. Many filmmakers have tried, with varying degrees of success. I was intrigued when Christopher Nolan, director of the brilliant movies The Dark Knight and Memento, announced that his next project would be called Inception, and be a contemporary sci-fi action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind." He built up an extraordinary cast, wrote a wonderfully complex script (his first of original material since his debut movie, Following), and used his reported $160 million budget to create his world of dreams, and dreams within dreams, and dreams within dreams within dreams. He did these things to terrific effect, coming up with surely one of the best movies of the year, and probably the best movie of his career (only future re-watches will truly tell).

The star Nolan chose to lead us through his labyrinth was Leonardo DiCaprio, fresh off the boat from his stint on the nightmarish Shutter Island. DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a professional thief in this future world (we're never given a specific date), who gets hired to steal people's ideas by venturing into their dreams. He so impresses one mark that he gets hired to attempt "inception", which instead of stealing is planting an idea in someone's mind, a very powerful tool in the world of business. Although his straight-laced partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, proving again that he's one of our best young actors) claims the job impossible, Cobb says it's not and takes the project. Nolan reminds us forcibly in this section of movies like Rififi (the model for "building a team for one last heist" kind of movies, of which Inception is certainly a part) and Dark City (a movie of shifting realities, both mentally and physically). Those two recently showed up in my list of favorite movies, so I found this a very good thing, since Nolan pays them respect and uses them to further his own movie, and not just steal from them.

To plant an idea, Cobb knows he must go deep into the psyche of the target, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy, working with Nolan a third time). And he uses his team's collective talents to achieve this, Tom Hardy's suave Eames shifting into other people inside the dreams, Ellen Page's Ariadne building the worlds they inhabit, and Dileep Rao's Yusuf making sure that everyone is sedated enough to not wake up before inception is attained. Worryingly, Cobb's ex-wife Mal (La Vie en Rose's Marion Cotillard) keeps showing up, threatening his dependability inside the dream world. In this section, Nolan references M.C. Escher, Michael Mann, and the great Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, all while creating a movie that is completely his own.

Nolan's been criticized in some corners for creating dream world's that happen too literally, as his critics opine that dreams are more fluid in reality, that there are too many rules that can't or wouldn't exist in the mind, and that Nolan's vision doesn't work abstractly enough to evoke dream states. I can understand that criticism, but since Nolan is not necessarily trying to evoke "reality", I don't see how it applies to this movie. Nolan's dream world really exists to serve as a framework for a big Hollywood action movie. Normally I'm let down by movies that have great concepts and then do nothing but devolve into action movies (The Matrix, for example, or a bit with the recent District 9), but I never felt Nolan let me down. His script stays smart, and has an emotional core in Cobb that many of his other works don't have. He can occasionally feel a bit of a cold director emotionally, and perhaps it's because of the abilities of his actors here, but I was always emotionally involved in the happenings as much as I was intellectually and viscerally engaged.

So despite being a mainstream director making big huge blockbusters, I feel that Nolan is among our most talented directors. He's been referred to as everything from "a new Kubrick" to "a talentless hack in the Michael Bay mold", but I feel his technical accomplishments married with his love of Hollywood cinema makes him feel more like a new Spielberg than anything else. He'll likely not share the "overly sentimental" criticisms that Spielberg has ridiculously endured, but he's a mainstream director making the highest quality big budget Hollywood pictures around right now. And as long as he keeps working with good crews (cinematographer Wally Pfister, working with Nolan for the sixth straight time, makes this the best looking movie he's given us yet) and great casts (I didn't even mention Tom Berenger, Ken Watanabe, and Michael Caine rounding out the cast of seven Oscar nominees), I predict that Chris Nolan will be around and giving us great movies like Inception for years to come, I'd like to see him try to top this one.

Art is storytelling

2010-07-29T18:20:00.005-05:00

Despite what some fans of abstract, experimental, or surrealistic art will try to argue, all art is about storytelling. That doesn’t mean that all art is only about its story, just that no matter what the piece of art is, it’s trying to tell you a story. The story may only exist to evoke a single emotion, or may not exist in a standard issue plotted out sort of way, but things remain the same. I came to this realization only recently. I heard someone try to argue that art was not about storytelling. Although they were incoherent in their argument, it made me think about what a successful argument for that viewpoint might be, and I came to believe that one didn’t exist. Even Jackson Pollock’s splatter art is meant to convey things to us through a story of shapes and seemingly chaotic images.
Another reason I started thinking about this is because I started asking myself what an artist was trying to “say” with a particular piece of art I was observing (it was the work of Andres Serrano, such as the Metallica album cover he designed below, if you were wondering). I came to believe that any artist who is showing an audience something is trying to tell them a story in order to evoke whatever it is in that the audience that it evokes, and the method is through a story. Some types of art ask the audience, either consciously or unconsciously, to bring their own interpretation to the work, which is basically the audience filling in the blanks in the story on their own (which can sometimes make the piece more personal, if it’s done right). Landscape painters are telling us the story of the landscape. Monet was telling us stories of the water lilies. Picasso was telling us stories, not always ones I “get”, but they’re there somewhere. Stravinsky was telling us the story of the Rite of Spring. And so on and so forth.
Now, I suppose an artist could not be telling a story if they put out a piece (and when I say “piece”, it could be a painting or a movie or a bit of music or whatever) that was intentionally designed to not mean anything. But I think even in that instance, that’s a story. It would be the story that the audience was telling back to the artist with whatever their response to the piece was. The aspect of storytelling would still be there, just not necessarily put forth by the artist.

Anyway, this is just something I’ve been thinking about lately and thought I would share.

Shutter Island

2010-07-22T21:44:00.001-05:00

Of the three screen adaptations of Denis Lehane's novels, I think Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island lands in the top spot. Ben Affleck previously directed Lehane's novel Gone Baby Gone to great effect, showing his skills as a filmmaker and giving his brother Casey a terrific vehicle to highlight his ever growing talents. Lehane's Mystic River was brought to the screen in Clint Eastwood's multi-Oscar-winning film a few years before that. But Scorsese, our greatest living director, unsurprisingly outdoes the others, bringing a story of tremendous atmosphere, intrigue, emotion, and suspense for us to be enraptured by.

Leonardo DiCaprio again stars (his fourth straight turn as Scorsese's leading man), this time as Teddy Daniels, a WWII veteran and US Marshal sent to the psychiatric hospital at Shutter Island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a patient. They're introduced to Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow), the presiding psychiatrists of the hospital, who only partially cooperate with Teddy's investigation. As Teddy and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) scour the facilities a little deeper, they can't escape the sense that they may not be able to get off the island. They dig into the many mysteries surrounding them, and Teddy, while still mourning the loss of his wife, fights to keep his sanity as everything around him seems pointed towards his impending doom.

Scorsese plays with the tragic mood of the picture in a way he's never dealt with before. I've heard that he said he wanted to film it like a Hitchcock movie, only like if it was made in modern times. So there are many shots with the fake feeling of the old back projection technology, as Teddy's riding along in a jeep at one point, for instance, it's quite obvious that he's against a screen projecting the image. But Scorsese has never been one to have showy techniques in his movies without reason. When he used period correct coloring processes in The Aviator, it helped put us in the time in a subconscious way so that Scorsese didn't have to always spell out when times had changed. And his use of different techniques here are also certainly with reason, but I will leave the reasons for you to discover and consider.

So Scorsese has given us another movie worth dissecting and analyzing, while not forgetting to give us talented actors at the top of their games, and actually giving us one of his few movies with a plot!

Humpday

2010-07-16T19:57:00.004-05:00

Humpday is one of those movies you get surprised by sometimes. My wife almost randomly added it to our Netflix queue, and as we were searching through our Instant Watch section one day we also kinda haphazardly picked it because it was short and sounded funny.

The premise is that two college friends, Ben and Andrew, who've gone their separate ways since school meet up again and when high and drunk decide to make a porno movie with each other and enter it into Seattle's famous "Humpday" festival of independent porn. They say that since they're two straight guys making a porno, it'll be more artistic than any other gay porn out there, because it's "beyond gay". How exactly it's supposed to be artistic just because they're straight is not something they can really articulate, but even when they sober up they stick to their plan. The comedy comes from misunderstandings with what Ben tells his wife Anna that he and Andrew are up to (although she's much smarter than he is and finds out, which adds to the comedy), and the boys' increasing determination/reluctance to carry out their plan. The movie keeps escalating the situation, and I had a feeling it wasn't gonna be the type of movie to shy away from the possibly gay content. As it turns out, in the final hilarious sequence, it's not the movie that's afraid of the gay content, it may be Ben and Andrew.

The movie is very low budget. At a time when Hollywood blockbusters are regularly costing $200 million, Humpday was made for less than $500,000. It has no stars, nearly no money, and we came across it almost by accident, but it was a terrific surprise to my wife and I how much we enjoyed it, and since it was so low budget and underseen, we sorta felt like we were making a discovery that not many others had made. And that's always a great feeling.

Spirited Away

2010-07-13T18:08:00.008-05:00

My wife and I both love animation, and she liked when I had shown her Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece My Neighbor Totoro a few months ago, enjoying his inventive way of telling his story, as well as his attention to detail in the animation. I had kinda kept his Oscar-winning fantasy Spirited Away away until I thought I knew how she'd feel about it. After hearing her say that she loved Miyazaki's creativity, I knew she'd absolutely love Spirited Away. It's one of the most wonderfully inventive movies ever made, with Miyazaki's imagination running wild in one of the best movies of the decade.
Let's see, it starts out with our timid little 10-year-old heroine Chihiro in the car with her parents on the way to their new house. They take a wrong turn and end up at an abandoned amusement park. They begin to smell food and soon find a steaming buffet of all kinds of deliciousness. Hungry, but seeing no one around, Chihiro's parents dig into the food, but Chihiro refuses, insisting that they'll get in trouble. What follows is a fantasy of mind boggling invention. After Chihiro's parents turn into pigs, Chihiro meets the mysterious Haku, who puts her on the run from the villainous Yubaba, then sends her to the four armed Kamajii, boiler master for Yubaba's bath house of the gods. Chihiro ends up working for the bath house, serving the various spirits who come to relax and wash there. And I think that only covers about the first 20 minutes or so of this 2 hour animation joyride.
Like many of Miyazaki's movies, Spirited Away is about the coming of age of the central female character. Chihiro begins the movie as meek and almost cowardly, she doesn't even want to accompany her parents into the dark tunnel leading to the amusement park. But by the end, she is fighting to save the lives of her friends and defeat Yubaba's powerful spells and her hold on the citizens of this strange place. She begins on her journey from childhood into being a young woman, learning courage and purpose and the power of love. Chihiro may be Miyazaki's greatest character achievement, and the movie itself belongs alongside Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and My Neighbor Totoro as the masters three greatest strokes of genius.

Daria - one of the great underappreciated cartoons

2010-06-24T19:22:00.005-05:00

Daria is like the Frazier of the animated world. It's the show that was spun off from a super popular show but ended up far outshining it's originator. Sadly, Frazier outstripped Cheers in both quality and popularity (arguable in the latter case, I suppose), while Daria was much better than its predecessor but was not (and honestly couldn't have been) the cultural milestone that Beavis and Butthead was. Daria is smarter, funnier, and infinitely more interesting than most shows on TV. The animation itself is nothing special, but I'm not sure it could work any other way. Our monotonous heroine might not be as effective if we had to watch some actress playing for the cameras. The chemistry between Daria and her best friend Jane couldn't be recreated, the ridiculous side characters simply would not be believable in any way except animation. So yet again animation has proven itself to be a versatile medium not meant for just kiddie movies, but I digress.

I have been watching and re-watching the entire series with my wife, and I haven't yet gotten tired of it. The episodes are funny, of course, it's a comedy show, but they also reveal depths to the writing and the characters the closer you look. There's an episode I particularly love where an old high school football star dies, leaving everyone to think he was a great guy, even though he was a major asshole to both Daria and Jane. Everyone starts coming up to Daria wanting to talk to her because she's the "depressing girl" or "the girl who must think about death a lot" and it starts angering Daria that people see her that way. In a sense it's her getting angry about her image, which just makes her even angrier that she now cares what people think of her. I also like the dynamic event of the coming of Jane's boyfriend Tom, who begins to have a thing for Daria, challenging the relationship between the two best friends.
One of the best things about the show is the abundance of great side characters. Daria and Jane are great and infinitely watchable, but I think Daria's dad Jake may be my favorite character, with his low self esteem and anger outbursts. I think he may say "dammit" in every single episode. Daria's self-involved sister Quinn and their mother Helen offer up their fair share of laughs, as do the abundance of students and teachers at the school. Whether it's the double airheaded duo of head cheerleader Britney and her quarterbacking boyfriend Kevin, or Mr. DeMartino, who must be perpetually seconds away from a blood-pressure induced heart attack. All add a lot to the comedic fabric of the show, even if the occasional character building kinda moments get saved for Daria or Jane.

So it's a terrifically underrated show, and like I said in the opening paragraph, it's further proof that animation isn't just for kids. So if any of you get a chance to catch up with Daria on DVD as I have, I would highly recommend doing so.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

2010-06-24T18:52:00.003-05:00

So, in my ongoing effort to read classic novels, I recently picked up John le Carré's seminal 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It's the story of Alec Leamas, an MI6 (British intelligence) officer during the Cold War who defects and begins giving secrets to the East Germans, or does he? He may be on his final mission before retirement ("coming in from the cold" being when he's able to step out of the cold of spy work and into the warmth of regular life). Apparently the only books in the spy genre up until that point had been along the lines of James Bond kinda stuff. John le Carré had worked (and when he wrote this book, was working) as an intelligence officer with MI6, he would retire after the international success of the novel. His approach was of the more realistic spy variety and not of the outlandish adventure type and this sort of turned the entire genre on its head and changed what was expected of a spy novel. Time magazine named this book one of its all-time top 100.

I admire Le Carré's dedication to keeping his story realistic, but I didn't exactly have a great time reading it. It starts off brilliantly, in the first chapter Leamas watches one of his contacts get murdered trying to cross from East back into West Berlin, and I just knew I was in the hands of a master writer who would take me on the ride of a lifetime. Well, that's not Le Carré's style. He slows it down and gives us a kind of portrait of a hard drinking, seen it all, kind of guy in Leamas. The problem I had with this was that we're not always privy to the knowledge that Leamas has, so we're not always sure where he's coming from, not sure what he's hiding from the other characters (as well as us), so it's not as dramatically interesting as it possibly could've been. I've heard great things about the movie directed by Martin Ritt and starring Richard Burton as Leamas. I want to check it out, and may amend this review once I've seen it. I think the slow-ish nature of the book might be sped up in the truncated time of a movie. We'll see.

So one more classic book down, a million to go. Not sure what's up next, but I'm always up for more.

Top Chef

2010-06-13T20:03:00.009-05:00

This Wednesday marks the return of the best reality show to ever be on TV, and one of the flat out best shows around period, Bravo's Top Chef. I only started watching this past season (season 6) when they were in Las Vegas, but I've since caught up with the majority of seasons 1 (San Francisco), 4 (Chicago), and 5 (New York), as well as rewatching a good bit of season 6. Top Chef is made up of some of the best up and coming chefs in the country competing against one another in a variety of challenges served up to them by head judge Tom Colicchio, host Padma Lakshmi, and a variety of guest judges and critics. One of the most interesting aspects of Top Chef is the elimination system, which depends totally on what happened during this weeks episode. That may not sound revolutionary, but it makes for nail-biting watching, since the most talented chef may have an off day at the wrong time and get kicked off. This has happened multiple times, when the favorite to win makes something the judges don't like, and they get no mercy for their screw-up.

Top Chef is the essential show for anyone interested (even if only slightly) in food. The guest judges have ranged from faces familiar to the common person like Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Wolfgang Puck, Tyler Florence, and Emeril Lagasse, to legendary chefs like Lidia Bastianich, Wylie Dufresne, Jacques Pepin, and Thomas Keller. The competition has ramped up as the show has gone on. Many of the contestants in season 1 were not even executive chefs at their own restaurants, while in this past season there were competitors like Michael Voltaggio who'd already been awarded a rare Michelin star for his restaurant, Kevin who'd already been nominated for a James Beard award (it's like a culinary Academy Award, in case you were wondering), and Jennifer who was executive chef at a restaurant owned by food giant Eric Ripert.

Of course, a big factor of the shows success comes from head judge Tom Colicchio (pronounced Co-leek-ee-o). In fact, when I saw a Tony Bourdain speaking engagement this weekend, he talked at length about why Top Chef was the only great cooking show around anymore, and a big reason was because of Tom. Tony said that Tom added gravitas, combined with his credentials as a renowned NYC chef and restaurateur, and winner of a ridiculous 5 James Beard awards. Bourdain, one of my two favorite food personalities (alongside his friend Mario Batali), has appeared on the show multiple times, and even served as fill-in head judge while Tom was away at a charity event once. Tony said that he loves appearing on the show because he's a big fan of the show, and if it's got Tony Bourdain's approval, you know it's gotta be great, right? Another big reason it's great is because of model and cookbook author, the beautiful Padma Lakshmi. Padma has hosted the show since season 2, after taking over for the personality-less Katie Lee Joel. Padma adds a wonderful presence onscreen, along with some definite culinary knowledge, and the same sort of gravitas that makes Tom so amazing. They work together terrifically, and their comments at the end of each episode, during the Judge's Table deliberation, are always the most interesting.

So I could go on and on about the show, it really is that great. I don't know why, but I never had an inkling to watch it in previous seasons, I think because of my general dislike of reality shows. But my wonderful wife insisted that I should give it a try (she'd been a fan since the beginning) and we didn't have to watch it together if I didn't like it. As it turns out, the only thing I didn't like was having to wait a week between episodes. She got me hooked, and you won't be able to keep me away from season 7 in D.C. if you tried. It's one of the 3 or 5 best shows on TV, and everyone with the slightest interest in chefs or food owes it to themselves to get exposed to the greatness of Top Chef. I may even write a bit each week after seeing the episodes, since I find my thoughts changing over time, some chefs endear themselves to me and others do not, I may end up keeping a bit of a Top Chef log.

Bad Lieutenant - Herzog style

2010-06-05T23:59:00.006-05:00

I've written about mad genius director Werner Herzog many times before. I wrote about his brilliant documentary Encounters at the End of the World, where Herzog traveled to the strange and beautiful world in, around, and under the ice in Antarctica (it ended up in my top ten of 2008). I also more recently wrote about his haunting magnum opus Aguirre, the Wrath of God when I was recounting the movies that just missed out on my all-time top ten. Herzog's volatile relationship with his Aguirre star Klaus Kinski (father of Natasha) is the stuff of legend. Kinski alienated the whole Aguirre crew and when he threatened to quit the production, while in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, Herzog told him he had a rifle and Kinski wasn't going anywhere. Kinski finished the film. Later, in another of their movies (yes, both were crazy enough to work together again, 5 times in fact), Kinski again alienated the crew working in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, and a native offered to kill Kinski if Herzog wanted him to. Herzog declined on the grounds that he hadn't finished filming and didn't want to re-shoot the movie. With those kinds of things in his past, it's no surprise when he decided to "remake" 1992's Harvey Kietel showcase Bad Lieutenant despite having never seen it, moving the action away from New York City, changing the plot completely, and not really considering it a remake at all. So that's how we got the terrific, but ridiculously titled, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Nicolas Cage plays the titular Lieutenant, Terence McDonagh. In the opening scenes, Terence injures his back saving an inmate from the rising water rushing in after Hurricane Katrina. That may sound like a noble way to get injured in the line of duty, but just minutes previously Terence had been making bets with his partner Stevie (Val Kilmer) about when the guy would drown in his cell from the quickly rising water. Months after the injury and Terence is addicted to the vicodin he was prescribed for his back pain, and has graduated his addictions to include cocaine, heroin, crack, gambling, and trading sexual favors for letting a woman out of a ticket (while making her boyfriend watch at gunpoint). McDonagh also spends time with his prostitute girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes), his bookie Ned (Brad Dourif, for once not the craziest actor in his cast), and occasionally goes to visit his dad, who's successfully trying to beat his alcoholism with AA meetings. What Herzog concerns himself with plot-wise isn't really significant, this is another of his many looks at a man nearing on madness. Usually his heroes descend further into madness than they were in the beginning of the movie, and Terence looks to be on the same arc, but maybe things turn out differently for him. I think Herzog might even be giving us his version of a happy ending, who knows.

One thing that is for certain though, is that Cage and Herzog were born to work together. I sometimes forget just how brilliant Cage can be when he works with the right people and material. He, for sure, has done more than his fair share of crap over the years, but he can also be one of our finest actors when put in the correct circumstances. Working with Herzog allowed Cage to be as unhinged as he's ever been, and he hasn't been this brilliant since 2002's Adaptation. He can somehow deliver a (now classic) line like "Shoot him again, his soul is still dancing" and make it sound not like a crazy line, but like a line delivered by a crazy man. And fellow crazy man that he is, Herzog actually shows us the soul that Terence still sees dancing. He also gives us extended shots into the eyes of an alligator and multiple times into the cold staring eyes of a pair of iguanas that Terence continues to hallucinate. They're odd, strangely poetic, and completely fitting in a way that can only be described as Herzog-ian.

There's a performance in the movie even more surprising than Cage's and that's the one of Terence's step-mother Genevieve, played by Jennifer Coolidge, a.k.a. Stifler's Mom. She's constantly drunk on beer, but objects when she finds cocaine in Frankie's purse, yet doesn't object when she catches Terence snorting in the house, saying that they both just have their vices. It's a tremendously real performance next to Cage's wild man performance. There's also rapper Xzibit playing a drug kingpin and holding his own against some serious acting talent. And there are nice little cameos by Fairuza Balk and Michael Shannon. Shannon, despite his recent Oscar nomination for Revolutionary Road, appears in only two scenes for the chance to work with Herzog. Shannon would go on to star in Herzog's next movie.

So Herzog has created his latest great movie, one containing one of the best performances of '09, by Nicholas Cage at his most unrestrained and brilliant in years. He's a filmmaker that continues to intrigue me, always coming up with something interesting, keeping him on a different level than many of his peers. A Herzog movie is incapable of being boring or uninventive, and Bad Lieutenant is no exception.

Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodovar

2010-05-30T21:52:00.004-05:00

Penelope Cruz is an actress that I have decidedly not admired for a long time. Unlike many, when she shot to fame with her parts in All the Pretty Horses, Blow, and Vanilla Sky, I didn't think she was a very good actress and didn't find her particularly attractive. But then Vicky Christina Barcelona came along and showed me what kind of actress she could really be when working with the right people (Woody Allen in that case). So I decided to go back and check out her Oscar nominated performance in the Spanish language movie Volver, directed by Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar. I was blown away by what I saw, which was a warm and commanding, alluring and magnetic work from a performer of obviously the highest caliber. As soon as I could, I checked out their newest collaboration, Broken Embraces, the pair's fourth time working together. It's kind of Almodovar's take on noir, except like his other movies, it's tremendously filmed in bright beautiful colors instead of the standard noir black-and-white.

Cruz doesn't have quite the part or performance that she had in Volver, but she still has a much more comfortable and enticing presence onscreen in her native language. Cruz's current fiancee, Javier Bardem, has said in the past that he didn't think he'd ever feel comfortable acting in English, because it wasn't his first language and he would always be having to think about what he was saying instead of getting lost in the moment the way he could be in Spanish. I feel kind of the same about Cruz. She is noticeably more comfortable on screen when speaking Spanish, which is probably one of the reasons her performance in Vicky Christina Barcelona is so revelatory (although it didn't hit me as brilliant until a second viewing), considering it's in both Spanish and English, but mostly in Spanish. For some reason, even though I don't with Bardem or many other foreign actors, I get caught up listening to Cruz's accent when I hear her in English, and I find her generally unappealing due to that. But in her element, Cruz is a wonderful actress who can command the screen like only a certain group of actors can.
So I'm planning on checking out some of Cruz's other Spanish language work, including her 2 other collaborations with Almodovar, and am actually looking forward to seeing Cruz onscreen.

Hockey - the band is much better than the sport

2010-05-30T21:49:00.000-05:00

I ran across the band Hockey on the TV show Live at Abbey Road, where different bands record songs at the famous studio. Hockey was on an episode with two artists I've admired for a long time, Counting Crows and Melody Gardot, and naturally I thought "Who the hell is Hockey?" Well, they're a New Wave-y/Punk-y kinda band from Portland, Oregon that is like a poppier version of The Strokes. Or, at least, a band better at the pop elements and hooks that they put into their music. My wife immediately said "these guys are awesome, we need to buy their album", so we did (it's called Mind Chaos) and I've been listening to little else lately. Their song "Learn to Lose" is my favorite and I included a link to it down below. Hope everyone likes it as much as I do, although I does grow on me each time I listen to it, so don't give up after one if you don't care for it. And if you like it, check out their song "Too Fake" as well, or just get the whole album, it's one of the few recent albums I can listen to from front to back and not have a problem with any song.

HOCKEY learn to lose (official video)

2010-05-30T21:47:00.001-05:00

An Education

2010-05-21T22:08:00.004-05:00

I'm still catching up with some of the 2009 movies I wanted to see but didn't get a chance to see in theaters. I had really wanted to see An Education because it was the first screenplay by Nick Hornby, one of my favorite authors. It also starred two of my favorite "underrated" actors, Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina. It's the story of a bright but inexperienced 16-year-old girl's affair with a smooth talking, cultured 30-something man in early 1960's London. Sarsgaard plays the man, Molina plays her father, and the girl is played by relative newcomer Carey Mulligan. It's a sort of coming-of-age drama, with Hornby's knack for every day comedy, a killer soundtrack and tremendous performances all around.

David (Sarsgaard) charms young Jenny Millar (Mulligan) when they run into each other after one of her cello practices, and again a few days later when they unexpectedly cross paths again and he asks her out. Eventually, he even comes by her house and talks her father Jack (Molina) into letting Jenny go places that he would not normally let her go. The parents become just as charmed by David as young Jenny is, and soon Jenny is awash in life experiences that she wouldn't have had if she'd stayed at her boring school with all of its boring teachers and difficult studying. Jenny mostly still manages to get high marks in her classes, she's obviously the top student of the class, even with setting off to all parts of England and eventually Paris with the smooth talking David. But her English teacher and the school's Headmistress (played in a tiny role by the great Emma Thompson) begin to worry that Jenny is experiencing a bit too much life for such a young girl. Jenny and her parents are much too blinded by David's charm to come to this conclusion on their own and don't listen when the thought is thrown in their faces. As Jenny starts neglecting school a bit more to experience life with David, the title An Education begins to take on new meaning for our young herione, as she may not be getting the kind of education that she needs.

Sarsgaard is terrific as David, effortlessly affecting a British accent. David certainly knows how to play people, and Sarsgaard keeps the character mysterious enough and occasionally sweet enough to make sure he get what he wants from whoever he wants something from. Molina, for possibly the first time I've seen him in his native British accent, gives a wonderfully layered performance as Jack, the father. He wants what's best for his daughter, looks out for her, cares for her, is often the butt of her jokes, and is heartbroken when he lets her down. Molina showed what a truly amazing actor can do with just a look. He can tell a whole story with it, and he's hilarious as well. Mulligan won and was nominated for many awards (including an Oscar nom for Best Actress) and the accolades are richly deserved. Her Jenny is taken from a young girl, to a girl trying to be a woman, to a girl thinking she is a woman, back to young girl (but a bit less naive) throughout the brisk 96 minutes of the movie and Mulligan imbues each moment with a genuineness that is engrossing to watch.

It's interesting to see Hornby, who usually tends to tackle middle aged men stuck in adolescence, take on the coming-of-age of a young girl. He has said though, "I think the moment you're writing about somebody who's not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal. I was glad that everyone around me on this movie was a woman so that they could watch me carefully. But I don't remember anyone saying to me, 'That isn't how women think.'" so maybe it isn't that different from normal for him. The screenplay is tremendous in the balance it gives to developing each character, with more than just the two leads feeling like full blown people. It's a really good movie all around, and one I'm glad I caught up with.

Justin Nozuka

2010-05-18T21:32:00.003-05:00

When then 19-year-old singer/songwriter Justin Nozuka's debut album Holly came out, I was caught by the lead single "After Tonight" when I saw the video one morning on VH1 (you know, the only times the "music channels" play anything musically related). I didn't think he seemed particularly special, but had a nice sound and an interesting voice. So as I always do I did some research on the guy and found out how young he was and was blown away, especially as I listened to "After Tonight" a few more times and had it grow and grow on me. So I downloaded Holly (named after Nozuka's beloved mother) from iTunes and was soon enraptured by the young man's sound. Seeing that he was the chief songwriter, only sharing songwriting duties on 2 of the album's 11 tracks, I was further impressed by the maturity he displayed throughout the album. So, of course, I'd been anticipating the release of his second effort and snatched it up as soon as I could.

Sadly, the sophomore release You I Wind Land and Sea doesn't have the same magic. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the album, but there's nothing spectacular either. There's nothing on the level of catchiness of Holly's "Be Back Soon" or "After Tonight", although "Heartless" comes close and is probably the best song on the new album. There's certainly nothing of the emotional devastation of the first release's best song, "Save Him", where Nozuka dealt with abusive relationships in a more gut-wrenchingly honest and affecting way than I've ever heard it handled before. That song is a masterpiece, but there's nothing here to reach that level. Here he seems to oversing far too often. He's got a wonderful voice, with R&B type vocal runs in many songs, too many. It's like he's trying to lift the material up to a higher level, when really no songs outside "Heartless", and the groovetastic "Woman Put Your Weapon Down" are up to the standard he set on the first go around.

It simply seems like Nozuka hit the dreaded 2nd album drag (the sophomore slump as some call it) where he simply doesn't have his craft honed in such a way to be able to churn out the same quality of material as on the first release, when he had no pressure from a label to deliver an album. But since Holly is an album I like more and more every time I listen to it (and I liked it to begin with), I will still, undoubtedly, anticipate the release of Nozuka's third album, which is generally a good barometer of whether someone is a real artist to watch, or if it's all downhill from the debut. I think Nozuka will fall into the former category. I hope anyway.

I'm back!!!

2010-05-18T21:31:00.002-05:00

Ok, now with wedding and honeymoon behind me, I can continue back with my blogging here. That's the longest I've stayed away, and I'm sure it'll take me a bit to get back into the swing of things, but I look forward to it.

Priceless

2010-03-25T19:03:00.005-05:00

Priceless is a movie I went into knowing almost absolutely nothing about, and maybe that's best. But I'm still gonna tell you about it. The only thing I knew about it was that it starred Audrey Tatou, that adorable French imp that exudes cuteness by the barrel. I was startled a bit when it turns out she's a horrible person (even one with a good heart eventually), but I'm getting ahead of myself. Tatou is a huge star in France, eventually making her way across the Atlantic to star with Tom Hanks in the mega-hit The DaVinci Code. Priceless is the movie she must've meant as her statement that she wasn't abandoning her homeland for the glitz of Hollywood just because the opportunity presented itself.

As much as I make fun of the French, they really do have their positives. Tatou plays Irene, but instead of hearing the ugly American Eye-reen pronunciation (sorry non-existent Irene's who read my blog) throughout the movie, we get the lovely Eh-rena. I just kinda like that. Anyway, Irene is a beautiful young woman looking to become some lucky old guys trophy wife. She's staying at a hotel with her current beau when she runs into Jean (again, not Gene, or John even, but Zhawn, I suppose is how you'd spell the pronunciation), whom she takes for a rich guest alone in the bar. She takes him for such because he's passed out on the couch in the bar and wearing a tux. In actuality, he's the bartender she assumes has disappeared. Jean impresses her by hopping behind the bar and fixing her girly drinks in honor of her birthday. They go to bed, but wake up the next day and don't see each other again. Well, not immediately anyway. It's a romantic-comedy, of course they see each other again. And misunderstandings ensue. But thankfully, the movie takes a different route than expected once Irene finds out who Jean really is.

Jean is played by Moroccan stand up comic Gad Elmaleh, who reminds me of a French speaking Buster Keaton. He's a dead ringer for Keaton looks wise, and his impeccable comedic timing also reminded me of something Keaton might've done if he'd still been alive today (if he was making a rom-com anyway, there's no Keaton-esque stunts here). He and Tatou have terrific chemistry together, him playing the innocent and lovable young guy trapped in the web of an untrustworthy woman. Tatou, of course, playing said woman, but with a wonderful intelligence and heart that I wasn't expecting from her. There's also the point of the French (more specifically here, writer/director Pierre Salvadori) knowing when to take their time developing the story and characters so that both the comedy and the romance work on such a high level, especially when compared to their American rom-com counterparts.

Also on top of all of that is the gorgeously filmed scenery of the French coast where much of the movie takes place. The scenery itself is beautiful, but it's even more impressively photographed by the filmmakers than it needs to be, giving us a tremendous viewing experience on a story, acting, and visual level. So check Priceless out if you want to laugh a bit, be taken in by some wonderful locations, and be swept away by a love story of the oldest kind, just done perfectly. Movies like Priceless are always welcome to show to anyone who thinks "foreign cinema" is made up solely of stuffy old classics or depressing modern tales, and to remind those of us who delve more frequently into non-English speaking movies of the same thing. Priceless is breezy, sexy, beautiful, romantic, involving, and most of all a whole lot of fun.

Alice in Wonderland

2010-03-16T21:14:00.003-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a fan of Tim Burton’s. However, I always go into his movies with a sense of hope. After all, he made the masterpiece Ed Wood, and a couple of other good movies (Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd), so he’s not beyond redemption, right? He casts fine actors like Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter over and over again, nearly always getting great work out of them. He has a distinctive visual style, one he has had in place since his days as a concept artist at Disney. He actually seemed quite a logical fit to adapt Alice in Wonderland onto the screen in live action, yet what transpired is an unmitigated disaster.

Burton has said that he had no love for previous versions of Alice, “It was always a girl wandering around from one crazy character to another, and I never really felt any real emotional connection." With his adaptation, he hoped to provide "some framework of emotional grounding" and "to try and make Alice feel more like a story as opposed to a series of events.” Which, to me, completely ignores the charm of Lewis Carroll’s creation. Nothing lasts for too long, there’s no story, we’re just led on an episodic journey through this strange land filled with even stranger people. What Burton does is change Alice into a 19-year-old girl feeling repressed by Victorian England, who escapes (as she did when she was young) again into Wonderland. Bastardization of Carroll and action sequences galore follows as Burton proceeds to ruin the hopeful goodwill I’d had going into the movie.

Johnny Depp is, thankfully, a source of escape. His creation of the Mad Hatter was the thing I’d least looked forward to, after the ridiculous designs debuted on the posters, and equally ridiculous voice I heard in the previews. Instead, as I should’ve expected from Depp, he’s the best thing in the movie. He gives the Hatter a believable unpredictability, combined with Depp’s innate intelligence and charisma. He proves yet again (not that he truly needed to) that he is one of the handful of best actors of his generation. Helena Bonham Carter is fine as the Red Queen, I guess, but isn’t particularly memorable. Anne Hathaway as the White Queen and Mia Wasikowska as our Alice both acquit themselves nicely. Although, again, neither is anything too memorable. Sadly, the absolutely perfect choice of Alan Rickman as the hookah smoking caterpillar feels completely wasted. All of these could have something to do with a script totally lacking in anything resembling charm (I assume Depp brought some from the never-ending supply he must keep at home).

Which brings us, finally, to the catastrophic decision to have to movie be in 3-D, that most annoying of gimmicks and current pop culture sweetheart. Instead of this world of invention and wonder springing to life with tremendous color and idea, we get the drabness brought along by the 3-D glasses, and the uselessness of the 3-D itself. 3-D adds less than nothing to the experience of watching a movie, in fact taking away from it as we aren’t allowed to lose ourselves in the story because we’re constantly being reminded that we’re watching a 3-D movie. I don’t fault Burton for 3-D’s lack of relevance as a whole, but he is the one who decided to ruin his already hit-or-miss creation with such an infuriating artifice. I had hoped to actually enjoy this movie, one which seems to fit perfectly into Burton’s overall career arc, but I was defeated at nearly every turn when looking for something enjoyable about it.

My top movies of all time - #1

2010-03-16T20:32:00.002-05:00

The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)

My very favorite movie of all time is yet another one that didn't hit me on first viewing. I'm not quite sure what it is about some movies, but many of the greats tend to grow on me. I don't remember when I first saw The Godfather, it seems like I have always seen it. But it didn't become my favorite movie until a few years ago, when its combination of amazing photography, mesmerizing acting, and flawless script catapulted it to the unquestioned #1 spot. I read the book while I was in the 8th or 9th grade, and had been disappointed when revisiting the movie, since it didn't go into the entrancing detail that the book went into. Over time, I realized that what Coppola and author Mario Puzo did when writing the script was to pare away the fat from the book and focus simply on the Corleone mafia family as the balance of power shifts through the generations. In fact, I had to read the book to find out some of the motivations for things that I didn't understand in the movie. As it turns out, the motivations for every action are there in the movie, we've simply not been conditioned to movie's as densely constructed as this. However, even if you're not concerned with the intricacies of why everything happens, you can still be enthralled with the overall story, or at least with this incredible assembly of actors, all doing some of the best work of their careers.

There's no reason to relay the plot, or the famous quotes, or the things that have become part of pop culture since the movie's release. But one thing I find continuously fascinating is that honestly there aren't many "good" people in the movie. Coppola keeps things completely contained within the world of the mafia. Really only Diane Keaton's Kay is a good person, but she's not our protagonist. Somehow, storytellers have always been able to get us to identify with the less desirable members of our society. Vito, Sonny, Michael, Tom, and even Fredo are perpetuating the evil cycle of crime that the Corleone family is a member of. No matter that these aren't people we would necessarily want to know in real life, we worry for Vito's safety, Sonny temper, Fredo's weakness, Michael's descent, and the future of the family. I never fail to be saddened by the final shot of the movie, as Michael finalizes himself and his family in the position of power in the mob world. I plan on writing a bit more on this one over time, but for now we'll just suffice it to say that I think The Godfather is the greatest of all movies, the highest high cinema has achieved.

My top movies of all time - #2

2010-03-16T20:22:00.002-05:00

Throne of Blood (1957, Akira Kurosawa)

I've written about Throne of Blood before and why I love it so much, so I'll just add a few of my feelings. Kurosawa was a huge fan of Shakespeare, but often found him to be "too wordy". So his adaptations of Shakespeare's work are never directly from the text. His first, and best, is his adaptation of MacBeth, 1957's Throne of Blood. Like Ran, his adaptation of King Lear, Kurosawa transplants the action to feudal Japan. It stars Toshiro Mifune in the MacBeth role, here called Washizu. The movie is dripping with atmosphere, it's almost oppresively foreboding. The 3 witches from the famous opening of the play are replaced with a single spirit here, and it's much creepier than any interpretation I've ever seen. They somehow altered the actor's voice to give it a ghoulish deepness, with an almost metallic tone to it. It's very effective when combined with the eerie score and nightmarish forest setting. Mifune is a good deal more subtle in his performance here, there are some over-the-top outbursts, but mostly he internalizes Washizu's struggle. It's a brilliant performance, although arguably not even one of his two best. Really that's his fault for being so consistently brilliant though.

The most famous sequence of the movie is the finale, where instead of dying in a duel, as in MacBeth, Washizu perishes in a hail of arrows in a scene that might be my favorite from any Kurosawa movie (I'm not giving anything away, it's an adaptation of a Shakespeare tragedy, of course the protagonist dies). Washizu is able to dodge many of the arrows, some only inches from his head, but he's not able to dodge them all. Someone once told Toshiro Mifune that his acting in the sequence was terrific, that he actually seemed scared. Mifune replied that he was terrified, that Kurosawa had people shooting real arrows only 2 feet or so from his face. He said he was not really acting at all. Whatever he was doing, it works. And the culmination of the scene is an image burned into the brains of many a film fan. It's not hard for me to love such a wonderful movie. Samurai movies are like American westerns, typically staid exercises in variation on a "one man against them all" kind of formula. But sometimes filmmakers come along to challenge those conventions and give us something really special. Throne of Blood is a great example of exactly that happening.

My top movies of all time - #3

2010-03-16T20:02:00.003-05:00

Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

There's honestly not that much to say about Vertigo that hasn't already been said on an analytical level. So I'll just talk a bit about my reactions to the movie upon watching it. The first time I watched it, I'd only recently seen Psycho, which had quickly become my favorite from Hitchcock, and was going through a bit of a phase, one in which I watched Notorious, Strangers on a Train, and North by Northwest (again) as well. While watching it, I was taken in by its hypnotic pacing and sumptuous photography, as well as one of the most disturbing performances ever given by a huge movie star. Jimmy Stewart was like the All-American movie everyman. He'd been a beacon of every day nobility and charm on screen for many years, even temporarily retiring to fly in WWII. So to see him play Scottie Ferguson with the kind of subtle delusional mania that he does was both surprising in his choice of role (and Hitch's choice to cast) as well as frightening in the intensity of performance. Stewart's performance is one of the all-time greats, the greatest Hitch ever got from his actors (and he had some great ones), and an incredibly bold statement from a guy whom I'd thought of almost as a persona and not the talented actor he was.

The almost trance-like sequences early in the movie as Scottie follows and ultimately falls in love with Kim Novak's Madeleine, gives way to the startling descent into madness that Scotty experiences in the final section. Hitchcock's presentation of this is somehow still infused with his trademark tension, while never feeling contrived for suspense. He gets us wired through building our central character and following him as he falls in love first with a woman, and then with an idea. We don't need planes flying at us, or scenes of murder in the shower to ratchet up our involvement with this movie. It's Hitch's crowning achievement and one of the truly great movies ever made.

My top movies of all time - #4

2010-03-16T19:06:00.004-05:00

Dark City (1998, Alex Proyas)

I vaguely remembered Dark City being advertised, but only knew one person who saw it in theaters and they told me it was just ok. So I was surprised when I saw at the end of the year that it landed at #1 on Roger Ebert's year end top ten list. That made me want to check it out and see what was up. I did, and just thought, "it was ok". But then I started thinking more about the philosophy behind it, and especially the images contained within it. I was caught by the incredible German expressionistic architecture, and the subconscious evocation of old school noir movies (subconscious to me, because I didn't know much about noir at the time) and the paintings of Edward Hopper. So I bought it on DVD, watched it again, and liked it a lot. Then a few weeks later watched it again, and loved it. A few months or a year or whatever later, I watched it again and decided it was one of my favorite movies. In 2008, director Alex Proyas released his Director's Cut of the movie. I'm not normally a fan of DC's, but this one took one of my favorite movies and turned it into an all-time top 5 for me. The theatrical cut is like a sprint, the quick cutting and relentless pacing rushing towards the final confrontation. The DC adds in just a few scenes, but Proyas cuts them in in a way that lets the movie breathe and not exactly take its time, since it is still paced quite rapidly, but feel like it's not the sprint to the finish line that the original cut is.

The first section of the movie is brilliantly constructed in a way to make a little off balance in our viewing. Our protagonist, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), doesn't know who is he, where he is, or why he's there. Proyas shoots with no camera movement, and the rapid cutting and seemingly disconnected storytelling putting us subconsciously in the shoes of our hero. Slowly, he begins to think more clearly and put together the strands of his life with the help of his wife (Jennifer Connelly), a mysterious doctor (Keifer Sutherland), and the detective (William Hurt) assigned to a murder case that John is the lead suspect in. As John does this, Proyas slowly starts letting shots linger a bit longer, move a bit more, and yet never lose the remarkable attention to visual detail that Proyas displayed in the earlier sections. The movie is chock full of references to other works, whether it's the landmark sci-fi epic Metropolis, the anime classic Akira, or the short stories The Tunnel Under the World and The Lottery in Babylon. Another influence, the French movie The City of Lost Children, is even quoted when someone mentions that the occupants of the title city "Walk through the city like lost children."

The movie that Dark City most often gets compared with is The Matrix. They came out a year apart, in February of '98 and March of '99 respectively. They are both dark on a visual level, and deal with the central idea of "the world you live in isn't real," a classic sci-fi concept that both movies use as a launching pad. The Matrix uses it for half-hearted philosophy, but mainly for an action movie (which is all The Matrix is, no matter what any nerd tries to convince you otherwise), and even reused a few of Dark City's sets on its Sydney sound stage. Dark City uses it for philosophical contemplation and half-heartedly for an action movie. Proyas also uses the story as an excuse to have incredible image after incredible image on screen. Ebert said so eloquently in his original review (he's since written another one, when he added it to his list of "The Great Movies", as well as doing a commentary track for the DVD) and I can't top it, so I'll just close with this quote "If it is true, as the German director Werner Herzog believes, that we live in an age starved of new images, then Dark City is a film to nourish us. Not a story so much as an experience, it is a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects--and imagination."

My top movies of all time - #5

2010-03-11T21:51:00.003-06:00

Big Night (1996, Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott)

Big Night is a movie that I could sit down and watch right now and be completely entertained throughout. It's funny, has a great script, it's got tremendous performances, it has good food on screen, and it's incredibly easy to watch. Allegedly, Stanley Tucci began writing a script he was passionate about while working on a movie that he hated working on. He figured if he wanted to make movies that he cared about so much, he might as well create those movies himself. He takes the lead role of Secondo, an Italian who immigrated to America with his chef brother Primo (their names coming from the first and second courses of an Italian meal). They run a restaurant in a seaside town (I said NYC in my original review, but having since watched it many times, I realize that they never say where they are, and are most likely along the Jersey shore). A failing restaurant, which Secondo knows too well, as the keeper of their finances, and Primo is completely ignorant of, as he only has his brain in the food that he serves. This is particularly painful when they see the runaway success of an "Italian" restaurant down the street, where Primo and Secondo are both disgusted to see they serve spaghetti and meatballs, a dish that doesn't exist in Italy.

I love the brotherly chemistry that Tucci has with Tony Shaloub. Although of Lebanese descent, Shaloub is flawless as an Italian still so much of his country that he and Tucci are constantly switching between English and Italian. Tucci has said "I thought I loved food when I started making Big Night, but I loved it even more after. It was never my intention to make a food movie. The movie was about the relationship between art and commerce, the art being food." But even that seems shortsighted in regards to this movie's power. I can't think of a better description of what Big Night is about than I did when I first wrote about the movie, Big Night = Life. It's about everything that happens to us in our lives, romances beginning and ending, relationships being tested, trying to do something you believe in, connecting with people, loving your family, and definitely about eating good food. I feel good about myself and the world around me when I see Tucci and Shaloub hug each other so lovingly in the final shot. We don't know what will happen to them specifically, but we know they'll be ok. Nothing like leaving a movie feeling as though everything is gonna be alright no matter what.