I got a very early start, inspired as I was by the Academy Awards ceremony. I don't normally watch, and I hadn't planned on watching because it totally conflicted with my Adult Swim viewing, but I've never been so excited to see which film was going to take home Oscar gold. So, whatta happened was I ended up hitting my Netflix stream queue at a little after midnight. To all of you naysayers who told me I was wrong about The King's Speech… you should have had it figured out during the pre-announcement when "the speech" was played over scenes from the other nominees.
I'll watch romantic comedies. I don't, with rare exception, get involved in them. I watched My Girlfriend's Boyfriend expecting something stupid, but it created two wholly new sensations for me when watching a movie of this caliber. The first is that I wanted to punch Alyssa Milano repeatedly in the face until she stopped twitching. Not because she'd done anything wrong. In fact, I'd say that this was one of the better performances I've ever seen her give on TV or in a movie. I wanted to hit her because of the choices her character makes. Is that fair? No. But it's how I felt. Apparently, in the Team Edward/Team Jacob triangle that forms in this movie, I was very solidly on one side of the line. The second is that I threw my remote at my bloody flat screen when the romantic choice is (finally) made and screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Literally. When I was done protesting, I couldn't believe I'd just done it.
Poor, poor, Christopher Gorham. I probably just spelled his name wrong, but I really dig his work, although admittedly I didn't know he existed until Popular circa 2001. The butt-dial cell phone commercial that he does opposite his real life wife (also late of Popular) inevitably makes me laugh, although I haven't seen it in awhile. I do notice that he tends to play the same basic role he started with Harrison John back in the day: the kind of odd dude that doesn't really have much luck with the ladies, even though they seem to find him moderately attractive. Not quite a geek, a bit nerdish… I'm totally stealing dialogue from Virtual Sexuality now, but I've waited for years to describe someone that way. The bottom line is that I really dug him in this movie. I liked him with Alyssa Milano. I thought they had chemistry, but I'm not sure I thought they had passion. Each of the boyfriends gets a smooching scene with my favorite witch, and both are this tense, closed mouth affair that made my face set with distaste (and I wasn't on the receiving end of the smooch). In some ways, these two felt like brother and sister at worst, or like good friends who might be starting something less-than-platonic at best. I also saw moments where it was like I was eavesdropping on a couple where one part of the couple was very in to the other and the other wasn't interested. Awkward, but we've probably all been there.
Now, it wasn't that I didn't get the idea of budding romance, but I didn't feel like there were enough. Add in the second man in Alyssa Milano's life and I was left to wonder what in exactly the hell was going on throughout the whole film. I hate that.
People are going to think I'm crazy after reading this, but My Girlfriend's Boyfriend had a serious twist that I didn't see coming until the very end. Using my mutant power of 20/20 hindsight, I was able to spot how the twist worked in to the story, as well as all the clues they gave us to figure it out. But, I didn't. I was probably so worked up about how the triangle worked out that I totally bailed on spotting the foreshadowing. M. Night Shyamalan should be taking notes if he ever sees this, because he could use the pointers on how to make a plot twist.
This is far from perfect, but if you're looking for something to snuggle up next to that special someone, you could do worse than this. If you want to vicariously eavesdrop on someone else's life and problems for a bit, this is also a good choice. There are a few laughs and the lack of adult content makes this good for a fairly young audience. I can't even remember any profanity. If nothing else, this is certainly going to be responsible for me watching both seasons of Popular on DVD.
Moonraker represents a problem for me as a Bond fan. It's got the only thing I've yet seen in the four (or is it five?) decades of filming the franchise that's cheesier than the damned jetpacks. And I don't mean any particular aspect, I mean the entire last 45 minutes of the movie, which is so bad that it's the basis for the end of (I think) the first of the Austin Powers trilogy. I didn't love Roger Moore as Bond, although he starred in the first Bond film I saw (A View To a Kill), which is still one of my favorites. The problem is that some of my least favorite Bond flicks: Live & Let Die and For Your Eyes Only and well, Moonraker have all had Dalton at the helm, and I just can't abide that. I still hate Lazenby more as a casting choice, but not by much.
When I started this project of mine, I had originally intended to save my Bond reviews for a single month, like TBS does every spring with the 30 days of Bond. Then, I realized that there are few months where I don't want to see more than four movies and that even I'd get pretty tired of Bond (and I've been known to hum the theme song as I drive) after 30 days with nothing else. I'm not sure how Moonraker ended up being the first Bond flick I've blogged about that was created before 2000, but alas, it did manage to find its way to my DVD player.
Does Moonraker provide those things that Bond fans love to see? Action, check. Gunfights, check. Froo-it of evil villain, check. Hot babes with sexually provocative names, check. Unlikely acts of murder and mayhem, check. Shamefully ludicrous evil henchmen, double check. At least it doesn't have the bloody ninjas in it. It starts off as a pretty typical and well conceived Bond flick. It really does. But it's a movie that's very centered on the technology that was available at the end of the 70s and focuses on an American government program which has been largely out of the news for the last few… decades. I know the shuttles still go up, we just don't hear about unless something bad happens, as a rule. What you see here gives the movie a ridiculously dated feel, even on top of the traditionally dated feeling that comes from all the older Bond flicks.
If you're a Bond fan and haven't seen this one, you might as well give it a try. If you can time warp yourself back to '79 and appreciate all this high-tech for what it was supposed to be, check it out. If you're just starting to watch these movies, you probably want to look elsewhere for a classic Bond, preferably at something done by Connery, or maybe The Man With the Golden Gun.
Today was one of those days where I struggled to get in my review for the day within the 12:01am to 11:59pm guidelines that I set for myself (without using the cheat that's built-in for me because Blogspot's clock is three hours behind my actual time). Every year, or every year since 2006, AMC theaters around the nation prepare for the upcoming Academy Awards by showing all those movies selected for Best Picture for that year in a marathon of truly epic proportions. I've gone to this event every year except for 2006 and 2008, when the AMC at Easton in Columbus (Ohio) sold out of tickets. It's a long day, especially since I start and end it with a two-hour drive, but I never fail to firmly select my favorites for each year: Atonement (2007), Avatar (2009), and The King's Speech (2010). I got a bit boned (no pun intended) this year, because in response to the increase of nominees from 5 films to 10, the AMC now holds TWO days where the films are split. Unfortunately, the only date I was able to make was February 26, and Winter's Bone was the only film on the list that I hadn't seen… so I had a long, dark hole while I sat through Inception and The Social Network for yet another run (yawn). Now that I've gone through this long day, 127 Hours and Toy Story 3 as the only Best Picture nominees that I haven't seen, and I still feel strong about my choice of The King's Speech as this year's film to beat.
Mostly, this reminded me a lot of No Country For Old Men. The rural setting, everybody engaged in illicit activities in their struggle for basic survival. This is tough and gritty… and a bit sad. You can't help but feel sorry for the lead. At 17, she's caring for two children, only one of them close to being able to care for himself, Old MacDonald's farm, and a mentally ill mother in what appears to be a log cabin with little in the way of modern conveniences. The majority of their food comes to them in the form of charity from a caring and considerate neighbor and the rest is substituted by living on the land in the roughest sense. In other ways, the setting of this movie reminded me more than a little of the rural area in which I currently live. Socially for sure, there were common factors: lots of people doing what they do to avoid censure or gossip, other people gossiping and not realizing how it impacts the folks they're talking about.
Unfortunately, this is pretty dismal. It's long and slow, despite the appealing characters. When the story finally starts to rev up, and the mystery begins to unwrap, the movie picks up a bit, but you're not in for a thrill ride. If you're looking for eye candy, you won't find it here. This may be the only movie I've ever seen where there wasn't a single pretty person involved. Technically, I thought this was a great movie, but it wasn't something I really enjoyed. I understand why it's up for the Academy Award, but I'm still leaning towards King's Speech. The cast is fantastic, even if two thirds of them (men and women) look a bit like Rip Torn. The setting is bleak and off-putting, filled with imagery that manages to both fascinate and disturb.
For a first movie of my only five movie day a year, this was a great start. I was fresh enough that I wasn't ready to walk out of the theater and my butt didn't hurt from sitting for ten hours. I still think that's what turned me against No Country, because it was the last film showed on the 2007 Best Picture Showcase… and quite frankly, I was seriously considering suicide by straw if it would have gotten me home.
I'm not sure if Mel Gibson has First Amendment rights to exercise, because I'm not sure of his citizenship, but regardless of how we feel about his use and abuse of those rights (I'm currently looking for my dislike button on the issue), I think most of us can admit that he makes one HELL of a movie, in general terms. He transcended seamlessly, as has Clint Eastwood, from actor to director; and I like him better behind the camera than in front of it. I have to admit that I haven't seen The Passion of the Christ, and probably won't. I'm just not that interested. But his pictures like Apocalypto and Braveheart were, in their own ways, game changers for me. They made me revision the way I looked at their particular genre and to an extent, I measure my much-loved historical epics against these two fine films.
One of the misconceptions, even by Americans, much less transplanted Australians, regarding the First Amendment is that it's blanket coverage to say whatever thing that floats in to your head without censorship. That's not entirely true. What the First Amendment guarantees is that, with only a few exceptions, the government won't censor you. There's plenty within the language of the First Amendment that says your fellow citizens can revile you and censor you in any way they feel appropriate if your speech is not in keeping with the moral standards of the community. Find enough citizens who consider your speech "fighting words" and you can lose your protection under the First Amendment. Don't believe me? Ask the Dixie Chicks and what happened in 2001 when they exercised their rights regarding then-President Bush. The lady trio is still attempting to dig their career out of its self-dug grave and most of us now say worse things about their target than they ever did. Because I disagree with many of the things that have gotten Gibson in hot water lately, I refuse to watch Mel Gibson's films in the theaters. I won't buy a movie he's in or one that he directs on DVD. I've compromised with using Netflix to see his work because I suspect he makes little profit from this, and it's like being a vegetarian to save the animals: one person doing it doesn't help. Millions might, but my efforts alone make no difference… which is an excuse, and a lame one at that, but I really wanted to see this movie, so I'm making it.
While I think that Edge of Darkness is far from Gibson's best work (as either director or actor) it is a fine thriller, although it does tend to suffer from an overly complex story line, particularly as everything unravels. Gibson does a good job portraying the role of this father grieving after his daughter's passing, but a large part of the supporting cast felt a little flat to me. I don't want to say they were phoning in their roles because no matter how well they did the camera was going to pay more attention to Mel Gibson, but it did come off that way to me.
There were also a few oddities that I found distracting. (1) The Southy accent. It came and went, and got thicker under stress, which I thought only happened when you were speaking a language other than your native one… (2) Ginger ale. Seriously? People still drink that stuff? I guess it's no more random than my Coke fascination, but even I occasionally ask for water or a beer. (3) This gets flagged for its excessive use (and abuse) of the F-bomb. I'm totally not sensitive to it, but occasionally so many people were using it in a lot of different ways at the same time. It made for less-than-pretty dialogue from time to time.
I work pretty hard to see those movies that are nominated for Best Picture. Some years, I get lucky, and the Academy picks movies that I've already seen. This year was a mixed bag. I'd seen five of the movies selected, and ever since the nominations, I've been rushing around trying to get as many of the other five movies in as possible. All praise to Netflix for making these available to me on the quick.
At the crux of this story lurks an idea that will scandalize lots of folks in the American public: the idea that same-sex parents create families that are just as dysfunctional as those created by their heterosexual counterparts (and thus effectively removing the objection that same-sex couples can't create a loving home like cross-sex couples can). What we're treated to may be a best-case scenario, as critics would contend, but the similarities between my own family quirks and what I saw here was enough to cement my belief that a loving home can be created under more than just one set of circumstances. I'm also impressed that they managed to deliver the message without beating the audience around the head or getting preachy. I also like that most of this felt as if it could be any American family… albeit the family would have to be much more open and direct in their communications styles than mine was. It was refreshing to see a portrayal of a two parent system in which one parent wasn't completely lost in the grip of some passive-aggressive nightmare, which would be more in keeping with my family, but it was still nice to see. It took me about 20 minutes to realize why this film gathered so much festival attention, and from there I wasn't surprised that Kids ended up with a Best Picture nomination.
There's a lot of awkward stuff in here. The subject matter won't be to everyone's taste, and even if this is, there are a lot of moments that gave even me pause. The dinner scene alternates between hysterical and embarrassing and I liked how these moments actually got the emotional response from me that they were searching for, and I had those responses so frequently, by the film's end I felt like I was a fly on the wall watching all this stuff go down. I took it as a testament to the skill of the cast (which was remarkably good) and the realistic family portrayal under situations of stress. Despite all this, I have to admit that I hated most of the characters here with the exception of the kids, who may be all right, but the adults were a very different story. The adults seemed an equal mix of lame character sheets from all walks of life, but most of them didn't seem to have any depths that existed outside the circumstances of their lives. The only one I could empathize with even a bit was Laser, but probably because I feel like I got saddled with a crappy name, too. He did provide most of the entertainment that wasn't intellectually based and he was frequently getting nagged by a double dose of "mom," which happens to be one of my worst nightmares. I liked Joni, too, but to a lesser extent, and I was mostly interested that Mia Kosikowska went from this to something as traditionally family as Alice in Wonderland, but I'm going to agree with Variety when they said she was one of the top ten actors to watch.
I have to say, I laughed at length at the scene that involved the lesbians watching all male pornography. I laughed even more at the explanation, which didn't make any sense at all to me. Anyone want to help me figure this out? My next question has to do with pillows. How is it that I have a pillow for like three days and my pillows are wrecked and these ladies keep these awesome, fluffy pillows for all eternity?
I wanted to like this rogue super hero movie with my favorite goofy human being ever in it. I really did. It has a lot of the same themes that have made Batman such a major superhero franchise in so many media formats: vigilantism, restrained (for the most part) violence, fighting for the little guy, technology, even a sweet ride. But after those stretches of my logic, there wasn't a whole lot I loved about Defendor.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Woody Harrelson is pretty awesome in this role. Without doing anything that might cause a spoiler problem, he plays a man who is either pathologically insane or who has some sort of mental handicap that prevents him from making anything like what most of us would call a normal, rational decision. Really, this was probably just a slowed-down version of his "Woody Boyd" persona from Cheers.
He's high functioning enough to do things like drive a car with more skill than I usually see of drivers in Ohio (or Texas), but he's still lost enough in his own fantasies and delusions that he's decided that it's his job to create a superhero capable of defeating the local organized crime boss. This is a man who lives on his own, for what appears to be pride's sake, which I can empathize with. We see a brother check on Woody a few times and there are scenes with a court-ordered psychologist in the form of Sandra Oh. There's little other supervision and everyone seems surprised when this guy starts frequenting and befriending (in a perfecting platonic way)…well, hookers. One hooker in particular seems a better grounding force for him than all the other people in his life.
How does crap like this even happen? Like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, this is a condemnation of how we treat the mentally ill and or handicapped population of our country, but it's much more sideways, and I had to think about it a bit before I saw the pokes. I would have liked this better if Defendor, the alter-ego, had been more successful in his aims. I would have been happier if we'd seen him succeed, rather than watching this man persevere in spite of what was actually happening to him while in costume. Most of his crime fighting scenes inspired feelings that were akin to those that arose when I watched the often-cited Pursuit of Happyness. At some point, every person should be able to have a day go by without deity, fate, or chance kicking them in the teeth. When the person is trying so desperately to do good, I feel like that quota should be higher. I shouldn't come out of any super hero flick, ever, feeling bad for the good guy. I did here.
In many ways this misrepresented. It's billed as an action comedy, but I think it was weak in both elements.
Defendor sports a decent cast, rounding out Harrelson and Oh with Kat Demmings lately of The House Bunny, which I seriously need to watch again, and Elias Koteas, who is a phenomenal character actor. None of them really reached their potential in these roles, and it was kind of a problem. If you want to hybridize Batman, Kick-Ass, and Forrest Gump, people are really going to have to be on their game. Without that, you get what feels like a C-grade indie movie that doesn't really make all that much sense in the grander scheme of things.
2001 was an interesting year for me… well, in retrospect, for all Americans. 2001 was my first full year as active duty with the Navy and it was the year I graduated from the DOD's language translation training program. As is usual with my timing, I finished my training a handful of weeks after 9/11. I had my worst birthday ever that year, which included a near-life ruining event that I'm ill inclined to go in to, although a bunch of folks reading this probably know what it is. 2001 was a year where I spent a lot of time in the theaters in a frantic effort to hide from the crap that was going on around me. Fortunately, there were plenty of good movies released in 2001, but in truth, I went to see this one in protest. Legally Blonde was a date movie, although it didn't go anywhere because of a remarkable lack of anything in common other than a love for movies. Jamie was a cool chick, and great to look at, but you really need something else to work with. We stayed friends until both of us transferred from California to Texas, but I was able to make fun of Jamie for almost two years because this was her choice of entertainment for entertainment. She made the claim that this was her revenge for Scary Movie. All the summer blockbusters to choose from, and she came up with a 90 minute homage to Barbie. I never once told her I enjoyed the movie and when we'd hang out at my place, I always made sure that I hid the DVD. If she'd found out, her wrath would have been horrible.
On the one hand, I love this movie. On the other hand, I'm really embarrassed about that. This isn't unusual. I have the same reaction to Mean Girls and The Vampire's Assistant. Unfortunately, the reasons why I love this movie are also the reasons that embarrass me. I love that Reese Witherspoon was able to play this… well, kind of stupid girl (I don't care that she has a 4.0 in her fashion design classes), play the character with charm and make it appealing despite the myriad of faults. Let's face it, there's nothing attractive about vanity, materialism, conceit, ignorance, excessive amounts of pink, or bobble-heads in general… but Elle has all of these traits in spades, and somehow I don't want her to die.
Elle, the lead, is pretty much the only character I like, with the arguable exception of manicurist and extreme bend-and-snapper Paulette Bonafante. America's favorite MILF has come a long way since she gained notoriety as Stiffler's mom, but I'm not sure this was an ascension. She's a pretty lady, but none of that comes through in the effort to make her seem dumb and white trashy. Regardless, she still cracks me up, and I've always wanted to see a movie entitled When the Bend and Snap Attacks. The rest of the character work sucks, and even some decent actors… well, okay like two decent actors and a bunch of fluff, doesn't stop that from being true.
There are so many caricatures of people in the movie that I struggle to find any redeeming value in the film: vapid sorority girls, snooty rich folk, the working class portrayed as stupid, the list just goes on and on. If I was a feminist or worried about the image of Americans that's being shoveled overseas through our pop culture, I'd be a lot more concerned. The bottom line for me on this movie is that it's funny. Could it be insulting? Probably. But I have a hard time getting worked up about a movie that's trying (and succeeding) for cute and sweet, with way too much pink and teal in the mix.
Do you ever get the feeling that occasionally, when you break down and violate a long-established pattern in your life, that whatever powers that be out there totally mock you? I felt that way today after having watched Tightrope. Lately, I haven't been disliking Clint Eastwood's movies as much as I told myself I did: I found some intellectual satisfaction amidst the angst of Million Dollar Baby, I reveled in the power of Gran Torino's pro-tolerance message, and I was pretty close to apoplectic over the greatness of Invictus. Yes, that last one's a bit of a cheat since Eastwood was behind the camera and not in front of it, but still, it got me to disregard my rule. I probably shouldn't have. I should have remembered that the whole 'Dirty Harry' thing wasn't exactly something that caught my attention… or interest. I'm even sorrier that this is how I started my day. Blech.
When I was a kid, there was a TV show called Hunter. It was on late on (I think) Saturday nights, maybe at 10 or 11. I'd watch it occasionally if I had come in early or hadn't bothered to go out for the night, which happened more often than I care to admit. The show was this gritty cop drama, filled with ugly people pretending they were sexy. Sometimes they had good, kind of scary episodes, and sometimes the show was so tedious I'd actually go to bed before midnight rather than watch the damned thing. Even if you don't remember Hunter, you probably know the type of show I'm talking about: Silk Stalkings, back in the 90s was close, although everyone there was pretty. I think most of us don't watch cop dramas for the nookie, but occasionally Hollywood gets it wrong. Tightrope felt a bit like Hunter to me. Ugly people (sorry Clint) being overly sexualized in a darkened, grainy kind of atmosphere that left… well, it left a lot to be desired. I suspect this wasn't exactly Eastwood's seminal role as (yet another) tough as nails street cop. Lord knows, by '84 the man should have been playing such a role for nearly 20 years, so you'd think he'd have it down and polished… but I didn't see that.
I suspect the modern TV cop dramas have me a bit spoiled. If you're investigating serial killer, I'm less concerned about how the lead detective spends his evenings in the company of… ladies of the evening, and more concerned about the evidence, the profiling (although I realize that profiling is in decline), and the forensic gathering of evidence at the crime scene. I saw some of that last bit discussed, but it felt as if the discussion was a decade or more ahead of where your average big city police department would have been in the mid-80s. It probably wasn't anachronistic, or at least not very much so, but since I was only seven when this movie was made, I don't have any way to know. I suspect that in many ways, this would have better if the story had focused more on the serial killer and less on the sorted behavior of the star.
Really, this wasn't terrible, but at two hours, it was very long in the same way that that Brooklyn's Finest was long. In both of these movies, I was ready to seppuku myself by the time the end credits appeared. If they'd cut out everything that didn't have to do with character development or the murder story line, they probably would have come out at about 90 minutes, and had a much better performance and story to boot. Tightrope has potential, but none of it was realized.
Oh… is anyone else worried about Clint Eastwood raising two small girls and a pack of dogs?
It's strange how the dumbest things can trigger a memory that was long buried in the dark, murky recesses of my noggin. When this popped up on Netflix's Cinematch as available for streaming, I knew I'd seen the movie, but not only couldn't I remember anything about it, I couldn't remember the circumstances. I know that I spent my class hours yesterday complaining about Cinematch once you've gone through about 500 movies on Netflix, but every once in awhile I get a decent recommendation. Even a broken clock…
Figuring this would be an interesting addition to my blog, I queued it up. As soon as I heard the first couple of notes, I got a solid memory of watching this in the theater. I'm assuming I must have been with the 'rents, because I was stupid back then and would not have gone to see this movie on my own. In 1989, I was12, which kind of limited how frequently I got to go to the movies on my own, although I think that same year I went on my first date with Tiffany… well, I don't remember her last name, but she was a drummer and we saw Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. So, that's enough of my convoluted walk down memory lane. Here's what I thought:
This movie was just as charming now as I remembered it being. Okay, maybe charming is the wrong word. I LOVE the interplay between Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman; they had the evolution of their relationship totally down. I'll even go out on a limb and say that no leading couple (at least not one that I've seen on the screen) has ever had that kind of chemistry on screen under any circumstances. These guys are so natural that I could totally get behind the idea that they were friends in real life. Now, it's true that the society of prejudice that existed in the South frames all that friendship going on between an elderly Jewish woman and her elderly black chauffeur, but I think that the occasional hint of nastiness kept some of the performances from feeling too much like caricatures of what the South and its denizens used to be. I've seen younger black actors pantomime a character that was similar to Morgan Freeman's when they were being asked to do something in a manner that they thought was high-handed or inconsiderate, but I'm fairly sure Mr. Freeman wasn't the source of that characterization.
One of the things that I thought was most impressive was the makeup used to age all the characters, most of whom were already in their middle years. We see the relationship between Tandy and Freeman grow over what I expect is supposed to be more than 20 years. The younger cast members, such as Dan Akroyd and Patti Lupone, are eventually aged to their 60s and we watch the physical condition of the proud Miss Daisy and her friend Hoke decline with old age. It's a very cool process to see. Not only is the makeup great, but I love the cast. Each character is played with a sense of individuality and personality that is often missing in films where there are several repeating minor characters. These guys really didn't miss a trick.
When I was a kid, this movie would come on TV periodically on a Friday night as a double feature with Popeye. While I always lamented the loss of my regularly viewed Friday night program (The Dukes of Hazard was the shizz-nizz, back then), it was always a special event in my house. I remember that my mom would make popcorn and probably Kool-Aid, we'd order a pizza, and my friends Mikey and Travis would come over and we'd watch both movies, then they'd spend the night at my house. I know this sounds lame, but this was pretty heady stuff for a six-year-old. The better part of thirty years later, I still associate both movies with Mikey and Travis, who are the only friends I remember from that point in my life. It's the only memory I have of either of these two guys where I flash on a picture of their faces… and that's kind of cool, because the rest of the time I remember that Mikey was usually tanned with dark hair and that Travis was blond and had a glass eye (which held a kind of gobstopping fascination for me back then). In the modern day, I know Mikey's mom talks to my mom occasionally via Facebook, but I've been afraid to reach out to Mikey through the same platform. It's silly being afraid of rejection under the circumstances, but well, I guess I am. He was my first best friend, and I only had two more before I got too old to label someone as a best friend, so that's something that means a lot to me.
I woke up this morning at the ungodly hour of 3:30 and found The Wizard of Oz on cable… I think it was TBS, but I could be way off. I've been a bit down lately, so it was nice having this as a vehicle to remember those simple times of popcorn, punch, and good friends. For sure this is the reason why I have such a positive reaction to this movie, which would be good on its own, but in the light of the events of my life, this movie is well… freaking amazing. The first thing I notice is how beautiful the camera work is. There's the possibility that I don't remember what the original movie was like, and this has been re-mastered a few times to my knowledge. The slow divide between the black-and-white and the color is crisp and a little intense, although truth be told, even well in to the colorized scenes, I feel like the color scale is near blinding in its intensity, with the one exception being the many shades of the "horse of a different color."
The story is fun, and was inspired by a great series of children's novels that I read about as frequently as I read CS Lewis' Narnia books, which was often. Let's face it. There's a reason why this movie is a classic and why it has a timeless charm that attracts kids of all ages from ages. The characters are so real, while at the same time being generic enough to allow empathy to occur without any common ground. I've never been a girl, an orphan, lived on a farm, or gotten swallowed up by a twister, but I get where Dorothy Gayle is coming from. I can appreciate her struggles and her attempts to bring order into a life that's been ruled by chaos. I also have to appreciate L. Frank Baum's since of whimsy. Wizards and munchkins and Wicked Witches, oh my.
I'm going to be honest. When I first saw the early trailers for this movie I was intrigued, but I couldn't figure out what this was supposed to be about. So I did what any sci-fi geek might do: I downloaded the e-book onto my brand new Nook and checked it out.
What I found was a moderately appealing book for young readers that brought all the excitement of X-Men and brought it together with the style and alien tendencies of X-Files… back before the conspiracy riff and the constant appearances of the Smoking Man ruined the show. It prompted me to watch this as my primary choice today when I passed by my local-ish theater. I'm not sorry I did. I was a bit worried when I saw Michael Bay's name in the credits (EXPLOSIONS!), but what unfolded was an adaption of literature that rather improved the story of the book.
Timothy Oliphant was pretty good in his role as "John's" protector and father figure, although I have to admit, I like him better as a bad guy, and always have. Alex Pettyfer wasn't terrible, but it seems like he didn't provide much except for a stiff performance and some Bowie-like cheekbones to his lead role. I'm going to hold off on actual criticism, because this could have been director-induced, but it makes me a little hesitant to see Pettyfer's Beastly, which was on my "to see" list for… April, I think. Number 4 also introduces me to some salty goodness in the form of Teresa Palmer: she's fast, she's strong, she kicks more ass than Buffy on PCP, she has an actual curve, and that accent. Croikey!
This isn't going to win any awards. It's got some slick fighting sequences and some very well done, albeit simple special effects. I'm not totally sure they did enough story development for anything I saw to make sense without some help from the book, but I did like what I saw. Quick and easy fun, without pretentions; there really should be more movies like this out there. If I have a complaint, it's only a small one: Number 1 is supposed to have died in Malaysia. Number 2 dies in England. Number 3 died in "Africa." Is Africa its own country? One of these things is not like the others...
1978's Halloween did more than provide a career outlet for Jamie Lee Curtis. It redefined the horror genre in a way that very few movies have done, before or since. Rob Zombie's version of Halloween didn't, but it gave us a new look at an old horror, something long-forgotten and left on a shelf, since most of the sequels to this franchise have proven to be a bit… disappointing.
What Zombie's re-envisioning of this horror classic has done was explain the whys. What made Michael Meyers in to the killing machine that's scared the bejeezus out of kids (and the occasional wussy adult) for more than a generation. John Carpenter's version of the film shows the aftermath, but it does very little to explain what went wrong, what turns this boy into a monster. Now, I have to admit, not knowing what went wrong made the original film quite a bit scarier, but I found this remake to be more intellectually satisfying, or maybe it's just possible that I want to believe that no child is born like this. The story line written up in a way that felt like someone did some research, like maybe opened up a Psychopath Weekly or related trade paper to get some ideas on how a serial killer is born and how one evolves over time. The early scenes with Malcolm McDowell helped lend an air of professional sensibility to this movie, and I liked it, but it may have overreached. This is a spatter flick after all. I didn't pop this in my DVD player and prep for tea and crumpets.
The other thing that Rob Zombie does is rip every bit of sentiment or whimsy from the original film. There's not the slightest shred of evidence that the director is trying to do anything other than disturb or terrify. There's no bit of humor to lighten up the suspense. I say suspense because I didn't find all that much to be scary about this movie, despite the high ratio of blood and guts. The good news is that the vast majority of the best elements of the original movie made it to this reimagining, to include the music and the stalking scenes.
I haven't seen this movie in a long time, but when it appeared as a recommendation on my Netflix streaming options, I knew I had to watch it. While The Sixth Sense has gotten spoofed a lot in recent years, this is still Shyamalan's almost best. I think Signs is a better movie even with the slightly more ridiculous premise.
While I watched this today to refresh my memory, I tried to think of some of my initial impressions, figuring that they were buried somewhere deep in my subconscious. Fortunately for my figuring, they were. I remember that this was a little bit of spooky fun. It's just the right amount of scare, even if it was ghosts with gory makeup popping out of the woodwork.
Haley Joel Osment, who has fallen into semi-anonymity since this release, shows a lot of promise here, although I have to admit he creeps me right out in the same way Dakota Fanning does, but I think for different reasons. I enjoyed Bruce Willis' performance in this film as well, but he's had better roles. I laughed a bit that it took him more than ten years to accept the fact that he had some RIDICULOUS power alleys and then shave his head.
Unfortunately for folks who haven't seen this (and I guess I should ask what cave you've been living in), there's little chance that no spoiler has been delivered. But, on the off chance that hasn't happened, I'm going to refrain from adding more fuel to the fire. The story is strong, much stronger than most of what has come from the mind of M. Night. So much so that I feel bad for the kids that grew up dealing with Lady in the Water and The Village. I won't even get started on Devil or The Last Airbender.
It doesn't feel like it's been the better part of a decade since this movie came out. When I pulled together the information on the film, I was a bit taken aback when I saw the release date. I guess in part because this wasn't so many films ago for Will Smith, who generally only does one movie per year, although he didn't star in a film in 2009 or 2010. It's funny, because the man's come a long way from his Fresh Prince days, and now I kind of set my movie "watch" by his summer releases. His failure to hold to his established patterns has me all messed up.
I'm not a huge fan of Isaac Azimov, who I believe wrote the book that inspired this film. Truth be told, I generally find a lot of fault with the "hard core" sci-fi too… sci-fyish. I guess there's only so much that my disbelief can be suspended, and after that, it's kind of a crap shoot. Azimov tends to the harder sci-fi, although I have enjoyed one or two of his books. I, Robot; however, is damn near the perfect movie. I truly think that there's a little something for everyone: action, science fiction, mystery, a bit of romantic tension between Will Smith's character and Dr. Calvin. But, what really gets my attention is that this is sci-fi that's so near-future that I could actually be alive when this takes place, barring some unforeseen event or disease. Even better is that the world described in this film resembles our world pretty strongly. In the thirty years between this film's release and its setting date, very little seems to have taken place except for the growth of virtual communications (ie, the interwebz) and robotics. Other than that, it doesn't appear that it remains business as usual in the future, despite the problems of the present.
I've seen this movie several times, and I'm always impressed with the special effects that surround the NS-5 robots. There was a fluidity in (particularly) their facial features that I found appealing, but I also liked that while the robots are built in man's image, they aren't limited to man's range of movement (or to man's range of thinking). I'm also almost always amazed at the cast members they managed to sneak in that I never notice in prior viewings, such as Chi McBride, who I learned to love in Pushing Daisies, and Alan Tudyk, who is the voice of Sonny, and who plays Wash, Serenity's pilot. I even spotted the over-hyped and over-exposed Shia LeBoeuf in a bit part, although I didn't spot him the first few times I watched this.
This is a very family-friendly sort of film, and I think it's… respectable that these guys managed to build a summer blockbuster (released in the heart of the summer movie season, no less) without anything keeping it from being inappropriate for the whole family to watch together. There's SOME violence, but very little of it is human on human, which seems to mitigate the impact of the damage being done. There's little swearing, probably nothing your kids haven't heard at home with more vehemence and frequency. I'm pretty sure that if you let your kids watch Star Wars, they could sit through this.
I know it's been a long time since I've held a regular job, because there are days when I feel so overwhelmed by doing more than one or two things and today was one of those days. I had scheduled my beloved car's 75,000 mile maintenance, I have an interview for a job at a local radio station (wish me luck), and I have two midterms this week, both of which I still need to prepare for… and at some point, I need to do all the household chores I've been pushing off today. So, thinking about the when I could actually sit down and find the time to squeak one of these reviews in was almost as daunting as which movie I wanted to watch during this fakest of holidays. Finally, what I decided was a bit of a cheat, but I popped this sucker in at midnight and let it roll.
I found myself at a quandary when I was trying to work in a movie during Valentine's Day. I absolutely refused to watch some over-hyped romance for Valentine's Day and was even less-enthused at the idea of watching some romantic comedy with crappy actors, unreasonable settings, and even less reasonable endings. I spent a goodly amount of energy trying to think of a movie to watch today that was (1) Valentine's Day themed and (2) not sappy. It was difficult finding a movie that met those criteria and also played some homage to rampant dislike of this Hallmark-devised holiday, so when I stumbled across this in the bowels of my DVD collection it was a major score. Vapid, stuck up chicks getting cut up by a psycho wearing a Cupid mask? Ta-da!
There aren't many horror movies I don't like, in part because I expect them all to fail in some way. Bad acting is generally a given, even with a cast that includes Katherine Heigl in a rare (and brief) departure from her endless arrays of romantic comedies. Valentine manages to get it both right and wrong. American audiences LOVE watching raving psychopaths cut up hot, (cough, cough relatively cough) young women. Social commentary aside, there really has to be something wrong with us, but Valentine gives us that in spades. The movie also brings a lot of classic horror themes to the table, with revenge being chief among them.
When a horror story gets complicated, it usually goes straight into the toilet. While this story isn't complicated in and of itself, there are so many red herrings thrown in your path that it makes it hard to take anything that goes on seriously, because the writers have created an environment where you suspect half the cast of being the killer, but in reality, the ENTIRE cast, with one or two exceptions, could be the killer. Even the first time I watched this I knew there were so many foreshadowed suspects that it was going to be someone obvious. Add to it that the dialogue spends a considerable amount of time discussing the identity of the slasher without bringing us to WHO the killer is and the movie becomes a bit tiresome before it all comes to a head. Monologues are also a problem in the horror movie, and this one sparks not one, but two. I think there's a reason that so few of the serial killers in slasher flicks speak. It's scarier when they don't.
The easy place to give props to cupid is the variety of ways he uses to butcher his victims. MO certainly gets tired. I admire that kind of flexibility in a slasher pic, although I know there were plenty of people who wanted more blood. Sickos. There was plenty in Valentine.
When I was a kid, my parents would occasionally leave me in the care of family friends who lived nearby, when my parents decided to go out somewhere and didn't want me in tow. Leo worked with my dad at Lockheed, and he seemed to enjoy encouraging my love of movies, introducing me to really good flicks that I probably wouldn't have seen today if it wasn't for his attention. I don't remember when it started, or if they'd always rented a movie when they knew I was coming, but the movies that were rented were rarely movies that had been made during my lifetime. One time, after I'd mentioned to him that I "didn't like westerns," Leo brought home the original True Grit, with the "the Duke" himself, John Wayne. I remember loving the movie at the time, although I couldn't remember anything about it once I finally got around to watching it this afternoon. While Leo didn't cure me of my general dislike for westerns, he did introduce me to John Wayne… and Blade Runner, 2001, 2010 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, among other cinema classics. Thanks to Leo, I still like John Wayne movies. Between Leo and his wife, Karmel, the two of them probably covered my education in classic movies, westerns, mid-century sci-fi, and 80s teen movies. It was always good times at their place.
If the Duke was alive today, I have to imagine he'd be… pleased as punch what was done to this movie. The story line has some differences in this revision of the original, but it keeps to the same spirit that I remember. I still don't like Westerns, but I liked this. The main character, a young girl trying to avenger her father's death, was played with remarkable skill for someone who is not only young, but I believe a complete unknown. My only complaint is they worked so VERY hard to make her unattractive. If I was a praying man, I'd be praying that the mustache she rocks in this movie isn't hers, or if it is, that it's something that can be removed with bleach or that NADS stuff. Someone should really be talking to her about how much she looked like a young Sam Sheppard. [Okay, I was inspired to do a little IMDB research, and her head shot on the True Grit page there was gorgeous, so we can all rest easy.] But man, they messed her up almost as badly as Charlize Theron got messed up in Monster.
As impressed as I was with ole Haillee what's-her-name, that plays the main character, she wasn't in this by herself. There were a few people in this that I generally don't like, and one that I haven't liked since Trey Parker ruined him in Team America. Maa-tt Daaa-munn. Cheebus. What I really like about this movie, which I don't remember being a part of the 1969 version, was that this wasn't just a western with the stereotypical cowboys and Indians. There are a few shoot-em-ups, some pretty nice suspense sequences, and some great comedy shorts built in to this. I realized pretty quickly that, despite my initial resistance to seeing this, that my buddy Stretch was right: it's very easy to get caught up in the action and adventure that is portrayed here.
I'm dodging household chores, so I've been leaving the house with my laptop in tow ostensibly to study for my upcoming midterms, but I'm seeing movies when my brain is officially drained and I need a break. The next few days will have me spending quite a bit of time at the theaters, so I'm excited for this weekend. I managed a ridiculously early show this morning in a desperate, but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to avoid the screaming mimis at the Bieber-thing's event. The good news is that I was the only person in the theater, so I got to write this as the movie rolled along. It's odd that I'm finishing this while the end credits are rolling, but I kind of like it. I wish I could do this more often.
I hate Channing Tatum. Like, really, really hate him. I hate looking at him. I hate how he always plays the same lame character and STILL manages to fail to deliver a realistic portrayal of what is likely his own personality. I watch his movies regularly, and I look forward to the 90 minute session of bagging on his pan-faced delivery of bad (and often mispronounced) dialogue. So, imagine how disappointed I was when I didn't hate Channing Tatum here. He kept his clothes on for the most part, which might, just might be the suggestion that he's attempting to transition from his traditional boy toy-at-large roles to something with a bit more meat on it. He got… angsty. An honest to god emotion (unnamable, but it was still there) crossed his face at least half a dozen times. I even believed he could feel them. He had what appeared to be normal interaction with other humans. Not for the first time in the last year, I thought I'd swallowed that damned red pill and no one told me about it. He might not actually be a robot wrapped in a human skin. Whoddathunkit?
Is it coincidental that I (cough, grimace) liked Channing Tatum in his first attempt at a period epic? Probably not. But, I have to say that I'm fair to middling sure that The Eagle was based on even less historical fact than, say, 300, or even 10,000 B.C. Sure, there was a Hadrian's Wall, built for much the reason that the Great Wall of China was built: to keep the riffraff out. I believe it's still at least partly standing, more or less like the Great Wall. The Romans did make serious effort to conquer what is currently known as Great Britain and I believe they weren't entirely successful. But, I believe the folks north of the wall were Picts, who didn't get along so well with the Britons, the Saxons, the Cornish folk, and the Welsh who lived further south… so it seems like that whole slave premise is totally shot. But, I have to be honest. I had a blast watching this. It's been a long, long time since I actually rooted (quietly) for a movie hero. He wasn't perfect, but I found his mission so honorable and so noble that I couldn't help but hope he completed his mission. I won't mention whether he did or not, but it was fun rooting. I'm also fairly sure that the Seal People are a fairy tale… but I'm not exactly a scholar at this part of the world at this point in history. I do; however, have it on good authority that Romans wouldn't have been praying to Zeus… Jupiter, yes, but not Zeus. This might be a case of toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe, but seriously. Get it right.
All that being said, technically, this movie was a mess: there are long, sweeping scenes of countryside that occasionally feel like they're never going to end, a desperate attempt to keep things PG-13 so that it could manage to snag Tatum's primary audience, and some lackluster combat sequences. There was some complaint from a number of sources that this was a touch… iffy, but other than the story being about two very different men who become friends on horseback, there wasn't much that sent my Brokeback-o-meter into the red. To each their own, but I suggest that if you feel that way, do some internal analysis.
This isn't the perfect movie. It's not a smart movie. Nor does it pretend to be. Sometimes a movie is just about the fun, and I think these guys delivered, in spite of the movie's flaws. My real complaint stems from having to be in the theater next to the Bieber-thing for the second day running. Squealing tweens at intermittent intervals does not amuse. Yes, yes, I just paraphrased Queen Victoria, but it's bloody well ridiculous that they put real movies next to that crap. There. I've said my piece. Oh, I was also treated to the G-rated version of that "F#*k You" song whilst I waited for the movie to start, and that was not okay. Forget you, indeed.
I risked life and limb today to cross the parking lot of one of my favorite theaters in this part of Ohio. I used to think my driveway was a deathtrap, but then I saw what this place looked like. Now I don't feel so badly.
At once, Blue Valentine manages to be both an amazing film and slightly unsatisfactory. The story centers around the lives of the same couple at two different points in their relationship: in the initial days of their romance, and somewhere around six years later, when the shininess has certainly gone out of the marriage. The evolution of the love between these two people is intense, but there seem to be (at least for me) almost as many holes as there are anything else. We see a young(er) Ryan Gosling, who is Michelle Williams' knight in shining armor, almost literally. He pursues her despite an initial resistance, and stays with her when it's determined that her past behavior is going to interfere with their relationship. Williams shows potential as she comes of age, is preparing to go to medical school, but she seems… weak and unfinished, like half-raw cookie dough coming out of the oven.
Six-ish years later, Ryan Gosling is a drunkard and sports some wicked power alleys. He's not violent or abusive, but combative might be a good word. Michelle Williams can no longer bear his touch or his attentions (in any sense of the word) and it appears that most of her has started to head south for the winter... a sight we're treated to for a long time. A very long time. VERY. The couple's small daughter seems to be the fraying glue holding their family together and even she's controversial. Accusations go back and forth, some badness happens, and without going in to more than a few details, both parties show their colors and their positions. What's missing is how these guys went from Point A to Point B. Isn't it? Or are we just going to accept that in what seems like a handful of years, Gosling has completely lost himself to some unnamed internal demon and Williams sacrificed her potential, has settled for reasons she's questioning, and hates her husband… for no obvious reason? I'm probably not, and for me that lack of a mid-point explaining how these guys spiraled so close to the abyss is a major flaw in this story.
But what's not flawed here are the performances by Gosling or Williams. It's not very often that we see a leading couple go through such an emotional rollercoaster and have it feel so real. It's not pretty, but it is (I think) a fairly good representation of what life can have in store for people. Due to some extremely limited time for a movie today, I had to make a decision: Blue Valentine or 127 Hours and in the end, I think I made the right choice.
The whole 80s hair band thing totally passed me by. I was a bit too young, and when I came of age, it was very passé. Most kids my age wouldn't have admitted listening to it if they were. I was worried initially that this would be an insurmountable problem, but it ended up not really being my issue here. Despite my reservations, I was looking for a movie that would manage to be both uncomplicated and fun, and this really fit the bill for today.
The real problem I had with this movie was the star. Not Marky Mark per se, but the character himself. How do I like a guy with serious talent, but absolutely no imagination and even less personality? I had a similar problem with Dirk Diggler, from Boogie Nights, but it wasn't such a huge problem as it was here. Chris, Wahlberg's character, spends his entire life copying his rock star idol to a point that might have earned him a restraining order in modern times, gives up his friends to impersonate this guy, and then completely fails to place his own stamp on everything that comes down the pipeline for him.
The story of this movie is pretty generic… the rise and fall of a rock star. Considering Boogie Nights, this isn't a terribly unfamiliar role for Mr. Wahlberg, and it's a role he does well. While I'm guessing his hip-hop days weren't quite as, um, rock and roll as this, they probably run close. I still shudder at the knowledge that I saw The Funky Bunch in concert at Great America in Santa Clara in the mid-90s. However, if you're going to find fault with excessive drug and alcohol use, pervasive sexual content, and well, everything as nasty as it wants to be, you might look somewhere else for entertainment.
I keep meaning to look up the soundtrack, which is FILLED with 80s new wave and rock: INXS, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Bon Jovi, and lots of my old school faves. I may not have loved these guys until college, but man do I love them now. Thanks for iTunes, Steve Jobs, because at this point, finding the soundtrack CD for this movie would be next to impossible.
Did anyone else find it funny that Chris' hometown is called Keystone and that his brother's a cop? I saw it embroidered on the patch on his sleeve during the breakfast scene and started laughing. Keystone Cops? Did I just date myself?
The Mechanic represented a strange occurrence for me: it's not very often that I like a movie without being sure WHY I like a movie. I had a few expectations when I walked in, and the movie more than lived up to those. What I suspect was that the movie suffers from a weak technical aspect but a high entertainment factor. Although I'm not even sure that's how to best describe what I saw. Point of fact, this is likely one of the least original movies ever made. Not only is it a remake, but it's a story that we've seen lots of times elsewhere. I'm fairly sure that Jean Reno made a career out of playing this character. Hell, Jason Statham has made a career playing variations on this basic theme. Does he even have a movie where his character is not actively involved in organized crime or some illicit behavior? This is usually a deal breaker for me: I hate that actors like Katherine Heigl, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, and Seth Rogen spend an eternity playing the same role over and over. For whatever reason, I don't have the same problem with Statham. I generally like his work (with the notable exceptions of The Transporter 2 and 3 and the second Crank). Buuut… I'm thinking that I'm so focused on how old I think he is to be playing action roles that it may have thrown me off my normal peeves. And yes, I just confirmed that he's only a few years older than I am. I still have my hair though. Most of it, anyway.
This was supposed to be an exercise in non-thinking fun, and I think The Mechanic succeeds there. When I made the snap decision to go to the movies today, I had a choice to make: see this or pretend that the perfection that was Avatar is going to be repeated in James Cameron's latest exercise in action spelunking, Sanctum. I'm pretty sure I made the right choice. This has a cast I like, with Donald Sutherland and Ben Foster playing important (if brief in Sutherland's case) roles for story development. Action sequences are so well done that I managed to both laugh and wince, usually in the same sequence. While that might make me sick in the head, I'd pay good money for that kind of entertainment. One of the notable things in the film is the pyrotechnics. The explosions were great, but what really looked cool in my mind was the flame rippling effect that was used a couple of times… where it looks like the fire just starts creeping along a floor or wall. I know that's just accelerant, but it is visually appealing.
There are a few technical problems in The Mechanic. The primary one being was there wasn't a single character I liked. Not one person who seemed to be completely in a morally positive zone. I understood the evolution of the characters on screen and even a bit off screen, but I couldn't find a way so that they were likeable, and that was a bit of a problem. When I realized that my most likeable character was the BAD guy, I knew I was in trouble. I also grew concerned when I realized how many weapons these guys were bringing on to planes. I never had a problem with the body scanners run by TSA, but now I'm considering approving of mandatory cavity searches. The other problem was that this reads a bit like The Transporter; great action sequences that are frequently (if not always) separated by long minutes of total boredom.
I still enjoyed this, despite the problems in the movie, but now I wished that I'd held off on this and gone to see something like 127 Hours, Blue Valentine, or The Eagle later this week.
I'll be honest. I found this heavy-handed, but still compelling. Other than Charles Dutton and Michael O'Keefe, there are only a few familiar faces, but I felt that the actors all did fair jobs with their parts. Much better, in fact, than I would have expected from a cast filled with people I'd never heard of or seen before… but then, to be fair, half the actors I have heard of or have seen before can't act their way out of a wet paper sack half the time, so I guess that's not really a good measure to judge an actor. I found this to be raw and real even though this in no way resembles my own reality. There was a bit of grittiness here that contrasts sharply with the "American heartland setting" and the film made me sad to realize how recently the events that inspired this film had happened. This wasn't happening before the Civil Rights Movement or in the early decades of the 20th Century. It was happening only a few years ago.
The politics and sensibilities of this movie are worn proudly on its sleeve, which admittedly lends a bit of preachiness to the tale, but I'll forgive that because the theme is worth a bit of righteous indignation. The story starts a little slow, but it didn't take overly long for me to get drawn in and to feel the slow stirring of my own moral outrage building. I had a similar reaction to Pursuit of Happyness. No one person should have that much stacked against them, whether through act of deity or their fellow man. Even worse was watching how many people on the periphery of Dee Robinson's life took advantage of her circumstances. It was sick, but I couldn't stop watching. Like The Jerry Springer Show.
If you're white and from Texas, you might find this film's portrayal of all its white characters a bit insulting. They painted with a pretty wide brush here, giving every Caucasian some combination of what I call the "fat good ole boy" persona and some Foghorn Leghorn-like elements. I was astounded by the legal tactics depicted and I had to wonder how much of this movie was based off of real life situations and how much was created just to emphasize how poorly the Texas judiciary was checking itself, because if there's truth here, someone needs to be paying more attention to small towns in Texas. I may not be a lawyer, but I've seen one on TV, and I know what was being done there in the name of justice isn't right.
This was a great story, but I needed a bit of an emotional pick-me-up afterwards. American Violet was heavy viewing. What surprised me was the ending, which focused less on racial aspects of the story and spent a goodly amount of energy on denouncing the plea bargaining system.
PG-13, 1 hr. 58 min. Directed by: Chris Weitz. Release Date: December 7, 2007. DVD Release Date: April 29, 2008.
There was a lot of controversy in this movie, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. I get that people think the book is about killing God, but I don't get WHY people think this movie about killing God. Like what parts specifically get people all fired up. The book was written by an atheist, true, but it's been my experience that with few exceptions, atheists give more respect to others' beliefs than are shown to their own beliefs. That's a generalization and not a universal, but it meets my life experience to date. And by atheist, I don't mean "I gave up religion for Lent a few years back and have never been happier" way, but with a complete and total lack of faith of any kind.
I asked around, talking to people who I knew to be… devout and tolerant, which seems to be a ridiculously rare combination of personality traits. My answers were unsatisfying. No one seemed to be able to point out what, specifically, was the problem, because they themselves had not been exposed to either the books or the film… but they knew it to be bad because of what they'd heard. I would have been happier to hear more "I didn't appreciate these aspects of the film/book…" and less "I don't like this because I heard these things from my [insert name of religious leader here]." I do have to give props to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for suggesting parents talk through potential moral conundrums with their kids rather than banning the film. I can't find fault with encouraging people to think for themselves.
Now, if the complaint is the portrayal of an organized government hierarchy as a form of mind control… I'm not sure the answers I got invalidate that, since most people who answered my questions let their opinions be formed secondhand (often by people who themselves didn't have firsthand experience of the book or film). And I'm certainly not sure that more than one organized religious body hasn't behaved in exactly the manner portrayed in the film… from a historical perspective. Although when I broached that subject, I mostly got shocked, incredulous faces from people. Am I the only one who remembers their world history class? I may not LIKE organized religion, but I do know some things about the heavy hitters in the league and even some of the small ones. 6 years of parochial school and 4 years in a Jesuit-founded college did not exactly make me a dull boy.
As for the film, I love the CGI work done for the daemons. I know this got a lot of bad press, but I think the creatures created not only worked within the framework of the film, but are sure to put a smile on the face of any kids who might be watching. I think the settings and set design also help that sense of wonder along, but the magic often takes a back seat to the mayhem in the film, which include a wide swath of violence, rage, child abuse, racism, kidnapping and substance abuse. Quite honestly, I would think the secular problems in the movie would create far more objections than any potential religious overtones, but you know, the whole Lent thing, so I could be wrong. I also think WAY too many people have ignored the positive messages in the film, such as doing the right thing, how to be a loyal friend and being brave in the face of adversity. More of our children should learn such lessons.
I have to agree with most of the critics that the acting is pretty atrocious. Some people have propped up Nicole Kidman as the sole source of real skill used in the film, but I think that's overly generous. Half the time, she ends up sounding like her character from Bewitched. Most of the body language is similar, too, although I do tend to think that Nicole Kidman has a handful or two of personalities shelved in her pretty head that she brings out for each of her movies. Eventually, those personalities have to be used a second, and third, and even a fourth time. It used to be that I thought Beastmaster the worst-acted fantasy movie… but The Golden Compass beats it out, largely because the star-powered cast is filled with people who have done better elsewhere. Several times.
So, if you're considering this movie for your family you have a few things to consider. Think about how devout you are. Think about how willing you are to deal with potential questions about God from your kids, although this isn't exactly as unsubtle as the Jesus-allegory lion in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, so they may not even make the connection (as I didn't). Consider whether or not your kids are in any danger of becoming atheistic heathens because they watched a movie. If none of these are a concern, you might have a fun evening with your kids in your future. If they all are a concern, look for something else. The choice is yours.
I'm going to apologize in advance for my language if it appears crass here. I did a few write ups on this, trying desperately to find something that approached my feelings on the film but that wasn't inflammatory I don't wish to offend anyone, but I suck at PC even under the best of circumstances and this is an awkward subject to write about, even in the semi-anonymity I enjoy from the internet.
This movie's been on my Netflix queue for a long time now because I think Lee Pace is one of the most amazing and under-utilized actors in his age group… which I'm guessing is plus or minus five years of my own age, and NO, I'm not telling you what that is. However, when this arrived in the wake of Congress' recent repeal of DADT, Soldier's Girl proved to be coincidentally timely. I was a little concerned that this might end up being a cross between Brokeback Mountain and The Crying Game, but this was something a little more, in part because this was a relationship that was, in many ways, more complicated and socially controversial than if it had been just a movie about a relationship between two men. The transgender card, which made a greater appearance than in The Crying Game, strove for and succeeded in an effort to put a face on something many of us are uncomfortable even pretending to be comfortable with. For a lot of Americans, the transgendered person is a horse of an entirely different color than your garden variety homosexual. It is harder to wrap your head around, a far less comfortable subject to ask questions about, and (I think) happens far less often.
Soldier's Girl is probably one of the saddest stories I've ever encountered on film, although it doesn't start out that way. The movie says a lot of things about fear, hate, and the ugliness that can live in the human heart. It tends to do so by exaggerating the stereotypes associated with the infantry in general. More than one of the young soldiers in the movie comes off strongly as a stupid, ignorant… well, redneck. In some ways, you can make a comparison with Brokeback Mountain, but only in that the relationship that takes center stage in the story was not between one person born physically male and one person born physically female (did that stab at PC-ness win me any points?). I found this harder to watch than Brokeback, even though it was less graphic… as in there were no scenes that made me wonder how anyone's character had managed to skip the chapters on foreplay and I think I only winced once, as opposed to my three winces during Brokeback.
Troy Garrity (Barry Mitchell) and Lee Pace (Calpernia Addams) should have gotten nods from something other than the Indie Spirit awards for their performances that year, because they were dynamite. Lee Pace's transformation to Calpernia was freaking amazing. He's a very fine-featured man, but he made for a decent looking woman, too. I couldn't even tell it was him until they had him out of a wig and I caught sight of his rather signature eyebrows. The two of them together made for interesting drama, especially since most people would be jittery about the interactions and I personally would be nervous giggling every five seconds, which is pretty ridiculous of a grown man. Without a doubt this was an impressive project from a cast of relative unknowns. I'm not sure I'd want to watch this again, but I'd suggest that anyone possessing an open mind (and a streaming Netflix account) check this out.
