Let the Right One In

This is a Swedish movie that a lot of critics have been raving about.  The film is definitely competent and intelligent but really, really slow.  It's a great movie to see if you're in the mood for something a bit blue.  It's essentially a vampire tale told through the lens of two twelve-year-old loners who form a bond against the often inhumane world.  The performances by the two young actors are what really keep the film grounded and their sweetness towards each other is authentic and heartfelt.  Maybe I shouldn't have had a few before the movie, because all I wanted was for the film to move along faster.  There are endless shots of the cold Swedish tundra replete with snow falling from the sky at night and WS of the general grayness and an overbearing lack of color.  Thankfully there's enough blood to add some red flourishes throughout the film.  The metaphor I would use for this film is an incredibly plain bowl of rice with a few really explosive nibbles within it.  There are some incredibly artistic touches that reinvent some vampire cliches (exposure to sunlight, the sounds the vampires make), and one thing I really liked was that a lot of the violent/suspenseful action was shot from a wide angle which somehow really heightened the surprise of it.  But overall I thought the film was a bit of a snore with an ending that was satisfying, if not a little inappropriate.

Tropic Thunder

This movie was terrible.  Ben Still needs to stop coming up with premises for movies, writing for movies, and directing movies.  The movie is essentially a series of inside-jokes about Hollywood and the process of making films - from the big asshole exec. producers, to the asshole agents, to the asshole actors, to the asshole groupies.  Nothing new is revealed about the cliche of Hollywood being full of assholes, and Stiller is probably the biggest asshole for thinking that putting Robert Downey, Jr. in black face and dressing up Tom Cruise like fat, balding executive and making him dance to rap during the end credits.  The plot itself is so contrived and unrealistic that I lost interest about a half hour in.  I watched the second half of the movie in fast forward with subtitles so I could save 15 minutes or so.  I think the most impressive thing about the movie was how deep Downey got into his character of an Australian actor playing a black character, to the point where there were no traces of the real RDJ and all you had was this completely different, completely believable human being.  Even in "Iron Man" he spends a lot of the movie being himself, but in "Tropic Thunder" he is really someone else.  Other than that, Stiller makes fun of the mentally challenged again for laughs and Jack Black is his usual zany (yawn) self.  I think the funniest part of the DVD is that there is an ad about respecting those with mental challenges on it.  What a bunch of assholes.

Slumdog Millionaire

There goes Danny Boyle again, getting me all excited with the premise of a film and dazzling me for the first hour before dumbing down his ending and leaving me ultimately unsatisfied.  There were some things about "Slumdog Millionaire" that were fantastic- the cinematography, the colors, the music-video paced editing, the soundtrack, and the access he had to Mumbai's slums, but the ending is terribly saccharine and the whole driving force behind the movie is sappy and predictable.  Granted, this movie probably wasn't made for my tastes.  It's definitely a crowd pleaser that delivers a fun, escapist experience but it's not really trying to reflect any type of reality in the world.  The same goes for Boyle's other films like "Millions" and "Sunshine" which were dazzling and fun and brilliant to look, but resolved themselves unrealistically at the end.  It's the kind of thing that separates the great filmmakers from the legendary ones.  You can either please audiences now, or please critics now and forever.  Anyway, I would still recommend anyone to go and see this movie because it does have some great moments and you will probably see some things you have never seen before.  

My Blueberry Nights

This movie was universally panned by critics, but somehow the cover of the DVD box still attracted me to check it out.  It stars Norah Jones in her first, and possibly only, starring role ever and was directed by Hong Kong legend Wong Kar-wai ("Chungking Express," "In the Mood for Love") in his first English-language feature.  Yes, Norah Jones' acting is atrocious as she spends the majority of the film eating so that she just doesn't sit there looking clueless.  But in terms of creating a mood and a feeling, this movie was a great success.  The cinematography and the editing do a great job in creating an America that doesn't look like America, but more of a romaniticized version seen from the outside-- resplendent with neon signs, a rushing subway, open roads and charming cafes/bars/diners.  It's clear that though it's not his best effort, Wong is quite adept with the subtleties of human interaction and his work still sucks you in-- even without a very good protagonist.  

Son of Rambow

So, this movie wasn't too good.  I think conceptually, somehow using Rambo: First Blood as part of the story was a cool idea and that probably drew people into watching it.  The guy that directed this movie is a famous music video director who has done a lot of stuff for Blur.  The problem is the same one that I see from a lot of music video/commercial directors in that they can do fancy visual camera tricks, but they think that stringing a series of these together will make a compelling story.  The mixing of reality with animation is done well here and the characters are somewhat compelling though a bit cliche.  It starts to feel like a Gondry knock-off pretty fast while we marvel at the creativity of the young protagonist who draws amazing worlds in the pages of his textbooks.  However, the story stumbles once it gets into more serious territory like religious cults, brothers that raise brothers and the true meaning of friendship.  The ending is borrowed a bit from "Cinema Paradiso" and the tears of the kid at the end make you want to toss the DVD out the window.  I guess this is worth watching if you wanted to direct an effects-heavy commercial or music video and saw this as part of his reel-- as a film it's too much gravy and not enough meat.  Mmm, Thanksgiving is right around the corner...

SLING BLADE

So recently I've been interested in films by first time directors.  Especially ones that have done pretty well at Sundance by first-time directors.  If I hadn't expressed it before I believe directing a good film is one of the most difficult things to do in the world (right up there with hitting a Major League home run) so, much props to those people that have done it.

The first thing that struck me about this movie was how well Billy Bob Thornton understood the world he was creating, and especially understood the characters within it.  We were being led by an expert.  We jump straight into the heart of the movie with the story told by the murderer in the mental hospital, talking in detail about one of his kills.  It's clear that the world we live in is a perilous, cruel one.   Billy Bob's Karl character is a force of nature within the film-- a simpleton who acts by what he believes is right and just (definitely not the Hamlet type).  As Karl gets released from the mental hospital and attempts to start his life anew, we are certain that he will once again face a decision where he must kill to maintain his sense of justice.  Even though you kind of know where the film is going, it's how we get there that keeps the film genuine and real.  What really drives the film is the cruelty of the antagonist, Doyle, in the film.  He's like a lot of people we know - selfish, immature, moody, insensitive, and it seems that Thornton is saying that cruelty is the result of a deep-seated dissatisfaction with one's self.  When Karl eventually hacks Doyle up, he does it without a struggle from him, and with a kind of acceptance.  In real life, the bad guy kind of knows that they're the bad guy which is sad.  I think the great thing about the film is that it's not trying to be big and cutting edge, but rather focuses on the small unexpected details of life.  I think most young directors try to hit the scene big with a totally original concept but fail to really give it the attention to detail it needs to make it good.  So many times I see that going small is the best way to go big.

Bigger, Faster, Stronger*

- starts very personally and relatably.  Looking up to Arnie, Stallone, Hulk

- interesting to revisit the Cold War influences into films like Rambo, Commando

- Ass-kicking as an American product

- Narrator/"protagonist" really is an expert in it

- it's about the people who don't make it, which is most of us

- for a movie about 'roids it comes from a surprising angle

- tone for the movie is funny and intelligent, not sad and moralizing

- from this POV steroids are not that big of a deal

- story told from a broader world POV.  Bigger than just steroids-- more about competition.

- shows baseball scandal as a real debate about America's morality/value system

- Very thorough.  Shows the people who are helped by steroids. 

- Gets you into a position where you start thinking Steroids aren't such a big deal

- connecting news headlines from over the years effectively - Lyle Alzado, Chris Benoit

- It's all really about chasing things that don't exist

- starts getting a little bigger than its britches in talking about enhancements in everything

- a factual and psychological study

- the tragedy of humans trying to succeed beyond their means.

Goya's Ghosts

Sad to say but I still think Natalie Portman's best role ever was in The Professional when she was a kid.  Here in this movie you get the chance to see her act badly-- twice, as she plays the roles of a mother and the daughter.  More on this in a sec.  The film was directed by Milos Forman ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "People vs. Larry Flynt") and also stars Javier Bardem and Stellan Skaarsgard, both excellent actors.  Immediately I found it kind of odd that all the characters were supposed to be Spanish but were all talking English, and some didn't look very Spanish at all.  Javier Bardem felt like he was a Spanish guy playing an American guy with a Spanish accent so I found his accent a little strange.  The movie was fine but it was more of a political tome about the insanity of using torture to get confessions (timely, anyone?) than it was a film.  So, Natalie Portman played a woman put to "The Question" to get a confession about eating pork.  Seriously.  After confessing, she gets thrown into a prison where she's raped by a monk, has a kid, and has it stripped away from her.  She gets locked there for 15 years until Napoleon rolls in and takes over.  Basically, they show the passage of 15 years on Portman's face by making her look like the girl in the Exorcist and giving her fucked up teeth.  You could almost imagine her looking into a mirror after being done up and laughing her ass off.  Later, Goya finds her daughter who (shockingly) looks just like her except she has dark hair and fucked-up teeth again.  Portman's acting is pretty much just a reaction to what she looks like, and is completely lacking in depth.  After having seen the Goya exhibit at the Prado in Madrid, I'm really disappointed by this film.  Instead of examining the life of this guy, it really just uses him to lecture us about the director's political views.  Some redeemable scenes and educational but will not leave you satisfied.

Rachel Getting Married

It's cool to see a big Hollywood director like Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) go back and do a real independent film--though some of the film did feel like indie-film-by-number, like the title sequence, and some of the shaking of the camera throughout the movie, and the end credits.  That being said there were parts in the movie where I got really lost in the story, the emotions involved felt so real.  Movies like this can be tricky-- going in I kind of knew that there was a reason that the Anne Hathaway character (Kym) acted out, was tortured and weird, etc. etc. and i was expecting it to be early child molestation or something like that, but they handled the reason very delicately and unexpectedly, and i think the payoff was effective and really made you empathize with the Kym character.  I thought that the movie could've been about 15 minutes shorter-- they really take you through the whole rehearsal/wedding ceremony.  The director made it feel like you were also a guest at the wedding, watching along and participating, which is great if you've always wanted to be a part of a hippie/love-is-all-you-need/vegetarian family.  I liked that every character was torn between what they knew what they should do and what they really wanted to do, esp. Kym's sister.  Also really well done in the movie was the little reaction shots throughout.  I'm trying to use this tactic more and more in my own work, where you basically tell the whole story through the facial expressions of the characters.  Like when Rachel's anal best friend is giving her rehearsal dinner speech and you see these quick, one-second shots of people gristling and wincing at the mild inappropriateness of it.  This is definitely a movie by a director/writer that have lived a bit and know how to recreate reality-- it's material that could've been mauled by a younger director.  Overall it's definitely worth seeing.

The Assassination of Jesse James....

So this is a movie that would've been really great with a little more editing.  There was something really slow and dreamlike about a lot of the sequences which was great, but sometimes it got a little excessive.  And I thought the VO was a little too close to what was done at the beginning of "Magnolia" that made it feel too self-conscious about itself.  You could feel the director thinking too much, if that makes sense-- it's like a seamstress not covering up her stitches.  There's a whole section in the middle that could've been cut out but the beginning and the end are dynamic and Casey Affleck gives a ridiculously good performance as the ambitious, talentless, cowardly Robert Ford.  I think there's a little of that character in all of us.  In the end I thought it was a cool message about a legend growing weary of his legend and how in our culture today we all think we could/should be big stars even if we don't have the gifts to make it there.  I don't think hard work gets you all the way.

My Favorite Directors

People tend to look towards the past when naming their favorite directors:  Truffaut, Antonini, Hitchcock, Wilder, Altman, blah blah blah.  My favorite directors are pretty much exclusively guys that are still alive and working.  It's hard to watch an old movie, years after it was released, and feel the same resonance as something that you see right as it comes out.  Like "Chinatown," which I still think is a masterpiece, but I wonder how it would feel if I saw it in the theatre on opening night, before hearing any cineaste gush about how it's sooo amazing.  Anywho, here are my favorite directors not in random order:

1. Paul Thomas Anderson

2. Alexander Payne

3. Christopher Nolan

4. Terrence Malick

5. Stanley Kubrick (OK, he's an exception)

and then some other directors I also enjoy:

6. Spike Lee

7. Ryan Fleck

8. Scorsese (too popular of a choice, picking him doesn't mean much anymore)

9. Steven Soderbergh

10. Lasse Hallstrom

I'm sure there are a few I'm forgetting, but pretty much my TOP 3 choices represent my truly favorite filmmakers, and really I think PT Anderson is above and beyond any director working today.  I'd love to hear what you all think.

My Sassy Girl

So this is a remake of a hugely popular Korean movie-- and it went straight to DVD in the states.  That's why the title seems so weird because I think it's a direct translation (kind of like Chinese fireworks).  It stars that dude from "Bring it On" and that chick from "24" and was directed by the French guy who directed "Love Me if You Dare" which was a big French hit I guess.  The biggest problem with this movie was the writing.  Felt like it was written by some over-eager fresh out of college guy douchebag who has a relative in the business.  The director seems to do what he can to make it watch-able but his style is also full of gimmicks- whip pans, fast motion, sound effects and overly lush sets.  The font at the beginning of the movie was super annoying, that hand-written innocent kind (it's amazing how important the font and opening credits can be, but it is essential for setting a good tone).  There's too many fuck-ups by the director and writer to name them all but here's a few that really annoyed me: 

- after the girl passes out he carries her over his back back to his apartment in broad daylight;

- here's a line from the movie, verbatim-- "Yes I'm free and loving it!"; 

- when the country boy goes to the big city he says hi to everyone he passes on the Brooklyn Bridge (barf!); 

- the makeup and wardrobe are so immaculately clean and crisp, even for the main guy's sloppy best friend

- in general it's a 20 year old philosophizing on love and life and honestly, no one that young has the right to tell anyone how things are-- unless they grew up in the streets, and then that's usually only good for one movie.

Not to say there aren't redeeming things about the movie.  The concept is pretty interesting and there are some clever plot twists, but they've been pretty much wasted by the heavy-handed writer and director.  I think I'll see the Korean version to see if it's any better.  That reminds me of the movie "Il Ultimo Bacio" which became "The Last Kiss" in America.  Original far superior to piece-of-shit Zach Braff remake.  PLEASE STOP CASTING HIM.

Snow Angels

This film is by one of my favorite directors - David Gordon Green who also directed "George Washington," "All the Real Girls," and "Undertow".  People kind of see him as a second-rate Terrence Malick but I think he's more of an evolution of him.  One thing he can do is affect you and everything he does (almost everything) feels genuine and real.  It's amazing how you can tell from the first frame of a movie whether a director knows what the hell they're doing or not.  Everything in the movie plays out so casually.  Usually the more explosive the situation, the more casually it's played, like all the scenes right before Kate B's death.  There's no suspenseful angles or stirring music to move the scene, just the real emotions of the actors.  Reminded me of "Elephant."  I liked the use of the distant camera in the movie, shooting at a wide angle makes the audience feel like they are observing quietly, like you're spying on them.  At the same time there's not all that zooming in and out that "Friday Night Lights" overused.  Everything was great about the movie until the third act when it got all Hollywood-y and someone had to break out a gun.  Of course.  But other than that it's a film you can really examine to learn how the director slowly builds a feeling through tiny, human events.

Sex and the Shitty

So, decided to rent Sex and the City, using Natalie as the excuse to watch it.  We actually saw SJP in Paris this year and I got a nice paparazzi pic of her with my camera.  She actually looked pretty good though the 1/2 inch thick of foundation was kind of gross in retrospect.  So I was actually a minor fan of the show-- thought the writing was sharp and somewhat relatable, but the film, the film was horseshit.  It was way too long, the laughter was all canned and it really didn't get going until the wedding was called off.  The movie should have begun there instead of an hour beforehand with all this bullshit exposition that could've taken five minutes to set up.  The Charlotte character was one-dimensional and played to the worst of female stereotypes and it felt like the cast didn't get to rehearse for the scenes or get warm for the first half of the film.  There was some genuine/emotion by the end but it was too late.  Writing about this movie has bored me, so sorry if it has bored you too.  Don't see it.

30 Rock

So I've started watching 30 Rock on DVD after staying with my friend Phil in DC and hearing him laugh his ass off while watching it.  I decided it couldn't totally suck.  Took a while to get going but it is pretty good and it helps that each episode is under a half hour.  I really like the pacing of the show-- the editing is really fast and Tina Fey and cast are constantly in motion which I think is great.  It takes a few episodes to break through some of the character cliches (Alec Baldwin's robotic boss, Tracy Morgan's zany black guy, and Tina Fey's klutzy, post-feminist workaholic) but it does get to some genuine emotions.  I'm usually not such a fan of woman comedians (forgive me) but Tina Fey plays up the self-deprecation and desperation and I think that's what makes anyone funny.  I'm trying to remember examples of this but I'm not watching it now and I didn't write it down so I don't have an illustrative details.  I have this same problem when it comes to anything I do creatively-- I can come up with concepts but not examples.  Sonofabitch this thing is getting off track.  So the show is pretty good, but not great but I would recommend it.

My Film Journal

So, for a while now I've been keeping a film journal of all the movies that I watch.  It helps me to take note of interesting techniques and ideas in films that I don't want to forget.  It also helps me remember what not to do-- I've recently come to believe that a bad movie had more to teach you than a great one.  My annoying douchebag cousin once said "you love what you know."  And though he's still a douche, he was right on that one, and the more I delve into the world of film, the more passionate I become about it.