Here is where I will keep track of the flicks I've watched. If you see typos or errors, or you really like what I wrote, or maybe you flat out disagree with me. Don't be shy! Lemme know what YOU think.
The Host is the most! If you're a teenage girl that is. It's got a science fiction, post apocalyptic frame work, but it's chock full of naive, romantic idealism, and cute boys (Jeremy Iron's son, Max Irons and Jake Abel) fighting over the main girl. I appreciated that it has a woman, (Diane Kruger), as the main bad guy, and William Hurt in a supporting rebel leader role.
I didn't expect much, I actually anticipated awfulness since it's based on books written by the same woman who brought us the Twilight series. This time round Stephanie Meyer created a character I like much more though. The heroine(s) in this one, played by Saoirse Ronan in a dual role, is much less a victim of circumstance than Bella was in Twilight. I think Bella got kick ass by the end of the Twilight series, but I since I couldn't bring myself to watch that far or read more than the first novel, I can't vouch for that fact.
There were identifiable elements of Mormon ideology in the storyline, more in the morals, but nothing too obvious. Actually the most egregious bit was a self sacrifice moment that I think was supposed to mirror Jesus some. However, that came across more self indulgent and teenage drama queenie, since it was a completely unnecessary sacrifice done more for selfish and sad reasons than to save anyone, never mind atone for the sins of the human race.
Perhaps that will resonate for Mormon's though, and the idea of sacrifice in general is universal enough that people can relate, it's just the character's sacrifice was pointless. Still the book/film were designed for those in the midst of their teenage drama years so I'm betting the flick will play especially well to that crowd. I mean there's a scene where kissing and provoking jealousy is important to the plot!
After the movie, I overheard an old guy saying it's a soap opera - better acted and with better visuals, but that's all it was. Yeah, dude! I guess Invasion of the Boyfriend Snatchers was not for him, but I enjoyed it well enough, in spite of the draggy bits. It had some good action, scenic desert backdrops, some stellar special effects a here and there, that all added up to some quality imagery. Mostly though, it's all relationship, all the the time, and that's fine. That's what's important in life anyhow - the people we know and love, and how we relate to them. Teenage drama or not, it's got its priorities straight.
I wasn't expecting all that from this one since metacritic only rated it 51, but the effects were good, the 3D put to good use, and the giants were pretty great looking, even if they made me feel like I was watching a video game.
The story was NOT that great though. Typical hero boringness - boy meets princess and has to rescue her and earn her love through trial and fire. yadayadayada. Jack, (Nicholas Hoult who was great in Warm Bodies), Ewan Mcgregor as Elmont, a do gooder knight, and Eleanor Tomlinson as the Princess Isabelle, were all blandness. As a whole, it was all very fairy tale normal and aside from the vivid scenery and special effects, not spectacular at all. Serviceable entertainment and not much more. It was such a missed opportunity, because the giants were great, or rather they had the potential to BE great...but their characterisation was lacking. They weren't very well developed so they lacked personality and their menace was ultimately wasted.
I thought it was a real shame they didn't delve more into the giant's mythos and world.
For me the best scene and one of the biggest missed opportunities, was when the giants gain their freedom. It could have been something special, a Martin Luther King moment of speechifying on freedom, equality, and respect, with the giants and humans coming to an understanding, and living in peace....but naw, this is a hollywood blockbuster wannabe, so all that freedom meant, was the giants were free to make war.
Another moment I got excited and then let down by the plot, was when the giants got some of those magic beans and the stalks were growing up to the sky...I thought cool! They're going up to the next level! I did not expect that... are they going to battle God? Heaven? What is gonna be up there? But, no, got plunged back to plebian predictable plot lines as the giants clambered down the vines to battle man.
Like I said, the giants even as underwritten as they were, were still the best part. I liked how the 2nd in command giant Fumm (voiced by Brian Daniels) resembled the 2nd in command to Ewan Mcgregor - the criminally underused Eddie Marsan.
There was a moment when I thought Fumm was going to claim the crown from Fallon, the two headed giant, (voiced by the always awesome Bill Nighy), who had seemingly perished in the moat, but nope, when Fumm said "Get the hooks", it was to get in the castle, not go crown fishing. I guess Fumm wasn't ambitious. Bill Nighy was pretty great in his limited role, did what he could with the material, but like I said, there just wasn't much there for him to work with.
I was surprised how short Ian Mcshane was as the king - he reminded me of the king in Shrek. Little wee royal man, and the bad guy, Roderick (hammed up by Stanley Tucci) reminded me of Sascha Baron Cohen, probably because yeah, they look a little alike, but mostly because Cohen loves to chew scenery too. Ewen Bremner was pretty over the top too in his sidekick villain role. He looked like Ichabod Crane to me.
Only worth it in 3D and not at full price. I saw it on cheap night so I feel like I got my money's worth.
Snoop Dogg's documentary Reincarnated is all about his journey from poor ghetto kid to superstar rapper but it primarily focuses on his further travels on to Jamaica where he finds redemption with reggae and Rastafarianism. It's especially entertaining if you're a fan of Snoop or have an interest in the roots of reggae, but it's the redemptive elements of the flick that will have a universal appeal.
It starts with him going off to Jamaica and gives the back story on why he goes there. It details his road to success and continues on to show the construction of his new identity and his latest album too.
Once he lands in Jamaica he hooks up with some Rasta dudes and takes a trip into the Blue Moutains for a tour and a cultural introduction to their rituals. Later on he visits the infamous birthplace of reggae and rocksteady music, Trench Town, a poor but culturally dynamic neighbourhood in Kingston and mingles with the folk there. He ends up jamming with musicians there too. Snoop was all, come with me, I got a studio down the road, everything we need to get going, but they were all woah dude, check yourself, we got our own studio here - don't be dissing us on our turf." One man was especially skeptical and confrontational with Snoop, but Snoop charmed the disagreeable local with some California bud as a peace offering. Then after a big smoking session, they all made some music together in the little DIY studio. Snoop was praising them, gave props to their abilities and asked them to collaborate with him on his album.
I really liked this part because Snoop was going there with the expectation that he'd be supplying them with the means to make music, and that they were impoverished and deprived. While that may be true on the grander wealth scale, these men were not without means, and especially not musically. He couldn't buy them; Snoop's wealth and fame didn't have much sway with them. He had to earn their respect, and this encounter of mutuality and give and take, is definitely something the usually deferred to powerfully rich and famous, don't tend to experience.
I dunno if the Trench Town folk ended up working on Snoop's album, but he did get Bunny Wailer on side at least for the movie. There is a ton of great behind the scenes music making, demonstrating the creative process and nuts and bolts negations too. That and mucho sessions of greens smokings, naturally ;) It was great when Bunny got real with Snoop: before he'd sit in and lend his talent to Snoop's project, Bunny had a serious conversation about whether or not Snoop was changing up his musical style for the right reasons or if he was just wanting to exploit reggae and the Marley/Wailers reputation for commercial gain. Bunny did sing for the film and for Snoop, but I'm wondering if Bunny's voice will make one of the tracks on Reincarnated as he's since condemned Snoop's appropriation of Rastafarianism and reggae music. I can understand that some, since Snoop is going in as an outlander and carrying away reggae, saying it's his now. He's also been quoted as saying he's the reincarnation of Bob Marley, though I think that's taken out of context some. Still sounds crazy egotistical though.
In fact, as entertaining and educational the musical elements were, I thought the film was best when it touched on real issues like how poor people are in Jamaica. When they went to Trench Town, it was explained how while weed is freely used as a sacrament, and it's a vital cash crop that sustains the poor, it's still illegal. In 2010, the extradition of a drug dealer named Christopher Dudas Coke was a contentious story. He was situated in one of poorest neighbourhoods in Kingston and his arrest was considered a devastating blow for some of the people of his community, since Dudas was known as a Robin Hood redeemer, who redistributed drug profits back into the community. Apparently he was known for paying for the local children's schooling and such.
Another great part is when Snoop visits The Alpha Boys school, which is famous for providing musical training for some of Jamaica's most important musicians.
He checks in on a practice session/music class and this was one of the more charming parts of the film, as the boys were so so stoked to be performing for him. When Snoop sits in on their jam and starts in on singing their praises? Those kids were just beaming.
Really sweet too, was the collaboration he does with his daughters, No Guns Allowed, a song about how he's choosing love and time with his daughter instead of the violence associated with money making gangster rap. He explains more in this interview.
Another good scene was with another relative? She might not be related, but she wrote a song after Snoop and his cousin find out one of their cousins died. She's inspired after seeing an ashtray filled to the brim - she says people deal with grief in various ways and that night Snoop and his cousin smoked a lot and puffed to the sky. This reminded me of the ritual of pouring out liquor for a lost loved one, and she used a phrase I can't recall describing that smoking in commemoration and contemplation of a death - light up the sky or summat.
Anyhow, It's a very positive film.
And in case you're wondering, it does touch on his life of crime, He doesn't duck that aspect of his past. The most interesting parts are in the beginning of his career with the court footagage of when he's shown getting out of a murder rap. The details of the crime aren't explained, but 3 people were involved in the killing of Philip Woldermarian. Mckinley Lee, Snoop's bodyguard allegedly shot him while Snoop and Woldermarian were arguing in Snoop's car. There was another man in the backseat, but he wasn't charged. Superstar lawyer for the accused, Johnny Cochrane defended Snoop and Lee. Read more about it here.
Creepiest was when he describes how Suge Knight was talking about the night he and Tupac were shot. The way Suge described things, Tupac was more concerned about Suge's head wound when it was Tupac who had the critical injuries - 4 bullets found him and they were fatal wounds. Snoop only realized how dire things were for Tupac when he got to the hospital and it was grim faces all around. I guess Tupac and him were close. Snoop said Tupac taught him how to wear Italian suits and live large in a way he wouldn't have appreciated without Tupac's influence. Snoop had a lot of regret for how things were messed up between them at the time of Tupac's death and how that was never resolved. He said they had a beef over minor stuff, but Tupac was dead before it could get patched. He seemed sad too, about the fact that when Suge was arrested, Snoop was refused entry to see him in jail. He credits that with his being pushed out of LA, as Death Row records ended up being taken over by others, and Snoop wasn't important to them anymore. He ended up moving South and putting out 3 albums with Master P. Snoop said this set him on his course for even bigger success with Dr Dre in 2001 with The Chronic.
They played "Still Dre" when talking about this period, and please check out the wikipedia page on the song because the interpretation/synopsis there is hilariously deadpan.
Another interesting disclosure bit, was when he talked about the period when he was a pimp. He said when he was growing up the ghetto superstars, the only successful role models in the hood, were the pimps and drug dealers, so of course he wanted to do that. Apparently his job paid $80 a week, but he could make $1500 a night doing crime. Not a very difficult choice, really eh? He stopped when he realized it was disrespectful to the women in his life to profit that way, but he said it was a learning experience. He had 3 actual girls, who he called predatory and they recruited about 100 "virtual" girls to work the streets for him. He joked about how he was a loveable pimp.
I don't know when he got out of pimping, but he sure had fun with the image in the video he did with 50 Cent.
Snoop said he got out of crime by following in the footsteps of the rappers who came before him, didn't really detail that process or who he modeled himself after, or maybe he did and I just missed that.
The film had some comic relief through his cousin, Daz. He was pretty amusing, reminded me of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys... always be smoking. ;) When they trek up to the Blue Mountains to harvest some weed, he's so jazzed to be there, and laughs saying, "Who could believe I'd be rolling a blunt in the jungle?" He almost falls down the mountain, and then gets totally winded climbing around. I doubt there's a scene in there were he isn't high. He's educational too when he demonstrates how to bake a blunt so it smokes evenly, all while baked on that good Jamaican ganja.
Bunny Wailer was pretty great too. He's a wee little man but he's got an outsized regal spiritual presence, and the pipe he's constantly carrying is so appropriately made out of a carrot.
The best part for me, aside from the behind the scenes music makings, would be the Rastafarian elements, especially the ceremony where Snoop gets his Rastafarian baptism. I dunno if that's what the ceremony was actually, but he was given the name Berhane, which means light, and he really was glowing. After the naming ceremony, when asked how he felt, he had one word to say, "Love." It truly seemed to be a spiritual awakening for him. I don't know much about the religion other than it involves smoking weed and that it has roots in Christianity. I've also heard people diss the religion, sawing that Rastafarianism is simply a justification to smoke weed. They actually do smoke a lot of weed all the time, but they do it with a reverence and it's done in religious ritual context. Like any religion, there are ceremonial ritualistic and dogmatic elements, but I noticed how the principles of honouring love, respect, and positivity, are also very evident.
You can totally hear that in Reggae music too, it's all about the power of love and community connectedness.
Of course this is a rebranding of Snoop and I could go the cynical route and criticize his transformation from Gangster Rapper to Jah Love Rapper, but I think he's sincere. He was very forthcoming and spoke about his criminal past and the exploitive values he used to have, and how he's no longer about that. I choose to believe that he is genuine about this change of heart and that he's more about promoting positivity in his music and not simply out to change his image to make a buck.
I really enjoyed the doc. And I'm glad Snoop found his Iron like Lion in Zion. I liked too when he said he's 40 years old now! He's wise...wiser....bud wiser. Oh Snoop, you so punny.
I got to see this knowing only that it was directed by the same guy who did Oldboy, and that Nicole Kidman was in it. I saw the poster going in so I knew that Mia Wasikowska was in it too, but everything else was a surprise. I'd suggest you go into it knowing as little as possible, because I just watched the trailer, and even though it doesn't completely destroy the plot, it does give away a whole lot of key points. Besides, knowing NOTHING is by far the best way to see any movie anyhow. So go watch it before you read the rest of this, because I'm gonna spoil shit because I feels like it. Fair warning eh?
It's guilty of the usual crimes when it comes to movies and mental illness - the crazy folk are killers, and the killers are crazy, because they have cold moms who didn't love them right - well at least one of the killers has a mom who's a fucking cold hearted bitch - the dad was ok seems like.
But I dunno, sure was like he was doing a Dexter's dad kinda deal, teaching his daughter how to channel her kill crazy impulses by taking her out hunting where she could kill animals instead of harming people. I guess that's a compassionate thing though?
The dad's funeral is what starts the flick off, so the daughter doesn't have him dragging her out for that bird killing outlet anymore, and immediately her crazy uncle, (played so very well in a disquieting performance by Matthew Goode), is on the scene. And you know he's crazy from the get go. He is seriously the creepiest uncle ever. Uncle Fester was a sweetheart in disguise, but this guy is an all-American Psycho - all slick rich dude with the nice clothes, and a dead eyed psychopath smile - just gave me the heebie jeebies from the first scene. Psycho killer qu'est ce que - he even parlez vous francais!!
He kinda looks like the dude from Beverly Hills 90210 - the guy from Vancouver, Jason Priestly. Joe was saying that he should have been played by Tom Cruise, because watching Nicole Kidman and her ex square off? Damn rights people would have payed to see that! And yeah that's true, and yeah the guy kinda looks like Tom, but he looks like a lot of other actors too. He's got a clean cut, rich guy swagger, with mental edges, that any number of actors have pulled off. Anyhow, he did a great job, but so did Kidman, and especially Mia Wasikowska.
Alden Ehrenreich, from Beautiful Creatures who was doing his best Jack Nicholson, or maybe he was doing Christian Slater? He's got a small part playing a nice guy who turns into an asshole rapist - or does he? Because the unreliable omniscient narrator aspect of the film, while making things interesting, it wasn't good for coherent storytelling. I dunno if Mia's memories going back and forth in time, if that was stylistic bullshit, or if it created more tension through ambiguity, or if I'm just not getting something.
Anyhow, it sure seemed like the girl was a chip off her crazy uncle's gene block.
Ooo! I have to mention the music. There were 3 great uses of music. One was the final scene song - she kills the sheriff and talks about sailing off into the sunset to a creepy power grrrl rap kinda lyric,
The scene where Nicole Kidman is seducing her BIL to Lee Hazelwood's Summer Wine - this is heard again when Kidman is reminiscing on that conquest while listening to an iPod, and the daughter is maybe gonna kill her? "Sometimes you need to do something bad to stop you from doing something worse."
Finally when Mia and her uncle duet on the piano - or do they? This is another one of those scenes where you're wondering - did that happen or did she just think that? What just happened again???
I found the piano duet scene excruciating. It was erotic and gross both. Squicky AND sexy, at the same time! Confusing!!! Urghmm?
I found a mixcloud that streamed the whole soundtrack - at least the musics by Clint Mansell, but it's not working anymore. Still, the musics be worthy eh?
It was a great movie, not moral or anything. Lurid as fuck actually. As I said right after, when asked what I thought, "If you're gonna make a movie about killers, you could do much worse." I liked it. Super tension, especially near the end.
As usual, I didn't watch any trailers, and avoided reading about this movie before watching. I wish I had read up on the director though, then I could have asked him about what it was like to work on his dad's Dracula film - he was responsible for some of the special effects there. It's seriously one of my fav movies ever - at least the opening sequence is amongst the best beginnings of any film I've ever seen. Yeah the rest can bite me some, but that beginning? Mmhhmm... I've watched it hundreds of times, and I don't ever get sick of the baroque, romantic, excess. It's so f'n great.
Now about Charlie Sheen: The Movie - I mean, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan. :P I have to say I was disappointed. It had sooooo much going for it: great actors, great music, great style and feel, with an ambiguously weird setting. It's supposed to take place in 70's LA.... kind of? But I sure wasn't sure that was the era. It could have been an affectation of Swan to have retro shit around his place, and drive old cars, I mean, 70's style IS pretty styley ya know? Eccentric folk tend to wear crazy shit anyhow, and Hollywood is full of them types too.
I guess what disappointed me most about the movie is that because it's an independent film, it carries on it's shoulders the fate of other independent films. When one indie triumphs or fails, it reflects that failure or glory, back at the films that follow, in terms of shrinking or expanding the pool of resources willing to invest in independent films. When the host of the Q&A commented that, yeah, it was getting bad reviews, and asked Coppola how he personally dealt with that, he said he didn't mind if people didn't like the movie, but it bugged him that a poor response would affect his ability to garner funding for future projects.
I had a few thoughts on Roman Coppola, and the life of 2nd generation film folk, after seeing the movie, and hearing Coppola share anecdotes on his career, and early life on his father's film sets. One tidbit? He cast Charlie Sheen because he had a connection with him from when they were kids together on the set of Apocalypse Now.
I've been to a few Q&As where the children of famous directors speak about their work, and it's inevitable that some questions relate to that relationship. Think about that eh? How annoying would it be to be doing your thing while being constantly pitted against your parent? How would that shape you? It's inevitable that we are affected by our parents, and it makes sense to follow in the footsteps of a parent too, as the apparatus for success is so much more there, if a parent is willing to educate you on how they went about attaining success. Of course, some parents aren't prone to that, and are actually threatened by the idea of their children's success, but most aren't mental that way, and they'll actively mentor their kids to succeed in whatever way they can. It's simply good parenting to aid in equipping your kids for the world by blazing the trail, and sharing with them the tricks of your trade.
I went to a lecture by Gabor Mate before the movie, and that had a deleterious affect on how I viewed the film. A few things rankled: that the male characters and especially Charlie Sheen/Swan related in objectifying ways to the women in their lives, wasn't all that amusing. But the fact that the character didn't grow, and that he was completely absorbed in trivial and selfish ego concerns, was just fucking boring. He was like the Bill Murray character in Groundhog Day before he has comes to the realization that being a selfish fuck doesn't make him happy.
I wanted to ask about the casting and if he had the actors in mind while writing, but the host of the evening took care of that question. And a few more besides by the time she turned it over to the audience. He thought up the characters before he cast the film. He knew he'd drive that particular car - a old Cadillac with a bacon and eggs decal on the side. Charles Swan heads up an advertising firm, so he's very concerned with image and design. More of the bullshit ephemera we feed our egos with, but whatever, because I really did enjoy that aspect of the film - there's lots of cool retro imagery.
The absolute best thing about the film, aside from the joy of going to a theatre where I can eat popcorn AND drink beer without sneaking some in, was that I was introduced to an artist that I fucking LOVE. Liam Hayes does the soundtrack and even has a cameo near the end. I'd never heard of this guy before but looking him up, that's not so strange. He's not very well known, except he's big in Japan - really. He was working so hard and long on his 2nd album that his label dropped him - he spent $100,000 of his own money producing it, then it languished for a bit until a Japanese label picked it up. He's kinda mysterious. In my research, various articles muse on how exactly he's financed his career. Who's your benefactor, man? Perhaps he's second generation wealthy too. I dunno, but I sure like him. He really reminds me of Harry Nilsson, and Ben Folds Five some too. Very seventies sound to him.
Charles Spencer Anderson? Coppola mentioned that he'd made Charles Swan work in advertising because he'd become interested in the imagery of the 70's and called him Charles Swan to recognize the achievements of Charles ???? I think he meant Charles Spencer Anderson, but I could be misremembering. In any case Anderson is responsible for a lot of cool and iconic imagery.
Another interesting thing, Coppola used his own place as Charles Swan's, he swung around the skype camera to give us a looksee. Behind the scenes magics. :) Some women in the audience wanted to know if the bathtub scene was done in his house but I wasn't sure why they cared - do they love Charlie Sheen, or was it that they were drooling on the director? Probably more they were grooving on the fame.
Oh yeah, before I asked my question about why the character didn't grow in the film, I was gonna ask about why he had a cowboys and Indians thing going on the flick. Someone else asked after my question, before I could, and I guess he just thought it was cool looking and fit with the 70's thing since Westerns were popular then. Whatever for cultural appropriation eh?
And the reason he didn't grow? Coppola said that it didn't feel right, that the character had a life of his own and "he wouldn't do that." My actual question related to a couple scenes bookending the film, where he throws a bag of his girlfriend's shoes off a cliff and the bag gets stuck in a tree. At the end he goes to get the bag and you think oh, he's learned some empathy and he's gonna give back her stuff, but NO! He rescues the shoes from the tree so he can really give them the heave ho into the canyon and a big fuck you to his ex and the same time. Selfish petty action from a selfish petty man no? I guess you could say he was ditching baggage, literally. But meh. I didn't like that. So yeah, this movie served with complimentary eye rolls.
I wanted to see this when I learned that Emmanuelle Riva starred in it. She's the oldest woman to be nominated for best actress, for her role in the very excellent Amour (2012 dir Michel Haneke). This was her first film, though she was involved in theatre for many years before.
I watched some of the supporting material on the Criterion disc I borrowed from the library. I actually watched them at the library, since I had to return the disc and didn't have time for the final interview unfortunately.
It's not like any other film I've ever seen. It started off as a documentary project, but evolved into a meta film with elements of docudrama condemning the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima with very graphic and powerful imagery.... but mostly it's a tragic romance.
In one of the interviews on the disc, Riva said she'd never been asked to play a grown woman before, (just girls), so she was pleased to play one and and an adulteress, and emancipated woman, no less. That her character is also put in a loony bin because she loses her mind over lost love, is perhaps par for the course for women who dare to challenge the narrow confines of appropriate and constrained sexual behaviour. Yeah, it's definitely a feminist flick, because she's autonomous in her sexual appetites - the man she takes as her lover, tries to own and dominate her to his will, but she ain't having none of it.
I wondered about the power imbalances between them, especially in terms of racist attitudes being more pronounced and accepted when it was made. With her being white and him Japanese, I think the idea of miscegenation was fairly ingrained and considered rather shocking and improper, never mind the fact that they were both adulterers. We've come a long way since then, supposedly, but I couldn't help question that racial aspect of their romance and if it was an obstacle to their love. Mostly though, it wasn't addressed and actually the taboo of them getting together was likely a turn on and created more interest in the film too. In terms of story motivations though the real roadblock to further entanglements seemed more due to the fact that she was only visiting his country and even more important, in spite of their compatibility, that they already had life partners.
I really enjoyed this one, it's got a lot going on, and it's tres tragique with that doomed love the French know how to do so well.
I really liked this one. I expected a very different movie though. I thought it was going to be about the formation of the Church of Scientology, detailing the scummy scammy cynical elements of the origins of the organization, and for sure it's got those aspects but more in a passing way than the straight up docudrama history lesson I anticipated. I was captivated by what all went down - it's really a story of Phoenix's elemental man vs Hoffman's cerebral controlling man with Hoffman trying to own, tame, control, and dominate, with his bullshit religious dogma and psychobabble. The methods might be suspect but the struggle and passion and belief are real as fuck.
Joaquin Phoenix plays a sailor, a drunken sailor, lost not so much at sea, but lost nonetheless. He can't find his place, he's always wandering and running from himself, running from one drunken debacle to the next. He's impulsive and wild, full of an angry passion and seems to yearn for meaning and love, but at the same time is afraid of both.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is the guru, the man at the apex of his fledgling cult - modeled on Scientology, but here called The Cause. He hides from everyone his true motives and I'm not even sure what he wanted aside from power. I kept wondering whether he really believed the fantastical garbage he was forcing down the throat of his followers, but I'm pretty sure he was just using their search for meaning, and plugging their holes with his ideas to feed his ego. I felt sorry for his duped followers eh?
I was really reminded of my father watching this. He wasn't old enough for this to be his era, but his sensibilitiy and resemblance to both men would be obvious to all who knew him. He was a drunk and a smart man both. Hoffman looked like him complexion wise and he was more similar to him in intellect, but his soul was more Joaquin's. A sad man, a man who felt adrift and unmoored often, yet still stupidly prideful and arrogant at his part in the making of his own misery too, and so continued to hoe that row of unyeilding dirt. Ain't gonna harvest nothing from there but sweat and pain.
Dichotomy and despair, it's served up raw with a side of bitter sweet cynicism in this tale of thwarted love.
So we ended up seeing Django Unchained after all, and then Les Miserables after that. Joe and I both cried at the end of Les Mis. He said it was the best ending of a film that he's seen this year. I agree it was a moving moment, but the film was super long and really dragged in spots. I think in total it only had 3 good songs in there, those songs were really good though, can you say verklempt? At first I was all pissed off at the shaky cam and quick cut edits, but I let that go. Also I wasn't all that impressed with the singing, except for Amanda Seyfried and the guy who played Cosette's love interest, also the daughter of the innkeepers had a nice voice. But especially Russell Crowe was lamo - I think better voices should have been cast. I liked Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter in their buffoonish lowlife roles - they provided the comic relief to an altogether dismal and ernest affair.
Django was lots more fun. I think what I liked best about it was how authentically 70's exploitation spaghetti western it looked and felt. The songs sounded 70's, well they actually used 70's songs so I guess that makes sense. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Tarantino's inspiration for having Jamie Fox's character be called Django was because he wanted to use the theme song.
I liked the rap stuff too and the editing was sweet. There were a lot of these quick zoom reaction moments that were just great. Like that viral gopher.
Christoph Walz is awesome in it. I kept thinking, Tarantino really scored when he found him for Inglorious Basterds. He's just got this super styley panache. It's the way he talks, the distinctive cadence and precise phrasing, and how he grins and does this big eyed hand twirly oh you kinda shit just before he does something outrageous. He's the best part of the film. I'm pretty sure Tarantino wrote the film around him. Yeah, yeah, it stars Jamie Foxx, and it's a slave revengesploitation, but it's such a white man's film, an apologist view of racism, that glories in racist violence too, and that the German guy is the one who frees the slave? Well what's that if not an attempt at healing some karma and attempting cultural reparations? Dr King!!! Schultz? I bet QT was all giggling on that and I bet lots of black folk hate that it's such a white folk flick, but I'm not bothered by that much. I enjoyed it, and even though I thought it was a tasteless film to make, I think it's great that slavery is the subject, because slavery and racial intolerance and yadayada social justice human rights issues are so important to spark dialogue on. It's got gross bits of ultra violence and the slaves are mostly weak and Jamie Foxx is the superman exceptional black man, but whatever, I don't wanna get all analytical on the flick. It's an adventure time story and I think everyone involved had a good time making it. I had a good time watching it. Thumbs up.
Back to the racist stuff though...I'm reminded of this song
I was trying to figure out who did it yesterday, and I found out it's from Gangsta Rap: The Glockumentary (2007), dir Coke Williams. I haven't seen it, but I want to. It sounds a lot like CB4 (1993), the Chris Rock/Tamra Davis thang, except this faux behind the scenes mockumentary is more recent. I listened to some of the songs and they're pretty funny. Anyhow, I think it's an important distinction that cultural commentary that could be seen as racist and mocking, that it's better if it comes from a cultural insider. At least that cuts down on the knee jerk that's RACIST!! reactions some. I dunno. There's a whole lotta drama attached to the word nigger and nigga, the n word!!! Like you should't use it if you aren't black, or that it's verboten because it's an especially hateful word. I don't really buy that. Kike is a hateful word, so are a lot of words. Slurs are powerful, but making them taboo like that with different levels of acceptability of usage around race, while it makes sense, it also seems silly. I know I'm trying to simplify something complicated, but I would like it if life WERE simpler in terms of words NOT being especially imbued with power to hurt. Let's not get rude about crudeness eh?
I wrote this about a week ago and I thought I might write more on the flicks, but I'm fine with this as it is. I just want to get back in the habit of writing about the movies I see again.
I watched Ishtar when it was first released. I was one of the few people who actually saw it in theatres and enjoyed it. When it started getting harsh reviews, I didn't understand why this comedy about two mild mannered musicians in a mid life crisis mode who bumble their way through spy games in Morocco elicited such vitriol. Worst movie ever??? To my mind it was pretty funny and entertaining, not much different than other comedies of the time, but for whatever reason it tanked, HARD. It earned a measly 12.7 million, and that only covered the salaries of the two leads. Hoffman and Beatty got 5 million each, and the total budget ran to 55 million. So yeah, it was a financial disaster, but the film itself is not that epic a failure by any means.
Rewatching it, I'd say the best part of the movie is the set up in New York, where you meet Lyle, (Warren Beatty), and Chuck, (Dustin Hoffman), and see how they come together. The movie is very silly in terms of the spyjinx plot once the location switches to Morocco, but the backdrops are interesting, and the fact that the same political shell games are still being played in the Middle East, gives a bit of texture and gravitas to the fluff. It's still not very engaging though. I admit I got a bit bored by the action, but the desert shenanigans are simply the framework for the further development of Lyle and Chuck's relationship. They are such sweet and deluded doofuses and it's their interactions that make the film worth watching. I enjoyed seeing Beatty play against type as he's very believable as a simple good hearted hick - Lyle reminds me of Thomas Haden Church some. Hoffman's Chuck, "call me Hawk", and his overconfident braggadocio provides great contrast, especially when he switches to jags of piteous crying while bemoaning his lot in life. His angsty whining provides some hilarious moments where Lyle props his self esteem back up, and Chuck does the same for Lyle in his darker moments.
Lyle to Chuck:
It takes a lot of nerve to have nothing at your age, don't you understand that? Most guys'd be ashamed, but you've got the guts to just say 'to hell with it'. You say that you'd rather have nothing than settle for less, understand?
It's a sweet relationship, and if you like Dumb and Dumber, this has a similar appeal.
Paul Williams and Elaine May did the music and the tunes they wrote for Chuck and Lyle are really funny. The two musicians are not great, really they aren't. Their agent says, "You guys are old, you're white and you got no schtick!" True dat, but they have big dreams eh? Probably, if it were set now, they'd be satisfied doing Karaoke. Also, I think Tenacious D and The Flight of the Conchords owe a lot to this film.
I especially like the scenes where the guys are working on their tunes. Telling the truth can be dangerous business...
Isabelle Adjani doesn't particularly stand out, she does look good, even in dude drag, but I guess Elaine May had a hard time giving direction to women, and maybe a problem directing in general.
I ganked this from the IMDB forum on May, with thanks to Tom Cruise's Testicles.
"Everyone knew there was a problem with the film during production, most of it because of May. She killed her own career with her behavior. Even she knew she was over her head, removing entire battle scenes because she didn't know how to shoot them. When Beatty and others offered to help her storyboard it, she threatened to quit- refusing to accept help. Most of the crew learned early on that whenever they suggested something, she would do the opposite of what they proposed. So in order to get her to make the right decisions, they had to suggest the opposite of what they wanted her to do. One of the more famous stories is when shooting in the desert, because the sun moves, the light in the morning is different then the light in the afternoon. In order to get shots to match, they move the actors to a different hill and no one in the audience can tell because all areas of the desert look the same. She would not listen when the DP told her this and the result was tons of unusable footage.
Everyone knew she was an eccentric before hiring her and a bit of a perfectionist. But no one, not even Beatty who produced the film(in fact, he got the film green lit for her because of her help on Heaven Can Wait and Reds, not just for her writing but also her incredible work helping to edit those films) were aware of her major flaws as a director. One of the major ones being she detest actresses, refusing to give any direction at all to Adjani.
There are plenty of places where you can read about the behind the scenes stories on Ishtar(some made up, like her flattening sand dunes with a bulldozer for the film). The amount of money lost is a very small part of why she stopped directing. The main reason is her own actions and decisions.
No one wants to work with someone who is out of control and doesn't know what they are doing. Even if they are a genius."
Charles Grodin plays a CIA operative and since he had been one of many options for casting Benjamin Braddock, I kept wondering what The Graduate would have been like if he had gotten the role instead of Hoffman. Another connection to The Graduate - Elaine May had an uncredited role. She played the university girl who hands the note from Elaine to Benjamin.
I also noticed Max Headroom, (Matt Frewer), in a small role. I wonder if Max will ever get a reboot?
Horror films have a fairly low threshold to reach in terms of being entertaining. All they need a premise that puts people in danger and this premise doesn't even have to make much sense as long as the characters are threatened somehow. This flick has that basic apparatus in place and provides serviceable scares, but it's not great by any means. Spoilers follow...
It starts off with grainy 70's film stock of a seance, then whoosh, you're in modern times watching some college kids, while they set up an experiment recreating the seance of the 70's. The leader of the ill advised paranormal ghost hunt is Patrick, played by Tom Felton, aka Draco Malfoy, so you know he's not going to be able to handle what happens eh? Anyhow, they're trying to contact the same 70's seance entity to PROVE that ghosts are really real. He's a super spooky looking dude who isn't give a backstory, so I don't even remember his name. I dunno why they'd want to contact such an evil looking bastard. I know you can't judge a book by it's cover, but c'mon dude looks straight up EVIL. Of course, it goes off the rails wrong, and one of them, not Draco, gets sucked into blackness.
Next you're getting acquainted with a couple in some desert city, Arizona or Nevada, maybe it's California, but it doesn't really matter where. All that matters it's a big ole suburb that Kelly and Ben have just moved into, and it's basically full of empty houses - they have ONE neighbour. Aside from the product placement purpose of the Costco shopping scenes, why are all these shots of the Kristen Stewartish girl, (Ashley Greene), and her boyfriend, (Sebastian Stan), doing their just moved in, need to do some nesting chores, taking up so much screen time? In a good film, stuff like this is character development. Scenes that show them doing everyday people things, establish the protagonists and clue you into caring about them. This is an important step, because you need to care about the film folk, otherwise seeing them getting threatened isn't nearly as spooky. Make connection with audience. Check...barely. Now on to the spooks!
The progression of the haunting was slooow and the entity has random abilities. First it's moving stuff around, opening doors and then it manifests as mold. Ooooo gross! Mold! That stuff really is deadly, ya know. Also the entity manages to kill the neighbour's dog. The dog just keels over so it wasn't gross, just sad. I thought it was mean to kill off a dog, but I guess it made the ghostie seem more threatening.
Actually the worst part of the movie is that the boyfriend Ben KNOWS something bad is happening, but he hides this from his girlfriend. I was confused actually, because I didn't realize that the boyfriend was the camera guy from the experiment. I thought it just switched to a random couple with no connection to the opening scenes, because you NEVER saw the boyfriend/camera man's face in the video footage of the seance recreation experiment.
Kinda cheap, but horror is rife with the cheap tricks. Whatever works eh? In any case, Ben is a shitty fucking boyfriend. He saw that girl get sucked into blackness, and you know what? That was his girlfriend! OMG what a douchey guy. He eventually gets found out and tries to explain his douchey behaviour, saying he thought if she didn't know about the experiment, she'd be safe. Whatever guy, and what a load of paternalistic crap too.
Actually none of the haunting stuff makes any sense, nor the ghostbustery stuff that is supposed to create the monster, or let the entity come through or whatever the bullshit story was. There was no logic to it. I think it was likely written backwards - dude thought of some spooky scenes he could shoot and strung them together with the story attached awkwardly with lots of metaphorical duct tape.
The movie is gonna appeal to teenagers and they probably won't even mind that it's a dumb flick that makes no sense, because they likely haven't experienced many good horror films. Unfortunately this one does nothing to change that situation either.
I took a break from writing about the movies I watch for awhile, but I'm back at it again. I'm half way through February and I hope to run through the backlog by the end of September - just in time for the VIFF. I saw a few flicks I really enjoyed during my down time so I'm sad I didn't capture my immediate thoughts on them (I'm looking at you, Beyond The Black Rainbow and Prometheus), but that just gives me an excuse to watch them again eh?
A movie based on a meme? I had my doubts but it's actually a good indie flick with a couple great character arcs, with some real tension to the story brought about by you wondering if there's a time machine or not. It's sweet and funny and poignant and romantic and it's got good morals too. It has some crazy bashing at the beginning, but on the whole it redeems itself with the idea of respecting people and being honest about who you are, the value of relationships, etc etc. I really enjoyed it.
It's produced by the Duplass brothers, (Jeff Who Lives At Home) and stars Mark Duplass as the man with the plan, the ad, and the time machine? There lies the mystery. Also there's Jake M. Johnson as a an assholey magazine writer? editor? on a road trip out of Seattle supposedly to check out the story behind the classified, but really he sees it as a vacay opportunity to look up an ex while exploiting his interns - Aubrey Plaza and Karan Soni. The interactions between Duplass and Plaza are where the heart of the story lies, also much of the humour. Plaza is especially good with the deadpan cynicism, but the movie is ultimately about abandoning the comfort of cynicism. I'd suggest you don't watch the trailer unless you enjoy having the majority of the plot points spoiled. Or watch it if you like knowing the shape and colour of a flick beforehand, but personally I think that creates a less satisfying movie experience.
Here's a song from it I really liked - it doesn't wreck the story.
This trailer gives some background to the development of the flick, more than it telegraphs the story.
And this is the trailer where you it's pretty much whoomp there it is, we've connected most all the dots for you already.
My first impression with this film was geez, this is ripe for a remake with Tom Cruise as the greedy art thief.
My second impression? I didn't think much of the set up. It's got a corporate headhunter, (Aksel Hennie), who steals and sells art work, because he's got to keep up with the beyond his means lavish lifestyle his blonde trophy wife is accustomed to. He's a pragmatic, amoral, sort, and his art thieving is not much different from his day job where he looks for executives to poach, usually stealing them out from under the employ of one corporation for another. The relative poverty driving the artwork snatch and sell sidejob, is not a situation most people can relate to; "Oh no I can't afford the payments on my luxury mansion or luxury car!" Actually a whole lot of people can relate to not being able to afford the lifestyle they have, it's just that the lifestyle he felt he needed to maintain was a bit much.
As the plot unspooled I was feeling all sneery about seeing another story about rich white people, and thinking, "fuck
these greedy resource pigs and their stupid money problems!", because greed and lavish lifestyles like you see at the upper echelons of society, rather than impressing me, more tends to disgust me. Excessively excessive is just plain fucked up. The other day
a friend was telling me about a guy who renovated his G5 jet so all the
surfaces were gold plated or marble. He spent x amount of dollars, untold millions, I guess, and for what? So his JET was shiny?
Jesus. Of course it's Donald Trump's jet.
The movie got better though. It's got good heists with twisty drama, and what I appreciated most, aside from the great cinematography, was the moral thread running through it. The protagonist is interesting too. He's vulnerable; his narration reveals his weaknesses, and that's what got me to liking him. The movie had been hyped to me though, so it took me awhile before my expectations wound down and I got into it for what it was - a well shot action/crime story with some characters growing. Near to the beginning, I turned to my guy and said, I don't LIKE anybody in this film. They're all selfish fucks. Pretty standard character types for noir type works, but this one also has some redemptive realistic qualities in the characters, except when it comes to the antagonist, (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). He was a little too much of a phony baloney, comic book, super soldier, spy guy, human monster, stereotype for my taste. Still, all criticism aside, it was a good ride, and I liked how it ended.
I
think in the remake, they'll do it from the perspective of the bad guy
and have him triumph, because greed is still good in the eyes of the majority of the haves making media in America.
I went into this cold, knowing only that it starred Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey and I think that is the BEST way to see this movie - knowing nothing about it AT ALL. It will suprise you and isn't that one of the greatest things in life - when something surprises you? When a movie can do that, it's like a present you weren't even expecting.
So don't read anymore if you ain't seen it yet, because now I'm gonna head into spoiler territory. (Don't watch the trailer - it pretty much tells you everything that happens.)
It's a based on a true story of a 1996 murder in Texas. I thought it was a regular old made up story, and when I realized at the end, that it really happened, and that those townspeople were the actual spectators to the incident talking about a real person and a real murder, well I was just delighted. Not that this awful crime took place - it was a terrible thing Bernie did - more that this movie was made ya know? The best most genius part was having how the interviews with the townspeople were intermingled with the recreations of the relationship between Bernie and Marjorie.
It's such a great story too, like they tagline says, "A story so unbelievable it must be true." And I thought it was so appropriate how it was structured, starting off showcasing Bernie's unbelievable goodness. You can't help but like and root for Bernie. Even though he shot an old lady 4 times IN THE BACK, then stuffed her in a freezer, you still want to forgive him. It shine's a light on this peculiar aspect of the human condition - how prejudiced we all are, and how easily we can be swayed to forgive when we like a person. With our friends, or people who are likeable, we'll want to cut them slack, and give them a break, but for people we don't like, or who we can't relate to? All those wrongdoers?? Well they can go to hell.
It's the American way, well acually it's the way most people are the world over. Unfortunately, as a people, we are highly and irrationally prejudicial.
It's a good flick. Well worth your time. I really enjoyed it. I also thought Jack Black's role would have been great for Zach Galifianakis.
I think I'm going to start updating from both ends of the 65 movie backlog. The number has remained constant since I keep seeing new movies! 9 so far this month, and while I think it's more methodical to do it in chronological order, I'm thinking I'll get caught up quicker if I post recent stuff as well.
Most of the backlog comes from February which was a mental month for me watching flicks - 40 movies! I had 4 movie channels that were playing all kinds of classic flicks, plus whatever theatre shows I could get out to as well.
Anyhow, I think I'll be doing the updates more randomly, or at not least not completely chronologically.
I have been neglecting the upkeep of this movie blog and have accumulated 65 unpublished entries.
This is entirely too many.
I will be gradually catching up, because I have some new movie channels and that means more movies will be coming down the pike.
Gotta watch them all! Well no, that's crazy talk. There's no way to watch 'em all and actually that sounds terrible. There are way too many awful films out there, and most of them are not so bad it's good...most are just bland and boring.
Tedium is far more terrible than outrageously awful.
This is Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, and she also stars in this exploration of faith and religion. It's based on the book, This Dark World, a memoir authored by Carol S. Briggs. It has the mundane ordinariness of a real person's story rather than the high drama of made up conflict, but that doesn't make it less interesting. In fact I found it a very rewarding watch. The heart of the flick centres on Corinne Walker's (Farmiga) struggle with faith, belief, and dogma. The film tracks her religious journey starting right from childhood when she accepts Jesus into her heart at bible camp. I could relate to that scene. I went to bible camp the summer I was 10, and I felt such pressure there to embrace a fundamentalist faith. I wanted to believe so bad I almost convinced myself I did. I so wanted to belong to that Christian cult, and I really did want Jesus to live in my heart too. I remember how they told me how I'd burn in hell if I didn't believe, and that saddled me with guilt and shame. I didn't want to be a sinner damned to hell. I felt inadequate and ashamed because I bought into their propaganda, but when they told me I was a sinner, that only resonated because I already felt unsure of myself. That's the default mode of the modern human condition, and it's part and parcel of growing up that you feel inadequate and unsure of who you are or how to define yourself. And that uncertainty and fear and plasticity of identity is what religion, especially Christianity capitalises on, at least the more fundamentalist branches of Christianity really push that whole shame thing down your throat with the idea of original sin.
And what is up with original sin anyhow? It seems like such contrived bullshit to me. The idea is just silly! When I see animals or children doing their thing, the absurdity of sin as a concept becomes so obvious, because kids and animals are just natural, and wild, and free, and sin has no place in their actions. I don't thin either kids or animals ponder much on the morality of their actions. Perhaps they do, but original sin? Come on, that idea seems entirely man made. In fact, morals, ethics, all that jazz, are just so much ideas and abstraction borne of self aware consciousness.
Back to the movie though...
Vera has a whole lot happen in her life, not big bad things, just general life kinda stuff that makes her question religion and the validity of doubt, or rather the validity of faith. At least that's what I got out of the film. There's a great scene at the end where she does a monologue on her gradual acceptance of her doubt, and to me that was much more liberating and enlightening than the dogmatic ritual of the faithful could ever be. I even agreed with her envy of their faith. I used to wish I could have that comfort and assuredness that seems to come with belief. I just don't seem to have that in me though.
Yeah, I am a doubting Thomas, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I think there's a whole lot more right with being a doubter than there is right about being a believer. I could be wrong about that, but it's not that important. I'm content being a questioner; it fits me better than zealotry.
I liked the soundtrack a whole lot too.. There's a bunch of gospel musics, many of them sung by Ollabelle and the lovely voiced Amy Helm.
Farmiga sings some too and she's got a good voice as well, but what I've always noticed first about her is the way she looks. Not to take away from her achievements as an actor/director, either. I just think she's gorgeous and that her looks would fit well in period pieces. I always get the feeling of the past and art models when I see her, a Pre-Raphaelite or maybe a Vermeer. She's a Botticelli on the band-shell, performing gospels in the this flick.
.jpg?1362006013)
