Movies by Month: April 2012, part 2

Black Hawk Down:  war drama directed by Ridley Scott and starring every male actor of minor to medium significance in 2001.  Seriously:  Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Sam Shepard, William Fichtner, Tom Hardy, Orlando Bloom, Hugh Dancy, Ron Eldard, Jeremy Piven, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (aka Jamie Lannister), I could seriously keep going.

The movie depicts the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.  Famine and civil war led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in the area, and when the Somali militia declared war on UN Peacekeepers, the U.S. Army set up a joint operation with the Rangers, Delta Force, and the 160^th SOAR to kidnap the warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid.  RUN-ON SENTENCE!  AMERICA!  HOOAH!  No seriously, it’s really good though.  It’s very Action Movie (Ridley Scott/Jerry Bruckheimer, duh), but wasn’t as testosterone-soaked and vapid as I worried it might be.  It apparently received some criticism for not using actual Somalis to portray the fictional Somalis, and for glossing over some of the hard questions about why the U.S. was involved in this battle, and our global military strategy in general, etc.  But if you can set those things aside, it’s a very enjoyable action film.  If you want more of the cold hard facts and analysis, read the book as well.

Tom Sizemore rules.

A Perfect Getaway:  2009 psychological thriller directed by David Twohy and starring Milla Jovovich, Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, and Kiele Sanchez.  A nice young couple on their honeymoon in Hawaii find themselves in a cat v. mouse situation when they learn that another couple they’re travelling with may be responsible for a series of brutal murders.  I have an inexplicable love for Multipass and Zahn, so I went into this pretty sure I would like it.  And I did.  I didn’t really buy the twist at the end, but still enjoyed it, if that makes sense.  The actors all did a really good job with the material, so I would say if you like any of these people then see it.  It’s decent.

The Hollywood Complex:  2011 documentary directed by Dylan Nelson and Dan Sturman.  It follows a group of kids and their families staying at The Oakwood, an apartment complex that caters to young actors trying to make it big in Hollywood.  Over the course of one pilot season, we see these kids attend various acting classes, navigate agents, managers and photographers, and attend auditions.  It was intriguing and entertaining, but in train wreck fashion.  The narration and music were excellent, and I thought they chose a fairly well-rounded selection of families to follow, including one really aggressive mother/grandmother duo who briefly took up Dianetics because they thought it might help them make connections for their young starlet.

It’s good, but prepare to be disturbed and maybe even a bit disgusted.  Like when an acting coach running a Crying on Cue workshop tells a little girl to imagine her dog being eaten by wolves.  Or a mother encouraging her seven year-old to study YouTube videos of sick children to prepare for a role on Grey’s Anatomy.

The Cabin in the Woods:  2012 horror film directed by Drew Goddard, produced and co-written by Joss Whedon, and starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Bradley Whitford, Richard Jenkins, and Amy Acker.  Five college students decide to spend a weekend at a remote cabin in the woods.  And that’s all I’m saying.  Go see it immediately.  SERIOUSLY.  Just trust me on this one, ok?  If you like any of the Whedon oeuvre, or Bradley Whitford, or comedy or horror or breathing, then go see it.  Don’t read anything else about it; the less you know the better.

Battle Royale:  2000 Japanese thriller directed by Kinji Fukasaku and starring Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto and Takeshi Kitano.  Think Hunger Games but much darker, funnier and with a higher body count.  The Japanese government has decided that the youth need to learn fear and respect, so once a year an unsuspecting class of high school students is taken to an island where they’re forced to fight to the death.

            I really liked it.  It had the humor, wit and hipness that Hunger Games lacked, but didn’t quite have that level of unrequited teenage yearning some people prefer in their Teen Thunderdome movies.  So perhaps it’s not for everyone.

All the King’s Men:  2006 adaptation of the Robert Penn Warren novel, directed by Steven Zaillian and starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins.  A southern politician in the 1940s fights against The System only to become corrupt himself.  It was just okay.  The acting was fine all around (except perhaps for James Gandolfini, who really can’t pull off a Louisiana accent).  I just couldn’t get into it.  I didn’t really care what happened to any of them, or even what would happen next.  Maybe the book is better.

Celine: Through the Eyes of the World:  2010 concert documentary about Celine Dion, directed by Stephane Laporte.  Just let me explain.  I love Behind the Music.  Even if I have no interest in that celebrity’s work, hearing their story, done in a certain melodramatic way, is awesome.  It is!  Have you seen the one about Leif Garrett?  Because I kind of think everyone should.  So I thought this might be like one big episode of that.

But I had no idea this shit would be THREE HOURS LONG.  The first 10 minutes were shots of her singing “I Drove All Night” in 30 different cities.  “Is that all right, Houston?”  “Is that all right, Dubai?”  “Is that all right, Minsk?”  The 10 minutes after that showed her trip to South Africa, standing in Nelson Mandella’s former cell with this painful look of fake humility.  She’s so weird, all that strange mugging and preening.  It’s an epic bit of saccharine-soaked PR, and after 20 minutes I was done.

Goodnight, We Love You:  2004 documentary about the last tour of Phyllis Diller, directed by Gregg Barson.  I preferred the Joan Rivers documentary A Piece of Work.  Diller’s comedic style hasn’t really kept up with the times, which I wouldn’t have minded if the behind-the-scenes look at her life had been more interesting.  I think it’s hilarious that she’s even more neurotic about packing suitcases than I am, but it just didn’t grab me.

Restrepo:  2010 documentary about the Afghanistan War, directed by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger.  It covers their time embedded with an Army Company in the Korengal Valley, a remote area with significant Taliban activity where they come under fire every single day.  DAMN.  It’s really good, I thought it was very fair in letting the viewers draw their own conclusions, but it is rough.  And terrifying.  The clincher scene for me was during an Army officer’s shura with a group of town elders, when the shot goes back and forth between the young American trying to talk the men into not helping the Taliban, and an elderly Afghan man struggling to open a Capri Sun.  Hearts and minds.

Young Adult:  2011 dark comedy directed by Jason Reitman and starring Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson and Elizabeth Reaser.  Mavis is a 37 year-old divorcee living in “The Minneapple,” a ghost writer for a series of young adult novels.  When she receives a mass email announcing the birth of her high school ex-boyfriend’s baby, she decides that they were meant to be together and she returns to her small hometown to win him back.

I freaking loved this movie, but I know I’m definitely in the minority on this one.  A few of my friends who also saw it found it incredibly depressing.  This delusional, bratty woman goes back to the home she disdains to ruin the relationship of someone she hasn’t spoken to in nearly two decades.  But I can’t help it, I LOVE HER.  I love her because she’s like all the awful parts of my personality that I suppress, with good reason:  she listens to terrible pop music, she’s mean, she watches shit TV, she drinks too much, she’s disorganized and sloppy and vain, lies constantly, feels a misguided sense of superiority over those who “never left.”  There is a part of me, dying to be released, that wants to chug soda straight from the 2-liter.  There are also things she does that I would never do--like wear Uggs or connive to steal someone else’s husband.

But I still rooted for her to fail and learn her lesson.  And she does, kind of?  I think the most gut-punching part of the movie for me was when someone asks her why she’s so bent on landing her ex again, and she says, “He knew me when I was at my best.”  Which just sums it all up right there.  She’s emotionally stunted, guards herself against pain with alcohol and barbed quips, has basically kept herself a teenager because those were the glory days.  To think that anyone is at their “best” at 17 years-old is unbelievably sad.  Whatever, I loved it.  Certainly not for everyone.

Movies by Month: April 2012, part 1

Shadows and Fog:  1991 Woody Allen film starring Mia Farrow, Woody, John Malkovich, and John Cusack.  Allen plays Kleinman, a nervous (of course), meek (duh) bookkeeper who is used as bait by a local vigilante mob to lure and capture a serial killer.  There’s also a circus in town, it’s very German Expressionist.  It was good, fine.  On the overall Allen scale I’d put it at about a 5.

Heavenly Creatures:  1994 drama directed by Peter Jackson and starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, about the Parker-Hulme murder.  Two bratty teenage girls bond over their former childhood illnesses, mutual obnoxiousness, and love of Mario Lanza.  They create a complex fantasy world based on Truth and Beauty and Art and Violence and Lesbianism, then decide that their parents are standing between them and said craziness.  So they commit murder to be together.  It was odd.  I didn’t sympathize with any of the characters, it drags a bit, and despite the decent acting all around I just couldn’t get invested.  Also the weird hallucinogenic qualities of their fantasy realm started to wear a bit.  I’d skip it.  Or maybe watch this episode of The Simpsons instead.

A Dangerous Method:  2011 biographical drama directed by David Cronenberg and starring Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, and Vincent Cassel.  It traces the history of psychotherapy, which it turns out I find totally uninteresting.  Not even a shirtless Fassbender wielding a riding crop could garner much enthusiasm from me.  It’s basically two hours of dirty old men justifying their dithering, lobbing nonsense back and forth.  I have no idea how accurate it is, but if the story is true then Freud was an egotistical asshole and Jung should have confided in his very astute wife instead of his unstable patient.  And yes, I realize that I just used several terms they coined to describe what jerks they were.  I had very high hopes for this one, but it just didn’t grab me.

Journey to the Center of the Earth:  1959 fantasy adventure based on the Jules Verne novel, directed by Henry Levin and starring James Mason and Pat Boone.  Some scientists travel to Iceland in a race to be the first humans to explore the center of the Earth.  In musical form!  Seriously the worst Scottish accents I’ve ever heard.  Aside from a mildly amusing duck named Gertrude it’s not worth it.

Inside the U.S. Secret Service:  2004 National Geographic documentary.  OK, current controversies aside, it’s fascinating.  I’ll admit the camera work is a bit crappy, and it occasionally has that Cold Case Files with Bill Kurtis feel to it, but I still liked it a lot.  I mean, come on!  They interview Clint Hill (the agent who crawled onto the back of JFK’s limo after he was shot), Jerry Parr (the agent who made the call to take Reagan to the hospital after he was shot, which probably saved Reagan’s life) and Floyd Boring (the agent on duty at the time of the Truman assassination attempt), among others. 

                The viewer is given a look at some general procedures in what it takes to protect the President on a daily basis, but the best part for me was hearing about the history of the agency and the near-misses and close calls.  Like, seriously?  There is actually a guy whose whole job is to put his body in front of the protectee and TAKE A BULLET.  Bananas.

The Hunger Games:  2012 sci-fi film based on the wildly popular young adult book series, directed by Gary Ross and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, and Donald Sutherland.  Did you read the book?  If not, then I’m afraid some things may be lost on you and it will probably seem way too long.  If yes, then I can say it’s fairly faithful to the book.  It’s fluffy and full of action.  I wouldn’t say it’s fun, what with the teenagers being locked in an epic struggle for survival and all.  But it was definitely entertaining.  The shaky camera shit got annoying and I thought they spent too much time with the Gamemakers; except for the bit at the end it felt unnecessary.  But I liked it, and I’ll probably see the sequels.

Moneyball:  2011 biographical sports drama directed by Bennett Miller and starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.   “It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.”  That’s pretty much the whole movie.  Billy Beane (Pitt) is the Oakland A’s general manager.  He has a losing team, his best players have just been poached, and he doesn’t have enough money to replace them.  Enter sabermetrics.  As baseball movies go, it’s pretty standard:  underdogs, heartbreak, training montages.  Jonah Hill did a really good job.  It was fine.  But I set the bar at Bull Durham, so maybe I ask too much.

The Curse of the Bambino:  2004 HBO documentary about the Red Sox’s epic losing streak, narrated by Ben Affleck and featuring interviews with hardcore Sox fans and journalists.  It covers the history of the Red Sox, focusing on the myths and facts surrounding why they didn’t win a World Series from 1919-2004.  It’s really, really good.  I’d recommend it even if you’re not a baseball fan.  It’s funny, it’s heart-wrenching, and if you watch it now you know it all works out in the end.  These long-suffering fans finally got their moment of glory in 2004.  And then again in 2007.  Show offs.



Did you just say "1986" to me?

Limelight:  2011 biographical documentary directed by Billy Corben, about the life of questionable nightclub owner Peter Gatien.  So this Canadian wunderkind comes to the States, starts raking it in during the disco hey day, and then meets the Club Kids.  Downfall ensues.  It’s not that interesting.  Watch Party Monster instead.

Strange Culture:  2007 documentary directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson.  Steve Kurtz and his wife were members of the Critical Art Ensemble, a group that attempted to expose the public to and educate them about genetically modified food and other controversial science-related issues.  When Kurtz’s wife died of heart failure, he was arrested on suspicion of bioterrorism because he had some petri dishes in his home.  For his art show.  Seriously.  The subject matter of the film is fascinating, but because Kurtz was only allowed to participate to a certain extent in the filming (the trial was ongoing when it was being made) it’s told through dramatic reenactments.  But the actors who play Kurtz and his friends in the reenactments also comment on his story and trial as themselves, so it gets a little messy.  It was okay.  I enjoyed reading about it afterwards more than watching the movie.

Killer Clowns From Outer Space:  1988 comedy/horror movie by the Chiodo Brothers, starring Grant Cramer and Suzanne Snyder.  Clown-aliens come to Earth and start killing off the population of a small town by, like, wrapping them in cotton candy.  It’s ludicrous, funny, the acting is campy and over the top.  I would recommend it for a laugh around Halloween.

River’s Edge:  1986 drama directed by Tim Hunter and starring Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Ione Skye, Dennis Hopper, Daniel Roebuck, and Joshua John Miller (the obnoxious kid brother in Teen Witch).  A troubled teen named Samson kills his girlfriend, then matter-of-factly informs his friends of the crime, who have to decide whether to turn him in.  I guess that’s what the movie is about?  It also deals with teenage psychopathy, groupthink, paranoia, overinflated senses of adventure, and misanthropy.  I didn’t think I liked it at first, but by the end it had me.  I like Keanu Reeves a little more all the time.  But has anyone else noticed that Crispin Glover is a terrible actor?  Like, really really terrible.  In Back to the Future it was semi-tolerable and kind of understanding that he chewed the scenery; he was playing an earnest nerd in the 1950s.  His performance in this movie, however, was so bad it was almost distracting.