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.