Movies by Month: June 2012, part 1

Snatch:  2000 British crime film directed by Guy Ritchie and starring a great ensemble cast including Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Stephen Graham and Vinnie Jones.  It’s hard to go over even the basics of the plot without giving too much away, but it essentially involves a diamond heist, gangsters fixing boxing matches, and gypsies.  The pace is quick and light, it’s funny, and Brad Pitt is brilliant.  Seriously.  It’s hands-down my favorite Guy Ritchie movie, and if you like heist movies or action movies or boxing movies then see it.

Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels:  1998 British crime film directed by Guy Ritchie and starring a decent ensemble cast including Jason Statham, Nick Moran, Dexter Fletcher and Vinnie Jones.  A group of four friends are involved in a card scam, and when it goes awry they end up owing a mob boss thousands of dollars.  Luckily (?) they stumble across an opportunity to steal some loot from a group of thieves.  Who are stealing from a group of drug dealers.  And here come the antics!

I saw this movie years ago but didn’t remember much about it, and since I was on a Guy Ritchie roll I figured what the heck.  It’s good, but not as good as Snatch. 

Haywire:  2011 action film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Gina Carano, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton and Michael Fassbender.  Mallory is a military contractor working in conjunction, I guess, with the U.S. government.  A standard operation goes bad and she realizes she’s been double-crossed.  She goes into hiding and then starts to track down the men who want her dead.  And then some fights happen.  There’s a car chase.  And so forth.

                Look, it was fine.  It was a decent action movie with a great cast, and I tip my hat to Soderbergh for taking on this kind of film with a woman in the lead role.  And Carano’s fight sequences were pretty awesome.  But she’s completely wooden when she’s not kicking ass.  Not like I’m-stone-faced-but-obviously-roiling-with-controlled-anger-underneath-my-icy-exterior-I-will-totally-fuck-some-shit-up-in-like-30-seconds-but-right-now-I’m-just-biding-my-time.  Like made of wood.

Fast Five:  2011 action film directed by Justin Lin and starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  It’s the latest installment in the Fast-Furious franchise, and if you’ve seen any of the previous movies you pretty much know what to expect.  Diesel’s character breaks out of jail and it’s time to steal some cars!  In Rio!  GET SOME!  It’s entertaining, the jokes and one-liners are fairly predictable, and now I totally have a crush on Sung Kang.  Also there’s an interesting twist after the credits.

The thing that surprised me the most was the serious level of smoldering homoeroticism.  There’s just so much testosterone, so many feelings dying to be expressed.  The Rock oozed muscularity and glistened with sweat in nearly every scene; on occasion it looks like someone has misted his beard with olive oil.  My sister even pointed out the scene in which it’s clearly established that Vin Diesel is The Top in their relationship, and I thought she was joking but she WAS RIGHT OH MY GOD HE’S THE TOP. 

Sorority Row:  2009 slasher movie directed by Stewart Hendler and starring Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung and Carrie Fisher.  A group of sorority sisters play a prank that goes terribly wrong, and a year later they start dying one by one on graduation night.  It’s typical.  Slick, good production values, predictable plot, gratuitous nudity.  It was fine.

Blood Creek:  2009 horror film directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Michael Fassbender, Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill and Emma Booth.  Evan’s brother has been missing for a year when he shows up in the middle of the night looking like Castaway and insisting that his brother bring weapons and help him kill some family.  OKAY!  Turns out that the family who had been keeping him hostage were in turn being held hostage by a former Nazi occult specialist.  Who is now kind of literally a monster.  And has kept them sort of frozen in time since 1939.  It’s actually a pretty decent horror movie, and it’s not quite as ludicrous as the plot summary sounds.

El Bulli:  2011 documentary directed by Gereon Wetzel, about a season at chef Ferran Adria’s restaurant in Catalonia.  The film starts at the close of the previous season, when the restaurant shuts down for several months so the staff can prepare a new menu.  First the restaurant’s main chefs work in a test kitchen, experimenting with ingredients in meticulous fashion, documenting everything with photographs and notes.  Eventually the film moves to the pre-opening preparations:  cleaning the restaurant, training the wait staff and assistant chefs—“We don’t lean here, we’re not in a disco.  Always proper bearing.”  And the restaurant opens and we see the final menu.

I found it relaxing (for the most part) and interesting.  If you enjoy minimalist cooking shows and don’t mind total lack of narration, then you’ll probably like this.

The Caller:  2011 supernatural thriller directed by Matthew Parkhill and starring Rachelle Lefevre and Stephen Moyer.  Mary is a young divorcee who just moved in to a new apartment.  There’s a cool old phone in the apartment that she starts receiving strange calls on.  At first she thinks it’s her abusive ex-husband harassing her, but then eerie things start to happen.  It was okay.  Definitely not the route I thought it would take, kind of a bummer.

The People vs. George Lucas:  2010 documentary directed by Alexandre O. Philippe.  In case you’re not even remotely a Star Wars fan, here’s the crux of it:  George Lucas created a hugely successful film trilogy in the late 1970s, with the promise to follow up with three prequels.  His loyal followers waited with bated breath for nearly two decades, and were essentially handed a giant pile of shit.  THEN Mr. Lucas decided that the original three Star Wars movies were “unfinished,” so he rereleased them with some CGI bullshit and poor editing choices.

The question the documentary explores is this: does an artist have the right to revisit and make significant changes to their work once it’s been shown to the masses?  Good points are raised on both sides.  Neil Gaiman points out that if he took every fan’s suggestion or preference into account while writing his novels he would end up creating the same plot with the same characters over and over again, and still would not have pleased everyone.  But it also points out that Lucas testified to Congress about the need to preserve films in their original, unaltered state, and then 20 years later decided to change his movies and not release the original versions on DVD.  And he basically made the Academy Awards the original films won for editing and visual effects moot.

Respect the fans even if, or maybe because, they are this rabid.  Even if those fans show no tolerance for your later work.  I really liked it, but probably because I really like Star Wars.

Han shot first! 

Movies by Month: May 2012, part 2

Giuliani Time:  2006 documentary directed by Kevin Keating about the career of Rudy Giuliani.  The film mostly focuses on pre-9/11 Rudy, which I knew next to nothing about before watching this.  It covers his childhood and his family’s supposed Mob connections, his start in government and his switch from Democrat to Republican, and his years as Mayor of New York City.  This last part was the most interesting to me; they go into detail about the instituting of CompStat and his fights for and against the police unions during the more controversial police violence cases.  It’s an intriguing documentary about the evolution of a major political figure, but it just ended up adding to my cynicism.  Like most of these documentaries.

Girlhood:  2003 documentary directed by Liz Garbus.  It follows Shanae Owens and Megan Jensen for a three-year period beginning in 1999, when they’re incarcerated at the Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore.  Megan is in for attacking a fellow foster kid with a box cutter.  She’s the more vivacious of the two, and has been in and out of foster homes and facilities most of her life.  She willfully breaks the rules with a smile on her face, but I found myself rooting for her even while she’s talking back to facility staff and plotting her escape. 

Shanae was sent to Waxter for killing another girl in a knife fight when she was 11, during a period of downward spiral after she was gang-raped by five boys.  She says she has little memory of the incident, but her release is contingent upon her owning up to her crime and taking responsibility for it emotionally.  She’s quieter than Megan, more reserved, younger and more naïve. 

The movie goes into their respective pasts just enough to let you know it’s really fucked up.  It’s riveting, but really sad.  The ending is bittersweet and hopeful, but it’s a toss up for me about recommending it.

The Fly:  1986 sci fi film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz.  Veronica is a sharp young reporter for a science journal, and while she’s scouring a terrible cocktail party for a lead on the Next Big Thing, a scientist named Seth Brundle convinces her to come back to his lab to see his top-secret invention.  What a line, am I right ladies?  And oh wow it’s a teleportation device WHAT COULD GO WRONG?  You know the story:  Brundle decides to test the device on himself, a fly gets in with him, they combine somehow and he starts to mutate over the next few days.  The make-up team did a bang-up job with this one.  It’s a really decent horror movie, though not really scary and very very gross, like really very gross.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure:  1985 adventure comedy directed by Tim Burton and starring Paul Reubens, Elizabeth Daily and Mark Holton.  That’s right, I’d never seen this movie until now.  Oh sure, I’d catch bits and pieces here and there, and I liked the television series, but somehow never got around to watching the whole thing.  Pee-wee’s bike is stolen and he goes on a cross-country tour of strangeness to find it.  If you like Pee-wee Herman even a little bit, totally see it.  In fact, if you like ‘80s comedies in general I would say it’s worth a shot.  I loved it.  Obviously.

Stolen:  2006 documentary directed by Rebecca Dreyfus and starring Harold Smith, featuring voice work by Blythe Danner and Campbell Scott.  In 1990 a group of thieves entered the woefully unsecured Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and pulled off the largest art heist in modern history.  They walked away with 13 priceless pieces, including paintings by Vermeer, Manet, and Rembrandt.  Enter Harold Smith, Badass Art Detective.  He wears a bowler hat, a prosthetic nose, an eye patch, and is more energetic in his 80s than I am now. 

                  The movie goes back and forth between Smith’s investigation and the history of the collection’s acquisition, which is less interesting.  He flies all over to meet crazy informants, whose theories of who the thieves were range from the IRA to Whitey Bolger to a conspiracy between US Congressmen, the IRA and Whitey Bolger.  It’s a cute documentary; Smith is by far the most interesting aspect. 

The Hurt Locker:  2008 action movie directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty.  William James arrives as the new team leader of a three-man Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, and quickly alienates his fellow unit members with his disdain for procedure and severe adrenaline habit.  It’s a nail-biter, really intense, and goes above and beyond the typical day-in-the-life-of war movie.  I loved it, and I love Bigelow; that lady makes a damn fine action movie.  Renner is brilliant.  I mean, it’s really really super good.  It takes a hell of a war movie to make me cry.

Seamless:  2005 documentary directed by Douglas Keeve about the first Vogue/CFDA Fashion Fund competition.  The film follows three of the competition finalists:  Doo-Ri Chung, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCullough (the duo behind Proenza Schouler) and Alexander Plokhov.  The style and personalities of the designers differ greatly, which I really liked.  The viewer is given a sneak-peak at the judging process, but most of the documentary focuses on the designers.  Though very different, they are all struggling with balancing work and personal relationships, they all struggle with production problems and tight deadlines and STRESS.  I’ll say it again, I love watching fashion shows and documentaries because they make me feel better about my crazy job.  I wanted all three of them to win, and I felt like the judging committee went with the safe bet.  But this was made several years ago, hindsight 20/20, all that.  It was pretty fluffy, but I liked it

The Conspirator: A Review for History Nerds

The Conspirator:  Finally, a more thorough follow-up.

Here was my original mini review for normal human beings and/or the average movie watcher:  2010 historical drama about the trial of Mary Surratt after the Lincoln assassination; directed by Robert Redford and starring James McAvoy, Rachel Wood, Robin Wright, and Kevin Kline.  It’s great.  It’s very well done, the acting is excellent for the most part, and the cinematography is beautiful.  See it if you like historical dramas or are as rabid a McAvoy fan as I am.

But I couldn’t quite leave the review at that.  What follows is a little bit more about the three main historical gaffes that bothered me.  In doing research for this post I came across this article, which goes into every tiny little historical imperfection of the movie.  If you really want to nerd out, read that as well.  I don’t have the patience to recount all the minor complaints I had.  Plus that guy already did it for me.

Issue #1:  Washington D.C. was too clean.  When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 the Civil War had gone on for four years.  Troops had been stationed all around Washington, the city had many permanent and temporary hospitals that treated more than 20,000 men over the course of the war, and it had been the staging area for campaigns like Manassas.  It was kind of a mess, you guys.  There was a serious overpopulation issue between the residents, the soldiers, and the freed slaves pouring in from the South.  There were unpaved streets that turned into giant muddy canals after a hard rain, there was a weak sanitation system and the mosquitos reached near plague-like proportions.

Yet in Redford’s D.C. the streets sparkle and glisten, the uniforms of soldiers are rakish instead of ragged.  Even the Old Capitol Prison where Mary Surratt is held is merely shabby chic.  The piles of hay on the floor of her cell are clean and golden, with tiny wisps of dust and chaff glittering in the air, lit by the sun streaming in.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME.  Would it not have been better to use the talents of cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (who also worked on Drive) to beautifully light the surroundings but keep them dingy?  As they should be?  It was a desperate time for our country, an uncertain time!  Why is everything so GD clean?  Metaphors!

Issue #2:  Who the heck is that dude playing John Wilkes Booth?  Booth was like the Brad Pitt of the 1860s – except, you know, totally bonkers.  He was charming, talented, smart, and very very very handsome.  SO handsome.  Like Swarthy Disney Prince handsome.  Because Booth is barely in the movie at all, for so short a time that the acting didn’t really have to be outstanding, then maybe Redford should have focused on finding an actor who actually looked like Booth.  And could deliver a single line competently.  Shouldn’t have been hard.

            Toby Kebbell is a handsome guy.  But in this getup he looks like Borat.  None of the fine yet strong features of Booth.  Maybe the chin.  I don’t know.  It’s really hard to tell from the pictures I was able to find but when I watched the movie I was immediately put off by how un-Booth Kebell was.  OK also, the crowd in the theater didn’t start screaming until AFTER Booth jumped to the stage and yelled Sic semper tyrannis.  Not immediately after Booth shot Lincoln.  Duh.

Issue #3:  The glorification of Frederick Aiken.  In the movie Aiken (played ably by James McAvoy) is a bright young thing on the rise in Washington.  He’s a Union veteran who was wholly devoted to The Cause, a man saddled with the unenviable task of defending one of the most hated persons in U. S. history.  He’s eager, honest, he grapples with being shunned by his friends and would-be girlfriend and worries that his career will be marred forever but dammit he just has to do it it’s his duty he’s a PATRIOT! 

Uh, yeah.  Except the real Frederick Aiken offered his services to Jefferson Davis at the start of the war, before joining the Union Army.  If he even joined voluntarily, it’s not clear if he was drafted or not.  He also supported the candidacy of Vice President John C. Breckinridge, who later became a general in the Confederate Army.

I’ll concede that the details of Aiken’s life are sketchy at best, especially before the trial.  But when all the other characters in the movie are so clearly Right and Wrong, wouldn’t it have made for a more interesting movie if Redford had played up some of those ambiguities?  Made the audience wonder at his motives?

But all in all I still maintain that it’s a decent movie, and worth giving a shot if you like historical dramas.

Movies by Month: May 2012, part 1

Meek’s Cutoff:  2010 western directed by Kelly Reichardt and starring Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton and Shirley Henderson.  A small group of settlers break away from the Oregon Trail on what they believe is a shortcut to The West, and they come to realize their guide probably has no idea where he’s going.  When they encounter and capture a Native American the group is divided as to whose directions they should listen to next:  the potentially clueless fur trapper guide or the potentially dangerous Indian hostage.

            You have died of dysentery.  And boredom.  I weep for this period of American history that has been ruined for my generation by a computer game.  But at least the computer game was entertaining.  The pace of the movie was plodding, nothing really happens, they just walk and walk and the ending is stupid and inconclusive.  It would have been way more interesting if any context had been given; I had no idea that this was based on a true story or about the background or conclusion of their journey until I started researching it for this entry.  Skip it.

War, Inc.:  2008 political satire directed by Joshua Seftel and starring John and Joan Cusack, Marisa Tomei, Hilary Duff and Dan Aykroyd.  A hit man is sent to a fictional Arabic country to assassinate an oil tycoon.  His cover is to pose as a trade show host, but his story starts to unravel upon meeting an enchanting American journalist. 

I was just going to let this one pass me by, but was led to believe it was sort of, kind of a sequel to Grosse Pointe Blank.  That was a lie.  But the Cusack’s!  And Aykroyd!  I was misled.  I see what they were going for, but the satire was a bit heavy-handed, way too obvious.  There were a few small moments I found funny, but not enough to keep my attention.

Mississippi Burning:  1988 crime drama directed by Alan Parker and starring Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, R. Lee Ermey (heart), Brad Dourif, Michael Rooker and Frances McDormand.  It’s loosely based on the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964.  Hackman and Dafoe are an FBI odd couple sent to investigate the crime and bring the killers to justice.  Should be totally easy in a hostile Southern small town during the Civil Rights era, right?  It’s a little over the top at times, a bit preachy at times, a bit North-good-South-bad at times, but I still found it very enjoyable.

These Amazing Shadows:  2011 documentary about the history of the National Film Registry, directed by Paul Mariano and featuring interviews with a bunch of awesome movie nerds.  A few years back I finished watching the AFI Top 100 movies list, and since then have been slowly (and far less methodically) trying to watch Ebert’s Great Films list and the National Film Registry list.  It’s daunting.  As of 2011 the NFR included 575 films deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”  And about 25 new films are added each year.  It’s a Sisyphean task, but maybe by the time I retire . . .

            Anyway, it’s a great documentary if you love movies.

Brothers:  2009 drama directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman and Sam Shepard.  Sam (Maguire) is a stand-up guy:  a Marine about to embark on his fourth tour of duty, wonderful father to two little girls, married to his high school sweetheart, and has a haircut you could set your watch to.  Tommy (Gyllenhaal) is the black sheep of the family, just let out of prison as his brother is heading off to war.  When Sam is reported missing and presumed dead, Tommy steps up to help his sister-in-law keep her life together.  Tommy is found alive, but when he returns home he’s not the same man he used to be, and becomes obsessed with the idea that his brother may have been sleeping with his wife.  Good story in theory, right?  Yeah, I just didn’t think it was all that good – with the exception of the performances by Portman, Gyllenhaal and brilliant Bailee Madison as the older daughter.  The music is terrible, adds a significant cheese factor.  Maguire was tolerable right up until the climax, when he overshot it.  Maybe the original version is better.

The Warriors:  1979 cult action-thriller directed by Walter Hill and starring Michael Beck, James Remar, Deborah Van Valkenburgh and David Patrick Kelly.  When a powerful leader is killed at a NYC gang summit, word gets out that a crew called The Warriors is responsible.  They have to make it from the Bronx back to their home turf at Coney Island before one of the other gangs takes them out.  Um, it’s hilarious.  It’s campy and super ‘70s and I really liked it.  A gang that dresses as if KISS formed a baseball team?  But I think that watching it at a late night screening at my local independent movie theater surrounded by really enthusiastic people in costume probably helped.

J. Edgar:  2011 biographical drama directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas and Judi Dench.  If all you know about J. Edgar Hoover is that he was the head of the FBI and that he may have been gay or a cross-dresser, you are missing out.  The film gives him context; most people don’t remember the 1919 anarchist bombings that helped shape his character, or about his childhood stutter or his overbearing mother.  It’s a bit over the top at times, but I thought it did a fine job giving the broad-brushstrokes version of the FBI’s history, and it captured the good and the bad of Hoover.  He helped build the Library of Congress, standardized finger printing, centralized criminal records, and embraced scientific methods of detection and forensics long before anyone else did.  He also blackmailed civil rights leaders, illegally wiretapped like everyone in America, and was paranoid and power-hungry.  He’s a fascinating man, and I thought the movie was decent enough.

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.