Movie Rundown - A long list of movies

Okay, so here's a big catchup post of movies from the past three weeks or so. I don't remember exactly how long, but ... yeah. Long time. I think I'm getting back into movies, and I started another movie project, so hopefully this'll be a little more regular after this.

Maybe.

Sorry for the short intro. Work's been busy, and I'm trying to keep my rambling for a minimum. Hand troubles and all. So let's begin.

Kids (***)
This is one of those movies that's worth watching, but isn't a very good experience. The movie itself is fine, don't get me wrong, but it's depressing through and through in every aspect. The story of teens in New York City, it's about sex, violence, and the spreading of AIDS. And it's not happy, heartwarming fare. Nor is it comfortably tragic a la RENT. It's bleak. Refreshingly so, but ... it's not going to bring smiles to any faces. For people into depressing experiences only.

UP (*****)
Go see UP. Look, Pixar's never made a bad movie, even if I'm not really into A Bug's Life. This one is easily their best and miles above Wall-E. It's fantastic, it's beautifull, it's sad. Then after you watch it, go watch Kiki's Delivery Service and Howl's Moving Castle by Miyazaki and realize that they get their magic by emulating the master of magic.

But mostly, just go see it. It's wonderful.

Drag Me to Hell (****)
Look, I have a love/hate relationship with Sam Raimi. I really love Evil Dead 1 and 2. I'm not as into Army of Darkness. And I'm really ambivalent about Spider-Man. One was okay, two had it's great moments, but three was the blockbuster trainwreck of that year. Hated it. Hate hate hate.

This, however, is love. It's much more like Evil Dead. If you go into this as a straight up horror film, you'd be sorely disappointed. You see, Raimi has a fetish for torturing his characters. And so Drag Me to Hell, much like Evil Dead, exists in the little-explored region of horror/comedy. If you're into that sort of thing, go see this. It's brilliant. If you're not into that, no amount of explanation will ever make you see this. Which is sad, you closed-minded bastards.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (***)
Look, have you seen Tremors? No? Because it's a CLASSIC. And the second one isn't too bad either. If you're truly a masochist, you need to go ahead and watch Tremors 3. It's awful, almost completely irredeemable, but ... then you get to this. The ghettoist ghetto. Tremors 4. A prequel to a movie that most people have never even heard of.

And guess what? It's pretty good. I mean, it's silly, sure. And it has almost no budget. But as a monsters-in-old-west story it plays pretty well. It knows what it is and that it has to tell a modest story and it does that handily. Just for the setting and genre alone I'd say go ahead and give this one a watch, assuming you like Tremors as a franchise (such as it is).

Miami Vice (****)
Michael Mann. That enough is gonna get me to see a movie. And this one is pretty much a Mannstravaganza (which sounds, in retrospect, like something WAY different). It's full of fast-paced dialogue and ambiguous characters on either side of the cop/criminal divide. It has a few action beats that are vicious and feel realistic and have impact because they're so minimally used. It's not Heat, but it feels a little more measured in terms of the character portrayals than heat. Of particular note is Colin Farrell, who I've never really been into but really surprised me here.

Easy Virtue (*****)
I already reviewed this one, and basically I feel the same way as I used to. So go HERE, read this review, and then go see this movie in any way you can.

Clerks (****)
Okay, so I started a new movie project this summer (last summer was the Coen Brothers filmography) and I chose Kevin Smith. I don't know why I chose Kevin Smith, other than I had really been feeling like comedies lately and Kevin Smith movies are all films that I wish I had seen but haven't ever gotten around to seeing.

So, Clerks. I assume most everybody's seen Clerks. Its one of those movies that is everywhere and I hear jokes referencing it all the time. So I was expecting the movie itself to be bereft of much of its original voice and impact. Surprisingly, that wasn't the case. In fact, I found this movie to be surprisingly relevant to now even if it's well over 15 years old now.

The story of a bunch of apathetic convenience store clerks over a single day, Clerks is a no-budget slice of life comedy with a good eye for dialogue and a perfect sense of how guys talk when nobody's around. I know, because this movie very much feels like it's out of my own life. While I'm not sure how much people who aren't just out of their late teens/college years would like it, I felt that it was heartfelt in its vulgarity because it was so true. It really connected to me, on a multitude of levels, where I actually related to the characters in a way I typically don't.

So ... yeah. Clerks is great. And I'm looking very forward to watching the rest of Kevin Smith's movies.

----

So, that's done. Who knows whats on the agenda this week, aside from my much-anticipated viewing of Public Enemies on Friday and Mallrats sometime this week. My friend Adam is trying to rope me into watching Twilight, but ... I don't think anybody wants that, other than him.

And he's a bastard.

Is this fiction? I was supposed to write fiction.

I'm supposed to be writing a short story right now. At least, that's what I agreed to. I was sitting here, idly munching on a slide of provolone cheese and drinking a strawberry Fanta when some miserable harpy of guilt and responsibility alighted upon my window sill.

TAP TAP went the sound of her gnarled beak on my window.

"Nooooo, no no, I'm not going to let you in," I said aloud to an empty room. This is, believe it or not, not uncommon behavior for me. So you're just going to have to roll with it.

TAP TAP was the (predictable) response.

I knew the game here. If I was to acknowledge the tapping, I would get all sorts of disapproval. You see, I like to make intimations that I'm some sort of writer. Hell, for a while there, I was even acting like one. With drafts and novels and career plans and all that happy crappy.

But lately, man. Let's just say that the guilt thing would be both well-placed and sorely unappreciated.

"Go away! I'm on vacation. I don't want any. No solicitation. It's on the sign!" In truth I have no such sign, but surely solicitation so early in the morning by something so horrible is never a welcome thing. And even if I DID have said sign, I'm pretty sure the harpy would have happily ignored the proclamation of my disinterest. Besides, bird-things don't read, to the best of my knowledge.

TAP TAP. TAP.

I waited patiently several minutes for the tapping to stop. Maybe if I ignored it, it would go away and torment some other poor soul who was much more deserving of its nightmarish dedication to upholding idealistic dreams than I. Someone who had woken up sometime normal. I have been awake since 3 PM the previous day. Not a huge amount of time, I'm not ready to hallucinate yet, but it's been a long day and the last thing I need is a mental trip down self-loathing avenue. I do enough of that on my own.

I'm a conveniently long-sleeved shirt and a bad dye job away from being the emo poster boy of reluctant artists everywhere.

With better taste in music, though.

I was just getting ready to settle back into my drink, maybe check webcomics or the daily woot deal, when suddenly there was a single, resonant TAP. Clear. Declarative. Firm. This was no request for idle entry. This was a command. A seige in a sound. An order in an onomatopoeia. An anguished attempt at alliteration.

All these things, and more. I was compelled!

Idly, I opened the window. There was the accursed Harpy! I will spare you the labored description of such things, but I will tell you if you had been there to see the shrieking, gesticulating, emphatic menacee, you too would be reaching deep down into your bag of adjectives and finding that there was nothing that properly reflected the horror that you felt.

"Good morning," I ventured idly. A strong sense of apathy is just the thing to defeat those who would try to influence you emotionally. Especially when they're prodding your sensitive bits. No, no, not those sensitive bits. The sensitive bits of the psyche. No, the ones left of those. Yep, you got it.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" This was an unhappy Harpy.

"That's a terrible way to greet someone," I replied. Because, protip: beginning a conversation with anything including the word fuck? Bad form. Bad form indeed.

"You really should be writing," the Harpy began without a moment's hesitation. It's a single-minded beast, sent only to prey upon my deepest neuroses. I can respect that kind of dedication.

"Look," I began, holding up a hand to cut it off before it really began a tirade. "I'm on vacation. Work was really busy, and I typed my hands into uselessness and pain, and I took some days off in order to recover and shit. I don't need you showing up in the eleventh hour and trying to get me to pick up the yoke of your literary oppression all over again. Remember what happened with the script? I remember. I'll always remember."

Cue the thousand yard stare. If I had a soundtrack, there would be an overlay of furious typing drifting away into swearing. The sound of glass shattering. Paper burning. Maybe an explosion for good measure. Why half-ass it, right?

"That was like ... months ago. When are you going to grow a pair and act like you know what the hell you're doing?"

"That's just it. I don't. I can't get started and it's all crap and I hate myself and I hate life. Leave me alone! I was on vacation. Vacay. Last day. Does that mean nothing to you? Do you have to violate this last sacred bastion of my blissfully empty existance?"

The Harpy arched one skeptical, sculpted eyebrow. "Blissful, huh? You don't seem very blissful to me."

"SHUT UP!"

"Real mature, dude. Listen, you should write."

"Last day. No bueno. DO. NOT. WANT. Were you not listening, or do I have to break it down a little further? Kiss my ass, and don't let the balls hit you in the face on the way down."

"Colorful. Maybe you should be putting your snark to good use and ... y'know, maybe put out some fiction. You are supposed to be a writer."

"I don't know who you've been talking to, but those are lies. Foul, foul lies. I never claimed anything of the sort."

"I really don't want to point to your blog, or your twitter bio, or your facebook, or anything like that. But I will if you insist on being stubborn like this."

It was at this point that the harpy had a point. And also when I realized that I'd probably never get to properly finish my dinner of cheese and fruit soda. So I bit the bullet.

"Vacation. I'm supposed to be R&Ring."

"That's not a verb," the Harpy offered.

"Who's the writer here?"

"Technically, I am. You claim to be, but I don't see it." Ooooh. Burn. This Harpy was a real Witch-with-a-B.

"What the fuck? That's ice cold."

"Hey, I call it like I see it. You're supposed to be all rockin' the world with your books and shit, but you haven't filled out a postit note in months."

"But ... last day ... vacation."

"C'mon, you can do better than that. What better time to write than when you have nothing better to do? What else were you gonna do? Watch TV? Surf the internet? Tweet a bunch?"

"Those all sound like pretty good options to me."

The Harpy rolled its beady little eyes. "Do yourself a favor, write something. Anything. It'll help get you started. A short story, even. Nothing serious. Just something. Be a writer. Pretend for a little while. Maybe you'll surprise yourself."

"If I do this, will you leave me the hell alone?"

"No, but I might stop bothering you for a little while."

"You're a real dick, you know that?"

The Harpy climbed back up to the window. "Aren't all Harpies female or something?"

"Hey, I don't know. You're the Harpy, you tell me."

"I think this metaphor's been stretched far enough. Good luck, kid, you'll need it." And then, cackling at the trauma it had just inflicted upon me, the wretched beast flew off. I was alone. With a sudden, reawakened sense of my own responsibility as a one-time writer and oft-time proponent of doing something with my life.

So I pulled up google docs. There were the two novels to be edited. That was right out. In my prime I couldn't wrap my head around editing. If I was a race horse right now, I'd be part glue. No way I'm ready for that.

Then there's the crazy short story project Miss Ditty roped me into. Nope, that's not going to work. That's all like ... concept stuff. I can barely type a sentence without descending into madness. How would I ever work on something like that?

I tried in vain to write something new. Something relevant and witty and gripping in the way that good fiction gets. I got as far as some interesting first sentences such as "When the barista disturbed Teresa he got a faceful of 'fuck you'" and "When the electricity in my part of the state finally went out, I could have sworn I still heard a TV putting out the distinct electrical hum associated with being on but not displaying a picture."

These were not great opening salvos in the war against the rusted gears of this creaky word-weaver.

Instead, I contemplated doing nothing. The Harpy was gone. She would not return today, and I could ignore her for a little while longer. Why do today what you can put off until whenever, or whatever. I could carry on as before without anyone to answer to but myself.

But for a moment, a voice spoke up. "Dude, could you really live with yourself if you took this moment, when you literally have no excuse, and gave up without even really giving it a try?"

And I stared really hard at my computer screen, and I answered that little voice. "Dude, no. You're right. Let's DO THIS!"

And so I thought for a minute, and decided to let the muses decide. I pulled up blogger, I clicked on New Post, and I typed the opening line:

I'm supposed to be writing a short story right now.

My Strawberry Fanta is probably flat. That's okay. I have some more in the fridge.

Movie Rundown - April 20 to May 10

My apologies for this taking so long. Things have been kind of hectic, with the failure of my Script Frenzy attempt and some family issues. I'm probably not going to talk about either here on the blog. Maybe the Script Frenzy thing. On a day when I'm feeling particularly self-destructive.

I haven't been much in the mood for netflix movies lately, so this list is going to be short for how much time it covers. I've just been watching The Office in my spare time. Good stuff. As for the movies, here we go!

Resurrecting the Champ (****)
Josh Hartnett plays a struggling sports journalist who discovers that a homeless man who goes by Champ (played by Samuel L Jackson) is a former boxing contender to a world title. He tries to form a bond with Champ in order to write his story, a sure-fire hit.

It sounds like it could descend into the saccharine, but I found it a really good movie. Hartnett, who's never really set me afire, is surprisingly solid in an ineffectual everyman sort of way. The real star here is Jackson, though, who forgoes his typical blaxploitation schtick to turn in a great performance. Champ is run down, ancient, wobbly and screechy, and Jackson's portrayal is at times heartbreaking and others repellant. It's the backbone of the movie, and it carries it well.

2 Fast 2 Furious (**)
The second move in the series of things that are Fast and Furious, this is widely regarded as the worst of the series. And I'm willing to agree with that. This movie is kind of messed up from the get go. It just plods on with a formulaic adherence to mediocrity that's startling. There are moments that are fun, but there are (minus one) no moments that are great.

For a big budget summer action movie? That's inexcusable.

Also, there's a crazy amount of CGI used in this movie, especially at the beginning. It got better over time, but at the beginning it was nearly insufferable. The rule of car movies needs to be "NO CG." And its lack of faith in the subject matter is disheartening. For completionists only.

Diva (***)
I had never heard of this movie until I read an essay from Tom Robbins where he answered the question "What is your favorite movie character?" He cited this movie and one of the characters in it. The joy of the modern world, I could have it in my mailbox within a week.

This is a French movie about a young man who records a singer who refuses to record her work for his own use. But when his tape is mixed up with a tape incriminating the leader of a prostitution ring, the young man is tossed into a world of intrigue and blackmail.

The movie itself is strange, with an odd surrealist quality to everything. Tom Robbins' favorite character dances around the periphery of the story like some sort of mad monk, which is probably what appealed to him. But the action itself takes on this strange dreamlike quality where the danger feels almost unimportant in the face of people's desires as they go through the story. That detachment I'm almost certain is on purpose, and I like the dreamlike nature of it, but I wouldn't say it's particularly gripping. If you like strange French thrillers, go right ahead and watch this, though, and you won't regret it.

Earth
I'm not rating this one, and you might say that's a cop out but I'm going to defend it. Simply put, there was a narrative here, but my enjoyment of it was completely independant of whatever storytelling they were trying to do.

We all know the story. Disney nature documentary using footage from the Planet Earth miniseries from a year or so ago. There's a story about some families of mammals in the struggle to survive on a dynamic ecosystem such as ours. There is some talk of global warming and whatnot.

But what this truly is is nature porn. It's the landscape and the creatures upon it as art in themselves, presented in the most breathtaking ways. This is one of those films that thrives on camera technology, on the ability to shoot HD and slow motion and from far away with a Steadicam and still get detail. And what it picks up is amazing, from slow motion footage of a cheetah bringing down prey to a time lapse of a frozen forest coming to life. It's spellbinding in a way that is all about the image and very little about anything else.

I highly suggest anyone who is into things beautiful go see it, if it's even still playing. The nicest screen you can find it at. This is one that benefits greatly from the HD experience. I would probably not been as affected had it been on a TV running a plain old DVD.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (*)
I was going to write up why this movie was completely fucked from end to end, but you could get that from a lot of places. It stands as the worst movie I've ever payed money to see, from the terrible CGI used all over the place in glaring ways to the insipid script that ruins perfectly good actors on material that would have been at home with the Super Friends. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber try their hardest to add some gravitas to the proceedings, but it's not enough, nor is the typically solid Harry Gregson-Williams score. Whoever made this movie like this messed up huge. It's trash. Garbage. Don't give them your ticket money. Simple as that.

Star Trek (****)
This one is easier to write about, because it's easy to gush. So I'll keep it short. Star Trek is a reboot of the franchise that everyone all over the world has heard of. It's a new Kirk, Spock and McCoy back when they were just starting out on their first adventure. It's made by J J Abrams, who apparently is pretty popular these days.

It is also fantastic. Every bit works, from the pitch perfect casting to the balance between being faithful to the fans of Trek and making a movie that nonfans would actually care about. It's emotionally strong, it's fast paced, it's interesting, it's full of actual danger and real risks and they pay off big time in surprising ways (which I won't go into, but have ramifications for any sequels that come about).

Go see it. I don't care what you think about the original Star Trek. I was sorely tempted to give it five stars, but even at four, I think that it's a movie that everyone needs to see and a movie that'll find its way onto my Top Movies of 2009 list later this year. You need to see it. It's a movie that's bigger than a fanbase, and bigger than serious moviegoers. This is THE event film.

( Also, because I have to give shout outs to the best parts of the movie, Karl Urban as McCoy is BRILLIANT. I could have watched a whole movie about him. I've been behind him since I saw him in The Two Towers, so seeing him really put in that strong of a performance is thrilling. Also, Michael Giacchino, the composer, does an amazing job of providing strong thematic material to help underscore the movie. It's big and bombastic, but it rarely feels heavyhanded. In fact, I'm listening to the score as I write this. Giacchino also did the scores to the underappreciated Sky High and Speed Racer, and the rightly appreciated Incredibles. He's a man I'm going to watch, because I ALWAYS enjoy his work. )

The Soloist (***)
I slipped this one in on Mothers Day and came away kind of ... unenthused about the whole thing. The story is easy enough, the tale of a Juliard dropout with schitzophrenia who's living on the streets playing music when he's discovered by an LA Columnist who takes an interest in his story. I'd heard of the story when the book was released, and the movie does a good job of retelling it.

The problem is that the director doesn't seem satisfied with letting the actors do their job. There is a bombardment of jump cuts and surround sound wankering with voices to help illustrate the schitzophrenia. There are strange, surrealistic scenes plopped in seemingly at random. And there's an absolutely mood-breaking moment of synesthesia placed smack dab in the middle of what should have been one of the most affecting parts of the movie. But instead of trusting Jamie Foxx to do his job, the director seemed more interested in how he could play around with his tools.

Disappointing, I say again. Solid performances, but the filmmaking itself left a lot to be desired. I wouldn't say its a waste of time, but it's nothing special.

------

And that's a wrap. I'm going to be trying to start writing again this week as I try to get out from under all the problems that aren't my creative work that have been pressing me down. I've also go the madness of a younger brother graduating high school this week, but ... I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get some output.

See you on the other side of this week.

Movie Rundown - April 13 to April 19

The Cutting Edge: Magic of Movie Editing (*****)
Film editing is one of those hidden arts of making movies. It's rarely obvious, it's rarely noticed by the average movie-goer, but it is one of the most essential aspects of the art. It's right up there with the writer and the director. An understanding of editing is essential to appreciating movies as art.

Good thing there are things like this documentary to point out examples of editing achievements and techniques, of a brief history of editing from the first person to splice film together to the MTV generation of quick cuts and the ability to edit within the frame.

This is one of those documentaries that needs to be seen, an examination of the film medium in total, an elaboration on one of the most under appreciated aspects of movie-making, bringing it out and exposing it in way that I guarantee will provide nearly everyone with a great appreciation of the task after having watched it.

Breathless (****)
One of the major films of the La Nouvelle Vague, Breathless is the film of a thief and his love interest as he tries to lay low after the unintentional murder of a man during an escape.

This is a hard film to talk about, if only because like many of the most influential of films from the era, what it did best has been so mined and replicated that it can kind of feel like old hat. But Breathless sets itself apart by keeping the characters and acting interesting, with a story that carries on to an inevitable end but invests you in the characters who try their hardest to avoid it.

The real key here is in the film making techniques. Goddard was big into jump cuts, disregarding the traditional editing of film to provide a more kinetic experience. It's almost jarring at first, with the film skipping like a record with a scratch, but the energy on the screen is absolute. By cutting out the unimportant things, or choosing when to show them, the empty spaces are given a weight and impact that most films lack. I can't help but recommend this one for just being that amazingly put together.

Milo and Otis (***)
I saw this on the urging of my friend Adam, who said that he had fond memories of it. It's the story of a cat and a dog who grow up on a farm together and end up getting lost in the wilderness on an adventure. Standard animal fair along the lines of Homeward Bound or similar?

Not really. See, Milo and Otis was actually a Japanese movie that was appropriated for American audiences, given a comforting narrator and turned into a comfortable story. But like the most classic fairytales, there's something in the storytelling that makes me feel as if there's far more here. The animals are described in adorable ways, but they act like animals, with the instincts of hunters and scavengers and fighters. There is a kind of hard undercurrent, dark and bleak, that keeps the storytelling interesting.

I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like there are two stories here, a very adult, mature story about the stages of life and the isolation of men over time, even in the state of nature, and the cozy bedtime story of farm animals looking for home. And it's that dichotomy that makes it worth watching, the hidden depth that provides entertainment across the age groups.

Yeah, for an animal movie, it's pretty good.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (****) [rewatch]
It's getting to the point where the car movie reviews are coming to be old hat. So let me just break this down really fast. The third entry in the franchise of things that are both Fast and Furious to varying degrees is a fun movie. It's got a silly but servicable plot, some pretty solid acting, and absolutely amazing car work. It also it completely fetishistic about how awesome Japan is, from the crazy styles to the crazy food to the insanity that is Japanese culture.

If you haven't seen any of the movies before, this one is essentially a stand-alone film, so you wouldn't be missing anything by just skipping to this one. It's got some cute eye candy of both genders, some great music, and brilliant car work (almost all of which was done practically, see my complaints about the original Fast and Furious below).

Also, Sonny Chiba.

Sonny Chiba is the motherfucking MAN.

Bullitt (**)
This is ... troubling. Bullitt is the first of the 'rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules' movies. Or at least, the first big one. Dirty Harry, Die Hard, whatever you want. That archetype made it here. The problem is, as the first of a subgenre, it feels really mellow and tame compared to the rest. So the film itself seems long and boring and convoluted.

That said, there's a classic car chase through the streets of San Francisco in here that's FANTASTIC. The problem? It's 10 minutes long, and the movie goes on for another 45 minutes after that.

This one's just aged really badly, I think. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't looking at it for a particular film reason. Like I said, it's noteworthy, but ... not my thing.

State of Play (****)
I wasn't really that excited for this movie going in, which might have been a blessing or not, because I ended up really surprised. You see, I wasn't committed to seeing anything this week, but knew I should, and this was showing before Observe and Report so it got the vote.

This tale of reporters after a conspiracy is a strange beast in this day and age. The BBC miniseries version from a few years ago probably was a little more relevant, I'm not sure, but this is a movie that exists in the last days of the newspaper business. And it's aware of that, with a newspaper that's a small arm of a giant media company and the tension of a Journalist with a capital J and a member of the paper's younger blogging branch teaming up.

It's an odd combination, but it really does work quite well. It feels kind of strange, though, watching the paradigm shift. The world isn't going to be the same, and while Journalism will eventually find its proper home after the sinking of the newspapers, right now we're entering a time when this kind of story would be nigh-impossible to actually come about. The idea of a newspaper having the resources to dig into a conspiracy? Well, that's hard to do if the newspaper is owned by corporate business interests. Impossible if there's no funding for that kind of in-depth research. Ridiculous if there's no power to protect sources and go where one shouldn't in pursuit of the story.

It's a digression, but that the movie left me with those feelings is only to its credit. To turn back to it, it's a tightly plotted political thriller with a great cast. I'm never a Russell Crowe fan, but I have to admit that he always is a credit to any movie he's in. And Mr. Affleck is the perfect actor to portray a Senator. It's impossible to tell with him what's real and what's artifice, and the role suits him.

It's a great movie. I'd recommend it for anyone with even the slightest interest in the subject matter or genre.

The Fast and the Furious (***)
So I picked this up at Walmart for the hell of it on Friday night after seeing State of Play, and rewatching it is kind of a frustrating experience. See, this is one of those movies that is going to go down as the kick off of a franchise that's become pretty good in the past two movies. But this one isn't so great. In fact, it's sometimes infuriating.

Why?

CGI.

See, the whole point of any decent car movie is to see these powerful, behemoth vehicles doing things that a normal person could not make them do. It's pushing the limit on what can be done with something that is normally so ordinary. The drivers are exceptional, the equipment is top notch, the magic the two make is thrilling.

Unfortunately, in one of the first noteworthy scenes of the movie, the majority of the race is done in CGI. Which exhibits a lack of faith in the subject matter that I find disturbing. A director who can't trust the cars to sell themselves is a director who hasn't committed to the idea of making a car movie.

That said, it's a solid enough film, and the second half is much better about this than the first half, with some solid races and an absolutely killer final crash that's all in camera and breathtaking for it.

This one is eventually going to go down as a guy movie classic, I think, so going back to it is to acknowledge its influence. Unfortunately, Tokyo Drift and Fast & Furious are much better films, but will likely suffer for not coming first.

The Darjeeling Limited (***)
This one's confusing. Because I really adored the first half of this movie, only to really lose my patience with it in the final 30 minutes or so. You see, this is a quirky movie about some idiosyncratic brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzmann) who take a train ride across India for reasons that aren't originally clear. It's a movie about dysfunction, about the relationships between family, about growing up and growing together. It's a nice film.

It just makes its point too damn early. There's a moment towards the hour point of the film where all three brothers are sitting around a campfire bonding. And everything that comes after that is simply a retread of that moment. I don't know, call me crazy, but I felt that the pacing on this one was all knocked out of alignment near the end.

That said, I did enjoy it. It's got a great style, and is shot well, and the three leads are genuinely funny. I just ... didn't enjoy it as much on the exit as I did during the watching.

10 Questions for the Dalai Lama (****)
Despite being more than moderately curious about Buddhism, the history of Tibet and the Dalai Lama has never really been a big subject for me. I knew about it, of course, but not in such detail as this documentary provides. Shot by a man who spent the month before a 10 question interview with the leader of Tibet-in-Exile travelling through the land and taking in the religion and traditions of the people, this is an intimate and compassionate look at the displacement of Tibet and the history of the region, including the Chinese invasion.

It all culminates as the director sits down and talks with the Dalai Lama about the nature of happiness, cultural change in the face of globalization, the problem with China on the international scene, and other things. What's remarkable about this movie is the Dalai Lama himself. Here is a spiritual leader who embraces what is new and different, a man who's devoted to learning and understanding not just his faith, but things all over the world. As you watch this man dressed in monks robes fiddling with electronics, or talking about quantum theory, you can't help but be amazed that in a world where all too often religion goes hand in hand with closed-minded zealotry, here is a man who can embrace his faith and the works of humanity all in a single grasp. A man who believes in peace as a road to solve all problems. A man who laughs even when faced with a bleak, unwinnable position, because he refuses to be a victim and refuses to resort to emotional vengeance and self-destruction.

It's inspiring, just to watch him. This is one of the few times I've ever been moved by the statements and arguments of the leader of any faith. And I think that it is worth experiencing, whether you would agree with him or not.

Dark City (*****)
Talk about going out on a high note. This movie was a recommendation from a random person on twitter, and I added it mostly on a whim. Little did I know what I was walking into.

Dark City is a neo-noir about a world where nothing is as it seems. Memories are faulty. The hero wakes up remembering nothing with a dead hooker in his room. There are men in black coats after him. There is a wife he doesn't remember, played by the enchanting Jennifer Connelly, playing a jazz singer who steals the show whenever she stands in front of the microphone in one of her vintage, solid-color dresses, the bright spot of an otherwise mundane world.

This is a movie about mystery. A movie about identity. It did what The Matrix tried to do better a year earlier, with more regard for having substance. It's empowering, it's mysterious, it's unknowable and yet familiar. I can't heap enough accolades upon it.

Go see it. Seriously. The director's cut can be picked up for cheap at Walmart, or you can netflix it, or whatever. But it's a brilliant film that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to EVERYONE. I don't even want to talk about it, for fear of spoiling things. Just ... go see. You won't be disappointed.

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And there we go! Next week is already pretty planned out, though I wouldn't be surprised if something out of the norm shows up in there, too. So far on the agenda we have the following movies coming from netflix:

City of Lost Children
Diva
2 Fast 2 Furious

And on Friday I'm planning on seeing Earth, Disney's new nature documentary that looks gorgeous. I'm not even into nature docs, but it's utter eye candy and digital theaters mean that I'm willing to see things just to look at them and drool for a while.

Until next week, enjoy! Time to get working on the script!

(p.s. Lovely readers, I'm planning on getting the script up on the blog once Script Frenzy is over for anyone to read. Look for that in early May some time, I'll have to figure out how to host it and all that first.)

The Travel Urge in the Dead of Night

It's late. 2:37 to be exact, though I think it feels closer to midnight. That's because I slept way longer than I had any reasonable excuse to sleep today. Six hours. And that's after the six hours of proper sleep I got between Friday and Saturday.

I didn't mean to, but my saturdays trend towards a lot of sleep. I don't know why. Perhaps because I'm so chronically sleep deprived during the week. I know the rule is that you can't 'catch up' on sleep, but your body does accrue sleep debt. And I somehow doubt that my body would accept a deferred payment plan or a government bailout for my sleeping schedule.

I have the urge to climb into the car and take off for parts unknown. I get these urges from time to time. Especially now that the weather is reasonable. I've had my window open all day and outside of the rise in noise level, one couldn't tell. Which means that winter is officially dead and gone, at least for another handful of months when it comes around again, an uninvited guest that always comes at the wrong time and stays too long.

I won't go anywhere, not the least reason being I have nowhere to go. Where do you go at 2:40 AM when there's nowhere open and no destination in mind? When you're by yourself, nowhere. You just look out the window at the street lights lining an empty road and your mind dreams up warm meadows of grass moving in shadow where you could be if you weren't here listening to music in the same room that you live in even when the weather is terrible.

You know, somewhere away from the cityglow, where you could maybe see some stars. It's bad enough around here that I couldn't tell you if the night were truly clear or not. Too many lights. Maybe I would go out several miles from town and there would be nothing. No stars, no moon, just the heavy ceiling of the air keeping me from the heavens. That kind of darkness would be absolute. I'm pretty sure I've scared myself off of traveling.

The most substantial roadtrip I ever took was with my family one year to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. I suppose that 'family' isn't entirely accurate. I went with my great aunt and my mother and brother. My father was never big on family vacations. His opinion was that he had spent his life travelling the world and had settled where he was, and he didn't see any point wasting a lot of energy going back out again.

I didn't see much effort in going out simply because I wasn't interested. I brought along a book. It was Stephen King's The Stand which I checked out of the library even though I was only a tyke and the book was clearly labelled adult. I'm pretty sure that the librarian was grateful that there was a child interested in reading more than she was in what was 'proper'. This was before the Harry Potters and Twilights of the world. Childhood literacy was a bigger concern. I imagine it still is, but nobody's paying as much attention.

I remember the van eating up miles as I lay stretched across the back seat (even then I was nearly too tall for that, the idea of doing it now seems laughable) delving into worlds beyond anything I had ever imagined before. Looking back, locked in a car with my family was probably what made that book so magical to me, reading about people moving across the topography of our country even as I was doing so. But now, with the urge to travel nipping at my mind I wonder if I missed my enjoyment in the activity.

Probably not. I was always a terrible passenger.

I didn't appreciate travel until I started driving. My brother goes to high school for another month in Gretna, a small nigh-rural town on the outskirts of Omaha. To get there, you can take the interstate most of the way but it eventually exits onto a two lane state highway that cuts through fields where horses are penned and corn grows and other fields that simply grow wild grass because nobody farms them. I used to, for a very short time, live in this small town. I have no fondness for it, but that's how it was.

But driving from that little place into the city where everything I cared about was became an experience. Cars have taken on, over time, a transformative quality for me. They are more than simple tools for transportation, but are the conduits of our urging for freedom and change. They turn will into action with little more than the hinge of our foot and the turn of our hands. We don't even have to get up and we can fly across any land we dare traverse. Is this not marvelous?

These were the times when I was a creature of darkness. Not so melodramatic as that, perhaps, but I was often out until all hours of the morning. And I became quite adept at night driving, watching my car eat the miles between one place and another, the road unspooling out of the narrow field of view of the headlights. This is out where there were no lights, where there could be anything out in the road that you couldn't see. Where the darkness felt a little more real and your movement through it a little more important, an island of technology driving through a sea of wilderness.

But the driving bug isn't the travelling bug. See, there are two different ways to experience travel. Travel by yourself is about the satisfaction of an act done mindfully. You exist, you have a goal, you make it happen through your action. Driving requires a certain minimum of engagement that keeps you aware of what you're doing. The Buddhist way prescribes being aware of the present moment as the highest form of meditation. To drive in an engaged way is to meditate in motion.

But a trip. A trip is a more ephemeral thing. A trip is about a companion and the experience. What you're doing is irrelevant. The driving part is only because it's the easiest to take. A trip is about being with someone and going on this shared experience away from both people's comfort zones. It's about the connection that forms when you GO with someone.

It doesn't matter if it's a friend, really. It helps, certainly, but so long as the person isn't insufferable a sense of bond will form between the people on a trip. It can't help but do so. Because deep down, people on trips all know that the trip itself is a unifying ritual. People go, people experience in tandem, and what comes up between the people on a trip is a result of the bond that forms due to shared experience.

One time I was travelling into the woods to go camping with some friends. We were young and it was late and my friend's father was driving. It was another night when the darkness was absolute. The beat up old truck was tearing through the night and on the radio came Little Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharaos. And we all sang along and it has a togetherness and bonding that still carries with me to this day. When I hear that song, I feel the night and the summer wind and the darkness and the vibrations of a battered old vehicle on a forgotten road.

I remember the time I was on a church trip (back when I did such things) and the annoying, hyperactive brat of a kid one night decided to pick on me, the quiet studious one. We were at a lake in Iowa. The night ended with me throwing him into the water. People cheered. I remember sitting on the sandy beach and feeling everyone's satisfaction that the act was done and their shame that it wasn't them doing it. I had just reacted without thinking. I remember being concerned about the mosquitos. But I also remember that he didn't bother anyone quite so aggressively again.

I remember walking through a closed open air mall in Tucson just last year with a dear friend of mine. The air was drier than it is here, so it felt cooler. The mall at night, with the lights dimmed, felt like a graveyard. We stood at a balcony that overlooked the city, on an elevation that had the rest of Tucson spread out in front of us. And serendipity, that magical force that turns the ordinary into the miraculous, summoned a fireworks show in honor of something (we still don't know) over the dim city lights. I remember standing with my arm around her and watching the fireworks and feeling a transient feeling of contentment. One of those moments where the universe brings all things together.

I remember walking through downtown Lincoln with my roommate at the time, the dead of morning when we made our way through the historical district. We were talking about the supernatural on a day devoid of life. We were feeling the power that moves through buildings and the tingling feeling that comes when you feel like a place is haunted, whether you believe it or not. We both looked on a building that I, to this day, would not go near in the darkness and would hesitate to enter on a busy day. And not just because of some of the stories I've heard about it.

These are journeys. Going. Doing. Sharing. Existing in a space with another person, bouncing off of one another. Energy is the vibration of atoms, brushing up against one another. People act the same way. The force of our bonds, the lives that we share, are enriched by our own vibrations, the energy that's released when we come into contact, even if we repel each other.

Often especially when we repel each other.

Long roads. Some day I'm going to make my trip, but I lack a destination or a companion. I don't need both, but I need one of them. Until then, I'm going to look and dream and wonder at the roads. The possibilities. What will the sky be like when I finally go? Will there be someone sitting next to me to take it all in, to share in the experience? Or will it be me and the world as the unknowable machine driving it all, the window open and the music up?

Movie Rundown - March 30 to April 12

Okay. Sorry everyone that this was two weeks in the making. Last week I just felt there were too few movies. Now there's too many. Blame the illness I had this weekend, where I didn't want to work on Script Frenzy and instead decided to tear up my netflix movies so I could send them all back.

Maybe we'll see one next week, maybe I'll end up with my nose to the grindstone for Script Frenzy. I don't know. But for now, enjoy.

Fast & Furious (***)
Okay, Fast & Furious. The 4th film in this series. It's a fun film, exactly what it needs to be in the genre. But if you don't appreciate silly plots with incompetent FBI agents and honorable street racing near-mystics, this probably isn't for you. But then again, you probably knew that, didn't you? Because you looked at the first one, which is a genuinely solid film, and said "Oh my, cars and Vin Diesel? Not for me, thank you."

Well, you should go see that one. The first one. See what you think. Because this movie was good, but essentially more of the same. Better than all but the first, more serious than Tokyo Drift but still light fare. For those that are interested, yes it's worth your time. It's fun, kinda goofy but Vin Diesel is back in top form and the car stuff is pretty brilliant.

If you weren't curious about this series, though, maybe we should talk car movies for a second. Because I rewatched ...

Death Proof (*****) [rewatch]

... and let me tell you, this is the movie that convinced me to check out car movies. In fact, this is THE car movie, in my eyes. Better than anything else, full of intense action and brilliant cinematography. But I mean, this is Tarantino. Even his worst movie (Pulp Fiction, if you're curious) is pretty damn good, a classic in its own right.

So go see this movie. I don't care if you hate cars. If the idea of a car movie makes you yawn, see it anyway. This movie is awesome. It's a cinematic wonder, full of amazing shots of amazing scenes with amazing actors walking the careful line between schlock camp and genuinely moving performances.

Going in, know that this is part of the double feature with Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror. That movie isn't required for this, but they do have some character crossover. This is definitely the better movie, however, and should be on EVERYONE's Must See list.

Australia (****)

This movie is hard to rate, honestly, because I'm kind of conflicted about it. At first, I was confused that the western became some sort of a romance/war film, but then it all started to make sense. At least, to me it did.

The point of Australia is about the things that are bigger than us. About the tribal traditions that form the land and the power of the environment. About the social groups that people have to move through as best they can. About the belief systems of a time that control how people behave. And about how the dreams of individuals are so rapidly changed by something as impersonal as war.

I think the tonal shift works, but at first it's terribly jarring. Especially since the beautiful, color-drenched world Baz Luhrman paints in the first half gives way to the dark and muted palate of Australia after Japanese raids. It's a strange combination, but the film that it creates is a testament to the power of the movement of time, despite people's attempts to hold onto their dreams and ambitions. A well-recommended film.

Amélie (*****)

Talk about another well-recommended film. This movie is so good that I included a scene from it retroactively in my Top 20 Favorite Movie Scenes (go find it here!) The story of a French woman who decides to go out of her way to help people, this is a truly magical movie. There are films that feel colorful and films that are uplifting, but some times they come together in a way that transcends the sum. Amélie is a storybook version of France, a world of romance and wonder and beauty and love--both romantic and for humanity at large.

I can't believe it took me so long to watch this movie. Don't make the same mistake. Just go watch it. You'll see. It's wonderful.

Re-Animator (***)

One of the classics of cult horror films, I admit that I was remiss in watching this. It's truly an awesome film, with drop-dead hilarious moments that I would LOVE to see in a midnight movie some day. Also, it stars Jeffrey Combs, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite character actors ever. His portrayal of a mad scientist type without descending too far into ridiculousness is the template upon which all mad scientists should be built.

If you're into goofy horror, you've seen this. If you aren't, this probably isn't for you. But it's short, fun, and well-put-together.

Planet B-Boy (****)

This documentary is about break dancing, and the international competition for title of top team. I've never really cared one way or another about break dancing, but it was highly rated and I was in the mood for a documentary. And let me tell you, it was the right choice.

The movie follows five teams from France, the US, Japan, and South Korea as they train and prepare for the yearly comptetition in Germany. In between is the history of the dance, from its origins in the 60s to its pop-fad moment in the 80s and 90s to its state today. And in doing so, it makes a convincing argument as a valid art form. I might not have cared about break dancing before, but I can say after watching this that I have a newfound appreciation for it.

Part of what I find so compelling about it is the dedication of the dancers themselves. In any art form, what drives it is people who are dedicated to it to the near-exclusion of all else. And that is certainly the case here, where people from all backgrounds and walks of life push themselves to the brink to express what they feel and who they are through their chosen medium. And that is what I find really compelling about any sort of artist, be it dance or filmmaking or painting or writing or music.

Dragonball: Evolution (**)
All right, let me lay this one out for you. I grew up a fan of Dragonball and Dragonball Z. I know they're terrible, but they were my first real exposure to anime and they have a nostalgic place in my heart despite the fact that I know they're trash. So the idea of a terrible American film based on a mediocre anime series was exactly the ticket.

No, this movie isn't good. I knew that when I went to see it. The effects are cheesy, the action is lacking, and it mostly misses the point of both series in favor of MacGuyvering them together into some sort of monstrosity. That said, it was kind of goofy and at moments had a lot of the charm that Dragonball had, so long as you didn't think too hard about where it came from.

But a terrible film is a terrible film, and even if I have a taste for train wrecks, that doesn't make it worth seeing. Unless you're a sucker for ironicly watching bad movies, don't go see this. Just stay the hell away from it.

Coffee and Cigarettes (***)
Okay, so this is a collection of short films by Jim Jarmusch. I've only seen one other film of his, the amazing but incredibly opaque Broken Flowers. So I went into this expecting something hard to properly analyze, because ideas such as plot and meaning hold little sway here.

All of the films are about people talking while drinking coffee and smoking. There are some recurring themes, but all it really is are actors in these strange rolls about the human condition when we're at our most relaxed and contemplative. Of note, there's an amazing on with Cate Blanchette playing herself and her fictional un-famous cousin, and a hilarious short starring Bill Murray, The RZA, and the GZA.

I wouldn't say rush out and see this, but if you like the idea of a true character piece, this is it. Just don't look for a lot of substance behind it. There's more in the absolutely gorgeous black and white cinematography than there is in the dialogue when it comes to 'meaning', but it's all pretty airy.

Gone in 60 Seconds (***)
Okay, if you've been reading this blog, you know that I have a thing for classic car movies. Well, this is one of those. None of that overrated Nic Cage bullshit. This is the real fucking deal. A guy wrote, directed, produced, and starred in his own movie, casting family and friends and buying his own cars to smash into each other. The stunts are real, the cars get real banged up, and this is one of the first notable indie action films.

Also, this film revolutionized the car chase, with an epic 34-minute showdown between the main car and two dozen police cars that takes place over five cities. It's the longest chase in film, and it's incredible. The movie itself is basically a vehicle to exhibit the cars, which are as powerful and varied as 70s cars can be. You just have to overlook the lacking performances by all involved.

Tokyo Zombie (****)
The story of two lazy workers at a fire extinguisher plant who spend their days learning jujitsu until the zombie apocalypse puts them on the road to adventure, this is the kind of movie that makes me question what this movie rundown is for. See, for me, I think it was awesome. Four stars. But it's a Japanese-language satiric dark comedy zombie/martial arts movie that goes from the Dumb and Dumber version of 28 days later to Gladiator-meets-Land of the Dead.

The term 'niche' doesn't even begin to apply.

So I'm left wondering, can I give a movie four stars when 90% of the people who read this won't even give it a second look as soon as they see the title? The movie's funny, clever, heartwarming, and goes to some interesting places. But nobody's going to even bother with it. So ... I suppose it doesn't matter what I say, does it? You won't watch a Japanese zombie movie. I know you won't. You're missing out, but ... that's your loss.

Four stars. Great movie. Up there with Shawn of the Dead as the best zombie comedy I've ever seen.

The 20 Best Movie Scenes Meme - Day 4

Here we go, the final day! Parts uno, ni, and drei can be found by clicking on the numbers, but by now I assume you know how this works. This is my favorite day, so let's get cracking!

Spirited Away - Train from Nothing to Nowhere (youtube)
Spirited Away is one of those magical films that feels unlike anything else. It's pure magic, every second. And that magic often takes the form of the strange and crazy, as the story revolves around a demon bathhouse, where the spirits of Japanese folklore come and gather to relax. There is all sorts of chaos, all kinds of colorful characters. It's noisy chaos.

But then the heroine Chihiro has to go on a journey to find a witch to solve her problems. And to do that, she needs to take a train through the spirit world. With her companions, including the shadowy No Face that she's befriended after healing it of its corruption, she boards the train that stretches across the endless waters of the spirit world.

The ride itself is what's so evocative. After the chaos of the world that they've been in for the first half of the film, the spirit world is an empty landscape of flat water. Chihiro, who we're introduced to as an impatient girl with little regard for the mundane, watches intently as endless miles go by. Out of the water rises random islands of road, or a house, or an empty train station. The only people are shadows, spirits that are mute and featureless. It's desolate, but in a beautiful way. And it's taking that break from the chaos to express that beauty that provides the contrast of the film.

Kill Bill - House of Blue Leaves (youtube)
This is perhaps as far from the last scene as one can get. This scene is all about the flash and the flair. The heroine is coming to kill the bad guys, but the bad guys are so badass they get one of the greatest intros of all time. With the blaring music, the slow motion pans of O-Ren Ishii and her entourage, cutting a swath through a restaurant like wolves among the sheep. If I could, I'd pick this whole scene, the intro and the 20 minutes of carnage that follow it. But if I have to pick just one moment, it would be this one, where you just sit back and say "whoa, that's badass."

Amélie - The Hunt for the Mystery Girl
Amélie is an amazing film, full of wonder and beauty. But the best moment, for me, was when Amélie attempts to return a found photo album to the young man who she's in love with. Too shy to actually approach him, she leads him on a chase through an amusement park with carefully staged signs and clues, all the while watching him search but being unable to say anything. That kind of exposure, of showing him who she is while having never met him, is incredibly touching. And the whimsical approach to something as mundane as a courtship dance between two people is so fragile and perfect that it makes the heart soar and one fall instantly in love with the woman who would do all this.

Evil Dead 2 - The Possessed Hand (youtube)
The best horror-comedy ever made. And while Army of Darkness is the fan favorite, nothing reaches to the heights that this film pulls out. The evil Book of the Dead releases demons and it's up to bumbling jerk Ash (played by professional bumbling jerk [and my hero] Bruce Campbell) to stop it. Of course, in doing so he ends up killing his girlfriend (twice) and watching most of his friends die horribly.

Eventually his hand is bitten by one of the demons, and is possessed by the evil spirit. What happens is the best slapstick in modern cinema, with reverse footage and slightly undercranked pacing to give it this crazy, silent film keystone cops quality. The hand flips Ash, hits him in the head with plates, tries to strangle him, etc. It's hilarious, it's raucous.

And that it ends with an amputation? Priceless. A must see, especially for the aftermath.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Final Showdown (youtube)
When I first approached this project, this was the scene that popped into my head first. You know why? Because this is the best scene ever committed to film. Nothing is shot so well. Nothing is so perfect. These are a scant few minutes of cinematic nirvana the likes of which I've never, ever seen before.

Watch it, then come back. In fact, go watch the whole movie. It's an amazing film, with tons of stuff nearly as good as this. But the film wisely saves the best for last, and the final scene is a masterpiece. There's just nothing like it.

It's in the framing, with three characters who keep eyelines logical. In the scope, with huge towering figures against rambling landscape. In its pacing, with long cuts interspaced with quick edits that build and build with the rousing Morricone score that leads to the final moment of violence, a second payoff that is worth every agonizing moment.

And all this at the end of an amazing film that keeps building and building to this inevitable point. Truly, the best scene ever.

One Last Bonus Scene
Speed Racer - The Finish Line
I know nobody saw this one, but I'm putting it here anyway. The Speed Racer movie is not a great movie. It's kind of a mess, but it's a pretty mess. It has its moments, though , and among the best is the ending. The movie is a racing movie, as one might guess, but it's also a technicolor dream wrapped around mind-blowing effects.

By the end, it's become a flash of color, a swirl of lights and tones that is a blur of motion as Speed races towards the finish line. And in that last moment, the film transcends its trappings into a complete impressionistic vision. The lights become smears of moving color, and we enter a POV as the track begins to fade, then to spin in the final corkscrew, becoming nothing more than a tube of lines that converges into a point of white. Which suddenly bursts into a pattern of black and white as the checkerboard is passed, a full screen of lines that mean almost nothing at first as your brain tries to put it together, finally figuring it out as the car comes to rest, melting, past the finish line.

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And that's it! If you feel like joining in, feel free to do this as just a list, or something as involved as mine, or something in between. Nobody's gonna judge, though showing your movie cred is always awesome. Until next week, stay classy San Diego!