The Dueling Cavalier

this blog is embarassing

2010-01-17T02:42:00.002-05:00

ok, so I just realized that I write very badly, and I have no desire to continue reading these terrible posts.

I have half a mind to shut down this blog, but then I tell myself that I'll be thankful for not doing so later, for the sake of memory.

Maybe I'll start a new one sometime, or just continue on with this one, provided that no one reads my previous posts.

LAMB Devours the Oscars - Best Adapted Screenplay

2009-02-06T21:39:00.006-05:00

Note: This is part of a series of Oscar pieces hosted by the LAMB. Check it out!

I think usually the Best Adapted Screenplay goes to the movie that goes on to win Best Picture. Which is predictable and boring, but there you go. The Academy is not exactly known for its dramatic surprises. It’s known to pull a shocker out of its sleeve from time to time, but usually not in the Adapted Screenplay category.

But what, exactly, does Best Adapted Screenplay mean? According to Wikipedia it’s awarded to the writer who made the transition from book/play/short story to film look the easiest. Basically, who took a crappy novel and made it palatable enough for the silver screen?

This year the nominees matched the Best Picture nominees almost name for name, with the exception of Doubt. Well, I like to read, and even though I’ve only read one of the nominees beginning to end, I have watched all of them and that puts me pretty much on par with the rest of the Academy. This year we have two plays (Doubt and Frost/Nixon), two novels (The Reader and Q&A aka Slumdog Millionaire) and one short story (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”). The Reader, a novel by Bernard Schlink, addresses generational guilt issues and personal and moral issues coming into conflict. A young German boy begins a secret love affair with a woman old enough to be his mother and against his better judgment falls in love with her. One day she suddenly disappears and he goes on with his life. Then he sees her in court as a defendant. It turns out she served as a Nazi prison guard at Auschwitz during WWII and was responsible for the extermination of many, many Jews. The novel itself was on Oprah’s Book Club list, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a bad book to begin with. And the movie that was made with wasn’t bad per se, particularly not as bad as most Dark Knight fanatics make it out to be, but it sure is Oscar-baity. Illicit love, dramatic atonement scenes, illiteracy, the horrors of the NAZIS. But it’s not a book solely about the Holocaust and I think in general this was a solid reinterpretation from page to screen. It reminded me of Minghella’s work (RIP!) in so many ways, but I think that was more the direction than anything else. So, not a bad job.

Q&A, a novel by Vikas Swarup, adapted into Slumdog Millionaire. If what the critics say is true, the original book was not that good. And I believe it. Half the time I was watching the movie I was thinking how this movie shouldn’t be working, but it somehow was. An uneducated “slumdog” called Jamal (I think he’s called Ram in the novel) wins 20 million rupees on the gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire? because d) it is written. Plus, he’s in love with a chick named Latika and he gets her too. With every question we flashback to a time in Jamal’s life, a memorable moment that caused him to just know the answer. You see how this can get tiresome? But somehow the adaptors add just enough variation to the story and in the end you’re surprised by much you enjoyed it. At least I was.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Now this one I have actually read, and the story is kinda boring. Sue me, but I don’t like Fitzgerald. Essentially the story is about how Benjamin Button grows younger. He has a wife, and a kid, and he progresses from taking care of them to them taking care of him. Then he dies when he’s a baby. Factually the details are not the same at all, but I think the movie managed to grasp upon the story’s fundamental theme – whether we go from womb to tomb or the other way around life is still short and filled with complications – quite well. And they added a love story, which was cute but not cloying, and a visual feast for the eyes. Many compare it to Forrest Gump, but I see no such similarities other than the whole progress-through-history-thing.

Doubt: A Parable, a play by John Patrick Shanley. A play about moral ambiguity and yes, doubt. Set in a rigid Catholic school trying to adapt to the changing racial environment, the ultra-conservative Sister Aloysius wages a verbal battle against the more liberal Father Flynn about whether he sexually abused a black student. Whether the allegations are true or not, Sister Aloysius has no proof whatsoever and the vendetta seems to be more personal if anything else. It’s a meaty, literary type of play, and one much better suited on the stage than on celluloid. Here the themes play awkwardly and Shanley doesn’t take advantage of film’s spacious medium to connect with the audience on a personal level. It’s a weighty story, to be sure, but not a particularly good one.

Frost/Nixon, a play by Peter Morgan. The story was fundamentally unchanged. Basically the tv show host David Frost hosts a series of interviews with the recent-resigned Richard Nixon and tries to coax a confession out of him. At its root the play is an intense character study drawing parallels between two superficially different men. I know I’m in the minority when I say this, but I thought it was one of the best movies of the year. I think play adaptations are the hardest to pull off, because usually the original playwrights do it. I don’t think they exactly have a good scope of how expansive movies can really be since they’re so used to the constricts of the stage. Now I haven’t seen the play itself, but I can imagine this film version to be better. We got some actual scenery, some seamless scene transitions, and the dialogue wasn’t as stilted as plays can get to be. And, you know, the characters got to move around a little too.

Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire, and I’m willing to bet a sizeable amount of money on this one. At this point the momentum of Slumdog is too huge to be ignored, and it’s quite a good adaptation to boot.

If I had a vote: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Here is a case where the story was almost entirely created by the authors. Basically Swicord and Roth took the fundamental premise of Fitzgerald’s story – that living is hard no matter which way you’re going – and stretched it into an unconventional love story also relevant to today’s current events. It did have a humongous running time, however - but I wouldn’t say it was ever boring.

I am not good with promises

2009-02-02T16:00:00.002-05:00

...BUT. Since I have finished my Oscar movie-watching obscenely early (I've seen all the nominees excluding Australia, which I will be saving for a lazy-night off, and Hellboy, which I will never, ever watch.), I thought it might be fun to look at all the nominated directors' best work. Or, just work in general.

So, there is:
Danny Boyle
David Fincher
Ron Howard
Gus van Sant
Stephen Daldry

Such an indie combination of directors, don't you think? And yes, I know that's been said a thousand times over, but everything about this race has been said a bunch bunch bunch of times over. Excuse me for not possessing one speck of originality.

For Boyle, I will be watching Millions. So far out of his work I have only seen Trainspotting. Enjoyed it very much.
For Fincher, I have seen all of his movies so I'm retrospecting on one I really hated, Fight Club, and see if it does anything for me the second time. Fincher always tends to run hot and cold for me anyway. Although I loved Benjamin Button.
For Howard, I will be watching Apollo 13 and praying I won't get too bored.
For van Sant, I will be watching Elephant. Previously I have seen My Own Private Idaho. Loved the Phoenix, movie - not so much. Oh, and Good Will Hunting, which was awesome, but probably more of Ben and Matt's doing if anything.
For Daldry, I will be watching Billy Elliott. I hope to god the style is more toward The Reader and less toward that sinking cesspool of a movie The Hours.

Out of the five, Boyle is probably the most consistent but Fincher makes the movies I love most, Se7en and Benjamin Button. And also the movies I hate most. Howard is a pretty stock director to tell you the truth and a pretty emotionally manipulative one at that, but Frost/Nixon was probably my favorite out of the bunch this year. Daldry hasn't made enough movies for me to pass judgment but he's good at the Oscar game, I'll say that for him. van Sant is a weirdo with consistently interesting ideas but sometimes too abstract of an execution.

Geena Davis is Underrated

2009-01-27T20:36:00.002-05:00

I just saw Thelma and Louise and I think it's magnificent.

"I know it's crazy, but I just feel like I got a knack for this shit. "

This movie made me feel so femininely empowered. There's nothing like a dramatic transformation to make you feel renewed.

And she was such a sweetheart in Beetlejuice.

"Oh, Adam! We're trapped in this house with those people!"

Although didn't it jar you when Michael Keaton said "Nice FUCKING model!" in this otherwise tame kid's movie?

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2009-01-26T21:33:00.002-05:00

This is my favorite part of Before Sunrise. I think I'm going to retire this installment for something new next week.

Really Belated Oscar Nominations remarks

2009-01-26T20:59:00.002-05:00

Blah blah blah SAGs, blah blah blah Sean Penn - Slumdog Millionaire is obviously winning now. I think my favorite thing about last night was Meryl giving that awesome, and I mean awesome speech. All hail the Queen.

Anyway, I just realized I never posted my Oscar nominations reactions, not that they are unique in any way, but just...something to mull over.

Surprises: Chris Nolan got overlooked for his unique auteur stamp in his rendition of The Dark Knight, and in the major categories only Heath Ledger was posthumously nominated. With all the buzz surrounding Ledger's tragic death and Director's Guild, Writers' Guild, and Producers' Guild nods everybody thought TDK was a shoo-in. Guess not.

In a minor category Bruce Springsteen's fantastic song "The Wrestler" for the movie of the same title was overlooked for Best Song in favor of not one, but two songs from Slumdog Millionaire. I swear, once a movie has momentum, you can't stop what's coming.

Kate Winslet gets overlooked for her star turn in the uneven film Revolutionary Road and instead gets nominated for The Reader in not the Supporting Actress category but Actress! Who would've thought? And The Reader getting nominated for Best Picture. Huge surprise, but not wholly undeserved.

Predictable: Slumdog gets nominated for a bunch. Blah blah portrayal-of-true-India, love-conquers-all, Danny-Boyle-is-god blah. Forget Benjamin Button, this one is the true Forrest Gump, emphasizing optimism, true love, and the attainment of a happy ending. It's not a super complicated movie but it is a heartwarming one.

Benjamin Button dominates the technical categories. That movie is nothing short of masterful in that aspect. The camerawork, the score, the sets, the makeup - all fantastic. A sweep is entirely possible.

Langella, Rourke, and Penn have been shoo-ins for Best Actor since the very beginning in this biopic trifecta. Nixon, The Ram, Harvey Milk. One of them will inevitably win it.

Best Picture/Director:
Slumdog Millionaire - Danny Boyle
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - David Fincher
Frost/Nixon - Ron Howard
The Reader - Stephen Daldry
Milk - Sean Penn
Prediction: Slumdog Millionaire, for Best Picture and Director. It's gained so much momentum as "the little movie that could" there is no stopping it. It's definitely not a bad movie and I think it's an honor well-deserved. Not my personal pick so much but we can't have everything.

Best Actor:
Sean Penn in Milk
Richard Jenkins in The Visitor
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler
Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon
Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Prediction: I'm betting on a dark horse here and predicting Jenkins, mainly because I was blown away by his performance as a sad, apathetic professor gradually opening up to the cultures of America and its cruel underbelly of bureaucratic nonsense in The Visitor. This is a movie you should check out ASAP, and my personal favorite of 2008. The more reasonable prediction would probably be Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke, but these guys have enough buzz already and voters' votes could be split between them just enough for Jenkins to (hopefully) sneak in.

Best Actress:
Kate Winslet in The Reader
Angelina Jolie in Changeling
Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo in Frozen River
Meryl Streep in Doubt
Prediction: Winslet. If her performance impressed the Academy to the point of overturning her marketed Supporting Actress bid to Actress, this means there are more than enough votes to go around. Alternatively, Hathaway could take it for her searing rendition of a rehab sister but I don't think the Academy warmed to Rachel Getting Married quite that much, which is a shame.

Best Supporting Actor:
Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder
Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt
Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road
Josh Brolin in Milk
Prediction: Heath Ledger. This is probably the easiest category to predict. Can you imagine anybody else coming to the podium to accept that award? It just wouldn't be the same if he didn't win the thing. Plus his performance as the Joker was unbelievable.

Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams in Doubt
Viola Davis in Doubt
Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler
Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Taraji P. Henson in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Prediction: Penelope Cruz. Her fiery Spanish psycho brings a breath of fresh air to Woody Allen's uneven Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the moment when it starts to get boring. She is funny, sexy, and beautiful at the same time. Don't overlook Tomei though, because she totally humanizes her stripper role in The Wrestler. She's the lynchpin between reality and the showmanship of wrestling for The Ram.

Things I Hope Will Happen at This Year's Oscars, But Won't

2009-01-24T22:40:00.003-05:00

Richard Jenkins wins for Actor
or Langella even
Pollack and Minghella come back from the dead to accept The Reader's award, whatever that may be
Jackman dresses in super gaudy Broadway costumes and SINGS!
Frost/Nixon wins BP
or come to think of it any film but Slumdog (not saying I hate the movie or anything but the momentum is too much for me to handle)
Springsteen, mad about his snub, crashes the party with drunken Mickey Rourke
Hilary Swank does not show up and spontaneously combusts
In Bruges wins Screenplay!
producers realize how silly they were to omit The Fall from amazing stuff like Cinematography and Set Direction not to mention Supporting Actress for the freaking a-dorable Catinca Utaru and reevaluate accordingly
Wall-E comes to life, like real life, not stupid computer imagery
The Joker descends upon us all and wreaks havoc for not having his film be nomianted
Amy Adams wins for Doubt, I seriously loved her performance in this film the best out of all the nominees, I don't think it's riding on the momentum of Doubt at all
Milk's personality-infused costumes take the award, despite frequent period piece domination

The Reader and its questionable questionability

2009-01-23T18:14:00.002-05:00

Sooo, obviously I have not been updating as much as I would like, but the TDC awards will still be going on, just at a slower pace than I previously thought, and I did not get my Oscar predictions posted in time, but never mind my reactions to the nominees - everything I will say has all been said and done before - Kate Winslet shockery, Richard Jenkins/Melissa Leo general happiness, but not Sally Hawkins happiness, etc. etc. etc.

What I am confused about is the public's distaste for The Reader. Granted, I have not yet seen this questionable movie (but I will in like, a second, bear with me here), but while it is true I really, really hated The Hours and I sneer in the general direction of Holocaust movies, I have learned not to trust public sneerage until I have made my own conclusions. For example, Benjamin Button. Personally I think it is a masterful movie well-deserving of its many many nominations. I think it is David Fincher's best film to date and in all honesty I think he deserves to win the darn thing but everybody is all Chris Nolan got gypped! We love Aronofsky! Even Boyle is cooler than Fincher! (except not Ron Howard...poor Ron Howard - more on that later) So in general I am just sick and tired of public cultism and bandwagon jumping because most of the time people don't know what the crap they are talking about.

Like, I loved Frost/Nixon. People scream Oscar bait at it all the time. You want Oscar bait, try Clint Eastwood's laughably entertaining Changeling. Or Revolutionary Road. Melodramatic, soap opera crap. So it's a history movie. The Queen is a history movie. So what. Maybe it wasn't Ron Howard who made the magic sparks fly (yeah, what is up with Howard getting all the credit that his actors obviously accomplish themselves? I'm looking at you, A Beautiful Mind...) but the story and the music and the Langella/Sheen chemistry is unbelievable. It's a quality film deserving of being watched more and I don't think half the people who insult the thing have even seen it.

HENCE (after that very long, unnecessarily long, speech), I will be watching The Reader right now to evaluate the quality of this movie for myself. Some things about me before I start though: 1. I might hate it because I really didn't like The Hours. 2. Holocaust movies bother me like no other. 3. But I think Kate Winslet is a goddess. 4. And I watched the trailer and it looks beautifully appealing. So, two for it, two against it. Which will win? We will see...

Let's start!
So far...nothing has really happened, but I like the music.
I thought this was a Holocaust movie. So far nobody is blatantly Jewish or German. Hm?
This thing has really beautiful set design.
That 15-year-old kid is a bit of a flirt.
And a voyeur.
This kid is obviously incapable of doing anything.
That naked thing was totally unexpected.
He's rushing back to have sex with the hot old lady. You know, this kid is really starting to grow on me.
I've gotta admit this dialogue is a bit stilted but it's not a bad movie once the action gets moving along.
Sex first and then you learn the names. I like that.
The careful placement of all the characters reminds me a lot of American Beauty. It's not good or bad.
Kate Winslet is, like, unflinchingly unafraid to show her body. It's a hot body so if I were her I wouldn't be afraid either.
The moment of confrontation is slightly awkward and not emotionally grabbing at all.
But the moments of reading + hot sex are perfect.
Allow me to state the obvious before it's too late: Hanna Schmitz can't read.
Kate's little expressions make me believe that this little boy is in love with her, despite the gaping age chasm. Sometimes that's what good acting is.
Uh oh, the inevitable saucy little minx comes into the picture...
Reminder: buy a hot little red bikini so I can look like said minx.
What is the significance of all this washing? Motherhood? Spiritual "cleansing"?
Make-up sex can be a wonderful thing.
Oh no, Kate Winslet has left the house to become a Nazi!
Whenever people carefully fold their clothes it means they want to commit suicide.
My god, whatever people say about this movie it's certainly very beautiful.
Okay, the confrontation between father and daughter is terrible. The first truly terrible thing in this movie.
I'm sort of bored with looking at this little boy now. On with the action, please!
I have noticed a trend. This dude likes take-charge women a lot: first Hanna, then Sophie, now new chick.
FINALLY the action starts spinning out.
The image with the boy staring at all the partying and roiling drunkenness is truly memorable. It's a good encapsulation of his removedness from everything and his wish to be removed.
Watching Kate's face is magnetic. The scene with the rising tension and the handwriting makes me as nervous as she is and he is.
This movie is stunningly dramatic but not melodramatically so. I am liking it better and better.
There are definitely shades of Minghella here. Dear, departed, darling Minghella, rather than plodding Daldry, and for that I am infinitely thankful.
The long awaited meeting. Let's see what happens.
Oh my god. It's been like five minutes and they still haven't met.
Oh wait. Does this mean...?
Oh my god I am crying why am I crying
Okay, they did the crappiest job EVER on Kate's makeup job.
And this is the crappiest present EVER for withholding defendant information that keeps you in prison for life. I mean talk about atonement for past sins...like, okay, it's all your fault I'm spending my life in prison but at least I can listen to your stupid voice for the rest of my life to remind me it was all your fault!
It's official. This guy is the male Briony. Yellow bellied coward.
Notice how I'm commenting more on the action than on performances or photography. I think that shows I'm at least decently committed and interested in what is going on.
Now I think she is committing suicide? That s-s-s-sucks.
I mean, I'm glad you're atoned, but freaking Hanna Schmitz!
-End incredibly incoherent thoughts.

In general: I liked, but didn't love the movie. It was better than I thought. It reminds me of Atonement a LOT, but less beautiful, with better acting. I don't know why nobody has drawn this comparison before. It just goes to show that people are passing judgment on a film they haven't even seen. It's certainly not one of my favorite movies this year, but in my opinion better than 2/5 of what was nominated last year for Best Picture (Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, and tied with Atonement). It's a very Minghella-esque movie, as in tries to be an epic but fails, but still it stays interesting, and is sort of subtle, and plays down the drama in a less glaringly obvious way.

Kate Winslet plays the role to the best of her ability, but it's really not a meaty role at all. I vastly preferred her in Revolutionary Road, even though I probably liked this movie better than that debacle. I could understand how she could be confused for Supporting Actress. But obviously the Academy likes her so she'll probably win on Feb 22nd, and I'm like totally happy for her because she is awesome in person, but if I had a pick I would've chosen her performance in Revolutionary Road, or Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married. Pretty much it's gonna go down between those two though.

Out of the five best picture nominees it's definitely the worst, but no better or no worse than The Dark Knight, honestly. Heath Ledger = Kate Winslet. They save their respective movies from mediocrity. I mean I know it's blasphemy to even insult The Dark Knight and the god-holy Chris Nolan but while I think Benjamin Button is Fincher's crowning achievement, it's not Nolan's by far. That would be Memento. So, I can understand why the film would be shunned. I regret that Wall-E didn't get its chance, though. That was a prize movie at its finest. That is a movie I can get on board with. Pixar has definitely, definitely, definitely outdone itself.

Yeah I know my views aren't the popular ones but hey, if I had my way The Visitor would win Best Picture of the year. Soooo, ignore my babblings.

I don't know, what I'm really proud of is that I have managed to see every single one of the Oscar nominees save three, not just in the major categories but also in the minor ones. I have also seen two of the documentary noms. The only three I haven't seen are Australia, which I will probably see despite it's fazing three hours of nothingness, Bolt, which I will definitely see because I enjoy animated movies quite a lot, and Hellboy, which I will never see. Everything else I have seen! I am so impressed with myself I don't even know what to say. (You could say that I waste my time a lot, which I do, but let's ignore this fact.)

WOW.

2009-01-17T18:43:00.002-05:00

There comes a rare time when you're really struck by all the performances, all the dialogue, all the sounds and echoes and themes and poundings of a movie you don't know how it can get any better. It's like all your dreams were fulfilled.

Today I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and I fell in love.

what will hopefully be going on during the next week

2009-01-17T17:11:00.000-05:00

I am crazy, crazy about the Oscars and awards shows and celebrities and hype and backlash and controversy and everything else that comprises it. But I don't always agree with the Oscar's choices for nominations and winners and therefore I have decided to award my own personal awards to the stars and pictures that deserve it most.

By no great shakes am I a good interpreter of good performances but I do know what touches me and what doesn't. These awards will be highly personalized choices, some that won't quite make sense, some that jump on the bandwagon hype, some that totally disregard the norms of what is societally appropriate. Like ignoring The Dark Knight.

I have seen so many great movies this year I want to organize my thoughts cohesively in a comprehensive list so that I can look back and feel accomplished on what I have evaluated. I will be nominating five films each and choosing a winner for the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress, Best Supporting Actor/Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The awards will culminate in a grand ceremony visible to only those who reside in my brain and a handful of no doubt grateful acceptance speeches.

I am not so sure I have enough stamina to complete all this in a week, but I will for sure try.

Materialism, a regular staple of my life

2009-01-16T07:18:00.003-05:00

Oh my god oh my god I know this does not belong but this bag is adorable.

Wow. This is globalization at its finest. Traditional Russia enamelized in haute coutoure. I wish I could this was the first time I went crazy over something like this but I'm sad to say this is not the case at all.

Besides watching movies, I am a compulsive shopper. Money flows out of my hands like water, no joke.

By the way, this was my 100th post! Happy 100th post, Dueling Cavalier! Also, my one-year birthday for this site was a few days back, so happy...belated-by-ten-days birthday to you too, TDC!

Suns Dance

2009-01-15T22:41:00.003-05:00

I swear, I get more and more indie as we speak. Last year, I had some kind of pregnant aversion to Sundance. I really, really dislike those knowingly cute indies that are all like, oh! I'm unique! watch me be original! I'm not even talking about Juno in this case because that movie actually had some kind of heart despite derisive comments about its "hipster" language or whatever - I'm talking about, like, The Wackness.

But I was reading this article on Empire Online (a website I had previously hated; what is going on with me these days?) and half the movies sound really promising. Either featuring a good cast, or a story that can't be missed, I'm just at odds with myself! There's nothing more I want to than to go to Sundance right now.

Rudo Y Cursi
Director: Carlos Cuaron
Stars: Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna
What's It About? Bernal and Luna, the "Charolastra" stars of Y Tu Mama Tambien, reunite with that film's co-screenwriter Carlos Cuaron as director for a broad Mexican comedy about two feuding brothers from a banana ranch who harbour big dreams of becoming big football stars.
Comment: As soon as I saw "the stars of Y Tu Mama Tambien" I blocked out everything else and got default very, very excited.

500 Days Of Summer
Director: Marc Webb
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel
What's It About? The underrated Gordon-Levitt stars in this already talked-about, Fox Searchlight-distributed romcom - think Garden State meets Eternal Sunshine - from music promo director Webb, playing a wide-eyed romantic who falls for the cynical Summer (Deschanel).
Comment: Romcoms = my friend. Zooey Deschanel = adorable. Eternal Sunshine = perfection. Garden State = overrated. Take out the Garden State and you have the perfect movie.

I Love You Philip Morris

Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Stars: Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Leslie Mann
What's It About? If Carrey in The Yes Man didn't seem enough of a stretch for you, just wait till you see him in this bizarre-looking, true-life black comedy, playing a Texas policeman who came out of the closet, went to jail and fell in love with his cellmate (McGregor).
Comment: Judd Apatow with a hotter man.

World's Greatest Dad

Director: Bob "Bobcat" Goldthwait
Stars: Robin Williams, Dary Sabara, Alexie Gilmore
What's It About? The Police Academy star follows the bizarre Stay, about a girl who admits to giving a dog a blowjob, with another black comedy, about a poetry teacher who covers up his son's death in a freak masturbation accident by faking a suicide journal that becomes a literary phenomenon.
Comment: Anything with "admits to giving a dog a blowjob" that isn't John Waters sounds pretty freaking awesome, in a gross way.

We Live In Public

Section: US Documentary Competition
Director: Ondi Timoner
What's It About? The director of the fantastic rock-doc DiG! here turns her attention to media artist Josh Harris, who founded a millennial cult that consisted of 100 artists living together in an experimental commune, got shut down by the government and then turned the cameras on himself.
Comment: Have I told you how much I love documentaries? And the best thing about them is, they're reliable. What you see is what you get. You can pretty much predict what is going to happen but it's still so enjoyable to be watching it.

Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

Section: US Dramatic Competition
Director: John Krasinski
Stars: John Krasinski, Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale
What's It About? Based on the book by David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide last year, and directed by The Office (US) star Krasinski, this comedy-drama stars Law & Order's Nicholson as a grad student who starts a research project into the motivations of men when her boyfriend leaves.
Comment: I'm not so sure about Kransinki's directing capabilities, but that title has me hooked. What a great title. Plus bobby Cannavale is adorable. Have you seen The Station Agent? It's exquisite.

Bronson
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Tom Hardy, Matt King, Amanda Burton
What's It About? A Clockwork Orange meets Chopper, with Tom Hardy giving a superb performance as the notoriously violent British prisoner Michael Peterson, aka Charles Bronson, in this episodic, insightful but never sentimental or rose-tinted biopic from the Danish director of the Pusher trilogy.
Comment: It sounds just weird enough to pull off. An unorthodox but classic biopic.

An Education
Director: Lone Scherfig
Stars: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Emma Thompson
What's It About? Rising star Mulligan, who also appears in The Greatest, stars in Danish director Scherfig's extremely well-cast take on Nick Hornby's novel, playing a teenage girl in suburban 60s London whose life is changed when an older man sweeps her off her feet.
Comment: Basically, anything set in a private school with little girls in uniforms is okay by me. (Vaguely pedophilic, but appropriate considering I am a little girl in a uniform.)

Adventureland

Director: Greg Mottola
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Bill Hader, Kristen Stewart
What's It About? The director of Superbad returns to the realm of rites-of-passage comedy with this 1987-set story of an uptight college graduate (Eisenberg) who is pushed into a summer job in a crappy amusement park when his parents announce that they can't afford to pay for his European vacation.
Comment: It's strange I'm still not over the Apatow craze. I've seen the commercials for this one and it's pretty much standard Apatow but honestly...I can't get enough.

Black Dynamite
Director: Scott Sanders
Stars: Michael Jai White, Tommy Davidson, Arsenio Hall What's It About? An affectionate spoof of 70s blaxploitation flicks, this stars White as a Shaft-style crusader who can't take no mo' after the murder of his brother, takin' his black ass on a roarin' rollercoaster rampage of revenge against none other than The Man (y'all).
Comment: Yeah, I'm pretty lame, y'all, but 2009 blaxploitation is such a 70s concept I, like, need this in my life.

Five Minutes Of Heaven
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Stars: Liam Neeson, James Nesbit What's It About? German helmer Oliver Hirschbiegel has, it seems, put his disastrous Hollywood experience on Invasion behind him and got back to the kind of gritty, deftly handled drama that made Downfall so superb. Here he tackles The Troubles in Northern Ireland with this tale of two men on either side of the barricades.
comment: I just like car movies.

Mary And Max

Director: Adam Elliott
Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette, Eric Bana (voices)
What's It About? Wallace And Gromit meets You've Got Mail in this Australian Claymation feature, in which Mary (Collette), a lonely, eight-year-old girl from the suburbs of Melbourne, becomes pen-friends with Max (Hoffman), a 44 year-old, severely obese man in New York.
Comment: AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME PLZ. Awesome Claymation, awesome celebrity voices even though I usually hate them, awesome Nora Ephron-esque. I love it.

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2009-01-12T21:30:00.001-05:00

Céline: Um...what do you feel about the word "pussy"?

Jesse: I. LOVE. it.

Céline: Good. It's amazing what perverts we've become in the past 9 years.

Jesse: I know, I know. Well, at least now we don't have to pretend that each new sexual experience is like a life-altering event.

Céline: I know, by now, I know you've stuck it in so many places, it's like, about to fall off.

Jesse: I mean, you know, I can't realistically expect you to have become anything but a total ho at this point.

Semi GG Liveblogging.

2009-01-11T20:12:00.003-05:00

Oh my god. Is it pathetic that I immediately started tearing up when Kate Winslet won the award? Isn't this her first award, in, like, EVER? She looks fantastic, too.

Miley Cyrus is a JOKE and should not be allowed to be nominated for these things.

Haha...that was pathetic liveblogging on my part.

Post GGs:
Double Kate Winslet whammy. I must admit I was rooting for her in Revolutionary Road. The only good thing to come out of that craptastic faux-dramatic, tauntingly beautiful movie. She packs class in a bag. And her silver nails are beautiful. And LOL for temporarily forgetting Angelina's name. SUCK IT ice bitch.

Slumdog excitement rises to a fever pitch. It's not a bad thing, because the people who made it are all so sweet. And giving credit to all the Indian actors too, who basically did nothing. What's with all the Frieda Pinto love?

John Adams actors are drrrrrrrunk. Mm Wilkinson and Giamatti, shame on you!

Johnny Depp looks pretty sozzed out too.

Colin Farrell winning might have been one of my favorite things this ceremony. I'm glad someone else was feeling the In Bruges love! Maybe this will mean good things in the future?

You know why I love awards ceremonies? You get to hear actors in their natural accents. And sometimes it's surprising. For some reason I thought Johnny Depp had an English accent. And Kate Winslet, who regularly pulls out an American accent in about half of her movies, never fails to surprise me with her voice. She's got a great voice no matter what nationality it derives from.

I was proud of having at least heard of most of these tv shows/HBO movies. Watching them is out of the question, though, considering my favorite, still-running shows are America's Next Top Model and Gossip Girl. I go for the cheap soap operatic drama, thank you for very much, not the classy wit of 30 Rock or Mad Men. Although I must say Elizabeth Stamatina Fey is very, very excellent.

I sneer at the teen drivel the HFPA drags into presenting this stuff. Please, the Jonas Brothers onstage with Andrew Stanton? Zac Efron? Sandra Bullock, for that matter? (I excuse Hayden Panettiere because she is pretty and looks mildly educated and Blake Lively, because, once again, Gossip Girl.)

Actually I think Sacha Baron Cohen is kinda funny. =/ Funnier than Ricky Gervais, anyway.

Rumer Willis is a mess. And Demi Moore, good job embarassing her.

I think Sally Hawkins is a really adorable woman and I think her dress is amazing. In addition to the accents of the Golden Globes, I also love the fashion.

I still think Alec Baldwin is a smarmy bastard. You can tell he's all like, screw Tina Fey. I. Am. Amazing.

Did you notice the tv actors are so much hammier than the film ones? They smile, wink at the camera, pull faces, while the movie guys are all like, I am too sophisticated to even look at the camera.

I, for one, thought the Spielberg moment was charming, but then I found myself getting really sleepy following his speech, so I think there's something to be said about how soporific he can be. Still I thought it was pretty cool how much he got around. Practically everybody in that audience has worked with him. Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Drew Barrymore, who I bet was all that was me when I was 5!, Ralph Fiennes.

Aronofsky giving Mickey Rourke the finger was, like, amazing. And Mickey Rourke himself was pretty cool too. Even though I prefer Langella I think Rourke is the bomb.

In general this was an excellent telecast. I love everything about awards shows. They're on par in my book with reality tv and soaped-up dramas. Next stop: SAGs.

Modified Top 10 of 2008

2009-01-11T17:50:00.003-05:00

After some thought, I realized I liked The Visitor a whole lot more than I thought I did. Memories of that movie awash me with immediate tranquility.

10. Slumdog Millionaire - uplifting and unabashedly cliched, embodying the spirit of Bollywood despite eschewing violence
9. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - pattering saccharine, floating higher than stars but lands safely in the arms of Lee Pace
8. The Wrestler - a sports flick going beyond the spirit of mere teamwork and camaraderie, sadness stealthily tinges the sidelines
7. Encounters at the End of the World - uniquely moving stories of real, cold people without a particular goal
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - quirky, goldenrod epic with themes stuffed like a comfortable turkey; also, it's beautiful
5. Sex and Death 101 - wit and smarminess spill over into a puddle of Noni
4. Frost/Nixon - Western duel ready to snap at any moment, characters evolve light years within one frozen silence
3. Wall-E - deceptively simple, wordless love among inanimate objects, warmth is necessary among all of Earth's frigidity
2. In Bruges - uneasy, ambient, bizarre, guilt, funny and mean and gangster and touching
1. The Visitor - elevating, golden silences, the soft mask of Jenkins finally folds over with the help of music

Honorable Mentions: Let the Right One In, The Fall, Definitely Maybe, Frozen River, obligatory The Dark Knight

Elaboration to come. As well as personal awards.
*haven't seen Rachel Getting Married or The Reader yet but I'm fairly certain neither of them would have made this list

The Golden Globes Tonight

2009-01-11T17:24:00.006-05:00

This ceremony is at least an improvement from last year's pathetic newscast featuring Larry King's talking head and Billy Bush. Hurray for Writers' Strike end! Hopefully the HFPA is going all-out to recompense what they missed out last year.

To tell you the truth I'm looking forward more to tonight's fashion choices than anything else. What will...Kate Winslet and Blanchett dream up? It's not fair that brilliant actresses have it all, including flawless fashion sense.

You know who I miss? Emily Blunt. Girlfriend has gone MIA since her spectacular turn in The Devil Wears Prada.

I think this is the first year I have almost caught up on all my Globe nominees in time.

Personally I'm rooting for: Frost/Nixon, In Bruges, Frank Langella, Kate, Colin Farrell, Sally Hawkins, Heath, Amy Adams, and David Fincher. Yes, I have Frost/In Bruges fervor. Yes, I know it's not gonna happen, but I love those two movies. And Amy Adams was like the one highlight of Doubt. Her and Viola Davis, but I think Adams is cuter.

Although it is entirely possible, I'd prefer it if Slumdog Millionaire didn't sweep every other award. It's a solidly good movie but I like it when the Globe (or the Oscars, for that matter) mix it up a little. So I am going as crazy-person and cheering for the underdogs. They need it in these tough, economic-ridden, Slumdog-dominating times.

frost/nixon notes

2009-01-10T14:21:00.000-05:00

Against my better judgment, I was beyond impressed with Ron Howard's venture into play-adapted territory in Frost/Nixon. 2008 brought us a lot of big-name biopics, but for some reason it was his semi-documentary style and willingness not to get too involved that really sealed it for me.

I was going to write a full-out review of this movie and if I can shake off my laziness I just might get to it, but at this moment I just wanted to post my notes. They're not very good and very of-the-moment, but sometimes sentence fragments can describe how I feel about a movie better than a paragraph ever could.

Call it spontaneous film-poetry, if you will.

set in the style of a Western duel, boxing is was good analogy
stretched in a balletic tightrope
everyone but McFayden fairly disappears into his role
mixes of passion and apathy
Nixon has the compulsive need to name-drop
Kevin Bacon is used so often but he's forever the character actor, never himself
flashes of wit - Nixon's scene of finding out his strategy
foreshadows of conflict btwn performance and politics...but are they really that different?
when messy hair guy refused to shake hand for a second showed diff btwn showmanship and nerdiness
parallels btwn frost and nixon, but Howard doesn't hit our heads with it
Charlotte is a breath of fresh air
"delusions" of grandeur as Nixon's limo pulls up
someone who had to learn to be a performer
you remember nixon is living under delusions of grndeur and you feel polarized again
mind games, condescension
call when really late, find out how much want
Frost's nervousness is patent
this has nothing to do with Nixon's lies, this is a character study at its finest
first you as the audience have the same frustration and self-flagellation of Tricky Dick, but then you realize the anecdotes that Nixon listed at the beginning were interesting too
dutifully crowded around the Nixon's piano vs. Frost's bday festivites
Howard is a bit heavyhanded but no more than others in play adaptations
this is his territory
Frost is the universally loved one
but then fame is ephemeral
you can't help but admire Nixon no matter how sorry you feel for him
it's good that they made this movie at this time when extenuating politicalism isn't as much of a factor
that speech about performing is true but Frost is undoutably the better performer
I thought it was going to be an amicable set of interviews but it ended in a duel as Nixon suspected
efforts to mask a man's morality are unveiled
I thought the showdown would be a little more gradual but hey, it's a movie
television simplifies dude
remarks upon its own downfalls
you forget how brilliant Michael Sheen was at the beginning because Langella steals the show, but this is no There Will Be Blood where Dano can't keep up
when he returns to the sheen of Hollywood it's a little fake and you miss the rawness and bated breath you wait for in the interviews
at root he is someone that wants to be liked
last scene with the shoes says it all
this is honestly the kind of movie that I enjoy most, just two people talking and verbally sparring
notice how I don't say Langella, i say Nixon

10 Reasons Why I Liked Gran Torino, Despite All That I've Been Taught

2009-01-10T11:25:00.008-05:00

10. Recognizing the uniquely Detroit landmarks and our cultural identifications. Obsession with the lawn, the tall steep white stairs leading to the house, good old beer, abrasive policemen, construction businesses, the woody walls of the haircut place, the ski resort-looking rooms of the son with the stone FIREPLACE, the omnipresent American flag, the obstinate refusal to go overseas to buy cars. It's obvious this was shot in Detroit metro and not some cheap imitation of it (*cough* In the Land of Women).

9. Clint Eastwood's face knit into that perennial scowl, eyebrows horizontal. And that rumbling noise he makes when he gets pissed off. He carries this movie from mediocrity and he knows it.

8. The crap acting of all the Asian people bothered me at first, but then I realized I actually do know people like that. The pathetic little Asian gangs and the sassy Hmong girl and the loser kid and the fussy racist mother. I bet they didn't play roles too different from what they really are and it lends an unpolished reality to an otherwise engineered movie.

7. "Listen old man. You asked me for help." Ah, the ring of a boy growing up. Bildungsroman, anyone?

6. Racial slurs coming out of Eastwood's mouth: "ding dong," "gook," "Charlie Chan," "spook,"
"fishhead". They make my day.

5. This movie reminds me of a guy I know. He gives off the illusion of being all tough and stuff but it's just so obvious he's a weak softie on the inside.

4. The beautifully stock characters. Nobody but Clint fundamentally changes and even he does it in a predictable, unenlightened character arc.

3. "Thank you."
"Get off my lawn."

2. Dirty Harry rehash. Savior of the underdog, but in an ironic way. I like how Clint is cognizant of his fading background and aging, in general. I loved the line "like miniature cowboys" because it was such a direct mockery of his own fans.

1. The fact that this movie doesn't get too much more complicated than a racist man being reeducated. It's not much better than the TV movies they show on HBO, but it makes for a hell of an easy watch.

Sometimes overdramaticism is better than underplaying subtleties. It's not going to be winning any awards (at least it shouldn't; sometimes it's hard to tell beneath all this Clint love), but I can kick back and completely shut off my brain. And making a movie like that does take some skill.

* But clearly Clint Eastwood clearly has no idea what Detroit is really like because nobody in their right mind would brave their mean old growly dad for freaking Lions season tickets. The Lions are the scourge of the city, don't you know.

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2009-01-06T19:26:00.002-05:00

Céline: There's a lot of things I miss about the U.S

Jesse: Yeah, like what?

Céline: Um...well...the overall good mood people have there, like, you know, even if it can be bullshit sometimes. Like: "How're you doin'?" "Great!" "How’re you doin'?" "Great!" "Have a great day!" I don't know...Parisians can be so grumpy, have you noticed?

a few discrete thoughts

2009-01-04T22:10:00.003-05:00

I just watched Slumdog Millionaire and I felt like adding a few comments here and there.

For some reason I didn't love this movie. I mean, it's pretty hard to guess which movies are going to hit you directly in the gut and it's not a crime that this one didn't do it for me, but the chorus of fangasms surrounding such a movie is too loud for me to ignore. I end up second-guessing myself and wondering what it is I didn't like about it.

Too many comments have been made about Danny Boyle's hyperkineticism so I'll skip that part. Yes, I liked the fast pace. Yes, I liked the bleeding colors.

I liked it when Jamal and Latika reunited at long last. That was the moment when I was truly reminded of Danny Boyle's unique style. That and the bucket of water and the shit-jumping. It's not about sex or chemistry at that point; it's about intimacy.

I liked the character of Salim. His character is so morally ambiguous he's forever being pushed and pulled in the good and bad guy roles. He's someone I actually reached an understanding with. It's necessary for that kind of three-dimensionality among all those stock characters.

I liked Jamal's random little quips back to that mean gameshow host. He's above it all even though he's the perpetual victim.

I liked how little it mattered whether Jamal won the gameshow. I think I would have been just as happy at the end had he not won. And the same goes for him.

The only thing I disliked how this movie shied away from violence. Honestly I've come to realize violence is sometimes necessary to paint the polarity of realism and fantasy.

...and still it was awarded an R rating. You could tell Boyle or the editors or the producers or whatever were aiming for a PG-13 rating, and that totally sucked for them.

The ending was perfect. If anything this movie has piqued my interest in real Bollywood films. So bring them on!

Maybe it's because it reminded me too much of City of God and how City was so much superior. I was forever interested but never transfixed. I could've pulled away at any moment. But the style was undeniable.

I have hence concluded there is nothing wrong with Slumdog; it just didn't hit me, me on a personal level. And that is okay.

My Favorite 20 Actresses

2009-01-03T04:51:00.000-05:00

In no particular order...

Julie Delpy

Audrey Hepburn

Vivien Leigh

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Ann Miller

Dianne Wiest

Lisa Kudrow

Evan Rachel Wood

Natalie Portman

Gwyneth

Kat Hep

Judy Davis

Bette Davis

Noni

Barbara Stanwyck

Kate Winslet

Mia Farrow

Amy Adams

Shirley Maclaine

Faye Dunaway

I seem to go for the feisty little bitches, don't I?

I Don't Care About Watchmen

2009-01-02T05:38:00.001-05:00

2007 was one the world's greatest years for movies. Everybody at least agrees upon that, even though it's now become the "in" thing to knock Juno's status as an indie (I knew it was coming eventually; now where's The Dark Knight backlash?).

2008 was a criminally underappreciated year. The trouble is that most good films lurked beneath the critical radar. A good year for formula chick flicks and a superb year for documentaries. And of course Slumdog Millionaire, that rare needle in a haystack.

But 2009 is not shaping up to be a promising year for movies. It's a year where comic book movies make their killing. Watchmen, Wolverine, Star Trek, Tron. Watchmen is on top of most people's anticipation list, and I just don't get it. Do normal people even read comic books? The only comic book movie I confess I took a liking to was Sin City, and that's because I liked the visuals and the beautiful girls (and Mickey Rourke). Summer brings sequelmania to mind, but that's become the norm of the season. Most of the movies I am looking forward to, in fact, are children's movies.

Up, a Pixar dream creation. They just keep getting better and better, I tell you. Ooh, if I had a modicum of art skill I would jump at the chance to work for Pixar animation. I want to soak up everything their brains spew out.

Coraline, a Neil Gaiman twister of a kid's movie, and directed by Henry Selick, the mastermind behind The Nightmare Before Christmas, to boot. Last year Stardust was seriously one of the most impressive fantasy movies I've seen in my life, in spite of de Niro's overtly hammy performance. And I can imagine this to be just as good, if not a little more sadistic.

Where the Wild Things Are, a Spike Jonze project that keeps on getting delayed and delayed but will finally be released in September. I'm putting all my eggs in Jonze's basket this time, despite critical warnings that the delays are not a good sign. But I'm trusting my gut feeling on this one; it sticks with me in times of trouble, like when I said Miracle of St. Anna was going to blow, and it did, and Blindness, and Australia. I have full faith that Jonze can pull out a modern masterpiece. He's the missing link to Kaufman's disorganized madness.

The Brothers Bloom, with Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz and Mark Ruffalo. A quirktastic creation with the heart to fill up what Wes Anderson lacks. Ever since I saw the trailer I fell in love, plain and simple. If I don't love this movie I will cry.

The Lovely Bones by Peter Jackson. I hate the book but I think Jackson could make me like it. If he decides to return to his indie roots and not his failed King Kong attempts this could be a smash hit. Plus I think Saoirse Ronan is really talented.

Sunshine Cleaning. Actually, I know next to nothing about this movie but I'm just crazy about Amy Adams and Emily Blunt and the two of them actually starring in a movie together is just too wonderful to bdar.

Whatever Works, because I'm a sucker for anything and everything Woody Allen. Plus, I have an extreme love for Evan Rachel Wood all of a sudden, and I have a good feeling about this movie and Wood's Oscar prospects. Because I know she's fantastic and what better than a Woody Allen movie to showcase her talent?

The Edge of Love, another girly movie to add to this list. I think I'm adding it just for the costumes and the gorgeous leading actresses, and the hope that KayKay will continue on improving her initially crap acting skills.

The Last Station. I always, always think biopics sound interesting no matter how boring they end up being. Helen Mirren is a dynamite actress not afraid to bounce off her pedestal to get down and dirty. And McAvoy: hello sexy.

The Countess by Julie Delpy. I'm actually really pumped for this movie because I know what magnificence Delpy is capable of and also I think Daniel Bruhl is like the sexiest guy ever not to mention I love period dramas and soap operatic plots.

Julie and Julia. Biopic-ish, and it seems like it would involve lots and lots of food too. And another Amy Adams film. My has that girl been getting a lot of work lately. And the sad thing is I think I've seen all of her movies. Well, the important ones anyway.

Mary and Max, an independent film by formerly short-film Oscar winning Adam Field. This sounds just weird enough to make a splash at Sundance. Let's see if I'm right.

Peter and Vandy, a love story told out of order, a romantic Memento of sorts. Let's see this one's Sundance prospects as well.

Random things I am semi-interested in seeing:
Sherlock Holmes, even though I still don't get the Robert Downey Jr. craze (but I like Guy Ritchie)
obligatory Harry Potter sequel
Tom Tykwer's The International, actually I think I might like this but I instantly have a negative reaction to action movies
Adventureland, but I must confess I'm all Apatowed-out
Inglourious Basterds, I really do want to see this actually but the atrocious spelling turns me off
The Wolfman, because I have an embarassing crush on Hugo Weaving of all people
Assassination Of A High School President, even though Mischa Barton can't act
He's Just Not That Into You, in honor of my newfound faith in Hollywood chick flicks
Jennifer's Body, semi-interested in Diablo Cody's further work
Taking Woodstock, which sounds like Almost Famous the sequel, but Ang Lee always puts a unique spin on things
Me and Orson Welles - I'm a little iffy on Linklater nowadays but this looks promising
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, because I'm excited for anything Noni touches even though it seems like she's barely in this film
What Doesn't Kill You, it's been done a thousand times over but I think Ruffalo and Hawke make a good bromance match
New York, I Love You - was going to be on my "want to watch" list but then I realized that neither Woody Allen or even freaking Nora Ephron contributed to this anthology, instead I get Brett Ratner and ScarJo

Actually on hindsight there are a lot of interesting projects coming out this year. Particularly with strong female casts. It just takes a little effort to search for them. I think I do a lot better snoopwork than these lists pretend to be.

Tentative Top Ten of 08

2009-01-01T02:15:00.003-05:00

Critics, both professional and free, all over the country are making top 10 lists, but considering I have not seen the Big 8 yet (Milk, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog, Rachel Getting Married, The Reader, The Wrestler, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino) I'm sure this list will change in time once my theater decides to open this movies.

But here is a tentative list of the true '08 movies I have completed in time, subject to revision.
10. Pineapple Express
9. Let the Right One In
8. Definitely Maybe
7. Encounters at the End of the World
6. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
5. Sex and Death 101
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
3. Wall-E
2. The Visitor
1. In Bruges

What a capricious list. Mind you I have only seen a little over 40 movies this year, so it's not like I'm qualified to make a judgment right now. Elaboration will come later, once this list is solidified.

auld lang syne

2009-01-01T00:19:00.003-05:00

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

New Year's Resolutions:
1. get kissed
2. blog every day
3. go to college
4. improve my writing
5. have a great year

Happy 2009!

9?

2008-12-31T19:39:00.002-05:00

Trailer for 9 just came out. I am really confused by it.

This sounds like a perfect merge of Tim Burton's weirdness to Timur Beksufiodjfdtov's action figure fetish. But how much to producers really contribute to a film? Who is this Shane Acker? Also, I like Henry Selick tons more than Burton.

And I am so over celebrities voicing animated characters. Most of the time they just phone it in anyways. One voiceover is just as good as the other. The stars are taking over the only medium ugly talented actors can fulfill. Whatever happened to the Disney ingenues - Jodi Benson, Paige O'Hara, Kathryn Beaumont?

"High school's better than junior high. They'll call you names, but not as much."

2008-12-31T19:35:00.005-05:00

It just hit me recently that I am out of puberty. (so I can stop waiting for those boobs to grow in, it's not happening lol) I'm at a stage in my life where I feel mature but nobody takes me seriously. I'm stuck in limbo between adult and child, both the worst and best place to be. But I still look like a child.

I think from watching these two movies (Let the Right One In and Welcome to the Dollhouse) I've created this illusion that middle school was much worse than it actually was. In truth I had quite a good time in middle school (albeit loveless) but I can't help but feel terrified of these pictures Solondz and paint for me.

Awkward love..

Killer bullying...
Gross clothes...

Unfortunate haircuts...

Messed up ideas of seduction...

The indelible stamp of nerd...

Okay, so maybe in Let the Right One In there were some redeemingly cute parts. Eli and Oskar are decidedly cute together.

But Welcome to the Dollhouse is an entirely different story. Oh god. Wasn't Lolita forcing Dawn to "take a shit" the most horrible thing you've seen in your life? Or the dessert-sharing scene? Or the chanting while she gave the entire school that speech? Or that bitch princess sister of hers? "I want to be popular." Weinerdog...

Simplicity vs. Complexity

2008-12-31T18:37:00.003-05:00

Recently I have nearly tripled my movie-watching rate, largely owing to my painful wisdom teeth recovery and lack of anything else better to do. Consequently I have attained a zombie-like state in which I don't really want to write or cogitate or really even pay attention to anything - just watch movie after movie in the hopes of fulfilling that lost something.

Now I am well enough to at least want to write something. And just in time, too, for the new year, and the onslaught of awards show coverage soon to come.

But I did reach an epiphany of sorts during these past few days, and that is that I prefer simple, straightforward movies to any mess of themes with beautiful shot after beautiful shot and close cuts to action. But I don't mean simple in the sense of formula at all. Not, like A Walk to Remember or similar crap. I mean simple intentions, streamlined thoughts, frequent silences that actually mean something, time to think. Extensive dialogue and little action is good too, but not play adaptations. I tend to feel disoriented and lost amongst all that scene chewing and heavy-handed symbolism. Hence my negative reactions to "geniuses" like Coppola and Scorsese. I don't want artistic vision, I want the story told to me straight out. Plus, I don't like gangster movies.

I think one of my favorite movies this year was The Visitor. I left the movie with a contented smile (despite its depressing ending) and a gentle memory. But I did not think much of the movie immediately afterwards. I wasn't insanely impressed or hit with a defining truth about mankind, because can you really be impressed with this kind of movie? But this year as epic after epic passes over me, I'm still left with a strong impression of that day in May I watched The Visitor, with Richard Jenkins just reacting to everything that goes on around him, and drum beating, and two beautiful immigrants clinging onto each other in this galaxial country. Within in the first couple of minutes I knew what the movie was about and the nascent hurts of the characters. No exposition. I got the story, gutted and minimized to the max. The movie clocked at less than two hours, as it should. So I guess subtlety really does hit you deep in the gut.

I'm glad I've discovered this quality about myself. And it makes sense too: all of my favorite movies can basically be summarized in one sentence. Singin' in the Rain? Gene Kelly is trying to make the transition to talkies. Before Sunset? Two GenXers talk to each other. Bonnie and Clyde? They rob banks. The Breakfast Club? 5 high-school cliches have detention and get high. Documentaries fall under this category too. I think Hitchcock is just about the only exception, but what I admire about him most is his progressive storytelling, without any interruptions. Oh, and Woody Allen too, but he is always an exception.

That's why I can usually predict how I will like something before I watch it, as long as the director executes to the best of his ability. I knew I was going to love Reality Bites as soon as I laid eyes on it. I know Ben Stiller can direct. I know Noni can act her heart out, especially at this kind of role. I know I can identify the hell out of GenXers. (I belong to the GenX sect even though I missed the mark by a couple of years.) I know I love Ethan Hawke. And I did. It's occupied the hallowed ground of favorites now.

The problem with Hollywood now is that everything has to be a big production. Killer budgets are something to be admired rather than shied away from. It's CGI central here. Who can make the biggest noise? Michael Bay can; let's give him lots and lots of money! (Actually, I'm not that bothered by Bay, he's fine.) Simplicity is rejected in favor of complexity as if it's harder to make it more confusing. Or maybe because it's easier. Physical over cerebral, loudness over subtlety, length over brevity. Sometimes I feel like the only place I can turn is independent productions.

I think I'm morphing into one of those textbook film snobs that rejects everything mainstream and insists on everything indie, and sneering at stuff like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine for not being indie enough. Ughhh, I hope not. Actually I hate unpolished indie movies. Moreover I blame society for putting a label indie on anything that isn't Marley and Me. (Actually I heard that movie was not that bad, go figure.) Why do I have to drive half an hour just to watch The Reader? Is the movie really that selective that AMC doesn't think it will sell any tickets if they release it to a wider audience? What about the movie is so inaccessible? Kate Winslet? May-December romances? A lack of dumb fart jokes? Please, enlighten me. Why don't Twilight-crazers have to drive half an hour to drool on their beloved Edward? This is not fair.

There will be that rare time when I admire a long, multidimensional film, but these are not the films I want to come back to again and again. I am Rachael Ray and her 30-minute-meals: I want wholesome, palatable food appropriate for any day, any time. I want to be emotionally affected, but not emotionally sledgehammered.

New Years Playlist

2008-12-30T18:09:00.004-05:00

Like I said before, I'm not really a musically minded person, but I wanted to share my favorite songs of this year that remind me of each of the months. Hopefully (and this is the best possible scenario, mind you) as you listen to this playlist you will be transported from January's ice to the rains of April to the uninhibited spontaneity of summer back to the frosts of November and December.

Enjoy!

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2008-12-29T18:46:00.003-05:00

"You know, I believe if there's any kind of God, it wouldn't be in any of us. Not you, or me, but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but...who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt."

love the documentaries

2008-12-28T11:26:00.004-05:00

It's weird, but the thing I like to do best when I'm relaxing (or, in this case, recovering from my swollen post-wisdom-teeth removal cheeks) is watch documentaries. They're slowmoving enough so that I only have to half-pay attention, interesting enough so that I want to pay attention, and believable enough so that I can hope I will meet people like these too.

In documentaries there's such an earnestness on the director's part to make you believe him, make you see the world how he sees it. Usually his tracks in a movie are brushed twice over, but in a documentary you feel an immediacy with him, so that you know the man behind the camera through and through, whether his voice is luminating behind the camera at random spurts or if all of a sudden he pops out from the back to make a particular facial expression.

My favorite documentary and one of my top ten movies ever is My Kid Could Paint That by Amir Bar-Lev. It's one of those few movies where all the things I like merge together into a perfect moving painting: modern art, precocious little kids, scandal, shots so beautiful I want to frame each one of them, a director's own conflict manifested in the screen. I knew as soon as I saw the trailer this was going to be something special, but I had no idea how touched I was going to be. Marla Olmstead is a 4-year-old girl who takes her city by storm when she is discovered to have painted these gorgeous abstract pictures bursting with color and ideas. They end up selling for thousands of dollars and she becomes an overnight sensation. But then one day on Barbara Walters a child psychologist questions whether Marla really was entirely responsible for the paintings. Might her father, who occasionally dabbled in art, have doctored the paintings just a little bit to give it a little more cohesiveness?

Then it started getting really weird. The father started getting defensive, the mother got confused, and the parents refused to show any footage of Marla painting, saying it "interrupted" the creative juices. Even the director started expressing his doubts. The documentary took on a life of its own.

I loved the organic flow of this documentary. It's a movie where you can discuss the ethics and results of such a deed. You can discuss the validity of abstract art as a whole, not to mention your own interpretation of the father/daughter dynamics of the relationship. When skilled moviemakers deliver interpretations of their own documentaries, it's always original and surprising. Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World was moving, deep, and imaginative. Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light was fascinating, idolatrous, and kinetic.

But I like narrative documentaries too. You know, the kind with the deep-voiced omniscient narrator reveling in the mysteries of the deep on the Discovery channel, or whatever. Or the really one-dimensional kind on VH1 with the guy in the amazed English accent in the "Fabulous Life of..." series. I'm addicted.

What I do hate are political documentaries. Nothing but propaganda, I say.

brief seven-word reviews of all the movies i have seen in 2008

2008-12-27T23:52:00.003-05:00

I am still trying to catch up with the 2008 glut of late-releases so there will be hopefully more reviews to come (and more detailed too), but here are the ones I have seen so far, in alphabetical order.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. Underrated and affecting. Pregnant girl = killer bitch.
And When Did You Last See Your Father? Firth typical stolid self. Surprisingly uplifting ending.
Baby Mama. A good try by Fey and Poehler.
Be Kind Rewind. Jack Black is a douche. Hate him.
Cassandra's Dream. Guilt: been there. Hawke and Farrell = hot.
Changeling. Soap opera drama surprisingly entertaining. Angelina miscast.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Stop comparing to Gump. 1000x more magnificent.
The Dark Knight. Can't deny Ledger's performance despite scary mob.
Definitely Maybe. Fisher epitome of adorableness. Fantastic chick flick.
The Duchess. Sumptuous costumes, sumptuous Knightley. Glaringly obvious film.
Elegy. Overdone, overlong. Kingsley and Cruz good performances.
Encounters at the End of the World. Original people, original topic. Dreaming is professional.
The Fall. Visual masterpiece. Lee Pace is so beautiful.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Segel is pathetic but cute. Funny Brand.
Happy-Go-Lucky. Annoying Poppy, unexpectedly dramatic turns endears me.
The House Bunny. Ridiculous but loved it. Anna Faris kills.
In Bruges. Evokes fantastic dreamlike atmosphere. Slow, somnabulist, splendor.
Iron Man. Not boring. I like Paltrow in red.
Kabluey. Textbook indie but not predictable. Good costume.
Kung Fu Panda. Tries hard. I don't like kung fu.
Man on Wire. Am watching it right now. Review later.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Adams rlycute. Lee Pace is so beautiful.
The Other Boleyn Girl. Bad English accents, good costumes. Daytime soap.
Penelope. Ricci and McAvoy super sexy. Fairytale like.
Pineapple Express. Hilarious road/action/pot/Apatow movie hybrid.
Sex Drive. Bad road/sex movie but cute guy.
Synecdoche, New York. Lynchian nightmare but spurts of emotional overload.
Teeth. Scary bits of bloody penis. Female empowerment.
Tropic Thunder. Downey nailed it but satire gets tiresome.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Reeks of summer romps. Modern Midsummer Night's.
The Visitor. Subtlety at its finest. Jenkins beats drums.
WALL-E. Effective message of overconsumption. CUTE. Wallllll-E. Eeeeeeeve.
The Wackness. Mary Kate without Ashley. Amusing but druggy.
Wanted. McAvoy unbelievable as action hero. Still hot.

all it really needs is a little love

2008-12-24T23:05:00.003-05:00

Have the merriest of all Christmases, random readers that happen to drop in!

Try not to fall into the consumerism glut, especially in these depressed times.

Marry Me, Mark Harris (yes I know you're gay)

2008-12-19T13:22:00.003-05:00

Last month I read possibly the best book of my life. I read a lot of books about movies as a general rule but I read them for the information, not the beautiful stories or writing or anything like that. Because typically the people who write these pictures barely know how to write. I mean, they write better than me but they ain't no Shakespeare, that's for sure. But Pictures at a Revolution is a literary and cinematic marvel. Mark Harris manages to make it funny, adorable, incisive, and expository all at once.

I don't think it's that difficult in a literary sense to be writing about movies. I mean come on, look at me, I'm no great shakes at writing but I can polish off an article pretty quickly. It's like, keeping a diary, only it's all about movies, and I pretty much think about movies exclusively so this blog is basically my brain. Child.

My favorite critics are Manohla Dargis and David Carr, both of the New York Times. Even though I hate Carr's stupid 3rd person referral. Sometimes I want to scream when he's like, The Bagger this, The Bagger that. Freaking say I like a normal person. Oh, and I love Kim Morgan's blog even though I've never read one of her review reviews. And the thing is, neither of them have the same taste as me at all. Carr doesn't like the share his views because he's in a business where bias is looked down upon, but I get the feeling he goes for the hyper-subtle. And Dargis is basically a bitch. She hates everything. Typically if a critic has the same taste as mine I just feel really bad because they express my views better than I can and I'm incapable of expressing anything original because it's like, oh been there, done that.

That's why I avoid reading too many reviews.

Anyway, digression back: Pictures at a Revolution. The book is about the cinema explosion of the 60s, and in particular the Best Picture race of 1968, where 5 movies thoroughly at odds with each other, each representing a sect of the American community, duke it out for the big prize. It's surprisingly suspenseful, even though when the actual awards take place it gets kinda anticlimactic.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner stars Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in an elegiac turn, and also Sidney Poitier in his umpteenth self-coined "magic Negro" role. Stanley Kramer was a director from the old times who was frighteningly mistaken about his capabilities of being "modern" - he wanted to make a socially piercing film about racism but he had to make too many concessions concerning what was politically correct so the movie itself ended up being very conventional and one-dimensional with regards to Poitier's character and the daughter herself. The sole joy of this movie was to watch KatHep and Tracy get it on for one last time and that's what the Oscars chose to honor that night.

Poitier brought back his magic Negro once again that year in In the Heat of the Night, but the real star of the show was Rod Steiger's racist cop, which earned him a Best Actor win. Norman Jewison and Stirling Silliphant worked together side by side to adapt the novel of the same name and reduce the still racist undertones. What resulted was still an ever-heroic black cop with no visible flaws but, most importantly - the creation of a multifaceted white cop who actually undergoes subtle character changes. This became the movie that changed how audiences would perceive black men, the goal that Stanley Kramer shot at but never attained. Also introduced the wonderfulness of fledging editor Hal Ashby of Harold of Maude fame to the world.

The Graduate was a zeitgeist film about rootlessness and apathy. Dustin Hoffman had a starmaking turn in this role, even though it took some time for him to be recognized. He was still picking up his weekly unemployment checks when the movie premiered. Mike Nichols was rumored to have mercilessly bullied his actors, but he painstakingly extracted career-best performances from all of them (excepting Hoffman, who seemed to improve turn after turn). College students all around the nation were feeling the same disconnect as Benjamin Braddock and flocked by the masses to watch this movie. Old people didn't seem to "understand" it, and that just added to the appeal.

It took Warren Beatty more than a year to get Bonnie and Clyde distributed, a test to his unshakable faith in the movie and determination to be more than a pretty face. Another representation of the new uprooting the old. It was so different, production companies were reluctant to get it into wide release, but its fans were fiercely faithful to it. The two writers, deeply in awe of Godard and Truffaut, aimed for an American-new wave awakening akin to the French one that occurred a few years back. It took forever to get Arthur Penn on board but all the pieces finally fit together. A whirlwind antiauthoritarian Western about breaking rules and being cool and personal individualism, Bonnie and Clyde is one of my personal movies as well. It's just one of those movies when you just get it, you know?

The mess that was Dr. Doolittle describes Rex Harrison's drunken antics and gratuitous exercising of his star power. He fired two songwriters only to rehire one he had previously fired, refused to sing songs too evocative of ridiculousness, frequently made racial slurs to his costars, and often threatened to quit knowing full-well they needed him. To top it all off, the picture became ridiculously expensive to shoot as the animals didn't cooperate and weather became terrible. It ended up being a bloated, boring, overlong movie of 3 hours that produced no audience reaction whatsoever. Ushered in the end of the epic-musical era.

The book references a party given by Jane Fonda and Ted Turner inviting a whole number of stars, old and rising. Neither knew how to communicate with the other. The old were still basking in their laurel wreaths when an explosion of hippies and hyper-liberals seemed to take the stage overnight. The it became more about personal expression than formula, and many old stars found themselves uprooted and useless.

It's a book about breaking out of racial character stereotypes, the shift to French new wave thought much to the chagrin of the old vanguard, the death of the big-budget musical, the simultaneous birth into superstardom for Dustin Hoffman and Mike Nichols, actors making their own luck, studio pushing, the difficulty of getting your screenplay published, and risktaking to the highest degree.

What Harris aimed at was capturing the spirit of the time and he couldn't have executed more beautifully. I only regret I was alive during that time of rebirth and experimentation. It makes me nostalgic for a time I've never experienced, where the general public was actually receptive to the "art" films of Fellini and Bergman even if they never understood them, appreciated the whirlwind antiestablishmentarianism of Bonnie and Clyde, the alienation of The Graduate, laughed at the farce of Dr. Doolittle, looked up to megastars Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and gasped when Sidney Poitier gives the coup-de-grace slap to the offending white man in In the Heat of the Night. I look at today's movie theaters, where Twilight and Four Christmases dominate the box office, and I want to cry.

A Random Thought

2008-12-18T22:39:00.002-05:00

I just thought of something really cold and callous.

Baz Luhrmann has signed on to direct The Great Gatsby. This is actually a film project I agree with because the book could use a little frenetic drunkardness to spice up its incredibly boring plot and annoying, self-absorbed characters. But apparently a bunch of critics have already uprisen and have expressed their reservations about such an undertaking.

Because apparently The Great Gatsby is, like, unfilmable. Coppola tried it with Mia Farrow (which, by the way, was like the worst casting decision in the history of film) and Robert Redford and it got nowhere. Granted that was a terrible film anyway and I don't even think it was the story's fault.

But anyway, I have come to this conclusion: books that are said to be unfilmable are just bad books anyway. For hundreds of years movies have turned to books for source material and always the bucket is full of depth and character. Movies hyper three-dimensionalize the books and turn them into their own mini-worlds.

Blindness was said to be unfilmable. And fail it did, despite Fernando Meirelles masterful directing skills. You know why? Because the book is a one-dimensional cesspool of depression. It's like one of those boring art films where all you see a visual picture after another, with no linking story whatsoever.

Just face it: books were made to be made into movies. That's really all a writer wants now. To score a film deal. Excuse me if my literature appreciation comes across as a little cold.

Hm, SAG Nominations

2008-12-18T16:47:00.002-05:00

I've been surprisingly reticent about awards show fever this year, not because I don't sustain an interest in it (I have Awards Daily and Film Experience RSS feeded to me every day, after all), but because I always feel like I don't have anything new to contribute. I can seldom go the theater and watch the darn movie in time before the reviews start streaming in, thus any comments I make are echoes of other critics who actually have an idea about the awards show tide, or superfluous because I get to the movies themselves too late.

Seriously, the one actor I feel strongly about is Richard Jenkins from The Visitor, because it is literally the only movie I have seen that hasn't been hammered to the ground. Heath Ledger is definitely winning Supporting Actor, okay, but me saying it isn't like some kind of a breakthrough moment. Even people not encased in awards show drama like I am are aware of that. And I think there is a good deal of buzz heating up for Slumdog Millionaire, but considering I haven't even seen the movie yet I don't know how qualified I am to make that statement.

A brief list off the top of my head of the movies I have actually seen:
Wall-E
The Dark Knight
Synecdoche NY
Happy-Go-Lucky
The Visitor
Kung Fu Panda
Tropic Thunder
In Bruges
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
The Duchess
Iron Man
plus a smattering of movies that aren't getting anywhere: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Wanted, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Baby Mama, Definitely Maybe, The Fall

Pretty pathetic, I know. I will take this Christmas break and seriously catch up on my movies. It's become like...blockbuster central here. I blame the inaccessibility of movies in my town and not my shifting interests, I swear!

Anyway, my brief opinions on SAGs, from my limited knowledge.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
RICHARD JENKINS / Walter Vale - "THE VISITOR" (Overture Films)
FRANK LANGELLA / Richard Nixon - "FROST/NIXON" (Universal Pictures)
SEAN PENN / Harvey Milk - "MILK" (Focus Features)
BRAD PITT / Benjamin Button - "THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON" (Paramount Pictures)
MICKEY ROURKE / Randy - "THE WRESTLER" (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
I'm really proud of Richard Jenkins because I think his character is so hard to pin down and typecast. Subtlety is not a trait frequently honored at the Oscars and I'm glad he got his chance. Mickey Rourke, Penn, and Langella all deserve it. Not sure about Brad Pitt but he's sexy so I'll forgive it.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
ANNE HATHAWAY / Kym - "RACHEL GETTING MARRIED" (Sony Pictures Classics)
ANGELINA JOLIE / Christine Collins - "CHANGELING" (Universal Pictures)
MELISSA LEO / Ray Eddy - "FROZEN RIVER" (Sony Pictures Classics)
MERYL STREEP / Sister Aloysius Beauvier - "DOUBT" (Miramax Films)
KATE WINSLET / April Wheeler - "REVOLUTIONARY ROAD" (Paramount Vantage)
It's looking good for Anne Hathaway...to win, actually. I can't see Streep knocking it out because it's just another "strong" performance for her, no surprises there. I feel like the time she will win it will have to be something different from her usual consistency. I should really get on watching this Frozen River movie. And I have hopes for Kate to pull out a win (maybe?) now that Sally Hawkins was surprisingly passed over.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
JOSH BROLIN / Dan White - "MILK" (Focus Features)
ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. / Kirk Lazarus - "TROPIC THUNDER" (Paramount Pictures)
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN / Father Brendan Flynn - "DOUBT" (Miramax Films)
HEATH LEDGER / Joker - "THE DARK KNIGHT" (Warner Bros. Pictures)
DEV PATEL / Older Jamal - "SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE" (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
This is the weakest category of the year, I think, excepting Ledger of course. A little bit of WTF for Patel and I truthfully cannot understand Downey's praise in Tropic Thunder. Or Cruise's for that matter. I just don't find comedic acting that masterful (although Franco was pretty good in Pineapple, I've gotta admit).

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
AMY ADAMS / Sister James - "DOUBT" (Miramax Flms)
PENÉLOPE CRUZ / Maria Elena - "VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA" (The Weinstein Company)
VIOLA DAVIS / Mrs. Miller - "DOUBT" (Miramax Films)
TARAJI P. HENSON / Queenie - "THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON" (Paramount Pictures)
KATE WINSLET / Hanna Schmitz - "THE READER" (The Weinstein Company)
I hear Viola Davis's role is unbelievably fantastic so I am excited to see this movie. I don't think Amy Adams should be nominated for playing a pure ingenue - that's seriously just her personality. She should have been nominated for Pettigrew, imo, because I think she's adorable (but with layers) in that movie. Penelope Cruz was hilarious and I hope she wins. Either her or Winslet.

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (Paramount Pictures)
DOUBT (Miramax)
FROST/NIXON (Universal Pictures)
MILK (Focus Features)
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Neither Benjamin Button nor Slumdog strike me as actor-centric films. Correct me if I'm wrong but I see these two as highly auteury visual splendors but not huge actor showcases. Uh... Doubt I believe, Milk I'd say definitely, and Frost I guess has a good verisimilitude to the actual historical event. I hope Milk wins.

EW's Top 25 Sexiest Movies

2008-12-17T22:34:00.002-05:00

EW is obsessed with making lists (like me). I used to be obsessed with reading them too, before I realized I liked my own lists better and they started sounding really, really similar. So now I think I've got Lisa Schwartzbaum's taste pretty much down, because I've been reading so many lists of hers. Now I've kind of started to sporadically read them.

This one is pretty good though.

Michelle Pfeiffer: I...want to...sneeze!

25. The Postman Always Rings Twice (one of the few movies my parents have seen that I haven't yet; I'm actually pretty sure a VHS copy of this movie is sitting downstairs in the basement, which I will get to one year.)
24. 9 1/2 Weeks (was this when Mickey Rourke was still hot?)
23. The Age of Innocence (I never thought Daniel Day Lewis was that sexy but he is pretty smokin' in that picture)
22. Mississippi Masala (whoa, okay, updated Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?)
21. Basic Instinct (this is such a Sharon Stone role, seriously. bisexual ice-pick wielding novelist murderess maneater, indeed.)
20. Titanic (YES. the reason this movie is never going to be too overrated is because of the chemistry.)
19. The Notebook (chemistry: why I like this movie a thousand times more than A Walk to Remember, despite similar cheesy plots)
18. Swimming Pool (women can hit the erogenous zones best)
17. Mulholland Drive (masturbation scene was the most painful moment in my life)
16. The Seven Year Itch (Marilyn Monroe is such a cocktease)
15. Notorious (I still think Jimmy Stewart is sexier than Cary Grant, but Grace Kelly is delectable)
14. The Year of Living Dangerously (what a boring-sounding movie, if not for the latent sexiness?)
13. Shakespeare in Love (I absolutely appreciate this being on here; so many people disregard it because it is everything at once)
12. The Fabulous Baker Boys (is there any surprise why Pfeiffer is in two of these? she's magnificent.)
11. Once (realistic sexiness)

10. Before Sunset (realistic sexiness pt. 2 aka the premiere example of fantastic, fantastic sex sex sex and chemistry)
9. A Walk on the Moon (Diane Lane is also tied with Pfeiffer in terms of old-school sexiness; I should watch this.)
8. The Last of the Mohicans (a weird choice, but I like left-field decisions a lot)
7. Y Tu Mama Tambien (seriously, pubescent Gael Garcia Bernal was made for a woman cougar)
6. Don't Look Now (why can't I look? why can't I look? I'm scared to watch this freaking movie)
5. Bull Durham (this movie has such irregular dialogue; I love it)
4. Body Heat (surprisingly enough I've never seen a Kathleen Turner, and I heard she was quite the vixen in her day)
3. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (the chemistry is the only thing that saves this mediocre movie)
2. His Girl Friday (disagree; personally think Bringing Up Baby would be a much preferred choice)
1. Out of Sight (a strange pick for number one, but I have heard good things about this movie)

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2008-12-16T19:25:00.005-05:00

I actually have a good excuse about not updating this time. 1. College applications, of which I have now all submitted but am having troubles with recommendations and school reports (gulp). 2. Overload of pre-Christmas break work = less movies = less time = less time to write about movies. 3. Bad bout of procrastination.

Another Before Sunset quote to pass the time, I guess.

Céline: You come here to Paris, all romantic, and married, okay? Screw you! Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get you or anything. I mean, all I need is a married man! There's been so much water under the bridge, it's...it's not even about you anymore, it's about that time, that moment in time that is forever gone, I don't know!

Jesse: You...you say all that, but you didn't even remember having sex. So...

Céline: Of course I remembered.

Jesse: You did?

Céline: Yes! Women pretend things like that. I don’t know…

Jesse: They do?

Céline: Yeah, what was I supposed to say? That I remember the wine in the park and...us looking up at the stars fading away as the sun came up? We had sex TWICE, you idiot!

pre-Valentine's Day excitement

2008-12-11T20:40:00.003-05:00

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays of the year! Romance is a topic commonly hit on in the movies, so why not rent a couple of these classic (or alternative) chick flicks to nestle next to your boyfriend with? After all, celluloid love is so much more perfect than real love, don't you think?

Definitely, Maybe - Over the last couple years, most Hollywood romantic comedies have failed to impress, so I was surprised to have hit the jackpot with this frothy gem, starring Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks, and Abigail Breslin. Will Hayes (Reynolds) is a recent divorcee whose daughter Maya (Breslin) requests a bedtime story. He embarks on a twisting story featuring three of the main women in his life. This movie is like that children's game "Guess Who," where you are trying to figure out who out of the three women the mother is. Reynolds manages to create sparks with whatever woman he is with but there is no doubt in your mind who he is meant to be with forever. The question is though: will he?

Gone With the Wind - A timelong classic featuring the incomparable Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable. A Civil War-era movie that is in part a love letter to the old South, in part war movie, in part soapy drama. But come on - the real reason to watch this is the searing chemistry between Scarlett O'Hara (Leigh) and Rhett Butler (Gable). If you like your movies laced with passion, anger, and coquette, check this one out. You can almost taste the sexual energy palpitating between these two.

Before Sunrise - Two sexy Gen Xers (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) meet each other on the train and talk all night long. This entire movie doesn't boast any special effects or even any extraneous characters. It rides on chemistry, pure and simple. An intellectual love story that doesn't try to be pretentious or pessimistic. It's like all those late night talks with your friends rolled into one unforgettable movie. (P.S. - If you liked this one, check out the sequel, Before Sunset, where the two meet up ten years later!)

When Harry Met Sally - Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan play two best friends who argue if men and women can really be friends...because the sex gets in the way. They share this really rich friendship where they counsel each other on their individual love troubles. Inevitably they end up with each another (which sort of nullifies the argument). This movie reminds me of one of the old screwballs. Any movie that makes me fall in love with someone as goofy looking as Billy Crystal has certainly done its job. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are such an unlikely couple but bounce off each other both romantically and comically very well. "I'll have what she's having" indeed.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Would you erase your ex-boyfriend from your memory forever? Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel (Jim Carrey) are two lovers coming out of a messy breakup. Impulsive Clementine decides to make the separation a little easier by obliterating Joel completely from her memory. Joel angrily follows suit but while the process takes place he relives the memories he shared with Clementine and realizes he can't lose her. This movie is a little hard to get into at first, given its roundabout time scheme, but don't give up! Lurking beneath is a truly humanistic, profound piece on relationships and heartbreaks. Gives a new spin to the genre of sci-fi.

Vicky Cristina Jules Jim Juan Antonio Catherine Barcelona

2008-12-09T15:33:00.003-05:00

I'm ashamed to admit that I just watched my first Truffaut two days ago. I think I concentrate too much time on avoiding the stuff I don't like and watching only the limited things I love. For example, I have probably watched more useless MGM formula musicals than you, but I've never seen, like, Jaws.

So, being the Woody Allen lush I am, I could not help but notice the parallels between Jules et Jim and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I don't think this is a coincidence, because from what I've heard Woody rips off Bergman and Antonioni on a regular basis. Not that I would know firsthand because I attempted to watch The Seventh Seal a year ago and I fell asleep within the first ten minutes. Don't worry; I will get to it one day, on a day my concentration is really, really good. Anyway, I wouldn't call it ripping off, more like paying homage, because Woody always injects his own personality into whatever he does, and even if his plots are relatively unoriginal (usually because he rips off himself) they are unmistakably his.

Jules et Jim progresses like so: Jules and Jim are good friends. Jules is Austrian, Jim is French. They both admire some goddess statue they see in a garden, and then proceed to admire a girl called Catherine who looks just like the statue. Jules marries Catherine and they have a kid together but since Catherine is a certified bitch she keeps on having affairs and since Jules is a wimp he only whines passively about "losing her". Catherine flirts mercilessly with Jim and eventually they get together. But surprisingly this does not affect Jules and Jim's friendship and actually Jules is quite happy that he doesn't lose Catherine "completely" or something. This should end happily but unfortunately Jules and Catherine can't make a kid properly and so Jim returns to his old lover and Catherine has an affair with Albert and then they kind of start this on-again-off-again relationship until Catherine is finally fed up with it and drives both of them off a cliff while telling Jules to watch.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is much the same way except it involves one horny, happy Javier Bardem with a passel of women. Juan Antonio and Maria Elena are heavily in love but they have problems because each of them is insane and they realize the solution to it is Scarlett Johansson (Cristina) - the "salt" to the relationship - so they proceed to have a threesome! Haha, anything to justify that, Javier. Oh, and Rebecca Hall is in it too for good measure, just because Javier Bardem can't possibly be satisfied with two women - no, he has to one up Catherine by snagging three. Anyway, Scarlett is passed from one angry Spaniard to the other much in the way Jim or Catherine tolerate Jules and confide in him if they are lonely. I mean I guess Scarlett gets more action because seriously all Jules gets is a chaste kiss from time to time but I think that's more owing to her natural sexuality than any redeeming quality of her herself. So, Scarlett is Jules, end of story.

I liked these movies in different ways, oddly enough. Both are beautifully shot. Jules et Jim has that freeform black-and-white nouveau French camerawork down to an art. I think the camerawork was my favorite thing about this film, to tell you the truth. Even during the boring or ridiculous moments I could stare transfixed at the pretty scenery. Camerawork is something that really evokes a mood or even a time period and this style of shooting is very representative of New Wave, I think.

Vicky Cristina, on the other hand, feels so summertime. Woody in the 80s bled autumn, but in the new millenium he hired cinematographers that milked the uses of yellow and green and high lighting so that everything is extremely lush and bright. I think it's because summertime is symbolic of hot tempers and lusty feelings, which is what this movie is all about.

All that lust is the key difference between the two films. Jules et Jim strikes me as a cold film at heart. The narration is very removed but it works very well because all the characters are not completely letting themselves out either. I didn't sympathize with anybody but I think Truffaut intended it to be like that. That sense of narcissism and trivialization of sex and love and fluidity of affection is yet another aspect of New Wave. Here the characters aren't on a journey of any kind like in Breathless, and they're not exactly antiauthoritarian, but this is how they interact with each other, with a neverending sense of fun but also a restrained degree of apathy.

This is why the narration does not really work in Vicky Cristina. I guess the narrator tries to be more removed from the story but at the same time Woody tries to imbue him with a little bit of humor but that doesn't mesh well with the fiery characters who are anything but removed. In general this movie would've worked better with no narration. It's pretty much useless anyway - it goes like, "Cristina got into a taxi," followed by a shot of Cristina getting into a taxi.

I don't really sympathize with these characters either because they're so wrapped up in themselves but there's an inherent passion found inside all of them just makes them all the more...appealing, somehow. Penelope Cruz lets herself go all out, and Scarlett extends her lame character to the best of her ability. I can feel the hunger knawing at all of them. Again, here are the themes of free love and sex but told in a much more human context. It's a clumsy film, and not all of the ideas are well-developed, and it's definitely not a thinking movie (it's floaty farce, plain and simple), but it's good entertainment.

In general, I would probably watch Vicky Cristina a second time, but I definitely think Jules et Jim was the better film. It's just...not really my type of movie. I like my characters a little less distant.

A really random comment: How Catherine says Jim is really similar to the way Shannon Elizabeth says Jim in her fake exchange student accent in American Pie.

things to do before i sleep

2008-12-08T23:25:00.005-05:00

Some new things to be writing about before I forget:

The Art of the Title. I need to subscribe to this website now because it's such a good idea. I should do something like this once in a while too. Not to be unoriginal or anything.
This is a really good James Franco article.
~~drawing comparisons to Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Jules et Jim~~
~~commenting on EW's 25 Sexiest Movies~~
the long awaited Kiss Me Kate post
~~Pictures at a Revolution and what a genius book that is~~
~~Oscar prospects update~~

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2008-12-08T23:10:00.004-05:00

Whoo, haven't done this in a while. But I can keep on churning out these quotes, no problem.

"Each time I wear black, or like, lose my temper, or say anything about anything, you know, they always go, "Oh it's so French. It's so cute." Ugh! I hate that!"

Catherine Hardwicke FIRED?!

2008-12-07T22:25:00.004-05:00

I think I'm in about the 1% minority that haven't watched Twilight yet (nor do I ever plan on doing so, thank you very much), but I was shocked out of my mind when I found this news story.

""Summit’s targeted end of 2009 or early 2010 release of the film, New Moon, does not work with Ms. Hardwicke’s required prep time to bring her vision of the film to the big screen."

Those greedy, money-sucking, art-killing studios! Just because the studios are eager to make more money fast they fire a director that wants to inject a little quality into the franchise. I take back everything what I said about her before. Hardwicke might be an uneven director but she is devoted to the cinema as an art form even though her vision might be a little clouded. She's determined not to churn out tireless sequel after another and if that takes a little time, so be it. And this gets her fired?? Just because she's not a sellout like Chris Columbus.

WAY TO GO SUMMIT.

Reaching a New Kind of Adulthood with Diner

2008-12-07T15:09:00.004-05:00

I can't tell you the number of times I have watched this kind of movie. Watching coming-of-age movies about high school/college kids who don't want to grow up seems to be all I do. It's become my lifestyle or something. Dazed and Confused, American Graffiti, Fast Times at Ridgmont High, Superbad, even American Pie to a certain extent - all those movies that are supposed to capture the zeitgeist of that time end up culminating with the same conclusion: boys become men. Change happens; learn to roll with it.

There are other adjectives I could use to describe this movie that could come off as cultural snobbishness: the thinking man's American Graffiti, "Friends" in a diner with men, Stand By Me all grown up. But this movie is something on its own and doesn't need references for a person to "get" it.

Basically, the premise of Diner is that six post-college guys hang out at a diner until 4 AM and try to put the imminent lure of growing up on hold. There's Eddie, who is about to get married but is unsure about where to proceed once it happens, Shrevie, whose own marriage with Beth lacks the friendship and understanding necessary for a happy union (which explains the unease Eddie feels about his own impending marriage), Fenwick, a hard-up jokester with nascent alcoholism always simmering at the surface, Boogie, a hairdresser-by-day-law-student-by-night womanizer with money problems, Billy, the somewhat more mature grad student who has just returned to find that he got an old friend pregnant, and Modell, the guy who's just along for the ride with near-perfect comic timing.

I remember certain scenes with great fondness: Fenwick faking dead with a bottle of ketchup, Eddie's football quiz, Modell yelling about his sandwich. Apparently a lot of the script was ad-libbed and it's great that Levinson found six people with such natural chemistry anything they said was interesting.

All six men are rarely onscreen at the same time, but those few moments together are wonderful. The story is told in a series of vignettes rather than proceeding in a linear, strictly chronological way. You're not really aware of the time of the month or day save clues from the weather outside. I think it's better that way because it allows us to really focus on the characters themselves and their developments.

I want to share a word that I have learned while writing my research paper that I have yet to use: bildungsroman. It's a German word that tracks the course of graduation from child to adult. It's a long, arduous and gradual process, involving repeated clashes between the hero's desires and the judgments of a social order. Ultimately the spirit and values of the social order become manifest in the protagonist, and he is finally accomodated into the society. (thanks Wikipedia) I like this word because it stipulates a journey, not necessarily a physical journey but some kind of baptism that initiates the entrance into adulthood. For these six guys, the diner serves as a sort of oasis away from the troubles of the "adult" world, but they can't rest there forever as they keep on getting interrupted by outside forces. At first you find this unfair but you come to realize that's what life is. Eddie's wedding is where the journey finally makes its exit spot as the characters realize their places in the world.

Diner is one of my favorite directorial debuts of all time, as well as one of my favorite coming-of-age stories. I think I really identified with this movie because it gives me a different perspective of what will happen to me once I get out of college. I think I've spent so much time dreaming of college and what I'm going to do once I get there something really whams me when I realize I don't know what to once I get out. Get married, I guess, but out of necessity because it seems like the "right time" or out of love? Even though these men are 5 years older than me I intensely feel their out-of-placeness. When you take everything away, all those dreams and romances and accidents, what do you have? Six friends in a diner.

I definitely need to watch more Barry Levinson. Between this and Rain Man, Levinson has managed to attain grasp what being a man caught between society is all about. It's rare a person is able to understand what it feels like to be an individual against a social order and project it onto the screen. When they're emotionally capable of making the movie they don't have enough experience and by the time they have the technical capability to pull it off they're too "mature" to understand anymore.

Another Teenage Satire

2008-12-06T22:25:00.002-05:00

I enjoyed Election for its barbed wit and insightful views. It hit the concept of politics right on the nose.

Narration done right is delectable.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

2008-12-05T23:57:00.004-05:00

It really doesn't take much to make me happy.

Just a couple of crossdressing broads lip-synching to I Will Survive. More movies need to be made like this, stat.

YoYo Lip Gloss

2008-12-05T17:03:00.001-05:00

I really like YoYo Lip Gloss because it makes me lips less chapped in the winter. And it tastes delicious! So everybody should go try it.

On theaters

2008-12-04T17:34:00.005-05:00

I just saw Happy-Go-Lucky in the theater. I'm also surprised that I liked HGL better than Synecdoche. Synecdoche, like I said, was too difficult for me to understand. To tell you the truth I started to really, really dislike it at the end. The beginning was promising but emotionally empty, but I was like, okay, I can handle another John Malkovich, but then it just veered downhill from there. I wanted to like it so very badly and at the end I was left with nothing.

Happy-Go-Lucky was unexpectedly good and charming, but not in an alternate reality sense at all. I expected a sub-par British Amelie and I got Vera Drake with a happy ending. Actually, I quite disliked Vera Drake but I guess Happy-Go-Lucky's ending made it that much more palatable. Poppy herself made this fantastic character arc from being hyper-annoying to endearing, which made not only made her adorable - which is pretty typical of this kind of character - but also real. This movie is really all about her and Sally Hawkins ably delivers. I'm a little upset upset the movie progressed at literally a snail's pace but that's what you expect from a Mike Leigh movie, I guess.

But I honestly don't watch enough stuff in the theater. Okay, I'm not rich enough to shell out 7 bucks per movie, and with the studios withholding every potential Oscar contender possible I don't know how I'm going to survive next month.

Movies I Will Almost Definitely See:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button <- this is a theater experience for sure Slumdog Millionaire Revolutionary Road Movies I Will Probably See:
Milk
The Reader
Rachel Getting Married

Movies I Will Probably Catch on DVD/download:
Frost/Nixon
Doubt
The Wrestler
Gran Torino

Other Various 2008 Oscar Contenders To Watch:
The Duchess
Changeling
Tropic Thunder
Frozen River
Burn After Reading

6 x 7 = $42! I need to start making money fast.

J'adore Monsieur Allen

2008-11-30T21:39:00.004-05:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while but the stress of college applications has finally gotten to me. Not that I have finished those either but whew! just thinking about them makes me stressed! - and hopefully I will finish by the end of this week or something.

In movie news, I am nearing the finish line with regards to the Woody Allen extravaganza I've been goaling myself for since last year. Four and a third left, kids. And out of 39, no less. I am certifiably obsessed. Seriously, I've even watched the mediocre short Sounds From a Town I Love he made for some NYC tribute and attempted to like it (I didn't) and the excruciatingly painful Godard project Meetin' WA, which...I don't even know what it was about since most of the time it seemed like Godard was simultaneously mocking him and himself and the audience.

Times like these make me reflect on why I took such a liking to the man in the first place.
I like that all his movies clock at under two hours, and most under ninety minutes.
I like him for his versatility: his physical comedy, his jagged dramas, his airy-souffle love notes, his postmodern screwballism, his New York neurotic romcoms.
I like him for his open heart and willingness to delve into his own personal life for material, despite his denials of it.
I like that all his movies look so different but carry the unmistakable stamp of auteur.
I like the tightly strung narratives with thematic elements so jam-packed you wonder how he's going to fit it all in but he does and it is wonderful.
I like his use of the same beautiful actresses again and again so that we may grow to love them movie after movie.
I like knowing that the characteristic love vs. sex argument will be there in every movie, having it evolve tessellations, agreeing with different sides depending on how I feel that day.
I like that his name has become synonymous with the cultural zeitgeist of the 80s.
I like that he exposed me to the sumptuous talents of Diane Keaton, Judy Davis, Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Penelope Cruz, Louise Lasser, Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Lewis, Mariel Hemingway, Geena Davis, Tracy Ullman, Rebecca Hall, and the like.
I like that his movies are never completely about sex. They're about strong women and faltering men and frigidity and dissolution and fear of marriage and all that good stuff but despite everything he never falls into the cesspool of cynicism.
I like that he sets whatever city he's in to the ultimate best light.
I like that he focuses on only what he knows and never ventures into ridiculous, overconfident projects.
But at the same time I like his risktaking and journeys into tragedy.
I like his glasses.
I like his New York shtick.
I like Soon Yi Previn.
I like Husbands and Wives because it is about Soon Yi Previn and how he is unafraid to expose Mia Farrow's manipulative bitchiness.
I like the moral ambiguity each of his characters possess.
I like the note of uncertainty each of his movies ends on.

I hope I ended on a note of uncertainty of I doubt I did. hahaha

Not many critics would compare him to Cukor, but they are both women's directors at heart, admirers of the softer sex, and capable of drawing out the most heartbreaking performances even while the audience is laughing.

Synecdoche, HUH?

2008-11-30T19:10:00.004-05:00

Remember the thousand times I expressed my excitement for Synecdoche, NY? Well, I finally saw it last week and I was so disappointed. The raw emotional connection I was looking for never came. Scenes and lines stood out but there was a certain disconnect that left never me. Also, I never knew Kaufman was so fond of puns. They're funny to a certain extent, I guess, but a movie cannot survive on good puns alone.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, an aging theater director who has been given the chance to create something great and original in the art world. So he decides to replicate his own life and lay it bare for the world to see, and at the same time represent every man's banality and extraordinarity.

"There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories."

Caden's personal life is a carnival trainwreck. His wife Adele, an artist who makes magnifying-glass sized sculptures and is deemed a "genius", runs away to Berlin takes their daughter Olive with her. So then Caden starts up a relationship with Hazel, the bubbly box office lady, but that fails. He ends up marrying his young ingenue Claire and she becomes a kind of a replacement Adele for him. He's still kind of in love with Hazel and he may or may not still be in love with Adele. His daughter Olive grows up in hyperspace or something because she seems to age 10 years every 1 year. He's also dying. I don't know if this is metaphorical or not but he is literally wasting away - his teeth are falling out, he's growing weird spots on his skin, he has sycosis not psychosis, his back is terrible.

Caden hires out a huge space in a New York theater and hires an actor for every friend, every lover, every stranger he's even met in his life. Each time an event happens it happens the next day in his gigantic theater production. It gives him a chance to reevaluate that event but also lets him repeats past hurts and triumphs. He hires Sammy, who has followed him for 20 years, to play himself. Apparently Sammy is going to teach him who he really is. But then Sammy commits suicide while playing a scene at which Caden almost committed suicide himself.

The first third is typical Kaufman weird, the second third starts to get confusing and a little sad, the third third is bewildering. The ending does not feel like an ending but I felt like the movie was going to end about twenty times before that.

Kaufman is great at making his women look beautiful, and each of Caden's muses/mistresses/girlfriends/wives have their time to shine. Michelle Williams has never looked more luminous. Samantha Morton too. But what's also great about Kaufman is that he can turn off the charm whenever he wants to too. After their time has passed the light sort of fades on them, and they become used, uninteresting, out with the old and make room for the new.

There are too many quirks in this movie. Hazel lives in a burning building, eight-year-old Olive is simultaneously Adele's friend's muse and lover and she also dies, Caden starts up a relationship with the girl who plays Hazel in response to Sammy's relationship with the real Hazel, Caden gets sick of playing himself in his own life so he takes up a role playing Ellen, the cleaning lady. And the thing is, I don't even think Kaufman falls under the category of "quirky for quirky's sake" like so many other independent movie makers. That is the thing that confused me most. Was the disjoint I felt Kaufman's intent or his mistake? Or both? Was this some other kind of insight into life? That life is essentially a series of unconnected, unhappy events with simulated emotional content? Too...many...questions! See - I don't like reading into movies that much - too much effort, too much heavy brainlifting.

The reason I turned to movies at such a young age was because I enjoyed the big pictures, the powerful gestures. I love that movies created a hyper-reality of reality. Subtlety is told in terms of loudness, if you get what I mean. You've got all these technical instruments at your disposal, so even something really simple is engineered to the hilt to milk as much reaction from the audience as possible. The director understands every aspect of the movie and shoots the scene like so, and if it is a good director the audience will understand every aspect too. I love having the feeling of all that thematic goodness just flow into me. It is literally a train track of tenuous links and I am riding the train steadily to the climax.

Kaufman pays no regard to whether the audience understands him or not. I feel like he understands what he's doing, and the actors too (particularly Dianne Wiest; she's so wise), but I still do not! Everybody is in tune with what is going on but me. And that's why I feel miserable watching this movie, despite the obvious genius put behind it.

There were glimmers of emotionally packed exchanges, but these moments were so isolated I felt myself grasping for them beneath all that confusion. I couldn't even live off memories of these nice moments because my brain was constantly undergoing sensory overload with all those sights and sounds and characters and characters about characters and microcosms and macrocosms.

Kaufman needs someone to rein in all his crazy energy into a cohesive movie. His partnerships with Gondry and Jonze rain magic. Sometimes I lie in bed thinking of how perfect a movie Eternal Sunshine is and I think I'm lying to myself. But then I watch the film again and it's just as perfect as I've always remembered it. Movies like that are so rare nowadays. But I believe Kaufman can pull it off at least once again. Pour out your heart, Charlie.

Liveblogging 2001: A Space Odyssey

2008-11-17T17:53:00.003-05:00

This is the only way I'll be able to get through this. I can already tell it's going to be a looooong 2 1/2 hours. So, let's commence.

8:34 - I don't understand this freaking movie. Apes are shrieking...so what?
9:51 - These apes look surprisingly human.
10:30 - Seriously, is this movie about apes? I thought there were aliens involved or something.
11:19 - What's that weird rectangle thing in the middle? TOUCH IT TOUCH IT.
12:37 - Maybe it's a phallic symbol. From the way they're stroking it and that strange operatic music it must be something holy. And what's more holy than a giant penis?
12:50 - OH MY GOD way to cut off again. What the f-ck is up with this movie?
14:22 - I hate the theme song. And so far I hate this movie.
14:38 - The ape is crushing the fossil with another fossil. Beautiful destruction?
15:31 - Is that an octopus I spy him eating? Okay...you know what I'll shut up.
15:55 - Now they're all eating octopuses! Or wait...are they octopuses?
17:38 - It's about to be a - WHAT- apefight!
18:42 - I don't appreciate the usage of beautiful classical music songs for weirdo movies like this.
19:47 - It's a wheel! How illuminating!
20:28 - OH my gosh it's the first sighting of a human in twenty minutes. Way to keep up the suspense Kubrick.
21:32 - She puts the pen in his pocket. Still have no idea what is going on.
22:24 - These two humans don't even look real okay. Those apes looked more real than these two.
25:17 - It's so relieving to hear people talk after such a long time. Watching that wheel around has been surprisingly comforting. It also makes me sleepy, which may account for the comfort.
26:50 - Holy shit I know Howard Johnson! I think Kubrick made this movie deliberately boring for so long so that anything that happened afterward would appear incredibly interesting in relation.
28:35 - The little girl is super cute. She reminds me of a Teletubby, for serious.
31:41 - An epidemic! Touches of Alien here. Honestly I like this movie better than Alien, despite the completely nothing first 25 minutes.
35:05 - One thing I can say for Kubrick is that he's got stunning visual composition. This works as a negative against him too because he knows he's a master at this stuff and he milks it. Man does it milk it.
36:36 - Okay honestly are these shots of space symbolic of something? Cause I got nothing. Man's alienation?
38:26 - I now have a vague idea of what is going on (they're going to Clarion, right?) but I have the need to consult the movie dust jacket for anything else that may be happening. Or maybe...this is it. I will wait patiently for a few minutes.
40:03 - The spaceship touches on the ground... And still nothing happens.
42:12 - Ooops. They're at Clavius, not Clarion. Clarion is a hotel.
55:44 - Oh my god this movie has reached the depths of excruciating boredom. I have sat here for thirteen minutes with absolutely nothing to say.
1:02:26 - The hibernation stuff screams Alien too but it's a thousand times more beautiful.
1:03:55 - Lol HAL is just like that autopilot in Wall-E. You can just tell he's going to be evil, dude.
1:07:47 - The way Frank is staring with a glazed look on his face is exactly how I feel right now.
1:11:43 - Freaking cut to the chase HAL!
1:12:20 - SEEEEEcrets!!
1:13:37 - Time to consult the dust jacket. I know what's going on now but it doesn't excite me any more.
1:14:57 - It says (and I quote): "To begin his voyage into the future, Kubrick visits our prehistoric...past, then leaps millennia via one of the most mindblowing jump cuts ever conceived." Uh, are you kidding me? I watched that jump cut. It consisted of a blackout screen and then a wheel floating through space under classical music. Very mindblowing, right?
1:17:33 - I'm going downstairs to get some chocolates. I predict that in the time I get back....nothing will have happened!
1:21:03 - Back. And...I was right.
1:25:02 - Thank goodness these two dudes are goodlooking, or else I'd be shutting this movie down right now.
1:30:33 - I've gotta admit, those lip reading shots are gorgeous. Gorgeous men, gorgeous lips, gorgeous camerawork.
1:30:37 - Praise Hallelujah, an intermission!!
1:35:31 - Did Frank just...die? Oh no, he was the best looking one!
1:37:40 - I have effing got it. Frank is dead. MOVE ON.
1:41:40 - Ohhhh nooooo. More people are dead! HAL you bastard.
1:44:08 - For the first time I am freaking scared. HAL might not be evil (according to imdb FAQ) but he's doing a pretty good job of imitating it.
1:44:54 - Why the hell is Dave telling HAL how he's going to enter the spacecraft? Excuse me HAL has just killed like everybody inside.
1:51:15 - I get the feeling this movie would be a thousand times better if I were high.
1:52:54 - Praise the destruction of HAL! You GO, Dave!
1:53:53 - LOL "take a stress pill". The one funny thing that has happened in this entire movie.
1:55:59 - "My mind is going. I can feel it." Awww man poor HAL! If only you weren't such a jerk before...but I feel soooo bad!
1:57:03 - Haha this is kind of hilarious that this is what Kubrick thought 2001 was going to be like. "I was constructed in 1992." I was born then!
2:00:37 - Ohhhh duuude always the programmer's fault. Poor, poor HAL.
2:01:43 - Phew less than half an hour left. It's been a bumpy night, folks.
2:05:34 - Whoa. Psychedelic. Now I really wish I were high...not that I've ever been high.
2:19:21 - I haven't been paying attention for the past ten minutes but now we appear to be in some kind of Victorian room.
2:20:00 - Turn around, dude!
2:23:30 - The final alien shot is kind of sweet.

And with that, I am out!
Um, it's going to take me a few minutes to fully digest this movie, but I didn't like it, and no one can convince me otherwise. Will come back to later to evaluate.

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2008-11-10T19:59:00.005-05:00

Jesse: Alright, I have an admittedly insane idea, but if I don't ask you this it's just, uh, you know, it's gonna haunt me the rest of my life
Celine: What?
Jesse: Um... I want to keep talking to you, you know. I have no idea what your situation is, but, uh, but I feel like we have some kind of, uh, connection. Right?
Celine: Yeah, me too.
Jesse: Yeah, right, well, great. So listen, so here's the deal. This is what we should do. You should get off the train with me here in Vienna, and come check out the capital.

Jesse: Alright, alright. Think of it like this: jump ahead, ten, twenty years, okay, and you're married. Only your marriage doesn't have that same energy that it used to have, y'know. You start to blame your husband. You start to think about all those guys you've met in your life and what might have happened if you'd picked up with one of them, right? Well, I'm one of those guys. That's me y'know, so think of this as time travel, from then, to now, to find out what you're missing out on. See, what this really could be is a gigantic favor to both you and your future husband to find out that you're not missing out on anything. I'm just as big a loser as he is, totally unmotivated, totally boring, and, uh, you made the right choice, and you're really happy!

PS. Real, substantial post will be coming to a theater near you, soon.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

2008-11-09T11:24:00.002-05:00

The year is drawing to a close and still the movie studios have been greedily grasping at their movies, refusing to release them until the last minute. What is this selfishness?

I think the only movies I have seen in theater this year are Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Wall-E, and Wanted. No lie. Ah, at least all of them were semi-good experiences.

On an unrelated note, the news story about Evan Rachel Wood and Manson breaking up was just a rumor. I am heartbroken to discover that this talented girl is still bound by the chains of this crazy psychopath.

Revisiting the Oscars, 2005

2008-11-07T17:01:00.003-05:00

Whoa, whoa, whoa, did anyone notice that the Academy Awards ceremony in 2005 was one of the worst, like ever? First off, Chris Rock hosted it. Recipe for disaster.

Second off, and most importantly, the nominees?? Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, Ray, The Aviator, Sideways. Five of the most sub-par movies of this decade and somehow they have made their way onto the nominee list.

I loathe Million Dollar Baby mainly because of Hilary Swank. That woman is super-annoying both onscreen and off. I don't know how she lives with herself and her hammy, scene-eating ways because I certainly can't. No wonder her lameass husband divorced her. I am not even quite sure what that movie was about and everytime I think about it all I see is Swank's toothy face looming in front of me. And then I am so scared I do not want to think about it anymore.

Finding Neverland is a cute effort by Marc Forster but ultimately forgettable. I do appreciate the Kaczmarek's win for the score, though. To this day I can't get over the whimsical little chimes and plucky strings and it makes me want to watch the movie all over again. But then once I do I'm just struck by how much I've built it up in my head. Something is missing, I think.

The token indie award goes to Sideways, a movie I've always found overrated. Two grown men getting drunk and whining about their lame lives, BAWWW. Yes I'm aware that this is the scenario most indies find themselves in but I've seen it done so much better. This movie is Garden State for old people who think they're so cool for questioning the meaning of life when really it is just pathetic.

I didn't mind The Aviator so much when it began but as it progressed I started grinding my teeth in frustration, wondering when it would end. Scorsese has got to know when to stop, dammit. Yes, I know it's blasphemy to criticize The Great Scorsese and god knows he's got more than enough masterpieces under his belt but you can't deny that guy drains your energy no matter what you're watching of his.

And the sad thing is that The Aviator was probably one of the stronger movies of the year. Granted I haven't seen Ray (by the way, what is this? biopic central?), but what gives for the dearth of quality cinema in that year? Did they get scared off by behemoth Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King the year earlier? Or was it post-post 9-11 trauma, evident only three years later?

Were the Oscars really that quality-strapped so as to nominate these mediocre films as representatives of the best of the year? Sadly enough, a quick glance over the year's highlights produced sad results. Turns out after these five the next best Oscar-friendly movie I could find was...The Phantom of the Opera and Hotel Rwanda.

My own top 5: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Before Sunset, Closer, The Motorcycle Diaries, Maria Full of Grace. All super indie and super incisive. Definitely not Oscar material, and don't I know it. Sometimes I think the Academy would do better to freaking get over themselves and nominate the arty, pretentious films because in many cases they are better. Take a look at 2008 Oscars and see how the times have changed in just three years. Not just one token indie in the mix, but two, three, four indie indies nominated with only one semi-Hollywood, semi-indie. Granted, it was the semi-indie that won, but reevaluate how Hollywood that movie is. Does no sound, a disgusting haircut, and a scary-ass, hopeless ending say anything to you?

I have got to start hosting my own awards ceremony or something, since the Academy obviously doesn't honor the genius provided for us in the year.

The one bright spot of the ceremony: Sidney Lumet was honored. That guy isn't honored nearly enough and I'm glad he got his time to shine.

Speaking of the Oscars, take a look at this. This is the only time you're going to hear me say this word, but lol. PWNED.

On an entirely unrelated note, has a movie ever been made of A Doll's House by Ibsen? Because I just read it today and I have to say I freaking adore that play. I can totally imagine a pre-scary 80s Mia Farrow as Nora, no problem.

Link Vomit

2008-11-07T16:06:00.001-05:00

The Plethora of Child Deaths finally breaks Edelstein. Aww. I do just want to give him a hug. And I don't even like hugs.

End of the Yellow Brick Road. Woohoo for Photoshop morphs. And woohoo for scarecrow victories!

First Celebrity Reactions to Obama Win. And their responses.

Katy Perry's Euro Music Awards Responses Parts 1, 2, and 3. Yeah she's annoying, yeah she's totally being quirky for quirky's sake, but why do I still covet her outfits so, so much?

Attention. Poor Joaquin Phoenix. You've done this before.

Kate Winslet for December Vanity Fair 2008. Smokin'. And I agree that hair is so Deneuve.

Seven for Nine. I knew an 8 1/2 remake was slated to happen, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be so...perfect.

Oldboy Remake Regains Speed with Spielberg and Smith?! Oh my god. The two most annoying pair in the world.

The Gods and Titans are Being Cast. I sort of ignored the announcement that this movie was going to be made like a month, but now I've just realized that the ingenious Tarsem Singh is going to be behind this, a decision by which I enthusiastically respond, sign me up!!

Entertainment Weekly's Twilight Cover #2. Oh look, it's two cokeheads. Double barf.

Vive Libertas!

2008-11-06T23:30:00.002-05:00

"Evan Rachel Wood dumped live-in boyfriend Marilyn Manson on Oct. 23 after he tried to kick her brother Ira out of their guest house."
- from JustJared

Praise Hallelujah! Did I call this or what? Maybe now the entrancing Ms. Wood can go back to producing movies of substance. Such a huge reservoir of talent at such a young age. Go crazy. Please.

Now please stop imitating Dita von Teese and get on with your own life. Dita has got her own thing goin' on but so do you. Ms. Wood, you are magnificent.

Fosse's Decadence, some thoughts

2008-11-05T18:37:00.003-05:00

Nobody uses the word decadent properly anymore. After dessert companies started marketing their gooey chocolate treats as "decadent cakes of bliss" the word started gaining a positive connotation despite the fact that it means "characteristic of moral decline or decay". Now I'm not so sure half the population is aware of that.

For this reason everytime I think of Fosse I think of chocolate cake. Which probably wouldn't be the way he'd want to be remembered but the word suits, no? Filled to the brim with debaucherie yet we as an audience gluttonously stuff it all in. We're watching these characters at the depths of salaciousness and licentiousness but we're not repulsed, we're entranced. Much in the way we watch Gordy's lardass story in Stand By Me as mesmerized by the events as the other boys are despite its disgusting, immature content. In these cases I truly feel like a manipulated bystander. It's a quality of movies I'm not completely happy about. It's not escapism; it's borderline apathy.

This is how we as a society can become desensitized to sex and violence. But it's so glamourous it doesn't feel that way. By no means am I advocating censoring this material but once I'm released from a movie's hold it takes a while for my mind to come out of the haze. It's like reading a book and getting so, so involved in its events you feel almost sick. It's downright skillful for the director to be able to wring out that kind of feeling.

I've been meaning to rewatch All That Jazz for ages but today when the mood finally hit me the movie was nowhere to be found online, and so I lament. Thus this substance-less entry was born. Just random thoughts surfacing out of a pathological need to watch something. Sorry this entry kind of let out the word nerd in me.

Scattered Scenes of Eternal Sunshine

2008-11-04T17:22:00.004-05:00

"Am I ugly?"
"Uh-uh."
"When I was a kid, I thought I was. I can't believe I'm crying already. Sometimes I think people don't understand how lonely it is to be a kid, like you don't matter. So, I'm eight, and I have these toys, these dolls. My favorite is this ugly girl doll who I call Clementine, and I keep yelling at her, "You can't be ugly! Be pretty!" It's weird, like if I can transform her, I would magically change, too."

"I want to have a baby."

"Show me which constellations you know."
"Oh. Here's Osidius. See? Sort a swoop and a cross. Osidius the Emphatic."
"You're full of shit, aren't you?"
"Nope. Osidius is right there. Swoop and cross."
"Shut the fuck up!"

"I apply my personality in a paste."
"Oh, I doubt that very much."

"My crotch is still here."

What's Going On With Mr. Oscar?

2008-11-03T18:39:00.005-05:00

I am by no means an Oscar prophet, or even a reasonably well-informed Oscarite, but this is a race I am genuinely interested in (as opposed to the current political spectacle AKA The Dance of the Monkeys). Sure, public opinion can be swayed by inundations of FYC ads and aggressive studio heads, but the movie is a pure art form and it often happens that the best films of the year are among those honored. I place great faith in the Academy and they usually come up strong for me, nominating films I am interested in seeing and introducing me to stuff I never would have dreamed of seeing by my lonesome.

Of course, every bigshot race has its scandals and rocky roads, but I think a true love of this industry necessitates a certain acceptance of the nasty behind-the-scenes every movie goes through to get made and promoted. Also, independent films are seldom honored but then again who the hell wants to see those? I jest, I jest. That's why we have the Gotham Awards.

What has the year thrown us so far? Not much, I'm afraid. Studios this year have been pushing for late releases left and right, hopefully not a portent of negatively-correlated quality. But the brave few that presently exist have been doing quite a job holding their own. We have our subtle, our loud, our underrated, our overrated.

In April The Visitor came, a simple but exquisite film of love, music, immigration, and loneliness. The actor race is certainly not polluted this year and in the best of all circumstances this may mean a nomination for Richard Jenkins, a decision with which I wholeheartedly concur.

The summer brought us two blockbusters - one monolithic and the other quite soft-spoken - and one director's return to form. The Dark Knight broke records and generated a huge posthumous fan base for one Heath Ledger. In all probability this will be nominated for BP, and a crapload of technicals, especially with the excellent marketing strategy of reviving it in theaters come December. Wall-E became the crowning jewel in Pixar's star-studded repertoire, a gentle rebuke to our wasteful lifestyle in the form of a binocular-emoting robot. An animated win is almost guaranteed at this point, but most likely won't result in anything more concerning Picture noms, which is unfortunate because it's one of the best movies I've seen all year. Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a light, summery sex romp with nothing substantial to say while providing immense entertainment for the few that ventured back to Woody. A supporting actress nom is imminent for Cruz, and possibly a screenplay for the Big W. At least I hope.

The Wrestler is looking good for Mickey Rourke but I have to see it before I can pass judgment. The Duchess is a shoo-in for costumes but not much else...maybe art direction. Nobody expected much awards-wise from Burn After Reading and it responded accordingly. Best Actress race is crowded this year, as we look at not only Anne Hathaway's best performance in Rachel Getting Married but also Angelina Jolie's howling, histrionic mother in Changeling and Sally Hawkins's unstoppable optimism in Happy Go Lucky. Kristen Scott-Thomas must be really good if she's getting top marks in French-language film I've Loved You for So Long. And the year has barely even started yet.

Failures: W. floundered but who really expected it to fly? I never liked the sound of Miracle at St. Anna and I was proven right. Body of Lies contained a mess of high hopes and delivered nothing but empty promises. Blindness was a project I was personally looking forward to but Cannes squashed anything potential.

The Weinsteins played the game of push-back. I had hopes for The Soloist but that movie is going nowhere. To my relief the incredibly boring-looking, Oscar-screaming Defiance was pushed back as well. I wasn't that crazy about The Road either - excuse me if I don't join the cult of No Country for Old Men immediately. I was looking forward to Grey Gardens but still no release date has been listed. This might be another Factory Girl in the making, cared by only to those self-awaredly "indie".

What's left to see? I forsee a massive failure in Australia, call it a gut feeling but Luhrmann just isn't audience-friendly enough to pull it off. Milk is getting fantastic buzz and Sean Penn's horizons are looking good. I am rooting for Kate Winslet to pull it out in either The Reader or Revolutionary Road, and Revolutionary Road's potential success could mean additional nominations for the rest of the cast. Gran Torino is shaping up to be Clint's crowning achievement this year rather than Changeling. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has earned raves from the few that have seen it, but is it delineated enough for the audience to "get" Fincher's style? Frost/Nixon and Doubt are the two play-based films that could both either take the prize or be panned for being too stilted (I have my doubts about Doubt). Slumdog Millionaire is just edgy enough to sneak a token indie nomination, and I'm a personal fan of Danny Boyle's kinetic camerawork.

What are the wild cards? Michelle William's super indie Wendy and Lucy, the massed raunch + heart comedies of Smith and Apatow and co. of the summer and beyond (Zack and Miri, Sarah Marshall, Pineapple Express), Charlie Kaufman's harem of wildwomen in Synecdoche, NY, Che buzz has kind of died out but not for lack of trying, could Robert Downey Jr. pop in with his portrayal of a blackface actor in Tropic Thunder? There is so much variability is this kind of race but that only excites me more. Bring it on, Oscar season!

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2008-11-03T00:33:00.003-05:00

"I want to see if you stay together or if you dissolve into molecules."

The Gorgeous Lee Pace

2008-11-02T23:07:00.002-05:00

This might possibly be the best musical scene out of any movie I've seen recently. Or at least in this decade. Or this year. Or...I'm not sure. Eh, I'm not too good with the qualifying. But whatever, look at the completely beautiful Lee Pace!

He sings, he plays the piano, he looks gorgeous while doing it. Whether playing piano player Michael in floating confection Miss Pettigrew or stuntman Roy in wildly original visual splendor The Fall, Lee Pace brings a dash of Old Hollywood back to the table.

Might he be gay? Possibly. Care I a bit? Nyet. Externally he is a man and consequently infinitely do-able. After all, Daniel Bruhl plays a fairy in 2 Days in Paris and that doesn't make me love him any less.

It's honestly a crime to be this goodlooking. Usually I prefer my men to have a little rugged meat on them but Lee Pace is delicious past the point of standards. Shame when he talks it's not nearly as fanciable as when he doesn't talk.

I keep on thinking he should have a British accent. Doesn't he look like he should have a British accent?

But no, he's from Oklahoma. That's the bad news. The good news: he's only 29 years old which actually makes him (legally) eligible enough to marry me and not have it be all taboo (James McAvoy too but let's face it - he's out of my league. Lee Pace is a terrible enough actor that he looks at normal people of my caliber.) After all, what is twelve years to two people who are truly in love?

As the adorable Frances McDormand says: he is...(impossible) magnificent.

Mean Girls Versions 2 and 3

2008-11-02T01:36:00.007-04:00

I've been meaning to watch Saved! for like forever. To me, Mandy Moore is the reigning queen of bitchfaced popular girl and she really solidified that role in this movie.

Hilary Faye or Regina George?

One hides under a pious facade and one makes her bitchy fakeness well-known. Both are completely gorgeous and completely destructive, even self-destructive. Each of their meltdowns are so fun to watch. It takes balls to play a character so one-dimensional yet so...deliciously awesome. I honestly don't know which one I prefer. Do you like your bitchiness served in a Christian dish or a pink-sweatsuited fat ass?

Teen satires have become "popular" to make again. Heathers, a not-very-good movie with not a lot to say, was the one that started it all, and for that I thank it - for giving rise to genius ideas like Mean Girls and all its contemporaries. I have been racking my brains for a genre of "comfort" movies I am able to watch without thinking, and it has been a hard journey, let me tell you. I can't stand sub-par rom coms, or raunchy Adam Sandler comedies (there's a different between this raunch and the pop culturey raunch of Apatow + Smith + co.). Innocuous teen hugfests aka anything-that-is-shown-on-Disney-channel-original-movies I can handle but sometimes grate on my nerves if watched for too long. I am really glad this brand of satiric criticism has evolved, because it offers up a dish of intelligent-but-not-cerebral films directed at teens but directed for teens.

And Hollywood can still churn them out at a regular pace because they aren't too risque to film.

But now allow me to unveil Exhibit B, what happens when we do venture into risque territory...

I tend to move against the critical current when it comes to these types of movies. With a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critics pan Pretty Persuasion as a "racist, homophobic, mean-spirited tract" that has "too little redeeming humanity to provide balance." But I beg to differ.

This is a satire. In satires you can go over-the-top and completely destroy all that humanity inherent in humanity because it's trying to make a point. It's giving us an incisive view on contemporary culture, take it or leave it. And if you don't want to take it at least you've got a highly entertaining story that stands extremely well on its own.

In lieu of the political circus these past few days have shaped into, comedians like Colbert, Stewart (yick) and those SNL dudes are having a field day with impressions mocking even the most insignificant of politicians. They hyperbolize accents, push past assumptions, do outrageous things just for the purpose of laughs. Therein lies the difference between a parody and a satire. Too many satires of these days venture into parody territory, where they do not tell a story and resort to cheap tricks like hyper-exaggerating a character.

It's refreshing to have a movie that not only has a story but also layers a satire on top of there for kicks. I'm not saying this movie isn't super-exaggerated because I'm pretty sure the dialogue is as racist and ballsy as you can get, but whatever is said streamlines with the rest of the story and isn't put there just so it screams "I'm a satire! I'm a satire!" It's the type of movie that can only be independently made because where the hell else could we find dialogue like...

"If I couldn't be white and I also couldn't be Asian, then my third choice would be African-American because I've always wanted to be a gospel singer and also, black men are more forgiving if your butt gets big. Except I'd definitely want light skin and Caucasian features like... Vanessa Williams or Halle Berry. And finally, you know, no offense or anything Randa, but my very last choice would be Arab. I mean, truth be told you're not in a very enviable position. There's a lot of resentment in this country toward the Middle East and there's a lot of stereotypes floating around which I don't think are true because in the short amount of time I've known you, you haven't tried to bomb anybody and you currently smell okay to me. "

I'm a little disappointed the main character got the redemption arc edit at the end because I would've wanted her to obliterate everything she touched and have her smugly playing her violin on top of the destruction she created, in a sort of Nero-burning-Rome kind of psychotic self-satisfaction.

That being said, this is a star.

Evan Rachel Wood isn't put into nearly as much stuff as she should be. This girl leaks precociousness like a faucet. Her nasty, nasty deadpan all but pushes this movie to the next level.

Sure she is beautiful, but most of all she can use her seductiveness like a vicious piranha. This isn't one of those vulnerable, ingenue Audrey Hepburn-type girls; this is a predatory reptile who has the balls to destroy anything that gets in her way.

"It's like the world is this orchestra and I'm the conductor."

Too many movies she is used to sitting pretty. I underestimated her in thirteen, in Across the Universe. I passed her off as a Dita von Teese wannabe, which she could be as well, but she's got her own bite, her own edge.

I finally know why stars tend to get typecast in the same role for years and years, because I myself don't want any of these three girls to stop playing the manipulative bitch, ever. If it ain't broke don't fix it, right? (end crappy Hollywood-career destroying advice from moi)

Holy Wow

2008-11-01T01:18:00.000-04:00

Hello Oscars.

Have you met my girl Kate Winslet? Please award her the Supporting Actress trophy come February. And maybe the Lead Actress one as well. You know she has deserved it the past five times she has been nominated, for Marianne Dashwood, for Rose, for Iris Murdoch, for Clementine, for Sarah Pierce.

And now for Hanna. And April Wheeler too. Listen to that German accent! Look at that flawless face! Her emotions are subtle but read clearly on her face. She slips easily into three-dimensional human character with every role she takes. She's a director's dream, a role model for the starving masses.

I thought The Hours was a sinking cesspool of depression but it looks like Stephen Daldry has gathered in his reins and produced something substantial once in a blue moon. I owe it all to Winslet. This trailer is so streamlined and taut, it's Nicole Kidman's Botox.

Happy Halloween (for realz this time)

2008-10-31T22:50:00.001-04:00

Happy Halloween, ghouls and goblins! May your stomachs be full with candy and your hearts constricted with fear.

LinkTASTIC

2008-10-31T22:21:00.001-04:00

Lots of funny stuff this week.

Hollywood Director Attack Ads: Part 2. HAHA. I watched Part 1 and I thought it was funny but not enough to merit a link-post. But this one kills. The David Lynch and Diablo Cody ones are spot-on.

Mariah's Brilliance, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2. Aw man. The guys at Webster's is My Bitch get me every time.

The Cool Hand. A cute tribute to Paul Newman, if not a little late.

Kate and Fug: Unleashed. Does this girl have a mental problem or something?

Joaquin Phoenix turns his back on acting? SAD SAD NEWS FOR ALL. Joaquin Phoenix is one of the best contemporary actors I know and I admire his prodigious skill and now that he is quitting forever I do not know what I shall do.

The State of the Race: The Tension So Thick. I love these columns by Sasha Stone because she really captures the mood of studios and critics alike.

Hilary Degeneres. Oh my dear goodness. Nat hasn't been this hilarious in ages. And funnily enough that's exactly what I was thinking too.

55 Photos From Comic-Con. These are some of the most beautiful pictures I've seen of celebrities in a while. This is why celebrities are celebrities and we are just normal, ugly people.

30 Minutes With Kevin Smith. I feel like I've reading a zillion interviews with Kevin Smith this week, but I never get tired of him.

Ticket Stubs. This might be my favorite piece of fiction written about movies...ever.

Undecided by David Sedaris. Are they professional actors? I l-o-v-e David Sedaris.

Open Letter on the Internet Movie Database. This guy is kind of pretentious (who the hell says Internet Movie Database now?) but yet somehow I can identify.

Hitchcock's Birds (Especially the Blonde Ones). Holy shit. Geniuses creep me out.

Rejected Song Titles from High School Musical 3: Senior Year. "It's Time to Go to First Base." Hellz yeah.

Porno too risque for some ads. I don't even know what to say. But that sure was inventive of Kevin Smith with the drawings.

How to Break Hollywood as a British Actor. Aw, this is kind of sad. But I think there's a lot less typecasting now than there was in the Hollywood's "Golden" era. That's at least one thing about the cinema of today.

A Terrible Idea

2008-10-31T21:38:00.001-04:00

"Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant are in negotiations to star in an untitled Marc Lawrence-helmed romantic comedy for Columbia Pictures."

From: The Hollywood Reporter

Dude. I can't think of a worse combination. Screechy, stereotypically shrewish, horse-faced SJP matched with arrested development playboy prostitute-hiring Hugh Grant? This is a recipe for instant disaster.

You know, I know some actors can fake the chemistry but this pairing is so, so wrong my Spidey sense immediately tells me it's not gonna work. Hugh Grant typically goes for the sexy but girl-next-door brunette, more emotionally mature type. And SJP goes for the strong, solid type...oh who am I kidding - who the hell would want SJP? SJP goes for whomever is asinine (or poor) enough to approach her. Girlfriend would go for a tree if it gave her the time of day.

That Porno Movie

2008-10-31T18:50:00.001-04:00

So, I had a conversation with a friend that went something like this.

me: Let's watch that porno movie this weekend.
him: Are you sure??
me: Yeah, why not?
him: Do you know who directed it?
me: Yeah, Kevin Smith. I love him. I've seen like all his movies.
him: You know makes a lot of perverted stuff...
me: Yeah, that's why I like him. Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, Chasing Amy?
him: Or, like Barely Legal, Hustler, Hot Asian Chicks?
me: What the hell?? I know Kevin Smith and he doesn't make pornos. He makes hilarious, quality pieces of cinema.
him: Wait, Kevin Smith, the porn king?
me: Are we talking about the same movie?
him: Nailin' Palin, the Sarah Palin porno?
me: Zack and Miri Make a Porno??
him: LOL.
me: What the heck, Kevin Smith didn't direct Nailin Palin!
him: Kevin Smith, John Doe, it was some generic name like that. (It was Larry Flynt...)
(end completely ridiculous conversation)
P.S. We didn't watch Zack and Miri, instead opting for Religulous.

That being said, I can't get enough of these slacker gross-out comedies. Superbad was so, so funny. And The 40-Year-Old Virgin has ripened into a veritable classic. Along with Clerks. I could watch that movie forever and ever and ever.

I've been reading so many reviews of this porno movie and Kevin Smith + big budget = a great combination. He doesn't usually hire stars of this caliber excepting Ben Affleck pre-fame and I am so, so excited for what he can do with all this added star power. His dialogue is usually more pop-culture infused than Apatow's and he's more frank about stuff like sex, doesn't joke about "pounding vag" as much, so I love him all the more. Also because the guy from Cinematical had an extensive interview with him and I feel like I know him now, and practically the entire pot of the movie.

And my love isn't limited to just plain Apatow and Smith, either. Like, I think I'm the only person in the world that wants to watch Sex Drive. And now I know it's being overshadowed by Zack and Miri and it's not supposed to be the greatest of movies but that guy is adorable. I love derivative teen gross-out comedies with a twist. I just can't get enough of 'em.

Happy Halloween! an irregular thriller to commemorate the holiday

2008-10-31T09:18:00.000-04:00

I don't like thrillers, scary movies, or screamfests. I learned that the hard way this Halloween as I attempted to watch various horror "classics" such as Halloween, Scream, The Exorcist, etc. I promised myself that on the actual day of Halloween I would watch something different, something scary, but still to my taste.

But what to watch, what to watch? I considered through tomes of vampire movies (because vampire movies ooze sexuality, and I, of course, am a sucker for blatant sexuality), Hitchcocks, and...okay I obviously was supposed to add more to this pathetic list but unfortunately this goes to show how truly much I hate scary movies because I literally can't think of anything else to add to this list =/. Anyway, it seemed like Tim Burton was the way to go. No matter how simple or dumb the story gets, I remain magnetically attracted to his visuals. And he's a soft guy.

But then...realization of this movie hit me like a steamroller.

17-year-old Ellen Page before the Juno cult
i don't even have complete sentences to explain the visceral melange of this movie
messy, fractured, mesmerizing
finally understand the full extent of cocktease, that vicious little bitch
plays out like a play but there's movement too
Ellen Page reminds me of Michael Madsen in Res Dogs torturing the ear guy
sadism has never extended so far
each word is succulently spat out
pauses are important in this movie
manic pixie dream girl on acid
the red riding hood is genius

notice i haven't even mentioned Patrick Wilson but man-oh-man i feel for the man

the quality of a melody - songs that transport me

2008-10-29T14:38:00.001-04:00

What is it about music - that transportational, transcendental quality that takes me immediately into a scene, an emotion, a life? All of a sudden my life isn't just my life, it's transplanted, translocated, transmogrified - all those lovely t words - into someone else's. I'm experiencing an emotion that's not truly mine yet is because, after all, I am the one creating it and experiencing it. Music can calm me or upset me or delude me and many a time it has taken me out of the mean reds or the boohoo blues.

Admittedly I am not the most music-obsessed person in the world. Some people are all like oh, I wouldn't know which to give up: food or music and I go you know you would take the damn food, you idealistic snob. Music is a luxury but it's a luxury I can fully appreciate. These songs take me places far, far away - into a 20th century bedchamber, onto a tour bus, across the country looking over the ocean. I don't know what movies would do without music and I'm always so, so impressed by the score composers or soundtrack engineers because no matter how bad a movie is, the score is always...just right.

The Sound of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel (Mrs. Robinson)

This song is uncertainty personified. I, too, am rootless and pensive and I didn't realize how rootless and pensive I was until I started listening to the angelic overtones of Simon & Garfunkel, like, constantly. In my mind I am traveling in a train with no place to go and nothing to say as literally as Benjamin Braddock is. This is a song that simultaneously depresses me and expands me, if that makes sense.

Tiny Dancer - Elton John (Almost Famous)

Probably the most cited example in this kind of list, it's cliche to even mention it but the effect of this song is substantial. The band is in a fight, the little boy is mad at Kate Hudson for being a slut, but once this song plays on the radio everybody unites for a brief minute and sings along. And all of a sudden everything is okay. These are the remedial powers of music.

La Mer - Charles Grenet (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)

This song plays twice in this movie. First alongside the beautiful, abstract watercolor credits at the beginning and second at the end as Jean Do sinks into a coma as his lip steadily curls inward and his eyelids flutter. You can detect a trace of a tear on his cheek as Charles Grenet's voice crescendoes. All the emotions in the world couldn't replicate this scene and you want to cry and cry and cry because it's the beginning of the end. Or the beginning of the beginning of the introspective journey into Jean-Do's butterfly.

Harpsichord Concerto in f minor, mvmt II - JS Bach (Hannah and Her Sisters)

"No one, not even the rain, had such small hands." I don't even know what the hell that quote means but somehow it's such an appropriate pairing, this cerebral song and that incredibly personal poem. As the fingers trudge on slowly yet inevitably Michael Caine's marriage collapses and then rebuilds. I could listen to this song forever and it seems like Woody does use it a bit liberally but somehow I never get sick of it.

Too Darn Hot - Ann Miller (Kiss Me Kate)

Ann Miller is an exuberant fireball of energy. Seductive, feline, and oh-so-adorable, she is a delight to watch perform. I must have watched this number and Tom, Dick, or Harry at least 30 times. The clatter of tap shoes and the cute little striptease are what the era of the MGM musical was all about. Sorry, Kathryn Grayson, but you're a frigid bitch compared to Miller and you might as well know it.

The Land of Might-Have-Been - Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park)

"Somewhere there's another land different from this world..." Jeremy Northam should just get himself inside a time machine and become an English high-class 1930s performer, stat. Scenes literally flash in front of me when I hear this song. Ryan Phillippe oleaginously bearing a glass of milk before he enters the bedchamber, Clive Owen and Kelly Rutherford full-on Frenching until they look like they're about to explode, Michael Gambon unceremoniously slamming his hand on the table before retreating into his study to cogitate (and eventually die), Eileen Atkins putting a hand on Helen Mirren's quivering back, trying to restrain her tears.

I'm Not There - Bob Dylan (I'm Not There)

It's moody, meandering, and exquisite. I'm not really a fan of Bob Dylan but his weird, monotone voice somehow works here. I don't really remember where this song was placed in the movie (or if it was at all) but the song is such a representation of the entire movie and Bob Dylan's own itinerant, who-really-cares lifestyle I feel like I am sitting on the train humming next to Marcus Franklin, or apathetically f-cking models and flicking off reporters with Cate Blanchett, or blankly strumming my folk guitar and lamenting about something I haven't figured out yet with Christian Bale.

Good Morning - Debbie Reynolds, Don O'Connor, Gene Kelly (Singin' in the Rain)

This is as close as you can get to a conflict in this sunny, upbeat musical. While Gene Kelly sulks about how he actually sucks at acting and all he can do is dance and goof off, Donald O'Connor cheers him up by saying "At least it's a new morning!" And then they proceed to perform this delightful, cherry song. At the end of which they resolve the conflict.

California - Phantom Planet (The OC)

While not exactly a movie, I was listening to this on my walk home and it was the song that inspired me to write this blog entry. Because of "California", the image of Ryan looking at the window wondering what's going to happen next is forever seared in my mind. I have never found a song that encapsulates the wide expanses of ocean infused with a little bit of melacholy as well as this. And I didn't even know Jason Schwartzmann was like, a band member of Phantom Planet. It's official: the Coppola family is the most talented family in the universe. With the best taste in music too.

Revisiting Annie Hall, an incredibly sad but inevitable dead shark

2008-10-29T00:01:00.000-04:00

They broke up during Christmas! ='(

"Annie and I broke up. And I still can't get my mind around that. You know, I keep sifting the pieces of the relationship through my mind, and examining my life and trying to figure out where did the screwup come, you know."

I just realized why I found Annie Hall so overrated the first time I watched it. There's a general lack of cohesiveness in the story because it's Woody in his "transitional" period, where he's still at a stage where he needs to write a series of short, funny sketches yet is delving into a completely different area of human behavior: love. And sometimes the amusing little scenes were helpful in defining this complicated emotion but there was no epiphanic moment that showed me, wow they're in love. Even though I knew that they were in love (because their chemistry is unbelievable, let me tell you, and I mean that in a good way), I was never struck by it.

Towards the last quarter I'm not even sure what Woody is telling me. How much he hates California? Does Annie represent California and that's why their breakup was meant to be, because Alvy is New York? But why stretch the metaphor so far. I don't think it's because he truly hates Hollywood that much. After all, they do finance his movies...

Also wasn't this movie originally like 7 hours long? If you're gonna cut that much out of a movie it's bound to get a little choppy.

But this time I liked it better. I even teared up a little at the end. Because the ending is sublime. Woody's voiceover, Diane's heavenly, vibrato voice, the montages all little odes to love. Woody and Diane had a great thing going and I'm glad they got to encapsulate it in this little movie. I always found Mia Farrow a bit of a frigid bitch but Keaton is the polar opposite. And that's why it works and that's why they're still friends.

It's not a polished movie, but that is where its charm lies. The term "New York intellectual" is such a 70s concept. This is a film finely in-tune with its decade, largely thanks to Keaton's offbeat clothing. The tone is so much more upbeat and capricious compared to Manhattan's perpetual state of pensive melancholy. I think Manhattan is the more stylistic of the two, but somehow, I've decided that I like Annie Hall better, for all its faults. It shows Woody's willingness to experiment, and represents a conscious period in his life where he was struggling against a typecast. It was an admirable effort and paved the way for future gems like Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Bullets Over Broadway, Deconstructing Harry, and, of course, my ongoing favorite, Husbands and Wives. In the end he got a lot better at heaping thematic concepts on top of another, which is what I love most about him.

Lorelai x2 Love

2008-10-28T23:43:00.000-04:00

I watched so much Gilmore Girls today, and I was really happy about that.

It's surprising that I can stomach so much tv when I'm being languorous yet I try to kill myself if I watch even a little bit of a boring movie.

Rory just flipped out a second ago, and I loved it. I thought I loved Logan for a while there, but Jess came back and I remembered the better days. Lorelai still possesses my unconditional love though.

I have got to write something substantial.

just not in the mood

2008-10-28T15:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not really in the mood for any new movie-watching today. I was going to watch The Lost Boys but it's not really something that appeals to my mood right now. Maybe I'll turn back to one of my comfort movies.

Kind of sick of this whole force-myself-to-watch-Halloween movies thing. Tim Burton is basically the only guy I can stomach.

Inspirational Before Sunrise/set Quote of the Week

2008-10-27T21:43:00.000-04:00

A new habitual thing I have contrived to make myself blog on the Monday Mondays. Anyway, I am so obsessed with this pair of movies I could easily rattle off some quotes for the next couple of months.

"When you talked earlier about after a few years, how a couple begins to hate each other, by anticipating their reactions, or getting tired of their mannerisms. I think it would be the opposite for me. I think I can really fall in love when I know everything about someone. The way he's gonna part his hair, which shirt he's gonna wear that day, knowing the exact story he'd tell in a given situation. I'm sure that's when I know I'm really in love."

Gossip Girl Interlude

2008-10-27T21:01:00.000-04:00

Oh my gosh...I need to, like, talk about this recent GG episode with someone, and since I cannot before I forget everything, I will write it here.

- Nate and Jenny kissing, I feel so violated. How many times did they emphasize that she's FIFTEEN?! This is art imitating life; Miley Cyrus and underwear guy much?

- Jenny's hair is butt-ugly. Who was the person that told Taylor Momsen that hair looked remotely good?

- And also, was the girl played Agnes Marissa Cooper's little sister in The OC? I love recognizing crossover stars because it makes me feel cultured. Or something.

- Speaking of The OC, something about this episode reminded me so much of Newport Beach and the Trey shooting. This had so much more of a darker atmosphere than I expected. The music was like intense.

- TATU. Enough said.

- Dan screwing over Blair so did not make sense. Actually, a lot of the characters' actions today did not make sense. Dan is still pining for Serena, obviously. I'm so annoyed that these two are probably going to get back together sometime in the future and they're obviously doing some kind of a Ryan/Marissa relationship arc. The only thing I can hope is than Dan will do a Marissa and frickin DIE already.

- I was starting to like Vanessa but now I don't. She is so frickin annoying! She was cute with Nate and brought out the better in Nate but after their short-lived romance all she does is meddle with other people's business and romance with Rufus.

- And WHERE IS RUFUS in this episode?? All that hot Rufus/Lily drama in Season 1 is noticeably absent and I AM UPSET. Rufus is surprisingly the hottest thing in GG, please exploit, Josh Schwartz.

- Although that Aaron could give him a run for his money. He's delicious. I wouldn't mind at all if he and Serena got it on.

- Might I say Serena is so awesome. Her fashion is unbeatable and she makes me dream of leather jackets. Blair is kind of awesome too but her yoyo mood swings are little hard to take sometimes.

- Oh wow, that quote of Chuck's. "We like doing this." is SO TRUE and revelatory. Chuck hasn't been hot for a while now but a little bit of the charm is starting to seep in.

- These last two episodes haven't been the greatest but this one is steadily improving compared to the crap of last week's. But that Yale one was definitely hard to top.

- I don't know which I like better; The OC or Gossip Girl. Both of them feature the kind of inane dialogue I loathe in movies but somehow in tv shows they just work. I hate Dan more than I hate Marissa, though.

synecdoche synecdoche synecdoche

2008-10-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

I need this movie to come to me now. I am already suffering from withdrawal symptoms even though I haven't seen the movie and thus cannot be addicted to it yet I so, so am.

Caden Cotard. The sound of that name reels me into a daydream delusion filled with life-size replicas of NYC and beautiful, beautiful women megastars.

I would gladly relinquish my Oscar-watching privileges of this year in order to get a glimpse of this fabulous, fabulous film. Five minutes. Hell, I would relinquish my brother to watch it.

This is my family. My wife, my husband, and my...father. Actually, I'd do without the Gondry. Just replicate Kaufman for me, please God.

A life-size replica of Charlie Kaufman, mm mm mm what I would do with that!

Gran Torino, a trailer

2008-10-24T17:12:00.000-04:00

Whoa. I was mildly interested in this movie when I knew Clint Eastwood was acting in it, but now I am fully drawn in.

Even though, that anger face: WHOA BOTOX. It seems like his brows are forever knit into that expression. How did Clint possibly unfreeze his face from that?

It's like Dirty Harry, but older with a little bit of play-pretend. Will probably accompanied with hyper-dramatic music to match the hyper-dramatic plot, but that's the way Eastwood rolls, yo. He's used to better times. Which is kind of the theme of the movie, in a way. It's like him, a vestige of the older days of yore, among all these foreign Asian gangs and modernisms and melting pots.

OMG! Links!

2008-10-23T22:53:00.001-04:00

Boy, love is really unpredictable.

Well, I have decided to write more, shorter posts because I think that will inspire me to write now, maybe.

So I am working on an extended list but it might take a few days, because, after all, it's a list. But some links for now...

Slumdog Millionaire Artwork. Beautiful, kinetic, brings back memories of Millionaire craze days. I can't believe I was actually alive for a pop culture-defining moment. It feels good.

The Edge of Love posters. Period dramas get me hot inside because the people inside are so flawless. Especially Keira Knightley. I can't stay away.

Review: Synecdoche, NY. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this movie. No. Idea.

Movie Review: Hannah and Her Sisters. I want to watch this movie again. It's like a painting.

Who Are They Really? This is like that cool morph effect computers have to make a digitized baby, except it's real. And the stars (both parts of em) are so beautiful. I feel I'm in one of those visual puzzles where on side it's an old lady and on the other side it's a princess or something.

Christine Vachon Prepares to Tackle the Beats! I have no idea who the hell Christine Vachon is but her resume is impressive. And I want to see this movie. Because I actually researched this story.

Improvement. Oh. My. God. This is the funniest thing I have seen all day.

Angelina Jolie may quit movies and marry Pitt. Uh? I thought they were already married! Pft, sometimes Jolie tries so hard to be "unconventional".

Top Ten Movies I Have Watched Many, Many Times

2008-10-15T19:29:00.008-04:00

10. Closer. Jude Law pre-receding hairline. Manic pixie dream girl personified. Conversations with no resolution. Beautiful close-ups of beautiful, shallow, self-absorbed people. Nobody loves each other but everybody loves themselves. Sexy, pensive, tragic.

9. Spellbound. Spirit of competition = high. Motormouthed Harry and shy, fish-out-of-water Ted. April and Emily are best friends but opposite sides of the economic scale. A highly humanistic film. The nerds are like us but more motivated. We all wish we could spell too.

8. Before Sunrise. Real time, real people. Julie Delpy's hair is pushed back-and-forth, braided, put up and down. The leather crinkles when they kiss. Highly intelligent Gen-X people, rootless, idealistic, hopeful for the future. The definition of a soulmate.

7. Superbad. Period-leg. Shooting at stop signs. Detergent. Poundin' vag. Drunken blow jobs. Parking in the the teachers' parking lot. Shitty tiramisu. It's not the going I like, it's the cumming. I love you, man. Apatow, high school style. McLovin.

6. Kiss Me Kate. Boisterous exuberance. Female empowerment. I do hate men, except for Tom, Dick, Harry, Shakespeare, and Bob Fosse. He spanks her but she likes it. Bobby Van never behaves but Ann Miller likes it too. The moral of the story is: excuse man's faults.

5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. First viewing: an unconventional love story. Second viewing: they're just going to break up again, plus there's a dent in Joel's car. Third viewing: Mark Ruffalo is the true victim of this movie. Plus, the pillow-struggling looks dangerous. Fourth viewing: the world forgetting by the world forgot is the way to go. Fifth viewing: maybe it won't last, but I'd rather have it repeat itself than not at all. Multiple interpretations with each new viewing. This is life.

4. Fried Green Tomatoes. Idgie Threadgoode, the bee charmer. Is Ninny Idgie? Are Idgie and Ruth lesbians? Does it even matter? Towanda the fiiiierce. Tossing the poor food packages from the train. I don't want Ruth to die.

3. The Royal Tenenbaums. Running past the stop light with Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard. Alec Baldwin's deadpan narration. Yellows and reds and fancy black lettering. Margot's black eyeliner, Chaz's red sweatsuits. Blank expressions and emotional words. Breaking down at the tennis court, sublime.

2. Gosford Park. Tinkling piano, heavenly Ivor Novello, clarinets + marimbas galore. Mystery intermingling upstairs and downstairs. Ryan Philippe is useless. Camilla Rutherford looks rough. Poor, poor Mabel - the green dress is pretty. It's not a perfect movie but it's mine.

1. Singin' in the Rain. Unbeatable charm. Fast feet and fast mouths. Kathy Selden as King Lear - you'll have to wear a beard for that. Echoes of Gene Kelly's slight asshole capabilities circa American in Paris but still I love him. A trio for the ages. Each musical number is a treasure trove of what once was.

As a person with a very, very short attention span, it's sort of an unspoken agreement that I tend to not watch movies more than once. Especially the epic, emotional trainwreck kind of movies, which exhaust me to no end.

Take, for instance, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I will most likely never see that movie for the rest of my life. Did I think it was a good movie? Of course. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton have one of the best, most vitriolic onscreen chemistries I've seen in my life. Did I enjoy the movie? In a way. But, at the same time, I was physically tired and sick after watching that movie.

And what is the purpose of rewatching? I will carry with me memories of those characters and that energy for the rest of my life. Plus, there's so many other new, good movies out there to watch. Why waste time on dependables, right?

But then I really, really like these ten movies.

A Halloween Promise

2008-10-13T23:36:00.000-04:00

In honor of Halloween, I have decided to watch more scary/horror movies. Because I don't usually and I'm always saying I'll get around to watching some classic horror flick but I never do because of some unknown reason so what better incentive than a spooky month?? Maybe I will gain a newfound appreciation for the genre, just like I forced myself to watch 3:10 to Yuma and all of a sudden I had a Western explosion craze and it's still going strong. I think it's a good plan, one of the best moviewatching plans I have ever conceived.

Since I just began this crusade a couple of days ago, my quantity consumed isn't too high yet. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll be able to cross off the iconic horror movies off my list, as well as a few ones I have been meaning to see just because they sound interesting.

So far I have seen:
1. The Exorcist - At first I thought it was kind of overrated, because it's the movie most people state as their favorite horror film, and, I mean, I guess it's interesting but not enough substance to be considered a favorite by any stretch. At least in my opinion. But then after watching so many more films this is probably the better of the bunch. And it's just me who's being picky. You can't expect too much from this genre, just throw your reservations out the window and you'll enjoy things more. Linda Blair's antics are freaky-deaky, but they're far and few in between and most of the time it's the priests screaming "The power of Christ compels you!" like a thousand times and it's kind of comical but definitely not scary. Or maybe it's the SNL skit I can't seem to get out of my head.
2. The Blair Witch Project - I watched this a while ago and honestly I think it's my favorite out of the bunch. It's because they talk more, I think. I enjoy the dialogue more when they're screaming and stressed out at each other rather than more when they get inside the building and they're just scared. I like verbal conflicts a lot.
3. Halloween (2007) - Okay, this just goes to show how good I am at telling if a horror movie is good or bad. I watched the entire first half thinking this was the Jamie Lee Curtis movie from the 1970s and I was impressed by how good the quality camerawork it was. And I wasn't not enjoying it either. Then I found out it wasn't supposed to be good, and I was like...shoot I'm watching a bastardized Hollywood remake??? But honestly it's pretty interesting and not stupid and really gory so I suppose this movie scared me the most out of all of them. So that is a positive.
4. Sleepy Hollow - Delving into the more macabre and fantasy we have Tim Burton. This movie reminds me of Sweeney Todd but I like it better, probably because there is no singing. I swear I've seen that fire pit before in Sweeney Todd too. Even though the story was lengthier and had more substance, I was still really bored. I couldn't understand what their stupid English accents were saying and I kept on thinking about Christina Ricci's forehead and how I wanted to cover it and how I couldn't remember anybody's names (still can't. Nasbeth? Tallis?) and how confusing yet stupid the entire plot was. The visual effects were pretty cool but snorrrrre.
5. Alien - I don't really know what I was expecting but I guess I thought the story would be more elevated than this. Sigourney Weaver is pretty damn cool and watching all the people dying was pretty scary but once again this involved a lot of waiting around. I feel really bad saying something this iconic was boring, but it was!

Conclusions made about the genre so far: I totally, totally understand why I shy away from horror films now. They're so boring! In the same way I don't find action movies exciting, I don't find scary movies thrilling at all. They aren't that scary, take an hour to get to any semblance of a climax, and involve a lot of scared looking faces in the process. There isn't a lot of technical prowess to be admired in this kind of movie either, merely a simple "I liked it" or "I hated it" will suffice. To be honest most of the time I fast-forward past all that incessant waiting. Suspense doesn't build inside of me when the music swells; I just get impatient.

Movies I will be watching in the future:
Rosemary's Baby - I expect good things from Roman Polanski, even though our personas don't mesh
the real Halloween
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which I fell asleep in (not because it was boring, but because I was tired. I bet it's boring too though)
The Evil Dead
The Descent - a modern classic
El Orfanato
Scream - I keep on thinking this one is the Jamie Lee Curtis one
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Beetlejuice - more Tim Burton
Misery - I might even like this one
and...something I know I will like: A Charlie Brown Halloween

P.S. Notice how I am disregarding the fact that I haven't updated in a month, even though I said I would be updating within a day in the last post. That just goes to show how great I am at promising stuff. But, I felt that most of the posts were solely about that topic and nobody likes hearing about the same thing over and over again (except auteurs, of course), so think of this paragraph as an afterthought. So take this promise as you wish: I will update soon.

What started out as a Definitely, Maybe review ended in some kind of an elegy to Old Hollywood

2008-09-20T12:39:00.001-04:00

I think I've more than caught up with my summer-movie dearth in this past week. I think I need to change around my movie review format since I was reading one of them and I realized it was quite incoherent. I should at least to attempt to summarize the movie in my roundabout manner since even I get confused about what I was getting at.

Today I want to talk about Definitely, Maybe. This movie is precious. This movie is what I wish all romantic comedies were like. This movie is what I expect all romantic comedies to be like. Hence my perpetual disappointment whenever Lionsgate churns out another frat boy, hot girl meet-up. Case in point: Good Luck Chuck, Failure to Launch, Hitch et al. Honestly, do they even make an effort when they throw out millions of billions of dollars at figurehead "stars" who are either a) sellouts (Kate Hudson, Drew Barrymore) or b) hot but crap actors (Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jessica Prototype 1000).

DO NOT WANT. The expressions themselves disgust me. The film's budget is like: $1 billion, star salaries. $100 billion, advertising. $1, screenplay and directing and acting coaches salaries. I wish wish Hollywood would get its priorities straight and stop mass-producing these persistently terrible bags of crap. I understand that studios need to follow the money but what happened to film as an art form? It's becoming more and more of a challenge for new filmmakers to develop their artistic visions because they're beginning straight off into an increasingly money-whoring industry. I admit even for myself it would be a tempting draw to spend minimal effort acting and just looking hot all the time. That's why I'm so proud of people like Kate Winslet, who could have easily, easily banked on her Titanic success and ventured into this perilous rom-com territory where stars are paparazzi-ed all day and lauded for their fashion choices and not their acting talent (which, I'm sorry, isn't that their job?).

I agree that every society needs that star factor to idolize and gawk over. Lord knows I'm the most celebrity-obsessed girl there ever was - I literally can't function in the day without knowing what is going on with Lindsay + Sam and what Kate Beckinsale wore to so-and-so's premiere. I'm just asking for a little consideration in the artistic aspect in this beautiful cinema medium. I hope that our movies aren't an indication of our zeitgeist today, but I'm starting to think we are getting stupider as a unit. Every time I see a commercial for Epic Movie, I want to cry! Also, the internet fragments our minds. I was born a scatterbrain, but now my brain has enough discrete pieces in it to make like, ten scatterbrains. I totally, totally blame this practice of click-on-the-different-links for my own degeneration.

People always looks to the 30s and 40s of beautiful starlets and leading men as the Golden Years of Hollywood. I know that the times weren't as glamorous as they were perceived, and the studios mistreated and forcefed and propagrandized th crap out of them. And they probably were pretty miserable and were always typecast in the same role and were prissed and pampered and pressed to an exact image, but okay, at least someone hired them acting coaches!!! The writers of then were pretty well-respected, the directors had an artistic vision that was never obscured by the star power of so-and-so or false, misleading advertising made just to draw the stupidity of America inside. I mean, I feel bad for them and everything but people who choose that kind of lifestyle are facing the same fate, even today. They still have those public representative guys, and image consultants, and stylists, and, okay, I guess they're not owned by studios and shuttled to whoever wants them, and they can fire people if they're not satistified with them, but okay, it's not like they make the most fantastic decisions of their own accord, and they are absolutely killed by paparazzi and gossip columns (who are like 1000x more rampant that they were then...at least those stars possessed respect). So the lifestyle was pretty proportional in terms of relative happiness, it's just that the talent pool has gone way down.

Why are all the beautiful, artistic films being relegated to limited release? There is still a veritable landmine of talent beneath the crust of junk Hollywood now gives us. It's not all quirky indie crap that "tells it like it is" that "only few people can understand" or whatever either...Academy Award winners, films that could genuinely make some money out of the public had it possessed the budget donned to The Women (bastardized version, of course) for advertising. I'm so sick of waiting like a month after everybody else for a movie to come out because it travels limited release. I feel like any the movies I've seen so far have been at the Birmingham 8, the only theater that deigns to show anything of substance.

SAVE THE FATE OF CHICK FLICKS. There are talented people who work in this country that can make things work. I can appreciate the good ones, just not the sap-filled ridiculouslessnesses that have become the norm.

(P.S. I don't know why I've been so pissed off at Hollywood recently. I can completely ruin my own experience of watching a movie by proclaiming it too "Hollywood-ized". Too much Network on the brain, I think.)

(P.P.S. Definitely, Maybe review later.)

Chinatown is not my town

2008-09-13T17:57:00.000-04:00

Roman Polanski and I...are not the best of friends. In a metaphysical sense, I just don't believe our psyches mesh very well on the interstellar level. We're two different people with two different visions (as in, he has one and I do not, for I regrettably am not a visionary auteur) and whatever idea he spits out I just am not very receptive to.

It might be that his murdered wife scandal had given him a very twisted, weird view on life and he felt the need to project this view in his movies. For me, I just don't follow his logic too well and consequently the ending never gives me the one-two punch most other people feel upon exiting his movies. I have come to terms with the fact that it neither of our faults, and I certainly don't hate Polanski in the way I hate overweening, pompous David Lean - it's like we're both shooting arrows at different targets and we just keep on missing each other. We can see the other's arrows zooming past us, but somehow our pathways don't ever touch.

I understand everything he does but I don't receive the full impact of the blow. Like, the idea of Chinatown doesn't make much sense to me. Why choose this completely random part of LA and call it the center of corruption? The place was only mentioned a couple times and when it was it seemed heavy-handed and forced, like Polanski thought of the title and then couldn't really think of a subtle method to tie it in, so he just demanded that Jack Nicholson drop the name in whenever it wasn't too awkward. The symbolism...is there, but it seems to be rather heavy-handed. Faye Dunaway's eyes have a core of darkness, yes, and so does the movie. But that is neither subtle nor enlightening, so why bother?

From the way I'm going on, I'm making it sound like I hate the movie, and I don't at all. Polanski is a man of superb technical skill, and he manages to maintain a tone of unease throughout, which not only heightens the sense of mystery but also captures my fleeting attentions for the whole of this very long movie. If I can say one thing about Chinatown, it's that I certainly wasn't bored. All elements of the film - the score, the scenery, the camerawork - diminish, resonate, and crescendo with perfect fluidity. I feel exactly what mood Polanski wants me to feel because the atmosphere is so perfect. The score is original yet familiar, with the conventional film-noir cool blue jazz tones melding with a little bit of western hippie and new age hip.

Jack Nicholson is always impressive and always himself. Faye Dunaway...always scares the crap out of me because in this she is in Diana Christensen-mode minus the cutthroat blood thirst. But she and Jack have this crazy sort of chemistry that is so short-lived but so...vulnerability-bearing. Dunaway's character is undeniably a cool cat but once Jack spirits her into bed she wears her heart on her sleeve. My favorite scene is when she acts all affectionate and adorable to Jack while laying in bed but all of a sudden the phone rings and almost immediately you can sense this wall she's put up because she's been protecting this terrible secret for so long and the nakedly bare woman is gone and in place is this mandatory femme fatale who is so cold and distant. My heart aches from the absence.

The two together for some reason remind me of Nurse Ratched and MacMurphy getting it on in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which sounds kind of sadistic but...I don't know, the dynamic is very much the same. It is a given that Jack Nicholson's girls need to put up some kind of a struggle in the game of love, and it just so happens in one case it ends with Nicholson's brains all cut up and in the other with Faye Dunaway...all cut up. The lesson is, don't get involved with Jack Nicholson, kids. He'll just Chinatown you up.

I honestly don't think there are enough parallels to truly make a connection with Nicholson's past experience in Chinatown to the whambam ending. And that is why I wasn't emotionally affected when all these secrets and events started zooming out, because I wasn't given a frame of reference to be properly impacted. Like, when Katherine started freaking out at the end, I was like, am I supposed to feel really bad, because I literally just met Katherine ten minutes ago! I can't form this emotional bond with someone who hadn't existed before.

So the story wasn't a bad mystery and it kept me wanting to know who killed Hollis Mulray up until the end, but honestly, the ending was kind of a cop-out and it's definitely not the epic tie-in everyone makes it out to be. Or maybe I'm missing something. Like I said, Roman Polanski and I don't have good understandings.

Oh my goodness I need to update

2008-09-09T20:59:00.001-04:00

Dear My Blog,

You have been in want of updates for many months now. I am very sorry I have caused this to happen but I have been in a perpetual daze over the summer and the chill of the weather has just recently shaken me awake. It feels good to be alive, at last.

I assure you I have thought of you often and of updating many times, but have not worked up the spirit to take the actual action, until now.

This post pretty much is useless, redundant, and void of any information, but it is a sealed promise to update in the near future, possibly tomorrow, definitely this week on my repumped film adventures. There are many exciting things to come this fall and I want to be present, sentient, and writing for all of it.

Possibly things to write about if I ever get stuck (I won't):
movie reviews of Definitely, Maybe, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, In Bruges, Chinatown, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Kiss Me Kate (muy importante for this)
Woody Allen fangasms
Singin' in the Rain...can't believe I haven't written about this yet
why I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet, and why I already have a bias against it
Wall-E lovin'
in depth Before Sunrise analysis
French New Wave with Bonnie and Clyde and A Bout de Souffle
my dislike of overtly "artsy" films
my dislike for Sofia Coppola
delving more into Hitchcock
the oft-mentioned Apatow clan
my preference for "softer" films, shying away from gangsters
writing about other people I dislike: Jack Black, Keanu Reeves, Bill Murray (all men - wow, misandry much?)
defense of Aronofsky's The Fountain
period drama deliciousness
filmography of Kate Winslet
the era of the MGM musical
distinguishing of a practiced eye of a good melodrama/chick flick/sobfest
my unconditional love of Charlie Kaufman and why heart always wins
why Blindness the book is terrible and consequently why it is not Meirielle's fault his movie is terrible
rewatch of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
dissection of Ann Miller's charisma

My Not-so-Fair Lady

2008-06-06T19:30:00.000-04:00

Apparently Keira Knightley is in talks with Columbia to play Eliza Doolittle in a remake of My Fair Lady. Many question if Knightley could compare to the likes of Audrey Hepburn in style, grace, and charm. They are afraid she won't do Audrey justice even though they are both lovely, love(r)ly human beings, pristine little English roses, forever debutantes, yadda yadda yadda...

But, I don't think they are questioning the ultimate mystery of all: why the hell they would want to remake such a shitty movie in the first place. I thought the play itself by George Bernard Shaw was the most overrated thing I had ever seen...that is, until I saw the movie. Take a story with the most mediocre, trite dialogue you could possibly think of with barely any semblance of a plot and add terrible music and actors who cannot sing who a) either are smart and resort to lip synching or b) convince themselves they can sing and kind of warble off pitch for the entire freaking movie (see: Rex Harrison) and stretch this whole debacle out to three. whole. hours and basically you've got My Fair Lady. No joke, no lie. I only wish someone had forewarned me about this nightmare before I saw eagerly rented it. The bandwagon is sometimes perilous to jump on, folks.

Audrey Hepburn made it through the entire movie with two godawful accents and a pair of lips that moved to the words of the music but didn't actually sing them. She was very beautiful to look at, sure, but I think the dialogue, songs, Rex Harrison - okay, let's face it, the entire damn movie - kind of nullified it all.

I cannot imagine a shittier premise for a movie but I'm guessing this remake will somehow be even worse. Like casting Tom Hanks as Henry Huggins. *shudder* Or, um, setting it in "modern times".

I mean, maybe Keira Knightley will surprise me and pull a Nicole Kidman, showing she has some sort of tonality in those effortlessly pretty but vapid lips. But I doubt it. Keira is too used to sitting pretty and, as Audrey Hepburn has shown in the past, doesn't bode too well for the movie.

Don't get me wrong - I love Keira Knightley AND Audrey Hepburn - I think they are two of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, but they can't freaking sing.

Upcoming...not coming soon enough!

2008-05-23T18:56:00.000-04:00

So many freaking good movies coming out soon. Even through the inevitable haze of summer blockbuster hype I see good movies coming at me from all directions. I know this feeling well and I love it.

I don't usually watch trailers but this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnd0wsISY0 is quite amazing. I never knew how much I wanted to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button until I watched the trailer.

I also really, really, really want to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona, like, NOW. Like I want to fly to Paris and storm the theater doors now now. I watched the trailer for that, too, and it was truly crappy, but I know the movie won't be crappy at all at all, because it's Woody Allen, and he is prime and wonderful and witty and masterful.

And of course Synecdoche, New York, because anything Kaufman makes is original and epic and beautiful. I hope this is a heart kind of piece because he does those magnificently. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is an awesome actor, along with the pantheon of actresses Kaufman somehow managed to hire. But then again I bet all those actresses were foaming at the mouth to work with Kaufman. He's amazing.

These movies aren't even slight anticipations. These are huge, huge projects I've been interested in for a while and reviews just keep on backing up my interests.

Oh my HEART!

2008-05-20T21:10:00.001-04:00

Clint Eastwood is so damn sexy.

I could not help salivating during The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Clint Eastwood makes three hours of a damn good (but still long) Western all worth it.

He mixes Charlton Heston's devil-may-care BAMF attitude with Robert Redford's dashing gentleman good looks.

Suck it, Emile Hirsch. Suck it, Christian Bale. Suck it, George Clooney. Suck it, all you other superhero/comic book wannabes. They don't make 'em like Clint anymore. Macho, badass, but beautiful.

Obligatory Update

2008-05-14T15:57:00.000-04:00

After watching the imdb trailer for Twilight, I'm not really looking forward to the movie as much as I had thought. I read the book and basically fell in love with Edward (because really, who doesn't want a hot guy addicted to your smell and can't contain his lusty passions for eating you?) and then I was like, oh it's Catherine Hardwicke and she is not that good of a director anyway, but then I saw who was playing Edward and I was like hm hm hmmm hotness prevails and so I was actually kind of excited because I could see Hardwicke doing sensual, especially with such a fiiine specimen of man, but then the trailer disappointed me, to say the least.

Action scenes? Flying in the air? That perpetually brooding atmosphere? I was expecting something more Eyes Wide Shut and I got The Matrix, but less innovative. After thirteen I thought the woman was capable of something (visuals, perhaps? obviously she's not strong on story but she does have some unique touches that aren't completely gone to waste) but it turns out she's gone to the Hollywood side, the dark side. I enjoy hot men as much as any sexually deprived girl but this is no medium for enjoyment. Am not contributing to the monolith that is the bandwagon for Twilight. Will illegally download and proceed to hate. I can just tell. But I still like Nikki Reed.

Kiss Me Kate is so underrated. Rotten Tomatoes had a Top 30 Shakespeare Adaptations and they included some lame version of Taming of the Shrew with Kenneth Branagh in it but didn't even mention this dazzling musical. Sometimes I think the Rotten Tomatoes guys have mental problems. Kenneth Branagh is such a Shakespeare whore. He should do something different once in a while. This is probably the reason you are no longer married to Emma Thompson, Kenneth. And Hamlet was number one, which I personally think is a questionable decision. Now that I think about it Shakespeare in Love wasn't even mentioned, and I am very upset about that. I want to watch Titus.

Also, this is a great quote:
"Coppola’s soundtrack is an attempt to claim that Marie Antoinette was the first “modern” teen, which is a typical example of Generation X’s inability to engage with history and customs outside their navel-gazing bubble of cynicism."

I love finding little jewels in imdb articles. And I like David Carr. A lot.

Martin Scorsese is a Q-T

2008-05-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

I think Martin Scorsese is the sweetest man in the world. I mean, I have no idea what he was like in his younger years, and I've gotta say he looked like a badass then, but like a sweet badass, but I think his age has eroded the badass off him so all you get is the pure, unadulterated sweetness.

Look at him! So adorable!

Note that I'm only basing this off what I've seen of him in interviews and last year's Oscar telecast, but how can you not fall for a man like that?

I love old men.

Okay, this entry wasn't just a eulogy to Scorsese's adorability level (as my beloved Nat would say, on par with baby kittens), but rather a contrast! It's unfathomable this adorable man makes scary, guns-go-bang movies like Taxi Driver and The Departed. I usually like to connect people with awesome personalities with awesome movies. And vice versa.

Like Uwe Boll. He's an asshole, and it shows in his movies.

Gwyneth Paltrow is a goddess, and she continues on being a goddess in her movies. (Whatever I said before concerning Ms. Paltrow, I retract with all my heart. The Iron Man interview with Letterman has banished all thoughts of elitism or pretension from my mind. I'm sorry I doubted you, you awesome woman.)

I mean, I don't mind Taxi Driver or Departed (I do, however, mind very much Gangs of New York, which made me want to go all Butcher Bill and butcher myself brains out), but I imagine some scary, introspective, suicidal maniac making all this stuff, not my beloved Scorsese. But hey, I guess gang movies aren't for everyone.

And then I saw Goodfellas. Or at least the first half hour of it. And it's pretty darn good.

I pin it all on Scorsese's adorable nature. What actor wouldn't want to give it his all under this cutie?

Yuck

2008-05-04T21:44:00.000-04:00

I am so dang bad at updating. I said I would keep a film log of my watched movies, and I kind of stopped at Brief Encounter.

Now my queue is huge and I am totally not up to it.

I wish I were a more dedicated person.

I want my Facebook Flixster back. Until the end of APs, my sweet.

The Marx Brothers are overrated. I don't think that kind of humor is hugely original; and besides, I really didn't find Duck Soup all that funny save the mirror gag, and that was more of a oh, very clever kind of funny and not a belly laugh kind of funny. It's kind of the way I feel about Chaplin, too, but Chaplin is a hundred times above the Marx Brothers in physical comedy.

But I don't think Chaplin is really, really funny either. But hey, who am I to judge? I don't think anything is funny except American Pie and Mallrats. I am not even exaggerating in this one. My humor is limited only to sexual perversion and Jason Lee.

Happy Birthday, Mr. McAvoy

2008-04-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

I cannot believe I have realized that James McAvoy's birthday is today and I only have two hours left of this day to celebrate!

April 21, this is a fateful day. My brother turns 10, James McAvoy turns 29.

12 year difference. It's not that bad.

Sigh...

May you drink the night away, Mr. McAvoy, and somehow hop on a plane to Detroit and find yourself on Rambling Dr., knocking on my door.

How the hell can one man be so damn sexy?

Visual Beauty

2008-04-21T20:14:00.000-04:00

I think I sometimes let the visuals get in the way of a movie. I start valuing a movie all the higher because its visuals are so breathtaking I don't even care if I don't understand the story, or if there is a story at all. Or if I'm bored, I lie to myself and say that I'm not bored because I enjoy the visuals so much.

Case in point: I'm Not There. Or really anything Todd Haynes-esque. I truly, truly think that man is a versatile genius but his character development and storytelling aren't the greatest. But his visuals make up for anything and consequently I totally enjoy his movies even though I might not understand them completely. Especially I'm Not There, which I totally don't get but I think is so, so beautiful.

To a lesser degree, Atonement's dazzling beauty cut in the way of the story, which now that I think about wasn't told greatly. I mean, Saoirse Ronan is still completely awesome, and I'm still in love with James McAvoy and everything, but it's not the great, epic, cry-inducing love story I would like it to be. But then, I think about its visual beauty and Dario Marianelli's score and then I cry all over again. Plus the ending was really, really good. Vanessa Redgrave is amazing, even though at the same time she's like an insanely scary political bitch.

But I know I don't like slow-moving visuals, like The Scent of Green Papaya. Jesus I shudder just thinking about that complete crap of a movie. Thank goodness I know I hate that movie.

Unconditional Love

2008-04-21T15:22:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I'm unbearably excited by this picture of Woody Allen eating.

I. Love. Him. I wish I were that...I think it's yogurt? he's licking oh-so-amorously. Oh my goodness he looks good enough to eat. He's looking really good for his age and I cannot believe he is filming IN NEW YORK again! Why, oh why, am I not there?

Screw school. I'd rather screw Woody Allen.

Some thoughts

2008-04-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

So I've been thinking, my movie reviews are totally not of the caliber of Ebert or Kael or even the millions of awesome people on the internet. I know for certain that this isn't something I want for a career because of the sheer fact that I cannot write.

But I don't even care! I don't care that nobody reads this dang thing except for me, and actually I love it because I don't feel pressured to write awesomely (of which I cannot do anyway!), or pressured to update every day, or write incredibly witty things that certainly don't come off the top of my head. I don't need to include damn pictures of anything if I don't want to (and most of the time I'm too lazy to anyway), or provide great links of websites I feel obligated to surf. My life is the greatest and all I really want to do is like, write whatever I think.

I'm not a high flown, lofty person and I never will be. I appreciate visual beauty a whole lot but that doesn't mean I need to express my feelings in the best, most suitable words if I don't want to. I feel so free just writing anything that comes into my head. I just type - it's like Jack Kerouac's spontaneous stream-of-consciousness writing except I use periods and I don't have, like, beautiful imagery in my mind to share. This is totally the niche where I belong. I never feel stuck.

That being said, I should write more of my random thoughts down when they occur to me. And I should update more. For myself, not for others, of course.

Brief Encounter - David Lean's Best

2008-04-20T10:49:00.000-04:00

I say with pretty good confidence that this is going to be the movie of David Lean's I like the best. Not because it was particularly brilliant or inspiring or tear-inducing, but because I know David Lean and how much I hate him. I'm very glad I got to see a film of his that didn't bore me to tears, because this gives me the opportunity to see a different side of him, but that doesn't change the fact that I despise his work.

I think what was different about Brief Encounter is the length. For 90 minutes Lean certainly says his piece and gets out. The acting by the woman is marvelous. Her eyes are so expressive. The guy is kind of an ass but he's a damn charming ass. I think they're good together even though their love is obviously doomed and the location shots are very beautiful. The choice of the train station is well thought out and that park place is excellent. It kind of seems like a precursor to stuff like Before Sunrise, but without the whole introspective dialogue thing that makes Sunrise so awesome. Still, Brief Encounter has obviously got the advantage of old school charm and the chemistry is very patent, kind of subtly bubbling beneath the banal dialogue.

I still think it's overrated though. Lean totally tries to milk the emotion to all its worth and the goodbye scene is like ten minutes too long. In the later years Lean became fond of three hour epics even when they weren't necessary and while I am certainly thankful he didn't resort to this kind of thing with this, I still feel like it could've been shorter. I feel like one should just say his piece and go. Don't worry about it being too short, or too brief, because brevity is beauty. (This is funny coming from me because I know I am the most verbose person in the world.) It's overrated in the fact that the story is so content-less and still we're expected to cry buckets at the end. The music swelling dramatically, the forlorn little face of the woman - all of it made cry not because I felt any kind of emotional connection with the characters, but because Lean milked it to induce crying. Thankfully, I did not cry so I passed over your little trick, Mr. Lean.

I hate things that shamelessly manipulate you into crying. Lean knows he can't get the reaction naturally so he goes into all kinds of insidious ways to make you think you cried naturally. The story was very, very simple and this might have fared better as a short. Like, half an hour long.

I might be reading too much into this and my deep dislike for David Lean probably plays a lot into my opinions, but truthfully, I did enjoy it and it was not a bad movie at all. B

What a Piece of Crap - the shit that is Meetin' WA

2008-04-16T17:26:00.001-04:00

First of all, my internet has gone down for the past two days and I've seen a few films since then, which I promise to review soon. But right now, I want to discuss my most recently seen film (if you could even call it that), Meetin' WA.

It's shitty. I'm gonna say that outright. Not any fault of WA's, mind you. He brings some great dialogue to the table and having him there makes the film watching almost tolerable.

Godard, I don't know what he's playing at. He manages to make a delightful conversation sound banal, edits Woody's mannerisms across a series of cheap cuts and random fade-in pictures, and intersperses the conversation with nonsensical titles. Is this art, is this funny? Cause I don't dig the aesthetics or the humor.

Half the time it seems like Godard is laughing at Woody, making fun of...what? That's the thing - whatever he's laughing at, only he truly knows, because the rest of us find this less than comical. I thought it was going to be some heart-to-heart conversation between two filmmakers. It ended up being some half-assed attempt at conversation whose main goal was to poke fun at the other, a form of fun nobody really understands or cares about.

Seriously, what was Godard getting at? This is bothering me more than I can bear. I can't stand it, I can't think about this anymore. You've freaking ruined Gershwin for me, thanks a lot.

I give it a C-. Because I am truly interested to hear what Woody Allen has to say and the few moments he isn't rudely interrupted by Godard's masturbating are quite nice. Totally going on a Godard boycott now. Screw A bout de souffle and its New Wave "art".

8 1/2: A Movie Review

2008-04-13T21:46:00.001-04:00

This will be really short because I'm not quite sure how I truly feel about this...yet.

It's ironic that my first Fellini was a comprehensive one about his life. I feel like I should've known the man and his work before I dropped in on his most definitive piece. It's just like when I watched All That Jazz and I didn't really have a clue what Bob Fosse was all about. Still don't, as a matter of fact. But I think can be excused for that considering Fosse at least only directed like five movies...Fellini directed like five hundred.

It was a long movie. I do not like movies that surpass two hours. It has to be a hell of a movie for me to stay interested. And stay interested I did, but barely. (But by saying that I'm not insinuating that the movie was bad; I can't even stay focused during Citizen Kane, and I adore that movie.) Speaking of which, this movie was a little Citizen Kane, a lot All That Jazz, without the music.

I liked the metaphors. The beginning sequence with the suffocating man scared the crap out of me; I thought he was gonna go all Cronenberg on me and start exploding his guts out or something. I liked the prostitute dance. I loved the scene with the twenty women and the whipping. The young woman with the crazy eyes who was the mistress of that other guy was gorgeous.

It was hard to tell the difference between the women. Like, I think the character of Claudia was supposed to have some kind of significance, but I barely remember her character at all. I kept on wanting him to get it on with Luisa, and in the end he kind of did, but then again it was really hard to distinguish reality from fantasy. And at that point he was so far out of it I wasn't sure if Luisa had just left him completely and this was some kind of coping mechanism or what.

To clarify, he did not make the movie, yes? But at the same time he kind of did, because this movie is kind of supposed to be about him, isn't it?

I really adored the scene where Clara is on the bed acting out his sexual fantasy, and he does her makeup like a whore's. She's so cute in an annoying way.

Overall, I still liked the movie. It was confusing but cool. The visuals were really well thought out and original and gorgeous, but I missed out a lot of that part because the damn screen was so small. I feel like I should watch this again, on a screen that's not like two inches wide, and then I really want to watch All That Jazz again, because now I treasure it all the more. It's funny; the more I think about it the more I think I love it. And while I was watching it I thought it was uneven but amazing in the good parts. Well, we'll see. Maybe it's because I miss my song-and-dance musicals. It's been a while since I've seen one. Well, Kiss Me Kate will be tonight.

I give it a B+. I really did like it.

Absence

2008-02-25T21:59:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while since I last posted, and I should be writing something of value to make up for the lost time, and I'm not, and I know that's really bad, but doesn't Mia Farrow look a fright?

Yes, I know she's older, and it's inevitable that she ages, but come ON. She's 63 and she looks about 80. That whole pedophilia battle with Woody Allen certainly took a lot out of her. She should at least...change her hair or something and try not to rely on memories of her old looks, cause honey, that ain't happening.

Cute.

Not cute.

SCARY! (Okay, I know that's not Mia Farrow but Faye Dunaway scares the crap out of me now.) Look how beautiful she used to be!

And she asks why she's not allowed to play the love interest of the likes of Jack Nicholson. Take a look at yourself and that's why!

My Kind of Guy

2008-02-09T19:43:00.001-05:00

I want a valentine that says this:

“In my dreams I kiss your cunt, your sweet wet cunt.”

Hot!

It's Over!

2008-02-07T20:06:00.001-05:00

The Writer's Strike is freaking over!

HALLELUJAH!

Oscars, screenplays, tv shows, comedy shows - EVERYTHING! It's overrrrrrr.

Oh my writers, I have toiled and supported you in everything you've done over the past 4 months. During the Globes I did not once complain even though I did let a speck of sadness come over me for a second. But that is expected. The Oscars, having never been cancelled EVER, are here to stay!!!

Please, please let's make this the best Oscars show Gil Cates have ever seen! Don't let me down. I love you.

The Best Romantic Movies Ever, Pt. I

2008-02-05T17:40:00.001-05:00

Valentine's Day is encroaching upon us soon, so I have decided to take a page from Moviefone's book and write a beautiful list of my own favorite romance movies. Call it an elegy to the movie business, in honor of my favorite genre in the world, or call it a pathetic way to lament over my own lack of a love life. Whatever, when your boyfriend dumps you on Valentine's Day I'll be comfortably sitting on my couch and crying over Amelie. Your real life problems do not interest me - I'm too busy in my fantasy Hollywood world with these wonderful jewels.

Incidentally, as I was making my pre-list, I found there were exactly 25 movies on it! Before I make a list, I usually write down every movie pertaining to the subject I can think of, and then it takes me like an hour to organize it, and get rid of extraneous ones, and cry a lot about how I had to sacrifice something, but with this one I didn't have get rid of anything at all! I mean, how fortuitous is that? These love movies are obviously trying to send me a message.

So this list is comprised of a few predictables (but not a lot...I don't usually agree with the standard Casablanca, An Affair to Remember etc.), a few uhh what was she thinking?s, and a lot of sizzling, scorching, seaming chemistry, so hot that you want to fan yourself. As you read this list, keep an open mind, and maybe try to watch a couple because they are darn good movies. This is pretty much a genre I reign over - I honestly seldom watch anything else...except maybe musicals.

25. Just Like Heaven. This movie is totally my guilty pleasure. I am often ashamed to even bring it up in conversations. It's downright embarrassing, the way I feel about this film! I know this shouldn't be any different from schmaltz like How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Sweet Home Alabama, but there is something about this movie is so atypical of substandard Hollywood generated romcom. I think maybe it's in the acting? Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo give very real performances that don't seem contrived or forced even though their lines are so lame they easily could have been. I know it doesn't seem as if Ruffalo and Witherspoon would mesh well together, but somehow, they do.

Think of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's Kirsten Dunst and Ruffalo doing drugs together, partying it up on Jim Carrey's bed, and imagine Ruffalo's lovelorn face when Dunst gets together with Tom Wilkinson, and tell me that wasn't sweet and you didn't detect some undertones of chemistry simmering under there. And then imagine a hotter, more career driven Kirsten Dunst called Reese Witherspoon getting it on with sweeter, more ballsy Mark Ruffalo and stretch this relationship out to two hours and you've pretty much got this movie. Doesn't sound so bad anymore, does it? Seriously, it's really sweet.

24. Good bye, Lenin! Yes, I know the point of the story lies in the fall of GDR, and the love felt between characters is more familial than anything else. But the brief scenes between Alex and his girlfriend feel like heaven. Maybe because it was Daniel Bruhl and the man is mega hot and I lust passionately over him and pretty much anything he does is amazing, but I think it went beyond even that. I savored those moments much in the way I savored the rest of the movie - the two lost souls hanging onto the bare seams of life they once had under communist GDR. Loving while alone in the world is one of the most poignant things a person can go through. The fact that Bruhl was able to convey this across the screen into my heart says millions for his acting, and for the movie.

23. Impromptu. Let me just say that I love Judy Davis. Yes, I literally worship the woman, all 5 foot-something, wiry, neurotic bones of her. Yes, her outbursts live down in cinematic history for their intense power. Yes, I talk about how underrated she is to anyone who'll listen. But I would never, ever think of her nervy, anxious manner appropriate for any kind of happy love story, so I was surprised by this movie - somehow, in Impromptu, it just works. Judy Davis is everything I would imagine George Sands to be - the pursuer of the Chopin relationship, mannish but vulnerable, with the attitude of a conquistador, the heart of a whale. When she's vulnerable you want to hug her; when she gets what she wants, you want to cry in ecstasy. And Hugh Grant certainly impressed me as Chopin - weak, vacillating, kind of dislikable but perfectably lovable. He and Judy Davis make an unpredictable yet amazing screen couple that complement each other perfectly. I will never forget the moment Grant is playing Ballade No. 1 and Davis is just laying beneath the piano, soaking it all in.

22. Breakfast at Tiffany's. I'll be the first to admit Breakfast at Tiffany's was a really uneven movie, but why do I still love it to death? Maybe it's the few scenes that I can't get out of my head, even years after I first watched it: the "mean reds," the drunken revelry party, the vulnerable Moon River guitar song afterwards, the engraved Cracker Jack ring, the kiss in the rain. Oh, and Henry Mancini's dazzling score. I only need to listen to Moon River once and I'm instantly transported back to the world of glamorous $50 powder room girl Holly Golightly.

22. Brokeback Mountain. I kind of felt it necessary to include this movie on this list, namely because of Heath Ledger's recent departure but also because it's just a really, really good movie and I overlook it often. When I first saw it, I found the men grappling each other more than a little awkward. But, thinking back, I understand that this is just the way men have sex. It is awkward, it has false pretenses of macho, it is nakedly bare, it has trouble separating the raw lustful hunger from the emotional love. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal do indeed have chemistry, but it's not the sizzling, zinging chemistry that I love to watch and envy and cry about why I don't have it - it's more of the doomed Romeo and Juliet kind, maybe not as appealing, but so much more cry inducing.

21. As Good As It Gets. This is what I call real life love. And sometimes that is even better than the classic fairy tale love with the snappy lines and booming finale. The best thing I love about the writing is that it's awkward. Jack Nicholson is essentially a fumbling idiot, you're not even sure if you love him or hate him up until the end. Helen Hunt has problems, she's not that pretty or witty, she has low self esteem, and to tell you the truth I think I actually hated her more than Jack Nicholson.

But it's all okay, because it's real. Music doesn't swell all around when Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson finally kiss, and when they kiss it's not perfect or amazing or sublime, it's just a kiss. But at the same time it's something that could happen to you too. And sometimes that message in itself is more powerful than all the swelling music in the world.

20. Manhattan. This might be the only one of these movies that doesn't end happily or cryingly. It just ends. The love I'm referring to isn't just between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton - it's between Woody Allen and Manhattan. Manhattan seriously made me fall in love with New York, which might be an incredibly cliche, idealistic thing to say, but it's true. When I went to New York, I saw Manhattan the way Woody Allen wanted me to see it. The real thing didn't shatter any illusions I had about it, it was just perfect. But of course, I promised myself I wouldn't include anything in this list that didn't involve romantic love - which is why I didn't include Stand By Me, and so that is why I am going to draw attention to the 80s Woody and Diane, the most magical screen couple there ever was in arty upper crust Manhattan.

With Diane, Woody is at his most lyrical - he "luffs" her, quoth Annie Hall - and even though at the end he gets with Mariel Hemingway, viewers know that he and Diane had like the best thing going on while it lasted. When they're arguing about pseudo intellectual junk, there's like this little pang that hits me straight in the heart. I just want them to keep on talking and talking and talking, it doesn't matter about what, just the little motions and looks they give each other are some of the most romantic and kinetic in all of cinematic history.

19. Titanic. Okay, honestly, I had to put at least one sweeping love epic on here! I'm not completely all for the quirks and offbeat romances! People nowadays like to vilify Titanic for being too boring, too swelled up into its own butt, too long, and sometimes I agree, but nobody can deny that Kate Winslet and Leo Dicaprio have really got something there. Not just the sweaty sex in the streetcar or "I'm the king of the world!" scene - it's the little things: the silences, the way he looks at her, the haunting look in their eyes in that they know their love is doomed no matter if the ship sinks or not, the nervous giggles, the initial flirtation, the motions they make when the other isn't there - all these things tug at your heart, and even though it's cliche it just feels right.

18. When Harry Met Sally. I'd call a movie a successful love story if it manages to make me fall in love with a man who looks Billy Crystal. Billy Crystal isn't all about the jokes all the time, I think he can show a true insight and vulnerability in his roles which makes him different from comedians Steve Martin or Robin Williams. He's funny, but not over the top. And Meg Ryan pre-duck lips is the cutest thing everrr. I really like her with Tom Hanks too but with Billy Crystal, it's different. With Tom Hanks she is typical wounded woman, sort of an inferior. With Billy Crystal she is his equal, and his friend, and she makes maaagic. The New Years Eve dance never fails to make me cry.

17. The Apartment. Shirley Maclaine is the premiere example of the type of girl I'd like to be - cute as a button, vulnerable, wise in the ways of the world, desirable. Paired with usual funnyman Jack Lemmon, again, unlikely couple, great lines make chemistry come to life. Apparently Billy Wilder didn't think Maclaine and Lemmon had like any chemistry, and maybe they wouldn't have had had it not been for his masterful dialogue. But, it's quotable ("When you're in love with a married man you shouldn't wear mascara" trueDAT homey!), adorable ("You hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you." "Shut up and deal."), and never fails to make me smile. Jack Lemmon never goes too over the top and is quite appealing as a forlorn, pushover slob completely, totally, in love. I love how Wilder flips the gender card by putting Lemmon's character as the weak one, chasing after the uninterested Maclaine - but never goes too wild by making Miss Kubelik, like, completely butch.

16. Frida. I see this film as more of a visual treat than a beautiful love story, but the reason that I loved it so much is that it is able to mesh the two genres so seamlessly. This is Taymor at her erotic best. It's love told in a rain of colors and shapes and pictures, as well as in gestures and words and looks. I think Frida Kahlo herself would be honored to see her tempestuous love affairs portrayed in such a manner. Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina do such a first class job of portraying lovers Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo that their love leaks across the screen.

15. Terms of Endearment. It's like I'm the only person that gets this movie. A lot of people think of this movie as an ode to family and death and finally growing up, but the lengthy scenes between Debra Winger and Maclaine didn't jibe with me so much as the few scenes between Nicholson and Maclaine did. Maclaine is cute and uptight but wild on the inside, while Nicholson is just out-and-out wild, and kind of an asshole. Just thinking about their personalities together onscreen already makes for a great movie. Like, I love them together so much I think Maclaine and Nicholson should be married. When they kissed I wanted to sing. Interestingly, this is both Maclaine's and Nicholson's second appearance on this list, so maybe they should go out and make more romantic movies together until they're decrepit grouches like Judi Dench. Jaykay, Ms. Dench.

TBC...