Zatoichi - Fun

This movie is as awesome as the summer of TRL which featured daily battles between NSync, BSB, Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. I used to come home from work just to watch the top three vids with this guy that lived in my basement that summer (he was supposed to be going door-to-door selling children's books but all he did was rock out really hard and watch TRL; he knew the dances to Bye Bye Bye, and I want it That way; he was tight).

For real though, this movie is great. I don't know how many samurai movies I have seen but it is a substantial number. The only one that I can ever remember the name of is 'Seven Samurai'. I think this is because I don't speak Japanese and because many of these movies are all quite similar. Zatoichi, however, I will definitely remember and I will name drop it, no doubt. Seeing this movie makes you cooler than everyone else. I can already tell though that when I name drop this movie during film society pub night everyone is going to be all like, "dude, I saw that movie at Cannes in like 94." But, I'll claim that it is still awesome.

The way I see it, there are two ways to make a samurai movie. 1) Make an epic archetypal that encompasses universal appeals to the human condition and societal views on justice and honor or 2) make a cut-em-up blood bath with a tragic (or non-tragic) hero that just destroys everyone and everything. This is a fine line and obviously many samurai movies fall into both categories but I think ultimately this is a good line of demarcation. At least, I think samurai movies would be better if they chose one of the two paths (i.e. Twilight Samurai vs. Kill Bill; I think both are great because they chose a path).

Zatoichi, however, is different; transcendental I might say. I mean we are talking about taking an icon of the Samurai industry (Zatoichi is an epic character that has been made and re-made a bunch of times in Samurai film) and putting him inside a comedy/musical. What a great idea? It makes one question the placing of Japan in the 'east' as opposed to the 'west'. I feel like a really good scholarly article, at least one I would think is cool, would talk about how Japanese cinema relegates the classification of an 'eastern' nation and resolutely claims, "We are are not and forever will be western." And then a cool follow up article, (like, if I am a friend of the dude that wrote this first article, I would cite his article so that he gets some dough stacks for being cited and write a second article) would be about how Japanese cinema doesn't care about the classification of 'western' or 'eastern' because it just wants to be 'Japanese'. But then again this may be to pomo for it's own good. But then again, Japan might totally dig this idea and make a movie about this idea.

At any rate, Zatoichi chronicles the several days that a blind samurai master spends amongst some villagers that are being held in economic captivity by an oppressive gangster. He decides that this is not cool so he takes out the gangsters. He kills quickly which is welcomed as most samurai fights were probably pretty quick with very little steel hitting steel. There are some cool shout outs to 'Seven Samurai' and a lot of great dialogue. Ultimately though, this movie ends in a dance sequence. I didn't like 'Slumdog Millionaire' until the dancing. I liked this movie before the dancing which means I loved the movie after the dancing. I guess I just love some choreographed dancing; I owe this to me being brought up on season tickets to Broadway shows and The Sound of Music.

I highly recommend this movie. I'm going to watch it again.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - I mean it's tight - By KDJ

It sucks so much that Heath Ledger isn't going to be making anymore movies. There are probably other things in the world that suck more, but he is just so freaking good at acting.

This movie did not change my life. I was kind of hoping that it would. I don't even know what that means. But it probably means that I won't buy the DVD but I'm sure I'll see it 15-20 more times in my life because this movie is just going to be 'around', make no bones about it. I compare it to writing an undergraduate thesis or dissertation. You spend an entire semester meeting with a professor, pretending to read all the books he/she tells you to read, you write like five drafts and finally hand in a 35 page paper with a three page bibliography. Most likely, your paper isn't that awesome or life changing but you spent tons of time on it so the professor has to give you at least a B+. This theory isn't true for all movies; Land of the Lost spent tons of money and had a huge cast but we, the professors, the audience, gave this movie crap marks. At any rate, I believe my theory applies to Parnassus. The script is really detailed and really deep and if it had citations it would probably cite Kant, Obama, Genesis, the Koran, and Niebuhr. Which is cool and all, but it's not a life changing dissertation. What is more (my chinese friends taught me to use this phrase; it is really fun to use in casual conversation {i.e. "Kyle, I burnt my dumplings, and what is more, I dumped my girlfriend."}), if you put Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel, Jude Law, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits and a bunch of other cool actors in a film, you at least are going to get big crowds in the theatres. SO, don't get too jacked about this movie but do get kind of jacked cause it is still pretty tight.

The dualism of imagination and narrative vs. naturalism/humanism/agnosticism etc. is at the core of this movie. This is a cool premise on which to make a movie. Dualisms make life easy and they give one an opportunity to do tons of cool stuff on crazy tangents but it is always easy to come back to your thesis (for instance, in this movie, the issue of institutionalizing charities - not being able to tell Greenpeace apart from Shell because they both wear suits now but relaying this back to dualism of stories vs. prescription). While reality isn't always dualistic in nature, Dr. Parnassus' imaginarium is, and thus, you get lots of CGI coolness. Along this thought line, I am really interested in cubism right now. The idea of painting an object as it appears in reality - that being from every single (infinite) vantage point. What would a movie look like that tried to do this? Could be really far out. I think someone should make a cubism musical. I would want Joel Davis to write the score and Joey Profitt to be artistic director and this super annoying pedant in my graduate college program to direct it and all my friends from home to think of the most annoying, lame things in society and have this be the subject of the script which would be written by sixth graders.

You should see this movie because Heath Ledger proves that he is better than all the other all stars that are also in this film. It is inpirational. It is not entirely predictable. Terry Gilliam has been given permission to be as creative and crazy as he wants--which is a good thing. The physical depiction of London vs. the social London is cool and interesting to social science geographers. The CGI in this movie is just stupid awesome. It's ultimately just kind of a fun movie. The trailer made me think it was going to change my life, it did not, but it is still really cool.

30 Second Review: Where the Wild Things Are - By James King

Review by James King Idea by O’Dea

A visually stunning film that captures the mysterious highs and lows of childhood, Where the Wild Things Are is a political masterwork. In this thinly veiled chronicle of the first year of the Obama presidency, the film whimsically captures the rise and fall of a boy king, Max, whose promises of change collide with the limitations of a fragmented society. Carol, voiced by James Gandolfini and inspired by the wild and free spirit of the American people, crowns the boy king after he arrives on the island and proclaims himself a social savior. Max still believes in the American dream of wild rumpuses and hopes to use the unbridled energy of the Wild Things to construct a fort. Although the idea of a fort lends itself more to the Bush doctrine, the purpose of this fort is to unite the Things in a common goal and to provide universal shelter—or health care, if you will. Caught up in the exuberance of their new king, the fort actually nears completion before a brutal and destabilizing dirt-clod war exacerbates Carol’s fickle temperament, eventually leading him to turn against the king, and bursting with the disillusionment of expectation exceeding one boy ability, tries to eat him. I won’t reveal the ending, as it is still being written in legislative halls, but I will say that this adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s commentary of Kennedy’s Bay of Pig’s Disaster does not disappoint. A must see for anyone who remembers the breathless joy and secret loneliness of childhood and first-term presidencies.

Where the Wild Things Are - By Tyler Atikinson

Two Buttz Up, Way Up:

Spike Jonze just created my favorite movie of the year. Previously, I’ve felt that Jonze, who was particularly adept at short form music videos, was relying too much on being quirky. His collaborations with Charlie Kaufman just seemed to be weird for the sake of being weird. In adapting Maurice Sendak’s Caldecott winning story for the big screen, Spike Jonze finally had the chance to perfect his style. Where The Wild Things Are is a physical representation of what it feels like to be a child. It also creates a new creative standard for children’s movies. In the process, Jonze stays true to the source material while creating an expanded, authentic world.

I had pretty high hopes for this film. The trailer, set to the Arcade Fire’s Wake Up, made it seem so epic and grandiose. All of the posters have been works of graphic design art. Hell, even the fonts used on all of the printed materials are amazing. However, there was one lingering bit of hesitation to go along with my anticipation: hipster pandering. This movie is a perfect storm of hipster fanboy culture; Spike Jonze directing a movie based on a book that every 25 year old in the world loves. Throw in a script by Dave Eggers and a soundtrack by Karen O featuring Bradford Cox and you have a match made in Hipster Runoff heaven. Unlike other big-budget studio films with marketable characters, you will find no tie-ins to Burger King or 7-11. The only tie-in is with Urban Outfitters (you can find WTWTA tees next to Juno hamburger phones). This, in itself, is pretty groan-worthy. But in spite of my hesitation, WTWTA didn’t disappoint.

The movie starts with Max running wildly around his house then getting into a snowball fight with his sister’s friends. Each cut of the camera feels like it is in time with Max’s breathing. Each destructive act feels authentic and somehow real. This film truly takes you back to being 9 years old. Each manic mood swing is raucously on display.

After an argument with his mother, Max runs away to the woods and boards a sailboat. At this point this imagination takes over. Max comes across a group of monsters that are in need of a king. So considering that all of this is happening within his own mind, Max becomes their king. Let the mothereffing rumpus begin. The only criticism I have is that WTWTA does hit a little bit of a lull in the middle. Considering it takes about five minutes to read the book I can see how it would be difficult to make a complete narrative arc. However, it is really interesting to see how each of the monsters represents an exaggerated version of Max’s emotions.

Just because this movie is about a kid doesn’t mean this is a kid’s movie. In much the same way we don’t consider ET, Wizard of Oz, or The 400 Blows kids movies, Where The Wild Things Are is an adult film. When I left the theater the one thing I couldn’t get out of my mind is that this is the first film that seems to get that children think in a completely different way than adults. Most kid’s movies you see have children doing adult things and having adult conversations. They also contain a lot of fart jokes, American Idol parodies, and Macarena montages. Spike Jonze succeeds in WTWTA by having respect for his audience.

(500) Days of Summer (By Jacob Sim-City-Jesse Simmons) Must See (Cough) I mean, Worth Seeing

“This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know up front, this is not a love story.” –Opening Narration in (500) Days of Summer

There’s a rather famous quote that ends up on Hallmark cards and inspirational literature from time to time that says, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Well, if you’re Tom Hansen or can relate to his character in any way, you might agree… Mr. Anonymous can suck it.

Tom Hansen, the boy, works at a greeting card company and spurns out the type of sentimental rubbish that people always want to mean, but never do. The problem is, Tom means it. He’s the romantic, the lover, the one waiting for the One. Real love can never match his expectation of love, only he doesn’t know it yet.

Summer Finn, the girl, doesn’t understand love. She may even claim that she doesn’t know if it’s real. Her parents’ divorce, her failed attempts, and her easy come, easy go approach to life leave her to believe that Love, and its guiding cousin Fate, aren’t real. They’re fabricated. This doesn’t keep her from being sad, though. It just doesn’t keep her… anywhere. She’s the nomad avoiding commitment. And, of course, her good looks and laissez-faire attitude make her all the more appealing.

(500) Days of Summer is the bizzaro romantic comedy. It’s backwards in its characters, in its points, and even (delicately) in its chronology. It’s a cross-dressed He’s Just Not That Into You. It’s a poignant look at the love story that never was. And I loved it. Now, I’m the type of guy that would spend an hour writing a movie review, so obviously I’m the kind of guy that can relate to Tom (to my own chagrin). And I’ve spent my time with a Summer or two, only to experience the heart-wrenching that makes me think “to have never have loved at all doesn’t even seem half-bad”.

The story is told as merely just a story. It includes a bit of the fanciful, with a narrative opening, beautifully illustrated headings between each chapter, and characters that may seem a little too cliché. There’s even a really enjoyable song and dance in the street sequence, Ferris Bueller-style, to Hall and Oates “You Make My Dreams”, complete with animated blue bird. But the story façade disappears quickly when you realize, “Sh*t. This story is a little too real. “ You know people just like Tom and Summer. Tom is unhappy because he can’t seem to land the one, and Summer’s unhappy because she doesn’t think happiness exists. Tom immediately falls in love with Summer, and because he’s cute, interesting, and around she decides she’s up for it. It’s here where I want to say that Summer becomes the villain of the movie. She strings Tom along with her whims and looks and tastes of destiny (and even an “I’ll wash your back, you wash mine” in the shower). But then I remember (well, I was actually reminded strongly by the young lady accompanying me to the theatre… I know, a bad sign) that she never promised anything more than she delivered. She was always wary of the commitment that Tom wanted. Tom is ready to sign his 30-year mortgage. Summer is happy with her month-to-month lease. So, what gives?

Zooey Deschanel is the perfect Summer Finn. She’s the anti-Sandra Bullock. She’s beautiful, quirky, and elusive in all the ways that make you think she actually has the confidence she exudes. She’s so lovely that it makes it hard to hate her, though, in theory, you really want to. And as Tom is Joseph Gordon-Leavitt who is… well, he’s the dude from 3rd Rock from the Sun. He does a great job playing the hapless, over-analytical, under-realistic romantic who can’t piece it all together.

One of the great things about this movie were its intangibles. There was some really nice comic relief between Tom and two of his buddies. One of his buddies is about to marry his girlfriend since 7th grade, and the other one is hooking up across the city, encouraging Tom to do the same. The dichotomy of these two looks at love is really nice, and compared to Tom’s fantasy, makes him look all the more isolated, if not romantic. The story-telling is really strong, with the chapters not necessarily progressing in the order in which they occurred. It’s a play from the Lost playbook that works really well, maximizing the ups and downs that the protagonist feels with and without his One True Love. The photography is really nice, as well as a soundtrack that all the Scene Kids will want to blog about. (a’ la, Garden State, without the palpable self-loathing.)

Perhaps the most magnificent part of the movie comes in the climactic scene, (POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT, though I’ll try to be coy) where Tom sees Summer again after a good bit of time (presumably, a decent sized piece of the 500 days). The scene, well scenes actually, happen in split screen, with one side being the Expectation of what will happen and the other side being Reality of what happened. The two obviously don’t match, and it’s here where the real villain of this love story is painfully clear. Expectation. When you expect love so much that you think you deserve it and you can’t imagine yourself without it, reality is a bitter existence.

Listen, as a dude that likes football, BBQ, and cursing at his buddies, I’m not going to say to you, “Dude, you just gotta go see this movie.” I don’t want to be that guy. But I will tell you that my best friend who celebrates his masculinity in the same ways said to me over the phone with no one else around, “No kidding, dude, you really gotta see this movie.” So I did.

It Might Get Loud (By James King)

“Hey Hey Mama, said the way you move gonna make you sweat gonna make you groove.”

From the director of Inconvenient Truth comes another documentary about saving the world. Filling in for Al Gore are Jack White, Jimmy Page, and The Edge—ambassadors of how cool and joyful music can be. I could stretch the rock metaphor of saving the world even further, but this documentary is simpler and better than that. It’s simply the story of three guitarists telling their life stories and getting together to jam.

The film progresses chronologically, moving from humble childhoods in economically depressed cities to playing crappy nightclubs in shitty towns to becoming the rock icons of today. Interspersed between these sections are scenes of the three guitarists getting together to talk and play. At times the differences in generation and personality show through in awkward conversations, but once the guitars get passed around, all becomes natural and the mutual enjoyment and respect feels palpable. In fact, part of the film’s charm rests in the vicarious feeling that you are sitting right there with them, shooting the breeze and playing effortlessly—even if, like me, you have no clue how to strum, let alone shred, a guitar.

The feeling of rubbing elbows with the Edge and company testifies to the documentary’s accomplishment of making these legends accessible. How could they not become humanized after the film re-visits early U2 as a really bad 80s bad, pictures of a teenage Jack White working as an upholsterer, and Jimmy Page as a youngster telling an interviewer that he wants to be a bio-researcher? As well as through simple, moving scenes like the ones built around The Edge’s reminiscences in his old school. “If I hadn’t seen the band flyer up here,” he said pointing to a bulletin board on the wall, “I probably would have been a banker or something.” Dialogue like this allows the viewers to draw closer and share in the awe of how lives move in mysterious, unexpected ways, whether that path leads to banker or rock icon.

At times, though, the documentary pushes the viewer away in gratuitous slo-mo long shots of Jack White smoking and Jimmy Page strutting. Shots like those show a manufactured coolness, fun to watch but inauthentic in this documentary. Fortunately, the film never fails quickly to recapture its equilibrium between human characters and rock gods, and the scenes of posturing are soon forgotten amidst the raw, natural talent of these people. Isn’t a guy who plays with enough intensity to bleed all over his guitar cool enough without the slow-mo?

When I said that this documentary was about saving the world, I was only half-kidding. First of all, rock and roll can save the world—common knowledge, no need to explain (see: Black, Jack. School of Rock). Secondly, there seems to be a pressure on documentaries to mean something, be that exposing evil corporations, saving dolphins in Japan, or beginning the war on global warming. All of the documentaries mentioned are important and worth seeing, but sometimes their sense of importance precludes less-serious docs like this one. Thankfully, the creators of It Might Get Loud—in true rock & roll fashion—bunked the establishment in making a documentary about nothing more important, pressing, or world changing than allowing viewers to join three uncommon guitarists in celebrating our common love of music.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/itmightgetloud/

The Last of the Mohicans - Tight, Must See

Podcast for Last of the Mohicans - click this link.

These pictures are too awesome

Coco Before Chanel - Must See (By Carmichael Brock)

Seen at The Tricycle Theatre, August 2009.

Biography is a tricky genre. Telling a story that is not your own requires interpretation and a process of self effacing. A director, writer, and producer have to decisively set out a path that may or may not accurately depict a subject. The best biographical storytelling, in my opinion, centers on enigmas. Those characters that evoke nostalgia from a movement or a nation or an era make for the best stories (i.e. Lawrence of Arabia, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, and many others). In our post-post-enlightenment discourses we are permitted, as a viewer, to deconstruct not just the subject but also the story being told. I personally am most convinced and partial to those authors that have nothing to hide. Sure, every story teller has an agenda; let's accept this fact and forget our intellectual musings and just let a story effect us. 

Anne Fontaine has taken on, in this film, the task of re-telling the narrative of an icon in France and the fashion world as a whole. Inasmuch as Gabriell Bonheur (Coco Chanel) has been depicted in disparate images for many years now, telling her story requires simplicity to be fresh. Fontaine exceeds fresh and resolutely achieves original and it's not because she spent millions or uncovered unknown diaries and love letters of Coco. She focused on an attribute of the character and diligently pursued this from beginning to an end you wish wasn't. She revealed Coco's proclivity, be it because of nature or nurture--you are left wondering, to see the unseen and less apparent. In the scholarship of storytelling we can talk of how focusing on a character's character in a non-linear fashion is one method of biography, blah, blah, blah. I would rather sit back and let a story effect me, I encourage you to do the same while watching this movie. 

It is no secret that actors make or break a movie for me. Benoit Poelvoorde and Audrey Tautou took a first rate script and classic story and turned it into something great. It is rare for me to forget that the actors on screen are actors; every scene that these two were in was an extended non-reminder of such. They absolutely become these people, you don't even have to believe it, they just are (kind of like evolution--it doesn't need you to believe in it to be true). 

As I mentioned, Anne Fontaine sought out an original means by which to tell Coco's story. French cinema had made dozens of films about her. Coco, in her life, sought and worked hard to make herself aloof. She was described as anti-social, stuck-up, corky, distant, and altogether hidden in her drive. Audrey Tautou had been approached numerous times to make a film about Coco. She refused all of them because she didn't believe any of the stories attempting to be told. When she met with Anne Fontaine before filming she made clear that she would not research Coco, she would not watch every film ever made about Coco, she would not read all the biographies about Coco, she would simply call upon the jumbled mess that was her image of the character and interpret it as she saw fit (I wonder if Peter O'Toole did something similar, I don't think he did. I have heard stories that he read Seven Pillars like 20 times). Tautou's and Fontaine's clean slate comes through in the cerebral parts of the film when we are led to imagine and dream along with Coco. 

What I like best is that nothing is decided for you. Themes of humanity are prevalent in every scene; the viewer feels with the characters, however, judgement of how an event or part of Coco's life may or may have not effected her is left ambiguous. The interpretation of successive happenings is never in the foreground but always intangible. Piecing together her life is gapless and therefore it is impossible to extrapolate singular life-changing events. I think this is more a picture of reality than any timeline. I hate timelines. How they did this so well I do not know. 

The reason this is a 'must see' is because not only is this a lesson in biographical storytelling, but it is an aesthetic masterpiece. The physical lens of this movie is as dynamic as Coco. It makes you want to design clothes or at least walk down Jermyn street and buy tons of expensive clothes. The cinematography is simple, yet thorough. Any film crew can record a sunset, but Anne Fontaine shows us the unseen. 

You leave this film inspired. Watching a woman, in a man's world, seek out a life of her own, as an individual, is inspiring. The road to individuality is never clean and pure and we aren't spared the messy parts of being a woman with ambition. We aren't spared the realities of social class discrimination and the suppression of women. However, we are given hope, that our divisive nature doesn't have to be put up with. All this crap can be transcended and art, hard-work, and a dedication to relationships can help us do just that; transcend. 

I highly recommend this movie.

I did not like this movie just because it had subtitles. 

The Fall - Not Tight (By Timothy Johnston)

The Fall

Seen at: Giessen (Germany) 08/09/2009

Even though this movie came out in 2006, it did not run in Germany until 2009. A possible explanation would be that that is how long it took them to translate the brainless and futile dialogues without lessening this film's idiocy in any way. It is one of those films that you should get the money for the ticket back - and then some (for lost time and overall frustration).

The film reportedly made $3 Mio. worldwide. Tarsem Singh, the director has not disclosed the production costs, which leads me to believe that they must have been a lot higher than that - always embarrassing for a director. On the other hand, Singh saved a lot of money on actors by only hiring appaling ones that would probably work for free just to see their names on the movie poster. Talking of the poster, it announced that Singh is an "acclaimed director" and that this movie was filmed in 20 different countries. Well, that may be true (I mean the country-thing), but I am afraid that is not enough to make a decent film.
I imagine that on his worldwide voyages, Singh would take off with his camera, leaving the guided tour behind to film random scenery. When he got back from the 20 countries he visited, he looked at the material and thought: 'Golly! Look at all this crap! This would be enough for five movies - naah, I'll just make one'. And just like he then proceeded to patch bits and pieces together, this movie has turned out a random compilation of little snippets and clips, rudely glued together by a storyline that misses the point.

What does this guy do for a living anyway? When I looked at what this "acclaimed" director has produced so far, all I saw was The Cell (yes, starring J-Lo) in 2000 and the music video to Losing my Religion in 1991. You cannot possibly scrape by for that long by making two crappy movies and one, admittedly, respectable music video. I therefore suspect that making movies is not Singh's primary line of work, which would account for some of the incoherence of The Fall.

I am sorry I cannot give an account of the plot, but I simply did not understand it at all. There is one scene in particular that perhaps summarizes the movie most accurately. The protagonist is sitting with a broken leg in his hospital bed (we don't know how he broke his leg in the first place - he has been in bed the length of the film). A little girl is sitting next to him and listening to his cock-and-bull stories. However, every time the hero (some hero, since he has yet to leave bed) says a sentence, the girl, quite annoyingly, goes: "what?" and he has to repeat the entire phrase. This goes on for some time. It seems as if the screenwriter (who is also Singh - big surprise, huh?) ran out of ideas and thus stretched the film to two hours (that seem like five) with this technique. When this rubbish movie finally ends, that is pretty much the only clear thought left in the viewer's head - WHAT?

30 for 30 - Looks like some must see's

http://30for30.espn.com/

http://30for30.espn.com/bill-simmon-essay.html

I am jacked about this. First one shows tonight at 8:00 ET on ESPN. Reviews to come.

Bright Star - Worth Seeing (By James A. King)

“A Thing of Beauty is a joy for ever:  Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness.” 

Bright Star is first and foremost beautiful. Cinematic beauty shines through every frame: beauty in the perfect light on the heath, in the first flirtations between Fanny and Keats, and even in the signature tartan onesie of Keats’s gregarious, awesome-in-every-scene, friend Brown.  Following Keats’s lead, director Jane Campion has created a space for viewers to lose themselves in the sensuousness of words and images.  Though the doomed love story between the dying poet and his levelheaded love is presented realistically, Bright Star subtly filters that reality through the poet’s own heightened sense of beauty in the everyday. Notice how bright the colors, perfect the speech, and crisp the costumes remain up until the later, Keats-less scenes in the movie, where the color dims and objects become viewed through windows and mirrors rather than through touch and sense.   

 A lesser movie about a Romantic poet’s love affair would not have been able to tow the line between the real and aesthetic—either becoming too poetic and artsy to stomach or too dusty and “period drama” to say anything about a poet obsessed with beauty. If the acting had not been so good or so focused on maintaining the human drama, the movie might have been lost in the lushness and poetic abstractions; but as it is, genuine emotion about real world concerns (income, sickness, etc.) complements the film’s exuberant visuals to create a movie both grounded and ethereal.  It could be said, that Bright Star’s content follows its characters by fusing Fanny’s level-headedness (she liked house parties and made money) with Keats’s dreaminess (liked lying in tree-tops and owed money).  For instance, there are un-idealized scenes of Keats’s dingy penury in London and then there are scenes like when Fanny walks through a field of blue flowers clutching a love letter from Keats, and the letter’s words melodically play in voice over and the flowers become just a bit glowy in their blueness and the camera a bit tipsy in following Fanny into the flowers. Scenes like this speak more to how Keats might have imagined her reading the letter, implying that treasured memories and imagined images of things hoped for are always infinitely re-playable and in more glossy high def than the actual occurrence.  This scene in particular embodies Keats’s idea of a “thing of beauty,” a beauty existing in the imagination and therefore invulnerable to decay or death—a sustaining artistic and personal belief for a man that knew his own life would pass before the age of 26.  

So if this movie is so deep and pretty, why am I giving it a Worth Seeing and not a Freaking Revolutionary?  I’m going to evade this question with a Wikipedia definition of Keats’s “negative capability:” “when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” So the only way that I can answer this question without becoming irritable is to say that I’m uncertain where this movie’s value lies—and think that is the point.  It doesn’t do anything revolutionary in moviemaking, and I doubt whether it will change a single life, but rather Bright Star simply gives viewers an opportunity to experience and meditate on beauty—isn’t that enough?  If you think so, be sure to stay for the credits. 

Trailer

Capitalism: A Love Story - Must See

Coming soon. Review by Lauren Jones (no hyphen) Mayfield.

Moon - (By Timothy Johnston - http://timothyawjohnston.blogspot.com/ )

Moon

Seen at: Odeon Panton, London 03/10/2009

To be fair, I was prone to like this movie from the start:
An unknown director, a (fairly) fameless lead actor, a soundtrack composed by Clint Mansell and, finally, a budget, which at $5 Mio. is low for a Hollywood movie.
In a nutshell: Sometime in the future (it is never mentioned when exactly) we earthlings have finally figured out how to provide ourselves with sustainable energy: by harvesting helium-3 from lunar soil and sending it back to earth.
Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) works on the only refinery up there all by himself on a three-year contract. His only companion is a robot called GERTY (voice of Kevin Spacey), essentially a metal box with a display of a smiley face on it. He has two weeks left, when he starts seeing things and the plot pans out...

First off, Sam Rockwell is absolutely phenomenal.
And he must be, since this film is 100 minutes long and he is the only actor, apart from a few people in transmitted video messages. I do not want to give anything away, but it won't do any harm to disclose that at some point in the movie he plays a very dominant character, then a submissive one and finally something in between. Sam Rockwell is the pillar of this movie and I believe that he will be associated with this role in much the same way as we think of Lester Burnham from American Beauty as soon as we hear GERTY the robot talk. Speaking of which, Spacey does alright as far as you can judge a speaking role - but perhaps a less prominent voice would have been more effective. Hearing the robot talking, I was constantly waiting for Spacey to suddenly turn up and walk onto the scene. Although I understand that the name Spacey looks good on a movie poster, this is the one thing I hold against Moon.

Does the film have a deeper meaning? That depends on whether you allow it to. The theme of moral boundaries to the use of technology is definitely discernible, but never in a pretentious way. Also, the concept of a robot behaving in a human (thus fallible) fashion and humans assuming the roles of machines is developed. Again, no fingers are pointed, but it is there for you to find if you want to find it. By giving GERTY such a simple design (the scope of his moods reaches from ;( to :) the director makes fun of the way in which people - for lack of eloquence - overuse smileys in modern communcation tools, but again, in a non-condescending way.

If I didn't know better, I could swear that Moonwas directed by Darren Aronofsky: it has the suspected conspiracy and paranoia of Pi, the loner spirit ofThe Wrestler,mixed with the hallucinations of Requiem for a Dreamand, finally, the artful cinematography of The Fountain. And obviously, when the film opens to the atmospheric tunes of Clint Mansell, associations with Aronofsky's work are inevidable.

If you enjoyed the films mentioned above and don't mind toggling your brain to Sci Fi for a good one and a half hours, you will love this film as much as I did. It is the type of mind-boggling film where you could be turning to the person next to you asking: "Does any of this make sense?"

But you don't.

Inglourious Basterds - Intense, Must See, Fun

Tarantino movies are easy to hate. It can be really annoying to hear people talk about how much they love Tarantino movies (think of the dude in the scene of Annie Hall when they are at the theatre waiting in line and he is giving all his NYTimes-esque thoughts on film). I think this is why people hate his films - he makes it really easy for lots of people to think his movies are cool. Lots of people talk about how awesome Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are. For the most part this crowd is too cool for Rom-Coms but also too cool for indie film festivals. They kind of meddle in this gray area of their Netflix recommendations that are given to them based on their giving five stars to Cool Hand Luke, Shawshank Redemption ("dude, I know it's cliche but it's like one of the best movies ever" - a common phrase amongst this group), Tombstone and Garden State. So, Tarantino and Rodriguez are really good at making these movies that have true characters playing characters, cool kind-of retro, loud soundtracks (Rodriguez does most of his own, as in writes and performs it), and super catchy dialogue but not like Coen Brothers dialogue; it's more just about being as freaking 'cool' as possible. THUS, when dudes talk about how awesome Tarantino and Rodriguez are, it can kind of come off as them being played the fool, cause T. and R. were gunning for them and they got em' (they would not love this review because they would think it misses the point of all that is T.). It's easier to think that T. and R. are over-done and then you don't have to admit to yourself that you aren't as unique of a movie lover as you once thought. Admitting to like T. movies is similar to admitting you watch The Hills, both are sensational but you still watch it. 

With all of that said. I really liked this movie. Christopher Waltz is going to dominate some awards shows. He deserves it too, I mean he made this movie. I think it might be one of the most complex characters that has ever been written into a T. movie, which is kind of saying a lot. But Waltz just killed it. It was really refreshing too that he spoke German as a German, and French as a German, Italian as a German, and English as a German. This is admirable, not just because speaking a bunch of languages is difficult, but movies like The Reader are almost unwatchable to me cause of the stupid crap they do with accents. Subtitles are a great thing and directors/producers should make use of them. 

Melanie Laurent was also really good in this. She reminded me of a cooler version of her character in Indigenes - which is a bad ass movie btdub. 

The best part of the movie and the reason it is a must see, intense, and fun movie, is the basement pub scene. It lasts for freaking ever but, and even if you aren't a Tarantino fan, only Tarantino is able to pull of scenes like it. To involve so many actors, so many personalities, so many story lines, and so many possible outcomes followed by the one outcome you didn't think of, is super cool. My only critique of this scene is I would have done without the one sentence that was used to explain how the German officer figured out they were fakes. The spy, phony guy orders three drinks and uses the british hand gesture for '3' as opposed to the German version of '3'. I think most people could have picked up on it, especially lovers of Tarantino movies that pride themselves on being so cultured and being one's that always "get it." 

I really liked this movie. I missed Uma but I'm sure she'll be back. I'm jacked about Christopher Waltz; that dude is going to be in tons of huge movies now. The Weinstein brothers are decent at letting writers and directors do what they want to do. There are probably several thousand WWII movies but this might be the most fun one. T. considers it his life's work. He apparently worked on the script for 10,00o hours, ha. 

Trailer

Ferngully - Freaking Revolutionary

Review/Commentary coming soon by Luke McKay.