The Office: Finale

I don't think I can be a good judge of the finale. I love the show too much to have objective criticism. As we headed toward the final minutes, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness/happiness. They did it right, but I had that horrible feeling of, "Oh no, only 8 minutes left."

I think they got everything in. Everyone got their moment, and I can't think of someone significant who was left out. Maybe Jan, Karen, and Gabe? That's ok. Although the stripper from Bob Vance's bachelor party got a reappearance. "Dwight for the last time, she's not a waitress!" I really enjoyed that it was actually a reunion for the characters so they were allowed to be nostalgic and sentimental just like us. It also allowed us to see where they were a year after the documentary aired. If you think about it, Andy's storyline conclusion is very smart and must've been planned a while ago. Is it me or was that auto-tune really good? Stanley retired, Kevin got fired, and I feel good that Oscar is running for the state senate against Angela's ex. And I love that Toby is no better. Why is he crying at the wedding? "It's everything!" Maybe the grossest thing ever on the show though was Meredith's son stripping at Angela's bachelorette party. That's the same kid actor who was in Take Your Daughter to Work Day in Season 2. Unbelievably gross.

Speaking of the wedding, I was disappointed at first that like a lot of TV shows, it was ending with a wedding. However, it's Dwight's wedding so it can be ridiculous. Mose can kidnap Angela and when they let her out of the trunk she drops the F bomb again like she did in the previous episode A.A.R.M. Why is her swearing so funny to me? It was a wedding for Office fans. You had to remember Dwight talking about the Schrute tradition of getting married in their graves. And I loved all of his favorite metal songs. The string quartet version of Sweet Child o' Mine! Of course it also gave a chance for Steve Carell to make a brief cameo in the finale. It was just right. He wouldn't have to be too big a part of the episode, but just enough so that we could find out that he and Holly have children now. Then he could deliver the episode's best line: "I feel like all my kids grew up and then they married each other. It's every parent's dream."

It was a warm sendoff. Dwight and Kevin reconciling at the bar, Jim's guten prankens, and another moment where you had to be a fan to understand. Erin was an orphan and it's usually a jokey thing like when she said she had lice so many times. When she reunited with her real parents it was so emotional. Joan Cusack and Ed Begley Jr, they're perfect parents for Erin! And there was Steve Carell's wife returning as Carol the realtor selling Jim and Pam's house so Pam could do the final big romantic gesture of the series. I felt like they would leave Scranton, but it was handled so sweetly with the Q and A raising the questions to Pam and then her surprise getting spoiled a little early. That is very right as well. Again, you know that when Pam tries to do these things they don't go well. Like when she bought Jim courtside basketball seats but it was for an away game. We did get that last moment of Pam at reception and Jim looking at her from his desk. They had to give us that one. Thank you!

The last section with everyone hanging around in the office made me tear up. Fugitive Creed sings, "All the Faces" and we see those ancient clips. Look how young Jim was! I didn't get as broken up as Kevin though, who thought he was gay for a moment. "I'm so emotional!" Erin's question in her final talking head made me laugh hard. "Also, how do cameras work?" Phyllis, I remember Flonkerton. I remember most everything. Man, I am really sad. I love The Office.


Notes:
- The director Ken Kwapis directed the Pilot
- Creed Bratton is apparently playing himself. He was in a band in the 60s called The Grass Roots. That's his own song he's singing
- I think Stanley retired to the same town Ben Affleck did in The Town
- Nellie has wanted to adopt a baby since the beginning of Season 9. Not sure why she's in Poland
- Can someone explain the dove joke?
- Oscar's "Wazzup!" is a callback to the Pilot, which was a reference to an episode of the British Office 
- If you possibly don't know, Paul Lieberstein (Toby), Mindy Kaling (Kelly), and BJ Novak (Ryan) were all major writers on the show. Paul Lieberstein ran the show during seasons 7 and 8. That's why they're seated in the annex so they don't have to be in all of the scenes
- Actor Andy Buckley who played David Wallace actually quit acting years ago and is now still working as an investment banker. The casting director ran into him and asked him if he wanted to do this small part on the show. Suck it!
- Jim's last talking head when he describes what he does at his job is almost verbatim as his first talking head describing his job in the Pilot
- I want to remind everyone how big deal it was that the show had no laugh track. Back in 2005, this was a new and controversial idea for a network comedy. A lot of people felt weird about no laugh track. Can you believe that now? Things have changed. I myself can't watch new shows with a laugh track


Cameos:
- The people asking questions during the Q and A were mostly show writers. Allison Silverman told Jim he could do anything. Anything
- The Asian woman talking about Harry Potter is Jennie Tan the creator of the best Office fan site OfficeTally.com
- The casting director Allison Jones denied Phyllis the mug. I hope to work with her. She casted Freaks and Geeks and all of Judd Apatow's movies
- Writer/director Jen Celotta (Conflict Resolution, Beach Games) was sitting with the Schrute clan at Kevin's bar
- The creator Greg Daniels was standing next to Pam in the group photo in the warehouse
- His wife was the moderator at the Q and A. And she is the older sister of Paul Lieberstein (Toby)
- Mose has always been played by writer Mike Schur who is now the showrunner on Parks and Recreation

The full episode is on Hulu http://www.hulu.com/watch/491195

Watch the last 5 minutes again. 

Star Trek: Into Darkness

1 ½ stars How did they get so much wrong? As much as they got right with the first one, they got as much wrong with this sequel. The first had beautiful design, characters, visuals, wit, and fun. It's only failing was a rather weak villain. Now the second one has only one great positive, that is Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain, but all of the rest has gone bad.

It's a little past the events of the first film and this movie begins on a random planet and a random mission that has no connection to the rest of the story. There is talk of the Prime Directive and Kirk obeying orders, but it's all for naught. Then we get back to Earth and there is a terrorist attack on a Starfleet building in London. I wonder, did anyone watch Skyfall and think, hey they did the same thing? The man responsible is John Harrison who has taken refuge on the Klingon planet of Kronos, and defying regulations, Starfleet allows Kirk and the Enterprise to go to Kronos to kill Harrison.

If this doesn't sound like an interesting start to a story, it isn't. This idea of revenge is getting very tired in movies. Everyone wants revenge these days. Django, James Bond, Tony Stark. Kirk wants revenge for the terrorist attack and it's not compelling. I think partially because at this point Kirk is so young and it's so clearly a bad idea. I wasn't with him, I was with the people telling him not to go. Harrison doesn't reappear until an hour in. Before then we get a lot of underwhelming CGI action. The first movie had that spectacular opening battle and the space jump into the Vulcan atmosphere. In this sequel there are a lot of yawn gun fights and very little space battles. None of the action sequences are memorable, and in a big summer movie that is a sin.

As I mentioned, there are a large amount of bad choices. The characters seem so much less interesting this time around. We don't get to know any of them more. Seriously, do we go deeper into any of them? Maybe Spock (not a good way), but Sulu, Bones, Uhura, Scotty, Chekhov? They have nothing to do. Even the lovely Alice Eve as a new crew member has no personality. Star Trek should have strong character material and this is where the movie fails miserably. The second issue is with the visuals. The first movie was a stunner, a gorgeous film. This one looks so conventional. The camera work, the lighting, it's just not as exciting to look at. Even the costumes are terrible. Who chose the Nazi SS formal costumes for Starfleet? Who chose those ridiculous Tron helmets when Kirk goes into space? Who designed the ugly ass starships? Why is the movie so uncool? Even the score by Michael Giacchino is a letdown. I'm really trying to think of something visual I was genuinely impressed by. Maybe an underwater reveal early on. It's four years later, why does the movie look worse and cheaper?

There is one thing I am happy about and that is Benedict Cumberbatch. He is in that great, long line of powerful British actors. Goodness is he strong, and his intelligence off the charts. He's almost too good in the movie since anyone else in scenes with him seem so small. He has command, restraint, and tons of screen presence. Not to mention his voice is hypnotic. If you haven't seen it, check out the BBC TV series Sherlock where he plays Holmes. The one big positive of the movie is that American audiences will now know who he is. 

**Now I have to talk about some spoilers. Do not read the next section if you haven't watched the movie.

SPOILER SECTION
What did you think of this movie's connection to Star Trek II? I personally really did not like it. That movie is thought to be the best of all of the Star Trek movies and the way they reference it is too much. I don't want Khan in this timeline. I don't want someone to go into a highly radiated area as a climactic character choice. I don't want someone screaming out, "Khan!" And we absolutely know Kirk is not going to die. It was just a bad choice altogether. Make Benedict Cumberbatch a superhuman, but give him a different name. The greatness of Star Trek II was that Khan referenced the old series and he had a history with Kirk. None of that exists here and if he shows up again in another sequel, that will be better. If you don't know the older movie, do you even care who Khan is? And if you do know it, I think you're going to be mad. It doesn't sit right.

Other problems include the villain once again allowing himself to be captured (The Avengers, Skyfall), and the idea of starting a war to maintain a nation's/planet's strength has been done to death. 
END SPOILER SECTION


I was looking forward to a great series. The second one is supposed to be better like The Bourne Supremacy, Spider-Man 2, or The Dark Knight. This sequel is so bad it sours me to future movies. It's not like they changed the people who made the film. Same director, same writers, same cinematographer, same costume designer, same composer, same cast. How did it go so wrong? I don't care about the story, I don't care about the characters, and there are no interesting themes or ideas which is essential to Star Trek. It's not even fun! It's also not emotionally moving, even though way too many people cry in the movie. Seriously, almost all of the main crew sheds tears at some point. If I had to single out the main culprit, it would be the script. The first movie was made during the writer's strike and they couldn't do any rewrites. Now with complete freedom they created something awful. Particularly the dialogue which is so blah. Did they use up all of their good ideas four years ago? What a huge disappointment.

Review of Star Trek (2009): http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/05/star-trek_08.html


Watch Benedict Cumberbatch steal the scene.

Weekly Recap 5/17/13

Watched this Week
The Good: Jackass: The Movie, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Reversal of Fortune, lots of The Office
The Bad: Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, The Great Gatsby (1974)
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: The Efficiency Expert
Blu-rays Bought: The Killer

Trips to the Theater: 0 for 3. The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness

Actors of the Week: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Debicki, the cast of The Office
Director of the Week: The directors of The Office






Trailers/Clips of the Week:
The Office Farewells. From Brian Baumgartner, Oscar Nunez, Angela Martin, Catherine Tate, Phyllis Smith, Kate Flannery

The Office: My Favorite TV Show of All Time

My favorite TV show is The Office. It's not my favorite show of just this year or these past few years, it is my favorite TV show of all time. To the end of time! Like anything you love, you can't really describe why you love it so much, but here are 5 reasons.

1. An Overwhelming Amount of Great Characters. Each episode is only about 20 minutes long, but look at how many characters are on the show. Steve Carell was the star, but I think this is one of the biggest casts a half hour comedy has ever had. And all of them are are are so memorable. Forget about the first tier with Jim, Pam, and Dwight. What about Kevin, Phyllis, Stanley, Oscar, Darryl, Jan, Creed, David Wallace, the list is seemingly endless. Strangely enough, I think one of the most special characters is Toby. I love this sad HR guy who they always kept sad. He never found new love, he never made up with Michael, he's just so hilariously lonely while he writes his personal detective novels. Another personal favorite is Erin. Ellie Kemper came during Season 5, and she was and is such a bright presence. Even the best comedies today are so much about people we wouldn't want to spend time with (like the Bluth family), but Erin was so wonderfully hopeful and positive. 


1a. Female Characters. This is a show packed with great female characters. This is something I always criticize writers about, since most writers are men and they don't seem to care much about the women. The Office was the opposite of that, and I'm not just talking about how great and real a character Pam is or how insightful they are about Angela. Think about Phyllis. What other show has a woman like Phyllis? Her lines are so hilarious and like little things are so good like her relationship with Bob Vance and their disgustingly active sex life. Remember when she recommended role playing to Michael. Gross! A friend of mine always think of her karaoke singing White Snake's "Here I go Again" during that BBQ at Jim's place. Even Nellie became a fun presence in the office as a friend to Pam. And I loved Michael's nerdy soul mate Holly (Amy Ryan). What a perfect person for him to end up with. 


2. Jim and Pam. The show always had great relationship stuff. Jim and Pam of course was the big one. The Casino Night episode where he admits that he loves her is still special, but then she rejects him and spends the rest of season 3 regretting it. It was so good. I was embarrassingly invested that I remember gasping when the cameras found her crying alone in the warehouse after she realizes Jim and Karen (Rashida Jones) were getting closer. Their wedding episode in Niagara Falls is one of the best episodes of the series and I usually hate wedding episodes on any TV show. Once they were together, they were together, when most shows would've broken them up several times. Tell me you didn't smile big when Pam watched that montage the documentary crew put together. Speaking of that...


3. The Documentary Format. Some people don't necessarily realize that the show is filmed as a documentary. That's fine, you can still enjoy it, but I love that the technique is used in such specific ways. Spycam shots, audio only moments, it gave the show such an immediacy. I can't watch laugh track sitcoms anymore since they are so blandly shot. And the signature talking head interviews, I love them. My all time favorite is still Pam's during Women's Appreciation after some guy flashes Phyllis in the parking lot.

4. Totally Silly Fun Episodes. The emphasis being on fun. Episodes especially early on were a lot about awkwardness, but they grew more to be purely enjoyable and fun like the Office Olympics or when Darryl, Andy, and Dwight go to a roller rink in the middle of the day. Also Murder when they play a murder mystery game in Southern accents. My favorite of this group is Cafe Disco when Michael turns one of the rooms into a place to have coffee and dance and Andy battles Kelly.

5. It was very familiar. Dave Koechner who played Todd Packer put it best when he said that the reason people like the show was that it was familiar to them. I think that's exactly it. I've never worked in an office like Dunder Mifflin, but I know those people and have been in those situations. I get it. Scranton may be on the East Coast, but I understand that city more than the New York of Seinfeld or Friends. None of the characters were wealthy, no one had big homes or fancy cars. They ate at Chili's, they shopped at the Steamtown mall, and free bagels in the office was a big deal. I love the everyday modest quality to the show. This is a small thing, but unlike so many TV shows, characters on The Office re-wear their clothes. Like the rest of us, they have a closet and do not buy new outfits every week. Pam has her favorite lime green cardigan. There was another tiny moment when Jim said he was going to the outlet malls during the weekend and I thought that is absolutely on the money. He wouldn't go to a club, he wouldn't even go to a bar, Jim would go to an outlet mall and probably buy nothing. And there are always throwaway bits like Oscar doing Bikram yoga, or Gabe watching Korean dramas, or Kevin having a band. Everyone has a co-worker who's in a band! The show was great about not making their lives exciting but instead making them so incredibly relatable. 

Let's not forget that the show was consistently funny. I laughed out loud every week. Even the not so great episodes have big laughs. There are other reasons too. It was warm and emotional without characters learning "lessons" at the end of every episode. Angela is a hateful character, but when she broke down in tears admitting she loved Dwight, I actually felt for her. There were so many 90s references and music, lots of great singing and dancing moments (something that is often so unbearable on TV), and this fantastic final season. I'm very sad it's ending, but I still have over 200 episodes to re-watch every year. And I really do that. Thank you creator Greg Daniels for adapting the original 12 episode British series into what I think is a masterpiece. The Office is my favorite TV show.


Best Season: Season 2. Office Olympics, Casino Night, The Dundies

Worst Season: Season 8, the first without Steve Carell. The trip to Tallahassee was terrible. Though I really like the Lotto episode when the warehouse staff quits after winning the Lottery

Favorite Episodes: Women's Appreciation, Niagara, Money, The Return, Cafe Disco, Dwight K. Schrute (Acting Manager), A.A.R.M.

Most Painful Episode: Christening. Jim and Pam get their son baptized and Michael and Andy temporarily decide to go on missions. So painful. I only watched it the one time. Also the first half of Phyllis's wedding.  (CORRECTION: A friend reminded me that Jim and Pam's daughter gets baptized not their son)

Best Very Minor Character: Nate. He started out working for Dwight when he bought the building and eventually ended up in the warehouse. He has a little run about gum being too minty these days that really makes me laugh. Also Mose

Worst Very Minor Character: Cathy. Tried to get Jim to sleep with her in Tallahasee, overall she had no purpose

Best Movie Star Appearance: Amy Adams as Jim's girlfriend Katie. She was on before she really got famous, but she was still Pam 6.0

Worst Movie Star Appearance: Jack Black and Jessica Alba in the fake bootleg movie Jim, Pam, and Andy watch 

Best Movie Director: JJ Abrams who directed Cocktails. "And now, Michael the Magic will attempt to escape from extreme bondage."

Best Jim Prank: Asian Jim! Also when he gets Dwight hooked on Altoids whenever Jim restarts his computer



Best Song: Kevin, Darryl, and Andy (Kevin and the Zits!) singing Peter Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way". Also Dwight and Andy singing Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" in Secret Santa

Best Creepy Creed Moment: Creed admitting he takes number twos in the women's bathroom

Best Trivia: John Krasinski (Jim) shot the real footage of Scranton in the opening credits, three actors were from St. Louis (Jenna Fischer, Phyllis Smith, Ellie Kemper), John Krasinski and BJ Novak went to the same high school, Stephen Merchant who co-created the original British series directed Customer Survey when Jim pretends to be Bill Buttlicker. "Buttlicker, our prices have never been lower!"

Favorite Storyline: I really loved when Michael quit Dunder Mifflin and started The Michael Scott Paper Company with Ryan and Pam. Their delivery van was from Hallelujah Church of Scranton! In Korean!

Fan Favorite Storyline: I still hear references to this. Michael burning his foot in a George Foreman Grill

Favorite Quote: "Then why are there two flyers?"

The Office: Random Pics

Jackass: The Movie Opening Titles

I'm not sure if the Jackass movies are actually movies. They are a series of unrelated stunt clips, but who's to say that's not cinema. This opening title sequence from the first one is a favorite of mine. It was the perfect way to introduce themselves coming from TV to the big screen.

The Office: Oscar's Southern Accent

I think I've watched this 100 times. What is that accent!

Iron Man 3

2 stars I admit I haven't been the biggest fan of the Iron Man series. Robert Downey Jr. is great and the character is great, but I feel like the movies have only been good. And if this is the last one (other than appearances in The Avengers), this is a sad farewell. Some "3" movies are good (The Bourne Ultimatum). Some are great (The Dark Knight Rises), some are horrendous (Spider-Man 3), and some are just mediocre and bad (X-Men: The Last Stand). Iron Man 3 is mediocre and bad.

The movie takes place after The Avengers and Tony Stark is apparently having psychological issues with what happened in New York. He's not sleeping, and when he does he has nightmares. This is his big character issue in this third film and it is lame. The first movie was about a selfish billionaire playboy learning to become a hero. The second movie was about him reconciling the past, and the third one is about overcoming panic attacks? Who thought that was a good idea? I was hoping for something big, something significant with where Tony was going. "3" moviesare allowed be dramatic and all bets are off. This one is wimpy and uninspired.

The villain is played by the tremendous actor Guy Pearce, but his character is a large step down from the heavy Mickey Rourke played. He plays Aldrich Killian who has some bio technology that can restore a damaged body such as regrowing limbs. Isn't this the exact same idea from the Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man? But instead of becoming a reptile, you become a fire person, glowing orange from the inside. At one point Guy Pearce actually breathes fire like a dragon and I sat there very confused. I don't think there will be a more ridiculous moment in a movie this year. These terminator bad guys go after Tony Stark and they seemingly can't be killed since they resurrect with fire and it's all so silly. And honestly, what is the plot. Do you know? I think it has to do with the Vice President taking over the President, but what's at stake? What if Tony fails, what really bad is going to happen? I don't have any idea. Things are blowing up at the end, and I guess the bad guy really wants his company to succeed. 

Don Cheadle is one of my favorite actors, but he has what amounts to an extended cameo. Like Ocean's Thirteen (another "3" movie) a minor supporting character is in a coma so that the lead character can have some reason to fight. This time Happy played by Jon Favreau (who stepped down as director) is in in the hospital and of course Tony's gonna get revenge. Pepper POtts (Gwyneth Paltrow) has a lot more action to do and she's a lot of fun when she's in that suit, but there could've been something more compelling in terms of her relationship with Tony. Her and Downey have such strong chemistry together. Give them better things to act. And poor Rebecca Hall is wasted in a nothing role. The first two movies have a lot of good dialogue and fun moments between the characters. This one has nearly nothing. It's so forgettable. And I don't know who thought sending Iron Man to a small town in Tennessee was a good idea. He spends a long stretch of the movie in this one road town. The second movie had that huge fight during a Formula 1 race in Monaco. Here Iron Man is fighting bad guys in the kitchen of a restaurant and then later in the back of a store. Wow, that's impressive. 

Director Shane Black is a fantastic writer whose dialogue I usually envy (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). He is not great with action though, and save for a scene where people are sucked out of a plane and hanging in mid air, the action does not satisfy. The movie feels surprisingly small despite the $200 million budget. If I liked the series more and cared about it, I would be pissed. Given my lack of investment, I'm only mildly annoyed. 

Lastly, where is AC/DC? Where are they? At some point, Iron Man should fight or fly with AC/DC pumping in the speakers. I kept waiting for at least one song to be played, but nothing. Boo!

Iron Man
Iron Man 2

The Office: Darryl's Goodbye Dance

The SERIES FINALE of my favorite show is this Thursday and this week will hopefully have more posts about The Office. If you didn't see the last episode, the crew at Dunder Mifflin Scranton made Darryl do a last dance with them before he left for his new job.

The Great Gatsby

2 ½ stars I've never read the novel by F.Scott Fitzgerald, but I had a vague knowledge that it had to do with class. Class not in the adjective sense, but in the idea of levels of society, something that is not that important today in contemporary America. Baz Luhrmann has made his own version of the book, a $127 million Summer event and all of that money is on the screen. I don't think I will see a bigger looking movie all year. 

Jay Gatsby is played by Leonardo Dicaprio, and he is the man everyone knows and everyone doesn't know in New York City in 1922. He throws huge parties, he seems incalculably wealthy, and there are wild legends and stories about his past. Next door to his personal castle is Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) who is a writer, but like myself he mostly works in an office. He's a bond trader and is invited to one of Gatsby's parties. He's actually the only one formally invited, but the rest of New York decides to come too.

I don't think the word "wow" many times when I watch movies anymore, particularly since I've watched so many. But really, wow. Catherine Martin (who is also Baz Luhrmann's wife) outdoes herself as both Production Designer and Costume Designer as she creates a gigantic, eye popping spectacle. The movie is wonderfully not true to history and like Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann wants to capture the feeling and not necessarily the reality. He wants to translate Nick Carraway's first experience meeting Gatsby to a modern audience. What would it be like if we were there? So there are the appropriate flapper dresses and people doing the Charleston, but they're doing it to Jay-Z while hundreds of bottles of champagne are being emptied into all of the guests. This first third of movie is the best part, and even someone like me who would not want to actually be at this party, I loved watching it.

Gatsby's real reason for all of this is to reunite with Nick's cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). She lives across the bay in a mansion of old money. She's married to an ex-polo star named Tom, a brutish Alpha who always has had money as well as a mistress named Myrtle (Isla Fisher). This is where I begin to have problems with the movie. There is romance in the film, and it's being sold as such, but it's not romance I care about. I don't care about Gatsby and Daisy being together, and I think the reason is very simple and Leonardo Dicaprio has the answer. Titanic was about a trapped rich girl who finds love with a poor, penniless guy, yet he offers her adventure and excitement. Daisy is a trapped rich girl, but it's an even richer guy who wants to be with her. He can afford a custom yellow sports car and flaunts his money like a rapper who got his first hit single. It is "all for her", but I found nothing to root for. I'm a regular guy. I don't want the rich guy to get the girl. 

The second most important problem I have with the movie is Gatsby himself. As I look at him, he seems so empty to me. I think Baz Luhrmann wants to convince us that some of him is a dreamer and so hopeful about life and the possibilities of what a man can become. I see Gatsby as a sad, insecure man who is desperately trying to hide under the mask of money. It's also presented to us a little too obvious and a little too early. He has an air of mystery at first, but during his first real conversation with Nick, he starts spouting his grand history and his accomplishments and all of the important people he knows. If he's trying to impress, I would think he would be better at it. At least subtler at it. Overall I think the movie is filled with shallow, sad people. They love their money and their clothes and I found myself detaching from these characters the more time I spent with them. Gatsby is like a lot of men with mystery. The mystery turns out to be underwhelming. He's vapor, a mist, an illusion.

This would seem like strong material for tragedy, and the specific tragedy of trying to be something your not, but the movie doesn't want to be that. It pulls its punches about how hollow these people really are. Ironically, Dicaprio played a somewhat similar character in Django Unchained, but in that movie he was the villain. And Daisy herself is the wallflower of wallflowers and I found her completely uninteresting. She's a pretty porcelain doll and sadly as frail and lifeless. I admire Carey Mulligan quite a bit, but I do wonder why she has to cry so much in every movie I've seen her in. One strong positive standout is Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki, who I think captures the right tone of who these people really are. I'm looking forward to seeing her do more. Tobey's pretty good too as the narrator of the film. It's his first time working with his real life best friend Leonardo Dicaprio since This Boy's Life in 1993.

Moulin Rouge is one of my all time favorite movies. I am still stunned by its creativity and boldness. And also simply by how much it moves me. I've liked all of Baz Luhrmann's other films (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Australia), and it's a shame that this is the first one I don't. There are incredible things to look at and listen to (the soundtrack is killer), but in the end we go to movies to feel and I didn't feel much of anything. The "Great" in title I believe is supposed to be ironic. I don't know if the movie knows that.

Weekly Recap 5/10/13

Watched this Week
The Good: ESPN 30 for 30: Survive and Advance, Head Games, Side Effects, Out of Sight, One Hour Photo 
The Anthony Hopkins: 360, Legends of the Fall, Bad Company
The Bad: None
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: None
Blu-rays Bought: Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Robin Williams
Director of the Week: Jonathan Hock (also directed Unguarded and The Best that Never Was)



Trailers/Clips of the Week:
Survive and Advance

Captain Phillips Trailer

From director Paul Greengrass.

Panic Room

3 ½ stars Panic Room is not Fincher's best film, but it may be his best film as a craftsman. I'm talking about Fincher as the pure technical filmmaker. Set almost entirely in one location, Panic Room demands a director who doesn't have one or two clever ideas, but someone who is going to be inventive in every scene and sequence.

Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) has been recently divorced from her husband, and she and her daughter move into a townhouse which is a mansion by New York standards. It has four floors, and the master bedroom has a panic room. Presumably, burglars enter the house, and you can lock yourself in there and call the police.

Three men do enter the house and what they want is in that room. That is the basic setup of a fairly simple story if you think about it. Much of the movie is about them trying to get in, either by force or coercion. The three guys are played by Jared Leto, Dwight Yoakam, and Forest Whitaker and screenwriter David Koepp has created three very memorable characters. Leto plays Junior, a rich boy who wants to be a tough guy. He is often hilarious in the film, not intentionally of course. His Latrell Sprewell cornrows always make me laugh. Forest Whitaker is Burnham, the man who built that panic room and has the expertise to get into it. He's so innately human. There's such an intelligent reasonableness to him. Dwight Yoakam is Raoul. Of course his name really isn't Raoul and he's the scary X factor. Yoakam was the big surprise. Mostly known as a country singer, no one expected him to be so scary in this movie. I like this trio so much that I actually root for them to get in. 

The real star is Fincher. Look at all he is doing. Shots in key holes and through floor boards are impressive, but I'm talking about the basics of camera angles and editing. The construction of the film is masterful and it's one of those movies I watch with the sound off to really appreciate and learn from his technique. I don't think anyone could've shot this film better. Slow mo is used at exactly the right moments, he uses things like ant hill shots from the side, and if you watch the movie again, you will be amazed at how little light there is. The movie takes place in the middle of the night and it is dark. The movie took over a year to shoot, but not just because of Jodie Foster's pregnancy, but because Fincher is so rigorous. Of course something simple like a bag of nails being dumped on a counter would be 30 takes. You may think it's excessive, but that sort of demand for excellence to me is why the movie is so good. This is why we love Fincher. He makes his films so they will last for a long time and I think Panic Room is a great example. This movie wasn't hobbled together at Ikea. Someone thought about it for a long time and took even longer to make it just right.

Nicole Kidman was originally cast in the lead, but she blew her knee out in the first weeks of shooting. Hayden Panettiere from Heroes was actually cast as the daughter, but was let go and replaced by an extremely young Kristen Stewart. It's interesting to think what that version of the movie would've been. 




The beautiful opening titles.

Weekly Recap 5/3/13

Watched this Week
The Good: Hearts in Atlantis x4, Jack Reacher, Great Expectations (2012), The Remains of the Day, The Gathering Storm, Savages, Panic Room
The Bad: The Last Stand, Hannibal, Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Human Stain
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: Upstream Color
Blu-rays Bought: None

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Anthony Hopkins, Anton Yelchin, the cast of Savages
Director of the Week: Scott Hicks



Trailers/Clips of the Week:
Monsters University

The Killing: Season 3 Promo

The promo is not great, but Peter Sarsgaard always is, and the fact that the show has been resurrected from the dead is tremendously great. The return of Holder and Linden!

Jack Reacher

3 stars It's disappointing when a movie has such promising material, but isn't executed up to that promise. Writer/Director Christopher McQuarrie begins Jack Reacher with a exceedingly good opening sequence involving a sniper who kills five random people in Pittsburgh. There is only music and images and it is incredibly well done. Directors attempt to recreate a 70s movie feel all of the time, but I think he really did it here. There is a coldness to the scene that goes beyond being violent. The detachment is so unsettling.

We see who the sniper was, but another man is accused. He requests one thing. "Get Jack Reacher". Jack Reacher is played by Tom Cruise and he is an ex-Army MP, who specializes in investigations. He is of course, as movie characters usually are, the best at his job. The character of Jack Reacher is actually the best part of the movie. Author Lee Child created a guy made for the movies. A loner, more like a ghost, someone with no loyalties or allegiances, but can take on five guys by himself. 

There are unfortunately two wrong choices. First, we learn too much about Reacher too early. There is the obligatory scene where someone looks up his record and starts reading it out loud so the audience knows how qualified he is. With a character like Jack Reacher, we don't want to know. We want him to remain a mystery and let some of the answers slowly be revealed. Honestly, if we learned nothing about Jack Reacher that would be even better. Or at least save it for the back half of the movie. It worked for Clint Eastwood and Aragorn. Second, Tom Cruise is cast as Jack Reacher and that is not a good choice. Not that he can't play this kind of character (he was very good in Collateral), but by bringing in such a huge movie star, the movie changes for the worse. The budget has to go up and the violence has to go down. This should be a $30 million hard R starring someone like Viggo Mortensen. Instead it's a $60 million pg-13 studio movie released at Christmas. Even the darker ending doesn't have the impact it should have. Also Cruise doesn't dig deep enough here. The better directors like PT Anderson and Michael Mann challenge him to bring out more, and I think he doesn't risk the higher gears in this one. 

Other choices disappoint. The visual quality of that opening sequence is never matched again in the film, although I do enjoy the wider angles and lack of fast cutting. Rosamund Pike's character is mostly shocked and appalled during the entire film, and the idea of it all being a conspiracy is very, very old. Still, I enjoyed anticipating what Jack Reacher would do next. A great example is when a young girl baits him into a fight with those five guys and then the next day Reacher goes to see her at her job at a Pep Boys like auto store. It's so fun to watch that I'm laughing just remembering it. We need more of these kinds of scenes, more of this strange guy Jack Reacher interacting with the normal world, but dealing with it in his own way. That way being very direct.

Christopher McQuarrie wrote script for The Usual Suspects and sadly none of his subsequent scripts have matched that. I'm not expecting that they contain something as brilliant as Keyser Soze, but even the dialogue isn't up to that high standard. I really did not like Valkyrie. I'm not sure I want to see a sequel, but I am excited to start reading the novels. 

April 2013 Reviews 2 (The Last Stand, Great Expectations (2012), Hearts in Atlantis)

The Last Stand 2 stars Arnold is old. He looks and is really old in The Last Stand where he plays a small town Arizona Sheriff who has to defend that small town against some sort of villain. Honestly this is severe B-movie material, and it probably would've gone straight to video if it wasn't for Arnold. Korean director Kim Jee-Woon directed movies like A Tale of Two Sisters and The Good The Bad and the Weird, but like a lot of Asian action directors, they try very hard to do interesting things with the camera and with the action itself, but in between the drama is not good. What is even the drama in this movie? Yes this group of criminals is heading toward the Mexican border and this town is the last town for the last stand, but I don't know. There's a young cop under Arnold who wants to leave for LA, another female deputy has a on again off again relationship with a ex-high school star athlete, and I guess old Arnold's dilemma is whether or not he can take on these young guys. There is a lot of R-rated action, but it's not very memorable. Like I always say, we still need characters we can care about and who cares about any of these people. For some reason they got a lot of good actors to be in this. Luis Guzman, Forest Whitaker, Zach Gilford from Friday Night Lights, Peter Stormare and others. I don't know why since the script is so uninspired.

Arnold can be a very good actor, but it's based on the director he's working with. With James Cameron, he's great in the Terminator movies and True Lies. I think he softened too much toward the end of his big run before he became governor. He started playing the caring family man in The 6th Day and Collateral Damage, but that doesn't do it for me. Bring back the bad ass Arnold. Bring back the arrogant Alpha who I saw in Pumping Iron and Predator. Stallone wrote a perfect vehicle for himself with The Expendables. I think those movies solidified his action icon status. If Arnold's going to comeback to acting full time, he needs something tailor made for him, not a role that any older actor could play. John Milius, the director of the first Conan movie, had the best quote: "If we didn't have Arnold, we'd have to build him." He was an Austrian bodybuilder who became the world's biggest movie star. And he still has tremendous screen presence and genuine charm. Don't put him in things like this.

Reviews of other Arnold films: http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2010/04/schwarzenegger-reviews.html



Great Expectations (2012) 3 ½ stars I wasn't too excited about watching this new version of the Charles Dicken's novel, mostly because I'm never very excited about these period pieces. They are usually stuffy and feel like I'm locked in some costume museum for two hours. However, director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, HP and the Goblet of Fire) and his cinematographer John Mathieson (Gladiator) give their take on Great Expectations such life and vitality. It is beautifully shot, not at all static, and it feels exciting instead of posh and proper. Newell is also great with actors and he has a stacked British cast with Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Robbie Coltrane, Ewen Bremner, Jason Flemyng, Jessica Cave, and Sally Hawkins. How does this small country continue to produce the best actors in the world? Lastly, I should mention the stunning costumes Beatrix Aruna Pasztor. Stunning because they feel modern and real, not old fashioned and sleep inducing. 

Pip is a young boy who while visiting his parents' grave is seen by an escaped convict (Ralph Fiennes). The convict demands food and a file to cut through his chains and the next morning Pip brings them. The convict is eventually recaptured, but he does not tell on Pip. Later on he meets Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham Carter), a local wealthy woman who is in the extreme section of eccentricity. She has apparently for 20 years remained in her mansion while only wearing her unused wedding gown. She has adopted a young girl named Estella (Holliday Grainger) and she pays Pip to watch them play together. Pip falls in love with Estella almost immediately.

Years pass, Pip remains in love, but Estella is away at school and he continues to be on his own way to becoming a blacksmith's apprentice under his Uncle Joe (Jason Flemyng). One day, a lawyer comes to see Pip and tell him that he has inherited a vast sum of money. The conditions are that the benefactor never be named and that Pip will move to London to become a proper gentleman. He eventually does reconnect with Estella in London, but after years with Miss Havisham, Estella says she has no heart. She was not taught to have any feeling and therefore cannot be with Pip.

Much of the movie is about Pip's love for Estella and the obstacles that come in that way, not the least of which is herself. There is also a lot being said about class (something that has never been as important here in America) and about the actions we take to reconcile the past. Miss Havisham was left at the altar by her fiance and has raised Estella this way as a revenge toward all men. Pip's benefactor has his reasons for giving all of this wealth to Pip, and the revelation always affects me as it is so generous and tragic. The sacrifice is so tragic. And now this new generation of Pip and Estella, what will they be? Will they be as sinful and cynical and tragic as their parents, or can they become something new? This is even reflected in Pip's Uncle Joe who out of embarrassment distances himself from his nephew once Pip steps above his class. There can be great cruelty toward us from our parents, and from us in our attempts to not be like them. But I have hope for Pip and Estella. 

Sadly the movie never got a theatrical release or even a DVD release so far. Hope you can find it.





Hearts in Atlantis 3 ½ stars Hearts in Atlantis is a small gem you probably haven't seen. Anthony Hopkins stars as Ted Brautigan, an older man who rents a room in the house of a single mother (Hope Davis) and her son Bobby (Anton Yelchin). It's the 50s and Bobby is having a great summer with his two best friends Carol Gerber and John Sullivan. Unfortunately, is mother is self-centered and rough on him, never buying him anything, and mostly spending any money on herself. She is also having an affair with her boss and even cancels on Bobby's birthday dinner. Bobby begins to befriend Ted who is not the old wise man who teaches, but becomes a real mutual friend to Bobby. They talk as if they were equals. Ted has secrets though, and he asks Bobby to look out for any signs of Low Men. Men in dark suits and hats, men who want Ted for his special talent. It is subtly revealed, but Ted is a bit psychic. He's not necessarily on the run, but he doesn't stay in one place too long. 

My childhood was not like Bobby's, but the movie is insightful in terms of how we see our childhoods now. The movie is bookended with the older Bobby (David Morse) looking back on this time. In the present, John Sullivan has died and Bobby returns to his hometown for the funeral. Bobby visits his old house and the streets he used to ride his bike on. I don't think my childhood was particularly happy, but even if it were, it was a very long time ago, and that is inherently sad. Ted mentions that there are times when you're young when you're so happy you don't even know it. There is something about that lack of anxiety, lack of responsibility, and lack of bad experiences. We'll never have that again.

The movie is based on a Stephen King novel and although the movie takes away many of the supernatural elements (Ted and the Low Men in the book are actually aliens), I think that works better as the movie becomes more about young Bobby and the last summer of being a kid. Everything did change after that and it was even more memorable because of Ted. Antony Hopkins is of course very good in the movie, almost hypnotic in his stillness and silence. Ted is not a cuddly old mentor. Nor is he a crank who learns to open up again to this young boy. He's the first person who treats Bobby like an adult, who shares genuinely good advice, and does things like taking him to a horror movie and a diner in the city. I wish I could've had a friend like Ted in my life.

The Remains of the Day (re-post)

I continue my re-watching of Anthony Hopkins films. 

(review from 5.24.11)

4 stars I had not seen The Remains of the Day possibly since it first came out on VHS back in 1994. For whatever reason I decided to put it in my Netflix queue last week and watching it again, I can’t believe how good the film is. It is a great film, a high point in the Merchant/Ivory canon that includes A Room with a View and Howards End.

The Remains of the Day is about a butler named Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) who has served Darlington Hall, an astounding country home in England, for more than 20 years. He is the most dedicated servant. Meticulous, exacting, and completely given to a life of preparations and setting tables and dusting. If you were in the realm of possibility of having a butler, you would want this man. Admittedly as a neat freak myself, I took a lot of pleasure in the almost fetishistic scenes of organizing and straightening up. Although I don’t understand the need to iron a newspaper. The head Housekeeper is Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) an equally qualified employee but who is younger than Mr. Stevens and therefore is more open to having a life. Nothing as open as a romance or even a slight whisper of attraction is conveyed between them, but the film is so much about their relationship. Or is it more about what their relationship is not.

During this time at Darlington Hall, Hitler is on the rise. It has been 20 years since the first World War and Lord Darlington is hosting several conferences with German ambassadors and foreign representatives (including a handsome Christopher Reeve as a US Congressman) as they discuss what they can do to actually help the Nazi party. At this point Germany had only invaded Czechoslovakia and these naïve British gentlemen were deluded in believing they could negotiate some sort of peace with the Fuhrer. And yet this story is in the background as Stevens serves brandy, he empties ash trays, and he hears bits and pieces of conversation but is too focused on his work to get involved.

The Remains of the Day is a great tragedy about a wasted life. Duty, honor, serving, but for what. For its own sake apparently. Stevens has become so singularly focused in his life that the possibilities are all but closed off. One could say he’s avoiding the pain of life, but without pain, without risk, what kind of life is it. This may be Hopkins best performance. It isn’t Hannibal Lecter, but it is a fascinating portrayal of a completely insular man. Everything is inside, everything is held back, and there are a few scenes that are simply amazing. One is the famous book scene with Emma Thompson, the other is a moment when he is on a bench with her looking away. The look on his face, which he holds for quite a long time, will be forever burned in memory. I well up every time I see it.

Merchant/Ivory films have gone out of fashion in recent years, but this one feels timeless. A beautiful film.

The Silence of the Lambs (re-post)

(review from 7.24.11)

4 stars Wow is The Silence of the Lambs well directed. I never noticed how much director Jonathan Demme is doing in every scene. There is so much going on in terms of shot selection, composition, lighting, point of view. Demme's signature shot of characters looking directly into camera is terribly effective here. 

If you don't know, Clarice Starling is a trainee with the FBI and is told one day to go see Hannibal Lecter. Please tell me I don't have to explain to you who that is. A serial killer named Buffalo Bill has been very productive and the FBI believe Lecter might be of some help. And what could be a thriller procedural about clues and forensics really becomes a psychological drama about these two characters: Starling and Lecter. It's the best of the Lecter movies because of this relationship. It's between a man and a woman but it's far from romantic. It's not father/daughter, it's a little teacher/pupil but because Starling is a woman and because Lecter is a hyper intelligent sociopath, it does not and cannot fall into any familiar territory. 

Foster is very strong in the movie, quiet and decent, she is someone with fierce morality and yet a lot of inexperience. It's the subtler of the two roles and the movie doesn't work without her vulnerability and our belief that she could really be the one to take down Buffalo Bill. However, it is the first real introduction of Anthony Hopkins to American audiences and Hannibal Lecter is one of the most well known and greatest movie characters ever. Author Thomas Harris deserves so much of the credit as Lecter is his creation, a cannibalistic psychiatrist who does seem like the next step up the evolutionary ladder. Possibly one of the smartest characters in movie history? 

Hopkins choices are unbelievable, from his introduction where he stands perfectly still in his cell to the infamous sound he makes after talking about liver, fava beans, and a nice Chianti. He's in the movie maybe a total of 25 minutes but every scene is so rich and memorable. So much so that we forgive the movie for becoming another movie for 15 minutes as we leave Starling's story completely to watch Lecter attempt his escape in Memphis. I never noticed how odd the inclusion of that scene really is, but what a great sequence. Ingenious. 

I can watch Hannibal Lecter over and over again. He's consistently fascinating. A genuine predator. He's helped a lot by the production design by Kristi Zea who created that hallway of cells and came up with that genius choice to forgo the traditional prison bars and encase Dr. Lecter in fiberglass. Seriously, how much scarier is he in that thing? Yeesh. The Silence of the Lambs is streaming on Netflix right now. 20 years old and it's still amazing. (and still surprisingly shocking and violent) A classic. 

Mood Indigo Trailer 2

Weekly Recap 4/26/13

Watched this Week
The Good: Nixon, The Magnificent Ambersons, W., Frost/Nixon, The Third Man, Good Morning Vietnam, Red Dragon
The Bad: Gangster Squad, Chaplin
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: Safe Haven
Blu-rays Bought: Savages, The Silence of the Lambs

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster
Director of the Week: Oliver Stone




Trailers/Clips of the Week:
The Grandmaster. From director Wong Kar-Wai.

Thor: The Dark World First Trailer

Natalie!

Nixon

4 stars I think Anthony Hopkins is one of the greatest actors we've ever had. I believe that, and I think people will believe that especially after he's gone. I don't know how much they think that now though. We think of him as a somewhat stocky, older English (he's actually Welsh) actor with white hair. Certainly good, but not with the kind of awe and respect he deserved. No one in America had ever heard of him until he was 54 years-old and Silence of the Lambs made him a movie star. He had been in major films like A Bridge Too Far and The Elephant Man, but he was still pretty much unknown. 

I've been watching Oliver Stone's Nixon a couple of times over these past few days. Physicality wise, Hopkins is a terrible choice. He looks nothing like Richard Nixon. He doesn't get the voice right, and I think he would've benefited from a little bit of prosthetic work to make his round face closer to Nixon's jowly one. Yet I continue to find his performance spellbinding. This is not an impersonation, I think it goes much deeper. Hopkins and Oliver Stone go so deep into this man filled with unstoppable insecurities, rabid fear and such self hatred. How could he not end up bringing himself down? It may not be exactly the way he behaved in these actual situations, but the movie is better than that. Filmmakers are dramatists. It's not so much the actual truth as it is the emotional truth. What did it feel like to be Richard Nixon? What did it feel like to be in those rooms with him? How could it all happen? How could he believe that taping all of these damning conversations not get out? 

Over and over he compares himself to his eternal rival JFK. Kennedy was handsome, well bred, rich. Nixon was none of those things and he forever thought that people disliked him because of that. Even his wife Pat (and astounding Joan Allen) confesses that she genuinely loves him but knows it's not enough. "It took me a long time to fall in love with you, Dick. But I did. And it doesn't make you happy. You want them (the American people) to love you. They never will." It's knife to the heart honest and very true.

I see Nixon as a huge tragedy of a man, in the way Shakespeare would do it. A man born poor on a lemon ranch in California, he makes it all the way to the Presidency, only to resign in disgrace. He was never at peace. It wasn't enough that he was elected twice, he had to go after all of his enemies. It wasn't enough that he had the power of the Presidency, he wanted an imperialist Presidency. He famously said in his interview with David Frost, "...when the President does it, that means it's not illegal." That was a slip, but goodness is it an honest one. 

The film, on top of being great drama, is exceptionally well made. This is a stunningly shot movie by cinematographer Robert Richardson (who Stone worked with between 1986-1997). The camera work and lighting are sensational. The movie's almost 20 years old but I still find it glorious to look at. The deep blacks and the Dutch angles were very uncharacteristic for the time. And like JFK (which remains in my Top 5) Nixon is brilliantly edited. This makes so many biopics feel lazy and trapped within the walls of a museum. Stone again employs the tactic of various film stocks, black and white, cutting back and forth in time, and he introduces in Nixon these great little cutaways within a conversation. For example, in the middle of a line of Nixon dialogue, he'll cut to a different shot of Hopkins being silent and then cut back to him speaking. It's an almost subliminal snapshot into what he's feeling, underneath whatever he's saying. It's a technique I plan to steal.

The Director's Cut, and it's now only available in a Director's Cut, is too long for one sitting. I would watch it in 2 or 3 sittings as there is so much material to be covered. It's still such a rich experience with incredibly good performances as per usual from an Oliver Stone movie. I haven't liked all of his films, but I don't think I can point to a single bad performance in any of them. James Woods, Joan Allen, Paul Sorvino, J.T. Walsh, Ed Harris, and all of the little bit parts are stellar. One of them is played by the late Dallas star Larry Hagman. 

In the end, I feel so much for Richard Nixon. Sadness and anger and amazement at all he did, both good and bad. Mostly bad. At one point, he looks at Kennedy's portrait in the White House and says to it, "When they look at you, they see who they want to be. When they look at me, they see who they are." I don't know about you, but I know I feel that way sometimes.