Classic Back to the Future, the first one, is a classic. I think it is one of those movies that will live on long beyond my lifetime. That qualifies it as a classic, but I think there's something more. It was made in 1984 and there are some things that scream the 80s like Marty ordering a Tab and all of the concern about nuclear bombs and plutonium, but watching it again on Blu-ray, I think the movie really is timeless.
The movie doesn't feel dated. Even the Huey Lewis songs don't feel that 80s. Not as much as if they had used something like Devo or Duran Duran. But more than that, it's the basic great concept - what if you went back in time and met your parents when they were teenagers. The DeLorean's still cool, Biff still makes me laugh (butthead!), but that basic idea was genius. It's one of those things that seem so simple but just no one had thought of it.
If you conceivably don't know, Back to the Future is about a high school kid, Marty McFly(Michael J. Fox) who is friends with a scientist, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who creates a time machine. Through circumstances (including a ridiculous one involving Libyan terrorists in a Volkswagen with a rocket launcher) Marty goes back 30 years to 1955. He runs into his father and unintentionally disrupts the first meeting between his father and his mother and therefore threatens his own existence. If his parents never got together, he would never be born.
Just thinking about it, I realize how much affection and childhood nostalgia I have for the movie. I didn't watch it in the theater, my cousin rented it one day and I proceeded to watch it maybe for a month. The script is so solid. Every beat, every story point, and every plot point are all so well done. The opening scene at the McFly house establishing Marty's crappy home life, his boozy mother, his nerd father, it's right on the money. It's funny, but not silly or over the top. It seems real, and it was good choice not to make it so terrible. If that was the case, why would Marty be so intent on getting back.
Michael J. Fox, this was his role and I think he'll forever and ever be linked to Marty McFly. I can't really critique the performance because the actor and the character are one. It's like Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. How could any other person ever play that character? It's unthinkable. Marty's the quintessential young everyman who thankfully is not a geek or a loser in the least. He's in a rock band, he has an attractive girlfriend, and he stands up against Biff every time out. That was such a great thing. The movie isn't about him trying to find courage, it's about helping his father find some.
Crispin Glover is still a weird choice as George McFly but it works. He has such an oddity about him all of the time in every movie I've seen him in. It's maybe the most normal character he's ever played, but perhaps it's also the one he had to act the most. Lea Thompson is so sweet and lovely in the movie as 1955 Lorraine, but she's also great at playing the old Lorraine, first as the alcoholic and at the end as a happier 40 year-old mom. I forgot how pretty she was. And I also forgot how uncomfortable those scenes are when she's hitting on her own son. For a family film, it's pretty bold. When Biff ends up in the car with her, he's going to rape her. I mean you'd never see that in a movie today. My PG expectations were shocked. Haha. Also, I really appreciated Christopher Lloyd this time around. He has so many scenes where he has to explain things. It's essential for us to know what is going on but it's never dry, never close to boring. He's nutty but it's all grounded in a real person who we believe knows his stuff. And his friendship with Marty, I remember that really getting to me when I was young. When Marty is writing that letter in the diner (Do not open until 1985) and then later when they hug before Marty takes off, it's very moving. He wants to get back to the future, but he wants his friend to be alive when he gets there.
Robert Zemeckis directed the hell out of the movie, his first big hit. Later would come Forrest Gump and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That sequence with Marty on the skateboard being chased by Biff's car in the town square is still amazing. When he jumps off the skateboard, runs over the hood, off the end, and then lands back on the skateboard while Biff's car slams into a manure truck, the supreme cleverness still makes me smile. And the final action stretch of the movie is still so exciting. Doc on top of the clock tower and then the wires falls and he has to zip-line down, all the while Marty is burning down the street toward 88 mph. It beats any gigantic CGI battle. It's simple, great editing. They just don't do those kind of scenes anymore, but to me they are some of the most satisfying.
The trilogy came out on Blu-ray, and although I like Parts II and III, I'm going to wait to buy this first one when they release it separately. It is a minted classic, and unlike so many things from the 80s, it is just as good now as it was then. The great theme music that plays throughout the movie, Marty playing Johnny B. Goode, "make like a tree, and get outta here", 1.21 Jigawatts! I love Back to the Future, I'm happy they haven't remade it, and I'm going to head back to Hill Valley and watch it again.
DVDs Watched this Week: The Good: Best Worst Movie, Moulin Rouge, Australia, Strictly Ballroom, Predator 2, Shall We Dance, episodes of In Treatment The Bad: The Extra Man, Agora The Ugly: None Trips to the Theater: None Actors of the Week: Nicole Kidman, Jim Broadbent, Irfan Khan Writer of the Week: Sarah Treem (her episodes of In Treatment have some amazing writing)
TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week: The Office Halloween Trailer. Well cut together, but Bloodsport Mentos is still the champion.
3 stars Troll 2 is evidently one of the worst of all time. It’s a lower than low budget horror flick shot in Utah back 1990 that gained a cult following and rabid fans who love how bad it is. Sold out midnight shows toured the country and Best Worst Movie is a documentary following this minor movie phenomenon. It was directed by the child star of Troll 2 Michael Stephenson who follows the movie, and specifically its cast as they gain a bit of stardom going to Q&As for these shows. The star of Best Worst Movie is George Hardy, a dentist in Alabama who might be one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He is referred to as the “Patch Adams” of dentistry, but unlike the Patch Adams Robin Williams played, George Hardy is actually a likable and lovable guy. Full of positivity and warmth, he is someone anyone would be glad to spend some time with. Even his ex-wife still likes him.
The documentary’s first half follows the quiet phenomenon of Troll 2. We go to small screening parties, a premiere at the UCB in New York, and George and his castmates eat the attention up. They all know how awful the movie is and are perfectly thankful to have forgotten the experience, but a lot of people come out to celebrate it. We do see a lot of the movie and from the scenes shown, things look pretty bad. Everyone was trying very hard, but it is embarrassing. Something about Goblins trying to turn this family into plants. I haven’t seen Troll 2 nor do I plan to since I don’t enjoy the so bad it’s good movies. I just feel bad for the people in it. And I feel bad for myself for having to watch it. The first half of the documentary is a lot of fun, not only for us, but for George Hardy. Standing ovations, signing autographs, he loves it, and I thought this was what the movie was going to be all about. A celebration of bad cinema.
However, things take a turn midway as the documentary goes deeper into the lives of the people who made the movie. Some of them are still trying to be actors, and the director has something like 25 movies under his belt. He is Italian director Claudia Fragrasso who has directed a lot of films, seemingly all low budget horror as well, and he is simply a man with no sense of humor. He comes to some of the screenings and Q&As, he is glad people are watching the movie, but he grows more and more angry as time goes on. He doesn’t think the movie is bad. He thinks it’s an allegory for the world trying to tear apart the family unit. He says repeatedly that he knows America better than Americans. Maybe I should’ve found this funny, but I just saw a person as delusional and in denial as the worst of Michael Scott. All greatness he thinks, no flaws. The movie gets even more sad with the lives of the actors. The woman who played the mother in Troll 2 is in her 60s, taking care of her sick mother in a small apartment, and she honestly doesn’t seem to live on planet earth. She appears on camera in full overdone make-up but with a t-shirt with a picture of a cat printed on the back and talks about getting out there someday and going back on auditions. Another actor, I think he was the dead grandfather in Troll 2, lives alone in Utah, his house full of piles of books and old newspapers. He says himself that he “frittered his life away” and despite being in 100s of plays, he has no children and no grandchildren.
It’s some heartbreaking stuff that serves as a strong warning against anyone thinking about making their living as an actor. It’s a hard life and has great potential to be a disappointing one. Even George’s view on the experience grows negative. There are a couple of scenes at conventions where no one comes up to his table and he starts walking around trying to tell people about Troll 2.
I think the documentary started off as one thing and then it turned into something else. The something else is fairly fascinating if a little hard to watch at times. And it was nice spending time with George Hardy. He is one great person. In the end, he admits he has a great life, even if he didn’t get to be an actor. I think so too.
Despite popular opinion, I have not seen "everything". That's impossible. But I did think of popular movies that I've never seen. Some very consciously, some I just haven't. I'll add more if I think of more.
Classic After all these years, and I watch it every year, I can't believe I never realized that there's an exclamation point in the title. And after a few years of having a consistent Top 5 list, Moulin Rouge! has bumped Midnight Cowboy down a spot and has entered at #5.
Where to begin. If movies are meant to make you feel something, to pump up your emotions, I don't know if there's a film that does that more successfully for me than Moulin Rouge! There are much deeper films, there are films that are more meaningful, but Baz Luhrmann's masterpiece, his third in his trilogy of Red Curtain films that include Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet, is unlike any movie I have experienced. It steals from a lot of movies and a lot of artistic forms, but no one else, and I mean no one, could've accomplished this.
Moulin Rouge! is about a penniless writer Christian (Ewan McGregor) who meets a Courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) at the Moulin Rouge. He falls in love her and at the same time a wealthy Duke (Richard Roxburgh, who is excellent) does as well. The owner of the Moulin Rouge (Harold Zidler) wants to use the Duke's money to convert the Moulin Rouge into a theater with Satine as the star. In order to that, the Duke must have Satine, all the while Christian is writing a play that parallels what is going on.
Those are the bare bones of the story and its simplicity works well. The rich evil guy, the poor good guy, the woman. It allows then for every other choice to be frankly insane. The choices are wonderfully insane and how in the world did they think they could pull it off.
1. The actors sing contemporary pop music in 1900s Paris. 2. This period film is shot, lit, and edited in a way that I still cannot believe holds together.
The pop songs. I think we forget how shocking they were. Ewan McGregor sings Whitney Houston/Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" and Sting's "Roxanne" is sung at a crucial dramatic moment in the film. The funniest sequence involves two men singing "Like a Virgin" to each other. It could all have been so embarrassing. But our familiarity with the music helps so much with our connection to what is going on emotionally. Like any good song used in a movie, it causes us to remember our feelings about that song and those feelings then add to the scene we are watching. It was a brilliant choice and what care was given to those choices. The love song medley includes Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, KISS, U2, David Bowie, and Elton John. Who thought that would work?! Ewan McGregor's version of Your Song may be my favorite in the film, and I think we all can agree his voice is amazing. Think if they got someone who couldn't sing as well? How painful would it have been. He is so good in the movie. I heard the other contenders were Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
I've said this before, but Nicole Kidman gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in any film. The things she does here, has any role demanded so much? Singing and dancing (she blows the roof off with "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"), but there are scenes where she has to do huge broad comedy. When their pitching the Duke on the story, they're dancing on their knees, they're jumping straight up and down, it's so crazy and hilarious. And she's doing it in lingerie. Also she has real strong dramatic scenes. When she wants to leave and screams at Zidler, "...we are going away from you, away from the Duke, away from the Moulin Rouge!", I was overwhelmed when I saw it again. And the performance doesn't stop when she sings. When she's belting out "One Day I'll Fly Away" we feel exactly what she is feeling. I can't say enough about her and her performance of a lifetime. Btw, her entrance into the film in that giant close-up, unbelievable.
In addition to all of that, there is how the movie looks. It is a stunner. I read a comment that said, "The movie is like eye sex". LOL. The gorgeous lighting by cinematographer Donald McAlpine, the production and costume design by Catherine Martin (who is Baz Luhrmann's wife and artistic partner), the editing by Jill Bilcock, and the choreography by John O'Connell. The combination of these people and the mostly Australian crew and cast, created a film that needs to be put in a museum and studied. I've watched it without the sound to really focus on what they are doing. They are doing everything. Slow motion, speed up, color schemes that change within the scene, huge lighting changes from sequence to sequence, and editing that somehow can handle the enormous tonal shifts the film takes. All of this of course was under the vision and direction of Baz Luhrmann. He poured everything he had into Moulin Rouge! It's one of those movies that people can't copy even if they tried. There's a genius behind this that occurred to one person and could never happen again.
All of this analysis aside, there things in the film I just love. I've watched the Tango sequence countless times at this point, it is so magnificently put together. Christian and Satine are one of the great movie couples and I still feel so much for them, especially when things start going bad. Jim Broadbent never gets enough credit for his performance as Harold Zidler. He's a mild British actor, here in a fat suit selling, singing and dancing. What a performance. I love it when Smells Like Teen Spirit comes on, sung by men in tuxedos and top hats. Again, I love that scene when they pitch Spectacular, Spectacular! And tell me your jaw didn't drop when that curtain opened and revealed the full play with the Indian costumes and the cast sing Hindi Sad Diamonds. Lastly, I do love how sad the film is. There's a sense of doom to their relationship from the beginning and it is true that some of the most romantic stories are tragic ones. Romeo and Juliet and even Titanic (sorry but it's true).
I don't know what you're waiting for. It just came out on Blu-ray, it is still one of the best experiences I've had in a movie theater, which I repeated 3x for a total of 4. Then you can listen to the songs on your iPod over and over again just as I did. On a side note, I always thought they marketed the movie all wrong. A bad trailer, and even the Blu-ray cover looks better than their original poster. The movie means so much to me and it was fantastic watching it on glorious Blu-ray and getting swept up into it all over again. It is the best musical I've ever seen, it is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, it's one of the most joyous films I've ever seen. In the end though, these are just words. You have to see it for yourself again. When was the last time you did?
DVDs Watched this Week: The Good: Predators, How to Train Your Dragon, Romeo+Juliet, Con Air, Sin City The Bad: A Christmas Carol(2009), The Darjeeling Limited, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan The Ugly: None Trips to the Theater: None Actors of the Week: Bruce Willis, Harold Perrineau, John Malkovich Directors of the Week:Baz Luhrmann
3 stars My two impressions after watching it for the first time in years are:
1. The language isn't that difficult to understand. Or at least not as hard as I remembered. 2. My goodness Claire Danes was young in the movie. She looks barely 15.
Baz Luhrmann's first American film was Romeo + Juliet and talk about a bold move. This was in my memory the first real attempt to put Shakespeare into contemporary times on film and it has no intention of being subtle about it. The choices are striking from the beautiful, crumbling Mexico locations to choir boys singing a remix version of Prince's When Doves Cry. In other Shakespeare film adaptations, a lot of the times the actors just stand around and recite the language. Baz Luhrmann created a living, breathing, visual world that would tell the story so well that you could understand what was going on even without the dialogue.
The movie's setting Verona Beach is a real place in my mind and it's pretty amazing how much is explained and set up just in those first few minutes. There are the title cards explaining the relationships and roles of the major players, but really it's that shot of the two buildings, one with the word MONTAGUE in large letters on top, the other with CAPULET. In between the buildings is a large statue of our Savior and that one image speaks to me more than the insane shootout at the gas station that begins the film. These are two big families with big grudges and how can two teenagers from opposite sides possibly be together.
The two teenagers they cast were Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes. Dicaprio was just on the cusp of mega stardom and he's very good as Romeo, sidestepping a lot of the mopiness that can overwhelm the character. He's still a romantic, but there's a lot of real anger. His showdown with Tybalt in the rain is strong and powerful. Claire Danes was a good choice in that she isn't some Maxim hot girl. She's more of an innocent, a bit of a wallflower and that's appropriate. A girl like that you could imagine fantasizing and dreaming about love and then giving into this passionate, if foolish relationship. I wonder how she feels about being the only Juliet in recent film history. I also forgot how early in the movie they get married. It's before the first hour mark. I actually think they should've had at least one more scene in between their first meeting and the wedding, but Romeo does propose pretty quickly. Apparently he and Shakespeare don't mess around.
The supporting cast is filled with a lot of good actors like John Leguizamo and Brian Dennehy, but the one that still sticks out is Lost's Harold Perrineau as Mercutio. He is the outsider, and the fact that he's African American is a great choice. He's even more of the outsider to these people. He also has some of the best moments in the movie. There's his drag queen entrance with full chorus line kicking, but his scream of "A plague on both your houses!" still gives me the chills. He never really did anything like that role on film again, but it's a great performance.
Not necessarily my problem with the material as much my lack of interest in this type of unabashed young romantic love hinders my enthusiasm for the movie. Really what happens is that they see each other, they talk a long while that first night (in the pool not in the balcony in this movie), and they decide to get married. And of course the fates will not let them be happy and attempts to cheat death fail miserably. It's strange to say this, but the movie could be longer, with more time for Romeo and Juliet to get to know one another beyond declarations and swearings of love. But then again I might just be some guy in his 30s who doesn't get it. I understand why people like Twilight on some analytical intellectual level, but I don't feel anything about it.
In the end, I do see it as a precursor to Moulin Rouge. There is a lot of crazy experimentation with this classical material and so much of it is so very admirable. But I think everything Baz Luhrmann is came out in the best ways in Moulin Rouge. Both of these films were recently released on Blu-ray and I will post a review of one of my top 10 films hopefully soon. Despite maybe not loving Romeo + Juliet, I'm still glad I saw it again. It is beautifully lit and shot, so creatively designed (Dagger 9mm. Too cool), and the language still is wonderful. I mean of course it is, it's Shakespeare. Lastly, that soundtrack, remember how big it was? HUGE! The choices are as bold as anything else in the film. Even putting The Cardigans' Lovefool on the soundtrack is bold as it is one of the most irritating songs in history. But that last track from Radiohead, "Exit Music" is unbelievable. And surprisingly appropriate.
Predators 3 stars Very low expectations. The first Predator(John McTiernan) is a classic. The 2nd is alright although I'm still not certain of the logic that led to casting Danny Glover as the lead. And I never have and hopefully never will watch any of the Aliens vs. Predator movies. Now many years later, a third sequel starring “action” star Adrien Brody which I was not excited about seeing. It didn't help that the rest of the cast is a bunch of B to C level actors. The only other name anyone would know would be Topher Grace. Whoo! Even Alice Braga from I Am Legend and City of God doesn't make the strongest impression.
However, Robert Rodriguez produced the movie, handpicked director Nimrod Antal (Control, No Vacancy) and it turned out to be a good choice. Btw, Nimrod? C'mon mom and dad. The film is very well shot considering jungle movies usually put me to sleep with green, green, and then some water. The action is nice and satisfying and I appreciate the R rating.
The movie of course has its flaws. Brody is a good actor and he certainly worked out for the role gaining some 25 lbs of muscle for his big shirtless showdown at the end. But his gravelly voice is a bit too much and I wish they picked more of an alpha male. The first movie is completely alpha males and any one of them could snap Adrien’s neck like a twig. Also that automatic shotgun he has (seen in The Expendables as well) is a pretty ludicrous weapon with tons of red plastic shells popping out of the chamber. It doesn’t have to be a practical weapon (I still like that someone carries a minigun around in the jungle) but something’s just off about it as a choice.
I kind of wish the movie went to another place other than the jungle. The thing I did like about Predator 2 was that it was in LA. Why go back to the jungle when all it made me think of was the first movie which is much scarier, much better. On a side note, I have a theory that Mortal Kombat was inspired greatly by Predator 2. A lot of the fatalities are in that movie including the severed head with the dangling spine. Just an observation. The first movie had more good horror movie elements with one camouflaged monster stalking the team and causing some serious damage. Here there are three Predators and more does not always mean better. In fact, I think it weakens them. Jason Voorhees is a scary dude. Adding two more of him makes him less powerful if you ask me. And despite that shot in the trailer that showed dozens of red targets, this is not Planet of the Predators. There are only three.
It’s a very good straight to video movie, even though the movie did not go straight to video. The concept of deadly people being sent to an alien hunting preserve planet is interesting and I was genuinely intrigued at finding out how these guys would survive it. The movie is mid-budget and as I've mentioned before, I have problems with action movies that feel cheap which this one kind of does. It's watchable, but doesn’t touch the original. C’mon kill me, I’m right here, kill me, do it now, I'm right here, kill me!
Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009) 2 ½ stars The 1951 black and white version with Alastair Sim that always played late night on WGN in Chicago and Mickey’s Christmas Carol with Scrooge McDuck as Scrooge, Mickey Mouse as Bob Cratchit and Jiminy Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas past. Those are my two favorite versions of A Christmas Carol, a story that frankly has too many movies. Do a search at IMDb. There are so many tellings and re-tellings of this story and none of them are inspired re-imaginations that take the story into a different time or place. Well, I guess there’s Scrooged with Bill Murray but who remembers that. It’s the same storybook England with the silly clothes and stove pipe hats. This version has the distinction of probably being the most expensive and certainly the one with the most visual effects.
The entire film is based in motion capture as Robert Zemeckis’s previous films The Polar Express(yawn) and Beowulf(awesome) and some of the results are striking. It isn't exactly photo-realistic but there is some beautiful detail in the shadows and lighting and Scrooge's wrinkly old skin. Jim Carrey plays all of the Spirits as well as the younger Scrooges as the technology allows him to. He is fine as old man Scrooge but a little underwhelming as the Spirits. He's essentially a flying candle as the Ghost of Christmas Past who speaks in a dreamy voice that annoyed me to no end. And did anyone really want those action sequences? There's a lot of unnecessary flying and falling in the movie and a late sequence with Scrooge shrunk down to the size of a mouse serves no purpose other than to delay, delay, delay.
No matter what though, the story still is wonderful. That scene where his fiance leaves him, Tiny Tim praying at the dinner table, Scrooge begging for a second chance at the graveyard. No matter how many times I've seen those scenes played out, they still get to me. As a basic story, Dickens really did create something timeless. We all regret decisions of the past and how painful they would be to have to watch again. And we all wish we could change for the better.
If you haven't seen any of the numerous versions in a while, why not watch this one. Seriously though, Mickey's Christmas Carol. 25 minutes, maybe the best. Haha.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 ½ stars Dreamworks Animation doesn't do it for me. Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Shark Tale. The only one I really liked was Monsters vs. Aliens but mostly because that was a pure comedy without any of the family hugging and learning. They must hate the guys at Pixar who make them look bad every year. :P
There's a lot of good stuff including an exceptionally well designed dragon that looks like a Stealth Fighter. The scenes where Hiccup (Knocked Up's Jay Baruchel) is training the dragon are the best scenes in the movie. It's a nice concept that plays well. The other half of the movie with the bizarrely shaped Scottish voiced Vikings trying to find the dragons' nest is wholly uninteresting and I kept wondering why wasn't the movie just staying with what was working. As opposed to A Christmas Carol, the flying scenes in this movie are really something and I imagine they would've been all the more impressive in the theater. Still, I've seen this movie before haven't I? Young kid needs to learn to be okay being different. Not everyone is mean to be a Viking, son. I hope I find that in a fortune cookie some day.
Leaves of Grass 2 stars This was a pet project of Edward Norton's that got lost in the current sea of bad independent films. This is the rural version of Adaptation with Norton playing twin brothers, one a pot dealer, one a professor at Brown University. The pot dealer has some problems with criminals and the law and the wackiness ensues. First of all, the visual effect work creating these twin Nortons is terrible. It's obvious and unimaginative and it goes to show how technically proficient Spike Jonze was in Adaptation. At no point do you doubt that there are two Kaufman brothers even though Nic Cage is playing both of them, even though they basically look the same. Here with one brother in a beard/mullet and the other clean cut, it still seems like a SNL sketch. It also hurts that neither of the characters are all that interesting. And of course when the one pretty small town teacher Keri Russell showed up, I knew exactly how the movie was going to end.
Leaves of Grass was written and directed by actor Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother Where Art Thou, Syriana). He previously directed O, the movie version of Othello with Josh Hartnett and I liked that movie. I think he has some solid ideas, but this one never seemed more than a gimmick. The comedy is a lot of miss-miss too. I don't remember laughing much. Norton is on a bad streak man. I hated Pride and Glory and have no desire to see his cornrows in Stone. He's still one of the best actors out there, but he needs to work with a major director very soon.
Sin City 3 ½ stars Watching it again, it does not get nearly enough credit for how unique it is. We've seen film noir before, but not like this. And I've never seen black and white like this. A white silhouette of Bruce Willis against the pure black background late in the film is simple and gorgeous. The whole movie is gorgeous, stripped down, some of the best CG scenery work done in a movie. It's pseudo realism is fantastic and gives the movie a pretty great eerie and different feel. What a stellar cast too. Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Mickey Rourke, and Elijah Wood as the scariest nerd in movie history. The female cast is okay. Brittany Murphy, other young actresses that haven't done much. I love the three story structure, I love the intentionally dead on voice-over, I love the ridiculous romantic storylines that sucked me in. Jessica Alba and Bruce Willis? If it sounds so silly, why was I so invested? I don't even know. Robert Rodriguez created something stunning and he deserves a lot of credit for figuring out how to make a fascinating comic book/film hybrid. It's a movie that can't exist without the original Frank Miller material. On a side note, I'm concerned Miller may have some issues with women, but I'm no therapist. Some complained of its hard and harsh nature, but I loved that. Don't be a halfway movie. Just go all the way. Walk down the right back alley in Sin City, and you can find anything.
DVDs Watched this Week: The Good: The Expendables, The A-Team, Jonah Hex, Love Ranch, Timecop, One Hour Photo, Watchmen (original review), The Thin Red Line, Grindhouse The Bad: Leaves of Grass, Lions for Lambs The Ugly: None Trips to the Theater: None Actors of the Week: Helen Mirren, Sylvester Stallone, Robin Williams Directors of the Week: Tarantino/Rodriguez
The Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez Double Feature Grindhouse is finally out on Blu-ray in its original long format. They were released separately on DVD as Planet Terror and Death Proof since the movie underperformed at the box office (for some reason it was released on Easter weekend). But together, as this double feature, it is so much fun. I doubt any of you have seen it in its great whole. Get a bunch of friends, have a blast. http://amzn.com/B003VMFWYI
(This is a review I wrote more than 4 years ago when I first saw it back in '06)
3 ½ stars Thursday April 5th, 2006 at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. THE Chinese Theater with the foot and handprints out front. After checking moviefone and movietickets.com all week for midnight showings, I found this 10:00pm show. There was the usual Hollywood midnight show crowd. Lots of comic book t-shirts and Vans.
We file into Theater 1. Actually, the only one theater it has. It’s underwhelming, with no balcony, and I forgot how much I appreciate stadium seating when a large man sits down in front of me. I take a moment to feel sorry for the dragged along girlfriends and the lights go down.
A perfect crowd. Rowdy geeks, clapping at the Die Hard trailer, silent during the trailer for the new Nicolas Cage time-travel movie “Next”. As it ends, someone screams out, “STOOOPID!” and the house erupts.
The red curtain opens and closes two more times for some reason and the double feature begins. We get some glorious, cheesy 70s theater intro reels (Our Feature Presentation, a funny animated panther cartoon exclaiming Restricted for ADULTS ONLY) and then the first fake trailer. A doozie called Machete with maybe the best line of the year – “They F____d with the wrong Mexican!” It also appears to be a much better version of Marky Mark’s lame Shooter.
I don’t want to give away too much of the film(s). Just think Kill Bill x10. Planet Terror is a gore fest. At one point a local deputy is literally ripped apart. Surprisingly good dialogue for a Rodriguez film and how can you not love that machine-gun leg? Cherry Darling is a bad girl. And there’s a little scooter that brought the house down.
Then, the fake trailers. R-Rated, incomprehensible, hysterical. From Rob Zombie, Eli Roth(Hostel, Cabin Fever) and the best from Edgar Wright(Shaun of the Dead) called “Don’t”. Some major stars even show up. The trailers alone are worth the price of admission.
Death Proof(what a great title) is Tarantino all the way. Lots and lots of talking, women showing their bare feet(a fetish that is getting out of hand), and B-actresses most likely doing the best work they have or ever will do. Kurt Russell is pretty awesome as Stuntman Mike. Again, don’t want to give much away, but the car chase battles are sick, sick, sick.
Do I frighten you? She nods yes. Is it my scar? She shakes her head - It’s your car.
Awesome. But it’s not about the individual movies. It’s not about how good they may be. It’s the experience. It feels like some crazy time warp special screening. We’re back in the 80s at some crap theater where the audio keeps popping and the picture starts shaking. Color goes on and off and entire reels are missing.
Go on a crowded night and do not go with the squeamish (boobage, a scientist collects mens' balls and carries them around in a oversized pickle jar, a young boy gets shot in the head). It’s 3 hours, but it’s 2 movies! I can’t recommend it more. Even over the past days, my affection for it has grown despite my lack of taste for tasteless horror movies in general. I think I’ve watched less than 10 in my whole life. The death and resurrection of our Savior killed its opening, but I hope its got legs. It certainly deserves to. I heard they may split it into 2 separate movies soon so go now. Go and let me know.
The Expendables 3 stars For all of the hype about all of these actions stars together in one film, I wasn't that excited to see it. They are all B level and have only a few good movies between them. I don't like Jason Statham's bad action movies and his inability to speak in any other accent than his own, Jet Li has maybe made one or two good American movies, and Dolph Lundgren is the king of straight to DVD. Everytime I walk the floor at Blockbuster there's a new one with him holding a gun on the cover. I also did not like Stallone's last directorial effort Rambo and I thought this movie was going to be that movie just with a lot more guys.
The movie actually started off a little rough. The guys rescue some hostages by blowing away some thugs in Somalia and other than someone getting ripped in half by a shotgun, the action seemed pretty humdrum standard. They then get an offer from Bruce Willis to kill an evil general who rules a fictitious, drug controlled South American island. That scene with Willis/Stallone/Schwarzenegger was supposed to be De Niro and Pacino having coffee together, but it's a too short, 3 minute scene where Arnold walks in and turns down the job. He looks old and out of shape and the jabs and pokes he and Stallone take at each other are pretty lame. All of the jokes in the movie are pretty lame and thankfully they become less and less frequent as the movie goes along. This isn't Ocean's Eleven.
Another bad thing is that 30 minutes of the movie involves Stallone and Statham going down to the island to scout out the job by themselves. I thought this was supposed to be about a bunch of guys? And then of course there are plot scenes involving evil Eric Roberts exploiting the people and the daughter of the general who wants to fight for her country back, and Stallone is so moved by that, and blah, blah, blah. I wish the underlying story wasn't taken so seriously. I certainly didn't take it seriously.
However, around the hour mark things started to get better with some real carnage and things continued to get better all the way to the end. The whole crew does go down to the island and the last 40 minutes is wall to wall hard R action. This is exactly what we want and we got it. Everyone in the main cast surprisingly has enough screen time and they each have their moments. The video game/one guy blowing away many violence is so not accepted these days, but since the movie wants to be a retro throwback, it's all the more fun. It's bloody 80s fun with hundreds of no name soldiers getting cut to pieces in very creative ways. My favorite is when Terry Crews heaves a missile into the air, Stallone shoots it, and a helicopter blows up. LOL. Necks are broken, bullet holes are big, and the body count is even bigger. It's a lot of fun.
Out of all of them, Stallone is the star and you can tell that right away. In the frame, your eyes go to him. I think it's actually one of his better performances. In a lot of his action movies he's way too sullen and serious. Here he's loose, having fun, and I appreciated all of the self deprecating humor he directs at himself. He knows he isn't the strongest or fastest anymore. Also, he's writing, directing, and starring. It must've been a lot of work. Overall what I liked was that the guys really did seem like friends who've known each other for a long time. That's hard to do with a cast made up of not very good actors. In particular, I liked Stone Cold Steve Austin as a right hand man baddie and Mickey Rourke as a cowboy zen tattooist. The least interesting is terrible actor Randy Couture who shouldn't be doing movies at all. One note is that there is maybe one scene that uses CGI. Everything else is old fashioned practical effects action and that's to be respected.
The movie, particularly the last half, is exactly what it promised to be. I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater, but it was fun to see it at home. The only people missing were Steven Seagal and Van Damme(who apparently turned the film down). Hopefully they'll be in the sequel.
These guys are old... Sylvester Stallone, 64 Arnold Schwarzenegger, 63 Mickey Rourke, 57 Bruce Willis, 55 Eric Roberts, 54 Dolph Lundgren, 53 Jet Li, 47 Randy Couture, 47 Steve Austin, 46 Terry Crews, 42 Jason Statham, 37
Love Ranch2 ½ starsAt 65, Helen Mirren is still sexy as hell. I don't think many people remember that that is what she was primarily known for before she hit middle age and before she was ever the Queen. Now she is mostly known for being one of the best and most elegant actresses around and she is that certainly that. Love Ranch is based on the true story of the Mustang Ranch in Reno, NV and a madame who fell in love with a South American boxer who was living there. These contemporary brothels (even though the movie is set in 1976) is a great place to set a movie, but unfortunately the movie is not about the inner workings of this place and about the guys who go there(I'm really interested in that), but it's more about this melodramatic relationship between Helen Mirren and the boxer and how Joe Pesci (as her constantly cheating husband) reacts to their affair.
It's great to see Joe Pesci in a movie again, any movie, and for a guy so small, he has such an enormous amount of energy and lethality. The movie overall is not great. t's passable, mostly because Helen Mirren is so good in it. Taylor Hackford (her real life husband) has directed good movies like Ray and An Office and a Gentleman but this one feels roughly edited and too much voice-over is used as a band-aid over large story points. The movie was made in 2008 and wasn't released until this year which may indicate some of its problems. Still, it's great to see usually proper Helen Mirren as a tough as nails madame keeping the hookers in line.
Jonah Hex3 stars I actually really like this sub-genre of B+ level comic book movies. Blade, Constantine, The Incredible Hulk with Norton. These aren't the huge tent pole movies like Iron Man or Spider-man that are intended to make billions of dollars. They're mid-range action movies, a lot of time directed by interesting up and comers and are usually very visual. Jonah Hex is a post civil-war/supernatural western and that doesn't appeal to me, but what does is Josh Brolin playing a Clint Eastwood role with a burnt off face and playing it very well. This guy really is coming into his own in his 40s with great acting in Milk, W., and Wall Street. And as a centerpiece in a comic book movie where he is an ex-Confederate soldier who can talk to the dead, he's pretty dang good. Also good is Megan Fox. I actually think she's a good actress. I know bad actresses like Malin Akerman and Jessica Alba, but Megan Fox is good at being still in the frame, not pushing it, and for someone hotter than the sun, she still seems like a real person. The supporting cast has a lot of strong actors including John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender from Inglourious Basterds, and Aidan Quinn. It's a surprisingly dignified ensemble for a movie that has cartoonish action and sometimes drifts into silly Wild Wild West territory. I had fun though. I enjoyed watching Jonah Hex take out bad guys with twin gatling guns and a pistol shotgun. Maybe you will too.
The Last of the Mohicans3 ½ stars I've always thought of The Last of the Mohicans as a strange movie in Michael Mann's filmography. Heat, The Insider, Collateral, Public Enemies, and then a period frontier history romance? That's weird. But there are similarities. The film takes its historical details with complete OCD seriousness. There is a meticulous attention to details that is true of all of Michael Mann. And there is also this very movie-ish passionate romance as in Miami Vice, as in Public Enemies. It's strange how a director who strives for absolute reality likes movie relationships that are very unreal. I doubt that a white man adopted by a Indian family in the 1700s ever fell in love with the British daughter of a general. But that's what the movie is and I still enjoy it all these years later. Daniel Day-Lewis is utterly convincing as Hawkeye in both the action sequences and his dramatic ones with Madeleine Stowe. Madeleine Stowe is just a beautiful woman and perfectly cast in the film, playing a fiercely independent woman in a time when no women were independent. We like their characters so much individually that we want them so much to be together. It reminded me a lot of the relationship between Kate Winslet and Dicaprio in Titanic. I guess times have changed and audiences won't accept this kind of unabashed romance in movies these days. That's probably a good thing. The action scenes are well put together, in particular the final 12 minute sequence on the side of that cliff. An amazing ending. This was before Mann went digital and almost completely hand-held. I have to say I prefer the shooting style in this and in Heat much more than his recent work.
What I remember most when I think back to when I saw it in 1992 is the music and "Just stay alive, no matter what occurs, I will find you!" Great Celtic theme music that everyone remembers and one of the cheesiest lines ever. The movie looks fantastic on Blu-ray and for someone who does not care about nature and landscapes, the scenery really is gorgeous in the film. Rent it again, it'll take you back to junior high.
(Let me preface by saying that I am going to see the movie again. I really think I need to with a clearer head and less anticipation. Let's think of this as a preliminary review.)
2 ½ stars (first viewing. 9/30) This was the movie I was the most excited about seeing in 2010. Fincher doing a movie about the creation of Facebook? For some reason that really seemed like a great thing. So great that I went to only the second midnight show I've been to since I started working full time again. The other was The Lovely Bones. Lord, what a f--king horrible movie that was.
I've said it very recently but David Fincher is one of my top three favorite directors. I get physically anxious when I'm about to see one of his movies and I felt that way today. But unfortunately, and to my disappointment, this isn't a David Fincher film, this is an Aaron Sorkin film.
Aaron Sorkin is a writer, most notably for A Few Good Men and every episode of the first four seasons of The West Wing. He is known primarily for writing mountains of dialogue. The characters in his scripts speak tons of it, all at a break-neck pace. I've watched a lot of West Wing and everything else he's written including The American President(supremely well written) and the watchable but flawed one season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Even if you haven't seen all that I have, you can easily recognize the sound and pace of his writing and I don't believe I've seen a film in recent memory that is so completely driven by dialogue. It doesn't relent for a minute. Everyone is talking all of the time. I don't mind that, that actually sounds appealing to me, but in my opinion, and as a writer who loves dialogue, I don't think it's very good here. It's wordy for the sake of being wordy, there are few good lines or laughs, it's clogged by dated references like Brooks Brothers and Irving Berlin, and the endless barrage suffocates the story and leaves few moments for real emotion. If a movie is going to be completely driven by dialogue, it better be great, and it's not.
I knew nothing about Facebook other than that I use it, and a lot of the first 30 minutes is about Mark Zuckerberg and his creation of it. He himself is socially inept, a nerd looking in from the outside, and he wants to get noticed. He's a brilliant programmer and builds this thing from scratch himself. The code, the features, everything. He is also, to my surprise, a real a--hole. The movie could've been titled Revenge of the Nerd. This is a guy who was never popular, he's very aware of that, and his life seems to be driven by that insecurity. I mean it takes someone with no friends to want to create an entire website about socializing with friends. And having watched a bit of a 60 Minutes interview with him, I don't think the movie's very far off. However, it does make it hard to want to spend so much time with him. The scenes where we see his programming prowess are impressive, but so much of it is about a kid in his early 20s driving away the few friends he has.
The sympathetic character is Eduardo Saverin played very well by British actor Andrew Garfield (the new Spider-man) who funds the original site out of his own pocket, is made CFO, but as the film shows in parallel timelines, he is suing Mark for being cut out of Facebook. I wish the movie was more about him. He's a good guy that Mark is jealous of despite him being Mark's best friend. He's being courted by an exclusive club in Harvard, one that Mark wanted to be in himself.
The movie is of course about what happens between them and because of the creation of this juggernaut social network that is now worth $25 billion. Is the movie about how money and success end friendships? Sort of, but it's not handled in a way that is dramatic and emotional. It kind of just happens. Is the movie about a college student in his 20s creating Facebook? It is, but it actually seems much more interested in the lawsuits that came afterward rather than its creation. So much of the film is in fact the depositions taken at the two lawsuits that were brought against Mark. It's a good device to help explain what happened, but they left me a little cold. They aren't intellectually stimulating, but feel more like little kids whining and insulting each other through lawyers. We don't see many scenes where Mark is feeling experiencing all of this astronomical success. We instead hear about it afterward and that doesn't have as much impact.
One genuine bright spot is actress Rooney Mara who will be Lisbeth Salander in Fincher's upcoming The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She is Mark's girlfriend Erica at the beginning of the film and who breaks up with him not that far into it. She doesn't mind that he's a geek, but she sees who he is. Her role is brief, but crucial to the proceedings. I wish so much that she was in the movie more. She's actually one of the few female characters in a movie that has no major female roles. Her scenes felt dramatic, her scenes had emotion. If she was in it more, a scene at the very end would've had more meaning to me. Another bright spot is the film's magnificent score which was composed by Nine Inch Nail's front man Trent Reznor. The only one it reminds me of is Fight Club and what a great score that movie had.
The majority of the film is people talking the same way. They talk like Aaron Sorkin characters. Even the supporting characters are uninspired. Justin Timberlake is good as Napster inventor Sean Parker but the role itself is a little obvious. Of course this arrogant, slick "entrepreneur" is going to ruin everything. The Harvard guys suing Mark aren't very memorable either. Maybe I don't care that much about rowing or the exclusivity of Harvard clubs. Fincher also seems handcuffed by the talky script. Honestly, and I'm trying, but I can't recall one great visual moment and that is shocking considering how much I study his films for visual craftsmanship. It's a lot of white guys talking in rooms but isn't nearly as well shot as Zodiac.
Yes, I'm going to see it again because maybe my expectations clouded my judgment. And my audience wasn't the right one. I could feel the words flying by them and not connecting. It's far from bad though. I think it's a little plagued by this new thing of so not wanting to be sentimental that the movie forgets to be emotional. I was interested because it's an interesting story, I just couldn't dial in to what was going on. I actually wish the pace was slowed down. I will post again as soon as I see it a second time. I really hope I am all wrong.
3 stars (second viewing. 10/1) Alright, second time around, and I like it. The key reason I believe I did this time, and not that time, is that I locked into the rhythm of the movie right away. The film has no intention of easing us into it. The Columbia Studios logo comes up, fade quickly to black, and like a bullet out of a gun, the movie starts flying. The first scene is a prolonged dialogue exchange and it is a high speed download. It may seem like some college kid thinking nonsense out loud, but it very is important to the story, I knew that this time, and I paid attention. It is information we have to know and I think last night I just couldn't get my bearings after that first scene. I got off to a rough start out of the gate and couldn't recover.
What I also realized much clearer this time around is that the movie is not interested in the why. Why did these guys do what they did, why is Mark the way he is? It touches on those things, but it's not a character study. The movie isn't about interpersonal relationships, it's about information. It's not interested in the why as much as it is interested in the how. How did they build the site, how did they come up with the ideas, when did they go to California, when did the site hit 100,000 members. A huge moment involves a character writing an algorithm on a window. When that a moment like that stands out, the movie is not as interested in the people.
You can't really judge a movie on what you wanted it to be. What matters is what the filmmakers wanted it to be. And I believe David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin wanted to make a non-fiction film about the creation of Facebook and to that end they are wildly successful. Perhaps they thought that focusing too much on the relationships would drift into melodrama. One of Fincher's favorite films is All the President's Men and that movie is completely about information and has nothing to do with the personal lives of the characters. And I think I didn't want that for this movie. I wanted a dramatic fiction film. I wanted more scenes actually emotionally depicting these crumbling friendships as opposed to just hearing about what happened in a deposition. I'm more interested in the inner workings of Mark Zuckerberg and not so much in his programming brilliance. The characters are therefore at arm's length, particularly Mark who I felt I knew less and less as the movie went along. But that's not the movie they wanted to make and I gotta respect that.
I also have to respect the fact that they are masterful in conveying all of this information in less than 2 hours. There are so many players in this mix, so much is happening and it's all happening very fast. The movie jumps from multiple timelines and perspectives, but having started the movie right this time, I could follow everything quite easily. This is really skillful filmmaking. And as mentioned, all that information is communicated through copious amounts of dialogue. Watching it a second time, I think the script is phenomenal at being informative, hit or miss at being witty, and mediocre at being emotional. A lot the zingers don't zing, but there are some doozies, the best being, "We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're going to live on the Internet." That is a great line. Also the razor sharp brevity of the Mamet-esque line, "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook."
SPOILER SECTION The main issue I still have is why did Mark do what he did to Eduardo? The movie doesn't really make a strong choice on the matter and I think that's a mistake. It is equivalent to an act of violence and I feel like it comes out of nowhere. Even if Mark had some inner jealousy and resentment as the film alludes to, we simply haven't seen enough of their friendship falling apart. We haven't seen Mark alone in private feeling hurt by Eduardo. This is the key relationship in the film and their climactic moment is not right. Even the moment when Eduardo closes the bank account is too calm. He needs to be in a rage, in a hissy fit in that moment. And when Eduardo leaves the Facebook offices after his confrontation with Mark and Seqan, we should stay with him and how he's feeling after being betrayed. Instead we stay with Mark who feels a little bit guilty and we meet a pretty intern. It's choices like this that bothered me.
Also if Erica is indeed Mark's Rosebud she needs to be in the film more. I realized this time that she's only in 4 short scenes and one of those scenes just has her picture in it. If this woman was the metaphorical catalyst for Mark Zuckerberg's entire adult life, she simply needs to be in the movie more. We could at least see more of their relationship being good before it disintegrated. I can afford to spend less time with groupie Christy, who may seem exaggerated, but I know that type of Asian girl. That is right on the money. END SPOILER SECTION
Lastly, I wish the movie had something to say. It tells us tons of things about what happened in the creation and subsequent lawsuits of Facebook, but it doesn't have a strong point of view on the matter. Does it have something to say about a generation that lives on the internet? Is it about a how socially inept geeks will one day rule the world? Is it about friendship versus business? Good drama to me is subjective. What does the creator feel about this story? Again, I think that's missing. Still missing as well is Fincher's visual flair. It's of course highly refined and polished(of course, it's Fincher), it's just not as special compared to Se7en or Fight Club.
It's worth seeing, definitely. The story itself is still fascinating, its intelligence level is incredibly high, the non-traditional score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is absolutely stunning, and Andrew Garfield and Rooney Mara are both excellent in the film. Andrew Garfield in particular since that guy is as British as Hugh Grant but he completely fooled me. This also may be the first time I've liked Jesse Eisenberg in a movie. It's a good film, but doesn't achieve greatness. Make sure you pay attention right from the start or you might never get back on the train. And I would love to hear from you guys about your thoughts and comments. I actually found a copy of the script online, read it, and had much of the same feelings. Btw, it's 162 pages and how they put all of it in 2 hours is astonishing . I may not love the movie, but apparently I love thinking, reading, and writing about it. Any movie that can stir up this much outside investment is a worthy one.
DVDs Watched this Week: The Good: The Karate Kid (2010), The Last of the Mohicans(amazing on Blu-ray), The Minus Man, Shadow of a Doubt, more of The Office The Bad: None The Ugly: None Trips to the Theater: The Social Network (2nd time) Actors of the Week: Andrew Garfield, Owen Wilson, Madeleine Stowe Directors of the Week: Hampton Fancher
I was so impressed by the trailers for The Social Network that I wanted to find out who put them together. They were done by Mark Woollen who apparently has created some of the best including trailers for Where the Wild Things Are, Slumdog Millionaire, Adaptation, Milk, The Royal Tenenbaums, A Serious Man, and that phenomenal teaser for True Grit. Here is a sample of some of his work. http://www.markwoollen.com/
The Big Lebowski Teaser
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
DVDs Watched this Week: The Good: Iron Man 2, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World The Bad: 3:10 to Yuma The Ugly: None Trips to the Theater: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Social Network Actors of the Week: Shia LaBeouf, Frank Langella, Rooney Mara Directors of the Week: Nick Stoller
Classic Back to the Future, the first one, is a classic. I think it is one of those movies that will live on long beyond my lifetime. That qualifies it as a classic, but I think there's something more. It was made in 1984 and there are some things that scream the 80s like Marty ordering a Tab and all of the concern about nuclear bombs and plutonium, but watching it again on Blu-ray, I think the movie really is timeless.
