The Town

First off, let me apologize for skipping the month of August. And most of September. Stuff happens. Next, let me say that Ray LaMontagne was a weird choice for the music in the closing credits of The Town. But that's pretty much the only problem I had with the entire film.

A lot of star power can sometimes be tough on a movie. It can overwhelm the audience. It also makes me wary of how good a movie's going to be. Sometimes I look at a movie that has a bunch of people that I know in it and start to think that everyone signed on because they knew so and so was in it too. But the star power in this movie did not disappoint. Ben Affleck, from Good Will Hunting, Armageddon, and formerly of "Bennifer", plays Doug MacRay, a bank robber who, along with his childhood best friend, played by Jeremy Renner, from The Hurt Locker, stages money truck and bank heists in Charlestown, a neighborhood of Boston. Charlestown has a rep for being a breeding ground for bank robbers. The opening credits of the film contain a quote that reads something like, "In Charlestown, robbing banks is a trade. Passed down from fathers to sons." In this case, Affleck's father, played by Chris Cooper, who has literally been in so many great movies that listing them would be futile, even though I'm pretty sure you don't know who he is. You'd know him if you saw him, but you should know him by name. "Chris Cooper", Google him. Cooper is serving consecutive life sentences for a robbery that went wrong and ended with the killing of the truck guards. Even though he's only in one scene in the entire movie, he nails it. Really, I can't say it enough, you need to know who this guy is by name. Affleck and Renner lead a crew with two other insignificant members that works for The Florist, played by Pete Postlethwaite, from The Usual Suspects, and Inception. Much like Cooper's part in this movie, the Florist's is relatively small but still significant and really well acted. Blake Lively, from Gossip Girl, plays Renner's sister and Affleck's one time girlfriend/hookup. And she was really good. I was actually super surprised. I've only ever seen like 2 episodes of Gossip Girl and I was more impressed by her looks and the absurd nature of that show than I was with her acting. But she was really very good. She pulled off the trashy Boston broad with a 2-year-old and drug problem better than I would've imagined. Even her accent was good. Jon Hamm, Don Draper from Mad Men, played the FBI agent trying to catch them. He was good, but sort of unremarkable. Also, Rebecca Hall, from Vicky Christina Barcelona, plays Claire, a woman that Affleck, Renner, et al., kidnap during a heist and subsequently let free, but we'll get more to this story arc in a second.

Sometimes a movie tries to make a point, teach the audience a lesson. Sometimes a movie just tries to entertain. I think this film was just meant to tell a good story. Some might say that telling a good story is the same as entertaining, but I don't think it is. Telling a good story isn't about the audience. It's about the characters. It's not about keeping your attention. Even though it does. Telling a good story is about something almost intangible. It's about something that transcends typical forms of entertainment. It's just about the story.

The Town is just about the story. The struggle that Affleck has with his identity as a criminal, his burgeoning feelings for Rebecca Hall, his waning feelings for Blake Lively, Hamm's mission to arrest them, Chris Cooper's power issues, the Florist's power issues, Renner's power issues, are all just part of the story. One aspect is not more important than any other. And that's what made this movie so great. It seamlessly blended the characters into one single narrative arc.

And it was great to look at too. Affleck did a great job at the helm directing. And writing. And starring. The trifecta. Affleck has made some bad movie choices. His list of bad movies is longer than his list of good ones. But those good ones really shine. The Town will go down as one of his good ones. Probably his best since his breakthrough with Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote with Matt Damon. But Affleck has fought his alcoholism, and he's been married to Jennifer Garner for 5 years now. He's an adult. And he's about to make a massive comeback. I think we're about to see Affleck be better than he's ever been, with a lot more writing and directing credits. His career is not over.

I highly recommend this film. And it's really for everybody. It's incredibly accessible, and it's filled with all kinds of great Boston things that a homer like me really likes. Including some awesome glamour shots of the Bunker Hill Monument (which, little tidbit, was designed by Solomon Willard, who I am related too) and Fenway Park, the greatest place on earth. And for all out LOST fans out there, the Man in Black is in it. So, quick rundown: star power, good story, Fenway, Man in Black. If that's not enough reason to see a movie, I don't know what is.

Inception

People like to look back on the 1960s. The 60s were a pivotal decade in history, at least in the US. Culturally, politically, economically, creatively. It was a decade where drugs inspired people. Or so we sometimes say. The question often becomes, "Are drugs the cause of creativity in a person, or does creativity in a person cause the desire for drugs?" I guess I don't really know the answer to that. I do know one thing though. There is absolutely no way that Inception was written by a person who does not use drugs.

I know that there's a word out there to describe this film, I just can't quite put my finger on it. It's just beyond my grasp. Unique. Groundbreaking. Creative. I feel like a 4th grader taking a standardized writing test mixed with a movie trailer writer.

I've just never seen anything quite like it. The story involves this concept called shared dreaming. As one person dreams, other's can enter into his subconscious and exist in that same dream. It's a real concept, actually, but I'm pretty sure the same people who believe in telepathy are the same ones who are touting the reality of shared dreaming. So do with that what you will. You know what, I don't think I can really go into a detailed synopsis and do it any justice. The IMDb synopsis starts out really detailed and ends with short sentences and storyline gaps. And that's what I'm afraid mine will do. And I don't want that to happen. Lets run down the characters and go into some themes and see where that leads us.

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed, Catch Me If You Can, Titanic, etc, plays an expert at what's called extraction. The process of sharing a dream, and convincing the person who's dream you're in to tell you their secrets, be that personal, financial, or otherwise. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer, Angels in the Outfield, plays DiCaprio's partner in the extraction business. Ellen Page, Juno, plays a young "Architect", a person who creates the fictional, subconscious realities in which shared dreaming takes place. Ken Watanabe, one of the 3 Japanese guys in pretty much every movie you've ever seen that had a Japanese guy in it, plays a powerful businessman named Saito who hires DiCaprio and his team to, instead of extract a thought from someone's subconscious, place a thought in their head. Cillian Murphy, Scarecrow from the Batman movies, plays the man into whose head Saito wants the thought placed.

This film is about reality. And perception. And confidence that you know what is real. We find that DiCaprio is in some ways trapped in a dream world with his wife, played by Marion Cotillard, Nine, Public Enemies. She lost touch with reality, after living 50 years with DiCaprio in a dream. Because for every minute of time in the real world, much more time takes place in the dream. She was convinced that reality was not real. And it wasn't, to her. She was so convinced that she took her own life, hoping that, by dying, she would "wake up" and be back in her own reality. DiCaprio's guilt over his wife's death, drives him to pursue her in the dream world. To recreate her in his own mind and dream that he is there with her. It's almost as if he's trying to convince himself that the dream world is real, he just can't do it.

Reality is a complicated thing for something that should be so straightforward. I mean, what's real is real. Right? Surely one can distinguish fact from fiction. Right? But post-moderns like us don't believe in absolute truth. We're relativists. Existentialists. Fools. The notion that everything is relative, is just that. Foolish. If everything is relative, then why believe in anything? Why believe in God, or heaven, or even your 5 senses or love? That notion should be absurd. But to most, it's not. This film is a masterful treatise on the necessity of reality. The necessity of truth. Some things have to be real. Some things have to be true. Because if they're not, we'll go crazy. Imagine if your entire world was suddenly all a lie. Remember The Truman Show? Remember how after you saw that for the first time you spent a week looking for cameras in your mirror? Think about really believing that everything you've ever know was fabricated. You wouldn't be able to take it. You'd spiral into depression. You'd kill yourself. I guarantee it. That's why people become suicidal when they have existential breakdowns. Pretty much everyone knows someone who's experienced some sort of crisis like that. I do. When people start disbelieving reality, things gets scary. You have to trust your eyes, your ears, your mind. You have to put your faith in what you know to be true. That's the only way to live.

This film is an absolute must see. It's the best movie out right now, and it's the best new release I've seen this year. An instant Oscar front-runner. And don't worry, I haven't nearly given enough away to ruin anything. You're still safe. Take your non-jackass friends (because your jackass friends will either complain about it or pretend they understood any of it) and see it as soon as possible. See it in IMAX too, it'll be worth it.

Waiting

Ok, let's cut right to it. This one's going to be short. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I turned it off about 45 minutes in, which I never do. I always finish movies, even if I don't like them. As far as I'm concerned, this movie had no redeemable qualities. The vulgarity was over the top. And listen, I'm a 2o-year-old college student. Vulgarity is, in many ways, the norm. But this was just too much.

The ensemble cast is pretty funny individually. Ryan Reynolds, Van Wilder, Just Friends, Wolverine, plays a mid-twenties guy who works at a restaurant. Justin Long, Hi I'm a Mac, plays a mid-twenties guy who works at a restaurant. Anna Faris, Scary Movies, Observe and Report, plays a mid-twenties girl who works at a restaurant. Want me to go on? That's all there is to this. The cast is fully undeveloped, and everyone starts telling nut sack jokes after the first minute.

I love comedies. I always have. And I know this movie's 5 years old, but this movie made me sad for the future of comedy. This movie got rave reviews from my friends. Which doesn't really say much about my friends. There is zero intelligence, zero inspiration, and zero authentic comedy in this movie. I bought this one, unfortunately, for a dollar at Plato's Closet along with Blazing Saddles, the Mel Brooks classic. An interesting pairing, in retrospect. Brooks' films were always derided for being vulgar, racy, on the edge. But in a good way. They're witty. They say something about the society we live in. Whether that something is race, religion, modernization, Brooks was always saying something. This movie says something too. It says, "I think I can get high school and college guys to see this movie because it's really dirty. They won't ask for anything more." Well, I'm asking for something more. Let's go back to more intelligent comedies. Comedies that make a statement. Comedies that make you laugh, not vomit. I don't need to watch a movie to get nutsack jokes. My friends make enough of those already.

The Road

There are only a few things in the world that give movies a run for their money in terms of my personal entertainment. Sports. Music. Books. That's pretty much it. So when a movie comes along that's based on one of my favorite books of all time, I'm in. The Road, of course, being based on a novel of the same name by brilliant and eccentric author Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy is a genius. For those of you who don't know, he also wrote No Country for Old Men which the Coen brother's brought to the screen back in '07 to the tune of 4 Academy Awards, including best picture, best director, best supporting actor, and best adapted screenplay. Those are 4 serious awards. It's not like they won best sound mixing and costume design. Another of McCarthy's novels, Blood Meridian, is rumored to be in preproduction for a 2011 release. It takes an interesting type of novelist to write books that are adaptable to movies. Some guys have made a career out of it, namely John Grisham and Michael Crichton. With those two guys, it's almost like they wrote screenplays and then just decided to turn their scripts into books first. I guess I can't complain though. The two of them brought us The Firm, Jurassic Park, Twister, The Rainmaker, and A Time to Kill (Matthew McConaughey's only good movie happens to be a great one) among about a dozen other's. But those two guys are mega-commercial. And if you add JK Rowling's Harry Potter movies, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, and Nicholas Sparks' chick-flicks into the mix, you'd be hard pressed to find a novel to film adaptation that wasn't an incredibly popular book. That's why McCarthy is so interesting. He's sort of a weird guy. His books are dark. Like really dark. He's a Pulitzer Prize winner. Not a pop star. He's a complete recluse, having given only a handful of interviews in over 25 years. But his books are compelling. So very compelling.

The Road takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. And while we're never really told what exactly happened, it's pretty safe to assume there was some sort of nuclear fallout. Everything on the planet has been wiped clean. All animals and vegetation are dead. A blanket of ash covers everything. And most of the very few people who are left alive have resulted to barbarism. Cannibalism even. Gangs of men rove the barren streets murdering, raping, stealing. Trying to survive. There is no color. Anywhere. The world is bleak, dark, and cold. It's truly a worst case scenario for this planet and for mankind. The plot is simple and the characters are few. A father and son head South towards the ocean. They're nameless and referred to in both the credits and the original novel only as the Man and the Boy. That's the first thing that strikes you. There's not a single character in the entire movie who has a name. It's as if names aren't important. Any past identity has been deemed irrelevant.

The Man, played by Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings fame, is grizzled, protective, weary, suspicious. Whereas the Boy, played by newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, is somber, afraid, but yet still curious and hopeful. It's this dynamic that provides much of the driving force of the movie. The Man has a responsibility to protect his son. But it's more than that. It's greater than a responsibility. It's greater than an obligation. It's more of a calling. A commission. A task of paramount importance. After the Man kills a gang member, played by a guy who's name you won't know but who's face I guarantee you'll recognize, who tries to attack the Boy, the Boy asks the Man if they're the good guys. If they will always be the good guys. And while the Man's answers in the affirmative seem to satisfy the Boy somewhat, he still seems uneasy. (Back to that "guy who's name you won't know but who's face I guarantee you'll recognize" bit. I love that. I love recognizing people in movies and even being able to name three or four things that they've been in but still have no idea what their name is. I always wonder if that person considers them self famous. I mean, I know who they are, I just don't know their name. Do you have to know a person's name for them to be famous? There are all kinds of people who I'd recognize and even want to take a picture with or something whose names I don't know. I'd just call them by their character. Is that a bad idea? I don't really care. If I see Rickety Cricket or Mr. Eko running around somewhere, I'm stopping them and taking a picture.)

One particularly interesting aspect of the movie is the use of timeline shift. The Man had a wife and the Boy had a mother. And several times, the timeline shifts back to an earlier point of post-apocalypse where the Man, the Woman, and the Boy were still living together at their home. The Woman, played by Charlize Theron of Moster, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and The Cider House Rules, thinks that the three of them should just commit suicide. end their lives and the constant struggle of life. The Man will have no part of it. Death is not the answer. To the Woman, however, it is the only option. In one of the most stirring scenes of the movie, she removes her coats and everything else shielding her from the bitter cold that seems to have enveloped the earth, and walks out into the utter blackness. Leaving her family behind and effectively killing herself.

Things happen in this movie that I honestly don't want to write about. Just some awful, awful things. Some portions of the film are so horrible that the viewer can do nothing but gaze with a somber and depressed disposition. But for every devastatingly awful moment, for every minute spent simply staring at the screen in silence, there is hope. In spite of all of the pain, the suffering, the struggle, the atrocity, this movie, or film as it should justly be called, the story still remains hopeful. And it's because of the Boy. The Boy, having really known no other life, judges every thing and every day against a baseline that to anyone who had lived before the fallout would be horrible. But because horror is normal, there can still be good. And that good really stands out. And even though the Man is jaded, he still teaches his son to find and seek out good. He tells him that he is "carrying the fire" inside of him. He treats him to a can of Coca-Cola. But he never lies to him. He admits his struggles and his downfalls. He is a really good parent. And because of that, the Boy still exhibits some of the wide-eyed wonderment one would expect out of a 10-year-old kid. The Boy even seeks to help other's whom he perceives as another one of the "good guys", including an ancient looking man, played perfectly by the great Robert Duval, an actor who's career achievements and seminal roles are so numerous that you should know exactly who I'm talking about without me giving you the resume cheat sheet like I usually do.

And that's the prevailing message. Amongst disaster, and tragedy, and atrocity, and some of the most inhumane behavior possible, in a world that does not resemble the world we live in today a single bit, good can exist. Good does exist. Did you catch that? Nothing is to evil. No situation is too bleak. No man is too desperate to deny the fact that good exists. I just think that's so amazing. It's so encouraging. The world is a crazy place man. I mean really crazy. We have unstable governments with nuclear weapons, civil war engulfing dozens of countries, more slaves on the planet now than at any other time in world history, and any number of other global and local calamities. A film like this can scare you. What if something like this isn't that far off'? I suppose I can't say for sure what I'd do. I'd like to think I would do the right thing. I'd like to think I'd be one of the "good guys". Good is out there. The word "hope" is used in the book of Job, a book that tells a story of despair, more than a dozen times. Hope is always out there, as long as you want to find it.

I highly recommend this film. I highly recommend this book. And I don't think you need to do one in particular before the other. Both are extremely eye opening and enthralling and devastating and uplifting in different ways. There are quite a few differences between the two, but I'm not a purist. That stuff never bothers me. This movie is really a must see. Just make sure you put yourself if the right state of mind first.

Get Him To The Greek

I learned something tonight. I'm not really into comedies that try and "say something". You know what I mean? The last thing I want is to go to a movie where I intend to laugh and get preached at. Like pretty much every movie Adam Sandler did after The Waterboy. I'm not saying that Get Him To The Greek was like that though. Because it wasn't really. Just thought I'd throw that little tidbit out there.

The trailer for this movie is what really roped me in. Jonah Hill, looking fatter than ever, and Russell Brand, looking more deprived than ever, running around and drinking absinthe. That was pretty much enough for me. And if you don't know about absinthe, check out the story told by L. Gabrielle Penebaz on The Moth Podcast. But anyways, Hill, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, plays some sort of low-level record company executive for Pinnacle Records, a fictional record company owned by Sean "Diddy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Puffy, Indecisive on What Nickname is Appropriate" Combs. He comes up with the idea to have Aldous Snow, a crazy, drug-addict rock star play a 10th anniversary concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Sean "Diddy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Puffy, Indecisive on What Nickname is Appropriate" Combs, then decides that it will be Hill who is to bring him from London to LA, via Manhattan for an appearance on the Today Show. Hijinks ensue. But the problem is I now judge all drunken hijinks on a scale from any of the really bad National Lampoon's movies made in the 90s to The Hangover. And just nothing will match up with The Hangover. At least in my mind. And it didn't help that both Brand and Hill can get a little annoying after awhile. They both serve better as ancillary characters in a bigger narrative, instead of as leads.

The plot was also flawed. Inasmuch as there wasn't much of one to speak of. The basic premise was great. Mild mannered guy has to get an insane rock star halfway across the world in 3 days. They just couldn't come up with any really hilarious things for them to do slash have happen to them along the way. Which troubles me. I mean, how hard is that really? I wouldn't have even cared if they stole plot points from any number of comedies about traveling from Point A to Point B.

There were some bright points though. Sean "Diddy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Puffy, Indecisive on What Nickname is Appropriate" Combs was actually really funny. And Russell Brand's ex-girlfriend, played by Rose Byrne whom I know primarily from her role in the FX show Damages, is funny, if not a little disconcerting. Damages has been one of my favorite shows for the past couple years, and I highly recommend it. And furthermore, everything that FX does is just really good. The Sheild, Rescue Me, 30 Days, The Riches, Damages, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Archer, The League. All are great programs for completely different reasons. FX gives HBO a run for it's money in terms of original programming, and it's a standard cable channel that doesn't cost extra.

You know, I'd see this one again. Not in the theater because movie tickets are just too damn expensive. But I'll probably end up watching it in the fall with some guys who didn't see it in theaters. I was disappointed by the complete lack of plot, but I did laugh a lot. And that's what comedy is all about Charlie Brown.

Sideways

So I picked up this movie at like TJ Maxx from the bargain movie bin for like $3.99 awhile ago and never watched it. I do that sometimes. I just buy really cheap movies that I'm interested in seeing and that I think will make my overall collection look more impressive. And I knew this one had gotten a fair share of Oscar noms, a respectable 4 during a year that had quite a few good movies come out including Million Dollar Baby, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Aviator, Hotel Rwanda just to name a few. And I finally sat down to watch this one tonight. With a glass of wine of course.

The movie is about two 40-something old friends played by Paul Giamatti, one of my favorite actors, and Thomas Haden Church, a guy who I know mostly from George of the Jungle with Brendan Fraser. Giamatti plays a middle school English teacher and aspiring novelist who's divorce two years ago has left him depressed, empty, and drunk. Church plays an actor who's bygone soap opera fame has left him fairly wealthy but kept him living in the past. He's about to get married, so the two of them set off for northern California for a week of wine tasting. Giamatti is a moderate wine expert. Slightly snobby in his tastes, as evidenced by, for whatever reason, his hatred for Merlot. Church is certainly uncultured by Giamatti's standards, but eager to learn and have one last good time before he gets married. Right off the bat, it's clear to see that the two of them have different intentions coming into the weekend. Giamatti wants to just do the one final thing that he enjoys in life, drink wine. And Church wants to have a fling before his wedding.

Enter women. Two women to be exact. Maya, played by Virginia Madsen, who hasn't been in anything that I remember seeing her in, and Stephanie, played by Sandra Oh from Grey's Anatomy. Church and Oh hit it off and Church's intended fling ensues. Giamatti, still reeling from his divorce, is clearly interested in Maya, who seems to return some interest as well. But his insecurities and regrets from the way he dealt with his former wife seem to haunt him and keep him from moving on. Additionally, Church's complete lack of care for his future wife has no regrets about cheating on his fiancée. This bothers Giamatti who, having cheated on his wife, does not want Church to make the same mistakes as he does. Giamatti finally gains the courage to pursue Maya and they have sex and some sort of undeveloped good times before Giamatti lets it spill that Church is getting married. This ruins both of their Napa Valley trysts and send them both back to southern California hurting.

That's the basic plot. But this movie really left me wanting more. I didn't particularly like any of the characters. I think that was the biggest problem. It just seemed like nothing really clicked for me. They story was fairly un-compelling. And while it wasn't totally predictable, there was just very little too it. It was sort of funny. It was sort of romantic. It was sort of interesting. But just sort of. And sort of doesn't really cut it. It was filmed ok. About 40% of it was great from a cinematography standpoint, but the rest of it was just so so. It's almost like the parts that were really great to look at were thrown in there to give a big studio movie some credit. Overall it was a pretty unimpressive movie. I probably wouldn't watch it again. I did learn a little bit about wine tasting towards the beginning. Which was cool. And the movie poster is really cool looking. I certainly wouldn't buy it again. Even at the stellar price of $3.99.

Crazy Heart

I finally got to knock this one off my list. And I'm really glad I finally got to it. It's always fun to watch movies after they've received their awards and accolades and then assess them for myself. The main hype around this movie was the acting of Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake, a washed-up, alcoholic country singer. Bridges earned his first Academy Award, and it was very well deserved.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, who I almost always like, plays a reporter that Bad meets in Santa Fe. She asks him for an interview and movie magic ensues. Their romance seemed just a little strange to me. He easily has 20 years on her, if not more. And their chemistry, while apparent and unforced, just bothered me a little. Only a little though. She has a son named Buddy, apparently she's a fan of Elf, played by a cute little kid named Jack Nation. Which, by the way, is an awesome and sure-fire movie star name. Jack Nation. Yeah, I can see that name in lights. I hope it's not a weird stage-mom concoction.

You know, I was going to do a tidy little plot synopsis as a part of this review. But I don't think I will now. Because frankly it's unimportant. The movie was satisfyingly undeveloped. The plot was simple, the conflict straightforward. It was pretty much just about Bad. It starts off with him performing a show in a bowling alley piss-ass-drunk, even leaving the stage to vomit in a garbage can outside. You can tell he's unsatisfied. You can tell that he's broken. You can tell that he has a lot of skeletons in his closet, a lot of baggage. But you can still tell that he's hopeful. He loves his music. And he really loves to perform. You can just tell. A bit later in the movie he walks into a bar in Santa Fe where he's playing to find a piano player who's going to be part of his backing band for the night's show just ripping on the keys. The guy's really good. And Bad acknowledges him, and his talent, and says that it's going to be really nice to play with a talented pianist again. And he does it all with a big, sincere smile on his face. Then he goes back to his motel room and gets drunk. Alone. It's that kind of dichotomy that makes Bridges' character so intriguing. The broken alcoholic juxtaposed with the enthusiastic musician.

Very little is said about his past. Besides a couple jokes about his 5 ex-wives and the mention that he has a son that he's never met. But not of that matters. Bridges takes over the screen in every frame. Everything going on plot-wise simply serves to provide a platform for Bridges' performance.

Aside from Bridges, the best part of the movie was easily the music, written primarily by T Bone Burnett, known for his work with artists like Counting Crows, Tony Bennett and Allison Krauss and Robert Plant and for soundtrack contributions to O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk the Line, and Ryan Bingham, a bull-rider turned Americana singer/songwriter. Bridges sings and plays guitar and so does, wait for it, Colin Farrell. (Yes, that Colin Farrell! He even sings and speaks with a country accent. Very convincingly too. I was so surprised. Farrell has always interested me, his rise and fall as one of Hollywood's baddest bad boys. And then he stunned me with his brilliant performance in In Bruges, one of my top 10 favorite films to date. While this role isn't one of his best acting endeavors, it is really good. Especially considering that he has one of the heaviest Irish dock-worker accents I've ever heard.) Every song seems to come genuinely from Bad's soul. And Bridges plays a huge role in that. He's a great singer and I'd honestly listen to anything he put out there. Full of regret and dissatisfaction, his songs epitomize the character. Frankly, the movie wouldn't be half as good without the music. And I don't even like country music. I would venture to say that I hate country music. I've always liked bluegrass and folk, just not country. It seems to be generally uninspired, ignorant, and annoying. If someone try's to tell me that that "Big Green Tractor" song is any good I swear I'm going to go postal. But this brand of country is different. It's about something more. It's honest. It's genuine. The way music should be. Good music should speak to you. And if I'm to be honest, if "Big Green Tractor" speaks to you, I'll never speak to you again.

Remember Me

Yeah yeah, I'm the worst blogger ever. I just haven't seen any movies in awhile. You'll live. And yeah, yeah. I saw a Robert Pattinson movie. Don't judge me. Oh, and spoilers abound so watch yourself. When I saw the previews for this movie a couple months ago, I thought it looked good. And I wasn't that worried about seeing a movie with a Twilight actor in it. Then I tried to watch New Moon yesterday. Which was bad. The acting in that one was so rough that I couldn't make it through. So I was a little wary of the potential bad acting. But this movie was really good. I really, really enjoyed it. Girls kept telling me this movie was "Like amazing!" And that's usually code for, "I'm not going to like this." But I did. I really did. Robert Pattinson was very good. And Emile de Ravin, Claire from Lost, is also good. Despite her pretty bad American accent. The rest of the cast also plays their parts very well. Chris Cooper, October Sky, Breach, The Patriot, and a slew of other movies I really like, plays Claire's dad, a Sgt. in the NYPD. And Pierce Brosnan, James Bond, Mamma Mia, Mrs. Doubtfire, plays Pattinson's dad. An uptight lawyer with mixed up priorities. He does this great kinda "used to be poor Brooklyn guy trying to be uppercrust" accent.

Pattinson plays Pattinson. Brooding and angsty, he seems really comfortable as this character and may face typecasting for much of his career. He has no direction in life. He doesn't work, he doesn't go to school, but he does "audit" classes. Which means he attends and learns without being graded or paying for the classes. It's kind of the Good Will Hunting approach but he just goes into the classes instead of just reading in the library. He and his roommate, Aiden, played by Tate Ellington who plays a very traditional comic relief role with brilliance, get into a fight and are arrested by Chris Cooper after Pattinson mouths off to him. Aiden, as a dare, convinces Pattinson to ask Claire out on a date to get back at Cooper for being a dick. Words of wisdom, don't date girls as a dare. It never works out properly. They fall in love, as they often do in movies. Claire's dad finds out about their relationship and Pattinson finally confesses to Claire that their relationship started on a dare. She get's upset and storms out. I don't know how I feel about that response. I mean, I understand that he wasn't really honest with her, but whatever. Their relationship is really now. Why does it matter why he approached her in the first place? Whatever. Girls are tricky.

One of the more interesting story lines involves Pattinson's family. His brother committed suicide on his 22nd birthday and it tore his family apart. He has a little sister, Caroline, played very well by Ruby Jerins, a very cute little girl with a lot of potential as an actress, who thinks that Pattinson hung the moon. Her artistic talent makes her something of an outcast among the "pretty" girls in her class. Pattinson tries his best to support her, but there's only so much he can do. Their father, divorced from their mother, is simply a check to them. He values his work over everything else and Pattinson really resents him for it. The conflict really comes to a head when Brosnan misses Caroline's art show. Pattinson storms into his office and really lays into him. They almost come to blows before they're stopped by others in the room.

The movie's set in 2001, in New York. You know this from the very beginning. And I thought right away, 9/11 is going to be related somehow. I didn't know how though. After Caroline is bullied to the point of breakdown by the "pretty" girls, Brosnan starts to come around. Pattinson flips out one morning after walking Caroline to school and destroys some school property and is arrested for the second time this movie. After bailing him out of jail, Brosnan gets a fire under him and begins to stand up for his family. Pattinson agrees to meet Brosnan at his office to go over some information about his lawsuit.

Then the movie gets interesting. Pattinson and Claire had just started to rekindle their relationship, and his family situation was finally turning out well. Pattinson is early to his dad's office and as he stands at the window of the office, the camera pans out and reveals that he is in Tower One of the World Trade Center. And everyone in the theater thinks a collective, "Shit! No! C'mon! Really?" The screen goes black and cuts to scenes of the other characters, ash starting to fall around them, just cry and look up into the sky. It's powerful. Like really moving.

I guess I knew that this might be a 9/11 movie. But I didn't really know.

I don't know if it's too soon for a 9/11 movie. I don't think so. It's been almost 10 years. Which is crazy to think of. It's crazy to remember where you were. 6th grade, outside of Mrs. Ault's science class. I remember not knowing exactly what the World Trade Center was. I remember thinking some drunk guy got into his twin engine Piper Cub and ran into an apartment high rise. I wasn't prepared. No one was. This movie took an interesting angle though. It got us invested in the characters, and then shocked us with the tragedy. Which is exactly what happened to all of us. There were regular people in those towers. With regular lives. It was really personal. And just like September 9 years ago, we were initially all too shocked to be upset. And that's how it was with this movie. I was too shocked to be sad. This one's good. As long as you can get past "Robert is Boverred" and Claire's accent, you'll really enjoy it.

Shutter Island

Woah nelly. Watch out when you read this reveiw. Spoilers abound. This is one of the more fascinating films (Yeah, I'm saying now. Right off the bat. I'm going to snob out on you guys.) that I've seen in a long time. This may be one of Scorsese's best films to date. Everything about it was very, very interesting. Leonardo DiCaprio delivers one of his best performances too. Which is saying a lot considering The Departed, Gangs of New York, Catch Me if You Can, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, and Titanic. And that's only like half of his resume. He's an impressive actor. One of my favorites. And this may be his best. Ever.

DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall investigating the disappearance of a female patient at the mental hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island in Massachusetts. As the film progresses, the viewer gains an increasing insight into who Teddy Daniels really is. He says that the reason he wanted this assignment was a result of his wife's death in a fire in their apartment. He says that a man named Andrew Laeddis set the fire, and was now a patient on Shutter Island. He wanted to find Laeddis, and somehow gain closure in his wife's murder. But it becomes clear, relatively quickly, that his story is flawed, or at least in question. He begins having these bizarre dreams of his wife, and a little girl. He flashes back to his days as a soldier in World War II, where he was a part of a company that liberated the concentration camp at Dachau, where he sees the little girl as a dead body in the camp. The dream sequences are some of the best representations of dreams I've ever seen in cinema. Scorsese does a great job making them look like actual dreams. Everyone knows that dreams rarely make sense. You do things you wouldn't do normally. You say things that don't make sense. You react to things in irrational ways, even though they seem to make sense at the time. Scorsese is able to capture the lunacy of the average person's dream in viewing the dreams that DiCaprio has.

Mark Ruffalo plays Chuck Aule, DiCaprio's new partner, a recent transfer to Boston from the Marshall bureau in Seattle. This is absolutely Ruffalo's best performance, and comes at a time in his career when he seems to be shifting from the romantic comedy type role of 13 Going on 30 to a new type of role. That of the serious actor who takes small parts in artsy blockbusters like Where the Wild Things Are and large roles in independent feeling movies like The Brothers Bloom (Which was great by they way, I highly recommend it). I was on to Ruffalo though. At one point when he and DiCaprio were questioning other inmate/patients in the hospital about the disappearance of Rachel Solando, who was committed after drowning her 3 children and the dressing them up in her home and pretending that they weren't dead, one inmate asks Ruffalo to step away and get her a glass of water. After he leaves, she violently scribbles something down in DiCaprio's notebook. I immediately turned to my buddy and whispered in the theater, "He's Dr. Sheehan." Dr. Sheehan was Rachel Solando's primary psychiatrist while on the island. He had, reportedly, left the same morning they arrived for vacation, a claim DiCaprio never believes.

Sir Ben Kinglsey, famous for his portrayal of Gandhi in a film of the same name, is magnificent as the Dr. John Cawley, the chief psychiatrist on the island. The entire movie he is mysterious. Giving half answers to all of DiCaprio's questions and remaining detached from everything that's happening on the island. He is nearly emotionless the entire film, not an easy thing to do. It becomes very clear, very early, that Kingsley knows much more than he is letting on.

It was pretty easy to see in the trailers that DiCaprio is a patient on the island. I knew this, not form the film being spoiled for me, it just seemed pretty obvious from the trailers. What you don't know, however, is if he is actually crazy or not. You don't want him to be crazy. It's Leonardo DiHottie-o after all. And you don't think he is. You think he's being set up. You think that he's been asking to many questions on the mainland, and that he's asking way to many questions on Shutter Island. But in the final minutes of the film, we learn otherwise. He killed his wife, because his wife killed their three children. Rachel Solando is a figment of his imagination. And so is Teddy Daniels. DiCaprio's real name is Andrew Laeddis, the name of the man who he says killed his wife by burning their apartment. He's created defense mechanisms in order to distance himself from the reality of his own life. Everything we saw was a part of an experiment by Kingsley, the only person who thought DiCaprio was still able to be saved. Ruffalo is in fact Dr. Sheehan (Boom, roasted.) and was posing as his partner so he could keep an eye on him while he was having his way around the island "investigating". The role playing exercise was to be the last attempt to help DiCaprio before he was given up on and lobotomized as part of government experiments.

I didn't see that coming at all. I was really taken aback. But it finally all made sense. This film is an incredibly interesting look into the human mind. And we think we see DiCaprio come out of it. He wakes, finally, from another one of his hallucinatory dreams appearing to know exactly who he really is, and what has really happened in his life. He tells Kingsley and Ruffalo all about his true name and life story. This is a good thing. This means that he's cured. Then, as he's sitting on the steps of one of the buildings on the island, smoking a cigarette with Ruffalo, he wispers to him, "What's our next move Chuck? What are we going to do next?" Ruffalo nods sadly at Kingsley across the courtyard and a few orderlies begin to walk up to him. Then, DiCaprio says something really interesting to Ruffalo. He says something like, "Is it better to live as a bad man, or die as a good man?" He the gets up, joins the orderlies, and walks away. Presumably to be lobotomized, effectively ending his life. It's so fascinating. But I'm not sure what to make of that last bit. The movie ends immediately after the aforementioned scene, leaving the viewer to wonder about DiCaprio's fate, and the meaning of his last statement. Think as you will.

A Serious Man

This one was strange even by Coen brother standards. And you know, I didn't get it. Like at all. Which doesn't really happen to me often. I don't know. I watched it with a couple friends of mine, both just as "movie snobish" as I am, and none of us got it. and we're all pros at turning nothing, or next to nothing, into something. And we didn't get it.

Let's start with what I do know. Michael Stuhlbarg, who's resume includes a couple random TV episodes and a few movies I haven't heard of, is very good. Even though I'm not sure what he's good at. He plays a Jewish physics professor at some very small, almost community seeming, college. And I think he might be brilliant at it. But there's very little talk of that. He seems like a good guy I suppose. No terribly obvious flaws. But his life seems to be somehow spiraling out of control. His wife wants a divorce, and then wants to immediately marry a family friend, even though she insists that there has been no infidelity. And he believes her completely and steadfastly which I find strange. Then one of his students, unhappy with a failing grade, tries to bribe him. One of his next door neighbor's keeps mowing some of his grass, insisting that the property line is further towards Stuhlbarg's house than Stuhlbarg thinks it is. And his other next door neighbor, a cougar by all accounts, sunbathes naked in her back yard. His wife's "fiance", isn't that weird to say, then dies in a car accident and he's stuck paying for it. All the while, he keeps trying to see different rabbi's to get advice. A lot of other weird and incongruous happens too, but it would take several more paragraphs to aptly describe it all. It's just all really strange. I don't know. I don't like this feeling. I guess this is how regular people feel when the come out of "deep" movies.

I really think that everything has meaning. Especially Coen brothers movies. But I can't siphon meaning out of any of this. It all just seemed like it had meaning, I just couldn't glean what that meaning was. I can't even really come close. Some parts of me want to come to the conclusion that the movie is about meaninglessness. But I hate stuff like that. The point should never be that there is no point. That's just really stupid. That doesn't make a statement. That doesn't say anything. Except for saying that you're an ass for trying to say that everything is meaningless. I like the Coen brothers too much to think that they played that card. I mean I really like the Coen brothers. Burn After Reading, No Country for Old Men, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, all great stuff. I've never seen Fargo, but it comes highly recommended. By everyone. So I don't think they did that. The "Life is Meaningless" card is so 1960s, anarchy, apathy art. And that stuff is lame.

This movie's shot really, really well though. One of my friends, who's a photographer, remarked that every single frame of every single scene in this movie would be a great photograph. And he's really right. It's one of the prettiest Coen movies to date. They do a great job of framing closeup shots, and they're lighting is always great.

I think I liked this movie. I wanted to like it. I'm a sucker for Academy Award nominations and this one's up for Best Picture and Original Screenplay. And I don't really understand those nominations actually. The story is too ambiguous to be the Best Screenplay of the year and I don't think it stands a chance up against Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, and Avatar (which I really, really hope doesn't win), among others, for Best Picture. I think the Academy likes the Coen's just as much as I do and so they give them courtesy noms. Which I'm OK with I suppose. This movie really just baffled me. Every component, good and bad, just didn't add up to anything that I could figure out. I just didn't get it.

(Footnote: I'm going to do this one as I rewatch it. One thing we all picked up on right away has to do with the student who's unhappy with his grade. One of his complaints is that he understands the anecdotes, but that he doesn't understand the math involved with the physics. This is almost the same exchange that Stuhlbarg has with one of the rabbis later on in the movie. Stuhlbarg say's to his complaining student that it's the math that matters, and that the anecdote's are just that, stories, fables, they don't really matter. One of the rabbis gives a similar answer to Stuhlbarg's questions about why all of these things are happening to him, the rabbi starts telling this long story that ends up being completely meaningless. The rabbi says, "We all want answers, but Hashem (God) doesn't give us any." I think that's what this is. An answer free movie. I actually think that this movie is about nothing. The Coen's, already having won their Academy Awards, just turned in some nothing. I tried reading some other reviews online, something I don't normally do when writing my own, and they all came back one of two ways. In paraphrase: 1) The Coen brothers deliver their most personal, dark, and humorous film to date. A modern day Job. A masterpiece. 2) The Coen brothers made a beautiful, empty movie. Unfunny, and ultimately meaningless. I'm obviously in the latter category. In one of Stuhlbarg's bizarre dreams he's teaching his class about the Uncertainty Principle of physics and he exclaims, "We can't ever know anything!" And I guess with this movie, we never really will.)

The Mothman Prophecies

You know those movies that aren't any good, but you remember them anyways because the movie watching experience was good? Snakes on a Plane is one of those for me. So is Marley and Me. The next addition to that list, The Mothman Prophecies. This movie was so lame. A movie is almost surely off to a rocky start when these words flash across the screen: "Based on a true story." You can hear the death knell of ringing softly in the distance. What those words should actually say, more often than not, is this: "Loosely based on a frequently misreported and misinterpreted story." And I'm pretty sure that's what happened with this one. The movie is based off of a "nonfiction" book by John Keel. The screenplay, however, seem to have changed the main character's name to John Klein, portrayed in this movie by the ever jazzy Richard Gere. Listen, I'm by no means a Richard Gere hater. Chicago was good and Runaway Bride and Pretty Woman, no matter how weird and 90's, have their place. But he was just bad in this one. Not horrible, but not good. Laura Linney, who I really like, especially in The Truman Show and the HBO miniseries John Adams, was fine. Will Patton, Coach Yoast from Remember the Titans (who inexplicably doesn't have a picture up on IMDB) did the best job acting, I think. He plays this crazy guy who's been seeing things and starts hearing voices et cetera, et cetera. But he's pretty believable. Debra Messing's in this one too but only for like 12 minutes while she's alive and like 40 seconds after she's dead. I don't know what the most terrifying part of the movie, which supposedly was supposed to be scary in some kind of psychological way, was the 1 second jump scene when Richard Gere turns over in bed to find his dead wife laying next to him or the fact that the studio ponied up the money to pay "Grace" for under 13 minutes of work. Whatever.

The storyline was pretty ridiculous. In summary:

Successful investigative reporter's wife gets in a car crash, sees crazy stuff, then dies. Same reporter, two years later, finds himself in West Virgina in a town of people seeing the same crazy stuff. Successful investigative reporter investigates. He starts hearing voices. Cute cop lady thinks he's going crazy. He visits a paranormal author in Chicago who absolutely is crazy. A big bridge collapses and 36 people die. Successful investigative reporter thinks he could've stopped it.

That's it. There are no explanations, no conclusions, no closure. It's weird. It would be like if LOST started it's final season but didn't even start to answer the questions that a devoted follower has had for 5 seasons (oh wait, that's happening now!). I just don't get it. I guess they somehow wanted to be truthful to the book it was based off of, but I get the feeling that they fudged a lot of stuff, so why couldn't they have just fudged an appropriate ending? By the way, the previously mentioned bridge that collapses looks exactly like that Universal Studios ride "Earthquake" where they put you in this car and show you how they used to do disaster special effects back in the 80s and 90s. The ride is fun because your little car rocks and your dad might get a lap full of water from some sort of tidal wave. Not because it actually looks cool. That's kind of how this whole movie was actually. It was fun because jokes and not cinematic masterpiece ruled the room and because there was a chance someone who gets too scared at unscary movies might get a lap full of water of some kind. Not because it was actually a good movie. (And the sorry the movie poster is so creepy to look at.)

It Might Get Loud

I really like documentaries. I always have actually. And this one was very, very cool. And it's about something I really like, the guitar. I'm no virtuoso, I'm just a dabbler. But I really enjoy playing and this movie made me want to be a better musician. It highlights the playing styles of three really revolutionary guitarists. Jack White from The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, The Edge from U2, and Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin. Three guys who couldn't be more different. Jack White's style, I think, was summed up in one of his explanations about his playing. He was talking about the kind of guitars that he plays, plastic guitars and really old beat up guitars with bent necks that won't stay in tune. He says, "I like it to be a struggle." I think that's so cool. And you can really hear it in his sound too. Everything sounds like it's taking just a little bit more energy than usual. The Edge is the total opposite. He is a true student of music. The professor of music actually. A carefully calculated technician. His moment most indicative of his playing comes at the beginning of this movie when his guitar tech is talking about his whole big guitar system. It's this giant, super computer that he runs his guitar through and creates these incredibly complex sounds. Everything is very precise. Jimmy Page's sound is about innovation. He always wanted to do things that other people didn't do. Create styles and techniques that no one had ever heard. He's the classic old time innovator.

They're background stories also came across as diverse. White grew up in South Detroit in one of the only white family's in his neighborhood. He grew up surrounded by blues and later hip hop, the former of which is very clearly present in his music. Especially his Raconteur's stuff. He talks about how his mission with The White Stripes was to distract viewers and listeners from the fact that he was playing electric versions of what otherwise would be blues songs. I thought that was really interesting. How he felt like he had to create an aesthetic to mask his true mission. The Edge grew up in Ireland during the height of the turmoil between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. He wrote one of U2's most popular songs, "Sunday Bloody Sunday", out of his own feelings of that turmoil. Page grew up in England and made his start in music as a studio musician recording every different kind of music you can imagine. His desire to innovate with the guitar, he says, came out of his growing distaste for the bland studio work.

The film itself (yup, I'm saying it for this one) is really brilliantly done. It was directed by Davis Guggenheim, of An Inconvenient Truth fame. Guggenheim's directorial work is fantastic in this one. He blends the usage of archival footage from Page's and The Edge's early years with photographs from that time. As well as putting in old live music videos from bands who these three guitarists considered influential, both positively and negatively, in their own playing. But the really masterpiece can be seen in all of Jack White's portions. Every one that he's in, or that focuses on his story, comes off as an art piece. I'm not sure why. Maybe White's character made that easier. Or maybe that's the only way you can show White. It seems like everything Jack White does is some kind of weird, almost esoteric, art. He's the most fascinating musician of the bunch, for sure. At least for me. And maybe that's because I really like all of Jack White's music. Especially his Raconteurs stuff.

I'd recommend this film to anyone who's really into music. And it's accessible to a lot of different generations too, because the 4 decade scope of the artists. I think anyone can watch this film and be thoroughly interested and inspired by one of the stories. This is the best documentary I've seen since Confessions of a Superhero. Take a look at it. It's easy to find. I got it from a Red Box.

Bruno

Haha, alright. Relax. This movie is ridiculous. And it's not anywhere near as good as Borat. But whatever, it's funny. Like really funny. Word of advice to guys, don't watch this with girls. Don't watch it with moms. Watch it with guys. Even though that makes it so much gayer.

So many shenanigans in this movie. Ron Paul, the Swingers Party, the Gay Counselor, the Middle East (yes, you read that right, the Middle East), OJ, Paula Abdul, the Psychic. The list just goes and goes and goes. But the best gag, absolutely, is the Hunting group. Sacha Baron Cohen, revising is Da Ali G Show character Bruno, goes hunting with three good ole boys from Alabama. The hunting itself isn't very funny, but that night, while they're sitting around the campfire, Bruno is as Bruno does. He say's, "Look at the four of us; we are so like the Sex and the City girls!" To which, one good ole boy says, "I ain't any one of them. I'm Donny." Bruno replies, "That is such a Samantha thing to say!" Gosh, I couldn't keep it together. Then they just sit there, in silence, for like 2 minutes. Which for dead time in a movie, is a long, long time.

Another really good moment is the series of interviews with the parents of toddlers who they want to put into movies. He starts asking them the most ridiculous questions like, "Is your child OK with antiquated heavy machinery?" "Yes, absolutely." "Does your child like phosphorous?" "Yes, he loves it." "Does your child have to be in a car seat or can she just free-style it?" "Oh, car seat, free-style, whatever." "Could your baby lose 10 pounds in the next week?" "Sure, I'd do whatever I had to do if that was what the job required." "And if the baby couldn't lose the weight, would you be OK with liposuction?" "Yes, if that's what it took." It's absurd. This is the closest Bruno gets to one of those brilliant Borat moments. And it's what made Cohen's first movie such a success. He has the ability to find people who let themselves be totally honest, even if their honesty is atrocious. And in spite of the bizarre circumstances, it's really an interesting look into human nature. Don't get all crazy with me. Everything that is honest, no matter how ridiculous, tells us something about human nature. It really does. And Bruno is no exception.

The reason this movie wasn't nearly as good as Borat is because there were only a few of those really honest, unscripted moments. Too much time was dedicated to things that the scripted out. All of Bruno's interactions with Lutz, his assistant played by Gustaf Hammarsten, are way to planned out. There just isn't the spontaneity and improvisational nature that we saw in Borat. There will probably never be another movie like Borat. And Cohen tried, with this one. It just fell way short. Reminder, don't watch this with girls. That's all I'm saying.

Precious

Gosh. I don't think I'm going to be able to write very much about this one. I really think everyone should see this movie. Just once though. I'll never see it again. I don't really know if I could. Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character, is really something. Her IMDB profile lists this movie, two rumored upcoming roles, and 18 television interviews. She's been in literally nothing else. But she holds her own on screen. Mo'Nique, despite the critical acclaim, including a Golden Globe win and an Oscar nom, that she's already received for her portrayal of Precious's mother, really blew me out of the water. And I was expecting her to be good. She was better than good. She was perfect. In the most horrible way possible. Every shot of her filled up the screen with her cigarette smoke and her greasy skin and her hateful eyes and her loaded lips. This completely makes up for every mailed-in performance in every low-brow comedy she's been in. It might even make up for "Charm School." Almost. She deserves her Golden Globe. And she deserves to win an Oscar, which I really think she will win. Sidibe deserves an Oscar too. But she's up against the formidable Helen Mirren in a movie no one saw, the equally formidable Meryl Streep in a movie no one really liked, and probably fan-favorite Sandra Bullock in a movie everyone saw and everyone liked but won't turn up on anyones "Best Movies of _____" list. Ever. One of them is going to win. Sidibe is going to get snubbed.

Paula Patton, who I could've sworn was Alicia Keys, is great as Precious's teacher, Ms. Blu Rain. Lenny Kravitz, as a male nurse who helps deliver Precious's second baby by her father, is good but not particularly memorable. And Mariah Carey comes in and plays a small supporting part as a social worker in charge of Precious's welfare payments. Mariah Carey was only OK. She looks like hell, but maybe she's supposed to. She sounds like a chain smoker, but it adds to her authenticity. I don't know how I feel about her. Schmucks in my theater kept laughing every time she was on screen. I hate "that guy".

I don't want to talk too much about plot. It bother's me to type it. Really it does. It bothered me telling people about the movie. Just see it. You won't ever be in the mood to see it, so don't make that an excuse. Just rent it, watch it, return it, and talk about it if you can. Gosh.

The Hurt Locker

My first truly Oscar worthy movie. The Messenger is only up for two, but Woody has a chance to win. This was the best I've seen in 2010 I think. This movie is a nontraditional Wild West story. For sure. Jeremy Renner plays an adrenaline junkie bomb defuser. And I completely don't understand him. I don't know who he is. I don't know what he's about. The closest we get to understanding him comes near the end when Renner is sitting in a Humvee with one of his men, played by Anthony Mackie, the bad guy rapper from 8 Mile and Tupac from Notorious, and he asks him "Do you know why I am the way that I am?" to which Tupac responds "No. I don't." And that's it. That's all we get. Academy Award Nominee Kathryn Bigelow directs, brilliantly I might add, and guides the story along with poise and ease. This movie is up for everything come March 7th. Best Actor for Renner, Best Director for Bigelow, Best Picture Cinematography, Directing, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing (What's the difference?) Original Screenplay. That's really all the biggies, considering that there are no women in the film to speak of (except Kate from LOST who he turns out to be married to! It's all connected, I know it!) and therefore no female acting noms.

This movie was just really intense. And not really in a gory way. Even though it had some of that. It was just suspenseful from wire to wire. Renner was crazy the whole time. But not because he had a sense that he was somehow invincible. He seemed to have a real grasp on his own mortality. He knew that he could die every day that he went out. And he knew that death could come at any moment of that day. And his very real grasp on that was one of the things that made him so compelling. He kept, under his bed, a milk crate containing all of the defused detonators that came close to killing him. He kept them. Like, as some sort of macabre souvenirs or something. Tupac delivered a solid performance of his own. He was interesting too, in his own way. You thought you knew exactly who he was the whole movie. The pretty straightforward guy who just doesn't want to get killed. He's not to "by the book" but he clearly thinks that all of those rules are just the safest way to do things. Brian Geraghty plays an even further subordinate of Renner and Tupac's, the third guy of the bomb team. He's the most broken character in this movie. He thinks that he's to blame for the death of the soldier, seen only in the first seen and played by Guy Pearce from Memento, that Renner replaced on his and Tupac's team. And throughout the movie, we see him meeting with an Army shrink. He says that he wishes he had died instead, and that if he had only killed the insurgent who set off the bomb that killed Pearce then Pearce would still be alive. All of this was well written, well acted, whatever. It just wasn't that important.

What was important though I think, was the interaction between Renner and an Iraqi boy named Beckham. Beckham sold DVDs outside of the camp and Renner, for some reason, feels some sort of connection with him right off the bat. It's interesting. And I didn't really get it until Renner tells Tupac and Brian Geraghty about his infant son. Then it clicked, and I got it. He somehow and for some reason identifies Beckham with his son. I don't know why though.

This is the most Oscar worthy movie I've seen out of all of the ones up for nominations that I've seen so far. I've seen The Blind Side, Up, Inglourious Basterds, The Messenger, Sherlock Holmes, and Star Trek. Yeah, I know I'm missing some of the biggies, Avatar, Up in the Air, Invictus, Precious, A Serious Man. But this is still on the top of the list for me. See it. It's worth it.

The Messenger

Interesting, very interesting. I've definitely never seen a movie like this before. Ben Foster, the creepy guy from 3:10 to Yuma and Angel from X-Men, plays a war hero who spends the last 3 months of his commitment delivering the bad news that a soldier has died to their families. It's heart wrenching. This movie has some of the most honest portrayals of raw human emotion that I've ever seen in a movie. Steve Buscemi, one of the most underrated actors around, is fantastic in his small role as a grieving father who spits on Foster and calls him a coward upon hearing the news that his son is dead. Equally raw showings of disastrous grief come from a few people I didn't recognize with empty IMDB profiles. A mother and a pregnant girlfriend screaming in agony. A father comforting his daughter after hearing that her husband, whom he didn't know that she'd married, as she shrieks and sobs uncontrollably. It's really hard to watch. Woody Harrelson is very, very good. He plays Foster's recovering, or not so recovering alcoholic, senior officer on the delivery squad. He's this hardened Desert Storm vet who's dedication to procedure overruns Foster's unspoken desire to treat the NOK's (what Harrelson calls the next of kin) like they're humans. Harrelson's a tough actor to peg. The weird Tallahassee in Zombieland, a blind eye-transplant recipient in Seven Pounds, a hitman in No Country for Old Men, a weird cross dresser in Anger Management, a hook handed bowler in Kingpin, a baller in White Men Can't Jump. There are very few actors who's catalogs go from the outrageously absurd to the deathly serious so quickly. In this movie, his obvious depression causes him to manically cycle from on top of the world, to crying drunk on Foster's couch in his last scene in the movie.

But after all that great writing and acting theres some pretty unnecessary, forced romance between Foster and someone named Samantha Morton who's acting repertoire's most recognizable performance is as the voice of Ruby on the kids show Max & Ruby from back in 2002. It's pretty unnecessary to the crux of the story. Morton plays the wife of a soldier who Harrelson and Foster bring the news to. All of a sudden Foster's in love with her. It's weird. It comes out of no where and serves no real purpose. It's a pretty serious detractor, unfortunately. The movie ends as she and her son are packing up a UHaul to move to Louisiana and Foster comes over to help. They start walking into the house so Foster can "give her his address" (a new euphemism maybe?). I don't know. It was a pretty lame ending. I liked it though, overall. It's worth taking a look at. And it's up for a couple Oscars so for that reason alone it deserves at least some respect.

The Book of Eli

Woah. I like seeing movie's in the theater. I just feel like everything's better on the big screen. See this in theater's. The Book of Eli wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. It had the action I expected. Denzel being Man on Fire Denzel. But there were so many other qualities that I didn't expect. This movie is about the power of the Bible. The real Bible. Not some universal, Hollywood Bible. The real thing. There were only a couple things I didn't like. Really just one. There was some weak sauce product placement. A dilapidated Busch Beer truck, a run down J Crew store, a couple Oakley products, and my personal favorite, some very fresh looking Beats by Dr. Dre earbuds. They weren't too distracting though.

Let's talk about characters before we get into the plot. Gary Oldman, Commissioner Gordon, Lee Harvey Oswald, Rosencrantz, plays the best bad guy I've seen in awhile. Truly evil. Corrupt, selfish, dirty. Every moment he's on screen he eats it up. You're always focused on him. Mila Kunis plays the first really serious dramatic role that I've ever seen her in like she's been doing it her whole life. She's a pretty powerful screen presence too, which I didn't expect. And she's gorgeous. Denzel, as previously mentioned and always expected, is perfect.

I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic stuff. I haven't gotten around to seeing The Road yet, but the book was fantastic and I expect that movie to be much like this. Shot with that colorless filter one would expect of a world after what was most likely a nuclear war. They never really say exactly what happened, I guess it's not important. The cinematography was pretty good. Not great. But there weren't too many lame tricks. No Matrix garbage that's so over played. That slo-mo stuff was cool 10 years ago. Not any more. I was glad this movie didn't employ any of that.

This movie is all about the Bible. Denzel was led to a Bible amongst the rubble by a voice, presumably God's. The voice told him to take the Bible west. So he does. The whole movie is centered around him traveling west, to the coast. (Stolen from The Road? Maybe, but I don't really care.) Denzel understands that this Bible means something. That its words are powerful. That it can change the world. How true is that? Isn't that what Christianity teaches? The to Bible, and its Gospel, has the power to change the world. But evil knows this too. And evil wants to take the Bible and twist it, stretch it, and make it serve its own purposes. That's what Oldman wants to do. He plays this small time crime lord who employs brutal men to carry out his brutal tasks in order to find a Bible. While Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness in Matthew 4, he quotes the scriptures, but out of context, for his own purposes. And thats what Oldman wants to do. But good prevails, even though it looks like evil will. Oldman finally acquires Denzel's Bible, only to find that he can't read it the way he expected. And when Denzel and Mila Kunis finally make it to the coast and find a safe haven of knowledge and books that are intended to reteach and rebuild the devastated planet, Denzel is able to dictate the entire Bible to Malcolm McDowell from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. The entire message of the movie is simple. The Bible is powerful, and it's words can bring Light into the world. But, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Matthew 7:15.

Cinderella Man

Cinderella Man is so great to watch. I really like everything about it. The words, "Based on a True Story" can either be the best or the worst words ever to appear in a movie trailer. The words "Starring Harrison Ford" and "Directed by Michael Bay" come in a close second and third.

I've always liked boxing movies. The affair for every guy starts with Rocky. You're about 8, you walk into the living room and your dad's watching Rocky. You sit down. And you love it. I feel like that story's pretty standard. Cinderella Man is very little like Rocky. In Rocky, the conflict is man v. self. But in Cinderella Man, the conflict is both man v. world and man v. man. Let's take the second on, man v. man. Max Baer, played by some guy named Craig Bierko who, since this movie came out in 2005, has had the prestigious honor of being in Scary Movie 4, a couple episodes of Boston Legal, one episode of Nip/Tuck, and Superhero Movie, is a true villains villain. He's mean, narcissistic, and you really hate him. Apparently, Baer's descendants were really upset by his portrayal in this movie and insisted that he was torn up by two men he killed in the ring and considered never fighting again as a result. Nevertheless, you're really really happy when Russell Crowe beats him.

The man v. world aspect of this movie is what really makes it I think. Everyone who made it through 7th grade social studies knows about the Depression, but it takes a good movie to make it real sometimes. Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger do some of their best work as the struggling, but obviously madly in love, Braddock couple. Both of them do great Jersey accents and look the part. There was a great Chris Rock bit from some awards show he hosted a few years ago. He was talking about Crowe and how good he is in period movies and he said something to the effect of, "If you hire Russell Crowe to play a guy from last Tuesday you'll watch the movie and say, 'Damn man! That looks like last Tuesday!'" And he's really right. Although not really a method actor, Crowe always looks and sounds the part. Except in Gladiator where the gave him a British accent. But for that I blame Hollywood for assuming that Americans want everyone who's not from America to have a British accent if they're a good guy and a Russian accent if they're a bad guy.

Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors. He's not a Denzel type of actor who plays only a few types of roles and has never made a bad movie though. He's more of a De Niro type of actor who's not afraid to be in some comedies, some kids movies, some horror movies, some dramas, and out of all of that he's not worried about a couple stinkers. I was so glad that he won Best Supporting Actor for this movie. He really was fantastic.

I love the way this movie's shot too. It has that Gangs of New York, Band of Brothers, feel that seems very old. One of my favorite scenes is where Renee Zellweger is washing a pan in their apartment and Russell Crowe is teaching his son how to box. You start hearing the scraping of the spatula against the pan along with exaggerated sounds of a small boy's fist hitting his father's hand with flashbacks of the funeral of their friend who was killed in Hooverville. You can see the stress boiling up in Zellweger's eyes and the incessant sounds aren't helping. When she snaps you get one of those emotionally stirring moments that director Ron Howard does so flawlessly.

After I saw this movie in the theater for the first time, my buddies and I immediately went and boxed in one of our friend's front yards. And just today when I sat down to watch it, everyone new who walked in and asked what we were watching said, "Good movie" and sat down upon hearing that Cinderella Man was in the DVD player. It's just that kind of movie. It's inspiring, visually stimulating, and a perfect good guy story. For the first time on this blog I'm going to snob out and drop the f-bomb. I really loved this film.

Observe and Report

It's simple, Paul Blart minus family fun and Kevin James plus Seth Rogen, 100 F-bombs, and a lot of unexpected weiner. It's a pretty straight forward story line. Seth Rogen works security, is in love with a great Anna Faris bimbo, gets coffee from the cute girl from Fist Foot Way, and catches a streaking pervert with the help of Landry from Friday Night Lights and two Asian guys who should absolutely have been in The Ringer.

It's funny. It's a good bro movie where you just pop it in and don't take it too seriously. Ray Liotta seems out of his element as the detective, but he's still alright. The Indian guy from Parks and Rec is really memorable as Saddamn and provides the most quoatable line of the movie.

I wouldn't call any abrupt and unexpected change in a Seth Rogen movie a plot twist. But I don't know what else to call everything that happens randomly at the end of this movie. All of a sudden Seth Rogen is doing lines of coke, shooting heroin, and beating the crap out of high school skateboard kids in the parking lot with some guy who's channeling Fez from That 70's Show. Whatever, it's funny. The movie is rolling along and then all of a sudden everything goes crazy and then it ends. Watch it once and every time someone suggests eating at Chick-fil-A remind them why you wouldn't ever blow up a Chick-fil-A.

Office Space

Ok, Office Space is good. And very funny. A lot of comedy's rely solely on sexual, 8th grade humor. Office Space seems a little more high brow. The cast makes this movie though. Ron Livingston is great as Peter. He speaks with the same relaxed cadence as Ferris Bueller. No one who's seen either Office Space or Band of Brothers without seeing the other could possibly imagine Livingston in the other role. The guy who plays Milton might as well never play another role. This one is just too perfect. Lumbergh is great, Michael Bolton is great, Samir is great.

This movie is really quotable too. Which is always a bonus. But it's not quotable in the traditional way. This movie is tonally quotable, if that makes any sense. Mumbling like Milton and saying, "Yeah..." like Lumbergh will always be popular. The soundtrack is also so so good. Gangsta rap from the 90s is the opposite of the type of music you'd expect from a movie like this, but it works so well. I really think it even raised the bar to a certain degree for the soundtracks of movies like Pineapple Express, which also employed gangsta rap untraditionally. It all starts in the first scene with Michael Bolton breakin' it down in his car and locking his door and turning down his music when a black homeless guy walks by. But the fax machine destroying scene takes it to a whole new level. "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta."

Man on Fire

Most underrated movie of this decade. I'm almost sure of it. And every time I rewatch it, I gain a new sense of respect for it. So many aspects of this movie appeal to me. I enjoy the cinematography, the action, even the shrewd use of subtitles. Denzel Washington is great and Dakota Fanning is even better. The performances of Marc Anthony in his pre-JLo days and Mickey Rourke in his not-quite-yet-post-addiction days are both fantastic. Anthony is unbearably broken when Denzel confronts him about his involvement in Dakota Fanning's kidnapping. Rourke is in his element playing a snakey attorney who thought it better to be rich than assure the safety of a little girl.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Denzel Washington movie that I didn't like. Philadelphia, John Q, Remember the Titans, The Pelican Brief, American Gangster, The Manchurian Candidate, Glory. Everything he's in is great. And Man on Fire is no exception. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it leads all of the aforementioned movies. I'll give it a push up against Remember the Titans and The Manchurian Candidate because the league leader in movie views with substitute teachers and anything with Meryl Streep actually acting and not just playing a goofball are pretty hard to beat.

I mentioned this earlier, but the subtitling in this movie is really great. The whole movie takes place in Mexico and a good deal of the dialogue, even by Denzel, is in Spanish. Subtitles are therefore necessary. Subtitles have a tendency to slow the movie down which can then lead to the movie dragging and becoming unwatchable because of the average bum's inability to read along properly. But the Man on Fire subtitles flow seamlessly with the movie. Words often appear one at a time and on different parts of the screen, thereby becoming part of the cinematographic look of the movie instead of simply a necessity. Also, subtitles are sometimes used highlight important words or phrases that occur later in the movie, even if they're spoken in English and don't need to be translated. It's a pretty cool technique and I can't really think of anywhere else I've seen it used.

Overall, a really, really great movie. It's rewatchable. It's accessible. And Denzel gets to go commando all over corrupt Mexican cops.