Category: Movies

Clint and Gran Torino

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I saw Clint Eastwood‘s latest movie, Gran Torino, last weekend and really liked it. Clint played an over-the-hill retired Detroit autoworker who is sour. He’s pissed off at the lack of respect displayed throughout society and his family and his bitterness creates some pretty funny moments.

I also was able to read this month’s Esquire magazine which features Clint. In this article you hear Clint describe an earlier time when kids had it rougher and people weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.

Some of his quotes:

we were always moving. Redding. Sacramento. Pacific Palisades. Back to Redding. Back to Sacramento. Over to Hayward. Niles. Oakland. So we were constantly on the road, and I was always the new guy in school. The bullies always thought, Here’s this big gangly guy. We gotta take him on. You know how kids are. We gotta test him. I was a shy kid. But a lot of my childhood was spent punching the bullies out.

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.

We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.

I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.

I’ve been hit from Clint from all sides. After i read the article, i then heard an interview of him on NPR where he talks about his Dirty Harry days and how he actually enjoys playing characters that are very different from him.   The mp3 for that interview is here.

I will say that i think Gran Torino is one of his better movies.  Not as good as Million Dollar Baby but still pretty solid.

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I'm certain: Doubt is great

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I recently saw the movie Doubt with Philip Seymour and Meryl Streep.  Both of them are awesome (as usual) and the movie really delivers.  I was hesitant to go see it as who wants to see a movie about nuns creating drama – sounds really boring.  But, it is fast paced and captivating.  Some thoughts:

  • Meryl Streep is amazing.  Her character is a holy terror can’t smile and brings old school discipline to St. Nicholas.  She rules the halls through disapproval and suspicion oozes from every glance.  She’s terrifying and awesome to watch.
  • The direction of the movie is really good.  Rather than a quick action-paced direction you see in Slumdog Millionaire the movie instead rests on the actors and lets them fill the screen and act.  You see this in the first scene of the movie when Philip Seymour is giving a sermon on doubt.  The camera just sits on his face and stays there.  No movement.  You just see and hear him, nothing else. I like that.
  • There’s a 10 minute scene with Meryl Streep and the actress Viola Davis who plays the mother of a student that is under suspicion of being molested by Flynn (Philip Seymour).  This scene makes the movie.  It adds some complexity and weight to what could just be a he-said-she-said film.
  • I LOVE how the film takes an approach of not preaching the answer.  The movie is less about doubt and more about certainty.  Everyone (including myself) can relate to having a feeling of doing something that feels right but not being certain, yet unable to alter direction.
  • The film does a great job at showing the conflict between old and new, between status and change, between infallibility and uncertainty, gender roles, conservative versus progressive religious values, about rigidity versus openness and suspicion versus proof, about how far it’s appropriate to go when you are sure you are right. Timeless dilemmas that the Church is still trying to figure out
  • Apparenty the writer/director John Patrick Shanley only told Philip Seymour (who played Father Flynn) whether or not Flynn was guilty. None of the other actors knew.
  • The movie was great.  It took the best parts of a play and added in sweet scenery.   I just can’t believe it comes from the guy who gave us Joe Versus the Volcano.  Seriously, JP Shanley did that too.
  • Eight of out ten for me
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Slumdog Millionaire is the best of 2008

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Last week i saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire and it was amazing.  Easily the best movie i’ve seen yet this year.  It’s a story about an orphan in the city of Mumbai, India who rises from the depths of poverty to become filthy rich on the strength of his intelligence.

Some thoughts:

  • A scene in the beginning of the film when the main character (Jamel) has to jump through a pool of crap/sewage to get an autograph from his idol is one of the best scenes i’ve seen in a long time. Not only does it immediately introduce the two main characters (Jamel and his brother) but also perfectly depicts their completely different personalities.  The picture above is from that scene
  • The music in the movie is incredible. The pace of the movie is frantic and the music does a great job to keep it going.  I specifically love the MIA song in the middle of the movie.
  • the cinematography is awesome.  You can see lots of shots that are similar to Trainspotting (another Daniel Boyle film) but used in a different way here.  Instead of depicting a drug addict, it’s used to show the insane Indian culture
  • At the very end of the movie they have the stars (Jamel and his girlfriend) do a Bollywood-type dance.  I think this dance does wonders for how people feel when leave the theater and their impression of the movie.  The movie ends on a positive note but very little of the movie is upbeat and happy.  But by having a light and fun scene playing at the end, I was able to let a sigh of relief out and smile.  I think that really matters
  • I’ve been reading two books: The Post-American World (Fareed Zakaria) and Hot, Flat and Crowded (Thomas Friedman) – and both tell the tale of India and what it means for our future as a planet.  India is as important as China because of the size of its population and its embrace of Democracy.  This movie is the first film where i’ve seen the India described in these books, an India that is a Democracy, that’s over crowded, that is both corrupt and opportunistic, that is changing from being very poor to being very industrial, that is become more and more American.
  • By naming it the best movie of 2008 (so far) made me realize how few great films there have been in 2008. With maybe the exception of The Dark Knight, nothing from the summer or fall were even contenders for Best Picture. Hopefully there will be a surprise in the next few weeks (Doubt, Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road) that will totally redeem 2008, but it’s seeming like a pretty bad year
  • The movie also shows how multi-cultural movies are becoming.  A good review on NPR says this too, saying:

Ours is, after all, an age when cross-cultural impulses inflect everything from music to presidential elections. And Slumdog could hardly be more cross-cultural: a romantic adventure set in India, financed in Europe, made by English filmmakers, featuring Muslim characters speaking Hindi, with a climax hinging on the answer to a question about a French novel. And it’s a blast.

Don’t let the above points distract you.  This movie is AWESOME and you should go see it.  It’s my leading candidate for best movie of the year.

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Milk is Good

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Image via Wikipedia

As i was saying in a post i made a few months ago where i talked about how much i love milk, the drink, i saw the movie with the same name.   I think it’s really good – 8 out of 10.  I do have some thoughts about it

sean-penn-113008-2

  • Sean Penn is f’ing amazing.  He should definitely get a nod for this performance.  James Franco and Emile Hirsh are great too.
  • There is some serious guy-on-guy making out in this movie. More than i’ve seen in any other movie. I’ve heard from a few “old” people (over 60) that they don’t like it and really can’t sit through it. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing, or if older people just don’t know as many gay folks so it seems too odd and uncomfortable.  Personally, there is still shock value there for me when i see two guys really going at it out on the screen.  It’s just something i haven’t seen much in real life
  • I like how they portrayed Josh Brolin‘s character.  Nuanced and complex.  I’m starting to think i’m going to see Brolin in tons of movies. He came out of nowhere to be in last year’s No Country For Old Men and now he’s in W. and Milk.  I have a feeling i’ll be seeing lots of him over the next couple of years – similar to how we saw lots of John Travolta after he re-appeared in Pulp Fiction.
  • What did Harvey do before the age of 40?  Cutting out 40 years of someone’s life is pretty substantial.  The movie does mention that he was in the closet before he moved to San Francisco, but i could have used some more background about him and what was driving him.  Sean Penn created an amazing character but i never got a sense of why he felt he had to the the activist for the group.  He mentions that he wants to do something “he’s proud of” but why?

All in all, it’s a good movie and worth checking out.

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Netflix's Napoleon Dynatime Problem

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The company Netflix has a very sophisticated and accurate recommendation system.  They also have $1 million prize for anyone who can make it better.  One interesting thing is that apparently the movie Napoleon Dynamite is screwing up the Netflix’s rating system.  There’s a good article in The NY Times called “If You Liked This, You’re Sure to Love That” that discusses this, saying:

The reason is that “Napoleon Dynamite” is very weird and very polarizing. It contains a lot of arch, ironic humor, including a famously kooky dance performed by the titular teenage character to help his hapless friend win a student-council election. It’s the type of quirky entertainment that tends to be either loved or despised. The movie has been rated more than two million times in the Netflix database, and the ratings are disproportionately one or five stars.

Worse, close friends who normally share similar film aesthetics often heatedly disagree about whether “Napoleon Dynamite” is a masterpiece or an annoying bit of hipster self-indulgence.

It’s funny that movie can be so widely loved or hated.  I think it’s probably a generational thing with the younger you get the more you’re apt to like it.  Clearly, you either “get it” or you don’t

Other movies mentioned in the article that are causing the Netflix system problems and are equally hard to classify and polarizing are:

It’s an interesting list and to think about other movies that i’ve found to be divisive.  I can think of Grindhouse and Serenity.  What else?

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Sometimes Bond just doesn't make sense

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I saw the new James Bond, Quantum of Solace this weekend.  It’s pretty good but by no means great.  It’s a 6.5 out of 10.  It’s definitely entertaining but has some total absurdity in it that keeps it from being. A few thoughts:

First – The Aston Martin chase scene in the beginning.  This is a fine scene but i hate how they show you every time Bond shifts gears and you can hear the engine revving.  I hate it because everytime you look the non-Aston Martin is directly behind the car.  If the car is going so super fast, how come everyone is staying right with it?  Doesn’t make any sense.

The name Quantum of Solace is just a stupid name.  And, i quizzed 5 people after the movie and none of them knew what it meant.  It’s not good when nobody knows what the title of a movie means.  I haven’t seem such a bad title since Primal Fear – although Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was pretty bad too.

The airplane scene.  The two of them (Bond + Bond girl) rent out a big cargo plane (Note: I have no idea why they didn’t rent the smaller two person plane right next to it).  This cargo plane is met by a MiG-type fighter jet.   In order to combat the jet, James throws smoke out from the destroyed left engine, slows down and turns towards the upcoming mountains.  The action is cut like this:

  1. Shot 1: Bond’s cargo plane
  2. Shot 2: the ominous approaching MiG
  3. Shot 3: the altimeter at 900 in Bond’s cargo plane
  4. the MiG getting closer and dodging the smoke
  5. the looming mountain ahead
  6. the altimeter at 800 and dropping
  7. the mountain ahead even closer
  8. sweat on James’ brow
  9. the MiG still behind James’ plane
  10. the altimeter at 750
  11. the mountain ahead
  12. the MiG
  13. more sweat on James
  14. an EXPLOSION!!!!
  15. the cargo plane flying safely away

I’m supposed to be happy that Bond has again used his cunning and intellect to get out of a jam.  Too bad we (the audience) have NO idea what just happened.

There’s a huge water crisis. This is at the core of the movie.  Yet, at the end, how has he solved the water situation?  It’s still dammed up and owned by a private company.  All he’s done is killed the CEO.  I don’t think that fixes anything.  Am I wrong?

Finally, I have a big problem with the Bond Girl.  First off, James used to be super smooth with the ladies but this chick seems to hate him the entire movie.  Not only does Bond not hook up with her but she sleeps with the villain instead.   Basically the entire movie is way to Bourne Identity for me.  They should try to make Bond his own man rather than Jason Bourne.

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More Pirates vs. Jedi

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Just got a recent comment on my post of “8 Ways Pirates of the Carribean Steals from Return of the Jedi.” The original post has generated quite a bit of discussion – logging over 100 comments!  This last comment had some good ones….

  1. The two funny pirates are physically similar to the droids too. One is tall and skinny (like C-3PO) and the other is short and round (like R2D2)
  2. Jack is taken alive by Jones as a sacrifice to his friends, just like Han Solo is taken alive by Vader as a sacrificed to save his friends.
  3. A former villain (Barbosa,) comes back to help rescue a former rival (Jack), and also feels Jack stole his ship the black pearl.    A former villain (Lando) comes back to help rescue a former rival (Han), and also feels Han stole his ship the millennium falcon.
  4. Elizabeth’s home is destroyed by the villains at the beginning of the movie; Leia’s home planet is destroyed at the beginning of the movie.
  5. Both Elizabeth and Leia are royalty.

Love my readers  🙂

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Let me tell you about Synecdoche, New York

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synecdoche-ny-introspective-img

I just saw the most interesting movie tonight.  At least i think it was interesting, i’m still trying to figure it out.  It was Synecdoche, New York by writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).  Here are some thoughts that pop into my brain about it:

The one word i can think of is recursive.  When a character who is in a play, creates another play and gets a character to play himself to start another play inside the play – it becomes a mindfuck.  And that play is about starting a play and getting another character to play himself and so on.  It’s all recursive. It made me think of Adaptation and how Charlie Kaufman has done this before with a movie that is describing itself to the audience.  A movie that is self-aware.  In fact that’s what Kaufman does every time.  “Being John Malkovich” literally got inside Malkovich’s mind, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” has someone who was at once a spy and a game show host, “Adaptation” had twin brothers who would act out roles the other could not, and “Enternal Sunshine” is all about holding on your memories.

The movie reminded me of how i felt when i watched PT Anderson’s Magnolia.  I am thinking: this is a fascinating story, these are great actors with great performances (Phillip Seymour is awesome in both), and these are great and unpredictable and non-cliched lines.   This is so close to being a great movie, but it’s not GREAT because it’s too long and it’s not hitting me at the core hard enough.  The film didn’t HIT me.  Those two directors, PT and CK, will each make a GREAT movie – a true classic. Both have been close, but neither has yet.  That said, i didn’t like “Big Lebowski” the first time i saw it and i could see myself drooling over this after the 2nd and 3rd viewings.

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The movie is LONG. It didn’t bother me because none of it is cliched. If it ended at one point, it would have been a nice and neat story. But it didn’t and added a whole other element.  The length made it more about life – everybody’s (or anybody’s) life.  Someone getting a job, growing, changing, making mistakes, having success and failures and acting as someone else and later feeling remorse.  All the actions of life are on display here.  That’s not a nice and neat story, which this could have been at 90 minutes but at 130 and much bigger it’s quite an interesting movie.  It’s more comprehensive

In these times of self-absorption and self-centeredness, never has there been a hero or story where someone self-examines themselves to the extend that Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour) does in S,NY. All he does is think about himself, his shortcomings, he ailings and failings.  He’s so self-conscious that his closest confidant is someone who has followed him around for 20 years whose day-to-day role is to also act like Caden Cotard.  He is so far in his head that he confuses weeks for years, forgets daughters and is fine substituting actors of himself for himself.  The whole movie is just so damn existential.

You all have any other thoughts?

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Sports Guy Mailbag

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I’m in to reposting these days so i thought i’d post some good questions from readers today in The Sports Guy mailbag article:

Q: Shouldn’t Elizabeth Perkins have faced statutory rape charges in “Big”?

Q: So you’re looking for the four-way version of paper-rock-scissors that makes the most sense? I think I found it: blow-booze-weed-sleep. Yes, booze will defeat blow and weed will defeat booze. Sleep can beat weed and of course, blow beats sleep. Granted I don’t behave this way EVERY day.
— Vaughn, Philly

Q: My friend almost got into an altercation with a guy who had a hook instead of a hand. He contends that having a hook for a hand would be an advantage in a bar fight (for the obvious reasons); but I contend that because the prosthesis included the guy’s forearm, it would be a disadvantage as arm speed and dexterity were reduced with the lack of arm muscle. What are your thoughts?
— Adam, Washington, D.C.

Q: My friends and I were discussing the two-faced lady in the Southwest Airlines commercial that you are so fond of. Well, say one of her faces is eating a banana and the other is eating a corn dog. Would the corn dog and banana touch, or do the faces have two separate throats? They probably share a throat, right?

Nothing else captures America quite like a Sports Guy mailbag.  I love it.

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I'll Miss Paul Newman

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One my favorite actors, Paul Newman, passed away last week.  I love many of his movies, such as The Sting, The Hustler, and Cool Hand Luke.  He was a total stud.

Another reason i loved him was for his charity work.  My cousin Matt has worked for the past two years at Newman’s Hole In The Wall Gang summer camps for sick children.  Their motto is “Shameless exploitation for the common good.”  It’s a great cause and a great camp

In a book about him, the author Lawrence Quirk quotes Newman: “I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn’t complacent, who doesn’t cop out.”

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