BLOOD DIAMOND

"I like to get kissed before I get fucked."

There is no doubt about it any more, Leonardo DiCaprio can act. His straight man to Daniel Day-Lewis's twisted villain in GANGS OF NEW YORK was the beginning of his ascension to the upper echelon of today's elite group of young actors, and with his larger-than-life turn as Howard Hughes in THE AVIATOR and his implosively amazing (Oscar-worthy, in my opinion) turn as Billy Costigan in this year's best film, THE DEPARTED, Leo has really proven himself. He can now add BLOOD DIAMOND as another notch to his impressive docket.

In BLOOD DIAMOND he is Danny Archer, a mercenary who runs conflict diamonds out of Africa in the late-90s. He begins to use a local fisherman, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), offering him the chance to find his rebel-kidnapped family in exchange for a priceless diamond. Well, actually far from priceless (expensive enough to get Archer out of Africa for good).

The film has a pretty solid plot. It offers the oppurtunity for a great action movie as well as a very convincing message. The 140-minute running time hurts both of these concepts though. While many action sequences are staged and delivered brilliantly with a ferocious bite, they are mostly in the first half. The second act sees the message weighing the movie down: the blood diamond industry is huge and nobody wants to really help the problem.

While it is formulaic in the same vein that THE LAST SAMURAI (director Edward Zwick's last movie) was, in the sense that the white man rushes to save the foreign (or black, in this case) man's troubles. The message is a bit repetitive and overcooked, but the film overall is saved by DiCaprio and Hounsou's performances. As Archer, DiCaprio is explosive, a man who faces danger often and whose formerly steel-clad morals are being melted by Vandy. Though it is another noble man-character for Hounsou, he plays the part with pent-up fury, a man who would journey across the world and give up eeverything for his son. Their explosive acting is the real reason to see this movie. Jennifer Connelly is also in it, as a journalist looking to exploit the tragedy of Sierra Leone in order to make a difference, but her character and her performance are pretty bland, and she has nothing on her counterparts.

B

A SCANNER DARKLY

"Total total total totally total total... total providence. "

A complex film about the effects of drugs on the mind, A SCANNER DARKLY is another example of how the ballsy movies of 2006 turned out to be the best. Set in 2013, the movie was traditionally filmed and then animated through the still-revolutionary process of rotoscoping by director Richard Linklater (the same was done in his 2001 film WAKING LIFE). Keanu Reeves is Bob Arctor, an undercover cop investigating the dangerous drug Substance D. Twenty percent of the population is addicted to it, and as Arctor keeps going undercover, he becomes more and more addicted himself. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder all give solid supporting performances (Downey really relishes his role as a philosophizing addict, becoming engulfed in paranoia), but Reeves gives the performance of his much-lambasted career. It is multifaceted and deep, a startlingly moving look at drug addiction and how quickly and completely it engulfs the mind. There is a feeling of melancholia during every carefully planned frame of the film, and it can be seen in Reeves' eyes. Not only does he become addicted to the drug, but he is forced to watch himself slowly deteriorate in police videos. Linklater’s choice to rotoscope the film really helps to enhance the dystopian feel of a rotting culture, and the hallucinatory effect of drugs. This is one of the deepest animated films ever made.

A

HIGH NOON

"I've got to, that's the whole thing."

HIGH NOON is a pretty simple movie. It's a play on good versus evil, with Gary Cooper in maybe his most iconic role ever as Will Kane, the marshal of a small town in the west. He must lay his demons to rest by confronting four criminals who have come to town to kill him, on the same day he married his girl (the gorgeous Grace Kelly) and settle down. There is still time for them to run off. The killers won't find them. They don't have to confront them.

The film is a powerful but very simplistic take on honor and confronting one's demons. One by one, everyone in the town turns down Kane's plea for help. Four armed killers are too much to handle for him, but he must do it anyway. Even though the whole movie is in a way about him getting shot down over and over again, it doesn't feel repetitive or false. Though the supporting actors don't get much screentime, they feel authentic and genuine. Why on earth would they stick their neck out for the person who is supposed to be protecting them, right? A new marshal is showing up the next day anyway. It isn't their concern.

All the while a single song is played over and over again. "Do not forsake me oh my darling" are the main lyrics to this poignant, simplistic tune. Their is no real hidden message in these lyrics. There is no real hidden message in this movie. It is simply one man's two hour odyssey to put his mind at piece no matter what the adversary or the setbacks. Cooper is strong and charismatic as Kane. His performance is dignified and iconic.

A

DREAMGIRLS

"Look baby, I promised ya'll I was gonna make ya a star. Look at where you at now!"

DREAMGIRLS is the party of 2006, and everyone is invited. It’s a flashy, eye-popping, dramatic ride. Believe me when I say this, when this movie hits, it straight up kills.

Bill Condon writes and directs this lavishly shot look at one band’s rise to fame and how they deal with the limelight. Real-life diva Beyoncé Knowles shines as Deena Jones, who is in a Superemes-like three-woman band in the early-60s. Alongside of her is Lorrell Robinson and Effie White, played by Anika Noni Rose and Jennifer Hudson, who together make up the Dreamettes. A former American Idol contender, Hudson gives a breathtakingly affecting rookie performance as the girl who can sing the best, but inconveniently looks the worst.

Jamie Foxx is their manager, Curtis Jones, a true businessman. In the beginning he manages the girls during the night while maintaining his used car dealership during the day. One of the coolest sequences of the movie sees Curtis wordlessly going around to various spots in Detroit to get money to finance the girls’ record being played on the air. He sleeps with Effie to keep her happy, but when push comes to shove, he puts Deena at the front of the group to sell out more concerts. He then sleeps with her to keep her happy. Foxx is good as a man who will ruthlessly make a buck in any way, but who can’t openly show how much of an asshole he is.

What may be the most surprisingly part of the show is Eddie Murphy’s performance. Let’s face it, he’s never really been great before. He has had a few good movies, but never any juicy roles like this. As an aging, fledgling musician who originally cast the Dreams as his backup singers but quickly became their inferior, he succumbs the the drugs that destroy many a rock’n’roll dream. Murphy can touch the audience’s emotions, he can dance, and man, he can sing. His opening number is part of a twenty-minute sequence that introduces the audience to the Dreams, and features some of the biggest, grandest, most entertaining numbers in musical history.

As entertaining as this sequence is, it isn’t the best part of the show. When Jennifer Hudson sings “And I’m Telling You”, every audience around the world is going to explode. This is the rawest, most personal song of the show, and damn, Hudson goes for broke. A big F-U to all those who put her down and abandoned her because of her looks, most especially Deena and Curtis, Effie cries out to the audience in the most beautiful, affecting piece of the entire film.

While emotionally and musically the movie kills, Condon’s direction in a few scenes is iffy. The usual musical needs a suspension of disbelief to be taken seriously, where characters often break out into song instead of dialogue. In DREAMGIRLS, the story features a lot of music being sung by the group, so the suspension of disbelief isn’t needed. Part of the script calls for songs to be sung straight to the audience though, which comes off as a corny clash of sorts (the notable exception being “And I’m Telling You”, which is so damn impressive it doesn’t even matter).

This is really the only flaw in the film. The performances, costumes, and camerawork are all excellent, and the atmosphere is alive. It’s not only a look at one group’s dealing with fame, but a look at how artistic quality is sometimes slashed for a quick buck. This is a musical event.

A-

DOWNFALL

Part Five in My Examination of War in Film

"In a war as such there are no civilians. "

How many of you out there like Hitler?

Anyone? At all?

No, there's not too many who would express their warm feelings about a man who was responsible for the most horrendous series of massacres in the history of God's Earth. In fact, many would go as far as to say God abandoned this man. DOWNFALL has the balls to say otherwise.

We can't deny that Adolf Hitler was a man. A terrible man, but a man nonetheless. He had a rationale for what he did and what he believed. This isn't to say that I agree with him in any type of degree, but you really can't deny he had to have had a thought process going when he ordered the killing of millions of jews and minorities. In DOWNFALL, his final ten days are seen through the eyes of the people immediately around him. His wife, secretary, military consultants, family, and servants all watch in horror as the impending, inevitable Russian takeover of Berlin and the entire country rips his mind to pieces.

In all actuality, this German film's central character is not Hitler. It is really written to be an ensemble piece, with the most time devoted to his secretary, Traudl Junge's, experiences. Traudl is brought to life in a wide-eyed performance by Alexandra Maria Lara, who exhibits innocence, fear, anger, passion, suffering, anxiety, and still hope into every shot she is in. By her side are dozens of Germans of different significance. They are not painted as villains by director Oliver Hirschbiegel, who instead opts to film them as faithful soldiers and servants to their country.

It is only through Bruno Ganz's unbridled, explosive performance as The Fuhrer. He embodies Hitler, not only with the signature moustache, but with shaky hands and a face that has seen his epic dreams been squashed by who he believes to be a group of inferiors. While Hitler was an insane man whose mind completely abandoned him in his last days, Ganz gives a striking idea of how cunning and charming a man Hitler could be. While he hates the groups he persecutes, he cares for the people around him, especially the women, children, and young soldiers taking their last stand in a suicide mission inside Berlin.

It would be a hard task to humanize the Nazis without coming off as either assholish or truly offensive, but this small gem of a film does. With its stunning authenticity in performances, costumes, and sets (a burning Berlin haunted me, and believe me, I usually wouldn't sympathize for the German situation), DOWNFALL feels more like a docu-drama than a traditional film. As the tension escalates through the city and among the people, the drama becomes crushing. The most popular subject matter to talk about is the methods of killing oneself. Fathers take their own children's lives rather than watch them fall into the hands of the Russians. It is a haunting masterpiece of a film.

A+

BAND OF BROTHERS

Part Four of My Examination of War in Film

"From this day to the ending of the world we in it shall be remembered. We lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

If SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is war told the way an audience wants to see it, and THE THIN RED LINE is the poetic way to look it, then BAND OF BROTHERS is war in its truest cinematic form.

An eleven-hour saga chronicling the events of Easy Company's campaign during World War II, BAND OF BROTHERS is the most intimate, yet still the most epic event in the history of television. More than $125 million was poured into the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks
-helmed project, and the authenticity of the sets and costumes are a reflection of the budget.

From their training in American and Britain to their final tour in Austria, the audience goes everywhere with Easy Company. Each episode chronicles a character, although a core group is established over the entirity of the series. After just a few minutes, each character seems real and relatable. They aren't just cliched parts in an expansive setting. These men are real.

After all, this is a true story. Each episode starts with a series of veterans relating their experiences in certain battles and the toll it took on them. Only after the final episode ends are the veterans' veils of anonymonity lifted. These men are brought to life by a cast of mostly no-names, but whom many have gone on to bigger things since. Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Colin Hanks, and Donnie Wahlberg all play soldiers who aren't sure whether or not to be heroes like the ads at home say, or to just try and survive their fighting.

While it isn't an anti-war series, BAND OF BROTHERS does show the messy side of war. Their is as much blood in it as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but the blood doesn't seem quite as exploitative or unneeded. The effects that this violence has on the psyche of the soldiers is disheartening as well. Almost every man in the company is wounded at one point or another. In fact, one soldier is given a hard time because he took two days off from the line after getting shrapnel in his leg. The constant state of fear, masked fear, eats away at the men as their body count steadily grows. They gradually become the first line in the direct Ally attack on the Germans, and this responsibility is daunting, even if they don't talk about it much.

It's been over a month since I concluded BAND OF BROTHERS. It had sat on my shelf for over a year before then. I never thought I would have enough time to get through all eleven hours of material. Towards the end of the series though, I found myself making time. I have only revisited a few bits and pieces of a few episodes since then, but the characters still stick out in my mind. Their journey through hell and back is phenomenal to watch. The simple but powerful acting and story, the sharp direction, and the visceral impact the series had on me is burned into my brain. I'm glad Stephen Ambrose's novel was adapted into a miniseries and not a film. It is because of this that the story is so completely fleshed out, and characters are not just bit parts who come and go without and emotional attachment being made between them and the viewers. Every man is real, and there is a general concern for them, as to whether or not they will make it out of the war alive. The emotional invigoration, is above all, why BAND OF BROTHERS is the single greatest accomplishment in television history.

A+

THE PLAYER

Maybe it's because I love when Hollywood makes fun of itself. Maybe it's because I straight up hate Hollywood. Maybe it's because I love when a movie can beautifully balance two different concepts (such as satire and thrills). Maybe it's because I love how Robert Altman moves a camera and how he gets eerily natural performances out of every one of his actors. Whatever the reason was, I loved every second of THE PLAYER.

From it's opening scene, a five-minute long single shot taking place in a film studio parking lot feauting different groups of people talking about movie related things (including, most hilariously, a conversation involving how Hollywood is succumbing to too many quickly edited scenes). The mood is set from there on in, a party of a movie with brains and brawn, enough to take on the film industry with many of its most famous actors poking fun. Cameo after cameo roll in and out of the film, and it is no surprise, considering how well Altman works with his actors.

Tim Robbins is Griffin Mill, a mid-level studio executive living the dream, for the most part, in Hollywood. He has a loving wife and everyone knows him. He begins receiving threatening postcards however, from what he believes is a disgruntled writer he turned down. The writer is David Kahane, played by a young Vincent D'onofrio (now enjoying his own Hollywood fame in LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT). It isn't long though before things escalate, Mill freaks, and kills Kahane. The kicker: it's the wrong guy.

This is where things get really juicy. Robbins is great as a man who is unraveling but can't show it. Hollywood is a town that says 'we love you, but what have you done for me lately?' Griffin has little on the table, and if anyone finds out that he's a murderer to boot, he's done.

Meanwhile, Hollywood is running along as usual. A dead writer is ninth page news, which says something about the town. Maybe it is because he is never been mainstream, but was always able to work with the best in Hollywood that Robert Altman was the best man to direct this satire. It bites, and bites hard. The stars lined up for it too, with more than 100 cameo roles coming and going. It is a great filjm about film, a satire of the sometimes absurdity of Hollywood, and an absorbing thriller.

A+

CAPE FEAR, SNATCH

What do these movies have in common? They're made for men.

CAPE FEAR is minor Scorsese, a 1991 update of the 1962 film of the same name. It is second-tier Scorsese, but man, is it still riveting. It's a basic story, a cat-and-mouse game between Defense Counselor Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte, in the role played by Gregory Peck in the original) and just-released ex-con Max Cady. Robert De Niro is Cady, and I mean that almost literally.

This is De Niro's show. While it may have been just another stab at mainstream success for Scorsese, you can tell from the first frame of the movie that Bobby D. took it seriously. He was nearly fifty years old when the film was shot, but you would never be able to tell from his physical appearance. Sporting a mean six-pack and covered in tattoos, he remarks " there isn't much to do in prison except desecrate your flesh."

De Niro is scarily good as the bad guy, a man who is disturbed to the bone but still manages to convey feelings of sympathy. He elevates everyone else around him. Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis play the family he quickly scares the bejebus out of. While they all do fine jobs, you can tell it is De Niro's presence that light the fuel in their performances.

SNATCH is a damn enjoyable import from British director Guy Richie (Madonna's ex). It is basically another PULP FICTION-inspired crime drama, with interlapping storylines, witty dialogue, and gleeful caricature performances from Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Farina, Benicio Del Toro, and several others playing jewel thieves, boxers, promoters, gangsters, and gypsies all trying to lay their hands on an 84-karat diamond. Many people hate these movies because they have so much in common (ahem, they rip off) with PULP FICTION. Meaning they are clever, over-the-top, and entertaining. These are all bad things, you know.

Anyway, SNATCH has a ton of energy. It doesn't stop moving throughout its 100-minute running time, and it doesn't waste any time with messages or any bullshit like that to run away from the plot. It knows that its not a particularly important movie, and it's alright with that. Brad Pitt, who always finds a way to entertain me, has almost illegal amounts of fun with his role as a gypsy bareknuckle boxer who fights till he's burger, but usually doesn't have to, seeing how he knocks out guys twice his size with one punch usually. Plausible? No. Juicy? Hell yes. Seeing him fall down after a meaty left hook, in slow motion glory, and then jump up and knock the big bastard out is just fucking awesome.

Both get a B+

Son of a bitch, PULP FICTION is on. Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames just got through That Scene. You know the one. Thank Jesus for HBO.

MANHATTAN

"You know what you are? You're God's answer to Job, y'know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, y'know, ' do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these.'You know? And then Job would have said, 'Eh. Yeah, well, you win.'"

They say art imitates life. This is so in MANHATTAN, another walk in the park for Woody Allen. In it, Allen is Isaac Davis, a 42-year-old man dating a high schooler, but who falls in love with his best friends mistress. All this takes place while his ex-wife (a very young Meryl Streep) is publishing a memoir about how her life with Isaac drove her to lesbianism.

Allen has never been an actor with wide range. He's always the neurotic, from CASINO ROYALE in 1967 to his most recent film, SCOOP (which nobody saw, but I really liked). His personality has always carried over into his characters, and his movies have been shaped around his persona. I'm completely fine with this though, because the man is so damn funny, both in life and in his films (his writing and acting are for the most part comic gold). Perhaps MANHATTAN was a pre-cursor to his split with Mia Farrow, one of his most frequent collaborators, for 27-year-old Soon Yi Previn in 1997 (he is thirty-five years old than her).

In both his life and the film, Woody looks, and eventually finds in a way, love in the oddest places. In a way, the movie is as much about his love for his home town (ahem, Manhattan) as his love/frustration with the people around him. The film is gorgeously shot in old-school black-and-white, with many wide shots showing how life beyond the camera is always happening in New York.

I'm not sure which aspect of the film made me really love it. It is an odd romance, not only in the characters but in the interactions they share with each other. Nevertheless, the characters feel real, in a surreal, neurotic, Woody-ish way. It is shot beautifully and the actors all go subtley go for broke. Maybe it is such a great, affecting, hilarious look at romance because it has all the right amounts of all the right pieces.

A

Your dose of 300 for the day

This is officially the movie I'm anticipating the most for '07. How eye-fuckingly awesome is this movie going to be?

Bravo, NIP/TUCK

Wow. The fourth (and possibly last, but I doubt it) season of FX's NIP/TUCK was terrific. The writers upped the anty on it, elevating it from exclusively soap opera bullshit and used-up characters into something that richer. It left the clichés behind, as well as all sense of reality, basically. The problems and conflicts built up and built up, and at about the fourth episode (the show is only 14, but they play three months straight with no missed weeks, which I like) I was about to just turn the damn TV off. Instead of that, I decided to just suspend my disbelief. There is a dream sequence in almost every episode, Sean and Christian have some sort of intimate relationship with almost every one of their clients, and Christian's fiancé's pimpette cuts out kidneys to pay off a drug lord that Christian and Sean did business with.

Coincidence? No, just iffy writing, says I.

But that's OK, because it's just so damn entertaining. It gets juicier and juicier with every episode, from the marital problems between Sean and Julia to the adoption of Chistian's black child. It sounds like daytime television on paper, but it's more. It pushes the artistic boundaries imposed by the FCC in terms of sex and violence, and I'm all for it. The characters are surprisingly well-written and deep for a show with such a superficial concept: the drama surrounding the lives of a couple of Miami platic surgeons. The tagline is pretty true in this case: Deeply Superficial.

Here's to a fifth season.

Random movies I've been watching...

So yeah, I haven't sat through that many new movies lately, but through the miracle of the movie channels and cable TV, I've had my fill of channel surfings and so on.

MEAN GIRLS- Say what you want, this movie is fucking funny. Tina Fey wrote it, and from all indicators (30 ROCK on NBC is one of the fall's most successful new shows-though I don't watch it), she has some talent. It bites and is still touching, and really gets the main vibes of high school (the cliques, the sexual yearning, the fights, the retarded trends, the teachers who don't know a clue), even if they're over-exaggerated and Hollywood-ized. And yeah, Lindsay Lohan is gorgeous in it, and this was in a time when she wasn't completely skankified.

FIGHT CLUB- Cory, Kyle, and I got lost trying to get to East Auburn on Friday, so we ended up raiding Wal-Mart and going back to the home front and watching this miracle of a movie. When I think about it, this could be my favorite movie, right up there with the LORD OF THE RINGS films. I'm surprised I've never gone on a complete tangent about it on here, seeing how every line of dialogue, every performance, every shot, and every concept get better and more entertaining with each viewing. From Bob's bitch tits to Marla 'never being fucked like that since grade school', this movie makes me scream in laughter. Scream. I don't have to go into how fucking manly of a movie it is either, do I? Although some have called it macho porn (I'm looking at you Roger Ebert, who gave AKEELAH AND THE BEE 4 stars), I think it's macho greatness. On its simplest level, it's a bunch of guys beating each other up, which is kickass. On its deepest, it is surreally fucked up and a socially important film.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS- I've probably seen this a dozen times, so don't criticize me too much for switching back and forth between this and MEAN GIRLS the other night. It is epic in every sense of the word, and better than about 97% of all other movies out there, but it doesn't quite ever grasp the brother-ish connection between the characters as well as THE FELLOWSHIP and THE RETURN OF THE KING do. Like I said though, it is better than 97% of pretty much everything else I've ever seen.

CITY OF GOD- Caught the last twenty minutes or so of this violent piece of visual poetry on IFC last night, and I wish I had known it was on earlier. I've seen it twice before, and it's as completely enthralling on its third viewing as it was the first time around. It is to me what GOODFELLAS is to most other people: the supreme stylized gangster pic (THE DEPARTED and THE GODFATHER are a little better, but they aren't what I would call super-stylized like this). The performances (especially by both of the Rockets and both of the Li'l Zé's), the action, the multiple storylines, and the amazing screenplay combine for a knockout punch of a movie. At this point in the game it probably cracks my Top Five of the decade so far. A breahtaking first film by Fernando Meirelles.

Is this the worst poster ever?

Gag me.

It must be Award Season...

December means Christmas and End of the Year Top Ten lists from movie critics. They're starting to trickle in, and the first two major ones have revealed a few surprises. Mainly

AFI's Top Ten List
Babel
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Half Nelson
Happy Feet
Inside Man
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
United 93

Broadcast Film Critics Association's Top Ten List
Babel
Blood Diamond
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Children
Little Miss Sunshine
Notes on a Scandal
The Queen
United 93

New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Picture: United 93
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Best Foreign Film: Army of Shadows
Best Screenplay: Peter Morgan, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor: Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Best Cinematographer: Guillermo Navarro, Pan's Labyrinth
Best Non-Fiction Film: Deliver Us From Evil
Best First Film: Ryan Fleck, Half Nelson
Best Animated Film: Happy Feet

L.A. Film Critics Association Awards
Picture: "Letters From Iwo Jima"
Runner-up: "The Queen"

Director: Paul Greengrass, "United 93"
Runner-up: Clint Eastwood, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen, "Borat" and Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland" (tie) (no runner-up)

Actress: Helen Mirren, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Penelope Cruz, "Volver"

Supporting actor: Michael Sheen, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Sergi Lopez, "Pan's Labyrinth"

Supporting actress: Luminita Gheorghiu, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu"
Runner-up: Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls"

Screenplay: Peter Morgan, "The Queen"
Runner-up: Michael Arndt, "Little Miss Sunshine"

Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, "Children of Men"
Runner-up: Tom Stern, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima"

Production design: Eugenio Caballero, "Pan's Labyrinth"
Runner-up: Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland, "Children of Men"

Music: Alexandre Desplat, "The Queen" and "The Painted Veil"
Runner-up: Thomas Newman, "The Good German" and "Little Children"

Foreign-language film: "The Lives of Others"
Runner-up: "Volver"

Documentary/non-fiction film: "An Inconvenient Truth"
Runner-up: "Darwin's Nightmare"

Animation: "Happy Feet"
Runner-up: "Cars"

Douglas Edwards experimental/independent film/video award: "Old Joy" (Kelly Reichardt) and "In Between Days" (So Yong Kim)

New generation award: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris (directors) and Michael Arndt (screenwriter), "Little Miss Sunshine"

Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association Awards
Best Film: United 93
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Best Original Screenplay: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking
Best Supporting Actor: Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls'
Best Animated Feature: Happy Feet
Best Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth
Best Foreign-Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Acting Ensemble: The Little Miss Sunshine
Best Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Hudson
Best Art Direction: Marie-Antoinette

Kind of pissed that THE DEPARTED hasn't been racking up the big trophies as of yet (while I haven't seen it, THE QUEEN doesn't look that mind-bogglingly great or socially/artistically challenging, which THE DEPARTED was). I'm glad to see that LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA is becoming a force late in the game, similar to what MILLION DOLLAR BABY did a few years ago. And don't worry kids, I'll post my year-end wrap-up in January, and yes, you will explode in the pants.

NATURAL BORN KILLERS

"Mickey: I realized my true calling in life.
Wayne Gale: What's that?
Mickey: Shit, man, I'm a natural born killer."

This is certainly the most thought-provoking and challenging film on the list that I have watched yet. It is an indictment on American culture for sure, but whether or not NATURAL BORN KILLERS can keep its eye on the satirical ball all the way through its running time is another question.

Technically speaking, this film is extraordinary. Or maybe innovative. Breathtaking. Cutting-edge? There are definitely many adjectives this film's technical aspects. It takes a lower-tier, shallow script and turns it into a movie that is feverishly alive, for better or for worse. It follows the epic journey of Mickey and Mallory Knox, a couple who travel across the southwest for two weeks, killing everyone they can get their hands on. Forty-eight lay dead by the time they are brought in to custody and thrown in to jail, where the death penalty awaits them.

These two characters themselves are pretty damn shallow. The tagline says "The Media Made Them Superstars", but to me, this wasn't why they massacred these people, and this is the biggest, most fundamental problem that I had with NATURAL BORN KILLERS, a problem I couldn't really ever shake during its running time. "I kill because I'm a killer," says Mickey. That is the reasoning given by the Quentin Tarantino-penned script (thank God he made PULP FICTION that year) as to why they murder, in cold blood, dozens of strangers. While incarcerated, Mickey accepts an invitation to appear on a nationally televised show about the biggest criminals in America, hosted by Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr.), a man praying that this interview catapults him to fame. "It's just murder. All God's creatures do it. You look in the forests and you see species killing other species, our species killing all species including the forests, and we just call it industry, not murder" says Mickey, in front of millions.

Like I said though, this is a morbidly entertaining movie. While I didn't like some of it, I couldn't turn away, much less turn it off. As Mickey and Mallory, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis both have a lot of fun in shallowly written roles, and a pissed-off Tommy Lee Jones (playing the warden of the prison), a psychotic Tom Sizemore (as a slowly-unraveling cop who goes psycho because of his surroundings), and a WTF turn by Rodney Dangerfield as Mallory's molesting, controlling, ugly hick of a father are entertaining, in a sick way. Oliver Stone's direction has to be applauded as well. The man may be considered a conspiracy nut, but he has some balls. The film is extraordinarily violent and features no likeable characters, but he has made a hypnotic film that raises plenty of questions about violence and media, as well as being a visual feast on a small budget. Using different style cameras, black-and-white imaging, animation, bullet-view shots, and facial distortions, he is able to capture a lot of the surrealness and jaw-dropping lunacy of the situation that the script wasn't able to. If anything, NATURAL BORN KILLERS is alive.

B

50, 50 Link

DR. STRANGELOVE

Part Three of My Examination of War in Film / 50, 50 Link

"Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks"

I think Stuart Smalley said it best: "Man, Stanley Kubrick had some balls." He was a trailblazing artist, a man who broke through all conceivable boundaries in conventional cinema. He made a science fiction film that featured little action, almost no character interaction or dialogue, and no explosions (2001). He made a film that humanized a child molester (LOLITA). He also made DR. STRANGELOVE, exemplifying what would happen if the U.S. and Russia exchanged nuclear blows. Not only did he make the movie, but he made it smack dab in the middle of the cold war.

Kubrick was also a man of artistic intelligence. While he usually stuck to the script, he knew better than to limit the talents of comedic legend Peter Sellers, who plays three roles in STRANGELOVE, mostly improvised. Sellers is regarded as a comedic genius for good reason. He was able to morph into his roles, and for most of the film I wasn't able to notice that he was in nearly every scene. He plays American President Merkin Muffley, who finds himself in a situation involving a psychotic U.S. general red-lighting a group of bombers to fly over Russia and do the unthinkable.

The titular character, Dr. Strangelove, is brought in to advise the members of the 'war room', a group of military officials sort of ran by General Buck Turgidson, played by George C. Scott. These are unquestionably the two funniest roles in the film. As Strangelove, Peter Sellers spits out the bare minimum amount of scripted dialogue the script calls for, and is 90% improv. Scott relishes his role, a big ole' American cowboy of a general, who has sex with his secretary (not just in a sexual way, he deeply respects her as a human being too) when he's not busy trying to bail his country out.

This isn't just a physical comedy though. The satire is rich and thick here, and Kubrick doesn't pussy out with the ending, as I thought he would. Maybe it is him being a revolutionary filmmaker and me being part of a movie-making generation filled with thrillers with cop-out endings, but the ending of this film floored me. The tenacity Kubrick had to not only make a movie like this at such a volatile time as in the middle of the Cold War, but to end it the way that such a conflict would end is remarkable.

A-

Man, 300 and SMOKIN ACES Look N-U-T-S

Smokin' Aces: Heroine on Film

300: Actual Heroine

March 9th, January 26th. Mark your calendars.

MODERN TIMES

MODERN TIMES is a love letter from Charlie Chaplin to an era that he defined. It is his final silent film, and even so, it is sprinkled with dialogue here and there. It sends up the industry that was taking over the home that Chaplin was such a master of, not only satirizing talking films, but industrial progression in general.

Chaplin is an unnamed factory worker, fired from his job for not being able to keep up with the machines that can do the same job in less time, with less faults. He is sent to a mental hospital, then kicked on to the steet, and quickly thrown into prison. The film is basically a series of events consisting of change dominating a circumstance, and that change being totally blind to what was there before it.

I was pleasantly surprised by MODERN TIMES. I understand that it is a classic film, but I didn't think a film that contained almost no dialogue could affect me. The over-the-top physical comedy of The Tramp, along with the beautiful, innocent performance by Paulette Goddard as a young woman who becomes orphaned and is taken in by Chaplin's character, bring both laughs and true sadness to the screen. It hums along quickly for 85 minutes, subtley but unquestionably serving as great satire while also telling a simple story of an innocent romance.

A

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

Part Two of My Examination of War in Film.

"This time the mission is the man."

In 1998, two war films came out, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, and that other one. RYAN was an event for a reason. While THE THIN RED LINE is a better film in my opinion, there is no denying the emotional punch that Steven Spielberg's bloody World War II opus packs.

Where THE THIN RED LINE starts off in a slow, euphoric, meditative state, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN opens with a bang. Maybe The Big Bang if we are talking about war movies. The opening sequence is one for the ages, showing the American invasion of Omaha Beach at Normandy on D-Day. The violence is brutal and emotionally shattering, and Spielberg isn't afraid to lay it on the audience heavy and often.

The Omaha Beach sequence introduces the audience to the main protagonists of the film. Tom Hanks is subtle and quiet as Captain John Miller, who leads his squad of seven men throughout Europe to find Private Ryan, a paratrooper who has lost his three brothers, all of whom were killed in action. Ryan is played by Matt Damon, in one of his first screen roles. The men in Miller's outfit can not fathom why the government considers one man's life important enough to risk those of eight others.

Where THE THIN RED LINE contemplated life and death (among many other things), SAVING PRIVATE RYAN focuses on the day-to-day battle for life that soldiers experience. While it is bleak and a soberingly realistic account of war, it is still an uplifting experience. Spielberg has always been an inspirational filmmaker, and he has always been able to find a light at the end of the bleakest of tunnels. The ultimate purpose of war is for peace and life, and Spielberg understands this, presenting it in a way that is sentimental but not hokey or sappy.

As different as the two films are, I can't help but compare RYAN with THE THIN RED LINE. While the former is a great envisioning of war, especially in its staging of battle and in its unflinching look at the graphic nature of it, it does not quite reach the poetic heights that its 1998 counterpart. It shows exactly what its audience wants to see: the Americans overcoming adversary in the face of their enemies to save the day. Does it present this idea well? Absolutely. Does it really challenge its audience, more than shocking them with graphic violence and pulling at their heartstrings? Not really. That said, it is an emotionally exhausting epic, and the attachment to its characters that it creates is undeniable. It is a great war film.

A+

New Look...

You like? Tell me. I'm on the fence at this point.

I'll just put this bluntly...

...Since there's no other way to put it. A movie is coming out next year called TEETH, a movie about a beautiful girl who has teeth in her vagina. Read on guys, this is some weird shit (and I'm not making this up, I promise).

Will this film be 2007's Hard Candy???
Teeth has been selected for dramatic competition for the 07 Sundance film festival and has been pegged as a feminist horror/drama.

Link to picture

Plot Description - High school student Dawn works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group's most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by her bad boy stepbrother Brad's increasingly provocative behavior at home. A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence. As she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences both the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth. With Jess Weixler (The Big Bad Swim) as Dawn, John Hensley ("Nip/Tuck") as Brad.

But can it be as awesome as the Japanese masterpiece...

Casey, Alyssa, and Kaitlynn, Eternal Love?

They were best friends. Casey, Alyssa, and Kaitlynn were closer than any three girls throughout all of high school. They had classes together, they laughed, partied, cheered, ate junk food, went shopping, and had fun together. Nobody was closer than they were. They had the perfect friendship.

But all good things must come to an end... (DHUN DHUN DHUNNNNN)

Although it took a while for them to figure it out, the girls came to an undeniable conclusion. While guy after guy had come and gone through their lives, they had always remained together through the thick and thin, living it up during the good times and supporting each other during the bad. Was this just friendship, or something more?

They didn't know what to do. They were young, beautiful girls who had always thought that guys were the way to go, and the thing to do. But what were they thinking? Guys were dumbasses, and they were young, beautiful girls after all. They began 'hanging out' more and more, with no one else suspecting a thing. To the outside world, they were just another trio of high school girls who hung out with each other all the time.

While all was cool on the outside though, not all was perfect between the girls now. Mormons are fucked up for a reason, and that reason is multiple sexual partners. Alyssa, who we will just say wore the pants in the relationship, became jealous and controlling, possibly because of past relationships. Casey and Kaitlynn, very much in love in a very, very sexual way, began worrying for each other. How many beatings and semi-rapes would they have to endure because of Alyssa's formerly unknown fetish for violence?

One night, a dark and stormy night dominated by lightning and the screaming of orphan babies crying in the streets, Casey and Kaitlynn plotted. The Bitch had to go, they decided. Playing the innocent way in, the two seduced Alyssa into their bedroom, promising her some serious nooky. Alyssa, all sixteen brain cells pumping, jumped right into bed, as naked as the day she was born. Poor, poor girl. CK (I'm tired of writing Casey and Kaitlynn over and over) exacted their revenge on The Bitch, slapping her, pulling on the corn tooth, and uploading very revealing photos on their MySpace accounts. Alyssa left the two lovebirds to themselves for the rest of their lives, and she was never seen or heard of again. CK lived happily ever after.

In a very, very lesbian way.

So LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA looks good...

Clint Eastwood released his war epic FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS only last month, but it seems to have fizzled out of sight due to lackluster reviews (well, lackluster for him, 74% on Rotten Tomatoes isn't anything to be ashamed of) and poor box office (any way you cut it, a $52 million worldwide intake on a $90 million budget is awful, especially with these expectations).

There may be light at the end of the tunnel though. FLAGS told the story of the battle for Iwo Jima during WWII, as well as the effects that propoganda has on the minds of disillusioned soldiers. Eastwood shot it back-to-back with LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, which shows the battle from the Japanese side. The trailer is up, and in my opinion, it looks better than FLAGS, which I never got around to seeing. Somebody at Warner Brothers thinks so too, and they have bumped up the release date to December 20th, in time for the awards race at the end of the year. I've got no problem with that, seeing how I might be able to see both of them back-t0-back in a theater now (Christmas break, bitches).

That's all for now.

I'm tired

I'm exhausted. I haven't slept well since Saturday night (it's Tuesday morning right now).

Fuck.

Casey wants me to write something about her, so I will. Later. After I sleep hopefully. Probably not though.

Fuck.

THE THIN RED LINE

Part One of My Examination of War in Film

"Maybe all men got one big soul everyone's part of. All faces are the same man."

James Caveziel. Nick Nolte. Sean Penn. Elias Koteas. Ben Chaplin. Woody Harrelson. John Cusack. John C. Reilly. Nick Stahl. Adrien Brody. John Travolta. George Clooney. These are the players involved. THE THIN RED LINE is the game of their lives.

An epic poem about life and death, madness and contentness, love and loss, sacrifice and brotherhood, THE THIN RED LINE is one of the supreme accomplishments ever put onto celluloid, of any genre, at any time. Director Terrence Malick returned to filmmaking after a 20-year hiatus after making DAYS OF HEAVEN in 1978. Malick adapted the film from a novel written in 1962 by James Jones, a fictional account about the American assault and eventual takeover of the Japanese island of Guadalcanal during World War II. The novel (and first film adaptation, made in 1964) was a straight-forward look at the battles the soldiers fought in to claim the Japanese stronghold. Malick's vision is something deeper; something sublime.

While the battle scenes are masterfully shot and rival those of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN in terms of tension and staging (though definitely not carnage or blood), THE THIN RED LINE really isn't about war at the end of the film. Instead, Malick, tells a tale of how every single person is intertwined by the gift of life, no matter who they are or where they come from. He uses the backdrop of war as a metaphor to say how crazy (and ironic) it is that man's worst enemy is himself.

In the film, the Japanese are the enemy, but they are not portrayed as one-sided hateful beings, but soldiers who face many of the same fears, feel the same hopes and ambitions, and experience the same traumas of war as the Americans. The usual American war film clichés are gone; the Americans do not run in and kill those bastard Japs with guns blazing and soldiers standing upon the hills while the enemy flees in terror. As it progresses, the soldiers and the audience both gain an understanding of how equal and common every person is.

With the use of multiple narratives from different characters, all of whom have different perspectives on life, love, war, death, and themselves, Malick's knack for storytelling is undeniable. The first story, and what in my opinion is the most important and best-told story of the film's entirity, focuses on a private (Caviezel) who goes AWOL on an island paradise inhabited only by a small village of natives. He is the first man from the outside world they have ever encountered, but they are not afraid of him nor do they look at him with biased eyes. In this world, this island, there is hardly any conflict, even between children. This is paradise to Private Witt, but it is short-lived, and he is forced to go to war, which is hell.

This is how war is presented in THE THIN RED LINE. Malick uses beautiful natural-light based imagery and higher thought to offset the underlying theme that war is most definitely hell. Men killing other man is one of the most troubling paradoxes this world will ever know, especially when one considers how tightly we are all bonded, no matter who we are.

A+

DEJA VU

"We've got some unique time constraints."

In concept alone, DEJA VU is a fairly unique concept. The government has invented a device that allows time to be manipulated in a way that the actual pas, four days ago exactly, can be viewed now exactly how it happened. A thought like this could be analyzed forever, but DEJA VU isn't that type of movie, it's an action movie. Which isn't too bad, I guess.

Denzel Washington is Doug Carlin, an ATF agent assigned to a possibly terrorist-related explosion on a boat in New Orleans that has left 543 people dead, including a group of Navy sailors on leave. It is clear very quickly that the explosion was a bombing, not an accident. A woman (Paula Patton) with significant burns marks washes up on shore, but Carlin believes that she was not on the boat, making her a key part to investigating the baffling crime.

Called to a secret operation involving the said time warping instrument, Carlin finds himself over his head. FBI agent Pryzwarra (a very chubby Val Kilmer) and a group of techies (played by Adam Goldberg and Elden Henson in a couple of seriosly funny bit parts) explain that they can go back in time four days and see the past. Things get interesting when not only does Carlin start seeing the past, but living in the past. The movie's most exciting and conceptually innovative scene is a car chase in which Carlin chases after a person who is actually in the past. Trippy? I think so. In all seriousness, it is one of the best chase sequences of any kind ever put into a film.

While the film is almost great, it stops short of greatness. Where similar sci-fi masterpieces such as THE MATRIX capitalized on its epic, mind-bending concepts, DEJA VU whimps out in a way at the end, closing on a good note, but only after a disappointing final scene. Overall though, it is high-class entertainment, anchored by the usual solid Denzel performance and with restrained direction from the usually frenetic Tony Scott (DOMINO, anyone?), as well as a thought-enducing premise.

B+

Eldridge v. Kutcher, an Analysis

In one corner, Keegan Eldridge, in the other, Ashton Kutcher.

What would seem like a very unlikely comparison is actually, at second glance, anything but. One is a sixteen-year-old junior in high school, Lake Region High School to be exact, the other a 28-year-old 1996 graduate of Clear-Creek Amana High School of Homestead, Iowa. One drums, the other earns millions for roles in television such as THAT 70S SHOW and films such as THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?, and THE GUARDIAN. One runs and does Erin Rowbotham, one um, uh, well I don't know what he does except Demi Moore. Yes, that Demi Moore.

It would seem that these two squires share no similarities. On the contrary, says this writer. Several affinities are present in both of these gentlemen, most notably of the physical attributes. The sleek jawline, the skinny (bony, even?) frame, the runner's body, and the sick 'burns can be seen on both Mr. Eldridge and Mr. Kutcher.

This debate will not end by the conclusion of this entry. It will no doubt rage on in many different societal levels for the next several decades, even centuries perhaps. Who is better looking? Why is that? I am afraid that a true ending to this discussion may never take place.

NASHVILLE

"'Y'all take it easy now. This isn't Dallas, it's Nashville! They can't do this to us here in Nashville! Let's show them what we're made of. Come on everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!"

NASHVILLE is a Robert Altman film to its bones, a sprawling masterpiece of an epic filled with amazing, true-to-life performances and brimming with life. An enormous cast, including Lily Tomlin, Karen Black, Henry Gibson, Keith Carradine, Scott Glenn, Ronny Blakley, Barbara Baxley, and a very young Jeff Goldblum highlight a massive cast that produces one of the most complex and involving movies of the 70s.

Multiple storylines intertwine during one week around the 4th of July 1975 in Nashville, Tennessee. Dreams are built up over the course of what is hoped to be a rapturous week of patriotism and liveliness. Some of these dreams are realized, some turn into nothing, but all of their fates are determined by the final, resounding scene.

Though the film is more than 150 minutes long, it hums by quickly. The recently deceased Robert Altman was a great filmmaker when it came to juggling multiple story lines and allowing his actors the freedom to decide their own fates. His signature style was to have the camera rolling and let it follow his actors, letting them have complete freedom with their lines and delivery. This style is on vivid, lively display in NASHVILLE, which feels alive. The twenty-four (yes, 24) major roles are all fleshed out and deep, especially Linnea Reese (Tomlin), a mother of two deaf children with a husband never home, who has an affair with a rock star who is using her. Tomlin amazes in the role, hitting so close to home with her realistic depiction of a woman who has lost her love for life, and feels that she now has a chance for excitement and passion through being with a rock god. The tragedy is that after she is with him, nothing has changed.

NASHVILLE is a brilliant film. It is complexly structured and alive, with multiple stories, true-to-life performances from both experienced actors and amateurs, brilliant music (much of it written by the cast themselves) making it bursting at the seams with energy for every minute of its 159-minute running time. Robert Altman has made one of the best movies of the 70s.

A+

What is it good for?

So, it's almost December, and the Christmas season is upon us. So I'm going to watch some war movies.

Whaaa?

I know it doesn't really fit in well with the mood around this time of year, but after working on M*A*S*H for over two months, I want to dive into one of the most fascinating and deeply-steeped genres of film: war. I'll be watching a few new movies, as well as re-watching a few of my old favorites over the course of the next thirty-six days (until December 1st). I'll be reviewing them too, along with everything else I see (for the most part). The eleven-part war docket will look something like this:

APOCALYPSE NOW (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
BAND OF BROTHERS (HBO Miniseries, 2001)
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)
DOWNFALL (Oliver Hirschbeigel, 2004)
DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
JARHEAD (Sam Mendes, 2005)
M*A*S*H (Robert Altman, 1970) (HBO Miniseries, 2001)
THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO (Michael Winterbottom, 2006)
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (Steven Spielberg, 1998)
SCHINDLER'S LIST (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
THE THIN RED LINE (Terrence Malick, 1998)

I'll see you on the other side.

UNFORGIVEN

"I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned."

If THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY was Clint Eastwood's vision of a gunslinger living legend on the way up in the Old West--with awesome one-liners, grizzled eye squinting, commanding presence, and unparalleled badass-ness--than UNFORGIVEN is the way down.

It's fitting, to me, that this is Clint Eastwood's film. No one has a more influential presence when one talks about American westerns than Eastwood, other than John Wayne maybe, and it is fitting that he closes the door of the genre. After all, films of his such as THE MAN WITH NO NAME Trilogy, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, and THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES are some of the quintessential spaghetti westerns to ever be made.

While UNFORGIVEN isn't as entertaining, or as good really, as these films, it is certainly obvious that Clint has riden in the saddle for quite some time. While most Westerns involve glorifying their heroes and making the enemies completely one-dimensional assholes, UNFORGIVEN blurs the line. It stars Eastwood as William Munny, a former gunslinger who has moved on from his old profession, and is now a widower with two children in 1880 Wyoming. He climbs back in the saddle for one last job after a group of whores offer a reward to anyone who will kill the men who scarred one of their own. Joining him is his lifetime Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), who used to ride shotgun with William in his old crusades. Tagging along is the young, dumb, trigger-happy yuppy known only as The Schofield Kid, played by Jaimz Woolvett.

In UNFORGIVEN, the violence is not pretty. It does not make one a bigger man, or more liked or glorified by anyone else. One of the most emotionally shattering moments in the film comes after The Schofield Kid has shot a man. He has been riding around for months with the men to do so, and couldn't be more eager when the time finally comes. He busts down a door, looks the man he is about to kill straight in the eyes, and then shoots him in the chest. The violence isn't cartoonish at all, instead, it's mesmerizing, in the same way a car accident is. It's awful, but you can't look away. Horrified, The Kid drops his gun and runs away, saying he will never kill another man again for as long as he lives.

This is Eastwood's natural evolution as a director. He has been making westerns for decades, so nobody in Hollywood should be more aware of the reality of the material than he. UNFORGIVEN is a mature film, one that takes its time in telling its story so it can get everything right. That doesn't mean it is a perfect or flawless film by any means, I personally think it is a bit too slow in spots and could cut down on its running time by fifteen minutes, but it knows its story.

Opposing William when he rides into town is the sheriff of Big Whiskey, Little Bill Daggett, played juicily by Gene Hackman. Little Bill is a great character, a concoction of corruption and glee rolled into a dark man who, like William, knows the truth behind violence. While Little Bill would rather be at home building his porch, he knows how to lay down the law in a way that makes people understand not to break it: street violence. He beats Will to within an inch of his life, and then throws him out on to the rainy, cold streets in the middle of the night. Does this make him a bigger man? No, but it shows what happens when people believe they can take the law into their own hands and committ acts of violence.

Overall, UNFORGIVEN is a damn solid western. While it is too slow in many scenes and the acting is a bit wooden by some of the supporting characters, it's message on violence and it's vision of the Old West is brilliant.

B+

50, 50 Link

THE FOUNTAIN

"Our bodies are prisons, for our souls. All flesh decays... death turns all to ash. And thus, death frees every soul..."

THE FOUNTAIN is the closest I will get to having a religious experience in a movie theater this year.

It is a miraculous film achievement, a testament to the hard work and dedication that Director Darren Aronofsky has poured into his passionate project over the last several years. His wife, a beautiful Rachel Weisz, stars with Hugh Jackman in a love story that transcends time, space, and body. Three different tales taking place over one thousand years intertwine into a story so bold and so beautiful, it must be seen to be believed.

In the first of the stories, Jackman is Spanish Conquistador Tomas, a warrior in 1500 A.D. who travels to the Mayan ruins in search of the sap from the Tree of Life, in order to live forever with Queen Isabel (Weisz), whom he is in love with. In the second story, which takes place in the present, he is Tommy, a surgeon who may have stumbled on the key to immortality by accident, when the rosin used in a surgery on an ape brings unforseen result: complete healing. He must race to find the cure to his wife Izzy's sickness, which is claiming her life quickly. The third is the oddest, and the most brilliant. It takes place in an orb of sorts, which is traveling through the universe. In it, Jackman is Tom Creo, a mix of both of the last two incarnations and a new man. He is alone, except for a tree, perhaps The Tree, which we are lead to assume is the re-incarnated Izzy/Isabel.

What is THE FOUNTAIN about? I've been trying to figure that out ever since I left the theater a few hours ago. I think above all, it is a look at how beautiful an undying love is. It is no coincidence that Aronofsky shoots Weisz as if she is a goddess; she is his wife, and she is beautiful. Jackman's performance is passionate and emotional, which complements the calmness of Weisz's. Izzy knows that she is going to die, but she is not afraid. It is tragic in a way, but blissful in another. It doesn't have a definitive end point because the story unfolds in a completely un-chronological way. When it does conclude, the ending is simultaneously maddening and perfectly fitting with the rest of this visually and thematically orgasmic film.

A+

It's Thanksgiving, What Are You Thankful For?

-I'm thankful for my friends, whom are varied in activities and personalities and make my life more interesting because of that.
-I'm thankful for my family, as messed up as they are.
-I'm thankful for my parents, for giving me so many oppurtunities.
-I'm thankful for film. Somebody once asked me why I love it so much, and I said the following: "A picture says a thousands words, and a film has 24 frames per second, so a film can say anything."
-I'm thankful for Pilgrim Lodge, and the people who go there.
-I'm thankful for laughing all the time.
-I'm thankful that this year has been better than last year.
-I'm thankful for being an American, despite all the bad buzz we get.

You?

CASINO ROYALE

"I'm sorry, that last hand, it nearly killed me."

CASINO ROYALE is the best Bond film since Sean Connery graced the screen as 007 in the late-60s. I'll put that observation out there, that bluntly and that quickly, because that's how the beginning of this film is. There is now a blonde Bond, Brit Daniel Craig, and one should expect to see a lot of him in the future, because this performance is going to send him through the stratosphere. Craig's approach to the now iconic film legend is a re-invented one, without the camp of Roger Moore, the false bravado of Timothy Dalton, or the GQ-ness of Pierce Brosnan, whom Craig replaced as Bond. His performance is right up there with the greatest that Mr. Connery gave in terms of entertainment value, and it is deeper and more complicated than that of The Great Scot.

After four Brosnan films, each of which were more implausible and over-the-top than their predecessor, the 007 franchise has experienced a 180 degree turn with Craig at the wheel. CASINO ROYALE starts before any of the other Bond films, as the Ian Flemming book was the first of the series. After a stunningly gorgeous and exciting black-and-white opening sequence, in which we see how Bond becomes a 00 agent, the traditional title sequence ensues. I won't delve into it too deeply, I'll just say it is very, very entertaining. It should be noticed that the credits refer to the film as "Ian Fleming's CASINO ROYALE", and this is exactly that. Gone are the save-the-world plots, the ridiculous gadgets, and the monstrous(ly unentertaining) action scenes that overshadowed the story over the last several entries into the series. Bond is a 'blunt instrument', as M (Judi Dench) puts it, and this film shows why.

In CASINO ROYALE, Craig pushes the artistic envelope in a role that has become more action-oriented over the years. He takes the role seriously but is still entertaining as hell, and that is the main reason why the film as a whole is so good. Surprisingly, the action, which other than Bond's name is the reason the series has been so successful, is the element that holds CASINO ROYALE back from true greatness. There are some truly spectacular scenes (the black-and-white beginning, an on-foot chase scene between Bond and a bombmaker in The Bahamas), but the action lingers too long in others. The real glue that holds the picture together is Bond's interaction not only with his new License to Kill, but with British Treasury agent Vesper Lynd (a beautiful Eva Green) sent to watch over him while he spends the country's money in a high stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. There, Bond faces off with Le Chieffe (Mads Mikkelsen), a financer of terrorist organizations who is in a pinch for cash. The poker scene, and a torture scene afterward involving Le Chieffe and a very much naked Bond are climactic and terribly exciting.

Where my interest began to slip was after these scenes. The interaction between Bond and Lynd could have wrapped up quickly and seemlessly, but director Martin Campbell and screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade drag the film for too long, seemingly to include one action sequence (an unneeded one) and a possible sense of continuity for later Bond entries, which isn't needed. If the 144-minute film had been cut down to a leaner 105 minutes or so, it would have probably been the best entry of the franchise yet (which would be saying something). Nevertheless, CASINO ROYALE should be seen for Craig's dynamite performance and for a darker, grittier, sexier look at what made James become Bond.

A-

Robert Altman, Dead at 81

He's gone. One of the greatest and most artistically brilliant directors of all-time is dead at 81. I hope he knows that he made many people happy, and may that help him rest in peace.

On November 28th

M*A*S*Hed

This is going in the school paper, so I figured it would be good enough to post here.

What it's like being M*A*S*Hed

by Tim Strain

Thursday, November 16th, Opening Night

I'm exhausted already. It's been a long day already, with a trip to Bowdoin College and a lot of restless attempts to sleep on the bus. I couldn't sleep last night, probably didn't get more than five hours. How could I? It's my first non-musical show at the high school, and I'm nervous. I've been groggy all day and had to slug through it all with red eyes tinted with the eye liner and mascara that I couldn't get off after last night's dress rehearsal. I stay after school to do 'the work' that I have no time for after the show. Surprise, surprise, that plan got axed. Instead of working hard like I promised myself I would, I end up listening to music for three hours. At 5:15, the cast arrives. The Diva Himself, Zach McCoubry, rolls in with his purple aviators. Marcus Strout blares the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Megan Curtis and her mom bring in the now-famous pizza bread, a tradition before each show.

And then, the make-up.

Oh god, the make-up. I would rather lick a toilet seat then wear it, but hey, it's important, I'm told. I apply the cake to my face and neck, put on my 'manstick', and Mrs. Mercer applies my eye liner. The butterflies start to kick in as I'm never going to have another M*A*S*H practice again. The realization hurts, in a bittersweet way. I try to keep my cool though, since I'm an upperclassman now and a 'veteran' (isn't that a scary thought...).

Jyselle Joplin yells out "five minutes!" and the electricity in the air surges. Most of the cast is in the cafeteria, which has been deemed the base of operations now that the music room is dark and talking is forbidden, to cut down on the excess volume. Feeling the need to create some sort of new tradition, we throw around an orange until it turns to pulp, and Kavan Gervais gets hit, well, where it hurts. And then the most anticipated/dreaded word of the night rings through: "PLACES!!!!"

We head out on stage, not able to see a thing and hardly able to contain our emotions. Ryan McGowan and Kyle Stetson start the play off with their phone-to-phone scene, and all bets are off; the show has begun. All the hours practicing have come down to this. It goes surprisingly well, with an ensemble cast spitting out their lines quickly, the way it was meant to be acted out.

And like that, it's over. Two months of practicing have come and gone, and the curtain closes on opening night, after only about two hours. We hug each other, laugh our asses off, and all breathe a collective sigh of relief. "That was the hard part", we all try to think. Only four more to go.

Friday, November 17th, Second Night

I bust through the double doors of the Gym Entrance at 5:45, blood surging and mind revitalized after the best nap I've had in a long time. I feel a little streak of cockiness as I walk into the cafeteria and it seems as if it's business as usual: the make-up is out, the costumes are hung, and the music is booming. It's going to be a good night.

I walk through the routine, applying the cake, putting on the man-stick (ahem), and getting the eye liner. Its weird to think of applying make-up as a normal thing, but it really is, especially when I'm pushing my other fellow castmates from the mirror that we're all sharing. I put on my uniform and dog tags, then tie up my boots. The curtain opens again, and it seems to me that tonight is the SparkNotes version of opening night; short, sweet, and to the point. I find myself lieing on the floor, in my position for my first lines. It's like I'm watching something bigger than myself unfold, something whose individual parts are greater than its body as a whole. The two hours are suddenly up, and we're taking our curtain calls. Maybe it was the nap, but I feel like I've just floated through the night. I say bring on tomorrow, back-to-back shows and all that accompanies them.

Saturday, November 18th, Third and Fourth Shows

After a long night of sleep after an eventful Friday, I arrived at the school around 12:30. We were missing about half the cast and our director, mostly from District II Band auditions. Most of the cast that is around is pretty groggy, with not a lot of energy (a matinee after a night show is tough). We sleepwalk through the make-up, get into costume, and pass the time until about 1:40, when the band returns in a frenzy, needing to get ready before places will be called at 1:55. Fortunately, everyone gets ready on time and all goes smoothly.

Except for the crowd.

To be completely honest, this was the worst crowd any of us in the show had ever experienced, and we have some very experienced actors. There was only about forty or fifty people in the auditorium (about three-hundred showed up the night before), and we didn't hear much from them at all. It's tough, and frustrating, to put so much effort into something for as long as we have, and then get nothing back from an audience. The custom after the show is for the actors to jump off the stage to greet/hug/receive compliments from the audience after the show is over. Many of us, myself included, were too pissed off to do so. We just went back to the cafeteria and waited for the nightcap to ensue.

And it did, with a blast. After about three hours of waiting (the first show only took about ninety minutes through curtain calls, thank God), we suited up out boots, tucked in our fatigues, and marched out to the stage in front of a full house. As the curtain opened, I had a good view of the crowd, which from the get-go I could tell was livelier and more energetic than that of the afternoon. This couldn't have been more of a relief. Personally, I could barely stifle a smile that came naturally after the crowd laughed at a few of my jokes, which the afternoon crowd hadn't. 98% of the play ran smoothly (I messed up one line-DOH!) and by the end, we were all in a great mood. We all went optimistically (though drained after back-to-back performances) into the thought process for the next day. It's pretty odd to think of it as the beginning of the end.

Sunday, November 19th, The Finale

That's the show, folks. I'm sitting here now, in the music room, as the set is being struck. M*A*S*H is over, and there is barely any evidence that it ever existed. Not here anyway. We are all in our street clothes, with the costumes already wrapped up, and the stage is almost completely empty. The pizza party is going to start in about a half hour, and that will really be the nail in the coffin. We'll sign each other's posters, which will hang on many off our walls, and then we will exchange good-bye hugs, as if we aren't going to see each other every single day for the rest of the year.

As for the show, it ran prety smoothly. We know it inside-out by now, although that only goes a certain length during The Event. There were plenty of stumbles and screw-ups, but by this point we were laughing at them afterward, instead of stressing over them. I don't want to get too sappy, but it's been a great time. In two hours we will all be out of the building and back in the real world. I've got Spanish to work on and believe me, I won't have much energy or focus tonight. When I start stressing about that though, I'll sit back, take a deep breath, and close my eyes. I'll smile as I think about the new friendships that have formed, the old ones that have been solidified, the script we all hated, and the laughs we all shared. It's been an up-and-down ride, but hey, that's show business.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE

"I'm scared like I can't tell you. Of all people, you're standing right over there, by that counter. You're in both dreams and you're scared. I get even more frightened when I see how afraid you are and then I realize what it is. There's a man... in back of this place. He's the one who's doing it. I can see him through the wall. I can see his face. I hope that I never see that face, ever, outside of a dream."

MULHOLLAND DRIVE opens with what may be a dream, and closes with what may be a dream. I guess it's possible that the middle is just a dream as well. When a film is as abstract and filled with so many possibilites as MULHOLLAND DRIVE is, it will have many critics who claim it doesn't matter and it's pointless (which it does). There are also those who will believe that it is a landmark film. I believe the latter.

It is fitting that the film takes place in Los Angeles, often called the City of Dreams. Sometimes these dreams blossom, but more often than not they crash and burn into a sea of yesterday, nostalgia, and the forgotten. Here Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), a young woman who has recently flown into Los Angeles to stay at her aunt's home for a film audition, is introduced to us. We know nothing of Betty's past, only of the dreams she has for her future. She is a typical aspiring actress; wide-eyed, beautiful, and with a smile that won't go away until reality hits (or in this case, disintegrates).

When she arrives at her aunt's vacant home, she is surprised to find a woman living there. Rita (Laura Harring) is an amnesiac, a woman who has been in a car accident and can not remember anything other than 'Mulholland Drive'. It is time for me to step back and stop analyzing this film for a moment and speak completely from my heart. When these girls, Watts and Harring, are on-screen together, they create sparks. There is an eroticism and a simultaneous sense of innocence shared mutually between them, and it feels real when I watch them share scenes. As both of the characters slowly fall in love with the other, and are scared not only because of this unfamiliar feeling, but because of their surroundings as well, Watts and Harring both show unbelievable depth for actresses as inexperienced as they were at the time when the film came out.

If this review would suggest to this point that MULHOLLAND DRIVE is a straight-forward romance, or a straight-forward anything really, let me say clearly that it is not. It is one of the most twisted, complex, horrifying, and beautiful works of this decade's cinema. David Lynch loses himself in the multiple stories, and as the film progresses it gets increasingly twisted, and every minute is better and more mesmerizing than the last. While the wide-eyed dreams of Hollywood are shown through the eyes of Betty, the hard truth is shown through the eyes of Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux). Kesher is a director, whose film falls into the hands of the wrong business associates. Although his story is told in a surreal, detached way that I can not explain in words, it feels oddly realistic, because business deals happen under the table and behind closed doors in Hollywood every day, and their entire existence can seem to have vanished the next.

As I said earlier, as the film progresses it becomes more and more twisted. Because Lynch dares to free himself from all types of traditional narrative flow and storytelling styles, MULHOLLAND DRIVE soars. It is a credit to the actors that they do not become overwhelmed and their characters completely up-ended by the storyline at the film's end, although by the time the curtain falls no one is as they were before. The deeper down the rabbit hole MULHOLLAND DRIVE digs, the better it gets, until a transcending, awe-inspiring finale.

A+

50, 50 Link

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

"Two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We're gonna have to earn it."

Sergio Leone's epic 'Man With No Name' trilogy came to a triumphant, booming close in his 1966 masterpiece THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef are all in peak condition, and are as entertaining as any trio of characters in the illustrious history of westerns. While Eastwood has gotten the most credit as well as top billing for the film (after all, it did propel him in to the echelon of living legend), the real star of THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY is Eli Wallach. Over the three Man With No Name films his character Tuco became more and more dispicably entertaining, until he finally stole the spotlight in the climax. Wallach is over-the-top, both in actions and physically characteristics. The other two characters compliment him perfectly; with Van Cleef playing the icy cool and equally cruel Angel Eyes, and of course Eastwood's eternally badass Blondie.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY is basically a chase film at heart. It is about these three crusty caricatures chasing down a hidden purse of $200,000 worth of gold buried in a graveyard. The only thing that keeps these three from killing each other is the fact that they need the information the others have, or else no money. Leone masterfully orchestrates his 161-minute epic into what seems like completely different stories. The antics and scenarios are priceless, and there are plenty of them. The story switches from headhunting, Civil War battles, vicious executions, vintage shoot-outs, and chases through the desert, but you can hardly tell by how fast the story as a whole moves along. Leone masterfully shot and edited this spaghetti classic, and its status as one of the most entertaining and influential westerns made in the second half of the twentieth century is obvious from the beginning to the end.

A+

SPIDER-MAN 3 stuff!

If you read my post about my 15 most anticipated movies of '07 (go down the page if you haven't), you'll see I put SPIDER-MAN 3 in the #1 slot. Well, here's a couple of trailers and pics to get my (and yours, if you know what's good for you) juices flowing some more.

The Comic-Con Trailer, With Some Interesting Unfinished Material (Awesome)

The Press Release Trailer (Also awesome)

Sexy Time!