Category: cinema

I went and applied for the Ultimate Blogger “Internet Cage-Match”. Why would I do such a thing? I don’t know, but it sounded fun at the time. And who knows. I have a latent ocean of super-blogging power lying just beneath the surface, maybe it’ll bubble up and I’ll shoot out energy from my chest all Dragonball Z style. Only time, and the substantial bribe I send the judges, will tell.

Watched a couple movies the last few days. Kung Fu Hustle was absolutely, freaking hilarious. It’s rare I watch a movie that I have no idea where it is going to go, or what’s going to happen. The movie’s disregard for reality, and willingness to go right to the edge or reason, is a refreshing change from most of what Hollywood dishes up.

House of Flying Daggers just came out on DVD, and since I never got to see it in the theater, I was in for a pleasant treat. Much like Hero, and Crouching Tiger, the film is visually sumptuous. Though the movie has plenty of action, it is, in the end, a love story, and of course a sad one. But that’s okay. How could it not be okay?

If you haven’t seen them, I recommend them both.

Well, I didn’t get the IT job. At least I found out quickly.
On to more pressing issues:

Finding Neverland is a moving tale of love, loss and imagination. The acting is nothing short of phenomenal, notably Johnny Depp as J.M. Barry, Kate Winslett and Freddie Highmore, who plays the young Peter Davies.

I would write an entire review here, but I’m feeling a bit lazy today. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it, and bring some tissues. It’s the first movie I’ve cried at in some time.

Of small note, Kelly MacDonald plays the onstage Peter Pan in the movie. You may recognize her as Diane from Trainspotting. What has she done between then and now? Nothing much, unfortunately, because I think she fills the screen wonderfully. Hopefully we’ll see more out of her in the future.

Sin City is a lurid, roiling mass of anger, revenge, violence, and monochromatic eye-candy. It’s tough as nails, it’s funny as hell, and somehow it’s disarmingly moving.

The story opens on the balcony of a high-rise apartment. A forlorn beauty stares out over the city, as lost as a red dress in a gray-scale world. A dapper young man approaches her, offers her a cigarette, and as he lights it her eyes flash from gray to green, then back to gray as the flame is extinguished. It’s not a new technique, splashing color against a gray palette. Abel Glance did it as far back as 1927 in “Napoleon”, Jacques Tati in 1949 with “Jour de Fête”. It’s effective, even so, and fits the feeling and motion of Sin City very well. The city looms, gray above all else, a sprawling monstrosity; but it’s the glimpses of color, in their sparsity, that give it life, that make the stories.

And so we are given, much like glimpses of color, glimpses of story; which is to say, vignettes. And while it’s not immediately clear how these disparate characters tie together, and it’s not an incredibly strong bond even by the end, they do so in such a way that the soul of the city seems clear. It’s dark and it’s murky, but in the end it’s the hero (or anti-hero) of the story more than any of its denizens. The players come upon us suddenly, and some leave just as quickly. Only the city is constant, and it’s its history, and its conflicts, and its rulers and its discretions, that interests us. In this regard, the vignettes serve us well, as we are allowed to see the city from different perspectives, each with its own unique feel and rhythm.

As our main players; Micky Rourke, Bruce Willis, and Clive Owen each do an outstanding job. Rourke plays an ogre named Marv, and of the three is the most likable to a comic book super-hero, if in a bleak and violent way. He’s no Superman, but could easily be likened to The Punisher, but bigger and with fewer guns. Marv is a street-tough goon who downs prescription pills by the bottle, and who sets himself on a grim mission of revenge when he wakes up next to the corpse of the only woman who ever treated him well, even if she was only the angel of a single evening. Of the three, this story packs the most comedic element, as well as the most traditional comic-book style violence. It almost contains the most nudity, though I assure you this was not a factor in my saying that it was probably my favorite segment. Rather, I enjoyed Marv’s tough-as-nails, take-no-shit demeanor and penchant for grim repartée, not to mention his sense of old-school honor and respect for the only beautiful thing he’d ever known.

Bruce plays an over-the-hill cop with a “bum ticker”, named Hartigan. This segment is the most akin to the film-noir detective story, and of the three is the most a love story, though it also contains, in my opinion, the most grotesque imagery the movie has to offer. Having rescued a young girl from an ignoble fate, Hartigan is laid up and shortly after, dishonestly thrown in the slammer. He rots there for eight years, and is released only to emerge back into the same nightmare of a story that he left. He achieves resolution, though it’s no happy ending, to be sure.

If you love Clive Owen like some people I know love Clive Owen, then you’ll certainly enjoy his story in this movie as yet another grim, tough-as-nails hero. And even if you don’t like Clive Owen, you’ll probably appreciate Benicio Del Toro’s roll as a dead-but-still-jeering head. This segment does the most to exhibit the city’s dark underbelly, and explains a bit of the wary tension between the lower and upper crusts. My favorite part of this segment was Miho, a full-on kick-ass ninja prostitute. Oooh, what she does with those swords …

I’ve tried not to spoil it. Though the allure of the movie lies in its grim visuals and unapologetic explosions of violence, in the end the story is the thing. As a whole, the movie gets a full four stars from yours truly, though I suggest that if you watch it, you do so in a big theater with a good sound system. A movie like this demands to be big and loud, much like the city it portrays.

Brain wired to the nitro-detonator, thoughts fire jittery like a five-year-old waving a sawed-off 12-gauge. It’s the caffeine in my head, coffee in my head that was supposed to go down to my stomach and light a slow fire, and instead I got this incendiary thought-bomb, begging to implode outwards. My mind denies these little impossibilities. My fingers are tingling as I type this. Curse the temptation of a triple-short-caramel-latte. Mmmmmm. Curse th- Mmmmm. I think I need another.

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We drove up to stinky-town last night for to watch The Merchant of Venice at The Grand Cinema. At first I was like, “Oh shit, I have to turn my brain to ’11’.” My brain, at the time, was running at a solid ‘6’ and quite happy to be there. But I managed to turn it up to about ‘8’ or so, despite yawning a lot, and after a short time it was like Shakespeare had actually written the damned play in English. First off, Pacino does a bang-up job. He deserves a nomination for best supporting actor, despite the impossibility of him winning it. You go from hating him, to liking him, to hating him, to feeling sorry for him in the end, and after you’ve left the theater you feel a little angry that he can jerk you around so well. The other performances are equally well-done, if less outstanding.

I have two issues, however, with the story, or with this particular presentation of the story [bearing in mind I have not read the actual play, nor seen it performed elsewise (I made that word up, just now)]. Firstly, the movie does a poor job of showing why exactly Bassanio needs the 3000 ducats to win Portia’s hand. As this money is the crux of the conflict between Antonio and Shylock, the viewer deserves a better exposition of why this money was so important to Bassanio, and how precisely it aids him in winning Portia. Secondly, aside from the fact that she may have been born in the year of the monkey, and thus would be a naturally mischievous devil, I don’t understand Portia’s motivation to fool Bassanio, and torture him so. Granted, she takes the situation lightly and it ends well, but for her being so happy I can’t but feel that her devilry is a bit unwarranted, in testing her new husband so tricksishly. I can understand her masquerade in the first place, as a young civil scholar, as she wants to save the man who her husband holds in such high esteem. And in that, she does a fine job. That scene, the swing from Shylock as the revenging, angry jew who wields a righteous fury, to Shylock as a man with nothing, weeping on the floor as his world and his pride are taken from him, is deftly played and certainly moving. As a climax, however, it seems a bit quick, and as I was swayed into feeling pity for Shylock as his world was stripped bare, my sense of vindication, or that some great battle was won where good triumphed over evil, was lessened. My friend mentioned after the show that in reading the play, she had never felt pity for Shylock, and so I wonder if this was not a blunder in the interpretation of the story, or indeed if it was even intentional. Perhaps the director wanted to maintain this sense of uncertainty. Shylock, certainly, has his reasons to seek revenge, has had a lifetime of prejudice and mistreatment; and so while some of his actions are villainous, he is not in fact a villain, but just a man who is in the end on the losing side of a conflict over money.

The moral of the story: be merciful, for as Portia says, “mercy is “twice blest; / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” And if you have the chance to show mercy, and you do not, you’re going to get screwdeth over.

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And now for your moment of zen.

I would like to take a moment to make a simple announcement. Vin Diesel is not another muscle-bound, no-talent hack. So you watched The Fast and the Furious and you watched xXx and they sucked. I know they sucked. I liked xXx, but I still know it sucked. But did they suck because of Vin? On the contrary, they sucked in spite of Vin. TFatF was just a stupid movie; I really don’t think I have to go into explaining why. xXx is your basic explosion movie, and like most basic explosion movies, it sucked mostly because of a weak script. Despite that, I feel that Vin did his best to instill his lifeless lines with aplomb and a cheeky sense of humor.

Think Vin sucks? Time for your re-education.

Vin did the voice of the giant in The Iron Giant, an animated film by Warner Bros now defunct animated-movie studio (Iron Giant was their final film, finished as Warner Bros was literally tearing the studio down around their heads. The big honcho is now heading Pixar), which nobody can’t love. From the extra features, it appears Vin achieved that voice without any digital modification. I think he did a superb job.

Pitch Black. Yes. It took me a while to watch this movie, because I thought it looked kind of dumb. It’s now one of my favorite movies ever, and mostly because of Vin. This is Riddick before Twohy went all Lucas and tried to make an “epic” adventure. He did much better keeping it small. Vin’s interplay in this movie with Cole Hauser, who plays Johns, is frickin’ awesome. His play with Radha is a little over the top at times, but bear in mind that he’s Riddick and usually stuck underground with a bunch of men, and I think you’ll find his interactions with her more believable, if not underplayed.

Knockaround Guys. This is a fairly small role for Vin, but an excellent one. He’s a quintessential tough guy, and he plays it straight. He doesn’t try to make the role bigger than it is, kicks ass when required, and in general pulls the role off with pinache. Listen to his “500” monologue. The monologue itself is fairly cheesy, but Vin pulls it off. And how many other people could?

Finally, watch his short film that he stars in and directed, called Multi-Facial. I doubt you’ll find it by itself, but you can watch it as part of this Shorts Collection. I think it displays Vin’s versatility well. Also, his role in Boiler Room, though tiny, is great.

Watch those movies, and if you still think Vin is a hack, we’ll talk. Just you, me, and my crowbar. Oh, and if you just want to look at Vin’s shiny muscles, go here.

“500?”

“500 what, douchebag?”

“500 fights, that’s the number I figured when I was a kid. 500 street fights and you could consider yourself a legitimate tough guy. You need them for experience. To develop leather skin. So I got started. Of course along the way you stop thinking about being tough and all that. It stops being the point. You get past the silliness of it all. But then, after, you realize that’s what you are.”