What?

Aristides

2012-01-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

Number 1 - 50/50

50/50 is a funny movie about cancer. Good times!

When I wrote about The Descendents, I mentioned that it nicely walked the line between funny and dramatic. 50/50 does it even better.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt came close to making the top of my list before with 500 Days of Summer - it hit number 2. The two movies can sit next to each other in a DVD collection whether grouped by name or by level of awesomeness. I don't think this movie works without him. James McAvoy was originally cast as Adam, and I can't imagine it.

My biggest surprise is how much I enjoyed Seth Rogan as Kyle. He dialed back his performance and took the backseat, yet he never disappears. While 50/50 looks at Adam's relationship with his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), it's Adam and Kyle who grow closer together in a natural way as a result of Adam's cancer. Considering that was the genesis of the script, and the role he played in real life, it works.

50/50 comes out at home later this month. I think it deserves a MUCH wider audience that it received. It came out at a bad time, and it's probably difficult to market a funny cancer movie. See it.I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Vagrant

2012-01-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

Number 2 - Midnight in Paris

This became my favorite Woody Allen movie barely halfway through it. I submit that I haven't seen every one of his, but I've seen my fair share. I've actually enjoyed a few movies that he's done in the past few years, including Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Match Point (which hit number 8 on my 2006 list). Of his older stuff, I appreciate some of them, found no enjoyment at all in some of them.

I think that I like the Woody Allen character, but I want the character to do something other to be the whole movie. And that's one of the first ways that Midnight in Paris succeeds. Owen Wilson plays the Allen character, but there is actually a plot that he follows. Yes, I realize that I have said many times that the character arc is the most important thing in a movie. But it's even better when they do something.

And then we have Owen Wilson's performance. I mentioned that he plays the Allen character. But while you recognize it, it feels more like Owen is playing a homage to Allen instead of trying to be him. He moves in his own direction and gives it a light touch that I really liked. This was a guy that you really would like to hang out with for awhile. As he goes on his midnight adventures, you really understand why all of these people would really like him.

I'm being vague with plot details by using the word "adventures" instead of telling anything. I went into this movie knowing little more than the trailer and that it was getting good reviews, so nothing was spoiled for me. What happens after midnight is the big surprise of the movie, and I don't want to be the one to ruin it for you if you haven't seen it yet. However, in some things I have since read about, it has been spoiled. The closer it gets to Oscar season, it will be spoiled even more.

Luckily, it's out on DVD. Even luckier, it's still showing in some theaters around the Bay Area. Yes, a movie that came out at the beginning of last summer is still there in January. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out. If you are an English teacher and you still haven't seen it, or if you just plain enjoy reading some good literature, you definitely need to see it.

Also, I love that poster. My favorite of the year.

Baden-Baden

2012-01-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

Number 3 - The Descendents

The best script of the year, hands down, belongs to The Descendents. You won't see a movie with more snappy dialogue and smooth lines this year. But the two story lines also weave together nicely.

The first story is of Matt King, played by George Clooney, and his family's attempt to sell their land, which they are required to do for legal reasons. Here's one big reason why this movie and script works. That should be a dull story, and they make it work. It's mostly the backdrop for the second and more import story, but it never gets lost, it never gets forgotten, and it enhances the main story.

The second and main story involves King's wife. She is in a coma, and King finds out that she was having an affair. He, with his daughters, tries to find the guy while they are dealing with the condition of his wife. It's an extremely emotional story that never gets melodramatic. It walks that thin tightrope of trying to be dramatic and funny - and pulls it off effortlessly.

George Clooney always picks great movies. Even him movies that I haven't enjoyed as much, such as Syriana, I appreciate and respect. He's at his best here. And surprisingly, so are the Amara Miller and Shailene Woodley, the girls who play his daughters. I noticed something during the final scene. It's a really simple shot of the family watching TV, with the camera in the place where the TV should be. They didn't feel like they were acting in that shot. None of them. And I recognized that in most movies with little kids (Miller is 10) you tend to notice that their acting is crappy, but they're kids so you often ignore it. Everything felt natural. Woodley plays his 17-year old daughter, thoough she is actually 20. I've read buzz of an Oscar nom for her. She deserves it, and I hope to see Clooney's name as well.

The minor characters are also very nicely written. Early in the movie, you'll meet a character named Sid, who is a friend of King's older daughter. You'll think that you have him figured out in his early scenes. But there's another layer or two revealed, and it works. It makes sense. You'll think he's just there for comic relief, but he also helps to tell the story.

Finally, I have to give a nod to the music. The movie takes place in Hawaii, so you can imagine what you hear, though it's never cheesy or feels like luau.

Day Star

2012-01-07T21:43:00.000-08:00

Number 4 - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I really liked the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I *sort of* put it on my top 10 last year, though I chose to group it together with all three movies, as they were released in the US in the same year. When I heard about the US remake so soon, I was quite doubtful. Mostly, I thought that there was no way that they could replace Noomi Rapace as the title character Lisbeth Salander. Noomi made the character cool. However, I rewatched parts of the original after watching this version. Seeing in through new eyes, I noticed that her characterization is more flat. She plays Lisbeth as a tortured, moody soul. But that's about it. I also saw Noomi Rapace in a new light when I saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. She was pretty bad in that, so I'm afraid she might just be a one trick pony.

As it turns out, the best reason to like the new David Fincher version is Rooney Mara in the same role. She not only exceeds the coolness, but she does something that makes a huge difference. She makes the character interesting. The new Lisbeth has a range of emotions, yet all are quite subtle. You have to pay attention to notice them. Luckily, she's good enough that you can't help but watch her when she's on screen.

After watching this version, I was finally compelled to read the book. The beginning of the book goes into a lot more detail with the business part of the movie - the more dull parts. I think both movies were quite successful in speeding that up. The new movie, however, changes the ending of the mystery. I'm not sure if it's better or as good, though.

Overall, however, the new version ends up being better than the Swedish. It has a better flow. It tells the story cleaner. It brings the characters into a new life. I understand that since box office numbers haven't been as good as they had been hoping, Sony isn't sure if they are going to go ahead with the next two movies. That would be a shame. As I said in my review last year of all three, they work best as a complete story. I need the next two to come out to inspire me to read the other two.

Lord Murphy

2012-01-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

Number 5 - The Muppets

After watching The Muppets, I spent some time during Winter Break watching lots of Muppets clips. There are plenty of fun songs from the TV show and previous movies. Many of the Jim Henson tributes, especially this one, are really emotional. The movie brought back a lot of great memories.

But it's more than just that. This is definitely the most fun movie of the year. Let's start with Jason Segal. He's just right for this. Did you see Bad Teacher? Not a good movie.The one bright spot was Jason Segal. He delivered the only laughs in that movie. How can you not watch the closing of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and not know that he can excel in a Muppet movie?

In the end, the music has to work. Four words. Flight. Of. The. Conchords. They got Bret McKenzie from FotC. Brilliant. A couple songs, "Party of One" and "Man or Muppet," both feel like they could fit in any episode. And then there's the opening song Life's a Happy Song, which is easy to sing along with. Here's a slightly different (and even more fun) version of the song, featuring Bret and Kermit. Life's a filet o' fish!

Fonso

2012-01-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

Number 6 - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

This was without a doubt the surprise of the year for me. I'm not a huge Planet of the Apes fan. I watched the original probably around the time that the Tim Burton remake was announced. I remember plenty of cheesy acting from Charlton Heston and a few other things, but it felt really dated. So I was in support of the remake. What I remember most from the remake, other than a severe feeling of being underwhelmed, was Paul Giamatti as one of the apes. And the ending too, I guess.

Had it not been for Rotten Tomatoes, I never would have considered going to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The trailer looked a little cool, but I expected all the best to be in there. So after seeing the tomato meter so high (currently at 83%), I decided to check it out.

The character arc of the ape, Caesar, is actually pretty good. I think the special effects have finally hit the point where my mind is mostly convinced that it's real. I'm not constantly noticing - "Oh, there's CGI." The pace of the movie works really nicely. The action is fun and exciting. There are a few nice Easter Eggs that refer to the original movie. Just all around, I really enjoyed the movie. Is it as high on the list as it is because I had low expectations? Absolutely. But I think that if I were a fan of the original, I still would have enjoyed it quite a bit.

Hindoo

2012-01-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

Number 7 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

To be clear, I didn't accidentally leave off "Part 2" from the title. I mentioned while making the list last year that Part 1 was naturally unsatisfying. Dividing it into two parts was a good idea to be able to tell more of the story, but you need to have them both. So this entry really is for the entire movie, and really for the entire series.

In previous years, movies in the series have takes regular places on my top 10 list.My favorite of the movies is Prisoner of Azkaban. That one was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, and was the transition from kids movies to darker movies. It's the movie where the main actors finally became the characters. And it's almost a miracle that those three made it through all three movies still looking good enough to be the correct ages and ending up being pretty good actors.

But at the time I watched that one, the books hadn't yet ended. I was still nervous about how the series would play out. There were little hints and subplots, but would J.K. Rowling remember and tie up all of them in a meaningful way? I had my doubts because of how other series ended. In recent memory, the TV series Lost and Battlestar Galactica ended showing the audience that there was, in fact, no plan. Stephen King's Dark Tower series ended the best and only way it could, but it was (as King even mentioned in the book) frustratingly slightly unsatisfying.

(spoiler alert in this paragraph) I thought Rowling nailed the ending. No, not the tagged on ending, but the showdown between Harry and Voldemort. It ended the only way it could and was still satisfying. It was perfect and filmable. Splitting the movie in two allowed for that, so the movie tied up the series just right. The biggest flaw is that the movie didn't explain Harry's resurrection clearly. It had been too long since I had read the books to remember, and I was confused. The book did a nicer and clearer job of explaining it, and I had to refer back to it when I returned from the theaters. And the aged Harry, Hermione, and Ron at the end was cheesy, but just like it was in the book.

It's a series that I'm going to miss. I enjoyed looking forward to the next episode. But I'm sure we'll go through it again when someone remakes the whole thing in 20-30 years. And I wouldn't put a remake or two on my top 10 list, would I?

Apollo

2012-01-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

Number 8 - Terri

Terri lives with Creed Bratton. If you watch The Office, that's all you really need to know. But Creed has a relatively small role, so there's a lot more to see.

Terri is an oddball kid at school. He's overweight and wears pajamas every day. That should be enough to make him an outcast. This brings him to the attention of the assistant principal, played by John C. Reilly. Reilly plays a slightly more sane Dr. Steve Brule (for your health), and as it turns out, probably the most real school authority figure ever depicted in movies. He wants to do well and has a good heart, but he has no real clue what he's doing. He screws up, Terri calls him on it, and he owns up to it. For me, that's the relationship that works best in this movie.

Terri makes a couple more friends along the way, one a potential odd romance. There's a lot of reality to that as well. Every year, I watch the weird kids find each other. There's one major scene near the end in which the three hang out. It's an uncomfortable scene, and I'm not sure it completely worked, but again, it felt real.

You don't always want a movie to feel real. But being in a school everyday, it's distracting when a movie does something that just doesn't happen in movie. For example, I recently saw something in which a substitute teacher was promoted to full time. Yeah. Not how it works. Or the relationship between kids and teachers or admin just doesn't ring true, I'm pulled out of it. This movie works, but also you really like the characters.

Leonatus

2012-01-02T17:26:00.000-08:00

Number 9- The Artist

I've written before about problems I have with silent movies.I recognize that I've been spoiled not by sound but by actual dialogue. I don't just prefer a good script, I require it. Silent movies rely on the actors mugging for the camera. And this is something that The Artist actually addresses.This is a silent movie for people who don't like silent movies, and probably for those who do, as well.

If you're reading this, I assume you like movies. That means you have seen Singin' in the Rain. If that second assumption is incorrect, fix it now. The Artist deals with the same issue - talkies disrupting the careers of silent movie actors.

Jean Dujardin stars as silent movie actor George Valentin. What makes this, to me, a more unique silent movie actor role is that you see him on screen doing that silent movie overacting in the face. And then you see him off camera. And while he's still silent, the acting is more modern.

The Artist takes some of the ridiculousness of movies from the 1920s and adds the nuances of modern movies and combines them into a really fun movie. At 100 minutes, it doesn't outlast itself. It's in theaters right now, so take a look. Don't be scared of the silence or the black and white.

Don't be surprised when this gets nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. I think it might even get a King's Speech type push over the next month and come out winning the whole thing (though I hope my number 2 and 3 give it a run for it's money)
.

Buchanan

2012-01-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

Number 10 - Beginners

There are two really good stories here. The first is the relationship between Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and his father Hal (Christopher Plummer). After his his wife (and Oliver's mother) died, Hal came out of the closet. We watch the two of them interact as Hal is dying, with Oliver getting used to his father's new lifestyle.

The second story is between Oliver and his new girlfriend Anna (Mélanie Laurent). While the two stories are told mingled together, he meets her after his father has died. Anna is dealing with issues about her own father.

Ewan McGregor is great, and Christopher Plummer deserved an Oscar nom. The story is well told as it bobs and weaves through time, but not in a way that's too confusing. Oliver is an artist, and his drawings are used effectively to help tell the story and show the emotional condition.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie is that it avoids clichés in the relationships. Oliver and Anna's relationship is strained and difficult. But instead of cheesy romantic comedy misunderstandings, it's because of real issue's they are going through.With Oliver and his father, it isn't the kid coming out of the closet but the father. Oliver's negative reactions aren't rooted in misguided religious beliefs, hatred, or homophobia, but confusion. And that's the only truly natural reaction as opposed to learned.

2011 Movies - Runners up!

2012-01-01T20:15:00.000-08:00

Here's three movies that I liked a lot and you should see, but they barely missed my top 10 list.

For the second time this summer, Marvel released a movie that took place in the characters' original time setting. It worked by setting X-Men: First Class in the 60's, and it worked even better with Captain America: The First Avenger set in World War II. To really tell the story, Cap had to fight the Nazi's. It's a good story.

The skinny Steve Rogers special effect were amazing. I've had arguments with people who refuse to believe that it was actually special effects instead of a different actor.

In the movie, Captain America begins his career not as a soldier or a hero but a promoter of war bonds. That was a change from the original comic book story that actually worked, which is rare. The reason, I think, is that they were able to use this plot line to keep the character true. If they can keep his character and personality in the Avengers movie, that will be a very good thing.

Most of you probably didn't see Attack the Block. Many of you probably didn't even hear about Attack the Block. That's bad. You should see it. Not only is it fun, but I loved the look of the aliens/creatures. I'm positive that the look comes from a lack of a big budget, but that meant that they had to get creative.

While I liked the movie, I think my own enjoyment of the movie came from the lack of any public buzz. I got to feel like part of a secret club. Since I recognize that, I left it off the top 10. Still, check it out, and keep an eye out for future stuff from writer and director Joe Cornish.

POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold was on my top 10 list until a few days ago, and I'm sorry to see it go. To me, it was the funniest movie of the year.

I recently listened to an interview with Morgan Spurlock. They discussed whether that was a bad thing to have a documentary that is also a comedy. Spurlock explained that he wants people to enjoy watching it. And it isn't like he's discussing the deepest topic here. If Deliver Us From Evil were a comedy, that would be different.

Though I had some logical problems with Super Size Me, I've enjoyed Spurlock's work. This was probably my favorite. It's a good documentary for a general audience.

OK - next post: I start the Top 10 movies of 2011.

2011 Movies - The Middle

2011-12-31T22:36:00.000-08:00

All right - I spoke too soon with my bottom 10. I saw War Horse today, and I thought it was pretty crappy. I think it's because I'm not refined enough to spot an amazing horse when I see one. And everyone in the movie sees the horse and remarks that it's an amazing horse. And the camera lingers on the people looking at the horse. Picture any Spielberg movie and you know it exactly. The camera pans across or up the expressions of those watching the amazing horse. And yes, I know I used the phrase "amazing horse" many, many times. So did the movie. And this is what I kept thinking:

Something else I forgot yesterday when I wrote about Sherlock Holmes is my recommendation for some good Sherlock.Check out the BBC Sherlock, which takes in modern times. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch, who was in both movies I saw today, and Martin Freeman, who was Tim in the BBC Office and will be Bilbo Baggins in a year. It's really good, and the second season starts tomorrow - if you live in the UK. We yanks have to wait until May.

So here's everything else I saw this year, with some brief comments about them. These are in chronological order of my viewing.

Blue Valentine
It cuts back and forth between the beginning and end of this couple’s relationship. It’s all about Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, who are both great. You love the couple as the fall in love. You hate the couple as they fall out of love.

Barney’s Version
I watched this because I’m a Paul Giamatti fan. The smaller pictures that he makes often have interesting scripts and/or ideas, even when I don’t like them. Cold Souls is an example. This one was pretty good.

Rabbit Hole
Emotional and difficult. Meh.

The Illusionist
A movie that I think I might enjoy more if I had known more about Jacques Tati. I think it’s the kind of movie that I would probably appreciate more on repeated viewings.

Cedar Rapids
Some funny stuff. Worth a rental.

Rango
What was the last Pixar movie that didn’t win Best Animated Feature? Cars. With Cars II as this year’s Pixar movie (and it wasn’t very good), Rango has a good chance of winning. It was lots of fun and a decent story, too.

Adjustment Bureau
I liked this quite a bit. I thought the idea was all right, and I stayed interested all the way through. Check it out.

Paul
Cool nerd humor - fun.

The Lincoln Lawyer
I was surprised that I actually liked it, and possibly more surprised that I actually went to see a Matthew McConaughey movie. Not a bad plot with some decent twists.

Source Code
I would like watching this as a double feature with Adjustment Bureau. Cool idea nicely done. Biggest problem? The trailer gives too much away. However, not everything.

The Conspirator
I was hoping for a cool Lincoln movie to offer for extra credit. It's not worth showing in class (and with Glory, I don't need another Civil War movie). It was all right, but I'm not sure there is really enough for a full feature film. A lot of the drama seemed forced.

Win Win
Another Paul Giamatti movie, and I liked this a lot more that Barney's Version. Good movie.

Thor
I liked it quite a bit. I thought the Asgard scenes looked great, and the casting of Thor and Loki were spot on.

Everything Must Go
Very cool little movie. Will Farrell is not typical Will Farrell, which is a good thing (unless it's Anchorman).

13 Assassins
Watch it for the last half, which is one long ass kicking. This is how to film action - actually have stars with skills instead of quick edits.

Bridesmaids
Way overrated, but still funny.

X-Men: First Class
Big surprise for me. Placing in the 60's was a great idea.Comic book movies taking place in their original time period worked twice this year.

Kung Fu Panda 2
Very forgettable.

Super 8
This was an homage to late 70s/early 80s Spielberg movies. The interactions among the kids reminded me of The Goonies, and to me that's a good thing. It's a cool, fun story.

The Beaver
Deals with depression in a different way, and I liked it. Somehow, Mel Gibson's recent shenanigans might have helped the movie.

The Art of Getting By
I accidentally saw this one (?), and it's not very good. But there were a few parts that felt very real to me, so I left it off my bottom 10. There's some potential that those involved can make a better movie.

The Trip
I liked it a lot. However, it's the edited version of a six episode BBC series. After watching it, it's easy to see that is how it's meant to be seen. I would recommend you wait until the series is available then watch in chunks.

Horrible Bosses
Silly, but there's some really funny stuff in it. The three leads are pretty good.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Really interesting to watch his interactions with fans, and more interesting to see him comment about them afterwards.

Moneyball
Really good movie about almost nothing. I wonder how much I liked it just because it focuses on the A's record win streak and I went to a couple of those game. Plus, this shows that I can like Brad Pitt movies.

Drive
Strange, and kind of cool. Watch it if you want to see something really different, and something you might not like.

Ides of March
I went to two Ryan Gosling movies in a row. Drive was better, but this was an interesting look at behind the scenes of politics. I didn't feel like it really went anywhere, though, and was unsatisfied with the third act.

Hugo
Really good love letter to movies. Some really cool looks at how movies were made. It's the second best movie about early movies currently in theaters.

My Week with Marilyn
Michelle Williams is great. I liked this way to show a famous person - a week in her life - as opposed to the biopic.

Young Adult
Snappy dialogue and good ideas. Patton Oswalt is great and deserves an Oscar nom.

The Adventures of Tintin
It's fun and overall a big OK. Biggest disappointment? John Williams score should have been a lot more fun and identifiable. It's the type of movie that he should have nailed, giving a theme to the main characters that we could easily identify. The opening credits music was cool, though.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
This is a series that has actually gotten better. The first was OK, the second a disaster. The last two, however, have had some fun sequences. In this one, the fake wall down the corridor and the tower in Dubai stood out. Brad Bird is legit.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
I started reading the book a few weeks ago and I'm having trouble getting into it. The same with the movie. I liked the last half much more than the setup, so there's hope for my reading.

Tomorrow, I have three runners-up for the top 10 list, then I'll have the beginners of the list. See you in 2012.

Quick thoughts about 2011

2011-12-30T21:18:00.001-08:00

2011 will go down in history as the year that I was told by a coworker that a bowl of boiling water looked good, and not in a sarcastic/ironic/silly way. Seriously.

The funniest thing I saw in theaters this year wasn’t a movie. It was a Sprite commercial. If you go the movies half as much as I do, you might have seen this gem. In it, Drake is ready to record, but he’s “just not feelin’ it.” Because what he does requires raw emotion. The emotion you can only get… from Sprite. So after looking sad, he drinks some Sprite. The Sprite turns him into a robot, enters his body and rearranges his very DNA! After the Sprite surges through his body, Drake gets pissed at the microphone and yells into it, “Last name Evew, first name gweatest.” That’s what he was waiting for. That’s what we were all waiting for. And for the first few times I saw it, I didn’t even notice the funniest part, which is his lyric at the end “Like a sprained ankle I aint’ nothin to play with.” That’s hilarious.

So what was the worst song of 2011? If you said “Friday,” you’re wrong. It’s too funny and entertaining to be the worst. It’s actually a tie. First is J. Cole’s “Work Out.” He makes the brilliant choice to not just sample, but totally incorporate Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up.” Take a bad song and make it shittier. Wasn’t that a discarded Beatles lyric? And then there’s this obnoxious four note auto-tuned “Doot doo doo doooooo” that repeats over and over. It makes my ears bleed MC Skat Kat’s blood. Interestingly, J. Cole’s beard is shaped like an hourglass that’s about to run out. It must be nice to have a career indicator on your face.

And the tie for worst song is Lil’ Wayne’s shitfest “How to Love.” My theory is that Lil’ Wayne must be a necrophiliac because his version of love is boring someone to death, apparently to make love to their bored ass. Seriously, someone forgot to wake him up for the first few minutes of the song. And then he gets excited for a few seconds as he repeats the word crook seemingly 27 times in a row. I yell at the radio for him to stop saying “crooks,” and then he falls back to sleep for the rest of the song. And we all learn how to love.

It’s funny because Drake, J. Cole, and Lil’ Wayne made an impacted ass load of money for that crap while the delicious bowl of boiling water got nothing but oatmeal dumped into it.

2011 Movies - the bottom 10

2011-12-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

It's time to start writing about the 2011 movies. So first, for those of you new to this, here are the rules (and those of you not new, skip to the next paragraph). I see a lot of movies in the theaters. While I have my Netflix and big ass TV, it still doesn't compare to the theater experience. In 2010, I saw 58. As of this writing, I've seen 55, though I have one day left of 2011. Beginning on January 1 and continuing for 10 days (sequential days not guaranteed), I will countdown my 10 favorites. Before that, I want to briefly write about the rest of the movies I have seen.

Please feel free to disagree and tell me I'm wrong. If you liked a movie I hated, let me know. If you hated a movie I liked, tell me why. One request - please comment publicly instead of emailing me. Even if you are anonymous, that's cool.

Today I'm going to write about the bottom of my list. These are the movies that I didn't care for. It's in the order that I saw them, with the exception of the worst which I saved for the end.

Another Year was an Oscar contender for Best Original Screenplay. The screenplay put me to sleep. Literally. I fell asleep at points in the theater. And for those who know me, sleeping isn't easy. I suppose I should buy this movie to cure my insomnia.

Biutiful was an Oscar contender for Best Foreign Film and Best Actor for Javier Bardem. He was very good, but the movie was just too long at 148 minutes. Cut out at least half an hour and I might have better things to say.

Here's what The Hangover Part II felt like. As a teacher, I occasionally assign projects. The idea is that the crappy kids will do some of the reading and learn some stuff, then apply it to the poster/brochure/whatever. And a few of the kids actually do the work beforehand. But most of them don't. They just goof off until the last minute then throw together some kind of crappy art type thing that is maybe related to the topic. Their focus was on the art, and it shows little to know new knowledge gained. And this is why I rarely give these projects. But I still do, and that's why I have a pile of half-assed (though I doubt it's even that much) Lewis and Clark posters in my classroom. I'll get nothing new from looking at most of them, and the kids learned nothing new from making them. And when I actually grade them next week, it will be a lot like watching The Hangover Part II.

The Green Lantern was just a disappointment all around. Here's a character whose powers have been begging for a big budget release ever since CGI became legit. And what did we get instead? Ryan Reynolds doing a bad impersonation of The Greatest American Hero while learning to fly and a villain that actually looks worse than Spawn's Malebolgia. The best thing I can say about it is that it set up a pretty good idea for a sequel, but only if it's make by completely different people.

I liked a lot of Crazy, Stupid, Love. But a few things really rubbed me the wrong way. From a movie point of view, it lacks focus. It's trying to do too many things, both in plot and in tone. From a real point of view, I don't like the way it approaches some of the relationships that cross inappropriate age differences. There are ways that can be handled, and I thought they hit them in the wrong tone.

Our Idiot Brother has a simple sin. The main character, the title character, isn't too interesting, and therefore the things that happen to him aren't too interesting. I forgot too much of this too quickly.

Like Crazy is the second movie with "crazy" in the title, and I didn't care for either. Someone does something stupid - the character needs to return to England before her visa expires, and simply decides to ignore it - and then is shocked! to learn that her action has consequences. Duh. And then, it becomes obvious that this isn't a very good couple and they shouldn't be trying to get together anyway. And finally, I don't like Anton Yelchin. I don't think he's particularly talented, and I'm disappointed that he will be playing Odd Thomas.

Shame is an NC-17 movie about a sex addict. And it's rather dull. Who would have thought? Not only that, but it's a movie devoid of any happiness, brightness, or optimism of any kind. Throughout, I couldn't help but think of American Psycho, as it felt like that movie without the killing. Michael Fassbender even looks like Christian Bale in scenes.

I liked the first Sherlock Holmes, but the sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, hit all the wrong notes. Just because the movie has the word shadows in the title doesn't mean that it needed to be filmed in them. It was a very dark movie - not the tone, but the lighting sucked. Here's a great opportunity to comment about the craptacular shaky cam once again. As soon as the movie shifts to a fight scene, in comes the shaky cam and the hyper editing. Has anyone ever been to a movie and walked out wishing that it had more shaky cam? No. Never.

I saved the worst for last, and it's one I'm seeing on a lot of top 10 lists. I'm telling you that the emperor has no clothes. The Tree of Life is stinky shit with a piece of corn sticking out of it. Yes, it looks pretty. But that's about it. It's one of those movies that has no real point or message so that "the viewer can decide for themselves." No. It means nothing. Sean Penn basically says the same thing. The actual story, involving Brad Pitt as an angry dad in the 50s wasn't interesting or new. While I like Brad Pitt in some movies, he has actually been in three of my least favorite movies of the past few years with this one, Babel, and The Crappy Crap of Benjamin Buttons.

So that's my bottom 10 for the year. The only one I would consider rethinking is Crazy, Stupid, Love. But I would love to discuss/argue Tree of Life with someone who liked it.

Tomorrow, I'll list the movies that didn't make the top or the bottom of the list and briefly discuss some.

Summer 2011 Conclusion

2011-09-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

This is a follow up to my previous Summer 2011 post to report on what I actually accomplished. If you're really going to read this, you might want to check that out first.

First, I did get quite a bit of work done on my house, though I'm not quite finished with all I wanted to. I put in a new floor in the sun room, and it looks pretty darn good. I decided that I don't like the baseboards, though I didn't decide that until they were in. So I'm going to replace those over the next week. I also removed the wallpaper and gave the room a bit of color.

I got my threshold finished, and it also looks pretty darn good. That ended up being the most difficult part for sure. I put baseboards in most of the house. Then over the past couple days I have put in the crown molding. I still need to get the details finished - putty, sand, and paint the seams, caulk the edges. It looks good, though it definitely looks like it was done by someone who has never done it before. Even though I didn't finish all I wanted to before school started, it wasn't by lack of effort, so I'm OK with it. Here's one corner, where you can see the threshold and the crown molding.

I still have plenty of projects to do inside over the next several months, but none are as difficult as what I have finished. They are just time consuming. So I'm in good shape to have the inside where I want it and I can work on the outside next spring/summer.

My vacation was sweet, but too short. I want to give that a separate blog some day. But the big thing that dealt a huge blow to my summer happened pretty much my first day on the road. The AC at my condo went out, so I had to get the fixed while I was still on the road. I wasn't in a good spot to get multiple bids or to do any real research, so it cost me a lot more than it should have. It sucked.

I still haven't gotten to The Wire yet. That's because Netflix started streaming Mad Men. Given the Netflix history of things suddenly disappearing, I wanted to get that going first. I just got to the fourth season. It does take a few episodes to get into, but it's worth it. The third season is great. I hope to complete that in the next week or two and then start on The Wire. I also finished Breaking Bad Season 3 right before the fourth started a few weeks back. That's the best show on TV right now. Freakin' amazing.

My gym membership expired a couple weeks back. The work I've don eon my house has actually been the best exercise I've had, but I need to get something going soon. I did a pretty good job of going regularly before it expired. I don't want all that work to wither away, though. Or, more likely, add on the bad pounds.

I didn't end up with the beginning journalism class, so there was no cool curriculum to develop. I had a few cool ideas, though, and I'll do those in the yearbook class as time permits.

So now? New school year. We're four days in, and it looks to be a good year. I don't seem to have any nightmare classes like my fifth period class last year. That should make for a less stressful year. But I do have yearbook, so that will be a different kind of stress. We're already late with one deadline, so not the best start. Other than that, the most important thing to do with the beginning of the school year is to start planning the next summer.

Summer 2011

2011-06-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted since February? It certainly has been a dry spell for this ol' blog. Another school year has come and gone. It was a pretty good year. 5 out of 6 classes were good. And the other? Well, good luck to those kids.

Last summer I started with writing a blog about my goals for the summer. Looking back, I accomplished just about nothing. That's mostly because I moved into my new house and quickly realized that I had negative dollars. I did achieve two goals. I was awake before noon every day. Once again, I would like to point out that was a huge accomplishment for someone with my sleeping difficulties. I give myself a sweet pat on the back. I also finished watching The Sopranos. That's mostly because Astound messed up my appointment time and I had a week in my house with no cable, and no money to go do anything. So I watched The Sopranos. It was awesome.

So Summer 2011? My goals are much more ambitious. I finally have some money saved up to finish the big projects in my house. In the last few weeks, I've started on a couple of these. I have my own list of things to get done so that my house no longer looks like a construction zone. I just finished fixing a wall that I hated. I'm purposefully leaving it unpainted before I leave on vacation. Why? Motivation. When I get back, it will be staring me in the face and I should get going right away. Also, Costco has flooring on sale. So I bought the new floor for my sun room, which I'm going to leave in a place where I trip over it regularly so that I get to work. It would be nice to get the inside of the house in good shape so next summer I can worry about the outside.

Speaking of vacation, I'm leaving Wednesday morning for my little road trip. It should be pretty sweet. I'm looking forward to some southern BBQ, New Orleans food, and seeing some cool sites as well. But it's mostly about the food.

I have all of the episodes of The Wire ready to watch. I've heard nothing but excellent things about the series, so I'm going to tackle that this summer. I have a few book that I've started reading over the past couple months. I need to get those finished. I want to get some painting done (as in art, not my walls). And I would like to do some writing. I started during NaNoWriMo, but it stalled after the first week. I start up every few weeks, but I'm boring myself. I can't quite find my voice. I completely stall on the Oscar Project last summer. I blame it on the movie Cavalcade. I can't find a quality version of it, and the crappy copy I did find was boring as crap. I'm going to skip it and restart with the next movie.

And like last year, I want to exercise regularly. I didn't do very well last summer, but I picked up again in September. My 24 Hour Fitness membership runs out in August. I'm feeling pretty good about what I've been doing for the past year, but I've had a should problem for the past five months. It gets bad, then when I'm ready to see a doctor, it gets better. It has slowed me down every once in a while, but I haven't stopped going. I can feel some good results from the past year. I hope to crank it up this summer.

Next school year, I'm going back to yearbook. I just found out on Friday that I'm also going back to a beginning journalism class for 7th graders. I have some prep to do for yearbook this summer. But I want to revise what I used to do with the 7th grade journalism class. I wasn't ever happy with what it used to be, since it always took a back seat to everything else. We are going to be making the newspaper and it's going to have some creative writing, but I want to do more with it. I need to develop a cool curriculum this summer.

So that's the plan for the summer. Nothing breathtakingly amazing, but it should be good. I'm looking forward to writing my Summer of 2012 blog in about a year in which I look back at this one and basically repeat everything because I did nothing.

Annoying Things of the Week

2011-02-13T20:22:00.000-08:00

These are the things that annoyed me this week:

5. Movie Theaters - They're ugly. I went to the Paramount Theatre in Oakland on Friday night to see Casablanca. If you haven't been to the Paramount (and you live in the Bay Area), you need to make plans to get there. It's a beautiful art deco theater. The picture to the right is of the amazing lobby entrance. Once inside, they play live organ music until the movie starts. You then get to watch the newsreel, see some old previews, and watch a cartoon before the feature actually begins. I guess that with the number of people who just go to movies to hang out instead of actually watching the movies, I doubt the effort would even be worth it these days.

Speaking of the experience, watching Casablanca with a crowd was pretty amazing. I've noted that comedies can really be enhanced when you watch them with a good crowd. I knew that there were a few funny lines, but I had forgotten how funny of a movie it is, in addition to everything else. I could have done without the applause when each character first enters, but I enjoyed the laughter after just about everything said by Captain Renault.

4. Hosni Mubarak - As it turns out, the protests in Egypt were all about making me mad. Yes, you read that correctly. It had nothing to do with freedom or tyranny. The people of Egypt wanted to make things mildly annoying for me.

Somewhere in my past, I think in middle school, I actually learned the name of the president of Egypt. I could name Mubarak if asked. It was always something I could answer, should it come up in conversation or Jeopardy or whatever. And now that's gone. I know one fewer world leader than I used to know. This comes at a time when I can't think of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I should be able to remember his name, and it might even pop into my head later on. I just know it isn't Gordon Brown (and pretty sure it isn't Winston Churchill either). And yes, I could easily check it right now, but that would be against my point. Good bye, Hosni. My trivia mind will miss you.

3. A Cold - This week, I seem to have some sort of small cold. It started with a mildly annoying sore throat, but it wasn't painful. it was accompanied by a bit of a cough. Now I have a mildly runny nose and the occasional sneeze. It has all been so mild that I can barely call it a cold. So what do I call it? Let's see - it's just showed up, was annoying, and didn't do much. I shall call it the "Eighth Grader Virus." Speaking of,

2. Eighth Graders - Can't anything be done about them?

1. Facebook - It's the fear of Facebook that concerns me, and some of you who I know read this share that fear. The protests in Egypt, and their results, were because of social media. The fire for revolution was lit by Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, but it spread by way of the internet. When the internet was shut down, people found a way. The protests in Iran over the farce of an election were widely reported by Twitter and Facebook.

But let's go smaller scale. We don't need to think of anything as big as the vigor for revolution. What about opportunities for jobs, friends, relationships, and just getting to know people better? Yes, in person is best. But this is the way the world is moving. Today's students are going to find most of their jobs over the internet, and I would guess that a LOT of the ones they will actually get will be because of some form of social media. It might not be Facebook or Twitter, but some future form. It isn't the networking of the future. It's today's. I use both for my class. I post daily assignments on Twitter. I get asked homework questions on Facebook. And because it's one there, someone else might not need to ask the same question. Both are excellent tools.

But we're afraid of it. In particular, I'm referring to my school district. Facebook and Twitter are both blocked. I can't update my Twitter with regularity, even though many parents like it and use (and some absent students have found it helpful as well). But there's also the fear of students finding teacher Facebook. We were given a message in the past week to make sure that personal stays personal - students shouldn't have access to our Facebook. Oh no!

I guess if you really do have naked pictures of yourself, or if you do take pictures of yourself getting wasted or whatever, or if you do post about these things, I guess there could be a conflict of interest. I get that. But most of you don't- in fact NONE of you do. From me, the worst anyone is going to get is the regular sarcastic comment, they might learn about the joys of atheism, or I might drop an F-Bomb or two. The argument that I will accept is that you just don't want kids to be a part of your personal life. That I understand. But the fear - that worries me.

We control what we say around kids all the time. We know when something is appropriate to say. When you get online and away from school, that line can blur. It's okay to go up to the line every once in a while. Sometimes, "shit" is just the best and most appropriate word. And we're generally pretty good people. You aren't posting pictures of that time in Vegas when you chopped off the hands of that prostitute and sewed carved pumpkins in their place. That's the sort of thing you save to post on Myspace.

As usual, a lot of the fear comes from a lack of knowledge. The one person I know who has made the most comments against Facebook doesn't have an account. I don't think he knows what it is. I think he might think it's a dating site. Or perhaps he might think that posting pictures of yourself while intoxicated is mandatory. Maybe the school district thinks the same thing.

The newest issue of Foreign Affairs has a cover story about the impact of social media on the events in Egypt and beyond. the blurb inside states, "Social media have become coordinating tools for really all of the worlds political movements, just as most of the world's authoritarian governments are trying to limit access to them." The school district? It's just trying to protect kids, right? That's their excuse, right? Just like the Egyptian government was just trying to protect its people when it turned it off? Right?

We're still teaching in a 19th century world. Ignoring, even vilifying, social media is crippling American kids. It's one thing that we aren't teaching these kids nearly enough about technology. Yes, there are electives, but the core subjects should be integrating a lot more computer activity. That's a financial issue. This is an issue of ignorance and fear. But mostly ignorance, I suspect.

So what annoyed you this week?

Annoying Things of the Week

2011-02-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

These are the things that annoyed me this week:

5. Internet Kill Switch - Since last June, the government has been considering a Senate bill to create an "Internet Kill Switch." This would give the government the power to shut off the internet if it deems it necessary. This past week, Egypt enacted something similar, shutting off the internet in the wake of the protesting. Seeing it happen first hand, we should have some new insight into this idea. We, as Americans who believe in the First Amendment, were looking forward to the return of their internet to receive more news about what was happening from the people. But what did our government do? Start pushing the bill through more eagerly.

Great job, government. This is a reminder of exactly what the Bill of Rights is for. The government wants power. The people have rights. The Bill of Rights isn't a blueprint for the government to follow. It's PROTECTION for the people FROM the government.

4. Superbowl Ads - Superbowl ads hit their peak probably ten years ago. Yeah, there are a few funny ones, but they've lost their surprise factor. So all of you who go to the party "Just for the commercials!" - you're a corporate shill. Go watch the game just because you like a party. Go because you like the food. Go because you like the company. Go because you like football or one of the teams. But if you just like the ads, it's time to stay home. They'll all be online.

3. No Offense - This seems to be a newer thing, within the past couple years, but I'm hearing with much more frequency the past month or so. Kids have learned that they can tell anyone anything, no matter how horrible or rude, as long as they start the sentence with "No offense." Such as, "No offense, but you are really ugly," or "No offense, but you smell like french cheese left in a gym sock and passed through the system of an aging elephant with ulcerative colitis."

My problem isn't the directness of it. I wish more people would say what's on their minds. We need more Kramers in the world. Remember the episode in which George was dating the girl with the huge nose? She would still have that huge nose and wouldn't have gotten the nose job if Kramer hadn't told her. He just didn't try to sugar coat it by saying, "No offense, but your nose is huge."

I think they actually believe that if they throw those two words in front of the sentence, then it's perfectly OK and no one is offended. They need to know that people are, in fact, going to be offended. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

2. Eighth Graders - The odor alone is enough to kill.

1. Failure - We passed out report cards a week ago Friday. I overheard a student telling her grades to her mom. For the record, I didn't know this student. She read them off something like this: A, B, A, F, F, B, A. What do you notice? I don't know about you, but a couple grades in the middle seemed to pop out to me. Yes, the other grades are good. but this child failed two classes. This girl failed two classes in middle school, where passing grades are pretty easy to achieve. Her mom's response was something like, "Good job, sweetie!"

All right - on one hand, she did have five good grades. And as I mentioned, I don't know this girl. Maybe last quarter it was all seven F's. And maybe the mother went home and kicked the girl's ass from the car to the front door. But knowing our society, knowing our students, and seeing the interaction made me believe that these guesses aren't true. This mother was OK with the child failing. And that girl is going to be content with her failure her entire life and expect recognition for it.

I was just listening to Adam Carolla talking about the kid who shot Giffords and others in Tucson, Jared Loughner. Carolla believes that Loughner's parents should stand trial for manslaughter. His reasoning is that his parents didn't deal with Loughner's mental illness in a way that made him safe to be a part of society. I agree. And parents of kids who fail, cut class, or are a menace, need to have some sort of consequence for crapping out this crappy kid and failing to take a few minutes to learn a few basic parenting skills. Yeah, it's OK to fail. But it's not OK to fail and learn nothing from it.

So what annoyed you this week?

Annoying Things of the Week

2011-01-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while since I've posted one of these, so this particular edition is more like the past month or so instead of just the week.

These are the things that annoyed me this week:

5. Ted Williams - No, not the .400 hitter with the frozen head. I have an entirely different beef with that guy. I'm talking about the homeless man with the golden voice. We've discovered a national treasure, and now he's a hero! Yay! We love him! No. We shouldn't. So he was homeless and down on his luck, right? No. He wasn't down on his luck. He's an idiot. He admittedly was homeless because he got hooked on drugs and alcohol. He had nine kids that he didn't take care of or even pay attention to. And what is this guy's skill? He can talk kinda pretty-like. In fact, his voice sounds so much like all the other voiceover guys. (Isn't that kind of a bad thing? how about something unique?) This isn't some homeless scientist who can now get back to work on curing cancer. You're going to listen to his "golden voice" over Cavalier's highlights (should any occur). How about we start rewarding those of us who can control our alcohol intake and don't crap out a bunch of kids?

4. TSA - Take your hands off of everyone's junk. Your safety isn't worth my freedom. Your child's safety isn't worth a single person's freedom. More than just soldiers have and will die to defend the ideals of the Bill of Rights (though it has been awhile since soldiers have died for that reason). If someone says something and some idiot goes and shoots people because you said it, it's not your fault (unless, of course, you specifically told that person to go shoot that person). I have more to say about this topic, but that's a whole other blog entry all together.

3. My House - I thought I was finally getting to the point where I would have the cash to take care of the inside of the house. I need to do things like paint and add baseboards and crown molding. It's not necessarily just the materials that are going to cost so much, but the tools as well. But this past weekend, a pipe in my garage decided that I need to wait just a bit longer. It informed me by bursting. Nice.

2. Eighth Graders - They keep trying - to be annoying.

1. Astrology - It looks like everyone's sign has changed! I'm no longer a Pisces! Our compatibilities are all wrong! It looks like we need to pass an emergency divorce law. Everyone needs to contact his or her local astrologist to find a new mate. We need to switch jobs to match our new strengths and weaknesses. And now I have a much better idea of why that week back in October of 2006 didn't work out; I was following the wrong horoscope!

Apparently this change is because over time, the stars are different places in the sky based on the tilt of the Earth and whatnot. But according to some sources, it only counts if you were born in last few years. Because that's when the stars started crossed a magic line and changed absolutely everyone born then. And so the rest of us are OK. But not really.

It's just a shame that this is the way the world has to be. I just wish that something, like science, could debunk this whole astrology thing. Until then, I'm going to have to follow whatever my new sign is. I don't think I was lucky enough to get the new sign, seen at the right.

So what annoyed you this week?

溥儀 (Pǔyí - also known as Henry)

2011-01-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

Number One: Toy Story 3

Expectations can change your outlook on a movie; I've written about this before. I think my expectations were down when I saw Toy Story 3, but probably not too much. It really is an amazing, brilliant, and perfect third movie, and I think I would still rank it number one even if I were ready for something great.

Three things possibly lowered my expectations. The first was the trailer. To me, it made Toy Story 3 look like it should have been direct-to-video. Looking back, though, the trailers seemed purposefully vague. Perhaps they knew that it needed no real marketing. Simply its title and the word Pixar would guarantee an audience.

My second reservation was the idea that third movies can't be great (though I do know that there are exceptions). This is the new benchmark. Nobody can ever again say that third movies are always horrible. You can, however, say often.

The third is related to the second. The first two movies are so good - how can they possibly strike gold a third time? But perhaps I forgot that Pixar has done it again and again. For me, their only disappointment was Cars. I will still watch Cars 2 this summer. Why? It's Pixar. Cars, while it didn't speak to me, was still better than so many other movies.

With the first Toy Story movie, I really liked it, but didn't love it right away. The thing that sticks in my mind the most is actually a couple CGI scenes. One of them is simply when the car pulls into the gas station. On the big screen, it looked amazing. Upon watching it on a TV, I was much less impressed. It was the first time that I really "got it" when people say that special effects are so much better on the big screen. I confirmed this when the first two movies were rereleased in the theaters a year or so ago. That scene looked cool again.

I haven't seen Toy Story 2 nearly enough times. For some of you, that might be a funny thing for someone to say. How many times do you need to see a movie? With movies like these, lots. There's so much to see. I saw it in the theaters then when I first got it on DVD. I showed it in class the year I "taught" computers, but I was probably grading papers while it was on. But then I didn't see it again until the theatrical rerelease. I had forgotten how cool it was.

Spoilerish here: Toy Story 3 starts pretty darned good. And then it does something rare in movies. It gets better and better as it goes along. And I have to admit that they really sucked me in in the final, climactic scene. For a brief moment, as the toys approached the incinerator, I was actually concerned. I started to wonder if they were actually going to let the toys die. I knew it couldn't be a sad ending, so I wondered if they were going to try some kind of toy magic reincarnation type of thing where the toys live on in other versions of themselves. And yes, I know how silly that sounds. But man - they sucked me in. I was there.

And then the final ending is... perfect. There was no better place for the toys and no better way to show it. It's perhaps the most perfect movie scene since the opening of last year's Up. Pixar is just brilliant. For a while, I fought with making Toy Story my top movie. For some reason, it felt like I was giving in to "The Man" or something. It's a freakin' kids movie! It's a stupid cartoon! But, dammit, Toy Story 3 was incredible, and I've happily accepted that. I'm perhaps happier with picking this as my Number One movie than I have been in a few years.

載湉 (Zǎitián)

2011-01-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

Number Two: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Here's a really simple test to see if you might just enjoy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I'm going to explain one of the nerdiest things about me (and there are many). If you understand it without having to explain it, you will like Scott Pilgrim. Every once in a while, like everyone else, I misplace something and need to look around for it. Or perhaps something simply falls under the couch. Or since I just moved, I'm constantly looking for things in the yet-to-be-unpacked boxes. And when I finally find that item, I hold it over my head and sing or whistle four notes rising in chromatic order. (Of course, if there are people around, it's all in my head)

In the Legend of Zelda, every time Link finds something, you hear this sound. When you play yourself some Zelda, you hear that often. And it's a GOOD thing.

In Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Scott Pilgrim lives in a video game inspired world. That sort of thing happens, but for real. The movie is filled with video game references and sound effects. The name of his band is Sex Bob-omb. Again, if you get the reference, you'll probably like the movie (it's a Super Mario thing). I loved this world and I loved the way this movie looked and sounded. I loved the story and the characters.

And if you don't like video games, it's also a comic book movie. Is there anything better than comic books? Well yes, but not a whole lot of things! I have to admit that I haven't read of the graphic novels. I want to, but I just haven't gotten there. It's a money thing - anyone have them and want to let me borrow them?

About Scott Pilgrim, Kevin Smith said, "Nobody is going to understand what the fuck just hit them." I agree. It looks unique in a beautiful way. Cool, cool movie!

載淳 (Zǎichún)

2011-01-08T20:26:00.000-08:00

Number Three: The Social Network

If I were picking the best movies of 2010, The Social Network would be number one. It is the best of the year, for sure. I liked my top two on a deeper level, but this movie was fantastic.

I'm not sure if it will win Best Picture, but it needs to win Best Screenplay. The best part of Aaron Sorkin's TV shows that I've seen, as well as his movies, is the dialogue. A year ago last November, I spent the Thanksgiving Break watching Sports Night. While it wasn't always the best TV show, the dialogue was always snappy.

But great dialogue can fall apart if it isn't delivered by the right people. This cast is also amazing. In my mind, Jesse Eisenberg has always been kinda like Michael Cera, but a better actor. He really delivers here, as does Justin Timberlake and Spider-Man. And then you have the amazing special effects work to create the twins. It was flawless and never noticeable, the way CGI should be.

Much like Green Zone and Casino Jack I'm surprised that this movie was made as quickly as it was. On one hand, it makes the subject matter much more accessible if the subject matter is still fresh in our heads or still around, as is the case with Facebook and Zuckerberg. But the possible negative is that we haven't had time to find out some of the details from some potential whistle-blowers somewhere down the line. Does that take away from the movie? I don't think so. And I guess they can always remake it down the line. In fact, isn't it inevitable?

奕詝 (Yìzhǔ)

2011-01-07T22:06:00.000-08:00

Number Four: Inception

I have one regret about Inception. It has nothing to do with the film itself. I wish I hadn't known as much as I did about the movie going in. And I didn't really know too much. But I can only imagine what a great experience it would have been trying to figure out what was going on for the first fifteen minutes or so. With a movie as big as this one, would it have been possible for me to have even avoided knowing the basic idea?

I really respect Christopher Nolan for being as ambitious as he was, but also for mapping out all of the details. If you argue that some of the rules of the levels of dreams were ambiguous or arbitrary, I wouldn't argue too strongly against you. But my argument is simply that I'm glad there were rules, and within that world, they were clearly defined. Nolan did his homework. He obviously ran the ideas past people who told him which things weren't explained, and they worked toward an explanation. All it took was a couple lines of dialogue to explain a couple things. (ARE YOU LISTENING, WRITERS OF LOST? Just a couple throwaway lines of dialogue per episode would have been courteous!)

Inception at the very least proved that you can have an effects filled action movie that also has a plot. SPOILER ALERT! And the ending. I love that the ending is ambiguous. I've been to so many movies where I've said, "If the movie ends exactly here, it's perfect." But they always keep going. I love not knowing. I've read some theories and ideas online, and that's part of the fun. I also enjoy reading the people who are truly adamant that there is a correct answer, as if Nolan had run out of film at that moment and just couldn't get to show us. Inception left me thinking and it kept people talking. And it made a buttload of money.

旻寧 (Mínníng)

2011-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

Number Five: True Grit

Last year, the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man was my favorite movie. Their movie this year, True Grit, was also great.

After seeing the trailer, I thought it looked cool, but the actors seemed to be playing caricatures instead of characters. It doesn't do their work justice.This cast might be a bit too small to call it an ensemble, but they worked so well together. I saw this just a few days after Tron, and Jeff Bridges is a completely different person. Matt Damon is different from any other character he has ever played. Hailee Steinfeld was great at Mattie, the girl who is leading the hunt. I was most concerned with her from the trailer, but she ends up stealing the movie from the other actors.

You can't help but love the way True Grit looks. The locations are beautiful all the way through. I think that one of the difficulties with going back and watching Westerns is that their locations are pretty generic. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the Hollywood were filmed in the Mojave Desert. Or more likely, the same Hollywood backlot designed to look like the Mojave Desert. I wonder exactly where the Spaghetti Westerns were filmed. I don't remember seeing any deserts in Italy, and a Google search for "Italian Desert" only shows me Italian Desserts. Mmmm... gelato.

顒琰 (Yóngyǎn)

2011-01-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

Number Six: The Town

What's the deal with Ben Affleck? He started cool with his roles in Chasing Amy and Good Will Hunting. Then he got really lame with Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. Now he has reemerged as a cool, first with Gone, Baby, Gone (which I thought was OK) and now with The Town. His most underrated role in the past few years was in Hollywood Land. It looks like he tried to be the lead actor thing and made his money. With cash in hand, now he can pick good projects.

The Town is a really cool heist movie, (though it's never really explained why Hawkeye and Daredevil want to rob banks), but it has a lot more than that. At its core is an intersting relationship between Affleck's character, a bank robber, and his hostage. It isn't some kind of Stockholm Syndrome type of relationship. She doesn't know he was one of the bad guys. The ultimate conclusion to the movie (ambiguous here to avoid spoilers) is a bit suspect. Would she really make the choice she does in the end? To me, I find it to be a bit of a stretch, which possibly dropped this movie down a notch or two on the list. But there's enough great stuff to strongly recommend this, and I look forward to watching it again.

Another great element of the movie is the neighborhood. It takes place in the Charleston neighborhood of Boston around Bunker Hill. There are some great aerial shots of the Bunker Hill Monument - better than any images I've been able to find online. After the movie, I searched for a few overhead shots of the monument to place into my Powerpoint for discussing the Revolutionary War. I couldn't find anything nearly as good, though I didn't spend too long looking. So I know that I'll watch this again at least once before next September so that I can take some screen grabs.

弘曆 (Hónglì)

2011-01-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

Number Seven: The Millennium Trilogy

OK, so I'm cheating with number seven. It's actually three movies. If they had been released in different years, I would have categorized them separately. And I'm not exactly sure that any of them would make the list in any average year. But as it is, all three movies were released in the US in 2010, so I'm ranking them this way.

First, I must explain what made me the most upset with the beginning of the first movie. I didn't see it. And it wasn't my fault, either. I showed up for a 5:15 movie at 5:10. When I bought my ticket, the ticket person told me that the movie had already started. I assumed this meant the previews were showing. Nope. The movie was already moving along when I made my way into the theater. I have since gone back to find out how much I missed. Even five minutes early, I missed the first five minutes. It's tough enough following a movie that I have to read, dammit. Luckily for all of us, I'm a smart guy and was able to figure out enough of what was going on.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was first, and it's a complete movie on its own. However, many of the elements introduced are brought back in the second and completed in the third movie. The movie starts by taking some time to establish the two main characters individually before bringing them together for the main story. I really like the way the characters' relationship was able to develop from that point on.

The basic plot of the movie is a mystery/thriller that these two characters are thrust into, and it's a pretty good story at that. But combined with the other two movies, this plot turns out to be simply a backdrop that allows Blomkvist and Lisbeth to establish their relationship. And it's a complicated relationship, at that. They are sort of lovers. They are sort of friends. As the trilogy expands, he turns into more of a father figure or guardian, make their relationship in the first movie more interesting.

The Girl Who Played with Fire tells us a lot more about Lisbeth's background. As we can easily tell from the first movie, she probably had a messed up childhood. This one confirms it as we start to meet her family. Blomkvist's part of the story starts and investigation that will lead into Lisbeth's family and give us more background for the third movie.

The second movie has a much faster pace than the other two movies. Looking back, it's more of a bridge between the two movies that a movie all to itself, as a lot of it looks back and forward to those. The faster pace, with a bit more action, makes it a better movie.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is mostly Blomkvist's story. Because of story elements from the second movie (attempted spoiler avoider there), Lisbeth takes a back seat for much of this movie. I found that to be rather bold since the movies are named after her character, though she does appear enough.

While each film is watchable and quite enjoyable on its own, the trilogy becomes a complete story. I didn't enjoy the first movie as much as I did after seeing all three, and that's a pretty strong feat for the filmmakers. To me, it's about these two characters and watching them grow through the movies. As I mentioned before, the second and third movie really brings back some of the storylines from the first movie that seemed like character development moments.

I definitely have a strong interest in reading the books. At the moment I have a pretty sizable stack of books that I want to get through, so I'm putting it off for the time being,as well as waiting for the third to come out of paperback. There is enough interesting action and character moments in the movies that I'm sure the books will be fun, and I'm curious to see what else I can get out of them.

I'm also hesitantly looking forward to the American versions of these movies. American remakes of foreign films can be hit or miss. My worry is that it's possible that it's being rushed, since the first one is supposed to come out at the end of this year. Also, I really enjoyed the two lead actors, and Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. The first movie is Rapace's showcase, and Nyqvist brings the third movie to a higher level. Daniel Craig? We'll see.

However, David Fincher is directing. With the exception of Benjamin Button (which I hated), he has a really solid résumé. In fact, his latest movie will show up on this list in a few days.

Once again, I'm not sure that individually, none of the three movies would have made the list, but together they are solid. So what about the American release? It's going to need to be really good to make it if only one is coming out this year. Forget the Oscars, Fincher. Your true goal is to make it onto my list.

胤禛 (Yìnzhēn)

2011-01-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

Number Eight: Hot Tub Time Machine

On one hand, I have a feeling that I'm adding Hot Tub Time Machine to the top ten list because it was a week year for comedies. Dinner with Schmucks, The Other Guys, and Get Him to the Greek were OK, but not memorable. The only other comedy released that I had any interest in was Due Date, but word of mouth wasn't good enough for me to try it out. So it's possible that I found a funny void in my top ten and threw this movie in there.

On the other hand it IS a damn funny movie. At the very least, it's a great parody of a lot of crappy comedies from the eighties. At best it's a great raunch comedy. Rob Corddry delivers some of the best lines. "It's like Gary Coleman's fucking forearm!" It has great rewatchability, but not if it's replayed on Comedy Central. They'll cut it to shred.

And then there's the title. It's in the same "So horrible it's great" category with Snakes on a Plane. The difference is that Hot Tub Time Machine actually has a good movie to go along with its title.

One last thing. How can you not enjoy a movie that seeks to create a better past by ending the legend of John Elway? Unless you're a Donkeys fan, of course.

玄燁 (Xuányè)

2011-01-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

Number Nine: How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon wins the award for worst marketing of the year. We're living in a time when a lot of animated movies are coming out, and a good handful of them are actually pretty good. If it's Pixar, you know to see it. But how do you drudge through the rest of them? On some ways, you can say the same thing about all movies. But some animated movie makers have finally figured out that animated movies can be good, while others still know that it doesn't have to be good - kids will still want to see it.

The same was true of another really good animated movie from a couple years ago,Kung Fu Panda. If I hadn't happened to have seen some good reviews of that, I never would have seen it. With Dragon, I only looked at reviews because of At the Movies. While people are saying that type of show is needless in modern times because of Rotten Tomatoes and other internet sources, I disagree. It's a shame that it's gone. And not because I agreed with the hosts. In fact, I found myself disagreeing with AO Scott and Michael Phillips quite a bit. But at least it was a weekly roundup of ideas instead of just seeing a number on Rotten Tomatoes.

The trailer made it look generic, but How to Train Your Dragon is much better than that. It ended up having a pretty good main character who goes through a good story arc. It has some great scenes, and the animation is beautiful. Then again, perhaps I will still in a Scandinavia hangover when I saw it and was really into the Viking stuff. Doesn't matter. It was cool.

福臨 (Fúlín)

2011-01-01T21:51:00.000-08:00

Number Ten: The King's Speech

For me, The King's Speech is all about the interactions between Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. These two actors have done some great work on their own, in The Single Man and Shine. But the way they play off of each other becomes a master class in acting. They have taken these historical figures and turned them into legitimate movie characters.

I also enjoyed the history from this movie. After doing some research, it looks like they played with the time line a bit for dramatic effect. I'm OK with that, as it's not a documentary. They stuck with the important ideas. But the big test for me is that I actually DID some research after watching the movie. It got me interested enough to check it out.

While I have a decent idea of the basics of World War II, I don't really know the details. This movie shows some of the activities that I didn't know anything about. I have an even looser understanding of basic British history, though I find it to be quite interesting. Ever since I visited London in 2005, I've been interested in the history of the monarchy. But beyond King George III's involvement in the American Revolution, I don't have nearly the same foundation. So far, The King's Speech has gotten me on the right path to learn more.

Best of 2010 Movies - Honorable Mentions

2010-12-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll start the 2010 top ten countdown. So here's my movies that either came close to the making the list or were just surprises for me.

I've placed my four surprise movies into two groups. First are my Denzel Washington movies. I quickly dismissed both of these movies based on their trailers. They both looked silly to me. But upon reading some reviews from people that I trust, I went to see both The Book of Eli and Unstoppable. Before I continue, I need to remind you that these aren't great movies - but both were pretty entertaining.

If you didn't like The Book of Eli because of its ending, I understand. i read more than one person state that they were totally pulled out of the movie at that moment. It's a silly revelation, but I was OK with it. In the movie world created, it doesn't seem totally unplausable (slight eye roll). But I enjoyed the rest of the story enough to get into it and ride through it, so I was cool with it at the time.

So these two guys on one train are going to chase down another train? And trains are on tracks, right? It's not like the one train can zig and zag, right? Gotta be a lame movie. Unstoppable works. It's exciting and fun. Malcolm X and Captain Kirk make for interesting enough characters as well.

My next set of surprise movies are the "Dumb Action Movies That Don't Take Themselves Too Seriously So They End Up Being Really Fun" movies. They are The Losers and RED. I contrast these with The Expendables. I didn't see The Expendables in the theater, so it didn't appear anywhere on the list. But even though it advertised itself as being a fun 80s style action movie, it took itself too seriously. I was bored.

Both The Losers and RED might even consider themselves to be comedic action movies instead of action movies with humor. The directions both movies take are ridiculous, but the makers seem to know that. The action is over the top, but the makers seem to know that. Again, these aren't great movies - but you'll have fun.

And the runners up:

No documentaries made my top ten this year, but there were a bunch of really good ones. I already wrote about Exit Through the Gift Shop, Joan Rivers:A Piece of Work, Inside Job, and Catfish. I recommend all of those. But the best documentary I saw this year was Restrepo. It shows the daily life of these soldiers in Afghanistan in the Korangal Valley, which is described as the most dangerous place in the world. It never takes a side int he war. It doesn't consciously try to convince you of anything. It shows and tells the soldiers' stories. It's streaming on Netflix right now.

Also streaming on Netflix is Un Prophète, or A Prophet. It's a French film about the Mafia in the prisons. This kid in an outsider who falls under the protection of the mob boss in prison and begins to rise through the ranks.It's Goodfellas in prison with a totally different tone. OK, it's totally different from Goodfellas, but still damn good.

I moved The Fighter on and off of my top ten list. The reason it jumped on is because of Christian Bale. He is fantastic. He is so different from anything else he has done before. The same with Amy Adams. She hasn't done anything like her role before. It's a really good movie, but I think in the end it came down to - another boxing movie? Feel free to disagree.

127 Hours was difficult to watch for all the right reasons. You're supposed to be uncomfortable watching it. I can honestly say that I've come as close to being trapped with my arm pinned under a rock for five days as I really want to. It's a great movie.

However, I left with a similar thought that I had after watching Into the Wild a few years back. Both main characters are seen as heroes to people. But in reality, both are severe dumbasses. In 127 Hours, Aron Ralston broke every basic rule about going into the wilderness. With Into the Wild, I think Christopher McCandless was trying to commit suicide. So I guess he can be excused for doing the same thing. So, kids, remember this. Smart people learn from their own mistakes. Even smarter people learn from the mistakes of others.

Speaking of mistakes, tomorrow - number ten.

Another Mess of Movies

2010-12-30T23:06:00.000-08:00

Here's some more...

Perhaps the most important movie of 2010 was Inside Job. If you thought Michael Moore's Capitalism was interesting but don't like his particular antics, this is a remedy. It tries to describe the financial meltdown of 2008. As I type this, I think about the comments I made about Waiting for Superman in the last post. But I choose to ignore that. While I think I have a better picture of what happened to the economy, I still don't understand derivatives. The movie does a fine job of trying, but I don't get it. But somehow, I think that's the point. They seem to be nothing more than banking slight of hand. You need to see this movie.

127 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows was pretty much what you expect. If you liked the previous six, you'll watch it. If you didn't, you can skip it. For me, I have the dumbest criticism of it ever, but it's how I feel about it. The movie feels... incomplete. Well, duh. But previous movies designed to be continued later, such as Kill Bill and the Lord of the Rings felt like full movies. I was satisfied with those while looking forward to the next movie. I didn't get that here, and I think that's a result of the source material having been only one book. However, i loved the book. I think when the second part comes out, I'll almost consider it as one full movie, and I have a feeling that it's going to make the 2011 list.

I think it's important that you don't know anything about I Love You Phillip Morris before going in. I didn't know the real story, and it's a good one. There are twists and turns that seem improbable, and the more amazing ones were real. Jim Carrey is great and worth seeing.

Black Swan was interesting, but I can't go much beyond that. It turns out that I wasn't ready for a movie about ballet - who wudda thunkit? There are some cool visuals and the music from Swan Lake is great. But I didn't care for the story or what was going on.

Tangled is really good. It's cool that there are so many good animated movies out there. In fact, two made the top ten list. This one is funny, looks good, and is entertaining for everyone. It doesn't panders to kids.

Tron: Legacy looks really cool. My biggest complaint about the visual is that in the original the good guys were lit up in blue and the bad guys in red. The update has the bad guys in red and the good guys in white. On one hand, it gives the movie a bit of a black and white look. But that's not what Tron should be. The plot? Who cares. Some stuff happened leading them to some cool looking things. I have a strong, strong feeling that if I didn't like the original, I would have hated this. But then again, I probably wouldn't have seen it.

Casino Jack is the story of Jack Abramoff. Kevin Spacey is great in the lead role. He turns Abramoff into a real movie character. It's a pretty entertaining story. I'm surprised the movie got made as quickly as it did, since it seems like this stuff just happened. But it's probably a story worth telling because things don't change quickly in DC.

Somewhere feels like a really long version of its trailer. That's not necessarily a good thing. But after having a few days to absorb it, it's an interesting movie. There are some scenes and visuals that have stuck with me. It seems like the type of movie that I could see come on TV and I would watch for about 10 minutes or so. But then I would remember that it's a fairly boring movie. Very confusing.

All right - tomorrow I'll write about some movies that will be sort of an introduction to the top ten. They're movies that either could have made the top ten or ones that just surprised me. Then on the first, number 10.

Another Mass of Movies

2010-12-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

And the movies continue...

I was surprised to really enjoy Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. I'm not a fan of Joan Rivers. In fact, I remember being young (it had to be before 1986) and turning on the Tonight Show to see that she was guest hosting - then - turning it off. That always stuck in my head that she was that person who wasn't funny, so I avoided anything of hers. The next thing I consciously watched of hers was the season she was on the Celebrity Apprentice. So I watched this documentary based solely on critic recommendations. And I definitely recommend it. It's a well made doc, really interesting, and parts are really funny. It's streaming on Netflix now.

I Am Love received rave reviews. But I just didn't get it. Not that I didn't understand it. I didn't see what was so great. I walked out with the same feeling as when I saw Broken Embraces back in 2009, though I liked that one even more. Sure, I will concede that Tilda Swinton is great. But that is all.

Cyrus was just dumb. I never found a character to like, and the camera work was extra annoying. There was a lot of the unnecessary zooming that I found distracting in Battlestar Galactica. At this point, I don't even remember enough about much else to comment.

The Kids Are All Right was over hyped by critics. It was good, but not great. the acting was great all around. The story was mostly straightforward, though it took a couple ridiculous turns. While I'm glad I watched it and can recommend it, I hope it doesn't come up in awards season.

Salt was a goofy action movie. It was entertaining, and it wasn't totally predictable. Compared with your typical summer action movie, pretty good. That isn't the highest of praise, but it doesn't need to be.

I think I can comparatively say the same for Dinner With Schmucks. Kinda funny, but you didn't miss anything if you missed it. Considering the cast and people that worked on it, it could have been much better.

And once again, I repeat the same thing for The Other Guys. Kinda funny, but...

Catfish creeped me out. But only because I went through something too similar about ten years ago. Other than that, it's pretty good. There's some internet debate about whether it's real or not. I tend to believe it is just because of the way that things played out.

Waiting for Superman was a disappointment because we end still waiting. Superman doesn't even make a cameo. As far as the movie is concerned, it's a well made movie. It does what the filmmakers wanted to do. It pulls at the heartstrings and makes you think about schools one more time. But as someone in the profession who thinks about schools regularly, it's a bit deceitful. I suppose that if I knew enough about every documentary I watched, I might think the same thing, though. If you see it and you aren't a teacher, sit down with a teacher afterward so they can explain how things really are.

As I've mentioned before, every movie viewing is impacted by your emotional state at the time of watching it. Never Let Me Go is a movie that I wonder if I might have enjoyed more if I had seen it on a different day. Looking back, I liked a lot of what the movie was. I liked it, but I just didn't love the movie. I am curious to read the book.

More soon - I'm getting behind!

Another Round of Movies

2010-12-29T23:01:00.000-08:00

Here are more movies from 2010 that didn't make the Top Ten list.

Clash of the Titans was entertaining enough. I remember leaving and thinking that is was being criticized too harshly, though it wasn't anything to get excited about. I definitely hated the slo-mo and shaky-cam. Not that I ever like that sort of thing, but they seemed out of place in this type of movie. But looking back, I don't remember too much. Very skippable and had a severe lack of Bubo.

Kick-Ass is a movie that had quite a lot of potential. I've read some of the comic, and I liked that enough. While parts were entertaining, it didn't resonate and I didn't care for it.

I think Harry Brown was interesting enough to recommend. Even though you know the basic story, it didn't quite go exactly where you think it's going, and the main character has a decent story arc. Michael Caine is usually pretty good, and there's no exception here.

Iron Man 2 was fun to look at, but its plot was too dense. The first movie got everything right. This one was, well, a sequel.

If you're reading this hoping for some movie ideas to add to your Netflix queue that you didn't know about, add Exit Through the Gift Shop. This is a crazy weird documentary about a guy who gets to know graffiti artists and then becomes one and then has his own show. But is it really a documentary? If you know who Banksy is, go watch this. And if you don't, watch it anyway.

Robin Hood was such a waste. It was dull. The Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood is such a FUN movie. That's what Robin Hood should be. The Disney version is fun. Kevin Costner's version is, even with that crappy Bryan Adams song, a far superior version to this turd.

If you enjoyed Forgetting Sarah Marshall, lower your expectations before you check out Get Him to the Greek. Aldous Snow was a great character in that movie, but doesn't necessarily deserve a full feature. It suffers from the some of the same problem that Saturday Night Live characters have going to the big screen. That being said, it has plenty of funny parts and it's rarely boring. It's worth watching, but again, lower your expectations.

I hated Splice. Hated it. Hated it. Hate. Hated. Hated it.

On the other hand, Winter's Bone was pretty good. It's a great character piece. That means those of you who like nothing but action or comedy, it takes patience. And And I admit mine was challenged a bit. But I was never sure where this movie was going, and it tells a pretty good story. And it always looks good. It has a very interesting point of view.

More flicks!

2010-12-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

Here's another batch of 2010 movies that didn't make the top ten list.

The Ghost Writer is a satisfying political thriller about a guy (Pierce Brosnan ghost writing the former British Prime Minister's memoirs. It's pretty obviously supposed to be Tony Blair, and it involves some secret information. It takes on a bit more weight with what's going on with Wikileaks.

The Green Zone does a nice job of mixing a non fiction story with a fictional action film. It's based on a non-fiction book about the search for WMDs in Iraq. I don't know how much was changed to avoid possible libelous accusations and how much was just changed to be an action movie.

In some ways, I liked Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I liked that he didn't simply retell the story but made it into a sort of a sequel. I also enjoyed how the movie is based more on The Jabberwocky than on the Alice stories. Back when I taught English, my students were required to memorize and recite a poem. I always got a kick out of the kids who picked The Jabberwocky. So that's what I liked. But I didn't dig the visuals - 3D sucks - and the pacing didn't work. I think it's because Johnny Depp played the Mad Hatter, so he had to have a bigger role than was necessary.

Do you want to see something totally different? And I don't mean just random stuff that you can't understand making it different. I mean a story that is told in a different way. Watch the Korean movie Mother. It's a story of the mother of a mentally disabled boy. the boy is accused of murder. It's just... different.

Greenberg was one of those movies that had a better trailer than a movie. It looked like it would be a cool little independent movie, but I found it to be unsatisfying. There have been several small movies made by actors that I didn't care for, but they won be over. Ben Stiller didn't in this one. It has it's good parts, but overall it didn't work.

Chloe was OK, but I honestly don't remember too much. If I hadn't written it down, I wouldn't have remembered seeing it. So take that review for what it's worth.

Rally to Restore Sanity - Photos!

2010-12-12T12:00:00.001-08:00

On October 30, 2010, I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Here are my favorite signs and other stuff that I saw.

The Mild Movies of 2010

2010-12-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

So far, 2010 has been a really mild year for movies. And yet I've already seen more than I ever have before.

For the non regular reader, I see a bunch of movies in the theater. Every January, I write about my top ten of the year. In the days prior, I try to write about the ones I see that didn't make the list. Last year I saw 45 movies in the theater - much more than I ever had before. So I declared December to be movie-a-day month. Both Lance and Nolan also participated writing about some of their favorite movies. I got some great movie suggestions from both of them. I wrote about the movies that didn't make my top 10 list. This year, I have already seen 48. There's another half-dozen movies coming out that I want to see, though I don't know how many will actually be available in the Bay Area.

As of right now, I only have seven movies that I've noted to make the top ten list. Just seven! That's preposterous. And to be honest, one or two of those were movies that I liked when I saw them much more than I do now. There's only two or three that would have made the list in previous years.

It's not that all of these movies have been bad. It's just that a lot of them have been goodish, just not great. Since a lot of the early ones are now available at home, I'm going to start writing about the movies that didn't make the list, a few at a time. Maybe you'll see something that you like. These obviously aren't full reviews but just a couple sentences.

I already wrote about The Lovely Bones in an Annoying Things of the Week blog. I hated it. Horrible movie. Don't watch it

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is an imaginative movie. It's a beautiful film. If you can, it's the type of movie that you should see on a big screen with a crisp, clear picture. The performances are pretty good too. I personally had a hard time getting into the story, which was simple yet unnecessarily convoluted. Still, I know a lot of people who thought the movie was amazing, so give it a shot.

I watched The Blind Side because it was an Oscar nominated movie. It shouldn't have been. It was better than an after school special, but not as good as a good movie. It's an Oscar nod for dumb people.

I think I went into The White Ribbon with high expectations. The saw a lot of amazing reviews. The trailer looked creepy and cool. But there just wasn't enough there for me. It was too slow and deliberate. Often slow and deliberate is a good thing because it leads you toward a payoff. But it wasn't there in this movie. Keep reading for more.

I think I liked Shutter Island more than many people. I think a lot of people felt about this what I did about The White Ribbon. They didn't buy the payoff. My difference is that this movie, whether you liked it or not, had a payoff. The other didn't. But I liked the journey in Shutter Island. It was interesting enough to hold my attention.

More to come!

How To Buy a House

2010-10-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

It took me about two years to finally get this house. At the end of the summer of 2008, I got a home equity line of credit using my condo. That money was supposed to be the down payment on a new house. I was also preapproved for $300,000. At the time, houses were just dipping down to that level, so it was a good amount. Little did I know that the rules were about to change.

I procrastinated for a few weeks before finally contacting my new agent, Jeannie-Marie. We started looking at a couple houses. I soon discovered that while there were plenty of houses below $300,000, there were few worth looking at. After seeing a few houses, we took another look at the loan approval, as it was about to expire. I contacted my credit union for an update. They let me know that the rules had changed and I was now approved for $270,000.

We went from not much worth seeing to just about nothing. I found out that my credit union was going to be limited in the types of loans I would be eligible for, so I also went with one of Jeannie’s people. We were looking at around the same amount. And luckily, I found a place that I was interested in. This place was a two bedroom house. The garage had been converted into another room, so there was plenty of space. However, it was a short sale.

We were accepted quickly by the owners of the house for $260,000. This was November 2008. Then we turned to the owner’s bank for approval. Time passed. Then more time. Then more time. And as the new year came into place, the rules for mortgages changed again, making things more difficult. However, we worked through them since we weren’t doing anything other than waiting. And more time passed. Jeannie and I decided to look at a few more places. A couple looked OK, but nothing better for the same price. We decided to wait some more. And more time passed. And more.

We looked again in March of 2009. One of the places we had seen before had dropped dramatically in price down to under $200,000. It looked good. It was in good shape and had four bedrooms and a garage. It was a MUCH better deal than the house I was waiting for. And then about the same time, the wait ended. The bank finally approved the short sale. So I had to decide whether to take the first house or move on to the second. Since so much time had passed, the first house at $260,000, being as small as it was, wasn’t a good deal anymore. I decided to drop the first and go for the second, even if I had to offer more money. I was accepted by the owner for $205,000. But this too was a short sale. The wait began.

Allow me to offer a spoiler – this wait was longer. Every once in a while, I would take a look to see what was out there, and there were no better deals. Or any reasonable deals, either. All of the houses were either too crappy or too expensive. So I waited. And time passed. Then more time. Then more time. Summer of 2009, I traveled to Scandinavia. It was a pretty epic trip. I was really hoping that I would return home to some news on the house. But when I returned, I waited.

At the end of the summer, we finally heard from the bank. As it turned out, we heard from the FIRST bank. They approved the sale. It then went to the second bank. I was told that this would be much faster, since if there was more than one loan on a home, the second would often follow the first. So I waited. And time passed. And then, a couple months later, an answer.

They didn’t approve the sale as it was. They wanted the seller to pay an additional $30,000. This still doesn’t make any sense, since the reason for the short sale is that the seller doesn’t have the money to make payments. So the bank and the seller began negotiations. The guy in charge of the negotiations was called Heman. I saw this as a sign that the Masters of the Universe were on my side. I should have remembered that there was no such thing as a sign.

Negotiations continued, and I waited into the new year. And waited. And time passed. Every once in a while we would find out that something was happening in the negotiations. But no results. So we made a new offer. We contacted Heman to ask if we could pay part of the $30,000. I was still going to pay much less than I would have on the first place. So we waited once again. Finally we got an answer from the bank. It was a counter offer. They wanted $300,000.

Yeah. Not helpful.

So a new search began. However, this was a year after Jeannie and I had gone out physically looking for a house. Things were different. There were more options that I could afford. Well, that I thought I could afford. In the previous year, the rules for mortgages had changed again. Luckily, I had also spent the previous year paying off my car and saving money. More on that soon.

We found two houses. As it turned out, I only had one option, but I didn’t know that yet. One of the houses was closer to work. It was a foreclosure, but it really nice shape compared with many others I had seen. Two stories. Three bedrooms, two baths. But it was going to need a little work, and it cost more than the other. If I got that house, I wasn’t going to have any money at all to fix it for quite some time. And as it turned out, the rules for mortgages had changed enough in the previous year so I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. But not knowing that at the time, I put in an offer for that house, knowing that I had a second option. Jeannie quickly found out that I was already being outbid, and the other person had bid above any price I could afford.

So I placed an offer on the second house. The house where I’m writing this. We offered $265,000. They countered with $279,000. We countered with $270,000. Done. No short sale. No foreclosure. Just a 45 day close. Yeah, things happened in those 45 days. But those were pretty standard home sale problems. After waiting almost two years for the house those things were nothing. There was only one problem that made things tough.

Remember all those rule changes? Those meant that I was no longer approved for what I once was. So to afford the $270,000, I was going to have to take even more out of my pocket for the down payment. Teachers only get paid for 10 months a year. That means I take money every month and put it into savings so that I can pay myself over the summer. I had to use that money for the down payment. Just about every penny. I got paid on June 30th. I got the keys on June 30th. I didn’t get paid again until September 30th. It’s a long summer when you have a new house and no income.

1933: Grand Hotel

2010-07-16T00:41:00.000-07:00

Grand Hotel feels like it's going to be less than it is. During the first hour I got the feeling that the characters were going to go though a few things. They would learn about each other and grow as characters as the movie progresses, and then the movie ends. But I was surprised.

This movie is actually building to something happening. Today we would call it a twist, though I hesitate to classify it in the same way. I won't give it away because today we would call that a spoiler.

There are a couple themes in the movie that I noticed. The first is about money and how it affects people is such different ways. Some have it and don't know what to do with it. Some have it and want more. Some don't have it. That changes how each person acts in the movie as it interweaves the stories of the different characters.

The second theme is about life passing you by. About life continuing without you. The end of the movie (and this isn't a spoiler, I don't think) shows new people checking into the hotel. The staff is moving along to a new day. And the doctor, who waits in the lobby for something to happen )though most of the action takes place upstairs), states, "Grand Hotel. People come and go. Nothing ever happens."

For the first part of the movie, I was trying to think of who Joan Crawford reminded me of. Not only her looks, but her facial mannerisms brought to my mind Kate Winslet. A quick Google search shows that Winslet is going to be playing a role that Crawford originally played in a remake of Mildred Pierce (a movie I haven't seen).

For my criticisms, Grand Hotel feels very much like a play. In fact the opening scene in the hotel lobby is a series of very long takes. I originally thought it might have been one ten minute take, but it looks like there were a couple edits. Much like the previous Oscar winners, everyone is acting to the balcony seats. Everyone is too close of a talker for me to handle. Thank goodness for widescreen these days so that two people can fit in one frame comfortably. The music wasn't scored, but was simply music played over the dialogue. For example, the opening scene we hear the Blue Danube waltz by Strauss. And in a few scenes the music didn't fit. But at some point, the music stopped. I didn't notice it until one of the characters actually said that the music stopped. It was an effective moment.

This is the first of the Oscar winners that I think I might watch again someday (unless I end up teaching a class that shows All Quiet on the Western Front). I can't recommend it to the casual movie goer. But for someone who appreciates movies, there's some history here. Grand Hotel shows how you can have a movie about several different characters while their stories overlap and come together at the end. And we've definitely seen many of that type since then. In fact, one name for this type of movie is a "grand hotel" film.

1932: Cimarron

2010-06-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

I'm choosing to leave the image of the poster because it's pretty awesome. And most importantly, I believe it was made by someone who hasn't seen or known anything about the movie.

I don't think I've heard of Cimarron before. I'm guessing that the only times I've seen the title before is when I've browsed the list of Oscar winners. I didn't recognize any parts of the movie. I didn't recognize any actors, even though the lead actors has the name Richard Dix. Despite the sweet porn name, there wasn't anything too memorable about him, either.

Cimarron was watchable. I didn't fall asleep and I didn't need to watch it in parts. That's the good thing. I think this is because the scenes are all fairly short and enough happens in each scene to keep it moving. There are some pretty cool shots, including the very beginning, showing the Oklahoma Land Rush. There's also a pretty good scene in a church. I'm sure you're asking how a church scene can be good. End it with a shootout, that's how. It ends with the best line in the movie. When asked, "Did you have to kill him?" The main character Yancey Cravat answers, "No, I could have let him kill me."

In reading about this movie, I discovered that it received a lot of attention because of its racist overtones. There isn't anything even close to Birth of a Nation here. The worst of it probably involves the black kid who is basically a slave. Yancey says about him, "That's loyalty that money can't buy." Later the kid is killed trying to rescue some kids and no one notices or even remembers that he went to go rescue the kids. But then Yancey, who had just been shot in the arm, carries him for awhile. the other racists stuff isn't from the movie but the characters. If anything, it seems fairly progressive for a movie from 1931.

I can give Cimarron a better recommendation than either Wings or Broadway Melody. But beyond that, I don't see too much of a reason to watch. Even a movie buff who wants to see history of film making can skip it, I think. There are a few characters who are basically parodied in Blazing Saddles, but the same basic characters appear in other westerns, and there are better westerns out there. My favorite? High Noon.

Summer 2010!

2010-06-21T00:36:00.000-07:00

Happy 300th post to this blog. That's about 6 quality posts, 13 mediocre ones, and 280 crap. But now a new era is upon us! Or not...

For whatever reason, I decided that I'd go ahead and post my summer goals. I'm planning to move into my house in the next couple weeks. There's lots of stuff that I have to do with that, including renting out my condo. I don't want this to have anything to do with that business, as that will take care of itself.

1. Exercise. My original goal for the summer was to shift into more of a weight lifting mode to add some good bulk, as opposed to the bad bulk I spent 10 months getting rid of. Then a couple days in I tweaked my shoulder. It's nothing bad, but it's throwing a monkey wrench into my plans, and I had to revert to strictly cardio for a little while. So my basic summer goal is to go FULL MACHINIST.

OK. maybe not. So my goal for the summer is to hit the gym five times a week. I was doing that easily during the school year, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I just know that when I move into the house and start working on that, I don't want to lose touch with it.

2. Creativity. Since I've been waiting so long for the house, I have become stagnant in creativity. My art supplies and music stuff is all in storage or moved out. So this goal has two parts.

The first is that I want to write 500 words of fiction every day. This is a goal that I've set in the past and haven't met because I have too many filters. This summer I've rewired all of my filters. I've now set out to write the most boring novel ever. That means I don't have to worry about any filters standing in my way. At the least, I'll get in the habit of writing. At best, I'll bore my creativity and force it to start working. Maybe something in this novel might jump into something real. Perhaps the character will begin to realize itself. In the first chapter, Jack took out the trash. Second, he walked down to the coffee shop. Tomorrow I'll write about him ordering coffee and reading the paper. He might even start drinking the coffee. I played with publishing this novel online, but I don't know. It really is meant to be quite boring. I'll only do so if the masses demand such a thing.

The second is that I want to create art. When I move into my house, I hope to create some pieces of simple abstract paintings to hang. Then as I create more complicated work, I'll replace those. For now, I'm just going to create one small piece of art every day. But once again, I'm rewiring the filters. All I'm doing is grabbing a blank piece of paper and something to write with. I'm giving myself about five minutes to make marks on the page, then it's done. Once I have my paints, I'll give myself more time. And I want to take some photos and work with some other media eventually. But for now, just these stupid, bad sketches. I'm posting them in my Facebook account under the album "BadArt."

3. The Sopranos. I just finished Season 5. I'll start the final season tomorrow. I have a couple other shows waiting for me to watch, so when I finish this I'll get going on those. I actually have a ton of TV shows and movies sitting on my computer that I've ripped from Netflix disks over the past few months. I really need to get my hard drive cleaned off, so I'll be watching lots of stuff this summer. Yeah, I'm throwing myself a nice, slow softball here. It's summer, and I could use a victory about now.

4. The Oscar Project. The first two movies, Wings and Broadway Melody, weren't winners in my book. But All Quiet on the Western Front was pretty darned good. Here's the schedule for the rest of the summer:

26-Jun-10	1932	Cimarron
3-Jul-10	1933	Grand Hotel
10-Jul-10	1934	Cavalcade
17-Jul-10	1935	It Happened One Night
24-Jul-10	1936	Mutiny on the Bounty
31-Jul-10	1937	The Great Ziegfeld
7-Aug-10	1938	The Life of Emile Zola
14-Aug-10	1939	You Can't Take It with You
21-Aug-10	1940	Gone with the Wind

There are a few movies that I've only heard of when looking at the list of Oscar winners, so I don't really know what to expect. I've only seen three of these movies.

5. Wake up. I plan to be out of bed by noon every day. Those of you who are morning people and think this is a ridiculous goal, go away. Those of you who are night people and know how difficult this is, wish me luck!

6. Get it On! I vow to listen to Get it On by Bill Chase 100 times this summer. 93 more to go.

1931: All Quiet on the Western Front

2010-06-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Technically, this is the first movie to win "Best Picture," as its name changed from "Best Production" with this movie. Perhaps fate knew a bit. All Quiet on the Western Front is a much better movie than the previous two. While I had a lot of trouble making it through both Wings and Broadway Melody, I had no such trouble with this. Even with it clocking in at almost two hours twenty minutes, All Quiet is a much easier movie to watch.

Yes, there are still some things that date this movie. Mostly, the acting. All of the actors were still in stage mode, meaning that they're still acting to the people in the back row even though the camera is in their face. I'll be curious to see the evolution of that as I watch these movies.

But All Quiet lays the foundation for all war movies to come. You have all of the classic scenes, including the guys talking about death, the reason for the war, a scene with the enemy in a trench, and the hospital scenes. Other movies will go on to expand these (and many more) ideas.

After watching, I wanted to see what I had written after watching for the first time:

October 8, 2002 There were a few interesting things about All Quiet. My first real observation was the soundtrack. Or should I say lack thereof. I liked that you hear the exact same things that the soldiers hear right up until the very end - very effective. There was an interesting scene where the main character Paul is caught in a trench with a man he had just killed. I felt that this was a revelation for the character, and I actually would have liked to have seen more of the scene. Finally, this movie had its message that war is hell. Over 70 years later, and events like 9/11, and people like George W. can't wait to rush off to war. I'm not sure if this film will warrant a repeat viewing anytime soon, but still interesting to see.

I'm glad that I watched this again almost eight years later. Every time I pass the book in a book store, I mentally add it to my "Read it" list. When I do, i'll be sure to post a book report. Good movie - watch it.

1930: Broadway Melody

2010-06-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

There are some musicals that I really like. The Wizard of Oz. Singin' in the Rain. Popeye. But if you were to tell me that I were going to watch a musical, my toes would not be a tappin'. I'm not naturally inclined to enjoy a musical, and this was no exception.

Call me crazy, but I think you need to enjoy the music to enjoy a musical. I didn't hear anything in there that I'm going to be humming again later. In fact, the main song Broadway Melody was played about fifty times. But it's not such an interesting song.

One song that is fairly good, You Were Meant for Me, is actually in the previously mentioned Singin' in the Rain. The possible problem with many of these songs are that they're performed by the lead, Eddie, played by Charles King. This guy looks like the love child of Desi Arnez and Ricky Gervais. He creedped me out. He is a close talker. I look at him and I see Judge Reinhold wanting to take Jerry's parents to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And for some reason, I get the idea that he smells like liverwurst, so the close talking is even worse.

There's also a creepy musical number which sounds like a few eunuchs playing guitar. That's all I have to say about that.

The female lead is a girl named Hank. I had some trouble getting past that one. The second lead is a girl named Queenie. For some reason, I found that easier than the girl named Hank.

There wasn't too much that caught my attention or kept me too interested. This movie, as well as Wings, was called Best Production. It wasn't until a year later that it was changed to Best Picture. I know that since the next movie was All Quiet on the Western Front, things are about to pick up.

1929: Wings

2010-06-06T20:38:00.001-07:00

So I wanted to get a good start on my Oscar Project by sitting down to watch Wings. It didn't turn out to be that easy. It turns out that it's a tough movie to watch, so I watched it in 20-30 minute chunks, stopping throughout to type a bit. So this "review" is a bit more of a play-by-play. I understand that much of it won't make sense to you, the reader, if you haven't seen the movie.

As of this moment, I have only watched the first five minutes of Wings. I already have the idea that it's going to be a rough couple of hours, so I'm going to divide up this movie into parts.

While I like to make fun of students who have no interest in black & white, I still find my own problems with silent movies. Yes, there are some that I like quite a bit. But most of those star Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Of course I understand that movies like Wings weren't silent just because they wanted to be. But a dramatic movie is more difficult to watch. I think it's the over the top facial expressions and hand gestures that get to me. It works when it's a comedy. I don't dig it when it's a drama.

In this first scene, a girl is trying to get the attention of a boy working on a car. He doesn't notice her. She's sad. She looks like she just saw her dog get run over by a lawnmower.

All right. Enough whining. I'm ready for more.

The next scene worked for me. There's a guy who wants to fight in the war, but the officer notices his German name. The guy shows him his American flag tattoo and mugs triumphantly. It worked silently.

Apparently when David was a child, he loved a Teddy Bear refrigerator magnet. Seriously, it's the tiniest Teddy Bear ever. And then he kisses his mother rather awkwardly. Or, rather passionately.

Burpies.

We got some physical comedy from flag tattoo guy. He's vaudeville actor named El Brendel, and I hope we see more of him throughout the movie. Also in this scene we learned the age old truth. The best way to make friends is to beat the shit out of each other.

Gary Cooper has arrived to eat chocolate, fly figure eights before chow, and validate Teddy Bears. We quickly learn that he only does two of these things well. Perhaps he should have tried figure infinities or something more horizontal. Wait - make that one. The chocolate has also gone uneaten.

In silent movies, the characters can't hear anything either. You must wake up people one at a time by shaking them.

All right. We finally got some flying action here. These are actual planes performing these stunts, so it feels quite pure. I dislike the quick and close up edits we get today, so I like a shot that actually shows something.

I'm no lip reading expert, but I'm pretty sure that David mouths "Son of a bitch" when he plane gets hit. And soon after we're told that Jack has "two Fokkers on his tail. I think Jack was taught to land by Gary Cooper.

There was some decent action that actually kept me focused for awhile. Then around the halfway point of the movie, there's a cool shot in a night club. The camera slowly rolls over the top of several different tables showing different couples in a quick 2-3 second pantomime, including one woman throwing her drink in the face of the other person. It ends at our hero's table as he is being poured a drink. It works nicely, and is immediately followed with a bizarre scene about bubbles. It's something different, and it has given the movie something different. So I guess that's good.

We moved on to more action. The movie is moving along at a much better pace now. The dramatic scenes have been short and to the point. They are much more tolerable than the opening scene, and because they were much quicker, they worked much better. I'm pretty sure that Jack just mouthed, "Bastards," so I think they're actually saying a lot of things that we don't know they're saying.

The way the story is ending is actually pretty decent. It's a Shakespearean tragedy, and all the parts have been put into place. The death scene is a little... gay. I mean their talking about getting Heinies and kissing each other. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So I think the movie makers had created a decent story with the love triangle, but decided for some reason to add another part. Instead of a love square, it became more of a love trapezoid. the Mary Preston character didn't add anything other than 20 minutes of screen time, and allowed for a "nice" ending. And in the end, the movie was at least 20 minutes too long, so I would her to make it more palatable.

I was reminded quite a bit of Pearl Harbor while watching this. And for those younger readers, that's not a good thing. In doing a bit of research, I discovered that this movie actually didn't win "Best Picture." It won "Best Production." The award changed names a couple years later, as did the idea for what it should be. For Best Production, they wanted to give the award to the biggest movie, not necessarily the best. Because of the war scenes, and especially the dog fights (airplane, not Vick), it was a "big" movie. That's the same philosophy that the makers of Pearl Harbor had, and it didn't work then. The difference is that movie making changed quite a bit over 70 years. Wings didn't have that excuse.

So here's my summary. The movie is too long. It definitely gets better in the second half. I think breaking it into parts was very helpful, as it wasn't really great enough to hold my attention for too long. Watch if you are an Oscar completest, but otherwise skip it.

The Oscar Project!

2010-05-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

In the midst of my insomnia, I was listening to some Tom Waits at 4:30 A.M. while browsing the internet. There's nothing better for clearing the mind. I decided on the next project for my blog. This decision comes from three problems that I'm having.

The first is that blog-a-day month and movie-a-day month were fun, but they burned me out from blogging. I don't seem to want to write anything during the rest of the year. Partially, I seem to want to save ideas. So I don't know if I will participate in either this year. If I do, it certainly won't be to the extent I did last year. Any entries will be a couple paragraphs or so. But still, I enjoy blogging and I enjoy writing about movies.

The second is that I don't have any money to spend this summer. I had been hoping to take a road trip, but I need to spend some time moving into my home and renting out my condo. I always try to get to San Diego every summer, and I hope this summer is no exception. If I do have any money left by that point, I'll expand that trip based on how much I think I can spend and how much time it will take. It would be nice to add a week or so before San Diego, but we'll see. So my summer will be spent doing things that cost very little money. I have Netflix. I'll be enjoying that.

The third is that I've seen a lot of movies so far in 2010 (22 as of right now, and I haven't ruled out going to see something later today or tomorrow morning). The problem is that I haven't loved any of those movies. I can't picture any of them making a top 10 list from any previous years. I have a hard time believing that I've picked 22 decent movies, especially when many came highly recommended. In fact, I can recommend many of them as "entertaining," and many as "worth watching because it was different." In the first category, The Book of Eli, Green Zone, Alice in Wonderland, Hot Tub Time Machine, How to Train Your Dragon, The Losers, and Iron Man 2 were all entertaining. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Mother, Greenberg, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, A Prophet, and Exit Through the Gift Shop were all in the "different" categoty. So I can recommend any of those for those reasons. But I didn't love any of them, and I blame my current lack of passion for movie watching. I think it's similar to the "reader's block" I wrote about during Blog-a-Day month (which is cured, by the way. I might write up some book reports over the summer).

So I need to fix all three of these problems. I looked at how I developed my interest in movies to the next level. I've mentioned my AFI project before. I want to do something similar. So I picked Oscar Best Pictures. I'm going to start at the beginning with Wings from 1929. I'll watch about one a week in order and give a write up. I haven't seen 31 out of 82, and most of those were early winners. So clearly the second half of the project will be a shift from first viewings to rewatching with fresh eyes. If I stick to one a week, I'll work on this for the next year and a half. There are several movies I'm looking forward to watching for the first time, some I'm looking forward to watching again and writing about, and a few that I'm dreading watching again (I'm looking at you, Shakespeare in Love!) But it should be a cool ride, and I hope it gets me excited about movies again.

Want to join in? Course you do! (Boos pours you a glass of rye (name THAT reference for bonus points!)) It would be cool to make this project a community sort of thing. It starts this coming week. If you try really hard, you can probably find a list of the movies somewhere. Sometime this coming weekend (June 4-6), either write on your own blog and link to it in the comments here or just write up your own entry in my comments. Or just comment on what I say. Want to watch any of these with me? Let me know and I'll let you know when the viewing will happen. Party at my new house!

I do realize that there's a major barrier to the project from the beginning. Wings is not available on DVD. I found a bootleg copy on the internet. If you don't know how to do such a thing, I can get a copy to you if you ask or give you steps to find it. You'll run into the same problem in a couple weeks with Cavalcade. Everything else is out there.

A Memorial Day update.

2010-05-30T13:04:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged in awhile, so this is a general update of a bunch of different things.

The end of the school year is quickly approaching. We have 10 days remaining. Of those 10, I will spend one at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, one at the eighth grade pool party, and one is the last day, which is on a Monday. (Yes, for those of you who aren't involved with the school district, our last day is on a MONDAY. Does that tell you all you need to know about the level of stupidity of those running the district?) So yeah, there are really seven days left. But I have to wake up 10 more times, and that's what counts the most.

As I wrote about many months back, I set trying to lose some weight. My original goal was to lose 20 by 2010. I barely missed that, but I've made up for it. I've now lost over 30 pounds. I feel much better and probably look better too. I still have a year and a few months of gym membership, so I'm not done yet. I'm moving on to new goals and I hope to have a fairly active summer (physically, at least, as I won't really have money to do much else - more on that soon).

Here's a note about human psychology. I think one big reason that I've done so well is my limited gym membership. I picked up the Costco deal, which is two years for $299. The alternate would be to join a gym on a month-to-month contract. But in this deal, I'm limited to 24 months. After that, I have to pay up again if I want to continue. So I never had the "I'll get going next month" mindset. I knew going in that I had two years. Period. It's a similar mindset to this idea. What kinds of New Years Resolutions do successful people make? None. Successful people don't need an arbitrary date to be successful. They do it now. So, I did it "now."

So it looks like I finally have a house. I'm planning to write a good full entry on the entire almost two year saga, so I'll cut that short here. But I'm in contract and heading towards closing on this 3 bedroom, 1 bath in Concord close to Mt. Diablo High. You might be able to see pictures at this link while it lasts. The original contract was a 45 day close plus an option for the buyer to rent for up to 30 original days. Now it trying to close her own deal for the place she's moving to, so that might make everything happen sooner. It looks like all of the potential barriers have been agreed to at this point. So that means I'll be moving anytime from the middle of June to the end of July. I hope we get something nailed down in the next week. That means around that time I'm paying just about every dollar I have saved in the world, so I have nothing to spend at all. But at least I've locked in a 4.5% rate. Suck on that.

My next update ended up being long enough that I made it into its own entry. I should be posting that in minutes.

And hey - anyone want to rent a one bedroom condo on the Concord/Clayton border or know someone who does? Seriously for REAL this time.

Oscar Roundup - 2010

2010-03-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Every year I try to see all five movies nominated for Best Picture. This year the format changed to include ten movies. I set the goal to see seven. Yet when the list was announced, I had seen nine. So I caught the tenth, thus exceeding my goal and once again achieving perfection. I've written about 9/10ths of these previously, so the titles will include links to that.

Avatar

I still don't get it. Yes, it's a beautiful movie. There's some decent action. But there isn't a lot beyond that. There might be one thing that will hurt its chances. Voters are sent screeners - a DVD copy of the movie. So perhaps many people would have seen it on their smaller TVs. In my opinion, as I wrote about originally, that's going to knock a lot of the magic out of it. However this thing made so much money that I doubt a lot of people were waiting to watch it on their screener. I'll be disappointed if it wins.

The Blind Side

This movie isn't bad. It's even somewhat entertaining. But it isn't... good. While it might be unfair to compare it with Precious, you have to when they are in the same catagory. They share enough themes that you have to see which movie presented those themes better than the other. Precious beats The Blind Side all the way. I have a feeling that this movie was nominated so that dumb people will have their movie to cheer for.

District 9

I was very surprised to see this nominated, though it stands zero chance to win. I'm glad it's getting some recognition because of its nomination, but if they wanted to appease the geeks, I would have picked Star Trek.

An Education

I doubt it will win, but it's a VERY good movie. My real hope is that Cary Mulligan will steal the Best Actress award away from Sandra Bullock.

The Hurt Locker

I'm hoping this will win, even though it wasn't my favorite of the group. The simple reason is that every source I've read states that it's down to Avatar and The Hurt Locker. And really, it's the superior film. I still wonder if I will watch this again someday and wish that I had moved it up on my list. I still want to blame the shaky-cam for me not connecting with it. But I will be content if it wins.

Inglourious Basterds

The same sources state that if any movie sneaks in to win it's going to be Inglourious Basterds. I'm totally fine with that. However, its guaranteed Oscar will go to Christoph Waltz. If he doesn't win, it will be a tragedy at the level of Shakespeare in Love defeating Saving Private Ryan.

Precious

Very good movie deserving of all the praise it receives. And like Waltz, Mo'Nique has the award locked up. Though if she loses, the sky won't turn blood red in the same dark shade.

A Serious Man

This was favorite movie of last year, so I'm totally stoked that it was nominated. I hope a lot more people saw it. It stands no chance whatsoever of winning.

Up

Will win, but not in this category. It's cool that the expanded category will allow for the occasional animated movie to be nominated, though none will ever win.

Up in the Air

I actually like this movie more as I think about it more. I'm looking forward to watching it again on DVD. Right now I feel like it has gotten lost in the shuffle. This is one movie that is really getting hurt by the expanded category.

Couple more thoughts: Jeff Bridges should, and deserves to, win for Best Actor. None of the other performances really stand out, and he'll win to finally reward him for his past performances and nomination. I hope Avatar wins lots of technical awards. It deserves them all. But some characters and an engaging story should matter when a movie is nominated for Best Picture. The only documentary I saw was Food, Inc. Watch it if you haven't. I hope the other four nominees give me some movies to Netflix this year.

Annoying Things of the Week

2010-02-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

These are the things that annoyed me this week:

5. Eating - While this was something that I clearly learned to do at a very early age, every once in a while my mouth just forgets how to do it and just decides to crunch down on the side of the inside of my mouth. It's amazing how this can happen. Yesterday I took a nice chunk out of the back of my mouth with my molars. And as you most likely have experienced, it's not just the pain that sucks. It's the fact that now I want to keep biting that part of my mouth when I eat. I think it's a conspiracy. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

4. Target - Speaking of eating, this is one of the best times of year. The Valentine's candy is gone. In its place is Easter candy. When I was a kid I HATED Cadbury Creme Eggs. Then about five or six years ago I had another just because it was handed to me. And that's what you do when someone gives you something to eat. You eat it without question, right? And now I love them. But it isn't the Creme Eggs that I love. It's the hollow chocolate bunnies from Target. They are in the pink and purple foil (Superior brand).

But I always have two problems. The first is that my mind builds up how good they are during the time they don't have them, April through the end of February. So the first one is always really good with the first taste, then that hit of - "That's it? No different from other decent chocolate." I get over that quickly enough and have a few more. Then a bunch more. Because I need to make up for missed time, you know?

But this year, Target jacked up the price. They used to be 99 cents. For something that's barely more chocolate than a candy bar, I was OK with that. But $1.59? Sorry. This economy sucks. So this year, I'll have fewer bunnies. Probably a good thing, since I wouldn't continue losing a pound a week if I were to eat a fleet of bunnies.

3. Olympics - It isn't the event itself that bugs me. I find some of the Winter Olympic Games to be interesting enough to watch for 15-20 minutes once every for years. The halfpipe thing was pretty cool. Again, for just a few minutes, and I've had my fill for quite awhile. Figure skating is possibly the most boring thing on TV. I'll take the test patter over that, thank you very much. And I know most people aren't watching because they like it. They're watching to see if they fall or not. The rest of their (what feels like) 30 minute each routines are horrifically dull.

And I'm also bugged by the time delay. I'm offended that NBC thinks that I need to watch the Olympics during prime time instead of when they actually happen. With their logic, and they going to delay the Super Bowl the next time they get it? I don't want to sift through four plus hours of coverage to see the one thing I want to see which I already know the results of because it's all over the internet.

But what annoys me the most is the lack of counter programming. Everyone is so afraid of the Olympics that there isn't much else to watch. It seems like the only shows showing anything new are Lost and American Idol. I've made the same complaint about American Idol in the past. Every other channel runs away from showing anything at the same time Idol is on. Come on, network execs. I like TV. Put something on that I want to watch and I'll watch that instead of making my way through season 5 of the Sopranos, something that you aren't making any money off of me watching.

2. Eighth Graders - So lazy. SO lazy.

1. At the Movies - This show started as Siskel and Ebert, two guys who love and REALLY understand movies. Then Siskel died. Richard Roeper took over. He took some time, but soon because a suitable replacement. Now I really, really miss him on the show. Ebert then went through a whole bunch of stuff which you can read about in this excellent Esquire interview that prevented him from returning to the show. Roeper went through a rotation of guest critics before the show decided to completely shift gears.

"The Two Bens" time period for the show was clearly the worst. I rarely watched. When I did, it felt like a high school newspaper really liked its own couple of critics and gave them a TV show. It's what you imagine a movie critic would be like who had no knowledge of movies prior to the 1980s. Now I know that one of the Bens was much brighter than the other - Ben Mankiewicz. But Ben Lyons was a joke. And the other Ben gets lumped in with the other. Too bad.

The makers of the show soon went back to the more tried and true version of the show, hiring Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott, two guys who were frequently in the critic rotation opposite Richard Roeper. I was exciting and actually started watching the show again. For the first couple months, I was trying to figure out which guy I agrees with more. And this was a problem for me. I really wanted to know which guy to "trust."

You see, with Roger Ebert, I don't always agree with him, but when I don't I know why. I can read one of his reviews and know whether I'll agree with him or now. And even if I totally hate a movie he loved, I'm going to learn something new about the movie. I'm going to look at it in a different way. So at the very least, I can use his reviews.

But A.O (Tony) and Michael? I just can't get their reviews. And I think I finally figured out why. Siskel and Ebert discussed the movies. When they argued, they were defending the movies. Roeper soon came around to doing the same thing. But these two guys, while they have some good movie knowledge, they seem to be defending themselves instead of the movies. And with this, I've finally come across the word to describe these guys. "Smarmy." I'll still watch the show because I enjoy being introduced to movies I wouldn't have known about otherwise. But I now can skip past most of their reviews because I know that it's going to be more about them than it is about the movies. If I want Smarmy, I'll read my own stuff, thank you very much.

So what annoyed you this week?

Annoying Things of the Week

2010-02-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

These are the things that annoyed me this week*.

5. The Star Spangled Banner - It's Super Bowl Sunday, which means that instead of all of the lame pregame activities going on in the background, we ~~have to~~ get to watch the festivities. This means we're going to be subjected to someone famous belting out their shitty version of our Anthem. I have no idea which Grammy winning abortion is crooning this year's Anthem, but I have a feeling that they've spent a little too much time over the past few weeks listening to Whitney Houston's horrific version.

Now I'm not annoyed for patriotic reasons. I'd prefer to skip the whole thing together. Along with our misleading and inaccurate Pledge of Allegiance, I'd rather we get rid of the whole flag worship and concentrate on making the promise real for everyone. I generally skip the Pledge in the morning because I have first period prep. While I'm in a classroom, though, I'll mumble select parts of it that I'm interested in. It pretty much consists of me saying "Liberty and Justice" and that's about it.

But the Star Spangled Banner has become somewhere between a funeral dirge and a Barry White tune. Sorry, but it's not a song to which I'm interested in getting it on. I'll save that for the flag hugging right wingers. I can imagine McCain telling his wife that "No need for the blue pill tonight!" right after listening to the Anthem. But let's pick up the tempo on that thing and get rid of the runs that show off the majesty of your digitally altered voice. How about we keep it under three minutes? And another thing. The song is in 3/4. Don't change it to 4/4 just to make it sound hip.

4. Inmates Dancing - Many of us saw video of the inmates dancing to Thriller. And about a week ago we got some fantastic news - they were back with more Michael Jackson dancing goodness! Ummm... they're inmates. I don't want to see them do anything except sit in their cells and rot or quietly rehabilitate themselves so that they can be productive (or at least nondestructive) members of society if and when they get out of prison. This is a fascination that I can't comprehend on any level.

3. Jury Duty - Well - look who decided that he didn't have to go to jury duty. "I'm the President and have to give a speech, so I'm not going. Blah blah wah." He should have been right by his phone at 5 o'clock dialing that number to see if he had to get his butt down to the courthouse like the rest of us. I have a feeling he might have been excused. But still - do your civic duty.

I had jury duty scheduled for December 31 of last year. I was worried that I would have to go since I was in group one, but the phone call told me that I didn't have to go. Speaking of phone call, why isn't that on the internet now? How hard is that?

I've only had to go to the courthouse once for jury duty. Every other time my phone call told me to call back the next day or stay home. The one time I did I sat around for most of the day until we were called in to the courtroom. They started jury selection, then told us to go home and come back the next day. I returned, and after a couple hours I was next. The conversation went a little something like this.

"What is your profession?"

"I'm a teacher."

"What do you teach?"

"U.S. History."

"Does that involve the Constitution? Do you teach the Constitution?"

"Yes."

"We'd like to excuse Mr. Harris."

The End.

2. Eighth Graders - I don't understand why they exist.

1. Pants on the Ground - Usually, I have no problem with pants being on the ground. In many cases, I encourage it. We, as a society, are wearing too much pants. But enough with the American Idol "next phenominon "crap.

This isn't a new rant by any means. Plenty of people repeat the same thing every January when it returns to the air. We're making fun of the mentally challenged as a nation. While that might sound like I'm trying to be funny by using that phrase, mentally challenged, but it's accurate. These people who we like to laugh at have problems. For many of them, they are simply socially awkward. For many others, they don't have a connection with reality.

One thing I certainly don't want to do is jump on Sarah Palin's ban the R-word band wagon. I almost want to use the word retarded even more just because of her. I probably use it much more often now than I used to thanks to Adam Carolla and his usage of it. And also, I have my American Idol make-fun-of-ness weakness. There's always an occasion to bust out some William Hung.

And then again, that's where it really started, isn't it? Yeah, there were plenty of people on the show that we as a nation made fun of while it was on. But Hung was the one where Fox sold the show on him and him alone. Commercials told you that you HAD to watch the episode just to see... what you were already seeing in the commercials. And Pants on the Ground was the same thing.

And I think where I draw the line is when it becomes a national thing. I feel my own hypocrisy when I sit to watch something like that on my own. Or when it's a private joke. A racist or sexist or whatever other offensive joke among friends isn't such a bad thing, especially because the people you're doing it with know that you don't really feel that way. But when we do it as a society, you know that a lot of people don't consider it a joke - they're serious about that thing.

I know this particular rant has been all over the place an inconsistent, but I'm getting to my real point. Why did Brett Favre really lose the championship game? payback for singing Pants on the Ground in the locker room.

So what annoyed you this week?

*If it seems like a few of these are a bit out of date, they actually annoyed me last week. I just didn't finish writing it and decided to wait until this week. So it's really Annoying Things of the Past Two Weeks. #2 counts for both weeks.

Annoying Things of the Week

2010-01-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

These are the things that annoyed me this week.

5. Dexter - I watched season 3 this past week. My first annoyance is that the season started too slowly. Luckily, it picked up, so I think it was worth it. But my annoyance, as I've written about briefly before, is that they supporting cast and their stories SUCK.

Season three featured an increasingly fascinating relationship between serial killer Dexter and Miguel Prado, played by Bail Organa. Everytime they were on screen, the scenes were electric. Their friendship/cat-and-mouse game worked. But it was too small of a part of the season. But the supporting storylines were dull. And what made it even worse is that the writers did a great job of tying these storylines to the main line, which means I couldn't skip past them. I really believe that if you took all of the Dexter scenes out of the show that it would be one of the worst things on TV.

4. James Buchanan - Worst. President. Ever. And we named our airport and golf course after him. Good job learning your history, Concord!

3. Dreams - The ones that come to you while you sleep as opposed to the kind where you wish your life would go if you ever got off of your ass and did something about it. My dreams are too manipulative. I woke up this morning believing that I'd had the most innovative idea ever in dream form. I quickly snapped on the snooze so that I could get back to sleep and gain more insight. This went on for way too long this morning. If it weren't for my bladder, I might still be there trying to capture a glimmer of more insight.

Here's the big problem. This dream was fucking lame. I dreamed that I had innovated the game of football. instead of teams going head-to-head, they would now go head-to-head-to-head. Yep. Three teams would play each other all together. And how would that work? The third team would wait on their sideline. As the dream defined it, the third team sideline was behind the goal line. When a team would give up a score or a turnover, they would also give up their spot on the field. The third team would then come in to play. So Team A plays Team B while Team C wait on the sidelines. Team A scores. So Team B has to go off the field while Team C takes the kickoff. Then Team C punts away, but throws an interception on the next play. Team A must leave the field and Team B takes their place. While I was asleep, it was brilliant.

2. Eighth graders - Seriously. Lame.

1. Parties - Specifically, parties that do NOT feature Rock Band. Any party that requires you to talk with others is a bummer. Who wants to meet people? Lance and I discussed this at Justin & Leah's Excellent Rock Band party last week. When you have Rock Band, you have something to focus on. If you don't want to talk to people, you just take part in the Rock Band awesomeness or you pay attention to others.

The big deal isn't really meeting people. It's small talk. I'm not big on starting a conversation. It's mostly a self esteem issue. Who wants to talk me, and why shold they? Though it's not all me - I don't want to talk to most people, either. But I'm also not having a light-hearted conversation with someone who I'll likely never see again.

Actually, I'm not interested in having light-hearted conversations at all. I like to complain. I like to argue. I like to discuss things with relevance. I like to crack wise. I like to make potentially offensive statements. But if I'm meeting someone for the first time, they might actually take those statements seriously. I'm not offended when someone tells me that I'm wrong, but I'm going to argue otherwise. And too many people just can't handle that.

So what annoyed you this week?

Annoying Things of the Week

2010-01-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

These are the things that annoyed me this week.

5. Jay Leno - Yep, I'm on Team Coco. Conan is much funnier than Jay is now. This doesn't mean that Jay wasn't a funny guy. I've read a few articles over the past week saying the same thing, that Jay lost his edge when he began hosting the Tonight Show. I remember going to see Jay at the Concord Pavilion before he took over as the host. He was pretty funny.

But Conan is following along Letterman's style of being spontaneous and sarcastic. And also of being funny. Jay quit that many years ago. While many people site the Masturbating Bear as an example of Conan's edginess, I've always prefered the Gaseous Weiner.

But I don't really blame Jay for what's going on. He's taking care of himself. his show didn't work at 10, so he wants something else instead of getting fired. It's business. It's his life. He should be doing what he's doing. That is, if it weren't for this clip. Ah well. Looks like starting soon I get to go to bed after Letterman's comedy
bit instead of Conans.

4. Awareness - I don't know about the rest of you, but there's something going on in this country that I had no clue about. You aren't going to believe this, but women, and sometimes men, can get cancer in their breasts! I suspect that a wizard was trying to cover up the concept of breast cancer and the only way to break his spell was to have the women of America post their bra color onto a social media site!

Seriously, though, if you posted yours just to have fun, as another Facebook meme, great. That's what it was. And there's certainly no negative to posting it. I realize that most people posted it as much for the shock value (though I can't imagine a person with stable emotions and normal sensibilities being shocked), and most of the rest posted it for fun.

But did any of you really post it to raise awareness? And if so, you didn't actually do anything. Next time, try again. But post it more like this:

"Black.
About 192,370 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed in American women in 2009. Visit http://ww5.komen.org to donate and become more aware."

3. Peter Jackson - His first movie, Bad Taste, is the funniest movie ever. Hands down, no argument. I like his movies between Bad Taste and the Lord of the Rings movies, which I loved. While not as much as Lance, I really liked King Kong. So with The Lovely Bones, what happened, Peter?

Under most circumstances, the two idiots to either side of me texting throughout the movie would have bothered me the most. Or it could have been the group of four high school kids in front of my clinking their beer bottles throughout from beginning to end (and constantly getting up to do whatever). But this time, the movie was worse.

This was one of the worst movies I've seen in the past few years. Technically, it's well made. The look of heaven (or whatever it's called) is pretty. Stanley Tucci is really good as a child rapist/killer,but he's still a child rapist/killer. It isn't that theme that bothers me. I really liked Little Children, which dealt with a similar theme. There are scenes that feel like they should be parodies of light hearted family films, but they aren't.

Roger Ebert opens his review this way: "The Lovely Bones is a deplorable film with this message: If you're a 14-year-old girl who has been brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer, you have a lot to look forward to." I felt unclean after watching, especially after the kiss scene. Deplorable, indeed.

I started reading this book a few years ago, but become too bored to finish. Anyone out there read the book and see the movie? Is it faithful?

2. Eighth graders - Completely unnecessary.

1. Bill Tam - This is the guy who wants to be removed as a defendant in the Prop 8 case. he rallied his bigoted troops together in support of Prop 8 with such statements as "One by one, other states would fall into Satan's hands," and "Every child, when growing up, would fantasize marrying someone of the same sex. More children would become homosexuals."

Guess what, Bill? You spewed hatred and bullshit in your attempt to make sure that two dudes aren't living in a situation that would make them happy and have no impact on you whatsoever. You deserve to be a defendant. And I believe you deserve to lose. You don't get to take away rights from people and get away with it.

As I've made fairly clear on my blog before, I'm not a religious person. That means I believe that the whole "Satan" argument is also bullshit. But allow me to come at this assuming that there is such thing. If you use Satan in your propaganda, you are using Satan. Go have a talk with your buddy Pat Robertson and see if you the two of you can figure out a way out of this.

So what annoyed you this week?

Moja

2010-01-11T20:46:00.000-08:00

#1 - A Serious Man

My #2 movie, 500 Days of Summer, was a great movie but was incomplete in a few ways. A Serious Man is complete. It's perfect. Everything works.

I've enjoyed some Coen Brothers movies in the past. My favorite is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? But I've also been bored by some. I couldn't make it through The Man Who Wasn't There. While they certainly hit more than they miss, I don't know if I've ever been more than a casual fan.

If I had any problem with this movie it's that I'm not Jewish so I probably didn't catch some things here and there. But even if that's the case, it was presented for everybody. So if you're a gentile worried that you won't get it, worry no longer.

I knew the basic idea of the story going in. The Coen Brothers were retelling the story of Job. In case you don't know his story, God gets a long term case of diarrhea and uses Job instead of a toilet.

But even though I knew that this guy was going to get crapped on, it was still filled with plenty of surprises. There's a great scene involving a couple cars driving along. You know what's going to happen, but not really.

Every scene is essential and perfect, filled with a lot of fantastic, snappy dialogue, particularly from the rabbis (rabbanim? rabbii?) that Larry goes to visit.

For the lead, they couldn't have cast Larry Gopnik any more perfectly that Michael Stuhlbarg. He's basically an unknown. I see from his IMDB page that he was in Cold Souls and a couple episodes of Studio 60, but I didn't recognize him. And that's the way it needed to be. He needed to be an everyman. Jake Gyllenhaal, Shia LaBeouf or Corey Feldman couldn't have been Larry Gopnik. That's right. I chose the Tochnit Av Triumvirate of Jake, Shia, and Corey as my token Jewish actors.

Mbili

2010-01-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

#2 - 500 Days of Summer

The narrator warns at the very beginning that, "This is not a love story." And it isn't. But still is.

The makers of 500 Days of Summer took a lot of chances. They tried a bunch of little tricks throughout the movie. I can totally understand if someone were to watch this movie and say that they didn't work. But for me, they were excellent.

Some examples include the little movie montages, as if you're watching an old documentary. They throw in a little bit of a Ingmar Bergman parody (combined with its IKEA scenes - makes we wonder if I liked it only because I had just returned from Sweden). There's a great split screen scene showing Expectations vs. Reality.

One of the best parts of the movie is that isn't out of chronological order. Now this isn't unique, but they do it for all the right reasons. They lay out a series of expectations that they slowly shatter as the context is revealed. The order of the scenes is very carefully and beautifully choreographed.

My absolute favorite scene of 2009 (just ending out the opening of Inglourious Basterds) brings out the full cheesiness of Hall and Oates You Make My Dreams. For those of you who have seen it, I'm embedding the video of this scene below for you to relive its glory. If you haven't seen it, go watch the movie instead. Save the scene for the context of the movie.

To be honest, not every bit of this movie works, which is probably why it hit #2 instead of #1 on my list. I'm not a huge fan of the supporting cast. And there are a few bits of dialogue that are too sit-com for me. But the leads, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, are perfect. The story is perfect. And the 95% of the movie that does work is excellent.

Tatu

2010-01-09T15:48:00.000-08:00

#3 - Inglourious Basterds

Much like Up, Inglourious Basterds is on my list because of the opening scene. Christoph Waltz is brilliant as "The Jew Hunter," Hans Landa. If we don't see Waltz holding up the Best Supporting Oscar trophy this year, it will be the Academy's most egregious error since Saving Private Ryan didn't win Best Picture.

The only question might be whether he's only a supporting actor. Is Brad Pitt the lead? I think that Waltz is probably in this movie more than Pitt is. I'm still blaming Pitt for the really crappy Benjamin Button, but he's pretty good in this as well. He might get that Curious Case of stink off of him sometime soon.

He's actually great in every scene he appears in, but the opening is his showcase. It sets the mood right up front that moves through the rest of the movie. I could easily see this scene showing up as a one act play. I dread watching that high school production, but at least Waltz's performance will be ready to wash it away.

To understand and appreciate music, especially classical music, one must be able to appreciate tension and release. Great music builds you up to a point where you almost can't handle it anymore, but gives you the critical release. That's also the key to some other things in life, but kids read this, so use your imagination.

Quentin Tarantino gives a clinic on tension and release in movies. Each scene, not just the first one, is its own short film. Each scene gives the characters reason to squirm. But more importantly, so does the audience. While you might not like the way he releases the tension, but he does.

Honestly, I haven't read or heard anything really negative about Inglourious Basterds from anybody who I consider to be intelligent. I guess, in that case, if you've been around me and had bad things to say, that tells you what I think. If anything? It's too long. However, since you can view it like a bunch of individual films, it will be easy to watch on DVD. You can easily break it into parts and still be satisfied.

Nne

2010-01-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

#4 - An Education

An Education was a real surprise for me. I threw in this movie near the end of the year on a whim. I wanted to get some delicious Cheeseboard, so I figured I might as well go see a movie while I was in Berkeley. This was the only movie I hadn't seen that I had even the mildest interest in watching.

It turned out to be excellent. In the lead role, Carey Mulligan makes the entire movie work. She's a wide eyed young woman getting in a situation that's way over her head, but she's smart. It's not enough to just have the script put words in someone's mouth to show us that they're smart. There has to be something in their eyes.

Any teacher can tell you the same thing. There are some people who you can just tell whether anything is going on inside their heads by looking into their eyes.

I've been watching the TV show Veronica Mars. It stars Kristen Bell from the excellentForgetting Sarah Marshall. She's hot. But I've seen commercials for her over the last week or so for her upcoming movie When in Rome. She is still hot, but doesn't look as hot. I think it's because on Veronica Mars, she's smart. Her character in this new movie looks like your typical cliche romantic comedy role. The type that the extremely untalented Kate Hudson would usually play. That's why Bell is hotter as Mars.

This is the first time that I've seen Carey Mulligan, but we'll see more from her. She handles the character and everything it goes through like a pro. An Education is actually a similar story to Up in the Air. But it presents a totally different way of looking at it. Obviously, I recommend both movies.

Tano

2010-01-06T22:47:00.000-08:00

#5 - Up in the Air

Up in the Air is the third movie from Jason Reitman. I just wrote about his first movie, Thank You for Smoking, in my best of the decade blog. I liked his second movie, Juno, quote a bit, though not as much. I've since discovered that it's mostly the pretentious soundtrack that turns me off.

I liked Up in the Air for a lot of the same reasons that I liked Thank You for Smoking. George Clooney's character, Ryan Bingham, is as real to me as Aaron Eckhart's Nick Naylor. He's a confident character in his profession. He knows exactly what he's doing every step of they way while he's working. But then when it comes to his personal life, that's a bit more of a disaster.

Ryan Bingham's has no real personal ties. He has family members who are more like acquaintances. Friends are mostly people he meets on the job, and therefore more like acquantances. They know who he is on the outside, but not much about who he really is. This is a theme that I found in common with those from Funny People. And perhaps I'm again drawn to it because it might be a bit personal.

The trailers for Up in the Air don't appeal to me. In reality, a lot of what they show is out of context. They present it as a light,quirky comedy. But it's more than that. It's more of a drama that's light on the outside but has a bit more of the darkness of real life. And by that I don't mean that it's a dark comedy. It has some real moments that I lot of people might find to be a bit uncomfortable, even though its best notes are quite subtle.

I've read a lot of what the critics have had to say, but I haven't heard from any "normal" folk who have seen it. I have a feeling that the average film goer might be a bit lukewarm after seeing it, mostly because it isn't just that light hearted comedy they're looking for. Near the end, Up in the Air takes a turn that is going to bother people. The movie isn't wrapped up in a neat package with a tight bow.

And in the end, can the average person really believe that some people actually like being alone? We do exist. And that's probably why I like this movie as much as I do. I'm actually looking forward to watching this again. i have a feeling that I'm going to like it even more the next time, and I might even like it as much or more than Thank You for Smoking.

Sita

2010-01-05T20:15:00.001-08:00

#6 - World's Greatest Dad

I don't want to say too much about World's Greatest Dad because you need to go into it without knowing what's going to happen. So I'll be vague.

The first thing that immediately popped into my head when first learning about this movie is the movie Fathers' Day. Clearly, this is because they both start Robin Williams and have a father in the title. I didn't see that movie, but it doesn't look very good.

This is not that movie.

This is probably my favorite Robin Williams role. He is different from anything else he has done before here. I would even say that if you don't like Williams, you'll still like this.

World's Greatest Dad was written and Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. Many of you might only know him from the Police Academy movies. You only know him by his "Grover voice," as Goldthwait calls it. In that case, you don't know him. He isn't like that all the time. One of his standup shows is even called Is He Like That All the Time?

This is a dark, messed up movie. The only reason to skip World's Greatest Dad is if you don't like black comedy. If you do, check it out. Get ready for some Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuce! (Hornsby, not Springsteen)

Saba

2010-01-04T20:51:00.000-08:00

#7 - Funny People

I'm finding it difficult to explain why I liked Funny People as much as I did. It's kinda funny, but not necessarily hilarious. It has a good story, but not really great.

Perhaps it is the emotion that goes along with it. Adam Sandler plays a guy that is pretty much alone. He doesn't really have any close friends or family that he can really confide in. The more I hear comics (or people who know them) talking about comics, then more I understand how tortured they often are. It's this torture that drives their comedy.

While I doubt anyone will agree with me,, I feel the same about Funny People as I did about Lost in Translation. Both movies deal with comics in a more serious role as a sad, lonely comic. Both have this lonely person meeting someone who fulfills that loneliness for awhile.

I liked Funny People when I saw it in the theaters, and something about it keeps popping back into my head, increasing how much I liked it. I haven't seen it since the first time. I'm curious what a repeat viewing will reveal for me.

Nane

2010-01-03T21:52:00.000-08:00

#8 - Up

Is Up in my top ten only because of the first ten minutes? Absolutely. The opening of this movie is perfect. From the newsreel to the music, frame by frame it's perfect.

But the rest of the movie is pretty good as well. My lack of knowing anything about the movie helped as well. I knew that there was a guy who put balloons on his house to make it go up. But I had know idea where it was going, so that made the movie a bit of a surprise for me.

With all Pixar movies, there's a good mixture of comedy with the emotion. My favorite line? Dug (the dog) said, "Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, 'I forgot to store acorns for the winter and now I am dead.' Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead." That's good stuff.

A Decade of Movies

2010-01-02T18:17:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd go ahead and throw a quick list of my favorite movies of the decade that I saw in the theaters. I didn't start keeping track until 2004. For 2000 to 2003, I had to scan a list of movies and see what I had seen. I probably missed several, so I have a lot more from 2004 on. Also, I didn't go to the movies as often early in the decade. This means that movies like American Psycho, Memento, and City of God that I saw at home aren't on this list. And finally, I'm just throwing it together quickly, so whatever.

I have three that came close, but I chose to leave them off. They are my number 1 and 2 from this year (which I'll get to in just over a week) and The Aristocrats. Quite a few of the comedians were guests on Penn Jillette's radio show, so got to "know" many of them even more. It is a good introduction to many comedians as well. Really, really funny movie.

10. Gangs of New York

I enjoys Scorsese movies, but I love me some Daniel Day Lewis. He drinks my milkshake. I'm still not convinced that Leonardo DiCaprio is such a great actor, since no matter how much he ages, he's still Luke from Growing Pains. But in Gangs of New York, he needed to naïve. I love the setting and the look of old New York.

9. Thank You For Smoking

I love Nick Naylor, the character. Aaron Eckhart is perfect in a role that should be a horrible person, but he isn't. He has a horrible job. Jason Reitman showed up what he could do before Up in the Air, which I also loved. It will make an appearance in my top 10 for 2009.

8. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

The funniest movie of the decade. Yeah, I said it. It's the most quotable as well. I've had this movie with me on road trips and just listened to it while I drive.

7. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Crazy movie. it never takes itself seriously, and I like that. The dialogue is all smart ass,and I feel close to that. Watch it to see why Robert Downey, Jr. is one of the best. I haven't seen this in a while, something that I need to correct soon.

6. In Bruges

When I made my list for 2008, I came down to the top four and kept switching around the order. I picked Slumdog Millionaire at the time. I didn't pick In Bruges, most likely, because it had been awhile since I had seen it. After rewatching both over the course of this year, In Bruges sticks out. It has its moments of crazy, but Ray (Colin Farrell) is a GREAT character. Speaking of Colin Farrell, he had one of the best cameos in 2009. His role might actually be bigger than a cameo. But don't go looking for it on IMDB - that will spoil it for you (through it wasn't the best cameo of the year - that was in Zombieland).

5. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

I loved absolutely everything about it. I even liked all of the endings. if you think about it as 20+ minutes to end a three hour movie, that's overkill. But it's 20+ minutes to end three three hour movies. In that case, is it so much? I even liked the extended versions on DVD. And yes, this really is for all three movies. But each one was better than the last, so I agree with the Academy and I'll give it to Return of the King.

4. Sin City

See Avatar? I can enjoy a movie that is nutty for CGI. For me, my reaction watching this movie was the one I read about from other people with Avatar. Except this was almost five years ago. And I think it's a more beautiful movie. I like how the stories fit together. I like the characters. But most importantly, it looks perfect. Possibly my favorite few seconds of a movie of the decade? Watch here starting at 1:55. Stuka's (the guy who gets hit) reaction is priceless.

3. Garden State

This, along with my #2, are mostly about the music. I love the soundtrack to Garden State. A lot of the songs appeared scattered throughout Scrubs as well. It's a soundtrack that sets a definite mood. But I also love Zack Braff and Natalie Portman in here. Here's a quote from Braff character, Andrew Largeman. "I spent 26 years waiting for something else to start." How many people wait 26 years to start living? Or even more? Time to wake up.

2. Once

My expectations were raised before I saw this movie. I liked it quite a bit, but didn't love it. Then it started to sink in, and I bought the soundtrack. Over the next couple months I started to love it. I've watched it a few times since, and it doesn't get old. I love the music even more. I love the characters even more.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I've come close to answering "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" when I've been asked my favorite movie. I've always hesitated because it seems too new. But it's been more than five years, so I'm going to go ahead and declare right here that it's my favorite. Since I talked about music for the past couple movies, I love it here, too. I love the soundtrack. Take a listen:

And I love the music video with Light and Day from The Polyphonic Spree. It's kinda creepy, but fits alongside the movie.

Why do I love this movie? It's everything. It's the Academy Award winning script from Charlie Kaufman. It's Jim Carrey's perfect performance as Joel. He isn't too subtle, and he isn't over the top. It's Kate Winslet's perfect performance as Clementine. You fall in love with her along with Joel, and you want to forget her for all the right reasons - because you're in love with her, too. It's the great scenes and images that not even Lacuna, Inc. could make you forget.

I've flipped movies around on this list a few times. Every year, I state that my list is never really complete - I just have to make a decision before I post it. But Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has never moved from the number one spot on this list.

Tisa

2010-01-02T16:52:00.001-08:00

#9 - The Hangover

For a brief moment, I considered bumping The Hangover from the list. Then I decided to watch a few minutes of this a couple nights ago. I ended up watching the whole thing. And it held up really well.

There were plenty of funny moments that were still funny ("What is this? A snakeskin?"). There were funny moments that I had forgotten about ("I didn't know they gave out rings at the Holocaust."). There were funny moments that I don't think I noticed the first time around ("I'll hit an old man in public!").

Haley once stated that Bradley Cooper's character Phil reminded him of me, and I take that as a compliment. It's because of his attitude as he's trying to leave school for his weekend. "It’s the weekend, Budnick, I do not know you. You do not exist." And soon after, "Shut and drive before one of these nerds ask me another question."

And then there's Phil's outgoing message on his cell. If I didn't also use my cell for students and their parents, I would definitely change it to this: "Hey. This is Phil. Leave me a message. Or don't. But do me a favor. Don't text me. It's gay." Though I would probably change the name... But still, don't text me.

One thing I give the makers of this movie, especially the writers, credit for is telling the story they way they did. It's told from the next day as the characters are trying to put things together. And yes, I know that's the whole point. But your typical mainstream comedy would have just told the story through the night. After all, that's the most outrageous stuff. But we're only teased with that. And it worked for me.

Comedy is subjective, so I know it's easy to disagree. And I saw The Hangover before expectations are too high. That said, I invite you to read Nolan's counter argument, and I invite him to click on the "WRONG!" button on my new reaction meter down just above the comment link.

Kumi

2010-01-01T22:23:00.001-08:00

#10 - The Road

I started reading The Road several months back. In an attempt to make the future apocalypse more chaotic, author Cormac McCarthy does away with several conventions of grammar. For example, there is rarely any punctuation beyond periods, and never quotation marks. Things like that always feel like a gimmick to me, so it took me some time to get into it (in addition to my Reader's Block).

Once I made it to about the halfway point, I breezed through the rest of the book in a few hours. It's a deeply emotional book about these two characters. I feel like the ending for the father (who is unnamed) reaches the most logical and satisfying conclusion that it can. I'm not as convinced about the ending for the son (also unnamed), but it's really the father's story.

While watching the movie, I was forced to compare it with the book. I thought it was as faithful as it really could be, with one exception. Minor spoiler here: I felt that in the book, the material on the beach was the most emotional. This was especially true of the scene when they shoot off the flare gun like a firework. Most of this was cut from the movie.

After watching previews, I was worried that they were going to use the flashbacks too often. While they did show more than the book, I thought this was an improvement over the book. They certainly didn't show too much.

Viggo Mortensen was the best choice for the father. The father needs to show sadness, but hope when talking to his son. He did a great job in juggling those responsibilities.

There are some amazing shots in this movie when they show the desolate landscapes. I sometimes had to stop for a moment to remind myself that it doesn't really exist anywhere, so this has to be a special effect, either a CGI or matte painting. I've read a few people state that it's the most realistic vision of an apocalyptic future seen in movies. I don't know about that, as the circumstances of the despair (which aren't explained here) make a difference. But it does seem like a realistic possible future.

2009 - Honorable Mention

2010-01-01T22:05:00.000-08:00

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

This movie is simply nuts. When I wrote about Taking Woodstock and Extract, I mentioned that movie makers all seem to show drug trips the same way. They all use wavy camera trick. I wanted a movie that showed something different. Bad Lieutenant shows it differently.

I haven't seen the original Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel, but from what I understand this uses little more than the title.

I'm convinced that Nicolas Cage isn't a great actor. He's a good actor, but he's insane. The guy picks bizarre movies. He named his child Kal-El. While that's the most awesome thing ever, it's still nucking futs. He married Lisa Marie Presley, and she only marries complete nut jobs.

But when the role calls for someone to be absolutely insane, Cage nails it. My favorite role of his was in Adaptation, where he played twins. But the part was rather insane. In Bad Lieutenant, very few people could have played Lieutenant Terrence McDonagh. The actor had to be fearless - they couldn't be afraid to go over the top and then keep going further. Well, fearless or insane.

This is such a bizarre movie. And I mean that in the best possible way. You will have no idea where its going, and you might not even be sure where you've been. But in the end it still makes sense. Sort of. Enough, at least, to enjoy it. I was sad that I couldn't find room for it in my top 10, but it deserves honorable mention for the year 2009.

Crazy Heart and Broken Embraces

2009-12-31T19:45:00.000-08:00

Crazy Heart is getting a lot of buzz because of Jeff Bridges in his performance as a washed up country star named Bad Blake. In the movies I've seen this year, I can't think of any lead actor roles that dominated a film as much as this, so I'll be surprised if he doesn't win.

When I wrote about Me and Orson Welles, I mentioned that a couple of the performances were great, but I had no other roles from them to compare. With Bridges, he was Flynn, the creator of Tron. He was the Starman. He was recently Obadiah Stane in Iron Man. Most importantly, he IS The Dude. Looking at his resume, he has been quite diverse, and he has been nominated many times. He should win this one.

So how's the movie? It's pretty good. It reminded me of The Wrestler in some ways, as Bad Blake is at a similar point in his career as Randy "The Ram" was in his. I'm not a country music fan by any stretch, but the music, all performed by Bridges, is fun. I felt like the movie lost a bit of steam near the end, but as an alcoholic, it needed to follow one of two paths with the character. it definitely wasn't enough to ruin it, though. I recommend checking it out once it finally arrives at a more convenient theater.

On the other hand here's a movie I'm not as wild about. I'm going to admit right up front the awful truth about Broken Embraces. I didn't get it.

It's not that I didn't understand the plot (or that I couldn't figure out that you had to read the subtitles in order to understand the foreign words they were saying).

I didn't understand why anyone was doing what they were doing. I understand that there was a theme with things being in pieces, and that's why the movie is told that way. But I don't understand what it has to do with whatever the point of the movie is.

The inner teenager inside me wants to go ahead and dismiss the whole movie. I didn't understand it, so I have to just say it's hella gay and hecka boring. There are many good reasons why I'm not a movie critic, and this movie just shows me one of them. I'm just missing the whole point.

SO - this ends my Movie-a-Day entries. I saw 45 movies in the theaters in 2009, and I had a blast hitting that mark. Over the past month, I wrote about 34 of them. For those who are not so mathematically inclined, that leaves 11. Tomorrow I'll start counting down. I have a number 11 choice that I liked too much to leave off, so I'm giving it a runner up award. I'll write about that and number 10 tomorrow. Just a reminder that these aren't the BEST movies of 2009- these were my favorites. The best would probably include Precious, The Hurt Locker, and the Fantastic Mr. Fox. But I liked these more.

Red Cliff

2009-12-31T10:12:00.000-08:00

Last night I had to make a horrible decision. It was Sophie's Choice in my home. Since I haven't seen that movie, I have to assume that someone named Sophie had to decide which great movie to bump off of her top ten list. I had to bump Red Cliff.

Red Cliff gets a unique and different complaint. It's not long enough. That isn't exactly true. It's just that this movie was released in Asia in two parts, each two and a half hours long. We Americans received one movie. The two parts were edited down into a single two and a half hour movie. Clearly, they were listening to idiots like me who complain that movies are too long. I'm hoping that a DVD release will restore the 148 minute version back to 280.

If you haven't heard of Red Cliff, it's a Chinese history/war movie. It shows the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period, a time when China was between the Han and Jin dynasties. It was directed by John Woo and broke the Chinese box office record.

The closest movie I can compare it with is Mongol. If you saw it and liked it, you might just give Red Cliff a chance. And if you haven't, I'd pop that one into your Netflix queue and take a look.

There are parts of the movie that are a bit tough to follow, and that's ultimately why I knocked it out of the top ten. I wonder how much that has to do with the editing and how much has to do with my lack of cultural understanding.

Still, the battle scenes are amazing to watch. They are visual masterpieces. One of the main characters is the military strategist, so they spend a little time with military formations such as the butterfly and turtle. They are really cool to watch unfold and it becomes clear why they are so named.

I don't teach any Chinese history, and I'm certainly no expert. I can't speak at all of the historical accuracy of Red Cliff other than what I have found with a quick google search. But it doesn't matter. It's a good movie, and I hope some of you who haven't heard of it (or Mongol) will go check it out.

A Single Man

2009-12-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

I don't feel like I have a lot to say about A Single Man. Is it good? Yes, I guess.

It's a "theater" movie for me. This means that if I had waited to watch it on DVD, I might not have finished it. It has a slow, deliberate pace. It's not that this is a bad thing. I like stories that take their time to develop character.

Also, many movies are quite rewarding if you can make it though them. For example, Gone With the Wind is excruciatingly long. It's a great movie, but it's a movie that I prefer to have seen than to see. Back in 2006, I put the Woody Allen movie Match Play at number 8 in my top 10. If I had been watching at home, I surely would have stopped. But since I was in the theater, I got to the last act, where everything finally pays off.

A Single Man is a movie that deals with depression, broken hearts, and suicide. It isn't an easy movie to watch because of these things. Colin Firth is very good. But overall, it just didn't speak to me.

Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-30T21:21:00.000-08:00

I don't have any real previous feelings toward the character of Sherlock Holmes. I think my biggest exposure to him was in Steven Spielberg's Young Sherlock Holmes, but it has been quite a long time since I've seen that. I seem to remember reading a Stephen King short story about Holmes, but I don't remember which collection that was in or whether I liked it or not.

The biggest complaint I've heard about the new Sherlock Holmes is that it turns Holmes into an action hero. I'm going to mildly disagree with even that notion. Allow me first to acknowledge that yes, there is probably more action than Doyle meant Holmes to have. But I liked the "thinking" part of his fighting.

If you haven't seen it yet, this paragraph might be a mild spoiler, but not for story. As Holmes fights, he thinks through each move he is going to make. You "hear" his analysis of each punch, kick, or block before he makes it. The idea reads as very cheesy. It felt a bit like something the Terminator would do. Think about the scene in Terminator 2 when Arnold is analyzing how to take out the police force without killing any of them.

But you know what? I bought it. It worked for me. Surprisingly enough, I liked this use of slow motion. But it also worked to make Holmes a thinker all the way through, which is necessary for him. The rest of the action didn't take up too much of the movie, I thought. I don't think I would be willing to defend it too much beyond that, however. If one were to argue that it amounted to dumbing down the movie to make it more accessible to mass audiences, I would agree. Do we want to dumb down a Holmes movie?

The plot wasn't anything too brilliant, but it was good enough. The best reason to watch is the interaction between Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law). They worked well together, and the best scenes were the ones when they were bickering.

Also, I enjoyed all scenes when Holmes is one step ahead of everyone else. He notices these minor details (a bit of chalk on the lapel, meaning someone is a professor) and plans out the entire scene before he says a word. I was thinking about this in one scene when Holmes then states that he has a question. I immediately thought that it was out of character, and that he wouldn't need to ask a question in this scene. It turned out the be a rhetorical question showing again that he was several steps ahead of everyone.

It was these little things that showed me that the people making the movie understood the character. They knew what was important about Holmes. So if they want to update him a bit with some action? I was OK with it. Lancey Kisses said it this way: "Was it amazing, fantastic, and groundbreaking? No. However, it was thoroughly entertaining and a lot of fun, which is what I think it was going for in the first place."

My question is - will kids who go see it want to read Sherlock Holmes, and if they do, is it similar enough so that they like it? I'll be curious to see how many kids even went to see it (I saw a couple Facebook posts, but not too many). If we had a real library at school, I'd be curious if anyone would search for Holmes books.

The Princess and the Frog

2009-12-29T21:12:00.000-08:00

The Princess and the Frog is Disney's return to 2D animation. It looks great and its fun. I hope it was successful enough to prompt Disney to return to what it does best.

The makers deserve a lot of credit for going with something different from simply the Frog Prince fairy tale. Instead, they have loosely adapted the novel The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker. I assume this is because it would have taken quite a bit to stretch the small story into a full length film.

A lot of publicity went toward their decision to make the lead character black. It worked because it worked in the story. Though this is obviously not the first time a Disney lead female wasn't white. How about Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Mulan?

Setting the story in New Orleans gave the movie a natural match in voodoo. It gave us our villain, Dr. Facilier (Dr. Easy?), the Shadow Man. Whenever he's shoing off his magic evilness, they surround him with neon images. Not only is he about as scary as most other Disney villains, but it's easy to picture him in a Disneyland ride.

The best decision was to set the film in New Orleans. It's a fantastic city, and The Princess and the Frog puts it on full display. The food, the buildings, the party, and the mighty Mississippi are here (though of course, it's a kids movie, so not so much of the party). Again, it works nicely with the story.

But the best reason to pick New Orleans is the music. Each song has a New Orleans feel, whether its Swing, Dixieland, or Gospel. The music was always fun. Now I'll let you decide if the next part is a positive or a negative. There weren't really any songs that stuck in my head after watching. None of the songs were what Stephen King calls an "Ear Worm." While I liked the music while watching the movie, I wasn't humming any of them when I left.

Me and Orson Welles

2009-12-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

Me and Orson Welles was a bit of a surprise for me. It's not the type of movie that I would ever really see, but I've been to many movies out of my "comfort zone" this year. It got some pretty good reviews, so I went for it.

My main reservation was Zac Efron. Since I'm not well versed in the High School Musical movies, I'd never heard of him. But he looks like a tool. He wasn't too bad in this movie. He has moments when he looks like he's out of his element, but his character was supposed to be that way. So he was probably a good choice for the role. We'll have to see in later roles how good he is.

The strongest performance, and the reason to see this, is Christian McKay as Orson Welles. Welles is portrayed as a prick. From what I understand about him, it's an accurate portrayal. The scenes with McKay are the strongest and best in the movie. Since he hasn't really been in anything else, is he a good actor, or just a good Orson Welles? Again, we'll have to see in later roles how good he is.

If you don't see Me and Orson Welles, you won't miss anything too groundbreaking. And right now, there are probably a few other movies more interesting to see. If it were a slower time of year for movies, this would be a recommendation to go see it. I think it will surely be worth a rental for Christian McKay's Welles. And if you've seen a few other movies this season and want something different, check it out.

Avatar

2009-12-27T18:55:00.001-08:00

The first part will be very general, then I'll give a spoiler warning before I get specific.

First the obvious. Avatar is a beautiful movie. I saw it in 2D. Once the crowds go down a bit, I might back and watch in 3D, as I've heard it might actually be worth it and not just distracting.

But I wonder if seeing in 2D allowed me to pay more attention to the plot and characters. I wasn't impressed. I found the story to be very predictable. Since there are many scenes in which you are just supposed to look at the scenery for several seconds, there are many scenes which allow you to stop and think. I guessed at what the upcoming plot would be. My guess was pretty much the whole movie.

I was disappointed by this because I thought I was predicting the first half of the movie, not the whole thing. In reviews, I avoided specifics. I read only the headlines or just the first few lines. One of those was Harry Knowles from Aintitcool.com. Right at the beginning of his review, he states that he loves the movie "because of the story."

I like the website because it does (or once did) give a good heads up about what's coming up in movie news. But Knowles isn't the brightest guy. His writings are grammatical nightmares, yet he has been accepted as a "writer." I know the stuff I write is garbage, but no one is taking me seriously. With Avatar, the story is good enough. It isn't bad, but it isn't great. It's good enough. To love it because of the story? Eh, that's somebody who is trying not to say "I like the pretty pictures" but is afraid to do so.

And I don't understand why. It's a technological masterpiece. But the story is slow, and not for the right reasons. Usually story takes its time to allow ideas to develop or, more importantly, to allow characters to develop. Avatar is almost devoid of characters, so this didn't happen. James Cameron could have cut 45 minutes or an hour out of this movie. It would have cost less. It would have more screenings in theaters. Everyone who has seen it still would have. It would have made more money.

Should you go see it? Yes. See it in the theaters. It won't have anywhere near the same impact on your small V or even your big TV. See it in 3D (I think).

And now, spoilers.

These aren't big spoilers, but since some of you are still planning to watch in the next week, this might give away a couple things.

Characters, characters, characters. It's a bad thing when the most interesting character is CGI. It says a lot about the technology of the movie. But making the humans interesting should be easy.

The human characters were as flat as the 2D in which I watched it. The two "villians," if that's the right word, were a corporate guy (Parker Selfridge, played by Giovanni Ribisi)and a military guy Colonel Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang). Wow. How creative. And guess what? The corporate guy acts - wait for it - out of greed! Weren't expecting that twist, were you? And the military guy wants power.

Here's another way they could have saved some money. They could have simply put an action figure of a guy in a suit on the screen. Pull his string and have him say "I want money! Let's do things for money!" Then simply put an action figure of a guy in a military uniform on the screen. Pull his string and have him say "I want to blow up things! Let's take over everything!" You wouldn't tell the difference.

And then there's Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington. There was such an opportunity with this character to make him interesting. There could have been some real character development if anyone had cared enough to try.

Sully is in a wheelchair. I think that's about as far as anyone went with him. But the plot requires Sully to go through a transformation. He needs to go from being a military follow orders type of guy to someone who completely turns around and fights against his own people.

There were three reasons for him to turn. The first is that he falls in love with Neytiri. I think the movie makes this part clear, and chooses to focus almost completely on this part. But there's more to it that could have (and I believe should have) been developed more).

The second is that he is a paraplegic. In his Avatar, he gets to walk and to run. When he first enters his Avatar, we see this as he goes off running. his excitement is so great that he doesn't follow orders for those couple minutes (which should have been a foreshadowing of things to come). Later on, Colonel Quaritch offers him a procedure to fix his legs if he follows orders. This should have turned into another layer of the moral quandary, but it isn't developed.

The third reason for turning is the most important. But it isn't really mentioned. He should have turned and sided with the Na'vi because it's right. Sully is a military guy. Military guys don't get to question whether things are right or wrong. They get to follow orders. He was dedicated enough to have become a paraplegic, we must presume in battle somewhere. For a military guy to go against orders and do what's right is a big deal. It wasn't here.

The turn for Michelle Rodriguez's character was even more sudden. She suddenly decided that she "didn't sign up for this." And pulls away. That moment was very out of place.

Honestly, what hurt my viewing the most is that I kept waiting for something great to happen. It didn't. I guess I wasn't as impressed with flying mountains as everyone else. It's a cool concept, but I didn't need to stare at them as long. Flying on a dragon type thing was cool for a few seconds, but not for as long as we had to watch it. So the movie is like 90% CGI. Wall-E was 99% CGI (pretty much everything but the Hello Dolly! shots), but it also had more character and heart.

I've only found a small handful of people who agree with me (here is Peter David, who stated some of what I said but much better than I ever could), so I'm probably totally wrong. I'm guessing that when Avatar makes it from the big screen in 3D to your TV in 2D, a lot more people are going to agree with me. And that makes me a bigger visionary than James Cameron.

Invictus

2009-12-26T22:10:00.000-08:00

Invictus is a pretty good movie. It's isn't great, but pretty good. I don't know if it could have been much better.

It's a safe movie. It isn't going to offend or upset anybody but the most easily offended. For a movie that has issues of race at its core, that's saying something. But this isn't Spike Lee's version of South African Apartheid (given Lee and this movie's director Clint Eastwood's previous jabs at one another, I wonder if this could have been Eastwood's response).

I think it might have been tempting to show the darker side of what was going on in South Africa at the time of this movie, but Eastwood chose to keep the move accessible. Is that a bad thing? I think keeping it safe might have kept it from being a great movie, but I don't necessarily think it needed to be so.

There were a couple kids in the theater with their parents when I saw it. The oldest was probably in sixth or seventh grade, and the other a couple years younger. On their way out, they seemed to have really enjoyed the movie. This gives those kids something to think about at their level. And if people are going to be more aware of the history of Apartheid, things such as this movie will only help.

What they might not understand, as I didn't, are the rules of rugby. I have no rugby background at all. After watching, I had to do a little research to fully understand how everything worked. I wasn't totally confused, but if you don't know anything about rugby either, you might want to take five minutes and read about the rules before you watch.

A few people will likely be nominated for Oscars for their performances. Morgan Freeman is excellent as Nelson Mandela, and Matt Damon is pretty good (though the Best Supporting Actor statue is already reserved for someone in a movie in my top 10).

The movie chose to focus part of its time on Mandela's security team. I think they needed to give that a little more time or drop it completely. I wouldn't be surprised if at one point in the scriptwriting process the story was being told through their eyes. I'm not convinced that part of the movie worked the way it was.

But again, Invictus is a pretty good movie. Based on a box office total of just over $20,000,000, not enough people saw this movie. More than twice as many people have seen Old Dogs. That's why the terrorists should hate us.

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Precious

2009-12-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

If my year end top 10 were a "best of" list instead of my 10 favorites, Precious would be on the list, and probably pretty close to the top. I'll be surprised if it isn't nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

With my favorite movies, there is usually some kind of emotional attachment to the movie. That's something I didn't particularly have with Precious. There wasn't something I that pulled at me. But I think that only adds to how good of a movie this is. I still liked it quite a bit even without that.

The performances are great all around. I've read a lot of buzz for an Oscar nod for Mo'Nique. It's definitely a great performance, but I don't really know who she is outside of this movie. By that I mean I haven't seen her in anything else that I know of, nor have I seen her on any talk shows.

I have, however, seen Gabourey Sidibe, who plays Precious, in an interview. She's a completely different person than Precious. It showed me how great her work was in the movie. I don't think I would have recognized Mariah Carey if I didn't already know she was in this movie. The acting is really great all around.

Precious shows a world that I'm not really used to. Chances are most of you aren't either. But it's a real world that everyone needs to be aware of. I don't think it would be such a bad idea if more people saw this movie and became more aware.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009-12-24T21:05:00.001-08:00

I guess I have a bit of a history with the book The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I distinctly remember giving an oral book report on it in the fourth grade. I had to read a "humorous incident" from the book, so I read the part where Mr. Fox got his tail shot off. Since I remember doing the book report, most likely I never read the book.

While watching the movie, I didn't even remember any of that until that scene came up in the movie. It was a flashback of - just giving the book report itself, not anything from the book. But still, I had read other Roald Dahl books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I liked these books quite a bit and with each enjoyed multiple readings.

The movie The Fantastic Mr. Fox looks great. Ultimately, it's one of those movies where I think I might like looking at it more than I liked what was really happening.

But there's plenty more to like. I liked all of the voice work. I feel like the actors would have sounded close to the same if they had been in a live action Wes Anderson movie.

Of Anderson's movies, I like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. I watched Bottle Rocket not too long ago, but I had trouble getting into it. Same with The Life Aquatic.

The thing with his movies is they can be a bit too self aware. Or maybe to self indulgent. With Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, it works. The other two, not as much for me.

With The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson had to reign that in a bit to make it a more children friendly movie. There are still bits of it, but not as much. It's there in the confidence of the character of Mr. Fox, but it needs to be.

The movie is a bit slow at times. I felt as if there were times where they just wanted to play with the stop motion instead of just allowing the story to move along.

I also wonder how well kids would really like it. I think they'll like the visuals. But I don't see it as the type of movie that kids would love and want to see again and again.

But as an adult? I liked it quite a bit. I kinda wish they had taken on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in this way.

Paranormal Activity

2009-12-23T22:06:00.000-08:00

With every review I've written over the past month, I've been comparing each movie with excellence. What I mean by that is I've liked several things in just about every movie. But if it wasn't excellent, then I've nitpicked. Yes, there have been some I've clearly not liked as much as others. But in the previous 22 days, I've liked many things about each movie whether I've stated so or not. That streak ends now.

To be clear, Paranormal Activity isn't my type of movie. It wasn't made for me. I'm not sure, but I think there needs to be something inside you that believes that this sort of thing could really happen. If you liked it, then this movie reached into you and found that part. I don't have that.

Why did I go? I guess I saw enough reviews that liked it. I think I heard enough people say that even if you don't like this kind of movie you'll still get freaked out. One Saturday last month it was about 3, I had to be somewhere at 7, so I had some time to kill.

Thinking back, I can't think of anything I enjoyed about Paranormal Activity. Oh wait - since it was only 86 minutes long, I wasn't bored for 87 minutes.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

2009-12-22T17:05:00.001-08:00

The Men Who Stare at Goats doesn't come together as a movie. This is going to be a short review because I just summed up what you need to know.

The idea is interesting. A reporter discovers that the U.S. Army had a project that was investigating psychic abilities. These "Jedi Warriors" may or may not have actually had psychic powers. The movie wobbles on whether they really do or not. That's one of the weaknesses of the movie. They don't leave you wondering whether they do or know - that would be cool. But they sorta do, just a bit, but maybe no, not really.

Is it a comedy? Is it trying to give a message of some sort? You never really know after watching the movie. If it was a comedy, all the funny parts were in the trailers. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but that attitude makes the movie seem a bit lazy. If there is a message, I wasn't interested in discovering what it was.

Things happen in the movie for no particular reason. The ending didn't make sense. There were too many characters to make it into a personal story about any one of them.

It isn't a bad move - there are parts to like. It's just a lazy movie. I left The Men Who Stare at Goats thinking, "Eh? Who cares?" I think everyone had the same thought while making the movie.

Big Fan

2009-12-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

Here's another movie that not many of you saw, and perhaps many didn't even hear about. I had to seek out a viewing in San Francisco

Big Fan stars Patton Oswalt as a, well, big fan of the New York Football Giants named Paul Aufiero. Paul calls into a sports talk radio show regularly with prepared scripts delivering smack talk, especially to Philadelphia Eagles fans. He then gets to meet one of his favorite players with disastrous results.

I listed to talk radio every now and again. My favorite show is Len "I'm a Law-yah" Tillem on KGO. People call into that show for legal advice. As Len himself states, the reason to listen is for the stories. For sports radio, I tune into Jim Rome every now and again, though you don't learn a lot about sports. It's pretty much just smack talk.

I've listened a lot, but have never really had a desire to call in. There was one show that I did call. It was a Saturday morning trivia show. They asked a question to which the answer was Plessie V. Ferguson, something that I teach. About 15 minutes went by without anyone calling to answer. They kept asking, so I finally called and answered it. They asked me a few more related questions,and I was able to answer them (pretty sure the follow up answer was Brown V. Board of Education Topeka , KS). I was promised a prize. The next week was the last time the show was on the air. I never got anything.

So what type of person does call in? Is it really the casual person just listening and having such an important opinion on the topic? I think rarely. I think that most of the callers are regulars. Big Fan presents Paul as a guy whose life revolves around the Giants and calling into this radio show. Other than that, he doesn't have a whole lot going for him.

Patton Oswalt is great in this role. You might only know him as a character on King of Queens. You might know his voice asn Remy in Ratatouille. If you haven't listened to his stand up, check out Feelin Kinda Patton. My favorite bit is his Black Angus commercial, but it's pretty funny from beginning to end.

This is a pretty good little movie. I really like these independent movies that comedians make to tell a simple story and show off some acting chops. There's no need for a $100 million budget. There's just a good story, good characters, and good acting.

I can recommend a couple more movies along the same line. First, I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With (despite the grammatically incorrect title) starring Jeff Garlin from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Second, The Hammer starring Adam Carolla. If you know him just as the guy from The Man Show, you;ll be surprised. All three movies are pretty good. I'd consider that a nice little film festival.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-12-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

I had mildly high expectations for Where the Wild Things Are. There's a movie I'll get to in a couple days that I really disliked, but I had no expectations for that movie. That makes Where the Wild Things Are my biggest disappointment of the year.*

However, based only on the book, I shouldn't have had any expectations whatsoever. The book - it's not very good. I can hear your protests screaming through my computer as I type this, so hear my out. Yes, the pictures are pretty. They are original and nice to look at. But the story, even by the standards of a kids' story, isn't much.

It's fewer than 60 words. Those fifty something words need to be excellent - they're ok. So this kids if Fing around, so him mom sends him to bed without supper. He images a bunch of creatures. Then his supper is waiting for him. End of story.

First of all, that's bad parenting. But second, your great memories of this book are no different than your great memories of playing tag. You "read" this when you were a young child, and the pictures were cool to look at.

Make that into a feature length movie, and there isn't a lot. So the makers of the movie had to expand on things quite a bit. I didn't care for what they did.

Let's start with the part that I liked about the book - the look. I didn't like the look of the Wild Things at all. They looked like the drawings in the book, but without style. Yes, they had CGI faces. But I still look at the costumes walking around and I see H.R. Pufnstuf. Even the voices of the characters annoyed me. It seemed like James Gandolfini and company were trying to do bad kids voices instead of, you know, acting.

The general look of the movie was very dim to me. Now this criticism might just be the theater where I saw it, but I don't think so. I saw it at the Contra Costa Stadium in Martinez, which usually has nice bright screens. After the movie, I had to shield my eyes when walking out into the lobby. I usually don't need to do that. It was just too dim in the theaters, which washed out the picture.

But for me, the part I didn't click with was the tone. Every review I've read from people who liked it discussed their own childhood. They stated that it brought back those feelings of sadness and frustration and handled those concepts beautifully. I didn't agree. The anger and frustration of the Wild Things just seemed - whiny.

My theory is that my childhood wasn't bad enough to like this movie. A couple days after watching Where the Wild Things Are, I was browsing through Garfield Minus Garfield and I came across this comic. For me, it sums up my feelings about this movie.

*I just watched Avatar, and I was pretty disappointed with that, too. But I want to give it a few days to see if the pretty pictures were enough to make me forget the lack of original story or interesting characters.

Zombieland

2009-12-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

There's nothing too revolutionary about Zombieland. It certainly isn't the first zombie movie. It definitely isn't the first zombie comedy (I can highly recommended Shawn of the Dead). It isn't even the first movie this year starring Jesse "I'm not Michael Cera" Eisenberg that ends with "Land." But it works, and I enjoyed it.

Thinking back to some of the reviews I've written this month, here's a couple reasons why I liked it. The first is expectations. I didn't exactly have low expectations, but I wasn't expecting anything amazing either. I had hit the point in this year where I just wanted to watch a bunch of movies. This was a movie, so I watched it.

The second is length. It clocks in at 81 minutes. There is only so much material available for this movie. They put in what they had and that's it. There isn't a lot of filler. We have just enough to get some basic back story ideas for the characters, but not too much. I didn't have time to get bored.

Other than that, it's funny. And it's fun. Without spoiling anything, it has the best and funniest cameo of the year. I haven't seen a lot of zombie movies, so I don't know how die hard zombie fans with like it (Die Hard Zombies - John McClane vs. the undead), but I recommend it for a good time killer, breezy evening.

Capitalism: A Love Story (and Food, Inc)

2009-12-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

Will you like Capitalism: A Love Story? Here's a really simple questionaire for you:

Question 1: Did you enjoy any of Michael Moore's previous films? Yes or No?

If Yes, then yes.

If No, then no.

End of questions.

Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. It's another Michael Moore movie. Personally, I like his movies a lot more than I like him. I think he creates a very entertaining style of documentary. There is never a slow or dull moment. He knows how to bring you into the story. He does a good job of mixing personal stories with discussions of details with his stunts. Basically, it's easy to sit through a Michael Moore movie.

Also, he always leaves you something to think about. Even with capitalism as a cornerstone of our society (I know this because I heard Glenn Beck tell me so on his radio show today*), I still left questioning that concept. And of course he timed the movie perfectly. Those fat cat bankers and corporations are the biggest villains around. Ultimately, I needed to redefine my viewpoint of capitalism.

And that, I think, is the most positive aspect of Michael Moore's movies. He does get people thinking about his ideas. Bowling For Columbine was his best work with this goal in mind. He didn't really try to give any answers, but instead he wanted to explore the questions further.

Now, that's not what he really wants in this movie. I believe that Moore's goal isn't to get people thinking about these things anymore. I don't even know if he wants change. He wants the other side to look bad. With Sicko, he at least pointed us toward his alternate viewpoint. In Capitalism: A Love Story, he seems to want to bring down the top without offering a real alternative.

That said, I still recommend it to anyone who can still handle Michael Moore. There are a lot of questions and ideas that he brings up. He exposes a few things that were very revealing, such as the corporations purchasing life insurance policies on its employees (not for the employee - so that the corporations can collect).

Also, I don't think that Moore is as irrelevant as people think he is. He is dismissed very easily by too many people. I heard that a lot after Sicko came out. A couple years later, in the middle of the health care debate, people were popping out from everywhere stating that Sicko was actually quite accurate and that (surprise) the health care companies spent a lot of time and money discrediting it.

This was the only documentary I saw in the theaters this year. However if you're looking for a fairly new documentary to watch, I'll actually recommend Food, Inc. I watched it a few weeks ago thanks to Netflix, and it's also a movie worth discussing.

Food, Inc. is a pretty revealing look at the food we eat. Some other movies try to get you to think about your food by showing the cruel treatment of animals, show the slaughter of animals, or show the horrible conditions in which food is handled. None of that ever really got to me.

This one goes around that and shows quite a few surprising things that will make you look at your food and food companies in a different way. It has a few comments about large corporations that will actually go nicely with Capitalism: A Love Story. It's also very watchable, especially by documentary standards. Take a look.

*Disclaimer: No, I do not listen to Glenn Beck with any regularity. Today was the first time I have ever heard his radio show. Here's my quick review of the five minutes I heard today. It should be renamed Glenn Beck's Retarded Straw Man Program. End of review.

The Informant!

2009-12-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

I think The Informant! is another movie which was ruined for me with expectations.

Joel McHale was one of Adam Carolla's regular guests on his radio show. I heard him talking about it almost a year ago. I liked the concept quite a bit. Then when it came out, I read many good reviews.

So when I finally saw it in the theater, I was underwhelmed. But in thinking back on the movie, there was definitely a lot to like. Matt Damon was excellent as whistle blower Mark Whitacre. The story is actually really good. If you don't know too much about the story, which I didn't, you won't know where it's going.

I think for me I got tricked by the "funny" label again. I think that's going to be my New Year's Resolution (though I've never really made any before). Stop getting tricked by the funny label. As I mentioned in my writeup for Extract, comedy is too subjective.

I see The Informant! as the type of movie that might do well on cable. I think it will pop up again and again. I have a feeling that I'll give this movie another chance down the road and that I'll like it a lot more.

In The Loop

2009-12-16T18:22:00.001-08:00

Here's a movie that not many of you have even heard of. Here's how I first heard of it.

I went to see a movie at The Albany Twin, which is a pretty small theater in Albany, watching another movie that not many of you have heard of (but I'm saving that movie for my top 10 list). While in the short line for tickets, the four or five people in front of me were all buying tickets for In the Loop, the other movie showing in that theater. There was a trailer for it as well. So I did some quick research at home and decided to check it out the next weekend.

I'm happy I did, and I can recommend it to many of you who I know read this. Basically, it's a British satire of war politics. So here's what you need to like to enjoy this movie.

1. British humor. I, for one, have a lot of trouble with sarcasm and dry humor. I don't use it or understand it. But you might like that sort of thing. There are a lot of good one liners and some pretty silly situations. This means you won't always be laughing out loud - you have to think about some of the humor. I know - thinkin' is hard!

2. Satire. Last year I wrote about Tropic Thunder and how too many people didn't like it. The general consensus seemed to be that too many people don't understand satire. In some movies, if you don't understand that the movie even is a satire, you can get the totally wrong impression. A couple examples are Starship Troopers (which Nolan recently wrote about here) and Observe and Report. This week I heard some kids talk about how they liked the movie because they wanted to be like Seth Rogan's character. They missed the point. They're eighth graders, so they do that often. In The Loop is the type of movie that one who doesn't understand satire won't understand it at all.

3. Political Humor. The basic plot of the movie is that a member of the British cabinet tells the press that a war with the middle east is unlikely, but that isn't the party platform. They must spend the movie correcting that mild error. A lot of it is about the relationship between politicians and the media. If you believe that the politicians you see on TV are real people and not the characters they play in government (with some exceptions, of course. I still believe there are some "good guys"), you won't get this movie.

Extract

2009-12-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

My biggest difficulty with Extract is that you ultimately must go into the movie with Office Space in your mind. Honestly, it's the only reason I went to see it. Since Mike Judge was able to make such a funny movie once, he certainly should be able to replicate it. Maybe? Not as many people saw Idiocracy. The overall concept was good, I liked the satire, but there were only a few laughs.

Extract wasn’t that great. Yeah, there were some funny parts, I think. At this point, I can’t remember any. I do remember that this movie also featured a drug trip using camera tricks. In fact, it looked a lot like the one in Woodstock, which I had seen a few days earlier.

So my question is – “Is Jason Bateman overrated?” Bateman made his resurgence with Arrested Development. The show was brilliant, and he was great in it. For the most part, he was the straight man to his bizarre family. But he had his share of funny parts.

But then when you think about the other movies he has been in since then – Juno, Hancock, Up in the Air – he’s mostly the straight man again. But he isn’t offered a lot of funny in those scenes. And he doesn’t produce a lot either. His comedy seems to be very specifically focused in one direction. So I’m looking forward to the Arrested Development movie, should that ever take off. Of course, I’m completely ignoring the fact that he wasn’t just a Teen Wolf – he was Teen Wolf Too.

Extract. Comedy is very subjective. You might like it more than I.

Taking Woodstock

2009-12-14T21:01:00.001-08:00

I think my writeup of Taking Woodstock is going to be pretty simple and pretty straightforward, since that's what the movie was. Though there was one thing that wasn't as straightforward about the movie, and that gave it a bit of a unique twist.

Taking Woodstock tells the story of a young man who tries to save his parents small inn by allowing a music festival to play. That festival turns out to be Woodstock, one of the biggest ever.

Of course, the music makes this movie. It has a pretty nice soundtrack, though the actual music festival is barely part of the movie. Director Ang Lee instead focuses on Elliot, played by Dimitri Martin. Is Martin a full fledged movie star? Not in the most traditional sense. He works nicely on Daily Show appearances, his Comedy Central show Important Things with Dimitri Martin, and his stand-up. No, he isn't going to be the lead in a romantic comedy or an action film. But for a movie with small goals like this one, he does just fine.

If you remember Ang Lee's mediocre Hulk movie, you might remember the way he split up the screen to look like comic book panels. Lee uses the same technique here simply to show different things happening at once, more like an episode of 24. It works nicely because a good song needs to have the accompanying action well choreographed.

One part of the movie did pull me out and got my mind off track. It seems like every movie that features a drug trip does the same simple camera tricks. So if you drop acid, is it pretty much just a camera trick? And if so, why would I ever need to do so? I can save myself some time and brain cells by looking through a camera and tweaking the lens. I want a movie maker to come up with something original.

Overall, it's a fun movie. There isn't anything too serious or groundbreaking, but if you're interested in Woodstock and want to see the story told from a point of view away from the stage, definitely watch it. If you just want a cool little movie, watch it.

Cold Souls

2009-12-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

Cold Souls is a film with a promising premise. A company has found a way to extract a person's soul. You can then replace it with another. Paul Giamatti stars as an actor who tries the procedure only to find that he loses his acting touch.

Stop right now and image where this movie is going. The good thing is that you won't guess what's going to happen. The bad thing is that the direction the movie goes isn't particularly interesting.

One missed opportunity is to see Giamatti's acting chops. Paul could have shown us the same character with several different souls. I think Giamatti is the type of actor that wouldn't go overboard. Give Jim Carey that type of challenge and you would see several different characters. But Giamatti, and especially in a movie with this tone, could have given subtle differences to each soul.

But it's unfair to judge a movie on what it isn't. There's another important premise that I didn't go for. The movie takes us to the Russian black market for souls. It's an interesting direction, but as I mentioned before didn't really pan out.

The souls come from Russian artists, writers, and poets. The makers of the movie want us to imagine these sad, heavy souls filled with despair, yet maybe some hope. Then the makers want us to believe that sadness is beautiful.

Here's the problem. Sadness isn't beautiful; it's sad. Yes, sadness can be the gateway to amazing art. It's the sadness of the songwriter from a lost lover that makes the music he writes amazing. It's the sadness of the author from a childhood of loneliness that makes the story she writes have impact.

But sadness itself? Not pretty. Look at the artwork I stuck in here. That's called At Eternity's Gate by Vincent van Gogh. It's beautiful. You feel the sadness. Go ahead and click on it and look at the larger version. Look at every brush stroke. Check out how he drew the fire. So simple, yet perfect. Amazing.

But you don't want to be that guy or be with him. For that matter, while I love looking at Van Gogh's art, I wouldn't have particularly wanted to hang out with him in Arles.

I guess the title Cold Souls should have indicated that to me. If you disagree, you might like it more than I did. But I can't really recommend this unless you're a huge Giamatti fan. Otherwise, skip it.

District 9

2009-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

District 9 was a fresh new look at the alien invasion genre. The general idea is probably the most "realistic" view of what it would look like if aliens were to come to Earth.

Many invasion movies show our alien overlords (whom I, for one, would welcome) to have superior technology and/or advanced morals. In this movie, they don't. Yeah, there are many technologically advanced weapons. But the difference is that they don't immediately overwhelm the world with them. Instead, the aliens are put in their own ghetto.

Another reason I liked the movie is that the movie isn't about their invasion. In fact, what their arrival and placement into the camps is all done before the movie really starts. I was reminded of Kurt Busiek's Astro City. In the alien invasion story, the actual invasion was the background story. I seem to remember the actual info about it being in about two panels, mostly words. This was the same way. We're talking about Wikus and his point of view.

It's my understanding that the special effects in this movie were done for a much smaller pricetag tat many Hollywood movies. I couldn't really tell the difference. And since the effort went into storytelling, it didn't matter.

Also, the ad campaign was fun. the "humans only" signs found all over theaters in the months prior to its release were interesting. The first time I saw them, I stopped to read it. After seeing several, I even went online to see what it was about. Such a simple idea got this small movie into minds long before it was released, which allowed for word of mouth to get around early. That sort of thing is usually reserved for larger movies.

Wikus's story might remind some of The Fly. And they would be correct. For me, it brought back sweet, sentimental memories of Robot Ninja. Though,minor spoiler, at the end Wikus does actually kick a little ass. But it is just a little. Wikus really is a Robot Ninja for the 2000s.

The Hurt Locker

2009-12-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of the month, I went down the list of movies to give myself time to think about each one. When I saw The Hurt Locker on the list, my immediate thought was, "It was good. I liked it quite a bit, so I won't have any problem writing about it." That was about it.

I remember after seeing it that I had a few problems with it (I'll mention one a bit later), but overall it was very good. I figured that it would make my top 10 list. Yet when I started actually making the list last month, I didn't really consider it. I looked at it and thought, "It was good, but there are 10 more that I liked better." So I didn't think much more about it at that time.

Last night after writing my Movie-a-Day entry, I looked at the list to see which movie is next. I saw The Hurt Locker. My first thought was that "It was good. I shouldn't have a problem writing a few things about it." I didn't think too much more about it.

During the day, I started thinking about what to write. I drew a blank. I don't remember enough details about the movie. I immediately thought about what I wrote about Terminator: Salvation. I stated that it's biggest sin was that it was forgettable. So I guess The Hurt Locker was the same way.

The one thing I do really remember about this movie was the shaky cam shots (. I don't like the shaky cam. I don't want to be part of the action. I want to follow the action. I remember it being enough of a distraction to take me out of the movie for a bit (I'll talk more about shaky cam in a later movie where it really bugged me). Yet last year there was another movie that had too much shaky cam. it had chase scenes that were hard to follow. Yet I named that movie, Slumdog Millionaire, my top movie of the year.

So I what I really started thinking about is how inconsistent people, me especially, can be while watching a movie. The word I was really thinking about what hypocrisy, though I don't want to go that far. It's too difficult to predict which movies one will like and dislike. Shoot - Roger Ebert liked Garfield.

I guess that's one of those things that makes art so great. It really appeals to something inside instead of being strictly cerebral. My brain is telling me that The Hurt Locker was a good movie. I remember that a lot of the scenes were very tense. Obviously, things are going to be so when one is disarming a bomb in the middle of a war zone.

But on the inside, The Hurt Locker didn't resonate with me. It didn't stick. And without watching it again, I just can't explain why. Movies are such an amazing form of art.

Harry Potter addendum

2009-12-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

A day after saying that I wasn't worried about the Deathly Hollows films, I read THIS ARTICLE. Now I can start getting worried. Mr. Yates, you don't need to be "axing parts of author J.K. Rowling's original manuscript from the book."

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2009-12-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of the whole Harry Potter franchise. I first learned about the books when I started teaching middle school. The third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, came out right after I started teaching, and a bunch of teachers were excited. It cast them off as loons at first, but then I started hearing more and about it. A few months later, I decided to give the first book a shot.

I found it very easily readable. I made it through in just a couple days, and enjoyed the journey quite a bit. I got the next two and breezed through those as well. I wasn't blown away, but I was interested enough to look forward to the next book. Around the same time, talk about the movies started brewing.

With the fourth book, Goblet of Fire, things changed. The books about doubled in length, but Rowling is a good enough writer that she still made them easy to read. But they started to become darker. As the kids grew up, the overall mood became more mature. No, not a big step. They grew up a year at a time, as did the books. Compare one with the next and you won't see an enormous leap, but compare the first to the last and you will.

I think the first three book are great kids books. The last four are great books. The movies started coming out at the same time that the books turned the road, so I think the makers of the movies were able to guide them in that direction. One mild problem I have with the first three books is that they follow a formula of misdirection. Rowling wants you to think that person A is the bad guy, but then at the end its person B. I've heard from several people that don't like the books that they feel too much like a long Scooby Doo episode, and I think this "unmasking" at the end might be why. But that assessment ignores too much.

For Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I bought the book in Spain. I knew that it would make the flight home much easier. The problem was that I was also in my fifth week in Europe away from home. I was hitting that point where I was pretty tired of traveling, and I was ready to head home. I wanted to read the book more than sightsee at times. I only did one VERY hot day when I had exhausted my sightseeing and my body.

But Half-Blood Prince contains a huge plot point that could really suck if spoiled. I did finish the book on the plane. The next day while browsing around the internet, I saw the spoiler several times. If I hadn't been out of the country I have a feeling it would have sucked.

The movie was excellent. In fact, it was on my top 10 list until this past weekend when it was bumped by the two movies I saw. The Harry Potter movies have certainly appeared on my list before - this will be the first that hasn't made it. But it isn't because of the movie, but due to the ten other movies that I've enjoyed more.

The Harry Potter movie that has ranked highest for me was definitely Prisoner of Azkaban. It was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who had previously directed Y tu mamá también, another movie that I highly recommend.

But that was the movie that felt the most alive to me. I love the camera work. The soundtrack, John Williams last in the series, took on a different tone. I love the time travel double viewing of the last sequence from the two different angles - it's beautifully choreographed. Azkaban perfectly transitioned the kids movie of the first two into something just a bit darker. I think the three leads, Daniel Radcligg, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, become actors in this movie.

Azkaban scored the highest on my list of top 10s. It was number 3 for 2004, the first year I made my list. And I must say that the two films that topped it are now among my favorite ever, Garden State and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I'm considering making a top 10 of the decade (yes, I know, depending on your definition of "decade") to use to write up a few movies later this month. I won't be surprised if Azkaban makes it onto the list.

Of the Harry Potter movies, Azkaban is the one that I will stop to watch every time its on. It's the one that I want to see again.

So the final book and movie? The big miracle is that Rowling pulled it off in the Deathly Hollows. The book had the most logical and satifying ending. That isn't always the case. I think of King's Dark Tower series. It couldn't have ended any other way - it's the most logical. But yet, by definition, it was unsatisfying (which in its own way, makes it so. If you haven't read it, that makes no sense. It might to those who have.) But Deathly Hollows ends the story perfectly.

Since the filmmakers have split the movie it two, I'm hopeful. I think they did that to be faithful of the book. I wonder how many things they cut out of previous movies might affect it, though. There have been a lot of full plots cut, some of which tied back together for the final book. I hope they don't kill it. But yet, after six good movies, I can't believe at this point that they're going to screw it up.

Brothers

2009-12-09T21:02:00.001-08:00

For today, I'm jumping ahead to write about Brothers because its fresh in my head. Because its still new in theaters, I should warn that there will be some mild spoilers.

Brothers was a frustrating movie for me because there's a lot of good parts to it. However, the parts never come together. And after ranting about how movies are too long these days, I think this one left out too much.

First of all, there's a pretty good story about Tobey Maguire's characters, Sam. Sam is a marine who leaves his wife Grace, played by Natalie Portman, and two young daughters to fight in Afghanistan. He is presumed dead, but is actually captured and tortured. He goes through an incredible ordeal before being rescued and returned home. But for this particular story, the interesting part of his character begins after he returns home. This is too late in the movie to develop what happens to him.

Just before Sam leaves, his younger brother Tommy, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, gets out of prison. He becomes close with Grace and the daughters. I won't spoil the exact nature of the relationship between Tommy and Grace, as that's an important part of the movie. This story is also interesting, but the real fun should have been when Sam returned. Again, it was cut short.

But the key missing ingredient is the relationship between the brothers Sam and Tommy. At the beginning of the movie we see Sam picking up Tommy as he is released from prison. Then Sam is gone. We don't really get a feel for their relationship. But near the end movie, it seems that this relationship plays a pivotal role in defining and defusing conflict.

We get hints of what their relationship was like, but its all very vague and stereotypical. The father, played as a caricature by Sam Shepard, brings up how the boys were different. He clearly liked and had more respect for Sam, and the writer gives him every cliche just short of telling Tommy after Sam funeral, "The wrong son died!"

We also get a hint of the brothers connection when Tommy mentions to one of Sam's daughters that Sam saved his life in a river. We see a quick pause on Gyllenhaal's face, but it's never mentioned again. I think it's thrown in there just to show that Sam has always been a hero. But wouldn't a moment like that define the rest of their lives? But exactly how?

I think that for a movie called Brothers, there should have been more emphasis on that relationship. And even if the movie wasn't called that, it still should have been. I think it would have benefited from starting earlier in their lives. Show them as kids. Develop the relationship with their father to save it from cliche. Yeah, the movie is about the rise of one brother and the fall of the other. Everything revolves around them. But bring them together.

And I'm also going to type something that I don't want to, but there needed to be less emphasis on Grace. I hate typing that because I don't ever want to see less of Natalie Portman. And she's actually very good in this, as are Gyllenhall and Maguire.

I think that in the end, the makers tried to make a safe movie. They wanted a war movie that more people could go see and relate to. Too many scenes dance with melodrama, and that's not the right tone for this. Take off the safety valve. Let the characters grow and experience each other.

This is a remake of a 2004 Danish film, Brødre. I'm intrigued to check it out to see if they went for a different style or take when remaking it for American audiences. Again, I think there are a lot of good things in this movie. There's something here. There's a really good movie waiting to come out.

Brüno

2009-12-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

After watching Watchmen, there's no way I could have imagined that I would return to the theater to see more penis this year. But I went to see Brüno.

Brüno (the movie) is Borat's (the movie) dumber, less interesting, and less funny younger brother. I didn't think that Borat was phenominal. It's a movie that I enjoy watching in parts. This makes sense, since the character started in short sketches by Sasha Baron Cohen. For me, Borat is a lot like Napoleon Dynamite. I like the character. I like seeing him in scenes. I don't want to sit and watch him for an hour and a half. Still, there are genuine laughs in Borat.

Borat was also ruined for me when someone chose to describe the funniest scene to someone else while I was there before I had seen the movie. Spoiled!

I will admit up front that Brüno has several laughs as well. His "interview" with Harrison Ford is pretty funny, as well as his seance to contact Rob of Milli Vanilli. I also got a kick out of Brüno calling the Middle East "Middle Earth." I don't know why I enjoyed that so much, since it's so simple. And it's always fun to watch conservative people get offended by things that aren't really very offensive.

But in the end, there wasn't enough funny to maintain a full movie. Like Borat, Bruno is a sketch comedy character. It's too bad that Brüno, in my mind at least, falls into the same category as It's Pat.

Drag Me To Hell

2009-12-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

With today's post, I skip over a top 10 contender and jump to the next movie I saw this year, Drag Me To Hell.

I'm not big on the whole horror/scary movie genre. This was the first of two I watched in 2009, and by far my favorite of the two (I'll get to the other later this month. In fact, even for a horror movie, I liked it quite a bit. But I'm not too surprised, as my favorite horror movie, if you can call if that, is Evil Dead II, also made by Sam Raimi.

I really liked Alison Lohman as the lead, Christine, who has a curse placed on her by a gypsy woman. Lohman had to do a lot of silly things in this role, including her memorable fight with the gypsy in the parking garage. This was quite possibly the best fight scene of the year. It was certainly the most fun. But throughout the stuff she needed to do, she stayed cute and as believable as possible while going through what she did.

And I bought the whole story. I obviously didn't meant that it could really happen, but I didn't hit any points that didn't work in the story, including the end. As I talked about movie length a few days ago, this one was barely more than an hour and a half - perfect length so that I didn't lose interest.

I don't think people who get legitimately frightened by horror movies will get scared watching Drag Me To Hell, but I think they'll have some fun watching.

Terminator: Salvation

2009-12-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Terminator: Salvation committed a sin for which I cannot excuse. It was FORGETTABLE. Looking back, I can barely remember the movie. I remember a CGI Arnold, some huge robot, and a little kid who wouldn't stop talking. See? Perfect memory.

But beyond that? It's very, very fuzzy. Terminator 3 wasn't exactly the best movie, but I remember that chase scene as being pretty entertaining and over the top (in a good way).

But really, were expectations much higher than that? It was directed by McG. This guy is known for his amazing... Charlie's Angels films. Yeah. high credentials. It does have Christian Bale, who lended it some credibility. The footage shown at Comic-con was well received. But beyond that, I guess I couldn't have been expecting much more.

Since I can't remember enough about this movie, I'm going to leave with two copy/pastes. First is James Cameron's response to the movie.

"It didn’t quite have the emotional power that it should have had. I thought Sam was great, very powerful, and Christian… people have criticised him for being one-note but that’s part of the character. He was playing a guy who’s furiously dedicated to the survival of the human species. Maybe more could have been done with that. In T2 we showed the consequences. It drove Sarah insane."

He hits it on the head with those first seven words, though he tries to be politically nice.

So here's what I wrote right after seeing it. I guess I agree with most, but if anything, I thought less of the movie as time went on. I went from "not too bad" to "not really worth much."

>Terminator: Salvation was OK. Not too bad, but nothing great. The action was pretty good. Seeing a bunch of Terminators walking around was kinda cool. The movie had a cool look to it. The dialogue was kinda crappy throughout. The only interesting character was only half human. There were a few things that were way out of place. For example, every human that wasn't part of the Resistance was a country bumpkin stereotype right out of Deliverance 2018 ("Squeal like a cyber-piggy"). With those negatives, I think the positives were able to outweigh it a bit.

But before you consider this to be much of a recommendation, I had really low expectations going in. I hope those of you who see it in the theater have someone in your theater who is an awesome as the person who was sitting behind us. There's a VERY forced "I'll Be Back" from John Connor. And immediately after that line, the fucktard behind us decided that he had to repeat the line in an awful Arnold accent. Heading out of the theater, I said that it was my favorite part of the movie. Looking back, I still agree. It was the most memorable moments.

And then there was Christian Bale. Christian Bale was rather... crappy. He hit one note throughout the movie, and that note was "Angry Because I Have To Take a Dump." It's been awhile since I watched T2 or T3, but he didn't seem like an adult version of the John Connor from those movies. The disappointing thing is that the only credibility that this movie has was Bale. It certainly wasn't hack director (Charlie's Angels) McG. After relistening to the rant, it wa during a scene with Bryce Dallas Howard (and I believe that her only part in the script was to open her eyes really big). Since all of his scenes had the same out of place intensity, I have no idea what the scene was. But since the movie looked better than Bale's acting, I declare the following. One point: Shane Hurlbut. One douche: Christian Bale.

Star Trek

2009-12-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

The fifth movie I saw this year was Star Trek. Both because I don't feel I have too much original to say about it and I need to get out of here, this will just be a quick writeup.

I've always been a Star Wars fan instead of Star Trek. I've seen some of the movies. I've seen a few episodes of the original, but not in since I was young. I do show a clip in class, though. But I only know about this clip because of a youtube search for the Schoolhouse Rock preamble.

For The Next Generation, I never saw a complete episode until I couple years back. I added it to my Netflix queue, since I enjoy watching full seasons of shows at a time. I made it through the first disk, maybe into the second before sending it back. I just wasn't into it enough.

In college, I started watching Voyager (interestingly to me, I started watching with my friend George - a guy who I haven't thought of in years, but makes his appearance in my blog for the second day in a row.) I think we made it through most of the first season, meeting to watch it every time it was on. But I don't remember us watching beyond that.

I haven't seen any of the other series. That said, I'm not a big Star Trek fan. So a reboot wasn't a problem for me. And I really enjoyed the movie. The plot involves time travel, and when you drive down that road, you're always going to hit plot hole. And it's science fiction in which the science is the fiction, so some part there don't make sense.

But what Star Trek did was to redefine the characters of Kirk and Spock. I don't know if individually it made them into the most interesting characters, but it didn't have to. It made them into another great on screen couple. I think that dynamic was what made the movie work for me.

I don't remember being bored while watching it, and it looks great. There weren't too many part, from what I remember, where they went for big CGI shots while sacrificing pacing. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I look forward to some more Abrams
Star Trek.

Adventureland

2009-12-04T18:38:00.000-08:00

My plan while writing about Adventureland was to discuss movie expectations and how they shape your movie going experience. Then I read Nolan's blog where he discusses expectations for the second day in a row and decided to change where I was going. but then I realized that it would change my expectations of my blog writing experience. Also, it's a common theme in many of my writeups, so I will continue as I had this planned in my head.

The trailers and commercials I saw for Adventureland had it pegged as a bit of a screwball type comedy. I didn't find the trailers to be especially funny, but there were some people in it that I often find funny, such as Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader from SNL. The trailers also showed that guy who kinda looks like Michael Cera (Jesse Eisenberg) and the Twilight chick (Kristen Stewart). I didn't have a lot of interest in seeing it.

One weekend, I was in the mood to see a movie, but I didn't really know what to see. Rotten Tomatoes was showing Adventureland as having a pretty high rating. Remembering what However, I didn't really read the reviews. I put two and two together - the trailers and the ratings - and figured that this could be a funny comedy. That sounded like a decent was to spend the afternoon. My math was off, but in a different, weird way.

Back in college, my friend George and I talked about gong to see a bunch of summer movies as a way of getting through midterms and finals. But he never wanted to see any trailers or commercials. One of the movies coming out that summer was Twister, and I specifically remember him running out of the room when the trailer came on TV. He wanted to see his movies fresh. While I cannot recommend Twister in any way shape or form, it does have one of the funniest lines ever, but not intentionally. (If you see it again, it's Bill Paxton's amazing delivery of the line, "He's in it for the money, not the science.")

I think I remember reading (though I could be off, yet I'm feeling too lazy to look it up) that Gene Siskel would wait in the lobby until the trailers were over. He wouldn't read any notes before the movie about the movie and tried to avoid knowing anything about the movie beforehand. In his review of Monster, Roger Ebert writes that he had no idea that Aileen Wuornos was played by Charlize Theron until the closing credits.

The closest experience to this that I can remember right now is when I first saw Groundhog Day. I went to see it with a group of people, so I was just along for the ride. The few commercials I had seen didn't discuss its actual premise. All I really remember was seeing Bill Murray drive around with a groundhog and Murray's line, "I'm a god. I'm not the God..." Clearly, if you've seen the movie, I had no idea of the premise. This means I had the experience to share Phil's (Murray's character) realization of the plot. While it's already a great movie, it made my movie going experience that much better.

So back to Adventureland. I was expecting and wanted a silly comedy. It isn't, and I didn't get it. I spent the first half of the movie slumping in my seat feeling really disappointed that I wasn't laughing. I was getting upset with the reviewers for giving this comedy such a high rating.

I blame all of that on my expectations. The fact that Adventureland isn't in my top ten is probably due to dumbasses who put together the trailer, and my dumb ass for not learning a bit more about the movie before going in.

But luckily, I started recognizing that the rest of the movie is actually pretty good. Not as a silly comedy, but as a good romantic comedy. And as a coming of age comedy. The characters are nicely developed. The dialogue is sharp. Wiig and Heder provide some good comic relief to ease so that the movie doesn't have just one tone.

So here's the story: I was caught of guard about Adventureland so that you don't have to. This movie deserved a wider audience because it's actually pretty good. It's my second favorite romantic comedy of the year, but I'll get to that on my top 10 list (unless it's bumped in the next few weeks).

I Love You , Man

2009-12-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

This is the third movie I saw this year, I Love You, Man.

I've found that in general, I tend to avoid comedies in the theaters. In the past, I figured that if I were going to see a movie, I wanted it to be something big. It should be something worth seeing on a big screen. But as I've grown up to the fact that the movie watching experience is more than that, I made an attempt to watch a few more comedies in the theater instead of just waiting for the DVD release. I'll write about a couple over the next month.

I Love You, Man wasn't great, but it was pretty good. Paul Rudd works well with the other two leads, Jason Segel and Rashida Jones. Rudd and Segal were on screen together in Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I think that in the latter they were pretty funny together. They worked well in this movie as well. If you were to call this movie a romantic comedy, you could be referring to the man crush these two have on each other, and I think it worked.

Overall, it's a decent movie. There are enough funny parts, so I don't think you will be disappointed if you watch it.

But most importantly, it isn't too long. This is something I've totally changed my mind about over the past few years. I used to look at movies from an economical point of view. My thought was that if I'm paying x amount for a movie that's two and a half hours long or spending x amount for a ninety minute movie, I'm getting ripped off. Once again, I've grown enough to discount this now.

Now I truly appreciate some good editing, and I'm more likely to see a movie that doesn't go too much beyond two hours. With comedies, shorter is often better. I Love You Man was about an hour and forty-five. That's about the max.

This year, I think I've seen more movies that have been well under two hours, and they just seem tighter. I haven't felt nearly as many physically uncomfortable moments as movies slow down to the point where I start worrying about how numb my left buttock is. My legs are already pretty figgity in theater seats, so I don't need the extra uncomfortable time.

I wonder - did I more "short" movies this year because I chose to or because they are just getting a bit shorter? If they are, perhaps it has something to do with DVD releases. Everyone knows that you have to have some parts cut for the inevitable extended editions on the DVDs, so they can cut out a few things that they might have been reluctant to earlier?

My mini thesis is unproven by a couple "big releases this year, Transformers 2 and 2012, both of which, I understand, were rather long.

And of course, there are obvious exceptions to the rule. There have been many movies that NEED to be epics. I can't imaging seeing Gone With the Wind in the theaters. But watching it in parts at home - cool.

While watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, I remember hitting a point where I was enjoying myself so much that I didn't want it to end. so for those of you who hated the endings and endings and endings, I guess that's my fault.

When the makers of the movie are good enough, and if the movies are great enough, they can take their time telling the story and developing the characters. But it can be a risk. The editing process needs to filled with outstanding judgment. I felt that with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, it was excruciatingly long for me. Perhaps a major cut would have fixed that (though I hated it for so many other reasons, I doubt it.) Yesterday I talked about Watchmen and how adding more content would have been beneficial. But I don't know if I wanted to spend more than two and a half hours in the theaters with it.

Lance wrote about The Bridge on the River Kwai today. So I took a moment to see what I wrote about it right after seeing it. It turns out that I wrote a very nice little conclusion for today's Movie-a-Day entry:

13. BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE (1957)

December 1, 2000 - Excellent! This is one of those long movies that flies by. In the first hour, with the conflict between Obi Wan and the Japanese military guy (I'm so precise) was extremely intense. Sir Alec Guiness was incredibly cool. Then the rest of the movie built up nicely to the final scene, as we learn what the final fate of the bridge will be. Really amazing.

The Watchmen

2009-12-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

One thing that surprised me about the list of this year's movies is that Watchmen was only the second movie I saw. I'm surprised because it came out in March. And as of the beginning of December, I've been to over 30. It means I've been on quite a pace since then.

I read the first 40 pages or so of the graphic novel probably 15 years ago. Then again probably 13. And on and on until I finally went through it six or seven years ago. I don't want to give the wrong impression, however. It isn't bad. In fact, it's pretty amazing. It often tops many lists of the best comics or graphic novels ever. While I have a few favorites that I would argue in its place (Preacher or Strangers in Paradise, for example), I can't argue its quality.

Interestingly enough, when I was in middle school I had a Watchmen button. That's the Comedian's smiley face button with the splot of blood. I really like that iconic image. I liked it enough to wear the silly button even though I had no idea what the comic was about.

The difficulty I had going through it was the density. There's so much to absorb. Every page, nay - every panel, is rich with plot and character. Before the movie was made, you wouldn't have to search comic book or movie message boards for long to find another person stating that a Watchmen movie would work best as an HBO type miniseries. It's that density that made me and so many others agree.

However, I should point out that I only read it through once. I don't know the story really well, and whatever parts they skipped over and changed, I can't tell you specifically other than the giant squid. But I had a good sense of the tone of the comic, so that set up my expectations.

So given that, how does a two and a half hour movie work? Looking back, it did pretty well. But still, I was left wanting more. I didn't feel as satisfied with the sum of the parts as I did with the comic. I wonder if someone completely unfamiliar with the comic would feel that same sense. But again, given that it had to be released in one theatrical sitting, they did a good job with what they had.

I'm going to write a bit more about movie length tomorrow, so I'll save a few comments about the length of this until then. I'll just mention that I know that there are extended versions now available, adding about an hour of content. If you saw that and thought it made a big difference, let me know as I'm mildly interested to check it out someday. I just don't need another hour of big blue dong.

Casting was a huge key for Watchmen. I thought they nailed casting both Jackie Earle Haley (rumored to be Sinestro in Green Lantern?) as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Patrick Wilson was interesting as Night Owl. But I remember not really buying Matthew Goode as Ozymandias. In this case, I don't really know if he played the character differently from the comic or if I just didn't dig the character. If I really cared enough, I would have reread the comic and rewatched the movie before writing this. But eh, what are you going to do?

My biggest gripe about Watchmen is the same complaint I had about director Zack Snyder's other recent big release, 300. It's the slow motion. I understand why he did it. He wants to capture those comic book images. He wants us to stop for a moment and say, "Hey! This looks exactly like that one panel in the comic book." OK, but for me it disrupts the flow of the story.

I had the same problem in the first Spider-Man. You might remember the final fight with The Green Goblin. Spidey does this super twisty jump to avoid some of Gobby's razor bat thingies. It was in slow motion. It was a big "look at this special effect!" moment that I felt pulled me away from the fast paced fight scene.

300 was the same, except over and over. And over. And over. now I enjoy looking at still images. It's called going to a museum. Shoot - spent probably 5-10 minutes each piece staring at some of Munch's work this summer in Oslo (by the way, his work is some that you need to see the originals to appreciate. I always thought it was just cool, but The Scream is intense and Madonna is alive). But I don't want to see stills or slow-mos of oiled up Spartans. I want to see them kicking ass. Luckily, they did plenty of that. But I was too bored with a movie that should have been solid ass kicking.

So, of course, I felt the same about the slow-mo stuff in Watchmen. The difference between 300 and Watchmen is that Watchmen has a lot more story. It's that denseness that I mentioned earlier. That means less opportunity for slow-mo. It didn't come up as often, but every time it did I was pulled out. In a movie as long as this, you can't do that too the viewer. At least it wasn't also shot with a handheld cam, though that's a rant for another movie blog...

Overall, I think Watchmen worked. The complaints I have a rather nitpicky. A movie based on this comic could have been a complete disaster, and it wasn't. Watchmen came pretty close to hitting my top 10 list, and in a year in which I had seen my usual number, it likely would have made it.

The Reader and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

2009-12-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

Why not start off the month with two movies?

I wrote about The Reader briefly earlier this year. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. I try to see all five nominated movies (though it's changing to 10 this year, so I need to revise my goal, so I watched it for that reason alone.

In my original writeup, I was nitpicky with the storytelling. I didn't like the nonlinear method of storytelling. I stated that I didn't think it was worth a Best Picture nom, even if it was pretty good. But since seeing it almost a year ago, my overall viewpoint has changed.

And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to celebrate movies this month. The best movies aren't just about the experience of watching them but what they make you think about. My memory of the movie is of an excellent Holocaust movie with a unique point of view. Since I am recommending The Reader, I'm going to do away with explaining that point of view to avoid spoilers.

While there is room for more Holocaust movies, I guess Schindler's List declared that you can't make another straight-forward movie; it showed the horror of the camps so completely. On two of the Europe tours I went on, we went to concentration camps - Auschwitz and Dachau. I can honestly say that I don't need to go to another ever again, or even back to either of those. I think that every person (even Ahmajinedad) should go to them, bu I've done it. These aren't like Civil War battlfields. I've been to a few of those, I hope to return to all of those, and I want to visit more. No, this is a part of history that you only need to see once. And I think Schindler's List does something similar.

Other Holocaust movies need new angles. The Pianist, from 2002, showed a man hiding from the camps. Band of Brothers dealt with the soldiers finding the camps. I even think there could be room for a new Anne Frank movie (with kickass CGI attic action!) And the other movie I want to talk about, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, takes a look at a German family living next to a concentration camp.

I didn't see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in the theaters, so it isn't elible to be counted in my list, though I don't think it would have made it either. I don't think it's a spoiler to briefly summarize the plot here, since we're meant to understand that things sooner than the boy. A young German boy, Bruno, moves with his parents to a new home that's next to a "farm." His father, played by werewolf David Thewlis, is in charge of the farm, which Bruno slowly starts to realize that it's a camp for people. While the ending is possibly emotional overkill, I recommend watching this. It's streaming on Netflix right now.

I actually came close to showing this movie in class at the end of last year. I didn't for two reasons. The most important is that I taught the history of Rock instead of 20th century. But also because of the ending. It might have been too much for the end of the school year.

Of these two movies, The Reader is actually more uplifting that The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. The Boy could potentially mess with a kid's head. But of the two, it's the only one I could show in a classroom. Why? Boobies.

Did you see The Reader and/or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? What did you think?

Movie-a-Day Month preamble!!

2009-12-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I go to see a lot of movies. I see many more in the theaters than the average person. At the beginning of each calendar year, I spend the first ten days or so going through my top 10 movies. So during this month, I'm going to write about the movies that didn't make it on my list.

Of course, that creates a bit of a dilemma for me in that I'm writing about a bunch of movies that weren't even the best of the year, so how interesting can that be? Well to be honest, I'm not too interested in how interested you are in reading this. I figure at best it might help some of you to pick out some movies to rent or Netflix over the holiday season.

But in general, I actually like most of these movies. I try to avoid the obviously crappy Old Dogs types of movies, so I won't have to write about those. But since I see so many, I can afford to take some chances. Often they pay off. Looking at the list of movies I saw this year, I really only disliked one. There are a few more that I don't remember very well. There will be several reviews that will be really short. I'll fill in some gaps with some write ups about a few more movies.

I know that my best writing is when I'm complaining. I prefer a sweet rant to heaping praise any day of the week. And I know my readers prefer reading my sweet rants and they probably have never heard my heaping praise. Also, I prefer discussing movies than writing about them. So with that in mind, I will declare Lance to be the winner of Movie-a-Day month 2009. That's also because he wrote a sweet writeup of a damn good movie today, and I often suspect that Nolan actually believes it's a real contest. So congratulations to Lance!