Sugar (2008)

Sugar (2008)

Written and Directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

           

            This movie completely surprised me and in such a way that it now comes highly recommended.  What I thought would be an inspirational sports drama soon became an introspective look at hope, lost dreams, desire, and the cruelty inherent in “The American Dream.”

            Having seen Half Nelson, I was already anticipating the follow-up from Boden and Fleck.  For those of you who haven’t seen it, Half Nelson is little more than a masterpiece, and the performance that Ryan Gosling delivered was nothing short of God-like.  The fact that he didn’t win an Oscar for it remains to this day a mystery to me.  Another thing that defies logic is the fact that he followed it up with Fracture, a mediocre movie at best, and then followed it up with Lars and the Real Girl, yet another mind-blowing performance in a movie that was at times both incredibly sad and gut-wrenchingly hilarious.  Tangent aside, Boden and Fleck are incredibly capable film-makers and I have no doubt that they have great careers ahead of them.

            Sugar tells the story of a young Dominican baseball player named Miguel “Sugar” Santos.  His teammates and friends call him Sugar because he always eats more dessert than anybody else.  After achieving success in the Dominican Republic, Sugar is signed by MLB recruiters to play for an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.  He attends their spring training facility in Arizona where learns the lessons that America has to offer.  He has to learn English, deal with racism, girls, and is constantly terrified of not playing good enough.  In his home town, Sugar is a superstar – the best around.  However, when he arrives in America, he is just average, and the rest of the movie details his fight to overcome mediocrity. 

            As the titular character, newcomer Algenis Perez Soto is absolutely fantastic.  The making-of featurette told me that Soto was actually a Dominican baseball player who auditioned for a role as an extra, but Boden and Fleck made a terrific find.  This was one of the best performances I have seen in years, and the fact that it was by a non-actor gives me great hope for the future of filmmaking.  The first 30 minutes or so of the film takes place in the Dominican (it was also filmed there) and I loved the way that Sugar interacted with his friends and family.  Everything seem well-researched and authentic, despite the fact that the Spanish some of the characters spoke seemed a little bit too “textbook.”  By this I mean that I could understand everything they were saying, and as a non Spanish speaker, it seemed dubious that I could understand.  It just didn’t seem like they would really speak that way.  All of the supporting characters were just as good as Soto, never taking too much attention away from the lead, but always adding to the emotion and authenticity of the character.

            Another thing that I liked was the way that the story unfolded.  Like I said before, this is not your average rags to riches sports movie.  There is no happy ending here.  Our lead does not make it to the majors.  The thing is – that’s not really the point of the story.  We’re not supposed to feel bad for Sugar, and he never feels bad for himself.  Despite the sadness that comes with the fact that Sugar isn’t good enough, the movie still illicits hope and happiness.  Even though he doesn’t make it with baseball, Sugar still manages to find his way in America, and the film definitely ends on a hopeful note.

            The last thing I absolutely loved about this movie was the cinematography and music.  It featured at least two scenes set to music by one of my favorite bands, TV on the Radio, and most of the other music was of the indie variety.  The cinematography was also great.  One of the key scenes, in which Sugar experiments with performance enhancing drugs, had the camera attached to Sugar, but facing him, Spike Lee-style, while he walked in a daze through several locations.  The shot was about 4 minutes long and brought on a huge range of emotions.  It was extremely well done, as was the entirety of the flick.

            Like I said before, I can definitely recommend this movie to everybody.  It has a very strong, if unknown cast, it is very accessible, and I hope it ends up getting recognized when it comes time for awards.   I’ll give it a 9/10.

Top 10 of the Decade

Rather than create my own top 10 of the decade list, I am going to provide you with a list that most mirrors what my own would be.  It's by the good people over at Joblo.com, a site which I have been following for about 8 years, a site that I trust and visit on a very regular basis.

http://www.joblo.com/best-of-the-2000s

The Hangover (2009)

The Hangover (2009)

Written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore

Directed by Todd Phillips

            Here’s a movie that I think really took everybody by surprise this summer.  It came out of left field and it really delivered on all the levels that the other films failed too.  It was mysterious, dramatic, adventurous, hilarious, and had Mike Tyson in it.  Really, what more could you want from a movie?

            I think by this point everybody and their mother has seen The Hangover (literally – my girlfriend’s conservative mother took her 13, 15, and 16 year-old kids to see it), so I’m pretty sure everybody knows what it’s about, but for those not initiated, here’s how it goes: 4 guys go to Vegas for a bachelor’s party.  It’s really that simple.  The story is not told sequentially.  They arrive in Vegas, we see their first shots, and then they wake up the next afternooon with no recollection of what happened.  What really draws you in are the characters.

What I really liked about this was how each character was drastically different.  What more can be said about Zach Galifianakis’ Alan?  The man is an enigma, and I believe his beard should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama when it comes time for Oscars.  He really is fantastic and hilarious here.  Is he a retard or is he just really weird?  Who knows?!  More importantly, who cares?  Every line is delivered with the strength of the seasoned stand-up comic that he is.  Ed Helms’ Stu was excellent as well.  While I have been enjoying him for three seasons as Andy on The Office, the rest of the world has had no idea how truly gut-wrenchingly hilarious he truly is – until now.  He really does well playing the lapdog to his girlfriend Melissa’s (The Daily Show’s Rachel Harris) evil witch of a woman.  Also doing really well was Justin Bartha as Doug.  I thought he was hilarious in both Gigli and the first National Treasure movie (yes I saw both of them, and no, I’m not ashamed.  I was one of the few people to actually enjoy the former flick), and he was pretty good here, despite extremely limited screentime.  Of course, rounding out the primary cast is Bradley Cooper as Phil.  Now, I know people are going to hate me for saying this, but I’m not the biggest fan of Bradley Cooper.  He plays his usual here – the dick, and he does it well.  But it doesn’t take much to act like a dick.  Just ask 75% of the male population of New York.  They do it without trying.  I understand his appeal.  He’s suave, sexy, funny, charming.  I just don’t really like the character, and Cooper doesn’t seem to know how to get away from it.  What I can say in his defense is that he’s pretty funny in this, with some good one liners and zingers.  Also, I really liked the way that his character not just put up with Alan’s weirdness, but really helped him when he needed it.  If you want to see Cooper in a really great dramatic role, check out Midnight Meat Train, which despite sounding like a really demographically specific porn title, is a a really taut thriller.  Heather Graham rounds out the cast as a stripper.  Not much to say there except Lindsay Lohan turned down the role in what may have been the worst career choice of her life.  Graham does what she usually does with a role, and that’s not much, but I don’t think there was much there to begin with, as the movie is really about the bond between the 4 guys.  There are some really great side characters in here as well.  Rob Riggle, Mike Epps, Jeffrey Tambor (Uncle Father!), Mike Tyson, and Ken Jeong all deliver hilarious, memorable performances.

I really loved the way the story was told.  We don’t actually see what happened on that fateful night, and that’s what makes it great.  We learn what happened as the guys do, and they never cease to surprise us.  This movie goes to places that you would never imagine.  The story has a huge set of balls, and it manages to pull it off, not just good, but great.  Also, the cinematography is superb.  You really feel the heat of Vegas beating down in each shot.  The sweat, the filth, the booze, the drugs, the sand, this really feels like Vegas (probably because it was actually shot in Vegas).  This movie really is worth seeing.  I recommend it to everybody.  Grandmas, Mom, Dad, your gay Uncle, this is really a great movie with tons and tons of heart and if you haven’t seen it, then you’re missing out.  I’m gonna go with a 9/10.

The Uninvited (2009)

The Uninvited (2009)

Written by Craig Rosenburg, Doug Miro, & Carlo Bernard, based on the film Changhwa Hongryon by Ji-woon Kim

Directed by Charles and Thomas Guard

            What a turd! Every now and then a film comes around that just surprises me.  In this case, I was surprised by the amount of people that saw this this past summer and enjoyed it.  All summer long, people were singing its praises, and I kept putting it off, because I didn’t really give a shit.  Now that I’ve seen it, I’ve realized that I wasted my time.  I’ve never been able to understand the recent spat of Japanese horror film remakes, and this giant elephant turd hasn’t changed my opinion one bit.

            The Uninvited is about a girl, Anna (played by the strangly beautiful and otherwise perfectly capable Emily Browning), who returns home after 10 months in the mental hospital after being placed there due to her mother’s death by both fire and disease.  For anybody who is familiar with movies, that one sentence synopsis, which is given right on the back of the DVD case, should give every indication of what happens in this movie.  After she returns home, she is greeted by her sister, Alex (played by Arielle Kebbel), her father (David Strathairn), and her father’s new sperm receptacle Rachel (Elizabeth Banks).  Naturally, Anna and her sister both think Rachel is out to get them, and they start out on a quest to vanquish her for all of eternity.

            The movie starts out strong.  The opening scene is creepy as hell.  In fact, throughout the whole movie, there are a bunch of qenuinely frightening scenes and imagery.  The bad part is that once you figure out the twist that is coming (which I did after about 15 minutes), the rest of the movie just doesn’t matter.  It’s just not scary when you realize what’s going on.  My biggest qualm is: if you can’t trust the main character, why should you trust her?  The fact that she was in a mental hospital for 10 months is the biggest bullshit indicator.  She was obviously there for a reason, even if that reason isn’t given until the end of the film.  I understand how this would be an interesting concept.  It worked for The Butterfly Effect, Running Scared, and every other film that starts at the end and then rewinds back to tell you the whole story.  The problem here is that we don’t start at the end.  We start in the beginning with some crazy chick.  So if she’s crazy, all the frightening imagery is just pointless.  She’s crazy and it’s not real, so we know it can’t hurt her, so why does it matter?  This leads me to the next thing I didn’t like.

            The acting.  Everybody here is otherwise perfectly capable of giving a great performance.  Elizabeth Banks is one of my favorite comedic actresses.  Here, she’s used in a dramatic role, and she really doesn’t deliver.  She’s supposed to be ambiguous, you’re not supposed to be able to tell if she’s really evil or just misunderstood.  The problem is that she just always comes across as evil.  David Strathairn is one of those “Oh it’s THAT guy” actors who you’ve seen everywhere and you always love him, but you never know his name.  He is the only one that delivered, unfortunately he was just underused here.  Emily Browning is a young actress that I really like, but I just haven’t seen her in much.  She was good in Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events and Ghost Ship, two movies that were very underrated IMHO.  And here, she’s fine.  She never sticks out but she’s not bad either.  She’s just ok.  However, once the twist happens, you’ll stop caring about her.  Arielle Kebbel is just a terrible actress, but she looks great, and I thought she was hilarious in John Tucker Must Die. 

            Just about the only good thing here was the way the flick looked.  I loved the locations, the cinematography, and like I said earlier, the scares, had they been used in a better written movie, would have been terrifying.  I’m going to place the blame for this movie’s crappiness on the writing.  Maybe it was the twist bullshit, maybe it was the chronology, I’m not sure, but this movie was just plain not good.  Also, why was it called "The Uninvited"?  The title has nothing to do with the movie.  Was it Rachel who was uninvited?  Who knows.  It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t even remotely good.  I’m interested in seeing the original Japanese version (the poster for which is up above), but I don’t think I care enough to actually watch it.  I’d give The Uninvited a 4/10.

All the Real Girls (2003)

All the Real Girls (2003)

Written by David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider

Directed by David Gordon Green

           

            It’s hard to say exactly what it is that I liked about this movie.  Then again, it’s impossible to say what I didn’t like, because I liked damn near all of it.  This movie was subtle and underrated, brilliant and beautiful.  My mistake was watching Green’s movies in reverse order.  I started with Pineapple Express, then moved on to Snow Angels (another beautiful, moving drama), and then finished off with this, what I consider his best (but I think I need to revisit Snow Angels sometime soon).

            The plot is like this: Paul is the local hometown hero in a small North Carolina town.  He’s the guy that has all the friends and he’s had his fair share of the nether-regions of the local ladies, if you know what I mean (I mean he’s laid nearly ever girl in town).  In other words, he is to a small town in 2003, what Shia LaBeouf is Hollywood in 2009.  He hangs out with his friends Tip, Bust-Ass (played by the always brilliant Danny McBride, in an early role), and Bo.  When Tip’s sister Noel (Zooey Deschanel) returns home from somewhere, only to be immediately pursued by Paul.  Because they are BFFL, Tip knows that Paul has, until very recently, been a womanizing asshole, and doesn’t want Paul to have anything to do with Noel.  Thus begins the fight that most young, male friends have simply called “Can I Date Your Sister.”  Some other stuff happens, Noel does some fucked up shit out of left field, Paul ends up broken hearted from the first girl he actually cared about, end picture.

All the Real Girls plays as the non-funny, sequential version of 500 Days of Summer.  In both, Zooey Deschanel plays the love interest and proves, yet again, why she is my dream girlfriend.  Funny? Check.  Smart? Check.  Quirky? Check.  Beautiful? Check Check Check.  In all honesty, I’d be fairly content if she played every love interest in every movie for the rest of history.  Comedy, drama, action, it doesn’t really matter to me.  This was the role she was born to play, and the only reason that my framed 500 Days poster with 500 pictures of her came down was so it could be replaced by my not-so-secret man crush Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in the new Alice in Wonderland.  If I had to choose between a theoretical life without either of them, I’d gladly theoretically lay my head on a train track and wait for the 3:38 to Penn Station to arrive.  Zooey’s performance here got her nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2004, amongst other things, and she really deserved it.  Going into this flick, I’d seen her in plenty of flicks but nothing really stood out acting-wise.  Well in this one, she proves why she’s such a hot commodity in indie flicks.  She really does a fine job, and I commend her.  Also performing incredibly well is Paul Schneider, co-writer and male lead.  You may have seen him before in Parks and Recreation (the increasingly funny other show from the makes of The Office), Away We Go, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Crawford, or Elizabethtown, amongst countless others.  He really does a good job here, essentially playing me, or you, or anybody else who has ever been fucked over by all of his friends, family, and (most recently) a significant other.  Patricia Clarkson also shows up here as Paul’s mom, but it’s kind of weird because she’s a clown and she really looks like she’s about 4 and a half months older than Paul, who is supposed to be 20, but looks 29, which is much closer to his actual age (he was born in 76, which would make him 33 now, which would make him about 26/27 at the time of filming).  The performances are the real star here, as the entire cast delivers on every level.  At times it doesn’t seem like they’re acting, so much as just having natural conversations.

Also worth noting is the cinematography by Tim Orr, who has worked with David Gordon Green on all of his features.  If there’s one thing that Green excels at, it’s making his pictures look fantastic, and that case holds true here.  He lingers on sunsets, faces, landscapes for far longer than most directors would dare, and it helps him.  This movie is nothing short of beautiful, and its scenery is conveyed in a natural way.

Chances are you haven’t seen this one.  It went largely unnoticed in its 2003 release, but received heapings of praise by critics and film-goers alike.  If you’re in the mood for a small, touching drama, then check this one out, it’s well worth your time.

Atonement (2007)

Atonement (2007)

Written by Christopher Hampton, based on the novel by Ian McEwan

Directed by Joe Wright

           

          This movie is not what you think it is.  It took me a long time to come around to watching this.  One thing you should know about me is that I don’t just dislike historical fiction, I actively loathe it.  As an english major, I was often asked by professors to read books that took place in the 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th century, and to be honest, I hated every single one of them.  In my opinion, if it’s in the past, it doesn’t matter.  That’s why it’s called the past and not “shit that happened and still matters.”  We have no influence on the past, and so I don’t care about books or movies that take place there.  And so, when I heard about this movie, I initially had zero interest.  But then the Oscar buzz started (Atonement ended up being nominated for Best Picture in 2008, alongside No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, and Michael Clayton, two of those deserved it, and No Country ended up winning).  So, during a trip to Blockbuster, I picked this up on a 4 for $20 sale, and I was pleasantly surprised.

            It’s hard to describe Atonement without completely giving away the plot, and I’ll try not to, but be warned, you may experience some minor SPOILERS if you read this.  Atonement starts out just like most period flicks – in the past.  The movie takes place between 1935 and 1940-ish.  It starts out at an English estate – the home of 13-year old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan, in a deservedly Oscar-nominated supporting role) and her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley).  The beginning mostly follows Briony as she finishes writing her first play and hands it out to her visiting cousins (three gingers, two of them young twin boys, and the other is their older sister Lola, who has some pretty intense hair, but she’s still quite pretty) to perform in it.  Also living on the estate is Robbie (the completely awesome and underrated James McAvoy), a friend of the family.  Robbie and Cecilia have some sort of past that’s only hinted at, and so they spend a lot of time arguing and throwing awkward glances at each other.  Cecilia and Briony’s older brother comes home from the war with a friend.  Meanwhile, Robbie offends Cecilia (because really, they’re just in love), and he writes an apology letter, along with a rough draft containing a very interesting word.  He mixes up the letters, giving one to Briony to give to her sister.  Briony reads it.  Then she catches Robbie and Cecilia having sex in the library.  Later that night, the gingers go missing.  Soon after, Lola claims she was raped, and Briony witnesses the end of it and becomes convinced that she saw Robbie committing the raping.  This sets up the second and third acts of the flick.

            What starts out as a generic period piece soon becomes an unconventional look at three young people during WWII.  You see, Briony’s little misunderstanding leads to a lot of bad crap that shouldn’t have happened.  The truly great part of this movie is the way it is told.  The storytelling is completely original and unable to be expressed in words.  Wright gives us the story according to one character, then he rewinds and gives it to us again, this time from another character’s perspective.  I loved it.  This avant-garde style often leads to a lot of WTF? moments and a surprising amount of mystery during the whole flick.  Another thing that really drew me in was the color schemes.  When you watch it, pay attention to the colors, as they become very important.  During the three different acts, certain colors are accentuated, for example, at the estate it’s greens and yellows and just forest-like colors in general.  During Robbie’s war scenes, everything is brown and grey and black.  During the third act, it’s blue, white, and red.  Another brilliant thing about his flick was the music.  This movie really set a new precedent for music in period movies.  You see, whenever Briony is onscreen, the music is made by a typewriter.  It may sound weird, but it really works, and it really works well (in fact, Atonement ended up winning the Oscar for Best Achievement in Original Music in 2008, a testament to the true nature of the music here).  A lot was said about Saoirse Ronan’s performance in this movie, and it really is pretty remarkable what she does with an extremely limited amount of screen time.  She is definitely a young actress to watch in the next 10-15 years.  I have heard that her performance in The Lovely Bones is just as good as what she does here.  The true standout, at least for me, was James McAvoy.  The only thing I’d seen him in previously was the first Narnia movie.  Since first seeing Atonement, I also saw him in Wanted, and I can say that, yes, he is officially one of my favorite young actors.  I’ve heard that he’s really great in The Last King of Scotland, and I have it coming up in my queue.

            If you haven’t seen this movie, then you’re really missing out.  It’s a truly great film and it’s destined to become a classic, if it hasn’t already.  See this one.

Public Enemies (2009)

Public Enemies (2009)

Written by Ronan Bennett, Michael Mann, and Ann Biderman, based on the book by Bryan Burrough

Directed by Michael Mann

           

           Like Mann’s other films, Public Enemies was somehow both slow and deliberate, but also fun and action-packed. 

I think it’s well known by my friends that I actively loathe the film remake of Miami Vice.  It was boring and pointless.  In fact, I’m not the biggest fan of Mann’s in general.  I’ll probably catch hell for it, but I’ve never really liked Heat, which some refer to as the greatest heist film of the last 30 years.  To me, it’s 2 hours of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino talking with a 20 minute action sequence in the middle.  I did, however, absolutely love Collateral, but I personally think it has something to do with the combination of Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise playing a villian.  Also that incredibly long shot near the middle of the foxes crossing the road that really sums up the whole film.  Even then, there’s something about Mann’s films that just take me out of the experience.  They usually involve a lot of talking, and the general theme is the difference between good and evil, and that is no different here.  That said, I did enjoy Public Enemies, but I had some reservations.

Public Enemies is about John Dillinger, bank robber extraordinaire and bonafide rock star of the 1930’s.  This flick opens by following Dillinger’s rise to fame (notoriety?) as he enters the prison he just got out of in order to bust out his friends.  He and his friends then begin robbing banks (naturally, because, what else do you do straight out of prison?). At the same time, we see the story of Melvin Purvis, leading the FBI in Dillinger’s capture. 

First off, Johnny Depp could be filmed painting the inside of a house for 8 hours and I’d not only watch it, but find it captivating.  This is true for me, and this is true for you.  He simply makes every movie he’s in better.  And he excelled here.  It’s like he was born to play John Dillinger.  They’re both badasses.  Depp really belongs in the 1930’s.  Let’s face it, he is perfect here.  Also perfect in this one was Marion Cotillard, who like 3 people saw in La Vie en Rose, for which she won an Academy Award.  She played the love interest and she did it particularly well here.  There are a whole boatload of cameos here, from Giovanni Ribisi, to Billy Crudup.  LOST’s Emilie De Ravin even makes a brief appearance here.  You may have noticed that I haven’t mentioned Christian Bale, who was billed as the co-star here.  That’s because he’s not a co-star.  His character is there for you to want more Dilinger.  In fact, he’s not even that great.  As of this movie, I have officially lost my faith in Bale.  Yes, he’s been fantastic in the past.  I will admit that he’s an excellent actor.  But he’s not a movie star.  Give him a small, quirky role, and he’ll knock it out of the park.  He was the perfect Patrick Bateman.  But, let’s face it, was he really the good part of the two Batman movies?  The first one was good because of the story.  And we all know that The Dark Knight was really about Heath Ledger’s Joker.  But, as of this past summer, I no longer care if a flick has Bale in it.  Between this and That Terminator Movie, Bale isn’t what Hollywood wants him to be.

The thing that really takes me out of Mann’s films is his use of the HD Digital Camera.  While most cinematographers use film, Mann has gone the digital route for his last few films.  While it worked well in Collateral, I don’t think it worked at all in Miami Vice, and only works here in spades.  Sometimes it’s on, sometimes it’s off.  There was one scene in particular, where Purvis and his men are taking Dillinger through a courthouse, where everything just looks odd.  The handheld camera is good sometimes.  Sometimes it’s even great.  Like during the robberies and the escapes.  But during exposition shots, it really just made me feel distanced from what was going on onscreen.  From what I gather, this is something that really divides people about Mann’s films, and it’s no different with me.

Like I said before, I liked this film, and I didn’t.  It felt very similar to Mann’s other recent outings, but it was mainstream enough for me to enjoy it.  The themes were there, without being too obvious.  However, the camera work was a bit off-putting, and there were some characters and storylines that were mediocre at best.  If you like Johnny Depp (and who doesn’t?), then give it a watch.  Hell, give it a watch anyway.  It’s not bad, it’s just average, but still enjoyable.

Franklyn (2008)

Franklyn (2008)

Written and Directed by Gerald McMorrow

            Due to the fact that this movie sucked, I’m gonna give you a brief synopsis sans spoilers and then just talk about shit that I feel like talking about, as I wouldn’t want to waste any more of your time with this movie than I have to.

            Franklyn was essentially about 4 people making their way through a day or two, or possibly more, in London.  To be honest, for the first ¾ of the flick, I had no clue what was going on.  Sam Riley (who was Award-worthy in Control, a biopic of Ian Curtis) played somebody who sulked and popped his collar.  I’m not really sure what his purpose was.  Eva Green (the naked chick from The Dreamers, also Bond’s love interest in Casino Royale) played a crazy chick who was presumably obsessed with a weird art form involving suicide.  She also played somebody else who may or may not have been imaginary.  Ryan Phillipe (former husband to uber-bitch Reese Witherspoon) played a superhero in Meanwhile City, a city built on religions.  Literally.  It was a very poignent, not-so-subtle metaphor for the world today.  And it looked a lot like the city from Dark City, a far superior sci-fi flick from which this one obviously got quite a bit of inspiration.  There’s a nice little twist in the last 5 minutes that ties everybody and everything together, but it’s really quite bad.  You’ll lose interest, just like I did, after about 10 minutes, because you have no idea what the fuck is going on.  I rented this because I recalled reading a quite favorable review, but this movie was just bad.  DO NOT SEE THIS.  You’ll waste an hour and 38 minutes of your life. So, on to better things.

·         Spiderman 4 – Yes, I saw the third one.  To be honest, I enjoyed it at the time, but then I got to thinking, and I realized it was terrible.  And from what I can recall, that was the general consensus at the time.  So why would Sam Raimi agree to do another one?  Maybe he wants to clear his name, but I think he did that with Drag Me to Hell.  I’m on the fence with this one.

·         Avatar – Listen, I was on the same ship as most people for the past year or two.  Hearing all the hype, but not seeing anything, I really didn’t give a shit.  Then I saw the first trailer, and I was stoked.  Then the second trailer was even better.  But now the trailers are on every five minutes on every channel, and I don’t give a shit again.  The visuals look awesome, but the story looks generic.  And from what I can gather, that sentence pretty much sums up all of the reviews coming out.

·         Sex and the City 2 – I’d be much happier if Sarah Jessica Parker would fall into a well.

·         Kevin Smith’s next movie, now possibly titled Cop Out – I love Kevin Smith.  I own and love all of his flicks, even Jersey Girl, which pretty much got shit on by everybody else.  I’m also a huge Bruce Willis fan.  Honestly, I can’t name a flick with Willis that I didn’t like.  From what I understand, Adam Brody and Olivia Wilde are in this as well.  Adam Brody was the only watchable part of The O.C.  Olivia Wilde is hot as hell.  But Tracey Morgan is also in this.  And Tracey Morgan is unwatchable in anything.  He’s an annoying racist who seems to make it a point to always play a retard in anything he’s in.  I’ll see this, but I’ll see it reluctantly.

a

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

Directed by Jeff Feuerzeig

I first encountered the music of Daniel Johnston last fall.  A cover of his song “Devil Town” was featured in the pilot for the television version of Friday Night Lights.  It was the single most moving moment I have ever seen in a television show.  Not only that, but it was one of the most beautiful song I had ever heard.  I soon became obsessed.  As it turns out, in 2004 a record was released called The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered.  This album featured 18 of Johnston’s original songs covered by several comtemporary indie bands like TV on the Radio, Death Cab for Cutie, Beck, and Bright Eyes (doing a version of “Devil Town”).  I also found this impressive documentary.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston covers the entire life of American singer/songwriter/artist/performer Daniel Johnston.  For those that don’t know, Daniel Johnston is came to fame in the late 80’s/early 90’s because of his sheer insistance on being known.  He created music in his brother’s Austin, TX garage, recording straight onto cassette tapes.  He would then go to shows and simply hand out copies of his tapes to strangers, complete with hand-drawn album covers and track listings.  He soon began doing live performances, which were highly regarded.  In the late 80’s, he moved to New York City in order to pursue his music career.  He gained even more fame when Kurt Cobain wore a t-shirt with the cover drawing from his album Hi, How Are You during an MTV performance and several photo shoots.  The primary thing that defines Johnston and his music is the fact that he has been diagnosed with Manic Depressive Disorder.  He has had this since he was a teenager.

Johnston was born in 1961 in Southern California.  He moved around a lot as a boy and the family soon settled in West Virginia.  Daniel lived a quiet, “normal” life until he was about 17 or 18.  At this point he began working in a McDonald’s.  There was a girl that he fell in love with and he soon became obsessed with her.  Needless to say, she broke his heart (as all girls are wont to do).  This is when the Manic Depressive Disorder began to rear its head.  Daniel becamed deeply, deeply depressed.  As a boy, Daniel would record everything.  He had tapes of arguments with his parents.  He had tapes of conversations with friends.  He had home movies, he had songs recorded, he had everything taped.  Out of this depression came his first album (or cassette, as the case may be), entitled Songs of Pain, released in 1980.  All songs featured Daniel on piano or organ and he also did vocals.  He taught himself how to play the piano.  He generally released a tape a year for the next few years, including Yip/Jump Music (which included the song “Worried Shoes” which was covered by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s for the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack) and More Songs of Pain.  In 1983, he released Hi, How Are You, during which he claims he almost had a nervous breakdown at his brother’s Austin home.  At this point, Daniel moved back home and was placed in a mental institution.  After a few months, he left for New York.  His album 1990 was soon recorded.  The album was originally supposed to be entirely recorded in a formal studio, but Daniel’s mental illness prevented that.  He was soon arrested for drawing hundreds of fish in the stairwell inside of the Statue of Liberty.  He was then returned to a mental institution near his parents.  It was during this time that Daniel was gianing recognition for his musical prowess and a bidding war soon began for his next album, while he was in the institution.  For the next several years Daniel would leave the institution and go back in.  To this day, he continues to tour the world, surrounded with friends and family to help him.  Apparently a movie deal has been made for a biopic, tentatively to be released in 2011.  He released an album on October 6, 2009 on his own label.

As the movie shows, the greatest thing about Daniel Johnston’s music is his ability to immerse himself in it.  He doesn’t have the greatest voice.  Hell, he doesn’t even have a good voice.  He abilities with guitar and piano are limited at best.  But that doesn’t matter.  His lyrics are brilliant and his delivery is God-like.  The difference between Daniel Johnston and 98% of every other recording artist out there is that Daniel means it, and Daniel means it every single time.  He hardly ever performs a song live more than once because he can’t remember his old songs.  This man makes songs up as he goes.  HE MAKES SONGS UP.  And you know what?  They’re fucking beautiful!  Yea, some of them are crap, but for every crappy song, he has 8 brilliant ones.

I know I kind of rambled on there for a bit, giving you a history of this guy you’ve never heard of.  For that I’m sorry.  But this documentary was amazing.  I really got to know this man and I fell in love with him.  His case is a sad one, but more than that, it’s uplifting.  Please watch this movie.  You owe it to yourself.  It’s a happy, strange, sad, bizarre, inspirational story.

Bug (2006)

Bug (2006)

Written by Tracy Letts based on his play of the same name.

Directed by William Friedkin

           

            Wow, this flick was a freakin powerhouse! I would have loved to have seen this Off-Broadway play when it was out in 2004/2005.  As sensational as it was on screen, it was probably 100 times more intense onstage.  Needless to say, I liked it a lot, but it did lead to a lot of questions.

            This flick was very simple plot-wise.  It’s about a woman, named Agnes (played here by Ashley Judd, looking whitetrashified), whose husband (boyfriend? Baby daddy? I couldn’t really figure it out) Jerry (Harry Connick, Jr….Yea, I know, but more on that in a second) has just got out of prison.  On her last night before he gets home, Agnes chooses to hang out at the bar that she works at with her lesbian friend R.C. (played by the super hot Lynn Collins, who you may have seen this past summer as the romantic sex interest of Wolverine, and she’s in True Blood and the upcoming flick Uncertainty with one of my favorite young actors- Joseph Gordon Levitt).  They soon go back to the motel room where Agnes lives with their new friend Peter (Academy Award-nominated Michael Shannon) in tow.  Peter is just a little weird, and it shows.  After a few minutes, R.C. leaves and the rest of the flick never leaves the motel room.  Peter stays the night and the next morning Jerry comes home.  There’s some spousal abuse, and Peter comes home to save the day, except he really just stands around looking like the doof that he is.  He doesn’t really stop Jerry, but Jerry stops because Peter’s there.  This is one thing I couldn’t really jive with.  It was obvious that Jerry was aggressive and probably a little crazy, but he never attacked Peter, even though it really seemed like he would (or should) have.  ANYWAY, Jerry comes and goes, so does R.C., and there’s a doctor, but the main point is, when they’re alone Peter convinces Agnes that there are bugs.  It starts out small.  Not just literally, it seemed like a passing comment.  But then they become obsessed.  Peter soon becomes convinced that the government has sent out little nano-bot bugs to surveil him and then he convinces Agnes of the same thing and the movie just gets crazier and crazier from there.

            What I liked about this movie was the tension.  I saw the trailers, so I knew some weird shit was gonna happen.  And though it was advertised as another Saw, that’s not what it was.  It took a long time to build, but when it did shit really hit the fan in a bad way.  The main theme is Paranoia.  Are they crazy? Or is the government really spying on them?  And I think it’s a valid question, especially in the current cultural climate we live in.  The problem my girlfriend and I had was, Judd and Shannon often just came across as crazy for most of the flick.  Now, as a cinephile, I understood what they were trying to convey, but she was right – they often went a little far.  Personally, I loved it.  But she was iffy.   It’s important to think about when the government is putting too much pressure on its citizens, and this flick really put a lot of thought into it.  The dialogue was fantastic, the performances were even better.  I especially loved the washed out color themes that were present and the dark dark dark tone present throughout the flick.  This motherfucker was pitch-black and I loved it!  Director Williem Friedkin did a great job, and he’s come a long way cinematography-wise since The Exorcist.  Overall, if you like really really tense thrillers, then this one is the way to go.

Knowing (2009)

Knowing (2009)

Written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden, & Stiles White, based on Pearson’s book.

Directed by Alex Proyas

            

            This one was a mixed bag of different sci-fi norms, with one big unique twist thrown in at the end.  Was it original? Yes.  Was it good? Meh.

            Knowing was directed by Alex Proyas, one of my favorite sci-fi auteurs.  Nicholas Cage is the lead.  And it’s about the end of the world.  How can a movie like this go wrong?  Well, easily, apparantly.  Alex Proyas is pretty amazing.  The Crow, Dark City, these are classics.  They were done on lower budgets, with lesser-known actors (at the time), and they have huge cult followings.  But when Proyas tries to go big-budget and do a studio flick, he fails.  See I, Robot and, now, Knowing for examples.  It’s just something about trying to conform his film to appeal to the masses that takes away from it.  Also, it’s quite possible that Cage is at fault here.  When I was a kid, Nicholas Cage was the shit.  He’s won an Academy Award.  He was in Con Air, Face/Off, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes, Wild at Heart, and Trapped in Paradise.  I mean, c’mon! Those flicks were bad freaking ass!  Somewhere along the way, Cage lost his sanity.  And his hair.  And what we’re left with is this.

            Knowing started out great.  You see, in 1959, a bunch of kids at a little elementary school in Massachusetts put some pictures and some letters into a time capsule, the whole town vowing not to open for another 50 years, conveniently, in 2009.  There’s a scary ass little girl (SALG) that has some sort of problem, and on her paper she writes down numbers furiously until her bitch of a teacher rips it out of her hand.  During the burial of the time capsule the SALG goes missing.  She is soon found in a janitor’s closet, furiously scratching at the door with her fingernails until she bleeds.  Jump forward to 2009.  Nicholas Cage is an astrophysicist (this is where the movie loses all believability) with an adorable son.  Also, he’s an alchoholic (and now I believe again!).  When the time capsule is taken out of the ground, Cage’s kid gets the letter from SALG.  Nicholas Cage finds it and immediately becomes obsessed with the numbers, convinced they have meaning.  Perhaps not coincidentally, the numbers coincide with most disasters since 1959, predicting the dates, places, and number of people that will perish.  Cage sees that there is a disaster predicted for tomorrow, and he sets out on a mission to prevent it.  Because one person can prevent the death of 81 people.  This leads to the best scene of the movie, which you may have seen part of in the trailers, a scene which the rest of the flick unfortunately fails to live up to.  It involves a plane crash.  It’s all done in a 2 and a half minute continuous shot with Nicholas Cage walking through the wreckage of the plane looking for survivors.  It’s haunting and gruesome, and awesome.  However, the next action scene isn’t for another 20 minutes, and it’s a looooong wait.  He finds the descendants of SALG – played by Rose Byrne (from Sunshine, one of my favorite sci-fi flicks) and the same child actress that played the original SALG!!!  Ahhhh, too many Scary Ass Little Girls for me!!!

            As you can see, the movie’s a little convoluted, and if you’re not following, you’ll probably get a little lost.  Also, I haven’t mentioned the last 45 minutes of the movie because there is a pretty ridiculous twist that you won’t see coming, and it’s pretty corny.  You see, this movie would have been great if they hadn’t gone with Nicholas Cage, and if it wasn’t directed towards the non sci-fi lover.  Nicholas Cage’s hairpiece and over-acting simply take you out of the flick.  Most of his dialogue is laughable and his crazy eyes are gut-bustingly hilarious.  He hasn’t done a serious flick since Leaving Las Vegas for christ’s sake!  Everything with him is over the top, and it doesn’t work here.  It might work great in Bad Lieutenant or Kick Ass, but it most certainly does not work here.  Just as well, don’t make us think that the flick is about a world-ending disaster, because it most certainly was not.  It was about the bond between mother and daughter/ father and son.  That’s why you threw that “tear moment” in at the end.  Because we were supposed to care about Cage and his kid, but how can we care about Cage when he’s constantly putting his kid in harm’s way, despite everybody telling him not to?  And what about Rose Byrne and her SALG? Why were we supposed to care if they died or not?  I don’t get it.

            This flick did have good parts.  The cinematography was pretty spectacular.  The action sequences were intense as hell.  The music was foreboding and creepy and perfect.  That plane crash was fucking sick!  But there was enough about it that was just “meh” to make me not care about it.  If I had to rate it, I’d give it 2 ½ stars out of 5.  This flick was mediocre all the way through.

Zodiac (2007)

Zodiac (2007)

Written by James Vanderbilt, adapted from the book by Robert Graysmith

Directed by David Fincher

           

           

           I’m marking this as one of my top 10 favorite flicks of the past 10 years.  This film has absolutely nothing wrong with it.  From the stellar performances, to the captivating set-pieces, this movie is a bonafide thriller.

            I’m a big David Fincher fan.  I’m one of the three people that actually likes Alien³, I’ve watched Panic Room more than once and I still enjoy it, despite the fact that Kristen Stewart is in it, Fight Club is my favorite movie, and Seven is another perfect movie.  You may have noticed (or not) that I left out Benjamin Button and The Game, well that’s because I think The Game is terrible, but I blame it on the screenwriters (Fincher delivered on a well shot, finely acted, tense drama, but the story lacked) and I think Benjamin Button is about an hour too long, and a bit too pretentious for its own good.  So, when Zodiac came out a few years ago, I was first in line to see it.

            Zodiac chronicles (you guessed it) the search for the Zodiac Killer in San Francisco, California.  For those of you that don’t know, there were a bunch of unsolved murders in the Bay area in 1968 and 1969.  Soon after each of the murders, somebody mailed letters to the newspapers in the area claiming to be the killer.  The letters were simply signed “The Zodiac Killer.”  The killer (or killers) was never found.  The amazing thing about this flick, is that this is not where all of the tension comes from.

The film itself starts off with the second attack, on July 4^th, 1968.  We follow Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau on their date.  When they get up to lover’s lane, another car approaches theirs and takes off after a few seconds.  Minutes later, another car pulls up and a man gets out.  He simply walks up to the window and shoots both Darlene and Mike several times.  He starts to walk away, but when Mike and Darlene start moving around because they’re still alive, he returns and fires a few more rounds into each of them.  Mike lives.  The plot then moves to the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle, and we see the discovery of the first letter from the Zodiac.  Next, we meet Robert Downey Jr.’s Paul Avery and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith.  Graysmith started out as a political cartoonist for the paper, but quickly became interested in the case.  Paul Avery on the other hand, took a little while to get into it, but he soon became the number one journalist associated with the Zodiac, eventually receiving letters and threats directly from the killer.  RDJ and Jake soon become bosom buddies, and obsessed with the Zodiac.  The movie follows them and their fixation for the rest of the flick, but we eventually see a few more murders, and a little more than an hour in we meet Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edward’s detective characters.  The movie explores a few of the potential suspects, eventually landing on Arthur Leigh Allen as the number one suspect (as I said earlier, the case was never solved and the killer never found, but the movie gently points a finger towards Allen as the culprit).

What makes this flick amazing is not the investigation part, but how it shaped and changed the lives of the individuals involved.  This case consumed Robert Graysmith’s life (he eventually wrote a bestselling book about his experience, and obviously, this flick was made).  For a movie that is basically a whole bunch of nothing, Fincher does a superb job filling it with tension, and he proves that he’s a master at conveying a lot of information through tight dialogue, and slow, deliberate set-pieces.  The cinematography is excellent (as usual for Fincher, he used the excellent cinematographer Harris Savides, who has done work on most of Gus Van Sant’s better flicks) and the atmosphere of late 60’s/early 70’s is perfectly conveyed.  One of my favorite parts was how they showed the passage of time.  In one key passage, the passage is shown through time-lapse photography, showing the erection (hehehe I said erection) of a building.  In another scene, the screen is black for about 2 minutes while we only hear about the case through radio and television audio broadcasts.

Overall, I’d definitely say that Zodiac is one of the 10 best flicks of the decade, and it definitely deserves your time.  A word of caution – it is a little long (it’s about 2 hrs and 45 minutes) and there is some BRUTAL violence, although the gore factor is surprisingly low.  Once again, it’s not so much about the murders themselves, but about the affect they had on the people of San Francisco.  See this now.

Helter Skelter (1976)

Helter Skelter (1976)

Based on the book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry

Teleplay by J.P. Miller

Directed by Tom Gries

            What started out as a 1970’s exploitation flick soon became something much more sinister and dark.  This flick started out incredibly weak, but ended up backhanding me in the face.  Read on, young reader, read on.

            I just finished reading this book, so I figured that watching this made-for-1970’s-TV movie would be a good way to cap off my experience with Charles Manson and his Family. Boy was I wrong.  This movie starts out bad.  And not bad in a good way, it’s actually kind of painful to watch sub-par actors struggle with the corny dialogue and stilted deliveries.  What surprised me is that 90% of the dialogue was taken directly from the court transcripts and the book.  The sets are incredibly limited, although, from what I understand, they shot on location in most instances.  This means, they really shot at Spahn Ranch, the LaBianca residence, and the streets of Los Angeles.  Despite the attention to detail, I was still unmoved by the production value here.  Another thing worth noting is that this flick followed the book (and by proxy-real life) to the T.  Sure, they left out a few details and changed a few names, but this is pretty much as in depth as you can get.  Of course, the 690 page book has much more info and it covers a lot more, but if you don’t want to spend 3 weeks of your life reading one book, this movie would probably be the best way to go.

            Where the movie really kicks in is the second act.  Once they get Susan Atkins and subsequently, Linda Kasabian (she was played by Marilyn Burns, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame) on the stand, that’s where the movie (and really, the case itself) kicks off.  It doesn’t seem like it would be very exciting, two girls sitting on the witness stand, talking, but it was.  For Linda’s statement, they used a weird 70’s film technique where they lay one image over another, so we got Linda in the background, with a recreation of the Tate/Labianca murders over it.  It came out really well, and it was effective in scaring the piss out of me.  The other good thing about this flick was Steve Railsback’s performance as Charlie.  This dude was a freaking wrecking ball of intensity.  He did play it a little over the top at times, but when he was being creepy, it was fucking on.  He kept making that face that Charlie made for the cover of TIME magazine and it was fucking creepy as hell.

            As a movie, this was just average.  But as a history and film buff, I can recommend this flick over the 2002 remake with Jeremy Davies any day.  If you want to learn more about the Manson trial/phenomenon, then check this one out, because it’s pretty decent.  Until next time, loyal readers.