Movies - #1584 - Tokyo Story

What's the you say? Time for an artsy foreign film? Okay, how about Tokyo Story (1953).



It's been a while since my last movie related post. Mostly because it took me a while to get through this movie. It's very slow, which I sometimes like, but in this case it just felt like very little was happening. A great deal was meant to be happening under the surface, but some of the actors grated on me.

Interestingly, I had some similar issues with the last movie I saw by this director (Yasujiro Ozu).

Basically, it's the story of an old couple who go to Tokyo to visit their kids. and there kids are dicks. Basically that's what it all boils down to: those kids are dicks.

Example:

Daughter's husband: Your parents are visiting, so I bought them some little cakes as a present.

Daughter: What?! You shouldn't have done that. I don't want them to have those. You should have just gotten them crackers.

What a bitch.

Then the old lady dies, and the kids seem remorseful. For about 30 seconds. Then they become dicks again.

I can't quite decide if the idea the movie was going for was "value your family" or "life is disappointing". Either way, the kids being such dicks feeds into it pretty well.

TV - A Few Things

I've slacked on this a little, so I have a few TV related things to discuss.

Item #1: Lost Episode 6x08: Ab Aeterno



I've been waiting for a Richard episode since season three. Seriously, that character fascinates the crap out of me. I even rooted for his other show (Cane) to get cancelled so that Lost could do more with him.

Finally an episode that gives a legitimate big answer. We know what the Island is for! There's an answer to that! And it is appropriately grand and mystical. I approve.

So, back in the past, when Richard still had an accent and he met Jacob, why were they speaking english? Richard's english was broken, and he didn't seem comfortable with it. Jacob, on the other hand, is omniscient, and may be some sort of deity. Odds are he can probably speak multiple languages. So why couldn't he help the poor guy out and speak spanish? The answer: Jacob's a dick.

Also: a thought I had about last week's episode. So, what's in that locked room on the sub? Well, Widmore was heavily involved in trying to get everybody back to the island. There was just one major player who didn't go: Desmond. Maybe that's what Widmore brought back with him under lock and key?


Item #2: Community



A lot of people have been recommending this show to me. So I checked it out. Two days later I've now watched the whole season online. I really like it. It's cool to see Dan Harmon, the person I thought of as "the channel 101 guy", have a succesful show on actual TV. Which reminds me, I should make something to submit to that site.

The one thing I don't love about the show is Chevy Chase. He's fairly uneven, which is sad. I was watching some old episodes of Saturday Night Live. He used to be great.


Item #3: Dexter season 4



Not having Showtime, I never get to see this when it airs. I usually wait for the DVD to come out. But I just couldn't wait anymore.

This bit will contain some serious spoilers. sorry.

John Lithgow is the most terrifying man in the universe. What happened to you, Dick Solomon? Seriously, he's the crepiest person ever to appear inthis show. And this is a show about serial killers! Plural! He deserved that Golden Globe.

Then there's Rita. As soon as there was a tender love scene between her and Dexter in the season finale, in which everything was resolved between them, I got that sinking feeling in my stomach and knew what had to be coming. She was never my favorite character, but that death? I feel really bad for her two kids.

The show has now established an interesting pattern of killing of a major character at the end of every even numbered season. I guess I'll have to savor the next two seasons of Masuka.

Movies - #1583 - Hoop Dreams

It's that time again. Time for me to watch a documentary. I really feel that I should watch them more often, but I always seem to find myself in the mood for fiction. Which, of course, is the beauty of the Netflix queue. Intellectual-me can throw one on there, and, later on, it shows up at my house and spur-of-the-moment-me decides "Well, it's that time again.

The documentary today was Hoop Dreams(1994).



For those of you unfamiliar with it, Hoop Dreams follows Arthur Agee and William Gates, two teenage black kids living in Chicago projects who aspire to play professional basketball. The film opens on them at 14, both trying to get accepted to the same private high school with a prestigious basketball program, and follows them until the day they each leave for college.

The film, despite it's length, is an incredibly engrossing movie to watch. If it weren't for the interviews and narration, it would seem very much like a narrative Hollywood movie, with a screenplay and actors and everything. That uplifting, heart-stringing quality that pretty much every sports movie is shooting for? This movie has it. But the fact that what we're watching is real makes it all the more poignant.

We watch both boys struggle through adversity that, if you didn't know it was true, would make you think the screenwriter was taking a cheap shot, layering it all on like that. One boy's family can barely scrape together enough money to survive, let alone keep him in that private school. The other suffers a knee injury that threatens to keep him from ever playing again. One of the more moving scenes: one boy's estranged father shows up at the playground to play some ball with him. It's all very heartwarming until he reveals why he really came there, stepping off the court to buy some crack as his son watches.

What the movie really hinges on, and what ultimately makes it an uplifting experience, is the idea of the attempt to escape the poverty and unhappiness they're growing up in. And both boys do find some sort of success. In neither case is it exactly what they started out looking for, but both do manage to use basketball to improve themselves and their lot in life.

Here is my one problem with this movie. It has a theme song. A bad theme song. You know that song that Public Enemy wrote for Do the Right Thing? (If not go watch that movie right now.) It's sort of like that, but with less social commentary. It's mostly just guys shouting the words "Hoop Dreams" over a drum machine. It's like this weird, really soulless rap thing that seems like a shameless attempt to draw in all those youngsters who just love that damn newfangled rap music. It's really distracting. And seems really out of place in a documentary.

TV - Lost Episode 6x07 - Recon

If you're a Lost fan, it's probably better not to read this until after watching the episode. I plan to go into specifics. With this show, you never want those. If you're not a Lost fan, however, you should be. Go get caught up. Then read this.

There was a time when my measurement of the quality of an episode of Lost was how many times during it MY BRAIN FUCKING EXPLODED. Seriously. That was how I phrased it. I'm finding that over time that's given way to a milder, more drawn out "hmm, interesting..." feeling. It's like I've switched from shots of Cuervo to a glass of finely aged scotch whiskey on the rocks. That metaphor may have been partly influenced by thirst. I wish I had some scotch in my apartment right now.

Anyhoo, it's interesting to see Widmore on the island. I had been worried until last week that he was going to turn out to have been irrelevant. Good to see him a part of the real issue. He's now almost assured a grizzly death, though, at the hands of angry spooky fake Locke. Now we just need Desmond to show up, and all the major players will be accounted for.

Was crazy hermit Claire really apologizing to Kate at the end there? Or did she try to stab her in the neck, like, a second after it cut away? I don't know about you, but I think there's another neck stab coming.

I'm still depressed about Sayid.

I was unconvinced that Sawyer was really on the Smoke Monster's side when he joined it. I'm glad to see it going in a different direction. And somehow it seems oddly fitting that in the "everybody made better choices" universe he's a cop. I hope the presence of Charlie's brother means that charlie will show up again. I like when that happens.

Here's my one thing about the alternate universe. Isn't the main difference supposed to be the island exploding in 1977? How did that cause Sawyer to be a cop? Or Ben to be a nice guy? Or Jack to have a kid? I'm reserving judgement until I see how they tie it back to the main story.

Movies - #1582 - Cradle Will Rock

A little background: In 1935, as part of Roosevelt's New Deal initiative, a new branch of the WPA was opened called the Federal Theatre Project. The idea was to employ thousands of out of work theatre professionals and to expose the American public to affordable theatre. It was, initially, a success. However, the political tones of many of the projects the FTP produced began to make people in congress uncomfortable. Given the liberal leanings of many of the writers and directors within the FTP, accusations of communism were made, funding was cut, and, ultimately, the project was shut down in 1939.

That is the subject matter for the 1999 film, Cradle Will Rock, directed by actor Tim Robbins.

The film centers primarily on the production of the play of the same name (written by Marc Blitzstein, produced by John Houseman, and directed by Orson Welles). It also deals with the controversy over a politically charged mural that Nelson Rockefeller commissioned communist artist Diego Rivera to paint in the lobby of Rockefeller center, and with the story of an anti-communist vaudevillian who becomes involved in the congressional investigation into the FTP, speaking against most of his peers. The first two stories are true, the third is not.

The film does an interesting job weaving a great number of stories and characters to explore a cohesive central idea: How honest art can be before those in power will no longer accept it. Some within the movie choose to stand up for their art, and invariably lose. Others capitulate, committing what the playwright, Blitzstein (played by Hank Azaria) describes as artistic prostitution.

The one major problem for the movie is the problem any movie of its scope faces. The more themes, plot lines, and characters you try to juggle, the more diluted they tend to become. Many of the characters feel a tad underdeveloped, and it does take effort to keep track of what Orson Welles, Diego Rivera, William Randolph Hearst, that really poor wannabe actress, the Italian guy with all the kids, and the two gay guys who aren't good ventriloquists are all doing, how they all connect to each other, and wait, what did Mussolini have to do with it? However strong that central idea is, there is dense foliage around it.

However, the enormous, very strong cast provides some good performances, and the whole affair has a sort of enthusiastic zeal about it that makes it very enjoyable to watch. Bill Murray is particularly good. That tends to happen, though.

One bit of imagery I particularly like (spoiler alert): When Rivera's mural is destroyed at the end, all that is left of it is a picture of a cell of syphilis. The art is destroyed, all that remains is a disease.

A bit of imagery I'm not so sure about (also spoiler alert): The last shot. As a crowd of performers stage a funeral for the death of the FTP, the camera pans up to reveal the Times Square of 1999. It's nothing but bright lights, colors, advertisements, and inoffensive mindless theatre. Art really has lost, and the wealthy buffoons who think art is just pretty colors (the wealthy industrialist characters in the film pretty much say this) have won. It almost feels like a call to arms. The idea is certainly an important one to the message the movie is trying to convey, but the way it's done feels... I don't know. Heavy handed, maybe?

On a side note, I'm really concerned about the Hank Azaria character. He's talking to his dead wife and Bertolt Brecht (who, while still alive at the time, I don't think could just magically appear). Also pianos just show up out of thin air in front of him at the park. Seriously, i think he might be schizophrenic. Somebody really ought to bring him to a doctor. Am I the only one who's worried about this?

One last thing: the movie plays fast and loose with the timeline. It seems to suggest that the FTP was shut down during the play's opening night. It actually happened two years later.

Movies - #1581 - Planet of the Apes

So, I sat down to watch a movie and I began thinking. Since I'm doing this blog now, and this will be the first movie I write about in it, what sort of movie should it be? What would make a good opener? A timeless classic? Cheesy entertainment? A recent hit? I ultimately decided to go with something that was a combination of classic and cheesy entertainment. Fuck you, recent hits.

I reached into the depths of my Netflix queue and pulled out Planet of the Apes (1968).

I should probably mention at this point that this post will contain spoilers. Sorry about that. But if you haven't already had this twist ending ruined for you, I'm stunned. And there's the problem with watching this movie after all these years. I know the ending. Everyone knows the ending. It's probably one of the most known surprise endings in film. I get the impression that if I had seen this when it came out, "It was Earth the whole time!" would have been a GREAT twist. Though I'm not sure that the ending wasn't ruined for people while this was still in theatres. It doesn't seem like they tried very hard to hide it. It's on the damn poster, for God's sake.

No, I had never seen this movie before. But I had seen this one:

Yes, I'm aware how sad it is that I saw the Tim Burton one first. Almost tragic, even. Because, much as I love Tim Burton, that movie is very, very bad. Very bad. Don't do that again, Tim Burton. The 1968 one is much better.

The first act is fairly slow, which I didn't expect. But very appropriately so. The pace, along with the scenery and the cinematography(very good during this segment), does a great job making you feel the desperation of the situation these three astronauts are stuck in (alone in a strange, alien wasteland with few supplies, and no hope of getting home).

Then the apes show up. At which point, the movie becomes a much quicker paced, slightly cheesy adventure. The architecture of the ape buildings is just a little bit ridiculous, and, if you can get past the fact that the apes mouths barely move as they talk, it's all enormous fun.

There's something very satisfying about finally hearing a famous line, which you've heard quoted hundreds of times, in its original context. Such was the case with "Get your filthy paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" I'm not entirely convinced that the reason that line is famous isn't just that it's really fun to clench your teeth and shout it in a Charlton Heston voice. Go ahead, try it right now. See?

Did he have chronic tetanus, by the way? Why is his jaw clenched at all times? Can he eat without a straw? Ah, Heston, one of cinema's most enjoyable overactors.

Incidentally, THE BLACK GUY DIES FIRST!

Black guy cause of death: Shot in the back of the neck by a rifle toting chimp while wearing a tarp and running through a cornfield. This death is interesting, by the way, because literally 30 seconds after it, Charlton Heston is also shot in the neck and he is completely fine.

But during the second act of the movie an enjoyable element shows up that I (perhaps foolishly) did not realize was there. A bit of very interesting satire on the evolution/creationism debate. The movie enjoys itself poking fun at religious fanaticism, particularly in a very good trial scene that I wish had involved Spencer Tracy and Frederic March.

Oh, and then there's this:

All in all, it's definitely a movie that should be seen.

So thanks for listening. Have a good night. We'll talk again later.

To: The Internet. In RE: Movies.

Hello Internet,

Let me tell you a little about myself.

My name is Tim. I was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, but now I live in Los Angeles. Why the big move, you ask? Good question. Like the walking talking cliche that I am, I came out to Hollywood to act. Yes, that's right, I'm going to make it big in the talking pictures. However, for the time being, like the walking talking cliche that I am, I'm paying the bills by waiting tables.

Film has always fascinated me. Yes, it is a wonderful source of entertainment. And i love it for that. But the capacity is there as well for true art. To share ideas, expand minds, and create objects of immense beauty. The thought of being a part of that creation excites me more than anything else. So, I've decided to pursue this insane and difficult career path.

But, being the enormous film buff that I am, I see it as a necessity that I see as many movies as I can. That I take the time to learn my art form inside and out.

Once, on a day when I had way too much free time, I sat down and made a list of all the movies I had ever seen. I won't go into the details of how I figured it all out, but I assure you it was very scientific. ...Or whatever. The point being, I've come up with a number that is, to the best of my knowledge, the number of movies I have seen in my entire life. That number is 1580. If you're curious, number 1580 was Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I haven't the faintest idea what number 1 was. Probably a kids movie. ...Or maybe Big trouble in Little China. I used to watch that a lot as a little kid. Which could explain a few things about what I'm like as an adult.

But I digress. 1580 is not enough. According to a statistic I've just now looked up using Google (the lazy version of doing research) 208,555,6628 movies have been made in the entire history of film. I'm not sure how reliable that figure is, given that the commas are in the wrong places, but let's assume it's roughly accurate and say that there are 2,085,556,628 movies in existence. I'm really behind. 1580 is nothing, man.

So, here's what I'm going to do. Acknowledging the absolute impossibility of my ever seeing that many movies, I'm going to settle for just seeing as many as I can. I'm hereby resolving to watch new movies as frequently as I can (ideally once a day). I will then report back to you (you currently being an empty electronic void, but later hopefully being readers). I'll post reviews observations, thoughts, musings... you get the idea. Whatever happens to fall out of my brain while I'm typing. I'll also probably throw in stuff about new TV, video games, music, etc. that I happen to experience. And for the record, by "new", I mean new to me, not the world. I'm going to watch old stuff too.

So step right up and join in as I fill the holes in my movie knowledge. And feel free to recommend things. I'm always looking for more.

Sincerely,

Tim

Incidentally, here's where I got that figure from: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_movies_have_been_made