Movies - #1605 - The Day The Earth Stood Still

Good lord, I do enjoy 1950s sci-fi and monster movies. This is an outstanding example of the genre. It's immensely entertaining, and a lot smarter than some others (IE. Them). It's actually unusual in some ways.

Actually, the poster above makes it look like a different movie than it is. There are no half nude screaming blondes (much as we would like there to be.) Sure, that big robot is pretty intimidating, but it doesn't really do any rampaging, and it's under the control of the alien, who is actually the hero of the piece. The bad guys are the military and government bureaucrats.

Michel Rennie is excellent as the alien. He doesn't over-act it as you might expect from the cast of a 50s sci-fi movie. There are even a few very impressive, very subtle choices. There is one particularly good scene where he comes across a music box in another character's home. Him looking and the music box is incidental to what is taking place in the scene, but his momentary reaction to the discovery of this cute device, a thing of beauty in a world that has thus far seemed mostly ignorant and warlike, is the sort of moment I love to see an actor put into a performance.

I thought Leslie Nielsen was in this movie. I don't know why I thought Leslie Nielsen was in this movie. Leslie Nielsen is not in this movie. The whole movie happened and no Leslie Nielsen. Leslie Nielsen is in Forbidden Planet, though. That's probably what I was thinking of. You know, because they're both mentioned in that song in Rocky Horror. Yeah. That's probably it. Yup.

And then there's the monologue at the end. This was back in that period where, if a movie had an important political message, a character had to give a big monologue at the end. It's a pretty damn good monologue. It sure made me want to stop having a cold war. And nuclear weapons.

Also, as somebody who's into some fairly nerdy things (video games and Army of Darkness) it's nice to see the movie from whence originally came the phrase "Klaatu Barada Nikto". If you've seen Army of Darkness, you totally get where I'm coming from on this.

A lot of Movies

Since my last post, I've seen six movies, and broken the 1600 mark. Here are what the movies were, and mini-entries on them.



#1599 - The Last Emperor (1987). Which was very good. An enjoyable, huge, sprawling epic. A compelling portrait of a man who never actually has any power, over a country or even his own life, ever. Great performances. Peter O'Toole, of course, is always great.



#1600 - Toy Story 3 (2010). Why is it that i can see the most depressing, heartwrenching adult movie and never cry, but once per Pixar Movie, I start to tear up a little? A lot of fun. It feels genuinely in the spirit of the series and not like an attempt to cash in on old successes, so many sequels and remakes lately do. It's also surprisingly dark for a kids movie.



#1601 - House of Games (1987). A good psychological thriller, and David Mamet's directorial debut. It's one of those classic "An innocent person gets drawn into the criminal underworld" stories. And of course it's David Mamet, so thirty seconds in I said "Okay, who's conning who?" You know it's coming, but it's fun to watch the twists and turns that lead there.



#1602 - Zombieland (2009). Very entertaining, if not a great movie. I love the part with Bill Murray. I... don't really have much else to say about this one.



#1603 - Slacker (1991). This movie is so odd, but very interesting. It doesn't have a plot, or even a story. No character is in it for more than five minutes. It's just a series of conversations connected only by physical proximity. The participants in one will briefly interact with those having the next. Or even just pass them on the street. What really ties them together is that the vast majority of these people don't do anything except talk. No jobs. They just hang around and try to impress each other with their intelligence and original (read: pretentious) ideas. I say "conversations", but a lot of the time it's just one person monologuing at another. Frequently the second person tells them how full of shit they are. Like Linklater's next movie after it, Dazed and Confused (1993), which I love, this film captures a state of mind and a point in one's life.



#1604 - Le Corbeau (1943) A thriller from the French director Henri-Georges Clouzot. I tend to enjoy his work, and this is no exception. It's about a town being terrorized by a mysterious person calling themself "Le Corbeau"(The Raven), who is sending everyone slanderous letters about each other. It has a fun whodunit feel and has some fairly exciting bits, including a particularly tence sequence featuring a suspect fleeing an angry mob of townspeople.

Movies - #1598 - Red Rock West

Red Rock West(1993) tells the story of a drifter (Nicholas Cage) looking for work who is mistaken by a bartender (JT Walsh) for "Lyle From Dallas" and offered a job. He accepts the job and payment before finding out that the job is murdering the bartender's wife (Lara Flynn Boyle). Then the real Lyle (Dennis Hopper) shows up. Then everybody double crosses each other a lot.

It seemed promising, early on. It had a good premise, the tone of it, early on, was good, and it's hard to go wrong with Dennis Hopper as a creepy, violent, insane guy.

But that early promise just did not last. After a while, it all just started to feel generic. I don't think I really needed to see one more movie where a villain said to a hero "I know guys like you! You think you're better than everybody else!" Actually, "said" doesn't cover it. He sort of monologued on the topic.

Also, buried treasure in a graveyard? I've seen way better movies use that one.

That said, it is sort of refreshing to see a movie with a good McGuffin. Hell yeah. A McGuffin.

Oh, also, Nicholas Cage's character is inconsistent. At the beginning, he is to honest to lie about a leg injury to get a job. Ten minutes later, He lies about HIS ENTIRE IDENTITY to get SOMEBODY ELSE'S JOB. What the hell?

Philip Kaufman and Jim Jarmusch

I really need to be better about updating this right after I watch things so i don't have so many to do all at once.

So, my Netflix for Wii thing got its act together, and I did get around to
watching The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988).



The subtitle of this movie should probably be "Daniel Day Lewis Sleeps with Everybody". Because he does. But, y'know, Daniel Day Lewis is a pretty cool guy, so that's okay.

The description of this movie on the Criterion website describes it as the "screen version of Milan Kundera’s 'unfilmable' novel." I'd really like to read the book now, to see what makes it "unfilmable". The story, long and broad in focus though it is, seems fairly straightforward.

Whatever unfilmable complexity is in the book, the movie turns it into a fairly compelling character piece. Its three leads all do great work (Juliette Binoche is adorable). It's one major downside is that, interesting though it is, after a while you do start to feel its length, which is considerable.


After that came two Jim Jarmusch movies from my Netflix queue.

The first was Dead Man (1995).



Johnny Depp is always a good sign, and a little vaguely pretentious, indie film weirdness can be fun. This movie has an abundance of both qualities.

It's cast is big and good, and famous actors flow in and out of it, showing up suddenly and gone just as quickly. It creates a very intriguing, nightmare version of the West that really helps further the Depp character's evolution through the story.

Depp's character's native American companion, named Nobody, stands out very strongly in the cast. He's one of those characters you find yourself getting excited when you haven't seen him for a while and he shows up again.

A lot of characters die in this movie. There is one black character. Surprisingly, he does not die first. However, he's one of a group of bounty hunters who feature prominently in it. And of them, the black guy does die first. So there. If you look at it a certain way, Hollywood's streak is preserved.


The second Jarmusch movie was Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (2000).



Of all Jarmusch's movies that I've seen, I probably enjoyed this the most. It left me with the feeling that I should take a while to think about what I just saw and figure out what it meant. Even that I should rewatch it to pick up on some of the details. I love having that feeling after a movie. Also, Forest Whitaker is great in it.

The pairing of Samurai and the mafia is an interesting one. But it works, if you think about it. Both are types of people who follow a code. They live by a very old set of rules, handed down. Both have a certain way of viewing honor, as a concept, and living by it.

There's a lot of animal imagery in this movie. The bears work very well as a metaphor for the protagonist. Birds, I think, sort of work as a comment on being at peace with the world around you. I'm still not totally sure about the dog that's always staring at him. That is one awesome dog, though. I kind of want to play with it.

There's also interesting use of books. The most notable is Rashamon. If you know Rashamon well (it deals with different peoples perspectives on the same event) keep it in mind as you watch the flashback that is repeated several times to how Ghost Dog and his Master met.

Also, it should be noted that the French ice cream man is the coolest.

Two new movies

So, I was browsing in Barnes and Noble the other day, and, as I am wont to do, I gravitated towards the Criterion Collection shelf. It occurred to me, looking at those DVDs, that they are adding movies to that thing much faster than I'm seeing them. There are a lot of good movies in the collection, and I've been introduced to a number of movies that I absolutely love by it. I figure I should try to catch up a bit.

So, I went home and decided I would watch the first movie I hadn't seen in the collection (by spine number) that was available on Netflix instant view. That movie turned out to be Flesh for Frankenstein (1973).



The Criterion Collection, if you're unfamiliar, is full of very artsy movies. This movie is not remotely artsy. It's a schlocky B-horror movie. But then again, it was produced by Andy Warhol and, with his name attached, a Campbell's soup can is considered art. So there you go.

There is of course, great fun to be had in cheesy horror movies, and this movie has some great cheesy gore. The highlight: one of my favorite decapitations to date (hmm, that feels like a vaguely creepy thing to be saying). The head is incredibly fake, and doesn't really look like the actor. And it seems to contain more blood than could reasonably fit in several entire human bodies.

The movie also contains one of the most poorly cast actors I've ever seen. His name is Joe Dallesandro. Researching it online after the fact, I found that the director (Paul Morrisey) cast him in a lot of his movies; I'm not sure how he was in those. As for this movie: The rest of the cast (while none of them are Oscar bound) seem pretty, well, German. And they could believably be in the nineteenth century. Dallesandro appears to have walked into a Gothic castle out of 1973 Brooklyn. I giggled whenever he talked.

There is a lot of sex in this movie. It's largely about sex. It has one of the most awkward sex scenes I've ever witnessed (It could give the nitrous-oxide rape scene in Blue Velvet a run for its money). I'll say this much: it taught me an important lesson about life, death, and gallbladders.



After that movie, I decided to continue with my Netflix instant queue strategy. The next criterion movie that fit was another Paul Morrisey horror movie, but, wanting a change of pace, I moved on to the next. That Was The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). But, due to uncooperative "Netflix for the Wii" software, I was unable to watch that one. Then Netflix recommended Stagecoach (1939) to me, and I watched that instead.



I am, for the most part, not huge on westerns, and I don't like John Wayne very much. But this seemed like one of those classic, really important movies on the canon list of "movies everybody should see". I feel like that sort of thing is particularly important for somebody with a stated goal of seeing every movie ever made (I like to believe six impossible things before breakfast, and then write a blog about one of them). Anyway, as it turns out, I really enjoyed it.

High art? Of course not. It's a western. It's cowboys and Indians. Fun with guns and horses. But it has high entertainment value. The cast of characters is good, And it's very well directed. I actually particularly like the character of Doc Boone, which is played by Thomas Mitchell as much less of a single note character than you'd expect the bumbling town drunk in a western to be.

So, to some up: You should definitely see Stagecoach. You should see Flesh for Frankenstein if you want to have some good cheesy fun, but also be slightly uncomfortable.

Movies - #1592 - Shutter Island

Are we, as human beings, intrinsically violent? To what lengths will we go to deny the violence and ugly truths within ourselves? These are ideas played with in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010).



The movie toys with these ideas. It, however, winds up being more wrapped up in its own paranoid maze of a plot. That may sound negative, but I don't necessarily mean it that way. I frequently enjoy convoluted, maze-like plots (I believe I've already made it clear in this blog that I love Lost). I love to unravel flaky layers of mystery and try and race the movie to its chewy, delicious, truth filled center. I love when the truth that's in there surprises me, and completely redefines the reality I just watched.

Here comes the negativity. It doesn't. The movie builds itself around a surprise ending that I was waiting for for literally the entire movie (in the first scene, my roommate and I paused the DVD and correctly predicted the ending to each other).

Ultimately, the problem is this: In a movie built around a twist ending, the filmmaker has to mold the story to two realities, the real one, and the one the audience is meant to think they're watching. Incorrect expectations have to be set early on, and everything must serve as proof of both realities. As long as the lie is all you know, it seems perfectly straightforward, but once you know the truth, the meaning of every scene changes. Shutter Island doesn't effectively set up those initial expectations.

From the beginning, the world seems strange and mysterious. The movie seems like it will have a twist ending. From there, it isn't a big intuitive leap to what that twist will be. Really, the film is a mood piece. And the mood is crafted tremendously; Martin Scorsese is good at that. But the mood gives everything away.

The cast is excellent. It's hard to go wrong with Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, and Max Von Sydow, and they all turn in good performances. Mark Ruffalo is fine, but the role requires little enough of him that it's hard to comment very strongly on the performance.

The film's real triumph is in the photography and the art direction, both of which are great. They give the proceedings a dark, surreal, nightmarish feel. And Scorsese throws in very subtle details that enhance it. Things you'll miss if you're not paying strict attention. There is an interesting moment with a glass of water that I had to rewind and watch again to make sure i had seen it correctly.

All in all, the film, if not great, was enjoyable. Had another director made it, I'd have quite liked it. But I expect so much better from Scorsese.

Movies - #1591 - The Lion in Winter

Continuing my kick of "actually using my Netflix", I sat down to watch The Lion in Winter (1968).



For those of you who are unfamiliar, it tells the story of King Henry II and his family gathering for Christmas and debating who will succeed him when he dies. What proceeds is two and a quarter hours of him, his wife, his three sons, his mistress, and the King of France, all plotting, backstabbing, and manipulating each other.

The film has a great script and is remarkably well acted. It, of course, doesn't hurt to have Peter O'Toole in it. I'm not sure I've ever seen a performance by him that I didn't love. And it speaks volumes about this cast that Katherine Hepburn is in it, and I'm saying this stuff about somebody else.

On the subject of Peter O'Toole: For those of you keeping score, this movie earned him Oscar nomination #3 of 8 (none of which he won). It's also the second of those in which he played King Henry II (the first being Becket). Now, I know what you're thinking: "This must be a sequel." You're wrong. The two movies were made by different directors, with different screenwriters adapting plays by different playwrights, and they were produced by different studios. They have nothing to do with each other, aside from the fact that Peter O'Toole plays the same historical figure in both. I think if you made a movie about Henry ii you were legally obligated to have O'Toole play him. Or maybe Peter O'Toole just sent out ads to casting directors informing them of his unique gift for playing that particular English King. "Making a movie about Henry II? Try O'Toole!"

It's also fun to see famous actors before they were really famous. This has two: Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton. They're both pretty well known now. When this came out, they were not. It was the first feature film for both. Aw, Lil' Anthony Hopkins! (and/or enormous, bearded Anthony Hopkins)



I love movies and plays about old English Kings. One thinks of Kings and thinks they should be stately, regal, and dignified. But in movies like this, they never are. There's always devious plotting and political intrigue. It sort of seems like most of English royal history has been composed of trying to figure out who to murder, blackmail, or discredit so that you can become/stay king. Oh, and, in their downtime, they might govern the country.

Movies - #1590 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I've been neglecting this blog. Naughty, naughty me. In the time since my last entry I've seen Reds, Heaven Can Wait, and Iron Man 2. I liked all of them. Will you get to hear about them in greater detail? Maybe, if you're very good and you ask nicely. So there. (Though, on the subject of Reds I will say this: Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill = awesome.)

Then, yesterday, I decided it was time to stop letting the same two Netflix DVDs sit on my coffee table endlessly, so I sat down and watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).




I loved the play when I read it and I loved the movie too. Aside from the usual sort of changes one makes in an adaptation like this to make it seem more like a movie than a play (IE. sometimes having characters walk into another room and stand around talking in there for a while) it's very faithful to the source material.

It's sometimes interesting to watch movies from this era, because there were certain stylistic shifts happening in film. In the fifties and early sixties, even if people were being nasty and despicable, they would do so glamorously. There is nothing glamorous about anybody in this movie. Which is striking because I generally think of Elizabeth Taylor in particular as one of those glamorous actresses. And yet there she is, drinking and braying and hiding plates of food in her nightstand.

For about half of the movie I kept thinking to myself "Man, the younger actor in this is really familiar somehow". For the record, if you see it, you'll know who I mean. It has a cast of four. I'm talking about the guy who isn't Richard Burton. "Where else," My brain continued "Have I seen him?" Then something clicked and I realized: it's George Segal, that guy from Just Shoot Me.



I wonder if he'd rather be remembered as "The guy in Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf" or "The guy from Just Shoot Me". Either way, the answer is probably "The guy from Just Shoot Me."

Two movies and some TV. Subtitle: I am a slacker.

I've now watched several things I would usually blog about, and not blogged between them. Because I am lame. And a slacker. Shame on me.

Movie #1585 - The Lower Depths



Right on the heals of Tokyo Story, I got this 1957 Kurosawa movie from Netflix. Probably because, When I was mid-adding-binge, Netflix saw that I added one old Japanese movie and decided I would want lots more old Japanese movies and recommended it. After watching Tokyo Story, I saw this and went "Another old Japanese movie? eh, maybe later."

When I finally did watch it, I was reminded why I love Kurosawa so much more than Ozu. Where a lot of the camerawork and acting in Tokyo Story felt, for lack of a better word, awkward, the camerawork here is masterfully executed, and he gets some great performances out of a rather large cast.

It's interesting to see an actor who's usually as scene-stealing as Toshiro Mifune sink back and just be part of an ensemble. He's still one of the strong points of the cast, but definitely not the star on this one.

This movie has an incredibly abrupt ending, but, in the context, it really really works.

This movie is based on a play, and you can tell. That said, as an actor, I would love to be in a production of it. The drawback to this is that the clear act breaks, combined with my ADD, made it take me, like, a week to watch the whole movie, even though I loved it.


TV: Two episodes of Lost.



This post is getting long already, so I'll try to keep the Lost part brief.

I'm so happy about the direction the alternate universe is taking. I've been waiting for pretty much this exact thing the whole season. And of course it's Desmond who changes it. Of course. He's the one for whom reality just works differently.

I'm also happy that in some universe, Hurley gets some. Good for him.


Movie #1586 - Moon



Holy crap. This movie is weird in a really awesome way. I'm usually unabashed about spoilers on this blog. It's just something for my readers to accept; there are usually spoilers here. But I'm sort of hesitant on this one.

I'll say this much. The premise is fantastic and takes a question I'd always had concerning a certain sci-fi topic, and answers it really interestingly.

Kevin Spacey makes a great, surprisingly non-evil, computer. He's basically Hal 9000's nicer brother. And some Rockwell must have peed his pants when his agent handed him this script. There are, for all intents and purposes, three characters in this movie. Two of them are played by Sam Rockwell.

Corporations in Sci-fi movies are always mind bogglingly evil. Not just the real ways in which lots of real corporations are kind of evil, but caricaturish, Snidely Whiplash evil. Someday I'd like to see a sci-fi movie with a corporation that's okay. Sure, maybe they underpay their workers a little, but other than that, they're essentially fine. Besides, look how much they donated to that humanitarian effort for the refugees from Blornium 9. Man, that meteor strike was just terrible. I hear they're doing a new "We Are the Galaxy" for it. That Justin Beiber guy is in it. Remember him? What is he, like, 90 now?




Anyway, I'll try to be more conscientious about updating this thing.

TV - Lost Episode 6x09 - The Package

Just a few things to say about this one.

1) Just when you thought you'd had your last opportunity to see Keamy get killed, they give you another one. So satisfying.

Also, it was nice to see Mikhail again. This season is like a big, weird curtain call. I wonder when we'll see Tom Friendly.


2)If you read this blog, you heard me predict that the thing in the locked room on the sub was Desmond. I am the smartest ever. Form a line to high five me.

I'm glad he's back. Now all the pieces are on the backgammon board. Let's see where this goes...

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