BIG HOLLYWOOD

As of today, I am now blogging my movie reviews as an official member of Andrew Breitbart's BIG HOLLYWOOD. That's the big news--I hope you will follow me there. Click here to get started.

Revolutionary Road: "It takes backbone to live the life you want."

When I was 31, I realized that I shouldn't be a systems analyst. I hadn't set out to be that, anyway, and it had become (quite literally) painfully clear that I could not be happy in that life. I had a middle-class income, interesting and often brilliant colleagues, and a path to more money and more responsibility. But none of that could outweigh the crushing sense that I was not doing what I ought to be doing.

I moved from Nashville, Tennessee to Washington, DC with my wife and little son to become a writer and speechwriter. It seemed a foolish gamble to everyone but me. I was happy from then on--happy down to the bones. That probably would have been enough, but eventually my success (as I count success) brought some of the more traditional benefits. That's nice, but they weren't necessary. What mattered was finding the backbone to live the life I chose.

"Revolutionary Road" is about that. It's about the common 20-something realization that "being special" isn't bestowed upon one at birth, it's something only we can make for ourselves. It's about the excuses we find to make ourselves believe that the trappings of success are not only an acceptable substitute but also a responsible and wise alternative for life choices that most of the world labels "immature" and "careless." It's about acting as if we regret not "taking chances" when in fact we are utterly relieved.

It's about being honest with oneself that there are tremendous opportunities in life, and how few of those called to do something out of the ordinary actually answer that voice. And it's about the pain some feel when they understand just what they've passed up.

"Revolutionary Road" is not, as some have said, a condemnation of suburban life or the middle class--seems to me that's a simplistic reading of a subtler point. The picture is about people who want to be special by their own standard, about the process of realizing that the achievement will come only if they themselves do the work, and that following through takes fortitude. Or, as Kate Winslet's character says to her husband, "It takes backbone to live the life you want, Frank." It sure does.

"Revolutionary Road" is one of the best pictures of 2008.

Coming Soon: "Big" News

I have a big announcement about this blog to make in the next couple days. Check back, okay?

Too Much Certainty to "Doubt"

"Doubt" is a little too subtle, believe it or not. We don't tend to think of movies as subtle--so many things blowing up, so many emotions played for the back of the house--but frequently, a significant fact is provided to the audience in only a line or two; in a two-hour movie, that is easy to miss. This happens in "Doubt," toward the end. I think filmmakers do this because they grow so familiar with the project that they forget the story will be entirely new to the audience. But after watching dailies every day for months, then sitting in an edit bay for weeks and months more, they become familiar with every tic and nuance, and quite naturally lose their ability to think about the film without any foreknowledge--which of course is how audiences come to a picture.

"Doubt" turns on ambiguous interpretations of events and human reaction, but the judgment reached by the female lead in this picture is pretty clearly the one that about 99.9 percent of people would make, too. It's almost impossible for a reasonable observer to make any other choice because any reasons for that other choice are so subtly presented that they are lost. In a great irony, too much subtlety creates too much certainty--we don't really hear the other side of the case. Thus the "Doubt" of the title loses some of its impact: The lead character may end with doubt about her faith, her God, and the wisdom of her actions--and so the audience may doubt, too--but nobody doubts the conclusion she draws. I think we were supposed to be able to do that.

Then again, maybe somebody else who saw it feels entirely differently about the subtlety and certainty in the picture. I hear that was the point.

"Frost/Nixon": People Who Need People

You can't trust movies for facts, you just can't. And you especially can't trust a movie for political facts--not too many folks making movies show up without a big ol' stewpot of politics they're just dying to feed you. So "Frost/Nixon" ought to be a buffet of opportunity to bash Nixon without the inconvenience of rebuttal, rewrite the era for a generation who gets its history from entertainment, and portray Nixon as George Bush with jowels.

But "Frost/Nixon" is a surprise. Accuracy aside--it appears correct in detail though not in tone--the picture offers up these two as professional climbers, each desperately needy in his own way, each possessing something that would complete the other. Frost covets Nixon's gravitas--that he is disgraced seems not to tarnish the appeal in the least for Frost--and Nixon covets Frost's common ability to, well, be liked.

To tell the story this way is to do almost nothing but leverage stereotypes--and again, the truth is probably taking the hindmost--but it feels real; rather, it is emotionally effective, and that's what movies are all about. In this case, the pulling of the big punch is not only a relief, it is the wiser choice for making entertainment.

"Frost/Nixon" avoids Big Obvious Statements for a study of two people and not, mercifully, a study of the politics, or the era, or morality--imagine the preachy mess if director Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan set out to make not "Frost/Nixon" but "Good/Evil." They made the right choice.

I liked "Frost/Nixon." I think you will, too.

"My Bloody Valentine 3D" Has a Weak Heart

It's the 3D effects that make this picture worth your time, even if you don't care much about horror flicks. (But if you're turned off by gore, even rather cartoonish displays, and standard-slasher-issue sex and nudity, stay home, cos there's lots of all that. Lots.) "My Bloody Valentine 3D" is more like a thrill ride than a going-to-the-movie experience; when there's not stuff jumping off the screen at you (I actually flinched once) there's jaw-dropping realism in the 3D: lots of well composed shots with plenty of depth so that the 3D effect has value even when there's no action.

And speaking of no action, MBV3D has way too much of that kind of "nothing." Of course, this is the downfall of most 3D attempts. They do a few razzle-dazzle shots, then make us wait around watching yawn-inducing exposition until the next 3D go-round. For every pick-ax through the occipital orbit here, there’s seven or eight minutes of Kerr Smith and Emergency!’s Kevin Tighe arguing like the second leads in a community theater.

The picture isn’t a non-stop thrill ride, and it lacks a good wind-up of the audience or a good story. It wouldn’t be anything special without the 3D. It should have been the first of those three options—after all, how difficult would it have been to make this thing non-stop 3D effects? It would have been a first, too, in the same way “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was the first picture to deliver a cascading series of reversals.

3D effects should enhance the experience, or be the entire experience, but as occasional spice, it doesn’t work. MBV3D almost breaks free of the “just spice” syndrome by virtue of the strength of the effect in mostly static scenes. Kids standing around a pickup truck is suddenly a new visual experience. In fact, the most impactful 3D effects come in static shots and in normal-speed action. The real-time flying pick-axes, not so much. Too much to process in the brain, I guess.

The picture doesn’t quite work, but I really can’t say enough good things about the technology. It was made using the RealD 3D system, which in my experience is the best 3D system ever. They may improve it at the margins--a brighter image would be nice; dimness has been a shortcoming in every incarnation of this technology--but we can now say that practical 3D really is here. The image is sharp, the depth is viewable from all angles (I moved around during the credits to check) and does not degrade at all. Remarkable.

Here's a helpful hint: The best seat in the house is about eight to ten feet from the screen, right in the middle. You read right: If you want the best 3D experience, sit in those usually crummy seats down front. The 3D seems clearer, plus the technology seems to have an interesting side effect that makes sitting close work out okay. Turns out that when you're looking at the big screen, the 3D system makes it seem considerably smaller. Don't ask me why that is or how it works. I don't know. But I felt like I was looking at a very large HDTV, not a wall-sized movie screen.

See "My Bloody Valentine 3D" if you like technology or interesting visual effects, or if you want to see the latest iteration of projection technology--but skip it if you're squeamish.

A Quick Comment on The Golden Globes

Since I'm feeling my way with this new blog, trying to decide what kind of posts fit and what kind do not, I've been torn on writing about the Golden Globes.

I've decided against it.

I think that any commentary I could offer about them would boil down to my opinion about other people's opinions--and that's not comment about pictures. It would, however, be a commentary about popular culture--and that would be good enough, except for this: If you read this blog at all (or if you know me) you'll quickly figure out what I would say. I think that popularity (the kind that determines these awards) is a measure of the effectiveness of marketing and the product of herd mentality. It is not a reliable a pointer toward what is edifying and what will last.

So "no comment" on the Golden Globes. Let 'em pick whoever they like, and good for 'em.

It's just movies, after all. It's just entertainment! (When they start giving awards for Best Plumber Who Showed Up At 4AM When The Pipes Burst, gimme a call.)

"The Unborn" -- Shoulda Stayed That Way

"The Unborn" is a horror movie and I like horror movies for a lot of reasons. I once read someone describe horror movies as the jazz of pictures: there are a few basic structures to follow and anyone can alter and fill in that structure as they like to make something ordinary or completely exciting and new.

"The Unborn" fills the template with many variations of a stock horror device: things appearing suddenly in the frame, accompanied by screeching strings. "The Unborn" is especially creative in its imagery; the picture features some of the most disturbing visuals I've seen in a while. It owes a few things to the (relatively) recent recut of "The Exorcist," for instance--that picture's "spider person" coming down the stairs is revisited here. Also, the filmmakers use a neat little technique of pulling out frames to give certain tense scenes a jerky, otherworldly quality. (At one point, looks to me like they combine this with having the actor reverse his motions, then playing back the film in the other direction, but I could be wrong.)

Anyway, the focus of this post on the picture's scary details instead of its story reflects what's wrong with "The Unborn": The filmmakers focused on producing a series of frightening images instead of on telling a tale. They could have used their industrial-strength horror images to provide and support a plot, they could have used them to spice up the story, or they could have gone all David Lynch and flooded us with the experience of strange imagery.

But no. "The Unborn" is about twenty minutes of story puffed up to an hour and a half with scary images which, lacking a substantial plot to explain them, are just hyper-fast (and therefore hyper-short) set pieces with fluff to pass the time between.

People go to the movies to see stories, not filler. What's more, those stories must consistently obey some internal logic. I write this not because I judge movies on some academic basis--I don't. I judge them on the basis of whether or not I had a good time and might like to see them again. But it turns out that some of the things we like and dislike about movies really can be quantified, and what I do at times in this blog is describe those things.

"The Unborn" fails, and its reliance on shouting "boo" instead of telling a story is why.

The Reader--Sex Sells (which is why I'm putting it in the title of the post)

"The Reader" (see my comments on it here) is apparently going into wider release today. There's a full-page ad for it in the tabloid-sized weekend section of the Washington Post. But clearly, the big selling point for the critic's favorite is not the moral dilemmas at the heart of the picture (which add up to almost nothing, if you ask me--again, see my earlier comments).

No, the selling point for wide release is SEX.

The ad features a shot of Kate Winslet and the male lead (unidentified in the ad, which tells you a whole lot right there), obviously naked, and engaged in an intra-coital kiss. This still from the movie takes up a third of the page. Under that is a quote from Roger Ebert: "... Director Stephen Daldry portrays them with a great deal of nudity and sensuality...."

Yup, your great directors get that way by "portraying" their characters "with a great deal of nudity." Cos, you know, if you really want to exhibit the layers of emotion, you can, you know, take the long way around and use situations and choices and actions and words or you can, you know, just do it directly and put 'em up there without any clothes on. (I'm being sarcastic.)

I'll have none of it. I don't object to the nudity. I don't object to the sex. I don't object to the sexual appeal of the advertising.

But I do object to pretend-intellectuals feigning depth in a picture when all they're really selling is Kate Winslet's backside and boobs. Please.

No Ticket for You!

The Delaware News Journal reports that VP-elect Biden and his wife couldn't get a ticket last Saturday night to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." They should be grateful! (Read here to find out why.)

Gran Torino - The Song

I should have mentioned also that the best song from a movie in 2008, at least the best one I remember (and, frankly, one of the few I remember at all) is the theme from "Gran Torino." It's slow with a jazz feel, and it nicely captures and amplifies the emotion that the movie elicits. It's played over the closing credits (which, in an unusual and lovely choice, are played across an uninterrupted shot--at least five minutes--of a road running by a lake).

The song is written by Clint Eastwood and his son, Kyle, and in the picture, Eastwood sings the first verse, with the balance finished by the splendid pop-jazz vocalist Jamie Cullum. The recorded version (downloadable here for only 79 cents--Amazon) is sung only by Cullum, but I hope the Eastwood version eventually sees the light of day.

I also hope this recording receives some recognition, because it's a very good one; certainly worlds better than some of the disposable "music" that's been recognized with Academy Awards in the recent past.

Roger Ebert on the Pointless Negativity of Movie "Journalism"

Worth reading.

"If you're one of 50 people in a theater, that may mean you are more discriminating than the people who are not filling the other 300 seats. It doesn't automatically mean you're (a) a loser; (b) one of them Elites; (c) looking like a nerd in front of your date."

Click here.

Gran Torino

Gran Torino is completely engaging if you are the kind of person who used to be (or, used to seem to be, at least) typical; that is, you understand that people say things without having completely thought through their implications and so are not nearly as bad as your harshest instincts would lead you to believe.

Here's what I mean: some people use ethnic slurs, profanity and vulgarity as ways to express their feelings and fears about the world as opposed to their profound beliefs. Those words are shorthand. They can be a hurtful shorthand, to be sure, but for many people, shorthand is all they are.

That's what's going on, for the most part, with Clint Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, in Gran Torino. He's an old guy now, from the generation that fought in Korea, he's spent most of his life around people who are like himself, and his neighborhood is changing in the same way that most of America is changing: different cultures are now appearing side by side--still siloed, but now so close that they cannot be ignored. He doesn't object to the qualities of these cultures much; what he really hates is that his own is getting harder to find, getting squeezed out. We know that he's not hateful at his core, not opposed to other cultures, because of how the movie plays out--but that's a pleasure you should gain from watching the movie, and it shouldn't be spoiled by reading in advance what I have to say about it.

Anyway, my point is that ostensibly bigoted Walt Kowalski isn't a bad guy or even particularly bigoted. He's just a typical person in changing times, and change is often difficult to adjust to. And the point of the picture is that people do adjust, sometimes heroically so.

Entertaining, funny picture. Worth seeing.

"The Reader" Doesn't Scan

Just back from "The Reader." It doesn't work for me--it's one of those arthouse dramas that, had it been released in May instead of December, would have been forgotten by now instead of being talked up as a Best Picture nominee.

"The Reader" fails for several reasons, but mainly because it attempts to make a complex moral situation out of a very simple one--asking the audience to find great depth in this stuff is like asking someone to spend two hours adding 1+1; it just doesn't take very long to get to the bottom line. Beyond that, the great emotions assigned to the lead characters simply aren't justified given what trivial interaction we see them engaged in. Finally, there's a male fantasy element here that is little more than just that, no matter how elegantly the sex scenes are choreographed and lighted (lit?).

"The Reader" is a little pretentious, and a lot presumptuous in using the suffering of the Holocaust as a plot device for such trivial--and, again, pretentious--fare.

Valkyrie in Digital Projection

Saw "Valkyrie" last night (second time), this time with digital projection. What an image! I was sitting on the front row of the main (not lower) section, off to the right, and at first I noticed a little of the digital grain--what's known as the "screen door effect" on an HDTV. But I stopped seeing that after only a few minutes--perhaps because there is so much movement on screen.

Anyway, the colors were bold and really popped, but in a good way, not in a too-much way. The image retained the visual quality of film, yet were more realistic and vivid than ever. Lately the film I've seen has often had a bit of a washed-out quality to it--and I'm talking about new prints. I thought maybe it was just me, but now I'm not so sure.

The bottom line is: Digital projection can look superior to film. If you're picky, seek it out. I'm supposing that some systems are superior to others, and I'll try to note the specific system used in the future (it's usually tagged on-screen at the start of the film).

...and The Bottom Ten Movies of 2008

2008 was not a great year for movies–not as good as last year, for instance, when we got three outstanding comedies from Judd Apatow & co. (”Knocked Up,” “Superbad,” and “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”), one of the best Coen Brothers pictures ever (”No Country for Old Men”)–well, if I don’t stop here, I’ll end up listing my entire Top Ten for 2007. But 2008 wasn’t nearly as much fun as the year before.

However, like every year, it had plenty of beyond-clunkers–stuff that was so bad, it deserves special attention.

Now, before I list these, I think it’s only right to say that I think I appreciate just how difficult, time-consuming, attention-sapping and expensive it is to make a movie. Anybody who gets that job done, my hat’s off to you. With this list, I’m just saying that something went wrong somewhere. I’ve always figured that most movie misfires are because so much of the work gets decided by committee, but that’s just my guess.

In any case, here are my Bottom Ten Movies for 2008:

10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Directed by the otherwise great David Fincher, who made the scary “Se7en” and last year’s Top Ten suspense thriller “Zodiac.” Formula for this picture: Take “Forrest Gump,” suck all the fun out of it, make sure nothing happens except a lot of talking. Equals Benjamin Button.

9. Funny Games. A dull document of domestic mental torture, and I mean that literally. This movie is supposed to be some sort of “scathing indictment” of… something. Ugh.

8. Snow Angels. Stereotypical nonsense about small towns and grief. Like watching paint dry, only not as exciting.

7. The Strangers. Horror pic gone off the rails in the last twenty minutes. Excellent reminder of why producers insist on somewhat happy endings.

6. George Romero’s Diary of the Dead. Nothing fails quite like a poorly executed message picture. Case in point.

5. College. Comedy criminally short on laughs.

4. Rachel Getting Married. Arthouse darling of the critics, but those of us who go to movies to be entertained will be bored at this silly, multi-culti document of a dysfunctional family intercut with interminable footage of a wedding.

3. Poultrygeist. Probably didn’t even play beyond a few friends-of-Troma houses here and there. Lloyd Kaufman and Troma have done some great, funny, interesting, silly things over the years. (They bought Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “Cannibal! The Musical” years ago, for instance, long before South Park.) But Poultrygeist is just junk.

2. Zombie Strippers. It’s so low-budget and so indie that nobody else will bother listing it in their worst of the year, even though it was. But it could have been hilarious and inspired, and if it had been, it would have been in the Top Ten. Therefore, it’s eligible to be mentioned in the Bottom Ten. Sez me.

1. Blindness. Worst picture of the year, bar none. So visually wrecked it is at times literally unwatchable. Oh, and it doesn’t make any sense, either. And, yet again, it’s a message picture, warning us of our folly in… umm, fighting terrorism the way we do? Going to Iraq? Being consumers? Voting for George W. Bush? There’s a little of all that in there… I think. Except none of it works. An utter embarrassment. Give me my money back. Hell, give me everybody’s money back.

Dishonorable Mention: Be Kind Rewind, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Love Guru.

Top Ten Movies for 2008

To begin, here's my Top Ten for 2008, and my Bottom Ten, too.

In 2007, I went to the movies–drive to the theater, buy a ticket, sit in the auditorium, not watch at home on TV–141 times.

Really.

141 times. That’s once every two to three days, year round. (That’s down from 2007, when I saw 159 movies. Really.) Movies are my thing. So here’s my list of what “worked” for me this year, and what might “work” for you.

But first, a modest warning: This is not a list of movies you should rent and watch with your whole family. Of the movies on this list, only “Iron Man” is true family fare, and I know many folks who would hesitate to let any kids younger than high school age see even that. Which is fine. I’m just sayin’, this list is based on what I find entertaining, valuable, edifying, interesting–not what fits some definition of what is politically or morally conservative.

Okay?

I haven’t seen “The Wrestler,” “The Reader,” or “Frost/Nixon,” so I may update this list (maybe not here, but I’m just puttin’ that out there). But beyond that, here are my Top Ten movies for 2008:

10. An American Carol. This is David Zucker’s comedy that makes fun of libs for a change. It belongs in the Top Ten for that reason alone–but I wouldn’t list it here if it weren’t funny… and it is funny. Very funny.

9. Sex Drive. Hilarious, under-seen, low-budget comedy starring the creative partner of the funny Michael Cera. A few show-stopping scenes with Seth Green. And a live-action pair of Beavis-and-Butthead types that steal the whole thing. This’ll do great on DVD.

8. Appaloosa. Another under-seen gem, this time a Western. Ed Harris directs.

7. Roman de Gare. From France–a great thriller filled with misdirection. The other French film that did well in America this year was “Tell No One.” This is the better of the two–much better.

6. Forgetting Sarah Marshall. A hilarious romantic comedy from the Judd Apatow mafia.

5. Burn After Reading. A Coen Brothers comedy. Funny, tight, message-free.

4. Iron Man. What a treat: action, humor, suspense, splendid special effects. Excitement for everybody, and Robert Downey, Jr. sure is entertaining to watch. (Plus he’s been hinting around that he’s a conservative. He’s great and so’s the movie, regardless of that, but it’s nice to be able to support him.)

3. Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Best picture Kevin Smith’s ever made. Best comedy of the year.

2. Wanted. Biggest surprise of the year: an actioner that pulls you along every second without a pause to catch your breath. Special effects built around a supernatural kind of physics. Directed by the Russian Timur Bekmambetov, who made the equally wonderful Night Watch, another bizarre action picture that was at one time (might still be) the highest-grossing picture in Russian history.

1. The Dark Knight. For the first time, the superhero story as allegory carries all the heft of real literature. Plus–and this is what matters in movies–the thing is wildly entertaining and completely engaging at every turn. Among the best pictures I’ve seen in the past several years.

Honorable Mention: Married Life, Cloverfield, Choke, The Fall, Ghost Town, and Nobel Son.

Welcome!

I went to the movies 141 times last year, and 159 times the year before. It's time to start blogging about all this.