Films That Everyone Ought To Watch - Closer or: One Order Of Depressing Coming Right Up!

I'm afraid, that like Caché, I have a huge crush on one of this film's lead characters (four if you count man-crushes and a kind of crush). I do not believe however, that my crushes have any effect on my seeing the the intrinsic quality in the performances and cinematography that continue to excite my senses and emotions re-watch after re-watch. Closer just happens to be an amazing film with lots of beautiful and talented, but mostly beautiful, people in it.

Mike Nichols, who brought the timeless, The Graduate, to the states in the late 1960s, brings another tale of people in crisis, trying to deal with the trials that life, or they themselves, have set in their way. Whereas The Graduate dealt with the travails of one confused post-graduate student, trying to find his place in the world, Closer expertly juggles four thirty-somethings interweaving relationships over an undefined and rather fluid amount of time.

The film opens as Alice (Natalie Portman) and Dan (Jude Law) catch each other's eye and are briefly oblivious to all the movement around them on a busy London street as they discover "love at first sight", an oft recurring theme in the film, which leads to Alice being hit by a car and an eerie greeting, "Hello, stranger". Time passes and the audience is introduced to Anna (Julia Roberts), who is an American photographer, taking a cover shot of Alice, for Dan's new book. "Love at first sight" happens again and is pursued in a private moment between Anna and Dan, he is rebuffed by Anna, who the audience perhaps believes might know better than to involve herself in another couple's relationship, she does not.

The film's final player, Larry (Clive Owen), is introduced in what is certainly the funniest scenes in a drama I have ever seen. I'll allow you to enjoy it when you see it and not say any further, other than it leads Larry to meet Anna and the second, but certainly not last, pairing of our very pretty leads is set in motion.

So, why do start the post by bringing announcing that this film is quite depressing? It sounds like it could be a romcom to begin with perhaps, but what the audience comes to learn quite quickly, is that we are watching the never-ending downfall of four very sad people who are driven in their cores by lust, in varying forms. Though they may appear to be welcoming, affluent, go-getters on the surface, you'll find yourself searching for any redeeming qualities in any of the characters as the film progresses.

This may sound like a negative criticism. It is not. While they may be living abysses, draining all hope and love from each other to try and fill their empty souls, they are very eloquent and fascinating events to behold, not unlike how the characters in Poe's A Descent Into the Maelström are struck by the uncontrollable, beautiful, and absurd event they witness. Unlike Poe's tale however, Closer doesn't have a simple happy ending.

In lieu of a proper conclusion, I'll leave you with this image, which I think displays the visual essence of this film better than I could describe. Like I said in the title, this is a Film Everyone Ought To Watch.

Arrested Development in Development?

If this turns out to actually true this time and not just a rumor, my head might explode.
Arrested Development:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0901469/



Also, I will likely be wracked with excitement for this movie until it hits screens! Linklater! Clair Danes! That chick from 28 Weeks later with a bizarre and awesome name!
Me and Orson Welles:
http://imdb.com/title/tt1175506/

I've never seen the guy before, but he sure does look the part!

In A Theater Near You - Be Kind Rewind

I really wanted to enjoy this film. After Michel Gondry's brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the solid Science of Sleep, I was expecting better than what I sat through for what seemed like hours (the film was only 1h 40min in reality). Perhaps my expectations were too high and I was not aware of the younger target audience, or perhaps the film was simply not that good.

The film is set in a small New Jersey town, in and around a rundown building which houses Be Kind Rewind, a VHS rental shop which is owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) and run with the help of Mike (Mos Def), both of whom live above the shop. They have a number of loyal customers who either are either ignorant of, or refuse to use, DVDs. Those few loyal customers do not bring in much in the way of income however, so Mr. Fletcher leaves the store in Mike's care while he, unbeknownst to Mike, goes on a secret mission to discover the recipe for success from the nearby West Coast Video (Spoiler Alert: They sell DVDs).

One frequent customer and perhaps Mike's only friend, is Jerry (Jack Black), a mechanic who lives around the corner from Be Kind Rewind and right next to a power plant. Jerry thinks the plant is trying to control his mind and decides to sabotage it. He fails, is magnetized, the store's entire stock of tapes is erased, and hijinks ensue.

The film plays out in an entirely predictable, but fun, way. There's nothing really intrinsically wrong with Be Kind... Yes, there are plot-holes, but those can mostly be explained away by the character's small town ignorance, and yes, some of the later plot devices are anything but original, but I believe the film suffers most from being too (as Roger Ebert recently put it) too WHIMSICAL for its own good. Perhaps the film was simply not aimed at the film critic crowd, but rather towards young people and their guardians who are sick of fast-paced, glittery, plastic, explosions, whatever. This film is certainly not that, and is a welcome change from the all-too-common above tendencies of today's "entertainment" industry.

If anyone falls in the aforementioned group, I would Recommend this films, but if you are anyone but said group, this film is Not Recommended.

A Source of Endless Amusement

Yes, it is already on my "websites I frequent" list, but for those who have not looked yet, please feast your eyes on these beauties from Garfield Minus Garfield. There isn't much in the way of content yet, but the site is updated frequently and is always amusing (or at least I think it is...).

WE3 - ? GUD MAN MAKE GUD BUK ?

Yes, 1, yes he did. As always, Grant Morrison weaves his magical thoughts into yet another brilliant work of sequential art. While not as long and epic as his runs on New X-Men, Animal Man, or The Invisibles, Morrison succeeds in creating three more characters that will stick with me for many years, despite their existing for only three brief issues.

First off, the collection is a nice one, and well worth picking up for a cover price of $12.99. The pages are nice 'n' smooth, making Frank Quitely's art really shine, much better than the newsprint it was originally printed on, and with the war machines 1, 2, and 3 looking cute as buttons on the cover, how could anyone resist. I mean really, come on.

WE3 are cybernetic prototypes for a new kind of soldier. Project AWE created these cyborgs mash-ups of house hold pet and machine in an attempt to revolutionize warfare and reduce the lives of humans lost in war/espionage.

The WE3 team are sentenced to be decommissioned and destroyed as a new singular WE4 model has been successfully created, but the 3 have a guardian angel which allows them escape of the Air Force Research Facility where they were created. In addition to the combined firepower of a small army, there remains in what is left of 1's mind a faint memory of a place called "home". The 3 begin to seek it out while being pursued by the forces who created them, in hopes of stopping the creatures before the story gets into the view of the public.

Morrison's perspectives on warfare, animal cruelty, and the danger of playing god all pop up in this brief epic. I believe it right to warn that this is a book created for mature audiences, and should not be given to the very young, regardless of the cute pastels on the cover. Additionally, pet owners should prepare for, if not a roller coaster size ride of emotion, maybe a rough few minutes of bumper cars. No one, human or animal is safe from violence in WE3.

As is the nature of book reviews, I can not give away any more of what happens, but I Highly Reccomend that anyone (not children however) should read this book. And with the rights to the film recently purchased by one the big studios, now is the time to pick this up if you want to be one of "those people" who talk about how brilliant the source material is and how Hollywood had best not corrupt its purity with their greasy money-grubbing fingers. That's a discussion for another time however.

WE3 are not interested in returning to ! SSST!!NK BOSS !
(Click for big)

In A Theater Near You - Diary of the Dead

Thanks George Romero, thanks a lot. I can honestly say I have never been as confused about my own feelings about a film I have watched as I am right now. It's the morning after, last night was a blur, and something awful, something brilliant or some sick combination of the two smacked me in the face and left me wanting for something more when I left the theater last night. What that something is, and whether it was better or more of the same, escapes me.

For the sake of anyone who's curious, I'll start off by saying that I don't believe Diary of the Dead is a film for the average movie-goer. It doesn't seem that this film was created for any purpose other than to serve the zombie movie connoisseur. By all accounts, the pitch for Diary seems like a gory recipe for mainstream success. Blair Witch, but with zombies (and something probably happens this time)! The film delivered anything but that however. It didn't have the cheap scares an average movie-goes would expect from their "horror movies" made by no names to try and turn a buck. It didn't deliver any of what a jaded gore-happy Eli Roth/torture porn fangirl/boy would desire. It did deliver plenty of Romero Brand Social Commentary® however, and how that was addressed throughout the film is what I believe would turn off the average movie-goer the most.

Romero's zombie films have always had a number important aspects featured; zombies, said Social Commentary®, some semblance of actual characters, gore, and humor, not necessarily in that order. What is problematic is the extremes to which Romero stuffs Social Commentary® into this film. It seemed a possibility that Romero has delved into the murky realm of self-parody. If that is what he was aiming for, bravo! The Social Commentary ® brought to you by "college age female" at the breaks between scenes and the constant references to the web/myspace/downloading/uploading makes slightly more sense if it was intended to be humorous. There was plenty of genuine humor to be found in the film as well, don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoyed aspects of this film thoroughly. Romero has consistently brought the funny since Night of the Living Dead and some funny even survived in the awful (read: boring) Land of the Dead.

I still can't decide whether personally this is a 6/10 or 9/10. Maybe I never will. But unless you are a fan of zombie flicks or really open minded about your "horror" movies Diary of the Dead is Not Recommended.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 8) #12

To begin, wow, what an entertaining issue! I'll have to look up what episodes of Buffy and Angel Drew Goddard is responsible for, and see if his track record matches up with this amazing bit of Buffyverse goodness. I'm oh so happy to see Buffy and the main Scoobies finally being treated so well and *gasp* watching the over-arching plot and character interactions advance significantly after a somewhat underwhelming introductory arc, a 4 issue subplot (albeit a fantastic one [by Brian K. Vaughn]), and some middling one-shots.

However, it seems that some of the meh-ness of Season 8 thus far can be convincingly explained away by the fact that Joss Whedon had to once again set up the sandbox for writers to play in before anyone could, well, get to the playing. One can't really blame Joss for wanting the series to be accessible for newcomers, should such a thing exist.

About the issue itself, I see no reason to worry about Buffy's getting in touch, if you will, with her fellow slayer Satsu on a very physical level. Apparently the blogosphere is ablaze wondering why this series needs two leading lesbians, or how could Buffy ever do such a thing, or some other such nonsense. So long as the series continues to be written by competent writers, I'm sure the characters will be safe.

Speaking of competent writers, Drew Goddard certainly is one. He delivers not only the laughs, but the action, and the plot development as well! He delivers on the laughs exceptionally well, in fact. The comic's first world traveling adventure looks about ready to kick off as some goth-looking Asian vamps with odd transformative abilities have made off with Buffy's fancy ax befuddling some of the new slayers. The comedic timing, reactions to rude interruptions, action sequences featuring vampires(!), and one great last page are portrayed brilliantly by Georges Jeanty to top off the Highly Recommended issue of what looks to be a very interesting arc.

Films Everyone Ought To Watch - Caché (Hidden)

Yes, I may be more than a little infatuated with Juliette Binoche, and yes, her collaboration with Krzysztof Kieslowski in Three Colors: Blue is one of my absolute favorite films, but those facts are minimally relevant at the moment. I recently watched this film on the recommendation of a friend and frequent collaborator of mine, Ian Buck. He and I share a passion for both watching and creating film, and as is so happens, we share a similar taste in films we take in as well. Anyhow, he told me that Caché was rather captivating and had a slow contemplative take, on what would undoubtedly be treated as a fast-paced action thriller had it been made in Hollywood.

The film opens with a long still shot of a small Parisian home from an alley across the street. People come and go as the credits slowly appear on the screen and more of the frame is obscured as those who were responsible for the film's creation are revealed. The mood this unique credit sequence sets continues throughout the film not only technically, but thematically as well. The films title reveals what is clearly the film's point, to study the forgotten, the obscured, and what is hidden in the character's lives.

Daniel Atueil stars along with Juliette Binoche as Georges and Anne Laurent, a young married couple with a son, Pierrot, on the verge of adolescence. The family also has a stalker of sorts. The parents first suspect that perhaps one of their son's friends could be responsible when a video cassette wrapped in a piece of paper with bizarre crudely drawn stick figure on it is found at their doorstep. The film is what we, the viewers, saw when we watched the credits, nothing more. Perhaps it was an obsessed fan of Georges Laurent's public television book review show? Perhaps a friend is playing a prank? The family is at a loss and the local police have interest in their travails.

More video tapes with unusual footage wrapped in disturbing drawings arrive at the Laurent home as the film continues. Georges' sub-conscious reminds him of troublesome memories from his boyhood which lead him to take the investigation into his own hands. He refuses to share his thoughts with his wife, and when he confronts the individual from his past and makes grievous accusations of an unlikely suspect. His exploits return to haunt him in an all too familiar form. Anne is the recipient of the video however, and Georges' actions and apparent lack of trust in his wife create bitter conflict between the two.

Things go amiss, a climax is reached, and an ambiguous ending leaves the audience wondering what has really transpired in the film they just watched. Caché leaves one asking questions and prompting a re-watch or at least a discussion with others who have viewed and been left mystified by the story (though not in a bad way).

The paranoia that lingers in every frame of the film and is brilliantly portrayed in all of the few actor's wonderful performances makes the inevitable confrontations and all of their consequences chilling and utterly realistic. This is a thriller done right. This is a Film Everyone Ought To Watch.

It's a start

This is that start.