Writing of a wanderer

Film Review - Home Movie

2009-08-07T20:28:57Z

Home Movie (2008, dir. Christopher Denham)

Fear of our children is deep seeded in humanity it seems. From Rosemary’s Baby to The Omen to Orphan, there is an innate apprehension and concern that the children will turn on us. While most films traditionally try to make the child an outsider of some kind, not natural born of the mother, Home Movie gives us two biological children gone awry. Home Movie is another entry in the “found footage” sub-genre of horror (The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield) and handles the conventions of the genre in unique and creative ways.

David (Heroes’ Adrian Pasdar) and his wife Clare have recently moved their family to a home in the woods of Connecticut. Young Emily and Jack have had emotional problems for a long time now and this move has only exacerbated them further. Jack becomes overly aggressive and violent during a game of catch with his father while Emily crushes a poor frog in a vice in the tool shed. The behavior increases in its disturbing nature and David, a Lutheran minister believes something evil is in the house while Clare, a child psychologist believes medication can help the children. But both of them may be very wrong.

The impression is given that someone is watching this footage, as certain scenes are rewound as if being examined. We’re never made aware of who exactly is doing the watching but it adds another level of unease knowing that there are another pair of eyes present. The home video footage is done mostly by David, a father intent on injecting his children’s lives with fun and silliness. We learn he was abused by his father and has problems with drinking and this informs the audience on the sense of desperation he exudes in certain moments. Clare is the serious parent and there are some subtle psychological hints of resentment she has towards this family and their inability to live up to an unspoken promise.

The best part and what is crucial to great horror is the ambiguity of the film. Much like the way The Exorcist and The Shining leave much of the explanation of things in the dark, Home Movie works to make the cause of Jack and Emily’s behavior an unsolvable mystery. All the viewer can be assured of is that the level of horrific acts will increase as the story unfolds.

Film Review - Tetro

2009-08-07T20:26:40Z

The Family has always been an important element in Coppola’s work. In The Godfather he examined the literal family and the symbolic family of the Italian mafia. The Outsiders and Rumble Fish took a close look at the divide between brothers by blood and brothers in gangs. Outside of his films, Coppola’s family has had an integral role: music in his early films was typical composed by his father Carmine, sister Talia and daughter Sophia employed their acting skills. And many of his family members have become involved in the industry, albeit changing their names for various reasons.

This element of family and changing names is a core part of Coppola’s newest film, Tetro. The film centers on Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich), a teenage boy living aboard a cruise ship who take advantage of a stop in Bueno Aires to visit his estranged brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo). Angelo has taken to calling himself Tetro (a variation on the family surname) and lives with a beautiful psychiatrist named Miranda (Maribel Verdu). Bennie finds Tetro is incredibly reticent to talk about their childhood and Bennie has been left in the dark about the family’s affairs his entire life. Their father, Carlo, a world famous composer is a dark shadow that hangs over them. As Bennie pries despite Angelo’s protestations he uncovers the dark truth about their family and finds his perceptions of life forever changed.

The film makes direct reference to Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes, the tale of a ballerina driven to destruction by her mentor’s obsessions and Tales of Hoffman, a film adaptation of the opera about a poet struggling to find the middle ground between his literary passions and the passions of his heart. These inform us of the internal workings of Tetro, who presents himself to Bennie as a closed book. Bennie’s curiosity leads him to a suitcase full of Tetro’s writings which have dramatized their family’s history but also lack a concise ending.
Coppola employs an interesting technique with the present reality being a stark black & white while memories and fantasies are filmed in digitally faded Technicolor, resembling paintings almost. These color sequences are either memories from the direct POV of Tetro, meaning the camera is his eye, characters speak directly to him and us the audience, or they are ballet sequences composed of pas de deux between a male and female dancer. The music alternates between melodramatic opera and ethereal voices to symbolize Tetro’s strange reaction when staring into the heart of a lightbulb.

This film and 2007’s Youth Without Youth symbolize Coppola’s new direction. In the 1980s, the prestige he had garnered in the 70s frittered away and he began to focus more on producing and funding burgeoning filmmakers. The death of his son, Gian-Carlo also drove his own works to lessen or fail to love up to his promise. In interviews he calls this return his period of “student films”. These are the movies he wants to make and he has gathered enough wealth in his life that he can drop a few million of his own dollars into a film and not worry about whether it makes back its budget. This sort of artistic freedom is seldom seen in Hollywood anymore. Here’s to Coppola continuing this new artistic journey for years to come.

Film Review - Pontypool

2009-08-07T20:23:07Z

Pontypool (2008, dir. Bruce McDonald)

Making a film about zombies these days is like printing money. Since the success of flicks like 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead the trope of the mindless flesheater has been a draw to the theater. Disappointingly though, these films usually end up being the same batch of clichés with the desiccated dead stumbling around and groaning “Brains”. This little indie film from Canada seeks to inject the zombie genre with some new twists.

Based on the novel Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess, the film focuses on Grant Mazzy, a washed up talk radio host relegated to working in the desolate town of Pontypool, Ontario. One early morning as he is driving into the radio station (housed in the basement of an old church) he encounters woman on the side of the road who mutters some gibberish before disappearing into the darkness. This is the first of a series of strange occurrences in the town that leads to the possible end of mankind.

The majority of the horror in the film is cleverly played out through call-ins to Mazzy’s radio show. It’s an ingenious way of dealing with a very low budget while also allowing the viewer to create the goriness of the scene in their heads. The film also has a relatively small cast with only three core players and a handful of supporting actors that come in and out fairly quickly. The claustrophobic nature of this setting allows a great horror atmosphere to be established, the characters are trapped and the viewer can feel the evil outside closing in with every minute.

The clever twist of Pontypool involves playing with aspects of language. Without giving away too much, one incident involves a grown man who begins emitting the sound of a crying baby from his mouth. There are also the people stumbling around town jabbering on about u-Boats and Hitler. And of course the strange doctor whose clinic the entire epidemic seems to have started in and his radical theories of what exactly is going on. In short, this is a zombie movie for English majors.

Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4EoVxwJecM

Film Review - Waltz With Bashir

2009-02-08T16:55:07Z

Waltz With Bashir (2008, dir. Ari Folman)

In 1982 Israel invaded Southern Lebanon, citing an assassination attempt on their U.K. ambassador as the impetus. The conflict brought them up against the PLO, Muslim Lebanese forces, and Syrians. Working with the Israelis were the Lebanese Phalangists. The Phalangists claimed secularism but are mainly supported by Maronite Christians, a sect of the Catholic Church founded in Syria in the 7th century. This mad cluster of forces came together for a bloody war that increased in intensity with the assassination of Lebanese president Bashir Gemayel. The Phalangists, incredibly loyal to Bashir, culminated the war with the Sabra and Shatila massacres, where Palestinians families were bombed and those that survived the bombing where then lined up against walls and executed by firing squad.

This is the waking nightmare Ari Folman finds himself sinking into. The film begins with a meeting in 2006 between Ari and a friend. The friend has begun having horrific dreams about his participation in the 1982 First Lebanon War. This pushes repressed memories of Ari’s participation into the fore of his consciousness and the movie unfolds from there. Ari learns through interviews with friends he served with about what happened during their tour and how they were complicit in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Ari has a recurring vision of three naked young men emerging from the water at night and walking towards the shore where an urban landscape is lit by flares, falling like stars from the sky. Once in the city they find themselves overcome by screaming grieving Palestinian women. In the climax of the film Ari has finally sorted these memories out and we see what really happened and why he is haunted by these images.

What sets Waltz With Bashir apart from a standard documentary or war film is that it is made from a combination of standard cel animation, 3D computer animation, flash animation, and rotoscoping (animating over live action film). This allows director Folman a freedom that his small budget would not have allowed for a live action film. Complex battle scenes are recreated with ease but also without losing their weight and depth. The animation also aids in creating the nightmarish tone Folman wants to wash over us. If the roots of this war don’t come across in the film, that is intentional. We’re seeing the events from the eyes of a 19 year old boy who doesn’t understand what is happening other than it is his legal duty as a citizen of Israel to serve in the military. The film is a definite descendant of Apocalypse Now, even paying homage to that masterwork with a scene of lounging soldiers on the beach including one surfing as bombs fall.

There are so many scenes that create a sense of the bizarre and senseless. One soldier recounts becoming sick to his stomach over the side of a boat the night before the invasion. After the young man blacks out, he dreams of a giant naked woman swimming to the boat, cradling him in her arms and swimming away with him as his unit is bombed. In another scene, a soldier recounts the slaughter house the Phalangists created from the Palestinians they slew. The camera is low to the ground as we float across dead earth littered with rotting gnarled trees, corpses, and eyes and ears floating in formaldehyde jars.

Waltz With Bashir is a very timely film during this current incarnation of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It reminds us that it’s not the men on the ground on either side for us to blame, but the men at the top who give the orders and expect mindless allegiance whose hands are drenched in blood. It was reported that this film received a 20 minute standing ovation at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Ari Folman won a 2008 Golden Globe for this film and in his acceptance speech mentioned that over the course of making it eight babies were born. He said he had a particular hope for those eight children: “I hope that one day when they grow up that they watch this film together and they see the war that takes place in the film like an ancient video game that has nothing to do with their lives whatsoever.”

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhjCjrYRhH8

Film Review - The Reader

2009-02-08T16:54:11Z

The Reader (2008, dir. Stephen Daldry)

A couple years ago I watched an episode of Frontline titled “A Jew Among the Germans”. It followed Holocaust survivor Marian Marzynski a he explores Germany to see if he can forgive them for what they did. What I found fascinating were the myriad of ways Germans have psychologically dealt with the guilt of the Holocaust. I saw that each generation since has developed a unique way of either acknowledging it or ignoring it. How does a culture process its collective crimes? Can it continue on or does it inevitably have to slowly fade and die off, never to reclaim its former glory?

Director Daldry, whose previous work includes Billy Elliot and The Hours, tells us the story of a German lawyer, Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) in the late 1980s. He has broken relationships with his parents and now his grown daughter. Through flashbacks we’re shown that this emotional distance was borne out of an affair he had as a fifteen year old boy (David Kross) with Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), a trolley car ticket taker. One afternoon on the way home from school, he becomes sick and Hanna escorts him home. He returns to thank her and accidentally glimpses her naked causing him to run scared from her apartment. A third visit begins their affair. Michael begins reading books from school to her among other lighter fare he finds. She becomes enamored with these stories. An event occurs that causes her to push him away and years later he re-encounters Hanna and finds out about her connections to the Holocaust. Michael discovers that he learned something during his relationship with her that could help Hanna, but must decide if he should or not.

The Reader is not a poorly made film. Daldry is a good technical filmmaker and he has been able to elicit strong emotions in the past with his previous work. However, The Reader feels intensely cold. I got the feeling that it was going through the motions for the most part, not adding anything to the dialogue on the Holocaust and Germany’s guilt. There are a few moments in the latter half where I believe we’re meant to be deeply moved but there’s no investment made on the movie’s part to deserve that from us. The story is fairly interesting but I can’t help but think the novel it was based on is probably much richer.

The acting is surprisingly dull. Fiennes is basically not used for the majority of the film, working as part of the framing device. Winslet is very good but she’s been much better (Little Children, Eternal Sunshine). The stand out for me was the young German actor David Kross. For being only eighteen at the time he gives a very rich performance, able to show emotional growth from his gleefulness as a teenager with Hanna to the dourness he finds himself sinking into early in law school.

In the last few years when Holocaust films have come out I ask myself if they add anything to the dialogue. Many of them are re-treading the same story, following the Schindler’s List paradigm, expecting the same reactions but forgetting that when Spielberg’s film was released there had been nothing like it before. This is a nicely made and interesting film but once again, another movie that is being recognized over other more original films and it’s a shame.

Film Review - Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-08T16:52:38Z

Slumdog Millionaire (2008, dir. Danny Boyle)

It’s not recognized too often, but Danny Boyle always makes happy endings. In Trainspotting you have Renton getting the money and the girl. In 28 Days Later Jim and company are rescued from the zombies. Even Sunshine ends with the sun being reignited and the world saved. I’ve seen some criticism about the Love Conquers All style of this film and realized that’s Danny Boyle’s style. However, in terms of plot I didn’t find this film to standout much at all. Despite the praise being heaped on it, it’s not a film that transcends or does anything incredibly innovative.

If Charles Dickens had grown up in Bombay this would be the novel he would write. You have Jamal, a street urchin and orphan, forced into begging by a Fagin-esque figure. Jamal makes his way through the world and eventually has his fortune by the end. Stepping back for a moment and looking at the bare bones of this plot, I find that if this were a film set in New York City audiences would have had a lukewarm reaction. The reason the film seems to be doing well I think is because of the exoticism of the landscape and people to Western audiences.It seemed like about as accurate a portrayal of India as The Darjeeling Limited. Say, this was a drama starring two CW-esque types set in the States, I think it would have done a decent box office and then faded from our collective memories. Once again, not saying this is a bad film, it’s just a little over praised.

There are a lot of interesting technical aspects. Boyle knows how to use his camera very effectively. He’s able to make us feel the heat and squalor of these places by the way sweat on skin is lit. That said, this film was evoking City of God in the way it was shot. But Boyle lacks the elegance of Fernando Meirelles when it comes to capturing this sort of place. I thought the background coloring on the subtitles was an interest tweak, though I’m not sure why that decision was made. The framing of the film was clever; Jamal knowing the answers to his questions on Who Wants Be a Millionaire through memories that also tell us his story. I think it would have been a little more interesting if the memories were non-linear instead of lining up so perfectly with the order of the questions. Seeing Jamal’s life in a non-sequential mode would have made it for a better second viewing, able to construct the fragments ourselves. I also thought the Bollywood dance number during the ending credits was great nod to the films of that region.

The acting is hard to gauge because I didn’t feel I got enough of the two leads as adults to know if they did a good job. It was the child actors that thoroughly impressed me. They were very fearless in their performances and I was surprised at natural they were. I thought Anil Kapoor did a good job as the host of the game show. The skill he showed in slipping into the charismatic host and then, the cameras shut off, a rather slimy bastard is quite impressive.

Slumdog Millionaire is by no means Boyle’s best work. I think that’s still down the road. It is an enjoyable, light film but that’s not the kind of filmmaking that leaves a very strong impression on me. I’m a little upset that this and Benjamin Button received Oscar nominations over films like The Wrestler, Synecdoche New York, and The Dark Knight but that is a complaint for another post…

If you're interested in India on film I would recommend Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding (a nice light comedy) and the documentary Born Into Brothels (a much more interesting look at "slumdogs" in my opinion)

Film Review - The Visitor

2009-02-08T16:51:47Z

The Visitor (2007, dir. Thomas McCarthy)

Maturing. The way characters are shown to mature in their personal views on film is usually a gross exaggeration. We’re given very direct speeches where a character states in no uncertain terms what they have learned and what happened in the film to bring them to this understanding. I think of a lot of the performances in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road as examples. This is an acceptable trope of filmmaking but it is refreshing to see a character grow intellectually in more subtle, realistic fashion.

In The Visitor we are witness to Professor Walter Vale’s change in opinion about people. The film opens with Walter (Richard Jenkins), a widower who lives in solitude and has found his passion for teaching dying. A colleague, whom he briefly helped on a paper, is unable to attend the symposium to read it and Walter is sent in her stead. He returns to his apartment in the city, only to find an immigrant couple living there: Khalil and Zainab. It turns out they were scammed into paying a man to live there and now that Walter is back they apologize profusely and pack to leave. Something changes in Walter and he tells them they can stay while Khalil contacts friends to find somewhere else to live. Walter ends up taking an interest in Khalil’s bongo drums and begins to take informal lessons from him. While Zainab remains distant, Khalil and Walter’s friendship grows until the legality of Khalil's presence in the country becomes a problem. Khalil is taken to a detention center and this is where the change really begins.

Walter Vale is such a fascinating character and Richard Jenkins gives the best performance I have seen from him. Jenkins is a well known face in films (He was the irate Christian father in I Heart Huckabees and the timid gym employee in Burn After Reading) and has always remained a supporting figure until this breakout role. Jenkins gets across so much emotion without having to bellow or even really speak. He has only one moment of outburst near the end that is a testament to how minimal dialogue and a great performance can provide a deep and painful emotional experience on film.

The film is a meditation on what we’ve become in the post 9/11 environment. As Walter tries to navigate the INS detention centers and their labyrinthine policies we go through the same experience. We see how the system which once offered haven to huddled masses now moves them through windowless warehouses like cattle. Walter witnesses one person being spoken to disrespectfully by an INS employee because this person does not understand the procedures. This scene is then paralleled by Walter experiencing the same treatment. Where in the first instance, Walter and the viewer can simply attribute it to the “foreigner’s” lack of English this has to be discounted when it happens to Walter. What is going on is the dehumanization of all people.

The film’s pace is a huge factor in what makes it work. We’re given a lot of time to see the friendship between Walter and Khalil grow. We understand why Water would feel obligated to do everything he can to help this couple. Khalil and Zainab are also shown as incredibly intelligent people, they may not have significant bank accounts but they have amazing talents and are responsible, caring citizens. In a way this is sort of the anti-24, Fox television’s anti-Islamist propaganda tool. Instead of gross stereotypes we have real human beings.

Film Review - Doubt

2009-02-08T16:50:31Z

Doubt (2008, dir. John Patrick Shanley)

It may sound trite, but the moment where I began to deeply doubt all I had been raised to believe was 9/11. Politics. Religion. Education. That seemed to be a moment where many other people either experienced great doubt or great certainty. And out of this came a cultural paradigm in which each side has tried to de-legitimize the other. John Patrick Shanley’s film adaptation of his stage play may be set in 1964, but it captures this conflict in all of its complexity and ambiguity. I can’t help but think that this setting was chosen because of the cultural shifts occurring in American society.

I immediately thought of Richard Hofstader’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1964), a book I read in the wake of my frustration about the 2004 elections. In this book, Hofstader looks at how the increase of Protestant evangelicalism and the ideological response in politics to the Cold War caused a moving away from the process of thinking. The book was not entirely a condemnation; its blame was placed squarely on the manipulations of leaders and the general populace was shown sympathy and understanding about their fears of losing a life they felt protected in.

The story concerns Sister James (Amy Adams), a meek nun and history teacher at a Catholic school in the Bronx. She begins to notice a relationship between one of her students, Donald Miller and the parish priest, Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). All she knows of is that Miller was called to the rectory for a meeting with Flynn, the boy’s breath smelled like alcohol at one point, and she witnessed Flynn place a boy’s undershirt in Donald’s locker. With these things she makes a comment in passing to the school principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). Aloysius has been suspicious (no rhyme intended) about Flynn after he gives a sermon on the strength of doubt. She begins to take the single events witnessed by Sister James and weave them into her own damning narrative.

Here the duel between Doubt and Certainty begins. The film takes some turns that are meant to leave the viewer in internal conflict. There are characters presented as both hero and villain and they see saw throughout the film. Justice is served in a way but not in how you expect. This leaves one character in a place of such doubt that they begin to question their entire foundation of faith. This film is everything that highlights the difference between filmic contemplation and theatrical contemplation. Here huge ideas are played with by using language in such fascinating ways. The verbal sparring between Aloysius and Flynn (though only two scenes of the film) are the core. The way characters position themselves and where they sit is essential in understanding everything that isn’t said.

The performances are incredibly strong. Streep is able to inhabit her character fully and, though we know little about who she is outside of the Church, we can see that there is a lot of pain and history in her face. Hoffman is very good at being charismatic; he’s the progressive priest wanting to make the Church appeal to the masses. Viola Davis as Donald Miller’s mother has a wonderful monologue that details the complexity and desperation that a parent can feel. The only fairly weak link for me was Amy Adams. Her Sister James feels a bit too mousy at some times, too much of a contrast to Aloysius.

The film manages to ask a lot of questions but never deliver an answer which is really the biggest question it presents “What is the benefit of doubt?” I reflect back to my own personal intellectual growth and realize that I never felt more stronger than when I was able to put aside all I had been raised to believe and allow myself to doubt, and in turn be open to the universe around me.

Film Review - Henry Fool

2009-02-08T16:49:00Z

Henry Fool (1997, dir. Hal Hartley)

What makes an artist? A big question and it’s at the center of this wonderful independent film by Hal Hartley. This was the first Hartley film I’ve seen, I’d heard his name for years, and I was very pleased with what I saw. The plot concerns Simon Grim (James Urbaniak), a young garbage man who lives a quiet existence with his emotionally troubled mother and older sister, Fay (Parker Posey). Everything in Simon’s life begins to change when the family takes on a lodger named Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan). Henry talks quite pompously about his memoirs and contacts he has in the New York publishing world. He goes on to encourage the almost mute Simon to begin writing in a theme book and surprisingly Simon produces a poem that will be the center of the film.

The world Hartley creates is not the real New York City. This is one inspired by fairy tales. The names tell us about the characters: Fool very adequately describes Henry and Grim is the perfect adjective for Simon and his family. There’s even a very xenophobic senator spoken about with the surname Feer (Fear). The entire film has a more literary feel to it than filmic. Large chunks of the film contain no dialogue and we have to read the faces of the actors to know the story. Yet at the same time, there is so much that’s grounded in reality and this largely reflected through Henry. Hartley has said in interviews that his script was heavily influenced by James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.

Henry enters the film as an eccentric, larger than life figure and Simon is a meek everyman. As their authorial pursuits progress they seem to switch places. By the end Simon is now clad in tweed, looking like a Wes Anderson character. Henry has become blue collar, living a typical lower middle class existence. These characters pose the question “What makes a great artist?” We see Simon encouraged to take his poem, which at this point has never been read on screen but has made a woman spontaneously sing and another call it pornography, to the publishing firm. Here we begin to see that Hartley’s true intent is a criticism of media and is distribution. It’s fitting that this would be the focus of a filmmaker known for working fiercely independently.

Simon makes a decision about his friendship with Henry near the end of the film that Hartley works to be non-judgmental about. Examining the decision there’s evidence enough on both sides and even the ending holds a lot of ambiguity. Henry is running in the final shot after glances at the two directions he can take in his life. The final frames show the camera at a worm’s eye view, the landscape out of frame and simply the sky behind Henry as he runs with all his might toward the unknown. While Hartley released a sequel, Fay Grim (about Simon’s sister) and tells us what happened to Henry there, this film can still be viewed as its own creature and Henry’s fate can still remain unknown.

Trailer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twoF56_e9mU

Film Review - Renaissance

2009-02-08T16:47:37Z

Renaissance (2006, dir. Christian Volckman)

We live in an age of film where spectacle can be generated inside a computer and placed against a green screen. Most films that adopt this special effect aesthetic suffer for it. Look at Lucas’ second Star Wars trilogy and see how so much of the surroundings fail to be immersive and instead work with other weak elements to distance us from the story. The reason behind employing this technology is that it creates more spectacular effects that would be too expensive to accomplish materially. This little French animated film shows how the artificial world can be used to great effect but you need to jettison the humans.

Renaissance is the story of Karas, a classic superhuman one man SWAT team, investigating the disappearance of Ilona Tasuiev. Ilona was a scientist for the Avalon Corporation, a health and beauty business which has come to take over the majority of Paris in 2054. Sort of an extension of the bloated pharmaceutical companies of today. Karas’ investigation leads him to discover that Ilona had become aware of a dark chapter in Avalon’s history. Partnering with Ilona’s sister, Bislane, Karas races against Avalon’s forces to save Ilona.

Renaissance employs rotoscoping, wherein live actors’ movements are recorded digitally and then animated over. This works much better than slapping real human beings up on the screen. We aren’t so put off by the contrast and thus become more invested in the tension. This immersive nature provides some of the best action sequences I have seen in a film this decade. There’s a car chase near the middle of the film that was one of the most breath taking, exciting sequences I have ever seen in an action film. It helps to propel Karas into his proper role as superhuman. He is an evolution of the Bruce Willis/Schwarzenegger type mixed with the coolness of French New Wave. There are numerous callbacks to The Matrix and Blade Runner as well, but it never comes across as derivative but respectful. This film knows its roots but at the same time is its own film entirely.

The plot is not the strongest in the world. There are some moments that can be guessed early on but it never takes away from the enjoyment of the piece. The villains are very clearly the villains and the heroes the heroes. There’s one unexpected twist at the end though. I also liked the very subtle ambiguity the film concludes with. We have a scene between two characters where the background has faded away and is a burning white. You wonder if this is a dream before death or something that actually happened and the film never answers that for you. The look of the film is pure black and white, with shadows used to their fullest. Would make an interesting companion piece to Blade Runner or Sin City.

Trailer (Original French version) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQzpmQPskg

Trailer (English version) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh7s32XRScQ

Film Review - Synecdoche, New York

2009-02-08T16:44:06Z

Synecdoche, New York (2008, dir. Charlie Kaufman)

Traditional horror films in our age are diluted, harmless fluff. The world around us is more frightening than the idea of inbred rural cannibals or creatures of the night. True horror for humanity today would be introspection. To examine one’s self would provide terrors beyond that of anything Freddy Kreuger could accomplish.

And that is what I see Synecdoche, New York doing. The film was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, the writer behind Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a few. Synecdoche has the feeling of his most “pure” work, probably due mostly to the fact that it’s his time directing one of his own scripts. The plot concerns Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a stage director and playwright who is in complicated marriage and attempting to create an original piece art that says something. From the opening of the film we see how the ideas of disease and decay that Caden obsesses over fill the screen. Even his surname, Cotard is a word used to describe someone who believes they are rotting on the inside.

Caden receives the MacArthur Genius Grant and decides to create what will be his masterwork. This leads to his renting a massive warehouse and constructing an artificial Schenectady, New York inside. The artificial city is populated with actors playing people living their lives. Caden delivers notes every morning for rehearsals saying things like “You were raped last night” or “You can’t find a reason to live”, reflecting more his own view of life than any sort of genuine recreation of it.

This is where the idea of synecdoche comes into play. The word means the act of substituting the whole for the part (“Tennessee won the football game”) or the part for the whole (“lend me a hand”). Caden has substituted living his life for staging a simulacrum of it. It reflects his narcissistic and cowardly demeanor that, instead of living his life, he chooses to act as God in a way, even referring to his direction as that at one point. For Caden, it is easier to use actors; he can mold them in ways he chooses so they fit the idea of what he wants the people in his life to be. It’s no coincidence that he substitutes the actress playing a woman he once loved for the original, real person in a romantic interlude.

In this sort of film, the work becomes not about performances, though there are very very good ones here, but more about the ideas being presented on the screen. Kaufman is a writer concerned with the mind more so than visual camera tricks or non-ironic speeches that tell us how to react to the film. This is one of the most complex films I’ve seen in American cinema and I have no doubt some will label it as pretentious. I would beg them to listen to some of the radio interviews Kaufman has given concerning this film and I think it becomes clear that he isn’t a writer who seeks to impress anyone or show anyone up. Synecdoche has a lot to say on such big ideas as gender and identity, empathy, and most importantly the ways in which we fail to live our lives at all. To connect this back to the idea of horror, Caden Cotard is his own bogeyman.

Review of the Day - Revolutionary Road

2009-01-07T05:11:06Z

Suburban ennui has been the topic of many films and books and the 1950s has come to represent the epicenter of bleak social conformity. While I have not yet read the novel, I was aware going into this film that Richard Yate’s Revolutionary Road is considered a seminal work on these topics. The story, set in 1955, is about Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet respectively), a couple with a failing marriage who have left New York City for the security of the Connecticut suburbs. April was an aspiring actress who has found that dream dying and Frank has never found his calling, opting to work for a large IBM-like firm that his late father was employed with. April decides the family should pack things up, move to Europe, and give Frank time to discover himself.

The film is directed by Sam Mendes, a filmmaker I don’t have that much affection for. He worked primarily in theater until American Beauty in 1999. After that he released Road to Perdition in 2002 and Jarhead in 2005. Of his work to date, Road to Perdition is the only one I really still enjoy watching. The reason I’m not such a fan is the reason why Revolutionary Road fell flat for me in the end.

If I had not seen Mendes’ previous films, I would think his stage direction career was to account for the overt nature of the dialogue. However, I know that he is perfectly capable of using the camera to tell his story. The camerawork here is definitely beautiful but the characters speak everything they feel. I would have appreciated more subtlety when it came to this couple’s relationship. The film could have benefited from making the conflicts entrenched internally. An artfully done voice over, a la Terence Malick, could have clued us in on how the minds of the characters were working yet left them distant from each other. It would have more adequately gotten across the sense of despair we are meant to feel. Instead we’re given scene after scene of shouting matches between Dicaprio and Winslet wherein they use terse, correct grammar to get across emotions that I can’t see any real couple using. A more pulled back approach would have caused the tension to simmer, so that when the explosive confrontation did occur the few words spoken could have acted like daggers.

The performances are fairly good despite such direct dialogue. Of the two leads, DiCaprio’s seemed the weakest for me. Winslet seemed to just get a few more scenes where she was allowed to use silence and I think if DiCaprio had been given the same opportunity. I always felt that we never really penetrated this couple and that it was the supporting work in the film that had much better breadth and depth. But it’s that dialogue that always comes back and ruins everything. There’s a scene in the latter half where Kate Winslet talks about DiCaprio’s character being the “most fascinating man she ever met” and about their “hopes and dreams” and this might have worked if when had a feeling of what she was talking about. We have no idea what is fascinating about Frank and we have no idea what their hopes and dreams are. The film’s message could have been redeemed by making a cut in the last fifteen minutes. If you see the film this scene is very apparent, it fully conveys that bleak reality the film keeps telling us it’s about but rarely conveys. If the movie had ended with this scene it might have had some merit. Instead, it insists on a dénouement that succeeds in only turning the message of the film into a blunt hammer again to pound it into our brains.

Review of the Day - The Wrestler

2009-01-07T05:09:37Z

The Wrestler, 2008, dir. Darren Aronofsky

The parallels between Randy the Ram and the actor portraying him, Mickey Rourke are pretty transparent from the start. Rourke got his big breakout role in Barry Levinson’s Diner (1981) and had some highwater marks along the way with The Pope of Greenwich Village and Nine and a Half Weeks. My personal favorite is Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish, a very stream of consciousness story of brothers involved in gang violence. By the late 1980s, Rourke’s stock fell due his reputation as hard to work with and an increasing dependence on drugs and alcohol. He left the acting business for a brief foray into boxing but eventually returned to films at a very low budget level. He has not yet had a major leading role since his return until the release of The Wrestler.

The character of Randy the Ram is a veteran professional wrestler whose heyday came to an end in 1988 with a major publicized match against The Ayatollah (an obvious nod to the jingoistic stereotypes of 1980s professional wrestling). At the film’s start, Randy is now wrestling in the local New Jersey circuit and attending sparsely visited autograph signings. He’s locked out of his rented trailer and buys a cocktail of steroids and antidepressants from a fellow wrestler at the gym. Randy is a man whose fame is a ghost now. You can see that he desperately clings to it; the first song we hear on his radio while he drives home is a hair metal one.

Another scene where the music is talked about overtly occurs when Randy is out for a drink with stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Cassidy is around Randy’s age, a little younger most likely, but they both experienced their personal highs in that decade. Cassidy is introduced as she tries to entertain a bachelor party of twenty-somethings and is called “Grandma” and told they want a younger girl. So immediately Randy and Cassidy have an existential kinship. The scene in the bar has them remarking that the hard rock of the 1980s was the best and that it was ruined by the grunge trend (Cobain is specifically named) of the 1990s.

Questions of identity become even more complicated as these two, Randy and Cassidy, are each two people. Randy is really Robin, an absent father and part-time grocery store employee and Cassidy is a single mom, wanting to move away from her rundown town in Jersey. What we see is the ordinariness of them, emphasized by the significantly pared down camerawork Arnofsky employs. Everything is so mundane and gray and basically trying to get across the feel of cinéma vérité. In an interview Arnofsky said his approach to filming was that they were making a documentary about Mickey Rourke in a movie called The Wrestler. You can see that in how the actor and role blend so seamlessly. One scene in particular, where Randy has accepted a job as a deli worker shows us the purity of Rourke’s charisma, we can see why it is he was a darling of the film world early in his career. He gets into the job fully, despite its lack of “spectacle” and jokes with patrons, asking one to go long so he can chuck his plastic bowl of potato salad to him like a quarterback.

There are moments of incredible violence in this film, but for a movie about professional wrestling they are surprisingly few. What they reflect is a response to the staged aspect of wrestling. The film shows while the conflicts between characters are part of a show, physical and psychological damage is still done to these men. You only need to look at the personal lives of wrestlers like Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, and the late Owen Hart to see that there is a cost paid for this brutal form of theater. Parallels are drawn between Randy playing a character in the ring and Cassidy using a stage name for her performances.

In a larger sense the film could be a comment on our nation today. There are a lot of people who see the 1980s as a peak for America. We had the Cold War as a major motivator for pride and in encouraging growth in the country. We were taught to believe in the very clear cut image of good and evil, something that is crucial to professional wrestling. In Randy we can see our own national lost soul, the world is not so defined anymore, and when we have to face everyday reality we see the nuances of the people around us. In other words, we have to confront our frailty. Anyway you read this film it hinges for the most part on Rourke’s standout performance. He successfully lowers the guards he uses in his public life to reveal the damaged soul underneath.

Top 10 Favorite Films I Watched in 2008

2009-01-07T05:08:19Z

These are the ten movies I saw for the first time in 2008 that I enjoyed the most. If you look at my longer list you may see some classic films absent from the top ten. I enjoyed these movies but they weren't films that really clicked with me as much. It's along the lines of Citizen Kane, a film I wholeheartedly acknowledge is very good, I just wouldn't sit down and watch it because I was in love with it. I am also conscious of the fact that all of these films are very recent movies and I'm not into them because of their "fantastic newness", I think good modern film is taking those amazing technical techniques that cameras can now provide and pairing them with excellent performances, writing, and direction. Without any further prelude, the list and further comments on each film:

10. Milk
9. The Fall
8. Let The Right One In
7. Timecrimes
6. Blindness
5. The Dark Knight
4. Funny Games
3. Children of Men
2. The Wrestler
1. There Will Be Blood

10. Milk
I’ve never been a huge fan of Gus van Sant’s work, in particular his films of the last few years. I didn’t enjoy Last Days and Elephant was just alright. His more commercial work, like Finding Forrester and the Psycho reshoot were terrible. But I revisited his earlier films and ended up really enjoying Drugstore Cowboy. And it’s that van Sant I think we are treated to in Milk. The film is much looser in its form than his previous commercial work; he incorporates file footage of the events and places where this biopic takes places and it blurs the line between documentary and feature. The content of the film affected me emotionally in a way few films this year have. Of the films in my top ten, the ones that made me actually weep are Children of Men, The Fall, and this film. And I think this film made me weep and struck me on a much deeper level than the other two. I know that in the conservative press this is being played off as a “queer movie” but I would take issue with that. While it is a film of pertinence to our time it also transcends them. To say this is merely a propagandist film about gay rights would be to say that Ghandi was pro-India propaganda. Films about people like Harvey Milk are about how anyone of us can change things. Harvey didn’t begin actively engaging in gay rights until he was forty years old. And in eight years he changed the entire landscape of his district (and arguably the nation). I think the film speaks to people who feel as though they have accomplished nothing in their lives. It’s never too late to stand up and do something.

9. The Fall
I remember seeing The Cell in 2000 and knowing that despite hating the story I liked the experimental nature of the cinematography. The director, Tarsem Singh sort of vanished off the map until 2006 when The Fall began making the film festival circuit. This time the script was written by Singh so he was able to match his visual talents with a fitting story. Thanks to the generosity of David Fincher and Spike Jonze the film got a limited run in theaters this year and then a wider DVD release. The film is a wonderful mix of things like The Wizard of Oz and The Princess Bride. It’s a great modern day fairytale with the right touch of darkness. Of course the female lead, young Rumanian Catinca Untaru is adorably precocious but I was very impressed with Lee Pace as well. I feel that Pace has the ability to pull off some superhero role in the future. In The Fall he shows off his gallantry while in his recently canceled series Pushing Daisies, he pulls off the mild mannered sensibility of Clark Kent. It’s a great sweeping film that reveals its true colors in its final frames. What Singh made was a love letter to the stuntman, the unsung hero who destroys his body for our entertainment.

8. Let the Right One In
While Twilight ran away with the box office, it was this film that I was anticipating much more. It’s rare that two films come out that hone in so specifically on such similar concepts. I haven’t seen Twilight (don’t really feel a desire to, but will probably see it one day) but I have a feeling it was much more grandiose, melodramatic, and campy than this Swedish film. I always enjoy when a concept, like vampires, are taken seriously and presented in a way that is totally unexpected. The film doesn’t put its focus on the vampire but instead on the protagonist Oskar, a 12 year boy and son of a single mother in the middle of a lower middle class Stockholm suburb. He strikes up a relationship with his new neighbor Eli, a mysterious girl who is eventually revealed to be the vampire. Director Tomas Alfredson never takes us by the hand and leads us to the answers. Instead, many things are hinted at and implied but the definitive answers are left up to us. The film raises some interesting questions about sexuality, loyalty, and devotion in ways that are truly surprising. One character’s sexuality in particular is revealed in such an intelligent and thoughtful way which regards the fact that we’re seeing the story from Oskar’s eyes. The conclusion of the film also leaves us in an ambiguous place as well, not being either a traditional happy ending or a “downer”. Instead we have to ask ourselves what lies in the future for these characters.

7. Timecrimes
Many moviegoers believe that for a film to be fun it must also be dumb to an extent. The popcorn films of the summer are usually lumped into the category. Here is an example of how fun is directly tied to the intelligence of the film and the respect the filmmakers show the audience. This Spanish language film focuses on Hector, a middle aged man on vacation for the weekend with his wife at their summer home. A series of seemingly random events leads Hector to a mysterious building in the woods and this is where the time travel play of the film comes in. It is such a treat to see how these random things glimpsed in the first 20 minutes of the film are all tied to manipulating time and how there are multiple layers of manipulation going on. Time travel as a trope of science fiction has seemed to not be handled right until recently. Films like this and Primer show that there’s no need for a big budget, instead you need a smart script with writers who can think in a non-linear manner and then translate that to the page and screen. The film also makes us question Hector’s actions. We don’t really know who he is outside of this single day but the choices he makes are extremely dark. The big question here is: Are the events of history inevitable or do we create them ourselves?

6. Blindness
Why did this movie bomb? Because it’s a philosophical mirror and we’d rather be blind than have to face it. It was also because the studio decided to market it as some sort of science fiction thriller which is it mostly certainly not. This is a fable and gets this across by never naming its characters. We have the Doctor and the Woman with Dark Glasses and the King of Ward 3 and so on. Based on the award winning novel by Jose Saramago, the film opens with a Japanese man spontaneously losing his vision. From there the condition spreads until the handful who are suffering from it are rounded up and tossed into an abandoned asylum. Julianne Moore plays the Doctor’s Wife, who has faked her blindness so that she and her husband are not separated. Her character is not quite as compelling as some of the others but she is more a representation of our eyes taking in the events that follow. The film is a spiritual sibling to The Lord of the Flies, by working reverse in a way. While the level of brutality escalates it is brought about by the establishment of very familiar systems of society. The children of Flies are shown to recede into a sort of tribal system but the blind here adopt a system of currency, physical authority, and hierarchy. They merely transpose the “prettier” system around us everyday onto a microcosm. And it is through this microcosm that we are to see the horror of what surrounds us in reality. Despite its darkness, the film has an overall message of hope and poses a huge question in its finale. It is a film that stays with you for a long time but was hurt in the end by false publicity on the part of the studio.

5. The Dark Knight
What’s to say about this film that hasn’t been yet? Not much really. It’s the highest grossing film of the decade and deservedly so. It’s one of those times I love when a director with distinct vision is rewarded for his work by the public and critics alike. I have been a big fan of Christopher Nolan since Memento and I have to say, I don’t think he has made a bad film in his career so far. There are some I prefer over others but they are all of a high quality and artistic merit. As the comic book film is concerned I have a little worry about the effect of this film. Warner Bros. has said the next Superman film should have a darker tone in line with this film. I think that would be a huge mistake. The studio executives fail to see why The Dark Knight was so successful and that was because it matched the correct tone with its iconic character. Joel Schumacher’s Batman films failed because the tone was so drastically opposite of what a Batman film feels like it should be. So, if one were to apply this dark tone to a Superman film it would tank. Anyways, I loved Heath Ledger as the Joker but I feel Aaron Eckhart has been overshadowed. He played the consummate Harvey Dent, he had made us sympathize and like the character so that his fall is that much more tragic for us. My one disappointment about the film was that Two Face didn’t get more screen time. The character was interesting enough that I sort of wish it had been carried over into another film. That said, this is hands down the best superhero/comic book film ever made. It takes it source material seriously and shows how the superhero genre is a great platform for big ideas.

4. Funny Games (both versions)
Funny Games does not want you to enjoy it. If you do enjoy it you are charged as a sick and sadistic voyeur. And the film pulls no punches about this. The film doesn’t pull punches about anything really and this lack of restraint in relation to unspoken film law is what made it so reviled and upsetting to so many critics and viewers. The plot is simple and that’s exactly how it needs to be. A husband, wife, son, and their dog head out to the lake house for a summer vacation. Two young men dressed in tennis whites arrive at their doorstep and what follows is a waking nightmare of violence and assault. Unlike other contemporary “torture porn” this film is not out to titillate. It wants to upset you on a very deep level. This is not a popcorn flick; this is an attempt to commit rape through the screen, to accost you on a brutally visual level. Going back to Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, contemporary audiences have been conditioned to endure a certain level of gore as long as it adheres to two things: 1) only certain kinds of violence are permitted against certain types of people and 2) there will be a turn where the victims become empowered and overcome their captors. Not gonna happen here. The family is doomed and we can feel it from the first moment the eerie young men appear. There is a particular moment near the end where a character steps outside the boundaries of reality as we know it and this creates a chill in the veins. It is the moment of finality; it is when we know that they are all going to die.

3. Children of Men
I can’t believe I missed this when it came out two years ago. When I sat down to watch this I had moderate expectations but they were quickly exceeded by a film that achieves so much on both a technical and emotional level. I was struck with how much I believed this world. It was a fantastic move to start the film out in an urban space so that the despair was noticeable but not quite overwhelming. As the story progresses so does the visual decay until we end up in a ghetto war zone. That progression allowed me to believe this world wholly. Much like this year’s Blindness, there is no interest on the part of the artists involved to explain why children are no longer being born and I love that. The story is not about the explanation of this world but rather the transformation Clive Owen’s character undertakes. I was in awe for the last big single take shot of the film. If you can, go back and watch the sequence as Owen navigates through the battle, into the bombed apartment building where he rescues the girl. I remember actually holding my breath in those moments, truly feeling the tension. Beyond the technical there is also a beautiful heartbreaking story of sacrifice in the film. Throughout the film there are so many people who die so that hope can be restored and each death is presented in such a powerful way. Children of Men once again proves what a powerhouse of a director Alfonso Cuaron is.

2. The Wrestler
Director Darren Aronofsky continues his streak of amazing films with this one. However, for this film he changes his aesthetic up. With Pi and Requiem for a Dream he employed techniques that would amplify a sense of paranoia. In The Fountain he uses a very crisp and centered style of direction. With this film he seems to be drawing from the French New Wave or Dogme 95 style of realism. There are no real fancy special effects, mostly the camera following right behind Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke). I thought it was interesting that we don’t get a good look at Randy’s face till he’s in his van back at the trailer. In fact for most of the film there are not too many framed shots of his face at all. When they do occur the damage done to him is highlighted, scars and marks are obvious. The film seems to be about identity and its relation to the past and present. I don’t want to go into too much detail as I plan on devoting a lot more space in a separate note for this one. Keep an eye out for it.

1. There Will Be Blood
P.T. Anderson feels like a director who should have been working in the 1970s along his artistic soulmates. His films are so distinctly his vision, fighting against the conventions of what we’ve been taught to accept as movie entertainment. He gives us long silences that, while absent of dialogue, are rich with information about our main character. He is a director who knows exactly when to build to a moment of tension and when to give in and let it shatter on the screen. What is great is that the film refrains from becoming didactic. There is no message being telegraphed with big glaring neon signs, as in most Oscar bait films. A story is told and, while am certain Anderson has a very clear idea of what he thinks it is about, he lets us make our own decisions. I’ve found that the great eyes of modern cinema (PT Anderson, Lynch, Kubrick, Malick to name a few) are amazingly gifted at abstaining from overtly teaching lessons. Daniel Day Lewis is at his most brilliant here; he seems to be one of those actors who hits the bullseye every time out. He creates one of those characters that is immediately picked up by and mimicked by the mainstream culture. If Daniel Plainview feels grossly over the top at moments and absurd I think that’s exactly what Lewis is aiming for. The character simmers for most of the film and when it does explode it’s almost laughable. It’s simply one of the best films of the decade and another perfect ten from PT Anderson.

The Films I Watched in 2008

2008-12-31T21:35:39Z

Here's the complete list of movies I watched in 2008. I only count those I watched for the first time so there are a few rewatches that won't show up here. I watched a total of 138 films, will post the short list of my top 50 later, and then my top 10 along with some thoughts on them.

Sunset Boulevard (1950, dir. Billy Wilder)
Performance (1970, dir. Nicholas Roeg)
The Holy Mountain (1973, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Zardoz (1974, dir. John Boorman)
A Boy and His Dog (1975, dir. LQ Jones)
All The President's Men (1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula)
Equus (1977, dir. Sidney Lumet)
Pretty Baby (1978, dir. Louis Malle)
Quintet (1979, dir. Robert Altman)
Bad Timing (1980, dir. Nicholas Roeg)
The Changeling (1980, dir. Peter Medak)
Forbidden Zone (1980, dir. Richard Elfman)
The Hunger (1983, dir. Tony Scott)
Krull (1983, dir. Peter Yates)
Videodrome (1983, dir. David Cronenberg)
The Toxic Avenger (1984, dir. Lloyd Kaufman)
Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985, dir. Hector Babenco)
The Monster Squad (1987, dir. Fred Dekker)
Dead Poets Society (1988, dir. Peter Weir)
Dead Ringers (1988, dir. David Cronenberg)
Clownhouse (1989, dir. Victor Salva)
Henry V (1989, dir. Kenneth Branagh)
Penn and Teller Get Killed (1989, dir. Arthur Penn)
Jacob's Ladder (1990, dir. Adrian Lyne)
Barton Fink (1991, dir. Coen Brothers)
Kafka (1991, dir. Steven Soderbergh)
In The Mouth of Madness (1992, dir. John Carpenter)
Bad Boy Bubby (1993, dir. Rolf de Heer)
The Cement Garden (1993, dir. Andrew Birkin)
Dead Alive (1993, dir. Peter Jackson)
Four Rooms (1995, dir. Tarantino, Anders, Rodriguez)
Kids (1995, dir. Larry Clark)
Safe (1995, dir. Todd Haynes)
Brain Candy (1996, dir. Kelly Martin)
Fierce Creatures (1997, dir. Fred Chipisi, Robert Young)
Hands on a Hardbody (1997, dir. SR Bindler)
Boogie Nights (1998, dir. PT Anderson)
The Slums of Beverly Hills (1998, dir. Tamara Jenkins)
Fat Girl (2001, dir. Catherine Breillaut)
Pootie Tang (2001, dir. Louis C.K.)
Trouble Every Day (2001, dir. Claire Denis)
Visitor Q (2001, dir. Takashi Miike)
Little Otik (2002, dir. Jan Svankmeyer)
Ken Park (2002, dir. Larry Clark)
All The Real Girls (2003, dir. David Gordon Green)
24 Hour Party People (2004, dir. Michael Winterbottom)
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005, dir. Scott Erickson)
The Puffy Chair (2005, dir. Duplass Brothers)
Casino Royale (2006, dir. Martin Campbell)
Children of Men (2006, dir. Alfonso Cuaron)
Dear Wendy (2006, dir. Thomas Vinterberg)
The Fall (2006, dir. Tarsem)
Fido (2006, dir. Andrew Currie)
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006, dir. Dito Montiel)
The Hoax (2006, dir. Lasse Hallstrom)
The Last Winter (2006, dir. Larry Fessenden)
Let's Go To Prison (2006, dir. Bob Odenkirk)
The Piano of Tuner of Earthquakes (2006, dir. Quay Brothers)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006, dir. Gore Verbinski)
Scoop (2006, dir. Woody Allen)
When The Levees Broke (2006, dir. Spike Lee)
Who Killed The Electric Car? (2006, dir. Chris Paine)
3:10 to Yuma (2007, dir. James Mangold)
An American Crime (2007, dir. Tommy O'Haver)
Black Snake Moan (2007, dir. Craig Brewer)
Call of Cthulu (2007, dir. Matt Foyer)
Death at a Funereal (2007, dir. Frank Oz)
Eagle vs. Shark (2007, dir. Taika Cohen)
Hairspray (2007, dir. Adam Shankman)
I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With (2007, dir. Jeff Garlin)
Joshua (2007, dir. George Ratliff)
The Last King of Scotland (2007, dir. Kevin MacDonald)
Lions for Lambs (2007, dir. Robert Redford)
Mister Lonely (2007, dir. Harmony Korine)
My Kid Could Paint That (2007, dir. Amir Bar-Lev)
The Nines (2007, dir. John August)
The Orphange (2007, dir. Juan Antonio Bayona)
Persepolis (2007, dir. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007, dir. Gore Verbinski)
Rocket Science (2007, dir. Jeffrey Blitz)
Running With Scissors (2007, dir. Ryan Murphy)
The Savages (2007, dir. Tamara Jenkins)
The Signal (2007, dir. Bruckner, Bush, Gentry)
Snow Angels (2007, dir. David Gordon Green)
Sunshine (2007, dir. Danny Boyle)
Super High Me (2007, dir. Michael Blieden)
Teeth (2007, dir. Mitchell Lichtenstien)
There Will Be Blood (2007, dir. PT Anderson)
Towelhead (2007, dir. Alan Ball)
The Visitor (2007, dir. Tom McCarthy)
Year of the Dog (2007, dir. Mike White)
Youth Without Youth (2007, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
Baghead (2008, dir. The Duplass Brothers)
Be Kind Rewind (2008, dir. Michel Gondry)
Blindness (2008, dir. Fernando Merielles)
Burn After Reading (2008, dir. The Coen Brothers)
Charlie Bartlett (2008, dir. Jon Poll)
City of Ember (2008, dir. Gil Kenan)
Cloverfield (2008, dir. Matt Reeves)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008, dir. David Fincher)
The Dark Knight (2008, dir. Christopher Nolan)
Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008, dir. Dennis Dugan)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008, dir. Nicholas Stoller)
Frost Nixon (2008, dir. Ron Howard)
Funny Games (2008, dir. Michael Haenke)
Get Smart (2008, dir. Peter Segal)
Hamlet 2 (2008, dir. Andrew Fleming)
Hancock (2008, dir. Peter Berg)
The Happening (2008, dir. M. Night Shamyalan)
Happy Go Lucky (2008, dir. Mike Leigh)
Hellboy II (2008, dir. Guillermo del Toro)
How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008, dir. Robert B. Weide)
The Incredible Hulk (2008, dir. Louis Leterrier)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, dir. Steven Spielberg)
Iron Man (2008, dir. Jon Favereau)
Justice League: New Frontier (2008, dir. Dave Bullock)
Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone (2008)
Let The Right One In (2008, dir. Tomas Alfredson)
The Love Guru (2008, dir. Marco Schnabel)
Man on Wire (2008, dir. James Marsh)
Milk (2008, dir. Gus Van Sant)
Pineapple Express (2008, dir. David Gordon Green)
The Promotion (2008, dir. Steve Conrad)
Quantum of Solace (2008, dir. Marc Forester)
Quarantine (2008, dir. John Erick Dowdle)
Religulous (2008, dir. Larry Charles)
Role Models (2008, dir. David Wain)
Smart People (2008, dir. Noam Murro)
Speed Racer (2008, dir. The Wachowski Brothers)
Step Brothers (2008, dir. Adam McKay)
Timecrimes (2008, dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
Tropic Thunder (2008, dir. Ben Stiller)
The House Bunny (2008, dir. Fred Wolf)
The Wackness (2008, dir. Jonathan Levine)
Wall-E (2008, dir. Andrew Stanton)
The Wrestler (2008, dir. Darren Aronofsky)
Zack and Miri Make A Porno (2008, dir. Kevin Smith)

Of Car Crashes and Elections

2008-11-06T19:32:24Z

X-Posted from Facebook

So Monday night, on my way home, I was in a car accident. Totally my fault and the result of plain stupidity. Thankfully there were witnesses who immediately rushed in to see that both drivers were okay, 911 was called and ambulances and police came. The paramedics asked if I wanted to go to the ER at Vanderbilt and I said yes, my upper right chest was feeling sore and my left leg, right below the knee was also very tender. I was able to walk immediately after the wreck so that made me feel a little bit okay. I have to say at the time I was most worried about the car. I'm going to the towing yard tomorrow to take a look at it and I don't remember seeing any significant damage at the time. I was hit on the passenger's side, not sure exactly where. Hoping it was near the back door, far from the engine. The other driver has the front impact so I think there was probably more damage to her engine. She was very nice though. I was in tears right after, it was the first car accident I have ever been in. I assured her I had insurance and she said she would be very easy to deal with and we were both very concerned about the other and how injured we were.
I called Heather and she came to the hospital while they ran some x-rays. They said my chest has a very significant abrasion from the seatbelt and it's pretty tender. They said it looked like I slammed my leg into the dashboard and the only major injury could possibly be a torn ligament which is very hard to do. Yesterday was pretty tough, the pain got a headache started in me and I actually threw up from it last night. Felt better immediately after though. Heather and her bf brought some groceries over and she helped me go through the insurance claim process. The lady I talked to at Geico was extremely nice and her first concern was my health. Sadly, I just have the minimum liability coverage which should definitely cover the other driver's damages. No collision coverage so I hope the car is still drivable or its damages are pretty minor. I was able to open the passenger door without trouble and I don't remember any massive dents on the hood. Crossing my fingers for when I go to see it tomorrow.

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On the flipside, as I laid in my bed feeling very sore, I was also elated to hear our new president named. After the last few years being full of historical tragedies (9/11, Katrina) it was nice to experience an historical moment that felt very positive. In many of the red states, when you look at the actually numbers it was still close there, showing that just because a state was red doesn't mean it could be ruled out as a "racist" state. I was surprised with certain areas of the country and how they showed that they could recognize when change was necessary.

I'll admit I cried last night, it was just nice to feel the opposite of a lot of the Bush years. And while a lot of the focus has been on Barack Obama is the first black president I think it's bigger than that. Obama is the first post-racial president. He is the child of a Kenyan man and a mother of Cherokee, English, and Irish descent. Symbolically he is what America is going to become one day. He's an ethnic American, the combination of so many of the cultures and ethnicities that make up this country.

I also found McCain's speech to be wonderful. That was the man I liked back in 2000 and it was sad that only after the election did we see him surface again. I'm less upset with him than I am at the GOP who I hold responsible for backing him into a corner and choosing what the framework of his campaign would be. I hope that Senator McCain has many years ahead of him of good work.

Now I am not going to agree with every policy choice Obama makes. There already a handful of issues we disagree on. I think what will mark the change between the Bush and Obama administrations is that the latter will actually listen to people who know more of the particulars on an issue than him. It's been documented in numerous sources that the Bush administration verged on illiteracy when it came to seeking outside information. I don't expect Obama to fix everything in four years but I think it's a step in a right direction. I still think there is a wrong in Washington and in our government and it's going to take more than one president to make any change. What I hope is that this moment will help inspire people who may have drifted in apathy about this nation to step up and do something in their communities. That will be the greatest change possible and have a longer lasting effect than one election.

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On the flip side, it appears that Proposition 8 has passed along with two other states' ban on gay marriage. It took us 150 years to get a man of African descent in the White House and thinking we may have 150 more to fully recognize gay citizens' rights. But I'm not disheartened because it just takes time and not giving up. No matter what they pass now I believe in the end this is a country that recognizes that all its citizens are equal, no matter how much certain groups fight against it..

Adventures in Driving, etc.

2008-10-09T17:03:03Z

- I made the trek to Springfield on Tuesday morning to grab some things from the storage shelter. There's too much in there to take home in one trip so I paid for two more months to figure out how to handle the rest of it. I did grab the essentials: TV, DVD player, DVDs, spindles of bootlegged materials I've accumulated over the years, winter clothes. Decided to grab four boxes of old books I knew I won't have a desire to really keep and see what I can get for them over at Rhino Books. Getting any money will be worth more to me than the books (most of which are just things I grabbed from donations at the Springfield library when I worked there).

- Got temporary tags for my car and got an emissions test today. Am returning tomorrow for the license plate and title transfer.

- Got to visit the teachers and kids at Westside on Tuesday. Was happy to see everyone and they were happy to see me. Actually helped out in Mrs. Brewer's classroom for about an hour during Math. They kept telling me that they really wished they could have me back there. Mrs. Brewer and Mrs. Corbin said they would try to come down to Nashville on a Saturday and we could all go to lunch. Looking forward to it.

- Going to the downtown library this weekend and getting my card reinstated. Looking forward to being able to use the Davidson County Library system again. There is so much material between the main branch and the 13 smaller ones that its overwhelming. Always having to make a "shopping list" before I go.

- Might go by the Southern Festival of Books which is happening Fri - Sun this weekend. No authors that really jumped out at me. Interesting how I've already seen many of them in person. I could go see George Singleton for the 3rd time but thinking I'd rather be lazy.

- I still get this terrible knot in my stomach every time I think about having to drive. Hopefully with time it will pass. I haven't been in an accident and I have good control over my vehicle. Just takes time for the confidence to build I guess.

Something To Say

2008-09-30T15:47:48Z

My vote goes to Obama without hesitation. Now, I don't see Obama as the Christ figure a lot of the more vehement Democrats do. From his background, I see that he is the idea of America realized in a lot of ways. He had to work for what he has. He never had family who had connections that could get him further in life. He earned it all. Not something we see often in our presidential candidates. McCain is very much the opposite, having a father and grandfather in high ranking positions in the Navy who were able to pull strings to help him become a pilot.

I don't hate McCain. During the 2000 election, when I leaned much more Republican, I liked him because he didn't pander to the Christian fundamentalists. He took what would truly be considered a more moderate stance. But the John McCain running today is no longer the same candidate. The "Straight Talk Express" has been exchanged for the No Talk Express. He has moved from saying in 2000 that he would never overturn Roe v. Wade to saying publicly he would do it and seek to place judges who would support highly conservative views to their rulings. John McCain has exchanged any of his true "maverick" sensibilities for a chance to win this election. His hesitancy to release his medical records, as all candidates are expected to do, brings up a lot of suspicions to his health. This bid for the presidency seems to be one last go for a man who knows he is going to die soon and simply doesn't want to be forgotten. McCain is not an evil figure, he's a pathetic one. His selection of Sarah Palin was in no way his own. She was a running mate that could reassure the Conservative base that their issues weren't going to be forgotten. It was a highly partisan move. There were so many other choices that would have made much more sense and would have strengthened McCain on his weak points. Instead, they picked a VP for shock value and to pander to the base.

There's a lot of talk about who won the debates on Friday. I believe it was Obama, however it was an extremely subtle win. A lot of us, including myself, wanted Obama to obliterate McCain but that's just not the kind of man he is. Instead, he was extremely cordial yet stood firm on the issues. Obama successfully took down this notion that he doesn't have the experience to govern. Yes, McCain has traveled to a lot of places but simply going somewhere doesn't equate understanding the diplomatic subtleties of how to work with the leadership there. McCain seemed to fall back on talking points while Obama was able to speak about the topics in a very natural way. McCain has admitted in his memoirs that he prides himself on making decisions quickly, whether they are the right or wrong ones. I believe that's been the policy of the current administration for the last 8 years and we see where that has gotten us. Obama may not be an expert on every aspect of governing the nation but I see him being much more likely to call in people who are highly educated in each field and listen to what they have to say before making a decision.

A lot of time has been spent talking about Sarah Palin. A lot of this is because no one knows who she is. Joe Biden has been around for a long time so there's not much to vet about him. He has a lot of experience in terms of foreign policy and his bluntness is a character trait I've seen missing in politics as of late. Do I agree with him all the time? No. I find his stance on Net Neutrality extremely uneducated but I think he is a much better second in command than the embarrassingly inept Palin. I find Sarah Palin offensive because of what she shows us in terms of how Conservatives view women. She is supposed to be a pitbull/barracuda/whatever

other tough animal we want to call her yet she is not allowed to be questioned in the same way every candidate in this election is being questioned. And if she is made to field more questions than the three men in this race it's because she has such little experience or knowledge of the important issues. I can look at the voting records of the three senators and know where they stand, Palin is an enigma. It's telling that of all the Republican female public office holders McCain's people pick a former beauty queen pageant contestant and big oil executive wife. The reason many Conservatives resented Hillary Clinton was because she was a threat to them, she was very educated and intelligent and they don't like that. With Palin she simply knows nothing of substance. She tows the christian fundamentalist line while not showing any desire to really learn about the important issues of our times. She is an empty vessel and that is what Conservatives think of women, that they are nothing.

Despite such blatant flaws in the McCain campaign I still think the election will be close. That's such a sad statement on the American people. We have devalued knowledge and intellect in this country. So many people say they want the president to be "a guy I could have a beer with". Well, I don't. I want the president to be the most empathetic, understanding, tolerant, intelligent, humble person we can put up. There are lot of people who are fun to hang out with but that doesn't make them good presidents. This is a job of the utmost importance and is not to be entered into lightly. It is not a game and you can't suspend it when it gets too hard.

A lot of people will be basing their votes on issues such as gay marriage and abortion and other very emotional domestic issues. They have every right to, but I suggest that these things will not be "fixed" by officials. I have a very liberal stance and believe that one day the gay citizens of this country will have the rights they are fighting for. You can vote against it all you like but it is inevitable. Once people fought to break away from the tyranny of an unjust goverment in the form of the British Empire. And we won. Once people fought so that the abomination of slavery would end. And we won. Once people fought so the women who had given so much to this country and received little in return could have a voice. And we won. Once people fought to end the oppression of minorities in this country, to change the laws and to change some of our hearts. And we won. Right now, there is a similar fight going on. And even when it gets to the point of despair I try to remember that Freedom always wins. It's not the terrorists who want to, or even have the ability to, take away our freedom, it's an ideology that fills the halls of our capitol with a terrible stench. Every time a group has fought for more rights, they have gotten them. It has never been fast, but it is always inevitable.

So that's my piece for now.

Another good movie this fall: Doubt

2008-09-21T22:41:19Z

Charlie Kaufman's newest film

2008-09-20T23:12:04Z

Soundtrack for an Election Year

2008-09-06T16:30:48Z

Excited, Nervous, Always a Little Sad

2008-09-03T23:44:25Z

* Will be submitting the last piece of my application to the Graduate Education program at Lipscomb tomorrow. The first session is Sept. 11-13th. Excited about it. First step of a few that will get me my license and let me teach. Looking forward to making an amount of money that lets me feel I have much better control of the direction on my life.

* Found that you could submit a substitute teaching application for Metro schools online. So already have my application in. Need to get a TB test done and then schedule to go in for fingerprinting. After that you get contacted about an orientation and once you go then your name is in the system. It pays a little less than I had heard, $78 a day for Bachelor's - Non Certified. Definitely survivable.

* Well on my way to getting my driver's license. For the first time ever it looks to be like I will actually get it. Lots of times when people take me out, we drive for a few days then busy schedules kick in. Dave and Alicia are both much more commited it seems and I am so appreciative of that. I still have a little over $3000 saved so I should be able to get a decent used car and have some monies left over. Looking forward to that freedom I have never had before. Worried about insurance but I guess I'll get the minimum required (liability I think) for the cheapest I can find it.

* I just still can't help having these persistent anxieties about things. It frustrates me with myself because I get so excited about the prospect of hope (license, sub teaching, school) at first and then slowly my fears whittle away at me. I somehow let pessimism in and worry about something bad happening, how everything is going to fall apart at the last minute.

I hate having to impose on people. It's about the worst feeling in the world. No matter how nice my hosts are too me I still develop terrible anxiety when I'm forced into a situation where I have to stay in someone else's house. When I look at Alicia and Dave its easy to transpose myself and Ariana into their shoes. And I can see how losing that privacy could be extremely annoying over time. I mean if Ariana and I had the run of a house to ourselves it would be very awkward to have a third element come into the picture. I think that's why I want this license and this car so desperately. I see myself being away a lot to try and give them the space they absolutely deserve.

I'm almost thinking that once I get the mobility side of things and then have my name on the Metro schools sub list about calling up some other people in the area. Maybe floating around while I save up money and go to school. I only need to hold out for 14 months and then I can start getting a full time teacher's paycheck. Maybe get Heather to let me use her address for mail. And if for whatever reason I can't find a place to crash one night I can always have my car to sleep in.

* I'm angry at myself for being, what I perceive as, psychologically weak. I'm allowing things that are beyond my control to really upset me and effect the way I react. I'm letting my dad throwing me out of his house create paranoia and fear in me. When I was in Puerto Rico, Ariana's brother Manny told she and I that her mom was bothered by me being there for so long. So what happens? I get paranoid and weird around her mom. Then we found out that Manny lied and that his mom had not told him anything like that. It was Manny who didn't like having me around. So now I'm at Dave and Alicia's and I have these feelings of not being wanted. No matter who I stayed with when I came back to the States I think I was going to feel that way. So much terrible shit built up in my brain that it was inevitable. I just hope time moves quickly over the next 14 months. I want to get through this period of my life and make it a memory very badly.

* Things accomplished today:
Found out where I could turn in my grad school app
Drove with Dave in the evening
Ordered an official copy of my birth certificate online
Put in an application for sub teaching online (now I need to schedule a TB test and after that register to be fingerprinted)

prodigalsonoftn @ 2008-08-25T14:27:00

2008-08-25T19:39:09Z

The last few days have not been fun. Been sick with something I can't quite identify. Saturday night's sleep was aches and a fever, sleeping for 20 minutes before waking up in agony. Add into that a job possibility at a preschool which are being a bit unprofessional in the number of back and forth phone calls without me really having a gauge of it I'm going to be hired or not. I'm staying with Dave and Alicia and they're cool. I just always end up feeling incredibly awkward when staying with people. I feel like I'm obnoxious or nuisance or unwanted there, and I admit I know these sorts of feelings are unsubstantiated paranoia. I think it comes out of my father always making our home feel so unsure and unwelcome. If your own home has that feeling for you then staying in someone else's just amplifies those feelings.

I finally broke down on the phone talking to Ariana this afternoon. It has been awhile before I had shown any cracks, even to myself, in regards to my situation. I feel a pretty bad depression coming over me. I feel useless and I need to get this job just so I have something that keeps me from feeling like my days are going by wastefully.

On the upside, it looks like I can get into the Master's program for Learning and Teaching at Lipscomb. In 14 months (November 2009) I'd have my license to teach k-6. It meets one weekend a month (Thurs, Fri, Sat) and then a whole month in the summer. Designed around people who work full time which is good.

But still...feeling very broken and hoping this job thing works out just so I have some money coming in. Missing Ariana.

Return

2008-07-03T19:54:22Z

Well on Monday I'm going back to Puerto Rico for a month. There's just no hope here for right now and I have to get out of Robertson County. The more I look at it the more rotting and poisonous I see it. The people that run things don't strive to make things better. The school of my choice, Westside, is getting reamed for not meeting the impossible Math standards of the TCAP prescribed by All Children Left Behind.

I hate my father for bringing us here when I was 9. The only reason he wanted this house in the middle of the woods is because he hates people. He wants to be away from everyone because at his core he hates himself. He's unable to deal with his flaws, the same flaws all humans have but here he can hide from the eyes that might see. But he never thought of his children and how there are no opportunities here. There's no hope in Robertson County. Everything reeks of settling.

I'm looking towards Nashville now when I get back. I've had some amazing people contact me on here and all the other social networking places. Its hard for me to ask for help because I have my father's unbudging pride inside me. I'm working on it and this is a time when I need to think beyond pride and ask the people I know who can to help me. I thank everyone who's contacted me and I feel a lot more confidence now about the future. Its still uneasy but there is hope.

Broken

2008-07-01T19:54:26Z

- I was encouraged to call the Central Office today by both Mrs. Brewer and Mrs. Corbin. After having to take my number to call me back with more info, I finally got a call from the lady who hires. I expressed my concern about not having been called for an interview and she related that they were still interviewing certified staff right now. She also looked at my application and said that I was only qualified to teach high school english based on my degree (something i hope to never do). I explained that I was hoping to enter on the newly introduced alternative license, a move signed into law by the governor recently due to a lack of teachers in the state.

The wording this woman used was along the lines of "we're all set on our teaching positions and were still looking for ELL and special ed people" the implication being that I was not going to get the 3rd grade position because I didn't have the right piece of paper with the right numbers on it. I understand the system but am still hurting because I was really hoping to get this job. Now I feel like I'm a bit in a spiral, I hate the idea of having to start at square one again, I HATE having to look for and worry about getting a job. I hate it. And I have this fear about getting one of this miserably paying hellish jobs I despise, that I honestly am better than.

I have $5400 saved so that can really help me out. I'm tempted to get a cheap flight back to Puerto Rico and spend July and a little into August in Ariana. I need her right now. After I got off the phone with the Central Office and I felt the tears welling and my stomach twisting, I got out my iPod and went to the photos of her I keep on it and felt myself calm and feel better.

I just know I would have been so good at that job. And now, having the inevitable zero support of my parents that waited for my entire life to occur, I feel very alone and need help. I need help.