Day 51: The Descendants

"Elizabeth is dying, wait, Fuck You! And she's dying."

I wanted to love this film, I really did. I thought for most of its running time that I did, but the longer it went on, the harder it was for me to love it. Alexander Payne is an insanely talented writer and director, but he has no sense of pacing, and it's painfully obvious in all of his films with the possible exception of Election. His films just have no forward momentum and it feels like just when his films finally get going, they end. Now, I love About Schmidt, but it doesn't really pick up steam until Warren's speech at the wedding, and it ends roughly ten minutes later. Same thing with Sideways, that film really comes to life in the scene where Miles goes to get Jack's wallet back, and that's about 90 minutes into the movie. Signs of life finally show up near the end, and then he wraps things up. It's a choice, otherwise it wouldn't be such a noticeable pattern.

The Descendants tells the story of Matt King (George Clooney), a man dealing simultaneously with the sale of a large piece of land in Hawaii that his family owns as well as the imminent death of his wife who is in a come following a boating accident. Matt is a man who has spent most of his married life as the second parent to his two daughters 10 year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and 17 year-old Alex (Shailene Woodley), and now he is thrust into a situation where he is doing all the heavy lifting in the family. Through a conversation with Alex, Matt finds out that his wife was carrying on an affair, and this begins to consume Matt. He is also dealing with having to break the news of his wife's looming death. If you feel overwhelmed just reading all this, imagine what it's like witnessing it. This is a man who seems to have had it all figured out his entire life, and now he's just getting thrown one curveball after another.

He is also getting to know his daughters for the first time. He hasn't spent a lot of time raising them, and the film above and beyond anything else is about a man who's been a father for a long time figuring out how to be a dad. This part of the story really connected for me, and maybe there's other angles that will connect with other people, but for me, this is what the movie is about. Matt is dealing with protecting his youngest daughter from the harsh reality of her mother's situation, and he's also dealing with his eldest daughter's rebellious streak and her ever-present friend Sid (Nick Krause). After tracking down the man his wife was having the affair with, Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), he also finds himself facing a man who is married and has children, and he becomes conflicted about confronting him.

The film has a ton of balls up in the air and that, for me, was its biggest problem. I suppose it all flows naturally enough, but the way that revelation on top of revelation just piles up and then effectively resolves itself in the last ten minutes of the film kind of bothered me. As natural and easy-going as the flow is, it felt like watching the first season of Lost all over again; Part of me was excited by each new revelation and twist to the story, but the other part of me was just left wondering, when are we going to start tying up some of these loose ends?

Clooney has had a long and distinguished career, but he's kind of been playing a variation on the same character for years. It's a curse of being a movie star, I suppose, but there is part of me that wants to see him really stretch. The Coen Brothers have offered him that chance at least twice (O Brother & Burn After Reading) and I loved him in the horrendously under-seen Welcome to Collinwood, but there is a part of me that wants to be floored by him in a role like this, and I just know that I won't because it's just that same type of character again. All of this is not to say that he isn't good in the film, he's outstanding, but he was just as good in Michael Clayton & Up in the Air.

Shailene Woodley, on the other hand, is revelatory. She is as good a discovery as Haillee Stenifeld in last year's True Grit. She has a long career ahead of her, if she wants it, and I look forward to what the future holds for her. She has an honesty in her delivery and a burning intensity in her eyes, and I thoroughly enjoyed her.

The film was full of memorable bit parts, as all of Payne's films are, but my favorite has to be Nick Krause as Sid. At first, I thought he was going to be a grating addition to the cast, but once his scene with Clooney where they talk about Sid's family lands, his motivation and character come into focus, and he is great. The scene where Robert Forster punches him was far and away my favorite, and I began looking forward to him being in scenes after that.

The cinematography is wonderful, as to be expected from a film shot in Hawaii. Every landscape is gorgeous and the camera lingers, sometimes too long, on some of the breathtaking vistas. I'm glad that the film eschewed some of the moments that seemed like it was on a collision course with, i.e. there was no long monologue by Matt to his cousins explaining his decision about the land. There were several moments where I braced myself for some hardcore monologuing, and they never came up, which is a welcome omission from a film such as this.

There is a lot to admire about The Descendants, it's a very good film, but I feel that it's thoroughly forgettable. It doesn't bring anything new to the table, and while that's not a requirement for any film, when a film has the pedigree that this one does, you expect it to break some new ground somewhere, or have that moment where you realize that it's just gone from a good film to a great film, and this film just doesn't cut it. I would recommend it to anyone who's a fan of any of the talent involved, but don't be swayed by the hype. The studio wants you to believe it's the best film you'll see this year, and it falls sadly shy of that lofty goal.

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Day 50: Dolphin Tale

"In this changing world, it's harder than ever to find something extraordinary, but every once in a while, a symbol of hope breaks through. And this time, her name is Winter."

There's nothing extraordinary about the film Dolphin Tale. It's a fairly by-the-numbers tale of survival with a bit of "we need to save the rec center" thrown in for good measure. What makes the film a very good one though, is the true story of a dolphin named Winter who lost her tail in after getting caught in a crab trap and washing ashore near Clearwater, Florida. All summer long, I was inundated with advertisements and trailers for the film every time I went to the movies, and the trailer tells pretty much the entire story.

It's sad that we live in a day and age where the people who cut trailers for films treat their audiences with such contempt that they feel the need to give away every major plot point in the trailer. The first noticeable example of this for me was Pleasantville, a movie I absolutely adore, but I was so angry after I saw it and realized that every major plot development was revealed in the trailer. I had an eerily similar experience here, and if you have somehow managed to avoid the trailers, I would urge you to continue to do so before you see the film. In fact, avoid my review as well.

The film tells the story of a young boy named Sawyer (Mason Gamble) a lonely outsider who lives with his mom (Ashley Judd) and doesn't seem to have many friends aside from his swim champion cousin Kyle (Austin Stowell). While riding home from school one day, he comes across a fisherman who has discovered a beached dolphin caught in a crab trap. The local marine rescue team, headed by Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick, Jr) arrives and transports the dolphin to their research facility. The dolphin, Winter, ends up losing her tail to infection. Sawyer stops by to visit Winter and strikes up a friendship with Clay's daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff). The doctors have been having a hard time getting Winter to respond to them, but she instantly responds to Sawyer, most likely because she recognizes him as the one who cut her free from the trap.

Sawyer begins cutting class to spend time with Winter and the Hasketts, which inevitably gets him in trouble with his mother. After bringing her to the facility to meet Winter, his mother pleads with his teacher to allow him to miss the semester to spend time living and learning at the center. Sawyer's cousin Kyle has gone off to war and there was an incident that caused him to permanently damage his leg and he has been discharged and sent home. When he goes to visit Kyle in the VA Hospital, he also meets Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman), a prosthetics expert, whom he convinces to come to the center to meet Winter. Winter has been swimming without her tail, but in doing so, she has been causing damage to her spine and muscles, and if she continues to do so, may become paralyzed and die. Dr. McCarthy agrees to help figure out a way to construct a prosthetic tail for Winter.

Things are further complicated by the fact that a wealthy entrepreneur has offered to buy the struggling marine center in an attempt to ease its financial woes, but he wants to tear it down and build a luxury beachfront hotel. Of course, without a top-line research facility, Winter will likely die before they can raise enough money to save the center. I guess it's a bit obvious where all this is headed, but needless to say, it all works out in the end. It wouldn't have made for a very good movie if it didn't.

The film is full of heart and is a thoroughly wonderful film to watch with your family. Winter becomes an inspiration to people with disabilities and missing limbs all over the country, and people begin coming from all over to see the dolphin. In my favorite scene, a mother and her four year-old daughter drive from Atlanta to see the dolphin they've heard about. The daughter is missing a leg and when she sees the dolphin, she says "look Mommy, he's just like me." It's a simple and genuinely touching scene that made even a tough guy like me cry. Yes, it's heavy-handed, but it's genuine. It's not John Williams ratcheting up a swelling orchestra to cue you in to the fact that you're supposed to be having an emotional reaction to what you're seeing. You feel the pain and the hope that Winter inspires.

The film ends with a montage of footage of the real Winter, who plays herself in the film, and her journey. The most affecting scenes in the montage involve real life amputees, many of them children, who came to visit Winter and see the dolphin who was just like them. It's beautifully done, and almost makes me wish this had been a documentary instead of a dramatized version of the events. I watched it with my daughters, and my oldest daughter Clementine genuinely enjoyed the film. She told me about halfway through, "Daddy, this movie is really good. We should buy it." I don't want to say I was swayed by her opinion of the film, and maybe for a time, my enjoyment of the film came vicariously through her enjoyment of it, but the film is powerful, mainly because Winter's story is powerful.

Winter is a fighter and the people who are inspired by her are fighters too, and that is what makes the story so compelling. It would be so much easier to succumb to adversity and just give in, but the heart of a fighter beats inside Winter and gives the people who see her and touch her and are inspired by her the will to carry on and continue their fight. It's a lesson we all should take to heart. Likely most of us don't have anywhere near the struggles to overcome that these characters do, but just as they fight on, so too should we.

The film is directed by Charles Martin Smith, a former character actor famous for his roles in American Graffiti and The Untouchables, and he avoids a lot of the sentimentality that tends to bog down films like this. It's not the best directed film you'll ever see, but you never feel manipulated by it, and that's so key to making a film like this work. With a lesser director behind the camera, the film could have easily been treacly mush, but he's a smart enough director to skirt those obvious emotional manipulations and let the power of Winter and those around her move you.

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Day 49: Bucky Larson, Born to Be a Star

"You can't go around whippin' your dick out at mac & cheese commercial auditions."

You're welcome. I just spoiled the only funny thing that anyone in this entire fucking catastrophe uttered. I am so god damned angry right now, I'm glad my family is asleep and doesn't have to see me like this. I have never been so angry after watching a movie. Well, maybe I have, but the anger rising in me throughout this entire 95 minute abomination feels unrivaled at the moment. At least Old Dogs had the fucking decency to start the end credits around the 79 minute mark. This fucking atrocity was still going strong. It hadn't even gotten to the climax. Jesus Christ, there was still 11 more minutes of this shit to go at that point.

I used to like Adam Sandler. I never loved him like a lot of people did, but I always enjoyed his movies. Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Wedding Singer, these movies made me laugh. I own them. His performances for writer/directors who knew how to harness his energy were effective: Punch Drunk Love, Funny People, even Spanglish. But the dude just seemed to want a career to give his friends jobs. His hangers-on have all gotten their moment in the spotlight thanks to his Happy Madison production company: Rob Schneider, Allen Covert, David Spade, Kevin James, and now, Nick Swardson. Swardson is a talented stand-up yet nobody's figured out what to do with him in a feature film. This is his first starring vehicle and to call it an unmitigated failure is an understatement.

Swardson plays Bucky Larson, a bumpkin from Iowa who discovers that his parents were porn stars in the 70s. He decides it's his destiny to go to Hollywood and follow in their footsteps. He does. That's it. That's the whole fucking plot. Yeah, there's other stuff, but that's pretty much it. It would be one thing if there was something new to add to that notion, but that ground was pretty well covered by Trey Parker & Matt Stone's vastly superior Orgazmo; Naive kid ends up in porn, becomes a superstar, rebels against the industry and evil dudes who run it. Why does this movie exist? Because Adam Sandler's rich and if you do enough small roles in his shitty starring vehicles, you get $10 million to make your own vanity project.

This movie is a fucking piece of shit. I have no qualms with saying that. I remember when it came out and everyone took a shit on it and Nick Swardson tried in vain to defend it, saying that it was never intended to be a movie for critics, but this isn't a movie for anyone. In the interest of fairness, I'm going to list the things that this film considers funny and you can decide for yourself if the problem is with the critics or the lazy screenwriting. What follows is just a list, presented objectively and you tell me if any of these things are funny in and of themselves:

Dutch page boy wigs
Endless jokes about dutch page boy wigs
Buck teeth
Endless jokes about buck teeth
Midwestern accents
Endless jokes about Midwestern accents
Small penises
Endless jokes about small penises
Mmm-Bop
Every single ancillary character is a total creep
Stephen Dorff as a porn star
Don Johnson as a porn director
The guy from Zohan (Ido Mosseri) playing the same character he played in Zohan
Fake porn titles that aren't funny i.e. The Farmer in the Smell
Old people saying dirty things
Young people saying dirty things
Kevin Nealon
Pauly Shore
Using a cut off end of a straw as a condom

That's all I wrote down, but I'm sure there are others. Maybe there's something funny about some of those, but when the film appears to just be a string of essentially the same four jokes, they lose their punch. First of all, there's nothing about the character of Bucky Larson that would lead anyone with a brain to believe that he is a heterosexual. I don't know why people seem to take that for granted in encounters with him, but apparently he's not even questioning, and that's odd to me.

This brings me to my biggest problem with the movie (I know, as if all that was just the warm-up to my real problem). My biggest problem with the movie is Christina Ricci. Not necessarily her character, although it's a fucking joke of a character arc they give her (her dream is to be a waitress in a fancy restaurant, but she accidentally scalded an old woman with hot soup and now she's afraid to work in a restaurant with trays. This is all true). My problem is that she's in this movie at all. She used to be awesome. She was the fucking indie movie queen for much of the late 90s and early aughts, and then she lost weight and started doing shit (Black Snake Moan? Anyone? That movie was made during Samuel L. Jackson's "I'll do anything with Snake in the title" period {thank you Andy Grigg}). We all gotta eat, I get that, and I'm not looking to cast aspersions on people, but between this and Pan Am, I'm starting to seriously question her desire to be taken seriously anymore.

She has a scene with Bucky late in the movie, after he's won 12 adult film awards (not making that up) where she tells him that she's never won any fancy awards, and part of me can't help but feel that her mere presence in this whole endeavor is a fuck you to anyone who's ever liked her as an actress. I need to watch Buffalo '66 again soon to remind myself that she was once a great actress. Why on earth she would consider being in a relationship with someone as emotionally retarded as Bucky is beyond me. And I don't use that word in the mean sense, I use it in the sense of the definition of the word. He is fucking retarded. He's not just naive, or sensitive, or overly trusting, he's retarded.

You could not convince me that there was more than one draft of this fucking abortion written down on paper. There are three credited writers (Sandler, Swardson, & Covert) but I would bet both my kidneys that this thing was written on the fly. It seems like a funnier idea than it actually is, and it's not that funny of an idea. I would love to talk to someone who worked on this thing that would be honest with me and tell me that they got sides every morning and that there was no official written script. It's the only plausible explanation for this shit. Everyone in this movie is naive. Nobody in the world is as naive as the characters in this movie, and I'm not just talking about Bucky. Everyone takes everything at face value.

There's no attempt at characterization, and why do that when it's funny just to stick a bunch of caricatures in the frame and let them mug it up. Throw a wig on that guy who was famous fifteen years ago and let him say whatever pops into his head. That seems to have been the mantra of this project. It's directed by a guy named Tom Brady, and if ever there were a more ironic name for a guy directing a movie like this, I don't know what it would be. The real director went down, the back-up got thrown in, and made the worst movie of the decade. It's a cinderella story if I've ever heard one. I don't know that that's what happened, but it sounds like a fitting analogy for such an aptly named director.

I could write a dissertation on this travesty, but my better sense is telling me to wrap it up. Do not... I repeat DO NOT go near this thing with a forty foot pole. It is absolutely, positively one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It made Zookeeper look like the fucking laugh riot of the year. This movie should be held against everyone involved for the rest of their lives. They should wear it around their necks like the albatross it is and have to suffer countless indignities for agreeing to appear in it.

There's pretty much nothing to convince me that Adam Sandler will ever be good again, particularly because he not only produced it, but took the top writing credit. He deserves it. Fuck him. I hope he's happy and has his money and his New York fucking Yankees to keep him happy at night. He's certainly done bringing joy to the lives of anyone in the world outside of his friends, and he seems perfectly content to do so. And as for Nick Swardson, I hope someone figures out something to do with him, because he can be a funny dude. I just don't hold out much hope that it'll happen if even he can't write a good starring vehicle for himself. God help us all.

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Day 48: Midnight Cowboy

"John Wayne! He's a cowboy! You calling John Wayne a fag?"

Holy crap this is a depressing movie. I remember seeing it when I was in high school, but this is not a movie for high schoolers, even sophisticated ones such as myself at the time ;-) I distinctly remember not liking it, but there are a lot of films I didn't like as a teenager that I now love and cherish: The Graduate, Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, and now, most certainly, John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy.

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a naive young man who leaves a small town in Texas to travel to New York City with aspirations of becoming a hustler. He's heard stories of how there are thousands of rich old ladies in New York just itching to pay young studs such as himself for sex. Upon arriving in New York, he moves into a hotel and sets out to make his fortune. Things don't necessarily go as planned, especially after his first encounter with a woman named Cass (Andy Warhol fixture Sylvia Miles) who is appalled that he would ask her for money.

Broke and desperate, Joe encouters Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman in one of the greatest screen performances of all time), a crippled degenerate who offers to hook him up with a pimp. Needless to say, he ends up conning Joe, dumping him off with a religious fanatic, and now Joe is officially destitute. He's kicked out of his hotel room, and decides to hang around the area where men are looking to pick up prostitutes. In a heartbreaking scene, he's picked up by a young man played by Bob Balaban, whom Joe discovers, after the fact, doesn't have any money. In yet another example of Joe's naivete and genuineness, he is unable to follow through on his threat to beat the crap out of the man.

He hooks up again with Ratso who offers to let him squat in his abandoned flat with him, and offers to be his pimp. Like seemingly everything else that these two lost souls attempt, this proposition falls flat on its face. Joe & Ratso struggle to survive, Joe on his endless optimism and Ratso on his dream of moving to Florida and living the high life. Joe, however is haunted by memories of his past in Texas. From what I was able to glean, he was in love with a girl in town who had a history of sleeping with a lot of men, all of whom didn't like the idea of her not sleeping with them anymore, so one night, they dragged the lovers out of their car and raped them both. When the police arrived, the girl fingered Joe as the lone assailant. He also had a rough childhood, rife with abuse and abandonment.

Voight's performance is so incredibly good and filled with nuance. You can feel his broken heart and his endless desire to make something of himself and your heart breaks for him with every dead end he hits. If he's the beating heart of the film, Ratso is the film's soul. Ratso sees a lot of himself in Joe, which is why I think he takes him in. He sees a man much like himself who doesn't give up and lets the sheer determination to achieve his dream sustain him. The film is a love story in the truest sense of the word. It's about finding a soul mate in this world and helping that person achieve their dreams.

The film was revolutionary in 1969 when it was released, and it explores taboos that still exist in today's United States. Our country's puritanical roots are still the foundation that drives people's attitudes towards sexual mores and this film flies boldly in the face of that. Waldo Salt's screenplay is brilliantly attuned to the language of the street. There's so much stylization in the film's style, much of it clearly indebted to the films of Andy Warhol, but the dialogue is rich with deep, real characterization. It's a delicate balance, but the film strikes it perfectly. All three Oscars won by the film and these men were thoroughly deserved.

The fateful bus trips that bookend the film strike a metaphorical chord that films have been aping in the years following the film's release. I'd point to the door knocks that bookend Sideways as a recent example of this. I know this film didn't invent the technique, but it's almost certainly the gold standard for this trope.

This is a film for dreamers and lovers and there is so much hope in its ending, in spite of the fact that it's incredibly sad. The hope that Joe Buck brought with him to New York City has not been crushed by his never ending failures. It's alive and well, and a new life awaits him. Our heart continues to break for him and for Ratso, but our hope that he will make it in this life will never die. It's a beautiful film in its ugliness. It doesn't pull any punches, it doesn't gloss things over, but its heart beats with a sense that anyone and everyone can achieve their dreams in the end. That's a lesson we all should take to heart.

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Day 47: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

"A Greek play? The only things Greeks know how to play is with each other's balls."

Werner Herzog is a legend. He's one of the only true uncompromising visionaries that's ever stepped behind a camera. I would not hesitate for a moment to say that he's one of a very select group of filmmakers who has never "sold out" or even come close. Another filmmaker I would put in that group is David Lynch. Yeah, I know, he made Dune, but that film was taken from him and repurposed.

Therefore, a collaboration between the two should have been the film event of the year. However, they got together in 2009 and made a film that virtually no one has heard of, let alone seen. I guess that's keeping in their maverick style, but I had actually forgotten that I saw the trailer for this and had a strong desire to see it. I was in the library browsing their sizable selection and saw it sitting on the shelf and I couldn't get my hands on it fast enough.

The film is My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? and it is a doozy. It is one of the more bizarre films I've ever seen if for no other reason than it seems like a fairly straight-forward murder mystery. It's structured like one, except that we know who the murderer is, the mystery is in why he did it. Michael Shannon plays Brad, a man who murdered his mother with a sword and has barricaded himself inside his house, claiming to have two hostages.

Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena play detectives who have come to the scene to help with the investigation and negotiations. Brad's fiancee Ingrid (Chloe Sevigny) arrives at the scene and begins to give Dafoe some background on Brad. He had made a trip to Peru with some friends to go white water rafting, but claimed he heard the voice of God telling him not to go in the water, and after refusing to go with his friends, he becomes the only survivor when they all die in the rapids.

Brad also has an incredibly strange relationship with his mother (Lynch regular Grace Zabriskie) that seems to be fueled by some peculiar, but unexplained, form of child abuse she inflicted on him as a child. Brad had taken a role in a production of the Greek tragedy of Orestes, a man who slayed his mother with a sword, and the production's director Lee Meyers (Udo Keir, a welcome sight any time he shows up in a film) has also come to the house and provides the detectives with information about Brad.

I suppose that there are a number of ways to interpret exactly why Brad killed his mother. He's very clearly mentally disturbed, yet no one makes an attempt to get him any sort of professional help, they just tend to write him off as eccentric or a victim of circumstance. Everyone mentions that he wasn't the same since he returned from Peru, so was he indeed possessed by spirits on that trip? Is he an impressionable guy driven to intolerance and madness by his intolerant and mad uncle (Brad Dourif)? These are all valid possibilities and the film is in no hurry to draw any conclusions for you.

The film is bizarre in every sense of the word, but it's endlessly watchable. Michael Shannon is one of the most intense actors alive. His commitment to his characters is admirable, and his training as a stage actor serves him well as he can ratchet up intensity, yet keep it measured enough for film, a line that very few actors are able to walk. The rest of the supporting cast is good, but this is Shannon's show. He feels like a dangerous dude even as his fiancee and director try to infuse him with humanity. A number of critics have written off his style as naval-gazing, but I don't see him that way. He seems like a committed actor of the highest order to me, and I enjoy watching anything he does. It also makes me excited to see what he'll do in the role of General Zod in the upcoming Superman reboot.

The film is Herzog's top to bottom, but Lynch's influence can be felt hovering over the proceedings like a specter. Far and away, the most bizarre scene in the film features Brad, his uncle and a dwarf (Verne Troyer) in the woods, staring at the camera for a prolonged period of time. Why is the dwarf there? Who fucking knows? Lynch has a well-known hard-on for dwarfs, but so does Herzog as evidenced by one of his first films Even Dwarfs Started Small. I guess the dwarf is there just for us to deal with. Brad continually makes statements about "why is the world watching me?" and his constant fourth-wall breaking looks at the camera make the audience feel complicit in a crime that is an enigma at best and downright unsolvable at worst.

Anyone who doubts Herzog's commitment to his principles need look no further than the documentary Burden of Dreams about his attempt to make Fitzcarraldo. Even his famous bet with Errol Morris that he would eat his shoe if Morris ever made a film shows his commitment to his principles beyond his films. The guy is dedicated to a degree that most of us are unfamiliar with, but I suppose that's why he's enjoyed such a long and prolific career. He made this film in the same year he made his Bad Lieutenant remake with Nic Cage, and while they share an incredibly esoteric worldview, they couldn't be more different, a testament to Herzog's talent. He's at home in fiction and documentaries (evidenced by his releasing 2 docs in 2011), and I for one will watch anything he does.

So is this a good film? I'm not sure. It definitely seems to be fucking with you while you watch it. It seems to be challenging you to hate it or be driven mad by it, but I suppose it wouldn't be a Herzog or a Lynch film without that feeling. It's a film that every cinephile must see, and certainly fans of either filmmaker, but I would steer your parents away from it, unless they're super cool. Herzog doesn't make films that play in middle America, but I don't think any of us want him to. He wouldn't be Herzog if he did. Much like Terry Gilliam, his ability to succeed in the face of overwhelming opposition makes him a hero to the film world, and I don't think we need to worry about him selling out any time soon.

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Live blogging the Golden Globes

Join me on facebook this evening for some live blogging of the 2011 Golden Globes, 7pm CST. A little tradition I started during last year's Oscars. I'll try and update this post with some of my favorite quips after the show. See you there! Click the link to visit my facebook page...

Here are my predictions...


Best Picture (Drama): Will win: The Descendants Should Win: Hugo
Best Picture (Musical/Comedy): Will win: The Artist Should Win: The Artist
Best Director: Will win: Martin Scorsese Should Win: Martin Scorsese
Best Actor (Drama): Will win: George Clooney Should win: Michael Fassbender
Best Actress (Drama): Will win: Meryl Streep Should win: Rooney Mara
Best Actor (Musical/Comedy): Will win: Jean Dujardin Should win: Jean Dujardin
Best Actress (Musical/Comedy): Will win: Michelle Williams Should win: Michelle Williams
Best Supporting Actor: Will win: Christopher Plummer Should win: Albert Brooks
Best Supporting Actress: Will win: Octavia Spencer Should win: Berenice Bejo
Best Screenplay: Will win: Midnight in Paris Should win: Moneyball (why is this only one category?)
Best Original Song: Will win: The Help Should win: Anything from The Muppets (nothing was nominated though, stupid HFPA)
Best Original Score: Will win: The Artist Should win: The Artist
Best Animated Film: Will win: Rango Should win: Rango
Best Foreign Film: Will win: A Separation Should win: A Separation


These are just my opinions, let's see how I do...

UPDATE
I went 12 for 14, so not too bad. Here are some of my favorite things said during the show...
War Horse=Saving Private Ryan's Horse


Deep Impact is the name of another Morgan Freeman endeavor with his god-daughter


Why has no one thanked Bronson Pinchot? He'd be the first one I'd thank


Oh Claire Danes... is there anything you can do?


Get me his non-union Mexican equivalent!


You know Franco was backstage blazing with Rogen (followed by) I'll bet Andy Serkis is back there too, and Franco doesn't yet know he's not a real ape


That might be the first time a Frenchman apologized for being French


(After The Artist won for Best Score) Quick, someone go check on Kim Novak...


Does Kate Winslet do a nude scene in this acceptance speech?


Uh oh, Jonah Hill looks like he's backsliding back to the fat guy side


Is it wrong to look at Helen Mirren and say aloud, I'd hit that


What else? Anything I left out? Let's discuss...

Day 46: Trespass

"Man, you could have saved us all a lot of aggravation."

Is it a sin to say I actually liked this movie? I don't think it is. Once upon a time Joel Schumacher was a good director. He made one of the ultimate 80s movies The Lost Boys, and at least three other very good movies: Falling Down, Flatliners & Tigerland. Granted he's made a lot of shit, too: 8MM, Phantom of the Opera, two pretty bad John Grisham adaptations, that nonsense The Number 23 & the two worst Batman movies ever made. But he knows how to make a good movie, he just doesn't seem to want to very often.

Now, there's a lot of ridiculous nonsense in this movie, but that's to be expected from a suspense thriller starring everyone's favorite lunatic Nicolas Cage. There's a winking obviousness to a lot of Cage's oeuvre, and this film is no exception. He always seems to be in on the joke. Shit, there's a lot of credibility both in front of and behind the camera on this thing, so it's not like everyone got together to make a steaming pile of shit. Brian DePalma's editor Bill Pankow did the editing, Andrzej Bartkowiak shot it (he also shot The Verdict, Prizzi's Honor & Speed) and Oscar winning producer Irwin Winkler was one of about a dozen producers. These are not people out to waste time or money.

The film tells the story of Kyle and Sarah Miller (Cage & Nicole Kidman), a well-to-do family living in a big house in the middle of nowhere. Kyle seems to be a big shot something-or-other, wheeling and dealing in diamonds. One night, some robbers break into their home to steal some of these diamonds.

They've been scouting the family for a while and they come in, take them hostage and demand diamonds and/or cash that they presume is in the house. The revelations and twists to the plot are actually worth preserving, so I'll actually put a spoiler embargo in place. Don't read the next two paragraphs until you've seen the film, I think you'll enjoy it more if you don't know the twists and turns.

So, here's what I liked about it, and debate me on it if you found it ridiculous. I liked that everyone was motivated by something and that those motivations drove their decisions very concisely throughout. I saw the film twice before writing my review just to make sure that the filmmakers were smart enough to sow the seeds throughout and it's surprisingly well done. Elias' motivation to protect his brother whom he thinks is loyal to him, supersedes even his own fear of Ty and the drug dealers he's into all that money for. He's loyal to a fault, and I actually really wanted to hate the actor because he's so over-the-top in the early goings, but it's actually an incredibly effective performance and character. His girlfriend was a moron, but she too is motivated by getting her daughter back, and it makes sense why she takes time watching their home movies while the robbery is going on. It's actually god damned clever and surprised me on my second viewing.

Cage is full-tilt here. His early negotiating before the safe is open is vintage Cage. He's unhinged in the best way possible, chewing up all the scenery in sight, and then as he loses his leverage, he scales back his performance beautifully, underplaying everything while the actors around him are all melting down. It's ridiculous how much he commits to this thing. Kidman is also very good, and she can run hot and cold, but here she gives a measured performance that builds to the revelation that she never actually slept with that dude. The daughter was also very good, I thought, and was able to keep pace with her parents.

Okay, so this might be the biggest surprise of my blog so far. I rented this fully expecting it to be awful. I mean, how couldn't it be? It bombed in theaters, broke the old record for shortest time between theaters and video (18 days) and features a lot of talent known recently for making garbage. I think it's the script that made the film so good. The writer's name is Karl Gajdusek and the only other thing on his resume is some episodes of the defunct Showtime series Dead Like Me. I'm a firm believer that if you get a competent director, solid actors, and a great script, it can lead to a great result, and that's just what we get here. It's trash, but it's grade A trash.

This is an A+ B-Movie, if that makes sense. It won't win any awards, but it deserves a place in any film lover's collection alongside Suicide Kings, Boondock Saints, Shoot 'em Up, & The Devil's Advocate. I will end up owning this movie, I just know it, and I'll be pleased to lend it to people and give them a pleasant surprise.

Don't expect this to be award-caliber stuff, just expect a fun, twisty thriller and enjoy yourself as much as the actors on screen are enjoying fucking with you. You want to hate it, but you won't. And by the second viewing, you might end up loving it.

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Day 45: Happy Feet

"Don't ask me to change pa, 'cause I can't."

When you're a parent you end up going through phases with your child where you watch the same movie virtually every day for a week or so until it's on to the next one. My youngest daughter Elanora has been in a phase where all she wants to watch it Happy Feet. Every penguin she sees on a shirt, in a store, on tv, she calls happy feet. She's obsessed with it. It's consumed her. I'll admit that I saw the film back when my oldest daughter Clementine was younger, but I didn't remember much about it other than the two qualities that most people are hung up on regarding the film: the incessant repurposing of popular music and Robin Williams' horrendously stereotypical dual voice roles.

Those are two things that nobody can change about the film, and they are its biggest detriment, but I thought to myself, well, you forgave Baz Luhrmann for doing that to popular songs in Moulin Rouge, why do you hold a grudge against these filmmakers? And as for Robin Williams, it's better just to accept that he's there and move on, because there is an absolute, one hundred percent, bona fide masterwork lying just beneath the surface of this cute movie about singing and dancing penguins.

Yes, you read that right, Happy Feet is undeniably the best animated film not made by Pixar or Hayao Miyazaki in the last decade. It is an incredible film that as a parent, I would have no qualms whatsoever with my children watching over and over again because it conveys at least two messages to its audience that I think are invaluable and worthy of my child's time. First, be yourself, be who you are in spite of what anyone else tells you. There are others out there who will accept you for who you are, and those who don't aren't worth your time.

Secondly, and most importantly, question and challenge any authority figures who force you to see things their way. Just because there are institutions and rules that have been followed by generations, it doesn't necessarily make them right or valid, and you need to search for your own truth in this world.

The film focuses on two emperor penguins named Memphis (Hugh Jackman) and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) who mate for life through their heart songs, a tradition that these particular penguins have had throughout the centuries. They have a baby together named Mumble (Elijah Wood) who discovers that his heart song is not a song, but it is in fact a tap dance. Every penguin elder scoffs at Mumble, appalled by what they view as his malfunction in their society. As Mumble grows, he continues to be different from everyone else, and the animators even animate him differently, presumably so he'll stand out from the pack and be easier for children to identify as the protagonist. The emperor penguins are suffering a shortage of fish and are in danger of dying off if something isn't done soon.

Mumble wanders off one day after being derided by his classmates, and stumble upon several Adelie penguins (of which Robin Williams' Ramon is a member). They're immediately impressed by his dance moves and accept Mumble as one of his own, something he's never found among the emperors. Returning to his home with his new friends, Mumble is banished by the penguin elders when they tell him to renounce his ways and stop dancing.

The scene is amazing. The dialogue is incredibly well written with Mumble's father siding with Noah the Elder (Hugo Weaving) and his mother siding with him. Mumble begs his father not to ask him to change who he is while the elders tell him to repent and ask the Great 'Guin in the sky for forgiveness. It's powerful stuff for a kids movie. Its parallels to religion's intolerance of homosexuality are undeniable, and will hopefully be an inspiration to any children watching who may be feeling like they're not welcome in church or society in general. Like I said, it's heavy, heavy stuff.

Since he was younger and had an encounter with a bird who claims to have been abducted by aliens, Mumble has been obsessed with the notion that there's more in the world than just penguins. He and his new friends go to Lovelace (Williams again, sigh), a rockhopper penguin who claims to have been abducted himself, for advice. The crew sets out in search of the aliens, traveling a long distance to find the place where Lovelace claimed to have been abducted. They come across all manner of beasts on their quest, from elephant seals to killer whales, when they finally come across a huge fishing boat.
Mumble, bound and determined to get some answers, takes off after the ship and finds himself put in a zoo.

Here he dances for the zoo visitors and becomes something of a sensation. This section of the film caused a mild bit of controversy initially because of its use of actual humans rather than animation, but it doesn't bother me as much as it did some people. The humans end up fixing Mumble with a tracking device and bringing him back to his herd. Mumble's return causes a revolution among the penguins, with the bulk of the younger penguins joining him in dance while the elders yell and scream at them to stop their hedonism.

The dancing penguins force the humans tracking Mumble to reconsider their overfishing in that region of the world, and change is seen being enacted by humans. It's a bit of a stretch, and it's certainly a bit of environmental wish fulfillment, but there's nothing wrong with the film having a bit of a fantasy element to it. It ends in a wholly satisfactory manner, with Mumble's father finally accepting him and joining his son in his revolt, and the youth of the penguin tribe disobeying their elders with reckless abandon.

I found this film, and continue to find it, nothing short of marvelous. The film downright empowers outsiders, and I wish that more children's entertainment were this brash in defying the conventions of children's animation. I know that the true message of the film will be mostly lost on the young, but don't doubt how savvy children can be. They'll see the film and view it as more than just the cute, dancing penguin movie. They'll get the message even if they don't fully grasp the nuances of it.

Yes, Robin Williams' schtick is tiresome, but the film has much more going for it than just Williams. The voice acting is uniformly good. Elijah Wood has one of those voices that's just filled with naivete and it's put to wonderful effect here. Brittany Murphy, who voices Mumble's love interest Gloria, has a wonderful singing voice and makes her untimely death that much sadder. Kidman and Jackman are also fantastic, and Weaving continues to be one of the most reliable villains working today. He sounds just like the pompous son of a bitch he's supposed to sound like, and has so much nuance as an actor, his appearance in a film should never be taken for granted.

Director George Miller cut his teeth on low budget action films like the Mad Max series, but his mid-90s career reinvention that started with the Babe films has revealed a kinder, gentler soul who will never stop challenging his audience, no matter how young it skews. I have yet to see this film's sequel, but it just opened at the $1.75 theater here, so I'm sure we'll make a pilgrimage soon enough. It certainly wasn't met with the success that this one found, but this film's success gives me hope that parents will continue taking their children to see films that can change their perception of the world and those around them.

If you have children, you're doing them a disservice by not showing them this film. It's nothing short of a masterpiece and I hope that my children will grow to share it with their children. There's something for everyone to learn here, and its lessons are as timeless as when a dude named Jesus taught people to challenge the righteous. That message won't be lost on anyone.

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Day 44: Last Tango in Paris

"What's this?"
"That's your happiness... and my ha-penis."

If this line creeps you out to no end, you're not alone. Marlon Brando was 47 when this movie was made and his love interest, Maria Schneider was 19. This fact alone earns this film a place in the canon of creepiest films ever made. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what is so creepy about the entire film, but it's an extremely unsettling film to watch. Brando is the kind of actor so at ease on screen that it's almost hard to tell if he's acting. Believe me when I say that I mean this as a very high compliment, it's just that, in the context of a film like this, it's downright disturbing.

Brando plays Paul, an American living in Paris, mourning the suicide of his wife. While looking for an apartment, he stumbles upon a Parisian girl named Jeanne (Schneider) with whom he begins a torrid affair. They meet in the apartment on a regular basis and have sex. They talk too, but Paul doesn't want to know anything about her. He wants it all to be anonymous and impersonal. She's a young woman, so the psychosis of a woman this age virtually prevents that from being a reality, and he flies into a rage anytime he thinks she's about to reveal some personal detail about herself, yet he drones on endlessly about himself and his past. It's hyper-masculinity to the point of being revolting, and it made the character thoroughly unsympathetic and irredeemable for me.

Director Bernardo Bertolucci spent his formative years training under one of my favorite directors, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and it serves him well behind the camera. His composition is always visually dynamic and interesting, and the scenes that don't feature the imminent threat of seeing Brando's dong are brilliantly done. The film is beautifully lit by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and rivals his best work with Bertolucci on The Last Emperor.

In true Brando form, his best scene is with Massimo Girotto, whom he views as an equal on screen. He's the only person he doesn't try to out-act in their scene together, and it's the only time Brando is truly effective. Brando was a narcissist and he insisted on writing his own dialogue in the film. It's mostly pretty awful, and I wish Bertolucci had been firmer with him, but he had only made a few films at this point and didn't have the clout or the cajones to stand up to Brando.

The infamous butter scene is almost as difficult to watch as the subway station scene in Irreversible. It's downright horrific and ended up scarring Maria Schneider for life. No one deserves that to happen to them, and I can't help but wonder what this film would have been like with any other actor in the lead role. It might have some merit to it, it is brilliantly directed and shot. I understand that Paul is a character in pain, and he's looking for connection, but Brando's dangerousness makes the film almost impossible to handle.

On a side note, I didn't realize until I looked it up on imdb, but it was wonderful to see Jean-Pierre Leaud in this film as Jeanne's fiancee Tom. He is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Truffault's The 400 Blows and several other films. This film has tons of connections to some of the great European films and filmmakers, even featuring a small role from Catherine Breillat who would come to be a controversial filmmaker in her own right with films like Fat Girl and Romance.

There's lots here to admire, but Brando alone makes me hesitant to recommend the film to anyone other than die-hard fans of Bertolucci or Brando. Maybe a Brando fan can change my mind about his performance, but he is far and away the most unlikable protagonist Brando ever played, and it's hard to separate his performance here from his own instability in real life. He gets what he deserves at the end, and I have no problem saying that. I'd have done the same.

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Day 43: Atlas Shrugged Part 1

"I'm calling it the John Galt Line, because I'm tired of hearing that name."

Preach it, sister. There isn't a more appropriate gesture I can think of to describe this film than the one suggested by the title itself. This whole fucking movie's a shrug. I'm no fan of the author Ayn Rand, but I try to view every film objectively. Entertainment without an agenda is hardly entertainment I guess, but this film gets its message across in the most ineffective way imaginable. The only thing it's got going for it is built in appeal to fans of the book because anyone else will be lost almost immediately. The film is filled with characters standing around espousing their beliefs and seemingly everything interesting happens off-screen.

Set in the year 2016, Atlas Shrugged Part One tells the story of a world where oil prices are out of control, the Dow is below 4000, and the government has regulated business in this country to the point where no one is allowed to prosper from the promise of free market capitalism. I can't fault the filmmakers for this, but this film features two protagonists with the clumsiest names imaginable, Dagny Taggart and Henry Rearden.

Seriously, say those names aloud right now and tell me they don't roll trippingly off the tongue. Taggart (Taylor Schilling) runs the largest railway company in the country along with her brother. Rearden (Grant Bowler) runs the largest steel company in the country. The two get together to combine their resources and create the most dynamic, new, updated rail line in the country. Everyone keeps asking one another, "Who's John Galt?" but all I kept wondering is "Who Gives a Shit?"

Trying to explain the plot of this behemoth is like dancing about architecture. There's so much gobbledygook and nonsense being spouted off that once you stop being able to keep pace, the film will leave you firmly in the dust where, frankly, it feels you belong if you can't keep up. Maybe the fans of Objectivism can explain it to me, but the whole thing might as well have been in German after about thirty minutes of not being able to keep pace.

Beverly D'Angelo look-alike Schilling doesn't give a performance so much as she appropriates human emotion as would an android. No offense to soap opera fans or actors, but everyone in this movie was just like someone on a soap. Nobody behaved like a real person and every line reading was atrocious. Even the semi-respectable actors in the film like Michael Lerner & Jon Polito are awful. By the way, where did they dig the two of them up? What, was Armand Assante not available?

I do find it sort of strange that the two main characters end up getting it on, if for no other reason than Reardon is married. I get that his wife's a bitch and all that, but he's still married, so the people that idolize this book are celebrating an adulterer. I'm not overtly casting aspersions, it's just something I find interesting in light of the moral resolve a lot of this work's supporters seem to pride themselves on. I amused myself by singing a song during the sex scene called "You can't regulate our love (The love theme from Atlas Shrugged Part One)." I recommend you do the same should you find yourself in similar straits.

So here's what I was able to absorb: The government is bad because it does nothing but regulate and tax. So all of the industrious people in America are stifled by their inability to expand to the furthest reaches of their imagination. The issue as I see it is that they're portraying the government as being out of control the way that the average American sees the richest people in America being out of control. How is a government with absolute power any better than corporations with absolute power? Someone, please explain this to me. Bottom line, demonizing the government doesn't make you any better than the people trying to demonize big business.

My final thought on this film is this: If I hear the name John Galt one more time, I'm going to punch someone in the fucking teeth.

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