Ayyyyeeeee 2 Zeeeeeeeeeee Two

Movies = I like. Others = should watch. A to Z. (Part 2)


L. Lifeboat:
-It's one of Hitchcock's earlier ones, and it's got a script written by John Steinbeck. It's ultimately a survivor tale with a WW2 allegory to boot. I felt that the ending was a bit anti-climactic, (is there any way we can get the word anti-climactic banned?) but it's got great, in depth character development, and has certainly paved the way for many other stories of people stranded in boats throughout the years.

M. Mean Creek:
-Tales of high school bullies and their demise has almost become its own genre in film. This is the best one I've seen. It follows in the vein of Stand By Me, but it's a whole lot darker. Every child actor will surprise you. Not one of them does a bad job. Damn. I need to see this again.

N. Napoleon Dynamite:
-Yeah. No other N's. But I should say that I was disappointed that this movie became so annoying to so many people--people who had previously supported it, and were ultimately the ones who made it over-commercialized.






O. One Hour Photo:
-Give Robin Williams some gray hair and you've got one of the best portrayals of a stalker I've ever seen. This movie is nothing but a showcase for Williams, who went through that short period where he only played villians. (Now, apparently, he's moved into Only Goofy Family Dad territory.) The first time I saw his character's apartment--with an entire wall filled with pictures of same family, I got some pretty defined chills.

P. Punch-Drunk Love:
-What, Adam Sandler can act? And better than most actors?











Q. There aren't so many movies atarting with Q.

R. Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt):
-So, here's the obligatory foreign film. Unfortunately, it's one of the most well-known foreign films here in the good ole' U.S. and there's not too many others I can represent here. I should get on watching more of those.

S. Snatch:
-There's one scene in this movie, where Brad Pitt (playing a fast-talking, wise-cracking gypsy) is screaming at a burning caravan that his mother just happens to be in. Massive Attack's "Angel" is playing in the background and it just about makes the entire movie awesome. It's directed by Guy Ritchie, who doesn;t make good films anymore. (Maybe it has something to do with marrying Madonna?)

T. Traffic:

-Steven Soderbergh is a very prolific man. The same year he made Traffic, he made Erin Brokovich. And they both got nominated for a tremendous amount of awards. Traffic should have won more of them, and Brokovich never should have been nominated. Julia Roberts has weird lips!

U. Nah, nothing here.

V. Vertigo? Sure.

W. The Weather Man:
-Nicolas Cage is so ridiculously iffy lately that I was pleasantly surprised to see him in this role, playing a part that was smart and funny and pretty depressing. All at the same time. There are so many random elements shoved together here that it's just spontaneous enough to work.


X. X-men? Why not.

Y. Nope.

Z. Zodiac:
-Nearly three hours long, this flick never gets boring, no matter how much you think it will. David Fincher is enough of a good director to where he can pile just about all the information you would ever know about the Zodiac killer into the time-frame of a movie and have it all come together effortlessly.

Well that was fun.

Ayyyyeeeee 2 Zeeeeeeeeeee One

These Are Movies I Like. Others Should Watch Them. A to Z. (Part 1)

A. American Splendor:
-Think Adaptation, except without all the self-indulgence. This movie's got so much going on that at first you're not quite sure who's who. Paul Giamatti plays Harvey Pekar, famous for his comic books that the movie gets its title from. They're basically just about his own life and all the mundane things that happen to him on a daily basis. The scenes with Giamatti playing Pekar make up the majority of the movie. But then occasionally we cut to segments with the real Harvey, who's placed in front of a white screen and sitting at a table--just providing us with a little more narration--anything that the actor playing Pekar might have missed. (This summary is probably discouraging you from seeing it--but it's a very funny movie as well, and self-aware. Anything that can be as unpretentious as this gets many points.)

B. Barton Fink:
-Managed to win just about everything at Cannes in (?Whatever year it was made?) and still is overlooked when going through the nest of the Coen Brothers movies. It's better than Lebowski. It's better than Arizona. It's definitely better than O Brother, and it's better than Fargo. (Though the proximity between it and that last one mentioned is very close.) John Turturro and John Goodman are both creepy/excellent, and at the top of their game.

C. Cheats:
-This one is kind of obscure, but I felt like I had to add it, considering the fact that I watched it at least six times, all the way through, on HBO. I don't know what the deal was with the release of this movie. It definitely was not in theaters, but it was on T.V. a lot around 2004. It's hilarious, and it's hard to find. So.......Netflix is necessary. (Of course, it's ridiculous, and marketed toward teen outcasts, if anyone. But I love it.)

D. The Departed:

-Not so obscure. But I got the chance to watch it again recently, and it just...makes me so happy that Scorsese still has it, and can still do the gangster movie with fresh methods. If you've seen it already, go back again and just pay attention to the editing. That alone is entertaining. Now I'll stop with this one, or I'll just go off on the ending and how much I love it, and that would, of course, be a spoiler.

E. Election:

-Alexander Payne went on to do Sideways, and I almost want to say this one is better, but it isn't. It is, however, one of the funniest movies to come out of the last ten years. You know, if you're into all that dark humor and stuff.








F. Fight Club:
-Whatever, man. I got no other F's.

G. Good Burger:

-No. It's not a joke. On my list of five-star movies, all I had in the G department was this and Goodfellas. And Scorsese's already on this list. So let me explain this: I grew up worshipping Nickelodeon, and anything Kenan and Kel touched. This movie cracked me up at six, and cracks me up now. I don't know why. Maybe 'cause it's so aesthetically nostalgic.


H. Happiness:

-I think I can honestly say this is the most disturbing movie that I've ever seen. It's also in my top fifteen movies of all time. The taboos here range from murder to pedophilia to obscene phone calls to infidelity to etcetera. No incest though. That's about all it's missing. But don't let that disappoint you. It's still incredibly good.



I. In the Company of Men:

-Just another movie about two guys working in an office, who go and ruin a deaf girl's life. I actually don't know if it's supposed to be some kind of satire, or if it's just really, really, really cruel.



J. Jesus Camp:

-I'd heard much buzzzz about this "chilling" documentary before I walked into it. I expected to be either shocked or angered by the cult-like christianity pressed all over young children like tear gas. But my only reaction was laughter. Could have been some kind of way to cope. I dunno.

K. Kill Bill, Vol. 2:

-I'm a much bigger fan of the story-oriented Tarantino than I am the crazybloodsplatteraction Tarantino. And that's what he focuses on in the second part of his four-and-a-half hour long epic about The Bride's revenge. Plus, we've got much more Michael Madsen in this one, and that's always a good thing.

...stick around for the exciting conclusion!

Tha UPcoming

Ten Movies I Say I'll See The First Day They Come Out, When I'll Probably Be Seeing Them Close To Two Weeks Afterwards

10. Evan Almighty.
-Steve Carell hasn't made abad decision regarding movies yet. Hopefully he can stay on that path with this sequel to Bruce Almighty. (Yeah, I know. Bruce Almighty? I was/am a fan. I still enjoy all the Adam Sandler/Jim Carrey/Ben Stiller/Will Ferrell craziness. I'll be twelve years old forever.)

9. Shrek the Third.
-Sure, why not?

8. Grindhouse.
-Quentin Tarantino + Robert Rodriguez. Does anyone esle think this movie would be that much more awesome if they were collaborating on not two, but one movie? One glorious, blood-soaked laughfest that couldn't be as easily criticized, as it wouldn't be a double feature.


7. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters.
-Taking a nod from Borat for the title, this flick should be noteworthy because it's an adult cartoon. And it's not cg-animated, and, oh yeah, it's funny as hell. When was the last time a cartoon came out in theaters that wasn't for kids. And an animated movie doesn't count as adult if it's got random innuendo scattered throughout the whole thing. (It's all Shrek's fault. It started the trend.)

6. There Will Be Blood.
-Paul Thomas Anderson is, in my humble opinion, one of the best filmmakers working today. see: boogie nights, magnolia, punch-drunk love. This one's about greed, family, oil, etc. It's another one of these epics that he's famous for, and it's got Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, that silent kid from Little Miss Sunshine (and before that, Klitz in The Girl Next Door. Just an F.Y.I.)

5. The Simpsons Movie.
-Everyone says that the show lost its groove after the seventh season--which is now over eleven years ago. I completely disagree, but I've got certain reservations about this movie. They've got all their old writers coming back, so I'm crossing my fingers.

4. Revolutionary Road.
-Sam Mendes is the director of American Beauty, Jarhead, and Road to Perdition. And their quality is ranked in that order. This movie hopefully follows the style of those three films, and doesn't subject itself to oscar-begging. I mean, it is going to have Winslet and Dicaprio together again, but maybe it can avoid the basic, formulaic ideals associated with oscar bait.

3. Be Kind Rewind.
-A man whose brain becomes magnetized unintentionally destroys every tape in his friend's video store. In order to satisfy the store's most loyal renter, an aging woman with signs of dementia, the two men set out to remake the lost films, which include Back to the Future, The Lion King, and Robocop. That's the gist of it on IMDB. It's also directed by Michel Gondry, a.k.a. guy who did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep.

2. Spiderman 3.
-Do I even have to write anything here? Does anyone NOT want to see this movie? I mean, c'mon. It's got crazy black spiderman, (two!) love interests, and a plethora of villians: venom, sandman, little baby goblin, and one that's still being kept under wraps. Sure, I suppose it could be an overcrowded mess, but still! It's Spiderman 3!

1. Synechdoche, New York
-Charlie Kaufman has produced three masterpieces over the last eight years or so. I believe he's the best screenwriter working today. This is his first time directing, and he's got Philip Seymour Hoffman for a protag. PHS is one of the best actors working today. I don't know where I could go wrong here.

Some mo' Kin Asis

Official Post Number Five
"Smokin' Aces"
-Sam Leishman

Here are four movies that I want to see before the Oscars air: The Queen, Babel, The Last King of Scotland, and Pan's Labyrinth.
All of these are currently playing. But today, as I was looking through all the movie times, and deciding between these four, I came upon Smokin' Aces, the movie with one of the best trailers I've seen in a long time. (note: I don't decide on seeing movies because of what their trailers look like, unless it's undeniable that I'm going to enjoy the movie because the trailers just got too many good clips to deny it)

Smokin' Aces is a movie that fits into this new genre of Hollywood, where no single shot can last more than 2.8 seconds, and a million things have to be going on at once. And there's got to be a cast that holds every single famous-but-not-as-famous as-the-really-famous-people-except-for-Ben-Affleck. And Affleck's role is strictly supporting. He seems to do better that way.

I went into this movie knowing it wasn't going to affect me emotionally or tell me anything new about life, except perhaps that it is possible to compile the following things into one movie:
-10-12 contract killers, three of them neo-nazis, two lesbians, one insane torture freak, one stealthy smart-as-hell balding guy, and three guys who have no idea what they're in for. And there might be more. I can't remember.
-a cokehead bleeding out of his eyes.
-a sniper rifle that slams people all the way to the other side of a room on impact.
-a chainsaw coming to life via bullet behind someone's back.
-an A.D.D. child dancing around in his underwear, practicing his kung fu.
-not one, but two elevator shootouts

just check out the trailer, and tell me you aren't the least bit interested.

i went in because i wanted cheap entertainment, and because a lot of the time stylized action=good movie. That's probably not the case here, but it was still entertaining, and I was not disappointed.

Leterrs From EE!Whoa! Jima

Official Post Number Four
"Letters From Iwo Jima"
-Sam Leishman

I'm not too caught up in the world of Clint Eastwood. I've never seen any of his Spaghetti Westerns, and I've somehow avoided seeing most of his directorial efforts. But I am quite familiar with the concept of Clint Eastwood. I'm familiar with the fact that he's probably among the top twenty icons of the twentieth century, and I'm familiar with the fact that he's always there at the end of the year, with some new oscar bait for his ever-populating Acadamy Award shelf.

Now, I haven't seen both sides of his Iwo Jima epic, but I heard that "Letters from Iwo Jima" was vastly superior to "Flags of our Fathers." And "Flags" wasn't playing anywhere else, at least not the three theaters that I've got free tickets for.

"Letters" is being hailed by loads and loads of critics as "The Best Movie of 2006." And while it is quite good, here's a list of films that are better:

Little Miss Sunshine
The Departed
Children of Men
Borat!
Jesus Camp
Thank You For Smoking
(I'm sure there are more that I haven't seen, just based on what critics have said such as: The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, Babel, Little Children, Dreamgirls, United 93, etc.)

Again, "Letters" is in no way a bad movie, but it is oscar bait at its finest. That is: 1. A drama. 2. In subtitles with an American director. 3. A War Movie.
4. Relatively Formulaic.

It plays out like a lot of war movies do, and I wasn't expecting it. I actually went into the movie expecting to be moved and to come out of the theater saying, "Wow, I worship Clint Eastwood and have a newfound respect for the Japanese in World War II." I try never to expect these kinds of things because there's always that chance of being let down. I wasn't extremely let down, but wasn't blown away. And for a movie to be called the best movie of the year, it's got to blow me away. I don't know, maybe it's just a fluke.

Alfa Dawg

Offical Post Number Three
"Alpha Dog"
-Sam Leishman

It seems like every time I go to the movies the admission price has been raised again. This, to me, is very peculiar. I'm aware of inflation and the fact that most of the time, even if we're using more paper, chances are it's all worth the same amount.

I don't think this is the case with movie theaters. The price to go see a movie has all but reached ten dollars. (Maybe you've got seventy-five cents left over after paying for your ticket, but that's just gonna fall out of your pocket and get stuck to the floor when you sit in those movie theater seats.) And it's not like I'm going to walk into a convenience store and see that the price of Doritos has been magically raised to $6.50.

So now the people of the world have resorted to different methods, to avoid paying regular admission price.
-The Sneak Preview: Assorted radio and TV stations frequently hand out tickets to what are called "sneak previews" of new movies. This is a misnomer. The word "preview" suggests that we will be seeing only a portion of this new movie, when in fact, we get the whole movie, for free. All we've got to do is swing by the station and pick a pass up. And there are tons of people who go to these. You've got to get there at least thirty minutes early just to get a seat, even for the crappy movies that aren't even visually appealing.
-The Sneak-In: Everyone knows it's easy as hell to sneak into the movies, or to pay for one movie and then go see three or four more while you're at it. There aren't ushers anymore who come around to check tickets. Nobody cares that much. This is why we should just do away with the "17 and over" rule for R-rated movies. If you restrict kids, they're just going to sneak in to see them, and then you've got criminals on your hands.
-The Matinee: This method doesn't really help you out too much. All it does is save you maybe three dollars, which you'll promptly spend on those Sour Patch Kids candies (under that shiny glass box, right in your face) that you just can't resist.

I exercised this last approach as I went to see "Alpha Dog", the new movie about adolescent crime and how bad it's really gotten.

OK. First of all, the movie opens with home videos of each character as a young child. And it won't stop. We go through I think three minutes of credits before the movie actually starts. Being this far into it, I shouldn't already see that the director is trying to make a point, but I do. These small angel-faced children will be corrupted by society and turned into unbridled, drug-induced gangstaaas. And of course, this is what happens.

PLOT: (Based on actual events.) There's this guy named Johnny Truelove, who in real life is known as Jesse James Hollywood. He's one of those powerful drug dealers who lives in a mansion and has other wannabe gangstaaas waiting on him hand and foot. Now, there's this other guy who owes him $1200 and can't pay. So Johnny and the rest of his posse hold the guy's kid brother for ransom. Then the movie shows us all the witnesses to the crime and how dumb and reckless all of these kids actually are.

Things that are good about this movie:
-The acting is surprisingly good, and as realistic as anyone can hope it would be in this kind of movie.
-Justin Timberlake's in this. And he's really not bad. Another surprise.
-Ben Foster plays an absolutely insane speed freak, and does a very good job with it.

Things that suck:
-I'm aware that it's trying to make a point about youth and violence, but there are movies out there about the exact same thing that this one can't hold a candle to. Like this.
-Sharon Stone. In a fat suit.
-The dialogue is frequently hard to hear under the hardcore rap soundtrack.

All in all, it was probably not worth it to pay seven dollars to see this film.

Adapting to all the Adaptation

Official Post Number Two
-Sam Leishman

I absolutely loathe the idea of seeing a movie before I read the book. When I get up to leave a movie theater, and out of the corner of my eye I see "based on the novel by..." the movie just seems to lose a little bit of its impact.
My dad asked me the other day if I wanted to watch "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with him (a movie I no doubt have to see, eventually, I know) and scoffed at me when I told him that I wanted to read the book first.

The idea I've had most of my life: Books are better than movies. They do more for society and they don't cost $100 million to make, and just because you like watching movies more than you like reading books (most of the time) doesn't mean you should get away with it.

This is part of the reason I've never seen The Godfather, though I'll probably get around to seeing that before I get around to reading Puzo's novel.

And it doesn't even matter if it's "loosely based" on a novel. If this same idea has been written in a book, it's going to be better there, because the book is always better than the movie.

I heard about this movie, "Little Children" over the summer and immediately wanted to see it. And I was aware that it was being adapted from a novel written by Tom Perrota, so as soon as I could, I went out and bought it, and then tried to finish it before the movie came out. I even got the version of the book with the promotional poster for the movie right there on the cover. (About four dollars cheaper.) And I did finish it as planned, but I still haven't seen the movie. Why? Well, because any movie that's in less than 2000 theaters refuses to come to Alabama, but that's beside the point.

It was a very good book, a piece of suburbia darker even than American Beauty, and when all was said and done, I was glad I'd decided to read the book. Because if I'd seen the movie first, I don't know if I would have gone back and done it. Most of the time, if I see the little sidenote at the end of the movie, forfeiting a fraction of its genius over to the author of the book, I'll tell myself that I need to go read the book, but I can't remember the last time I actually read the book after the movie. It's just not the same experience. Whereas I think seeing the movie after reading the book makes it an even better experience. It gives me a more critical eye, and I like that.

Books I need to read:
The Godfather
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Schindler's List
The Silence of the Lambs
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Clockwork Orange
The Shining (Well, I've read about half of it.)
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Scanner Darkly
The Green Mile
The Graduate
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath (Shouldn't be a problem, as I'm required to read it in a few months)
Mystic River
many, many more...

I know I'll never read all these books before I see their film counterparts. The temptation will just be too much. But I'd like to think I have the time to do it all, even if I might just be doomed to never be as well-read as I am another well-watched film buff.

Chil'ren O' Mane

Official Post Number One
"Children of Men"
-Sam Leishman


Rarely do I shout for no reason whatsoever. But in one particular scene of Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men", involving a motorcycle flung onto the hood of a car, I find myself doing just that. I can't help but utter a "Ho-oh!" as the two motorcycle passengers are flung into the road and their crunched chopper skids down the street towards another car, this one already on fire.

What people said this movie was about: Clive Owen's living in this futuristic society, and women are infertile. So the world has basically gone to hell and there's no hope. Oh! Wait! There might be! If Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and their ragtag team of terrorists can save a pregnant girl, we might be able to go on.

What this movie is really about: Most of what I just wrote. But there's a lot of bitchin' political commmentary thrown in here too, as well as some great action-and-chase sequences that don't come across in the trailer.

Things that are good about this movie:
-The realism. Cuaron keeps the melodrama down, and the shock value high. I like this.
-CGI is kept to a minimum. It would have been easy to bog this down with computer-generated crap, but it would have taken away from the story. I like when I don't notice stuff has been enhanced.
-Clive Owen, who's never quite wowed me before. He was definitely my least favorite character in "Sin City", and I'm not too big on "Closer", but I suppose he was alright in that. He's awesome at playing depressed here.
-The Rolling Stones' "Ruby Tuesday" and Radiohead's "Black Star."
-Michael Caine
-Michael Caine
-Michael Caine. Seriously. He's this old pothead, and he's got this really great wig on. And his performance is incredible.
-The cinematography. There are these long, sweeping shots of cars driving down the road, and it lets the audience see what's happening on every side of the car, and what every passenger is doing, etc. And when the shots are dark, the lighting around the characters' outlines is perfect. I never had to strain to see who was who.
-We weren't told why women couldn't get pregnant. With all the political stuff going on, I don't want to hear about the science of it all.
-How I couldn't stop thinking about it for at least three hours afterwards.

See it now.