Sigh, I wanted to love it so much....

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
The title says it all. It's long, complex, beautiful, and completely empty. If I could have watched this movie without any vocal tracks I would have loved it, maybe. It is a technical feat in and of itself. Every shot is beautiful to look at. The special effects are masterful in their execution. The problem is..does any of that matter if the film has no soul? It just feels soulless. I know that it is well made, I do, but what is film if not an expression of human and earthly experience? I see the experience, I just don't feel it. Brad Pitt, who I have liked in many films, fall completely flat. His character watches life and death all around him for years. That is is role in the film. The problem is, we are watching him watch them. He is a statue, an obelisk, mounted in front death. Unmoved. As was I, Brad Pitt obelisk, as was I. Tilda Swinton, that freakishly perfect human, shows up for fifteen minutes and steals the show from everyone else involved. Her story has so much heart and soul that mine almost broke. It was beautiful and poignant and it meant more to me than the other 2 plus hours. Cate Blanchett, who is so often great, is great once more. The problem is, she's in love with a statue. When you are in love with a statue and the film is not about you being in love with a statue, things fall flat. All of your heart, it is useless. This is very much like Forrest Gump without the heart and with a different gimmick. Curious again, is that the same writer wrote both films. Curious indeed. I'll give it one thing though. The aging effects are incredibly believable. If it won best special effects over Iron Man, I could live with that. So there you have it. It's not very good, but it is something to look at. If you don't like the movie starting off, just get past the Tilda Swinton scene and then leave. My one suggestion about the creation of this movie? Tim Burton. It would have had a weird heart, but that's infinitely better than none at all.

Who wants to be a Slumdog Millionaire?!

Last night I drove across town to a theater I've only been to one other time. The film I saw then was Let the Right One In. This time, as I'm sure you can tell by the title, it was Slumdog Millionaire. Each movie sits firmly on different ends of the spectrum of the fairy tale genre. Let the Right One In is a Gothic fairy tale. It's dark colors and themes exude a feeling of fear and darkness. In order to enjoy it, you must believe that there might be hope in the darkness. Slumdog Millionaire wants you to believe in love. In light and hope and dreams. They are both amazing movies but Slumdog makes people do something that not many films do today..hope.
Slumdog Millionaire makes me happy just to think about it. It is about Jamal, a boy from the slums in Mumbai, India. He is on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He is about to win the most anyone has ever won on it. In between episodes he is accused of cheating and interrogated (read: tortured) into explaining how he cheated. He didn't, he's just lived a life full of experiences that led him to the answers. The film is the story of how he got the answers. And it is wonderful.
Danny Boyle, the man behind Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Millions has once again taken a genre and made it uniquely his own. Slumdog oozes with feelings. It will make you scared, it will make you laugh, you may cheer, you will flinch, and you may even cry. Slumdog Millionaire roughs you up and reconfirms love. All in two hours.
The characters are perfectly flawed. Jamal is an unstopping train of love. He loves his brother. He loves Latika, the fellow orphan he meets the day he and his brother are orphaned. He tries his whole life to love both of them. Whether or not he succeeds is all part of the film. Jamal's brother is a man about chances. Every chance to improve his situation is taken, no matter the cost. Does he find redemption? Can he let his greed take a passenger seat to his brother? Go see the movie. And Latika. Little Latika who grows into beautiful Latika. Jamal and she become estranged but they never forget each other. Her story is perfect. The arc from innocent to adult is a complete by the end of the film.
Slumdog Millionaire is currently at the top of my must-recommend list. You must see it, your neighbor must see it, your family must see it. It is pure cinema. It expresses itself visually and with style. I love this film.
You will too.

Update..

New Poll to the right..
New Gadgets added...any thoughts?
New Post Coming Soon....

The Winter Warmth

So, here it is..Movie Season. Not turn up the volume, blow everything major city up, costumed heroes season. This is, Elizabethan, cry a river, big stars, emotional, subtitled season. Over the next month and a half the biggest and the best that Hollywood and indie-wood have to offer.
And offer it they will. I will walk into the theater excited like it's summer again. I will probably cry (although quietly and non-admittedly). I will open up my heart and allow the movies to sweep me away. Then I will judge them harshly.
Too sentimental. Melodramatic on par with All My Children. All gloss, no heart. Pretty people doing petty things to poorer people than themselves. It can get monotonous. When watching a foreign film, if it is not engaging, and by that I do not mean exciting, I will write it off and knock it down. Words like pompous come to mind. There are very few films that actually make a wave in this country that I do that with though. I loved The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I was moved by The Lives of Others, and I loan out Pan's Labyrinth at every chance I get. My favorite foreign film of this year(so far) is Let the Right One In. A gothic vampire fairy tale. Oh yeah, and it's Swedish. It was crazy good. A little boy falls in love with an ageless vampire girl. She is stuck in a 12 year old body, but her mind is extremely old. If you get a chance, watch it. Never has a vampire been so helpful as when in a fight with bullies.
Some of the bigger and better movies are already out this year. The Dark Knight really has a chance. It was a huge summer blockbuster and critics couldn't stop talking about how much they loved it. Nobody missed it, so there is no way the Academy will. Heath Ledger will be nominated, Chris Nolan will be nominated, and The Dark Knight will be up for best picture. Wait and see.
Wall-E was once an early contender to join the ranks of Beauty and the Beast as another Disney feature to contend in the best picture round. I'm not so sure it will now, the competition looks stiff. It will be lumped into the Best Animated Feature category and win. Kung Fu Panda just doesn't measure up. If this category did not exist, I would say it could happen. Disney has done it before. And that was before Pixar.
The next few weeks bring Seven Pounds, Will Smith's serious redemption tale. I'm looking forward to it. I hope that it packs the emotional punch the it looks like it may. I love Will Smith and everything he does (Wild Wild West excluded). He is a true movie star. He is THE movie star. The most profitable man in Hollywood. Will he have another $100,000,000+ earner? (count those zeros) If he does, it would be the 9th in a row. It's ridiculous but I can't help but cheer him on.
The movie to see is Slumdog Millionaire. Danny Boyle seems to have created a real crown pleaser with this one. It's won audience award after audience award. Hint: That means it'll make you laugh, cringe, and probably cry. (It'll make you feel in a world full of soulless mind numbing crap) I cannot wait to see it. Look out for it in a city near you. That way when it's nominated for best picture, you don't go, "What's a slumdog".
Clint Eastwood is back with Gran Torino. It looks like a racist version of his Million Dollar Baby character. He could get nominated. We'll see. After the one-two punch of Mystic River followed by Million Dollar Baby, his work has been a little spotty. I've loved them all. He's a master filmmaker. I just think that everything since those two have paled in comparison. I hope this surprises me.
For the curious, Valkyrie comes out on Christmas day. Can Tom Cruise make a come back? Can Bryan Singer make a hit after Superman Returns had poor returns? Does anybody but me care? I don't see it being a Christmas day hit, but it could do okay. Maybe it will get nominated for best try at a comeback. Good luck on the comeback Mr. Cruise. I'll see your movie the week after Christmas. I'll be to busy seeing...
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Brad Pitt and David Finch together again. Se7en, one of my all time favorite crime film. Fight Club, just one of those movies that I love. They made those together, how can this be bad? Well it could go wrong, anything can go wrong. I'm just positive that this will do the opposite of going wrong. This movie looks like a sweeping epic of insane proportions. Love, death, time, and loss all seen through the aging-in-reverse eyes of Brad Pitt. Don't forget the lovely Cate Blanchett. Her voice makes me weak and her face makes me want to melt. She is Brit Sexy. Early word is that the question is not one of quality, but one of sincerity. Did it make you cry? I'll let you know.

Quantum of Wall-E

So last night, after a long Black Friday at work, I put Wall-E in the DVD player. The only glimpse I even saw of the little robot was during a montage of Disney greatness (Pirates, Pirates 2, Pirates 3, and Tinkerbell...). I passed out sometime after the third appearance of Johnny Depp smiling his drunken smile as Jack Sparrow. Today all I can think of is, what the hell happened to me? I used to stay up all night watching movies. Deep, moving, subtitled fare with subplots and nonlinear storylines. I would work all day, argue with the people in my home, write a paper, take a shower, then watch two movies. The English Patient followed by Amores Perros. I never missed a beat and I went to bed at 6. Am I running out of classics to enthrall me? No. Wall-E established itself as one of my favorite films of all time. The Summer punctuated by The Dark Knight and Wall-E as a season for not only blockbuster fare, but of content worthy of the Fall and Winter months. So what does it all mean? Is my brain shrinking or am I just becoming less involved? It may have had something to with the fact that I spent 15 hours on my feet selling retail items. There is nothing wrong with Wall-E. It's a near perfect movie. A love story for the present and the future.
It is my favorite of 2008 so far. That judgment will most likely not stand after the extreme gauntlet of films appearing in cinemas over the next few weeks. As always, the big studios roll out the red carpet for action and adventure before the tearjerkers and period dramas take hold of the multiplex. James Bond rode again, and jumped, ran, shot, punched, kicked, drank, again. It was a lot of fun. I would have rather anticipated another November Harry Potter, but Bond will definitely suffice. The problem this time around was not so much that the movie wasn't good. I just wasn't Casino Royale. This was the chase movie following the creation of a villain. The formula is thus: Bond knows of a new threat = Bond investigates (i.e. punches, kicks, shoots, drives, fornicates, etc..) the new threat. At the end, people are dead, women have been loved, drinks (many) have been consumed. It was great fun. No gravitas but plenty of gravy. Marc Forester, the director, really does not have an eye for action. He actually sucks at it. The car chase at the beginning is great fun. There are some great establishing shots. When the camera comes into the chase all sense of cohesiveness falls apart. Who's shooting at who? I do not know. But who really cares? I would also like to put a call out to all of the directors out there that are in no way listening. You know the guy who did all of the car stunts for The Bourne Ultimatum? GQ did a great article describing his passion and ability. Hire him to do every stunt ever in action films that have even the slightest chance of being worthwhile. They will all become visual feasts. I promise. As viewers, we want the crazy stuff we see on the big screen to be as realistic as possible. I get that none of it will happen in real life, that's why I go to the movies. For the magic.
Next time James Bond goes crashing through a glass roof, tumbling and fighting with his nemesis, I do not want to see a cartoon. If I wanted to watch a cartoon, I'd watch Wall-E again. Damn, I love that movie.

Welcome to the film/tv blog.

I just had a reevaluation. I sad truth presented itself and I acted. Usually these truths will present themselves and I will give things time, let things sort themselves out. This has worked in the past. I don't know that it will now. Maybe when the writers change, and the cynical critics I love agree that the change is worthwhile, I will watch Heroes again.
I got 5 minutes into last week’s episode and turned it off. Hiro no longer had his complete memory and believed himself to be 10 years old. Is this better than last year when Peter lost his complete memory but could still remember not to wet his pants? No. This is a contrived comic book plot turn that I hate. These are the plot twists that make me read more Warren Ellis and reread Terry Moore. Bye bye Jeph Loeb. Go write The Long Halloween part 3. You were always better a Gotham City than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I love your work, but Heroes has started to repeat itself and suck something large. So Heroes, I officially quit you. Hate it, but I do quit you.
On the movie front, it has been one year. One year ago since I first saw the Academy Award for Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men. I was overwhelmed by how much I liked it. It was as tonally close to the novel that I had read a few months prior. I applauded and spoke very highly of the film. So why, one year later, do I wish something else had won? Because anything else should have. Michael Clayton was a near perfect film that will be watched for years to come. There Will Be Blood was a masterstroke of film making. PT Anderson, you are a God. Both of these films feel as if they are lacking in any way one year later. Daniel Plainview still haunts me. Tom Wilkinson, who has never been better, deserved the Oscar over Bardem. I mean that. I really do. He played a true character. He had an arch. He changed. It was shown in every mannerism and inflection. He was robbed and time will tell.
The new Bond movie is great fun. It’s a bridge from Casino Royale to whatever comes next. It’s a lot of fun and things blow up a lot. Check it out if you get a chance and ignore the reviews. Daniel Craig is Bond. It’s worth your 10 dollars.
Happy Thanksgiving and welcome to my brain and what it thinks about.