Haha, professional movie blogger.

As I already tweeted and instagram’d about because everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing immediately, I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City last night. I bought the $10 ticket over a week in advance, not realizing it would be some legit premiere — although I should have guessed considering how awesome a theater it is. Yeah, there were some movie stars and important people but the coolest part was the free unlimited water and popcorn. I made sure to take advantage of that. My dinner was three small popcorns, and it was glorious. Fuck your paleo diet.

All right, enough about the extraneous garbage: I was there to see a film (in 70mm!) from one of the best filmmakers out there, one whose deliberateness in releasing new films makes the anticipation for each one that much greater. Unfortunately, right before the film started, Harvey Weinstein had to bring up politics because it was 9/11, but it was quickly forgotten once the film started.

The Master is not actually about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s “Master” nor is it about Scientology, despite having some similarities; it’s about Joaquin Phoenix’s broken Freddie Quell, a character in which Phoenix makes himself almost unrecognizable. I haven’t seen I’m Still Here, but I’m guessing that was something of a warm-up for the insane transformation he’s made here. Freddie constantly hunches over, makes unsettling contortions of his mouth and eyes, and slurs his words unintelligibly at times. He’s a violent, unpredictable drunk who cannot assimilate into society after his service in World War II. By total chance he literally stumbles across Lancaster “Master” Dodd (I could see this being a Chris Berman nickname), and a bond forms between the two almost immediately.

I know I said that the film is about Freddie, but perhaps it’s more about the relationship between Master and Freddie. And the performances from Hoffman and Phoenix are pretty much all someone could ask for. It’s an amazingly straight-forward film, especially for Anderson, but these two actors put on some showcases that are enthralling to watch. There’s a devastating scene featuring what Master calls “processing” (this seems like a nod to the Scientology influence) and a jail cell scene where both Master and Freddie absolutely explode. But instead of a climatic scene being the conclusion of the film like There Will Be Blood, The Master chronicles the slow disintegration of their relationship, a process that seems to hurt Master more than Freddie in the end.

If you’ve seen any other PTA films, you know he makes pretty moving pictures. The Master continues this tradition, and being shot totally in 65mm* helps. I cannot recommend enough going out and watching this in a theater equipped for it, but like IMAX, not many people have access to the real thing. Yet while the film is beautiful, I’d say PTA is less showy here than in his other work I’m familiar with (I haven’t seen Hard Eight). Boogie Nights had him aping Goodfellas for that opening tracking shot, Magnolia had raining frogs, Punch-Drunk Love had that scene-transition flair, and There Will Be Blood had the long wordless beginning and the oil rig explosion set piece. TWBB in particular comes across as a showcase for Daniel Day-Lewis, topped off by that final “I’m finished” line. The Master in comparison comes across as a more restrained affair, keeping its hold over the audience for its running time, throwing in a few pieces of comic relief, but leaving many audience members a little empty.

*I know I said I saw it in 70mm earlier, but that’s all I keep hearing, but then I read it was filmed in 65mm. Apparently the difference is the section used for the soundtrack? I really don’t know for sure.

The Master has to be the least entertaining PTA film I’ve seen. It’s not fun seeing Freddie Quell self-destruct, or Master trying to defend his outrageous claims about memory and past lives. There aren’t many surprises or absurdly amusing scenes. Despite the various locations in the film, it’s not detailing the fall of an entire industry, the intertwined lives of a dozen people, or the rise and moral fall of an oil magnate. This is an intimate film that perhaps counter-intuitively coldly keeps its distance. Amy Adams’ character (Mary Sue Dodd) might be the embodiment of that coldness, as she comes across as the true Master in some scenes. It’s a dynamic that shows that she’s helping Lancaster remain Master, stopping him from falling prey to the wildness of Freddie. It’s Freddie’s freespiritedness, undoubtedly fueled by his psychological issues and alcoholism, that draws Master to him. It’s a love story that’s not meant for a happy ending though, unlike the romance in Punch-Drunk Love.

Watching Punch-Drunk Love for the first time right before going to see The Master might have colored my view of the latter, but I enjoyed watching the former so much more. The Master is the work of a more mature, more confident filmmaker, and I’m sure Anderson made the film he wanted to make; it’s just that The Master is not the most fun 160 minutes you could spend in a theater. It plods along at times when it comes to Freddie’s therapy or processing or whatever Master refers to it as. And ultimately, Freddie doesn’t experience much growth, which kinda reminds me of another film that left me cold, Shame. I feel like I shouldn’t even bring that film up, as I think it’s hilariously self-aware about its artistic aspirations. But it came to mind, so I thought I’d throw it in here because I’m not quite sure how critics manage to write long film reviews.

Maybe I need another viewing — this time closer to the screen — to fully appreciate what Anderson has done here. There’s not much to nitpick when I try to critique the film, only the nagging feeling of being somewhat unsatisfied. It could be that I’m jealous of Freddie’s one-track sexual mind, where he’s able to suppress all his dark memories until someone forces them to come out. It could be that we’re all stuck somewhere between Freddie’s compete carelessness and recklessness and Master’s desire to achieve human perfection, despite his own all-too-human flaws. I know that I’ve been lost in my quest to balance the two for my entire adult life.

You were going to see The Master no matter what I said. Go see it.

Drive is not the Fast and Furious-esque action car movie it is portrayed as in most of its marketing. I was even a bit fooled despite reading up a bit on the film; I should have taken heed when I read an interview with Ryan Gosling where he said he wanted to make a “violent Pretty in Pink”. There are a few car chases, and they are shot extremely well without the ubiquitous  shaky-cam, but they are definitely not the focus, nor all that impressive as set-pieces (the first 10 minutes or so are brilliant stuff, though). What’s here is an 80s love story with the requisite soundtrack that turns into a slasher flick with Cronenberg-styled violence. I’ve seen that last point mentioned numerous times, but my friend said it exiting the theater; I’m taking that connection from him, not fellow amateur internet film critics.

This film is not for people who cannot stand silence. There are long pauses that I thought were a bit too much at times, where Gosling’s character (this is all I can refer to him as, since his name is never uttered) comes off too stilted. But I guess he’s so damn handsome that his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) can’t help but fall in love with him. It doesn’t hurt that he’s good with her kid and helps with the groceries, I guess. Oh, and that he’s a badass stunt driver and wears a sweet bomber jacket. What girl with a husband in prison wouldn’t die for a man like that? But obviously, once that husband is released from prison, all hell breaks loose.

The drawn-out silences and patient, long shots make the sudden and brutal violence in the film all that more shocking. There is a great scene where the violent nature under the shy and almost mute veneer of Gosling’s character is hinted at, and once he’s thrown into a situation where he needs to protect his cute neighbor and kid, it’s no-holds-barred retribution. The only previous Nicholas Winding Refn film I had seen was Bronson and that was pretty brutal, but I wasn’t expecting such explicit bursts of blood spatter in every way imaginable. That such violence occurs in what is otherwise an extremely slick and cool film could make it seem indulgent, but it works in the framework of the film. Once the switch in Driver (ok, I’ll just call him that now) is flicked, he turns into some Travis Bickle-type character; now this is the reading that I’ve stolen from other internet film nerds. And it’s not like the film doesn’t acknowledge how crazy the violence is — there’s one amazing scene in particular that cements Driver as a psychopath.

While the film is really all about Driver, the small supporting roles from Albert Brooks and Bryan Cranston are both fantastic, and Carey Mulligan is perfect as the prototypical cute neighbor. I would have probably liked to see a bit more of the first two, but Drive is streamlined to a barebones plot where no scene is superfluous. So while some scenes might seem like they drag, there is nothing pointless in the 100-minute running time. There’s no backstory to Driver, the romance between Driver and Irene is set up through a few quiet scenes and a montage scored with a song straight of out the 80s (that’s a bit too cheesy for my taste), and the criminal associations in the film are relayed through brief conversations where there’s almost always something else going on.

Neither is a shot wasted (outside of one bizarre slow-motion, inside-the-car shot — you’ll know what I’m talking about). I’m glad I got to see the film in one of the big theaters in my local multiplex, because Refn, as @MilesTrahan put it, “can shoot the fuck out of a film.” The cinematography alone makes the film worth a watch, but when it’s combined with a character as memorable as Gosling’s despite his paucity of lines, a bunch of great supporting performances, unflinchingly awesome violence, and an atmospheric synthetic soundtrack, you’ve got one of the better films of the year — despite it going against mainstream expectations. Take a date if she can stomach seeing the life get stomped out of a guy’s face.

Dogtooth

Like most movies, I think this one could have benefitted from me not being half-asleep through most of it. The word every single person uses to describe Dogtooth is “disturbing”. I think the cover displaying a girl with a bleeding mouth and missing tooth warn you of what you’re getting into. That said, I’m pretty sure I was totally out during the most unnerving scene in the movie. I woke up and there was a dead animal on the ground and the characters standing around it. I don’t think that’s all that spoilery, but maybe my indifference towards the film affects my judgment when it comes to revealing plot points.

The entire film revolves around a dysfunctional family where the children are obviously not normal. As the film unfolds, you realize they’ve been totally secluded from the outside world, and taught all sorts of strange and incorrect things by their batshit parents. But I could never get invested in the concept at all. Sure, it’s a commentary on how control and isolation can wreak havoc on impressionable and powerless subjects, but the concept is so totally out there and weird that it never clicked with me. And it didn’t stick with me, either. Most parents that control their children as much as possible usually do it for what they think is their benefit. What’s the benefit of the licking other people’s bodies? Not sure why that stands out to me now, but jesus if that wasn’t the most irrationally strange thing ever. Maybe I missed something while I was too busy falling asleep and someone can explain it to me?

Basically nothing clicked at all here. There are parts that are clearly meant to be darkly amusing, but the only thing that elicited a smile was one of the girls reenacting Rocky. Oh, and I guess a vagina being called a keyboard was funny enough. But I’ve already undermined my thoughts by saying how I wanted to snooze 15 minutes after starting it up on Netflix Instant Watch (and ultimately succeeded). I didn’t know Greek people got this weird, I thought they just liked having corrupt governments.

Enter The Void

I almost made it through this movie without falling asleep. I may have even only half-dozed off. In this case, it has less to do with the content of the movie than the length. My God, is this shit incomprehensibly long. The first half of the movie is pretty damn great, as the first-person perspective and the dreaminess that comes along with it creates shots that remain in your mind. And there’s one scene repeated throughout the movie that definitely won’t exit my mind for a long while. I remember being maybe two-thirds through the movie and thinking that scene was done with and it came back and almost gave me a heart attack and I wanted to curse Gaspar Noe. I haven’t seen Irreversible, but I know some people had a similar reaction to that entire film.

Anyway, the second half is where it drags on forever, with the camera swinging back and forth across Tokyo, giving me a goddamn headache, showing the lives of the residents connected to the main character. Like in Boardwalk Empire, Paz De La Huerta is naked seemingly most of the time she’s on screen (it’s to distract people from her face), and she’s still a terrible actress — as is the main character. I’m not sure if it was a conscious choice on Noe’s part to have the protagonist — who you see almost exclusively from behind — speak with absolutely no inflection at all. It’s totally disconcerting and frustrating. I would consider the possibility that Noe wanted the viewer to insert himself into the role as much as possible, but then he would have stuck with the first-person perspective instead of pulling the camera back behind the dude’s head. He definitely wanted the sensation of the protagonist watching his own life — a life where he spoke in a monotone voice, apparently.

So while I was sucked in by the first half of the movie, with its bright flashing Tokyo lights seen from the perspective of a drug-dealing and -taking kid, the second half eventually lost its appeal somewhere around minute 130. Yes, there’s a point to the length that’s pointed out earlier in the film, but it still didn’t make it any less unbearable. Yet, I’d still recommend it. And if I could see it in a proper theater tomorrow, I’d be all over it. I’d probably feel the need to take some sort of drugs beforehand, but either way, it’s the type of movie that lends itself to a big screen. Unlike Dogtooth, which did not move me at all, there’s something here that sticks with you — whether it’s the spectacular credits, or the eerie feeling of being a ghost drifting through the world, or the thought of re-living your life in the same manner portrayed in the film.  It’s a ride that goes on for too long, but it’s a ride nonetheless.

The credits sequence is a necessary YouTube embed, but it’s nothing like watching it on your HDTV in pitch black, which is nothing like watching it in a movie theater:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL0lNGXoP8E

Animal Kingdom

Hey, a more traditional movie! Like Enter the Void, this one is also in English, but instead of from France, this comes from Australia. A crime film that centers around the youngest member of the crime family and his place in the world after his mother passes away to start the film. Guy Pierce, who is fucking awesome and underappreciated, plays the role that introduces the idea of natural selection and the food chain. Somehow this is handled without being cheesy, as Pierce comes across as a cop trying to both intimidate and reason with the teenage protagonist stuck in the middle of a terrifying and crumbling mess of a family.

There’s quite a few twists in the film, and even more moments where my heart was in my throat either from shock at what had just taken place on screen, or from a achingly tense scene. There’s one shot in particular where you know something is going to happen — and then it doesn’t. The movie is filled with encounters that turn out completely unlike how you would expect, and it’s for the better in almost every instance.

I feel like it takes the movie a while to kick into gear, but the last 45 minutes on the whole are close to flawless. It also took me pretty much until the very last scene for me to warm up to the main character. He seemed like a deaf and dumb teenage with a sullen look on his face most of the time; I guess that can happen when your mom dies. It’s very different from the lead performance in another foreign crime film released in the past couple of years, A Prophet, which is probably a superior film.

The Secret in Their Eyes

I haven’t seen many Spanish-speaking movies, but something about this one just felt Hispanic as hell.  The way love is handled and the flirting and the drinking — I can just see the world of this film reflected in my Puerto Rican mother. To be specific, this is an Argentinian film, and it’s also the odd man out here, as it was released in 2009.

It’s strange; I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, but I can’t find too much to say about it. I will admit it’s interesting how the movie works as two mysteries 25 years apart, one a murder case, and one  just a lingering sense of doubt. In an amusing coincidence, I was talking with a middle-aged female co-worker who said how she liked “epic” movies that took place over a long period of time, and also mysteries. It was like she described this film. I just remembered the soccer stadium scene that adds to the perceived scope of the film — and also the Hispanic-ness.

The ending does feel immensely clichéd, even though the events that lead up to it are very affecting. But it’s also an ending I’m sure this co-worker would eat up. Yeah, I’m spent talking about movies, I think. I don’t know how Roger Ebert does it.

It took me far too long to watch this film. When it was first announced, I thought it was a disgusting exploitation of 9/11 or some similarly moronic teenage bullshit. I realize now how much of an idiot I was. I should have listened to not just the critics that lauded the film, but fellow internet denizens who absolutely loved it.

It is impossible for me to imagine a better film to chronicle the events of 9/11 than United 93. I haven’t seen World Trade Center and have no plans to, but Oliver Stone shouldn’t have even been allowed near the subject matter after this film already existed (a Twitter buddy pointed out that Stone shouldn’t be allowed near anything). Yeah, you could focus a story around the firefighters and policemen down at Ground Zero, but even United 93 sufficiently touched upon the feelings we had when we saw those terrifying images of the Twin Towers.

No matter what you might think of Paul Greengrass’ two Bourne films, the shaky-cam aesthetic works flawlessly here. Everything in the movie is happening in real-time, and Greengrass does a masterful job of putting you there right in the middle of the events.

Outside of some establishing scenes in the very beginning, the entire film takes place within air control centers, NORAD, and the eponymous flight. The film reminded me a bit of Apollo 13 in that sense, only the latter is typical Ron Howard melodramatic sap (still a good movie), while United 93 is far more restrained, yet still devastatingly affecting.

I’m not the first person to have this thought: “If United 93 was Schindler’s List, then World Trade Center would be Apollo 13.” That analogy might be a bit off, but I think you get it. Really, wouldn’t Saving Private Ryan in Apollo 13‘s spot make more sense in that analogy? But like me, the reviewer no doubt wanted to namedrop Apollo 13.

Which brings me to another (perhaps unfair) point: United 93 consists of mostly unknown actors. I recognized one, maybe two, people in the entire film. It’s not like Tom Hanks is the hero on the flight that rallies other passengers to storm the cockpit; nor is Nicholas Cage running around the rubble of the World Trade Center with a ridiculous mustache. The low-budget nature of the film allows it to feel more authentic by not pulling you out of the moment with an actor you’ve seen flying fighter jets or playing a international secret agent before. You feel as if these truly could have been the people on the flight, or the ones trying to make sense of the madness down on the ground.

It is through these people on the ground, in the control rooms, that Greengrass allows the viewer to re-experience the attacks of 9/11. It seems a bit strange that the National Air Traffic Control Center or NORAD wouldn’t realize what happened before they turn on CNN, but the film does allege to recreate the events as accurately as possible, and it’s those all-too-familiar television images that immediately evoke the feelings of that day. The controllers first seem nonplussed at the idea of a hijacked plane and then stand in disbelief and confusion once footage of the first attack comes up on the big screen. I immediately thought of my 10th grade history class, where another teacher came in the class and said something about a plane hitting the top of the Twin Towers; no one thought much of it, thinking it had to be some sort of freak accident with a small plane.

It wasn’t until another plane was hijacked that some sense of the exception situation sunk in, and I have to imagine everyone involved knew what was happening once that second plane took its course at downtown Manhattan. Nine years later, I still felt a twinge of dread watching it fly towards its final destination in the middle of the World Trade Center’s South Tower. It was something I didn’t see live. In fact, I didn’t know anything past the initial accident until I walked into my English class and my bit-of-a-hardass, middle-aged female teacher was visibly upset. I remember her trying her best not to cry — but failing miserably — while informing us the Twin Towers were gone. Totally gone.

But what I didn’t know at the point, and not until I got home at the very earliest, was that one flight had been stopped from reaching its intended target. It was a small victory on a tragic day, and United 93 chronicles it soberly and beautifully. The people on that flight didn’t want to die, but they knew — from being relayed information about the attacks through loved ones — that they were on a suicide missile. While most of the events on the plane probably had to be imagined, and it was a bit comical to have the one appeaser on the flight not be American (and unfair to the memory of the man who the character is based on), there’s nothing that stands out as unbelievable.

I don’t think any of the people on the flight would have characterized their actions as especially brave; they undoubtedly saw storming the cockpit as their only course of action, much like the New York City firemen who sacrificed their lives in the Twin Towers. But they were brave, and in their final moments, these regular people became heroes that deserved to be remembered as they are portrayed in this film.

I already wrote about the beauty of stupidity in slow-motion 3D over at Roto Hardball, but I naturally want to expand my thoughts over here.

If Avatar was an attempt to show how 3D can be used skillfully in a massive production to add depth and wonder to an otherwise shallow experience, Jackass 3D is a blueprint on how to make a gimmick movie twice as entertaining to watch. Avatar is directed very well by James Cameron, with some beautiful shots of the fictional world of Pandora and its absurd flora and fauna, and easy-to-follow action scenes. Jackass 3D is shot like its television predecessor, other than the opening and closing bits (which feature the most impressive 3D action of the movie), but the 3D manages to make every stunt and stupid activity that much more hilarious or terrifying. And the latter seems like a much more efficient use of 3D.

James Cameron spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create the 3D technology needed to shoot the Avatar film he had always imagined. I can’t say it was a dumb decision, considering he made all his money back and more (and it got my ass in the theater), but I can’t see the technology holding the same pull in the coming years. I don’t want to put on glasses every time I sit down in a theater to watch a blockbuster movie.

On that note, I’m ecstatic that Christopher Nolan eschewed from filming in 3D for The Dark Knight Returns, choosing to go back to the IMAX well. Yeah, I might have had a painful experience when I attended a domed IMAX screening of The Dark Knight, but the added clarity due to the massive resolution of IMAX film is truly incredible — it makes a regular film look blurry in comparison. I just need to go to a regular IMAX theater or sit further towards the back next time.

Getting back to Jackass 3D, stunts like throwing shoes into the exhaust of a jet engine or climbing up a tree and then cutting it down were greatly enhanced by the 3D effect. The speed at which objects flew once they were tossed behind the jet engine was ridiculously intimidating. When one of the guys ran out of way in pure fear, I could understand, as I was scared just sitting in my seat. Although, I actually wanted to participate in the tree cutting bit. Being on top of a 40 foot tree while it falls into snow piled a dozen feet high looked way too fun to be truly dangerous. But I thought the most transcendent experience was watching Bam Margera punch people in the face in slow-motion 3D to the Rocky theme. Sometimes it’s the simple things.

Of course, there were the usual nauseating Steve-O bits, Johnny Knoxville bull escapades, and Chris Pontius penis utilization. Oh, and first-person urination — where the penis is the person. It’s the same Jackass you’ve always loved or hated, only now with an added dimension to make the action a bit more exciting and disgusting. I’m sure you could argue that the 3D doesn’t really add much, but it’s not like there’s any thoughtful cinematography that is ruined by the forced depth-of-field; nor is there that added darkness which some people complain about with 3D movies.

Maybe going on Bargain Tuesday and paying only $6 for a 3D movie instead of $13 has clouded my judgement, but I don’t think you can go wrong with going to see Jackass 3D if you at all enjoyed its predecessors. Unfortunately, this post is probably too late for those of you that haven’t seen it. So I guess you’ll have to buy a 3D HDTV. They’re not insanely expensive or anything.

Christopher Nolan did it. He took a concept that’s been rolling around in his head for a decade, convinced a studio to give him $160 million to film it, and created the most original and spectacular blockbuster in, well, a decade. It really happened.

Think about the BIGGEST movies of the past 10 years. They are comic book adaptations, or television cartoon adaptations, or novel adaptations, or sequels to comic book adaptations, or rebooted franchises — you get the picture. The one obvious exception would be Avatar — the highest grossing movie ever. Unfortunately, while “original”, it was also one of the most derivative, predictable, and hollow movies you’ll ever see. But it sure was a 3D spectacle, I’ll give James Cameron that.

But I don’t want to even get into this argument. I really don’t. I just felt the need to address it before anyone challenges the claim in that first paragraph. Sorry, but Inception is THE most audacious blockbuster in years in ways other than just special effects and filming technology. But it’s not exactly a slouch with regards to the former, either.

I will keep this post as spoiler-free as possible, and probably make ANOTHER post about it later on, where I totally go off about everything within the film. And there’s certainly a lot to interpret here — including an ending that seems to have pissed off some and totally impressed others. I personally think it fits perfectly thematically.

The movie drops you right into the action, almost immediately disorientating you, slowly feeding you some explanations, but also leaving some questions unanswered until later on; you might not have even realized you had these questions, but the answers shed even more light on what you saw. You learn about “extraction” first, and then hear the word “inception”, which almost seems to be a dirty word. It’s apparently never been done before, but a powerful man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants it done. Dom Cobb, the character played brilliantly by Leonardo DiCaprio, insists it’s possible, and once Saito offers the only thing Cobb wants in the entire world, he has no choice but to accept.

And that’s where we’re off. Cobb needs to fill out his team with specialists, and in the process you learn what each of them have to do, and also what they need to figure out in order to accomplish the job. As a result, much of the next 45 minutes or so are filled with exposition, and it seems to be the part of the movie most detractors focus on, but I was enraptured the entire time. How could you not be interested in the intricacies of such a cool fucking concept? I just don’t get it. But this is coming from a guy who absolutely loves I, Robot — the book, not the Will Smith movie that killed Issac Asimov all over again — which is just a collection of logic puzzles based around three fictional laws of robotics. So yeah, I’m going to enjoy listening to people talk about entering people’s minds and the rules of time and world manipulation and subconscious projections and architectural paradoxes. How could you NOT love that stuff?

Even the discussion about how to implant the idea into the mind of the mark (played by Cillian Murphy) was fun to listen to, aided by the banter between Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Eames (Tom Hardy), who both fit their roles perfectly. Ellen Page plays her part as Ariadne wonderfully as well, playing the role of inquisitive, but aggressive, novice thrown into the world of dream manipulation. She quickly picks up on the problems Cobb’s subconscious — manifested in his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) — has created for his team, which forms the emotional core of the film. And it’s a heartbreaking core that reminds one of DiCaprio’s other film this year (also the only other movie I’ve seen in theaters this year), Shutter Island. One scene in particular features DiCaprio’s tremendous acting ability, where he manages to hit the perfect note of anguish and shock with only two words.

The only other relationship that truly matters in the film is the one between the mark, Robert Fischer, and his dying father. Admittedly, this relationship could have been fleshed out some more, but there was just no room, and I think Murphy sells its payoff as well as any actor could possibly have. Murphy’s work in the movie as a whole, even with the relatively small part he has, is phenomenal. Maybe I’m just letting out some built-up praise here, but the man is just a great actor.

But as I’ve already started to say, everyone does great work: Page, JGL, Cotillard, Watanabe (when you can understand him) — with Tom Hardy probably being the standout, if only because his shit-eating grin and accent just make for an awesome combination. My friend and I agree that Nolan will try his best to get him in the next Batman movie. At least I hope that’s the case.

Have I even touched on the action? And how this is not the same Nolan who filmed the action scenes in Batman Begins? You can actually tell what’s going on, and the entire last hour of the movie is just one big interlocked action set-piece, set up in the most goddamn brilliant way possible. There’s a car chase scene in the rain that includes a train and a motorcycle and a bridge. There’s a hallway fight scene — actually two — that will blow your fucking mind. And then there’s a snow fortress firefight that is straight out of a Bond movie. But it’s really all about the hallway and the choreography needed to come up with THAT fight. Shit, I clicked on Jimmy Fallon two nights ago as a clip of the fight started and my eyes were tethered to my television until it cut off halfway through and made me wish I could see the whole thing all over again.

And that’s what I did tonight. Yes, I am writing this after my second viewing in three days. Inception is everything I wanted and more. Christopher Nolan went balls-out with this movie. It is packed with an insane amount of ideas, combines a heist movie with a tragic story about love and obsession, questions how we perceive reality, and serves as an amazing showcase for sharp men’s clothing. I just don’t know where he goes from here. As an internet buddy said, “How the fuck does he go back to making a Batman movie after this?” I don’t know, but I’m anxious to see if he can continue to top himself.

EDIT: SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS

I walked into Borders a few weeks ago to pick up the second book of the “Millennium Trilogy” — The Girl Who Played With Fire — and was surprised to see the new paperback prominently displayed right as I walked into the store. It was evidence that I don’t have a clue as to what is popular outside of the internet. Sure, it seemed pretty popular in the places I spend time online, but many times that hasn’t exactly indicated mainstream appeal or popularity. Even when I went up to the register to pay for the book (using my 40% coupon — the only time I’ll shop at Borders), the cashier said how much he loved the book and then started talking about the film adaptation of the first book and then I mentioned the American remake and by that time I’m sure the line behind me hated both of us; I seemed much more concerned about this than the cashier. Man, I knew the books (and film) were big hits over in Europe, but I didn’t realize they had already elicited such a fanbase over here.

So if you’re wondering, the first book is in the title of this blog entry: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. As for its myriad forms: there’s the original Swedish novel; then its Swedish film adaptation; and coming in 2011, its American adaptation. I experienced the first two practically back-to-back, and I’m still looking forward to the American version solely due to confirmation of David Fincher directing it. Yeah yeah, needless American remake — but the guy behind Se7en and Zodiac directing another dark, murder mystery film? Count me the fuck in.

And yes, that’s what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is; it’s an exceedingly dark novel that delves into some of the most sadistic stuff imaginable, while also being a very entertaining crime mystery. It revolves around two main characters, Mikael Blomvkist and Lisbeth Salander. The former is a relentless, uncompromising journalist who believes his magazine Millennium is the last bastion of true journalism, while the latter is an introverted, cold, miniature whaif of a girl whose fashion sense is about as “punk goth chick” as it gets (see above). But the other side of Salander is a brilliant researcher who can be brutally vicious to anyone who wrongs her or someone she cares about.

Their paths don’t intertwine until about halfway through the novel, when they’re both pulled into an almost 40-year-old murder of a girl on a Swedish island. The body was never found, but the uncle of the girl can’t see it being anything but a murder. It was a high profile case due to it involving the illustrious Vanger family, but like most things, it was quickly forgotten by anyone not initimately involved or affected. The uncle, Henvik Vanger, hires Blomkvist to investigate, while giving him the cover of writing a history of the Vanger clan — but not until Salander shows up do the pieces truly start to come together.

It does take quite a while for the book to get to the interesting action, as a lot of the early-going is dry and filled with exposition, but it didn’t really bother me — which is something I can’t say its sequel. But that’s a story for another post.

It’s hard for me to say whether the book or movie is better, but if I had to choose I’d most likely have to side with the movie (a random observation: book:novel::movie:film, right?). Stieg Larsson obviously wrote the novels in Swedish so I really don’t feel right criticizing he prose, but 1) I have on good authority — @waxinthaksin — that any book translated in the past decade or so is probably pretty faithful; and 2) it’s just not good. But once again, it most definitely annoyed me more while reading the second book; there were some passages and lines in that that were just plain embarrassing. The books could also use a bit of editing; but hey, Larsson died before the trilogy was published, so maybe he felt the same way.

Meanwhile, the film adaptation of the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo streamlines everything about as perfectly as one could possibly hope. Some of the details are switched around, and there’s practically no mention of a few of the bigger relationships in the novel, but none of them are integral to the main plotline of the disappearance mystery. The film even manages to throw an extra bit of misdirection that I thought was a nice touch. But the best part of the film in comparison to the novel has to be the removal of Mikael Blomvkist’s pussy magnetism. I’ll just leave it at that.

While I thought that maybe the friend with which I saw the film wouldn’t be able to keep up with the much quicker pace compared to the more detailed and deliberate novel, he only asked me one quick question while watching. And after he walked out, I think he loved the film more than I did, possibly because he wasn’t comparing the two versions to each other the entire time. The film is brutal, tense, disturbing, but also immensely satisfying. I think Fincher has quite a bit to compete with. At the very least, I do think Fincher will make a better looking film. I just wonder if there are any high-profile actresses — because you just know that’s going to be required — that can play the role of Salander as perfectly as the Swedish actress Noomi Rapace did, while also fitting the diminutive frame described in the novel. As I read the second novel, any image I originally had of Salander was replaced with her performance.

I could go on about the second novel, but this blog post is long enough already. I did not enjoy it as much as the first, but it does have some interesting plotlines and definitely sets up the third novel — The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest — well. Too bad I won’t bother to read it until the paperback version comes out in the states. Fuck hardcovers. Unless it’s a Library of America hardcover — those are awesome.

I had already seen a few of the nominees before the week leading up to the Academy Awards, and I didn’t really LOVE any of them. Avatar I’ve already written a post about. The Hurt Locker was good, but it just didn’t blow me away (get it?); I think Generation Kill should be the defining piece of Iraq War entertainment, especially since veterans have said how inaccurate The Hurt Locker is. District 9 was pretty good, but it features one of the least sympathetic protagonists I’ve ever seen — one that doesn’t grow at all — and yet it seems fairly obvious you’re supposed to sympathize. The shift into a full-blown action movie was also a bit disappointing, even if the action was very entertaining. Up was just another great kids’ movie from Pixar that adults can also enjoy and appreciate; they’ve perfected the formula so well it’s almost boring at this point.

I’ll expand my thoughts a bit more for the next six, since I just watched them, and that’s really the point of this ongoing post series. I watch movies, and then I talk about them. Pretty mundane shit, I know.

A Serious Man

Supposedly it’s a modern retelling of the Book of Job. I wouldn’t know. Either way, I probably would have voted this for Best Picture. And that’s strange, because I’m not even sure what to make of that ending, and I’m sure if you search the internet, you’d come across that sentiment a lot. But something about a man who’s just getting owned on all sides trying to figure out WHY, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME, and only being rewarded with inanity and stupidity and disregard resonated strongly with me. And I think it only truly works because it’s the Coen Brothers. There’s just something about the way they handle such tragedy that makes it at the very least bearable, but also sometimes extremely amusing to watch. And Michael Stuhlbarg in the main role as a creeping-towards-middle-age Jewish man who likes to reiterate that he “hasn’t done anything” is perfect. His breaking down on the phone was one of the best, most heartbreaking moments of cinema in 2009. There’s no way George Clooney deserved an acting nod over him for playing himself. Again.

Inglourious Basterds

In terms of pure entertainment value, there’s no nominee that has this beat. I’m sure there’s plenty of people who think Quentin Tarantino had a bit TOO much fun with it, and I can’t garner up points to refute that — but I know I had fun watching it. I think the opening scene and the scene in the tavern basement are as tense as anything in The Hurt Locker. And the ending is just totally. fucking. awesome. It’s the ultimate Nazi-killing fantasy.

Looking up the film on Wikipedia just now I found out that Tarantino originally sought Leonardo DiCaprio for the role of “Jew Hunter” Hans Landa. I think we can all agree that would have been pretty goddamn disastrous. Luckily, the role fell to Christoph Waltz, an actor that no one in America knew, and he fucking killed it — in four languages. I think he’s deservedly won every acting award there is.

The Blind Side

I guess I’ll start with a compliment: the movie isn’t offensively bad. There’s just nothing of note. It feels exactly like every other by-the-numbers feel-good story out there. Both its Best Picture nod and Sandra Bullock’s WIN are totally goddamn mystifying to me. What did Bullock even do in the movie other than call some tough black guy a “bitch”? She put on a blonde wig and spoke in a Southern accent. Oscar-worthy? I guess so.

Oh, and the black kid in this movie had the dumbest, most fucking annoying glum face on for 90% of the time. I wanted to take a lead pipe to his massive mug. I’ll just sit here and not talk like a big fucking retard. Oh, and I need my new white mommy to tell me what to do so I can be good at football DURRR. Jesus Christ.

On second thought, maybe the movie was offensive.

Fuck you, Academy, for nominating this piece of shit, which enabled me to convince myself to watch it.

Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire

Let’s just say this isn’t a movie I would usually be interested in, but I decided to allow this little blog post idea to expand my horizons. Now this is a good movie starring a big black teenager. Precious actually had some semblance of a personality, unlike the black kid in the movie above. She has dreams of being a star, shown in flashes after she gets knocked to the ground or against the wall in some way. She takes quite a beating over the course of movie. But I guess she’s a big enough girl to handle it.

Even though the awful situation and living conditions Precious had to grow up in seem so goddamn over-the-top and ridiculous, they feel more real than anything in The Blind Side. Mo’nique gives a great performance as her mother, and all the other roles fill out the world extremely well — even if they include LENNY KRAVITZ AND MARIAH CAREY WHAT. I went in expecting to watch a melodramatic piece of garbage, and it certainly can be a bit melodramatic, but when dealing with rape and abuse like that, it’s probably hard to avoid. I found a movie with pretty damn great acting across the board that doesn’t sugarcoat anything or come out with an especially uplifting ending.

Up in the Air

Oh hey, it’s another movie where George Clooney gets to have fun as a handsome, confident dude who can manipulate people very effectively. I’m not even sure what message the movie is trying to spit out, but I did enjoy it. I can hate on the Academy slobbering over Clooney, but I can’t deny that he’s entertaining to watch. He’s just so charming, isn’t he?

The movie does play with your emotions by alternating between funny and depressing and shocking, but I can’t find much fault with it. Managing to juggle comedy with laying off people is tough, and it works most of the time. I did appreciate one twist in particular. If you know me, you can probably guess. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to praise the movie too much though, after what I’ve heard about Jason Reitman, and how he’s pretty much the biggest douchebag on two feet. Between trying to take full credit for the screenplay, lying about writing parts for certain actors, and a massive sense of entitlement, he sounds like a spoiled Hollywood kid. Oh wait, he is. Maybe I should watch Juno so I can hate him for making that, since I’ve only seen Thank You For Smoking and Up in the Air, and thoroughly enjoyed both.

An Education

The shortest movie on the list, and easily the most intimate. If Precious is about a teenage girl getting destroyed by outside forces, An Education is about a teenage girl letting her own emotions get the best of her. What 16-year-old isn’t going to be enthralled by some man twice her age taking her the most cultured places she could imagine? Of course in real life, the older man wasn’t as dashing as Peter Sarsgaard — he wouldn’t need to pick up a schoolgirl after orchestra practice.

Carey Mulligan plays a giggle-happy teenager better than I thought any 24-year-old could. She is extremely cute and charming (as she is in real life, as evidenced by an interview I saw on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson), but also a childish innocence and that false sense of arrogance teenagers have. School is worthless! I want to travel the world with my handsome, worldly sugar daddy! Ok, have fun fucking up your life. Oh wait, all you need to do once everything goes south is then appeal to a teacher you horribly insulted and then study for a while for your exams and everything will be alright. I guess that actually happened, so I probably can’t rip on the ending too much.

But yeah, Carey Mulligan was robbed. At least the BAFTAs got it right.

…this is how I started to write this post over a week ago. I saw Avatar two Sundays ago and I thought it was an entertaining spectacle, even if it’s basically Pocahontas/Ferngully/Dances with Wolves in space. But now I’m already annoyed with it.

I stand by the assessment that if you’re interested at all, you should go see the movie in a 3D theater, but I’m not going to try to convince anyone now. Apparently, enough people have been already convinced since it’s made well over a BILLION DOLLARS. At the very least, it will end up as the second-highest grossing movie of all-time, and it also has a chance at toppling Titanic‘s worldwide record of $1.8 billion. These are James Cameron’s last two movies. I wonder exactly when he sold his soul to be able to make whatever the hell he wants and still bring in an obscene amount of money.

But I have to hand it to Cameron — he knows how to direct. That’s more than I can say for the blockbuster director that has attempted to take his place for the past decade. I think we all know to whom I refer. Cameron has come back and shown everyone how it’s done. He somehow took a movie that features funny-looking blue people and turned into the biggest hit of the decade. He has truly pushed the boundaries of filming technology and special effects once again, and you can actually decipher what is going on in the action scenes! And they are massive action scenes.

In terms of the 3D usage, it has to be the least intrusive I’ve ever seen, but there’s still some of that blurring and awkward focusing at times — it’s not perfect. I heard that in RealD (the theater type I saw it in), the 3D doesn’t pop out as much as in IMAX. I think that’s probably a good thing. You don’t feel engulfed in the world, but it adds some nice perspective to massive shots, particularly the flying scenes, which were probably when I was most impressed with the movie.

But overall, the movie is just so totally transparent and predictable that I couldn’t help but be bored a lot of the time. I wasn’t enthralled with the world Cameron had created, and neither did I really care all that much about the indigenous Nav’i tribe. I actually loved the Colonel who wanted nothing more but to destroy everything related to the Nav’i; the dude was a total badass. It’s a bad sign when the best character in a movie is a caricature.

No matter what I think, Avatar is already going down as one of the biggest movie events of all-time, and it even seems like a candidate for the Oscar for Best Picture. That is the most shocking development of all — I don’t even think as highly of The Dark Knight as many people I’ve come across, but it deserved a nod much more than Avatar. But hey, most critics seem to disagree with me. I’m just shocked 50-year-old men are more impressed with a pretty 3D film with no substance than me.

Before I start, yes I have read the graphic novel of Watchmen, and yes I plan to talk about it at length within this post. I’m fully aware of my incapability to write a review for the average unacquainted moviegoer. Each frame of the almost-three-hour film was involuntarily compared to the panels of a graphic novel which provided a comprehensive visual outline.

That being said, I will give Zack Snyder one thing — the man knows how to create a visually spectacular movie. He’s still not a “visionary director,” but he’s definitely not a hack either. For the most part, he truly manages to recreate the Watchmen universe on-screen. He just happens to lack any sense of subtlety. Over-the-top, slow-motion fight scenes when the original comic barely showed any action at all? Check. Ozymandias’s character blatantly foreshadowing the ending? Check. Not that I was at all surprised by the former, and going in I knew the latter was ruined by the casting of a pencil-necked effeminate actor.

According to Wikipedia, even the actor had doubts:

“I was very worried about my casting,” Goode says, believing that he was “not the physical type for [Ozymandias].

Snyder should have taken heed. Ozymandias is supposed to be a wise, middle-aged, perfect physical specimen of a man — not a young, thin guy with a vaguely homosexual German accent. Oh, and the music choices were embarrassing. That would be part of the lack of subtlety.

Getting those critiques out of the way, I had way too much fun seeing the comic on the big screen. Dr. Manhattan’s origin story was handled brilliantly, Rorschach kicked an amazing amount of ass, and the Comedian was just as hilariously fucked up as he is in the graphic novel. Nite Owl and Silk Specter were the least interesting in the original comic, and that doesn’t change in the movie. I didn’t find Silk Specter’s acting as offensive as some critics seemed to, but that’s probably because I never cared about the character in either the book or the movie. So with Snyder managing to totally nail three out of the six main characters, and Nite Owl not being half-bad either, that brings the character batting average to .667. Respectable.

I wanted to make the beginning of this post the section for anyone who hasn’t read the graphic novel (most people), but I seem to be already comparing the movie to the book in every aspect. I do think the movie works on a basic superhero movie level, and I recommend a watch if you can stomach excessive, stylized violence and one truly terrible love scene, but it’s no substitute for the graphic novel. It’s a shame that Snyder had to try to fit so much into less than three hours of film, but I think he created as faithful an adaptation as we were ever going to get. It’s also unfortunate that such an adaptation only serves to solidify the argument that the comic would’ve worked better as an HBO mini-series, but I’m not complaining about what we got. The movie at least managed to delve far enough into the characterization of Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and the Comedian, even if the plot is condensed and compromised. I only wish more people read the book beforehand.

Only continue if you wish to read spoiler-filled rambling about both the movie and the book.

In terms of the plot being “condensed and compromised,” the worst part is the aforementioned handling of the Ozymandias character. Not only does every scene with him telegraph the fact that he is actually the villain, one of my friends who hadn’t read the graphic novel knew it was him in the opening  scene in the Comedian’s apartment. So in adding a gratuitous fight scene, Snyder managed to destroy the mystery aspect of the novel. Awesome job there.

I totally understand the decision to condense the entire backstory of the Minuteman to the opening credits, and I thought it was a pretty great way to get it into the movie. The same friend already mentioned had a big problem with the shot (pun intended lol) of the Comedian assassinating JFK, while I thought it was just a cool little one-0ff addition. I didn’t bother to think of it within the context of the movie, but he certainly did. I’m curious as to how most people took it.

Much of the rest of the movie is extremely faithful to the novel, but in a superficial sort of way. While in the novel Alan Moore emphasizes the fact that everyone is normal other than Dr. Manhattan, the one true superhero (or even God), Snyder has them kicking all sorts of ass throughout the movie. Not that I didn’t enjoy watching the action — as that’s Snyder’s specialty — but it does miss the point entirely. And then of course there is also the music, which also fits into that superficiality. I felt like I was watching Forrest Gump with that soundtrack of insanely popular and overplayed songs. That’s not good when you’re supposed to be in an alternate universe where Dick Nixon is serving his fifth term. And what was up with the war room straight out of Dr. Strangelove? Can Synder come up with ANYTHING original?

Oh yeah, he did use a different ending, but one that serves the same purpose. There was no way a movie with a $150 million budget was going to end with a massive squid exploding in New York City, but I still say that works better with regards to fucking with the minds of the entire world, instead of tricking the world into thinking Dr. Manhattan went apeshit. And I thought the destruction portrayed in the graphic novel was much more haunting. Those panels are fucking legendary. It truly drove into the mind of the reader the question of whether such death and sacrifice was worth it for the hope of world peace.

And that’s the type of stuff I think the movie misses. It tries, but it just doesn’t quite get there. Even when Ozymandias says he’s made himself “feel every death,” it rings hollow in the film. Christ, Snyder really fucked up the Ozymandias character. I just need to concentrate on how great the Dr. Manhattan origin sequence was, and how amazing Jackie Earle Haley was as Rorschach. And those two things alone, combined with the visuals, make the Watchmen movie worth seeing. Just don’t expect anything revelatory. You need to read the book for that.