Change Your Image
Halfwaytoheaven
Oh, and if you are for some reason curious about the meaning of my screen name, it's a lyric from the song "Paradise" by John Prine. It has little or nothing to do with any major world religion and a lot to do with environmental damage.
I'm not all in to sharing loads of personal info on the internet, but here are some movies I like:
Fog of War
Breaker Morant
Master of the Flying Guillotine
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Big Red One
Adaptation
Jackie Brown
Oldboy
Murderball
The Lion in Winter
Ikiru
Seven Samurai
Short Cuts
The 400 Blows
Lawrence of Arabia
Reviews
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
A charming, if predictable, indie experience
It's the elephant in the room that no one ever talks about: the little girl with the dreams of beauty pageant glory has a snowball's chance of winning. She's cute in her own way, sure, but hardly up to the standards of appearance expected in those contests that have done so much to creep us all out over the years. Actually, this movie couldn't have come out at a better (or is it worse?) time; the recent return to prominence of the JonBenet Ramsey case makes the overly-made-up hopefuls all the creepier. They sort of look like the munchkins in "Wizard of Oz," only they don't have candy, or a coroner, and they don't seem to be in on the joke.
The other characters are pretty much off the shelf: the melancholy teen who hates EVERYONE; the contented, if ribald, grandfather who we can all guess won't be around for the closing credits; the suicidal intellectual; the beleaguered homemaker. Toni Collette plays the part well, keeping her hopes up without being unrealistic in her expectations, but there aren't a lot of notes for her to hit that we haven't heard before. Paul Dano's character has given up speaking, but from the moment we meet him its a pretty fair bet that he'll give up that promise by the end, and we can generally guess how it's going to happen. Greg Kinnear's failure of a motivational speaker is perhaps the most predictable of the lot, as he begins by belittling and offending everyone he encounters, and finally comes around to...well, he comes around to something, I suppose. Too bad grandpa wasn't around for it.
Still, "Little Miss Sunshine" manages to go to a lot of unexpected places, and its sense of comic timing is spot-on. Witness: the broken car horn that manages to go off at the perfect moment, or the stash of pornography that gives just the wrong impression not once, but twice. There are a lot of good laughs here: honestly, it's pretty hard to take those dolled-up tykes in the climactic pageant seriously. Some of grandpa's humor is pretty forced, but this little film has a lot of smarts, and a lot of heart.
The Simpsons: You Only Move Twice (1996)
The Best "Simpsons" Episode?
Is this the greatest episode of the greatest sitcom in television history? Probably not, but it's still my favorite. Bart's "Leg Up" class, Homer's motivational speech, the greatest Bond villain of them all, and the Denver Broncos - what more could you want? This alone is enough reason to pick up Season Eight on DVD (when it is finally made available to those able to resist the temptation to download 'em all), to preserve one of the finest examples of this much-beloved series for all eternity, or at least until DVDs are replaced by some even shinier format of home video. So look upon the greatness of this episode and despair! And if it's not too much trouble, could you kill someone on your way out? It'd be a big help.
La marche de l'empereur (2005)
Which is the greater achievement?
I never would have guessed that National Geographic would have the sleeper hit of the summer, but here it is, March of the Penguins, a film that dazzles the eye and touches the heart even as it delights the mind. It is a small story that nevertheless achieves epic heights of film-making and makes stars of its subjects the way Madagascar never dreamed of.
Essentially, the film focuses on the annual trek of the Emperor Penguins of Australia from the sea to their breeding grounds seventy miles inland where the ice never melts and they can safely nurture their offspring through the first treacherous months of life. While the males sit on the sole egg that their mate has entrusted to them, the exhausted females return to the sea to feed and bring nourishment back to their soon-to-hatch young.
As enthralling as I found the annual trek of the Emperor Penguins, I can't help feeling guilty that I spent the bulk of the film wondering how these filmmakers got some of the incredible shots they showed us. At one point, the camera rises off the ground and soars far above a huddled mass of penguins; surely they didn't drag a crane to Antarctica, and wouldn't a helicopter have frightened their subject? I was rescued from my mental anguish by the closing credits which revealed that the filmmakers had made spectacular use of a balloon.
But those penguins really are something else. Huddling together for warmth, what do the males think about for those cold, dark weeks while the females gather food for their offspring? Is protecting the egg enough for them to get by on? I suppose so. Perhaps such a thought is forcing too much human emotion on to these creatures, but the film encourages us to personify the penguins, to pick out the meaning in their calls and wails, and to sympathize with their struggles and losses.
March of the Penguins smartly skirts the issues that might have made it more controversial; global warming goes unmentioned, and evolution is summed up by stating that these birds "chose" to remain in Antarctica when it started to get cold. Yes, but did they choose to grow a flap of skin to insulate their egg, and for their wings to become flipper-like, or did something choose that for them? To address that question would have been a tragic mistake for a film that's purpose is to enchant, enthrall, and, yes, even inform.
Super Size Me (2004)
A worthy sacrifice
I've always felt that documentaries are best done when they think small; Hoop Dreams follows two individuals, Fog of War is one person's life, and Supersize Me is one man's search for truth. The problem with, by contrast, Michael Moore is that he tries to encompass entire geopolitical issues into a feature length film, and by necessity must abridge and simplify. By focusing instead on one person's experience with one restaurant for one month, Morgan Spurlock allows his film room to grow in unexpected directions. Take as an example the man he encounters who has eaten at least two Big Macs a day since his teens and boasts a cholesterol level in the low 100's (hint: avoid the fries). If Moore had presented a normal American who had benefited from Bush's policies, and there are many, perhaps his film would have benefited. Some have accused Spurlock of being shamelessly self-promoting exhibitionist like Moore, and to an extent this is true, but the difference lies in the approach; Supersize Me takes as removed a position to the fast food industry as could be expected, while Fahrenheit 911 makes no secret of its predisposed enmity to its subject.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Too long? No such thing.
A movie this good, I just don't want to end. In Return of the King, which I compare it to only in regard to its length, I was almost yelling at Frodo to get on the boat and get it over with. Lawrence I could watch campaign across the desert for a couple hours more, at least. This is also one of those movies that seems to have gained more meaning as it ages. Take, for example, the scenes of Lawrence teaching young Arabs how to make bombs. A little more unsettling than it was originally intended to be, perhaps. But the real story of course is not one of nations and wars, but of Lawrence's struggle with his identity in the face of the horrors he witnessed, and indeed, committed. How strange that after all of the killing and plundering he experienced, he was most horrified by the lies he half-knowingly told his Arab allies. Perhaps less strange that none of those gentlemen sitting around the conference table seemed to mind.
Batoru rowaiaru (2000)
Fukasaku's late, great masterpiece
Here is a film with the horror of Clockwork Orange and the adolescent insight to put John Hughes to shame. In Battle Royale, Director Kinji Fukasaku takes the time to love each of his characters before coldly dispatching them that many of his earlier films omitted; most of the corpses in the Yakuza Papers barely had names. Battle Royale is what science fiction was meant to be: a story in which technology is the means to the story, not the story itself. Humans, faced with the unthinkable situations that they place themselves in, struggle against themselves and each other. Of course, most sci-fi never quite reaches such extremes of nihilism, but that's kids these days, I guess. And these kids are no ordinary school children. At least three of them have murdered before, and most of them are murderers by the end. They once participated in a massive boycott of the schools, so you figure they either they are possessed of preternatural social conscious, or they're a bunch of punks who put internet chat rooms to good use. I expected them to attempt some sort of passive resistance, but some initial executions and a couple of ringers thrown into the mix squashed that notion. The episodes of varying survival strategies work well; they illuminate the reaction of different individuals while serving to relentlessly advance the plot. I loved the way a pack of girls set up an ostensibly serene and domestic clan, and then at the drop of a hat killed each other without hesitation. The tension of knowing that they had to die was underlying not only that scene, but the entire film. The students also avoid excessive reflection on their brief lives. This is natural, as a group of teenagers probably wouldn't be capable of pondering the meaning of their own existence when faced with the end, as in Ikiru, but there was enough honesty in their actions to spark many an existential conversation.
Yagyû ichizoku no inbô (1978)
"Yagyu" fails to transcend
Director Kinji Fukasaku is perhaps best known, in his homeland at least, for his Japanese gangster films, a series with which this movie shares a number of characteristics. Violence and political intrigue are themes throughout both Shogun's Samurai and Battles Without Honor and Humanity, and both feature a lead character who finds his loyalties challenged by betrayals. Both films also feature a large number of characters who seem to have little purpose but to die, and since so little is done to develop them, their deaths have little impact when they do come. This film has other flaws as well. The makeup, costumes and sound design are distractingly poor, and the battle scenes were substandard as well, inferior to other samurai films of earlier years (Seven Samurai comes to mind).
Sonny Chiba plays the Sonny Chiba character in Shogun's Samurai, the no-nonsense master swordsman who strides through the film, scowling menacingly. What a guy; he even gets to wear an eye patch. If you were expecting to see the legendary Toshiro Mifune, you may be disappointed; his appearance amounts to little more than a cameo, and just when it appears that his character might do something interesting, he disappears for good.
Overall, the strengths of the film are its story, which is infinitely more comprehensible than those gangster films, and the challenges posed to traditional concepts of good and evil. Two brothers are challenging for the throne of their recently departed father, who may have had some help on his way out. Early on, it looks as if we will be faced with a couple of characters who couldn't be more clearly good and evil; after all, the older brother stammers and has a birthmark, the sure sign of a villain. Eventually, however, it becomes clear that in a winner-takes-all struggle for power, there are no heroes and villains, only winners and losers.
Adaptation. (2002)
Layers of brilliance
Words fail me when I attempt to convey the sublime genius that is Adaptation. I am writing this review with as much difficulty as Charlie writes his screenplays, mostly for fear of failing to do the film justice. How to start? This movie is about making itself...attempting to penetrate the thought process that led to its creation is very much like endeavoring to unravel once and for all the enigma of the chicken and the egg, only the chicken was never plagued with nagging doubts and self-loathing.
Ostensibly, the film is an adaptation of a real book by a real author named Susan Orlean about a real man named John Laroche. It is adapted by Charlie Kaufman, a real screenwriter. When Charlie has trouble, he reluctantly seeks aid from his twin brother Donald, who is probably not real, or he may be more real than Charlie. He also gets advice from a screen writing instructor, who is real, and very understandably perplexed when he sees someone attend his lecture twice. In pursuit of his story, Charlie begins following Orlean, who at this point seems to have ceased being real and become a sort of idealized Orlean, or a convenient plot device.
The genius of Adaptation is palpable at the end, when what could have been a self-indulgent, clichéd in-joke of a climax becomes in the hands of Kaufman and Jonze an allegorical journey of self-awareness, or maybe a battle between man and horse(alligator). You decide.
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
At least it isn't formulaic
Ocean's Twelve departed from sequel tradition by completely abandoning everything that worked from the original(or, the remake of the original, as it is). This time, the smooth, professional cast of thieves comes back to stumble around like amateurs. In addition, we get Catherine Zeta-Jones as the most confidently inept corrupt detective in cinema history, and Vincent Cassel as a rival thief with incomprehensible abilities of stealth and acrobatics to rival any martial arts master, and the wounded pride of a school boy. Oh, and Julia Roberts returns in what surely must have been the most challenging role of her career. The plot from the original (remake) was full of holes, but they were forgivable holes. This time, even the motives are questionable. Would a professional thief really break the "code" and reveal his colleagues to one of their victims because his mentor snubbed him? Would the sinister Terry Benedict really settle for a monetary settlement from said thieves when the last time someone cheated in his casino he, "had the bank seize his house and bankrupted his brother-in-law's tractor dealership"? The heist itself isn't nearly as fascinating this time around, mainly because there isn't one, unless you count a brief scuffle on a bus. So what is there to watch in this heist film without a heist? Well, there is the struggle of lovable young Linus as he attempts to become a criminal mastermind in his own right and move out of the shadow of both his father and Danny Ocean. There is the slightly amusing sub-plot of the Amazing Yen getting lost in a suitcase. And a goofy French thief hangs around, pestering the beleaguered gang, sort of like Katherine Hepburn in "Bringing Up Baby". Oh, and there's this Darth Vader sort of moment at the end that I suppose was intended to be emotionally significant, but failed utterly. When Ocean's Eleven came out, I figured Steven Soderbergh had made some pretty important films lately, and was taking a well-deserved diversion. Playtime, however, is over; his remarkable skills should be better spent than this.
The Life of David Gale (2003)
Intellectually Offensive
Before going into this movie, I was a staunch opponent of the death penalty; afterwords, I began to have doubts. Parker decided to liven up his dreary attempt at an intelligent film with bits of rapid-fire editing that do nothing except remind the viewer that they are still awake and, indeed, watching this movie. The story is ludicrous; even Texas could never have executed this man, no matter how incompetent his defense. Even more ludicrous is the reporter who is summoned to record Gale's final statements.
She is described to the audience as a tough journalist with principles, who once went to prison to defend a source. However, her every action belies this persona. She is easily frightened, and infinitely gullible; the ease with which Gale lures her into his story is baffling, considering her supposed journalistic background.
Back to the story. While the actions of the protagonists are admirable for their daring and sacrifice, they appear to be in vain, since they don't actually prove anything. I wish someone had told the characters in this movie that innocent people already have been executed in the United States. What I found far more interesting was what befell Gale after a female student files (and later drops) a rape charge against him. The reactions of those around him to the wrongfully accused man are poignantly believable.
I find it unfortunate that this will apparently be Kevin Spacey's last foray into cinema, as he has chosen to spend his time in the theater. (Note: I have since learned that Spacey is not leaving cinema, but merely taking a break. I am relieved)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
a perfunctory mess
This time around, I feel that too much of the story was sacrificed in making the film shorter. Characters, especially new ones, are not as fully developed as they should be, and explanations of past events are hurried. Also, I don't feel that enough time was taken to build a feeling of suspense and mystery. I was glad that I had read the book beforehand; otherwise I might have been confused about just who had done what to whom.
On the other hand, the film had a darker tone, which will serve its maturing audience (and cast) well. Alfonso Cuaron is a skilled director, and I only wish that he takes more control of his mainstream films in the future.
Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds (1995)
a disappointment on many levels
This movie was one of the first that I ever bought on DVD; for some reason I've held on to it, mostly due to its historical value as one of the most disappointing films I have ever watched. The title led me to believe that I would be watching beautiful, naked big-titted women growing to impossible sizes and ruining everyone's s*** for 90 solid minutes. Instead, I get 2 minutes of rampage, and 88 minutes of 60 a 60 foot tall woman moping around in a circus tent, and a bunch of evil guys trying to exploit her. Who do these guys think they are? I want chicks, not smarmy guys. In addition, there's this annoying sub-plot involving a giant rat. Who's idea was that? They could have at least made it a giant cat in order to incorporate some pussy jokes. There are a couple of good boob gags in this one, but on the whole, it is a massively wasted opportunity to exploit women who have been the victims of science. Where's Daryl Hannah when you need her?
Last Action Hero (1993)
Ahead of its time or behind it?
One criticism of this movie that I have heard is that it came out too long after the heyday of the action movie in the '80's. Yet, I believe that audiences simply weren't ready for an action movie to be this intelligent. Action movies aren't supposed to point out their own tropes and then ridicule them. Things are just supposed to blow up. When Arnie shoots the cab in the real world, and says that the taxis must be bulletproof - genius. Jack Slater makes a wonderful development from Arnold's most cliched and shallow character to being one of his most convincing once he leaves the "movie world." And the actor who played Danny did an admirable job, for a child actor. This film secured John McTiernan's place as the greatest action director ever - or at least until he made Rollerball and blew it all to hell.
Last Action Hero is perhaps Arnie's second best movie, after Predator. I was going to give it an 8, but then I remembered the scene where Arnold plays Hamlet. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark - and Prince Hamlet is takin' out the trash!" That's 9 material right there.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
New Genre, same old Quentin
From start to finish, it is abundantly clear that this film was made by and for avid fans of 70's martial arts films. Kill Bill is an homage to the Hong Kong cinema of that era, and as such it oozes with references to signature films of the genre. Uma's costume during the restaurant battle scene is a duplicate of that worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death, his final film. The swordmaker, Hattori Hanzo, is also the name of Sonny Chiba's character in the "Shadow Warriors" series. As a result, Kill Bill is best appreciated by those well schooled in Kung Fu films; however, that does not prevent those without such a background from enjoying the experience.
The movie is also very characteristic of Tarantino. Several of his screen signatures can be observed, including some reference/appearance of feet, the camera following a character for a long time without breaking, and the infamous car trunk POV shot. In addition, Kill Bill carries a 70's aesthetic similar to Tarantino's earlier films. Just as the others were inspired by the film noir, gangster films, and blackspoitation, Kill Bill shows the filmmakers love for the martial arts genre. In addition, the film renews my enthusiasm for Tarantino by demonstrating that he can work in multiple genres. One can only wonder what else he might decide to do next. I hear he likes westerns.
Jui kuen (1978)
classic kung-fu comedy
As hokey as this film seems, it is not without its charms. The plot seems almost formulaic, but the fight choreography is astounding. Try counting the number of moves per shot, and compare it to other, more recent, martial arts films. The characters are archetypal, but that doesn't keep them from being compelling. The use of second-long flashbacks adds deepens the characters (especially Chan) and brings an additional element of style to the final fight scene. The music is also very well done, much better so than other Kung Fu movies. And whatever you do, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE IN ENGLISH. It's painful. Cantonese with English subtitles, please.