Movie Review: The Death of Stalin

 

I can't be the only person out there with a list of movies we know we SHOULD be watching instead of streaming Avatar: The Last Airbender again, right? I mean, rewatching Community a fifth time feels a lot easier than slogging through an "important" movie made for grown-ass adults.

Well, I finally tackled two in my to-watch list this past week, and I'm happy to report that the experience was not altogether unpleasant and I will certainly consider watching non-super hero, non-Star Wars, non-animated-or-made-for-tweens  motion pictures again in the near future.

The first was "The Death of Stalin" from 2017, available to steam on Netflix. The movie presents a truncated version on the events of March 1953, leading up to the titular death of Joseph Stalin and the subsequent power struggle among the Soviet Central Committee. But there is much more packed into what would otherwise be a by-the-numbers drama. The movie is directed by Armando Iannucci, Scottish satirist best known in the States as the creator of “Veep,” but who has worked in British television for decades. This movie, though, looks anything but televisual. There's a quality to the film's set-dressing and photography that really evokes a mid-century aesthetic in the colors on the screen. I found it quite visually arresting. 

In any case, the movie balances more than bold color. The tone of the movie is expertly managed, chiefly in its central conceit; the script uses current vernacular speech in lieu of employing the typical Hollywood trope of making people in period movies set in Russia sound either like very posh Brits or like borsht-belt hacks. (Or in the case of “The Hunt for Red October,” literally both.) The effect this has in the framework of the movie is revelatory; it shows starkly that this power struggle was, at day’s end, nothing more than a venal pissing-match between powerful but petty men, regardless of the pageantry of the dictator’s funeral or the real stakes for world-ending catastrophe.

This contrast between high and low comes to brutal ends as Nikita Khrushchev, played as a put-upon cynic by Steve Buscemi, consolidates power in the political equivalent of a back ally mugging. The event puts punctuation to a film that is at turns hilarious and truly frightening.

It's fitting then that the second movie we watched this week is also a visually intriguing study in contrasting tones... but I'll need a few more days to get it all together in my brain. In the mean time, comment below if you've seen "The Death of Stalin." How did it strike you as a work of history? Were you put off by the shenanigans? I didn't even try to make contemporary comparisons, but there is a certain rats-from-sinking-ships quality that maybe begs the question RE: certain current occupants of the White House. Is that a stretch?

The Many Many Fast and Furiouses…Furioi…whatever...

Movie review? Movie review.

Edward here. I've been away from my family for a bit now and that means I'm not actively engaged in the roughly 17 billion distinct tasks lumped under the category of 'parenting.'

What am I doing with my spare time? Am I investigating the rings of Saturn with a telescope? Have I composed a new sonnet? Am I reading the latest in East Coast literary fiction, or even keeping abreast of current events?

Nope. I'm watching [The?] [Fast and] Furious 6. (Are they using articles anymore? Is it "A Fast and Furious?") I'm not sure what the ACTUAL title of the film is, but it turns out it's the SIXTH one of these. Can you even believe that?

I mean seriously, they didn't even get around to making "Casablanca 2: The Road to Berlin." Sad.

Vin Diesel, man.

Vin.

Diesel.

Remember when people made movies with Vin Diesel in them? (I mean other than these.) Those were innocent times, man.

Before we launch into a plot synopsis, a word about spoilers. I'm going to basically assume that, if you're reading this, then you have basic brain functions, like you're not a brain-in-a-jar, or in a vegetative state or Encino Man. Did you see the trailer to FF6? Then the conclusion of the climax is basically spoilt anyway.

And in case you didn't, [SPOILER ALERT!] the good-guys are NOT in that plane!

And since you, dear reader, are a person of distinguishing tastes, or refinement and rare intellect, I know (and you do too) that you will guess every beat of the plot. This is a spoiler-proof movie.

The plot: Vin is a noble and now retired automotive based thief with a gang of wealthy peers who live in exotic and beautiful locations with apparent great wealth. The Rock shows up one day and says that the actress who was written out of the series two movies ago wanted back in so...

…apparently all roads led to this.

It's of interest to The Rock because Michelle Rodriguez (who I could never get behind on Lost) is running with a NEW gang of automotive based thieves! But we know that they're badguys because…well at first we're just told that they're bad'uns, but later we see that there's no loyalty in their gang, no sense of family.

And that's the ethos of this film. Whenever a character needs to do something, well family man.

Family?

Yeah man, family.

Well alright, if you say so.

Why would Paul Walker risk life in prison to return to Los Angeles so that he could get very non-essential information for the Plot? Why does Michelle Rodriguez not shoot Vin Diesel to death when they first meet again? Why does her amnesia (!!!) finally start to wear off? Why does The Rock's character (the epitome of law and order) risk his job and countless American lives in the face of a plot twist projected so far in advance that it was legally obligated to change its mailing address? Family.

Or something.

Anyway, there was so much 'honor among theves' that there was no room in the script for physics, which is fine I suppose. I was also left wondering when Professor Charves Xavier was going to show up, because, aside from being attractive enough, this team of super-thieves are clearly mutants with extraordinary powers. They fly, flinch-off  GSWs, some to the chest, are involved in numerous high-speed roll-over automobile accidents unscathed and use cars to shoot down a plane. [See above.]

A character actually says the following: "How did you know there'd be a car there to break our fall?"

You saw the trailer, right? They are not soaring above a marshmallow factory.

She literally characterizes a car as something that will break your fall (as opposed to "your back" or "every bone in your body.") If fact, it's something you want to break your fall, what with all of its shattery glass, sharp edges and the general metal-ness of its body.

To say nothing of the runway in the climactic end scene, which the BBC has addressed "at length." (See what I did there?)

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the film on its own merits. I actually haven't seen a whole Fast / Furious before (Most of one, bits of two, almost all of three, none of four or five, for the record.) and it's silly and inert, but not odious. I enjoyed speculating whether the Vin Diesel's team paid the congestion charge while they were speeding through London's mysteriously semi-abandoned streets, (Picadilly Circus appears at one points and for some reason, the foot traffic is just absent.) and wondering why the McGuffin was conveniently being transported in a tank in the back of a semi. Wasn't the semi enough?

Oh, and Gina Carano is fun to watch, because you're being clumsily pressed to believe somehow that she wouldn't just take Michelle Rodriguez apart in a fight. I mean she's got thirty pounds of muscle on her. And she is literally a professional, and the movie's all like "No no, this is TOTALLY an even match, bro!"

Uh…sorry movie. No

Anyway, I had a quantifiable-unit's worth of fun. You might too.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Movie Reviews. I said movie reviews were coming, right?

Oh look, here's one now!

What can I say about 1984's "Streets of Fire?" Well, the obvious thing is where have you BEEN all my life?


The answer's going to be "Bottom of Blockbuster Bargain Bin," isn't it?



It's hard (very very hard) to explain what "Streets of Fire" is. First, there is an obvious relationship between this movie and the director's previous work. Remember the vaguely post-apocalyptic characteristics of the gangs in "The Warriors?"


Egads! Baseball mimes!



That sort of stylized ridiculousness (crucially played completely straight) is back in "Streets of Fire." Set in a relatively peaceful district of a troubled major metropolitan area (Times Square ca. 1982 remixed through The Thunderdome), the architecture, costumes, cars, music and attitudes are a mash-up of post-war Americana and the 1980's view of the post-apocalypse. Rockabilly blends with New Wave. Shoulder pads rub shoulders with pompadours.


This must be Flockabilly...of Seagulls?



If this all seems a little...high concept they keeps the plot pretty tight. Remember Double Dragon?



No. Not this one.


This one.



For those new to the Beat-em-up genre. The large gentleman in the white skinny jeans is about to gut punch the girl and hoist her over his shoulder. The garage in the background opens revealing a wicked red Camero and Billy and Jimmy Lee. They fight to save her. The End.

That's more or less the plot of "Streets of Fire." An ex-soldier fights to save his ex-girlfriend (now a well-regarded music star) from a gang. And there's more to this video game connection as well. Thinking back, beat-em-ups really had a double-dose of earnest silliness. Looking back at the plots of classics like Streets of Rage (you fight a gang that has gone to the trouble of training kangaroo enforcers), Final Fight (whole roast turkey's found in rusty oil drums restore life), and especially River City Ransom...


ESPECIALLY River City Ransom.



...which really latched on the that 1950's America aestetic, these games all share that neon, bubble-gum absurdity that I really enjoyed in the movie.

The cast has a surprising number of familiar ("Hey I KNOW that guy! What is he from?") faces. Rick Moranis plays against type (Alright, he's still a nerd. But he's a pretty commanding one.) and That-Lady-Who-Played-Kevin-Costner's-Wife plays a rough-and-tumble dame.


Who is also an ex-soldier. Army must be cutting back on reenlistment bonuses. Or basing them on some kind of reverse drabness scale.



But it's not the plot or the cast or even that weird setting that makes this one pop. It's actually the dialogue. No. Not at all in a Tarantino way. It's snappy and wry but ultimately goofy, And yet it works. In the same way that Tarantino's movies are steeped in the traditions of the genre films he grew up with, director Walter Hill clearly has an affection for the schlock and grind, yet even in something like "The Warriors" which is all about brawling street gangs, there's an earnestness, an honor to his heros. Tarantino can only rarely film something this blissfully unaware of itself (the bar scene in "Inglorious Basterds" comes to mind).

And it's not silly in the arch and epic and wonderful way the classics like "Flash Gordon" are. This isn't a film that is so bad it's great. In fact, for many it's going to be so bad it's bad. It's more like a film you made with your friends one summer if your friends had access to dozens of exploding motorcycles, a rain machine, the set from "The Outsiders" and the budget to hire Willem Dafoe.


Willem Dafoe moments before the film's climactic railroad hammer fight.



Did I not mention that Willem Dafoe plays the psychotic villain? That he channels Eric Von Zipper via the video for "Beat It?" That the movie ends with a mano-a-mano duel with railroad hammers? Hm. How could that have slipped my mind?

Here's the catch sports-fans: parts of the movie haven't aged well. It opens with the ex-girlfriend in concert belting out an 80's power single. It's a liability. You have to just soldier through that man. You won't regret it. Number 2: it has another medley near the end featuring beloved staple of easy-listening stations "I Can Dream About You." By that point, you'll have likely already invested in the movie and you'll just let it slide. (Protip: avoid eye contact with anyone in the room.) Third: Bill Paxton's in it.


Boo!



However in the plus column we have Ed Begley Jr's cameo, a cigar chompin' sheriff, a railroad hammer fight, and hey! Bill Paxton's in it.


Yay!



Walter Hill said he made the film because he wanted to cram a bunch of awesome stuff into one movie and then he rattled off a list: "...custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honor." If you can read that list without snickering, this might be a movie for you. Meridth waltzed in during the last twenty minutes and found herself enjoying it, but well confused at my enthusiasm. I thought about it a minute and then explained that if I'd seen this movie when I was 10 it would have been my favorite movie ever. At 30, it's flaws are so apparent, but who doesn't want to be a little less cynical about movies these days?

Film Review: Airborne (1993)

Today's film review is a delightful little blast from the nineties called 'Airborne.' Don't remember it? Yeah, it was slight, unimportant, nonsensical really. No big stars, no real plot, no chance during awards season. Yet I remember seeing it at 12 or 13 and pretty much loving it. Why? It's got roller-blading (or in-line skating if you prefer) and a delightful fish-out-of-water story of a cool guy in a square place: Cincinnati.



Did you watch the trailer? What's not to love?
The plot is an oh-so-clever reversal on 'The Karate Kid;' cool surfer guy Mitchell "The Goose" Goosen from California is forced to move to Cincinnati when his professorial parents go on a research trip to Australia. His laid back style, wise adherence to the principles of Mahatma Gandhi and less-than-macho hair attract the aggressions of the tough-guy jocks and hijinks ensue.

In this clip, you get the whole, unmitigated Mitchell Goosen experience. Both barrells of highly-concentrated, California-grown 'laid-back.' This is what everyone in California sounds like, right?



Did I mention that Seth Green plays his unconfident, formless cousin who he convinces to be himself to earn the love of a plain girl?



That really elevates things.

So finally, Mitchell's parents send him his in-line skates (or roller-blades, if you will) in the mail and he finds an outlet for his frustrations. We are then treated to a montage of Mitch "bladin'" across Cincinnati collecting a following of like-minded shredders and BMX kids, some so enthralled by his moves, they depart the stoops upon which they were loitering with nary a thought to their abandoned juice-boxes (I'm not making this up.) In the meantime, Mitch meets an intelligent and prudent young girl (she carries an umbrella) with whom he wiles away an afternoon in a botanical garden, proving his sensitive bona fides by identifying sundry flowers, yet asserting his manly-virtues by rebelliously skating throught the verdant horticultural expo. How awesome is that?

Naturally, his inamorata is the little sister of Jack, the jock's ringleader. What's a skating long-haired pacifist landlocked surfer to do? Naturally, he has a lucid dream about the situation in which he finds himself on 'the perfect wave' which is guarded by a hispanophone shark named Pepe who says: "La ola es mia." The wave is mine. Whoa.

So Mitch proceeds to ingratiate himself into Jack's crowd by participating in roller-hockey contests against "the preps," wealthy-types from a rival school. Also: The preps ringleader, an albino named Blaine, is the unwilling ex-boyfriend of Mitch's gal-pal. So there is that.

The epic epic climax is initiated when Mitch and the boys challenge their rivals to a race down Cincinnati's Devil's Backbone. (An aside: I assumed this Devil's-Backbone-in-Cinncinati thing was a bunch'a hooey, but there is a Devil's Backbone Road in that fine mid-west city. Go figure.) Will Mitch be forced to abandon his Gandhi-inspired pacifism because of the brutality of this race? Will the preps finally be brought low? Will Mitch find true love with that girl who's name I can't remember?

Seriously, you need to see it to find out.

Oh yeah, and Jack Black's in this movie.

Seriously, watch it on Instant Play on your Netflix. Do it today!

DVD Review: "Zombieland"

I'm sure some of you are belaboring under the delusion that I am a 'big fan' of the zombie subgenera. While I am genuinely appreciative of the various gifts and brik-a-brak that some of you may or may not have given me because you think I love zombies, the truth is that I'm incredibly picky about which zombie movies I love, particularly since we are suffering through a glut of zombie-related media. It seems you can't throw a rock and not hit one of these shambling menaces. To tell the truth, I only 'love' two zombie films - the original 1968 'Night of the Living Dead' and 2004's unrelentingly perfect 'Shaun of the Dead,' if anyone is keeping track - although I have a certain appreciation for sundry other examples in the subgenera - the original 1978 'Dawn of the Dead' comes to mind. I know I shouldn't love you; you insult my intelligence and belittle my taste, and yet...

So I guess it goes without saying that I came into last year's 'Zombieland' with some skepticism. I mean as far as zombie-related comedies go, 'Shaun of the Dead' was certainly the exception that proved the rule. It took the combined talent of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and (not pictured) Edgar Wright to pull of the unprecedented mix of hilarity, poignancy and violence. If it took the combined Voltron-esque talent of that calibre to produce a zombie-comedy, what chance did shoe-gazer Jesse Eisenberg have? I saw the unfortunately-similarly-titled movie 'Adventureland' and hated it. And frankly, I was more than a little concerned that 'Zombieland' would quickly devolve into an example of the death-of-narrative-cinema, just showing clever kill after clever kill. What I didn't realize is that Woody Harrelson was swinging for the fences with this one. His manic 'Tallahassee' is like a previously-unknown loony-toon packing more heat than Yosamite Sam by a long shot. And it's not a stretch to say that Woody digs deep in this role with an emotional twinge that holds that note just long enough and then tosses out a fine 'Titanic' joke. Well-played, sir!Mr. Harrelson swinging for the aforementioned fences.

I was not displeased with the two female leads and, although the basic conception of their characters was refreshing, they were given surprisingly little to do, and in the end suffer from an unfortunate case of damsel-in-distress syndrome. Oh well.

Now the film deploys a number of tactical gambits which I imperfectly but not inaccurately will describe as 'gimmicks.' (They aren't 'gimmicky' per se but they are certainly not seamlessly integrated.) One is the appearance on-screen of the written text of a number of rules for surviving the zombie plague. The character of Jesse Eisenberg will relate these rules via a voice-over and the text will appear on screen. It's ironic, because my wife and I have been catching up on the JJ Abrams tv show 'Fringe' and one of the only real problems we have with the show is the appearance of 3D words hovering over the establishing shots describing the location. It's almost the same typeface used by 'Zombieland' and yet, I found it amusing in the movie. It was a small sign or indicator of the tone of 'Zombieland.' And I suppose that's the best I could say for this movie: don't over-think it. It's droll, a bit random, and good. Genuinely entertaining.

As for the other noticeable gimmick, the less you hear about it the better, suffice it to say it's an unexpected cameo. And it's comedy gold. "Whoa there, hold on. Is that hombre giving out spoilers to OUR movie?!?"

So there you go. It's a solid movie, well worth your time. Does it have much gore? No, not more than your average action movie. There is a bit of questionable content in the opening credits that nets the film it's 'R' rating (along with its proclivity for profanity) but it's an isolated incident and you ought not let it change your mind. Unless you like lady-zombies, in which case your mind oughta be changed, weirdo.

But if you're looking for a zombie drama, just as a last aside with regard to zombie media I do lovelovelove, I can't recommend Max Brooks' 'World War Z' highly enough. It's available in paperback and a smashing full-cast audiobook edition (featuring the talents of Mark Hamill and Henry Rollins. Together at last!) and, rumor has it Brad Pitt's production company has acquired the film rights, so get on-board now and tell your friends you read it first.Don't know why I should shill for amazon.com but click here to order the paperback. Best ten bucks you're gonna spend today.

DVD Review: "Moon"

Bored yet of supercute babies eating semi-solids? Me too. So in an attempt to engage with those readers who may have no interest at all in the eating habits of our spawn and may actually want more of the hard-hitting coverage that has come to characterize this blog-product, we offer you a taste of what's been streaming into our skull via that sole source of at-home entertainments, the DVD player, fed a steady flow of media-disks from Netflix. Ho yeah!

Let's talk about Duncan Jones' first feature-length movie, "Moon." But first let's talk about Duncan Jones.


Here's a picture of your father that I've plucked out of the mists of the internets.


And here's a picture of Duncan Jones' father.

Based solely on genetics, which of you is better equipped to make a trippy yet thoughtful, seventies-inflected sci-fi film seeped in otological angst and possibly sinister technology? The child of Mister Whitebread over there? Or Ziggy Frickin' Stardust? I mean David Bowie is a one-man macro-culture with all the identities he's got floating round. Talk about existential. The guys got to commit ethnic cleansing just to choose a deli sandwich.

To tell the truth, the less said about Duncan Jones' awesome dad the better. While it's impossible not to think of the doomed Major Tom as the film's protagonist takes his "protein pills and puts [his] helmut on" the film would be fantastic regardless of the directors genetic background. Seriously, did you see that poster? It's unique and I knew I had to see any movie whose poster had such great design.

So what happens in the movie? Yeah the setting...it's on the moon. Connect the dots, man. Yeah. There's apparently an extremely lucrative source of neigh limitless clean energy to be harvested from the dark side of the moon. The process however necessitates a human operator to monitor the mostly-automated process. Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) is one such observer at the tail end of a three year contract with Lunar Industries. Throughout the lonely tour-of-duty, Sam's only had the company of GERTY, a centralized AI for the lunar base with only a crude animated face to express emotion (voiced brilliantly by Kevin Spacey)


Communication between the lunar base and Earth is a dicey affair so most communications are pre-recorded messages from his wife and infant daughter. To reveal much more beyond that would be disingenuous frankly, but watching Sam Bell slowly come to grips with his situation is really amazing. Rockwell was robbed awards-wise this year. The word tour-de-force has been bandied about a lot vis-a-vis this film and for once I don't think it's hyperbolic. Rockwell carries this movie start-to-finish and its success (and believe me, the film is successful) is a testament to Rockwell's ability to make this utterly fantastical situation feel oh-so relevant. It's almost Kafka-esque with Bell as a reluctant Gregor Samsa. (Was that pretentious or what? Boy-o!) But honestly, Rockwell made me believe in the relationship between Bell and GERTY, and as the third act played out, I found myself caring more for GERTY, with his clumsy 8-bit face, than I ever did for WALL-E, and believe me, I liked the Pixar flick a lot!



The design of this movie is a great feather in its cap. Some independent films can't hang in regards to design, but "Moon" is punching well above its weight and I'd happily set its design (if not its somewhat lacking, if sparse, CG effects) against the designs of Sam Rockwell's other sci-fi film of 2009, a small little movie you might have heard of called "Avatar."* And I mean that. I mean, just look at that poster! It is somehow utterly unique while simultaneously remaining totally iconic of the kind of 1970's sci-fi that clearly inspired director Duncan Jones. And on top of that it works as an advertisement. It hits all the tonal points and communicates that this isn't sci-fi action or a space opera. It's paranoid and isolating, thoughtful.

Honestly though, if my Kafka reference and continual use of the word 'thoughtful' are making you hesitant, thinking that this is somehow 'Art Haus' fare or that you need a BA in comparative literature to enjoy it, hold on! It's actually pretty thrilling too. There's intrigue, distrust, an imposed time limit that rolls the pace of the movie right along. And in case you've surmised from my ambiguity regarding the plot, there is what might loosely be defined as a >ahem< "plot-twist" though I wouldn't be inclined to use that word. I think the plot is in of itself pretty twisty, and in that Twilight Zone-ish fashion the plot would certainly 'work' independent of the ontological undertones.

And Meridth loved it too.
"GERTY! I told you, you don't eat my Corn Pops! My name is right on the box! Buy your own dude!"

* As pointed out by my beloved friend Alex, Sam Rockwell is not, in fact, in 'Avatar.' No, I know! What was I thinking?
They don't even look remotely like each other! Wow. That's egg on my face. But now that I'm thinking about it, what would Sam Rockwell have done with 'Avatar' in the place of Sam Worthington? Would it have improved the movie?

Liquid Luck

So as luck would have it I have a certain anonymous friend who has a certain anonymous brother who is a film projectionist. Which is why it is 3:43 AM and I just got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I have been impatient to see this movie ever since I thought it was going to be released 8 months ago. So I just about wet myself when I found out that I was going to see the movie 3 days early.

I guess what I would have to say that I was impressed against my will, as this is my favorite of the Harry Potter books and I was expecting to be thoroughly disappointed. Anyway, brace yourself for my half delusional review (mild spoilers included). The overall tone of the film was perfectly creepy. There was a point where I felt like I might have nightmares. (Hopefully that doesn't come to fruition). The acting was superb and the cast has always been a perfect fit, except for the fact that Richard Harris from the first two movies understood how to play Dumbledore much better than Michael Gambon ever did. But I have to say that he (Dumbledore #2) didn't bother me at all in this movie. Quidditch was kept to a minimum that didn't affect the pacing of the film and was a nice break from all the heavy stuff. The special effects were wonderful and the look of the film was delightfully dark. Draco Malfoy haunted the screen and gave great pacing to the film and brought an appropriate sense of uneasiness. The altered death scene with Harry perfectly capable of physically responding whilst Draco confronted Dumbledore was an excellent change of pace. The audience could visually see his trust in Snape being destroyed and I thought this added to the emotional climax of Dumbledore's death. Really, as of now in the wee hours of the morning, my only complaints are Harry's heavy make-up job when McGonagall addresses the three after the cursing of Katie Bell (Harry has on some pretty luscious lipstick and darkened eyebrows), and the scene with Ginny and Harry in the Room of Requirement was unnecessarily awkward with Ginny. (Blech).

Anyway, overall a success. I can't wait to see it again. (I hope it holds up in the re-watching.)

Good night all... or should I say good morning ;)

Coraline in 3-D

3-D you say? Isn't stop motion animation in 3-D already?! Okay, so as duly noted I am a huge fan of Henry Selick. The Nightmare Before Christmas is absolutely amazing and I think the world needs to be filled with more stop motion films like this. Along with that I think that Neil Gaiman is one of the great writers and for me everything he writes turns into golden donuts. Yummy.

So yes yes I know you all know this. What I find delightful is the fact that I went to this movie on opening day, of course, but I was really put off by the fact that I was forced to watch this movie with 3-D glasses. Wearing glasses on glasses is a bit uncomfortable, but not only that there was a bad taste in my mouth left from my 3-D experience with Nightmare in 2006. The movie left me dizzy and less than impressed with the 3-D animation becoming more 3-D. So really I thought the 3-D was gimmicky. I was really reluctant to participate in what I thought was an attempt to draw more viewers on opening day.

You can see where this is going. I cannot tell you how amazing this film is. Again the story is fantastic and the design is DYNAMITE. What I love about the 3-D is that this film was recorded specifically for a 3-D experience. Meaning that for every second there are 24 stills to slowly move the animation. This is typical for any type of film really... but this film had a still for the right eye and the left eye to create the 3-D effect. And the result was phenomenal. The foreground, middle-ground, and background were presented in such a designerly way. I have never seen 3-D movie look so beautiful. I don't want to watch this film without that experience ever again and I hope that they develop something so the home-viewer can have the same enjoyable experience. Unfortunately this movie will only be in 3-D up to three weeks after it's initial release so if you haven't seen it yet I urge you to see it before time runs out.



Coraline received a 88% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and from me a 4 out of 5 stars.

"Nazis. I hate these guys."

So it's a Gimbel family tradition to see a movie on Christmas Eve. I love this tradition, so Edward and I have kept this as our tradition. However this year we were not interested in any movies that were out on Christmas Eve, so we opted for Boxing Day instead. Our movie for this year was Valkyrie. First off, this movie was fantastic. Edward and I were sobbing at the end, and grateful for a darkened movie theatre so we could emerge with dignity. There are so many reasons I love this film. The cinematography was excellent. The casting was fantastic. But what I was incredibly impressed with was the heightened intensity of the climax. The movie's subject was the July 20, 1944 plot of German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and set up of a cout de' etat. As an audience, whether anyone knew of this plot or not, we all know the outcome of this movie. Even so, whilst watching this movie I was overly anxious, knowing that the plotters would likely be killed and subconsciously hoping that the movie would turn into fiction so their plot could succeed. I was pleased to find after some post-movie online research (i.e. Wickipedia), that the only historical inaccuracy was that the original plan for Operation Valkyrie was proposed by General Friedrich Olbricht and not Colonel Count Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise). I strongly recommend this movie to everyone. It's about time a "mainstream" movie came out featuring Nazis not as the cardboard cutouts you might see in an Indiana Jones movie. At least Indiana Jones pumps up the campyness and cartoonifies it's characters, being very self-aware, whereas other WWII era movies show all the Nazi soldiers as heartless evil-doers bent on the destruction of humankind. I think we Americans forget that there was a lot of Nazi resistance and our one dimensional portrayal of the German's at the time is shortsighted.

Hooray for this movie. Go see it.

DATELINE: MONTEREY, CA!

Chapter 1: Quid pro quo



Meet Lilly's new cousin RADAR. He's a Pembrooke Welsh Corgi and he's 10 weeks old. Meridth and I have been wanting and wanting a dog for months and months. We found a website for a breeder not too far away and realized that we weren't in the "reasonable financial circumstances" to buy a purebred, champion-sired Corgi. So we haunted the pounds and shelters, looked and looked for bargain-basement puppies but came up nil. In desperation Meridth emailed the breeder and asked if we could arrange for a monthly payment plan. After receiving the email, the breeder (see her website here) clicked onto Meridth's website and fell in love with Meridth's art. So a trade was arranged. We get a handsome young pup and she gets a unique logo to spruce up her website. Win-win!
Note his cute-as-can-be long squatty body and foxy, intelligent head. He is one handsome bloke. Plus we got just about the mellowest dog ever. After just a little tummy-ache on the four-hour drive home, he spent the whole trip cuddling or sleeping. And I still haven't heard him bark. We've got ourselves a wicked good training book and we've already started to work on walking him on a lead. Seriously though, he 's not going to need much training he's so chill. Anyway, with the four-day week-end just warming up, we're going to train him up to be we smartest dog in town. Yep. Best. Puppy. Ever.


Chapter 2: Movie Review -- Hancock

Who remembers 2000's Unbreakable? Setting aside the director's follies of late, (Mer and I have decided against seeing his latest, the vaguely titled The Happening. We'll save that for Netflix.) Unbreakable was a movie that deconstructed the superhero genre and the modern conceptualization of what it means to be a hero. This was the sort of context wanted out of Hancock, the sort of meta-level questions I wanted the film to examine. Plus with Will Smith, I figured I'd get charm and humor for my $8 in the mix. No such luck.

The movie opens pretty much where the trailer does: Will Smith is a jerk superhero who fights crime. Fine. That's what I came for. The film adds Jason Bateman and a miscast Charlize Theron into the mix as the PR guy trying to change Hancock's image and his wife who is strangely interested in Hancock, just like in the trailer. Hancock goes to jail for his destructive heroism where he inserts one inmate's head into the rectum of another (just as advertised) and finally is released after the city realizes how much they need him, while he simultaneously realizes how much he needs them, and foils a high-tech bank robbery, just like the trailer promised us. Maybe I missed it, had a nap or a long blink, but that movie ended and this odd second movie started. I don't wish to reveal over much about this disjointed and goofy second movie, but it kinda poops all over the first movie. Everything that the first movie almost touched on (i.e. the loneliness of power, the expectations of heroes realistic and otherwise, the jealously of the powerless, the cult of celebrity) is tossed to the side. "Oh." I thought while watching the second half "Hancock isn't lonely and self-destructive because he has deep unfulfilled needs vis-a-vis his hero-status, it's because of X." (where X=the near dues ex machina that passes for a 'plot-twist'). In sum, the movie's awesome potential was wrecked by a ridiculously muddled narrative thread and bad bad badbad writing.

Grade: C-

Chapter 3: Everything else.

Things are okay everywhere else. School is tough. Meridth's art improves daily. Monterey is gorgeous.

So...how was it?

In a word...kinda. In three words...yeah, I guess.

In some more words...I grew up with the Indiana Jones movies as these epic ideals of hyper-manhood, adventure and reverence for ancient cultures. They were amazing movies that blended humor and action and Nazi-fighting into this crisp package, tastier than tempura sushi. In short, I have a pretty high opinion of the Indiana Jones franchise.

How can 2008's Crystal Skull really live up? In 1985's flawed Temple had come out after the rest of the series had percolated into the legendary status it holds, would I be as ready as I currently am to gloss over the apparent flaws? Is it time that makes Skull so hard to love?

This is not to say that there aren't moments. There are instances where I almost lost myself, where I thought that I was in classic Indy territory once again. And then a gopher joke, a pack of swinging monkeys or a crotch gag would remind me that I'm still firmly in George Lucas' world where the beloved icons of my youth lose their teeth and their chutzpah in the name of tying up narrative loose ends and getting cheap laughs. (Remember the poop joke in 1999's Phantom Menace?)

Let's not be hyperbolic. It's a better movie than most. Typically a movie this good would easily make my year's top three. The problem is I was not sufficiently blown away. It was not sufficiently superlative. I was not as dazzled as I ought to have been. Is this an unfair standard? Perhaps, but when you place the "Indiana Jones" name on what otherwise would have been "just" a decent adventure movie, you expose yourself to the exacting standards of the past incarnations. It's just the nature of the beast.

After you've seen the movie, read this online discussion of it. It touches all the relevant bits and contains some thoughtful musings about nostalgia and fair critiquing. Honestly, any real fan of the series will have mixed feelings about the movie, but I can't imagine the reinvention of a beloved icon after 19 years off-screen having any less drastic an effect.

In the end I'm just grateful that it wasn't as bad as it might have otherwise been. Remember the Prequel Trilogy? Yeah, me neither.