The Living Wake

The Living Wake (2007)

Writer: Peter Kline. Mike O' Connell
Director: Sol Tryon
Starring: Mike O' Connell, Jesse Eisenberg

Synopsis
K. Roth Binew finds himself diagnosed with a terminal illness that has yet to be named. The Living Wake is the last day of his life at the end of which he, indeed, throws himself a living wake.

The Woman
this was really bizarre. i mean REALLY, bizarre. i still don't know how i feel about it. it has made an impression, of that i can be sure. by the description it sounds like a drama, but it is not. it's a sort of dark comedy. everything is done so over the top it becomes ridiculous, and even death becomes a subject you can raise an eyebrow at. the characters of k. roth binew, and his biographer and rickshaw driver, Mills are waaay left of center. like the vision i have of becky and i if we remained standing at the corner of our block, dressed in the most ridiculous ensembles, posing at traffic as it went by....i can't even describe this movie. the plot made perfect sense, but i'm just at a loss for words. binew's personality was like a stereotyped used car salesman in his own commercial and it held throughout the movie in it's entirety. i think i liked it, but i can't be sure. there were songs (which were decidedly awesome) and choreographed numbers in the graveyard...details and statements were so random....

here is my favorite quote. you decide " Biographer! Kill yourself in childhood, the victim of a mining accident! At least until you apologize for that joke. When you do have yourself killed two years later by shot."

Monsters

Monsters (2010)

Writer: Gareth Edwards
Director: Gareth Edwards
Starring: Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able

Synopsis
six years after a probe carrying alien life breaks up in the sky over mexico a photo journalist, documenting the area, suddenly finds himself in charge of getting his boss's daughter safely back to the US.

The Woman
i was highly skeptical about this movie, as i am about most movies we watch, but i was pleasantly surprised. i really enjoyed this and would definitely recommend watching it. i even gave it four stars on the netflix rating thing which is incredibly rare in this house. i thought it was going to be some "cloverfield" disaster thing, but it was more a character piece than a sci-fi thriller. it reminded me of "the host" in it's approach toward the alien theme. it was more about the two characters and their journey home. the aliens were mostly a backdrop. there existence was what kept you in suspense, but they were only actually seen a few times.

why do movies like this never get the credit they deserve? the description and the poster don't do it justice. there was definitely a lot of thought and intent that went into this, and that's what i think movies should have.

Chloe

Chloe (2009)


Writer: Erin Cressida Wilson (screenplay), Anne Fontaine (the original movie "Nathalie")
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson

Synopsis
a woman in her 40's (?) thinks her husband is having an affair. she hires an escort to approach him to see how he reacts.

The Woman
shme. i was unimpressed. i remember there being a lot of commotion when this came out, but i don't see why. this is pretty much the same concept as "fatal attraction".  change the man with a woman, and make her pay her stalker to sleep with her husband. am i giving away too much? i don't think so. it's pretty evident that there is an obsession the young escort holds about the red-headed gynecologist. "fatal attraction" had a better ending though. there was more conviction in it. i didn't get the actions of chloe at the end, i mean i guess she will be in julianne moore's head for the rest of time, hence the final shot, but there were other ways to get that same result. she just seemed so scheming and manipulative that the end doesn't make sense for her character.

julianne moore's character bothered me too. boo-hoo i'm middle aged and can't relate to anything in my rich ass life. i'm not young anymore. i don't feel hot even though i'm red headed and skinny and rich and still hot. boo-hoo. maybe your life is so messed up because you don't talk to anyone in your family dumb ass. i realize there would not be a movie if the people in said movie spoke to one another, but i can still be annoyed.

i spent most of the time trying to figure out what city thy were in. i still don't know. my theory is chicago, because it definitely wasn't new york, and it was cold so it wasn't west, and the only major city where it is cold and dreary was chicago. the rendezvous spot was the garden in "airborne" and that took place in cincinnati, but they could have been lying. maybe it was philidelphia? i don't know why i need this question answered. i'm looking it up. toronto? they were supposed to be canadian? canadian people aren't unhappy. they don't cheat on their spouses. do they even need gynecologists in canada?

The Karate (Kung Fu) Kid

The Karate Kid (2009)
Cribbed onto the page by Christopher Murphey, Robert Mark Kamen
Cribbed onto the screen by Harald Zwart
Starring Will Smith by Proxy, Jackie Chan ('s accountant), Taraj P. Henson


Synopsis
will smith and jada pinkett-smith feel the need to shove their kid in our faces.
MOster
I remarked to Leila when she suggested giving this movie a 1 that said rating would require her to produce an essay in the neighborhood of a thousand words.  I'm not going to do that because I really don't have that much passion for this.  However, it was excruciatingly long. 

To call such a production a "travesty" is to elevate the original film far above its station.  It's true that calling it "The Karate Kid" is disrespectful to southern Asians on the order of "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these;" but to harp on that would be retarded.

My big problem with the movie is that it doesn't work as peopled by middle school students.  It's really sketchy to watch Jackie Chan beat up 12-year-old kids regardless of how many of them were beating up his friend, and it's at least equally sketchy that such young children are encouraged to perform such acts of violence on each other.  I simply cannot believe that this is the norm in China.

It's similarly sketchy to watch a courtship between two children of such age, even if it does bring the only moderately-interesting (read: hackery of something worth stealing) shot of the entire 140-minute endeavor.  And it doesn't help that the kid lives in China for most of a school year without picking up a lick of the language. In what mixed-race school in China would such academic performance be tolerated?  In the one about which I really don't care.

Excruciatingly long.

The Woman
horrible. after it was done i couldn't believe we sat through the whole thing. i don't even know where to start. i guess it's more disrespectful to make jackie chan play a japanese guy than to CHANGE THE FUCKING TITLE OF THE MOVIE!!!!!!! i might even go as far to say that i might have respected the movie more if they did. then it could be seen as an homage instead of whatever it was. the reason we watched this was kind of a morbid fascination. to see how they approached it. to see how badly it pissed on it's origin.

there were all sorts of inappropriateness because the shifted age of daniel-san, i mean, dre. granted our children nowadays have to deal with more adult things sooner, but falling in love at age 12? no. would you fight an entire dojo, i mean, kung fu school, over some stereotyped, violin playing, pressured to be perfect, chinese 12 year old you just met...when you were 12? no. would it be ok for jackie chan to beat up a bunch of 12 year old kids bullying the new black kid in town? not really.  it's uncomfortable and weird. is it more believable that a teenager would thwart his mother's attempts at protecting him from bullies than a 12 year old. yes. you can bet your ass if some kids were beating up my 12 year old i would get involved not only with the schools, but the authorities as well. it's obvious that the only reason it was set in china was because the only asian hollywood star with the draw power is chinese. how are they going to do the sequel? they're already in the foreign country. the culture shock has already happened. is jackie chan going to be the fish out of water? do we, as americans regard honor so highly that dre will have a fight to the death with some detroit gang banger? that's stereotypically uncomfortable as well. you know there is going to be a sequel. will smith loves his kid too much not to subject the world to another one of these.

a perfect example of disrespecting the original is the catching the fly with the chop sticks sequence. in the original it is an exorcise of meditation with a lesson to be learned daniel even asks miyagi "wouldn't a fly swatter be easier" the response is "man who catch fly with chopstick, can do anything" explaining the core of mr. miyagi's belief system. in this contemporary scene jackie chan pretends to be tracking a fly with his chopstick and then smashes it with a flyswatter. what's to be learned here? that it's all about money and remakes? i think this is a perfect metaphor of the reboot's take on the two movies actually, now that i see it in type. there's no thought behind anything in this movie. i'm not saying the original is some great masterpiece, and i have never read or seen the comic, but at least the 1984 version had something there. an introduction to a new way of thinking about things. two outcasts bonding, and becoming great friends. grrrr. stupid will smith. shame on you jerry weintraub, shame on you!

was that a long enough rant, my dear husband?

What Goes Up

What Goes Up 
Written by Jonathan Glatzer, Robert Lawson
Directed by Jonathan Glatzer
Starring Steve Coogan, Hillary Duff, Olivia Thirlby, Molly Shannon 

Synopsis
Reporter dude does a profile of a woman whose son committed suicide.  Then the woman commits suicide but the reporter, unbeknownst to his editor, keeps writing pieces about her because he was sleeping with her and he discovered her suicide.  In order to shake him up, the editor sends him to the town where Christie Macaulliffe works as a teacher.  (Oh, yeah. This is set right before the Challenger launch.  That's important.) To cover the school's reaction to her deal.  He has an estranged college chum who lives in the area; and upon arrival he learns that said chum killed himself.  This dude was some strange art teacher and the reporter ends up interacting with those students rather than covering the launch thingy.

The Woman
this was kind of weird. no doubt it was put on our queue due to steve coogan, but, man, i dislike hillary duff. i feel like i would have like this better in my angsty teen years. i could see it being a movie that the angry youth could gravitate towards. it had some elements that vaguely reminded me of "welcome to the dollhouse" but just done more poorly. ultimately, i think this was a movie with a lack of focus. there were so many different things going on with so many different genres and characters. there was the challenger launch, the girl in the wheelchair thing, there was coogan and duff, there was the two weird girls hijacking molly shannon's vision, there was the teacher that committed suicide, there was the kid obsessed with duff and masturbating to the principal's breastfeeding wife, there was the pregnant girl...the list goes on. and the only thing connecting them all was the fact they were in the homeroom of the guy that killed himself, or did he? and steve coogan knew him in college. this is all smashed into an hour and a half movie so there is no time to learn about and bond with all or any of these characters. i don't think i would recommend this unless you are a 15 or 16 year old outcast teen girl.

MOster
 I like Steve Coogan.  I love him as Alan Partridge and I have enjoyed his performances in many other works.  I also enjoyed him in this role, as a man who's continuing to learn about the boundaries between reporter and subject.  That's an odd entree into being the most stable main character in this truly bizarre undertaking, a movie filled with odd characterizations of oddball high school students and staff.  It takes "small town quaint" to a whole new place; and part of me would like to believe that places filled with all these different weirdos still (yes, even 25 whole years ago) exist somewhere in this country.

We sit in a deep ravine directly under a bridge of disbelief which is suspended by wires seemingly specified to the exact weight of the story with no tolerances whatsoever.  We hear the wires creak and we see them flex.  How does nobody know about the girlfriend's death?  How is it that this town is not just teeming with reporters?  Where the fuck are the parents of these kids?  Where the fuck, for that matter, are the other teachers?  It kind of makes sense why only a couple of the kids question his veracity, but not really.

The wires held this over my head because there's no real omniscient observer point of view in the film.  While there are a few scenes without Coogan, most of the outcomes of those scenes could have easily been relayed to him after the fact.  Cameras are generally close to the action and the production actually does a good job of capturing the atmosphere of such a town.

It seems to me that the best (read: easiest viewpoint from which it's plausible) way to look at the thing is as a kind of Thompson-esque first person journalistic narrative as written by Coogan's character after the fact.

Yeah, I like that.  We'll go with that.

Anything Goes

Anything Goes  (1956)
Written by  Guy Bolton, PG Wodehouse (Play), Cole Porter (music? & lyrics)
Directed by Robert Lewis
Starring Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, Zizi Jeanmaire, Mitzi Gaynor

Synopsis
a popular tv star teams up with a seasoned broadway star to put a production on. they both have big egos, but are super polite to one another which allows for the mistake of each of them signing a different leading lady. the plot unfolds on a boat bound for new york from paris. they end up falling for the chick the other one signed and a lot of singing and dancing happens to figure out some sort of resolution.

MOster
I don't know what I expected of this one.  I knew a bit about Porter and it was nice to see O'Connor and Crosby's familiar faces, even though I didn't find a lot of empathy for any of the principals and I found Jeanmarie to be not particularly attractive.  While the hook of the story was somewhat unique things played out in an unfortunately-typical (even for then) series of jinks which were more mid than hi.  And the last 20 minuts or so strained credulity pretty far.

But, it was still fun.  There were some great musical bits in both full length and snippet form.  And despite the lack of empathy the leads all carried themselves very well.  I don't know; I'm not finding a lot of passion about this one right now.  This could be due to the excessive lag between watching it and writing about it; but it could also be due to my general level of fatigue right now.  You could do worse.

The Woman
this was ok. it was a pretty typical old movie. all light and happy dancey musical. i don't really have anything bad to say about it. if you like musical comedies, dancing, or either bing crosby, or donald o'connor this may be worth while to you.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)


Director: Banksy
Synopsis
This documentary employed footage taken by Theirry Guetta to show many of the more-known street artists of the current age, followed by other sources of Guetta's degradation of those artists.

The Woman
good. i think street art is an important art movement that people should know about. it's nice to watch a documentary that doesn't make me want to shun the "art world". this did make me angry, but the bile i usually feel in art documentaries wasn't there. i guess because mr. brainwash just totally manipulated the system and perhaps the art world is getting what they deserve. it just reinforced my belief that if you know how to talk the talk, create the hype, and know which strings to pull, your art could be total shit and they'll lick it up off the floor.

MOster
I've been thinking about this movie quite a bit over the past couple of days and in that time more of its genius has become apparent.  Drawing heavily from Theirry's footage as well as later interviews and more traditional sources of clips, the film pulls us in with a thrilling look at street artists.  We get to see a fair amount of what goes into making that art, including many of the more-audacious exhibits.  Immersed in this world, we see how people's art grew and how (for at least some of them) their esteem followed that path.

The technical part of this came off very well.  Theirry's footage of the process and results was exactly where it needed to be (and given the circumstances of the filming it was quite impressive), and everything else came together quite nicely. 

But that's not the point at all, because at about the 80% mark, the entire exercise turns on its ear.  Instead of talking about street art we're talking about Theirry's metamorphosis into Mister Brainwash and his explosion onto the the scene.  Not having read anything going in, I was not prepared for this.  While the true focus is mentioned early in the movie, its impact couldn't have been until that frame; and the approach worked perfectly.  In showing MBW's exploitation of everything--every technique, every relationship, every phone call--he had absorbed and his immediate and intentional selling out the movie conveys with few actual words the frustration which this wreaked on those artists who actually took the time to develop their craft.  Much like Thomas Kincade, MBW came out of the gate as a brand.  People in the movie call him retarded, but I don't think that's accurate.  He might have some form of autism, but he definitely knew what he was doing.  And he made a lot of money, so good for him I suppose.

Better for Banksy.  Enter through the museum.  Exit through the gift shop.