Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch (2011) - Zack Snyder

I love Sucker Punch the way Touchy the reformed Molesto-Clown loves summer vacation at an all-boys' Catholic elementary school (or all-girls' school; I'm not going to discriminate): he loves it, but he knows he shouldn't, and secretly there's a pang of shame...but that sadly won't stop him. NOTHING CAN STOP HIM. HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU. HE EATS YOUR SMILES. YOUR FROWNS AND SCREAMS BRING HIM CLOSER....(*cough*) Sorry about that...

I'm seriously torn with this film, and it boils down to two things: the movie is awesome visually, very much an exercise in style; however, it is cheap exploitation wrapped up in a slightly-heavy-handed preachy "grrl power" message that comes off as slightly trite. However...it's so visually beautiful and full of great moments that I still like it. It's...so...difficult having an opinion about something that is paradoxical...
Or is it?
Emily Browning stars as Baby Doll, a 20-year-old girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) looking to get a hold of her inheritance after her mother dies. Once institutionalized, her papers are forged by the corrupt lead orderly Blue Jones (Oscar Isaacs) in order to get her admitted for a lobotomy. Baby Doll conjures up an invented reality wherein she and the other patients of the institution are actually imprisoned in a brothel, and within this reality she conjures up a plan for escape, utilizing the help of Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Emily Cheung). Within this imagined reality, Baby Doll conjures yet another alternate reality, wherein the quests to acquire the tools of their escape are visualized as literal battles in strange, alien lands. The film keeps this charade up rather well, until abandoning it at the end of the second act, which is something I wish hadn't happened. Even though the audience knows how the ending is going to play out (and happily forgets the set-up until the last 5 minutes of the film), we're still excited to see how Baby Doll is going to get out of the institution (or brothel, as it's that reality that's really at play in the film, and not the institution part).
This is a case of a fantasy within a fantasy (within a fantasy: the film itself opens up on a stage, whereupon the events of the opening scene of the film play out.) In fact, nothing about this film is real, and, perhaps, nothing in it matters because it never really happened (even in the context of the film's reality: again, the film begins on a stage. It's almost as if everyone and everything in the film knows it's inconsequential and they're just joyfully eschewing any sort of pretense otherwise). That being said, it was still a blast to watch the escalating set-pieces (my favorite being the steampunk WWI trench battle scene replete with bunny-faced mech suit. Wow...that is a sentence that describes something I can watch...), and it's truly during these sequences that the film flourishes. In fact, if the film had been a series of vignettes with the main characters just hopping from reality to reality and fighting hordes after hordes of monsters...I would not have complained. Sort of a live-action Heavy Metal...)
Speaking of which...
I'm not entirely sure how to address the exploitation of the girls in this film. I say "girls" and not "women" because they're designed to look much much younger than they are (Baby Doll is 20, but she looks about 11), and despite that, they're still very much invested in how sexy they can appear while still kicking ass. I take this to be more an attempt to facilitate the male fantasy of what we wish ass-kicking women looked and acted like (not to say that Ellen Ripley or Emma Peel or Honey Rider or Bonnie Parker or Beatrix Kiddo don't have their place in the list of badass women...), a direct result of the influx and influence of comic books in our modern film culture. At the same time though, while the girls are sexualized in their attire, they're not sexualized entirely in their attitudes: they use the prospect of sex (rather than the act itself) to influence others and achieve their goals, and the one aspect of the film that should be the most vividly sexual prospect, the one thing that stops every character in their tracks and in fact propels the plot (and perpetuates the fantasies), is in fact never seen: Baby Doll's dance. We can only imagine what it is based on the reactions of everyone else in the film...but that's all we can do: imagine it. After watching a bunny-face mechsuit trample steampunk Germans, or a dragons chase down a prop-driven bomber, or a lone girl take on and defeat 3 giant stone samurai, there shouldn't be much else to imagine. And it would be weird for me to even point out the sexism and exploitative nature of the film, because that might be the point: all of Baby Doll's fantasies involve images of exploited girls...even the ones where they're the heroes and kicking fantastic ass. Although this might be just the male mind imagining what an exploited girl might imagine herself imagining? Perhaps. Or maybe it's just good old fashioned exploitation? An elaborate exploitation film given a massive budget and special effects and great production design and gussied up as a fantasy film, but actually slightly more tasteful than the exploitative films of the 1970's because...well...no women get raped? And all the violence is imagined?
Maybe the film just relishes being exploitative because, well, fuck it, let's not tiptoe around pleasing everyone nowadays, let's not be polite and inoffensive and safe. Maybe Joe Wright is correct in calling this film "bullshit" and "exploitation disguised as empowerment"....it's still a damn good ride, as good a damn ride as his Hanna was, but without the goofy plot point (still not revealing what it is in Hanna). To me, this is a much more tame version of the resurgence of the exploitative thriller genre, much as Death Proof and Kill Bill were. And you know what? I'm okay with that. The film itself acknowledges the fact that it is a fantasy, and if we, the audience, can't remember that when the movie starts off onstage, then we shouldn't be going to the movies should we?
Anyway...
The production design is beautiful on this film, and editor William Hoy and cinematographer Larry Fong create beautiful counterpoints to each other. The Zach-Snyder-slo-mo action is in full effect here, but here it seems oddly necessary (unlike in Watchmen, where it seriously should have been avoided at all costs): revving the action as he does works not to make it more exciting, but to make it more fantastic. However, there were a few shots where this effect created some seriously stunning images, such as Baby Doll performing a backflip in the air as flames explode in the background; or the sword-cam (if you see the movie, you'll know what I mean). Snyder stages the action with a bit more clarity this time around (aside from the Jupiter train heist), and Tyler Bates' and Marius de Vries' score, while understated for most of the film, compliments the set pieces perfectly (true, most of the music cues are covers of pop songs, but they're still utilized damned well...the use "Tomorrow Never Knows" during the train heist added the aural kick to the visual one.) This is very much an art department movie...which, again is fine, so long as the final result is as beautiful as this.
One can almost count down all the references to pop culture that the film plays with and employs: zombies? Check. Steampunk? Check. Anime? Check? Dragons/fantasy? Check. Science fiction? Check. The film is a complete hodgepodge of all the visually tasty goodness that makes pop culture exciting and refreshing. Snyder creates something out of the mishmash of disparate parts, something visually exciting to look at, and at least flirting with an interesting subtext (although I do wish Tarantino would utilize this ability more often: enough with the movie mix-tapes, and let's get back to telling an interesting story. Give us another Jackie Brown! Okay...well, give me another one...)
The film does have its flaws. Again, the most glaring is the exploitation, but if you can get past that, then the next is the makeup. I know it's supposed to look gaudy and staged...but still Carla Gugino's "mole" was too fucking distracting, and her accent unbearable. And it might seem odd for me to say this after praising it two paragraphs ago, but the use of "Sweet Dreams" for the opening scene seemed to be much too obvious (although it wasn't as horrible as Snyder's use of "Hallelujah" in Watchmen...wow. That was horrible). I know Snyder isn't known for his subtlety, but still...the last act abandons the pretense of the previous two, forgoing with the "action fantasy" aspect of Baby Doll's fantasy, and instead just staying in the "stuck in a brothel" fantasy. After going all-out for so long, I wish it would have stayed in that realm for just a bit longer. And, finally...Jon Hamm's character. I won't reveal what he does, but at the end, he displays (and then talks about, excessively) a bit of doubt that he'd had. He does a pretty important job in the film, and apparently his character had been doing this job for a while, and had been wondering why he had been called so often. But yet, he just continues with what he does, and doesn't talk about any doubt or worries he'd been having until it's much too late. Also, the fucking voice-over that bookends the film. Get rid of it, just walk out of the theater after the last shot, before it starts up. Talk about heavy-handed.
You know, now that I think of it, I think this truly is meant to be an empowering "grrl power" sort of film...it just got developed by a director who cannot do (and seems incapable of doing) subtlety. My biggest qualm with Watchmen was its overacting (for the most part) and the rote characterizations (especially for Rorschach). That film glorified the violence where the source material didn't...it wasn't making the characters or violence (or even the plot) over-the-top or theatrical or exciting. It just was. Like real life, the characters and situations just occurred and that was that: it was complex and messy. The film seemed to telegraph how the audience was to respond and react (remember when Rorschach killed his first victim? Read the graphic novel to see how much more creepy and complex a character he should have been). And 300...well, I hate that movie. Here, the film is honestly trying to empower its characters, but it does so with the wit and sophistication of a 12-year-old boy. Again, I'm okay with that, knowing that that's just the sort of director that Snyder is. His heart is in the right place, and he put on a great show, but at the end of the day, it's just pretty girls doing kick-ass things to an impressive soundtrack and visuals. He just doesn't seem to know how to be nuanced, or how to create any subtlety at all. Maybe that's why that awful voice over is there.

It was a good show, it's ABOUT TIME Jena Malone shows up on the radar again, and I, for the life of me, want a mech suit. I just hope Snyder manages to bring something much more subdued to The Man Of Steel...if I go see it, that is. I'm kind of done with the Superman origin onscreen...and I'm WELL beyond being done with Zod. Man.

Inception

Inception, (2010) - Christopher Nolan

Just look at that fucking trailer...
Alright, it's about time I review this sucker...

Inception is not that confusing of a movie. I start my review thus, as I feel that the most resounding expression I hear from those to have seen it is "It's so confusing!". I don't think it is, but perhaps that's a result of my having weaned myself on the non-linear timeline films, such as Rashomon, Christopher Nolan's own Memento, and all of Quentin Tarantino. And, no, Inception has no instance of a skewed timeline to be confusing in that regard, but in a narrative sense it seems just as dense as those films, if just more emotionally distant and cold, and considerably more self-contained. Is it a good movie though? Yes. It is undeniably good, and is one of the most entertaining big-budget movies this year, and possibly the best blockbuster of the summer (though not as fun as Scott Pilgrim or The Expendables).

However, that being said, it's fairly straight-forward, and all the talk of "It's so confusing!", or "I was lost the whole time", I just can't understand. Sure, the physics and reality of the film is heightened, but the whole thing is a heist film in retro science-fiction clothes, with a bit of character-driven angst really driving the story forward. The characters explain the logic behind the "kicks", and the levels of the dream state, and why limbo is such a horrible place to get stuck (it appears that you get old and then go insane). Even the famous final shot of the film is pretty straightforward: who cares if the totem falls or not? The key point is that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) learned to change and face his fears; even if it is all a dream, it doesn't matter because the character remains changed regardless. And all this talk of revisiting the film to "find clues" as to whether it is a dream or not is nonsense...the film ends. Simple as that. There isn't much else to explore. What's in the film is in the film, and there isn't anything else to look at.

Alright, so in the story, Cobb and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are corporate spies that use a stolen military dream-sharing device to infiltrate and steal corporate secrets from targets. This is called extraction. After botching a job on the venerable Saito (Ken Watanabe), Saito propositions them to instead plant an idea in the mind of a business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), who is poised to inherit his late father's energy conglomerate. The idea needing to be planted is that Fischer needs to break up his family's company, lest there be a monopoly. Cobb enlists the aid of the bright "architect" Ariadne (the ever-reliable Ellen Page), chemist Yusuf (the charismatic Daleep Rao), and con-artist/master-of-disguise Eames (my man-crush Tom Hardy). Saito eventually gets dragged in as well, in order to protect his investment and make sure that the job gets done. What results is crazy zero-gravity action, and bunch of shootouts and the literalism of dreams made apparent.

A lot has been made of the symbolism apparent in this film (hell, Devin Faraci commented how each character of the film represents a different faction of film-making...and I agree with that representation to a point); but at its core, the film really is about Cobb coming to terms with the suicide of his wife, Mal (Marion Cottilard), and relieving himself of the guilt he's felt for years (a very well-deserved guilt, come to think of it). The driving point for the film is one character's emotion; the core of a big-budget science fiction action film is a character's emotions. That's pretty unique stuff, and also pretty thrilling. The climax of the film comes not when Cobb and Ariadne find Fischer and ride the kicks up through each layer of the different dream levels (although it is exciting visually); the climax comes when Cobb learns to let go of the memory of Mal, and to accept her loss.

On a technical level, the film is gorgeous. The score by Hans Zimmer is bombastic and iconic (although lacking in the blowhorn department); Wally Pfister outdoes himself yet again with his beautifully precise compositions; and Mr. Nolan himself finally manages to direct an action scene that isn't confusing as hell (well, it's confusing, but in a good way; you know which one I'm talking about). This film is a hodgepodge of other films, celebrating the creation of film as art and returning the film-going experience as the thing it always should be: an event. The retro costume design evokes memories of other films, such as To Catch A Thief or North By Northwest, classic, debonair thrillers that had a class and style all their own; the Morocco chase evokes just enough of Casablanca and Raider Of The Lost Ark to feel familiar, but not so much as to feel contrived; the mountain-based climax felt familiar enough due to the countless iterations in the James Bond films (right down to the literally faceless and expendable henchmen; hell, the avalanche is right out of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, although that film used an avalanche as a means of pushing the plot, rather than purely as a set-piece); and, of course, the zero-gravity sequence (my favorite in the entire film) that is as much an homage to Stanley Kubrick as one could hope. The beauty of these sequences is the practicality of each: there is no computer rendering hackneyed images of the actors, only the actors themselves going through the danger, and that in turn makes it a much more exciting prospect to watch. Cinema, at least for the duration of this film, has become a spectator sport once again: the audience is thrilled and excited, and finally there is something worth going to the theater to see.

While not as obsessed with the film as others might be, I appreciate it for its ability to return film to the event showcase it should remain (going to a theater should be an event, I could care who you are). And, yeah, the film has its flaws (why doesn't Cobb just have his children live with him in Europe instead of risk going to America? What happens to that company that was chasing Cobb throughout Morocco? They just sorta disappeared after the chase...), and, yeah, it might have been based on a Donald Duck comic book, but it is thrilling entertainment, an exciting breath of fresh air during a summer that was bogged down with shit (Y ear One) and over-produced crap (Iron Man 2). The fact that Warner Bros. could back a high-concept piece like this is inspiring, and the audience response (in the tune of at least $700 million worldwide) is also a great sign. This could be considered a classic of the genre in a few years, but it would no doubt have any less of an impact for first-time viewers. Hell, here I am, nearly a year later, and getting thrilled just thinking about the zero-g fight. Now that's staying power.

World's Greatest Dad

World's Greatest Dad (2009), Bobcat Goldthwait

I'm surprised at this movie. Everything about it says it shouldn't work at all, and yet, somehow it does. This is, so far as I know, Bobcat's first job writing/directing, and aside from a few poor performances, he does a decent job. His ethos of "fuck style, let's just shoot it with the most basic set-ups possible" works. There isn't much he needs to do, either, to accentuate just how fucked up this film is (in a good way). This is one of the blackest comedies I've come across since Lolita (or quite possibly Elephant. No one else laughed at that? That was just me? Huh.) and I love this film for that reason.
The film stars Robin Williams as Lance Clayton, a failed novelist who has since learned to settle in mediocrity. He can't get his works published, his job teaching poetry at the local high school is under-attended and thus in line to be canceled, his art-teacher girlfriend Claire (Alexie Gilmore) is a cocktease and indifferent to his needs (and possibly cheating on him, but definitely stringing him along), and his much more charismatic creative writing teacher coworker, Mike (Henry Simmons), has been published in the New Yorker on his first attempt. On top of all that, his son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is an unlikeable, perverted douchebag and treats Lance like shit for no reason (although I guess "being a teenager" is reason enough), and has a total of one friend, Andrew (Evan Martin). Attempts to bond with his son fail, but he just keeps on trying, and Lance keeps up with the insufferable way Claire treats him due to genuine feeling for her. However, through a freak accident, Lance loses his son, and in order to cover up the cause (it's...well, it's masturbation related), Lance concocts an elaborate lie that exposes the "real" Kyle. As a result, everyone in the school relates to (and, ultimately, horrendously dishonors) Kyle. Lance rides this new-found exposure and publicity, making his son much more likable than he ever was in real life, but at grave costs of his own.
Again, this is a pitch-black film, and Williams sells it. He is a veritable revelation here, as I couldn't imagine him acting in such a subdued, sedate way (or "acting" at all! It's amazing!) He is absolutely believable as the man who has given up on being any success in his life, and he wears that sense of lost potential so well, leaving it etched in every line of his face. The scene when he discovers Kyle in his room is heartbreaking, and his attempts to clean up after his son, and the revelation that his son really was a perverted, unlikeable douchebag, points at so much disappointment it's incredible. His is the most solid acting job in the film (Kyle is played as too actively an asshole; Claire's motivations behind some of her expressions are a bit unclear---especially during the dinner scene between her and Kyle and Lance; and most of the actors playing the schoolmates come across as either flat archetypes, or as very obviously acting---especially whoever played the goth girl). However, that being said, I was still engaged in the film, completely engrossed and eager to find out just how shady a person Lance could become, and just how far he could take his lie. A film this bleak and heartless is so contradictorily refreshing that it's incredible.
Throughout this film, it was easy for me to visualize any person in real life playing off an unspeakable tragedy as this. This scenario seems to be the very thing that reality television is based on: success from someone else's tragedy. The fact that it's Lance feeding off the death of his own son makes it that much worse, but hardly that less unlikely. Bobcat's script explores the loss of creativity, family, love, and success, while being about a collective obsession with tragedy (which is itself it's own brand of tragedy). What would anyone do to be successful? And how does one measure that success?
I have an incredible amount of respect for Bobcat Goldthwait now (again, this is his first writing/directing gig), and I hope he follows this up with something equally gut-punching. Kudos to Richard Kelly for producing this as well. And God bless Robin Williams; I have a new-found respect for him. This is to him what A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints is to Shia LaBeouf: no matter what they get involved with in the future, I can never hate them simply because they've made these films. That being said, Williams needs to keep his clothes on in his next film. Like...totally on.

EDIT 4/17/11: this is NOT Bobcat's first directorial effort. Merely the first one I've seen. I guess 5 minutes on IMDB would have alleviated that, but what are you going to do?

Hanna

Hanna, 2011 - Joe Wright

This is a great movie, so unlike the other Wright-directed picture I'd seen, Pride And Prejudice (which I admit I love), that it's surprising that it's from the same director. I watched it in a packed theater (which I think is great for a film such as this), and must say that despite this being the first film I'd seen since Tron:Legacy (and we know how much I enjoy that film), this is one of my favorite films of 2011 already. So often I'd felt as if I were watching a gritty '60's spy thriller, like The Ipcress File, or any of the Harry Palmer films, or even The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Ir felt so much like a Cold War thriller that it was exciting (and not in a retro, meta way). This isn't a spy film comprised of other spy films, this is its own entity, and such a beautiful combination of action, story, and style that it really is inspiring for the state of modern action films.

The story starts off near the Arctic Circle, somewhere in northern Russia, where the titular character, Hanna (played perfectly by Saiorse Ronan), an other-worldly-looking blonde 16-year-old girl, has been trained by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana...why doesn't he get more action leading-man roles? Hulk, as despised as it is, still showed him being amazing at action), a former CIA agent who has been put to ground and is in hiding. They live together, exclusively, and he has trained her in foreign languages (including Arabic, German, French, Italian, and Spanish...at least that's what we hear), physical combat, how to stay aware even in sleep, and how to live in the wold and maneuver on her own. The object of her training is to stay one step ahead of their CIA handler, the icy-cool Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett, with a Southern twang), evade her assassins, and eventually kill her as well. To do that, Erik abandons his daughter, allowing her to to be captured in hopes of reuniting with her in Germany.

With the exception of one plot point (which I won't mention, but when you hear of it you might realize that the movie would have been much more plausible without it), the film is perfect. The Chemical Brothers' score (an energetic, electri-pop) feels more like a complete album of theirs rather than a film score, and with each change in location, Hanna experiences more and more of the emotions that she'd been forced to abandon in her training to become a perfect killing machine. She befriends Sophie (Jessica Barden), who is traveling through Morocco and Spain with her hippy parents and younger brother, and who eventually help her get close enough to Erik to meet up with him in Germany.

However, their friendship is not one grown out of contrivance or for the sake of the plot; here Hanna meets someone her own age, who gets her to experience the first twang of emotion outside of devotion to her father, and whose fate is determined on what she (Hanna) can do. The stakes of the film are determined by how involved Hanna becomes with this traveling family, and that adds gravitas to the action. Each action beat is determined by Hanna's emotions, and by the emotions of the secondary characters (especially Sophie's younger brother, and, in an odd way, Weigler herself). Even the motivations of the Weigler's cronies---the sadistic Isaacs (played in a surprisingly, deliciously perverse way by In The Loop's Tom Hollander)---are driven by some semblance of distorted emotion. Emotions drive this entire film, and that's something that at least feels new coming from an espionage yarn.

That's not to say that the action isn't up to snuff either. Hanna's breakout from a CIA safe-house is incredibly exciting, and cut incredibly well (no montage-style fight scenes, or MTV-style cutting here! No Bourne-style shaky cam! And fuck hand-held! I love it!), bolstered by, once again, the Chemical Brothers' bombastic and energetic score. The highlight of the film is another Joe Wright trademark: a single-take long shot; here, though, we follow Erik Heller as he leaves an airport, gets followed first by one agent, then another, as he makes his way to a metro station, before coming up against no less than 6 agents. In the same shot, he takes them all down swiftly, before walking off. It's beautiful: a single-take tracking shot of a fight scene featuring the protagonist against multiple assailants, showcasing the actor's fighting ability, and shot clearly enough to know what the fuck is going on and who is hitting who. Why is this a rarity in action films? Why should I praise the fact that I can see what the hell is going on?! It should be common sense, especially if it's done as deftly as it is here!

I love this film, not just for the action, or the bad-assness of Hanna herself: this is a smart, thrilling, action-packed espionage fairy tale (yeah...a fairy tale. You'll see what I mean) that is brimming with emotion and subtext (which I would go into more, but it would ruin one of the seminal emotional scenes in the film). With the exception of two minor quibbles (the aforementioned plot point, and the ending, which my friend anticipated almost beat-for-beat), this is a perfect film, and great thriller, and one of the great, smart modern espionage films. If only the modern Bond films were this good...

Also, I couldn't get Isaacs' motif, the one he whistles throughout his appearances, out of my head for days. Now that it's gone, I kind of miss it...

True Grit (2010)

True Grit (2010) by the Coen Brothers

This is my favorite "serious" film from 2010. Hands down. Practically everything about this film is absolutely perfect, and it couldn't possibly get too much praise. After the misstep that was Burn After Reading (an anarchic, misanthropic mess that I absolutely hate with a passion), Joel and Ethan Coen return to the American West, the setting of some of their more exciting and interesting works. Like their last Western, the contemporary, apocalyptic No Country For Old Men, the Coens adapted a novel (the misanthropic Cormac McCarthy wrote the aforementioned novel). Here, the Coens work not so much as to remake the 1969 Henry Hathaway-directed John Wayne vehicle (which garnered him his only Oscar) as to retell the novel by Charles Portis, which veers from scene to scene (and almost from line to line) into the realms of comedy, tragedy, and action.
The film starts with the murder of the father of protagonist Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) by the dim-witted Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). Jumping several years later, Mattie has grown into a strong-willed, quick-witted young woman determined to avenge her father's murder. To do so, she seeks out US Marshall Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, quite possibly outdoing John Wayne in his iconic role), a tough-as-nails one-eyed lawman not afraid to get his hands dirty, a man she describes as "having true grit". In true Coen fashion, she first solicits his skills while he's inside an outhouse. Begrudgingly, she convinces him to take up her cause, eventually accompanying him on his trek, along with the uptight, well-spoken LaBeouf (Matt Damon) an Army Ranger also on Chaney's trail, along with the gang in which Chaney's a member, Lucky Ned Pepper's gang.
The language of this iteration feels much closer to being out of a novel, unlike the original film, which felt considerably like a staged reading (different acting and directing styles). The romanticized notion of the American West has likewise been stripped away, and now what is presented is something at once alien and familiar, cold and yet homely. The characters understand the stakes one needs to take to survive in the wilderness, and the Coens neither romanticize nor gloss over what it takes to survive. The West is the West, both beautiful and unnerving. A vacuum of civilization with flourishes of animated life (just around the corner, in the middle of a mountain pass, one can find a doctor. In the middle of a forest the characters encounter what is only credited as the "Bear Man").
The utter futility of a civilized life is explored here, as Mattie eventually does encounter Chaney, and yet, when she is captured by Lucky Ned (Barry Pepper), is treated with an outdated, genteel sort of respect. It's quaint, the notion of bad guys still having enough morals to not mistreat a 16-year-old girl, and that's a shame. The notion of virtuous villains, and codes of conduct between enemies, during a period of life that was comparatively much more dangerous than any of us reading this would ever have to face, should not be confined to motion pictures. The futility of maintaining a proper decorum during trying times is one of the constant themes of this film.
The banality of human existence, too, seems one of the core points of exploration. For me, the most beautiful scene in the film is a sequence in which Rooster rushes to bring Mattie to a doctor. He runs the horse upon which they're riding to the ground, to the point it collapses in exhaustion, shoots it, and continues on foot, carrying her for miles in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert. The sequence is shot in the exact same way: Rooster carrying Mattie is shot with the exact same angles in which the horse carrying Rooster is shot. This is the American West; life is a means of getting from one place to the other, nothing more. A man is as replaceable a commodity as a horse is.
As an adventure yarn, this is a great film. As mentioned,the film is fun and funny in equal turns, rich in its language, and gorgeously shot (by the ever amazing Roger Deakins), this is one of the better films of 2010, one of my favorites of the year (on the list with films like Scott Pilgrim, The Expendables, and Kick-Ass, so it's pretty eclectic). This might just also be my favorite modern Coens' film, a perfect companion piece to No Country For Old Men, and visual proof that an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is entirely possible to complete faithfully.

Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy (2010) Joseph Kosinski

I fucking hate this movie. Alright, so I never saw the original Tron, Disney's 1982 psuedo-experimental sci-fi film starring Jeff Bridges, but I understand enough of the plot to appreciate it for its stylistic approach: Jeff Bridges' Kevin Flynn gets sucked into a computer program he's created, and must survive long enough to find a way to escape. The film was the first to make extensive use of computer effects and is largely memorable for that (the effects which were used for the Disc Games: competitions where two people must fight for survival in a variety of lethal games, including the ever-popular light-cycle race), and for its visual style (characters are shot in video, with their faces filmed in black-and-white film. Looks great...but apparently has a plodding, slow-as-molasses plot and is revered as a cult classic merely for the sense of nostalgia it imparts. But it looks like this:



However, Disney still has yet to make it available for purchase. After this sequel, I can imagine why.

I had hope that knowing nothing about the previous film would make me impartial, and I had hoped that this film would also fill in all the blanks that I would inevitably have. The film does answer some questions, but not in any way that is exciting; the characters talk about the events in the previous film, and occasionally there is a flashback. But a lot of the time the characters just talk. They just fucking talk. They sit and talk. Like it was the fucking Star Wars prequels they sit down and talk.

I'll actually talk about the stuff I like first. This movie showcases Daft Punk and it really is their movie (even throwing them in for a cameo); if it weren't for their incredible score, I would have completely hated the film. The score was hypnotic, and almost constantly played in the background, and for that reason alone I found something to enjoy. Second, I also admired the production design of the Grid (the world of Tron): the cold, mechanical whites, blacks, oranges and blues were beautiful, and in 3D, really were an impressive sight (although it got a bit tired near the third act). The updating of the Games (3-dimensional multi-level light-cycle races; anti-gravity disc combat) were fun and exciting to watch. Um...Olivia Wilde was attractive...I guess? Now, on to all the stuff that made this film an agonizing ordeal. First off: what I can only jokingly call the plot.

The film opens with Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund)---the 27-year-old son of the long-lost Encom founder and computer wizard Kevin Flynn---breaking into Encom headquarters and leaking a copy of its latest operating program (which, the corporate head explains, was designed with flaws purposely built in). He gets cornered by security, and, right when he is about to be captured, jumps off the roof and parachutes to safety, and then drives off to his home (which happens to be a renovated storage container...it actually looked pretty cozy). Right off the bat, I had problems with this scene. The Encom executives react to the leaking of the software as if it would legitimately destroy their very existence; movies have yet to truly grasp the fact that leaking software (even operating software) really doesn't affect profit margin for computer companies, at least not in a crushingly catastrophic way. It happens literally every day. I'll let that one slide though, since I feel that most movie writers are still playing catch-up with the increasing rate of technological evolution. So, that being said, the scene also establishes Sam as being reckless, brash, and carrying a chip on his shoulder. That also wouldn't be a problem, except that is all he is. There is no more development to his character after this opening scene: he is established as an Archetype. You know, the reluctant hero! Joseph Campbell stuff! (WRITER: "You know, reckless! Like, he rides a motorcycle, and is angry with authority and fucks stuff up just because! An adrenaline junkie!" PRODUCER: "But...who is he? You're just saying adjectives, but not really telling me who this person is as a person." WRITER: "....a who?") This film has no less than FOUR credited writers, and has had 28 years to develop a story with relateable, interesting characters (fuck, I'm not looking for Sam Lowman or Charles Foster Kane...fucking R2D2 is more interesting than anyone in this film. At least give me a mobile, whistling garbage can), instead the main character is Reluctant Hero Version 2.

Now, through a series of events, Sam gets summoned to his father's abandoned Arcade, where the Tron game resides. He activates his father's old computer, and gets sucked into the Grid. Once there, he gets captured by a security program, and thrown into the Disc War games, where he must fight for survival. He undergoes the hand-to-hand disc game, and the multi-level light cycle race. These were easily the best scenes of the entire film. The film's villain, CLU (also played by Jeff Bridges, horribly rendered to look 28 years younger) is made aware of Sam's capture, and personally tries his hand at trying to kill him during the light cycle race after Rinzler (the star performer in the Disc War games) fails to do him in.

Then, Sam is saved by Quorra (Olivia Wilde), and eventually brought to Kevin Flynn, who is living in the outskirts of the Grid (off the grid. Clever.), apparently meditating or some shit for nearly 30 years. Through a series of events so boring I can't even really describe them because it's such a jumbled mess I can't remember what scenes happened in what order, Kevin gets his identity disc stolen, and this is a big deal because with the identity disc, CLU can leave the Grid and enter the real world, along with an army of programs designed to...do...stuff? Also, Quorra is a program who may or may not aid mankind somehow. Then the movie ends. Oh, and at some point Rinzler switches allegiances and helps the Flynns after a change of heart that is never-the-fuck explained.

Okay, so that's the story. I gave it away, and I don't give a shit. There's a lot there that doesn't make any sense. First off, CLU is horribly rendered, and it wouldn't be a problem (or so creepy in an uncanny valley sort of way) if the film didn't go out of its way to place him in the most brightly-lit scenes, thus accentuating how dead-eyed and fucking creepy he is (which may be the point? Since CLU is an un-aging program based on Kevin Flynn's younger self? And he should look like a program? Even though all the other programs---essentially everyone else in the movie---are played by normal human beings?) Anyway, the creepy-eyed CLU needs to find Kevin, and to do this he sucks Sam into the Grid in the hopes that Sam's appearance will cause Kevin to reveal himself. That makes sense...but then CLU actively tries to knowingly kill Sam during the Disc War games. In fact, it is literally the first thing he does, literally going out of his way to do so. CLU even explains how important both Kevin AND Sam are, to their faces...so why the fuck try to kill them the second they show up? Yeah, it makes for an exciting scene (the best, actually. Too bad they're all within the first 30 minutes of the film), but it doesn't make any fucking sense.

Next up: the ISOs. Isomorphic something-or-others. Essentially, they're living, self-conscious, aware programs that are basically living beings in a purely digital realm. Kevin explains their origins, and then goes on to explain how important they are. I'm paraphrasing, but he says they'll change religion, biology, medicine, etc. Except...we don't really know how. The ISOs don't really do anything, even within the context of the Grid. He just says they'll change the world.

The Grid: is it a city or an entire world? If it's a city, why is it always empty, except for security ships hovering around capturing rogue programs (who are basically just ISOs hunted for extermination)? There is NO ONE in any of the scenes set in the city streets, yet when Sam and Quorra go to see Zuse (an obnoxiously flamboyant Michael Sheen) in his club (club? Right? It was a club?), the place is packed, and when CLU needs to reveal his "army", there are fucking millions of them. From the few scenes I could piece together of the original Tron, the programs were like people, and had foibles and personalities. Here, the few programs we do meet are set up with the most basic of characterizations and show up only as needed by the plot.

What is CLU's intention? I understand that CLU wants to leave the Grid and get into the real world and continue his stated goal of ridding the world of what he sees as imperfections (in essence, wipe out humanity). But once in the real world, he ceases to be a threat. His army is armed with discs and poles. They wouldn't be able to do much damage to anyone out here in the world of guns and knives and nails-in-wooden-boards. And the mechanics of escaping the Grid aren't entirely clear...Sam and Quorra escape by standing on a tiny platform and holding onto each other as they are sucked up into the portal leading to the real world. Would CLU's army have to hold his hand and stand on the tiny platform too? Would they even be able to leave because they're not the fuck real people, but programs (Quorra could leave because she's an ISO and thus, effectively, a living creature)?

TRON. The original Tron was called Tron because it featured a character named Tron, who was apparently a pretty important character in that film. Tron is not in this movie. At all. (Rinzler is apparently Tron...but it is never explicitly stated, merely implied, and I think that's why Rinzler suddenly decides in the middle of a fucking mid-air dogfight to change sides...but I don't know. I'm just the audience member who didn't see the original film because it's not available on DVD or VHS. The characters never go out and say, "Hey! Rinzler is definitely Tron! And remember all that shit Tron did that was a big deal? Man, we need to get him back to our side! That'd be exciting and add some emotional weight to our adventure!...eh, fuck it. Let's do that in part 3.")

I understand and appreciate the subtext of the film: CLU represents the hacker ethos of free information; Sam and Kevin represent privatization and the desire for privacy and an identity that is unique, and how the contradiction of unfettered information and privacy leads to conflict. CLU can't even really be considered a true villain, since he is merely fulfilling the parameters of his programming, and once Kevin leaves the Grid...which is an active choice fueled by the realization that by creating CLU, he'd unleashed an unintentionally aggressive aspect of his personality, one fueled by the quest for all knowledge...and it's only when he and Kevin merge into one being that either of them can be at peace. In an age of an internet where one can literally get any piece of entertainment or knowledge or program right now, this is a pretty topical discussion to throw into a blockbuster film. For approaching that touchy subject, I give the film props. However, the film fails as a film, with too many plot holes and lapses in logic (even by its own standards) to really be purely entertaining. When the action kicks in, the film is delicious to look at, but when it comes to adding weight, pathos, and personality to the characters (or even originality or interest), director Kosinski fails. It's almost as if he can't be bothered, not when there's light cycles and light-sails and Olivia Wilde to look at!

It's a shame, because I went from being indifferent prior to the film's release, to being excited to see it, to being horribly disappointed in it (and actually pissed that it's taken up so much time for me to write this). There was so much that this film had going for it to make it great, and it looked great, and had an amazing score and utilized 3-D extremely well. But it had a shit story that killed all that potential. And that's the real pain of it all. This is another 3-D special effects extravaganza released in December that hopes audiences will be blown away by the effects to not notice that there is nothing at stake for any of the characters.

Look, I can enjoy a shitty movie just for fun (I gave Punisher:War Zone a glowing review, remember?) But that doesn't mean that I should have to shut my mind off completely just for the sake of bright lights and pretty production design. Even shitty movies I enjoy (Punisher: War Zone. Billy Madison. The Musketeer. Live Free Or Die Hard) have stakes and have a plot and have a story that push the characters and forces them to experience some sort of change. There are clear stakes, and there is a logic at play that is upheld throughout the film's runtime. I can get behind a bad movie if there is a story that makes sense, and if it is at least fun. Here, the characters are archetypes, pure and simple (Sam especially. It doesn't help that Garrett Hedlund didn't really do much with what he was given), and the plot doesn't make a lick of sense, and it is unashamed about that fact. The movie is lights and sounds and an incredible score and Jeff Bridges, dead-eyed Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Jesus-Michael-Sheen!-What-are-you-doing?

I wanted to get behind this film, but couldn't. Four writers and nearly three decades should have done something to make this better than what it was, or at least original (even Tron, as plodding and boring as it apparently is, is still remembered and original and at least tried something new, even if it did apparently fail). And it's a shame.

Oh, and one last thing: the use of hallucinogenic substances made this film (and the score, especially) bearable.

P.S. - in the theatre there were teenagers on their phones, talking loudly and fucking taking pictures. One teenager was apparently completely perplexed as to why Kevin Flynn didn't wear shoes at his home, and talked loudly about that fact for FIVE MINUTES. I fucking hate going to the movies sometimes.

The Social Network

The Social Network (2010) David Fincher

This is, by no stretch, director David Fincher's best film, nor is it the best film of the year (ahem, True Grit is probably the best film of the past two or three years). However, being a David Fincher film, it is incredibly precise, technically astounding, with an amazing score by Trent Reznor, an impossibly slick script by Aaron Sorkin, beautifully muted cinematography by longtime Fincher collaborator Jeff Cronenweth, and magnetic acting by everyone involved (except for Justin Timberlake). Also, this movie is not about the founding of Facebook. That is, it is about the founding of Facebook, but that's not what it's about. I'll get to that in a minute.

I'll get the technical stuff out of the way first. After the misstep that was The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (a gorgeous, at times marvelous film bogged down by a maudlin, trite, ploddingly meandering plot and a plot device that ultimately was never really explored) David Fincher reigned it in considerably. Gone is any of his trademarks (high contract lighting; CGI-augmented camerawork (and performances); desaturated colors; single-frame shots), and instead the palette is a cold, mechanical metallic gray. His characters, being college students, are considerably more fun than his previous characters (with the exception of Bob or Tyler Durden...but even then there was a darkness to them).

Aaron Sorkin's script, as noted before, would be quotable if one could follow the whiplash-fast delivery provided by the actors (not at all a negative comment, don't get me wrong). Sorkin's script bounces around from the building of the site, and intercuts it with the settlement cases, wherein Zuckerberg gets all the juiciest lines. Trent Reznor's gorgeous score merely hints (early on) at the dark intensity hidden behind not only film-Zuckerberg, but also the plot (and, to an extent, every one of us); there's something animal and primal about it (seemingly-random piano chords repeating themselves to a brooding theme that is counterpoint to persistent low percussion, like approaching footsteps). One could imagine a collision about to occur. His arrangement of “The Madness Of King George” during a Yale crew meet was brilliant, playing against low-depth-of-field, slightly undercranked footage of the competing crew teams. Beautiful. Technically, this film is absolutely gorgeous, restrained, and engaging. Now, on to the nitty-gritty...

The film opens with with Mark Zukerberg (Jesse Eisenberg)getting dumped by his then-girlfriend Erica Albright (Mara Rooney) in 2003, getting drunk, and blogging about his breakup while simultaenously building a website to spite not only Erica, but also every girl within the area of Harvard University. This stunt arouses the attention of not only the Harvard faculty, but also the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer) in Yale, who were hoping to build an exclusive website to connect the Yale and Harvard students online. As we all know (apparently) Zuckerberg agrees to help the Winklevoss twins, but instead, with the financial help of his friend and roommate Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), steals the idea, creating Facebook (with the advice and support of Napster founder Sean Parker, played pretty terribly by Justin Timberlake, who looks, sounds, and acts as if he belongs in high school...that is, I've seen and worked with high school actors who knew better than to “act” while acting) and ultimately winding up the world's youngest billionaire...who has lost all of his friends in the process.

The film is not accurate, glossing over many fine details (such as the fact that Zuckerberg had a steady girlfriend throughout the founding of Facebook in real life), and fabricating others (it is suggested that Zuckerberg created Facebook to attract the attention of Erica, and, in a way, win her back). Up to the release of the film, the real Mark Zuckerberg gave interviews downplaying the implications made in the film, and deriding it as being inaccurate. His real motive, he's said, for creating Facebook is that he “wanted to create something...that's what these guys don't get: sometimes you just want to create something.” That's true, but also doesn't make for very good cinema.

And this is what the film is truly about: the romanticizing of our lives in a digital realm. Comparing real-life footage of Zuckerberg with the film's interpretation of him, one can't help but notice how tongue-tied, clumsy, and devoid of charm Zuckerberg is; Eisenberg's interpretation, however, dominates every scene he's in, and can barely stand the fact that he's smarter than everyone in his presence, nor can he conceal that fact. There is a charm to his pompous conceit, one which makes you loathe him and watch every move he makes: it's a delicate balance, one that a lesser actor would be unable to portray. Yes, film-Zuckerberg is a self-centered, narcissistic asshole, but there's a pity and brilliance to him, a youthful rebellion that transcends actions and makes him almost legendary (as his lawyer says at the end: “You're not an asshole. You're just trying really, really hard to be one”). And this is what we all do in social networking.

Those who deride the film (or laud it) for its handling of the founding of Facebook are missing the point. The film is not accurate, nor does it need to be so. It is a fictionalized account of a real-life event: just like JFK is, or Schindler's List. Or The Great Escape. Or...Die Hard. Yeah. What The Social Network does, however, is make visual all the digital histories we fabricate by building a profile on any number of social sites. One of the underlying philosophies behind Web 2.0 is the idea that we can get followers, fans, “likes”, hits, “friends”...whatever it is you want to call it...to follow our mundane lives. So how do we go about doing that? We create a version of ourselves that others would want to know and understand, or at least be interested in reading about. We don't talk about the uninteresting shit, nor about what we hope no one finds out about. We don't create digital selves to hurt our real selves. We romanticize our existence to make it something worthwhile, something meaningful and interesting.

No one wants to see the real Mark Zuckerberg in court for defrauding his friend, or the tedious court preceding, or sitting at a computer building code. While it is factual, it doesn't make for a very interesting film-going experience. One of the key moments in the film is when Zuckerberg realizes that adding a relationship tab is probably the most important thing he could add to the site, as people are interested in relationship statuses (or just relationships in general). The real Mark Zuckerberg said the relationship tab wasn't too big a deal, and the inspiration for it wasn't at all like it was in the film . Who cares? It's more exciting, more romantic, and more dramatic the way the film presents it (in the film, a classmate asks if Mark knows if a girl is dating someone, and he says “How should I know?” before getting the idea and running back to his dorm to add it to the site design).

The whole film is about relationships, and how they could be lost through passion, jealousy, or malice. In a larger sense, it's also about the relationship between the stories we tell ourselves through memory (“our” version of events, and others' version of events, to create Truth), and the relationships formed through fiction (how many “friends” do you have online? How many have you actually met? Talked to? Hung out with? Dated? How many have you lost? When you lost them, did it affect you? Or were they, truly, digital friends?) The Social Network is just another elaborate fiction created in a digital age to make life worth following. Doubt that explanation? Then realize that for the first time in almost a decade, Mark Zuckerberg is actually interesting to talk about, and is getting more interviews now than he has in the past. He derides the film, yet it has provided him with renewed publicity.

His fake self has made his real self that much more interesting.