1 May: "Do you have a name honey? Good, because we already picked one for you"

Burning Palms (2010)

dir. Christopher Landon

CAST
Rosamund Pike - Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Dylan McDermott - The Mistress of Spices (2005)
Shannen Doherty - Girl Just Wanna Have Fun (1985)
Zoe Saldana - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Nick Stahl - Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Robert Hoffman - She's the Man (2006)
Paz Vega - Sex and Lucia (2001)
Lake Bell - It's Complicated (2009)
Adriana Barraza - Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Victoria Patenaude - The Last Exorcism (2010)
Jason Brooks - Star Trek (2009)
Victor Webster - Must Love Dogs (2005)
Kate Albrecht - Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement (2004)
Cici Lau - Legally Blonde (2001)
Colleen Camp - Valley Girl (1983)
Tom Wright - Troop Beverley Hills (1989)
Dimitri Diatchenko - G.I. Jane (1997)
Jon Polito - Highlander (1986)

A disturbing collection of cinema vignettes set in L.A. Most of the themes-drug abuse, illicit sexuality, narcissism and apathy-remind of a Brett Easton Ellis novel. However, it doesn't quite achieve the put-togetherness of a Grand Hotel-style movie (that's when there's a bunch of intersecting storylines) because apart from two stories featuring Shannon Dougherty as a psychiatrist with a terrible accent, there is zero overlap in the plotlines. Overall, Burning Palms was fun to watch in a i don't want to admit that i'm fascinated sort of way, because the humor was alarmingly dark and totally sick. I probably won't watch it again but I imagine that I'll bring it up in casual conversation fairly often.

18 Nov - "Not everybody can afford security"

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009)

dir. Daniel Alfredson

CAST
Michael Nyqvist (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009)
Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009)
Lena Endre
Georgi Staykov

November 18th, I think sometime around midnight, brought me to the conclusion of the Millennium trilogy. The third installment commences after Lisbeth has been arrested for the attempted murder of her father and it is a race against time to see if the truth will prevail over corruption and iniquity.

Consequently, the film is dominated by the trial and plays out much like an episode of Law and Order, with the male protagonist Blomqvist trying to prove the veracity of Lisbeth's allegations against her father, her guardian, and psychiatrist even as Lisbeth refuses to testify in her own defense.

That's a curious point and one of the notable complexities of this character. It's almost as if she's daring the court to find her guilty, by refusing to defend herself and dressing like a caricature of a punk. You might also say that she refuses to legitimate the proceedings with her participation, and those who conspired against her rigged the evidence from the start. Why give them the satisfaction of watching you struggle in the trap they have laid?

24 Oct - "No means no. Don't you guys get that?"

Devil in the Flesh (video, 1998)

dir. Steve Cohen

CAST
Rose McGowan (Encino Man, 1992)
Alex McArthur (Conspiracy Theory, 1997)
J.C. Brandy (What Lies Beneath, 2000)
Phil Morris (Wag the Dog, 1997)

There seems to be a lot of movies that are about beautiful girls who go batshit crazy, contrive a romance with a totally innocent male victim, and almost ruin everything for anybody before their sexy conniving ways are revealed and the girl either dies or is brought to justice.

This is one of those movies.

What's frustrating is that this one was a little different in that it focused on McGowan's character, Debbie, instead of centering the narrative on her romantic interest and English teacher, Peter. This kind of turned Debbie into an anti-hero, she was just playing the odds! Unfortunately, as Debbie gets crazier and crazier, we get less and less insight into her mind as the story turns toward Peter trying to convince his virtuous fiance that all this is just in Debbie's head. But it's not! Peter plays into it, giving Debbie special attention in class and feeding her fantasy.

But I'm appealed by this idea of crazy-bitch-as-hero and I think it should have been explored more. In one scene, her grandmother hits her with a cane when she discovers that Debbie's been hiding her own clothes instead of wearing the outdated, conservative duds that granny provided for her. So Debbie rips the cane out of her hand and fights back with prejudice. The grandma begs for mercy, and in a vicious moment of self awareness Debbie says, "Fuck mercy! You don't have any mercy. My mother never had it, my father didn't have it, and I don't have it. It's a family thing!"

I found myself wanting Debbie to succeed in her escapist fantasy, until she started murdering people, and I find myself reflecting on that essential feminist critique, "how would this story be different with a male protagonist?"

22 August - "The way out is through love, and you are just horny and lonely"

Twelve (2010)

dir. Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo's Fire, 1985)

CAST

50 Cent

Ellen Barkin (Drop Dead Gorgeous, 1999)

Gregg Bello (G.I. Jane, 1997)

Chace Crawford

Rory Culkin (Signs, 2002)

Zoe Kravitz (It's Kind of a Funny Story, 2010)

Thomas McDonell (The Forbidden Kingdom, 2008)

Erik Per Sullivan (The Cider House Rules, 1999)

Emma Roberts (Aquamarine, 2006)

Charlie Saxton (The Happening, 2008)

Kiefer Sutherland (voice) (Stand By Me, 1986)

Everything about this movie was like reading the diary of an angsty, self-indulgent teenager. I'll bet it's on the favorites list of many a depressed 15 year old, and I bet at least one of them has written a poem about it.

Like a lot of the really crappy movies I've seen, I can tell that at one point there was a lot of potential in this script. Some of the narration by Kiefer Sutherland was honestly insightful. I think the major downfall was the tedious angst pouring out of the main character.

I am a huge fan of movies with the Grand Hotel theme-but they're hard to pull off well. In this movie, very few of the characters received the depth of treatment they deserved. The main problem was the main character, played by Chace Crawford --who is so conventionally handsome that I'm having trouble stomaching this poster I'm looking at. This guy has a shit backstory, his mom and so he's really dark and doesn't talk about feelings and is the dreamiest drug dealer (???) on the mean streets of whereverthehellthisis. Losing moms is way sad, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it justifies a whole movie of the protagonist acting like a tool. I much preferred the bitchy prom queen character, who has one brief moment of self awareness and vulnerability when she confesses to a guy that she doesn't really like the person that she is but nevertheless dies thinking about how nobody will ever stop talking about how cool her death was and how much they'll wish they were there to see it. Insight like that is wicked, it makes good movies.

Depression very rarely makes a good movie. That's because in the real world nobody gets to wear their hearts on their sleeve. Steve Carell can play a depressed guy pretty well (Little Miss Sunshine, Dan in Real Life), and that's because pulls off the necessary degree of black humor. He plays depressed guys who are nonetheless coping and that makes them admirable characters, characters we feel good about watching. This White Mike character sucked because he wasn't coping, he was wallowing-and that's when I said this movie was self-indulgent, because wallowing is self-indulgent. Watching it didn't make make me feel better about anything. It made me angry, not sympathetic.

The next movie I watched is really good, way better than this crap, I promise.

6 March - "Because we are the people you do not see"

Dirty Pretty Things (2002)

dir. Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, 2000)

CAST

Audrey Tatou (Amélie, 2000)

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children of Men, 2006)

Sergi López (Pan's Labyrinth, 2006)

Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda, 2004)

It might be worth noting that this is Audrey Tatou's first English-speaking role. Good on you, girl! I really liked this movie, but my gentleman companion for the evening didn't seem to enjoy it as much, so: don't pick movies with sexual exploitation themes for a date?

Or maybe I just need to choose my movie-buddies more discriminately.

It also might not have helped that two minutes in I exclaimed, "black guys with British accents, score!"

Because I think that's a combo we can all support and admire.

This movie is about foreign immigrants scraping survival from the underbelly of London, but when Okwe, a Nigerian doctor forced to flee his home and family, finds a human heart in a hotel toilet, everything gets a little more complicated.

I like this because there's a good balance between suggesting the complicated ethics of the situation and making sure that the audience can still comfortably remain on the moral high ground. We know who the villain is, we know what he's doing is wrong. On the other hand, Sergi López gets a nice little monologue in which he explains that an illegal immigrant can sell their kidney for a passport, a rich person receives a kidney and lives, and Juan gets a nice payout and everyone wins, right? In one scene Juan takes Okwe to a woman and he refuses to operate, and she begs him to go through with it. She needs that passport. She thinks it's worth the risk. A lot of people do.

On the other hand, we've created a situation where the body itself is capital that be mined for resources. Where human flesh can conceivably be bought and sold. I think the question is not one of whether some people should be allowed to sell their organs. I think the question would better be, why should they have to?

Anyway, there's a happy ending. :)

19 Feb - "Sometimes, if things are closed, you just open them up"

Eastern Promises (2007)
dir. David Cronenberg

CAST

Naomi Watts (I Heart Huckabees, 2004)

Viggo Mortensen (The Road, 2009)

Vincent Cassel (Elizabeth, 1998)
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Tamer Hassan (Batman Begins, 2005)

Eastern Promises confronts uncomfortable issues like human trafficking, slavery, rape. But while the ending isn't exactly upbeat, it doesn't all end in tragedy either, so that's good.

I like happy endings. Hold that against me if you want.

So a Russian girl dies giving birth and the doctor (Watts) sets out to find out the mysteries contained in her diary, getting entangled with the Russian Mafia, who have no desire to have their dirty laundry aired out, in the process. Viggo plays a not-very-villainous Russian climbing through the ranks of the insidious organization.

This was a good movie, don't get me wrong, it was gritty in the right places and the performances, I think particularly Vincent Cassel's, who acted with astonishing depth, were spot on. My major hangup is that Watts and Viggo kiss at the end, that's stupid. Sure, there was a little sexual tension throughout their interactions, but honestly, there's no need to shove a romance down my throat just because you've got 2 relatively attractive people in a movie. This movie would have worked so much better without that kiss, and just the subtle implication of romance that will never be realized.

Here is how it could have been even better: Get rid of Naomi Watts' character. Seriously, I don't think she was integral to the plot and mostly just dragged down everyone else.

I submit this plot alteration: Viggo, an informant in the Russian mafia attempts to unravel a human trafficking operation while the villanious antagonists are trying to kill the little baby, living evidence of their insidious crimes. No chicks.

I think it would be better. Now someone go write it.

22 Jan- "You know, I bring out the best in the men who fuck me"

 Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
dir. Mike Figgis

CAST
Nicolas Cage (The Wicker Man, 2006)
Elizabeth Shue (Back to the Future II, 1989)
Julian Sands (Arachnophobia, 1990)
Richard Lewis (Robin Hood: Men in Tights, 1993)
French Stewart (Stargate, 1994)
Mariska Hartigay (Lake Placid, 1999)
Laurie Metcalf (Toy Story 3 (voice), 2010)

Danny Huston (Children of Men, 2006)

I'd like to recommend this movie as one NOT to watch when you're feeling a little blue. I tried to watch The Exorcist for the first time last night. But I couldn't even get past the title menu - too spooky. The funny thing is that I'll bet it's not even THAT scary. I mean, it was made in the 70s and I think I've got at least a lot of that jadedness towards cinematic horror that the old folks are always complaining about. So I started Leaving Las Vegas and I finished the last forty minutes or so this morning and, damn, I think it's going to be one of those days where I stay in my pajamas and don't wash any of the dishes. It was depressing.

If you're unfamiliar, it's about a man who travels to Las Vegas with the intention of drinking himself to death. He hires a prostitute to stay with him on his first night there, and they fall in love, but he makes her promise that she won't interfere with his agenda, which is to be drunk until he's dead.

It reminds me of a line by Kurt Vonnegut, from the preface of Welcome to the Monkey House, he says something to the effect that he smokes. and he thinks that may other people smoke for the same reason, because, "smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide." Do you think that might count for drinking as well? Here's another line: "Death will be an awfully big adventure." That's Peter Pan. The whole time you're watching this movie it's like nothing matters. Because he's still going to die at the end, and nothing is going to change that and you sort of get mad at Elizabeth Shue's character for putting up with his ridiculousness, for not trying to stop him and not leaving him either, she just tolerates it and he's dying and she's not doing anything about it. And you know before it ends that the finale is going to be very sad.

Which makes me wonder if he really loved her all that much. Since he didn't love her enough to stop drinking. But I think I'm misinterpreting. I suppose the point is that two flawed individuals (she's engaged in her own willfully self-destructive profession) were able to accept each other for exactly what they were for a brief period of time. I guess the romance is that Elizabeth Shue was able to love Nicolas Cage even though she knew it was going to end in tragedy. Although the he was kind of a dick to her when she was heading out to work, and she kicks him out after he brings home another prostitute. They make up in the end though.

I always like movies about Las Vegas because they never fail to take advantage of that contrast between the falsity and opulence of the Strip and the beautiful starkness of the desert. A silly example I always think of Fools Rush In, with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayak. That movie could have been really good, but poor Matthew Perry always takes down the classiness a few notches. All the same: deserts. I should get out to one of those someday.

16 Jan - "But he's so cautious. He won't go into dark places"

Lust, Caution (2007)
dir. Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005)

CAST
Wei Tang
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Leehom Wang

This movie is set in WW2-era Shanghai, and it's about a college drama club in 1940s China who discover and attempt to murder a high-level traitor collaborating with enemy Japan. The youngest member of the club, Wong, ingratiates herself with the traitor Yee's household and quickly becomes his mistress. The club gets drawn into the REAL resistance movement and the conspiracy deepens. Wong delves deeper and deeper into her make-believe role, rejecting her own true love for the farce of romance with the sadistic Mr. Yee. All of the heroes die.

You guys, this movie was super-sad. The heroine gave up everything to become the perfect spy, only to fall for her own act, and betray the people she swore to protect and die for. There's one part where the gang realizes that in order to carry on their scam, Wong is going to have to sleep with Mr. Yee. And so one of the other club members, the only one with any experience, is elected to show Wong how it's done. That's the part where Wong becomes a real outsider in the group, and her commitment to her alter-ego begins to overpower her own true self.

I think this was marketed as an "espionage thriller," I don't think that's right at all. I guess it's a "wartime romance," but a really twisted one. Lots of explicit sex scenes in here, but that's pretty much the name of the game with these foreign films. Plus, I think I watched the uncut version (it was 2:40 long)

Jan 15 - "Hold still, or it'll get messy"

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

dir. Neils Arden Oplev

CAST
Michael Nyqvist
Noomi Rapace

I guess Scandanavian (I'm not even going to pretend to know anything about that corner of the world) cinema is on the rise. First there was Let the Right One In (2008) (recently remade in America, haven't seen that yet), then the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, and this year another movie which I'm eager to see called Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, about a very wicked and sinister Santa Claus.

Well, I didn't read the book even though it's been all over the place and on the front shelf at Borders for what seems like my whole life. I did read the first several chapters of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest on my Mom's kindle on an airplane until she made me give it back. It was pretty cool: fast-paced, mysterious element, quirky characters, etc. The characters are sort of one dimensional but at least they're consistent. Mikael Blomqvist is so dull he might be well casted with Kevin Costner, but I'm pretty sure they got Daniel Craig for the American remake so maybe he'll be able to pull some complexity out of his butt or something.

Sorry for being snarky. Too much coffee today. I'm gonna apply a "Don't watch with your Aunt" warning sticker to this movie, unless your Aunt is super cool like mine, because there are lots of sexy parts. Even worse, they are almost exclusively non consensual. Although this movie still has a lot more going on than appealing someone's perverse fascination with perversion. I think Noomi Rapace will be showing up in a lot more American movies, including a SciFi flick for 2013 that may or may not be a prequel to Alien (1979).

Jan 9 - "I get so cold. It's desert cold."

Good Dick (2008)
dir. Marianna Palka
starring
Marianna Palka
Jason Ritter (Joan of Arcadia (TV), 2003-2005)
Mark Webber (Broken Flowers, 2005)
Martin Starr (Adventureland, 2009)


Here's a sweet independant romance about an impossibly awkward girl fascinated by soft-core porn being courted by a homeless video store clerk with a past history of drug abuse. For serious.

This Marianna Palka girl seems AWESOME! She's from Scotland, and moved to New York to act in plays, and then all the sudden she decides she's going to make a movie (She wrote, directed, and starred in Good Dick) which gets accepted into the Sundance Film Festival! Good on you, girl! It's just a pity that she chose a title which prohibits ever bringing this up in casual conversation without a detailed explanation: No, this isn't a sex movie. There's no nudity and no sex scene, not even one that classily pans out the open window.

I really thought this was a good movie, even the side characters seem to have important stuff going on without overwhelming the central plot, which is concise but sincere and touching. My one unanswered questioned was about the guy's motivation for courting the girl. I mean, it's clear he's fallen in love by the end, but at the beginning it's possible he was just looking for a place to stay, because he was living in his car. Was he tricking her? Maybe he just found this lonely, socially inept girl and thought he'd manipulate her into letting him into her life. Because he goes to such great lengths to get into the apartment of this girl who doesn't even wash her hair until halfway through the movie, and then he starts sleeping on her couch, and then he tricks her into letting him sleep in the bed. I'm not positive that his motives were pure, that's all, because it seems like he puts up with a lot of abuse before the end of it, and if he didn't need a place to stay, I don't think he would have stuck around.

Probably no one knows what I'm talking about because no one else has seen this movie. But you should!

3 Oct - Kids and whales and vaginas

Free Willy (1993)
dir. Simon WIncer, starring
Jason James Richter (Clown #2, Bones: Double Trouble in the Panhandle, 2009)
Lori Petty (Tank Girl, 1995; A League of Their Own, 1992)
August Schellenberg (The New World, 2005; Eight Below, 2006)

So for the very first time in my life I got around to watching this classic tale of child-large mammal camaraderie, and as I expected, it was wonderful! I definitely got teary-eyed when Jesse (who has a really depressing resume) transferred his own unrequited love for his mother onto that big ol' whale. And bonus points for having an actual Native person, August Schellenberg, play the Haida park manager. However, the best part of the movie (besides the iconic leap over the marina wall) was the reprise of Michael Jackson's "Will you be there" during the final credits, which is an appalling $1.29 on itunes. I'm always pleased when I hear a MJ song I like, because I'm so sick of "Billy Jean" and "Thriller" ("I want you back" is also starting to wear on me). Anyway, the Free Willy theme is nothing short of uplifting. In summation, if you haven't already seen Free Willy, get around to it.
Score: 5/5 - this isn't great cinema, but it perfectly accomplishes what it sets out to do, make me empathize with an orphan kid and his cetacean buddy



Teeth (2007)
dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein
starring Jess Weixler (no movies that I've heard of)
John Hensley (that insufferable kid on Nip/Tuck)
Josh Pais (Adventureland, 2009)

Why? Needed to see something more grown up than Free Willy
This one popped up on my netflix recommendations and since I'm still waiting for The Assassination of Jesse James to show up, I had to pick something I could stream online. I didn't know quite what to expect from the description, which said "when virtuous high school student Dawn becomes the victim of sexual assault, she discovers that she has an unusual line of defense: a toothed vagina." Given that, this movie was a lot smarter than I expected, and I think well executed overall. Dawn is a sweet, sexually repressed girl who publicly advocates abstinence (there is a scene where she almost masturbates while fantasizing about herself in a wedding dress). Around her is a culture which openly denies female sexuality. In science class, the teacher finishes his piece on the penis, and asks the class to turn the page to a big gold sticker covering the vagina diagram. When one students asks why its okay to talk about penises and not vaginas, Dawn answers that females have modesty built into their nature. Dawn's toothy metaphor is that women aren't passive at all, they're active and volatile. Dawn is violated over and over by men who convince her they are trustworthy. In the process Dawn comes to own her sexuality and realizes that her "Vagina dentata" is a badass weapon that can control (the male in the consensual sex scene finishes unscathed). The highlight of this movie is the final scene with John Hensley, who plays a perfectly awful stepbrother and almost redeems his suckiness in Nip/Tuck (plus his face annoys me - stop plucking your eyebrows, asshole). The cinematography is awesome, I like the recurring image of the nuclear towers above most of the shots. I love Dawn's dorky outfits (long sleeve shirts under tank tops). Sometimes these indie films really blow but this was a treat, that being said, I wouldn't recommend it as a date movie, unless you're a lesbian, then I think it would a fun pick and you would both appreciate it.
Score: 5/5 - clever, pretty to look at, and made me feel empowered