30 June - "There are no second chances here. This is the last chance house"

Double Jeopardy (1999)

dir. Bruce Beresford (Black Robe, 1991)

CAST

Tommy Lee Jones (Small Soldiers, 1998)
Ashley Judd (Flypaper, 2011)
Jay Brazeau (Watchmen, 2009)
Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek into Darkness, 2013)
John Maclaren (The Day After Tomorrow, 2004)
Annabeth Gish (Beautiful Girls, 1996)
Michael Gaston (Hackers, 1995)
Gillian Barber (Jumanji, 1995)
Daniel Lapaine (The 10th Kingdom (TV mini-series), 2000)
Roger R. Cross (The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2008)
Keegan Connor Tracy (White Noise, 2005)
Dave Hager (Lincoln, 2012)
Spencer Treat Clark (Gladiator, 2000)

Although the essential premise, that having been framed and convicted for the murder of her husband Ashley Judd as Elizabeth Parsons can now hunt down and execute her two-timing, death-faking husband without fear of legal repercussion, is inherently flawed (they could still charge her with a multitude of other offenses), the idea is still a fun one to explore. Double Jeopardy may be near the top of the list as far as my favorite movies go. Of course, that it is basically a female-driven version The Fugitive doesn't hurt, replete with Tommy Lee Jones' Travis Layman being essentially the same as his Lt. Samuel Gerard.

Ashley Judd lends her own flair, however, and adds herself to the delightful group of leading ladies who can reasonably pull of the character of a mom-who-kicks-ass. Tommy Lee Jones, in turn, complements but doesn't overshadow, and is totally comfortable in his familiar space of a crotchety official who gradually begins to believe in the mission of his adversary.

Also, when Parsons surprises her incognito husband at a bachelor auction: delightful!

15 Dec - "Life is lonely, boring, and dumb"

The Doom Generation (1995)

dir. Greg Araki

CAST
James Duval (Independence Day, 1996)
Rose McGowan (Devil in the Flesh, 1998)
Cress Williams (2 Days in the Valley, 1996)
Margaret Cho (Face/Off, 1997)
Johnathon Schaech (Poison Ivy II, 1996)
Nicky Katt (The 'burbs, 1989)
Parker Posey (Blade: Trinity, 2004)

I can honestly say that this is one of the better movies that I've seen recently, and I'm going to stick it at the top of my list of movies about disaffected teenagers. The writing was phenomenal, I liked a lot of the one-liners and I had a hard time picking one to title this post. Here are the runners-up:

"That guy has the intelligence of a stool sample"
"Ever felt like reality is more twisted than dreams?"
"'I love you' can mean a lot of things, like, 'you'll do until someone better comes along,' or, 'I don't know how I feel but this is what I'm supposed to say,' or, 'shut up, I'm watching TV'"

So basically you've got these three kids, Xavier, the one on the bottom, kills a convenience store clerk and Amy and Jordan get implicated and all three go on the lamb together. Jordan is naive and optimistic, Amy is enraged and hateful, and Xavier is batshit crazy. But Amy really loves Jordan, even though she starts sleeping with Xavier, too, and Jordan always forgives Amy whenever she does anything awful to him. I guess the point is that the kids are apathetic about the world because the world is apathetic about them. They don't think about the future, only the present moment. There's symbolism in this movie, albeit unsubtle. Everytime they stop at a convenience store the total is $6.66, and Amy keeps getting misrecognized by strangers who call her Sunshine, Kitten, etc., and their rage at Amy's refusal to be recognized is homicidal.

Sometimes I've got to watch this kind of nihilistic movie just to make myself feel sane again. It's a road movie with no MacGuffin, and then at the end they just keep driving onwards without a destination, like it doesn't even matter if they get there or not.

27 July - "I am already grown up. I just get older."

The Professional (1994)

dir. Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, 1997)

CAST

Jean Reno (La Femme Nikita, 1990)

Gary Oldman (Air Force One, 1997)

Natalie Portman (Heat, 1995)

Danny Aiello (2 Days in the Valley, 1996)

Michael Badalucco (Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985)

Robert LaSardo (Waterworld, 1995)

Adam Busch (Sugar & Spice, 2001)

Jernard Burks (The Hangover, 2009)

Peter Linari (Men in Black, 1997)
Maïwenn Le Besco (The Fifth Element, 1997)
Don Creech (The Island, 2005)

What a wonderful movie - this one is tops. I added the "Favority Favorites" tag - because that's for movies that I think are high caliber. First: Gary Oldman as the villain = genius. And he does this thing where he takes drugs or something before he did anything really evil and it was just so totally Oldman. He's tops, my favorite actor, I think.

Natalie Portman is also awesome, she's like ten or so in this movie and you can really tell that even at that point she was a skilled actress. Jean Reno, the star, is also fabulous, but unfortunately his entire career is pretty much the one role. In fact, I usually just refer to him as "that French actor" and people usually understand who I mean.

The Professional is the movie which, for me, at least, defines the older man-younger girl relationship theme. Natalie Portman's character isn't just looking for a father figure - she's clinging the best family she's ever known with the least likely candidate, the hitman who lives down the hall.

For me, the most moving scene in the movie is when Leon goes to see his boss, played by the quintessentially Italian Danny Aiello. At this point we see that Leon isn't exactly the brusque tough guy that we imagined him to be, and certainly not the untouchable tough that other hitmen movies present with their characters. Aiello dominates Leon, he can barely get a word in edgewise. We learn that he is illiterate, let's the Italian manage all of his money. Leon is afraid to ask for what is his. He's meek. The girl gives him something to stand up for. She gives him something to live for. It's phenomenal acting, there's a vulnerability in both the protagonists that is all too rare in this sort of movie. Because it's an action movie and ostensibly there's no room for emotion, but that's wrong. The subtlety of the emotion is what makes it work.

6 July - "You got city hands, Mr. Hooper. Been countin' money all your life."

Jaws (1975)

dir. Steven Spielberg (Hook, 1991)

CAST

Roy Scheider

Robert Shaw

Richard Dreyfuss (James and the Giant Peach (voice), 1996)

Carl Gottlieb (The Jerk, 1979)

I not sure why, but for some reason I'm just totally not in the mood for writing about Jaws. Which is odd because I would about myself that, at given moment, I am on average 70% enthusiastic about talking about Jaws (and sometimes I'm sleepy or hungry and I don't really feel like talking about anything at all, so obviously that skews the statistics.)

Despite this setback, we will press on. Jaws is one of the most iconic American films ever. Consider the soundtrack, DUN DUNT! - two notes that are immediately recognizable and undoubtedly creepy. How about that perpetually misquoted line, "You're gonna need a bigger boat."?

And the villian! There are no special effects, there's no sinister back story. It's not a mutant shark, it's not a super shark, it's not a particularly clever shark. None of that, this movie appeals to the basic shared human instinct: sharks are creepy as fuck. AH! There's one here!

Look at those unfeeling black eyes, the mouth that doesn't seem to fit quite right on it's head. If you can call that a head. It just sort of tapers at the front end of the body. Would you even call it a snout?

Sharks are just one of those animals that when I see them in real life I just have to say AH! because I really cannot wrap my head around the fact that I am sharing the planet with something that is so different from me. It's like, what are you doing in my universe?

And if you don't feel anything like that sort of feeling then there is not enough wonder in your life.

The major conflict of the movie is that even as Chief Brody knows that the shark will kill again, Mayor Vaughn doesn't want to close the beaches on fourth of July weekend, the big tourist holiday and the major source of revenue for Amity Island. Isn't it so true that we refuse to account for the primal forces of nature as we are making our personal agendas? Mayor Vaughn's conscious cognitive dissonance stems from the belief that nature is something controlled and subjected. The horror of Jaws is the in-your-face reality that this enormous animal is very real - it's in the world with us right now, and it's bigger than you and it's underwater and it can kill you so, so easily and if it decides to chill out off the coast of New England during tourist season there isn't a lot you can do about it. That's scary stuff, right there.

And my favorite part, because I'm also tired, and I want to go home.

Show Me The Way To Go Home - Jaws from Thomas Kelly on Vimeo.

29 June - "Ain't you glad the sun kinda sets. Prepares you like?"

Dead Man (1995)

dir. Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers, 2005)

CAST

Johnny Depp (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993)

Gary Farmer (Smoke Signals, 1998)

Crispin Glover (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993)

Lance Henriksen (Cyrus, 2010)

John Hurt (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, 2010)

Robert Mitchum (Scrooged, 1988)

Iggy Pop (Tank Girl, 1995)

Billy Bob Thornton (Love Actually, 2003)

Alfred Molina (The Da Vinci Code, 2006)

Jared Harris (From Within, 2008)

Gabriel Bryne (Stigmata, 1999)

The hard part, sometimes, is figuring out what's supposed to be symbolic and what's just a detail thrown in to just mess with your head. Dead Man is a movie like that. It begins with a silent and seemingly endless train ride in which the surroundings become more and more alien. Johnny Depp is wearing a very silly looking plaid suit in a caricature of propriety, the dignified man reduced to a fool. He checks his watch as if it matters. The lonesome twanging rhythmless music contributes to the feeling that something is always just about ot happen, but it never does and altogether the frustrated anticipation confirms the suspicion that, yes, this is what Limbo will be like.

A few weeks ago I met Gary Farmer at the Cayuga Picnic on the Share Farm at the northern tip of Lake Cayuga, New York. I was too shy to say hello but someone I was with pushed me up anyway and introduced me- even though Gary Farmer was right in the middle of eating!! I was totally flustered and tried not to say anything at all lest it come out in garbled nonsense syllables (something that happens only in cartoons and in my life). Here's the picture:

And here he is in Dead Man, tending to William Blake's bullet wound.

Gary Farmer's character in Dead Man, Nobody, is on the most basic level an Indian guide. However, in keeping with the bizarre tone of the rest of the film, Nobody is alternatively arcane and vulgar. At times he's bonking a chick in the middle of the woods and scolding William Blake for interrupting "a very romantic moment," and at other times he's reciting poetry and speaking in mysterious allegories. The line I keep going back to is this,

"Things which are alike in nature grow to look alike, and the speaking stones have lain a long time looking at the sun...Some believe they descend with the lightening, but I believe they are on the ground and are projected downward by the bolt."

Because I haven't quite yet figured out what this movie is supposed to mean (And I am determined as Hell to prove that it means something). I keep going back to that line and trying to figure out how it relates to the rest of the story.

The most obvious interpretation of Dead Man is that, like Lost or The Sixth Sense, Dead Man is about a man traveling into the afterlife. I prefer to think that William Blake does not die in the physical sense when he is shot by the factory owner's son, but that Dead Man is about learning to walk with dignity through life that may indeed take you on a path "through endless night."

I've this theory for a while that the recreational abuse of certain mind-altering substances has to do with a cultural mindset that is alienated from the transcendental state. That sounds wordy. I mean that because drugs like tobacco or alcohol or mushrooms or whatever have been traditionally used in ceremonies in order to access powers or spirits or knowledge which exists beyond and above the everyday world. It was controlled, it was mediated, and so maybe people abuse them because they are trying to access that transcendent state but they don't even why or how or the reason. So what happens in Dead Man is that everybody keeps asking William Blake for some tobacco and he keeps saying, No! I don't smoke! And when he finally gets some it's from a MISSIONARY! Don't you see what's happening?

He's trying to find God, but realizing that life nor death nor afterlife is straightforward like a westward train track. God is conflated in culture and nature but these things are as stones on the ground while the spirit ascends like smoke in a twisting cloud. 

So I don't think Dead Man is about death, I think it's navigating life. Nobody is the benevolent, but sometimes absent and confused Spirit of Goodness, and the bounty hunter, Cole is the force of darkness, the black devourer of souls. What Nobody implies by his speech about the speaking stones is that we are delivered upon this earth with a plan, no, nothing about William Blake's plan turned out successfully, but we find ourselves on the earth and what happens next is up to you.

More than anything, I would like to emphasize that this film is very visually striking.

I'm gonna open up the shell a little bit today, guys, don't judge me too harsh

Paris's Actor Crushes (In no particular order)

Edward Norton - I like Edward Norton not because of the versatility of the characters he plays, but because he pretty much always plays the same kind of guy, but he does it VERY WELL and not derivatively at all like some Meg Ryan's. Norton's character is always sorta smarmy, on the wrong side of the law, maybe a bit insane but there's a heart of gold in there, and that's the way I like it. I think America's got a bit of an obsession with anti-heroes, and doesn't Eddie over here, all scrawny and fast-talking and probably high, fit the bill so well? He is a thrill to watch. One time I watched a documentary about invasive species narrated by Edward Norton, and it was awesome. I went on Amazon to figure out what that documentary was called ("Invaders") and then I learned that Edward Norton ran the Boston marathon with some Masaai guys to raise some development money. So that's a thing.

Notable mentions: American History X (1998), Down in the Valley (2005)

Russell Crowe

Is it possible that I just enjoyed Gladiator a lot? Very. Russell Crowe is also awesome in his own right. Remember when he kept getting in trouble for punching people? Haha - what a dick! Look at this picture: It's hilarious. Of course, ol' Russell's getting a bit older and not so gladiator-style fit. But I can still idolize a legendary character of the past (Maximus! Maximus!)

Notable Mentions: Gladiator, The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Sam Rockwell

Like Edward Norton, Sam Rockwell is a character actor, which I like. He also sort of looks like Ed Norton but maybe just a little less attractive. I especially like Sam Rockwell because he has played dirty period characters on multiple occasions. I like actors who can own hideous and disgusting. You know, like the bad guy in The Green Mile, or the sidekick in The Assassination of Jesse James. Like the previous two actors, Sam Rockwell often plays a guy who takes a beating, and that's appealing to me for some reason.

Notable mentions: Matchstick Men (2003), Choke (2008), Moon (2009)

Ethan Hawke

I know what you're thinking: Paris, you have access to the whole internet and this is the best picture of famous actor Ethan Hawke that you could find? He looks like a serial killer in this picture, but give me a break. I'm a graduate student. I always enjoy performances by this guy, who typically plays the pigeon- you know, sort of naive, well-intentioned, but in way over his head and maybe accidentally fallen on the wrong side of the moral line. He's in thinky-type movies, but not ones where you have to think too too hard because if Ethan Hawke is in there you know that he's the good guy. I don't want to see Ethan Hawke ever playing the bad guy, it would undermine my whole sense of reality, which is, of course, founded largely upon on my understanding of movies.

Notable mentions: Gattaca (1997), Daybreakers (2009), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Great Expectations (1998)

James Franco

I'm pretty sure that everyone has a crush on James Franco, but I haven't asked around enough to be sure. First of all, he's hilarious, which is awesome. Do you guys all remember that TV show Freaks and Geeks? Also featuring Seth Rogen? Okay - so many James Franco movies aren't so awesome (case in point: Spiderman, Tristan + Isolde), but he's very funny and super cute so he gets to be on the list. A lot of people these days are telling me that I've gotta go see 127 Hours, but I just don't really want to. You know? I know how it ends and, honest to God, I don't really want to have the visceral experience of watching it all unfold. Even if, in my brain, I'm thinking they probably handle that bit with a lot of cinematic class, but I'm empathetic. I don't want to hear any more about the guy being stuck in a crevice and having to saw his arm off. No thank you, my dears. I'll get my Franco fix on Funny or Die.

Notable mentions: Pineapple Express (2008)

Harrison Ford

This guy is awesome for all reasons. First, there's the rugged good looks of the 80s-90s. Don't tell me your heart doesn't skip a beat when Leia watches him going down into the carbonite! Han Solo, do you know that I love you, too? The next best reason is the scene where Indiana Jones is fighting that guy in The Last Crusade, and then the guy gets chopped up in the airplane blades. You see, I love watching my leading men get beaten up. I also like Harrison Ford a lot because he seems to hate appearing in public, and when he gives interviews for the movies he seems to be really displeased about the whole business. Just really not into talking with Conan or whoever. I respect that, Harrison Ford.

Notable mentions: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, dammit, I've even seen Six Days, Seven Nights more than once!

Steve McQueen

There's that Sheryl Crowe song that goes, "Like Steve McQueen, all I need's a fast machine." I like that. I like Steve McQueen because of those scenes in the cooler, when he's playing with the baseball and taking to that little Irish fellow who cracks and gets all shot up. I also like him because he was the subject of a documentary I watched called "The Essence of Cool" and he totally is. He's got that whole grungy, confused, and, to be honest, sorta homely look going on, but he's working it, you dig? That's awesome. I guess he's known for his gritty action roles. I've never seen Bullit, but I'd like to. It's about a detective and it has this iconic car chase, I dunno. He's dead, though. He's the only dead one on my list.

Notable mentions: The Great Escape (1963), Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), The Magnificent Seven (1960)

17 Feb - "It was hot, and strange, and lonely in India"

The Secret Garden (1993)
dir. Agnieszka Holland

CAST

Kate Maberly (Finding Neverland, 2004)

Andrew Knott (Black Beauty, 1994)

Maggie Smith (Hook, 1991)
John Lynch (The Secret of Roan Inish, 1994)

This movie is based on the beloved book by Francis Hodgson Burnett, who also wrote A Little Princess. I think both books are critical for young girls to read. I know I didn't watch A Little Princess (I prefer the 1995 version over the 1939 one with Shirley Temple) but the point is that courage and kindness are what make that little girl a princess, and that's a goddamn beautiful moral.

The Secret Garden is a movie I like to watch when I'm bummed out because the metaphor here is that, like a garden, hearts need to be tended and cared for in order to flourish (awww). Little Mary Lennox starts out as a nasty and annoying little brat, but you see, it's only because nobody ever loved her. When her parents die, she's shipped off to her uncle's lonely manor on the moor, where her situation hardly improves. Lord Craven has hardly spoken to anyone and spends little time at home ever since his wife, Mary's mother's twin sister, died in an accident. He's so heartbroken that he's hardly met his own son, Colin, who has never left his bedroom since everyone seems to be convinced that he'll drop dead any second.

There's a happy ending though! Colin is fine, and he learns to walk, Mary gets a knack for pulling weeds, and Lord Craven comes home to discover that the garden he tried to lock up forever is in full bloom, and everyone can be happy forever.

Don't you feel better now??? I do.

11 Jan - "He doesn't have a name so death can't find him!"

Waterworld (1995)

dir. Kevin Reynolds (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991)

CAST
Kevin Costner (JFK, 1991)
Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love (TV), 2006-2011)
Tina Majorino (Napoleon Dynamite, 2004)
Dennis Hopper (Choke, 2001)
Jack Black (King Kong, 2005)

Robert LaSardon (Bubble Boy, 2001)

My brother says that Waterworld is a knock-off on Mad Max. To that I say, I never really cared for Mad Max anyway, but I DO like Waterworld, even though it's commonly referred to as the worst movie ever conceived. And to be sure, there are an awful lot of plot holes, like how all that contemporary stuff remains preserved on the surface of the water for thousands of years. And the whole "Smoker" culture seems terribly unsustainable. I mean - imagine a whole world utterly devoid of natural resources besides fishies and dirt derived from decomposing bodies. There shouldn't be any wood, there shouldn't be any metal. None of it makes sense and certainly they can't be affording to decimate the scant stuff they've got at the rate that occurs in this movie.

Kevin Costner is a particularly dull actor. Really, he can pretty much suck the emotional reaction out of any scene. Waterworld isn't awesome because of the acting, although I think Dennis Hopper does a fine job, it's because of the crazy atmosphere and the technical scenes of sails unfurling and gears grinding. Waterworld = what a whacky place!

Dec 11- "I saw a guy at the state fair that was a little bit bigger"

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
dir. Lasse Hallström

CAST
Johnny Depp (Benny & Joon, 1993)
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Quick and the Dead, 1995)
Juliette Lewis (From Dusk Till Dawn, 1996)
John C. Reilly (Cyrus, 2010)
Mary Steenburgen (Elf, 2003)
Crispin Glover (Dead Man, 1995)

I pulled an old favorite out of my PERSONAL DVD COLLECTION because I put netflix on hold for the holidays. Let me first say that this movie is iconic Johnny Depp to me. I think what always gets me is how everyone keep telling Gilbert, "you gotta do better." Because poor Gilbert isn't just responsible for his own mistakes, but he has to take care of everyone else too. So there's thing buildup of responsibility and guilt that's really kind of a bummer. I guess it's a good movie for anyone who's feeling stuck in place, because the end moral seems to be that you have excise all of the dead weight, burn your home to the ground and start all over again. Or maybe it's that the confines in which we find ourselves are in fact artificial. You get wedged in so tight that you forget that leaving is still a viable option. I dunno - I'm getting allegorical.

So this has some great performances by Johnny, obviously. And Leo DiCaprio plays the retarded younger brother, and I've read some interviews about him playing this role and I don't remember the details but that it was interesting. This might have been his first major film. My major criticism is that they changed the character Becky from the book into an older, hippy-dippy free-spirit type. While in the novel she was younger than Gilbert, self-involved and meaner. The opposite of hyper-responsible Gilbert and she leaves him at the end. Juliette Lewis plays a nice Becky, and so I'm not sure why she likes Gilbert so much.

This is kind of a lousy entry, considering this is one of my favorite movies. I'm guess I'm just in a gloomy-gus mood. Sorry, gang.