1 April - "That wasn't one of my first instincts "

Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

dir. F. Gary Gray

CAST
Jamie Foxx - Toys (1992)
Garard Butler - The Ugly Truth (2009)
Colm Meaney - The Commitments (1991)
Bruce McGill - Elizabethtown (2005)
Leslie Bibb - Iron Man 2 (2010)
Michael Irby - Flightplan (2005)
Gregory Itzin - Adaptation. (2002)
Regina Hall - Danika (2006)
Christian Stolte - Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Annie Corley - The Cider House Rules (1999)
Richard Portnow - Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Viola Davis - The Help (2011)
Michael Kelly - Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009)
Dan Bittner - Adventureland (2009)
Brooke Stacy Mills - Hairspray (1988)
Brian Anthony Wilson - The Happening (2008)

I didn't like this movie at all. I don't even have anything good to say about it. It's about a guy who's wife and daughter are murdered, but through legal whateverness one of the guys who did it gets a light sentence because he cooperated with the rest of the investigation. The Gerard Butler character is so pissed off that he goes totally batshit crazy and orchestrates a complicated scheme to get back at the justice system. What I particularly dislike about this movie is not even the ambiguous morality, its the lack of a clear division between anti-hero and antagonist. My friend Cora clearly was in the anti-hero camp. She said that the point of the movie was to figure out how Gerard Butler was achieving these heinous murder-plots. I thought that was horrible to watch because most of the people that Butler's character killed were only tangentially related to the incident which pissed him off so much in the first place. He wasn't fighting for anything, and that made him a bad protagonist to root for. On the other hand, he makes a fatal error in the end and blows up, making Jamie Foxx the "winner" of the story and Butler the "loser." But even in that perspective I don't think any clear statement about the evils of either the justice system or the evils of vigilantism was made. And the grrrwehatecorruptlawyers trope induced in my the repulsive horror of what those ideas mean to people who really believe in them. Batman is pretty cool, but in the real world I don't condone vigilantes.You can't just go around killing people. Do I even have to say that?

The absence of a conflict resolution (was there even a conflict to begin with?) made me feel like I had only seen half of a movie. This wasn't a story, it was just a bunch of stuff that happens. I've seen movies about dudes with misdirected anger before, but Gerard Butler lacked the compelling interior logic of a character like Hannibal Lector. I say, if you're going to make an anti-hero, go all the way. It works for Dexter. But if you're going to waffle in-between you aren't going to accomplish anything meaningful.

10 Feb - "I've nurtured every sensation man's been inspired to have"

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

dir. Taylor Hackford (Delores Claiborne, 1997)

CAST
Chris Bauer (Snow White: A Tale of Terror, 1997)
Caprice Benedetti (Practical Magic, 1998)
Kim Chan (Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985)
Marcia DeBonis (The Truman Show, 1998)
Tom Riis Farrell (Sleepless in Seattle, 1993)
Charles A. Gargan (Serendipity, 2001)
Juan Carlos Hernandez (War of the Worlds, 2005)
William Hill (Analyze This, 1999)
Judith Ivey (A Life Less Ordinary, 1997)
Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986)
Monica Keena (Orange County, 2002)
Susan Kellermann (Planes, Trains and Automobiles, 1987)
Vincent Laresca (The Associate, 1996)
Heather Matarazzo (Welcome to the Dollhouse, 1995)
Debra Monk (The First Wives Club, 1996)
Craig T. Nelson (Troop Beverley Hills, 1989)
Novella Nelson (It's Kind of a Funny Story, 2010)
Connie Nielsen (Rushmore, 1998)
Benny Nieves (Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, 2005)
Al Pacino (Heat, 1995)
Keanu Reeves (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, 1989)
John Rothman (Ghostbusters, 1984)
Vyto Ruginis (Cliffhanger, 1993)
Charlize Theron (The Burning Plain, 2008)
George Wyner (Spaceballs, 1987)


I'm swiftly developing an inordinate fondness for Al Pacino, because even though I used to think he was only in boringsnoring mafia movies, but now I see he can be a crazy wild card addition to a cast, and I like that. On the other hand, Keanu Reeves is about as charismatic as a baked potato, but he is clean looking and inoffensive enough to reasonably play the easily manipulated Southern hotshot lawyer Kevin Lomax. In the climatic scene, however, when Lomax is supposed to assert himself and, I dunno, express an emotion maybe, Keanu fell way flat. It was pretty uninspiring.

Charlize Theron was better than I expected, mostly because she still wasn't really on the radar when she did The Devil's Advocate. But she very convincingly fell into a maddening descent. I don't really know what else to say about this movie. It wasn't very remarkable, I guess.

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?

12 Oct - "What money I have is about eleven years old"

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)

dir. Clint Eastwood

CAST
John Cusack (Must Love Dogs, 2005)
Kevin Spacey (The Ref, 1994)
Irma P. Hall (Patch Adams, 1998)
Jude Law (Gattaca, 1997)
Paul Hipp (Face/Off, 1997)
Kim Hunter (Planet of the Apes, 1968)
Geoffrey Lewis (Maverick, 1994)
Leon Rippy (The Patriot, 2000)
Bob Gunton (Glory, 1989)
J. Patrick McCormack (Wag the Dog, 1997)
Rhoda Griffis (Road Trip, 2000)
Michael Rosenbaum (Sorority Boys, 2002)
Ted Manson (Elizabethtown, 2005)
Ann Cusack (A League of Their Own, 1992)
James Gandolfini (True Romance, 1993)

As a northern in the South, I empathize with John Cusak in this movie, because I feel like we're both working on uphill battles. The glory, of course, is that in the end the status quo hasn't changed a bit, because it never does here.

Everybody says exactly what they don't mean.

The movie is about a murder. Kevin Spacey's character, whose one of those elite Southern mansion types who walks around with Ugga, the UGA school mascot, shoots his young lover, played by Jude Law trying his best at a real low Southern accent. Over the course of the trial, Spacey's homosexuality is revealed, but the grand revelation, which should have ruptured the community, doesn't ruffle any feathers because everybody already knew he was gay, so they just shuffle side to side and bury their heads a little deeper in the sand.

They all know what they say they don't know.

Adding a little flavor to the mystery are the colorful side characters including my favorite, the Lady Chablis, a transvestite showgirl, and a voodoo priestess. All the glitz and distractions only remind you that Cusak isn't meant to solve the mystery, because in this place the party never stops and everyone just keeps smiling and smiling as the world around them crumbles. Savannah reminds me of decay and ruined lost cities like those in Mexico. One day tourists will be walking around those Southern mansions and wondering what kind of people lived in places like these.

The movie seems to jump mostly between various parties and courtroom scenes. Even as Cusak is trying to solve the mystery he has to respect social custom and play nice. Another difference between Northerners and Southerners: Northerners get about the business at hand while Southerners are always playing at niceties, but at least when a Northerner gets around to being nice you can be sure that it's genuine. I watched this movie a week ago so I'm not sure what else I wanted to talk about but I liked it. I think I might try to read the book.

3 Oct - "What kind of stupid did you eat for breakfast?"

Girl Fight (TV) (2011)

dir. Stephen Gyllenhaal

CAST
Anne Heche (Wag the Dog, 1997)
Jodelle Ferland (Eclipse, 2010)
Dawn Chubai (Eclipse, 2010)
Keith MacKechnie (Christmas Vacation, 1989)
Keely Purvis (X2, 2003)
James Tupper (Joe Dirt, 2001)
Lanette Ware (Music and Lyrics, 2007)

Lifetime movies are more annoying to make blog posts on because they don't have posters or DVD covers that I can easily put at the top of my post. This one is also very new and so there aren't any funny quotes on the internet and I forgot to write one down while I was watching so i had to think really hard and remember one. Like the last Lifetime movie I watched, I think the original source material wasn't really rich enough for an engaging story arc. It was more linear than anything else.

The thing is that this uncool girl becomes buddies with the coolest girls in school, and so drops her old nerdy friend who has glasses and a hat. Unfortunately, the cool girls find out about some ungenerous things the protagonist posted on Facebook and so they lure her to a house and beat the crap out of her for half and hour, and film the whole thing so they can post it on Youtube. Of course, the bloodied girl rats out those bitches right off and her parents get the video and press charges. There's an extended kerfuffle about whether the girl will testify against her assaulters, but I don't really see why that was necessary. It's on video! That's pretty much open and shut. They aren't going to get away with it. There's also some harumphing about what the sentence will be. The mother is in favor of life sentences but they end up getting like a year of probation, each. I think somewhere in the middle would have been more reasonable. I mean, that's some pretty sadistic tendencies they've demonstrated, a terrifying absence of empathy, kind of socio-pathic. They should have gotten some time to cool off, maybe a year? But I guess it's cool, because they'll never get good jobs now.

31 March - "Do you have any idea what it's like being English?"

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

dir. Charles Crichton

starring

John Cleese (Shrek 2 (voice), 2004)

Jamie Lee Curtis (My Girl, 1991)

Kevin Kline (Wild Wild West, 1999)

Michael Palin (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975)

Stephen Fry (Alice in Wonderland (voice), 2010)

This is a good movie. I think it's very funny.

I could probably end my review there. I have a lot of work to do tonight.

No, I'll tell you about it. I guess the real brilliance in this movie is how you've got two classical British humorists, Cleese and Palin of Monty Python's Flying Circus, balanced out by the American's Kline and Curtis, so if you're like me and never really for Monty Python or British humor in general, it's okay because Kevin Kline is hilarious in a very accessibly-American way and although Jamie Lee Curtis has never really been a comedienne, she's plays her part negotiating between all these extreme personalities very well.

The humor is mostly situational. A lot of it revolves around this theme of British people being very proper. My favorite part is when John Cleese, a worn-down barrister, is about to be seduced by Jamie Lee Curtis, the femme fatale, and she's upstairs and he's naked downstairs and this family walks into the "flat" and he's buck-naked and they just sort of exchange pleasantries like it's the thing to do. It's very droll.

The other great bit is when Michael Palin's character is trying to kill this old woman because she's a witness, but he keeps killing her little dogs by mistake. And he gets so upset because he's killing the dogs, and then when he kills the last one by accident again, the old woman's heart gives out and she dies and he laughs and laughs and laughs.

So, it's a heist movie, which is always good. And nobody trusts each other and everyone is lying. There are many layers of intrigue which only add depth to the situational comedy.

There's a sequel of sorts called Fierce Creatures. A sequel insofar as the plot and characters are entirely unrelated but the cast is the same. Same deal as Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. As in that case, the second attempt is not as brilliant as the first, but Fierce Creatures is still pretty funny. So there it is.

Better analyses when I'm less stressed out.

16 Nov - "You know, Lee, there's a long history of this in Catholicism"

Secretary (2002)
dir. Steven Shainberg
starring
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, 2001)
James Spader (2 Days in the Valley, 1996)
Jeremy Davies (It's Kind of a Funny Story, 2010)

So I'm having kind of a hard time figuring this one out. It's about this girl, Lee, who's clearly unstable and vulnerable. She's just gotten out of a mental hospital, her father's a drunk mess and she has no healthy social relationships, except maybe with her high-school boyfriend, Peter, but clearly something is awry there as well.

So she becomes a submissive to her boss, Mr. Grey. And I feel like the way the filmmakers intended it to work out is this thing about how there's all different kinds of love and this dom/sub thing isn't wrong, just different. Here's some quotations I lifted off imdb to that effect:

Lee's father: "You are the child of god's holy gift of life. You come from me. But you are not me. Your soul and your body are your own, and yours to do with as you wish."

Lee: "In one way or another I've always suffered. I didn't know why exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt and I've found someone to feel with. To play with. To love in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows that I can see that he suffers too. And that I want to love him."

Mr. Grey: "Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it? "

OK - I get it. It's edgy. She finds fulfillment in punishment and control. Ok. But it's still fucked up. Lee has a family that cares about her, but she probably never really felt cared for. We get three males in this movie. The first is Lee's father, who is an alcoholic, calls her from random parts of town, and generally gets up to shenanigans which always prompts her to cut or burn herself, but then towards the end he seems to get cleaned up a little. The second guy is Peter, played by Jeremy Davies, he's kind of geek but well meaning and you can tell he wants to take care of Lee, but she is unsatisfied with him, especially after he refuses to spank her. The trick is that she liked him a lot before she got involved with Mr. Grey, who does a lot of spanking.

I guess what I'm having trouble with is that, if Lee was a passive and lonely girl, was she being self-actualized by accepting a life with Mr. Grey, as I think the filmmakers are trying to suggest, or was she caving, as I am inclined to believe. Instead of letting Peter love her as an equal, she decided she would always be weak and in need of control. That's the opposite of a self-actualized person, as I've understood it from Nietzsche.

She decided to be happy with her lot, which I guess was caused by family relationships and other psychological factors, rather than confronting whatever it was that made her feel so weak (prolly the dad). But then again, she's not sad at the end of the movie. She's happy with her life and Mr. Grey. The movie ends with a long, self-satisfied stare into the camera. Still, I'm left with the feeling that she's simply run away from her problems. She gave control over her life to someone else so she wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. I dunno...

SO maybe it was a happy ending, but she's no Ubermensche.

3 Nov - "I'm really hoping it's cats that look like Hitler"

The Social Network (2010)
dir. David Fincher

CAST
Jesse Eisenberg (Cursed, 2005)
Rashida Jones (I Love You, Man, 2009)
Brenda Song (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (TV) 2005-2008)
Justin Timberlake (Black Snake Moan, 2006)

This is the first time I get to post about a movie I saw in a REAL LIVE THEATER! Even though I already said that I didn't really want to see The Social Network (soon to be shortened to just "Social Network") It was either that or Hereafter, and I think we've established that I already know how that ends.

1) Why didn't they just call the movie "Facebook" - is "The Social Network" (put in quotes and not italics because I'm not referring to the movie itself, but only the title) supposed to be a metaphor for the networking and subsequent alienation necessary to create the website.

2) Everyone's freaking out about how cool the Facebook is. It's just a website though, I mean, I know everyone is about making money and stuff, but it's not like Mark Zuckerberg invented something VERY cool - on the contrary, he invented something lame enough to catch on like wildfire, so did the Snuggie guy, but nobody's making movies about him (or HER?)

3) I think I'd really like to delete my facebook account, but sometimes I like to look at pictures of people (not always boys I like, thanks). Would that make me cooler? Or just less accessible?

4) It was a bit misogynistic, but not as much as that other blogger led me to believe. Mostly I was annoyed about how superfluous most of the female characters were. In general, I'm a fan of cinematic conservatism. That's not to say I don't throughly appreciate the intricacies of set design in a Wes Anderson movie, or the over-the-top style of Kamikaze Girls, which is a Japanese movie I watched this morning and I'm going to write about when I get a cool minute. Because in those movies it's understood that all the extra stuff MEANS something. That's why in film adaptations of books it's common to combine or remove characters. Every line and especially every character has to add depth and purpose and direction to the plot, otherwise why would they be there?

Which might have the problem with The Social Network. It had a plot, sure, but what was the story? Did it mean anything? In this respect, the girls, with the exception of Mark Zuckerberg's ex-girlfriend, did not add anything to the story. They were tacked on objects representing, if anything, only the carelessness of the lifestyle coveted by the male protagonists. Brenda Song, who I recognized from the Disney Channel, plays a whacky girlfriend who I can only assume was written in for comic relief (Bitchez be cRazzzy!) Rashida Jones played an assistant lawyer who was so obviously inserted as a token "admirable woman" to serve no other purpose in the story except to appear well-meaning that I feel sorry for her to have taken that part, it's that lame.

So that's a rant I guess. But for what it was, it was alright.