13 Aug - "It's like when people see Jesus in a pancake or something"

Devil (2010)
dir. John Erick Dowdle

CAST

Chris Messina (You've Got Mail, 1998)

Logan Marshall-Green

Jenny O'Hara (Matchstick Men, 2003)

Bojana Novakovic

Bokeem Woodbine

Geoffrey Arend (Super Troopers, 2001)

Jacob Vargas (Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, 1997)

Matt Craven (Timeline, 2003)

Joshua Peace (Lars and the Real Girl, 2007)

So, Dowdle, who I've never heard of, was the director of this movie, but M. Night Shyamalan did the story. Poor M. Night, I think he's having trouble getting directing gigs since all of his movies made so little money. Personally, I think he's a fine director, it's his stories that are too heavy-handed with the symbolism. Devil certainly has the key characteristics of a Shyamalan film, beside the fact that M. Night himself is not in the picture. First off it is set in Philadelphia, home to both M. Night Shyamalan and myself. Secondly, it's got that final act revelation that really clearly spells out how everything else in the movie is interconnected, because you wouldn't want anyone walking away after the first viewing with any misunderstanding, and that's what kills me. Signs, The Village, even The Sixth Sense had these pandering endings where they flash back to all the relevant bits and hit you over the head with this grand revelation and I'd much rather than the filmmaker give me a little credit as a thoughtful human being and let me put the pieces together on my own. That's the difference between a great film, one that demands review and reinterpretation, and a dumbass one that makes fools feel clever. It's a soft pitch, M. Night, and that's why you weren't drafted into the big leagues.

Apart from that, though, Devil was a pleasurable psychological thriller that kept you guessing for a good long while.

6 Aug - "You're altogether a human being, Jane"

Jane Eyre (2011)
dir. Cary Fukunaga

CAST

Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, 2010)

Michael Fassbender (300, 2006)

Judi Dench (Chocolat, 2000)

Jamie Bell (King Kong, 2005)

Tamzin Merchant (Pride and Prejudice, 2005)

Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008)

Jayne Wisener (Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007)

Simon McBurney (The Last King of Scotland, 2006)

Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later, 2007)

This was a good pick to watch last night with my Mom (Kiefer was hanging out too, but I think he spent most of the time playing some Clone Wars game on his PSP). I never read Jane Eyre, generally because eschew novels of that period where most drama consisted of Lord So-and-so being impeded by good etiquette in his courtship of Lady Such-and-such who is rightly engaged to Lord Whatshisname and awaiting the transfer of her rich dowry and I can't really bear it. Maybe I should try harder because I liked the gothic heinousness of Lord Rochester keeping his mad wife locked in a secret room. I liked the scene in the beginning where the evil aunt locks Jane in a haunted room that has no apparent bearing on the rest of the story other than maybe to make you think that there's a ghost in the Rochester estate rather than a crazy lady.

I've just moved into a new apartment with my 17 year old cat, Patton, and he's not coping well with the change of venue. I barricaded him into a little area in the back and walks around in there - it reminds me of crazy old Mrs. Rochester locked up in the attic. So I guess that makes me Mr. Rochester, which begs the question, who would like to be my Jane?

4 Aug - "I don't know much about boats, but I would say that one's upside down."

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
dir. Jon Favreau (Elf, 2003)

CAST

Daniel Craig (Elizabeth, 1998)

Harrison Ford (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 1977)

Olivia Wilde

Sam Rockwell (The Assassination of James James by the Coward Robert Ford, 2007)

Clancy Brown (The Burrowers, 1986)

Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine, 2006)

Chris Browning (3:10 to Yuma, 2007)

Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, 1998)

Ana de la Reguera (Nacho Libre, 2006)

Noah Ringer (The Last Airbender, 2010)

Toby Huss (Vegas Vacation, 1997)

Walton Goggins (Shanghai Noon, 2000)

David O'Hara (Braveheart, 1995)

Raoul Trujillo (Black Robe, 1991)

David Midthunder (The Burrowers, 1986)
Charlene Adams

One thing that I decided during this movie is that Sam Rockwell has got to be my #1 actor crush, which seems silly when there's a whole bevy of Adonises to choose from but, Lord help me, I've got a thing for character actors and Sam Rockwell always plays that clueless and sort of sleazy guy and it just kills me. I'm silly.

On the point, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Cowboys & Aliens, but it also failed to meet many of my expectations, and to be sure I had a lot of expectations going into this movie.

My first thought was that the core concept was very clever, because western films encapsulate the idealized values of the perfect American citizen. Independent, hardworking, honorable, etc. I firmly believe that in our (white American) hearts, we all desperately want to be cowboys because it represents a human of higher quality than we see ourselves to be (City Slickers in particular made a profit off this theme). Alien movies, on the other hand, are about xenophobia, protecting the interior from frightening and strange external forces and entities. Who better to protect America from scary aliens than the ideal American everyman/hero?

To this effect, I expected Cowboys & Aliens to use more of the motifs and thematic elements typical of the traditional western narrative. There was some of that: the decaying mining town, the impotence of official law enforcement, but this was also a very modern movie, especially in the development of relationships.

I was reading some internet articles about the movie and I have to say that they made some good points. The first thing is that the pairing of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig should have overwhelmed us with the glorious union of their manliness, but the dynamic between the two actors fizzled. They didn't actually share very much screentime. They didn't work well together, and what should have been a friendship didn't really feel very fraternal at all. Big fail on that.

Also, I don't think Olivia Wilde's character should have been in the movie. Her presence as a love interest was unnecessary, and detracted from the emotional weight of Jake's wife's death via abduction, which was actually a very disturbing scene. Wilde's brief backstory was outlandish (in a science-ficiton movie, no less) and I don't really need to know where the aliens came from or why they are on Earth or why they are kidnapping and killing humans (to learn our weaknesses? Really? We are soft meaty bodies. Is it necessary to know more than one way to skin a cat?)

Part of the advantage of the old west setting should be that the audience can engage in the bafflement of the characters. Bright lights? Flying machines?? Are they demons?

On the other hand, old time people had to confront insane levels of novelty all of the time. What if you just saw a giant anteater walking around one day, and nothing you had ever experienced you before had prepared you for the experience. They are crazy looking and you would just have to deal with that. You want to know why old timey people believed in monsters? It's because they saw monsters all of the time.

So I think that Jake Lonergan and Corporal Dolarhyde would be a lot less interested in learning about who the aliens are and what they want, than figuring out where they live and how to kill them. I think we would have been better served with a little mystery than a naked Olivia Wilde explaining how she took human on this planet to make certain the invaders would not destroy the earth as well.

4 Aug - "I'm gonna strip away this mystery and expose it's private parts"

Rango (2011)
dir. Gore Verbinski (Mousehunt, 1997)

VOICES

Ned Beatty (Back to School, 1986)
Gil Birmingham (Eclipse, 2010)
Abigail Breslin (Zombieland, 2009)
Johnny Depp (Dead Man, 1995)

Isla Fisher (I Heart Huckabees, 2004)

Charles Fleischer (Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (voice), 1988)
Beth Grant (Flatliners, 1990)
Alfred Molina (Dead Man, 1995)

Bill Nighy (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part 1, 2010)

Joe Nunez (Superbad, 2007)
Timothy Olyphant (First Wives Club, 1996)
Stephen Root (Ghost, 1990)

Harry Dean Stanton (Alien, 1979)

Ray Winstone (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 2005)

Good Lord! Finally I see a computer animated movie that I actually like! I feel that Rango had an interesting and compelling plot that was both intensely amusing as well as attaining a level of emotional depth that I thought was appropriate for the material. The character development was tangible and neither the thematic element nor the humor insulted my intelligence. Kiefer was so pleased when we chose this off the On Demand that he gave me a long tight hug, so clearly it was a hit with the younger audience as well, proving my long-standing assertion that you don't need to dumb down the material to make kids happy. Let's treat children like clever and insightful individuals and, God willing, they may become such.

This was fun for me last time, so I thought I'd do another brief interview with my little brother, Kiefer.

P: Can you tell me what Rango was about?

K: Well, it started out from a lizard, or should I say, whatever you want to call it, a chameleon. Is that right?

P: Yep.

K: The chameleon, also known as Rango, who's told from a armadillo that he found outside of Rango's little box in the car--he didn't have any real friends until that armadillo showed up with little tire marks on him...

P: Hang on, Kief, you don't need to give a whole play-by-play, you can just sort of sum it all up.

K: It's kind of hard to tell because it's a long story. I don't really remember most of it but I do think it's a good movie.

P: Did you like Rango better than Gnomeo & Juliet or Tangled?

K: It's kind of hard to say 'cause they're all animated, which is equal. And they're all different kind of comedies, that's equal. I can't really compare it because they're almost the same and equally divided, and they're all comedies. So I don't really know what would be better, because they're only movies and they're all animated and they're comedies and they're all, like, journeys.

P: I don't know if Gnomeo & Juliet was really a journey.

K: I said sort of like a journey.

P: OK, sorry. Did you like the way the characters talked in Rango?

K: Yeah, you could say, but I don't understand why that would be a question because different people talk in different ways. But I also wonder if all the voices are done by the same person like Looney Tunes.

P: Did you think it was harder to understand than Gnomeo & Juliet?

K: No, not really.

P: OK, one last question. What do you think is the most important thing for a really good movie?

K: Most of the time I think it would be the thrill or a journey that takes place. Or something happens to someone really poor or really alone with no friends and ends up to be in a journey for life and death, just like Jane Eyre.

Last night Kiefer and I and our Mom watched Jane Eyre On Demand. So I guess that's why he stuck it in there at the end. I guess if you think of it that way, Rango is a little bit like Jane Eyre, minus the madwoman locked in the attic. I suppose what we could glean from this is that kids don't really know what they're watching, so there's no reason the adults have to be utterly bored and maybe some of those big words are penetrating the subconscious. In conclusion: Rango = more like this please.

31 July - "the first week of summer, a strange and breathless time"

Tuck Everlasting (2002)

dir. Jay Russell (Ladder 49, 2004)

CAST

Alexis Bledel (Sin City, 2005)

William Hurt (The Big Chill, 1983)

Sissy Spacek (Carrie, 1976)

Jonathan Jackson

Scott Bairstow

Ben Kingsley (Species, 1995)

Amy Irving (Carrie, 1976)

Victor Garber (Sleepless in Seattle, 1993)

Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas, 1995)

This movie definitely tends towards the sweet and sentimental. I might pop it on the shelf next to A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, but of course this can't really approach the special place I've got in my heart for those two treasured classics. I never read read the book, but I think I might like too. The plot is endearingly simple. The main character, Winnie, runs away from her strict parents and discovers the fountain of youth in the forest and a family of immortals. Winnie has dual conflicts, first to protect the Tuck's secret, and second to decide whether or not she should drink from the fountain and join them.

There is also a very sinister villain known only as the Man in a Yellow Suit. I think I would have liked to know more about him. There's one scene where he's sitting in a graveyard, perhaps contemplating his own mortality, and the priest comes by to say hi or something and the man in the yellow suit starts talking like what would you pay to live forever and the priest says, "You speak blasphemy," and the man in the yellow says, "fluently." I would like to know what makes that guy's heart so dark, and it was clever to make him wear such a lively colored outfit.

The immortality trope begins to wear thin, though. I mean in other movies like those ones about vampires or whatever and the people are always complaining about what a drag it is. But there's that awesome element to it as well, like, all the benefits. So what it there was a magical fountain that would allow you to live for, say, 500 years? or 1000? Would the negative aspects of immortality be tolerable if you knew there was an expiration date? Because the benefits seem pretty sweet. Not that I'm trying to provoke a Faustian deal or anything. Maybe I had better stop talking about it.

But the Bible talks about lifespans that were many times greater than we have here in reality. Methusalah, Noah, those types lives like 300 or 400 years or something. I guess they had to live that long to get about the business of populating the earth. Which reminds me of something else that been bothering me and has nothing to do whatsoever with Tuck Everlasting (which is an entirely compelling movie but I think I've grown bored with the topic and so I'm going to talk about the Young Earth Creationism instead). I met a gentleman a few months ago who told me that he did not believe the Earth to be much older than 6000 years. I don't have a problem with that standpoint but I do have a problem with the underlying logic. Archbishop Ussher was the first guy (I say that, but he was probably preceded by some lesser known Hebrew scholars) to calculate the age of the Earth to be about 6000 years old (he proposed the exact date of creation to be Sunday, the 23rd of October, 4004 BC). He did this by very carefully reading through the Old Testament and calculating the passage of time by the number of generations, because the Bible is really specific about who begat who and suchlike.

But if the Bible says that Noah died when he was 950, then obviously we can't be throwing around assumptions about the length of generational time. Ussher was throwing a crap shoot. And I read that the reason that all those ages are so big is because the Sumerian number system wasn't translated correctly into Greek, so Ussher wasn't even working with accurate sums!

So I say that it's cool if you're into literal Biblical interpretation and want to believe that fossils are red herrings buried underground by Satan to test your faith and that the uniform growth rates of coral reefs are something that you just ignore. But I don't think that the Young Earth Hypothesis, as based upon 17th century mathematical data, has any grounding in accurate Biblical interpretation whatsoever, and so the support of such data should in no way be considered the duty of any good Christian.

That chick was in Gilmore Girls.

28 July - "Why must you wear a blue hat?"

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
dir. Kelly Asbury (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)

VOICES

James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland, 2006)

Emily Blunt (The Wolfman, 2010)

Ashley Jensen (How to Train Your Dragon (voice), 2010)

Michael Caine (Zulu, 1964)

Matt Lucas (Shaun of the Dead, 2004)

Dolly Parton (Steel Magnolias, 1999)

Maggie Smith (The Secret Garden, 1993)

Jason Statham (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998)

Ozzy Osbourne (Moulin Rouge! (voice), 2001)

Stephen Merchant (The Invention of Lying, 2009)

Patrick Stewart (The Plague Dogs (voice), 1982)

Hulk Hogan

Jim Cummings (Castle in the Sky (voice: Disney English version), 1986)
Julie Walters (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, 2010)

Another pick by Kiefer! You can probably imagine the plot setup, red gnomes v. blue gnomes, and, no, there isn't a tragic ending. There are some cute one-liners and I liked the pink lawn flamingo. The take home message was that feuding is wholly unproductive, on the other hand, there was absolutely nothing creative about this movie, and nothing was accomplished by its existence. I wish the entertainment industry would get its act together and stop shoving bullshit down children's throats, because movies like this, while they are a little bit funny and have a transparent moral and lots of bright colors, aren't teaching them anything and are utterly uninspirational.

I think maybe it could have been saved if the Romeo and Juliet thing was less literal. We love the forbidden love theme. We loved West Side Story. Instead someone barfed out the sparknotes version of Shakespeare and tacked on a happy ending instead.

However, they did manage to make a movie that Kiefer liked. So I decided to interview him about it.

P: Kiefer, what did you think of Gnomeo and Juliet?

K: It's the same thing except there's red and blues and they're gnomes. Except they don't die at the end. I think it was pretty good. I don't know why it's good. I just seem to sort of like it.

P: What do you know about Romeo and Juliet?

K: I don't really know exactly because it's hard to remember all of it. At the Renaissance Fair the tale was told, but that was a week ago. I don't really remember. All I know is that at the end Romeo think Juliet is dead and so he sacrifices himself and then it was just a drink that made her go to sleep and so she killed herself.

P: Do you like happy endings or sad endings

K: No, I like both.

P: Why?

K: Why? Because no matter what ending it is. If it's a sad or it's a happy ending, it either turns out to be one thing or the other.

P: That's the truth. Having seen Gnomeo and Juliet, are you more interested in reading Shakespearean literature?

K: Well, it doesn't really make me interested because I don't really have the time. Because I'm reading a book right now in a series I really like, Percy Jackson series, and then I have to start the Redwall books. I might, but I'll probably take a little more time. I might get interested when I'm older if I get history class.

P: What did you learn

K: I just wanted to watch it. I didn't really learn anything because I heard the tale at renaissance camp. I just heard a different version, with gnomes. They just turned the Montague blue and the Capulet red. It's just kind of confusing to have different things like red, blue, Montague and Capulet because there's four different things, red, blue, Montague and Capulet. In the gnome movie they only have one Montague and one Capulet. In the real version they have a whole family of Montagues and Capulets. It turns out to be almost the same in a more gnomeo version.

P: But what about how fighting tears people apart, and the importance of forgiveness?

K: Well if you just understand it won't turn into violence, but then if it gets a little bit rough violence will turn into more violence. But it could just lead to being more ashamed of your own self.

P: From the mouths of babes...

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.