The Adjustment Bureau, Unknown, and Others on DVD This Week

Mad Men returns 2012. Without Anthony Mackie.

On DVD this week, five films that require a little bit of an introduction. Only because they've seem to slip from the forefront of interest. The Adjustment Bureau, still one of the year's best films, almost seven months in; Cedar Rapids, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules, Unknown,  and The Eagle. Remember those?

No? Okay, well, don't feel bad. I do, and I'm here to help. Hell, I've reviewed two of them. And they're my recommendations for the week. Let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?

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There Will Be Blood

Rating: ★★★★

I drink your milkshake.

If Daniel Day-Lewis tells you he’s a Mohican Indian, you believe him. If he tells you he has cerebral palsy and can only use his left foot, you believe him. And if he tells you he’s an oil man, you will agree. He’s taken much criticism in his wild approaches to method acting, but I’ve often said in his defense - yes, the journey might be outlandish, but it’s all about what’s on screen. It’s the performance, not just the preparation.

There Will Be Blood is a dark comedy, in the same way that Lars Von Trier’s Dogville is; it is sound and furious, satirizing nothing. A rare period piece that feels lifted from its implied period, rather than feeling filmed in 2007, the film takes place between 1898 and 1927. I’m always pleased when a period film manages not to suffer from what I call ‘Yesterday Syndrome’. The film has an early American, as well as an oily and slick, feel. Paul Thomas Anderson’s screenplay is derived from only pieces of Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil!”

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Happy Father's Day.

Awful movie, but it's what the "father's day movie" Google search gave me. 

In celebration of this honored day, and as an excuse to be too busy to go shopping for ties and golf balls, I've compiled a list of the five best, and five worst, movie fathers of all time.

From Atticus Finch to Anakin Skywalker, here we go.


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Trust

Rating: ★★★★

If you're looking for a film that sums itself up, or answers the tough questions it proposes, this isn't the film for you. Consider it to be a less vacuous version of The Lovely Bones - but, without a realization that there's some form of God or Heaven. And it's that supreme grounding of reality that keeps Trust from being almost too much to handle. If the film had taken any other route, it would have been exploitative of its drama and lead actress, and deaf to the complaints it would gather. Thankfully, David Schwimmer makes a multitude of brave decisions in his direction of the film - the bravest of which, I fully believe, is showing the villain's face. He's real - and you probably know someone exactly like him. That's the real terror. 

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In Theaters This Weekend

With great power comes great steroids. Er, physique. Er, responsibility.

Coming to theaters this weekend, two major releases. One which will probably fade into obscurity, and the other which will probably shoot to the top at the speed of light. Mr. Popper's Penguins and The Green Lantern, respectively. I'll be honest, I'm not expecting much out of either film. From The Green Lantern, I'm expecting a lot of one-liners, a lot of loud action, and a showcase for Ryan Reynold's abs. Of course, all that can be fun, but it doesn't make for a great movie. It makes for a forgettable two hours in a dark theater. From Mr. Popper's Penguins, I'm expecting a lot of Jim Carrey doing his rubber-faced routine, a lot of thinly veiled crude humor, and penguins doing things that penguins probably can't do. The wonders of CG-animation never cease. And they hardly cause wonder anymore. But, never mind. 

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The Best Picture Category Changes. Again.

It's all his damn fault.

I'm sitting at home alone in my room, working, and waiting on a call from my girlfriend to tell me she's arrived in Dresden safely. Game of Thrones is on HBO, and if that's not enough, here's further proof that the night is totally beyond redemption. 

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Nine

Rating: ★★

Directing is easy. Yes, no, yes, no.

The lyrics in the first song seem to set up the rules for the movie. Maestro Contini is a director going through one hell of a mid-life crisis. He is making a movie, but has no script - a sort of poignant nod to his life having no direction. Much like the movie he's in has no direction. Guido, our anti-hero, wants to be "everywhere at once, though that's a contradiction in terms". Nine suffers the same fate: it's too many places at once, never stopping to focus on the good ideas it hints at along the way. Another indication of the film comes from a small exchange of dialog between the director and his costume designer. She tells him "directing is easy, maestro. 'Yes, no, yes, no'". Apparently, she nailed Rob Marshall's intent when direction this misguided take on the Broadway musical. Apathetic. 

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True Grit, The Company Men, and Others on DVD This Week

They're on their way to buy The Company Men, too. 

It's 9:37, on a beautiful Tuesday evening in San Francisco. I'm listening to Bill Hicks bits on YouTube, and looking up this week's DVD releases. Coincidentally, one of them happens to be a documentary about Bill Hicks and the celebrity achieved after his death, not even 15 years later. It's also about the censorship struggles he faced during his career peak. It's called American: The Bill Hicks Story, and is available today. If you aren't familiar with Hicks' stand-up, do yourself a favor and watch this before you watch anything. His work was a game changer, and the template for less daring comedians like the Blue Collar Comedy Tour fellas to follow. 

Also released on DVD/Blu-Ray today - True Grit, the Coen Brothers ode to the old west and the film that made America collectively give up about $100 million; Rubber, the independent phenomenon about a tire with psychotic and psychic powers, and the mind of a serial killer; Sanctum, the one movie about the cave diving that nobody remembers seeing; Another Year, that Mike Leigh film that you might have heard about; Just Go With It, that Adam Sandler movie you won't admit to having seen; and The Company Men, the first "best movie" of 2011.

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In Honor Of - Daniel Day-Lewis

Yes, he's insane. 

He's been called the world's greatest living actor. And while Al Pacino might have something to say about that, people aren't too far off. Of course, others will say that it shouldn't take a great actor two or three months to live as a character in order to act in a movie. 

I say - it isn't the preparation, it's the performance. He could have lived his whole life as Daniel Plainview, making sure every tick was perfect (which, by the way, it was). But, it's what's on screen that gets judged. I think. But, I only run a blog. What do I know, right? 

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Win Win

Rating: ★★★

He's still shocked he did Shoot 'Em Up.

Movies like Win Win don't really have a purpose. Movies don't need a purpose, in general, but Win Win also doesn't have a point. It is what it is, and it's there, so we have to accept that. Thomas McCarthy usually makes films with points; strong character pieces like The Station Agent and The Visitor. I think the point here might have been about winning, but... maybe I'm just over-thinking everything. Win Win is more of a loss/profit. Really, there isn't anything wrong with the film Sure, some of the performances are a bit... loose,  but mainly everything falls in to place. The problem with the film is that everything falls into place too neatly toward the end. For such a weird story, it needn't be this straightforward. 

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X-Men: First Class

Rating: ★★★

Even superheroes get ice cream headaches. 

It takes a certain kind of superhero film to get me going. They either have to be extremely operatic (consider X2: X-Men United) or grounded in gritty realism (The Dark Knight, anyone?). Thankfully, X-Men: First Class, dubbed by Richard Roeper as a "pre-boot" (you know, like "prequel and reboot"), found a way to be both without feeling contrived. The first two films, helmed by Bryan Singer, found that balance easily. Then Brett Ratner took over the franchise and made X-Men: The Last Stand completely cartoonish and unbearable. Then, Wolverine took a step closer to the realism that was required, but... well, managed to screw that up, too. Matthew Vaughn, who directed Kick-Ass last year, brings it back to good and manages to capture Bryan Singer's impeccable tone with his entry. It's funny, it's dark, parts of it are incredibly sad, and it's exciting. 

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Take Me Home Tonight

Rating: ★

That 80's Movie

I think the most ironically unsatisfying thing about this movie is that it is funny. But, when I look back on it, what was I laughing at that wasn't a hollow punchline I had heard before? In other, better movies, no less. More so than acting as an homage to 80's movies, it acts as an homage to the 80's itself - a decade where people were just discovering excess and learning what cocaine was. The characters here aren't really characters, but stereotypes of the characters they should have been. It's a thin veil, but someone had to inhabit it. It's a shame, though, that the actors uniformly do a good job. They just don't have anything to work with.

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Hobo With a Shotgun

Rating : ★ ★ ★

Spare your change

If you don't get the joke right away, you'll be uncomfortable for the next 90 minutes. Hobo With a Shotgun is a special kind of movie; consider the way that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre explains its purpose solely by its title. It's in Texas, and someone massacres people with a chainsaw. Hobo With a Shotgun is just that - there's a homeless man, and he has a shotgun. That's never a good combination. We've seen this plot before, though - numerous times. Part Taxi Driver, part Walking Tall, part any "old man fights back" movie, this is neo-Grindhouse in its ugliest form. Of course, Grindhouse cinema, almost by definition, isn't pretty. Shoddy production values, you'll find poorly edited reels of film with scratches on them, boom microphones hanging in the shots... (not here, though, thankfully). 

Grindhouse, by a sort of... standardized definition - low-budget filmmaking in the hands of a skilled director, made solely to mess with you. That, simply, is Hobo with a Shotgun. To drive home the Grindhouse point even more, the only reason this film exists is because of 2007's Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez Grindhouse. It comes in two parts, and has fake trailers in between each actual movie. Machete was one of them. This is one of the others. It was created by the director, Jason Eisman, for Canadian showings of their film. Amazingly, it got enough support to become a full feature film.

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Priest

He can bench press that.

I learned a word today. I think it perfectly captures my feelings of Priest. The word is "desultory"; adj. - lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm. Priest, in effect, is desultory. Loosely based, almost in name only, on a series of Korean graphic novels that found their way to American early in the 2000's, the film takes place on a post-apocalyptic alternate world, sometime in the future, where a church of warrior priests have eradicated an evil race of vampires. The film is directed by Scott Charles Stewart, whom you may remember directed Legion - another movie about men of God fighting the good fight against demons and undead alike. Stewart seems to have stonewalled his own career, essentially making the same movie twice. And he's taught moviegoers a valuable lesson - good trailers don't make good movies. 

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Kung Fu Panda 2

The wild bunch

Perhaps the most important aspect of Kung Fu Panda 2, and I never thought I would type this, is that the series is aging with its fans. So much so that I could expect Panda 3 to be the most adult of the series. They've already started exploring more personal themes than the last entry, which mostly took the themes of following your heart and believing in yourself and employed them. Here, the story deepens more than you might expect, dealing with themes of adoption, unrequited love, and acceptance of others. More importantly, the imagination of the film has grown ten fold. 

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The Town

The Town - doing it better than Point Break since 2010.

In 1997, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon gave us a soft an emotional tour of Boston in Good Will Hunting, as they knew it growing up. They explored the values of hope and family. In 2007, ten years later, Ben Affleck went it alone and took us back to Boston with Gone Baby Gone, exploring themes of loss and grief, right and wrong. In 2010, Affleck took us to the doorstep, sat us down on the curb, and said "Watch." The town, Charlestown, to be specific, lives and breathes by itself - the central hub of bank robberies in New England. The film's opening quotes tell us that the trade is almost a birthright - something you're born into, or against. And for the four lads in this film, it's the only life they know. And they'll go to incredible lengths to protect it. 

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Please Give

Throw Mama From the Apartment

When Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets was asked "how do you write such great women?", his novelist character responds "Write a man, take away all reason". Nicole Holofcener didn't take that advice, and she's probably the best writer of women in Hollywood, behind in the indelible Woody Allen, that is. I don't think anyone can top him. But, as he's in a class of his own (it can be said that Woody writes Woody's women well, and that's it), Nicole Holofcener might be the best in the game. For a further example, seek out Lovely & Amazing, her feature from 2001, also starring Catherine Keener. Please Give and Lovely & Amazing aren't too similar in content, but the aftertaste is the same - you've just witnessed something daring and tangible. Something more exciting than most things studios push out these days. Please Give is a darkly sweet comedy about the destructive and oddly uplifting power of guilt - and, subsequently, what it does to a person. Or, rather, a group of people. 

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3D Fading Out

This has nothing to do with Jurassic Park. These people actually died. 

At least, that's the question posed by the New York Times columnists Brooks Barnes and Michael Cieply in their article published on May 29th, only two days ago.

For a link to the article itself, click here.


This is an editorial, and The New York Times is the only source I have for this. Except me. And, after interviewing myself for hours about this, I can safely tell you that I tired of 3D formatting just as quickly as it blew up. Yes, I still have a few pair of those ridiculous glasses that they require us to wear, and I still remember fondly watching Avatar. But, there's a difference between Avatar and most 3D movies. What is it? Avatar was actually made for 3D. It wasn't re-formatted because someone thought "Oh, this will drive up ticket prices be pretty cool."

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Dorian Gray

Caspian done goofed.

You would think that turning an Oliver Wilde novel into a sensationalized, nearly exploitative camp piece of pulp fiction might prove impossible. But, Oliver Parker would prove you wrong. Shamefully so, seeing as how his adaptations of other Wilde works, like An Ideal Husband or The Importance of Being Earnest, have been lauded and for good reason. Even more amazing, Dorian Gray failed to find a distributor in the United States, and was doomed to a "direct to DVD" release, after a theatrical release in the United Kingdom. As it stands, though, Dorian Gray is all about the atmosphere in this version, not so much about the preservation of Wilde's wit nor the story itself. It's unfortunate, but that's what we're left with at the end of the film. Lots of pomp, very little circumstance. 

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Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974

Little dead riding hood*

*and no, that's not a spoiler.

Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 is the first of three films, tracking a serial killer through Yorkshire between 1974-1983. The films take place, and mirror in a way, the actual Yorkshire Ripper and the police cover-ups and scams that took place at the time. The Yorkshire Ripper, thought at the time to be a mentally challenged man who had been caught (and forced to confess), had killed thirteen girls (could have been more) and continued to run free for years, despite the public demand to have him caught. Consider the Zodiac killer, around the same time, here stateside. Also consider the film Zodiac when watching this installment of the trilogy. They're practically identical. 

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